(Press release) Yolo County Progressives endorses Linda Deos and Ezra Beeman for City Council.
These two candidates garnered a plurality of the votes of our membership, understandably reflecting positions most closely aligned with our progressive objectives.
They both are well prepared, business & financially experienced, and they align with
community interests.
M E Gladis, Chair
YoloCountyProgressives.org
By John Troidl
I don't get it: If I read the YES ON J (pro-Nishi) material, it seems like they are saying that there will be essentially no ("limited") traffic impact if the Nishi development is approved and actually built.
How can that possibly be?
There are 700 parking spots planned for the Nishi property. One for each housing unit, right there fronting the highway. Wait, that's just one parking space for each apartment…. 1/3 of a car for each bed located at Nishi.
By M E Gladis
Alert to Voters for Davis City Council:
The Flatlander May 2018 issue, page 23 “Davis City Council Campaign” chart regarding Linda Deos is wrong. Just this side of suing for slander, so far, I am enraged that Robert Milbrodt would stoop to such a heinous depiction of any opponent of the candidate, Ezra Beeman, that he is promoting. Let me say that Ezra Beeman has strengths.
My issue is with the blatant misrepresentation of Linda Deos that Robert Milbrodt published and disseminated on the page 23 chart that Linda Deos favors developers, does not explain her values or vision, is not prepared, is not consistent.
By Jon Li
Most downtowns have lots of jobs, and lots of people living downtown. Davis has neither.
The economic and business problems with Davis are outside the General Plan, which only deals in land use terms with housing and traffic. The Downtown Plan process is about how to make Davis “look” more appealing, as though that will work.
The merchants’ answer is a new parking structure so that people can drive their cars. But that is 20th century suburbia. What about re-thinking the downtown as an urban center, with six to ten story buildings, as high as UCD’s Sproul Hall which is 9 stories.
The problems with Davis have to do with the non-existent economy. Davis city staff with their grand salaries want to keep Davis just the way it is, as though the state hasn’t killed the Redevelopment Agency almost a decade ago. Amazon is transforming the world economy, and Davis needs to figure out how to respond.
In a recent Enterprise column, "Pollution Doesn't Magically End at Olive Drive," Bob Dunning asks:
…if this is truly all about ultra-fine metals from brakes on trains, why aren’t these same folks sounding the alarm about all the other areas in town that are similarly at risk?
In response, Dr. Thomas Cahill, UC Davis Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Sciences and founder of the DELTA Group (Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols), sent us the following information and asked us to publish it.
Did you know we have two Facebook groups of the international Buy Nothing Project right here in Davis? One covering 95616 (West) and one for 95618 (East).
We offer members a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors. You can post anything you'd like to give away, lend, or share in our Buy Nothing community groups. You can ask for anything you'd like to receive for free or borrow. Keep it legal. Keep it civil.
If you live in Davis, we'd love to have you join us! You can join one group only, the group where you live so you can literally "give where you live." This is what builds community.
By Martin Guerena
I would like to thank the citizens of Davis and the Natural Resources Commission for this environmental recognition award. I would also like to thank all the citizen volunteers, some who I worked with, who have participated with the various environmental groups around town and campus. Your work is important and an integral component of the community’s sustainability effort.
I find it ironic that the institution that basically drove me and the former Integrated Pest Management program out, was now sponsoring an award for my efforts.
(Press release) Patti Pape – mother of recently-deceased UC Davis student Eric Pape – wants answers about why the Yolo County D.A.’s office pressed serious felony charges against her late son for an incident that occurred when he was having a panic attack while receiving treatment in a hospital.
“The D.A.’s office should have realized that this was a mental health case and should never have charged my son. I believe that the stress of his felony trial contributed to his eventual suicide,” she said.
Ms. Pape and a few others will make brief comments at rally this Thursday, May 17 at Noon at the UC Davis MU Patio.
Davis City Councilmember Lucas Frerichs has announced his endorsement of Dean Johansson for Yolo County District Attorney. Frerichs, who has served on Davis’ City Council since 2012, emphasized that Johansson represents the values of community members in Davis and in Yolo County more broadly.
Frerichs said, “Citizens of Davis and Yolo County have consistently and overwhelmingly voted for statewide criminal justice reforms, such as Three Strikes Law Reform (Prop. 36), Sentencing Reform (Prop. 47), Reducing Mass Incarceration (Prop. 57), and most recently, Legalization of Adult Use of Cannabis (Prop. 64). These measures represent progressive change in California, and it is time that we are represented by a District Attorney who shares these types of values of our community.”
By Colin Walsh and Matt Williams
In Part 1, we detailed the three main reasons to vote against Nishi 2.0/Measure J that we gave at the CivEnergy forum on May 6: 1) bad air quality, 2) costs, and 3) lack of integrity in the process. If the City and the developer could rectify these three concerns by demonstrating that the air quality was acceptable for housing with an onsite study, by fixing the budget shortfall, and by returning integrity to the process, then housing could be built at Nishi – but then the project should be far larger than it is. The current proposal is too small and does not make proper use of the site.
Instead of addressing these three serious concerns, the Vanguard spends the entirety of its May 9, 2018 article addressing the so-called “Red Herrings,” all of which were points of discussion stemming from audience questions. Here in Part 2, we show how each of the points the Vanguard raised are examples of bad planning on the part of the city, possibly due to the rush to put this matter on the June ballot at the request of the developer. Each of these concerns are real problems with the ordinance the City Council voted to put on the ballot. Clearly this ordinance should have been better vetted before going to Council.
Davisite 