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Category: Money

  • “Village Farms” vernal pools have been leveled

    California Department of Fish and Wildlife is investigating and an open letter is gaining signatures from concerned citizens

    By Shannon Hickey

    The city’s last remaining vernal pools—the ones on the Measure V (for Village Farms) property that supported a local population of the federally endangered vernal pool tadpole shrimp as well as two rare plant species (alkali milkvetch and San Joaquin spearscale)—were potentially filled, disced, and graded in the week of September 13, 2026.

    The attached photos were taken early Saturday morning, September 19, showing the area where the largest pool existed, now a level surface. To give a little back story, this pool was on a property that has been proposed for development since the early 2000s and actively farmed since circa the late ’60s, according to historical aerial imagery. Despite regular discing, this vernal pool continued to pond because it was protected on two sides by a railroad berm to the west and an irrigation channel berm (Channel A) to the north. The developer has known about this vernal pool and the extremely rare species in it since the last time this project went up for a vote by the citizens of Davis back in 2005. At that time, it was known as the Covell Village project and it was voted down then as well. For both the Covell Village project and the Village Farms project, the associated environmental surveys supporting the EIRs revealed that these species were present.

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  • It’s Time To Give Youth A Chance

    By Bertie Brouhard

    Maybe for our U.S. House of Representatives 4th California Congressional District Seat? Time for us on November 3rd to elect Eric Jones as our new representative?

    So … who are we? And who are the incumbent, Mike Thompson, and his opponent in the midterm, General Election, Eric Jones? Soon we need to decide. 

    “We” of the “newish” 4th District (one of California’s 52) with its 760,000 population have an ethnic breakdown of 51.3% white, 31.4% Hispanic, 7.6% Asian and 5.3% two or more “other.” We’re solidly of the Democratic Party persuasion with a median income of $98,000 and median age of 39.9 years.

    Thanks to the passage of Prop. 50 in 2020 our district’s boundaries changed again. What were new district boundaries in 2012 which shifted the population centers to the south and east were shifted again in ‘20 to the west and the Bay Area adopting the bulk of District 5. Today our district is all of Lake and Napa Counties, most of Yolo and parts of Solano and Sonoma County. It includes the cities with populations greater than 10,000 of Santa Rosa, Vacaville, Napa,Woodland, Petaluma, West Sacramento, Rohnert Park and our home; Davis.

    Democratic Party candidates win most seats in our district. In 2024 Mike defeated Republican John Munn 66% to 33%. But sadly only about half our population is registered to vote and of those registered only about 50% cast a ballot. In June’s Non-partisan Primary election Thompson received some 84,000 votes to Jones’s 46,000. 

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  • Biberstein Social Action Fund Grants Available

    24th Annual Request for Proposals

    Proposals due October 16, 2026

    (From press release) Nonprofit organizations are invited to submit applications to the Biberstein Social Action Fund for grants in support of projects addressing poverty, discrimination, abuse and neglect, and the promotion of social justice in Yolo County.

    The Biberstein Social Action Fund was established in 2002 by the Board of Directors of Congregation Bet Haverim to honor Ernie and Hannah Biberstein, who are among the founding members of CBH, and who devoted much of their lives to community service and social justice. Hannah passed away in April 2011. This is the 24rth Anniversary of the Fund.

    The goal of the annual awards made from the Biberstein Social Action Fund is to help Yolo County organizations in their efforts to meet unfulfilled needs. Special consideration is given to new and/or innovative projects.

    An annual Call for Proposals is released each Fall. Grants ranging from $500 to $2,000 are awarded in December. The Biberstein Fund members review the proposals. Current Biberstein Fund members include Congregation Bet Haverim partners Ernie Biberstein, Amy Abramson, Anne Gieseke, Sandy Jones, Joan Sublett, and Shoshana Zatz.

    Information about the Biberstein Award, including a link to the application, is available on the CBH website: https://bethaverim.org/engage/committees/biberstein-social-action-fund/

    Grant proposals must be submitted no later than October 16, 2026. Questions may be directed to the Biberstein Social Action Fund at: cbhbibersteinfund@gmail.com. Awards will be announced in December 2026.

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  • Super PAC supporting Eric Jones spends $1.1 million more on campaign ads in just three weeks

    A new Substack author joins the chorus of people revealing the dark underside of Eric Jones’s run to unseat Mike Thompson

    💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰

    By Roberta Millstein

    This is just a quick little post to let people know about a new Substack author to pay attention to. Regular readers of Davisite articles on Eric Jones already know about the awesome Judy Tipple, who has kindly let us repost some of her articles here. Judy’s articles are always in depth and on point, and she always brings the receipts! Now here comes Bruce Banner with some quick and pointed articles on Eric Jones.

    Both Substacks are free, so give them a follow!

    And I thought I had been tracking the expenditures of the Super PAC that has been supporting Eric Jones, but Bruce’s most recent Substack post caught me by surprise: $1.1 million spent on ads for the Eric Jones campaign in September alone. This from the candidate who is still deceptively claiming not to take corporate PAC money, not beholden to special interests.

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  • A Win for Measure W – Willowgrove May Be Our Last Chance to Preserve Our Direct Vote on Local Projects

    By Elaine Roberts Musser and Dan Carson

    Measure W -Willowgrove is the latest housing development to come up for consideration under Measure J/R/D.  This measure is the City of Davis law that requires a majority vote of the public to annex farmland or open space to our city for urban development.

    As you assess the merits of this project, it’s important to understand where we stand today. The state has imposed mandatory requirements for communities like ours to rezone the land needed for additional housing. These requisites include additional units of low income housing, as well as housing for moderate income persons who work in Davis but cannot afford to live here.  Our failure to comply with these mandates would, without question, trigger state intervention to force our compliance with state housing policy.

    That state intervention could even result in state action to override Measure J/R/D itself. The last legislative session saw strongly bipartisan approval in the Assembly of AB 2676. This bill would have curbed the use of local initiatives and referenda, that are widely being used around the state to block cities from meeting their state-mandated housing obligations.  AB 2676 did not pass the Senate, but has momentum, and will almost certainly be reconsidered in some form in next year’s legislative session.

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  • Eric Jones, a moving target, Part 1: The Davis town hall

    By John Smolenski

         I went to the town hall Eric Jones held on August 26 at Watermelon Music. I came away from the town hall without a clear sense of why Jones is running for Congress in District 4 and what he hopes to accomplish. This emerged as he talked about the policies hoped to enact if elected to Congress. (That he showed more enthusiasm regarding an endorsement from Republican candidate Raymond Riehle than he did for the Democratic party’s goals seemed telling.) Comparing what he said at his town hall to what I found re-reading his website only compounded this sense. It’s not entirely clear what Jones stands for, especially since his policies have moved significantly to the right since the primary, as he sought Riehle’s endorsement. In many respects, it seems as if this movement has happened less as a ideological evolution than an opportunistic attempt to get elected. I do not believe Jones is a viable choice for progressives seeking change in Washington.

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  • 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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  • In CA04, which Eric Jones do you get?

    Wrong Seat, Wrong Moment – Part V

    By Judy Tipple

    Yesterday in Marysville, Eric Jones stood in front of 250 farmers at the Yuba-Sutter Farm Bureau forum and said this:

    “Let me make a simple statement: no more data centers in California.”

    He called for a national moratorium. He said members of Congress who don’t understand the technology shouldn’t be in the room for these decisions (Patch, Sept. 2, 2026).

    Strong stuff. The kind of line that gets applause in a room full of people watching data centers drink their water and eat their farmland, and farmland all over the country.

    Here’s the problem. It’s not what his campaign has been telling voters for months.

    Go to ericjones.us right now. His official AI platform page said something very different, until 2 days ago:

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