🥧Good morning! It’s Wednesday, Aug. 20. This is Rob, wishing you a happy National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day!
😒Heat Check: Brace yourself. The weekend is expected to come with an extreme heat advisory and a chance of rain on Saturday.
🎄Silent night? Fresno’s iconic Christmas Tree Lane is canceling its beloved walk nights this year, ABC30 reports, with the organization behind it saying it’s become “nearly impossible for its small group to ensure the safety of the 35,000 people” that visit.
🎧Listen Up: Do you listen to “Fresno Best’s Podcast”? It’s an interview podcast featuring some of the top movers and shakers from around the Fresno area. It’s hosted by Jordan Mattox, who also cohosts the news podcast Fresnolandia with Danielle Bergstrom. Check it out on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
1. Needle-exchange coming soon to a park near you?
Fresno County’s needle exchange pilot program, a longtime target of some Fresno-area conservative Republicans, might soon be coming to a local park near you.
Following Tuesday’s split 3-2 vote by the county Board of Supervisors, the San Joaquin Valley Free Medical Clinic and Needle Exchange has about 30 days to clear out of the downtown Fulton Street location where they’ve operated since 2023, Fresnoland’s Pablo Orihuela reports.
Supervisors Buddy Mendes and Nathan Magsig joined Garry Bredefeld, the most vocal political opponent of the needle-exchange program, in voting to cut ties between the nonprofit-run program and the county’s Department of Public Health.
Bredefeld has long railed against the use of taxpayer dollars to fund what he, and many conservatives, argue crosses the line from public health support into addiction enabling.
Dr. Marc Lasher, president of the nonprofit, said the program would likely continue on and revert back to the old mobile model. He also suggested the program could take its services to public places like Woodward Park instead.
2. ‘To divide people’
The Board of Supervisors also greenlit adding two new “In God We Trust” signs to the boardroom chambers at the county Hall of Records, Pablo Orihuela also reports for Fresnoland this morning.
U.S. courts have widely ruled that such signs are Constitutional, despite objections and arguments about the separation of church and state and the alienation of nonreligious, nonspiritual taxpayers.
Supervisor Brian Pacheco, the lone dissenting vote at Tuesday’s meeting, described himself as a Catholic who keeps his personal faith separate from his public duties as an elected official.
Said Pacheco: “I believe God accepts everyone, yet it seems over the last several months we do more and more things to divide people and groups. I believe religion should be kept out of the boardroom.”
3. Valley Fever mounts a big comeback
Valley Fever is on the rise once again in the central San Joaquin Valley, and, KSEE reports, cases in 2025 have not only blown past last year’s numbers but also have more than doubled since 2023.
A total of 576 cases had been reported in Fresno County as of July 31, compared to 466 during all of 2024 and 194 cases the year before. The same trend applies to Tulare County. So far this year, 371 cases have been reported, up from 305 last year.
And while Valley Fever-related deaths remain comparatively rare, immunocompromised people are more vulnerable, and those who work around dust — like farm and construction workers — are most at risk.
Tulare County has seen 10 fatalities from the fungal infection while Fresno County has reported zero.
This newsletter was edited by Fresnoland’s Julianna Morano.
