08/19/2025
Fight Family,
We URGENTLY need your help!
We are asking our members, fighters, friends, and family to please join us tonight at 7pm at the Hanford Civic for this month’s City Council meeting.
The City is proposing a 20 year plan to widen Lacey Blvd between 10th and Costco, beginning this year. They plan to build a 2 mile stretch of pedestrian bridges, bike paths, tree lines, and outdoor dining tables. While this sounds like a great idea in theory, the reality is that it comes at a hefty cost.
The cost? Small Business along this stretch of Hanford. The proposed layout appears to go right up to our front door - yes, that means that we would lose nearly our entire front parking lot.
The City claims to have the support of every business along this stretch, however, we have yet to receive a single notice, letter, or phone call regarding this matter, leaving us wondering how exactly they intend to execute this plan. Considering we have been told that there have been rumblings of the City using imminent domain to obtain our and other lots for little to no compensation, despite us owning the lot…it is time we make a stand.
Imminent Domain, for those unaware, is when a government entity like the City can simply take private property from a property owner and convert it for public use - without the property owner’s consent.
Additionally, the proposed tree line may become the responsibility of the business and property owners along this stretch and costs to install sewer and utilities may become the financial burden of those same business owners. Not to mention how 20 years of construction will kill traffic to those businesses at what is currently one of the busiest intersections in town.
This attempt to try to emulate European or Coastal city centers simply does not take into account the horrific prevalence of criminal and drug activity along this stretch, as well as the unfortunate situation involving encampments of the unhoused. We do not see individuals walking or biking along this 2 mi stretch due to safety concerns as mentioned above.
We also do not think that the City has taken into account these potential safety issues and feel those must first be addressed and remedied prior to frivolous spending on beautification; a beautiful but unusable bike path, pedestrian bridge to no where, tree lined street, and locations for picnic dining benefit absolutely no one except for padding the portfolio of the City as this can function as a bandaid masking real issues aftecting real people that require real solutions.
Additionally, we feel as though this waste of tax payer dollars will take far too long to complete, disrupting the flow of traffic for and effectively cutting off those who reside in neighborhoods past this stretch from town.
They are attempting to, in our opinion, ram this measure through regardless of the consequences to small businesses such as ours - businesses that have been a staple of our community for over 20 years like ours has.
Losing our front parking lot, the construction, the unfathomable financial burden / taxes, the loss of traffic, and this plan as a whole, will kill or destroy businesses along this stretch, including our beloved Valley Fight Club.
Please join us tonight as we advocate AGAINST this plan.
