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Category: Health

  • A Planning Commissioner’s Enthusiastic Support for Measure W, Willowgrove

    By Greg Rowe

    My involvement in evaluating and commenting on the merits of proposed development projects began in the mid-1980s when I joined the environmental commission of a rapidly expanding city in San Diego County.  I later worked for a Bay Area business association, where I identified the pros and cons of development proposals, and then helped launch housing and commercial projects for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.

    My career culminated as Senior Environmental Analyst for the Sacramento County Department of Airports for 13 years, where I studied  the potential aviation impacts of housing proposals near  airports. During the past nine years I have spent countless hours evaluating and suggesting improvements to proposed developments in my role as Davis planning commissioner.

    This background means it takes an extraordinary proposal to garner my unqualified support. For the reasons summarized below, that project is Willowgrove, Measure W on the November 3 ballot. If approved by Davis voters, Willowgrove will transform 232 acres in northeast Davis into 1,250 homes of various types: single-family dwellings, townhomes, condominiums, and deed-restricted affordable apartment units for lower income households. 

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  • Taming The Beast; L’homme Machine

    By Bertie Brouhard

    Craving a burger after a recent trip abroad I recently made a beeline for In-N-Out on Olive Drive. Dining in savoring my Double-Double with cheese, fries and chocolate shake (consistently delicious) I was struck by how very quiet my surroundings were. It was busy. I suspect a normal lunch hour. A dozen or so white clad employees crowned by chef overseas caps and secured by large safety pins holding tight their aprons were slicing, dicing, frying, serving. Filling orders. The drive-thru was backed up, the inside big bench occupied by customers waiting to pick up their meals, and the indoor and outdoor dining areas crowded with tradesmen, high school and college kids and a couple old townies like me. The few conversations (albeit brief) were those of other old schoolers needing to voice their orders at the walkup counter, the server calling out numbers for pickup and those I suppose shouting theirs from their vehicles into the drive-thru box.

    Other than one older couple rambling in Spanish I didn’t see or hear one ongoing verbal conversation amongst the several dozen inside dining customers or the dozen or so fast moving employees. The employees were not on their phones but all the customers; burger, fries or drink in one hand had their cell phones in their other. The singles, doubles, threesomes and foursomes all we glued to theirs.

    How sad! I for one miss good conversations. This “beast” (mine and your mobile, cellular phone) needs some usage guidelines, etiquette training perhaps; maybe a day or two weekly of rest (turned “off’.) The scene while munching my lunch got me thinking about my tech journey and our phones’ overblown importance and unbridled use.

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  • 4th District Congressional Candidate Eric Jones Admits: “I’m not from here.”

    (From press release) In a televised debate hosted by KCRA on Wednesday, 4th District congressional candidate Eric Jones declared “I’m not from here.”

    Jones, a venture capitalist, has claimed he moved to the 4th district in 2021 but in fact voted in San Francisco until 2025 and purchased his $4 million Napa home with a mortgage that described it as a second home. His shocking admission came at the end of a half-hour televised debate where Jones faced questions about his venture capital firm’s investments in companies fined hundreds of millions of dollars for harming consumers, his reversal on policy positions including his suggestion to sunset all federal programs including Medicare and Social Security, and whether he is truly a resident of the community he wants to serve in Congress. In his closing statement, Jones said, “I’m not from here”

    Jones’ admission is in stark contrast to Congressman Mike Thompson, who was born, grew up, and still lives in our district. Thompson, a combat veteran and member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in Congress, dominated the debate. 

    “Eric Jones couldn’t have said it better: he’s not from here, and he doesn’t know the needs of our community. While Eric furnishes his third home in Napa with half a million dollars worth of designer furniture, Mike Thompson has been showing up and delivering for our District to lower costs for families, protect our democracy, and put an end to this forever war that’s raising prices,” said Thomas Dowling, Mike Thompson for Congress Campaign Manager. 

    Congressman Thompson is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care, tax, trade, Social Security and income security issues.  Congressman Thompson is the Ranking Member of the Tax Subcommittee and a senior member of the Health Subcommittee.  He is also a member of the fiscally responsible Blue Dog Coalition and a combat veteran. To learn more about Congressman Mike Thompson visit here.

  • To share: Links to articles about Eric Jones

    By request, here are links to Davisite articles about Eric Jones’s bid to unseat Mike Thompson in the House, plus his recent donation #s (as best as I can determine them), for easy sharing with friends & on social media. I will try to keep this post updated. – Roberta

    *** This is a pinned post — scroll down if you’re on the main page looking for new Davisite articles on other topics

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  • Eric Jones campaign hands out different flyers for Republicans and Democrats

    A continuation of the deceptive tactics we’ve seen since the primary

    Republican-geared version of the Eric Jones for Congress flyer, with my annotations.

    By Roberta Millstein

    Last week, a Davisite reader sent me two versions of the same “Eric Jones for Congress” flyer that had been left at homes on her North Davis street on the same day.  The one she received seems clearly pitched to Democrats; the other one, which she found near her driveway, is strikingly different and seems instead to be pitched to Republicans, which some of her neighbors on her block are. [1] To paraphrase her reaction, “How stupid does Eric Jones think we are?”

    Now to be clear, this is not the first time we have seen this sort of behavior from the Eric Jones campaign.  After months of playing the progressive, e.g., with a mailer that touted his endorsement from Our Revolution and implied (falsely) that he had been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna, he:

    But this does seem like a new low, pandering to Democrats and Republicans alike, trying to be everything to everybody, while still ridiculously claiming to be against PACs and special interests — even though his former Silicon Valley Dragoneer Investment Group colleagues and associates have dumped millions of dollars into his campaign via direct donations and a Super PAC.  And he is still trying to tout his health care experience as being good for employees and patients, when the evidence shows otherwise.

    Why do I say that these flyers are pandering? 

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  • Eric Jones’s Healthcare Record: Employers 7, Patients 0; the good news is your boss saved money

    Wrong seat, wrong moment, CACD-04 Part VI

    By Judy Tipple

    His campaign biography says his father’s health struggles taught him “how critical affordable health care” is to working families (ericjones.us/meet-eric). It says he “built a firm that built businesses.” It lists Lyra Health as a company he helped make “accessible to millions.”

    Fair enough. Let’s look at the businesses.

    His job was healthcare

    Jones joined Dragoneer Investment Group in 2013 and became a partner 4 years later, where he remained until he resigned in July 2025. Not an employee. A partner. His sector title at the firm was “Partner – Healthcare, Fintech, Internet” (RocketReach profile; his LinkedIn will confirm). Healthcare was not a side interest. It was his book.

    So the question is simple. When Jones and Dragoneer put money into healthcare, who was the customer?

    Seven companies. Same answer.

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  • You Must Be So Jelly

    By Bertie Brouhard

    Envious, jealous (“jelly”) of us; 80-plus years of age. We’ve arrived. Been selected and inducted into a very prestigious club. If you’re much younger; not having given it (80) much thought but hopeful to arrive one day far into your future or if you’re perhaps closer to 80 and wonder if you’ll crawl across this finish line, this column is for you. Intended for everyone hoping to age.

    You, my reader; fellow octogenarians or those more advanced in age may agree with some or all of my observations. You others, maybe younger, may question my findings. I get that.

    I’m thrilled to be in my eighth decade and hopefully you have one or more in your circle; a contented individual in your life; a parent, grandparent, sibling, friend or neighbor. At this age I feel a calm, a quiet not present in my younger years. I get less frustrated, think I’m more patient, less irritating and irritable with fewer mountains to climb and live with less noise, destruction and disappointment. The insignificant minor, many tiresome details and bothersome annoyances of my younger years are gone.

    My mother was very secretive about her age until she turned 80. Then she proudly told everyone. She passed at 84 and my dad who lived but five months past his 80th wanted to sail and get in a round of golf the day he died. Those who I learn have passed on gain greater notoriety when you’re their age. How long do we each have? Probably fewer days that we expect.

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  • Your Last Hand is Played ‘All In’

    By Bertie Brouhard

    As our monthly poker game winds down about 9 PM someone may ask a defining question, “Let’s play this last hand ‘All In?’” Which is to say everyone wanting to play this last hand will wager their entire bank – be it several tall stacks of chips or sadly a few – on the next, the last seven cards  dealt. Winners can become instant losers and vice versa.  Life is much like our simple game of Seven Card Texas Hold-Em.

    Every day’s a gamble. Surely Julie Veress when she pedaled off on her bike or when Brent Leuschen started his Stebbin Canyon hike did either think it would be their last day. Neither did my friends, Bill, Bruce, Marilyn and Ed who also like Julie succumbed to bike accidents. As I look back I remember the sudden loss of friends Gary, Chris, Doc, Bob, Mickey and Francie. Names no doubt come to mind when you think of tragic, unexpected, sudden deaths. The day before he recently passed Senator Lindsey Graham was in Ukraine. Go  figure!

    To be successful at poker like the game of life it’s best to acquire some skill and maybe more precious, some luck. I like you know several who struggle as adults having grown up in loving families, with highly supportive parents providing the best possible opportunities. And others who were raised in foster homes, homeless perhaps, or with alcohol or drug addicted parents offering little, grew into happy, well adjusted, productive adults and parents. Mysteries abound.

    Some hopefully more today than in prior generations have the needed drive, motivation, ambition, determination to play the game well. The who, what, why, when, where and especially “how” of this needed IT fascinates me. I do know as in poker there’s skill and luck needed and there’s limited time to win in life.

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  • Davis teen takes on America’s caregiver shortage, one front door at a time

    At 17, Davis Senior High School senior Dash Voskuhl built a caregiving startup called Tethr. He and his three co-founders apply to Y Combinator at the end of July.

    (From press release) Dash Voskuhl spent his summer mornings knocking on doors around Davis, selling window cleaning. At one house, the pitch turned into a different conversation. Voskuhl mentioned the caregiving app he was building on the side, and the woman at the door, in her 50s, went quiet. Then she told him about her mother, who has dementia.

    “That was the moment I knew I had to actually build this,” Voskuhl said.

    Voskuhl, a rising senior at Davis Senior High School, is the CEO and co-founder of Tethr, a Davis startup whose app connects families with vetted caregivers so anyone can book care on demand, the way they’d order an Uber. The company is pre-launch, and this month the team is applying to Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator whose early bets included Airbnb and DoorDash.

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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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