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I'm in Sheila Allen's district (4) and delighted that she's running for the County Board of Supervisors. Davis' own energizer bunny, Sheila (RN, Ph.D., Mom) has served us for over 30 years in this amazing (but partial!) list: Davis School Board, Yolo County Health Dept., Yolo Health Council, Yolo Healthy Aging Alliance (which she founded), Yolo First Five (which she co-founded), District 4 Deputy, PTA, Human Relations Commission, and DaVinci JHS and Yolo Cares Adult Day Program (both of which she co-founded).

I've known Sheila for decades and have never seen her sitting down. Her consistent commitment, open heart, and superior ability mark her as an ideal candidate for county supervisor, and I wish we had thousands like her at every level of government. Thanks to Sheila for working so hard for us and wanting to continue to do so. We're lucky. Please join me in voting for Sheila Allen by March 5.

-Sherrill Futrell

Dear Editor,

We are excited to endorse Antonio De Loera-Brust for Yolo County Supervisor representing East, South and parts of North Davis. Election Day is March 5th and mail-in voting will commence in early February. Indeed, the election is here! As mayor, Joe got to know Antonio when he was a Davis High student and won the City's Thong Hy Huynh Award. From early on, we witnessed his deep commitment to Yolo County's social values. Antonio is insightful and policy savvy, and particularly on the services and justice issues over which county government presides. His work with Yolo's migrant community and commitment to public health during the pandemic impressed us deeply.

What tipped the scales for us was reading articles he's written outside politics. They show a thoughtful individual far beyond the curated political realm. The pieces demonstrate analysis and depth—exactly what public service needs more of. No finger-pointing, just compassion and analysis. He's one sharp thinker! He's independent and confident. He'll lead.

Importantly, his roots are all Davis. Antonio's networks are from growing up here, attending Davis High, working with Yolo’s COVID response program, and starting life in Davis with his fiancée, Melissa.

Please join us in supporting Antonio De Loera-Brust for supervisor. New leadership will be good for Yolo County. Antonio is certainly ready to lead us through the challenges ahead. He'll serve with distinction and make us proud.

Janet and Joe Krovoza (former Mayor, Davis (2011-14))

Sheila cares about people

My doorbell rang today and upon answering it, I found Sheila Allen tucking a bouquet of flowers into my mailbox. Why? I had been unable to attend her campaign fundraiser due to a bout of covid. When I texted her to let her know I would not be there, she first verified I had access to timely health care and then brought flowers from the event to my home.

At this moment, Sheila is probably the busiest person I know. When you are campaigning, there are never enough hours in the day, but she made time to deliver those flowers. And since my cancer diagnosis two years ago, Sheila has delivered several homecooked meals for my entire family. Warm soups, freshly baked bread and delicious desserts. And flowers.

This is why I support Sheila for Yolo County Supervisor. Yes, she’s smart. Yes, she’s experienced and very well-qualified for the job. Yes, she has a wealth of important endorsements and a fabulous smile. But more importantly, Sheila truly cares about people. As supervisor, Sheila will put the needs of you and your family front and center. If you live in District 4, I encourage you to vote for Sheila Allen for Yolo County Supervisor.

-Susan Lovenburg

I asked ChatGPT to write a letter against Measure N, based on the Yes on N letter in the Enterprise by Liz Stelow.  I then asked it to generate a headline for a newspaper submission.  Then I asked an AI image generator to make a piece of accompanying art, using their "zombie apocalypse" filter.  The result follows, a first generation with no revisions or edits.

Reject Measure N: Saying NO to Mediocrity in Davis Schools

Measure N claims to be beneficial for Davis schools, Davis kids, and Davis property values. But let’s face it, it’s not great for anyone.

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Please don’t eliminate my favorite commissions!

Sung to the tune of "These are a Few of My Favorite Things"

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Before the Tree Commission: 2nd & G Street Downtown

Davis’s 60 year old tradition come to an end

By Alan Hirsch, the Davis Lorax

Value seem to have changed: Tree Commission will likely be ended by City Council Tuesday

Tree advocacy & policy work will be subsumed into the Natural Resources Commission that will be renamed the “Climate and Environment Justice” commission.  (Seems pollution and consumption of natural resources out of style). 

The husk of the Tree Commission work will be retained in an ironically renamed “Tree Removal Commission.” per the staff memo summarizing one year of behind the scenes work by Josh Chapman and Bapu Vaitla.

This signals an historical shift in vaiues for Davis:  The 60 year old Commission is one of oldest in city. It was founded 1963 as the “street tree committee”. Davis was a leader in municipal arboriculture at the time and was one of the first “Tree Cities” designated by the National Arbor Day Foundation. The city passed on of  first Parking Lot Shade ordinance in the county (1979).  This in not surprising as Davis , located next to the foremost arboricultural research universities in the world.   LINK to tree history of  Davis  

However this move might also be seen as consistent with city management failure to enforce and update the Code section 37 Tree Protection Ordinance. It might also bode poorly for role of Trees in the proposed rewrite of the city general plan= the city planner failed to put enforceable promises about tree in the recently approve Downtown Plan despite much input form public, Tree Davis, and the Commission.

This move was a surprise to the Commission members, so seem not to have been surveyed. Deputy City manager Kelly Stachowicz  share this likely decision with Tree Commission for the first time on Friday at 5pm council.

The council  agenda item on this and elimination of two other commission will be heard 7:20 pm  or later:  Member of public can attend or call in their thought  (2 minute)   Tuesday between Noon and 4 Tuesday 530-757-5693. https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2024/2024-01-30/05-Commissions-Subcommittee-Recommendations.pdf

Thoughts of the Lorax based on my attending 14 years of tree commissions meetings; 

1. It seems to me; elimination of the Tree Commission subverts Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) call for more community participation.
2. Bodes poor for Trees in the General Plan: We all can remember Trees were not including in the DT Plan other than with platitudes and unenforceable promises.
3. Reflects current Culture of city hall staff relative to citizen participation: Peter Drucker said: “Culture eat strategy for breakfast.”

UNPACKING

1. I have long though there needs to be a rethinking of commissions structure and specifically the  role of Tree Commission. See this article I wrote almost exactly a year ago:  Rethinking Our Failing Davis City Processes  How can we build more durable consensuses?
2. UFMP: How is elimination of the Tree Commission (TC) consistent with the $250K Urban Forest Master Plan (UFMP) we just completed?
3. Decrease Community Engagement with Tree. Most of us have thought city recommitment to urban forest involved more community involvement, not just adding one person to small staff of 5 managing over 30,000 trees.  We can learn from history about the  effect of the subsuming of tree Commission into the Natural Resource Commission. About 8 years back the  Bike Commission was combined with the Traffic, Parking and Street Safety Commission Is now BTSSC.  Bike  commissioner members were all enthusiastic ats time, but for the first 12 month this combined commission had not a single bike item on its agenda– staff control the agenda recall. The amount of attention to bike/active mode has dramatically declined from before the new combined commission. 
4. This reorganization likely signals diminished role of trees for the new General Plan rewrite. City Council did not put tree in the DT Plan building code despite many letters from many stakeholders. And council has failed to follow up on promise to remedy this in a separate DT tree plan. With elimination of Tree Commission this bodes poorly for anything more than unenforceable platitudes in a new General Plan.
5. How will UFMP be assured of implementation with ending of consistent  accountability & visibility . There are ~120 goals in UFMP to do over the next 40 years yet there is  no 3- or 5-year plan milestones -  so where is the mechanism for accountability the UFMP will ever be implement? We are now moving toward an “urban Forest czar” model like in most cities; their  actions are largely invisible to public only the city manager see it.  This relegates trees to feel god performative plantings. We need policies to grow and protect tree, not just plant them.
6. Good Intents won’t counterbalance lack of check and balance: Urban Forester Charlie Murphy has good intentions, but his action will  be invisible and beholding to city manager as tree stakeholders will no longer have a seat at the table — i.e. the UFMP will likely go the way of similar plan in cities like Woodland. Developments also will proceed without proper consideration of tree. The Sutter Hospital tree debacle was caused by City management short cutting public process.  just like city decision to allow removal 50 tree at Cannery (50 people show up at council one night to complain night). Expedient decisions on trees are made behind  closed door by  top city management who override the city arborist and wave fines when trees are cut illegally.  The decision like to lack of trees in DT plan and failure to enforce tree ordinance will go unnoticed without a Tree Commission who are consistently involved and charged with “speaking for the trees”.
7. Signals Participation and Expertise of Community Not Appreciated: Our city has a wealth of expertise on Tree as we are sight next to one of foremost arboricultural research institute in the world,  yet this has never been used by the city. And when It is, it is ignored:  A grad students have contract do to research paper on tree protection ordinance (2012) but this was ignored.   There have been hundreds of volunteer hour put in by the TC members – in three different attempts (2015 2017,2021) — to revise the tree ordinance- All were all ignored by top- city management and set to council  even for feedback.
8. Davis City Hall Culture override UFMP and Council City Tree Promises   Maybe this proposal is just making it official: the onoy consistent role I have seen for  Tree Commission only role  consistently used by city staff over my 15 year was as the   “Tree Removal Commission.”  This, ironically,  is the only husk of the now 60-year-old commission (founded 1963)  that is being retained. LINK to history:  

Davis City Council Members,

The travel corridor connecting the Bay Area and the greater Sacramento Area could continue to expand as an automobile corridor, or alternately as a greatly-improved rail corridor. Caltrans is steering Davis towards accepting a new lane to further expand the highway, but as developers continue to build out and densify the region, the increasing population will strain our ever-busier freeways.

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Caltrans wants to turn the Davis Climate Plan into a just a carbon offset

By Alan Hirsch

On Tuesday January 9^th council meeting there will be a discussion on DEIR for I-80 widening.

Please show up to the Davis Council and object to this project that won’t fix congestion for long…but will destroy Davis Climate plan by turning it into a carbon offset- An offset so others can drive more on the wider freeway.   Toll lanes also create social inequity as it allows the richest to buy out of congest so there is no incentive to work for good public transit system.

Housing costs are also impacted- by allowing others to live in Davis and commute even further — remember the Cannery homes was advertised for sale in the Bay Area.

Key ask: City should ask that Caltrans “recirculate the corrected DEIR as  it is deeply flawed.

Local elected officials (Josh Chapman) continue to stand with Caltrans-and deny science from UC Davis… because they have been in effect bribed by congress with $86million in free starter money to give up our climate plan- trouble is $200 million is missing.    (Congress was likely lobbied by business interests in Sac, Bay Area and Tahoe rich folk who love a toll lane so they can opt out of traffic.)

Three Ways to Comment to Council Tuesday

1. In person at council chamber agenda -8pm agenda item : https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/city-council/city-council-meetings/agendas   Staff report (see City staff Draft letter to Caltrans which affirm  below concerns ) https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2024/2024-01-09/08-Yolo-80-Manged-Lanes-Draft-EIR.pdf
2. Leave voice mail (12-4) on Tuesday JAN 9^th: 530-757-5603 (2 minutes)
3. Send a message to council: citycouncilmembers@cityofdavis.org

Issues with Caltrans Draft Environmental Impact Report

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This is a letter in PROTEST OF THE WASTEWATER RATE ADJUSTMENT as it is proposed.

The rate structure is based on a 60% fixed and 40% volumetric cost for those who use ~ 10 ccf per month, but the average usage is 6 ccf.  The more wastewater used the lower the fixed rate, and the less wastewater used, the higher the fixed rate.  Households using greater-than-average volume is why the system has to be as large as it is and have the fixed costs it does.  While I should pay for the opportunity to use the system, this proposal raises the rates unfairly.

Since the fixed rate would go up and the volumetric rate would go down, the more you use, the less proportionally you’d pay.  How unfair and unnecessary a way to generate the needed revenue. If you use 9ccf or more your bill will actually go down; if you use less than 9ccf, your bill will go up.  Since the average use is 6ccf, or 74% fixed at that level of use (not the 60% stated), this will generate more total revenue on the backs of the lower-volume users. Since more revenue needs to be generated, anyone who uses less has to make up for high users’ costs actually going down, and then some, to generate more revenue overall. This incentivizes waste.  Again, the heavier users, 9ccf and up, will actually pay less than they do now.

I fully understand that a significant component of the rate structure has to be fixed to cover infrastructure and administrative costs of the system, but

the fixed component of the proposed new rate structure is too large a proportion as to be fair for those who conserve, as I do. Look at these numbers. A user of 6ccf now pays $40.98 and at the first adjustment would pay $42.51.  A user of 10ccf now pays $53.50 and at the first adjustment would pay $50.47.  No bill should be going down when we need to generate more revenue.  The volumetric rate should not be going down and decreasing revenue generated, going the wrong direction.  Then if the current volumetric rates do not produce the needed revenue, the fixed rate can be raised, but much less.

At my 0-1 ccf monthly usage (let’s use 1 for the calculation) my single family rate is currently 3.94+18.26+3.13=$25.33 or 88% fixed.  In the new rate structure this would be $32.56 of which 94% would be fixed, and this high fixed rate continues year after year. By 2028, my $41.56 bill would increase 64%. Just this year my bill would increase by 35%.

These kinds of restructuring and increases DO NOT minimize the impact on rate payers who use the system proportionally little (as stated by the consultant).  Rather it impacts them and me greatly and unfairly. These kinds of restructuring and increases also DO NOT distribute costs equitably between customer classes. Even a duplex drops into the multifamily category and lower rate structure (similar to what my single family home currently is) while many duplexes are as large or larger than my single family home and have more inhabitants.

In conclusion, this proposed new rate structure for wastewater is unfair to those who conserve, raises revenue solely on their backs, incentivizes waste, and should NOT be adopted.

Submit a protest letter to the city by January 16th, or rates will be raised for anyone using less than 9ccf/month.

Donna Lemongello