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

Month: May 2024

  • Sierra Club and Environmental Council of Sacramento Sue Caltrans over Environmental Deficiencies of Yolo I-80 Freeway Widening Project

    I-80 Widening Logo
    (From press release) On May 29, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) filed a lawsuit against Caltrans alleging legally inadequate environmental analysis of the I-80 freeway widening project through Yolo County.

    The lawsuit’s goal is to stop Caltrans from widening 17 miles of the I-80 freeway from six to eight lanes between Davis and Sacramento through the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area until Caltrans conducts a valid analysis of adverse environmental impacts threatened by the project and implements appropriate mitigation for these harmful effects.

    Caltrans’ Environmental Impact Report (EIR) grossly underestimates increased vehicular travel, which would emit far larger quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) and air pollutants than claimed. The EIR fails to consider viable alternatives, such as increased public transit or alternate tolling strategies. Therefore, the project neither adequately manages demand nor produces adequate revenue to fund needed transit alternatives. Also, Caltrans’ proposed mitigation is woefully inadequate to offset the resulting increased GHG and air pollutant emissions.

    Caltrans violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to acknowledge that freeway widenings do not produce less congestion but, in fact, result in increased traffic — leading to worse congestion and pollution – due to “Induced Demand”.

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  • Get a Front Row Seat to the Green Revolution Taking Place in Yolo County

    Tuesday 5/28 – This Yolo County Climate Action Commission Meeting is a must-see – 4:00 to 6:30 pm

    BigShift

    By Scott Steward

    Big plans. The Commission (and UCD) turn plans into implementation. Big dollars are going to be spent (UCD plans on spending $58M a year for the next 17 years), and if you are an EV enthusiast, a water protector, a Green House Gas Reduction professional, activist or a professional activist – at least get the meeting agenda notes to read if you can’t attend – 4:00-6:30 on Tuesday, May 28th.

    As many of our regular Council meeting attendees know, these are necessarily procedural meetings. This is just a courtesy to new attendees: the meeting has Zoom access, and brief constructive comments are encouraged.

    Item 5a: Request for Proposal for the County’s conversion to a ZEV fleet – Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Action Plan RFP Release

    Item 6. Kristin Sicke,  Executive Officer of Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency, will deliver a report on the Agency’s status and progress toward rational regulation of water in the area.   You might recall the Davisite.org OPED about our county’s water situation.  We are now at a point where well permits are allowed, and for the interim, the Groundwater Agency has not finished its methodology for sustaining water levels in the area.  

    The big worry is that in the “study area” (Capay Valley and North and other areas), farmers and residents are experiencing sustained drops in water levels and have given much of their time to tell the County about it.  Drops associated with existing wells, even after these last 3 average/wet years.

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  • Tenth Davis Pride kicks off on June 1

    DragCrowd 1

    A drag queen interacts with a young festivalgoer at the 2023 Davis Pride Festival. (Wendy Weitzel/Courtesy photo)

    By Wendy Weitzel

    The rainbow crosswalks are being painted Sunday in downtown Davis, signaling the path to a month full of Davis Pride celebrations ahead in June.

    This is the 10th year of Davis Pride activities, organized by the nonprofit Davis Phoenix Coalition. For 2024, highlights include the Davis Pride Community Fair and Music Festival, an after party, a fun run, skate night, comedy night, and plenty of drag.

    This year’s theme is “Davis Pride – Because Yolo County is for Everyone!” It follows the Davis Phoenix Coalition’s recent lawn sign messages “Davis is for Everyone” and “Yolo County is for Everyone,” to counter the far-right actions experienced in the community.

    The 10th annual Davis Pride Community Fair and Music Festival has a new location this year: Civic Center Park, at Sixth and B streets. The community-focused, family-friendly event includes a music festival, resources, vendors, food, drinks and more – from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 1.

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  • CTC joins Davis in rejecting science & climate realities and funds Yolo 80

    CTC's $105M highway widening grant shows it has lost the plot when it comes to following Governor Newsom’s and the Legislature’s stated climate directives.

    By Carter Rueben (NRDC) and Alan Hirsch

    On May 16 the California Transportation Commission (CTC) approved $105 million from the State’s Trade Corridor Enhancement Program (TCEP) to widen a stretch of Interstate 80 from Davis to Sacramento. In the room and on the Zoom feed, dozens of Davis and Sacramento-area and statewide advocates called in to ask CTC to reject the funding and push Caltrans to provide real congestion relief and reduced environmental impacts.

    NRDC identified TCEP in a 2023 report, "Closing the Climate Investment Gap," as the state program that most heavily invests in highway widening in contravention of our state’s climate goals.

     A study commissioned by the California State Transportation Agency came to a similar conclusion. 

    By NRDC’s latest estimate, CTC has granted over $2 billion total to more than 50 highway expansion projects since the TCEP program was created in 2018, even though the program is able to fund projects that are wins for both goods movement and the environment, like truck and train electrification projects and rail grade separation projects.

    We're at a pivotal time when the state’s climate laws require the state to dramatically scale up rail lines, bus routes, and active transportation corridors, while investing in electrification efforts that zero-out tailpipe pollution. Yet, the TCEP highway widening projects are doing just the opposite – collectively adding hundreds of millions of additional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) across the state per year. This is a trend we can and must reverse, as our friends at NextGen Policy detailed in their report, California at a Crossroads.

    The Yolo 80 project is indicative of the systemic issues at Caltrans and CTC and retro-thinking by Yolo County and city elected officials that reject their own climate action plans drawn up by 5 local citizen climate to enable Caltrans.

    What makes the Yolo 80 highway widening particularly striking?

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  • Past honored in 10th year of Davis Pride

    FourLeap2023

    Gloria Partida, left, Jessica Uzarski, Yolo County Supervisor Lucas Frerichs and Mily Ron jump for joy after volunteers complete the rainbow crosswalk painting in downtown Davis on May 30, 2023. This year’s painting will be from 6 to 9 a.m. on Sunday, May 26 around Central Park in Davis. (Courtesy photo)

    By Wendy Weitzel

    As the Davis Phoenix Coalition marks its 10th year of Davis Pride activities next month, its members also want to honor those who painted that rainbow road.

    Pride celebrations in Davis go much deeper than a decade. Every June from 1996 to 2006, local LGBTQ+ activists Shelly Bailes and Ellen Pontac coordinated the Yolo County Lesbian and Gay Picnic Day. After it took a hiatus, the event was revived in 2015 by the nonprofit Davis Phoenix Coalition, which rebranded it as Davis Pride. Rising from its origins as a single-day event with 500 participants in the 1990s, it has become a monthlong June celebration, drawing close to 10,000 people. These participants come from all segments of the local population, happy to gather in support of LGBTQ+ rights.

    This year, highlights include the Davis Pride Community Fair and Music Festival, an after party, a fun run, skate night, comedy night, and plenty of drag.

    Gloria Partida founded the Davis Phoenix Coalition in 2013 after her son, Lawrence “Mikey” Partida was brutally beaten in an anti-gay attack. She and other organizers started Davis Pride with the idea of a fun run, and added a family-friendly festival for the whole community.

    Despite successes like the federal legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, they knew Davis Pride would be controversial. She saw what Bailes and Pontac went through. “They had a lot of pushback when they were doing the work,” Partida said.

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  • Open Discussion: Library vs. Mom’s for Liberty: Library Loses — Free Speech Wins (of course)

    LibraryTransferring a few comments from Al's Corner, to open the discussion:

    Beth Bourne and M4L have been vindicated.

    The library has to change its policies and pay $70,000 in damages and fees.

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  • Davis Downtown names Brett Lee as executive director

    Lee_DDBA

    Brett Lee (Courtesy photo)

    (From press release) Former Davis Mayor Brett Lee has been named executive director of the Davis Downtown Business Association, effective June 3.

    Lee replaces Brett Maresca, who stepped down from the role on Jan. 26 to pursue other opportunities. Former Davis City Manager Dirk Brazil has been interim executive director since Feb. 12.

    Lee served on the Davis City Council from 2012 to 2020 – the last two of those years as mayor. He’s a third-generation Davis resident and is raising his 15-year-old son here. Lee has degrees from UC Berkeley and the London School of Economics. For the past nine years, he has worked as a process improvement engineer for Farm Fresh to You, a subscription-based organic produce delivery service of Capay Organic farm.

    Kevin Wan, president of the Davis Downtown board of directors, is thrilled to welcome Lee. “His existing relationships with city staff and his experience with the politics of Davis make him the perfect fit to lead Davis Downtown and champion our mission. Since his days on City Council, he has always been an advocate of our downtown, especially for clean and safe streets, which – year after year – is a top concern with our membership. His skill set will be a tremendous asset to help us navigate an evolving economic landscape.”

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  • CITY COMMISSIONS IN CHAOS! SPEAK UP ON MAY 21, 2024

    Commissionsby Elaine Roberts Musser,

    It appears that our long established city commission system is in chaos!  

    Look at what happened in the month of May – many cancelled commission meetings.

    Because of Councilmembers Vaitla and Chapman refusing to appoint applicants to commission vacancies, the Finance and Budget Commission (FBC) has appeared not to be  able to meet for nine months and counting. Nor is the Senior Citizens Commission (SCC) meeting anymore, for lack of a quorum. Many commissions have not been able to meet on a regular basis because of quorum problems.  

     

    To add insult to injury:

      • In a staff report written by Councilmember Vaitla and Chapman, they prematurely and presumptuously claimed to be recruiting applicants for “newly merged commissions”, even though the City Council hasn’t weighed in on merging any commissions.
      • Councilmember Vaitla has said publicly that commissions are dysfunctional, don’t give the City Council information it wants, and commissioners are somehow “privileged”.

     

    159 commissioners, former City Council members and concerned citizens signed a petition to stop the mergers. Councilmember Vaitla did make the rounds of the commissions to be merged, and many commissioners voiced their concerns.

      • Commissioners are not well versed in two disparate subject matter areas.
      • There will have to be more meetings/longer meetings to cover all the material required.
      • Critical issues will get less attention because of time constraints.
      • Recruiting qualified commissioners will become more difficult since they will be expected to be well-versed in two subject matter areas.  Commissioners are apt to quit from burnout and frustration at the heavy workload. 
      • The proposed scopes of the merged commissions are vague and unclear to the point of being almost meaningless.
      • Once commissions are merged, it is highly unlikely the former commissions can be resurrected, if things go wrong (which is likely – 2 commissions are already defunct).
      • Fiscal oversight of the city budget will be minimal, endangering any city tax measure. 

     

    This issue is to be heard on Tuesday, May 21, 2024 @ 6:30pm.  SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE MERGERS AT THE MAY 21 CITY COUNCIL MEETING. Express your discontent. Either: 

      • Preferably come in person to the City Council meeting on May 21; or
      • Record a message ((530) 757-5693); and/or
      • Write a letter to City Councilmembers (citycouncilmembers@cityofdavis.org). 

     

    See petition and updates at the following link: 

    https://www.change.org/p/reverse-city-council-decision-to-move-forward-with-merging-commissions-1e9f0d8d-0697-4f45-85ad-6a7720e2b8b3/u/32599079   

  • Transparency is Part of Inclusivity & Diversity

    YoloTD cac false equity 1

    What message will the CTC send Thursday?

    By Alan Hirsch

    Letter to California Transportation Commission CTC@catc.ca.gov

    Chair Carl Guardino and Members,

    CC  CTC Equity Committee  Chair William Walker

    Re: Disagreeing Better on Transportation Projects

     

    Mr. Guardino:

     

    Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say:

        “You are entitled to your own opinions. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

    The California Public Records Act (and the Brown Act) were designed so we work from the same facts—that there is sharing of information – so in dialog agencies don’t strategically withhold information to put electeds official as well as the public at an unfair disadvantage in reviewing projects.

    Transparency is Inclusivity.

    However, I want to bring to your attention a situation where Caltrans seems to be strategically withholding information from the public on a $1/2 billion project.

    In June 2023 the CTC staff report recommended NOT to fund Yolo80 toll lanes out of TCEP funds, rating it medium priority. In that staff report CTC staff rated Yolo80 31st out of 48 projects.   Caltrans rated Yolo80 last in priority (24th) out of 24 of their projects. (extract from June 2023 staff report attached)

    This of course raises question why it is now rated a priority for advance funding. In the CTC discussion on 5/16. Would not you and other commissions like to know? 

    In fact 11 months ago, I tried to find out.

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  • Yolo officials like Diversity & Inclusion– except when big money is Involved

    YoloTD cac false equity
    By Alan Hirsch

    DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is given lot of lip service in progressive circles in Yolo County. But it can turn performative – especial if those in power have already made up their mind on a solution and don’t want to be contradicted- i.e. surface and take in to account diverse opinions.

    That is what has been at play for Yolo County on Yolo80 widening with local electeds having made up their mind 3 years ago to add toll lanes to a 17 mile stretch of I-80.  After that they have worked to turn the legally required public process into a  check the box exercise, excluding diverse view point from being considered– even when the diverse  viewpoints are backed by top transportation experts from UC Davis.

    We are now at the end-stage where Davis Mayor/Yolo Transportation District Chair Josh Chapman is overtly discouraging public participation: he said openly it don’t matter what members of Davis public think — hiding the fact the project is not yet fully funded and public input to the California Transportation Commission (CTC) can still make a difference.

    This DEI hypocrisy in Yolo County will continue unless people call out the hypocrisy. The  public can be heard at the CTC’s Equity Committee meeting Wednesday. It is especially focused on this behavior like this by  in local transportation jurisdictions.

    Emails are needed to the “CTC-EAC” (California Transportation Commission- Equity Advisory Committee) to note the performative nature of Yolo80 Environmental process (Caltrans District 3 and YoloTD) – and also to oppose funding the new toll lanes  until the process is made truly diverse and inclusive in the search for a solution.

    Write to  CTC@catc.ca.gov   Subject: Equity and: Funding widening Yolo80 with Toll Lanes.

    Issues to note to the Equity Committee: (cut and paste into email?)

     

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