By Lucas Frerichs and Tom Stallard

In a disappointing decision, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently voted to approve increases to the “exit fees” charged to Valley Clean Energy (VCE) customers by PG&E.  Valley Clean Energy is our official locally governed electricity provider, bringing cleaner energy at competitive rates to Davis, Woodland, and unincorporated Yolo County. It began serving 55,000 customer accounts this past June.

The decision by the CPUC to raise the exit fee affects all 19 community choice aggregation (CCA) programs in the state, including VCE.

The exit fee is called the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment, and if you are a VCE customer, you will see it on your PG&E bill. This fee is charged by each of the utilities to all CCA customers to compensate for electricity generation they built or contracted for in past years. 

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.

Part Two in a series, this article examines historic racial/ethnic demographics in Davis compared to surrounding areas and California as a whole in order to determine what sort of effect historic patterns of discrimination may have had.

"The Past Isn't Dead. It Isn't Even Past"

By Rik Keller

The first installment of this series, “Why Is So Davis So White? A Brief History of Discrimination”, provided an overview of mortgage loan redlining, restrictive covenants, and other discriminatory housing practices in the U.S., with examples from Davis showing the extent of overt discrimination in housing practices that led to excluding non-white populations from specific areas.

The article concluded with a brief summary that described how In Davis—as in many areas of the U.S.—redlining, restrictive covenants, and other discriminatory practices effectively locked out minorities from being able to participate in one of the greatest mass opportunities for wealth accumulation in U.S. history: the post-WWII housing boom. And even as overtly discriminatory practices started to be curtailed, post-WWII municipal zoning practices in the 1950s— especially in fast-growing suburban areas—emphasized large-lot single-family homes as a way to exclude more affordable housing types and to continue patterns of racial/ethnic/income segregation. One common misconception when discussing housing is that discrimination in the U.S. ended some time in the 1960s. Davis is an example of how the wealth disparities that were accentuated by these policies and practices persist today with residential patterns and housing opportunities distributed along particular racial/ethnic lines, along with ongoing discrimination.

In response to concerns over the behavior of turkeys and other City wildlife, City staff has drafted an ordinance (see ordinance here) that would ban the feeding of certain wildlife, namely, coyotes, wild turkeys, foxes, skunks, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, ducks, geese, crows, and gulls. 

What constitutes “feeding”?  Well, the ordinance spells this out pretty specifically.  It includes both deliberate and intentional feeding as well as negligent feeding, with a provision for warning inadvertent violators of the ordinance. 

I encourage everyone to take a look at the details of ordinance; my focus here is not on those details but rather on the pushback I’ve seen from the community, most recently with Sunday’s Enterprise column from Bob Dunning.  I can’t tell how strong that pushback is, but on the assumption that it might be strong, I thought it was important to discuss.

Part one in a series on discrimination and housing in Davis, this article provides an overview of mortgage loan redlining, restrictive covenants, and other discriminatory housing practices in the U.S., with examples from Davis showing the extent of discrimination in housing practices that excluded non-white populations from specific areas. 

Image: detail of the deed restrictions for the Sierra Vista Oaks subdivision in Davis (Miller Drive & Ovejas Avenue north of 8th Street) from 1950. [source: Yolo County Clerk-Recorder archives, retrieved by the author]

By Rik Keller

Background

In 1917, the Supreme Court in Buchanan v. Warley ruled municipal racial zoning unconstitutional. In response, private agreements—including restrictive covenants—started to be put in place to continue residential segregation practices: “Racially restrictive covenants refer to contractual agreements that prohibit the purchase, lease, or occupation of a piece of property by a particular group of people.”[1] These were legally-enforceable contracts put onto the deed of the property. They were enforced with the help of neighborhood associations, real estate boards, and other organizations. For example, the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), started in 1908, promoted the use of racial covenants in new developments.

Typical language in these racially-restrictive covenants included statements such as “…hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be…occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race…”[2] These covenants became so commonplace that “by 1940, 80% of property in Chicago and Los Angeles carried restrictive covenants barring black families.”[3]

Last night, about 30 members of Cool Cuisine visited de Vere’s Irish Pub, where a grand (and tasty) time was had by all.  Cool Cuisine, founded by Davisite Anya McCAnn, “is a coalition of individuals and organizations seeking more plant-based dining options.”  Through meetups at restaurants and potlucks, Cool Cuisine seeks to support people who want to eat plant-based diets (for whatever reason, and whether they are vegans or not), while also encouraging local restaurants to provide more plant-based restaurant items.  In other words, all are welcome – check out the Facebook page or the Meetup group to be updated on future events.

I’ve been to several successful Cool Cuisine restaurant meetups now, including ones at Symposium, Nami Sushi, Davis Noodle City, Yeti Restaurant, and Three Ladies Café.  In some cases we were given special menus, whereas in other cases we just enjoyed the vegan items already on the menu.  But de Vere’s was certainly an unexpected surprise, vegan food not being typically associated with Irish pub fare.

A few weeks ago, a jury awarded $289 million in damages to a California school groundskeeper, finding that his cancer was caused by on-the-job exposure to Monsanto’s pesticide Roundup, the main active ingredient of which is glyphosate.  How will this affect Davis?  How should it?

Recall that, in a rather messy and prolonged process, the Davis City Council voted to “phase out” the use of glyphosate.  But where is the City in that process?  Do we even have an IPM specialist to replace Martin Guerena (who stepped down many months ago after being ill-treated by the City), i.e., someone who could oversee this phase out and report on it?  

And does the phase out need to be accelerated?  Or should it occur immediately?

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]

There are important lessons to be learned from the case of the bald eagle.  The Endangered Species Act (ESA) – now under threat itself – is important, but as the bald eagle shows, we have to use all the tools available to us at the local, state, and national levels to protect endangered and threatened species.

The iconic bald eagle is considered a success story of the ESA, although the truth is a bit more complicated than that.  Before the ESA was passed in 1973, the bald eagle was covered by preceding legislation such as the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940.  Two other actions are considered crucial to the recovery of the bald eagle in the U.S.: the banning of the pesticide DDT in 1972 and the subsequent importing of eagles from Canada to the U.S. in the 1970s.  Together, these protections and actions allowed the bald eagle to be removed from the list of endangered species. 

Although the bald eagle still has some protections within the U.S., its delisting under the ESA does present some challenges; for example, prime bald eagle habitat can be developed on without facing legal challenge.  Thus, we should not rest on our laurels too much, even for a success story like the bald eagle.

Moreover, at the national level, the ESA is under attack.  As the New Yorker summarizes:

On Saturday, July 21, I had the opportunity to join five other UC Davis-affiliated women to swim the Trans Tahoe Relay.  The Trans Tahoe Relay serves as a fundraiser for Keep Tahoe Blue, but we also swam to support the  Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) and the Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS).  The day was sunny, the water was cool, clear, and refreshing, the mountains ringing the lake were beautiful.  It was an exhilarating, fun, tiring, and fulfilling day.

Just to give a sense of size of the lake and its surroundings, here I am with my guard poodles at a Lake Tahoe overlook in August 2014.

The Trans Tahoe Relay is a race that crosses the northern end of Lake Tahoe from east to west at a part of the lake where it is 10 miles wide.  (The lake overall is approximately 22 miles long and 12 miles wide – it’s a very large and deep lake!).  Teams are composed of six swimmers each, with a support boat.  (We owe big thanks to TERC for providing us with a boat and to TERC’s director, Geoff Schladow, for piloting the boat).  The rules are that each swimmer swims for 30 minutes, and then takes turn swimming 10 minutes each, until the 10 miles is completed.  On our team, after our first leg each of us did two 10-minute legs, with two members of the team doing a third 10-minute leg.  So, we didn’t break any speed records, but we were happy with our result anyway!

Effective today, July 1, 2018, Yolo SPCA is no longer contracted with Yolo County Animal Services. As many of you know, as a rescue organization, we have pulled many dogs from YCAS over the past 3 years and during that time, we have gotten to know the programs there very well. For those who don't know, Yolo SPCA has been contracted with YCAS for many, many years so this change is a major event to happen at YCAS. Yolo SPCA is it's own organization, a non-profit, just like us, who has partnered with YCAS, the county operated shelter, to provide a variety of services. The services primarily provided by Yolo SPCA include operating the behavior modification program, managing the shelter intern program, posting all the rescue pleas for at risk animals, facilitating adoptions, and a myriad of other services. They also supported the shelter run foster program and volunteer programs. These services have been critical in increasing the live release rate at the shelter and are all programs are widely promoted and supported by the No Kill Equation which aims to save the lives of treatable animals. Any rescue who has worked with this shelter has encountered Yolo SPCAS staff. Anyone adopting a dog from the shelter has more than likely worked with Yolo SPCA staff. The impact Yolo SPCA has had on saving lives in Yolo County is immeasurable. Anyone who has encountered the Yolo SPCA staff knows how hard they work and how instrumental they were in getting the shelter to where it is today.

We know this is long but it's a story that needs to be told. We've been sitting on it, trying to come up with the right words to say to convey how upset we are and how very much we intend to do everything possible to right this wrong, and we feel it's time to speak out.  We ask that you read the entire post.