Second Reading of Political Sign Ordinance To Be Heard Tonight

In December, the Davis City Council unanimously voted to pass the first reading of an ordinance that would enable renters to post signs on their rental unit space.

During the course of the hearing, the Council amended the original language to strengthen the ordinance.

As originally written, the ordinance would only impact those renters whose landlords did not have a provision in their lease that would ban campaign signs. While that turns out to be most of the rental agreements, the fear was that for this election cycle, renters would be able to display signs, but new rental agreements would contain provisions that would prevent the display of signs.

City Clerk Margaret Roberts during her staff report said:

"The ordinance that's before you minimally addresses that in that it says that they [political signs] are allowable, however, currently if a lease between a landlord and a tenant prohibits political signs, or any signage in their windows, that contract would supersede our ordinance. With that said, the city attorney has prepared at my request some alternatives that would disallow landlords from forbidding them to put that in."

City Attorney Harriett Steiner suggested that nothing would preclude the city from adding a section to the ordinance dealing with non-commercial advertising signs, that would enable renters to post signs on their rental unit space.

Councilmember Don Saylor voted in favor of the first reading, however, he requested to see material for the second reading. He suggested that the new language has not been seen by people outside of the room.

Due to the urgency of passing the ordinance in time for the early February primary, both Councilmember Saylor and Souza voted to pass the ordinance, but also to hear more at the meeting tonight.

Usually a second reading would merely be a consent agenda item, however, this is a full-blown regular item on the agenda.

In response to council request, City Attorney Harriet Steiner drafted a memo on the legal aspects of a sign ordinance.

Specifically she mentioned that there is not currently case law that protects the rights of individuals to post signs on private property. On the other hand, there is no law that prevents the state (or municipal government's ability to enact laws that prevent a landlord from restricting the tenant's right to display signs).

She writes:

"While neither the state Constitution nor existing statutes explicitly protect tenant speech, the applicable cases do not appear to limit the state's ability to enact laws prohibiting landlords from restricting tenant speech. In fact, as noted above, the state has already enacted laws regulating common interest developments and private owners of mobile home parks, without any court challenge."

The open question at this time however is whether landlords, now being forewarned, will mobilize against this ordinance. Recall that there was strong opposition to this ordinance aired at the City-UCD Liaison Commission.

The issue came to the commission's attention after the ASUCD Senate passed a resolution, authored by Sen. Michael Lay, calling for an ordinance ensuring the right of Davis renters to post political signs. Several renters had complained to City and ASUCD officials that landlords were not allowing them to put up signs in support of certain candidates for public office.

Both Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sherrie Puntillo and Tandem Properties Representative, Brenda Little, aired strong dissent at that meeting. Not coincidentally both are strong political allies of the Council Majority, particularly Stephen Souza and Don Saylor who both had expressed reservation about the lack of notification on the language change at the December meeting.

Will this ordinance hit a snag at the last hour or will political pressure and expediency force it through? We shall find out the answer to this at the meeting tonight.

---Doug Pauld Davis reporting

Portion of Controversial Agenda Item Pulled From Tonight's Council Agenda

The Vanguard has learned that part of item 11 on tonight's agenda has been pulled. This item contained two separate but very important issues that generated concern from the community about the timing and the manner in which they came forward.

The first part of the item is a public hearing on an ordinance which would allow renters to display political campaign signs. According to city manager, this item will likely remain on the agenda despite student complaints about the timing of this hearing because students have largely left town this week at the conclusion of finals. According to our sources.

This is an item that first came before the UC Davis-City of Davis Student Liaison Commission. The issue came to the commission's attention after the ASUCD Senate passed a resolution in September, authored by Sen. Michael Lay, calling for an ordinance ensuring the right of Davis renters to post political signs. Several renters had complained to City and ASUCD officials that landlords were not allowing them to put up signs in support of certain candidates for public office.

The second and more controversial portion of the agenda item relates to an increase in the campaign finance limits for council elections. This would increase the limit from $100 to $250.

"Campaign Contribution Limits

The current campaign contribution limit of $100 was set by ordinance 1624 on November 20, 1991. With the increase in costs to run a simple campaign over the past sixteen years, it is being recommended that consideration be given to increasing the individual limit from the current $100 to $250."

However, the item caught many by complete surprise including apparently the City Manager and members of the council who were apparently unaware that the item was on the agenda.

Yesterday, Mayor Sue Greenwald posted the following on the Vanguard:

"I was unaware that changes in the campaign contribution limits were under consideration until I received my packet this weekend. (I go over the agenda items, but don’t see the staff reports in advance).

I had expressed reservations to the City Manager about this item, since Ruth was to be out of town. He assured me that the item was not substantive, but involved moving the ordinance to a more logical chapter in the City code.

When I saw the $250 surprise item, I called the City Manager to ask him why the changes in the campaign contribution limits materialized at this time and in this manner, he said that it was a surprise to him."

According to City Clerk, Margaret Roberts, she was asked to streamline the section of the city ordinance dealing with these campaign regulations. During the course of her inquiry, she discovered that Davis' regulation was out of step with other municipalities and therefore, according to her, she made the change on her own without any direction from anyone else.

In a conversation this morning with City Manager Bill Emlen, he acknowledged errors on his part for failing to properly scrutinize the council agenda. He saw the portion of the agenda on the political signage but missed the change in the campaign finance limitations. This is the same sort of error that I made when I initially missed this item as well.

He felt like this item was too controversial in this community to bring forth in this manner and will pull it back for re-examination. One possibility would be to have it before an ad-hoc committee to examine what other communities are doing and what this community wants.

He stressed that this error occurred not due to some untoward influence on the process but was rather an oversight and a misunderstanding by staff as to the nature of the topic being proposed.

The Vanguard will continue following this story in the near future. Stay tuned for new updates and commentary.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Quietly... Council Looks to Change City's Campaign Finance Ordinance

You had to be very alert to notice it, but on the agenda for Tuesday night's council meeting, as the last part of the last item, buried at the end of the council agenda, reads the following:

Missed it the first time? I did. I wasn't the only one.

The item seeks to put three separate aspects of election law into a single section of the election code.

These ordinances will remove all political campaign sign regulations from Chapters 3 and 40 of the Municipal Code and include them in Chapter 12 (Elections). This will put all regulations related to elections in one chapter making it convenient for the public to look an election related question up. They will also increase the allowable campaign contribution per person to $250 from the current $100 and impose a $25 removal fee for signs placed on public property.

The guise of this move is stated as "convenience." But it also has the advantage of enabling the item to be slipped through in relative obscurity, buried at the end where few are looking for it.

The first part of the item is a public hearing on an ordinance which would allow renters to display political campaign signs. This is an item that we discussed in October that came before the UC Davis-City of Davis Student Liaison Commission.

It has full backing of ASUCD (Associated Students of UC Davis). The issue came to the commission's attention after the ASUCD Senate passed a resolution in September, authored by Sen. Michael Lay, calling for an ordinance ensuring the right of Davis renters to post political signs. Several renters had complained to City and ASUCD officials that landlords were not allowing them to put up signs in support of certain candidates for public office.

ASUCD Sen. Andrew Peake:

"The right to free speech is a right guaranteed to everyone, not just to those who own property. When it comes to political participation, it shouldn't matter whether you own your home or not. When certain members of the community aren't allowed to participate in the democratic process in this way, it's a form of disenfranchisement."

City staff circulated a legal memorandum stating that landlords who prohibited their tenants from posting political signs were most likely out of step with the law.

Staff has now however taken the rather unusual step of putting together two relatively distinct ordinances into the same item. Therefore, having read the first part of the item, one might not notice that there is a second very distinct ordinance carried within it.

Adding to the confusion, is the fact that the second portion of the item has received little discussion leading up to its placement on the agenda. To the point where one wonders where it came from and under whose direction it was placed there.

Even in the agenda packet, the ordinance is buried and extremely brief. Unlike the political sign ordinance, the ordinance to change campaign finance laws has no background or discussion. It was a very simple single paragraph description.

It simply reads:

Campaign Contribution Limits

The current campaign contribution limit of $100 was set by ordinance 1624 on November 20, 1991. With the increase in costs to run a simple campaign over the past sixteen years, it is being recommended that consideration be given to increasing the individual limit from the current $100 to $250.

The merits of the increase aside, the fact that this was done in such a quiet manner, is of grave concern. Councilmember Lamar Heystek expressed similar concerns to me. This was the first he had heard of any proposed changes and he was unclear as to how the issue came about.

As Liaison the UC Davis-City of Davis Student Liaison Commission, he was very familiar with the political sign ordinance. The issue of renters having the same rights to place political signs around their rental units is an issue at the very basic levels of free speech.

However, the issue of campaign finance laws is a separate matter and needed to be brought up separately.

One can make arguments on both sides of the issue of increasing the amount an individual can donate in a city council race. However, that is not the point here. The point here is about open government, transparency, and having a full public discussion of this item. The item did not make the Davis Enterprise. It did not have any sort of prior discussion in a commission, and apparently even members of the council had no idea it was even being considered.

That is very alarming to me, again regardless of whether you think this is a good idea or a bad idea. What does seem clear is that three of the members of council are running for reelection. It takes thirty days for an ordinance to take effect after it's second reading which would be the first council meeting in January, meaning that by early February, candidates facing reelection can suddenly experience a 250% increase in their available campaign funds. And let me go out on a limb and suggest that this idea did not come from the Mayor. That leaves two likely culprits who would personally benefit from changing this ordinance.

To make things even more interesting is the fact that the Mayor Pro Tem, Ruth Asmundson, will not be at the meeting on Tuesday as she is out of town. That will leave open the strong possibility that this will not pass and perhaps it will leave open the possibility that this would be delayed until January or even after the current election.

Regardless of one's feelings on the current law or the proposed changes, the public must be heard on this issue and weigh in. Attempting to close off public input, scrutiny or debate, is a very dangerous precedent in my view. Let us have this debate with full notice in January and if the public wants to see these changes, then at least there will have been a chance for people to weigh in. My guess however is that is exactly what the timing and secretive nature of this ordinance attempted to avoid.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commission Recommends Free Speech Ordinance for Renters

Last Wednesday, the City-UC Davis Student Liaison Commission, which serves as an advisory body to the Davis City Council and examines a variety of issues that relate student affairs within the city of Davis, voted to to recommend passage of an ordinance protecting the right of Davis renters to display political signs in their windows or yards.

The issue came to the commission's attention after the ASUCD Senate passed a resolution, authored by Sen. Michael Lay, calling for an ordinance ensuring the right of Davis renters to post political signs. Several renters had complained to City and ASUCD officials that landlords were not allowing them to put up signs in support of certain candidates for public office.

ASUCD Sen. Andrew Peake:

"The right to free speech is a right guaranteed to everyone, not just to those who own property. When it comes to political participation, it shouldn't matter whether you own your home or not. When certain members of the community aren't allowed to participate in the democratic process in this way, it's a form of disenfranchisement."

City staff circulated a legal memorandum stating that landlords who prohibited their tenants from posting political signs were most likely out of step with the law.

The meeting itself was marked by harsh dialogue and contentious debate between students and property owners and business interests coming primarily from the property owners and business interests.

The most remarkable was an exchange between ASUCD Senator Andrew Peake and Davis Chamber of Commerce CEO Sherry Puntillo. There seemed to be concern on the part of Ms. Puntillo and also Brenda Little who is the manager for Tandem Properties (owned by John Whitcombe), that the allowance of signs on rental property would lead to disputes and hostility.

It was pointed out that neighbors have similar problems potentially and it does not seem limited to just rental problems. Sen. Peake suggested that this is not a huge issue and that neighbors would be able to resolve such conflicts on their own.

Sherry Puntillo then suggested that Mr. Peake was "naive" to believe that this would occur and rudely asked "what color is the sky where you are." Ms. Puntillo did not respond to emails inquiring into the incident.

In the end however, Sherry Puntillo voted with the majority to recommend the city council pass this ordinance. Only three members ended up voting against it, Brenda Little, Steven Worker who chairs the commission, and Christine Bonilla.

The issue of disputes--while clearly a concern--seems like a non-issue. It is not clear that there is any more danger about such disputes between apartment or rental unit neighbors than the rest of the population. And in fact, the sheer number of signs is likely to be significantly lower on such property.

I think the real issue is that apartment owners such as Tandem's John Whitcombe, have traditionally supported pro-development candidates and placed a multitude of signs on their property. Now by allowing renters to place their own signs there will be competition.

According to several who participated and witnessed it, the disdain showed to the viewpoint of students by Brenda Little and the Chamber of Commerce CEO was alarming.

There was the belief that the comments were patronizing and they lacked a modicum of respect for students. This commission was set up to give students a voice in Davis City Government, but the students at this meeting came away somewhat believing that they were viewed as second class citizens, and not treated as equals with respect.

Nevertheless, this incident should not overshadow what was viewed as a huge step toward victory for students to be able to gain a voice in politics even from their rental units. It is the hope that with the support of the City-UCD Liaison Commission that the council will approve an ordinance that allows renters to post signs in and around their rental units.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting