The Davis Enterprise yesterday came out in favor of Measure Q. This is not a really surprising development, and as I pointed out on Saturday, we can certainly make a case for it. However, the Davis Enterprise’s argument in its favor is completely inaccurate and misses the mark.
We can certainly make an argument that the city budget has been encumbered by the combination of increasing employee compensation at an unsustainable rate while at the same time accruing long-term liabilities that have been unfunded and unchecked. At the same time the city is removing $3 million from the city’s limited revenue stream, which is a move that is not going to put it on better footing.
It was an interesting contrast Sunday as the Davis Enterprise endorsed Measure R, something that it did not do ten years ago with the original Measure J. In the meantime, Joseph Whitcombe in his op-ed re-hashed the same tired arguments that the Covell Village developers used back in 2005, that were thoroughly discredited.
The fact that there is no real “no on Measure R” campaign other than the occasional missive launched by the younger Mr. Whitcombe, whether it be the occasional op-ed, ballot statement, or ill-fated court challenge, tells us really all we need to know about Measure R, which is that it is going to pass overwhelmingly and the naysayers of ten years ago have by-and-large faded into the background.
Measure R protects your right to vote on new peripheral subdivisions by renewing Measure J, “The Citizens’ Right to Vote on Future Use of Open Space and Agricultural Lands.” By renewing Measure J, Davis residents will continue to have a meaningful say on when, how much and where we grow.
History
Measure J was a long time in the making. In the late 1980’s Davis voters passed Measure “ L” advising the City “to grow as slow as legally possible” and advised planners that “future growth should be concentrated on lands already incorporated into the city, with future annexations to be discouraged.”
Two weeks ago we learned that John Munn and Ernie Head are pushing a petition drive to put district elections on the ballot. This has been an issue that has been pondered but never really discussed at any great length either on these pages or in the community at large.
I think most people in Davis should have learned by now that unless the community has a debate and buy-in to an issue, there is a not a great chance of it passing. A great case in point is the move to make Davis Charter City without really the kind of community discussion that needed to be generated. That effort had come out of the choice voting effort. The public had voted in an advisory capacity in 2006 to consider choice voting, but there was no true discussion of it, no real debate, no opposition.
In the third of our interviews with the Davis City Council candidates, we spoke with Rochelle Swanson. On Monday we ran our interview with Joe Krovoza. On Friday we ran our interview with Jon Li. The goal with these interviews was to take previous statements and positions that the candidates had taken and explore them more deeply or to clarify issues that have been presented both in campaign material as well as the candidate’s forums.
Vanguard: What would you describe as your general philosophy on land use, development and the ag-urban boundary? And when should we develop on Davis’ periphery?
In 2004, the voters of Davis passed a half-cent sales tax that was supposed to preserve city services from cuts. Instead what we saw is that the $3 million for sales tax went almost directly to a 36% pay increase for firefighters. It did not “preserve” city services from cuts, rather it increased the cost of city services to the taxpayer.
Fueled by the increased revenue from sales taxes and booming property tax revenues, the city went on a spending spree that it will likely pay for for the rest of our lives, obligating tens of millions to people well after they have ceased to work for the city of Davis.
Last week we reported that city staff was bringing Verona, a project on the corner of Fifth and Alhambra that was approved in July of 2008 back to amend the development agreement. To date, like most other project that have been approved by council in the last two years, there has been no building permits pulled nor construction that has begun.
On May 12, there was an emergency hearing of the Planning Commission where suddenly the Verona project was brought back with major changes. Because of the nature of the Planning Commission meeting, there were two members absent, in addition, there were already two vacancies, which means that the final vote to move this to council occurred with just four commissioners by a 3-1 vote.
It has been a long week and thus instead of completing all of the candidates interviews this week, we have only gotten to two interviews. On Monday we ran Joe Krovoza’s interview. Today we will run Jon Li’s interview.
Vanguard: You have been a harsh critic of the city throughout your campaign, can you explain what’s wrong with the way the city operates from your perspective?
Rochelle Swanson Surges into Second Place in Money Race
Thursday marked the disclosure deadline in the Davis City Council race along with Measures Q and R. We have learned several interesting things yesterday. In the council race, Joe Krovoza remains the run away leader in contributions, but Rochelle Swanson who got a late start has now surged to second place, while Sydney Vergis lags the field.
In the meantime, we can now put tangible numbers on the Independent Expenditure (IE) campaign by Marty West and Ruth Asmundson which has garnered a good deal of probably unwanted attention this week. As regular readers know the Vanguard has filed two complaints against that IE alleging that they had not disclosed their spending in a timely manner subject to Davis City Municipal Code section 12.01.055(c).
Just when you thought you have read your last candidates’ forum, the UC Davis student government, ASUCD, held its own candidates forum on campus Wednesday evening focusing largely on student issues. While the focus was clearly student oriented, a lot of the issues bleed nicely into broader community concerns on issues such as Picnic Day, Noise, West Village and many others.
The election is now just under two weeks away, but this was another opportunity for the students and also the public to hear where the candidates stand and make their final decision. The format was a bit different from other formats, one candidate would be asked a question and get two minutes to respond and some of the other candidates could jump in and respond for one minute.
As the Vanguard reported on Sunday and again on Tuesday, Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Retired UC Davis Law Professor Marty West filed a form 410 and created an Independent Expenditure Committee entitled, “Committee to Support Sydney Vergis for City Council 2010.” We have argued that the group is in violation of the “behest of” clause in FPPC regulations that prohibits independent expenditure committees that are “made under the control or at the direction of, in cooperation, consultation, coordination, or concert with, at the request or suggestion of, or with the express, prior consent of.”
On Tuesday, the Vanguard learned that contrary to the information provided by City Clerk Zoe Mirabile, that the city is the appropriate venue to file a complaint against a violation of City Municipal Code section 12.01.055(c) which stipulates in the event that an independent expenditure committee spends more than $250 that they are required to notify “the city clerk and all candidates running for the same seat within twenty-four hours by facsimile transmission, overnight delivery, or personal delivery each time this two hundred fifty dollar threshold is met. This notice shall include a copy of any mailing or advertisement produced, if applicable.” As such, the complaint will be filed this morning.
The Davis City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to impose the City’s last, best and final offer to the city’s largest bargaining unit, the Davis City Employee’s Association (DCEA). Dozens of the members of DCEA showed up at the council meeting last night, there were accusations leveled toward the city about unfair labor practices, accusations leveled that the city was bent on imposing this.
From the city’s perspective, DCEA was simply unwilling to go to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith. And while other bargaining groups accepted concessions, most of which the Vanguard has argued fell well short of what was needed to have occurred, our understanding of DCEA is that their last, best, and final offer to the city fell well short of even those.
On Sunday the Vanguard reported that we would be filing an FPPC complaint against an independent expenditure committee created by Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Retired UC Davis Law Professor Marty West, “Committee to Support Sydney Vergis for City Council 2010,” for violating the “behest of” clause in FPPC regulations that prohibits independent expenditure committs that are “made under the control or at the direction of, in cooperation, consultation, coordination, or concert with, at the request or suggestion of, or with the express, prior consent of.”
We wrote on Sunday, the idea that the Mayor would involve herself without the prior consent of her daughter does not pass the smell test. The Vanguard believes that the Mayor would not have involved herself without discussing this first with her daughter and/ or other members of the campaign. The relationship between the Mayor and her daughter, a key player in the Vergis campaign, presents an inherent conflict when attempting to maintain the appearance (as well as fact) that this is an effort completely independent of the official campaign organization as the independent expenditure law requires.
The Vanguard learned late last night following a closed session meeting, that James Hammond will take the position of Superintendent in the Ontario-Montclair School District in Southern California as rumored on Saturday.
In the end James Hammond loved the Davis Join Unified School District, the personnel and the community. Unfortunately the strain of his family living away from him was too much for him to bear and therefore working closer to where his family is living was the obvious move for him personally, even if it was a hard decision professionally.
As we head down to the final stretch in the 2010 Davis City Council campaign, the Vanguard will this week publish our interviews of candidates. The Vanguard took previous statements and positions that the candidates have taken to explore more deeply or to clarify on issues that have been presented both in campaign material as well as the candidate’s forums. We begin today with Joe Krovoza.
Vanguard: What would you describe as your general philosophy on land use, development and the ag-urban boundary?
The Vanguard learned on Friday that former School Board Member Marty West and Mayor Ruth Asmundson have filed the FPPC Form 410 to create an independent expenditure committee to Support Sydney Vergis for City Council. The Committee’s title is, “Committee to Support Sydney Vergis for City Council 2010.” On Monday, the Vanguard will file a complaint alleging that Mayor Ruth Asmundson’s relationship with Sydney Vergis campaign treasurer and adviser Alinia Asmundson leads to the inevitable conclusion that there was prior communication and approval by a key adviser to the Vergis campaign.
According to the FPPC Manual, “An “independent expenditure” is a payment for a communication that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified California state or local candidate or the qualification, passage, or defeat of a clearly identified state or local ballot measure, and the communication is not coordinated with or “made at the behest” of the affected candidate or committee.”
The Vanguard has learned that DJUSD Superintendent James Hammond has been offered the position of Superintendent in the Ontario-Montclair School District in Souther California. At this time it is not known whether he will at accept that position. On Monday evening, the Board will have a special meeting to discuss this matter further and the Vanguard has learned that they will at least attempt to convince him to stay at that point.
Dr. Hammond was hired in the fall of 2007, and has presided over nearly three years of continual budget battles. And while the district was fighting hard to stay afloat, they also managed at the same time, thanks to the leadership of James Hammond and CBO Bruce Colby to put the district on much better fiscal footing than when they entered.
It began as a very simply comment that Matt Rexroad has likely done thousands of times, he updated his Facebook status as he would sometimes update his blog, rexroad.com, with a comment about the political world. And for those that believe that Matt Rexroad is nothing more than a cut and dried Conservative Republican, the Matt Rexroad I have gotten to know over the last four years has a considerable amount of gray.
So when I saw his Facebook status, as he is indeed a “Facebook friend,” I laughed and thought nothing of it, it was Matt Rexroad being Matt Rexroad. He wrote, “Matt Rexroad understands that it works with Republican voters… but if Sarah Palin endorsed me I would be too embarrassed to tell anyone.”
Yesterday I was interviewing Jon Li, candidate for the Davis City Council for an interview that will be published along with interviews with the other candidates starting on Monday. He made an interesting point to me that this council was elected three months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The world of the 2008 City Council campaign saw a major focus on growth and Stephen Souza and Don Saylor argued that we needed to meet our internally generated housing needs, they spoke about a low vacancy rate, they spoke about students commuting in and out of Davis, a lack of range of housing within the city, and of course the lack approved projects and lack of building permits.
Given the state of California’s economy and cutbacks to education, perhaps it is not surprising that several different groups are threatening to sue. On Thursday a lawsuit was filed in Alameda County by the California School Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators, and the California State PTA.
The suit calls for the courts to get rid of the current financing system and to direct the governor and Legislature to create one that is sound, stable and sufficient. They argued it prevents six million students from receiving the education that they are entitled to under the state’s constitution.