Dunning Overplays Woodland’s Animosity For Davis at Recent Council Meeting

Commentary: Woodland’s Council Should Use More Caution in their Remarks – I read columnist Bob Dunning’s recent column that, in part, discussed a recent city council meeting held in Woodland where there was a brief (at least by Davis standards) update on the surface water project two days before Thanksgiving and a day before the cost-sharing agreement was announced by Councilmember Rochelle Swanson and Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk.

My sense is that there is clearly some of that in the comments made by councilmembers – but the effect of their actual words is overplayed by Mr. Dunning’s selective quotations and running commentary.

Mayor Skip Davies, in his comments, noted that they consider the pipeline between Woodland and Davis to be Davis’ but he acknowledged, “There is a merit to Woodland going to the urban limit line and paying a percentage of that pipeline.”  That is a critical component of the cost-sharing deal.

He argued that not only does it give them flexibility in future development but it gives them control over that portion of the pipeline.  “There is some merit in that consideration and it can be justified,” he said.

Councilmember Bill Marble noted that there were questions from many in the community and “our questions were whether Davis was really going to be there.”

Bob Dunning quotes him as saying: “Frankly until their ballot initiative is adopted by their citizens, we don’t even know if our partner is going to be there. We are not willing to negotiate in a way that will result in an increase in our water rates. Davis hasn’t done that.”

The actual quote from Mr. Marble is: “Frankly until their ballot initiative is adopted by their citizens, we don’t know that our partner will be there for sure.  We have no way of knowing that.  I remind our two colleagues on the Davis City council of that fact continually when we’re in these discussions which I do think have been fruitful.”

He then adds, “We are not willing to negotiate in a way that will cause an increase, a further increase in our water rates for our citizens.  We’ve already taken a step in our community of adopting water rates, Davis hasn’t done that yet.”

It was Bob Dunning’s contention that Bill Marble, a dentist, “sounded as if he wanted to perform a root canal on our local citizenry.”

In actuality, Mr. Dunning has misquoted him, and taken out considerable context.  The critical context of Mr. Marble’s comments is that Davis has not passed it water rates yet, Woodland is willing to adjust the cost-sharing but they have already run two Prop 218s and are understandably reluctant to have to run a third one.

Mr. Marble adds, “Frankly, Skip [Davies] and I are very concerned that we protect the water rates we’ve adopted.”

The councilmember continues, “Woodland has been committed and continues to be committed to fair and equitable sharing of costs.” He called the discussions between the two cities fruitful, with each side gaining an understanding of each other’s concerns.

He then, after considerable discussion about finding common ground on cost-sharing, noted, “We’ve adhered to that agreement.  We would expect that Davis would have some understanding that we’ve adhered to that.”

Bill Marble said it was very important that if the JPA agreement is revised, there would be language in place that “if Davis votes negatively, that would allow Woodland to move forward without being encumbered by the terms of that JPA agreement.  That we would have a smooth exit to move forward with our project.”

Councilmember Jim Hilliard said, “I want to stress to the citizens of Davis, Woodland has been all-in, this whole time.  Our resolve has been there.  Our studies have been made and vetted, we have gone through and we have made decisions and we have not backed up.”

“We are a strong partner in this relationship,” he continued.  “It’s been difficult to watch from our side the variableness of our partner in coming up with their decision as to how they’re going to handle it and what they’re going to do and kind of the back and forth that has been going on.”

“We’ve tried to take on all of those issues that have come from Davis, not from Woodland, but from Davis,” he said, noting the staff time and cooperation that has gone into the partnership and knowing full well “there’s an off-chance that we’re going to go alone because we don’t know what our partner is going to do.”

Mr. Dunning remarks, “Yes, councilman, letting ordinary citizens have a say over multimillion-dollar projects is a lot messier than just trusting the experts, but that happens to be the way we do things in our humble little town.”

“Davis doesn’t have that side of it.  They’ve got a partner and they’ve got a solid partner,” Mr. Hilliard added.  “For them to consider that we wouldn’t be fair in our process of reviewing and continuing to review a fair and equitable cost-share on the facilities, I think is short-sighted, I think you’re not really looking at your partner.  You have a strong partner here and I think you need to really consider that.”

That being said, it is clear that Davis should get the agreement on the cost-sharing before moving forward, rather than telling the citizens of Davis prior to an election – well, we’ll fix that at some point, because Woodland is a strong partner.  That certainly would not go over well with the voters, and rightly so.

Councilmember Sean Denny, who is new to their council, said, “We want to be their partner.  You don’t want to make us where you’re our customer.  I’m going to be blunt about it.”

“I think Davis needs to get on board, I hope we don’t have to spend money to tell people or write ads for their election that say what’s really going on with this water project, how we really want Davis to be involved.  It shouldn’t be like that,” he said.

Bob Dunning wrote, “For his part, Councilman Sean Denny said, ‘I hope we don’t have to spend money or write ads for their election.’ That makes two of us, councilman. If Woodland money starts flowing into a Davis ballot measure, all bets are off.”

Mr. Denny added, “Any good partnership, you put yourselves in your partner’s shoes and how will that look if it’s on the other side.”

He argued that we have different time horizons, but that the two are not that different and “that ought to be what’s on their citizens’ minds.  We have to do this too, it’s just a few years down the road.  It’s not that much time.  There won’t be any other partners for them.  We are their only show.”

Tom Stallard argued that we can’t presume that just because things are going well now that we will not have great environmental and resource challenges in the future.

He noted that California’s demands have greatly expanded and then he said, “What really grates me is that we’re even being challenged as to whether there is any wisdom to what we’re doing here.”  He argues, “This is about the smartest thing in my opinion we could possibly do.”

Mr. Dunning wrote, “Unable to hide his disdain for Davis politics, Tom Stallard added that ‘what really grates me is that we’re even being challenged about our wisdom here.’ “

He continues, “Yep, it takes a lot of gall for the unwashed masses of Davis to challenge the wisdom of officials we didn’t even have a hand in electing.  Woodland is, after all, the county seat. We should be bowing at the waist when their leaders walk by.”

“Alternately describing our concerns as ‘egregious’ and ‘quibbling,’ Stallard patronizingly allowed that ‘I have a lot of confidence that the people of Davis will do the right thing.’ ” Mr. Dunning added.  “I don’t know about you, but it’s incredibly heartening to know that someone in Woodland has confidence in me.”

Mr. Dunning notes in his column, “Turns out there’s a lot of Davis blood running through the duly elected leaders of Woodland.  Mayor Skip Davies is a UC Davis grad. Tom Stallard a UCD law grad. Bill Marble and Jim Hilliard were both Blue Devil athletes before finding their way to Woodland.”

This is an interesting observation, given that it would appear from their comments that the Woodland leaders do not really understand Davis or why Davis has taken a very different approach to the water issue than the neighbors to the north.

Clearly the comments by Jim Hilliard, who was a Davis High graduate, are not helpful and do not demonstrate an understanding of the process that Davis has had to go through.  The variableness is marked by the fact that the city council in Davis pushed the project past the point of clear support from the public and the public put the matter on the ballot.

Frankly, Davis should have taken a lot of the steps that Woodland had already taken.  On the other hand, while one can understand the frustration by Mr. Hilliard, as a whole, most of his comments are not helpful to the current situation moving forward.

Councilmember Denny was admittedly blunt, and I think his comment about looking at things through the eyes of the partner cuts both ways, and I’m not sure from his comments he really understood the irony of that statement.

Clearly, some of the comments by Jim Hilliard, Sean Denny and, to a lesser extent, Tom Stallard, are not particularly helpful.  But Bob Dunning overplays his hand greatly, overall – by at least two octaves.

Woodland has legitimate concerns here that I think Davis residents need to understand.  First, they have a tighter timeline.  Second, they have already approved two Prop 218 rate increases and want to avoid a third.  And finally, if they end up going it alone that option will cost an estimated $70 to $90 million more than a partnership.

At the same time, Woodland needs to be a bit more understanding of the political realities on the ground in Davis, and I don’t think their comments are particularly helpful to this process.

As I told a public official yesterday, my political read on this is that the vote could go either way, Woodland needs to understand that there is organized opposition to this, with a popular columnist bent on defeating it, and that their comments are not helpful.

As I asked several people rhetorically, does Woodland understand that we have internet down here in Davis and their comments will be monitored and taken out of context?

In my view, these comments, while not nearly as patronizing as portrayed in Mr. Dunning’s column, nevertheless add to the op-ed in the Enterprise and the visit by the five members of the Woodland City Council and Supervisor Matt Rexroad to the Davis Council Chambers last December.

These actions and comments have at least the potential of blowing up in their faces.

If Woodland really does wish to have a partner in this project, my suggestion to them would be to keep further comments about Davis to themselves until after the election, leave the commentary to columnists, and let Davis get through its process in its own way.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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