Monday, January 11, 2010

01-11-10 Sharon Alexander cooks downtown again

4:45 It was a foggy run this morning, both in my head and in the air. It took me 20 minutes to get ready...and all I have to do is put on sweats.


My first official meeting of the day was at 8:30 with Elliott and Elaine to talk about how to communicate the benefits of the specific plan and community plan. Who will be interested and what are the most important benefits.


Basically this is how I view it: Cities make plans and rules for what they want to have happen and what they don't want to have happen. Urban Fresno is the way it is as a result of prior plans, planning focus and plan implementation. Lowell is in a less than desirable condition because of bad urban planning that stretches back to the 1950's. Bad plan = bad result. If we want to have a healthy, vibrant urban Fresno then we will need plans and regulatory tools that encourage the things that we want and exclude the things that we don't want. (I'd love your feedback on this point, does it make sense to you?).


9:30 Our weekly Management Team Meeting. It was short, we all had pending work to get done and George was out for the early part of the morning.


11:00 The Mayor, Elaine Robles and Housing Manager Claudia Cazares and I met with Michael Sigala. Michael has an extensive urban planning education and experience including former Housing Manager for the City of Fresno. Michael and his partner Sal Gonzales have organized a Belmont Merchant Association for the stretch of the strip from Highway 41 to Chestnut. I attended an overview meeting that they sponsored several weeks ago. It is great to have them organizing this area, which they are doing on behalf of the Redevelopment Agency.


12:00 We had a DCR meeting with the Mayor to review last year and to begin refining priorities for 2010. Sharon Alexander is a long time friend of mine and she cooked lunch for us. Sharon and her husband David were the owners of Upstairs Downtown. I met the Alexanders when they were part of the Bus Barn Artists and then cooked a little with Sharon at ECHO while it was in the Tower District. We had a nice meal made with local ingredients. what a treat.


2:00 We had our quarterly update meeting with the Staff of our Downtown and Community Revitalization Dept. and the Economic Development Corporation. The EDC is actually a subcontractor with the City for some of our economic development goals and activities. It was somewhat of a duplication of services to have an economic development department and an economic development corporation. So now DCR can focus on our pieces of the overall economic development plan and work with EDC on the other parts of the effort. It seems to be functioning really well.


3:30 I met with Dave Jones who is the Visitors' Bureau Director from Hanford, my old stomping grounds. Dave is working with San Joaquin Valley cities to coordinate activities and to look for mutually beneficial marketing opportunities. The EDC meeting was still going, so I couldn't give Dave the time that he deserved, so I'll meet with him again when I go down to speak with the Downtown Corcoran Business Association.


I had a few things to finish up on the computer tonight, so I didn't get to attend the first HyeFest meeting since last year's event. If you are of Armenian ancestry or are an Armeniaphile let me know and we'll add you to the email list for this group. This event has real potential to become a statewide draw over the next couple of years.

3 comments:

  1. I agree we need good planning, but this is heavy on the governmental side of things. It is light on the cultural changes that need to come about to foster these changes.

    There is the very real yet unanswered question of gentrification. A problem that has wrecked havoc on the East Bay region despite a history of good planning.

    This doesn't seem as prominent of a concern in the Lowell neighborhood as it has been in SW Fresno. I noticed this at the California Ave. community meetings.

    I have some more thoughts, but maybe what I've written so far can spark a discussion.

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  2. Thanks for the post Kiel.

    So the age old question is "how much is the right amount?" That conversation can lead to great public debate. This question also seems to define almost all political discourse.

    Our current state in downtown and our urban neighborhoods are exactly what our current plans call for: no design, setbacks that favor cars, shopping centers that are not walkable.

    So if we want to have a different outcome, we need to devise the plan on how to get there. We don't want cheap multi-family apartments that are going to deteriorate and that don't have a connection to the sidewalk.

    The creation of the plans will be lead and voted on, by 21 members committees made up of people who will live in the plan area, or own a business or property. So there will be a community-led aspect and the meetings will be open. Hopefully this will address the cultural aspect.

    As for gentrification, i think that once we were designated as the national leader in concentrated poverty for large cities, that we need to make some serious efforts toward mixed-income neighborhoods. The social and fiscal implications of concentrated poverty are a far more enormous risk (actually our reality) than gentrification.

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  3. Cheers for good planning.

    One aspect of the planning process I would like to comment on is community involvement and openness. I know that official committee meetings will be open, but I wonder how many "uninterested" citizens, those who don't have any specific "interest" or stake in downtown, will attend. And if this is the case, then are the meetings and overall process really community lead? I don't think it is, at least not to the extent that would be desirable. So this leads me to believe that the process needs lots of coverage/hype and what's discussed needs to reach the public. I know this is done to some extent already, but it would be great to see the meetings on Youtube or broadcasted on public tv.

    This blog and archop have allowed me to stay up to date on planning/development on goings, which is great, but I was already interested in these issues and actively sought out relevant info. I think the Downtown Planning Process would be a good opportunity to spark people's interest in our city and general civic engagement.

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