02-25-10 Thursday

The day started a little after 4:00, I'm waking up before the alarm these days. I love that feeling. Ellis and I were out for our romp about 4:30. I'm still at it Coach Carter!



I headed to Uncle Harry's to catch up on emails and to get some bagels for the 7:00 meeting and enough to take back for the Downtown and Community Revitalization team. Uncle Harry's is another fine locally-owned establishment. Their coffee is better than the national chain's too.


7:00 Eileen Neely from Housing Authority, Marlene Murphey from RDA and Assistant Planning Director Keith Bergthold were there. We had a great conversation about the best housing authority programs in the country and what made them so good. Atlanta, Portland, Seattle and San Diego were on the list.

8:00 I had a meeting with our Administrative Manager George Smith to review our Fiscal Year 2011 budget submission for our department.

8:30 Amy Huerta introduced the PrimeTime for Business at the Council Meeting. This week the Licensed Contractors Affinity Group was highlighted. Look at their new web page at: http://mslcaffinitygroup.org/
They'll also have an ad in the Sunday Bee.
9:00 Elliott Balch completed an interest letter for a grant. All grant submissions require City Council approval. The item was on the consent calendar and went through without any conversation. Here is a link to the staff report: http://www.fresno.gov/CouncilDocs/agenda2.25.2010/1s.pdf


10:00 Wilma Quan, Rudy Placencia and I walked down the Fulton Mall with Stefanos Polyzoides, David Sargent, and Juan Gomez-Novy from our Specific Plan Team. We started at the Holiday Inn and walked north on the mall to the Warnors Theater. We discussed the condition of the mall, historic downtown conditions, circulation, design standards, historic theaters, the Tuolumne Reversal, the undercrossing from Courthouse Park to the Mall...


We then walked south to the Gottschalks Building, talked about the stadium, the potential for public entertainment at Mariposa, facades, they met Saundra King at the Security Bank Building, upstairs at the Goodwill store, and had lunch at Gordo's. Keep up with the Specific Plan and Community Plan by going to http://fresnodowntownplans.com/ and sign up for email notifications.


1:00 the Specific Plan team met with Greg Barfield to get an overview of the homeless and street people issues within the plan areas.


2:30 I toured a home in the Lowell neighborhood with new owner Wayne Rutledge.


4:00 Elliott Balch and I met with Jan Minami and Joe Moore from the Downtown Association to discuss coordination of downtown events.


5:00 I stopped by the Downtown Club for a membership mixer that they were hosting to announce their new membership structure. http://www.thedowntownclub.com/


6:00 Joe Moore and I met with Rick Mirigian who has been giving a great deal of thought to downtown Fresno Marketing. Rick is promoting the Penthouse in the 600 Club in Chukchansi Park. http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/02/04/1809244/chukchansi-parks-600-club-to-open.html
I had a great half rack of ribs and real mashed potatoes, we ate at Joe's Steakhouse.