Month: March 2024

(Chart from Mr. Best’s presentation)

The School Board has completely ignored the massive student enrollment decline while they ask all of us to pay ever increasing taxes, indefinitely!

The only way to stop this disconnect is to vote NO now while you have the chance.

 By Michael J. Harrington, a downtown neighbor and Davis voter for 29 years:

On March 7, 2023, only months before Measure N was finalized and placed on the ballot, DJUSD Superintendent Matt Best testified to the Davis City Council that:

“There are fewer students of school age in our region. Not only being born but in the 5–19-year age group. This is information from the census.”

In my courtroom work, we lawyers call the testimony and slides in this video a “party admission.” It is considered the highest caliber of evidence because the best possible evidence comes from the other party’s mouth.

Mr. Best further states

 “ … the number of resident students has declined by more than eleven hundred over the past seventeen years. This decline has been masked primarily due to a large extent by the increasing number of nonresident students joining our district and it wasn’t until the pandemic that the number of nonresident students stopped keeping up with the decline of resident students … that is why we are seeing the overall decline in the district’s enrollment during the last couple of years.” 

This shocking set of admissions was hidden in plain sight, on the City Council web site last year.

Even the DJUSD Officials – long before they placed Measure N on the ballot – testified to the Davis City Council that the declining enrollment is a big problem, the supply of non-Davis transfer students is drying up, and without changes, the Davis school system is facing a major enrollment decline. This testimony was backed up with detailed professional slides filled with demographic data provided by a third-party demographics company, and clearly demonstrate DJUSD enrollment is declining and will drop further in coming years.

The video from the March 7, 2023, presentation to the City Council is so shocking that I decided to try and get it out even at this late hour so voters can see for themselves that the district is asking for an ever-increasing permanent tax even while the district enrollment shrinks. Voters deserve to know about this disconnect and you certainly won’t see any mention of it in the Yes on N campaign literature. The video included here is a collection of outtakes from the council meeting (the full meeting video is available on the City of Davis website).

(Slide from Mr. Best’s presentation)

Considering this plummeting enrollment data, that the Measure N tax will never expire because it lacks a sunset clause, and that the tax increases every year without end, voters will see that the only responsible course is to vote NO on Measure N.

Because it lacks a sunset clause it is all but certain that today, March 5^th is your only chance to vote NO. Future repeal will be almost impossible.

The enrollment data through 2027on this chart is taken directly from the DJUSD projections. The projections past that are based on CA department of Finance projections.

I have voted for every previous school funding measure, but Measure N’s indefinite increases when the student population is declining is outrageous, so I must vote NO.

The Board has long known about the declining enrollment and did not apply it to the Measure N tax amounts and removed the sunset clause so it would be almost impossible for the public to undue the tax in the future. Now, if voters slap their hands and vote this tax down, the Board has 15 months to fix this problem and several opportunities to bring a new measure to voters before the current tax expires in June 2025. 

Despite the fearmongering Yes on N claims, there is no emergency to approve this!

Vote NO and make them bring back a more reasonable proposal with a sunset clause so we can be sure the district properly addresses the demographic crisis in enrollment.

I’m writing this letter to voice strong support for Sheila Allen’s candidacy for Supervisor in Yolo County District 4 which comprises North, East and South Davis. I have lived in all of these three areas of Davis since I first moved here in 1975. Although with brief hiatuses to other Northern California communities I have always returned to Davis to live – and hope to remain here for the remainder of my days.

It is people like Sheila that make Davis such an incredibly supportive environment that endeavors to provide essential services to all members of the community and a special place to raise a family. Sheila’s experience on the Davis School Board and numerous other selfless endeavors in support of the Davis community is without measure. As a member of the Davis School Board, I have been impressed by how diligently she’s fought for all students to be appropriately educated and cared for by Davis public schools. And this is such an important perspective she would bring as a County Supervisor.

Whether you have a young family (like I once had) or are a senior citizen (like I am now), there is no candidate that can compare to Sheila’s knowledge, compassion, humanity, energy, humility, education, commitment and self- service. Please be sure to vote on or before March 5th — and if you live in Yolo Supervisorial District 4, please vote for Sheila Allen.

-Chuck White

Comments delivered by Tree Davis’ Executive Director to the Davis City Council regarding the re-alignment of City Commissions – January 30th,  2024

The proposal to amend the City’s Commission structure is a weighty issue, and we at Tree Davis feel that it would be a disservice to over half a century of effort from those that have served as Tree Commission Members to make this decision so quickly. To make such a decision with so little time to react for stakeholders like us and so many folks that have committed so much time is disappointing.

An extensive, healthy, and resilient urban forest is more important now than ever due to climate change stressors like excessive heat and drought. At the same time, these impacts pose new threats to the existing urban forest. Proactive planning and management is needed now to transition to the urban forest of the future, one that will be sustainable in 50 years. What would be the guiding principles of the newly formed commission that combines the Tree Commission and Natural Resources? How would the newly proposed Tree Removal Committee interact with the City, and how would people be appointed to it?

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To the Editor:

It is with great enthusiasm that I endorse Sheila Allen for Yolo County Supervisor. Sheila has a wonderful resume as she has spent more than 30 years serving Yolo County. Sheila has a BS and PhD in nursing and public health. She has not only been a public health nurse but was a founding member of First 5 of Yolo County.  Sheila was a proud and effective member of our wonderful Davis school board, and founded Yolo Healthy Aging Alliance for our older adults. She currently serves as the Deputy for Yolo District 4 Supervisor Jim Provenza so she understands this important work.

I can think of no better prepared candidate for the role of supervisor in this wonderful county. Sheila has a distinguished history as a can-do person who will create a can-do atmosphere between and among people and the agencies that serve people. Sheila is optimistic and brings experience and an up beat, "let us get everybody engaged" attitude to every role she has played. She will continue our wonderful history as a county that gets things done.  Sheila does her homework and treats people with respect. She also helps people to work together. I think those attributes are especially important as the political arena can be dominated by people more interested in appearing victorious than in getting things done.

I heartily endorse Sheila Allen for Yolo County Supervisor in District 4.

-Delaine Eastin, former California Superintendent  of Public Instruction and former Assemblywoman

The Right Experience –

Voters in east, north and south Davis, El Macero and Willowbank have a clear choice among the 3 candidates for District 4 Yolo County Supervisor.Dr. Sheila Allen—currently Deputy to D4 Supervisor Jim Provenza—is a public health nurse, a former two-term+ Davis School Board Trustee, and immediate past Executive Director of Yolo Healthy Aging, a post she held for 13 years. She’s also been Chair of the Unitrans Advisory Committee and the City of Davis Human Relations Commission.Her modest rural Wisconsin hometown values anchored her through graduate education in San Francisco and her time providing in-home nursing services to families on Chicago’s South Side. She’s been active in the Davis and greater Yolo County community for 30 years; we go “way back” to 1999—when I was then D4 Supervisor Dave Rosenberg’s Deputy and she was tapped to serve as his appointee to the inaugural Proposition 10 – First Five Yolo Commission. Our collaboration continued throughout my years as the D4 Supervisor and in the State Assembly.Yes–Sheila has been doing the work and doing it well for a long time. From the youngest to the oldest county resident, her ability to serve has been boundless. As we face serious budget shortfalls and the specter of a fraying democracy, that whiff of ageism in the call for a “new generation” of leadership belies the strength of lived experience tempered only by years in service. On March 5, Vote Sheila Allen for D4 Yolo County Supervisor.

-Helen Thompson

If this tax is passed, we will essentially never be able to repeal or amend it.

This is our only real chance to vote no. 

I strongly recommend that on March 5, all local voters Vote NO on Measure N, the new large school parcel tax that will last in perpetuity with no voter check in and compound increasing every year. Because N has no sunset clause, this will be your only chance.

This is the first time I am voting NO on any school measure, and I am doing so because it is not OK to install a large permanent tax that will never automatically come back to voters and will go up every year with inflation, especially when all indications are Davis student enrollment will decline significantly. Make the Board put a sunset on it and start to plan for declining enrollments.

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