By Councilmember Rochelle Swanson
April 11, 2013 (Washington DC) – Today the Davis/Yolo Team spent a full day meeting with representatives from elected officials’ offices, to agencies throughout the DC area.
We were delighted to find out during our meetings today that we have arrived in DC at the peak of Cherry Blossoms Season. Several staffers in our meetings gave us the story about the cherry blossom trees in DC, and that they came from Japan during the President Grant Administration. For an interesting story about this, search “Cherry Blossom President Grant.”
Though it was a packed schedule today, we had great meetings! We met with:
- Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Office – Thomas Ostrander “TC”, Legislative Assistant
- House Committee on Energy and Commerce – Will Wallace, Policy Analyst
- Dept. of State, National Export Initiative – David M. Birdsey, Deputy Director
- Economic Development Administration (EDA) – Malinda Matson, Congressional Affairs Specialist
In the meeting at Sen. Feinstein’s office, the team discussed the Davis-Woodland Surface Water Project, Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ (SACOG) Rural-Urban Connection Strategy (RUCS), food access and regional food deserts, the potential Yolo Rail Realignment project, and partnerships between UC Davis and the National Labs in advanced manufacturing, cyber security, and research to jobs. The message to us from the Senator’s staff was that collaboration and cohesive approaches to regionalism are paramount. They were very impressed with the amount of partnership that we have achieved so far and look forward to working with us more.
The meeting with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce focused on collaborations for research with UC Davis and the other universities and federal labs, advanced manufacturing, and the potential Yolo Rail Realignment project. The meeting centered heavily on partnerships, and we were told that the Yolo region “clearly had a unique collaboration” and that we are an example of best practices. It was also pointed out that the congressional members on the Committee would most certainly “endorse partnerships like ours.”
After lunch, the teams all went to the Department of State, but due to sequestration issues, the security lines were long and we had to split some of the team up to make the meeting at Commerce. Though I was unable to attend the Department of State meeting for the National Export Initiative meeting, I was told in our debrief after the meetings back at the hotel that the discussion was helpful giving direction on ways we can maximize support for increasing export opportunities in Davis and in the region as a whole.
While half the team stayed at the Department of State, headed up by Kemble with heavy support from David Morris and Karen Bond, a group (Rob, Marj Dickenson, Catherine Hawe and myself) headed over to EDA. There are so many good things to say about this meeting. What started out as a perfunctory 30 minute meeting, turned into a dynamic 90 minute back and forth of Davis/Yolo/UCD assets and EDA programs and funding that maximize those assets and turn them into wins. Wins for the community, the region and the agency.
In addition, the EDA rep found our concept of an Innovation Accelerator Zone (IAZ) was intriguing and ripe for a successful pilot program to take a community with some success and leverage it into a model for other research university communities. In short, the concept is similar to the Smart Cities initiative that has helped communities like Fresno, CA but would flip the program around and instead target communities that were creating opportunity through their own efforts. Rather than target blighted, impoverished areas for investment, the IAZ concept takes a community that is working hard to leverage their assets into jobs and supports those efforts for major reinvestment to grow an even stronger local ecosystem.
As many of you know, we live in an amazing ecosystem – the University research, the prime soils, the commitment to the environment and social justice, the capitol corridor, the weather and a workforce made up of the second most educated city in America. It was clear from our conversation with EDA that the i6 Challenge Grant recently awarded to UC Davis and SARTA is just the beginning. As stated to us, EDA does not invest in “one-off” programs. It is their practice to follow up with additional grants and funding to communities for planning and infrastructure. We will be inviting EDA leadership to Davis to discuss specific projects and funding needs over the coming months. Malinda was quick to say we should take the IAZ concept to the White House, and we just so happened to have a meeting tomorrow.
So far, in each of the meetings we have had, staff is consistently impressed with the manufacturing, exports and innovations we have underway for a relatively small community.
So stayed tuned …
If you want to know what’s up for the team tomorrow (Friday, April 12th), we are meeting with:
- Legislative Update – Nossaman, LLP
- Congressman John Garamendi
- White House, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs & Office of Science and Technology Policy – Kellyn Blossom, Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs
- Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology- Andrew Ruffin, Legislative Assistant
- Congressman Eric Swalwell’s – AndrewGinsburg, Legislative Director
This trip has been successful already and we are only on day 2! Looking forward to getting back to Davis and working on these important issues.
My thanks to both Rochelle and David for keeping us posted on this trip. I hope that we will continue to receive information on any projects that come from this trip on an ongoing basis.
this is excellent news, but again, disappointed that more people are not commenting. everyone complains that they want to read good news, positive news, but when we get it, no one says anything.
I share the thoughts of both medwoman and Davis Progressive, both in terms of what is happening and the dearth of comments. It would be great to hear from Michael Bisch and Mark West and Frankly and others. Lets celebrate the positive.
As a strong supporter of the rail relocation project, and its ability to produce jobs and increase agricultural exports, I was particularly pleased to hear about the EDA and House Commerce visits. Senator Feinstein’s acknowledgement of our cohesion and collaboration efforts toward regional projects like the rail relocation means that the right message was conveyed. I look forward to hearing more.
As an individual who has not run a “business” since my days as a private tutor during my early 20’s I realize my views may be quite naive. I did however have another thought about this venture and would be interested in hearing what some of our local businessmen and women have to say.
It seems to me that on this blog we hear quite a bit about how we need to think creatively and innovate. And yet, what I hear are ideas about peripheral sprawl, luring big box business and the like, none of which sounds remotely innovative to me.
This trip however, seems to be a proactive step towards financial development of our community in collaboration ( rather than competition) with our adjacent communities. This seems to me to be quite an exciting event and I am very interested in hearing the views of the business community.
Well said medwoman. Collaboration was definitely a central theme of the last Council election. So far we appear to be getting what we voted for.