Davisite logo
Davisite Banner. Left side the bicycle obelisk at 3rd and University. Right side the trellis at the entrance to the Arboretum.

<

>

My Apology to the Citizens, Voters and Seniors of Davis

By David J. Thompson

I feel that I must ask the citizens and voters of Davis for your forgiveness relating to what did not happen with the 150-unit senior housing project assigned to Delta Senior Housing Communities (DSHC) at the Bretton Woods project. My apology is because in 2021 DSHC without a word to the City of Davis or the public abandoned the four-year Bretton Woods project. So what was promised to the public by DSHC is not going to happen.

From 2016 through 2021 I worked tirelessly on behalf of Delta Senior Housing Communities, Inc. (DSHC) to win passage of Measure J (approval of what is now Bretton Woods). If Measure J passed then DSHC would be given five acres of land to build 150 units of low-income affordable senior housing. Although I asked the President of DSHC to help me win passage he never did and in three years he did not attend any of the many neighborhood meetings or the twice weekly booth at the Davis Farmers Market. I think the DSHC President may have attended one event but in that four-year campaign none of the other three DSCH officers/board members ever attended any event or even wrote a letter of support to the Davis Enterprise. 

During that time I began to think that DSHC was hardly functioning as the board of a non-profit tax-exempt entity.

In 2021 I received a letter from the President of DSHC that the board no longer wanted me to work on the project. With one short letter my almost 20-year service to DSHC came to an end. And that was it. After four years of gaining the support of the Davis public that they would be building 150 units of affordable senior housing DSHC vanished from public view. No apologies to the Davis public: who supported the West Davis project, who voted for it, who wrote letters in support and who testified at public meetings. No DSHC apology to possibly 100 or so Davis residents who put their names on the Bretton Woods Interest List for affordable senior housing and no effort to contact them. There are Davis seniors out there who still think they have an opportunity to move into the DSHC housing.

Lacking a response to the community from DSHC I now feel I need to apologise to the citizens of Davis.

DSHC will not be building the 150-unit affordable senior housing at Bretton Woods. You should have been told much earlier by DHSC that they had pulled out but DSHC has hidden this from the public, which I regret.

What type of a board is DSHC to abandon low-income seniors and disappear from public view without a word of apology to the citizens of Davis for four years after a citywide vote in 2018?

For the past three years, to learn about what DSHC is doing I have asked the President and Secretary of DSHC to provide me with the annual IRS Form 990 they are legally required to, but no response from DSHC.

As DSHC has chosen not to explain or apologize, I will.

The outcome was neither my intent nor my choice of outcomes so my sincere apologies to you, the citizens of Davis.

David J Thompson – My own remarks and not representative of any other entity

Posted by

davisite2

on

in

, ,
Davisite logo

Did you enjoy reading this article? Then subscribe to the Davisite for free and never miss a post again.

Comments

13 responses to “My Apology to the Citizens, Voters and Seniors of Davis”

  1. Alan C. Miller

    This isn’t an apology, it’s finger pointing blame in an apology clown suite. And how about some fucking context? I don’t know shit about any of this, so why should I/we care? Like I don’t know about any agreement of even the existence of DHSC, so it’s not like I’m heartbroken to learn about this, from one side, in an apology dressed up like a dildo. ‘I’m going to apologize because they didn’t’. Oooooo . . . I care. So much.
    All I know if Bretton Woods smelled like a rotting ham sandwich in the Davis sun since this whole ‘Davis buyers program’ thing was trotted out like a glass trojan horse. And it was like, everyone pretended it wasn’t made of glass and they couldn’t see inside!

    Reply
  2. Ron O

    I saw this on the Vanguard the other day, and don’t understand the ramifications of it.
    Does this mean that no Affordable housing will be built at Bretton Woods? (If so, I would think that this would violate the approval under Measure J.)
    I don’t believe that Measure J specifies “who” will build the Affordable housing, nor do I think that voters care about that.
    Though they might care about a decades-long delay.

    Reply
  3. Steve Kahn

    Dear David,
    We have known each other for a fairly long time, and, while we have not always agreed on growth issues, I have respected your efforts over the years.
    This “betrayal” is not your fault, and I suppose it is behind us now.
    But there is something we can all do together without hesitation: the developer of Bretton Woods has another project in the works. The last time I looked, he had posted a video of himself explaining why we need “a project for the people who lived and worked in Davis, implying the affordable housing would be front and center.”
    I sincerely believe that this developer cannot be trusted in regard to his promises of future affordable housing. His project will come up for a vote by the citizens of Davis. I suggest that we all join forces to soundly defeat this proposal and never again to vote for any City Council member who supports it. A vigorous campaign will be needed in the future. I, for one, am ready to contribute to that effort., both in regard to the developer and the City Council.
    Sincerely,
    Steve kahn

    Reply
  4. Ron O

    His project will come up for a vote by the citizens of Davis. I suggest that we all join forces to soundly defeat this proposal and never again to vote for any City Council member who supports it.
    I don’t think that’s accurate. The Davis city council approved Taormino’s “Palomino Place” proposal, under the new state laws (courtesy of folks like Scott Wiener, Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Newsom, and Bonta).
    As a result, there won’t be a Measure J vote regarding that proposal.
    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/city-taormino-settle-on-palomino-place/article_26c13e66-cb62-11ee-99d9-4f17036a3f44.html

    Reply
  5. David J Thompson

    I get calls about the interest list about the affordable units at Bretton Woods.
    Until recently, I could not comment.
    This is the apology I would have liked to have given earlier.
    David Thompson
    My own words and not representative of any other entity

    Reply
  6. Ron O

    Well one thing seems certain – there aren’t going to be any Affordable units constructed at Bretton Woods for a long, long time.
    And there’s now no apparent announcement regarding “who” would even build them.
    I haven’t seen the site, lately. But from the link below, it appears that the “for-profit” portion is underway. I recall that a bunch of people put down deposits for some of those units, but that those deposits were returned when the offered/initial price could not be honored. Is that correct?
    And did they totally abandon the “Davis-connected buyer’s program”?
    Honestly, some of these aspects seemed designed to win approval via Measure J, even if they weren’t feasible. But the fact that the Davis-connected buyer’s program was apparently appealing tells me all I need to know about how concerned some in Davis are, regarding “equity”. Especially from those who focus on equity in every other way.
    I’m not seeing prices listed below – even within the embedded link. A big secret, I guess? Even though it’s advertised as making its “debut” this summer?
    https://brettonwoodsdavis.com/

    Reply
  7. Frank

    Per page 56 of the Development Agreement the city now owns the parcel where this project was proposed. The developer had five years to complete the project. That time has passed. The city needs to take fee title of the land. I also see there is a new proposal by URC to build a four story building. This project needs to be evaluated under the California Environmental Quality Act.

    Reply
  8. Alan C. Miller

    Surely there is a single human being in Davis who is in the know who could answer the question, “What happened to the Davis Elite White Privileged Connected Special Progressive-in-Name-Only Hypocrite MF-er’s Buyer’s Program?” Someone, anyone???
    If this program fails/failed/stubbed-its-toe, then it needs to be pointed out for all future developments that anything proposed for the Measure J campaign is probably a LIE perpetuated by the City and the Developer.
    Measure J is a joke that promotes lies and bad planning.

    Reply
  9. Ron O

    Alan: The council was the body that allowed the “white privilege” program at WDAAC to be presented to voters.
    I don’t know how/why that got past the city attorney, either.

    Reply
  10. Roberta L. Millstein

    Surely there is a single human being in Davis who is in the know who could answer the question, “What happened to the Davis Elite White Privileged Connected Special Progressive-in-Name-Only Hypocrite MF-er’s Buyer’s Program?” Someone, anyone???
    ACM, it died a few years ago. Relevant DE articles:
    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/city_government/bretton-woods-developer-proposes-changes-to-davis-based-buyer-program/article_1300c325-fe6f-59fc-82c3-7907a231c3ce.html
    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/city_government/city-no-authority-over-revised-bretton-woods-rules/article_c92792cc-7958-5ef4-aedb-efacb3319735.html
    Quoting the second article:

    “The city has no authority to approve or reject a revised version of the Bretton Woods Davis-based buyers program that departs significantly from what many voters thought they were approving back in 2018, city officials said this week.
    What was marketed in 2018 as a requirement that 90 percent of all buyers in the proposed West Davis Active Adult Community have a pre-existing connection to the city of Davis has been revised to allow all prospective buyers to decline to state whether they have that connection or not.
    The revised version of what is now called the Davis-connected buyers program was brought before the Davis Planning Commission on Wednesday evening, but purely as an informational item, with commissioners told by city staff they have no authority to accept or reject the plan.
    Nor does the City Council, for that matter.”

    The “revised version,” as the articles make clear, basically gutted the thing.

    Reply
  11. Alan C. Miller

    Thanks. Yeah, it’s coming back to me now.
    “Oh, when will you ever learn?
    Oh, when will you ever learn?”
    –Pete Seger, “Where have all the flowers gone?”
    Well, when WILL y’all ever learn? Like, I knew that program was racist bullshit the minute I read about it, and how in hell did not everyone, council, staff, citizens, not see that too?
    “Where have all the dumb-shits gone?”
    Davis, apparently.
    Have y’all learned yet? The stuff they promise us, is a LIE. Don’t believe the future campaigns. Those will be lies, too.
    Overpasses, underpasses, designs, income, low-income, Davis residents, Mellow Ruse, bike paths, frog tunnels, what you are told is what will actually happens . . . ALL LIES !!!
    Are we stupid yet?
    Have you learned yet?

    Reply
  12. Ron O

    Alan: That proposal might have won regardless of the “white privilege” program.
    Of all the recent peripheral proposals, that one and Nishi probably have the fewest negative impacts.
    Old people are generally low impact (e.g., don’t drive much, don’t need services like schools, etc.). And truth be told, that’s about the only segment of the population that’s actually growing.
    It wasn’t until fairly recently that I finally ventured inside of Rancho Yolo (senior citizen mobile home park, off of Pole Line). It was much nicer than I expected (and the prices for a unit seem unexpectedly low).

    Reply
  13. david kupfer

    Alan Miller, the spelling is SEEGER!!! Lordy!
    https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/pete-seeger-on-the-power-of-songs-an-interview/
    PS: Davis is, as you’ve noticed, finito from being any sort of progressive community as it was when I lived and helped to improve it back in the 80s. Real Estate interests have full control of the City Council, and there is scant centrist nor left of center political organizing, ain’t it a shame all my progressive green friends have largely backed off from active political involvement, and sadly, the days of Davis being a notable green pro bike/solar/trees/conscious activist community are largely – (though not entirely)–OVER…Give it up and get out while you can! Or don’t, and experience the painful downfall…your choice buddy…and old friend and comrade David Thompson, thanks for your truthiness in your above statement AND longevity!

    Reply

Leave a reply to David J Thompson Cancel reply