The Davis Enterprise Wednesday, June 2, 2021

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021

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Despite lack of progress for Yolo County, reopening still just two weeks away By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer Yolo County failed to meet the metrics needed for the least-restrictive yellow tier in the state’s colorcoded COVID-19 blueprint this week and will remain in the orange tier until June 15, when all COVID19 restrictions on businesses and activities are expected to be lifted statewide. By then, the county will have spent nearly three months in the orange tier, where virus activity is considered moderate but capacity restrictions are still in place. For the second week in a row, Yolo County met two of the three yellow tier metrics — adjusted case rate and countywide test posi-

tivity rate — but exceeded the health equity quartile metric, which measures test positivity in the county’s most disadvantaged communities. Overall the county’s numbers differed very little from the previous week. The adjusted case rate reported by the state on Tuesday was 1.6 per 100,000 residents — the same as the week prior — and the countywide test positivity rate rose slightly from 0.3 percent to 0.4 percent. The health equity quartile rate improved from 2.7 percent to 2.4 percent but still exceeds the 2 percent threshold for the yellow tier. Several other counties made the move to yellow

this week, including Marin, Monterey and Ventura. Statewide, 19 counties are in the yellow tier and 35 in orange. All of Yolo County’s neighbors are now orange, with Sacramento and Solano finally making the move from the red tier this week.

Vaccines

Yolo County has four COVID-19 vaccine clinics scheduled for this week. Two are in Woodland, one in Clarksburg and the fourth in Esparto. Three of the four are open to the public with no appointments needed. n Thursday, June 3: a first-dose, drive-thru clinic

See TIERS, Page A3

covid19.ca.gov/Screenshot

Yolo County will remain in the orange tier until June 15 when the state eliminates its color-coded, tier-based system governing what activities are allowed throughout the state.

Yolo DA won’t seek death penalty in infanticide case By Lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer WOODLAND — The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office filed court documents Thursday saying prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against a former Yolo County man accused of killing his five infant children. Paul Allen Perez, 59, was ordered last month to stand trial on multiple first-degree murder charges with special circumstances in connection with the deaths of his four sons and one daughter, who prosecutors say were brutally abused and killed between 1992 and 2001. The remains of one infant boy were found in Yolo County in 2007. If convicted, Perez faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Attorneys in the case are scheduled to appear Tuesday in Yolo Superior Court to set a trial date. Linked by DNA to one of the allegedly slain children, Perez was just days away from release from state prison after serving time for a Yolo County vehicle

VOL. 124 NO. 66

theft and evading conviction when he was arrested in the current case in January 2020. The investigation began years earlier, in 2007, with a fisherman’s discovery of a weighted-down metal cooler in Conway Slough near Woodland. Inside were the remains of an infant believed to be less than 6 months old when he suffered blunt-force trauma and died, coroner’s officials said. Later in 2007, Yolo County coroner’s officials turned over the femur bones from the infant — then known as Baby Doe — to the California Department of Justice’s Richmond lab for DNA testing. But a break in the case didn’t come until August 2018, when the DOJ made a familial match that identified the biological father as Perez. From there, investigators looked for birth records connected to Perez, ultimately finding six children fathered with his second wife, Yolanda: Brittany, born in 1990;

See PENALTY, Page A3

Owen Yancher/Enterprise photo

Tristan Samalley of Davis Boy Scout Troop 66 places a flag at the grave of a fallen World War II veteran Friday, in honor of Memorial Day.

Dodd releases fire-safe legislative, budget package SACRAMENTO — State Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and members of the Senate Wildfire Working Group have unveiled a comprehensive legislative and budget package to address a growing wildfire crisis in California that has taken life and property with an average of 1.6 million acres burned each year. “The escalating frequency and devastation caused by wildfires across our state and in my district demands that we seek out

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reducing combustible fuels, creating fire breaks, expanding prescribed burning and enhancing our firefighting forces. All the bills are up for a Senate vote over the next week. These actions build on legislation passed in recent years and a record $2 billion investment in wildfire and emergency preparedness in this year’s budget. Included in the blueprint are two of Dodd’s bills: Senate Bill 109, which would create the Wildfire Technology

Research and Development Office to harness innovation to prevent and control wildfires. Also, the package includes my SB 332 to expand the use of prescribed burning. The Wildfire Working Group is co-chaired by State Sens. Mike McGuire and Susan Rubio, and includes State Sens. Dodd, Henry Stern, Ben Allen, Monique Limón and Nancy Skinner as its members.

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solutions,” Dodd said. “Climate change and the looming drought have underscored the threat. Fortunately, we’ve developed a solid game plan here. It’s a positive step toward keeping our communities safe. We are now focused on prevention and protection, which over the long term, will reduce the amount of resources we have to devote to suppression.” The Senate’s Blueprint for a Fire Safe California contains 11 bills aimed at

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Genealogical group to learn about 19th Amendment The year 2020 marked 100 years since the Susan B. Anthony (19th) Amendment joined the U.S. Constitution. With this amendment, 26,000,000 women were added to the rolls of eligible voters, which was a significant achievement in American history. After the women’s rights movement began with a convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. in 1848, it took nearly 75 years for suffragists to win the vote for women. At the next meeting of the Solano County Genealogical Society, Beverly Lane will present a virtual program “Women’s Suffrage Warriors — Women Win the Vote in 1920,” beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 5. Lane is a lecturer, historian and author and serves on the Museum of the San Ramon Valley and the Contra Costa County Historical Society boards. She also is a curator for the museum. Her presentation will include efforts to win civil rights for women, stories of the leaders, the 1911 California Woman’s Suffrage success, and a focus on the decade before the 19th Amendments’ passage in 1920. Guests are welcome to attend this free event. If interested, request an invitation via an email to the society at scgs@scgsca.org no later than 4 p.m. Friday, June 4.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021

Let’s give more people prizes for getting vaccinated

s state after state jumped on the vaccination lottery bandwagon in the last several weeks, I began to ask myself, what’s wrong with California? After all, we have been told that getting as many Californians as possible vaccinated is the ticket back to a normal life in our beloved Golden State. Well, the governor saw the handwriting on the wall and decided a vaccination lottery was the way to go as he fights to fend off a spirited recall movement that the experts say will fail. The governor, you see, is sitting on a $75 billion budget surplus, and apparently has decided to give away a small sliver of that to Californians who are reluctant to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated. This, plus reportedly another $26 billion in coronavirus relief money from the Feds, means the governor hopes to be able to use the power of the purse to achieve herd immunity. And, by the way, defeat his recall. As things stand now, 10 Californians who have received at least one shot will be awarded $1.5 million each on June 15. With six fully vaccinated folks residing in our humble household, I’m certain we’ll win at least one of the $1.5 million prizes, if not several more. If all six of us win, I’ll donate my share to a worthy Davis charity. There also will be 30 winners who collect $50,000 each, with 15 of them drawn this Friday and 15 more on June 11. So, we’ll have 40 winners in all and 20 or 30 million losers. I’m

not sure that’s how you defeat a recall effort. I don’t know if our family can win both a $1.5 million prize, plus $50,000, but we are counting on it. If we don’t win anything, we may consider voting for that guy campaigning with a bear. The weird thing here is that the fewer people who get vaccinated, the better the chances of winning are for those who are vaccinated. But it would be bad form to discourage people from getting their shots just to increase your chances of becoming a millionaire. Gov. Brown of Oregon (no, Jerry did not move north) beat Newsom to the punch by coming up with several creative ways to give away significant bundles of cold, hard cash to her fellow Beaver State residents. Brown announced that all Oregonians 18 and older, who have received at least one shot of any COVID-19 vaccine by June 27, will be entered into the “Take Your Shot Oregon,” drawing on June 28. In other words, this is not a reward just for the current batch of naysayers who need a nudge to get themselves into the vaccination line. No, every vaccinated person will get a shot — literally

— at a million dollars. Which only seems fair. After all, why should you be punished for doing the right thing long ago, while the chronic foot-draggers get rewarded for coming to the table late? Otherwise, it would be like putting the names of all drunk drivers into a million-dollar lottery if they agree never to drive drunk again, but leaving law-abiding sober drivers out in the cold. And, if you think I’m equating a refusal to get vaccinated with driving drunk, so be it. Both are a danger to our society. In addition to the statewide $1 million prize, Brown is offering $10,000 prizes to 36 more Oregonians, with one prize going to one resident in each of Oregon’s 36 counties. Which is a clever way of getting folks in Oregon’s many rural counties into the vaccination line. This may cause the 830,000 residents of Multnomah County, where Portland is located, to scream “foul” when they see that the same prize will go to residents of Wheeler County, which has just 1,440 residents. Just a wild guess, but I suspect Wheeler County’s population is about to quadruple in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, in the very long and large state south of Medford, Gov. Newsom is sitting on $101 billion and plans to start throwing dollar bills in the air as early as Friday. If he had followed Oregon’s model of having winners county by county, tiny Alpine County (Pop. 1,039) would have a $1.5 million winner just the same as

Los Angeles County (Pop. 10,081,570). A better plan, and one that I guarantee would lead to 100 percent vaccination compliance, would be to dump the entire $101 billion into a lottery that will award $1 million to 101,000 Californians. Divided by California’s 58 counties, it means each county will have 1,741 newly minted millionaires. Do the math and you realize that most residents of Alpine County will become double millionaires. But wait, I don’t think we really need to offer a chance at $1 million to get someone into the vaccination line. You’d think $100,000 would do it, or maybe even $10,000. Which would mean many, many more winners. I like the idea of weekly drawings instead of one big drawing at the end, because when your friends and neighbors start driving through town in their new Teslas, it might have a dramatic effect on the unvaccinated. Actually, when you think of it, California has about 33 million people age 12 and older. Gavin Newsom has $101 billion. Divide one into the other and everyone gets $3,060 just for getting vaccinated. A bit more if fewer than 33 million get the needle. I mean, wouldn’t you rather have $3,060 in your pocket guaranteed than a slimmer than slim “chance” at $1.5 million? It’s a plan with legs. — Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net

Juneteenth celebration goes virtual on June 6 By Becky Oskin Special to The Enterprise This year’s annual Juneteenth Celebration, themed “Still WE Rise,” goes virtual from 1:15 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, June 6, at https:// tinyurl.com/25674p4a. This family-friendly event will be recorded in Davis on DCTV and will feature a variety of entertainment and educational presentations by people from around the region. This year’s theme, “Still WE Rise,” was selected by Juneteenth organizers to inspire community members to think critically about the world they live in and that they can make a

difference. Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, does not coincide with the implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, but, instead, the day when the Proclamation was finally enforced in Texas, June 19, 1865, finally freeing the population of enslaved African Americans in that state. “This year’s theme is a call-to-action to remind us that united we can rise and make a difference in the areas of social justice, equity, equality and inclusion,” said Yolo County Library Regional Manager Scott Love. The event will kick off

with musical performances by Hisani Stenson and Mamadou Traore, and words from UC Davis Chancellor Gary May.

dance performance; M’Ster Lewis with a spoken-word presentation; and renowned artist TheArthur Wright, with his works.

The event’s featured speaker will be Master Quilter Khristel Johnson, who will show several of her quilts. Each quilt is meticulously designed using African fabrics, beads and textures that create a unique 3D effect and illustrates African American history through personal stories and significant events.

This event is a grassroots community effort offering everyone an opportunity to give back and celebrate. For more information or to support the event, contact Sandy Holman of the Culture C.O.-O.P. at 530902-4534 or sandy@thecultureco-op.com, or visit www.yolojuneteenth.org. Tax-deductible donations can be made on the website or by sending a check to the Friends of the Davis Library at P.O. Box 91, Davis, CA 95617.

Additional presenters include JTL Productions with their annual fashion show; Keith Turk’s Kast Academy with an amazing

Event

organizers

are

encouraging everyone to visit www.yolojuneteenth. org to support the sponsors and vendors who make this event possible. Vendors will each have links to their store, where they have items for sale online. This year’s Juneteenth is sponsored by the Yolo County Library, the Culture C.O.-O.P., the Friends of the Davis Public Library, the City of Davis Cultural Affairs Program, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, and Travis Credit Union. Additional sponsors include the UC Davis Office of Campus Community Relations, Yolo Federal Credit Union and California Housing Finance Agency.

All invited to watch the bats of the Yolo Causeway Special to the Enterprise Summer is right around the corner, and the bats are back. The maternity Mexican free-tailed bat colony under the I-80 Yolo Causeway is growing daily as they return from wherever they spent the winter. Although many of the bats over-winter in the bridge, most seem to leave. As the weather warms, crops grow and insect populations explode, the bats return to the Causeway. These winged wonders are mammals that can fly. Each summer the females give birth, in late June, to one pup. The mother nurses that pup for about five to six weeks, and then it joins her as she flies throughout the Central Valley to consume crop pests and mosquitos. There also are males that live in the Yolo Causeway bridge, but their groupings are

smaller, so they are less noticeable. Throughout the summer, Yolo Basin Foundation offers many opportunities to learn more about the bats. Registration is now open and some evenings have already sold out. This year the Bat Talk and Walk events are in a hybrid format. The talk is via Zoom and the walk is in-person. More personal experiences include the Batty for Bats program or learning to build a bat house. All events and some fun-fact videos about the programs and the bats can be found at yolobasin.org/ bats2021. Yolo Basin Foundation is a nonprofit organization that offers environmental education programs for all ages related to wetlands and wildlife. For more information about their programs and for ways to support their efforts, visit yolobasin.org.

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Strauss Foundation awards UCD student public-service scholarship

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021 A3

A march for public-safety reform On Saturday, Davis for Real Public Safety Coalition members march from Community Park to City Hall in support of a new independent Department of Public Health and Safety for the city of Davis. The demonstrators are calling for a city budget that reduces police funding and includes new funding for social workers, civil servants and mental healthcare professionals to take on tasks like mental and behavioral health calls, welfare checks, code enforcement, traffic enforcement and noise complaints.

Special to the Enterprise

Cornell University, StanThe Donald A. Strauss ford University, the UniverPublic Service Scholarship sity of Rhode Island, the Foundation has awarded California Institute of UC Davis student Rishi Technology and Harvey Sharma a $15,000 scholar- Mudd College, and he ship to fun his public-ser- endowed scholarships at Stanford, U.C. Irvine and vice project. The foundation was estab- Harvey Mudd. He died in lished as a memorial to the 1995 at the age of 79. late Don Strauss of New- Strauss’ widow, Dorothy port Beach and is now M.R. Strauss, established the foundation in designed to award January of 1997 as $15,000 scholara “tribute to the ships to as many as vision, ideals and 15 California colleadership of Donlege sophomores ald A. Strauss.” In and juniors annuits first year, the ally. foundation board Specifically, the invited 10 universiStrauss scholarSHARMA ties to nominate up ships fund publicto three students service projects that the students have pro- each for Strauss scholarposed and will carry out ships, with the board makduring their junior or ing the final selection of the senior year. Sharma, who 10 winners. hails from Dubai, is start- In the second year, the ing a free endocrine clinic foundation was able to at Imani Clinic to address broaden its reach and the disproportionate preva- award 15 $10,000 scholarlence of diabetes in the ships — increased three historically redlined com- years ago to $15,000 — and now gives them to 10 munities of Sacramento. Don Strauss demonstrated to 15 students each year. a strong, life-long commit- This represents the foundament to public service and tion’s 25th group of recipieducation, reflected by his ents since its inception. It serving 10 years on the has awarded more than 315 Newport-Mesa Unified scholarships — and like School District Board, and their counterparts in the 12 years on the Newport past, all of these new recipBeach City Council, includ- ients have extensive records ing one as mayor. of community and public He also founded summer service, as well as a demoninternships in Washington, strated desire to “make a D.C., for students at difference.”

I-House’s Global Family Festival shares Japanese culture Special to the Enterprise International House Davis will be holding a Global Family Festival from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 5. The cultural event, in the form of a Japanese summer “matsuri” (festival), aims to share Japanese culture and improve cultural awareness among youths and families in the Davis region. Children can develop an understanding of the interconnectedness of the world through interacting with performers and engaging in activities. For more information and to register, visit tinyurl.com/ gffmatsuri.

From 11 to 11:20 a.m., Davis Wakamatsu Taiko Dan will hold a Taiko performance. From 11:20 to 11:40 a.m., Japanese teacher Mizuho Iwamoto will share stories. From 11:50 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., Noriko Hollar will lead an origami craft activity. And from 12:10 to 12:30 p.m., Davis Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan will finish off with another Taiko performance. This celebration of diversity will be held at International House Davis, 10 College Park. Email Shahzana Ali, I-House director, at shahzana@ihousedavis.org with questons.

TIERS: County set to reopen will be held at the Health and Human Services Agency, 137 N. Cottonwood St., in Woodland, from 5 to 7 p.m. Both the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines will be available. n Friday, June 4: a firstdose clinic will be held at Clarksburg Community Church from 5 to 7 p.m. Both the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines will be available. n Saturday, June 5: a first-dose, drive-thru clinic will be held at Esparto Elementary School from 10 a.m. to noon. Only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be available. A fourth clinic will be held Friday at Woodland High School for students and their families in the Woodland Joint Unified School District. For more vaccine options, check MyTurn. ca.gov or call 833-4224255. The Yolo County Office of Education and the county’s public health department will co-host an

online “Youth Vaccine Forum” on Thursday beginning at 6 p.m. Parents, guardians and youth are invited to hear from and ask questions of a panel of local doctors, including Yolo County Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson, who will discuss the COVID-19 vaccine, the benefits of being vaccinated, side effects and common myths. To participate, visit the office of education’s Facebook page at facebook. com/YoloCOE or log on to zoom at https://tinyurl.com/ w6mzapta.

Courtesy photo

Qualified low-income homeowners can get refund for park-maintenance and open-space taxes Special to the Enterprise Qualified low-income homeowners can receive a full refund of their Davis Park Maintenance Tax and Open Space Protection Tax for 2020-2021 by returning a completed city application form by July 16. This is an annual refund program (not an exemption from the tax) that appears on a property tax bill. To be eligible, applicants must be owner-occupants of property in Davis and meet the low-income requirements for the gross or

total-combined household income. Maximum income limits for both taxes are based on 50 percent of median income per household size. For example, the total or gross combined household income for one cannot exceed $32,375, for a family of two, it cannot exceed $37,000. The limit for a family of four is $46,250, and the limit for a family of eight is $61,050. Only one application is required for both refund programs. Visit https://www.cityofdavis.org/ city-hall/finance/low-incomerefund-program-lirp to print an application or contact the Finance

Department at financeweb@ cityofdavis.org or 530-757-5651 to request an application. City Hall, 23 Russell Blvd., will open to the public on June 15, and applications will also be available for pick-up at the finance and city manager’s offices and at the Davis Police Department at 2600 Fifth St. Residents can mail back completed applications to City Hall, drop them off in the parking lot drop box or return them in person once City Hall reopens. For questions, contact financeweb@cityofdavis.org.

County board seeks input to address needs of low-income residents Special to the Enterprise The Yolo County Community Services Action Board is looking for community input during a public hearing to better address the needs of lowincome individuals and families residing in Yolo County. The feedback from this hearing will be used to set service priorities for the 2022-23 Community Services Block Grant funding cycle. Interested community members

can participate virtually in the public hearing from 5 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, at https://yolocounty.zoom. us/j/96266314137 or by calling 669900-6833. A copy of the proposed plan will be available at least five days prior to the hearing on the CSAB webpage at www.yolocounty.org/CSAB. For more information about the board’s roles and responsibilities, read its bylaws at https://bit.ly/3bWcOn4.

Seeking injunction, California DAs file lawsuit challenging early prison releases

Special to the Enterprise

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced that she and 43 elected district attorneys across California, including Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, have filed a civil lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prohibit awarding additional conduct credits to more than 76,000 violent and serious offenders. The additional credits were the product of emergency regulations

which were passed and first made public on April 30. In adopting these regulations, and claiming an emergency, the CDCR secretary stated these regulations were necessary to comply with “the direction outlined in the Governor’s Budget Summary” presented a year ago on May 14, 2020. By invoking an emergency, the traditional regulatory scheme and transparent public comment period was bypassed. This lawsuit requests the Superior Court to declare the regulations unlawful and to prohibit CDCR from awarding these additional credits until CDCR lawfully

complies with the regulatory scheme, which would include a transparent and rigorous public comment period. “Allowing the early release of the most dangerous criminals, shortening sentences as much as 50 percent, impacts crime victims and creates a serious public safety risk,” Schubert said. “This lawsuit asks the court to enjoin CDCR from awarding these credits unless and until these regulations are exposed to a fair, honest and transparent debate, where the public has input on dramatic changes made through the regulatory process.”

PENALTY: DA won’t pursue maximum sentence in first-degree murder case with five alleged child victims Kato, born in 1992; Mika, born in 1995; Nikko, born in 1996; Nikko Lee, born in 1997; and another Kato, born in 2001, Yolo County Deputy Coroner Laurel Weeks testified at Perez’s preliminary hearing. DNA testing ultimately identified the infant’s remains as belonging to the Nikko born in 1996. His genetic material linked him to blood samples taken at birth from Yolanda Perez’s other five children, including the elder Kato

who died in the Sacramento area in 1992. All five children were born in Fresno and Merced counties, authorities said. Like Nikko, all are believed to have been less than six months old when they died. Of the six, only Brittany is known to be alive today, according to court testimony. Both she and Yolanda Perez underwent multiple interviews with Yolo County sheriff’s detectives during which they confessed to witnessing the infants’ abuse and disappearances, but never reported them because Perez allegedly threatened

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Yolana Perez also told detectives that the remains of other children also were sunk into Conway Slough,

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021

Why I ride: A conversation with Shelley Brooks Doing her part to save the planet one bike ride at a time By Lisa Montanaro Special to The Enterprise

S

helley Brooks seems like she was destined to spend her life on a bicycle. For Shelley, bike riding is a form of environmental consciousness and a way to empower the next generation. And, fun fact: She may be one of the only women who can claim to have ridden her bike to the hospital to deliver her own baby! She grew up in Reston, Va., a small town outside of Washington, D.C., that was built as a planned community to include bicycling. She recalls carting her much-younger sister around town on the back of her bike. That experience provided her with practice carting a little one around by bike years before she had her own son. She moved to Davis in 2004 to pursue a doctorate degree in environmental history. She was delighted to find a bicyclefriendly community like the one she grew up in. She settled in West Davis and made it a habit of

walking or bike riding to campus and around town. In 2006, she found herself 41-weeks pregnant with a baby that was a week overdue. She rode her bike to her checkup like she’d been doing throughout the pregnancy. Only catch? They decided to induce labor at that appointment, which meant that she technically rode her bike to deliver her baby. Once her son Alden arrived, she quickly added him into her bike-riding lifestyle. She started with a baby trailer then added on a tagalong. Alden started riding at the early age of 2 and progressed quickly to a full-sized bike by the end of his kindergarten year. He rode alongside her to and from all activities. In fact, they used their bikes so much to get around town that she would see her car parked on the street outside her home and be surprised to remember that she owned it. That led to the decision to sell her car in 2011 when Alden was 4 years old and live a car-free lifestyle. That same year she

completed her Ph.D. program and started working as an environmental historian with the California History-Social Science Project at UC Davis. That car-free lifestyle takes some creativity, ingenuity and a little help from friends and neighbors. She outfitted her and Alden’s bikes with racks and panniers, allowing them to cart items, including groceries, gear for Little League games and Alden’s guitar. They use a bike trailer and even sometimes a baby stroller to cart home larger items, including their living Christmas tree. On the rare occasion when an item is way too large to be transported by bike, a friendly neighbor with a car will offer a hand. For athletic events out of town, they usually carpool with teammates. For work meetings that she has to attend outside of Davis, she takes Amtrak and then walks or rides her bike (which Amtrak thankfully allows onboard) to the meeting location once she arrives at her destination town. A few times a year, she rents a car so that she and Alden can take a camping or other road-trip vacation.

When she bike rides daily, it’s a form of transportation, but it’s also a statement. Environmental consciousness has always been a big part of her personality and now it’s her chosen career. Spending her life focusing on environmental issues and then adding unnecessarily to the impact of climate change would feel incongruent to her. Thus, helping to protect the planet has always been a part of her decision to be car-free. Thankfully, she also enjoys the outdoors and being on two wheels. And now she gets to pass that onto her 14-year-old son, who has grown up in a carfree household and doesn’t turn to the car as a kneejerk option for transportation. And doesn’t that seem fitting for a kid whose mother rode her bike to deliver him? Maybe her destiny to spend her life on two wheels has now become an inherited one. — This article was written by Lisa Montanaro, commissioned by The Bike Campaign. For more information about how to “Drive Less. Ride More.,” contact Maria Contreras Tebbutt at funmaria@ sbcglobal.net or www. TheBikeCampaign.com.

Courtesy photo

Shelley Brooks is on her bike and ready to roll.

Wines worth coming out and unmasking for

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n our ever-changing plague landscape, conversations have suddenly veered from vaccines (got yours yet? Where? Which one? Did you get sick?) to firsts (first postlockdown hug, first night away from home, first dinner in a restaurant, first visit to the library). I sent several emails excitedly recounting my first trip to Berkeley via train, my first unmasked gathering and my first visit to a bookstore. So inconsequential. So thrilling. When Temple Coffee served my tea in a pot on a wooden tray with a ceramic cup — just like they used to — I was enchanted. My first time browsing the shelves of The Pip Wine Bar/Shop was equally enchanting. I had had a short tour of the place just before it opened — and then shut — but to wander among the bottles and have a small taste at the bar felt revelatory. I hadn’t even gone to buy wine, since proprietor Amy had just a couple of days earlier delivered us a six-pack. But, well, surely one bottle more wouldn’t go to waste. In fact, we drank it that night, every drop, with some sort of pasta dish, no doubt. I don’t even remember. So, of course, I had to order another bottle of this delightful wine — the Union Sacré Sylvaner. I spent a summer in Alsace when I was in my 20s and loved the delicious whites that came with every meal, were immensely affordable, and always local —

probably not even bottled. I wasn’t much aware of grape varieties then, but I do remember sylvaner, such a lovely name, conjuring the nearby forests. Xavier Arnaudin and Philip Muzzy (“who arrived at the Central Coast from opposite ends of the Earth”) share my (nostalgic) affection for these wines. Together, they started Union Sacré, a California winery dedicated to Alsatian grapes like sylvaner, and including gewurztraminer, riesling, pinot gris, pinot blanc and pinot noir. Like me, they appreciate the table-friendly style of the wines of this region — and the grapes’ affinity for coastal California micro-climates “frequented by morning fog and cold nights.” This elegant, unfiltered 2020 100% sylvaner comes from a single Central Coast vineyard (Rancho Sisquoc) and tastes of apples, pear and spring blossoms. Its bracing acidity enhances just about any sort of food. Try it with a braised fennel dish or a new potato and garlic scape gratin. I just read that ramps are “wildly trendy” this year — they’d love this sylvaner. Only 200 cases were made, and the price is amazing

(under $20) for a wine of this quality. Amy carries a couple of other Union Sacré wines, too — all really good. Shortly after this little jaunt to Dixon, I invited two friends (fully vaccinated, of course) for another first: dinner, gasp, indoors. It was a Friday night, so I honored the usual Leonardi-Pope Friday pizza tradition. No problem, I told myself, suddenly panicked at the thought of dinner for four. Just double the dough. Make one with mushrooms and leeks and one with Italian sausage and red onion. Easy. And then I panicked again. Real, live dinner guests with real, live conversation? I better figure out something to nibble on for pre-prandial bubbles and chat. And, oh, I seem to remember that dessert’s kind of traditional for a company supper. I hadn’t made one for many months, and it showed — my little chocolate gateau came out looking like a pancake. I had to channel my baker-grandkids to rescue it with a topping of petal-arranged strawberry halves, a few strategically placed mint leaves and some sugar sprinkles.

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ortunately, I didn’t have to think about the wine — the guests had volunteered a red that they got from their latest Pip Wine Club delivery, which turned out to be the 2018 Trapl Sankt Laurent. And it was perfect with the meal — light, lively and wonderfully food-friendly. Winemaker Johannes Trapl, a passionate advocate of

biodynamic natural winemaking and one of the most important figures in the new Austrian wine scene, thinks of Sankt Laurent as Austria’s “Queen grape.” Closely related to pinot noir, Sankt Laurent is a bit more savage than its much-more well-known sibling. Plantings of Sankt Laurent have practically doubled in the last 20 years, as winemakers re-discover its wild, earthy and altogether seductive personality. Tart cherry with lots of minerals and a touch of salt make this a great companion to lighter meat and vegetable dishes. It seemed just about perfect with both pizzas, and I can imagine it with a hundred other spring-intosummer dishes. One of the perks of a really good wine club (The Pip’s is just $50 a month) is access to very small production and unusual bottles like this one. And did I mention that this elegant, flavorful wine is just 10.5% alcohol? And then there was my first birthday party. I mean besides my own. Friends whose stalwart support — and lovely backyard — saved my sanity several times in pre-vaccine months decided to celebrate with a few vaccinated friends. Thus, we didn’t even have to worry about the weather, though it turned out to be so pleasant that we ended up in the garden anyway. We quickly drank through the bubbles I brought, and the birthday girl disappeared inside the house to emerge a few minutes later with a second bottle, much more exciting than mine — one of

the amazing Blue Ox sparklers. Winemaker Josh Hammerling, who worked for a long time at Broc Cellars, makes several of them — both pet nats and traditional Champagne method wines; this one is the latter. It’s a blend of two classic Champagne grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir, but the dosage was done with honey rather sugar, so he calls it “Spirit of the Beehive,” a name that said the birthday girl — a beekeeper — couldn’t resist. The sparkler doesn’t taste like honey, by the way. Although, I do think I got a hint once it warmed a little in my glass. It does taste like a really fine Champagne. You can pick up a bottle at The Pip for $36, less than even low-budget Champagne. If you’re feeling more adventuresome than that 10-minute drive to Dixon, keep heading west and visit Josh’s place on Fifth Street in Berkeley, which has just recently changed its name from Blue Ox to Hammerling Wine. While you’re in the neighborhood, you can taste at Broc Cellars, Donkey and Goat and several other wonderful small urban wineries — all just down the block. If it’s your first post-vaccine dedicated wine outing, you may as well make it a first to crow about. (And this may be the first published piece I’ve ever ended with a preposition.) — Susana Leonardi is a Davis resident; reach her at vinosusana @gmail.com. Comment on this column at www.davisenter prise.com.

Cooke voted president of Thoracic Surgery Directors Assoc. Special to The Enterprise David Tom Cooke, chief of general thoracic surgery at UC Davis Health, was voted president of the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association and will assume the position on May 1. Cooke becomes the first African American to hold the position and will transition to president of the 43-year-old organization in May 2023. His term runs until May 2025. Prior to Cooke’s term as president, he served as a councilor on the TSDA Executive Committee, from May 2017 to May 2021. Cooke succeeds A. J. Carpenter, a UC Davis cardiothoracic surgery fellowship alumna, who is now with University of Texas Health. The TSDA was established in 1978 as a membership organization for cardiothoracic surgery

Name Droppers residency program directors. TSDA provides resources and networking opportunities for program directors and program coordinators, and supplemental curriculum materials and resources for general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery residents. Past presidents include Hermes Grillo, John Benfield, Mark Orringer and Edward Verrier. ———— Woodland resident Amy Bucher will be honored with membership into Biola University’s EKE society this week. Bucher is one of 33 students of Biola’s spring 2021 class who were honored with membership into Epsilon Kappa Epsilon, Biola’s honors baccalaureate society. Only 5% of the graduating class are invited

into the society. Bucher will be recognized for their induction into EKE at the spring commencement ceremony as well as at a hooding ceremony on May 3. The honors society is exclusively offered by invitation only, by which students are selected by the department faculty. The selection criteria are based upon academic achievement, with students earning a GPA of at least 3.75, Christian character and individual contributions to the university and community. Biola is a nationally ranked Christian university in Southern California. It was recently recognized as one of the nation’s top 10 “up and coming” national universities by the U.S. News & World Report. ———— Derrick Bang, longtime Davis Enterprise film critic

and former entertainment editor, has just been announced as a finalist for an Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Award of Excellence. Bang’s recent two-volume analysis of film and TV “thriller jazz” — “Crime and Spy Jazz on Screen: A History and Discography” (1950-1970, and 1971Present) — has been nominated in the category Best Historical Research in Recorded Jazz. Since their debut in 1991, the ARSC Awards are presented to authors of books, articles or recording liner notes, to recognize those publishing the very best work in recorded sound research. Awards are presented annually in seven categories for best history and best discography, and other finalists may be acknowledged with Certificates of Merit.

This is Bang’s second ARSC honor. He was a finalist in the same category in 2013, for “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano,” his biography of the famed San Francisco-area jazz musician best known (these days) as the

composer of “Linus and Lucy,” “Christmas Time Is Here” and dozens of other iconic themes for Peanuts animated TV specials. He won a Certificate of Merit for that book. The 2021 awards will be presented later this year.

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Who’s bankrolling the Newsom recall?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021 A5

UC lecturers vote to authorize strike By Caleb Hampton Enterprise staff writer

Mark Christensen/Shutterstock.com

By Ben Christopher CalMatters The well-heeled megadonors spending the most to defend Gov. Gavin Newsom in a near-certain California recall election hail from monied coastal enclaves, mansion-studded Silicon Valley and the toniest and most solidly Democratic parts of Los Angeles. As for those big donors spending the most to boost the recall and kick Newsom out of the governor’s office — actually, that’s pretty much where they live, too. A newly launched CalMatters live tracker of the $15.7 million and counting that has poured into either side of the recall shows that though California voters may be divided by geography and class, its major political donors are not. The financial battle between the “pro” and “anti” campaigns was upended May 20 when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings— an on-again, offagain Newsom ally — pumped $3 million into the effort to beat back the recall. (Hastings gave $7 million to a committee backing a Democratic rival to Newsom in 2018.) As a result, 95060 in Santa Cruz now sits at the top of the state’s biggest contributing ZIP codes.

The blue ZIP codes that dominate That single seven-figure contribution, the largest of the campaign to date, only underlines two points that have been clear to political insiders for weeks now: First, the California’s Democratic Party establishment is aggressively rallying to the governor’s defense. Second, it has a lot of money to spend. Hence, the other big donations on the antirecall side come from Sacramento — home base of the state party and the fundraising arms of influential unions such as the United Nurses Associations of California — and from regular liberal super donors including ag and juice giant Stewart Resnick and from Democratic, deeppocketed law firms. The pro-Newsom side has brought in $11.1 million so far, and more support is on the way. Next week, the California Labor Federation’s executive council is expected to vote on whether to take a position on the recall campaign. It’s a pro forma gesture; no one expects organized labor, a stalwart ally of the state Democratic Party, to sit out the recall. Steve Smith, a federation spokesperson, said it’s too early to talk exact figures, but that the union umbrella group plans to make “a significant investment.” As important as the money will be the organizational might. After an election cycle spent socially distancing, “there’s a lot of excitement amongst volunteers to get out going doorto-door again, and that will be utilized to the fullest extent for the recall campaign,” said Smith. That should help the governor offset a potential lack of support from much

of the state’s unionized workforce. Monday, Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents some 96,000 state employees, elected Richard Louis Brown as its new president. Brown told Politico the organization would not be supporting Newsom during the recall, a response to pay cuts the governor enacted in the early months of the pandemic. But, the union’s statewide umbrella organization, SEIU California, put out its own statement supporting the governor against the recall. On the pro-recall side, which has raised $4.6 million, the biggest donors are mostly in Southern California, a hodgepodge of familiar GOP backers and lower-profile millionaires who have had it with the governor. They include John Kruger, co-founder of the men’s golf and tennis apparel company, TravisMathew, who lives in Huntington Beach but whose Biblicallynamed campaign committee, Prov 3:9, is headquartered in the San Gabriel Valley of east Los Angeles County. Kruger is the largest single contributor to the recall cause. A spokesperson for the committee told KQED that Kruger is supporting the recall because of California’s public health restrictions on religious gatherings. Other big recall backers are real estate developer and Donald Trump megadonor Geoff Palmer, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Douglas Leone and Central Valley gasoline tycoon Stan Boyett. Then, there’s the myste-

Republican-supported recall effort come from purple-to-blue regions of the state, that doesn’t seem to be true of voters in general. Californians in counties that gave former President Trump a larger share of the vote in 2020 were much more likely to sign the recall petition, according to data from the California Secretary of State’s office.

Newsom backers pulling away in money race Last week’s donation from Hastings also upset what had been a near balance in financial might between the two sides. Since the recall election became all but certain in late April, those opposing it have significantly ramped up their financial efforts. What remains to be seen is whether recall supporters can make up the difference — either later or by other means. Unlike those fundraising in support of the governor, recall proponents have had to spend their war chest in two stages: first to get the recall on the ballot, then to wage the campaign itself. The first donor blitz was dedicated to accomplishing the first goal, but efforts toward the second will “start again very soon,” said Anne Dunsmore, who runs the largest recall fundraising committee. She also downplayed the contribution from Hastings. “I’m surprised, with the trouble that (the governor)’s in, that it was only $3 million,” she said. In the months to come, recall backers could also refocus their donations to the campaigns of any one of the Republicans seeking to eject Newsom from office.

On the pro-recall side, which has raised $4.6 million, the biggest donors are mostly in Southern California, a hodgepodge of familiar GOP backers and lower-profile millionaires who have had it with the governor. rious DGB Ranch, based in Los Angeles. Though campaign finance filings do not include much information about this entity that contributed $150,000 to the recall effort, there are clues hidden in public records. The committee’s name matches a $250 campaign contribution to Los Angeles City Council candidate Jose Gardea in 2011. According to the city’s ethics commission, that committee’s address is located in central Los Angeles’ Hancock Park. County property records list the owners of the Tudor Revival mansion — more country club than ranch — as pediatrician Daniel G. Berdakin (initials, DGB) and his wife. Berdakin, who spent $10,500 on Republican national political causes last year, did not respond to phone calls and emails made to his office, his lawyer and his family foundation. Though some of the largest sources of cash to the

But so far, they haven’t. John Cox, known for losing badly to Newsom in 2018 and campaigning alongside a Kodiak bear named Tag in 2021, has raised more than $5 million for his bid — though most has come from his own bank account. Former Olympian and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner has raised about $212,000 so far, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has pulled in a little less than $120,000 and former Sacramento-area member of Congress Doug Ose reported about $47,000, including $32,400 from himself. The Fair Political Practices Commission later confirmed that candidates can also use money from their 2022 campaign accounts, if they have one. Faulconer has at least $2 million in his, while Cox has at least $2.5 million. Unlike the general proor anti-recall committees, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money, candidates can’t receive

more than $32,400 from a single donor. That means they’re more reliant on small-dollar donors — and some recall candidates are using a controversial tactic for repeat donations. As first reported by Politico, online contributions made to both the Jenner and Ose campaigns through their websites are pre-checked to be charged repeatedly and to include “bonus” donations. Donors can opt out of both payment options, but only if they notice them. It’s a fundraising tactic made famous — and to consumer protection advocates, infamous — by the Trump campaign in 2020.

National Republican money fizzles Last December, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee endorsed the recall effort. Huckabee’s political action committee threw $100,000 behind the effort. That was a sign to some political insiders that the state’s recall could become more than a mere California affair as national GOP donors and media personalities smelled “blood in the water.” But that wave of red state cash has failed to materialize. Both sides have raised more than 90% of their itemized donations from within California, and the largest contributions from elsewhere have gone to defend the governor. That includes $500,000 from the Democratic Governors Association. It also includes a $100,000 contribution from the law firm Baron & Budd, which represented 14 California cities and counties in a $1 billion settlement with PG&E for damages from catastrophic wildfires. The firm is based in Texas, meaning that the lion’s share of the campaign money coming out of the Lone Star State is backing the governor. Darry Sragow, a Democratic political consultant and the publisher of the California Target Book, which tracks campaign finance data, said he sees no evidence that another wave of recall cash is on the way. The worst of California’s pandemic seems to be over, the economy is rebounding, Newsom’s approval numbers are holding steady and no overwhelming favorite has emerged among the would-be replacement candidates. A statewide poll published this week by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 54% of likely voters approve of the governor’s job performance and that only 40% support removing him from office. “If I’m a Republican donor who is acting reasonably rationally, I just don’t see an argument for throwing a lot of money into the recall side,” he said. With U.S. Senate, House and redistricting battles across the country, there is no shortage of more likely GOP electoral opportunities, Sragow added. “Republicans want to run the country. I don’t think they think they can run California.”

Members of UC-AFT, the union that represents contingent teaching faculty at the University of California system, voted this week to authorize a strike, UC-AFT announced Tuesday at a virtual press conference. The vote was held after more than two years of fruitless collective bargaining negotiations between the lecturers’ union and the university and more than 16 months after UC-AFT’s previous contract expired. According to the union, a “strong majority” of its nearly 7,000 voting members turned out for the secret ballot vote, with 96% voting to authorize a systemwide strike should the UC Office of the President (UCOP) fail to meet UCAFT’s collective bargaining demands. “This vote does not mean UC-AFT will go on strike immediately, but rather that UC lecturers have placed trust in their democratically-elected colleagues on the negotiating team to call a legal, protected strike if UC management fails to adequately address the problems lecturers have laid out,” Caroline Luce, Chair of the UC-AFT Communications Committee, said in a press release Tuesday. According to UC-AFT leadership, those problems include low wages, job insecurity and a work environment where lecturers are expected to contribute unacknowledged and unpaid labor beyond their official work hours and duties. UC lecturers earn a median salary of $19,067, according to UC-AFT, and were recently excluded from a 3% cost-of-living-adjustment that the UC extended to most other employees. “UC management consistently refuses to acknowledge the enormous amount of unpaid labor that lecturers do, like student mentorship, departmental service, and other work outside the classroom,” the union’s press release stated. Additionally, nearly all lecturers represented by UC-AFT must reapply for their jobs on a yearly

basis. Most are not retained beyond their first year or two with the university. The lecturers’ collective bargaining demands include establishing a consistent process for the review and rehiring of contingent faculty, enforceable workload standards, and “fair compensation that reflects lecturers’ training, experience, and contributions to the UC,” the press release stated. “These are common-sense proposals, many of which are already in practice at the CSUs and CA Community Colleges,” UC-AFT President Mia McIver said Tuesday. “Teaching University of California students should not be a gig economy job, yet thousands of phenomenal lecturers lose their jobs each year.” According to union leadership, the university has not done enough to address the lecturers’ demands over the past two years of contract negotiations. “UC made significant movement toward compromises with union leaders on key union priorities including compensation, appointments, and leave policy,” the university told The Enterprise in a statement Tuesday. “We believe that our proposal demonstrates our good faith and recognition of the invaluable instructional role lecturers play in educating our students.” This week’s vote to authorize a strike — the first by UC-AFT in more than 20 years — raises the stakes of the negotiations between the union and university and puts pressure on university leadership to meet the lecturer’s demands. “The strike authorization vote by rank and file UC-AFT members shows a widespread conviction that the only way to combat UC administrators’ inaction and intransigence is by withholding labor,” the union’s press release stated. In Tuesday’s press conference, UC-AFT leadership said union members hope they will not need to go through with the strike to achieve their goals. “We hope there is still room for progress at the table,” Luce said. “We don’t want to go on strike but we will if that’s what it takes to win a contract,” McIver added. UC-AFT members passed their last contract proposal on May 25. On Tuesday, union leaders said they hope to negotiate with the university in early June. “We want a response to our last, best and final offer,” McIver said.

‘Davisville’ welcomes educator Pam Mari Special to the Enterprise Pamela Mari, recently honored for her contributions to Davis education, talks about the effect of remote instruction on students and schooling on the current edition of the KDRT program “Davisville.” Mari, the first principal of Da Vinci Charter Academy, also taught in Davis and was later the Davis school district’s director of student services until retiring in

2013. The district recently named the new tech hub at Da Vinci after her. She discusses Da Vinci, the tech hub, the shift to remote learning caused by the pandemic, the effect on students and teaching, and offers advice on what to make of the experience. “Davisville,” hosted by Bill Buchanan, is broadcast on KDRT-LP, 95.7 FM Mondays at 5:30 p.m., Tuesdays at noon and 5 p.m., Fridays at 12:30 p.m., and Saturdays at 8:30 a.m.

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A6 THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2021

News you may have missed The climate crisis has so many facets, from global issues to individual purchasing decisions. This column is about some news items you may have missed, most of which are from the low end of the spectrum. The planet is, as we all know, getting warmer, one might even say hotter. But it’s a slow-moving process, and it’s hard, at least for me, to remember back and compare temperatures today. I know the north winds seem more numerous and destructive nowadays, and what is new is winds from the south that have the strength of those nasty north winds. Tule fog seems to be a distant memory. But for me, temperature defies a straightline comparison. The New York Times, in conjunction with The Climate Impact Lab, each year publishes a calculator that measures the number of days with temperatures higher than 90 degrees and predicts future levels, based on the assumption that the world will implement some level of compliance with the Paris Accords. The calculator asks for your “home town” and I typed in Davis. I’ve been here long enough to consider it as such. Their data only goes back to 1961 when there were 44 days above 90 degrees, compared to 60 in 2020, a projected 75 by 2040 and between 80 to 106 by the turn of the century. Speaking (or writing) about the planet getting hotter, it’s a truism that emissions, like elections, have consequences, one of which has been, in conjunction with the photograph of earth floating in space taken by astronauts, to shrink our conception of the size of the planet. Back in the day, the “atmosphere” was, in our imaginations, so huge that few thought us puny humans could damage it. Likewise with the oceans, spanning some 70 percent of earth’s surface and now absorbing an estimated one-fourth of humangenerated CO2. As with trees, plants and soils, the oceans have been buffering the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, thereby keeping atmospheric temperatures lower than they would otherwise be. Good, right? But not uncomplicated. As CO2 increases in the atmosphere, more is dissolved into the ocean surface, and this water gradually mixes downwards, taking the CO2 with it, where, if left undisturbed, it can stay for hundreds or even thousands of years. An opinion editorial from Bloomberg includes the statement that, “The ocean floor stores nearly twice as much carbon as soil on land.” This brings us to a fishing practice known as “ocean-bottom trawling,” a practice affecting nearly 2 million square miles of the seafloor each year and described in the editorial as, “Heavy nets 100 yards wide, equipped with weighted rollers and steel

doors, are dragged across the seafloor to scoop up cod, flounder, rockfish, shrimp, and other deepdwelling prey.” Further, “The ocean mud is stirred into underwater clouds large enough to be seen from space” and, “This manner of fishing, hundreds of years old, accounts for about a quarter of sea life caught worldwide.” This is not exactly fishing in the manner of Huck Finn with a pole, a hook, and a worm. This is industrial scale and in addition to being destructive of sea life, it releases carbon back to the surface where it can be converted to CO2. A study recently published in the journal Nature estimates the total volume of CO2 released as a result of scraping the ocean floor to harvest fish is comparable to that produced by aviation. The Nature article included proposals that could “confront the interconnected crises of climate change and wildlife collapse at sea.” A New York Times article described the opportunity thusly: “Protecting strategic zones of the world’s oceans from fishing, drilling, and mining would not only safeguard imperiled species and sequester vast amounts of carbon, it would also increase overall fish catch, providing more healthy protein to people.” Win, win, win. Going back to the Bloomberg opinion editorial, the study “lends fresh urgency to efforts worldwide to limit or ban bottom trawling. The practice is already restricted in many places, including most of the U.S. West Coast and wide areas near Australia and Europe. If bans could be expanded from less than 3 percent of the ocean to 3.6 percent, without any affected trawl operations moving to other areas, researchers estimate that it would be possible to eliminate 90 percent of the risk of carbon disturbance.” At the risk of descending from the global issue above into the realm of the trivial, I periodically find snippets of information, including these from the New York Times. Some of them seem a bit on the hard to believe side. Here are two. “Before the Industrial Revolution, the principal sources of noise were thunder, church bells and cannon fire.” Imagine, if you can, a world without leaf blowers. And; “If they were a country, cows would rank as the world’s sixth-largest emitter of methane gas, ahead of Brazil, Japan and Germany.” Not if UC Davis Professor Ermias Kebreab has anything to say about it (see last column — feeding cows seaweed dramatically reduces “emissions” from either end of the cow.) — John Mott-Smith is a resident of Davis. This column appears the first and third Wednesday of each month. Please send comments to johnmottsmith@ comcast.net.

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40 RS! A YE

Personalized and Comprehensive Service for your Individual and Business Legal Needs The firm is a participant of the U.C. and State of California ARAG employee legal benefit program.

413 F Street, Davis (Phoenix House)

Tel: (530) 758-8317 • Fax: (530) 758-8318 mytrustedlawyer.com

216 F Street • Davis, CA 95616

(530) 756-7084 FAX (530) 756-3090

PUT THE FOCUS ON YOUR BUSINESS

Include your business name, logo, slogan and contact information. Gillian Brady, Attorney Mediator

Mediating divorce, parenting, family and elder law for over 15 years.

(530) 756-2536

www.FindingCommonGround.com

$45/week (3 month commitment)

Contact Debbie Kennedy at debbie@davisenterprise.com