by Ellen Kolarik
Our town is facing a housing crisis. We don’t have a permanent homeless shelter large enough to accommodate all who are unsheltered. We don’t have enough transitional supportive housing for those needing to be housed and low-income housing for Davis workers. We don’t have enough affordable apartments for our young professionals or affordable homes for our young families. We don’t build entry level homes that can be purchased by our adult children. We segregate by wealth.
I support Bapu Vaitla for City Council. Bapu has a track record for serving his neighbors through his work on the Social Services Commission. He understands that affordable housing serving the spectrum of low-income housing needs is essential for a healthy community. He is committed to funding the Housing Trust Fund, a tool our city can use to help subsidize low-income housing, create a Davis housing navigator, provide short term emergency assistance and a myriad of other housing related programs. He understands the need to update our housing ordinance with higher in-lieu fees and realistic low-income inclusionary percentages in new developments.
Bapu is on the Board of Cool Davis. He understands that in town affordable housing is one more bulwark against climate change as it reduces long commutes. He supports creating a strong public transportation system in Davis with housing adjacent to transit hubs. He supports establishing a Climate Action Fund to assist our city in becoming climate resilient.
The City of Davis needs Bapu on our council. If you live in District 1, I urge you to vote for Bapu. Regardless of where you live in Davis, you can support him through volunteering and/or donating to his campaign. You can learn more about these opportunities by going to his website at https://www.bapu4davis.org/.
Bapu will be an effective leader for the entire Davis community.
Ellen Kolarik is an MD and lives in Davis
Bapu Vaitla doesn’t understand what creates “housing shortages” in the first place. It’s pretty simple math:
DisC = 2,500 claimed jobs, 460 housing units.
It’s really difficult to understand what he and Gloria Partida “think” – assuming they do so at all. Not to mention local contributions to climate change, while simultaneously serving on the “Warm Davis” board.
Their own actions make their perceived problems “worse”. (We could break down and examine what those claimed problems are in the first place, but will save that for another time.)
In my opinion, this “wing” of the progressives is the most dangerous group of all in regard to continued sprawl, as they claim moralistic “high ground” when doing so. Unlike Dan Carson, who can’t really make that claim (even before his legal actions against opponents of DiSC).
Simplistic thinking about the problems that the City of Davis faces won’t solve them. Trying to portray the local housing crisis as the result of a defunct proposed project is one such example, especially since that crisis is just a salient point in a much bigger problem statewide. But of course, one has to actually accept that it’s a problem in the first place, and denial won’t solve it either.