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  • The June 5th election vote continues!

    By M E Gladis

    On Friday of the week after election night an interim report was made of about 10,000 VBM scanned ballots. Let me inform you that one or two pairs of processors set up in the scan area at tables for duplication of the ballots that cause certain trouble for the scanners. The scanned ballots go vertically into clear plastic bags with labels of batch and initialing by two staff, usually a scanner and a support staff.

    Then there are voters who mark two spots on a one choice office, over voting. That results in no vote because no one in the office can say what the voters true intention was on that office. There are undervotes when two or more choices are available for the office and only one vote is marked. That vote is qualified and counted. There are stray marks that interrupt the scanning process. All these issues must all be reconciled.

    Next there is the Write-in. News to me: a valid write-in candidate must register with the Secretary of State (SOS) office and list the name(s) by which the candidate is known. In order to write in a candidate a voter must fill in the write- in box and clearly enter the validated candidate’s name. No random non- registered name is counted.

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  • Why it takes so long to count the vote!

    By M E Gladis

    Well, first let’s congratulate the Yolo County Election staff! Yolo County was the first of 58 counties to certify the voting outcome. That distinction is due to the office staff and recurring temporary election staff being experienced, professional, and dedicated to counting every vote. These busy staff also courteously greeted and answered numerous questions from the public observers.

    In my daily attendance as an observer, including the Tuesday of the week before election when the testing of the scanners was performed I learned why it takes so long to count the vote. I was there on election night to observe the dock where incoming poll materials were delivered. The dock staff stayed until 3:00 a.m. Supervisors stayed later, and all back to work by 8:00 a.m. They intentionally wait another day to process anything that requires astute attention. Staff save and label all items from the Jun 5th election; every ballot, tally sheet, every envelope, every ballot is labeled and saved for 22 months. Also each and every item received by mail or delivery service in the election department is recorded in a log by a front office staff. So the number of Vote By Mail (VBM) ballots that arrive by postal delivery are recorded each day.

    Election night after staff processed the poll ballots to inspect the barcodes, the IT staff scanned the poll ballots along with the white VBM envelopes that were received by the election department enough ahead of election night that staff could process and have those VBM ballots ready for scanning, waiting in clear plastic see-through bags with their designation on a large sticker. The few ballots the scanners rejected election night were placed in a tray labeled for later duplication.

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  • Child Separation: End UC Contracts with General Dynamics

    UC General DynamicsUC-AFT Demands End to UC Contract with General Dynamics Over Role in Child Separation

     
    Published by UC-AFT June 19, 2018
     
    Dear President Napolitano,

    As contingent faculty and librarians represented by UC-AFT, we work with undocumented students at the University of California on a daily basis. Your initiative to support the UC’s undocumented students and your lawsuit against the Trump administration’s rescission of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have been powerful advocacy for some of our most vulnerable community members.

    Today, we ask that you extend that leadership to immediately canceling the UC’s contract with General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), a defense contractor. The UC currently contracts out the management and administration of the Analytical Writing Placement Examination (AWPE) to GDIT. Many UC faculty, including a number of our members, score more than 16,000 AWPE exams taken by admitted first-year students every year. During that process, we are in regular communication with GDIT employees. GDIT is also a contractor for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement and employs staff who support and facilitate the forced separation of children and parents seeking asylum at the U.S. border.

    Contracting out an educational process is a questionable practice for a university to begin with. Contracting out to a defense contractor forces faculty to be complicit with war profiteering. Contracting out to a defense contractor that enables the U.S. government to rip children away from their parents and place them in concentration camps is an unconscionable moral failing.

    In the strongest possible terms, we urge you to halt the UC’s participation in these abuses by immediately withdrawing from any and all agreements between the UC and GDIT.

    Sincerely,

    UC-AFT Executive Board
    Mia L. McIver, UCLA
    Axel Borg, UC Davis
    Ben Harder, UC Riverside
    Roxi Power, UC Santa Cruz
    Miki Goral, UCLA

     

    https://ucaft.org/content/uc-aft-demands-end-uc-contract-general-dynamics-over-gd-role-child-separation

     

  • “How do you deal with the political propaganda?”

    That's the question I asked one of my classmates from China when I was in grad school at Berkeley.  You know, the huge, pervasive portraits of Chairman Mao and other political leaders over the years… just popping up everywhere I understood.

    She smiled and said, "Well, probably the same way you deal with the commercial propaganda here in the United States".  Good answer!  Quite insightful.

    As a card carrying capitalist I know the purpose of marketing is to ask the customer what they want and communicate to them that you are going to give it to them.  But "sales" sometimes deviates from true marketing and ventures into persuasion and dare I say it, manipulation.  

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  • I have always believed in your magic

    HospitalBy Tom Owczarzak

    Last night got – complicated.

    We are not leaving this hospital anytime soon.

    I am here alone in the silence – this is becoming way too familiar.

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  • DTA Questions Raise for Highest Paid Admin

    DTA LogoBy Dianna Huculak, President of the Davis Teachers Association

    At the end of the school year, educators in our district received an email from Director of secondary education Troy Allen, which among other things, told us that our students would not be able to have new textbooks next year because of increased compensation for teachers.   Based on this email, many teachers expressed to me that they felt guilty that their salary increase hurt their students.   To me, and others who have worked in Davis for a period of time, this rhetoric from district office is all too familiar- a district message frame-repeated to the community that unfortunately pits nurses, counselors, teachers, psychologist, and all support staff against the children that we protect, nurture and serve.  It creates a false dichotomy which says anything that goes to the support the livelihood of the people in our school community, must take something away from children.   It disrespects and minimizes the role of our school communities to create healthy spaces for children to grow and to learn.   Moreover, it’s not enough that teachers had to picket, write letters, show up at multiple school board meetings, for what basically amounted to a cost of living adjustment- we are also supposed to feel guilty about it.   What I didn’t realize at the time, was that apparently, this logic only applies to teachers.

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  • Chancellor May, Leidos, and the Border Regime

     

    May Leidos

    Image From Leidos website and Chancellor May 

    By Nick Buxton

    I’m glad to hear the university administration read my piece, although I wish it had led to some self-reflection about the ethics of education leaders holding corporate board positions – even more so when they are in the defense industry. Instead they have deployed a PR defense tactic of mis-characterizing my argument rather than addressing its core concerns. The fact that a university administration also spends public money defending a private corporation shows the costs of universities becoming ever more corporatized in recent years.

    My article did not argue that Leidos was responsible for the latest Trump policy of separating children from their families, nor did I say that Chancellor May was responsible for this. However it is clear that Leidos is part of the border regime, and that May as a Board representative therefore naturally bears some responsibility and accountability for its activities.

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  • Sad and Mad About Superintendent Pay

    DJUSD Money2Dear Davis School Board Members, (boe@djusd.net)

    I am so very disappointed in your leadership and continued support of the Superintendent’s agenda and request for additional salary for top administrators. You have been saying all year that teacher salaries are a priority yet your actions speak otherwise. Stop adding admin positions and stop increasing their pay!

    This year I had an amazing student teacher, the kind that only comes around once every few years, and we lost her to a school 15 miles away. Although she loved being at Pioneer – she could not turn down $1,000 more take home pay per month plus a much better benefit package. After all – she has student loans to pay back!

    Although I have worked for this district for 21 years and have maxed out on academic units, my pay is so low it requires me to hold a second job in order to support my family. In addition, I am unable to afford to live in the community in which I dedicate most my time and resources teaching and caring for its young people.

    I am sad, mad, and very disappointed!

    Culien Anderson
    Pioneer Elementary

  • UC Davis Statement On “Chancellor May, Leidos Corp., and “heart-wrenching political tactics” for refugees”

    May72502_0UC Davis Statement On "Chancellor May, Leidos Corp., and “heart-wrenching political tactics” for refugees" Published on the Davisite.org

    On behalf of Chancellor Gary S. May and UC Davis, I must address the accusations and incorrect information made by Nick Buxton in his June 20 article, “Chancellor May, Leidos Corp, and ‘heart-wrenching political tactics’ for refugees.” In addition to the inflammatory and wildly inappropriate placement of Chancellor’s May’s picture with that of children detained by ICE, Buxton made false statements related to May’s Leidos Board seat and how that position impacts his role here at UC Davis. 

    For starters, Chancellor May has been transparent about his board service from the very beginning. He disclosed his board service and salary candidly with the search committee that ultimately recommended unanimously to select him as the next UC Davis Chancellor. The UC Office of the President and UC Regents were also informed about his board leadership prior to selecting him. He has discussed this topic with the campus community and during many media interviews. He continues to make himself available to anyone who wants to discuss this with him in person. 

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  • Chancellor May, Leidos Corp., and “heart-wrenching political tactics” for refugees

    May detention centerBy Nick Buxton

    UC Davis Chancellor Gary May has joined the chorus of voices rightly condemning the separation of children from parents seeking asylum in the US. In a public statement on June 19, he condemned the “heart-wrenching political tactics” affecting refugees and voiced his support for DACA students. These are important statements, but they would be even more powerful if he took action to back up those values, which in this case he could easily do by stepping down from his position on the board of one of the leading corporations involved in the inhumane border regime.

    According to Sacramento Bee, May earned $288,280 in cash and stock in 2015 as a member of the board of Leidos, a Virginia-based defense and technology company. Leidos is an important supplier of surveillance equipment to the Department for Homeland Security Border guards, boasting of supplying 70 programs worth $200 million in the last five years. The company has expanded significantly in recent years and its CEO has boasted to investors of how it is benefiting from Trump’s agenda.

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