How are you feeling about your city?

By Roberta Millstein

Recently, the City released the results of a periodic survey it does to take the pulse of Davis's residents.  The results are online here.

The survey was conducted April 12 – 19, 2022 using a a multi-modal methodology: telephone, text- and email-to-web.  There were 500 interviews with an estimated margin of error ±4.37 percentage points.

The staff report highlights some "key takeaways":

• more than two-thirds of residents are optimistic about the direction of the City
• more than 75% are satisfied with City services
• affordable housing, homelessness and public safety are the top three areas of concern for residents
• social media platforms and communications from the City are gaining popularity as a source of local news

Those are indeed interesting takeaways, although as always with the term "affordable housing," one wonders if people intend the legal meaning, or if they are unhappy with the affordability of housing more generally, or both.

Below are two panels of the survey that I found interesting.  In the first panel, only 23% of citizens are dissatisfied with city services but 39% are dissatisfied with the City Council.  So it seems that the dissatisfaction with the City Council is over and above the dissatisfaction with the provision of city services.  As for the second panel, as a longtime subscriber to the Davis Enterprise I am glad to see that it remains our top source for news.  I hope that people support it with subscriptions because there really is no other comparable source in Davis.

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts and reflections about the survey, so please leave comments if you'd like to weigh in!

Al's Corner is a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments from other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from.  For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" --> "Al's Corner - What It Is".

Today the D. Vanguard recycled some old content from January 2021 in a 'new' article "Commentary: Long Troubled by Some of the Comments on Pacifico" and sprinkled in some recent content from an Anti-NIMBY Council-meeting public comment.

I, too, am disgusted by some of the comments on Pacifico, but the comments I find twisted are the opposite comments Greenwald is troubled by -- those by David Greenwald, Georgina Valencia and some much-DV-recycled comments by Gloria Partida . . . and the rest of the Usual Suspects of the "Anti-NIMBY" crowd.

My position remains immortalized in the following letter:

An Open Letter to South Davis (January 2021)

Hello South Davis,

I don’t live in South Davis, but I’m looking at District 3 100’ away out my window.

I share your problems and your concerns. There is a spot 200’ from my house where drug addicts / drug dealers / thieves camp outdoors. This is not a homeless encampment, it is a revolving crime den. In Spring 2020 I had three scary men on meth (I believe) approach me late at night and one threw rocks at me. There were numerous incidents of mental health outbursts. I slept little for two months as these people were up all night.

Our neighborhood mostly solved the problem *this time* eventually by having meetings with both the Police Chief and his Lieutenant, and relentlessly pestering the City Council. That took two months.

Your problems I have heard regarding Pacifico are similar, and thankfully also seem better but not solved. I am here with you in unity. We cannot participate in these issues only when the problem is next to us. We must support other Davis residents who have similar problems, as the problem is bigger than Pacifico, and bigger than the location next to me.

God Bless the people who are helping the truly homeless population that are in need. Those who spoke today on that are I believe sincere. However, the problem is not the needy, but the criminals. We cannot conflate these.

There have been times when residents, and subtly even our leaders, have shamed “the homed” for being “privileged” and not being sensitive to those in need. These are separate issues. We must recognize the needs of the truly homeless. We must also recognize that there is no shame in having a home and a roof over our heads, nor the need to protect our families and yes, our things.

When people talk of drug dealers and thieves, they are not talking about the needy homeless; we must not conflate the two as a rhetorical trick. We must recognize and acknowledge that shaming the ‘other’ and demonizing those with homes, and those without homes, will not result in constructive resolution. We must recognize the needs of all parties as legitimate. Except for criminals, they ‘need’ to be removed.

Alan C. Miller is a resident of Old East Davis

I haven't read the aftermath article that was no doubt in the Vanguard Wednesday morning.  I have grown yawn of the analysis/spin and the predictability.  I could write the article.  I will go read it for the comments, but without Alan Miller and Keith O., the comments have really become dull.  And Ron O., by his descriptions here, half his stuff is censhored.  How is censhored content either a discussion or entertaining?

But what has changed is that the key issues/peoples the Vanguard champions died last night.  Here's my prediction (or a post-diction since it's already been written):  the article will include Measure H, Chesa Boudin and Reisig.  Am I close?  The Vanguard lost, and all such progressive/woke initiatives are going down, like a sinking submarine.  They didn't just go down, they were all massacres.  Sinking massacres.  Mixed metaphors.

Measure H?  64% vs. 52% last time.  So it's getting worse, horribly worse, for the prospects of development.  Probably not ever going to be developed unless every taxpayer in Davis is bribed $1000 to vote 'yes'.  More voters would have mattered?  Doesn't matter, that's how it is.  Where were all those student voters voting 'yes' that didn't last time?  Not voting, as usual, as students don't.  In one of the Valley's most liberal towns, it went down.  Must be all the racists on the 'no' SIDE.

Chesa?  An initiative on 'defund the police'.  Doesn't matter what the stats are.  The public has had it.  In one of the countries most liberal cities.

Reisig?  He stooped pretty low with the child molester attempted link.  Then the lipstick-on-a-pig flyer came out.  OK now they both stopped low, so no moral advantage there.  But again, people in a Valley county with a super-liberal town/city, even Yolo leans law & order.  And for me, Reisig's dept. put a murderer behind bars who killed a friend's partner in front of them and their young child.  And the murderer should NEVER get out of jail, unless the living victim says so.  Period.  Majority of us don't believe in term limits for murderers.

MOOB!

With a whopping 11,000 votes cast, Measure H was massacred, going down 64% to 36%, or nearly 2-1.  I was actually in favor of the project, slightly, and would have voted for it, had Carson not . . . well, no need to rehash here, you all know -- some of you fellow citizens know intimately/legally/financially.  With this scaled-back version going down like a rock, it is safe to ask . . . did the decision to bring on Carson and then sue Davis residents kill this project? 

I believe the project would not have passed anyway, based on a guess I pulled out of my ass while typing this.   But a reasonable question is, could 1500-2000 of those 11,000 Davis residents been so offended by what the developer and Carson did that they changed their vote or made a point of voting when they may not have otherwise?  I believe, also sourced from my colon, that the answer is yes, they could have.  What I do know is I talked to a lot of people who were very angry at Carson and thought he had made himself into a fool clown.  Nothing motivates one to vote like anger at a fool clown.

The main conclusion of the video 'How Do You Die in a Sinking Submarine?' is that you die instantly when the hull implodes.  Carson, on the other hand, is going down slowly through June, July, August, September and October.  Painfully listening as the political hull creaks and groans under the pressure of his own stupidity reflected back on him from Davis residents, until:  BOOM!  Or, rather, since submarines implode rather than explode:  MOOB!

Why am I being such a dick to Carson?  I want to send a clear message so that never again will anyone be so brazen as to:

1. Hire a sitting City Councilmember to be your campaign chair, honorable or not (in this case not).
2. Volunteer to be that Councilmember who becomes the campaign chair.
3. Hire a proxy to sue Davis citizens over ballot language.
4. Volunteer to be that proxy.
5. Sue anyone over ballot language on a local issue in Davis ever again.

Personally, I found much of the NO on H ballot argument outrageous; I also found much of the YES ballot argument outrageous.  I doubt anyone on the NO side ever thought, 'hey I know, let's sue the YES side over their ballot language'!  No, they used media and lawn signs, like normal, decent people do.  This skull-f*ckery of suing Davis citizens over ballot language will stop.  Y'all should have been intelligent enough to see what a bad idea that was.  You weren't.

We all tend to have very short memories when politicians do stupid things.   I intend to keep the pressure on, keep the memory of the stupidity going, and hope the people of West Davis are more intelligent than Carson and the developer.  The sub is sinking; let's all keep the pressure increasing on the hull over the next five months until we see the bubbles on the surface.

MOOB!

This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums that you may or may not have been banned from.  For the few Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see "Pages" --> "Al's Corner - What It Is".

This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local issues and articles/comments in other local forums (that you may or may not have been banned from). 

For the (very few) Rule-ez at Al's Corner, see top of right column on home page under:  "Pages" --> "Al's Corner - What It Is"

This is Al's Corner, a place to comment on local stuff.  It's also a place to comment on articles and comments from other local forums you may have been banned from.  For the Rule-ez, see top of right column:  "Pages" --> "Al's Corner - What It Is"

Al's Corner #1 was a smashing success.  Please ruin  Al's Corner #2 with poor, thoughtless comments that will make babies cry.  Without contrast to success, there is no victory. 

Enjoy! :-|

This is Al's Corner - A Place to comment on Local Stuff, free from the censorship of biased people.  Free speech rocks!  Recent happenings at Netflix & Twitter give hope that Cancel Culture in the U.S. is dying.  Recent happenings in Davis local media . . .  not so much.  Al's Corner is a place to speak your mind on all things Davis, even as other local forums become more exclusive, more moderated, and more noisier echo chambers that don't welcome dissent, recognize humor, or allow 'incorrect' opinions.  That's why I created Al's corner -- comment here on local media content and comments, without having to deal with the Thought Police. 

Note: Prior to giving permission to the Davisite to post this, the author sent this piece to the Vanguard yesterday, saying "If you have any particular concerns, please let me know before 8:00 a.m., tomorrow. (Alternatively, if you'd like more time to respond, please let me know that as well.)". He did not receive a response.

By Ron O.

I am writing this article in regard to my personal experience, as well as what I’ve witnessed regarding ongoing problems with the Davis Vanguard’s policies and practices in reference to moderating of comments (as well as the general commenting environment).  These problems are interfering with the Vanguard’s mission to operate in an “open and transparent manner”, and are contributing to a rather hostile commenting environment in which to challenge and discuss the issues presented.

In case you missed them

In honor of the new year, the Davisite looks back on its top 20 most viewed articles from 2019, in reverse order, ending with the most viewed article for 2019. 

Note that the articles are written by a variety of different authors, reflecting the Davisite’s nature as a community blog, written by and for the Davis community.

This article originally appeared on May 27, 2018.  I am reposting it in light of a recent and blatant violation of the exact kind that I criticized here. On March 25, 2019, I wrote an article entitled, "City Council Out of Step on Parking, Roads, Housing, and the Claw: Will it Impact the 2020 Council Race?" . On March 30, 2019, David Greenwald wrote an article entitled, "My View: Some Are Saying the Council is Out of Step – Let’s Have a Look."  If you compare the two articles, it is obvious that Greenwald was responding to me, yet he never mentions me or the Davisite.  Instead, he refers vaguely to "some people." 

In other words, the Davis Vanguard continues to violate the basic principles of journalistic ethics.

Recently, the Davis Vanguard has been discussing articles from the Davisite without citing them.[1] This is, in my opinion, a violation of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Code of Ethics.  It also hampers the ability of a community to engage in informed discussion.

Having taken a day off to reflect, here are some of my thoughts about the election just completed.

First and foremost, let me assure everyone that the Davisite will continue! Some have speculated that this blog was created just to promote Nishi. That was never the case and time will show that to be true. If there have been a lot of articles about Nishi, that was because many of our current authors (myself included) were very engaged in that issue. The Davisite was always intended to be a blog by and for Davisites, which means that our content will always reflect our authors.

So, now is a good time to reissue a call for authors: send us your thoughts, be they political or not, artistic or not, funny or not. You can be a regular author, or send us something from time to time, or maybe just once – long or short, it doesn't matter. (But remember that on the Internet, most people don't want to read things that are very long!). The sidebar contains our contact info and comment policy, the latter of which serves as guidelines for authors as well.