Analysis: As Measure P scandal unfolds, Fresno’s arts community has lots of unanswered questions (updated)

By Doug Hoagland

UPDATE 4 p.m. Feb. 9: In an interview, Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias said it’s his understanding that the Fresno Arts Council asked for its contract with the city to administer Measure P be terminated. The Arts Council will bring in a forensic accountant to examine its books, Arias said. Meanwhile, the Arts Council wants the city to move forward with the grants program as the Arts Council tries to “dig itself out” of the fallout from the alleged embezzlement, Arias said.

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ORIGINAL POST (11:30 a.m. Feb. 9)

After two years of infighting and controversy, the Measure P arts grants program designed to usher in a vibrant cultural era in Fresno now confronts a major crisis. The reason: News broke early on Saturday, Feb. 7, about the alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million at the Fresno Arts Council, which has administered the Measure P program for the City of Fresno.

City Hall is terminating its contract with the Arts Council, according to Fresnoland, which first reported the scandal. In an email newsletter sent to subscribers on Monday, Feb. 9, Fresnoland reported that no arrests had been made as of Saturday.

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The saga of Measure P: See past coverage in The Munro Review’s comprehensive archive

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As a result, Measure P’s mission of expanding cultural access to Fresno’s diverse communities faces, at the very least, a setback of months, if not a year or more. In the meantime, larger, established arts organizations, as well as smaller, grassroots organizations, could suffer devastating delays in receiving Measure P’s millions for ongoing operations and specific projects.

To further complicate matters, some successful grant applicants in 2025 have still not yet received their Measure P grants, and the total owed could be $1 million, creating questions about whether the money will ever be distributed.

Fresnoland reported that the Fresno Police Department and FBI are investigating the alleged embezzlement by a former employee of the Arts Council.

Reaction in Fresno’s arts community was swift.

Stephen Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Fresno Philharmonic, which was awarded $240,000 in 2025, said he was “shocked and surprised.”

Johannus Reijnders, an unsuccessful applicant in 2025 who publicly criticized the grants process, said he was sympathetic but not surprised. “There’s a lack of transparency, and I hate to say it, a lack of care, and this [alleged embezzlement] is emblematic of the complaints that I have.”

A spokesperson for the City of Fresno did not immediately respond to questions from The Munro Review.

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The saga of Measure P now advances on two tracks: the new criminal investigation of the alleged embezzlement; and the ongoing bureaucratic process of awarding grants in 2026.

On the criminal front, the biggest questions are:

• Who is the former Arts Council employee under investigation?

• How was the alleged embezzlement uncovered and how long had it been going on?

• Was the $1.5 million taken from Measure P funds? That’s unclear, Fresnoland reported.

On the bureaucratic front, the biggest questions are:

• When and how will the already-behind schedule 2026 grants proceed? With most arts organizations operating on a July 1-June 30 fiscal year, the goal is to award Measure P money by late spring. But the Fresno City Council has yet to consider grant guidelines for 2026, after which a 60-day application window would open, if past practice is followed.

• With the City of Fresno basically firing the Fresno Arts Council, will City Hall seek interest from other nonprofit organizations in running the grants program?

• Will City Hall put the city parks department in charge of the program? An outside consultant first suggested that three years ago as Measure P – a 30-year, ⅜-cent increase to the sales tax approved by Fresno voters in 2018 – was getting off the ground.

Alleged embezzlement

If the missing $1.5 million is Measure P money, here is a possible explanation of how to account for it. A person with knowledge of the grants program – who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the criminal investigation – told The Munro Review that “somewhere under $1 million” of Measure P funds remains to be sent to a number of successful 2025 grant applicants.

Here’s the math. In 2025, $6.3 million was available for grants. If the amount remaining to be distributed is anywhere close to $1 million the source estimates, then $5 million has already gone out.

But there’s a catch. The Fresno Arts Council holds back 10% of each grant. That’s so grant recipients will file necessary paperwork on time; if they do, they get the 10% at the end of the grant period.

So, 10% of the $5 million already distributed would equal $500,000, which added to the previous $1 million, could account for the alleged $1.5 million embezzlement.

At this time, there’s no way to confirm this theory. But it is a fact that not all successful applicants have received their 2025 money. That was revealed at the Jan. 26 meeting, the city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, which oversees Measure P.

Commissioners learned that Measure P grants had gone out to 92 successful grant applicants, while 39 others were still waiting to receive their money as they worked through insurance or city right-of-way issues.

If the $1.5 million did not come from Measure P, then what other large sums of money does the Fresno Arts Council handle? The Arts Council’s website lists one grant program in addition to Measure P. That other program is the Rural Arts Access Fund, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Each Rural Arts grant was a maximum of $5,000, and nine successful applications received money in 2025, according to the website. At the maximum, that would add up to $45,000 – far short of the $1.5 million.

A blow to the Arts Council

No matter the source of the $1.5 million, the Fresno Arts Council has suffered damage to its reputation. The Arts Council and Executive Director Lilia Gonzáles Chávez are mainstays in the city’s cultural community. The Arts Council supports local artists with financial support and services, and it has ties to the prestigious California Arts Council, where Gonzáles Chávez previously served as chair.

In 2024, the California State University system recognized Gonzáles Chávez’s contributions to the arts by awarding her an honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts. That same year – the first for Measure P arts grants – she oversaw the awarding of $8.7 million.

When contacted by The Munro Review on Feb. 8, Gonzáles Chávez said: “I am sorry but because this is a personnel issue I cannot affirm or deny anything related to this situation.”

But on Feb. 6, she emailed a statement to local media stating the Arts Council “has been the victim of unauthorized financial transactions resulting in the loss of agency funds.” She added that the Arts Council reported the embezzlement to authorities.

Efforts by The Munro Review to reach two board members of the Fresno Arts Council were unsuccessful over the weekend. The non-profit Fresno Arts Council is the state-local partner to the California Arts Council, designated by the county board of supervisors to serve the county’s residents.

During the 2025 grants process, some critics accused Gonzáles Chávez of showing bias for and against some grant applications, while other people defended her, saying she provided important background information to community volunteers scoring applications. In addition, critics charged lack of transparency in the grants process by the Arts Council and the Cultural Arts Subcommittee of the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission.

Those critics seemed to have scored a victory when the Commission discussed at its Jan. 26 meeting the details of the Subcommittee opening its sessions to the public during the 2026 grants process.

Kimberly McCoy, chair of the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission, did not respond to questions from The Munro Review prior to publication of this article.

Will the city reclaim Measure P money?

As members of the arts community digested news of the alleged embezzlement, some wondered about a detail in the Fresnoland article. It read: “ . . . the [Arts] Council is expected to return all Measure P funds to the City of Fresno, as well as all records and documents . . .”

That prompted additional questions:

• Will the city try to reclaim the $5 million already distributed? That seems unlikely; would it even be legal?

• Will the city hold back the $1 million that’s still to be distributed?

• Will the city hold back the 10% that successful applicants can claim if they complete their paperwork on time?

Or, and this seems the most likely possibility, does City Hall want back the money it has paid the Arts Council to administer the grants program? For 2025, that amount might be about $126,000, a figure based on the Arts Council receiving 2% of available Measure P money for administration. The $126,000 figure could not be confirmed by the time of publication.

Answers to those questions matter a lot to the 134 arts organizations and projects that were awarded Measure P grants in 2025 – many of them emerging, grassroots arts organizations that need the grant money to expand access to the arts. For example, there’s Root Access Hackerspace, a physical workspace near Fresno City College with a wide variety of tools and equipment, such as 3D printers, sewing machines, a laser cutter, electronic tools and more.

Root Access was awarded a $12,682 operating grant and is still waiting to receive $5,700 – the 10% of the $12,682 grant being held back for now plus 10% each from two grants that other applicants received with Root Access acting as their fiscal sponsor. Root Access receives that 10% to cover its administrative expenses as the fiscal sponsor.

“It’s a big hit to our roof repair if it doesn’t come through,” said Derek Payton, founder and executive director.

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