Good morning! It’s Monday, Feb. 9. This is Rob.
Another dense fog advisory this morning for parts of Fresno County, followed by cloudy skies and daytime highs in the 50s. NOAA
The Fresno Chaffee Zoo wrapped up IllumiNATURE over the weekend, celebrating its final night with a special Lunar New Year bash. KMPH
The Cedar Tree Village Shopping Center at Herndon and Cedar is up for sale, with a listed price of more than $20 million. The Business Journal
1. Ex-Arts Council worker at the center of embezzlement probe
The local arts community is reeling following a major Fresnoland scoop over the weekend, revealing a $1.5 million embezzlement investigation at the Fresno Arts Council.
Citing three high-ranking City Hall sources, Fresnoland Investigative Reporter Omar S. Rashad reported that city administrators have already cut ties with the council and it wasn’t immediately clear how remaining funding allocations for local groups could or would be made available.
Fresno police and the FBI investigators are reportedly focusing on a now-former Arts Council employee, but no arrests had been made as of Saturday.
In a brief statement late Friday, Fresno Arts Council Executive Director Lillia Chavez said the Council was “the victim of unauthorized financial transactions resulting in the loss of agency funds,” which she went on to describe as a “personnel issue that is currently under investigation.”
The Arts Council took over distribution of city Measure P dollars in 2023, launching a process that triggered confusion, controversy and community clashes.
2. Fresno’s anti-ICE protest movement
For Fresno-area artists like Jose Soria, creativity is protest.
Protest against violence targeting immigrants — and citizens — at the hands of President Trump’s masked immigration police. Protest against ICE raids, and family separations, secret police and the fear, grief and pain felt by millions.
He and many other local creatives recently sat down with Fresnoland’s Gisselle Medina to discuss the role of art and artists in this politically-fraught climate where the federal government aggressively blurs the lines between law enforcement and political retribution.
“Artists are coming together at a time where people across the country, including in Fresno, are protesting rising Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity,” Gisselle writes, “and the unlawful, violent arrests and killings of U.S. citizens, many artists are channeling their feelings into their work as a powerful form of protest.”
Soria says his family once supported Trump, hoping he could deliver on his promise to jumpstart a sluggish economy after consecutive Democratic Administrations. Now, he says, he focuses his creative intensity on exposing and exploring the racist federal immigration crackdown that has gone far beyond expelling only the “worst of the worst.”
Soria: “There’s no way my work is not political. I talk about these things through art because they need to be talked about.”
3. The deal was basically done before the rally
Members of the Service Employees International Union Local 2015 held a small rally to spur contract talks with a local health employer — but the deal was apparently already done or mostly done, Julianna Morano reported for Fresnoland on Friday.
Last week’s demonstration followed others in Southern California as SEIU looks to finalize its first-ever “multiemployer contract” covering about 140 facilities in the state.
Councilmembers Annalisa Perea and Mike Karbassi attended the rally, as did Supervisor Luis Chavez. SEIU Local 2015 endorsed Chavez in his successful bid to oust incumbent Sal Quintero in the 2024 elections.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Fresnoland’s Omar S. Rashad.
