By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – On Thursday, Dan Ramos put out a statement that seemed to blame the overwhelming Measure H defeat on low voter turnout.
“Obviously we are disappointed with the outcome on Measure H. We believe that it is more reflective of low voter turnout than the sentiment of the community overall. Had voter turnout been greater, we think the result would likely have been different. We continue to believe in our project and the many benefits it would bring to Davis,” Ramos said.
That led many people to ask — is low turnout really a factor?
My answer: yes and no.
I’m always a little reluctant to do a deep data dive when we don’t have the data. But I do think there is a point to voter turnout hypothesis.
First of all, as I have pointed out previously, projects in Davis start with about a 35 to 40 percent of the voters who are basically automatic no’s. We saw that even in internal polls by the two measures that actually won—and won fairly easily. So it is not a death knell, it just means that project proponents really have very low margin for error.
We also know something about the make-up of those always no voters—they tend to be older, homeowners. And we know from other studies as well as experience that older homeowners are more likely to vote.
We also know at least from early returns that about 40 percent of the voting pool were voters over the age of 65. That’s significant because it means the voting demographic that is most likely to have opposed a Measure J project, was the voting demographic that was dominating the voting population.
So in short, if you have a group of people most likely to vote and most likely to oppose the project more dominant, it is going to be a big advantage for the No on H side.
Is that the end of the story?
I don’t believe so.
In 2020, DISC had a lot of things going against it. It was a 200-acre project. Traffic problems on Mace were worse and more pervasive. The pandemic meant a lot of students were not in the city to vote. And the pandemic meant that the Yes campaign was not out walking door to door and taking advantage of its ground operation.
It went down to defeat, but by a narrow four percent or about 1200 votes.
So you figured that a smaller project, with less traffic impact, would do better on its face. Add in the fact that students are back in town—the demographic most likely to support DiSC. And the fact that the ground operation was able to hit 30,000 households, you liked your chances if you were a supporter of Measure H.
At some point here when all the votes are counted, we will know exactly how many votes Measure H lost by, but to me the biggest change was the blowback from the suit filed by Councilmember Dan Carson.
A letter from Ann Evans, a former mayor argued, “Dan Carson has set a low bar for conduct of an elected official in Davis. Funded by the developer of DiSC (Measure H), Carson in effect sued the local citizens in opposition to H, and furthermore is suing them to pay for legal expenses he incurred in a case he did not win outright.”
In a joint letter signed by six former mayors—Joe Krovoza, Sue Greenwald, Mike Corbett, Ken Wagstaff, Ann Evans and Bill Kopper—they wrote: “We are concerned that Davis City Councilman Dan Carson’s involvement in the Measure H campaign and his efforts to pass Measure H set a terrible precedent for Davis and harms our citizen-based democratic processes.”
They continued, “Carson is the first elected official in Davis to lead a developer’s campaign committee to annex land to the city for a subdivision. He is also the first member of the city Council to use developer money to file a lawsuit to strike down his fellow citizens’ ballot arguments against annexation.”
They later wrote, “Just the possibility of another developer suing the citizen opponents of a project could scare Davis residents from standing up and speaking out. That’s not the Davis way. Winning a political debate shouldn’t depend on the size of your pocketbook. Instead, make your best case and then let the voters decide.”
From their perspective, “The problem with Carson’s conduct in the Measure H campaign is that he has blurred the line between his role as an elected representative of the people of Davis and his advocacy for a development project. This conflict of interest was on full display at the April 5 City Council meeting, when he took up a Measure H matter that was not on the agenda and gave a lengthy political speech. Even Mayor Gloria Partida admonished Carson this was improper.”
Moreover, I’m not sure which was worse, the initial action by a sitting councilmember or the fact that he then filed for attorney fees. Either way, the action shifted the focus from a project to a power grab by a councilmember funded by a developer—and in Davis, that’s fatal.
Voter turnout certainly did not help, but even in a general election with 70 percent turnout, they probably could not have overcome this major stumble.
The idea that more voters would lead to a different outcome is beyond dumb. If you believe that why would you put your revised proposal on the ballot of an off year primary election? I imagine if you plotted turn out over time the elections with lowest turnout would be off year primaries. They must have figured that with students back they could have made up enough ground but that isn’t what happened. What happened was that low propensity voters not worried about who the President would be for the next four years didn’t bother. Not only that but with initiatives no longer on June ballots and no serious challengers for Governor in the wake of the failed recall there wasn’t anything driving people to the polls. The biggest thing on the ballot driving locals to the polls was opposition to H.
The biggest problem with H was traffic. Davis’ transportation planner so bungled the Mace project because of anti-auto zealotry that the real lipstick on the pig was the promise of a do over that came forward during the campaign. I talked to several local leaders who blamed Waze but that was overlooking the obvious, the redesign sucked. It was so bad that fire trucks couldn’t get out of the station without making a three point turn. Waze isn’t responsible for that. Restricting the lanes down from 4 to 2 making things worse was totally predictable.
Putting H on the ballot during an off year primary and before addressing the traffic was a fools errand. If Ramos’s consultants didn’t warn him about these two issues he should demand his money back.
“The idea that more voters would lead to a different outcome is beyond dumb. If you believe that why would you put your revised proposal on the ballot of an off year primary election?”
The first point is not entirely true. We know that turnout matters, which is why the president’s party often does substantially worse during off year elections.
And the second point is actually a good question – they probably shouldn’t have. Just like they have finally learned not to do special elections.
I had a take similar to Ron’s – why work to qualify this measure for the June ballot when there were no city elections happening (yes, I know supervisor did occur but that was not, unfortunately, a highly contested seat). If the Yes on H organizers were counting on students, they don’t know much about voting patterns of those younger than 30. Even with late mail-in ballots and other votes straggling in it will be difficult for the Measure H vote to get very close to 50% turnout. (I think voter registration for Davis is about 40K people the last I looked.) Since the elections office only had two precincts in Davis for this election it is difficult to know if the South Davis traffic concerns played a role or what East Davis voted like. My hunch is that this was a poorly timed measure, with some REALLY bad press in the last month thanks to Dan Carson’s poorly thought-out legalities and not much voter interest. I don’t understand how developers think that spending so much money on these elections is worth it. I would love to see the Nishi folks or the West Davis developers show us how it “pencils out.”
Just the huge increase in value of the land from farmland to commercially zoned property is worth it.
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Robert, vote numbers for all 100+ precincts are available. The Elections Office created two consolidated precincts for the map they show on the website, but drilling down into the individual precincts within the two consolidated precincts is possible.
PSA…
“Registered voters”: a ‘hard #, but big caveat… includes folk who have long left Davis… once registered, if you move out of Davis, out of County, and register in another City/County/State, there is no automatic ‘de-registration’ in Davis/Yolo County… the # is suspect, on the high side… therefore, the % voting is highly suspect.
Ballots (rec’d): that is a hard #, and quite accurate
Returns %-age: see my first point… can well be misleading, based on data assumptions.
Not assumptions Bill … the numbers reported by the Yolo Elections Office. I agree that those numbers do contain some “stale” registrations, but it is my understanding that Jesse Salinas and his crew did a very thorough cleanup of the voter registrations database over the last 12-18 months. So 38,325 may be 37,000+ or even 36,000+ At 36,000 the percentage goes up to 36% from 34%. Not a meaningful difference.
The same statistical basis is used for all elections so its a useful comparison among elections. (The old shibboleth about “dead” registrants is largely a myth.) In 2020, the County-wide turnout using the same metric was 83%. 30% is a very low turnout.
As I said, the developers misunderstood the presence of students in June. They are looking to leave town by the first week of June, along with finals. They’re not interested, especially with no other real issues on the ballot of note. I never understood the push to make the June ballot. The City and Ramos could have take the extra 5 months to allow for further review and negotiation instead pushing the rush processed this time around.
All I did was point out the limitations of the data. I pointed out that given the inputs, the #’s do not deserve 3 digits of accuracy.
We had many folk @ the polls indicating that they were ‘not found’ in our search but were consistent voters in Yolo County for 20 + years… we had many folk point out that their address was wrong,.. we had several who were listed (same birthdate) at more than one location. This, from the same database that was used for the numbers you got.
Jesse and his team have made great progress in ‘cleaning’ the rolls, over his tenure… yet, it is a ‘work in progress’, which continues (with the assistance of the ‘boots on the ground’ poll-workers)…
In short, I stand by my comments, and do not believe you can credibly refute them… just ask Jesse.
It is not worth it for most developers, which is why we have such a poor choice of potential projects. Most development ideas are never brought forward due to the unreasonable financial risk associated with Measure J. The City could reduce financial risks elsewhere in the process in the hopes of compensating, but there does not seem to be any interest in that approach, especially when you have CC members who raise new financial demands from the dais when the project is before the council for approval.
Both the projects you mentioned are demonstrating how well they ‘pencil out’ by not breaking ground.
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Mark, I believe you are leaping to a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence.
It is quite possible that “pencil out” is one of the factors that explains why Nishi 2018 has not broken ground, but if it is I’m pretty sure it is a very minor factor when compared to Union Pacific Railroad’s resistance to signing a contract with the developer and UCD for the underpass that would connect the Nishi site to the UCD campus.
I personally have heard a number of issues discussed that have been challenges to Bretton Woods going forward, but “pencil out” is not one of them until you brought it up this morning. One I have heard is significant additional flood water management issues that were inadequately planned for in 2018 prior to the Measure J vote. Another is that the Taorminos have not been able to find a contractor that is able to take on the project. The COVID pandemic has made contractor resources extremely hard to come by.
NOTE: This is my 5th comment in this thread today. I will refrain from commenting again in this thread until tomorrow.
Yes, both of which will make the project more expensive than planned…see ‘pencil out.’
Yes, both of which will make the project more expensive than planned…see ‘pencil out.’
Is that a problem with planning or a problem with accounting? Both those problems could have been anticipated (planned for), and in the financial projections for the project there were (or should have been) contingency dollars for unanticipated costs.
As I understand it, the issue with the flood waters had resulted in an additional retention pond on the north end, which has affected the viewscapes for the lots on that northern end of the project. It is possible that the retention pond will eliminate one lot. That isn’t a “penciling out” issue, although loss of the revenue from one lot would affect the revenues and profitability of the project.
Sincde every project has to have “books” and accounting for the ins and outs in those books. So you are correct, but being correct often misses the point.
The flood plain issues were well known for like 50 years… that is not an “emergent” issue… the magnitude of the issue may have changed slightly, where due to concerns of ‘climate change’ (possibly going from 100-year to 200 year assumptions [aka 1% risk in any given year, to a 0.5% chance in any given year…very conservative in either case, but reasonable, given implications]). The site lies on the path of prehistoric Putah Creek, and/or Chickahominy Slough, Dry Slough… the FEMA flood plain maps show this (although not labelled as such)…
BTW, the water generated from a 200 year event is not twice that of a 100 year event… more like 3-5% greater…
The Chicken Littles could throw up what would happen if Monticello Dam failed… major implications for Winters, not so much Davis… they would have no concept of the real world…
Matt: The world changed since the projects were proposed and approved in ways I doubt even you (in you all-knowing personae) predicted. Massive wildfires locally, global COVID related supply chain challenges, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent disruption of the oil and gas market. Simply considering the increased cost of fuel, something that only happened in the past few months, will have an impact on whether or not the projects are financially viable, without even considering the costs of building materials, labor and financing. Without Measure J the developers might be able to negotiate changes to the projects that would make them more viable with the altered economy. With Measure J, they are forced to live with the constraints negotiated during a much more favorable economic climate, or risk $millions more with a new election.
Fair enough Mark
Ha. David, why didn’t you call it a major stumble at the time? I remember you saying it wasn’t a big deal. Here’s one example and I’m sure I can find many more:
Keith Olson April 25, 2022 at 8:06 am
Don’t worry Alan P, I’m sure most of the Davis voters have taken note.
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David Greenwald April 25, 2022 at 9:47 am
I don’t really get the sense that most people care that much about this issue.
Ignore Commenter
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Keith Olson April 25, 2022 at 10:03 am
What? How many articles has the Vanguard written or posted about this issue?
Do you always write or post articles about issues that people don’t care about?
So I think Davis voters do care and notice or else it wouldn’t be news worthy.
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David GreenwaldApril 25, 2022 at 10:50 am
It was an interesting issue up until the court ruling. My assessment is that at this point – the issue of the legal fees – is of limited interest to the community.
https://davisvanguard.org/2022/04/guest-commentary-councilmember-carson-still-thinks-that-the-citizens-he-sued-with-developer-money-should-pay-legal-fees/
Of course the developer can’t “blame” Dan Carson, as the developer supported that decision in the first place.
Dan Carson did not make that decision in isolation, nor would he have proceeded if the developer wasn’t backing up the lawsuit, financially.
Dan Carson was just the public face of it.
The graphic above supports the point that David makes.
For the Measure H election the 65+ age group made up 43.6% of the returned ballots and the 50-64 age group made up another 23.0%.
Am skeptical of linking votes cast vs. age cohorts… if true, violates trust in secret ballots… if false, wonder how/why the numbers are generated… not opining, but questioning data source and methodology… Matt has his 3rd party sources, so he is relying on their data… my experience at the polls during the 11 days of early/election day voting do not support the numbers shown in the graphics… but mail-ins, drop-offs @ other locations, may support those, but I am skeptical of the data used… might be correct, might be BS… or somewhere in between…
The content of the vote is secret, the fact that you voted is not.
Inadequate… done by age cohorts? Really? Cite sources/codes… or will have to dismiss as speculation… my age, tied to whether I voted or not, should not be part of the public record… whether I voted, or not, should not be part of the public record…
[edited] … if you provide cites, will reconsider…
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The citation that Bill is looking for is the Voter file provided to the public by the Yolo County Elections Office. I have sent to Bill via e-mail the records from that file for the three members of his household.
I would post the information here, but that would be doxing, so he has received it in a personal e-mail to avoid any doxing.
I have given Bill the contact information for the source Political Data Intelligence. I felt a direct communication was the most productive route for answering his questions. Bill and I also talked by telephone about this.
And, I appreciate the input. Thx…
That someone voted is not a secret–how they voted is. The political parties track whether someone has voted on Election Day to increase turnout for their preferred cohorts. Getting demographic data on an individual is pretty eassy. From that turnout data along with vote percentages by precinct its possible to use statistical regression analysis to get pretty close to the likely support levels by cohort. (I use this type of analysis all the time for a range of applications and it generally comes pretty close to actual values when the latter are available.)
Interesting, but good input… guess I should expect most things about me to be ‘public’ info (having worked in the public sector)[some, including the h… have known for years that my pension, employment has been…
Funny how some post/have posted here who deem that, as for them, it’s “off-limits”… ‘I wonder’ who they are, and what they want to hide… three, in particular… they protest too much if it involves them, but do not hesitate if it involves others… “H” word is in play…
It is what it is… as G Orwell wrote, “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”…
Eh, it’s up to the campaigns to get people to vote. They can’t just assume people will vote. The Yes Campaign didn’t do enough to draw out the non-voters to vote for them and overcome the NO voters. I’ve said before, I mostly supported H and I didn’t like what the YES Campaign was saying.
Here’s “the deal”… Keith Y E has provided the clue, time and time again… it’s about “me”… I say that not disparagingly…
Voters were faced with a choice of ‘possible’ benefits to the community, and ‘likely’ degradation of personal convenience (I dismiss those saying it was about loss of habitat or prime Ag… those were convenient red herrings, smokescreens, to deflect from the real motivations) as to travel times, parking downtown, etc.
Given a choice, particularly under the politics of the last 6 years, fears of inflation, the stress of Covid fears, would someone take on a risk of something getting worse, rather than an indirect chance of things getting better, as an individual? Duh!
Mark Twain, in one of his best essays (personal opinion) posits that people do things (they perceive) that will give them the less ‘pain’… in that essay, he posits that there is no such thing as ‘altruism’ — giving to better others/society… it all comes down to “what’s in it for me?”… “what is likely to cause me the less ‘pain’?”.
My answer to those questions to vote Yes on H… I rolled the dice that the project might better the community situation (financially), indirectly possibly helping me and mine, fully understanding my potential inconveniences, and weighing those two… the scale, for me. tipped to a Yes vote… I can easily see where the scales of others (the ones who actually think, so that leaves out the zealots, and the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’) would tip towards No. The noes have it… it is quite clear.
Now, we all have to deal with the implications, issues, consequences, related to the outcome of the vote… just as we would had the measure passed by a similar margin.
It’s called, life. We have to deal with decisions we make, and those of others. Duh!