Strange Vote Leads to Drastically Reduced Sphere of Influence

It seems likely that when Lamar Heystek made his motion to exclude a large number of properties from the city's sphere of influence, that he never expected to prevail.

In light of discussion at the LAFCO meeting at the end of March, the City Council agreed to have new discussions on a proposal by the city to dramatically expand the city's sphere of influence (SOI).

My question at the time of the LAFCO meeting was whether a larger or a smaller sphere of influence provided more protection of agricultural land and gave the city more control over its future growth. Originally, the city felt that having a larger sphere of influence would maximize the city's ability to grow. However, points made at the LAFCO meeting undermined that philosophy, particularly two points. One that a larger SOI might contribute to the need for an expanded provision of services. Second, that an expanded SOI might contribute to greater pressure to grow from those developers who owned the lands now included in the SOI. The thinking was that this would facilitate a move down the line that would include these properties in a future General Plan for development considerations.

Finally, there is the fact that the lands considered for development by the county last year were in the SOI, and the SOI did not appear to grant the city any additional growth protect. A point reiterated later in the evening by City Manager Bill Emlen.

"In other areas, a sphere of influence has not stopped counties from approving development right next to a city."

In a good discussion that ensued, City Planner Katherine Hess suggested that growth pressure would probably occur regardless of the size of the SOI. The main tools that the city of Davis has as protection are the pass-through agreement and Measure J.

Even after this discussion, it was not entirely clear what the city would gain either way by changing their SOI.

City Councilmember Don Saylor said:

"I don't hear us having an overwhelming case one way or another to change it frankly, and I think the value of our other land use tools is far in excess of whatever happens on this decision. I'm fairly neutral on which way we end up coming down on individual cites in the list or not in the list because I think the real issues are going to be ongoing in discussions between the city and the county on the pass-through agreement and with the voters on Measure J. And the next general plan with the city and the county. I don't see this as a make or break decision."

Now this is what we were told by City Staff and by Stephen Souza. However, during public comment--and we are talking about public comment at midnight--representatives from developers of Oeste Ranch, requested their property be including in the SOI.

Councilmember Don Saylor moved that that the city request LAFCO to add Mace-Covell Gateway to the SOI, the staff recommendation.

"We ought not to apply too much emphasis or importance to this. As I understand from the discussion tonight this is not something that we can achieve many objectives doing."

Then Lamar Heystek spoke:

"I don't see this as merely a ministerial action of the council, because personally I will speak very frankly, I don't feel that I received enough information from city staff to be able to make a decision. I understand that LAFCO has made a recommendation that certain sites be excluded, but I have not received information for our staff as to why certain sites should be included."

He continued:

"I don't understand and I haven't heard from city staff, why we have to include other areas such as the northwest quadrant, such as covell village, such as the Nishi site, when we know we already have Measure J, when we know we already have the pass-through agreement, and we know that those are really the strongest protections from unwarranted or undesirable development on our borders."

LAFCO's report warns that adding such areas would lead to land speculation on those sites for the purpose of development.

As Councilmember Heystek pointed out, it appears in the next five years we neither intend to expand city services into these areas nor develop in these areas--so why include them in the SOI?

He then made a substitute motion to exclude Covell, the Northwest Quadrant, and the Nishi site from the recommended sphere of influence. It was seconded by Mayor Sue Greenwald.

As Mayor Sue Greenwald pointed out, we have reduced our growth from a 1% growth guideline to a 1% growth cap.

"These should be areas that we are realistically considering for growth in the next five years."

When Councilmember Heystek made this motion, it is unlikely that he believed it would pass. However when both Councilmembers Souza and Saylor abstained, the motion passed 2-1 with Ruth Asmundson the dissenting vote.

The reason this motion was made and considered important by Councilmember Heystek is that inclusion of areas within the SOI could lead to their inclusion in the 2010 General Plan. These are sites that were ranked relatively low by the Housing Element Steering Committee and thus the inclusion in the SOI could lead to the owners of the properties (such as the Northwest Quadrant) to push for inclusion in the General Plan. As mentioned during the LAFCO meeting, this may not directly lead to development but could potentially be the first step along a path that leads down the road to development of these sites.

Why both Councilmembers Souza and Saylor decided to abstain is an open question. What the vote means, is also unclear, however, council is now recommending that the Covell Property, the Northwest Quadrant and Nishi Propety all be excluded from the SOI.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

County Takes On Appeal of Cell Tower Issue in NW Quadrant

According to the staff report, in May of 2007, an application was submitted to construct and operate a cell tower north of Covell Blvd between County Road 99 and State Route 113. The tower would be roughly 120 feet high.

The County Planning Commission approved the conditional use permit for the construction and operation of the facility northwest of Davis.

According to the Staff Report:

"The Planning Commission approved the project with a 3-2 vote at the September 13, 2007 hearing, with additions to the Conditions of Approval to include an eight-foot sound wall. The Planning Commission’s approval was based on findings that the project is consistent with the requirements set forth in the Yolo County Wireless Communication Facility Conditional Use Permit Review Criteria (Yolo County Code Section 8-2.2417) and related local ordinance requirements. Three nearby landowners subsequently appealed the project on September 28, 2007. One of the landowners has since withdrawn his name from the appeal."

The appeal has three components based on CEQA issues: aesthetics, noise, and land use conflicts. The Planning Commission had originally ruled that the project would have less than significant impact on the environment. Nearby landowners are claiming that this ruling fails to identify potentially significant impacts from aesthetics and noise. The Office of County Counsel believes that these impacts were in fact adequately discussed and that Planning Commission had carried out their duties properly.

Nevertheless, staff recommends denial of the conditional use permit and reevaluation on January 15, 2008.

"Community opposition has increased since the Planning Commission granted the requested conditional use permit. Among other things, many residents and property owners have expressed aesthetic concerns about the proposed tower - a 110-foot tall structure in an otherwise flat, agricultural area that would be easily visible to nearby residents. In addition, staff is not persuaded that the applicant has meaningfully evaluated alternative sites and system designs that could be visually less intrusive. However, as with any appeal of a Planning Commission decision, the Board of Supervisors reviews the entire matter independently and can consider issues not specifically raised by the appellants."

A number of the property owners in the Northwest Quadrant protested that the cell tower location would interfere with the best use of their property. According to one resident, at least six neighboring property owners protest this location.

Residents also suggest that there are alternative locations for the tower that were under-explored. One such location would be the Sutter Davis Hospital that has apparently offered a location on their property, within the city of Davis limits. This location would accomplish the same coverage as the other location, apparently without the kinds of objections that are currently occurring in the Northwest Quadrant.

The bottom line in this issue appears to be that one property owner has offered up his or her property for the construction of the tower and the neighbors are objecting. The Board of Supervisors meets today to discuss this issue.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Should Davis Develop the Northwest Quadrant?

I caught part of the General Plan Housing Element's discussion of the Northwest Quadrant last night. It was actually a very good discussion that clarified in my mind at least a number of issues that still are lingering from the county's discussion in July. The biggest issue it actually clarified for me is the pragmatic and practical reasons why the city and not the county should determine growth on city edge's. At the very least we see why the county did things backwards.

If the county really felt the need to grow in the Northwest Quadrant and other areas on the Davis periphery it should have started with talks with the city of Davis. I understand full well that one of the things that Supervisor Mariko Yamada wanted to do was have a Yolo County Council of Governments along the same lines as SACOG (Sacramento Area Council of Governments). However that proposal was rejected. Short of creating a formal mechanism, the existing structure exists at the two-by-two level to engage in those talks. It seems to me that the bigger problem here is less the lack of communication and more the fear that they would not like answer.

However, the need for these talks was underscored for me last night by some of the discussion of developing the Northwest Quadrant. Even some of the more development friendly members of the committee felt that given the time frame that the committee was charged with, looking ahead seven years, there is no way that the city should be developing there.

Several other issues also came up--lack of commercial development on the west side of town, distance from the city core, lack of adherence to smart growth principles, etc. The idea here is that this development is far from downtown, meaning people would have to drive a good distance just to get to the center of town. That forces people to drive more in order to shop and eat, which leads to traffic, congestions, pollution, more carbon emissions, more infrastructure problems.

In fact the feeling seemed to be as they considered four separate parcels in the area that the city needs to look at this area as a whole rather than piecemail and needs to plan commercial development alongside residential.

That seems like a very reasonable approach. All of which underscores why the county had no business talking about developing in this part of town because frankly the county was not considering any of these factors. And that is the problem in general, the county was thinking in terms of generating revenue (a dubious notion at best) and the county was not thinking about what growth in these areas would do to the city in terms of infrastructure, commerce, transportation, and even future development. Again, if this was something the county really desired they should have discussed it in advance in great detail, well before it came before them in terms of their General Plan update.

Two other issues to broach, one was the notion discussed by the public, which included some developers and non-developers about how the northwest quadrant should be developed. One of the ideas that came forward was that the citizens of Davis allow growth in these areas in order to gain permanent agricultural mitigation. In theory, that sounds like an intriguing possibility. However, we are essentially talking about development up to road 27 and as far west as Pedrick Road and County Road 98. In other words, a huge swath of development.

The logic here was that we parcel and piecemail this development in order to avoid huge developments at any one time. The idea being that pressure is building for development and if we do not act as a spigot, we will get flooded. This analogy makes little sense to me. First of all we are talking about allowing a tremendous amount of growth to reach that point. Second, who is to say that the pressure would not continue to build even when there is land in permanent mitigation to change that land use status. I think we have to be careful about leaning too heavily toward mitigation as the solution to development pressures. I also think the amount of growth we are talking about might be over 50 years, not the next 7.

The other point that gets raised here is senior housing. What we now are seeing are several separate proposals for senior housing. The city of Davis has a Senior Citizens commission and part of their purview ought to be direct community discussion about the need for senior housing. I think one of the good things that came from last night's discussion was the acknowledgment from the Housing Element Steering Committee members that their job was one of looking at land use not approving specific projects. I agree with that approach. Just as I agreed in July that talk about a stem cell facility was premature, the question then was whether land use designations should be changed and whether land should be included for future development in the general plan. That is precisely the question here as well.

Discussion about whether and to what extent senior housing needs to be developed should take place in the Senior Citizens Commission. I think it would behoove the council and the steering committee even to have that kind of community dialogue occurring while housing is considered--particularly in the controversial Covell Village area.

One of the issues that has to be resolved at the council level and probably will not be resolved until after the new council elections is whether we should be planning for RHNA mandated growth or whether we should be planning for 1 percent growth that was developed and implemented by the city council. That conversation started to occur two weeks ago but needs to continue. The Council Majority seemed to want to postpone it until they got a report from the Housing Element Steering Committee but it seemed last night that the steering committee really needs to have direction from council in deciding what property to include in their plan.

At the end of the day, I think there needs to be more broad-based discussion in the community about where, when, and what type of growth ought to take place.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Hard Work Behind the Scenes by Heystek and Provenza Helped Save the Pass-Through Agreement

Most people have probably seen the blow-by-blow via the Vanguard commentary on the Board of Supervisors as it happened. It was a difficult, tense, but ultimately fun and fulfilling process to sit in the back of the room and blog. What was perhaps most amazing is that I was getting instant feedback from my comments not just on the blog itself, but from people in the room and by text message. Everyone in that room knew what was going on and being there in that room, along with 50 plus residents of Davis, most of whom were united in their conviction on this one issue, at least in my view had a profound impact over the final verdict.

What people however did not see was the hard work that happened from Sunday until the meeting convened on Tuesday morning. Much of that work, set the stage for what was ultimately a huge victory for those in Davis who have fought hard over the decades for the preservation of agricultural land and open space and at the same time for self-determination. This was first and foremost a debate over who should determine how we grow. (We will have a long conversation at a future date about stem cell research and social services--both of which I very strongly support and will work in the future to address).

On Sunday night, Davis City Councilmember Lamar Heystek and Davis School Board President Jim Provenza met with Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada for approximately two hours.

As Heystek told the Davis City Council on Tuesday night:

"I was able to convene a meeting late Sunday night with School Board President Jim Provenza and Board of Supervisors Chair Mariko Yamada. The meeting was held in a public place and there were piping-hot mugs of coffee at the table. We weren’t there only as three elected officials from three of the involved jurisdictions. We were there as three Davisites discussing the issue jointly and rationally. After talking the issue through for over two hours, President Provenza and I were emboldened by a window of opportunity we were able to crack open. We were emboldened by the prospect that Chair Yamada would support a delay in Tuesday’s vote in order to join the City in a rational discussion – and this is very important – within the framework of the current pass-through agreement."

Both Councilmember Heystek and School Board President Provenza believed that the only way to save the pass-through agreement was somehow to get the Board of Supervisors to pause and not make a final decision. Instead, they suggested that they engage the city in a discussion over a variety of things. However, both Mr. Heystek and Mr. Provenza made it clear that the pass-through agreement was not on the table.

As Councilmember Heystek put it, "The City of Davis has never opposed engaging in the right discussion, on the right terms, under the right conditions." What they did object to, was a joint study area, where there would be direct talks about changes to land-use designations.

From the beginning on Tuesday, it appeared that the worst case scenario would not be on the table. Supervisor McGowan asked early on directly what "special study area" meant, and the answer was that it would be studied for possible future use but it would not be placed into the general plan EIR or cleared for development, nor would there be CEQA clearance. This was a key point, for the triggering mechanism for recall was placement of these areas in the county's EIR, where it presumably could be entitled and become a development area with a single vote. That appeared early on to be off the table.

There was a clear conciliatory tone coming from the Davis City Council at this meeting. Mayor Sue Greenwald asked for a removal of the study areas from the EIR. But then asked to work cooperatively, as the city and county have in the past and suggested both a willingness to compromise and cooperate.

Like the Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem Asmundson was very conciliatory in her approach. She suggested that the city and county sit down and have joint rational discussion of city and county issues. Before putting this in a study, we sit down and have a rational discussion and civil discourse toward a mutually beneficial outcome.

During the course of board discussion there seemed to be almost two mindsets. First, there was the acknowledgment by the Board of Supervisors, that what they were doing was generating a lot of fear and angst amongst citizens and their leaders from the city of Davis. There was a simple reason for that--no one from Davis understood exactly what the County's intentions were and there was limited communication. When the two bodies communicated formally or informally there was much dissension and a tone of arrogance especially coming from our own Davis Supervisors Helen Thomson and Mariko Yamada.

During yesterday's meeting Supervisor Yamada suggested at one point that there was a discrepancy between what was written and how people feel. That there was a lack of trust for the process. This was entirely correct.

And yet in the next breath both Supervisor Yamada and Thomson began lecturing the city of Davis--its residents and its elected officials in an arrogant and condescending tone. At one moment, they seemed to understand it, the next they were lashing out against it. They claimed that the recall for instance had no impact on their viewpoints, and yet they were the ones who raised it over and over again. No one from the public raised the issue of recall, but the Supervisors did, they were aware of it, and it clearly affected them, despite their pronunciations to the contrary.

Moreover Supervisor Helen Thomson remarked that no one had threatened the pass-through agreement. She pointed out that she signed the original pass-through agreement. However, any implementation of the plans that appeared to be on the table, would do exactly that--jeopardize the pass-through agreement between the city and county. I hope that was never the intent of Supervisor Thomson, but I think it was a legitimate fear that was shared not just by progressives to her left, but also her allies in Councilmember Don Saylor among others.

Supervisor Rexroad moved that the Northwest Quadrant and Covell Property be removed from the joint study area. Supervisor Chamberlain seconded the motion.

Supervisor Rexroad told me later, that based on statements from the meeting, he thought he had a third vote in Supervisor Yamada and was stunned when she not only voted against it but lectured him for even bringing it up for a vote. That motion failed by a 3-2 margin with Mike McGowan, Helen Thomson and Mariko Yamada voting no.

As Rexroad later wrote on his blog:

"My views on the hearing today were shaped by two primary considerations.

The first was that I think one of the most important services the county provides is protection prime agriculture land and developing appropriately. In fact, I would argue that may be the single most important service the county provides. To me it is more important than lots of other things. I mean it. Instead of viewing this as something that completes with more social services I view it as complimenting them for every resident of Yolo County.

The piece that mostly shaped my view on the Davis proposals is that I am a former Mayor. In fact, I am probably better suited in background and interest to be on a City Council than a Board of Supervisors. The key here is that I believe that the Davis City Council, as crazy and wrong as they may be sometimes, have the right to be wrong."

Some on this blog have disparaged Supervisor Rexroad either as not caring about county services or as being duplicitous on this issue. From my vantage point, Supervisor Rexroad has been for the most part very consistent on the issue of agricultural preservation. I disagree on his votes on social services and social issues, but I can respect his commitment at the same time to agricultural preservation, a value I share with him.

Following that vote, there is another bitter round of lectures from the dais mainly from Supervisors Thomson and Yamada. County Staff however requests a recess for 15 minutes. It appears that the efforts of Councilmember Heystek and Board President Provenza were futile and that this was going forward. Let there be no mistake here, at that moment, recall as an option was alive and well and there was a very strong unity in the ranks on that point.

However as the Supervisors came back something drastically changed. Another motion was taken and it passed 4-1. In this motion the concept of "study areas" was removed and no areas were identified or called out for potential development. The motion set aside all of the "red lines" (on the general plan maps) around Davis and hold discussions with the city of Davis. Basically this removes the proposed study areas from the general plan and authorizes some form of discussion in the future. The supervisors, based upon this vote, reversed their previous vote and have now removed all study area designations from the general plan update discussion. It did not completely remove discussion in the future of what were once the three study areas from General Plan consideration as the Rexroad-Chamberlain motion would have. In fact, Chamberlain ended up voting against the motion because it did not go far enough--he opposed development at those spots or any area around Davis as well as even discussing the subject, period.

Again, what it does do is first remove the specific areas from consideration--as they put it, "take the red lines off the map of Davis" (a reference to the county maps which had red lines to designate where the study areas' boundaries lay). And it did much of what Councilmember Heystek and Board President Provenza had asked--to engage the two governing bodies in fruitful discussion.

The process could have been much smoother. The tone from our Davis county supervisors should have been better. We could have been spared the lectures. But at the end of the day, we had prevailed, somehow, some way. The efforts of Mr. Heystek and Mr. Provenza will likely not be reported in the local papers, but they were instrumental in helping to move this process to the point where in the end, the considerations for development on Davis' periphery were removed from the General Plan.

My final thought on this is as follows. There is no one more committed to social services and the hope of stem cell research than many of the same progressives who fought against this proposal. However, this is not the way to achieve those ends. I hope, that when the heat diminished, the city and county can come together and find an appropriate location for a stem cell research facility and can work together to help the county provide vital social services to the elderly, the poor, and the disenfranchised. I do not believe that these values should be in conflict with the value of protection for the environment, agricultural preservation, and open space. We need to much as our leaders suggested yesterday, work together on a joint and mutually beneficial solution to this problem. And thanks in part to the work of our leaders Lamar Heystek and Jim Provenza, we will have a chance to do just that.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: War Brewing with the County on Peripheral Growth Can End with a Simple "No" Vote on Tuesday

One week ago today, I got a call on my cell from one of the County Supervisors forewarning me that the county general plan staff report was coming out that afternoon, that it included in it recommendations to create special study areas that included Oeste, Covell, and I-80. These study areas looked and smelled much more like development proposals than concepts for changing land use designations. In any case, I was warned that Davis would go berserk over this and that there would be recalls. Whatever one thinks of Supervisor Matt Rexroad, his assessment last Friday, was exactly right and then some.

This week has been chaotic ever since that point in time. The reaction to this proposal has been justifiably angry, although I stop short of my friend Former Mayor Bill Kopper and current Mayor Sue Greenwald's call for recall, I remain very concerned about what these proposals will do to the city of Davis.

However, this is not set in stone yet. As Supervisor Rexroad pointed out in his blog,

"We have not even voted on it yet."

The County Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 starting around 9 am. This figures to be another very long day. However, everyone with concerns about this proposal and this process are strongly encouraged to come and voice those concerns.

My fear is that Davis' County Supervisors are unsympathetic to the concerns about large peripheral developments on the borders of Davis. After all, they are bringing forth another version of Covell Village which was defeated by a 60-40 margin just a year and a half ago. And the Covell Village property is the SMALLEST of the proposals by the county. People are angry because they feel that their own elected supervisors do not respect their vote or their desires.

Supervisor Mike McGowan who represents West Sacramento (not Davis) was quoted in yesterday's outstanding Sacramento Bee article as saying:

"We need to improve our revenue side so we can continue to provide the same level of services."

This continues to be a poor argument.

County staff, as I pointed out last Saturday, dispelled this myth:

"On the residential side, staff is recommending against the addition of 2,100 residences within the unincorporated area near the northwest quadrant of Davis, as these units are not likely to have fiscal benefits for the county that would justify the growth given concerns regarding inconsistency with long-standing growth policies, provision of infrastructure and services, and effects on the city/county pass-through agreement."

The county is due roughly $72 million in the pass-through agreement over the course of the next 18 years. Developments may yield some in the way of one-time development fees, but the key phrase there is "one-time." It is not a consistent stream of money. As the county of Sacramento and the city of Fresno have both learned you cannot develop yourself into prosperity, even if you create development policies that rely on repeated one-time development fees as the main source of revenues.

Moreover if Supervisor McGowan is so concerned about county revenues, perhaps he ought to propose massive new developments on the periphery of West Sacramento, I understand they like sprawl there.

The Bee yesterday quotes Supervisor Mariko Yamada saying,

"I would like everyone to take a deep breath. Calm down... There will be no decisions on specific projects that will be entertained in terms of action on Tuesday."

But as Tsakopoulos understands, Yamada's statement is simply untrue.

"If they decide not to study it, it's all over."

That is exactly right. Right now, as far as I can tell there are two firm no votes against the study areas. That means a no vote by either Supervisor Yamada or Supervisor Thomson can kill the plan. One must ask why certain Republican Supervisors who do not live here are more protective of Davis' borders than Davis' own supervisors.

At Tuesday's Davis City Council meeting, the council unanimously supported taking a strong stance against these proposals. City staff drafted a letter by all five council members that will strongly oppose any plans by the county to study growth on Davis' borders.

Despite the claims of one of Davis' supervisors, the prognosis of this is clear--if the county votes against studying these three areas on Davis' periphery, the proposal dies. If however, the county votes to study these three areas on Davis' periphery, the fighting and war of words that we have seen this past week is just the beginning.

The Vanguard strongly urges Supervisors Yamada and Thomson to leave growth on Davis' city edges to Davis. Moreover, all Davis residents with concerns about this process should go to the meeting on July 17, 2007 to voice those concerns.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: A Recall is the Wrong Response to Threat of County Development on Davis Periphery

The Vanguard has learned that in response to the county's push to create three study areas for development on the periphery of Davis, that papers for recall have been taken out on the two Yolo County Supervisors from Davis, Helen Thomson and Mariko Yamada. On Saturday, we reported that the county staff was recommending that three areas on the Davis periphery be placed in "study areas" and studied for possible development. These areas include the Oeste Ranch on the Northwest Quadrant, the Covell Village Property, and the largest of the three a 1500 acre tract along I-80 east of Mace Blvd.

While the Vanguard shares a deep concern about these proposals, which seem to be tantamount to pressure from the county to develop on Davis' periphery in violation of the pass-through agreement, the Vanguard believes that a recall is the wrong response to this threat, for a number of reasons.

A recall will take up valuable resources, time, and energy from the progressive movement. Progressives ought to focus their energy primarily on winning the seat that Supervisor Mariko Yamada is vacating in 2008 and gaining the majority on the Davis City Council. As we learned in 2005, it was an expensive and exhausting endeavor to have to fight Covell Village. And, even though No on X prevailed, it ended up costing much in the way of energy and time in organizing for Lamar Heystek and Stan Forbes. In other words, if progressives were to succeed in recalling both Supervisors, but were to ultimately lose the seat and the council majority, they would ultimately be far worse off in terms of local land use policies.

The best way to insure good land use policies at both the city and county level will be to work hard in the spring of 2008 to win the fourth district county supervisor seat and defeat Councilmembers Stephen Souza and Don Saylor. Diverting resources toward a recall effort would severely jeopardize that. Moreover, it would introduce a great deal of uncertainty into races that have enough uncertainty to begin with.

Furthermore, such efforts would threaten to divide the progressive movement between those who are supportive of the recall and those who are not. As we have seen from the discussions on this blog, progressives are split on Supervisor Yamada to begin with. A recall will cut more deeply since many will view a recall as an illegitimate approach.

A recall is also a very risky strategy. In order to get a recall on the ballot, it requires a relatively small number of signatures, somewhere on the order of 10 percent. However, that is the beginning and not the end of the process. It does no good to merely place a recall on the ballot. You have to actually vote to remove the targeted individuals from office.

Several people, speaking from experience, have suggested that that is a dangerous strategy, because if you do not succeed in your removal, you actually strengthen the hand of the targeted individual(s). This happens because an unsuccessful recall means you have failed to sell the public on the idea that the elected official deserves to have their term cut short. The effort may be seen as petty and vindictive and that could lead to sympathy and a strengthened hand. For example, history tell us that San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein faced a recall back in the 1980s. When the recall failed, her hand was strengthened to the point where she became the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1990 and when she narrowly lost to Pete Wilson that time, two years later she became Senator.

Many of the big players that progressives rely on to help mobilize and organize the community are not supportive of a recall action either. This effort appears to be done in haste and without sufficient discussion within the movement or the broader community. In order to be successful, there needed to be sufficient organization and action prior to this step to ensure that structure was in place and that there was a broad commitment made to take on such a weighty task. The failure of those who took out papers to have proper discussion within the community, will doom this effort from the start.

We remain very concerned about the land use policies coming down from the county, but do not believe that this is the correct remedy to such actions. In the end, it is our hope that cooler heads will prevail. Davis progressives need to unite against the threats to this community from the outside as well as the inside. This, is the only way we can prevent land use policies that threaten our periphery. The recall effort will actually take away focus from these policies and turn attention and scrutiny on the recall effort itself.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Yolo County General Plan Proposes Three Massive Developments on Davis Periphery

Late Friday afternoon, the staff report for the Yolo County General Plan was released (click here to read the full report). This report contained three specific proposals for special study areas that recommended large developments on Davis' city "edge." These proposals are likely to alarm many residents in Davis as well as the city of Davis. They will be discussed by the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, July 17, 2007.

(click on image to enlarge map)

While officially labeled as "special study areas," in reality both the description and the map appear remarkably like the other development proposals in the plan. Additionally, Davis is the only city where the county has proposed "special study areas."

The first of these study areas is the Northwest Quadrant at Oeste Ranch. This area is to the west of Sutter-Davis Hospital and north of Covell Blvd. The recommendation is for "revenue generating opportunities and special needs housing (e.g. seniors)." The property totals roughly 650 acres and would encompass roughly 2000 units. It would connect the Binning Tract with the rest of Davis.

The second of these study areas is what they are terming the I-80 "Innovation Corridor." This is a 1520 acre development that extends from the city limits, east of Mace Boulevard to the Yolo Bypass levee. They are looking at this for both research and biotech uses as well as commercial development.

The third special study area would be the "Covell Village" property that is north of Covell Blvd, east of F Street and west of Poleline. This would include roughly 383 acres of new commercial and mixed uses. The existing general plan designation is industrial and it is the largest available piece of industrially designated property within the county.

Each of these properties are subject to quite a bit of controversy. The Northwest Quadrant has been discussed in the Davis General Plan Housing Element Update as well. At a recent joint meeting between the Senior Citizens Commission and the Social Services Commission, the view was expressed by a number of commissioners that Davis really is not in need of any more senior housing and that this project would simply import seniors into the community where the county would have to provide a large amount in social services.

The county is arguing that this development would be a revenue generator, but it is not clear how they have figured upon that, and in fact, recall that the original staff report recommended against development on this property because it had questionable revenue potential.

This was the initial recommendation from county staff:

"On the residential side, staff is recommending against the addition of 2,100 residences within the unincorporated area near the northwest quadrant of Davis, as these units are not likely to have fiscal benefits for the county that would justify the growth given concerns regarding inconsistency with long-standing growth policies, provision of infrastructure and services, and effects on the city/county pass-through agreement."

So how did this become part of staff recommendations for study areas? And what role did Davis' supervisors play in this? Why is the county now looking to go away from long-standing growth policies and possibly violate the pass-through agreement which would endanger $2 million per year and possibly as much as $72 million over the course of the life of the Davis Redevelopment Agency.

The Covell Village property is also problematic in that Davis voters less than two years ago overwhelmingly rejected development there by a 60-40 margin. Now the county is proposing development there? By what authority?

Finally, the massive development along I-80 is just the tip of the iceberg. The county also plans to take up the Tskaopoulos proposal that includes not only a stem cell research facility but also roughly 7500 housing units. There was a good article on that proposal in this week's Sacramento News and Review.

The article makes reference to this blog:

Yamada, who is chairwoman of the county board, already has emerged as the target of criticism on a community Web site, with accusations that she has moved from being a “slow-growther” to a politician more accommodating to development. While passionately defending her commitment to preserving Yolo County’s farmland and open space as top priority, Yamada is running for the state Assembly seat being vacated next year by Lois Wolk. Campaign professionals suggest she will have to raise at least $500,000 to be competitive with primary opponent Christopher Cabaldon, the mayor of West Sacramento. But, Yamada firmly asserts, “I don’t practice checkbook politics.”

Discussion on this issue figures to be intense, with much concern in Davis about the massive scope of these three projects and concern as to what the county means by "special study area." As one Supervisor suggested, the proposals for special study areas in Davis do not look different from the development proposals in the rest of the county. Davis residents should be very concerned about these proposals as a means to impose growth on the periphery of Davis.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting