Do not be fooled by the recent poll asking you to get the old Arthop back. This spring, Fresno residents need to rise up and cut out Elliott Balch and the Downtown Partnership from ever running Arthop again. Balch needs to be banished from running downtown Fresno events forever. Residents need to call for Arthop to be run how it used to be: by artists, for artists.
This poll, reported by Fresnoland, is simply an attempt by Balch, the CEO of the Downtown Partnership, to get paid off for his decision to destroy Arthop last year. The data from this poll will be used as evidence in Balch’s Measure P application this year that his management of Arthop will have public support going forward with a few simple tweaks.
In other words, your responses to the poll will be used to whitewash the truth: Balch’s decision last spring to take over Arthop and split the event into two nights was a disaster for Fresno’s vendors, artists and downtown businesses.
In July of last year, Balch decided to kill Arthop. With the help of Fresno mayor Jerry Dyer and councilman Miguel Arias, Balch created a fake public safety crisis for Arthop as retaliation after his Measure P grant to take over Fresno’s street festival was rejected by the Fresno Arts Council.
Balch’s theft of Arthop, formerly a community-run event, was a disaster that has harmed thousands of Fresno residents. Arthop used to draw 12,000 people to Fulton Street every month. Now, Fulton is a ghost town. Incomes for countless Fresno vendors, artists and downtown businesses vanished overnight.
Since then, Balch has had a difficult time cashing in on the whole reason why he destroyed the old Arthop to begin with: collecting rents on Fresno’s vendor community.
The Tule Research Collective published an expose, called Shadow Alliance in January on how and why Balch was able to accomplish this incredibly unpopular move, with every other media source in Fresno failing to report Balch’s true motives for this crime committed against Fresno.
Shadow Alliance showed that Balch told his board of directors early last year that property values in downtown Fresno weren’t rising fast enough. He told the board that he was trying to juice up their balance sheets in 2024 by bringing in a $30,000-a-month gentrification expert who could jump start a luxury retail mall on Fulton street.
But Balch needed cash quick. Colonizing Arthop was an easy way for him to start getting rents on a successful event that Fresno’s street vendor scene had built for themselves. It was part of his overall effort to command more events revenue for his organization using Measure P, Fresno’s arts and parks tax. At first, Balch was unsuccessful. In his power struggle against the Fresno Arts Council, the gatekeeper of Measure P, Balch ended up destroying the city’s greatest community tradition.
The expose detailed how, after the Fresno Arts Council rejected most of his $1 million set of Measure P applications (out of $9 million available) in July of last year, Balch created a fake public safety crisis for Arthop with the help of the Fresno police department to gain back control of the future of Measure P.
Balch hoped to use his newfound control over Arthop, handed to him by Fresno councilman Miguel Arias, to collect rents, via permitting fees and future rounds of Measure P funds, on the street vendors that remained after the Arthop shakeup.
The story gets worse. Why city leaders thought this was acceptable act of leadership is covered in the TRC’s full story. Starting last year, city leaders started to remake Fresno in violent ways, siccing the cops on street vendors and the homeless. TRC showed the long-term trends driving this brutality: a poor economy, a shift to gentrification and the dream of High Speed Rail.
On the ground today, this cop-led project is in a quagmire. City leaders can’t even send geriatric Wicky Two Hands to the slammer. And nobody’s making money on Arthop. From this point of weakness of Fresno’s elites, we need to fight back.
Balch’s version of Arthop, called Why Not Wednesday, is unrecognizable and, frankly, lame. Things aren’t looking good this year for him getting Measure P funds on this crappy event, which he applied for this year. So he’s switching things up right before a decision is made on his Measure P application, using this poll as an alibi to the Arts Council that his management of Arthop will have public support going forward. Fresno residents must do everything possible to deny him this. Balch must be stopped. We need to make it clear that Balch has no place in public life.
An honest account of the damage Balch has done to downtown businesses and Fresno’s residents needs to be done. Only then can a fair, democratic decision be made on whether this man should ever run anything in Fresno again. But so far, Fresno’s media has been loyal to Balch. They repeat his lies, publish puffed-up profiles in the Bee and write reports about his events featuring his paid-off deputies.
For example, a recent article by Fresnoland quotes an artist who received an award from Balch as evidence that he is supported by local artists and, with a simple tweak, his damage to city’s overall artistic community can be undone. This is BS. This is an abomination masquerading as journalism.
Here’s what needs to happen for justice to be served.
1) Expose Balch as a greedy gentrifier. Read our expose. The record will show that Balch serves the interests of property owners, not street vendors, artists, and the broader Fresno community. His actions show that he is hostile to Arthop’s core community – an informal network of people whose pop-ups he evicted from the streets last year.
The proof is in the pudding: Arthop is nothing without these artists and vendors. Because of his hostility to these artists, Balch is unfit to lead Arthop.
2) Evict Balch from Arthop. Get Dyer and Arias to call for Balch to step down from running Arthop.
3) Protest the Arts Council this May/June. Call on Fresno’s Arts Council to reject Balch’s Measure P application. NO MEASURE P FUNDING FOR BALCH AND THE DOWNTOWN PARTNERSHIP.
4) Get the old Arthop back. 100% run by artists, for artists. By vendors, for vendors. For Fresnans, by Fresnans. No gentrifiers allowed.