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Please Pick the Side of Democracy

Democracy

By Colin Walsh

Please pick the side of Democracy.

Tonight, the City Council has the opportunity to set in motion their own private pick of the successor to Lucas Frerichs for the District 3 Council seat, or they can side with democracy and let voters decide.

I can certainly understand the temptation to save money and sidestep elections and appoint their selected candidate (likely Donna Neville). After all, the council all endorsed each other and almost always votes together. Even our newest council member Bapu Vaitla arrives as a consummate insider with strong relationships with the other council members. I mean really the Davis power clique has dominated the last elections and has every reason to believe their handpicked appointment would win in an election anyway. After all – the inside candidates dominate in fundraising, endorsements, and opportunities in all recent council elections.

The mechanism for picking might look like this – we would probably see the Council set in motion a process where they would pick the pickers. The council could appoint a committee to go through the process of interviewing and evaluating candidates and then pick exactly the same person the council would pick. After all, the council would surely pick the pickers that would pick the council’s pick of choice anyway – all while the voters of district 3 would be left picking their noses.

But maybe district 3 would vote differently than the power clique prefers. They certainly should have a chance to pick for themselves.

Some argue precedent, that the council has picked replacements candidates in the past, but things are different now with district elections. All of the current council members are elected by voters from specific districts and not by district 3 voters. District 3 voters deserve the chance to pick their own council person without interference from the candidates representing the other districts.

Even if the council chooses an election sometime in the future, but picks an interim council member, it amounts to the biggest endorsement they can give providing a very unfair advantage to their pick in the election. Better to leave the seat open until the voters of District 3 can vote democratically for the council member to fill the remaining term that Frerichs has left behind. Frankly if district 3 voters are upset about not being represented for a period of time, they should send their complaints to Frerichs who abandoned his council seat mid term for a better paying gig.

Let’s face it, the council has been voting in lockstep on just about every major issue for years now. A vacancy for a few months is not going to make a big difference in outcome. Especially considering the lockstep council would likely just pick another person to join them in lockstep.

Or maybe the council will pick democracy and district 3 can pick the next council person to represent them. One can hope.

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Comments

20 responses to “Please Pick the Side of Democracy”

  1. Gilbert Coville

    The whole notion that the existing council can fill the vacancy is ridiculous.
    Imagine a scenario where our congressional representative Mike Thompson’s seat became vacant. Would we want the entire House of Representatives choosing his replacement? Or, even a small committee (appointed by the current house leadership) to do it? No, of course not. We would say that the representatives from elsewhere have no business choosing our representative. Well, even though very few in our town like our district elections, the fact is that they are here and we have to live with them. The representatives from the other districts have no business choosing or influencing in any way District 3’s choice of representative.

    Reply
  2. donna Lemongello

    But, Colin, once on the council, in reality every member “represents” all of Davis, even though we have recently seen how “representative” they really are.

    Reply
  3. Colin Walsh

    I agree Gilbert. I think the replacement process is a hold over from before there were district ellections, and it was not properly reconsidered when the City switched to districts.

    Reply
  4. Alan C. Miller

    Who is “Donna Neville”. Never heard of her.
    Which is one reason not to appoint her to represent my district.
    Roberta alluded to another name, floating around in the ether somewhere.
    Sorry if all this is on social media or something. I am not and never will be, and I shouldn’t be forced to sleep with the devil (use social media) in order to find outa who may be my representative.
    Again the original sin is district elections. Remove the sin, and I’d consider the cost argument. But City saved money not suing to stop district elections, so now the electorate of District 3 must choose.

    Reply
  5. Roberta L. Millstein

    Alan, I think you missed my comment on the other post:
    Here are the people who the Davis Enterprise named as planning to run if there is a special election:
    “Donna Neville, chair of the city’s Finance and Budget Commission, and Francesca Wright, recipient of the city’s Thong Hy Huynh Memorial Award for civil rights advocacy in 2021.”
    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/city-council-to-decide-tuesday-how-to-fill-district-3-vacancy/
    I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the DE doesn’t count as social media. 🙂

    Reply
  6. Alan C. Miller

    yeah, it’s a newspaper.s
    yeah, I missed that. I wish there was a way to combine comments on the same basic subject 😐
    Francesca Wright, never heard of her neither. Oh see picture, maybe familiar?
    I guess I need to bone up on my commissioners and award recipients who live in my District 😐
    Can we at least get a debate between these people, to know what they stand for?
    Now I’m curious who SC thought RM wanted.

    Reply
  7. Roberta L. Millstein

    Can we at least get a debate between these people, to know what they stand for?
    Exactly. Now (from what I hear about how the meeting went) it sounds like we will get one, or at least have the opportunity to hold one if someone organizes.
    Now I’m curious who SC thought RM wanted.
    Me too. But only Sharla knows, and she isn’t telling.

    Reply
  8. Colin Walsh

    The council divided this issue into 2 parts. First, they unanimously moved to call for an election for the District 3 Council seat in May (the earliest possible time).
    Second the council took up the possibility of an interim appointment. Here the council fell into 2 distinct camps. Partida, Arnold and Chapman favored not appointing anyone to the seat before the election citing the limited time and the importance of a public process. Vaitla in contrast not only favored an interim appointment but stated that he already had someone in mind making no mention of public input or process. No motion was made and thus there will be no interim appointment to the seat vacated by Frerichs.

    Reply
  9. Roberta L. Millstein

    Thanks for the summary, Colin. A good outcome! Bapu Vaitla already has someone in mind, doesn’t even need to see applications? Wow.

    Reply
  10. Alan C. Miller

    SUBJECT: “A Chain of Events on Tuesday Leads from Supervisor Frerichs to Mayor Arnold to a May 29 Special Election in Davis” (Some blog today)
    Don Shor January 4, 2023 at 8:49 am
    Council vowed not to shelve anything in the interluding time.
    So if there is an item related to downtown businesses, Councilmember Chapman will have to recuse and three councilmembers will be deciding it, with no representation for that very district.
    If anything related to the nearby neighborhoods comes up, District 3 will not be represented.
    If they aren’t going to appoint an interim councilmember they should absolutely defer anything related to District 3.
    I think the Council did the right thing, due to the short timeline. It’ll be May before we know it.
    The bottom line isn’t what is best for District 3 — all of that is bullsh*t. The bottom line is everything is out-of-whack because DISTRICTS EXIST. They are the problem, and they must be destroyed. Davis is not a town that is naturally divided into districts, and we must eliminate the scourge on our town.

    Reply
  11. Alan C. Miller

    “Vaitla in contrast not only favored an interim appointment but stated that he already had someone in mind making no mention of public input or process.”
    He did? I remember him calling for an appointment, but didn’t catch that he had someone in mind. Isn’t the point the process, not the persons ? Bringing up having someone in mind during a discussion on process implies the process is being driven by the agenda of appointing a particular person. I’ll have to go back to the tape when it’s posted and confirm-or-not this.

    Reply
  12. Alan C. Miller

    “Me too. But only Sharla knows, and she isn’t telling.”
    Strange, I asked someone else to explain what in particular they found ‘very prejudiced’ in an Al’s Corner column and whether they were referring to comments by me or another person and asked for a dialogue. They aren’t telling either.
    Do people think their comments are so clear and obvious that everyone understands what they are talking about?
    Clue: WRONG!

    Reply
  13. Colin Walsh

    Yes, Vaitla stated that he had someone in mind for the interim appointment and that he believed all of the other council members did as well. he also stated that it should be someone who had previously served, or was a commissioner so there was no learning curve.
    That sent me into the mental game of who was on council that still lives in District 3 that he might have in mind?
    I came up with: Mike Corbet, Ruth Asmundson, Maynard Skinner, Michael Harrington, and Sue Greenwald. If Skinner had been picked then he would be the first Council member to serve in 4 seperate decades!

    Reply
  14. Alan C. Miller

    I’m guessing commissioner

    Reply
  15. Alan C. Miller

    Wouldn’t they also have to be in the room, so they could accept?
    And one of the people who are going to run was a commissioner, so maybe her?

    Reply
  16. Colin Walsh

    Well, I doubt it was Mike Corbet who worked tirelessly for about 4 months last year to ellect one of Vaitla’s oponents.

    Reply
  17. Roberta L. Millstein

    Alan M, I just watched the video, and Bapu Vaitla definitely said that he had a person (or people — a little unclear on that point) in mind, and that he suspected that other councilmembers did too. At around 1:23 in the video.
    https://davis.granicus.com/player/clip/1509?view_id=6&redirect=true&h=4aff049d62ab24cf9f99ed14a8c4950e

    Reply
  18. Roberta L. Millstein

    To be fair, he did mention applications, but said that he preferred a quick application process. Then Gloria Partida pointed out that a person just wouldn’t have much time on the council after the appointment process.

    Reply
  19. Marc thomas

    Some needs to be elected who will:
    -Eliminate lifetime benefits for council members
    -Cycle elections so every council member can be removed at one election
    -Prevent special interests from campaigning for candidates-400k fireman going door to door
    -mayor elected by the people
    …just for starters!

    Reply
  20. Alan C. Miller

    MT-I think some of those are illegal/unconstitutional.
    RM-thanks on clarifying BV comments;
    I don’t believe that because someone lives in the district that the represent the district; elections are the lay of the land and if not elected they could represent what the majority do not believe;

    Reply

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