Editor’s note: on Tuesday, jesikah maria ross, co/founder and current president of the Davis Manor Neighborhood Council presented a five point commitment proposal directed to the City Council members and City staff. It is important to note that she was speaking as a longtime resident of the neighborhood and not on behalf of the neighborhood association. The text of that proposal is as follows:
Preamble
To contribute toward the success of the pilot Day Respite Center while supporting the Davis Manor Neighborhood’s on-going efforts to build a beautiful, safe and mutually supportive neighborhood full of public spaces and sustainable horticulture–including our city supported pending grant to improve the N Street Park and path between the park and community garden—here are five provisions I strongly urge attaching to a vote to move forward with locating the Respite Center in the Corp Yard.
Proposal
To ensure city staff ability to draft the above plans and schedule meetings for review and feedback, I recommend that Respite Center doors open no earlier than January 20th – MLK day, which would be a fitting moment to launch this aspirational community effort intended to lift those in most need, build cross-class coalitions and bring equity to all peoples and neighborhoods.
I further suggest that meetings to review and workshop plans identified above get scheduled once each week Jan 6 – 12 and 13 – 17. If they are scheduled by the end of this week they can start to be promoted the last week of Dec and first week of January and reminders can go out after that.
Commitments
- Have a clear and detailed evaluation plan including criteria for success in place before doors open that is reviewed and workshopped with neighborhood residents*
- Have a clear and detailed safety plan in place before doors open that is reviewed and workshopped with neighborhood residents.
- Articulate a process before the doors open that spells out how the neighborhood will be involved in the decision-making at the end of the pilot program regarding its future at the Corp Yard.
- Organize, staff and facilitate monthly meetings throughout the pilot project that bring neighborhood residents together with the City and Respite Center Staff to provide direct feedback on impacts, strategize how to mitigate them, and provide updates and data related to the pilot project–including successes.
- Leverage rates we ALL pay for parks and utilities to bring tangible amenities to the Davis Manor and K Street neighborhoods to mitigate impacts to quality of life and property values (whether real or perceived) and bring equity to distribution of amenities across Davis. This might include investments in Cedar Park, N Street Park, the trail between N Street Park and the community garden, and a greenbelt should the Corporate Yard move.
Let me not mince words: jesikah maria ross rocks! (note: she prefers no capital letters in her name)
The majority of the comments were “us” vs. “them”, even within the neighborhood. I think the herky-jerky (thanks, un-named person who gave me that description) process the City used to choose the location was ‘legal’, but caused unnecessary stress and divisiveness within the neighborhood, a much more vulnerable neighborhood than those north and south of the Pelz (more renters, lower house values, funkier infrastruture, etc).
This created the harsh divide. The neighborhood barely had time to react, and with more homeless advocates, the very real concerns of neighbors were lost to politics — with radical progressive homeless advocates declaring homeless people are ‘our neighbors’ and ‘good’, and neighbors discussing real problems of poop, loitering, property-crime and needles. It became “homeless good” vs. “homeless bad” — “I care and you don’t care about the homeless” vs. “our children and our homes are at risk”. The whole conversation was unproductive and repetitive.
And a sarcastic and snarky Alan Miller speaking didn’t help things at all.
But then along comes jesikah maria ross with a real, thoughtful, tough-but-implementable proposal that the City can’t ignore and all the neighbors can get behind. Can she run for governor? Please?
And I don’t care how ‘though dost protest too much’ defensive some on the council got about the process. Basically, the decision was made weeks earlier at the meeting where the 2nd Street location was discussed. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
I like the way the author gets specific. This is what real planning looks like. I have no problems whatever diverting resources to the Davis Manor neighborhood to help make this Respite Center a success and raising the bar for what the neighborhood looks and feels like over the next five years.