02-10-10 Last Wednesday

I got behind again. I shouldn’t be writing Last Wednesday's blog at 6:00 on Sunday morning. I don't know what happened to the blog writing the last two weeks. I'd been staying pretty current and then it all fell apart.



I got up for a run with the dog. I went to the gym Monday morning, ran Tuesday and Wednesday and then that was the end of exercise for the week.


At 7:00 I went by La Boulangerie for some pastry for the Licensed Contractor affinity Group (not a City expense). Supporting a locally-owned business.


7:30 The Local Contractor's Affinity group met with the Mayor at City Hall. This group keeps getting larger and more self-organized. They have really found their voice. They are going to buy some advertising to begin spreading the word about the dangers to people who use unlicensed contractors.


9:00 We had a weekly department directors meeting. We did not have agenda conference because we do not have a City Council meeting next week.


10:00 Our weekly interdepartmental downtown coordination meeting. We are still putting the finishing touches on the point people for various pieces of the downtown plans. Each member of the consulting team (historic preservation, traffic, sewer) will have an internal contact at the City to help get the correct information into the plans.


11:00 I toured the Vagabond Lofts. I was thinking about how it is interesting to see the body of work of an author, architect or film-maker. You see their growth and evolution. This is also true of Reza Assemi's projects. It would be a great ArcHop to tour Reza's projects from earliest to latest (Broadway Lofts are under construction). I'll try to remember to suggest this to Kiel.


12:00 I grabbed a quick lunch to take back to the office, from Toledo's on Van Ness. They have the best chips!


12:30 We had a Downtown FACES board meeting. It looks like the next festivals to be added to the calendar will be a pistachio festival and a raisin day celebration ( http://www.fresnocounty150.org/parade.asp )


2:00 We had a meeting with the South Stadium business and property owners. This meeting had some speed bumps. This is an understandably frustrated group of people. They have not received infrastructure like streets and sidewalks, even though many businesses are many decades old and have been paying taxes, they were recently under the threat of eminent domain for the various Forest City incarnations, now they are bearing the brunt of the homeless problem and are cleaning up on a daily basis. This area has many great businesses and buildings and will be a great opportunity to see how a mixture of uses can coexist and even thrive as we put together the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan.

3:00 I went by Valley Pipe and supply to hear about a code enforcement issue that had come up.


4:00 I taped a Maddy Forum show at the KFSR studio at Fresno State. You can hear the podcast of the show at http://www.csufresno.edu/kfsr/maddy.html


5:30 I met Elliott Balch at Kinko's to sign a grant that he was submitting. Hopefully the grant will cover some costs of the downtown plans! We headed to Doghouse Grill after getting it in the mail.


My wife and I watched A Serious Man on Comcast On Demand. I love to try to watch all of the Best Picture Nominees before the Academy Awards airs. I also love the Coen Brothers. AHA! We've discovered the reason I didn't blog Wednesday night.