City Objects – Letter Contains Inaccuracies and Misinterpretations of the Proposed JPA: Tuesday was supposed to mark the meeting in which the city council would formally approve the Joint Powers Agreement for shared management services between the city of Davis and UC Davis Fire Department. Early on Tuesday morning, the Vanguard learned that Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson wrote a letter to the Davis City Council opposing the agreement.
The letter argues, “We believe that governance of public safety is and must remain a core function of the elected City Council of Davis. Community oversight and accountability is an important element of municipal services.”
They write, “We urge the Davis City Council to take another look at the serious long-range consequences of this proposal before contracting out any of these core municipal functions. There is a key difference between sharing or coordinating services and merging governance with the constitutionally separate and unelected Regents and Chancellor.”
“This proposed action would place a well-established and effective municipal service within an entity whose primary mission is higher education and research, not public safety,” the letter continues. “This could easily result in a lessening of service and response for the residents of the Davis community and the surrounding areas historically served by the Davis Fire Department. We deeply appreciate the presence of the UC Davis campus and respect the leadership of the campus. Unified operations and efficiencies are appropriate considerations, but should not come with loss of community accountability.”
The letter comes on the heels of efforts by the Davis firefighters’ union to mount a petition drive in which the union is telling the public that the agreement would effectively turn over control of the fire department to the unelected UC Regents.
However, city officials believe that the letter is largely inaccurate. They argue and show documentation that strongly suggests that this agreement does not give UC Davis control over the city’s fire department; rather it creates a shared management model for the management of both departments.
The shared management services model would acknowledge “the current level of collaboration between the agencies relative to the West Valley Regional Fire Training Consortium, the sharing of the Division Chief duty coverage, and the positive aspects of the Management Services Agreement between the parties that was placed on hold in January of 2012.”
As the staff report in October indicated, “A Shared Management Services Agreement would take full advantage of the Joint Powers Agreement governance model where both parties retain a significant amount of local control. Implementation of this alternative could be accomplished in a short period of time (one to three months).”
Moreover, as the city analysis presented to the City Council on October 15, 2013 indicates, “The governance model is a Shared Services Agreement. A new agency was not created, therefore it is not a Joint Powers Authority or Agency. Additionally, a separate governing body has not been created. The SSA only covers mid and executive management levels and each member of the team remains an employee of their respective agencies.”
The city adds, “The Fire Chief is directly supervised by the City Manager of his/her employing agency, however, he/she answers to the respective City Managers in relation to the managerial responsibilities and activities of each organization.”
Both City Manager Steve Pinkerton and UC Davis Vice Chancellor John Meyer confirmed to the Vanguard on Tuesday that none of the signers of the letter had met with or spoken with them about the agreement or their concerns.
On July 27, 2010, the Davis City Council unanimously passed a motion to execute a Management Services Agreement with UC Davis for shared fire services.
City officials told the Vanguard that the structure of upper management in the 2010 agreement and the current proposal is almost identical. It would have created a single fire chief with compensation shared between UC Davis and the City of Davis along with a “unified command team for singular management and oversight of both the City of Davis and UC-Davis fire departments.”
The only real difference between the 2010 agreement and the proposed 2013 agreement is that, in 2010, Interim Chief Bill Weisgerber would have headed up both departments. In 2013, it would be UC Davis Chief Nathan Trauernicht who would head both departments.
The Vanguard asked Supervisor Don Saylor to explain why the city council, including Mr. Saylor, passed the merger in 2010 without opposition. At the time, there was no opposition either on the council or in the community. The Vanguard asked him to explain what specific differences with the 2010 model led to his opposition this time to a similar upper management structure.
Supervisor Saylor did not respond to the Vanguard‘s email. The Vanguard also asked for clarification from Assemblymember Mariko Yamada and Senator Lois Wolk, and was told separately that the neither Senator Wolk nor Assemblymember Yamada were available to answer the Vanguard‘s questions.
The only current elected official to respond was Supervisor Provenza, who told the Vanguard, “As I understood it, the City of Davis was the lead in the prior model with the Davis Fire Chief in charge. A big difference. The trend has been to shift authority to cities in communities with a university. It is essential that police and fire departments be directly accountable to elected officials.”
However, at the meeting in October, Former Interim Chief Scott Kenley was clear in response to a question from Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk, the son of Senator Wolk, that no new agency would be created under this arrangement and the fire department would not be under UC Control.
As the report indicates, “The Fire Chief will have executive management responsibilities for setting the organizational values and vision; representing both the City and UC in interactions with external influences and the business community; and, providing guidance and recommendations to the City Council and UC Chancellor’s Office relative to the delivery of fire and life safety services.”
It adds, “The City Manager from Davis and the Administrative and Resource Vice Chancellor of UC Davis will serve jointly as the ‘Chief Administrative Officers,’ one providing guidance to the Fire Chief relative to UC Davis issues and the other relative to City of Davis issues.”
In other words, there is no lead agency in this arrangement.
While the fire departments will operate under the name, “West Valley Fire & Medical,” there will not be a new agency or governing body.
While the city considered a Joint Powers Agency/Authority, a Joint Powers Agreement would allow for the fire department to have oversight by the city manager and keep decision making powers at the local level of each entity.
They write, “A Shared Management Services Agreement would take full advantage of the Joint Powers Agreement governance model where both parties retain a significant amount of local control.”
The letter from the public officials argues, “We believe that community wide fire and medical emergency service is not a core function of the University. Only two of the University of California campuses currently operate their own fire and emergency services departments: UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis.”
They continue, “Santa Cruz is now in the process of moving away from this model and placing the UC Santa Cruz fire and medical emergency service under the total authority of the City of Santa Cruz. Davis, however, is on the verge of going in the opposite direction, moving more responsibility and authority to the University, away from the City.”
However, that contention is contradicted by information about the UC Santa Cruz Fire Department on the agency’s web site.
Their site notes, “Beginning in January 2012, the UCSC Fire Department entered into a joint management contract with the Santa Cruz Fire Department. Following the retirement of the former Santa Cruz Fire Chief, UCSC Fire Chief Jeff Trapp assumed the role of Fire Chief for both agencies, and all other chief officer positions are shared as well.”
It continues, “During emergency responses for serious incidents, the SCFD duty Battalion Chief responds as the incident commander and other SCFD units respond to assist the campus engine company.”
In fact, this is exactly how the UC Davis- City of Davis model would work. Chief Trauernicht would be backed with two Deputy Chiefs and Three Division Chiefs.
As the October staff report notes, the joint management structure which “provides for one Fire Chief; two Deputy Fire Chiefs; three Division Chiefs (24 hour); and, one Fire Marshal (40 hour). The Fire Chief will have executive management responsibilities for setting the organizational values and vision; representing both the City and UC in interactions with external influences and the business community; and, providing guidance and recommendations to the City Council and UC Chancellor’s Office relative to the delivery of fire and life safety services. Both of the Deputy Fire Chiefs will report directly to the Fire Chief; one having managerial responsibilities for the day-to-day operations of the fire department, and the other will serve as the West Valley Regional Fire Training Consortium Coordinator.”
The key point here is that the fire chief would represent both the City and University and would make recommendations to the city council and the chancellor’s office.
The problem here is that the public officials never met with either the city or the university before firing off their letter. It appears that their perceptions of the JPA are based off of the concerns expressed by the Davis firefighters’ union president. Instead of investigating themselves, they fired off the letter.
The comment by Jim Provenza confirms that the only real objection here is that the city wishes to hire UC Davis Chief Nathan Trauernicht to head up both agencies, which leads to the perception that UC Davis is running the show, whereas the documentation shows it is, in fact, shared management and, while Chief Trauernicht will remain a UC employee, he will have to answer to both the chancellor and the city manager.
At this week’s council meeting, both Davis firefighters’ union president Bobby Weist and Captain Joe Tenney attempted to charge that the JPA was moving forward without authorization and final approval from the council.
This contention was based on the placement of an ad by the West Valley Fire & Medical for a Deputy Fire Chief Training and Safety.
According to the ad, “West Valley Fire & Medical” is a newly formed shared management team that uses a joint powers agreement to lead both DFD and UCDFD.” The ad states for “full consideration, apply by November 22, 2013.”
In addition to Mr. Weist and Mr. Tenney, some councilmembers complained that this was putting the cart before the horse.
Chief Trauernicht suggested a more innocent explanation, that originally the JPA was set to go to council for final approval two meetings ago in early November.
He said, “Given council’s initial direction, we undertook efforts based on that original timeline to ensure we would both meet expectations and hit the ground running.”
However, the JPA, he said, “is still being reviewed by both legal councils on a timeline that has been beyond our control, thus the appearance of cart before the horse.”
He added, “It is unfortunate and regretful that we weren’t able to roll this all out on the original timeline, but the intention behind these actions were born out of enthusiasm and the desire to be prepared for a launch of the shared management agreement as quickly as possible.”
The letter from the public officials closes: “We understand there are a number of issues that come before the city council relating to delivery of fire and medical emergency services from one council to the next. There will always be a variety of viewpoints and often disagreements about those issues and how to pay for them.”
“However, none of these individual policy decisions is more important than basic governance — how those decisions are made, who makes them and the transparency of the decision-making processes. The University and Chancellor do not have the same open and transparent procedural requirements that a California municipality enjoys,” they add. “This is not just an issue of salary, benefits or pensions. The relevant criteria are quality of service for the citizens of Davis, citizen oversight and transparency, and maintaining the governing primacy of the elected City Council. On this we should all agree. We urge the City Council to reconsider this change in governance.”
Unfortunately, none of the signers took the time to discuss with the city their concerns, and perhaps to gain a better appreciation for what is actually contained in the agreement. Hopefully in the next few weeks those discussions can occur.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Another reason to annex the University into the City.
Another reason to annex the University into the City.
[quote]”This could easily result in a lessening of service and response for the residents of the Davis community and the surrounding areas historically served by the Davis Fire Department.[/quote]
If the issue being raised is clearly that of public safety, it would be of value to see exactly how the authors believe that this “lessening of service and response” would occur. In a number of different venues, the firefighter union leadership has made this assertion. I have yet to see any numeric or statistical evidence that this is likely to be the case.
What the union leadership has taken the time to convey is 1) an unwillingness to participate in objective evaluation of the functionality of the department 2) an unwillingness to work with interim leaders and preference for fomenting discord by votes of no confidence 3) allegations , subsequently unsubstantiated, of
dereliction of duty on the part of the UCD fire chief. 4) Willingness to use the testimonials of people rightfully appreciative of the very valuable work of the firefighters to exploit an unsubstantiated fear that people will somehow ( without ever explaining how) be put at risk by a closer working relationship with the UCD firefighters.
What I would request is that if the firefighters and / or their union leadership have legitimate concerns, based on actual numbers and or cases of instances in which response was hampered by a cooperative structure between firefighters of different entities such as a city and university that they make their case based on objective information. If such information does not exist, then my preference would be that they drop their claims of increasing community risk and simply state their preference to remain separate for what it seems to be, a desire to maintain the increased level of personal control they have recently enjoyed.
[quote]”This could easily result in a lessening of service and response for the residents of the Davis community and the surrounding areas historically served by the Davis Fire Department.[/quote]
If the issue being raised is clearly that of public safety, it would be of value to see exactly how the authors believe that this “lessening of service and response” would occur. In a number of different venues, the firefighter union leadership has made this assertion. I have yet to see any numeric or statistical evidence that this is likely to be the case.
What the union leadership has taken the time to convey is 1) an unwillingness to participate in objective evaluation of the functionality of the department 2) an unwillingness to work with interim leaders and preference for fomenting discord by votes of no confidence 3) allegations , subsequently unsubstantiated, of
dereliction of duty on the part of the UCD fire chief. 4) Willingness to use the testimonials of people rightfully appreciative of the very valuable work of the firefighters to exploit an unsubstantiated fear that people will somehow ( without ever explaining how) be put at risk by a closer working relationship with the UCD firefighters.
What I would request is that if the firefighters and / or their union leadership have legitimate concerns, based on actual numbers and or cases of instances in which response was hampered by a cooperative structure between firefighters of different entities such as a city and university that they make their case based on objective information. If such information does not exist, then my preference would be that they drop their claims of increasing community risk and simply state their preference to remain separate for what it seems to be, a desire to maintain the increased level of personal control they have recently enjoyed.
How much in political donations have Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson received from the Davis firefighters?
How much in political donations have Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson received from the Davis firefighters?
I did not have time to go through their disclosures, but no one on the city council received more money from the firefighters than Saylor, Yamada and Provenza were substantially backed by firefighters, less so Lois Wolk. No idea on Thomson.
I did not have time to go through their disclosures, but no one on the city council received more money from the firefighters than Saylor, Yamada and Provenza were substantially backed by firefighters, less so Lois Wolk. No idea on Thomson.
GI
[quote]How much in political donations have Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson received from the Davis firefighters?[/quote]
I think it is easy to try to reduce this to amount of financial support. What is of more interest to me is the rationale behind why they feel public safety in Davis might “easily” be placed at risk by this model.
If there are legitimate concerns, they should be something that can be articulated and then judged on the individual merits of each. There is no shame in having a concern, stating it, and then backing away from it if the evidence demonstrates that concern to be unwarranted. What would be a shame is to accept the claims of any side of this issue as fact without any substantiating evidence and also be unwilling to address questions about the specifics of your concern.
GI
[quote]How much in political donations have Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, Supervisors Don Saylor and Jim Provenza and former Supervisor Helen Thomson received from the Davis firefighters?[/quote]
I think it is easy to try to reduce this to amount of financial support. What is of more interest to me is the rationale behind why they feel public safety in Davis might “easily” be placed at risk by this model.
If there are legitimate concerns, they should be something that can be articulated and then judged on the individual merits of each. There is no shame in having a concern, stating it, and then backing away from it if the evidence demonstrates that concern to be unwarranted. What would be a shame is to accept the claims of any side of this issue as fact without any substantiating evidence and also be unwilling to address questions about the specifics of your concern.
I concur with medwoman.
I concur with medwoman.
It looks to me like the union called in a few favors. I trust that the City Council will give the letter all the attention that it deserves, and in the remainder of that minute will turn its attention to more useful endeavors.
[quote]I think it is easy to try to reduce this to amount of financial support. [/quote]
Nobody is trying to reduce this to a financial support issue, but if one doesn’t think that has a huge bearing in politician’s policies than one needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
Exactly Jim, the trash basket file comes to mind.
[quote]the trash basket file comes to mind.[/quote]
Perhaps that same trash basket could accommodate off the cuff accusations of ulterior motives.
The naked politics behind the letter is obvious. Although addressed to the City Council, the real intended audience is the uninformed public. Phrases like “merging governance with the constitutionally separate and unelected Regents and Chancellor” and “proposed action…could easily result in a lessening of service and response for the residents of the Davis community” aren’t expressions of concern, they’re fearmongering tactics.
If these politicians were really concerned about the DFD governance model, they’d have called or met with council members individually to discuss the matter. The fact that they joined forces to produce a letter they knew would become public (as are all communications to the council) shows their real intent.
Jim Frame: “[i]The naked politics behind the letter is obvious. Although addressed to the City Council, the real intended audience is the uninformed public.[/i]”
I think Jim is mostly right here, but I would add that another obvious intent of the letter is to provide political ‘cover’ for a Council Member who wants to support the FD Union’s position, without publicly saying so. It will be interesting to see if any of the Council adopts the arguments outlined in the letter to justify their vote.
Is there somewhere we can see the full text of the letter? Can you post it here?
I would say that this is a reason why we need campaign finance reform. It delegitimizes any concerns expressed by these politicians, even the legitimate ones.
“it” meaning the fact they took money from the firefighter unions.
Provenza – “It is essential that police and fire departments be directly accountable to elected officials.”
In a Council/Manager form of city government (e.g., Davis) the police and fire departments are not directly accountable to elected officials. I’m quite sure the same applies to UC fire departments.
B. Nice wrote:
> I would say that this is a reason why we need
> campaign finance reform. It delegitimizes any
> concerns expressed by these politicians, even
> legitimate ones.
The only “reform” we need is a simple law that makes every politician that takes money from a person or group (or has a PAC controlled by a person or a group run campaign ads for them) recuse themselves from any vote that gives things to that person or group.
If a developer or a union wants to give money to a politician (or fund ads that support the politician) I’m fine with that if the politician has to sit out any votes to give things to the person or group.
Not to pick on unions because just about everyone is figuring out that the best way to get ahead today is to bribe (also known as make perfectly legal campaign contributions, run PAC ads and “lobby”) politicians.
Years ago when I worked for a developer he actually had his CFO calculate the ROI of every dollar he spent on “political activity”. The ROI was so big that this guy has been donating/investing over seven figures A YEAR for decades…
We need to do something about the big business/big union take over of “our” government and a good place to start is at the local level. I know someone that works at a company mentioned in the article below who told me a couple years back that they can pretty much stop any competition in a high profit area of their business since “we own the FDA guys that would allow any competition”.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-19/how-washington-dc-sucking-life-out-america
B. Nice: “[i]It delegitimizes any concerns expressed by these politicians, even the legitimate ones.[/i]”
I know and respect each of the individuals who signed the letter. If any one of them had submitted the letter alone I would have viewed the comments as a statement of their personal concerns, and would have given those concerns careful consideration. By banding together however they have turned this into nothing more than a political stunt, and the only legitimate way to evaluate the content is as a piece of political theater. They have ‘delegitimized’ their concerns by presenting them as a political statement, rather than a personal one. In that regard, it doesn’t really matter who they have received contributions from in the past.
Much like the NRCS letter, this one is intended to provide a plausible reason to support a particular outcome without completely pissing off an important constituency opposed to that outcome. As I said before, it will be very interesting to see if any of the Council members adopt the reasoning presented in the letter.
This is a great article and there should be more reporting along these lines. Are these politicians corrupt or showing their true colors? It is telling that so far only one bothered to respond.
I’m trying to figure out why all these elected officials and the Davis FF’s are fighting the merger. I think the objection is that in Santa Cruz the UC firefighters are paid the same as city firefighters. Here that isn’t going to be the case. See this article. By the way in Santa Cruz students living on campus get to vote in city elections. It seems annexing the UCD campus could make this all moot.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_23110786/santa-cruz-ucsc-fire-units-would-benefit-from
Mr. Toad, I agree annexation is the right thing to do, and not just for voting rights. If done correctly, annexation would benefit both entities by lowering operating costs and improving cooperation. Yet, these agencies have not been managed in the greater public interest. They have been, and continue to be, managed to serve narrow political interests.
This protest letter over the fire department merger is a continuation of that practice.
this is going to appear personal and meanspirited but it needs to come forward.
when jim provenza was elected, he brought on his former colleague gina daleiden, a school board member to be his chief deputy. many of us who supported provenza thinking of him as a progressive raised our eyebrows on this one.
daleiden had been don saylor’s campaign manager and then helen thomson’s second in command at the county prior to the hire.
so you have an elected official, hiring another elected official.
provenza’s been a relatively good supervisor for most issues.
but we had the flap a month ago over his letter to the council and the eastern protection district.
the bigger problem is something i’ve just found out about a month or so ago. so gina daleiden divorced her long time husband and has for at least the last year been dating probably living with bill weisgerber, the former interim fire chief. weisgerber became a huge union sycophant during his tenure, argued at council against the staffing changes. in short, he’s become one of weist’s mouth pieces.
so now you have the elected official who hires the elected official who is sleeping with the former interim fire chief.
that’s a big problem here and no one knows anything about it. i like daleiden, and like provenza, but this is not right.
I have just removed a post by Davis Progressive because it was, in my opinion, too personal.
The relevant part of it was:
Gina Daleidin, chief of staff to Jim Provenza, used to work for Don Saylor and Helen Thomson. She is in a relationship with Bill Weisgerber, the former interim fire chief. Bill Weisberger opposes the staffing changes.
the other relevant part, don (and i understand you’re point) is that i think there is a huge conflict there. daleiden as his chief deputy is in the position to influence policy and weisgerber is in a position to influence daleiden. and the voters do not know about this for the most part.
the other point is that these are public officials and their personal lives are crossing over into policy areas.
I’m sure this is news to Ms. Daleidin.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
Thomas Pynchon
Mark Weat: “As I said before, it will be very interesting to see if any of the Council members adopt the reasoning presented in the letter.”
SODA: I especially wonder how this may impact Dan Wolk’s rhetoric and vote.
Sorry. Mark West. On iPhone on subway!
The more I think about this letter the less I see it as being any political cover for any current Council member. My logic behind that conclusion is that Mariko Yamada clearly supports Pope, so giving political cover to one of Pope’s foes would be politically illogical.
Matt Williams: “[i]My logic behind that conclusion is that Mariko Yamada clearly supports Pope, so giving political cover to one of Pope’s foes would be politically illogical.[/i]”
On the service you are likely right, but there are a number of ways that political cover can be used. It might allow someone running for higher office to avoid upsetting a constituency as you imply, but it may also be intended to provide a benefit to one constituency over another. If the goal for instance is to reward the FD Union, then the ‘cover’ could involve giving a wavering Council member a reason or method to supply the last vote to ensure the benefit without endangering their future work with other constituencies. It would still be political cover, even if all the authors did not all share the same ultimate goal.
Oops…’On the surface…
We will all be anxiously awaiting Dan Wolk’s reaction to this letter.
Harking back to the Measure X, Covell Village campaign, a public letter that attempts to “terrorize” Davis voters is not foreign to the then- Helen Thomsen political “team”,some of whom, if I remember correctly(and I stand corrected if mistaken), are now part of Helen Wolk’s office.
As I recall Dan Wolk voted to put the UCD Chief in charge of DFD as well. Now you want to attack him for something his mother did that Dan had nothing to do with and he is on the record as voting differently than the position his mother the Senator takes in this letter. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I guess in this case its Danned if you do and Danned if you don’t.
MarkWest
[quote]I know and respect each of the individuals who signed the letter. If any one of them had submitted the letter alone I would have viewed the comments as a statement of their personal concerns, and would have given those concerns careful consideration. By banding together however they have turned this into nothing more than a political stunt, and the only legitimate way to evaluate the content is as a piece of political theater. They have ‘delegitimized’ their concerns by presenting them as a political statement, rather than a personal one. In that regard, it doesn’t really matter who they have received contributions from in the past.
[/quote]
I really see this quite differently for several reasons.
1) If a concern has merit, it surely has merit whether one person expresses it or several do. I do not happen
to share the concern in this case, but that is irrelevant.
2) I also see pros and cons in the manner of presentation. Let’s say that each of these individuals had sent the same letter separately ? Now is it a genuine concern ? Or would someone say they were being dishonest or not transparent since the were “obviously” trying to all send the same message but appear as though they were speaking only for themselves ?
3) How about if a current or previous “elected” signs a petition that others have also signed ? Does this
“delegitimize” the concern ?
The value of the concern, or lack thereof, is in the concern itself. I do not see the merits of the concern as any more or less legitimate based on how many of my colleagues or associates I get to sign my letter, any more than I believe that the merits of an idea depends on who has suggested it.
I believe if people have received donations from a party that is fighting a proposal then that has to be taken into deep consideration when analyzing their concerns.
GI
[quote]I believe if people have received donations from a party that is fighting a proposal then that has to be taken into deep consideration when analyzing their concerns.[/quote]
I believe that what has to be taken into deep consideration is their motives. I believe that the concern should stand on its own.
[quote]If a concern has merit[/quote]
And if a concern has no merit, but is expressed loudly by multiple political figures with ties to a special interest group opposing a policy decision, and the sole purpose of that expression is to generate public outcry against the policy decision, is that okay, too? Because I think that’s what we’re dealing with here.
Jim Frame
[quote]And if a concern has no merit, but is expressed loudly by multiple political figures with ties to a special interest group opposing a policy decision, and the sole purpose of that expression is to generate public outcry against the policy decision, is that okay, too? Because I think that’s what we’re dealing with here. [/quote]
It is absolutely ok. That is what freedom of speech and freedom of association is all about.
I tend to agree with you in substance. I do not share the concerns expressed in the letter. I think that it was poorly researched and in error.
What I am defending is their right to express their concern and express it in any legal manner they choose, just as I defend the right of all of us to counter their position.
Is any of that really controversial ?
medwoman, my problem with the letter is that it was the escalation of a message that NRCS had already very clearly conveyed to the City and to the Land Trust on multiple occasions over the preceding 12 months. Why was it necessary to escalate the rhetoric that way?
Further, why was it necessary to escalate the rhetoric in such veiled terms? The NRCS has complete access to the historical database of grant applications. How hard would it have been to perform some simple queries into that database and then have provided some straightforward, transparent examples of YLY/City of Davis applications from the past where a change in Closing Efficiency would have resulted in a material change in the outcome of the grant.
Finally, they compounded the escalation problem by informing the City that they planned on attending the Council meeting to verbally convey the same message contained in their letter. Then when Ms. Kiger did show up and speak it was more of the same non-transparent, veiled “may” “might” “could” rhetoric. She was like an elementary school child who the teacher calls up to the front of the class to answer questions, only to say “I didn’t do my homework.”
My parting comment is that all the above are the actions of a public servant who is paid by our taxpayer dollars.
Oops, wrong thread.
But when I thinks about it, the parallels between the NRCS letter and the firefighting letter are interesting to ponder. The final paragraph of my comment above doesn’t apply though.