Month: April 2013

By Councilmember Rochelle Swanson

April 16, 2012 (Washington DC) – Today was the longest of the days we have experienced so far. Some of us had appointments starting at 8 am, which means we had to be at the Capitol and congressional office buildings by 7 am to ensure we could get through security.  And security was most certainly heightened at all of the DC office buildings due to the tragic events in Boston yesterday, making for long security lines and lots of waiting.

The Davis/Yolo group was again split up to be on several different Sacramento Metro Chamber Cap-to-Cap teams, including Innovation, Transportation, Flood Control, Water Resources, Food & Agriculture, and Job & Business.  Most of my time was spent on select appointments with either the Metro Chamber Leadership or the Innovation Team.

This week, the city of Vallejo, emerging from bankruptcy, is becoming the first city in the nation to allow, on a citywide basis, residents to vote on how to spend the city’s tax money.

Under Vallejo’s model of “participatory budgeting,” residents ages 16 and up can vote on how to spend about $3 million in tax money.  Residents will have an opportunity to view the ideas created by volunteer budget delegates representing a number of different committees, including education, economic development, youth and other segments of the community. Delegates worked with fellow committee members, City of Vallejo staff, city agencies, and local non-profits to determine which projects are feasible and most needed.

by Councilmember Rochelle Swanson

April 15, 2012 (Washington DC) – We were met today with the shocking and sad news today from our home about the incredible loss of two very important community members. It was hard to focus today and Joe, Lucas and I have been keeping in constant touch with Chief Black and city manager Steve Pinkerton for updates and information.

This terrible community loss was then compounded by the news from Boston.  Security in DC became very tight and they shut the park to the north of the White House.

By Councilmember Rochelle Swanson

April 14, 2012 (Washington DC) – Today has been a busy day of prep as the Sacramento Metro Chamber Capitol-to-Capitol trip gets into full swing. Most of the 300+ delegates arrived yesterday (Saturday) and represent cities, counties, big and small businesses, agencies, utilities, and community leadership from the 6-county Sacramento region.

The original Davis/Yolo County team has now been split up and joined the Cap-to-Cap teams of Innovation, Flood Protection, Jobs & Business Growth, Agriculture & Food, Health Care, Education, and Transportation, among others. So to start the day, we met in our respective new teams to go over the appointment schedule and determine leads for each appointment and pertinent topics based on our issues papers generated prior to the trip.

In our current society, it is difficult to escape the fact that elections are inherently flawed mechanisms, whereas a relatively low percentage of the public will actually participate in the election by voting, a small percentage will actually be sufficiently knowledgeable about the issues to make an  informed decision – and if the split is relatively close, a very small difference in opinion will decide the election.

None of this is particularly new and we certainly knew going into the Measure I water election that the voter turnout, even in an all-mail ballot, would be quite low.

By Councilmember Rochelle Swanson

April 13, 2012 (Washington DC) – Keyword for Friday was homework! At the end of each meeting we have been asked to identify successes – “good case studies” – when we return back to Davis that demonstrate how we are excelling at cooperation. We’ve also been directed to go through the draft of the Farm Bill with a fine tooth comb and make suggestions on ways the bill can be improved to address items in Davis and Yolo County and help shape our white paper on an Innovation Accelerator Zone concept. This concept has been so well received – the US deputy chief technology officer thinks its “fantastic” and is “enthusiastic” to get more information – it is now officially an acronym! IAZ, a living laboratory to explore and best practices for leveraging investments of both financial and human capital. You heard it here first!

At the legislative briefing at Nossaman, LLP we were apprised of highlights from the President’s budget that had just been released and that could apply to directly to our region, including research investments, TIGER fund restoration, Rail Service Improvement Funds and a National Infrastructure Bank, just to name a few. In addition, they advised us of the heavy preference for Public-Private Partnerships and regional efforts required for funding and then praised us for being ahead of the game on our local practices in both these areas.

It is ironic that the firefighters chose this week, among all weeks, to launch their citizen-based astroturf front group, Friends of Davis Firefighters.  This is the week that the city manager unveiled the daunting city budget, that shows mainly bad news.

Some of the bad news is, of course, of the city’s own doing.  While the city manager projects a $6 million ongoing structural deficit by 2018, half of that, $3 million, is self-inflicted – coming from the rising costs of water due to water rate hikes.  It is of some irony that during the course of the Measure I campaign, no one effectively raised the fact that this project and its accompanying rate hikes would explode the city’s general fund deficit.

This week we saw the full wrath of the budget come back up to bite us once again.  In the city manager’s presentation, we see that the city has opened up another two million structural deficit.

But that is nothing.  Over the next five fiscal years, while revenue is expected to increase from just under 42 million dollars to just over 46 million, expenditures go up far faster, exploding from just under 44 million to 52 million.