Random update on too many things

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for me--here are just a few recent highlights:

Yesterday John Hoang from C/CAG called me to discuss our letter regarding the San Mateo Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan update. Apparently, based on SVBC's comments, they rethought a few things. I'll learn more at our meeting in a few weeks, but it looks like the plan will be downplaying the Priority Corridor concept and evaluating those projects with the same criteria that are applied to every other project. I think this is positive--with scarce resources, all projects should be evaluated.

I met with members Andrew Boone and Yoriko Kishimoto to discuss the future of cycling in Palo Alto. Then Andrew and I met with Facebook employees to discuss building out infrastructure in the vicinity of their new campus in Menlo Park, on which we'd previously sent a letter to the city.

I'm in discussions with the Mayor of Portola Valley about his plans to start a Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) or otherwise support having a formalized venue for discussing cycling issues in the Town. It is SVBC's goal to help create BPACs in communities where they don't exist and empower them where they do.

I moved into my new downtown San José apartment--whew, I forgot how much work that is! Kim Walesh, Director of the Office of Economic Development; Shiloh Ballard and Felipe Buitrago, SVBC board members; and Michele Beasley of Greenbelt Alliance; among others, stopped by on their way to the SubZero Festival to see the new digs. Then we checked out Single Barrel, a speakeasy where they make a good drink for you without letting you choose exactly what you want.

Colin and I met with Ellie from Greenbelt to get organized on Plan Bay Area work going on at the regional level. I'm engaging with that on the boards of Bay Area Bicycle Coalition and TransForm, as well. How this boils down will greatly effect regional funding for bike projects, so we're watching closely and advocating for bikes being a significant piece of the solution for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions in the bay area.

Really, a vast portion of my time in the last several weeks has been taken up with organizational planning. Our policy advisory committee, the development committee, the governance committee, and the finance committee have all been developing workplans for our 2011/12 fiscal year. I've also developed a staff workplan and a 2011/12 fiscal year budget. Exciting, right? In all seriousness, it's been a great process and I'm looking forward to our board meeting next Thursday when the board will come together to solidify everything--then my attention can turn fully back to implementing these great goals.