Accident Exemplifies Need For New Calming Measures
On Wednesday the Davis Enterprise reported a two-car collision around noon that knocked out the city’s fire hydrant at Fifth and E Streets and blocked traffic.
According to the report:
Model Shows Fifth Street Redesign Improves Traffic Flow Through Corridor
The business community has expressed concerns about a Fifth Street redesign that would drop the lanes on Fifth from four to two while adding bike lanes and turn pockets. They argue that this would reduce the amount of traffic the street can carry and therefore harm the downtown. However, as one person has expressed, why is having a four lane urban highway through town leading directly to the new Target in the best interest of downtown?
A new modeling study performed by UC Davis shows in fact many of those fears are simply unfounded. They find capacity with a two lane road unchanged and throughput improving significantly in the westbound direction and only slightly slower in the eastbound direction–seven seconds added for the entire drive from L Street to A Street. The results of this model also show other improvements that lend themselves well to other goals in the city.
The Puzzle of Souza’s Wildhorse Vote
At the January 29, 2008 City Council meeting, the council took up the issue of Wildhorse Ranch (WHR). At that time, the consensus was that the WHR proposal they were looking at was just another housing development, and it lacked a “wow factor.” That in fact was the night that the “wow factor” phrase was coined. At that time WHR was a 259 unit development with three and four story buildings, streets and homes abutting right against the existing Wildhorse neighbors’ backyards.
The leading voice in that night’s consensus was Councilmember Stephen Souza, who dismissed the project as just not having a “wow factor.” During the 2008 campaign in an article in the California Aggie, Councilmember Souza made “wow factor” a part of his core reelection message. In that article he outlined his four components of “wow,” saying:
What Became of the Davis Teen Center
I should state here at the outset that what I write has nothing to do with support or opposition to a Davis Bicycle Hall of Fame which I fully support and very much believe to be one of the best things to happen to Davis. The question is always one of where and how. And I find it very interesting that on May 5, 2009, Councilmember Lamar Heystek was the only Councilmember to question why close down the teen center in order to make room for the Bicycle Hall of Fame.
What becomes more fascinating is that in the past few weeks I have had two separate emails from separate people asking me to investigate what happened. During the same time, the Davis Enterprise has had three separate letters to the editor that have questioned the decision. For me that is somewhat odd given that we are really nearly three months after the council decision was made and at the time the only person who seemed to care was Councilmember Heystek.
Is Davis Doing Enough to Help the Downtown?
During the Target campaign it was often argued that Davis’ Downtown would bare the brunt of the impact from Target. Those opposing Target argued that people would divert their shopping from the Davis Downtown to the periphery when Target was constructed. Those supporting Target argued on the contrary that most of the Target shoppers already go up to Woodland to shop at Target now and that all a Davis Target would do would be to transfer shoppers at the Woodland Target to Davis and keep the sales tax revenues in Davis.
This debate took place in 2006 during a very different economic time. Nevertheless the Target Development Agreement included 100,000 dollars for “community enhancement.” The Davis Downtown Business Association submitted a proposal to city staff for the the use of that money in order to conduct a multi-media marking campaign to help focus people on shopping in the downtown.
Guest Commentary: Welcome to Davis! – A Free-Burning, Toxic Wood Smoke Laboratory! Part II
by Alan Pryor –
by Alan Pryor – Previously in Part I of this 2-part series, the general wood burning problem in Davis was discussed and a summary of the latest regrettable City Council decision was presented. Additionally, a detailed chronology of events from the initial Council discussions on the matter through the inception of the recent Cahill-Staff study was presented. This Part II continues with a discussion of the objectives and results of that study and further discusses recent discussions and decisions at the Council level (see Part I).
Fifth Street Project Could Get SACOG Money
The Davis City Council yesterday met during the morning for their annual August meeting before taking their annual August break. Council is required to meet at least once per month. The Council is scheduled to resume in just four weeks on September 1, 2009. Ordinarily this meeting is ceremonial and has limited items, however this year, due to a backlog of items from last week, the council actually had items to discuss including possible funding for the Fifth Street project.
Members of the community came forward during the item to ask council to include 5th Street among the projects that they would seek money for.
Guest Commentary: Welcome to Davis! – A Free-Burning, Toxic Wood Smoke Laboratory!
by Alan Pryor –
Part I –
Two very different philosophies were shown and two very different regulatory actions toward restricting wood burning were taken by two otherwise very similar college towns in 2009 in Davis and Chico as exemplified by the following quotes.
“I am really interested by this idea that Dr. Cahill could use Davis as a laboratory. I think this would make a tremendous contribution to mankind…This is the type of environmental leadership we are known for…I know this is frustrating to people who have health issues who want a ban right now but it is a sacrifice that might be able to help people later.”
Vanguard Response to Dunning
The following is the Vanguard’s response to Bob Dunning’s Sunday Column and has been submitted to the Davis Enterprise as a letter to the editor.
In his August 2nd Sunday column, Davis Enterprise Columnist Bob Dunning refers to the People’s Vanguard of Davis. We want to take the opportunity to introduce the community to The Vanguard and correct some possible misconceptions arising from Mr. Dunning’s column.
Late Meeting on Tuesday Was Entirely Avoidable
On Thursday, Davis Columnist Bob Dunning lamented the lateness of the Davis City Council Meeting which ran until nearly 2 am on Tuesday night. He got it right when he suggested that late meetings compromise democracy.
In fact, I agree with much of what he had to say, although I do believe that ending a meeting at 10 pm is impractical given that councilmembers, or at least two of them, have 9 to 5 jobs meaning that on a regular basis starting a meeting at 5 pm is impractical.
The End of the Senior Housing Strategy Committee?
Very quietly on Tuesday’s meeting, the Davis City Council voted for a consent agenda item that would allow for the delay of initiation of the work by the Senior Housing Strategy Committee. This was the committee created at the behest of Councilmember Stephen Souza that would study the issue of senior housing that was pushed forward this spring by the lobbying efforts of the Covell Partners as they seek to bring back Covell Village.
This is another example of Councilmember Stephen Souza coming up with a clever idea during the council meeting but not having throught through the implementation of the process. The form and structure of the committee changed drastically throughout the process, but the goal was for the committee to make a recommendation to the City Council by the end of 2009. To do that, it was scheduled to meet nine times between July 30 and November 19.
On a Strange Night, a Strange Coalition of Three Supports Wildhorse Ranch
In a long and meandering meeting that began at 5 pm with a joint discussion with Woodland City Council on water, ended just before 2 am with a 3-2 vote to deliver the Wildhorse Ranch Project for a Measure J vote in November 2009.
Councilmembers Sue Greenwald and Stephen Souza repeatedly attempted to delay this discussion, in part based on the lateness of the hour and in part based on not only the complexity of the issues but also problems that they had with the project.
Odd Staff Report Recommends Go-Head with Wildhorse Ranch Project
On Tuesday, the Davis City Council will decide whether or not to approve the 191 unit, 25.8 acre Wildhorse Ranch project and forward it to the voters for an election per Measure J requirements.
Staff recommends full approval of the project in each of its component parts. The request is to change the land use designations for the site from agriculture, where the property currently contains a horse farm, to residential.
After a lengthy period of outreach by the developers to the Wildhorse Each Neighborhood Association and other adjacent neighborhoods as well as the community at large, and working with city staff, the neighborhood association opted to oppose the project. Nevertheless, city staff believes that “this site plan configuration is acceptable, and addresses most of staff concerns expressed about previous plans.”
Commentary: Maybe Saylor Ought To Worry About His Own Fiscal Mess
All eyes in the past few weeks have been on the current budget crisis in the state of California. There are many good reasons for that as the state figured to try to balance part of the budget on the backs of local government. Fortunately, unlike the past, local government proved to be effective lobbyists and put enough pressure on state legislators to win back some of the worst cuts.
At the same time, the city has had to close an immediate 3.5 million dollar deficit. We have spent a good deal of time detailing that deal and criticizing it for looking at the budget in terms of a short-term budget shortfall rather than dealing with the longer term structural issues. The state of California, for what it’s worth, now faces similar criticism.
Citizens Beware: Emails Sent to Public Officials Are Public Documents
Member of the Davis City Council Leaks A Constituent Communcation to Bob Dunning –
Member of the Davis City Council Leaks A Constituent Communcation to Bob Dunning – An unfortunate civics lesson was learned this week by a member of our community when a letter sent to all five of the Davis City Council Member’s city of Davis email addresses ended up in Bob Dunning’s column on Tuesday. We can certainly debate the propriety of a Davis City Councilmember leaking an email from a constituent to a journalist in an effort to embarrass them, however from the standpoint of the law, they have every right to do it.
Written communications either sent via letter or electronically are considered public documents which are subject to the California Public Records Act. In fact, city staff often reads them, prints them out, and disseminates them as well.
City Approves Additional Grant Funding for Rancho Yolo
At Tuesday’s City Council Meeting, the Davis City Council approved by a 4-0 vote a grant to the Rancho Yolo Association for 43,900 dollars. This follows a grant of 50,000 that was approved in April. Councilmember Sue Greenwald abstained from this vote.
The motion approved by council was made by Councilmember Lamar Heystek and represented a compromise over the original staff recommendation which would require 10,000 dollars for a third party review of the process but come outside of the grant money. This would come from the 43,000 but reduce the cost of the third party review to 5,000.
Planning Commission Puts the Kibosh on Business Park Exemption Proposal for Measure J
If the June vote by the Business and Economic Development Commission was not a strong enough message to Councilmember Stephen Souza’s proposal for a business park exemption to Measure J, the voter approved measure that gives the voters of Davis the ability to vote on proposed land use designation changes that would pave the way for development, on Wednesday, the Planning Commission unanimously voted against placing any exemptions before the Davis voters.
During the course of discussion there seemed to be no great sense to exempt a specific property for a business park proposal. There was some concern that it would lead to an overly complicated process and a member of the public, Pam Nieberg, pointed out from the original legal advice that any exemption for a specific property could lead to a lawsuit unless all properties were considered for exemption.
Word to the Wise – The Creation of Artificial Debt
by Elaine Roberts Musser –
by Elaine Roberts Musser – On July 8, 2009, I had the honor of being interviewed here in Davis by Tom Vacar of KTVU Fox 2, Oakland. The story to be covered is about the growing problem in the homeowner association arena of artificial debt created by subsidiary debt collectors, working in concert with their affiliated law firms and homeowner association industry managers. The reason I was chosen as one of several persons interviewed, was my intimate knowledge of this practice, because of several cases I have worked on as both a volunteer attorney and board member of the Oakland based Center for California Homeowners Association Law.
Here is how the scam works. When a homeowner tries to tender a check to pay for their monthly assessment to the homeowners association through its hired management company, the check is either not accepted or not posted to the homeowner’s account in a timely manner. The result is a determination by management the payment is now suddenly “overdue”. This triggers the collections process, with the homeowners “delinquency” immediately sent to collections. Here, the money meter begins to run, racking up huge collections costs and late fees. If the total debt owed, including all collections costs and late fees, is not paid posthaste and in toto, the homeowner’s house is held hostage with a threatened foreclosure. The collections process is tantamount to a train rolling downhill on the tracks – almost impossible to stop once begun.
Davis Faces Huge Budget Impact From State Budget Deal
Proposals Might Push Another 2.4 million hit to General Fund and 2.5 Million to Redevelopment –
On Tuesday night, Finance Director Paul Navazio briefed the Davis City Council on the impact of the recently agreed upon budget on the city’s finances. As he pointed out however, at this point they only have a vague notion of what is in that budget which was scheduled to be voted upon on Thursday, however, on Tuesday complications arose about a prison release plan the Republicans claim not to have known about.
At this point this is preliminary information that is subject to approval by the legislature. The intent of the item on Tuesday was to translate what has been talked about into the impact on the Davis City Finances.
Planning Commission to Hear Measure J Discussion Wednesday
It was nearly a month ago that the Business and Economic Development Commission (BEDC) considered whether Measure J should have a business park exemption during their vote to place a renewal on the ballot that would sunset in 2020. At that time, the BEDC did not feel comfortable with the vague lack of direction that the council provided them. They would vote by a 7 to 1 vote to recommend no exemption at this point in time. The one dissenting vote actually wanted the qualifier “at this point in time” removed.
The BEDC was reluctant to permanently recommend against this consideration based on the notion that they are in the midst of receiving a staff report on the city’s business park land needs. Depending on the outcome of that study, they might wish to revisit the issue should the study show the definitive and immediate need for a business park.