05-17-10 Man I wish I'd been bloggin more...

My blog fell off of a cliff.  I have not had the energy to keep it up.  It's not surprising, given the amount of change and activity, but I feel like I've missed so much.  The Downtown Neighborhoods Design charrette last week, the trip to Sacramento for the State Historic Preservation Commission, the Council votes on the Property Based Imporvement District...

Part of the goal of the blog was to have my own journal to look back on, but also to have a transparent and public record of my activities as a public servant for the City of Fresno.

The changes in my personal life would also be good to list.  I have purchased a bungalow in the Lowell neighborhood and have a new dog that I picked up form the SPCA last Tuesday.

Today our department, Downtown and Community Revitalization, was supposed to have our budget workshop.  They didn't get through the Dept. of Public Utilities until after noon, so they didn't get to us.  Tomorrow morning will be our time.

I met with our budget analyst George smith at 7:30 to go over our final reports.

We did have a couple of post-charrette meetings.  One with Wilma, Elliott and Elaine, and another with our full department staff.

Elaine, Wilma and I grabbed lunch at the Golden.  They wanted some soup for this cool rainy day.

We had a meeting of the Mayor's PIPES committee at 1:30, which is geared toward refining the processes for projects that are going through city review and approval (or rejection).

At 4:00 Elaine and I drove to Fresno State to meet with the departments that have dedicated part of their curriculum to the Lowell Neighborhood.  We heard some great stories of their involvement this semester, from mediation and peace-making with students at Lowell, to Anthroplogy students who helped at the last neighborhood meeting.  Construction management continues to provide students to work on houses in the neighborhood.  The libraian is building a website to chronicle all of these activities.  Prof. Schecter is shepherding students for us to use as interns from the Political Science Dept.  Theater has put together a powerpoint to show how lighting can improve the neighborhood.

at 5:30 Elaine and I headed to the Lowell Neighborhood Association for the monthly open meeting.

I picked up Betty Ann and Ellis for a trip to the dog park to let out dogs run.  Back to the house on Glenn for some straightening up about 8:30.