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Category: Ethics

  • Tonight at City Council: Weigh in on I-80 widening

    By Roberta Millstein

    Just a quick heads up to let folks know about an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed I-80 widening project.  The subcommittee of Councilmbers Arnold and Neville have drafted a letter for City Council consideration that recognizes the objections raised by many Davisites to the project and expresses concerns.  See proposed letter here: Download 04-Subcommittee-Recommendation-Transportation-Letter

    I think it is a fairly weak letter, and would urge something stronger, but I think it's also important to acknowledge that it is at least more of a stand than the City Council has been willing to give prior to this.  So a comment on the order of, "thanks, this is good, but we can do better" seems appropriate.

    As a reminder:

    • In person public comment: This is item #4 on the agenda, tentatively scheduled for 6:55 PM.
    • Submit written public comments to CityCouncilMembers@cityofdavis.org. Emails are distributed to City Council and staff. To ensure the City Council has the opportunity to review information prior to the meeting, send emails by 3:00 p.m. on the meeting date.
    • Submit comments by voicemail prior to the meeting: Call the city’s dedicated phone line (530) 757-5693 to leave a voicemail message for public comment. Staff will play comments during the appropriate agenda item. Comments will be accepted from 12:00 noon until 4:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting. Voicemail public comments will not be accepted after 4:00 p.m. Speakers will be limited to no more than two minutes.

  • I-80 A Threat to Housing Affordability?

    Blinder siloVideo: A Widening Goal is for More Bay Area ”Super Commuters”

    By Alan Hirsch 

    The Davis  General Plan is on Tuesday’s city council agenda- not just in the item so labeled, but reverse  of the city policy of “strongly supporting” the I-80 widening.

    I-80  is not just about climate, it also impacts having housing, affordable housing for local residents.

    While we in Davis can zone in more density like Cannery,  push Davis developers to increase their affordable set aside a few percent points, and even  vote a tax on ourselves to fund a housing trust, the benefits for current resident will easily be diluted by demand generated from over  ten thousand commuters a day  the 33% increase in freeway capacity enable.

     Prices are set by demand vs supply,  If  more people have access and want housing here the prices will go up- as will demand for subsidized affordable units.

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  • Will Davis Council get serious about Climate & I-80?

    Cartoon fist grabing freewayReview of policy to “Strongly Support” the widening at Tuesday Meeting

    By Alan “Lorax” Hirsch

    On Tuesday March 5th  Davis  Council  Meeting, there will FINALLY be a full discussion of the I-80 policy for the City of Davis. it will likely be in cryptically worded agenda item called Legislative Policy.  

    This is follow-up to the January 9th Council meeting where the city council wrote a highly critical letter about the problems with the environmental analysis for the widening.  And the June 6th 2023 meeting Caltrans pressured the city council and said “agree to partner with us- tonight–  or you won’t get mitigation money.”

    Currently,  Davis City policy is expressed in letter written to federal government and California Transportation Commission to “strongly support” the I-80 freeway widening. This is based on two lines slipped into a 10 page city council’s lobbying policy agenda item three years ago (2/16/21).  The BTSSC (Davis city transportation Commission) has never been consulted on this policy, neither has the council ever before had a in depth discussion targeting support or opposition this $465Mil project. Contining this  policy put obtains the missing $200- $350 mill need to complete construction of the project- and funding it mitigation of its GHG above real transit improvements. 

    ACTIONS NEEDED:

    If residents  want to speak up on this project, they can do one of these actions:

    • Show up council chambers and make a 2-minute comment— (you can make comment in general comment period before 7 pm and still make an election night party)
    • Leave Voice msg noon at 4pm on Tuesday 5th. 530-757-5693
    • Email: Davis City Council citycouncilmembers@cityofdavis.org

    Talking Points:

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  • Letter: No to PG&E Contributions

    I recently read the Enterprise’s article about campaign contributions in the District 4 Yolo County Supervisors race. I was very disappointed to learn that a candidate in that race took money from PG&E. As a climate advocate, PG&E is the last corporation I want to see involved in our local elections. PG&E is responsible for dozens of wildfires, hundreds of deaths, and thousands of homes destroyed in California. As a Davis resident, my rates have also been hiked by PG&E, all while my service worsens.

    PG&E has been flexing its political power to pass its liabilities onto ratepayers. Who could forget the money PG&E spent to defeat Yolo’s effort to join SMUD? As a community, we need to create a locally-controlled energy grid that relies on 100% renewable energy. Electing people who take money from PG&E is two steps backwards.

    Yolo County is also beginning to implement its climate action & adaptation plan. As PG&E cuts investment in renewables due to their bankruptcy, the last thing we need in Yolo County is a Supervisor beholden to PG&E. The Enterprise reporting also begs the question: how can PG&E even give money to candidates with their recent bankruptcy? Is that what my higher rates are paying for?

    I encourage everyone to read the Enterprise coverage of the contributions to the Supervisor race. I will be voting for a candidate who did not take money from PG&E.

    Elias Bunting

  • Analysis of Vaitla’s Statements in Davis Enterprise Article on Merging Commissions

    By Elaine Roberts Musser

    If you parse through Councilmember Vaitla’s statements appearing in the Davis Enterprise, it shows:  a  lamentable  lack  of  understanding  about  how  commissions  work;  a  complete disregard  for  the  opinion   of  commissioners   who  are  the  ones  effected   by  merging commissions;  and  an  extremely  questionable  and  ill  informed  rationale  for  what  he  is proposing. Furthermore, because of his refusal to appoint applicants to commission vacancies, the FBC is no longer providing citizen oversight of the city budget. That, together with his proposal the city pay to create new city public health services that are the responsibility of the county, will sink the chances of any tax increase proposed for the November ballot.  

    1. Vaitla: “…either City Council is not proactive in asking the commissions what to do; or the membership of the commissions is such that people have interests of their own and they are kind of deviating from what Council is asking, outside of the authorizing resolutions of the commissions…”
      • If the City Council is not proactive in asking commissions what to do, whose fault is that? The commissions cannot read the City Council’s collective mind. The City Council needs to be more communicative as to what information it wants.  Why should commissioners be punished by being forced to merge with another commission because of the fault of the City Council?
      • If commissions are deviating from their authorizing resolutions, city staff will rein them in if necessary.

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  • The Commission Subcommittee Song (Matchmaker Parody)

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    Sung at Tuesday February 21st City Council meeting, to the Tune of 'Matchmaker' from 'Fiddler on the Roof':

    Parody Live at City Council (time – 20:15): 

    https://davis.granicus.com/player/clip/1665

    Original Song: 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8J5hNqELzI

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  • The Ever-Changing Justification for Widening I-80

    Why can’t Caltrans Tell Yolo County the True Cost?

    By Alan Hirsch

    On Tuesday March 5th the Davis City Council will review and hopefully reverse the current city policy that endorses I-80  freeway widening for cars. This policy was set quietly in 2021 as two line buried  a 10 page policy  statement  on thing the city would lobby by an ad hoc committee of Lucas Frerich and Dan Carson.  But now I-80 has surfaced before council as a threat to the City Climate Change Plan its clear the current council needs to reexamine it if it want to be taken seriously on climate change.

    The January 9th ye open staff report to reviewing the I-80 Draft EIR also heighten interest.. At that meeting,  Councilmember Will Arnold the former Caltrans Director Of Media Relations, shared Caltrans policy  which he  summarized:  believing  freeway widening will fix anything is the definition of insanity. (Link to transcript of Arnold’s remarks)

    Every-changing Justification for I-80 Widening

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  • Dark, Anti-Democratic Forces Sue the Davis Vanguard

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    These dark forces are believed to be funded by the Dark Underbelly of Davis. 

    In true Davis Vanguard journalistic style, no information on who the dark forces may be or why they are suing, but the Vanguard did ask for money to the tune of $100k.  Statement:

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  • Council Should Reverse Course on Merging Advisory Commissions

    The Davis City Council Should Reverse Course on Merging Advisory Commissions

    The Subcommittee on Commissions (Vaitla, Chapman) process for introducing the merging commissions concept was not accomplished in good faith.

    The proposal was first made available to the public late on the Friday before last Tuesday’s City Council meeting and was quickly put to a council vote Tuesday night. Even other council members were kept in the dark about the specific proposal until Friday. This was a devious, unfair and terrible process.

    There was no material input from commissioners. Some commission chairs and vice-chairs were consulted about what was and wasn’t working in their respective commissions. But some commissioners said they were never asked about the radical plan to merge their commissions, and some commission chairs and vice-chairs testified that they were not consulted at all by Council members Chapman and Vaitla.

     

    The Subcommittee on Commissions has refused to appoint applicants to fill commission vacancies for the last six months, causing commission quorum problems. The Finance and Budget Commission has not met for months and is now down to two members and effectively out of business. After months of waiting to be appointed, applicants move on to other things rather than sit around and wait. The claim that commissions must be merged because there are not enough applicants is a sham.

     

    Merging commissions with two disparate areas of expertise would make them less able to accomplish either mission. If the mergers happen, the workload will double, and there will either be less time for discussion of issues or the meetings will have to run very long.  A commissioner is not likely to have expertise in both missions. For example, the Utility Commission has almost nothing in common with the Finance and Budget Commission, and the Human Relations Commission has nothing in common with the Civics Art Commission.

    We, the undersigned commissioners, request that the City Council:

    1. Immediately reverse their preliminary action of approving moving forward with the concept of merging commissions;
    2. Then (a) send the City Council staff report on merging commissions to each affected commission (b) to provide full and proper feedback on the merger plan to the City Council, so (c) it could consider the merger plan in a future council discussion.

    (Note: Anyway wishing to add their name to this petition can log on to change.org and search for the petition title, Reverse City Council Decision to Move Forward With Merging Commissions.)

    Jim Cramer – Member, Tree Commission Member                     

    Elaine Roberts Musser – Member, Utilities Commission     

    Gerry Braun – Member, Utilities Commission                        

    John Reuter – Member, Tree Commission                          

    Alana Gamage – Member, Tree Commission                    

    NJ Mvondo – Member, Human Relations Commission                          

    Sheila Allen – Former Chair, Human Relations Commission                           

    Colin Walsh – Vice Chair, Tree Commission                         

    Margot Loschke – Former Chair, Senior Citizens Commission                   

    Alan Pryor – Former Member, Natural Resources Commission                   

    Eileen Samitz – Former Member, Planning Commission                    

    Roberta Millstein – Former Chair, Open Space & Habitat Commission              

    Larry Guenther – Former Member, Tree Commission                    

    Connor Gorman – Member, Human Relations Commission

    37 Davis residents and activists                  

     

  • Council to Commit to De-Commissioning Commissions?

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    There's some metaphor here… ask the Council about it?

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Today, January 30th, the City of Davis City Council will “Consider Recommendations Related to Commissions”. Please show up this evening – item 5 is scheduled for 7:20pm – or call the comment line at (530) 757-5693 before 4pm.

    Let's look at some recent history first… and then tonight's meeting:

    June 3rd 2021

    “City Council Subcommittee and All-Commission Chair Meeting”. Video. 

    This was a two-hour meeting between all Commission Chairs with then City Council member Lucas Frerichs – who chaired the meeting – and Gloria Partida.

    It’s worth noting that two of the Commission Chairs – Bapu Vaitla and Donna Neville – are now on the City Council. Vaitla does not reference this meeting in the Council sub-committee proposal scheduled for this evening.

    While the meeting is certainly worth a focused viewing, for now I will focus only on statements made at the meeting related to future activity (e.g. further similar meetings with Chairs, Council agenda items, etc):

    “Hopefully not the last meeting” (Lucas, earlier in the meeting)

    “Update to the City Council Coming shortly” (Frerichs @ 1:59:40 – it’s not clear if this meant any minutes from meeting would be passed along to Council)
    “Hopefully on a regular basis” (Frerichs @ 2:00:00 – Referring to an intention for similar meetings with Chairs.)
    “I’m sure that Kelly [Stachowicz] and Zoe [Mirabile] also will […] put together some minutes.” (Partida – 2:01:00 – As no publicly-distributed minutes are taken, it’s not clear what this referred to. )

    At the end Colin Walsh – the Chair of the Tree Commission -  asked about when there would be another similar meeting “in the not too distant future”.  Partida responded:  “It was pretty clear that that’s one of the main takeaways here… we will be setting that up”. She also said  “…What I heard was that people are we really wanting twice a year to meet this way…so I can [should or will be able to] confirm that”  (Walsh, Partida from 2:04:25)

    Despite what Frerichs and Partida said or intended, there were no meetings – between Chairs and a Council non-quorum or in City Council – until February 2023, 20 months after the 2021 meeting. 

     

    February 7th 2021

    City Council Meeting. Community comments start at about 2:34. Some highlights:

    * Alan Hirsch. gives a good comprehensive look at the overall poor state of things regarding respect for Commissions. 

    *John Johnson – a member of the NRC -  talks about NRC not having enough time to do what it needs to

    * Alan Miller suggests a great, truly-democratic and also streamlined idea for organizing the Council and Commissions. 

    * Roberta Millstein makes clear the paternalistic functioning of Council and Staff

    * Colin Walsh criticizes the generally low-quality process

    Based on Colin Walsh's observation at the meeting, there were very few members of the Public at the meeting. This would indicate a likely lack of communication about the agenda topic. I also don’t understand why it was called a “workshop”, as it didn’t have this form.

     

    Present Day:

    Two pieces earlier this week in Davisite:

    Council to Eliminate Tree Commission Tuesday

    City Commissions Merger Proposals are Ill Conceived – Testify Tuesday

     

    In the sub-committee report for today’s meeting: 

    "The Council Subcommittee spoke with all AVAILABLE chairs (or vice-chairs) [emphasis mine] of existing commissions to receive their feedback on what is working in the present structure and what could be improved." [page 4]

    "In reviewing the scopes and structure of each of the City's 14 advisory commissions, the subcommittee undertook the following research: […] * Met with [ALL?] chairs and vice-chairs of each commission to gain a better understanding of what works well and areas of potential improvement, especially with respect to Council direction about what areas of commission activity would be most valuable; [page 7].

    What actually happened? Did the Chairs and/or Vice Chairs coordinate with each other? Did they have the opportunity to e.g. get questions from Chapman and Vaitla and then get input from their Commission before speaking with Chapman-Vaitla?Are there minutes of these meetings?

    The proposal would – in the long-run – have a total of approximately 28 fewer Commissioners than the current 98, so just under 1/3 less participation from the same city (and possibly expanding) population, with similar low to mid level staff, same senior staff and same council numbers, and still minimal involvement from youth (see below)

    While there would be less staff hours, it's not clear if this will reduce staffing expenditure (I don't fully understand how staff gets paid when working evenings, etc)

    The new language comes from state-mandates on General Plans, but it's clear that the "Element" names don't have to be included in the names of the related Commission.

    We then have the proposed "Circulation and Active Mobility" – and they don't get the correct name for the BTSSC again!  – but I think that Circulation is a somewhat old-fashioned term which I believe – and not only superficially – relates to LOS (Level of Service)

    The archaic and unusual name of "Circulation…" as the new name for what’s unfortunately and informally oft-referred to  as the "bike commission" with "….and Active Mobility" which in aggregate is… poor English (just like the current BTSSC, as “Bicycling” is a subset of “Transportation” (outside the sporting context) and “Street Safety” is mostly a quality of the situation, 

    I would prefer e.g. “Efficient, Joyous and Safe Mobility Commission”, as it covers all forms of transportation using conveyances, walking, other means of travel, resources/climate change issues and the social sphere!

    "The required Noise and Safety elements [of the Consolidation] are not listed; community engagement for these will be led by Staff.)" (page four) Seriously, what the actual f*ck?? Is there any actual logic for this or a similar and official mechanism in any other part of the proposal

    There's a promise at the end that no one will have to leave, presumably Commissions will change as people term out, but will there will perhaps be more split votes for a long time due to math: 7 to 7, 6 to 6, 5 to 5, 4 to 4 votes (before Commissions "settle" again at 7 members.

    There's NO proposal for a Commission of Youth Members/Youth Commission. About 90 cities and towns in California have these!  At the very least, there's no proposal for more youth OR age of minority-age ex-officios for ALL Commissions

    There’s NO promise of more communications – via social media, the City’s website, etc – to encourage more attendance and attention of Commission meetings and ongoing work, inclusive of biographies of Commission members. One should not have to Google a Commissioner’s name to see their affiliations, job, a bit about their experience, etc.