The stories that impacted Fresno in ’23; historic flooding, covert lab, Bitwise bankruptcy

Newspapers, by design, deal in the daily churn.

It is the collected revelation of these thousands of stories that make up the archive of a place. In wrapping up 2023, here is a list of the most illuminating, impactful and intriguing stories presented by journalists at The Fresno Bee the past 12 months.

Bitwise implodes

Hometown tech darling Bitwise Industries collapsed abruptly at the end of May, when co-founders and co-CEOS, Jake Soberal and Irma Olguin Jr., announced the company’s workforce (300-plus in Fresno and 900 nationwide) would be immediately furloughed.

Soberal and Olguin were fired days later and those employees were officially terminated as the company filed for bankruptcy in late June. What followed was a series of allegations of untoward business dealings and accusations of deceit; and also lawsuits and a federal investigation that is still ongoing.

Impact: As Fresno’s tech industry looks to rebuild its infrastructure (and reputation), Soberal and Olguin face federal criminal charges of wire fraud and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Downtown redevelopment coming (to the tune of $300 million)

Downtown revitalization efforts got a huge signal boost this summer when California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a state earmark of almost $300 million for the city.

The bulk of that will be used to rebuild downtown infrastructure, with the rest set aside for housing. Mayor Jerry Dyer hopes to triple the population of residents living downtown over the next five to seven years.

Impact: At least one outside investor (the Comedy club chain Laugh Factory) has shown interest, if not a full-on committal, in developing in Fresno. Dyer more than hinted that the company’s Fresno location would be somewhere downtown.

Other work has already begun.

In December, construction crews started demolition of a warehouse near Chukchansi Park.

Chinese lab found in Reedley

A garden hose stuck through a hole in the wall of a supposedly empty warehouse in Reedley led to the discovery of a clandestine biological lab controlled by China-based owners. Inside were thousands of vials of biological material including potentially dangerous parasites, bacteria and viruses and nearly 1,000 laboratory mice found in what one veterinarian described as “inhumane” conditions.

The lab was discovered in 2022, but news of the lab wasn’t made public until late July, when it sparked multiple investigations from local, state and federal agencies.

Impact: A 62-year-old Chinese resident, Jia Bei Zhu, was arrested for manufacturing or distributing mislabeled medical devices such as COVID-19 tests and lying to investigators.

In December, Fresno County supervisors gave initial approval to an ordinance requiring annual inspections for any privately-funded biological research labs not regulated under federal law. The “Fresno County Infectious Materials Ordinance” could get final approval on Jan. 9.

The city passed a similar ordinance to keep the company from reopening in Fresno.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said he is working with members of Congress to strengthen federal oversight of private labs with more accountability for agencies tasked with enforcing the regulation.

Madera loses its only hospital

It’s been nearly one year since Madera Community Hospital shuttered its doors, leaving 160,000 residents, including Latino and Indigenous Oaxacan agricultural workers, without access to the county’s sole acute care hospital and emergency room for adults.

While the closure (and eventual bankruptcy) of the 106-bed, not-for-profit hospital seemed to have come quickly, it had been struggling for several years; at one point operating at a loss of $2.5 million a month.

According to a Fresno Bee investigation, it also had problems with state regulators and had at least six “immediate jeopardy” situations. Meaning there was serious risks of patient injury, harm or even death in the years before its closing.

Impact: Central Valley legislators and others have been working to reopen the hospital and tapped the state’s $150 million distressed hospital loan program. Those efforts have all come up against an ongoing set of issues, including the hospital’s bankruptcy proceedings, allegations of a bidder attempting to improperly influence the bidding process, and a failed proposed partnership.

The hospital board of trustees just approved a temporary management service agreement with American Advanced Management Inc., a Modesto-based hospital management company.

Few details have been provided and there is not yet a timetable for reopening. Any proposed partnership is subject to approval of the attorney general’s office and a federal bankruptcy judge.

Fresno Unified’s (almost) teachers strike

While Clovis schools saw the first bargained-and-agreed contract with a union (the Association of Clovis Educators’ psychologists and mental health support providers), Fresno schools barely averted a district-wide teacher’s strike this year.

California’s third-largest school district signed a contract with the Fresno Teachers Association one day before employees were set to walk out. It would have been just the second teachers strike in the district’s 100-plus year history and the first in more than 40 years.

Impact: The district was ready to call in 1,200 substitute teachers and other district employees with teaching credentials to keep classrooms functioning, but it still expected to face disruptions in attendance, as well as after school events and individualized education programs.

The contract will require major cuts to the district’s budget for the 2024-25 school year to cover, among other things, reductions in class sizes and special education caseloads, a 21% salary increase and continued health benefits.

Kevin McCarthy: From speakership to retirement

Over the past nine months, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy went from being one of the most powerful politicians in the country (as the first California Republican to serve as House speaker) to announcing his retirement.

This ends a nearly two-decade congressional career for McCarthy, who most recently represented California’s 20th Congressional District, which covers parts of Kern, Fresno, Tulare and Kings counties and was once represented by Republican Devin Nunes.

McCarthy was considered a masterful tactician and fundraiser. He served as the House majority leader in 2015, looking to replace then-Speaker John Boehner.

It wasn’t until January that McCarthy finally got that chance, struggling through 15 rounds of votes (and a series of concessions to get support from the far-right flank). During his brief tenure, he negotiated a budget deal with President Joe Biden and managed to avoid a government shutdown, only to have his own party remove him from his speakership in October.

Impact: McCarthy is officially resigning Dec. 31, leaving Gov. Newsom two weeks to call for a special election to fill the seat for the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2025. A primary could occur as early as March.

Several GOP contenders already announced they would run to succeed McCarthy. They include Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux, business owner David Giglio, former fighter pilot Matt Stoll, California City Mayor Kelly Kulikoff and Fresno businessman Kyle Kirkland. Democrats Marisa Wood, a Bakersfield school teacher, and Andy Morales, who works in private security, also filed to run for the term starting in January 2025.

California Assemblyman Vince Fong was told he could not run for a full two-year term in Congress in 2024 because he had already qualified for re-election in his Assembly district. Fong filed a lawsuit challenging the decision, which has now been reversed.

Conference of Champions collapses

The Pac-12, once known as the Conference of Champions, was decimated by defections this year, with Colorado bolting for the Big 12 on July 27; Oregon and Washington jumping to the Big Ten, and Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12 on Aug. 4 and Cal and Stanford joining the Atlantic Coast Conference on Sept. 1.

This was a cataclysmic shift, started last year when UCLA and USC stunned the league by announcing they would be leaving for the Big Ten, where the schools will receive full shares of a deal with CBS, FOX and NBC worth around $1 billion a year, through 2030. Conference leadership was never able to stabilize the league, which has 100 years of history and was home to more than 550 national championship teams and sport-defining names, including Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tiger Woods and Cheryl Miller.

Impact: Oregon State and Washington State will be the only schools left in the conference in 2024 and, having full control of the conference’s assets, will try to move forward and rebuild the league over the next two years.

That’s means Fresno State, which currently plays in the Mountain West Conference, could be a future Pac-12 member, given their media market, which when combined with Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto and Bakersfield would rank among the Top 20 in the nation. The school also has a strong brand recognition and growing football fan base.

That could be a boon for Fresno State and its under-funded athletics department.

Inflation and rising costs affected restaurants

A certain amount of turnover can be expected in a city’s food scene from year to year. Restaurants tend to open and close often, and for myriad reasons. Leases expire. Owners retire.

And then there’s the truly odd cases, like Fresno’s Tasty Thai, which shut down in May following backlash and death threats from a racist social media post.

For the most part, restaurant owners saw the same cascade of challenges in 2023: rising food costs and other inflation, along with climbing rent and energy bills and an minimum wage that increased by 6 percent for the year (and is set to go up again in 2024).

The cost of eating out rose 6% between March and September of 2023, according to the Consumer Price Index. That’s more than double the increase in the price of eating at home. And people are also dining out less. About 3% fewer people dined out during the week ending Oct. 28 compared to the same week the previous year, according to data tracked by Open Table, a reservation and technology website

Impact: According to reporting from The Fresno Bee, some 30 restaurants closed in the Fresno area in 2023; slightly more if you count the multiple locations of national chains like Boston Market and Fosters Freeze.

The list included some long time favorites, like Hunan Chinese Restaurant (which announced its closure after 30 years in business), Vino Grille (the restaurant, bar and win shop at Champlain Drive and Shepherd Avenue) and Waffle Shop Country Cooking.

About a dozen restaurants closed in 2021, which was down from 16 in 2020, according to Bee archives.

Nearly 50 restaurants closed in the two years prior to that.

Flooding and the return of Tulare Lake

To put some perspective on the massive amount of rainfall (and later, the snowpack melt) that drenched the Central Valley in 2023, think about this:

It resurrected Tulare Lake; a thing seen twice, maybe, in nearly a century.

More than that, it caused widespread flooding that ruined farmland and broke up several rural farmworker communities. Some 100,000 acres of land were taken out of production, not just in Tulare and Kings counties, but also in eastern Merced County, where an overflowing creek flooded the community of Planada.

Impact: Months after the storms, residents in the affected communities were still waiting for financial assistance to help with home remediation, infrastructure needs, vehicle damage, funding assistance for renters, and home inspections.

While there were federal reliefs funds available, it did little to help those affected by the floods. In Planada for example, 64% of households with flood-damaged property were ineligible for federal disaster assistance, because many residents are undocumented, or living in irregular housing that does not qualify for certain forms of aid.

Residents in Merced County have filed claims against the cities of Merced and Atwater, along with Merced County, the Merced Irrigation District, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who they argue were negligent in not maintaining the waterways that flooded. A similar suit was filed by residents and business owners in Woodlake in Tulare County.

Historic theater saved, but not without some damage

For the second time in as many years, Fresno almost lost its oldest existing theater.

City leaders and preservationists had already been blindsided by demolition that gutted a majority of Hardy’s Theater back in 2021. So, it seemed an extra shock when Bee columnist Marek Warszawski reported the theater was somehow now in worse shape. A financial dispute between the building’s owner and contractors left it nearly abandoned, and with an unfinished roof during a particularly rainy winter.

The results were what you’d expect.

Impact: Following The Bee’s reporting, the city stepped in and got a full inspection of the building, and the project now has the attention of the highest-ranking city officials, including the city attorney, who along with city code enforcement toured the building in April. It will take two years, but the owner will be fixing the damage and bringing the building back to use for around $4 million.

And it’s not the only historic landmark that got the city’s attention this year.

In October the city stepped in to halt work that would have removed the The Dale Bros. Coffee sign from atop a building at H and H Street and Tuolumne.