Community

Plans to connect Bakersfield's Westside Parkway across Highway 99 to Highway 58 are becoming clearer today, as Caltrans has selected what it calls a "preferred alternative" for the proposed Centennial Corridor freeway.

The alignment, known as "Option B" would travel west from the current Highway 58 interchange across Highway 99 though the West Park neighborhood. The freeway's path would then turn northwest, crossing both Stockdale Highway and Truxtun, in order to connect with the Westside Parkway near Mohawk Street.

Downtown Fresno's Fulton Mall has a different look this season, as a new outdoor ice rink is earning rave reviews from residents of all ages. Valley Public Radio's Joe Moore has this report. 

Just a few days before downtown Fresno's newest winter attraction was set to open, Christy Gordon didn't think it would happen. 

"You know on Wednesday it was just so hot. Just walking to the office which is right by here, I thought, 'I don't know how they're going to pull that off.'"

Three people are dead following a shooting at the Valley Protein Plant in Central Fresno, including the alleged shooter.

The shooting took place at around 8:30 a.m. at the meat processing plant located near Blackstone and Hedges Avenues. The facility is also known as Apple Valley Farms.

The shooter, 42 year old Lawrence Jones, died of what is being described as a self inflicted gunshot wound. 

Fresno mayor Ashley Swearengin issued the following statement on the shooting:

Hundreds of California first responders and utility crews are on the East Coast helping in the recovery efforts after Superstorm Sandy. 

More than four million people on the east coast are still without power. But utility crews from PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric are helping in the restoration efforts. Tim Bedford is Incident Commander with PG&E. He and 162 workers are helping restore power in Flushing New York. Bedford says it may take longer than the original two weeks they anticipated.

The City of Fresno's effort to draft a vision for a revitalized downtown hit a roadblock on Tuesday, after the Fresno City Council rejected a proposal to allocate an additional $70,000 to the project on a 4-3 vote. 

A 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck central California late Saturday night, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey. The quake, which was felt in Fresno and throughout the Central Valley struck at 11:55 p.m. and was centered 30 miles northwest of Coalinga.  Info from the USGS:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc71863625#summary

Yosemite National Park officials announced today that missing 23-year-old park employee Jessica Garcia has been found alive. 

Search and rescue crews located the missing employee on Tuesday in a rugged area around two miles from the South Fork Drainage of the Merced River.

Garcia was reported missing after she failed to show up to work on Sunday. She was last seen near Wawona on Saturday. 

From the official press release:

President Obama announced today that he will visit Kern County next Monday to declare the headquarters of the late United Farm Workers union co-founder César Chávez a national monument. The Chávez compound in the small community of Keene, located in the Tehachapi hills east of Bakersfield served as the home for both the UFW and Chávez for several decades. 

Fresno County's efforts at integrating new immigrants into the overall population fall short when compared with the rest of the state.

That's the finding of a new report by the University of Southern California's Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. 

The study measures a variety of indicators including the economic impact of immigrants in the local economy, educational performance, the warmth of welcome by the community at large, and civic engagement.

Bakersfield may become the latest California city to consider loosening laws against raising chickens in residential backyards.

The Bakersfield Californian reports that the city's Legislative and Litigation Committee discussed the idea at a meeting on Tuesday. It's currently illegal to keep chickens in most residential areas in the city.

Advocates gathered at the state Capitol yesterday to testify about how to improve the lives of boys and men from ethnic communities.

Joshua Ham from South Central Los Angeles was one of many young men who came from all over the state to tell lawmakers how to improve the lives of people like him.

“It’s better for us to step up like this than to lash out and have something like 1992 riots or something weird like that you know. But actually have it like a structured way, you know, like have people think critically about what they want.”

When it comes to the season of political contests, free speech is rarely free, what with non-stop political ads on radio and television in many so-called battleground states. On this edition of Valley Public Radio’s commentary series The Moral Is, Fresno State professor Diane Blair says the rise of the Super PAC has big implications for the future of our democracy.

The views expressed on The Moral Is are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Valley Public Radio.

Across the southern San Joaquin Valley, the commercial citrus harvest is virtually over. But over the past two months, a volunteer group has been working in backyards across Tulare county to collect fruit that would otherwise go to waste, and donate it to those in need. FM89's Joe Moore has this report.

It's lunchtime at the Sanger High School Cafeteria. But instead of hundreds of teenagers, the room on this Saturday is filled with ordinary Valley residents of all ages and ethnicities, some writers, and a handful of theatre professionals from LA's Cornerstone Theatre. And even though many of them just ate, the conversation quickly turns to the issue of the day… hunger.

It’s Saturday afternoon, and the normally quiet park in the middle of downtown Exeter is packed, nearly shoulder to shoulder with people enjoying kettle corn, something called the tornado potato, and of course, a little barbeque.

“This is the barbeque chicken plate, it’s six dollars and it’s fantastic!,” says Wanda, an Exeter resident.

“There’s also some pulled pork over there that people are really waiting in line for and the bratwurst over here by The Dorksmen, if you want a really homemade bratwurst, that’s the place to go.”

Hanford’s 7th Avenue looks pretty much like any other busy street in a small San Joaquin Valley town. It’s a broad avenue populated with a haphazard array of muffler shops, fast food joints and gas stations. Yet less than half a block away exists another world, seemingly frozen in time, a cultural and historic artifact, built by Chinese immigrants who came to build the railroad starting in the 1870’s, a place called China Alley.