by Colin Walsh
In an item on tonight’s City Council agenda, Developers and City staff are asking the City Council to relax requirements at the Target shopping center on 2nd Street by Mace. 10 years in, there are still store fronts there that have never held a store. Sadly, the City staff report urging the change has huge glaring problems.
PART II: Obfuscation and Misdirection
By Colin Walsh
Part I of the article series “Vanguard Slams the Door on Required Public Disclosures” discussed information requests made by Rik Keller to the Davis Vanguard seeking in-person inspection of documents required by federal law to be made available and the Vanguard’s refusal to provide these, both figuratively and literally slamming the door in the face of these requests. This information request is directly connected to the investigative work that Keller and others (including myself) have been performing to publicly document possible ethical and legal violations by both the Vanguard and the Davis City Council in relation to a planned upcoming fundraiser that the Vanguard has advertised, Keller and others have also publicly called for the Vanguard to adopt principles/policies/guidelines regarding ethical journalistic practices and funding/donor transparency, including standards and guidelines advocated by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) and the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN).
After the Davisite published Part I of this series, the Vanguard posted some of the tax records Keller requested to www.davisvanguard.org. On the face of it this may seem responsive to the requests and the previous article, but there is more to the story.
By David Kupfer
This festival was absolutely the first of its kind some 50 years ago, an art happening/educational event produced for and by students to advance alternative ideologies and enjoy enlightening music and speakers, all focused around a shared appreciation and worship of our Mother Earth home planet. It presaged Earth Day which occurred around the globe the following year and continues to this day. In the turbulence of the late 60s, a beautiful form of community expression manifested that lives on today. I grant you the nudity and clouds of weed smoke have disappeared due to the University’s prudish conservative character, but the spirit goes on.
By Pam Nieberg
Please contact the City Council, City Manager, City Wildlife Resource Specialist and whomever else you wish regarding the city tree pruning that is going on right now. Someone in the city contracted for the pruning of city trees now, in the middle of nesting season for virtually every bird species, including the legally protected Swainsons Hawk. Who in their right mind would do that?
When I received a notice of the pruning, I contacted the city to ask that it stop, giving the reasons stated above. Unfortunately, a number of the city trees in my neighborhood, including a number of Canary Island Pines which Swainson's hawks love, were heavily pruned despite efforts to prevent it.
Normally, this time of year, I hear the Swainson's hawks vocalizing all over the neighborhood, every day, all day. Yesterday and today after the pruning–complete silence.
By Wendy Weitzel
A 25-foot-tall obelisk created from reclaimed bicycle parts is a sparkling new addition to Davis’ public artworks.
On Tuesday, artists installed “The Davis Needle,” which rises from the center of the Third Street and University Avenue intersection. The city of Davis commissioned it in 2011 as part of the Third Street Improvement project.
“I feel like I’ve been working on it my whole life,” artist Mark Grieve joked on Tuesday morning, as he adjusted the base before a forklift hoisted the sculpture into place. Crowds gathered to watch the installation, some of them enjoying lunch or beverages at two adjacent restaurants: Third and U Café and Pho King 4.
Artists Grieve and Ilana Spector designed and built the sculpture, and Mike Hollibaugh of Holly Solar devised and installed the internal LED lighting system. At night, an animated sequence of random, fluid lights will surge through the sculpture.
By Glen Holstein
Lately Davis has been lurching from one fiasco, paid parking, to another, Mace gridlock, like a drunk staggering home from a dive bar. Kudos to the Davis Enterprise for connecting the dots that these and many other fiascos are related elements of a campaign that’s strangling vehicle traffic while increasing greenhouse gas release and reducing safety. And kudos to Ellie Fairclough for pointing out the similarity between the Mace and Paradise fiascos. As at Mace, the exit road from Paradise was reduced from four to two lanes and traffic “calmed” so much that 88 people were incinerated trying to escape the Camp Fire.
And in the paid parking fiasco parking enforcement staff were cheerleaded so much that they started behaving more like an occupying army than public servants. Recently when a downtown business owner tried going to lunch she was forcibly detained by a parking enforcer who yelled “You can’t leave – I haven’t written you a ticket yet.”
PART I: Vanguard Slams the Door on Required Public Disclosures
By Colin Walsh
On Friday, May 3rd, David Greenwald of the “The People’s Vanguard of Davis,” a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt company, refused to turn over nonprofit tax documentation. This appears to violate U.S Department of Treasury regulations and adopted Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidelines. As stated on the IRS website [my emphasis]: “tax-exempt organizations must make available for public inspection certain annual returns and applications for exemption, and must provide copies of such returns and applications to individuals who request them. Copies usually must be provided immediately in the case of in-person requests, and within 30 days in the case of written requests.” The IRS website provides more detail about the types of documentation that 501c3 nonprofits like the Vanguard are required to provide.
On Friday afternoon at about 4:10PM, Rik Keller and I visited the Vanguard office, located on the second floor of 221 G Street in downtown Davis. David Greenwald opened the door shortly after Keller knocked. At first it looked as though Greenwald would invite us in as he has previous times I have visited the Vanguard offices, but as we stepped forward Greenwald moved to block the entrance.
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Davis Pride Festival |
(From Press release) Shelly Bailes and Ellen Pontac are two of the most prominent faces of gay pride in Yolo County. Together since 1973, their fight to legally marry was chronicled in many news reports. Finally, in 2008, they earned that right in California.
That perspective is something they’d like to share on Sunday, May 19, when the Davis Pride Festival returns for its fifth year. The multi-faceted day includes a fun run and culminates with a festival of music, food and support for the LGBTQ+ community.
On June 13, 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed removing the gray wolf, Canis lupus, from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. At that time, I wrote an article and submitted an official comment, arguing that the 2013 Proposed Rule was capricious, arbitrary, and inconsistent.
Now, almost six years later, the FWS proposes to “delist” Canis lupus again. However, the logic underlying the 2019 Proposed Rule is no better than the logic underlying 2013 Proposed Rule. Comparing the two a bit, focusing on the wolves in the Pacific Northwest (western Washington and western Oregon) and California, will make that evident.
Davis United Methodist Church is offering three programs on immigration on three Sunday mornings, May 5, 12, and June 2, from 9:45 to 10:50 at the church, which is located at 1620 Anderson Road in Davis.
May 5. “Resilience on the Border: Stories of Faith, Courage and Community,” with Emily Henderson. Emily recently traveled with a delegation from Davis Community Church to Douglas, Arizona/Agua Prieto, Sonora and met a constellation of individuals and groups working to support refugees in this border community. Upon returning, the group created a reader’s theatre piece to share the stories they heard. Come read aloud (or listen) to these stories and reflections. Emily Henderson grew up in Davis, CA. For the last 10 years, Emily has served as the Artistic Director for Acme Theatre Company – a youth-led theatre organization that develops artistic excellence, youth leadership, and an ethos of social justice.
Davisite 