Transparency: The Funding of the Position of Chief Innovation Officer
CIO Focused Discussion on Key Land Use Decisions Involving Economic Development – The city of Davis this spring brought on board Rob White to the position of Chief Innovation Officer (CIO). The position, launched through a private-public partnership, was to be co-founded in part by public money and in part through the non-profit group techDAVIS, a 501(c)(3) business association comprised of current and former senior technology executives with close ties to UC Davis and/or the Davis community, as well as ex officio members from the government, academic and business services sectors.
Their goal is to help grow the innovation economy in Davis and surrounding areas. At the time, the city of Davis and techDAVIS described the venture as “a unique public-private partnership to enhance connections between the city and the technology industry.”
From 2006 until only the last few years, one of our favorite expressions was that the council majority was lining up in punt formation to push off another hard decision for a future council.
By Rob White
By Catherine Woodward
By Matt Williams
Earlier this week, the Sacramento Police Department reported the death of a man in his forties, in their custody after a brief but violent struggle. On Tuesday they released a brief report on the death of John Torretti.
Innovative Water Plan – A report in 
On Thursday, the Water Advisory Commission listened to the opposition to fluoridation present their case. The meeting, which reportedly lasted three hours, had dozens of public commenters. The WAC will make their recommendation on whether Davis should add fluoride to its water supply at their next meeting.
Earlier this week, in a column, we questioned the defense in the Clayton Garzon case, where he allegedly attacked Mikey Partida while using racial epithets. As we noted at the time, the defense brought in a linguistics expert from Brigham Young University in Utah to testify that anti-gay slurs are not necessarily reflective of bias against homosexuals, but rather could be simply used to challenge one’s manhood.
I admit that when nationally publicized trials come on, I turn them off. It’s a bad habit of mine. I made the mistake with the OJ Simpson trial, and I have made the mistake several other times. I have come to regret it yet again. Another time I will explain my predilection for doing this, but for now, let me just point out my eyes were opened when I saw that the jury could not reach a verdict on the penalty phase.
While I don’t want to diminish the work of the present council, who has in the past month fixed two rather vexing problems – fire staffing and road pavement – the vote on road pavement left me a little down. Why, you might rightly ask.
In the past few weeks, I have had numerous conversations on the issue of racial profiling and the recent event involving 68-year-old Eli Davis. One of the more interesting things is how much the reaction of white and blacks diverge, not only on this incident, but on the issue of the treatment of blacks and minorities by the criminal justice system as a whole.
Earlier this week, the UC Davis News Service published an article that chronicled Dysonics, which is a startup company in San Francisco that spun out of fifteen years of research at UC Davis.
While the voters approved Measure I in March, there is pending litigation that may be impacting the ability of the city to finance the project. According to comments from City Manager Steve Pinkerton at this past Tuesday’s city council meeting, the city will need to produce 30 to 40 million dollars by this fall to finance some of the costs the city has incurred to date on the surface water project.