Good morning! It’s Friday, Jan. 23. This is Rob.
Cold, clouds, fog, etc. NOAA
A major investment — partially backed by Measure P dollars — seeks to expand access to youth sports across Fresno. ABC30
Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias is serving as the temporary spokesperson for Madera Community College. GV Wire
A Fresno State professor has returned to the classroom after serving a suspension in connection with comments made about the shooting of activist Charlie Kirk. KMPH
Hanford has a new city manager. Hanford Sentinel
The Foundation for Fresno Unified Students has expanded its suit drive initiative to ensure year-round supply of professional attire for students preparing for interviews, internships and post-secondary opportunities. Foundation for Fresno Unified
1. ‘Is there demand’ for new Tower District businesses?
Fresno’s Tower District is home to buildings that have been vacant for about a half century and city leaders have tried various incentives to fix the problem.
And while there’s been little improvement over the last year or so, City Councilmembers representing the Tower District say it’s still too soon to know whether the new approaches will work, Fresnoland’s Julianna Morano reports this morning.
Last year, Councilmembers Annalisa Perea and Miguel Arias launched a new one-year pilot program pushing vacant building owners to rehab their properties on tighter deadlines. Then, late last year, the council OK’d a second program, a sales tax rebate incentive for small businesses to move into vacant properties.
But whether carrots and sticks will be enough to breathe new life into dilapidated buildings remains to be seen and likely hinges less on policy and more on commercial demand.
Allan Mallach, a senior fellow with the Center for Community Progress: “The real question is, is there demand there for all of this space?”
2. Clovis Unified sued by former student who was abused on campus
A lawsuit filed last month accuses the Clovis Unified School District of negligence and failing to protect high school students from two sexual predators in the Clovis North High drama department more than 15 years ago, YourCentralValley reports.
Most of the allegations date from around 2007 to around 2010. The former student, now 32 years old and living out of the area, is suing Fresno County’s second-largest district for negligence, emotional distress, and sexual harassment, among other claims.
The suit also names as defendants two former Clovis High drama instructors — teacher Andrew Cardillo and volunteer instructor Michael Conner — and accuses them of sexual misconduct with the student and other teenage girls.
The former student claims in the suit that “by failing to conduct an adequate background check on Conner, CUSD and Clovis North allowed a culture of authority figures sexually harassing, grooming, and assaulting their students.”
3. The Fresno City Attorney’s Office has never been more powerful
Just last month, the Fresno City Council gave City Attorney Andrew Janz the greenlight to begin criminally prosecuting employers for labor law violations. The new powers come almost one year after the city began seeking civil penalties in local labor cases under the city’s Wage Protection Program.
In a recent interview with The Fresno Bee, Janz said his office currently has about 26 open wage-theft-related investigations and has filed two civil cases — one involving a corporate hotel franchise and a construction company and a second against a now-shutdown restaurant.
The city council have largely expanded the powers of the City Attorney’s Office since hiring Janz for the top attorney post in late 2022, including the addition of criminal prosecution powers involving wage and scrap metal theft, misdemeanor graffiti and vandalism cases and unhoused people.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad.
