\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n
West Fresno community members and advocates called on the Fresno Unified board to remove a mural of Cesar Chavez from Edison High School as quickly as possible. Allegations of sexual assault have recently come out against Chavez, including from labor leader Dolores Huerta.<\/p>\n
Community members urged Fresno Unified\u2019s board at Wednesday\u2019s meeting to remove a mural of Cesar Chavez from Edison High School.<\/p>\n
A resolution<\/a> to assess all mentions and likenesses of the disgraced union leader and allow community feedback on what to do with any artworks of Chavez passed in the same meeting.<\/p>\n However, community members noted that other tributes in Fresno were removed swiftly after allegations of sexual assault against Chavez came to light.<\/p>\n \u201cNevertheless, after three weeks of hearing the breaking news about Chavez and his sexual abuse, the mural remains on the high school wall,\u201d said Debbie Darden, president of the Fresno chapter<\/a> for the Black American Political Association of California.<\/p>\n \u201cOur question is: Why? There has been no urgency to remove the mural; why not?\u201d Darden added.<\/p>\n Robert Mitchell, who serves as vice president of the Golden Westside Planning Committee, told the board they don\u2019t need to wait for community input to do what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t kick the bucket down the street and say \u2018Well the community is going to give us the way to go,\u2019\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cYou know the way to go. Stand up, do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rev. B.T. Lewis echoed the same sentiments, acknowledging the board\u2019s resolution, but also calling for the mural to be removed as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n Lewis previously challenged the city of Fresno\u2019s renaming of streets in honor of Chavez in a lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the recent egregious allegations levied against the legacy of one of our most influential civil rights leaders, I believe it is in the best interest of our district and our community to remove the image of Cesar Chavez as soon as possible,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n The resolution to assess mentions and works of Chavez in the district includes a process for community feedback on whether any works should be preserved, replaced, restored or removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same process outlined in the resolution will also be used for any future situations concerning an individual\u2019s likeness featured on district facilities.<\/p>\n Additionally, the resolution states that the district would engage with the original artists of any works being considered for alteration.<\/p>\n The Edison High mural of Chavez was completed in 2022<\/a> after students and staff voted on designs by local artist Jason Esquivel.<\/p>\n District budget talks on hold until governor\u2019s revise<\/p>\n At Wednesday\u2019s meeting, a presentation showing the district\u2019s investments and costs in achieving its \u201cgoals and guardrails\u201d objectives wrapped up budget discussions at least until May.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter this presentation concludes, we\u2019ll be taking a brief break from the budgetary process until we get the governor\u2019s May revision, and then we\u2019ll be coming back to talk about the budget again as a whole,\u201d said Patrick Jensen, the district\u2019s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n Trustee Susan Wittrup questioned the inclusion of optional investments<\/a> totaling around $100K for staff<\/a> and retirement celebrations. She noted that the district should be looking to save money, especially as it gears up for potential staff cuts.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we need to be a little bit more accountable about our budget and the money that we\u2019re spending,\u201d Wittrup said, adding, \u201cwhen we say we\u2019re spending $100,000, that\u2019s $100,000 we can\u2019t spend somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Veva Islas, the board\u2019s president, agreed with Wittrup\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cI really want to assure the public that we\u2019re all interested in that; as much as possible, if we can save positions, we want to fight for that,\u201d Islas said.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What’s at stake? West Fresno community members and advocates called on the Fresno Unified board to remove a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[55230,16752,16847,75463,112,114,113,14569,27852,1997,3183,3797],"class_list":{"0":"post-259636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-board-meeting","9":"tag-budgets","10":"tag-cesar-chavez","11":"tag-edison-high-school","12":"tag-fresno","13":"tag-fresno-headlines","14":"tag-fresno-news","15":"tag-fresno-unified","16":"tag-fusd","17":"tag-schools","18":"tag-students","19":"tag-teachers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259636","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=259636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}