Low-cost housing plan, immigration, education addressed.

By Matt Leedy / The Fresno Bee

Fresno Mayor Alan Autry on Thursday announced plans to build 10,000 affordable homes by 2010.

In his State of the City speech, Autry also revisited several issues that have become staples of his annual address, including immigration and education. He pushed for more local control of school districts and compared exploited immigrant laborers to pre-Civil War slaves.

Immigrants’ needs, he said, are being ignored in the current immigration reform debate.

The mayor covered many topics in a wide-ranging speech that lasted 80 minutes. Speaking to a crowd of about 900 people in the Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center, Autry pitched several new ideas, including:

A plan to add 10,000 affordable homes by 2010. The proposal was written by the Fresno Housing Alliance and Autry says he’ll appoint a panel to find ways to reach the goal.

Currently, about 300 new affordable homes are built each year, Autry says, a 900% increase over the 30 new affordable homes in 2001.

Fresno’s median home price has increased from $104,201 in 2000 to $313,500, Autry says, creating affordability problems that “we have to face, and we have to face it straight on.”

Allowing people to use free wireless Internet downtown. Beginning Thursday, people could use Wi-Fi at the downtown Starbucks and at Kern Street Coffee, Autry said. And in two weeks there will be Wi-Fi service on the Fulton Mall.

An ordinance that would require business owners to remove graffiti from their property within 24 hours. Businesses would receive help from the city, Autry said. The ordinance would need City Council approval.

City Council Member Larry Westerlund said the new graffiti ordinance is “worth exploring,” but he couldn’t offer a definitive opinion because he first learned of it Thursday.

A pension plan initiative on the November ballot would change the city charter to prevent a crisis Autry predicted could one day break the city’s budget.

Autry said he will ask the council to put a “pension protection plan” on the ballot that would require voters to approve increases in benefits; require that changes to a pension system be paid for when they’re made; and give city employees the option of a 401(k) plan instead of a city pension.

Council Member Mike Dages said he was disappointed the mayor didn’t talk to council members about his plans for a graffiti ordinance and pension initiative before bringing them up in his speech.

“I’m hoping he has greater communication with the council next year so we don’t have to hear about these things for the first time in the State of the City address,” Dages said.

Autry again used his speech to weigh in on the immigration debate. He supported three prongs of President Bush’s reform plan -- a secure border, a guest worker program and no mass deportations.

But he said immigration policy must also consider issues such as health care, housing and transportation for immigrants. Autry said he would write the president and ask him to appoint a congressional task force that would study such issues. Autry said Mexico should create a similar task force.

The issue also had a prominent role in Autry’s 2005 State of the City speech, when he proposed a two-year moratorium on immigration.

Dages said a State of a City speech is an inappropriate time to address immigration issues.

“He spent way too much time on immigration,” he said. “But I know that immigration is close to his heart.”

Autry was as passionate Thursday about immigration as any other issue in his speech and said it has a sweeping local impact. He called it the “most important mayoral issue of our time,” adding that immigrants fill hospital emergency rooms, jails and schools.

Autry also pushed for two pieces of proposed education legislation that would give local leaders more control over failing school districts. Both were written by Assembly Member Juan Arambula, D-Fresno.

The first would give county superintendents more control over poor-performing school districts. For instance, the county superintendent would oversee academic improvement plans and could overrule district decisions that aren’t consistent with such plans.

The second would create “academic crisis and management teams” to help failing districts. Patterned after similar teams now assembled to help schools with fiscal problems, the academic teams would include education and management experts.

Said Autry: “The time is overdue for us to recapture responsibility of our most treasured resource -- our schools.”

The reporter can be reached at mleedy@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6208.