Wednesday, January 6, 2010

01-06-10

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!

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