2025 Measure P grants approved – finally

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Cerda-Madrigal also told the Commission: “The whole thing is tainted, and if you’re not smelling it, there’s a problem with you.”

Later at the Oct. 13 meeting, Pracy of the Art Museum addressed the Commissioners and urged them to award the 2025 grants. “So many times in these meetings, I’ve heard the Fresno Art Museum accused of being elitist, of being wealthy, of not being for everybody.” She said each criticism is untrue, noting: “We’re art martyrs. We’re not sitting up there spending money willy-nilly because we have it. I have to find [money] every day to pay each bill and pay my staff.” Putting a fine point on her statement, Ellis said about the necessity of fundraising: “This is the hardest job I’ve ever done. There is not money for the arts in this town.”

As controversy built in 2025, critics often pointed to Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council, for allegedly injecting her opinions – and biases – into the scoring of grant applications. But Maggie Courtis, one of the community volunteers who scored grant applications in 2024 and 2025, said Gonzáles Chávez never offered opinions and only answered direct questions from scorers. 

After the Oct. 13 meeting, Gonzáles Chávez struck a conciliatory note about 2025’s rocky process. She told The Munro Review that serving on the California Arts Council and participating in its funding deliberations prepared her for “some challenges in our local process” and that Measure P’s competitive grants process “inherently causes some issues.”

“The arts and culture community is also ever evolving so we should expect to evolve our process with it and adjust to needed changes,” Gonzáles Chávez said. She expressed hope for “professional and respectful exchanges” as the Arts Council schedules listening and community input sessions to seek recommendations on how to address concerns raised in the just-concluded grants process.

Fresno is lucky to have Measure P, she added, “and we owe it to ourselves to be good stewards of these funds and keep working together.”

Some speakers at the Oct. 13 meeting – like Reijnders – emphasized points they’d made at previous meetings. “I want Measure P to survive,” Reijnders told Commissioners in urging them not to award the grants on Oct. 13. “I don’t want it all to be sued away. I don’t want the city to be sued. It’s my city. You cannot approve the [grant application] scores as is without addressing the extreme harm that was done in the process.”

At the other extreme of statements made to the Commission on Oct. 13, Parvin Malek said she spoke from the heart in asking for the release of Measure P money. Malek is connected to an art project that will now receive $33,877. The project is entitled: “From Fire to Flowers: Iranian Culture and Art for Community Connection.” 

“These grants are not just numbers on a budget. They are opportunities. They give life to programs that connect people, inspire creativity and celebrate the diversity that makes Fresno so unique,” Malek said. “They provide spaces where children discover their talent, where elders share their stories and where families come together to learn and feel proud of their heritage. When you approve this funding, you are investing in more than art. You are investing in hope, in understanding and in the future of a stronger and more united Fresno.”

In other noteworthy comments:

Commissioner Laura Ward, who serves as vice chair of the nine-member commission and also leads the Commission’s Cultural Arts Subcommittee, said some public comments at recent meetings have included “misinformation and personal attacks that grow wilder each week and make me think I am not the only one in these Council Chambers with a creative writing degree.” Ward spoke of “twisted words” and attacks on the integrity and character of Commissioners and staff of the Fresno Arts Council.

“We are your neighbors and members of a shared community,” she said, adding: “Let us return to a place where we can engage in difficult discussions with respect and find a way to listen to each other even when we disagree.”

In past meetings, critics have brought up that Ward previously served on the board of the Fresno Arts Council, that Ward’s law firm donated money to the Fresno Arts Council and that some 2025 recipients of Measure P grants are sponsoring the Arts Council’s Horizon Awards event scheduled for Oct. 19. “Those things are not untrue,” Ward told The Munro Review. But she added, “They are being presented incorrectly as if they pose a conflict of interest, where there is none.” Ward said the charges around donor history and prior volunteer board service reflect “a fundamental misunderstanding” of what constitutes conflict of interest.

Hugo Morales, co-executive director and founder of Radio Bilingüe, the national Latino public radio network, asked the Commission to shift Measure P money to benefit emerging grant applicants seeking support for projects. That category had the most applications – 114 out of a total of 195 – and 54% of them were funded. In three other grant categories, the percentage of applications receiving funding ranged from 86% to 96%, Morales said. (Radio Bilingüe will receive $240,000 from Measure P in one of those other three categories.)

The emerging applicants with projects “did not have the same odds of success, which is unfair, especially considering these are relatively small groups, many using fiscal sponsors and are already on an uneven playing field in terms of staff capacity for writing proposals.”

Officials said there is no additional Measure P money available in 2025. To do what Morales proposed, the Commission would have had to take away money from other grant recipients.

(Full disclosure: The Munro Review would have benefitted from what Morales suggested. After receiving $26,200 from Measure P in 2024 for projects that included continued expanded coverage of Measure P, The Munro Review applied in 2025, but did not receive any funding.)

After listening to public comments for nearly two hours, the Commissioners acted quickly. They could have discussed what they heard but did not. Instead, Commission Chair Kimberly McCoy quickly asked for separate votes on the four Measure P grant categories, and the process went quickly. All votes were unanimous except for a recusal and an abstention in one grant category. Conflict of interest was cited in both cases.

Fresno voters approved Measure P in 2018. It is a 30-year, ⅜ of a cent increase to the city’s sales tax to benefit parks and arts. Parks received 88% of the millions of dollars that the initiative generates, and arts received the other 12%.

Image at top: Andrea Mele and Lilia Gonzáles Chávez at the PRAC meeting.

An earlier version of this article reported that all votes were unanimous.