By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – The city of Davis announced on Wednesday that applications to serve on one of four commissions (Fiscal, Senior, Social Services and Transportation) have been extended to July 19.
According to a release, this extension is due to a “rescheduled City Council meeting in late July and an added commission recruitment” allowing “interested residents” to “have more time and options to submit an application for a City commission.”
“Commissions have a critical role in the community and serve at the direction of the City Council. Commissions study issues within their scope of authority, analyze and recommend policies and programs and serve as public forums to hear resident interests and perspectives,” a release by the city stated.
“Commissions help provide the City Council with their input and recommendations on a variety of projects or issues,” said Mayor Josh Chapman. “With the General Plan being 
updated soon, commissions will take a leading role in community engagement and will help collect feedback from residents on key elements in the Plan, such as open space, land use, housing and conservation. We value the expertise and dedication of our commissioners to help improve our Davis community by supporting the efforts and projects of the City Council.”
However, there is added attention on the process this time around, as it comes after a controversial move to consolidate advisory commissions.
“I am sorry to say the City Council made the decision to approve the mergers,” former Commissioner Elaine Roberts Musser said in an op-ed published by the Vanguard in early June, noting that she resigned her position on the Utilities Commission, noting, “I am sorry to say the City Council made the decision to approve the mergers.”
Applications are tentatively scheduled to be submitted to City Council for appointment at a public meeting in late July. For an application, visit: https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/city-clerk/apply-to-serve-on-a-city-commission.
COMMISSION INFORMATION:
Fiscal Commission
- Provide accountability and transparency in spending tax payer dollars. Review spending outlined in the City budget for appropriateness and alignment with Council goals and priorities.
- Consider potential cost saving measures and revenue generators.
- Review and make recommendations on City rates, fees, and charges for all funds including annual or multi-year adjustments to the City’s utility rates.
- Review and provide recommendations on financial policies. Review and provide recommendations on financial impacts of projects at the request of City Council.
Senior Citizen Commission
- Review and make recommendations related to city policies and programs affecting seniors.
- Support city forums, activities and public outreach events related to senior services.
Social Services Commission
- Review and make recommendations on policies and programs to support City-driven social services. Advise on critical needs involving vulnerable populations, including health, food security/nutrition, disabilities and child care; refer individuals to appropriate agency, official or process.
- Review and make recommendations on policies, procedures and standards related to housing affordability across the continuum from unhoused to renters and home buyers, including affordable housing plans of development proposals.
- Review and make recommendations on Community Development Block Grant, Home Investment Partnership Program and other Federal, State and local grant programs to support vulnerable populations in the city. Liaise with providers involved with serving vulnerable populations.
Transportation Commission
- Advise on transportation programs, policies, projects and planning efforts for all modes including active transportation (bicycle, pedestrian, scooters, etc.), transit (Unitrans, Yolobus, etc.) and vehicular.
- Serve as the lead commission on implementation of transportation aspects of the Climate Action & Adaptation Plan.
- Hold a public meeting once a year to review any proposed Unitrans route, schedule and fare changes.
And therein lies the problem -> Our Council, led by Chapmann and Vaitla, have succeded in decimating our highly-valued Commission structure because they did not like that the most productive and fruitful and hardest-working Commissions with a longest history of innovation, did what they thought was best rather than kow-towing to the directives and whims of City Staff and the Council.
Indeed, if you look back over the past decades, one would be hard-pressed to point out any of the major advances we have made in the City that were hand-me-down ideas or top-down directives from Staff or the Council. They were all bottom-up driven efforts intitaiated and relentlessly pursued by the independent-minded Commissions.
Indeed, the Natural Resources Commission, the Tree Commission, the Finance and Budget Commission, and the Utilities Commission all had fiercely independent streaks which have given the City some of the most progressive and environmentally-friendly policies in the region including Valley Clean Energy, our innovative Integrated Pest Management Policy banning glyphosates and neonicotinoids and keeping our parks comparatively pesticide -free, our award-winning and wonderful urban tree canopy…and the list goes on and on. Perhaps not surprisingly, these four Commissions were those that were destroyed by Vaita’s proposals to merge them under new and highly restrictive charters resulting in the resignation or other loss of the majority of the former Commissioners – some of whom had served for over a decade.
So it now seems that Vaitla, most of all, simply couldn’t cotton to this former Commission independence because they did not automatically align with his autocratic vision of how the City should be run. In other words, he wants the Commissions who formerly set their own agendas and did their own thinking rather than just spewing back what what Staff and Council wanted them to say, to now have to yield to Staff and the Council’s often misinformed and misplaced directives.
To do so, Vaitla has initiated this new policy that functionally destroy the Commissions in Davis simply by refusing to appoint new Commissioners and/or not allowing the remaining Commissioners to initate any new initiatives on their own. Indeed, our former top-notch watch-dog Finance and Budget Commission has not met for about a year due to a lack of quorem because Vaitla has not allowed any new Commissioners to be appointed. This was done in full knowledge of and leading up to the decison to call for a vote to institute a new 1% sales tax increase on the November ballot. I am venturing that most citizens in Davis would have a decided lack of trust in any financial proposals brought forth by the City if they knew that the one watch-dog of City finances was systemically disemboweled by Vatla’s actions and the City has not had their financials audited for the last 3 years. Instead, we are now simply asked to just trust that the City and Staff will carefully manage our City’s financial affairs and the new money they are asking us to give to them.
A City works best when the citizens have a direct stake in the governance of the City because it leads to trust and active engagement. The back-room shenanigans by Vaitla to destroy our existing Commission structure and purpose and replace independent thinking Commissioners with more compliant but less innovative and experieinced Commissioners has resulted in a wholesale exodus of the citizen brain trust we have spent decades developing in Davis. This has resulted in a palpable loss of trust many of us formerly had in our City government.
We’ll see how this deteriorating trust in our City leadership, which is a direct result of Vaitla’s efforts to neuter the Commission structure, limit citizen-participation in making decisions about the City’s future, and vest all decision-making authority solely in Staff’s and the Council’s hands, plays out in the future. I am guessing the unintended consequences will not be what they expected.
Lets check back in a year to see how defenestration of commissions has worked to get more – and more diverse –input as was suggest was it goals by council advocates.
I suggest diversity should measure in not just by demographics and skin color of its members, but the variety and innovations of ideas and initiative.
I recall the results of a past merger: of the bicycle and the Street Safety Commission. The results were bicycles not being an agenda item for a full year before the new combined commission.
I don’t find it surprising that the city is having a difficult time recruiting new commissioners after the disrespect commissioners have faced this year from the council. Why would anyone want to sign up to waste their time being treated like that by the council.
The bigger surprise is that any commissioners are staying on to serve on the new merged commissions at all. Several resigned, but some, like myself have agreed to stay on. For me it has to do with continuing to try to serve the city I have lived in most of my life, and the people of that city, DESPITE the nasty treatment I have received from some council members. After all, it is not the Council that makes the City great.
We will see if the new commissions are of any actual service to the people of Daivs or just newly formulated to be rubber stamps for the increasingly autocratic council and staff.
What about the nasty treatment some council members have received from current and former commission members?
What you refer to as nasty Ron, would be referred to as honest and/or candid by others. Unfortunately some of the Council members volunteered to be in the cross hairs when they lied about meeting with all the Commission chairs during their process … and then doubling down on the lies when confronted with clear statements by individual Commission chairs that they had never been met with.
The whole process has been a giant cluster #@&! from beginning to end.