03-13-10 My 100th Blog Post, off-Rogue Performance

Saturday morning.
Cast:
Elaine Robles, Neighborhood Revitalization Manager
Amy Huerta, Local Business Initiatives Manager
George Smith, Administrative Manager
Craig Scharton, Downtown & Community Revitalization Director
Elliott Balch, Downtown Revitalization Manager

Special Appearance: Mark Scott, New City Manager


The scene opens in the DCR conference room. A long table in a long room, the long side is curved with floor to ceiling windows facing the loading dock and dumpsters, the Santa Fe tracks and St. John's District are in the near distance. The narrow side of the room is a wall covered in white board.


9:00 Elliott, Amy, George, Elaine and Craig have gathered for an on-site retreat. Everyone is stressing with increasing workloads and limited time. Communication and prioritization are needed and time together away from hustle and bustle, phones, intrusions and the press of other meetings.

Each participant brings a printed copy of a random week from their outlook calendar, except for Craig, who has his laptop with him on the conference table.


General priority areas are clearly defined for each. Calendars are read out loud to see if the activities are matching the priorities for each person's mission. Surprising outcome: Our time resources match our priorities very closely. Additoinal outcome: In the few instances where time seems/feels wasted, we get very annoyed and frustrated. Solution: Focus on the positive, our time resources are moslty aligned with our priorities.


We left with clear priority areas. We still need to do some work on prioritizing projects within each area. These things take time and require regular re-assessment. When we take the time to do this our rapport and job satisfaction is much higher, which helps our performance.


At 12:45 I met Mark Scott, our incoming City Manager. mark hadn't had lunch so we headed over to Iron Bird Cafe for a sandwich. We had trouble finding an open table, the place was full. Live music in the corner too. We spent about half an hour talking about our department and downtown revitalization in general terms.


I drove Mark through the Lowell neighborhood and explained our approach to coordinating the revitalization effort in the neighborhoods. He is very excited about this and brings a great deal of experience and understanding. Plus he knows these neighborhoods. He grew up in Fresno, so he can point out homes of his relatives from his early life.


Then we drove up Fulton to the Fulton Mall. Again, he took the bus to the Crest Theater as a boy. He remembers the Fulton Mall in its heyday. He has worked with Stefanos Polyzoides and is thrilled to work with him again (Stefanos is the downtown planning consultant lead partner).

I dropped Mark back off at the budget office at 2:30, where I picked him up.


At 5:30 I attended the Memorial of the late Ken Manock, a leading water attorney in our state. The memborial was held at his firm's office near Fig Garden Village. My wife and I had a sushi dinner afterward at the new Wassabi.


Curtain closes on me, sitting on a leather couch with my dog snoring next to me, playing suduko on my wife's i-phone.