I worry about the future of Davis. I have expressed this many times, but what has made Davis great is the ability for this city to offer an unparalleled quality of life. And that is in the balance as we speak.
This is a community that in the early 70s led the way – unparalleled bike paths, green belts, protection of farmland, preservation of the downtown – in creating a community that was vibrant and alive and far from Anytown USA.
But those days are gone. This is a town that has had to deeply cut back on city services, cannot afford to pave its streets, and finds its ability to provide the services and quality of life that we take for granted at risk. While this is far from the Bay Area, increasingly this has become a bifurcated community – one of students and wealthy people nearing retirement.
The question is what will the community be in 10 years? In 20 years?
Our fiscal estimates are that we are short eight to ten million per year for at least the next 20 years. And without intervention, that number probably gets worse not better.
We are going to see a campaign for the renewal of a one percent sales tax. The truth is that we need that sales tax, as it provides $9 million a year – 15 percent of our general fund. They are going to be talking about Quality of Life for Davis.
The problem is that, even if we pass this, all we are doing is securing the status quo funding level. This does not add any money to the general fund – it simply preserves what we have.
Given that the polling for this measure was somewhere between 71 and 77 percent support – we asked a few months ago if the city council shouldn’t attempt to extend the sales tax with an increase to 1.5 percent rather than one percent. But no one wanted to entertain that scenario.
On Friday I attended the press conference for Measure Q. In the photo on the lead story, you will see the face of Davis over the past several decades and the message was clear and basic – “quality of life for Davis.”
Both Lois Wolk and Sheila Allen made the critical points, saying Measure Q stands for “quality of life.” Ms. Wolk stated, “It is essential that we renew this tax so that we can preserve the character and quality of life in our community.”
She’s right: “Davis is a wonderful place to live.”
The problem is that while Measure Q and its $9 million is essential to continuing that quality of life, it’s basically a rearguard battle. By that I mean passing Measure Q will prevent things from getting worse, but they aren’t going to make things better. We are not going to add, for instance, police and fire by passing this, we just won’t have to subtract it.
I worry about the future. In just the last two weeks we have seen issues like Mace, homelessness, and parking rise up. We have people arguing that we need to bring back the claw.
But the reality is that while traffic congestion and homelessness are immediate concerns, the biggest threat to the quality of life is going to be the inability for the city of Davis to provide basic levels of services to this community.
We have schools that are great, but the costs of educating students, whether it is K-12 or college, continue to rise and we have no long term solution to maintain our quality schools.
Even with the passage of Measure Q, we are falling further and further behind. I worry that we will not be able to maintain our roads, our parks, our greenbelts, basic infrastructure, basic city services.
On Friday, Mayor Lee pointed out the need for Measure Q to maintain police and fire, but failed to mention that we currently lack resources to go beyond maintenance and to hold off atrophy.
While I have been a critic of the fire service in Davis, particularly on the cost-side, I agree with the firefighters on a critical point – the threat of climate change.
While I was talking with one captain this week, he noted that when he started, the fire season ended in late September. Now we are getting warm weather continuing into October and November. Major fires are starting in October and even November and December.
People scoffed at the notion that Davis had fire issues, but he was able to cite some very close calls that could have been catastrophes in the last two to three years had the weather not cooperated.
A downtown fire where the winds come up could prove disastrous, as could a brush fire along the periphery of town.
If we lack quality fire service to combat these fires, it only takes one fire under the right circumstances to take out a good portion of the town.
We have struggled to recruit new police officers in recent years. This year we had the shooting tragedy of Natalie Corona. We have also seen some recent shocking crimes.
As Mayor Brett Lee put it, “We frankly want those things to be shocking to us. We don’t want to be one of those communities that just goes ‘oh well’ just another crime here in Davis – these types of things should be extraordinary… and we should not accept them as the status quo.”
But if the city lacks funds to recruit and maintain quality police and fire, the quality of our lives will diminish just as the quality of our roads continues to diminish.
These are all real threats that we are not prepared for. But they are real threats that Measure Q’s passage will not solve.
That is my biggest concern. The council and leaders in the community need to sell the voters on passing Measure Q, which they are right about – but my fear is that when the voters pass Measure Q, they will be once again lulled into a false sense of security. And the real danger will remain lurking, unabated somewhere off in the not-so-distant future.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
1) A downtown fire where the winds come up is nothing new. That risk has always been there.
2) When you look at the periphery of the 10 square miles of the City of Davis, where in the 360 degree circle of unincorporated Yolo County land and unincorporated Solano County land that surrounds Davis is there brush? Without any exceptions that I know of, Davis is surrounded by agricultural land that is being productively farmed, which means crops rather than brush. The one periodic exception is the ag land immediately to the west of Sutter Davis Hospital, north of Covell, and that parcel often (but not always) is harvested for hay. Effectively, Davis is surrounded by a well maintained “fire break” of agricultural land … and there is little chance that any of that prime (and productive) agricultural land is going to be allowd to go fallow and become brush.
Yeah but now there’s CLIMATE CHANGE #scary music#
Matt…
Partial list:
Old N Fork, Putah Creek, from UCD to Mace Blvd… because of “habitat values”, that reach is not cleared of fuel, unless it creates drainage issues…
Covell Drain, from West edge of Stonegate, to East edge of Wildhorse… same comment…
F Street Channel, Covell to Channel A/Covell Drain (a bit north of The Cannery)… same comment…
So Davis drainage channel, from the old Jakes Liquors, to the bypass… same comment…
You are correct, in the main, but you seriously over-simplified… the “risk” is there, but obviously much less than in Paradise (which became a ‘hell’), or other communities where chapparal/brush, trees, abut residences… but still, there are potential/real threats…
No threat from fires originating, say, 5 miles away… but if the origin was in one of those on my list, the threat is very much real…
Sounds like the threat is from drains and channels.
Well said Alan. Drains with water in them more often than not are low fire risk. Channels with water in them more often than not are low fire risk.
Just as importantly, where is the ignition source going to come from in those drains and channels?
I suspect that Bill was picking nits just to pick nits.
With the above said, I strongly support Measure Q. The only slight reservation I had (at one point) was making the sales tax perpetual, but based on my experience on the Chair of the Finance and Budget Commission, my personal opinion is that making the tax perpetual is the prudent and honest thing to do. For all the reasons described in the article above.
So why not roll the dice and attempt to increase the percentage as the article suggests? The answer to that question is summed up in two words Risk/Reward. Elections for taxes can have two outcomes, and in 2018 we saw both outcomes happen. From a net City Revenue perspective, the $99 per “unit” Roads Tax was a 100% “add-on” with the reward being a $99 per “unit” increase in annual revenues and the risk being no such increase. Again from a net City Revenue perspective, the Parks Tax was a $98 per “unit” decision, but the reward was only a $49 per “unit” increase in annual revenues and the risk was a $49 per “unit” decrease in annual revenues.
Those are two very different risk/reward scenarios. Same impact on the personal pocketbook decision by each voter ($99 per year on roads vs. $98 per year on parks), but one with no downside risk and the other with very real downside risk.
In many ways the Council made the same decision vis-a-vis the CVRA lawsuit and Measure Q. The fiscally prudent decision in each of those cases was to avoid the downside fiscal risk.
If Measure Q passes and makes the 1% permanent, then the Council can revisit the sales tax rate issue in a subsequent election … perhaps as early as November 2020.
Kudos to all five Council members. They absolutely made the right decision on Measure Q, and the voters should also make the right decision and pass Measure Q overwhelmingly.
yes, because raising taxes has done so well for us in the past . . . see: where we are now.
Matt…
Another case of two “wrongs” not making a “right”…
The measure does not make anything permanent nor perpetual… it is set up to not require subsequent votes to continue… it does not preclude actions/votes to rescind…
I know of nothing on earth that is permanent nor perpetual, except, perhaps… change.
Am thinking that Measure Q is like the life insurance policies I have… they are no longer “needed” (analogy fails here, as it the sales tax increment is still needed), but am used to paying the premiums (static), and may have a ‘benefit’ to my heirs…
So barring a real “stupid” by the City, we’ll be voting for Measure Q…
Plus much of the farmland is irrigated too although there is lots of land on drip irrigation. Still if a wildfire was to be headed this way coming out of the foothills it might be feasible to turn on some pumps to stop it.
The most dangerous brush in town is along 113 where California natives that have evolved in our mediterranean fire prone climate were planted.
Thanks, Ron G… that should have been added to my earlier list…
From its junction with I-80 north to the City Limits boundary between Road 31 and Road 29, CA-113 is within the City of Davis … inside the fire break moat I described above.
The one way that that stretch of CA-113 differs from the drains and channels, which effectively do not have proximity to an ignition source, is that vehicles can produce ignition sparks from both their engines and from tire rims that are driven on after a tire goes flat and from brakes that malfunction.
With that said, that described risk on CA-113 existed prior to the advent of climate change impacts.
“With that said, that described risk on CA-113 existed prior to the advent of climate change impacts.”
The quesiton is whether that risk has increased
Fire risk in our area has decreased in the time that I’ve been here, because farmers no longer do controlled burns. If there is a perception of risk, it can be readily mitigated by changing the landscaping. I think any assertion of increased fire risk in the Davis area due to climate change is not evidence-based.
Yeah, right… nobody smokes, there is no possibility of arson, no mechanical equipment goes there… no ignition source… yeah… folk transverse each stretch…
There have been fires in each of the stretches I referred to… contained, extinguished, before adjacent properties got “involved” much… wonder if those were just”acts of God”… am thinking, not… not “high” or “extreme” risks, but risks nevertheless…
“We have people arguing that we need to bring back the claw.”
First we haven’t totally lost the claw yet. Second the system they had in place during the last fiscal year worked pretty well and seemed a good compromise. Problem is the bike enthusiasts, who hold sway with the council, got these changes pushed through without first finding a funding source for the cart program. Then the CC pinched the claw program to tamp down the escalating price of city services and further placate the cycling advocates.
Now we can begin to see the consequences of these ill conceived changes with huge piles of leaves overwhelming the bi-weekly schedule. Yet to be fully felt are the massive amounts of debris that will accumulate over the spring and summer next year when there is no claw pick up at all instead of the monthly summer service.
Yesterday someone questioned if people are actually going to cut down trees because of a lack of claw service. In honesty, I have thought about it. I have a huge pepper tree that needs to be pruned back on a monthly basis. If I don’t prune it the growth becomes a hazard for both the sidewalk and the bike path. While the pruned material can be easily chopped down to meet the 4 ft pile requirements of the claw getting it into the can would be impossible.
Those people are correct. Well, to be more accurate: the city needs to change the contract with Recology to increase the claw street pickup service to more effectively deal with the actual cycles of leaf and yard waste. The current schedule is obviously inadequate to account for north wind episodes in October and November. I have plenty of data about the frequency of those events. While they vary in intensity, they always lead to an increase in yard debris that is likely to overwhelm the canisters for most people with normal-sized yards or large trees. And as Ron notes, suspending pickup through the summer will also be very problematic. The council clearly needs to revisit this issue.
Yep…
I don’t know how many people in Davis have a problem like mine but I’d like to see something along the lines of what the anti F in the water people did. They organized an alternative program.
What would be nice would be if some of the young healthy bike, and urban forest advocates would work with senior home owners to help them maintain the trees on their properties and deal with the detritus instead of simply making our lives harder and expecting us old dogs to learn new tricks.
People forgot nature bats last,
So the leaves will be cast,
No matter how much you you wish things to be neat
In the end goddess Gaia will defeat,
As the leaves in the trees deplete
Autumn’s winds drop them into the street.
Hope my poem moderator does not delete.
I hate poetry. But I much enjoyed RG’s poem 😉
Since Measure Q isn’t enough, and most people don’t know Davis is teetering, the best approach is to defeat Measure Q, so that things get so bad that people do something.
Interesting postulation/theorem… fits with David’s position is that it is 50% too small…
I strongly suspect the reason that the CC did extension only, was a “gentleman’s agreement” (gender unintended) between the City and DJUSD, to not ‘push the envelope’, and decrease the odds of a DJUSD parcel tax increase measure passing… have no cites, no evidence, but it has been done in the past,where the City let DJUSD ‘bat first’, and at least twice, worked out good for DJUSD, not so much for the City…
Politics… [was just surprised the City didn’t cave and let DJUSD bat first… but I guess the stakes were too high, as to timing]
In this article the Vanguard laments that “increasingly this has become a bifurcated community – one of students and wealthy people nearing retirement.”
Yet the Vanguard has been pushing developments that exacerbate this very issue—Nishi and WDAAC are exclusive and exclusionary high-end housing projects for students and seniors, respectively, that also were some of the largest advertisers for the Vanguard during their campaigns.
Meanwhile, the most pressing need for housing in Davis continues to be affordable workforce and family housing. And this is even more true now than it was a decade ago when the City addressed this as the primary “internal housing need” to address in its policies in Measure R, as documented here:
https://davisvanguard.org/2018/09/guest-commentary-internal-housing-needs-davis/
It’s unfortunate I think there’s a good discussion to have here as I think Davis clearly needed additional student housing that Nishi could provide. Also agree that Davis needs more affordable workforce and family housing.