Budget/Fiscal

Commentary: Woodland’s Council Should Use More Caution in their Remarks – I read columnist Bob Dunning’s recent column that, in part, discussed a recent city council meeting held in Woodland where there was a brief (at least by Davis standards) update on the surface water project two days before Thanksgiving and a day before the cost-sharing agreement was announced by Councilmember Rochelle Swanson and Mayor Pro Tem Dan Wolk.

COMMENTARY – Back on November 15, the Water Advisory Committee debated for three hours attempting to decide the appropriate water rate format, and ultimately by an 8-2 vote, they agreed to support the Loge-Williams model.

The question is why were their backs seemingly to the wall on this?  Tonight’s discussion on water has no action by the council on Loge-Williams.  They will only be asked to approve the rate-sharing agreement and review the ballot language drafted on November 13.

By Matt Williams

Editor’s note: Matt Williams who sits as an alternate on the Water Advisory Committee and who developed along with fellow WAC member Frank Loge the Loge-Williams water rate model, responds to last week’s Bob Dunning column using a point-counterpoint approach.  The Point represents Bob Dunning’s view, the Counterpoint, Matt Williams’ view.

POINT — I come not to bury the Water Advisory Committee, but to praise it … or maybe the other way around … I’m not sure … all I know is the recommendation the WAC made to the City Council about water rates is confusing in the extreme, even in a town where half the town has a Ph.D. and the other half thinks it should … the plan is one of those only-in-Davis, first-in-the-nation things that makes me wonder if it was adopted for its rationale or simply because it allows our town to stake another claim to worldwide greatness … I’m not sure I want to be a guinea pig when it comes to the cost of water …

The water issue is one of the most complex I have had to cover.  It is not that understanding pension formulas and fiscal issues is simple.  Nor is it that land use issues are straightforward.  But water is another beast – there are many overlapping issues, moving parts and complexities.

One of the critical unresolved issues in the Woodland-Davis surface water project, indeed one that still could have derailed the deal, had to do with an agreement to equitably share the costs, now that the city of Davis has reduced its share from 50 percent of the project down to 40 percent of the project.

By Michael Harrington

For all the complicated reasons discussed, the steering committee for our water referendum believes and hopes that Woodland should pull back from the JPA and sharing the water plant project with Davis, allowing Davis to avoid rushing this matter to the March 2013 ballot.

The Davis City Council is set to approve a rate package on November 27th, and it would be best if they were informed prior to that time that Woodland is going to go it alone for now.

Commentary: Council Faces a Quiet Crisis of Confidence on Labor Front – Last week’s employee contract that was approved by the council by a 5-0 vote was a reminder that while the city has been focused – and rightly so – on getting the water project squared away, there is another critical battle underway and that is the approval of the employee contracts.

The last contracts expired on June 30.  It is now approaching November 30 (particularly when you realize that city offices are closed until November 26) and contracts remain unsigned.

Weist Willing to Risk Public Safety in Order to Protect Turf – This past week, Davis Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley made a thorough presentation of the Davis Fire Department.

Contained within the report were recommendations as to how the city could move forward with a reduction of fire staffing, first reducing staffing from 42 to 36 and then reducing staffing from 12 personnel per shift down to 10 or 11, depending on how the city wanted to proceed.

By Matt Williams

Part Two: Water Process Interest Groups – Let me start by saying that the opinions and perspectives presented here in this article are those of the author and not the opinions and perspectives of the Water Advisory Committee (“WAC”).

Given the events of the past week both at City Council and at the WAC, it seems to once again be appropriate to take a moment of our time to look at the cumulative activities of the WAC with the following key question in mind, “Are You Being Served?”

Vanguard Analysis: Impact of Rates Unclear – It is worth noting that some of the most bitter and divisive machinations both in private and in public, occurred not necessarily with the core water project but rather in determining which rate structure to use.

After three hours of at times colorful and heated debate over several different versions of the rate structure, the WAC finally reached a decision by an 8-2 vote, with Former Davis Mayor Jerry Adler and Chair of the WAC Elaine Roberts Musser providing the dissenting votes.

Vanguard Analysis – When the Davis School Board has wanted to put parcel tax measures on the ballot, it has asked a political consultant, Jay Ziegler, to doing polling analysis and help them craft a parcel tax measure that would have a reasonable chance of being successful at the polls.

Not everyone agrees with that approach.  For instance, Trustee Tim Taylor often argued that the board should simply ask why the measure was needed.  Indeed, that was more the approach of Measure E, where there was no polling, and no consultant. However, this was the fifth such ballot measure since 2007 and Richard Harris, who ran the campaign, might as well be a political consultant.

Vanguard Analysis of Fire Staffing and Budgetary Changes Shows Savings Fall Short – The issue of fire staffing is one that bedevils many observers.  One of the key questions that the council is going to have to wrestle with is the issue of overstaffing versus overtime.

“Overtime in the fire service has been misunderstood by the lay person, including City Administration and Elected officials for over thirty years. A lay person’s assessment of overtime is work that is done because it could not be completed during normal working hours,” Davis’ Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley writes in his audit of the department.

Chief Suggests Way Forward to Three on an Engine – Interim Fire Chief Scott Kenley on Tuesday night presented the Davis City Council with a very thorough and massive report on the fire department.  While the council did not act on the informational item on Tuesday, the plan is to bring the item back in the coming weeks as council sifts through the material and looks for ways to cut costs and possibly reduce staffing down to three on an engine.

COMMENTARY – At the October 23 city council meeting, the council listened not only to the advice of its own City Attorney Harriet Steiner, who argued against a binding vote, but the city also brought in Iris Yang from Paso Robles, at city expense, to make the same case.

However, three weeks later, City Attorney Harriet Steiner was singing a completely different tune.  Suddenly, hurdles that she presented as insurmountable were presented as no problem.