(Press release) Citing grounds of unplanned sprawling development, the Sierra Club announced its opposition to Measure L in Davis CA on the November 2018 municipal ballot. Measure L is a vote to allow the annexation of a 75 acre parcel of farmland on the northwest periphery of the City and the subsequent development of a senior housing project including 410 single-family, single-story detached homes and a 150 units of low-income senior housing. 

The endorsement of the opposition to this ballot measure follows an extensive evaluation process by the local Sierra Club Yolano Group, the Sierra Club Mother Lode Chapter Political and Executive Committees, and the Sierra Club California Local Measure Review Committee.

The Sierra Club has long-standing official policies designed to minimize urban housing sprawl and maximize intensive infill development. These include planning policies which stimulate conservation of open space and preservation of natural areas and agricultural lands, The Sierra Club opposes sprawl as a pattern of increasingly inefficient and wasteful land use that is devastating environmental and social conditions.

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The story of a “a pop culture archaeologist” and “a place to explore both current and nostalgic aspects of our shared American experience.”

By Colin Walsh

There is an unassuming low-slung building under a pitched roof mid block on E street between 2^nd and 3^rd in Davis CA. The building is set back from the street and set further into the building is a door to another world. Through that door is a den of untold treasures: comic books, new and used, even classic and hard to find games; movie collection of titles that may not be suggested to you on Netflix; vinyl albums, card games, and a range of Americana and pop culture ephemera. The real treasure though is the store itself.

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This is probably not the combination of words you were expecting.

By Carey Ann Hunt and Colin Walsh

Leif in Motion and Shamaniclown.net are holding their first free Playshop titled Begin Big Change!. It will be Sunday July 22^nd, 10:00am to 12:00 at Davis Holistic Health Center. 1403 5th Street, Suite B.

You read that right – Shamanic Clown.

Should the idea of a healing shamanic clown experience even be taken seriously? Yes and No and that, folks, is exactly the point.

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Kern County Public Health Department has launched a new voluntary informational program for people and families dining at Kern County restaurants.

Restaurants can seek to qualify as 'Certified Healthy" if they meet several specific criteria including:

Program criteria

Here is the list of criteria that restaurants must follow to qualify for the Certified Healthy program. These can be met either as part of the regular menu or with a lite menu.

• At least six menu items under 500 calories
• An option for fruits and/or vegetables as a side item for meals
• At least one salad option
• Whole grain bread as a side option
• At least six menu items with less than 30 percent of sodium
• Meal items with less than five grams of saturated fat
• No meals exceeding 2,000 calories
• Offers at least five vegetarian meal dishes
• A non-fried fish option
• At least four items containing 10 grams of fiber.

Check it out here!

By Tom Owczarzak

When I was in college I drove tomato trucks during the summer to make money for the year. It’s one of those crazy jobs where you work sixteen-hour days, every day, for about 80 days.

At the time, I thought I was making good money – I wasn’t.

But the real hook was that you were working so much you just never had time to spend it – you ended up saving a big chunk of dough – even, if like me, you suck at saving money.

And that is huge for a college student.

It was just a miserable job.

I have always had a thing for jobs that pushed me beyond some limit.

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Dear Downtown Plan Advisory Committee, 

 

I would like share with you a video presentation I created outlining an alternative vision for public space in downtown Davis. 

 

 

I am submitting this video as comments on the previous workshop summary documents and in preparation for the workshops this week. I understand that the comment period is closed, but I was unable to summarize my comments in format provided. 

 

The presentation is extremely critical of the consultants’ “Plan A” to create an eventual square on third street. I outline a large number of intrinsic problems with this plan, including feasibility, cost, the selling off of viable public spaces to developers, poor design, lack of support for existing businesses among other obvious problems. 

 

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Mike Webb, City Manager

For the past few years, the City of Davis staff has completely manipulated the Davis City Council.

By Jon Li

The worst current example is the Downtown Plan “participatory workshop” process, where the expensive outside consultants DICTATE the new city policy as previously agreed to with city staff.  City staff is determined to lock the future of the Davis Downtown on one particular course, and nothing else is to be considered, let alone discussed and evaluated.  All the discussion is between the expensive outside consultants and city staff.

In the first Downtown Plan “participatory workshop,” the expensive outside consultants and city staff allowed 10 minutes of public discussion.   While the public kept making points of difference from what the economic consultant defined as Davis economic reality, there was no time for discussion, because the “historic preservation” LECTURE was scheduled, and that is so important that the 20 people who wanted to discuss economic development were cut off.

Last October 16^th, when Mike Webb laid out this absurd plan, I asked what if the public discussion isn’t good enough?  Mike Webb was shocked that anyone would dare question a claim by the city manager.   You, Mike Webb are a product of the Downtown Plan Process, which is all you know.  Davis talks about design, even sustainability, as the traffic builds up at Richards, and the relationship with UCD remains at an all time low.

The city staff is trying to get away with what UCD is doing: pretend like you are going through a public engagement process so that it is approved without public evaluation.

The participation has been a reflection of the hideous excuse for outreach by the special consultant whose claim included that she went to Chico State so she knows Davis.  The outreach postcard has print so small that you need a magnifying glass to find out what time the LECTURES on new Davis policy are.  As far as the outside consultants and the city staff are concerned, it doesn’t matter if anybody comes to the events, they just need to claim to the state that there was a public process.

The city needs to talk about economic development.  Not one person on city staff has a clue about economic development.  Rather than hire someone, the city invented the title of business policy communicator, gossip.  No one in the city staff could lead a discussion about economic development, which is what Davis needs.

The downtown is a product of the entire city economy.  The problem is that the general plan only wants housing, so Davis is suburban, and only does housing design.  There is nothing about economic development in the second Downtown Plan “participatory workshop” – it is all fantasyland design stuff that will never happen.  A million dollars and a year wasted.

You should go to the second Downtown Plan “participatory workshop” Tuesday evening.  Because the outside consultants are so important, the only time they have available to do the workshop opening presentation is the same time as the first meeting of the new Davis City Council.

Will ANY city staff be at the opening “participatory workshop” LECTURE?  Will any member of the Davis City Council be there, even Lucas Frerichs who is the one who provided the political cover for this little adventure?  The publicity was pathetic, and with UCD summer vacation and the college students mostly gone, no one is in town anyway.  But it is even better to staff the fewer members of the public who even know the Downtown Plan process is happening. 

Staff sold the city council a year ago on this Downtown Plan when the opponents to Trackside wanted the city to live within the design guidelines.  This will override the guidelines, and then the city staff can go back to telling the city council what to do.  There will be no other changes in the plan for the future of Davis.

The city staff prohibits public dialogue because they will lose what little domination they have over the city council’s agenda.  Innovation and buy-in can only happen with public dialogue.

City Staff does what it wants to do, and it tells the City Council that is reality and they have to live with it, and then city staff parades around and if you question then they put “THE CITY COUNCIL” in your face and they do what they were going to do anyway.  The City Council should figure out “policy governance.”

Short answer, he may have. Long answer, if he did he probably violated it in more than one way.

By Colin Walsh

Yesterday Council Member Lucas Frerichs made an enthusiastic endorsement of an upcoming development project on his Facebook page and tagged every other member of City Council and several members of the Planning Commission. It was covered on the Davisite here.

Council Member Lucas Frerichs’s post declared the new project is “Coming soon!! Welcoming the new corporate headquarters…”

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 The Yolo County Chapter of the ACLU invites you to:

 "Habeas Data: Privacy Vs. the Rise of Surveillance Tech" – A Book talk by Author, Cyrus Farivar

This talk is part of the Yolo ACLU's ongoing exploration of how communications technologies also become surveillance technologies that can affect us all.  

Join us on July 18th, from 7-8:30 pm at the Davis Branch of the Yolo County Library in the Blanchard room.  

This event is free, refreshments will be served, and the book will be available for purchase. 

Show me the data!  Until the 21st century, nearly all our activities were private by default, and public only through effort; today anything in digital space has the potential (and likelihood) to remain somewhere online forever.  That means all the technologies that have made our lives easier, faster, better, more efficient have also simultaneously made it easier for others to keep an eye on our activities as well.  In 10 crucial legal cases, "Habeas Data" explores the tools of surveillance that exist today, how they work, and what the implications are for the future of privacy.

The Yolo County ACLU has addressed this issue with its proposed city ordinance to make purchases and use of surveillance technologies by the Davis Police Department both public and transparent.  That proposed ordinance is still being considered by the Davis City Council.  

Cyrus Farivar is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, as well as an author and radio producer.

His second book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, was published May 8, 2018 from Melville House.  

In 2017, Cyrus Farivar and Joe Mullin won the Technology Reporting award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter for their August 2016 story: “Stealing bitcoins with badges: How Silk Road’s dirty cops got caught.”  Cyrus’ first book, The Internet of Elsewhere—about the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world, including Senegal, Iran, Estonia and South Korea—was published in April 2011.  From 2010 until 2012, Cyrus was the Sci-Tech Editor and host of “Spectrum” at Deutsche Welle English, Germany’s international broadcaster. He has also reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, Public Radio International, The Economist, Wired, The New York Times and many others.  He is based in Oakland, California.

Wikipedia link about the phrase "Habeas Data": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_data .