Al's Corner is a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments from other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from. For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is".
Category: Politics
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Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – Volume #7
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Public Reconsideration and Action on G Street
Why is G Street still closed?
During the height of the pandemic, most businesses on G St. in downtown Davis, between 2nd and 3rd, initially supported the emergency action to temporarily close G St. This was specifically to help restaurants and bars carry on with their business outdoors. More than two years later, eateries have now regained use of their indoor dining rooms but the street remains closed to vehicles with no store-front accessibility to businesses or parking. Minor aesthetic improvements were made and it’s still unattractive.
The Downtown Davis Business Association polled all downtown businesses. The results of the survey were overwhelming – 92% of businesses said “Reopen G St. to two-way traffic.” The City Council was informed of the results of the survey in November 2021. Many of our downtown businesses do not support the city’s action that keeps G Street closed.
We ask the city council to put the matter of G St. on the agenda at the Tuesday, July 5th meeting for public discussion. The business owners and the community who are impacted by this “temporary emergency action” deserve a fair and open process to study and adopt a plan that suits all of us. Our emails to the council have not been adequately answered. We’d like more conversation and follow through. The City Council meeting held in 11/2/2021 on Zoom, with this item on the agenda was woefully inadequate in terms of allowing full public discourse.
You can support our effort to get this matter added to the city council agenda by contacting us at: arteryinfo@omsoft.com and allow us to add your name to the letter; please speak up.
Additionally, you may email all members of the City Council directly at this email address: citycouncilmembers@cityofdavis.org
Thank you,
G St. Businesses
The Artery
Illusions
Sole Desire
Davis Barber Shop
Mahin Alterations
Abaton Consulting
Law offices of Roberta S. Savage
Copyland
Bankers Lending Group
Volleys Tennis Shop
Katmandu Restaurant
Brooks Byrd -
Do NOT Change Noise Ordinance Standards nor Formulas
Recreation & Parks Commission,
I am highly concerned about the proposal to change the sound standards for the City of Davis. My understanding from articles written by former mayor Joe Krovoza is that standards are in consideration to be changed in terms of duration, levels, and measurement of peaks.
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Measure H versus Measure B voting patterns
What happened? Drilling down into the data
By Matt WilliamsPrecincts
To get to an apples to apples comparison of the results of Measure H and Measure B, one has to start with the understanding that the Yolo Elections Office reported Measure H in two consolidated precincts… one for the western portions of Davis plus Downtown and Olive Drive (seen in light blue in the left graphic below), and
… the other for the northern, eastern and southern portions of Davis (seen in the darker blue in the left graphic below).
Back in November 2020 the reporting of Measure B came in eleven (11) consolidated precincts, which are shown in the right side of the graphic below, with the precincts that had more than 50% “Yes” votes shown in green and the precincts that had more than 50% “No” votes shown in light blue.
Fortunately, the underlying precinct boundaries did not change between 2020 and 2022, so a one-to-on comparison of the two Measure H consolidated precincts can be made to their Measure B equivalents.
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Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – Volume #6
Al's Corner is a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments from other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from. For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is". -
An Open Letter to South Davis on Issues at Pacifico (January 2021, recycled)
Today the D. Vanguard recycled some old content from January 2021 in a 'new' article "Commentary: Long Troubled by Some of the Comments on Pacifico" and sprinkled in some recent content from an Anti-NIMBY Council-meeting public comment.
I, too, am disgusted by some of the comments on Pacifico, but the comments I find twisted are the opposite comments Greenwald is troubled by — those by David Greenwald, Georgina Valencia and some much-DV-recycled comments by Gloria Partida . . . and the rest of the Usual Suspects of the "Anti-NIMBY" crowd.
My position remains immortalized in the following letter:
An Open Letter to South Davis (January 2021)
Hello South Davis,
I don’t live in South Davis, but I’m looking at District 3 100’ away out my window.
I share your problems and your concerns. There is a spot 200’ from my house where drug addicts / drug dealers / thieves camp outdoors. This is not a homeless encampment, it is a revolving crime den. In Spring 2020 I had three scary men on meth (I believe) approach me late at night and one threw rocks at me. There were numerous incidents of mental health outbursts. I slept little for two months as these people were up all night.
Our neighborhood mostly solved the problem *this time* eventually by having meetings with both the Police Chief and his Lieutenant, and relentlessly pestering the City Council. That took two months.
Your problems I have heard regarding Pacifico are similar, and thankfully also seem better but not solved. I am here with you in unity. We cannot participate in these issues only when the problem is next to us. We must support other Davis residents who have similar problems, as the problem is bigger than Pacifico, and bigger than the location next to me.
God Bless the people who are helping the truly homeless population that are in need. Those who spoke today on that are I believe sincere. However, the problem is not the needy, but the criminals. We cannot conflate these.
There have been times when residents, and subtly even our leaders, have shamed “the homed” for being “privileged” and not being sensitive to those in need. These are separate issues. We must recognize the needs of the truly homeless. We must also recognize that there is no shame in having a home and a roof over our heads, nor the need to protect our families and yes, our things.
When people talk of drug dealers and thieves, they are not talking about the needy homeless; we must not conflate the two as a rhetorical trick. We must recognize and acknowledge that shaming the ‘other’ and demonizing those with homes, and those without homes, will not result in constructive resolution. We must recognize the needs of all parties as legitimate. Except for criminals, they ‘need’ to be removed.
Alan C. Miller is a resident of Old East Davis
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Welcome to Al’s Corner – “Pouring Gasoline on the Dumpster Fire of Davis Politics” – Volume #5
Al's Corner is a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from. For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" –> "Al's Corner – What It Is". -
Post-election statement from No on H campaign
(From press release) We are pleased by the overwhelming defeat of Measure H, which we believe would have resulted in a development that was harmful to Davis.It was a true grassroots effort of many volunteers over many months, who poured countless hours of their personal time into the campaign. It was also the result of many passionate supporters who donated to the campaign, displayed lawn signs, wrote letters to the editor, and participated on social media. We thank everyone who was involved in the effort.
We hope the resounding defeat of Measure H leads to more collaborative community discussions that engage Davisites in creating future projects which will be truly sustainable and environmentally progressive.
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How Do You Die In a Sinking Submarine? Part 2 – The Vanguard
I haven't read the aftermath article that was no doubt in the Vanguard Wednesday morning. I have grown yawn of the analysis/spin and the predictability. I could write the article. I will go read it for the comments, but without Alan Miller and Keith O., the comments have really become dull. And Ron O., by his descriptions here, half his stuff is censhored. How is censhored content either a discussion or entertaining?
But what has changed is that the key issues/peoples the Vanguard champions died last night. Here's my prediction (or a post-diction since it's already been written): the article will include Measure H, Chesa Boudin and Reisig. Am I close? The Vanguard lost, and all such progressive/woke initiatives are going down, like a sinking submarine. They didn't just go down, they were all massacres. Sinking massacres. Mixed metaphors.
Measure H? 64% vs. 52% last time. So it's getting worse, horribly worse, for the prospects of development. Probably not ever going to be developed unless every taxpayer in Davis is bribed $1000 to vote 'yes'. More voters would have mattered? Doesn't matter, that's how it is. Where were all those student voters voting 'yes' that didn't last time? Not voting, as usual, as students don't. In one of the Valley's most liberal towns, it went down. Must be all the racists on the 'no' SIDE.
Chesa? An initiative on 'defund the police'. Doesn't matter what the stats are. The public has had it. In one of the countries most liberal cities.
Reisig? He stooped pretty low with the child molester attempted link. Then the lipstick-on-a-pig flyer came out. OK now they both stopped low, so no moral advantage there. But again, people in a Valley county with a super-liberal town/city, even Yolo leans law & order. And for me, Reisig's dept. put a murderer behind bars who killed a friend's partner in front of them and their young child. And the murderer should NEVER get out of jail, unless the living victim says so. Period. Majority of us don't believe in term limits for murderers.
MOOB!
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Davis still needs a new vision
Back in December 2020, some members of the successful 2020 No on DISC campaign got together and articulated what they felt was a new and better vision for Davis. With the apparent defeat of DiSC 2022 as Measure H, currently showing a 63.52% "No" vote, I thought I would pull it out again. I think our vision and much of what we wrote here remains pertinent , including an all-too-prescient prediction that:
"the developers will try to bring back DISC with minor changes and spend another quarter of a million dollars in the hopes of gaining just enough new votes to change the outcome of the election. What the election vote shows is that such an attempt would be a mistake. The project proposal was fundamentally flawed and a few more bells and whistles wouldn’t change that."
We did not, however, expect that the developer would spend significantly more than half a million dollars, and still lose. It is to Davisites' credit that we still saw that this was a bad project delivered through a bad process (including an inappropriate developer-funded lawsuit, spearheaded by a sitting Councilmember).
I hope our op-ed stimulates you to think about an alternative path for Davis.
-RLM
The Failure of Measure B Suggests a New Vision Is Needed
Originally posted December 12, 2020
https://newdavisite.wordpress.com/2020/12/12/the-failure-of-measure-b-suggests-a-new-vision-is-needed/
By Roberta Millstein, Pam Gunnell, Nancy Price, Alan Pryor, and Colin WalshMeasure B – the measure that proposed a 200-acre business park and housing development outside of the Mace Curve – failed at the polls. The defeat comes with official Yolo County returns showing that 16,458 people, or 52% of voters, said “no” to the project. In Mace Ranch and Wildhorse, 60% of voters opposed the project.
This is a remarkable result considering that the No on B campaign was outspent by over 14 to 1. As of October 28, Yes on B had spent $258,919 between when B was put on the ballot in July and the election in November, while No on B had spent $18,149. The No on B campaign, composed solely of volunteer Davis citizens, created its own literature, designed its own sign and other graphics, was active on social media, and, to the extent possible during COVID, pounded the pavement distributing flyers to let Davisites know about the negative impacts that this project would bring. It was a true grassroots effort. There were no paid designers, no paid consultants, no multiple glossy mailers, and no push-polls to gather information on what messages would sell. Opponents also could not table at the Farmers Market due to COVID restrictions, normally the bread and butter of a campaign lacking deep pocket donors to finance getting its message out.
By comparison, Yes on B hired a PR Firm and other consultants more than a year in advance of the vote to help contrive and package its message and run the campaign.
The fact that Measure B was nonetheless defeated in the face of long odds and unusual circumstances shows that DISC was a bad project for Davis from the outset. It was too big, chewing up prime farmland and habitat. The promise of on-site housing for DISC employees could not be guaranteed, making the development car-and commuter- oriented with extensive parking areas. Poor public transportation options exacerbated this problem. The DISC development would have massively increased Davis greenhouse gas emissions and made it impossible for Davis to meet its carbon neutrality goals. We are in a climate emergency, as Yolo County and other counties have recognized; Davis needs to shoulder its share of responsibility for climate impacts, including but not limited to wildfire impacts and extreme weather events locally and globally.
Davisite 
I have aural nerve damage in one ear and so have had to, out of necessity, learn how sound affects the human body. Loud sounds can cause me splitting headaches emanating from the inside of the ear, severe ringing in the ears, internal ear pressure, disorientation, burning, aural misinterpretations, etc. Sound frequency, duration, distance, peak-volume and distortion all factor into the severity of an 'event' as I have come to know them.
Though dependent on particular circumstances, in general shorter bursts of loud sounds are more damaging than longer duration of softer sounds. That is why going with some sort of 'averaging' system would be a tragic mistake. This would ignore the very real damage done by peak sounds. My world-renowned ear doctor from Stanford Ear Clinic would back me up on this. He has coached me on how to live with my condition, which is not treatable.
My ear doctor explains that there is a 'threshold' level at which the noise becomes damaging to hearing (in my case, the threshold is much lower than those with a healthy ear). The PEAK noise is almost always the problem. Therefore, changing the city noise ordinance to consider some AVERAGE measurement as the standard is not only unwise, it is INSANE.
To give an example of how unwise this is, an example everyone can understand – consider train horns. A train horn — at 100' in front of the horn — ranges from 96 to 110 db. Even at the low end this is painfully loud, and on the high end can cause ear damage in just a few seconds. But, if you averaged the railroad noise around the tracks over a period of hours, it would show very low AVERAGE noise as over time there are few trains. The PEAK noise is when the damage is done; AVERAGING OVER TIME would FAIL to CATCH the DAMAGING peak sounds.
While I am more bothered by sound than those with healthy hearing, ear disease is rampant and hugely under-diagnosed in this country. There are many people with my condition and many other hearing diseases who are intolerant of various sound conditions. This is not just about an annoyance, it is at times debilitating.
Another thing to consider is that those close to a noise source suffer from the exposure repeatedly and over time. Those adjacent to noise sources are the people who must be considered paramount and above all else. Let's say a nightclub with sub-woofers goes in next door to someone's house. But ON AVERAGE less than 1% of the people in town even hear the noise. The standard must be on how the noise effects those adjacent, not on the fact that 99% of Davis voters never hear it. Another abominable use of 'average' exposure.
I urge the commission, the City, and the Council to retain current noise-ordinance formulas and standards, and reject any attempt to change the noise ordinance to be more allowing of harmful peak noise exposures.
Sincerely,
Alan C. Miller, District 3