1-05-10 back in the mix

It seems that there was a bit of a furlough hangover on Monday. I had a hard time getting this old brain to make the necessary adjustments to get back up to full speed (such as it is). By Tuesday it felt good to be back at it. Brain engaged...arguing, thinking, planning, speaking...


I started out looking at a downtown property that has been recently listed on the market. Just trying to keep up on what's out there.


I grabbed a quick 15 minute breakfast at Toledo's in the Cultural Arts District.


8:45 I picked up our Neighborhood Revitalization Manager Elaine Robles in front of City Hall and the we swung around to pick up John Raymond and Debra Barletta. We looked at three houses in Lowell that the RDA is working on with Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds. They are beauties. They are on College, Franklin and Glenn.


10:30 I had a meeting with City Manager Andy Souza, Planning Director John Dugan, Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold and Wilma Quan, Elliott Balch and Elaine from our department. This meeting was to continue to piece together the short, medium and long term planning strategies for the City of Fresno. Many of our planning needs an immediate and important. If you think about planning as a regulatory tool that shapes the future of a city, it is critical to have it right. Many of our plans still allow sprawl at the fringes and do not allow good development, or require good development, in the interior of our city.


So it is important that our downtown plan, the downtown neighborhood plan, and the larger changes to the City's general plan all work together and be done in the most rational order. I am thankful every day for the expertise and perspective that John Dugan is bringing to our city!


12:00 I spoke to the North Fresno Exchange Club, a service club that meets at the Shaw and Van Ness Piccadilly Inn. This was a very fun and engaged group of people. Many wanted to volunteer to help the downtown effort. They had great questions and we talked for about an hour. I was very encouraged after meeting with this fun and intelligent group!


2:00 Elliott and I met with Suzanne Bertz Rosa who is helping us to put together the presentation for the Mayors' State of Downtown Breakfast on January 26th. The breakfast is nearly sold out, so don't delay if you want to attend. Call the Downtown Association asap.


3:30 We had our weekly staff meeting. It was the first with Janet and Alex. It was a fairly light meeting, we did some introductions and some catching up.


5:30 I met Steve Froberg, who is with Ashwood Homes at the Downtown Club. I knew Steve while he was the City Manager in Lemoore. Steve is one of the nicest people I have met. He was also a great City Manager while he worked in Lemoore. Ashwood does about half of their business in affordable housing, an area that I am continually learning about. I'm sure that I have said it somewhere in this blog before, but housing is its own animal. There is really a housing-industrial complex that exists between the government housing policies, banks and other types of community lending institutions, affordable housing developers and housing advocates. It is its own world.