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

  • Let’s have a parade!

    Bob Dunning Parade Map(From press release) The popular Picnic Day Parade and the Davis Children’s Christmas Parade were canceled by the pandemic. But the community is invited to enjoy a do-it-yourself parade Saturday, April 24, to honor Davis Enterprise columnist and sportswriter Bob Dunning on his 51-plus years with the newspaper.

    All types of vehicles — cars, trucks, bikes and other wheeled contraptions — are welcome, and decorations are encouraged. Participants (no registration is required) are asked to gather before 11 a.m. Saturday in the Veterans Memorial Center parking lot, 203 E. 14th St.

    The parade will make a huge loop featuring 1.4 miles of right turns only. Coming out of the parking lot, vehicles will head west on 14th Street, pass Dunning and his family in front of Davis High School on the corner of 14th and Oak Avenue, turn north on Oak, then east on Covell Boulevard, south on F Street and west on 14th. Vehicles wishing to depart the parade may go straight or left at any point.

    (more…)

  • Save KDVS

    (From press release) The University is placing KDVS in a space 1/3 of its current size in a windowless bunker behind the row of ATM's next to the East Entrance of the MU. There is no access to the MU during the late night hours, weekends or holidays…and this means that the programmers at those times, and late night trainees, will have no toilet access. Clearly this is NOT a well-thought out plan. Indeed the University has provided no statements as to what rooms/services and materials will have to be eliminated at KDVS.

    In addition several studios, staff office space, KDVS volunteer work space, a public reception area, listening rooms, and a substantial portion of the legendary ~300,000 record/CD/recording tape library will have to be warehoused. A solution to save space through a crank-style archiving system is not practical for DJ's with a limited amount of time to prepare a show (as they are students and/or workers on a schedule) and when several people are in the same space. In addition it is unlikely to be ADA compliant.

    The major slashing of space is necessitated by the UC Davis' decision to raze Freeborn Hall and place an "exemplary product" there. This plan was in place during the Katehi era and has been disclosed publicly only recently. Since they have not suggested a referendum paced before the students to raise registration fees to pay for the bond debt, it is clear that this will NOT be a building that will replace the Student space lost in Lower Freeborn.

    To read more…and how UC Davis has failed to follow the procedures and policies that constituted due diligence go to www.Savekdvs.org

  • Forthcoming book features women innovators in agtech in Davis

    From Farms to Incubators Cover Award-winning journalist and filmmaker Amy Wu has written a forthcoming book “From Farms to Incubators: Women Innovators Revolutionizing How Our Food Is Grown,” that profiles dozens of women innovators and leaders in the growing sector of agtech. Agtech encompasses innovations including drones, sensors, artificial intelligence and blockchain that help growers with the challenges they are facing including severe labor shortage and loss of arable land. The book features a number of women in the Davis area including Thuy-Le Vuong, Pam Marrone and Fatma Kaplan.

    • Vuong is the CEO and founder of The Redmelon Company that extracts oil from Gac, a tropical fruit known to be rich in nutrition packed carotenoids.
    • Marrone is the founder of Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI) a bio-based pest management company that produces herbicides, fungicides and insecticides with plant-based or using naturally-occurring microorganisms with the goal of replacing chemicals in agriculture.
    • Kaplan is the founder of Pheronym a company creates biopesticides that use pheromones (chemicals capable of acting like hormones to impact the behavior of the receiving individuals) to control a wide range of agricultural pests.

    The book will be published on May 4, 2021 by Linden Publishing (based out of Fresno) and is available for pre-sales through various outlets including Barnes & Noble and Amazon. This past February Amy was named one of Food Tank’s 15 Leading Women at the Intersection of Food and Technology. In 2020 Amy was named one of Worth magazine’s “50 Women Changing the World.” To learn more about From Farms to Incubators go to www.farmstoincubators.com.

    Amy Wu is an award-winning writer for women’s ag and agtech movement who is bicoastal and splits her time between New York and California.

  • Connections increase impact of Davis arts sector

    CentennialSeal
    Supporter Bill Roe, left, artist Susan Shelton, Shelton’s husband John Mott-Smith and supporter Nancy Roe surround the Davis Centennial Seal as it neared completion on March 25 at the Frostad Atelier foundry in Sacramento. Rachel Hartsough/Courtesy photo

    By Wendy Weitzel

    Local artists continue connecting and sharing their craft, knowing their voice is amplified when they work together. That was the message April 8 at a virtual meeting of Arts Alliance Davis.

    The 18 attendees heard first about the newly formed Sacramento Alliance for Regional Arts. The nonprofit promotes and advocates for arts, art education and cultural equity in the greater Sacramento region. Bill Blake of AMS Planning and Research, a Sacramento consulting firm specializing in the arts, said SARA “came about because of COVID and all of the things that have happened,” in the arts community.

    While there are state and national arts organizations, artists and related groups needed a regional voice with organized, sustained advocacy. If a concert hall closes in Folsom, he said, the impact is felt far beyond that city’s borders. Musicians or employees may live in Davis or Roseville, for example.

    “You don’t need to follow the jurisdictional boundaries for it to have an impact in the area,” Blake said, calling it “a cultural ecosystem.” By creating a regional coalition, “if something’s happening in Placer County, those elected leaders are hearing from other surrounding counties that it impacts. … Elected officials can easily dismiss the arts if we don’t speak with one voice.”

    He urged Alliance attendees to become involved in SARA as it’s being built. “We need more representation from your community,” he said, referring to Yolo County. Visit https://www.artsforsac.org/.

    (more…)

  • Another Letter to Planning Commission – serious flaws with Davis-Connected Buyers Program

    Dear Planning Commissioners –

    At the upcoming Planning Commission meeting this Wednesday you will be presented with the newly proposed "Davis-Connected Buyers Program" for the Bretton Woods Project. This new proposal has serious flaws and is essentially gutless in terms of ensuring that a large percentage of new homes are sold to existing Davis homeowners thus freeing up current local housing stock for new families as promised by the developer in the actual language on the ballot in the Measure J/R vote in 2018.

    I have written a detailed article published in the Davisite about the new program and its shortcomings that are so severe that it renders the program practically non-existent. To see the article click on the following title, Bretton Woods Attempts Another Bait and Switch with Its Davis Based Buyers Program.

    In summary, the new Davis-Connected Buyers Program states that it will have prospective buyers sign a disclosure form identifying their link to Davis but that it also allows ANYONE to refuse to sign the disclosure form because they are a member of a protected class based on any race, gender or gender identity, ethnicity, religion, etc. I myself could refuse to sign the disclosure form simply because I am a straight married white agnostic male and the developer's new proposal says that would allow me to buy a new home even if I otherwise had no links at all to Davis. The developer also claims that they will not investigate or demand proof of any "protected status" claims because he does not want to intrude on the prospective buyers privacy. In other words, the developer will take any and all buyers thus opening the floodgates to anyone who wants to buy there and has the wherewithal to engage in bidding wars.

    (more…)

  • Letter to Planning Commission Expresses Concerns with Bretton Woods Davis-Connected Buyers Program

    Below is the text of a letter submitted to the Davis Planning Commission for its April 14th meeting expressing issues and concerns with the Bretton Woods Davis-Connected Buyers Program.

    Commissioners:

    I write to express concerns with the Davis-Connected Buyers Program (DCBP), which is scheduled to be presented at the Planning Commission’s April 14, 2021 meeting. I am disappointed that this agenda item is an informational update only rather than an action item. That suggests that the City Council is not interested in further commission input or recommendations on the DCBP and that its approval by the Council as submitted by the developer is a fait accompli.

    I am now retired but have nearly four decades experience with state and federal fair housing laws. I was an attorney with Disability Rights California, California’s designated non-profit disability protection and advocacy organization, for 26 years and subsequently held positions as Chief Consultant for the Assembly Human Services Committee and as legislative director for the California Department of Developmental Services. I am also a former member of the Davis Social Services Commission.

    Provisions of the DCBP do not make sense and the program will almost certainly not achieve its purported purpose. Most importantly, as has been alleged—including in a lawsuit challenging the DCBP that was subsequently dismissed without prejudice on procedural grounds—the DCBP is likely to perpetuate, and possibly exacerbate, existing racial disparities in Davis as compared to the region.

    (more…)

  • More concerns about Putah Creek restoration proposal

    April 5, 2021

    Davis Open Space and Habitat Commission

    Re: Proposal for habitat restoration/public access project along the South Fork of Putah Creek east of the City’s South Fork Preserve

    Dear Commissioners:

    I recommend that you approach the proposal with great caution and offer these questions and comments. There is no objection to weed control, riparian planting, and modification of water diversion methods. But the largest part of this proposal is to modify channel form, and that is of great concern. It’s been tried before on Putah Creek in Winters at great cost and great loss to fish and wildlife and riparian forest resources.

    The stream channel filling and alteration part of this proposal is premised on these erroneous ideas about the existing stream condition:

    (more…)

  • Please do not allow the Solano County Water Agency to destroy the Davis Putah Creek Preserve

    Note: the following was emailed to the Davis City Council and to members of the Open Space and Habitat Commission early this afternoon.

    Commissioners – Firstly, I apologize for this late communication so close to your Open Space and Habitat Commission meeting this evening. I just became aware yesterday of tonight's agenda item on the proposed study to modify Putah Creek through the Davis Putah Creek Preserve.

    I represent Friends of Putah Creek which is a non-profit corporation formed in response to the disastrous waterway modifications that were made in the Winters Putah Creek Parkway by the Solano County Water Agency. These changes were made during the last decade under the same guise of remediation and restoration of the Creek to a natural "form and function" as is now represented by their employee tonight. The current study proposes to eventually implement many of the same misguided, non-scientific based "improvements" in the Davis Putah Creek Preserve which proved so harmful in Winters.

    In response to the obvious outcome shortcomings of that project, Friends of Putah Creek undertook an extensive and quantitative evaluation of the project in terms of the subsequent habitat degradation and decline in plant and animal population in the Parkway. In this study we found substantial failure of the project to meet the promised improvements – even after spending over $7 million dollars on the 1.25 mile project itself and then millions more in subsequent efforts to remediate the damage caused by the project. Even today we are still seeing extensive tree die-back and loss of animal life that has yet to return. This is the worst example of environmental pork Yolo County has ever seen.

    (more…)

  • Bob Dunning celebration nears!

    Dunning column logoCommunity members are invited to celebrate Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning’s unprecedented 51-plus-year career by viewing a virtual show Friday, April 9, on YouTube and by participating in a socially distanced vehicle parade on Saturday, April 24.

    The virtual celebration, which runs from 4 to 5 p.m. and can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8JQBnfTOAc, will feature highlights of Dunning’s long and storied career, including his tennis match with Bobby Riggs, his many hosting gigs for nonprofit organizations — highlighted by a visit by legendary comedian Bob Hope to raise money for the expansion of the Davis Senior Center — and his coverage of innumerable community, high school and UC Davis sports events.

    Special appearances by friends, elected officials and community members are planned. The event, which is being presented with the help and support of Davis Media Access, is hosted by retired city of Davis public relations manager Bob Bowen.

    (more…)

  • Bretton Woods is Attempting to Pull Another Bait and Switch with its Davis Based Buyers Program

    Protections Will Weaken for Prospective Davis Senior Buyers

    by Alan Pryor

    INTRODUCTION

    The Bretton Wood developer, David Taormino, is attempting to pull another bait and switch on Davis seniors by completely gutting the campaign promises he made to Davis voters committing to sell 90% of homes in the new project to Davis-based buyers. The long-promised Davis-Based Buyers Program was intended to ensure that 90% of all new homes sold at the new development were to Davis seniors thereby freeing up their existing large homes for new families to come to Davis.

    But make no mistake about it, this newly proposed watered-down plan has so many loopholes in it that it will open the floodgates to advertising and sales to well-heeled Bay Area expatriates flush with cash from sales of their own inflated homes. Indeed, this will probably drive up prices for new homes at the project so high that it will functionally exclude Davis seniors from participating – much like we saw in the Cannery project where the majority of new sales were to buyers from outside Davis.

    (more…)