We are coming to the end of another year here at the Davis Vanguard. It has been a very good year, another record breaking year in terms of readership.
It was at the last council meeting, after some prodding, that DDBA Co-President Michael Bisch told council that the Davis Downtown, while not supporting the current motion on zoning changes to Target Pads, was willing to agree to the proposal moving forward, in exchange for what turned out to be monetary support for the Gateway Project.
“There are things that the developer has expressed the willingness to do that would make the Davis Downtown much more comfortable with whatever decision you’re going to make this evening,” Mr. Bisch said.
Last year, California ended Redevelopment as a way for local government to use public monies that would go for redevelopment and other major infrastructure repair projects.
Last week marked the beginning of the new legislative session and Senator Lois Wolk introduced SB 33, a measure which would “update Infrastructure Financing District law, to make it a useful tool to help cities maintain, repair, and rebuild critical infrastructure and create economic development in their communities.”
Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning enjoys a very unique distinction. He has columns in each of the newspaper’s five print editions a week. While some may love his work, finding him humorous and entertaining, he also has the potential to be extremely influential in local politics if he takes on a particular issue.
In the past seven years or so, we can find at least three clear examples where Bob Dunning played a critical role in local politics – on the Covell Village campaign, on the Wildhorse Ranch Campaign and on the 2011 Measure A parcel tax.
Editor’s Note: Matt Williams made the decision, rather than simply allow Bob Dunning to have the field to himself at this time, that he would respond to Mr. Dunning’s Sunday column. In what follows, “POINT ” is from Bob Dunning’s column and “COUNTERPOINT ” is Matt Williams response.
POINT – Every mom and dad living in America in the past 50 years knows about Johnson and Johnson’s “No More Tears” shampoo.
There are lessons that the fledgling Measure I campaign is going to need to learn ironically from the Mitt Romney campaign. There are certainly a number of reasons that Mitt Romney ultimately failed in his bid to unseat President Obama, but while many people look to a variety of issues, an early factor was a barrage of campaign ads in the spring and summer by the Obama campaign that the Romney campaign never adequately responded to.
A November 7, 2012 article in the Washington Examiner cited GOP strategist Frank Luntz who said that he “found himself going back to those months in the spring and summer when Obama inundated Romney with negative ads about Romney’s wealth, or Bain Capital, and Romney didn’t really fight back.”
The water initiative is now called Measure I. The Vanguard now has a copy of the impartial analysis, authored by City Attorney Harriet Steiner, and the arguments for and against. All five councilmembers signed the arguments in favor of Measure I.
The arguments against Measure I were signed by two WAC members – Mark Siegler and Michael Bartolic, former Mayor Sue Greenwald, former Councilmember Michael Harrington, and Pam Nieberg, co-Chair of the 2011 Water Referendum.
The Supreme Court of the United States on Friday did what many expected them not to do – agree to hear challenges to DOMA and Prop. 8.
The challenge to Proposition 8 has been followed closely here. Judge Stephen Reinhardt, of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, offered a very limited ruling that really only applied to California.
The city has set up a process whereby the voters would vote on whether to approve the water project prior to the ratepayers completing the Prop 218 process. In yesterday’s column, Bob Dunning argued that the voters ought to know the costs prior to the election and suggested at multiple points that the council and other decision-making may want to “keep the unwashed masses in the dark,” suggesting “what the city wants here is a blank check” in case of cost overruns.
We found his arguments compelling with regard to the concerns about going forward with the election prior to the rate process competition, but we recognize at the same time this is probably seen more as a timing issue than an attempt by the council to keep the voters in the dark about the costs.
Two weeks ago the Vanguard reported that the plaintiffs in the suit against the city – Twin Pines and Neighborhood Partners – made an offer to the city to settle their dispute. The matter was scheduled for city council consideration during closed session at the meeting last week.
The Davis Enterprise is reporting this morning that the city rejected the $875,000 offer and made a counter-offer instead.
Commentary: Awhile back, after Richard Hirschfield was convicted of killing two young UC Davis students over 30 years ago, someone suggested that we focus on honoring the victims.
As Bob Dunning wrote last weekend in his column, “Not only did he take the lives of two of Davis’ finest, he also sentenced their parents and siblings and extended families to a lifetime of agony that simply never ends. He wounded the soul of this town and shook us to our core, and those of us who lived here then will never forget that horrible time.”
It is increasingly looking like Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning is intent on running part of the No on the Water Project campaign from the second page of the Davis Enterprise. Under existing rules, he largely has the right to do so.
The news on the same-sex marriage front was a big no new announcement, with the Court declining to take action at this time. That leaves two huge issues open – the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8.
The delay may be temporary, with the court perhaps as early as tomorrow granting review to the awaiting cases, or the Court could actually be choosing to duck the issue.
COMMENTARY: There is a stunning and sobering editorial in the Sacramento Bee this morning linking the skyrocketing murder rate in Stockton to its bankruptcy. This year, there have been 68 murders, ten more than last year which was also a record, and on pace to more than triple the 24 that there were in 2008.Writes the Bee: “The sad saga of bloody, financially struggling Stockton should serve as a cautionary tale for other financially beleaguered cities in California. Good fiscal management isn’t some esoteric goal. It is essential to the health and safety of real people.”
by UC Davis News ServiceThe 400 largest companies headquartered in California, representing almost $3 trillion in shareholder value, still resemble a “boys’ club” with women filling fewer than 10 percent of top executive jobs, a University of California, Davis, study has found.
The Graduate School of Management’s eighth annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders — a yearly benchmark for the Golden State’s lack of progress in promoting women business leaders — paints a dismal picture for women in leadership during fiscal year 2011-2012. Some of the best known among these top companies, or the California 400, have no women leaders.
Commentary: Scholarships Are Great, But We Need Systemic Reform, Not Gimmicks and PR Stunts – The headline in the local paper is “Students are priority No.1.”It only gets better from there. On Monday, the UC Davis News service sent out an announcement that they have created a $1 million-plus matching fund to encourage gifts to help UC Davis students.
Concern seems to be mounting that the delays in resolving differences over new labor agreements for city employees will lead the council to attempt a compromise that will not lead to the kind of reform needed.
In his latest column, Rich Rifkin worries that city leaders may grow “wobbly” as time continues roll after the July 1 “deadline” for new labor agreements “came and went.”
By Dan OneyA year after San Jose approved its Bring Your Own Bag ordinance; the City has released its initial findings on the plastic bag ban’s effectiveness. And the city is trumpeting the program as a success.
Among the justifications for the declaration of success, the City had assigned resources to evaluate the impact that the first year had on the use of plastic bags, their prevalence in trash processing facilities, and related water-borne pollution. The resulting data showed a significant reduction in bag-related waste.
Commentary – June 30 was when the recent contracts for city bargaining units expired and now here we are five months later, two weeks from a winter break, and none of the major bargaining units have agreed to a contract. If the results of one of the few contracts that was signed – with the individual police management – are any indication, we will likely fall short of the goals laid out this June.
The problem is that as time goes on, the temptation will be, with the negotiators and ultimately with the council, to seek compromise. Impasse is difficult. We learned that last time around when the old council could not get DCEA (Davis City Employees Association) to even agree to the terms of the meager contract concessions offered back in 2010.
California has begun, through the long-delayed AB 32 signed in 2006 by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to implement a carbon cap-and-trade system that would reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
That represents a modest but not insignificant 17 percent cut from where the state’s emission would be without the legislative action. That was the same goal that the Obama administration tried to set nationally in 2009 and 2010, prior to opposition by Republicans in Congress.
