11/7/09 An Easy Saturday

I got up this morning to find that I'd forgotten to get coffee yesterday. I walked the ol' pooch to the store when it opened at 7:00

8:00 I had breakfast with Saundra King, the owner of the Security Bank Building (a.k.a. Fresno Pacific Towers, Pacific Southwest Building) at the Chicken Pie Shop. We had a number of things to catch up on, but primarily the Specific Plan and the Property Based Improvement District. Saundra has been elected the interim chairperson for the Specific Plan Committee and was on the Stakeholders' Committee that voted on the selection of the planning team. Saundra has also been a proponent of the PBID for a number of years.

10:00 Ray Arthur, our Film and Entertainment Commissioner, has been organizing the owners of our historic theaters. Today we met at the Azteca Theater in Chinatown. We had a tour through the Theater, it was my first look inside. Two of my Urban Entrepreneurship students, Rodney and Brandon came along because they are using the theater for their semester projects. It was a good opportunity to inform the theater owners about the possibility of City fee waivers, the Specific Plan and the entertainment district concept.

12:00 I picked up my order of Beerocks from the Cross/Well Church at Palm and Gettysburg. This is the church where my grandparents attended and helped in the annual beerocks sales. The Volga German or Germans from Russia community makes a style of beerocks different from the usual store or restaurant variety. For our family, there are no comparisons. The Edison Social Club is the only other place to get them, and their sale will be in December. The Edison Social Club also has sausage for sale too.

One of the truly great things about living in our area is our ethnic heritage. I'd love to see a place on Fulton someday that honors this piece of our Fresno history and culture. Beerocks, vereniks (strawberry and potato), egg noodles, coffee cake and German smoked and regular sausage (Olberg's Recipe). A place that had pictures of Fresno's Germantown on the walls and would organize and a great Oktoberfest every fall.