Letter: Vote for Donna Neville
April 02, 2023
I urge you to vote for Donna Neville on May 2 to fill the vacancy on the Davis City Council. I am an advocate for the unhoused who has worked on homeless and low-income housing issues in Davis for many years, and I am impressed by her understanding of the causes of both chronic homelessness and temporary homelessness that results from an unforeseen crisis, such as a medical emergency, and. Her understanding has led her to propose specific, practical solutions. She understands that Davis can only deal with the issue by working to provide more housing for low-income workers and families.
Her emphasis on updating the General Plan reflects an understanding of the need for our city to plan and to develop a shared vision of what we want our community to look like over the next decades. She also understands that the General Plan is an important part of dealing with our multifaceted housing crisis.
Donna also advocates for an Economic Development Plan where the city takes a proactive approach to determining how it will diversify our revenue and bring in the much-needed funding to take care of city infrastructure and continue to support city services. Her background in public finance will be invaluable in assisting in this economic development effort.
As someone who taught Environmental Studies for many years, I know that Donna has a real grasp of the need for action to address climate change. She will depend on the best science and will consider how the costs of various actions needed to address climate change will be borne by different members of the community. Her willingness to listen to everyone in the room will be important in ensuring that the city's policy is accepted by people living in Davis.
Finally, Donna's considerable professional experience as a government lawyer means that she has the knowledge and the experience to critically evaluating the information put before her. As a city council member, she will clearly, fairly, and compassionately weigh the costs and benefits of varying actions before the council.
Please vote for Donna Neville for city council.
Helen Roland Cramer
Seems to me that (out of the two candidates), Ms. Neville would be voted "most likely to force yet another divisive election regarding DISC", as well as the other sprawling development proposals in the pipeline.
(Hopefully, without acting as an "honorary chair" for any of those developer campaigns, at least.)
So if any candidate is going to start talking about local contributions to climate change, maybe they should start with that.
There's already a "100% Housing DISC" in the pipeline, regardless.
Honestly, the entire council is already far more supportive of development than the city at large. They're also taking steps to try to undermine Measure J, driven by their pro-development views.
And if the candidates are concerned about "affordable" housing, perhaps they should clarify their proposal regarding the city's affordable housing policy.
Perhaps those are the type of questions that should be asked of the candidates.
Posted by: Ron O | April 02, 2023 at 08:40 PM
"I am impressed by her understanding of the causes of both chronic homelessness and temporary homelessness that results from an unforeseen crisis, such as a medical emergency, and. Her understanding has led her to propose specific, practical solutions. She understands that Davis can only deal with the issue by working to provide more housing for low-income workers and families."
As a person directly adjacent to a corridor used frequenty by visible-homeless and adjacent to an area used for visible-so-called-homeless camping, I have never seen either "low-income workers" nor "families" among the literally thousands of homeless I have seen in this area over the decades. That is, unless you consider and tipping over our recycle-bins on garbage-night and chronic bike thievery be "low-income work" and a group of middle-aged men sitting in a tent smoking meth to be a "family".
Now, possibly you are talking about the semi-sheltered homeless who do not have a home of their own. I have literally never seen a family beyond the occasional possible-couple screaming at each other on God-knows-what substance to be a "family".
They do polls and "solving the homeless problem" is often at or near the top. When some compassionate people say they want to solve the homeless problem, they are talking about helping them out, or at least trying -- which is great for "families" and "low-income workers, but leads to so-called "harm reduction" with many others that ends up harming everyone. If you don't know what I am talking about, go to an Al-Anon meeting. The whole town needs to go to an Al-Anon meeting.
When I talk about solving the "homeless problem", I'm talking about for selfish reasons. So their are not people going down the alley screaming at no-one-in-particular, so that I don't see men riding by on a bicycle with another bicycle and two tires in tow, so that I don't have to drive off people rummaging through our recycle bins at 5:00am, so that I don't have to spend weeks calling the police over and over again to get illegal campers out of the area (thanks fucking Boise Decision judge), so that I don't have to watch the plume of smoke from yet another massive tent fire taking out the railroad signal system for 3-days causing millions of dollars in damages to the railroad (this has happened at least twice in the last year), so that I don't have to talk my way out of another confrontation with three meth-addled men who approached and threw rocks at me.
So what is ANY politician going to do about THOSE things?
So go right on, oh yee of the rich Davis suburbs who don't live near a railroad line, or drainage ditch, or bicycle path, or city park -- who only have other rich houses around you, and spout your 'compassion' and 'harm reduction' and 'Paul's Place' and 'respite center' B.S. while not having to deal with where the so-called homeless go when the 'respite center' closes at night -- and talk about 'low-income workers' and 'families', feeling good about yourselves, safe in your rich suburb, and sticking another 'compassionate' 'service' in the core of town where WE have to deal with the REAL issue of the so-called 'homeless'. Which, m*therfuckers, is MENTAL ILLNESS and DRUG ADDICTION . . . and it is easily 50-times worse than it was 20 years ago. Despite the billions spent by Gavvvy.
The Mod on 'other blog' once called me 'heartless'. If the foo shits. And the foo does shit!
But now that the after-hours effects of the respite center are degrading the area around certain fake barns as well, the foo is shitting even of the shitters own foo!
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | April 03, 2023 at 09:40 AM
"I have never seen either "low-income workers" nor "families" among the literally thousands of homeless I have seen in this area over the decades."
I don't get it Alan, that's how the left usually tries to portray the homeless. I'm sure there are a few, but it's not the norm. The homeless consist almost entirely of drug addicts and mental illness.
Posted by: Keith | April 03, 2023 at 10:41 AM
KO, I think in one sense there is truth to it -- that being families and low-income persons in shelters or temporarily on the street. But only the second of those would account for a small number of 'visible' homeless. Most of these are categorized as homeless, but they are not the visible so-called homeless.
I think survey readers of the progressive ilk want to believe everyone but Alan Miller is saying 'homelessness' is a problem because they want society to subsidize housing projects out of the 'goodness' of their hearts. I suspect the majority of concern about so-called 'homelessness' is actually people who are concerned about being victims of a nearby, loosely-government-sactioned-lawless-criminal element, and want them NOT HERE.
Posted by: Alan C. Miller | April 03, 2023 at 03:06 PM