Increasing Resources Through Broader Networks

By Rob White

In just the last two weeks, I have had several interactions that are good examples of how broad-reaching networks can increase opportunity for additional resources. Each of these initial discussions has resulted in subsequent follow-up discussions about potential new investment and funding resources in and around Davis.

Chinese Trade and Development

The first discussion to highlight was with former City of Sacramento Council member Rob Fong, who is now the director of a newly formed nonprofit centered on increased trade relationships between the Sacramento area and Chongqing, China. The nonprofit is formally known as the California-Chongqing Trade and Commerce Organization and is focused on creating robust trade and technology development investments between the two regions.  If this sounds familiar, it is likely because his efforts were covered in the Sacramento Business Journal last week.

This week, Rob opened a dialogue with the City of Davis as one of a few select cities from our region that might become integral to his organization’s efforts. This is primarily due to UC Davis’ regional leadership as an agriculture and technology hub and the City of Davis’ role in supporting these efforts. The City of Sacramento is helping to spearhead the activities and the first delegation from the Sacramento area just returned last month (which included opening the China-based offices). Chongqing is one of the largest cities in China (and the world) with an approximate population of about 33 million.

According to Rob, the Chinese are hungry for American-made products and consumer technologies, largely because they are recognized as a status symbol to the Chinese population. But more importantly, Rob has also informed us that the Chinese are very interested in agricultural production, processing and transport and sustainable clean tech, as these two areas represent their most pressing needs as a nation. This is good news for Davis and the university as we work together to continue being global leaders in these areas, providing the opportunity for us to forge international city-to-city relationships that will help to increase trade and investment opportunities.

Urban Farms

The second discussion started as an exploration of opportunities that might be developed at the proposed urban farm as part of the Cannery Development entitlement process. Currently, the City is working with Con-Agra, the New Homes Company, and the Center for Land Based Learning (CLBL) to develop a proposal for about 10 acres on the east side of the former Con-Agra/Del Monte plant property. This specific urban farm concept would potentially help to provide local opportunities to train current and future farmers, increase education about agriculture, and provide fresh produce to local markets.

A few days after this meeting, several Sacramento area organizations that I am working with on other activities had heard about the discussion and offered to potentially provide resources to the urban farm should the proposal become reality. Though it is still too early to state what the outcomes from these discussion might become, it is a direct example of how close-knit the regional network can be and demonstrates the need to constantly look for partnerships that will achieve desirable outcomes.

Conservation

Closely linked to the idea of urban farms is another Davis objective of conservation… not just of farms, but also habitat and open spaces. Last week, I was attending a roundtable in Woodland put on jointly by the White House and USDA Rural Development. It was a well-attended event and the speakers included local, regional and federal representatives. The event was hosted by Glenda Humiston, California’s USDA Rural Development state-wide coordinator, who is based out of the Davis USDA offices. Other guests of note included Kish Rajan, Director of the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), and David Martin, Northern California’s representative for the US Economic Development Administration (EDA). Both of these individuals is well-acquainted with our innovation and economic development efforts in Davis.

And, as with all good network formation activities, it is sometimes the connection you didn’t plan for that sometimes makes a whole event worthwhile. At this event, one of the speakers was James Gore, former Assistant Chief for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, a presidentially-appointed position. He was speaking at the request of Glenda as an expert in the area of bio-based product replacements. Though James left his federal appointment in Washington DC about a month ago, he has since settled back in Sonoma and is working with local government and state and federal agencies to identify ways to maximize grant funding for conservation.

If James’ name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you were following the City’s discussion on the Mace 391 conservation easement. James was the representative in DC that let me know in April that a change to the NRCS grant for the Mace 391 would not impact Davis and its partners’ future opportunities related to federal grants (specifically USDA and NRCS) for conservation. Of course, James asked me what had been decided by Council, and I informed him that it had been decided to keep the NRCS grant in place and proceed with finalizing the conservation easement. He asked if the City had looked at other conservation grants from other federal agencies that could also likely be applied to the property for easement, to which I indicated that I was unaware of whether we had looked for other funding opportunities. James indicated that he would be happy to come sit down with the City and discuss ways to maximize our current (and future) investments in conservation, especially since he was the number two ranking appointee at the NRCS and is well-acquainted with the federal agencies conservation efforts.

So, of course we will be having follow-on discussions with James in the near future. This is a great example of how a previous contact in a network can become important to identifying new resource opportunities in a different context.

Transportation for the Future

Lastly, some of you are well aware of a resolution by City Council (on July 9^th) supporting the continued exploration of a test track facility in association with the Cybertran Ultra Light Rail Transit technology (www.cybertran.com). The high speed test track has been discussed over the last two years with several leaders in Davis, Cybertran, congressional representatives, and some Yolo County representatives and culminated in a Symposium on personal rapid transit technologies at Davis City Hall in August 2012. A proposed high speed test track facility is estimated to be about a $100 million investment in research and development in the Davis/Yolo area and would potentially include an elevated test track somewhere near the university.

The Cybertran technology is certainly not the only personal rapid transit concept, but it was invented at the Idaho National Lab and is being developed in association with researchers at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and is the preferred transit solution by the City of Richmond for their extension from BART to the new UC/LBNL second campus site.

Essentially, the technology has been designed as a light-weight standard rail system, elevated above grade (typically 14 to 18 feet), using an electric third-rail for power and solar collectors over the track to generate power for the system. Ultra-capacitors (or other storage technology) in the track would act as power storage and the whole system could eventually be connected to the grid to be used for power-grid load leveling. Unique to the design is that tracks are pre-manufactured on approximately 40-foot centers and uses spread-footings instead of pilings, which makes the technology appropriate for easements instead of right-of-ways. And because the track is assembled on-site in sections, it could potentially be re-assembled for future configuration to meet demand based on location instead of transit driving development.

Stations would be on side tracks off the mainline so that through traffic would not need to stop and individual (not linked) cars would hold between 12 and 20 passengers.  The rail cars would also be on demand and could be directed from the pickup location directly to the intended stop, increasing efficiency and reducing travel time by eliminating stops. And stations could be configured both at-grade and in elevated platforms, because the Cybertran technology has been demonstrated at scale to be able to handle 10% grades.

The proposed initial Cybertran system is planned for the City of Richmond and would operate in the speed regimes of below 60 miles per hour. The high speed test tack facility being explored for the Davis/Yolo area would be used to demonstrate the applicability of the technology in the 120+ mile per hour regimes, which is appropriate for areas that would be between areas like West Sacramento, Davis, Woodland and the airport (as an example). The desirable part of the Cybertran technology is that the same cars that would operate in the lower speed regimes would be used in the higher speed regimes, much like BART and Amtrak accelerate in wide-open areas and move more slowly in urbanized areas. And of particular interest to Davis is that the technology has been value engineered at about 10-15% of the cost per mile of BART and about 25-30% of the cost of light rail.  And these fixed rail solutions require significant right-of-way acquisition and are not movable based on future needs and demands, whereas the Cybertran technology is designed to span obstacles and move through landscapes with minimal impacts.

I wanted to describe my understanding of the Cybertran technology here, not because it should be the only transportation technology we should explore. But this type of technology is intriguing as a way to use demonstrated and existing rail technology in an innovative way that solves some of our local problems and creates opportunities for the future. And if we have an opportunity to explore an demonstrate a new rail concept locally and the university has an opportunity to support that concept in research, I think it is a safe bet that Davis (both the community and the university) would be interested.

And to wrap this point back to leveraging networks… this opportunity came about from my previous work in the innovation sector, including interaction with the national labs and several local, state and federal elected officials. And since arriving in Davis, we have brought this potential project forward in funding discussions ranging from foreign direct investment, implementation by local development interests in solving transportation issues arising from development and through federal agencies such as US EDA and the White House.

Though none of these potential relationship building opportunities are guaranteed, they each demonstrate how we in Davis can continue to leverage our local, regional, state, federal and global networks to continue to identify opportunities for funding and resources to support our local goals of sustainability, technology development, and economic vitality.

If you have thoughts on this subject, or ideas for subjects you would like me to write about, please let me know. My email is rwhite@cityofdavis.org.

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