10/28/09 It was diffusion vs. concentration today

Hello Campers,

Day 2 of my public journal. We've had a bunch of interns (or is it gaggle) since last spring. One of the things that we do is have them shadow me during their internship. Today Neema Assemi was my shadow. He has finished his coursework in city planning at SLO and is finishing a few remaining courses at Fresno State.

Neema and I met at 6:15 at Uncle Harry's. We usually start out the day by going over the schedule and I explain some of the background story and give color commentary.

At 7:15 we went to a breakfast for Valley Public Radio. I am on their Community Advisory Council. They always have a nice group of people supporting the station and their staff members are golden!

8:00 was a meeting to discuss ways to coordinate the new nonprofit that we created with the help of superstar volunteer Leslie Hoyt. The nonprofit is called DT Faces (Fresno Arts, Culture, Entertainment, Sports). The sole mission of DT FACES is to organize, support, create, develop events on Fulton and in Chukchansi Park. The nonprofit will be able to raise sponsorships, hire temporary staff, handle vendors and even get beer/wine licenses much easier than the City is able to do.

9:00 We have agenda conference every week. We go over the items for the following week's City Council meeting. The City Council staff are also in the Agenda Conference. Our Local Business Initiative folks are preparing a proclamation for next week's meeting in support of the Gottschalks employees who have still not been hired. There is some incredible talent from this group.

9:30 After Agenda Conference the Council staff leave and we have our weekly Department Director meeting. This is an opportunity for us to stay current with the City Manager and the other departments. I used my time to thank the City departments who participated in the Make A Difference Day event in Lowell last Saturday and also thanked the code enforcement and City Attorneys for keeping up the pressure on negligent downtown property owners. We are starting to see some changing ownership in key downtown buildings. These things take more time than any of us like, but these folks are really bulldogging these cases.

10:00 I know it sees like all I do is go to meetings, but many are very amazingly productive and are the only way to move a large organization. The new Planning Director John Dugan relayed that it took Oklahoma City 4 years of weekly director meetings focused on their downtown to really get everyone coordinated and engaged. The city Manager said "let's do it" and we have had our fifth weekly meeting focused on our downtown efforts. elliott Balch coordinates the meetings and activities that are supposed to be moving forward. Angela Vasquez keeps everything organized. Today we spent the entire hour talking about the possiblity of reducing or eliminating fees in downtown to encourage investment, development and business activity. Stay tuned...this could be huge!

11:30 Neema and I headed to John's Incredible Pizza for the Fresno Area Partners' Group. I was the guest speaker for this group of about 50 local business people. I spoke about the efforts to support local businesses like our 5% local preference for City bids. I also discussed the Enterprise Zone. We eventually started talking about downtown as an entertainment district and everyone seemed to really get excited about the prospect.

From 2:00-3:00 I returned calls and tried to catch up on emails and with our department. We had some great news about one of the potential new tenants for downtown. It looks like we're still in the hunt! I'll let you know these things as soon as I can...I like to share good news. I also called three lenders on behalf of a Fulton Mall property owner. We want lenders to know that the City is making investments in a specific plan, which have had positive effects on property values in other California cities. The Property Based Improvement District is another sign of stability and investment for lenders.

3:30 I chaired the Empowerment Zone meeting at the newly remodeled Virginia Hotel's conference room. We ought to have a parade for Jake and Romi, they did a great job on this building. Check it out next time your in the neighborhood of L and Kern. The Empowerment Zone is a federal incentive zone. It mostly offers credits to employers for hiring. The best news at the meeting was the new 80/20 program. If you have a business and hire workers from a particular list of about 10,000 folks in CalWorks, the government will reimburse you 80% of their wages and employment costs. It only lasts until next September so hire while you can. Let me know if you are interested.

My 5:00 and 7:00 meetings both cancelled! I was home by 7:00 to eat dinner at home and watch the Phillies pound the Yankees.

Assignments are coming in from my Urban Entrepreneurship students (they are always due the midnight before class). I'll have a look at them over the weekend and get them into the grade books. Class is tomorrow at 3:00. I'll write about it tomorrow night.

Another great day working toward the revitalization of downtown Fresno! Some days are up and some days are down...I try to savor the UP days.

Craig