Commentary: Will Council Focus Wane in the Wake of Assembly Race?

Earlier this week in response to a commentary on the budget, impasse and the firefighter’s union, one of our readers made the comment that the column was akin to gloating.  While in some ways I can appreciate that sentiment, I would argue that, more broadly, the column should be read as a fear and not a gloat.

Following several different and unrelated discussions yesterday, my real fear is that governance on the Davis City Council will take a backseat to political ambition and elections.  Already, in June, a year out from the next council election, I am talking to people considering running for council.

Last week in this space I laid out a number of notable and worthy achievements of the current council dealing with longstanding issues.  But already I am starting to sense a lack of focus on current council issues.  Perhaps it is just a weird time – right between some of the meaty issues of the spring and the budget.

But this is not a time to let up the focus.  The council faces not only a budget deficit this year that it must address, but the likelihood of a more serious ongoing budget, as the city must grapple with rising costs of providing critical services.

And some of the decisions that the council is making right now are a bit perplexing.  Take the issue of wastewater, to provide a prescient and disturbing example.

Right now the city has put out an RFP (Request for Proposal) for a $95 million project.  Back in March, we reported that the council made the strange decision to forego a regional approach on wastewater that might have saved the city $30 million.

All the council would have done, had they moved toward the regional approach, would be to authorize a study of it.   The odd thing is that for the rationale given – governance issues, reuse issues – none of the objections appeared impossible to resolve.

As Matt Williams argued last week, “A Regional wastewater option is not the only one that offers Davis residents the possibility of saving $30 million.”

He argues, “One of the Local wastewater options appears to be able to save Davis $20 million in capital costs and $1 million per year in Operating expense.  Together those two amounts combine to yield a $47 million Net Present Value savings. That comes very close to funding all of the $55 million needed to pursue the Plan A road repair.”

“A major impediment to even exploring the possibility of saving that $47 million is that Staff has constructed an RFQ that effectively makes one specific Design of the wastewater upgrade a prerequisite,” he writes.  “That is ironic considering the fact that Davis has recently hired a Chief Innovation Officer, because the course the RFQ charts effectively eliminates the possibility that wastewater technology innovation can save Davis that $47 million.”

I have been one to argue that pots of money are not interchangeable.  Roads have primarily been funded through either general fund or impact fees, both of which are essentially general fund dollars.  Water is funded through the enterprise fund.

I’m not really smart enough in accounting to know if enterprise funds can go to road infrastructure or if there are creative ways around the problem.  What I do know is that the city is being asked to borrow heavily in the next year to fund roads to the tune of $25 million upfront, at the same time the council is sneezing at $30 to $47 million in wastewater savings over silly things like governance and local water reuse.

What we need now, most of all, is leadership and the undivided attention on city governance from the city council.  Staff can only do so much.  It was the council that authorized the local option.

Mayor Joe Krovoza originally voted against the local option, arguing that we need to look at the cost savings here.

“I’m sympathetic to the governance comments of my colleagues,” the mayor said.  “If we were to go forward and at least consider regionalization, there would be two things I would absolutely insist on.  One would be that we would only look at regionalization in partnership with Woodland.  If we buy in, I would expect it to be a partnership not a customer…”

But strangely, when the RFP went forward, the mayor sung a different tune as quoted by Matt Williams: Mayor Krovoza explained how he was going to vote as follows, “The Charrette [design] is the plan for the local alternative […] and a selection based on pure performance standard approach […] is not the current position of the past Council and may or may not be the position of this current Council.”

Brett Lee, who dissented, made the comment, “Previous Councils voted for a lot of things that we are currently not too thrilled about.”

The most stinging criticism of Matt Williams’ piece is the fact the Charette Plan as a specific design is actually five years old.  Why are we holding ourselves to that specific plan when there may be better and cheaper ways to do it?

Where is the leadership going to come from on these tough issues?  It cannot come just from the city manager and his staff.  We have numerous examples of Steve Pinkerton and staff putting forth tremendous effort and work, only to be undermined at the last minute by council getting skittish.  This happened numerous times in the past six months.

Two prime examples were on the Loge-Williams water rate structure and the fire staffing.  In both cases, it was the leadership of people like Mayor Krovoza that ultimately helped steer the votes through.

If the mayor is engaged for the next year trying to raise money for his assembly race, stepping out of town every few weeks to keep up his professional obligations for work, when is he going to have the time to do the heavy lifting on things like roads, the budget, impasse, water, etc.?

And yet, that is essentially what we face.  For the next year, two members of council will have three jobs: their professional work that brings home their pay, their campaign, and their job on city council.  Both of these men work hard, but may be spreading themselves thin.

At the same time, we have Councilmember Rochelle Swanson starting to think about her reelection campaign, where she expects a strong pushback for her votes on the budget, water and fire.

As one person I spoke to yesterday put it, these are not normal times – we are still in a very precarious position, and yet we face the very real prospect that for the next year the primary focus of several councilmembers will be election, not governance.

I am not trying to put these people down, but I am concerned about the impact on the city.  And members of the city staff and other observers may not say it publicly, but everyone is worried about this – and for good reason.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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