06-24-10 PBID Passed

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!