Category: Uncategorized

PARODY – see note below

Vote for the Bee Wash to approve the Davis Bee Ecosystem because it enhances and advances more of what we love about our city.

Bee Wash gives voters in Davis an exciting opportunity to:

• build affordable housing for the next generation of Davis’s beneficial insects; 
• protect endangered species and permanently preserve nearly two acres of wild land;
• provide good bee jobs close to home, for UC apicology graduates and others;
• produce more sweet internship opportunities for Davis high school and college students;
• preserve Davis’s quality of life without raising the price of honey.

Bee Wash is supported by residents, business leaders, students and environmentalists, because it advances Davis’ community values and provides opportunities for everyone. Bee wash will build on Davis’ commitment to bold environmental and agricultural leadership by attracting next-generation companies focused on solving the world’s greatest challenges, like climate change, food supply, and water scarcity. And Bee Wash will be a carbon-free model for California, requiring 100% renewable power onsite.

Bee Wash will improve existing trails and add new bike and pedestrian paths and a safe overcrossing of Mace Boulevard for flying insects. An objective, independent study confirms that flying will reduce commute times near the Mace/I-80 interchange by up to 3-1/2 minutes.

Bee Wash improves the amenities that matter to Davis. It creates new greenbelts and trails, native habitat, and soccer, softball and other recreation fields — all at no cost to taxpayers. Bee Wash brings millions of dollars a year to the City budget and for support of Davis schools, while generating $29 million in one-time revenues to fix our infrastructure and help pay for a new South Davis bee hive, honey library and community center.

Bee Wash is endorsed by the entire City Council, the Davis Chamber of Commerce and UC Davis student associations. Learn more at Beewash.com VOTE YES on Bee Wash!

Signers:

Gloria Beekeeper – Mayor of Davis

Pamela G. Honey – Founder Marrone Bio

Joseph “Buzz” DiNunzio – DJUSD Trustee

Gerald Beeswax – Member, Valley Clean Energy Community Advisory Committee; Member, Davis Utilities Commission

Ruth Uy Honeycomb – Former Davis Mayor

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Parody notes: This article is based on images used for the proposal for the car wash at 480 Mace Blvd and text of the Yes on H (DISC 2022) ballot argument.

The campaign has retained Dynata, a Texas marketing firm, to repeatedly call thousands of Davis voters over and over until the phone is answered.

By Alan Pryor

Who is Dynata?

Numerous Davis citizens have reported receiving a "push poll" survey telephone call concerning the proposed "DiSC 2022" project from a firm headquartered in Plano, Texas whose caller ID otherwise identifies the company as "Dynata" from either Hayward or Oakland in the Bay Area. Dynata (https://www.dynata.com/) is a privately-owned online data collection company owned by two private equity firms, Court Square Capital Management and HGGC. ("DiSC 2022" is a 102-acre proposed mixed use business park that would be constructed on prime farmland outside the current City limits, just north of I-80, the Ikeda fruit stand, and the City water tank, and just east of Mace Blvd.  It will be Measure H on the June ballot).

According to their website, "Dynata, LLC… and their parents, affiliates and subsidiaries world-wide (collectively referred to hereinafter as “Dynata”) provide sampling solutions and technology for survey research, providing clients with access to consumer and business-to-business respondents via internet, telephone (both fixed/landline and wireless/mobile), postal and multi-mode methodologies."

But the firm is poorly thought of by both consumers and peers in the survey research industry.

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Developer Proposes Baseline of Zero Trees Planted in New DiSC Development

The below letter was sent to the Davis City Council regarding a lack of commitment to planting trees in the massive new development. The Davis City Council takes up DiSC 2022 at the Feb. 1 meeting. You can find the agenda here. The agenda contains information for how to view the meeting and offer public comment. The DiSC proposal can be found here.

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Dear Davis City Council,

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From the League of Women Voters:

Dear Friends,

Welcome all to a New Year and best wishes for a healthy and peaceful 2022.  

Regrettably, what first comes to our mind this month might be the remembrance of last year and the January 6th terrorist attack on our National Capital. Our Democracy survives, but the actions on that day remind us that we all need to actively protect our Republic and our voting rights. With that in mind, LWVDA leadership joins the National League of Women Voters (LWVUS) by asking our membership to urge Congress and the President to pass federal legislation protecting our right to vote and our democracy.  

January 6th Day of Remembrance and Action: This Thursday Jan 6th at 5:15 pm in Davis Central Park, the Davis League will host a local vigil in remembrance of those who defended our Democracy last year and in support of the League’s 101-year position on voting rights advocacy and representative democracy. In this we join other LWV state and local leagues who will host in-person and virtual events to commemorate the remembrance. We invite you to join this show of unity at the public remembrance event. Register here: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/434619/

Take Action: As League members, we believe a January 6th remembrance also offers an opportunity for us to take action. We encourage your action this month in supporting passage of 2 federal bills currently stalled in the Senate: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  

Please take the time this week and join your fellow League members by going to this Action Link to learn more about this legislation and take individual action. By contacting Senators Feinstein and Padilla to push for passage of this important legislation we can truly recognize the heroism of the men and women that protected the Capital and legislators of all political parties in defense of Democracy on January 6th, 2021. 

…..

Happy New Year,
Mary Jo Bryan
President
LWV Davis Area

Hiroshima_aftermath – Metaphor for DISC II By U.S. Navy Public Affairs Resources Website – http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/images/historical/hiroshima.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91928

Today at the monthly meeting of the Bicycle Transportation and Street Safe…

What?

Yes, the Staff of the City of Davis again botched the name of the "bicycling commission", formally the "Bicycling, Transportation and Street Safety Commission" in L'il Bastard Son of DISC I, also known as DISC II.

Just a simple typo? Yes, the name makes no grammatical sense. When I was on the Commission I tried to change it. No success. Anyway, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Staff didn't notice the repeated error in the Staff Report for DISC II.

Whatever? OK, here's the summary of DISC II in regards to transportation:

They promise:

• To contribute to a grade-separated crossing of Mace.
• To hire a Transportation Demand Manager, who will solve transportation stuff in the future
• To contribute money for stuff, in the future, like "carpool lanes" (sic*) on I-80 as part of the Multi-Million Dollar Unknown Lanes Project of Caltrans District 3.

The project is placed directly on I-80: When there's no congestion, which is still much of the time, it will take 15-20 minutes door-to-door from DISC II to much of UC Davis campus, West Sacramento, and so on. Downtown. It simply has no competition.

Certainly not from cycling! The planned residential area of DISC II is simply so far cycling-wise from everything that it should have been rejected by staff. There is no connectivity promised to South Davis, including Nugget and some nice restaurants etc around it. (Seriously, does anyone from Nugget HQ ride to South Davis Nugget by bike? Ha!!) Modifications to the Mace over-crossing of the Union Pacific ROW and I-80 to make it cycling-friendly (or better) and pedestrian-tolerant are absolutely necessary even without DISC II, and very expensive, and DISC II's leaders and Staff are planning nothing about it.

Is anyone even going to walk to Target? Perhaps kids will ride bikes to schools in East Davis, because they have no other choice aside from the parental automobile ferry.

Sure, some shuttles and so forth are promised, there's that Park & Ride, people without fare-free parking or cheap parking at their destination might take transit.

DISC II is planned to impact Roads 32A and B as a way to avoid Mace, even as right now the City and County are trying to create a safe route on 32A to the Bypass for people riding bikes.

DISC can't promise anything concrete, e.g. only a study on Mace. But then it will generate enough tax revenue many years from now? For now – and we need improvements now – the City couldn't even get the developers of the project to pay for removal and replacement of the slip lanes on Mace and Alhambra. Similar for the extended stay hotel on Mace and 2nd. And in South Davis, only the part of Chiles directly fronting the new hotel has been fully re-paved. The differential in illumination is so great that after passing the hotel one can barely see the road.

For over four years the City's  had a very greasy grip on the handlebars of our collective bicycle: There's been no senior civil engineer for transportation for all of that time. During the summer the City Council finally re-authorized a new budget for this position, and finally an executive search firm will be tasked to find someone. It's unlikely they will start before spring, too late to weigh in on DISC II, five years since the last one left.

Last time DISC I came to the BTSSC I dissented on support of a list of recommendations; I was on the sub-committee that developed what turned into that. In the end I knew that e.g. "lipstick on a pig" was too weak a metaphor for the nonsense of DISC I. It's the same for DISC II.

* Caltrans doesn't know what kind of extra lane it will be.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-12-09/people-flee-from-a-burning-christmas-tree-in/233792?nw=0

I identify as culturally Jewish. I lived in Prague for many years. Most know that Jews and Jewish culture were largely erased from what's now the Czech capital and much of central and eastern Europe from the 1930's through the 1980's.

In Prague and all over Czechia, "Christmas" as such has various traditions, most of which are similar to those in the USA. One thing which was quite unusual was the public selling of carp in public squares or similar areas. In the days up to Xmas, many would buy them and bring them home and put them in their bathtub for a few days before killing and eating them; others – probably more – had them bludgeoned to death in the street before bringing them home.

It was not pleasant to watch the second example; many Czechs would argue that fish had a very undeveloped nerve system and wouldn't feel much, and in any case it was not worse that simply buying meat at the market.

I don't like cooked carp. However, if this was a Davis tradition and E St Plaza was filled with tanks of water and carp and so on, I would still not get offended, more specifically to take special offense because I am Jewish (Jews were never deported from Davis, so that element is not an issue!).

What IS deeply offensive however, in Downtown Davis, is the "Holiday Tree". For starters, it's clear that this name for a winter pagan symbol for Christmas came about a couple decades ago because the State is not supposed to be involved in Religion. So it's thought that "Christmas Tree" is inappropriate. In schools there is education about different holidays that happen at different times of the year, though official holidays are another thing!

The deeper problem is the second issue, which is somehow Hanukkah, the Jewish "festival of lights" is only coincidentally around Xmas, and has no connection to it, at least historically (it's more consumerist in the USA, likely because of its proximity to the western Christian holiday – Eastern Christians observe it some weeks later, they use a different calendar – so there is a bit of a relationship, fine… though for myself and some other Jews it's a more modest affair – and while about a "miracle", it's not a religious holiday.)

The deepest problem is that the evening event traditionally connected with the Holiday Tree in Davis has almost zero Jewish anything. There's lots of Santa, songs and so on – some of which is not happening this year. Even the menorah lighting in Davis this year happened at the Cannery – in Prague, Chabad does it in one of many square in the city center. So if you're gonna call it a Holiday Tree – make it about everything happening around now – Diwali was not so long ago, tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah, Xmas isn't for more than three weeks, then there's Gregorian New Year (like "Chinese New Year", though it's really the East Asian Lunar New Year…). There's also Winter Solstice – in the northern hemisphere -  obviously already connected with Christmas, but I think deserving distinction. One idea – to justify the felling and display of another tree in – or connected with Davis politics – is to make it truly inclusive and supporting of an inclusive event. But when there's no real connection between a holiday and another, the celebrations should be independent.

So as a Jew I am happy to celebrate Western Christmas with my fellow Christian, Christianish or other non-Jews. After Gregorian New Year, please take down the "Holiday Tree". Permanently. Next year, please put up a "Christmas Tree" in Downtown Davis.

by Colin Walsh

I delivered this comment to the Davis City Council on 10/19/21 and received a very unprofessional attack from Council Member Carson in return. The comment was given in relation to the "Affordable Housing Ordinance – Extension of Alternative Rental Housing Requirements and Preliminary Scope of Work for an Update of Affordable Rental Housing Requirements" agenda item in which the Council voted to extend the weak interim inclusionary affordable housing ordinance.

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On February 6 of 2018 the Davis City Council approved the 2^nd attempt at the Nishi project. This project had what has proven to be an unworkable exclusionary affordable housing that forces people accepted into the affordable housing to sharing a room. What’s worse is the combined cost of the two people who share the room is higher than that of market rate single room.  Worse there are only 264 affordable beds out of 2200 beds. Beds not units. Most of the market rate is not shared.

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