12-10-09 Coming up with titles is harder than the blog

7:00 I started of today with the Thursday morning group: Preston Prince, John Raymond, Keith Bergthold, Rollie Smith. We had a chance to debrief about a wide range of topics from the week like the Belmont Corridor presentation, who’s going to be the new head of the Economic Opportunities Commission, Asian Village, last night's planning commission meeting....



8:30 We had our Primetime for Business, an ongoing awareness campaign to acquaint the City Council and the City to some of our local entrepreneurs. We like to highlight businesses who do much of their business outside of our area, so they are bringing dollars into our economy. We also like the ones that are relatively unknown. Today we featured Ohanyan's who are distributing Armenian meats around the U.S.

http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/index.php/manufacturing/3277-ohanyans-recognized-by-city-of-fresno




9:30 I had my weekly one on one with Wilma Quan, our Urban Planning Specialist. We talked about the next week, and the things that we'll need to do for the City Council presentation for the Specific Plan.



11:00 I had a wonderful meeting with the Downtown Coalition, a group of dedicated downtown enthusiasts. I hope that they enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm sure that we don't see eye to eye on every issue, but the conversation was really interesting. It was another good reminder that if we would try to focus on the larger ideas that we agree on, we'd all get much more done together.



12:30 I picked up Elaine Robles, our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager in front of City Hall, and we picked up Mariam Zuk, a graduate student at Berkeley who will be working on her doctorate in City and Regional Planning. Drew Wilson (superstar) met Mariam at Cal and implored her to come to Fresno to do her research and work. Elaine and I took her to lunch at the Downtown Club and hopefully we didn't scare her away. She is interested in the connection between good planning and good health. She'd be a great addition to the effort!



3:00 We held a Jobs Forum at City Hall. The Mayor asked Amy and Fernando to put it together on short notice on the request of the White House after the Mayor's visit to the Capitol last week. Having strong business affinity groups helped, because they really turned out on short notice. The media was on hand including Business Street, Bill McEwen form the BEE and KYNO 1300, and every TV station. There was a strong list of suggestions that will go back to the President from the Mayor.



5:30 The Central Valley Business Incubator held a holiday party at the Claude Laval Water and Energy Technology Incubator. The event honored Claude and Riley Walter for their 12 years of service, as they are stepping down. Claude was the original Board Chair and has maintained that position throughout. CVBI is a great community asset and it would not even be in existence if it weren't for Claude and Riley.



Home by 7:30 with Mama Mia's calzones! Man they are fantastic.