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Author: Roberta Millstein

  • The Failure of Measure B Suggests a New Vision Is Needed

    West from Rd 30B - Sac skylineBy Roberta Millstein, Pam Gunnell, Nancy Price, Alan Pryor, and Colin Walsh

    Measure B – the measure that proposed a 200-acre business park and housing development outside of the Mace Curve – failed at the polls.  The defeat comes with official Yolo County returns showing that 16,458 people, or 52% of voters, said “no” to the project.  In Mace Ranch and Wildhorse, 60% of voters opposed the project.

    This is a remarkable result considering that the No on B campaign was outspent by over 14 to 1.  As of October 28, Yes on B had spent $258,919 between when B was put on the ballot in July and the election in November, while No on B had spent $18,149.  The No on B campaign, composed solely of volunteer Davis citizens, created its own literature, designed its own sign and other graphics, was active on social media, and, to the extent possible during COVID, pounded the pavement distributing flyers to let Davisites know about the negative impacts that this project would bring.  It was a true grassroots effort.  There were no paid designers, no paid consultants, no multiple glossy mailers, and no push-polls to gather information on what messages would sell.  Opponents also could not table at the Farmers Market due to COVID restrictions, normally the bread and butter of a campaign lacking deep pocket donors to finance getting its message out.

    By comparison, Yes on B hired a PR Firm and other consultants more than a year in advance of the vote to help contrive and package its message and run the campaign.

    The fact that Measure B was nonetheless defeated in the face of long odds and unusual circumstances shows that DISC was a bad project for Davis from the outset.  It was too big, chewing up prime farmland and habitat.   The promise of on-site housing for DISC employees could not be guaranteed, making the development car-and commuter- oriented with extensive parking areas. Poor public transportation options exacerbated this problem. The DISC development would have massively increased Davis greenhouse gas emissions and made it impossible for Davis to meet its carbon neutrality goals. We are in a climate emergency, as Yolo County and other counties have recognized; Davis needs to shoulder its share of responsibility for climate impacts, including but not limited to wildfire impacts and extreme weather events locally and globally.

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  • Pro-DISC letter is misleading

    OSHC ARC resolutionBy Roberta Millstein

    My fellow Open Space and Habitat Commission (OSHC) member, Patrick Huber, writes to defend the environmental status of the Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus (DISC) (see Davis Enterprise letter). I respect Patrick; we have worked well together on the commission for a decade. However, although we have agreed on many things, he provides a partial and thus misleading picture of DISC in his letter.

    On April 23, 2020, the OSHC voted unanimously on a motion, seconded by Patrick, not to recommend DISC (then called ARC) on the grounds that it would result in a substantial net loss of a noteworthy combination of open space values, including: prime agricultural land, open space on the City’s perimeter, habitat for sensitive species such as burrowing owl and Swainson’s hawk, and views of the Sierra Nevada and Sacramento skyline (see adjacent screenshot).

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  • Wildfires underscore urgency to rein in climate change

    FireBy Elisabeth Robbins with Mark Reynolds

    My friend hurriedly evacuated her dream home northeast of Vacaville as flames advanced down the hillside. In the Mendocino National Forest, firefighters burned out a protective barrier around my son’s cabin deep in the woods.  That may, or may not, have protected it when Wednesday’s terrific winds swept fire through.  As of this writing, we don’t know.  At best, “Maybe I’ll have the view I’ve always wanted,” he said wryly.

    These fires touch everyone.  For too many it’s a personal loss.  For others, it’s a loss to someone we know and care about, so it becomes our loss too.  We have all lost freedom of movement outdoors because of the highly polluted air.

    And the fall fire season hasn’t even started.  Already  we have seen an astonishing amount of destruction, across the state and right here in Yolo County.  Over 2.6 million acres have gone up in smoke, exceeding the 2 million acres burned in 2018. That year, the damage and economic loss from wildfires, according to AccuWeather, came to $400 billion.

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  • Letter: Endorsing Walsh for Davis City Council

    Roberta-with-Colin-signI write to endorse Colin Walsh for Davis City Council District 2. I first met Colin when he was working on the campaign against Nishi 1.0. I was immediately impressed by his passion and dedication. He often worked late into the night and was concerned to get every detail right. Since then we've worked on a number of initiatives together, including the community blog, Davisite.org, which fosters neighborly dialogue in Davis.

    Another example: Since last fall when the MRIC Mace curve business park project resurfaced to become ARC and then DISC, Colin has read thousands of pages of documents, attended Council and Commission meetings, asked hard questions, and made thoughtful suggestions, all on his own time as a citizen committed to good process and careful analysis. He raised concerns about the compressed timeline for community engagement and about the inadequate affordable housing proposed by the developers.

    His comments to the Open Space and Habitat Commission on the DISC business park were particularly helpful to me as a commissioner. He pointed out that the bat studies at the site were insufficient, an issue that might otherwise have been overlooked, and urged that the Prime farmland at the site weigh heavily in any decision. I also appreciate his work as a member of the Tree Commission, arguing for a greater number of trees in the project (alas, the recommended number was rejected by the developer, but the number was increased somewhat).

    So when Colin says that he will solicit community and commission input, you can believe him. When he says he will analyze thoroughly and ask hard questions, you can believe him. When he says he will foster open and transparent government, you can believe him.

    Colin is committed to social justice and the environment and would make an outstanding Councilmember. Whether or not you are in his district, you can support him with an endorsement, lawn sign, letter to the editor, or donation. See his website at walsh4davis.com for details. If you are in District 2, please give him your vote.

    Roberta Millstein
    Chair, Open Space and Habitat Commission
    (speaking for myself alone)

  • Local election season begins in earnest

    Featuring two measures, City Council elections, and DJUSD school board elections

    By Roberta Millstein

    For those who haven't been paying close attention, a lot of things about our local elections solidified on Friday: the "pro" and "con" statements for local measures were submitted (with rebuttals to come soon) and City Council candidates turned in their ballot statements and nomination forms. 

    The DISC business park project, proposed to be built on Prime farmland outside the Mace Curve, is subject to a Measure J/R vote and has been assigned the letter 'B'.  You can find the "pro" and "con" arguments online:

    Argument in favor of Measure B

    Argument against Measure B (I am one of five signers to this argument)

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  • Looking for leadership to do the right thing this time around

    COVID-19 is all about concentration

    Png-clipart-crowd-cartoon-characters-illustrationBy Roberta Millstein

    We were flattening the curve.  We were staying at home.  We were doing the right thing.  Then our leaders – county, state, and federal – blinked.  They caved to pressure from the business community to “open up.”  And they opened up even where it made no sense to open up: bars, restaurants, churches, movie theaters. Now the prevalence of COVID-19 is far worse in our region than it ever was.

    Here is what our leaders should have said to the business community:  “If we open up, cases will spike and we will have to shut down again.  Not only will it be costly to ramp up only to have to close down again (especially for restaurants), but also, it will delay an economic recovery even further.” In other words, they should have led.

    Instead, they somehow expected that families and friends from different households wouldn’t get together even though people were getting together in bars.  And now they blame citizens instead of blaming themselves for putting out a mixed and inconsistent message.

    There are some sensible ways to open up, but they require paying attention to “The Six C’s” (Note: I have modified this from others):

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  • Missing my DAM workouts and my DAM teammates

    DAM-lanemates

    Taking a break between sets. That's me with the water bottle.

    By Roberta Millstein

    I started swimming with Davis Aquatic Masters, better known as DAM, shortly after I moved to Davis in 2007.  I was thrilled to have coach-led sets and a group of people to train with – so much more fun, and ultimately much more productive, than trying to swim on one’s own. 

    I quickly fell into a routine and decided that, rather than constantly reciting to myself all the many physical and psychological benefits of swimming, I would just understand that swimming three times a week was A Thing That I Would Do.  Period.  Only the most serious of reasons would cause me to miss a workout.  And I stuck with that.  Travel, serious illness, a grad student’s exam that couldn’t be scheduled at any other time – those were about the only things that would cause me to miss a workout.

    Until, of course, we finally started to realize the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic.  On March 16, DAM strongly recommended that seniors stop going to workouts.  I watched several people leave sadly.  It was an eerie, surreal practice.  I remember I went home and said to my partner sadly, “I think that might have been my last DAM workout for a while.”[1]  And indeed, by the end of the day, DAM had sent out an email cancelling workouts for everyone.  Even though the County and State official stay-at-home orders wouldn’t come for a few more days, that was really the beginning for me.

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  • Governor issues clarification of stay-at-home rules

    Outdoor exercise, care for the children and elderly, and more

    Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 8.33.40 AMBy Roberta Millstein

    Last night at around 10:30 PM, the Office of the Governor of California tweeted that there was new information available for the Governor’s Stay-at-home rule.  You can find those online at: https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/

    For example, many people had wondered whether they could still go outside for exercise.  The webpage clarifies that:

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  • Need to focus on essentials for City’s COVID-19 Emergency

    Covid19Dear Davis City Council,

    Thank you for considering declaring a local emergency.  I am fully in support of that.  I am writing to strongly urge that you add (something like) the following to the “Proclamation of a Local Emergency in Response to COVID-19”: 

    “The City will not take action on any major development projects during the emergency, including but not limited to the Aggie Research Campus (ARC).”

    My reasons are as follows:

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  • What’s wrong with City staff’s new burrowing owl policy

    A response to Ash Feeney

    Feeney-with-owlsBy Roberta Millstein

    A few days ago I learned of a new policy from City staff concerning the 25 acres outside of Mace curve, aka Mace 25, prime farmland that was purchased with citizen tax dollars from the open space fund.  According to this new policy, the City will not be mowing areas in which burrowing owls are already nesting, instead allowing the owls to be “naturally displaced from the site… by allowing tall dense vegetation to grow along the western edge.”  By not mowing, the City will be “doing what it can to prevent the owls from using the site.” Burrowing owls prefer short grasses (e.g., native short prairie grass or grass that is kept short through mowing) so that they can see their predators coming, and they will leave an area if the grasses aren’t short.

    At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, I along with a number of other citizens attended to protest this new policy and to ask the City Council to direct staff to promote burrowing owl habitat at that site.  Burrowing owls, it should be noted, have been designated as a Species of Special Concern by the State of California, and their numbers have been declining dramatically over the past 10 years in the Davis area.  No action was taken at the meeting, although I have since learned that at least one Councilmember is in favor of taking up this issue at a future meeting.

    What did happen at the meeting was that Assistant City Manager Ash Feeney defended the new policy.  He has apparently issued a statement summarizing his views, published on the Davis Vanguard (staff could not confirm this by the end of yesterday’s business day).  Unfortunately, this response contains false and problematic statements.

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