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enterprise THE DAVIS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2020
MEASURE Q
BOARD OF
Preliminary returns favor salestax renewal
SUPERVISORS
Provenza with an early lead
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
Winner would need to top 50% to avoid runoff
Enterprise staff writer Early returns Tuesday night show Davis residents favoring a renewal of the city sales tax, with Measure Q ahead with 79.52 percent of the vote based on voteby-mail ballots returned before Tuesday. Passage of the sales tax renewal requires a simple majority vote. The first batch of votes tallied Tuesday evening had 5,772 votes in favor of Measure Q and 1,487 against. Measure Q would renew the city’s 1-cent sales tax — a tax last approved by voters in 2014 — to pay for police and firefighter salaries, the costs of parks and recreation programs and road and bike path maintenance. All of the revenue — an estimated $9 million annually — stays in Davis. City Council members have said the tax covers the majority of the city’s cost for public safety personnel as well as about two-thirds of the cost of maintaining the parks system and recreation programs. The tax renewal was placed on Tuesday’s ballot by a unanimous City Council last fall and supported
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer
OWEN YANCHER/ENTERPRISE PHOTO
School psychologist Tim Paulson, right, and School Board Trustee Alan Fernandes keep track as the polls roll in Tuesday night.
Finish line in sight Measure G faces rough going Aftermath
BY JEFF HUDSON Enterprise staff writer
School board to go over results
Measure G — the Davis school district’s local parcel tax designed to raise salaries for Davis teachers to the average level of compensation offered by other school districts in the region — achieved a solid majority when the early election returns were reported by the Yolo County Elections office just after 8 p.m. Tuesday night. But that majority — with 63.93 percent of voters supporting Measure G — was nonetheless a few percentage points shy of the two-thirds majority (66.7 percent) required for the approval of a parcel tax.
SEE MEASURE Q, PAGE A3
Latest results
Page A2
Typically, when a local school parcel tax is on the ballot, the percentage of votes favoring approval rises by a couple of percentage points after the initial tally of the first batch of election results is announced shortly after 8 p.m. on Tuesday night. It now appears likely that it may be a week (or more) before the final vote tally on Measure G is confirmed. There were thousands of vote-by-mail ballots turned in (by hand) at local polling places on election day (Tuesday, March 3).
Get the up-to-date election results on Measure Q, Measure G and the Yolo County supervisor race at www.davisenterprise.com. There will also be hundreds of vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by March 3 that will be delivered to the Yolo County Elections Office in the next day or two, and the Yolo County Elections Office will need to open those envelopes, confirm the voter signatures on the envelope with the voter-signed card requesting a vote-by-mail ballot, etc. This process takes time. — Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8055.
California schools brace for a coronavirus disruption
BY LAUREN KEENE Enterprise staff writer
CalMatters
VOL. 123 NO. 28
SEE SUPERVISORS, PAGE A3
Man who died in house fire identified
BY RICARDO CANO, FELICIA MELLO AND ELIZABETH AGUILERA Early reports indicate children infected by the coronavirus experience a milder response than older adults. But as it arrives in Northern California, school and college officials are preparing for a growing likelihood that the highly contagious virus will disrupt learning and spark panic in young people and their naturally protective caretakers. As dorms are being disinfected and exposed students are forced into
Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza has an early lead in the Board of Supervisors race being decided Tuesday. The first vote tally posted by the county elections office shortly after 8 p.m. — which includes vote-bymail ballots returned to the elections office before Tuesday — had Provenza in front with 51.4 percent of the vote, followed by Linda Deos with 36 percent and David Abramson with 12.6 percent. Numbers were updated throughout the evening as ballots are returned to the elections office in Woodland from polling places throughout the county. To avoid a run-off election, one Board of Supervisors candidate must receive 50 percent of all votes cast plus one additional vote. Otherwise the top two vote-getters will face off in the November presidential election. Provenza has represented the fourth district
ANNE WERNIKOFF/CALMATTERS PHOTO
California State University campuses, such as CSU East Bay, may repurpose the system’s online learning system if the coronavirus triggers a shut down. quarantine, administrators are considering adding more cleaning staff while eyeing remote learning and independent study options to keep everyone from kindergartners to college seniors from veering off their academic schedules.
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Already, community colleges have been asked to review emergency plans, and the California State University system is looking at repurposing its online learning system — built so students could take classes at sister campuses
WEATHER Thu Thursday: Mostly su sunny. High 73. Lo Low 47.
— in order to keep lessons going. In Solano County northeast of San Francisco, where the nation’s first community spread was detected, K-12 public
SEE DISRUPTION, PAGE A4
The man found dead Saturday inside a burning North Campus Way house has been identified as Evan Plaisted-Graman, a 37-year-old Davis resident, Yolo County coroner’s officials said. His death has been ruled a suicide, caused by a shotgun wound to the head and not by the fire, according to Chief Deputy Coroner Gina Moya. The Davis police and fire departments are continuing to investigate the incident, including the cause of the fire. George Graman, Plaisted-Graman’s father, confirmed to The Davis Enterprise on Monday that “my son took his own life, and fire was involved.” “He was a fine man,” a
tearful Graman said in an interview on the front porch of his home, which he shared with PlaistedGraman for the past yearand-a-half. “I’m going to miss him.” Graman said nothing appeared amiss with his son earlier Saturday morning or the night before, when the two shared a meal. But he heard popping sounds coming from PlaistedGraman’s bedroom at about 9:30 a.m., prompting Graman to call 911. “I went to his room and opened the door,” Graman recalled. “All these explosions were going off, and he was in there somewhere.” Davis firefighters discovered Plaisted-Graman’s
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SEE FIRE, PAGE A3
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