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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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  • UC Davis study shows grain-free and other “boutique” diets associated with heart disease in dogs

    Petco-displayOne of the benefits of living in Davis is having a world-class veterinary research center right down the road, one that produces research like the work highlighted in the article “Dogs Fed Some Popular Diets Could Be at Risk of Heart Disease.”  Yet the more that I learn about this research, the more I realize how resistant people are to the message.

    The rough idea is this: researchers have found a relatively recent increase in the number of dogs diagnosed with Taurine-Deficient Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM).  DCM is a disease of the heart muscle that leads to reduced heart pumping function and increased heart size, and it can result in severe consequences such as congestive heart failure or sudden cardiac death.  Researchers are still trying to isolate the exact cause, but it has been associated with grain-free diets, raw diets, and foods that contain exotic ingredients like peas and lentils.  It is not yet known why these foods would lead to low taurine and DCM, but adding taurine (an amino acid) to the dog’s diet does not seem to help.  (More details here).

    So, the cautious approach would seem to be to avoid feeding dogs these boutique and grain-free foods until researchers figure things out further.  What should dogs eat, then?  A Facebook group which is facilitating the gathering of data and exchange of information among researchers is currently recommending Purina Pro Plan, Hills Science Diet, Royal Canin, Eukanuba, and Iams.

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  • Davis Chefs Battle to Create the Best Planet-Friendly, Plant-Based Burger, March 1-31

    Graphic logo and participanThere’s no easier way to do something good for the planet (and your health) than to sit down and bite into a juicy, flavor-packed plant-based burger with friends or family. And thanks to COOL Cuisine, a partner of Cool Davis, seventeen eateries in Davis will be offering plant-based burgers or sandwiches on their menus throughout March as part of a fun contest involving all diners as judges.

    Beef is a very resource-intensive product. The Burger Battle will offer a wide range of alternatives that are taste sensations, filling, and that diners can feel good about ordering. A beef burger can use more than twice the acreage and emit 10 times the greenhouse gasses than a meal made from plants. To produce one beef burger is takes the same amount of water as 33 showers or washing your car 15 times. In the last year many Silicon Valley companies rolled out patties that mimic the mouth-feel, juiciness, look, and flavor of a beef burger. All competing burgers, whether made from scratch or using commercial patties, and side dishes offered will contain no animal products.

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  • College classes taught by TAs? Enterprise columnist misses the mark

    TasTeaching
    I normally find that Jennifer Borenstein offers excellent college advice in her “College Corner” column in the Davis Enterprise. Unfortunately, however, her most recent column is misleading, both in its use of terms and in the elephant in the room that it leaves out.

    First, do TAs teach college classes?  Occasionally, but not in the way that  Borenstein means.

    To be (perhaps excessively) clear, a graduate student is a person who is pursuing a degree beyond the undergraduate (BA, BS) level.  Once someone is a graduate student, they might be a teaching assistant, or TA. Or, they might be assigned to be a primary instructor for a class (sometimes with graduate student TAs!).  Or, they might not teach at all.  Thus, in the usual case, it doesn’t make sense to say that a TA is teaching a class.  If a graduate student is hired as a primary instructor for a class, they are not a TA.  They are the primary instructor.

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  • Celebration of Abraham: From Me to We

    Celebration-of-abraham(From press release) Last year the Celebration of Abraham focused on making space for otherness as a first step in valuing different traditions and recognizing that something unfamiliar doesn't have to bring fear. The theme for this year builds on last year's exploration of diversity by acknowledging that to make community in a world comprising many religious traditions, we must begin to understand ourselves as part of something larger than ourselves – we must move from me to we—the theme for this year's Celebration.

    The 16th Annual Celebration of Abraham, "From Me to We", will be held on Sunday January 27th from 3 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall at St. James Catholic Church of Davis (1275 B Street).

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