Consider a contribution on the Big Day of Giving
by Alan Hirsch
Davis does not have a rich tax base, but it is supercharged with residents who want to participate on commissions and in so many other aspects of community life.
However, those active in the community cannot fulfill their role unless they know what is happening, even if the information is not flattering to our city.
My wife Vera and I believe the Vanguard is too often taken for granted in this regard and so have decided to offer a $1,000 match for the Vanguard’s Big Day of Giving (BDOG) campaign that is happening now. A link for this match is below.
How the Vanguard has surfaced “Inconvenient truths” about Davis
As any bureaucracy will, Davis City management will frame issues and decide what facts to share. This can be helpful to keep the commissions and council focused, but sometimes it can be in the service of avoiding controversy and thus block surfacing of diverse opinions.
The Davis Vanguard has time after time offered a counterbalance to this natural bureaucratic tendency. It provides a platform for uncovering and airing missed facts and offering a 2nd opinion on policy issues.
Here are some examples:
- Timely Public Information on Failed Affordable Housing Plans
If you have been following the news, you are aware that the state has rejected the city’s affordable housing plan. It has now been rejected two times. This is a big deal: as the rejection now gives developers the right to override existing zoning to put in denser housing wherever they can find vacant property, even in single family neighborhoods.
What is notable is that both times the city staff has not been forthcoming in immediately sharing the state’s rejection of the plan. The first time they seem to have sat on the state’s rejection letter for over a month before its existence was discovered and publicized by the Vanguard. The second time the delay was only for 24 hours…but this delay meant the city council hearing on the University Mall appeal did not have the important facts about the state’s rejection for not meeting the affordable goal.
- Giving Developers Special Treatment on Tree Removals
The Davis Tree Commission requires a resident to go through a public hearing to remove any city tree in a front yard, even if that tree is dead. But the city process is different for larger economic interests. This is part of the tree ordinance that Tree Davis, the Tree Commission, and others have asked to be changed for over 17 years but ignored by city management. This came to a head in 2019: city staff quietly permitted the cutting of 120 trees at Sutter Hospital for solar panels without public notice. This action surfaced when Sutter asked for the removal of yet another 89 trees, but only gave the Planning Commission and public 4 days’ notice. At that meeting the city top planner told the Planning Commission, “I don’t know why input from Tree Commission would even be relevant.”
City staff never formally or informally told Tree Davis or the Tree Commission about these removals. It also failed to notice the joint NRC/Tree subcommittee studying this exact issue: trees vs solar in parking lots.
This entire situation would have flown below the radar if the Davis Vanguard had not broken the story by listening to the meeting tape and interviewing participants. The city arborist, who likely was encouraged to keep quiet on the removals, quit 2 months later.
- Silencing Human Relations Commission and the founding of a Davis Police Accountability Commission
On Picnic Day in 2017 there was a city police catalyzed “skirmish” between revelers and police. It had clear racial overtones. Trust was low for police following the UCD Police Pepper Spray incident from 2011. The Davis Police Department attempted to defuse the controversy by hiring an independent investigator, a former sheriff who had a right leaning radio talk show. The Vanguard broke the news that this investigator had argued on the air that Blacks were better off before the 1964 Civil Right Act. The Davis Police immediately fired and hired a different investigator with a more balanced perspective. One of recommendations made by the second investigator was that Davis form a Police Accountability Commission.
Going deeper, people forget the founding of Vanguard was due to lack of a citizen review of police actions. In 2006 the Davis Human Relations Commission attempted to review police work. The city council responded by disbanding the Commission and the Davis Enterprise supported the council. The Davis Vanguard was founded soon after in response to give voice to citizen concerns and platform inconvenient truth. It continues to do this.
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Appreciating the Totality of the Vanguard Effort
These three case studies above are just a few of many. The Vanguard in fact provides more coverage of Davis news than any other source measure by word count, raw number of articles, or even just pictures published. (see photo essay of downtown city trees or more recently the compassion bench covered with flower).
But beyond the news, it also platforms many diverse voices in community in a way no one else does, not just on its website in op-ed and letter to editor, but at person forums. The Vanguard has hosted more of these than the Chamber of Commerce, League of Women Voters and the Enterprise—combined. It also is unique in offering a lively comment section to allow anyone to react in real time to articles and published opinions, something abandoned by the Enterprise likely due to the challenges of moderating it.
“Diversity” and “Free speech” are nice concepts, but without a platform they can be hollow. Vanguard provides a platform in service of these two values.
In addition, the above discussion also does not begin to reflect the work of the Vanguard’s 3 employees and over 20 interns covering the otherwise almost invisible work of the justice system in Yolo County and throughout the state. This offers a fearlessness to expose a system of policing and courts that too often falls short. The Vanguard was on this long before the Black Lives Matters movement.
These services are provided to our community for free. It is not behind a paywall for subscribers. In the end Vanguard counts on voluntary donors, who can see the totality of this effort, people who see beyond their irritation at it publishing an opinion they disagree with, or a factual error that will inevitably occur among the hundreds of thousands of words published each year as it logs our Davis community in it struggles, arguments and diversity.
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Please join Vera and I in supporting the Vanguard in our $1000 match for the Big Day of Giving.
The link below will take you to the Vanguard’s donation webpage. Please mention our match in the donation line on the webpage.
BDOG giving page:
https://davisvanguard.networkforgood.com/projects/191233-the-davis-triple-crisis-fund
