City of Davis Archives - Page 423 of 460

Judge’s Ruling: Anonymity Protections Not Absolute

By David GreenwaldSeptember 14, 20095 comments

The Vanguard has proven partially if not mostly successful in its efforts to quash a subpoena seeking records by the plaintiffs in the suit Calvin Chang v. the Regents of the University of California.

The plaintiff’s subpoena sought identifying information, including names and addresses, of those individuals who under the names “Mack Chuchillo” and “anonymous” posted certain comments about Mr. Chang and his lawsuit. The comments were posted on the Vanguard just a few days after plaintiff filed suit in February 2009.

Counterspin From City on Water

By David GreenwaldSeptember 13, 200933 comments

Joint Water Project with Woodland About To Be Approved –

Placed before the Davis City Council on Tuesday will be true action on water that we have seen that will lock the city into a course of action. If approved it would authorize the Mayor of the city of Davis to execute the proposed Joint Powers Authority agreement–the Davis-Woodland Water Authority (DWWA), it would elect two of the Davis City Councilmembers and an alternate to serve on the Governing Board, and it would approve a budget contribution of just under one million dollars.

According to comments set up at the joint council session, only elected officials would serve as members of the Governing Board. Currently the board would be made up of four members with non-tiebreaking provision, meaning and emphasizing the need for consensus building.

Council Moves Grant Process Forward With Resolution of Support for Fifth Street Redesign

By David GreenwaldSeptember 9, 200977 comments

After a staff report that appeared to waffle and stall for time, city staff on Tuesday night found a way forward in the form of a resolution the entire council could agree with.

The resolution was read into the record by Councilmember Lamar Heystek. The consensus emerged following the public comment of dozens of residents, most of who came forward strongly in support of the project.

Council About to Squander SACOG Funding Opportunity on Fifth Street Redesign

By David GreenwaldSeptember 8, 200929 comments

Over 2500 Sign Petition in Support – These Are Your Customers DDBA, Are You Listening!

It does not seem very long ago that DDBA co-President Jennifer Anderson proudly strode to the mic at Community Chambers to announce that they had collected 400 signatures opposing the Fifth Street Redesign.

Tonight Council once again will hear staff on the Fifth Street redesign, just over a month after they approved funding for a SACOG grant. This time it is supporters of the project that will be armed to the teeth with a petition–2500 strong in favor of the redesign. DDBA, how do you like them apples?

City Seeks To Avoid More Cuts Despite Raid by State

By David GreenwaldSeptember 7, 200936 comments

When the city council voted by a 3-2 margin to approve the 2009-10 budget, we were critical that the effort was heavily reliant on more positive assumptions for future revenue and economic recovery than perhaps was warranted. To add to that concern was the heavy reliance on cutting city services as opposed to dealing with the longer term and more pervasive structural problems that the city faces in the form of employee compensation and a variety of unfunded liabilities.

To make matters worse, the state in creating a bigger mess than necessary out of their own budget quagmire, decided to transfer a portion of their debt, roughly $2 billion, from the state to local government. The staff estimated impact of the city’s budget is roughly $4.5 million. However, before you completely fall out of your chair, only $1.3 million will impact the general fund. The $3.2 million is coming out of the Redevelopment Agency. This by itself could be a huge problem should it continue down the line.

Commentary: Time To Stop Deferring Tough Decision on Wood Burning

By David GreenwaldSeptember 7, 200912 comments

On the night of July 21, 2009, the Davis City Council dropped back into punt formation and punted the political hot potato that is the wood burning issue back even further off the horizon… yet again.

The issue has been mishandled from the beginning starting with a summer 2008 vote that was done before most people even became aware of the issue where they directed the Natural Resources Commission to draft an ordinance that would ban woodburning in the city of Davis.

CalPERS Debunks Myth of Shorter Life Expectancy For Safety Employees

By David GreenwaldSeptember 4, 200918 comments

One of the most pervasive myths in the debate over pension for public employees has been the justification for receiving the enhanced safety benefits. There is a legitimate argument that says that since public safety work is more hazardous and physically grueling than other work, that employees should received the enhanced benefits of 3 percent at the retirement age of fifty. I do not quite buy that argument, but it is a legitimate argument.

However, time and again, we hear another justification, that public safety employees do not live as long as other employees. In fact, the union President of the local firefighters has often thrown out the number 7 years as the life expectancy upon retirement. That number has been thrown around on the Vanguard as well on the comments section. When asked to substantiate that claim, apparently one can find various websites that show that police in the US have a considerably shorter life expectancy than the average male and there are firefighters sites that show the same for firefighters.

Commentary: Downtown Needs To Embrace Change on Fifth Street

By David GreenwaldSeptember 1, 200921 comments

Sunday’s Davis Enterprise presents a good and balanced article on the Fifth Street Redesign and it captures well the concerns that many in the downtown businesses have toward the project. While I understand the concerns of business–namely that reducing the lanes on Fifth Street will slow down traffic and thus discourage people from coming to downtown, I believe the effect of the change will actually produce the opposite impact for downtown.

The studies show that the road capacity will be the same. What will be different is there will be more traffic flow and less traffic stopping. Pedestrians and bicyclists both of whom could be huge partakers in the downtown will have greater access to the downtown under a redesign. Statistics show that the corridor presently is the most dangerous stretch of road in Davis–creating a safer road will benefit downtown.

Measure P Rebuttal Statements Turned In

By David GreenwaldAugust 31, 2009146 comments

A few weeks ago the Vanguard printed the ballot statements for and against Measure P.

Signing the ballot statement for Measure P were Jay Gerber, Business Owner/ former President Davis Chamber of Commerce; Tansey Thomas, former City Council Candidate and Community Activist; Stan Forbes Business Owner and former Davis City Councilmember; Pam Nieberg, Environmental Activist; and Ken Wagstaff, Former Mayor of Davis.

The Battle over Anonymity Still Up in the Air

By David GreenwaldAugust 30, 200921 comments

On August 8, 2009, the Vanguard ran a story on its court battle to protect the anonymity…

Big Question For November: Does Wildhorse Ranch Meet Our Housing Needs?

By David GreenwaldAugust 28, 2009233 comments

Yesterday’s article discussed the issue of housing affordability in Davis. At that time, we chose to separate the overall issue of housing affordability from the hot button issue of Wildhorse Ranch that voters will vote on come November. One of the crucial questions voters will have to determine is to what extent, Wildhorse Ranch provides housing that meets our needs in Davis.

As we discussed yesterday, the problem of affordability of housing in Davis has no simple solution. Indeed each of the three solutions that we threw out as possible answers had serious shortcommings.

Providing Housing For the Workforce in Davis

By David GreenwaldAugust 27, 2009124 comments

In recent weeks there has been an active and persistent discussion on the Vanguard about the issue of workforce housing. The discussion has been interesting and impassioned. The emerging consensus places the number somewhere around $200,000 as housing that a substantial portion of the workforce can afford. While I am sympathetic to the viewpoint of the people who are advocating for more affordable housing for the Davis workforce, I think the discussion to this point has focused too narrowly on one number and one population segment.

I have long been an advocate of slow growth in Davis, and I think the 1% growth requirement set by the council majority is currently set too high. I also believe that any actual growth should not be based on a requirement number, but rather on two concepts: first, internal demand and second, quality of the project.

Commentary: DANG’s Success Teaches Lessons in Civic Activism

By David GreenwaldAugust 26, 20097 comments

They told us it could not be done. It was November of 2008, the West Lake shopping center had been vacant of a grocery store for almost two-and-a-half years. The issue was on no one’s radar, except one blogger and a small but determined group of civic activists who called themselves DANG (Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Grocery Stores).

The argument by those who were skeptical about the prospects of a new store coming to West Lake was simple, no one would simply allow their property lie vacant intentionally and take financial losses. That would be illogical. However, on November 24, 2008, right before Thanksgiving, I was looking for a topic and somewhat casually I listed out top goals for the coming year and there I decided to put getting a grocery store at the top of the list.

Noise Problems Continue To Plague Neighbors of Montessori Day Care Center

By David GreenwaldAugust 25, 200948 comments

Back in March, an item was placed on the Davis City Council agenda that would exempt from the City’s Noise Ordinance, Schools and Day Care centers. That effort never came to fruition as the Vanguard ran not one but two articles chronicling the 15 year struggle that the neighbors had with the facility trying to control the noise problems to have a decent quality of life.

While the exemption from the city never occurred, the noise problem remains and has actually worsened. A letter signed by at least five residents was recently sent to City Manager Bill Emlen and copied to the the Police Chief Landy Black, each of the councilmembers, the Davis Enterprise and the Vanguard.

Will Davis Heed the Pension Crisis Warning?

By David GreenwaldAugust 25, 200929 comments

News about the ongoing negotiations with the city’s bargaining groups have been slow and quiet. While the Vanguard clearly understands that bargaining cannot take place in a public setting, there also could have been mechanisms put into place to have public updates on the process to hold our leaders accountable for the decision that necessarily have to be made behind closed doors.

The state pension crisis in the meantime is beginning to take on a life of its own. There is huge amounts of political pressure coming to bear to reform the pension system. This is exactly what some of us who remain pro-union but also believe that the current system is unsustainable have feared–a solution that will be draconian and will harm the people who are really not causing the current problem, those who make less than $40,000 and struggle for their meager paychecks and hope for enough to have a secure retirement. It is those people that I worry most about and who are most at risk with the current political culture that will likely throw all the babies out with the dirty bathwater.

Doing the Right Thing: How Chief Black Turned A Bad Situation into a Positive

By David GreenwaldAugust 24, 200921 comments

On the Vanguard, we often focus on the negative–offering criticism to public entities for their service to the public and acting as a watchdog. For much of the early years on the Vanguard, we were critical of the Davis Police Department. At the same time, we have often stated that things have improved under the leadership of Chief Landy Black who was hired in early 2007.

Recently, I was a first hand witness to a situation that could have been very negative, but because it was handled promptly, became a net positive for all involved.

DONE DEAL: Lease Signed for DeLano’s To Come To West Lake

By David GreenwaldAugust 21, 200923 comments

DeLano’s Market Targets Thanksgiving Opening Date –

On July 8, it was announced that a deal had been reached to bring the DeLano’s Market to the long vacant grocery store site in West Lake Shopping Center, a site that had been vacant since May of 2006. At that time, though an agreement was in placed, the lease had not been formally signed. And while expected to be a formality, it has taken over a month and a half for the agreement to finally be signed.

On Monday that agreement was officially signed according to Harley DeLano, the company’s CEO.

Word to the Wise: Shocking Update – Debt Collector Angius & Terry Lose in Court to Homeowner

By Elaine Roberts MusserAugust 20, 20095 comments

by Elaine Roberts Musser –

I wrote an article for the Davis Vanguard last month, decrying the shady practices of debt collectors in the homeowner association arena. You can access this article in the Davis Vanguard archives. It is entitled ” Word to the Wise: The creation of Artificial Debt”. In it I referred readers to a link to see news coverage on the subject by KTVU in Oakland at the following website: http://www.ktvu.com/news/20138028/detail.html. Now there is an important update to the story.

Homeowners Ivette Santaella and Rex Ramsey received good news on Aug. 11, 2009, seven days after taking debt collector Angius and Terry LLC to Contra Costa Superior Court. The two finally won their hard fought case. Earlier, in April, the pair succeeded in a small claims suit against the debt collector, but the collection company appealed the ruling. That appeal was heard on August 4, 2009. The President of the Center for California Homeowners Association Law (of which I am a board member) attended the hearing, following the testimony with great interest.

Measure P Ballot Arguments Have Been Submitted

By David GreenwaldAugust 19, 2009115 comments

The Ballot statements for and against Measure P have been submitted to the County Clerk. These are both of them verbatim.

Signing the ballot statement for Measure P are Jay Gerber, Business Owner/ former President Davis Chamber of Commerce; Tansey Thomas, former City Council Candidate and Community Activist; Stan Forbes Business Owner and former Davis City Councilmember; Pam Nieberg, Environmental Activist; and Ken Wagstaff, Former Mayor of Davis.

Setting the Record Straight with Dunning

By David GreenwaldAugust 16, 2009119 comments

There are many who probably care little about this issue, I acknowledge and understand it. Frankly I would have simply ignored it but at some point when a person is challenging your integrity, you ought to at least clarify the issues from your perspective. For those who read the Davis Enterprise, I wish to thank Davis Enterprise Editor Debbie Davis for being willing to print a shortened version of this in today’s Davis Enterprise. She certainly was under no obligation to do so. So for that I am grateful. For those not interested in this issue, don’t worry, we have some major breaking stories you won’t get anywhere else coming out in the next two weeks, so stay tuned.

In the past week I have been reminded of reading the most recent book from Markos Moulitsas, better known to the world as KOS, the founder of the popular liberal blog, The Daily Kos. In it he described with some detail the efforts of Keith Olbermann, the MSNBC Commentator when he began his show, The Countdown, after bouncing around between networks and indeed between genres. He found his niche this time however as a wry commentator utilizing his humor along with his intellect to attack the forces on the right.

Joint Water Project with Woodland About To Be Approved –

Over 2500 Sign Petition in Support – These Are Your Customers DDBA, Are You Listening!

DeLano’s Market Targets Thanksgiving Opening Date –

by Elaine Roberts Musser –

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