A lot of people are now turning to PurpleAir.com for real-time air quality measurements.  But everyone should know that, in their default setting, they show higher PM2.5 readings than the government's sensors.  To obtain more realistic readings, use the box in the lower left hand corner of your web page to change the conversion from "none" to "LRAPA."  You can read more about the LRAPA settings here and here. 

Please pass along this information.  Our situation is serious and people should be appropriately cautious (stay inside if possible, use filters if possible, obtain N95 masks from the Davis Fire Department), but no purpose is served by thinking that things are worse than they actually are.

(Screen shot in this post taken at around 4:10 PM, Thursday, November 15).

Climate change is turning working class Californians into sitting ducks. Sadie Fulton writes about how people are struggling to build networks of solidarity in the face of climate disaster, ruling class neglect and the far right.

National Guard on Humboldt Road, Chico, CA. Photo: Erik Rydberg.

Thursday 8 November was a unique day for California’s climate. Record low humidity paired with record high winds practically guaranteed that there would be fires. It is uniquely hard to prepare an entire state for the elevated natural disaster risk when nobody has any idea where a spark will start a wildfire.

By Joan Baez
"Together we can create an unstoppable force for good"

Last night, not a seat was empty in the UC Davis Mondavi Center as Joan Baez paused from singing to deliver this powerful exhortation.  Her music and her message were greeted with standing ovations. After the Show Baez gave the Davisite.org permission to share her words. 

There is no such thing as a slow burn now. Only lightning fast destruction, and the residue of floating ash. The haze is real. It is ash filled smoke, blanketing a good portion of the state of California. This is our Armageddon. And, yet now it's we who must be the fire brigade. No one will appear on the clouds of glory to deliver us.

We must be the fire brigade.

Air quality management district forecasts an AQI of 168*: UCD cancels classes

Air quality management district forecasts an AQI of 174*: UCD holds classes

Brought to you by the same data-free logic that supported Nishi and dismissed the testimony of an internationally recognized air quality expert.

*AQI of 150-200: Unhealthy for all groups

Dear Friend,

I just became a founding donor to start the Friends of the Sustainable Living and Learning Communities donor fund at UC Davis. This effort hopes to raise enough money to support two or more full fellowships a year, and continued program and infrastructure development for the part of campus including the Student Farm, The Domes, and the Tri-Co-ops. We have already raised a five-year commitment of over $80,000 - just under half of our goal – which is why I am reaching out to you to ask if you would consider joining use with a pledge of $100 or more.

Most of us have seen how much additional pressure today’s students are under. This fund-raising effort is intended to ensure that those pressures don’t mean an end to student creativity and community at UC Davis. Donations to this fund will be allocated 30% to the Sustainable Living and Learning Communities and  70% to the Green Fellowships. You may donate here.

By Sadie Fulton

To my non-Californian friends: today here in California we had unprecedented fire-prone conditions. High winds, dry air and land. 

The town of Paradise is under full evacuation (from what is bitterly called the "Camp Fire") and much of it is burning down, and that fire started only this morning. Ventura county, hundreds of miles away from Paradise also caught fire. There were two small fires in Davis today and that's just what I know about. 

People are missing in the Camp Fire. Hundreds if not thousands of people just became homeless.

At the entrance to the stadium with a group of young Hondureños

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to meet up with migrant caravan that has been traveling up from Central America. 

By Nick Buxton

This is a long post but I wanted to share the experience.

Of course, if you believed the news or some political leaders I was about to go and meet up with a gang of criminals, terrorists and armed invaders. But it’s that racist rhetoric and politics of hate that made me determined to go to show my solidarity and support and my opposition to the hostility towards migrants that dominates the airwaves. So I wrote a banner in Spanish that translated roughly says “Trump is a disgrace. But from the peoples of the US we open our arms to you. We welcome you brothers and sisters #WorldwithoutWalls” I walked into the stadium holding the banner initially a little shyly, but then more confidently aloft so everyone could understand why I was there.

Dave Taormino asked the Davisite to post the photo at the left with the comment:

"No comment."

The sign to the left greeted me this morning as I went to vote at my polling place at the VMC.  It is, in my opinion, an example of improper electioneering.

Electioneering is not permitted within 100 feet of a polling place. Electioneering is defined by the California Election Code Section 319.5 as “the visible display or audible dissemination of information that advocates for or against any candidate or measure on the ballot within 100 feet of a polling place, an elections official’s office, or a satellite location.”

Although someone cut the "Yes" part of the sign out, it's clear that this sign is advocating for the WDAAC project and is thus prohibited.

You have to wonder about the real merits of a project when its proponents will stoop this low to promote it.

This letter is to encourage voters to elect David Murphy to the Area 2 position on the Yolo County Board of Education. I have known and respected David for nearly 20 years, meeting him through school related activities our daughters participated in.

David led efforts in the past to improve Davis schools, including the creation of Da Vinci School, initiating our local Montessori magnet program, and introducing advanced placement (AP) science programs.

David Murphy’s career eventually led him to serve in a consulting capacity for school districts in the region, focusing on program improvements while maintaining fiscal prudence and seeding available outside funding to keep budgets in line with resources.

By Rik Keller

The Yes on Measure L/West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC) campaign has been saying that opponents of the project are "against seniors" and has been making unsubstantiated claims that the No On WDAAC campaign arguments are "lies" [see: https://www.davisite.org/2018/10/uncivil-discourse-at-the-civenergy-forum.html]. In the added context of the Yes on L campaign spending about $250,000 in this election cycle compared to about $7,500 for the opposition (as of reports filed 10/20/2018), this kind of messaging from deep-pocketed special interest groups who stand to make millions from cynical voter manipulation is offensive.

The following is a sampling of some Davis citizen comments against the Measure L/WDAAC project from social media posts that demonstrate that Davis residents are seeing through the blizzard of marketing money and the false charges of the project proponents. To my knowledge, none of these are from anyone working/volunteering on the No On WDAAC campaign, nor were they solicited by the campaign. It is notable that a significant number of the comments were posted on the Yes On L campaign's own Facebook page posts/advertisements.

Every election a group of Davis residents meets to eat pancakes, discuss the upcoming election, and put out a whimsical Politics and Pancakes Voter Guide.  You can find the voter guide for this year's election on the Davis Wiki .  Check it out -- there are many interesting thoughts there -- and please vote!  In-person voting is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 6.

Residents of Eleanor Roosevelt Circle regularly meet with their on site Social Services Coordinator

By David Thompson

With your YES vote for Measure L, these low income seniors will get to stay and live in Davis. Otherwise, there are few places for them to go.

Davis Low Income Seniors are People by the Numbers

How many low income seniors will get a home in Davis?

“This energy flowing through my senior years comes directly from the Davis Community through the Eleanor Roosevelt Circle, thank you. Davis is a uniquely qualified community to establish new models of senior housing. Please vote yes on Proposition L to house more seniors.”

Diane C. Evans, Davis

Yesterday, Jason Taormino posted the photo at the left from their setup in downtown for the Halloween walk, showing one of their volunteers dressed as Pocahontas.  Most people have heard of “blackface”, especially since Megyn Kelly recently had her NBC show cancelled over defending blackface as being “ok so long as you were dressing, like, as a character.”  So why does the Yes on L campaign think that it’s ok to dress in redface as Pocahontas? 

People have been rightly and roundly criticized for dressing in redface before.  A student at Oklahoma university was pilloried for dressing in redface, with the recognition that a costume like that is “deeply disrespectful to the Native American community.”  Stephanie Fryberg, a Professor of Psychology and American Indian Studies at the University of Washington, as quoted in an article from Indian Country Today, asks, “Why are issues for Native people taken as less serious in the domain of bias and stereotyping and prejudice than for African Americans, why is there this difference?”

Another “Untruth” by the Yes on Measure L Campaign

By Alan Pryor and Pam Nieberg

INTRODUCTION

The Yes on Measure L campaign has been falsely characterizing the soils on which the WDAAC project is to be built as “unproductive” or “low quality alkaline soils solely used for winter animal feed crops”. Their most recent mailer contained the following graphic:

These claims are demonstrably untrue. In fact, the soil is suitable for a variety of human crops as characterized by the Yolo Co Agricultural Conservation and Mitigation Program. In summary, according to the EIR certified by the City Council, the lower approximately 50% (36.2 acres) of the site is Brentwood clay loam. Approximately a third of the soils (26.75 acres ) on the site directly above the Brentwood soils are Marvin silty clay. Above that are Willows clay (11.44 acres), and only a tiny piece (0.56 acres) in the upper north west piece of the site is Pescadero silty clay/saline-alkaline.

Tuesday, October 30th from 6pm-7pm
Location: Congregation Bet Haverim, 1715 Anderson Rd

Celebration of Abraham, Hillel at Davis and Sacramento, and Congregation Bet Haverim will coordinate a community-wide service of healing and solidarity. This is a sacred gathering to lift up our prayers through song and spoken word, with the focus on healing and unity.

Let’s Meet the City’s Real Internal Housing Needs, Including for Low-Income Seniors

By Nancy and Don Price

In October 2002, the City Council appointed a subcommittee to study housing needs in Davis. In particular, the Council wanted to consider providing housing opportunities for the local workforce as the primary reason for city residential growth.

In this context, the phrase “internal housing need”  was incorporated in City policy framework, documents, and studies to refer primarily to low and moderate income workforce housing. Indeed, work force housing is the only category of housing specifically mentioned as “internal needs” in the City’s General Plan and for which specific policies have been crafted to meet the need.

For instance, Measure J (voter approved in 2000) and Measure R (voter approved in 2010) as an update of Measure J was intended to “further” and “implement” meeting this “internal housing need” based on local employment growth, UCD growth, and “natural” growth. Indeed, meeting this “internal housing need” is the only justification provided in Measures J/R for converting agricultural lands on the periphery of the city.

Unfortunately, the Yes on Measure L campaign has erroneously misappropriated the term, “internal housing needs,” to otherwise claim the WDAAC project, providing low-income subsidized senior housing and much larger and expensive homes  for senior purchase, meets these needs and thus should be approved by voters. This is a false claim and is not supported anywhere in City documents.

By Dan Cornford

A couple of weeks ago after many of us in were in despair at the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and asking what we could do, I suggested that we could help get out the vote (GOTV) in one of the Congressional districts relatively nearby where the race was close. I also mentioned that one such place is CD10 (broadly Stanislaus County and Modesto). CD10 has for the last few elections been narrowly won by Republican Jeff Denham, and in 2016 HRC got more votes than Trump in this district. [See Dan's comment on Roberta Millstein's article].

In the midterms, Democrat Josh Harder is challenging Denham (as you may have picked up for the TV ads saturating us). The race is rated as a “toss-up” with JH holding a very narrow lead in most polls. Without taking any corporate donations, JH has raised almost $7 million (at two different house fund raising parties a Berkeley friend of mine raised almost $100,000 for him). JH was endorsed by the Modesto Bee in late September but it is going to be a brutally close race.

Volunteers are badly needed to help get out the vote, phone bank, and do office work (and yes, you are given a choice as to what kind of work you want to do, as well as appropriate training where needed). Because of my personal connections (I lived in Berkeley 1980-2000), I am working with Indivisible Berkeley (IB). IB is focusing on Tracy as they think that is where the most swing votes are. For well over a year they have been canvassing Tracy with busloads of people going there every weekend. So with the Tracy Democrats they have laid the groundwork well.