Author: Tuvia ben Olam

Please write the City of Davis Tree Commission today at <treecommission@cityofdavis.org> in advance of today's early evening meeting, or call during the meeting, and ask them to incorporate elements of my City Soil concept to their draft modifications of Chapter 37 of the municipal code.

Trinita Terrace & 5th St, entrance to The Cottages at Mace Ranch

City Soil builds roots to support not only trees, but also clean air, quieter neighborhoods,  jobs and sustainable transportation!

In Davis, it's not allowed to place leaves or other yard waste in bike lanes. Never. Never Ever. It's a good regulation…. because it's DANGEROUS!

There's a stretch on 5th St. in Mace Ranch where unknown assailants who live in the neighborhoods east of the police station and west of Alhambra place leaves and/or branches in the bike lane. Per a discussion on NextDoor, at least in The Cottages there's no scheduled yard waste pick-up due to some financial arrangement made when it was established, or  later. It's not clear. Myself and several others have been using the City's notification system to report these transgressions for years… but the only result is that the rest of us pay the City to pick up what these people won't pay for.

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Zuzana Čaputová, the President of Slovakia, is shown a cargo bike, in Trnava, Slovakia. Photo by Matej Kalina, http://www.pluska.sk.

Foreshadowing: In the spirit and solid of full transparency, I've decided to publish my warnings and suchlike to my former colleagues and replacement on the City of Davis Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission (BTSSC).

Comments in advance of the March 11, 2021 BTSSC meeting (Tree Commission-related comments are in Regular Agenda Item 6B)

General Comments: 

* The February review of how things work in the transportation department was useful and detailed, It is noted, however, that in the organizational chart there's a vacant Safe to Routes School position, BUT not a vacant Senior Civil Engineer (Transportation) position. This position was filled until 2017, the City tried to hire someone during 2018 and possibly 2019, but then dropped it. I've seen no evidence that it was officially, publicly-dropped. The Staff members with civil engineering degrees currently handling the duties and direction normally exercised by this position simply do not have the experience to do it right. The evidence for this is the proposals – some that have come to the BTSSC – that show a lack of knowledge of regulations (Tulip-Ponteverde), improvised out-of-classification infrastructure (the "low cost safe space" on south-bound Lake at Russell), total discounting of the lack of a pedestrian crossing across Lake at Russell, even as most of the intersection was re-done. That it shows a continued bias towards motor vehicle transportation is likely not a conscious one, but one simply born of lack of experience. People are trying to do their best, and my comment is not personal. The City Manager and City Council need to work harder to hire the right person who can help their colleagues and subordinates, so that they can help our City deserve its Platinum bike-friendly status.

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Rush Limbaugh

Ethan Miller/Getty Images – https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/rush-limbaugh-women.html

I am reminded first of all that the date of death rather than birth is the one to remember for Jews as it demarcates the time in which we can be judged. This is the day we commemorate this person, and then also the yearly anniversary of that day.

 

For millions of Jewish victims in the Shoah – those killed in ghettos, on the way to or in concentration or death camps… and many others – there is no known precise date of death. For many it was decided that the day of their deportation would be the effective date, as at that time their fate was sealed.

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