Good morning! It’s Omar, taking over from Rob for the rest of the week. It’s Wednesday, Aug. 27.
🤷♂️Heat check: Regular Fresno stuff today, high of around 97, with (really) sunny skies.
🏗️Groundbreaking: Fresno County will break ground on the new Clovis Regional Library at 11 a.m. today at 755 3rd St., behind the Clovis Senior Center.
🎙️Listen up: On today’s episode of KVPR’s Central Valley Daily podcast, Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad talked about his recent reporting on internal city emails revealed in court documents. Click here to listen, or find Central Valley Daily wherever you get your podcasts.
1. Fresno residents depending on Trump’s ‘mercy’
Dozens of Fresno-area residents remain in limbo, waiting to hear whether they may become homeless before the New Year, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela reports.
As President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans work to gut housing assistance programs amid a years-long housing crisis, Fresno-area residents who depend on the program are on pins and needles.
“It honestly scares the shit out of me,” said Dennis Jeppson, who did everything he could to get off the streets of Fresno and now faces the prospect of returning to them as the federal government prioritizes tax cuts for high-income Americans.
Trump in July signed a budget proposal that could gut funding for vouchers. However, Congress routinely engages in a reconciliation process ahead of the next fiscal year, a process that still isn’t over.
Fresno Housing Authority CEO Tyrone Roderick Williams: “We are at the total mercy and discretion of the President and the Congress of the United States of America. We are.”
2. Federal judge gives Fresno a small win in court
A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from taking away millions in federal funding from local governments, including the City of Fresno, Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad reports.
It’s a temporary win for the seven plaintiffs in the case, who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration less than a week ago.
It’s also very early in the case, as both sides have yet to make legal arguments over the whether it’s unconstitutional for President Donald Trump to unilaterally set conditions on federal grants — a power only bestowed upon Congress in the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Richard Seeborg, while ruling from the bench: “I think the uncertainty that has been injected into the (federal funding) process is significant.”
3. Fresno EOC has a new CEO
The Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission named Steven Lewis as its new CEO during a Tuesday night board meeting, The Business Journal reports.
Lewis has served in executive roles at several nonprofits and Head Start programs in his 25-year career, and he was most recently the CEO of a local Head Start nonprofit in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The announcement puts a close to a tumultuous time at Fresno EOC: from quickly cutting ties with former CEO Emilia Reyes and bringing back a prior CEO in an interim capacity to snowballing concerns over the nonprofit’s finances.
Eight months later, the multimillion-dollar nonprofit has found its new leader.
Fresno EOC CEO Steven Lewis: “This is my fourth time being a CEO. The first time you’ve got a big head; the second time you get slapped; the third time you get fired; the fourth time you start learning. If you don’t have humility by the fourth, something’s wrong with you — you shouldn’t be in the seat.”
This newsletter was edited by Danielle Bergstrom.
