City of Davis

It was a late night Tuesday night as the results very slowly trickled in, but it was largely one without drama or suspense as leads by Joe Krovoza and Rochelle Swanson in the absentee ballots held up and actually expanded as the night and then the morning progressed.  The first precincts did not report until 10:30, by 12:30 am the 300 vote lead for Ms. Swanson expanded to nearly 600 and by 2:21 am it was over.

Joe Krovoza to no one’s surprise finished a strong first to win the Mayor Pro Tem.  He will serve as Mayor beginning in 2012.  Whether he serves earlier will be a point of intrigue in the next six months.  Mr. Krovoza who appeared to be the front runner to finish first through out, received 7,284 or 37.6% of the votes.  He finished first in every precinct but one around campus and Olive Drive.

Voters in Davis will go to the polls today if they have not already voted by mail.  Turnout figures to be on the low side, although probably higher than the Measure P election and also the 2008 City Council Election.  It is one of those instances where the actual stakes exceed the level of passion and commitment from the voters.

As we surmised yesterday, perhaps one reason why the voters are not nearly as engaged as they have been in the past is twofold.  First, growth seems to be off the table and growth has always been the instigator of contention.  However, we also know that growth being on the table in November, while it created a polarized electorate, or at least a contentious one, it did not drive out voters.

Tomorrow it will all be over.  This was the final weekend of the campaign.  Countywide they are predicted about a 45% voter turnout, which suggests that we will see 50 to 55% in the city of Davis.   The predicted turnout is better than the last city council election in 2008, but a far cry from some of the years with huge turnout.

Given the magnitude of the issues facing the city of Davis, it is unfortunate that the city has not been more engaged in this campaign.  Some of that may be due to the lack of coverage, some from the lack of clear differences in the candidates in terms of what is publicly said, some may simply be a matter that a lot of voters are disconcerted with the situation that appears overwhelmingly bad.

The Vanguard has covered nine candidates forums in addition to interviewing four of the five candidates.  Now we have compiled what we believe are the answers to the top five questions facing the city of Davis and summarized and quoted the candidate’s position based on their answers.  (Just to clarify there are other issues that are important as well, these lent themselves most readily to this form of side-by-side analysis.  I did my best to include from multiple forums as needed.)

1.  City budget crisis

Friday I read in Bob Dunning’s column a comment from someone named Paul on Muir who wrote: “Am I missing something or are the current City Council campaigns pretty much devoid of real substantive issues?”  Bob Dunning went on to describe the campaign as “the least contentious campaign in city history.”

That may be true.  Although just beneath the surface, perhaps not.  I know of whisper campaigns that were pretty vicious, but most of them never made it to the public realm, let alone the Davis Enterprise.  Nevertheless, as these council campaign go, it seemed pretty tame, certainly compared to 2006 when issues and heat were bubbling to the surface, there were lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, protesters at City Hall, angry public comments, doors slammed in the face of candidates, and a vicious letter from the wife of a city councilmember accusing a council candidate of misogyny.

Last week we reported that Sydney Vergis had fallen third in a three person money race.  The final required disclosure was filed on June 3 and trends have continued.  The June 3 filing covers all contributions and expenditures up to June 2.  Between now and the election, every time a campaign committee receives another $1000, they are required to file another Form 460 with the City Clerk’s Office within 24 hours.

In addition, the Vanguard has learned that Marty West and Ruth Asmundson have indeed closed their Independent Expenditure Committee.  No other group has filed for Independent Expenditure Committee status.  That does not preclude them from having an independent expenditure, but it does limit their expenditures to $250 or less.

Anyone that has seen a candidates forum or come across Davis City Council candidate Jon Li has not been able to avoid talk of his viable systems model, which he believes will improve the city’s ability to analyze its current budget, its operations and other its structure in real time and then be able to make adjustments and plan accordingly.

Jon Li announced earlier this week that he has released his final report of his campaign, “A System That Works: Building a decentralized Global Political Economy using the Viable System Model.”

The Vanguard received a response from the city regard its complaints that the committee entitled, “Committee to Support Sydney Vergis for City Council 2010” failed to comply with Municipal Code section 12.01.055(c) regarding notification of independent expenditures within 24 hours.

The response indicated that while the committee was in violation of the city’s municipal code, due to their notification of the city clerk and candidates regarding this mailing via email on May 25, 2010 (three days after the mailing was postmarked), they would not seek any penalties.

Yesterday we ran our interview with Daniel Watts, it was our fourth council candidate interview.  Last Monday we ran our interview with Joe Krovoza .  On Friday we ran our interview with Jon Li.  On Sunday we ran the third interview, with Rochelle Swanson. The goal with these interviews was to take previous statements and positions that the candidates had taken and explore them more deeply or to clarify issues that have been presented both in campaign material as well as the candidate’s forums.     

Normally we would have run an interview from Sydney Vergis, but that apparently will not happen.  It is unfortunate that our thousands of weekly readers will not be able to see our interview with one of the major candidates in this race.  We offered the invitation along with our invitations for the other four candidates.

In the fourth of our interviews with the Davis City Council candidates, we spoke with Daniel Watts.  Last Monday we ran our interview with Joe Krovoza .  On Friday we ran our interview with Jon Li.  On Sunday we ran the third interview, with Rochelle Swanson. The goal with these interviews was to take previous statements and positions that the candidates had taken and explore them more deeply or to clarify issues that have been presented both in campaign material as well as the candidate’s forums.  

Vanguard:   Of all of the problems facing Davis, why did you choose to focus first on an obscure portion of the municipal code that the city claims has not been enforced since the early 70s?

In Sunday’s Davis Enterprise, Joe Whitcombe says when Measure J was first proposed, he thought “forcing projects to be planned in anticipation of a public vote might indeed result in innovative, beneficial projects.”

Yes. And using their Measure J power, almost 60 percent of the voters rejected the 2005 Covell Village (CV) proposal precisely because it was not sufficiently innovative or beneficial.

The Davis Enterprise yesterday came out in favor of Measure Q.  This is not a really surprising development, and as I pointed out on Saturday, we can certainly make a case for it.  However, the Davis Enterprise’s argument in its favor is completely inaccurate and misses the mark.

We can certainly make an argument that the city budget has been encumbered by the combination of increasing employee compensation at an unsustainable rate while at the same time accruing long-term liabilities that have been unfunded and unchecked.  At the same time the city is removing $3 million from the city’s limited revenue stream, which is a move that is not going to put it on better footing.

It was an interesting contrast Sunday as the Davis Enterprise endorsed Measure R, something that it did not do ten years ago with the original Measure J.  In the meantime, Joseph Whitcombe in his op-ed re-hashed the same tired arguments that the Covell Village developers used back in 2005, that were thoroughly discredited.

The fact that there is no real “no on Measure R” campaign other than the occasional missive launched by the younger Mr. Whitcombe, whether it be the occasional op-ed, ballot statement, or ill-fated court challenge, tells us really all we need to know about Measure R, which is that it is going to pass overwhelmingly and the naysayers of ten years ago have by-and-large faded into the background.

Two weeks ago we learned that John Munn and Ernie Head are pushing a petition drive to put district elections on the ballot.  This has been an issue that has been pondered but never really discussed at any great length either on these pages or in the community at large.

I think most people in Davis should have learned by now that unless the community has a debate and buy-in to an issue, there is a not a great chance of it passing.  A great case in point is the move to make Davis Charter City without really the kind of community discussion that needed to be generated.  That effort had come out of the choice voting effort.  The public had voted in an advisory capacity in 2006 to consider choice voting, but there was no true discussion of it, no real debate, no opposition.