By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – It seems like every time the council votes to put a project on the ballot it’s usually a 5-0 vote (it has been each time since 2009 when it was 3-2) and the community have, more times than not, rejected the project—leading people to discuss the disconnect between the council and community on these issues.
I have a few theories on this.
Let’s go back to November of 2020. There were two city council districts that saw opponents of DISC running for council. DISC ultimately lost 52-48 in 2020. But in both the 2nd and 3rd Districts, the anti-DISC candidates did not fare well.
Colin Walsh, perhaps the more outspoken of the two, received 21.8 percent of the vote and finished third between two candidates, Will Arnold and Dillan Horton, who both supported the project. In District 3 it was a one-on-one situation and Lucas Frerichs bested Larry Guenther 64-36.
You could argue that Frerichs and Arnold were arguably two of the strongest and most popular candidates on the council. While that is a reasonable point, in the case of Walsh it doesn’t explain his third place finish and it reinforces the overall point that the voters are not just voting on where someone stands on housing/development.
I have, as I said, a few theories on this.
First, I think Measure J itself makes it harder for slow growth candidates to win. When Measure J was originally passed, there was a majority of the council that was slow growth. Since Measure J passed, there have been very few slow growth candidates who have run for council and won.
One reason for that is perhaps the voters know that they don’t need to put slow growth candidates on the ballot because they get the last say on at least peripheral developments.
The theory suggests that because the voters now have a fail safe, they are free to pick candidates for other reasons, knowing they can always veto an unpopular project.
Indeed, the first Measure J project, Measure X—Covell Village—was supported 4-1 by the council in 2005. The voters voted it down 60-40. And yet, in 2006 and 2008, when opposed by anti-Measure X candidates, the three councilmembers who supported Measure X all won. Ruth Asmundson finished first in 2006. In 2008, Don Saylor finished first, Stephen Souza second, and Sue Greenwald who opposed Measure X finished a distant third. (The fourth candidate, Ted Puntillo, didn’t seek a second term).
As unpopular as Measure X actually was in 2005, it had no impact on its proponents’ reelection bid it would seem.
But while that makes some sense, there are other projects that have been unpopular and are not peripheral. Look no further than the issue of Trackside.
One big difference between peripheral developments and infill projects is that peripheral ones tend to generate concern across the city, while infill tends to be very localized.
Trackside forms a nice case study here, because the Old East Neighborhood Association strongly opposed the project, the council passed it over their objections, the Neighborhood would take the city to court and initially even prevail.
In 2018, two candidates from that neighborhood would run for council—and they ran on a slow growth platform overall. But Ezra Beeman and Larry Guenther, in a large field of nine candidates, only finished in the middle, well behind the staunchly pro-growth candidates of Gloria Partida and Dan Carson.
But those were citywide votes and perhaps the issue of Trackside would resonate more in a district election, as in 2020 when Frerichs took on Guenther one on one, and again, the slow growth candidate came out behind.
I have another theory here. A couple of years ago there was polling done by the city, and it found that the most important issue for voters was actually the lack of affordable housing. At the same time, we have seen in internal polls conducted by the developers of projects that somewhere between 35 to 40 percent of voters are opposed to any project.
My theory those is that a large percentage of people in town are in favor of housing, at least in the abstract. That means that they believe we have a shortage of housing, are worried about affordability, and are probably even worried to some extent about things like schools and funding for schools (which is why the voters have consistently at a two-thirds level voted to impose parcel taxes on themselves).
So why are they voting against projects fairly consistently? There is a common denominator in the two projects that passed relatively easily and the last three that failed since 2016—traffic. When Nishi threatened to create traffic problems, in 2016, it failed. When traffic was taken off the table it passed.
WDAAC didn’t really threaten to create traffic problems, so it passed in 2018. DISC, in 2020 and 2022, threatened to exacerbate existing traffic problems, so it failed.
The voters therefore in this theory have no objection to housing as such, what they worry about is perhaps things like traffic impacts that will personally harm their quality of life. As we saw in 2020, the closer people lived to DISC, the more likely they were to oppose it.
Obviously there is something more than just that. In 2020, the larger DISC project failed by a narrow margin and, so far, the smaller DiSC project has failed by a wide margin.
Traffic alone therefore isn’t the only factor.
There is a letter published in the Enterprise that makes a point. Jay Feldman writes, “It must be noted that while all five current members of the City Council supported Measure H, the ballot initiative was soundly defeated almost 2-1 by Davis voters.”
He argues, “Clearly, our council members are out of touch with the citizenry, and we would do well to turn them out of office at the earliest opportunity.”
But as I noted above, that’s been the case for some time, and the voters do not appear to be moved.
He then argues, “Worthy of particular mention is Dan Carson, who, in a boldly autocratic move as honorary chair of the Yes on H campaign, had the temerity to sue six Davis residents for exercising their democratic rights and openly opposing Measure H. Carson, of course, was ordered to repay more than $42,000 in court costs to those individuals. For his blatantly antidemocratic action, Dan Carson deserves to be recalled immediately.”
Leaving aside my antipathy to the recall process, Dan Carson is already on the ballot for the fall—even if someone wanted to circulate petitions to recall him, by the time it’s gathered and certified, the recall wouldn’t happen any sooner than the regularly scheduled election.
That said, I do believe that a good portion of the wide margin of defeat was voter disgust for the process and actions of Dan Carson. It will be interesting then to watch and see what happens in the fall elections when two of the most visible proponents of the project face the voters.
On the one hand, Partida represents a district that contains the area of Mace most impacted by the project. On the other hand, Carson has become the face of the DiSC election, even though he represents a district that actually voted for the project in 2020.
If history is any judge, we would expect Partida to fair better than Carson, all things equal (assuming they both face opponents of similar quality). But overall, the voters in Davis have not been inclined to punish councilmembers, even those that support fairly unpopular projects. Where Dan Carson might have himself in trouble is going beyond mere advocacy—and that remains to be seen.
Too many moving parts and not enough data points!
Part of being a leader is convincing people to stomach the costs for necessary things. By costs, I do not only mean the direct monetary costs. I don’t know if the Council is pro growth for the sake of growth itself but they’re probably pro fiscal health for the city. So they put forth what they believed to be a revenue producing project that is in theory good for the city fiscally speaking (in theory).
But how do Voters see things in general? I think in general that most voters are anti-growth in the abstract (they like their small college town) BUT…..
Benefits
Jobs = Yay!
Affordable Housing = Yay!
Houses for Families = Yay!
Senior Housing = Yay!
New or Continued Services = uh…yay? meh?
Fiscal Responsibility? = Meh?
Costs
New or Higher Taxes? = Boo!
New Peripheral Development? = Boo!
New Neighborhood Development (especially affordable housing)? = Boo! (in that neighborhood)
Cut or Reduced Services? = Boo!
Increased Traffic? = Boo!
Environmental Impact? = Boo!
So it’s up to the leaders who support the project and the YES Campaign to convince voters that what they get out of the project is worth the costs.
But the YES Campaign spent most of it’s time trying to cover up the costs (traffic, environmental…etc…) by saying; “vote for us because we’re not as bad as you think we are!”
The leaders and YES Campaign needed to connect the abstract (in terms of benefits to the voters) projected $4.5M in yearly revenue to something tangible. If it were possible, dedicate some of that future tax revenue towards things voters care about.
20% of tax revenue from the project goes towards improved roads. Projected $900K/Y more for roads.
10% of tax revenue towards city social services (homeless councilors, police training etc..)
10% of tax revenue towards city surveillance security (cameras to help prevent and recover stolen bikes and other crime).
5% towards more frequent tree maintenance
Imagine a campaign that said:
Better Roads!
Help the Homeless!
Better Community Security!
Safer Trees!
Vote YES on H!
One problem is that in ten years really, the council has never bothered to try to explain to the public the fiscal situation of the city. In part because, I think it interferes with some of their other agendas – they’ve tried to increase compensation, purchase expensive equipment, etc.
But if you look at polling the public consistently has underestimated the fiscal challenges of the city and that has been costly. It means that the parcel tax failed and three proposals with R&D space have all failed.
I don’t think it matters. The public isn’t interested in fiscal responsibility. They may say they are. But when it comes to showing up to vote; not so much. Or even more importantly when it comes to overcoming their No issues (which I listed) that always come up with new projects; fiscal responsibility isn’t going to overcome their objections. Most people just aren’t wired that way. But if you tell them you’re going to improve things and give them what they want. Then you can get them behind you. But telling them; we’re going to get $4.5M in potential tax revenue to fix the things isn’t going to work. I suppose “bothering to explain to the public” could be like I stated. When communicating to the public you use short simple comments or slogans. Also, my proposal would actually dedicate some of the potential tax revenue to things voters care about as opposed to some nebulous general city fund that more than half of the voters think will be mismanaged by the city anyway.
You could be right about that
Within the last few years there have been a couple of candidates for council who focused on the fiscal issues. You can ask them how well they did. They both comment here. Let’s just say, they can verify what you’re saying.
The GOP tried “fiscal responsibility” for 35 years after WWII, and then Reagan came along and blew that principle out of the water. And now they’ve moved beyond any fiscal responsibility, instead focusing solely on cutting taxes without regard to consequences. It’s served them very well since 1980. But the advantage for the federal government is that it has almost unlimited borrowing power. States that have pursued the new GOP campaign strategy were hitting the end of their ropes until the pandemic led to an infusion to float their boats for a while longer.
The only message that the voters really here is when direct tradeoffs are expressed–“you can’t have X, unless we raise taxes or cut Y.” The second clause in isolation just doesn’t register. I haven’t heard consistently in Davis this simple message; it’s been too much of vague speculation about what might happen in the future. The sustainability limits need to be more directly expressed.
I’m not sure what the point of your modern conservative US politics 101 was. But for a brief while the Tea Party was a breakout conservative faction. They were the ones that were really into cutting things without regard to the consequences. But at least they had the overall fiscal health of the nation at heart. I probably disagreed with 90% of what they wanted to cut; but I was glad they were around to keep the spend crazy modern Republicans and Democrats in check. Unfortunately, I think the Tea Party was dismantled and partially absorbed by the Trump Republicans. Radical and adversarial like the Tea Party but fiscally opposites.
No they don’t. Voters rationalize why they shouldn’t pay more taxes, oppose peripheral development, oppose neighborhood development….oppose/deny cuts in services (the city can magically find ways to cut wasteful spending to make up for lack of revenue or actual costs).
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Since I resemble Don’s remark … and ran for Council with a campaign slogan of “We’ve got to pay our bills!” … I’ll weigh in. For the most part Don is right. If fiscal issues are going to be front and center, then they have to be presented in an easily understood fashion. As the table of election results below shows, over 7,000 Davis voters found the “We’ve got to pay our bills!” message compelling.
I believe it is all in the way the information is presented. The quote below from Bob Dunning would seem to indicate he felt the same way in 2016.
Keith
The Tea Party was just as fiscally irresponsible. They were much more interested in cutting taxes and buying into the “supply side economics” fiction that has been resoundingly refuted by substantial research. Trumpism arose directly out of those fantasies; the Tea Party wasn’t lured there. They only had their own self serving needs at heart and little concern for the fiscal health of the nation.
You aren’t listing direct tradeoffs–you’re listing the same vague hypothetical claims. Voters do respond when the politicians say “we’ll have to close Park X if we don’t raise taxes” or “we can hire X more police if we raise taxes by this amount.” Those are truly DIRECT tradeoffs that voters respond to. In fact, the school district used that method to get both the parcel tax and the Measure M bond passed.
And the point of discourse on the history of the GOP was to show that a party had claimed to be fiscally responsible, and still claimed to be so right up to the 2016 election, had in fact abandoned that position 40 years ago because their consultants recognized the validity of your point that voters don’t care about general fiscal responsibility. For Democrats, they’ve never really caught on to this bait and switch and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
Gee, that sounds an awful lot like the “build your way to affordability” argument that you and (some) others support on here.
Robb Davis discussed it repeatedly. https://davisvanguard.org/2017/02/guest-sunday-commentary-containing-city-costs/
But he was often frustrated because he was really the only one.
He was/is a great public servant. He really supported the startup community as well.
Do purported Slow Growthers identify as such? I may be wrong but I believe that I have been categorized this way. I don’t identify this way.
Eh, join the club. I’ve been accused of being a NIMBY (which I guess is a specialized Slow Growther).
In fact, I’d say my stance is as a SMART growther. Growth that only makes sense if it benefits the existing community. So I suppose in some sense I am a NIMBY. But I don’t oppose economic and population growth if it serves a community purpose.
And Todd, I’d call you an “ally” of Slow Growthers. Your good but completely impractical ideas that you hold against new development often bring you into opposition of development in general.