Davisville

If there’s now a trend to share things, rather than own them, then the classic community library fits right in: It was created to own books in common for a community, and anyone with a library card could take the books home. But the Yolo County library now offers much more than books on shelves, including Chromebook tablets and hotspots you can borrow, job help, e-magazines, wi-fi, bilingual storytimes, and computer help. All at no charge. Scott Love manages the Stephens branch library in Davis, and today on Davisville he talks about how the library has evolved because of the internet, its egalitarian values, what it offers today, and where it’s headed. 

Rick Roberts was about 20 when he went to Los Angeles, looking to make his name in music—and he succeeded. In 1970 he was invited to join a country/rock band with an odd name but great musical genetics, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and then in the mid-1970s he co-founded Firefall, writing several of its hits (including “You Are the Woman” and “Just Remember I Love You”) over the next half-dozen years.

Now, decades later, we talk with him about his life from the Burritos until today, including the dormant years, alcoholism, other musical ventures, a head injury he writes about in his book Lame Brain, his recovery, his persistence, and his return to performing. He shares a few stories behind his songs and talks about playing again as a solo act.

If you follow California politics, then you’ve probably encountered the work of Dan Walters. For 33 years he wrote a column for the Sacramento Bee, writing about this state’s extensive cultural, demographic, economic and political changes since the 1960s and 1970s. He left the Bee this month, signed on as a columnist with the nonprofit journalism venture CALmatters, and joins us today to talk about our complex state, where change is constant and common ground can be very hard to find.

Today’s guests talk about two internet subjects in the news – net neutrality, the rules of which the Federal Communications Commission recently began to repeal, and the status of the civic effort to build a municipal fiber-optic network in Davis. The outcome of each could greatly affect your experience using the internet in Davis. The guests are Mac Clemmens, founder of Digital Deployment in Sacramento (and a well-regarded recipient of a UC Davis MBA) and Steve McMahon, a broadband expert and longtime board member of the Davis Community Network.