The Davis Downtown Business Association heard from UC Davis and Davis PD representatives
By RORY CONLON — city@theaggie.org
The Davis Downtown Business Association (DDBA) discussed the aftermath of the violence on Picnic Day and rescheduled an upcoming event during their meeting on April 17.
Kelly Fong Rivas, the local government relations director at UC Davis, delivered a statement regarding the violence that happened on Picnic Day.
“Everybody is aware of Picnic Day and the shooting incident that occured,” Rivas said. “We continue to cooperate with that investigation as a campus. As you know, we are limited in our jurisdiction for things that happen off campus, but we’ll be getting together with the city at a sort of leadership level to look at next steps and things we can do in future years.”
Kyler Klingberg, a board member on the DDBA, asked Rivas about the future of Picnic Day.
“I’ve heard a bunch of rumors going around saying this is the last Picnic Day,” Klingberg said. “A similar event happened in Chico, and then they shut down their similar, Picnic Day-esque event. Can you debunk that myth that [you’re] in the works of cancelling it?”
Rivas confirmed that she has no knowledge of upcoming plans to cancel Picnic Day.
“That would be news to me,” Rivas said.
Brett Lee, the executive director of the DDBA, said he doubted that Picnic Day would be cancelled, as the event has evolved over time to be more family-friendly.
“It’s a different event today than it was 15 years ago, where the hallmark of Picnic Day was extremely heavy drinking and lots of injuries,” Lee said. “There might be some changes to how the city issues permits to groups and how those events are controlled, but I don’t sense there will be any kind of momentum around curtailing Picnic Day.”
Kevin Wan, the president of DDBA, agreed with Lee’s assessment of the situation.
“If you were to come to Picnic Day in the late aughts or the early 2010s, you would see swarms of police patrolling the streets, mobs in the middle of the streets and fights on the sidewalk,” Wan said. “That no longer happens, and it’s a much more positive, family-friendly event, at least in the downtown and on campus. The incident in Community Park is very unfortunate, but in terms of Picnic Day itself, the city, DDBA and UC Davis have gone to great lengths to improve certain traditions.”
Antonia Dias, a sergeant from the Davis Police Department (DPD), spoke about crime downtown. She said that while the volume of calls from that part of the city has gone down, there have been isolated incidents of violence over the last few years.
“Approximately five years ago, there were rounds fired on campus through a drive-by at [Highway] 113 on Hutchison,” Dias said. “In 2015, a bunch of us were surrounded in our cars in College Park right by International House, and we had people throwing bottles at our car.”
Dias said the biggest difference this year, unlike past years, is that people are acting on opportunities for violence.
“There’s been large groups like this and big parties with potential for violence,” Dias said. “At the PD every year, we sigh in relief that no one pulled the trigger. This year, they did, so I would say that’s the big difference.”
Dias had no further updates on the investigation, but she said that the department cancelled its regional crisis negotiation training the day before so staff and detectives could continue their work on the case.
Autum Foss, an event coordination consultant for the DDBA, is planning a new event called Day in Downtown. Foss said she and her team are making changes to their event in light of Picnic Day.
“In light of everything that’s going on with PD and them being busy with other things right now, we will forego our street closure for this first pilot event and focus on having it in E Street Plaza and the E Street parking lot,” Foss said. “We also moved the date, so the event will now be May 18, just to give us more time to properly advertise for the event.”
Foss said that they are anticipating between 50 and 55 vendors at the event, and they have submitted their permit to the city to secure the new location.
Larry Groves, a co-owner of the Growing Groves Plant Shop, is working in collaboration with Foss to plan the event. Groves said that while they are still excited to hold the event, the changes they made were necessary.
“It’s going to be a little more of a controlled situation and also a good way to gauge how we can move the event to a larger space and progress in the future,” Groves said. “Obviously, things that are happening right now are a little stressful and confusing, but we’ll adjust accordingly.”
Written By: Rory Conlon — city@theaggie.org
