Dear readers,
2017 marks the conclusion of the 11th year of the Davis Vanguard! It has been a great year for the Vanguard as we continue to advance our goals of transparency, accountability and fairness in local government and promoting social justice.
Your generous support of the Davis Vanguard has made all of our 2017 goals possible! It is your support and demand for justice that has helped us to have our best year to date! You are a part of Team Davis Vanguard and we thank you for your generosity and involvement!
Here are some of our key highlights for 2017:
- Coverage of Picnic Day helped to force the city into a discussion on police oversight and an independent investigation of the police officers involved. Our coverage of former Sheriff John McGinness led to him stepping down and the hiring of McGregor Scott.
- The issue of student housing: UC Davis, and student apartments led the way on local coverage. It was featured in two of our monthly conclave discussions and countless articles generating thousands of comments as the critical discussion moves forward.
- Our ongoing coverage of the Yolo County courts continues as DA Jeff Reisig will face for the first time, since he was elected, an electoral challenger from within his own office as Deputy DA Larry Eichele challenges him.
- The Vanguard had extensive coverage of the hate crime at the Islamic Center and then the comments by the Davis Islamic Center Imam Shahin as Davis became the focal point once again of controversy.
- The Vanguard took you to the front lines of the reaction to the election of President Trump and various protests and demonstrations locally.
Here are some of our new initiatives and events from 2017:
- We expanded the unique Court Watch Program into Sacramento this fall with the hire of Former Sacramento Bee reporter Cres Vellucci and we will have interns there starting in January.
- We have expanded the focus of the Court Watch program utilizing the work of interns and staff to re-examine cases where we believe local defendants were wrongly convicted of crimes.
- The Vanguard launched its monthly Conclave series at Sophia’s with discussions of cannabis, LGBT rights, police oversight, the Davis Downtown and Student Housing.
- The Vanguard held its annual fundraiser featuring the amazing work of the Yolo County Public Defender’s office in an event that opened eyes and drew over 150 audience members.
- The Vanguard continued its Court Watch program training over 50 interns in the 2017 year.
- *The Vanguard website drew over 1 MILLION page-views and hosted more than 30,000 comments for the year.
The Vanguard is a non-profit and the work we do is indispensable to the Davis and Yolo County Community.
We rely on our readers and donors to fund our small but growing staff and our growing operations.
Please become a monthly subscriber of $10 a month or more to help us sustain our organization (https://davisvanguard.org/2017/04/subscriber) or make a one-time contribution of $25, $100 or $1000 to our GoFundMe to help us pay for our bills: http://gofundme.com/vanguard-december-fundraiser
Thank you for being a member of Team Vanguard! Your support makes a difference.
Thanks for your support,
David Greenwald
Executive Director
