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Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sunday Midday Briefs

Davis Police Chief Finalists

The Davis Enterprise reported on Thursday that City Manager Bill Emlen has announced that there are three finalists for the Police Chief position vacated in June by the departure of Jim Hyde for the same position with the Antioch Police Department.

According to several sources, Nick Concolino, who we ran an article on a few weeks ago, is not among the top three candidates. According to Emlen, one of the candidates is a woman, two of them are from out of state, and two of them work currently for law enforcement organizations, but one does not but has experience working as management in police organizations.

However, to date Bill Emlen has not announced the names.

According to the article there will be a meet and greet for the new candidates:
Now, Emlen plans to conduct some preliminary interviews and background investigations with the finalists "to see how much further we want to take them through the process," he said.

Once that has been determined, the city will conduct a more intensive round of interviews, as well as a "meet-and-greet" opportunity with members of the public, Emlen said.
The plan at this point would be to have a hire by the end of January, would suggests that this process will occur very quickly.

People's Vanguard of Davis hopes that the public has a full chance to meet and weigh in on this most important of hires that will be a large factor in the future of the Davis Police Department.

Eighth Assembly District Democratic Race

The Davis Enterprise ran a story today about the Eighth Assembly District Race and listed five names: Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada, Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan, West Sacramento Mayor Chris Cabaldon, Davis City Councilmember Don Saylor (who insisted on inclusion in the article), Vacaville City Council Member Steve Hardy.

Early thoughts on this. It seems like Wolk and the Democratic machine may back Cabaldon this time. That would leave much of the establishment in his corner. Yamada will have the strongest backing of progressives and labor and that will make her formidable if she can make in-roads into Solano County. Steve Hardy ran in 2002 and is the only candidate from Solano against two people from Davis and two from West Sacramento, that would make him a powerful player.

At this time, I cannot see both McGowan and Cabaldon running because they have similar supporters, political leanings, and are from the same city.

As I mentioned in a comment, I do not see Don Saylor as a viable candidate at this time. Unlike the other four, Saylor was largely uninvolved in terms of the organization of the 8th Assembly District Committee meeting. He may be throwing his name out there, but I don't see him beating out any of the top four.

Early handicap: Cabaldon wins if the Democratic establishment machine coalesces around him and can get him the resources and organization to spread out across the district. Hardy wins if he can take the bulk of Solano county while Yamada and Cabaldon split Yolo County. Yamada wins if she can cross county lines by organizing progressives and labor.

Dunning on Valley Oak

Davis Enterprise Columnist Bob Dunning writes: "Sometimes I think there must be another 'Bob Dunning' working for this very newspaper. How else to explain the nasty e-mails, bitter bloggers and livid letters to the editor all claiming that 'Bob Dunning' said something I know I didn't say? Or telling me something about my personal life or the neighborhood where I live that's based on fiction, not fact."

I think a lot of people think there are at least two Bob Dunnings, given the amount of faces he shows in his columns.

Of course, we can go back and re-read his past columns.

On January 9, 2007, Dunning wrote:
"I guess if your kid goes somewhere else and your school isn't threatened with closing, you can look the other way and pretend it isn't happening …"
In making this point, he is calling civil rights groups to task for failing to stand up for Valley Oak school. A somewhat ironic complaint given his track record of not supporting civil rights groups and at times working openly to weaken them.

As with most of Dunning's writings there is also a subtext there. The subtext allows him to imply something, but then later claim he didn't actually say it. The subtext to that statement was that Valley Oak involved his kids and civil rights groups were not sufficiently disturbed by this because they are a bunch of NIMBY's and this wasn't in their backyard (but, the subtext here was that it was in his backyard).

In today's column's Dunning denies the subtext of that first argument in his response to a letter to the editor writer.

The irony is that I agree with him on the main issue and his main point in his column today:
"We ought to be appointing task forces charged with the job of coming up with a plan to keep all the schools operating, not closing them. If any town can do it, it's Davis."
But Dunning undercuts his potential allies through his polemics.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting