Schism is an old word, meaning two sides with strong opinions breaking apart. The term might now apply to the United Methodist Church, a denomination of 13 million members worldwide that faces dis-unifying over gay rights. Brandon Austin, pastor of the Davis Methodist congregation, talks about the dispute, why it matters to people who might never give a thought to church, how to wrestle with the question of which traditions to keep and which to discard, and the choice of the Davis church to align with the pro-LGBT “reconciling” movement more than 20 years ago.
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Dan Carson has completed his first year on the Davis City Council, and today on Davisville we get his take on several of the public questions the council has faced -- paid parking downtown, muni broadband, new rental housing projects, the ballot measure to indefinitely extend the extra 1-cent city sales tax, and the prospect that the state’s response to California's housing shortage might compel Davis to add thousands of new homes over time.
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High school’s an interesting time. You’re exiting childhood, not yet an adult, you’re trying to figure out who you are, while fitting in, while going your own way, and your classmates are suddenly attractive in ways they weren’t just a few years before. And you’re trying to set yourself up for college or a job, while under pressure to achieve. Whatever high school means to you, when it’s done … you move on. Until enough years have passed and you hear from a classmate that your class is having a reunion! Want to come?
On today’s Davisville, my guests are reunion organizers from two Davis High School classes that are having significant anniversaries this fall and summer: Cindy Cooper Evans (left) from the Class of 1969, and Margaret Bridge from the Class of 1999. We talk about the reunions, what they enjoy about them, how classmates and their attitudes toward the high school years change as they get older, and what advice they’d have for their high school selves.
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In June, a Davis task force advised Davis to act quickly to improve the city’s broadband service, and recommended a municipal network as the best option, pending a detailed look at what that would involve. City Hall has agreed to pursue that closer look. On today’s Davisville, Carolyn Stiver and Lorenzo Kristov, two members of the Broadband Advisory Task Force, talk about the need for broadband, options to pay for it, and more.
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Ryan Collins started working for the city of Davis as homeless outreach services coordinator in August 2017. He has contacted approximately 300 homeless people in Davis since then, he says, and has helped about a third of them find permanent shelter. This would have reduced the homeless population of Davis … except that a greater number has fallen into homelessness. On today’s Davisville we talk with Ryan and with Paul Doroshov, deputy police chief for Davis, about Ryan’s job working one-to-one with the homeless, how his work fits into the larger set of services and strategies that respond to homelessness, the city’s plan to hire another person whose job will be similar to Ryan’s, and how the role of the police has evolved since Paul joined the Davis Police as a patrol officer 30 years ago.
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(This program first aired in August 2018)
About 16 million Americans served in World War II. Today, 73 years after that war ended, perhaps 3 percent of those veterans are alive. Among the survivors, an even smaller number lived through infantry combat during the war—and today’s guest is one of them. Francis Resta, who lives in Davis and was born in 1925, was a mortar-man and machine gunner in the 102nd Infantry Division, and fought in Europe. Today we talk about his experiences, living through “insane” and “endless” combat, post-traumatic stress disorder, why many combat vets shun the idea they’re heroes, and why he wants to talk about it all now.
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The Beatles were so huge that even now, 49 years after they broke up, former Beatle Paul McCartney’s shows can still sell out stadiums. The band sold hundreds of millions of records, and helped change the culture in large parts of the world. How much do they still matter, when only 30 percent of Americans are old enough to have any memory of them as an active band? Today we talk about the Beatles with Dr. Rebecca Plack, who teaches “Introduction to the Music of the Beatles“ to approximately 200 students at UC Davis, and Jerry Yen, one of her students and a fan of the band. (A correction: In the program I say Ringo Starr will turn 80 this year. That won’t happen until 2020.)
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More than 383,000 people boarded or exited a train in Davis in fiscal 2018, mostly while using the Sacramento-Bay Area Capitol Corridor service. The Capitols are one example of how regional train travel can work, and other ideas are in play – from the high-speed line that’s getting at least partially built in the Central Valley, to Virgin Rail’s venture in Florida.
Meanwhile Amtrak, the national railroad passenger carrier, is trying to figure out where it fits in; CEO Richard Anderson has backed off his idea of replacing the middle part of the Los Angeles-Chicago train with an overnight bus, but his plans for the future of Amtrak’s 15 long-distance trains (two serve Davis) are unknown. George Chilson, a California member of the Rail Passengers Association Board of Directors, talks about these subjects, and how to solve Amtrak’s chronic problems, in a return visit today to Davisville.
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For most of the last two years, Aidan Ramey, a third-year electrical engineering student at UC Davis, has been promoting the idea of creating a flag for Davis—or a new flag, depending on how you regard what the city has now. Why? What would you use it for? Why this design, which has earned the best response among the designs presented so far? And why does this mean so much to him? We get his answers today on Davisville.
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Pete McCloskey, 91, has done a lot, and has known a lot of people. He’s a Marine combat veteran of the Korean War, and a former Republican congressman from the Bay Area. He helped write key environmental laws, opposed the Vietnam War, and ran against President Nixon for the GOP nomination in 1972. In 1973, after the Saturday Night Massacre, McCloskey was the first member of Congress to call publicly for Nixon to resign—which Nixon did, in 1974. After 59 years in the Republican Party, McCloskey joined the Democrats in 2007. Today we talk about the Mueller report, McCloskey’s advice to Democrats to pursue “progressive” legislation instead of impeaching President Trump, and why he and his wife Helen live in the Capay Valley. They have friendly feelings for Davis—two of his four children went to the UC campus here.
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