This morning, Bob Dunning attempts to explain why he believes the city has violated the Prop. 218 proportionality requirements.“Prop. 218, which reads like a ratepayer’s bill of rights, lays out in detail what a city can and can’t do with a variety of taxes, assessments and fees, including water rates,” he writes. Mr. Dunning then argues that “a critical element of Prop. 218 (is) known as ‘proportionality.’ “
City Staff Mistakes Feed into Negative Perception by Some in the Community – The Vanguard spent quite some time attempting to get data from the city of Davis as to what the revenue requirements would be for the city to build a surface water project versus no project.
We first requested the data way back right after the New Year. There were claims at that time made by the opposition to the project about the cost of the water project per year producing much more revenue than the $113 million surface water project plus loan repayments should have cost.
A couple of years ago we covered a burglary case in the city of Davis. It was a case where the couple had split up. The male had some of his belongings at his ex-girlfriend’s place in Davis.
They had made arrangements for him to come by and get his belongings. This required an all-day trip down from Butte County. However, the ex-girlfriend never showed and he made the fateful decision to use the key under the door to enter and take his belongings and leave.
This is a new feature. Each afternoon we will have a question that we pose the Vanguard community. Sometimes it will be a local issue, sometimes a national issue, and sometimes a deeper and more philosophic question.
Today’s question: Should DJUSD School change the current configuration of GATE which uses self-contrained, some what say segregated classes?
The city of Davis has finally given us comparison data so that we can look at the costs of the project and no-project alternatives.
On Thursday, the Vanguard reported that even without a surface water project, the water rates would nearly double (97% increase) over the next five years. Without a surface water project, water revenue needs would increase by 80% while revenue needs would increase by 136% with the water project.
This week we received a letter from Yolo County resident Christina Parker.
She writes:
David Snyder, UCD Man Suspected of Possessing Explosives, Arraigned Thursdayby Antoinnette Borbon
Just outside the courtroom of Department 9 this afternoon, the streets were lined with vans from all of the local news stations, eagerly waiting to report on the arraignment of David Scott Snyder. Snyder is accused of making explosives in his apartment with stolen chemicals from the University of California at Davis, where he worked. He was living at the Russell Park Apartments and worked as a research assistant at the university.
The courtroom was filled with video cameras to witness the arraingment. Judge Janet Beronino explained the charges to the defendant in detail. He sat in his seat with a pretty calm demeanor, his left arm wrapped from the injury sustained in the explosion inside his apartment. Deputy Public Defender Jessica Graves requested bail be set at the pre-conference hearing February 8th, in Judge Reed’s courtroom. Bail was suggested to be set at 2 million dollars but will more than likely be denied due to the defendant being a “flight risk,” prosecution stated.
This is a new feature. Each afternoon we will have a question that we pose the Vanguard community. Sometimes it will be a local issue, sometimes a national issue, and sometimes a deeper and more philosophic questions.
Today’s question: Is MLK’s non-violent resistance possible without the Christian conception of God and the notion of redemption, Christian love, and turning the other cheek?
In addition to the keynote speech by Sujatha Baliga on “Restorative Justice and Dr. King’s Infinite Hope,” the Davis MLK Day presentation featured a panel discussion on “New Jim Crow,” featuring introductory remarks by UC Davis Professor Tilhun Yilma and a panel comprised of Sasha Abramsky, Cruz Reynoso, Joe Schwartz and Bernita Toney.The discussion was based on the concept of “The New Jim Crow,” as defined in the book by Michelle Alexander, dealing with the mass levels of incarceration in the US – which has 25% of the world’s prison population despite only having 5% of the world’s total population.
It is perhaps one of the biggest questions of the Measure I campaign. The Yes on Measure I side has argued that, even absent the water project, “the days of cheap water are over” and there will be considerable water rate hikes, regardless of whether voters approve Measure I.
Elaine Roberts Musser told the Vanguard during an interview two weeks ago, that “there’s a cost to not doing the project. If you don’t do the project and the wells start to fail… there’s a cost there too. If we can’t come into compliance, we get fined by the state. And the state has told us that they’re not going to allow a community to benefit from not coming into compliance.”
By Dan OneyThe Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center announced the release of “The Impact of Probation and Parole Populations on Arrests in Four California Cities.” The study, which was funded by the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States, the Public Welfare Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence and the Rosenberg Foundation, answers one question that to date has been a matter of speculation among law enforcement and corrections officials everywhere: to what extent do people on parole and probation contribute to crime, as measured by arrests?
The Chiefs of the Los Angeles, Redlands, Sacramento, and San Francisco Police Departments commissioned the analysis in 2010. The 3.5-year timeframe covered in the study, which concluded in June 2011, immediately precedes the implementation of the state’s Public Safety Realignment Act, which commenced in October 2011.
Vanguard Court Watch of Yolo County is seeking applications from members of the community to become committee members for a newly-formed Vanguard Court Watch Council.
The Vanguard continues to await data from the city, regarding a critical question – what will happen to the water rates in the event that Measure I is defeated and we continue to rely on groundwater?In his column on Tuesday, Bob Dunning reprints an email communication from someone he calls his friend “Bill” at Comcast.net.
Restorative Justice Process Enabled Grieving Mother to Meet Her Daughter’s Killer – Linda White is a retired college professor, whose 26-year-old daughter was raped and murdered 25 years ago by two 14-year-olds. Ten years ago she did what many people would think was unthinkable – through a restorative justice process, she sat face to face with one of the assailants and spoke about the ending of her daughter’s life. She would ultimately forgive him.
How she came to do that and how the process works was the subject of an hour-long phone interview the Vanguard had with Ms. White last year. Following the MLK Day event in Davis this week, it seemed this was the appropriate time to publish Ms. White’s remarkable story.
Man Faces 40 Counts Including Vehicular Manslaughter By Vanguard Court Watch Interns
People v. Gubani Roderico Rosales Quinteros began Tuesday, January 22, with a heavy discussion. Before a trial can begin, the court reviews motions. Some of these motions request to omit evidence.
Mr. Quinteros is charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, among numerous other charges. His other charges include burglary, forgery and perjury.
Vanguard Court Watch of Yolo County is seeking applications from members of the community to become committee members for a newly-formed Vanguard Court Watch Council.
Redemption and Reconciliation Were the Vision of Dr. King – When Bay Area resident Sujatha Baliga, a Senior Program Specialist at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, where she assists communities in implementing restorative justice alternatives to juvenile detention and zero-tolerance school discipline policies, was asked to come speak, there is little doubt that not many people would have known who she was.
But that was before the New York Times story from early this year, “Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?” The story told the story of Conor McBride, who was was convicted of shooting his girlfriend of three years when they were both 19.
This past week, the Vanguard wrote an analysis questioning the results of a poll released by the Yes on Measure I campaign, which showed the surface water project passing by a wide margin of 63-11%, with about 26% undecided.
As we wrote on Saturday, that is not to argue that Measure I is not ahead – it may well be. Nor is there indication it will not prevail – and may even prevail by large margins. What I will argue is that 11% opposition is too low and that we should take these results with a healthy degree of skepticism. Because of the limited release, we only have circumstantial evidence here, but we have the school tax election results and the 2011 polling by the district on voter priorities that suggest that number is far too low.
Environmentalists in California worry the public is not fully aware of the potential harm Governor Edmund G. ‘Jerry’ Brown, Jr.’s proposed hydraulic fracturing, or ‘Fracking’ oil extraction regulations could do to the state’s regional groundwater tables and fertile California farmland in the Central Valley counties of Kings, Kern, Maricopa as well as those in which the Monterey Shale Deposits are located some 11,000 feet below the surface.
Fracking is an oil extraction process used on depleted wells and heavy, tar-like oil deposits. Fracking involves the injection of steam, water, sand and rocket propellant into the ground to bubble to the surface the oil reserves. It is known to make fertile farmland barren and contaminate groundwater tables.
One of the big questions in the water debate is the estimation of maintenance costs to the existing water distribution system.
In May of 2011, the teams of Brown and Caldwell and Kennedy-Jenks submitted a report to the city of Davis on the Water System Optimization Plan, that defines the improvements needed to optimally integrate a new surface water supply for the City of Davis.
