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Davisite Banner. Left side the bicycle obelisk at 3rd and University. Right side the trellis at the entrance to the Arboretum.

Category: Ethics

  • Managing the mismanagement

    Should Mayor Will Arnold recuse himself tonight from an I-80 project discussion because he's Media Affairs Manager at Caltrans?

    ArnoldArnoldImage left: Councilmember Arnold's official Facebook Page & Caltrans / Image right: City of Davis

    Tonight's City Council Agenda item on the 80 Yolo Managed Project was already covered critically and nearly exhaustively last weekend in the Davis Enterprise and yesterday here in the Davisite and in the Davis Vanguard.

    It’s no secret that Mayor Will Arnold is the Media Relations Manager for Caltrans.  Should he recuse himself from the discussion for ethical reasons?  Should he be signing a letter to support a project he would then have to (continue to) work on at Caltrans? I don’t think he can recuse himself from the communications hierarchy there. Based on the linked articles above, consider how Caltrans communicates things about the project: The spin, the lack of backstory, obfuscations to the point of dishonesty… disrespect. (At a public presentation hosted by Cool Davis a couple of months ago, Autumn Bernstein of Yolo Transportation District – who is co-presenting this evening at City Council – said that her agency had convinced Caltrans to do the managed lanes variant with VMT mitigation. The linked articles tell me Caltrans had already decided to do this some time ago, and I would not be totally surprised if they try to re-include the new bike-ped crossing of the Yolo Bypass as a carrot.) 

    Arnold’s job description at LinkedIn is:  “Caltrans Headquarters Public Affairs, Office of the Director – Duties include managing media inquiries and press relations, designing and executing effective communications strategy, and writing/editing communication plans, press releases, talking points and social media content.”

  • A Tale of Two Crossings: Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’

    * If Nishi can't be built, there's nothing to trade as a mitigation
    * Dedicated bike-ped crossing of the Yolo Bypass was quietly cancelled after years of promises.

    NishiPLcomparison1

     

    Tonight's City Council Agenda item on the 80 Yolo Managed Project was already covered critically and nearly exhaustively last weekend in the Davis Enterprise and yesterday here in the Davisite and in the Davis Vanguard.

     

    A Bridge That Can't Be Built…

    I arrived in town after Nishi 1.0 (retroactively supported a concept that would involve a complete redesign of the 80-Richards interchange inclusive of a parking structure and Park & Ride for regional buses which would have minimal impacts on Richards) and was against Nishi 2.0 because I don’t think that there should be housing (buildings with windows people open!) so close to the noisy and arguably otherwise-polluting interstate, but it’s not why I am suggesting that the proposed “multi-modal” mitigation is a fallacy. I agree with others that no VMT mitigations should happen with this project, and am trying to make clear that the plan of Caltrans and its erstwhile partners are also a mess from a technical point of view. (There's also the sheer ironic delight of trying to facilitate the construction of a project using these VMT credits – as it were – to make the Nishi space noisier and more polluted next to a widened interstate.)

    The 80-railway corridor is a wall for people on bikes, but so is the railway on its own.  See Pole Line over 80 at lower right in the illustration above. It’s incredibly long because it has to go very high over the railway tracks, more so than to get over 80 itself (to better understand this, picture the crossings over 113 which are much lower as they only need to accommodate trucks.) First of all, this – and all the over-crossings of 80 in town – are simply not comfortable and suitable for people on normal bicycles, especially carrying children, and especially if they can make the journey by private motor vehicle or e-bike.   The over-crossings have around a 6 to 7% grade, nearly twice as high as the Dutch standard: So to make it comfortable for hundreds of people to go from Nishi to campus it would have to be nearly twice as long. Look again at the view of 80 at Pole Line: There’s no space for this unless it’s very circuitous and indirect and lands behind the Shrem Museum or just by the entrance to Solano Park from Old Davis Rd. (The red line in the top of the image is only as long as Pole Line, and it needs to be much longer.) And that’s just for cycling. Imagine walking this at least twice a day. Motor vehicles including buses can obviously do this, but that's no one's definition of "multi-modal".

    I feel confident in saying that since a motor vehicle, bus, bicycle and walking connection is part of the agreement for Nishi, and as Union Pacific forbids an under-crossing, there’s no way to build Nishi unless it’s returned to the voters. There’s nothing to mitigate here as nothing can be built for mitigation.

    ***

    A Cancelled Crossing…

    For years a dedicated and new bicycle-pedestrian bridge across the ‘Bypass was promised in the project. In 2020 – when I was still on the Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission (BTSSC) – the notification that it was dropped some months earlier was only indirectly mentioned in a summary for a BTSSC meeting by the primary liaison for the City of Davis at the time, Brian Abbanat (former City of Davis Senior Planner; now he’s in a similar role for Yolo County and co-presenting Tuesday evening.) A couple of years later when this was mentioned to the other co-presenter, YCTD head Autumn Bernstein, she said it was not funded: I believe that the aggregate truth – to be precise as possible – is that Caltrans dropped it, never told any of the local interested groups about it (e.g. Bike Davis, Davis Bike Club) through their liaison Abbanat and that it wasn’t part of the initial, funded proposal to the Federal Government. Our City, County and State government representatives were silent about this betrayal in our so-called "USA cycling capitol".

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

    image from www.sparkysonestop.com

    There MAY not have been a May version of Al's Corner.  People got by.  They posted May stuff in April.  We all lived.

    June's Al's Corner will feature ketchup and mustard on top.  Peace.  Over & Out.

  • Soroptimists award grants to two area nonprofits

    AguilarMIH

    UC Davis Guardian Scholar Evelyn Aguilar received lots of housewares in 2021 from Make It Happen in Yolo County. (Courtesy photo)

    (From press release) Soroptimist International of Davis recently awarded grants to two nonprofits, to improve the lives of women and girls in Yolo County.

    The club distributed $3,000 in Community Grants between the two organizations. Make it Happen for Yolo County received $1,900, and Grace in Action received $1,100.

    Make it Happen will use its Soroptimist funds to provide at least four young women in the UC Davis Guardian Scholars program with the furniture and appliances they need to furnish their apartments at the start of the school year. Guardian Scholars are students who have experienced foster care.

    Grace in Action will use its Soroptimist grant money to provide stop-gap services for very low income individuals, and those without safe shelter. It will pay for motel rooms, hearty lunches, laundry vouchers, transportation passes and haircuts.

    (more…)

  • Recommendation to the Social Services Commission for Changes in Davis’ Affordable Housing Ordinance

    The following was emailed as an attachment to the Social Services Commission yesterday for their meeting this evening (7 PM, Monday May 15) where they will be taking up proposed changes to Davis's Affordable Housing Ordinance.

    by Roberta Millstein and Alan Pryor

    5/14/2023

    Introduction

    The Davis Affordable Housing Ordinance (available at https://library.qcode.us/lib/davis_ca/pub/municipal_code/item/chapter_18-article_18_05?view=all) is now implemented on a temporary basis to account for changes in state law requiring economic justification if minimum affordable housing requirements for new projects exceed 15% of total housing units.  The current temporary ordinance is scheduled to expire on June 30, 2023, with proposed changes under consideration by the Social Services Commission at its May 13, 2023 meeting.

    However, even with these proposed changes, the existing Affordable Housing Ordinance has provisions which we believe do not provide social justice, equity, and fairness in terms of meeting the needs of the City’s low-income population because it is biased toward the financial benefit of developers rather than maximizing the availability of affordable income housing in Davis.

    We recommend the following changes to the temporary ordinance if it is renewed by the sunset date of June 30, 2023 and to a revised permanent ordinance.

    1. Eliminate ADUs as an acceptable alternative to provide on-site Affordable Housing – We recommend that Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) be completely eliminated as a way for developers to avoid constructing real Affordable Housing.
    2. Substantially increase in-lieu fees if chosen by a developer as an acceptable alternative to provide on-site Affordable Housing – We recommend that in-lieu fees be substantially increased so that it is no longer a financially preferable option for developers to pursue. 

    We elaborate on each of these recommendations further below.

    (more…)

  • Will local electeds ignore UCD and buy into Caltrans’ Science Denial on VMT & GHG?

    Inconvenient truth

    Open letter to Davis BTSSC (Transportation Commission)

    To: Chair Jessica Jacobs and members, Davis BTSSC

    From: Alan ‘the Lorax’ Hirsch

    RE: Potential Endorsement of I-80 Yolo widening before Draft EIR released

    BTSSC will be asked tonight (item 6b) to endorse a letter to partner with Caltrans to endorse I-80 widening by supporting a new and untested program of mitigation that could negate local cities’ greenhouse gas reduction programs (CAAP/CAP).[i]

    You will be asked to sign before even seeing the draft Environment Study (DEIR) or the mitigation plans. This is not due out for 30 days.

    I urge caution based on the study by Professor Susan Handy’s group at UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. (ITS)

    The below bar chart from that UCD ITS study[ii] compares induced travel projections by Caltrans to the forecast by the National Center for Sustainable Transportation model. Caltrans’ lower forecasts in the EIRs were used to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these five projects. The study shows Caltrans consistently understates the amount of travel & GHG to be mitigated. And in two projects Caltrans assumed no induced demand.

    Induced demand has been accepted science in the transportation world for over thirty years now. The science was upheld in the 1990 California case Citizens for a Better Environment vs Deukmejian, et al. [iii]  It was an inconvenient truth Caltrans has worked three decades to get around. It was not until the beginning of 2020 after the 2013 passage of Bill SB 743[iv] that EIRs had to focus on reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).

    Caltrans has been in denial of the science on traffic, which has been confirmed by hundreds of studies out of UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and the Texas Transportation Institute, among many other places worldwide.[v]

    (more…)

  • Honoring Davis’s Citizen Heroes

    By Roberta Millstein

    As we all grieve and process the events that led to the arrest of Carlos Reales Dominguez, who has been charged with two counts of premeditated murder and one count of premeditated attempted murder, I thought it was important to highlight the role of some of our citizen heroes whose efforts, I believe, were essential to the arrest. 

    Most of them also put their own lives at risk to help their fellow citizens.  They showed not only compassion but the willingness to follow through and act.  Such selflessness is deserving of our highest praise.

    These are all quotes from various Davis Enterprise articles; links have been included for reference.  (While I am giving praise, I’d also like to thank the Davis Enterprise for its outstanding, thorough, and speedy coverage throughout.  Now is a good time to subscribe and support local news if you don't already).

    Thursday, April 27:

    Thursday’s homicide — the city’s first in more than three years — came to light at about 11:20 a.m., when a passerby called police seeking a welfare check on a man seated on a bench on the north side of the downtown park, near a large playground area.

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/crime-fire-courts/police-warn-public-to-avoid-central-park-after-report-of-a-dead-body/

    Saturday, April 29:

    a resident reported hearing “what sounded like a disturbance,” Pytel said. 

    That resident, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his safety, told The Davis Enterprise in an interview he was in his bedroom when he heard a man cry out for help, followed by a commotion, shortly after 9 p.m.

    He walked toward the park to investigate and saw two people on the ground along a bike path on the park’s side, thinking two cyclists had collided along the darkened path. 

    “As I got closer I put my flashlight on on my phone and asked if they were OK,” he said. At that point, one of the people stood up, grabbed a white hat and a bike and started to leave westbound on the path toward the Highway 113 bike bridge. 

    Confused as to why someone would leave a collision scene, “I chased him for a bit,” the man said. “I got within about 10 feet of him and he said, ‘What do you want, man? Leave me alone.’ ” He had turned his head to the side, allowing the witness to see his profile. 

    The person “sounded like a kid” in his late teens or early 20s, said the man, who stopped chasing him at that point. That’s when he turned around and saw the victim, who was covered in blood.

    “He was not conscious. He was having problems breathing,” said the man, who called 911 and immediately started CPR after removing the victim’s backpack, which was already partially removed.

    As he delivered chest compressions, a woman who’d also heard the victim’s cries for help arrived on scene and lifted his legs to direct his blood flow toward his torso.

    “ ‘Come on, buddy — you’re going to be OK,’ ” the man recalled telling the victim. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/second-fatal-stabbing-in-davis-suspect-remains-at-large/

     Monday, May 1

    Isaac Chessman and Christine Berrios, an unhoused couple whose tent neighbored the victim’s, said they awoke Monday night to rustling sounds, followed by their friend, Kim, screaming for help. 

    “He’s on me! Help! Get off me! The guy with the curly hair!” she yelled. Another neighbor, Larry, lunged at the suspect through his own tent and knocked him to the ground, but he was able to flee, the couple said. 

    Kim remained coherent following the assault, which Berrios said left her with wounds to her hip area. 

    Chessman believes he spotted the suspect earlier that night, lurking behind the trees on the east side of L street across from the homeless camp. 

    He said he called out to the person while shining a flashlight on him, saying “you look like the dude that’s been stabbing people.” Chessman noted he also called police, about two hours before the stabbing, but got no response. 

    “This has to happen for them to show up,” he said. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/third-stabbing-reported-suspect-resembled-ucd-students-assailant/

    Wednesday, May 3

    a man walking through Sycamore Park spotted him sitting alone on the children’s playground. 

    With shoulder-length wavy hair, and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black Adidas track pants, he bore a strong resemblance to the suspect seen fleeing the L Street stabbing scene. 

    “He made eye contact with me and came toward me rather briskly,” said the witness, who asked to remain anonymous. He said he backed off at that point but “kept an eye on him” as Dominguez wandered through the park, then through the neighborhood east of it.

    “He was walking around sort of aimlessly, which I though was odd,” said the witness, who continued following the person from a distance to The Marketplace shopping center, where he briefly lost sight of him. Dominguez later emerged from a store and walked back toward the park area.

    The witness said he called police multiple times as he tracked Dominguez, ultimately flagging down an officer heading westbound on Villanova Drive toward the park. Dominguez began walking more briskly at that point but never tried to run. 

    https://www.davisenterprise.com/news/local/breaking-suspect-21-arrested-in-davis-serial-stabbings/

  • React in haste; repent at leisure

    A few reflections on our recent tragedies

    By Roberta Millstein

    Before I say anything else, let me begin by expressing my deepest condolences to the family and friends of David Breaux and Karim Abou Najm.  Both were important contributors to the community, both with more to give.  The third stabbing victim, is, as of this writing, thankfully still alive.  Although her name has not been released yet, I venture to say that she too is an important member of our community.  I can say that with confidence because I deeply believe that we are all important community members.

    With two of the three stabbing victims being unhoused, I am grateful to see that the City is working toward providing emergency shelter for those who are willing to accept it.  I hope that these efforts are successful; given that the perpetrator(s) have not been found, the unhoused members of our community are clearly more vulnerable than ever.

    Beyond protecting those who most need it, what else can the City do?  Here I will admit to being tired, wrung out, and on edge, so I don’t have the energy to go on at length.  So what follows will be, I am sure, too brief.  But perhaps it will be enough to get people thinking.

    (more…)

  • Author Fiekowsky Speaks About Choosing Not to Ride Off the Climate Cliff

    2023-04-12 Climate RestoraBy Scott Steward

    Davis, like the rest of humanity, is on course to ride off a climate change cliff. We will just do it on bikes.

    If you don't want that kind of future then come see the author of "Climate Restoration,” Peter Fiekowsky speak this Thursday at 7:00 pm (see details at end).

    Peter does not have all the answers, but he has taken on what needs to be taken on in his treatment of the scale and urgency to the problem of survival in the face of climate change. Peter's assumptive voice patronizes, but his book is an important contribution to where we need to go to reach "safe harbor."

    For a crib notes summary of the book you can read a review at Earth.org. The reviewer, Maria Mendez, holds back from what could really bother you about the author's interpretation of the elite pedigree behind the proposed solutions to draw down CO2. Fiekowsky spends no ink on the legacy of the slave enabled colonialist system that lives on in our extractive economy and remains a real danger to his own aspirations. 

    That said, Peter Fiekowsky is an ally in the forces of change that apply to climate action and provide for a just transition and benevolent community.  His privileged myopia need not get in our way of a better path toward the rapid evaluation of, if and how best to apply, geoengineering to reduce hundreds of gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2050.  I believe he would be open to constructive suggestions about how to include more voices in the benefits and origin stories of this work.

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  • Letter: Wright for City Council

    Francesca Wright is an inclusive and innovative leader who is not going to follow insular ways of doing things that have led to stalled Davis business opportunity and housing logjams.

    With her experience, Francesca successfully brought about constructive change to how we keep each other safe and how we plan and implement policy. As a leader within Yolo People Power, Francesca worked to create the Davis Department of Social Services and Housing. Francesca Wright was also instrumental in the implementation of community law-enforcement oversight, a positive model for the nation; a framework where we are all part of the solution to keep each other safe.

    Francesca has consistently sided with democracy and access to decision makers. I got to know Francesca these past five years on foot, visiting people in their apartments and single family homes all over Yolo County — to encourage them to vote. She won't wait for city meetings to get voter input.

    Her success at solving problems comes from the people. Francesca brings strength to the council, strength to remove barriers and build trust in decisions for business, housing, climate action, and equity.

    Please join me in voting for Francesca Wright for Davis City Council.

    Scott Steward
    Davis