Power outage plunges Fresno County offices into darkness, but supervisors meet anyway

A power outage at the Fresno County Hall of Records in downtown closed several offices and plunged a Board of Supervisors meeting into darkness Tuesday.

Fresno County spokesman Jordan Scott said a problem with the building’s power relay led to the outage. It was fixed as of 12:45 p.m. and power was restored, but county leaders had already made the call to send home the offices’ employees for the day.

The outage closed the offices of the Fresno County Assessor/Recorder, auditor-controller, treasurer-tax collector, Board of Supervisors and the county administrative officer. They will return to normal hours on Wednesday.

The Fresno County Clerk’s office was not affected.

Scott said the supervisors meeting went on as scheduled in near total darkness, as several important matters – including presenting the local counsels from Armenia, Italy and Mexico with proclamations – could not wait. All other nonessential items were moved to the next meeting with a 5-0 vote, and the meeting was adjourned early.

This story was originally published January 9, 2018 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Power outage plunges Fresno County offices into darkness, but supervisors meet anyway."