There is no getting around the fact that the process involved in the original discussion on Mace 391 in June was less than ideal. There is plenty of blame to go around for that debacle, and I think, or at least hope, that those involved learned critical lessons to prevent future such debacles.
The shame here is that we could not have had a discussion on the merits in June, when going forward with an alternative path might have been seen as viable.
I think Brett Lee’s comments from Tuesday appropriately sum up my feelings.
“This is exactly the type of presentation that I wish we had a year ago,” Councilmember Brett Lee commented. “The June meeting was not a good meeting for a variety of reasons. I think the key one is that it felt very rushed. The information was flipped: we can go with the plan, but we don’t have any time to talk about it because we have to decide by Thursday.”
“That (process) didn’t do justice to our responsibility,” he said, either their fiscal responsibility or their responsibility to make good decisions for the community. He felt that the presentation that staff gave on Tuesday was what the council really needed.
Unfortunately, most saw it as too late.
I think Rochelle Swanson’s expressed opinion sums up both where I am and how my views have shifted since the June discussion.
She said, “It’s heartbreaking to tell 85 employees” that there had to be budget cuts as the council did when they made the decision earlier in the evening to impose the Last, Best, and Final offer on the Davis City Employees Association. “To see a gentleman with tears in his eyes because he thinks he’s going to lose his house over this,” she said. “That’s hard. We do have a fiscal responsibility and I think turning this into a black and white, us versus them – no matter which side you’re on is just wrong.”
“That’s not the Davis way, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” she added. “We have to look at these things at a wholistic level. We don’t have anything else but revenue to get us out.”
I also came around somewhat to a view that the NRCS, Yolo Land Trust, and ultimately city staff took a conservative and perhaps overly-cautious view on the impact of this decision on closing efficiency.
Michele Clark noted that the city of Davis and the Yolo Land Trust have over the years closed 17 conservation easements for nearly 3000 acres of land.
Ms. Clark explained that the NRCS Grant program “is a highly highly competitive program. Part of the reason we are successful in obtaining those funds is because the degree of trust that NRCS has with both the Yolo Land Trust and the city of Davis, that we can get the projects done.”
She noted that the YLT has closed all of the projects that they’ve done to date. She noted that the majority of their projects are not in the city of Davis. “The fear that we have is that if this money were returned to NRCS, if the council decided to abandon this three year process, and we had to actually return the funds that that could impact our ability not only for the projects within the city of Davis, but the projects that we have outside… where we don’t use the city money,” she said.
She added, “The allocation in 2011 (for Leland Ranch) was about 30% of the allocation for the whole state of California.”
These facts and figures led Matt Williams during public comment to compare the closing efficiency to a batting average. He noted that Ms. Clark set the number of Davis projects at 17 and that Davis was less than the majority.
Based on that, he noted that their batting average might fall from 100% to 97% which he felt would still be a strong closing efficiency.
I think Matt Williams was largely correct here. If the council makes one decision, one change, dropping the agency and the city’s closing efficiency from 100% to 97%, is the city going to for sure lose out on future grant opportunities?
Launa Kiger of the NRCS certainly did not take that position. Hers was more nuanced and she argued that she could not specifically address how this might impact the YLT since it would be on the next application, and it would be based on overall rank.
“If there were 15 applications and this drops them one point below where they were, it could make a difference or it could make no difference,” she said. “It is in comparison to the others that bid.”
“The closing efficiency,” she explained “is did it cost us extra money to close? Did it cost us extra time and expense to the government? Did it fail to close completely?” Those are all things that are factored in to their consideration.
That view, that she could not specify whether or not it would impact future grant applications, was enough to change Dan Wolk’s vote on this, and once Dan Wolk turned, the chance of getting three votes was essentially out the window.
But all is not lost here. I spoke with one of the councilmembers and they acknowledged that, while it is true that they cannot call this a successful process for a variety of reasons, they acknowledged that the discussion on Mace 391 has made the overall prospects for getting a business park much more likely.
Prior to June 2013, I think the idea of a business park at the spots proposed by the Innovation Parks Task Force would have been problematic, at best. Given the politics on Mace 391, I think the chances of a successful Measure R vote were limited.
However, during this discussion a lot of people have come forward to start believing that we have a need for more economic development.
We are now looking at three locations for cconomic development and a Innovation/ Business Park.
First, we have the proposal for development at Nishi. It is a small location, but it is near the university. Ideally, given the access issues, I think a business/innovation center at Solano Park would be ideal. That could be flipped to the city in exchange for a high-density, student development at Nishi with vehicle access to the campus and improved access to the downtown through an existing at-grade crossing that could be improved with better safety measures.
Second, there are the lands that reside between Mace 391 and Mace Curve. These are the Bruner Trust and Ramos-Oates tract. While these too would be subject to a Measure R vote, they have some advantages. To the east would be the Ag Buffer that will be preserved permanently through an agricultural easement on Mace 391. That means that there is no chance of sprawl or development to the east or the north of these tracts.
If the face of that project were the expansion of Schilling Robotics and Marrone Bio Innovations and this were sold to the public as a means to keep these businesses in town, it might stand a chance on a vote.
Less likely at this point is a development in the lands west of the hospital. It lacks the current protections of Mace 391 and it lacks the freeway visibility that a project on I-80 would have.
Six months ago we might have considered any of these proposals to be DOA. Indeed, there is still heavy lifting to do on Nishi, with access issues and Richards Blvd. But the conversation has moved forward from if we have a business park, to where, when and what size. And although the road has been bumpy, a lot of credit has to go to the proposal put forward by Davis Morris for a business park and a land swap.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]Based on that, he noted that their batting average might fall from 100% to 97% which he felt would still be a strong closing efficiency.
I think Matt Williams was largely correct here. If the council makes one decision, one change, dropping the agency and the city’s closing efficiency from 100% to 97%, the city is going to for sure lose out on future grant opportunities?[/quote]
I think what this shows is the limitations of making such analogies. To illustrate, I would like to offer a different analogy. Mine is fidelity within a marriage. Let’s say that the argument is that I have been faithful to my husband 97% instead of 100% of the time. Still a “good” average ? Maybe enough for some very compassionate, forgiving spouses. A complete deal breaker for others !
I don’t see this so much as would a change at this point in time have been a deal breaker for future grants as I do would it have been a reflection on the integrity of city leaders to carry through on an agreement once made. These are actually quite different issues.
I’m sorry medwoman, but I think the analogy here of closing efficiency to a wedding vow is inappropriate. The question here with regards to closing efficiency is whether the agency can convert grants into easements. If it ends up that rather than every single time they convert them – that for reasons that have nothing to do with the agency, the city decides it needs to use its resources towards other directions, that means that they get 33 out of 34 instead of 33 of 33, that’s very different than vows of fidelity that necessarily require a 100% commitment to work.
If a married couple were in agreement 100% of the time they would be bored out of their minds.
Ok…..I guess the partial “tongue in cheek” wasn’t clear enough.
But to Mr. Toad….. if they aren’t in 100 % agreement on the issue of fidelity….more than boredom will be at stake !
Fidelity 97% of the time. Medwoman you have some explaining to do.
You might try begging for forgiveness but the second house is probably going up for sale unless of course you will be moving to it.
A sticky point for me, Michelle Clark pointed out the city approached the Yolo Land Trust and asked for their help. Backing out of the deal would have had direct consequences for them and the work they do, not the city.
As anyone who posted in Wednesday’s Mace 391 thread knows, I am very pessimistic about the chances of a successful Measure J/R vote at either the East Innovation Park (Ramos/Bruner east of Mace) or the West Innovation Park (west and north of the Hospital). The reason is simple. There is nothing of personal value to give to any of the voters who don’t want Davis to change. And those who oppose change are the voters who are most likely to vote on any given Election Day.
People vote for selfish reasons, and that selfishness resulted in 75% of the voters voting “No” in Measure P. There were 9,465 “No” votes and 3,201 “Yes” votes in Measure P. Measure R got 10,474 votes for and 3,187 votes against. Is it realistic to believe that 4,000 of Davis’ most likely voters are going to care that much about Schilling Robotics and/or Marrone Bio Innovations to allow the farmlands east of Mace to be lost?
I had a meeting with one of our most respected elected officials on Wednesday morning and when we discussed “east of mace” that was very explicitly “a bridge too far.” There is a clear message there.
————————————–
With the above said, I think David’s article today for the most part misses the mark as a post mortem. It is an attempt to put lipstick on a pig. It is an attempt to put a near total breakdown in our City governance processes into the rear view mirror and move on. The problem with that approach is that we are falling into the trap of “doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.”
If we are really honest with ourselves, we will ask the tough question, “How did we get ourselves into this mess?”
On June 11th Brett commented “What a jumble.” That was a charitable assessment. The sad thing is that unless we take positive, proactive steps to understand how and why we got into that jumble, then we can only count the days until the next jumble does damage to our community.
We have a long legacy of jumbles. Four on a fire truck. Runaway pensions. Crumbling streets due to deferred maintenance. Employees who feel abandoned by the City they work for. We can’t afford any more jumbles.
B. Nice said . . .
[i]”A sticky point for me, Michelle Clark pointed out the city approached the Yolo Land Trust and asked for their help. Backing out of the deal would have had direct consequences for them and the work they do, not the city.”[/i]
Michele is right if one looks at what happened at a snapshot at one particular moment in time. The problem is that evaluation of a snapshot of a moment in 2013 is only one frame in a movie of a slow motion trainwreck that began to go off the tracks in early 2011.
What we had was an attempt by certain segments of the business community to bypass the city’s commission process. The commissions work well because they act in public and provide opportunities for discussion, public comment, and they follow certain rules. It’s cumbersome for a reason: to avoid the very conflicts of interest that pervaded the whole Mace 391 discussion.
This mess may have moved the discussion forward, but I think it has reduced the likelihood of actually achieving the goal of a business park anytime soon. The sites under discussion now are the same ones that were under discussion before the whole land swap proposal came forward. What the last months have done is waste a lot of time and probably harden a lot of positions. When I see business leaders attending ITF meetings, and then lining up before the city council to advocate for one of these other, already-reviewed sites for a business park, I’ll believe this whole debacle was productive.
[quote]improved access to the downtown through an existing at grade crossing that could be improved with better safety measures.[/quote]
A bit off topic — and definitely outside my area of expertise — but I think the notion of an at-grade crossing for Nishi is ludicrous. We’re talking about UP’s main line, which moves a lot of freight and accommodates all the Capital Corridor trains. The existing crossing is legacy infrastructure, installed decades ago to accommodate a single residence and associated farmland, and is the site of at least one recent fatality. I can’t see UP agreeing to any at-grade crossings in that area.
“The commissions work well because they act in public and provide opportunities for discussion, public comment, and they follow certain rules. “
works in theory, but i’ve heard that the meetings for oshc are not exactly easily assessable to the public.
accessible
[quote] i’ve heard that the meetings for oshc are not exactly easily assessable to the public.[/quote]They’re held in the Community Chambers Conference Room.
I think both Brett and Rochelle articulated the problem precisely when they lamented the lack of a transparent process. This failure occurred for many reasons beginning with how the city acquired the land out of foreclosure using some Measure O money but mostly road funds. Understandably when opportunity strikes it is important to be nimble and some creative budgetary was in order but it seems that from there things were too didactic for a community engaged as ours.
While many have argued that the Open Space Commission was open to the public it is now obvious that commission has been too insular, needs more engagement with the community and more scrutiny from the media .
The relationship between the City of Davis, the Yolo Land Trust and the Natural Resources Conservation Service needs examination. If there is a point of no return where changing course would damage our partners in a way that is politically unacceptable the council needs to be clear well in advance of any such date that their actions will reach such a point.
As Mark West cogently points out things don’t appear on the consent calendar without the approval of the city council so the internal process that boxed in the council needs some self examination. Still I suspect the point I will make below had much to do with why the internal processes of the council broke down.
The community itself needs some reflection on the budgetary constraints that we are facing and the constant opposition to everything that mustered two no votes against the most publicly vetted housing project in the history of the City of Davis. This anti-everything agenda is typical of California in general where polls consistently show that we want services but don’t want to pay for them. A reality check of what Davis should be is in order. While many want to remain the funky college farm town spun out of UC Berkeley, denying that we have become a technology giant, and, an important cog in the commonweal of California education, isn’t going to pay the bills. If we stay on that path we won’t even be able to water the roads to keep the dust down when they completely fall apart. We need an honest conversation about how we capitalize on our ability to be a magnet for innovators who can help us provide the revenue to support the services the community needs. We face two choices we can cut or we can grow. The one thing we can’t do, as imposing a contract on city workers demonstrates, is nothing.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”What we had was an attempt by certain segments of the business community to bypass the city’s commission process. The commissions work well because they act in public and provide opportunities for discussion, public comment, and they follow certain rules. It’s cumbersome for a reason: to avoid the very conflicts of interest that pervaded the whole Mace 391 discussion.”[/i]
Don, you, like Michele Clark, are only looking at a snapshot in time. You are restricting your time horizon to mid 2013 forward. The failure to communicate and the attempts to bypass the commission process began in 2011 (maybe even in late 2010). The failure to communicate debacle pervaded the entire 12 months of 2011 and the entire 12 months of 2012, as well as the first 6 months of 2013. We have 16 commissions and 3 active On-going Committees for a reason. They focus on particular issue/policy areas so that Davis can have informed dialogue about those issues and policies. But they do not exist in a vacuum. They need to interact when the immediate issue/policy they are focusing on affects other issue/policy areas. We do not live in a social landscape where we make either/or choices between narrow perspectives on focused issues. Rather we live in a social landscape that blends many competing perspectives and needs into a community fabric.
There is a very good reason that in addition to the 16 commissions and 3 active committees, we also have 5 Council 2x2s which recognize that governmental constructs need to regularly and formally work together and discuss the issues/policies that affect them both. We need the same kind of cross-construct communication between and among our commissions and task forces. The absence of cross-commission (inter-commission) communication is why the Council was forced to deal with a “jumble” on June 11, 2013. Your incessant beating of “the villains are” drum systematically ignores the reality that Open Space Commission members should have been active formal members of the Innovation Park task Force from day one. Similarly, there should be regular cross communication between Open Space and Finance and Budget just as there was regular cross communication between Finance and Budget and BEDC. Just as there was periodic open communication between the WAC and the NRC. Just as there is periodic open communication between the Parks and Recs Commission and the Tree Commission.
The Open Space and Habitat Commission did its job regarding Mace 391 very well in late 2010. Very well. The problem was that their very focused work (achieving the focused goals that Council had provided them with) was not put into the broader context of the complete set of community goals that get focused attention from other commissions/committees. Our commissions and the staff that support them do not serve the community well if they work in a vacuum. We have a long history in Davis and Yolo County of working in silos. We have a failure to communicate. It exists at the commission level, and it exists at the much higher level between UCD, the City and Yolo County. Those silos are very expensive to operate in isolation. A huge part of our current fiscal deficits are the result of that failure to communicate.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”This mess may have moved the discussion forward, but [b]I think it has reduced the likelihood of actually achieving the goal of a business park[/b] anytime soon. “[/i]
I agree with your bolded sentiments 100%.
Jim Frame
[i]”A bit off topic — and definitely outside my area of expertise — but I think the notion of an at-grade crossing for Nishi is ludicrous. We’re talking about UP’s main line, which moves a lot of freight and accommodates all the Capital Corridor trains. The existing crossing is legacy infrastructure, installed decades ago to accommodate a single residence and associated farmland, and is the site of at least one recent fatality. I can’t see UP agreeing to any at-grade crossings in that area.”[/i]
I think that was a confusion of terms and should have read as “grade separated” rather than “at grade”
I agree with you 100% that Union Pacific would never consider an at grade crossin on the Main Line. NTSB wouldn’t consider it either.
[quote] Don, you, like Michele Clark, are only looking at a snapshot in time. You are restricting your time horizon to mid 2013 forward. The failure to communicate and the attempts to bypass the commission process began in 2011 (maybe even in late 2010).[/quote]
I really wish you would quit telling me how I’m looking at things, or how my thinking is narrow, or any of the other patronizing comments you preface your replies with.
The commission agendas and minutes are posted for everyone to see. I carefully read the BEDC minutes for years until that commission was disbanded, because it dealt with topics of specific interest to me. I have followed the Innovation Task Force proceedings, originally the Peripheral task force, for some time for the same reasons.
My point is that they act in public in a manner that any citizen and taxpayer can access.
[quote] Open Space Commission members should have been active formal members of the Innovation Park task Force from day one.[/quote]
The Innovation Park Task Force didn’t address Mace 391. They identified other sites. My point, again, is that the proposal for a business park on Mace 391 did NOT go through the commissions, was not subjected to public scrutiny, and was presented to the city council in a manner almost guaranteed to make people justifiably suspicious.
The OSH commission did its job well. The Innovation Park Task Force did its job well. The individuals and interest groups that pushed forward a last-minute speculative land deal did not use the accepted procedures and did everyone a disservice. David Greenwald is being charitable in his assessment.
[quote]While many have argued that the Open Space Commission was open to the public it is now obvious that commission has been too insular, needs more engagement with the community and more scrutiny from the media. [/quote]
Where does the burden of getting more community engagement fall? Is it the Commission’s responsibility to actively find more ways to get people involved. What’s being done now to encourage community involvement?
I think a better job could be done to more actively let people know what different commissions are working on, when they are meeting, and decisions they are making. It seems right now you can find the information if you look for it, but I think a more proactive approach would be beneficial.
[quote]As Mark West cogently points out things don’t appear on the consent calendar without the approval of the city council so the internal process that boxed in the council needs some self examination.[/quote]
How does putting something on the consent calendar box in council?
[quote]As Mark West cogently points out things don’t appear on the consent calendar without the approval of the city council.[/quote]
If this is true, that council approves consent items, why are items frequently pulled from the consent calendar by council members at meetings?
Mr.Toad
[quote]A reality check of what Davis should be is in order. While many want to remain the funky college farm town spun out of UC Berkeley, denying that we have become a technology giant, and, an important cog in the commonweal of California education, isn’t going to pay the bills. If we stay on that path we won’t even be able to water the roads to keep the dust down when they completely fall apart. We need an honest conversation about how we capitalize on our ability to be a magnet for innovators who can help us provide the revenue to support the services the community needs. We face two choices we can cut or we can grow.[quote][/quote][/quote]
I think that the statement that “we can cut or we can grow” is way too black and white. This presupposes that the only potential path to “growth” is physical expansion. To me this ignores recent changes in how processes develop and how companies can advance and thrive without physically expanding. Recent electronic communications have made it possible from folks working at distant sites to completely share and make innovations and change based on the work of others in a fully integrated fashion without necessarily being located in the same spot. I think that Kaiser is a major example of this. Many, many Kaiser physicians across Northern California have trained with the Kaiser/ UCD integrated teaching program. They did not need to stay in close physical proximity to either UCD or Kaiser Sacramento to continue to provide the same quality of care.
What we have done is to leverage our electronic systems, be they a fully integrated medical record, labs and imaging that can be accessed from any Kaiser location, and from home which is where I am working today, without need for physical proximity to either the patient unless an exam is needed, or our colleagues any or all of whom can be present with us in real time on the chart. I find it difficult to believe that other industries could not also innovate in ways that would require a smaller “foot print”. I embrace change, just frequently not in the form you favor, and frankly find it somewhat anachronistic to assume that physical proximity trumps all else in our efforts to achieve prosperity.
The basis of blame for everything being discussed is clearly identifiable with the following procedure.
1. First, walk to a mirror and look into it.
2. Then ask that person looking back at you if he/she:
A. Voted for Measures: J, R and O, and against any other growth-stalling, growth-killing measure spawned by one of these three.
B. Supported putting Mace 391 into an ag easement.
C. Next think back to votes on city council members. How many of those did he/she vote for were/are primarily slow or no-growth supporters?
D. Next, ask if the person that answered these previous questions regrets any of these votes, and is dedicated to righting those wrongs going forward.
Based on the answers to those questions, pin a posted note to your forehead that read:
“DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR DAVIS’S IMPENDING FISCAL COLLAPSE”
– or –
“DEDICATED TO SAVING THE CITY FROM FISCAL COLLAPSE”
“What’s being done now to encourage community involvement?”
Hopefully, my speaking out does just what I’m suggesting.
“If this is true, that council approves consent items, why are items frequently pulled from the consent calendar by council members at meetings?”
Politics.
[quote]Hopefully, my speaking out does just what I’m suggesting.[/quote]
I’m asking what can commissions do procedurally to actively encourage more involvement from the public. Maybe I’m being naive, but I would assume they want more people with various points of view involved in the process from the beginning, instead of people, who were not involved and didn’t agree with the decisions they made throwing around accusations at the end of it.
[quote]”DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR DAVIS’S IMPENDING FISCAL COLLAPSE”
– or –
“DEDICATED TO SAVING THE CITY FROM FISCAL COLLAPSE”[/quote]
You do paint with a broad brush.
[i]This anti-everything agenda is typical of California in general where polls consistently show that we want services but don’t want to pay for them[/i]
Use Don Shor as an example.
1. Says he is above the fray because he has identified three plots of land that he supports for business development.
2. Says he supports a sales tax increase.
3. Says he supports more cuts to city workers and their pay and benefits.
Then after doing his best to make sure the city cannot leverage the tremendous open space acquisition, budget and road fund fix that was the Mace 391 business park, he opines that there is a lesser chance now that other plots will be developed.
And he knows that the sales tax increase, if passed, will only be a temporary help.
And he knows that there is not much more we can cut.
So, Don is really telling us all that he does not care so much about the fiscal problems. He is fine with a continued demand that he gets his way even though it clearly results in the city heading to insolvency.
I’m not picking on Don, just using him as the example of a group/class of people living or working in Davis that are really the primary problem that must be solved before the city can be saved.
B. Nice[quote]”If this is true, that council approves consent items, why are items frequently pulled from the consent calendar by council members at meetings?” [/quote]
Mr Toad: [quote]Politics.[/quote]
Huh? What does agreeing to have something put on the consent calendar then pulling from the consent calendar at a meeting have to do with politics.
I have always been curious about how and who decides that goes on the consent calendar, does anyone have an actual answer?
I appreciate the points of view expressed here and have a few observations:
1. Most of the decisions we will be making concerning economic development going forward are going to be complex discussions that must account for many interests and needs. Cannery showed the variety of factors that must be addressed to reach something approaching consensus. To deal with the complexity the CC and staff must find ways to bring commissions and groups who hold pieces of the overall solution together early on to discuss ways to move forward. Thus, any business park development should bring transportation, OSH, ITF, etc. representatives together to wade through opportunities and examine potential challenges to be faced. Creating bridges among these various groups will take time and discipline but I think we are learning we have to do it. All commissions work in the same way in terms of transparency. We need more than that however, we need leaders making connections early on in complex processes.
2. If we are to move forward on any of the ITF sites then several things must happen. Mr Toad raises the first one: the community must be helped to understand the very serious financial situation in which we find ourselves. Matt Williams has been suggesting that people will not vote for a Measure R-related business park because they don’t see “what is in it for me.” City leaders (across the board) must make it clear that remaining where we are on revenue will have negative consequences for “me.”
Further, City Council members must work to achieve 5-0 votes on any peripheral economic development proposals and then work hard together to get them passed. Unity of purpose, a single clear message about the need and a sense that everyone is putting aside narrow interests to promote a given project are critical.
But… and this is an important one… we have got to start showing how economic development activities on the periphery will affect our bottom line. I have called for this before: we need to start seeing what the potential benefit of such development will be for the city. To date, I am not seeing any numbers that suggest what the benefits will be. I am NOT suggesting they are not there and I realize how difficult it is to put a precise number out there given uncertainty about the kinds of businesses that might occupy a an innovation park, the build out time, etc.
But… if we need economic development advances to deal with our fiscal challenges (and I believe we do) then we are going to need some specific plans with specific numbers coming to the table soon. Perhaps a way to start this, as Brett Lee suggested on Tuesday, would be to examine what Marrone and Schilling Robotics need to develop to keep them in Davis and grow their businesses.
The postmortems on this and Cannery can go on but by mid-December Steve Pinkerton will lay out the hard cold facts about our budget situation (something he has already started) to the City Council and then we will need to move together quickly to adopt plans to face the challenges.
Frankly, again I thought the unfunded city pensions were responsible for Davis’s impeding fiscal collapse. What is you support pension reform and open space what does your posted note say then?
“How does putting something on the consent calendar box in council?”
It doesn’t but in this case it did because members of the Open Space Commission fought back and it all went down at the last minute. Interesting that at the time the NRCS informally said no big deal as if they understood the city had decided to go the other way, but later, when given time by open space advocates to organize both a letter writing campaign and turnout at the city council we also had NCRS singing a different tune even putting their objections in writing. Something, I suspect, suggests that open space advocates were able to enlist the unseen hand of their representative at the federal level.
All of this is politics and politics is often a nasty endeavor. My complaint is that we live in a place where its impossible to get anything done because of the opposition to everything that is so strong that our elected officials are afraid to have a transparent discussion about what they obviously knew was in the best interest of the community. Rather than engage with a community that would seek to thwart any attempt to act in the best interest of that community they felt the need to act quietly and thus were forced to fold as soon as there was push back from those whose interests were being set aside.
[i]You do paint with a broad brush.[/i]
I only need to paint with two colors for this.
And it is time we stop deflecting responsibility and blaming others for the problems we are causing.
I see all children and young people as being the primary adult responsibility to care for their long-term well-being.
Any votes, demands and decision that clearly damage their long-term well being are, IMO, justified targets of scorn.
We need to wipe the fake shine off the badge some people get to wear because “they care” when it is clear they really only care about their own selfish wants, or they only care about their ideas prevailing… when their wants and ideas are clearly destructive to children and young people.
[quote]This anti-everything agenda is typical of California in general where polls consistently show that we want services but don’t want to pay for them
Use Don Shor as an example. 1. Says he is above the fray because he has identified three plots of land that he supports for business development. [/quote]
No, the Innovation Task Force has identified them.
[quote]2. Says he supports a sales tax increase. [/quote]
I support a temporary 0.25% sales tax increase to be reconsidered in 3 to 5 years.
[quote]3. Says he supports more cuts to city workers and their pay and benefits. [/quote]
Not true. I support what the council and city manager are doing to stabilize the payroll costs.
[quote]Then after doing his best to make sure the city cannot leverage the tremendous open space acquisition, budget and road fund fix that was the Mace 391 business park, he opines that there is a lesser chance now that other plots will be developed. [/quote]
That is a prediction, not a preference. I will argue on behalf of peripheral projects that use the sites the ITF has identified. I’ve said that repeatedly.
[quote]And he knows that the sales tax increase, if passed, will only be a temporary help. And he knows that there is not much more we can cut. [/quote]
It might be temporary. It might be renewed. Most cities that have adopted small sales tax increases seem to renew them.
[quote] So, Don is really telling us all that he does not care so much about the fiscal problems. [/quote]
I have been very, very specific as to how the city can work on its fiscal problems. You, on the other hand, absolutely refuse to accept any tax increase. Rational people know that solving fiscal problems will be a mix of revenue and expense approaches. Your refusal to even consider one revenue approach makes you the extremist on budget issues. One might even say, it proves that you do not care “so much” about the fiscal problems.
[quote]He is fine with a continued demand that he gets his way even though it clearly results in the city heading to insolvency. [/quote] It isn’t “my way.” It is no more likely to lead the city to insolvency than your refusal to consider sales tax increases. Look in the mirror, Frankly, using your own guide.
[quote] I’m not picking on Don, just using him as the example of a group/class of people living or working in Davis that are really the primary problem that must be solved before the city can be saved. [/quote]
Really, it was the business community and the pro-Mace391 advocates that were the ‘my way or the highway’ problem. Now that the easement has been confirmed, perhaps we can actually get something done.
Frankly
[quote]Any votes, demands and decision that clearly damage their long-term well being are, IMO, justified targets of scorn.
We need to wipe the fake shine off the badge some people get to wear because “they care” when it is clear they really only care about their own selfish wants, or they only care about their ideas prevailing… when their wants and ideas are clearly destructive to children and young people.[/quote]
I could not agree more. The problem is that we disagree on which actions are selfish, and which promote more choice for the future generations. I do not believe any of us are prescient enough to judge what values they will hold most dear.
This whole topic is very troubling. How could this issue ever have appeared on the consent calendar when it ultimately was voted down unanimously?
Why did anyone within the City think it appropriate to violate the spirit of Measure O?
How is it that council members were open to violating the spirit of Measure O, but opposed to possibly injuring the reputation of the Yolo Land Trust? Was that just an easy out, or a misplaced set of values?
” I do not believe any of us are prescient enough to judge what values they will hold most dear.”
If they are anything like their progressive parents they will hold property values most dear.
[i]Frankly, again I thought the unfunded city pensions were responsible for Davis’s impeding fiscal collapse. What is you support pension reform and open space what does your posted note say then?[/i]
Sure, but do I have to repeat over and over again how dismally low Davis’s tax revenue is compared to almost any other comparable city?
The pension thing is completely effed up because of the legal protections. The decision were made and now they cannot be undone. So continuing to bring this up as a cause is waste of time and energy.
How are you going to solve the fiscal problems?
Did you see the council dealing with the cuts to DCEA?
This brings me to a point that is glaringly telling. I wonder how many city employees, including teachers, are on the left-leaning no-growth bandwagon? I’m guessing that they have been. I wonder if the DCEA employees that left council chambers after losing their plea to protect their cash out benfits, even understand how the council vote to continue withe the Mace 391 easement was connected to their bad news.
My point here is that many Davisites are so ideological biased and prone to denial, deflection and can-kicking that they cannot even trace the facts back to understand that their positions on growth are the source of their own pain.
I wrote at 12:20
[quote]I appreciate the points of view expressed here..[/quote]
Maybe not ALL of them 😉
BNice
[quote]Maybe I’m being naive, but I would assume they want more people with various points of view involved in the process from the beginning, instead of people, who were not involved and didn’t agree with the decisions they made throwing around accusations at the end of it.[/quote]
I do not think this is naive. I am not on any of the city commissions, but I am actively engaged with 3 public health related entities in Yolo County. As a voting member of each, I can state that the vast majority of the members of these groups would prefer to have all points of view represented when an initiative is being considered rather than opposed at the last minute, often in noisy, pejorative ways. My default would always be to consider all concerns, have everything out on the table to begin with and try to build a solution based on common ground. I don’t know the best means for getting there but would be interested in hearing others answers to your question as it also impacts what I do on the county level.
[i]The problem is that we disagree on which actions are selfish, and which promote more choice for the future generations. I do not believe any of us are prescient enough to judge what values they will hold most dear.[/i]
Medwoman, you don’t need to be prescient, you just need to know how to use a calculator or spreadsheet. You want a good life, well then someone has to pay for it. Despite what you might prefer, a community does not run well enough off just open-space, sunlight and karma.
Don’t you find it ironic that someone like Don that claims that farming is the only business worth using competing land for can just skip over the value of the business that actually produces the tools and technologies that help make farming work as a business? He can also skip over the benefits that good jobs will provide people and the tax revenue it will provide a community and just move to demonizing business as being motivated by profit (ignoring for the moment that farming is also a business motivated by profit) and are all bad stewards of the environment.
Either he is skipping over it because:
1. It interferes with his desire to see his ideas prevail.
2. He has some unknown material want that would be impacted.
3. Cannot run a calculator or spreadsheet well enough.
4. Thinks others should worry about paying the bills.
5. Thinks something magical will occur later.
6. Proposes solutions that are completely inadequate, but good enough to allow him to sleep well at night knowing he is Destructoman.
Sorry Don, again I am using you as part of a common group of actors in this town. You are the most verbose and visible of a large group of voters in the city that pretty much behave the same way related to growth.
[i]Maybe not ALL of them[/i]
Please share!
Robb
First I would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments. I want to write like you when I “grow up”.
[quote]√Further, City Council members must work to achieve 5-0 votes on any peripheral economic development proposals and then work hard together to get them passed. Unity of purpose, a single clear message about the need and a sense that everyone is putting aside narrow interests to promote a given project are critical. [/quote]
I think that this is of critical importance. I have posted previously about management being most effective when all of the concerns of even one member of the team are completely and thoroughly addressed before an initiative is put forward. To not accomplish this, is frequently seen ( whether accurately or not) by those who also held this concern to be dismissive and disrespectful of their point of view. This will then serve as a nidus for dissension and attempts to undermine the process.
[quote]Don’t you find it ironic that someone like Don that claims that farming is the only business worth using competing land for can just skip over the value of the business that actually produces the tools and technologies that help make farming work as a business? [/quote]
Huh?
[quote]He can also skip over the benefits that good jobs will provide people and the tax revenue it will provide a community and just move to demonizing business as being motivated by profit (ignoring for the moment that farming is also a business motivated by profit) and are all bad stewards of the environment.[/quote]
I don’t even know what you’re trying to say.
I’ll just deal with the strawmen first.
There are other sites for business parks than Mace 391.
I don’t demonize business. I really don’t know who you’re arguing with. It isn’t me.
[quote] 2. He has some unknown material want that would be impacted. [/quote]
Nope.
[quote]3. Cannot run a calculator or spreadsheet well enough. [/quote]
Nope. I know how to use them just fine.
[quote]4. Thinks others should worry about paying the bills. [/quote]
Nope. Since I’ve described fiscal solutions, and am a local taxpayer, and generate sales tax revenue, obviously that isn’t true.
[quote]5. Thinks something magical will occur later. [/quote]
Not sure what you have in mind.
[quote]6. Proposes solutions that are completely inadequate, but good enough to allow him to sleep well at night knowing he is Destructoman. [/quote]
The fiscal solutions most cities are going to take will be a blend of revenue and expense policies. They aren’t based on speculative land deals.
[quote]Sure, but do I have to repeat over and over again how dismally low Davis’s tax revenue is compared to almost any other comparable city? [/quote]
Davis has higher property tax revenue per capita, and lower sales tax revenue per capita, than our neighbors.
So Don, what about a business that manufactures farming equipment or technology on Mace 391?
And while you answer that you would be fine locating it in East Davis where you also know it would be DOA, also please answer how the city should fund its road maintenance over the next 20 years.
[i]And while you answer that you would be fine locating it in East Davis [/i]
Sorry, meant West Davis.
A business that manufactures farming equipment can locate on ag-zoned land.
[quote]It doesn’t but in this case it did because members of the Open Space Commission fought back and it all went down at the last minute.[/quote]
The Open Space Commission had nothing to do with it “going down at the last minute”.
[quote]Interesting that at the time the NRCS informally said no big deal as if they understood the city had decided to go the other way, but later, when given time by open space advocates to organize both a letter writing campaign and turnout at the city council we also had NCRS singing a different tune even putting their objections in writing. Something, I suspect, suggests that open space advocates were able to enlist the unseen hand of their representative at the federal level. [/quote]
Lets assume for a minute that this statement is factually true, which I don’t see evidence for. You think it’s wrong for open space advocates to advocate for something it believes in? Since when are letter writing campaigns and encouraging turnout at council meeting bad things? Unless they were bribed or threatened the NCRS is responsible for their own decisions. What is wrong with enlisting the help of representatives?
[quote]Rather than engage with a community that would seek to thwart any attempt to act in the best interest of that community they felt the need to act quietly and thus were forced to fold as soon as there was push back from those whose interests were being set aside.[/quote]
Again lets pretend this claim is factually based. Your condoning council executing decisions that they think are in the best interest of the community quietly when their might be public pushback?
If council [u]really believed[/u] that turning down the grant was in the best interest of the community why would they “fold to those whose interest were being set aside”. What would motivate them to do so?
[i]A business that manufactures farming equipment can locate on ag-zoned land. [/i]
LOL. Sure, one with a permanent ag easement?
Frankly
[quote]Don’t you find it ironic that someone like Don that claims that farming is the only business worth using competing land for can just skip over the value of the business that actually produces the tools and technologies that help make farming work as a business? He can also skip over the benefits that good jobs will provide people and the tax revenue it will provide a community and just move to demonizing business as being motivated by profit (ignoring for the moment that farming is also a business motivated by profit) and are all bad stewards of the environment.
Either he is skipping over it because:
1. It interferes with his desire to see his ideas prevail.
2. He has some unknown material want that would be impacted.
3. Cannot run a calculator or spreadsheet well enough.
4. Thinks others should worry about paying the bills.
5. Thinks something magical will occur later.
6. Proposes solutions that are completely inadequate, but good enough to allow him to sleep well at night knowing he is Destructoman.
[/quote]
I would indeed find it ironic if I felt that was what he was doing. For reasons that he has posted over and over again, I do not agree with your interpretation of his position. Nor do I believe that the more vocal members of the “slow growthers” are “skipping over” anything. Many folks in the community may indeed be skipping over the issues because their attention is elsewhere, but I do not believe that this applies to the active folks on either side.
You once posted a semi-tongue in cheek description of the differences between liberals and conservatives. I offered a more nuanced list over which you electronically chuckled. Perhaps I can bring the same to this conversation.
So addressing your points one by one:
1) Is this not what we all do when we feel that our ideas are superior to what is being proposed? Why would
you expect anyone else to behave differently than you would under identical circumstances ?
2) He has some unknown “material” want that would be impacted. Again, as frequently posted, I disagree with you that material wants for one’s self always trump all other actions. Maybe he has some other type of value that trumps his potential “material” gain.
3) Does not add up the pros and cons in the same way, or in the same time frame as you do.
4) Thinks that there are other “non magical” solutions that will work as well as those you favor.
5) I don’t recognize the reference to “Destructoman” so I will have to pass on that one.
[quote]Medwomen: Robb, First I would like to thank you for your thoughtful comments. I want to write like you when I “grow up”. [/quote]
Medwomen, I was thinking the same thing, (but I think that when I read your posts as well:-).
[quote]A business that manufactures farming equipment can locate on ag-zoned land.
LOL. Sure, one with a permanent ag easement?[/quote]
Are you aware of a manufacturer of farming equipment that is looking for land in the city limits? There are loads of places in Yolo and Solano counties where a farming equipment manufacturer can locate.
So once again: strawman.
[quote]Davis 2011-12
Property tax:$14,829,182
Sales tax: $8,279, 385
Woodland 2011-12
Property tax: $8,773,000
Sales tax: $15,165,000 [/quote]
Ok, so Davis takes in about $23MM and Woodland about $24MM
Given the population of Woodland (about 56.2) and Davis (about 65.5) that means that little ol’ and somewhat poor Woodland take in $409 per capita and relatively affluent Davis takes in $351 per capita.
Don’t get me going on REAL comparable cities.
One question… since UCD student living on campus cannot vote, I assume they are also not counted in the city population figure. Does anyone know if this is the case?
Related to that point, Davis has to deal with the population of a very large UCD employer… one that does not pay any property taxes… and so our per capita tax revenue needs for many things… things like road maintenance… would tend to be inflated.
Yet, here we are lagging below our smaller and poorer bother to the North.
I’m sure Woodland would be delighted to have a per capita property tax revenue comparable to Davis. Bear in mind that the Woodland sales tax figures include their higher sales tax. Woodland voters have passed and renewed a local increase in sales tax that is higher than Davis.
[quote]I think a better job could be done to more actively let people know what different commissions are working on, when they are meeting, and decisions they are making. It seems right now you can find the information if you look for it, but I think a more proactive approach would be beneficial.[/quote]
One idea, one of the commission members could serve as a public relations coordinator. This person could be in charge of making the public aware of when meetings occur and what the agenda is. They could periodically write pieces for the Vanguard or the Enterprise regarding their commission’s work. They could also monitor these new sources and respond factually to comments or questions regarding their efforts. I often see factually inaccurate material written in the “letter to editors” section of the Enterprise, and in articles written by their regular contributor, and posts on this blog (though not so much because their is more public engagement) go uncorrected.
Don Shor: “[i]What we had was an attempt by certain segments of the business community to bypass the city’s commission process. The commissions work well because they act in public and provide opportunities for discussion, public comment, and they follow certain rules. It’s cumbersome for a reason: to avoid the very conflicts of interest that pervaded the whole Mace 391 discussion.[/i]”
Until June 2013, the City Council never discussed Mace 391 in open session. According to the time line that Staff published, all the Council discussions were in closed session with the final purchase determined as part of the consent calendar. The only commission that apparently considered the parcel was the Open Space & Habitat Commission. Not Finance and Budget, BEDC or the Innovation Park Task Force. Why was this the case?
“[i]The Innovation Park Task Force didn’t address Mace 391. They identified other sites. My point, again, is that the proposal for a business park on Mace 391 did NOT go through the commissions, was not subjected to public scrutiny, and was presented to the city council in a manner almost guaranteed to make people justifiably suspicious.[/i]”
Isn’t that the point. The entire time that the IPTF was operating, at least two members (Joe and Rochelle) knew that the City had the Mace 391 parcel, yet in your narrative they ‘didn’t address Mace 391.’ So why not? Wouldn’t it make sense to discuss the parcels that the City already owned in the areas that the task force was considering for recommending for development? Who was responsible for keeping a discussion of Mace 391 off the table?
With this history you accuse the business community of trying to bypass the commission process? I think a fairer analysis of the history suggests that it was certain members of City Council and City Staff that worked to bypass the commission process and keep this discussion away from the public’s awareness. Unfortunately, this sort of behavior is just ‘par for the course’ for Davis, so I have no expectation it will ever change, in part because people like you are so willing to ignore or excuse the behavior when it results in your preferred outcome.
[quote]The only commission that apparently considered the parcel was the Open Space & Habitat Commission. Not Finance and Budget, BEDC or the Innovation Park Task Force. Why was this the case? [/quote]
Because it was purchased, as I understand it, for the purpose of conserving it. Am I wrong about that?
[quote]With this history you accuse the business community of trying to bypass the commission process?[/quote]
When did David Morris present his land swap proposal to city commissions? (This is a genuine question, not rhetorical — I don’t know the answer).
[quote]If we are to move forward on any of the ITF sites then several things must happen.[/quote]
One more for the list, and it’s a biggie: the folks who control the property (i.e. by ownership or option) have to be interested in and capable of planning and building a business park. It’s the sine qua non in the equation that the city doesn’t control.
And Davis residents are paying the increased sales tax in Woodland because they provide the retail outlets
[quote]And Davis residents are paying the increased sales tax in Woodland because they provide the retail outlets[/quote]
But if we had all these retail outlets in Davis property values would be lower.
“But if we had all these retail outlets in Davis property values would be lower.”
Another progressive voice rings out for preservation of property values.
you clearly missed her point. the point is that sales tax is part of the city’s revenue, but so too is property tax. raising sales tax at the expense of property tax creates a net zero effect.
+1-“If they are anything like their progressive parents they will hold property values most dear. “
I doubt property values would fall if retail was provided in Davis. And Davis taxes themselves to preserve open space between Davis and Woodland. And Davis sends Yolo County millions every year for pass through agreement
“When did David Morris present his land swap proposal to city commissions?”
During the 22 Oct 2013 City Council meeting, in response to a question from Brett Lee, the City Manager stated that the first time he had heard there was interest in swapping the Mace 391 parcel with another parcel was sometime in October of 2012 (About the 1:20 point of the video). Both Brett and Steve were careful not to mention any names, but I think it was reasonable to assume they were both referring to David Morris. It does not appear to have been a formal proposal, but serious enough that the City inquired with the NRCS about transferring the grant from Mace 391 to another parcel. My understanding of the timeline from then on was that David Morris did not secure control of the Shriner’s property until near the end of May of 2013, at which point, he and City Staff could formally start a dialog about the proposed land swap.
At the 11 June 2013 meeting, Item H on the consent calendar, staff recommended the following action:
“[i]Authorize staff to notify the Yolo Land Trust that the City will decline to proceed with Natural Resource Conversation Service (NRCS) funding for the resale of the First Bank of NW Arkansas Property and [b]further direct staff to explore options to leverage the property for urban agriculture transition area and local economic development strategies[/b].[/i]” [emphasis mine]
That item would have been discussed individually by the City Manager with each member of the Council in advance of the June 11th meeting for it to appear on the consent calendar. Had the Council agreed with the staff recommendation, then it would have been reasonable to expect that a proposal from David Morris would have been formally vetted by Staff and the appropriate commissions.
There are two important points here. First, David Morris could not have presented his proposal to the commissions prior to the 11 June 2013 for the simple reason that he did not control the Shriner property and therefore could not make a formal proposal to the City. Don’s harping that the idea was never properly vetted, while accurate, is completely disingenuous since the Council’s action on June 11th prevented that opportunity from ever occurring.
The second point is that the City was well aware of the interest in using the Mace 391 parcel for a Innovation Park, with Steve Pinkerton stating that he was aware of the interest as early as October 2012. It is inconceivable to me that the information was not relayed to at least some of the members of the City Council over the ensuing 8 months. Why else would the City have asked the NRCS for extensions on the grant deadline so that they could gather additional information about alternative uses of the property? Since everyone ‘knew’ the interest was there, why didn’t the City Council ask for the analysis of the various options for the property that was only belatedly presented this week? I think it is entirely disingenuous for members of the City Council to blame and berate the Staff for failures in process, as they have done repeatedly over the past five months of this discussion. This was not a failure of process, it was a failure by our City Council to demand the proper analysis of all the options for this property during the three years that we have owned it.
[quote]you clearly missed her point. the point is that sales tax is part of the city’s revenue, but so too is property tax. raising sales tax at the expense of property tax creates a net zero effect.[/quote]
Yeah, this was my point.
[quote]I doubt property values would fall if retail was provided in Davis.[/quote]
U.C. Davis and our school test score would probably keep property values stable. But there are other negative impacts that come with large box stores. I think they alter the character of a town, and part of the reason Davis is Davis is because we limit them. I don’t think we need to compromise the towns core values to save it finically.
Side note: If people (you know who you are shopping at Home Depot) want to live in a town with the convenience of big box stores, there are plenty to choose from.
[quote]At the 11 June 2013 meeting, Item H on the consent calendar, staff recommended the following action:
“Authorize staff to notify the Yolo Land Trust that the City will decline to proceed with Natural Resource Conversation Service (NRCS) funding for the resale of the First Bank of NW Arkansas Property and further direct staff to explore options to leverage the property for urban agriculture transition area and local economic development strategies.” [emphasis mine] [/quote]
I’m having a really hard time understanding why Korvoza, given his very apparent lack of support for this recommendation at a recent council meeting, would allow it to be placed on the consent calendar June.
[quote]Don’s harping that the idea was never properly vetted, while accurate, is completely disingenuous since the Council’s action on June 11th prevented that opportunity from ever occurring. [/quote]
My interpretation, Don was commenting that it hadn’t been vetted [u]before[/u] it was proposed on June 11th. So council was being asked to sacrifice the grant money for an idea brought forth from the public sector which had received no public input at the time.
B.Nice
[quote]One idea, one of the commission members could serve as a public relations coordinator.[/quote]
I think that this is a very good idea. I cannot apply it on the local level on city commissions, but what I can do after the first of the year is to try out this concept from the county health related boards here on the Vanguard to see if folks think it is of value. I would graciously retreat if there were no interest.
[quote]This was not a failure of process, it was a failure by our City Council to demand the proper analysis of all the options for this property during the three years that we have owned it. [/quote]
If [u]Measure O funds [/u]hadn’t been used to purchase it, and the YLT hadn’t been recruited by the city to apply for and ultimately receive a grant for the property, I’d agree they should have considered at all the options. But given that these things did occur, I’d argue that it wasn’t appropriate for them to be considering other options.
[quote]My interpretation, Don was commenting that it hadn’t been vetted before it was proposed on June 11th. So council was being asked to sacrifice the grant money for an idea brought forth from the public sector which had received no public input at the time. [/quote]
And, based on the timeline Mark West provides above, I would say staff and council were not taking David Morris’es proposal very seriously between Oct 2012 and June 2013, for a number of reasons that seem pretty self-evident to me. By the time he appeared to have a serious proposal, and might have persuaded them that he actually had the funding (not evident to me, based on what we now know), the deadline for the conservation easement forced a fast decision.
As I said on a prior thread, everything he was proposing was speculative and he was an unknown partner as to his ability to perform. The land trusts are solid partners and the funding for that process was secure and reliable.
Davis property values are a function of:
1. Low supply caused by slow and no-growth population.
2. Demand caused by the university housing need.
3. Property value stability from the prior two.
4. Amenities, which include:
a. Good public schools
b. Low crime
c. Relatively low traffic
d. Central location (coast-mountains)
e. Human vibrancy
f. Parks and bike friendliness
g. Shopping and entertainment
Now, what would tend to risk a decline in property values?
1. Increase of supply exceeding demand. (Note that for both residential and commercial, that would take a very big increase in inventory given the pent-up demand.)
2. Decline in UCD attendance and employees.
3. Property value instability from the first two.
4. A drop in the number of, or quality of, our amenities:
a. Declining quality of our public schools
b. Higher crime rates
c. Real or perceived worse than average traffic
e. Drop in human vibrancy reduction of percentage of young families and young professionals
f. Parks not being maintained, and bike paths not being maintained
g. Growing shabbiness of shopping and entertainment choices.
What would tend to increase property values?
1. Increased demand for housing without building enough new housing to accommodate it, or [b] Economic Development [/b] that would lead to…
1. Increase demand to accommodate a percentage of the new workers.
2. Increased UCD attendance by raising the profile of education value given the increase in local employment opportunities, combined with the increase in prestige and revenue the university would achieve and leverage to attract more student interest.
3. Greater property value stability from increased demand.
4. Improvement of town amenities from increased tax revenue from greater economic activity.
a. More kids going to the schools and helping fund the schools. More businesses in town with employees with kids in local schools… and both contributing to the schools.
b. Money to pay and retain public safety employees
d. Increase in human vibrancy with more young families and more young professionals
f. Money to not only maintain our existing parks and bike paths, but more added to new developments.
g. Money for redevelopment of downtown, and alternative retail and entertainment venues to increase supply, quality and choice.
What is the ONLY downside for economic development?
1. More traffic
2. Loss of some farmland and open space.
Seems like we are giving up quite a lot so we don’t have more traffic and we don’t lose any farmland… especially given we all ready have plenty of both.
Matt
[quote]Finally, they compounded the escalation problem by informing the City that they planned on attending the Council meeting to verbally convey the same message contained in their letter. Then when Ms. Kiger did show up and speak it was more of the same non-transparent, veiled “may” “might” “could” rhetoric. She was like an elementary school child who the teacher calls up to the front of the class to answer questions, only to say “I didn’t do my homework.” [/quote]
It seemed to me that there was quite a bit of “may, might and could” rhetoric coming from both sides.
The economic advantages of developing on this site could also be seen as speculative. I do not have any firmly developed opinion about what the optimal outcome here would have been. But I do know speculation when I hear it and neither side had a monopoly.
Frankly, I have heard no one on this blog disagree with the idea that we need more economic development, but I don’t think we need to sell our souls to the devil to get it.
I don’t think there is any risk to Davis property values as long as the university enrollment and employment base are growing faster than housing is being built, UC Davis remains a desirable university, and Davis schools are perceived as better than the surrounding schools.
[quote]Then when Ms. Kiger did show up and speak it was more of the same non-transparent, veiled “may” “might” “could” rhetoric. [/quote]
Her answers were quite appropriate to the level of the questions being asked. You seem to want her to have given a full seminar on the ins and outs of grant approvals. And we have more denigration of conservation professionals.
[i]Frankly, I have heard no one on this blog disagree with the idea that we need more economic development, but I don’t think we need to sell our souls to the devil to get it[/i]
What Devil?
From my perspective the devil is the no-growthers and those farmland preservation extremists and those that continue to ignore the city’s fiscal realities and are fine with more kicking the can down the road to our children.
You simply cannot develop the economy without land to develop.
There is not enough land to develop because of the devil I described.
[quote]Then when Ms. Kiger did show up and speak it was more of the same non-transparent, veiled “may” “might” “could” rhetoric. She was like an elementary school child who the teacher calls up to the front of the class to answer questions, only to say “I didn’t do my homework.”[/quote]
She seemed uncomfortable, could we legitimately chalk some of this up to the fact the she is not used to addressing these issue’s in a public forum. Did she realize that council was going to be asking her questions? Or did she think she was just coming to give a statement? Realistically should she have known the answers to the question they were asking her off the top of her head. Could she have been afraid to give inaccurate information?
[quote]What Devil?[/quote]
Home Depot
[quote]You simply cannot develop the economy without land to develop.
There is not enough land to develop because of the devil I described.[/quote]
You’ve got 475 acres.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”You’ve got 475 acres.”[/i]
No Don. Until we have successfully achieved a “Yes” vote, we have zero (0) acres, and with zero acres Schilling Robotics and Marrone Bio Innovations will be on a trajectory to be packing their bags and leaving Davis.
[i]The economic advantages of developing on this site could also be seen as speculative.[/i]
The problem here.
The land preservation extremists are the “one-percenters” in Davis. They control all the land-use wealth.
There is a huge wealth gap in the rich land preservation portfolio and the poor economic development land portfolio.
Business is always speculative. Just like it would be speculative for us to take more dollars from the successful to give to the less successful. It is speculative that this would result in better outcomes.
But you still demand it because you think it is the right thing to do.
It is the right thing to do to grow our economy, and it cannot be done without designating land to do so.
And with Mace 391 we would have had both designated land AND a financial windfall for the city.
So the one-percenters in land-use wealth get their way again, and the rest of us suffer.
[quote]No Don. Until we have successfully achieved a “Yes” vote, we have zero (0) acres[/quote]
Pointless, Matt.
[quote]Business is always speculative. Just like it would be speculative for us to take more dollars from the successful to give to the less successful. It is speculative that this would result in better outcomes.
…
And with Mace 391 we would have had both designated land AND a financial windfall for the city. [/quote]
That financial windfall was not even remotely guaranteed. The team promoting the land swap comprised one person. That person’s ability to deliver the necessary funding was not just unknown, but increasingly questionable.
You wanted the city of Davis to become a land speculator with tax dollars. There are levels of risk that are not appropriate for municipal government to take on. Cities don’t develop land well; just ask Redding how their business park is going.
[quote]The land preservation extremists are the “one-percenters” in Davis. They control all the land-use wealth. [/quote]
You have 475 acres.
Frankly
I believe that you have left a few points out of your analysis. I would add the following to your lists:
Davis property values are a function of:
h. location in the heart of one of the richest agricultural areas in the country
I. open space
j. a very involved community
k. a downtown with a truly unique character
I am pretty much in agreement with your assessment of the factors that would likely enhance or undermine
property values. However, we again part company on the number of potential downsides of poorly defined
economic development, by which I mean development that is not part of a well defined and mutually agreed upon vision for the community without consideration of the potential downsides.
So to your very short list of downsides, I would add the following.
1. More traffic leading to : increased congestion in the downtown thus spurring demand by some for more
“power centers “( or whatever you like to call peripheral malls these days) – sprawl by any other name to me.
More stressors on our roadways – spiraling need for more revenue to support the added traffic.
More people driving their children to school and themselves around town because of what they perceive as
unsafe conditions for biking. Subtle but definite erosion of public health by lessened air quality and more
sedentary lifestyle promoted.We all pay for this. Just because we don’t receive a bill doesn’t mean it doesn’t
cost us.
2. More demand for housing, probably more of the same poorly connected developments as we have already.
With more inhabitants will come more crime ( ask the police if you don’t believe me on this). This is not fear,
it is reality.
3. Loss of the unique character of our city. Much of the reason that people choose to live in Davis is because of
its charm which distinguishes it from any of the surrounding communities. Add enough businesses and
people and you may have something that you prefer, but it will most certainly not be the same Davis that
drew many of us to it in the first place. Again, it is always possible to develop more. Once built, a business
or tech park or shopping center will not revert to its native state. This is a permanent decision as much as
is placing an easement. If you oppose one permanent decision, I see it as quite inconsistent to close one’s
eyes to the downside of the other.
Please bear in mind I did not advocate for any position with regard to this issue. I am only writing because I see this as more complicated than you are making it out to be.
[quote]No Don. Until we have successfully achieved a “Yes” vote, we have zero (0) acres, and with zero acres Schilling Robotics and Marrone Bio Innovations will be on a trajectory to be packing their bags and leaving Davis.[/quote]
Couldn’t we same the same about Mace 391?
Davis is not Redding. Not by a LONG SHOT!
Just the location on I-80 verses far north on I-5 alone makes your comparison incomparable. I don’t have to list all the thousands of things that are so wrong with your comparison. It is apparent.
If you want, I can dig up my previous post of the list of all the colleges around the country that have worked with their communities to design and develop VERY successful innovation business parks. Do you want that list again?
[quote]The land preservation extremists are the “one-percenters” in Davis.[/quote]
I think you underestimate their numbers.
Frankly you live in a town that has different values regarding land use then you. While I believe your intentions are pure, you are trying to change Davis into something it just fundamentally isn’t. Like fitting a square peg into a round hole. Without changing the shape it’s never going to happen.
Don Shor: “[i]Cities don’t develop land well; just ask Redding how their business park is going.[/i]”
I wasn’t aware that the University of California opened a new campus in Redding, and that U.C. Redding was considered one of the best Agricultural Universities in the world. Silly me, I guess I don’t keep up on the news enough…
[quote]If you want, I can dig up my previous post of the list of all the colleges around the country that have worked with their communities to design and develop VERY successful innovation business parks. Do you want that list again?[/quote]
No, you should probably present that to the Innovation Task Force so they can get going implementing those great ideas on one of the sites they’ve identified.
No, Davis is not Redding. But Redding didn’t get a single tenant for years. I don’t know if they even have one yet. There is high risk in developing commercial land. There are hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant space in Natomas, West Sacramento, Vacaville, and Dixon right now. All a lot cheaper than anything we will ever develop here.
Revenues from developing a business park will not come in quickly. We have the advantage of a couple of very likely tenants that have expressed a general interest. But business parks don’t fill up immediately. They are speculative, and to suggest that the city get into the land speculation and development business is irresponsible. Finally, I don’t know in what universe soil conservation, land preservation, and careful urban development became
‘extreme’.
Mark: [quote]I wasn’t aware that the University of California opened a new campus in Redding, and that U.C. Redding was considered one of the best Agricultural Universities in the world.[/quote]
How quickly do you think a 200 acre business park will fill up in Davis?
“While I believe your intentions are pure, you are trying to change Davis into something it just fundamentally isn’t.”
Or perhaps you are trying to keep Davis from reaching its full potential by clinging to the past instead of embracing the future.
A tad frustrated at this point in the conversation. Can I put forth the following:
1. There is general agreement by those who appear to be on opposing sides of whether what happened with 391 was a good or a bad thing for the city that we, Davis, CA, face a serious fiscal challenge right now. That fiscal challenge is a function of needing to deal with unfunded liabilities: roads in disrepair and rapidly declining in quality, soaring health care costs that affect both current employees and retirees, and increasing pension contributions required by Calpers (which includes some backfilling for current retirees). Our revenues do not cover our expenses and the situation is getting worse (projected cumulative general fund deficit of $15 million in 5 years)
2. There is general agreement that economic development holds out hope of helping generate revenue streams but that revenue from new economic development activities is not going to come on line quickly.
3. There appears to be agreement that new economic development opportunities (perhaps not all but some) will require development of peripheral sites (those identified by the IPTF to begin with) and those will require some kind of citizen’s vote.
4. Like it or not, Mace 391 is currently off the table as a site.
So, given these agreements and realities, why can’t we all just pause a moment and figure out how we are going to work together to get some development activities underway. As Jim Frame wrote earlier, we could start by finding out what current landowners in the IPTF parcels are willing/capable of doing with those parcels. We could also start by having CC pass a resolution along the lines of Brett’s statement that this CC intends to move aggressively to find solutions for our homegrown businesses in the next X months.
Can I get some broad affirmation on these points?
Can those who feel they are on opposing sides of 391 come together on these issues?
Can we stop (for a moment at least) the accusations of “devils and dead enders” and try to apply our good sense to call on the CC to take some quick action? How powerful would it be if a diverse group made up of Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me and others wrote a joint letter to the CC affirming the foregoing and asking for action? This is not just about “getting along” but starting to aggressively move forward to start finding some solutions in places where there is a basic level of agreement.
Meds, first you just expanded on the traffic concern. It seems a very overblown concern to me. But of course it is your choice to have that big of a problem with traffic increases. What are you going to do about our city growing more dense as we don’t develop and UCD keeps growing. Don’t you think traffic will increase anyway?
2. More crime – there is not a direct correlation between population and crime. You cannot make that case as an absolute. For example, with more tax revenue, we can afford more tools and training for our city law prevention and enforcement.
3. Character, charm, yada yada yada – I don’t mean to be dismissive of this point, but it is like you are telling me that one painting is better than the other because it is more charming and has more character. I think there are plenty of larger cities that have more charm and character than Davis… that is the opinion of many. I think there are plenty of improvements that increasing our business sector would provide that, frankly, I don’t think you can visualize as being improvements even though they would be. For one, having more young families and more young professionals in the town would help improve and maintain the human vibrancy.
Your final comments indicate a strong desire for Davis to stay the way it is. What you need to consider is that Davis is nearing a tipping point where it is going to change one way or the other. One way is the change forced upon it from insolvency. The other is change we can design and implement to prevent us from going insolvent.
You pick!
[quote]Or perhaps you are trying to keep Davis from reaching its full potential by clinging to the past instead of embracing the future.[/quote]
We may have different idea’s on what “reaching full potential” and what we want the future of this town to look like. Yours might not be town I want to live in.
“You wanted the city of Davis to become a land speculator with tax dollars.”
Measure O already made us land speculators. The Bank of Arkansas made us land speculators. The open space advocates just gave away the farm making us very poor land speculators. Of all the possible outcomes we ended up with the one that least reflects the interests of the tax payers and citizens of Davis. A great outcome for land trust types like yourself but not so good for the rest of us.
B. Nice said . . .
[i]”No Don. Until we have successfully achieved a “Yes” vote, we have zero (0) acres, and with zero acres Schilling Robotics and Marrone Bio Innovations will be on a trajectory to be packing their bags and leaving Davis.
Couldn’t we same the same about Mace 391?”[/i]
Absolutely!!!! However, the difference is that with Mace 391 we had a “basket of goodies” to bribe the Measure O supporters with massively more acres of land on the Urban Fringe being put into permanent Ag Farmland Conservation . . . the real achievement of the Urban Boundary that the no-growthers pine for. With Ramos/Bruner the number of acres of Urban Fringe put into Conservation Easement will be zero and the amount of Urban Boundary created will be 7,250 feet . . . less than 1.5 miles. No “basket of goodies” will mean thousands on “No” votes that otherwis would have been “Yes” votes.
[i]The land preservation extremists are the “one-percenters” in Davis.
I think you underestimate their numbers.[/i]
B. Nice – you had a slight mental breakdown responding to this point.
Note what I wrote again.
And consider that we are not talking about a majority. We are talking about a minority that controls the lion’s share of the land the assets and the land-use power.
5,000 acres of peripheral land preservation around Davis compared to about 630,000 acres of available open land to preserve… including a current 22,000 acres on record for wanting easements, and how much peripheral land have we allocated for economic development.
My oh my… I am thinking that we need some land redistribution policy to given some to the poor business and economic development community.
So, what is the fair share of land that the business and economic development community should get?
Are the land preservationists greedy, or are their doing their fair share to help others?
Robb: if your proposal is that a number of individuals urge the council to
acknowledge the need for economic development,
recommend that they and staff focus on that more intensively,
and that they work with landowners to develop and expedite proposals for business sites
(1) within the city limits, and
(2) for Measure R votes on ITF-identified sites…
…. I am in agreement with that.
Frankly
[quote]You simply cannot develop the economy without land to develop.
[/quote]
This would be true if ever increasing amounts of land were the only means to economic growth. For reasons that we discussed very recently, I do not believe that this is true. I believe that a great deal of economic value can be generated without creating ever increasing amounts of buildings. I believe that it is this limited view of what the future may hold that is what is truly blocking fundamental change. Personal computers, the Internet,
integration of communication systems have fundamentally altered the way that many people are structuring their lives. Kaiser is setting a new standard for this in health care, not by building ever more hospitals, but rather by leveraging modern technologies to meet people’s needs in innovative ways. I do not believe that it is those of us who are truly seeking a completely new means of promoting prosperity that is not dependent on the same basic model of the last 50 years that are not “embracing the future” or preventing progress.
I believe that it is those who are reluctant to abandon technologies and means of using the earth that have proven to have severe adverse consequences who are “clinging to the past” as though there is only one possible way to improve economically and that is to build, despite evidence to the contrary.
Don Shor: “How quickly do you think a 200 acre business park will fill up in Davis?”
If you don’t build it, never.
If you wait for it to be fully leased before you plan it, never.
Your approach to economic development hasn’t worked to date Don, why do you think it will now?
Thanks for the reconstruction tick tock Mark West. As for why Joe let it be on the consent calendar and then came down so hard on the side of the open space advocates is because he was playing to his base and jumped ship at the first whiff of trouble. Rochelle responded to Joe’s rant about what changed by pointing out that “Shriners being in play” is what changed. Dan was more honest, courageous and principled voting for the land swap because as he said at the time, back in June, something to the effect of because it was the right thing to do. Lucas knew it was a political disaster and immediately bailed on the swap but did so without the theatrics. Brett played dumb throwing staff under the bus asking “How did we get here?”
They all knew the potential for the land swap and the business park but didn’t want to have the public debate because an honest debate on development isn’t possible in Davis. But behind the scenes or under the radar which ever idiom you prefer the Open Space staff, the Land Trust and NRCS all knew what was up. The Open Space Committee members who blew the whistle either blew up the deal or saved the day depending on your perspective. They most likely did so because they wanted their 27 acre community farm and not for their altruistic belief in Open Space.
Robb Davis said . . .
[i]”Can we stop (for a moment at least) the accusations of “devils and dead enders” and try to apply our good sense to call on the CC to take some quick action? How powerful would it be if a diverse group made up of Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me and others wrote a joint letter to the CC affirming the foregoing and asking for action? This is not just about “getting along” but starting to aggressively move forward to start finding some solutions in places where there is a basic level of agreement.”[/i]
I don’t disagree Robb, but your post fails to deal with the Elephant In The Room . . . all the default “No” voters on a Measure R vote.
Don’s preferred alternative of raising taxes to cover the $6 million per year deficit (General Fund plus the annual debt service on the borrowing to address the Roadway Maintenance Backlog) appears to me to be the only solution that is attainable in the short run. Property Taxes on a 100% Private Innovation Park are going to be slow in coming. First the Measure R vote must be successfully navigated. The the buildings will need to be built. Then the property tax revenue will begin to flow. The alternative public-private partnership that has been taken off the table had the added advantage of being able to generate Special Assessment District Levies beginning at the time that fee simple title transferred from the City to the private partner.
By nature I’m an eternal optimist, but given the realities that Tuesday’s (very understandable) Council decision created, I don’t see any realistic scenario that will be generating any Innovation Park revenue for the City any time soon. My sense is that unless there is a wholesale change of mind by Davis residents that is unprecedented in history, we will be losing revenue (Schilling and Marrone) much sooner than we will be adding it.
When you add up the votes of “Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me” you get a total of 6 votes, and last time I looked there were approximately 14,000 votes cast in a typical Davis election. 6 down, 13,994 to go.
BTW, I share your frustration.
[quote]Your approach to economic development hasn’t worked to date Don, why do you think it will now? [/quote]
What exactly do you think ‘my approach to economic development’ is? I advocate for the ITF to identify sites and for the city planning process to move forward with those where the landowner is interested. IMO the biggest obstacle to that to date has been the obsessive focus on Mace 391.
[quote]If you don’t build it, never.
If you wait for it to be fully leased before you plan it, never. [/quote]
Generally, I think it’s better for private landowners and private developers to take the risks and carry the costs to the greatest extent possible.
Does anyone know how quickly business parks in our area tend to fill up? I know a study was done for the Cannery site. I think it’s safe to assume a freeway site such as Ramos/Bruner would fill up more quickly. But surely there is data out there.
[quote]So, what is the fair share of land that the business and economic development community should get? [/quote]
I agree with Robb, why don’t we start with the land that is available. (As I say to my kids, if you eat whats in front first then we can discuss having seconds).
Robb
[quote]Can we stop (for a moment at least) the accusations of “devils and dead enders” and try to apply our good sense to call on the CC to take some quick action? How powerful would it be if a diverse group made up of Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me and others wrote a joint letter to the CC affirming the foregoing and asking for action? This is not just about “getting along” but starting to aggressively move forward to start finding some solutions in places where there is a basic level of agreement. [/quote]
I am in complete agreement with your suggestion. As an idea to kick off this endeavor, I would encourage the council to direct staff to address this in three different ways.
1)What can we do in the short term to increase city revenues – say initiatives designed to start paying off
within the next year.
2) What can we do that would show return in the mid range, say 5-10 years ?
3) What can we do to ensure ongoing prosperity in the long range, say 30-50 years
Without a realistic vision of what we anticipate is both desirable and achievable, we are all actually just speculating.
[quote]B. Nice – you had a slight mental breakdown responding to this point.[/quote]
Well it wouldn’t be the first time….
Don Shor: “[i]What exactly do you think ‘my approach to economic development’ is?” [/i]
“[i]Generally, I think it’s better for private landowners and private developers to take the risks and carry the costs to the greatest extent possible[/i]”
You answered your own question. Following your advice it will never happen. Congratulations.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”Robb: if your proposal is that a number of individuals urge the council to acknowledge the need for economic development, recommend that they and staff focus on that more intensively, and that they work with landowners to develop and expedite proposals for business sites
(1) within the city limits, and
(2) for Measure R votes on ITF-identified sites…
…. I am in agreement with that.”[/i]
Don, Schilling Robotics has clearly stated on the record that they need 40 acres. (1) where is there 40 acres within the city limits? (2) How will you deliver 7,000 “Yes” votes on a Measure R vote for Schilling to occupy 40 acres of one of the ITF sites?
Marrone Bio Innovations has clearly stated on the record that they will need trial fields adjacent to their next site after they outgrow the AgraQuest site. (1) where is there field trial ag land adjacent to a site that can accommodate Marrone’s labs within the city limits? (2) How will you deliver 7,000 “Yes” votes on a Measure R vote for Marrone to occupy one of the ITF sites?
[quote]How powerful would it be if a diverse group made up of Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me and others wrote a joint letter to the CC affirming the foregoing and asking for action? This is not just about “getting along” but starting to aggressively move forward to start finding some solutions in places where there is a basic level of agreement. [/quote]
I’m in.
[quote]Robb
Can we stop (for a moment at least) the accusations of “devils and dead enders” and try to apply our good sense to call on the CC to take some quick action? How powerful would it be if a diverse group made up of Frankly (writing under his real name of course), Don Shor, Mark West, B Nice (using his/her name), Medwoman writing as Tia Will, Jim Frame, Matt Williams, me and others wrote a joint letter to the CC affirming the foregoing and asking for action? This is not just about “getting along” but starting to aggressively move forward to start finding some solutions in places where there is a basic level of agreement.[/quote]
[quote]medwoman
I am in complete agreement with your suggestion. As an idea to kick off this endeavor, I would encourage the council to direct staff to address this in three different ways.
1)What can we do in the short term to increase city revenues – say initiatives designed to start paying off
within the next year.
2) What can we do that would show return in the mid range, say 5-10 years ?
3) What can we do to ensure ongoing prosperity in the long range, say 30-50 years
Without a realistic vision of what we anticipate is both desirable and achievable, we are all actually just speculating.[/quote]
[quote]Staff report for Tuesday’s Council Meeting
June-October 2012City staff had several internal discussions about the potential for swapping privately-owned acreage identified in the evolving Innovation Park Task Force recommendations with some of the City-owned acreage on the Mace 391 property.
The concept that was discussed would have facilitated approximately 70 acres of the privately- owned 185 acres (the Brunner parcel), for an eastern edge innovation park to be relocated down along Interstate 80 where visibility and accessibility would make the land more desirable for a business park.
Several meetings were also held with the Yolo Land Trust and the USDA NRCS about this swapping option.
In October 2012 the NRCS responded that the swap of acreage was inconsistent with the grant award.[/quote]
Robb and medwoman, I hate to be a pessimist, but if we didn’t do what you suggest in the second half of 2012, when this same issue came up, what makes you think we will do it now?
[quote]B. Nice
I’m in.[/quote]
I am too.
Any thoughts about where we can get some “goodies” to win over the remaining 6,994 votes we need for a successful Measure R vote?
Robb
You must learn to be careful what you ask for. I would say that we are right behind you. Would you care to do a rough draft for what you have in mind ?
Who wants to draft a letter?
Yes Don, that’s reasonable.
Come on Matt. You know very well that these folks can influence many others. Your pessimism is a little over the top in my view. The folks mentioned are all informal leaders and they represent a broad spectrum of views. There are far more than 6 votes here and you know it. Draft the letter Matt. Let’s get the ball rolling. We can’t get to a yes vote if you are on the sidelines hollering that we can’t get to a yes vote.
“A tad frustrated at this point in the conversation.”
Get used to it if you want to be in Davis politics. Why do you think the city tried to change course so discreetly? To try to prevent exactly what happened with a public debate. A bunch of coyote lovers who have no idea about fiscal realities got whipped up into a no growth mob and threatened lawsuits, wrote letters to the editor and turned out to rant against a business park in favor of selling the land and giving up any chance of them ever even having access to it for use by the community.
By the way, Frankly is right, even if his rhetoric slightly misses the mark. The use of Measure O funds to lock up land use choices without public access is a policy that gives most of the benefits from Measure O to a very small, land rich, wealthy minority of the community. It allows land owners to keep their property private while cashing out development rights that are unlikely to have much net present value. Its a win win for the landed. They get the money and the land too. No wonder people are coming forward in droves. Perhaps we should start taking bids on the value of these development rights. My guess is we could buy them up for much less than we are currently paying by adding some competition into the process.
[i] Frankly (writing under his real name of course),[/i]
“His?” How do we know?
Robb, I appreciate your call for sensible and collaborative action. You are a very sensible and collaborative knida’ guy.
Here is what I think.
We are screwed.
At least until we break the voting majority crust of fiscal denial and ignorance, and hobble some of the enablers of it.
At this point I don’t trust that all of the people you listed have enough in terms of shared goals that we can build on… mostly because they have demonstrated such confidence that the aforementioned crusty majority will keep backing them in their demands to keep marching along preventing growth, protecting open space and preventing any change that they don’t like.
And there is just too much incongruity in their arguments and positions to allow for me to believe there is enough common ground.
I will admit that I am quite flummoxed knowing the level of intellect across the table, but it is nonetheless largely non-responsive to the situation of imbalance we have between land preservation and economic development.
And lastly, as I have written, I think the root of the problem is that crusty majority. I would rather take a page out of the Democrat Party playbook and enrage and inflame and point fingers of blame. Not because I think it is the more enjoyable approach, but because I think it has a better chance of working given the demonstrated stubbornness and tactics of those in opposition.
That opposition… the ones that have blocked, and are continuing to block, economic development… are responsible for the fiscal mess we find ourselves in.
Delivering the message over and over again until the density of our most dense little city wears off… is the first required step in any reasonable collaborative endeavor.
[quote]We are screwed. [/quote]
So is that a no then?
Robb: I agree to work with everyone but that guy/gal Frankly. He/she promised me a beer earlier in the week and didn’t come through so I don’t think I can trust his word…
Frankly: “[i]Frankly (writing under his real name of course),
“His?” How do we know[/i]?
Because Mrs. Frankly is much prettier than you are (nicer too).
[i]By the way, Frankly is right, even if his rhetoric slightly misses the mark.[/i]
rhetoric, shmetoric.
Matt
[quote]Robb and medwoman, I hate to be a pessimist, but if we didn’t do what you suggest in the second half of 2012, when this same issue came up, what makes you think we will do it now?[/quote]
Perhaps I am more of an optimist than you are. I do not think that we should be locked into one way of thinking about this issue. As recently discussed, sometimes it is necessary to break through one’s own preconceived notions in order to see a different possibility. I think that you are asking the wrong question when you say “what makes you think we will do it now”? I don’t necessarily think we would adopt any particular plan. But I do think we should all remain open minded about possibilities. Who knows who might hold the key to an “out of the box ” solution.
And to Frankly, insisting that someone else see a problem and solution in exactly the same way as you is hardly the required first step in any reasonable collaborative endeavor.
[quote]And lastly, as I have written, I think the root of the problem is that crusty majority. I would rather take a page out of the Democrat Party playbook and enrage and inflame and point fingers of blame[/quote]
When you say stuff like this it make me wonder, are you actually a liberal who is taking on an over-exagerated conservative persona in attempts to show how ridiculous they sound sometimes. The Vanguards own Stephen Colbert?
[i]Because Mrs. Frankly is much prettier than you are (nicer too).[/i]
Now that is the most accurate statement made today!
My mother always reminded me to marry up!
B.Nice: “[i]When you say stuff like this it make me wonder, are you actually a liberal who is taking on an over-exagerated conservative persona in attempts to show how ridiculous they sound sometimes. The Vanguards own Stephen Colbert?[/i]”
Frankly is much more nuanced in person (though no less conservative)…he only plays the buffoon on TV.
[i]When you say stuff like this it make me wonder, are you actually a liberal who is taking on an over-exagerated conservative persona in attempts to show how ridiculous they sound sometimes. The Vanguards own Stephen Colbert?[/i]
Just not as nice.
Not as pretty.
Not as talented.
And not as liberal.
Other than that, I think you got it about, almost, right.
[i]And to Frankly, insisting that someone else see a problem and solution in exactly the same way as you is hardly the required first step in any reasonable collaborative endeavor.[/i]
I am very objective meds. Some have told me “to a fault”. I can do numbers and weigh pros and cons and make decisions. I have been called “action item man” in my professional career. I like to get stuff done. I like to move the ball forward. I hate decisions malaise. I hate emotional baggage brought to the table because it takes so much damn energy and attention to deal with. But I mostly understand human nature and that is largely driven by emotions.
But in accepting the feelings of others in an endeavor to accomplish something, I first have to see that there is enough common ground. I am not convinced there is. The Mace 391 decision was a form of a wake-up call that there is a dark underbelly of smug power that is determined to keep the city marching to the beat of the same broken drum.
Note that I don’t care if my ideas prevail as long as we meet the goals.
But what we have right now is a large void between goals.
As Matt point out and others confirm, Measure R ensures every attempt to develop will fail. Since we no longer have that big stack of Mace 391 value chips to spend, it is even less likely that we will pass a development with R in the way.
So, the next step needs to be education of that crusty majority. For example, what about all the city employees? What about the students that can vote? What about those people working and not paying attention to all this jabber?
I want to get them jacked up first, and then come talk about collaboration.
[i]he only plays the buffoon on TV. [/i]
And as an example to confirm that point…
[img]http://www.thesocialmisfit.com/buffoon.jpg[/img]
[quote]Robb and medwoman, I hate to be a pessimist, but if we didn’t do what you suggest in the second half of 2012, when this same issue came up, what makes you think we will do it now?[/quote]
You clearly have a long term frame of reference on this issue that I lack. But I do think David is right, that that Mace 391 has brought a lot of these issues into the line light for people who might not otherwise have been thinking about the need for a business park, people with more moderate views on the subject.
I firmly believe that a majority of people are reasonable and open-minded, but they are not often the ones involved, (they are busy doing reasonable things, working, making dinner, running errands) and they are not often the loudest. If a way can be found to tap into this group of people I believe reasonable decisions regarding land incorporation for a business park can be made.
[i]I firmly believe that a majority of people are reasonable and open-minded, but they are not often the ones involved, (they are busy doing reasonable things, working, making dinner, running errands) and they are not often the loudest. If a way can be found to tap into this group of people I believe reasonable decisions regarding land incorporation for a business park can be made.[/i]
Interesting observation worth considering.
Maybe I can dip my toe into some cooperative proof-of-concept attempt.
Robb Davis said . . .
[i]”Come on Matt. You know very well that these folks can influence many others. Your pessimism is a little over the top in my view. The folks mentioned are all informal leaders and they represent a broad spectrum of views. There are far more than 6 votes here and you know it. [b]Draft the letter Matt[/b]. Let’s get the ball rolling. We can’t get to a yes vote if you are on the sidelines hollering that we can’t get to a yes vote.”[/i]
Robb, it will do absolutely no good for someone like me to draft the letter. Tuesday’s events trsansferred the ownership of letter writing from the “Yes” on economic sustainability camp to the “No” on economic sustainability camp. People who are wary of the damage to the environment that economic sustainability can cause if done wrong need to be the Joan of Arc’s.
A letter from Don Shor will mean something to the Ag Farmland Conservation above all else voters whose default vote is “No.” Tuesday night’s vote gave Don, and Marc Hoshovsky and Roberta Millstein and Rodney Robinson and Bob Schneider and Michele Clark, et. al. a whole lot of street cred with the default “No” voters. On the other hand, I used up 150% of my street cred.
Roberta said in her public comment to Council that the only way that a “Win-Win” can be forged is if the easement goes forward. Council gave her her “Win-” on Tuesday night. Now she needs to deliver the balancing “-Win” to achieve the “Win-Win” she promised.
Don, has said many times here in the Vanguard “Put the easement in place. Then lets get going with the things we need to do to add economic sustainability to our ecosystem. Time for Don to accept the consequences of what he asked for.
There are 7,000 votes out there that need to be delivered. The Measure R and Measure P vote tallies tell us that the business community can deliver 3,500 of those. The remaining 3,500 needed have shown in the Measure R and measure P votes that they do not give any credence to what the business community says/believes.
We are the Greek army outside the walls of Troy. The forces that will deliver a victory have to come from inside the walls. History tells us that trying to storm the walls has yielded only losses to date.
We already
medwoman said . . .
[i]”Perhaps I am more of an optimist than you are. I do not think that we should be locked into one way of thinking about this issue. As recently discussed, sometimes it is necessary to break through one’s own preconceived notions in order to see a different possibility.”[/i]
You know I agree with you. Agree wholeheartedly. The challenge we face is that we need to bring to the table 3,500 people who voted “No” on Measure P and have them say openly and transparently that they are ready to break through their own long-held preconceived notions in order to see a different possibility.
medwoman said . . .
[i]”I think that you are asking the wrong question when you say “what makes you think we will do it now”? I don’t necessarily think we would adopt any particular plan. But I do think we should all remain open minded about possibilities. Who knows who might hold the key to an “out of the box ” solution.”[/i]
As I said above in my response to Robb, that kind of commitment to Win-Win needs to come from Don, and Marc Hoshovsky and Roberta Millstein and Rodney Robinson and Bob Schneider and Michele Clark, et. al. because they are representative of the segment of the Davis voting populace that is going to have to shift their paradigm.
Frankly said . . .
[i]”As Matt point out and others confirm, [b]Measure R ensures every attempt to develop will fail[/b]. Since we no longer have that big stack of Mace 391 value chips to spend, it is even less likely that we will pass a development with R in the way.
So, the next step needs to be education of that crusty majority. For example, what about all the city employees? What about the students that can vote? What about those people working and not paying attention to all this jabber?
I want to get them jacked up first, and then come talk about collaboration.”[/i]
Frankly, I may be very pessimistic right now, but your bolded words above go a bridge too far. “Ensures” is too absolute a term. I don’t think failure is preordained, but now that we have emptied the “cookie jar” in the name of conserving land outside the Urban Fringe, we are going to have to work much harder and much smarter. We need the people who speak the same language as the default “No” voters to become the leadership voices of this community in the journey to fiscal responsibility. Those voices got their “Win-” on Tuesday night. They worked very hard for it. Now it is time for them to step up and help deliver a “-Win” in the coming months. Without that there will never be a “Win-Win” in this . . . only $6 million a year in increased taxes.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”No, you should probably present that to the Innovation Task Force so they can get going implementing those great ideas on one of the sites they’ve identified.
No, Davis is not Redding. But Redding didn’t get a single tenant for years. I don’t know if they even have one yet. There is high risk in developing commercial land. There are hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant space in Natomas, West Sacramento, Vacaville, and Dixon right now. All a lot cheaper than anything we will ever develop here.
Revenues from developing a business park will not come in quickly. We have the advantage of a couple of very likely tenants that have expressed a general interest. But business parks don’t fill up immediately. They are speculative, and to suggest that the city get into the land speculation and development business is irresponsible. Finally, I don’t know in what universe soil conservation, land preservation, and careful urban development became ‘extreme’.[/i]
Read Don’s lips . . . “The solution is more taxes.”
[quote] because they are representative of the segment of the Davis voting populace that is going to have to shift their paradigm. [/quote]
I think the paradigm has been misidentified. I believe the no-growth-under-any-circumstances mindset inhabits a very small minority of the voting public. As increases in water and sewer charges and reductions in city services make themselves felt across city households, voters will pay more attention to rational plans to increase revenues. A sound business park plan for a suitable site, with solid projections for materially increasing city revenue, and supported by a broad cross-section of community leaders, will meet Matt’s “what’s in it for me” criterion, and I think a majority of voters will support it.
Past Measure J/R defeats pertained to residential growth. For most voters those were “nothing in it for me” projects, and the election outcomes reflected that. A business park is a very different animal, and I think the voters will recognize that.
Now we need a developer willing to bring a project forward. This is an area in which Rob White can provide some needed traction, and I hope the city manager turns him loose on it.
[quote]A sound business park plan for a suitable site, with solid projections for materially increasing city revenue, and supported by a broad cross-section of community leaders, will meet Matt’s “what’s in it for me” criterion, and I think a majority of voters will support it. [/quote]
This seems very reasonable. I agree.
Matt Williams: “[i]The challenge we face is that we need to bring to the table 3,500 people who voted “No” on Measure P and have them say openly and transparently that they are ready to break through their own long-held preconceived notions in order to see a different possibility.[/i]”
I agree Matt, and unfortunately, the only way I see that happening is after we have spent a year or five dealing with the total impact of our financial situation. Even after the City services are slashed, our tax bills have gone through the roof, and our quality of life has deteriorated enough to impact even the most ardent ‘no’-bee, I still expect it will be an extremely hard sell. There are too many people in town who believe that the University will supply all the jobs that the City needs, and as long as they have their own job (or pension) and their two or three houses, they will have no incentive to help the City build for the future. On top of that, I just don’t see a private developer taking the risk of a Measure R vote. The City needed to lead the way, and after Tuesday’s decision, that is not going to happen.
medwoman said . . .
[i]”It seemed to me that there was quite a bit of “may, might and could” rhetoric coming from both sides.
The economic advantages of developing on this site could also be seen as speculative. I do not have any firmly developed opinion about what the optimal outcome here would have been. But I do know speculation when I hear it and neither side had a monopoly.”[/i]
Fair enough meds. However, Mike Webb incorporated a considerable body of numeric examples provided by the business community to try and further the conversation at as objective as possible level. They provided those numbers to Mike freely and willingly and with appropriate disclaimers. Now lets compare that to the “other side.” Ms. Kiger has at her disposal a robust database of historical grant application information both from grants that YLT and/or the City of Davis participated in and those that they did not. it would have taken no more than one or two minutes to run a query against that database and sort all the closing efficiency scores of each and every one of those grant applications into rank order and then be able to say what percentile a 100% score would be in and what percentile a 97% score would be in. Given that she invited herself to the party is it unreasonable to expect her to have done that rather simple statistical analysis? Perhaps the City would be well served if we requested that NRCS run such a ranked list analysis and share the results with the City and YLT so that the uncertainty associated with speculation can be put to bed once and for all.
Matt wrote:
[quote]Perhaps the City would be well served if we requested that NRCS run such a ranked list analysis and share the results with the City and YLT so that the uncertainty associated with speculation can be put to bed once and for all.[/quote]
To what end Matt? Seriously. What is the point? Mike generated numbers but NO probabilities concerning the outcomes of his options. In that sense his numbers were as effective as the NRCS’s in actually telling us what would happen.
Move on Matt. We have problems to solve.
Jim Frame said . . .
[i]”I think the paradigm has been misidentified. I believe the no-growth-under-any-circumstances mindset inhabits a very small minority of the voting public. As increases in water and sewer charges and reductions in city services make themselves felt across city households, voters will pay more attention to rational plans to increase revenues. A sound business park plan for a suitable site, with solid projections for materially increasing city revenue, and supported by a broad cross-section of community leaders, will meet Matt’s “what’s in it for me” criterion, and I think a majority of voters will support it.
Past Measure J/R defeats pertained to residential growth. For most voters those were “nothing in it for me” projects, and the election outcomes reflected that. A business park is a very different animal, and I think the voters will recognize that.
Now we need a developer willing to bring a project forward. This is an area in which Rob White can provide some needed traction, and I hope the city manager turns him loose on it.”[/i]
Well articulated Jim. That is the kind of message that we need a cadre of Joan of Arc’s to carry forth into the community.
The problem is that the only numbers that we have do not support your statement, [i]””I think the paradigm has been misidentified. I believe the no-growth-under-any-circumstances mindset inhabits a very small minority of the voting public.” [/i]
The same numbers problem exists vis-a-vis your statement that, [i]”A sound business park plan for a suitable site, with solid projections for materially increasing city revenue, and supported by a broad cross-section of community leaders, will meet Matt’s “what’s in it for me” criterion, and I think a majority of voters will support it.”[/i] I want to believe that your supposition is correct, but until we see the no-growth community openly and transparently embracing this changed paradigm, our voting history tells us a different story.
The manifestation of a paradigm shift isn’t going to come from a developer, or even from Rob White. The most likely developer votes in Sacramento and Rob White votes in West Sacramento. The manifestation of a paradigm shift is going to have to come from people who vote in Davis, and voted “No” in Measure P and/or “Yes” in Measure R.
Robb Davis said . . .
[i]”To what end Matt? Seriously. What is the point? Mike generated numbers but NO probabilities concerning the outcomes of his options. In that sense his numbers were as effective as the NRCS’s in actually telling us what would happen.
Move on Matt. We have problems to solve.”[/i]
medwoman made a point. My response addressed that point. Are you saying medwoman’s point wasn’t worthy of being addressed?
Regarding the problems that need to be solved, is there a shortage of concrete suggestions of solutions in my flurry of posts above? Is there a reason you singled out that one post?
[quote]I just don’t see a private developer taking the risk of a Measure R vote.[/quote]
Is it possible to preemptively pass a Measure R vote on a piece of property?
Yes and no.
[quote]Past Measure J/R defeats pertained to residential growth. For most voters those were “nothing in it for me” projects, and the election outcomes reflected that. A business park is a very different animal, and I think the voters will recognize that. [/quote]
Has a business park ever been up for a Measure J/R vote? (I don’t recall ever voting on one….)
“Is it possible to preemptively pass a Measure R vote on a piece of property?”
Sure but doing so would be pure folly and who is going to go to all the work of such a vote and pay for it? We might see a Measure R vote on Nishi but it will be funded by the city and the university. I will be surprised if a private citizen ever puts forth a Measure R vote again.
Maybe a nonprofit who’s dedicated to early-stage financing of technology startups could fund a Measure R vote?
The challenge B. Nice for anyone putting forward a measure R vote is that the cost is in the vicinity of $3 million when all the prerequisites to the creation/approval of the baseline features are completed. How many nonprofits do you know of that have a spare $3 million knocking around in their coffers?
[quote]The challenge B. Nice for anyone putting forward a measure R vote is that the cost is in the vicinity of $3 million [/quote]
Ouch. Didn’t realize the price tag was so steep.
Now that we’ve got the final-final Council decision re. the Mace 391 conservation easement, what is the process for selling the property?
One would presume that the city will make a tidy profit–assuming there’s an open, well-publicized bidding procedure.
Anybody know what’s in store?
[i]One would presume that the city will make a tidy profit–assuming there’s an open, well-publicized bidding procedure[/i].
If we are very lucky, we will repay the road fund loan, though I’m sure our hand picked broker will be very happy.
An acre of easement-constrained farmland on the periphery of a growing city with pent up development demand is generally worth what an acre of remote farmland is worth. The expectation is that the city will probably only make enough to pay back Measure O funds and the road fund and pay for the listing/selling costs.
Which brings up a question. If we are all being taxed and the money is going to the city to acquire open space and most if not all of that space is targeted for farmland easements, then why not let the land-owners deal specifically with the YLT to secure an easement and leave the city out of it?
The point made by the land preservation extremists is that we should not be involved in land speculation. Well then, we should not be purchasing land that we need to hold and resell, because that is speculation.
” Well then, we should not be purchasing land that we need to hold and resell, because that is speculation.”
I’ve had thoughts along the those same lines, but not because I see it as speculation, but because I think to much ambiguity exists regarding what the city can and cannot do with land that been purchased with Measure O money.
I have a question that I think may have been addressed previously but I could use someone to refresh my memory. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that an appropriate area of land was available for development of a tech/ industrial park tomorrow. How long would it be before the city could anticipate seeing any financial benefit from its being built ?
[quote]Now that we’ve got the final-final Council decision re. the Mace 391 conservation easement, what is the process for selling the property?
One would presume that the city will make a tidy profit–assuming there’s an open, well-publicized bidding procedure.
Anybody know what’s in store?[/quote]
[url]http://www.landandfarm.com/property/Leland_Ranch-1069683/[/url]
[quote] Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that an appropriate area of land was available for development of a tech/ industrial park tomorrow. How long would it be before the city could anticipate seeing any financial benefit from its being built?[/quote]
We already have parcels available, so it’s not a hypothetical.
Some WAGS, just for grins: 12-18 months to get to a Measure J/R vote, another 6 months to break ground, 3 months to finished pads, 6 months to first occupancy.
Construction tax starts flowing with issuance of building permits, so some revenue starts pretty early. Secured property tax might start coming in after the pads are built, but the real attraction for the city is the unsecured property tax stream, which only begins after occupancy.
I’m hoping someone more closely connected to the development cycle will chime in and tune up the numbers.
From Tuesday’s Staff report on Mace 391:
Process for Innovation Business Park Approval
There are two primary methods for an approval process of a business park in the Davis area.
These are 1) a Measure R vote, after extensive planning and environmental (CEQA) work has
been accomplished, and 2) a citizen’s initiative, involving some macro level planning and
preliminary environmental analysis prior to gathering signatures of 15% of the registered voting
population in Davis and then a vote if qualified for the ballot.
The first method typically requires several to conduct a detailed level of planning and
environmental analysis in order to modify the general plan designation of the property in the
City’s General Plan through a Measure R vote. To date, no Measure R (or previously Measure J)
vote has passed the required majority voter approval, though each of the votes to date were
primarily for housing. The property would also require annexation to the City.
The second method has not previously occurred in Davis. If it were contemplated, the effort
would be a citizen driven process that requires gathering signatures. This ‘citizen’s initiative’
approach requires either 10% or 15% of the registered voters in the city sign a petition to request
that the City Council consider an ordinance to amend the City’s General Plan or place the
initiative on the ballot. The Council would then review and either adopt the initiative or assign it
to the next election (either the next general election or a special election depending on the
number of signatures gathered) for consideration by the voters of Davis. If approved, prior to any
actual development, the proposed project would be required to complete the required planning
and environmental analysis for the entitlement process. The property would also require
annexation to the City.
medwoman said . . .
[i]”I have a question that I think may have been addressed previously but I could use someone to refresh my memory. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that an appropriate area of land was available for development of a tech/ industrial park tomorrow. [b]How long would it be before the city could anticipate seeing any financial benefit from its being built ?[/b]”[/i]
Regarding your bolded question, the answer differs depending on the current ownership of the land that underlies the tech / innovation park.
If all the land is privately owned then the property tax laws will govern the sequencing of when greater tax revenues begin flowing to the City.
On the other hand, if the land is a mix of publicly owned land and privately owned land, then the act of creating the public-private partnership will determine when the initial financial benefit will be seen. The property tax laws will still govern the sequencing of when greater tax revenues begin flowing to the City, but in the public-private partnership scenario the land value of the publicly owned land will create an additional revenue stream the timing of which is not governed by property tax laws.
Jim Frame said . . .
[i]”We already have parcels available, so it’s not a hypothetical.
Some WAGS, just for grins: 12-18 months to get to a Measure J/R vote, another 6 months to break ground, 3 months to finished pads, 6 months to first occupancy.
Construction tax starts flowing with issuance of building permits, so some revenue starts pretty early. Secured property tax might start coming in after the pads are built, but the real attraction for the city is the unsecured property tax stream, which only begins after occupancy.
I’m hoping someone more closely connected to the development cycle will chime in and tune up the numbers.”[/i]
I concur with the timeline that Jim has laid out, although the 12/18 month segment may be a bit longer. We can use the recently completed Cannery cycle as a template. The Council will vote to place the project on a ballot only after a public vetting of the project’s EIR, design features, fiscal impact, etc. Once Council has actually voted to proceed to a vote, the actual ballot day will probably not happen any sooner than 4-6 months later. If all the ballot language is finalized at the time of the Council vote (as it was with Measure I in December 2012) then the timeline will be 4 months. If ballot language has to be crafted, then the timeline will be closer to 6 months. Once the Measure R ballot results are official, then Council will need to meet and pass an Ordinance that approves the development agreement as well as the annexation of the land into the City.