Quote of the Week
“As students, we’re often taught that we’re too young to understand politics. But we’re not too young to understand fear; we’re not too young to understand our classmates worried about their families and we’re definitely not too young to feel what it’s like when people in our community are scared.”
-Isabella, a Fresno student protester speaking at Computech this week
This Week in Fresnoland
Scandal blows up Fresno’s small arts community
A massive theft scandal rocked Fresno’s arts community this week, dominating local news cycles as new details — and more questions — emerged each day while investigators get to the bottom of how at least $1.5 million were reported embezzled at the Fresno Arts Council.
Fresnoland is not identifying the person or persons of interest at the center of the joint FBI and Fresno police investigation. Detectives have not publicly named any suspects, made any arrests or filed criminal charges.
One week ago, the Fresno arts community woke up to the news — first reported by Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad — that at least $1.5 million in (later confirmed to be Measure P) funds had been reported stolen from the Fresno Arts Council.
In the days that followed, details of the scandal slowly dripped out of City Hall, which quickly severed ties with the Arts Council, demanded the immediate return of any remaining funds and said city leaders would take over distribution of Measure P — an issue that still raises more questions than it answers for groups seeking competitive grants.
City Hall castigated the arts council Tuesday in a joint statement that also pledged to make “whole” any Fresno groups still waiting for their promised Measure P funding, Fresnoland’s Julianna Morano reported.
“The Mayor and members of the City Council are appalled by the lack of safeguards put in place by the Fresno Arts Council, which ultimately allowed this embezzlement to occur,” the statement said.
Neither the Arts Council’s administrators nor its board had much to say publicly this week.
In a brief Feb. 6 statement, Fresno Arts Council Executive Director Lillia Chávez described the Council as “the victim” in the theft of taxpayer dollars, which she also described as a “personnel issue that is currently under investigation.” On Friday, the Arts Council’s board broke its silence to acknowledge the situation and say they’re cooperating with police.
The Arts Council took over distribution of city Measure P dollars in 2023, launching a process that triggered confusion, controversy and community clashes.
Here’s the latest news in the case — breaking down the inside story of how City Hall (eventually) discovered the theft.
Fresno, Clovis schools take different approaches to student protests
As pressure mounted on local schools to curtail student-led protests this week, Fresno Unified organized an on-campus student rally and Clovis schools called the police.
In a joint media statement Wednesday, police and Clovis school officials said videos of Tuesday’s student walkout would be used as evidence against any adults accused of helping students leave campus.
Parents and community members later pushed back in interviews with The Fresno Bee.
Meanwhile, Fresno Unified, which has seen far more student protests than its neighboring district, has faced mounting pressure to curtail the walkouts.
On Tuesday, that criticism came from the county Hall of Records when Supervisor Garry Bredefeld chastised school leaders and said the protests were a public safety concern. Bredefled’s remarks came the same day as Fresno Unified students pelted ICE’s downtown Fresno office with debris during a student protest that saw city police break up a confrontation.
On the heels of dozens of campus walkouts, Fresno school students and officials collaborated for Thursday’s “We are Young, Not Silent” forum at Edison Computech Middle School.
Fresnoland’s Diego Vargas has been listening to and speaking with students all week and was on hand at Computech as student after student made it clear that they’re not about to sit down or shut up for anyone, not as long as their friends and relatives are forced to live in the shadows of the Land of the Free.
One student, an eighth-grader named Gabriella, questioned why so many are allowing history to repeat itself.
“I would have hoped that we learned from our past: people being targeted and taken from their homes just because of who they are. Doesn’t that sound familiar?
“We need to use our voices and we need to be loud to show our love for our diversity and our community and our love for our culture; you can’t beat hate with hate, but you can beat hate with love. Being alive is not a crime.”
‘Outsourcing to Fresnoland’
Speaking before a packed, standing-room-only crowd Thursday at Tioga Brewery, Fresnoland’s Investigative Reporter Omar. S. Rashad gave the public its first look behind the scenes of a recent series of hard-hitting stories that triggered massive reforms at City Hall.
After breaking down the lengthy reporting process — which included the meticulous, at times excruciating, examination of more than 3,000 individual city contracts — Omar sat down with a group of local experts to further unpack how money, and dark money in particular, emerges in local races.
Fresnoland’s Gregory Weaver notes that “The question that kept coming up for everyone was why the leaders of California’s fifth-largest city have given themselves so few tools to do anything about it.”
Fresno County books plans for a new hotel tax
Looking for options to beef up county finances, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday began looking into a new hotel-related tax, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela reports.
Fresno County is just one of three California counties that doesn’t currently charge a transient-occupancy tax on hotels, motels, AirBnBs or other short-term rentals.
The other counties are Orange County, a typically hyper-conservative region that typically views any tax with aggressive suspicion, and Colusa County, a typically hyper-conservative community with only a handful of hotels.
The fact that the tax is only paid by out-of-towners makes it a more attractive tax than typical for Fresno County’s conservative supervisors, like Garry Bredefeld and Nathan Magsig, both of whom said they support the new tax.
County officials said it could generate more than $5 million in new revenue for the Hall of Records.
Fresno’s anti-ICE protest movement
For Fresno-area artists like Jose Soria, creativity is protest.
Protest against violence against immigrants — and citizens — at the hands of President Trump’s masked immigration police. Protest against ICE raids, and family separations, secret police and the fear, grief and pain felt by millions.
He and many other local creatives recently sat down with Fresnoland’s Gisselle Medina to discuss the role of art and artists in this politically-fraught climate where the federal government aggressively blurs the lines between law enforcement and political retribution.
“Artists are coming together at a time where people across the country, including in Fresno, are protesting rising Immigration and Customs enforcement activity,” Gisselle writes, “and the unlawful, violent arrests and killings of U.S. citizens, many artists are channeling their feelings into their work as a powerful form of protest.”
Soria says his family once supported Trump, hoping he could deliver on his promise to jumpstart a sluggish economy. Now, he says, he focuses his creative intensity on exposing and exploring the racist federal immigration crackdown that has gone far beyond expelling only the “worst of the worst.”
“There’s no way my work is not political,” Soria said. “I talk about these things through art because they need to be talked about.”
Outside the Lines
This week on Fresnoland’s news podcast, Danielle and Jordan dive into a wide-ranging “grab bag” episode after a week off, catching listeners up on some of the biggest stories shaping Fresno right now. Fresnolandia
Members of the Service Employees International Union Local 2015 held a small rally to spur contract talks with a local health employer — but the deal was apparently already done or mostly done. Fresnoland
Despite recently restacking the California Democratic Party’s already stacked deck, party loyalists find themselves in the familiar old fight between moderates seeking a middle ground and others looking for the same populist platform that powered Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York last year. CalMatters
Recent large fires have sparked fear among central Fresno shopowners. ABC30
Central Valley ag supporters are urging the Trump Administration to fund the Shasta Dam expansion project. KMPH
Clovis will display an ‘In God We Trust’ in the council chambers at City Hall. YourCentralValley
The Tehipite branch of the Sierra Club invites you to join to attend a presentation of “Big Trees, Big Impact” by local documentary filmmaker Lee Terkelesen at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18 at the Woodward Park Regional Library. Fresno County Library
Block Beat
DOWNTOWN: My Homies Kitchen dishes up more than incredible food in downtown Fresno. YourCentralValley
ROEDING: The Fresno Chaffee Zoo wrapped up IllumiNATURE over the weekend, celebrating its final night with a special Lunar New Year bash. KMPH
LINCOLN PARK: The Cedar Tree Village Shopping Center at Herndon and Cedar is up for sale, with a listed price of more than $20 million. The Business Journal
DOWNTOWN: Dad’s Cookies is coming to downtown Fresno. Business Journal
TOWER: Tickets are on sale now for a special screening and opportunity to meet some of the cast from the 90s classic ‘The Sandlot’ at the Tower Theatre. Instagram
