The Fresno City Council will hold a special meeting on Thursday to rename Cesar Chavez Blvd in light of the New York Times reporting that Chavez sexually assaulted girls and raped fellow United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city council is already scheduled to hold a meeting at 9 a.m. The special meeting is scheduled to start at 3 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: The New York Times reported Wednesday that Chavez molested and raped girls throughout the 1970s, with two victims going on the record to share their stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Huerta also revealed that she had two sexual encounters with Chavez. She felt pressured to have sex with him in the first one, and in the second encounter, Huerta said Chavez drove her to a remote grape field and raped her in the vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Huerta became pregnant from both encounters and gave the children to families who could care for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flashback: Three years ago, the Fresno City Council voted 6-1 to rename a 10-mile stretch of city streets encompassing Kings Canyon Rd, Ventura Ave. and W. California Ave. to Cesar Chavez Blvd. Former Councilman and current Fresno County Supervisor Garry Bredefeld cast the lone vote in opposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city council originally looked into honoring Chavez by renaming the roads in 1993, but former Mayor Jim Patterson vetoed the proposal after significant public backlash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: Fresno City Councilman Miguel Arias first announced on Wednesday during an impromptu press conference that he planned to bring forward a proposal to reverse the 2023 renaming after reading Huerta\u2019s testimony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later Wednesday, Councilmembers Nelson Esparza, Annalisa Perea and Mike Karbassi announced that they will introduce a proposal on Thursday to restore the original names on Cesar Chavez Blvd.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the council allocated $1 million in 2023 to rename the streets, Arias said the actual cost was far less and he expects the renaming costs to be minimal since the city kept all of the former street signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they\u2019re saying: \u201cDolores Huerta\u2019s statement is far more than sufficient for us to understand the pain that Chavez caused, and that type of character should not be on our city streets,\u201d Arias said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perea called Huerta\u2019s statements deeply serious, saying they deserve to be met with honesty, accountability and respect for survivors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the only woman on this City Council, I believe we have a responsibility to stand firmly with victims \u2013 especially women whose voices have too often been overlooked or dismissed,\u201d Chavez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Esparza called the allegations deeply disheartening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reported actions toward women and girls are not only troubling, they are egregious and demand accountability,\u201d Esparza said. \u201cI stand firmly with the survivors who have come forward with courage to share their experiences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Karbassi added, \u201cDolores Huerta has displayed an incredible amount of courage throughout her ordeal. Even though she was victimized repeatedly, she kept her secret for decades out of fear that it would damage the farm worker movement. She put others first. Out of respect for her, I feel it\u2019s appropriate that we take swift action to restore the Kings Canyon, Ventura, and California Avenue signage. That way, she can continue healing in peace.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fresno City Council will hold a special meeting on Thursday to rename Cesar Chavez Blvd in light…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-226694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226694","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=226694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}