City of Davis Archives - Page 415 of 455

Staff Report on Noise Ordinance Exemption Is Baffling

By David GreenwaldNovember 16, 200926 comments

day_care_center

Our initial report on Saturday did not have access to the staff report because the city’s computer system was down at the time it was written. The staff report is now available and raises far more questions than answers primarily because it gives no rationale for the exemption other than the fact that the Council voted to direct staff to examine the noise ordinance and suggest approaches to dealing with child care centers and schools.

The issue of the time limitations for the noise ordinance exemption are interesting:

Commentary: Sharing the Pain

By David GreenwaldNovember 15, 200947 comments

It is somewhat remarkable to see the Davis Enterprise editorial this morning, exclaim that the “Public employees must do their part.” They look at the Davis city and school budget budgets and argue that the employee unions must take concessions if they want to save jobs.

Last year, the teachers did not do this, and of course 57 teachers, administrators, and staffers ended up losing their jobs. So now that we know that the district is looking to close another $3.5 million deficit in the coming year and that the current plan is based on $2.5 million in cuts, 33 additional jobs cut including teachers, administrators, and eight support positions and there will be an additional $1 million realized in employee concessions that are still to be determined.

City Disrespects Neighbors by Again Agendizing Exemption to Noise Ordinance

By David GreenwaldNovember 14, 200936 comments

Back in March, Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor requested an item by a Councilmember on the agenda that would exempt from the City’s Noise Ordinance, Schools and Day Care centers. Mayor Pro Tem Saylor described the noise as the natural and delightful noise of children. He openly wondered who could object to the sounds of children, implying that those who did were simply being selfish and insensitive.

The Vanguard immediately identified the source of this request, as for years, the residents of Cezanne Court have been fighting John Hillis, owner of the private for profit Montessori Country Day Care Center. As one of the neighbors described it to me, the problem is so bad that once school begins at 8:30 am, there is no possibility of resting in their own home. There is persistent noise throughout the day at levels approaching 90 dbs. Moreover there is trash and litter thrown throughout various adjacent properties.

Impasse Being Bandied About

By David GreenwaldNovember 13, 200913 comments

For those who have not read Rich Rifkin’s column in the Enterprise, it was an outstanding piece. The idea of declaring impasse in the current labor negotiations is probably an increasingly necessary step.

As Mr. Rifkin explained, once a council declares impasse in its labor negotiations state law then allows the council to impose its “last, best and final offer” on the city unions involved in collective bargaining negotiations. Davis has a particularly labor-friendly ordinance however, and under current law it could take four to six weeks to impose its contract terms after declaring impasse.

City Holds Works Shop on 5th Street Road Diet As Injury Toll Mounts

By David GreenwaldNovember 13, 20093 comments

Back on September 8, 2009, the Davis City Council unanimously adopted a resolution that supported the implementation of a road diet on the Fifth Street Corridor which would reduce the number of travel lanes from four to two and incorporate bike lanes.

Last night at the Senior Center, the city staff introduced its conceptual plans for implementing the design changes to the roadway and then sought public feedback on a variety of elements.

Contracts Likely To Not Produce the Savings We Need

By David GreenwaldNovember 12, 200912 comments

Word trickled out prior to the Tuesday’s meeting that several of the bargaining groups had reached agreement with the city in principle on new contracts. As it turns out that news was premature, but it seems very likely that in the coming weeks those contracts will be finalized.

There was suggestion on Tuesday however, that those contracts would fall well short of even the modest savings proposed by the council in June which placed the figure at 1.25 million dollars. In fact, City Finance Director Paul Navazio indicated that there might be a 350,000 dollar shortfall in the projected savings based on the current trajectory of discussions.

Council Says No To Mace Parke Project

By David GreenwaldNovember 12, 20095 comments

Commentary: We Need to Change the Way We Finance Affordable Housing Projects –

The Davis City Council had previously approved the Mace Parke project on a land dedication site at 2990 Fifth Street as a residential and office mixed-use subdivision with 29 affordable ownership units and just under 10,000 square feet of non-profit office space. It would have been developed by CHOC under the community land trust ownership model where CHOC would maintain ownership of the land that the project is developed upon through a community trust, and would lease individual lots to the buyers/owners of the single-family detached homes.

CHOC came back before the council on Tuesday asking that the City and the Redevelopment agency approve them to proceed with the project that does not use the community land trust model.

Shell Game Produces 400,000 Dollars For Battalion Chief Under the Guise of Cost-Savings

By David GreenwaldNovember 11, 200913 comments

Fire Chief To Retire, Council Narrowly Votes for Battalion Chief Model in Process That Councilmembers Greenwald and Heystek Call “Deceptive” –

At last night’s city council meeting the discussion on reorganization of the fire department began with an announcement by City Manager Bill Emlen that this matter has taken on a new urgency as three top positions in the fire department, including the Fire Chief have gone vacant due to retirements. For much of the rest of the night, City Manager Bill Emlen pushed the issue of the Battalion Chief Model forward arguing that it is a necessary change from a management standpoint that will enable more effective deployment than the current model allows. He wrapped the conversation within the guise of cost-savings that would be exposed by the end of the evening as nothing more than a shell game.

However, that did not stop the council majority, a trio that has received tens of thousands in contributions from the fire fighters, at least twenty of whom were sitting in the audience to make their numbers and presence felt by the council, from voting by a narrow 3-2 margin to proceed looking into the reorganization.

Moderation Rules For Vanguard

By David GreenwaldNovember 11, 200955 comments

Two weeks ago the Vanguard for the first time instituted a registration system. The system has not…

Staff Report on Fire Staffing Misleading and Confusing

By David GreenwaldNovember 10, 20097 comments

On Sunday, the Vanguard a full story on the proposed staffing changes for the fire department which includes the fire department getting their long-sought after battalion chief position. We noted several problems at that time with the staff report and the combination of two separate changes to create the illusion of cash savings. However, we have with further examination and upon further information, there are additional problems with the staff report and the accounting.

We will go through several of them here to re-emphasis the points ahead of tonight’s meeting.

Finance and Buget Commission Continues To Model Fiscal Impacts of Development

By David GreenwaldNovember 10, 20093 comments

Last month the city of Davis’ Budget and Finance commission began to look at the city’s model which is used to evaluate the fiscal impact of new development. Last month they discussed the overall model and the various assumptions and interpretations of the model.

From last month’s discussions, there are three types of fiscal impacts. There are projects that are always positive in terms of fiscal impacts, we could think of these as economic development projects. There are also projects that will always have a negative impact, for example a zero tax affordable project will always have a negative fiscal impact.

Vanguard Study: City’s Affordable Housing Program Falls Short

By David GreenwaldNovember 9, 200946 comments

The City of Davis has often boasted of its innovative and far-reaching affordable housing program. However, as we saw in the early part of this decade, that program has often been abused and the subject of serious impropriety and corruption at the city level. The current DACHA problem is yet another stain on the city’s ability to provide low income people with affordable housing.

The Vanguard has spent a good amount of time on and off over the past year examining the core of the city’s affordable housing program. The bottom line is that Davis’ program fails to provide housing at an acceptable level for people making less than 36,000 dollars per year. Subsequently except for Federal Section 8 Vouchers, the core of the city’s affordable housing program is aimed people making between 36,300 and 58,100 dollars per year. Even for those residents, we might question as to how “affordable” the rental housing is. What follows is a look strictly at rental housing, but we will probably do a follow up for ownership housing.

City Recommends Firefighters Get Their Long-Sought Battalion Chief Model

By David GreenwaldNovember 8, 20097 comments

Move will Actually Cost the City Nearly 200,000 Additional Dollars Annually –

In June, the city received a report from the consulting firm Citygate on that looked into ways the city could restructure the fire department’s staffing. In most ways, the report was a disappointment in that it failed to recommend any major reform that would result in real cost savings.

However, even within that report, there were still a few items of interest including the fact that an increased relationship with UC Davis, along with a more realistic response time requirement of 7 minutes rather than the current 5 minute standard, would result in no need for a fourth fire station for the foreseeable future short of a large amount of growth in the north of Davis–the result probably of fully developing both Covell Village and Cannery Park.

A Look Back at the Housing Element Sites

By David GreenwaldNovember 6, 200941 comments

Much has been made of the fact that the recently rejected Wildhorse Ranch Project is only ranked No.22 currently and was originally ranked as low as No.27 by the Housing Element Steering Committee (HESC). The voters rejected Wildhorse Ranch (Measure P) by a wide margin. Given the housing market, it seems unlikely the voters will approve another Measure J project in the near future.

However, it would be helpful to take another look at the other potential housing sites. The city is likely going to have to focus on infill sites in the near future to meet whatever housing needs it has. Recall that there are roughly 500 already approved but not built units already in town. In addition, there will be just under 500 faculty homes built on the West Village site to go along with around 1000 student housing units.

No on P Able To Win With Low-Cost Campaign Effort

By David GreenwaldNovember 5, 2009121 comments

Yesterday’s Vanguard analyzed the political climate that played a considerable role in the large victory for the opposition to the Wildhorse Ranch project. However, the subtext of the election is the huge discrepancy in the amount of money spent. Current estimates place the final campaign effort in support of P at around 375,000 dollars. While this is considerably less than the reported 600,000 dollars spent in 2005 by Measure X and estimated actual expenditures of one million dollars, it is far more than the few thousand reported by the No on P campaign.

How did they do it? A large part of that answer goes back to yesterday’s column which talks about the political climate, the housing market, the lack of pressing need for housing, the uncertainties facing the community with regards to home prices, and of course a number of mistakes and miscalculations.

Voters Resoundingly Say No To New Growth

By David GreenwaldNovember 4, 200993 comments

While one is never quite sure the results of a local election until the votes are counted, by all measures, this is no surprise except perhaps for the final margin of defeat. Last night the Davis voters overwhelmingly and resoundingly rejected the city’s second Measure J vote by a 3-1 margin.

While much will be made about the amount spent by the two sides in this race, criticism leveled toward the project applicant for pushing forward with this vote in a year where the housing market was the worst we have seen, the bottom line is that this result is not simply about a campaign, it is too wide a result to be about errors and mistakes and we can certainly go down the list of them again, this is a wholesale rejection once again by the voters of peripheral development and growth.

Measure P: My Closing Comments

By David GreenwaldNovember 3, 200942 comments

If there is one thing I agree with Bob Dunning on, it is that everyone regardless of the side that they are on, will be happy when Measure P is over. I have said numerous times, that there are far more important issues facing us here in the city than the disposition of 191 units. However, embedded within this issue are in fact other serious issues that residents need to follow long after the glare of the spotlight is off this project.

It is these issues that I wish to discuss in my closing remarks. Tomorrow at this time, we will know the outcome of this election. I have written two pieces in advance, one of them will be published while the other will never see the light of day. Which one you read will depend on what happens today at the polls.

Speaking of Paid Workers: Details on Measure X Campaign’s Late Disclosures

By David GreenwaldNovember 2, 200931 comments

On June 4, the Vanguard reported that the Covell Village Campaign, Smart Planning – Yes on X, had failed to report hundreds of thousands in campaign expenditures in a timely matter.

On April 3, 2008, two and a half years after the November 3, 2005 election, the campaign filed three amended statements using the Fair Political Practice Commission (FPPC) California Form 460 were filed with the Davis City Clerk, two and a half years after the termination of campaign papers were filed on January 31, 2006 claiming a zero balance and a final expenditure of 385,274.75 dollars for the campaign that lasted from July 28, 2005 until December 31, 2005.

Closing Argument: Vote Yes on the MERITS of the Measure P Project

By David GreenwaldNovember 1, 200964 comments

by Denise Hoffner –

While some people have been discussing Measure P for several weeks, others are just starting to pay attention to the issue because the election is this Tuesday. It seems some people in town have rushed to judgment, admittedly and regretfully taking a No position on Measure P without even knowing that it includes 40 affordable, 100% accessible rental units that come fully equipped with solar panels and the top-of-the-line energy efficiency features as well as provides Davis with the first 21st Century sustainable and affordable neighorhood, since Village Homes was built over 35 years ago.

Closing Argument: P Sets the Wrong Standard

By David GreenwaldNovember 1, 20098 comments

by Philip King and Mark Siegler –

The Yes on P side has stated that the Wildhorse Ranch project will set a new standard. Unfortunately, the standard they are setting is one in deceptive politics. After many vacuous brochures filled with pictures of tree huggers, majestic red barns, and Chia houses, Parlin Development now says that we, the No on P campaign, have made “patently untrue claims.” All of our statements have come from City and University documents or have been confirmed by City staff, so let’s look at the facts one last time.

Move will Actually Cost the City Nearly 200,000 Additional Dollars Annually –

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