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Author: Roberta Millstein

  • Explaining how RFK Jr.’s recent remarks were racist

    It’s a good reminder that “hate” is a very limited way of talking about racism.

    By Roberta Millstein

    I recently got into a conversation with some people on Facebook about whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent remarks about Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews regarding COVID-19 were racist.  The conversation was too hard to have on Facebook, so I stopped engaging, but I think it’s worth looking at his remarks in more detail because I think they are quite damning, and yes, racist. 

    I take his remarks personally because I myself am an Ashkenazi Jew, but since RFK Jr. is running for President of the United States, and since apparently some Davisites think he is a good candidate, it’s important for all of us to take a second look.

    The video of his remarks is here.  The quotes below are my transcription.  I edited lightly (removing stutters, etc.), and may have missed a small word here or there, but I am confident that I have it mostly correct.

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  • Soroptimists award grants to two area nonprofits

    AguilarMIH

    UC Davis Guardian Scholar Evelyn Aguilar received lots of housewares in 2021 from Make It Happen in Yolo County. (Courtesy photo)

    (From press release) Soroptimist International of Davis recently awarded grants to two nonprofits, to improve the lives of women and girls in Yolo County.

    The club distributed $3,000 in Community Grants between the two organizations. Make it Happen for Yolo County received $1,900, and Grace in Action received $1,100.

    Make it Happen will use its Soroptimist funds to provide at least four young women in the UC Davis Guardian Scholars program with the furniture and appliances they need to furnish their apartments at the start of the school year. Guardian Scholars are students who have experienced foster care.

    Grace in Action will use its Soroptimist grant money to provide stop-gap services for very low income individuals, and those without safe shelter. It will pay for motel rooms, hearty lunches, laundry vouchers, transportation passes and haircuts.

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  • Recommendation to the Social Services Commission for Changes in Davis’ Affordable Housing Ordinance

    The following was emailed as an attachment to the Social Services Commission yesterday for their meeting this evening (7 PM, Monday May 15) where they will be taking up proposed changes to Davis's Affordable Housing Ordinance.

    by Roberta Millstein and Alan Pryor

    5/14/2023

    Introduction

    The Davis Affordable Housing Ordinance (available at https://library.qcode.us/lib/davis_ca/pub/municipal_code/item/chapter_18-article_18_05?view=all) is now implemented on a temporary basis to account for changes in state law requiring economic justification if minimum affordable housing requirements for new projects exceed 15% of total housing units.  The current temporary ordinance is scheduled to expire on June 30, 2023, with proposed changes under consideration by the Social Services Commission at its May 13, 2023 meeting.

    However, even with these proposed changes, the existing Affordable Housing Ordinance has provisions which we believe do not provide social justice, equity, and fairness in terms of meeting the needs of the City’s low-income population because it is biased toward the financial benefit of developers rather than maximizing the availability of affordable income housing in Davis.

    We recommend the following changes to the temporary ordinance if it is renewed by the sunset date of June 30, 2023 and to a revised permanent ordinance.

    1. Eliminate ADUs as an acceptable alternative to provide on-site Affordable Housing – We recommend that Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) be completely eliminated as a way for developers to avoid constructing real Affordable Housing.
    2. Substantially increase in-lieu fees if chosen by a developer as an acceptable alternative to provide on-site Affordable Housing – We recommend that in-lieu fees be substantially increased so that it is no longer a financially preferable option for developers to pursue. 

    We elaborate on each of these recommendations further below.

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  • Honoring Davis’s Citizen Heroes

    By Roberta Millstein

    As we all grieve and process the events that led to the arrest of Carlos Reales Dominguez, who has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder and one count of premeditated attempted murder, I thought it was important to highlight the role of some of our citizen heroes whose efforts, I believe, were essential to the arrest. 

    Most of them also put their own lives at risk to help their fellow citizens.  They showed not only compassion but the willingness to follow through and act.  Such selflessness is deserving of our highest praise.

    These are all quotes from various Davis Enterprise articles; links have been included for reference.  (While I am giving praise, I’d also like to thank the Davis Enterprise for its outstanding, thorough, and speedy coverage throughout.  Now is a good time to subscribe and support local news if you don't already).

    Thursday, April 27:

    Thursday’s homicide — the city’s first in more than three years — came to light at about 11:20 a.m., when a passerby called police seeking a welfare check on a man seated on a bench on the north side of the downtown park, near a large playground area.

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/crime-fire-courts/police-warn-public-to-avoid-central-park-after-report-of-a-dead-body/

    Saturday, April 29:

    a resident reported hearing “what sounded like a disturbance,” Pytel said. 

    That resident, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his safety, told The Davis Enterprise in an interview he was in his bedroom when he heard a man cry out for help, followed by a commotion, shortly after 9 p.m.

    He walked toward the park to investigate and saw two people on the ground along a bike path on the park’s side, thinking two cyclists had collided along the darkened path. 

    “As I got closer I put my flashlight on on my phone and asked if they were OK,” he said. At that point, one of the people stood up, grabbed a white hat and a bike and started to leave westbound on the path toward the Highway 113 bike bridge. 

    Confused as to why someone would leave a collision scene, “I chased him for a bit,” the man said. “I got within about 10 feet of him and he said, ‘What do you want, man? Leave me alone.’ ” He had turned his head to the side, allowing the witness to see his profile. 

    The person “sounded like a kid” in his late teens or early 20s, said the man, who stopped chasing him at that point. That’s when he turned around and saw the victim, who was covered in blood.

    “He was not conscious. He was having problems breathing,” said the man, who called 911 and immediately started CPR after removing the victim’s backpack, which was already partially removed.

    As he delivered chest compressions, a woman who’d also heard the victim’s cries for help arrived on scene and lifted his legs to direct his blood flow toward his torso.

    “ ‘Come on, buddy — you’re going to be OK,’ ” the man recalled telling the victim. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/second-fatal-stabbing-in-davis-suspect-remains-at-large/

     Monday, May 1

    Isaac Chessman and Christine Berrios, an unhoused couple whose tent neighbored the victim’s, said they awoke Monday night to rustling sounds, followed by their friend, Kim, screaming for help. 

    “He’s on me! Help! Get off me! The guy with the curly hair!” she yelled. Another neighbor, Larry, lunged at the suspect through his own tent and knocked him to the ground, but he was able to flee, the couple said. 

    Kim remained coherent following the assault, which Berrios said left her with wounds to her hip area. 

    Chessman believes he spotted the suspect earlier that night, lurking behind the trees on the east side of L street across from the homeless camp. 

    He said he called out to the person while shining a flashlight on him, saying “you look like the dude that’s been stabbing people.” Chessman noted he also called police, about two hours before the stabbing, but got no response. 

    “This has to happen for them to show up,” he said. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/third-stabbing-reported-suspect-resembled-ucd-students-assailant/

    Wednesday, May 3

    a man walking through Sycamore Park spotted him sitting alone on the children’s playground. 

    With shoulder-length wavy hair, and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black Adidas track pants, he bore a strong resemblance to the suspect seen fleeing the L Street stabbing scene. 

    “He made eye contact with me and came toward me rather briskly,” said the witness, who asked to remain anonymous. He said he backed off at that point but “kept an eye on him” as Dominguez wandered through the park, then through the neighborhood east of it.

    “He was walking around sort of aimlessly, which I though was odd,” said the witness, who continued following the person from a distance to The Marketplace shopping center, where he briefly lost sight of him. Dominguez later emerged from a store and walked back toward the park area.

    The witness said he called police multiple times as he tracked Dominguez, ultimately flagging down an officer heading westbound on Villanova Drive toward the park. Dominguez began walking more briskly at that point but never tried to run. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/breaking-suspect-21-arrested-in-davis-serial-stabbings/

  • React in haste; repent at leisure

    A few reflections on our recent tragedies

    By Roberta Millstein

    Before I say anything else, let me begin by expressing my deepest condolences to the family and friends of David Breaux and Karim Abou Najm.  Both were important contributors to the community, both with more to give.  The third stabbing victim, is, as of this writing, thankfully still alive.  Although her name has not been released yet, I venture to say that she too is an important member of our community.  I can say that with confidence because I deeply believe that we are all important community members.

    With two of the three stabbing victims being unhoused, I am grateful to see that the City is working toward providing emergency shelter for those who are willing to accept it.  I hope that these efforts are successful; given that the perpetrator(s) have not been found, the unhoused members of our community are clearly more vulnerable than ever.

    Beyond protecting those who most need it, what else can the City do?  Here I will admit to being tired, wrung out, and on edge, so I don’t have the energy to go on at length.  So what follows will be, I am sure, too brief.  But perhaps it will be enough to get people thinking.

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  • It was an April Fool’s kind of week in Davis this week

    Calendar-aprilfool

    What is going on with the City Council?  Tuesday’s meeting was surreal.

    By Roberta Millstein

    First, Councilmember Bapu Vaitla, critic of NIMBYs who dare to say that projects should be better, suggested that the proposed University Mall redevelopment isn’t good enough.  Somehow, even though the site has been retail-only for decades, Councilmember Vaitla claimed that that use isn’t consistent with the General Plan – stating, among other things, that the project does not provide “a diversity of housing options” – and he called for an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of the project.

    If Councilmember Vaitla were a defender of the project as approved, he would likely say that an appeal like this was just a delay tactic.  But because it’s his objection to the project, he marshaled Davisites to come speak in favor of the appeal.

    Then Councilmember Gloria Partida, who has consistently argued that we need more housing in Davis, voted to deny Councilmember Vaitla’s appeal, effectively guaranteeing that there would be no housing at the University Mall site (since the vote to hear the appeal had to be unanimous).

    To further the up-is-down left-is-right Council meeting, the council – to a person – decided no, it will not go forward with putting any of four housing-projects-in-process on the ballot for November 2024.[1]  This is in spite of, again, all four councilmembers touting themselves as being pro-housing, and perhaps even more puzzling, in spite of the fact that two of the four councilmembers wrote the report suggesting that the Council take up the question of which project to put in process for November 2024.

    A representative of one of the developers of the four projects even got up to say that nothing should be put in motion for November 2024!  Surely this was April Fool’s?  Nope, April 4.

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  • Regenerative agriculture and the role of UC Davis

    Ministries-for-the-futureBy Roberta Millstein

    Yesterday, I attended a wonderful event on the UC Davis campus.  The purpose of the event was to celebrate the new Environmental Humanities Designated Emphasis at UC Davis, and it brought together in conversation two renowned scholars, Donna Haraway (a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz) and Kim Stanley Robinson (an award-winning science fiction author who lives in Davis; the title of the event, “Ministries for the Future,” is also the title of one of Robinson’s recent books).  It was a wide-ranging, fascinating conversation – so popular that it was literally standing room only – that I can’t begin to summarize here (but you can watch online). 

    Instead, I want to highlight two important and related points that Robinson made: one was about the purpose of the University of California and one was about regenerative agriculture.[1]

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  • Happy Darwin Day!

    Darwin

    Why is Darwin so often only shown as an old man with a beard?

    By Roberta Millstein

    Happy Darwin Day!  It’s been 211 214 years since Charles Darwin was born.

    For your Darwin Day, here is a selection of some of my favorite Darwin quotes, all from On the Origin of Species, First Edition.  I hope you enjoy them!

    The beginning of the book:

    “WHEN on board H.M.S. 'Beagle,' as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species—that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it.”

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  • Those ‘pesky’ City Commissions

    Scooby-gang-1969By Roberta Millstein

    As a Gen-Xer, I grew up watching a lot of fairly silly cartoons, Scooby-Doo among them.  The plot of Scooby-Doo was pretty much always the same.  The main characters would ask a lot of hard questions, and always end up unmasking the “bad guy,” who would utter a phrase along the lines of “if it weren’t for those pesky kids!”

    Reading Item 5 of tonight’s City Council agenda makes me feel like I am in an episode of Scooby-Doo.  Commission meetings are too long, the staff report suggests.  They duplicate efforts, staff implies.

    Yet it was the commissions who asked hard questions about DISC.  They asked, for example, about the carbon emissions from the project and better ways to mitigate them.  They asked about the percentage of affordable housing.  They asked about the number of trees and protection for burrowing owls.  They asked about the effect of the project on our downtown.

    These were hard questions that were not asked by staff and not asked by the City Council.   They all ended up being issues in the campaign that resulted in voters rejecting the DISC project.

    Now, it seems, staff would like to reduce the power of those “pesky” commissions with all of their questions.

    Are the commission meetings really too long?  One easy way to make them shorter would be to put a time limit on presentations by developers and others; we can expect that commissioners have read the provided written materials.

    Are the commissions really duplicating effort?  As evidence, staff provides a table where different commissions weigh in on the same topic.  What staff fails to mention is that they are looking at different aspects of the same topic.  For example, when Open Space & Habitat looks at a park, it considers habitat values. Rec & Park considers recreational values. Tree Commission looks at the number and species of trees.  Yes, these can overlap, but they are distinctive issues that require distinctive expertise. There is no duplication.

    Commissions are treated as pesky by those who have to answer their hard questions, but commissions keep the democratic process in Davis strong.  If we want to revisit the commissions, let’s at least involve them – something that was not done for this meeting.  Our past and present commissioners can provide needed insight into this process.

  • Davis Enterprise should promote better discourse

    The following was sent to the Davis Enterprise to be published as a letter to the editor, but as of the time of this posting they have declined to publish it.

    Edit: The letter finally appeared in the 12 February 2023 print edition, but I don't believe that it ever appeared online.

    By Roberta Millstein

    The recent article, "Planning Commission OKs R&D facility for Second Street" elicited a number of comments on the Davis Enterprise's Facebook page where the article was posted. Of these comments, the one that was picked as the "Editors' choice for the web comment of the week" stated "In a town that's absolutely jam-packed with know-it-alls somebody will come up with an objection."

    Why did the Editors pick this comment out of all the others?

    Surely the 2nd Street project is exactly the sort of infill project that most Davisites preferred when they voted overwhelmingly to defeat the sprawling peripheral DISC project. I for one have no objection to it.

    Will someone object? No doubt. Name me one issue that all Davisites agree on. I am guessing that there is no such issue.

    But that isn't really the point of the "Editors choice" comment, is it? The point is to denigrate Davisites who dare to raise objections to developer's projects. Or maybe it's just to denigrate Davisites more generally.

    So, I ask again, why would the Editors choose to reprint this comment in the newspaper? Is this the sort of discourse that the Davis Enterprise wants to promote? And if so, why?

    We can do better and so can the Davis Enterprise.