Senior Citizens Commission Continues to Strongly Oppose Plans for Merger

Let me take the opportunity in this most recent blog to call on all our readers to email Debbie Davis and let her know that unless there is a prominently displayed public apology in the Enterprise by Dunning to Lamar Heystek for the columnist’s outrageous personal attack in the next week, Enterprise subscriptions will be cancelled. I have sent such an email to Debbie Davis this morning. Doug.. your blogging is outstanding but one observation.. you are just TOO kind . Lazy is much too kind a description for Dunning’s uncaring thoughtlessness and fundamental meanspiritedness.

Let me take the opportunity in this most recent blog to call on all our readers to email Debbie Davis and let her know that unless there is a prominently displayed public apology in the Enterprise by Dunning to Lamar Heystek for the columnist’s outrageous personal attack in the next week, Enterprise subscriptions will be cancelled. I have sent such an email to Debbie Davis this morning. Doug.. your blogging is outstanding but one observation.. you are just TOO kind . Lazy is much too kind a description for Dunning’s uncaring thoughtlessness and fundamental meanspiritedness.

As to my suggestion that Enterprise subscriptions be cancelled immediately unless there is a Dunning public apology to Heystek, this is a most opportune time to do this as the holiday season readership numbers are what determines Enterprise advertising revenue and offers us the maximum leverage.

As to my suggestion that Enterprise subscriptions be cancelled immediately unless there is a Dunning public apology to Heystek, this is a most opportune time to do this as the holiday season readership numbers are what determines Enterprise advertising revenue and offers us the maximum leverage.

“Doug.. your blogging is outstanding but one observation.. you are just TOO kind . Lazy is much too kind a description for Dunning’s uncaring thoughtlessness and fundamental meanspiritedness.”

Davisite:

As one of my loyal readers, let me respond to this, since you are the second person who has called me too kind on this issue.

The thing that I have learned in doing this over the last several months is that people get hung up on language. I speak to two groups of people–my core audience is the progressive community in Davis. But there is a second audience, those are the people who have happened upon this blog. If I said what I really wanted to say, I’d have no credibility and people would only see that language.

Dunning was in my opinion, two things in his initial column–he was mean-spirited, and you can pick a stronger word if you want, but it was a vicious shot at Heystek for no good reason. This wasn’t even an issue that he or anyone else care about. Second, he was lazy. He was lazy in the sense that he wrote something without checking to see if it was true first.

I would much rather, and I believe that I am much more effective by calling people on what they say and what they do, and letting it for the most part stand for itself. That’s the service I can provide this community, in my estimation. I don’t want to become a namecaller. I want when I call someone lazy or mean-spirited, that to mean something.

If I called him something worse, the paper the next day would read, Doug Paul Davis called me a moron. I don’t think that helps our cause, I don’t think it helps my reputation, and I certainly don’t think it helps Lamar.

So yes, I’m being too kind, that’s my style.

Dunning’s response by the way is just outrageous, but I’m going to wait a few days to see if he prints anything in Tuesday’s column before I respond to it on this blog.

“Doug.. your blogging is outstanding but one observation.. you are just TOO kind . Lazy is much too kind a description for Dunning’s uncaring thoughtlessness and fundamental meanspiritedness.”

Davisite:

As one of my loyal readers, let me respond to this, since you are the second person who has called me too kind on this issue.

The thing that I have learned in doing this over the last several months is that people get hung up on language. I speak to two groups of people–my core audience is the progressive community in Davis. But there is a second audience, those are the people who have happened upon this blog. If I said what I really wanted to say, I’d have no credibility and people would only see that language.

Dunning was in my opinion, two things in his initial column–he was mean-spirited, and you can pick a stronger word if you want, but it was a vicious shot at Heystek for no good reason. This wasn’t even an issue that he or anyone else care about. Second, he was lazy. He was lazy in the sense that he wrote something without checking to see if it was true first.

I would much rather, and I believe that I am much more effective by calling people on what they say and what they do, and letting it for the most part stand for itself. That’s the service I can provide this community, in my estimation. I don’t want to become a namecaller. I want when I call someone lazy or mean-spirited, that to mean something.

If I called him something worse, the paper the next day would read, Doug Paul Davis called me a moron. I don’t think that helps our cause, I don’t think it helps my reputation, and I certainly don’t think it helps Lamar.

So yes, I’m being too kind, that’s my style.

Dunning’s response by the way is just outrageous, but I’m going to wait a few days to see if he prints anything in Tuesday’s column before I respond to it on this blog.

Of course, you are right, Doug…
just taking the opportunity to vent, I guess.. one of the functions of the comment section. Yes..Dunning was being lazy in addition to his meanspiritedness.. probably a spin off from his boredom with his Enterprise gig and his focus on his new job as a talk host on satelitte radio. It is interesting that the Catholic station has said that they want him to express “strong opinions”. This may be a perfect fit for Davis’ version of Rush Limbaugh.

Of course, you are right, Doug…
just taking the opportunity to vent, I guess.. one of the functions of the comment section. Yes..Dunning was being lazy in addition to his meanspiritedness.. probably a spin off from his boredom with his Enterprise gig and his focus on his new job as a talk host on satelitte radio. It is interesting that the Catholic station has said that they want him to express “strong opinions”. This may be a perfect fit for Davis’ version of Rush Limbaugh.

“To this date, Souza has not articulated a strong reason to go ahead with this merger.”

I have always assumed the motivation behind the merger idea was to save the city money. One thing that I did not realize until I joined a commission — I’m on the HRMC — is how much staff time (which means money) it takes, every time a commission meets.

Depending on what is on our agenda, we will have at least 3 city employees at our meetings. When we’ve discussed DEIR’s, as we recently did with the Third and B Visioning and with the Anderson Bank Building projects, there were 5 members of the city staff, there.

Our meetings generally last about 3 hours. So for a 3 hour meeting with 5 members of the staff, that’s 15 hours of staff time. In other words, that’s a lot of money.

Perhaps not so much staff time is consumed on all of the other commissions. But even if it is less for the Senior Citizens Commission, I’m sure there is a significant amount of staff time consumed each month. So if a merger were to take place, it would be done for the purposes of saving city staff time.

“The idea that the combination of the two commissions will make for a stronger voice is spurious at best …”

I’m sure that’s true.

However, a reasonable question to ask is this: will merging the Seniors commission into one on “aging and social services” negatively impact the senior citizens of Davis? I don’t know the answer to that. It’s possible that it might just have that effect.

But if it won’t deteriorate the lives of seniors in Davis, then it makes sense, in terms of saving the city some money. What should not be considered in this decision is how any merger of the two commissions would impact the individual commissioners. So far as I can tell, the people most impacted and most upset about this idea are individual commissioners.

“To this date, Souza has not articulated a strong reason to go ahead with this merger.”

I have always assumed the motivation behind the merger idea was to save the city money. One thing that I did not realize until I joined a commission — I’m on the HRMC — is how much staff time (which means money) it takes, every time a commission meets.

Depending on what is on our agenda, we will have at least 3 city employees at our meetings. When we’ve discussed DEIR’s, as we recently did with the Third and B Visioning and with the Anderson Bank Building projects, there were 5 members of the city staff, there.

Our meetings generally last about 3 hours. So for a 3 hour meeting with 5 members of the staff, that’s 15 hours of staff time. In other words, that’s a lot of money.

Perhaps not so much staff time is consumed on all of the other commissions. But even if it is less for the Senior Citizens Commission, I’m sure there is a significant amount of staff time consumed each month. So if a merger were to take place, it would be done for the purposes of saving city staff time.

“The idea that the combination of the two commissions will make for a stronger voice is spurious at best …”

I’m sure that’s true.

However, a reasonable question to ask is this: will merging the Seniors commission into one on “aging and social services” negatively impact the senior citizens of Davis? I don’t know the answer to that. It’s possible that it might just have that effect.

But if it won’t deteriorate the lives of seniors in Davis, then it makes sense, in terms of saving the city some money. What should not be considered in this decision is how any merger of the two commissions would impact the individual commissioners. So far as I can tell, the people most impacted and most upset about this idea are individual commissioners.

Davisite: Funny I was just having a phone conversation where we were talking about Dunning and Limbaugh’s depiction of Michael J. Fox comes up. Dunning’s statement in the column is appalling, his response is alarming. I was originally going to wait until Wednesday, this may come out tomorrow.

Davisite: Funny I was just having a phone conversation where we were talking about Dunning and Limbaugh’s depiction of Michael J. Fox comes up. Dunning’s statement in the column is appalling, his response is alarming. I was originally going to wait until Wednesday, this may come out tomorrow.

Rich:

The money issue is tricky. The staff of course is paid by salary not by the hour. I’m not sure if they get paid extra for after hours work, I would guess not, but I’m not positive on this.

Then the question is–staff time. If they are going to have to have subcommittees, I’m not sure just how much staff time we are talking. Cutting the number by one meeting a month, a meeting that occurs during the day for the Senior Citizens, I’m not sure is going to make a huge difference.

And the question why cut Senior Citizens rather than trees or bikes? Couldn’t you merge those into parks and rec? I’m not suggesting we do that. Just throwing it out there.

Rich:

The money issue is tricky. The staff of course is paid by salary not by the hour. I’m not sure if they get paid extra for after hours work, I would guess not, but I’m not positive on this.

Then the question is–staff time. If they are going to have to have subcommittees, I’m not sure just how much staff time we are talking. Cutting the number by one meeting a month, a meeting that occurs during the day for the Senior Citizens, I’m not sure is going to make a huge difference.

And the question why cut Senior Citizens rather than trees or bikes? Couldn’t you merge those into parks and rec? I’m not suggesting we do that. Just throwing it out there.

“It is interesting that the Catholic station has said that they want him to express “strong opinions”. This may be a perfect fit for Davis’ version of Rush Limbaugh.”

When Dunning was fired (or let go) by KFBK, where he had an evening news/talk call-in show for a number of years, the reason KFBK gave was because Dunning was not opinionated enough, that he was too much of a moderate. So it’s quite funny that someone would call Bob “a Rush Limbaugh.”

If Davis ever had “a Rush Limbaugh,” or in the case of Davis “an anti-Limbaugh,” that would have been Dave Rosenberg, who used to debate Limbaugh on the radio when Rush was just a local KFBK radio host.

Sadly, the popularity of Limbaugh (in my opinion) ruined talk radio. It used to have more people like Dunning — people who were not so polarizing and so rigid in their ideologies. But as a right-wing firebrand, Limbaugh set the tone for what most of talk radio — in fact, all of English-language AM talk radio in Sacramento — has become. That is, one has to be an extremist to attract and hold an audience. Moderates, or even thoughtful liberals or thoughtful conservatives, have been driven off the air.

In recent years, a few stations have tried to respond to the fact that the overwhelming numbers of AM talk radio hosts are Limbaugh clones by formatting an all-left wing line-up. I’m sure that there is an audience for that, particularly on the west and east coasts. But it doesn’t leave room for the more non-partisan, non-ideoplogical talk show hosts (like Dunning), who used to have a major voice on AM talk radio.

“It is interesting that the Catholic station has said that they want him to express “strong opinions”. This may be a perfect fit for Davis’ version of Rush Limbaugh.”

When Dunning was fired (or let go) by KFBK, where he had an evening news/talk call-in show for a number of years, the reason KFBK gave was because Dunning was not opinionated enough, that he was too much of a moderate. So it’s quite funny that someone would call Bob “a Rush Limbaugh.”

If Davis ever had “a Rush Limbaugh,” or in the case of Davis “an anti-Limbaugh,” that would have been Dave Rosenberg, who used to debate Limbaugh on the radio when Rush was just a local KFBK radio host.

Sadly, the popularity of Limbaugh (in my opinion) ruined talk radio. It used to have more people like Dunning — people who were not so polarizing and so rigid in their ideologies. But as a right-wing firebrand, Limbaugh set the tone for what most of talk radio — in fact, all of English-language AM talk radio in Sacramento — has become. That is, one has to be an extremist to attract and hold an audience. Moderates, or even thoughtful liberals or thoughtful conservatives, have been driven off the air.

In recent years, a few stations have tried to respond to the fact that the overwhelming numbers of AM talk radio hosts are Limbaugh clones by formatting an all-left wing line-up. I’m sure that there is an audience for that, particularly on the west and east coasts. But it doesn’t leave room for the more non-partisan, non-ideoplogical talk show hosts (like Dunning), who used to have a major voice on AM talk radio.

“When we’ve discussed DEIR’s, as we recently did with the Third and B Visioning and with the Anderson Bank Building projects, there were 5 members of the city staff, there.”

Non-staff consultants also attend these meetings, adding more costs to the city (save when the consultants’ costs are being borne by an applicant, as in the case of the Anderson Bank Building).

“When we’ve discussed DEIR’s, as we recently did with the Third and B Visioning and with the Anderson Bank Building projects, there were 5 members of the city staff, there.”

Non-staff consultants also attend these meetings, adding more costs to the city (save when the consultants’ costs are being borne by an applicant, as in the case of the Anderson Bank Building).

“The money issue is tricky. The staff of course is paid by salary not by the hour. I’m not sure if they get paid extra for after hours work, I would guess not, but I’m not positive on this.”

I can only really speak to the commission I serve on, HRMC.

Our staff comes from the Planning Department — Ike Njokuo is now our liaison. (We’ve had others in the recent past.) The city staff is not paid over-time, as far as I know, to come to our meetings, which are held at night. So the cash outlay is zero.

Rather, the time that city staff spends at meetings eats away at the time they could be spending at work. So in a week in which HRMC meets, those members of the staff will put in 37-hour weeks, not 40. (They also must spend a lot of time preparing for our meetings. It usually takes me 3-5 hours or more to prepare for a meeting. It probably takes them much longer.)

Insofar as the Planning Department (or other departments) have staff doing commission work, they will need to hire other employees to take up the slack. And that is ultimately the real cost of staff time at commission meetings. Keep in mind that it is not just the 15 hours of staff time per month at the HRMC. Many of those same people — such as Katherine Hess — also must attend meetings of the Planning Commission, the City Council and others. (Before he became City Manager, Bill Emlin attended some HRMC meetings.)

“The money issue is tricky. The staff of course is paid by salary not by the hour. I’m not sure if they get paid extra for after hours work, I would guess not, but I’m not positive on this.”

I can only really speak to the commission I serve on, HRMC.

Our staff comes from the Planning Department — Ike Njokuo is now our liaison. (We’ve had others in the recent past.) The city staff is not paid over-time, as far as I know, to come to our meetings, which are held at night. So the cash outlay is zero.

Rather, the time that city staff spends at meetings eats away at the time they could be spending at work. So in a week in which HRMC meets, those members of the staff will put in 37-hour weeks, not 40. (They also must spend a lot of time preparing for our meetings. It usually takes me 3-5 hours or more to prepare for a meeting. It probably takes them much longer.)

Insofar as the Planning Department (or other departments) have staff doing commission work, they will need to hire other employees to take up the slack. And that is ultimately the real cost of staff time at commission meetings. Keep in mind that it is not just the 15 hours of staff time per month at the HRMC. Many of those same people — such as Katherine Hess — also must attend meetings of the Planning Commission, the City Council and others. (Before he became City Manager, Bill Emlin attended some HRMC meetings.)

Merging commissions dilute the political strength of the individual advocacy groups. In addition, the larger the commission membership, the more difficult to reach a consensus for recommendations. This current council majority, and especially Souza who has publicly bellowed from the dais that he and his fellow council-members are, in the words of George Dubya, “the deciders”, have had a goal of neutering the Davis citizen commissions .

Merging commissions dilute the political strength of the individual advocacy groups. In addition, the larger the commission membership, the more difficult to reach a consensus for recommendations. This current council majority, and especially Souza who has publicly bellowed from the dais that he and his fellow council-members are, in the words of George Dubya, “the deciders”, have had a goal of neutering the Davis citizen commissions .

My sense was people rarely work 40 hour weeks anyway, usually they work far more than that. When staff has to come in for City Council meetings, do they get five hours of work taken off for the week? I doubt it, although again, I’m not positive.

My sense was people rarely work 40 hour weeks anyway, usually they work far more than that. When staff has to come in for City Council meetings, do they get five hours of work taken off for the week? I doubt it, although again, I’m not positive.

“When staff has to come in for City Council meetings, do they get five hours of work taken off for the week?”

I believe they do. (I was told this by a former staff liaison to the HRMC, who has since left the city of Davis. I imagine it is the same with all meetings. Though it might not apply to all employees, such as the city manager or the department heads.)

“When staff has to come in for City Council meetings, do they get five hours of work taken off for the week?”

I believe they do. (I was told this by a former staff liaison to the HRMC, who has since left the city of Davis. I imagine it is the same with all meetings. Though it might not apply to all employees, such as the city manager or the department heads.)