The Vanguard took to the streets of Picnic Day starting Saturday afternoon until nearly midnight. While the Vanguard did witness a number of arrests and citations, it saw limited evidence of any kind of violence.
By 10:30 last night, other than the high police presence, the street appeared quiet and the activity almost no higher than any other night.
One of the big things one must learn when commentating on any issue is that situations are rarely static. Instead, they are fluid and evolve over time. If you get locked into one view, you will invariably find yourself looking at the wrong things.
It has been nearly a week since Bob Dunning’s piece ran on the school district’s letter regarding senior exemptions. In terms of my view of the situation, it has remained fairly static.
On a day when the victim in a shooting of an elderly Sikh man in Elk Grove saw the victim lose his life, six week after being shot, the scene in Judge Fall’s courtroom was unusual. A cameraman from News 10 had set up to shoot footage while the back of the courtroom as stacked with family members of the victim of a November attack on a Sikh taxi driver in West Sacramento.
Two weeks previously, it appeared the case was over as Pedro Ramirez and Johnny Morales were set to be sentenced after taking plea agreements. Mr. Morales went through with his no contest plea, despite denying taking part in the attack. He’ll receive probation and a small amount of jail time.
Last year, the city dipped into it’s vaunted 15 percent reserve to cover one-time shortfalls created by a combination of lower than expected budget revenues and the impasse with the Davis City Employees Association. At the time, the shortfall was supposed to be closed by this year’s budget.
But instead, in October, there was still around a 40 thousand dollar shortfall. At that time, the council had asked the city manager to work toward closing that gap.
Close Relationship to the DA’s Office or a More General Double Standard For White Collar Crime in Yolo?
On Thursday, Jennifer Beeman, who had admitted to falsifying grant documents that exaggerated the reported number of UC Davis campus sexual assaults, pled no contest to two felony charges of embezzlement and falsifying accounts.
It is expected that she will face probation plus having to pay restitution of around $10,525, the amount she embezzled.
by Alex Clark – The Vanguard article expressed concerns regarding the negative impact and potential backlog associated with removing a felony criminal judge without filling the vacancy. Skepticism as to whether or not a second full-time judge was necessary was also touched on in the article.
In a statement to the Vanguard, a spokesperson for the university acknowledged that a police matter was probably not handled properly and they vowed to do better in the future.
Students and civil rights groups have been concerned since the discovery of documents showing hundreds of documents regarding the UC administration’s response to student activism.
There was a good piece by Rich Rifkin in the Davis Enterprise this week, talking about the 172.9 million dollar courthouse that has been approved by the California Judicial Council.
Wrote Rich Rifkin, “One area where the state might save some money without too much pain is with its ambitious plan to build 35 new courthouses and to renovate six old ones. In 2008, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 1407. It provides five billion dollars for these 41 projects.”
UC Davis Students, along with staff and the ACLU, held a press conference on Tuesday to address growing concerns that they have about student privacy amid discovery of information that they say is being used to track student activism.
According to them, a request for information filed with the University of California, Davis, under the California Public Records Act, has resulted in the release of hundreds of documents regarding the UC administration’s response to student activism.
Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors heard about the current budget problems and spoke of closing down the the Leinberger Memorial Detention Center. In the last three years, the Yolo County Sheriff’s Department has cut forty-two positions, through layoffs and declining to rehire vacant positions.
Most devastatingly, early this year, ten deputies were laid off. There is a good amount of research emerging about how costs can be contained within the system. Some ideas that have come out have been to reduce sentences for drug offenses, shift the death penalty convictions to life without parole, and move inmates from state prison to county jails.
One day after Bob Dunning put at risk the district’s prospects for gaining the passage of Measure A, the parcel tax measure that requires a two-thirds majority, Superintendent Winfred Roberson and school board President Richard Harris issued an apology about the timing of the letter sent out last week to a group of seniors about the senior exemption for Measure A.
As the Vanguard reported on Monday, the key issue with the letter was that the district office was flooded with a significant number of requests during the past few weeks for information and help in filing for the senior exemption for Measure A.
As Yolo County continues to prosecute and imprison individuals for possession of less than a gram of meth, polling released on Monday shows that voters increasingly are favoring reduced sentences and penalties for drug possession.
The March 21-24 survey of 800 California general election voters was conducted statewide by Lake Research Partner. It was released on Monday and shows that nearly three-quarters (72%) of California voters support reducing the penalty for possession of a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor, including a solid majority who support this reform strongly.
Yesterday, Davis Enterprise Columnist Bob Dunning issued forth a missive aimed at the school district’s efforts to pass another parcel tax that would help bridge what is now a six million dollar budget gap.
Mr. Dunning accused Superintendent Winfred Roberson of “Politicking on the public’s dime.” Wrote the columnist, “Our superintendent of schools has decided to take matters into his own hands by sending out a letter on official district letterhead to this town’s senior citizens, urging a “Yes” vote on this critical school funding measure.”
Ruling Questions UC Davis’ Commitment to Civil Rights Protections and Use of Anti-SLAPP Legislation to Thwart Civil Rights Remedies – One of the cases that we focused on was the case of Professor Branner, a 74-year-old African-American professor who in August of 2008 filed a lawsuit against the UC Regents and Vice Provost Horwitz, alleging that their actions violated his rights and protections under California law.
We spent most of this week focused on the Cannery Park issue. It is a fresher issue. There is much greater public concern about development in Davis than there is about the city’s budget. But the budget is a very serious concern and it is not getting any better.
We face some very difficult choices ahead in terms of the provision of city services. The immediate concern was addressed on Tuesday. The council voted, after some discussion, to bring the emergency reserve back to 15%.
In this morning’s Davis Enterprise, Bob Dunning makes a pretty sweeping charge that the Superintendent is “Politicking on the public’s dime,” apparently without checking facts or without a lot of accuracy.
Writes Mr. Dunning, “Our superintendent of schools has decided to take matters into his own hands by sending out a letter on official district letterhead to this town’s senior citizens, urging a “Yes” vote on this critical school funding measure.”
But okay, I was hearing the griping that there was a packed audience waiting for one item and they heard that item, in order mind you, the discussion began around ten and ended just after midnight.
The key to understanding politics is to understand that most political claims are largely political spin. It is not that they are manufactured lies (at least most of the time), but rather that they are claims taken out of context and presented without nuance or qualification.
The sophisticated political observer learns to take such claims with a grain of salt and not to merely repeat these claims as facts.
The Third District Court of Appeals has tossed out another conviction in Yolo County, this time overturning a plea agreement after Judge Kathleen White erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence illegally obtained.
The appellate court ruled this week, that “the patdown search was unjustified because the officer did not have reasonable suspicion defendant was armed and dangerous” and “the search exceeded the scope of determining if defendant had weapons.”
There are so many different angles and aspects to the Cannery Project that it is taking a lot of time to untangle them. Already we have talked about the implications of re-zoning the property and pushing any business parks to the periphery where they will be subject to a Measure J vote and an uncertain status.
But just as big is the question as to whether we need additional housing at this time.
