Fontana Floors It and Feels Fancy

Don’t weep for Fontana.

The former steel town that gave birth to the Hells Angels has long endured such derisive nicknames as Fontucky and Felony Flats.

But as more than 100,000 NASCAR fans descend on Fontana for Sunday’s race at the California Speedway, city leaders are holding their heads high. They see the three-day weekend of festivities as an opportunity to unveil the new-and-improved Fontana, a city revitalized by a smoking-hot real estate market and infusion of white-collar families.

Local leaders insist that “Fontucky” is dead, along with the old image of a backwater burg of dirt roads, vacant storefronts and trailer parks. The new-and-improved Fontana, they say, is a fast-growing bedroom community with thriving businesses, lush parks and a picturesque golf course.

“People are telling me that the community has never looked better,” said Mayor Mark Nuaimi.

So it was no surprise that some Fontana residents were a bit steamed when the network TV commercials promoting the Labor Day Weekend stock car race touted the slogan “NASCAR goes Hollywood” while Randy Newman’s anthem “I Love L.A.” roared in the background. Fontana is, in fact, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County.

But thick-skinned Fontana leaders brush off the latest slight.

“I don’t care what they call us as long as they keep coming here and spending their revenue,” said Fontana Chamber of Commerce Director David Pulido.

In the last few years, Fontana has enjoyed a 40% increase in sales tax revenue from a boom in new businesses and a rise in development fees from the construction of about 1,500 homes in recent years.

Buoyed by such signs, city officials have invested more than $35 million in several improvement projects in the city’s core that they hope will drive a stake through the old images and insulting nicknames.

On Thursday, civic leaders celebrated the completion of a mile-long landscaped walking trail, a historical plaza that features more than 200 rose bushes, three cascading fountains near City Hall and a public lawn for holding musical shows and art fairs.

“This is how we begin anew,” said City Councilwoman Josie Gonzales at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Still, a bad reputation is hard to shake.

Yolanda Urso, a mom and homemaker who moved to Fontana from LaVerne three years ago, said she had been reluctant to do so because of the city’s reputation. But she couldn’t pass up the low housing prices.

Urso said she doubted Fontana would ever shake its old image. Not that she is making it easier. Urso has an online business, selling T-shirts emblazoned with “Fontucky.”

“I believe, no matter how much Fontana improves, its reputation will follow,” she said. “People like to put us down. Hell, we do it, and we live here.”

A city of about 150,000, Fontana sits at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains, east of Interstate 15.

The Fontana township was born just before World War I as an agricultural expanse that produced citrus, grapes, poultry and swine. Fontana transformed itself into a manufacturing town after Henry J. Kaiser decided in 1942 to establish a steel mill on a barren stretch formerly occupied by sagebrush and rocks.

Kaiser Steel became a manufacturing giant during World War II, producing for U.S. warships.

But even after the Kaiser mill closed in 1983, the victim of bad management and tough foreign competition, Fontana found a third life, offering an affordable place to live for young families following Southern California’s expansion into the Inland Empire.

Along the way, Fontana developed a reputation as an unruly rural town where a loose-knit group of motorcycle riders took the name of a World War II bomber squadron to form the first chapter of the notorious Hells Angels.

Today, Fontana is a working- and middle-class community, divided between longtime residents who once labored at the steel mill and the young, white-collar families that moved to new areas such as Sierra Lakes, a neighboring city built in 2000 around an 18-hole golf course and a series of lakes and streams.

Ed Harris, a retired accountant, said he moved to Sierra Lakes five months ago with his wife because the housing was affordable and he sensed that the city was on the rebound.

“Fontana is going to leave Rialto and San Bernardino in the dust,” he said.

Harris, who is African American, said his wife was reluctant to move to Fontana because she had heard the stories that, in the past, the Ku Klux Klan periodically surfaced to expound on race issues.

But he said that Fontana is long gone: “This is a new phase in Fontana.”

Fontana became one of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the nation last year, gaining about 13,000 residents in a two-year span, according to 2000 census figures. More than 62% of the homes in Fontana were built since 1980, the census found.

The median household income in Fontana is nearly $46,000, about 10% higher than the San Bernardino County median. The median home value in Fontana is $288,000, about 7% higher than countywide, according to the census.

Just over eight years ago, the California Speedway was built on the site of the old Kaiser Steel mill, kick-starting a new era for the city. The racetrack is just outside Fontana’s border on unincorporated county land, but the city still reaps millions in sales taxes every time a major race comes to town.

This year is the first time NASCAR has scheduled two events at the California Speedway in one year. It is also the first time the venue is holding a NASCAR race Labor Day weekend. City officials are taking advantage of the event by holding a golf tournament, a car show, a block party and a cruise night.

NASCAR marketing officials said no one intended to insult Fontana when the commercials for Sunday’s race failed to mention the city. They said the ads were intended to draw race fans from all of Southern California, the second-largest U.S. market for race fans, after New York.

If the network commercial had named Fontana instead, NASCAR officials said, few people outside the city would have known where it was.

Fontana leaders hope to change that.

“Fontana is my kids’ hometown,” said Nuaimi, who a few months ago went on KROQ’s morning radio show to defend the city against jokes. “My job is to make them proud of their hometown.”