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Category: Ethics

  • YES, Mayor Arnold needs to recuse himself again

    Arnold80Mace

    Back in June I strongly suggested that Mayor Will Arnold recuse himself from City Council discussion/support of the I-80 Managed Lanes Project – The mayor's main gig is a key role in communications at Caltrans. 

    He did recuse himself.

    Tonight the City Council is voting for approval for one of two variants for re-reconstruction of Mace Blvd (see my opinion on that below). 

    While it's not a Caltrans project, per se, the continued problem of operators of private motor vehicles using county roads and Mace to try to bypass traffic on I-80 is in large part due to the sad negligence of Caltrans in supporting anything but nice but expensive-to-use and proportionately symbolic commuter-regional railway service (Capitol Corridor), to focus on induced travel as a healthy strategy (the aformentioned Managed Lanes project) and to seemingly ignore any serious consideration of solutions to the awful I-80/CA-113 interchange, modifications to certain on-ramps to permit entering vehicles to get up to the prevailing speed before merging or any kind of substantial long-distance bus service to complement Capitol Corridor (and more…)

    The so-called "restoration" of Mace will not solve the I-80 problem, but since Caltrans won't either, and since Caltrans won't help solve the Mace problem… the discussion and vote tonight is very, very much connected with Caltrans and so the Mayor should again recuse himself. 

    ***

    Sprayingmap8292023As an hopefully not so itchy or worse aside in my favor regarding aerial and other spraying for mosquitoes (specifically to counter the threat of West Nile Virus) in relaton to highways workers at Caltrans and private travellers – and in relation to agenda item 4 also in this evening's Council meeting. missing any attachments!  – I have repeatedly called via social media – and finally, acknowledged comments from staff for Supervisor Provenza – to ensure better outreach to workers busy on the I-80 pavement rehabilitation project and to people transitting the region by its highways who are unlikely to see or hear local (social) media announcements about the spraying. Some of this is immediately adjacent to I-80 – including tonight, during the Council meeting – and CA-113.

    ***

    Back to the Mace Re-re-design: It's a betrayal of the Commons and of the City's symbol and oft-repeated climate change and related goals to prioritize traffic lanes above bike lanes, and to sacrifice (median, in this case) trees instead of traffic lanes for bike lanes… the latter, in other words, is putting people on bikes – or really kids on bikes riding to elementary school  – against trees, really, the Greater Arboreal World. It's a sad, sad day… There's no "restoration" — the four lanes of Mace are no exiled monarch, and they certainly ain't democracy – automobilist entitlement is getting its way, once again. Look around: Davis is not getting better for walking and cycling. Anyone who has encouraged this motorized farce will have to face their own conscience.

  • In the Davis Future, the Climate Crisis and Housing Affordability Crisis are Conjoined

    By David J. Thompson

    This piece is a slightly longer piece based upon remarks my remarks to the Social Services Commission on Monday, August 21, 2023.

    Since 1983 in a professional role, I have helped gain approval of and the building of over 500 units of affordable housing in Davis.

    With the Social Services Commission now reviewing the two annexation proposals I wish to remark not on the specifics of the rubric you have been asked to review but on the overall status of key elements of affordable housing in Davis.

    Here are some key facts the commissioners should consider;

    • The Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) of the Sacramento Area of Governments (SACOG) directed the City of Davis to show where 530 Very Low Income (VLI) and 350 Low Income (LI) units could be built within the city.
    • To get those 930 VLI and LI affordable units (@ 15% of market rate units requires building 6.200 new market rate apartments within the City of Davis. Can anyone see 6,200 market rate apartment units being built in Davis over this RHNA cycle? I do not.
    • VLI units can only reach affordability with the deep subsidy projects get from competing in the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (TCAC). Statistically, you can only win a subsidy for VLI units if you have a free site of two acres on which you build at least 50 plus VLI and LI units. How many free sites of at least two acres are there in Davis? Certainly not enough (about 23 free sites of two acre needed) to build 930 VLI and LI units.
    • When David Taormino asked me to do the affordable housing for Bretton Woods I said I would if he doubled the land required for affordable housing. Taormino donated land for 150 VLI and LI apartments instead of the required 68. I and Delta Senior Housing Communities (DSHC) are no longer doing the affordable housing at Bretton Woods but that one act had great impact on gaining voter support and approval. 150 VLI and LI units are being built there.
    • In the proposed Village Farms development of 378 acres about 2% of the land is reserved for affordable housing.
    • However, also in the Village Farms proposal there are 149 acres set aside for parks.
    • So 39% of the land for parks and 2% of the land for poor people. Given the differences in the percentages of land use you’d think we had a park crisis rather than an affordable housing crisis.
    • Another few acres of park transferred to affordable housing would substantially address the affordable housing crisis in Davis.
    • There is an even greater problem in terms of the VLI, LI and Moderate (MOD) income people in Davis who are already rent impacted. For over 30 years Davis has had a very low vacancy rate which means that most renters in Davis overpay the HUD 30% guidelines. The small number of market rate rental units in either of the two proposals ensures that for another ten years the 35,000+ renters in Davis will continue to have no savings by living here while over-paying on the rent. That’s a whopping hit on the monthly budget of the working families and students living in rental housing.
    • If these two proposals are approved by the city then overpayment is guaranteed and enshrined by the action of the City of Davis.

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  • Climate strike Davis marks 200th anniversary

    (From press release) Youth leaders held the 200th climate strike today in Central Davis, joined by a ‘Raging Grannies’ choir, students, families and other residents of Davis. Many held colorful home-made placards that urged Biden to declare a climate emergency, called for taxing Big Oil’s record profits, and advocated low-carbon transport.

    The weekly Friday protest on the corner of 5th and B has been held since Davis’ biggest ever climate protest in September 2019 when almost 1000 young people walked out of school and marched downtown. It is inspired by the Swedish youth activist, Greta Thunberg, and is part of an international #FridaysforFuture movement.

    HPuaSDQh

    Davis strikers

    On Friday September 15, youth around the world will again hold a massive global strike and demand an end to the fossil fuel era. Everyone is invited to join the youth-led march and action at midday (12pm) outside the Veteran’s Memorial Center and to bring chants, songs, murals and more demanding that Newsom and Biden declare a climate emergency. There will also be a family friendly event in Old Sacramento at 11am on Sunday September 17th.

    Eliot Larson, coordinator of Fridays for Future Davis said:

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  • Al’s Curiosity Corner #2 – Open Forum on the Library Issue

    While there has been a discussion on that 'other' blog, the reason I hang here is that many comments get deleted there without explanation, especially on this issue and especially comments even modestly politically right.  However, this is a sensitive issue, and I am not going to allow outright insults directed at trans people/supporters/protestors nor at persons associated with Mom's for Liberty. 

    For example, for some reason that other blog allows MFL persons to be called Nazis, and that sort of useless comment isn't going to be allowed here.  On the other hand, in the Yahoo comments on the Bee article, about 153 out of 155 comments were against the library actions, despite the article leaning towards supporting the protestors.  AND . . . many if not most of those commenting there were denying the existence of trans people, insulting trans people, and/or calling trans people various derogatory terms implying mental illness just for being trans.  I'm not putting up with any of that shit here either.  I won't outright delete a comment unless it's completely empty of anything but outright hate towards either side, and I'll always explain why a comment or part of a comment was deleted.

    My views on the library matter are simple:  I'm a Jew who believes the Skokie decision was the greatest triumph for the core of what makes America great:  Free speech, baby!

    What are your views?   I'd like this to focus on free speech vs. hate speech; the actions/authority of the library/library-manager, the actions of those putting on the meeting and those protesting the meeting, and various takes in the media.

    (Note:  I have a life, so your comments may not be posted for many hours.  Deal with it.)

  • Al’s Curiosity Corner: What Do Davisites Think of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ ?

    I'm curious what the people of Davisitesville think of this mega-hit's message. 

    My reaction, from the lyrics, is this could be a punk song sung by 'Oliver' as a raw country ballad.  Rage!  Stickin' it to the monarchy, the man, the machine.  Anger at what the government is doing to us, against the men in power.  Yet this song is being labeled a 'conservative ballad'.  True, it is catching fire in conservative circles, but I don't see that in the lyrics.  I can easily hear a Johnny Rotten or a Henry Rollins versions of this song.

    There's a reference to 'minors on an island'.  That happened.  Davis liberals don't defend pedophiles (do they?). 

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  • Locally produced, “Yellow Skies” Music Video for Climate Action

    Yellow Skies Cover(From press release) On Friday the locally produced Yellow Skies launched a YouTube music video from the Fridays for Future noon time Davis 5th and B location.  "We are starting from a shoestring and the viewership is growing steadily. We have several hundred views and some really enthusiastic reviews."
     
    @eliotlarson7422
    So powerful! Thank you ❤
    @sarahnovick3168
    So moving!!
    @geraldineclemens5150
    Heartfelt song she does beautiful job. Thanks

     

    Watch here:

     Yellow Skies asks you to join in the work and to declare a climate emergency, a national climate emergency. It is not an emergency to run around in chaos. It is an emergency called to calmly stop using fossil fuels and go into hyperdrive on local food, locally sourced just-about-everything and to produce lots of renewable energy – and to do it quickly. 
     
    The Yellow Skies music video is built around a song. "The song aims to make an enjoyable and meaningful listening experience about what our youth are experiencing, what we are all experiencing." Yellow Skies starts and finishes with clips of youth climate activists speaking out for all of us to take action and points to a few of the many organizations leading the way and demanding change to policies that protect fossil fuel use.

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  • Concerns regarding our pesticide spraying program

    BiteBy David Abramson

    Dear Neighbors,

    You may have seen that over the past several months, I have been sharing regularly with notifications about and my concerns regarding the pesticide spraying program that’s being done by the Sacramento Yolo Mosquito Vector District in our County. Yes I'd rather be doing something else but alas, many people don't even know this is happening, so I thought an awareness campaign was appropriate.

    As others have posted, the agency has scheduled an entire blanket aerial spray of the chemical Diprom/Naled over the cities of Davis and Woodland tonight and tomorrow between 8:30PM-12AM.

    My concerns are that:

    1. They are using a pesticide (Naled/Diprom) that’s currently banned in the EU due to concerns of it’s toxicity
    1. This pesticide has known toxic effect on bees and butterflies even at the doses prescribed for mosquito spraying programs (1)(2)(3). Many studies have conducted tests of varying quality in controlled environments, single-species results of large insects, or for single dose exposure, but not for this particular spraying program or frequency in which the spraying is happening and in an ecosystem setting accounting for all variables of the real world.
    1. Formal requests to the SacYolo Mosquito Control Vector District to share the science that shows the pesticide to be safe for the ecosystem, including our native pollinators has not been satisfactorily fulfilled. In neither of the two requests did they highlight a study showing the spraying program to be safe for insects or other pollinators.
    2. There is a lack of transparency, accountability, and oversight on the spraying programs. As far as I know, there are no ground samples being taken by the agency or independent researchers after these sprayings and no regular monitoring or data that's publicly available.

    To that end, I am recommending that:

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  • The Appalling Spectacle Now Happening in Yolo Superior Court

    By Robert Canning

    Like a number of people, I watched the live video stream of the Carlos Dominguez competency “trial” in Department 10 of Yolo County Superior Court last week and will watch again when the trial reconvenes.

    As a forensic and correctional psychologist for the past twenty years with experience working in and consulting to jails and prisons on mental health treatment issues, I was amazed and appalled watching the spectacle unfold in real time. The trial is to determine the competence of a young man whose severe mental illness is on display daily in open court for all to see. The law requires the jury decide first whether Mr. Dominguez suffers from a mental disorder, and then if the mental disorder interferes with his capacity (competency) to understand and reason about the charges against him, and whether he can aid in his own defense.

    What is most appalling to me is that his mental illness has been allowed to worsen while in custody. If the Yolo District Attorney had not requested a jury trial then Judge McAdams would have been the sole source of the decision about Mr. Dominguez’ competence. Given his comments this week to the public defender, I believe he would have found Mr. Dominguez incompetent to proceed weeks ago. In that case Mr. Dominguez would have been able to receive treatment for his mental illness sooner, possibly in a state hospital setting. If this treatment was provided, it is possible that Mr. Dominguez could be restored to competency in a matter of months.

    The law requires that detainees in jails receive adequate medical and mental health care. This has been guaranteed since 1976 when the Supreme Court decided in favor of inmates in Estelle v Gamble. Subsequent case law has reinforced the right to appropriate care and emphasized the role of correctional systems in providing that care.

    Because we have a public trial with testimony from mental health and medical experts and jail staff, we can see some of the glaring inadequacies of mental health care in our county jail.

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  • Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – August 2023

    image from www.sparkysonestop.com

    Got a thought on Davis politics, or a even a single politic?  Got a thought on the request to give a donation to the Davis Vanguard so they can fund the replacement of their crappy old website?  I have a thought — give instead to the Davis-Ite to replace the D-ite's even older, crappier website !   Underfunded old crappy blog structures:  It's the Davis Way !

  • Explaining how RFK Jr.’s recent remarks were racist

    It’s a good reminder that “hate” is a very limited way of talking about racism.

    By Roberta Millstein

    I recently got into a conversation with some people on Facebook about whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent remarks about Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews regarding COVID-19 were racist.  The conversation was too hard to have on Facebook, so I stopped engaging, but I think it’s worth looking at his remarks in more detail because I think they are quite damning, and yes, racist. 

    I take his remarks personally because I myself am an Ashkenazi Jew, but since RFK Jr. is running for President of the United States, and since apparently some Davisites think he is a good candidate, it’s important for all of us to take a second look.

    The video of his remarks is here.  The quotes below are my transcription.  I edited lightly (removing stutters, etc.), and may have missed a small word here or there, but I am confident that I have it mostly correct.

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