Category: Uncategorized

By Dan Cornford

Thanks to Roberta for posting her excellent comments on Nishi and the air quality issue. The attempts to brush off or ignore Dr. Cahill's findings or to investigate them further indicate just how developer-driven some factions in this town are. I would like to make an additional related comment (s).

On May 26, 2016 I published an Op-Ed in the Davis Enterprise, shortly before the vote on Nishi 1.0 entitled "Downtown traffic also will be worse with Nishi." It can be read in full at: https://www.davisenterprise.com/forum/opinion-columns/downtown-traffic-also-will-be-worse-with-nishi/

To summarize briefly I argued that the traffic studies for the EIR for Nishi (on which Nishi 2.0 still relies) were outdated, inadequate, and bordering on fiction.

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By Christy Corp-Minamijji

I have two hometowns, a couple thousand miles apart.

This morning I dropped my son off at his high school – his bike is broken. The rainy morning scene was almost aggressively normal – the patient loop of cars through the parking lot, waving each other on through our windshield wipers; helmet-wearing teens biking in through the exit – latte cups in one hand, steering with the other. Just another “late start” Wednesday.

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By Thomas A. Cahill

Davis citizens are reporting phone calls from the pro-Nishi folk implying that I support their proposal just because they are using the ultra-fine filters we developed in their mitigation efforts.

In fact, I strongly oppose the Nishi proposal since the mitigation they propose will be grossly inadequate to address the severe air quality conditions at Nishi. The 95% mitigation they mention is based on work in a wind tunnel, not dwellings.

The best we have been able to achieve in occupied dwellings is well below 50%, and thus seriously inadequate to mitigate the Nishi air quality threats.

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Recently the DA’s office put out a press release stating that they may soon start doing what what we’ve been advocating for since this campaign began…voluntarily reducing or dismissing convictions for marijuana-related offenses.

In response Dean made the following statement

“Although this announcement is clearly politically motivated — and it is unclear whether the DA is exceeding or merely fulfilling his duties under Proposition 64 — I sincerely hope that the DA keeps his promise to help these individuals get their lives back. I’m also proud that our grassroots campaign is already having an impact and changing the conversation about drug enforcement in our county.

“If the current DA is truly committed to restoring justice I would urge him to be transparent about the harm that his past policies have caused. We all know that the war on drugs has disproportionately harmed communities of color, yet the DA’s office claims they do not track drug cases by race or ethnicity. The DA should also explain his past decisions to target medical marijuana growers. Did he truly believe that this was in the public interest and a wise use of our resources?”

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It seems that the Vanguard is systematically deleting links to the Davisite — and only the Davisite.  The following screenshots show three examples of this, with the original versions, as posted by the author with links to the Davisite, and then later versions without links to the Davisite, apparently removed by the blog owner or one of the blog moderators.  Yet links to other sites like Facebook remain.

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(Press release) CivEnergy is sponsoring a Davis City Council candidates forum from 3 to 5 pm Sunday, March 18, in the Davis Community Church Fellowship Hall, 421 D Street. Each of the nine declared candidates for the two open council seats has agreed to participate in this free community event, moderated by former Davis Mayor Ann Evans. They include: Ezra Beeman, Mary Jo Bryan, Dan Carson, Linda Deos, Eric Gudz, Larry Guenther, Gloria Partida, Luis Rios Jr. and Mark West. Visit www.civenergy.org to see candidate responses as to why they are running for office, what their platform is, and how they will be an effective city council member.

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Measure R

My name is Linda Deos and I am a candidate for Davis City Council. I am writing on Measure R because of its continued importance to all of us here in Davis. Let me begin by stating in as clear as terms as possible that I support Measure R. I unequivocally support direct citizen participation in land use decisions affecting City policies for compact urban form, agricultural land preservation and adequate housing supply to meet internal City needs. I voted to renew Measure R in 2010.

After attending numerous commission and council meetings over the past year, I have been especially struck by the lack of information provided to city commissioners who are asked to weigh in on many development proposals brought forward. I have also seen the real frustration from our volunteer commissioners that their respective efforts and time have been for naught due to their inability to truly weigh in on proposals.

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The flatlander published the below article before shortly before the community voted against the Nishi project measure A only 2 years ago. With Nishi 2.0 on the ballot this spring, The Davisite is publishing this article to begin the conversation on this very controversial project.

The Nishi Proposal
By Robert Milbrodt

In our form of government, citizens are the masters and government is the servant.  Yet, the City of Davis has long had these roles reversed.  Measure J, adopted by voters in June 2000 and renewed as Measure R in June 2010, was meant to encourage the City to adopt a deliberative community process.  Such a process would engage citizens throughout any planning process that anticipates significant changes to our town.  At the end of this community driven process, voters would then be asked to collectively ratify or reject their own work product.  That’s democracy.

What would a democratic planning process have looked like regarding Measure A?

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By Jim Leonard

Deception is normal.

We naturally camouflage our behavior in order to protect ourselves and exploit others.

One way to look at it is: good can only appear to be good but evil can appear to be good or evil; evil, thus, has a superficial advantage.

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