The Fresno City Council plans to consider giving the Fresno city attorney subpoena power during Thursday’s regularly scheduled meeting.
The proposal to further expand the power of Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz, sponsored by Council President Annalisa Perea, comes on the heels of at least two other actions that expanded the city attorney’s power. It also comes about six weeks after the City Council gave Janz a 6% pay raise, bringing his annual salary to $255,000.
The council approved Janz’s raise in late February and expanded the city attorney’s authority to include prosecuting misdemeanor graffiti crimes in the city, including imposing “civil liabilities to parents who aid and abet these acts.”
The City Council further expanded Janz’s authority in January, making him among the first city attorneys in California to prosecute wage theft under a new state law.
Janz, a former Democratic candidate for Fresno mayor and Congress, left the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office in late 2022 when the City Council appointed him as the Fresno City Attorney.
You can read the full text of the proposedordinance expanding the City Attorney’s power here.
Warming fire ordinance returns
The council will also revisit a proposal from Councilmember Miguel Arias declaring outdoor warming fires “a health and safety hazard and a public nuisance.”
Speaking with Fresnoland in February, Arias said the proposal was intended to start a public discussion around enforcement.
“It has been the practice of the city that warming fires in residential neighborhoods, open fires along embankments, canals, and freeways in the northern part of the city are automatically (put out),” he said, “but in the southern part of the city are allowed to burn.
“That discrepancy results in a lot of structural fires,” he added, “and a lot of toxins going into the homes of my neighbors.”
But critics say the proposal would “criminalize the unhoused.”
The Fresno Fire Department is expected to present new policy language to help authorities determine whether an outdoor fire is a public nuisance or, say, an outdoor cookout or barbecue.
Urban Peace Institute funding
Councilmember Mike Karbassi has floated a proposal to suspend all city funding to the Urban Peace Institute following a report that one of the program’s graduates had been arrested on weapons charges.
Karbassi is calling on the City Manager’s office to investigate whether the Urban Peace Institute “has complied with all federal, state and contractual requirements for the street outreach and training services provided by the city.”
The City Council in December approved the $300,000 contract with the institute in a unanimous vote to provide violence intervention training to community intervention workers and law enforcement officials.
The council meets at 9 a.m. Thursday at Fresno City Hall.
This article first appeared on Fresnoland and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.