The city of Davis will ostensibly be passing a budget on June 23, 2009. Included in that budget will be about 15.5 FTE positions cuts and another 1.5 million dollars in the tiered program reductions. Total savings to the city will be 3.4 million dollars and the budget will on paper be balanced.
As we look more closely at the budget, one is likely to become skeptical about the plan.
Five Year Sunset Clause Problematic HoweverIn 2000, Measure J was passed by the voters of Davis by a 53.6% yes vote giving the citizens the right to vote and determine whether land can be re-designated from Agriculture or Open Space to any urban usage. The measure however, sunsets at the end of 2010 and must be reconsidered by the voters.
Back on April 1, the Vanguard visited the Westlake site and took photos of possible code violations. The Vanguard has now learned that following those photos, the city of Davis issued a notice of Violation to the property owners on April 9, 2009.
In particular, two items were cited, the loading dock “filled with earth” and a cracked window that had been boarded over.
The Vanguard has now learned over three and a half years later that there was significant merit to that complaint. On April 3, 2008 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 for the campaign that lasted from July 28, 2005 until December 31, 2005.
Accusations flew back and forth as even Covell Village developers John Whitcombe and Bill Streng came forward to speak.
Yesterday the Vanguard reported on the continuing efforts of the Covell Village developers to drive discussion on senior housing. Today we have received a post card that was sent out to much of the Davis Senior Community.
It calls on seniors to:
On July 15, 2008, on the consent calendar, the Davis City Council adopted a resolution authorizing the City Manager to executive a consultant agreement with West Yost Associates for East Davis Water Tank. The fiscal impact for those consultant fees was expected not to exceed 600,000 dollars.
However, the Vanguard with the help of concerned community members intercepted the email and the plot was largely foiled.
This week begins the long process of looking at the city budget where the City Council along with City Staff must deal with the short-term budget deficit and hopefully deal with the longer term structural issues dealing with employee compensation.
This article will simply look at the overview presented this week and wonder whether the numbers presented here are simply too optimistic. Part of these figures are based on projected outcomes from negotiations with the bargaining units. That process is ongoing and does not figure to be resolved prior to the budget’s passage on June 23, 2009.
When the new Target was set to be placed on the ballot, the city went to great pains to assure existing neighborhood grocery stores that Target would not be a new competitor. Indeed Target specifically was forbidden from containing more than 20% food services in a specific effort to avoid competition either with the South Davis Nugget Market or the nearby East Manor Shopping Center which is now bare.
However, in the Sacramento Bee yesterday, the article suggests a new emphasis on food sections at the Davis Target.
Last night at the Davis City Council meeting, the city unveiled the budget. Because the budget itself did not get to council until late in the afternoon, the city generally spoke in generalities rather than specifics. In the coming days and weeks, we will look at the budget itself more closely. For now, we want to focus on one particular issue that arose during the course of council discussion.
Finance Director Paul Navazio suggested that part of the more than three million dollar budget deficit will be closed through contract negotiations. Mr. Navazio is proposing somewhere around 860,000 dollars or so of the budget will be closed through contract negotiations. The question then comes to where should that come from and how should the city proceed with negotiations.
The genesis of this approval began on July 15, 2008 with another consent item. The council at that time approved a consultant agreement with West Yost Associates to prepare plans, specifications and estimates for the subject project. The consultant agreement was not to exceed $600,724.
The month of May marks the third year in which the space at Westlake Plaza that used to be occupied by Rays and then Food Fair lay vacant. In this space we have criticized the city of Davis for dragging its feet in terms of putting pressure on the owners to comply with current zoing and general plan requirements that the space be occupied by a grocery store.
That has slowly changed with the efforts of DANG (Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries) and articles that have been run by the Vanguard to put pressure on the city of Davis and ownership to finally bring a store there.
Last Tuesday, the Davis City Council passed and read these principles into the record. One thing that has become clear is that the Davis City Council is now under a tremendous amount of pressure to appropriately deal with the ongoing labor negotiations.
In addition to asking the panel eight preset questions, and taking questions from the audience, we also asked the audience a key question and had them submit the answers to be posted on the Vanguard today.
Davis Should Implement a Ban on All Non-Recyclable Takeout Containers and Impose a Fee on Plastic Bags used at Retail StoresBy Pam Nieberg –
We are polluting the world’s oceans with petroleum based materials that take hundreds to thousands of years to decompose. Sixty to eighty percent of marine debris overall and up to ninety percent of floating debris is plastic. In at least one area in the Pacific, plastic debris outweighs plankton by a factor of six. This debris is carried across the globe by ocean currents, and, as it is broken down by the sun, it joins the huge masses of plastic particles in our oceans that threaten marine wildlife. According to the California Coastal Commission, more than 1 million sea birds, 100,000 marine mammals, including filter feeding whales, and countless fish are killed annually in the north Pacific alone from ingesting or becoming entangled in marine debris. Furthermore, due to their chemical composition, plastic particles can accumulate toxins on their surface which then poison the animals exposed to them.
By E.A. Roberts –
The Davis City Council on Tuesday night heard a presentation from Dr. Ed Schroeder and Dr. George Tchobanoglous that has the potential to change the way we proceed on the water project, but only if the council majority will let it. That became more clear after their presentation was over and the council proceeded to approve by a 3-2 vote a resolution authorizing the City Manager to Execute Consultant Agreement with West Yost Associates for Wastewater Reclamation Alternative Analysis as a SOLE SOURCE AGREEMENT.
This means they are essentially allowing West Yost to have non-competitive bids for conducting Wastewater Reclamation Alternative Analysis. What is left up in the air now is how much this changes what seemed to be a very promising development earlier in the evening when Drs. Schroeder and Tchobanoglous made their presentation following the April 14 release of their consultant study.
Join the Davis Vanguard and Davis Neighborhood Coalition for a Town Hall meeting on Davis’s impending budget…
Once again an opportunity has been missed to move forward with the redesign that is in the adopted General Plan. Replacing the 4 lane street we now have with the two lane plus left turn lane and bike lane configuration will finally provide some safety for the numerous bicyclists and pedestrians using the corridor, and has no negative impacts on vehicle flow. The two most recent traffic models, one funded by the City and one from the UC Davis School of Engineering show that the redesigned street will actually improve traffic flow and travel times.