The Covid-19 pandemic has closed or curtailed most stores, with the Davis Food Co-op and other grocers among the few exceptions. So what has it been like to work in the Co-op during the pandemic? Has the experience changed as shoppers adjusted to new conditions, are there insights here as other Davis stores prepare to re-open, and why are flour and toilet paper rarely on the shelves?
My guests today are two employees of the Co-op: Madison Suoja, the co-op’s education and outreach specialist, and Laura Sanchez, the store’s operations manager. A few items from the interview: Sales for the second quarter are up almost 11 percent from a year ago, shoppers are buying significantly more items per trip (and lately, making fewer trips), and the Co-op just started offering online shopping, with curbside pickup.
|
(This repeat of the April 27 program is kept in the archives as a source for Apple podcast.)
We’ve entered a recession, and don't know yet how bad it will be. To get some perspective, I talk today with Bob Leland, an expert on municipal finance with the Management Partners consulting firm who began his career in the 1970s. He compares the current downturn to the Great Recession 12 years ago, lists some possible responses, and estimates the size of the revenue loss facing Davis – “it’ll probably be about a 6 to 8 percent loss for the year that will be ending June 30,” with the financial damage concentrated in the last few months.
Read that carefully—the plunge since March has been steep enough to take the results for the entire fiscal year down by 6 percent or more. |
We’ve entered a recession, and don't know yet how bad it will be. To get some perspective, I talk today with Bob Leland, an expert on municipal finance with the Management Partners consulting firm who began his career in the 1970s. He compares the current downturn to the Great Recession 12 years ago, lists some possible responses, and estimates the size of the revenue loss facing Davis – “it’ll probably be about a 6 to 8 percent loss for the year that will be ending June 30,” with the financial damage concentrated in the last few months.
Read that carefully—the plunge since March has been steep enough to take the results for the entire fiscal year down by 6 percent or more. |
Today I talk with Davis Enterprise retail business columnist Wendy Weitzel about how local restaurants and retailers are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. We discuss stories of struggle, creativity, and most of all uncertainty, plus thoughts about how retail might change even after the stay-at-home public health orders are lifted. She has written her Comings & Goings column for nearly 20 years and normally posts a new column every other week, but is writing weekly during the pandemic.
|
This is a repeat broadcast of one of the most popular shows in Davisville's 12 years. I interviewed Robert Luke, who died in 2017, in early 2012. |
I set up this interview before the coronavirus pandemic hit, to talk about the Bee, community journalism, the move from print to digital, its interest in Davis, and the financial problems that have eroded the newspaper and led its owner, McClatchy, to file for bankruptcy. This interview, recorded the afternoon of March 22, still touches on those subjects, but we devote the first part of the show to how the Bee is covering the pandemic, including how it decides what stories to pursue beyond the obvious ones, and the kinds of articles its readers are asking for.
|
Erin and Brett Arnold bought the Avid Reader and Avid Reader Active this winter from longtime owner Alzada Knickerbocker. Buying the town’s last full bookstore, and their plans to keep it as a bookstore, is significant news if you’re interested in Davis, books, and/or downtown. The Arnolds visit Davisville today to talk about the store, bookselling, co-existing with Amazon, why the store has persisted, and why they see a good future for it. Some statistics support their optimism: Although sales of printed books in the United States fell about 1.2 percent in 2019 from the year before, they’re still up 16 percent from 2012.
|
My guest is Dr. Ron Chapman, Yolo County health officer, and we talk about the COVID-19 coronavirus. The subjects include:
• The latest developments
• What people should and shouldn't do to minimize their chances of catching the disease
• Where to get reliable information
• His role in shaping the Yolo public health response, and in deciding when a quarantine or closure might be needed
• The mortality rate
• The symptoms
• What to do if you think you might have COVID-19
• Who to contact if you don't have a doctor, the county coronavirus hotline, and more.
|
Commander Ryan Easterday watched Star Trek as a kid growing up in Davis, and liked the idea of leading a ship. When he was ready for college, the notion still had enough appeal for him to include the U.S. Naval Academy among the schools where he applied – and when his final choice came down to the University of California Santa Cruz or the academy, he chose the Navy. Easterday now commands the USS John McCain, a destroyer with a crew of about 320 based in Japan, and on today’s Davisville he talks about why he went to Annapolis instead of Santa Cruz, his ship, the Navy, some of his experiences, and how growing up in Davis has shaped him as an officer.
|
Twice weekly at 9:30 p.m., volunteers bring food donated by Davis restaurants and stores to tables in Central Park. Anyone who wants the food is then free to take what they want; the cooked food usually goes first. This is the Davis Night Market, created by students at UC Davis to reduce food waste in Davis and to get food to the hungry. The market serves about 30 people on an average night, and the founders would like to build it into a daily operation. Any food left over goes in the “freedges”—community refrigerators like the tiny libraries you see in front yards around town.
Today we talk with two of the Night Market founders, Valerie Weinborn and Ernst Oehninger, about why they do this, the reaction they’ve had, and what they hope to achieve. She’s a veterinarian from Chile who has a doctorate in Food Science; he’s a PhD student in Natural Resource Economics and comes from a family of farmers in Brazil.
|
