Recreation & Parks Commission,
I am highly concerned about the proposal to change the sound standards for the City of Davis. My understanding from articles written by former mayor Joe Krovoza is that standards are in consideration to be changed in terms of duration, levels, and measurement of peaks.
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Today the D. Vanguard recycled some old content from January 2021 in a 'new' article "Commentary: Long Troubled by Some of the Comments on Pacifico" and sprinkled in some recent content from an Anti-NIMBY Council-meeting public comment.
I, too, am disgusted by some of the comments on Pacifico, but the comments I find twisted are the opposite comments Greenwald is troubled by — those by David Greenwald, Georgina Valencia and some much-DV-recycled comments by Gloria Partida . . . and the rest of the Usual Suspects of the "Anti-NIMBY" crowd.
My position remains immortalized in the following letter:
An Open Letter to South Davis (January 2021)
Hello South Davis,
I don’t live in South Davis, but I’m looking at District 3 100’ away out my window.
I share your problems and your concerns. There is a spot 200’ from my house where drug addicts / drug dealers / thieves camp outdoors. This is not a homeless encampment, it is a revolving crime den. In Spring 2020 I had three scary men on meth (I believe) approach me late at night and one threw rocks at me. There were numerous incidents of mental health outbursts. I slept little for two months as these people were up all night.
Our neighborhood mostly solved the problem *this time* eventually by having meetings with both the Police Chief and his Lieutenant, and relentlessly pestering the City Council. That took two months.
Your problems I have heard regarding Pacifico are similar, and thankfully also seem better but not solved. I am here with you in unity. We cannot participate in these issues only when the problem is next to us. We must support other Davis residents who have similar problems, as the problem is bigger than Pacifico, and bigger than the location next to me.
God Bless the people who are helping the truly homeless population that are in need. Those who spoke today on that are I believe sincere. However, the problem is not the needy, but the criminals. We cannot conflate these.
There have been times when residents, and subtly even our leaders, have shamed “the homed” for being “privileged” and not being sensitive to those in need. These are separate issues. We must recognize the needs of the truly homeless. We must also recognize that there is no shame in having a home and a roof over our heads, nor the need to protect our families and yes, our things.
When people talk of drug dealers and thieves, they are not talking about the needy homeless; we must not conflate the two as a rhetorical trick. We must recognize and acknowledge that shaming the ‘other’ and demonizing those with homes, and those without homes, will not result in constructive resolution. We must recognize the needs of all parties as legitimate. Except for criminals, they ‘need’ to be removed.
Alan C. Miller is a resident of Old East Davis
Al's Corner is a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from. For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is".
I haven't read the aftermath article that was no doubt in the Vanguard Wednesday morning. I have grown yawn of the analysis/spin and the predictability. I could write the article. I will go read it for the comments, but without Alan Miller and Keith O., the comments have really become dull. And Ron O., by his descriptions here, half his stuff is censhored. How is censhored content either a discussion or entertaining?
But what has changed is that the key issues/peoples the Vanguard champions died last night. Here's my prediction (or a post-diction since it's already been written): the article will include Measure H, Chesa Boudin and Reisig. Am I close? The Vanguard lost, and all such progressive/woke initiatives are going down, like a sinking submarine. They didn't just go down, they were all massacres. Sinking massacres. Mixed metaphors.
Measure H? 64% vs. 52% last time. So it's getting worse, horribly worse, for the prospects of development. Probably not ever going to be developed unless every taxpayer in Davis is bribed $1000 to vote 'yes'. More voters would have mattered? Doesn't matter, that's how it is. Where were all those student voters voting 'yes' that didn't last time? Not voting, as usual, as students don't. In one of the Valley's most liberal towns, it went down. Must be all the racists on the 'no' SIDE.
Chesa? An initiative on 'defund the police'. Doesn't matter what the stats are. The public has had it. In one of the countries most liberal cities.
Reisig? He stooped pretty low with the child molester attempted link. Then the lipstick-on-a-pig flyer came out. OK now they both stopped low, so no moral advantage there. But again, people in a Valley county with a super-liberal town/city, even Yolo leans law & order. And for me, Reisig's dept. put a murderer behind bars who killed a friend's partner in front of them and their young child. And the murderer should NEVER get out of jail, unless the living victim says so. Period. Majority of us don't believe in term limits for murderers.
MOOB!
With a whopping 11,000 votes cast, Measure H was massacred, going down 64% to 36%, or nearly 2-1. I was actually in favor of the project, slightly, and would have voted for it, had Carson not . . . well, no need to rehash here, you all know — some of you fellow citizens know intimately/legally/financially. With this scaled-back version going down like a rock, it is safe to ask . . . did the decision to bring on Carson and then sue Davis residents kill this project?
I believe the project would not have passed anyway, based on a guess I pulled out of my ass while typing this. But a reasonable question is, could 1500-2000 of those 11,000 Davis residents been so offended by what the developer and Carson did that they changed their vote or made a point of voting when they may not have otherwise? I believe, also sourced from my colon, that the answer is yes, they could have. What I do know is I talked to a lot of people who were very angry at Carson and thought he had made himself into a fool clown. Nothing motivates one to vote like anger at a fool clown.
The main conclusion of the video 'How Do You Die in a Sinking Submarine?' is that you die instantly when the hull implodes. Carson, on the other hand, is going down slowly through June, July, August, September and October. Painfully listening as the political hull creaks and groans under the pressure of his own stupidity reflected back on him from Davis residents, until: BOOM! Or, rather, since submarines implode rather than explode: MOOB!
Why am I being such a dick to Carson? I want to send a clear message so that never again will anyone be so brazen as to:
Personally, I found much of the NO on H ballot argument outrageous; I also found much of the YES ballot argument outrageous. I doubt anyone on the NO side ever thought, 'hey I know, let's sue the YES side over their ballot language'! No, they used media and lawn signs, like normal, decent people do. This skull-f*ckery of suing Davis citizens over ballot language will stop. Y'all should have been intelligent enough to see what a bad idea that was. You weren't.
We all tend to have very short memories when politicians do stupid things. I intend to keep the pressure on, keep the memory of the stupidity going, and hope the people of West Davis are more intelligent than Carson and the developer. The sub is sinking; let's all keep the pressure increasing on the hull over the next five months until we see the bubbles on the surface.
MOOB!
This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from. For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is".
Campaigners are often so set in the righteousness of their views that they forget that the only people they need to convince are those few in the middle weighing both sides. Carson changed my vote on Measure H.
I see both advantages and consequences to building DiSC; my main issue was infrastructure, specifically the bike under-crossing. I was torn but until recently decided to cross the 50-yard line in support of the project, based on the developer's commitment to build the bike/ped tunnel (though I was getting concerned as some pointed out the wording in the agreement could allow the 'commitment' to be pushed off indefinitely).
Then Carson became the head of the committee to support the project he just voted to put on the ballot, as a coucil-member. I'm fine with council-members having opinions and speaking out, but I don't ever want to see such an intimate relationship between a party of interest and a politician, even if technically legal. Honestly, I may never have noticed, had Carson not chosen to become the developer’s proxy to sue Davis citizens over a ballot argument. Yes, the ‘No’ ballot argument is outrageous; also outrageous is the developer’s ‘Yes’ ballot argument, lawn signs, etc. That's the nature of ballot arguments!
Loss of political integrity on this scale trumps mere issues and must not be tolerated. I will not only vote No on H, but likely permanently against this piece of land and this developer. I will also get my exercise this fall by walking the streets of West Davis in support of Carson's replacement.
Vote NO on Carson.
Alan C. Miller
Davis
This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums (that you may or may not have been banned from).
For the (very few) Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see top of right column on home page under: "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is"
This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local stuff. It's also a place to comment on articles and comments from other local forums you may have been banned from. For the Rule-ez, see top of right column: "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is"
Al's Corner #1 was a smashing success. Please ruin Al's Corner #2 with poor, thoughtless comments that will make babies cry. Without contrast to success, there is no victory.
Enjoy! 😐
Davisite 
I have aural nerve damage in one ear and so have had to, out of necessity, learn how sound affects the human body. Loud sounds can cause me splitting headaches emanating from the inside of the ear, severe ringing in the ears, internal ear pressure, disorientation, burning, aural misinterpretations, etc. Sound frequency, duration, distance, peak-volume and distortion all factor into the severity of an 'event' as I have come to know them.
Though dependent on particular circumstances, in general shorter bursts of loud sounds are more damaging than longer duration of softer sounds. That is why going with some sort of 'averaging' system would be a tragic mistake. This would ignore the very real damage done by peak sounds. My world-renowned ear doctor from Stanford Ear Clinic would back me up on this. He has coached me on how to live with my condition, which is not treatable.
My ear doctor explains that there is a 'threshold' level at which the noise becomes damaging to hearing (in my case, the threshold is much lower than those with a healthy ear). The PEAK noise is almost always the problem. Therefore, changing the city noise ordinance to consider some AVERAGE measurement as the standard is not only unwise, it is INSANE.
To give an example of how unwise this is, an example everyone can understand – consider train horns. A train horn — at 100' in front of the horn — ranges from 96 to 110 db. Even at the low end this is painfully loud, and on the high end can cause ear damage in just a few seconds. But, if you averaged the railroad noise around the tracks over a period of hours, it would show very low AVERAGE noise as over time there are few trains. The PEAK noise is when the damage is done; AVERAGING OVER TIME would FAIL to CATCH the DAMAGING peak sounds.
While I am more bothered by sound than those with healthy hearing, ear disease is rampant and hugely under-diagnosed in this country. There are many people with my condition and many other hearing diseases who are intolerant of various sound conditions. This is not just about an annoyance, it is at times debilitating.
Another thing to consider is that those close to a noise source suffer from the exposure repeatedly and over time. Those adjacent to noise sources are the people who must be considered paramount and above all else. Let's say a nightclub with sub-woofers goes in next door to someone's house. But ON AVERAGE less than 1% of the people in town even hear the noise. The standard must be on how the noise effects those adjacent, not on the fact that 99% of Davis voters never hear it. Another abominable use of 'average' exposure.
I urge the commission, the City, and the Council to retain current noise-ordinance formulas and standards, and reject any attempt to change the noise ordinance to be more allowing of harmful peak noise exposures.
Sincerely,
Alan C. Miller, District 3