01-29-10 My son Cole's 22nd birthday!

8:30 My first meeting of the day with Allysunn Williams from the Fresno Housing Authority and with Terance Frazier. We met to talk about strategies to get more of the foreclosed, abandoned houses and vacant lots in the Lowell Neighborhood into the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This has been a challenge because so many of the homes are going to investors who will use them as rentals. One of the goals of the neighborhood revitalization effort is to get more home ownership in this area. As of the last census only about 15% of the homes were owner occupied. Homes that go into the NSP go to qualified homeowners.



9:30 Council Member Lee Brand is also the Chairman of the Redevelopment Agency Board (the City Council also acts as the RDA Board). Lee and Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Marlene Murphey and I met with a couple of local developers who are interested in learning more about downtown revitalization plans and downtown development potential. We're getting some really good interest, it's a good sign.


10:30 I walked over to meet with Tom Richards and Brian Glover to see how things are coming along with the Bank of Italy Building. They are working through some of the engineering and architectural work to get a better sense of the building's needs and potential. They are also going through some of the research on the historic building process. The Bank of Italy is the only building on the Fulton mall that is on the National Historic Register.


11:30 I walked over to Kebab Express to pick up some lunch to take back to the office. Their lula kebab sandwich and pilaf make more a pretty great Friday meal!


1:30 I had a short one on one meeting with Dawn Steele, who works with Elaine Robles, on our Neighborhood Revitalization effort.


1:45 I had a quick meeting with the Mayor and her Chief of Staff to discuss our newest downtown addition the Raisin Administrative Committee. The RAC bring many benefits to downtown. They will use about 12,000 feet of space, bring 20 employees to downtown, and they have 100 board members who will be coming into downtown for meetings. They also have a variety of other business people and visitors from around the county and even internationally. This is a great first step toward creating a downtown that brings together agribusiness.


2:30 Wilma Quan and I met for 90 minutes to begin the process of planning and management for the process of the newly approved Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and Downtown Neighborhoods Specific Plan. There are so many pieces to the plans that it will be quite a feat to organize it all. I had the honor of signing three of the contracts. It is happening...amazing!

4:00 Elliott, Kelly Trevino (Incentive Zone Manager) and I met with Katie Stevens who is the City's Governmental Affairs coordinator and our Sacramento lobbyists to give them an overview of our efforts and to seek guidance on programs that might help us to achieve our revitalization and local business economic development goals.

I left the office at 6:00.  It was a solid week.  Good job team.