No, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni, apartment residents aren’t child molesters | Opinion

Property values go down. Crime goes up. Traffic gets worse.

Those are the most commonly disproven stereotypes tossed around whenever a developer attempts to build apartments in a neighborhood with predominantly single-family residences.

At a Fresno City Council meeting Thursday night, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni came up with a new one to disparage a proposed apartment complex near his northwest Fresno home.

Child molesters move in.

Opinion

Speaking critically of a proposed 82-unit, market rate apartment complex during public comment, Zanoni painted a picture of future residents that began at irresponsible and ended up at reckless.

“You have (apartments) that will look down on Orchid Park … on a schoolyard in Tatarian Elementary School,” Zanoni said during public comment. “Is anyone vetting who the people are in these apartments?”

“Do we know who their friends are? Do we know who may come over to these apartments?”

Not just apartment-dwellers but their friends too.

“We have a serious issue in our community,” Zanoni continued. “Internet crimes against children … we arrest people daily for acts of child endangerment. … This is an open invite for people to take residence in one of these apartments to have easy access to monitor our children in one of our schoolyards.”

Child endangerment is deadly serious but Zanoni’s comments were replete with irresponsible statements for an elected official.

As Fresno County’s top law enforcement officer, the sheriff should be well-informed about numerous studies that overwhelmingly prove kids under 18 are most frequently sexually abused by someone they know.

To quote a National Child Traumatic Stress Network “fact sheet” that cites a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study, “Approximately three-quarters of reported cases of child sexual abuse are committed by family members or other individuals who are considered part of the victim’s ‘circle of trust.’ ”

Other child abuse organizations, including the Indiana Center for Prevention of Youth Abuse & Suicide, place that figure at “more than 90%.”

So, unless Zanoni’s imaginary victims are being hypothetically abused by family members and friends who happen to live in apartments, his theory is bunk.

Checking sex offender database

If studies aren’t the sheriff’s strong point, he should certainly be familiar with Megan’s Law and its publicly available database for registered sex offenders.

The vacant parcel where local developer Land Value Management wants to build is at 7056 North Prospect Ave. Type that address into the Megan’s Law search portal maintained by the California Department of Justice and you’ll find 23 registered sex offenders living within a 2-mile radius.

Seven list addresses that indicate they live in apartments, 16 in single-family homes.

The sheriff’s comments also presented a false narrative of the actual project. The proposed three-story apartment buildings in the back of the complex don’t exactly “look down” on kids at play.

If anything, the people most visible are old folks playing pickleball. The rest of Orchid Park has a row of trees and a parking lot between itself and the apartments. And just a sliver of the Tatarian school’s soccer field is nearby.

Even if the park were visible to apartment residents, one of the most widely accepted theories of urban design is “Eyes on the Street,” the concept that public spaces become safer when more people can view them.

Zanoni ought to read up on that.

Council nixes Herndon project

The only council member to respond to the sheriff was Miguel Arias, who called them “lies and falsehoods.” He also used the Megan’s Law database to refute Zanoni’s narrative in real time.

The other six council members allowed the sheriff’s gross generalizations to pass without comment. More than half of all Fresno residents are renters and roughly two-thirds of those living in multifamily units, according to a litany of housing statistics.

It was a decision the northwest Fresno enclave may regret. As cautioned by Council President Annalisa Perea, there is very little preventing that developer (or any other) from submitting a future proposal for an even more dense apartment complex on the same site.

Such a proposal could contain (gasp) Section 8 housing — which was not included in the one that got shot down — and receive ministerial approval per state laws designed to promote infill housing. That means no public hearings and no say from the community.

Thursday evening’s vote could also expose the city to litigation. California is in a housing crisis exacerbated by restrictive decisions made at the local level, often under pressure from unreasonable and influential people who don’t want new housing built near where they live.

On Friday morning I emailed Zanoni to see if he wanted to clarify his comments from the evening before. He did not respond by mid-afternoon.

I did that because I wanted to give Zanoni the benefit of the doubt. Which is more than the sheriff gave, in a public forum, to Fresno residents who live in apartments.