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Author: davisite2

  • Will City & County Prioritize Yet More money for I-80?

    Missing funds may continue to compromise transit

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    Map of what’s planned: : Phase I of Yolo80 widening will only be west of the 50/80 split in West Sacramento- We are missing $265 Mil

    By Alan Hirsch 

    This is a report on the untalked about short falls in funding on I-80Yolo projects (plural), changes to the freeway from Dixon across the Sacramento River bridges for both US 50 and I-80. We are told the freeway here is in crisis (Like the climate crisis?)

    Other have noted the short thinking of funding highway widening continue to “crowd out” funding of substantial transit improvements and that keeps us from addressing climate change and providing travel choices to driving.

    For example, on I80 Yolo the total bill is a jaw dropping $745 million- 40 times the Yolobus budget.

    Caltrans and freeway proponent all through the decision-making process on I80 have not make clear its full cost and long term impacts. They have instead  levered an initial $86 Million federal grant – which we are told we dare not give back – to lock us into spending hundreds of million more. A sum that effectively  crowd out investment in transit.

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  • New Commissions are Opportunity for more public participation and Innovation

    By Alan Hirsch, Davis Lorax

    The controversial city council plan for commission consolidation and refocus is going into effect this summer. This is a rare opportunity for reform I hope is not missed. 

    Let us begin by restating the overarching goals council set forward in this reform: 

    Davis Council Resolution 24-079 May 2024

    Guiding Principle for New Commission Structure

    . City Commissions should act at all times with the understanding that guiding principles are at the core of their work.

    1. Promote and embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion
    2. Prioritize environmental and social justice
    3. Make space for community engagement
    4. Balance environmental and fiscal sustainability
    5. Strive for innovation and human progress

    The first meeting of the new Climate and Environmental Justice Commission on 7/22 Monday is precedent setting as it can begin to put implementation meat on the bone of these principles by:

    1. Better Prioritize Environmental  Justice than in the past  (principal B)
    2. Change meeting practices to allow more public participation. (principle A & C)  
    3. Speed surfacing of new ideas and follow through on their implementation.  (principle E

    As a first step in embracing council principles for this reorganization,  I suggest the  commission’s pass a resolution to  establish these ground rules for operation

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  • Farmer’s Kitchen Cafe Energy Prices Force it Out of D Street Location

    Farmers-kitchen-cafeby Scott Steward

    My brother came over from the Bay Area, where they have a lot of great dessert shops, and we sat down on my mom's west Davis back patio for a picnic lunch.

    I had stopped at previously at the Farmer’s Kitchen Cafe and picked up a beautiful (gluten-free) crust strawberry and raspberry pie, which we had with a small amount of ice cream, following our humus and vegetable platter with potato and green salads.

    But the pie! "Best pie I've had," my brother exclaimed, and his wife agreed and the seven of us present were able to eat half of the large 12" diameter desert. 

    This is the kind of consistently tasty and inspired eating you get from the Farmer's Family Cafe. Roseanne and her family have served sit-down no hurry service, and have provided a subscription menu, for years from the D Street location, but no more as of this July.

    In the last eight months, Roseanne has had to pay PG&E $36,000 in energy bills. Energy bills have always been high for the businesses renting in the conspicuously inefficient 11,400 sq ft D Street building (est. built in the 60s), but the last 8 months are different. $36,000, and Roseanne—who is not one to want to move—is moving to a new location to be announced once all is settled.

    Two systemic problems forced Roseanne's hand, and she is just one of the majority of businesses that have seen profits reduced by high utility bills. Not since Enron in 2000 have utilities increased so much in such a short period of time. The owners of these old buildings keep on collecting rent checks and do nothing about what it costs tenant businesses to keep buildings cool and food hot.

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  • Ten Ways to Get the Yolo CAAP Back on Track

    By Juliette Beck, Yolo climate justice advocate

    Yolo County recently reduced their draft Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) – potentially the most important document to guide Yolo County residents, businesses, farmers and decision-makers in our collective response to climate breakdown. 

    As a member of the Yolo Climate Emergency Coalition that set this planning process in motion, I commend the hard work and thoughtfulness of hundreds of people that contributed their energy, time, thoughts, ideas and hopes. Our goal was – and still  is – to mobilize a Just Transition to an ecological, equitable, resilient county. 

    The draft plan offers a number of important and valuable actions, but the county’s consultants – Dudek – fail to chart the just transition strategies needed to avert catastrophic climate change and the accelerating impacts.

    Add your response to the draft CAAP by July 10 through the comment portal at yolocaap.org. Here are some recommended changes:

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  • SF Mime Troupe’s AMERICAN DREAMS – A New Musical – comes to Davis

    Poster for e mailiing American Dreams SFMT summer 2024 1(From press release) The Tony Award-Winning San Francisco Mime Troupe Opens their 65th Season with: AMERICAN DREAMS – A New Musical – Was Democracy Just a Dream? July 4 – Sept. 8, 2024. They will be appearing for one show on Thurs. July 25, 2024 at  7:00 pm (Music starts at 6:30pm) at the Davis High School, Richard Brunelle Performance Hall (Indoor show) – 315 W 14th St., Davis. Ticket are FREE – but RSVP for tickets required / RSVP: sfmt.org/rsvp-davis

    ($20 suggested donation)


    The San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT) are pleased to announce the full cast and creative team for their new show for Summer 2024 – AMERICAN DREAMS – A New Musical. – Was Democracy Just a Dream? – written by Michael Gene Sullivan, Music and Lyrics by Daniel Savio, Directed by Velina Brown, Music Director – Dred Scott.

    SFMT American Dreams Summer 2024 group shot 1AMERICAN DREAMS – A New Musical features a four-person cast that includes veteran SF Mime Troupe collective members: Andre Amarotico (Oliver, Harold); Michael Gene Sullivan (Gabriel Pearse, Chancellor Quisling); and features Lizzie Calogero (Meliae Higgins, Emma); Mikki Johnson (Paine Pearse).

    SFMT Band: Caroline Chung (Bass); Daniel Savio (Keyboards); and Dred Scott (Drums, Percussion, additional keyboards).

    The American Dream. It used to mean a job, a house, a car, a spouse, 2.5 kids, and a .4 dog. But what does it mean now? For Gabriel Pearce, a Black man tired of liberal failures, on the day after the presidential election it means victory! Giving up on progressivism wasn’t easy, but casting his vote for a Conservative who promises to be grateful could mean a dream come true. However, for his daughter Paine – a teacher at a university caught between protesting students and threats to funding – it’s a nightmare! Or was the lost election just a dream? Or will A.I. catch fire, like Paine’s boyfriend Oliver sees in his nightmares? Do androids dream of electronic voting? Can we create the utopia of justice activist student Emma hopes for, or is the present just a dream within a dream within a dream? But whether you’re asleep or Woke what some see as nightmares others see as… American Dreams.

  • Letter: No Confidence in the Council

    By Elaine Roberts Musser

    I was appalled with City Council’s response to the apprehension many expressed at the City Council meeting on June 4 about the proposed midterm city budget and 1% sales tax increase. Concerned citizens were gaslighted, accused of seeking revenge for the commission mergers and engaging in hyperbole. (Gaslighting in this context is manipulating citizens into questioning their own perception of reality to avoid accountability for questionable behavior.)

    The fact of the matter is we only pointed out things the Finance & Budget Commission would’ve zeroed in on, were it still in existence (but hasn’t been for almost a year). But as we know, the current City Council (minus Councilmember Neville) voted to eliminate this commission in favor of a more generic Fiscal Commission that has not yet met, now manned with new commissioners who are mostly commission inexperienced.

    Here are the problems we highlighted:

    • No city audit in three years;
    • A general fund reserve of 7.5%, half the 15% it should be;
    • One time gimmicks/delays: suspension of paying down $42 million in unfunded liability of employee healthcare benefits; reduction of $1.5 million originally intended for pavement management;
    • A 1% sales tax increase, to offset general fund reserves and to pay for additional services/programs. What new services/programs is purposely vague.

    In other words, the City Council wants us to approve a 1% sales tax increase, in essence a blank check with virtually no accountability, insisting we trust them to make responsible decisions. Their conduct has hardly inspired confidence!

  • Sierra Club Hosts Summer Potluck and Wetlands Talk

    Image 573(From press release) Join the Sierra Club and YoloSol Collective on Wednesday, June 26 for a summer potluck and panel presentation on “Restoring Cache Creek Wetlands.”

    For this free, public event, we are pleased to welcome Native Californian cultural practitioner Diana Almendariz, Cache Creek conservationist Jim Barrett, and UC Davis entomologist Geoffrey Attardo in a discussion of how the lower Cache Creek’s watershed ecosystem functioned in the past before agriculture and mining changed its current condition. Panelists will share their ideas for a restorative, climate-resilient future for the creek and its plant and animal wildlife.

    Almendariz is a naturalist, educator and practitioner of Maidu/Wintun, Hupa/Yurok culture, heritage and experiences. Following the teachings of renowned Wintun basket weaver and culture bearer Bertha Mitchell (1936-2018), Almendariz has been working for more than twenty years to bring to life a Tending and Gathering Garden in a reclaimed mining pit at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve.  She is a frequent lecturer at UC Davis, Sacramento State, museums and nature centers. She leads workshops on cultural burning on place-based traditional ecological knowledge.

    Jim Barrett, a retired physician, conservationist and proud grandfather, has lived alongside lower Cache Creek near the home of Yolo County settler pioneer William Gordon for 24 years. As a board member of Cache Creek Conservancy and the Sierra Club Yolano Group, he envisions a role for reclaimed gravel mines in the restoration of lower Cache Creek.

    Geoff Attardo, Associate Professor of Entomology at UC Davis, is passionate about mosquitos, marshes, and teaching science.  He specializes in the study of arthropod disease vector biology and the role of bio-diverse ecosystems in public and environmental health. Geoff is currently partnering with Almendariz on a project to demonstrate the benefits of traditional tule and cattail wetlands management.

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  • Police Surveillance and Military Equipment Acquisition Policies t

    MRAP 2014-08-29 at 9.42.39

    MRAP 2014-08-29 at 9.42.39 AM

    To be Discussed and Possibly Decided at Tuesday, June 4th Davis Council Meeting

    By Scott Steward

    Right when Davis is in full graduation mode – the City is to consider items that have everything to do with how free you are to express your views without being recorded and traced, with or without your knowledge.  Is this servail increasing our safety or providing more tools that have to be maintained and that have to find an excuse to exist?

    Military equipment in a civil city?  Where Davis has been resistant, other communities are less so, and the armaments that our police department does not have, it can leave them wondering if they have to borrow the highest gauge shielding and firearms.  Or is that true?  Is keeping the peace more about relationships and not over-arming to defend against community breakdowns that erupt in bizarre and tragic ways?  Ways that no shielding can defend.  A teenager hidden in a house, a gun owner deciding he does not like a police officer, a gun owner whose roommate does not suspect he has lost it. Or a knife held by a young man whose mind and body go feral?

    Disarming those whose weapons are for organized crime and premeditated harm, this is part of peacekeeping, and how that can happen safely for the police officers is to be heard and understood.  What are the tradeoffs? What is necessary, and what is contributing to escalation?

    Item 5 (7:15) – agenda is here: https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2024/2024-06-04/City-Council-Agenda-06-04-24.pdf

  • Service for Delaine Eastin

    Greetings friends and colleagues,

    Join us in downtown Sacramento for a tribute to the life and legacy of Delaine Eastin. Through reflection, remembrances, music, and community, we will honor her contributions to California and generations to come. A reception will follow the formal program.

    The fifth woman in California history to be elected to statewide constitutional office, Delaine remains the only woman to serve as Superintendent of Public Instruction empowering six million K-12 students in more than 10,000 schools. Delaine's legacy lives on in each of us through her mentorship and friendship, and her courageous leadership in local, state, national, and international realms, which still sets the foundation for public policy in our state.

    To RSVP and receive full details, please visit the link below.

    https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebration-of-life-for-the-honorable-delaine-eastin-tickets-915820442597?aff=odeieiemailshare&utm-campaign=social%2Cemail&utm-content=attendeeshare

    Sincerely,

    Family and Friends of Delaine Eastin

  • 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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