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Category: Politics

  • WDAAC Does Not Meet Real Housing Needs for Davis

    by Alan Pryor and Pam Nieberg

    Forward – Davis already has by far the oldest average population in the region and this project will compound that population imbalance. Despite the abundance of young University students, according to 2016 US Census Bureau estimates the percentage of people in Davis under the age of 18 is 16.1% compared to 25.5% in West Sacramento and 26% in Woodland. Looking at younger children, the disparity is even greater with 3.8% of the Davis population under the age of 5 compared to 8.1% in West Sacramento and 6.7% in Woodland.

    Clearly, because of the age-restrictions imposed on buyers, this project will do little to directly increase the housing stock for young families. And because of this dearth of kids in town, our schools are so starved for young students that we need to import over 650 students per day just to keep school doors from shuttering and moth-balling our existing neighborhood schools. And we pay dearly for schooling those imported students with the highest school-related parcel taxes in the region. We clearly need more young families with children in town to fill our schools and maintain our vibrancy in Davis yet few families can afford to come to Davis because of sky-rocketing home purchase and rental prices.

    What Davis really needs is smaller-scale, more dense, and  affordable housing designed for both seniors AND families of modest means. The last thing we need is a sprawling, senior-only Sun City-lite developments like you see in sunbelt states. A development with smaller homes laid out in a curvilinear fashion with different designs (instead of rows and rows of near-identical box-like houses) would attract far more seniors AND the families preferred if the project were designed with a close-knit neighborhood setting in mind.

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  • Professor Melissa Moreno for Yolo County Board of Education, Area 2

    Dear Editor,

    As a peace officer, I expected those who serve our communities, including peace officers and elected officials, to possess a deep and abiding desire to help people –all people, without hesitation or reservation. Professor Melissa Moreno possesses this essential quality, along with proven leadership in the field of education.

    As an educational leader, Professor Moreno understands the value of cultural inclusivity, and has put this value into practice in her 25 years of educational service to students and families. In her work as a community college professor teaching Ethnic Studies, she excels as a teacher, mentor, and guide for students seeking cultural knowledge. She has lengthy experience as a community advocate, including advocating for community members in Yolo County by acting as a leader in developing the Safe Yolo resolution to protect immigrant families.

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  • Cumulative impacts of all the developments in Davis

    PublichousingBy Dan Cornford

    I do not have time to comment extensively right now on Roberta's piece. But I do want to say that I agree 110% with what she says. I am just sick and tired of all the pro-growthers accusing anyone who does not oppose their rampant pro-growth propaganda as being some old white, rich NIMBY, as someone who could not afford to buy his first house until I was 53, despite being a full professor at a CSU, and only then could I buy when I inherited a modest amount of money after my father died.

    Roberta is right that no candidate for council had the courage to squarely take on the pro-growthers. I have been saying and writing for two years that the Council, its commissions, and of course the pro-growthers, never stop to consider what the CUMULATIVE IMPACTS of all these developments will be in tandem with the unmandated growth of UCD over the next 5-10 years. What will be the environmental impact on a relatively small city of this growth in all respects (to say nothing of the fiscal impacts and burdens)? The fast expansion of UCD, notwithstanding their LRDP, and their recent MOU with the city, is no cause for comfort. (I mean, to take one example, if UCD does not meet its already inadequate building timetable, they will face a massive fine of $500 per unit. That's really going to force them to meet their timetable isn't it?)

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  • Growth – The Elephant in the Room

    PublichousingNo one in Davis talks about growth.  We talk around growth, sure – the need for specific projects, or the need to preserve farmland.  But we never talk about growth. 

    Consider our most recent City Council election.  Did one of the candidates present themselves as pro-growth or slow-growth?  Not that I can recall.  “Smart-growth,” maybe – an infinitely flexible euphemism if I ever heard one.

    I suspect that no one wants to talk about growth because not a moment passes before the conversation-distracting “pro-developer” and “NIMBY” labels (and similar labels) are slung.  But we desperately need to talk about growth.  We’re growing now and we are facing questions about future growth in the immediate future (Measure L and the West Davis Active Adult Community) and beyond.

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  • Is this really your view on Measure L, Davis Enterprise?

    Davis enterpriseIs this really your view on Measure L, Davis Enterprise?  Because I'm having trouble believing the words in front of my eyes. 

    Did you really write, "If WDAAC gets built and all the white Davis seniors move into it, then it will give more opportunity for minorities from out of town to move into the single-family houses the seniors vacate"?

    In other words, it would be OK if WDAAC were composed completely of white Davis seniors?  And the reason it would be OK is that nonwhite individuals would have the "opportunity" to move into the vacated houses formerly occupied by white individuals – even if the nonwhite individuals didn't have the opportunity to move into WDAAC itself?  Just the bare possibility that "minorities" could move into Davis would be enough to justify an exclusionary program?

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  • Bob Dunning’s False Equivalency Regarding the Testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh

    Ford-kavanaughAlthough Bob Dunning and I agree on one thing (that Dr. Blasey’s testimony was “compelling and believable without holes or hesitation”), I otherwise find much to disagree with in his recent column in the Davis Enterprise, “Truth gets lost in the crossfire.”  In particular, I object to his casting this as a purely political disagreement, where Republicans are taking Brett Kavanaugh’s side and Democrats are taking Christine Blasey Ford’s side, where “reasonable people can disagree over which person they believe,” and where “if everyone in America believed that Judge Kavanaugh had assaulted Dr. Ford, he would not be confirmed.”

    Maybe the debate over Kavanaugh’s nomination started out as a purely political disagreement a month ago, but it stopped being that the moment that Dr. Blasey came forward with her testimony of sexual assault – her testimony that, 36 years ago, Brett Kavanaugh laid on top of her, tried to rip off her clothes, covered her mouth so that she couldn’t scream and couldn’t breathe, and then laughed about it.  And that the only thing that saved her was that he and his buddy, Mark Judge, were too drunk to follow through on what they had begun.

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  • Will There be No Place in Davis for Low Income Seniors

    By Bill Powell and David Thompson

    “Each day I get five calls from low income seniors looking to find housing in Davis” says Susan at Shasta Point Retirement Community. “And each day at least one senior arrives at Shasta Point anxious to get housing and hoping by turning up they may have a better chance than just calling.” They don’t.

    Every day there are five to 10 emails or phone calls from low-income seniors to the two staff members at Eleanor Roosevelt Circle. At ERC about three seniors per day walk through the door hoping to get a place. They can’t.

    In 2018, there is a waiting list of 441 seniors for the four largest Davis affordable senior communities; Davisville (70), Shasta Point (67), Eleanor Roosevelt Circle (59) and Walnut Terrace (30). In 2017 there were a total of 14 turnovers. Only 14 of the 441 waiting in line got in. At that rate it would be 31 years before the last of those seniors get housed. The actual wait for an extremely low-income senior can be from three to five years.

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  • Davisites’ attitudes towards Kavanaugh, Thomas, #metoo, #whyIDidntReport

    I posted a link to this Davis Media Access video to the Davisite Facebook page a few days ago, but I can’t get it out of my head.

    In the video, you see men supporting (now Supreme Court justice) Clarence Thomas, and men supporting Professor Anita Hill.  You see women supporting Thomas, and women supporting Hill.  But most of all, you hear exactly the same arguments on both sides that you are hearing in the media today concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is now facing three separate sexual assault accusations: one from Prof. Christine Blasey Ford, one from Deborah Ramirez, and one from a number of as-yet-unnamed women who lawyer Michael Avenatti is representing.

    If DMA were to redo those interviews in Davis today – in the #metoo #WhyIDidntReport #BelieveSurvivors era – would the results be much different?

    I’d like to hope that they would be.  But I fear that they wouldn’t.

  • Planned West Davis Adult Community, if Approved, Would Perpetuate Racial Imbalance in the City of Davis

    Complaintimage(Press release) The proposed restrictive West Davis Active Adult Community on the City of Davis’ November 6 ballot which advertises its purpose as a planned community “Taking Care of Our Own,” is being challenged in federal court because it will perpetuate racial imbalance and discriminate against minorities by restricting sales to residents of Davis

    In a federal complaint filed Monday, September 24, by Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark E. Merin, plaintiff Samuel Ignacio, a Filipino/Hispanic senior on behalf and all other minorities outside of Davis, seeks to stop the project because it excludes those living outside of Davis from buying most of the 410 planned for-sale units.

    Davis, a city whose senior population is disproportionately “white” as a result of historic racially restrictive covenants, red-lining practices, and previous University of California hiring practices, approved the project with 90% of its units restricted to “purchasers with a preexisting connection to the City of Davis.” The result of this “local resident” restriction, as alleged in the civil rights complaint, is the continuation of a racially imbalanced community and the exclusion of minority would-be purchasers in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act.

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  • The Spirit of the Davis Based Buyer Program for the West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC)

    By Jason Taormino

    The spirit of the Davis Based Buyer program for the West Davis Active adult community is a focus on our community's needs. Nearly six hundred Davis families have joined our interest list for the for sale homes and there are more than four hundred additional individuals on waiting lists for affordable senior apartments. During our lengthy community outreach including more than seventeen city commission and council meetings we were asked for some methodology to ensure that we focused on this home grown demand rather than advertising in the Bay Area.

    On dozens of occasions while dropping off or picking up my kids at Cesar Chavez elementary school I was approached by parents who were eager to move their aging parent(s) to Davis. From my perspective there are two clear segments of demand that our proposed neighborhood can serve from a market rate perspective – seniors in Davis who want to downsize and those who want their aging parents to come to Davis. Additionally, the affordable apartments and a memory care facility serve important needs. Without the senior restriction on 80% of the homes it is highly unlikely that seniors in Davis or bringing a parent to Davis would occur as a significant percentage of the total housing.

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