By Jonathan Greenberg

It is unfortunate that Kevin Wan, as Chair of the DDBA, resorted to lies and distortions in defense of a board majority that shamefully refuses to take an active part in responding to the worst public safety crisis in Davis history.

In his column in yesterday's Davis Enterprise, Kevin is lying about the Davis Safety Empowerment Network system that my wife, Heather Caswell, owner of the Wardrobe, have spent three meetings discussing with the DDBA board. We propose to empower Davis businesses with an innovative system that would help them more effectively prosecute the small number of mentally unstable, dangerous men who repeatedly terrorize downtown businesses and their customers (especially women and seniors), without consequences, by a “catch and release” process that allows them to stay out of drug treatment, mental institutions or prison. 

Kevin wrote in the Enterprise that we propose “a PUBLIC database of POTENTIAL criminals.” 

Yet we have told Kevin that the system would be accessible only to participating DDBA businesses, not the public. And that it would ONLY include people whose images were taken from security cameras of DDBA businesses AFTER they ACTUALLY COMMITTED CRIMES in Davis stores and restaurants, such as threatening peoples’ lives, as one did twice, without consequences, to Heather. 

The database would provide the names of these dozen or so repeat criminal offenders, and add PUBLICLY AVAILABLE but difficult to access Davis Police Department incident reports, as well as past arrest records and local restraining orders against these individuals. 

The Davis Police have told us that 10 to 20 people are responsible for almost all criminal incidents downtown, and that the police themselves have a dossier with the record of each one. But that the government is unable to share this information with businesses, because it might taint prosecutions. These same mentally disturbed or drug addicted men also terrorize the 240 other unhoused people in Davis. Removing them from our streets would make life safer-and more compassionate-for everyone. 

Yet Kevin, and the DDBA Board members are more concerned with prioritizing what he misleadingly cites, in his column, as the “civil rights” and “privacy” of these repeat violent offenders over the rights of our community’s most vulnerable citizens, women, seniors and children, to be protected against violence by a small number of dangerous, mentally-disturbed unhoused men.

DDBA is clearly part of the problem when they cite the illusory rights of criminals as more important to their organization than the rights of those who are victims of violence, week after week. Many women, especially seniors, have told us that they no longer feel safe in downtown Davis. Some downtown businesses have even shortened their hours because their female employees do not feel safe in the evening.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig reviewed and supports our program and does not question its legality. He wrote, “I think any business association that is able to improve information sharing with each other AND police as described would be very helpful. Our success in policing and prosecution would absolutely be enhanced by better information sharing among businesses/retailers on prolific offenders." 

Indeed, most successful criminal prosecutions by businesses rely on store video footage. Every store has a right to video its premises for security, and use those videos to protect themselves. The incident and past offense and restraining order data that this system would aggregate are all public information, but very difficult to access. This system would empower a network of DDMA members with the information about the past records of the criminals who repeatedly terrorize their customers and employees, allowing them to prosecute them more effectively.

Multiple companies sell records of past arrest records for businesses to run background checks when hiring.  And for generations, businesses have provided employees with photos of repeat offender shoplifters. This solution brings this strategy into the 21st century.  

Kevin also distorts reality when he writes, in his Enterprise column, that “for the past year, we have been working tirelessly with the Davis City Council and Davis Police Department to restore the presence of a dedicated, downtown-based police officer.”

Heather Caswell, and I participated in the last three DDBA meetings to urge the DDBA to take an active role in helping member businesses address crime. Not a word was mentioned of supporting a beat cop at any of these meetings. Nor can any mention of it be found in the DDBA minutes for the past 12 months.

Instead, it was Heather who, on December 16, after a special meeting with Council Member Donna Neville and Chief Todd Henry in which a new position assigned to the downtown was discussed, wrote to Kevin Wan and the Board to urge them to quickly pass a resolution supporting the new funding allocation at the next day’s city council meeting. Even though the December 17 full council meeting was the first to discuss how $11 million in new sales tax revenue would be spent, the DDBA Board and its Executive Director Brett Lee had no plan to mention the beat cop position to the city council. Heather convinced the DDBA board to pass a resolution overnight, and for Brett Lee, DDBA’s executive director, to join her in making a statement supporting the position. 

Davis businesses deserve better from the Chair of the DDBA. That is why Heather, along with Ezra Beeman, Shelly Ramos and Kellie Palmer, are running to replace the existing DDBA Board leadership with a women majority board that is willing to take an active part in resolving the most important problem facing every Davis retail business, restaurant and resident of Davis today: public safety. 

Jonathan Greenberg is a widely published investigative legal and financial journalist, and the founder of Progressive Source Communications.