By Dan Carson and Elaine Roberts Musser

Mayor Josh Chapman and Councilmember Bapu Vaitla recently began asking city commissioners for feedback on a proposal for “clarification of how items are placed on a commission meeting agenda.”  Chapman and Vaitla did not invite the public at large to weigh in on their proposal, but we feel compelled to do so in the public interest.

To sum up, we recommend jettisoning this illegal and ill-conceived plan. It would empower even a single councilmember to micromanage and indefinitely block any commission-initiated proposal they didn’t like for any reason whatsoever. There are far better alternatives to promote teamwork and collaboration between the City Council and the city’s expert volunteer citizen commissioners.

Current city policy allows commissions free reign to work on pretty much anything they want as long as it is consistent with the written charter established for them. Once a commission has explored a policy matter, the city’s Commission Handbook says it may submit items to the Council to be placed on the Council agenda for   its consideration.

The Chapman-Vaitla plan, summarized in a flow chart [see graphic at the beginning of the article], overrides those policies. The Council and the city staff could continue to place items on commission agendas. Yet, in a big change, proposals initiated by a commission would now be subject to review and veto -- by either any relevant council subcommittee (two councilmembers) or that commission’s assigned Council liaison (typically one councilmember).The Chapman-Vaitla plan says these new rules would apply whenever the council wished to “undertake a particular task/project/discussion.”  In other words, almost anything and everything a commission might ever want to do would be subject to veto by one councilmember. The Council and city staff would dictate what a commission can or cannot do, but the commission itself would have absolutely no control over its work. This is bizarre and extremely unwise.

By Roberta Millstein

A Davisite reader sent me the following information.  Until that point, I hadn't realized that comments were being sought on the environmental impact report for the proposed Palomino Place Project, so I thought I would share the information with other Davisites, too.  I haven't seen anything in the Davis Enterprise or Vanguard about it (though it is possible I just missed it).

Apparently, the draft Subsequent EIR ("subsequent" to the EIR from 2009) for the Palomino Place Project has been available since early August. Comments on the draft are due September 23. Comments would typically point out errors, inconsistencies, omissions of data or analyses, conclusions not based on evidence, or failures to provide discussion required by CEQA.

As the post below indicates, there is also a public meeting about the project on Sep. 11.

City link to Palomino Place documents:

https://www.cityofdavis.org/city-hall/community-development-and-sustainability/development-projects/palomino-place

Draft Subsequent EIR released August 2024:

https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CDD/Planning/Special-Projects/Palomino-Place-2023/Supplemental%20EIR/Draft-Palomino-Place-SEIR-August%202024.pdf

Notice of Availability (NOA) of Palomino Place Subsequent EIR:

https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CDD/Planning/Special-Projects/Palomino-Place-2023/Supplemental%20EIR/NOA-20240807-Palomino-Place-SEIR.pdf

Time to enforce the Law at Oakshade Mall?

By Alan ”Lorax” Hirsch

Near Treeless North Parking at Oakshade Mall

To give the landlord more flexibility to find tenants, Davis council is being asked to rezone the Oakshade Mall (Safeway)  located  at south Pole Line Rd x Cowell.  This is before council  on the Tuesday 8/27/24 agenda ( see  staff report  item #4).   However this landlord is notorious for their neglect of its trees and is in violation of city tree protection ordinance.

So, while makes sense for city to update zoning in response to a changing retailing climate,  it also  makes sense to do updates in city’s  relationship with this out-of-town landlord in regard to the Climate Crisis and city’s  CAAP policies, changes to sustain  Davis’s quality of life by deal with global heating.

More Shade is Existential

It is forecast that half Davis’s  summer days will be over 100 degree in 50 years. Unshaded asphalt reachs 140+ degrees in those conditions.  Davis’s CAAP climate plan appropriately calls for more tree shade as part our adaption plan.  To have that shade in 50 year tree need to be planted now. And investing in tree is just good marketing sense of a long-term landlord-  as contrast with incentive for on-site property manager who  often just think about next quarter’s cash flow so look everywhere to cut maintenance cost.

30 year old oak at Oakshade Mall

But beyond increased tree shade called for Davis CAAP climate plan, this shopping center development has for years been in  gross violation of the city’s  1990’s tree ordinance under which it was approved.  That ordinance required “50% parking lot shade in 15years”  The landscape plan the developer/landlords signed off as part of plan- check had them agree to no just plant trees, but maintain the newly planted trees to obtain that 50% tree shade level.  This was not an impossible requirement:  If you drive West of Cowell just 2 block to the Kaiser clinic you can see tree can be grown in Parking lots.

In the past, a large shade tree was (killed?) and replaced with small shrub...that was then topped

However, the landlord & his property managers have not grown and maintain trees as agreed over near 30 years the mall has been in operation. And when trees have died they have either not been replace, or replace with a shorter species. And the irrigation system has been neglected.

As you can see from attached recent arial pictures- (and picture in below linked article from 2018), the landlord has not met their legal requirement of 50% shade.   A visit the site will make obvious the gross number of  missing, stunted and dead trees.  The north parking area is nearly tree-free.

By Roberta Millstein

Yesterday, I posted the ballot arguments for and against Measure Q, which would increase Davis's current retail transactions and use tax from 1% to 2%.  Here are the rebuttals to those arguments that will also appear on the November ballot.  See the County's website (where these arguments are also posted) for more details: https://ace.yolocounty.gov/417/Measure-Q---City-of-Davis

Rebuttal to argument in favor of Measure Q:

By Roberta Millstein

This November, Davisites will vote on Measure Q:

To support essential City services, such as public safety and emergency response; crime prevention; pothole repair; parks, road, sidewalk, and bike path maintenance; and addressing homelessness, affordable housing, and climate change, shall the City of Davis's Ordinance be adopted establishing an additional 1¢ sales tax providing approximately $11,000,000 annually for general government use until repealed by the voters, subject to annual audits, public disclosure of all spending and with all funds staying local?

This would increase Davis's current retail transactions and use tax from 1% to 2%.  To pass, a majority (50% + 1) of the votes cast by City of Davis voters must approve the measure.  As implied by the text above, the tax has no automatic sunset date; it will be in effect until repealed by voters. 

Further details are available at the County's website: https://ace.yolocounty.gov/417/Measure-Q---City-of-Davis

Here is the argument in favor that will appear on the ballot:

Missing funds may continue to compromise transit

Map of what’s planned: : Phase I of Yolo80 widening will only be west of the 50/80 split in West Sacramento- We are missing $265 Mil

By Alan Hirsch 

This is a report on the untalked about short falls in funding on I-80Yolo projects (plural), changes to the freeway from Dixon across the Sacramento River bridges for both US 50 and I-80. We are told the freeway here is in crisis (Like the climate crisis?)

Other have noted the short thinking of funding highway widening continue to “crowd out” funding of substantial transit improvements and that keeps us from addressing climate change and providing travel choices to driving.

For example, on I80 Yolo the total bill is a jaw dropping $745 million- 40 times the Yolobus budget.

Caltrans and freeway proponent all through the decision-making process on I80 have not make clear its full cost and long term impacts. They have instead  levered an initial $86 Million federal grant – which we are told we dare not give back - to lock us into spending hundreds of million more. A sum that effectively  crowd out investment in transit.

After years and years of anticipation and false promises of 'any day now' going back years, the 'Vanguard News Group' new website landed last week with a 'plop', like the sound of a human turd dropping on a San Francisco sidewalk.  I honestly wanted it to be better, but it wasn't.  In some ways it was worse.  Why spend so much time to get it right, and then roll out something that is less functional and still has many of the problems of the old site?

The old site was bad and getting worse.  It would load so slowly it would often time out.  The site used massive RAM memory that would drain a laptop battery.  The pages would skip while you were reading them, and then when you went back (if you could find where you were), the page would skip again. 

Towards the end the site had some sort of virus/malware that would cause the page to spontaneously skip to unwanted ad pages, and it would replace the recent history with six steps of the same ad page address with the original address eliminated.  Usually it was unwanted ads, or Bing, for some reason.  A couple of times it was straight up porn.  Without giving it in full the domain address it skipped to once began with "https://da.check-tl-ver-176-2.com/my-adult-video/ . . . ".   This should have been stopped at once, but it happened 2-3 times.

One piece of good news, the new site hasn't spontaneously skipped to ads or porn or replaced the short-term history.  It has, however, had the same loading issues and even said, "The site you are trying to reach is taking too much memory and is slowing down your browser.  Would you like to leave?".  It also still spontaneously skips text as it is trying to load text, and still does it again when you go back.  Others have told me this was the worst part of the old site to them as well, and it's amazing DG rolled out the new site without fixing this.

Certain things about the new site are worse:  It's too plain.  While the old site had too much color, it would have been nice to have kept the old color scheme, just as borders and highlight, but it's just plain with no character.  For some reason, the "Davis Vanguard" livery is replaced with "Vanguard News Group".  Like so many things with the Vanguard, I'm sure this has some meaning to DG, but to the common person it's just confusing. 

There is no ability to click on comments so you have to scroll through the whole article to reach them.  Honestly, the so-called articles are so often dull and predictable and/or copied from elsewhere, so I'd often read the comments first or don't read the article at all.  Having to scroll to comments, if there are any at all, which increasingly there are not, is just more than I feel like doing.  In addition, there is no 'new comments' box, so you'd have to keep track of each article and keep clicking on it to see if anyone added a new comment.  And again, that's more than me or most people are willing to do.  And as people learn that no one knows they posted a new comment, they won't bother to post at all.

The banner at the top only hides one article at a time, and it moves at a weird rate, and it's too big and obscures to those not familiar that the most recent news is below.  The articles are still repetitive crap on housing in Davis, how someone is going to sue on measure J, and on why cutting school costs actually costs money, and how more housing will save schools.  And there are the usual copy articles on the evils of 'carceration' by the ACLU.  And by the way, if you liked the ACLU of years ago, join F.I.R.E..  It's like the old ACLU without all the new utlra-progressive crap.

DG say:  "The website highlights the various segments of the Vanguard. My focus will continue to be heavily on Davis issues and multiple commentaries each week."  Let me guess:  Recycled crap about  housing in Davis, how someone is going to sue on measure J, on why cutting school costs actually costs money, and how more housing will save schools.

DG say:  "we now have a team member who is working exclusively on grants which we see as part of the long-term financial sustainability for the Vanguard."  It's good to have a team member doing this, so they can get grants that will partially cover their own salary  :-|   And bye bye Sparkplug Foundation:  you exhibit poor judgement.

KO say:  "I remember the days when there would be 50 comments by 9am. There were robust conversations. The fact now that comments often sit in the moderation queue for hours kills any chance of that ever happening again."   Yup.

KO say:  "Where are the several conservative commenters that used to post? Having diverse views used to generate more commenting. I thought progressives were supposed to be all about diversity."  Diversity of skin color, not diversity of ideas.

KO say:  "What you need are the Alan Millers, Ron Oertels, SOD’s and Frankly’s to return."  Not to mention Rik Keller, that spacey woman who talked about space aliens, and that drunkard musician who doxxed RO with the global coordinates of his house.

And yes, bringing back Alan C. Miller would be the savior of the Vanguard.  He is more interesting then the entire blog and its staff combined and can bring you joy and eternal life.  Alan C. Miller says:  "I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in my will never die!"  [Actually Alan C. Miller does not say that.]

But it is true that bringing back the robust community comments would bring more clicks and more eyes.  Apparently that doesn't interest the Vanguard.  Having developers, H.A.L.'s, useful idiots, startup foundations and civil-rights lawyers fund the thing is all that matters in the new business model, apparently, and community engagement and discussion or even clicks really don't matter.  Is that sustainable?  Especially with a tax lawsuit to fight?

I would have gladly served as a site-tester for the new website, but no one asked me.  Apparently DG never even had a normal person look at it, as surely they would have said, "Dude . . . "

Well, DG, your savior awaits.  DG deep down knows I am the savior, that my comments are the best, most humorous, and most interesting and will save all blogs whom I touch.  DG knows my terms.  DG knows the real problem.  But until he deals with it . . .

By Alan Hirsch, Davis Lorax

The controversial city council plan for commission consolidation and refocus is going into effect this summer. This is a rare opportunity for reform I hope is not missed. 

Let us begin by restating the overarching goals council set forward in this reform: 

Davis Council Resolution 24-079 May 2024

Guiding Principle for New Commission Structure

. City Commissions should act at all times with the understanding that guiding principles are at the core of their work.

1. Promote and embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion
2. Prioritize environmental and social justice
3. Make space for community engagement
4. Balance environmental and fiscal sustainability
5. Strive for innovation and human progress

The first meeting of the new Climate and Environmental Justice Commission on 7/22 Monday is precedent setting as it can begin to put implementation meat on the bone of these principles by:

1. Better Prioritize Environmental  Justice than in the past  (principal B)
2. Change meeting practices to allow more public participation. (principle A & C)  
3. Speed surfacing of new ideas and follow through on their implementation.  (principle E

As a first step in embracing council principles for this reorganization,  I suggest the  commission’s pass a resolution to  establish these ground rules for operation

Your host:  Alan C. "Al" Miller

Pictured:  an extreme version of himself

By Elaine Roberts Musser

I was appalled with City Council’s response to the apprehension many expressed at the City Council meeting on June 4 about the proposed midterm city budget and 1% sales tax increase. Concerned citizens were gaslighted, accused of seeking revenge for the commission mergers and engaging in hyperbole. (Gaslighting in this context is manipulating citizens into questioning their own perception of reality to avoid accountability for questionable behavior.)

The fact of the matter is we only pointed out things the Finance & Budget Commission would’ve zeroed in on, were it still in existence (but hasn’t been for almost a year). But as we know, the current City Council (minus Councilmember Neville) voted to eliminate this commission in favor of a more generic Fiscal Commission that has not yet met, now manned with new commissioners who are mostly commission inexperienced.

Here are the problems we highlighted:

• No city audit in three years;
• A general fund reserve of 7.5%, half the 15% it should be;
• One time gimmicks/delays: suspension of paying down $42 million in unfunded liability of employee healthcare benefits; reduction of $1.5 million originally intended for pavement management;
• A 1% sales tax increase, to offset general fund reserves and to pay for additional services/programs. What new services/programs is purposely vague.

In other words, the City Council wants us to approve a 1% sales tax increase, in essence a blank check with virtually no accountability, insisting we trust them to make responsible decisions. Their conduct has hardly inspired confidence!

Come on Greenwald.  Seriously?

When people fought decades ago to save land from development, forever, do you believe what they were really fighting for was to save the land from development 'forever, or until there was pressure to build housing, whichever comes first' ?

It's June, and the City of Davis is in mourning.  People are visiting the Davis Cemetery to visit our fallen committees.  To celebrate this misery, Alan C. Miller sang "Committee Rise, Committee Set" at the City Council meeting last night, sung to the tune of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof.  Mr. Miller was brought to tears by his own performance.

     This can be viewed at this link:  https://davis.granicus.com/player/clip/1703?view_id=6&redirect=true

     At this time signature:  38:10

Here's the lyrics from Tuesday night's (June 4th) council meeting:

MRAP 2014-08-29 at 9.42.39 AM

To be Discussed and Possibly Decided at Tuesday, June 4th Davis Council Meeting

By Scott Steward

Right when Davis is in full graduation mode - the City is to consider items that have everything to do with how free you are to express your views without being recorded and traced, with or without your knowledge.  Is this servail increasing our safety or providing more tools that have to be maintained and that have to find an excuse to exist?

Military equipment in a civil city?  Where Davis has been resistant, other communities are less so, and the armaments that our police department does not have, it can leave them wondering if they have to borrow the highest gauge shielding and firearms.  Or is that true?  Is keeping the peace more about relationships and not over-arming to defend against community breakdowns that erupt in bizarre and tragic ways?  Ways that no shielding can defend.  A teenager hidden in a house, a gun owner deciding he does not like a police officer, a gun owner whose roommate does not suspect he has lost it. Or a knife held by a young man whose mind and body go feral?

Disarming those whose weapons are for organized crime and premeditated harm, this is part of peacekeeping, and how that can happen safely for the police officers is to be heard and understood.  What are the tradeoffs? What is necessary, and what is contributing to escalation?

Item 5 (7:15) - agenda is here: https://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/Default/Documents/PDF/CityCouncil/CouncilMeetings/Agendas/2024/2024-06-04/City-Council-Agenda-06-04-24.pdf

(From press release) On May 29, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) filed a lawsuit against Caltrans alleging legally inadequate environmental analysis of the I-80 freeway widening project through Yolo County.

The lawsuit’s goal is to stop Caltrans from widening 17 miles of the I-80 freeway from six to eight lanes between Davis and Sacramento through the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area until Caltrans conducts a valid analysis of adverse environmental impacts threatened by the project and implements appropriate mitigation for these harmful effects.

Caltrans’ Environmental Impact Report (EIR) grossly underestimates increased vehicular travel, which would emit far larger quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) and air pollutants than claimed. The EIR fails to consider viable alternatives, such as increased public transit or alternate tolling strategies. Therefore, the project neither adequately manages demand nor produces adequate revenue to fund needed transit alternatives. Also, Caltrans’ proposed mitigation is woefully inadequate to offset the resulting increased GHG and air pollutant emissions.

Caltrans violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to acknowledge that freeway widenings do not produce less congestion but, in fact, result in increased traffic -- leading to worse congestion and pollution - due to “Induced Demand”.

CTC's $105M highway widening grant shows it has lost the plot when it comes to following Governor Newsom’s and the Legislature’s stated climate directives.

By Carter Rueben (NRDC) and Alan Hirsch

On May 16 the California Transportation Commission (CTC) approved $105 million from the State’s Trade Corridor Enhancement Program (TCEP) to widen a stretch of Interstate 80 from Davis to Sacramento. In the room and on the Zoom feed, dozens of Davis and Sacramento-area and statewide advocates called in to ask CTC to reject the funding and push Caltrans to provide real congestion relief and reduced environmental impacts.

NRDC identified TCEP in a 2023 report, "Closing the Climate Investment Gap," as the state program that most heavily invests in highway widening in contravention of our state’s climate goals.

 A study commissioned by the California State Transportation Agency came to a similar conclusion. 

By NRDC’s latest estimate, CTC has granted over $2 billion total to more than 50 highway expansion projects since the TCEP program was created in 2018, even though the program is able to fund projects that are wins for both goods movement and the environment, like truck and train electrification projects and rail grade separation projects.

We're at a pivotal time when the state’s climate laws require the state to dramatically scale up rail lines, bus routes, and active transportation corridors, while investing in electrification efforts that zero-out tailpipe pollution. Yet, the TCEP highway widening projects are doing just the opposite – collectively adding hundreds of millions of additional vehicle miles traveled (VMT) across the state per year. This is a trend we can and must reverse, as our friends at NextGen Policy detailed in their report, California at a Crossroads.

The Yolo 80 project is indicative of the systemic issues at Caltrans and CTC and retro-thinking by Yolo County and city elected officials that reject their own climate action plans drawn up by 5 local citizen climate to enable Caltrans.

What makes the Yolo 80 highway widening particularly striking?

What message will the CTC send Thursday?

By Alan Hirsch

Letter to California Transportation Commission [email protected]

Chair Carl Guardino and Members,

CC  CTC Equity Committee  Chair William Walker

Re: Disagreeing Better on Transportation Projects

Mr. Guardino:

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say:

    “You are entitled to your own opinions. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

The California Public Records Act (and the Brown Act) were designed so we work from the same facts---that there is sharing of information - so in dialog agencies don’t strategically withhold information to put electeds official as well as the public at an unfair disadvantage in reviewing projects.

Transparency is Inclusivity.

However, I want to bring to your attention a situation where Caltrans seems to be strategically withholding information from the public on a $1/2 billion project.

In June 2023 the CTC staff report recommended NOT to fund Yolo80 toll lanes out of TCEP funds, rating it medium priority. In that staff report CTC staff rated Yolo80 31st out of 48 projects.   Caltrans rated Yolo80 last in priority (24th) out of 24 of their projects. (extract from June 2023 staff report attached)

This of course raises question why it is now rated a priority for advance funding. In the CTC discussion on 5/16. Would not you and other commissions like to know? 

In fact 11 months ago, I tried to find out.

By Alan Hirsch

DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is given lot of lip service in progressive circles in Yolo County. But it can turn performative - especial if those in power have already made up their mind on a solution and don’t want to be contradicted- i.e. surface and take in to account diverse opinions.

That is what has been at play for Yolo County on Yolo80 widening with local electeds having made up their mind 3 years ago to add toll lanes to a 17 mile stretch of I-80.  After that they have worked to turn the legally required public process into a  check the box exercise, excluding diverse view point from being considered-- even when the diverse  viewpoints are backed by top transportation experts from UC Davis.

We are now at the end-stage where Davis Mayor/Yolo Transportation District Chair Josh Chapman is overtly discouraging public participation: he said openly it don’t matter what members of Davis public think -- hiding the fact the project is not yet fully funded and public input to the California Transportation Commission (CTC) can still make a difference.

This DEI hypocrisy in Yolo County will continue unless people call out the hypocrisy. The  public can be heard at the CTC’s Equity Committee meeting Wednesday. It is especially focused on this behavior like this by  in local transportation jurisdictions.

Emails are needed to the “CTC-EAC” (California Transportation Commission- Equity Advisory Committee) to note the performative nature of Yolo80 Environmental process (Caltrans District 3 and YoloTD) – and also to oppose funding the new toll lanes  until the process is made truly diverse and inclusive in the search for a solution.

Write to  [email protected]   Subject: Equity and: Funding widening Yolo80 with Toll Lanes.

Issues to note to the Equity Committee: (cut and paste into email?)

By Alan Hirsch

On Wednesday May 1, the 1971 page (plus 345-page appendix)- final EIR for yolo80 was released. The 139 comments take up nearly 71% of the pages.   – 108 of the 139 were from individuals, not government agencies, cities or  environment groups with paid staff.  This highlights the  fact this science-defying proposal from Caltrans has become “the most controversial freeway project in the state.” 

-----------------------
 NOTE: The last chance to comment on the funding will be at California Transportation Commission Meeting Thursday May 16, By Tuesday send any comments. (esp inadequately funded mitigation plan, induced demand negates any congestion relief, no environmental justice plan for tolls)
to [email protected]
Subject: Widening I-80 with a Expensive Toll lane.
Pro-Tip: use 14 or 16 pt font for short email.

--------------------------

The EIR concluded that despite the widening the freeway will generate 158M more miles of driving (VMT) a year...equal to adding over 11,000 more cars to the road and should be built based on “Statement of  Overriding concern” as it has benefit to reducing congestion- Even  though everyone agree this is wrong as congestion will return within less than ten years.  It is also strange given  their VMT Mitigation plan only offsets 55 Mil VMT miles year of the additional driving and ignores the nearly 50Million of additional a truck.

Adding capacity via toll lanes only guarantee richest member of community- and groups of Tahoe travelers  never faces congestion.

The EIR also ignores any analysis of increased danger from narrowing lanes and permanently removing shoulders. (see diagram)   

The ability of the proposed mitigation plan to provide a carbon/VMT offset is taken to higher degrees of absurdity to somehow claim the project tolls will fund adequate mitigations- and have money left for a social equity/environmental Justice  program into perpetuity.

Public not told about public hearing on toll levels.

In a bozo move by the owners of the Davis Enterprise, Bob Dunning was terminated without so much as a thank you after 55 years of service to the paper (and Davis).

Shelley Dunning pays a very sweet tribute in a 7-minute video on her Facebook page:

facebook.com/shelleydunning

She also outlines how cold the termination was.  I doubt that will sit well with the Davis community.

Bob's column will continue at: 

thewaryone.com

Please share your thoughts here in comments regarding this poorly-handled move by the owners of the Davis Enterprise.

Full disclosure:  Bob Dunning once wrote a column about how I should be on the City Council :-|

Note:  Pardon the pictured haircut, Bob, this is what A.I. gave me when I described the incident!

Welcome to MAY on Al's Corner.  Where you MAY discuss the clown-show that is Davis politics.  At 5:30pm on Tuesday, the AWARDS will be given out.  Maybe we'll finally learn who the person nominated is who does "good" and "bad" according to at least one commenter, and what "bad" they did. 

But I doubt it.

So talk about anything :-|