Before we go too far afield, it is worth noting just how much things have changed since the beginning of the year. A lot of things have changed both policy-wise and personality-wise.
I just read your email stating the importance of continuing the fight in Afghanistan.
It is my opinion that our presence in these foreign wars of occupation encourages Al Quaida and is what keeps them alive.
That is a question that the California State Supreme Court will now grapple with as the court decided last week to rule on whether sponsors of ballot initiatives have special authority under state law to defend the measures in court when state officials refuse to do so.
Last month, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to weigh in on the decision of standing.
Last week, Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza, DA Jeff Reisig, and Sheriff Ed Prieto announced the beginning of a Family Justice Center.
According to the county’s press release, “The Center would house core services so that family violence victims can go to one place — instead of the multiple locations they must navigate now — to seek assistance.”
When I first sat and watched supporters of Jeff Christian at the DJUSD School Board meeting in early January, I was impressed with the passion and dedication that these community members had for their coach.
I immediately pressed for the district to give a more full disclosure on their decision to dismiss the coach. It seemed like the right thing to do.
The brewing political fight in Wisconsin gives us a chance to hit the pause button and the recognize how changes need to be made. I have been a strong proponent of fiscal responsibility within the City of Davis, for a variety of reasons.
First, I recognize that during this economic crunch, we have limited governmental resources and we must therefore prioritize those resources. From the very beginning, I have argued that our first priority needs to be to continue our investment in education and the second priority needs to be maintaining social services at the county level.
For a change it appears the City of Davis has been too effective in advocating on behalf of the Olive Drive residents, for whom a fence would effectively cut them off from the rest of the city.
As we reported earlier this week, the City of Davis was prepared to oppose public funding of a fence along Olive Drive until a deal could be worked out for a safe crossing for the residents of that street to cross into the downtown.
It is not a huge shock that Yolo County is moving in the opposite direction of the rest of the nation. More and more jurisdictions and states are moving away from the death penalty, for a variety of reasons including costs. They are also taking into consideration problems with the judicial system that result in the inequitable application of the death penalty, and also calling into question certainty about guilt and innocence.
Defense Attorneys, in what will likely be our first death penalty case that we will cover, the Topete case, have argued that “The excessive delays in California’s death penalty system constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and results in a denial of due process. Based on this violation, the Defense respectfully requests that this Court preclude the People from seeking the death penalty in this case.”
On Tuesday night, several community members came before the city council during public comment to push for a plastic bag ban. This is an issue that will apparently be taken up by the Natural Resources Commission.
It is an idea gaining some traction. The California State Senate back in September voted against the plastic ban bag with the help of half a dozen Democrats, including Davis’ Senator Lois Wolk. The measure would have banned plastic carryout bags in supermarkets, drug and convenience stores. The measure failed 21 votes against, to 14 votes in favor.
Prosecution Attempts to Reinstate Gang Charges while Defense Attempts to Get the Death Penalty Precluded – Recently Judge Paul Richardson threw out the gang charges against Mr. Topete, however, the DA is arguing that the Judge should reconsider the gang charges because the case that apparently was the judge’s sole authority for striking them is being heard by the Supreme Court.
by Dan Oney – Wolk’s legislation, Senate Bill 214, is a compromise between the entrenched camps of the Redevelopment debate. For proponents of eliminating redevelopment, claiming that they are wasteful and operate to the detriment of schools and other core services, it will protect source of revenues to these services from being usurped by redevelopment. For the proponents of redevelopment, SB 214 would allow Infrastructure Financing Districts (IFDs) to absorb many of the functions of the current redevelopment agencies.
by Jacqueline Dufresne – Built in 1972, the historical cooperative living community known as the Domes received a letter from Student Housing on January 24th announcing that not one of its leases would be extended. By August of this year, the Domes will be empty.
The title of this article could be the failure of technology. The plan for this article was to have a full transcript of the first part of the candidate’s forum and then have a separate commentary piece, much as we did this fall with the Governor’s Debate and the Attorney General’s Debate. Unfortunately, technology intervened and the recording apparently did not come out clean enough to transcribe. So we are left with my thoughts without a lot of detail – at least for now.
As I told KCRA yesterday afternoon, the announcement by the Department of Justice that they are not filing federal civil rights charges against the three Sheriff’s Deputies involved in the 2009 shooting of Luis Gutierrez changes nothing.
We do not know more today than we did last month about the shooting. A day after the Sheriff’s Department released a press release on the matter, we learned little more than we knew at the onset.
By E. Roberts Musser – Nevertheless, this widow revealed to me that she never had “sex” with this man, per se. But the poor soul admitted they had been intimate enough for her to contract genital herpes from him. Perplexed, I fearlessly waded in and asked for more specifics on how this could happen. But she was too embarrassed to give me the gory details. What she did say is that she confronted her lover about him having infected her knowing he already had the sexually transmitted disease. His response was nonchalant and dismissive. He didn’t care, especially because their relationship had already ceased to exist.
Both CVS Pharmacy drug stores in Davis have sold over-the-counter drug products substantially past their expiration…
But before we go any further, I have to question some things from the outset. At last night’s meeting only two of the ten candidates stayed for the entire meeting. That would be Kari Fry and Walter Bunter. Good for them. Regardless of where they stand on the issues, that should give them a huge leg up.
LAO Letter Lays Out The Face Of An All-Cuts Budget – Republicans are already calling it a ploy to convince legislators to place the tax measure on the ballot, that would cut the needed budget cuts in half.
On Monday, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department announced that they had received a letter from that the United States Department of Justice stating that the U.S. Department of Justice has concluded their investigation into the fatal shooting of Luis Gutierrez-Navarro.
In a letter dated February 4, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice stated “After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil rights statutes. Accordingly, we have closed our investigation.”
Those who have argued that the city’s budget assumptions continue to be too rosy were again shown to be correct as the city issued forth its Mid-Year Budget update. Leaders the last couple of years have been hopeful that the opening of the Davis Target would be enough to hold sales tax revenue stable or even increase the revenue, but these hopes have not been borne out to date.
According to the staff report, “Based on revenue results through the first six months of this fiscal year, the City’s General Fund revenue estimates are being held relatively in line with the adjusted budget showing a slight increase of $39,498.”
