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Category: Ethics

  • Eileen’s Update

    No on Measure V Campaign Gratitude

    The No on Measure V campaign would like to express our sincere gratitude to the many Davis voters who voted to reject the Village Farms proposal for the many reasons we explained in our articles, literature, and online at our NoOnMeasureV.org website.

    It is unfortunate that this project divided the community, but ultimately, the majority of voters understood that the project was unacceptable due to its many impacts, including toxics, flooding potential, massive traffic, enormous infrastructure costs, habitat destruction along Channel A, as well as endangerment of the vernal pools and the endangered species of Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp, and especially due to the unaffordable market-rate housing and the seriously inadequate affordable housing plan. The housing proposed would have been unaffordable to parents of young kids and would not have yielded hundreds of kids, and the and the long timeline of at least 15+ years did not coincide with the School District timeline, so it would not have helped the schools.

    This issue is now behind us, and hopefully we can come together as a community and work on solutions instead of school closures. This process needs to start now, and the School Board needs to move forward and approve the formation of a parent-based subcommittee, as recommended by California Best Practices, to work on solutions with the School District to avoid school closures without delay.

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  • Award-Winning Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) Presented July 7th

    By Scott Steward

    Kristen Wraithwall is the Manager of the Sustainability Division. The Sustainability Division operates within the Health and Safety Department of our Yolo County. Kristen will present the Update on Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) Implementation Progress at this Tuesday’s (July 7th) Yolo County Board of Supervisors Meeting at 9:00 AM.

     Zoom meeting: By PC: https://yolocounty.zoom.us/j/84359964086

    Kristen, her staff, the Climate Action Commission, and the County have made consistently strong progress in climate action despite very difficult budget circumstances. This Sustainability work continues to provide our county with grant-funded programs that Yolo County cities and other California counties look to as models for what can be accomplished in their own jurisdictions. Yolo County’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan received the Sacramento Valley Section APA Award of Excellence in Resilience and Sustainability (May 2025) and the Beacon Award from the Institute for Local Government (November 2025). 

    Vehicle use remains the #1 source of greenhouse gas emissions in Yolo County, so it is no surprise that 2026-2027 CAAP priorities emphasize transportation, including the implementation of countywide Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) programs. Transportation is followed by building energy efficiency in coordination with Valley Clean Energy, Natural & Working Lands water conservation and carbon soil enhancement, recycling, and public cooling infrastructure.

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  • HEART of Davis Celebrates First Anniversary of Safe Heart Safe Parking Program

    Program marks one year of providing safety, stability, and pathways to housing for neighbors living in their vehicles

    (From press release) HEART of Davis is celebrating the first anniversary of its Safe Heart Safe Parking Program, the first and only program in Yolo County to provide a safe, legal place for people living in their vehicles to park overnight while accessing supportive services and working toward permanent housing.

    Launched on July 1, 2025, Safe Heart was created to address a critical gap in services for people experiencing vehicular homelessness. In the City of Davis, where sleeping in vehicles is prohibited under the City’s anti-camping ordinance, the program offers a lawful alternative that combines overnight parking with case management, community support, and connections to essential resources.

    “What began as a small pilot has become a proven model of compassionate, practical assistance,” said Shoshana Zatz, President of HEART of Davis. “Safe Heart demonstrates that when people are treated with dignity and offered stability, they are better able to take the next steps toward housing, employment, healthcare, and renewed independence.”

    During its first year, Safe Heart:

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  • How Yolo County Staff Blundered Review of Illegal Fireworks Businesses on Agricultural Land

    By David L. Johnson

    Introduction

    The focus of this article is how top level Yolo County administrators, including the Office of the County Counsel, ignored illegal fireworks businesses on property owned by Sam and Tammy Machado in Esparto.

    Based on a Public Records Act request, this author received a large collection of emails that document a series of negligent mistakes made by county employees. These emails are limited in number because of legal privilege and an ongoing investigation into the explosion and fatalities. However, of the numerous emails received by this author, not one county employee stated in writing to a representative of Sam Machado, or among themselves, that Yolo County passed an ordinance in 2001 banning the possession, storing or selling of dangerous fireworks – even when county employees knew there were fireworks stored at the site. More important, if the county had taken code enforcement action, the explosion, fire and fatalities would have never occurred.

    The lack of action for code enforcement in regard to the Machado property also includes the Chief of the Esparto Fire Protection District, as documented in the March 26, 2026, report entitled “Yolo County Civil Grand Jury 2025-2026 Esparto Fireworks Explosion: Officials Knew, None Acted.”

    As stated in the Grand Jury report:

    “In the evening of July 1, 2025, massive explosions obliterated a family farm located at the northwest corner of County Roads 23 and 86A in Esparto. This incident, commonly known as the Esparto Fireworks Explosion, claimed the lives of seven workers….The explosion leveled the site and ignited what was named the Oakdale Fire, which expanded to 78 acres including nearby properties….Seven employees of a company called Devastating Pyrotechnics were killed instantly….”

    The county’s lack of action ultimately led to the tragic deaths of:

    Name             Age

    Jesus Manaces Ramos – 18

    Angel Mathew Voller – 18

    Jhony Ernesto Ramos – 22

    Joel “Junior” Jeremias Melendez – 28

    Neil Justin Li – 41

    Carlos Javier Rodriguez-Mora – 43

    Christopher Goltiao Bocog – 45

    The victims included three brothers – Jesus Ramos, Jhony Ramos, and their eldest stepbrother Joel Melendez.

    The First Red Flags

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  • Living Water, Living Knowledge: Youth Explore Indigenous Stewardship in the Yolo Basin

    (From press release) For thousands of years, Patwin-Wintun peoples cared for the wetlands and waterways of the Yolo Basin using stewardship practices that enhanced biodiversity and sustained one of California’s richest delta ecosystems. This summer, Native, BIPOC, and ally youth are invited to experience these teachings firsthand through the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Youth Program.

    Led by Wintun/Maidu educator, naturalist, Fire Boss, and cultural practitioner Diana Almendariz, participants will explore how Indigenous communities lived in relationship with the land, plants, animals, and living water. Through hands-on activities, youth will learn about tule gathering, cultural burning, wetland ecology, wildlife, traditional foods, and Indigenous approaches to environmental stewardship.

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  • Where are we? Where are we going? 

    By Matt Williams

    Davis has a history of building only large footprint, rich amenities homes on large lots.  As a result, as a community we have excluded the vast majority of the Davis workforce (a workforce that educates our children and provides us with the suite of services that provides us our high quality of life) from the opportunity for home ownership.

    The numbers tell the story.  Since 2004, Davis added 1,261 units of high-priced, detached, single-family homes on large lots for the economic elite, and at the same time has built zero (or close to zero) small-footprint, low-priced, owner-occupied homes for its citizens with modest economic/financial resources. 

    We are all to blame for this classist approach to owner-occupied housing, and it calls into question the motto on so many lawns that Davis Is For Everyone. 

    There has been very little leadership from either the citizens or our elected leaders illuminating our classist pattern of (A) catering to the elite while (B) throwing our workforce under the bus, and (C) providing no proactive guidance to developers on project concepts that could be providing “Missing Middle” housing designed and priced for the members of the workforce, rather than the elite.

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  • Erosion of both ideals and accountability

    By Matt Williams

    I just came back from the Supervisors meeting at the County Offices. One of the ceremonial items was a recognition of Juneteenth 2026. One of the public comments was delivered by Garth Lewis, Yolo County Superintendent of Schools. There were two very resonant phrases he used in his remarks:

    1) dealt with the importance of monitoring that our ideals (at all levels, but especially as a community) are being realized in our practices. He went on to say that ideals lose their value if we don’t consistently put them into practice.

    2) he noted that we are living in times where “accountability is being undercut in this country every day.” That isn’t just a national problem, or a Trump problem. We have seen that play out in blinking neon letters in Measure V.

  • Who is Eric Jones?  A summary of the series with a quick wrap-up.

    By Roberta Millstein

    Who is Eric Jones?  I started with one article and didn’t know I’d be writing a series of them, addressing:

    1. Large numbers of maximized campaign contributions from Eric Jones’s former venture capitalist colleagues at Dragoneer Investment Group and other individuals from the high tech industry (link here).  The money comes from out of the district and so does Jones.
    2. Jones’s close connections to a Super PAC, New Leadership Now, that is pouring huge sums of money into his run for Congress (link here).
    3. Some of the Super PAC’s blatantly false claims about Thompson (link here).
    4. An update reflecting that the Super PAC spent $1.1 million on ads, including an Orwellian mailer, although as of May 30 that number exceeds $2.4 million. I have no doubt there will be  more on the way (link here).
    5. The extremely unlikely claim that Jones is a progressive, given his maximized donation to Republican Jonathan Bush, cousin of GW Bush, who is running for governor in Maine, with problematic views on health care, AI, and the environment — views that Jones seems to share. (link here).

    Beyond these articles, there are just a few more points than I want to emphasize:

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  • Village Farms: Too Big, Too Many Impacts, Costs and Unaffordable Housing

    By Eileen M. Samitz

    The Village Farms project, with 1,800 housing units on 498 acres at Covell Blvd. and Pole Line Road, is the largest residential project ever proposed in Davis with the worst impacts. It would take at least 15 years for the buildout, meaning many years of added congestion from construction traffic.

    An earlier version was proposed in 2005 as Covell Village, and Davis voters wisely rejected it because of toxics, the 200-acre floodplain, massive traffic, enormous infrastructure costs, and unaffordable housing. Twenty years later, Village Farms has all the same problems and more.

    The site is seriously handicapped. That is why the current developer, John Whitcombe, and partners including Tandem Properties, acquired the original 386-acre parcel at a bankruptcy auction for a mere $3.2 million. The original Crossroads developers abandoned it because of toxics, floodplain, and unmitigable traffic. Yet, the current developer is again trying to push it through despite the health, welfare, and safety issues, and unaffordable housing.

    Massive traffic and other impacts

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  • Davis needs to do better at protecting its sensitive and endangered species

    There is still a chance to preserve and restore habitats to help native species recover, including at Village Farms

    By Kathryn Calderala

    Environmentalism – Still a dirty word for some. A category Davis has a long history of claiming to embrace when the results show otherwise. As one example (and there are many); Davis used to be the proud stewards of a healthy population of Western Burrowing Owls – those pint-sized, ground dwelling owls perched on fence posts and signs. Almost everyone I have met since I moved here told me how they used to see owls everywhere. Yet now the species is almost gone from the county (no, they are not at Wildhorse anymore). They are considered extirpated – no longer nesting here and we are lucky to see a handful of individuals trying to overwinter in the area before moving on. Mostly they have been done in by the strange apathy that pervades the area.

    If a pint-sized owl – that lives underground and has more charisma than most species – can’t be a priority, what hope do all the other dwindling native species have? The California Tiger Salamander – an icon of the state. The Vernal Pool Tadpole Shrimp – a straightup throwback to prehistoric design, trundling around like mini horseshoe crabs. The Western Spadefoot Toad – a cat-eyed chunk of toad that smells like peanuts when they are mad. If we, as a community, cannot rouse ourselves enough to fight for the underdogs, what hope do we have for the future?

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