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

Author: davisite2

  • Ill-advised Sutter Should Join Community in Exploring Alternative Locations for Solar Panels

    Alternate solar locationsBy Alan Hirsch

    The Davis Enterprise and Vanguard have now run five articles on Sutter Hospital’s Tree-to-Solar-Panel proposal to cut its most mature trees and install solar panels in the main parking lots. As noted by these articles, Sutter's proposal has quietly advanced below the radar for the most part.  Phase I was official approved by city staff administratively in 2019 without any public notice, and Phase II was approved without review of Davis Tree Commission or input from Tree Davis. In fact, city staff seem so cavalier about the process it issued a cutting permit for Phase II four month before the solar panels were approved.

    Environmentalists do not object to the cutting of any trees per se. We simply request a public hearing and discussion to gather input and ideas from our community, which includes not just arborists but solar panel designers and patients, doctors, and nurses who might view the tradeoffs of trees vs solar panel differently than the engineers who proposed the solar design.

    And as the accompanying diagram shows, there are choices. Use of the thirty acres Sutter owns north of the hospital has never been discussed. 

    What is confusing is over 90% of proposed tree cutting is unrelated to the expansion of the hospital building; they are related only to replacing tree with solar panels in the parking lot. “Sutter Phase I” from 2019 artificially conjoined two projects: the hospital building expansion (in largely treeless area) and a parking tree-to-solar project. 

    Then the new “Phase II” had no hospital constructions, only trees-to-solar.  Phase II is what is under appeal. 

    Yet the media and commentary miss this complexity.   The writing about Sutter’s tree to PV proposal, including several letters to the editor and a Channel 13 TV news report, have jumped to the simplistic conclusion this is a binary either/or proposition: trees or solar.  Some letters in the Enterprise have labeled those who want trees even considered “false environmentalists.”  Other misinformed individuals have jumped to the conclusion that the quest to save a few trees will halt the entire physical hospital expansion plans.

    Nothing could be further from the truth.

    Now is the time for the City Council to pause the tree cutting a few weeks to allow a Tree Commission meeting, at a minimum, to discuss the alternatives.  City staff could even put the item on the Tree Commission agenda for August 19th before the Council hearing.  Tree Commission Chair Colin Walsh has expressed a willingness to juggle their busy schedule to speed things along.  This would allow Sutter to move forward in a responsible and sustainable manner.

    We believe Sutter medical staff and leadership have been badly advised by its contract engineers, architects, and city staff.  We hope the medical facility and other leaders to join the Davis community in making a request to the City Council to inquire if we can have both solar panels and trees.

  • Late 1860s brick building in Davisville

    Building on 4th and G

    Photo of Building on 4th and G

    From the Hattie Weber Museum
    Submitted by museum volunteer, Aaron Wedra

    Digging through historic records, our museum staff came across a great photo of a brick building built around 1868 in what is now downtown Davis.

    The building was located at the corner of Fourth and G Streets, formerly Third and Olive (see map of Davisville below).

    Map of Davisville

    Original town plat of Davisville, 1868 (redrawn in 1968)

    The building served as the post office, bank, store and general meeting place for community members.

    It has been said that it was once owned by William Dresbach, Davisville's first postmaster in 1868. The building is said to have lost its usefulness over time, until it stood vacant and was razed from the ground, condemned as unsafe in 1926.

    Thanks to John O. and Lillian Rowe for donating a copy of this historic photo to the Davis Historical and Landmarks commission in 1973.

    Information for this post was collected from Phyllis Haig’s Portraits of the Past Collection, which contains clippings of articles written by Joann Leach Larkey and published in the Davis Enterprise from 1969-1973 as a supplement to the book Davisville ’68: the History and Heritage of the City of Davis, Yolo County, California (1968).

    Come visit the Hattie Weber Museum, open every Saturday from 10am to 4pm, located at the corner of Central Park at 445 C Street in downtown Davis.

  • Local Non-profit fundraiser outreach for community pet spay/neuter mobile unit

    6E05DA95-B6CF-4045-8F52-49B30F4AE8B8By Eileen Samitz

    Yolo County Spay and Neuter Group (YCSNG) is asking for donations to help make a dream come true.  A dream that will help the entire community!

    Yolo County Spay and Neuter Group is a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit animal welfare organization and is solely donation based and volunteer run. 100% of all funds raised go to animal care and welfare and offers a variety of services including trap-neuter-return for community cats ensuring health and welfare, low cost spay/neuter for both feral and rescue cats and dogs, and adoptions for animals that otherwise would remain abandoned or be euthanized. In 2020 YCSNG adopted out over 200 animals to loving, forever homes!

    From its inception, a primary goal of the organization has been to own and operate its own low-cost mobile spay/neuter clinic.

    It is exciting that this dream can now become reality with the help of community members! The organization is asking the public to help by donating monetary contributions (see how below).  The group’s leadership has identified a fully functional, well stocked, mobile veterinary vehicle that is for sale for $180,000. This fundraiser is time-sensitive because the agreement to secure the funding was limited to 90 days and there are 75 days remaining and complete the purchase, so donations are needed as soon as possible.

    The clinic would be open at least three days a week, and it would be used to spay or neuter up to 30 animals a day. “This type of fully equipped unit is uniquely challenging to locate.  This is especially true for one that, like the one we have been offered, is reasonably priced and in excellent condition,” explained Amanda Hartman the YCSNG Board President.  “There is such an overwhelming need for reliable low-cost services.  The health and well-being of the entire region would benefit if we can get more dogs and cats spayed and neutered. This mobile unit is crucial to making that goal a reality.”

    To make a tax-deductible donation please make your check to “Yolo County Spay/Neuter Clinic”, and mail your check to:

    Yolo County Spay/Neuter Group
    P.O Box 577
    Woodland, CA 95776

    Or donate on-line via:

    1)  PayPal email ycfspayneuter@gmail.com 

    Or

    2) Venmo-Amanda-hartman-40 (with last digits of phone number 6585)

    For more information, please see our website at ycfspayneuter.com or contact Amanda Hartman at (530) 383-6585 or email ycfspayneuter@gmail.com

  • Tree Davis Position on Sutter Davis Hospital Tree Removal

    Sutter Parking Lot Shade Trees 1

    Sutter Parking Lot Shade Trees

    A recent article in the Davis Vanguard ("City Will Have to Weigh between Trees and Solar Panels at Sutter as Complaints Reign about Public Process," July 21, 2021) described a variety of issues concerning the Planning Commission’s recent approval to remove 205 trees in association with improvements to the Sutter Davis Hospital campus. Tree Davis appreciates the efforts made by David Greenwald and Alan Hirsch to bring this proposal into the public spotlight. The Tree Davis Board has these thoughts to share.

    1) Our tree canopy is under increasing threat from decline due to old age, development, and climate change stressors like drought, wind, and pests. Tree Davis supports increasing measures to protect and preserve healthy trees and to grow our community canopy with climate-ready species. 

    2) We recognize that in certain circumstances, retaining healthy trees may not be possible. Full mitigation of lost canopy, through planting either on-or off-site should be accomplished, as per our Tree Ordinance.

    3) We support retaining mature tree canopy in parking lots when possible because trees can provide environmental and social benefits that PV arrays cannot, such as heat island mitigation, carbon storage, air pollutant uptake, beauty, stress reduction, and wildlife habitat.

    4) Tree Davis believes that the Tree Commission’s charter should be updated to include consultation on individual project proposals because of the expertise they can provide. For example, the proposal to transplant 43 mature trees to another location at Sutter Hospital may sound reasonable, but, the benefits may not offset the costs in the long term. The failed effort in Woodland to transplant historic olive trees along Gibson Rd. is an example.

    Greg McPherson
    President, Tree Davis Board of Directors

  • Sustainability, Adaptation, and Regenerative Farming: Understanding Responses to Global Warming

    This article was first published at https://islandviewmedia.net/blog/ and is reprinted here with permission of the author.  Davisites may find it of interest given the re-surfacing of the DISC project, which would pave over farmland and replace it with an automobile-oriented industrial project.  Regenerative farming envisions a way that the land could be used to combat rather than contribute to climate change and could potentially be deployed in various places in the Davis area.

    By Robert Chianese

    We strive to ensure our future by living, growing, and building sustainably. I’ve written about “Sustainability” since  the 1970’s, starting with my prize-winning essay on forming a local Sustainability Council which I did here in Ventura County. I became a true believer in its promise to reduce our impacts on the planet through its very tough tri-fold requirements: use renewable energy, no toxics, cause no loss of biodiversity.

    I later saw its promise fade as it became lost first in the fraudulent use of the term to “green-wash” all sorts of products and processes–lying about their sustainability. The FTC issued “Green Guides” in 2012 to push back on unsubstantiated claims about so-called green products, but corporations ballyhoo the term even more now. We hear boasts about the eco-friendly products of Clean Coal Energy, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Malaysian Palm Oil and the Fur Council of Canada. Short-term ugly profit is more like it.

    Even more disturbing are current reports about our failures to shift off our carbon-hungry diet. Through our human-caused, “anthropogenic” actions, we cloak the globe in a heat shroud, intensifying droughts, wildfires, floods and sea level rise. Nothing sustainable here.

    Teenage phenom Greta Thunberg spent almost a year investigating how well we are meeting our environmental challenges. The documentary, “I Am Greta,” follows her through various countries and climates in search of sustainability successes, but she’s mainly discouraged and defeated. She even confronts the dean of environmental programs, David Attenborough about his gorgeous nature films in the time of climate systems collapse. He half-concedes he needs to change his pitch. His new series “A Life on the Planet” tries to atone for glossing over our very un-gorgeous damage to the earth.

    Ecologists have come up with new concepts we need in order to save the planet. Some say we need to adapt to the new climate realities, which implies accepting the damage we have done and adjusting to it. But neither adaptation nor adjustment get defined clearly.

    (more…)

  • Why we need to change our thinking about the pandemic: virus variants, vaccination, divisiveness

    The following comments from Tia Will are in response to an editorial from David Greenwald, which you may wish to read first for context.

    Reality Check – or why I strongly disagree with almost everything you said:

    1. “Our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations and, sadly, deaths among the unvaccinated,” Walensky said.  It shouldn’t be. Our biggest concern should be the possibility of more variants. How do you think the Delta variant arose? It came from our unwillingness to implement and maintain the preventive measures to control the novel virus in the first place. If you look at our county’s website graphics you will see that every time we masked, distanced , chose outside activities and avoided crowds, the virus came under control, every time we didn’t, it surged. Around a year ago I wrote here that my nightmare scenario was the emergence of a variant that was highly transmissible, had high lethality and attacked the young, and was vaccine resistant. Delta was just the virus’ first stab at that. Do we honestly think if we just let the virus spread, even amongst just the unvaccinated,  the nightmare scenario cannot occur?

    2.”The good news is that if you are fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe Covid, ” Let’s look at this a little closer. The current vaccines confer a 95 percent chance that an individual who contracts the virus will not have severe COVID or die or a 5% chance you will. Viral Roulette anyone?  This focus on severe disease and death only was useful in the beginning when the biggest concern was to keep people out of the hospital in order to “flatten the curve”. This was a worthy goal when hospitals are overwhelmed but which allowed the “only the vulnerable” will be affected attitude to arise. This neglected other undesirable consequences both economic and medical – shutdowns, deaths of those under 50 ( often our first responders and medical personnel, careers and lives not taken, but ruined by long COVID, and, once again, the rise of variants.

    (more…)

  • You might be a YIMBY if…

    Affordablehousingmeme

    By Rik Keller

    You might be a YIMBY[1] if:

    1. You advocate for zoning deregulation and “filter down” affordable housing thinking those are very different from Reaganomics, deregulation, and trickle-down housing.
    2. You are a “faux-gressive” who laces your rhetoric with terms like “social justice” and “equity” and “sustainability” without thinking of the impropriety of appropriating and co-opting those terms; meanwhile, the effects of the policies you promote kick people of color out of their homes in lower-income areas  and promote unregulated sprawl  onto farmland or habitat.
    3. You pretend that people who point out the deep connections of your movement to development real estate interests and funding are “conspiracy theorists.”
    4. You need a foil to vilify, so you pretend there are organized NIMBY[2] groups that want nothing built anywhere ever, then ferociously battle this strawman.
    5. You claim we have “under-built” housing for decades and blame it on the NIMBY boogeyman without evidence.
    6. You think that because you took one economics class in college and learned one thing (the “law” of supply and demand, not really a law at all), you understand complex housing markets and that your simplistic prescriptions are “solutions”.
    7. You engage in naive magical thinking, conjuring up a world where if you build more housing, only the people you want to move in, move in—no rich out-of-town investors! —and developers will want to build so much housing that prices will drop, reducing their profit margins.
    8. You claim affordable housing activists who advocate for specific affordable housing programs are too naive to understand how free market capitalism and Econ 101 will benefit them.
    9. You avoid even mentioning actual programs that produce affordable housing such as inclusionary zoning programs and funding public housing.
    10. You believe that “build baby build” is the only answer and eschew all other solutions or even suggestions as to how to get affordable housing built.
    11. You don't care where you build. It could be next to a freeway, in a historic neighborhood, on prime farmland, or wherever—just build.
    12. Your movement belittles, insults, and vilifies anyone who points out the flaws in your reasoning as a way to distract from the real issues.
    13. You try to start class wars and generational wars, pitting the middle class (especially older) against people with lower incomes, in favor of high-income developers.

     

    [1] YIMBY stands for “Yes In My Back Yard.” However, since YIMBYs often advocate for building in other areas outside of where they live, YIYBY (“Yes In Your Back Yard”) might be more accurate, albeit not as easy to say. “BANANAS” (Build ANything ANywhere AlwayS) is another suggested acronym. Self-identified YIMBYs have been making their presence known in Davis.

    [2] NIMBY stands for “Not in My Back Yard.” No one actually calls themselves this; it’s an insult that YIYBYs (see previous footnote) like to sling against anyone who tries to argue for good projects and good planning.

     

  • Valley Clean Energy Appoints New General Counsel

    Inder Khalsa Headshot(From press release) Valley Clean Energy, Yolo County’s locally governed not-for-profit electricity provider, has appointed Inder Khalsa as its new general counsel. Khalsa is an attorney with Richards, Watson and Gershon, a law firm that specializes in providing services to local governments.

    Khalsa has advised the law firm on administrative and transactional public law matters for 16 years, with a particular focus on renewable energy, community choice programs, land use, planning, zoning, affordable housing, real estate matters and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

    She also has expertise in the creation and operations of joint powers authorities such as Valley Clean Energy. Khalsa assisted in the formation and launch of Marin’s CCA—the first to launch in the state in 2010—and has represented other CCA programs since that time. She counsels local government agencies on all aspects of municipal governance, including the interpretation, application of and compliance with the Brown Act, Public Records Act, Political Reform Act and other ethics laws.

    (more…)

  • What is a Housing Trust Fund, and how can we strengthen Davis’s?

    3 categories of housing needs

    This diagram shows the continuum of housing needs  and some possible priorities for programs under each of the 3 needs categories

    Background: On May 20, the Housing Element Committee (HEC) voted in favor of 10 recommendations, two of which related to Davis’s Housing Trust Fund, based on a draft document from Davis’s Social Services Commission (SSC). On May 9, the Planning Commission voted in favor of these two recommendations (and none of the other HEC recommendations). On June 15, members of the City Council expressed support for these proposals, although they did not vote on them officially.

    By Georgina Valencia

    The City of Davis has a Housing Trust Fund (HTF).  There are a number of cities throughout the State that have Housing Trust Funds.  The funds that go into the HTF account is designated for services and programs related to affordable housing.  Currently, the City has no designated plan with priorities and related programs as proposed by the SSC.  More specifically there is no sustainability planned into the programs the city currently offers.  Programs to date have been Ad Hoc and directed by the funds and programs the State decides that Cities should pursue.

    Current funding sources for our City HTF come from: in-lieu fees, 1% fee from the sale of affordable homes, State Grants for CDBG and HOME funds, SB2 funds, rent from City owned affordable housing and more.  At any given time there is approximately $500,000 plus or minus in the HTF.

    A few examples of real world issues that programs and funding in our HTF could correct:

    (more…)

  • Why eliminating single-family zoning is a terrible idea

    Screen Shot 2021-06-19 at 4.18.46 PM

    By Dan Cornford

    On May 20, the Housing Element Committee voted in favor of 10 recommendations, one of which was the elimination of R1 (aka Single Family Housing, or SFH) zoning. Neither the Planning Commission nor the City Council weighed in on this recommendation as a body in their recent meetings concerning the Draft Housing Element, although some members of both bodies expressed interest in pursuing at least some weakening of R1 zoning. On the state level, SB 9 and SB 10 would eliminate R1 zoning.

    Is this a good idea? Will it lead to affordable housing? Would it be good for the environment?

    In short: No, no, and no.

    Here are five reasons why eliminating R1 zoning is a bad idea:

    (more…)