By Samantha Hum
DAVIS — District 5 candidates talked about their potential plans for mitigating climate change and improving Davis’ financial situation should they be elected.
On Sunday Oct. 4, the League of Women Voters hosted a forum for the upcoming City Council election featuring candidates for Davis’ District 5. Among other issues, each candidate talked about their plans for mitigating climate change and improving Davis’ financial situation.
The candidates for District 5 are Josh Chapman, Kelsey Fortune, Connor Gorman and Rochelle Swanson.
On the issue of climate change, the candidates all agreed that something needed to be done but had different plans.
Swanson was first to speak on the issue. She mentioned that ensuring that new developments are energy efficient is one way to curtail climate change.
She also stated that we need to put more investment in existing housing stock, stating, “We have older homes that are here that are 30, 40, or 50 years old that could be significantly upgraded.”
Swanson also touched on the importance of more transportation routes. “The big picture,” Swanson stated, “is joining some of the 
regional consortiums that are looking at macro ways as well as micro ways to address climate change.”
Fortune stressed the need for an updated General Plan. She also said that she would like to see a “commission specifically dedicated to climate.”
Both Fortune and Gorman mentioned dense infill housing, or constructing new housing in vacant lots or refurbishing existing homes and buildings. The candidates similarly stated that commuting is a big problem. “If we move people to where they work and play, they will drive less, and that is a huge part of our footprint right now,” Fortune said.
Gorman believes that we need more density in Davis, specifically near downtown and the campus. He also added that for housing and density to truly allow people to be near downtown and campus, it should be affordable.
Chapman vocalized the benefits of housing a university in Davis, stating, “As a city we have a chance to not just do our part, but we can think larger in scale.” He said that he would like to work with the county and university on this matter to “make this region a global leader in fighting climate change.”
Another issue the District 5 candidates spoke about was how to solve Davis’ financial problems, especially during COVID-19.
Chapman brought up the importance of bringing in revenue by building more housing, redevelopment of properties, increasing the tax base, prioritizing certain grants, and allowing space for businesses to grow and create jobs.
He also mentioned infill, saying, “That’s one of the things I’m most excited about with the Downtown plan- to start doing and generating redevelopment dollars in our downtown, increasing our sales tax base.”
Gorman spoke about how the city needs to use its platform to push for changes in larger government, in particular, universal healthcare and CA Proposition 15. He added that downtown rent control and/or a vacancy tax would incentivize landowners to allow small businesses to move in.
Swanson stressed the importance of assessing the budget and looking for long-term solutions.
“And again that goes back to a community-wide conversation. These are conversations that should be happening at Council… [so] people have an understanding of some of the trade-offs.”
These trade-offs, according to Swanson, would include looking at what departments “make sense” and stressed the importance of “having an environment that welcomes revenue-generating opportunities.”
She also spoke about creating a loan program from a small business account and working with federal and state partners to keep small businesses afloat.
Fortune discussed enacting “automatic safety mechanisms” for Davis to be prepared for revenue to drop in the future. She agreed with Swanson about working with state partners and with Gorman about supporting Proposition 15.
All four candidates seemed hopeful about Davis’ future and excited to enact positive change while engaging with the community. Voters will be electing council members in Districts 2, 3 and 5 on Nov. 3.
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How I would reduce Davis’ carbon footprint. Move the city fleet of cars and Unitrans buses to electric vehicles powered by solar. Disallow reimbursement for any air travel by city employees or CC members. Lobby for continuation and increased subsidies to incentivize increased home energy efficiency, rooftop solar and electric vehicles purchases including electric bikes, scooters and skateboards by individuals. Have city staff organize small electric vehicle and electric tool safety workshops. Incentivize homeowner purchase of electric tools such as leaf blowers, lawn mowers and chain saws. Create an intermodal bus hub at the train station with direct routes from West Davis.
These steps would attack global warming mostly through carrots instead of sticks except for those employed by or running the city. It would attack some of the the biggest generators of carbon emissions; air travel, gasoline and diesel vehicles, energy inefficient homes and small gasoline engine tools.
I found many of the candidates answers as lacking imagination as to where we are going as a society and lacking concrete proposals instead they offered vague policy goals.
Many Unitrans buses run on CNG, which, though fossil, gets a bad name, as it’s clean-burning, plentiful, local and cheap. What’s a crime is the mass-burning of natural gas to produce – guess what? – electricity! – thanks to Gray Davis who locked us into long-term, high-priced contracts. These plants can be seen north in the Central Valley. The natural gas should be saved for vehicles and used directly, rather than the energy lost in burning, conversion, transport, transfer to battery and used – highly inefficient. Electric vehicles are only as clean as the grid as a whole, and that huge loss in the system above cannot be ignored in the equation.
“Electric vehicles are only as clean as the grid as a whole”
That’s not completely true. A gas powered vehicle directly results in GHG and other emissions into the air. There a multiple factors with electric vehicles – one is the overall system but the other is whether their powering actually results in more electricity being generated, the marginal addition that each individual car is going to contribute to that system is far less than the byproduct of a gas vehicle.
Please explain how if we do indeed go to all electric cars by 2035 how the plugging in of tens of millions of more cars every night isn’t going to result in more electricity having to be generated?
It’s still a huge advantage in terms of economies of scale. Electrical production is cleaner as it is right now than gas consumption. And it figures that the electrical grid is going to have to get A LOT cleaner between now and 2035.
But you still didn’t answer my question.
Not only that, Keith – but he also made some irrelevant, unsubstantiated claims (regarding “economies of scale” – which generally deals with cost, not environmental impact).
The “true” impacts would include manufacturing of new vehicles (and early retirements of vehicles that are still usable, etc.). Not to mention the impacts of disposal (for both types of vehicles, and road maintenance, as well).
I’d suggest watching “Planet of the Humans”, for anyone who has not done so. It may not be 100% accurate, but the concepts are indeed accurate (in regard to so-called “renewable” energy as a complete solution).
On another note, I’ve heard reports that there already simply isn’t enough electric energy, to power California on high-demand days. So yeah, your air conditioner will work great, in the winter. 😉
Ultimately, I doubt that California is going to have enough “authority” or political influence to force this change in 2035.
One also wonders how this would work for anyone moving “to” California (e.g., in 2036), with their new gasoline-powered vehicles, purchased in other states (or in Mexico, etc.).
Sowwy – you’ve got to sell them at the border! (Yeah, right.)
Stuff like this is ripe for manipulation.
I’m envisioning a future similar to that depicted in “The Road Warrior”, in terms of access to gasoline.
Well, maybe not so easy from Mexico, at least. (I was curious, so I started looking at the existing laws.)
This is PG&E’s portfolio which I don’t consider particularly clean, but you see a huge marginal improvement of gas-powered cars to electricity generated by PG&E
SO you’re basically moving from something that was completely GHG producing to something that is 85% GHG-free. That’s a huge improvement in that exchange. And I think PG&E could do a lot better and VCE is showing that.
In addition to being “non-GHG-producing” (except for the energy it takes to create, maintain, and dispose of the material and facility itself), I understand that their 34% share of nuclear energy is also gluten-free.
And hopefully, we won’t have a Fukushima, Chernobyl, or 3-Mile Island situation, here.
Now, the fires that utilities cause (and the impact that has) is another matter – regardless of the source.
I’m not a supporter of nuclear power. Worth noting, Diablo Canyon is closing in a few years (which I marched against as a small child). That may be the last nuclear power plant in California if I recall correctly.
It’s going to be a challenge to replace 34% of California’s stable power (not dependent on sun shining or wind blowing or backup batteries). More blackouts?
Did you get a note from your parents?
Or a Winden . . . . . 😉
UC Davis now owns the site of a previously-proposed nuclear power plant. It’s where their marine lab in Bodega is located, which I visited a couple years ago. (I did not know that “Horseshoe Cove” was also one of the proposed sites, until finding the article below.)
Another very-nearby site was also proposed, and they actually started building it. That site today is known as the “hole in the head”, and is now part of the state park system.
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/battle-over-bodega-head-nuclear-plant-set-the-stage/?ref=related
There’s interesting stories regarding the previous owner, and the filming of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” at the homesite.
The City could also do what the school district did and cover their parking lots with solar panels. They could also put more rooftop solar on city buildings and use excess energy generation to pump water for storage.
In my opinion, parking lots should be covered with trees not solar panels.
You could open a parallel solar panel company next door. That way, whichever philosophy wins for any given parking lot, you win. The Solar Panel Barn, perhaps?
And one more thing….
The City should examine its recycling programs with an eye towards reducing the carbon footprint of waste removal in Davis. My understanding is that our organic yard waste is trucked long distances for composting. Isn’t there a better way. Also with recent revelations about how most plastic isn’t recycled and China’s lack of interest in buying our recyclables the City needs to do an additional cost benefit analysis of the recycling program that includes greenhouse gas generation.
“Please explain how if we do indeed go to all electric cars by 2035 how the plugging in of tens of millions of more cars every night isn’t going to result in more electricity having to be generated?”
With more solar panels. With an infinite amount of solar panels you could generate an infinite amount of energy. For nighttime you use the excess energy generated during the day to run water uphill and then use the water at night to generate electricity.
And how much does an infinite amount of solar panels cost? An infinite number of dollars, that’s what! $∞,∞∞∞,∞∞∞ . . .
At a tremendous loss. One of the GREAT LIES of the proposed Sites Reservoir, supported by Gharamendi 🙁 , is the supporters site (pun intended) the power generated, and leave out how much MORE power it takes to pump the water into that multi-billion, floods a beautiful coast hills valley, scam reservoir, as it has virtually zero source water of its own.