A few weeks ago the buzz starting to leak out was that the World Food Center was going to head for the Sacramento Railyards rather than the main campus in Davis.
When the Vanguard spoke to Luanne Lawrence nearly two weeks ago, the associate chancellor for strategic communications was evasive, arguing that no decision had been made, talks were in speculative and in the early stages, and there were no concrete plans to be offered.
That tone suddenly changed when the very same Ms. Lawrence told the Enterprise, “A lot of people have been talking to (Chancellor Linda Katehi) about the World Food Center. She is committed to having some kind of location in Sacramento.”
Roger Beachy, the center’s director said, “The questions that the university can address are big enough to be on the world stage. We think that Sacramento — because of its growing importance as the capital of a state that has an enormous amount of influence in food and food policy nationally — seems to us quite logical to take on an increasingly international position, and UC Davis can help with that.”
The official statements are quite a bit weaker than the background noise which points to this being all but a done deal with massive monetary investments coming in totaling up to $1 billion. There are regional efforts that are working to bring about a large portion of that as an initial investment, and that effort is all focusing on Sacramento, not Davis.
There is no doubt that this is a blow to Davis as it looks to become a leader in food and agriculture.
Just as we had long discussions last summer about what the loss of AgraQuest to West Sacramento meant to Davis, there will be discussions here.
There has been and there will be discussion about the discussion last June in terms of Mace 391. That was a location that was proposed for a business park, but the city had already designated the land for a conservation easement, and plans to propose changing that trajectory were fumbled by both city staff and council. The council voted 3-2 against the change in June.
However, the tech community, seeing opportunity for an innovation park on the city’s edge, pressed council to re-explore the option last fall but council was talked out of it by the Yolo Land Trust, who claimed that reversing course would harm future conservation efforts. The vote was 5-0 against even opening the process for re-evaluation.
The city is now undergoing a process put into place by the Innovation Park Task Force to look at properties east of Mace and near the hospital. While those are slowly move forward without a specific project – the city just put out an RFEI (Request for Expressions of Interest) last week – the county, led by Supervisor Don Saylor, is pressing the city to slow down the process.
The reality is that while Davis may be moving in the right direction here – slowly and unevenly – competing against Mayor Kevin Johnson would probably be a losing cause. He is pushing hard for Chancellor Linda Katehi to fast forward the decision process and press UC Davis to formally commit to Sacramento.
The numbers we are talking about in terms of investments take it likely out of the range of anything that city of Davis could offer. There is some speculation that perhaps Angelo Tsakopoulos would have the capital to make his land southeast of Davis available. That would, of course, come at the price of ten thousand homes, if not more.
Even if he had the financing to compete with Sacramento, it is not clear that the voters of Davis would support it or that the leaders at UC would be even willing to listen.
Chancellor Katehi, since the pepper-spray incident put Davis on the map in the wrong way, has been said to barely hide her contempt for the city. There are other key leaders at UC Davis who clearly share that view, and it doesn’t help that former City Manager and longtime resident of Davis, John Meyer is stepping down from his position of Vice Chancellor in June.
There is also a view that Davis residents are now attempting to preserve prime agricultural land, while at the same time ignoring the fact that a World Food Center could help find a way to feed 9 billion people that are expected to inhabit the planet by 2050.
There is also the regional big picture view. Davis may have lost AgraQuest, but it stayed in the region. Davis may lose the World Food Center, but at least it stays in the region.
Councilmember Rochelle Swanson articulated some of this last week in the RFEI discussion, “This year I was lobbied. This year I was pressured. This year the region is wanting to know what are we doing and why aren’t we moving forward because they’re getting really worried because we have assets that nobody else has.”
“It’s not Davis versus West Sac, it’s not Davis versus Woodland or Folsom or Roseville,” she continued. “It’s Davis versus Austin. It’s Davis versus Chicago. It’s Davis versus cities in China. We’re losing and our region loses if we don’t step up.”
“There’s a lot of criticism in the community from certain pockets about things like the Cap-to-Cap trip and some of the investments we’re doing,” she said. “Usually when you go to these meetings, you thank them for the time and you tell them how you need help. Congressman Garamendi was very generous in that he gave us time to talk about Davis.”
“It was really unique in all the meetings, he sat back and he turned to me and he said, there are things I need from you,” she explained. “That was a very different tone and I asked him to please write me a letter so I could share it with the community.”
As John Garamendi put it in his letter, “I know that Davis is working diligently on creating an innovation center for businesses to grow and thrive… I encourage the community of Davis to get underway with an effective and expedited process to meet this demand so that the university, the community, and the region can benefit from the investment and resulting economic impact.”
At this point, Davis is clearly not ready to compete against Sacramento for the World Food Center, but the city’s inability to articulate a clear vision does take a toll.
“The city and the campus have been coordinating fantastically well on our innovation park task force to identify sites available for campus-connected enterprises. I would expect that would continue,” Mayor Joe Krovoza said. “If there’s room for the World Food Center in Davis, they certainly know of our strong commitment to working with them.”
Perhaps Dan Ramos, whose company is looking to develop 200 acres east of Mace, put it best in his comment to the Enterprise.
“Quite honestly, I would just love to see it in Yolo County,” Mr. Ramos said. “Yolo County has always been the leader in the region, in terms of ag, and UC Davis has a strong commitment to ag, so I think it’s very important that it’s located in Yolo County.”
“I don’t want to say it would be a slap in the face, but it would be a tough, tough loss for Yolo County.”
Some have spoken about bringing together the stakeholders of Davis to make a strong last-ditch effort to keep the World Food Center in Davis. Others believe even such a gesture is too late. The question is not whether this is a blow to Davis, but whether Davis can recover in time for the next once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Where does that leave us? At a crossroads and with a huge decision to make as a community.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
UC Davis is over 7,000 acres. One wonders why they don’t just put the facility somewhere on land they already own.
why do that when you can get investors for $1 billion and the profile of a huge city like sacramento?
The Davis Community doesn’t deserve anything like the World Food Center. The community has done everything it can to discourage any and all development of anything new that might be worthwhile. If plans can’t be stopped by initiative, then certain community members resort to lawsuits. If Linda Katehi wants the World Food Center, she should place it on the Davis campus. She has that power, but has no connection to the City. The community trashed her and she is paying us back for that.
hold on there ryan. i think you have a realistic argument in terms of the community’s opposition to development, but cross the line when you talk about the community trashed her and she is paying us back. she screwed up and mishandled that pepper spray situation. there are multiple reports on that. that wasn’t the community trashing her, it was the community appalled as to what happen at her watch and by her mishandling of that situation. that’s on her, not us.
DP wrote:
> it was the community appalled as to what happen at her watch and
> by her mishandling of that situation. that’s on her, not us.
I have yet to meet anyone (progressive, liberal, conservative or bible thumping right winger) that thinks Katehi did a crappy job with the pepper spray thing. With that said, few people like being reminded that they f’d up and since Katehi is still reminded of this often by the people of Davis I’m sure she is not real happy at most of the people in town (especially the large number that are still saying she should be canned)…
My post above should read thinks Katehi did a GOOD job…
From Katehi’s viewpoint, the Davis community threw her under the bus. If she ever had an interest in establishing connections in the Davis community and working in the best interest of the community, that went by the wayside after the pepper spray incident. It doesn’t matter to her really, if the location of the World Food Center is in Sacramento or Davis – as long as it has UC Davis (or more specifically, University of California) and her name on the letterhead – and better Sacramento, than Davis (that backwards provincial town, you know).
Are you an acquaintance of hers, or something? Or is this just your interpretation of events? I seriously doubt she’s as negative about the Davis community as you’re suggesting.
I doubt that Luanne Lawrence was intending to be evasive. She’s always been straightforward with me. I was on an interview panel that interviewed all the candidates for her position and I recommended that she be hired and I was very glad that she was chosen.
i’m sure she took her orders from above.
“…bringing together the stakeholders of Davis …”
A noble ideal. If you just can keep them from stabbing one-another in the back…
Agree-“…The community has done everything it can to discourage any and all development of anything new that might be worthwhile. If plans can’t be stopped by initiative, then certain community members resort to lawsuits…”
I watch time after time as opportunities are left to die at your doorstep, while the hand-wringing over jobs and city revenue sources continues.
Serious question: What could the World Food Center find in the Sacramento railyards that it couldn’t find on or around the UC Davis campus?
“What could the World Food Center find in the Sacramento railyards that it couldn’t find on or around the UC Davis campus?”
The backing of Kevin Johnson ?
Said another way… effective city leadership.
I think Chancellor Katehi has a regional perspective, something often missing from discussions on the Vanguard. Perhaps she doesn’t feel that everything UCD does has to be of exclusive benefit to the City of Davis.
not sure that keeping one of the biggest new programs either at ucd or in davis is to the exclusive benefit of the city. but i’m also not sure as a non-davis resident, you’re the person best suited to make this point. what is the major advantage to the region to pull the center away from davis? what is the benefit to the community to keep it in davis.
I’ve been a part of the Davis community, as a some-time resident and long-time business owner, for 40 years. How about you? Where do you live? What do you do?
Now you’ve turned the question around. I think there are efficiency reasons for NOT moving the center away from Davis. I think most people who work at it would likely end up doing a lot of commuting if it was in Sac, so I don’t really see what the advantage is. My guess is that Chancellor Katehi sees it as a way of helping the broader region, she’s likely been lobbied hard by advocates of the Sac railyard project. I’m just saying she probably sees things differently than people who say things like
Davis is not an island. UCD is a regional asset.
i meant know disrespect to your participation as a business member of this community.
to answer your question, i live on east eighth street and work at the attorney general’s office.
Additional information came out in this SacBee article yesterday: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/05/20/6416713/uc-davis-eyes-downtown-sacramento.html
Thanks for posting Rob.
“Lawrence said the center’s headquarters would remain on the Davis campus, but Katehi wants to put an education and research facility somewhere in the vicinity of the Capitol to be “closer to the heart of where the agricultural policy is made.” A central location would also provide greater access to entities such as the California Department of Food and Agriculture, commodity industry groups and the California Farm Bureau Federation, she said.
When seen in this light, this actually makes a lot of sense. One thing that is critical in making additions whether the additions are employees, or businesses, or projects of any kind, is the idea of good fit , This is more than about whether our little city of Davis gets another feather in its cap. In some ways, I see this as analogous to how I felt about the UCD medical school moving to Sacramento. It was sad for me personally as a graduate of the school when it was on the UC campus. But, considering that the medical students should be where the patients are, it just made sense. In our haste to grow, we need to be mindful of how our city fits with the rest of the region and consider what makes the best fit for the project, for UCD. for Davis and for the rest of the region.
Good perspective Tia. It illustrates there are many ways to assess an issue or to determine a decision’s pros and cons. I too was sad to see the Med School go, my reason being that it took the interaction (probably minimal) with undergraduates and med students away. As I went to an all professional health campus after Davis (UCSF), I think undergraduates benefit from seeing and meeting professional students…but we have law, vet, grad management…..
I they are making this stuff up on the fly to be honest. Luanne said nothing of the sort when I spoke to her a few weeks ago.
I agree.
I have said it over and over and over again that the decision to put Mace 391 into a permanent ag easment was a giant mistake of lost opportunity for the city. I imagine UCD brass sitting in a conference room after the council made this epic decision… shaking their head in disgust and final recognition that the city of Davis had grown too foolish to partner with.
But we won’t hear any pubic comments saying the same. We will just see UCD go elswhere for their business development plans.
But I will personally make sure to remind people of the Mace 391 decision. My intent is to help Davis recover from its “city of fools” label that it so rightly deserves.
Please explain to us how a UCD facility generates sales tax or property tax revenues for the city? I’m curious why “UCD brass” wouldn’t just get out a map of the UCD campus and look at the hundreds of open acres they already own, on which they could build any foundation they wished.
Yes, you have said it over and over again. Repetition doesn’t make you right, it just makes you repetitive.
Since when is an Institute of Food a “business development”?
The World Food Center initiative includes UCD facilitation and leadership of joint public-private partnerships to develop both public (UCD) and private business in the food industry.
Do you think Sacramento would be such a willing partner if there was no economic benefit to the city?
Constant denial does not make you right… it more likely indicates you know you are wrong.
Sacramento, especially Mayor Kevin Johnson, is absolutely desperate to move forward with something — anything — on the railyard site. I think he’s in legacy mode at this point in his local political career.
Please compare this, in terms of revenue generated to the City of Davis, to a business/innovation park.
Second-term urban mayors, as they say, often suffer from edifice complex.