Yesterday, we covered the candidates questions to each other, and we have also posted video of the event filmed by Davis Media Access.
The forum was sponsored by The Davis Vanguard and Davis Media Access, and will also be available soon on DCTV Channel 15 on Comcast Davis, and on AT&T’s U-verse Menu 99.
This summer, the Vanguard launched an editorial board. There will be a number of functions for that board, including helping to direct and advise the direction of the Vanguard. The first public event was last night’s candidates forum for the school board candidates, held at at Harper Junior High.
Last week, the ACLU released its one year report on California’s historic prison realignment plan. They argue, “The state has failed to adopt the kinds of reforms necessary to ensure its success and a lasting reduction both in the number of people behind bars and recidivism rates.”
“New polling data released by the ACLU today shows overwhelming public support for evidenced-based, smart-on-crime reforms like alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenders and defendants charged with low-level crimes while they await trial,” the ACLU said in a press release. “But fearful of being labeled ‘soft on crime’ by the state’s law enforcement lobby that maintains a knee-jerk, over-incarceration view and is aggressively fighting any change to the failed public safety status quo, such reforms have so far failed to garner the support of state legislators.”
As we head into tonight’s Davis Vanguard-DMA school board candidates forum at Harper Junior High (doors open at 6:30), we are reminded that the beauty of an open and democratic society is the free and open exchange of ideas, the absolute sanctity of freedom of speech.
Meanwhile, the Vanguard is still working to get the full account of what happened on Friday night, at the candidates forum sponsored by NewStar Chinese School and the Davis High School PTA, at the Davis High School Library.
Back in November, one of the critical questions was whether Kroll would be granted subpoena power. Andy Fell of the UC Davis News Service told the Vanguard on November 30, 2011: “Both campus and UC will cooperate fully with them and make available to them any documents they need, subject only to legal restrictions such as those governing student records, personnel files etc. As a private contractor, Kroll doesn’t actually have subpoena power. But they are going to get whatever they want.”
The three strikes law was a reaction to heinous crimes such as Richard Allen Davis’ murder of young Polly Klaas back in the early 1990s. Mr. Davis was a lifetime offender who had just been released.
Three strikes laws were designed to keep those dangerous criminals locked away. But the reality is that most of the people actually caught in this net are not the Richard Allen Davis’ of the world.
