Every reason you have been told about why Arthop had to die is a lie. Fresno’s most popular street festival, drawing up to 15,000 people monthly into downtown Fresno, was killed this July because the Fresno Police Department created a fake public safety crisis as a favor to Eliot Balch, a local downtown real estate developer.
Balch killed Arthop to accomplish two things: to secure new Measure P and other arts funding for his nonprofit, the Downtown Fresno Partnership (DFP), and help his giant retail gentrification project on Fulton Street that he started planning for this summer.
KEY FACTS
* MAY/JUNE This summer, Balch convened a so-called “Security Panel” at the Downtown Partnership where he planned out the details over how to take over Arthop. Fresno City Councilman Miguel Arias and the Fresno Police Department were part of the Security Panel. At the time, Balch said he wanted to “fix up events revenues” for his organization, which was running low on funds.
* JUNE The police and Balch decided to target Fresno’s street vendors. According to board minutes from the June 2024 meeting, “If we get control, we will…control vendors and what time they arrive [at Arthop] and more.”
* JUNE The Security Panel decides to use an unrelated domestic disturbance dispute on the night of June’s Arthop to trigger their assault. “Arthop needs more structure,” the Security Panel concluded. They cited a fatal stabbing at Hotel Fresno near Fulton Street, whose cause they said was domestic and “not Arthop.” August Arthop is identified as the launch date. “All entities will deploy on August Arthop to let people know that there will be [police] enforcement from now on and after August they will be cited,” they said at the late June meeting.
* JULY 19 Operation Shadow Alliance begins. Arias and Balch do a joint press conference that day, announcing that the August Arthop will be canceled – per the timeline established at the Security Panel. Arias also says any future Arthop events will be run by Balch, saying that the changes are a “preventative” safety measure. Arias concludes the press conference by saying Balch needs new arts funding to carry out his newly granted Arthop obligations.
At the conference, according to a local media source, Balch said that going forward he would now draw up a “map showing exactly how Arthop goers can continue to enjoy the Fulton Street experience.” Balch would soon announce his new permitting system for vendors as well.
* JULY The same month as the start of Operation Shadow Alliance, Balch’s organization initiates a partnership with David Weinart, a mega-project advisor with experience from Las Vegas to La Jolla, to jumpstart a major commercial mall on Fulton Street. Weinart starts organizing property owners on the old Fulton Mall Balch destroyed in the 2010s, with Balch positioned to get 20% of Weinart’s finders fee for all real estate projects completed in the area in the coming years.
* JULY 25 By the end of July, Balch, Arias and Jerry Dyer decide to kill the old Arthop, with Balch’s Downtown Partnership taking over the new “Why Not Wednesday” event and the police department getting more overtime pay. Using his new permitting system, Balch cuts out the self-sufficient vendor community that had for years run the outdoor celebration of art, beer and food safely and effectively. The loot to be gained from seizing the event, Miguel Arias let slip, was enormous – $100,000 a month.
WHY?
Operation Shadow Alliance was Balch’s backup plan after his attempt take over Measure P, Fresno’s new parks and arts sales tax, failed this spring.
In Measure P’s first year of grants, the program had $9 million to give out, and Balch tried to get nearly $1 million of it in March and April. He submitted 6 Measure P applications, the biggest funding request being an odd request: Arthop’s security.
In mid-May, the Arts Council notified Balch that his application to takeover Arthop was going to be rejected. His organization’s ambitious goals came up woefully short in their first crack at Measure P funding – receiving $77,000 to paint a mural in the new Fresno City College parking garage.
Pissed off, Balch and his attorney wrote a letter to the Arts Council and Andrew Janz with all the implication of a threat to sue, scaring the Arts Council in the process. Soon, the Arts Council held up Measure P funding for everyone to make sure they were on solid ground in the case Balch did sue.
To Balch, the community networks that had sustained art in Fresno needed to be disrupted in order for Measure P to become a slush fund for a new group of nonprofits, downtown grandaddys and gallery owners. “The Arts Council is gatekeeping,” Balch said about the Arts Council rejection, according to Downtown Partnership minutes. Balch enlisted Jordan Sanchez, a city hall insider and downtown revitalization staffer, to exert pressure from within the Dyer administration on the Arts Council.
Negotiations over his Measure P applications were unsuccessful. The Arts Council finalized their decision to reject his grant application to takeover Arthop on July 16.
With negotiations failed, Balch hit the nuclear option. Operation Shadow Alliance began three days after the Arts Council rejection. Killing Arthop and creating his new corporate version became his way to opportunistically take over Measure P, the downtown arts scene and overtake the Arts Council.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR FRESNO?
Before his attack, Arthop was a world unto itself, functionally and culturally autonomous from the city’s power centers. “It’s run by the artists, for the artists,” one Arthop member described it as. Not anymore. Local artists blew the whistle on Balch’s takeover of the arts scene from the start, but nobody in the media listened to them.
His new event, called “Why Not Wednesday,” has allowed him to destroy the livelihoods of many existing street vendors and artists. Many vendors can’t sell their art on Fulton Street anymore, and those who remain now have to meet Balch’s requirements and pay him rents.
Balch is now positioned to fit the overall future of Fresno’s art to his design specifications – creating requirements on what types of vendors can do business on Fulton Street and collecting fees from them for years to come.
Operation Shadow Alliance is only the tip of the iceberg. It is part of larger operation to jack up rents, run street vendors out of town and jumpstart gentrification for High Speed Rail.
Balch has started a chain reaction that admits of little modification or mitigation. His set of moves and real interests right now is basically the near-term process of proving there’s a market for building luxury condos once the bullet train comes to town. This is a goal shared by the Downtown Partnership, every city council member, mayor and governor administrative staff.
WHERE CAN I READ MORE ABOUT WHY BALCH KILLED ARTHOP?
To see how Balch is using the police to help landlords and High-Speed Rail, see our complete 30-page edition of Shadow Alliance here.