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Category: Politics

  • MAGA Abortion and Election Deniers

    Screen Shot 2022-09-05 at 7

    By Scott Steward

    You can say it this way or you can say it that way, either way you say it MAGA stands for pain. It stands for Mad Americans Gone Awry.  Is there something to be angry about?  Absolutely.  Worshiping AR-15s is not the answer and following authoritarian Viktor Orban (Hungary's authoritarian leader) into an SS style penal society is not the answer.  Going apoplectic at a school board meeting is also not the answer.

    The answer is working Americans working together. The Biden administration signed laws to force pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices, apply a minimum tax for corporations, provide veterans (exposed to military waste burn zones) medical care, and take steps to provide us with clean domestic energy security.  That's what government is for.

    Most Republicans, most people, independent or otherwise, want corporations to pay taxes, want to stop being gouged by pharmaceutical companies, care for our veterans, and want to have the energy we need to heat and cool our homes and get us where we need to go without sending our dollars to Russia or Saudi Arabia.  Having government for the people and not a government reaching into your doctor patient relationship that is what US people want.

    Some Americans are all for lining up behind an Orbanesk dictatorship.  Donald "We love Hungary" Trump is one of them.  Trump who applies the toddler rules of possession to national security documents.  "If I like it, it's mine. If it's in my hand, it's mine. If I can take it from you, it's mine."  For Trump, national security is not the issue.  He would say, "public office would just be so much better if it was just 100% me."

    Who is lining up behind the MAGA "minority alt-right grab America" way? Who is willing to take democracy down to do it?

    Thirteen Election Decertification MAGA leaders choosing Trump over democracy:

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  • Part 4 Candidate Responses to the Sierra Club Yolano Group Questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council Election

    Sierra-club-yolano

    Transportation Management

    Introduction – As has been our custom for over 20 years, the Sierra Club Yolano Group prepares a wide-ranging questionnaire and presents it to candidates in races of interest to our local membership. The questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council race received answers from all 5 candidates in the 2 of the 5 City Council Districts for which an election is held in November, 2022.

    The candidates, listed in alphabetical order by their first name, are:

    District 1 (West Davis): – Bapu Vaitla, Dan Carson, and Kelsey Fortune

    District 4 (East Davis ) – Adam Morrill, Gloria Partida

    Questions were asked in the following general categories :

    Part 1 – Land Use and Housing Development – Peripheral Development

    Part 2— Land Use and Housing Development – Downtown Core and Student Housing

    Part 3 – Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    Part 4 – Transportation Management

    Part 5 – Toxics in the Environment and Other Environmental Issues

    Part 6 – Waste Management and Financial Contibutors

    Parts 1 through 3 in this series can be viewed by clicking on that article's title above which is linked to the earlier publication.

    This is the 4th in the series of articles and focuses on Transportation Management and provides candidate responses to the following questions:

    Question #1 – Bicycle Use

    Davis prides itself on being a bicycle-oriented city with miles of bike lanes and paths throughout the community to facilitate bike use as an alternative form of transportation. Yet, the bicycle mode-share in Davis has dropped in recent years.

    What would you propose to make the bicycle a more viable and safe transportation mode in Davis?

    Question #2 – Downtown Parking Structure

    Do you support the construction of a new automobile parking structure near or in the downtown core and why or why not?

     

    If yes, where would you like to see it located, how large should it be, and how should it be paid for?

    Question #3 – Downtown Parking Meters

    Do you support the addition of parking meters on downtown streets or in downtown city-owned public parking lots or parking structures and why or why not?

    Subsequent articles in the series in the coming days will focus on the two remaining general categories in Parts 5-6.

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  • Part 3 Candidate Responses to the Sierra Club Yolano Group Questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council Election

    Sierra-club-yolano

    Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

    Introduction – As has been our custom for over 20 years, the Sierra Club Yolano Group prepares a wide-ranging questionnaire and presents it to candidates in races of interest to our local membership. The questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council race received answers from all 5 candidates in the 2 of the 5 City Council Districts for which an election is held in November, 2022.

    The candidates, listed in alphabetical order by their first name, are:

    District 1 (West Davis): – Bapu Vaitla, Dan Carson, and Kelsey Fortune

    District 4 (East Davis ) – Adam Morrill, Gloria Partida

    Questions were asked in the following general categories :

    Part 1 – Land Use and Housing Development – Peripheral Development

    Part 2— Land Use and Housing Development – Downtown Core and Student Housing

    Part 3 – Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    Part 4 – Transportation Management

    Part 5 – Toxics in the Environment and Other Environmental Issues

    Part 6 – Waste Management and Financial Contributors

    Parts 1 and 2 in this series can be viewed by clicking on that article's title above which is linked to the earlier publication.

    This is the 3rd in the series of articles and focuses on Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions and provides candidate responses to the following questions:

    Question #1 – Greenhouse Gas Mitigation for New Development

    Davis has declared a Climate Emergency and mandated carbon neutrality by 2040. Often 70% or more of a new project's GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions are due to transportation-related impacts which are not addressed in increasingly stringent building standards. Some have proposed that developers pay for mitigation of these GHGs because they cause public harm just as sellers of tobacco pay a tax for their associated public harm.

    Do you support in principal a GHG mitigation fee on new developments in Davis and why or why not?  If yes, do you have any ideas how such a fee might be assessed or used by the City?

    Question #2 – Commercial / Multi-Family Solar PV Ordinance

    There currently is a mandatory solar PV requirement for new single-family home and low-rise apartment construction in Davis. However, there are currently no similar requirements for new multi-family housing projects greater than 3 stories or for commercial construction.

     

    Do you support a proposed ordinance mandating solar photovoltaic systems on new multi-family housing, or commercial construction in Davis if not otherwise planned for a net-zero energy use?

    Question #3 – Other Energy Conservation Measures

    What additional steps could be taken by the City, its businesses, and residents that you believe would be most effective in reducing overall energy use and GHG emissions in Davis to meet our climate action and adaptation goals?

    Subsequent articles in the series in the coming days will focus on each of the general categories in Parts 4-6.

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  • Part 2 Candidate Responses to the Sierra Club Yolano Group Questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council Election

    Sierra Club logo

    Land Use and Housing Development – Downtown Core and Student Housing

    Introduction – As has been our custom for over 20 years, the Sierra Club Yolano Group prepares a wide-ranging questionnaire and presents it to candidates in races of interest to our local membership. The questionnaire for the 2022 Davis City Council race received answers from all 5 candidates in the 2 of the 5 City Council Districts for which an election is held in Novemeber, 2022.

    The candidates, listed in alphabetical order by their first name, are:

    District 1 (West Davis): – Bapu Vaitla, Dan Carson, and Kelsey Fortune

    District 4 (East Davis ) – Adam Morrill, Gloria Partida

    Questions asked were in the following general categories:

    Part 1 – Land Use and Housing Development – Peripheral Development

    Part 2— Land Use and Housing Development – Downtown Core and Student Housing

    Part 3 – Energy Use and Greenhouse Gases

    Part 4 – Transportation Management

    Part 5 – Waste Management

    Part 6 – Toxics in the Environment and Other Environmental Issues

    Part 1 in this series can be viewed by clicking on that article's title above which is linked to the earlier publication.

    This is the 2nd in the series of articles and focuses on Land Use and Housing Development – Downtown Core and Student Housing and provides candidate responses to the following questions:

    (more…)

  • Adam Morrill meet and greets

    IMG_5116((From press release) On the morning of September 1, 2022, Huei Young (http://www.hueis-garden.com/) hosted a private meet and greet in her famous garden for Adam Morrill, Candidate for Davis City Council, District 4.

    Huei is well known for her hosted nonprofit garden tour fundraisers. She has hosted tours for the Pence Gallery, MVT's eye testing and glasses program for children in need, Youth in Focus, STEAC (a short-term assistance program), Yolo Hospice, and Shriners Hospital for Children's Cerebral Palsy Program.

    Huei is an avid supporter of Adam. She endorses Adam, “I know that Adam is sincere in his desire to work on solving many of the city’s problems using practical and cost-effective means, and demanding accountability for the results… As someone interested in action to solve problems, he has no patience for kicking a problem down the road, leaving it for some future council to solve.”

    Adam Morrill will be tabling at the Nugget on Covell this Labor Day from 4-6pm. Please come by and meet him and ask questions.

  • Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – Volume #11

    image from www.sparkysonestop.comAl's Corner is a space for YOU to comment on local issues.  Why not?
    .   [See "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is" for Rulez.]

  • Arriving Soon: Davis’ Bigger, Better, Costlier, Extravagant Toad Tunnels

    Stamped Concrete 1

    An example of stamped concrete

    By David Taormino

    After 6 years of wrangling with Davis City Staff, Bretton Woods is under construction. The actual election process was easy compared to finalizing the details with Davis staff. We still have half-a-dozen important and extremely costly imposed conditions that impact costs to homebuyers.

    The craziest staff imposition requires customizing the new drainage tunnels to make the “World’s Fanciest Frog and Toad Tunnels”, reminiscent of the 1995 famous toad tunnel fiasco that brought national embarrassment to Davis. As bizarre of a request as it sounds, that tunnel only cost $14,000, these four cost approximately $200,000. Two Davis staffers, the Open Space Manager, and a Public Works engineer, are demanding the two bigger, better, fancier, customized 110-foot-long tunnels paralleling Covell Blvd near Risling Drive, and two more in our Bretton Woods Channel to accommodate critters. Without the details, it doesn’t sound unreasonable on its face.  

    To “critter customize” these tunnels will cost each senior home buyer in Bretton Woods somewhere around $600 per home. While not a “princely sum”, it is only one of a dozen unnecessary costs heaped on Bretton Woods by city staff. What does each homebuyer get in return? Absolutely nothing, nada! What do the critters get for the extra cost? Only the staff knows, and they aren’t sharing, just demanding.

    Where the critters are coming from or going; no one knows. I requested the staffers produce scientific evidence, or really any evidence, that this costly customization provides any more worthwhile conditions than normal tunnels. Does the staff have evidence that critters will need the customization compared to a standard tunnel? Just like 1995, NO!

    Sadly, the unintended consequence of this forced customizing may be more 2019-like flooding of Sutter-Davis Hospital. Has the staff learned anything from the 1995 Toad Tunnel debacle or the flooding of 2019? Judge for yourself.

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  • Explaining what shouldn’t need explaining

    PileofmoneySpending one million dollars is a sign of a mis-managed campaign

    By Roberta Millstein

    In his most recent apologia for the Yes on Measure H campaign, David Greenwald suggests that it is inevitable that developers will spend “exorbitant amounts of money” to promote their projects. 

    But nothing forced the Yes on Measure H campaign, led by “Honorary Chair” Councilmember Dan Carson, to outspend the No on Measure H campaign by more than 14-1, as Alan Pryor reported.

    In 2020, the Yes campaign spent around $323,000 to promote the DISC project. Let’s consider how the developers might have reacted to that loss.  They might have talked to voters to find out what, in their eyes, would make for a project that was better for Davis and modified the project accordingly. 

    Instead, they polled Davisites to find out what would “sell” to voters and rushed a virtually unchanged project to voters (just cut in half) only a year and a half later.  Apparently, voters like parks, greenbelts, environmental sustainability, and affordable housing, so those are the features that they poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into highlighting, even though these aspects were at best incidental to the project and at worse deceptive. The graphic of the stand-up paddleboarder was perhaps the most egregious example of this.

    And they dumped in almost three times the amount of the previous campaign – a campaign that had itself had spent large sums of money – in order to sell the project. That includes over $200,000 on a heavy-handed free-speech-squelching developer-funded lawsuit, which, bizarrely, Greenwald says is not a campaign expenditure issue.

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  • Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – Volume #10

    image from www.sparkysonestop.comAl's Corner is a space for YOU to comment on local issues.  Maybe you read about the issue in a crappy local blog, in a newspaper, or misheard gossip at the Farmer's Market.  Your biased distortion of reality is welcome at Al's Corner for the entertainment of all.
    .   [See "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is" for Rulez.]

  • Yes on H Burned One Million Dollars

    Yes on Measure H Committee Total Expenditures and Accrued Expenses Approach $1 Million vs Less than $69,000 for the No on Measure H Committee

    by Alan Pryor

    Executive Summary

    A total of 19,787 votes were cast in the City of Davis Measure H ballot, according to the Yolo County Registrar of Voters, with 12,588 (63.62%) opposing the Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus and 7,199 (36.38%)  supporting it.

    The most recent Yes on Measure H financial disclosures made to the City for the period ending 6/30/22 showed total monetary and in-kind expenditures and accrued expenses totaled $981,038. This works out to $136.27 for every "Yes" vote cast in the election. ($981,038 / 7,199 "Yes" votes). To date, all except $8,000 of these total expenditures were contributed or will need to be contributed by the two principals of the DISC project, Ramco Enterprises and Buzz Oates LLC of Sacramento.

    By contrast, the most recent No on Measure H financial disclosures made to the City for the same period ending 6/30/22 showed total expenditures equaled  $68,771. This works out to $5.46 for every "No" vote cast in the election ($68,771 / 12,588 "No" votes). All of this money was contributed by 201 individual donors or lenders to the campaign exhibiting broad community support for the No campaign as also reflected in the election outcome.

    The "Yes" campaign spent approximately 14.3 times as much money than the "No" campaign on the election which is fairly consistent with past Measure J/R/D election campaigns. It is believed that Measure H is the most expensive Measure J/R/D campaign ever waged in Davis.

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