Valley Edition

This week on Valley Edition, Juanita Stevenson reports on plans by the city of Fresno to privatize residential solid waste. We also talk with Dan Stone of National Geographic who recently wrote about the city's recycling efforts, and find out why Fresno is one of the nation's leaders in this area. 

This week on Valley Edition we talk about plans by a local Native American tribe to open a casino on land north of Madera along Highway 99. The effort took a big step forward in recent days as the Bureau of Indian Affairs agreed to put the land for the new casino in trust for the tribe.

This week on Valley Edition we look at the future of politics in California, in the wake of a November election that saw Democrats gain a two-thirds majority in the Legislature, and Republican voter registration drop below 30 percent. FM89's Joe Moore brings us the second report a two-part series on the impact of California's new "top-two" election system. This week we learn how the new reforms may force some of the state's smaller political parties off the ballot entirely. 

This week on Valley Edition, we learn about how the state's new electoral reforms worked in real life following this month's election. Did the "top two" primary make the general election candidates more moderate and contests more competitive? Or did little actually change? Valley Public Radio's Joe Moore brings us a special report. 

This week on Valley Edition, we continue our series of special reports on the fungal disease known as valley fever. Journalist Rebecca Plevin from the Reporting on Health Collaborative brings us the story of a young girl from Delano who contracted the disease last year, changing her life forever. Host Juanita Stevenson also talks with Yesenia Amaro, a health reporter for the Merced Sun-Star and member of the collaborative,  about the effort to bring more attention to this disease, and Dr. Dee Lacy, an infectious disease specialist with Kaiser Permanente Fresno. 

This week on Valley Edition, we talk about how today's election may change not only the nation and California, but might also have a big impact on the political fortunes of California Governor Jerry Brown. Will Brown become a "lame duck" if Proposition 30 fails? We talk with Fresno State Political Science Professor Thomas Holyoke. 

On this Valley Edition, we hear Governor Jerry Brown talk about his ballot measure Proposition 30 in an interview with Ben Adler. We also examine Propositions 36, 37 and 38 with a series of special reports, and talk with retired Justice James Ardaiz and get his thoughts on efforts to make changes to California's "Three Strikes" law and to abolish the death penalty. 

Arvin "Bucket Brigade"
The small Kern County community of Arvin has some of the worst air in the nation, thanks to geography and numerous pollution sources. But now some citizens are taking matters into their own hands, with a "bucket brigade" that aims to clean up the air by monitoring pollution themselves. On Sunday they gathered outside a local composting plant to protest what they call a major community polluter.  But their “do it yourself” efforts at monitoring pollution are not without controversy. Valley Public Radio's Joe Moore has this report:

Segment 1: Police & Sheriff Consolidation in Fresno
Should the Fresno Police Department and Fresno County Sheriff's Department consider consolidating or merging their operations? That's the question a new study commissioned by the Fresno City Council seeks to answer.