Wildhorse EIR Shows Need To Update City Fire Policies

Specifically the project is said to lie outside of the five minute response time area. Moreover,
Specifically the project is said to lie outside of the five minute response time area. Moreover,
Obviously that rate of increase is unsustainable. Thanks to the city of Davis and Finance Director Paul Navazio, we have the latest projections as well. The key question is whether PERS contributions will continue to increase at the rate that they have and the second question is what the city can do about it.
Last week, the Davis City Council passed a budget that calls for cutbacks in salary and benefits that equals around 3.8 percent of employee compensation. The raw number is 1.25 million dollars, less than the number that Councilmember Lamar Heystek pushed which represented around 5 percent at 1.575 million dollars. At the same time, it was greater than the 850,000 dollars that the city was proposing.
The actions taken by the Planning Commission on Wednesday were fivefold. First, they certified the Final EIR for the Wildhorse Ranch proposal, including findings of fact, statement of overriding considerations, and mitigation monitoring plan in the staff report. Second, they approved the General Plan Amendment Resolution that establishes the land use designations for the Wildhorse Ranch. Third they introduced the ordinance that rezones and establishes the use and development standards for the Wildhorse Ranch site. Fourth, they approved the Affordable Housing Plan. And finally they introduced the ordinance to approve the Development Agreement between the City and the Developer, Parlin Whildhorse Ranch. Again, this item was approved as received as it was not complete at the time of the meeting.
DeLano’s Markets is coming to West Lake. The talks had been on and off for much of the last six months. The deal at one point appeared dead when the owners pulled the financing, however due to the persistence of DANG (Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries), city staff kept the pressure on the owners to put something together. Those talks had heated up for the past month and they made steady progress until last week when the Vanguard announced the two sides were close to an agreement.
The council in January decided to punt after the Natural Resource Commission recommended an ordinance that would ban woodburning. Given the time of year and the fact that it was the end of the burning season, it made some sense to defer a decision in this case. The council will now hear the issue once again and perhaps make some sort of determination.
In April, the Davis City Council passed a resolution recommending GHG reduction thresholds and standards for new residential housing projects. It set as its initial goal a 2.4 metric ton reduction per residence, or a 44% reduction of GHG emission for new homes. This project more than doubles the city’s goals.
The Vanguard had previously reported the deal between the Delanos Grocery Store Chain and the owners of Westlake to be dead after the owners pulled their financial offer to put up the capital necessary to re-fixturize the interior of the store that the owners themselves gutted following the closure of Food Fair.
At times, the rhetoric became contentious. Many representatives from the community of course came forward to speak and as is often the case, they cheered when they agreed with the speaker.
Back on May 20, 2009, the Vanguard and Davis Neighborhood Coalition hosted a Budget Townhall Meeting at the Veteran’s Memorial section. It featured a panel of three members–Paul Navazio finance director from the City of Davis, Johannes Troost, Chair of the Budget and Finance Commission, and Mark Siegler, Economics Professor at Sacramento State and past chair of the Budget and Finance Commission.
The video is in two parts. The first part is the panel discussion and the second is audience participation.
Councilmember Heystek told the Vanguard that he was reiterating that given the budget adopted by the Council, it doesn’t appear he will support an extension of the sales tax and therefore is likely to actively campaign against it.
As it stands right now, the budget will likely pass by a 3-2 vote. Much of how bad the budget will be is still to be determined by the results of employee negotiations–but we are not holding out hope that the city council and city staff will solve the city’s structural problems.
This particular letter was sent to the Yolo County Commission on Aging and Adult Services. It appears from the letter that the constitution of the committee has been altered since its inception.
There are four key issues in question. First is the total number of units. That number was agreed to as 107 units in an MOU signed in June of 2008. However, city staff has recommended 21 second units (Granny flats). The neighbors have argued that that constitutes an additional 21 units on the site, pushing the total number of units to 128, which violated their agreement with the developer and greatly increases density. The developer has been willing to compromise at 10 units. However, the neighbors continue to argue that they already signed an agreement for zero additional units, and thus they should not have to come off that number.
That is the issue of 215 acres of business park build out over a 25 year period. Granted that is a long period of time, but the issue itself forces a discussion of peripheral development and building on farmland. The city has only 140 acres of potential business park with Cannery included in the mix. That means even considering Cannery the city is looking at 75 acres of development on agricultural land.
In particular, the Vanguard learned that while the two positions appear to be similarly funded, the Firefighter II position is not the equivalent of the Police Sergeant position. When Councilmember Heystek asked Bill Emlen what the comparable front line supervisory positions were for police and fire, City Manager Bill Emlen responded:
For those not familiar with that case, it should have been a simple case. The then 16-year-old Buzayan was arrested in June of 2005 for an alleged hit-and-run. Whether or not the teen was driving the vehicle or the vehicle made contact with the other car are in doubt. What is not in doubt was a decision to go into the family’s home at night and arrest the girl in her pajama’s. The family then alleged a series of civil rights violations followed from that point in time, the most serious the allegation that the officer involved ignored pleas for an attorney. That case is still pending before federal court. It is moving slowly but depositions have or will shortly begin.
The bottom line was the failure of the Davis City Council to adequately address the looming structural issues of employee compensation at this meeting. The short-term budget remains to be balanced through cutbacks to programs rather than changes to way the city funds employee compensation.
Last night, the first of those commissions, the Business and Economic Development Commission (BEDC) would take the matter into consideration. From the onset, the commission was clearly not comfortable with the vague directive. For the most part they seemed inclined not to grant an exemption, but they were not ready to definitively reach that verdict instead they voted by a 7 to 1 vote to recommend no exemption at this point in time. The one dissenting vote actually wanted an qualifier removed.