Analysis from our Measure P reporter: The Arts Council is out. How will the city keep Measure P on track?

By Doug Hoagland

Following the implosion at the Fresno Arts Council over the alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million in Measure P tax money, officials at Fresno City Hall must decide whether to fixate or fix.

Predictably, those officials have scrambled to declare themselves “appalled” – along with other expressions of incredulity – since the embezzlement hit the news two weeks ago. It’s worth noting that some of the same officials took an arms-length approach to Measure P in its first two chaotic years.

---

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

---

Now those policy makers are confronted with two big jobs. Success or failure could determine whether Measure P fulfills its promise to invigorate the city’s diverse arts communities or hobbles forward while attempting a cultural renaissance in California’s fifth largest city.

We could get some indication of where things stand when the city’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission – created by Measure P for oversight – meets at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, at Fresno City Hall. The Commission has not convened since the alleged embezzlement became one of the hottest stories in Fresno.

Now about those important jobs.

The first one: Ensure that arts grants go out to qualified applicants in 2026-27 even though the process already is months behind schedule. The second: Find a reliable, expert-based successor to the Arts Council to administer the arts grants for the 28 remaining years of Measure P.

There’s plenty to unpack here, especially about how Measure P might thrive over the next three decades. There are people in the Fresno arts community who have ideas, vision, and contacts with national experts who could help Fresno. The question that needs asking: Is anyone at City Hall willing to listen to them?

But officials at City Hall aren’t the only ones who need to show they understand the moment we’re in. The board of directors of the Fresno Arts Council has remained largely silent aside from issuing a nothing-burger statement on Feb. 13 about preserving records and cooperating with authorities. By not saying more, the board looks “complicit,” one expert on nonprofits said.

And not to be overlooked are the voices of artists and culture bearers in Fresno’s diverse communities who are desperate to receive their approved Measure P grants for 2025-26. The alleged embezzlement apparently gobbled up that grant money. Out of 131 announced grants, 98 of the recipients have received the funds they expected, while 33 are still waiting for their money, according to the latest recap posted by the city. Many of unpaid grants are relatively small – less than $20,000 apiece – but those artists already operate on shoestring budgets. “Don’t they realize how important that money is to preserving our culture?” the leader of a Laotian youth dance group told me.

Ensuring 2026-27 grants

It’s City Hall’s show now – and it’s crunch time.

Because of the alleged embezzlement, the Fresno Arts Council will no longer oversee arts grants made possible when Fresno voters approved Measure P, a ⅜-of-a-cent increase to the city’s sales tax. It’s a 30-year initiative designed to raise millions of dollars for parks (which get 88% of the money) and arts (the remaining 12%).

Without offering details, the city has said it will initiate and administer the arts grants program for the 2026-27 fiscal year, when $6.6 million from Measure P is reportedly available. So here’s what somebody at City Hall needs to do. Put out the call for arts organizations and artists to submit grant applications. Recruit volunteers to score the applications. Decide who gets – and doesn’t get – money from Measure P.

So who will coordinate all those details now that the Arts Council is out of the picture? On Feb. 19, I texted city spokesperson Sontaya Rose Schmidt and asked which person, department or commission would now oversee Measure P in 2026-27. She had not replied by the time of publication, which was not unexpected. I’ve sent six Measure P-related texts to Schmidt since June 17, 2024 and received no replies. (She had responded to some of my questions in the past.)

Meanwhile, City Councilmember Miguel Arias provided some details about the immediate future. Speaking on a Fresnoland podcast on Feb. 17, he said:

• In March, the city will start the process (soliciting grant applications from organizations and artists, etc.) that would eventually lead to arts grants in 2026-27.

• Unspecified people from outside City Hall will score 2026-27 grant applications. The city “will simply” issue checks and monitor that the money is used as intended.

• The city will decide how to make whole the 2025-26 grant recipients who haven’t yet received their money because of the alleged embezzlement. “There isn’t $1.5 million lying around at City Hall,” Arias said, leaving as the other option: Take the $1.5 million from the $6.6 million available for 2026-27 grants.

On the podcast, Arias also said he worries that the scandal at the Fresno Arts Council will empower forces in City Hall who want “100% control of our grant making.” If that were to happen, he said, officials would create “the largest city bureaucracy in our history” plus perhaps opening the door to City Councilmembers deciding what constitutes art and culture.

---

The Munro Review has no paywall but is financially supported by readers who believe in its non-profit mission of bringing professional arts journalism to the central San Joaquin Valley. You can help by signing up for a monthly recurring paid membership or make a one-time donation of as little as $3. All memberships and donations are tax-deductible.

---

“The overwhelming presence of religious organizations that also operate nonprofits would result in the City of Fresno only funding Christmas programs,” Arias said. Although he has responded to media inquiries from The Munro Review in the past, he did not respond when I texted him questions following the podcast appearance.

I also reached out to City Council President Mike Karbassi for comment, but he had not responded by the time this article was published.

Meanwhile, if the tone of a Dulce Upfront social media post from this weekend is any indication, the Parks, Recreation and Arts Commission could face angry artists at its Feb. 23 meeting. Dulce Upfront is a creative arts space, Measure P grant recipient and prominent player in the discord over Measure P.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by DulceUpFront (@dulceupfront)

Dulce’s post said that none of its fiscally-sponsored artists were notified that the Commission will get a Measure P update at the Feb. 23.meeting. Dulce called the process “disjointed.”

A waiting game

Choummaly Keodora leads the Laotian youth dance group Nadtasin Lao Lanxang, and she hoped to use some of a $14,850 Measure P grant to buy new outfits for her students before they perform at Lao New Year events beginning in April. Her 15 students, girls and boys ages 9 to 15, also need new dancing shoes. “Some places they dance are hard rock, and their feet hurt,” Keodora said.

But her grant money hasn’t come through yet, and now she knows why: It’s apparently part of the $1.5 million that was allegedly embezzled.

Her story illustrates the human cost of the embezzlement, and it’s multiplied across dozens of 2025-26 grant recipients waiting to get money that was approved in October 2025. It also shows what’s riding on city officials now moving quickly.

Keodora’s students reflect the diversity of Fresno, a diversity that Measure P was designed to support with expanded access to the arts. Without teaching the students about their Lao heritage, it will be lost, Keodora said. “I feel it is my duty to preserve the culture.”

Asked about the alleged embezzlement, Keodora said, “I’m very sad that people are so selfish and not thoughtful because we were depending on that money.”

David Roberts is another grant recipient waiting for a Measure P grant. He was awarded $14,995. Roberts originally proposed to build five art benches and place them along the Eaton Trail near Woodward Park. He later downsized from five to two benches that will be placed in the Sculpture Garden at the Fresno Art Museum.

Roberts said he has suspicions about the alleged embezzlement. Authorities have said an Arts Council employee who no longer works there committed the alleged theft. Authorities have not released the name of that person, and no arrests had been announced at the time of this article’s publication. Internet archives show that the Fresno Arts Council’s staff list has not changed in the last year.

“I just simply do not trust that it’s one person that’s been doing this,” Roberts said. “I think they knew about it for a long time, and they were trying to hide something.” But, he added: “I have no proof of any of that.”

With authorities investigating the alleged embezzlement and some grant recipients anxiously awaiting their grant money, the Fresno Arts Council remains under intense scrutiny. That puts the spotlight on the Council’s board of directors.

Taking responsibility

The failure – at least, so far – of the board of directors to issue a substantive response seems to go against established policies for nonprofit organizations.

The California Corporations Code outlines that a board of directors has the duty of loyalty, meaning that directors step up and say, “Yes, we’re responsible,” when things go wrong, said Don Simmons. He taught in Fresno State’s Humanics Program, which educates students about board governance plus administration and leadership of community benefit organizations.

Simmons works with nonprofits through his company, Creative Potential Consulting and Training.

If the Arts Council board – with fiduciary responsibility – had put in place proper financial procedures and was monitoring accounts, it should have been aware of the embezzlement, Simmons said. “Nothing should surprise a board.”

He added: “The longer the board stays silent, the more they look complicit.”

The Art Council’s board has 13 members. The Council’s website doesn’t say how board members are selected, but I’ve been told that most are chosen by an internal nominations process.

Among the major duties of a board of a nonprofit is to select the organization’s executive director and review his or her performance, according to the National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Lilia Gonzáles Chávez is the chief executive officer of the Fresno Arts Council. She oversees a staff of six people, according to the website.

Generally speaking, boards are often known to part ways with executive directors over such issues as performance or scandal.

On Feb. 20, I emailed the four board members for whom I have email addresses: Olga Gutierrez De Nuñez, board president; Julia Copeland, Thomas Whit Ellis and Bruce Kalkowski. None responded before publication of this article.

My questions for them:

• Why has the board of directors not publicly taken responsibility for the alleged theft of $1.5 million in tax money?

• Does the Fresno Arts Council have financial controls, and if so, how were they circumvented so the former employee allegedly embezzled the money?

• Is the board of directors considering the suspension or termination of Executive Director Lilia Gonzáles Chávez?

Meanwhile, public trust erodes with the Arts Council and other local organizations working to build a better community, said Matthew Jendian, a professor at Fresno State and founding director of the university’s Humanics Program.

In the end, Jendian said, fiduciary responsibility at the Arts Council lies with the board of directors, whom Gonzáles Chávez reports to. “The Board is where the buck stops,” he said.

Solving the mess

Amy Kitchener believes that Fresno needs a cultural affairs office in City Hall with a professional arts and culture administrator to run Measure P. She said that person would work for the Mayor and City Council to develop policy and provide leadership for what Measure P grant recipients are already doing: Connecting arts and culture to vital areas of community development.

“There are people doing work around arts and health, arts and mental health, arts and youth development, arts and entrepreneurship,” said Kitchener, executive director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, which is based in Fresno and has statewide reach.

One example of Measure P building up youth immediately came to my mind: The Laotian kids of Nadtasin Lao Lanxang internalizing discipline and commitment as they learn the dances of their culture.

Kitchener has been involved in Fresno’s arts community since 1993, and, ironically, she started by working at the Fresno Arts Council. Importantly, her job now involves writing grants to national foundations, and she’s connected to a network of people with experience in public sector arts administration. Those people have education in that field and know professional standards. They could help Fresno at this critical time, Kitchener said.

“We don’t have to be embarrassed that we don’t know how to do this,” she said. “We can bring in someone with expertise who can help figure out how we can fulfill the investment in our community that Measure P promised.”

One such person is Randy Engstrom, co-founder and principal of Third Way Creative, a collaborative consulting studio focused on cultural policy. From 2012 to 2021, he served as director of the Office of Arts and Culture for the City of Seattle.

“This is not rocket science,” Engstrom said. “If a city is going to invest millions of dollars of public money, it should be someone’s job to be responsible for how that happens.”

Kitchener is talking about City Hall having vision for what could be. She doesn’t know everything, which she freely admits. And yes, she has a professional interest in Measure P working smoothly.

In the 2024-25 and 2025-26 funding cycles, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts received $420,000 from Measure P. The Alliance commissioned new music reflecting the genres of greater Mexico and staged two concerts in Fresno, one in 2024; the other in 2025. In October 2026, the Alliance – in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution – is scheduled to stage a free, multiethnic cultural festival in downtown Fresno featuring food dance, music and crafts.

Kitchener is married to Hugo Morales, executive director and co-founder of Radio Bilingüe, which was awarded $240,000 in 2025-26.

Kitchener and Morales got involved with Measure P before the initiative went before voters in 2018. Then, as the grants program evolved in 2023 and 2024, they were prescient in public statements about problematic grant guidelines that they and others said would create systemic disadvantages for artists from historically marginalized communities.

Now looking to the future, Kitchener said, she’s a realist about the obstacles to her vision.

I’ll point out one obstacle: Money is tight at City Hall, and creating a cultural affairs office with staff and a budget could be politically risky for City Councilmembers wary of critics spinning the office as “more bureaucracy.” (See Arias’ podcast comments above.)

Kitchener counters that argument with this: “How is Measure P going to succeed without a solid professional overseeing it? To do it right, the grants program needs to live in the city.”

Furthermore, she said, of the seven largest cities in California, Fresno is the only one without a cultural affairs office or division. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Oakland all have one.

And yes, the cultural offices in those cities can generate controversy because what constitutes art is subjective, as was discussed on the Fresnoland podcast with Arias.

Another obstacle: There’s deep mistrust of City Hall among emerging, grassroots arts organizations and artists. For more than a year, they charged the Fresno Arts Council with bias and lack of transparency in the administration of Measure P, and city officials did nothing.

Kitchener said she understands their suspicion. “The city has to earn back trust on Measure P, but I do think this arts and culture community is capable of coming together to listen to one another and develop a shared agenda with the knowledge that nobody’s entitled to any of the Measure P money.”

As she added: “This is the taxpayers’ money.”

---

Donald Munro contributed to this report.