(Editor’s note: This announcement was submitted to the Vanguard by the candidate. The Vanguard has an open submission policy and will take statements and publish submissions from anyone in the community including candidates for political office).
My name is Mark West and I am a candidate for Davis City Council.
Our community is facing multiple challenges that will require tough choices and difficult decisions. We have a fiscal crisis that threatens services for residents and the continuing deterioration of our roads, parks, and other infrastructure. We have a severe housing shortage, that threatens the character of the City as a great place to live and raise a family. The housing crisis is especially challenging for renters, including young families, the working poor, and students who, together, makeup greater than half of our population.
We also have a leadership crisis, as our City Council majority often seems more intent on pleasing and appeasing special interests rather than making transparent and inclusive decisions in the best interests of all. With the retirement of Mayor Robb Davis, we need someone on the Council who will follow Robb’s lead in focusing on local issues from the perspective of advancing the common good of the entire community, including housing, job creation, City cost containment, and social & environmental justice. I am running in an effort to continue that work, and as I have no political aspirations beyond the Council, I will remain focused on the issues that directly impact our community. I hope that I will earn your support.
My values, life experiences, motivations, and grasp of city issues make me well-suited to represent the community as a City Councilmember. I was born and raised in Davis, graduating from Davis High in 1977. I enjoyed all the benefits of growing up in a town that was a great place for kids, and all the frustrations of one that didn’t seem to care about its High School and College students. I left town to attend school, first to the University of California for my B.S., and then on to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where I received my Ph.D. in Neuroscience. I returned to Davis with my wife Marilyn and our two daughters when our oldest was ready for kindergarten, working first at the University and then moving into the wine industry. I served on the Site Council at Valley Oak for five year while our two girls were attending school there, including three years as the Chair.
Our first two daughters graduated from college and are moving on with their adult lives. When they were still young teens, however, Marilyn and I became Yolo County licensed Foster Parents. We served as Foster Parents for nine years eventually adopting four of the children placed in our care. Those four are now working their way through Davis public schools, three in Junior High and one in sixth grade.
In 2004, I co-founded Rominger West Winery with the late Charlie Rominger. Our goal was to create a high quality wine company featuring locally grown grapes (Winters) and locally produced wines 
(Davis), and then use the resources of the company to support the local community. While I believe we were successful with many of our goals, particularly our support for the community, in the end the company succumbed to the realities of the economic environment, closing its doors in 2012.
I learned a great deal from the experience of operating a small business in Davis, most importantly that success doesn’t come from one big idea, but rather from a multitude of small steps that together move you towards your goals. The same approach is true when dealing with our community’s challenges. There are no ‘silver bullets’ that will solve our challenges in one or two steps, nor are there simple solutions. What we need is a comprehensive and inclusive approach that uses multiple steps, some small, some large, combined with a consistent focus on the goal of providing opportunity for all residents to improve their quality of life.
We need to address our fiscal challenge through economic development and serious City cost containment. That means expanding our commercial and retail sectors, creating private sector jobs and business opportunities for our residents, improving the economic vitality of the region and expanding the tax base supporting City services. It also means finding more cost effective means of providing the services that residents require without cutting those services or creating a culture of austerity. Tax increases will likely be required, especially in the short-term, but they should be the last step in the process, not the first option.
Even with our fiscal challenges, I believe Davis should continue to support our great parks, greenbelts, and open space, while also investing in our community’s facilities and infrastructure. For this reason, I support both a Multi-Sports Park and a 50 Meter Pool complex, providing facilities for the benefit of our youth and the community, now and into the future.
I believe Davis should be a welcoming place with policies that reflect the challenges faced by all, including renters, the working poor and the disadvantaged. We are losing our young workers and their families, those who should be the economic engine and life blood of a future Davis. We need to change our policies to create appropriate housing for all residents while improving our land use efficiency by building high density, multi-family housing, including apartments, townhouses and stacked flat condominiums. In the core area and neighborhood centers this should include mixed-use development with residential above ground floor commercial/retail.
I believe Davis should be a town where our children grow up in the safety of a caring community, go off to college if they choose, then come home to find good jobs and business opportunities, an appropriate place to live, and raise their own family. Much as I did.
I believe Davis should also be a town where students (and others) from elsewhere are welcomed to join our community, perhaps staying on when they have completed their studies and adding their ideas and energy to the community’s future. Much as my parents did.
I believe Davis should address the serious challenges facing our community, including our city’s fiscal crisis, the severe housing shortage, and the issues around homelessness, in an open, inclusive, and transparent way so that we may work to implement solutions rather than simply arguing about the problems.
I believe in transparent and inclusive governance. We need to face our community’s challenges honestly and openly, and quite frankly, stop hiding our heads in the sand hoping someone else will ‘save’ us. We need to shift our mindset away from one focused on protecting what we have, to one that favors creating opportunities for all, so that all residents may find appropriate housing and good jobs. We need a City Council majority that will stay focused on these priorities, and not be sidetracked by petty squabbles, backroom deals, or the enabling of obstructionists. In short, we need good governance, which is open, honest and transparent. I am running for City Council because I believe in a socially, environmentally and economically equitable and sustainable Davis community, now and for the future, and I hope you will join me in attaining those goals.
Dear Mark,
Are your wineries using clean water and sustainable practices? do u use solar and other nontoxic methods or oil and gas?
Do u even still own property in Davis?
Which side of the coin were u on, when the [edited] were trying to start their wedding site in Yolo?
Please let me know and I will decide if 1) I will support u financially 2) with my name..
Thank u
Marina Kalugin Aka Marina Rumiansev aka Marina Kalugin Rumiansev, etc….
I am still trying hard to get Chuck Rairdon to run and others who would for SURE do Better jobs than the cronie of the current council.
I don’t believe he’s had a winery for a decade
Wow, I wonder what word was edited.
In answer to the question, he was against them, siding with the white, straight farmer friend down the road. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Being white and straight that is. There is something wrong with a pro-pro-pro-business candidate being against a new private busines being run by two [edited]s.
Alan Miller –
I opposed the venue because I believed it was in a location that would unnecessarily increase traffic on an already difficult, and in my opinion, dangerous stretch of rural roadway. This is especially true if the drivers were recently imbibing. I also pointed out that my argument was consistent with a decision made by my late business partner and me with regards to our own venture that we considered, and rejected, locating on the same stretch of road.
The rest of your post says far more about you and your character than anything else.
Thank you.
Actually, a pair of words… both “loaded”… probably intentionally by the original author… to provoke… and/or ‘slime’… the original author got a tap (not even slap) on the wrist… go figure…
I was sitting with your parents not long ago at an event for the major donors at UCD.. my son, a regent’s scholar, was with me.. he should have chosen any other school who wanted him.. I am also an alum..
True story… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alum
Just affirming a assertion… no-one should read more into that affirmation…
“…a welcoming place”
“…an open, inclusive, and transparent way”
“…not be sidetracked by petty squabbles, backroom deals, or the enabling of obstructionists.”
Seems like Mark West purports to want to be welcoming and inclusive, but he just can’t really stick to it. The disregard for certain members of the community bleeds through the rhetoric.
I think Mark’s first paragraph shows he is focused on the key issues of this race: fiscal solvency and the shortage of housing. He will be a serious contender and a welcome voice in the debates.
Maybe just me, but would prefer ‘discussions’ over ‘debates’… debates can work well when they are between 2-3 folk, not so much in a field of 9… 2016 Republican presidential “debates” are a case in point… posturing, one-liners, personal put-downs, lots of fluff, little important substance. A “beauty pageant” where the only point is to ‘win’, rather than “what I believe, how I will serve”…
Just me, probably…
But, from what little I know, Mr West will be good for the discussion the community needs to have.
With 9 or more candidates in this race, I think a structured debate format is going to be crucial.
Maybe the way we interpret the word “debate” is getting in the way… if you mean “debate” as commonly used, we just have to agree to disagree…
“Structured” by whom? What are their biases? Conscious and/or unconscious…
Check out the questions I suggested… not leading, unbiased… at least as I intended…
David… Don touched some of it…
Whether it be a forum, discussion, or debate, some questions I’d recommend, if the VG and/or LWV hosts one, or more…
What do you believe are the 2-3 most important issues facing the community? [and why?]
What are your beliefs on those issues?
What is your ‘vision’ of what needs to be accomplished (goals)?
How do you intend to serve the community?
Just a thought…
The plan is to do a forum (the Vanguard board is meeting Wednesday) and weekly questions.
Thx… keep us posted…
Maybe so, Don. But what I am commenting on is the disrespect he displays for some of his fellow citizens, disrespect that he has displayed on the Vanguard many times.
I think you mistake disagreement with disrespect, and frankly, that is disrespectful.
Davis native, DHS graduate, highly educated, documented public service experience, successful businessman.
I will evaluate individual candidates on the merits; but, among the criteria I will apply is whether the Council reflects the diversity of the community. I don’t think this list of qualifications does much to further that goal.
Please explain to us what a council would look like that reflects the diversity of our community?
1. A loud snorer from an unspecified country in Asia
2. A schizophrenic homeless guy with a pit-mutt and pile of bicycle parts
3. A student of color living in their car and dreaming of someday living in the affordable housing units in Trackside Towers
4. A old white woman throwing the red solo cups from the weekly Thursday-night party at the mini-dorm next door back onto their lawn at 6:00am every Friday morning
5. A talking cow that has a window in its stomach and votes in City elections
Now this is funny!
And probably the accurate interest of some voters.
Thank you!
Oh, no! Thank YOU!
This, made me giggle. Thanks Alan
anyone know why ole pal Mark didn’t answer ANY of my questions yet?
What is he hiding?
I would PREFER an open forum hosted by the DV where anyone could ask a question and all candidates could chose to answer honestly or not answer on purpose..
Thank u
I told you why, Marina, but Tia and/or David* erased it. Humor, especially if it is on point, rankles their delicate feathers.
synopsis: Your questions are rude, incompetent and irrelevant.
My original post was much better.
[moderator: * don’t blame them, I did that — Don]
Nothing, that I am aware of.
As I say in the article, we closed our winery in 2012. I do not have an interest in any other winery.
Yes, my wife and I own our home in Davis.
As I have restated elsewhere on this page, I opposed the proposed location of the venue due to what I considered to be an unsafe access road. I have never met the proprietors and have made no judgment about them, despite what others may have claimed.
Because I did not judge them to be relevant. I am not your ‘ole pal,’ nor did you sit with my parents at an event recently as you claim above.
I wish you a wonderful life.
I will pay $200 cash to anyone who can produce a picture of Marina sitting with Mark West’s parents at a recent event!
(That’s not a joke)
That’s a very safe bet.
Humor? I think others might see it as trolling.
“[moderator: * don’t blame them, I did that — Don]”
Too funny for you, huh? I thought it was much less offensive than the plain vanilla version. You all really need to lighten up or this blog will read like a technical manual or worse, the Enterprise.