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My bias: Davis needs a new type of voice on council– “change-makers” to establish trust and collaboration with the community.
I write this having attended more City Council and Commission meetings than all current council members, and all but a few community members.
For years now, I have seen city government fail to harness our community’s education and social capital wealth since the failure of the 2014 R&D Business Park initiative. The community has not leveraged its charmed geography—a unique rural area highly accessible via I-80 and rail service between the Bay Area & State Capitol. And proximity to UC Davis, a major research university that brings billions in grant dollars to our community. We are ideally located to incubate a wealth of startups and attract businesses. This should be giving us a robust tax base and providing a rich offering of city services.
Instead, we are failing. So, we now need to raise our sales taxes (Yes on Q) and we seem to have been forced to site new affordable housing next to the freeway, land that should have been used for new startups and businesses to build our city’s tax base. (I note council decided not to site housing on Russell at the redone Trader Joes Mall across from the University this year).
It used to be noted at council meetings that Davis’s greatest asset is its involved and educated residents. No longer. Instead, city staff and council, though their actions, indicate they don’t believe this anymore. It used to be residents could express their insight and expertise by being involved in an independent city commission. Full commissions used to bring up new ideas, and could even vote to disagree with the council, even over ballot measures. No more. People volunteering for commissions are told by staff that their role is to serve the current council’s policy, even though this contradicts the not-yet-updated official Commission Handbook that recalls the old way: “Commissions are independent.”
The gridlock preceded this, but the City has over the last two years reduced by over 25% the number of community members who participate through commissions…and now the city is proposing to restrict items commissioners can even talk about: any one member of council can slow or block a discussion item on a commission agenda. Staff has over the years sometimes subtly, but often through policy changes, used the Brown Open Meeting Act to make commission meetings more formal with fewer free-flowing discussions, especially constricting public engagement. Even the right of the public to hand out unreviewed material to commissioners has been challenged. Current new policy is that only developers can show PowerPoints to council and commissions at a public hearing.
The fact is I-80 was quietly advanced for years without any input from City’s Transportation Commission—or citizens that are world-class experts at UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies—is troubling. The same goes for failure to engage world-class arboriculture experts at the University or volunteers at Tree Davis in the city’s urban forestry program.
As I write this, I acknowledge that the city is hard to govern (see Councilman Will Arnold’s piece) because there are many involved and with often contradictory voices who advocate different visions—many have shifted first to skepticism and then cynicism after years of being ignored. But city hall response has not been to rethink the process to rebuild trust and find common ground and harmonize the diversity, but instead to push through plans—most of which meet failure if they are forced to be tested at the ballot box. Measure Q is the latest skirmish.
I am not accusing council or staff of corruption or ill-intention: I just note a shift in culture where city staff seems to view themselves as a service delivery organization, so concerned residents are reduced to “customers.” This metaphor transforms community involvement to a friction that slows staff from “getting things done.” Public involvement is often ignored until someone raises legal issues of transparency and public participation. As a defensive mechanism, the City’s process of community involvement seems to be reduce to legal minimum to minimize the public criticism. This is a death spiral of mistrust and nihilism toward any city initiative by some of most involved and concerned citizens.
One might think less public engagement is a reasonable trade off, but one can look at the opportunity cost of not allowing engagement of community expertise, especially university faculty—or the consequences of alienation of the most informed and civically engaged members of community. This might be linked to repeated failures to build consensus to pass J/R votes to increase our tax base and build housing.
The tree policy is a classic example. After Tree Davis identified that the tree ordinance was failing, over the last ten years the Tree Commission has three times drafted a revision of the Tree Ordinance, and three times the city staff failed to advance this draft for consideration to City Council. The council has finally responded—in last year—by disbanding the Tree Commission. Many other activists have similar stories of City Staff not supporting, or delaying for years community driven innovations and initiatives (e.g. The Housing Trust Fund) while council stood by.
A new General Plan won’t fix this alienation: the plan to hire an outside consultant won’t address a dysfunctional planning process that grows out of this culture. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” Peter Drucker famously said.
We need to heal and rebuild trust via a new culture of collaboration, one where city staff believes its job is to go beyond the bare minimum community engagement required by law.
MY BIAS for the council election therefore is selecting among candidates someone who will change the “go along/get along with staff” default of council. One who is not afraid of conflict, dissent or admitting mistakes.
I love Davis, and have, and will continue to endorse most tax measures and land annexation (growth) measures as this seems to be the best the process can do (Yes on Q). But the decline of Davis is clear for all to see.
Recommendation for Council Election
District 2: Central Davis west of Oak, North Davis
Dillon Horton is the candidate for change and clearly the most ready-to-go, day one. He knows the district, having been campaigning door-to-door and listening in Farmers Market for 3 years. Or maybe his listening began when he first ran for city council in 2020. He has attended probably over 150 council and commission meetings even as he holds a full-time job. He understands how the city works and has demonstrated he works hard. As chair of the Police Accountability Commission, he pushed through changes while collaborating with the police and city manager. Some folks might be misled by his relative youth, but he is by far the most serious and dedicated of the candidates. I think he is most likely to change the chemistry of the “go along/get along” city council culture that has reduced community engagement
Victor Lagunes. Victor has proven leadership as the past head of the Davis teachers’ union (DTA), and he has the (unofficial) support of the impressive DCAN group, which was inspired by the Bapu Vaitla candidacy. But he is a Junior High political science teacher who does not have subject expertise in the most important areas where council has key control (land use planning, policing, public works) and has no experience with city process, or staff and its culture, knowledge necessary to be effective. He has attended few, if any, council or commission meetings. I am hopeful he will grow into one of the change agents we need.
Linda Deos. This is the 3rd time Deos has run for local office. She is well known in the community and has an extensive volunteer resume. As former chair of the Yolo Democrat Central Committee she has the most establishment endorsements, as you will see when you get her mailers. I commend Deos for her promise of specific steps to improve the public engagement process, but we will see, if elected, whether she will be a change agent or take the easier path and be a conflict avoider, like the majority of the current council—i.e. rarely challenging staff recommendations that are often developed by without proactively engaging community input ahead of the council meeting.
Davis School District—2 seats are up for reelection but only one has a contest
Trustee Area 2. (Cannery, N Davis, central-“East Davis” by Slide Hill Park (Pole Line-Loyola/Monarch)
Lea Darrah4 (incumbent vs Elisabeth (Lizzy) Griffith (public policy researcher @ state)
Darrah has done a good job as Trustee as she gained her footing, having been unopposed in her first “election.” Griffith is new on the DJUSD scene and has no background in education as attendee/activist at board of trustee or school policy. Not hearing a reason to unseat Darrah, and Griffith’s inexperience leads me to conclude that Darrah is the choice, though Griffith has an impressive profession resume. DTA has endorsed Darrah.
Local Davis Tax Propositions
Davis Vanguard is best place to research with many op-ed pro/con articles: Davisvanguard.com> menu> >Archives>City of Davis
**** City Measure Q 1% Sales Tax YES4
This is the most controversial measure on your ballot.
If Q doesn’t pass, we will have deep cuts in services and programs. The opponents of Q argue the problem is that the city spends too much on salary increases and poor financial controls—and the city council did not have to appoint people so the Finance and Budget Commission was operating last year. I am more trusting…and find their arguments not credible. I believe the problem is on the long-term revenue side of the equation as we have not built a tax base. We have a city political culture that has not figured out how to build consensus, and so we have gridlock on solutions to build our tax base with a balance between housing and industrial. NET: I believe creating a crisis by not passing Q won’t fix this.
50% Yes required.
Measure T Library Parcel Tax YES
To fund operating new south Davis Library to aid overcrowding in Main Davis Branch on 14th street. This is an investment in what makes Davis special—its payback is not just our kids and our ourselves, but our property values. 2/3 Yes votes required.
