Commentary by Heather Caswell with Jonathan Greenberg
Our decision to threaten the City of Davis with a class action lawsuit on behalf of members of the Downtown Davis Business Association (DDBA) was not made easily, or quickly. For years, an organization that was created to support the interests of hundreds of dues-paying businesses has instead been co-opted to support controversial political positions promoted by the Davis City Council, as detailed below.
As stated in the California Supreme Court’s landmark 1976 Stanson v. Mott decision, a “fundamental precept of this nation’s democratic electoral process is that the government may not ‘take sides’ in election contests or bestow an unfair advantage on one of several competing factions.”
This means that it would be illegal if the Davis City Council, even indirectly, allowed a special tax dedicated to promoting the interest of downtown businesses be used to promote political speech benefiting city council positions on public initiatives.
We believe that this is what the DDBA has done, through an unaccountable board of directors, which holds its power through irregular and potentially illegal elections
The DDBA has done this through an un-accountable board of directors, which holds its power through irregular and potentially illegal elections. Fewer than 10% of the organization's members voted in the January 23 election that I ran in. Three quarters of the dozens of DDBA businesses that I spoke to never received email notifications of the election. Not a single one was notified by the organization that they could run for its board. And at a time when all DDBA Board meetings are held over zoom, members, for no good reason, were required to vote in person within a one hour period, instead of online, at their convenience.
When Ezra Beeman and I ran to help create a more responsive board, the existing board members and the DDBA Executive Director colluded to change the election rules at the last minute, while they selectively recruited other former board members to show up to run or vote against us. Without any mention during the board meetings prior to the election, they added four seats to the seven member board two days before the election (the DDBA website today still states that they are a seven member board). They then delayed the printing of ballots for three days to print them just hours before the election, so that the names of their friendly candidates could be included.
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