02-24-10 Wednesday

7:45 I tried to tour a home in Lowell, but the front door was locked and the correct key was not in the lockbox.  Dang.

8:45 I had a minute to touch base with Rudy, our new MPA student intern.

9:00 We had the agenda meeting for next week's council meeting.  If you ever want to look at the city council agenda's go to http://www.fresno.gov/ click on the city clerk and then council agendas and minutes.  Each item on the agenda has a link if they have backup information or a staff report.  This is much better than the old days.  It is so easy to stay informed.

10:30 I attended a planning meeting at Fresno State for the upcoming Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities conference which will be coming to Fresno in October. http://www.cumuonline.org/conference/index.htm  This conference should be attended by all urban enthsuiasts in our region!  Anyone who is interested in presenting research should tune in as well.

1:00 I did a formal annual review with one of our managers.  This is still new to me, learning City processes.  Every place has their own format, so it is interesting to see how this is done within the City.  It's pretty straight forward.  It will also be interesting to see how the new City Manager will influence these processes.

2:00 Hank Delcore and Kiel Famellos-Schmidt met with us to help us to improve the Lowell neighborhood meetings.  Hank is the head of the Anthropology Dept. at Fresno State.  This is a great use of practical anthropolgy, learning better ways to engage people ande better ways to distill useful information.  We always strive to do better.  This is another great example of Fresno State's engagement in the Lowell neighborhood.

3:00 I did a second Annual Review of one of our managers.  It gets easier each time.  Now I know which form I fill out, which one they fill out and which one gets turned in to H.R./Personnel and the City Manager! 

4:30 We had a party to kickoff the grassroots effort to bring Farm Aid to Fresno this fall.  The party was at the 600 Club in Chukchansi Park.  We had good attendence from the local media and the committee.  Join the effort at http://www.facebook.com/#!/FarmAidtoFresno?ref=ts .