A History of Staff and Council Circumventing or Ignoring Citizen Advisory Commissions in Davis
by Alan Pryor
This is Part 1 in a series discussing the recent Council decision that greatly limits Citizen Advisory Commission input and recommendations for Baseline Features for the newly proposed DISC 2022 project now heading for the June 2022 ballot in Davis. Readers will remember one of the primary complaints surrounding DISC 1.0 on the November 2020 ballot as Measure B was that the Commissions were intentionally and systematically excluded from fully participating in the review of the project through scheduling manipulations imposed by City Staff with Council approval. It appears that history is repeating itself.
This Part 1 in the series will discuss the history of City Staff and Council ignoring input by both the Advisory Commissions and the public in many other important City matters. It will be followed in Part 2 by a detailed examination of the means and schemes by which Staff and Council similarly intend to limit Commission review and input in processing of the DISC 2022 project.
Background
Francesca Wright, a founding member of Yolo People Power, had a scathing editorial in Sunday’s Vanguard concerning the 
City Council ‘s continued failure to meaningfully address police reform in Davis over the year (see https://davisvanguard.org/2021/09/guest-commentary-wanted-leadership-substance-not-spin/). Ms. Wright claimed this failure is still occurring despite unanimous approval of a 9-point plan for reform presented to Council by 3 different citizen Advisory Commissions and a petition signed by over 800 citizens calling for immediate action on the Commission recommendations. Said Ms. Wright about these failures,
It has been over a year that community members have been asking City Council to create meaningful structural change in how we address public safety. We have marched. We have sent public comments to City Council meetings. We have analyzed local police traffic stop and crime data, researched the underpinnings of public safety as well as examples of effective public safety practices.
…We have met individually with each council member. Over 800 people signed an open letter to the Council. Three council-appointed commissions unanimously supported nine recommendations on public safety.
…This may be the most public pressure exerted on any council in the 23 years I have lived in Davis California. And after all of this, how has the current city council responded? … they have not advanced Davis’ vision. This is not leadership. This is maintenance of the status quo. To have meaningful change we need effective visionary leadership.
This is reminiscent of Staff and Council behavior in ignoring Commission and public input in many other important but questionable decisions unilaterally made by Staff and Council over the past several years and calls into question whose interests they are really representing behind the dais.
Other Recent History of this Council’s Discounting or Disregarding Commission Input in Important City Matters
Ms. Wright’s comments focus on Social Justice and Police Reform, but they could just as easily be describing any number of similar tales from the recent history of the City of Davis Staff and Council’s recurring pattern of ignoring Commission and community input.
The history of municipal government in Davis over the past 5 years has become increasingly non-responsive to the involvement of its own citizens, as evidenced by the inability of the citizen’s Advisory Commissions to provide substantive input and influence policy regarding major decisions unilaterally made by Staff and Council. One only has to look at the horrible decisions made by Staff that were then rubber-stamped by Council on major issues before them in the past few years where the advice of one or more of the Advisory Commissions was completely ignored or the Staff and Council simply did not even solicit Commission or citizen input.
DWR Sale to Recology – The sale of DWR to Recology in 2017 was strongly and unanimously questioned by the Utilities Commission, as well as by some members of the Natural Resources Commission. The issue raised was the failure of the City to even explore exercising the right of first refusal to purchase the 2nd Street waste processing facility. Failure to exercise that right left Recology in an absolute leveraged-monopoly position when renegotiating their waste hauling contract with the City at the time of contract expiration. This could end of costing ratepayers tens of millions of dollars in future waste hauling fees simply because the City has absolutely no leverage when trying to bring in other bidders at that time (see https://davisvanguard.org/2017/10/benefits-potential-concerns-related-davis-exercising-right-first-refusal-dwr/).
Land Solar Lease to BrightNight – Even more egregious was the BrightNight Solar debacle in 2020 where the City leased 235 acres to BrightNight Solar without even obtaining competitive bids. Further, they conducted all negotiations in secret without even bothering to solicit Commission input. This also likely cost the City General Fund tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue because the deal was so obscenely structured to BrightNight’s benefit (see https://davisvanguard.org/2020/04/guest-commentary-did-our-city-council-just-agree-to-the-absolute-worst-deal-in-the-citys-history/).
Broadband Franchise to Astound Communications – Or when the Citizen’s Broadband Advisory Committee proposed and strongly supported municipal ownership of the broadband infrastructure in the City. Yet when a monopoly contract was eventually awarded in 2019, the City unceremoniously granted it to Astound Communications for seemingly a pittance in municipal fees plus free internet access to the City government. But this decision left the citizens of Davis at the mercy of Astound when trying to secure their own broadband access (see https://davisvanguard.org/2019/07/council-set-to-approve-astound-fiaber-optic-agreement-despite-community-oppos/).
In each of these cases Staff made a recommendation to Council that was completely at odds with opinion given by the respective Commissions which Commissions contained far more experienced and competent experts in their respective fields compared to the inexperience of Staff in these matters. But in each case, Council saw fit to just go along with Staff’s recommendations to expedite getting it off their agenda.
3 recent Citizen Petitions to Council – The attitude toward serving their citizens’ direct requests for services or changes even when the matters are not before the Commissions is equally dismal. Right now in addition to the petition on Police Reform, 3 separate major petitions by citizens seeking street and traffic management improvements or restrictions on tree cutting are languishing in Staff’s inbox. Each request has 100s of signatures imploring the Council to take action (see https://www.davisite.org/2021/08/three-petitions-three-frustrated-and-unheard-constituencies.html). The three petition requests are:
1) To prevent further unnecessary removal of dozens of mature parking lot trees at Sutter Hospital where suitable alternatives exist for coexistence of the PV system and trees. Staff is supporting the tree removal without input from the public or the Tree Commission,
2) To resolve the never-ending traffic quagmire on Mace Blvd (the “Mace Mess”) produced by the street redesign promoted by Staff and their traffic consultants, Fehr and Peers (the same traffic consultants used by the Developer on the DISC 1.0 project), and
3) To install traffic-calming signage to reduce unsafe traffic conditions at intersections in the still unfinished Cannery project; another calamitous Council failure.
And as will be discussed in upcoming Part 2 of this series, this past Tuesday the Staff and Council considered the matter of Commission input for the newly proposed DISC 2020 project. Many objected to the rushed process forced on Commissions during the lead-up to the Planning Commission and Council votes to put DISC 1.0 on the 2020 ballot as Measure B. Ostensibly this recent Council meeting item was an opportunity for Council to give direction to Staff on how to proceed with the processing of new newly resubmitted DISC application and receiving Commission input on the project and many had hoped that the Council would provide a more measured and deliberative process to Staff requiring more time for Commissions to consider their project recommendations and Baseline Feature. However, the way the meeting played out, it was Staff that was giving direction to Council on how Staff and the Developer wanted to proceed, and Council then meekly followed along.
Alan Pryor is a Former NRC Commissioner
Advisory Commissions are advisory to the elected City Council. The Council, elected by the voters, is accountable to the voters. Would you want it any other way? Would you want want unelected commissioners having the final decision making authority?
This would be a better piece if it were called the City Council has made decisions the author doesn’t like. Hiding one’s disdain in some sort of process argument challenges the underpinning of representative democracy by suggesting that power should exist in bodies not accountable to the voters.
The CC makes many decisions, some I like, some I don’t. That is the nature of politics. You want to call out the decisions you don’t like, no problem, but don’t try to embellish your disapproval by suggesting there is something inappropriate going on.
I certainly do not imply or suggest that what the City Council has done is “illegal” in any way. That said, I do believe it is highly inappropriate in a representative democracy such as ours for an entity with near absolute authority (such as our City Council) to abrogate that authority by meekly deferring to an unelected City Staff with such limited expertise and experience in the matters under question.
Our unique form of democracy in Davis has always relied on the expertise of our Advisory Commissions to weigh in on important matters by advising the City Council on matters in which neither the City Council nor City Staff has the requisite experience and knowledge to make informed decisions in a bubble. Ultimately, any decision to enter into a major contract affecting our residents is the City Council’s but by putting in an artificial firewall between them and the Advisory Commissions to limit input from the Commissions makes our City Staff the unchallenged source of information on which the Council is relying for advice.
But let’s face it, who on our City Staff is an expert on alternative energy or energy procurement that could provide informed input to the Council to get the best deal for the City in the BrightNight solar lease debacle. The correct answer is nobody on Staff has that expertise. In contrast, there are nationally recognized alternative energy and utility experts on the NRC and Utilities Commissions who advised against the City entering into that non-competitive, no-bid deal with BrightNight. But these experts were not even consulted until the deal was already inked by Council after conferring only with Staff behind closed doors.
So was this deal illegal under current law? It’s questionable since the deal was structured as a sole source, no-bid contract negotiated in private behind closed doors. Was it inappropriate? Certainly so in the opinion of the experts on our Advisory Commissions who suggested the BrightNight Solar deal could have left millions of dollars on the table that could have otherwise gone into street or facilities repair and maintenance or providing desperately needed social services. Instead the monies will go to a new, privately-held company with no operating experience in existence for less than a year. Yeah…I’d say that just may be just a teeny bit inappropriate if not downright incompetent!
And who on our City Staff has any prior experience negotiating monopolistic City service contracts for waste hauling and/or providing broadband service to our residents as was needed to intelligently advise Council on the DWR to Recology sale or negotiate the Astound Broadband deals. Again, the correct answer would be nobody! In contrast, there were Commissioners or their technical advisors that have made it their livelihood to understand such matters. And their input was seemingly completely ignored by our Council who instead deferred entirely to our inexperienced and unqualified Staff. Was this illegal? Certainly not. Was it inappropriate? Certainly yes.
And this brings us back to the DISC 1.0 review process. Our Council and Staff and the Developer blew their own horns very loudly during the election 2020 proclaiming this project underwent extensive review by the City’s Advisory Commission. But the truth of the matter belies those claims as facts show the Staff went through extensive efforts to minimize input from the Commissions from ever even reaching the Planning Commission and Council prior to their decisions to place it on the ballot.
And as will be discussed in the upcoming Part 2 in this series, Staff (with Council support) is pulling the same scheduling shenanigans to circumvent informed Commission input on DISC 2022. Is this illegal?…Nope. Is it inappropriate?…Highly!
Uh…I believe the City Council is doing what it’s supposed to do as a representative democracy (they were voted in). Who they choose to listen to is up to them…that’s part of the “near absolute authority” you mention.
I highlighted the key words in this part of your comment. If you feel the City Council isn’t doing a good enough job on the issues you care about, vote them out. Support other candidates. Run for council yourself. If the voters care enough about these issues as you do, then they’ll make the changes to the Council that you want.
Is the staff under any obligation to maximize or even acknowledge the Commissions input?
How about the Commissions understanding their place and getting with the program? If things aren’t going to bend to the (various) Commissions’ schedule; how about doing what you can with the time that was given. Instead of pouting and complaining about how the grand visions and advice by the Commissions aren’t being recognized fully and from the get go….why not work with what you ‘ve got? If the Council wants something to go through, change gears from opposing it and stalling it and analyzing it to death and provide helpful input that meets some of the the various Commissions’ goals to varying degrees while still realizing the CC’s goals and timelines for a project, imitative or whatever.
Uh…How many years of Commission service do you have under your belt? (I have 12) How many Commission charters have you read? (I’ve read most of them)
There was a comment made by one of the presenters at a recent Cool Davis webinar on Local Solutions for Climate Action and Resilience,
If we have one shared value in this city, it is that we have a right to participate in all things. (August 18, 2021)
Your provincial viewpoints probably resonate more in a less democratically-liberal, more authoritatively-inclined city than Davis.
You’re still missing the point. You could be an actual god of Policy Wonks and it would still be irrelevant. YOU’RE ADIVORS.
Really? lol. I’m not the one whining online about how no one is listening to all my great advice.
I’ll take a swing at that… having been on staff for 35 years (32 in Davis), not to acknowledge would be WRONG… it should be noted, as professionals… it should also be refuted (if the input is flat out wrong/deceiving), “comment noted” (no further response), or pointing out the merits of the input components (perhaps some 20-80% might be ‘spot on’/has credible merit, and staff believes it should be brought forward as ‘part of the record’ (even if staff still disagrees), and perhaps showing concerns about ‘downsides’ of Commission recommendations.
Alan P oft (from what I saw/hard about) expected staff liaisons to be their “champions” moving forward (i.e. maximizing their recommendations)… many commissioners, many commissions, over the years, showed an attitude that staff were their vassals… ignored staff, because they (commissioners) had their own agendas… berating staff in public meetings for their input as professionals when it didn’t fit with ‘what they wanted to hear’ (inconvenient truths?), then expected them to ‘champion’ their recommendations (encouraging unprofessionalism). [NRC and Planning commissions have historically been ”great’ at that]
Commissioners (appointed, not elected, oft appointed just to have ‘divergent views’) oft see themselves as demi-gods… many (far from all) have seen commissioner work as a step-stone to political aspirations… they play to/try to create what they see as their future “base”… instead of thoughtful, rational, pertinent actions.
At this point, I NED TO SAY, having been primary/secondary PW staff liaison to 3 commissions, the majority of commissioners have been motivated to serve the community, offer their knowledge and insights, little/no personal agendas/philosophies, respect staff, and feel free to disagree… that is how it should be. R-E-S-P-E-C-T (think song)… that needs to be a two-way street. That ‘street’ needs refurbishing/maintenance… pieces such as this one trending the opposite way.
Back fully to the quoted part… staff should be expected to act as professionals… a true professional documents other views/options, evaluates, responds, and adds their professional take on their “input”. And passes it all on to “management” (CM & CC).
That’s how it is supposed to work.
Bill M
Having served on two commissions and a couple of other short-term citizen advisory committees, the best outcomes have occurred when staff acted as facilitators of citizen input and allowed the citizen members to run their preferred solutions. The most objectionable outcomes have occurred when staff members ignored or otherwise acted without acknowledging citizen input from these commissions and committees. Remember that staff are employees of the City and answerable at least indirectly to the citizens of the community. Staff are not hired to be the policy decisionmakers, even indirectly by steering the agenda, for the community.
As for reflecting input, in each of the cases that Alan P has listed, with which I am intimately familiar, the staff either ignored or bypassed citizen input to get a desired outcome (sometimes directed by a Council member). Staff also has misinterpreted certain state laws to its benefit to preclude citizen input (e.g., on the Recology deal, once the right of first refusal was foregone, the decision was no longer a real estate transaction protected from disclosure under the Brown Act, and was instead a franchise agreement negotiation which is required to be open to the public.) The staff was unaware of how Brightnight had misrepresented the California Independent System Operator’s interconnection provisions in a manner that made a deadline appear to be critical when in fact it was meaningless. Staff review of recent development proposals reveal a lack of knowledge about renewable energy and energy efficiency actions when rejected proposals from industry experts who are serving on the City’s commissions. (The NRC’s recommendations on DISC 1.0 were very specific and constructed to be readily implemented but many were still rejected without valid stated objections. That was all done in a two month period.) The staff’s actions on these issues were unprofessional, which is why we have objected.
The starting point is for staff to acknowledge the limits on its expertise and to rely on what is a fairly unique set of experts sitting on these commissions. There are vested interests in town who would prefer to suppress those experts because it would require changing from business as usual. The staff needs to stop listening to those interests and instead to the rest of the citizens.
Alternatively or concurrently to “getting with the program” (I’d suggest concurrently) you could increase the political power of the Commissions. It sounds like right now the Commissions have little real political power. It sounds like they think they do but it seems like City Council doesn’t seem to think so.
So if you want more political power you have to get out in front of the people….and not just gather together that lets the public join in and deliberate and analyze whatever political issues are going on. To be honest, I’d bet a good portion of the voting Davis public aren’t aware of many of the Commissions or what they do or stand for…or even care. I mean sure you’ll get some of the public to join in on those Commission meetings but typically those are a specific segment of the general population that really cares about some specific area of concern (bicycling, traffic, trees…etc..). But do they represent the greater Davis general public as a whole? I’d argue they don’t.
First things first, put a face on your Commission. Probably should be the leader if not the public speaker. This is the person that people will think of when they think of that Commission or the area of expertise that comes up in political decisions that require voter input. Me personally, I like to know about how things are going fiscally. So you’d think I’d have a handle on the Finance and Budget Committee. But I have no clue about it. I’ve never heard of anyone on it (I just looked it up right now).
Proactively go out and speak to the people about the issues you care about. Bicycle and transport commission? Go talk to the various school PTAs and talk about safe bicycle riding and transportation for the kids at their schools…for example. Recreation and Parks Commission? Go host an informal kid’s soccer tournament or tennis get together or schedule family green belt walks.
The Commissions really don’t have much PR. Barely a web presence. If I want info on what they’re up to, I have to navigate through the city website and go to links about their agendas and minutes….. an archive of videos. Nothing to easy access or desirable to read unless you’re a policy wonk…which most of the voting population isn’t.
So if the Commissions really want more power/influence then they’d better do a better job of connecting with the people
Can I get into the ‘action’ on that bet? Always love ‘sure things’. Really.
If you add the non-voting residents of Davis, it is even MORE of a sure thing.
Yeah….Commissions are advisory. They’re supposed to help the public, staff and council make decisions. But they’re there to help, not be the primary factor in decisions by the city council. The council can choose to listen to the Commissions or not. Pointing out that they didn’t listen is fine. But let’s not go overboard here. There’s no way the council or any of it’s agenda should be impeded by any of the various Commissions’ schedules.
Look at it this way. Commissions are like in-laws. They can be helpful or annoying but either way they’re not the ones making the day to day decisions for the family. Right now this is article is starting to sound like an in-law saying: “you should have listened to me”. ” you should have waited to go on that trip so I could tag along and tell you the best places to go”. “you shouldn’t have bought that. but I like this…you should buy it”.
It sounds like there are some legitimate grievances that some (many?) could have with some of the decisions by the city council. That’s fine. Vote in new ones if you’re not happy with them. Commissions support some council members and not others during elections…and that’s fine too.
Since the Commissions are supposed to be here to help; what help or advice can it provide in the time frame the city council has given for DISC 2.0 to move forward?