May Actually Cost the City Money on an Annual Basis, and The Development Agreement Is Non-Binding and Weak

by Alan Pryor and Nancy Price

Part 2

Forward: The Davis City Council has approved a sprawling senior housing development project located in West Davis along Covell. Voters will have a chance to approve or reject the project in this year’s November election. The project is called West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC).

On Tuesday, 8/28, Part 1 of this article was published in the Davisite, which discussed the massive reductions in Development Fees given away by the City to the Developer. This is Part 2 of the article.

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1. The City Projects a Positive Annual Return to City Coffers as a Result of Build-Out of this Project. However, this Estimate is Based on Accounting Methods that Assume Unsubstantiated Reduced Costs on a Per Resident Basis for Providing Basic City Services such as Public Safety and Transportation.

The City’s Finance and Budget Commission analyzed the potential financial impacts to the City and made a number of projections about the project’s financial viability with respect to income or loss to the City. Their report to the City Council on February 12, 2018 can be found at www.cityofdavis.org/home/showdocument?id=9199:

The conclusions reached by 4 of the Commissioners (with two dissenting votes) made the following observations (with emphasis added):

1. At the time of this analysis, the commission did not have available to it a development agreement with the city for the project. Therefore, any conclusions we have reached should be considered preliminary and subject to change….
2. We recommend that the commission, or if necessary an FBC subcommittee, be provided a timely opportunity to review and comment on the fiscal provisions of the proposed development agreement before its presentation to City Council for approval. “

Surprisingly, the Finance and Budget Commission never did again review the Development Agreement before it went to Council.  But nevertheless, City Staff assumed when otherwise calculating the project’s positive return to City coffers that the City’s average cost for providing services to the residents of WDAAC were only going to be 75% of the City's otherwise calculated average costs. Staff made this assumption without any quantitative explanation as to how they derived that 75% figure.

Just like everything else, the current deregulatory craze at the expense of common sense is about to hit the Internet Access Industry, and WE NEED YOU to take 5-10 minutes and write a letter at the website www.savecompetition.com . Please share liberally, as this is not being reported on in a major way.

DEADLINE 9/4/2018

Here is the crisis.:
The US TELECOM ASSN, the trade group for the Mega Giant telecoms like Verizon, ATT and Centurylink have petitioned the FCC for forebearance from the COPPER line sharing requirements of the landmark 1996 Telecommunications Act. They state that there is robust competition in local Internet Access markets and great cheap fast Internet Access throughout the US. They request to end all regulated wholesale access to the Unbundled Network Elements (Copper Pairs) of the Telephone Network your grandparents, parents and you paid for through your taxes.

California companies like Omsoft, SonicNet, CruzIO, LMI, Shasta.com, and Cal.Net, along with the remaining small ISPs across the nation will have their access to their main Internet Transport medium, the Public Switched Telephone System, (PSTN) completely shut off in 2 years.

Hey Davis Neighbors,

My son Will has been working on a mobile app (called HeyNearby) to support local businesses in Davis. It’s early days but he’s looking for people to give it a try.

Here’s a quick summary of what it does:

It allows you to save and share all your favorite businesses in town. Once you have your list, you never have to search again.

You can take the “Town Quiz”, which allows you to add any shops, restaurants or services (in Davis as well as in any work or vacation spots).

You can give “Kudos” to your favorites. This let’s everyone know why you think a business is special. Since everyone’s a critic these days, they are trying to highlight the positives.

Lastly, you can also invite your friends to the app so we can all share our favorites. That way, whether you’re looking for an electrician, plumber, music teacher, or anything else, you can just see what your friends recommend.

May Actually Cost the City Money on an Annual Basis, and The Development Agreement Is Non-Binding and Weak

by Alan Pryor and Pam Nieberg

Part 1. The City has Granted the Developer Massive Giveaways and Subsidies by, among other things, Reducing Project Impact Fees by over $3.4 Million Compared to Fees Normally Charged to New Developments.

The Davis City Council has approved a sprawling senior housing development project located in West Davis along Covell. Voters will have a chance to approve or reject the project in this year's November ballot. The project is called the West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC).

The City Council has agreed to development-related fees in the Development Agreement for this project that, in all but the market rate non-age restricted housing units, are generally from 25% - 60% less than the current mandated fees normally required of other development proposals. This has resulted in essentially a give-away to the project proponent of approximately $3.4 million in fees which is a discount of more than 40% compared to fees that would otherwise normally be charged to a developer for a project with this number and size of units as shown in Appendix A.

The story of a “a pop culture archaeologist” and “a place to explore both current and nostalgic aspects of our shared American experience.”

By Colin Walsh

There is an unassuming low-slung building under a pitched roof mid block on E street between 2^nd and 3^rd in Davis CA. The building is set back from the street and set further into the building is a door to another world. Through that door is a den of untold treasures: comic books, new and used, even classic and hard to find games; movie collection of titles that may not be suggested to you on Netflix; vinyl albums, card games, and a range of Americana and pop culture ephemera. The real treasure though is the store itself.

(Press release) Unitrans did its part to “Spare the Air” 15 days in a row, waiving fares for all riders July 27-Aug. 10, but, unfortunately, can no longer spare the expense and will discontinue the free-ride program from Monday, Aug. 27, through the end of the year.

“With the high number of wildfires this year, Davis and the surrounding area experienced an unprecedented number of Spare the Air days, more than Unitrans anticipated in its annual budget,” said Jeff Flynn, general manager of the UC Davis and city transit system, which is operated by the Associated Students of UC Davis.

By Todd Edelman

On the left in the photo is a new filter for our AC/furnace; on the right,  one about 60-75 days old including two weeks of wildfires. This is, of course, used inside the house, so everything here has come inside though we've had the doors and closed almost all of the time for the past couple of weeks.

These are MERV 13 filters (which our landlord is paying for! Thanks!) Two technicians from Blake's said that a filter of this high value is suitable for our fairly modern HVAC. These are what's planned for use at Lincoln40. When they get this black and clogged up they also start to whistle a bit in the holder as air is trying to go around them, which at least raises energy costs.

Note: This is a follow-up to yesterday's post that described the lawsuit filed by the 501(c)3 non-profit Friends of Putah Creek; it is also authored by Friends of Putah Creek.

(Press release) On June 18, a lawsuit was filed by Davis Attorney Don Mooney, Esq. on behalf of his client, the 501(c)3 non-profit Friends of Putah Creek. The defendants named in the lawsuit are the Solano County Water Agency (SCWA) and the Central Valley Flood Control Board (CVFCB).  The lawsuit alleges that the CVFCB improperly approved an Encroachment Permit allowing the SCWA to continue to perform radical stream alterations on Putah Creek though the City of Winters and immediately downstream without doing appropriate environmental review as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The lawsuit demands that the CVFCB require the SCWA to perform the requisite environmental review before proceeding with further work in the Putah Creek floodplain.

BACKGROUND OF THE WINTERS PUTAH CREEK PARK “RESTORATION” PROJECT AND LACK OF ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE - The Winters Putah Creek Park project is a so-called stream “restoration” that as initially proposed would have minimally disturbed the Putah Creek floodplain through the City of Winters by removing only invasive plant species and replanting the floodplain with native species. A Master Plan and Mitigated Negative Declaration that covers the Winters Putah Creek Park project was prepared by the City of Winters over a decade ago and is the only CEQA-related environmental review of the project.

These original plans were to be the guiding documents for all subsequent work and primarily focused on improvement of the riparian forest along the Creek by defining what plant species were to be preserved and lists invasive species to be removed. The plan stated that all native trees should be protected from damage, and only removed if deemed a hazard or “an impediment to approved renovation projects”. Annual work plans were to be provided for public review but, to date, no specific plans documenting what native trees and shrubs were to be removed have been submitted.

In a recent post, I pointed out that the Endangered Species Act is under threat, and that responding to that threat requires our attention at the national, state, and local levels.  As if on cue, in a recent op-ed in the Davis Enterprise Rich Rifkin dismisses potential effects on three species at the Field & Pond site: the tricolored blackbird, the valley elderberry longhorn beetle and the golden eagle.

Picture attribution: By Tsuru8 - Own work http://www.tsuru-bird.net/image.htm, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8708549

 I don’t really have an opinion about whether there should be a B&B and regular parties on the Field & Pond site.  It strikes me as a classic land use conflict, and I can see both sides of the argument.  But regardless of the merits of either side, and regardless of the motivations of either side, the impacts on those three species need to be examined. 

Rifkin states that all you need to do to assess impacts is ride a bicycle and look.  When he went, he saw “a few structures, native trees, a large pond” as well as a doe and a fawn “chilling,” and he thinks that’s enough to determine that the blackbird, beetle, and eagle species won’t be affected.  Well, sorry, but that’s not how you evaluate impacts on endangered species (or threatened species, or species of special concern).[1]

By Eileen Samitz

I appreciate this Davisite article and completely agree with its response to the defensive Enterprise article by Tanya Perez. However, the problem with the Enterprise goes far beyond the few mentioned. The Enterprise needs to become more even-handed and print the comments and concerns of the wide variety of community members, instead of focusing on and reflecting personal opinions of its new editor Sebastian Oñate so often on its Forum page.

Further, it is inexcusable that the Enterprise's publishers would tolerate the condescending comments posted by its new editor, Sebastian Oñate (on Twitter) ridiculing Davis community members and their submitted writings to the Enterprise. His predecessor, Debbie Davis, was a professional who respected all opinions, regardless of whether she agreed with them or not, and would never have behaved so unprofessionally and disrespectfully towards the community.