The results were remarkable in the Fourth District Assembly Race – with low voter turnout the rule, Republican Charlie Schaupp held a one vote lead over Democrat Bill Dodd. The key question, though, is whether Dan Wolk, who is third, can gain enough votes to finish in the top two. He is currently about 630 votes off the pace.
In Yolo County, there is a total of 9600 uncounted ballots, but some of those will be in West Sacramento which is not inside the Assembly District. That leaves probably 7000 votes in Yolo County. The Napa Elections Office indicated that there were between 5000 and 10,000 uncounted votes there.
What does that mean for the race? If the distribution of uncounted ballots follows the distribution of the votes counted to date, we would expect not much change in the results. If, however, Yolo County had a disproportionate percentage of the remaining ballots, then things could swing for Dan Wolk.
From what we know at this time, there is no evidence that the results are disproportionately distributed among the remaining uncounted ballots.
The Bill Dodd campaign issued a statement on Wednesday evening, “according to figures gathered from each of the 6 county registrars, the ballots that remain to be counted will affirm that our campaign has made the November run-off election as one of the two top vote getters.”
The analysis shows a few interesting trends. First, Dan Wolk only won Yolo County. He did fairly well in Solano County where he works and where his mother represents, but that’s a fairly small population. Second, Bill Dodd did very poorly in the eastern portions of the district – Yolo and Solano County.
Third, while Schaupp dominated the smaller rural counties, he was steadily in the twenties across the board, picking up just about the district percentage of Republican voters everywhere.
The fact that Napa County’s remaining vote is mirroring Yolo County’s remaining vote suggests that Mr. Dodd’s analysis is probably correct.
The key question is how many rural votes remain to be counted – if those counties got their votes in earlier, that could mean that Dan Wolk sneaks past Charlie Schaupp. On the other hand, the rural counties do not account for a huge number of votes, so the steadiness of support for Schaupp may play to his advantage regardless of where the votes are.
Krovoza versus Wolk: The Blame Game
The blame game is already beginning and it may grow louder as time goes on if the results hold. There is lament that Joe Krovoza and Dan Wolk, who together got nearly 43% of the vote, which easily combined would have been first, split the liberal vote and prevented Davis from extending its dominance in the Assembly for another six to twelve years.
Supporters of Dan Wolk are placing the blame squarely on Joe Krovoza. They argue that the results show that Joe Krovoza was really only competitive in Davis, where he finished first, and Yolo County where he finished second, and he failed to run a district-wide campaign.
They argue that Joe Krovoza knew that Dan Wolk was going to run, and jumped into the race first to beat him to the punch. Leaving aside issues as to whether there was a sense of entitlement, it’s a tough argument to make a priori.
First, Joe Krovoza raised over $300,000 in the race, so the idea that he was non-competitive is a bit far-fetched. Second, he entered believing that he would have had much greater support from the local political establishment than he got.
Despite this, he managed to best Dan Wolk on their home territory where the voters are most familiar with both candidates.
One Wolk supporter wrote, “Krovoza never stood a chance in this race, he never won significant support outside of Davis, and his presence in this race was only as a spoiler.”
Perhaps, but there is no way that Joe Krovoza really could have been expected to predict that before the race began.
One of the interesting things in the race is that, while the perception was that Dan Wolk was the more liberal candidate, in Davis, it was Joe Krovoza who won the more liberal precincts in the center and western portions of the district, while Dan Wolk won the more conservative and wealthier precincts in the east, the south, and the northwest portions of the city.
In fact, the map of Davis looked more like a city council distribution than anything else.
The ugliness of the independent expenditure campaign also ignores the fact that Dan Wolk had some key liabilities including his age and experience. Also, from some people’s perspective, the IE campaign reinforced the perception that he was beholden to public employee unions.
Still there are important lessons to be learned here and one is that if it is important to Davis residents who represents them in Sacramento, then these sorts of issues need to be handled early and a decision needs to be made as to who should run.
An interesting and unexplored subject would be to figure out how many people who supported Joe Krovoza would have had Dan Wolk as their second choice. There is a presumption by many that without Krovoza most of those votes, especially in the eastern part of the district, go to Dan Wolk, but I have spoken to a number of people who said they would never have voted for Dan Wolk for a variety of different reasons – experience, track record on the council, the perception of political nepotism, etc.
We will probably never know the answer of how many people had Dan Wolk as their number two choice after Joe Krovoza.
Unfortunately, not only did that not happen, but both sides blame each other for the end result.
In that sense, the results here are predictable and preventable in the future.
In the meantime, we will watch the results carefully here to see if anything changes.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
If you are the best candidate for the District, you should win regardless of who else is in the race.
Two years ago Dan carried every district of Davis in his run for City Council, yet this time he lost most of those same districts to Joe. If Dan ultimately loses this election it will not be because Joe was in the race, it will be because he could not even convince the people of Davis (let alone the entirety of AD4) that he was the best candidate for the job.
Good point Mark, maybe the people of Davis who actually saw his work first hand and weren’t happy with some of his policies and union backing decided he wasn’t the best candidate anymore.
“If you are the best candidate for the District, you should win regardless of who else is in the race. ”
That only works if there is (A) a clear best candidate and (B) a clear consensus as to who that best candidate is. What if you have a best candidate and another candidate who is almost as good and they split their votes?
This is where it gets slippery, because it’s where the political pros operate: the place in which quiet deals as to who will run for which office and when get made, with express or implied quid pro quo to the ones who agree to step back for the nonce. They’re brokering power, and power equals money.
Politics as practiced in this country has become so sullied by the influence of money that it’s hard to stay involved. It’s still manageable at the local level, but the farther up the political food chain you get, the more disgusting the level of corruption.
You cast your vote, and you take your chances. And you hope you don’t get any on you.
One of the goals of the current primary system as you pointed out yesterday, was to allow for the selection of more moderate candidates who are able to best represent the diverse populations of their districts. This election was not about who is the best representative for Davis, it was about who is the best for AD4. If liberal Joe and even more liberal Dan sucked votes away from each other allowing a more moderate candidate to ultimately represent the district, then the system seems to have worked as designed. If we see something similar happen around the State, then maybe we will end up with a more collaborative legislative process than the ‘party first’ one that we currently have. We can get a step closer by removing party affiliation from the ballot altogether and judge candidates on their performance rather than their affiliations.
“If liberal Joe and even more liberal Dan”
at least in davis the notion that dan was more liberal was belied by the voting patterns.
Nice assumption that either candidate was so ordained that the other was the spoiler. Whatever.
They should have worked this out from the gate. What I heard from several people at an election night party was disappointment in both of them for not working this out from the start. This isn’t news; everyone saw it coming from day one.
The issue here really is how many would have voted for the other had the other not been running, but not for reasons of who spoiled who. The problem is our election system, which has always been broken and today is most broken. The open primaries make any sort of real election a farce, as people will play games with the numbers rather than vote for who they believe in, and they will run phantom candidates, and they will vote for people to stop others instead of get their first choice in.
And that is the point: choice voting. It is more complex than regular voting, so it will probably never get above the college voting level because our country is filled with stupid people. But being optimistic that stupid can be overcome someday, if you believe you should be able to vote for who you believe in rather than who you think will win that you can stomach, then you should support choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting (IRV). This is the only chance we have to get out of the election games. Then in Krovoza and Wolk both ran, it wouldn’t matter. This isn’t about who spoiled who, stupid people, it’s about the process being broken.
In IRV, you vote for who you REALLY want first, like say Ross Perot. Therefore, instead of voting for Jimmy Carter because, say, you don’t like Eisenhower because he’s a Republican, you actually vote for Ross Perot because you actually like Ross Perot. But you suspect Ross May not win, so then in second place you put Jimmy Carter because you think he will beat Eisenhower. Before, voting for Ross Perot would be called out as a “throw away” vote that would hurt Carter’s chances of beating Eisenhower. With choice voting, once it was clear Perot was not going to win, those who voted for him would have their second choice votes go out, and it would “instantly” become a Carter vs. Eisenhower race. However, since people would not fear “throwing away” their Perot vote, Perot would actually have a chance, instead of having third parties always attacked as throw-away votes and perpetuating the two-party system.
This would also solve a Wolk-Krovoza problem.
Instead we have this inane open primary system that stupid people voted for.
Stop attacking the candidate and put your energy into attacking our broken system. Otherwise, you are stupid.
I oppose “choice” voting, and I’m not stupid.
If you support someone, you should vote for that person. Tactical voting is an option, but you don’t have to exercise it. You can presently “vote for who you believe in.” “Choice” voting is just supported by marginal parties that can never get their candidates elected.
Dan Wolk failed to get one single endorsement from any newspaper in this district, yet he was anointed by the Democratic machine as the next heir apparent. Newspaper endorsements – in not supporting him – spoke about his lack of depth of knowledge on the issues. The labor IE mailers – lobbed on Dan’s behalf – were obscene. Wolk’s mailers themselves – especially the noxious “girl power” – spoke to his superficiality and lack of experience. Platitudes much? . I believe the top two open primary did exactly what it was supposed to do – open the field and weaken the grip of labor and special interests. Krovoza is not beholden to the Democratic machine or big labor. He ran a principled campaign. To assume that Dan Wolk, by virtue of his political lineage, was more entitled to enter the race than Krovoza, is undemocratic – small “d”. Yes, we may now end up with a bill Dodd or Schaupp in the Assembly, but there was a bigger victory here – big labor money was defeated., as was Yolo’s Democratic machine. If Yolo Dems want this seat back, they better be more inclusive – that means looking more deeply at candidates themselves – not simply their political lineage. Progressives aren’t buying what they’re selling anymore. Maybe the biggest miscalculation was made by the Yolo Democratic Party itself.
The two biggest vote getters were a once Republican and a Republican. Maybe part of the problem here is the general lack of approval with Democrats in general.
When you are connected with a brand that is tarnished it can tarnish you too. Republicans certainly know about this.
The problem with that analysis is that the liberal Democratic bloc was combined the single biggest vote getter. So I’m not sure that really has as much of a bearing as you would believe.
Not if you compare the votes for Dodd and Schaupp. That was my point. I don’t think it is as easy for an independent voter to vote for a liberal Democrat these days. They will more easily vote for a moderate Democrat or a moderate Republican.
this primary system was designed to produce a more moderate candidate. but had the liberals not split their vote, there would at least be one in the fall.
Dodd is the moderate candidate. I would say the open primary worked exactly as intended.
Both Dan and Joe flew too close to the sun and their wings melted. The history of the local assembly seat has been to get elected after first being on the Board of Supervisors. Thomson, Lois Wolk and Yamada all took this path. It is likely that this will continue now with Dodd. Both Saylor and Provenza declined to run and endorsed Wolk. This tells us that for whatever reason the party chose Dan. If the party, including Joe, had hung together everyone would have supported Dan and he would be on his way to Sacramento but that isn’t what happened.
Joe decided he would run. I don’t know who he talked to but serious candidates go around and talk with party elders before announcing. The fact that Dan got all the big political endorsements tells us that Joe either didn’t talk to the elders of the party or didn’t listen to them. People are saying top two makes the party irrelevant but this is only true if there isn’t intra-party discipline and because of Joe’s lack of discipline and his quixotic quest for the capitol the local party lacked discipline, was unable to coalesce around one local candidate and both lost. I talked to Joe a few times during the campaign and one time he spoke of his dream of being in the legislature. I think he saw the open seat that under the new 12 year term limit, was his only chance, went for it throwing all caution to the wind and lost. The bad news is he hurt the party in the process.
The last year has been terrible for the city with every vote being viewed through the prism of the assembly race. With the race over for Dan he can focus on the many problems of the city. For Joe, he was flying without a net and will be a private citizen again soon. For all the talk about not running for one seat while in the middle of the term of another position I want to say Joe is the perfect example of the downside of making a risky bet on a long shot race without having a position to fall back on. Perhaps Joe simply was tired of city council and not running for re-election was of little concern but for those who were supporters of Joe he will likely be missed.
For the local Democrats things are a mess. The community with the help of the Davis Vanguard has seen a conservative turn that, like the South in 94 when Nixon’s southern strategy was complete, will not be easy to stop. Densification, anti-growth and anti-tax sentiments have now joined together into a conservative coalition that almost took over the council. There are now only two Dems on the city council. The race for the local senate seat in 2016 is up for grabs but the local Dems could make the same mistake again. That is a likely possibility after the nasty talk among Democrats about Democrats during and after the assembly race. There is much bad blood among the local Dems and they need to come to terms with their differences or lose power in Sacramento. Bill Dodd showed how to win under the new system; solidify your base and reach out across the aisle.Local Dems need to learn their lesson or they will continue to pay the price.
as much as i like the fact that mr. toad is back… i disagree with him.
“everyone would have supported Dan and he would be on his way to Sacramento”
i think a dodd-wolk match up would have been an advantage for dodd, not wolk.
“For the local Democrats things are a mess. The community with the help of the Davis Vanguard has seen a conservative turn that, like the South in 94 when Nixon’s southern strategy was complete, will not be easy to stop”
there is not a conservative turn going on. people got tired of the excess of local government, and the firefighters. robb davis is no conservative. sheila allen shot herself in both legs. so i don’t see it.
” robb davis is no conservative. ”
That’s not what he told me. Robb Davis told me ” I am a conservative.”
Of course I don’t really have any credibility but I’m sure if you asked him you would get the same answer.
in what context?
I would like to understand that too. Because if Robb is a conservative in an ideological sense, I must be the devil incarnate (but a very compassionate one).
Maybe he is making the case that he is a fiscal conservative. That might be the case… we will have to see going forward. Certainly his words during his campaign don’t give me the sense that he is a tax and spend liberal.
But I don’t see him as anything close to being a true social conservative.
Remember, he was talking to Mr. Toad, who thinks David Greenwald is a conservative.
Densification, anti-growth and anti-tax sentiments have now joined together into a conservative coalition that almost took over the council.
Densification is embedded in the liberal coalition.
Anti-growth residential is split… maybe tilt a bit toward the conservative coalition. Anti-growth commercial is strongly in the liberal coalition. The only reason the conservative coalition opposes commercial development is the treat of pressure for more housing which then threatens their residential property values.
Anti-tax is strongly in the conservative camp. Dems will always be happy to take and spend other people’s money.
But where do the moderates land on these things? Because the moderates appear to be taking charge.
Bill Dodd showed how to win under the new system; solidify your base and reach out across the aisle.Local Dems need to learn their lesson or they will continue to pay the price.
Funny, but while the Dems have been smug in this same lecture at the GOP, they have fallen the same.
And here is the lesson in a nutshell. The minions can fight their ideological wars, but political leadership must embrace and support both sides of every debate. What happened to the GOP, and now the DEMS, is that super minions were elected instead of true leaders. And now even those candidates sprouting true leadership capability are swept away just because of their association with the behavior of those polarizing super minions.
You are correct I shouldn’t have included density it should be: Anti-growth and anti-tax sentiments…
I hope so. It will be hard to get past the feeling that he doesn’t really want to be there, and that all of his decisions are being made with an eye to future campaigns.
The fact is that my mailbox was overflowing with very negative mailings that were being done on Dan Wolk’s behalf. That has left a very, very bad taste in my mouth. I understand that, in theory, Dan Wolk and his campaign had nothing to do with all that. But I can’t help but feel very uneasy that these unions were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to knock Dodd out of the race for Dan Wolk. As with Sheila Allen, it may not seem fair to Dan — but it is clear that the public unions considered him ‘their’ candidate. And that colors how I view him now.
“it is clear that the public unions considered him ‘their’ candidate. And that colors how I view him now”
I am much more optimistic than you on this issue. It does not matter so much to me how public unions view Dan, as what Dan now views his obligation to be. If he truly understands that his duty is to the citizens of Davis in its entirety and not to any specific group, be it the unions, the Democratic machine, or some arbitrary definition of conservative or democrat and if his goal is to really serve the city to the best of his ability, this will show. This would speak greatly to his integrity rather than to his ambition and would likely get me his future support, and perhaps that of others that supported Joe this time around specifically because
we “liberal Democrats” are not all tied to the same dogmatic belief system that Frankly believes we follow blindly.
“It does not matter so much to me how public unions view Dan, as what Dan now views his obligation to be.”
Agreed.
However, if you had to guess, Tia, do you think Dan is likely to run for higher office again in the next several years?
For sake of argument, I will presume you think the answer to this is “undoubtedly yes.”
That is where the problem lies. Dan has tied his fortunes to the public employee unions which financed his campaign and, not coincidentally, spent many times more money on pro-Dan fliers and on anti-Dodd ads (all of which were largely untrue). If he wants to run again in 2016 or 2018, he cannot forsake those corrupt unions. No one would give him hundreds of thousands of dollars, directly or indirectly, if Dan suddenly started voting and speaking like a Joe Krovoza or a Robb Davis.
As a result, I would be very surprised if we see a reformed Dan Wolk the next two years. The only way I could see that is if Dan gave up or shelved his political ambition. And that seems very unlikely at this point.
Oh, and by the way, expect the same from Lucas Frerichs. He also, clearly, is ambitious. And he fears upsetting the monied interests he would like to fund his ambition.
As for City Council. With Robb Davis joining Brett Lee on the council Dick Livingston is still the kingmaker. The new thing is the rise of bicycle politics. Thinking about getting into local politics? Join a bike organization.
robb just replaces joe. status quo on bikes.
Yes and both made a successful effort to court the bicycle vote. Would be candidates take note, bicycle advocacy is a force in Davis politics.
I agree Toad, we’ll now see how much bicycle advocacy gets pushed and at what expense to the majority of citizens who choose to use their cars.
given that this is our city’s emblem, is that a shock?
what does surprise me is the wave of anti-bike undercurrent. doesn’t seem like replacing krovoza with davis is going to change much.
And those of us who choose automobiles as our choice of transportation often feel there’s an anti-car undercurrent in this town.
give me one single policy that has been implemented that harms cars at the benefit of bikes
My post said “anti-car undercurrent in this town” and I have read many posts on the Vanguard and in the Enterprise that backs that up. As far as enacted policies so far there haven’t been many, but there’s paid parking on the way and talk of closing down streets to autos. So back at cha, what anti-bike policies have been enacted to have you saying “there’s an anti-car undercurrent in this town”?
paid parking isn’t anti-car, it’s about incentivizing where cars park to free up spaces.
Paid parking is too somewhat anti-car. You know that from reading the posts on here that many feel that paid parking will incentivize people to walk downtown or ride their bikes. You still haven’t answered my question David Progressive.
my comment was based on the backlash against fifth street and some of the comments you and mr. toad just made rather than actual council policies which have mostly been pro-bike, just not anti-car.
I know, it is so hard to get around by car in this town. They really need to focus on making it easier. Just the other day, I had to walk 3 entire blocks to get to the store I wanted to shop at. The bikes just got to ride up and park right in front (slackers).
Yes, instigating a limited paid parking system, which would create more turn over, and thus increase the availability of prime spots by discouraging workers from using them is totally anti-car.
Good to see you posting again Toad if that’s truly you. I thought it was totally bogus that you were called out for supposedly having an alias when there are others on here imo with multiple aliases.
It is nice to have Toad back…
I thought Don was able to flag people posting under multiple names from the same IP address so we don’t have say 10 “different” Peterson supporters that are really just one person.
That’s fine as long as everyone is flagged for posting under multiple aliases from the same IP address. I know of others who have either done it or are imo doing it now that don’t get flagged, why just Toad? Like I’ve said before, it should be the same rules for everyone. Do you agree SOD?
I will remove any further discussion of this issue. If you have concerns about moderation practices on the Vanguard, you can contact me at donshor@gmail.com. If you don’t want to do that, contact David Greenwald.
I can tell you this, when the site went down again, we cleaned out most of the registrations because we had 10,000 spam registrations which was causing huge problems for the system. Unfortunately a number of real people got caught up in the that process. We are currently at only 200 registrations in the system, I don’t believe there are any that are as you suggest at this point in time.
“give me one single policy that has been implemented that harms cars at the benefit of bikes”
The Fifth Street road diet plan underway.
And the future demand that we keep big ugly plastic green waste containers somewhere in our small lots instead of putting this beautiful piles of green waste in the gutter.
I agree the city should totally be responsible for storing my yard waste for up to a week on the street, why should I be responsible for that!
Come to think of it, I don’t like having to store my garbage and recycling containers either. I think I should just be able to leave them in the street all week too, and if I generate more garbage then can fit into the container, I’ll just put it into a pile by the curb.
There is a practical case to be made on a few large streets in town with bike lanes to require green waste be put out in receptacles. Cuttings in those place might at times interfere with safe traffic flow.
However, where no one is reasonably bothered by a pile of tree cuttings or shrubs set out in front of the cutter’s own home and where there are no bike lanes and there is little auto traffic, prohibiting homeowners on these side streets in Davis from piling up some branches makes no sense. It solves no problem and it comes at a very high price for the homeowners. In my case, it means a third receptacle stuffed into my already crowded garage; it means I would have insufficient space in the receptacle any time I pruned my trees, forcing me to move the cuttings into my back yard and waiting several weeks until I could fit them in the receptacle; it would mean taking many hours more per year having to cut the branches into smaller units; or, if forced, I would have to pay thousands of dollars per year to have a professional company trim my dozen or so mature trees which I am now able to prune on my own, because a pro company have a wood chipper (and I don’t), so it’s far easier for them to pulverize large branches.
And who benefits from prohibiting me or my neighbors on our small side street from putting out piles of green waste? Big cost; no benefit. I am lost as to why Michelle Millet thinks this is a good idea for my neighborhood.
I agree, the city should totally be responsibly for dealing with the waste generated from my property. It makes much more sense to pile it up on the street for a week then to store it myself.
I find that I have insufficient space in my garbage receptacle sometimes for things I want to throw out, like old mattresses and couches forcing me to spend many hours driving them to the dump, (I tried cutting them up once, but foam and feathers just went everywhere). I guess I could pay someone to come and dispose of my garbage, but that just doesn’t seem fair, I mean why should I pay to dispose of my own waste.
Oh yeah and by the way, we need to cut taxes I’m sick of the city wasting my money providing services that people can pay for themselves.
“the city should totally be responsibly for dealing with the waste generated from my property.”
I love how you think making a wise-ass remark makes you smart.
Look, Michelle, putting out green waste in a pile does not make anyone less or more responsible than putting it in a receptacle. In neither case does it make the city less or more responsible for me. Either way, as a ratepayer for city services, I am paying the cost of having it removed. The question is whether the DWR removes it with the present system, or whether the DWR removes it from a receptacle.
“I find that I have insufficient space in my garbage receptacle sometimes for things I want to throw out, like old mattresses and couches forcing me to spend many hours driving them to the dump”
Clearly, you are in a smart-ass mood. However, you’re argument is not smart. You have not actually shown any benefits or even contested any of the costs I mention.
As to putting mattresses or other inorganic garbage in the street … That would would be unsightly and thus cause problems for a neighborhood. But that is not the case with regard to tree cuttings.
So, again, honey, until you can answer some basic cost-benefit questions, your sarcasm simply goes to prove that you have not really thought through this question or that you are incapable of thinking through it. And based on your past inability to answer the faults within your logic, I would lean toward the latter being most likely. But, perhaps my fault is that I expect reasonable debate and not having some smart-ass think she is too cool for school.
“Oh yeah and by the way, we need to cut taxes I’m sick of the city wasting my money providing services that people can pay for themselves.”
You do understand that no tax money is involved in picking up green waste, now? I know you just recently moved to Davis, but I would think that you at least have that basic understanding of our city services and how they are paid for and who is being paid?
I actually never made that connection, but apparently you did, so thanks!
If by recently you mean 1991 then I guess you are right. You would think I could gain a basic under standing of our city services and how they are paid for and who is being paid, because really I have nothing better to do with my time, I guess I’m just an idiot. (so much for thinking my wise ass comments made me smart).
I think we decided I was an idiot, so it follows that I’m not capable of making a smart argument.
Oh crap, I probably shouldn’t have put my broken refrigerator on the street then huh? Think my neighbors will be mad? I know I’ll move it in front of someone else’s house.
Yes, sweetheart, I think we already decided that I’m am an idiot, making me incapable of thinking basic things through. (should I brush my teeth before I eat desert or after? I can’t remember).
“No Rich it doesn’t, although containerizing waste does allow for the collection of compostable materials which make up about 30% of the waste stream that currently heads to the landfill.”
I am once again shocked by your statement. Do you care nothing about logic?
By forcing me to put tree cuttings in a container does not add to the amount of green waste which can be composted. And likewise, by allowing me to put my tree branches out in a pile to be picked up by the claw does not detract from the amount of organic material which can be composted.
I further sense that you have no idea what now happens to our green waste. I am not going to bother to fill you in here. You don’t deserve my attention, given how hostile you are every time I comment. But if you would like me to explain to you how Yolo County actually uses the green waste it picks up–I am 100% sure you don’t know–I’d do that in person if you want to buy me a coffee.
“I guess I’m just an idiot.”
If you make idiotic statements about the city taking responsibility for something it does not, and I question whether you really know how our city works, and you clearly have no answer, then what else am I to conclude about you, Michelle. Your clearly operating on the basis of misinformation and illogic. If you would be willing to be open minded and less sure of how righteous you are, you would improve as a person. But that does not appear to matter to you–at least insofar as your style of debate, throwing mud in my face and asking why I am dirty.
Tone it down please, folks.
No, I’m an idiot remember? You think you would have picked up on that by now.
I wish we could do something about hostile people, they are really annoying.
Yes I do, the big magic claw comes and takes it away.
I thought this had been resolved, that seasonal pickup was going to continue and yard waste bins would be distributed for use the rest of the year. Is there still some debate?
The DWR contract has not been submitted yet.
The last iteration of the plan was to do year round containers, seasonal street pick up, plus monthly street pick-up. My concern is that there is no clear regulations in place for how soon before the pick-up date yard waste can be placed in the street. IMO opinion it should be similar to regulations regarding garbage and recycling containers, which can only be out out with in 24 hours of pick-up.
This hybrid option comes with a higher price tag.
“Tone it down?”
Why – this is the best stuff on the VG since the water works fights!
“The Fifth Street road diet plan underway.”
We do not know the outcome of this change yet. If it turns out that the transit time for cars is the same, or slightly reduced, and the street is safer for bikes and pedestrians, then it will have turned out to be a win-win policy.
Could we not wait to see the outcome before deciding that this is an anti-car policy ?
Some people fear change. They want their town to remain just the way it is, and resist any effort to improve it.
Rich
“As to putting mattresses or other inorganic garbage in the street … That would would be unsightly and thus cause problems for a neighborhood. But that is not the case with regard to tree cuttings.
I think that what is “unsightly” is rather subjective. I personally find piles of any kind of refuse, be it organic or otherwise “unsightly”. While I agree with you that green piles in small side streets does not present a major impediment to automobile traffic, on a walk a couple of months ago in my neighborhood, within a three block area there were 7 large ( one side only ) piles accumulated effectively blocking both parking and biking in that area.
This is not a no brainer. Many communities have decided that the cons of on street green refuse storage outweigh the pros. I do not have strong feelings one way or the other, but can clearly see that there are arguments to be made on both sides.