10/4/09 Hump day

4:30 Up and at 'em. I took the dog for a run up Wishon.

6:15 I was at Uncle Harry's getting two "dozen deals", a cup of coffee and the Bee.

6:45 I had to take my car to Clawson to be smogged.

7:00 Fernando picked me up and we headed to our 7:30 meeting.

7:30 We had our first Independent Retailers and Restaurants meeting. We met at the new Coney Island restaurant concept from locally-owned Me & Ed's. My job was to bring the bagels.

This Affinity group met to discuss ways that they could work together to improve their businesses and to brainstorm ways that the City could help. We had a great group for our first meeting. The Mayor was on hand to hear their concerns and to listen as they formed their group priorities. Some of the ideas were to create a directory for locally-owned businesses, to create a best of Fresno award that only included locally-owned businesses, an awareness campaign to inform the community about locally-owned business and their economic impact. We'll get back together in January. Support your locally-owned retailers and restaurants this holiday season!

9:15 The car is ready and I'm headed to City Hall

10:00 We (Elliot, Elaine, Wilma) had a meeting with the Planning Department to discuss our mutual effort to secure funding for our downtown planning needs alon with the needs of the City General Plan and our goals for Sustainable Fresno. Fresno is starting to get some traction for our efforts to improve planning efforts.

11:00 I had a meeting to update City Council President Cynthia Sterling to keep her up to date with our department's activities and to make sure that we are working together.

11:30 I had lunch with Gary Schulz at Heros. Gary and I worked together while we were at the Central Valley Business Incubator. Now Gary is heading up the Raisin Administrative Committee. We discussed some ways that we could re-integrate the raisin industry into Fresno through a downtown festival or other activities.

2:00 I had my update meeting with the Mayor. This is a regular meeting to keep her up to date with our department's activities, to coordinate and to get direction.

4:00 The weekly downtown meeting with all of the City departmetns involved in the revitalization effort. We are refining the possible City incentives like fee waivers in downtown.

6:30 Attended the reception for the California Enterprise Zone Conference. Our own Kelly Trvino is responsible for bring this 150+ attendee conference to town. Kelly has organized the event and from the looks of things, everyone was thrilled...especially the folks who came in from Indiana and Colorado who I met tonight.

Danged Yankees won. Baseball is over until next season. We are entering the year of the Giants!