12/2/09 Fast and Furious

When I got home last night, my computer would not start. Scary.



When I got to work the guys from ISD were ready to do surgery. Amazingly enough, the old Dell booted right up. Same old story, the car works fine when you get to the mechanics. We still backed everything up, just in case.



9:00 We had our agenda conference for the council Meeting on Dec. 10th. We have a few things on the council agenda tomorrow: Hotel Fresno lawsuit, highways signs for downtown Fresno and the contract with the Economic Development Corporation. On the 17th, it will be even busier. The Downtown Development Incentives will go to the council along with the contract for the Specific Plan consulting team.



At 9:30 the agenda conference ended and the directors' meeting began. Most of the discussion is about the budget cuts and issues related to the layoffs. This is certainly a heavy issue that will affect many people and families. It is also a complicated process for the organization. It could take months to really have an understanding of all of the effects. Even in our little department, Ray Arthur is the Film Commissioner, but he also handles the web page, newsletter and is the Public Information Officer. We will have to figure out how to handle people who calls wanting to film in Fresno, and have someone take over the communications pieces. These same issues are happening everywhere, in both public and private organizations.



10:00 We had our weekly downtown coordination meeting. The first issue was the downtown development incentives. There has been a great deal of thought put into these incentives by every department that charges/collects development fees. The simpler, clearer codes of the specific plan, combined with fee reductions or deferrals should speed up the revitalization momentum. They aren't everything, but they get things moving in the right direction.



The next item for this meeting was the draft of interim development standards for the downtown area. The interim standards will help us to have good urban design in downtown and to make it easier for some preferred uses, like entertainment, outdoor dining and mixed-use residential, until the specific plan is adopted.



12:00 The Downtown and Community Revitalization Department watched a webinar on tax incentive programs like New Markets Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits and Affordable Housing Tax Credits. This was a staff development program so that everyone in our department could increase their knowledge about these valuable revitalization tools. It was very current and detailed.



1:00 I had an update meeting with Council President Cynthia Sterling. We talked about the formation of the community advisory committee for the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan, and the possible dismissal of the Hotel Fresno lawsuit.



2:00 Elaine Robles and I were supposed to have our one on one weekly meeting, but it was not to be today. I was making the rounds trying to answer questions about the Hotel Fresno item. Our hope is that the lawsuit on the Hotel Fresno is dropped. The current property owners have been good downtown investors. They have done a great job renovating the Virginia Hotel and are now working on the old Mayflower Apartments on Broadway and Tuolumne.



I spoke with Council members Brand, Sterling, Westerlund and Borgeas today. I will try to speak to the others tomorrow morning.



I only missed one day of work, but it really backed things up with our council items, the urban entrepreneurship class' final presentations, the budget issues, everything is stacking up. I guess that one good thing about having some experience is that I know that this is how things go. In the revitalization process you try to get things going, and when they do...look out, they all hit at once. Even though things are crazy, that many of the items are still in a very precarious state, we're exactly where we should be.