The Vanguard reported last week that the city was in the process of revising its contract with Zipcar to eliminate city employee obligations with regards to maintenance of the vehicles, that may have exposed the city to additional liability. The city deserves at least some criticism for being lax on the issue of liability, although the nature of the discussion of Zipcar has frankly bordered on the realm of hysteria, when the amount of the contract and city obligations have always been small.
Last night Davis Enterprise Columnist Bob Dunning attempted to keep the fire going by offering us a peek into what he calls, “the murky world of Zipcar.”
The more that I have looked into the Zipcar issue, the more it is clear that the council and city made initial errors in handling the issue. However, it is clear that much of Mr. Dunning’s discussion is poorly informed and constructed to continue to stoke a fire on an issue that is at best of marginal importance to the average resident. Why he has not put similar efforts into far more serious issues, relating to city obligations to the retirement of public employees, remains an open question worth pursuing at another point in time.
The chief problem is that council approved it without much discussion, which meant that they failed to detect potential problems in the contract. Given that, what should the city do at this point? It makes perfect sense that the city should work to shore up any shortcomings in the contract.
When the Vanguard last reported on this item, we learned in part from City Attorney Harriet Steiner that the city will be taking additional steps to alleviate public misperception of the issue by next month, removing key provisions in the contract that appeared to convey liability to the city for the operation of Zipcars by employees.
According to Ms. Steiner, the city and Zipcar have now agreed to delete Schedule B, paragraph 3 entirely.
She reports, “This amendment to the Zipcar agreement will go to the City Council next month for approval.”
Based on this reporting, Bob Dunning suggested that “the Zipcar contract apparently was being ‘reworked’ behind closed doors.” This implies some sort of backdoor deal, but any change to the contract will have to be approved by the Davis City Council at a public meeting on a fully-agendized item.
This does not stop Mr. Dunning from implying, “As usual, the general public will be the last to know what’s going on when it comes to this contract.”
That sounds insidious, but how could the public not be the last to know what is going on? The actors in this case are the city staff. They have to have talks with the company and see if changes are agreeable, the changes then have to be put into legal form and sent to City Council. Given that chain of events, how could the public be anything but the last to know what is going on?
However, the council will have to publicly approve the changes. I am simply lost here on Mr. Dunning’s point.
Mr. Dunning continues, talking to Councilmember Rochelle Swanson about changes to the contract. She informs Mr. Dunning, “It is my understanding a request has been sent to Zipcar to consider some revisions.”
Writes Mr. Dunning, “But if this contract was so good for the city of Davis and was fully vetted by our city attorney or her associates before we signed on the dotted line, why does the contract need to be revised? At the very least, this is a clear indication we didn’t have our eye on the ball the first time around.”
Here I agree with Mr. Dunning. The city made some mistakes on the original contract that probably could have been avoided with more discussion and scrutiny by the City Council.
He continues, “Rochelle indicated that Zipcar will now be taking its own cars in for maintenance, which should have been demanded by the City of Davis in the original contract. The notion of a city employee doing Zipcar’s dirty work is both ludicrous and offensive on its face.”
Again, there is no dispute that the city should not have put the onus on its employees to deal with maintenance issues.
However, completely vexing is the following comment by Bob Dunning, “When I asked who is doing the negotiating of this new-and-improved contract for the city, Rochelle gave me the name of a valued and competent employee who is not an attorney. Why this employee was selected defies all logic.”
So which employee? If he is not going to name the employee, we cannot possibly evaluate whether this employee is an appropriate one to rework the contract. I mean, is it Mitch Sears? HR Director Melissa Chaney? Bob on the construction crew? If he is going to criticize an employee for handling the contract, we need to know who.
Mr. Dunning continues, “Rochelle assures me that ‘Any amendments will be brought before the council for acceptance,’ but whether they’ll entertain commentary from the public before voting is unclear.”
Mr. Dunning has been around long enough to know that the public has the right to comment on all items on the agenda. On the other hand, an additional point is to understand that this item would have a limited purpose, it would only go to the issue of the change to the contract, not whether or not people like the Zipcar program.
He writes, “Also unclear is how much of this contract is up for reconsideration. After all, if we can revise one section and completely drop another, why don’t we just revisit this thing in its entirety and tell Zipcar we’re not interested in being a partner in the rental car business anymore?”
Actually that is not unclear at all. Only the portion of the contract dealing with this issue could be reconsidered. The city does have the ability yet to opt out of the contract. Since Mr. Dunning covered the opt-out clause, he should know this. He should also know that it is too late to reconsider the item, and that was brought up by Councilmember Sue Greenwald before it was too late, but she did not get enough votes in support of reconsideration. Again, Mr. Dunning should know this.
Largely, the first portion of his column is innuendo that is not well-informed. It would seem strange for a person who has been an observer as long Mr. Dunning has been to be this ignorant of the rules and policies of the council, which leads one to wonder what the point of the first portion of his column really was.
Liability
The issue of liability was a serious issue that the city did need to address in this contract.
As the Vanguard reported last week, City Attorney Steiner told the Vanguard, “The Zipcar Agreement has two different insurance and indemnity provisions.”
“The first,” she said, “is on Schedule C paragraph 3 and it provides that Zip Car will maintain insurance and name the city as a designated insured and additional insured under Zipcar’s insurance policies. This provision applies to the use of Zipcars by customers of Zipcar.”
The second provision, as we suspected, puts the city as the active party due to the fact that city employees are using the vehicle.
“The second provision is Schedule B, paragraph 3 and relates to times when the City staff is transporting a Zipcar for maintenance,” she told the Vanguard.
“Here, the City is the active party (since the City employee is driving the car for the purpose of taking it for service),” she continued.
She concluded, “Under this provision, the city employee is still entitled to the same insurance benefits as any other Zipcar driver, but the City agreed to provide insurance in addition to the general insurance.”
According to Ms. Steiner, the city and Zipcar have now agreed to delelete Schedule B, paragraph 3 entirely.
She reports, “This amendment to the Zipcar agreement will go to the City Council next month for approval.”
Instead she said, “Zipcar has hired its own employee to transport the cars for maintenance so that the city will not have any active role in this contract (other than providing the parking spaces). Zipcar’s obligation to transport its cars for service shall be included in the contract.”
Bob Dunning remains skeptical of the city’s liability.
“However, if you think this solves the liability issue, think again. The dropping of Schedule B, paragraph 3 pertains only to city liability for city employees transporting Zipcars in for maintenance,” he writes.
“Because the city essentially has partnered with Zipcar in this business venture, we could still be named as a defendant in any lawsuit involving a Zipcar accident, especially since we provide free parking spaces to our business partner very near this town’s abundant and active bars,” he continues.
That is perhaps true, we could be named as a defendant, but would we have liability? It seems unlikely that the city would have liability.
But as usual, the Vanguard has looked further into this issue. We found an interesting parallel in a $6.4 million suit filed against the City of Roseville and paratransit operators in an injury case in which a 40-year-old quadriplegic rolled off a platform that had been lifting him into a Roseville paratransit bus two and a half years ago, dropping him six feet onto his head and causing severe brain injury.
According to the Sacramento Bee article on October 13, “Megan MacPherson, a city spokeswoman, said that at the time of the accident, Roseville had specific guidelines in place dictating the inspection of buses by city mechanics and MV Transportation operators. She added that those guidelines remain in place.”
The article continues, “However, MacPherson said the city acknowledges some responsibility for the accident, and described Avery’s accident as a sad event.”
Would Davis suffer similar liability in the case of a Zipcar accident? The difference perhaps is that Roseville had city guidelines for the inspection of buses by city mechanics, and there would not appear to be such a provision in the contract with Zipcar that would make Davis similarly liable.
So, while someone may file a lawsuit naming the city, it is unclear that there would be actual grounds to sue the city.
As the Bee Article indicates, the City of Roseville had a very specific role in this matter.
“The city is responsible for not properly replacing a part six weeks before the accident, work that caused the bolts and pins to loosen, Dreyer said. The jury determined MV Transportation was 83 percent at fault, and the city 17 percent. The damages will be divided accordingly,” the Bee reports.
In other words, this was not a theoretical liability by the city, they failed to replace a part, and thus were held liable for that. The bigger problem was actually the fault of the driver, who “failed to inspect the lift before loading Avery onto it, as the manufacturer recommends be done every time the device is used.”
The Bee reports, “Had he done so, Dreyer said, the bus driver would’ve seen the missing bolts and loose pins that caused the lift and its safety measures to fail. The driver also did not properly secure Avery’s chair on the lift, Dreyer said.”
Can we imagine an instance where the city could be liable if some fluke happened? Perhaps. Would they face full liability? Probably not. The City of Roseville is still having to pay over a million dollars for their role, but they also made a very specific error that is really not covered in Mr. Dunning’s liability discussion. They did not follow the terms of the contract.
The bottom line here is that the city has probably done as much as it can to cover itself in the event of a problem. Is there a possible scenario where the city could face some liability? Probably. Is that likely? Probably not. But for such cases, the city is insured, through the risk management agency YCPARMIA, precisely for the reasons that anything the city does could possibly expose it to liability.
—David M. Greenwald
[quote]Twelve Placer County jurors apparently sympathized, awarding $6.4 million in economic and non-economic damages to Avery last week. The jury found that the city of Roseville and Fairfield-based MV Transportation, which operates the city’s paratransit system under contract, were liable for a faulty lift that caused the fall.[/quote]
David:
I read the Sac Bee article and it states (see quote above) that Roseville was liable, so how does that support your hypothesis against Dunning? Agreed the cases are different for a variety of reasons but the bottom line is that Dunning is right and if anyone else had made that statement you might even agree.
There are a number of scenarios where its possible that the City could be liable (e.g., see my earlier blogs involving maintenance and Sue’s involving drunk driving) and keep in mind many if not most of these types of suits never go to trial and settle out of court–the City of Davis would likely settle even if it was unclear who had liability.
Bottom Line: Zipcar is a bad deal for Davis. The benefits were never established since they were based on studies in large cities and the study’s methodologies did not seem very impressive either. The City is subsidizing a private business with shaky finances–what is there to like about the deal? You are probably right that we can’t get out of the deal but I don’t mind Dunning raising the issue.
You guys should agree on this–you are both on the same side here ! Yes it would be nice if Dunning went after the fiscal issues which are FAR more important, but that doesn’t make him wrong on this. The main takeaway I get from this article is that Rochelle is becoming a smart politician and sucking up to Dunning (after sucking up to you guys–maybe that is part of the irritation as well).
Its OK for you and Bob to agree. I think my earlier reference to Obsessive Dunning Disorder (ODD) still stands. On the other hand you get a lot of blogs going after discussing Dunning’s columns so maybe you are crazy like a fox.
I am not clear how thus/these portions of the contract are negotiable but not others or the whole thing.
Again why don’t we try to extend UCD contract for 1-2downtown cars. How does the UCD contract compare?
David, you are biased when it comes to Dunning. You just aren’t objective. Some of us are readers of you both 🙂
SODA ,
I believe David has a case of Bob Dunning Envy …
I think any nominally informed and objective person would agree that the substance of the ZipCar contract is small potatoes compared to other issues facing the City. I believe the issue continues to get so much attention for the following reasons:
1) Unlike some of the more important (but complicated) issues, (nearly) everyone can see that it is a misuse of City resources and provides an unfair advantage to an out-of-state business.
2) As is the usual case with Bob Dunning, he has continued to riff on this subject for several weeks. It’s what he does. When a better story comes along, he’ll change topics.
3) As is somewhat less usual for the Vanguard, David G has continued to cover the issue for several weeks, although he has covered many other topics during that time.
If the liability problems and giveaways can be negotiated out of the ZipCar contract, the situation will be much better. Better yet would be to go back to no contract and let ZipCar compete like a normal business. But why would ZipCar give back all the candy that the City has thrown at them?
[quote]David G: …we could be named as a defendant, but would we have liability? It seems unlikely that the city would have liability.[/quote]
A large percentage of civil lawsuits are never heard in court due to settlements – often involving defendants making payments despite liability never having been established.
I’m pleased you’ve come around to agree about Zipcar contract problems that many of us, including Dunning, raised before it became “too late (for the City Council) to reconsider the item,” dilly dallying too long to decide to dump this dumb disaster.
[u]Points on which you now seem to agree[/u]: the city assuming unnecessary and unwise liability, failure of the City Attorney and others to do due diligence, “council and city initial errors in handling the issue,” approving the contract “without much discussion,” “being lax on the issue of liability,” and failing “to detect potential problems.”
[u]Points on which you still seem to disagree[/u]: whether you need the name of the “valued and competent employee” to determine whether an attorney should be handling the contract negotiations, whether the city could try renegotiate more contract provisions, whether the city could be named in a successful suit as part of this business partnership, and whether Mr. Dunning goes overboard sometimes and skips many of the more critical facing Davis. Wrong on the first two, unconvincing on the third, right on the fourth.
[quote][u]Dunning[/u]: “…but whether they’ll entertain commentary from the public before voting is unclear.” [u]Greenwald[/u]: “Mr. Dunning has been around long enough to know that the public has the right to comment on all items on the agenda.”[/quote] But, that’s no easy task if the contract revisions are put on the consent calendar.
You can depend on Dunning to persist in writing sarcastic and overblown commentaries just as long as the council, its commissions and city staff persist in doing goofy things. And if he persists, I guess we can depend on you to persist in calling him out on your insignificant disagreements.
[quote]”…the nature of the discussion of Zipcar has frankly bordered in the realm of hysteria…..”[/quote] That’s not a fair charge to continue leveling, David. Come to think of it, [u]you[/u] are the one whose been doctor-diagnosed (by Dr. Wu) as having unmanageable emotional excesses about Dunning’s handling of these issues. Is that the hysteria to which you keep referring?
[u]Dunning[/u]: “Also unclear is how much of this contract is up for reconsideration. After all, if we can revise one section and completely drop another, why don’t we just revisit this thing in its entirety and tell Zipcar we’re not interested in being a partner in the rental car business anymore?” [u]Greenwald:[/u] “Actually that is not unclear at all. Only the portion of the contract dealing with this issue could be reconsidered. The city does have the ability yet to opt out of the contract.” It appears you’ve missed (and conflated) both of his points.
First, how is it clear to you that this is the only provision that’ll show up revised at the council meeting, because you interviewed Ms. Steiner? (Did she tell you whether that the revision still will include the requirement that the city “aggressively promote” Zipcar’s business? If so, too bad. Will Zipcar ignore this or other provisions if we fail to comply?) Anyway, why do you think Harriet knows everything about what’s going on “behind closed doors” if she’s not there?
Second, it’s obvious Dunning is suggesting an attempt to renegotiate the contract itself now, not to opt out.
Given that Zipcar is getting such bad publicity over how this small joint enterprise with Davis is being handled, why not check to see if they’d also like to drop the deal? Or, better yet, what’s wrong with trying to renegotiate so we’d provide downtown parking spots for UCD’s cars, as SODA suggests? That way the City of Davis gets all of the benefits–from green reputation all the way to stopping climate change–with none of the disadvantages–financial, liability and otherwise. Talk about your win-win!
And, finally, don’t call me “hysterical” again or I might just do something!
[quote]The modern English word ‘hysteria’ derives from the Greek ‘hystera’ — uterus — which in turn derives from the Sanskrit word for stomach or belly. Inherent in these simple etymological facts is the meaning of the earliest views on the nature and origin of the disease. According to some historians, an Egyptian medical papyrus dating from around 1990 bc — one of the oldest surviving documents known to medical history — records a series of curious behavioural disturbances in adult women. As the ancient Egyptians interpreted it, the cause of these abnormalities was the movement of the uterus, which they believed to be an autonomous, free-floating organism that could move upward from its normal pelvic position. Such a dislocation, they reasoned, applied pressure on the diaphragm and gave rise to bizarre physical and mental symptoms. Egyptian doctors developed an array of medications to entice the errant womb back down into its correct position. Foremost among these measures were the vulvar placement of aromatic substances to draw the womb downward, and swallowing foul-tasting substances to repel the uterus away from the upper parts.[/quote]
[quote]Since the 1970s, hysteria as an independent diagnostic entity has been deleted from the official manuals of medical diagnosis. In Anglo-American psychiatry, much of what was characterized as conversion hysteria in psychodynamic psychiatry is now classified under the more scientific-sounding rubric of somatization disorder. An exception to this rule can be found in French medicine, which continues widely to employ the concept of hysteria in psychological theory and clinical practice.[/quote]
dmg: “The city deserves at least some criticism for being lax on the issue of liability, although the nature of the discussion of Zipcar has frankly bordered on the realm of hysteria, when the amount of the contract and city obligations have always been small.”
I don’t consider the city being on the hook for potentially millions under the original contract (when city staff was expected to take cars in for maintenance) to be a city contract/obligation that is “small”.
dmg: “Why he has not put similar efforts into far more serious issues, relating to city obligations to the retirement of public employees, remains an open question worth pursuing at another point in time.”
Bob Dunning does not purport to be an investigative reporter; or a regular beat reporter; just an opinion columnist who revels in pointing out absurdities. He rightfully found one in Zipcar, and ran with it. He is more of an entertainer than serious journalist, and doesn’t purport to be anything else. I really don’t understand your criticism of Dunning here, since Dunning is free to choose whatever topic he wants to write on. You ought to be flattered that Dunning clearly reads the Vangaurd blog, as some of his wording/arguments come from Vanguard articles or the comments that follow a Vanguard article.
dmg: “When the Vanguard last reported on this item, we learned in part from City Attorney Harriet Steiner that the city will be taking additional steps to alleviate public misperception of the issue by next month, removing key provisions in the contract that appeared to convey liability to the city for the operation of Zipcars by employees.”
“Public misperception”? There was no public misperception that the city made a big fat mistake it had to correct. “Appeared to convey liability to the city”? Why take the provision out if there was no liability? No amount of spin from Harriet Steiner is going to cover the fact the city made a huge boo-boo here, and took steps to correct that collosal mistake. To my mind, the only question is what was the impetus to make the change? Public outrage, the insurance carrier refused to give coverage in regard to what amounted to an adhesion contract, the city realized it goofed big time after the fact and needed to cover its tracks, or a little bit of each?
dmg: “Based on this reporting, Bob Dunning suggested that “the Zipcar contract apparently was being ‘reworked’ behind closed doors.” This implies some sort of backdoor deal, but any change to the contract will have to be approved by the Davis City Council at a public meeting on a fully-agendized item. This does not stop Mr. Dunning from implying, “As usual, the general public will be the last to know what’s going on when it comes to this contract.””
The terms of the contract will be reworked behind the scenes, brought forth to be decided in one meeting with little opportunity for public input. The public will be the last to know what those terms of the renegotiated contract are. I’m really at a loss as to your criticisms of Dunning here, since he is complaining about process or lack thereof, something you yourself have complained about many times.
A much better approach would have been to bring a contract forth for discussion only. Give the public a chance to respond. Then have the contract reworked by staff in light of expressed concerns. But the City Council was expected to vote that night, on a contract that clearly was one-sided, ill advised, and probably never should have been promulgated in the first place.
It is not clear to me if the contract has already been signed by the city and Zipcar, and therefore nonnegotiable unless Zipcar is willing to renegotiate. Or is there still room for the City to maneuver? None of us really knows. In which case Bob Dunning hammering away at this could be a stroke of genius, to get City Council to stop the whole process altogether and perhaps encourage UCD Zipcar to expand instead, a much preferable solution and less costly to the city.
dmg: “Mr. Dunning continues, talking to Councilmember Rochelle Swanson about changes to the contract. She informs Mr. Dunning, “It is my understanding a request has been sent to Zipcar to consider some revisions.””
It is her understanding? The City Council members need to be certain of what process is going on. If the city is going to Zipcar and asking for revisions, it sounds to me like the contract was already foolishly signed by the city (and Zipcar of course). My guess is the city’s insurance carrier refused to give the city insurance coverage for such an adhesion contract, and thus gave the city an out bc of impossibility. In consequence, the city was able to convince Zipcar to renegotiate the maintenance term, and Zipcar agreed rather than having the contract scrapped altogether.
dmg: “However, completely vexing is the following comment by Bob Dunning, “When I asked who is doing the negotiating of this new-and-improved contract for the city, Rochelle gave me the name of a valued and competent employee who is not an attorney. Why this employee was selected defies all logic.” So which employee? If he is not going to name the employee, we cannot possibly evaluate whether this employee is an appropriate one to rework the contract.”
Bottom line, an attorney should be looking at the contract, not a staff employee who is not an attorney. Bob Dunning is pointing out the obvious. No name is necessary. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is exactly how the city got the first bone-headed contract – it was not properly vetted by an attorney experienced in contract law.
dmg: “Mr. Dunning continues, “Rochelle assures me that ‘Any amendments will be brought before the council for acceptance,’ but whether they’ll entertain commentary from the public before voting is unclear.””
If the renegotiated contract is placed on the Consent Calendar, there won’t necessarily be proper opportunity for any meaningful public comment before a decision is made.
dmg: “He writes, “Also unclear is how much of this contract is up for reconsideration. After all, if we can revise one section and completely drop another, why don’t we just revisit this thing in its entirety and tell Zipcar we’re not interested in being a partner in the rental car business anymore?” Actually that is not unclear at all. Only the portion of the contract dealing with this issue could be reconsidered.”
You don’t know that for sure, since all negotiations were done behind closed doors. If there was impossibility, bc the insurance carrier would not provide coverage to the city on the original contract, the whole contract could be scrapped. There is just so much we the public don’t know…
dmg: “”Because the city essentially has partnered with Zipcar in this business venture, we could still be named as a defendant in any lawsuit involving a Zipcar accident, especially since we provide free parking spaces to our business partner very near this town’s abundant and active bars,” he continues. That is perhaps true, we could be named as a defendant, but would we have liability? It seems unlikely that the city would have liability.”
How would you know? You are not an attorney. I could certainly make the case as plaintiff’s attorney of a victim hit by a Zippy drunk driver that the city knowingly provided spaces for Zipcar in front of bars, w full knowledge no live person would prevent the rental of a Zipcar to a drunk customer, allowing for a situation where a drunk person could rent said Zipcar unimpeded with the city’s permission. Even if my claim failed, the city would still have to defend the suit, which is expensive. If the judge allowed the suit against the city to go forward, quite a legal bill could be run up. Will the insurance cover such legal costs? I honestly don’t know. I good contract lawyer who is knowledgeable in this area of the law ought to be looking at this contract very carefully. There may be other scenarios that have not been thought of. Remember, one huge mistake was already made.
dmg: “The bottom line here is that the city has probably done as much as it can to cover itself in the event of a problem. Is there a possible scenario where the city could face some liability? Probably. Is that likely? Probably not.”
You don’t know that…
I’ll bet Ms. Swanson is even more careful in the future about the wording of her communications with Mr. Dunning. His compliments about her being prompt and forthcoming were less convincing after he ridiculed several of her comments. Just reconfirms what we already know about the Above-Pictured Columnist, that he’s a ……………
[quote]The bottom line here is that the city has probably done as much as it can to cover itself in the event of a problem. Is there a possible scenario where the city could face some liability? Probably. Is that likely? Probably not. But for such cases, the city is insured, through the risk management agency YCPARMIA, precisely for the reasons that anything the city does could possibly expose it to liability.—David Greenwald[/quote]If David has figured out how much liability coverage the City has, he hasn’t shared that information with us. He quotes Harriet Steiner saying: [quote]”The first,” she said, “is on Schedule C paragraph 3 and it provides that Zip Car will maintain insurance and name the city as a designated insured and additional insured under Zipcar’s insurance policies. This provision applies to the use of Zipcars by customers of Zipcar.”[/quote]Even after many attempts, I have never received a straight answer from staff regarding how much liability insurance we have through Zipcar. Eventually, all I could get was a scanned copy of the final contract, with no lay persons description of the insurance jargon. I can’t cut and paste “Schedule C”, but I have retyped the key elements here:[quote]Insurance. During the term of this Agreement, Zipcar will maintain the following insurance: (a) Commercial Automobile Liability in the amount of $1,000,000 combined single limit, with Personal Injury Protection and Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage at state minimum limits; (b) Commercial General Liability in the amount of $1,000,000… (c)Commercial Excess in an amount of $1,000,000 each occurrence and annual aggregate… Zipcar will add Cit as a designated insured on Zipcar’s Commercial Automobile Liability policy an as an additional insured on Zipcar’s Commercial General Liability Insurance Policy.[/quote]Does this tell is how much we are insured for through Zipcar? Maybe someone can enlighten me.
In terms of our insurance from YCPARMIA, we seem to be covered up to $40 million for automobile, but there are a lot of disclaimers in the policy description and, again, it would take an expert to understand the scope and limitations of the coverage. I still don’t know if and under what conditions it would cover us if we were included in a lawsuit involving a Zipcar driver, and I suspect that any large claim would substantially raise our insurance rates.
Although I have requested a thorough discussion of the amounts of and conditions of our liability coverage both through Zipcar and through YCPARMIA, we have never received such an analysis.
[quote]”If David has figured out how much liability coverage the City has, he hasn’t shared that information with us.[/quote]” It’s strange how tolerant and accepting David has been about the run-around that anybody with questions gets on this topic, from the first time we heard about Zipcar in Davis until today’s posting.
Of course, Sue, the rest of us might not have gotten as concerned as we now are if you and Rochelle hadn’t taken the time to try to get some answers. So, thank you for asking the right questions early.
On the other hand, some of us still are waiting for an answer from you (and/or David) about whether the option of supporting UCD’s Zipcar program with some down preferred parking spaces ever was considered by city staff or council. Same results, less liability and responsibility for the city.
Now, David’s commentary raises yet another question: Do you agree with him that “…only the portion of the contract dealing with this (liability) issue could be reconsidered….”?
[quote]I’ll bet Ms. Swanson is even more careful in the future about the wording of her communications with Mr. Dunning. [/quote]
When I write to Dunning, I assume everything I say will be taken out of context and published in his column. Therefore, I try to say as little as possible, using short sentences that don’t lend themselves to dismantling.
[quote]Now, David’s commentary raises yet another question: Do you agree with him that “…only the portion of the contract dealing with this (liability) issue could be reconsidered….”?[/quote]
I’d be fine with the City giving up a couple of parking spots to the zip car if and only if they can absolve the City from any liability and if and only if we can have a competent attorney assure us that the City would not be liable.
Unfortunately it appears that our current City attorney is not up to speed on this issue. I’d like to see us find someone else who can devote the appropriate amount of attention and competence to our city’s needs. When the legal expertise of people on this blog far exceeds that of our City attorney we have a problem.
To me the ideal solution would be to dump zip car.
And lets not forget that this was all done on Don Saylor’s watch. How does he escape the criticism that he so justly deserves? Sue, Jo and Ro seem to be trying to do the right thing at least.
Excuse me david, but Dunning exposed corruption, and like Elaine said, a sweetheart giveaway that puts the city on the hook for potentially one million dollars in unfunded liability is no small issue.
I didn’t appreciate the way dunning treated Lamar Heystek, and I always read what he writes with a grain of salt. but Dunning really nailed it here David.
I think what the Zipcar fiasco exposed is your blindspot david. You can report on corruption by the DA all day long, or expose someone like sara palin, but when one of your pet environmental causes is attacked, you close ranks no matter where the evidence leads.
I might say that Sue Greenwald is the same way. She fell for this too and voted in favor of this sweetheart contract, then had buyer’s remorse when the excrement hit the fan.
What happened here, is you and sue got seduced by a clever eco gimmic and then closed ranks and supported it even though it was clearly a sweetheart giveaway to zipcar with no benefit to the city. This represents your and sue’s achilles heel in terms of logic and facts. You
can be seduced by clever environmental pitches and are willing to throw wads of cash anyone’s way just to take a few cars off the road.
Instead of admitting your error and owning up to it, you go after dunning, who made everyone involved look like fools.
I think what is also in play here is you don’t want to have to do some soul searching and admit that there are times when these environmental fads have little to do with the environment and more to do with money, and they can play you and sue for suckers.
Dr. Wu:
Just wanted to respond quickly. My criticism of Dunning here is lack of understanding of certain things he ought to understand.
The liability in Roseville seems very specific based on a very specific obligation that the city had and did not perform. The liability here would seem far more general and therefore I wonder if we have a lot of liability.
[quote]I think my earlier reference to Obsessive Dunning Disorder (ODD) still stands. On the other hand you get a lot of blogs going after discussing Dunning’s columns so maybe you are crazy like a fox. [/quote]
I pretty much go after everyone, someone suggested I envy Dunning, do I also envy the firefighters, the DA’s office, Jeff Reisig, Don Saylor, Bill Emlen, Sarah Palin, etc.? Really.
I’m obsessed with Dunning, I probably write between 14 and 20 stories a week, maybe one references Dunning and in most weeks none. Part of the problem is there is not much going on in the city government, council hasn’t met in two weeks, there weren’t many issues on the last agenda, this issue is still generating interest and Dunning wrote on it. It is what it is. I don’t think I write more on Dunning than a whole host of other topics, but for whatever reason people are sensitive to criticizing him. Not sure why.
[quote]”Just wanted to respond quickly. My criticism of Dunning here is lack of understanding of certain things he ought to understand.”[/quote] I suggested that your criticism in this case is based on misreading what he wrote as well as a few errors on your part, but then compounded by some deep-seated irritation you’ve developed about this dude. Maybe the good doctor and some of the rest of us could meet you at The Graduate soon to conduct an intervention?
I don’t agree that envy is generating the Dunning tirades. But there is something that makes the logic and factual standards lower than in your other writings. But, how could you envy him? After all, he has to spend 1/50th the time researching that you do, he has to write only 1/20th of what you write, he suffers only 1/15th the criticism you do, and people give him 50 times the money for 1/10th the work.
“After all, he has to spend 1/50th the time researching that you do, he has to write only 1/20th of what you write, he suffers only 1/15th the criticism you do, and people give him 50 times the money for 1/10th the work.”
And Dunning is read by 1000 times the people.
No doubt true Rusty, but Dunning also 1,000 times as many detractors and enemies as Our Favorite Blogger.
The 1000 times figure is not accurate. The Enterprise has a circulation of less than 10,000, so for him to have 1000 times the readership that I do, would mean I have ten readers. My estimate is that right now the Enterprise has about 4 times the readership of the Vanguard. However many of those actually read the Dunning’s column, I couldn’t tell you.
“My estimate is that right now the Enterprise has about 4 times the readership of the Vanguard.”
I highly doubt that.
“The Enterprise has a circulation of less than 10,000”
But most households have more than one person.
Same thing applies with those with computers.