By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
Davis, CA – A flyer distributed in East Davis Neighborhoods is warning that the DiSC 2022 is back and there will be other projects as well. The flyer has no contact information or paid for admonishment though it does direct people to contact their representative on the council, Mayor Gloria Partida.
“Less than a year after Davis voters rejected a massive industrial park to the east of Mace Blvd, the developers and city leaders are bringing it back and it is not alone,” the flyer warns.
It continues: “Two more proposals to develop the intervening land between Wildhorse and DiSC to the east of the Mace curve are now being processed by the City (Palomino Place with 165 housing units and Shriner’s with 1200 homes).”
In November 2020, the original DiSC proposal failed at the polls by a 52-48 margin, though in eastern Davis neighborhoods, the margin of defeat was far broader.
The new proposal reduces the size of the project by half and the projected traffic impact by more than half. Still opponents worry that even that will more traffic 
impacts.
The creators of the flyer also worry that DiSC will be rushed through to be put on the June 2022 ballot “without a thorough review by city committees” and “ignoring the fact that the community voted against DiSC.”
The flyer makes three additional arguments.
First, more traffic. “Developers say they’ve reduced the project, but they can still apply to build more later. DiSC 2022 and the other 2 proposals for the Mace curve means thousands more cars clogging the roads in our neighborhoods. Anyone who’s driven Mace on Thursday or Friday knows our roads are already full.”
Reynolds & Brown, which owns property that comprised the northern portion of the earlier plan, is no longer involved in the project. According to statements from July, “We’re directing our resources to other projects and are not going forward in Davis,” said Dana Parry, president and CEO of Reynolds & Brown.
Any additional proposal would have to go to the voters for a separate vote.
Meanwhile traffic analysis by Fehr and Peers found that the DiSC 2022 project would generate 11,284 net new daily vehicle trips, with 1,052 trips occurring during the AM peak hour and 1,155 trips occurring during the PM peak hour.
This again marks a considerable reduction from the nearly 24,000 projected trips generated by the original DISC project with about 2200 during the AM peak hour and nearly 2500 during the PM peak hour.
Second the opponents claim that this project will create “more pollution.”
“Gridlocked traffic will spew tons of greenhouse gases into our environment. City staff conceded last year DiSC would ruin Davis’s plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. This is the wrong project at the wrong place at the wrong time,” they claim.
Finally, claiming this is a “threat to our downtown,” “DiSC 2.0 only trims the size of its retail by 20%. Our downtown businesses are already hurting from the pandemic and the DiSC EIR was clear that DiSC would cannibalize existing business.”
The flyer concludes: “61% of voters in East Davis said NO to DiSC in November 2020. What part of NO does the City Council not understand???”
There’s a long and rather sordid history of anonymous political flyers in Davis, so would anybody care to take responsibility for this?
I didn’t do it! Stop looking at me! No, really I didn’t. Protest too much . . . WHAT?!! I’m being framed, your honor. They beat the confession out of me, I only said I distributed the flyer to stop the pain.
Of all the towns that have a long history of all sorts of sordid things, Davis with it’s terrifying anonymous political flyers is a town I can live in.
WHERE IS THE JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY OF THESE FLYER MAKERS???!!?!? How can they not put their names on their flyers? Why are they not providing an unbiased flyer without an agenda?????
Ya know, it would have been nice if this article could have provided a snap shot of the flyer. I may go over to East Davis today and see if I got one.
Keith Y E… I live in Mace Ranch… if I get one/acquire one, I’ll share… haven’t yet…
Nah… am thinking of doing a “counter-point” flier (or flyer), and fight anonymity with anonymity…
Herb Caen often had his “sodden thought” for the day… this is my ‘sordid’ thought for the day… but I’m not allowed to be anonymous here. Yet the VG gave the anonymous flyer “air time”, which promulgates their anonymous message on the VG.
Interesting distinction…
Don Shor said . . . “There’s a long and rather sordid history of anonymous political flyers in Davis, so would anybody care to take responsibility for this?”
Perhaps a follow-up article by the Vanguard on that long and sordid history of anonymous political flyers is in order.
——-
With that said, there has also been an uptick of anonymous phone calls of late with a series of “push poll” questions …
What persuasion points would compel you to vote for DISC:
— Parks, amenities, etc ?
— Being a project that represents Davis?
— Providing “needed resources”?
— Being an “environmental leader”?
— Providing over 2,500 jobs?
— Provide “next generation job opportunities which would allow more people to move on Davis”?
Do you think Davis housing is too expensive?
Do you think Davis needs more higher paying jobs?
Do you think UCD is a major positive for Davis?
How would you vote on DISC?
Hmmm….I’m not sure how I’d answer this…but let me take a stab at it:
What persuasion points would compel you to vote for DISC:
— Parks, amenities, etc ?
Sure, how about a new public pool?
— Being a project that represents Davis?
So they’re not going to drill for oil there? What exactly “represents Davis”? A brewery? But wait, if Budweiser moved here, it wouldn’t represent Davis. It’d have to be 100 microbreweries.
— Providing “needed resources”?
You mean like revenue for the city?
— Being an “environmental leader”?
A kale garden? Solar powered Star Trek transporters?
— Providing over 2,500 jobs?
Yeah…that’s a good thing.
— Provide “next generation job opportunities which would allow more people to move on Davis”?
“Move on?” Like pass away? That’s not good. Or move away? Move TO Davis? I don’t consider that necessarily a good thing. More like a necessary evil to get the jobs and tax revenue.
Do you think Davis housing is too expensive?
For whom? If it’s too expensive for companies to consider moving here….then yes I suppose.
Do you think Davis needs more higher paying jobs?
That’s kind of like asking if you think you can be healthier.
Do you think UCD is a major positive for Davis?
Uh..sure. Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean I feel obliged to plan to house their revenue producing assets.
How would you vote on DISC?
I’m not sure. I’m generally in favor of economic growth. But I’d have to be convinced that it’s a net positive given the impact of the residential component on the community.
David, the “anonymous lawsuit threat that led to the city going to district elections” was anything but anonymous. Matt Rexroad was very up front about being the ballcarrier on that lawsuit threat.
I’m not familiar with the Sue Greenwald letter in 2012. Care to elaborate?
The 2004 example is real, but are there any others that are similarly real … or real enough to make a meaningful contribution to ” long and rather sordid”?
Yes you are Matt – https://www.davisvanguard.org/2012/05/union-attack-mailer-targets-greenwald/ – notice you were the fourth commenter on the article.
Matt Rexroad was the lawyer on the lawsuit, not the client. That’s like blaming Patrick Soluri for the lawsuit against Nishi when he had a client he was representing.
But I do retract part of my comment, it was a pushpoll by Gidaro rather than a letter that upset the 2004 race.
David, thank you for the complement, but my brain is showing its age of late, and I’m afraid the 2012 letter was a casualty. Thank you for the memory jogger.
Regarding the Districting lawsuit threat, I believe you are being purposely obtuse. To illustrate that let me ask you a question “What evidence do we have about whose idea the lawsuit threat was?” All that evidence … and there is plenty of it … points directly to Rexroad. He was very clearly the driving force behind the effort, and appeared over and over and over again to be getting great pleasure in sticking it to the Davis liberals.
However, all of that detail is really irrelevant. The really important issue is not how many anonymous flyers there have been, but rather, what do any of these attack flyers have anything to do with a flyer that simply states some facts and opinions and very specifically urges people to contact their council representative …
Don Shor’s wailing and gnashing of teeth about anonymity only becomes a meaningful issue if there is otherwise a problem with the flyer. Although I personally haven’t seen the flyer, what you have described is a flyer with content that has no meaningful problems.
You don’t get any more grassroots than a person who decides to contact their neighbors about an issue they care about. Injecting the strawman of anonymity into the discussion polarizes the issue into “us” and “them” and I personally do not believe that Davis needs more polarization in its community dialogue.
I respectfully ask you and Don not to feed polarizing narratives.
I consider anonymity in politics to be an issue in and of itself. It is far from a strawman.
But of course you have no way to know if this is from a neighbor.
Then, you probably should be expressing concern about “Yolo People Power” weighing-in on Davis policies, or any implication that they “represent Davis”. For that matter, some may not even be Davis residents, or have any connection to the city whatsoever. Last I heard, “Yolo” was a county, not a city.
You might also be concerned about a telephone “push-poll”, though I think we can guess who’s behind that.
I’d say that it’s a pretty good guess that it came from neighbors (those opposed to DiSC).
But until you and David start becoming concerned about full disclosure of everyone, I’d say that “picking-and-choosing” who/what you’re concerned about is the height of hypocrisy and pointless political noise.
I would, however – note a fundamental difference between those with direct financial stakes in the outcome of a decision (e.g., developers, companies that work with them – such as Spafford and Lincoln, those whom they hire to advocate for them, YIMBYs, some unions, analysts, etc.). Even professional Affordable housing developers fall into this category, though I don’t believe that some have “caught on” to this fact.
If you’re getting paid to do something, you’re not necessarily driven by ideology or concern for a community.
Don Shor said . . . “But of course you have no way to know if this is from a neighbor.”
Don, from the limited amount of information about the flyer that I have heard, the flyer was hand delivered by flesh and blood members of the East Davis community, and if that is indeed correct then each recipient had the opportunity to visually see the person providing the flyer was indeed a neighbor (if they recognized them) or ask them who they were … and even engage in a conversation with that person.
Now, not every resident knows all their neighbors, so the face at the doorstep could have been unknown, but anonymous, not so much.
And, as I said to David, anonymity only becomes a meaningful issue if there is otherwise a problem with the flyer. Although I personally haven’t seen the flyer, what David has described is a flyer with content that has no meaningful problems.
— Parks, amenities, etc ? (No, none. I’d like to see solid concrete. Including imaginary, underground concrete bicycle underpasses that rely upon additional development to get built.)
— Being a project that represents Davis? (I’d prefer that it represents Rancho Cordova, which it does.)
— Providing “needed resources”? (Sprawl, cars, concrete, and freeway expansion. Always in short supply.)
— Being an “environmental leader”? (See above.)
— Providing over 2,500 jobs? (If true, they’d be for commuters.)
— Provide “next generation job opportunities which would allow more people to move on Davis”? (Move on, from, or to?)
Do you think Davis housing is too expensive? (Not for those moving in from elsewhere. But if I did think so, would your proposal lower those costs?)
Do you think Davis needs more higher paying jobs? (No. Davis itself has never been a major employer. In any case, what salary are you offering, and what impact do you think that would have on housing prices?)
Do you think UCD is a major positive for Davis? (Sure. Are you from UC Davis?)
How would you vote on DISC? (If eligible, you already know the answer to that.)
I think the long sordid history of anonymous flyers is only surpassed by the long, sordid history of anonymous push-polls backed by developers.
From Wikipedia
A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters’ views under the guise of conducting an opinion poll. Large numbers of voters are contacted with little effort made to collect and analyze voters’ response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as an opinion poll. Push polls may rely on innuendo, or information gleaned from opposition research on the political opponent of the interests behind the poll.
Nothing compared to the Gidaro letter that definitely turned the race against Harrington and Forbes in 2004. The Sue Greenwald letter that probably cost her the council in 2012. And throw in the anonymous lawsuit threat that led to the city going to district elections, I’m sure there are some before my time as well, but those three are huge.
And Trackside was “reduced” from six stories to four stories 😐
Uh huh.
So when would be the right time and place? When there are solar powered electric cars? Fred Flitntstone feet powered cars (now that I think about it, they had bicycles, so wouldn’t adding cranks and pedals to the cars have made sense)? But neither wouldn’t solve the traffic issues. How about solar powered Star Trek transporters? Kind of sketchy having your molecules scrambled on a cloudy day.
This is just stupid. The only retail going in out there is local neighborhood retail and what can attract people off of the freeway.
Well, yeah…if you vote this one down, they can always apply to build again too. Either way you can vote it down if you don’t want anymore development.
For this reason alone, if I lived in East Davis (which I sometimes kind of do), I’d oppose the development.
Ultimately, it’s probably going to come down to the city and developers convincing the other three quadrants of the city to out vote East Davis. Essentially making East Davis take one for the team (because the development will…in theory…produce much needed revenue for the city).
This should all be examined/analyzed together, as well as the “other half” of DiSC, and the land inside the Mace Curve. The complete fiscal, traffic, and environmental impacts.
And the city should ask itself if it wants to open the door, to that. I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to do current residents (or the city itself) any good.
You’d think that these developers would work together and agree to keep quiet (in other words, “wait their turn”), when one of their proposals is going forward. Apparently, they’re not at that level of collusion.
What persuasion points would compel you to vote for DISC:
— Parks, amenities, etc ?
— Being a project that represents Davis?
— Providing “needed resources”?
— Being an “environmental leader”?
— Providing over 2,500 jobs?
— Provide “next generation job opportunities which would allow more people to move on Davis”?
A BIKE TUNNEL
Do you think Davis housing is too expensive?
DEFINE “TOO”
Do you think Davis needs more higher paying jobs?
I DON’T CARE
Do you think UCD is a major positive for Davis?
I THINK WE SHOULD CLOSE IT DOWN
How would you vote on DISC?
YES – w/ GUARANTEED BIKE TUNNEL
OTHERWISE, NO
I don’t understand why this is your only condition, because:
1) Once on the west side of Mace, where does one go conveniently aside from Target (and its neighbors), the church and the middle school? The rest of Davis is, generally, quite some distance.
2) More concretely, the ride to Downtown and campus is on a wide variety of infrastructure, some of it shared with pedestrians, some of it with motor vehicles. There is no plan to do anything about this aside from what is paid for by possible tax revenue. During DISC I, the developers refused to improve 2nd St, which could be the most direct route. It’s a frikkin’ 50+ mph road especially at the eastern end, with only a bike lane.
3) There’s no plan to improve the crossing of 80 for bikes and peds. It would cost a huge amount of money and is very complicated. This does not mean that the developers shouldn’t be responsible for it — it means that a responsible developer – and if necessary a responsible citizenry – won’t allow this development and the others to the north as they would simply make it worse.
4) Even with a tunnel, it’s simply so much faster to go east or anywhere by car. Target is connected very conveniently by greenbelts and slow streets to much of East Davis, but bicycle modal share is quite low, based on multiple observations of use of the bike racks vs vehicle parking. In a a narrow way, one among may pre-conditions for development on the far end of this not small town* would be expensive parking in all of Downtown and on campus.
I recently moved to Cowell Blvd just east of Mace: There’s no way convenient or safe way to get south or north by bicycle (or walking). Not to Ikeda, not all the way to the recently-improved Putah Creek South Fork area. Heading directly west towards Downtown is on arteries with bike lanes… the only safe route is more indirect (along the great but imperfect separated bikeways on Mace and then west to the Putak Creek path (again, share with pedestrians and dogs)
* How can Davis be considered a small town when it takes well over an hour to walk from Ikeda market to the Memorial Union, or close to two hours from El Macero to West Village? The City has already sprawled in a non-sustainable way and we need to contract and repair, not expand with promises of salvation via transportation demand managers, electric cars and tax revenue.
Because we don’t get to set the conditions, nor keep adding conditions. There are other people who are spearheading their own ideas of what mitigations are important — I’ll leave that for them.
The bike tunnel is something I believe a lot of people in Davis can unite and get behind. It’s common infrastructure here. The developer I believe, my having talked to them, believe in the idea. I think it’s something they could relent on. If it isn’t put in with this project, it could be decades or never.
I choose to focus on one important transportation mitigation project that is relevant and within reach.
IT’s a good idea to have this here especially if there’s a desire to keep East Covell-Mace a surface freeway, perpetually. Which it will be, as an alternative to 80, for years, if there’s no massive expansion of transit and/or homeworking. A solution for Mace north of 80 could just be a re-do of Mace and 2nd and a separated bikeway on the west side from the middle school.
It’s necessary for a better connection to the east, even if DISC II loses, but then there’s no consistency east of here, only a bike lane planned – and separate from DISC II – along 32A with an improved interaction with the railway tracks. Caltrans has so far reneged on their promise for a new bike-ped facility over the Bypass. Otherwise it mostly serves DISC II and a few who travel over the Bypass right next to I-80 traffic.
As for the rest:
To anywhere in Davis via its extensive bike system.
No amount of mitigation will change the distance to the rest of Davis, and it is all quite bikeable. Not clear your point.
OK, and . . . ? You say that like there’s an issue there.
Do anything about “this”, what?
It’s the most direct route, but there’s a fast route along the canal that parallels much of it, especially the 50mph part, and then you choose to take 5th or 2nd.
Certainly this needs improvement. I thought the interchange was to be improved as part of the development. Are bike improvements not included?
How is that an argument against (or for) a tunnel. That’s the reality of every place on Earth. Except maybe Amsterdam.
Yes it is.
You can’t force people to get a vaccine, and you can’t force people out of their cars and on to bicycles. The infrastructure is there, that’s important so they have the choice, not the mandate.
I don’t see how that is relevant to DISC at all. Worth a discussion in itself, maybe.
Bummer.
Yeah that area out there looks like the developers bought off the Council when those subdivisions were built. Looks like Elk Grove.
Imperfect, yes. Great? Not so much . . .
What is the issue with pedestrians and dogs?
I don’t think it is a small town, nor does labeling it as small or not change its dimensions.
Are you looking for Davis to be divided, or physically squished, or to go back in a time machine?
The City needs to contract? What is the proposal to achieve Davis contraction? I’ve never heard of this as an issue, idea or proposal from anyone. Is there an organization dedicated to contraction?
. . . and a bike tunnel.
. . . and I’ll grant you, vast improvement in how to bike north-south over I-80 on Mace.
1) Once on the west side of Mace, where does one go conveniently aside from Target (and its neighbors), the church and the middle school?
There is no “bike system”. There is a network of Class I (shared/multi-user) paths that are not optimized for fast travel by bicycle. These greenbelt paths head to the 2nd St 50 mph artery, also lacking any shade, OR in a circuitous way to Tulip in East Davis, from there by collector streets including 8th, or as you mention on either greenbelt paths next to or on 5th St itself, but then there have to be expensive and complicated new intersections at Pole Line and L…. it’s not suited to the latest and very popular e-bikes, it’s like a 35 mph speed design on I-80. It’a like driving to Sacramento at 35 mph when there’s no congestion.
The rest of Davis is, generally, quite some distance.
Bikeable for whom? Compared to what? Compared to driving, with friends, in the same car, out of the heat (or the cold… or the rain)? Compared to Dixon, compared to Los Angeles?
when it takes well over an hour to walk from Ikeda market to the Memorial Union, or close to two hours from El Macero to West Village?
We need to be more creative about infill, such as connecting existing “grayfill” (parking lots) consisting of mixed-use (optionally, over parking) with cycleways and cheap-to-run automated shuttles on fixed routes, in order to achieve integrity similar to having everything in one peripheral location, for any companies that might want it.
We need to change the psychotically mis-located PG&E yard more on our terms rather than those of the currently very unpopular utility.
We need to accept that Davis is far too large to be more than “bikeable” – i.e. bicycle-priority or optimized – without fast, direct, and pleasant routes similar in function as is I-80 is to motor vehicles, Type 3 e-bike share (28 mph bikes) and working with local banks and credit unions to offer low-interest loans for expensive bikes.
We need to make Unitrans free for all with added focus for Downtown journeys.
Impose surcharge on drive thru orders at fast food and coffee places with revenue going to transit and other transportation improvements.
The proposal lost last time, when that was included. And this time, the other “half” will likely become a housing development proposal.
I believe that the “landing” for the non-existent tunnel is already on that other half, but I haven’t reviewed the map for that for awhile.
I don’t see any way that this proposal is an “improvement” over the version that already lost. Nor is it any better than MRIC, ARC, . . .
But given the other proposals that are arising simultaneously, it seems even less-likely to pass.
And yet, you chose to move there… fascinating.
There is also the elementary school, a “District Park”, the bike path system along Fifth, Covell, but those don’t count when you’ve chosen to move to Cowell, East of Mace, right?… but you want connections to Ikeda’s South Putah Creek, etc. Go figure…
Seems like you are a bike/ped guy, unless others, not you, benefit… got ya’… makes perfect sense… you ought to be on a Commission that espouses bikes/peds and safety… instead of reliance on motor vehicles… there you could trend to discourage motor vehicle use instead of,
“it’s simply so much faster to go … anywhere by car. “
I rent. I chose to stay in Davis, and this is all I could afford, with a reasonable housemate, also without discrimination due to me being in my 50’s and not a student.