Davisville Archives

Today on Davisville we talk about Measure D, a parcel tax renewal on the city’s June ballot that would raise $1.37 million per year for parks maintenance in Davis. It is the second tax measure in the city this year, the first being the school tax that voters approved in March. The guests are Charlie Russell, a local businessman and chair of the city Recreation and Park Commission, and David Luckscheider, park manager for the city. Among other subjects, we look at why the city kept the rate at $49 per house, how the city ended up supporting park maintenance this way, and what the money pays for.

San Francisco jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi (right, with characteristic handlebar moustache) wrote music for “Peanuts” specials, influenced countless musicians, and created one of the top-selling Christmas records ever (“A Charlie Brown Christmas”), but in-depth appraisals of his career are scarce. Davis author Derrick Bang has fixed that with “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano,” an account of Guaraldi and his music. Bang holds a copy of his book, left. Guaraldi, who performed in Davis in 1963 and 1972, died of a heart attack at 47 in 1976.

Picnic Day returns on April 21. For the last two years, the event has meant two things. One is the traditional UC Davis open house, with attractions like the chemistry magic show, dachshund races, parade, music, and booths like the splash tank pictured here. The other is a surge in drunken and obnoxious public behavior, mostly in and near downtown. The campus and city have acted to curtail the trouble while preserving the better side of Picnic Day, and although last year still had problems—some downtown retailers reported “a lot of mayhem,” and the number of arrests and citations rose—conditions generally seemed better in 2011 than in 2010. The question now is what to expect for 2012. Two members of the student board that runs the event, Picnic Day chair Jennifer Mappus and publicity chair Achsa Rothe, came by Davisville to talk about the attractions and plans for 2012. The board intends to reduce the bad side while sustaining and improving the good, and Mappus and Rothe discuss how they’re pursuing that goal.

Today’s guest is Dave Kemp, Davis’ new bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. He moved to Davis in February from Fort Collins, a Colorado college town where he earned a degree in recreation and tourism. He was bike coordinator there too. So what can “the bicycle capital of the United States” do for bicycling that it hasn’t done already? A lot, Kemp says, and in this edition of “Davisville” he discusses some of those ideas. One possibility is bike boxes—specially marked green zones at the front of a traffic lane to make bikes more visible at certain intersections. He also talks about how he works; his views on the Fifth Street “road diet,” which he says has worked elsewhere; the pedestrian side of his job; and different approaches to bicycle planning taken by vehicularists and facilitators.