Commentary: Chamber’s Efforts Should Be Applauded But Scrutinized

Chamber-2012-Debate-2Vanguard Believes Chamber PAC Needs More Diverse Business Composition

At the start, we need to be clear that we completely support the Davis Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to become more involved and engaged in Davis City politics.  For too long, the Chamber has taken a secondary role on such matters, despite outspoken complaints from themselves, their members and many in the community that efforts to develop Davis economically have fallen flat.

Moreover, we believe that Chamber Executive Director Kemble Pope’s move for transparency is a strong show of faith in the process.  He has opened up the Chamber PAC’s books for weekly scrutiny.  And after a little prodding, we learned the composition of the Chamber PAC that voted on endorsements.

The Vanguard is a member and a sponsor of the Chamber of Commerce.  We may not necessarily agree with the Chamber on some key issues, but we believe that the more critical the voices that engage in the process, the better and more inclusive that process will be.

At the same time, on Monday we raised an issue of some import, both to the Vanguard and the Chamber.  When the Chamber launched their PAC back in late March, they did so with a concern about “significant structural budget deficits.”

They wrote, “Parcel tax measures and fee increases have been implemented with yet more proposals under consideration to fund remaining services.  Deferred maintenance on streets, water, and other vital infrastructure continue to accrue with no clear strategy to address these deficits threatening to further degrade our quality of life.  Yet many community opinion makers insist that we must maintain the status quo and abdicate our collective responsibility to effectively address these challenges to our quality of life.”

We then wrote about a disconnect between the stated Chamber position on the budget, which we still believe is the most important issue facing the city, and the voting record of Stephen Souza, a two-time incumbent running for a third term and now joining Lucas Frerichs and Dan Wolk as one of three endorsed candidates.

While the Chamber publicly released their financial backers, they did not release the voting members last week.  We thank Mr. Pope for doing that on the Vanguard yesterday.

Now we know the voting members are: Steve Greenfield, Kemble Pope, Gregg Herrington, Michael Bisch and Tom Cross.

The first thing that needs to be said is that I like each of these individuals personally and I think they are good people. They have the best interest of both the Chamber and the community at heart, though I may disagree with them at times politically.

I also want to acknowledge and appreciate the hard work they did in interviewing and meeting with the candidates in making their selection.

Nevertheless, we need to be critical here of the utter lack of diversity of business interests represented in this body.   If we look at the enterprises they represent, you see an engineering firm that works on construction, a developer, and two property managers.

Don Shor, himself a prominent business owner as well as member of the Vanguard community, has made frequent critical comments about this process.  His concern is that there is very little retail representation and many commercial and property-related businesses.

The Vanguard agrees with Mr. Shor’s concerns.

It is not a huge surprise that three of those five are personal endorsers of Stephen Souza. and Kemble Pope was his campaign manager in 2008.

But this is not about Stephen Souza.  This is about creating a process that represents a very broad and diverse group of businesses in Davis.

Don Shor makes some important points that should not be so easily dismissed.  He addresses Michael Bisch, who not only served on the PAC, but is co-President of the Davis Downtown Business Association: “The Davis Chamber does not represent retail well. Local retailers simply do not belong to the Chamber. I have demonstrated that statistically more than once. Your own organization’s retail members barely join the Chamber.”

Mr. Shor adds, “You really need to recognize this disconnect and stop trying to sell something that isn’t there. And to repeat: the Davis Chamber PAC should not be construed by the community as having broad support from the local business community, particularly the local retail business community.”

On the other hand, Mr. Bisch counters that retailers support this effort and there is broad-based community support for this effort.

He wrote, “Even David [Greenwald] appears to generally support this effort although he appears to disagree with the Souza endorsement aspect.”

We want to be clear here.  What we support is the Chamber’s efforts to become more involved.  We support their call for transparency.  And we support them on most of the issues that they enumerated in their various press releases.

However, we believe there is a serious disconnect with the Chamber’s position on the city budget, again in our view THE MOST IMPORTANT issue facing Davis.  Because if we do not fix the budget now, the city may in fact go bankrupt and that would severely damage economic development prospects.

Stephen Souza, to be very frank, does not have a good track record on the budget, as we laid out on Monday.

Second, we believe that Don Shor is correct.  The make-up of the PAC demonstrates in very clear terms – property and construction interests are not retail, not high tech, not restaurants, not other types of business, and that is what we see.

For the Chamber to accomplish its goals, it needs to become a much more diverse organization.  It needs to seek out leadership for a broad array of interests.

This is just step one for the Chamber and at least it got us talking about the council race.  One of my growing concerns is, given the gravity of the issues at stake in the city, there has not been nearly enough discussion of the race itself.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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86 comments

  1. [quote]Stephen Souza, to be very frank, does not have a good track record on the budget, as we laid out on Monday.

    [/quote]

    Its hard for a PAC to argue it favors fiscal responsibility and then endorse the least fiscally responsible candidate.

    Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I will assume that this PAC is a front for developers and their interests in Davis and not representative of other downtown businesses.

    If we want our town to look more like Roseville or Elk Grove and less like Davis, then perhaps we should listen to this PAC. If we want to preserve what is unique about Davis I suggest we look elsewhere.

  2. David, great reporting. Board diversity in any organization is something to be strived for. Fortunately, it’s something we’ve done a pretty good job of achieving on the DDBA board, although there’s still room for improvement. That said, you have to play with what you have or sit around on the sideline watching the other players play the game. Anybody that knows me must realize I’m not one to sit on the sideline twiddling my thumbs.

    A weakness in your piece above is you’ve under-reported the significance of the DDBA liason to the PAC, Janice Lott a prominent downtown retailer, the paticipation of a DDBA co-president, myself, and the participation of another DDBA co-president, Rosalie Paine, another prominent downtown retailer, at the PAC-sponsored debate (she was on the debate team sitting right next to Kemble). There can be no doubt that downtown interests, retail/restaurant interests, professional service provider interest are reflected in the objectives that the PAC is achieving. The sector that is under-represented is the tech sector although I have high hopes that is about to change.

    In response to your city budget comments, the PAC focus is on fostering a sustainable community. The budget is an incredibly important component of a sustainable community. That said, we are not working at filling a council slot. We are working at forming a council that can effectively address community challenges to foster a sustainable community. The council has 5 slots, not 4. We have 5 candidates, not 10, 15 or 20. We have an election immediately before us and another one in 2 years. Although desirable, not all council members must be strong in all aspects of community sustainability. But the council AS A WHOLE must be strong in all aspects of community sustainability. For those that have a strong background in competetive team sports, they will understand this concept.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  3. Dr. Wu, based on your comments on this subject the past few days, no amount of evidence to the contrary will dissuade you from your baseless charges. You clearly don’t even know the difference between the DDBA and the Chamber. You have made factually incorrect charges repeatedly. Your charge that I am a shill for developers is absurd. Anybody that is familiar with my Vanguard postings, my numerous comments before the council, or my activities as a DDBA Co-President would laugh at the notion. Are you entirely incapable of debating the merits of the PAC’s objectives and the strenghts and weaknesses of the 5 council candidates?

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  4. Dr. Wu said . . .

    [i]”Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I will assume that this PAC is a front for developers and their interests in Davis and not representative of other downtown businesses.

    If we want our town to look more like Roseville or Elk Grove and less like Davis, then perhaps we should listen to this PAC. If we want to preserve what is unique about Davis I suggest we look elsewhere.”[/i]

    Dr. Wu, did you grow up in France or Louisiana? The reason I ask is that the justice system in both those places operates on a “guilty until proven innocent” basis rather than the system of “innocent until proven guilty” in the rest of the US.

    Economic vitality and sustainability is supported by a wide range of demographic groups beyond developers. Why do you insist on painting all people who are for economic vitality and sustainability with a single brush. The next time you are purchasing a product and/or service in Davis ask the person serving you what they think about economic vitality and sustainability.

    In closing, you may want to ask yourself the following questions. 1) When was the last peripheral development approved in Davis? 2) When is the next peripheral development likely to be approved in Davis?

    We have very powerful tools passed by the voters (and reaffirmed by them numerous times) that ensure that Davis will not “look more like Roseville or Elk Grove and less like Davis.” Why is it that you do not trust those powerful tools?

  5. Michael Bisch said . . .

    [i]”I am working at forming a council that can effectively address community challenges to foster a sustainable community. “[/i]

    Brian responded . . .

    [i]”The key question that you have not answered Mr. Bisch, is how do you claim you are doing that when one of your picks helped create a mess so bad that we may end up having to declare bankruptcy. How does that create a sustainable community? What happens to business if that occurs?”[/i]

    Brian, I think your point has merit, but it does suffer from a bit of hyperbole. Can I suggest that rather than focusing on how and why you think that the PAC’s endorsement of Souza is wrong, that you focus on the reasons you think that there was a better alternative to Souza. Who knows, you might even cause the PAC to dig deeper to get to know one of the other candidates better.

  6. Matt, Brian’s point only has merit to an extent. I’m going to take another crack at this issue which you’ve carried over from another thread. My bookkeeper can’t sell worth a lick. My salesman has no patience for property management, my property manager doesn’t know a balance sheet from an income statement. Yet we have a successful company. Would I prefer each worker were strong in each aspect? Yes, because then we’d have greater depth. But we do with what we have, not with what we don’t have. The key is we don’t allow the weaknesses of any one team member drag down the operation. If that were the case, we’d have no choice but to let the team member go.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  7. Well said Michael. That is in essence the same message that I was trying to convey in my reply to Dr. Wu. Its about the whole picture.

    With that said, what were the characteristics that differentiated Steve Souza from the two candidates the PAC didn’t endorse?

  8. Matt, I won’t be discussing the 2 candidates that weren’t endorsed to eliminate the inevitable and unreasonable charge of negative campaigning.

    I’m going to take a crack at another point raised on a related thread. Some have said the PAC should only have endorsed 2 candidates for lack of a qualified 3rd. Doing so would have been silly. If I need to hire 3 employees, receive 5 applications, none of whom meet all of the desired qualifications, I don’t hire just 2 of them and allow a stranger to hire the 3rd one for me.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  9. DT Businessman: You would prefer that your workers be strong in each aspect.

    And I would prefer the same about the City Council. In my case I can see that there is a better alternative than Stephen Souza – and that would be Brett Lee. Brett is quite capable of bringing his analytical skills to craft a solution to our budget problems. He is clearly the “depth” we need on the next council. Maybe the problem he represents to the PAC is he hasn’t taken any developer contributions.

  10. 2cowherd, once again a failure to debate the merits; instead resorting to the underhanded attack. I’m pleased to see that Brett hasn’t followed your lead.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  11. Well, the overwhelming consensus in the postings since last Saturday is agreement with the PAC on 2 of the 3 endorsements (Wolk, Frerichs) and no discernible consensus on who the 3rd councilmember should be. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, the PAC has either achieved or is close to achieving all of its objectives.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  12. Jesus, is there no one out there wishing to engage in a meaningful debate on this issue? Well, I refuse to give up. Let’s try this. Who wants to take a crack at listing five VIABLE projects or policies designed to generate jobs and increased economic activity that EACH of the candidates is currently advocating for? Hard pressed to come up with 5, OK, let’s try 3. Each candidate, 3 policies/projects. Who wants to go first? Remember VIABLE, not pie in the sky stuff.

    DT Businessman (aka Michael Bisch, Davis Commercial Properties, DDBA Co-Prez, Chamber PAC member)

  13. I am all for the current transparency claimed by the Davis Chamber. But, let’s widen the discussion. Since the National Chamber of Commerce has lobbied for free trade for decades and endorsed and contributed to political candidates that do, I wonder if the Davis Chamber wouldn’t as well. Free market and free trade and all….

    Have you heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement? Probably not. The TPP is the first trade agreement negotiated by Pres. Obama’s administration and trade representatives of Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, and now Japan, have been meeting behind closed doors.

    The next round of secret talks is May 8-18 in Dallas, Texas. Negotiators, the U.S. Chamber and the Business Roundtable, strong advocates for free trade, and about 600 corporate lobbyists have access to the text – but the ordinary 99% do not. As all previous free trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.)the TPP will offshore millions of American jobs, undermine food safety, further deregulate Wall Street, end Buy Local and Buy America policies, impact access to lower-cost medicine, decrease environmental protections, and more.

    As in all “free” trade agreements, corporations of every signatory country will be able to lodge a corporate investor complaint against the U.S. for any law considered to harm its “investor rights” – that is harm their future profits. If they win in the international trade court, either the U.S. government pays a huge multi-million fine using tax-payer $$ or must strike the law passed by our local, county, state or national representatives. In 1999, before the gathering in Seattle, the Davis City Council passed a resolution against the World Trade Organization and free-trade deals.

    If I knew that the leaders of the Davis Chamber of Commerce, who endorsed the CC candidates, separated themselves from the National and supported fair vs. free trade, I would have more confidence in their choice of candidates.

  14. “My bookkeeper can’t sell worth a lick. My salesman has no patience for property management, my property manager doesn’t know a balance sheet from an income statement. Yet we have a successful company. Would I prefer each worker were strong in each aspect? Yes, because then we’d have greater depth.”

    Michael, I want to respond to this point because I think it’s critical to why you are having problems communicating with others on here.

    Imagine you have an employee who makes decisions that end up costing your company huge amounts of money and end up nearly getting you into bankruptcy. Maybe he’s a good guy, maybe he answers your phones well, my guess is that it would be difficult given his stack record for you to hire him again.

  15. I am really curious what the ChamberPAC means by “fostering a sustainable community.”

    Simply envision Davis the way it would be if each candidate achieved his or her planning and growth vision.

    In the case of the incumbents, we have a track record.

    In Stephen’s case, we would have 1300+ more homes on the north edge of town. Because of his policies, we have lost some downtown businesses, traffic is down 22% to neighborhood shopping centers, and those centers have substantial vacancies. Because of his votes, our city’s budget is in dire straits. His urban planning and fiscal policies have yielded very poor results, and would have been even worse were it not for the voters.

    In Sue’s case, we would have a much better fiscal condition if her votes had prevailed. She has voted and advocated for the kind of city that preserves its downtown core and neighborhood shopping centers. If you are looking at ConAgra, her efforts to retain the business zoning would seem to be more appropriate to economic development than those who wish to develop it for housing.

    Our record with Dan is shorter, but he seems to hold responsible fiscal positions. As to housing growth, his votes to move forward on residential planning for ConAgra are unfortunate from the standpoint of economic development, since it would take business land out of zoning. But he keeps emphasizing that those are process votes, not his definitive position on the proposal. Brett seems to have a vision for the ConAgra site that is more balanced. Lucas has, as Mr. Toad noted on another thread, emphasized his support for infill.

    I think all of the candidates would vote to proceed with the Nishi project in one form or another. The parking garage seems mired in local political infighting.

    Really, all of the rationale presented seems to keep coming around to personality; the business leaders want someone they find easier to work with, someone predisposed to commercial development in principle if not in practice. But all of their rationale is undercut by their endorsement of Stephen Souza, because his track record is very poor on fiscal and growth issues.

  16. David: I’m by no means defending Steve Souza, but this assertion that he should be disqualified because of the fiscal mess is not fair. First, and foremost, the economic collapse changed the playbook. Second, he only had one vote out of five. Third, any bad decisions were influenced by a complex matrix of forces, not the least of which were the city staff and the polarized dynamic of the city council.

    In my opinion, with respect to the specific issue of economic development/sustainability, we have two strong consensus candidates (Wolk/Frerichs), two candidates with significant problems (Souza/Lee), and one candidate that by broad consensus is not worthy of further consideration (Greenwald).

  17. Actually, psdavis, I kind of agree with that. But neither does developing it into housing with a tiny retail component. I would have to go back through and look at the different candidate statements, but I seem to recall Sue proposed a 50/50 split. There was once a proposal for an “equal-weight EIR” but Lewis backed out.
    The real obstacle on the cannery site is the landowner.

  18. Here’s a Vanguard article on Stephen’s 2008 reelection campaign:[url]https://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=353:councilmember-souza-running-for-reelection-pledges-to-balance-the-city-budget&catid=50:elections&Itemid=83[/url]

  19. I agree, he should not be disqualified on the basis of this and it was not my intention to argue that he should be.

    However, I think you are overestimating the role of the economic collapse in this.

    Basically over the course of the last decade, we saw salaries and compensation increase much faster than tax revenues. Moreover, we saw the voting for enhanced public safety benefits.

    Basically we were able to stay afloat last decade because of the real estate bubble and the half cent tax increase. We saw double digit property tax increases that enabled us to barely keep up.

    Bottom line is that the economic recession forced us to come to terms sooner than we might have, but the salary / compensation increases were unsustainable and we were riding the real estate bubble.

    The nice thing about a series of 3-2 votes is that it enables us to actually hold individuals accountable for their actions because it is not merely, he or she is one of five, but rather each contribution is pivotal to the outcome.

  20. psdavis: that is only true if the landowner refuses to consider anything except housing. And as long as they think that is a likelihood, they have little incentive to accept anything else. What we have is a landowner that wants a particular zoning, won’t accept anything else, and therefore somehow anything else is “code for no project?” That is what we call developer-driven planning.

  21. David M. Greenwald said . . .

    [i]”Michael, I want to respond to this point because I think it’s critical to why you are having problems communicating with others on here.

    Imagine you have an employee who makes decisions that end up costing your company huge amounts of money and end up nearly getting you into bankruptcy. Maybe he’s a good guy, maybe he answers your phones well, my guess is that it would be difficult given his stack record for you to hire him again.”[/i]

    That’s a good question as far as it goes David. However, Steve was not the sole decision maker in those decisions, so holding him solely accountable is perhaps a bit extreme.

    With that said, the concern that I have about Steve is the (in)consistency of his voting pattern. There was a perfect example of that late in last night’s Council meeting. A vote had been called for and it was clear that the other 4 Council members were split 2-2. Steve said, with seeming reluctance, “I guess I’m the swing vote on this.” He almost sounded like he felt trapped. Feeling that way is very human, and I’ve felt that way lots of times in my life. So I can empathize with his feelings; however, I would prefer that he not make it all the way to a vote on the dias in that kind of ambivalent state, especially when the vote of his colleagues were not the least bit surprising. It would be ideal if he would be more proactive in those kinds of situations and not wait until the last moment to make up his mind. It comes across as wishy-washy when it happens.

    With that said, Sue Greenwald is the antithesis of wishy-washy, and I have said numerous times that I wish she were more of a consensus-builder and more collaborative, so I guess somewhere out there there is a happy medium.

  22. David: I don’t disagree that we were on an unsustainable path, but so were most public and private organizations. Perhaps that is why very few people have been held accountable. Everyone was guilty to varying degrees.

    I’m glad you brought up the 3-2 votes. This is the problem with a hyper-polarized council. It is very difficult to craft a middle ground; and extreme positions tend to prevail. In addition, this is the main reason that Sue needs to be “termed out” by the voters. After 12 years, it is pretty clear that it will be impossible to have consensus-based leadership on a Council that includes Sue.

  23. Don, it’s called economics-driven planning. If the zoning on a piece is not economically viable, the property will sit fallow. That’s not a good economic development strategy.

  24. [quote]In Stephen’s case, we would have 1300+ more homes on the north edge of town. Because of his policies, we have lost some downtown businesses, traffic is down 22% to neighborhood shopping centers, and those centers have substantial vacancies. Because of his votes, our city’s budget is in dire straits. His urban planning and fiscal policies have yielded very poor results, and would have been even worse were it not for the voters.

    In Sue’s case, we would have a much better fiscal condition if her votes had prevailed. She has voted and advocated for the kind of city that preserves its downtown core and neighborhood shopping centers. If you are looking at ConAgra, her efforts to retain the business zoning would seem to be more appropriate to economic development than those who wish to develop it for housing. [/quote]

    Don Schor provided a better rebuttal to the attacks on me above than I could have. I hardly see that pointing out that the Chamber of Commerce PAC is heavily weighted towards those with interests in development is “baseless.”

    Rather than reply to these claims some people prefer to engage in character assassination.

  25. psdavis, I would add one drill down to your “economics-driven planning” concept. In the supply/demand economics of housing, we have an excess of demand because demand for Davis housing is regional and the supply is only local. In the supply/demand economics of jobs growth through an expansion of the business base, we have a severe lack of demand. This reality produces two important effects.

    1) For developers, housing is “low hanging fruit” when compared to commercial/business park alternatives. Until Davis (Davis – UCD – Yolo County) begins to seriously concentrate on the demand side of “economics-driven planning we will continue to be lots of talk and little action.

    2) Because of Measure J/R if the the voters only see A) more proposed housing with no matching growth in jobs, and/or B) business park proposals that are all about “build it and they will come” the voters will continue to say “No” when asked to vote.

    On the other hand if Davis – UCD – Yolo County shifts its focus to the demand side of economics-driven planning, and courts companies that have existing or potential synergies with Davis’ academic and research strengths, then both 1) and 2) above will no longer apply, and the Davis – UCD – Yolo ecomomy will improve substantially . . . and sustainably.

  26. PSD: [i]”First, and foremost, the economic collapse changed the playbook.”[/i]

    As David Greenwald noted above, all of the decisions which put us on an unsustainable fiscal path were taken before the economic collapse. If you were reading my column in The Enterprise or similar reports in the Vanguard you would know that many of us believed, with good reason, that the huge upfront expenses and the even larger future liabilities built into the labor contracts (almost all of which still exist and have yet to be reformed) were pushing Davis toward bankruptcy.

    That said, most of the unsustainable aspects of the labor contracts pre-dated Stephen Souza’s arrival on the Council in 2004.

    In my opinion, it is fair to hold Stephen accountable for the votes he took and for the reforms he failed to push for in this regard. But it should be understood that he inherited the failings of the Wagstaff, Harrington, Greenwald, Freeman and Boyd Council which started us on our road to ruin.

    [i]”Second, he only had one vote out of five.”[/i]

    That is a reason why it’s not entirely fair to put all the blame on him, as he was just one of three in the majority making matters worse or failing to understand what a rough road we were headed toward.

    I also think that it’s not entirely fair to hold all the mistakes an incumbent made if the incumbent has realized the error of his ways and now holds a different point of view, one which will hopefully get Davis on a sustainable path.

    I know that Sue Greenwald’s record on fiscal sustainability in her first term on the City Council was terrible. She voted in favor of the enhanced pensions (3% at 50 for public safety) and much higher salaries and she voted yes on all of the contracts before 2009-2010. She may have been much stronger behind the scenes, but as far as I know, every vote on every labor deal up to 2009-2010 was unanimous, before Lamar and Sue voted no and lost on a 3-2 vote.

    But since the 2005 and 2006 contracts were signed–that is when the firefighters got a 36% raise–Sue became a public champion for fiscal responsibility and has been so ever since.

    I think it would make no sense now to hold it against Sue for mistakes she made a long time ago. That cannot be changed. I care what her positions are now and what she will do over the next four years.

    And I think Stephen Souza deserves equal consideration in that respect.

    [i]”Third, any bad decisions were influenced by a complex matrix of forces, not the least of which were the city staff and the polarized dynamic of the city council.”[/i]

    This comment makes no sense to me. If a decision was bad, it was bad. Future votes will also be influenced by complex matrices of forces. What voters need to do is decide whether they think Stephen or any of the other contenders will rise above complications and make good decisions on behalf of the people of Davis.