City of Davis

What began as a public comment that I delivered before the Davis City Council grew into a bit of discussion about possibilities.  The city is poised to place an of extension half-cent sales tax measure on the ballot in June.  That measure would continue the generation of three million in tax revenue to the city.  However, people like me have come out against the sales tax in part because it was used to help expand city employee compensation over the last five years rather than expand services.

Moreover, as I argued last night, while the city of Davis faces a long-term fiscal crisis that has serious ramifications, the short term forecast is not bad.  As City Manager Bill Emlen pointed out, even the bad news from last night, falling short of revenue projections measures in the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions.

The failure of Davis to adequately address its short-term budget crisis, combined with a further downturn in sales tax revenues has lead the city of Davis to run a new deficit of nearly a million dollars.

The city is in the short-term proposing to balance the budget by using the reserve and then develop new recommendations aimed at restoring the 15% General Fund reserve.

The Davis Enterprise argued in an Editorial yesterday that the city’s labor negotiations should be conducted in public.  They used the conflict that emerged last month on the council dais, that started over a dispute between two members of the council as to what happened behind closed doors as an impetus to once again argue for public negotiations.

It is an interesting idea that was broached by the Enterprise last spring before the commencement of bargaining.  However, the city cited confidentiality laws among other reasons for not conducting negotiations in public.  I would argue that while they may be correct, there could have been a lot greater transparency during the process.

The Vanguard along with Councilmember Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek have criticized the contract agreements that have come forth out of the collective bargaining process in part because they have failed to take on the most serious of the structural problems.  Much time has focused on city pensions that exploded in the last decade as the city expanded their PERS coverage for public safety employees giving them 3% at 50 and giving other employees 2.5% at 55.

As Councilmember Heystek said following the approval of the firefighter contract in December,

Earlier this week, the entire region, in fact, a good chunk of the state got to see the less than stellar side of Councilmember Sue Greenwald as she accused her colleague of being a liar, and continued to carry on off-stage when the Mayor was down for the count.

The Sacramento Bee called this the rude side of small town democracy.  They wrote this morning that Davis, in comparison to the civil discussion in Winters over a fast-food restaurant:

The Vanguard has learned and confirmed that the City’s HR Director Melissa Chaney sat at the management table as part of the negotiating team on behalf of the city during the discussion and negotiations with the city management employees group.  Not only is Ms. Chaney a member of that bargaining group, but so too is her husband, Rick Guidara who is an information services manager.

The city was clearly aware of this potential conflict of interests.  The Vanguard understands that City Finance Director Paul Navazio recused himself from being the city bargaining team when the department heads discussion came up due to the fact that he deemed it to be a potential conflict of interest.

Lost in the chaos of Tuesday is the fact that an important discussion took place and will need to be revisited since the council adjourned without taking action.  I think it is important to note at the outset here, that I was surprised the discussion took the turn it did because in my view, the line drawn in the sand should have been with the management group and fire not PASEA.

From the standpoint of fairness, I certainly could not support a system where fire and management got a better deal than the 125 or so employees that make up the PASEA bargaining group.

I have seen a lot of things in the last four years, probably more than most in this community.  I have seen the best in people and at times the worst in people.  However, I am not sure I have ever seen a  worse side of people than I did on Tuesday night.  The worst of it came after the cameras were off.

I delayed writing about this for a day. I wanted to gain some reflection. I wanted to see how things played out.  I spoke to other reporters about the propriety of reporting such a personal encounter and asked what they would do.  But mostly I watched the response of the community and whether Councilmember Sue Greenwald would step up and take responsibility for her actions on Tuesday.

What began as a typical debate over the latest round of MOUs quickly devolved into first more bickering between Councilmember Sue Greenwald and Mayor Ruth Asmundson.  The Mayor twice stepped aside to allow Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor preside over the meeting. 

The second time the Mayor retreated into the vestibule where she began getting medical attention from an off-duty firefighter.  She would later be taken to the hospital.  The Vanguard understands that her blood pressure rose greatly but has no further details on her condition at this time.