12-14-09 The beginning of a huge week!

Up at 4:45 for a jog, it was sprinkling lightly. What a nice rainstorm we've had.


I didn't have a meeting scheduled until 8:30, which was nice because the City's Outlook didn't work yesterday, so I was behind on emails. My first meeting was a one on one with Jenna Slawinski, one of our hardworking administrative team members. Jenna is working hard on the upcoming State of Downtown breakfast on January 26th. She's still doing all of her other work like vouchers for the Enterprise Zone and training our AARP volunteers, too.


9:00 I had my one on one with George Smith our Administrative Manager. We had some end of the year loose ends to tie together, mostly regarding the furlough week than starts next Thursday.


9:30 Elliott Balch, Angela Vasquez and I met with the City Manager's crew to nail down the details for the Thursday’s presentations.


10:00 Elliott, Wilma Quan, Elaine Robles and I met to review our part of the presentations for this Thursday. The Specific Plan and Downtown Development Incentives are scheduled for 9:15. Come by if you can. If not, maybe watch on-line. Go to http://www.fresno.gov/  go to City Council and then Watch Live.

11:00 Department management meeting with George, Elaine, Elliott and Amy Huerta. We didn't meet for long, we'd pretty much covered it already. No need to meet just to meet.


12:00 We had our holiday party for the department last night. It was pot luck and we had Rock Band set up after dinner. Elliott was our host. We had leftovers for lunch. Ahhh, the holidays.


12:30 One of the Urban Entrepreneurship students presented her project idea to one of our downtown property owners. There are several students who are still keeping their business idea moving forward. It was great for the property owner to see a creative use for their building and it was a great experience for a student to get to present to business people.


1:30 Elaine and Dawn Steele organized the monthly meeting for City departments regarding the Lowell neighborhood revitalization effort. We debriefed from the meeting in Lowell last month. We had updates on what each department is doing now and what has been accomplished in the last month. We had the chance to prepare everyone for the Fresno State involvement that is coming in a month.


4:00 Elaine and I met with the Mayor, Assistant City Manager, Planning Director and Assistant Planning Director, Georgeanne White, Mayor's Chief of Staff, Jerry Bishop from Code enforcement, and Public Works. This meeting was an update on the neighborhood revitalization strategy. We all presented where we are in the process with Lowell and began planning how the next neighborhoods will be targeted. Much of the focus was about how to involve the neighborhoods in the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan.


6:00 I had dinner with 5 young adults who have moved into the Lowell neighborhood. I had met one of them at a community meeting and another was a friend of one of my urban entrepreneurship students. I got a tour of their home on San Pablo and was recharged by their enthusiasm for their new neighborhood. All five grew up in Fresno and decided that they would start living their ideals. They are learning from the neighbors and their neighborhood. What an enjoyable dinner conversation!