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

Category: Politics

  • DEIR for Willowgrove project released

    The Willowgrove Draft Environmental Impact Report has been released and is available for public review for a minimum 45-day comment period.

    The Draft EIR public comment period begins on Nov. 10 and ends Jan. 2 at 5 p.m. Members of the public may submit written comments before the end of the comment period. Written comments can be emailed to the Project Planner Eric Lee at: elee@cityofdavis.org.

    The Planning Commission is scheduled to conduct a public comment meeting on the Draft EIR on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 7 p.m. in the city of Davis Community Chambers (23 Russell Blvd). Members of the public or public agencies may provide comments at the meeting.

    To view the DEIR, visit https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CDD/Planning/Special-Projects/Willowgrove/EIR-Draft/Willowgrove-Draft-EIR-Nov-2025-Combined.pdf

    To learn more about the proposed Willowgrove project, visit https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/community-development/development-projects/willowgrove

  • Trump’s Attacks on the University of California (and higher education more generally)

    By Roberta Millstein

    With so many people in Davis affiliated in some way or another with UC Davis, I thought it might be helpful to try to highlight the two fronts on which the University of California is under attack by the federal government, because it is easy to get lost and confused in the details.  And before I get into some of those details, you may wish to sign up at Stand for UC (open to anyone) for more information and ways to get involved. 

    Also, I want to call attention to this helpful webpage from the UCSD Faculty Association, which contains a statement calling on the UC Regents and UC President James Milliken to publicly reject Trump’s demands and has links to many relevant resources.  I’m drawing heavily on their work in this article.

    The two points of attack are:  1) the “Demand” letter that the administration sent to UCLA back in August and 2) the “Compact” letter that the administration sent to 9 schools in early October, later broadening its “offer” to all U.S. colleges and universities.  I had originally hoped to discuss both in one article, but just explaining the first of these took a lot of words, so I will try to discuss the “Compact” in a future article.

    The “Demand” letter seeks a $1.2 Billion “settlement” from UCLA for allegations of civil rights violations related to antisemitism and affirmative action.  Now, whatever one thinks of the way UCLA has handled things such as the pro-Palestine protests of last year — and I have my concerns — that amount of money is more than the UC system can absorb without serious damage. Governor Newsom accurately called it “extortion” [1]; President Milliken said it would “devastate UC and inflict real, long-term harm on our students, our faculty and staff, our patients, and all Californians.” 

    Importantly, this Demand letter has only recently become public (as of October 24).  The UCLA Faculty Association and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations had to file a lawsuit against the UC administration (yes, you are reading that correctly), who had refused to release the details of the letter.  The UC released the information after a California superior court judge ordered it to do so and the state Supreme Court rejected its appeal (see Monica Stark’s article in the Davis Enterprise for details of the Superior Court’s ruling).

    In addition to the monetary demand, the letter makes demands on UCLA that go well beyond addressing the alleged problems.  According to the SF Chronicle, the demands would require UCLA to (and this is not a complete list):

    (more…)

  • No to Co-op at Village Farms

    [The following letter was shared with the Davisite for posting]

    November 1, 2025

    To the members of the:
    Davis City Council
    Davis Planning Commission
    Davis Social Services Commission

    From David Thompson, Davis Citizen and Affordable Housing, Advocate, Co-Founder National Cooperative Bank and Inducted into the US Cooperative Hall of Fame

    No to this flimsy, sketchy, ill-prepared and financially dangerous to co-op members Limited Equity Housing Cooperative (LEHC) proposed by Village Farms

    My first major point is that the path of an LEHC(laid out below) takes many steps and requires much over $2 million dollars of an entity’s money prior to even starting construction, The path to a LEHC if travelled, will take about five years from inception to occupancy. The member’s own investment of $50,000 each ($3.5 million overall) is likely at risk during the latter two years of construction. Dos Pinos took close to 3 years of active one on one marketing to get to 85% occupancy. At Dos Pinos, no one lives on top of anyone else. At 15 townhome units per acre it is an attractive community. Each owner member has a separate front door on the ground floor with a front and back patio. A four floor apartment building with no patios at 30 units per acre is not an attractive home ownership model.

    Much as I love LEHC’s, the Village Farms LEHC proposal is impossible to develop under present circumstances. To be fair to the City and to the citizens this proposal should be removed immediately or else it will be a huge waste of the City’s time and the citizen’s resources or it will be a major housing proposal seen as an ill-prepared developer’s red herring that should have been eliminated. Village Farms does a disservice to the City by presenting a thin dream without details to back up the Co-op.

    The City should immediately reject the Village Farm LEHC as being infeasible.

    (more…)

  • Response to Bob Dunning, re: the nine misconceptions about Prop 50

    By Roberta Millstein

    Bob Dunning featured my “Nine misconceptions about Prop 50” in a recent Substack article, here (requires a paid subscription to see the whole thing). I appreciate the shoutout to the Davisite and my article and his spreading the word about the nine Prop 50 misconceptions with wit and humor.

    Here is my response to what Bob says about the first misconception, which I also left as a comment on his page:

    I should clarify the first misconception a bit more. I saw, on more than one occasion, people having the temerity (SAT word) to say that Texas was constitutionally required to redraw its districts because they were racially biased. Of course the reality is that it is the new, gerrymandered districts are the ones that hurt minority voter representation in Texas.

    (The origin of this misconception is the DOJ itself, who claimed that four districts had been impermissibly created using race. This was such a howler of an excuse that even Texas stopped using it, but the misconception persists out in social media — details here.)

    And not to blab on, but although you’re [i.e., Bob is] right that Trump would surely have leaned hard on Texans if they hadn’t done what he wanted, it’s people like the Texas Democrats, who risked arrest and their jobs to hold up the gerrymandering vote, that we really need right now. People who are willing to stand up to bullies.

  • Nine misconceptions about Prop 50

    By Roberta Millstein

    Back in August, I wrote an article arguing for why people ought to vote “Yes” on Prop 50: “Fight Fire with Fire.” Today I write to dispel some of the misconceptions about Prop 50 that I have encountered.  These will just be quick responses — more can be said about each of them — but at least this should be a starting point.

    But first: be sure to turn in your ballots before November 4.  And, importantly: if you plan to use the U.S. Mail, mail early because Trump’s cuts to USPS mean that your envelope might not get postmarked on Election Day, and, more generally, mail might be slow enough to cause your ballot not to be counted.  On Election Day, use a drop box or voting center; see Yolo County locations here.

    And some news since I wrote the previous article: It’s not just Texas who is trying to gerrymander to increase its Republican representation in Congress — Missouri and North Carolina are now getting into the act too.

    Onto the misconceptions…

    (more…)

  • Urging a No vote on the Village Farms PIP

    [Note: This letter to the Planning Commission was sent by the author for posting. PIP = Project Individualized Plan]

    October 20th, 2025

    To Planning Commission for Meeting of October 22nd, 2025

    FR. David J Thompson, Affordable Housing Advocate

    Vote No on the VF PIP. My Arguments Against the PIP proposed by Village Farms

    After reviewing the Village Farms PIP I do not see how what is being proposed meets the requirements of Section18.05.050 that is equal to or better than what the city would get under standard affordability requirements.

    I urge the Planning Commission to vote no on the PIP before you.

    For example,

    Under Section 18.05.050 18 acres would be set aside to meet the standard affordable housing requirements. However VF intends to remove 50% of that required land and asks the city to accept 9 acres of land. Removing 9 acres of land for the use of affordable housing is more acres than any affordable housing project has received in the history of Davis’ affordable housing that began about 1980.

    It does not seem equal to the PIP requirements that 18 acres is culled down to nine.

    Or that, the number of affordable units required are stuffed into 9 acres (31 units per acre) rather than 18 acres (15 units per acre). The city requirement is for a project to host 15 units per acre.

    It does not seem equal to the PIP requirements that the density of affordable units goes up from 15 to 31 units per acre.

    The cities for sale units single family ownership units are usually about 5 + units per acre

    No single family affordable homes meeting the city’s requirements are being provided.

    (more…)

  • Davis Media Access Releases ‘Yolo County News & Information Ecosystem Report’

    Yolo Local maps sector, outlines challenges and opportunities

    (From press release) Davis Media Access (DMA) announces the release of its “Yolo County News & Information Ecosystem” report, which presents ideas for addressing the reduced availability of local information and news in Yolo County.

    The 70-page report follows months of research, conversations and contact with people throughout Yolo County to understand how the decline of traditional local media outlets affects both information providers and Yolo residents. DMA calls its effort to address this decline Yolo Local.

    DMA worked with Impact Architects, nationally known consultants; jesikah maria ross of Davis, a community-engaged journalist, and the 11-member Yolo Local Working Group. The community engagement, which primarily ran from April to August 2025, included a bilingual survey, direct engagement at events, one-to-one interviews, and roundtable discussions.

    The report is rooted in Impact Architects’ framework and methodology for large-scale ecosystem reports, and includes key comparative data about Yolo County, such as race and ethnicity, income, and civic wellness data. It describes the community engagement approach and strategies that Yolo Local used, and includes a list of organizations and individuals involved.


    Key findings in the report include:

    (more…)

  • Letter concerning the Lumberyard Revised Affordable Housing Plan

    [The following letter was shared for posting to the Davisite by the author]

    October 12, 2025

    Dear Mayor Vaitla, Social Services Commission Chair Sverdlov, Planning Commission Chair Weiss and to all the council and commission members and Community Development Director Sherri Metzker.

    I saw last week in a recent Davis Enterprise the city’s public notice re

    The Lumberyard Revised Affordable Housing Plan.

    The core elements of the revision are as follows;

    The number of units will drop from 226 units to 205 units

    A reduction of 21 units

    However, the number of bedrooms will increase from 322 to 444

    An increase of 122 bedrooms and therefore at least 122 more people at one person per bedroom but many more if any of the bedrooms allow 2 people

    If various fees are based upon people and vehicle usage, then the project will; 

    Reduce project income to the city by about 10% 

    While increasing the number of noncontributing municipal users by 37+%.

    It appears to me therefore that the reduction of 21 units, the city will have a measurable loss of project-based income to cover the long-term costs while substantially subsidizing and increasing dollars spent on the wear and tear on the city.

    I would like one of you to pose this question to the Community Development Director;

    (more…)

  • A Lawsuit Waiting to Happen

    By Elaine Roberts Musser

    There was a pretty lively discussion that transpired on social media recently. Many citizens in this town don’t understand why Village Homes is getting a complete pavement makeover, while arterials are going to pot(holes).  Some suspicion was expressed that there may be political leverage involved in the decision making.  Neither do voters understand why their streets are so riddled with alligator cracks, fissures and pits, while the current City Council seems relatively unconcerned about maintaining basic city infrastructure. This is especially true when a recently approved sales tax hike was supposed to help solve the pavement problem. In fact, someone was concerned enough to reach out to both the City and the City Council for an explanation. The City finally responded.

    However, the reply seemed contradictory.  The City’s representative justified prioritizing repairing Village Homes inner streets over major arterials by saying: “Most of the streets in Village Homes are in failed condition”.  Yet later in their explanation the City made the following contrary statement: “Pavement preservation—proactive maintenance of roads in fair or good condition—helps extend pavement life and maximize the value of each dollar spent. This is why some streets may receive treatment even if they appear to be in better shape than others.” 

    The city can’t have it both ways, especially when it comes to fixing very small neighborhood streets in poor condition, at the expense of not repairing main thoroughfares in fair condition. First, considerably more citizens in this town use the thoroughfares than tiny side streets.  And secondly, those major arteries are fast deteriorating from fair condition, and are a good portion of the way to degrading to poor condition.

    As it turns out, a case was just handed down in May of this year from the California Supreme Court, which gives a harsh lesson to cities allowing their roads to unacceptably worsen. In a 7- 0 decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff could sue the City of Oakland for serious injuries sustained as a result of bicycling on crumbled or cracked pavement. It said the City was obligated to “maintain its streets in a reasonably safe condition for travel by the public”. In a statement announcing the $7 million settlement in favor of the plaintiff, the attorney representing the injured party indicated the court’s ruling sent a clear message to California cities that “safe streets are not optional”.

    (more…)

  • We the People Say No Kings: Second Yolo “No Kings” March and Rally to Take Place Oct. 18

    More than 4,000 Yolo County residents gathered in Woodland in June for the first NO KINGS march and rally. Indivisible Yolo is organizing the next NO KINGS event for Oct. 18 in Davis.

    Countywide event will be held alongside 5 million people and 2500 protests nationwide

    (From press release) Drawing on momentum from the first Yolo NO KINGS march and rally in June that gathered more than 4,000 participants, Indivisible Yolo and Davis Phoenix Coalition will host a second Yolo NO KINGS event Saturday, Oct. 18 from 1:30-3:30pm at Civic Center Park at 6th and B streets in Davis. The event, themed “We the People,” is part of a national mobilization expected to exceed 5 million nationwide as people gather to protest Trump administration policies and remind the president that America is a democracy.

    The event will begin with a march from Civic Center Park through downtown Davis, looping back to the park for the rally at approximately 2:30pm where Yolo County speakers will address the crowd. Learn more and RSVP: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisibleyolo/event/840116/.

    At least 4500 attendees are expected. Here is a list of speakers, with additional speakers are still being confirmed:

    • Gloria Partida, Davis Phoenix Coalition
    • U.S. Representative Mike Thompson (CA-4)
    • Dr. Dawnté Early, West Sacramento city council member
    • Deger Carda, UC Davis post-doc UAW 4811
    • Thomas Alvarez, UC Davis, Davis College Democrats
    • Steve Murphy, Indivisible Yolo

    Renowned activist and former U.S. secretary of labor, Robert Reich, sent a video message for Yolo County participants in the upcoming NO KINGS march on Oct. 18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZFOb7fpIHY

    (more…)