What’s at stake?
At a community gathering inside a Tower District venue, more than 50 community members heard firsthand two high-ranking city officials share what they know — and don’t know — about at least $1.5 million in Fresno Arts Council funds that were reported embezzled to law enforcement.
Two top city officials made a surprise appearance at a community meeting on Monday, called in the wake of at least $1.5 million reported embezzled at the Fresno Arts Council — which administers public Measure P grants to local arts organizations.
The community gathering went from bringing together aggrieved local artists and arts organizations in a moment of strife to also giving them a rare, direct opportunity to openly ask two high-ranking city officials about the scandal over public arts grants unfolding in real time.
Fresno City Manager Georgeanne White and Councilmember Miguel Arias emphasized they weren’t invited to speak at the event — held at Dulce Upfront’s new location on Van Ness Avenue in the Tower District. They ended up fielding questions from more than 50 community members, the majority of whom were Measure P grant recipients, for more than 90 minutes Monday evening.
The law enforcement investigation, first reported by Fresnoland, launched Friday after learning that at least $1.5 million in public money had been stolen, allegedly by a now-former employee whose identity authorities have not confirmed. No arrests had been reported as of Monday, with police telling Fresnoland the investigation is only just getting underway.
White appeared to dispel community concerns that city officials would take over the entire process of deciding which local arts organizations deserve Measure P funding — now that the Fresno Arts Council was being investigated by both the Fresno Police Department and the FBI.
“We (city leaders) are not the people to determine artistic merit of anything — that’s not what we do,” White said. “We don’t have the expertise — nor is the (Fresno City) Council, and so I would never be the judge of scoring grant applications for art-type things.”
However, White, in a phone interview with Fresnoland after the community event, clarified she does see some cases of city officials being involved in deciding who receives Measure P grants.
At the Monday meeting, White also shared a few key details about the Fresno Arts Council, despite an ongoing law enforcement investigation.
The at least $1.5 million being investigated by law enforcement were public funds in possession of the Fresno Arts Council, White confirmed at the community meeting. She also noted that the Arts Council blew through deadlines for mandated reports to the city, along with providing insufficient information when it did finally turn in reports to the city.
The leaders of local arts organizations asked both White and Arias questions ranging from whether original grant cycle deadlines will still be enforced to how some Measure P recipients would get fingerprinted per specific grant requirements.
Some remained skeptical whether the process would improve in the hands of the city.
“I think the community’s justified in asking about things like transparency,” said Alicia Rodriguez, co-founder of Labyrinth Art Collective, “and being unsure that the city stewarding it is the right move.”
Omé Lopez of Dulce Upfront, who organized the swiftly planned community gathering at her Tower District venue, told Fresnoland that she was proud to create a space for community members to directly ask city leaders questions.
“I think it just speaks to the continued demand for transparency and accountability and equity to arts and cultural programming,” Lopez told Fresnoland. “There’s a movement of artists that really feel a sense of connection with each other.”
Lopez said the local arts community isn’t going away, especially considering how Measure P will accumulate local tax revenue for parks, arts and culture in Fresno over its three-decade lifespan.
“I feel proud of all of the folks that continue, the artists and culture bearers that continue to get involved,” Lopez told Fresnoland. “We’re gonna have more — momentum is going to continue to build because we’re talking about 28 more years of this ordinance.”
Omé Lopez of Dulce Upfront invited the crowd of over 50 artists and community members to ask questions of two top city officials who made a surprise visit to Dulce’s community meeting in the wake of news that an ex-Fresno Arts Council employee embezzled at least $1.5 million in Measure P grant funds. Julianna Morano | Fresnoland
Arts Council sent city ‘a data dump’ months after reporting deadline
On top of White confirming it was her understanding that the $1.5 million in question were public funds, White shared details of the Fresno Arts Council’s inadequate financial reporting submitted to the city as of just two months ago.
Specifically, White said the Arts Council blew past a mandated Sept. 30 deadline to file a report about the first round of Measure P grant distribution. The Arts Council ended up finally filing the report to city officials in the beginning of December, White told community members at the Monday night meeting.
“What we got,” White said, “my staff referred to as a data dump.”
“My staff was like, this is ridiculous.”
White said she told her staff to sort through the data themselves, thinking it would be quicker than asking the Arts Council to resubmit — a process which took about a month. After that, White said her staff concluded there was still information missing from what the Arts Council had shared.
“There’s a whole bank account that we got no bank statements for,” she said. “We got lists of payments, check numbers, but not who they were made out to.”
White said her staff sent two letters subsequently to the Arts Council, demanding they share the missing information before the city would release any additional Measure P funding to them.
Some community members balked at the fact that a red flag like this had gone up for the city around the same time that they were raising transparency concerns about the Arts Council.
“It’s frustrating to hear that they knew there was an issue,” said Ashley Mireles-Guerrero, the recipient of a Measure P award fiscally sponsored by Dulce Upfront. “And now we’re hearing about it much later.”
“There’s a new layer of distrust there that wasn’t there before,” she added, “and a lot of confusion.”
Did the $1.5 million come from the second round of Measure P grants?
Although she mixed up exact figures at the Monday community meeting, White clarified to Fresnoland in a phone call afterwards that the Fresno Arts Council distributed all first round Measure P grants in 2024.
However, based on information from the Fresno Arts Council, White said not all second round Measure P grants were fully distributed by the nonprofit in 2025.
White said that according to information from the Fresno Arts Council — which she noted has not been independently confirmed by city officials — about $1.5 million of the second round of Measure P grant money were never disbursed to arts organizations by the Council, although they’d been allocated.
“It’s my understanding what is owed (to Measure P grant recipients) for cycle two is $1.5 million,” White told Fresnoland. She emphasized that the figure has not been independently verified by city investigators.
Moving forward, White told Fresnoland that city leaders will have to figure out how to address the recipients of the second round of Measure P grants who still haven’t received funds. Due to $1.5 million in “unauthorized financial transactions” — as the Arts Council put it in a statement late last week — it’s unclear whether organizations will be made whole.
That’s a detail both White and Arias spoke to at the community meeting Monday evening.
“My first priority is putting a process in place where we can distribute the money that was already promised and committed to,” Arias said at the community meeting. “Second priority is to do it transparently, where nobody can question how we got to that place.
“And third, to be very direct and honest, it might require a haircut from everyone, because we don’t have money sitting in the coffers to make up for the lost revenue until we hopefully get it back from them,” Arias said.
After the Monday meeting, White clarified to Fresnoland that she does see some cases of city officials being involved in deciding who receives Measure P grants moving forward. One example, in her mind, is if the city is seeking to use Measure P grants for a mural on a city building.
When asked by Fresnoland if she had any other scenarios in mind, she said she’d have to think about it more and said the specifics may even be determined by the council.
“I haven’t had time to really contemplate that,” White said. “It’s just all new.”
White noted that deciding who gets Measure P grants is different from administering the grants — in essence doling out funds that have already been allocated. At the beginning of the Monday meeting, she said the city council would have to convince her that shouldn’t take place moving forward.
White also told all in attendance Monday night that a dedicated phone number and email address will be shared Tuesday, which community members can contact to share documentation of their grant awards, and communicate about funds owed to them.
She added that she thinks the city can be flexible on deadlines from the original grant cycle given the latest Measure P chaos.
“We’re asking for grace from you,” she said. “I think that we’re going to have to be able to give grace.”
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