Feb. 27, 2014

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

VOLUME 133, ISSUE 18 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2014

SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

City of Davis proposes sales tax increase Effort to alleviate $5.1 million structural imbalance to be on June 2014 ballot 5

SHANNON SMITH city@theaggie.org

WOODLAND 8.25% 16

5

D AV I S ’ P R O P O S E D TA X 5 INCREASE AND THE CURRENT TA X R AT E S O F S U R R O U N D I N G C I T I E S

80

113

$

WEST SAC 8.00%

80

SACRAMENTO

99

8.50%

80

D AV I S C U R R E N T 8 . 0 0 % P R O P O S E D 8 . 7 5 %

99

84

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D I X O N 7. 6 2 5 % 80 113 Trisha Kietikul / Aggie

The City of Davis has found itself facing a daunting revenue problem, and is proposing to solve the problem with spending cuts and a sales tax increase. “The increased funding, should the measure pass, would generate approximately $3.7 million annually and would be used to help address a structural deficit in the city’s budget,” said Kelly Stachowicz, the deputy city manager of the City of Davis. This $5.1 million deficit has been caused by Davis Waste Removal franchise fees, increases in other resource expenditures, personnel-related fee increases and several paid benefits outside of the city administration’s control. Several internal attempts have been made to decrease

this structural imbalance without creating any drawbacks to the wallets of the public. Over the past several years, the City of Davis has made $11 million in spending cuts, and has reduced 22 percent of its workforce since 2008. However, these efforts have not raised sufficient revenue. The City Council, Council Subcommittee and a more specific Revenue Focus Group have been considering options, hoping to represent the Davis community as a whole. These factions have come to a general understanding that the City of Davis requires greater revenue. According to the City of Davis 2014-15 Budget Presentation, an increased revenue would be part of a larger economic development effort working towards the goals of the city. This would include an improved administrative TAX on 9

Dining commons hold vegetarian cooking competition Fennelicious Frittata wins Green Chef Challenge CHAD DAVIS features@theaggie.org

On Feb. 24, the UC Davis Dining Commons hosted the Green Chef Challenge. Teams of students, each representing one of the three dining commons — Cuarto, Segundo and Tercero — competed to craft a vegetarian dish using produce from the Student Farm. At 6 p.m., the secret ingredient was revealed: fennel. The teams had an hour and a half to craft their dish before they were whisked away to Segundo for judgment. On March 18, the winning dish will be featured as an entrée in the dining commons. “I’m really competitive,” said Amanda Nieh, a fourth-year clinical nutrition major. “As soon as I heard ‘cooking competition,’ I knew I wanted to do this.” Nieh, a contestant on Segundo’s team, said she has plenty of experience cooking — she also holds a job as a teaching kitchen assistant at the Student Wellness Center. Nieh said she saw an advertisement for the event during one of her visits to the dining commons. “They said you don’t have to be a chef, you can just sign up,” Nieh said. “No experience required.” To help level the playing field, each team received guidance from a sous chef (kitchen under-chef). According to Ben Thomas, sustainability manager of UC Davis Dining Services, the sous chefs were present only to offer techniques and advice. “We really try to make it equal and fair,” Thomas said. “We want to let the students lead the development of the dishes.” Around 6:30 p.m., students flooding into Segundo stopped to watch the contestants chopping vegetables behind the tables cluttered with cutting boards and bowls, while Thomas stood by to inform the curious onlookers. Thomas said the Green Chef Challenge started in 2011. He explained how a group of students involved with various sustainable food projects wanted to put on a fun event to call attention to their efforts. Following the success of the television show “Iron Chef,” he said they came up with the Green Chef Challenge. In this case, the competition specifically uses seasonal produce. The Green Chef Challenge also makes an effort to use only local

foods, according to Nicole Lesnett, a fifth-year international relations major and ground coordinator for the campus’ dining services. “The Student Farm is as local as you could possibly get for food,” Lesnett said. She said the Student Farm has been around since 1977, but only grew large enough to supply the dining commons as early as 2011. As ground coordinator, her job includes transporting produce from the Student Farm to the dining services. She explained that this closer source of food means significantly less emissions and lower costs for transportation. However, she said the Student Farm still only has six marketable acres of year-round produce. “When the winning dish is featured in a month from now, it isn’t guaranteed that it’s all coming from this student farm,” Lesnett said. “The sheer volume [of the order] might require more than the farm grows.” Despite this limitation, she said an effort will still be made to order produce from local sources. However, she said each dining common has different standards. “Everything in the Cuarto salad bar, usually, is food that’s in season,” Lesnett said. “That’s part of being sustainable.” Even during winter, she said, Cuarto provides vegetables appropriate for the season, whereas Segundo and Tercero will use out of season vegetables like cherry tomatoes and corn. Therefore, she said the dishes made at the Green Chef Challenge might encourage a greater percentage of local food use. Joanna Wirkus, a fourth-year clinical nutrition major, nutrition intern with dining services and one of the event’s judges, said she was excited to see how teams would combine the Student Farm ingredients. Wirkus, Jianna Robertson, a student programmer for sustainability in student housing, and Raoul Adamchak, Market Garden and CSA coordinator of the Student Farm, were this quarter’s judges, and just before 7:30 p.m., the Cuarto and Tercero teams arrived to present their dishes. DCGREENCHEF on 8

C I E R A PA S TU R E L / AG G I E First-year design major Rachel Ho and fourth-year clinical nutrition major Amanda Nieh from Team Segundo plate their dish in the Green Chef Challenge.

UC Student Association pushes for reform of Master Plan for Higher Education

Increased tuition, low retention rates among UCSA concerns TAYLOR CUNNINGHAM

city@theaggie.org

The Master Plan for Higher Education, developed in 1960 by the UC Regents and the State Board of Education, intended to make higher education accessible to all proficient students. Since then, increased competition among students, increased tuition, financial divestment from education, low retention rates and the changing roles of the various collegiate systems have kept the plan from being upheld. Across California, student leaders are trying to raise awareness among legislatures of the plan’s deficiencies in order to get a reformation on the table. “It’s very clear that however wellintentioned the Master Plan is, 53 years have passed since it was written, and a lot of circumstances have changed,” said Dillan Horton, the ASUCD director of Student Affairs. “We need to update the Master Plan under the current circumstances.” The UC Student Associations of Davis, Santa Barbara and San Diego

have passed resolutions in support of the reform. The graduate association of UC Santa Cruz has also passed the resolution. On Feb. 24, Henry Y. Tang, the chancellor of UC Santa Barbara, came out in support of reforming the Master Plan, according to Kareem Aref, the statewide president of the University of California Student Association (UCSA). There have been pushes for reform in the past, but many of them have resulted in reviews of the Master Plan, which were largely ineffective, according to Harley Litzelman, the external director of Lobby Corps at UC Davis and a first-year sociology and communications double major. “I would like to see some executive professionals within higher education, at the administrative level recognize that this 50-year-old plan doesn’t just need revision or reassignment,” Litzelman said. “We need a redrafted master plan. A plan that is both preservative of the original virtues, but also confronts many of the new challenges in higher education.” HIGHER on 14


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Feb. 27, 2014 by The California Aggie - Issuu