If I were to be asked to deliver the State of the City Address, I might take a riff from Charles Dickens – it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Back in November, I felt pretty optimistic about things. We had the Jumpstart Davis meet-up and there was real energy, with cool startups that seemed to be emerging.
The economic downtown in Davis was a warning shot across our bows that we could not continue with business as usual. That meant we had to get our fiscal house in order – deal with things like structural deficits, deferred maintenance, unfunded liabilities, and pension crises. None of these was particularly unique to Davis, but they were all exacerbated by the lack of a sales tax base for the city.
Davis has long been considered a sleeping giant when it comes to economic development. The university has been flexing its muscles with ambitious fundraising for research and development and the city is ideally situated near enough to Sacramento and with a world class university in its backyard to really do something special – while, I think, retaining essential core elements such as sustainability and environmental stewardship.
So as we emerge from the recession and money is not so tight, we are looking at the potential from major investments, startups, high tech, clean tech, green energy and technology, and agricultural technology that can help feed the world into the 21st century.
In 2013 after the city of Davis had stumbled in multiple efforts to bring this promise into reality, the city brought on a Chief Innovation Officer, Rob White. Over the course of the next year and a half, the entire nature of the discourse changed.
Peripheral innovation parks were not a new concept – but by the fall of 2013, the idea had grown legs. What was largely DOA in 2010 and 2012, even after things like DSIDE and Studio 30 and the Innovation Park Task Force, emerged as credible in late 2013.
Following the RFEI (Request for Expressions of Interest), the two identified sites in the east and the west emerged with project proposals and formal applications. Seven million square feet of innovation park space could emerge from these new projects.
However, just as we appear to be on the brink of success, the worst angels of our nature have reemerged. Here is the thing we should worry most about – the enemy is not who you think it is. Throughout this process I have heard about “fear” – that people will vote against these proposals out of fear, fear of change, fear of eroding their property values. There was a fear of some amorphous slow growther conspiracy that would emerge to defeat the projects.
Instead, we should be looking within – fear should be replaced by greed, envy, and naked political ambition.
As I started to warn earlier this week, one potential point where these projects could be undone would be at the point of competition between competing proposals. My concern goes deeper and it is not the developers or the project proposers that we have to worry about, but the political wrangling behind the scenes.
That makes the calculations not straight-ahead cost-benefit analyses, with the best interests of the community at heart, but rather a matter perhaps of where the projects will be, who is backing them, and who benefits from the projects going through. I am not going to untangle any of this today, but rather suggest that we need to make this process as clean and as transparent as possible and evaluate everything on the merits of how much they will benefit the community, while we do our best to mitigate the downside.
But there is more and it involves changing the narrative in the community. I will be very honest – I don’t know how to do it.
For years, the Vanguard warned about the impending fiscal crisis that was from 2008-2010 largely being ignored. We gave away unsustainable pensions and retiree health, making promises to future employees and retirees that were not funded.
When we got in a fiscal hole, we papered over those concerns through attrition and failure to maintain critical infrastructure. We missed the opportunity in the 2009 MOUs to make the needed structural changes.
When we analyzed city compensation we found that, compared to other industries and sectors, we were paying a lot both in salaries and benefits.
It took a few years, but good portions of the community caught up with that thinking and Davis has become very strong on the need for fiscal restraint.
Going forward, here is one problem that we may face. When consultants did a salary comparison for the city manager search back in July, we found that Davis was at the very bottom in compensation regionally and among cities of comparable populations. We rectified this by bumping up the salary to about the 75th percentile.
The explanation for this was that Davis is a challenging venue with a high cost of living and an engaged population.
So it turns out that, if we extended that comparison to other executive positions, we will find similar results – Davis compensates comparable positions a good deal less than comparable cities.
Here’s the problem as it was presented to me recently – we expect a lot from our city staff, they get hammered both publicly and privately in emails and phone calls from community members, and then we pay them 20 to 30 percent less than they can get in other places.
The result is that we may end up losing some of our good, younger executive staff – the very same ones, perhaps, that we may rely on to do the work we are expecting on economic development and innovation.
I know that there are people convinced that either we do not have very good city staff members or that we can find good staff members for a lot less than we are paying. I am sure there are those who believe we don’t need good city staff members at all and this can be taken care of otherwise.
At the end of the day, we had a moment where everything seemed to line up to create great promise for the future of this community, and now it feels like, in the matter of a few weeks, it is all just slipping away.
The challenge, I think, is this: how can we continue to be fiscally responsible, how can we continue to demand excellence of our public servants, and how can we do so in a way that doesn’t undercut the great things we are trying to do?
I wish I had the answer for that.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David
Thanks for your interesting perspective on what is bright and what is not in our current situation. In view of the brisk conversation about what is appropriate to be addressed on the local vs the county, state, or national level, with posters frequently not in agreement about what is whose job to address, I would like to focus on just one small aspect of your piece.
“So as we emerge from the recession and money is not so tight, we are looking at the potential from major investments, startups, high tech, clean tech, green energy and technology, agricultural technology that can help feed the world into the 21st century.”
I find it interesting to think that technology, whether green or otherwise is the best or only approach to “help feed the world into the 21st century”. I would propose that “we” already have within our current technologies the means to “help feed the world” and yet we choose not to use them. My recipe to “help feed the world” would be:
1. Voluntarily limit undesired population growth by providing free contraception to any man or woman who wants it. For confirmation that this works, Google population growth rate in Honduras and check out the population growth chart from 2000 – 2012. Their model is a free non hormonal IUD to any woman who wants it and essentially at cost birth control pills to anyone who chooses that option.
2. Pay farmers to actually grow food, rather than paying them to not grow it.
3. Incentivize those who are currently growing non food products such as tobacco and yes, marijuana, and opium poppies to grow food instead. Make it more profitable to grow food than drugs and watch the tobacco, marijuana and opium fields fold.
4. Reward the provision of staples and development of self help local agricultural initiatives above provision of luxury items and gourmet treats for those of us who already have far more than enough. As hpierce pointed out on another thread, business will “follow the money”. So make it profitable for entrepreneurs to invest in local water supply, community health and agricultural projects.
5. Nudge and reward a gradual change from a junk good, meat and sweet based dietary pattern to a plant based diet, both for our individual and community health, but also because plants consumed by people is a much more efficient means of providing caloric intake for large populations than is an animal based diet. This is fact, not politically driven liberal drivel.
There is plenty that could be accomplished on the local, county, state, national and international level towards the laudable goal of “helping to feed the world” that does not depend upon the development of “new technologies”. This does not mean that I do not favor new technologies which have supported much that is positive in our current lifestyle. I very much favor these efforts. However, in our haste to “innovate” I hate to see us lose sight of today’s possibilities that we are just choosing to ignore because they are not as convenient or as “sexy” as making a bunch of money through “innovation”.
so you don’t think developing technology to increase the efficiency and profitability of food cultivation is valuable? you don’t see the world food center as potentially part of the solution?
DP
“so you don’t think developing technology to increase the efficiency and profitability of food cultivation is valuable? you don’t see the world food center as potentially part of the solution?”
I think that you may have overlooked this part of my post.
“This does not mean that I do not favor new technologies which have supported much that is positive in our current lifestyle. I very much favor these efforts.”
i did – sorry
Tia, I started to answer each of your points one by one, somehow my computer lost it, so I will make just one comment. I am assuming your points refer to the world, and not just the U.S. All your ideas sound fine from an idealistic point of view, but realistically are impossible to carry out, which past history has shown us to be the case.
Anon
Thanks for addressing my post thoughtfully. And I fundamentally disagree with your main point.
“All your ideas sound fine from an idealistic point of view, but realistically are impossible to carry out, which past history has shown us to be the case.”
I do not believe that something that has not been achieved before means that it is not possible. It may be difficult. It may not come within my lifetime, but that does not make it impossible. My evidence:
Before there were antibiotics, some people lived because of superior immune systems, but many died and it was felt impossible to cure them. That was objectively correct at the time, but with new ways of looking at old observations, namely that some molds and pus from wounds had curative properties, what was previously impossible became everyday treatments.
Space flight, once deemed “impossible”, has advanced rapidly because enough momentum was gained in establishing this as a priority. This was because of a deliberate change in the priorities of many nations.
Pick any major societal advancement and the same point can be made.
I firmly believe that if “we” ( on the local, state, federal and international level) were to prioritize feeding the world’s population in the same way that we prioritize many other endeavors, we could do exactly what now appears to you to be an “impossibility”. I believe that this is a conscious choice that we have it in our power to make not just some “idealistic” or “utopian” vision.
Wow… one gratuitous “feed the world” phrase, and now it looks like THAT is the “topic”. I think NOT. Tia, just write your own article.
I am not following the purpose of the first part of this article at all, other than to foment unrest/unease.
1. “As I started to warn earlier this week, one potential point where these projects could be undone would be at the point of competition between competing proposals. My concern goes deeper and it is not the developers or the project proposers that we have to worry about, but the political wrangling behind the scenes.
That makes the calculations not straight-ahead cost-benefit analyses, with the best interests of the community at heart, but rather a matter perhaps of where the projects will be, who is backing them, and who benefits from the projects going through. I am not going to untangle any of this today”
What the heck? Whatever are you talking about?
2. “Here’s the problem as it was presented to me recently – we expect a lot from our city staff, they get hammered both publicly and privately in emails and phone calls from community members, and then we pay them 20 to 30 percent less than they can get in other places.
The result is that we may end up losing some of our good, younger executive staff – the very same ones, perhaps, that we may rely on to do the work we are expecting on economic development and innovation.”
Here’s a thought. How about the public, including the Vanguard, stop calling for staff to be removed from their jobs? How about the public not call staff “liars” to their faces in pubic meetings and in private? How about the public who do not have any particular expertise not tell staff how to do their jobs in public meetings and in private? How about City Council members being respectful to staff, even when disagreeing with them? I can tell you many city staff have left because they are fed up with the nonsense they are having to put up with in dealing with “the Davis way”.
“I am not following the purpose of this article at all.”
the purpose of the article is that we are about to undercut our efforts to move forward based on greed and political ambition.
“the political wrangling behind the scenes”
obviously he’s saying that things are going on behind the scenes that could undermine the innovation park proposals.
“How about the public, including the Vanguard, stop calling for staff to be removed from their jobs? How about the public not call staff “liars” to their faces in pubic meetings and in private? How about the public who do not have any particular expertise not tell staff how to do their jobs in public meetings and in private? How about City Council members being respectful to staff, even when disagreeing with them? I can tell you many city staff have left because they are fed up with the nonsense they are having to put up with in dealing with “the Davis way”.”
yeah – i think that’s exactly what he’s trying to say – without saying it.
Anon
“I can tell you many city staff have left because they are fed up with the nonsense they are having to put up with in dealing with “the Davis way”.
Specific examples please. If not by name, then by position and how you know that this was the reason for their departure.
In key positions, “position” + “left” = “names”. Get real. I know of many who either left, or took early retirement, because they were professionals but had to toe a political line which made them fell “dirty” a more than a little bit too often. If you and Mr Shor will accept, I’ll send him one of my e-mail addresses, and perhaps we can connect outside this venue, and I can open your eyes. I trust Don to be discrete. I do NOT trust this blog, and I’m still trying to determine how I feel about you. I also trust Robb Davis to be discrete.
Fine with me. donshor@gmail.com
Hoierce
my email is tia.will52@gmail.com
i post under my own name, if that is not enough reassurance, ask Robb about my discretion.
it seems to me the bigger issue here isn’t whether we should build an innovation park, but whether there is going to be a fair and open process to determine it. reading through the lines here, i think people behind the scenes are trying to preempt or co-opt the process – yes?
What makes you think there isn’t going to be a fair and open process, other than David Greenwald’s vague innuendo?
i have no reason to believe there won’t be a fair and open process other than the fact that david greenwald published this piece this morning.
good. then there is nothing to worry about.
Good article David.
I have learned more about Davis city politics over this last couple of years than in all my previous 38 years living here. What I have learned is that basically things are not much different than High School, except for so much opportunity for monetary gain.
There are the popular kids. The kids playing sports and those artistic ones in band and drama. And then there were the brainy kids… and a small, elite subset of those that were also blessed with attractiveness and strong social skills. And then there are the rest of us just trying to maintain our B average while working a job and trying to maintain a social life.
But consider what would have happened in High School if a position of power and influence gave some kids access to hundreds of millions of dollars. The eventual results would not be much different than what we see today… basically crappy fiscal management. Over-spending. Those in power and those connected to those in power stuffing their pockets at the expense of everyone else.
There will be desperate attempts to control the narrative in a way that keeps this gravy train running. It will be up to the general student body (all those regular folk lacking connections to power and influence that results in pockets full of money) to say enough is enough.
There are two simple considerations in response to any claim that Davis’s budget is again in the black and healthy.
1. Calculate and chart the city worker retirement benefit liability. Not the sugar-coated version… the REAL liability.
2. Compare Davis’s budget to other like communities with similar amenities. For example, Palo Alto has a general fund budget that is 3 times the size of Davis’s general fund budget. Palo Alto has almost the exact same population as Davis.
We need to grow our local economy to sustain the general population. Those in power and influence will certainly push to put more money in their pocket and in their friend’s pockets. But if they are doing so at the expense of the rest of us, we need to fight back.
Frankly
“There are the popular kids. The kids playing sports and those artistic ones in band and drama. And then there were the brainy kids… and a small, elite subset of those that were also blessed with attractiveness and strong social skills. And then there are the rest of us just trying to maintain our B average while working a job and trying to maintain a social life.”
Wow ! This sounds like a fun parlor game. Would you care to start off by sharing who in the city today belongs in each of your categories and then we can all chip in by voting your choices up or down ? Maybe ,like an ongoing trivia game at a local restaurant ,we could keep this going so we could see who is rising and who is falling in the Frankly Follies of Davis.
Palo Alto has a university that long ago recognized the importance both to the economic needs of the host community, as well as its own best interests, by fostering and encouraging a vibrant, robust, local base of cutting edge private sector technology employers and medical research enterprise. The underlying drivers behind the three X revenue differential aren’t something that somehow just randomly happened. It took active, involved, visionary leadership both within the local, host business community as well as the university.
Right – and that takes a mindest of working toward the greater good… of dynamism instead of stasist… and opportunity for many instead of just payoffs for the chosen few.
The cool thing is that Davis sits on a fabulous opportunnity to have it all. Or we can pucker up our rears again and perpetuate our mediocrity and extend our fiscal malaise.
Frankly, you forgot the bunch of us kids whose parents divorced and had to work instead of all those after school activities.
But seriously folks, I see the result of the City mentality back before I came to town reaping what they have sown for decades.
The shopping in nearby towns, Dixon, Woodland, County Fair Mall? Resistance to building any big-box store over 25K square feet in Davis.
The housing prices going crazy? City resistance to building more housing, especially affordable housing, so people who work there can live there. Instead, people who can afford it convert what they have to dorms and exploit the Codes letting them create hazards all over the city, Apartments that have twice as many people in them as designed, and parking is crazy in the neighborhoods.
Downtown? Generating more traffic problems than they solve, even today arguing for slowing down cars, only to create more parking – on the freeway!
The University? Resistance to accommodating it, treating it like 20K students are a non-issue, makes it build its own housing, finance new professors with low-income loans, build a new hotel, due to be doubled in size soon, because Davis has not taken the opportunity to do it first.
Shopping? Still not very available, and the whole downtown, while some projects move to a future vision with new multi-story buildings a la Natsoulos and others all the way to Fifth Street, still remodel old houses for offices and restaurants which will be there for another 25 or 30 years. Nice to see the new ones though, which have lofts and fresh appearances.
“Instead, we should be looking within – fear should be replaced by greed, envy, and naked political ambition.”
Would that happen to include the “naked political ambitions” of Michael “no growth” Harrington? Or would that be No Growth (Sue) Greenwald?
Someone mention my name? Yes, I am sooo politically ambitious. I run to every CC meeting hoping for three minutes under the hot lights