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Category: Trustworthiness

  • Three petitions = three frustrated and unheard constituencies

    Three-petitions

    By Roberta Millstein

    What do trees being cut down at Sutter Davis Hospital, the Mace Mess, and Cannery traffic safety have to do with one another?

    At first glance, not much.  They are in three entirely different parts of town.  Two of them do have to do with traffic and safety in part, but each has its own features.  For example, residents near Mace Boulevard are concerned about the addition of over-engineered road structures they were not consulted on, and in light of increased traffic and other problems, would like them removed.  And neither traffic safety at the Cannery nor the Mace Mess seems to relate to the removal of mature trees done without any input from the relevant City Commissions.

    But those who have been following the Davisite might have noticed a commonality: in all three cases, citizens felt strongly enough about the issue to create a petition, as described in the following articles:

    When citizens are moved to create and sign petitions, it’s a signal that they feel that their voices aren’t being heard through normal channels, such as comments at the City Council or letters to the editor of the local newspaper. With a petition, citizens are trying to speak loudly, with one voice.

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  • Call on City Manager to immediately BAN leaf blowing! RIGHT NOW!

    AirNow080620212pm, Davis – The air is now nearly twice as bad as what requires a ban on leaf blowing. The City updates its notification as needed at 730am. This morning the air was good…

    Yesterday weather forecasters predicted that the smoke from various fires to the northeast would circle counter-clockwise at high elevations and then slowly descend on the north Bay Area and our area.

    YSAQMDwarning08062021

    Yolo-Solano AQMD issued an alert in mid-morning.
    DavisAir8620211015am

    This morning the smoke was easy to see, but the AQI was still good here as the smoke had not reached lower elevations. It started to do so in the early morning in Lake County, then soon in Napa and west Yolo.

     

    DavisAir8620211125am

    Late this morning…
    AirnowBryant0806202111am

    Quite curiously the Airnow distribution of data from the same monitors showed a lower AQI by half two hours ago, and at about 2pm nearly the same, getting close to 200 AQI.on Purple Air…
    CleanestAirinDavis

    The consistently cleanest part of the area right now – at lower left, just south of West Village, earlier today. This is the location of the City's only official AQI monitoring station. This is what the City uses to determine a leafblowing ban.
    Archerleafblowing2

    It's been well over 100 AQI for at least two hours, and is the source of the image at the top. So why isn't the City issuing a ban? Click on image to read the City's explanation…

    The Council and Staff would be singing us this fine song if we were making this up…. this threat to our health. But surely they realize that is extremely dangerous, a matter of equity, and of health as serious – at least temporarily – as COVID.

    It's been nearly a year since the City issued conditions for a temporary ban on leaf blowing. I've asked and have never seen any data on how many warnings or fines were issued. The Natural Resources Commission's poll on leaf blowing only ended at the end of July, and they might not see what the staff has processed until late September, and might not make recommendations until late October, while we're already in the season of falling leaves… and four months into the wildfire fallout season :-(. (Oh, by the way… today is the 76th anniversary of the beginning of the first nuclear war.)

    Leafblowersokay

  • What the HEC is Going On? Part III

    image from davisite.typepad.comConflicts of Interest in the City of Davis Housing Element Committee

     by Alan Pryor and Rik Keller

     Note: The preceding Part II in this series covering Brown Act violations is here:

     “Housing Element Committee members are expected to remove themselves from all discussions and votes on matters in which they have any direct personal financial interest.

     

    In gauging such extra-legal conflicts of interest and/or duty, each member shall exercise careful judgment and introspection in giving priority to the interests of fairness and objectivity; if there is any reasonable doubt that the member has a conflict, the member shall refrain from participation in the committee’s deliberations and vote(s).” – City of Davis Housing Element Committee Ground Rules (p. 4)

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  • Good decision-making process involves staff and City Council too

    Screen Shot 2021-06-03 at 4.27.34 PM

    The following letter was emailed as a comment for tonight's special City Council Subcommittee on Commission Process meeting.

    Dear City Councilmembers and Commission Chairs,

    It is extremely difficult to comment on this item without knowing more about what will be discussed. However, one concern I have – and I will just have to see where things go today – is how this group became a “Subcommittee on Commissions.”

    The original letter that triggered this subcommittee, a letter that I co-signed, was titled “A Proposal for Improving City of Davis Decision Making.”  It included provisions regarding City Commissions, but it was not limited to that.  It also included provisions regarding “transparency, information, disclosure, and public engagement” as well as provisions “for developing and making decisions on Staff proposals submitted for City Council action.”  It was not just about how commissions operate.

    It would be a missed opportunity if this subcommittee were to narrow its concerns from the letter’s original scope.  Indeed, it would be a sad irony, given the letter was in part prompted by commissioners feeling that they were not being heard and seeing their communications to the city lost in translation.

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  • Criminal Negligence

    By Dan Urazandi

    There have been a series of crimes at my shop that have forced me to consider crime in Davis. Most of us take it for granted that Davis is safe like it was a decade or two ago. Many of us are learning otherwise as we are victimized by criminals. I hope a few more can be convinced without having to become victims and that corrective action will be taken before things get even worse, particularly as covid policy is emptying California jails.    

       In 2018 and 2019 my son and I were victims of two assaults with deadly weapon while minding our store. This year's crime was a burglary, we were hit with a smash and grab on 9/24. I was aghast and furious that the police would not assign an investigator to the case. They seemed unconcerned with property crime, which begins to explain its massive increase in the last few years. So we handled the case ourselves; when the suspect came back on 10/9 to sell me stolen merchandise from other stores he burglarized and, yes, some he had burglarized from me, my son and I put him under citizen's arrest after some struggle. When I handed him over to DPD they acted for the first time in this case with expedition by letting him go one hour after picking him up. That's after we found him, caught him, fought him and arrested him for them. The thief couldn't have been stupider and we went far beyond what a citizen should have to do to catch this serial burglar, but he went free anyway.

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  • Valley Clean Energy Issues Warning About Utility Bill Scam

    VCE(From press release) Yolo County residents are advised to be on the alert for scam phone calls purporting to be from their energy provider.

    According to one Davis resident who received such a call recently, the caller apologized for overcharging her on her utility bill, explaining that the overcharge was from a third-party supplier.

    She was told to press 1 to apply for a rebate check, but the woman hung up, believing that the caller was attempting to gain access to her bank routing and account numbers.

    Valley Clean Energy, Yolo County’s public not-for-profit local electricity provider, would like to reassure its customers that it never asks for a customer’s banking information over the telephone.

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  • Improving City of Davis Decision Making: An Open Letter

    Screen Shot 2020-07-23 at 9.29.40 PMInformed and transparent decision-making is an essential pillar of good local governance. In Davis, this pillar is eroding. Recent years have seen multiple alarming instances of secretive action, shortsighted planning, and disconnect between community and leadership priorities.

    We the undersigned—including current and former members of city commissions—call on City Council to address these issues. Specifically, we urge swift adoption of the attached common- sense proposals regarding (1) transparency, information disclosure and public engagement, (2) city commissions, and (3) advancement of significant actions and initiatives.

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  • Why the Bakersfield Doctors Should Not Be Believed

    Screen Shot 2020-04-28 at 1.28.07 PMBy Robert Canning

             Two physician-entrepreneurs who own a string of urgent care clinics in Bakersfield claim the data they have collected from testing for coronavirus proves that the current “stay-at-home” and physical distancing orders need to end and that COVID-19 is “just like the flu.” Their YouTube video interview from last week has been viewed more than five million times. It has garnered attention from the likes of Elon Musk who tweeted “Docs make good points” and Fox News host Laura Ingraham who played excerpts Monday night. But their claims have sparked wide controversy from experts in academia who say their assumptions are flawed, their sample biased, and their extrapolations “implausible.” The Kern County health office has stated it does not agree with their claims. And yesterday their original video was removed for what YouTube says are violations of its “community guidelines.”

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  • Responding to Lee-Carson OpEd on BrightNight Solar Deal

    Brightnight-greatdealBy Matt Williams

    The commentary by Mayor Lee and Councilmember Carson in the Sunday Enterprise really does not address the core concerns that have consistently been raised by the community. In summary, those concerns are that the city used a non-competitive process which resulted in a low-offer and thus left money on the table while failing to go through a full public process that might have identified deficiencies in the offer by BrightNight.

    After reading the Lee-Carson OpEd, I (and I'm sure many others) now have one additional major concern … that it does not appear that the Council Majority has actually listened to the Public Comment voicemails, or actually read the Public Comment e-mails they have received.

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  • Mace ARC Business Park Developer Trying to Omit Details until after Vote

    Mac-ARC-map-under-mag-glassThe City’s promise to include full commission review is being broken

     By Roberta Millstein

    The developers of the Mace ARC Business Park are avoiding a full analysis of their project proposal and omitting important project details until after citizens have voted on the project.  City staff seems to support them in this, and City Council isn’t asking any questions – even though they had already promised that the proposal would be seen by all of the relevant City commissions. 

    Without a full public disclosure of the project and proper impartial commission analysis, citizens will not have the information they need to make an informed decision.

    For those who don’t know the legal context, this project will require a city wide vote – because the 200 acres proposed for the ARC business park outside Mace Curve is outside the Davis City limits with an agricultural land use designation, it is subject to a Measure R (formerly Measure J, now Davis Municipal Code Chapter 41) vote.  One of the provisions requires:

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