City Council

On Thursday the Davis School Board moved a step closer to calling a special election for sometime around May.  They appear to be heading in the direction of a new parcel tax that would renew the existing amount of 320 dollars per single-family dwelling plus an additional 175 dollars.

The board will have more discussion when they return on January 6, and then a special meeting around January 13 where they would have to vote on whether to move forward.

Bob Dunning this week came out strongly against the plan by the Council to appoint Don Saylor’s replacement when he leaves on January 3.

He writes, “I don’t know about you, but given some of the decisions our esteemed City Council members have made in the past few months, I’m not exactly in a trusting mood when it comes to having them select a replacement for the departing Don Saylor next month.”

In perhaps a preview of things to come, Mayor Pro Tem Joe Krovoza led a civil and respectful discussion about how the Council will go about seeking to replace Mayor Don Saylor who on January 3, 2011 will take his seat on the Yolo County Board of Supervisors.

On Tuesday night, the method of replacement was chosen, but not the process itself.  The Council agreed to come back on January 4, 2011, the day after Mr. Saylor becomes Supervisor Don Saylor, and discuss both the replacement of the Mayor and the process by which Mr. Saylor’s vacant seat would be filled.

We have already discussed what is likely to be the most contentious process in the next month, the process by which the council chooses to replace current Mayor Don Saylor, both on the council and as Mayor.

However, in a city manager governance system, the most important spot may be who the next city manager will be.  That process is also moving forward.

Officially we are counting down the days now and it is less than a month until Don Saylor is no longer Mayor or on the Council.  We will have more post-mortems on his tenure, but mostly I see it as a lost opportunity to accomplish something in six months of time.

The Council will now undertake a lengthy and perhaps contentious process to figure out how we will replace the council seat, who will be the next Mayor, and perhaps who will be the next councilmember.

On January 3, 2011, Don Saylor will be sworn in as a Yolo County Supervisor representing the 2nd Supervisorial District.  In so doing, he will both create a vacancy on the council and also require the council to find a new mayor, either from the current membership or from a newly-elected or appointed member.

For months there has been debate and speculation as to how this process would work.  At this time, it would appear that the window for an election has closed, as Mr. Saylor opted against withdrawing from his position prior to the General Election and a specialty election would cost the cash-strapped city several hundred thousand dollars.

It is two months before Mayor Don Saylor leaves office, and we already have a letter to the editor of the Davis Enterprise lobbying for Councilmember Stephen Souza to become the Mayor when Mr. Saylor leaves.

The letter was written by longtime resident Richard Yamagata.  With all due respect to both Mr. Yamagata and Mr. Souza, I hope Mr. Yamagata was acting on his own and was not part of a concerted public effort whereby Mr. Souza would lobby for the position.

The announcement reads the “City needs commissioners.”  As usual it got me thinking as to whether or not the city really wants commissioners.

In her monthly Vanguard column, Elaine Roberts Musser argued in part, “it is what makes Davis uniquely Davis.”  But if we look at the last four years, you could argue otherwise.

The night of Oct. 5, 2010, the City Council surprisingly decided to go ahead and appoint candidates to the various existing city commissions. Yet in a previous “Subcommittee Report” it was stated “With new appointments pending in the next few weeks, this is the best window of opportunity to restructure commissions”. This specific comment referred to the Sept. 21, 2010 City Council agenda item to consolidate city commissions in Davis from 20 commissions to 13. It would have ultimately eliminated more than a third of all commissioners. The targeted commissions that would have been effected were:

These pages are not usually used to fawn over people, but rather to hit them over the head with a blunt object, usually the metaphorical two-by-four, until they behave themselves in a manner more befitting the second most-educated city in the world.

I remember meeting Joe Krovoza for the first time last November, when he insisted he was running for council.  He was a nice guy, but I did not walk away from our meeting overly-impressed.

Halfway through Don Saylor’s Mayorship, I think the recent DSIDE conference best embodies his tenure so far.  The Mayor, leading the way, got all of the top business leaders in the community into one room, got them talking about their vision for the future and what emerged is the same old ideas that have been around this community for at least 20 to 30 years.

Don Saylor’s Mayorship thus far has been all show and absolutely no substance.  Davis has one really pressing issue – it has to figure out a way to get out from behind the eight ball on employee compensation issues.  It was, in fact, the top goal in a July planning workshop.

The column by Rich Rifkin on Wednesday about the issue of commissions raises a couple of good points and serves as a broader jumping-off point for additional commentary.

As Mr. Rifkin points out, Roseville has nine, Woodland six, Vacaville four and Davis sixteen standing city commissions.  The recommendation from the submittee composed of Mayor Don Saylor and Councilmember Rochelle Swanson was to reduce that number to ten by merging 10 smaller commissions into four.

Citizen commissions have become a way of life that embodies the Davis spirit.  Now, as we reported Thursday, a proposal has been put forth by the subcommittee composed of Mayor Don Saylor and Councilmember Rochelle Swanson that would effectively gut several of the key commissions.

It is easy to ascribe motivation absent other information. However, the fact remains that the proposals put forward into policy recommendations, without vetting through the community, are premature at best.  This would have been much better off introduced through a workshop format, allowing all the commissions and citizens who understand their history to come forward, and then  attempt a policy discussion.

On Tuesday night the Davis City Council will weigh in on a proposal that would, in effect, gut the commission system as we know it.  On Thursday the Vanguard covered the full proposal, which includes the consolidation of several commissions into broader and less specific bodies. 

Today I ran my own commentary on why that is not the best approach, and I argue that it does not get at the real budget problem. Also, what we really need to do is encourage more activist commissioners, who are not beholden to a specific political agenda. And we can restructure the system, as we should have done this spring and failed to do so properly.

Now that the council has at least postponed Joe Krovoza’s proposal to look into reverse-angled parking on Second Street, I would like to step forward, put my neck firmly on the chopping block and thank him for bringing the idea forward.

This is an idea whose time has clearly not arrived yet.  That is fine.  That is why we live in a democracy and we have a process by which we can bring forward ideas, discuss them, and possibly ultimately reject them.  I will remind people, however, that the idea of a road diet was seen as preposterous a few years ago.  In fact, some people probably still feel that way.  However, it is going to be an idea that will be implemented in the very near future.

Early this year Natalia Deeb-Sosa a member of Davis Advocates for Sheltered Animals (DASA), wrote a scathing letter after a December 31, 2009 visit to the Yolo County Animal Shelter.  After her letter and the concerns expressed, a number of citizens came forward to ask the Davis City Council if it could intervene on behalf of Davis residents, using the city’s contract with animal control services as its access to services provided by the Yolo County Sheriff’s department.

The Davis City Council has now taken some steps to at least be able to monitor and address the problems.  By a 5-0 vote the council agreed to execute a new Agreement with Yolo County for Animal Control Service for the Fiscal Year of 2010-11.

One question answered, one big question still remains.  On Tuesday, the Davis City Council unanimously voted to name Paul Navazio as Interim City Manager, effective on September 24, the same day that current City Manager Bill Emlen will leave to take a position with Solano County.

Mr. Navazio was hired as finance director in February of 2004 and was promoted to Assistant City Manager in March of 2008. Prior to joining the city of Davis, Mr. Navazio spent six years as the Budget Manager for Berkeley and four years as Budget Manager in Oakland.

The City Council of Davis met behind closed doors on Tuesday night but made no decision to be reported.  The meeting was posted as “public employee appointment,” “interim city manager/ city manager.”  The council seems to feels no rush to make the appointment.  The city manager last week made a surprise announcement that he was taking a job with Solano County.

His final day working for the city will be September 24th and he starts work for Solano County on September 27.  He has pomised to help with the transition.  The council has a couple of weeks more to determine who they should appoint as interim city manager.

Reading the complaints about my breaking of the news about City Manager Bill Emlen reminded me of something that I have been puzzled by for a long time.  Why is the city of Davis, who wants to become a high tech and green tech leader, an innovator of new climate policies, still stuck in the last decade – at best – when it comes to communication?

Observe the issue of reverse angled parking.  How did the people of Davis become aware that there will be a meeting this week?  They either read it on this site or in the Davis Enterprise.  The city also sent out a paper mailing to some of the business owners on second street.  We live in one of the more educated and technically sophisticated communities in the nation, which means also on the planet, and yet we are still getting our information about the city like it was at best 2005, if not 1990.

In 2007, the City of Davis Police Department was facing a critical moment. They had just been rocked by a year of turmoil, both internally and from segments of the community.  They had a chief that had taken a position in another city, and the organization itself was fragmented and in need of new leadership.

Instead of hiring from within that department, City Manager Bill Emlen looked to the outside to bring in fresh ideas and a new leadership style.  He ended up with Landy Black, who has helped rebuild both his department and trust within segments of the community.