It’s Monday, September 15. Danielle, here.
☀️ Summer isn’t giving up yet: high of 94 today.
🏡 Stalled West Area Plan moves forward this week: After a two-year delay, the Fresno Planning Commission is set to hear the land use and infrastructure plan for the neighborhoods west of 99 this Wednesday.
💰Happy Fresno County budget hearing day, to all who celebrate. County supervisors begin discussing their proposed $5.3 billion budget today, with talks expected to wrap up tomorrow. Read Pablo Orihuela’s explainer to learn more about the major changes we’re seeing this year.
🚔 Clovis Police to explore new mental health liaison approach: The Clovis City Council will hear a workshop on the ‘new approach’ at their meeting tonight at 6 p.m. Agenda
Listen up: Have you ever wondered why some public lands are difficult to access? Central Valley Daily spoke with a San Francisco Chronicle reporter about what it would take to put the ‘public’ back in public lands. KVPR
1. Smokejumpers deployed to protect giant sequoias from Garnet Fire
The Garnet Fire raging in the Sierra National Forest has expanded further north, threatening the giant sequoias in McKinley Grove, ABC30 reports.
Firefighters have a new weapon: smokejumpers, who literally scale the thousands-year-old trees in an attempt to shield them from the flames and embers.
Firefighters had already installed sprinklers at the base of the trees to prevent the grove, which hasn’t seen fire in 150 years, from smoldering.
Over the weekend, firefighters made huge progress on containing the Garnet Fire as a whole — going from just under a quarter of it contained to now 71% containment as of this morning.
Dirk Charley, tribal fire liaison with the U.S. Forest Service: “It’s spiritual, cultural. It’s our heritage,” he said, referring to the grove of giant sequoias.
2. Fresno State professor placed on leave after comments on Charlie Kirk
A Fresno State professor who made hateful comments about Charlie Kirk last week was placed on leave yesterday, reports The Collegian.
Professor Barri Brennan, in a public speaking class, told students “it’s too bad he’s not dead,” after hearing initial reports about the shooting that took place at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. Her statement was recorded anonymously, and the recording was widely shared on social media.
Fresno State student Lara Habib: “I just feel that it does really set a bad precedent for all the professors here on campus. It doesn’t matter what political side you’re on, there is no reason to be condoning political violence.”
3. Valley affordable housing summit highlights homelessness solutions
The 14th annual San Joaquin Valley Affordable Housing Summit brought over 350 people to downtown Fresno last Thursday to talk about solutions to homelessness and how to grapple with the potential loss of federal and state housing funds, reports Pablo Orihuela for Fresnoland.
Among the “innovative” solutions on display at the summit was a recent agreement reached between UpHoldings and the Fresno Unified School District — where earlier this year the district agreed to cover the housing costs of 10 families to live at the Crossroads Village development in an effort to promote attendance.
