(The city has posted the arguments for and against Measure L as well as the impartial analysis on a city web page – here).
Rebuttal to Argument in Favor of Measure L
A community is enriched and made resilient by the diversity of its citizens. Regionally, Davis has been the least racially diverse city for many decades. Our population is also the “oldest” and the most “wealthy” in terms of income but the City has very limited affordable housing for working families.
West Davis Active Adult Community exacerbates ALL of these demographic imbalances in Davis. By limiting almost all home purchases in perpetuity to seniors, the project will continue to rob the City of the vitality of young families. Because almost all of the new homes will be classic sprawl on large lots, the resultant high prices will exclude purchase by working families and seniors of modest means.
Most worrisome, however, is the developer’s “Taking Care of Our Own – Davis-Based Buyers Program”. This exclusionary program requires 90% of West Davis Active Adult Community buyers to have a preexisting “relationship” with Davis by already living here, having a family member here, working here, or having attended Davis schools; among other criteria.
The developer justifies this discrimination by claiming they are only favoring seniors as allowed under current housing law. However, while laws do allow senior-only projects, they expressly prohibit exclusion of unaffiliated “outsiders” such as required by the “Davis-Based Buyers Program”.
West Davis Active Adult Community will clearly perpetuate the racial, age, and economic disparities in Davis and deny ownership opportunities to other racially diverse, younger, and less wealthy groups not currently well-represented in Davis.
Please embrace inclusivity and diversity and reject this discriminatory housing project.
Please vote No on Measure L
/S/
Don Price, Emeritus Professor of History, University of California Davis
Marilee Hanson, Former Commissioner – City of Davis Planning Commission
Juliette Beck, Environmental and Social Justice Activist
Rik Keller, City Planning Consultant
Carol Warren, Environmental Legislative Advocate
Rebuttal to Argument Against Measure L
YES on Measure L is a yes for critically needed housing, specifically homes designed to accommodate seniors. The West Davis Active Adult Community allows our city to retain and care for its aging residents, while making their existing, larger family homes available to the next generation of Davis families. As such, voting Yes on Measure L supports responsible planning that nurtures our city’s present and future generations.
The Measure L opponents have it wrong; taking care of seniors is a worthy endeavor and reflects the best of our community values.
This project reflects the culmination of input received at 17 City Commission and Council meetings, plus 43 neighborhood meetings. Moreover, West Davis Active Adult Community is consistent with SACOG’s Blueprint, the highly regarded regional plan for sustainable smart growth.
In addition to offering much needed housing through responsible planning, West Davis Active Adult Community responds to community desires by including an array of features and amenities such as: extensive walking and bicycle paths, native and drought tolerant plantings, a diverse array of housing types and sizes, specialized senior care, alternative transit, solar, publicly available recreational amenities, regional trail connections, improvements to West Covell Blvd, the Energy Retrofit Program, $1,000,000 to fund a 50 meter pool for Davis Aquatics groups, and provides for nearly triple the required affordable housing (through a local nonprofit with a strong track record). All while staying fiscally positive on an ongoing basis, as determined by the City of Davis and independent fiscal experts.
Don’t be fooled by false arguments. Please join your friends and neighbors in supporting Davis seniors and Vote Yes on Measure L.
/S/
Dan Wolk, Former Mayor, City of Davis
Lucas Frerichs, City Council member and City’s SACOG Representative
Sheila Allen, PN, Ph. D., former School Board Trustee
Dan Carson, City Council member and former Finance and Budget Commission Chair
Mary Jo Bryan, Davis Resident
Get Tickets To Vanguard’s Immigration Rights Event
Just yesterday Alan posted: “Daddy, can we have 27 more looks at the WDAAC Affordable Housing Proposal before November? Pleeeeeeez”
It looks like David is paying attention to his readers and didn’t waste any time posting yet another story on the WDAAC…
26 . . . #click#
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow. It’s only a day away.
“A community is enriched and made resilient by the diversity of its citizens. Regionally, Davis has been the least racially diverse city for many decades. Our population is also the “oldest” and the most “wealthy” in terms of income but the City has very limited affordable housing for working families.”
Alan Pryor playing the race card – and no one on the Vanguard calls him on it.
I’m wondering if even ONE (1) city in the Central Valley is more “racially diverse” than Davis. Every week I see friends that were born in more than a half dozen different Asian countries “and” more than a half dozen different African countries (as well as an increasing number of people from the Middle East). Last time I looked at the demographic breakdown of the region Davis was the MOST diverse (did something change and does Woodland, Knights Landing and Winters now people from more ethnic groups than Davis)? If not this just looks like yet another lie from the no on WDAAC group…
Ken: I would suggest in the future you use data, rather than observation..
”The racial composition of (Davis) was 70.07% White, 2.35% Black or African American, 0.67% Native American, 17.5% Asian, 0.24% Pacific Islander, 4.26% from other races, and 4.87% from two or more races. 9.61% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.”
’The ethnic composition of the population of Woodland, CA is composed of 26,511 Hispanicresidents (46.1%), 24,038 White residents (41.8%), 4,780 Asianresidents (8.31%), 1,357 Two+ residents (2.36%), and 510 Blackresidents (0.89%).”
So Davis is 70 percent white while Woodland is 42 percent white.
Pointed out to me that my data for Davis is dated. Most recent data has Davis at 64.9 percent white, 21.9 Asian and 12.55 Hispanic. Still considerably less diverse than Woodland, but much more diverse than it used to be.
I’m wondering if David has ever looked up the definition of “diversity” (to save him the time it means “the state of being diverse; or variety.a range of different things”)
Unless David can show me a city in the Central Valley with people born in or related to people from a wider variety of countries than Davis (or that I am wrong and the definition of “diversity” is really “lots of people of Mexican descent” or “less white people”) then Davis is the most “diverse” city in the region.
If one car rental firm has 70% Chevys 20% Fords (built in Mexico) and cars from 50 other brands would it be more or less “diverse” than a car rental firm with 42% Chevys 45% Fords (built in Mexico) and cars from just three other brands?
That definition is not the definition of diversity as used in this context. I think you ought to look at the definition in the context of sociology, not a dictionary.
The “new” numbers, totalled, equal 99.4 %… so, based on your earlier numbers, blacks, NA’s, PacifcIslander, other, and two or more races, have left the City… fascinating…
I skipped the minor groups for the ease of entry from my phone.
It is important to remember that most hispanic/latino people in the US consider themselves “white”…
“In the 2010 United States Census, 50.5 million Americans (16.3% of the total population) listed themselves as ethnically Hispanic or Latino. Of those, 53.0% (26.7 million) self-identified as racially white. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans
P.S. I find it funny that a company can have a Mormon woman born in Mexico, a Catholic guy born in Poland, a Russian born Jewish woman and an American born Baptist guy of German, Italian, Greek and Samoan descent and most (but not all) who say they want more “diversity” will not be happy with any company where everyone self identifies as white…
Not sure the relevance, in general, they identify the group as non-Hispanic white. But regardless, Davis is more diverse than it used to be, but far less so than other surrounding communities.
I’m hoping David can give us his “definition of diversity as used in this context” and also let us now if he would consider a city more “diverse” just because more of the people who were from Mexico or Central America went out of their way to let the census taker know that they were not “white”…
It looks like David has bad numbers (or made some typos on his phone) since if he “skipped” the “minor groups” his total would be a lot less than 99.4…
I assume there is some overlap on some of those categories.
Firstly, I am not a signer of the Rebuttal statement so I am not playing any “card”, as you put it.
However, I do support the sentiments in the Rebuttal statement but strongly disagree that it is just about “race”. It is all about diversity of which race is only one part. I think you can clearly infer from their statement that the signers also show support for age and income diversity and affordable housing for families. So if you insist of labeling the actual signers of the Rebuttal, perhaps you should instead claim they are playing the “diversity and affordable housing card”.
Feel free to call them out on that.
Apologies on the misidentification, but I never said it was just about race.
Craig, when you call someone out with the words “playing the race card” are you not saying it is specifically about race, and since you mention no other criteria, are you not specifically saying it is just about race?
If it about more than race in your opinion, what are the components of that “more”?
I specifically quoted one paragraph out of five.
And you specifically excluded everything but race from your own words of comment about that paragraph.
‘Funny’ how “diversity” (for the sake of diversity?) is a paramount concern… however “diversity” is measured, be it race, age, economic status…
Same for achievement scores…
If the developers eliminated the Davis-Based Buyers Program and opened the homes for sale up to anyone, would the signers of the argument be more likely to support the project?
I suspect Don, that reducing the price of the residences so that they would be affordable for all groups would be a companion change that the signers of the argument would get the support of those signers. As Planning Commission Chair Rob Hoffman has said from the dais, Affordability by (reduced) Size is the only way to actually achieve affordability.
I haven’t actually talked to any of the signers of the argument about this paroject, so my comment above is only my personal opinion.
Given: A person or family cannot live in two places simultaneously.
Given: The restrictions cited for qualification to purchase in this development has a deliberate bias towards current Davis homeowners who have had residence for years. The Davis-Based bias is a social engineering effort to encourage “Empty Nesters” to vacate underutilized “family style” homes with empty bedrooms.
Given: An Empty Nester family moving into the proposed senior development automatically creates a home vacancy for a younger family seeking larger homes for their growing brood, including any racial or ethnic group with the ability to financially qualify.
Given: Economic parity for all potential home purchasers is not achievable under any realistic economic or political scenario at any level of government, and particularly Davis. If detractors have a viable plan for financial parity towards their desired demographic, reveal it forthwith.
Given: Calling for “racially diverse, younger, and less wealthy groups” to receive home ownership preference is also discrimatory. The discrimination argument by detractors is compromised by substitution of their own discriminatory set of values.
Five good points Phil. The third one does have a loophole though.The home vacancy is indeed created, but a “younger family” is only one of the alternatives for the next use. The children/estate of the Empty Nester family can alternatively choose to retain ownership of the home and convert it into a rental. That rental could be to a family or to a group of UCD students.
Or a brood of sexual deviants out on parole . . . or someone who drinks milk.
Or maybe a second Trump supporter will move to town so Jeff is not the only one…
Ha! Well, I think the average political chattering Davisite might be surprised at the number of Trump supporters.
But I was not a Trump guy until it came down to him or a crooked, lying criminal in bed with Wall Street and anyone that would put some money in her pocket for political favors, and and old socialist hippy fool.
But the town could use some more residents with real jobs in the private sector and some business savvy.
After all, we can’t see the election results from 2016… on wait.
I’m wondering if David thinks that all the people that “voted” for Trump are “Trump Supporters”? I have met many people that “voted” for Trump but I have yet to be face to face with anyone who called themself a Trump “supporter” (and I have never seen anyone in a “Make America Great Again” in the years since Trump “supporters” started wearing them…
P.S. I have never met Jeff and I was just joking about him being a “supporter” of the President since I’m not sure if he is actually “out and proud” in his “support” for the orange hair crazy guy with an attorney as crooked as anyone the Rose Law firm ever hired…
“I’m wondering if David thinks that all the people that “voted” for Trump are “Trump Supporters”?”
I don’t really care nor do I know why it matters for this discussion.
The topic is Measure I and some have pointed out that how we vote may change the “diversity” of the town (and if Seniors flock to the WDAAC selling their big homes around College Park Circle we may see some sexual deviants out on parole or even worse Republicans move in to the big homes in town the retired UCD professors sell)…
Please do not twist others’ words here. Nobody is saying “racially diverse, younger, and less wealthy groups” should receive any home ownership preferences at all. The ballot Rebuttal signers are simply saying the “Taking Care of our Own – Davis Based Buyers Program” is implicit discrimination. Eliminating discriminatory practices against one group does not at all imply that that formerly discriminated groups should receive preferences (i.e. discriminate) against any other group.
Implicit or explicit?
These words were not “twisted.” Note the quotes. Nor can they be argued as being “out of context,” as these exact words were used in the rebuttal argument on this precise issue.
The last sentence makes no sense at all. How about we clean the slate and nobody makes any reference to any demographic of of the potential home purchase market? Then we have no discrimination towards anybody, except those who can’t afford it. Still waiting for anybody to come up with a solution for that one.