Davis has two local tax measures on the ballot this fall and today we talk about the one for the library, Measure T. (We looked at the other one, sales tax increase Measure Q, last month.) Measure T would raise about $1.1 million a year to pay for operations at what will eventually be Davis’ two public libraries — the existing one in north central Davis, and the new one in south Davis due to open in 2026.
Measure T would raise an existing property tax by about $49 per house or $24.50 per apartment, to $172 or $86 respectively per year. Today on Davisville we talk with Jim Provenza, a Davis member of the county Board of Supervisors, and Katie Caceres, a student at the University of California at Davis and an intern in Provenza’s office. They’re both part of the campaign. We talk about what the money would buy, how the county calculated the amount needed, libraries as town squares for speech and information, and how people use libraries as print gives way to digital.
|
Pete Scully, who moved to Davis from London, has been sketching scenes in Davis for most of two decades and counting. He’s not sketching for a salary — his job as chief administrative officer for the Department of Statistics at UC Davis covers that requirement — but as a way of conversing with his surroundings and capturing views that he enjoys and expects might change. He draws for himself but makes his work available on his website and on Instagram, X (ex-Twitter), and Flickr. Today on Davisville we talk about why and what he draws, and where this work might eventually reside. He’s creating a portrait of Davis in the first part of the 21st century.
This photo from his X (ex-Twitter) account shows one of his 21 drawings (so far) of the Varsity Theatre.
|
If you vote in Davis, this November you’ll be asked to decide Measure Q, a proposal to raise the sales tax in the city to 9.25 percent, up 1 point from now or an extra $1 for every taxable $100 you spend. The increase requires a simple majority to pass. The money would go to general city expenses, broadly defined.
On today’s Davisville, Davis City Council members Will Arnold and Donna Neville talk about the proposal, priorities, and other areas where the city is trying to boost economic development that would bring in more tax revenue.
And this is unusual — every Yolo city this fall is asking its voters to increase their sales taxes by 1 point. Winters, the smallest city in the county, would raise $1.2 million from its increase. Woodland would receive $16.5 million, West Sacramento $20 million, and Davis, the largest city, would collect $11 million. The numbers illustrate the relative sizes of the county's retail markets.
|
People talk more often about housing, but the commercial side of Davis real estate is just as important. That includes the buildings we work in, hang out in, meet in — in other words, offices, stores, restaurants, industrial space, apartments, churches, and your favorite place for coffee. The kinds and amounts of commercial property available, what it costs, the condition it’s in, how people use it, all of that shapes life in our town.
Today we talk about Davis commercial real estate with two people who often appear on Davisville when we talk about local housing — Steve and James Boschken, father and son real estate professionals in Davis. Topics include the demand for “second-generation” restaurant space, office vacancies, rent trends, and properties ranging from the large new biotech/manufacturing building opening on Faraday to what might happen to the now fenced-off former Carl’s Jr. in northeast Davis.
|
“Vince is always pulling splinters from his fingers, driven in when he claws at the wooden baseboard, behind the keys,” wrote Bay Area music critic Ralph Gleason, as quoted in Davis author Derrick Bang’s newly revised book Vince Guaraldi at the Piano. Splinters? They came from Guaraldi’s intense playing, Bang says, nearly nonstop performing, and the worn quality of the pianos he played in clubs.
Guaraldi, the Bay Area jazz musician known most for his Peanuts soundtracks and the song “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” died in 1976 but is arguably more popular than ever, Bang says. Two recent signs: This month's latest archival release of music from a Peanuts special, It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, and Bang’s updated book, which he will talk about 6:30 p.m. July 11 at the Avid Reader in Davis. On today’s Davisville we learn more about the music, new stories Bang heard while updating his book, and the baffling review Guaraldi received from the California Aggie the last time he played in Davis.
|
Several weeks have passed since the Davis Enterprise laid off its best-known writer, Bob Dunning, who quickly moved his Wary 1 column to the online blog platform Substack and more than replaced his former salary through subscriptions. Today we talk about how his new venture is doing, how he’s doing, and his fast change from lifetime employment as Davis newspaper community columnist to a Davis star of Substack. “I’ve never traveled at the speed of light before,” he says, “but it’s kind of interesting.”
|
Davis has just gone through a local news media earthquake. We’re talking about the Davis Enterprise’s decision to lay off Wary I columnist Bob Dunning (left, in photo), which shocked and/or angered thousands of people in town. In less than a week, Dunning had restarted his column and sports writing on Substack, with enough paid subscriptions to more than replace his salary at the Enterprise. Within days, Comings & Goings local business columnist Wendy Weitzel left the paper voluntarily to also move her work to Substack.
The evolving Davis news and information story has many parts. Today on Davisville we talk with local small business tech entrepreneur Brian Bolz (on right in photo), who helped Dunning and Weitzel get started on Substack, where they quickly found audiences. Bolz discusses how he became involved, plus his goals, what he’s doing, and how he sees the larger picture.
|
These days, you can get all the quick takes and snap judgments you want. They seem easier to find than facts, partly because they're catnip to the algorithms and impulses that drive social media. Today’s guest is doing something different with opinions — something more difficult, in my book, and more useful, especially in the long run. Since fall 2022, Claire Schad has been writing opinion columns for the California Aggie, the student newspaper and news organization at the University of California, Davis.
Writing opinion columns will seem like an outdated, narrow pursuit — newspapers in any format have much less influence than they did — but a good column that hits its mark generates ideas, not just reactions. It can create room for nuance, for admitting and engaging different points of view. Writers learn about people and ideas, and how to make ideas useful. How to move them forward.
Claire is graduating in June, and we talk about her experiences today on Davisville.
|
Long before he flew four missions on the space shuttle, Steve Robinson was the first DJ of a now-vanished Davis commercial radio station, KYLO, in the late 1970s. Decades later, he’s a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, and director of its Center for Space Flight Research — and he will soon return to local radio as occasional fill-in host for Rod Moseanko, host of the station’s Silver Nine Volt Heart. (The photo shows Steve, left, and Rod in the KDRT studio May 11.)
Today on Davisville we enjoy a serious conversation about space flight, plus hear Steve’s memories of KYLO — including what happened when he told listeners he was running out of records to play — and learn what brought him to KDRT. After he returned Davis in 2012, Robinson said, “I was looking for some good radio,” and found it with Rod’s show. “I thought, ‘this kind of radio is still alive. It was very exciting to me.’ ”
|
The Capitol Corridor trains that connect Davis with the Bay Area and Sacramento are evolving as the service recovers from the pandemic. The corridor is adding passenger cars and resuming a full weekday schedule this year, experimenting with a tap-on/tap-off payment system to eventually replace tickets, and proceeding with plans to change access in Davis so that passengers board from an expanded center platform reached via an underpass (or perhaps an overpass) from the parking lot and Olive Drive.
Longer term, the service plans to shift to hydrogen or possibly electric power for its trains. We talk about all this, as well as this year's ridership trends and efforts to improve their timekeeping, on Davisville with Rob Padgette, managing director of the service. Today’s program updates our conversation about the corridor from early 2022. |
