| WHAT: Community members from Davis and surrounding areas will meet at the UC Davis Art Annex to discuss the Green New Deal and how to best address the climate emergency on Saturday, May 25th, from 10am-12pm. The event is one of more than 250 town halls for the Green New Deal taking place all over the country. It hopes to stimulate conversation and action on climate justice in the region. WHEN: Saturday May 25, 10 AM – 12 PM WHERE: UC Davis Art Annex 107 WHO: ● Sunrise Movement ● Yolo County Progressives ● Sierra Club (Yolano Group) ● UPTE – University Professional and Technical Employees ● YDSA – Young Democratic Socialists of America at UC Davis |
Category: Politics
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Davis Hosts Green New Deal Town Hall as Part of Nationwide Mobilization
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New study challenges Wiener’s approach to housing
Eminent economic geographers say that deregulation and upzoning will make gentrification in cities like SF much worse.
By Tim Redmond
Pretty much everybody who’s paying attention to the housing crisis in San Francisco – except, apparently, the Chronicle – is talking about the new study by eminent economic geographers Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Michael Storper that argues against looser zoning rules as a solution to the housing crisis.
Even Richard Florida, who used to love the idea of cities attracting the young “creative class” (before he discovered gentrification) says the study is important. It’s the latest in a series of studies that challenge the notion that allowing the private market to build more housing will bring down prices.
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Joe Biden is not the president we need
In a recent Davis Enterprise letter to the editor, Laurie Friedman writes that we need “a moderate candidate” for U.S. President, suggesting that “Biden would unify the country as he has broad appeal to blue-collar workers in the Midwest as well as Democrats generally.”Must we make the same devastating mistake twice?
This was the same song that was sung four years ago for Hillary Clinton. Everyone assumed, against all available evidence, that progressives would turn out for Hillary “because Trump.” She took their votes for granted as did her fellow centrists. Well, they didn’t show up, and now we have Trump.
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Bad traffic planning from the City
By Dan Cornford.
This city is just hopeless when it comes to traffic and traffic planning! It bases its growth plans (EIRs) on limited and outdated traffic surveys to begin with in order to hide the even worse congestion that will follow when current projects are built out.
The Mace fiasco is just one example of the city's hopeless traffic planning.
A microcosm of this is the situation now with 8th & L street closed (What the heck have they been doing on L street for ages?), and traffic on Covell one lane between F & Pole Line making east-west transit an ordeal with very few alternatives. Why do these same projects at the same time? Why do projects such as the one on the Covell bridge over rail line take an absurdly long time when I suspect that in many countries they could be done in a fraction of the time. Does the city monitor performance, or have late penalties or what?
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Urgent! Act today for CA 857 on Public Banking!
Your short calls can make the difference to get CA 857 through its first Assembly Committees! This is the public banking bill that does so much good.
Please, this week, all you need to say is: Please support AB 857 the Public Banking bill that will enable California municipalities and counties — and the state as a whole — to charter their own public banks.
Many CA newspapers, the California Public Banking Alliance (https://californiapublicbankingalliance.org/) and many of our state's local public bank advocacy groups support this bill.
This week, your phone call can help flood the committee members’ offices to get this bill through these committee hurdles!
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Extortion in Davis? Not from Measures J/R
By Matt WilliamsExtortion is the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats. Measures J/R clearly do result in additional expenses for a developer; however, the City (and the community) don’t receive any payments as a result of any of the provisions of Measures J/R. The additional developer dollars are paid out (discretionarily) to third parties, like election campaign consultants, and advertising channels, and experts providing testimony, etc.
In the last 10 years I can only think of one example of “extortion” and that example is one where the developer “extorted” an $8 million payment from the City. Of course I refer to the Cannery CFD. Not only did the developer receive that $8 million cash payment, but that $8 million payment cost the Davis taxpayers a total of $21.8 million in principal repayment, bond closing costs and interest payments.
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Vanguard and City Council Ethical Challenges Persist
Four (or Five?) Times the Impropriety, Plus Potential Brown Act ViolationsBy Roberta Millstein and Colin Walsh
On Thursday, the Davisite published an article, “Mayor Brett Lee’s Fundraising for the Davis Vanguard Crosses a Line.” Since then, the Vanguard has changed the format of its fundraising event to include four of the five members of the Davis City Council. But this doesn’t make the event better. The new format makes it worse – at least four times worse. Plus, with four City Council members in attendance it will be nearly impossible to avoid Brown Act violations.
First, let’s consider the changes in format and advertising of the Vanguard fundraiser. The main change, of course, is from one councilmember attending the fundraiser (Brett Lee) to four councilmembers (Lee together with Gloria Partida, Lucas Frerichs, and Dan Carson) attending. But the Facebook event page was also changed from saying that Lee would “host” the fundraiser to saying that the fundraiser will “feature” the four councilmembers, with Will Arnold (who is pictured in the photo associated with the event; see above) “unable to attend” while “there in spirit.” It also states that “Each of the speakers will speak briefly and then take questions.”
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Mayor Brett Lee’s Fundraising for the Davis Vanguard Crosses a Line
I like Mayor Brett Lee. I donated to his campaign. I endorsed him and put his lawn sign on my lawn. I voted for him. I haven’t always agreed with his votes on Council, but that’s normal. But now Mayor Lee plans on hosting a fundraiser for the Davis Vanguard next month. This is an ethical breach that is different from a disagreement about policy or process. Elected officials – especially those who may be running for re-election soon – should not be raising money for purported news outlets, as Mayor Lee is planning on doing for the Vanguard.It doesn’t help that the Vanguard’s track record is none too clean. David Greenwald, founder of and primary writer on the Vanguard, has exhibited a lack of journalistic ethics. The Davis Vanguard is alleged to have participated in a political campaign in violation of its non-profit status; an IRS complaint was filed along with substantiating evidence. It has developed a reputation for hostile attacks against commenters, forcing repeated changes to its comment policy (most recently to disallow anonymous commenters, although it’s not clear that this change in policy has helped improve the climate for commenters). And it has failed to follow the Institute for Non-Profit News’s ethical guidelines by failing to be fully transparent about the funding of its news operations, particularly with respect to advertisements from local developers, calling into question its “editorial independence from all revenue sources to ensure news judgments are made in the interest of the communities they serve as journalists.”
Indeed, those very same ethical guidelines for non-profit newsrooms recommend avoiding “accepting donations from government entities, political parties, elected officials or candidates actively seeking public office.”
It’s surprising that Mayor Lee would want to associate himself with the Vanguard given all that improper behavior. But that’s not the main issue.
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Local Sierra Club and Audubon Groups Raise Concerns about Burrowing Owls at Mace 25
Buow picture taken by R. Millstein, 8/2017Davisites may recall the large proposed business park, the Mace Ranch Innovation Center (MRIC), which would be sited on the farmland outside of the Mace curve to the east of Davis, subject to a Measure R vote. The project proposal was withdrawn in 2016, but the commission on which I serve, the Open Space and Habitat Commission, has been told informally that the project may be re-proposed again in some form. In its original form, the proposal included 25 acres of land purchased with funds from the City’s Open Space program, widely referred to as the “Mace 25.” (See my op-ed in the Davis Enterprise, “How 25 acres of open space got into the MRIC proposal” for the history of how that occurred).
In response to the widespread belief that the MRIC proposal will back in front of the City, two local environmental groups have raised concerns about the presence of burrowing owls on the Mace 25: the local chapters of the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. Note that burrowing owls have been designated as a “species of special concern” in California, and their numbers have been declining precipitously in recent years.
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Petition to Restore Mace
The below petition is being circulated at change.org. It was started within the last 2 days – after the recent neighborhood meetings. At the time of this posting it already has 270+ signatures.The petition can be signed here: **sign**
CITY OF DAVIS TO RESTORE MACE BOULEVARD TO TWO LANES (BOTH WAYS)
Davisite 