11/23/09 A Blogging Monday

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.