The Davis Enterprise Sunday, January 1, 2023

COVID, strike, trials punctuated ups and downs

Enterprise staff

After two years of dealing with COVID, 2022 was when we started to answer the question of what we would do “after.” Some things will never be the same, and some seem to be getting back to a semblance of normal, even if we haven’t fully defined what the “new normal” is going to be.

Once again, the COVID fallout — the disruptions it caused, the inescapable need to deal with the consequences — was the dominant fact of life. But now at least the questions were “what can we do.” There was some sense of agency when dealing with a hitherto unstoppable juggernaut. It’s not in the rear-view mirror, not by a long shot, but the clouds ahead are beginning to part.

Locally, we saw triumph and tragedy. The reckoning for the tragic deaths of three young people came due. Public-school teachers and grad-student workers demanded better pay and working conditions. And, Davis being Davis, the ongoing debate of who we want to be as a community found expression at the ballot box.

And so we bid farewell to 2022, a year full of challenges and not a little heartbreak, with the top stories of the last 12 months, as selected by the journalists of the Davis Enterprise:

1. Dealing with COVID

Davis entered 2022 in the midst of its worse COVID-19

wave, with the Omicron variant driving case numbers to their highest point since the pandemic began.

The city, UC Davis and the Davis Joint Unified School District all reported record-breaking numbers of new cases in January 2022. Fall-out from the surge included UC Davis delaying resumption of in-person classes

Back in the saddle

n Editor’s note: Davis loves its Aggies, and as they graduate, they gallop down their respective career paths which often takes them away from the community. That’s why The Enterprise has begun to wrangle these exceptional alumni  to break down their UCD experience and what they’re doing now.

By Aaron Geerts Enterprise staff writer

Hailing from Portland, Ore., Maddy Kent was used to overcast skies and rainy days throughout the year. When it was time to apply for colleges, her parents encouraged her to consider UC Davis — a college she’d never heard of before. However, her

Aggie Alumni stories

skepticism on whether or not she’d attend quickly evaporated upon her first visit to the pristine campus. The sunshine and California weather gave her the push to become a UCD Aggie.

“I went to UCD from 2009 to 2013 and majored in exercise biology and minored in nutrition. It was definitely one of the hardest majors, but I learned a lot, it was interesting and liked how challenging it was,” Kent

until late January.

By February, the surge was beginning to wane, though another began in early summer thanks to Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5. Wastewater monitoring indicated virus levels in June were as high as they’d been in January.

By then, Healthy Davis Together had wound down its

community wide PCR testing and residents began relying on rapid antigen tests instead while public health officials continued to urge everyone eligible to get vaccinated and boosted.

Even during the Omicron wave, hospitalizations and deaths remained well below the winter surge of 2021, thanks largely to vaccinations and immunity from prior infections.

As the year draws to a close, many aspects of life have returned to their pre-pandemic state. Masks are optional in most places (though still recommended in indoor public settings) and inperson meetings have become the norm again, including for local government agencies like the City Council and Board of Supervisors.

2. UC strike

Graduate-student workers across the University of California went on strike on Nov. 14, calling for an end to the University of California’s “unlawful behavior,” living wages to address “rent burden, increased childcare subsidies for parent scholars, sustainable transit benefits, and greater rights for international scholars.”

At UC Davis, what followed was a more than a month of demonstrations, marches and teach-ins

tAmAr A torti/Courtesy photo

Initially unsure about attending UC Davis, Maddy Kent was won over by a visit in person.

Davis police seek hammerwielding vandal

A man vandalized a downtown movie theater Thursday night after employees blocked his attempt at a free movie, Davis police said.

Officers were summoned at about 10:30 p.m. to the Regal Davis Holiday, 101 F St., to reports of someone threatening employees with a hammer, Lt. Dan Beckwith said. Witnesses told police the suspect first tried entering a theater without paying.

When employees stopped him, the man pulled a hammer from his backpack and damaged a door and several windows before fleeing the scene. He’s described as a Black male in his 20s, with short dark hair and an average build, wearing a dark puffy jacket and headphones at the time of the incident.

No injuries were reported, Beckwith said.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Davis Police Department at 530747-5400.

Ilove this time of year when anyone with a microphone or a camera or a typewriter offers an opinion on the top stories of the past year. That's relatively easy, given that these events have already taken place and all a selfrespecting journalist has to do is rank them in order of importance.

Much more difficult is to forecast those people and events and ideas and inventions that will engage us or amuse us in the year ahead.

That's where I come in.

According to the folks at ancestry.com, I am a direct descendant of Nostradamus himself, which explains my uncanny ability to predict the outcome of college football games, atmospheric rivers, earthquakes, bomb cyclones and human foibles.

Note: several predictions from previous years have been delayed by the usual governmental red tape, not to mention a foggy crystal ball, and are thus repeated here as sure-to-happen events in the Year of Our Lord 2023.

May I have the envelope please?

COOL HAND LUCAS (Jan. 3)

... An emotional Lucas Frerichs breaks down during swearing-in ceremony for Yolo County Supervisor and decides to remain on the Davis City Council. "My seat on the council is still open and I intend to sit in it," Frerichs declares while wiping away tears. "Commuting to Woodland, even on a bicycle, is not environmentally sound and I need to set a good example for the children and grandchildren who will come after us."

WATER WISE (Jan. 14) ... City of Davis ordinance banning car washing in driveways goes into effect, with an exemption for Tesla owners to encourage electric vehicle ownership. East Davis resident Marjorie Taylor Queen is arrested for washing her Ford F-150 in broad daylight, with an enhancement for having a "Trump 2024" bumper sticker. Sentenced to three years in Woodland.

DON'T MESS WITH MUSK (Jan. 22) ... Elon Musk bans all Twitter users in Davis for "spreading wokeness."

ELECTORAL MADNESS (Feb. 2) ... Under threat of a lawsuit from a money-hungry Woodland attorney, City of Davis agrees to split into 16,000 electoral districts, giving each household in

town a seat on the City Council.

PAC-12 TURNS TO DAVIS (Feb. 14) Looking to replace departed UCLA with another California institution, the Pac-12 Conference invites Davis' University of Beer to join the league. UOB adopts "Fill the Steins" as school fight song along with a mascot named "Muggs" dressed as a tall glass of beer.

BOOKS-N-BLOOD (March 7) ... Avid Reader merges with Yolo Blood Bank to form the Avid Bleeder. Patrons receive a free novel for every pint donated.

RICH GETS RICHER (March 27) ... Enterprise columnist Rich Rifkin wins Pulitzer Prize for "commentary that is both insightful and inciteful."

BIRDS OF A FEATHER (April 15) ... UC Davis Young Republicans once again invite Vladimir Putin to ride on their Picnic Day float.

ZIPPETY DOO-DAH (May 9) ... In the hope of attracting tourists from around the world, City of Davis builds 23-mile long zip line from the top of Monticello Dam to Arroyo Park that is only cost effective if it runs 24 hours a day and includes live music in the park and an air raid siren to mark the end of a successful ride.

FROZEN DIPLOMAS (June 1) ... Determined to avoid another heat-related graduation disaster, UC Davis announces 2023 commencement ceremony will be held in Antarctica. All graduates will receive six tickets for family and friends, plus two penguins.

MR. TOAD'S WILD RiDE (June 14) ... Davis Toad Tunnel honored as Hysterical Monument by National Park Service.

MOTTO MANIA MARCHES ON (July 21) ... Davis City Council votes 5-0 to adopt official city motto: "Davis — More

Davis woman dies in Fresno-area vehicle crash

By Lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer

A solo vehicle collision claimed the life of a 22-year-old Davis woman and injured four others — also from Davis — in Fresno County, according to the California Highway Patrol.

CHP Officer Mike Salas said the crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday in Mendota, roughly 35 miles east of Fresno, when the driver of a Mercedes sport-utility vehicle lost control of the car, then ran

off the road and overturned.

A female passenger was ejected in the rollover and died at the scene, Salas said. Her name was not released as of Friday afternoon.

Four others in the vehicle — also in their 20s — were hospitalized with injuries ranging from minor to serious in nature.

Salas said neither alcohol nor drugs appeared to be factors in the collision, but investigators suspect wet driving conditions played a role.

Man robbed at gunpoint on Olive

By Lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer

Davis police are on the lookout for the suspect in an armed robbery.

Lt. Dan Beckwith said the victim, a resident of the Ryder on Olive apartments at 1133 Olive Dr., was confronted at gunpoint while pulling out his keys at about 12:45 a.m. Thursday. The suspect demanded

the victim’s backpack and fled with the property before officers arrived on scene, Beckwith said. The victim was not injured.

Beckwith described the suspect as a white male in his 20s, about 6 feet tall with a medium build and blond hair, wearing a red or pink jacket.

Call 530-747-5400 with any information.

Nuts Than Winters."

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? (Aug. 25) ... Liz Cheney enters Federal Witness Protection Program disguised as a mildmannered playground monitor at North Davis Elementary.

AGGIE FEVER (Oct. 5) ... Citing UC Davis' agricultural roots, Chancellor Gary May announces that all men's and women's UCD sports will join the newly formed AAAC (All Aggie Athletic Conference) along with Texas A&M, Utah State, Oklahoma Panhandle State, New Mexico State, North Carolina A&T, Ontario Agricultural College and the famed Sylacauga High School Aggies of Alabama. " 'Go Ags' will become a proud rallying cry across the entire country," May declares.

FAMILY FEUD (Nov. 11) ... UC Davis head coach Dan Hawkins faces his son, Idaho State head coach Cody Hawkins, in a Big Sky football showdown in Pocatello. Game goes to eight overtimes and ends in a scoreless tie.

AND THEN THERE WERE FIVE (Nov. 24) ... National Park Service arrests Donald Trump at the top of Mount Rushmore with 10 sticks of dynamite and chiseling tools in his possession. "I got more votes than those other four guys put together," Trump declares at his arraignment in Rapid City.

NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS (Nov. 30) ... After years of discussion, Disneyland confirms plans to move its entire Orange County amusement park to Yolo County

and rename it Disney Davis. Explains a Disney spokesman, "We'll bring all the characters to Davis except Goofy. He's clearly already there."

BAG BAN STRENGTHENED (Dec. 1) ... Adding extra oomph to an already strict state law, City of Davis bans plastic bags, paper bags, Glad bags, handbags, saddlebags, gift bags, windbags, airbags, scumbags, dirtbags, sandbags, beanbags, bagpipes, bagpipers, bag ladies, bag men, baggers, bags under the eyes, baggy pants, Baggin'e End, people named Bagley and baguettes.

WOESOME TWOSOME (Dec. 2) ... With his support among Republicans and independents waning, Donald Trump announces formation of the Sore Losers Party in anticipation of a 2024 run for the presidency. Names Kari Lake as running mate.

WHAT A RACKET (Dec. 8) UC Davis replaces football with varsity pickleball, planning to compete at the NCAA Division I level. "We can carve up UC Davis Health Stadium into 50 pickleball courts," noted a university spokeswoman. "Now instead of just one game going on, we can have 50 games at the same time. It's all about participation for our student-athletes."

NOSTRADAMUS STRIKES AGAIN (Dec. 31) ... Davis Enterprise names all of the above as the top news stories of 2023.

— Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net.

shot by an assassin?

By Andy Jones Special to The Enterprise

1. Newspaper Headlines. Announced last week, The U.S. will require all travelers from what country to show a negative COVID-19 test before boarding flights to the U.S.?

2. California Cities. According to a recent article in Travel and Leisure, “The 10th Largest City in the U.S. Might Be the Country's Most Underrated Tourist Destination — and It Gets

300 Days of Sunshine.” Name the city.

3. Art Galleries. What is the largest art gallery in Yolo County?

4. Science. What do we call the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets?

5. Great Americans: 21st Presidents Edition. What Vermont-born lawyer and politician succeeded the presidency upon President Garfield's death in September 1881 — two months after being

6. Unusual Words. Starting and ending with an E, what verb means “cause (someone) to feel drained of energy or vitality; weaken”?

7. Legendary People. Who was the most famous son of Uther Pendragon?

Answers: China, San Jose, The John Natsoulas Gallery, hydrology, Chester A. Arthur, enervate, King Arthur.

Dr. Andy Jones is the former quizmaster at de Vere’s Irish Pub and author of the book “Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People.” Find out more at www.yourquizmaster. com.

Some of us have all the answers.

Wednesday

■ The Valley Oak Chapter of the Embroiderer's Guild of America will host a Zoom presentation by Dolores Andrew at 11 a.m. Andrew is an artist and designer in the needlework disciplines. Among many other accomplishments, she is a certified National Academy of Needlearts Master Teacher of embroidery. In her presentation, she will explore the role of samplers in women's lives through our history. To attend, contact Linda Wayne at laws999@ gmail.com by Dec. 30 to be added to the Zoom list.

■ Davis Flower Arrangers will hear Susi Gillum of the Bidwell Designers Guild in Chico present her program at 7 p.m. at the Stonegate Country Club, 919 Lake Blvd. Guest passes are available for $10, or become a member by sending a check to Davis Flower Arrangers for $50 to Jo Anne Boorkman, 2205 Butte Place, Davis, CA 95616. Members have access to all monthly in person meetings as well as Zoom access. An invitation to the Zoom meetings will be sent to members prior to the meeting and a recording of the meeting may also be available.

Thursday

■ The Poetry Night Reading Series will feature Allegra Silberstein (author of a new book, “Dancing with the Morning Breeze”) with Jean Beguin at 7 p.m. on the third floor (indoors) of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St. in Davis. There will be an open mic after the featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to four minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. The open mic list typically fills by 7 p.m., so arrive early. Organizers recommend mask-wearing. Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series at http://www.poetryin davis.com.

Friday

■ The UC Davis Arboretum hosts a Folk Music Jam Session from noon to 1 p.m. Folk musicians can bring their acoustic instruments and play together informally during this jam session at Wyatt Deck (next to the redwood grove). Pull out your fiddles, guitars, mandolins, penny whistles, pipes, flutes, squeezeboxes (you name it) and join your fellow musicians for a little bluegrass, old-time, blues, Celtic, klezmer and world music over the lunch hour. All skill levels welcome and listeners are invited. Short-term parking is available in Visitor Lot 5 on Old Davis Road at Arboretum Drive. Hourly rates start at $1.75.

Saturday

■ The annual Davis model train display will be up and running at the Davis train station (Amtrak) at 840 Second St. in downtown Davis. Sponsored by the

Davis Sunrise Rotary Club (davisrotary.org) and the Davis Model Train Club, admission is free. Any donations received will be directed to local charitable programs. The electric train display will be open from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and features two layouts (Lionel O and HO gauges) with interactive components for children as well as examples and history of local Davis points of interest.

Saturday

■ January’s Kitchen Garden Chat given by Treva Valentine, an accomplished Yolo County Master Gardener, will be from 10 to 11 a.m. via Zoom. The link is at https://ucanr.zoom. us/j/98028723763. This presentation will include what to do and plant in the January edible garden. Also included are questions on citrus and a discussion on the “how to’s” about microgreens. And if you are lucky enough to have received a holiday greenhouse, how to choose the proper location for it. This presentation is free. The Master Gardener Help Desk is at 530-666-8737 or via email at mgyolo@ ucdavis.edu.

Friday, Jan. 13

■ Logos Books in downtown Davis will host a reception for watercolor artists Betty Berteaux and Dana Merry Richards for the 2nd Friday ArtAbout from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition “California Scenes” will run Jan. 7 to Feb. 3 at the bookstore, 513 Second St. Light refreshments will be available. Find more details and a map of venues at facebook.com/ davisartabout or https:// theartery.net/2nd-fridayartabout.

■ Join the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis to see selected sculptures and prints from the 50-year career of the legendary artist Mark Bulwinkle, the Oakland-based innovator of graphically cut steel. The exhibition will be open from Jan. 11 to Feb. 26. A public reception with music and refreshments will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13.

■ The Artery will host a reception for the motherand-daughter art exhibit: “Continuing on the Path,” featuring ainter and sculptor Cathie JamesRobinson and painter Amanda Cadelago from 7 to 9 p.m. at 207 G St. in downtown Davis.

Thursday, Jan. 19

■ The Poetry Night Reading Series will feature Brad Buchanan with Frank Dixon Graham at 7 p.m. on the third floor (indoors) of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 First St. in Davis. There will be an open mic after the featured performers.

Open mic performances will be limited to four minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. The open mic list typically fills by 7 p.m., so arrive early. Organizers recommend mask-wearing.

Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series at http://www. poetryindavis.com.

Western Feed & Pet Supply closes

Happy new year! I have a short column this week, so let’s get to the news.

Western Feed & Pet Supply closed on Tuesday. A sign in its front window made the announcement: “Thank you! It is with heavy hearts that we have to announce we are closing the doors to our Davis store permanently at the end of this month. We have truly loved being part of this community, and will miss you all so much!”

The store was at 407 G St. Chief Operating Officer Ethan Boyer was onsite Wednesday, helping clear things out. He said they planned to close the store closer to the end of the month but things moved more quickly than expected.

The chain had four

stores in the Sacramento area. It’s down to three. Boyer, who manages the stores, encouraged customers to head to Western Feed’s next closest store, at 1600 34th St., off Highway 50 in Sacramento. It also has stores in Carmichael and Orangevale, and offers local delivery from its website, https://westernfeedonline.com/. To order pet food directly from Tuscan Natural, visit https:// www.shoptuscannatural. com/.

Boyer said the 10-year

lease for the store was expiring, and the anticipated increase didn’t make sense.

“We really liked being here but there’s not enough traffic, especially since COVID came.”

The carpet-cleaning business Cotton Carpet Care reopens for business on Monday. It closed temporarily in December “due to recent events in our personal lives,” its voicemail message said. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.”

Karen Cotton, one of the partners of the business, messaged me on Wednesday with the news. “We’d like to thank everyone for their patience and kind messages left during our absence.”

The business is at 2020 Fifth St., Suite 1545 in Davis. Its phone number is 530-753-6675.

Missed a column? Wondering when a new Davis business is opening? Check my paywall-free Google spreadsheet, which includes more than 325 Davis businesses coming or going. It’s at https://bit.ly/ DavisBusinesses. Look for the tabs for Restaurants Open, Restaurants Closed, Coming Soon and more. — Wendy Weitzel is a Davis writer and editor. Her column runs on Sundays. Check for frequent updates on her Comings & Goings Facebook and Instagram pages. If you know of a business coming or going in the area, email her at wendyedit@gmail. com.

Carbahal & Company names new partners

Special to The Enterprise Carbahal & Company, a Davis-based accounting firm recognized as Yolo County’s Best Tax Service in 2022, recently named Sue Westwood and Eric Carbahal as new joining partners, effective Jan. 1.

Sue Westwood has been with the company for 10 years, most recently as accounting manager. She provides tax, business advisory and accounting services to individuals and businesses, and is a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

She has a master’s degree in taxation from Golden Gate University, a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from UC Davis, and an associate’s degree in accounting from American River College. She is a certified public accountant. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, California Society of CPAs and the Woodland Sunrise Rotary. She serves on the boards of Yolo Antique Power, the Antique Caterpillar

Westwood said, “I’m grateful for this opportunity to continue to be a part of a team with shared values of client and community service.”

Eric Carbahal is a natural fit as a second-generation accountant at the firm, and has been with the company for six years, most recently as tax manager. Prior to joining Carbahal & Company, he worked with two accounting firms in San Francisco. His specialties are in tax advisory, trust administration/accounting and real estate.

He has a bachelor’s degree in history from UC Santa Cruz and a master’s degree in accounting from Golden Gate University. He is a licensed CPA and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of CPAs, along with the Yolo County Board of Realtors. He serves as treasurer on the Davis Chamber of Commerce board and is a former board

member of NAMI Yolo (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

Carbahal said, “Since starting at Carbahal & Company, I have had the privilege to work with a diverse range of clients to provide a wide variety of accounting services. I am excited for the opportunity, and look forward to the next chapter of this new role.”

Managing Partner Jennifer Nitzkowski said, “It’s been great working with Eric and Sue, and watching their professional growth during their time with Carbahal & Company. We are all delighted to have them join us as partners and to continue to grow our firm.”

Carbahal & Company, an Accountancy Corporation since 1984, specializes in tax compliance, financial planning, accounting and management consulting for professionals, small- and medium-size private businesses, and individuals. It is consistently named Best Tax Service by Davis Enterprise readers. For more information, visit https://carbahal.com.

Woodland Memorial earns ‘A’ safety grade

Special to The Enterprise

WOODLAND — Dignity Health Woodland Memorial Hospital is proud to announce that it has received an “A” Hospital Safety Grade from The Leapfrog Group. This national distinction celebrates Woodland Memorial Hospital’s achievements in protecting hospital patients from preventable harm and errors.

“At Woodland Memorial Hospital, we are committed to providing safe, highquality, and compassionate patient care to our community,” said Woodland Memorial Hospital President &

CEO Gena Bravo. “I am so proud of our team for receiving this prestigious award and keeping patient safety an integral part of our care.”

The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization with a 10-year history of assigning letter grades to general hospitals throughout the United States, based on a hospital’s ability to prevent medical errors and harm to patients. The grading system is peer-reviewed, fully transparent, and free to the public. Hospital Safety

Grade results are based on more than 30 national performance measures and are updated each fall and spring.

“I applaud the hospital leadership and workforce for their strong commitment to safety and transparency,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “An ‘A’ Safety Grade is a sign that hospitals are continuously evaluating their performance, so that they can best protect patients. Your hospital team should be extremely

proud of their dedication and achievement.”

To see Woodland Memorial Hospital’s full grade details and to access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit HospitalSafetyGrade.org and follow The Leapfrog Group on Twitter, Facebook, and via its newsletter.

Western Feed & Pet Supply COO Ethan Boyer chats on the phone outside the Davis store as workers emptied the store on Wednesday. Its last day was Tuesday.

Wendy Weitzel/ Courtesy photo

Machinery Owners Club, and Woodland’s Dinner on Main.

California implements new pay transparency law

By Grace Gedye CalMatters

Job seekers in California will finally know how much a job pays when they apply for it — if companies don’t figure out a way around a new law.

Starting today, employers with at least 15 workers will have to include pay ranges in job postings. Employees will also be able to ask for the pay range for their own position, and larger companies will have to provide more detailed pay data to California’s Civil Rights Department than previously required.

California isn’t the first state to force businesses to put their cards on the table. Colorado took that step in 2019, and a similar requirement went into effect in New York in November. Washington state has its own version that will also kick in on Jan. 1, and a similar statewide bill in New York was just signed by the governor.

The goal of the California law is to reduce gender and racial pay gaps. But New York City’s measure had a bumpy start, with some employers posting unhelpfully wide ranges the first day the law was in place. When Colorado rolled out its law at the beginning of 2021, some companies posted remote jobs that they said could be done from anywhere in the U.S. — except Colorado — dodging the requirement. That wasn’t widespread; about 1% of remote job listings included a Colorado carveout, according to reporting in The Atlantic.

But since California has nearly 7 times as many people as Colorado, according to U.S. Census data, excluding Californians in a remote job listing would come at a higher cost.

“California’s just such a huge economic center,” said Lisa Wallace, co-founder of Assemble, a compensation management platform. “There just aren’t that many industries that are not going to be touched by this.”

the pay range?

Here’s what California job seekers can expect to see more frequently come January: $44 an hour to be a plumber in Berkeley; $18.38-$28.51 an hour for an assistant teacher job in Los Angeles; $74,600 –$141,000 per year for a future compensation analyst in Davis. If companies aren’t adding ranges, people can sue or file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner’s Office, which can issue a penalty of $100 to $10,000 per violation. Companies that don’t have pay ranges in job postings won’t get penalized for their first violation, so long as they add the information.

In addition to preparing to post pay ranges in job listings, companies that don’t already have pay bands for current employees should put them in place, and they should make sure that there aren’t pay disparities based on race, sex, or other protected classes between employees doing substantially similar work, said Jacklin Rad, a lawyer who advises employers on California workplace laws at Jackson Lewis, a law firm.

Businesses are about to have their pay scrutinized by job candidates and employees, said Wallace, the compensation platform company co-founder. “You better make sure that you have a really strong answer for why an employee is paid less,” than the posted range for a similar-looking job, she said. The new California law is uncovering that a lot of organizations have been operating without pay bands, Wallace said. Many of the company’s earliest customers were tech and biotech businesses, Wallace said, but since the bill was signed into law she’s seen increased interest from other sectors, including manufacturing and utilities.

One question that arose immediately when New York City’s law went into effect was how wide can a

pay range be without violating the law? Some postings included ranges where the high end was about $100,000 more than the low end.

California’s law explains the required payscale as “the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.”

“It’s really ambiguous,” said Rad, the lawyer. “A lot of attorneys that work in this sphere ask themselves: ‘You know, if the range is too wide, then does that defeat the purpose of pay transparency?’”

CalMatters reached out to the Labor Commissioner’s office, which is charged with enforcing the payscale component of the law. The office didn’t make anyone available to be interviewed, and did not respond to a detailed list of questions about how the law will be interpreted.

California government agencies include pay scales in job postings, and some of the ranges are large. The Civil Rights Department, for example, recently had a posting for an “Assistant Deputy Director, Workforce Data Officer” with a listed pay range of $7,976

– $19,321 per month, which translates to about $96,000 – $232,000 per year. Another posting, for a Deputy Chief Counsel at the Civil Rights Department had a similar range.

Pay ranges are set by the state’s human resources agency, CalHR, and are influenced by bargaining with unions, said Adam Romero, deputy director of executive programs at California’s Civil Rights Department. Those two positions are “very senior,” and most roles don’t have pay ranges that wide, Romero said.

Reporting pay data

The second major component of the new law is that businesses with 100 or more employees will have to start reporting more detailed data on what they pay workers to the state.

It builds on a 2020 law that required companies to submit reports to the state’s Civil Rights Department breaking down how many employees they have in each job category and pay band by sex, race, and

ethnicity. The goal was to enable state agencies to more identify wage disparities more efficiently, and to prompt companies to assess their own pay.

The reports are used “in individual investigations of complaints of pay discrimination or other types of complaints of civil rights violations against employers,” said Romero at the Civil Rights Department.

The data on its own doesn’t prove there’s been a violation of the law, but it provides context, said Romero.

The Civil Rights Department cited the pay data, for example, when it sued Tesla for race discrimination and harassment in February.

The law taking effect Jan. 1 requires employers to add median and mean hourly rate for each demographic group within each job category and include pay data for contractors.

“We are really trying to shine more light on this growing shadow workforce of contract workers,” said Mariko Yoshihara, policy director for the California Employment Lawyers Association, which supported the new law. Google, for example, has more

temps and contractors than full-time employees, according to New York Times’ reporting. The new law will reveal how contractors’ pay compares to that of full-time employees, Yoshihara said.

An early version of the new law would have made each company’s pay data public. But after intense pushback from business groups — who said the data is not a reliable measure of pay disparities and that it would “set up employers for public criticism with incomplete, uncontextualized reports and create a false impression of wage discrimination where none may exist” — the bill was amended to keep the reports private.

If companies don’t submit their pay data, the Civil Rights department can take action. It sued Michaels, the craft store chain, and JP Morgan Chase Bank for not submitting the data; both companies settled, paying a combined total of about $23,500 to cover the department’s fees and costs.

PG&E offers $200K in scholarships for college-bound students

Special to The Enterprise

OAKLAND — PG&E announced that scholarship applications are now being accepted for college-bound high schoolers as well as current college and continuing education students with a primary residence in Northern and Central California.

More than 150 awards totaling more than $200,000 are available through scholarships created

Obituary

d. Oct. 19, 2022

Alvin “Al” Earl Remmers, 80, of Davis passed away on Oct. 19, 2022, from accidental head trauma that exacerbated underlying medical conditions.

Al was a self taught visionary who possessed a keen intellect. Born in Florence, Kan., he left home at a young age and lived a life rich in experiences that included service in the army, an executive position with the Sky River Rock Festival and the founder of a space-travel company. In 1979 he founded California Pacific Computer Company, known for Richard Garriott's “Ultima 1” game, and for “Super Invader,” voted the most popular software of 1978–80.

After surviving lung cancer in the 1990s, Al gave back to his community

by PG&E’s 11 employee resource groups and two engineering network groups. These groups support and advance diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging within PG&E and the hometowns it serves.

These scholarships are awarded annually to help offset the cost of higher education. ERG and ENG scholarship winners will receive awards ranging from $500 to $6,000 for exemplary scholastic

achievement and community leadership.

PG&E ERG and ENG scholarship information, including criteria and applications, is available on PG&E’s website. To be considered for a scholarship, all applications must be submitted by Feb. 24.

“Many recipients of our ERG and ENG scholarships are the first in their families to attend college. These awards help

develop our future leaders and breakthrough thinkers and are part of how we’re living our purpose at PG&E—delivering for our hometowns, serving our planet, and leading with love,” said Marie Waugh, PG&E Vice President, Chief Talent, Culture and Inclusion Officer.

“I do not have enough words to express my gratitude for the award, especially as a first-generation college student. I’m excited

to see where my future education and experiences will take me. I couldn’t be more thankful for your kindness in supporting my future,” said Alexis Renihan, a 2022 Women’s Network ERG scholarship recipient, who’s majoring in dietetics at Point Loma Nazarene University.

Since 1989, PG&E’s ERGs and ENGs have awarded more than $5 million in scholarships to thousands of recipients.

through many volunteer opportunities and he became a documentary filmmaker. He was passionately engaged in multiple projects up until the moment of his death. He was working on a new documentary about women in STEM professions. His documentary, The Closing

of the Palms Playhouse was open on his computer the day he died as he was working on an edit to be shown at the Davis Film Festival.

daughter Christina; and siblings Lois, Warren, Kenny, Duane and Gene.

REMMERS

Al is survived by his long time partner Diane; step-

A celebration of life will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Jan. 29, at the Odd Fellows Hall in Davis. Feel free to wear a tye-dye or Hawaiian shirt in honor of Al.

Gifts in Al’s memory can be made to the Davis School Arts Foundation.

Alvin Earl Remmers

What’s

illustratiOn by Miguel gutierrez Jr., CalMatters; istOCk

2022: Long-running legal heartbreaks saw some closure

as the strikers, represented by the United Auto Workers union, held the line on their demands with UC and the action was the largest ever against an institution of higher learning.

The initial carnival-like atmosphere gave way to more bitter feelings as attitudes hardened. By Nov. 22, the UAW announced that its locals had filed more than 30 Unfair Labor Practices against UC. Meanwhile, 18 California congressional delegation members, led by Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, have called on UC President Michael Drake to begin bargaining in good faith with the UAW.

When finals week arrived in December, the lack of TAs to help with classes threw normal operations into chaos. Students said

finals were disorganized because teacher assistants in some classes dictate how the finals will go.

“Once the TAs went on strike, the teachers themselves had problems figuring out final material and what to assign students and basically what we’re doing,” Cole Rubinowicz, a UCD undergrad, told The Enterprise.

In the meantime, the UAW organized a march on the Capitol in Sacramento, and a sit-in at UC’s Sacramento lobbying office resulted in 17 arrests.

Finally, on Dec. 23, the union and the university came to an agreement. Nineteen thousand teaching assistants, graders, readers, and tutors represented by UAW 2865, as well as 17,000 student researchers represented by Student Researchers United, had new contracts. According to a press release from the UAW, they

make “historic gains” in compensation, childcare subsidies, and paid leave and include groundbreaking new protections against bullying and discrimination.

The largest academic strike in U.S. history was over.

3. Justice for Enrique and Elijah

After six years, four arrests, two trials and numerous court delays due to COVID and other factors, the final three defendants in the 2016 abductions and murders of Yolo County teens Enrique Rios and Elijah Moore receive their prison sentences.

Chandale Shannon and Jesus Campos get life terms after their May convictions at trial, while Jonathan Froste, who cooperated with the prosecution, was

sentenced to 15 years to life for his second-degree murder plea.

Froste’s brother David Froste, who orchestrated the killings over a $300 marijuana robbery, received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole back in 2018.

Rios was 16 when he vanished from his family’s Esparto home on the night of Oct. 16, 2016.

Moore, 17, disappeared less than three weeks later, on Nov. 4, 2016, after cashing a check on Main Street in Woodland and making a brief call to his mom, Alicia.

The case took years to unravel and experienced repeated delays since David Froste’s conviction, and not only due to the COVID19 pandemic. Campos, a juvenile at the time of the alleged murders, underwent court proceedings that resulted in his case

being elevated to adult court.

Shannon, who according to his attorney and family is on the autism spectrum, twice had his court proceedings suspended when his lawyer cast doubt on his mental capacity to stand trial. Both times, court-appointed psychologists deemed him competent for the proceedings.

4. Teacher wages

A mass of teachers arrived at an otherwise routine October meeting of the Davis school board, marking another chapter in the ongoing struggle for Davis Joint Unified School District teachers to receive higher wages. The educators say they remain discontented with being told how valued they are by the board,

SADDLE: Riding high out there

From Page A1

Clinical trial helps cat’s condition

Special to The Enterprise

Lily, a 9-month-old female Bengal cat, is now in remission from feline infectious peritonitis thanks to clinical trials at the UC Davis veterinary hospital. Currently enrolling cats, these new clinical trials are focused on improving treatments for FIP. Lily’s remission shows the great promise these new therapies hold for cats with FIP. All clinical signs related to her previously diagnosed FIP have resolved.

FIP is a serious disease caused by a feline coronavirus variant, though not the one that causes COVID-19. The virus will spread through a cat’s body causing systemic inflammation. Up to 95% of cats diagnosed with FIP die without treatment. Cats can develop FIP at any age, but it is usually diagnosed in cats between 6 months and 2 years of age. It is one of the most common causes of death in young cats with infectious diseases. Currently there is no successful treatment approved for veterinarians in the U.S.

Drs. Emma Cosaro, Amir Kol, Brian Murphy, and Krystle Reagan are leading the way on the research behind the trials. Dr. Reagan recently told the American Animal Hospital Association that she hopes these studies will find a treatment that is readily accessible to treat cats

diagnosed with FIP.

Previous research conducted by UC Davis Professor Emeritus Niels Pedersen uncovered several promising treatments for this disease, including an antiviral drug, GS-441524, that was found to be safe and efficacious in treating cats with naturally occurring FIP. However, the drug is not readily available in the United States. The current trials expand on Pedersen’s research to further improve FIP treatment.

The trial Lily participated in investigates the safety and efficacy of remdesivir, which is similar to GS-441524. This study is enrolling two treatment groups — one will receive oral GS-441524 and the other will receive oral remdesivir for comparison.

“I feel incredibly blessed that we had this opportunity to participate in the trial,” said Kristina Wardlow, Lily’s owner. “Now that she’s finished, you can’t tell there was every anything wrong with her.”

Lily’s treatment consisted of once per day oral medication for 84 days, including several recheck appointments to monitor the progression. At present, Lily’s treatment group has not been revealed as the clinical trial is ongoing.

“Every day was a little bit better,” said Wardlow, assessing Lily’s marked

improvement through the process. “She started gaining weight really well.”

At Lily’s initial screening for the trial, she weighed 2.6 pounds at 3 months old, with no signs of continued growth. By the end of the trail, she weighed 7.3 pounds, and Wardlow now reports Lily weighs more than 8 pounds.

At the final recheck appointment, Lily was bright and happy with no signs of FIP in her system.

The other UC Davis clinical trial seeks to determine if antiviral drugs combined with mesenchymal stem cells may improve response to treatment for FIP. The goal of the study is to see if cell therapy can enhance the immune response and support restoration of a normal immune system post infection. The two treatment groups in this study will either receive oral GS-441524 along with an infusion of a novel cellbased therapy, or oral GS-441524 with a placebo. Cats must be within 3-12 months of age and have the wet form of FIP.

“It was amazing to work with the UC Davis team,” said Wardlow. “Everybody was so supportive — they clearly detailed everything I needed to do, because there is a lot of home care needed by the owners.”

Lily is expected to live a full life.

Like many college students, Kent had a parttime job to complement her already grueling academic schedule which included a major, minor, making the Dean’s list and a research position — on top of having a social life, of course. As she’s an avid football fan, it was only fitting she landed a job as an assistant of the UCD football team.

“I did video editing stuff, recruiting stuff, promotional stuff, scouting reports, helped with game day set up and tear down. Pretty much did everything they needed me to,” said Kent. “It was a super fun job. I also learned a lot about football through that process which was cool and seeing all the work that goes on behind-the-scenes.”

Nowadays, Kent is a proud alumnus who owns

her own business called Kent Dressage. With a background in horseback riding from her time in Oregon, Kent combined it with everything she learned at UCD to keep her business thriving.

“I train horses to do dressage which is a very high-level and fine-tuned type of training. My major helped because it taught me about the best way to maximize exercise, how to maximize recovery and performance. Exercise biology pertains to humans and isn’t exactly the same as horse training, but it’s the same idea,” said Kent. “It’s all applicable when I’m mak-

ing conditioning programs for the horses, nutrition programs and recovery programs. All the concepts are basically the same. Then with my business and schedule, UCD helped me out a lot with time management skills.”

To stay up-to-date or get in touch with Kent for her dressage services, visit her website at kentdressage.com or her social media accounts by searching @maddykentdressage.

— Reach Aaron Geerts at aaron.geerts@ mcnaughton.media.

From Page A1

Monica Stark/EntErpriSE filE photo

Striking UC Davis grad-student workers march Nov. 14 into and out of Shields Library on campus.

aaron GEErtS/EntErpriSE filE photo

Davis Joint Unified School District teachers crowd the City Hall courtyard ahead of Oct. 6’s school board meeting.

reminisced on her tenure at UCD. “I loved all the Picnic Days, going to the bars and playing on all the coed teams in intramural sports. I played mostly soccer and even got to play in men’s intramural soccer games for the Alpha Epsilon Pi team.”

Maddy Kent is a proud UCD alumna who owns her own business — Kent Dressage.

taMara torti/ courtESy photo

Lily’s feline infectious peritonitis is in remission following successful participation in a clinical trial at the UC Davis veterinary hospital.

courtESy photo

2022: New challenges kept local community on its toes

without receiving the corresponding compensation.

Although the board adhered to the meeting agenda, the focal point was the teachers’ collective demand for higher wages. And they were back the next week to fill the public-comment portion with continued please for increases in pay.

“I too have the same question as the gentleman a couple weeks ago,” said California Employee Association President, Sande Royval. “‘When is a good time to make historic moves on our wages and benefits?’ It’s now. The storm is here and we’re all feeling it.

There is as yet no resolution, but the teachers and their supporters were out in force again in Central Park in December, vowing to continue.

5. Commencement

trouble

June’s spring commencement ceremonies had to be called off at UC Davis Health Stadium due to excessive heat.

In past years, UCD held undergraduate commencements as seven separate indoor events. For the first time, 2022’s ceremonies were planned as three outdoor events at UC Davis Health Stadium. The campus expected roughly 12,500 people at each one.

The ceremony was brought to a halt by the campus’ Fire Prevention Services after 36 people called for medical aid and seven were transported to local hospitals. It ended before many graduates were called to cross the stage and receive their diplomas.

UC Davis leaders promised to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the undergraduate commencement ceremony, Chancellor Gary S. May said Monday in a message to the campus community. An indoor ceremony in August gave students the opportunity to walk for their diplomas, but only a few dozen attended.

6. DISC fails again

For the second time in less than two years, Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus was turned down by voters. This time, as Measure H on the ballot, it was a slimmed down version of the original project and would have brought 1.1 million square feet of office, laboratory and advanced manufacturing space, as well as 460 housing units, retail and more to 102 acres east of the city and north of I-80.

The first version of the project was twice as large and turned down by voters in November 2020 on a 52-48 percent vote.

In June, the latest iteration went down by an even larger margin, 64 percent to 36 percent. And there was more fallout to come.

7.

Fatal collision on campus

Trisha Nicole Yasay, a 19-yearold UC Davis student, sustained fatal injuries on May 25 after colliding with a garbage truck on campus while riding her electric bicycle to class.

The fatality shook the UCD community. Dozens of people have left flowers and notes for Yasay at a makeshift memorial at the southwest corner of Dairy and Hutchison.

Her parents later file a wrongful-death lawsuit against the UC Regents and the driver of the garbage truck. While that case remains pending, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office recently concluded it won’t pursue any criminal charges in the matter after reviewing a Davis Police Department investigation report.

8. Dan Carson lawsuit

Davis City Councilman Dan Carson, honorary chair of the Yes on Measure H campaign (see No. 6, above), filed a lawsuit in the spring against six residents who had signed ballot arguments opposing Measure H. Carson contended multiple statements in the ballot

argument were false and misleading but a judge ordered just two small changes and left the bulk intact. He later ordered Carson to pay $42,000 in attorney fees. Carson was up for re-election in November and subsequently lost his council seat to Bapu Vaitla.

9. Max Benson death

Three former educators were indicted on involuntary-manslaughter charges in connection with the 2018 death of Max Benson, a 13-year-old autistic Davis boy who died after being restrained and losing consciousness at the private El Dorado Hills school where Davis school district placed him.

In December, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civll Rights announced the results of an investigation that revealed several violations of Max’s and other children’s rights, called for revisions of the district’s restraint

and seclusion policies and imposed increased staff training and monitoring requirements.

As a result of Max’s death, California established new laws and regulations regarding restraint and seclusion, staff training and parent notification at non-public schools, including increased monitoring practices.

10. Hate incidents

The UC Davis community was shaken in August when masked men twice displayed antisemitic banners from a highway overpass in Davis. “The Holocaust is an anti-white lie,” one of the banners said, according to a video provided to The Enterprise by a community member.

“Four white men wearing black clothing and masks displayed a banner over the Highway 113 bicycle overpass that contained racist antisemitic statements,” UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May

said in a message to the campus community.

Because the incident occurred in the campus police department’s jurisdiction, UC Davis issued an alert to students and employees. The chancellor and several other campus leaders met with students representing UC Davis’ Jewish community. UC Davis also has an Advisory Council on Jewish Life, which May said he and other campus leaders were working with to identify ways to address antisemitism and provide support for the Jewish community.

Then, in October, Swastika drawings were found inside UC Davis’ Alder Hall, a residence hall for first-year students. The graffiti was reported to campus police and UC Davis’ Harassment and Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program (HDAPP) and was immediately removed.

Caleb Hampton/enterprise file pHoto

Families of UC Davis graduates take a seat on the grass of UC Davis Health Stadium to take in June’s commencement ceremonies.

Big West opener UC Davis suffers difficult conference loss

Enterprise staff

HONOLULU, Hawaii — It’s not often that a head coach comes off a difficult road loss with high praise for his team, but UC Davis men’s basketball boss Jim Les was full of optimism after a difficult 74-66 loss to Hawaii in the Big West Conference opener for both schools Thursday night.

“I told our guys afterward that I was much more encouraged than discouraged,” Les noted.

“I think our effort was there and our fight was there and we played hard on defense. We were active and engaged and played at a high level with great energy for most of the game.”

The loss drops the Aggies to 0-1 in the Big West and 7-6 overall. Hawaii is now 1-0 and 10-3, as both schools look ahead to the remainder of the rugged 20-game Big West schedule.

“We need to harness that energy and focus for a longer time in the second half, but I loved our fight,” Les added.

“There were some real positives to build on and we just need to clean up some of the negatives.”

Robby Beasley and T.Y. Johnson had baskets around a 3-pointer from Christian Anigwe as the Aggies ran out to a 7-0 lead and appeared ready to blow the Rainbow Warriors out of the Stan

Sheriff Center before a crowd of 4,063. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Hawaii rallied to take a 12-11 lead and used a 3-pointer from Justus Jackson at the first half buzzer to take a 25-23 advantage into the break.

The Warriors were forced into 13 turnovers in the first half by an aggressive Aggie defense but had just two turnovers in the final 20 minutes to gradually pull away down the stretch.

UCD took a short-lived 30-27 lead on a 3-pointer from Beasley early in the second half and pushed the count to 37-32 when Beasley hit all three free throws after being fouled on a long-range jumper.

Undaunted, the Rainbow Warriors put together an 8-0 run and finally took the lead for good when Bernardo da Silva hit four free throws around a dramatic dunk for a 52-46 advantage with six minutes remaining.

The Aggies cut the deficit to 57-54 on a basket in the key from Elijah Pepper with 2:42 left, but JoVon McClanahan took over down the stretch with key 3-pointers as Hawaii stretched its lead to 10 points in the final minute.

Hawaii head coach Eran Ganot was both pleased and relieved at the end.

See LOSS, Page B6

girls BasketBall

Showdown in Pokey this year

My goodness, you take a day off and all hell breaks loose.

FAMILY FEUD Circle November 11 on next fall’s calendar and make plans to be in beautiful Pocatello as the Aggies, under head coach Dan Hawkins, take on the Idaho State Bengals under newly minted head coach Cody Hawkins.

Yes, for those who haven’t followed this startling development, this will be a father-son showdown.

Cody grew up in Boise when Dan had an incredible run of success at Boise State, so he’s not unfamiliar with the state of Idaho and southern Idaho in particular.

It’s a great opportunity that he simply couldn’t pass up, despite Idaho State’s recent difficulties on the gridiron.

The good news is that there’s nowhere for the Bengals to go but up.

SPEAKING OF CODY HAWKINS ... If you get a chance, watch Cody’s introductory press conference in Pocatello, where he very simply hit it out of the park.

He may have spent his most recent years in Davis, but he made no bones about the fact he is an Idahoan through and through. Ironically, his last game as a high school quarterback at Bishop Kelly of Boise was played in Holt Arena at Idaho State.

At the press conference, he even referred to his new hometown as “Pokey,” which is a nickname only the locals would know.

“For me, Idaho is home, so this is an extremely special opportunity for me,” Cody told an appreciative audience that included school

Blue Devils win consolation crown at Ram Jam

By Rebecca Wasik Enterprise correspondent

DIXON — Momentum continued to build for the Davis High girls basketball team on Friday morning at Dixon High’s Steve Cauchi Ram Jam Tournament on Friday morning.

Davis (5-8) secured the consolation title with a 39-29 win over host Dixon inside the Rams’ gym.

Strong team defense was the star of the show for the Blue Devils for their second game in a row.

“The team worked hard for that win today,” said Davis head coach Heather Highshoe.

“They showed a lot of grit and heart. I’ve been very pleased with our team’s defensive efforts in recent games. We are rebounding the ball well and sticking to our defensive assignments.”

Davis trailed Dixon 15-12 at halftime.

The Blue Devils’ defense was most prominent in the third quarter, as they held the Rams to only three points.

Davis got back in action when guard Malia Abrenica, who scored 18 points in the game, hit a 3-pointer to begin the quarter.

Although Dixon followed with a 3-pointer of its own, it would be the only points it scored in the quarter.

3-pointer

After a free throw and a bucket from Blue Devil junior center Tessa Schouten, Abrenica finished the frame for Davis with her second 3-pointer of the quarter.

Going into the fourth quarter, Davis led the Rams 21-18.

The Blue Devils’ offense was outstanding in the final frame, with the team scoring 18 points total.

Sophomore Noelani Castillo added two points to DHS’ tally on free throws at 5:58.

Izzy Cherry followed with a bucket and Abrenica made two free throws.

Two baskets from Schouten and another from Abrenica gave Davis a 33-27 edge.

From there, the Blue Devils were able to run away with the game as Dixon made only one more field goal.

Abrenica made six free throws in back-toback-to-back trips to the free throw line.

“Malia had a great game for us today,

especially in the fourth quarter,” said Highshoe. “She helped secure the win for us by going 8-for-8 from the free throw line and hitting a couple clutch 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.”

In the first quarter, Jiana Trotman scored two baskets for the Blue Devils and Schouten sunk one.

Despite the Rams scoring a 3-pointer at the 27-second mark, Blue Devils sophomore Vidya Merchant was able to give her team the lead going into the second quarter thanks to a basket made with nine seconds left on the clock.

Slim advantage

Davis held a slim 8-7 advantage going into the second quarter.

The Blue Devils fell behind offensively in the second quarter though, scoring only four points.

Following two buckets from the Rams, Cherry banked two free throws.

Abrenica’s first basket of the game came at

University of HaWaii/CoUrtesy pHoto

UC Davis forward Christian Anigwe (4) drives around a Hawaii player in Thursday’s Big West Conference opener.

angela sCHoUten/CoUrtesy pHoto

Davis center Tessa Schouten (11) goes up for a shot over a West Campus player in Thursday’s consolation game of the Ram Jam Tournament at Dixon High.

Higher-ed plan needs a serious overhaul

By Carlos O. Cortez Special to CalMatters

Amy Costa, incoming president of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors, aptly described the state’s “Master Plan for Higher Education” last month as “antiquated at best.” Community colleges are facing serious challenges securing baccalaureate degree programs, and the 62-year-old governing document is a major reason why.

The plan needs to be reworked not only to reflect new workforce realities, but to eliminate the vestiges of elitism baked into it.

Officially known as the 1960 Donahoe Higher Education Act, the state’s blueprint for higher education was touted as bringing a collection of competing colleges and universities into a coherent system. The University of California, California State University and California’s junior colleges were each assigned a specific role with a specific cadre of students – all in the name of providing access to higher education for anyone who wanted to pursue their studies.

But the UC system was given outsized influence in the plan’s development. Only the best and brightest students, which at the time came predominantly from the privileged class, would be allowed to attend the prestigious university. Lesser students were funneled into the CSU system, while everyone else only had the option of attending a junior college.

Even the name “master plan” hearkens back to a time of total subservience.

Higher education has evolved over the past 60 years. It is imperative that California stops looking for guidance on how to administer it from a law that was written when Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House. Community colleges today are offering more noncredit, short-term vocational certifications, and public universities offer certifications through burgeoning extension programs. Every college is expected to provide students with more social support, offering resources such as food pantries, housing assistance, legal aid and child care.

In 2014, California took an important step with Senate Bill 850 and a pilot program that allowed 15 of California’s 116 community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees for the first time (albeit limited to career-specific areas in regions lacking skilled labor). That was followed up on last year with Assembly Bill 927, which allowed as many as 30 additional community college baccalaureate programs annually.

The results have been impressive. An August study by UC Davis found that 56% of students graduating from a California community college baccalaureate program said they would not have pursued a bachelor’s degree unless it had been offered there. Community colleges are notably providing in-demand baccalaureate programs in fields the CSU and UC systems overlook.

Another factor: students from disadvantaged families who can’t afford to leave their hometown to attend a university can now secure a bachelor’s degree from a California community college for a fraction of the cost needed to fund a bachelor’s degree from a UC, CSU or private school.

Expanding opportunities at community colleges is a matter of equity. Approximately two-thirds of community college baccalaureate students are students of color, more than 70% of community college students are nonwhite, and 35% are the first in their families to attend college. What’s more, California’s public universities cannot keep up with the growing demand for bachelor’s degrees, and are turning away students solely because they have no room.

California’s community colleges are the bedrock of the state’s higher education system. With 1.8 million students at 116 colleges, it is the largest system of workforce training and higher education in the nation. Community colleges are every bit as vital to our economy as the University of California and California State University, and it’s time the governing documents for higher education reflected that.

— Dr. Carlos O. Cortez is chancellor of the San Diego Community College District. He wrote this for CalMatters, a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's Capitol works and why it matters.

A new year with familiar crises

It’s a new year, but the Democratic politicians who dominate the state Capitol face a raft of old problems that, if anything, worsened during 2022.

Despite a fairly wet winter – so far – California is still coping with a multi-year drought that’s devastating the nation’s most productive agricultural industry, the electrical grid struggles to meet demand, public school students are struggling with learning losses from COVID-19 school shutdowns, and the state’s chronic housing shortage underlies the nation’s highest rates of poverty and homelessness.

Any one of these crises could be labeled as existential – something that threatens California’s economic and societal future – and collectively they should tell the state’s politicians, including the recently re-elected Gov. Gavin Newsom, that it’s time to stop promising effective responses and start delivering them.

Just before 2022 ended, the state received two statistical jolts that should be wake-up calls on the need for decisive action.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that California's population declined for the

Letters

Cache Creek needs rights for nature

third straight year, largely due to hundreds of thousands of Californians voting with their feet, giving up on the state and seeking more welcoming, stable and less expensive places to live.

California used to be the place where people went to make better lives for themselves, but now we’ve become one of those places that people leave because we make it too difficult for them to prosper. Newsom often disparages states such as Texas and Florida, but they are gaining population while California is losing it.

The second negative data point came from the federal Department of Housing and Community Development, revealing anew that California has the nation’s worst homelessness problem.

The first “point-in-time” count of people sleeping in shelters and cars or living on the street since 2019 found an estimated 172,000 in

California, or 44 of every 10,000 people in the state – the nation’s highest rate.

It’s widely acknowledged that the official tally of homelessness probably understates the numbers, too, and it’s also evident that it’s worsened even as federal, state and local governments were spending countless billions of dollars to reverse the trend.

It’s also evident, as a recent article in The Atlantic explained, that the most important factor in California’s embarrassingly high homelessness rate is the state’s failure to build enough housing to meet demand. The shortage of housing drives up costs for both renters and would-be homeowners, thereby pushing some people into the streets and others to pack up and leave the state.

The state is at least a million housing units short and some estimates run as high as 3.5 million. The state’s official goal is adding 2.5 million units by the end of the decade, but that would require tripling the current rate of construction.

The simple fact is that building housing, particularly for low- and middle-

income families, is immensely difficult, and therefore immensely expensive, in California.

Local governments tend to make construction difficult because their voters tend to not want the traffic and other impacts of development. The state has adopted some pro-housing policies, but has added to construction costs by imposing its own design mandates.

The Capitol’s politicians have made some efforts to make development easier but they have been unwilling to take big steps, such as reforming the California Environmental Quality Act, which is often misused by anti-development activists and labor unions.

The Democrats’ dominance in the Capitol should make it easier for them to do what’s necessary to address housing, homelessness and other major issues. However, the lack of effective political competition also makes it easy for them to avoid making hard decisions.

— CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

I am Desmond Beach, a 16-year-old in my sophomore year, and I have been active in the Davis climate justice community for the last nine months.

I read with great interest the Dec. 11 commentary, “Yolo County Needs a ‘Just Transition’ Climate Action Plan,” which talks about the many communities being unfairly impacted by the mining and destruction occurring in the lower Cache Creek in what was once a thriving ecosystem and home to Native Patwin-Wintun communities. As residents of Davis, we often forget to think of our neighbors who are living in a much less privileged environment. I think that not enough people are actively aware of these issues, and that is a problem.

As for a “Just Transition,” or systemic

enterprise

A McNaughton Newspaper Locally owned and operated since 1897

Foy S. McNaughton President and CEO R. Burt McNaughton Publisher

Official legal newspaper of general circulation for the city of Davis and county of Yolo. Published in The Davis Enterprise building, 325 G St., Davis, CA. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1470, Davis, CA 95617. Phone: 530-756-0800. An award-winning newspaper of the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

Speak out President

change to how Yolo County deals with climate change, implementing some rights for nature would be essential to growing the Cache Creek ecosystem into a livable space for all who inhabit it. Rights of nature is a legal concept used all over the world, in small ways, such as protecting local forests and creeks, and in larger ways, such as how the constitution of a country like Ecuador enshrines the protection of ecosystems and species. Giving rights to Cache Creek would prevent the situation from worsening, and also establish a “healthcare plan” of sorts for the area, rebuilding the desecrated ecosystem.

A healthy ecosystem is the backbone of a good living environment, and what benefits nature, will always benefit people. Even though we so often forget it, all humans are animals, too, and are therefore as much a part of an ecosystem as the birds and beetles.

It upsets me that it is so easy for these mining corporations to destroy this land and it has to stop! If you are as inclined as I am to make a change—spread the word

202-224-3553; email: padilla.senate. gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

House of Representatives

about Cache Creek, contact members of the Yolo County Climate Action Commission to share your concerns about the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, protest! This cannot be allowed to continue, and we can stop it if we make ourselves heard.

Desmond Beach Davis

Entry into the U.S.

ABC News reports that starting Jan. 5, people flying from China will need a negative COVID-19 test within two days of their departure in order to enter the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A notable exception would be people who might fly from China into Mexico and then enter the United States on foot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have offered no “guidance” on this.

Julia Lutch Davis

We welcome your letters

The Hon. Joe Biden, The White House, Washington, D.C., 20500; 202-456-1111 (comments), 202-456-1414 (switchboard); email: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact U.S. Senate

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District office: 412 G St., Davis, CA 95616; 530-753-5301; email: visit https://garamendi.house.gov/contact/ email

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Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916-4452841; email: visit https://govapps.gov. ca.gov/gov40mail/

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Sebastian Oñate Editor

Op-Ed

How I learned to get along with my enemies

By Tom H. Hastings Special to The Enterprise Who am I supposed to hate, again?

For years I taught a graduate class, Identity Conflict, and I would begin the term by noting that trying to list the composite identity elements of any one individual would show that, indeed, we are unique. No two humans share an exact measure of identities. Even twins billed as "identical" have identities that are separate, if only "born first," and "born second."

My tribal labels: white, boomer, male, Green/Democratic, professor, pacifist (except to mosquitos and rats), and much more. Your tribal labels extend into many permutations of your primary identity, carving out your unique identity now and forever on this Earth.

Nonetheless, we manage to stress one identity on many days, and allow that to create borders and even conflicts with those who do not share that one aspect of Who I Am. That frequently erupts into conflicts small and large, internal and between peoples. Those who hold multiple identities are often caught in the middle: One study looked at the effects on Muslim girls in British schools and the challenges faced by both the girls and the schools. Another examined the devoutly religious who are LGBTQ+ and subjected to exhortations to "pray the gay away." These pressures can fracture communities and damage innocent people.

In my field of conflict transformation, we know that loss intensifies that aspect of identity and sets up a typology of identity: Us vs. Them. My field is highly interdisciplinary; we borrowed this identity-intensification-asa-legacy-of-loss from a cross discipline, social psychology. It's basically the collective version of passive-aggressive behavior. The narrative is: We were defeated and now we hate them forever, we nurse the desire for revenge in our private circles, we gather our forces behind the scenes for as long as it takes (even generations if needs be), and then we strike.

Welcome to Hitler's Germany, striking back after World War I and the retributive Treaty of Versailles. Say hello to Rwanda following the brutal colonization by Belgium and the favored treatment of the Tutsi population. We're looking at you, Palestine, since your land was stolen, and you are second-class citizens at best. And of course, we have our frustrated men from former Confederate states, whose ancestors lost the U.S. Civil War. This list is virtually endless.

Everybody wants payback.

So, we will expect that forever, or until wars either escalate to thermonuclear Apocalypse or consume and spew out so much carbon we kill the climate and ourselves in the bargain (is anyone tracking the carbon bootprint of the war in Ukraine, for instance?). Destructive conflict, often fueled by identity, may be the ultimate undoing of our species.

I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, born in 1950 and thus turned 18 during the most furious part of that war, the Tet Offensive. I am supposed to hate my brothers who served in combat in that illegal, immoral war.

I don't — never have. As soon as the first of my friends came home, all that tension evaporated and was instead redirected entirely toward the Johnsons and Nixons and Dow Chemical executives and all those who profited. Of course, my first friend who came home did so in a wheelchair for life, a goodlooking, friendly big brother to one of my closest friends, a kid who was kind to all of us, someone whose smile remains in my minds-eye, my minds-heart.

Hate? I just say no.

Poem of the month

Happiness

For many years of my life I was foolish, wasting my time, loving the wrong people, not loving the others enough. I wanted so much, so many things—there was no end to my wanting, to the hunger that filled me up. For most of my life, I was happy only in moments, like the time in high school we drove to the lake in someone’s old rattly car, and on the way back stopped to rent horses and rode them in the rain. So long ago, I don’t remember who I was with or where we were, but I remember my wet hair, my wet clothes, and the wide, smooth haunches of the horses, as round and taut as apples, shining with water, stinking of horse, brushing against the coarse, tangled undergrowth, releasing the smell of leaves and green on the muddy path.

— Carolyn Miller from “Light, Moving” (2009) Sixteen Rivers Press

Carolyn Miller is a freelance writer and editor living in San Francisco. She has published three full-length books of poetry — “Route 66 and Its Sorrows” (Terrapin Books, 2017); “Light, Moving”; and “After Cocteau” (Sixteen Rivers Press,

commenTary

Fast forward to our current time, and the Patriot Prayer (local Proud Boys hereabouts) are supposed to hate me and I am bound to hate them. I mean, my sons are African American and they are white supremacists. I am for peace and they want violence. I am disarmed; they are armed.

But we get along. They have literally reached out to me to shake my hand. I can place my hand on the shoulder of the biggest and baddest of them, and I have.

Why? Why stop hating the terrible conniving rotten Other who clearly wants you dead?

Because the hate only feeds more hate, more destruction, more violence, more useless continuation of wreckage. Unless some people simply stop, however unilaterally that might be, the hate will never vanish. It may go under some rock when social norms force it there, but it is like a peat bog fire just waiting under the surface, for years sometimes, before conditions allow it to erupt into a raging wildfire.

How? How to drop the hate?

For me, as a member of an unarmed public-safety team, I

know, as all of us in this practice know, that we will often be required to just do so unilaterally, to "take one for the team," and to understand that when we are disrespected, insulted or even assaulted, it is never in service to the community to respond with hate, nor to mirror disrespect, but to instead regard ourselves as in service to the well-being of the community, even if only for a limited time.

No one is afraid of us. No one holds a grudge against us. We do not dissemble; no one on our team nods in agreement when someone yells a sexist slur, a racist rant or any other offensive act. But neither do we debate them.

Instead, we seek clarity, we ask, we listen. We affirm what we can.

One young woman told a highly offensive anti-Islam counter-protester, "Sounds like you really care about this country." Her accurate observation did not affirm his point of view, but it de-escalated him and they had a discussion. She listened for several minutes, asking small clarifying questions, and then, shockingly, he asked her a couple and listened to her. Up until she approached him, he had been

live-streaming his racist rants. Once they started talking, he turned off his camera. Not only did she take him out of play for about 45 minutes, she helped diminish the hurtful tone of the counter-protesters substantially, since he was the alpha male of the group.

This young woman is an Iraqi immigrant, a former refugee who fled the war with her mother. She is brown-skinned and was covered, fairly obviously a Muslim. The man was literally wearing a T-shirt that said, "Stop being Muslim."

That young woman is our hope for an end to hate. We can do this. We need her emotional maturity, her willingness to absorb the hate and transform it into understanding, which then, in turn, becomes the weapon that diminishes and even banishes and vanishes hate.

There is hope. Humans have it in us. May 2023 show so much more of this healing.

Dr. Tom H. Hastings is coordinator of conflict-resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University, PeaceVoice senior editor, and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court.

2002) — and four limited-edition letterpress chapbooks (Protean Press).

Her poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry and have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Georgia Review, among other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including Garrison Keillor’s “Good Poems: American Places.” Her honors include the James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry from Shenandoah and the Rainmaker Award from Zone 3.

At the precipice of a New Year it is so tempting to make resolutions, to believe we can do it all better, we can stop wasting our precious time, we can love more and differently, we can face every obstacle with more faith and less anxiety, more resolve and less fear. It is so hopeful and human that we see beginnings, however arbitrary, as a new chance to finally make the changes necessary to live a better, happier life.

This is where “Happiness,” a lovely poem by Miller, begins. Where the speaker reflects on her foolishness, her past behavior of loving the wrong people in the wrong amounts, in her wanting so much that she refers to it as a hunger. In fact, in the first nine lines of this 18-line poem, Miller devotes four short sentences to how foolish and wasteful the speaker has been of her time.

But the way this poem is written, the reader is set up to believe that this will change or has already changed for the speaker. That happiness and joy have

been cultivated to fill in the largest portion of the speaker’s life. But this is why I love how the implicit conclusion is, in some sense, contradicted as the poem swerves into the last nine lines which make up half the poem in one sentence. These last nine lines are a breathless rush of sensual recollection. We are not only told how little context there is to this joyous moment (I don’t remember/.who I was with or where we were/), but we are led into the vividly recollected experience of the speaker as she remembers my wet hair, my wet clothes, and the wide, smooth haunches of the horses, as round and taut as apples, shining with water, stinking of horse, brushing against the coarse, tangled undergrowth, releasing the smell of leaves and green on the muddy path.

These lines are where Miller enacts a vivid presence of being, a sense of touch and scent and taste, that leaves the reader enamored and enthralled by the very essence of an experience. We, as the reader, feel we are there. Feel the exhilaration and thrill of riding a horse through a green world in rain. It is easy to believe this is joy. That this is what happiness is made of.

But can we conclude in this poem that the speaker has gone on to live a life of more joy, more presence, more contentment? It is a question that the poem poses but never answers. In fact, because it remains mysterious, the reader may

now ask if happiness is only present in recollection. Can it be cultivated? And what about longing, should we stop wanting more or different?

It's not that we don’t all wish for more happiness. But what exactly does that mean? This poem, like the New Year, poses an opportunity for the speaker to believe that the reader has become more of what she believes she should be. What all of us imagine makes for a better life.

I am not in any way saying that we should not try to be more mindful of our wanting, our hunger. Or that there is not good reason to work towards being more present in our lives, in loving the right people. But, although Miller is a poet who writes convincingly and beautifully about the joy of being, I love that this poem, titled “Happiness,” suggests that perhaps, it is only in recollection that we know what matters, what is vividly experienced, what feels like joy.

Because we are human and foolish and often forget our animal, sensual natures, perhaps sometimes we need to just “waste” time, whatever that means. Perhaps life for a human, if they are lucky, is complex, full of regret and longing and sadness, because joy, no matter what we might think, is fleeting and often understood best in reminiscence. Perhaps it might even be okay for your current poet laureate to want for all of you readers a rich, complex, human new year!

— Julia Levine Davis Poet Laureate

icymi: our Top 5 sTories of The week Editors’ choice for web comment of the week

n Davis police investigate hate-crime assault: http://wp.me/p3aczg-4fZJ

n No charges filed in fatal UC Davis collision: http://wp.me/p3aczg-4g2o

n Holman named Citizen of the Year: http://wp.me/p3aczg-4fSk

n Water polo: Wright calls it an (amazing) career at DHS: http://wp.me/p3aczg-4fSf

n Davis Cards & Games keeps good times and dice rolling: http://wp.me/p3aczg-4fVU

“Ouch! After many decades away from Davis, I still think of him as just around the block from me.”

From Ray Warner

In response to “Death notice: Stephen James Tingus”

Let Libby lead you to literary love again

Idon’t recall if we’ve talked about this, but if left unchecked, the only reading I do is news. I use *gag* Twitter as a news aggregator where all the subscriptions we have for newspapers and magazines — which is far more than you are thinking — keep me oversupplied with info.

This unhealthy habit started before the Trump presidency, but it certainly became virulent from 2016 to now. It’s safe to say that news from the past six years has not made for good bedtime stories.

During this same spell, I’ve gotten comfortable with reading on screens. Whereas I used to think I was only about proper paper books/magazines/newspapers, I’ve come to realize that my +1.75-strength reading glasses still struggle with a 10-point Times New Roman font. On a screen, you just pinch your fingers together and stretch

out that text.

As I was trying to stop reading so much news and get back into leisure reading of novels, I became hooked on ebooks. And you know who has a really easy way to read books on screens? Amazon. If you’ve read this column for any amount of time, you know that I’ve been breaking up with Amazon for years.

Sure, we sometimes reunite when I’m truly desperate for an overnight delivery of a TV remote — true story — that went missing when I was wrapping Christmas gifts and amazingly didn’t reappear once the new remote came. But mostly I

stick to my personal mantra of never buying from small-business-murderer, disgustingly greedy Amazon.

Still, the combination of Amazon’s ease-of-use for ebooks and the ability to get a free trial of a book before buying, got its hooks into me. I would download a sample of a book, which usually gives you the first 25-50 pages or so, to see if I liked it.

“Liking it,” in my case, is mostly related to the writing style. A great story is ruined by a writing style I don’t like, whereas I will read the most unimaginative story if the author tells it in a compelling way.

Thus, I’d gotten in to the habit of downloading samples via Amazon’s Kindle, and in moments of weakness, buying the book from my nemesis. Blech.

About four months ago, though, I had a vague memory

that the Yolo County Library lets you check out ebooks. With a little internet searching, I found Libby, “the (free) library reading app.”

Basically, Libby lets you access all of the Yolo County Library’s ebooks and audiobooks and check them out for 21 days, the same as if you went into the library and pulled one off the shelf.

The library has posted three short videos on getting started with Libby, so start here — https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=PMvFHi-U5ao — to see how great this service is.

Over these four months, I’ve downloaded many book samples and decided they weren’t for me, and I’ve read quite a few novels.

I’ve also put a variety of books on hold because they are popular, since this is a library, after all.

I’m personally thrilled to be supporting our library again,

one of the worthiest of community assets, IMO.

The one downside I’ve found is that I haven’t finished some books before they’re due and have to return them when another eager reader has a hold on it. This is disappointing, but that’s how libraries work.

The big upside of that same issue is that I have returned to reading in a way that I haven’t done for years. I know I have limited time with a book so I read more at a time, becoming fully immersed in the story. And I’m so much better for that time Libby has given me with Ann Patchett, Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, and Jean Hanff Korelitz. Thank you, Libby.

— Tanya Perez lives in Davis with her family. Her column is published every other Sunday. Reach her at pereztanyah@ gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter at @californiatanya.

Support human-trafficking survivors

By Natalia Baltazar Special to The Enterprise

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, a month to raise awareness about human trafficking issues and support survivors. Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.

Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked worldwide — including right here in the United States, see dhs.gov/ blue-campaign. California is one of the largest sites of human trafficking in the U.S. In the Sacramento Valley region, there is an urgent need to provide more assistance, immediate care, and access to services for the victims and survivors of these devastating crimes, according to a recent report ,”Estimating Sex Trafficking in Sacramento County, CA, 2022.”

Through a timely interview with Terri Galvan, Former Executive Director of Community Against Sexual Harm and Principal Researcher for a participatory action research project in Sacramento County we will highlight several sex trafficking issues in our region based on Galvan’s research.

CASH, RTI International, and Sacramento State’s Institute for Social Research partnered to estimate the scope of sex trafficking in Sacramento County. This research was funded by the State of California and was designed using participatory action research to understand the scope and nature of sex trafficking in one geographic location.

This was the first study to estimate prevalence of sex trafficking in a California community and the first sex trafficking prevalence study set in the United States that included adults. The study used a mixed-methods design that included a multiple systems estimation and semi structured interviews that used a respondent-driven sampling design to gather more contextual information about sex trafficking and the needs of victims and survivors. Galvan notes this research is only about sex trafficking – not all human trafficking.

We estimated that there were 13,079 minor and adult sex trafficking victims in Sacramento County in the period of 2015 to 2020. This analysis suggests that there are 9.6 times more victims in the county than are identified by law enforcement or service providers. Survivors were diverse in age, race, and ethnicity;

EmpowEr Yolo

however, African American women were overrepresented compared to the population.

The mean age at the time of exploitation was 20 years old with the majority having a first experience of trafficking under the age of 20. Sex trafficking was not limited to young people. Many of those interviewed indicated that they were unable to leave their situation because of violence and the lack of any other means to support themselves and sometimes their family; (Galvan, 2022) see the full report at www.rti. org/impact/estimatingsex-trafficking-in-sacramento-county.

Based on Galvan’s research Yolo County is not immune to issues of sex trafficking. In fact, there’s a prevalence of victims that are not being identified. Many of our victims in Yolo County are also being trafficked in Sacramento because of the transitory nature of the abuse. Our work in recognizing and responding to human trafficking victims in our community needs to be better, stronger, and more responsive.

“The biggest issue that this study revealed is that we are not doing a good job of identifying people who are being sex trafficked. We are also not doing a good job of letting people know that help is available to them and ensuring that we have a strong regional crisis response. This is a regional issue, not specific to Sacramento County. As part of the semi structured interviews, many reported not thinking that what they were going through was something they could be helped with, and others attempted to reach out for help and found waitlists and barriers to the immediate help they needed,” says Galvan.

The research shows our community response needs to better identify and protect all sex trafficking victims especially African American women and young adults. There needs to be more targeted outreach, a strong, coordinated community response, and access to immediate services and resources.

CASH is a leader in the movement to end sex trafficking and support survivors. “CASH continually improves to best serve the needs of survivors of sex trafficking. We are the only organization in Sacramento County that exclusively serves women who have been commercially sexually exploited. We

started in 2008 as a street outreach organization, grew into a drop-in center, and now also provide dedicated services that meet the unique, and often complex, needs of survivors. Our services are centered on what the survivor needs. We can assist in a crisis, we can provide short-term help to resolve an issue or challenge, and we can provide long-term support for women and families as they work on wellness, housing, and employment,” Galvan says.

CASH and Empower Yolo partner in various ways to meet the emotional, housing, and service needs of survivors of sex trafficking. “CASH uses a survivor-led model of mentoring, which is a very helpful way to connect with people who have been marginalized, fear judgment, or are unfamiliar with services that can meet their needs. CASH offers their mentoring services to all organizations working with survivors.

Empower Yolo provides housing in a traumainformed environment, which is one of the most pressing needs of survivors,” says Galvan.

Advocates at CASH and Empower Yolo continue to work hard to provide services and resources for sex trafficking survivors.

Throughout our region, there are a variety of services and resources available to survivors. Empower Yolo has advocates on call to respond to human trafficking investigations and offer support to vic-

tims at local hospitals, law

enforcement agencies, forensic medical exams, CPS offices, or forensic interviews. There’s also a designated human trafficking advocate who works with survivors providing support, information, resources, and advocacy.

Empower Yolo provides services and resources for survivors of human trafficking including safe shelter, therapy, legal services, housing advocacy, food, clothing, and toiletry items. CASH provides wrap-around services that include crisis housing, connection to long-term housing support, medical and mental health care, legal and employment assistance, survivor-led educational classes, and services that continue for as long as a person needs support in their life. The Sacramento region also has a new hotline for victims of human trafficking at 916-664-7233.

We need the community’s support to end sex trafficking. “The first thing the community can do is understand that sextrafficking is an issue in all of our communities, and it can be prevented. This is a public health issue with root causes. The community can support efforts that reduce the likelihood that our daughters, sons, mothers, and community members are sex-trafficked in the first place. To support survivors, the community can partner with organizations doing anti-trafficking work to meet unique needs, offer

internships or supported

employment, reduce barriers to permanent housing, and involve survivors in community level decision making,” says Galvan.

In an effort to raise awareness, highlight issues, services, and resources for survivors Empower Yolo is hosting its annual human trafficking awareness month campaign. We will be cosponsoring an educational film screening with the Foster and Kinship Care Education Program:

Join us for a free film screening of “Shattered Dreams Sex Trafficking in America” from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17.

“Shattered Dreams: Sex Trafficking in America” is a first of its kind, feature length documentary that explores the deeply rooted psychological issues that victims of sex trafficking face on a daily basis at the hands of pimps and buyers. Through first-hand, heartbreaking testimony of abuse from three survivors of the illicit sex trade, the incredibly complex nature of this form of modern-day slavery is revealed. Investigative interviews with leading experts from across the country provide further insight on what drives the industry, exposing shocking revelations about the society we live in and the misconceptions many of us harbor that allow sex trafficking to thrive.

After the screening we will have a panel of local experts to talk about what we can do in Yolo County to support survivors. To

register in advance and to enter the workshop visit: Zoom link: https:// us02web.zoom.us/meet ing/register/tZcpceGqq DkjEtNjZt8XR1ZOgOK pIofU661q.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. We encourage community members to get involved by watching the film screening to learn more about the issues and what they can do to support survivors.

Empower Yolo in partnership with Soroptimist, Davis and Woodland will host a toiletry drive for human trafficking survivors for the month of January. Please donate new, travel-size toiletry items (i.e. shampoo/conditioner, body wash, soap, deodorant, chapstick). Other helpful items are gift cards for coffee, fast food, gas and groceries; non-perishable snacks; sweat pants (any sizes); towels or wraps to keep warm.

Items can be dropped off at the main office at 175 Walnut Street, Woodland, or 441 D Street, Davis during office hours. With these donated items, Soroptimist will be creating comfort backpacks and delivering them to local hospitals for human trafficking survivors. Starbucks at 1649 Research Blvd in Davis will be partnering with Empower Yolo in January and will also be hosting a donation site. Purchase gift cards for coffee or drop off any donation items at their location.

Thank you to Bayer for sponsoring Empower Yolo’s Human Trafficking Awareness Month campaign again this year; we are grateful for their continued support. Please follow our efforts throughout the month on Facebook @ empoweryolo, Instagram and Twitter @empower_ yolo, or donate to our human trafficking program at empoweryolo.org.

For more information on human trafficking contact Jen Vasquez, AntiHuman Trafficking Advocate at Jen@ empoweryolo.org, or call our 24-hour crisis line for support at 530-662-1133. All services are free, safe, and confidential.

Join Empower Yolo and CASH to help strengthen our community response to meet the needs of human trafficking survivors in our region. Each one of these thousands of local victims deserves compassion, safety, and the belief that survival from abuse is possible.

— Natalia Baltazar is the Director of Development and Community Relations of Empower Yolo.

CourtE sY photo

Terri Galvan, right, and her co-worker Leslie Rust at CASH.

By Stephan Pastis

By Charles M. Schulz

Did Seahawks know something Broncos didn’t?

Firing coach Nathaniel Hackett, as the Denver Broncos did on Monday, will not come close to curing all the ills this franchise has.

Denver traded five draft choices, including two first rounders and three players, to the Seattle Seahawks for quarterback Russell Wilson, whose best years could be behind him.

On top of that, Denver signed Wilson to a contract extension totaling $245 million. Did Seattle know something about Wilson that Denver didn’t? Sure appears that way.

n Going into today’s NFL regular season play, 24 teams are still in the hunt for a playoff spot.

n Being left-handed has its benefits.

Pitcher Rich Hill signed a 1-year deal this week with the Pittsburgh Pirates, giving Hill his 12th team in an 18-year career. Two more and he catches all-time leader Edwin Jackson, who pitched for 14 teams from 2003-19.

Hill turns 43 in March. He owns an 82-59 career record.

n Despite his obvious pitching skills, Trevor Bauer is going to have a hard time finding a team willing to absorb his offfield misbehavior.

Almost certainly it won’t be Bauer’s most recent club, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Though the Dodgers will have to pay him $22 million to go away.

n Pele, the greatest soccer player in the sport’s long history, died Thursday at age 82.

His given name was Edwin Arantes do

Nascimento.

Pele played 10 years for Santos FC in his native Brazil, then 10 more with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.

With Santos, he scored 643 goals in 659 games. Over his 21-year career, Pele had 1,281 goals in 1,367 matches.

He is considered the face of the sport the world over and is directly responsible for the growth of soccer in the United States.

“Pele is one of the few who contradicted my theory,” Andy Warhol once told The New York Times. “Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”

n We lost a great deal of our sports heroes in 2022.

Notably Bill Russell (basketball), Gaylord Perry (baseball), Franco Harris (football), John Clayton (media), Guy Lafleur (hockey), Roger Angell (author), Mike Leach (football), John McVay (San

YEAR: Many new Big Sky football head coaches

From

to 1954.

COACHES ON THE MOVE In a span of 72 hours a few weeks ago, there were suddenly five head football coach openings in the 12-team Big Sky Conference. Vacancies like this don’t come around very often.

The biggest news was the departure of Sacramento State’s Troy Taylor, who became the head coach at Stanford.

Three of the other four departing head coaches left for assistant’s jobs at FBS programs. Weber State’s highly successful Jay Hill joined Brigham Young, while Idaho State head coach Charlie Ragle and Cal Poly’s Beau Baldwin both left for assistant’s

positions at Arizona State.

Northern Colorado’s Ed McCaffrey — Christian’s dad — was let go after two seasons.

Former Davis High star Paul Wulff was named to succeed Baldwin at Cal Poly. Wulff has previously been head coach at Eastern Washington and his alma mater Washington State

BIG, BIG SHOES TO FILL ... The job I wouldn’t want is taking over for Troy Taylor at Sac State.

In three short years, Taylor took a team that was winless in Big Sky play the previous year and won three straight league championships, going 23-1 in the strongest FCS conference in the nation.

The Hornets were ranked No. 2 nationally this fall as they entered the postseason.

It’s a bit like taking over

for Jim Sochor at UC Davis, though Bob Foster and then Bob Biggs performed that task admirably. Sochor, of course, roamed the Aggie sideline for 19 years before stepping down to take the athletic director’s job and was later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

SPEAKING OF TROY

TAYLOR ... It will be interesting to see how Taylor does at Stanford, a once-dominant program that has fallen on hard times the last few years.

Hornet fans were certainly sad to see him go, especially because of his 3-0 record against UC Davis.

Oddly, the Hornets scored 27 points in each of those victories, 27-17, 27-7 and 27-21, the last being one of the most exciting Causeway Classics in a rivalry that stretches back

LOOKING AHEAD

Once again, the Aggies will open the 2023 football season with two games on the road, the first at Texas A&M Commerce and the second at resurgent Oregon State.

And let’s just say that the Beavers, who finished a 10-3 campaign by routing Florida, 30-3, in the Las Vegas Bowl, are considerably more formidable than they were when this game was scheduled several years ago.

UCD hosts Southern Utah in its only other nonconference game before the eight-game Big Sky schedule begins with home games against Eastern Washington, Montana, Portland State and Sacramento State, with away games at Cal Poly, Weber State, Northern Arizona and Idaho State.

Francisco 49ers), Earnie Shavers (boxing), Bruce Sutter (baseball), Dan Reeves (football), Tom Weiskopf (golf), John Hadl (football), Paul Silas (basketball), Don Maynard (football) and Mike Bossy (hockey) along with several others.

We salute their achievements and recognize their greatness.

Gone but not forgotten.

Lastly, Len Dawson, with whom I had the privilege of working with at the Kansas City Chiefs for eight years.

n 60-21-10. That is Luka Doncic’s stat line from the Dallas Mavericks’ Tuesday night overtime win over the New York Knicks.

As in 60 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, the first triple-double of its kind in NBA history.

n Have a happy, safe, prosperous, rewarding, all-things-good 2023. Contact Doug Kelly at DKelly1416@ aol.com.

WIN: Game Tuesday

From

2:35, in-between another two field goals scored by Dixon.

Schouten finished the game with nine points. She was named to the Ram Jam

All-Tournament Team. Trotman and Cherry had four points each, while Castillo and Merchant had two each.

Davis will host Vacaville in a non-league game on Tuesday. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.

LOSS: Aggies back in action on Thursday

From Page B1

“I thought our secondhalf adjustments really paid off,” said Ganot.

“We have a lot of respect for that program, and we know we beat a very good team. That’s why we’re really happy with this win.”

Les, too, had high

praise for the opposition. “You have to give them credit,” said the Aggie coach.

The Aggies return home on Thursday, Jan. 5 for a Big West game against UC Irvine at 6 p.m. Then host Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday, Jan. 7 at 5 p.m.

president Kevin Satterlee and athletic director Pauline Thiros.