Good morning! It’s Friday, April 3. This is Rob.
Clear! Sunny skies and highs in the 70s today. NOAA
Happy Easter! Fresno parks gear up for Easter weekend. ABC30
The circus comes to town! The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus are coming back to Fresno this summer for the first time in a decade. KMPH
Fresnoland is hiring: That’s right, we’re hiring for our first-ever Senior Revenue Officer to help lead and execute our fundraising strategy with local donors and sponsors. Share with your fundraising friends! Fresnoland
Baseball and beer! Kick off the Grizzlies season at the Beer Garden at 5:30 p.m. April 7, with live music from The Stereo Hopeful. Grab a beer and a game voucher for $15, at the Beer Garden, and stick around for fireworks after the game. Tioga Beer Garden
1. Fresno County’s two-card election ballot
Fresno County voters will see a major change in how ballots look and function in June, as officials prepare for potential confusion and navigate broader uncertainty around national voting policies, Fresnoland’s Gisselle Medina reports.
The shift is driven largely by the length of the ballot, particularly a crowded gubernatorial race with 61 candidates. Combined with dozens more candidates running for statewide offices, the county can no longer fit all contests onto a single sheet.
When someone votes, two cards will be given and properly labeled. Each card contains different races or measures. Both cards must be completed and returned for their vote to count. The vote is only complete if both cards are returned.
Fresno County officials are preparing for possible voter confusion as the June election approaches, while also navigating broader uncertainty over federal voting rules, including proposals like the SAVE America Act and a recent executive order on mail-in ballots.
Fresno County Clerk James Kus: “Fresno County has not had a two-card ballot to the best of my own knowledge, ever. And it’s been my belief, and fairly well supported by the voters of Fresno County, that having a single card front and back, however full or busy it was, was convenient. So there’s going to be a lot of voter education we have to get out there and it can be a bit scary to see.”
2. City worker insurance standoff
Thousands of Fresno city workers remain in limbo for a second month now over health benefits and access to Community Health systems, YourCentralValley reports.
The stalemate dispute between Community and Blue Shield of California has triggered finger-pointing with the insurance giant claiming the Fresno hospital is “demanding unreasonable rate increases.”
But the hospital fired back, saying “Blue Shield’s recent statement is misleading and does not reflect the facts.”
Meanwhile, the dispute, which began Feb. 1, has left thousands of City Hall employees in the lurch, paying up to double for visits to Community, which at least one city councilmember called “unacceptable.”
Mike Karbassi: “Both sides can’t come to an agreement. They need to get in a room, grow the hell up, make a deal, and move on.”
3. The Fresno native who helped expose Cesar Chavez
On today’s episode of the Central Valley Daily podcast, KVPR sits down with Manny Fernandez, a Fresno native and co-author of the bombshell New York Times report that finally exposed Chavez as a rapist and sexual abuser of underage girls after decades of secrecy and silence.
Like the rest of the nation, Fresno has moved quickly in the aftermath of the report to strip Chavez’s name from parks, streets, holidays and schools.
In Fresno, that has included removing Chavez’s statue from the Fresno State campus, stripping his name from one of the city’s major streets, among other changes.
It’s the latest in a string of swift changes that has come with the reckoning for Chavez, the now disgraced labor icon who sexually abused and raped multiple survivors, including underage children and a coleader of the farmworker movement, Dolores Huerta.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad.
