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The alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million in Measure P arts funding has left Fresno artists and organizations in limbo, with some still waiting for promised grant payments. Photo illustration by Cecilia Lopez<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tpublished on February 13, 2026 – 1:20 PM The Fresno Arts Council gave its first public statement Friday, days after the revelation that a former program coordinator is under FBI investigation<\/a>, accused of embezzling $1.5 million in Measure P taxpayer dollars prior to leaving the organization.<\/p>\n \u201cUpon being informed of the allegations, the Board acted immediately to secure organizational records and initiate appropriate next steps,\u201d according to the statement from the Fresno Arts Council. \u201cWe are fully cooperating with the City of Fresno and law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n It was back on Sept. 30, 2025 that the Fresno Arts Council failed to meet its deadline to submit financial reports on the second round of grant funding for local arts groups. In January, city officials received a batch of documents described as a \u201cdata dump,\u201d which officials reported was missing key information.<\/p>\n The Fresno Arts Council statement went on to add that its mission \u2014 to \u201cenrich our community\u2019s way of life through the arts\u201d \u2014 continues to be the nonprofit\u2019s \u201cguiding principle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause this is an active investigation, we are unable to provide further comment at this time,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cWe will provide additional information as appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n The Fresno Arts Council, established as the nonprofit \u201cAlliance for the Arts\u201d in 1979, provides support for a number of cultural arts organizations, as well as individual artists and creators. It was the driving force behind ArtHop<\/a>, a monthly free showcase and vendor fair for local artists and vendors to promote their craft.<\/p>\n \t\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The alleged embezzlement of $1.5 million in Measure P arts funding has left Fresno artists and organizations in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-177174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Written by Ben Hensley<\/a><\/p>\n