 This is what's going on. I'm John Lee. Our guest this evening is John Mine, a candidate for the Davis City Council. John, I want to thank you for being on our show. My pleasure. Oh, good. I hope. Oh, well, we'll see where it goes. So, why are you running for city council? Well, I think the city needs to get its financial house in order, otherwise we aren't going to be able to continue to enjoy the things that make this Davis and the place we love to call home. And I have a concern about decisions that have been made at the city council level that don't seem to really have been for the benefit of the residents compared to one or another special interest group. So I thought the best way to approach dealing with that would be to be on the council itself. So you served on the Davis School Board? For four years, 1997 through 2001, it seems like a hundred years ago. Well, in some ways it was a hundred years ago because the dot-com explosion happened right at the end of that. We were in the process of trying to get computers into classrooms while I was on the board. The strategy at that point was that it was the teachers that needed the computers so that they could learn to use them and then teach the students. I'm not sure it doesn't go the other way at this point. I think it does. I think it pretty much does. Well, you know, I have a friend who's an eighth grade teacher and he teaches history and I gave him a cartoon where the father, the son says to the father, I'll help you with computer if you'll help me with history and what the kids are learning today, if it's older than two weeks ago, it's irrelevant to them and they don't understand a lot of the ways that society has come together based on our historical experience. Well, my experience right now has been primarily away from schools so I can't really talk about the way things are now in the classroom. Okay. Well, I do want to talk about one thing, which is you ran for a school board which is a nonpartisan office and there were two other people that were announced candidates, John Salie and Marty West and because you're a registered Democrat, somebody else, I'm sorry, ooh, because you're a registered Republican, now where will we go with that? Because you're a registered Republican, a Democrat ran against you because they didn't want to have any Republicans on the school board. Now my report is that at the end of that time period, the superintendent of school said it would be great if there could be five John Mines on the school board because John Mine comes prepared, he's ready to work and he's ready to make decisions. So it was a different time but the school board now is faced with some interesting challenges, some of which are their own making. And I think that part of the connection now is that the city council has gotten itself into some predicaments that are awkward at best. I think I'd like to follow up on what you were saying because I'm not sure that five John Mines would be a good idea anywhere because you need the variety in order to come up with the best solutions. When I was on the school board, I got to serve with really good people. I had John Salih there, Marty West, Don Saylor, and Ruth Asmans for a couple of years followed by John Polis. And they were all good people. We worked together and we were able to work as a team. The story that I tell all the time, so might have heard this before, is that although I was elected when I was the Republican Party's county chairman here in Yolo County and people thought, oh, what have we done? It's a crazy conservative. On most issues, I would say I was not actually the most conservative on that particular issue. We had instances where other members were more fiscally conservative or at least tighter with money, other cases where other members were a lot stricter with discipline. And in fact, I think if I had had to live under the rules that we were trying to enforce on our students, I never would have made it through high school. Different time, but you serve with good people. I got to be the third vote on quite a few, three, two votes because you get five people together and you never always agree on everything. It doesn't matter what the party label is. People come to an issue with their own experience and their own opinions. Well there is one issue that particularly motivated you to put your hat in the ring and that's measure P. So why don't you talk about measure P? Well, measure P really is about water rates because after we went through the measure I election and it became obvious that the city was going to go ahead with a surface water project whether it's a good idea or not, we're not going to re-debate that. Then it was the council's job to figure out how they were going to pay for the water project which is extremely expensive. And they came up with a rate system that put a disproportionate amount of the burden on to single family homeowners. And in fact we're going to look at situations if people didn't cut back on water use. If they still used the same amount of water that they had been using as they were going into the measure I or right at the time of measure I, city service bills might be approaching $3,000 for many of those people and that's annually by 2018 when we actually get to the rates that the council has established. The council was I guess politically astute but at the same time I think we're kind of hiding the P on the cost because they actually borrowed money up front to keep the rates down and then slowly raise the rates over a period of time that makes it difficult to argue that rates aren't out of control because in the short term they're being held down with borrowed money whereas in the long term they're going to go up very rapidly starting next year. So how important is P in terms of the future of the city as far as you're concerned? Well I think if the city were to continue to go on the same trajectory that has been headed with water rates and increases in other city service rates and increases in taxes, it's not just measure O and the city is already shopping around a parcel tax for November which they believe is needed for roads. The same time the school district has its variety of parcel taxes. My belief is that this is going to price out of town our middle income residents and those are largely the people that have children and families along with fixed income residents. It's going to change the character of the town in ways that I don't want to see. So if P were to pass, what impact would that have? Well unfortunately I can't promise that rates aren't going to go up because we have to pay for the water project. But what we can do is structure the rates so that the cost of the water project is more fairly apportioned among our residents so that we don't drive our single family homeowners out of town. So who would absorb that increment of increased cuts? Well in my view the way the rates are structured now is that primarily renters and people in apartments and in particular people who aren't in town during the summer would be paying a disproportionately smaller part of the cost of the project than I would say is fair. So we are going to be looking at people who are renters paying more. If measure P passes. If measure P passes and then the board redows the rates in a way that I would say equalizes the amount we pay per gallon of water. Anything else you want to say on measure P or the water project? I think measure P is very important to pass. Like I said we don't want to re-argue the water project. Well I think you do want to re-argue but you're not going to. Well it doesn't provide any benefit. It's not an issue at this point. It's not good for the community. I do want to point out however how fortunate we are in our current drought to still be primarily reliant, not fully reliant on groundwater because that buffers our water supply at least over a year or two against the kind of drought that we're suffering right now while other communities are going to be severely impacted by a lack of water. We aren't. So the idea of moving away from groundwater to surface water has some real downsides as well as upsides for surface water. So this year if we were under, if it was five, if five years from now we're in this current climactic situation, what would Davis' priority be in terms of access to the groundwater that we're counting on? We'd still be in better shape because what you're assuming is that we have a drought like we're having this year and it continues. There will be almost no surface water in five years. Groundwater would become more of a problem because it wouldn't be replenished. What we're doing is we're sitting on top of a reservoir. Unless that reservoir can fill up, all we're doing is drawing it down. And that is not a good situation either. Certainly we would be in a very... World of hurt. I don't want to call it a world of hurt, but we would certainly be working to conserve to a lot greater degree than is necessary at the moment. Or that we're willing to even consider. Well, some people are considering an awful lot of conservation right now, which is another problem with the rates that the council has established. The rates are put together assuming that a certain volume of water is actually going to be used, and that's the volume of water that gets paid for. If people conserve more than what the council has assumed, then the demand for water is going to drop and the amount of water that is sold by the city is going to decline. But the fixed costs, particularly these huge new fixed costs that we've taken on for the water project, aren't going away. So we're going to have to up the rates in order to pay the fixed costs. To generate the revenue that's been budgeted. Not just budgeted, that is due. Well, it's that catch-22 that the government is, according to 218 and whatever, that the government's required to only charge you what it actually costs, but they can't charge you for costs that somebody else didn't get captured. So you never get to 100% no matter what. Well, I don't actually follow that as being true because there are surpluses built up in the enterprise funds. So if you're running a surplus, you have to be at least caught up. Right, right. Well, I'm arguing for caught up. I'm not arguing for having a... You have to be conservative in the way that you do it to try to ensure that you don't end up short. You know, I gotta tell you, my current model for most things in life is a bladder. It's like two-thirds full to one-third full. I mean, when we live in an urban society, it's really an organic thing. And we need to think about ways that the limits are maximized. I'm getting off-field enough that I'll get in trouble. So there are other financial problems that the city of Davis is not doing a very good job with. What's your opinion about how to become more in control of the financial future of the city? I think getting control of the financial future of the city needs to start with actually figuring out what the city's revenues are, what they can be used for, and what its real spending and expenditure needs are. I get in some trouble with this when I talk to people because everybody wants a quick answer. And I don't think there are quick answers for where the city is, because we haven't done the work of figuring out where the holes are between revenue and spending. We need to go through the process of finding those holes, and then we can talk about whether these are holes we want to fill or whether we want to reduce the actual services that are being provided in that area. But I really think it's extremely important that we be able to have an open conversation with the community about that. One of the issues when I first came on the school board was a very large lack of trust between the employees, the public in general, and what was going on with the schools because it seemed like we would go through a process of doing negotiations for salaries or other spending, and then find money. And it's like there were hidden pots. Everybody thought there were hidden pots. And so one of the first things that we did as a new board when I came on, along with Marty and Joan was elected, was to open the books. And so everybody could see what the schools had in the way of revenue and what we had in the way of spending. And then we could have a rational conversation about compensation. I think we need to do exactly the same thing with the city. Now the city is more complicated. Schools are focused on educating our children. And that's their reason for being. And whatever else happens in the school setting is really designed for that. Now the city has lots of different activities that it's in charge of that are different. I mean everything from what we were talking about, which is water service and garbage pickup service, those kinds of services to parks and recreation and other kinds of services that are very different. So the city is a much more complicated setting. So it's not going to be a straightforward to open the budget, but it has to be done. Because if we're going to seriously talk about balancing a budget that's at least $5 million in the red and probably more because that doesn't really account for the long-term needs for pensions and health care and road maintenance, we're going to have to have the trust of the people that what we're doing and what we're asking of them has a real purpose. Something that they can understand. This idea that we can have a budget proposed and a red flag run up that, gee, we've got a $5 million budget deficit. Well why? What's causing that? Well I don't know, but revenues are $5 million short of spending. It's a bad way to do business in my mind. So at the risk of being facetious, that's called the budget process. Well that's the budget process I would envision if I didn't like it. I just want to say that five years ago I was on the Business and Economic Development Commission and I became the liaison to the Finance and Budget Commission and I read the budget. And the narrative in the budget hadn't been changed in the last five years. The numbers had been changed by the departments but nobody had actually read the budget. So I'm just telling you that we're in a similar circumstance now where people know what their part is but nobody's looked at the whole. We're in a transition now to a new city manager and it's a key point in time where everybody should be getting on the same page. I'll agree. City manager is going to be a key decision because our current city manager has gone on to other opportunities. The council is in the process of bringing in an interim manager so the next council, whether I'm on it or whoever's elected, is going to have the job of hiring a new city manager which is one of the most important things that a council does. As I see it, the role of the city manager is really to work with the council as we develop whatever the priorities for spending are going to be or any other program priority. And then it's the job of the city manager to implement that through the staff. I found it to be extremely important on the school board that you not be reaching past the superintendent because that undermines their ability to work with the staff. But on the other hand, you have to trust your city manager or your top executive, whatever the title may be, to actually implement the priorities that they're given. They can't come in with their own agenda, so to speak and kind of set the elected body over here while they pursue it. Won't work. I look at it like this where the manager is the interface between the staff and the governing body. The governing body needs to be holding the manager accountable and the manager's job is to make the staff do the day-to-day operations that are supposed to be done. In the school culture, there's a real strong relationship between the superintendent and each member of the board of trustees. They meet on a regular basis. I'm not sure if it's that comfortable with the city council. What kind of factors do you want to have in the city manager? I think I already pretty well described it. I know I did a great job of not asking the question and you answered it because I did such a great job. I really want a manager who will be responsive to the priorities of the council and will be looking to the council for direction at the same time that they know that they're in charge of getting it done with the staff. In case you didn't get the question the first time, that's the thumbnail answer. Parks and Recreation is a great example of joint use between the city and the school district. Where do you see Parks and Recreation going in the next five or ten years? I really think we need to go through the budget process to figure out what their current activities are and how they're being supported. I know that there's a multitude of special interest groups because a special interest group isn't just somebody who's out to get money from the city. They're also the people that are taking services from the city. Everything from swim teams to intramural sports teams or intramural sports that relies on the city to provide the setting for their activities and the support. I think we need to figure out how we can continue those services but yet have the city fiscally sound. A point I think I really want to make while we have the chance here is that a city going broke is not a city that is able to provide the kind of services that the community wants. If we go through a budget process that identifies holes whether they're in Parks and Recreation or whether they're in our streets which I think we can see with our eyes the question is going to be what do we do to fill those holes? That's the conversation that we have to have with the community to tell us what they're willing to provide if we truly don't have the revenue to continue a particular activity or service. That might be taxes, it might be fees but I don't think we can go there until we're able to have that conversation and we have the trust. To a certain extent that was a loaded question because Parks and Rec is the ultimate special interest group. I know that people that are taking advantage of the services can be very vocal. They've benefited from the services. I've been there in the past so it's not like this is foreign to me. Sure. What about law enforcement? What about fire and safety? How do you give people a sense of what your priorities are? I really think you start from the bottom up and you ask why does a city exist? What is the purpose of having a city government? Of course two of the primary purposes are law enforcement which protects us from each other so to speak and our fire protection and other kinds of emergency services that helps keep us whole when bad things happen. They are essential. We always make decisions about how much are we willing to spend to be how safe but certainly those are two of the primary functions of the city. You can't ignore them and they need to be there. So why should people vote for you? I think I have the skills to help solve some of the big problems that the city is facing both financially and structurally. I do know something about roads. I have an engineering background to go along with my soil and water science background so that I can speak to things that other council members whose backgrounds are perhaps in the legal area or the medical profession don't have the same experience. It's what I was talking about the team. When I was on the school board I was able to bring certain things. Other people brought other things and together I think we made a better package. I want to thank you for being on our show. Well thank you. For sure. This is what's going on. I want to tell you a secret which is that I'm voting for Rochelle and John Munn and I hope you vote on June the 3rd. Thanks for watching. This is what's going on. Good evening.