Good morning! It’s Monday, Feb. 17. This is Rob.
Hard rain: Storms all day. Probably tomorrow and Thursday, too. NOAA
Hard wind: The storms already caused damage at one Fresno County fire station. KMPH
Mexican Consulate swamped: Staff at northwest Fresno’s local consulate for the Mexican government say they’re increasingly busy as longtime residents in the U.S. weigh the risks of staying in a country determined to deport them. ABC30
Traveling museum: Tolerance Museum visits Fresno schools. The Fresno Bee
‘You’re killing me, Smalls’: 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
1. ‘It kind of sucks’
The dominos are already falling on the heels of a million-dollar theft scandal at the Fresno Arts Council and some of the earliest hits are landing in downtown Fresno.
Local artist hub Hella Fresno pulled the plug on studio space for their “heARTS of downtown Fresno” project, which paid local artists to teach classes in a neighborhood where the mayor’s office has been trying to jumpstart new growth for years, Julianna Morano reports for 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 for the next round of grants, which will commence this spring.
And for the Hella Fresno owners, losing faith in the system has been almost as hard to accept.
Hella Fresno co-owner Jennie Guerrero: “I’m always on this soapbox — a Measure P soapbox — of how great it is. I don’t know if I can be that way this year, and it kind of sucks.”
2. ‘A lot of grief’
From organizing or joining homemade community-alert networks and donating food, clothes and money, many Fresno-area shopowners are finding ways to help their friends and neighbors as the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant crackdown enters its second full year.
Fresnoland’s Gisselle Medina spoke with business owners like Jackelyn Madrigal, owner and creative force behind the Tower District’s Color Me Chula who said sometimes the only thing you can do to help is listen.
Since the final days of the Biden Administration and the rise of a second Trump White House, salons, barbershops, book stores and other neighborhood shops have taken on new roles — information and reporting hubs monitoring immigration enforcement activities and handing out reliable information about the ever diminishing legal options available to immigrants and their families.
Madrigal: “There’s been a lot of grief and all I can do is just hold space. I don’t want to plant false hope, but I want to plant seeds to just reinforce that strength and that resilience.”
3. High-speed rail CEO arrested, no charges filed
The CEO of California’s contentious High-Speed Rail Authority was arrested earlier this month in connection with a suspected domestic battery incident at his Folsom home, according to multiple news reports.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Ian Choudri, 57, was arrested just after midnight Feb. 4 after officers were called to his home, along with his 46-year-old fiancée, but Choudri’s attorney told the Times that prosecutors declined to file any criminal charges in the case.
“This matter is over and no further action will be taken,” Allen Sawyer, Choudri’s lawyer, told The Times.
A day before his arrest, Choudri appeared next to Gov. Gavin Newsom in Kern County touting the completion of a new HSR facility.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Danielle Bergstrom.
