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If the success of UC Merced is one of the top agenda items for state legislators, it's certainly not reflected by the recent turnout at Assembly committee meetings dedicated toward overseeing the campus' development.

Last week, only three legislators on the seven-member Assembly Select Committee on Development of a 10th University of California, Merced Campus, bothered to show up for its meeting, which is held a few times every year. At the committee's previous meeting in August last year, only two members showed up.

Rushing to an interview this morning, I was late and lost.

I hate either, let alone both. (When I was teaching journalism at Cal State Fullerton, any student reporter who arrived late--without having notified me why in advance--was forced to apologize to the entire class, then to me, for disrespecting us by not showing up on time.)

Here I was, trying to follow telephone directions to a county building I'd never heard of, let alone visited.

Often times, the most interesting people to talk with in city government are the folks in planning. They know what's moving and shaking behind the scenes and keep me in the loop with what's coming down the pike.

A couple tidbits I've learned: Livingston may get a new 83-room hotel; and a paintball business is opening there in the next month or so.

Many times these tidbits evolve into stories when more happens. I'll definitely check out the paintball range that's set to open. When and if the hotel makes it to the City Council, that'll probably be a story as well.

The Sun-Star will publish an eight-part series on poverty in the county, starting in early May.

Usually these days I'm an editor, which is what boss Joe Kieta hired me to do. Once in awhile I get lucky and he asks me to wear a reporter's fedora again.

As in this case.

Besides seeking info and input from academics, elected officials, local government folks, CEOs, think tanks and task forces, I wanted to sense a more direct experience with poverty. So Herb Opalek of the Merced Rescue Mission let me spend last Sunday night there. The idea was that, incognito, I'd simply report on what the folks in there then were doing, saying and thinking.