Memorable and impactful: Fresno Bee journalists share noteworthy stories of 2022
The Fresno Bee celebrated its 100th anniversary in October. Carlos McClatchy, our first editor, set out the newspaper’s guiding principles in an editorial in the Oct. 17, 1922 edition: “The primary purpose of The Bee is to print the news; to tell it fairly, simply and impartially; unfairly to hurt none, no matter how lowly; to favor none, no matter how powerful.”
We work hard every day to live up to Carlos’ standards. We aren’t looking for recognition or awards. The highest compliment is impact – journalism that reveals something important that wasn’t previously known, stokes community discussion and leads to change.
The Bee published more than 3,000 locally-written stories last year. Below are examples of some of the most illuminating, impactful and intriguing original journalism produced in 2022 as recalled by Bee editors and reporters.
Some stories took months to report, while others untangled mysteries or broke important news.
If you value this work, please consider subscribing to The Bee and supporting our fundraising campaign.
– Joe Kieta, editor
‘Care & Conflict’ special report digs deep
Community Health System is the central San Joaquin Valley’s largest healthcare provider. Over the last decade, it has spent $1 billion expanding its suburban Clovis Community Medical Center.
This was no surprise to anyone driving past the construction cranes dotting the burgeoning Clovis campus on Highway 168. But has that massive investment in one of the Valley’s most prosperous communities come at a cost to downtown Fresno and, in particular, the many poor and indigent patients who use the much larger Community Regional Medical Center in the city’s downtown?
That’s the question at the heart of “Care & Conflict” – a project that was the result of nearly two years of determined shoe-leather reporting by Fresno Bee reporter Yesenia Amaro. What she found was substantial:
Community Health System – which is more widely known by its former name, Community Medical Centers – steered millions of dollars in state and federal funding meant to offset the cost of caring for poor and underinsured patients at Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno and spent it on the expansion of Clovis Community Medical Center.
The shift of money from Fresno to Clovis has left the critically important downtown medical center without a plan to meet the state’s 2030 deadline to retrofit its aging main patient towers so they are able to withstand a powerful earthquake. The downtown hospital houses the only Level I trauma center between Sacramento and Los Angeles.
That greatly expanded Clovis hospital campus is rising on the same stretch of ground near Herndon Avenue where CMC Board Chairman Farid Assemi has launched his own ambitious project: California Health Sciences University. The for-profit school raises serious questions about potential conflicts of interest for Assemi and former and current board members.
The stories created immediate impact, with reaction from the mayor of Fresno and other local officials.
Throughout its 100-year history, The Fresno Bee has stood for revealing investigative reporting that shines light into darkness and holds the powerful to account. Nothing speaks more to this passion for public service journalism than this investigation.
– Joe Kieta, editor
Ed Lab reporting brings Wolters Elementary incident to light
The disturbing video showed a Fresno Unified elementary school principal striking a student with special needs.
But for more than two months this summer, nothing happened.
Witnesses weren’t interviewed. Arrests weren’t made. Criminal charges weren’t filed. The principal quit his job and got another one at a nearby high school.
The video gathered digital dust; mistakenly categorized in a Fresno Police Department database as a “suspended” case.
Police Chief Paco Balderrama told reporters in a September news conference that he should’ve been notified immediately about the June 7 incident at Wolters Elementary. But he didn’t learn about the case until the Education Lab’s Julianna Morano started asking questions. He thanked Julianna for helping bring the case to his attention.
A day after the investigation finally landed on the police chief’s desk, ex-Principal Brian Vollhardt was charged with a misdemeanor count of child abuse. Vollhardt has pleaded not guilty and will be back in court on Jan. 4.
Julianna broke the story Sept. 7. That same day, Vollhardt was placed on leave from his new job as vice principal of Tranquillity High School, where he’d been hired just 24 days earlier. Golden Plains Unified officials told Julianna they weren’t aware of the incident until Sept. 7.
It’s one of the starkest examples of local journalism’s power and importance that I’ve seen in my nearly 20 years in California journalism. While it could be argued that it’s possible or even likely the case might’ve eventually come to light some other way, the fact remains that nothing happened until Julianna started making phone calls and filing public record requests.
As the Education Lab editor, there’s a lot to be proud of in these stories. But it’s a particular point of pride to note that all of this crucial reporting was sparked by Julianna aggressively doing her due diligence by following up on an anonymous tip.
– Rob Parsons, education lab editor
Yosemite National Park evicts homeowners
When the powerful National Park Service told a handful of residents to remove or surrender their homes in the El Portal Trailer Park outside Yosemite National Park without compensation, homeowners felt overwhelmed.
Some reached out to Bee reporter Carmen Kohlruss, who began exhaustive research to determine what was happening. She interviewed residents, park service officials and experts on homeowner rights’ and pored over more than 1,000 pages of documents.
The eviction went forward but through Carmen’s reporting it was shown that the park service changed its story about its reason for needing the property and showed that those plans were in progress long before homeowners were notified. Sadly, one of those homeowners died just days after her eviction. She was found in her newly rented employee dorm in Yosemite Valley.
– John Rich, managing editor
Column on cycling safety near Woodward Park leads to action
When a recently retired Fresno teacher died Jan. 12, 2022, while pedaling his bike across a busy intersection leading to the city’s largest park, the news hit me with a wallop.
Not because I knew Paul Moore or because I bike across the same intersection on a regular basis. More a realization that something was horribly wrong with the entire situation.
Woodward Park, along with the adjoining Lewis S. Eaton Trail, is Fresno’s largest and most frequented open-space area. A place where walkers, runners and cyclists can freely enjoy these activities without having to worry about cars. But to reach this urban sanctuary, they have to cross high-speed arterial roads at intersections that either lack basic cycling and pedestrian infrastructure or offer the bare minimum.
Besides Moore, there had been two other recent cyclist and pedestrian deaths (a 10-year-old boy with his family and a 70-year-old man out for his evening stroll) in intersections connected to Woodward Park and the Eaton Trail. Three fatalities in two years were enough. I wrote a column decrying how unsafe things are that also brought to light a backroom deal between the city and the developer of a nearby shopping center over improvements to the intersection where Moore was killed. Improvements that never took place even though the shopping center got built.
“How many more people have to die until city leaders lift a finger?” I wrote.
Three weeks after the column appeared, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer held a press conference near one of the notorious crosswalks to announce several safety improvements. Some were to be implemented right away – workers installed reflective backtape to traffic signals as he spoke – while others (such as painted bike “boxes” and prohibiting right turns on red lights at certain intersections) would be phased in over the next six to 12 months.
After Dyer was finished speaking, he saw me standing nearby and walked over. We chitchated for a moment, and I thanked him for taking action.
– Marek Warszawski, metro columnist
Data reporting tells new stories
Reporter Tim Sheehan has spearheaded publishing restaurant inspections in Fresno County to make the difficult-to-find information more accessible to the community. What he finds in his monthly reports is sometimes shocking.
Faulty refrigerators, a lack of water and insect infestations were among the violations that resulted in the closure of several Fresno County restaurants in 2022 by health department inspectors.
Sheehan’s ongoing coverage of restaurant inspections is The Bee’s way of letting readers know what goes on behind closed doors at local eateries, in turn helping those dining customers make informed decisions about where – and where not to – eat.
Sheehan’s data work on COVID-19 and its impact on the central San Joaquin Valley has been cited by many as the most authoritative coverage of the underlying data behind the pandemic’s local impact. Sheehan’s frequently updated charts and graphs have become indispensible.
– Victor Patton, enterprise news editor
Exposing ‘re-exploitation’ at local nonprofit
Bee reporter Carmen Kohlruss brought to light what many called the “re-exploitation” of human trafficking victims by a Fresno nonprofit with a meticulously reported investigation of the charitable organization.
Her story required many interviews on and off the record, as well as poring through documents related to Made for Them – an organization created to help survivors of human trafficking.
Kohlruss’ story was published days before the release of a 37-page audit that found major changes are needed at Made for Them if it is to continue operating.
It’s the kind of story that fulfills The Bee’s mission: to inform and advocate for the enhancement of life in the Valley.
– John Rich, managing editor
2022 opinions had impact
Holding national leaders accountable is something The Fresno Bee Editorial Board got to do a lot of in 2022, as our region has been represented by two of the most powerful politicians in Congress – former Rep. Devin Nunes and current GOP leader and likely next speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.
The year began with Nunes exiting Congress to go to work for former President Donald Trump. Our “See ya, Devin Nunes” editorial got 40,000 page views.
Since then, The Bee has written numerous editorials holding McCarthy accountable for his votes on key issues and his public statements about revenge and recriminations he promises to undertake once he becomes speaker.
The Editorial Board has had an impact in other ways:
It conducted more than 20 editorial board meetings with candidates in the fall election and wrote nearly as many recommendations, all of which were posted behind the paywall. That said, the recommendations led to more than 20 LTCs.
Among the board’s recommendations to voters was to turn down a proposed continuation of Fresno County’s road tax. The measure failed to meet the two-thirds requirement for passage.
Over the summer I learned that the mayor quietly agreed to have Fresno participate in a pilot program to extend the last-call hour for alcoholic drinks from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. Our editorial against such a move resulted in a minor uproar at the City Council, and the mayor succumbed to the pressure and took the city out of the project.
In June I wrote a column pointing out how the mayor’s proposed budget did not include funding for an economic development director. Given the city’s desperate need for better paying jobs, I took the mayor to task for the miss. Within weeks he had adjusted the budget to fund such a job.
Having such an impact and getting to hold elected leaders accountable is both a duty and honor.
– Tad Weber, opinion editor
Food and drink explosion
The restaurant beat is normally full of fun stories, but one of the most shocking was when food truck Planet Vegan exploded.
In June, the trailer was parked at Shaw Avenue and First Street when it caught fire. A propane tank exploded and firefighters recorded horrific images of the flames. Co-owner Joe Ellis was seriously burned and a boy walking by was burned, too.
The impactful part? Seeing the outpouring of support from the community. A GoFundMe fundraiser raised $73,000.
Planet Vegan is promising to be back on the streets in 2023.
BJ’s Kountry Kitchen reopening was one of the more heart-warming stories of the year. After more than 40 years of serving comfort food, the daughter of the woman who originally opened the restaurant closed it in October. BJ’s had never recovered from a drop in sales during the pandemic, and run-ins with a vandal and thieves made things worse.
But a long-time server and friend of the family refused to let that be the end of the story. She bought it and reopened it, with familiar faces now serving up the fat omelets.
– Bethany Clough, reporter
High-speed rail and tribal politics exposed
California’s beleaguered High Speed Rail project is one of the state’s biggest continuing stories. Reporter Tim Sheehan has covered its twists and turns since its infancy. In 2022, he broke a series of news stories about key developments that cleared a pathway in the ongoing development of the bullet train.
Sheehan has also kept close tabs on each step of the project as approvals come into fruition, breaking down a complex topic that many taxpayers continue to have questions about and will change the face of downtown Fresno and other those in other Valley communities.
Sheehan also spearheaded exclusive coverage of infighting within the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians over who is and is not an official member of the tribe — and therefore entitled to receive cash disbursements and other perks of membership.
Sheehan cultivated sources within the tribe and its administration who spoke about since the majority of the seven-member tribal council changed hands last fall, about 70 members have been suspended from receiving any tribal benefits — not just per-capita payments of casino revenues, but also assistance for housing, health care, education, clothing allowances for children, or tribal elders benefits.
– Victor Patton, enterprise news editor
