Conflicts of Interest in the City of Davis Housing Element Committee
by Alan Pryor and Rik Keller
Note: The preceding Part II in this series covering Brown Act violations is here:
“Housing Element Committee members are expected to remove themselves from all discussions and votes on matters in which they have any direct personal financial interest.
In gauging such extra-legal conflicts of interest and/or duty, each member shall exercise careful judgment and introspection in giving priority to the interests of fairness and objectivity; if there is any reasonable doubt that the member has a conflict, the member shall refrain from participation in the committee’s deliberations and vote(s).” – City of Davis Housing Element Committee Ground Rules (p. 4)
The City’s Denial of Brown Act Violations by the Housing Element Committee and Certain of Its Members is Not Credible nor Factually-Based
by Alan Pryor and Rik Keller
Note: A subsequent Part III of this series will cover conflicts of interest of HEC members in detail
Introduction
Last week the authors wrote a carefully-researched and well-documented article on the City of Davis’s Housing Element Committee (HEC) alleging several serious violations of the California state Brown Act open meeting laws prohibiting direct communications between members of jurisdictional bodies. As stated in that article, the composition of the Council-appointed HEC, which is supposed to represent a “diversity of interests” in the community, was instead primarily composed of development and real estate interests and their local supporters.
In our article, we also disclosed that several weeks ago, there were a last-minute series of policy recommendations very favorable to the real estate and development interests in the City that were suddenly introduced to the Committee by these same real estate and development interests. These recommendations, in direct violation of the Brown Act, were sent directly from one member of the HEC to the entire HEC.
The HEC then further violated the Brown Act in considering and voting to adopt the same recommendations without publicly noticing that these recommendations were being considered by the HEC. In essence, these recommendations were introduced secretly to the HEC and then voted upon without full public disclosure and scrutiny of the recommendations. Furthermore, the development and real estate interests on the Committee failed to adequately disclose conflicts of interest in terms of their investments and holdings in the City that would be impacted by these very same favorable recommendations approved by the HEC (see more on this point in the coming Part 3 of this series of articles).
My strong feeling is that all local streets – including Downtown – should have a 15 mph design speed. This is already a number most are familiar with, as it's used alongside e.g. speed tables on school routes and even the sharp turn from 2nd St to L St.
The design speed is a speed that most people feel comfortable moving at in motor vehicles. People on bikes can also feel a design speed, but they are nearly infinitely more inherently safe than motor vehicles to others in the public ROW. 15 is also a bit faster than most cycling speeds.Traveling by bike on most greenbelt paths in Davis at 15 mph feels too fast – the paths are under-built – and perhaps the biggest design flaw in post 1970's Davis, sadly and ironically complemented by the clinically-insane wideness of many streets in West Davis, Mace Ranch and South Davis… but also much older streets in Old North, etc.
Does it seem slow? Perhaps. However, consider that for most journeys by motor vehicle a relatively short distance is on local streets. So any journey lengthening will be minimal.
Or can it even be shorter? Yes! 15 mph speed design is best complemented by elimination of existing mandatory stops; to be replaced by yields. It's these often unnecessary stops that lengthen journey time the most. Getting rid of them also decreases pollution (gas, particles and noise) and makes people less likely to feel the need to speed to the next stop sign.
At next week’s city council meeting, council will be asked to change the city’s sound ordnance. With little discussion or notice, city staff have added an item to the agenda that could have big implications for city planning and residential neighborhoods in Davis.
In a nutshell, the amendment would, as one person has put it, allow someone to stand in front of your house and blow an air horn for a minute or two every hour without violating the sound ordinance. This would be allowed because city staff have decided it is better to measure sound by averaging it over an hour, rather than use a simple measure like the maximum allowed sound, how the current ordinance works. A quick check on the web shows that two other college towns – Chico and San Luis Obispo – have existing sound ordinances that use the “maximum” sound standard. Others have found that most cities use the maximum allowed sound rather than an average.
And this makes sense. Using maximum allowable sounds – particularly during quiet periods like nighttime – eliminates repetitive loud noises like, to use an extreme example, pile drivers and other such concussive noises as the Chico ordinance notes. San Luis Obispo has sound levels for daytime hours that are meant to limit loud noises such as leaf blowers and the like.
Is now the time for the City of Davis to be spending millions of dollars on a ladder fire truck when it currently only needs this type of truck approximately once per month at most, when it can currently borrow UC Davis’s ladder truck for free?
What information do we need to answer this question? What do we know and what do we need to know?
According to the Davis Enterprise, on March 16 the Davis City Council “expressed unanimous support for acquiring a ladder truck for the Davis Fire Department and directed staff to move forward both on securing a detailed cost estimate for a truck as well as developing plans to modify the downtown fire station to accommodate it.”
The estimated costs discussed thus far are as follows (with the City possibly being able to obtain some grants to offset some of these costs):
The City of Davis' only response to recent crashes in the vicinity of Pole Line Road and East Covell Blvd has thus far been Enforcement1. Actively, the Davis Police Department has been monitoring some locations in the area. Passively, the City has placed aradar speed sign on WB East Covell between Manzanita and Baywood Streets,right about here.
Why is the radar speed sign in the bike lane? The City places similar signs – and they and private contractors place various construction signs – off to the side on streets when there's space to do so, so they clearly understand the advantage of doing so. But when there's no space, they place the signs on the side of the street, and on most collectors and arterial streets in Davis this means it's in a bike lane.
"Putting a radar feedback sign on Covell to invite drivers to slow down: good. Putting a sign in bike lane: not good," says Nicolas Fauchier-Magnan, the President ofBike Davis, who usually goes by Nico.
"Obstructing the bike lane, on a street where drivers routinely go 50 mph or more is simply irresponsible.
"Come on, City of Davis," continues Nico. "You should know better, and you can do better. Please fix this terrible blunder before someone gets hurt. There is plenty of space on the grass, outside of the bike lane, to safely place this sign."
Date: Saturday, Oct 24 Time: from 1:30-3:00pm Location: Central Park, Davis, CA
Because of COVID, attendees are expected to socially distance to keep everyone safe. Masks are required (extras masks/ hand-sanitizer will be provided if needed). Stay home if you feel sick!
Yolo People Power, Multiculturalism Rocks!, Women in Leadership Davis, Yolo Committee for Diverse and Inclusive Elections, and Indivisible Yolo invite you to an educational rally on re-thinking policing and public safety to help create an anti-racist, reformative, compassionate system that TRULY keeps every member of our community safe.
This event will feature short speeches by local activists, organizers, university and high school students, and experts on the problems of our current law enforcement/ criminal justice system and what solutions exist to transform it.
(From press release) Three local grassroots organizations, Yolo People Power, Envisioning Justice Partnership-West Sacramento, and Three Sisters Gardens have launched an online petition which acknowledges systemic anti-Blackness and racism in our structures of governance, and demands changes in how we envision and provide public safety. The petition calls upon Yolo County and its local municipal governments to join jurisdictions from across the nation in recognizing policing as a public health issue, and propose a transition from a weaponized approach to a public safety model. The petition is informed and inspired by programs like Eugene, Oregon's CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) which differentiates which responders are most appropriate for each call. This means employing mental health and substance abuse specialists, social workers, and advocates for the houseless community, who are not affiliated with police departments, to respond to most calls.
The petition also calls for an intervention into the mechanisms of participatory democracy, to ensure that marginalized communities are well-represented in decision-making processes, and have the opportunity to speak for themselves. Toward this end, the petition calls on policy-makers to host community forums around public safety in the next three months, and develop proposals for community review prior to the 2021 budget cycle.
All Yolo County residents are welcome to sign the Change.org petition, which has been endorsed by Indivisible Yolo. The petition can be found online at http://bit.ly/3hdaJDf
White people of Davis, this is relevant here, too:
One of the fundamental things wrong with police culture is solidarity with violent colleagues.
You may have seen the video of police in riot gear pushing over a 75 year old man who started bleeding from the head while the other officers present walked by him, seemingly unconcerned.
Two officers have been suspended and ALL 57 of the city's emergency response team resigned from the team in solidarity with their dangerous coworkers. There have been no consequences for the officers who stood by and did nothing. None of those 57 should be in any position of community authority, let alone with a service weapon.
This is not a problem "over there". This extends to Davis.
Like so many people in Davis, I am an avid animal lover. I worked at UCD VMTH until I retired 5 years ago. I loved my work there and was privileged to help many animals during that time, but since retiring, I decided to volunteer with the local Yolo County SPCA which has helped backfill some of the gratification I got from my work. I also have coordinated the holiday pet basket charity annually for Mercer Clinic for the Pets of the Homeless for 25 years, but now one of my biggest concerns is the need for a new Yolo County animal shelter.
The good news is that there is a path now open to get there now thanks to the work of a number of people working with Supervisor Jim Provenza who serves with Supervisor Gary Sandy on the County committee working making a new animal shelter a reality. The first thing needed is the Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) which a number of entities have worked on to draft including Jim, Supervisor Gary Sandy, UCD’s Koret Animal Shelter program and the Yolo County SPCA.
This Joint Powers agreement which would change the structure of management for a Yolo Animal Shelter to be a shared responsibility, with shared input. This has been needed and the good news is that this JPA moved forward this past Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors meeting. The motion was led by Jim Provenza which, with his impassioned statement, passed unanimously by the entire Board of Supervisors. Jim has cared about this need deeply and even has a video posted making the appeal for a new Yolo animal shelter needed which you can view here:
I was present at the Board of Supervisors February 25hth meeting with several other animal lovers and advocates who testified and we were thrilled to see how Jim spoke so passionately about the need for this JPA to move forward and to help us to move forward on efforts for a new animal shelter. A non-profit was started a while ago thanks to a number of dedicated animals lovers called “Unleashing Yolo” to help fundraise for a new Yolo animal shelter. To learn more about it and to help by donating, the website is www.unleashingyolo.org
In addition, there is another non-profit supporting this goal named “Friends of Yolo County Animal Services” which has a website at www.friendsofycas.org and are dedicated to helping improve the lives of animals and support adoption within Yolo County.
In short, I wanted to share this wonderful news, and to reach out to others who may want to help in this much needed effort and also, to urge people to please vote For Jim Provenza to be re-elected for Yolo County Supervisor, so we can move forward to make a new animal shelter a reality.
Conflicts of Interest in the City of Davis Housing Element Committee
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