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06-24-10 PBID Passed

2010-06-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,
Today the long-awaited Property Based Improvement District passed. The votes, weighted by how much assessment each owner would contribute, won by a 2 to 1 margin. The City Council followed with a 6-0 vote (Perea absent) to form the district.

The PBID effort represents two attributes that successful cities possess: perseverance and momentum.

PBIDs didn't exist until the mid 1990's. It wasn't until the late 90's that I learned of them. I remember sitting at a Main Street Conference seminar about this relatively new tool. Even though I was working in downtown Pleasanton at the time, I wondered if my hometown would use this funding mechanism.

Community leaders led by Dan Doyle (CEO of Central Valley Community Bank) began an effort to create a PBID in Fresno nearly 10 years ago. Dan had been the first chair of the first PBID board in California, while he was working in Sacramento. A bus load of Fresnans went up to Sacramento to learn firsthand how the PBID was furthering their revitalization efforts.

The City Council voted for the funding to create a PBID, the former mayor vetoed the funding. The City Council reversed itself and voted against overturning the veto. The PBID suffered many such false starts over the years.

In March 2009 the City Council voted to fund the PBID effort, for the first time. Public meetings were held. Meetings with property owners were held. Boundaries and assessment levels were adjusted. Finally, it was time to gather the petitions, to see if a majority of the private sector owners would support an assessment. After many months of work, the committee of supporters collected petitions. A majority was finally secured.

Next a vote had to be held. This is what concluded today. Finally the City Council had to vote to form the District. This was the last hurdle, and the City Council stayed with the process and continued their support.

This is perseverance. There were many obstacles and hurdles. Political risk. A vocal group of opposing property owners. Time. Cost. A foundering economy. So many people contributed to the effort. If any one of them were removed from the equation, it might not have succeeded. One thing that a successful downtown demonstrates is that the city has learned to work together. The PBID shows that we are beginning to work together.

That brings me to Momentum. The PBID organizes property owners. They will now have a vehicle to find their common voice and their common priorities. We have shown that we can work together toward progress. The good ship REVITALIZATION is moving forward. We set out to accomplish a task, and together we succeeded. Add a Specific Plan, which required political and financial support, and the momentum increases. Downtown nightclubs can stay open until 4:00a.m....momentum. Iron Bird Lofts. The renewal of the Grizzlies lease. Plans are submitted for the Mayflower Apartments. A groundbreaking for Fulton Village. Penstar buys the Bank of Italy Building. ACEL Charter School moves into Fresno Station. KJWL puts up a new neon sign. The Housing Authority buys the Droge Building. The Raisin Marketing Board moves back downtown. Cliff Tutelian reopens the 10th floor ball room in the old PG&E Building for the first time in decades. The old facade of the Kress five and dime store is revealed for the first time since the late 1950s.

Momentum. It is still precarious. That is how momentum is in its early stages. But we have some. We also know that we can persevere together and work together. The Mayor and the City Council. The City Staff and the private property owners. Civic groups and citizens. We can do this. We now have proof that we have what it takes.

05-31-10 Memorial Day

2010-05-31T20:49:00.000-07:00

I have been in my new home in Lowell for four weeks. I've had my new dog for two. Man was my old life simple.

The house will be an ongoing project for the next few years.

My goals:

I will bring this home back to its historic character in a way that will add to the revitalization of this neighborhood. I will only use licensed contractors and neighbors.

Every bit of flora will be food producing.

I will incorporate the best energy and water conservation possible.

The art in my home will be from local artists.

Part of my personal goal is to integrate my beliefs with my actions. It's not always easy. There are many potential shortcuts. As always it is easy to say what we should do, it is another thing altogether to do them.

Eventually, I'd like this home to need very low overhead, so that I could live here well into the future. I'd also like it to be a showcase. A place where neighbors could see how much food can be grown on a residential lot, using less water than a conventional yard. I'd also like to incorporate rainwater and graywater systems to show how much further our resources can go.

Now, back to my dog Peeve. He is the greatest, but is also driving me nuts (a short drive). He is affectionate and minds well, but there is still enough puppy in him to cause some destruction in the house when I leave for a couple of hours. I had a new gate installed last week, the old chainlink had several holes that people had cut to get through. On my first day of letting Peeve out into the yard during the day, he still managed to escape twice. Once leading to a trip to the SPCA to reclaim him ($70). Tonight I pounded stakes into the ground to secure the rest of the fencing. I really hope that this holds him tomorrow. But I know that a dog that wants to get out will eventually find a way.

The neighborhood kids love Peeve. The come over to play with him constantly. He is great with them. The second time he got out I saw Jeffery, a 7-year old walking him down the street with a chain leash. I took Jeffery's bike, which had no back tire and a loose chain, to Steven's Bike Shop to get repaired, as a reward.

I'm living without a stove or refrigerator, a washer or a dryer. No dish washer, TV, or disposal. I'll be living with an evaporative cooler this summer (like my neighbors). I have to fix the electrical before I add any more load. My bedroom is upstairs, so I really don't need a fire!

I've had 3 older homes before, so I know the process. I've also lived downtown before, so I knew about that part too. I knew that this move would be a bit of an adventure, but like anyone else, I prefer things when they go smoothly. It is a big change from my low maintenance condo. But it feels right. That's the main thing. It was not the easiest choice. But what has easy ever taught me? It is much better knowing that when I talk to a service club about revitalizing our historic neighborhoods that I am doing more than just talking.

Stay tuned. I'll try to share more of my experiences as I go along this path. Like how to get the next door neighbors to quit throwing their garbage (including baby diapers) into my yard.

05-19-10 Three days, back to blogging form

2010-05-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

It was bike to work day. I have my bike, but I don't have a pump. I'll be biking to work soon though. I's only .8 miles to the office.

8:00 was our Downtown Working Group. This is an internal meeting of City Departments that meet weekly to keep the downtown effort coordinated.

9:00 Depart Directors Meeting. We meet weekly to go through the various activities of the departments and also citywide issues like the budget.

10:30 We had a meeting with the folks from FUND, which is a nonprofit that helps to fix homes in urban Fresno neighborhoods. We have a contract with FUND to renovate some homes in the Lowell neighborhood with federal Community Development Block Grant funds. The program is for low income homeowners who have code violations, but need help funding the work.

11:00 We participated in a webinar put on by the International Economic Development Corporation. The title was Economic Gardening. This is the approach that we are using to help local businesses, as opposed to putting our resources into attracting businesses.

12:00 I was on the Bill McEwen radio talk show. Bill and I discusses the Downtown Neighborhoods Plan charrette that took place last week.

1:00 I grabbed a quesadilla at the Mexicatessan at the Galleria.

1:30 I had a meeting with the Raisin Administrative Committee which moved into downtown this month. We met to discuss their parking needs for their board meetings. We also got a tour of their beautiful new offices in the Civic Center project. The employees, who were reluctant to move downtown, are now thrilled with their new digs.

4:00 I toured a building on Broadway. Afterward I had a tour of Reza Assemi's Broadway Lofts project. It is coming along. This will be a completely different housing option for folks who would like urban living.

5:00 I took the mutt to the dog park for a quick stretch and romp. He decided to lay in the mud, so he got an impromptu bath.

6:30 I met with a couple of entrepreneurs who are interested in starting a business downtown. We discussed potential locations and business opportunities downtown.

Back at home at 8:00 for some blogging and housecleaning.

05-18-10 Budget and Downtown Academy

2010-05-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

I started the day with a trip to the dog park on west shaw. It was closed. Dang, I'll need to get a better grasp on the operating hours.

My first meeting was at 7:30 with Parks Director Randy Cooper and Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd. Elliott was there too. The conversation was about the Vagabond Skate Park and a potential change of location to be nearer to the downtown core. This idea was the result of the planning charrette last week. It looks hopeful.

At 9:00 our department had its budget workshop with the City Council, Mayor and City manager. Others were in the room too. I think that these are on-line on the City's web page. It went very well. There were many good questions and even more in depth discussion from the Mayor and Council. It lasted about two hours.

Elliott and I met with Jeanette Jurkovich at ther new home on Huntington. We had a tour of this beatiful home that she and her husband are restoring. We sat in back and had lunch from the Packing Shed (on Merced Street) and discussed hisotric preservation issues.

I ran by my house to give Peeve (the new pooch) a chance to pee.

Back at the office we had our management meeting, followed by a full staff meeting. We were joined by members of the Housing Division. they will become part of the Downtown and Community Revitalization Deptartment in July.

At 4:00 I had my semi-weekly update meeting with the Mayor. City manager Mark Scott and the Mayor's Chief of Staff Georgeanne White were also there.

At 5:00 I hooked up with the inaugural class of the Downtown Academy, which is being coordinated by FLYP (Fresno's Leading Young Professionals. They had 25 people out on the Mall tonight. We toured the Security Bank Building lofts, the Loft Salon, the ballroom and the safe.

Afterward, we toured the Mall and then headed to Sustin's for dinner and beer.

I took Peeve to the dog park and let him stretcfh out his long legs. Back at home about 9:45.

05-17-10 Man I wish I'd been bloggin more...

2010-05-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

My blog fell off of a cliff. I have not had the energy to keep it up. It's not surprising, given the amount of change and activity, but I feel like I've missed so much. The Downtown Neighborhoods Design charrette last week, the trip to Sacramento for the State Historic Preservation Commission, the Council votes on the Property Based Imporvement District...

Part of the goal of the blog was to have my own journal to look back on, but also to have a transparent and public record of my activities as a public servant for the City of Fresno.

The changes in my personal life would also be good to list. I have purchased a bungalow in the Lowell neighborhood and have a new dog that I picked up form the SPCA last Tuesday.

Today our department, Downtown and Community Revitalization, was supposed to have our budget workshop. They didn't get through the Dept. of Public Utilities until after noon, so they didn't get to us. Tomorrow morning will be our time.

I met with our budget analyst George smith at 7:30 to go over our final reports.

We did have a couple of post-charrette meetings. One with Wilma, Elliott and Elaine, and another with our full department staff.

Elaine, Wilma and I grabbed lunch at the Golden. They wanted some soup for this cool rainy day.

We had a meeting of the Mayor's PIPES committee at 1:30, which is geared toward refining the processes for projects that are going through city review and approval (or rejection).

At 4:00 Elaine and I drove to Fresno State to meet with the departments that have dedicated part of their curriculum to the Lowell Neighborhood. We heard some great stories of their involvement this semester, from mediation and peace-making with students at Lowell, to Anthroplogy students who helped at the last neighborhood meeting. Construction management continues to provide students to work on houses in the neighborhood. The libraian is building a website to chronicle all of these activities. Prof. Schecter is shepherding students for us to use as interns from the Political Science Dept. Theater has put together a powerpoint to show how lighting can improve the neighborhood.

at 5:30 Elaine and I headed to the Lowell Neighborhood Association for the monthly open meeting.

I picked up Betty Ann and Ellis for a trip to the dog park to let out dogs run. Back to the house on Glenn for some straightening up about 8:30.

A common theme from the last two weeks

2010-05-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

It has always been interesting to me how certain themes materialize. They are not usually new, but they seem to come and go in waves. Sometimes more clarifying than original.

Two weeks ago a national legend in the world of neighborhood revitalization visited Fresno. Gus Newport is a former Civil Rights activist and the former Mayor of Berkeley. His real rise to prominence came through his work in the Boston neighborhood called Dudley Street. This neighborhood had been burned down by arsonists. Slumlords collected their fire insurance and left devastation. Industry followed by using vacant lots as hazardous waste dumping sites. Gus gathered the remaining neighbors together and used his political skills to get the attention of the Mayor and business leaders. Together they made huge strides to bring health back to the neighborhood.

The message Gus brought to Fresno was this: Many of the things that he fought for in the 1960's were flawed. Ideals like affordable housing had often created slums and ghettos. Housing was the goal, but without a mixture of uses like services, retail, jobs, and recreation, the end product was a disaster. Gus talked about the need for more holistic goals. What is a healthy neighborhood? A mixture of incomes, walkable places with good transportation. Education connected to employment opportunities. Financial knowledge coupled with banking. Access to living wages. Businesses that reinvested back into their communities. Parks that were active and fun.

Stefanos Polyzoides is the Managing Partner heading the Downtown Community Plan and the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan consulting team. He spoke to the Fresno Planning Commission last week to give them an overview of the planning efforts. His message was: Planning needs to include hisotric preservation, economic development, transportation, good design, community input, parks and landscape, infrastructure. Again, it is a holistic approach to what makes a healthy downtown and a healthy downtown neighborhood. This is what we are doing through our downtown plans in Fresno.

Contrast this theme with the recent application to add the Fulton Mall to the National Registar of Historic Places. A small group, operating in relative isolation, has submitted the application. There were no community meetings and there were no meetings of property owners to decide whether or not this was a good idea. The rules for adding a property or properties to the National Registar forbid commissioners to consider concepts like economics. This seperation of ideas was confirmed by commisioners on the State Hisotirc Preservation Commission. As long as preservation walls itself off from the concepts of economics and revitalization, it will continue to engender unnecessary opposition. The bizarre piece of the application was that it only included the Mall, not the historic buildings that surround it. If the applicants really wanted preservation, wouldn't they have included the buildings that are truly historic? Again, it is a limited perspective rather than a holistic view.

Over 25 years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation realized that saving buildings without addressing the economic realities required for revitaliztion, that more buildings would be lost. And by revitalizing downtowns, more buildings would find economic uses than could ever be saved on a one by one basis. The program they created called the National Main Street program was their most successful ever. The helped thousands of downtowns, districts and neighborhoods, while holding to an ethic of historic preservation.

Fresno has an opportuntiy to learn from all of this. Yes, we have affordable housing needs. But, putting all of our affodable housing in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty only solidifies their condition. Historic preservation is an ideal that succesful cities hold onto. They also know that revitalization of their urban areas is the best way to accomplish this goal, by finding ways to make their downtowns thrive and their older neighborhoods desirable for a wide variety of people.

04-21-10 and 04-22-10 Council Passes PBID Petition

2010-04-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY

8:00 Downtown Coordination Meeting

9:00 Directors' Meeting

10:00 Bi-weekly update with Mayor

12:00 Lunch with FLYP and Tom Richards

2:00 Update with Councilmember Sterling

3:00 Met Block RFP

THURSDAY

7:00 Housing Meeting (weekly)

8:30 Kelly Trevino gets Employee of the Quarter

10:30 One on One with Dawn Steele

11:00 One on One with Elaine Robles

1:00 Meet with Borgeas

1:30-3:30 City Council Hearing lasted 2 hours. 6-1 vote (Perea voted no)

4:00-5:30 Independent Retailers and Restaurants Afinity Group

5:30-7:00FLYP mixer. I was the speaker to discuss the Downtown Academy

04-20-10 Downtown Plans meeting

2010-04-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in almost 3 weeks. I'm sorry that this time period was not recoreded because so much has happened. My goal was to journal publicly so that people could keep up with the happenings, but also so that I could look back and keep track of the ups and downs of the revitalization and local business efforts.

But it got to be too much. Each blog was taking 45-60 minutes a night and I got burned out. So I'll try a new format and get to the main items each day, not the repetitive " we had our weekly staff meeting' stuff.

Today had three main events.

First, at 8:00 I had a one one one meeting with our new City Manager Mark Scott. We discussed the organization of the revitalization effort within the City and how it could be improved.

Second, Mark Scoot, ELLiott Balch and I drove over to the Iron Bird Lofts for thier official grand opening and ribbon cutting. It was pouring rain as we headed over. The event was movind into one of the vacant commerical spaces on Fulton. I was one of the speakers for the event, along with others like Darius Assemi, the Myor, Henry T. Perea and Larry Westerlund. My message was that revitalization is an action sport. It is up to the community to help to make sure project like Iron Bird are successful. If you haven't been through them yet, please sign up for a tour so that you can tell any friends who are looking for a cool place to live about them as an option.

Third, we had a day long series of public meetings about the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan ( http://www.fresnodowntownplans.com/ )

The meetings were a first bluch report from the consultant team about their initial findings. They were seeking feedback from the stakeholder committees and the public. The reports, especially their maps, were excellent. Check out the website for more info.

This blog only took 15 minutes. I think that this is the way to go for the next phase!

04-01-10 No time for April Fools' Today

2010-04-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

7:00 I was the speaker for the Sunrise Rotary Club, which meets at the Ramada Inn.

9:00 I met with a Project Representative for a public entitiy that wants to buy Cityowned land for a new building downtown. We met with our Traffic Engineer Bryan Jones to discuss traffic issues and solutions.

10:00 Turned in my Form 700 which lists any potential conflict of interest issues. The form goes to the State Fair Political Practices Commission. It wasn't even due 'til 5:00!

03-29-10 Live Blogging from the Most Multi Media Meeting Ever

2010-03-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'll be interviewing the Mayor in 5 minutes at http://www.businessstreetonline.com/index.php?n=127&id=127&topic=Most+Multi+Media+Meeting+Ever

03-24-10 Shadow for the Day and Guest Blogger Miriam Zuk

2010-03-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the week Craig Scharton told me that 10 minute catnaps were his secret to staying energized, but I didn’t see him fade even once during our 15 hour day on Wednesday, March 24th. Over a quick breakfast Craig gave me a brief history of sprawl and urban decline in Fresno – a story similar to most cities across the U.S. But urban revitalization is coming late to Fresno and Craig began to share his firm belief in the benefits that a strong downtown and mixed-income neighborhoods will bring to the city. As we scurried from one meeting to the next I learned about the many related activities the City is undertaking to achieve this vision.

Step one in neighborhood revitalization: coordinate. This was clearly the theme of the day and was the purpose of our first meeting at City hall. Each week the City departments get together to give updates on their downtown activities and I heard about many of the challenges of adaptive reuse including occupancy codes, inherited leases that were poorly formulated and the myriad agencies/departments that have authority over land in the city, each with their own design standards, priorities, practices, etc. that do not necessarily support each other or the City’s vision for the downtown. Step two in downtown revitalization: remove the barriers. On this we heard about the outdated zoning code that was created for suburban rather than city living and the planning department’s interim standards to help rather than hinder smart downtown development.

Coordination was also the theme of the meeting at the COG on the high speed rail. Many of the same faces as the downtown City meeting – FAX, Planning, Facilities, Public Works - but now we were also joined by the HSRA consultant, the COG’s consultant and the City’s consultant. All have slightly different tasks, but clearly need to work together to ensure that the station will help rather than hurt the city. The idea of a bullet train flying at 200 miles per hour, 60 ft overhead still boggles my mind, but the people in the room seemed more concerned about station alignment (whether it should be on the Chinatown or downtown side of the tracks), parking (4500 spots!) and making the station accessible to multiple modes. This is obviously going to be a lengthy process, but people generally seemed optimistic.

The importance of historic preservation and adaptive reuse became the themes of the next few meetings, one with a developer interested in downtown and another with the Salvation Army who holds several properties in the Lowell neighborhood. What do we want the downtown to look like? New developments like the lifestyle centers popping up around the country or renovating what is already there and celebrating our heritage. Clearly Craig believes in the second (as do I!) and reiterated this throughout the day. The nuances of this vision, however, came out when we attended the final meeting of the day with the Fulton Mall property owners. Clearly people are conflicted about the value of the outdated pedestrian mall to the downtown. Some see the mall as the death of downtown, whereas others see it as a part of the City’s heritage, one that has consistently been stripped away over the last few decades.

When Craig asked me at the end of the day (10pm!) what was my biggest take away, I told him “I learned what city planning is today” and I meant it. To see all the processes and smart growth principles I’ve been learning about at school put into action was a real treat and truly inspiring. I look forward to spending more time in this great city and following where Craig’s leadership takes it!

From Craig: Miriam is a PhD candidate at Berkeley studying City and Regional Planning. We hope that she does her research right here in our urban Fresno. Thanks Miriam!

03-19-10 Friday

2010-03-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

7:30 Interim City Manager Bruce Rudd hosted a breakfast at the Downtown Club for all of the department directors.

9:00 We had a meeting with the City Manager and others along with the Housing Authority to discuss progress on the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and to discuss possible changes to the program to speed up its completion.

10:00 The City Manager and others met with the representatives from a local agency that is interested in purchasing land from the City and building a new structure downtown.

11:30 Elliott, Angela Vasquez and I drove out to meet with Jan Minami and Joe Moore from the Downtown Association. We discussed the possibility of partnering on our downtown events.

1:00 Elliott and I met with Council Member and RDA Board Chair Lee Brand and City Building Official Jerry Bishop regarding a potential downtown tenant in an old warehouse building. No seismic work had been done to the structure, so unfortunately it was not an option.

2:00 Our weekly review meeting with the Planning Dept. to make sure that we stay coordinated with the downtown plans.

I left at 3:00 to head up to the foothills above Pine Flat for some camping and fly fishing. Caught and released 5 beauties.

03-18-10 Thursday

2010-03-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

4:30 Yep, the dog and I got up in time for a jaunt down Wishon.

7:00 Housing Issues: Preston Prince (Housing Authority), Eileen Neely (Housing Authority), Marlene Murphey (RDA), Keith Bergthold (City Planning)

9:00 City Council Meeting. Agreement with EDC, Fresno State and City regarding economic development services was on the agenda and passed unanimously.

10:30 Weekly Specific Plan update meeting: Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch, Elaine Robles. The planning team is coming into town next week to conduct stakeholder interviews.

12:00 Lunch at Young Executives. Speaker was Sarah Woolf regarding Westlands Water District issues.

1:30 Meeting with Business License and Information Services Dept. to go over progress and issues related to the proposed on-line business directory. This would allow us to have a web page that listed all businesses in Fresno.

2:30 My bi-weekly one on one with Amy Huerta. We mostly discussed the proposed Fresno Food Show.

03-17-10 St. Paddy's

2010-03-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

8:00 We had a great meeting with the interdepartmental downtown coordination group. Probably the best yet. We had the draft Downtown Development Guidelines, which will help us to make projects more urban (less suburban) while the downtown plans are being developed. We talked about issues with the Spiral Garage and its need for repairs. We had an update on the Met Museum, JC Penney Building and the Droge.

9:00 Agenda conference for next Thursday's Council meeting. The Fresno Technology Affinity Group will be highlighted during our Primetime for Business segment.

As always, the Directors' meeting followed Agenda Conference. I kept my report lighthearted, there was plenty of other heavy stuff. I reported on FLYP's Downtown Academy.

10:00 Our department’s managers met to go over our list for my one on one meeting with the Mayor at 1:30. We're going to start having a pre and post meeting to make sure that we get the information that is needed to the Mayor and that I relay the information from my meeting with the Mayor back to our folks.

11:00 Steve Geil and I met with the Mayor to discuss his interest in a public market in downtown. We want to make sure that we are coordinated in this effort. This is a high priority project (based on funding) to bring agriculture back into our community.

1:30 I had my standing meeting with the Mayor, City Manager and Mayor's Chief of Staff. We went through a series of items like the PBID, downtown plans, Fresno Food Show and the next Lowell neighborhood meeting.

3:00 We had a directors' PIPES meeting. This is a meeting of the Public Works, Public Utilities, Planning Director and me.

4:00 Post-Mayor meeting. I'm going to start meeting with our managers directly after the Standing Meeting with the Mayor.

5:00 Some folks from Fresno State and City hall got together for some corned beef at the Cosmopolitan Tavern.

03-16-10 Tuesday

2010-03-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

My wife needed to get down to Long Beach to tour some of their middle schools. So we were up at 3:00. She left at 4:00 so we had an early run. I actually snoozed for an hour after my run. The mutt snoozed all day.

At 8:30 George Smith and I met to go over our financial and budget information. Nothing much to report yet. We've submitted our target budget for the next fiscal year already. In a week we'll start meeting with the Mayor and City Manager, Budget Director and others to go through our budget line by line.

10:00 I walked over to have coffee with Vernon Crowder. Vern is retired from Bank of America but is still looking for ways to stay plugged into economic development in our area.

11:30 A local developer has been having conversations with a national development company who has a growing interest in Fresno. Our local friend has been pitching our downtown activity to them and they are interested. He wanted to get all of the information that he could and then wants to bring them to Fresno for a full presentation of the best development opportunities in the downtown core.

12:30 I worked through lunch, but Elliott brought back a chicken and pesto sandwich from our downtown Fresh and Easy. Usually places skimp on the pesto. This sandwich was dripping with it. If I send a letter to you with green splotches, you'll know why.

1:30 It was Mayors Open Door Day and one of the appointments was with a young woman from Southwest Fresno. She wanted to talk to the Mayor about how the arts, and more specifically the performing arts, could be used to engage youth in that part of town. She teaches dance. The Mayor told her about efforts that are underway to give community centers to nonprofits who can deliver services and that she might partner with one or more of the proposers in southwest.

2:30 I had a phone meeting with one of the people involved with First Five about a headquarters and child care center location downtown.

3:00 I missed our weekly department staff meeting. This is very rare. However, there were some key issues that had to be addressed with our Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

5:00 Redevelopment Agency had an item on the Housing and Community Development Commission agenda. It related to a study that needs to be done to show how ammonia gas from the Danish Creamery Plant could effect Chinatown development. I attended to support the study moving forward. The commission was supportive.

03-15-10 Monday

2010-03-17T22:59:00.000-07:00

Why is it that on Sunday I could've fallen asleep in a heartbeat, but when I went to bed...wide awake. No running for me today.

First meeting at 8:30 with a property owner representative from the area south of the stadium, who wanted to know more about what was happening with revitalization.

10:00 I'm hoping to buy a home in the Lowell neighborhood. It's a beauty but a real fixer-upper. I met with the home inspector and he confirmed that there was a ton of work to do, but that it wouldn't fall over on me anytime soon.

10:30 We had a press conference for the opening of the first house in Lowell to be purchased and rehabbed with the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) money. It's a beauty.

11:30 Rudy Plecencia is an intern from Fresno State working on his Masters in Public Administration. He is helping to create and organize the Downtown Academy along with Fresno's Leading Young Professionals.

1:00 We had a web-based training for a great new tool. In fact, we're the only city with this depth of information in the country. This web based system of demographic, economic, social, institutional information is incredible. Once we get more used to it, it will help us to measure where are needs are more clearly and also to track progress. My description here is not doing it justice.

2:00 I had a meeting with Terance Frazier and Steve Hosey who are helping us in the Lowell Neighborhood and are working with the Housing Authority's portion of the NSP contract (see photos above for NSP reference).

3:00 I recorded a couple of public service announcements at the KJWL studio. They are part of an awareness campaign to let people know why they shouldn't use unlicensed contractors.

4:15 We had a meeting with the Facilities Dept. of the City to go over some of the needs for City owned properties. The City has not done a good job of maintaining its facilities for many years, so now there is a bunch of backlogged work to do.

5:30 I attended the Lowell Concerned Neighbors meeting at the Dickey Youth Center. There were far-ranging discussions from policing issues to job training programs. These meetings are open to the public and they have a facebook page if you'd like to keep up with the group.

7:00 I met Preston Prince from the Housing Authority to discuss some of his projects that we have in common like NSP, Droge Building, SRO Housing in Chinatown and others.

Home about 8:30...too late for blogging (at least that's my excuse, since the winter olympics are past).

No spell check, the photos won't allow it to work.

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

2010-03-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

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.

03-12-10 Friday

2010-03-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

7:00 A stop by Iron Bird Cafe on the way into work for a cup of coffee.

8:00 Elliott and I headed over to the Downtown Association's office on the Fulton Mall for a meeting about the Property Based Improvement District. Art Farkas, Victoria Gonzales, Dan Doyle, Al Allen and Jan Minami, DTA ED were there. They are getting more signatures and should be betting a steady flow over the next month to be able to meet their goal.

9:30-11:00 Wilma Quan and I went through her annual review. The formality of the forms is now begining to work. Every system is different, so figuring out how to make this process meaningful has been worthwhile.

11:00 We had a question and answer session for potential bidders for a contract to design an on-line directory for Fresno businesses. Businesses that have a business license will be featured in an on-line directory (unless they opt out). This will help our local businesses to have another way of reaching customers and will help customers who want to shop locally (I bleieve that locally is an adverb that modifies the verb shop).

Companies have been given a chance to respond to the proposal, and all members of the Fresno Technology Affinity Group were on the list to receive proposals.

12:30 I had lunch with the always magnificent Fernando Santillan, our former DCR team member who is now helping the Economic Development Corporation land more businesses and employers into our area. We dined at the world renowned Chicken Pie Shop. Rice pudding for dessert.

2:00 Specific Plan-Week in Review. John Dugan and Arnoldo Rodriguez from our Planning Department joined us to recap the week's activities and issues regarding the downtown plans.

3:00 Brock Buche and Lon Martin met with Wilma Quan and me to talk about how the Public Utilities Dept. might be able to dovetail with some of the work being done by the consultants who are doing the engineering for the Specific Plan. We want to get as much information as possible for future activities, but also to use as much existing information as possible so that we don't have to use resources re-creating something that already exists

4:30 I met with Tate Hill at the Revue in the Tower District. This is part of the ongoing information that we are sharing with candidates for City Council. We want the debate to be well informed.

03-11-10 Mike Oz Highlight of the Week Blog

2010-03-12T22:30:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, up before the alarm and on the road at 4:30. The pup doesn't mind getting up for a run. She goes back to bed and sleeps all day.

7:00 I stopped by the Iron Bird Cafe for a frittata sandwich and a coffee to go.

8:00 I met with Marcelino Valdez, who is a candidate for City Council district 7. We are offering to meet with all candidates to brief them on our department's mission, strategies, activities....

8:45 I met with Darius Assemi who is building Fulton Village, the residential project next to Tokyo Garden. We walked over to the Planning Department. John Dugan, Jerry Bishop, Kevin Fabino and I met with Darius to go over some of his design ideas. Things are rolling right along.

10:00 We had a conference call with Planning and Moule and Polyzoides to work on coordination of the City's various planning efforts (bike plan, general plan update, master environmental impact report, southeast growth area, and the downtown plans).

11:30 I met Mike Osegueda at La Elegante (http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/56/610788/restaurant/Central/La-Elegante-Fresno ) for tacos. Three weeks ago, a couple of people mentioned La Elegante tacos. I admitted that I hadn't ever heard of the place, even though it was in Chinatown, a place I visit fairly regularly. Mike Oz, a super hero with taco discerning powers heard my plea. He called and scheduled lunch with me to rescue me from my plight. Wow, they are great. The flavors are perfectly complex, they are the fine wine of tacos. Complex, bold, flavorful. Thanks Oz Man.

12:30 I had a quick update meeting with the Mayor and City Manager. I had a few thoughts that I needed to run past them.

2:00 We had a coordination meeting with the contractors of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This is an ongoing meeting with City folks from Planning, Housing and Community Development Block Grant programs and the four entities that received these federal funds to buy, renovate and sell homes to families that meet an income requirement.

3:00 We had an on-site meeting with Public Works Director Patrick Wiemiller and Planning Director John Dugan at a building that Reza Assemi is considering for a downtown housing project. This is part of the new process to streamline projects. The Directors will meet with downtown project proponents early on to solve complex issues up front, so that they don't have changes mid-way through a project.

4:00 John Dugan, Karana Hattersly -Drayton (Historic Preservation Manager), Elliott Balch and I met to talk about the High Speed Rail downtown station and potential historic preservation issues.

5:00 George Smith had some budget items that he needed to discuss.

6:00 Met Cliff Tutelian at the Cosmo to talk about some issues and potential projects in the Cultural Arts District. I had the tri-tip sandwich. I couldn't pass on the classic.

03-10-10 Wednesday

2010-03-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

7:00 Amy Huerta (Local Business Initiatives) and I headed out to Wawona Farms ( http://www.wawona.com/shop/default.asp ) to meet with Bill Smittcamp. We were there to strategize about the Fresno Food Show. This is an event that would put local food producers in contact with our local food producers from growers to processors to boutique cheeses to Ruiz Foods, to wineries. We'd get buyers from grocery stores and restaurants to see what we produce all in one place.

9:00 We had the agenda conference for the City Council Meeting on March 18th. Our department doesn't have much on, just a revised contract with the Economic Development Corporation and Fresno State's Office of Economic Development. The contract was already approved, but one of the parties needed a language change for the financial tracking.

At the following directors' meeting I gave a report on the Downtown Plan meetings that we had just held. I also talked to the group about a possible downtown tenant that we were going to be giving a tour to later in the day.

10:00 I met the potential downtown tenant and gave them an overview in our department's conference room. We have a good aerial map in there that is good for illustrating our strategy. We then walked over to introduce them to the Mayor. She talked about how the revitalization of urban Fresno is her #1 priority and how she is following through in her administration. The group walked away talking about how what a great mayor we have. She is phenomenal in these meetings.

I accompanied them on a tour of the Fulton Mall and a couple of downtown buildings. We had lunch downtown. They toured several other buildings on their own throughout the day.

2:00 I had a meeting with Council Member Sterling to give her a briefing on the tenant and the tour and also to follow-up on the downtown plan meetings, which she attended.

2:30 We had our weekly Downtown and Community Revitalization management team meetings with George Smith, Elaine Robles, Amy Huerta, Wilma Quan and Elliott Balch. We continue to discuss the shifting prioritization demands now that the downtown plans are underway. We also spent some time talking about our interns and how to maximize their experience and their work product.

4:00 Amy Huerta and Alex Villa organized the second meeting of the Independent Retailers and Restaurants affinity group. We had a great turnout from locally-owned businesses like: Whitie's Pets, Sierra Nut House, Pismo’s Restaurant, Not Just Paper, BJ's Country Kitchen, Joe's Steakhouse, Tower Hot Dogs and several others. Their priority issue is to do an educational outreach about why the community should buy from locally-owned businesses. The Mayor was on hand to hear their thoughts and discussion and to give her thoughts and support. We held the meeting at Full Circle Brewery. It was the first time that most of the group had been there. It was nice to see some of the local restaurants finding a locally-made beer.

6:00 I had a phone interview with Alice Daniel, who is a local freelance writer, who is doing a story of the Fresno area as a good place to do business. The article will appear in an in-flight magazine.

6:30 I met one of my recent students, Stephanie Roberts about her idea for a downtown business, at Million Elephant Bar. Several students from different eras attended the downtown plan meetings. Mark Harris and Christian Long both did an event in the Security Bank Building last Saturday. Urban Entrepreneurship students are everywhere!

03-09-10 The First Full Meeting for the Downtown Plans!!!

2010-03-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

I was out of the door by 4:30 for a nice jog con el perro Ellis.

6:30 I attended the Mayor's Fresno/Clovis Prayer Breakfast which was held at the Radisson.

9:30 The Mayor held a meeting with a variety of people in the construction, development, nonprofit housing industry and with partners like Flood Control, the Air District and PG&E.

The topic of the meeting was the kick-off of the PIPES (process improvement and permit enhancement strategy). This was a result of a year of analysis about all of the places where businesses get stuck in the system at City Hall. There has been a new website, which allows people to track their projects. There is now a streamlined application, so only the information needed to make a good decision is required, not every detail. And the best part is that downtown projects are the highest priority and always start out with the four department directors: Planning, Public Works, Public Utilities and me. This gets them on the right track from the beginning.
11:00 the Mayor held a press conference to roll out the changes that are being made.

12:15 Lunch at Austins (formerly Heroes). A wide variety of City leaders met to discuss a downtown signage program. Wayfinding is a common program in downtowns. My focus would be to direct people to parking near the Fulton Mall, which is our priority area for revitalization. We have parking, but it is not attractive or easy to identify. Rates are another topic completely.

1:30 The planning team came into town and we had a meeting to go through the agendas and presentations for the evening's meetings.

2:00 Stefanos Polyzoides, David Sargent and Juan Gomez-Novy, Wilma Quan and I met with the Mayor for her stakeholder interview. There will be a series of interviews with neighbors, business owners, property owners, community leaders and others that will be incorporated into the early drafts of the plan.

4:00 The Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan was held in the ground floor of the San Joaquin Light and Power Building, a.k.a The Grand. This was the first meeting of this group of stakeholders. All plans in Fresno have 21-member advisory committees. 18 members are appointed by the city council representatives. Since this plan covers three districts, the appointments were proportional. Perea and Dages each appointed 5, Sterling 8, and the Mayor has 3 at-large appointments.

The meeting started with welcomes and introductions. One of the City Attorneys gave an overview of open meeting laws, conflict of interest, and the bylaws. Next, Stefanos gave an overview of the planning process. The Community advisory Committee gave input and asked questions. participants from the public gave their thoughts and ideas.

7:00 The Fulton Corridor Specific Plan meetings started. Same location, but a separate committee of 21. This committee had all 18 members appointed by Sterling, because the boundaries are all in her district. The Mayor appointed the 3 at-large.

The format for this meeting was pretty much the same. Both meetings had 50+ audience members. All commissioners were in attendance. The input was very good as were the questions and dialogue. We'll have to make some adjustments for the layout and acoustics.

We're off and running. This will be the time to make real change in the direction that Fresno heads into the future, toward sustainable, urban planning that supports a higher quality of life. The magnetic pull of the city center will continue to grow and strengthen. Now I know that we are not anywhere near our goals but I do know that we are headed in the right direction. For now, that is what counts.

03-08-10 Monday

2010-03-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

8:00 Medical Appointment

9:30 Meeting to go over the last minute details and decisions for tomorrow night's Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan and Fulton Corridor Specific Plan (www.fresnodowntownplans.com ). I hope that you are going to come to some of these meetings. This is going to lay the foundation to change our city forever.

11:00 City manager Bruce Rudd, Allysunn Williams and Preston Prince from the Housing Authority, Marlene Murphey from RDA, Greg Barfield, Homeless Prevention, Brian Glover from Penstar and I met to discuss a project for homeless people in Chinatown..

1:00 We had a conference call with the historic preservation crew from the planning team to discuss the application submitted to the state to put the Fulton Mall on the National Register of historic places.

2:15 We had another conference call with the economists on the planning team http://www.strategiceconomics.com/ to discuss the economics summitt portion of our planning process.

3:30 I had my formal review with Elaine Robles and our weekly one on one.

5:00 I met Brian Glover at Austins to get an update on the Bank of Italy Building and other downtown projects.

03-07-10 Kiel's Request + Downtown Fresno belongs to the Central SJ Valley

2010-03-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

A couple of blogs ago, I asked for some input on how to improve this web log. I know that it is too much like a meeting schedule. I also know that I don't want to make the blog into too big of a project. Imperfect as it might be, it's still 45-60 minutes as it is.

Kiel Famellos-Schmidt (http://www.archop.org/ and http://www.gardenfresno.com/ ) made a good suggestion He wanted to know more about the thoughts, ideas, vision, the WHY as opposed to the WHAT.

So every once in a while, like on a Sunday or on a vacation day, I'll write about the WHY or the HOW.

Downtown Fresno functioned as the regional downtown for the whole Central San Joaquin Valley. This is normal for the downtown of a regionally-sized city. Downtown Fresno was a place where people came to get things that their smaller communities couldn't provide. Some of these were more tangible like clothes, movies or banking. They also got less tangible things like the feeling of being in a big, vibrant place with different people than the ones they saw every day.

People from Fresno's satellite communities called it "going into town" or going to town." This simply meant that they were going to downtown Fresno. With everyone from the region going in to one place to get things, that place could offer more things. The more things that the place offered, the more reasons there were to go there.

When the tangible attractions like retail, movies and banks scattered from downtown to everywhere else, we also lost the intangible benefit of having a common gathering place.

Our region has grown in population. There are about 1.6 million people who live within a 45 minute drive of downtown Fresno. The freeway system has been built, and all roads meet near downtown Fresno. There is no other place in our area that has such easy access to such a large population. This market is unserved by an urban gathering place, a fun entertainment center that showcases our culture, and gives us a shared experience.

Downtown Fresno belonged to the Central Valley. It served the whole Central valley, not just Fresno. To revitalize downtown Fresno, it should again.

The other benefit for the Central Valley is that their proximity to a healthy, vital downtown Fresno enhances their image too. If someone said that they were from Macksburg, Oregon. You'd look at them blankly and then they'd say, "about 45 minutes from Portland and you'd say, "cool."

That should be a measure of our goal. When people say they are from Reedley or Kerman or Coarsegold, they should proudly declare their proximity to Fresno.

What can downtown provide now that many of the attractions have left? A vibrant urban experience. Some people want a vibrant urban experience. There is no other city in our region big enough to provide this experience. No other place in the Central SJ Valley has the big buildings all packed together in one dense space to provide the setting for a vibrant urban experience.

Do we have anything in downtown that draws people from our whole region? The Grizzlies, the Fuego, Selland Arena, Club One Casino, ArtHop and the Saroyan Theater do currently. What else could be added to strengthen this mix, to add to the draw from the surrounding communities?

03-05-10 Raisins are a reason to party

2010-03-06T06:37:00.000-08:00

7:30 I headed over to Iron Bird Cafe. I had a press release to write for next Tuesday's two meetings for the downtown plans (http://www.fresnodowntownplans.com/ ). I had a really good bagel with lox, cream cheese, onions and capers. The coffe was great and Rene Newlove (http://www.facebook.com/solitairesrogue ) greeted my with a frinedly "good morning.

Kiel Famellos-Schmidt rode his bike to the cafe on his way to the office, so we had a chance to catch up for a bit. (http://www.spaciodesignstudio.com/bio-kiel.php ).

8:30 I had a meeting with Donald Dejonge http://www.donalddejonge.com/ who is my new New York Life Insurance Agent. He's a a graduate of the Fresno State Entrepreneurship program. My agent had moved and my account fell to Donald. I'm glad he's on the job, he was very helpful.

My 10:00 meeting was a no show. I like an occasional no show, especially on Fridays. I hope that you are well no show.

10:30 I did my formal (on casual Friday even) annual employee review of Elliott Balch. We had our forms, we signed the correct copies, we're off to the races on this offical process now.

12:00 Elliott, Donna Gavello ( http://www.revfest.org/ ) and I had lunch with Gary Schulz, President of the Raisin Administrative Committee http://www.raisins.org/ for lunch at Georges in the Galleria. they'll be moving into Civic Center in late April.

We met to begin planning a Raisin Day Festival. http://www.fresnocounty150.org/images/es06.jpg f Farm Aid chooses Fresno for a location, we'd probably combine the two activities. The concert would be in Chukchansi Park and the Festival would be out on Fulton. If Farm Aid doesn't come to Fresno this year, we'd hold the festival in the Fall.

1:30 I met with Eddie Clement from the Carpenters Union. Eddie is a huge downtown fan. He was in the revfest last year, he comes to the Downtown Revitalization Update Meetings (DRUM), he advocates to the other trade unions about downtown. Eddie was specifically interested in sharing some of the work that they are doing on making buildings more energy efficient and are intereted in getting more involved in hisotirci home renovation.

4:00 I met with Lon Martin from the Public Utilities Department. We were discussing downtown water needs and options. Downtown is facing some issues with older wells that will need to be rebuilt or replaced.

5:30 I headed back to Iron Bird Cafe for Creative Fresno's Creative Blender and Cynthia Cooper's birthday party. It was a fun event with many good friends attending. I had a coffee, mocha, strawberry iced drink that was fantastic.

03-04-10 Thursday

2010-03-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

7:00 I met with the housing brain trust, Rollie Smith, Preston Prince, Keith Bergthold, and Eileen Neely. I continue to be amazed at what a different world housing is. It has its own laws, funding, politics. It's always good to know how much you know and how little you know. Housing is its own world.

8:30 I had my one on one meeting with Amy Huerta. We mostly talked about some of the logistics for the Fresno Food Show. I made some calls to try to round up potential buyers from grocery stores.

9:30 Renena Smith is the City's Budget Director. Renena presented more mid-year budget information to the City Council. All Department Directors were required to attend, in case the city Council members had any questions for us. The Mayor is doing a great job of sharing information as it becomes clear. It is not easy news and will lead to hardship for many people and reduced service for the community, but it is better to be clear and allow information to drive the best possible decisions.

11:00 I met with a few gentlemen about a building that they own in the South Stadium area. They were unsure whether or not they should sell the property or keep it to renovate as part of the revitalization effort. I gave them information about the changing regulations, the City's vision for an entertainment district, and the fee deferral. I'm not sure what direction they'll go, but I want people to have the best information possible.

12:15 I had lunch at the Shepherd's Inn with former Congressman Chip Pashayan. I hadn't seen him for many years. He owns some property in the South Stadium area and he requested some help with understanding City processes. It appears that he'll have to do some work to the building before he'll be able to use it.

2:00 We had our weekly review of Specific Plan activities with the Planning Department, John Dugan and Arnoldo Rodriguez. Coordination is key. Plus, John Dugan is so darned smart, it's always a pleasure to here what is doing in the planning department.

4:00 Representatives from the City and the Redevelopment Agency had a conference call with consultants on the viability of gaining funding from the Economic Development Administration for the public market and commercial kitchen incubator.

5:30 I had the opportunity to give a tour of the Fulton Mall to a class from Fresno Pacific University called Theological Ethics and the Environment. We met at the Warnors Theater and walked down to the Mariposa Mall. After we walked back we went through the KJWL studio and into Broadway Studios.

I had one of our interns on the tour, named Tony. Tony hadn't been to ArtHop before so I took him past Mono and van Ness and over to Chris Sorensen's studios too. We stopped into the Iron Bird Lofts Cafe too.

03-03-10 Guest Blogger-Matt Schulz-Shadow for the day

2010-03-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

A Day in the Life of…

by Matthew D. Schulz

As a participant in Craig’s “Shadow Program” I’ve been given the second opportunity to write a blog account of our day. I’ll come right out and say it: I don’t know how you sum up a day that starts at 6:45 a.m. in the dining room of Club One for breakfast, and ends at 8:15 p.m. in the Paris Café in Chinatown.

I don’t know how to adequately represent the many “mini-conversations” Craig and I shared while hopping from one meeting to the next, the 13 meetings I actually observed, or the many conversations I had with staff in the Downtown and Community Revitalization Department (DCR) or other departments.

So I took a step back. I started jotting down the many impressions I was left with from those meetings and shared conversations about what it takes to breathe new life into Downtown Fresno, whether in the business sector, or in the vibrant community that exists in the Fulton Corridor and Lowell neighborhood (one of Fresno’s first neighborhoods). Here’s my account.

In describing his journey as a poet Gary Soto wrote, “I believed in walking and paying homage to the dusty ruins of Fresno, namely every beautiful house that was torn down by our City Fathers in the name of Urban Renewal.”

Soto’s impression perhaps sums up the charge of the DCR: New life.

The task is not an easy one. Not when business sectors and neighborhoods have been neglected for 50-plus years. It’s not an easy task when you’re committed to partnering with local businesses and citizens. It’s not an easy task to first sit quietly and listen to their problems, then to go back and start down the long road of putting the City to work. Making Progress, or bringing about Change is not easy (yes, they are capitalized intentionally).

Progress through partnership is a long and hard road, but it’s probably the only one that will really take you to where you want to go.

So what does Progress look like? How is Progress really made? The answer: Incrementally, and with much perseverance.

Progress is made through taking the time to plant and then water the seeds of Change. It isn’t often experienced in the magnificent or glamorous. It’s not always publicly recognized and applauded. It happens in small moments of victory shared between a City’s civil servants and its citizens.

Progress happens when you take the time to celebrate the one-year anniversary of a downtown restaurant (congrats to Kebab Express!) by being a busboy for an hour. It happens when you seat an elderly gentleman, notice that he didn’t get a napkin, and so grab one for him. Or later on when you refill his drink. Progress happens when you share a laugh and a hug with a friend who responded to the invitation to come celebrate Kebab Express’ first 365 days of doing business Downtown. Progress happens through shared smiles.

Progress happens when you make a big deal about an upcoming open house for a home in the Lowell neighborhood recently renovated using new funds made available to help increase the owner-occupancy rate that currently sits at 15%.

Progress is made through establishing Affinity Groups to help Downtown business owners address their issues collectively, discovering how they can work together, and how the City is able to partner with them to help fuel their success.

Progress is made through the internal collaboration of City departments at a weekly Directors meeting to discuss codes, regulations, policies, and procedures that need to be changed (or to review those that already have been) to bring about improved living conditions.

Progress is made through ensuring you have Spanish and Hmong translators at your first Downtown Neighborhoods Community Advisory Committee meeting to help ensure participants have a voice that is heard and responded to appropriately. It’s through every staff member of the DCR attending that meeting.

Progress is made through ending your day meeting with a group of young professionals from FLYP (Fresno’s Leading Young Professionals) to help them develop the Downtown Academy program, a 10-month curriculum that will expose, educate, and empower the next generation of business leaders and citizens toward civic engagement.

All of these “moments of Progress” are the watering of those seeds of Change which have been planted. They are the moments that when added up (over time and with much effort) result in Change.

I think Craig summed up Progress best when he said “It’s about behaviors, Matt.”

I agree.

So what was my final impression from my “A day in the life of…”?

It’s this: That Progress and Change are not made or realized through the efforts of one department. They aren’t even accomplished through the sole efforts of a city government. They aren’t about meetings and minutes in and of themselves.

Progress and Change come about through relationships, collaboration, perseverance, and a willingness to partner with others.

True Change requires reaching across department lines within the City, and about reaching across a “line” in our city created long ago in the name of “Urban Renewal” that hasn’t been adequately or properly addressed in decades.

On second thought, it’s less about reaching across the line and more about wiping the line out completely.

In my 13 hours I didn’t see how a city government and its civil servants work. What I saw was how citizens (be they public or private) work together to better a City.

03-02-10 I'm blaming the Winter Olympics for getting so far behind the past few weeks

2010-03-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

7:00 I started the day with a breakfast at George's in the Galleria with Stan, the President of Civic Center Square. We discussed some of their current needs regarding the Raisin Administrative Committee and talked about some of their future plans for their project.

8:15 I had my one on one meeting with Wilma Quan, the Urban Planning Specialist for our department and the project manager for the downtown plans.

9:00 I had my bi-weekly meeting with the Mayor, Georgeanne White and Bruce Rudd. We went through a list of our projects, the schedule for the downtown plans. We have a monthly breakdown of each of our focus areas that make it pretty easy to follow along with us. I wish that I knew how to upload stuff to this blog so that I could share some of this stuff. Anyone out there know how?

10:00 Amy Huerta and I had a conference call with Stacy Mitchell from www.newrules.org/banking about city initiatives to place more city deposits in community banks. Amy works with the Community Banks Affinity Group.

10:45 I had a wonderful one on one meeting with our newest staff member Sandra Berney, who came to us from the Police Department through the mid-year budget reduction and the layoffs. Sandra is helping with the processing of vouchers for the Enterprise Zone. She also coordinates our AARP volunteers who help with our front desk and just about everything else!

12:00 I met my old friend, artist and downtown property owner Frank Arnold at Irene's in the Tower District http://web.mac.com/frankarnoldart/FrankArnoldArt/FrankArnoldArt.html I gave him an overview of the downtown plans and how they relate to the building on Mono and Van Ness. I broke a rule of mine, he beat me to pay for my burger. It is below the threshold of reporting gifts, but I thought that you should know. I tried, but he was quicker.

2:00 I had a phone meeting with Alejandro Lara who is on the Union Bank Housing Committee with me.

3:00 We had our Downtown and Community Revitalization staff meeting. We did an exercise where everyone in the department had to describe another part or project, something that they don't work on. So, for example, Wilma had to explain the Local Business Initiatives and Amy had to explain the Specific Plan. After that, we went through the long list of things that people are working toward and shared any information, like the impending update to Windows 7 and the due date for Form 700 that everyone needs to know about.

5:00 George and I went over our budget proposal.

After that I sent out a bunch of emails to folks who work downtown. I'll be guest bus boy at Kebab Express tomorrow (in the Virginia Hotel at Kern and L Streets). The asked for me to be guest chef, but that's been done to death, plus you don't want to a yalanchi that I have rolled. Kebab Express is one year old. The first year is a tough year for a business. Please go by and give them your congratulations and some business.

03-01-10 March 1st already

2010-03-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

I know that I'm not the only one thinking...wow, March 1st already.

I was up at 4:30 but still didn't get out of the house until 5:00. Some mornings I just stumble around more than others. We had a nice run, although there seemed to be more activity than usual...we like peace and quiet.

I stopped by Cornerstone's coffee shop, I didn't know that Iron Bird Cafe was open, they didn't look open yet.

I went to The Grand (a.k.a. PG&E) Building at 7:30. I talked to Cliff Tutelian about his afternoon meeting with the Mayor, to help prioritize the issues that he sees in downtown, in his neighborhood in downtown.

9:00 I had a medical appointment.

10:30 I was back in time to catch part of our Monday morning Specific Plan update. We reviewed last week's visit by the consultant team and to review necessary steps for next Tuesday evening's first meeting of the citizen advisory committee. http://www.fresnodowntownplans.com/ is the place to learn more. Please attend, this is a watershed time for southern Fresno. You will not want to miss this opportunity to change the course of our city.

11:00 We had our management team meeting and discussed topics like motivation during stressful times, like budget uncertainty. My perspective is that the only thing that we have some control over is the quality and quantity of our work. And even then, there are many forces that influence the results. So we should stay focused on our work, do the best that we can, and hope that the results will put is into a position to hopefully succeed.

12:00Elliott, William Broomfield and I had a conference call with a promoter about a potential show for downtown.

1:00 I sent out a mindhub announcement about my guest bus boy stint at Kebab Express this Wednesday from 11:30-12:30. Come on down to L Street and Kern Street. Let me bus your table! Kebab Express is one year old, come on by and congratulate them.

2:00 Cliff and I met with the Mayor for about 30 minutes.

3:00 I set up a meeting for Reza Assemi to review his plans for a new project downtown. This is the same format that we followed with his Broadway Row project which is now under construction. We got everyone together very early on and this hopefully makes the project go more smoothly.

5:00 We had a mixer for Joe Gray, the new Controller/Treasurer of the City. We met at the Downtown Club. This was a chance for some City types and the business community to mingle and welcome Joe to town.

6:00 I headed over to a city council candidate's forum at Lowell Elementary. Tate Hill, Oliver Baines and Doug Vagim attended.

7:30 I headed by the Iron Bird Lofts Cafe to check out the new place and to congratulate everyone on their new venture. I can't wait to hang out there, they did a great job and the design looks fantastic. Please check them out soon and give them some encouragement!

02-26-10 Friday

2010-03-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

The day started out with a great talk with the folks from Building Healthy Neighborhoods. BHN is a group of organizations who have common goals about health, planning, policy, pollution/environment...those sorts of issues. Groups like County Health, Kaiser Permanente, Master Gardeners, Air Pollution Control, Metro Ministries.

The talk was about the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan and how good planning will change the quality of life for residents in southern Fresno and how walkability is a part of the plan. Other items like community gardens, trails and other features can also be included. For more about the plans: http://www.fresnodowntownplans.com/

After the talk Dawn, Elaine and I grabbed a quick bite at the Corner at L and Ventura.

11:00-12:30 The Specific Plan team met with our Budget Director Renena Smith and Karen Bradley and Phillip Hardcastle from finance. The financial benefits of good planning are incredible, while the costs of bad planning are obvious.

1:00 We had a meeting with representatives from the various departments along with the Specific Plan consulting team. This is officially referred to as the Departmental Working Group. The City's Traffic
Engineer gets paired up with the consulting traffic engineer, and so on. People from police, fire, sewer, water...everyone was there. Stefanos Polyzoides said that it was the best turnout from a city they've ever seen!

2:00 Next, the Planning Team met with John Dugan from Planning and Marlene Murphey from the Redevelopment Agency. This was a very involved conversation about ongoing planning efforts with bike lanes, the need for a general plan update, activities and corridors studies...there is a great deal to be coordinated.

3:30 We meet with the economic piece of the downtown plans to discuss an economic summit which will precede the charrette for the downtown neighborhood community plan. This will be an important piece and will hopefully be a starting point at attracting foundation support. Here is a link to the economists' website http://www.strategiceconomics.com/projects.html

5:30 I headed up north to the Joy Luck Club to attend a fundraiser for Superintendent of Fresno County Schools Larry Powell.

02-25-10 Thursday

2010-02-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

The day started a little after 4:00, I'm waking up before the alarm these days. I love that feeling. Ellis and I were out for our romp about 4:30. I'm still at it Coach Carter!

I headed to Uncle Harry's to catch up on emails and to get some bagels for the 7:00 meeting and enough to take back for the Downtown and Community Revitalization team. Uncle Harry's is another fine locally-owned establishment. Their coffee is better than the national chain's too.

7:00 Eileen Neely from Housing Authority, Marlene Murphey from RDA and Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold were there. We had a great conversation about the best housing authority programs in the country and what made them so good. Atlanta, Portland, Seattle and San Diego were on the list.

8:00 I had a meeting with our Administrative Manager George Smith to review our Fiscal Year 2011 budget submission for our department.

8:30 Amy Huerta introduced the PrimeTime for Business at the Council Meeting. This week the Licensed Contractors Affinity Group was highlighted. Look at their new web page at: http://mslcaffinitygroup.org/
They'll also have an ad in the Sunday Bee.
9:00 Elliott Balch completed an interest letter for a grant. All grant submissions require City Council approval. The item was on the consent calendar and went through without any conversation. Here is a link to the staff report: http://www.fresno.gov/CouncilDocs/agenda2.25.2010/1s.pdf

10:00 Wilma Quan, Rudy Placencia and I walked down the Fulton Mall with Stefanos Polyzoides, David Sargent, and Juan Gomez-Novy from our Specific Plan Team. We started at the Holiday Inn and walked north on the mall to the Warnors Theater. We discussed the condition of the mall, historic downtown conditions, circulation, design standards, historic theaters, the Tuolumne Reversal, the undercrossing from Courthouse Park to the Mall...

We then walked south to the Gottschalks Building, talked about the stadium, the potential for public entertainment at Mariposa, facades, they met Saundra King at the Security Bank Building, upstairs at the Goodwill store, and had lunch at Gordo's. Keep up with the Specific Plan and Community Plan by going to http://fresnodowntownplans.com/ and sign up for email notifications.

1:00 the Specific Plan team met with Greg Barfield to get an overview of the homeless and street people issues within the plan areas.

2:30 I toured a home in the Lowell neighborhood with new owner Wayne Rutledge.

4:00 Elliott Balch and I met with Jan Minami and Joe Moore from the Downtown Association to discuss coordination of downtown events.

5:00 I stopped by the Downtown Club for a membership mixer that they were hosting to announce their new membership structure. http://www.thedowntownclub.com/

6:00 Joe Moore and I met with Rick Mirigian who has been giving a great deal of thought to downtown Fresno Marketing. Rick is promoting the Penthouse in the 600 Club in Chukchansi Park. http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/02/04/1809244/chukchansi-parks-600-club-to-open.html
I had a great half rack of ribs and real mashed potatoes, we ate at Joe's Steakhouse.

02-24-10 Wednesday

2010-02-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

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 .

02-23-10 Tuesday

2010-02-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 4:08 ready to roll. On the street for a jaunt with the pup by 4:30.

I headed to the downtown Holiday Inn coffee shop for some breakfast about 6:15. I needed to catch up on the blog and write my director's message for our bi-monthly newsletter. If you aren't on the list, let me know at craig.scharton@fresno.gov and I'll make sure that you are on the list.

8:00 I spoke to the Fresno Board of Realtors. I spoke about the specific plan and how that will positively affect the neighborhoods surrounding downtown. We went over a brief history of why our neighborhoods deteriorated and how they are currently a bargain for people looking for their first home, just like the Tower was 20 years ago.

9:00 City Manager Bruce Rudd organized an off-site retreat to focus specifically on downtown issues. We spent 3 hours going over each department’s projects and efforts, timeframes and resource. We focused half of the time on neighborhood issues and half on downtown core issues. I think that all of the budget issues are going to strain some of the attention and enthusiasm for revitalization activities, so we'll have to be even more motivational.

12:00 I spoke with the Cultural Arts District Rotary Club that meets at Arte Americas. This is a well-informed group of downtown enthusiasts, so they really wanted to know more about the substance of the specific plan, the Met Museum, how the plans will affect Southwest Fresno, how the high speed rail will function within downtown.

1:00-3:00 We had an update meeting with the consultants who are designing the high speed rail and looked at some of the train station layouts, given some of the site constraints. This was a very helpful meeting, they show how people will get to the platform (60 feet in the air). Our goal is to focus as much activity into the center of our downtown as possible.

4:00 We had our weekly Downtown and Community Revitalization staff meeting. Elaine Robles walked us through her Neighborhood Revitalization work plan. We rotate through the work plans as a way to keep everyone in the department up to date.

6:00 I met Larry Balakian for dinner at the Elbow Room. Larry is a long-time supporter of the arts in Fresno, and the state as a former California Arts Council board member. He is also a guru of event planning. It was great to connect with Larry and also to get his insight into how to improve and grow downtown events like the HyeFest.

02-22-10 The blogging expirement continues...

2010-02-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

My experiment to increase transparency and to keep those who are interested abreast of the happenings of the Downtown and Community Revitalization Dept. continues. If anyone out there has any suggestions on how to make this better, different, more usable, whatever, please let me know. The goal is to give you, my salary-payers an insight into what I am doing with the resource that you are investing in me and our department.

My work day started at 7:00 with a meeting at Patio Cafe with Betsy Hays, Public Relations Professor at Fresno State. Betsy and I worked together at the Central Valley Business Incubator. We discussed ways to integrate her students with our revitalization efforts. Communication with the public is still a big challenge for us, we have more news than we take the time to share.

8:30 I met with a new intern for our department. His name is Rudy Placencia. He is a grad student at Fresno State, going for a Masters in Public Administration.

8:45 I met with another new intern, Ashley, and gave her an overview of our department.

10:30 I had my weekly one on one meeting with Elaine Robles. We spent time discussing how to coordinate the Fresno State effort in Lowell.

I had lunch with Jayne Aliota. She is a friend of Rebecca Ryan (http://nextgenerationconsulting.com/ ). Jayne is hoping to relocate to California and is an experienced HR manager.

3:00 Bruce Rudd, Marlene Murphey from the RDA and I met to discuss an RFP for a Single Room Occupancy project in Chinatown.

3:30 meeting regarding format and agenda for Lowell project updates to monitor department's progress.

4:00 Our weekly management meeting with George, Elaine, Elliott, Amy and me. We talked about work habits, work ethic and the difference between a small and a large city department.

5:00 Jim Versos came over to City Hall for a meeting to give me an update on the Warnors Theater and also for him to get an update on the Fresno Food Show that we are planning.

02-20-10 Designers Exchange Tours Downtown Fresno

2010-02-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Top Photo: Rebecca shows Desgners Exchange the Iron Bird Lofts
Second Photo: Ground Floor, The Grand
Third Photo: The Grand Ballroom
Bottom Photo: Ground Floor, Security Bank Builiding

Today I toured a group of Fresno area designers called Designers Exchange (a funny side note, the tried having a web page but people thought it was designer sex change).

I started the day with breakfast at George's with Cliff Tutelian at 9:00.

I met the folks from DE at the Warnors Theater at 10:00. We talked about a few downtown revitalization principles.

At 10:15 they toured the ground floor and the tenth floor of the Grand (aka PG&E Building). Cliff gave them some great insight into his restoration processes. It was also great to see the ballroom already set up for a Mardi gras themed party tonight.

10:45 we were back on the mall heading south. We talked about the art, options for the mall, how storefronts work, eyes on the street, and the need for foot traffic.

11:15 Saundra King gave tours of the lofts and I gave tours of the Loft Salon and the cafe that is ready for an entrepreneur on the 2nd floor rooftop.

11:45 We walked over to Robert Ellis building that has the Goodwill Store and went to the second floor to see what a loft above a shop would be like.

We headed back up the mall and got in our cars to go to the Iron Bird Lofts for lunch. They had Charlottes Bakery (http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/56/610217/restaurant/Fresno-High/Charlottes-Bakery-Fresno ) sandwiches and cookies set up for them in one of the wonderful lofts. Reza joined us for some Q and A.

It was a very fun tour.

I headed back down to the Loft Salon for a haircut from Anna.

02-19-10

2010-02-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

I started out with an 8:00a.m. no show. I won't say who, because I am very sensitive about other people's feelings, and I'd never want to embarrass anyone. Although it is REALLY tempting.

9:00 Ore, Joseph, Alex and I went to Iron Bird Lofts to take the tables up to the loft for Saturday's lunch. Okay, I should back up. On Saturday I will lead a downtown tour for 25 interior designers. We'll start with a tour of the Grand Ballroom from Cliff Tutelian. We'll walk up the Fulton Mall from there. We'll have a tour of the vacant 2 lofts in the Security Bank Building from Saundra King. They'll tour the Loft Salon on the second floor. Then we'll walk back down the mall. Drive to Iron Bird Lofts. Tour some of those spaces. And eat lunch in one of the 1,500 sq. ft. lofts. So we carried the tables and chairs up to the second floor and set up for lunch.

10:00 I met with representatives of California Dairies and Marlene Murphey from the Redevelopment Agency and John Fox from the City Attorney's office. The topic was a study that the RDA is going to do about the acceptable uses around the Creamery site given some potential issues with some of their industrial issues.

11:00 Marlene and I stayed afterward and talked about a number of issues. It is kind of interesting how having a little bit of extra time to really go over the list of things that we are both working on, really helps us to keep things moving forward. Busy-ness is not our friend.

I grabbed a shredded beef quesadilla To Go from the Mexicatessen in the Galleria and headed back to the office.

2:00 Planning Director John Dugan met with Wilma, Elliot and me to review our first full week of Specific Plan activity.

2:45 I recorded a promotional video for the Grizzlies for opening day. I can't wait for baseball at Chukchansi.

3:15 Cynthia Dondero and I met to finalize the agenda and handout material for the Designer Exchange tour on Saturday.

4:00 Bruce Rudd, Elliott and Angela met to plan for this Tuesday's All Department retreat.

5:00 Amy Huerta, Travis Sheridan, James Collier and I met for a drink at the Lime Lite (James' first time there). We met to plan the Fresno Food Show, which will feature foods produced in the San Joaquin Valley. Part of the show will be to introduce grocery and restaurant buyers to our local products and part will be for the public to enjoy our local fare. Stay tuned.

02-17-10 Crystal Dower is my first Guest Blogger

2010-02-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

Crystal Dower was my Shadow for the Day on Wednesday. To mix things up a bit, I asked her if you would write my daily blog.

Here it is:

7 am- Met at George’s in the Galleria. We went over the agenda for the day and started some overall discussion including PBID, merchant associations, and great downtowns.

7:45 am- Successfully re-parked my truck at a parking garage on L Street. Luckily, we met back up without a hitch. After this we realized that cell phone numbers would be a good thing to have for the rest of the day.

8 am - Sat in on a meeting of city representatives. The topic being discussed when we entered was the Eaton Plaza project. The renderings were beautiful, money has already been invested, and plans for future phases are being discussed. When time comes for discussion, Craig brought up the fact that a project like this doesn’t really maximize the efforts of revitalization. The buildings that face the park are all government buildings and there aren’t housing units or businesses around that would have residual benefits. It seems like this is an on-going lens that projects will need to be evaluated through since there are limited resources and a goal of revitalization in place. Eaton Plaza will be a good project, but in the future projects will need to have more revitalization and economic results.
Downtown events including a concert series at Chukchansi Park, Cinco de Mayo event, Movies in the Park, and BBQ cook-off from the Food Network should be happening this year.

9:00 am- Re-located seats as the department directors came in. I got to meet George Smith from the DCR department before I had to leave. Next headed into the DCR office where I met Cynthia, who did an excellent job coordinating this shadow day. She introduced me to Wilma, Elliott, Angela, and some other staff who work in the office. She also gave me some great information about the Enterprise Zone to take back to Fashion Fair. This would be a great item to share at an upcoming merchant meeting.

10:00 am- Sat in on a call that Craig had with a fellow board member of Union Bank. Foreclosures, loans, incentives, opportunities….

11:00 am- Met with some local developers/contractors that were presenting their vision for a part of Fulton Mall near Grizzlies Stadium. It was really exciting to get to see some of the ideas that are coming through and it sounds like they will coincide well with the timing of the Specific Plan.

Noon: Headed to the Downtown Club for the Downtown Brokers lunch. An aside, there was something really neat about going to the Downtown Club… maybe it was the “Members Only” plaque outside… Elliott and Craig shared updates on where projects are at and what the availability of space is currently in Downtown amongst other items.

1:00 pm- Craig met with Mayor Swearingen and I went to a Crime View meeting where the Fresno Police Department was re-capping the crime statistics year to date. Summary of what I sat in on… if you own a Honda Civic, live in Northwest Fresno, and like to warm up your car before you leave in the morning you are most likely to have your car stolen.

2:30 pm- Met with representatives that are working with merchants on Belmont. It sounds like they have made some good progress.

4:00 pm- Met with the Events Manager for the City of Fresno. I really enjoyed this meeting (events & advertising trade agreements are right up my alley). William has done a great job securing advertising partnerships for the upcoming City events. A lot of great things are in the works including some concerts and some award winning BBQ (people- you are not going to want to miss it!).

5:00 pm – Picked up the truck from the garage and headed north to Vision One for a planning meeting for the Most Multimedia Meeting Ever which will include a visit from the Mayor. I think it will be marvelous. Not only does this title win because of its great alliteration, I think the meeting will be a lot of fun. This meeting falls under the local business initiatives branch of the department. Getting these businesses together not only produces creative meetings, but a voice and synergy.

Vision One itself was really neat to see. They have sites around the world and are based right here in Fresno. Also, they have a pinball machine and foos ball table when you walk in so they scored major points in my book.

6:20 pm Craig and I head over to Samba for a wrap up. In addition to reviewing some things from the day I got a chance to pick his brain a bit (more).

So what do you take out of nearly thirteen hours of shadowing Craig Scharton? Here are just a few of many thoughts.

• It is important to be a student of revitalization. Look at other cities, study what works, and look at the way people actually behave and use urban spaces. So many times things are designed without considering how people will actually use spaces and what the best use/ most benefit would be.

• Investing in people matters. From the relationships with your co-workers, to the people living in poverty in many areas of our city, to the constituents and people that you serve down to the girl that asks you to shadow you for a day, I saw again and again how much this principle is lived out by Craig and how it has an impact in the way he works and does things.

• I was left with some great ideas and entrepreneurial prospects that I will be looking into. (Maybe there will someday be an update in one of Craig’s future blogs about an antique market/show coming to Fulton Mall).

• The Well Fig Garden campus at the site of the former Cross Church needs to keep making bierocks for fundraisers. People, Craig specifically, loves bierocks and getting them at the Cross church was a tradition growing up.

02-18-10

2010-02-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

I got a jump on the day, up at 4:15 and on hit the road for a jaunt with el perro at 4:30. I saw four others out at that time...who knew?

7:00 I met with Preston Prince and Eileen Neely from the Housing Authority and Marlene Murphy from the Redevelopment Agency. It was a very productive discussion on how the City, RDA and HA can better layer their resources to be able to get more done. We need a clearer understanding of what each source of funding can and can't be used for and when particular finding sources are the most useful. Some trigger prevailing wage, some are targeted at very low income and some serve more middle income residents. This coordination is critical to our overall success.

8:00 George Smith and I reviewed a draft of our budget which we will submit next week. This is part of the process that will result in the official budget which will go to the City Council in May.

9:00 Randy Reed is hosting a Community Access program that will inform people about activities within the City. I taped a spot with Randy at the Fresno County Office of Education studios downtown.

10:00 Wilma Quan, Elaine Robles and I met with members of the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan team. They are in town for three days accumulating base information.

11:30 Mayor Swearengin and I drove out to the Young Executives group. She was the lunch speaker and I am a member of the group. The name is a bit misleading, since I am the youngest member of the club (I'm 48 if you were wondering).

2:30 I taped a "newsmakers" segment at Comcast, which will be available to Comcast customers who use On Demand. Go to Local Programs, and you'll find two 4 minute interviews about downtown Fresno.

4:00 The Downtown Plan team met with our folks in Information Systems to discuss ways that a map could be integrated into the website for the plans and could be used to track information as downtown revitalizes.

5:00 Amy Huerta and I headed to Full Circle Brewery to meet with Don and Bill to ask if they would host the next Independent Retailers and Restaurants meeting. They said YES!

6:00 Amy Huerta and I met at the Downtown Club with the Regional Jobs Initiative's Tourism Industry Cluster (read more about cluster theory at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster ). We were there to present the Fresno Food Show concept and how it supports the Food/Agriculture tourism concept.

8:15 I met with Darius Assemi and I met to work out some details of the project slated for Van Ness and Mildreda in the Lowell Neighborhood. We also discussed his Fulton Village project's timelines and the reasons behind our opposition to chopping up a single family home in Lowell to convert to multi-family.

02-16-10 Tuesday on Tuesday

2010-02-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right sports fans, I am writing Tuesday's blog on Tuesday evening. I'll try harder to stay current this time, maybe I'll give up procrastination for Lent.

4:45 I got up for a run with L.S. the dog. Every spare voice in my head urged me not to run:
Your feet are sore

Your calves are kind of tight after using the cross trainer yesterday

Your inhaler is in the car

Maybe you should just sleep until six, you have a big day

But I plodded on anyway.

I met Tim Stearns, Hank Delcore and Linda Gleason at the Chicken Pie Shop at 7:00. This was a meeting to strategize how to collect and monitor data for an organization that Linda is working with in Southwest Fresno called the Street Saints http://www.fresnostreetsaints.org/

8:15 got the car washed and shoes shined and the Downtown Chevron Station on H Street.

At 9:15 I interviewed a great new intern named Rudy Placencia. He is in the Masters in Public Administration program at Fresno State. I'll look forward to having him on board starting next week. I'm sure that you'll be reading about him in these blogs.

9:45 Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch, Elaine Robles and I met for our weekly specific plan update. Things are really beginning to roll along. Consultants will be in town tomorrow, stakeholder interviews will occur in a couple of weeks. The first meeting of the Citizen Advisory Committees will be the evening of March 9th, so mark your calendars.

11:00 Our department's management meeting was focused on how we can build and sustain momentum.

12:30 I met with Deputy City Manager Nicole Zieba for an update on the Met Museum properties. Nicole is the point person for negotiations for any potential tenants.

2:30 I met one of our home inspectors and tow of our Housing Division folks out at a home in Lowell. This home is applying for the Community Development Block Grant funds that will be used to bring Lowell homes up to code. The money is specifically for homeowners and they have an income threshold. This particular homeowner is a widow who has lived in the home for 50 years!

3:15-4:30 We had out weekly all staff meeting of our department. It was Amy Huerta's turn to go through her work plan. This is one way that we keep up with each other.

4:30 I had my one on one with Elaine Robles and also started her annual review.

7:00 I spoke with the Fresno Citizens Academy about our department and our goals:

Establishing a culture inside and outside of City hall that is supportive of locally-owned and locally headquartered businesses.

Coordinating the revitalization of the neighborhood that surround downtown. Lowell is the place where Fresno will learn how to do neighborhood revitalization.

Coordinating the revitalization of downtown Fresno's historic core.

02-12-10 Last Friday

2010-02-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

02-12-10 Blog Last Friday

8:00 Elliott Balch and I met with the committee that is working on the establishment of a Property Based Improvement District in downtown Fresno. We met at the Downtown Association’s office on the Fulton Mall. The effort is coming along, but will need to pick up some speed. The meeting didn’t end until 9:20.

So, I missed the 9:00 PIPES meeting, which is the internal effort to streamline development processes. I don’t usually have too much involvement in the process stuff, other than to be a broken record for downtown revitalization. I think that they all have my comments memorized by now.

9:30 I had a quick meeting with Interim City Manager Bruce Rudd. We needed to catch up on a few things.

10:30 I met with John Dugan and Jerry Bishop to go over some Interim Downtown Development Standards that will go to the Planning Commission and City Council in a few weeks. This proposed change would give the Planning Director (Dugan) more authority to make determinations on projects. This is way to keep things moving forward during the formation of the Specific Plan, which is the permanent solution. This interim approach will help us with issues like setbacks, mixed-use, outdoor dining, and others by removing the Conditional Use Permit requirements. This is another step in the right direction for the revitalization process!

11:30 I met with Bruce Lackey from Valectricar who is interested in a downtown showroom. This was interesting timing, because he was discouraged in his attempts to get a downtown showroom because of the Conditional Use Permit process. The interim Downtown Development Standards will help with this. He brought one of his company’s electric cars to city hall. They are like super-modified golf carts, completely electric, very cool design, they go 35 mph and are street legal in areas with a 40mph speed limit. Another cool option for downtown residents and workers. http://valectricar.com/

12:30 I had lunch, by myself, at the bar (only iced tea) at Tokyo Garden. It was a good chance to catch up on the morning’s emails.

1:15 I went by Hands On http://www.handsoncentralcal.org/index.html to see their new gallery of local arts and fantastic crafts work from local artisans. Go by and take a look!

2:30 I attended a meeting with the City Manager, Planning, Public Works, Public Utilities, City Attorney’s office to discuss projects and policies as they effect growth and revitalization.

3:30 I began the Annual Review process with Elliott Balch.

4:15 I met with Anna Borgeas and Victoria Gonzales. Two active downtown revitalization enthusiasts and very good friends. This was a great meeting to cap off the week.

Betty Ann and I had a good dinner at Palomino's http://palominosfresno.com/ inTower Dsitrict and then went to the Fresno Filmworks http://www.fresnofilmworks.org/ showing of The Messenger (Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay nominations)

02-11-10 Last Thursday

2010-02-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

7:00 Met with Preston Prince, Eileen Neely, Rollie Smith, John Raymond, Keith Bergthold. This is our weekly meeting to coordinate housing, planning and revitalization efforts. It doesn't happen every week, of course, but that's the goal, when everyone is in town at the same time.

8:00 We had some breakfast goodies to celebrate Janet's time with our department and to welcome Sandy. Janet came to us through the first round of layoffs. She took a temp position, but has now landed a job out there in the private sector world. Sandy was laid off but has come back into the City to fill this temporary position. Primarily this position works on the vouchers that are used by businesses who take advantage of the Enterprise Zone Employee Tax Credits.

8:30 Prime Time for Business is a time that a local business gets to showcase what they do in front of the City Council. This week it was Vision One http://www.v-1.com/About.html?p=225 a company that does a lot of different things but we focused this presentation on their ticketing capabilities. Another worldwide company, headquartered in Fresno that many people don’t know about yet.

10:00 Dawn Steele and I went to Fresno State to meeting with their host of people who are involved in the Lowell Revitalization Project. From the Provost and Vice Provost, Professors from Communications, Political Science, Psychology, Theater (lighting), Women’s Studies, Library, Civic Engagement, Mediation, Engineering….all are working on their curriculum and efforts in focusing on Lowell! I keep saying it, folks…this is HUGE! We also had several nonprofits at the meeting: Hands On, FUND, Every Neighborhood Partnership.

11:30 Dawn and I stopped by for some Mexican food after the meeting, it’s a new place at Cedar and Barstow, I had recently heard about their handmade flour tortillas (like my grandmother used to make).

1:00 I met with Rick Mirigian. Rick is running The Penthouse in Chukchansi Park’s 600 Club. I think that Rick is going to be a valuable downtown events promoter and partner.

1:30 I met with George Smith about our upcoming mid-year budget. We have to submit our Fiscal Year 2011 budget next week. The City budget runs from July 1 to June 30th.

2:30 I had a one on one meeting with Alex Villa, who also is new to our department. He came over from Retirement and started after the first of the year. He is doing great work and has jumped right in.

3:30 and 4:30 I started the process of the annual reviews for Amy Huerta and Wilma Quan. This is a more formal type of process than I’ve eve done in other positions. It is interesting to learn.

5:15 I went by Austin’s to check in with the HYEFEST Committee.

6:00 I went out to the Edison Social Club to be interviewed and sworn-in as a member. This is a really great group of folks. I’ll be promoting the club’s activities in this blog. It gives me a slice of the Fresno that I remember. It is very real. http://www.ahsgr.org/fresno/speech.html

8:00 Miguel Arambula came over to the house to get a letter of recommendation for a school that he is apply to. Miguel used to work for me at One by One Leadership for a couple of years. It’s always great to see Miguel.

02-10-10 Last Wednesday

2010-02-14T06:56:00.000-08:00

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.

02-09-10 Last Tuesday

2010-02-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

I met Elaine for our weekly one on one meeting at Parsley Garden, on the northern portion of the Fulton Mall, at 7:30. We had a good breakfast and caught up on the neighborhood revitalization piece of our department's efforts. Elaine is heading out on Thursday and Friday for a San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Conference on Placed Based Initiatives. Here is a link to the conference: http://www.frbsf.org/community/resources/2010/0211/index.html

At 8:30 I went to the Fresno Coalition for Arts, Science and History monthly meeting, which is held at Arte Americas. Art Dyson was the speaker : http://www.fcash.org/content/arthur-t-dyson-aia-iaa-cid-fara-ala-ncarb

10:30 I took a tour of the Iron Bird Lofts: http://www.muraldistrict.com/ironbird.html Reza has done a great job with this project. I especially like the townhomes. But all are really nice and it will be especially fun for the residents when the cafe opens. Anyone looking for urban living should take a look.

11:30 Randy Reed and I met to go over the format for next week's taping of a community access show that will feature our downtown revitalization efforts.

12:30 George Smith, our department's Administration Manager, and I met with Economic Development consultant Jill Dominguez to discuss a strategy for Economic Development Administration funding for projects like the downtown public market and other infrastructure improvements.

2:00 The Mayor introduced our next City Manager Mark Scott at a news conference at City Hall. This is a very exciting opportunity to have a Fresno native, who has worked in other cities, come home to use his skills and experience to help us move our community forward.

2:30 We held the Downtown and Community Revitalization weekly staff meeting. This is our time to let everyone know what everyone is up to, and is a valuable time to help keep things as coordinated as possible.

4:00 There is an ongoing meeting of the entities and staff who are involved in the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This is part of the federal effort to alleviate some of the problems associated with the foreclosure situation. We chose four entities to use the City's portion of the funding (Housing Authority, Redevelopment Agency, CURE, and 2M Construction). One of the goals of our program was to focus about half of the resource into the Lowell neighborhood. We had a lively discussion about how well that concentration of resources was working.

5:30 I met Cliff Tutelian at Austin's (formerly Hero's). Their wings are the biggest and the best I've ever had.

02-08-10 Pitch Day

2010-02-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

I was at the gym by 6:00 and put in some time on the old treadmill. My wife had the day off so I didn't have the pressure of exercising the mutt.

8:30 I made a pitch to F-Tag, the Technology Affinity Group. The pitch was for the March meeting to be billed as the Most Multi Media Meeting Ever. Stay tuned. This is going to be fun.

10:00 We had our weekly internal Specific Plan coordination meeting. Next, have to appoint the Citizen's committee for the downtown neighborhoods and we have to select locations for the public meetings.

10:30 Our DCR management meeting. We were reviewing some of the work and schedule for the upcoming preparation of the Fiscal Year 2011 budget which will go to the City Council at the end of May.

11:00 We met with a local company about designing and handling our e-newsletter.

12:00 I attended the Fresno Rotary meeting today. I am a member, but I don't get there too often.

2:00 Donna Gavello from DT FACES and I met with Channel 30 Station Dan Adams and Beth Marney

3:00 We had a meeting with the City Manager, Redevelopment, Planning Director and others to discuss the Droge Building with Preston Prince of the Housing Authority.

4:00 One on one meeting with Elaine Robles.

4:30 The Fulton Lowell Design Review Committee met to discuss the houses being renovated in Lowell and also a new renovation project of a multi-family in Lowell.

5:30 I met with Tim and Joe from FLYP to further our concept of a downtown citizen's academy.

Home by 7:30...missed Jeopardy!

02-05-10 Friday

2010-02-08T07:05:00.000-08:00

I'm still behind on the ol' blog. It's Monday morning and I'm finally writing Friday's.

4:45 Up in time for a run will Ellie the pooch.

7:30 Regional Jobs Initiative's Infrastructure Committee. Kurt Madden, Sarge Green, Jeanette Ishii, Lynne Gorman, Steve Haze, Mike Dozier, Dwight Kroll...and others. They asked for a report on downtown revitalization. I gave them a fairly detailed report about the downtown plans, how and why they work. We talked about the Property Based Improvement District.

9:00 I had a meeting with Terry Bond who is the Personnel Services Director for the City. I am still in the learning-mode for some of the Department Director stuff like paperwork for annual reviews.

10:00 Jerry Bishop and I met with several people who are interested in purchasing and restoring one of our landmark buildings. This appears to have good potential, but with all of these possibilities, we have to see how real they are over time. In the past we have tended to be over eager, even desperate to show that revitalization is happening. For years organization would publish ads and recite lists of projects that were just around the corner. Now we are hoping for a more even approach, less manic. So we'll look forward to some of these exciting prospects, but we won't count them until they actually happen.

11:30 I led a Fulton Mall walk in a light rain. If any of you are ever interested or have a group who might be interested in this, just let me know. We finished with lunch at Los Panchos.

2:30 Wilma, Elliott and I had a meeting with the Planning Staff to review our plan and responsibilities for the upcoming Specific Plan. And at 3:30 we did the same with the City Manager Bruce Rudd and Deputy City Manager Nicole Zieba.

5:00 Danna Gavello from DT FACES came in for an update on her progress with the downtown events.

02-04-10 Thursday

2010-02-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

7:00 I met with Eileen Neely and Preston Prince from the Housing Authority. We discussed the Droge Building (that's the one with the braces at Inyo and Van Ness, and guiding policies for the City's HOME Funds.

8:30 Amy Huerta and Alex Villa met with me to plan a Fresno Food Show. This would be an event that would highlight San Joaquin Valley businesses that make food items and put them on display for grocery store and restaurant buyers. The event would also have a public component. This could be a precursor for our downtown public market.

10:00 I met with members of FUND, a local nonprofit that focuses on renovating homes in the Lowell neighborhood. Last June Elaine Robles and Dawn Steele were successful in obtaining a Community Development Block Grant to renovate homes in Lowell. Specifically homes that were owner-occupied and had code violations. This is an effort to shield low-income owners from the increased code enforcement activity that was requested by the neighborhood. The meeting with FUND was to complete the details of a contract that will allow FUND to receive some of the money to do some of the houses.

12:00 I had lunch with our new Planning Director John Dugan. He hadn't been to George's in the Galleria downtown. We spent most of our time discussing the Specific Plans.

1:30 I had a consultation at the Oral Surgeon. It resulted in...not having to do anything...clean bill of health!

3:00 Met with Councilmember Borgeas

5:30 I attended a meeting of the Farm Aid to Fresno committee. This is a grassroots group who are leading an effort to get the Farm Aid Concert to Chukchansi Park this October. Farm Aid has never been to California before. This would be a great way to reconnect the community to our farmers, which just so happens to be one of Farm Aid's missions.

02-03-10 Way behind Wednesday

2010-02-06T05:56:00.000-08:00

I'm writing Wednesday's blog at 5:30 on Saturday morning. This is the furthest behind I've been since starting this project. I hate missing a day, I forget some of the things that don't show up on my calendar.

I woke up at 4:45 and went for a jog.

I got to the Honda dealership at 7:00 for a regularly scheduled maintenance. I was a bit behind on this too, I made it in at 6,000 miles instead of 5,000. They had me out of there by 7:50.

I was a few minutes late for the 8:00 weekly interdepartmental downtown meeting. This was our first meeting since the passage of the specific plan contract, so it was a good opportunity for Wilma Quan to give an overview of the next steps. We also discussed the marketing of incentives and specific plan benefits to potential investors.

9:00 John Dugan and I met with the Mayor to discuss some of the pending development proposals for downtown.

10:00 I had my semi-weekly one on one with the Mayor to keep her up to date on the Downtown and Community Revitalization department.

11:30 I had lunch with Jerry Duncan at Austin's (formerly Hero's). I had a great blue cheese burger. Patrick is really doing a great job. Eva Scow and Ron Thompson are playing during lunch on Wednesdays and Thursdays. His whole staff is friendly and helpful.

12:30 I had my weekly one on one meeting with Elaine Robles. We were mostly focused on filling the downtown neighborhoods community advisory committee. This is the group of 21 people who will steer the neighborhoods piece of our downtown land use planning effort. If you live in, work in, own a business or property in the plan area...you are qualified!

1:30 The Housing Authority held a groundbreaking ceremony at the Park Grove Commons (I don't like this name) site at Fresno and Shields. The first phase of housing has been funded. This is right across from the VA Hospital.

4:30 I met with Elliott and Donna to talk about how the DT FACES project was coming along. It appears that sponsorships are coming along pretty well.

6:00 I met with Jake and Romi (Virginia Hotel Developers) about the Property Based Improvement District. They signed their petitions without hesitation. The Hotel Fresno is also in the PBID area, so that is two more building who voted yes to assess themselves. Reza Assemi joined us too and we went out to dinner. (I paid for my own meal and did not expense it to the City).

02-02-10 Corcoran!

2010-02-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

7:30 Elliott and I met with the Downtown Association's Executive Committee to work toward aligning our efforts. There are many odd things happening in downtown and we need to make extra sure that we use our resources wisely and support our mutual goals. I hope that we continue to meet to keep the lines of communication open. It is amazing how much communication it takes, especially when things are moving as quickly as they are.

8:30 I had my one on one meeting with our Local Business Initiatives Manager Amy Huerta. I'll tell you right now, Amy is working on some incredible changes that are going to make a lasting improvement on our city and our City. Her work helping Licensed Contractors is growing support by the day. Stay Tuned. Amy is about to launch the Local Business Initiatives e-newsletter. Send her an email if you'd like to be added to the list: amy.huerta@fresno.gov .

9:00 Amy and I met with Joe Gray, our City Treasurer about the progress on the City's new business license software and how the City can begin to ask contractor's for the State License number when the get their City license..

9:30 We had two potential downtown property owners/tenants meet together to see if they might be interested in partnering on a project. I haven't written about these folks yet, so if you are keeping score at home, you can see how constant the interest level is becoming.

10:00-11:30 The Fresno Housing Authority gave an update to the Mayor and others of us from the City. The briefing included an overview of the HA activities from rental subsidies to public housing to farm worker housing. We also discussed alignment of City, Redevelopment and HA housing funds, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and other projects.

11:30 We had a meeting with the City Attorneys regarding the unlicensed contractor issue. Council Member Borgeas and Xiong staff members were on hand and have been helping in this effort.

12:00 I had lunch at George's in the Galleria with local businessman, downtown Hanford property owner and former neighbor Mike Hamburger. Mike owns a roofing company and wanted to get an update on the downtown plans and other downtown activities. As is the rule, we went Dutch and I do not expense my lunches to the City (in case you were wondering).

1:00 We had a meeting regarding the PIPES program which will streamline the planning and other departmental review processes. Former Clovis Planning Director John Wright has been assisting this effort. It is nearly ready for public review and comment.

2:00 Downtown and Community Revitalization weekly staff meeting. I asked the DCR staff to write suggestions for me to become a better director for our department. I did this about 6 months ago and the list was very helpful. We'll see how much progress I've made and how many new suggestions pop up!

Janet Heidinger just joined us a few weeks ago as she moved from a "permanent" position to one of our Temp positions. Janet announced that she has landed a new job. We are very happy to see our folks land on their feet. Janet's last day will be next Friday. Even though she has only been with us since the first of the year, her positive disposition has already had an impact on all of us. Congratulations Janet!

3:15 I hopped into my car and headed down the freeway to Corcoran. I was asked to speak to the downtown business owners by the Corcoran Chamber of Commerce. I had spoken to them about 9 years ago when I first started working in Hanford. I have kept in touch as they have improved their main street and done facade improvements to pretty much their whole downtown.

I had fun speaking with them and answering questions. Mostly we talked about marketing issues. We talked about cross marketing, the role of events, determining the target market, store window displays and merchandising store interiors. We also talked about the competitive advantages that small businesses have over the big box stores and the internet: Service, Product Knowledge, Relationships.

I got into the house at 7:30, in time to catch the end of Jeopardy.

02-01-10 Now, on with the Specific Plan

2010-02-01T21:17:00.001-08:00

4:45 Up and at 'em

5:00 Road work. Ellie and me hit Wishon with gusto.

7:00 I met with Jim and Jonathan Ford for breakfast. They have an inicredible start-up company that specializes in organic, natural fungicides. Instead of trying to attract a Fortune 1000 company, let's grow one!

8:30 Conference call with Darrel Frey from Corcoran. I'll be speaking down there tomorrow afternoon to a group of downtown businesses.

8:45 I got an update from Kelly Trevino, our Incentive Zone Manager, on a solution to a problem that was negatively affecting some of our local people and businesses. Census tracts that are not within one particular jurisdiction can't get Enterprise Zone benefits. So, if the City boundary doesn't include a whole census tract, the people in that area are excluded from the program. Kelly and the county have idenitfied a way to solve the problem through the state. This mostly affects people in Southwest Fresno, now they'll be included in the program's benenfits!

9:30 We have out Dept. Management meeting. George is at a seminar, so it was Elliott, Amy, Elaine and me. We mostly discussed the shifting time resources that will be required to invest into the Specific and Community plans.

10:30 Wilma quan, Elaine, Elliott and I met to review reesponsibilities and time management issues for the new plans.

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

2010-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

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.

01-28-10 The Specific Plan and Community Plan contracts are approved by the City Council 7-0!

2010-01-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Whew!

The day started with a meeting with the planning consultants Stefanos Polyzoides and David Sargent. Elaine Robles, Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch and I met them at George's at the Galleria for breakfast. We reviewed some of the logistics and potential questions that we thought Council members might have.

8:30 Amy Huerta coordinated the Primetime for Business section of the Council meeting and introduced the Monsters Hockey Team. Go Monsters. I hope to go to their game tomorrow night, it's the last one before they begin their playoff games.

The item for the downtown plans was set for 9:15. After Employee of the Quarter recognition and the always interesting unscheduled oral presentations, we began about 10:30.

I opened the staff presentation and was joined by Planning Director John Dugan. Renena Smith, our Budget Director explained the limits of the uses on Community Development Block Grant funds. Martin Wendels, who represented the Public Works Department spoke about eh selection process that led to the choice of Moule and Polyzoides.

Then the community had a chance to speak. Dozens of people from developers, members of the Lowell neighborhoods La Union de Familia, residents and business people throughout the City, downtown property owners, members of the faith community, West Fresno and South East Fresno residents and Cultural Arts District representatives lined-up to speak. It was moving and overwhelmingly positive.

At 12:30 the Council took a one hour lunch recess. Elaine and I jetted over to the Holiday Inn to listen to the Mayor speak at the No Name Fellowship.

1:30 the Council reconvened. The Council Members had questions and made their statements and recommendations. The final vote occurred about 2:50. There were questions for many staff members, I must've had about an hour at the lectern.

I never expected a unanimous vote, in fact we never knew if we had the support that we needed for the plans until the very end of the process. The community really came through and pushed this over the top. Democracy is alive and well. People can speak up, not all in English mind you, and make a difference. I am so glad that they did...now it is their plan too.

After joining the Mayor and her team for some congratulations, Elliott, Elaine, Wilma, Amy, Dawn and I headed over to the Shepherd's Inn for a toast.

6:00 Tonight was the going away dinner for City Manager Andy Souza. It was a great affair, attended by many people from the City and from the community. The dinner was back at the Holiday Inn. We listened to speakers, some of the roasted Andy and some were sentimental.

I got home at 10:00 and set to blogging. Now it is off to bed. Sometime tonight I think that today's passage of the plans will sink in a little. I promise you that this will be a turning point in the history of Fresno. If you read this blog, then you can remember to hold me to this.

01-27-10 Big Vote Eve

2010-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

Today is the day before the City Council’s big vote on the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan. Every remaining brain cell I have has been focused on this effort for weeks. This is the culmination of years of hope and effort that urban Fresno would finally have good planning. Everything is lined-up. The community has been coming out in support in wave after wave. The City Council has budgeted for the plans. Reputable firms from around the country have submitted proposals and a selection committee of residents, downtown property owners and City Department leaders have selected their top firm Moule and Polyzoides. We have endorsements from dozens of community leaders and property owners. Elliott has created a great presentation for tomorrow morning (Suzanne Bertz Rosa will be proud). Here is a link to the presentation:

https://owa.fresno.gov/owa/redir.aspx?C=18d8c243baa24c9399164579d2feeecc&URL=http%3a%2f%2fm3.fresno.gov%2fupload%2ffiles%2f111125937%2fPlancontractpresentationtoCouncil%2c01-28-10.ppt

I started my day with a meeting with Safeer Hopton who is an expert at co-ops. Safeer has expressed an interest in helping the Lowell neighborhood develop a co-op grocery store.

9:00 We had our Agenda Conference meeting with department directors and City Council staff. The meeting focuses on the following week's agenda, so Andy Souza stepped aside to let Interim City Manager Bruce Rudd take the reins, since he will be on the dais next week. It was a symbolic passing of the torch and the end of an era. As always, Andy handles these moments with grace, style and humor.

10:00 We had our weekly interdepartmental meeting on downtown revitalization. We discussed the downtown homeless population and the efforts that Greg Barfield is making in solving the issues with the F and Ventura encampment. I talked about the specific plan item on the agenda tomorrow. We also began discussions about how to best market the new downtown development incentives and the value that the plans will add to future developments.

11:00 John Dugan and I met with the Mayor to review the presentation for tomorrow's specific plan hearing.

12:00 Elaine Robles and I ran to Robertito's to pick up some tacos and horchata for the crew back at the office. We worked on some final changes to the presentation.

1:00 Wilma Quan, Elliott, Elaine and I had a conference call with the planning consultants to review their presentation.

2:00 I met with Gary Schulz from the Raisin Administrative Committee and Stan Martin from Civic Center Square to detail the parking requirements for downtown's newest tenants. The RAC is a huge step toward re-establishing downtown as a center for agribusiness. We want to make sure that they have a great downtown Fresno experience.

3:00 I met with John Dugan, Assistant City manager Bruce Rudd and Mayoral Chief of Staff Georgeanne White to talk about design requirements for new developments. We talked about infrastructure planning and issues like Floor Area Ratios that will add to the density of downtown.

I had a little time to finish a grant proposal for a downtown public market (indoor farmers' market).

5:30 Elaine Robles, Amy Huerta and I attended the Housing and Community Development Commission meeting to give them an overview of our department and to fill them in on our revitalization plans and focus on locally-owned businesses.

01-26-10 State of Downtown Breakfast

2010-01-26T21:31:00.000-08:00

I arrived at The Grand in the Trade Center building (historic name: San Joaquin Light and Power) at 6:30 to check on the set-up of the State of Downtown Breakfast this morning. The event was sold out and over 470 people were on hand to listen to the Mayor give an update on where we are and where we are headed in the revitalization of Fresno's downtown.

Take a look at a building's transformation as designed by Suzanne Bertz Rosa that was featured in the PowerPoint presentation: http://www.bertz-rosa.com/transformation This is a great image of how we can transform using what we have. It also illustrates that the job isn't so difficult, when it is done in stages.

At 9:30 I stopped in on John Ostlund, whose building is next door to the Trade Center. John had called me last Friday about a potential Earth Day event for downtown this April, so we talked about how this can be accomplished.

10:30 I met with Carl Jones from Cynthia Sterling's office to give him and update on the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan.

11:00 John Dugan, Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch, Elaine Robles and I met to review our presentation for Thursday morning's Council meeting and to review questions that were being raised by Council Members and others so that they could be incorporated into the presentation.

I had a quick meeting with the Mayor to give her our updates on the Specific Plan.
1:30 We had our monthly interdepartmental meeting focused on the Lowell neighborhood revitalization effort. This month we had a special guest Bill McEwen, Bee columnist and KYNO 1300 radio host. Bill has had a longstanding interest in the Lowell neighborhood and he was very interested to see what the City was doing and how it is being done different from past efforts. The presentation by all of the departments is very compelling. the power of people working together is remarkable.

3:00 I met with Michelle Tutelian and Stan Martin of Civic Center Square to discuss parking issues. The Raisin Administrative Committee recently selected CCS as their new headquarters location. We are thrilled to have the return of agribusiness to downtown!

Back at the office we continued our coordination of Thursday's City Council item. I met with City Attorney James Sanchez to get some of our language approved and put into proper legalese. I returned phone calls and emails from the day and made it home before Jeopardy!

01-25-10 The start of a very big week

2010-01-26T05:53:00.000-08:00

I did it. Back on the road at 5:00 for a jog with little Ellie-Smelly. I lost a week because of heel blisters from my boots. We snow shoed in Yosemite last Sunday and my feet hate hiking boots (vice versa).

7:30 Breakfast meeting with Chuck Manock. Chuck is interested in serving on the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan, but wanted to have an idea of how it will work and how it will make change.

9: 30 I had an interview with George Hostetter from the Fresno Bee. He is doing a story about our first year in the revitalization effort.

10:00 We had our management team meeting with George, Elliott, Elaine and me.

11:00 Downtown and Community Revitalization full staff meeting. Amy gave an update on the Unlicensed Contractor Ordinance that she is working toward. Kelly Trevino gave an overview of her work plan (everyone takes turns). Mostly we talked about the Specific Plan and State of Downtown Breakfast. Elaine has Bill McEwen coming to the interdepartmental Lowell Meeting on Tuesday.

12:30 Specific Plan Meeting. Wilma, Elaine, Elliott and I will have time every day this week to work on our presentation, answer questions from Council Members and the public, line up speakers for Thursday morning....

2:00 I met with Steve Geil from the Economic Development Corporation for a regularly scheduled update on EDC and the downtown revitalization efforts.

3:30 Elaine Robles and I met with the City's federal lobbyist Len Simons and the City's grant coordinator Katie Stevens. Elaine and I gave Len an overview of our focus areas: Fulton Mall and Lowell. We want him to be knowledgeable about our efforts in case he sees any particular funding or programs that might be helpful.

5:30 I met Early Boykins at Austin’s. I met Early through the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is beginning his business life in entertainment and also real estate investment. We talked about how he could get involved in downtown in both areas. I also explained about the value of being fully informed about land use planning from an investment perspective.

7:00 I met with Council Member Andreas Borgeas to see if he had any questions about the Specific Plan or Community Plan.

01-23-10

2010-01-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

9:00 I had breakfast with Amy and Juan Arambula at Cuca's in the Tower District. This was a good time to bring them up to speed on all of our revitalization activities. Amy is very involved in local improvement through the California Endowment and Economic Opportunities Coimmission. The Assemblyman loves to hear more about the local happenings than the stuff of Sacramento I think. His past work as a school board member and Coutny Supervisor make him a knowledgeable representative.

12:00 Elliott and I met at the Sequoia Brewing Company in the Tower for a review of the PowerPoint for the Mayor's speech this Tuesday morning at the State of the City Breakfast. Here is a link that you can use Tuesday morning if you would like to watch it live: www.fresno.gov/video

7:00 I went to a party at Terance Frazier's house. It was a 1920's-themed party. They really did a great job with carrying out the theme, including a silent movie featuring Terance and his colleagues. I was home by 10:00! How the times have changed....

01-20-10 Economic Development Administration and Union Bank Meeting

2010-01-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

This'll be a short post.

Our Administrative Manager George Smith and I met with the Regional Representative of the Economic Development Administration Wil Marshall at his office near the L.A. Airport. We gave him an overview of the downtown and neighborhood revitalization strategies. Wil gave us some insight into upcoming funding opportunities and some guidance about how to successfully apply for funding.

After the meeting, George drove back to Fresno and I drove down to San Diego for Union Bank's Community Advisory Board meeting.

A little recap on the Union Bank CAB. I applied for the CAB when I was still with the Central Valley Business Incubator and was appointed before I started at the City. The CAB is a three year appointment. The CAB has 10 members and was created to make recommendations about how the bank can be more responsive to community needs. I am the only San Joaquin Valley community member.

The January meeting is the organizational meeting for the upcoming year. Three new members joined the group. I am hoping to host the CAB meeting in Fresno this October. We meet for times per year. I am the Housing Committee Chair for the second year.

We met from 2:00p-9:00p on Wednesday, 8:00a-9:00p on Thursday, and 8:00a to 3:00pm on Friday. I drove home on Friday and was home at 10:00.

During our meeting we had presentations by the Retail Banking SVP, Home Mortgage SVP, Affordable Housing Finance SVP, Environmental VP and others. We also had two Board Members present.

It is very informative and it is also a great opportunity to represent the realities and needs of the Valley to folks who might otherwise overlook us. It is also wonderful to work with leaders from around the state who have a variety of interests in representing their communities.

Disclaimer: I take vacation time while I am on the CAB. I get a per diem from Union Bank for serving on the committee and I declare it on my Form 700 Income report.

01-19-10

2010-01-21T07:50:00.000-08:00

My first meeting of the day was with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce Board Members. Amy Huerta and I met with their Ruth Evans, Debbie Hunsaker, Rick Whitsell, Bruce Batti, Scott Miller and CEO Al Smith and Governmental Affairs Manager Kerri Ginis.

We met to update the Chamber on our Business Affinity Groups. This is an effort to support local businesses by getting "like" businesses together, having them set their top priories, and then helping them to collectively achieve their top goals or to remove their biggest obstacles. Some of the Affinity groups are: South Stadium Business and Property Owners, Licensed Contractors, Chinatown Business and Property Owners, Technology Companies, Community Banks and Credit Unions, H.R. and Personnel Agencies, Certified Public Accountants, Lowell Neighborhood Business Owners.

The one we were meeting with the Chamber about is the Independent Retailers and Restaurants Affinity Group. We have only had one meeting with this group so far. But they identified an on-line and a print directory as one of their top priorities. This would make it easier for people to find and support locally-owned businesses.

At 9:30 we had a meeting to re-write our staff report for the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan contract that is going to the City Council at 9:15 on the 28th. The process is that we write the staff report, then it is submitted to the City Manager for review. We re-write if there are any changes. Then it goes to the City Clerk for publication and to the City Council Members in their packet of information for their next meeting.

I had my one on one meeting with Elaine Robles, our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager at 12:30.

1:00 We had a staff meeting with our whole department to review our department's goals and major projects and efforts for 2010. This wasn't a full work plan review, it was more of a greatest hits kind of overview. We wanted everyone to see what everyone was working toward and hoping to get accomplished. I'm not sure how to post a link to the excel spreadsheet onto this blog, but if anyone wants to look at it feel free to send an email to me and I'll give it to you as an attachment.

2:00 We had a meeting with Planning and some of the other related departments and agencies to talk about how to put more information on a user-friendly website. This was a first meeting, so it was very general.

4:15 Elaine and I met with Pastor Shane Scott of Saint Rest's Baptist Church. http://www.saintrest.org

We met to discuss the City's revitalization plans for downtown and Southwest Fresno. It was a very good meeting. I hadn't had the opportunity to meet with him before, although I had heard many good things about his involvement and passion for revitalization.

I was on the road to L.A. by 6:00. It was a very windy and stormy day, so there was concern about the conditions on the grapevine. I made it through without any problems and got to the Airport Hilton about 10:00. I had a chance to return some phone calls (hands-free) along the drive.

11-18-10 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

2010-01-20T22:17:00.000-08:00

At noon I met with Brian Glover from Penstar to review the benefits of the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan to downtown projects. The two downtown plans will be back to the City Council for contract approval on the morning of the 28th.

At 4:30 Elliott Balch and I met with a potential educational tenant. We gave them an overview of the downtown revitalization efforts like the specific plan and entertainment district concept. Elliott gave them a downtown tour on Tuesday morning.

6:00 Members of the Faith Community hosted a Town Hall meeting at First Presbyterian Church in downtown to learn more about the downtown planning efforts, especially the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan and how it will reverse decades of neglect, decline and disinvestment. About 100 people showed up and there were many speakers and great questions. The Mayor attended and began the discussion. I was on hand for questions on the details of the plan.

8:00 I met with Darius Assemi to fill him in on the downtown plans and to explain how the clarity and environmental review will speed up the downtown development process and to provide clarity to the planning review process.

01-15-10 Half-way through January...you must be kidding?!

2010-01-18T10:52:00.000-08:00

I got up at 5:00 and got out of the door about 20 minutes later than usual. It is amazing how a few minutes can make such a big difference how many people are out and about. If we start at 5:00 we might see 2 or 3 people. Start at 5:20 and we see dozens by the time we're done.

7:00 meeting at the Chicken Pie Shop. I saw horrible news as I walked in the front door. The CPS is going to start opening at 8:00. I will lose my beloved breakfast meeting spot. It looks like the weekends will be the only time I'll be able to eat eggs and chicken livers at my favorite place.

I met Kurt Madden for breakfast. He is a long time friend, a former boss, and is currently the chief Technology Officer for Fresno Unified. He is also the Board Chair for the Economic Development Corporation. We have a bunch of initiatives to coordinate with FUSD, but we're primarily focused on keeping them informed and involved in our work in the Downtown Neighborhoods (Southwest, Lowell, Jefferson, and Southeast).

9:00 I met with Council Member Lee Brand, who is also the new Redevelopment Board Chair, and RDA Executive director Marlene Murphey. I have been approached by two local developer and several of their partnering investors to discuss a possible development in the Fulton Mall area. I wanted Lee and Marlene to know about this potential project early in its formation.

10:00 Local Business Initiative Manager Amy Huerta and I met to plan for our upcoming presentation to the Fresno Chamber’s Executive Committee meeting on 1/19. We will be giving them a report on our growing Independent Retailers and Restaurants group.

11:00 Elaine Robles and I drove to the Fresno Regional Foundation office at Palm and Shaw to meet with a group of people who are interested in pursuing the Promise Neighborhoods proposal that is being championed by the Obama Administration through the Housing and Urban Development department. The project will identify 20 urban cities who are willing to develop a program modeled after the Harlem Children’s' Zone. http://www.hcz.org/

12:00 Uncle Harry's in Fig Garden. Elaine and I met with Dr. Lynnette Zelezny who is helping Dr. Welty and Fresno State coordinate the upcoming Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities' conference in Fresno http://www.cumuonline.org/conference/index.htm . Our joint efforts in Lowell will by highlighted at the conference. This will bring university presidents to Fresno. Block the dates, they'll also bring some speakers to town that you won't want to miss.

1:00 Elaine and I jetted over to the Oaxaca Restaurant at Chestnut and Belmont for a presentation to the new Belmont Merchants' Association. We gave them information about the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan. The Downtown Nieghborhoods Plan stretches all of the way to Chestnut and would fix outdated land use issues in all of the older neighborhoods. The plans have led to the decline of single family dominated neighborhoods and have allowed the proliferation of low quality apartments that have deteriorated to a state where they are boarded up, are unhealthy for their residents and have destroyed the character of their surrounding neighborhoods. This trend must be reversed. Additionally, the ugly streetscapes and parking lot dominated shopping centers are a result of plans, they actually conform to our plans. This is what needs to be changed.

2:00 We continued our meetings with Council Members to give them a presentation on our proposed long-term strategy for land use planning for the City. General Plans must be updated every 10 years, and that would mean ours is due for an update in 2012. Our Fulton and Downtown Neighborhoods plans would be the first to incorporate form-based zoning and would become the cornerstone for the future plans. Form-based zoning has to do with building sizes, how buildings are placed on their lot, how much building should go on how much land, how much can be used for parking...form-based doesn't focus on uses as much as it focuses on how a city will be physically built. It has great potential for helping to bring growth back into the city and transportation corridors and to make us much more comfortable for pedestrians.

4:30 I met with a group of people who either were in the last Citizens' Academy ( http://www.fresno.gov/Government/MayorsOffice/CitizensAcademy/default.htm ) class or are in the current Citizens' Academy class for a walking tour of the Fulton Mall. The requested the tour last week, so we got it booked and they had 10 or 12 folks show up. It was fun to do the tour as business and activity were winding down on a Friday and as things got dark. It was a perfect opportunity to talk about how a healthy downtown should be winding-up. How an entertainment district would function and the importance of a lively downtown in keeping and attracting talented people to our community.

6:00 After the tour ended, I checked my phone and had a couple of text messages from Andreas and Anna Borgeas. They were over at Full Circle after work. I joined them for a porter and listened to some great music before heading home. http://www.fullcirclebrewing.com/

01-12-10 Web Fernando has good news.

2010-01-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

My first meeting was at 8:30. The City Manager, Deputy City Manager Nicole Zieba, and Ephraim Smith from Public Works met to discuss the Santa Fe Depot's potential uses.

9:30 We had a large meeting with the Mayor, City Manager, Planning Director and others to discuss developments in Chinatown.

10:30 I had a dentist appointment with Dr. Gorman.

After one year on the job, I finally took my photo for my employee badge (which I'll wash a few times and then lose).

2:30 was the weekly Downtown and Community Revitalization Department staff meeting. Fernando announced that he was offered a job by the Economic Development Corporation and he accepted. That is great news and he’ll do a great job for EDC.

3:45 I quickly dropped in on Councilmember Borgeas.

4:00 We had a large meeting to discuss projects and plans for the area south of Ventura in Chinatown. This is the area where the Poverello House and Rescue Mission reside, where the tuff sheds and the homeless encampments are located. These are incredibly complicated issues, especially when you add Chinatown Revitalization and the needs of the business and property owners in the area just south of Chukchansi Park.

This area will be included in the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan, but many decisions will have to be made without a clear plan or clear policy, which often leads to long-term mistakes.

5:30 I hosted an introductory meeting with our new Planning Director John Dugan and community watchdog Jeanette Jurkovich and Downtown Association President Joe Moore. Both had expressed concerns about the City's Historic Preservation Ordinance, so I wanted John to hear the concerns directly.

7:00 We had a gathering for Fernando at Livingstone's after work to celebrate his new job.

01-11-10 Sharon Alexander cooks downtown again

2010-01-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

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.

01-08-10 Week One

2010-01-10T21:37:00.000-08:00

My first meeting was at 8:30 with DG Safeer, a gentleman that I met 4 or 5 years ago when he first moved back to Fresno. Mr. Safeer has a long history with co-operatives. We were discussing the possiblity of a co-op grocery store in some of our downtown neighobrhoods. It would be great to have stores that really catered to neighborhood interests and needs like hiring policies, good prices and healthy options.

Elaine Robles and I met with Fresno County Superintendent Larry Powell at 9:30 at his office on Van Ness. It was a great meeting, Larry is always so upbeat and optimistic. We gave him an overview of our revitalization efforts in Lowell. He is having the person who coordinates their volunteer activities work with us and will help us to find additional resources. He filled us in on their technology expansion efforts and how they might dovetail with what we are doing.

I was a little late getting back for my one on one meeting with Elliott Balch.

11:30 I took our new (November) City Controller Joe Gray to lunch at the Downtown Club. I had a great Gruyere and carmielized onion burger! I have not had much time to meet our newest Department Director. Joe comes to us from Cincinati. We also walked down to the Fulton Mall after lunch for an abreviated tour.

1:30 Elliott and I met with Scott Anderson and Brian Glover of Penstar at their offices. We discussed the Property Based Improvement District and the Bank of Italy Building.

3:00 City Manager Andy Souza and I met with the General Managing Partner of Club One Casino Kyle Kirkland. for an update on the cardroom's activities and ongoing partnership with the City of Fresno. Club One is open 24 hours, seven days a week. They have upgraded their restaurant, and could be a resource to further downtown revitalization.

4:00 I met with Darius Assemi at City Hall with Donna Gavello and Elliott Balch. We gave him an update on DT Faces and he updated us on the Fulton Village project next to Tokyo Garden. Have you been by there yet. They are grading it. 60+ apartments will be underway soon.

5:00 Creative Fresno met at the Cosmopolitan Tavern for their Creative Blender. The Cosmo has morphed from a classic neighborhood bar and a great lunchtime spot. They are now packing them in for dinner and it feels more like one of the traditional San Francisco grills, but better because it is ours and it is real.

7:30 I met Coach Carter for shabu shabu at Yoshino's, something I've never had before. Very fun way to meet a friend and cook and eat. Plus they give you the leftovers and you get to have soup the next day.

01-07-10 One Year Anniversary

2010-01-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right, I've been on the job for one year today. It's kind of funny that it didn't even dawn on me until after work. I knew that it was this week, but it kind of snuck past me. Happy birthday Downtown and Community Revitalization Department.

I started my day with a breakfast meeting at Patio Cafe with Phoebe Wall Howard. We had a far ranging discussion about Fresno's revitalization efforts. Phoebe is involved in many facets of Fresno and in projects all over the state. She has been a writer and has incredible networks in the community even though she and her family have moved to Mill Valley.

I got back to City Hall in time to watch the changing of the guard as Cynthia Sterling relinquished her role as Council President and handed the gavel to Larry Westerlund. Lee Brand will be the new Redevelopment Agency Chair and Blong Xiong will move from RDA Chair to RDA Vice-Chair.

I had a one on one meeting with our department's administrative manager George Smith. George had a full list of questions for me (he is always very thorough). One of the main items has been the potential for an Economic Administration grant for a commercial kitchen incubator which could be part of a downtown public market.

11:00 Amy Huerta and I had a one on one meeting focusing on the licensed contractor's affinity group and the potential to change the municipal code to strengthen the City's ability to enforce unlicensed contractors. Unlicensed contractors cause a great deal of havoc in a city. They can cause liability problems for residents and undercut legitimate businesses by offering below market bids because of their lack of workers' comp insurance, among other problems. Amy is also planning ways to increase the exposure of our remarkable local technology companies. We have several companies with nationwide customers. They don't get nearly the recognition that they deserve and Fresno doesn't get the benefits from having a strong tech base.

11:45 Elaine Robles and I went to the Luau Restaurant for lunch and to do some planning work for the metrics that we will use to measure the results that are happening in the Lowell neighborhood over the next few years.

1:30 We had a planning meeting with the Mayor, City Manager Andy Souza, Mayor's Chief of Staff Georgeanne White, Planning Director John Dugan, Public Utilities Director Rene Ramirez, Assistant Public Works Director Scott Mozier, Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold, Elliott Balch, Elaine Robles and little old me.

This meeting was to refine our presentation for council members next week about the City Administration's overall planning goals, timelines, requirements and processes. The downtown plan and downtown community plan will be the cornerstone for future planning efforts that will bring much of the activity back to the urban parts of Fresno. These efforts will fundamentally improve the quality of life for the residents of our city for many years to come and will change many of the underlying financial issues in our city's future. I know that I have said it before in this blog, but our new planning director is having a remarkably positive effect and will have a lasting impact on our town.

4:00 It was fitting that on our one year anniversary that we had a second meeting with the Mayor to discuss long term strategies for our revitalization efforts. The meeting was a review of our neighborhood revitalization strategies, especially as they relate to Lowell (the place where Fresno will learn how to revitalize neighborhoods). The Mayor, City manager, Georgeanne White, John Dugan, Keith Bergthold, Jerry Bishop, who heads code enforcement, Elaine and I were in this meeting.

We spent much of the time discussing strategies to combat slumlord issues which are a priority identified by the neighbors. Code enforcement is a major tool in getting negligent rental property owners to invest in and to maintain their properties in ways that improve the neighborhood and to provide quality housing for our residents.

5:30 I went to Chris Sorenson's studio on south Van Ness for ArtHop. I saw many old friends and artists there, including Chris. Many artists use this space and he opens it up for even more to show their work. If you've never been there and would like to visit, just send an email to me at craig.scharton@fresno.gov and I'll give you directions. It is just past the Best Little City arch.

6:45 I went by Heros to watch part of the national championship football game and had a great calzone. I had a chance to meet Patrick the new owner. This young man has a great attitude and I wish him great success in his efforts. He is going to launch a new menu tomorrow, so go by and check it out and give him a pat on the back for investing in our downtown!

I saw Jake Kojikian at the restaurant with one of his tenants from the Virginia Hotel and another friend of his from L.A. who is interested in investing in downtown. A nice upbeat way to finish my first birthday.

Home by 8:00 to finish watching the football game on the couch with my pup.

Thanks to everyone in our community, and especially our hardworking team, for their great support in year one! Now back to work...

01-06-10

2010-01-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

I got up in time for a jog with the dog. On the road before 5:00. I hoped to get back in time to write yesterday's blog because I fell asleep before I wrote it last night.

I wrote most of the blog, but needed a few missing pieces, so I didn't finish it until tonight.

7:00 I met a former student of mine, Michael Sloggett who is the creator and founder of: http://www.fresnofusion.com/ It was great to catch up with Michael, to hear about his family, his real job and his continued hopes for Fresno Fusion. Fresno Fusion is a website focus on downtown Fresno. He'll be featuring Chinatown.

8:30 I met with City Manager Andy Souza for our one on one.

9:00 We had our agenda conference meeting with department directors and city council staff members. This was the meeting to review and form the agenda for the January 14th City Council meeting. There are a couple of downtown items on this agenda, there will be some relief for parking charges for the downtown Holiday Inn hotel on the Fulton Mall for one year. There will also be an item approving new highway signage for downtown Fresno. The Downtown Association will pay for the signs, but the City still needs to approve the signage.

9:30 Directors meeting. I reported on the Specific Plan contract which will go the City Council at their meeting on January 28th. I also reported on the State of Downtown breakfast which will be held January 26th.

10:00 Amy Huerta and I met with Eddie Clements from the Carpenters Union. We talked about the need to enforce requirements for unlicensed contractors. We also talked about the need for skilled craftspeople as we begin to renovate historic buildings. Eddie is a huge fan of downtown, we first met him at our Downtown Revitalization Update Meetings.

11:00 I met with Paul Fountaine and Sally Caglia from the Warnors Theater. We met with Jerry Bishop of Code Enforcement and Police Captain Greg Garner. We were meeting to give Paul and Sally some guidance on how to proceed through some of our City processes and the Alcoholic Beverages Control processes.

12:00 Elaine Robles, Dawn Steele and I met with the Provost and Department Deans at Fresno Pacific University. We gave them an overview of our plans and progress in the Lowell neighborhood. We had a nice boxed lunch in one of their conference rooms. It was a great conversation.

1:30 We had a meeting with Jerry Bishop, Scott Mozier, John Dugan, Bruce Rudd and Ephraim smith. We need to make some adjustments to our downtown incentives program. This is a new effort and we'll need to keep tweaking it as we go to make sure that we are getting the results that we are hoping for and the developers, businesses and investors need to keep revitalization moving forward.

2:00 George Smith and I met to go over some complications that we have applying for and Economic Development Administration grant for a commercial kitchen incubator that could be a part of a downtown public market. Solutions are there, but sometimes these things are more tricky than we guess when we get started.

3:00 I was the guest on KFSR's radio show The Pulse. I used to be a co-host on this show before I began at the City. It was fun to be back with Tim Stearns and Joe Moore. Boy were those simpler days! The show will air this Saturday at noon and Sunday at 9:00a.m. on 90.7 FM. Or after it airs you can listen online at http://www.kfsr.org/

4:30 Amy Huerta and Fernando Santillan organized today's Technology Affinity Group at Joe's Steakhouse ( http://www.joessteakhouse.com/ ) The guest for today's meeting was Kurt Madden the Chief Technology Officer for Fresno Unified School District. The Technology Affinity Group wanted to meet public sector purchasing managers and technology managers. We started with the folks at City Hall and are now introducing our partnering agencies to the local tech companies (and vice versa).

Amy, Fernando and I stayed afterward for dinner and have time to catch up with each other. I really enjoy the spontaneous opportunities to stay connected and to have fun brainstorming how we can do our jobs better and to achieve more and more results. The burgers were great!

1-05-10 back in the mix

2010-01-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

It seems that there was a bit of a furlough hangover on Monday. I had a hard time getting this old brain to make the necessary adjustments to get back up to full speed (such as it is). By Tuesday it felt good to be back at it. Brain engaged...arguing, thinking, planning, speaking...

I started out looking at a downtown property that has been recently listed on the market. Just trying to keep up on what's out there.

I grabbed a quick 15 minute breakfast at Toledo's in the Cultural Arts District.

8:45 I picked up our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager Elaine Robles in front of City Hall and the we swung around to pick up John Raymond and Debra Barletta. We looked at three houses in Lowell that the RDA is working on with Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds. They are beauties. They are on College, Franklin and Glenn.

10:30 I had a meeting with City Manager Andy Souza, Planning Director John Dugan, Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold and Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch and Elaine from our department. This meeting was to continue to piece together the short, medium and long term planning strategies for the City of Fresno. Many of our planning needs an immediate and important. If you think about planning as a regulatory tool that shapes the future of a city, it is critical to have it right. Many of our plans still allow sprawl at the fringes and do not allow good development, or require good development, in the interior of our city.

So it is important that our downtown plan, the downtown neighborhood plan, and the larger changes to the City's general plan all work together and be done in the most rational order. I am thankful every day for the expertise and perspective that John Dugan is bringing to our city!

12:00 I spoke to the North Fresno Exchange Club, a service club that meets at the Shaw and Van Ness Piccadilly Inn. This was a very fun and engaged group of people. Many wanted to volunteer to help the downtown effort. They had great questions and we talked for about an hour. I was very encouraged after meeting with this fun and intelligent group!

2:00 Elliott and I met with Suzanne Bertz Rosa who is helping us to put together the presentation for the Mayors' State of Downtown Breakfast on January 26th. The breakfast is nearly sold out, so don't delay if you want to attend. Call the Downtown Association asap.

3:30 We had our weekly staff meeting. It was the first with Janet and Alex. It was a fairly light meeting, we did some introductions and some catching up.

5:30 I met Steve Froberg, who is with Ashwood Homes at the Downtown Club. I knew Steve while he was the City Manager in Lemoore. Steve is one of the nicest people I have met. He was also a great City Manager while he worked in Lemoore. Ashwood does about half of their business in affordable housing, an area that I am continually learning about. I'm sure that I have said it somewhere in this blog before, but housing is its own animal. There is really a housing-industrial complex that exists between the government housing policies, banks and other types of community lending institutions, affordable housing developers and housing advocates. It is its own world.

1-4-09 Welcome Alex and Janet

2010-01-04T22:30:00.000-08:00

I got back into the routine with an early morning run and by getting into the office a little after 7:00.

We all came back from our furlough today. City hall was closed December 24-January 3. It was nice to be off and to have City Hall closed, so that people weren't still churning out emails or needing any decisions. It's easier to shut down for a few days when everyone is off at the same time.

Before the furlough and holiday we found out that we were going to lose two of our temporary employees and friends Jenna and Fernando. We received our two new team members Alex and Janet today. They came to us from other departments as people who were laid-off bumped others within the City structure. Jenna and Fernando will be with us for a little bit longer to train Alex and Janet. We had a good amount of time with Janet and Alex today to welcome them into our department and to orient them to the exciting new work that they are about to undertake.

9:00 A meeting with: Planning Director John Dugan, Planner Manager Darrell Unruh, and Historic Preservation Officer Karana Hattersley-Drayton. Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Marlene Murphey and their consultant Jerry Freeman. Elliott Balch and me.

This meeting was to discuss the needs of the City and the Redevelopment Agency for Historic resource surveys and who has resources to cover the costs for historic analysis work. There are a variety of reasons to do historic surveys. A plan like our Fulton Corridor Specific Plan will require a level of survey work. The Redevelopment Agencies plan to continue their merger of redevelopment areas will require them to say how historic analysis of resources will be handled.

10:00 At our weekly management meeting we introduced Alex and Janet to the functions of the department: Downtown Revitalization, Administration, Local Business Initiatives, and Neighborhood Revitalization.

12:00 We took Janet and Alex to the Cosmo...can't go wrong, the place is great.

2:00 Donna Gavello, Elliott and I met with John Ostlund, the owner of K-JWL and KYNO. John has always been a downtown enthusiast and has always has his business downtown. John was instantly supportive of the DT FACES' efforts to bring more festivals and entertainment to the Fulton and the Stadium.

4:00 I had a phone one on one with Elaine Robles to prepare for some pretty big meetings that we have this week: Fresno Pacific University, Larry Powell-Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, and a meeting with the Redevelopment Agency.

5:00 I met with Blake Konczal the CEO of the Workforce Investment Board for an after work chat at the Downtown Club.

12-28-09 entertainment district

2009-12-28T18:11:00.000-08:00

Our plan for the revitalization of downtown Fresno is to create an entertainment district that serves the entire Central San Joaquin Valley. Entertainment can range from live music, art galleries, theater, dining, nightclubs, film, coffeehouses, sports, festivals.

Downtown Fresno should have enough overlapping activity that it will support fun, interesting shops and be a place where people will live to be close to the action.

Entertainment districts are walkable. Walkable districts are between one-quarter of a mile in radius. This makes the Fulton Mall area ideal. It was the historical central gathering district for our region. It has millions of square feet of space that is already built.

It will be important for the entertainment district to offer a variety of activities that people can't get other places in the region. The combination of uses is also important. 10 ethnic restaurants are enough for a dining district. Old theaters that show cult classic movies, impendent films and film festivals differentiate them from the megaplex theaters that dominate suburbia. Rooftop bars take advantage of our beautiful summer evenings and liven up the night with music. Outdoor cafes add security by providing eyes on the street, plus give people-watching options (an activity that human beings love). A boutique hotel in an historic building would be an option that would appeal to many people who are not interested in the express hotels that are popping up everywhere.

There are 1.5 million people in Kings, Tulare, Madera and Fresno counties. For the entertainment district to work, it will need to draw people from the region on a regular enough basis to support businesses. The entertainment district will really be a sum of its parts. When we talk about revitalization, what we are really saying is that people will come and do more than one thing. Dinner and a show. Lunch and shopping. Club hopping. Sunday services followed by brunch.

There is no place that brings everyone together in the Central San Joaquin Valley. Downtown Fresno's entertainment district can serve as this place. I'm not sure that any other place really could.

12-24-09 12-25-09

2009-12-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve

I had a fun day helping to plant some of the monster trout into the Kings River below Pine Flat Dam. This program has been going on for a few years. The Dept. of Fish and Game bring the fish to the river and then volunteers carry nets with 2-6 fish to the river.

Part of the Lower Kings River is set aside for catch and release, no bait, no barbs. In other states this has built up healthy fisheries. People will come from all over the world to fish a healthy river. Fly fishing is a great way to get people to our area for tourism revenues. Protecting our rivers will add to a positive connection between our city dwellers and nature.

Christmas Day

After making egg nog French toast for the clan, I headed back out to the river for some fishing. I was in short sleeves most of the day. It was very clear and I could see snow covered peaks behind the hills. I had several strikes, but didn't land a fish. Fishing size 20 hooks is really challenging. It was my first shut out since last February, so I can't really complain.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4927338.jpg

12-23-09 The problem with time travel....

2009-12-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

I started the day with a 7:00 breakfast gathering the the Chicken Pie Shop counter. A few members of the group had never had the joy of the good old CPS. Rollie Smith, John Raymond, Eileen Neely, Keith Bergthold and Preston Prince. I was the only one who had the full experience of chicken livers however.

8:30 Specific Plan update withy Elliott and Wilma.

9:30 Deptment Management Meeting...final preparation for furloughs, and preparing for our two new team members who will join us on January 4th.

10:00 Overview of high speed rail options for the downtown terminal. Marlene Murphey, John Dugan, Elliott Balch, Keith Bergthold and I met with Eric Von Berg from the HSR consultant URS.

11:30 One on one meeting with George Smigh.

1:00 Rollie Smith led a seminar on the new LEED Certification for neighborhoods call LEED ND. For more information look at: http://www.cnu.org/leednd

2:00 Our department went out for sandwiches at Cedar Lanes to wish our buddies Jenna and Fernando the best of luck as the re-enter the workforce. If any of you are looking, these are two super-talented people. The have skills, work ethic and personality! Ray is moving to another department that needed his experience within the City, so he's not too far.

5:15 Meeting with Chuck Manock.

Happy Holidays everyone. I don't imagine I'll be blogging much over the next week or so. Thanks for the support, encouragement and suggestions.

Craig

The problem with time travel is the difficulty of landing on a planet that is moving through space and is rotating.

12-22-09 Happy Tuesday Everyone

2009-12-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

I started with a jog this morning at 5:00 with Ellis and our special guest, my wife, Betty Ann. It was breezier than usual, but a pretty morning. Mostly clear skies with some cool clouds.

I got into the office a little after 7:30. Today was light on meetings, so I could get some computer and phone work done. I had emails and phone messages because I was out yesterday and stuff to get done before the furloughs.

9:00 Amy Huerta and I had our one on one meeting. She is working on a strategy with our CPA affiliate group and how to bring resources into the Lowell Neighborhood to help with the Earned Income Tax Credit. We'd also like to bring Bank on Fresno resources into Lowell at the same time.

10:30 I spoke with Brad Segal who is the consultant for our Property Based Improvement District. He had spoken with Elliott and Jan Minami earlier.

I wrote my piece for January's e-newsletter from our department. If you'd like to sign up for the newsletter please send an email to me at craig.scharton@fresno.gov .

12:00 I walked over to Salsa Mexicatessen for a shredded beef quesadilla to go.

12:30 Elaine Robles, Wilma Quan and I met for an hour regarding the many issues and decisions that are needed as we take the Specific and Community Plans forward to the City Council on January 28th. There are many deadlines and decision points before we get back in front of the City Council.

3:00 We had our weekly staff meeting. Elliott Balch was in Sacramento meeting with folks about Proposition 84 funds and how they might fit with our planning efforts. George Smith is on vacation, but will be in tomorrow. So the meeting was shorter than usual, but everyone needed to get back to work and do some final reporting before the furlough week begins.

5:00 I was a greeter for the boomerang event held at the Smittcamp House at Fresno State. It was very well attended, the room was packed. I met many people who have moved away from Fresno but who are considering a move back. It was a great event. The organizers should be proud and happy.

12-21-09 L.A. Story

2009-12-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

I went down to Los Angeles to meet with one of our downtown building owners and to introduce him to potential investors.

The day started at the Weingart Center in Skid Row. http://www.weingart.org/

This is a comprehensive transitional housing center for people who want to get out of chronic homelessness. Participants can stay for two years. They have mandated savings programs. It is for individuals only.

We also looked at some well-designed affordable housing in Los Angeles:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=330%20W%20Avenue%2026%20los%20angeles

and then put this into Google maps and look at street view: 360 W Avenue 26, Los Angeles, California 90031

The introductory meeting with the downtown property owner was friendly and informative. There is some good possibility of forward movement with his building, I'll report more when I have something a little more tangible.

12-19-09 Saturday

2009-12-19T17:58:00.000-08:00

Elliott Balch and I met with the talented Suzanne Bertz Rosa at Echo Street Cafe (formerly Java Wava http://echostreetcoffee.com/default.aspx I had the breakfast sandwich on the Parmesan Bagel, Mark's suggestion, it was great. We met from 9:30 to noon.

We were beginning preparations for the State of Downtown breakfast presentation. Suzanne is an accomplished designer and along with Travis Sheridan created the Fresno Brand. Check out some of her stuff at http://www.bertz-rosa.com/

I had to complete my sexual harassment training as required by the State. All supervisors in organizations with more than 50 employees have to complete 2 hours.

Then I watched our Bulldogs falter in the New Mexico Bowl. That was a painful loss. First and goal on the one yard line, Cowboys hold the line four straight plays...ouch.

12-18-09 The week Finale ends

2009-12-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

No run this morning. I got up early to write the blog for Thursday. I couldn't connect to the internet. I was finally successful, just as it was time to get ready and go to my first meeting. I don't think that I've mentioned this. Our dog Ellis is allergic to profanity. I can mutter a cuss word under my breath and she will come from another room and stare up at me with a pathetic look. This makes working with technology (or fighting with technology) very difficult. Computers and swearing go together like steak and cabernet.

I started at the Chicken Pie Shop at 7:00 with investors who are interested in buying and renovating an apartment building in the Lowell neighborhood. I told them about our desire for quality, in appearance and also in management. This is a particularly symbolic apartment complex because a few months ago it was inhabited by gang members. It is now vacant after the Police Dept. cleared out the trouble-makers. It would be great to have it fixed up and have it become a contributor to the neighborhood, rather than a detractor.

8:30 Elliott Balch, Donna Gavello and I met with Gordie Webster at the Business Journal. We were meeting to discuss the BJ's participation as a sponsor in downtown events and festivals. As always, Gordie is very supportive of revitalization efforts and will help us with our event promotions.

10:00 Elliott, Elaine, Amy, Wilma and I met to regroup after Tuesday's City Council meeting. We took a look at how this chaotic week went, what worked and what we could have done better. And, what we need to do between now and the January 28 meeting when the Specific Plan and Community Plan will go back to the City Council for consideration.

We all chipped in for some pizza and had some time for the whole department to get together to celebrate the four victories for downtown from the day before.

1:30 The Mayor, City Manager, Public Works, Public Utilities, Planning Director and I met to continue the improvement of internal processing of development applications. I'm at these meetings to make sure that the downtown projects stay top of mind as the whole system is redone.

2:30 I had word from the Personnel Department that two of our departments team members would be on the receiving end of a bump caused by layoffs. Amy Huerta and I delivered the bad news to our co-workers. And then we pulled together the rest of our team to share the news. We know that this is happening everywhere, it's not just our department or just the city, still it is a difficult thing to lose people who are really great at what they do and who are an important part of our work family.

3:00 Wilma, Elliott, Elaine and I met briefly with the City Manager and Nicole Zieba, Deputy City Manager, to work on our strategy for the Specific Plan and Community Plan. There will be a great deal of work for Wilma, the City Attorney's office and our consultant team to bring more options to the council on the 28th of January.

4:00 We had one final meeting to try to get everyone back together and to get a clear picture of what we need to do going forward. All of you who manage groups of people know, the effort put into keeping people moving together in unison, working toward a common purpose, takes a great deal of thought and resource, but is the only way to accomplish big things. Today was certainly a reminder of this fact.

We'll miss our two friends and co-workers, but will do all that we can to help them find new work. They are both wonderful and will land on their feet. We'll welcome the two new member of the team after we return from the holidays and furlough. Ultimately it is the mission of downtown revitalization, neighborhood revitalization and creating a strong base of locally-owned businesses that drive our mission. Regardless of the ups and downs that happen along the way.

12-17-09 A day late

2009-12-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

I got behind on my blogging. Now I'll have to blog from my day-old memory.

I got up for a run with Ellis. We were on the road at 5:00. It was our first foggy winter run. It is amazing how different it is in the fog. You can't see worth a darn, but the sound carries so clearly. The train sounds so close and you can hear it so long. I almost ran into another dog. I could see the lady running, she had a headlamp on, but I didn't see the long leash or the dog until the last second.

My first meeting was at 7:00 with Rollie, Preston, Eileen and Keith. We discussed the Housing Authority projects, Rollie discussed an introduction he was making for us with an investor in Lowell and Keith recommended a book called the Happiness Hypothesis.

I spent most of the day at the City Council meeting. We had several items on the agenda. We had spent the past few days answering questions from Council Members regarding the agenda items. Some of the Council Members had suggested delaying the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan because of questions about cost savings. The Council did table the item when they approved the agenda at the beginning of the meeting. They made supportive comments beforehand. The item will come back on January 28th and we'll prepare some additional options for their consideration.

4-5 folks showed up at the meeting to ask questions about the Property Based Improvement District. It wasn't on the agenda, but they wanted to register their concerns.

The Council unanimously supported the Downtown Development incentives. This is the first of many that we will be bringing to them over the next few months. We want downtown to be the most desirable place to invest, develop and to open a business. This particular incentive will give developments within the footprint of the specific plan 7 years to pay for traffic, park, and public safety fees. These citywide fees pay for new construction, much of which is done outside of downtown. The first three years there are no charges and the fees are spread over years 4-7. This delay can help the cash flow and financing of downtown projects.

The City Council also unanimously approved some changes to the Card Room ordinance which applies to Club One Casino. The changes allow for higher betting limits for poker games and also allow Club One to play poker games approved by the State, rather than naming the games individually. Once the games are approved by the State, Club One can begin hosting them, rather than having to come back to the Council every single time to update the ordinance.

The City Council also approved a stay of the lawsuit against the Hotel Fresno for 13 months and will drop the lawsuit if the new owners need to clear the title when they get financing. The owners are the people who just renovated the Hotel Virginia and who are now renovating the Mayflower Apartments at Broadway and Tuolumne. The lawsuit had been initiated against prior owners. The current owners have been responsible, so we wanted to give them some relief while they attempt to secure financing.

I also had some time to meet with the Mayor and do some long range planning in between Council items. I also dashed out to meet with some of my Urban Entrepreneurship students at Heros as they celebrated the end of their semester.

Finally, the Council approved the lease with the Grizzlies on a 6-1 vote. Not only was this the best option fiscally, but it keeps the team in place and will give us a chance to make the stadium the cornerstone of revitalization that was originally envisioned. An empty stadium would have cost the City even more and would have been a huge black hole in downtown. After the meeting several of us went out to celebrate the successful conclusion of months of precarious negotiations. Go Grizzlies!

12-16-09 Another crazy day

2009-12-16T22:29:00.000-08:00

This'll be a short one, just the facts ma'm.

8:00 I met with the representative of a new tenant that we are trying to attract to a downtown location. It looked like they would be making a decision tomorrow, but I found out that they have postponed their decision until January. We really are working hard at getting this one. Hopefully we'll have something good to report in January...stay tuned.

9:15 Press conference to announce that Penstar has purchased the historic Bank of Italy Building. This was a nice one for the "wins" column. This was a culmination of efforts from code enforcement and the city attorney’s office who have been prioritizing enforcement against negligent downtown property owners. When a new potential owner put the building in escrow, but who needed additional investors, we introduced him to Penstar. We didn't know if they had followed up with each other until we got word that they were working together to close the purchase. The City Manager's office, code enforcement and the City attorney had to move quickly to clear some issues on the title to ensure that the deal went through. It was a good team effort that proved successful.

I spent much of my day running between Council offices double-checking and providing answers to questions about the items that we have on the agenda for the downtown. There have been some questions that might cause some delays, but they are thoughtful questions and everyone seems to be interested in keeping things moving forward. Whether we have delays or not, I feel pretty confident that we'll still be making progress. So many of these items are complex, and the timing with other issues facing the City just makes them more so.

12:00 Amy Huerta and I met with Will Fleet, Ken Hatfield and John Coakley at the Fresno Bee. We met to discuss how we might do a directory of locally-owned restaurants and retailers. This would be a valuable tool for people who want to support our independent businesses. We'll meet again in January after the City's new business license software is operational. Disclaimer: The Bee brought in salads for lunch.

1:30 I had my one on one meeting with the Mayor. It was short, because of the number of issues that we both had to attend to that needed last minute attention. We'll continue the meeting tomorrow.

2:30 We had a run through with the folks who will be presenting at tomorrow's Council meeting.

4:00 The Mayor hosted a holiday party in the foyer at City Hall

5:00 I had a haircut at The Loft in the Security Bank Building. I read an article in Fresno Magazine that featured an imaginary debate with Reza Assemi and me. In reality, we did not have a conversation, but our separate interviews were pieced together to make it seem like a point/counterpoint discussion.

6:00 I went to the chamber of Commerce for an award presentation for Reza Assemi.

7:00 My son Cole is home from college (Saint Mary's in Moraga). It was great to have dinner with him!

12-15-09 Well, we knew it was going to be a doozy of a week.

2009-12-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

No run today. 1 whole Clariton floors me. I know, not much of a drug tolerance, I know.

8:00 we started refining our presentation for Thursdays’ City Council meeting. I walked in with great news. We are on for a press conference for Wednesday morning at 9:15 to announce the sale of the Bank of Italy building. While it was good news, it also put strain on an already strained crew. We knew that it would be a full week, but guess what? We're heaping more fuel on the fire.

8:30 We changed our focus to the list of invitees for the State of Downtown breakfast. Let me know if you want in invite.
10:00 Marlene Murphey, Georgeanne White and I met with representatives from the local IRS offices and a representative from the General Services Administration. It was a positive update on how many jobs the IRS has consolidated in Fresno and especially downtown Fresno.

11:00 Amy Huerta and Fernando Santillan hosted a seminar on best practices for enforcement of unlicensed contractors. The contractors chose Visalia and Sanger as the best examples. They had a great turnout.

12:30 Elaine Robles and I met with Supervisor Mike Hanson and his cabinet to talk about the incredible resource coming from Fresno State into the Lowell Neighborhood revitalization effort. Resources are a funny thing, they require planning and management. We have a responsibility to the neighborhood residents to do this really well.

On top of everything else, one of the tenants that we have been trying to bring downtown will vote whether or not to choose downtown on Thursday. I'll let you know when I know if they are coming downtown.

2:30 We had an abbreviated staff meeting. We had a quick overview of everyone's week. There was leftover Me&Ed's from the contractor's meeting, so that helped keep morale high.

I met with Carl Jones, Cynthia Sterling's Chief of Staff to keep him updated on the Specific Plan and Downtown Development Incentives.

We also worked on the press announcement for tomorrow morning's press conference. Join us at 9:15 a.m. in front of the Bank of Italy Building...did I say that already?

5:15 I met with Crystal Smith, Jane Sumpter, Lee Brand, Andreas Borgeas, Larry Westerlund, Georgeanne White and Renena Smith. usually we meet with council members in one on one or maybe two, but this worked out with everyone's schedules to get together this evening. It was a good opportunity to present some of the information about our downtown revitalization efforts.

6:30 I met with Elaine Robles and Elliott Balch joined us for a debrief of the day.

12-14-09 The beginning of a huge week!

2009-12-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Up at 4:45 for a jog, it was sprinkling lightly. What a nice rainstorm we've had.

I didn't have a meeting scheduled until 8:30, which was nice because the City's Outlook didn't work yesterday, so I was behind on emails. My first meeting was a one on one with Jenna Slawinski, one of our hardworking administrative team members. Jenna is working hard on the upcoming State of Downtown breakfast on January 26th. She's still doing all of her other work like vouchers for the Enterprise Zone and training our AARP volunteers, too.

9:00 I had my one on one with George Smith our Administrative Manager. We had some end of the year loose ends to tie together, mostly regarding the furlough week than starts next Thursday.

9:30 Elliott Balch, Angela Vasquez and I met with the City Manager's crew to nail down the details for the Thursday’s presentations.

10:00 Elliott, Wilma Quan, Elaine Robles and I met to review our part of the presentations for this Thursday. The Specific Plan and Downtown Development Incentives are scheduled for 9:15. Come by if you can. If not, maybe watch on-line. Go to http://www.fresno.gov/ go to City Council and then Watch Live.

11:00 Department management meeting with George, Elaine, Elliott and Amy Huerta. We didn't meet for long, we'd pretty much covered it already. No need to meet just to meet.

12:00 We had our holiday party for the department last night. It was pot luck and we had Rock Band set up after dinner. Elliott was our host. We had leftovers for lunch. Ahhh, the holidays.

12:30 One of the Urban Entrepreneurship students presented her project idea to one of our downtown property owners. There are several students who are still keeping their business idea moving forward. It was great for the property owner to see a creative use for their building and it was a great experience for a student to get to present to business people.

1:30 Elaine and Dawn Steele organized the monthly meeting for City departments regarding the Lowell neighborhood revitalization effort. We debriefed from the meeting in Lowell last month. We had updates on what each department is doing now and what has been accomplished in the last month. We had the chance to prepare everyone for the Fresno State involvement that is coming in a month.

4:00 Elaine and I met with the Mayor, Assistant City Manager, Planning Director and Assistant Planning Director, Georgeanne White, Mayor's Chief of Staff, Jerry Bishop from Code enforcement, and Public Works. This meeting was an update on the neighborhood revitalization strategy. We all presented where we are in the process with Lowell and began planning how the next neighborhoods will be targeted. Much of the focus was about how to involve the neighborhoods in the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan.

6:00 I had dinner with 5 young adults who have moved into the Lowell neighborhood. I had met one of them at a community meeting and another was a friend of one of my urban entrepreneurship students. I got a tour of their home on San Pablo and was recharged by their enthusiasm for their new neighborhood. All five grew up in Fresno and decided that they would start living their ideals. They are learning from the neighbors and their neighborhood. What an enjoyable dinner conversation!

12-13-09 Today's Fresno Bee Article re: PBID

2009-12-13T11:46:00.000-08:00

Today’s' Fresno Bee article about the downtown PBID: http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/1746436.html

First, Fresno will not miss out on the vote to create a Property Based Improvement District (PBID).

PBIDs have been in existence in sunny California for about 15 years. The first was formed in Sacramento. Here is a link to their website: http://www.downtownsac.org/DSPAPP/V/about/index.html

There are about 80 PBIDs in California, in cities like Visalia. Here is the description on the http://www.downtownvisalia.com/ website's About Us page:

DOWNTOWN VISALIA ALLIANCE

A second special benefit assessment district to improve the downtown was formed in 2001. As a group of property (owners), the Alliance also known (as) PBID, formed a coalition with Downtown Visalians and is providing environmental and business improvements in an approximately 70 block area.

PBID operates on a budget of $1.7 million and through a contract with Downtown Visalians the group has implemented programs to provide 24 hour security, graffiti removal, additional parking and other capital improvement projects. Their investment now creates continued downtown health and wealth.

********

The current assessments of for the Fresno Downtown Association is about $35,000 (that's right, 35 thousand, I didn't miss any zeros). Compare that with the Visalia budget of $1.7 million. The Fresno PBID is only going to raise about $750,000.

My point is that PBIDs are normal. The steps that our new Downtown and Community Revitalization department are taking are normal. My assertion is that if there is any controversy about the PBID in downtown Fresno, if should be: Why has it taken us so long? If Visalia could pull this off in 2001 and Sacramento could form theirs in 1995, then what the heck is our story?

Who is to blame? Is it a few lackluster property owners who speculate on real estate but don't want to pony up for any real change? Is it a public that has downtown so low on the priority list that they have not elected representative's who are knowledgeable or committed to revitalization? Is it the media for failing to educate the public about standard revitalization processes and then holding elected officials accountable for whether or not they implement them? Does it matter who is to blame or should we focus forward and do the hard lifting of revitalization?

The majority of the work to form the downtown PBID is being done by a committee of volunteers, some property owners, some committed citizens, with the help of a PBID Consultant ( http://www.pumaworldhq.com/ ), and financed by a loan from the City of Fresno. In every case that we researched, the host city or redevelopment agency had financed the formation of their downtown PBIDs...again, this is normal.

There is a flaw in the Fresno PBID process. In the same spirit that this web log is trying to increase transparency, I will also use it to acknowledge mistakes, because there are always mistakes. At some point the PBID committee, and I assume the PBID consultant, decided to create an arbitrary deadline of December 15th. The response that I have received from the PBID committee is that this was done to try to get downtown property owners to have a greater sense of urgency to return their PBID ballots. I think that we can now see that this was a mistake. It should have been stated that December 15th was a goal and not a deadline, because in fact, the only real deadline is to have the ballots returned by April to get the assessment onto the December property tax bill. This is the explanation as to why the City did not miss the PBID vote.

We will occasionally make mistakes. Those who work for us and with us will also occasionally make mistakes. That is inherent in the nature of DOING.

The other potential flaw is that I am not a micro-manager. If I have to do everyone else's work, then I am not managing resources very well. While none of us like to make mistakes, I accept that they will happen.

Revitalization, especially at the early stages, is focused on making some big changes. We have some big pieces to put into place first like: the Specific Plan, codes action against negligent property owners, finding new responsible investors, the PBID to unify the long term priorities of property owners, focus City attention back on the urban area, investment incentives, improvement of downtown infrastructure...

Some of these items will happen more easily than others. Some might not pass their first hurdles and will have to wait for better timing, support and capacity. All of this is normal, all of the other cities that have revitalized have gone through these challenges. The real question is...will we persevere? Will we acknowledge a mistake when it is made? Will we continue forward, even when things get tough? Do we have the inner drive necessary to achieve success as a community?

I hope that the downtown property owners in Fresno will vote to assess themselves and to band together to tackle their collective priorities. I know that this is probably the worst possible time to ask them to do so. It is in the best interest of all downtown stakeholders that we improve the value of their investments. Other places have found the PBID to be a successful tool toward this goal.

12-11-09 and 12-12-09 Chris Ammon Shadow Day

2009-12-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

I started the day a t 4:45with two miles on the treadmill at the gym because it was raining. On the way there, I saw an older guy running in the rain, just wearing a t-shirt and shorts. Arrrrgh. It's not enough to have Coach Carter, now I have this guy pushing me too!? I watched VH1 videos while I was running, and had Lady GaGa's Bad Romance song in my head all day...which I admit, I liked.

7:00 I met Christor Ammon at the Chicken Pie Shop for breakfast. He was my shadow for the day. My old buddy Smitty had suggested him Chris is from Milwaukee and was a Peace Corps volunteer. It was great to have him along for the day, I hope that it was worthwhile for him. I don't think that I'll have shadows on Fridays in the future, by Friday it's hard enough to put together coherent sentences.

8:30 Chris and I met Elliott Balch at John Dodson's office, SJVTech at L and San Joaquin. John has been in downtown since 1971 and has started many tech companies. It is important to build on the anchor businesses that we have. Many downtowns have had great success with start-ups inhabiting cool old buildings.

10:00 We had a meeting with the team that is working on the High Speed Rail plan and design. Stefanos Polyzoides and David Sargent atteneded. These two gentlemen will be leading the Specific Plan Team for our downtown redesign of City zoning and development laws and policies. It was important that they hear about the HSR and also for the HSR folks to hear about our revitalization efforts.

12:30 We went to lunch with David and Stefanos at Sheherds' Inn. Wilma, Elliott and David Schecter were on hand for lunch. We discussed the HSR meeting and the upcoming presentation to the City Council next Thursday,

2:00 Chris, David, Stefanos and I toured the areas for the proposed high speed rail station and walked through Freso Station, the historic depot at Tulare between H and G.

4:00 Fresno Bee reporter George Hostetter interviewed Andy Souza, Elliott Balch and me regarding the Property Based Improvement District for downtown Fresno. We'll see how it comes out in a day or two, I'm sure.

5:00 I took Chris Ammon back to his Tower District home. I hope that he enjoyed his day and learned a little about our revitalization efforts. Chris spent some time with Amy Huerta at the end of the day to learn about the Local Business Initiatives too.

7:00 My wife and I headed to McLane Stadium to watch our alma mater Bullard High School in their Valley Championship football game. It was a great game, 4,000 high school football fans on a rainy Friday night. Congratulations to our friend Donny Arax and the team! It was a hard fought victory.

Saturday

Elaine Robles and I met at Patio Cafe for breakfast and then worked at my house on a couple of PowerPoints unitl a little after noon. We have a couple of meetings and presenations on the neighborhood revitalization plans and efforts on Monday.

12-10-09 Coming up with titles is harder than the blog

2009-12-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

7:00 I started of today with the Thursday morning group: Preston Prince, John Raymond, Keith Bergthold, Rollie Smith. We had a chance to debrief about a wide range of topics from the week like the Belmont Corridor presentation, who’s going to be the new head of the Economic Opportunities Commission, Asian Village, last night's planning commission meeting....

8:30 We had our Primetime for Business, an ongoing awareness campaign to acquaint the City Council and the City to some of our local entrepreneurs. We like to highlight businesses who do much of their business outside of our area, so they are bringing dollars into our economy. We also like the ones that are relatively unknown. Today we featured Ohanyan's who are distributing Armenian meats around the U.S.

http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/index.php/manufacturing/3277-ohanyans-recognized-by-city-of-fresno

9:30 I had my weekly one on one with Wilma Quan, our Urban Planning Specialist. We talked about the next week, and the things that we'll need to do for the City Council presentation for the Specific Plan.

11:00 I had a wonderful meeting with the Downtown Coalition, a group of dedicated downtown enthusiasts. I hope that they enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm sure that we don't see eye to eye on every issue, but the conversation was really interesting. It was another good reminder that if we would try to focus on the larger ideas that we agree on, we'd all get much more done together.

12:30 I picked up Elaine Robles, our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager in front of City Hall, and we picked up Mariam Zuk, a graduate student at Berkeley who will be working on her doctorate in City and Regional Planning. Drew Wilson (superstar) met Mariam at Cal and implored her to come to Fresno to do her research and work. Elaine and I took her to lunch at the Downtown Club and hopefully we didn't scare her away. She is interested in the connection between good planning and good health. She'd be a great addition to the effort!

3:00 We held a Jobs Forum at City Hall. The Mayor asked Amy and Fernando to put it together on short notice on the request of the White House after the Mayor's visit to the Capitol last week. Having strong business affinity groups helped, because they really turned out on short notice. The media was on hand including Business Street, Bill McEwen form the BEE and KYNO 1300, and every TV station. There was a strong list of suggestions that will go back to the President from the Mayor.

5:30 The Central Valley Business Incubator held a holiday party at the Claude Laval Water and Energy Technology Incubator. The event honored Claude and Riley Walter for their 12 years of service, as they are stepping down. Claude was the original Board Chair and has maintained that position throughout. CVBI is a great community asset and it would not even be in existence if it weren't for Claude and Riley.

Home by 7:30 with Mama Mia's calzones! Man they are fantastic.

11-10-09 Today would have been a good day to shadow me.

2009-12-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I've had people shadow me for a day. Usually one of our interns. It's usually best to have a day with a wide array of activities, so the shadow can get a sense of what our department is up to. Today would have been a good one.

I woke up at 4:45 and hit the slippery streets for a jog with Ellis about 5:00. Folks who leave their sprinklers on the nights when we know it is going to freeze are a special group. Slip sliding away...

I had a 7:00 meeting with Lowell leader Phil Skei. Phil runs Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership, is a Lowell resident, along with his family, and is actively involved in the effort to revitalize Lowell. We had a variety of topics to cover, but primarily we spoke about Lowell's development of organization and capacity and the need for the neighborhood and the City to form sustainable revitalization efforts. What does that mean, it kind of sounds like cliché? I mean that we need to have built a culture where revitalization will continue regardless of administrations, council representatives or individuals.

9:00 Agenda Conference for the City Council meeting for December 17th. Downtown Day. If you've ever thought about spending a day at a Council meeting, this would be a good one. We could use your enthusiastic support for a few items too. As mentioned before, the Specific Plan, Downtown Development Incentives, Grizzlies lease, Hotel Fresno lawsuit...and others will happen on the 17th.

After Agenda Conference ends, the Directors meet to get updates and to report to the group. I reported on the Mayors' Jobs Forum that has been organized by the Local Business Initiatives Manager Amy Huerta. It will be held tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 10) at 3:00p.m. in meeting Room A on the 2nd floor of City Hall.

10:00 Our weekly downtown coordination meeting. Let's just say that we went through the items on the agenda for the 17th. We are still making final adjustments to the Development Incentives.

11:30 I met a group of community leader types at the Oaxaca Restaurant on Belmont, just west of Chestnut. The meeting was for the Belmont business corridor, between Chestnut and Highway 41. Triangle Associates has done some survey work and other analysis for the new business association. Council Member Perea started off the discussion. Many folks made suggestions for residential involvement, more choices for businesses, like groceries, and mixed-use and historic restoration. I was able to inform the group that the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan will cover their area and will be able to provide land use, design guidelines and other changes. I'd say that there were at least 60 people. The food was great, although I'm just realizing that I didn't pay for my meal...I broke my rule! Dang.

1:15 We hosted a class from City College's Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization. Dr. Marianne Dunklin is their instructor/sponsor. They had a panel from Business License, Planning, and the Central Valley Business Incubator. The also had a tour of those departments so that they will know where to go when the time comes. They were a sharp group.

2:00 We had one of our ongoing meetings with the South Stadium Business Owners at Joe's Steakhouse. This meeting was a bit of a surprise. We've been working with this group, but the mood was pretty nasty when we arrived. The owners had received their Property Based Improvement District petitions. The petitions have the amounts of the assessment that each owner would pay if it goes through. Many years of government frustration welled up all at once, and the target was the PBID and us.

This is what I wonder: How have 80 other communities managed to accomplish the feat of having property owners vote to assess themselves and to pool their money for the betterment of their area, thus raising their own property values? Why is it so difficult to do here? We're already years behind the curve. Once something is so well proven and so widely used, doesn't it seem like we'd be ready? If I'd have known that this would have been the reaction, I'd have suggested that the boundary be even smaller than it is.

3:30 I got back to City Hall to find an email that announced the resignation of City Manager Andy Souza. I met Andy in the conference room at the old city hall. We were both in our twenties. He had just come to work for the City after working for an accounting firm that had completed our audit. I was 25 and he was 26 or 27. I know that people come and go a lot these days, I'm one that changes jobs whenever it makes sense. But it is quite a shock when someone like Andy, who has built his career in Fresno, decides that it is time for a change. I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to work with and for Andy this past year. I wish him the absolute best and appreciate all that he has given.

4:30 We had a board meeting with Donna, the new executive director of Downtown Faces, the new events-focused nonprofit. If downtown is going to be the fun capital of the Central San Joaquin Valley, then events are going to lead the way. Bring it Donna!

5:30 I dropped by the Downtown Club for the Fresno Chamber of Commerce Holiday Party. Many good folk were there including: Bill Lyles, Al Smith, Bruce Batti, Anna Borgeas, Pam Lassiter, Blake Konczal, Steve Geil, Ray Dunn, Scott Anderson...and many more.

6:30 Back to City Hall for the Planning Commission Meeting. The Green and sustainable development code and general plan update were presented. I don't know how many speakers were there in support, maybe 25, but I do know that I was last. It was a good, thoughtful group. I spoke about 8:00. I left before any voting occurred. I had some minestrone waiting at home from my mother-in-law.

12/8/09 Focus on the 17th---Downtown Fresno Day

2009-12-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry Coach Carter, no run today. I'll do double-time tomorrow. Walking the mutt around the block was all I was good for. No excuses, just lazy and cold!

7:30 Wilma Quan and I met with Councilmember Lee Brand this morning. We discussed the many items coming to the council on the 17th: Specific Plan contract, Downtown development incentives, Hotel Fresno lawsuit, Grizzlies lease, card room ordinance, freeway signage for downtown, and the Holiday Inn parking agreement. How does it all end up on the same day? It just does. Maybe it's a good thing?

I know that the point of this blog is to be public, so you probably read this with some skepticism, but I'll tell you, Lee is one of the biggest straight shooters you would ever meet. People bag on politicians and government, I've done both too. But sometimes it is important to realize that there are some really good folks too. Complain if you want, it's as American as apple pie. But, I do think that we have a good city council, one of the best in years and maybe decades. Sure it looks messy on the news sometimes. But imagine any committee that you've ever been involved with and put them on T.V. May church boards, little league committees and others would look a little messy too, it is the nature of human beings trying to work together, especially in the public eye.

9:00 I had my first meeting with Donna Gavello who is the new executive director for the Downtown FACES nonprofit that was formed to promote and coordinate events on the mall and in the stadium. We spent over an hour going over the rest of the downtown plan to see how events fit in. We're thrilled to have Donna on board to focus on events and to add that extra spark to downtown while some of the bigger efforts like the specific plan are underway.

10:30 We had an internal meeting to review our department's website and to make some changes to the e-newsletter format. If you would like to be on our list just send an email to me at craig.scharton@fresno.gov and let me know that you'd like to receive it. We also have a Facebook page that we use to send out meeting notices at http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Fresno-CA/City-of-Fresno-Downtown-and-Community-Revitalization-Department/62511260167?ref=ts

11:15 Fresno Bee reporter George Hostetter dropped in to ask me questions about the pending Property Based Improvement District (PBID). We spend quite a bit of time going over the history of PBIDs, where they have been used, why it has taken Fresno so long to have one, how it will be governed...

12:30 I had my one on one meeting with Elaine Robles, our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager. Elaine has been working on putting the process in place to renovate owner occupied houses in the Lowell neighborhood. These are houses owned by qualified low income people, who need some help correcting code violations. This is a perfect example of how we are building templates that will benefit other neighborhoods once they are up and running. Once we get it figured out in Lowell, we will have the edges smoothed off by the time we get to places like Southwest Fresno. Elaine and I ate lunch at my desk, it was really good chicken, but I can't tell you where she got it...stay tuned, I'll find out.

1:00 We had a meeting with the City Manager Andy Souza, Mayor's Chief of Staff Georgeanne White, Planning Director John Dugan, Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold and Housing Manager Claudia Cazares. The meeting was an update on our federal affordable housing program and projects.

2:30 Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd, John Dugan, Elliott Balch and Stacie Melikian from the city Attorney's office met to continue to refine the Downtown Development Incentives proposal that will go to the City Council on the 17th. This stuff really takes a great deal of time to get right, it is an amazing process. This is moving along at incredible speed, given the complexities and all of the departments that are involved. It far exceeds (in terms of speed) any timeframes that I would have come up with.

3:00 Downtown and Community Revitalization staff meeting. This is our weekly chance for everyone to get together and to get synchronized. We went through the items that are going to the City Council on the 17th, so that everyone is up to speed and knows what steps are still needed to ensure their success. Everyone was in pretty good spirits, considering the heaviness of the last two weeks. We have a big hearted, passionate group.

4:30 Amy Huerta and I had our one on one meeting. Amy was drafted to help with a jobs summit which will be held this Thursday. It is a follow-up to the national jobs summit that the Mayor attended in Washington, D.C. last week with the President. Mike Dozier from Fresno State will moderate. It will be at City hall at 3:00, in meeting room A on the second floor. 20 businesses are already attending, which is a testament to Amy's connection with the local business community, she only learned of the event yesterday, and already has it organized.

5:30 I attended the local Housing and Urban Development's Open House. It was very well attended, especially by folks who are interested in housing issues. Rollie Smith gave out recognition to many of the folks who are tirelessly involved in the affordable housing arena.

I just missed Jeopardy, but I was in time for some homemade tacos...

12/7/09 An internal coordination day

2009-12-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I barbequed for a bunch of fly fisher-folk who spend some time together out on the Kings River to raise funds for increased enforcement. We had some activities like tours of the incubators and fly casting clinics. I cooked German sausage from the Meat Market.

Monday

I started the day with a nice run on the treadmill at the gym this morning. I kind of wussed out because of the cold and potential rain. But I did get my exercise in. The dog didn't get much more than a walk around the block. But don't feel too sorry for her, she spent about 5 hours with us on the Lower Kings River yesterday.

8:30 Wilma Quan and I met with Councilmember Mike Dages to review the downtown plans. While we discussed the plans, we also enjoyed some of the cookies that he baked over the weekend. Aren't people fascinating? I've known him for 25 years and never knew that he liked to bake. We also discussed an upcoming proposal by Club One Casino to change some of the pieces of the card room ordinance.

9:15 I had my weekly one on one meeting with George Smith. As a refresher, George oversees the budget, H.R. and grant writing for the department. He has a grant that should be going to City Council in early January that he is preparing before the furlough that starts December 24th.

10:00 We had our weekly Specific Plan update meeting with Wilma, Elliott Balch (Downtown Revitalization Manager) and Elaine Robles (Neighborhood Revitalization Manager). We now know the time for the Council hearing for the Specific and Community Plans which will be December 17th at 9:15. Please come to this meeting to support this critical piece of the revitalization effort. It will be very difficult and slow to revitalize without the complete overhaul to our zoning and code rules.

11:30-1:00 I am a member of Fresno Rotary (disclaimer: the City does NOT pay for my membership). I have only been a member for a few months and I hardly make any meetings at all. It is a really good group of people, many are very interested in downtown. I keep trying to attend, but other stuff always seems to trump the meeting. I'll try to go more often in the New Year!

1:15 We had a meeting with a potential downtown investor/developer. This is about our fourth meeting. Fingers crossed.

2:00 We had our internal management meeting which included George, Elaine and Elliott and also Local Business Initiatives Manager Amy Huerta. Our topic today was an introductory meeting with Katie Stevens who is coordinating the legislative agenda and grants for the City. We gave Katie an overview of our department's mission and an update on current efforts. Katie can keep an eye out for legislation or grants that might assist us.

3:00 Elliott and I met with Public Works Director Patrick Wiemiller along with Scott Mozier (Assistant PW Director) and Martin Wendels (PW Project Manager). This meeting was to refine the development incentives package that we hope to take to the City Council, along with the Specific Plan, on the 17th. We had some news today that some of the incentives could go forward while others will need more legal research. That's okay, progress is the goal.

3:30 One on one with Angela Vasquez, who works with Elliott on downtown stuff. She is currently focusing on getting the Downtown FACES nonprofit running, the State of Downtown breakfast and our weekly downtown coordination meetings with all City departments.

4:00 Wilma and I met with Stephen Sotemayor and Councilmember Borgeas. Similar contest as the meeting this morning with Councilmember Dages. The purpose is to explain the Specific Plan and Community Plan and to answer any questions.

4:30 One on one with Cynthia Dondero, my assistant.

5:00 One on one with Fernando Santillan, who works with Amy Huerta on the Local Business piece of the department's goals.

6:00 We had a meeting with business owners in Chinatown. I ran my portion of the meeting from a very comfortable barber chair. We had some good things to report like the removal of all of the old parking meter poles. It is what they asked for at the last meeting and will be a very tangible sign of the City's seriousness on following through in our urban areas.

Home in time for Final Jeopardy!

12/4/09 AVID Friday

2009-12-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well, you'd think that after a busy week, I'd have had a great night of sleep. No dice, too much to think about or worry over to bother with sleep. I finally decided to get up about 4:15 and go for a jog with the dog. It felt good to get out into the morning air.

It was great to see the Bee's coverage the urban entrepreneurship students' presentations. Thanks for the great story Sandy Nax and the photo Mark Crosse!

http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/1735392.html?qwxq=6658250&pageNum=1&&mi_pluck_action=page_nav#Comments_Container

Why are the people who comment on the Bee articles so incredibly negative? Wouldn't you think that people would be encouraging when they see a group of young people who are interested in their community? It's beyond my understanding.

9:00 I met with Council Member Xiong and his assistant Kyle Loreto, along with Wilma Quan or Urban Planning Specialist. Out meeting with to give the Councilmember an update on the upcoming items that will be coming to the City Council on December 17th: Specific Plan, Downtown Development Incentives, Hotel Fresno lawsuit, Freeway Signage approval.

10:00 Our department signed up for a webinar from the International Downtown Association. The webinar featured Friend of Fresno Rebecca Ryan. The focus was on the role of downtowns as attractions for young professionals. A revitalized downtown that is an entertainment district is a key reason for young people to stay or come back to a community as well as to draw new, young talent. 20 people attended, mostly members of Fresno's Leading Young Professionals and Creative Fresno.

12:45-2:30 I spoke to two AVID classes at Tenaya Middle School (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and the definition for avid is listed as eager for knowledge.

The students and I talked about: doing what you love, interested is interesting and bored is boring, college is REALLY fun so you should work hard to get there, we're working hard to revitalize downtown so that they have fun stuff to do when they get a little older.

3:00 Elliott Balch and I met with Paul and Cherie Fountaine at the Warnors Theater. Paul and Cherie are managing the Warnors and we are hopeful that they will also want to promote other downtown events too. We all know that the Warnors is an incredible facility and want Paul and Cherie to have huge success.

4:00 Elliott and I met with Mr. Edward Fanucchi a local attorney, downtown property owner and former Honorary Vice Consul of Italy. Mr. Fanucchi was the latest property owner to sign onto the Property Based Improvement District! We also discussed the other revitalization efforts and even the possibility of a Little Italy weekend on the Fulton Mall.

5:00 I recapped the week with Elliott Balch, Amy Huerta and Elaine Robles, 3 of our department's managers. We have so many balls in the air that our coordination and communication are very important. We also have to communicate our way through the ups and downs of the current and future budget realities.

7:00 My wife and I went to the Bullard football game. Go Knights! Great victory for the Fresno team.

12/3/09 We're Thick With Urban Entrepreneurs

2009-12-03T22:44:00.000-08:00

I did it, back up at 4:45 for a run. Didn't want to, but I did, Coach Carter.

7:00 meeting with Preston and Eileen from the Housing Authority, Rollie Smith from HUD, John Raymond from Redevelopment and Keith Bergthold from Planning. I continue to be amazed at what a specialized world the whole affordable housing field has become. It has its own markets, laws, industry, finance...I've never really wanted to know about this specialized field. I've known that it was it's own world, but it my current position, it is a key area for financing projects. I'm trying to move from being a skeptic, to becoming an open-minded skeptic. But, at least the people are smart and fun to be around!

8:30 I had a phone call with Marvin Smith, who is the owner of the Rowell Building. It was an opportunity to give him an update on some of the activities that are happening downtown like the specific plan, PBID and downtown development incentives. We'll meet next week. Marv gave me an update on the building's status too.

10:00 We had an internal meeting regarding the specific plan. Wilma has completed the scope of work. Now we are planning our presentation for the council meeting on December 17th. I hope that some of you can join us.

11:00 I met with Jim Christianson, a gentleman that I had met at a talk that I gave a few weeks ago. I gave him an overview of the downtown revitalization plan and the entertainment district concept. It is great to have people who are interested enough in downtown to take time out of their days to come in and find out more.

12:15 I met Dr. Welty and Cynthia Teniente-Matson, Vice President for Administration at CSU, F to give them information about the downtown revitalization effort. I showed them some of the downtown buildings activities around ArtHop and Mono and L Streets.

1:00 I went to buy snacks for the Urban Entrepreneurship presentations.

2:00 We began to set up for the class' final presentations. They were held on the top floor of the Trade Center in the ballroom.

3:00 The presentations began. The class did a fantastic job. Every presentation was solid. I am very proud of the student's ideas and efforts. Thanks to the people who showed up to support these up and coming business leaders and to the Trade Center for letting us use the room.

6:00 Many of the students and folks from the Lyles Center headed to Tokyo Garden for an after class celebration. I love to be around the students...they are a really great group of young adults. It is encouraging.

The Hotel Fresno item that was on today's City Council Agenda was continued for two weeks. I heard from Amy Huerta that the Economic Development Corporation passed. The freeway signs for downtown were also delayed for a couple of weeks. That's what I know for now.

12/2/09 Fast and Furious

2009-12-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

When I got home last night, my computer would not start. Scary.

When I got to work the guys from ISD were ready to do surgery. Amazingly enough, the old Dell booted right up. Same old story, the car works fine when you get to the mechanics. We still backed everything up, just in case.

9:00 We had our agenda conference for the council Meeting on Dec. 10th. We have a few things on the council agenda tomorrow: Hotel Fresno lawsuit, highways signs for downtown Fresno and the contract with the Economic Development Corporation. On the 17th, it will be even busier. The Downtown Development Incentives will go to the council along with the contract for the Specific Plan consulting team.

At 9:30 the agenda conference ended and the directors' meeting began. Most of the discussion is about the budget cuts and issues related to the layoffs. This is certainly a heavy issue that will affect many people and families. It is also a complicated process for the organization. It could take months to really have an understanding of all of the effects. Even in our little department, Ray Arthur is the Film Commissioner, but he also handles the web page, newsletter and is the Public Information Officer. We will have to figure out how to handle people who calls wanting to film in Fresno, and have someone take over the communications pieces. These same issues are happening everywhere, in both public and private organizations.

10:00 We had our weekly downtown coordination meeting. The first issue was the downtown development incentives. There has been a great deal of thought put into these incentives by every department that charges/collects development fees. The simpler, clearer codes of the specific plan, combined with fee reductions or deferrals should speed up the revitalization momentum. They aren't everything, but they get things moving in the right direction.

The next item for this meeting was the draft of interim development standards for the downtown area. The interim standards will help us to have good urban design in downtown and to make it easier for some preferred uses, like entertainment, outdoor dining and mixed-use residential, until the specific plan is adopted.

12:00 The Downtown and Community Revitalization Department watched a webinar on tax incentive programs like New Markets Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits and Affordable Housing Tax Credits. This was a staff development program so that everyone in our department could increase their knowledge about these valuable revitalization tools. It was very current and detailed.

1:00 I had an update meeting with Council President Cynthia Sterling. We talked about the formation of the community advisory committee for the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan, and the possible dismissal of the Hotel Fresno lawsuit.

2:00 Elaine Robles and I were supposed to have our one on one weekly meeting, but it was not to be today. I was making the rounds trying to answer questions about the Hotel Fresno item. Our hope is that the lawsuit on the Hotel Fresno is dropped. The current property owners have been good downtown investors. They have done a great job renovating the Virginia Hotel and are now working on the old Mayflower Apartments on Broadway and Tuolumne.

I spoke with Council members Brand, Sterling, Westerlund and Borgeas today. I will try to speak to the others tomorrow morning.

I only missed one day of work, but it really backed things up with our council items, the urban entrepreneurship class' final presentations, the budget issues, everything is stacking up. I guess that one good thing about having some experience is that I know that this is how things go. In the revitalization process you try to get things going, and when they do...look out, they all hit at once. Even though things are crazy, that many of the items are still in a very precarious state, we're exactly where we should be.

12/1/09 San Francisco

2009-12-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, one of the trials of blogging on a consistent basis is consistency. I'm a day behind and I have a million other things to do. But if I don't do them tonight, I'll just be farther behind. Yikes. So this was really written on Dec. 2nd.

I am on the Community Advisory Board for Union Bank. The CAB is made up of 10 people. We have 3 year terms. I joined the CAB last year. Actually, I started this January, but I applied and was accepted last year. We meet 5 times a year. The CAB was formed to help Union Bank to serve their communities better. We make suggestions, give advice, provide feedback when asked, and to act as friendly critics. I am the only representative from the San Joaquin Valley, including Sacramento.

I just completed my first year on the CAB Board and was the Chair of the Housing Committee. We were handed the task of holding a design charrette for an affordable, green, infill housing project in Los Angeles. We held it in Hollywood in October. This meeting was year end wrap-up. The highlight was meeting Mr. Tanaka, the CEO of Union Bank. We had an opportunity to hear his thoughts about the economy and could ask him questions. His main messages were that the recovery would be slow and that small business lending and growth are the solution.

My main goal for the CAB is to have them hold a meeting in Fresno. I'll let you know if this will happen, stay tuned. It would be great exposure for them and for us.

After the meeting ended at 2:00, I went to the Salvation Army Headquarters in SF. The Fresno SA arranged the meeting and tour for me. They wanted for me to see the quality of the projects that the SA is doing now. Ernst Bauer was my tour guide. We spent our time at the Kroc Center in the Tenderloin. This amazing facility has housing for emancipated foster youth, seniors, veterans, and drug and alcohol treatment for homeless people. The facility also has a gym, after school programs, a pool, a pool and rec room, a weight room and a dance center. It's pretty amazing. Google it to get a real picture of this place.

At 5:00 I met my son in SF for dinner at the Tadich Grill. He was already meeting Trevor Dudeck his buddy. We had a great meal, neither had been there before. The lamb shoulder was fantastic.

I dropped the boys off at the Moscone Center for a car show...Trevor had scored free tickets.

I got home at 10:15. No blogging after that. I watched an old south park rerun that was on and hit the sack.

11/30/09 Budget redux

2009-12-01T00:39:00.000-08:00

A great holiday that included tennis, Men Staring at Goats with Smitty and Elana, and fly fishing the lower kings.

I started with a run with Ellis the dog at 5:00. There was a lot of traffic this morning, we saw four other people. I guess it's time to get up a little earlier.

At 8:30 we had our department's management meeting. We mostly discusses the upcoming budget hearing and discussed what kinds of information the councilmembers might want. The Film Commission, including our Commissioner Ray Arther, and the suspension of the Municipal Restoration Zone were on the agenda for cuts.

10:00 Councilmember Westerlund organized a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Leo Valdivia, the owners of the Liberty/Hardy Theater. John Raymond, the Assistant Director of the Redevelopment Agency attended too. Marlene Murphey, the RDA Executive Director attended by phone.

We met to discuss possibilities to make the Liberty (on Van Ness, just south of Tulare) more active. We introduced the Valdivia's to one potential promoter.

The Council hearing began at 2:00 and ended about 8:45. I'm sure that it will be covered in the media. The film commission and the MRZ were both eliminated as part of the overall cuts.

I had to jump in the car and head to San Francisco. I got in about 12:15. Just enough time for a very basic blog. I'm in SF for a Union Bank Community Advisory Board. I'll fill you in in a later post. The meeting starts at 8:00. I still have a couple of photos to add to a Powerpoint I'm giving tomorrow.

Sleep tight, Craig

11/28/09 Chicken Pie Shop Office Hours

2009-11-28T17:27:00.000-08:00

7:00 I started the day going to the former Dan Gamels to watch my son play some racquetball. It's been a long time since I've seen him play. He's enjoyed the game since he started high school. We used to play together when he first started, but those days are long gone.

8:00 I had three meetings at the Chicken Pie Shop this morning. I started with Oliver Baines a Fresno Police Officer who is working with us on the Lowell revitalization effort. He is one of the people who stepped up to focus on Lowell.

9:00 Robert Wood from Generation homes is a friend from college. I've admired Robert's commitment to downtown and other issues like solar panels on the houses that he built. Robert and I met to talk about ways that he could get involved in the Lowell neighborhood. I gave him an update on all of the programs that are coming together.

10:00 I met Scott Buller who is in the Executive MBA program at Fresno State. He is focusing on the Information Systems part of the program. He is interested in doing his thesis on the use of technology in revitalization. Scott is another great example of the resources available through Fresno State. We also had conversation with Fresno Pacific's Psychology Department last week about an ongoing attitudinal survey for Lowell. It's really taking off folks!

Two sets of tennis this afternoon with my wife (7-5, 6-4). Although I won, her trash talking was superior.

And to cap off the day a sandwich of leftover turkey, dressing, and cranberry for dinner. Outstanding.

11/26/09 Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T09:30:00.001-08:00

This blog is mostly about work. But I tend to chronicle some personal stuff too.

I did get up for a 5:00 run with the dog.

Thanksgiving morning started with photographs with my family. I have a niece, a brother in law and a sister in law who are all into photography. We all hung around for a couple of hours.

A short nap.
Then I read the latest scope of work for the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan. I had very few comments or changes. It has been reviewed by many eyes by this point. Many of the recent changes have been from technical folks.

Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house. Everyone was in town. Even all of the nieces and nephews, which is hard to do when they are all away for college and work. Our dog can go to my brother's house, so really, everyone was there.

11-25-09 It was Drew Wilson Day

2009-11-26T09:17:00.000-08:00

My day started at the counter at the Chicken Pie Shop. My son was supposed to meet me but he overslept. He's doing his part to perpetuate the college student image. So I joined the guys at the counter. We talked Grizzlies, downtown stuff in general. But the best part was a 78 year old guy who hikes in the mountains every Monday and Friday with a group of retirees. 4 miles hikes on Mondays, 8 miles hikes on Fridays. Inspiring.

9:00 Agenda Conference for the Dec. 3rd meeting. We have several items on the agenda. We have the Economic Development Corporation contract, which is funded through our department. They are receiving an 18% cut, just like our department. Council President Sterling has placed a closed session update on the agenda for the Hotel Fresno. We also have an item on the consent to change the signage on the freeways to say: Downtown Fresno next exit. The Downtown Association is paying for the new signage.

We also have an item on consent that will halt the Municipal Restoration Zone program. This will be presented to the City Council this Monday as part of the overall budget adjustment/cuts.

9:30 The directors' meeting was mostly about budget issues and personnel issues. The City is pulling together a job fair on Dec. 2 for the employees who are losing their jobs.

10:00 We had our weekly coordination meeting with Depts. involved in the downtown revitalization effort. the focus is still on the downtown incentives program, which would waive or defer city fees. We are getting set to go to Council on the 17th of December. If you are a downtown supporter, please come down and applaud if it goes through. John Dugan is also presenting the interim development standards. We hope to have those go through in January.

11:30 I had lunch with Brian Rouch at the Shepherds' Inn. He is the founding CEO of the Central Valley Business Network. This is a group of local businesses who have incorporated green or environmental stewardship practices into their business or farming operations.

My 1:00, my 3:00 and my 4:00 meetings all cancelled! Happy Thanksgiving.

I had time to catch up with Drew Wilson, our superstar intern from last summer. Drew is now in the Urban Studies program at Cal. It was great to hear how he is doing, and of course, how our internship has helped him in his program. Drew is already of wealth of knowledge. I hope that he is the Planning Director in Fresno 12 years from now.

I had some one on one time with Elaine, Amy, and Wilma. I had time to catch up on emails and phone calls and walked out of the doors of City Hall at 5:05. Dinner at my folks and the guys headed out to watch Ninja Assasin at the movies.

Happy Thanksgiving., Craig

11-24-09 dogs are bad for productivity

2009-11-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

Here I am, trying to get my daily web log done a little early but my dog Ellis would prefer that she get the attention.

3:00 Wide awake. My brain decided to stress out. What a perfect time to think about all of the things that could go wrong. My daytime brain focuses on the list of all things possible. Occasionally the 3:00a.m. brain likes to focus on the list of things that could go wrong. Finally after reading for a bit I went back to sleep.

Fortunately my 8:00a.m. meeting had cancelled last night, so I could sleep a little longer and still make it to the gym for 2 miles on the treadmill.

9:00a.m. We had a wonderful weekly staff meeting. Fernando reported on his weekend in at the Start Up Weekend in Los Angeles. Elaine reported on the upcoming Christmas Day in Roeding Park to feed the homeless and the families that live on motel drive. Amy reported the both Sanger and Visalia have confirmed their participation in a best practices workshop on enforcement of unlicensed contractors. The workshop will be at lunch on December 15th. Let me know if you are interested. Ray reported on the e-newsletter. Angela brought us up to speed on the DT FACES events nonprofit. Jenna told us about the State of Downtown Breakfast. Kelly had an update on the discontinuation of the Municipal Restoration Zone.

The real treat was our AARP volunteer Ysabel. We heard about her kids, her life growing up in a migrant farm working family. She told us about her work as a prison chaplain. It was another great example of how the people around us have such rich lives and stories.

10:30 We had a meeting to review the scope of work for the Fulton Corridor Specific Plan and the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan. This meeting included Wilma Quan and me from DCR. John Dugan, the Planning Dept. Director, Keith Bergthold, Assistant Planning Dept. Director, Darrel Unruh and Arnoldo Rodriguez both City of Fresno Planners. We had members of the team from Moule and Polyzoides on a conference call to review the scope so that we can get ready to take the contract to the City Council. There were very few changes or concerns, everything has been very thorough.

11:30 I met Jim Ford, ol' college buddy for lunch at the Cosmo. You should see the pastrami on rye that those folks are putting out. I had the tri-tip; I just couldn't bring myself to deviate from an old favorite.

Jim is putting together a start-up company that features an organic fungicide. I love being around the energy and excitement of a start-up company. Jim is experienced in his field and is an extremely hard worker. I have no doubts at his ability to get through the obstacles that face entrepreneurs.

1:00 We had our monthly update with the companies that have been awarded the contracts through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. There still seems to be a shortage of homes on the market within the guidelines of the NSP. It appears that investors are buying up many of the homes to keep as rentals. This is not what our downtown neighborhoods need, as they started off with low homeownership rates before the real estate bust. The next step is to contact the owners of vacant houses in the Lowell and Jefferson neighborhoods to see if any of them are willing to sell.

2:15 I had a meeting regarding a Fresno State grad student who is interested in doing his thesis project focused on the needs for technology in the downtown revitalization effort. The resources just keep coming out of the woodwork. This baseline of information about existing I.T. infrastructure and best practices about the use of technology by other cities in their revitalization programs will be valuable, and frankly, probably not something would could have gotten to any other way. More to follow!

3:00 Member of the downtown business community presented the Mayor an update on their progress for the establishment of the Property Based Improvement District (PBID). The meeting included: Tom Richards (Penstar), Saundra King (Security Bank Building), Jim Koch (downtown and Chinatown property owner), Art Farkas (Krazan and Associates), and Jan Minami (Downtown Association Executive Director). The DTA is going to post progress and updates daily. This privately led effort will continue it one by one approach to meet with property owners and to build support for this important effort.

4:00 I met with Aren Hekimian a local music promoter who is very enthusiastic about music and event promotion in downtown Fresno. Aren has great revitalization instincts and has travelled enough to know how downtowns, music and culture mix together. I look forward to working with him to create the entertainment district that is our goal.

5:00 Fernando, Dawn and I met at El Torito for Taco Tuesdays and to brainstorm ways to integrate the downtown revitalization effort with Fresno's Leading Young Professionals. We discussed ideas like field trips to other downtowns, to a year long monthly program to introduce people to our downtown, to involvement with students at Lowell Elementary. They'll discuss this at their next FLYP board meeting.

That's it. Tonight I'm pretty sure that I'll sleep well. Here's a picture of Ellis sleeping with her stuffed elephant toy:

11/23/09 A Blogging Monday

2009-11-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

Out the door for a 5:00 walk and jog with the mutt.

8:15 The Mayor and I met with a potential downtown tenant this morning. We gave them a tour and an overview of the downtown revitalization plans. This tour was for the employees of the business, to show them that downtown is a safe place. I know so may people who love working downtown, so it is still interesting how many people who are truly afraid of downtown. The fear is very real and will only be overcome through better urban design (specific plan) and the presence of more people (the very essence of revitalization). The group that we met with today was very open-minded and I hope that we adequately shared our commitment to the effort.

11:00 We had a specific plan update this morning. Wilma Quan continues to power through the scope of work issues like infrastructure, water, traffic and historic preservation. Elaine met with Council Member Dages about his plan to find appointees to the citizens' committee.

12:30 I had lunch with Chief Bruegman at the Downtown Club. This was my first one on one meeting with the Chief. The primary reason that I wanted to talk with him was to get his insight into how we can make the City great at adaptive re-use. This is a key issue for the success of the revitalization effort. There is well over 1 million square feet of vacant space in historic buildings within the Fulton District. It is going to be much more important to fill buildings than it will be to build buildings. This will require that the regulatory bodies are armed with the latest information and techniques to make this process as simple and financially feasible as possible. The private sector is also going to have to come up to speed as well. The Chief had started an adaptive re-use committee and after today's meeting, we're ready to bring it back into action.

2:30 I had a conference call with the chair, vice-chair and other committee chairs from the Union Bank Community Advisory Committee. I chair the affordable housing committee for the group, although as a newcomer, I didn't have much to do, I had fantastic committee members. This call was to prepare for our final meeting of the year, which is next Tuesday. We'll be meeting with the President and CEO of Union Bank, Mr. Tanaka, and give him our end of year reports and recommendations.

3:30 The weekly management meeting was a little sparse today. Only Elaine, Amy and I were on hand. Amy is continuing to make progress on the Local Business Directory and Elaine is busy with the creation of the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan Citizens' Committee.

5:00 My last meeting was with Elizabeth Jonasson. She is a very talented young woman who started in our department, who went to the Mayor's office, but was announced as part of the layoffs. Elizabeth has been doing much of the translation work for us during our community meetings and also for the written materials. She'll be missed, but she'll land on her feet. Her skill for reaching out to the Spanish-language-speaking community and increasing access will always be in demand.

11/20/09 Casual Friday-Jeans and boots are almost like a vacation day

2009-11-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

7:30 I started the day by getting a cup of coffee at Parsley Garden on the northern block of the Fulton Mall. The shop has a new owner. I didn't really have an opportunity to talk with him, because he was a one-man show. Cooking, making coffee drinks and running the register. There were only 4 of us in the shop while I was there, but this guy was slammed with just for people ordering. I left him my card; he's going to need some help figuring a way to make that operation work. Go by and check it out.

8:00 My first meeting was with Kiel Thomas Famellos-Schmidt who has Spacio Designs an architectural and design firm. This relatively new business is in 1724 Broadway, a very cool adaptive re-use of an historic warehouse done by owner/developer Cameron Moors.
Kiel's firm is focusing on urban design. Kiel has already given a great deal to our community by establishing ArcHop which coincides with ArtHop, but focuses on the art of design. He has undertaken projects for homeless housing and also a park at San Pablo and Belmont in the Lowell Neighborhood.

9:30 My weekly one on one meetings with our Downtown and Community Revitalization staff members continued with Jenna Slawinski. Jenna works on our vouchers for the business that participate in the Enterprise Zone. She helps on every event that we have including community meetings and festivals. She is an upbeat person who works hard and boosts morale. The other day one of our co-workers said, "you can feel it when Jenna is out for a day." Jenna is going to be helping with the Mayor's State of Downtown Breakfast which will be held January 26th.

11:00 My one on one with Cynthia Dondero who is our department's Executive Assistant. Cynthia keeps the scheduling going and is another person who is a real morale-booster. Cynthia is going to be gone next week, so we had plenty to go over so that nothing falls through the tracks while she is out. I hope that she has a great Thanksgiving Week, but I get nervous when she is out. I can't quantify in these blogs how much gets done by short phone calls, emails and text messages. It is really the work that gets done between meetings that moves things forward.

For example: Many people in the City have been working on a proposal to waive or defer development fees in the area of downtown covered by the specific plan. This would act as an incentive to invest into the area that the City has decided is our focus area. This combination of private and public investment is what gets the revitalization to spark. The City invests in great rules for development and contributes its fees, while the private sector brings its capital for businesses, housing and activity.

We hope that this proposal will go to the City Council in December and that it will be approved. However there is a little bit of lag time for existing or proposed projects. Should they start now or wait to see if the waiver/deferral passes? Well, it would make sense to wait a few weeks to see if a development could save maybe 5% of its costs. This has a result of slowing down development...the opposite of what we would like to have happen. So, we have administratively said that any developments that have approval can go forward and still benefit if the incentives are passed. So there is no reason to wait. This will allow people to move into the Iron Bird Lofts on December 1st instead of January 1st. Is this a big deal in the overall scheme of things? Not really. But it is an indication to people who invest in our downtown that we can be flexible and that we are trying to turn downtown into the best place to invest. Like always...it is doing the little things right. This happened as a result of many quick emails and meetings over the passed three days. It was finalized at 4:45.

We are also working on an exciting tenant that we are hoping to attract downtown. On Monday morning they will be touring downtown. Just like when you invite friends over to your house, it is a great time to spruce things up a bit. We're making sure that things look extra nice for them when they head down to take a look. I'll report how it goes on my Monday blog.

12:30 I had lunch with a few longtime friends, I usually see them about twice a year. I had been scheduled to have lunch with our new City Controller but he was not feeling well, so we rescheduled.

2:00 Amy Huerta, our Local Business Initiatives Manager, and I met to discuss ways for her division to get the word out about the many fantastic things that they are working on to strengthen the local business community. Communication has been our key issue for a few weeks, as we struggle to figure the best ways to keep people informed and to get the word out to get even more people involved. We also worked on our local business directory, which will make it easy for people to find locally-owned businesses.

4:00 Chuck Leonard from www.centralvalleytalk.com had me on his show, along with the fantastic Patrick Contreras. This locally produced internet show is produced in a studio in Mike Briggs real estate office. Chuck is hilarious. The guy has so much energy and get so much enjoyment from the show it is infectious. I'm not exactly sure when the show will replay; it apparently loops throughout the weekend. The station is getting 50,000 viewers/month, which is pretty amazing. I think about the fact that I am writing a blog, shared through facebook and twitter, talking about an interview I did on a locally-produced internet talk news how. 10 years ago that sentence wouldn't have made sense to anyone.

5:30 I met with Reza Assemi to recap the fee deferral process and to make sure that everything is moving forward. It is...people will start moving into the Iron Bird Lofts on December 1st.

11/19/09 Budget Cuts

2009-11-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

5:00 I was up and on the road for the morning jog. No shooting stars this morning, just the first glimpse of fog.
7:00 I had my weekly meeting with Preston Prince and Eileen Neely (Housing Authority), Keith Bergthold (Planning Dept.) and John Raymond (Redevelopment). I had to leave early this morning but we had a chance to talk about a local preference policy that we'll follow-up on.
7:45 Newsroom Cafe. The budget cuts have affected the entire City and have eliminated the Office of the Film Commission. Ray Arthur our Film and entertainment Commissioner is a real pro and a gentleman. He has done a great job with establishing the Film Commission in Fresno. He is an asset to our community and I hope that we can keep him around. After hearing about the cuts he said, "All right, let's get to the office, I have too much to do today."
8:30 We had an impromptu staff meeting to talk about the proposed budget cuts and to answer as many questions as we could.
9:00 We have Primetime for Business in front of the City Council and John Shegerian did a great job of representing his company, as always. The Mayor presented her proposed budget cuts to the City Council. I had to leave early.
10:00 I was a speaker at a Small Communities Downtown Revitalization Workshop. The group of 70 people attending the workshop in Fowler represented communities from six Central Valley counties. Merced, Kings, Tulare, Kern, Madera and Fresno. Many cities and special districts were present. I spoke from 10:15 to 11:30 about the principles of downtown revitalization. I hope that it was helpful. Given the morning's events, I don't think that I was at my energetic or comedic best. The Federal Reserve Bank was an organizer and sponsor along with the Local Government Commission, San Joaquin Valley Housing Trust, and the California Coalition for Rural Housing. Favorito's Restaurant in Fowler was great too. I loved the Fowler Mayor's comments at the beginning. We need to clone that guy; every Valley town could use one of him!
By the time that I got back to the office it seemed a little like everything was beginning to unravel with some of our key downtown pieces. They looked like they were working themselves out, but things are always so darned dicey. You can never think that a project is done until it is really done.
3:00 The Urban Entrepreneurship class met in City Hall today. Today's class was the dress rehearsal for the semester projects. Everyone had a chance to go through their project today and to get feedback from their peers and from me. They have two weeks to put on the finishing touches. The look really good.
6:30 I had dinner with Lena Robinson and Elaine Robles (Neighborhood Revitalization Manager). Lena is from the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco. We spent the evening updating Lena on the progress in the Lowell neighborhood and we requested assistance with developing and keeping data to monitor the effectiveness of the revitalization process. It will be key to have measurable results and also key to learn what is working and what isn't. Lena is a wonderful resource, I appreciate the work that they are doing and the interest that that are showing in Fresno.

11-18-09 Ups and Downs

2009-11-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

5:00 I had a good walk and run at the gym this morning. The other guy on the treadmill already had VH1 on the television. I'm so glad that it wasn't the financial news or other nonstop talking news. It's nice to hear a little music and to hear some of the new music, instead of more negative blather from the cable news networks. The dog got her walk when I got back.

8:00 We had our weekly Downtown and Community Revitalization Department staff meeting. We are all aware that the budget cuts will make changes. We are reminded that the only things in our control are our efforts. Everyone in our department is committed, hard working and skilled. The times that we get to work with groups like this are rare in life, so they should really be savored. I appreciate the opportunity to work with these wonderful people.
We celebrated George Smith's first Federal grant which he submitted this week. Ray Arthur shared the benefits and processes for us to take better advantage of social networking. Elaine Robles reported on the Lowell Community meeting's results, Elliott had a long list of downtown accomplishments, plus a potential new investor. Amy Huerta reported on the successful Technology Affinity Group meeting on Tuesday. Kelly Trevino is catching up after bring her 180 colleagues to town last week for a conference. Wilma Quan has finished the draft scope of work and is circulating it to other departments for comment and has completed the draft of the staff report for the upcoming City Council meeting in December. I tell ya, this group is firing on all cylinders.
10:00 I met with Reza Assemi and Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd to go over some items that need to be cleared up for Reza to get the Iron Bird Lofts open. If you haven't been through them yet, you should arrange a tour, they are very cool. Folk should start moving in on December 1st.

11:00 A meeting with another potential downtown investor who is interested in primarily new construction north of the Fulton Mall. This is a new investment group/developer for downtown Fresno, but they have national experience, although they are headed by a local guy.

12:00 Elaine Robles and I met with Council Member Westerlund to get up to speed on the work and research he was doing to eradicate irresponsible multi-family property owners. This has been a major reason for the specific and community plans and also through our partnership with code enforcement. There are thousands of housing units at risk in Fresno and the Central Valley. Property owners who neglect their properties to the point of unhealthful living conditions or even to the point beyond repair are doing real harm to everyone. These properties breed crime and concentrate people in horrible conditions, creating poverty magnets. We are developing every tool possible to try to reverse this trend.

1:30 I had a one on one meeting with the City Manager Andy Souza. This is an opportunity to bring Andy up to speed with our department's activities and also to get direction about our department and also in my role as a department director.

3:00 Wilma and I met with John Dugan the new Planning Director (he's really more like a planning guru!) and Jerry Bishop who is the Assistant Planning Director who helps us with our code enforcement efforts. Reza joined in part of this meeting to see if we could knock down a few of his roadblocks. After Reza left we worked through some of the other issues facing downtown projects and also went over the historic survey and research component of the scope of work for the specific plan.

3:30 Wilma Quan and I had about 15 minutes for our weekly one on one. Wilma is fully emerged in her role as the project manager for the specific plan. She is searching for additional funding for certain components and is coordinating the whole planning team, from sewer engineers to architects.

4:00 we have a meeting for all department directors to begin the process of understanding the depth of the budget buts that will be proposed at the City Council meeting in the morning. I'll have more to say (write) about this tomorrow night.

5:30 I went to a wonderful event honoring Brian King for his leadership award from the California Wellness Foundation. It was a very upbeat affair. Brian inspires! The event was held at Marisol (Nicola's for us old timers). A really nice crowd was on hand to congratulate Brian.

Like I said at the beginning. Highs and lows. But I know that we are all working our hearts out, and are beginning to get traction from our combined efforts. We'll just focus on what is in our control, celebrate the victories and do what we can, while we can.

11-17-09 Day started with a shooting star

2009-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:00

Really, it did. I got up for a run (jog) with the dog and was out of the door at 5:00. As I started down Wishon I saw one of those really great shooting stars streaming across the western sky. It's going to be a good day, I decided. And, it was. Shooting star? Attitude? The revitalization effort is on a roll? I'm not sure...it was just a great day. Even though I spilled coffee on my shirt as I drove into the City hall parking lot.

8:15 (yes, I was late) I had a meeting with one of the City Attorneys to discuss the process for resolving some of our code enforcement issues with downtown property owners. We're about to get some of the toughest cases wrapped up, I hope. I'll report as soon as I can.

9:00 My weekly one on one with George Smith our Administration Manager. George had quite the list of things to go over today, but the biggest was that we, through George's leadership and many other people's help, submitted a HUD Healthy Homes Grant for the Lowell Neighborhood. This is HUGE!

9:30 We (Elliot Balch and Angela Vasquez) had a quick meeting to prepare for Wednesday's meeting with the Department Directors regarding downtown efforts. Elliott and Angela coordinate these weekly meetings that are designed to keep all departments involved, engaged and coordinated. Although most of this meeting was focused on the nonprofit that was created to support and organize downtown events.

10:00 Elliott and I met with representatives from the Facilities Management Dept. to discuss the possibility of the Downtown and Community Revitalization Department's possible move to the Fulton mall. There are many issues to be resolved and it will have to make sense for the larger City needs, but it sure would be great to be more on-site.

11:00 Travel by home to change coffee-stained shirt

11:30 Technology Affinity Group, or as the called themselves F-TAG. We are moving this meeting to all parts of town. This time we went to Fajita Fiesta on Shaw, near Cedar. Amy Huerta and Fernando Santillan chose the location for the convenience of our two guests, relatively new Computer Science professors from Fresno State. There was another large group. We went through the priorities that they had identified last September and we reviewed the progress that we were making. The two professors are working hard to fill the gap between the academic world and practical industry needs. Everyone was very excited by the efforts to involved students into local companies. It continues to amaze us how many tech companies there are in Fresno and how many of them go unnoticed.

2:00 I had a meeting with more potential investors for downtown buildings. Things are beginning to boil, folks. I'm telling you, the general population is going to miss out on the opportunity to get in early. Traditional investors will sit on the sidelines until it's too late and then they'll all talk about how they wish that they'd gotten in while everything was cheap. Sure, there is still risk, but that's why prices are low. There are still many pieces that have to move forward for the revitalization effort to succeed. But with the City focus, with growing community support, with changes in state legislation that forces growth inward...the forces are finally lining up for a revival.
3:00 Wilma Quan (Urban Planning Specialist) and I had a conference call with representatives from the California Endowment about some of their initiatives that focus on healthy communities. The have resources to help cities to plan and design neighborhoods and town centers for mobility, exercise and access to healthy foods. We think that this effort could line up nicely with part of the Downtown Neighborhoods Community Plan. We were planning a Health Impact Assessment, so hopefully we can share resources and accomplish even more by working together.

4:30 I had my weekly one on one meeting with our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager Elaine Robles. We were both still riding the high from last night's Lowell Community meeting. It was such a positive group of people, both residents and City staff. That positive experience really carries forward and motivates everyone to do even more. We also discussed the dinner honoring Fresno's own Brian King Wednesday night for his Peace Prize. Elaine and I also discussed the need for more capacity to manage the resources that are coming into the Lowell revitalization effort. If anyone out there wants to lend a hand on a regular basis, we could use any help. We have research, we have stuff like data entry to build our database, website content, communications and of course work in the neighborhood.
5:30 Amy Huerta and I tried to corner Chamber CEO and all around great guy Al Smith into opening a downtown entertainment spot. Don't you guys think he'd make a great host of a really cool place? If you see him or have his email address please encourages him. His New Orleans sense of style, music, food and attitude are just what we need in a downtown joint.
I was home by 8:00 and remembered the half and half that my wife Betty Ann asked me to bring for her morning's coffee. I told you it was a great day.

11-16-09

2009-11-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

I'm off track already. A day late on my blogging. As we left off on Thursday, I drove to Shasta/McCloud on Thursday night to pick up my son Cole at his school (Saint Mary's College) in Moraga. We arrived at the house where we were staying at 2:00a.m. We fished the McCloud River on Friday and the Upper Sacramento River on Saturday and Sunday. It was absolutely gorgeous up there and the fishing was great. It was wonderful to be able to have a long drive with my son and have time to really catch up. I am revitalized and ready for some revitalizing.

Monday morning. Most of the day was very internally focused. Not me personally, I mean internally focused on our department.

I started the day at 8:30 with a meeting at the Newsroom Cafe on Kern and L Street in the newly remodeled Virginia Hotel. Vic, the proprietor, said that lunch business is really picking up and that the Workforce Investment Board employees that just moved in are proving to be loyal customers. The meeting was with Linda Calandra, former city councilmember, who now does fundraising for the Library's foundation. We were joined by Elliott Balch and Jan Minami. The discussion was about the newly formed DT FACES nonprofit, fundraising, the nonprofit's employee compensation, and the Association of Fundraising Professionals as a resource.

At 9:30 I met with Fernando Santillan who works with Amy Huerta on our Local Business Initiatives. Fernando is building up the CPA Affinity Group and the Community Banks and Credit Unions Affinity Groups. We were discussing the possibility of getting the banks and accountants, along with Fresno State accounting students and Bank on Fresno, to coordinate with our Lowell neighborhood revitalization efforts to promote the Earned Income Tax Credit, free tax preparation, open more bank accounts, financial literacy programs. This is how these efforts can really stack up together.

10:00 we had our weekly management meeting with Amy Huerta (Local Business Initiatives) Elliott Balch (Downtown Revitalization), Elaine Robles (Neighborhood Revitalization) and George Smith (Administration). Most of the time was spent reviewing our budget and individual budgets. George has created a report so that our department's budget mirrors a standard budget report. It helps us to understand where we are and would also be easier for anyone who wanted to see our budget to understand.

11:00 Specific Plan Update meeting with Wilma Quan, who is the Project Manager, and Elliott and Elaine. We finalized our draft of the Scope of Work which will accompany the contract with Moule and Polyzoides the consultants for the downtown zoning and code overhaul.

12:00 We had a meeting with First 5 who are working with us toward a proposed downtown childcare center headquarters. We expect to take an agreement to the City Council within a few weeks to keep this project moving forward. A downtown daycare center would be a great service to downtown employees and residents.

1:30 Elliott and I met with the City Manager Andy Souza and Deputy City Manager Nicole Zieba. We have a brief meeting on Mondays to align the City departments with the downtown revitalization efforts for the week and to track our progress.

From this point on I worked with Elaine on the final touches for the Lowell Neighborhood Meeting #3.

The meeting in Lowell started at 5:30 in the cafeteria at Lowell Elementary. We had a very full house with residents, City staff, and partnering agencies.

Council President Cynthia Sterling started the meeting with a welcome and then introduced the Mayor. The Mayor got things going and talked about long term commitment to the revitalization effort.

I gave an overview of the evening's agenda and an overview of how our department coordinated the revitalization effort. We had a slide that listed the concerns/needs that the neighbors have expressed to us and then City departments gave an update on their efforts. Chief Dyer started the program off by showing how their activities in the neighborhood are leading to more community engagement in fighting crime. Every department showed the tangible results from the coordinated effort in the neighborhood. I'll try to see how we can put to powerpoint online. Here are some picture that photographer and Lowell resident Steve Skibbie took last night Lowell Meeting #3 photos.

The neighbors gave us their input/feedback on what a revitalized Lowell neighborhood looks like and suggestions on how to get to the goals. It was one of the best community meetings that I've ever experienced. The room was filled with a very positive energy. Elaine, the whole Downtown and Community Revitalization team and all of the departments did a fantastic job last night in coordinating the event. The neighborhood is pulling together like gangbusters (now there's an interesting word).

Signing off for now. Back on track tonight, I hope.

The happy downtown revitalization fisherman,

11/12/09 Thursday's blog is written on Friday?

2009-11-13T08:54:00.000-08:00

It's gonna be a quick on today sports fans.

8:00 weekly interenal Downtown and Community Revitalization management meeting. Elaine got back from the Harlem Childrens Zone conference. They confirmed everything that we are doing is on the right track. Focus is the key, you can't do everything and everywhere at once. The piece we need to work on is being more data driven...we'll need to work with partners to have enough capacity.

9:00 Weekly agenda meeting. Department directors and city council staff get together to go over next week's agenda. The Mayor's budget presentation will be the big item. Tthe directors have the irmeeting directly afterward. I reported on the upcoming Lowell neighborhood meeting the Monday night and on Fresno State's huge buy into the Lowell revitalization effort.

10:00 We had a quick internal meeting to review the staff report and the scope of work for the specific plan.

10:30 Downtown FACES Board meeting. This is the nonprofit that has been formed to oversee, create and coordinate events and festivalos on the Fulton mall and in the stadium.

11:30 I was on a panel with Elaine Robles (Neighborhood Revitalization Manager), Terance Frazier (Frazier Realty) and CeCe Vega (Lowell resident). We spoke to a group called the No Name Fellowshipo, which is a longstanding faith-based gathering to discuss urban issues.

1:30 We went over the United Security Bank and opened our checking account for DT FACES. Now any of you can make a contribution!

3:00 Urban Entrepreneurshp class was at the Trade Center. Cliff Tutelian is really doing a first class job on renovating the building. The ballroom upstairs is close to fully operational and is going to be one of the great party spots in the Valley. The ground floor is also going to be spectacular.

5:30 I headed toward Moraga to pick up my son Cole for a three day fishing trip up near Shasta. We pulled in about 2AM. I did a phone interview with a future urban planning legend Drew Wilson for an hour on the drive up through Los Banos.

Now we're headed out to see if we can annoy a few fish! Talk back atcha on Monday. Join us at the Lowell meeting at 5:30 at the school. Real life neighborhood meetings are always interesting.

11/11/09 Downtown Vet's Parade was HUGE

2009-11-11T22:18:00.000-08:00

Slow start today. No exercise, I'm recovering from yesterdays.
10:00 Meeting with Jane Whitehurst. We tried to meet at the Newsroom Cafe, but Vic must've closed because of the holiday and the fact that the government offices would be closed and because he was in an island surrounded by the parade route. I had to move (and replace, of course) barricades to even get near L and Kern. Jane and I walked over to the Starbucks instead. Jane is a downtown property owner and is part of three projects. She is a long time friend and is one of the original members of the Bus Bard Studio, the folks who started ArtHop. I updated her on the Specific Plan, PBID, downtown development incentives (proposed). Jane is looking into turning one of her properties into a studio/gallery. Good news.
11:30 I met with Terence Frazier, Steve Hosey and Mehmet Noyan. We were going to have lunch at the Downtown Club, but we went over to Club One instead. The Downtown Club was also closed. Club One's restaurant is always open, so remember that when you are looking for something late night and don't want a grand slam at Denny's! Their Asian food is really good, too. These gentlemen were also interested in hearing about the downtown revitalization plans. I had the opportunity to describe the Entertainment District concept. Mehmet is familiar with the development around PETCO Park in San Diego. It is important to keep local investors, developers, entrepreneurs and commercial real estate brokers up to date. When they show an interest, it is imperative that we continue to share information on a regular basis. We're not exactly where I'd like to be with our communication, but we're building toward it. Once the Specific Plan is underway, we'll have a website dedicated to the project to give and receive information and input.
2:00 From 2:00 to 6:30 Andrew Stuebner (Grizzlies) Jan Minami (Downtown Association), William Broomfield (City Events Coordinator) Elliott Balch ( our department's Downtown Revitalization Manager) and I interviewed potential candidates to run the newly created DT FACES nonprofit. This entity has been formed to coordinate events on the Fulton Mall and in Chukchansi Park on non-baseball nights. Nonprofits have much more ability to raise funds and have much more flexibility to work with vendors, hire short term staff and others steps necessary for event creation and successful execution. Hopefully we'll have someone on board within a couple of weeks. Get ready Central Valley, the party is coming to downtown!

7:00 I met with a couple of Urban Entrepreneurship Students (Adam and Krystal) to help them on their semester project. Hold the date on you calendars...December 3rd from 3-6. You'll have a chance to see what college level entrepreneurship students think that downtown Fresno needs.

11/10/09 Expectations Exceeded

2009-11-10T23:06:00.000-08:00

I still don't know what happened to spell check. It used to be on the tool bar until yesterday. They added a link function which I have used tonight.

The day started off really well with a good workout at the gym. 20 minutes on the cross trainer and 2 miles on the treadmill.

I got off track for time and ened up late for my 7:00 meeting with Chris Johnson, our area's renowned historic preservation architect. He designs new stuff too, but really excells at the historic work like our Santa Fe depot. He is finishing another historic home in the Jefferson Neighborhood soon. I can't wait to see it. Fortunately I've known Chris since high school, so he didn't mind that I showed up in gym clothes.

Dawn Steele helped me to outlline a presentation for the No Name Fellowship this Thursday.

10:30 Amy Huerta, Elliott Balch and I met with Dan DeSantis from the Fresno Regional Foundation to introduce him to the Public Market project that we're interested in pursuing. Dan was very helpful and put us on a good track to get investment. Many national foundations have funded these projects in the past.

I had to head to the Dr.s office to take care of a stubborn ear ache. Followed by a trip to the pharmacy.

2:30 I met with Assistant City Manager Bruce Rudd to discuss issues like downtown water wells, parking, and possible locations for new downtown developments and tenants.

3:15 We started our weekly Downtown and Community Revitalization Dept. staff meeting a few minutes late. I was very eager to get started and to spend some time with our entire team. There have been so many great things happening, I was looking forward to having everyone share their good news with the others.

Like:

Kelly Trevino had a very successful Enterprise Zone conference last week with 200 attendees! We only heard positive comments from folks, and many had never been to Fresno before. Great receptions and the Met Museum and downtown Club.
Dawn Steele worked on Cargo of Hope and the event exceeded everyone from the national organization's expectations.
Amy Huerta and Fernando Santillan held very successful Independent Retail and Restaurnt Affinity Group and an equally successful Licensed Contractor Affinity groups.
Elaine Robles in New York at a conference about the Harlem Children's Zone. She is the guest of The California Endowment and is making some great connections for Fresno. There are other great things happening, like the two universities involvement in Lowell and a HUD Grant.
But that's enough for now.

4:30 Elliott Balch, Jan Minami (Downtown Association) and I met with Cliff Tutelian to discuss the Property Based Improvement District. Cliff signed his ballots/petitions and as a large downtown property owner gave us some great momentum for this improtant effort. Jan reported that KVPT had signed theirs earlier in the day too.

5:15 A quick meeting with the quality affordable housing trio of Preston Prince, Brian Glover and Wayne Rutledge. They are going to begin to pull together best practices for high quality affordable housing. Frankly much of the stuff that has been built down in our urban neighborhoods is pretty bad and it is no wonder that people do not want it in their neighborhood. We'll see what they can come up with. Preston brings a wealth of experience from Seattle and Denver.

6:00 I had the opportunity to speak with the Fresno Citizen's Academy about our department's funcitons and goals. Tonight they met at Dickey Youth Center in Lowell. Mostly we discussed downtown revitalization...always a lively topic. This is a realy informed group. They committ time for 8 weeks to learn about how the City operates. I hope that they enjoyed the presentation, I did.

Back by City hall to get my computer and home by 8:00ish. Not to shabby for a day that started off kind of screwy.