enterprise THE DAVIS
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2020
Yolo County has 38,000 uncounted ballots ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
Jacob Weiss works in the field. His food-distribution platform, Sacramento Valley Food Hub, connects beginning farmers with schools, hospitals and other customers.
Enterprise staff writer
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Growing food forward DHS grad wins $25K award for entrepreneurship
back for three more summers after that. “I’m definitely super grateful that he gave me that chance,” Weiss said. Through his farm work and eventual graduate studies in agriculture at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Weiss observed a growing demand for local and sustainable produce, the rising rates of food insecurity and the struggle for small farms to access the larger market. Thus, he created a plan for the Sacramento Valley Food Hub, which would function as a food-distribution platform connecting beginning farmers
BY JULIETTA BISHARYAN Enterprise correspondent Jacob Weiss spent his summers working at the city of Davis basketball camp and refereeing soccer games — until he was given an opportunity that encouraged a different passion. After his freshman year of college, he was offered a job by Richard Collins at The Collins Farms and he worked there for the entire summer. He came
with anchor institutions, food entrepreneurs and underserved communities. This year on Oct. 7, he and his partners brought home $25,000 at the Friedman School’s Food and Nutrition Entrepreneurship Competition, winning both first place and the audience prize for their pitch to launch the food hub. The winning team consisted of New Entry Sustainable Farming manager Weiss and his classmates Cyrena Thibodeau and Emily Moschowits, as well as others. Weiss presented his team’s 10-minute pitch and answered questions from the judges, who included representatives from
Friedman among various food, wellness, healthcare and investment companies. If launched, the Sacramento Valley Food Hub would organize the food system to increase farm income, reduce on-farm food waste, help institutions source locally and reduce diet-related chronic disease by buying produce from small beginning farmers and selling it to anchor institutions that are increasingly demanding sustainable, local produce. Weiss plans to start building out the food hub within the next 12 months. He says that he did not come up with the
SEE GROWING, PAGE A3
Residents urged to take action to avoid purple tier BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer As expected, Yolo County’s adjusted COVID-19 case rate exceeded the metric required for the red tier on Wednesday, putting the county at risk of being moved to the most restrictive purple tier next week. Should that occur, many local businesses will be required to close indoor operations, including restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, museums and places of worship. Retail businesses would have to reduce capacity and schools that are not currently open for in-person instruction would not be able to do so except under a waiver for grades K-6. County officials are calling on residents to do their part to avoid that from happening,
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particularly by avoiding the social gatherings that remain the predominant source of cases in Yolo County. “The likelihood that businesses and a variety of other activities could be curtailed as a result of increasing cases should be sufficient to remind everyone to avoid large gatherings and practice the common COVID-19 health protocols of masks, physical distancing and frequent hand washing,” said Yolo County Supervisor Gary Sandy of Woodland. “We must all cooperate and take personal responsibility for diminishing the spread of this virus.” The state Department of Public Health moves a county into a more restrictive tier if it meets one or more of the metrics in that
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Yolo County had a record-high turnout of 99,576 voters for the Nov. 3 election and still needs to count more than a third of those ballots. As of Thursday afternoon, there were 37,988 unprocessed ballots in the county elections office in Woodland. Of those, 35,684 were vote-bymail ballots; 222 were provisional ballots; 1,518 were conditional or same-day registration ballots; and another 384 were ballots that were damaged or needed further review. The numbers are not unusual for Yolo County, however; the Thursday following the November 2018 midterm election, there were also more than 30,000 ballots still to be processed. More recently, two days after the March primary, there were more than 25,000 ballots to be counted. The bulk of ballots following each of those elections were vote-by-mail ballots dropped off on Election Day or the day before. However, the results posted on Election Night did not change much in either case, with the exception of the Davis school parcel tax which squeaked out a win after originally trailing in the early results. New this year, the elections office must accept and count any ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 that are
SEE BALLOTS, PAGE A4
Affirmative-action measure falls short BY CALEB HAMPTON
tier for two consecutive weeks. The three metrics are the daily new case rate, the test positivity rate countywide and the test positivity rate for the most disproportionately impacted communities in a county (also known as the health equity metric). For the week ending Oct. 24, both of Yolo County’s test positivity rates actually met the metrics for the less-restrictive orange tier, but the adjusted daily case rate rose to 7.2 per 100,000 residents, which exceeds the red tier metric. For Yolo County's population, averaging more than 15 new cases a day exceeds the red tier metric. If the adjusted case rate for the week ending Oct. 31 also hits 7 or above, and the
Proposition 16, which would have repealed a 1996 ballot measure, Proposition 209, that made affirmative action illegal in California, fell short of the votes it needed to become law. As of Thursday, with 72% of the vote reported, 56% of votes cast were against the proposition and the result had been called. The measure would have made it legal for universities and government offices to take into account someone’s race, gender or ethnicity in making hiring and admissions decisions.
SEE PURPLE, PAGE A3
SEE AFFIRMATIVE, PAGE A4
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