What’s at stake?
Several artists and organizations that were awarded Measure P arts funding last year have yet to see a dime of what they were promised by the Fresno Arts Council — and are in limbo with the City of Fresno taking over the grant program from the agency as it’s investigated for alleged million-and-a-half-dollar embezzlement.
The night before artist Jennie Guerrero found out that $1.5 million in Measure P arts dollars had been stolen from Fresno’s arts community — leaving all the grant money she’d been awarded in limbo — she was already sitting down to start on her next Measure P application.
Now, she’s not sure if she’ll ever even see the $38,000 she was promised more than seven months ago.
Guerrero, alongside her partner Roeski — who together run the downtown art studio Hella Fresno — were awarded a second year of Measure P arts funding to support their project “heARTS of Downtown” in 2025. Through the project, Hella Fresno recruited and paid local creators to teach arts workshops downtown.
But between being recommended for only 30% of the funding they’d originally applied for in 2025, and the still-open question of whether they’ll ever see a dime of their award, Hella Fresno was already forced to give up the new space they’d been renting for the workshops.
It wasn’t a difficult call to make, Guerrero said. They just couldn’t afford it anymore.
One of the tougher pills to swallow has been the fact that Measure P — a program she once actively encouraged other artists to take advantage of — is something she can’t feel excited about anymore.
“I’m always on this soapbox — a Measure P soapbox — of how great it is,” Guerrero said. “I don’t know if I can be that way this year, and it kind of sucks.
“I’m a true advocate of Measure P and arts and culture … and downtown and everything Fresno,” she added. “I’m just like, I can’t be that way this year because I feel like there’s just so much going on that’s not OK.”
On Feb. 7, artists like Guerrero had the rug pulled out from under them when they learned that an ex-Fresno Arts Council employee was under investigation in connection with the at least $1.5 million theft from the taxpayer-funded arts grants program, news first reported by Fresnoland.
Hella Fresno is far from the only organization now left searching for answers with zero percent of the funds they’d been promised in hand — and no detailed plans yet from the City of Fresno on how they’ll make artists and organizations whole, now that the city has taken the reins from the Arts Council.
At the same time, many of these artists have already made promises to their communities with their ambitious projects — and said they plan to find a way to keep those promises, even though the Arts Council broke theirs.
“We’re basically seeing how much we can keep going without the funds, which obviously is really hard,” said Fresno muralist Andrea Cano Torres, who’s partnering with Eben Santos, a local printmaker, on a mural to beautify a planned community garden at My Homies Kitchen downtown.
“We don’t want the momentum to stop,” Torres added, “especially not for the surrounding communities because everyone’s already so excited about it.”
Torres and Santos’ project, fiscally sponsored by Dulce Upfront, is another effort meant to activate Fresno’s downtown, a part of the city that leaders have long struggled to revitalize.
Torres said she thought she’d finally checked off the final box needed to receive the $30,000 award they’d been promised mere days before news broke of the embezzlement scandal.
On Feb. 4, she and Santos submitted a signed authorization from the property manager where the mural was planned and spoke briefly with the Fresno Arts Council Executive Director Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, confirming that was the last bit of paperwork they needed.
Three days later, she learned of the alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million. She’s been reeling ever since.
“I’ve checked my Submittable a million times,” Torres said, referring to the online portal where the Arts Council collected grant applications, “and been like, how is this happening?”
The City of Fresno has floated the idea of using future Measure P revenue to make organizations whole that are still owed by the Arts Council. While awaiting more information on those plans, Torres, Santos and their fiscal sponsor Dulce Upfront have since started looking at the budget again and thinking through how much would be reasonable to try to fundraise.
“I don’t think we’ve crossed that bridge yet,” Torres said, “of thinking, okay, not getting anything might be the reality.”
Clarke-Lauren Richard, executive director of Central Valley Scholars, also found herself suddenly pivoting into fundraising mode to keep her organization’s Black Youth Empowerment Program alive.
The program serves Black high school students in the San Joaquin Valley. Participants learn about their history and culture, work on a creative project to express themselves and show their work at a showcase at the end of the program.
But Central Valley Scholars has received none of the roughly $27,000 grant to support that project as of yet.
That’s left Richard scrambling to figure out how to pay the person who facilitates the program, whether that’s through fundraising, looking at their reserves or even taking a pay cut herself.
Still, she says she wasn’t shocked by the news.
“For me, being a Black woman navigating situations like this, it doesn’t shock me,” Richard said. “I have worked around systems where a lot of money moves and I’ve seen mis-management happen before.”
No matter when their funding arrives, however, Richard said she’s committed to making the program happen.
“We have to adapt and continue to advocate and find solutions so that our students aren’t the one that’s going to get hit. This is not their fault,” she said. “I don’t feel as if my students, or the students here in the Central Valley, should suffer because of someone’s greed.”
Guerrero is also trying to pivot after giving up Hella Fresno’s space in the South Stadium building downtown. Their workshops are mostly on hold for now since they have to instead seek out venues willing to host them.
“Not a lot of people welcome us because we come with paint,” Guerrero said.
Despite all the setbacks, Guerrero said she’s ready to lace up her cleats and apply again when round three of the funding becomes available.
“I’m jaded by the whole system, but ready to improve it and ready to go forward,” Guerrero said, “because it can only get better, at this point.
“Can’t get any worse.”
