By David M. Greenwald
Davis, CA – A series of articles have been published over the course of the past two weeks—several of which the Vanguard has declined to publish because of factual errors, misstatements of the law and overall personal attacks. Nevertheless, since the Housing Element Commission put forth recommendations, at least one member has found himself directly in the line of fire of slow growth forces looking to discredit the effort.
Don Gibson, a recent PhD recipient at UC Davis studying Genetics, served not only on the Housing Element Commission (appointed by Dan Carson) but also the Chancellor’s Affordable Housing Task force back in 2018.
Gibson has not been hidden about his views on housing—he has put forward public comments, guest pieces, and more pushing for additional housing opportunities in Davis, especially student housing.
He has put forward some good work, pushing for a campus-wide housing survey to quantify the previously anecdotal and qualitative claims about housing insecurity and lack of affordability of student housing.
One of the charges put forward by some of the articles is that the city improperly failed to require a Form 700 disclosure for the HEC. Maybe they should have. That is certainly a matter of some debate. For their part, the city argued that (a) this was strictly an advisory committee, and (b) it was temporary and short-term.
As City Clerk Zoe Mirabile explained to me, “Commissions that have Form 700 requirements have been determined to have decision-making authority of some kind.”
They either: “Make a final decision. Compel a decision. Prevent a decision.”
Or they, “Participate in making a decision: Make recommendations that are regularly approved without significant modification.”
In a response to the authors of one of the pieces, the city attorney indicated, “A member does not include a person who performs duties as a part of a committee, board, commission, group or other body that does not have decision-making authority.
“The Housing Element Committee is a purely advisory committee,” she added. ” Since the HEC is a purely advisory committee, its members are not required to disclose conflicts of interest in a Form 700, nor are its members required to recuse when ‘public officials’ in similar circumstances would be required to recuse under the Political Reform Act.”
Is the city wrong about this? Maybe. But that is not on the members of the commission.
It also is worth noting that the council last week rejected much of the proposals from the HEC—certainly the most controversial of their proposals is off the table. But the attacks continue.
In a piece the Vanguard did not publish, the authors, cited work done on the University Commons project and the DISC project as some sort of a conflict. They noted that Mr. Gibson did not disclose these relations on his application for appointment.
They wrote: “It is telling Mr. Gibson chose to ignore these direct developer ties in his HEC application. While these omissions in an application for a City appointment might not be technically illegal under California law, they certainly present an obvious appearance of impropriety by not fully disclosing these conflicts of interest to the public and his fellow Committee members; even more so in light of his subsequent advocacy for developer-friendly recommended amendments to the Housing Element.”
From my perspective, there is no conflict here. Both projects are completed—one passed by the council while the other was defeated last November. None of the considerations by the HEC bore on those projects.
I understand that the writers disagreed with the recommendations from the HEC—that’s of course not only fair but their right. But attacking the messenger isn’t a good way to oppose it. Rather, we should be debating the ideas, not the people involved.
And yet, Don Gibson was portrayed as being at the center of some sort of elaborate conspiracy web, under the column entitled, “What is fueling the push to radically rewrite Davis’s laws on development?”
(We ended up right in the middle of this web because we published some duly submitted pieces and generally supported both Nishi and DISC.)
The piece was highly speculative and undersourced, and overplayed a lot of very loose connections.
I was disappointed to see an attack post on NextDoor.
The author writes: “Astroturf YIMBY organization proposes disastrous recommendations for our Housing Element Update. Just a ‘heads-up’ to folks in case you are not aware. There is an ‘astroturf’ organization (‘Sustainable growth YoloYIMBY’) whose head organizer lives in Sacramento, who was able to get appointed to serve our City of Davis Housing Element Update Committee.”
Also she misleadingly states: “As a result, 8 disastrous recommendations were approved.” Most of the “recommendations” by the HEC were actually not supported by council comments on Tuesday, though they did not vote on it yet as the process continues.
But what evidence is there that Sustainable Growth Yolo is somehow an Astroturf Group?
“Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants.”
The implication is that there is some sort of monied interest supporting the formation of Sustainable Growth Yolo. There’s a lot of speculation on that, but as I understand it, it’s largely untrue.
Certainly there should be affirmative evidence of malfeasance before accusations are made. Where is the evidence that Sustainable Growth Yolo is a front for any interest or receiving any funding?
There seems to be a “shoot first” mentality here, as embodied in the fact that one of the attack pieces that was submitted to the Vanguard was received after 6 pm one day and they submitted questions or accusations to the city at 8 am the next day. The city then largely dispelled the attacks—and yet, there was no apology, there was no retraction, and there was no acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Indeed, they simply doubled down on those attacks with two more pieces—both of which were roundly debunked.
But it is actually a good deal worse than that. Ironically, one of the submitters requested that the Vanguard not publish his article if he would be subject to personal attacks, and another complained that in the past she has been subjected to personal attacks on the Vanguard.
Yet, they had no problem with the current line of insinuations and attacks based on, at best, an incomplete understanding of the information.
Frankly we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. When we did not immediately publish one of the attack pieces, we were accused of censorship on NextDoor. Yesterday, we were criticized for not censoring enough.
I understand that one of our critics felt we were giving print to false and misleading allegations—I agree that they are so. However, the NextDoor post had 128 comments the last time I looked—the accusations are out there. If we have learned anything, unresponded conspiracy theories get air and fuel to germinate when they go unresponded. The stuff is floating out there—largely unresponded to and refuted and most people are accepting it at face value.
In my view, as I expressed in the commentary on Friday, there is a simple explanation for the views people have. It is not rocket science and certainly not some sort of elaborate conspiracy.
As Don Gibson posted on Twitter: “A generation was screwed by a lack of housing leading to housing insecurity/homelessness and are upset about it. It’s kind of that simple.”
Former Mayor Robb Davis added: “Why is it a scandal when 1) people who want to see more housing built; 2) connect to people who can build it; to 3) advocate for it to be built?”
There is a large divide right now about how to resolve housing issues. As we showed on Friday, there is a huge generational component to that. We are not going to address these issues by insinuating secret and malevolent forces are guiding it. As I wrote on Friday, sometimes the simple answer is best. The reason young people support housing is that they remain housing insecure, especially in this community. The reason longer term residents are less supportive is that they already own their own homes and do not have to worry about where they are going to live next year.
Where will this all end up? I don’t know. What I do know is that we are running out of good options to solve our housing needs, and we might consider figuring that out rather than pointing fingers at each other.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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To be fair it would also be time to end the smear attacks on the slow growthers too.
Vanguard might also want to consider it’s policy towards allowing those who don’t subscribe to the tenants of socialism to be smeared as ‘racists’.
That’s exactly what I was thinking too when I wrote my comment. Too many times people or groups are smeared as ‘racists’ or pejoratives like ‘segregationists’ when it comes to them having different opinions on issues like development or SFR zoning laws. It doesn’t apply and comments like that are uncalled for but are still somehow allowed.
Alan M
Be serious–who here has advocated for socialism which is the government ownership of the means of production? (Anything less than that is not socialism, and anyone else who uses a different definition is simply trying to smear their opponents to diminish their stature.)
…David says after, instead of providing said housing options, spending the whole article pretty much pointing fingers at his detractors with only opinionated personal acrimony to back his allegations.
You reap what you sow
I rarely agree with anyone named Alan, but I’ll make an exception here.
Frankly (because you’re not), you’re just dåmned, period. And thanks once again for showing your privilege by using a word in a article that is dåmned by your censor robot – you get to use the word, we can’t.
What do you care what people think? Just lean towards free and open discussion and you can’t go wrong. Except you often do. Go wrong, that is.
“Just lean towards free and open discussion and you can’t go wrong.”
Oh, please. Both as a contributor, a member of the editorial board, and a back up moderator for approximately one week, I can assure you this is not true. One person’s “free and open” is another persons “defamation”. As for “can’t go wrong”…my precipitous departure as back up moderator was due to a public doxxing with some highly personal ( and yes, public if you really wanted to dig) information about me and members of my family entered into comments because someone was unhappy with my suggestions, not even deleted comments. Most of you wouldn’t have seen it because it was spotted and removed almost immediately by our regular moderator. But, I simply could not let this simplistic view of how easy it is to provide information in a setting of this format stand.
A private publication has no obligation to publish anything and no responsibility to not censor anything.
Interestingly enough, I’m not seeing anything stated about Don Gibson that isn’t factually true.
I suspect that quite a few people did not know about his ties to development. Perhaps that would be different if the city insisted upon submission of Form 700.
But regardless of the form, it’s entirely appropriate to expose and publicize direct connections to development interests for those appointed to key commissions which are making recommendations to the planning commission and city council.
I thank Rik and Alan P. for uncovering the information, as well as the background requirements related to Form 700.
It’s unfortunate that the Vanguard doesn’t perform these type of investigations on its own.
What goes around comes around. Gibson has done his share of making public spurious attacks on no growth advocates so he should not be surprised when he gets the same sort of treatment.
What I think was over the line was the doxing of a member by digging into their form 700 and searching the internet for business information. The person involved has, as far as I know, no history of publicly attacking anybody for anything. This person was accused of having conflicts of interest simply because they have real estate interests.
As Don Gibson posted on Twitter: “A generation was screwed by a lack of housing leading to housing insecurity/homelessness and are upset about it. It’s kind of that simple.”
I agree with Don Gibson’s statement from a community perspective … community being the City of Davis, UC Davis, and the unincorporated Yolo County areas surrounding the City and UCD.
Through approximately 2002 the growth of residential housing in the City of Davis actually exceeded the growth of residential housing statewide. At the same time the growth of the enrollment of UCD was substantial, but the growth of on-campus UCD housing fell far short of that enrollment growth.
The failure to provide housing at all UC campuses was acute enough (dare I say “a crisis”?) to prompt tthe Regents and UCOP to convene a housing task force, which published “UC Housing for the 21st Century” in November 2002. That report set remedial goals for all the campuses … goals which each campus agreed to achieve. UC Davis agreed to provide housing for 40% of its students (see LINK). In the report, UC Davis showed a Fall 2001 enrollment of 26,513 and a Total Housing Supply of 5,552, which calculates to 20.9% … half of the 40% target. That means UCD had 5,053 beds it promised to deliver to Don’s generation just to catch up to its target.
So, Don’s statement needs to include the whole community, not just the City.
What aboutism runs rampant in Davis.
I don’t think his comment mentioned a locale.
The residents of Davis do not have a direct say in the operations of the University. Due to Measure ‘whatever it is called now’ we do however, have a direct say in the availability of housing in town. Pointing the finger at UCD to claim that it is the University that is at fault for the housing shortage in Davis is dishonest nonsense. UCD is at fault for any housing shortage that exists on campus, but it is the residents of the City who are solely and directly responsible for the shortage of housing in town.
Don’t the two work hand in hand because of the fact that the shortage of UCD housing forces students and faculty to find housing in town?
Stop making sense, BP!
Sure they are connected, but when the focus of your argument is on-campus housing, you are telling the world that you really aren’t interested in addressing the problem in town, because as I said before, we have little or no influence over what the University does. If you actually wanted to address the housing shortage in Davis, your arguments would be directed towards those things we can change, not with those that we cannot.
That’s not true, as demonstrated by the legally-binding agreement between the city and UCD.
The quality of that agreement is a different discussion.
Of course, some who claim to be concerned about “housing shortages” had very little interest in that agreement, or in pursuing it further.
With a couple of word changes, Mark summed up my point about Don Gibson … UCD student. With those word changes, my statement about Don Gibson’s actions would read:
but when the focus of your argument is off-campus housing, you are telling the world that you really aren’t interested in addressing the problem on the campus
As I said in my original comment … this is a community problem and should be solved by a collaborative effort by all three jurisdictions.
People seem to be acting as though there is no MOU between UCD and the city, or that UCD isn’t living up to their portion.
There is and, so far as we can tell, they are. So I don’t really get why this keeps coming up.
“Through approximately 2002 the growth of residential housing in the City of Davis actually exceeded the growth of residential housing statewide. At the same time the growth of the enrollment of UCD was substantial, but the growth of on-campus UCD housing fell far short of that enrollment growth.”
Up until no growth took over the city of Davis and the passage of Measure J the business model of the University was to focus on its academic and research missions and let the locals get rich providing most of the housing infrastructure for the University. This relationship had served everyone well for a long time. When the position on growth in the city shifted the university tried to pivot, hiring John Meyer away from the city, to plan and construct West Village. Of course many years were then wasted on litigation and both the city and the university fell behind the growth in demand for a degree from UCD. Blaming UC alone for the housing shortage is an analysis that is short historical context of how things evolved between the city and UCD.
I just happened across this, today.
Personally, I think it’s about as ugly (from the outside) as Sterling, but they didn’t ask me when designing it.
I’d also prefer that they go taller, to occupy less space. As the city is already doing.
In any case, housing on campus ensures that the university is responsible for the costs, reserves the housing for students, and is generally the most environmentally-friendly option – if UCD wants to continue to expand (in the face of significantly-declining college enrollments, nationwide).
And as noted by Matt, UCD apparently is honoring its (basic) commitments to the city.
Of course, the city has also approved a bunch of megadorms, including at Nishi (despite the lack of fully “counting” toward RHNA requirements so far – which UCD does not have to account for.) And, despite being warned about that possibility, in advance of approving them.
Not bad on the inside, though. Opening this Fall.
https://www.facebook.com/UCDavisHousing/videos/1557146931134868
Here’s what really happened out at West Village and it illustrates why it’s so difficult to rely on a state agency to provide housing (and why real socialism (not the faux version that Trumpist prefer to set up as a strawman) fails):
While citizen input slowed the project by about a year, the real cause was three factors:
1) The UCD faculty blocked UCD from realigning the project along 113 which would have eliminated almost all of the objections by the neighbors. The faculty had some really stupid reasons for blocking the realignment.
2) The 2008 Great Recession just as the project finally took off. How slowly the project got started was a great illustration of why UCD should not be our housing savior!
3) The requirement for union construction labor squashed the single family housing planned for the NE corner of the property. Those spaces have stood empty for a dozen years for that singular reason.
West Village was UCD’s struggling response to the City hitting the brakes on what had been a cooperative mutually beneficial arrangement. No one was talking about fiscal deficits in 2002 for good reason.
Strange how that isn’t stopping the student housing from being built.
How many are planned for that location? And, any thoughts as to “outlawing” (or at least discouraging) single-family zoning, there?
I’m sure I’m late to the party of the insiders who know all about this, but it seems obvious that the City Council should designate seats on the Planning and HE Commisions to real estate interests and developers as well as renters, non-profit housing representatives, homeowners and any other usual suspect groups. That way we don’t have to get all tied up in uncovering nefarious secrets.
Agreed, it should be transparent as to which stakeholders are involve and all stakeholders should be involved.
I find SGY’s proposals as quite reasonable and realistic given the situation. Shooting the messenger is a useless exercise if the message is valid. I’m so disappointed that so many people fall for that line of attack. The merits of the argument are much more important. Other than wanting to keep out undesirables, what are the problems with SGY’s proposals?