Fresno

Last week we brought you a story about high schoolers in Merced asking for a mental health class, and getting one. This week, moderator Kathleen Schock digs deeper into youth and mental illness with Christina Valdez-Roup, executive director of the Fresno National Alliance on Mental Illness, and teacher Abraham Perez from Edison High School. Perez has spent the last two years teaching a mental health class as part of the school’s bio-med career technical education pathway.

Two Fresno City Councilmembers made an atypical move at a press conference today by throwing in their support for a clean water drinking fund—as long as it doesn’t involve a tax.

At Gaston Middle School in South Fresno, community members and advocates met to urge lawmakers to support the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, a pot of money the legislature is considering creating in order to provide drinking water cleanup in disadvantaged communities.

Another candidate has thrown his hat into the ring to be the City of Fresno’s mayor. Elliott Balch, Chief Operations Officer of the Central Valley Community Foundation, filed to run Wednesday. Last year Balch helped lead the campaign for Measure P, a sales tax that would have funded city parks.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer announced his run for mayor Wednesday as protestors rallied outside his press conference at the Manchester Center.

About a dozen protesters chanted “Dyer is a liar” and booed him as he spoke about combatting homelessness, bringing more high-paying jobs to Fresno, and uniting the city.  

The City of Fresno once again remains near the bottom in terms of park access, according to the latest ranking of the nation’s largest cities.

This year, the Trust for Public Land ranked Fresno 92 out of 97 cities for its parks -- that’s up two notches from last year’s score of 94, but hardly worth celebrating, says Elliott Balch with the Central Valley Community Foundation.

We’ve looked at how redlining has influenced the development of certain regions in the city of Fresno, but what about the history of a particular neighborhood? One tract of homes in the Tower District is turning 100 this year. Those homes, in the so-called “Wilson Island”, have been recognized for their architectural significance and the social influence of their early inhabitants.

Jeannine Raymond lives in the Tower District today, and just published a book about those homes called “Fresno's Wilson Island, and Rosanna Cooper Wilson, the Woman Behind It.”

On May 2, hours before the M Street Art Complex opened for ArtHop, Marina Santos gave her students stage directions. Santos is an English teacher at McLane High School. She’s been working with her senior class all year to understand one issue.

“What they're doing tonight is bringing alive the voices of the voiceless,” Santos says. “They're kind of illuminating all sides of those that are human trafficked and those who do the human trafficking.”

Andrew Janz, a prosecutor with the Fresno County District Attorney's Office, made national headlines in 2018 when he challenged Devin Nunes for his congressional seat. Last week, he announced his run for Fresno mayor.

Listen to the above interview to hear more about why he isn't challenging Nunes again and why he thinks he can be the candidate to bring change to Fresno. 

Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula’s criminal trial continued Friday in Fresno County Superior Court with opening statements and testimony from one of his children.

With her grandfather next to her, Arambula’s seven-year-old daughter answered the prosecutor’s questions before a packed courtroom. She is the alleged victim in a misdemeanor child abuse charge against Arambula.  

In most places in California, there’s a liquor store for about every 2,500 people.  But in the city of Fresno? There's one liquor store for every thousand residents. Nearly half of the liquor stores selling alcohol are in violation of city or state laws, according to a recent investigation from the city. While residents have complained about the high concentration of liquor stores for years, some council members are finally taking a stand.

There’s a garden in Chowchilla off of Road 22 that’s surrounded by miles of farmland. Only women tend to this garden. There are wildflowers, succulents, lavender, thyme, and perennials to name a few.  

Sol Mercado helped build and design it a year and a half ago.

“We had mulch in our eyes, we had dirt. It was really hot, but we still pushed through and we got it done,” the 33-year-old says. “We were all working as a team and it was really nice.”

The 35th class to participate in a yearly program to boost community leaders in Fresno is about to graduate. But before that, they must finish a group project that benefits the city. Here to tell us more about the Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Fresno program is Sara Frauenheim, a coordinator with the Saint Agnes Medical Center Foundation and the project manager and president of this year’s leadership class.

This weekend, Fresno State’s Valley Public History Initiative is debuting “Roots and Routes: Fresno’s Global Soccer History,” a project that traces the sport in the Central Valley through oral histories, photos, and other documents, with a focus on immigrants who have made soccer in Fresno what it is today. A series of talks and presentations will take place Friday afternoon at Tioga Sequoia, before the Fresno Foxes game, and Saturday morning at Fresno State’s Henry Madden Library.

One popular stop in Fresno’s Chinatown is Kogetsu-Do, a Japanese shop with a long history over on F Street.

Lynn Ikeda-Yada owns the shop, whose name means "lake moon," and she’s the third generation to do so. Her grandparents migrated to Chinatown from Hiroshima, Japan.

There’s even a blown-up photo on the wall of her grandparents and uncle in the same space Ikeda-Yada’s shop occupies today.

“My grandparents started it in 1915,” says Ikeda-Yada. “That picture was taken in 1920 and they had two sons: Roy, who’s the little boy there, and my dad, Mas.”

When it comes to fulfilling the needs of a neighborhood, the neighborhood grocery store fills a big role. In Fresno’s Chinatown, that store has been Central Fish. It’s been in the community since 1950, carrying the usual kitchen staples one might expect. But the place also has some unexpected treasures.

Listen above for an audio postcard about this grocery store that has outlasted a few of its Chinatown neighbors.

On this week’s Valley Edition: We take you to Fresno’s Chinatown where we meet the new owners of a century old Buddhist temple.

Plus, high-speed rail construction has closed off three roads leading into this historic neighborhood. Local business owners tell us what that means for them, today and into the coming decades.

And what does $70 million in cap and trade funding mean for Chinatown? We also tell you about Japanese pastries, shrimp and grits, sukiyaki and a longing for chile rellenos.

Aaron Foster stands outside Wayne's Liquor store on East California Avenue. There’s a park across the street buzzing with people, a taqueria around the corner, and a library a few blocks away.

“This is the heart of Southwest Fresno,” he says. “There’s rival gang members that come by but they know this is a safe zone.”

Fresno Mayor Lee Brand has pulled a proposed spending plan that would have funded road repairs in the city, after criticism that it would have perpetuated inequality.

Brand’s plan would have distributed $12 million from the SB1 gas tax roughly equally among the city’s seven council districts, but the plan didn't sit well with most of the councilmembers who say they want equity first.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s remarks on California’s embattled high-speed rail project in his State of the State address Tuesday seemed to confuse just about everyone. Supporters and opponents alike questioned whether he’s scaling back the project, or even abandoning it. Turns out … he really isn’t changing all that much. Capital Public Radio’s Ben Adler explains.

These words made heads spin across the nation:

A man from El Salvador, who’s married to a U.S. citizen, was supposed to have an important immigration hearing in early January. He was set to get his green card. He and his wife were thrilled.

“And it didn’t happen because the government shut down or at least partially shut down,” says Camille Cook, the man's Fresno-based immigration attorney.

The government has been partially shut down since December 22. Immigration courts have been closed and thousands of cases have been cancelled.