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  • Young Democratic Socialists Hold Launch Party for “College for All” Campaign in Davis

    Screen Shot 2019-02-25 at 1.28.17 PM“Public college and universities tuition free? Damn right.” Bernie Sanders , most popular politician in the U.S. [1]

    WHAT:

    State funding for higher education has declined by 65% in the last four decades, part of a broader gutting of the U.S. public education system. In response, tuition and fees have more than quadrupled in California since 2000 [2]. At UC Davis, 49% of students take out loans during their time in school. These students graduate with an average debt of $19,124 [3].

    The YDSA at UC Davis is launching Davis’ College For All campaign on Saturday March 2nd , 2019. The YDSA’s nationwide College for All campaign demands tuition-free public higher education through direct federal and state funding to fully cover living wages of all campus workers, student debt cancellation, ending all forms of government subsidies to for-profit institutions, and democratic representation for students, faculty and staff in all higher education budgeting decisions. Davis’ local YDSA chapter will be working to build a broad coalition with student organizations on campus, as well as working with campus workers in their joint fight against austerity.

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  • Why we need a Green New Deal and Why Garamendi and Feinstein should cosponsor it

    Paradise-on-fire

    Paradise on fire

    I just dug up my lecture notes from a class on “Science, Technology, and Values” from Spring 1998, my first year of teaching, more than 20 years ago.  At that time, the Sierra Club warned that global warming would lead to heat waves, disease, vanishing habitat, and extreme weather.  They urged:

    1. The Clinton administration should be negotiating a strong, enforceable and legally binding global warming treaty that protects our children's future by cutting global warming pollution 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2005.
    2. The president should raise miles-per-gallon (CAFE) standards to from 27.5 mpg to 45 mpg for cars and from 20.7 mpg to 34 mpg for light trucks, as the majority of the commission he appointed recommended.
    3. Increase research and investment into clean car technology like hydrogen fuel cells and improved batteries.
    4. Cut subsidies for oil and coal development. Increase funding for clean, renewable energy like wind and solar power.
    5. Raise energy efficiency standards for home appliances and electronics. Create incentives for homeowners and businesses to become more efficient.
    6. Require that any energy industry restructuring encourage energy efficiency and the use of clean, renewable technology, and that dirty, coal-fired power plants switch to cleaner natural gas.

    Of the above recommendations, either they have not been done or they were done insufficiently. 

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  • DavisGIG survey concerning publicly-owned Fiber Optic Internet Infrastructure

    Fiber-optics-internet(From press release) DavisGIG is a community group that is advocating for municipal ownership of Fiber Optic Internet Infrastructure for Davis.

    This would mean our community would invest in the construction of publicly-owned "tubes" to the Internet. Fiber Optic is the single best, most reliable Internet carrier cable. IT is the backbone of the Internet and is a necessary ingredient for forthcoming 5G Cell services. It lasts decades, and the lasers used to send Internet packets down the thin glass tubes are easy and cheap to upgrade and continuously improved. The City would lease access to this fiber to multiple ISPs, entrepreneurs, cell phone companies, or other. This would give our municipality a new long term revenue source and asset. More importantly making this one time infrastructure investment gives connectivity for our schools, city buildings, for a one time NON MONTHLY RECURRING COST. More important than this, you can REDIRECT your monthly broadband payment, away from huge companies, back to the City in the form of lease fees ISPs will pay the community for the use of its fiber.

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  • Davis PD has refused to release report on Picnic Day policing incident

    Badge_decal_design_400x400Statement to the Davis City Council on behalf of Davis People Power

    By Nora Oldwin

    Speaking on behalf of People Power in support of the request to the Davis Police Department to reconsider its refusal to release material pursuant to a PRA in connection with  SB 1421:

    On January 1, when SB 1421 became law, we filed a request seeking, among others, the MacGregor Report, which I’ll refer to as the OHS report. Up until January of this year, Police personnel records of misconduct were kept hidden from the public. But Senate Bill 1421 changes that. To respond to issues of lack of community trust in its institutions, this law provides for the mandatory release, upon request, of records related to a sustained finding (after an internal investigation) of misconduct in 3 areas:  dishonesty, sexual assault, or use of force. 1421 took effect January 1 of this year.

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  • Laundered Campaign Contributions Appear to Have Been Made to the Yes on Measure L Campaign by West Davis Active Adult Community

    Money-launderingby Alan Pryor, Treasurer and Principal Officer of No on Measure L

    INTRODUCTION

    In previous articles pertaining to the financial disclosures of the Yes on Measure L/West Davis Active Adult Community campaign on the November 2018 ballot in Davis, I provided evidence showing:

    1. About $70,000 of campaign expenditures that were made by the Yes on Measure L campaign for attorney’s fees were probably illegal under FPPC campaign finance regulations as set forth in the FPPC Disclosure Manuals that provide guidance and requirements for such campaign expenditures.
    2. The Davis Vanguard ran daily ads from the inception of the campaign until voting day and for a substantial period beforehand. The payment for these ads is not disclosed on any financial statements filed by the Yes on Measure L campaign which may be a violation of FPPC regulations.
    3. A disclosed financial filing expenditure of $3,000 was made to "Froggy's" for food service for a Vanguard fundraising event. This is probably not an allowable campaign expense for the Yes on Measure L campaign under FPPC guidelines.
    4. Over $64,000 of non-monetary contributions to the Yes on Measure L campaign for “salaries” have been disclosed in campaign filings but the recipients of these salaries have been kept secret. Further, it is not known if these payments were for personal gain, which is prohibited by FPPC regulations, or may be otherwise disallowed under FPPC guidelines.

    This information is more fully disclosed in the BACKGROUND section attached to the end of this article and referenced in previous articles I have written as disclosed therein.

    In this article I report how the primary financial contributor to the Yes on Measure L campaign is the West Davis Active Adult Community entity itself, totaling $164,500. In 2017, West Davis Active Adult Community was formed as a Fictitious Business Name business under the charter of Doug Arnold Real Estate Inc. Doug Arnold Real Estate Inc was a California Domestic Stock Corporation whose Agent for Service of Process was David Taormino. However, Doug Arnold Real Estate Inc was dissolved in 2018, thus apparently rendering West Davis Active Adult Community as an orphan company without legal status in California.

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  • Requesting investigation into WDAAC and Yes on L allegations

    Justice2The following was emailed to CityCouncilMembers@cityofdavis.org this morning

    Dear Members of the Davis City Council,

    I am writing to request formally that the Davis City Council send a letter to the Yolo County District Attorney and California Fair Political Practices Committee (FPPC) requesting investigations into the allegations against the West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC) and the Yes on L campaign, as described in the following article by Alan Pryor:

    https://newdavisite.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/yes-on-measure-l-campaign-violates-fppc-disclosure-laws-by-failing-to-report-davis-vanguard-ad-expen/

    (Or please click here if that link wraps).

    Specifically, the article alleges:

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  • Yes on Measure L Campaign Violates FPPC Disclosure Laws by Failing to Report Davis Vanguard Ad Expenditures and Providing Inadequate Disclosure of other “Non-Monetary” Contributions and Expenditures

    PileofmoneyBy Alan Pryor, Treasurer and Principal Officer of the No on Measure L campaign.

    In an article I authored and published on February 12th in both the Davisite and Davis Vanguard, I vehemently disagreed with and disputed allegations that the No on Measure L campaign committed expenditure or finance reporting violations (see Background below). I noted, to the contrary, that California election law specifically disallows campaign monies to be used for these type of litigation expenses.

    Further, I also disclosed that about $70,000 of campaign expenditures which were made by the Yes on Measure L campaign for attorney fees were illegal under FPPC campaign finance regulations as written in the FPPC Disclosure Manuals that provide guidance and requirements for such campaign expenditures.

    In the course of investigating such expenditures and in recent commentary on-line by different observers, it was noticed that there were other areas of campaign expenditures that are inconsistent with financial disclosure standards of the FPPC. In particular, the Davis Vanguard ran daily ads since the inception of the campaign until voting day and for a substantial period beforehand. The payment for these ads is not disclosed on any financial statements filed by the Yes on Measure L campaign which is a violation of FPPC regulations

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  • The Yes on Measure L Campaign has “Unclean Hands” when Alleging Improper Financial Disclosures by the No on Measure L Campaign

    Dirtyhandby Alan Pryor, Treasurer and Principal Officer of the No on Measure L campaign.

    INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

    The “unclean hands” legal doctrine is where one party in a legal dispute argues the other party is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy because the other party is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with respect to the subject of the complaint—that is, with "unclean hands”.

    David Taormino is the principal promoter of the West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC) which was recently approved by the voters of Davis on the November 2018 ballot as Measure L. During the course of this campaign, a federal lawsuit was filed by the well-known Sacramento civil rights attorney, Mark Merin, against David Taormino and the City of Davis. This lawsuit alleged that a preferential “Davis-Based Buyers Program” in the Development Agreement signed between the Davis City Council and David Taormino was discriminatory and exclusionary in nature. Thus, it was illegal because it favored Davis residents or people connected to Davis who are predominantly white. However, this Development Agreement was NOT part of the ballot measure put before the Davis voters and the lawsuit was unrelated to the issues before the voters on the ballot.

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  • An Open Primary

    2019-02-01 15_45_10-Dillan Horton Assembly District 4 Delegate - Home
    By Dillan Horton

    With Sen. Booker’s campaign announcement today, I wanted to take this opportunity talk about the upcoming Presidential Primary. In the past few weeks I’ve talked to a lot of democrats that are concerned that we have to many candidates and that this intense competition will be bad for the party and our chances in 2020. What I’ve said is, having more candidates is good for the Democratic Party and producing the best candidate.

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  • Authoritarianism is the opposite of grassroots democracy

    800px-Marcha_Anti_Peña_10_de_Junio _2012_(7174081165)

    Photo by Eneas De Troya – WikiMedia Commons

    By Josh Jones

    The Green Party cannot, and will never, be authoritarian. Two of our most basic principles are grassroots democracy and decentralization. But our nation has experienced the creeping infection of authoritarianism, currently with the prime examples of Trump and Putin. Fear, guilt, and panic cannot be our guideposts.

    Authoritarianism is the opposite of grassroots democracy; authoritarianism is the opposite of the left. Authoritarians use fear, guilt, distrust, and hopelessness to move their followers. In the past, theocracies have also manipulated these emotions in people for social control.

    The root aspect of any well supported, long lasting society – of any vibrant and thriving society – is democracy, trust, patience, diligence, intelligence, productivity, and strength in numbers. This is what the left is truly about. This is what social-ism can achieve. We grow in number when we trust each other and work together. Authoritarianism seeks to halt all of that; to rule by fear with an iron fist over fools.

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