Workers at N. Davis Peet’s vote to unionize

By Monica Stark Enterprise staff writer

Workers at the North Davis location voted 14 to 1 to unionize the coffeehouse with the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the union announced on Monday. North Davis Peet’s employees are the first Peet’s employees in the country to vote for unionization at their location, inspiring other shops.

The vote comes after nearly nine months of workers organizing with SEIU Local 1021 and with the help of Workers United, an SEIU affiliate organizing workers on the “Starbucks Workers United” campaign.

“This is the first time in my entire life that I feel I can stay in a job and be happy,” Trinity Salazar, a Peet’s Coffee barista who has been working at the North Davis location since July 2022, said in a statement. “We are all struggling, and we came together. Now, we’re more united. We have every right to be able to say how much we’re being paid, or at least negotiate it. If you’re sick, you’re sick. The company does not decide it. I don’t want my body to be destroyed when I am 21 years old. I’m literally 21 with back problems because of coffee.”

Peet’s Workers United announced a labor union rally outside the North

Davis Peet’s Coffee location on Saturday, Jan. 28, from 11 a.m. to noon, where union members in union apparel with signs and people giving speeches are expected.

Until Saturday, Peet’s Coffee workers are requesting the community of Davis and Sacramento support their victory by coming into the coffeehouse, tipping, congratulating team members, ordering a drink, and giving the order name “Peet’s Union Yes” or “Peet’s Union Strong,” according to a press release from PWU.

Meanwhile, workers at the downtown Davis

See PEET’S, Page A3

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2023

Planning Commission OKs R&D facility

By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer

The Davis Planning Commission on Wednesday approved plans for construction of a large research and development building along Second Street west of the Frontier Fertilizer superfund site.

The 107,612 squarefoot, one-story building at 3808 Faraday Ave. is expected to house as many as 125 workers in the areas of biotech and advanced manufacturing.

Property owner Buzz Oates is in negotiations with a tenant for the building, but a representative for the company did not reveal the identity of that tenant.

Rather, Logan James of Buzz Oates described the prospective occupant as “a current Davis tenant that’s in the biotech advanced manufacturing sector who needs to expand and would love to remain in the city of Davis, so long as we can meet all their requirements and meet their tight timeline.”

James added that “it is a priority for us to keep those folks here in Davis supporting the local economy and providing employment opportunity for residents and recent

UC Davis graduates.”

It’s not a done deal until the lease is signed, he noted, “but we plan to build this facility regardless of whether those guys sign a lease with us. We see it as a great infill site, great fit for the city and think it would be a great complementary user for the university and for the number of businesses operating along that Second Street corridor.” There are some clues to that prospective tenant’s focus. In addition to the building itself, the project also includes construction of an outdoor 7,500 square-foot testing pool with a gantry crane.

That 30-foot deep pool — described as a glorified swimming pool and fenced in for security and safety — would be used “to test their products and prototypes under deep water pressure,” James said, with the crane there “in order to get the equipment that they use into that pool.”

Across Faraday to the north sits another Buzz Oates tenant — Technip FMC’s Schilling Robotics — which builds remotely operated underwater vehicles.

Schilling leased that property at 3805 Faraday

See PLANNING, Page A4

Rural-arson trial gets started in Yolo County court

By Lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer

WOODLAND — Life can be tranquil in the country, but trouble brewed on County Road

41A during the spring and summer of 2021.

The Rumsey homestead gave shelter to multiple people at the time, including Ronald Christopher Stevens, who rented an outbuilding on the rural property.

“We argued quite often,” said Josant Croissant, who lived in a neighboring house with his parents, girlfriend and uncle. The quarrels, he added, focused on household bills, rent payments and Stevens’ overall behavior.

“He thought he was being treated unfairly, that he wasn’t doing the things they were saying,” Croissant said.

Later, the two men engaged in a civil conversation during which Stevens said, “ ‘We’re friends — it shouldn’t end like this,’ and I remember agreeing with him,”

Croissant recalled.

But Yolo County prosecutors allege it was the 64-year-old Stevens who ended things badly, setting a series of arson fires that destroyed several of the homestead’s dwellings and scorched the surrounding wildland. His trial began earlier this month in Yolo Superior Court.

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Gustavo Figueroa said Stevens had been living on County 41A for about a year when the landlord initiated a 30-day eviction action in May 2021.

“During the course of that 30 days, there’s some arguments and disagreements with some of the tenants and Mr. Stevens,” Figueroa told the jury.

When the deadline arrived and Stevens still wasn’t gone, he received a three-day notice to leave.

“Flash forward two days, June 9, 2021, and there’s a fire reported at about 8:30 at night in See ARSON, Page A3