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Category: Current Affairs

  • Davisites’ attitudes towards Kavanaugh, Thomas, #metoo, #whyIDidntReport

    I posted a link to this Davis Media Access video to the Davisite Facebook page a few days ago, but I can’t get it out of my head.

    In the video, you see men supporting (now Supreme Court justice) Clarence Thomas, and men supporting Professor Anita Hill.  You see women supporting Thomas, and women supporting Hill.  But most of all, you hear exactly the same arguments on both sides that you are hearing in the media today concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is now facing three separate sexual assault accusations: one from Prof. Christine Blasey Ford, one from Deborah Ramirez, and one from a number of as-yet-unnamed women who lawyer Michael Avenatti is representing.

    If DMA were to redo those interviews in Davis today – in the #metoo #WhyIDidntReport #BelieveSurvivors era – would the results be much different?

    I’d like to hope that they would be.  But I fear that they wouldn’t.

  • Planned West Davis Adult Community, if Approved, Would Perpetuate Racial Imbalance in the City of Davis

    Complaintimage(Press release) The proposed restrictive West Davis Active Adult Community on the City of Davis’ November 6 ballot which advertises its purpose as a planned community “Taking Care of Our Own,” is being challenged in federal court because it will perpetuate racial imbalance and discriminate against minorities by restricting sales to residents of Davis

    In a federal complaint filed Monday, September 24, by Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark E. Merin, plaintiff Samuel Ignacio, a Filipino/Hispanic senior on behalf and all other minorities outside of Davis, seeks to stop the project because it excludes those living outside of Davis from buying most of the 410 planned for-sale units.

    Davis, a city whose senior population is disproportionately “white” as a result of historic racially restrictive covenants, red-lining practices, and previous University of California hiring practices, approved the project with 90% of its units restricted to “purchasers with a preexisting connection to the City of Davis.” The result of this “local resident” restriction, as alleged in the civil rights complaint, is the continuation of a racially imbalanced community and the exclusion of minority would-be purchasers in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act.

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  • More on recent problems with the Davis Enterprise

    News-stock-photoBy Eileen Samitz

    I appreciate this Davisite article and completely agree with its response to the defensive Enterprise article by Tanya Perez. However, the problem with the Enterprise goes far beyond the few mentioned. The Enterprise needs to become more even-handed and print the comments and concerns of the wide variety of community members, instead of focusing on and reflecting personal opinions of its new editor Sebastian Oñate so often on its Forum page.

    Further, it is inexcusable that the Enterprise's publishers would tolerate the condescending comments posted by its new editor, Sebastian Oñate (on Twitter) ridiculing Davis community members and their submitted writings to the Enterprise. His predecessor, Debbie Davis, was a professional who respected all opinions, regardless of whether she agreed with them or not, and would never have behaved so unprofessionally and disrespectfully towards the community.

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  • A response to Tanya Perez on the purpose of the Davis Enterprise

    Perez-and-Beckett In Sunday’s paper, Tanya Perez writes a spirited and mostly reasonable defense of the Davis Enterprise, but she doesn’t quite get it.

    Lamenting the loss of eagle-eyed editor Debbie Davis, AP news stories, and the like, Perez writes:

    The Enterprise aims to give you the information you cannot get elsewhere. We know you have Google, so you can look up the recipe sections we no longer carry. You can Google comic strips you miss, or AP News stories or national headlines.

     We are trying to give you context for local issues. And we are working to tell you what people in our immediate area want to know. That is our core mission [emphasis added].

    Right on.  This is certainly why I subscribe to the Enterprise – why I subscribed as soon as I moved here and why I continue to subscribe.  I am always a little baffled when people say they don’t read the local paper.  I think it’s important to know what is going on around us, even more so than what is going in the state or nation.

    Where I think she misses one of the core missions of a local paper, however, is where she writes:

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  • Downtown/Core Planning Should Be Part of a Holistic, Organic Plan for Davis Overall

    Davis-neighborhoodsBy Nancy Price

    I'm glad for Chris Jones' alternative vision. In my opinion, the process has been hijacked by special commercial interests, outside planners, the Planning Department and the City Council. Having attended two meetings, seems to me the community is being railroaded by the process, stirred up by the dream that downtown redevelopment that will cure Davis' ills, especially the economic "problems," and be the city of the future.

    Though the process appears to be democratic and fully participatory, the outside consultants were rude, didn't answer questions honestly and without bias, and dismissed others…treating many participants as lacking the requisite "credentials" and education on planning to participate meaningfully. How many of our tax dollars are being spent on this process?

    Yes, the town square concept described by Chris Jones has historical, traditional roots with major state institutions clustered around the square or central commons: church, school, administrative and judicial offices, financial institutions, etc. But let's be honest, cities all over the world are made up of neighborhoods that replicate the same concept on a smaller scale.

    Here I offer another alternative. Why create a downtown that is a central place in the economic/social hierarchy? That's how we in Davis have always thought of the downtown – the "Main Street." In fact, after a few of us "saved" Central Park from being a three-tiered shopping mall, we created the first Core Area Task Force..maybe that was 1987 or 88 or 89. We have always had a very protective attitude toward the "core" and tried to ensure peripheral malls would not compete with the core.

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  • Preserve our right to be heard at City Council meetings

    GaggedIf you want to preserve your right to speak in general public comment at City Council meetings, come to the City Council meeting today (Tuesday, July 10) at 7:15 PM and express your concerns about the proposal to shunt some of general public comment to the very end of the meeting.  Maybe you’ve never spoken at a Council meeting.  Maybe you don’t think you would. But it’s exactly when our concerns are the greatest that we find ourselves doing things that we didn’t expect we’d do and when we most need to preserve our right to speak.

    Although I’ve spoken at Council meetings a number of times, I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken at general public comment at the beginning of the meeting (exception: my first time when I didn’t understand how things worked).  But I have heard others give general public comment.  They speak of issues that the Council might not yet know about or has yet to take up and place on the agenda.  Or they speak to items that are on the agenda, but for which they cannot stay to speak. They speak with passion and conviction.  Maybe the issues aren’t important to me.  But they are important to the speaker.  In a democracy, all voices should be heard, even those we disagree with or those who speak about things that we ourselves do not care about, because when it’s our turn, we will want to be heard.

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  • New Police Surveillance Technology Needs More Disclosure and Specificity

    CameraDear Mayor Lee and Davis City Council Members,

    We are pleased to see our new city surveillance ordinance being implemented. Last Thursday night we saw the first staff reports on surveillance technologies being used in the city. As our first attempt as a city to lead the way in public disclosure of use of surveillance technologies, we want all parties to contribute to fully meeting the spirit and requirements of the ordinance. To that end, we offer both questions and suggestions regarding the Police Department staff reports.

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  • Envision Downtown Davis

    Virtual Community Workshop Flyer FinalThe City of Davis is asking for your help in planning for the future of downtown. By participating in the Virtual Community Workshop, your input will help with the creation of the Specific Plan. The workshop is currently live through June 28.

    Join the conversation and participate in the Virtual Community Workshop at www.cityofdavis.org/EnvisionDowntownDavis

    Additionally, the Downtown Davis Plan Team will be hosting the second Participatory Design Workshop from July 10 through July 14 at the Davis Community Church Fellowship Hall, located at 421 D Street. They will be reaching out with a flyer and additional information shortly.

  • Democracy and general public comment: A reply to Jon Li

    Brett_LeeI want to thank Jon Li for his thoughtful response to my earlier article, an article that objected to the recent proposal to limit the time for general public comment at the beginning of Council meetings, shunting the rest of general public comment to the end of the meetings.  His remarks provide the opportunity for me to reflect more on the nature of democracy as it pertains to our humble town.

     Jon asks us to think about the real purpose of public comment and about the nature of a representative democracy, and rightly so.  It is my view that recent events, both regionally and nationally, have shown us that just showing up to the polls and voting during elections is not enough.  Citizens can and should be more engaged than that.  Of course, ultimately we do rely on our elected representatives to make decisions.  But it is incumbent on us to let them know where we stand on issues, to raise concerns that they may not have thought of, to give them the information that they need in order to be able to properly represent us.

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  • Inappropriate Behavior from the Editor of the Davis Enterprise

    Onate-taking-overEveryone knows that newspapers are under severe threats to their survival and have been for some time.  The Davis Enterprise is no different.  Yet newspapers play an essential role in informing the community, fostering community dialogue, and forging community.  That makes me loathe to criticize the Enterprise.  But when the new Editor, Sebastian Oñate, engages in practices that undermine those very goals, I feel as though I must speak out.  I do so not to hurt the Enterprise further but rather in the hopes of changing his ways, or if that is not possible, to encourage the paper to find a different Editor.

    The problem with Oñate’s practice is this: he has engaged in practices that demean and disparage readers.  This serves to reduce participation and harm one’s sense of community, not foster it.  An Editor should always take the high road and be seen as open and fair to all.  Unfortunately, Oñate has not done that, as the following examples illustrate. (If images are too small to read, you can click to enlarge, or just follow the links).

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