Granite Park lease discussion postponed at Fresno City Council pending DA investigation

Granite Park lease discussion postponed at Fresno City Council pending DA investigationshuttershock

Thursday’s Fresno City Council meeting was supposed to include a discussion about the Granite Park complex, which is owned by the city but maintained and operated by developer Terance Frazier and his non-profit the Central Valley Community Sports Foundation.

Councilmembers were expected to vote on an amended lease with Frazier, but the item was removed from the agenda after Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp sent a letter Wednesday to the city attorney, saying past city council meetings about granite park possibly violated the Brown Act – a law requiring all meetings of a legislative body be open and public.

In the letter, Smittcamp asked that any vote about Granite Park be postponed until an investigation is complete.

“We can’t comment on that publicly, per our city attorney. There’s still some work that needs to be done, so unfortunately we can’t comment on that,” said Fresno City Council President Luis Chavez.

The Central Valley Community Sports Foundation responded with a statement Thursday, asking the district attorney to “stop making baseless allegations” and calling her letter “a purely political move.”

They said if the new lease agreement had passed, the foundation would have received funds from the city for continued operations and facility improvements at Granite Park.

Councilmember Garry Bredefeld said in exchange, Frazier would have agreed to drop his $10 million lawsuit against the city from 2019, claiming they discriminated against him during an incomplete audit.
Bredefeld said Frazier was in default of his loans based on his lease agreement with the city from 2015.

“And yet, instead of removing him because of his default and failing to pay his bills, this city council came up with an agreement to pay 2.3 million dollars of bills we don’t have to pay and 2 million dollars of upfront money so a frivolous lawsuit will go away,” said Bredefeld.

However, City Attorney Doug Sloan told us back in 2019 that Frazier was actually in compliance with the current lease.

There’s no word yet on when the amended Granite Park lease agreement will be discussed.

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