Council Work Starts For Real Tonight
Budget Process Will Be Huge Test For New Council –
Forget about Zipcars, forget DSIDE, Water, Economic Development, Business Parks, Wood-Burning Stoves, Reverse-Angle Parking, and the like. Not that some of those things are not important. It is just that the last election was about the budget, for perhaps the first time in Davis history.
It is rather striking that it has taken until the last day of November to have the first real workshop on the budget, but whatever. This council will be judged on one thing primarily, how it resolves the long-term budget issues.
The first time I saw Kamala Harris was in San Jose back in 2008 at the California Democratic Convention. It was during the heat of the primary battle, and both of the top Democrat contenders sent representatives to speak on their behalf.
Third Trial in Police Bruality Case Set To Begin Today with Defense Possibly Lacking Resources For Expert Witnesses – 
After a long and contentious public battle that included a federal law suit, NewPath and the City of Davis agreed to stay the cases pending in federal court and with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). This delay was to allow them to file a new application with the city, following the rescission of encroachment permits in a public meeting last January.
An Inspector General’s report, which came down last Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving, hit two area organizations, the Yolo County Probation Department and CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault) for misappropriation and misuse of federal grant money.
Ranch Owner Calls For Independent Investigation – 
The Yolo County Coroner’s Office is calling the shooting death of a ranch hand in his 50’s, on the Historic Nelson Ranch north of Woodland, self-inflicted.
Last week we reported that Genentech, one of the chief backers of Prop 24’s efforts to prevent the closing of tax loopholes opened up in the 2008 and 2009 budget deals, had pumped 1.6 million dollars into the efforts to defeat Prop 24, only to turn around and eliminate over 800 California jobs.
The City of Davis is structurally like an old dinosaur, built for another era of government and so encumbered by its current obligations and hamstrung by a continually sputtering economy that there is little hope that we can make the changes we need to its governmental structure to be able to fix it.
For those that missed it, there was a good article in the 
State and Local Water Policies Will Have to Mesh Somehow – 
The caveat, of course, is that things change in politics very quickly. In 1994, California was not a blue state. Pete Wilson had just been re-elected Governor by a wide margin, despite having extremely low opinion ratings. Dianne Feinstein needed everything she had to hold off what was then a record spending by Michael Huffington.
As I approach 40 in the next few years, I am reminded of something I learned during my teen and early twenty years, how out of touch older adults are to popular culture. In another lifetime, I used to have a period column during my days in undergraduate school, devoted to such topics.
There is no stronger advocate for government transparency than a watchdog reporter who wants to get his hands on as many government documents as possible. In my view, open government acts, like the Brown Act and the Public Records Act, are far too weak, their disclosure requirements are too weak, they have too many exemptions and are too difficult, for a citizen, to enforce.