ANALYSIS IS A LIVING THING
First, a word or two about the report’s genesis.
Evans said the analysis was started in 2004 on behalf of a local organizing effort for SEIU – Service Employees International Union.
A team of consultants from Los Angeles came to town and interviewed dozens of people across the political spectrum. The result was a report that went into exhaustive detail.
Evans and his wife moved from North Carolina to Fresno in 2008. Evans said Mike Rhodes, then the editor of the “Community Alliance” newspaper, showed him the report.
The idea: This would get Evans, always keenly interested in local politics, up to speed in a hurry.
But, Evans, said, the report was some five years old at the time. It needed updating. This is what the Evans-Rhodes team did in 2009.
Fast forward to 2015. Rhodes is still in town, but has left daily journalism to work on a book about Fresno’s homeless. Evans, who became chairman of the local Democratic Party in 2010, does his best with various allies to keep the report current.
The Central Valley Progressive Political Action Committee and the dramatic June 2013 special election on trash privatization played key roles in the report’s evolution.
So, too, did an editorial decision by Evans. A report that originally required three or four hours to slog through has been greatly condensed.
Evans discusses the report mainly with progressive groups (which, near as I can tell, are members in good standing beneath the Democratic Party tent but aren’t the tent itself).
The report apparently has considerable unifying power. Evans said progressive groups are a diverse lot. They weren’t doing much talking and cooperating with each other when he moved to Fresno.
“We now have progressive groups talking regularly to each other,” Evans said.
He thinks the report played a part in that coalition-building.
