Senior Citizens Commission Bites the Dust

By Elaine Roberts Musser 

In checking over the Senior Citizens Commission agenda, it was incredibly sad to see that it is “concluding its work”. In other words, it’s disbanding. What is particularly disheartening, is knowing that my successful fight, many years ago, to save this commission (when the City Council was attempting to eliminate commissions at the time), was ultimately unsuccessful so many years later.  Does anyone honestly think that senior citizen issues will be addressed, when their concerns are split between three different commissions not designed to handle senior issues? The upshot will be that seniors will no longer have a meaningful voice in Davis.  

Because of Councilmembers Vaitla and Chapman and their plan to defang commissions, they have single-handedly destroyed the Senior Citizens Commission, the Tree Commission, and the Utilities Commission. Along with that, they have eviscerated the power of the other commissions – by insisting that no new items be placed on commission agendas without City Council permission.  And the rest of the City Council, to their shame, have gone along with this nefarious plot. That controversial commission agenda policy was to be reviewed after a year, but no such assessment ever took place.In other words, we were lied to. 

It has become patently clear the current City Council is hostile to public input. They are not interested in independent review or advice from commissions composed of ordinary citizens. We have entered a more authoritarian form of city government, much like what is going on at the federal level, a revolting development.

Elaine Roberts Musser is Former Chair, Senior Citizens Commission and Former Chair, Utilities Commission