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Category: Politics

  • Why NO on DiSC

    City-of-Davis-Measure-H

    By Marc Thomas

    The work from home trend in the business world has been slowly emerging and accelerated by COVID. Recently, Apple and other product companies are instituting a 3 day per week to Twitter which is now near 100% remote. And many are relocating to lower cost areas and reducing their real estate foot prints/costs.

    Other companies have gone totally remote, and many hardware/tech startups, such as the hardware/software startup I currently work with “started up” with a full remote team and does not have an office. The closest two team members are about 50 miles apart, the furthest two are probably 10,000 miles. It required a new way of organizing a team, collaborating, building and testing prototypes, getting approvals and overall, resulted in a considerable reduction in operating expenses, no bay area salaries, and zero expensive office costs…zero!. It was such a significant opex reduction that in addition to team members spending more time with families, the company was able to offer really good benefits appreciated by all.

    Startup businesses do not need expensive real estate for start-up, scaling, or going into mass production. One Mountain View startup in autonomous robotics took the steps to migrate from a Silicone Valley “old” model to a more agile and lower cost distributed organizational structure starting in SV, moving a short distance to Oakland, then fully embracing a remote model with team members all over the world and a manufacturing facility in Detroit! These changes enabled a more company friendly funding model as they were able to conserve cash by spending on what mattered, people and product, rather than on expensive facilities in expensive areas paying typical salaries demanded by Bay Area and CA professionals.

    The DiSC “business/innovation park” does not recognize this rapidly changing business trend, fails to recognize that there are lower cost (and local) areas to scale if the company must be local, and the housing portion will not solve the “affordable housing” challenge (remember the bay area residents with cash and the ability to work remotely), and does not address the environmental infrastructure and tax implications in depth and detail never-mind turning good/great agriculture land into concrete.

    At the current rate of change in the “work from home” trend, building an innovation/business part today will result in the empty and dead business parks of the future: Consider what Amazon did to “malls”…

    Any startup founder/team must have a very good story to tell an investor why they are spending the equivalent of multiple team members salaries and cash for a building space/office that is unnecessary, or used for a small percentage of the time at best, and increases burn rate without accelerating time to market or improving product.

    The desire (and need) to incubate companies locally is supportable, but incubating companies does not require the DiSC project as there is plenty of space in Davis to build out and or up.

    And I know another Davis company that has been here for 7+years, with 50+% of employees currently being remote, and going full remote by years end.

  • Nonpartisan LWV forum on Local District Attorney Race

    (From press release) The League of Women Voters Davis Area and the Woodland League of Women Voters will co-sponsor a nonpartisan election forum on the county district attorney race on Wednesday, April 27.

    The event will run from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Woodland Community Center, 2001 East Street in Woodland.

    Both candidates — Incumbent Jeff Reisig and challenger Cynthia Rodriguez — have agreed to participate. The forum will focus on candidate qualifications and vision for the criminal justice system in Yolo County over the next four years.

    Questions will be prepared by League representatives and written questions will be accepted from the audience, but no voice questions or statements will be allowed.

    People who want to attend the event are encouraged to register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/league-of-women-voters-yolo-county-district-attorney-candidate-forum-tickets-317119110797. Seating may be limited because of placement due to the pandemic. Woodland TV (Channel 21) will be videotaping the event and livestreaming on their YouTube channel.

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  • Letter: Beck is a voice of hope

    Beck

    Juliette Beck

    As this decade begins, we walk briskly towards utter climate catastrophe. Before 2030 our planet will warm beyond 1.5 degrees and the worst of climate change will no longer be avoidable. Those twenty-nine years and younger, down to the child born as I write, will suffer the first cataclysmic effects of this disaster. But those over thirty will experience less and leave behind a world plummeting ever faster towards a fate that they hadn't the courage to change.

    But all is not yet lost. A new people are rising. Youth in communities across the Earth are standing up for a livable future…not a beautiful one, that has been taken from us. We ask only for a chance at life.

    Too often we are told by adults our ideas are impossible. Yet those very adults in power have kept us on the road to disaster. Obviously, what is politically 'possible' isn't enough.

    But a broken system gives the youth little power of our own. Carrying signs, chanting, protesting, praying are acts of strength but they alone cannot save the world. We need our elders to begin listening and using their power to implement our ideas and solutions. Have they forgotten this was always their job? To follow the will of the people? We must elect adults who fulfill their promises.

    Juliette Beck, running for Yolo County Supervisor D2, is a voice of hope in a time of fear. She is dedicated to climate justice and pledges to make the imperative changes now, and to give youth a place in decision making. I'm confident Juliette will be true to her word. She is heartfelt, loving and inclusive. Juliette Beck will invite in every perspective to ensure that decisions which affect us all are made by everyone. She is firm in the belief that this is not a campaign of one, but of all.

    I give my strong support to this candidate and strongly urge others to do the same. The time for idle politics is over, the time for immediate action is upon us.

    Emma Larson
    Davis, CA

  • Citizens try to recoup costs resulting from spurious lawsuit

    Scales-of-justice(From press release) Today in Yolo Superior Court, the attorneys for the citizens who wrote and signed the No on Measure H ballot statement, filed a motion for an award of legal fees and costs they incurred in their defense of a lawsuit filed by Davis City Councilmember Dan Carson. Carson had previously sued the ballot signers claiming their ballot statement was false or misleading.  

    The citizen Defendants (the “real parties”) named in the Carson lawsuit retained legal representation on a partially contingent basis which permitted the attorneys to seek an award of their legal fees if they were successful in defending the ballot language against Carson’s claims.  

    The Defendants’ filing states “The Court outright rejected three of Petitioner’s challenges and adopted Real Parties’ suggestions for the two modest edits it ordered.” 

    Alan Pryor, the Treasurer of the No on DiSC campaign and one of the Defendants stated “Carson’s lawsuit requested whole sentences in the ballot statement be stricken by the Judge. In his final ruling, however, made only two small changes that were suggested by authors of the statement.” 

    “In my experience, it is highly unusual for a sitting public official to sue their own citizens over ballot arguments,” said Beverly Grossman Palmer, an experienced election attorney and partner at Strumwasser & Woocher. “None of the attorneys in my firm can recall a similar situation in any of our collective years of practicing election law.”

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  • Councilmember Carson sued me for signing a ballot statement

    6F907AC2-43BA-422A-A5DC-F4974707938FBy Roberta Millstein

    Two weeks ago, I was stunned to learn from a Davis Enterprise article that I and other signers of the Argument Against Measure H (Argument Against DiSC) were being sued by none other than Councilmember Dan Carson, who is serving as the “Honorary” Chair of the developer-funded Yes on DiSC campaign. Measure H is on the June 7 ballot; DiSC is a proposed development project on 100 acres of mostly prime farmland outside the City limits, adjacent to I-80 and Mace Blvd.

    Apparently, the suit had been filed on the last possible day. I waited to be served papers, but none ever arrived. I did receive a phone call, later learning that Councilmember Carson had obtained my phone number from a Commission Chair. I was extremely surprised to learn that he would do something like that, especially since he apparently did not let on what he wanted my phone number for. It is still unclear whether Councilmember Carson funded this lawsuit himself or if someone else funded it; he has refused to answer several people who have asked him.

    With a tight deadline for the ballot to be printed by the County, citizens opposed to DiSC suddenly found themselves having to find a lawyer within a matter of days (like, two days) and the prospect of spending tens of thousands of dollars to retain one — well in excess of the budget for the entire grassroots campaign.

    And what was the suit about?  Well, perhaps Councilmember Carson thought that he could pull the wool over a judge's eyes, but the judge found no problems with our contention that DiSC is in violation of the City's General Plan or our contention that there would be unmitigated greenhouse gases from the project or that there were almost no commitments.

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  • DISC is anything but ‘sustainable’

    Annexation Area DiSC 2022_070721By Stephen M. Wheeler

    Davis residents have begun receiving calls and mailings from backers of the so-called Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus (DiSC 2022) in preparation for the June 7 election, when the project will be on the ballot as Measure H.

    Don’t be fooled by the rosy promises and endorsements on the developer’s materials: DiSC represents neither innovation nor sustainability. It is another big piece of suburban sprawl promoted by one of Davis’ most aggressive sprawl-builders, Dan Ramos.

    DiSC is essentially a greenwashed business park. Business parks are a traditional, much-discredited economic development approach in which cities designate a large area of land on their periphery for whatever commercial development they can manage to attract. These projects are highly motor-vehicle-dependent and undercut efforts to revitalize more centrally located downtown areas.

    DiSC materials talk about bike and pedestrian connections, renewable energy, use of native and drought-tolerant species for landscape design, energy-efficient construction, and shuttle buses to downtown. This is greenwashing. These environmentally oriented details are nice (and many are required by existing regulations).

    But they aren’t nearly as important as the fact that 1.34 million square feet of new commercial space would be allowed by a freeway exit far from downtown. Approving huge projects that will build out over 20-plus years — almost certainly in different ways than originally envisioned — is just not a good way for a city to move towards sustainability.

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  • Old East Davis Requests Review of the Trackside Project Appellate Decision

    Mandala-oednaThe Old East Davis Neighborhood Association (OEDNA) is requesting review by the California Supreme Court of the recent appellate court decision on the Trackside development project, in the case of OEDNA vs. City of Davis.

    We are doing this because we believe that the City should be faithful to the plain meaning of its planning and zoning rules, and because we want to preserve the setting and feeling of our historic neighborhood.

    By convention, land use policies adopted by a California city can be interpreted by the same city when the policies are applied to specific projects. While this sounds logical— giving cities flexibility and local control— if understood too broadly, the conventional view could allow a city to reinterpret planning policies in ways that violate their original meaning and intent.

    In the Trackside case, the Yolo Superior Court found that the City of Davis overstepped its discretion in approving the project, which does not conform to the City’s land use policies for mass and scale transitions between the downtown core and traditional neighborhoods.

    To our dismay, the appeals court reversed the Yolo court’s decision, and in doing so claimed that the City has almost unlimited discretion in the application of its planning policies.

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  • Yolo County District Attorney Forum

    (From press release) Meet the current DA, Jeff Reisig, and his challenger, Cynthia Rodriguez in this public forum.

    DA candidates will answer questions from the Yolo County Taxpayers Association and also from the public. This non-partisan forum will provide a platform to the DA candidates to inform the public on issues important to our vote.

    TIME: Thursday, 3/10 at 7:00 PM

    LOCATION: 1225 East Kentucky Ave., Woodland, CA 95695

    Yolo County Taxpayers Association is a non-partisan, non-profit citizen association dedicated to Efficiency, Economy, and Equality in governmental affairs. Incorporated 1967.

  • Promises Made…Promises Broken!

    Broken promisesHow Ongoing Complacency by the Davis City Council Allowed the Bretton Woods Developer to Renege on Many Election Commitments Made to the Voters of Davis

    Part 1– A Specious Lawsuit by the Bretton Woods Developer, David Taormino as agent for the Binning Ranch Company LLC,  Forces the University Retirement Community (URC) to Abandon Plans to Construct an Enhanced Memory Care Facility at the Project Site. The Developer Proposes to Alternatively Construct 30 Detached Senior Homes which Seemingly Violates the Supposedly Immutable Voter-Approved Baseline Features of the Project but Which Could Result in Millions Dollars of Additional Profits to the Developer.

    By Alan Pryor

    Introduction

    This is Part 1 of a planned series of articles discussing how the City Council is approving entitlements for the Bretton Woods project that violate the project's supposedly unchangeable Baseline Features. These Baseline Features were contained in ballot language presented to voters and upon which the voters relied when the project was approved at the polls in November 2018. The approved entitlements also completely change key provisions of Development Agreement between the Developer and the City that was also very prominently presented to the public prior to the vote.

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  • Four Car Washes Near 80 & Mace?

    Car wash center sign

    Poorly-Photoshop'd modification of "Davis Auto Center" sign on Chiles next to I-80

    I have been engaged for a couple of weeks on the subject of the proposed car wash at 480 Mace (at Cowell Blvd.), and have written about it.

    I am not sure when the following items appeared on the City's website, but I see now that there's also a plan for a "new service station, a convenience store and carwash, a separate retail building, and related site improvements" at 4810 Chiles AND to "maintain the existing carwash [and] construct a new 2,832 square-foot convenience store" and implement related features at 4480 Chiles, which already has a car wash.

    My concerns are:

    1) The public notification and project documents for the 480 Mace proposal make no mention of the simultaneous process for 4810 Chiles, for which Mr Njoku says he's aiming a hearing on March 23, 2022, though I believe Sherri Metzger said at the PC meeting tonight that this was not guaranteed – nor for 4480 Chiles, which Mr Lee says will have a hearing "soon". This is two weeks after the re-scheduled Planning Commission hearing for 480 Mace. What's the CEQA comments deadline for 4810 Chiles? The sum of this seems to be that perhaps a week before the re-rescheduled Planning Commission hearing on 480 Mace, the residents of 4735 Cowell Blvd who received the 500 ft notice that proposed car wash will receive another for the second car wash at 4810 Chiles, as will other commercial addresses within the 500 ft radius BUT significantly also the Ellington Apartments, which have their main entrance on El Cemonte, and a small shared border with 4810 Chiles. Is the 4810 Chiles applicant going to be making the same mistake as 480's in regards to a lack of outreach. (The letter about the requested continuance from the 480 Mace applicant which was shown at the PC meeting tonight thanked Staff for circulating the announcement and mentioned they were doing similar on NextDoor. Nothing else.

    Car wash plan mapOn the left the two existing car washes; on the right two proposed.

    Note that proposed ones are directly adjacent.

    2) The Traffic Studies for 480 Mace and 4810 Chiles make no mention of each other. I had already written about my concerns for the overlap for design and signalling changes for 480 Mace proposed mitigations and the Mace Re-Design non-approved plans, and this makes me even more curious.

    3) The Traffic Study for 4810 Chiles seems to show egress from NB Mace, but it's not clear if it's open, one-way etc. The Study mentions no mitigations for it.

    4) The available documents for 4810 Chiles include maps which marginally at best show El Macero Village and Ellington as "Apartments", not e.g. perhaps 500 people or more within 500 ft.

    5) The documentation for 480 refers to the proposed buildings having visual elements similar to those nearby, but this is not inclusive of what's proposed for 4810 Chiles, which looks objectively remarkably different (and subjectively incredibly generic and ugly.)

    Circle K

    Proposal for 4810 Chiles… yeah, ugh…

    6) I understand the current zoning, the district plan already referred to by Staff as "out of date", but don't see how it makes sense to have a total of four car washes in close proximity to each other (three mentioned and the one behind the Chevron station at Mace and 2nd St.) and why it's been encourage or allowed to be pursued. Given the very close timing of 480 Mace and 4810 Chiles including the lack of time and effort for community input for 480 Mace, it also seems like a race. Perhaps the Planning Commission won't approve them but what if it does, because…

    7) Two of the proposed car washes are so close that their vacuums – or loud stereos played by customers – may be able to be heard by visitors to the other location, and more critically by the apartment complex that lies partially directly in between them, El Macero Village Apartments, where I live, except during the times that the sound of I-80 is louder, but then this all has at least a subjective cumulative effect.

    8) Fehr & Peers has done the Traffic Studies for both 480 Mace and 4810 Chiles, and also the design plans for the Mace Re-Design. For the former two they are working for the applicants and for the latter for the City (and County?). It's not clear if their work for the City for the Re-Design of Mace has been used for 480 – or also 4810 Chiles – but it seems so as in the Study for 480 they suggest mitigations for areas – namely, the intersection of Mace and Cowell – for which they've also proposed concrete design modifications at the direction of the City. Is this all perfectly normal?