Good morning! It’s Wednesday, Sept. 24. This is Rob.
🌦️Rain? High in the upper 80s today with a 20 to 30% chance of rain late Wednesday into early Thursday.
🐓The Fresno County Board of Supervisors took the first steps toward capping the number of backyard chickens allowed at five. Residents would be able to apply to additional roosters — up to 24 total — but it will cost you. Fresnoland
🎾Pickleball: Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer will break ground on new pickleball courts this morning during a ceremony at Roeding Park.
💉Flu Shot: The Fresno County Department of Public Health, UCSF Fresno and Saint Agnes Medical Center will provide no-cost flu vaccination clinics throughout the 2025-2026 flu season at multiple locations across Fresno County. The first flu clinic will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25 at the Dunlap Elementary School, 39667 N. Dunlap Road. More information
🚇Transit Talk: Join Fresnoland from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25 at the Lookout Room at the Tioga Sequoia Brewing Company to hear from some of Los Angeles’ biggest transit leaders and discuss what transportation lessons Fresno might be able to learn from LA’s public transit expansion. All ages welcome! Ticket link
1. ‘Contrary to the Constitution’
Fresno was one of several communities that scored a partial, temporary legal victory over the Trump Administration late Tuesday, Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad reports.
Chief District Court Judge Richard Seeborg ruled Tuesday evening that the Trump administration’s effort to strip or withhold millions in congressionally-approved funding was “contrary to the Constitution” as well as “arbitrary and capricious.”
The judge’s ruling preliminary blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to pull federal funding from local governments involved in the lawsuit.
Earlier this summer, federal housing authorities warned HUD grantees not to use their already-approved funding for “anything that could violate Trump’s executive orders, including to “promote ‘gender ideology,’” or to “fund or promote elective abortions.”
In August, Fresno joined about half a dozen other government bodies or agencies challenging the authority of a presidential executive order to withhold congressionally-approved funding.
2. ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’
Fresno County supervisors voted to formally oppose ongoing Democratic Party gerrymandering efforts in California, which Gov. Gavin Newsom launched in response to GOP gerrymandering in Texas, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela reported Tuesday.
Supervisors Nathan Magsig, Garry Bredefeld and Buddy Mendes formed the board majority opposing Newsom’s counter-gerrymandering.
Supervisor Luis Chavez opposed the resolution, saying Prop 50 puts the question of additional California Democrat gerrymandering before California voters, drawing a contrast with Texas legislators who gerrymandered their maps unilaterally to help the GOP and President Donald Trump keep control of Congress next year.
And Supervisor Brian Pacheco wanted no part of it.
“I don’t believe what’s happening in Texas is right. I don’t believe what California is doing is right. So I would be of the opinion that two wrongs don’t make a right.”
And speaking of gerrymandering ahead of the 2026 midterm elections — on this week’s Fresnolandia podcast, Danielle and Jordan speak with experts about what valley residents should expect if California voters approve Democratic gerrymandering proposals. Fresnolandia podcast
3. Clovis inches toward a new teachers union
LClovis Unified schools have probably never been closer to forming an official teachers union, EdSource reported this week.
The years-long battle that sprang up amid the COVID-19 pandemic has seen numerous legal hearings, in-fighting, and allegations, but one of the two efforts to unionize is now fewer than 75 signatures away from their longstanding goal.
“Clovis Unified is California’s largest school district without a teachers union,” EdSource writes, “but could become the state’s largest independent union.”
The two groups — the Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), backed by the California Teachers Association, and the unaffiliated Independent Clovis Unified Educators (ICUE), represented by a law firm — have been working to form unions.
And many Clovis teachers remain on the fence.
