Despite objections from the neighbors, the Davis City Council allowed for third story lofts among other issues that they took up on Tuesday night regarding the Willowbank development proposed along the Putah Creek channel.
There are a number of procedural issues that arose during the lengthy discussion that I will discuss in the commentary portion of this article.
However, we also take issue with the notion that news covered by traditional media outlets, such as newspapers necessarily represent fair, unbiased, and accurate assessments of what has actually happened. While we believe that individual reporters endeavor for journalistic standards of fairness and balance, the decisions made by editors introduce bias in terms of what gets covered and what does not get covered. But just as important, newspapers given their lack of staffing and resources will often rely on third-party press releases and news accounts from government agencies to be printed, almost verbatim.
City Attorney Harriet Steiner last night at the Davis City Council Meeting announced that the Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of California had ruled in summary judgment to dismiss involuntary bankruptcy proceedings against the alleged debtor, Davis Area Cooperative Housing Association, Inc. Ms. Steiner also reported that the petitioning party, Neighborhood Partners and Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation may also be sanctioned for attorney’s fees and court costs.
Summary judgment is appropriate in cases where there is “no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” In this case, the key question was whether DACHA was a “moneyed, business, or commercial cooperation,” that may be an involuntary debtor under section 303(a).
As we have been discussing, the Davis City Council will now weigh in on June 29 as to whether to amendment the Development Agreement approved in July of 2008 by the Davis City Council in conjunction with the Verona Subdivision, an 83 unit single family subdivision to developed on a vacant 8.55 acre parcel located at the southwest corner of Fifth Street and Alhambra.
As we have reported, of issue in this revision to the Development Agreement is the elimination of the middle income affordable requirement of 17 units per the city’s amendment policy that suspends that ordinance, the reduction of Supplemental Fees from $12,000 to $5,000 per unit, the elimination of the Parkland Dedication, the imposition of a park in-lieu fee and change in the timing of the water/ sewer connection fee.
Según un comunicado del DA, el jurado encontró a Vasquez culpable del robo con el uso intencional de un arma de fuego, la descarga de un arma de fuego que causó gran daño físico, asalto con un arma de fuego que causó gran daño físico y del intento de disuadir un testigo. El jurado también declaró que se cometieron los crímenes en beneficio de una pandilla criminal callejera.
On June 4, 2010, Yolo County Superior Court Judge Tim Fall sentenced 22 year old Anthony Vasquez to 38 years and 8 months to life in state prison after a Yolo County jury convicted him of robbery and attempting to dissuade a witness.
According to a release from the DA, the jury found Vasquez guilty of robbery with intentional use and discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury, assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury and attempting to dissuade a witness. The jury also found that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang.
On April 27, we ran an article entitled, “Slow Council Campaign About to Heat Up.” Up until that point, the council election had draw a handful of stories from the Vanguard and not much attention. From April 27 until today, about a month and a half period of time, the Vanguard has published 43 articles, commentaries, and other stories about the Davis City Council election.
We extensively covered every single candidate’s forum. We have had extensive analysis of the election after the fact. That does not even include numerous analyses that we did about issues that were vital to the campaign. I do not want to harp on this point for too long, but the Davis Enterprise continues to disappoint with regards to covering local issues.
It definitely caught my eye when Bob Dunning wrote on Friday, that it was time to pity the town’s “regressives.” In some ways, I suppose one could in fact suggest that this might mark the end of progressive era in Davis. But I would argue if that were the case, then the progressives have won.
Writes Bob Dunning: “STUCK IN LEFT FIELD – it’s really time to pity the town’s regressives – first they were unable to find anyone to oppose a completely vulnerable Don Saylor for county supervisor, then in the council race they finally decided to throw their ‘weight’ behind a McCain supporter who had no problem taking campaign donations from – you’d better sit down – developers – generally, taking money from a developer will earn eternal damnation from these folks, but not this time – turns out their new enemy is not developers, but firefighters – another sure sign The End is near – “
It is in the 90s and June, therefore it must be a good time to discuss the consequences of wood burning smoke. As those who read the Vanguard a week ago already know, eastern portions of Davis had a number of complaints (see Part One of Alan Pryor’s articles and Part Two). On Tuesday we will hear the views of city staff and the council.
The city of Davis has been hearing this issue now going on two years. We know that wood smoke, a contributing source of Particulate Matter 2.5 is harmful to the health of people above certain concentrations. The Natural Resources Commission has examined the issue and believes that Federal standards are not protective enough due to the regional nature of the standard and measurements that do not capture the micro or neighborhood effect of wood smoke exposure.
One thing that he mentioned in his speech was how they did it, and the biggest surprise of all is that despite finishing first, despite spending the most money in the campaign, he did not send out a single mailer. Instead they ran a very grassroots oriented campaign, organizing around neighborhoods and having neighbors talk to neighbors.
By overwhelmingly renewing Measure J last Tuesday, Davis citizens have ensured that for another 10 years they will continue to have the final say on when, how much and where the city grows. As one of several important planning innovations pioneered by Davis residents, a renewed Measure J will continue to reinforce the city’s on-going efforts to achieve a more thoughtful and sustainable ag-urban partnership.
Ten years ago, when the four of us first came together to pass Measure J, we were able to forge a broad citywide collation in the face of significant developer opposition. While the opposition was more muted this time, our coalition was even more broadly and deeply rooted.
Yolo Progressive Democrats of America will sponsor a demonstration to boycott Arco/ampm on Thursday, June 24 between 4:30 PM and 6 PM at the Arco/ampm station at Russell and Anderson. Arco and ampm are retail brands of BP.
While we await action on the disaster in the Gulf, we can play our part. We can stop rewarding BP. It is our purchases at Arco Stations that give BP its profits and power.
For the third time, the Verona revisions will be on the agenda and yet again only to push it off until June 29, 2010. That will be the second to last meeting of the lame duck council between Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Councilmember Lamar Heystek are replaced by newly elected Joe Krovoza and Rochelle Swanson.
But as we see there is a good amount of last second dealing going on. From my perspective the biggest question before council on the Verona project is whether to give back to the developer more than half a million dollars in impact fees. It is greatly ironic that Verona has been pushed back so many times.
A lot of people I think took for granted that given the amount of money that PG&E spent on Proposition 16, to essentially put public power out of business, that it would prevail. In fact, PG&E was not alone. Mercury Insurance also spent about $16 million to pass Proposition 17. PG&E spent $44 million.
Given the fact that PG&E’s deceptive ads were on TV every day, every hour, heck every minute, I will fully admit I had no faith that the average person would be able to see through the rhetoric. And yet somehow just enough people did.
Don Saylor as expected is now County Supervisor Elect Don Saylor, in a few weeks on July 13 he will be sworn in as the new Mayor of Davis while in a few months he will resign to become County Supervisor, representing the second district in Yolo County which serves much of Central and most of West Davis.
In the coming weeks and months, it figures to be a hot-buttoned issue just how Don Saylor handles that transition. He has taken increasing criticism for his decision to wait until January to resign which would force the council to either appoint a replacement or cost a good deal of money to have an election.
We have reported for several weeks about Davis’ deteriorating road conditions. The bad news is that the current road condition is only in the Good to Fair range, rating at a 71. The bad news is that with funding levels as currently projected, our roads will continue to decline.
However to this point, we have only reported on the aggregate view of the city’s streets. We have not had the data to look at it in terms of a few blocks at a time. However, we now possess that data, and not surprisingly it is alarming. We find that right now there are 220 streets in Davis receiving failing grades (out of 1021) in terms of their Pavement Condition Index (PCI). Three are another 150 streets that will probably or possibly fall into the failing mark if they do not get repaired in the near future.
However one defines the “progressive” vote in Davis, it was a group without a natural candidate who could have either stayed home or picked out the best candidate or the least bad candidate. Joe Krovoza early on seemed the natural fit for this group. But in the last month or so, it was prominent progressives like Sue Greenwald, Bill Kopper, Ken Wagstaff, Mike Harrington, among many others that probably swung the election toward Rochelle Swanson and away from Sydney Vergis.
En este artículo que se enfocó principalmente en los particulares de la proposición, ellos afirman, “Creemos en los tribunales de drogas y la posibilidad verdadera de que los tribunales de drogas pueden ayudar a personas que quieren escaparse de sus adicciones y mejorar sus vidas.”
In the fall of 2008, Judge David Rosenberg and Judge Janet Gaard wrote an op-ed that appeared in both the Woodland Daily Democrat and the Davis Enterprise. In it, they were arguing against Proposition 5, which was the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which was supposed to reduce the costs by pushing nonviolent drug offenders away from prison.
In that op-ed that focused mainly on the particulars of the proposition, they argued, “We believe in drug courts and the real possibility that drug courts can help people escape addictions and turn their lives around.”
While both candidates had slightly different focuses on Tuesday night and the timing as a little different, both agreed that this would be a new council and while they see challenges ahead, seemed pleased with the results and up to the challenge.
