☀️Good morning! It’s Tuesday, July 14. This is Rob.
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🏗️Having work done: Renovation work kicked off Monday at the Fashion Fair Mall. ABC30
🍳Call it a comeback: Yosemite Fall Cafe reopens one year after an ugly fire. The Business Journal
🎨ArtHop: Returns Thursday to downtown Fresno. Arts Council
🍺‘What the Flock?!’ A community discussion on Flock cameras and privacy rights is set for this installment of ‘Hops and Talks’ at 6:30 p.m. Tioga Sequoia Brewery, 745 Fulton St. Hops & Talks
🎥America 250: local historical society is celebrating the people, places, and stories that shaped our nation and our Valley. The process starts at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 22 at The Archive on Kern, 2120 Kern St. Fresno City and County Historical Society.
😋It’s back! Fresno Fiesta Market is back beginning at 5 p.m. Friday, July 31 at the Manchester Center featuring food trucks, shopping and live music by La Diseña Norteña, Banda Revolución and Jornales de California. Instagram
1. Better Roads’ last political hurdle?
Lines in the sand have been drawn. All the policy arguments have remained unchanged.
Now, the question of Fresno County’s messy transportation tax renewal fight comes down to pure, old-fashioned rough-and-tumble politics.
Later this morning, the Fresno County Supervisors will conduct a hearing on whether to place the so-called “Better Roads, Safe Streets” measure on the November ballot or whether they will kick the can down the road, allowing Fresno County’s expiring transportation tax to curl up and die in peace next year without a successor plan in place.
The Supervisors could also order a procedural study of the proposed measure that would effectively run out the clock and prevent the measure from making it to the ballot this fall.
Critics of the Better Roads plan say Fresno County can live without a transportation measure of a year or two years without the wheels falling off.
Board Chair Garry Bredefeld has called the Better Roads measure a “scam” and all but promised to support further study in an effort to stall the measure. Supervisor Buddy Mendes has called the tax renewal a “con job” but stopped short of revealing his plans on the vote. Same for Nathan Magsig — openly skeptical and noncommittal.
But supervisors on the left have also been far from enthusiastic about the plan.
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors meets at 9:30 a.m. today at the Fresno County Hall of Records. You can review the meeting agenda here. You can view the meeting online here.
Read the full story from Fresnoland’s Julianna Morano here.
2. Meet the new boss
Lauren Nikkel, who has led the Kingsburg Chamber of Commerce for less than a year, was named as the new executive director of the troubled Fresno Arts Council.
Nikkel begins the new job later this month, the council said in a statement on Monday.
“I am excited to join the Fresno Arts Council at a pivotal moment in its history,” Nikkel said. “I bring to the table my experience as both a nonprofit executive and a social dancer.”
Nikkel replaces longtime director Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, who stepped down in March after one of her top staffers was accused and later pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million in public dollars. The former arts council operations manager is scheduled for sentencing in early August.
Monday’s announcement about Nikkel’s appointment to the Arts Council also noted a track record of transparent public stewardship, fiscal oversight, and strategic partnership building. Read the full statement from the Fresno Arts Council here.
3. New law, same problems
The largest housing bill in years quietly became a law this week but it could be a long time before Fresno County sees any housing relief.
The effort aims to make single-family homes more affordable by cutting red tape to build new homes faster and cheaper, limiting large corporations from owning more than 350 single-family homes and cutting the number of inspections required for low-income housing.
Read the full story from YourCentralValley here.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Omar S. Rashad.
