Maybe it's not too late for Mayor Alan Autry to get the downtown lake in place before he leaves office. My friend, Jerry English, alerted me this week to the work of muralist Eric Grohe, who has done some some pretty gorgeous work in this country, according to his Web site.

Here's one example of what he did to a ho-hum hospital exterior in Ohio.
Now look at what he did to an ugly parking garage.

Now, in this one he created not only a lake, but a waterfall, too.

Eric Grohe can make Lake Autry happen in no time! Maybe we should get this guy to come to Fresno and be done with it. Why not just paint the lake on the side of the old Gottschalk's building? We can add anything we want to the picture - condos, beautiful and diverse rich people, a streetcar full of riders, a light rail train packed with passengers, dance clubs, boutiques, Ikea, Fry's Electronics, Nordstrom. Heck, Bass Pro! Just paint the darn buildings into the picture and call it a done deal!

You know, it takes too long to make progress in this town, and this might be the answer to our frustrations. Could this be the final remedy for those ugly and embarrassing jail buildings that the county plopped square in the middle of our downtown and then was too cheap to paint? We can have Grohe draw in pictures of nice gentlemen in ties learning in school, helping the elderly, playing with their sons on the swing sets, learning banking and earning graduate degrees, driving hybrid cars, getting pilots' licenses, leading the PTA meetings, dancing with their wives, roller blading with their daughters, water skiing.

Mister Mayor, grab your paintbrush and let's get to work.