 Good evening. This is what's going on. I'm John Lee Our guest this evening is will Arnold a candidate for the Davis City Council Will I want to thank you for being on our show. Thank you for having me John pleasure to be here good It's my pleasure to have you There are there are two big elephants in the room with you as a candidate for the Davis City Council and Normally what I do in the show is the first half of the show is about where do you come from in the second house about where you're going We're going to get to that But I want to take care of the two elephants first in terms of who will Arnold is You know will Arnold and yet it's because of these two elephants The second reason is because he's got a physical handicap and I want to start out with your physical handicap So welcome to my show. Thank you. So you've turned this into a campaign slogan. Just reach out your hand, John Well, what do you mean by that? so When folks are faced with shaking my hand for the first time and I mentioned this in my campaign kickoff speech I get a range of responses anything from People just not knowing what to do all the way to grabbing me by the shoulder or doing a modified fist bump or something And if I could tell folks what to do it would be just reach out your hand That makes it easy for me to shake your hand and I told that story to a couple of people and and They thought it was a pretty apt metaphor for my candidacy for city council So it's it's it's become somewhat of a slogan of mine. So You've had to live with this your whole life. Sure So when you were a little kid running around the rec pool at UCD everybody knew who you were No doubt because you were the kid without any arms. Yeah, in fact, I kind of count myself lucky in that regard there's You know folks with disabilities Run the the gamut of there's all kinds of disabilities all shapes and sizes levels of severity etc but one way to to sort of Categorize if you will folks with disabilities is is is people who are born with their disability or people who acquired them and Frankly, I've always considered myself somewhat Lucky if you can say that that I don't know any different. So My entire life every to the first time I ever picked something up the first time I ever Fell over it was all with the body that I have now And so I don't know what it's I would I wouldn't know what it's like to have a full set of arms so What's it look like when you drive a car? I'm pretty close up to the steering wheel and Probably a lot of me leaning forward and leaning backward I'm a little bit limited as to which kinds of cars I can drive They've got to have a lot of headroom so that I because I'm a pretty tall guy and and so I've got to be able to lean forward and so probably unfortunately Lamborghini, you know, it's beyond just economic reasons that I'll never drive a Lamborghini because my head would hit the hit the windshield but The only small car I've ever driven is a Volkswagen Beetle one of the new Beetles and those have of course a ton of headroom And I love that because I for the first time ever got to zip around in a tiny car But mostly it's it's bigger cars I had a pickup truck when I was a kid and I mostly drive my Honda Pilot now And so they got to have a lot of headroom. So test driving a car is very important to me and I used to utilize a modification of Pretty minor modification where I had something strapped to the bottom of the steering wheel It was just sort of a it started out as a knob But really we ended up just putting a little maybe four inch metal bar out there that I used and then one time It started to wear down I you do put a lot of torque on it and and It was about to break so I took it off and then I had to drive and I said This is easier. I like it better with just the steering wheel So ever since then I've just used the steering wheel and so the only other modifications I have for my car I Have to wear my glasses obviously or contacts I suppose It needs to have a blinker that's working because they can't do the hand signals and it has to be an automatic for obvious reasons That's incredible. So I tried to drive a stick once with a friend She was doing the shifting of the gears and I was but obviously still I was stalling out and stuff I mean, I didn't even know the basics, but but no, it should be an automatic Okay I've seen you do a lot of electronics work with your toes. Sure So talk about how you use your toes the way most people use their fingers sure So I still I mean I use my toes for a lot of things. I find myself gesturing with my feet a lot when I'm when I'm in a conversation Do people pick that up? Yeah, sometimes obviously it depends on the venue and my comfort level but But I Sometimes it's easier for me to grab things with my feet or manipulate certain types of objects with my feet The best example an early example was 1985 when the Nintendo Entertainment System came out and of course a watershed moment for any child of the 80s like I am and my friend got a Nintendo for Christmas and I Started playing it trying to play it with my hands and it was a little bit awkward and I kind of tried different, you know ways of doing it and then I said I'm just gonna give it a go with my feet put the controller on the floor and and and and and play with my feet and it worked and I was good and I and I just yesterday was playing Mario Kart with my wife and Was playing with my feet and of course I won races and So that's how I and that's a little trivial example, obviously, it's not you know So let's talk about an important example. What about the Rubik's Cube? Yeah, one of my claims to fame is that I am a former world record holder If you go in fact to I believe it's speed cubing net which is the official web Database of world records for the Rubik's Cube I'm still on there no longer a world record holder But I'm but it shows past world record holders But I used to have the world record for the fastest person to solve the Rubik's Cube with his feet It's actually somebody actually be you My record's been shattered in fact by some Europeans I think I threw down the gauntlet and and now the record is So I'll share that story very quickly I learned to solve the Rubik's Cube It's it's like any game including video games where there's a level one That's kind of easy and the levels get progressively harder until you're at the last level where you're solving for the last little bits of the Cube and it's a pretty intense algorithm that you're using and so but somebody taught me to solve the Rubik's Cube and Once again, it was clear to me that this was going to be far easier to do with my feet And so I would solve it and it's a fun thing to do while you're sitting and watching television or something to solve it and then mess it up again and solve it and I Happen to be on the internet looking and I saw a picture of an elephant with a paintbrush in its trunk Which of course I had to click on right and it turns out it was the Guinness world record for the most expensive piece of artwork ever created by an animal and Fantastic that linked me to the Guinness Book of World Records website which had certain Records including the Rubik's Cube and it said, you know, here's the fastest, you know person solving it with their hands And they said for more records Check out speedcubing.net. I went to that website and found out that there was in fact a record for solving it with your feet And that that record at the time this was about 2005 that that record was Around five minutes. It was a little bit over five minutes and I said, you know, I Think it takes me about five minutes to do this I ought to check it out. So I set a little timer and I solved it in less than five minutes And I said, well, that was a world record. I can't imagine it counts So what do I do now that I think I can break a world record? And and I found out that the way you do it is that there's official Rubik's Cube sanctioned competitions and that there was one coming up later that year at Caltech and And and so and in fact it gave me the email address of the Gentleman Tyson who was putting on the competition and it was in a yahoo email address And so I said, oh, I have yahoo messenger. I might as well open that up and send him a message So I sent him a message saying hey will Arnold. I'm from Davis I think I can break the world record and I want to come to your competition Of course, he was online at the time because he's a Caltech student and he And he wrote me back and was very excited and said oh my gosh, I need you to come down This would be fantastic Celebrity and so the point of all that is that I went from within about an hour I went from seeing a picture of an elephant with a paintbrush in its trunk to at least setting up my Trip that resulted in me breaking this Rubik's Cube world record Flew down to to Caltech Made sure to get a pedicure the night before one of the one of my proudest moments of forethought was hey people Might be taking pictures of my feet. I ought to at least make them look presentable and then You get three bites at the apple and my first solve was under five minutes So that was a world record and then I my third and final one was Just over four minutes four oh six sixty eight was my record The record and now is less than a minute. It's been destroyed and I and I have sadly relinquished relinquished my throne and I and it doesn't even I've I've become rusty on the on the Rubik's Cube and and would love to maybe someday I'll make a valiant come back and and re-break that record, but it'll take some work Well between now and then you have a few other things to work. So, yeah, let's let's start with your family. Yeah Your granddad had the Chevrolet station. Yeah at that point that was The best place to buy a car sure Yeah, so my family has been Multi-generational in the region in 1906 the Arnold brothers Opened up the first car dealership in Sacramento. It was on 18th and capital and if you go there It's Zocalo restaurant now, but if you go there Even if you look it up for Google Street view you can see that's still etched into the to the top of the doorway is Arnold Brothers Motors and so for Generations my family was in the car business and it was in the 50s that My grandfather thought that Davis would be a good place to open up a car dealership and And opened up this dealership. I believe in 1958 is when they moved to town so my dad at the time would have been oh probably about 10 years old and So that's when the family moved to Davis So let's the when I said there were two giant elephants in Will's life Doug Arnold is the second one I'll just give you one statistic. I believe it's 52% of the sales in real estate in Davis our Doug Arnold Colwell Bank or real estate now Doug Arnold has passed away But Doug Arnold is still a tremendous presence in the real estate industry, especially in Davis. So talk about your dad so my dad He did pass away last year And but he was a real fixture in the Davis community for his entire adult life He grew up here from when he moved here at about 10 years old Graduated from high school here. It was a blue devil class in 1965 and Aside from four years that he spent in the early 70s as a police officer in San Francisco he spent his entire life in Davis and It was in the in the late 70s I believe 1978 that he and my grandparents his parents partnered together to start Arnold real estate and Just a small real estate company brokerage, which I think with I think just them and maybe one or two other agents and between then and and now they grew to be far and away the number one real estate brokerage in the county and It was at the mid-80s I believe 1986 that that that Arnold real estate took on the Coldwell banker franchise and I'll remember that because Arnold real estate colors were yellow and and You know my dad around when he took on Coldwell banker said what's your favorite color? Well, I said well yellow of course, right? He said no no no now. It's blue. So that was that was the change and so he was very successful in business and He left a legacy in town that that I'm very proud to even be you know tangentially associated with he Was the he his father He and then my sister Carrie were all presidents of the Davis Chamber of Commerce At various times three generations of Arnold's He was very generous with both his time and his and his resources and with the company's Resources all over town, but in particular the schools either the Davis schools foundation or the blue and white foundation or Or any individual, you know the football boosters and all all kinds of things he was very proud that he was able to be inducted into the Davis High School Hall of Fame in 2014 which turned out to be only about six months before he passed away So I was very I'm thrilled that he got to get that honor In his lifetime, and it was well deserved certainly very proud of not just what he did in Davis certainly, but he was always the the leader and always the the boss always the driver if we were going on family vacations and and It's it's one of the goals of my lifetime to live up to one-tenth of the man that he was and a giant's man Oh, of course. Yeah. Well, he Was a Giants fan as a kid, but then he was like I said, he was a cop in the 70s and Ingleside was his Ingleside 17 was his call call sign and he also did some of the Giants games did security for you know For the Giants games and so hit one of his claims to fame was that he saw Willie Mays naked in the locker room Which I not too many not too many and he would we would go to Giants game back of course when they were playing at candlestick and You know, there'd be a big line of cars on the freeway Getting off at an exit and he would get off about two exits ahead of everybody else and we'd be going down these Back streets in San Francisco. No sense that I had that We were anywhere near the ballpark and then he would turn a corner and bam there We were and we had jumped the line completely because he knew his way around the city and and that was that was always fun I think San Francisco was always a second home to him and And and and it's always felt that way to me since then Giants fan 49ers fan and and just a love for that city that that I try and pass on to my family well Thanks for that. Let's move on, but you know those those two Elephants are gonna be part of the rest of the conversation as well. So Talk for a minute about growing up in Davis sure, so I was born at Woodland Memorial Hospital and I came home to a house on Marina Circle and You know my dad Was very well known grew up in town, but also had this business My mom was a teacher in the Davis school district for 40 years So, you know the old the old saying it takes a village to raise a child I mean for better or worse, this village raised me it was My babysitters were always students that my mom had The the the probably certainly most famous pair of babysitters that I had they would babysit me together Were Franz and Mike so that would be Franz Wiesner and Michael Franti were my babysitters at once and of course Michael Franti is now a platinum recording artist and Franz Wiesner is a best-selling author I mean just a I mean how who can ask for better babysitters? Although I do have a good friend who was babysat by DJ shadow another famous Davis product. So, you know, we Famous babysitters, I guess happen in this town, but And You know, I've seen the community Grow in every sense of the word certainly, you know I grew up in in in north Davis north of Covel and I remember when I was a little kid I was pretty much at the northern border at town and and that was before North Star came in and so we would play out in those empty fields and stuff, but also Grow in in the more Amorphous sense in that it's You know the city mature cities mature as I matured and and it's been fascinating to watch and be a part of it and Sort of come of age in in this community I mean the things that we have in this community the schools of course and my dad was always a He was a businessman first and always a very conservative guy politically didn't really like Taxes didn't really like big government operations But he'd be the first to tell you that there's one reason and one reason only that folks will pay Twice per square foot for a house in Davis that they would in any other town and it's the schools and So, you know, I'm a product of the Davis schools Went to north Davis elementary where my where my stepson Mauricio now goes Went to Emerson and then the high school and I was student body president at those at those latter two and Really, you know the types of things that I was involved in In junior high and high school certainly looking back. They seem pretty trivial, right? I would you know this the student government deals with Dances and events and things like that. This is not the fate of the world, but at the same time The passions Around the table when you're deciding about these things are no less intense then Perhaps the passions at the city council meeting or at a commission meeting or something like that and and I've been a part of those organizations and leading those organizations for the most of my life And I would actually say beyond any of the student leadership stuff that I did in high school it was peer helping or peer counseling that I did in junior high and high school that That was really the training Because those we got trained we had retreat and specific training about a conflict resolution mediation and most importantly listening skills and it's those it's that training that I draw back draw from In anything that I do now whether it's leading a nonprofit board or whether it's Doing policymaking on the commission level or or hopefully someday on the city council level or Even within my family or group of friends is these the ability to listen to actively listen and to take thoughts and ideas and and to synthesize them and to workable solutions is It's the name of the game and I actually the Davis schools and my experience of the Davis schools helped Teach me those types of skills So talk about your family talk about your new family sure, so I Married a Davis girl Which is should surprise nobody? Nicole mostly Was her maiden name Nicole Arnold now? She actually moved around a lot when she was a kid Was born in Sacramento spent some of her life in in Texas and then moved to Davis When she was in high school and and we met and fell in love and and got married in 2013 and We've since had two young children Sonia was born in 2014 in June and and Dougie was born just about not quite four months ago in November of 2015 and both Sonia and Dougie are are named after Parents of ours who have passed away my my wife's mom. I never got to know Sonia Passed away died of breast cancer in 2005 and And we honored her as best we could with with naming our little daughter after her and then of course We knew we were having a son and in fact had Intended to name him after my dad, but unfortunately they never get to meet each other Next time sure so Of the groups that you've been involved in there are several I guess there's one other thing first You went away to college. Yeah The U of O go ducks So talk about where you just said So Yeah, that's the only time that I've ever lived outside of Davis was in you living in Eugene, Oregon Went to the U of O was there at a very interesting that's working for those you vote Oregon in Eugene Was there for both of a very interesting time at the University of an interesting time in in our world? When I got there Oregon Was sort of the they weren't the doormat of the Pac-10 as it was In football They had gone to one Rose Bowl a few years earlier in 1994 But they were never really consistently going to be you know USC or Washington and then by the time I left the U of O they were a national powerhouse and I and so I was there And I actually had a front-row seat to this transition mostly it was the philanthropy of Phil Knight the founder of Nike who's a an Oregon alumnus and he built And and led the philanthropic effort to build the new football stadium as well as locker rooms and practice facility and all kinds of things and His giving to the University is certainly not limited to athletics the the Libraries named after him and and and some other things but in 2002 Oregon finished the season it was a 2001 football season and finished the season ranked second in the nation and I was at the time the Assistant news director at the campus radio station KW VA the Willamette Valley alternative and and So it was from 2001 to 2003 that I held that position and and part of that was Was doing some work with sports. I was part of a sports talk show Called quack smack. I didn't name it but did a we did a sports talk show and so I I interviewed players and coaches and I was at their practice and their spring game and When the new stadium was being the new addition to the stadium was being built. I Got to do a hard hat tour So I mean I really got to see up close and personal This transition that the that the University made from To really putting its best webbed foot forward in in terms of national athletic prominence. That was a joke. I mean barely And so but but like I also said, it was a very interesting time for our country I Was at the U of O when September 11th took place And I was not working at the radio station at that time But it was just a couple of months later at the beginning of December 2001 that I That I started this gig Writing the headlines as you know, basically writing the script for this this news broadcast that was delivered four days a week We would follow What's it called? I'll have to remember what it is but anyway, we we we had a syndicated show that we would play beforehand and then we we did our live news broadcast and It was I'll very clearly remember that it was it was the axis of evil speech was right around the time that I that I was Beginning my brief tenure in the news department there And so that entire time from that period all the way up to the lead-up and execution of the War in Iraq. I was delivering the news every day and it was just I mean fascinating and edifying and and Informative for for my thought because you you really see oh How to do this in a kind way you saw times when What was being said one day was possibly inconsistent with With both the evidence but also with what was being said a few months earlier and I had happened to write The news broadcast those previous months and I said well wait a minute. That's not what you said So anyway a formative time I think in our nation's history, but also certainly in my Lifetime of political thought I Wanted insert the punchline that you're discreetly leaving out which is that you're now a Democrat Yeah, yeah fair. That's oh, it's definitely I have no choice but to but to say that I'm a Democrat now I serve on the I serve on the both the Davis Democratic Club and the Yolo County Democratic Central Committee Proudly I'm a proud Democrat But like I'm just saying like I said my upbringing was not in a Democratic household in fact My dad used to say we'd get to hotel rooms and you know your kid and you jump right on the bed And and he said don't don't jump on that comforter Democrats might have been on there so Democrat was more or less a pejorative when I was growing up and and I was somebody who paid a very close attention to politics even at a really young age I remember when Reagan was president. I remember the 88 Election and how happy my family was that that George Bush won and then I very distinctly remember And was not involved in the election, but but I was in eighth grade in 1992 when President Bush was running for re-election and obviously Bill Clinton won that election and that was the Ross Perot election And I was the only one in my eighth grade social studies class that was for Bush It was everybody for Clinton and then a few for Perot and then me and so I mean I was and yet you were a student buddy president and yet I was student buddy president and And everybody liked you know, I I think I did an okay job expressing myself. I we did it like it wasn't a debate It was more like a presentation of of your you know Positions on the election and and I think I got if I if memory serves This was a long time ago now But if memory serves that everybody disagreed with me but said that I gave the best presentation Right, so I mean I was I'd like to think I was thoughtful. I did so I Was a young Republican small small y as in never really officially a part of any group but but I identified myself identified as a Republican and and I think in the 2000 election. I didn't at the time Recognize the the importance of that election. I think a lot of people in this country Especially young people didn't recognize how important that election was and they thought oh, here's a couple of jokesters How do you how do you support either gore or bush? The you know gore is really boring, but Bush is obviously You know kind of silly. How do you take it? Seriously? and I And I was one of those folks that didn't understand the consequences and then September 11th happened the war in Iraq and the lead-up happened and by that time I was a Democrat and I haven't looked back since because Well, I don't want to get too political but Recent events can only solidify that I Think even the Republicans that my dad grew up liking and that I even grew up Respecting and admiring Wouldn't recognize the party now Reagan would not recognize the party. I think that's a fair assessment In in the time we have remaining let's talk a little about Davis Paul sure the You're talking about reviewing the general plan. Yeah. Well, it's been I mean it's My understanding is the general plan Says that it goes through 2013 so It's time The process started as you well know before the internet was was invented it So it's time to review the general plan. We've been doing a lot of planning Sort of planning by exemption because Some folks feel and I wouldn't necessarily count myself among them But that that that there are needs that our community has that the general plan may not be addressing or have even anticipated and I think it's a really valuable process that communities go through and It's been so long since we went through that process almost almost 20 years that I think it would be very valuable for our community to to go through this process and and the general plan and my desire to see a process that updates the general plan is really one probably the major one but one example of of sort of my Platform isn't quite the right word, but when I When I announced that I was running for city council I mentioned that that of of my three children two are under two years old and so they're gonna graduate from Davis High School in the years 2032 and 2034 Which of course sounds like fiction it sounds like forever from now and that and but It's it's that timeline that decades from now timeline through which I view anything that come that would come before me as a city council member and What I mean by that is that it's perfectly reasonable certainly in times of economic strife that decisions are made the triage is is Performed and explain where you mean by triage. Well, for example And this was I'm really only paraphrasing former city manager John Meyer from from his report, but The staffing level just to use an example Throughout our city departments We we realize some budgetary savings Through attrition meaning that folks who retired we just wouldn't fill that position back up And and you would get some some savings from that and that makes perfect sense when you're doing triage We're fortunate that right now that's not where we are. We're not doing triage. We haven't I wouldn't say that We're out of the woods. We certainly have plenty of budgetary challenges ahead of us but but we're we have a little bit of breathing room, I think is fair and and Now is a good time to assess whether the staffing levels that we have for various city services and various departments are at their ideal level for the services that our community expects and deserves so That's one way in which I would really like to take the long view when we're making decisions as as a city and I think the city the general plan is Is sort of the best clearest most concrete Example of a way to really involve our community members in a process In which we can do some real long-term planning for our community's future for the time that little Sonya and Dougie are gonna be Cap and gown at Davis High So I would really like to see that process take place I don't believe I'm the only candidate who's who's made that a priority But I'm excited to see that happen if should I be elected So I want to insert something here that you may or may not agree with and that is that the state Constitution allows a city to become a charter city Now a quarter of the 500 cities in California are charter cities The big cities are all charter cities, but small cities like Marysville, which has 12,000 people Chico Roseville Napa are all charter cities So it's not a function of size a charter city has a little more authority Than a general law city does But my main argument is partly from what you were talking about the general plan focuses on land use housing transportation Those are the physical assets of a community when we worked on the general plan 25 years ago I tried to get youth and seniors and art and Particularly computer networking which the internet was brand new then those things got eliminated from the first draft of the general plan I never even got considered the kind of questions about staffing are and which business which Activities is the city actually responded to as opposed to they're saying they're responding, but we don't really have anybody that does that We're we're in a very confused state now We've had seven city managers over the last 15 years and because of that there's been too much triage Now I know what triage means and many people here do too, but I needed to know what you meant by it Sure, and at this point the city is under good leadership We're I think dirt Brazil is doing a great job as city manager But there's a lot of holes and there's a lot of skeletons in the Davis closet at this point And we need to move forward so I hope the city council the next city council will consider a charter and That's the end of my political so you've talked about becoming the infrastructure expert on the city council I don't know if I would say expert but advocate become sure sure Become at least the abacus. Yeah, so what do you mean by that? well, so there's a reason why my My logo my lawn signs have the water tower as the central focal point and it's because We have some real infrastructure needs in town some have been addressed recently In fact, I would say that one of my proudest achievements politically in Davis is my work on the measure I campaign which which was the 2013 special election to approve the surface water project and It was Something that needed to happen in my opinion. I think it's the most important thing that's happened in town probably in my lifetime Maybe I'll live long enough that something else will come along but But it was it was a critical piece of infrastructure in not just my opinion But I'm somebody to paraphrase the author Bill Bryson. I I tend to trust Possessors of arcane and privileged knowledge like plumbers and surgeons and in this case groundwater experts Jay Lund Shabana GLS and Schroeder and others were in Unison that this was something that the city needed to address and and so as I was able to Make my small contribution in that effort by by forming and and then running the yes on measure I campaign in 2013 which was successful and and past the voters and and This summer I believe Will be turning the big spigot on to get this to get this surface water So it's it's things like that that give me a lot of pride because they're they're not Sexy or whatever, but they are The types of things that are critical to the services the city provides its citizens and And that that lead to Quality of life in in every way so right now for example this the poor state of our roads and and other transportation infrastructure like bike paths and green belts has has come to I Think the community has Wrapped its mind around the fact that something needs to be done and something drastic needs to be done and the city council is to be commended to committing A not insignificant level of funding. I believe it's four million a year That that they're putting toward the roads, but that still doesn't that barely keeps us above water so to speak and I was an advocate for Doing some sort of a revenue measure that was specific to roads and transportation infrastructure I think it's that important and I think it's something That that this the community could have embraced not to say that there won't be an opportunity down the line But could have embraced this June because I think the the city knows how important those this piece of infrastructure is as I recall the distinction in the the election law is if the money is for a specific purpose it needs a Majority vote if it's not for a specific purpose, then it needs to know I think it's the other way around Okay, I think it's the other way around that if it's if it's earmarked for a specific purpose It needs two-thirds, okay, and if it's a general tax it can be just 50% plus one and And also this is somewhat specific to Davis, but only We can only and this is my understanding that we can only put forward a revenue measure that's for city purposes during our our General municipal election, which is every June of every year. Yeah, and and that means that Our next bite at the apple isn't until June of 2018. So there are two ballot Measures that will be on the June ballot both of which I support and and and so far haven't seen any real opposition to Which is this transit occupancy tax hotel tax that raises it a pretty modest amount. I believe from 10 to 12 percent That I my understanding is that even the hoteliers in town recognize that this is a That this is a reasonable revenue measure, so I Suppose I'll be corrected if I'm wrong about that assessment And then the other the other tax measure that's on the June ballot is a Marijuana tax that would that would tax recreational purchases of marijuana, of course There's no such thing as right now as a legal recreational purchase of marijuana but the There is anticipation that that might change in November that the state might go the way of of Colorado and in Washington and legalize marijuana for recreational use which Davis like like I said wouldn't have an opportunity until 2018 to implement a tax on that and therefore the fear was and I think it was a legitimate concern that In the interim year and a half should any Recreational marijuana retailers open up shop in town that we would be seen as an Extra desirable location to open them up because we would be the cheap place to go because we didn't have a Municipal tax on top of anything the state was planning to do so. I think there was some good forethought in putting that measure forward and I also think it's probably now Of course the November vote to whether or not to legalize marijuana is going to be controversial But I don't think this tax measure Is going to be particularly controversial. I think everybody knows that should this pass Davis ought to Take full financial advantage of that. Well time will tell sure so Davis has a Confused relationship with the university sure we have a complicated relationship with the county Talk about the city's relationships with other institutions well, I think Most large entities have complicated relationships with other large entities. I don't think that's unique there's even the of course the the The phrase town-gown relationships, which are not unique to Davis. I'm sure Eugene Oregon experiences I'm sure Ann Arbor and Alexandria and and Chapel Hill all have Ups and downs in their relationships between the city and the and the University but These these borders between UC Davis and the city of Davis are Invisible to the naked eye only you and I know where one stops and the other begins and More to the point when you're a professor living in town or working at the University and going and grabbing lunch or you're a student who Likely lives in the city and goes to school at the University the borders are unimportant and indistinguishable and Of course Davis wouldn't be Davis we would be another stop on i-80 Were it not for for UCD? I think the most I was thinking about this the other day the most important thing Decision that's ever been made that affected the city of Davis I think would be the UC Regents deciding to put the University farm here I think that's that would be in my that would be in anyone's top five at least and And so we are in most every way Blessed by having this incredible institution Right in the middle of town essentially but right and right at our right next door We have opportunities that most communities of our size don't have whether it's educational opportunities of course but also entrepreneurial opportunities opportunities for enlightenment and entertainment and engagement It's not it's not 0% why our school system is what it is because we have Folks who are connected to the University who are also connected to our school system If if you want to learn in school half of what you learn is from the other kids in the school Yeah, if you have kids from foreign countries in your school, which all the Davis schools have sure you're going to learn about Other countries just by talking about where kids come from or kids who grew up with a Inordinate knowledge of biology or medicine especially biotics or anything right? I mean we benefit in so many ways that that This or any show doesn't have adequate time to address by having the University here And I think it's very important that any conversations that are had either within our community or between the two entities recognize that fact that That said There are challenges presented by having a college in your town all kinds of of Uses of our community that are not what our community chose to be the use Right you got college kids that come up and I sometimes compare a college town At least in the way that that that the undergrads treat it It's kind of like a motel room you come in and you mess up the place And then you leave and somebody else has to clean it up and so that happens More acutely we do have a really strained Housing market in town and that's particularly acute with regard to rental housing. There's This incredibly small vacancy rate which is far less than 1% I think it's 0.2% or something so essentially a zero vacancy rate which has all kinds of negative consequences Not just to renters or potential renters, but to everyone in town because you end up Seeing these mini dorms pop up in neighborhoods which have all kinds of negative consequences You you see a desire to to build more Rental housing than perhaps the community it would be welcoming of There's a real discussion going on right now that that says that That the university is is not Pulling its own weight or doing its fair share however you want to describe it of the housing which I think is You know, I'm not somebody who's prone to hyperbole But I think that that's a fair assessment to say that the university is falling short of its its own pledged Goals and commitments to to house a certain percentage of students There's an MOU from the late 90s that that said that the university would would house 25% of its Students and it's not it's at 20 or something so it's not far off, but it's it's not significant but also the And I'm sure I'll butcher the name but the housing for the 21st century. I think was the was the Document that was produced by the University of California at large, but that it had a goal of of 38% of housing To be on campus and of course UCD is nowhere near that so there are certainly some that that suggests that That the city ought not address this issue until the university addresses this issue That's a reasonable response, however Unfortunately, it doesn't it ends up kicking the can down the road because we have serious things happening in town that are a result of this miniscule vacancy rate and What do we do in the meantime? Pointing fingers the blame game is not going to is not going to house folks Well, you know, there's lots of issues. You're gonna have lots of time to talk about it I want to thank you for being on our show. Thank you. John. It was a pleasure for sure This is what's going on. Thanks for watching. Good evening