enterprise THE DAVIS
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2020
Council OKs mall proposal
Garamendi sounds warning on Post Office
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
BY CALEB HAMPTON
Enterprise staff writer
Enterprise staff writer A recent slowdown in mail processing by the United States Postal Service, resulting from operational changes at the agency, has raised concerns that the federal mail system could be ill-equipped to handle November’s presidential election, in which an unprecedented proportion of ballots are expected to be cast by mail. Over the past few months, purported costcutting measures at USPS have included removing expensive mail sorting machines and blue curbside mailboxes and restricting overtime pay and new hiring. Last week, the Postal Service warned states it may not be able to meet mail-in ballot deadlines, a failure that could disenfranchise millions of voters or cause controversy during vote tallying, which is expected to take several days or possibly weeks this year due to the volume of mail-in ballots. The Postal Service cutbacks have come as President Trump continues to rail against mail-in voting, falsely claiming that allowing widespread voting by mail would invite opportunities for fraud. In fact, voter fraud is rare and there is no evidence linking fraud with mail-in voting. Last week, Trump said publicly that he opposes funding the Postal Service because he wants to make it harder for Americans to vote by mail, confirming accusations from Democrats that he is undermining the Postal Service ahead of the election. “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” said Trump, who trails Democratic presidential nominee
SEE GARAMENDI, PAGE A3
SEE WILDFIRES, PAGE A3
SEE MALL, PAGE A3
YOLO COUNTY/COURTESY PHOTO
A wildfire burns through a hillside in western Yolo County.
NorCal wildfires keep burning BY LAUREN KEENE Enterprise staff writer Yolo County’s air quality remained poor and unhealthy Thursday as fire crews continued their battles against a series of wildfires burning in five counties. The LNU Lightning Complex Fire — a series of fires ablaze in parts of Yolo, Solano Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties — had scorched 131,000 acres with zero containment as of about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s incident website.
“Extreme fire behavior with short- and long-range spotting are continuing to challenge firefighting efforts,” the website says. “Fires continue to make runs in multiple directions and impacting multiple communities.” The fires — started Monday by lightning strikes — have destroyed or damaged at least 175 structures, threatened another 30,500 and triggered numerous road closures and evacuation orders, with multiple evacuation zones established in western Yolo County. Highway 128 west of Winters remained closed from County Road
Colby tells school board to plan for rough times BY JEFF HUDSON Enterprise staff writer Bruce Colby, who served as the Davis school district’s chief budget officer for 14 years, officially retired at the end of July. But Colby came out of retirement briefly on Tuesday night (Aug. 18) to advise the school board trustees that they should prepare now for what could be a nasty financial jam about a year hence. As a result of a decline in economic activity due to the COVID19 virus, California is experiencing a substantial dip in state tax revenues. And in the final state budget that California legislators approved and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in late June the state added a big round of deferrals of state
funding to local school districts, along the line of the deferrals of state funding that occurred during the Great Recession (2008 to 2011).
As school board president Joe DiNunzio put it, “A deferral is only helpful if at some point the state makes good on that.”
Colby explained that the final version of the state These deferrals are budget in late June conessentially IOUs from the COLBY tained new deferrals that state to local school disSounding rendered the Davis school tricts, in the form of a alarm district’s adoption budget delay (deferral) in pay(based on earlier state budments under the Local Control Funding Formula that the state get estimates from the governor’s had intended to make. School dis- May budget revision, and approved tricts don’t like deferrals because by Davis school board trustees the state sometimes takes its time before the final state budget had paying up on these IOUs — but firmed up) basically irrelevant. the school districts still need to Colby told the trustees that in meet their monthly payroll for the case of the Davis school disteachers and other employees, and trict, the state deferrals will come in some cases needs to borrow to about $9.2 million during 2021 money to do so. — enough to stress the budget in a
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87 to just east of the Canyon Creek Resort. While some rural residents have evacuated their homes, no evacuation orders were underway within Winters city limits, officials said. Similarly, Davis fire officials assured the community via social media Thursday that evacuations are neither underway nor expected in the city. An evacuation center in Guinda opened at 9 a.m. Thursday at the corner of Highway 16 and Forrest Avenue. For further evacuation
The aging University Mall across Russell Boulevard from the UC Davis campus will be demolished and replaced with a multistory mixed-use development under a plan narrowly approved by the Davis City Council on Tuesday. The council voted 3-2 in favor of the University Commons redevelopment project with Vice Mayor Lucas Frerichs and Councilman Will Arnold casting votes against it. The future of the project seemed in doubt prior to the vote when former mayor Brett Lee voiced his opposition to the project’s size. But after mall owner Brixmor offered to reduce the building height from 80 feet to 72 feet, Lee added his support to that of Mayor Gloria Partida and Councilman Dan Carson, who voted in favor of the plan. The concession on height offered by Brixmor would still allow for retail and
comparatively small school district like Davis. Colby additionally warned the trustees that enrollment projects indicate that the Davis school district is looking at a probable decline of 346 students between 2021 and 2023. Since the state sends average daily attendance funding to school district on a perpupil basis, a decline of 346 students could easily amount to a reduction of several million dollars. Colby warned that the combined impact of the new state budget’s funding deferrals along with the impact of an enrollment decline in the range of 340-some students could prove to be a financial double-whammy, unless the school district begins to prepare now.
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