The new members will learn techniques to carry on the conservation work of the council for years to come 

By ZOE SMITH — city@theaggie.org

On Jan. 20, the Putah Creek Council welcomed new stewardship team members to their program through the first of two training sessions. The second training session’s date is yet to be determined but is projected to take place during the summer.

According to the Putah Creek Council Instagram page, @putahcreekcouncil, in the training, “new members will learn ecosystem restoration techniques, native plant identification, and hands-on fieldwork.” 

The Putah Creek Council is a conservation group that began in 1988 but wasn’t made official until the legal battle of the Putah Creek Accord. The Accord came from a lawsuit launched against Solano County Water Agency, Solano Irrigation District and other Solano entities that was won by the Putah Creek Council, the city of Davis and UC Davis. The settlement from that lawsuit and the law that was put in place protect the Putah Creek water flow and the native fish life.

Maddie Galal has been the stewardship team coordinator for the Putah Creek Council since Oct. 18, 2023. Before this, she got her degree from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies. Galal shared what she will teach on the first training day.

“We’re going to go over our organization’s history and mission, some of our current restoration projects and our partners on those projects,” Galal said. “Then I’m going to talk about the logistics of being a stewardship member and how the stewardship team can help with the events. [We’ll go over] some tool safety, and communication tips for talking to the volunteers and managing them. We’re also going to do a brief training on how to plant a tree.”

In collaboration with local volunteers, the stewardship team has been able to do years of important restoration work in the Putah Creek Watershed, which is an area of 70 miles that starts at Cobb Mountain.   

Funding for the stewardship team comes from donors such as Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Yolo Resource Conservation District, Point Blue Conservation Science and the Center for Land-Based Learning, as well as work from the Putah Creek Council.  

“Our volunteer events are open for all community members, you do not have to be a part of the stewardship team to volunteer with most of our events,” Galal said. “We have nursery volunteer events, every Wednesday, that’s with the nursery team. They’ll do plant propagation, seeding and maintenance, or you can come out and join any of our other stewardship events. I typically have an event every Saturday […] like creek cleanups and plantings.”

Rick Hein is a retiree who has been a stewardship team member since 2002. Hein talked about the Putah Creek Accord and his time within the group.

“The creek essentially disappeared one year,” Hein said. “There was no creek because all the water had been diverted […] so this group of people got together. There was some discussion about what [they were] going to be called. Basically, they became the Putah Creek Council, and they sued the water department for water flow to maintain the habitat.” 

Fish like salmon and steelhead trout, which are both found in Putah Creek, need a fast flow of water to make it to the ocean. Due to the Putah Creek Council’s efforts, there is now a developed flow that allows these fish to spawn and thrive. 

“Seeing the salmon in the creek, that’s really rewarding,” Hein said. “A lot of this stuff has been done with an eye towards recreating historic habitats. One of the things that [were] in the creek was salmon, but there hadn’t been any in many decades [until] 10 years ago or so, it’s fairly recent, salmon started returning.”

According to Hein, it is due to the hard work of the Putah Creek Council that the fish flow has improved and the natural habitat has been restored.

“Thousands of salmon were in that creek,” Hein said. “I was just so proud that we did that. If we had not come along […] there would be no salmon.”

Liz Reay has been involved with the council for 15 years as a stewardship team member and is in her third year on the board of directors. On the board, Reay helps with fundraising, contributes to the operations monetarily and provides aid to the executive director when making decisions for the council.

“We do cleanups and grow native plants and plant them out there to help create a difference to really improve the local landscape and the local plant wildlife,” Reay said. “We provide an environment where people can go out on walks and really appreciate nature.”

When volunteers participate in habitat enhancement field days and native plant nursery work days, they get their hands dirty and gain knowledge on how to plant, prune, create irrigation and maintain the native land of Putah Creek. 

“It’s one of those things where when you start going to events, you meet a type of people or a group of people that you’d want to sit down and have a beer with and talk to for several hours,” Reay said. “These are the people that are concerned about the environment and want to help and want to really do things for the community. This is a superb group. It really is.” 

Written by: Zoe Smith  — city@theaggie.org

Returning for the first time since the pandemic, the chocolate festival will feature several local vendors 

By HANNAH SCHRADER — city@theaggie.org

On Feb. 4, after a hiatus following the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Davis Odd Fellows will hold their annual chocolate festival at the Davis Odd Fellows Lodge, featuring dessert vendors from all over northern California. 

Kurt Roggli, retiree and former 2022 Grand of the Davis Odd Fellows organization, still performs music with the Davis Odd Fellows. Kurt Roggli is a co-founder of the festival. He spoke about the origins of the Davis Chocolate Festival. 

“It started — geez, I don’t know, five, six, seven years ago when another odd fellow, Dave Rosenberg, and I were sitting around musing and he said ‘Let’s have a chocolate festival,’” Kurt Roggli said. “So, he and I got together and sort of organized the first one. […] We were very ambitious and we had speakers and so on, but we’ve learned over the years to pare it down a little bit because we were really trying to do too much but we still got a whole lot going on.”

Juelie Roggli, Kurt’s wife and current secretary of the Odd Fellows, shared that the festival hosts fundraisers to give back to the community.

“We have various fundraisers throughout the year and the money goes to various things,” she said. “And anytime somebody thinks of something, some fun, new innovative way to raise money, we try and get a committee together and do it […] This one was a no-brainer; chocolate is something everyone wants to get involved with.”

Juelie Roggli shared the layout of the event and some information about the vendors that will be attending. There will be about 12 total vendors from across northern California coming to attend the chocolate festival. 

“We’ve got a couple coming from the Bay Area, we’ve got a couple coming from the foothills, Davis, Sacramento, Elk Grove, […] [and] we got the Davis Creamery,” Juelie Roggli said. “Well, not only do they sell their products, but they will have [free] samples of everything.”

Davis Odd Fellow member and host of the cookie bake-off Diane Steele provided more details on the prizes for the competition.

“I’m a quilter and I sew, so the first-place prize is a handmade apron that’s made of cookie fabric that I’ve made,” Steele said. “And then the second and third place [winners] get little medals that say ‘chocolate fest’ and bragging rights. Yeah, you get your name in the paper and it’s just, you know, it’s fun.”

The festival is finally back after its hiatus due to the pandemic, and Steele hopes the event will go on for years. Steele shared the history of the event and how it was impacted by the shutdown.

“We had it for four years from 2016 to 2019, then the pandemic hit, and we didn’t have it, and we’ve resurrected it,” Steele said. “So this is the first year [back] and I can see us doing it [from now on] because the chocolate fest, it’s just a really fun thing for the lodge. The money raised goes to summer camp funds for local kids who apply for it.”

Steele said they charge 10 dollars to the public for tickets and they are limited to 400 attendees. Vendors keep all of their profits from the event. The ticket proceeds will be used to help kids in Yolo County, according to Steele. 

“I like being part of the committee that puts it on,” Steele said. “We need [a committee] all the time and there’s a lot of different people that are doing a lot of different things within the chocolate fest. We get vendors who come and we give them a free booth. We do not charge for the booth. And all they have to do is have samples just to hand out.’

Upper Crust Baking is a family-owned bakery on G Street managed by Loren Kalisky, son of the bakery’s founders. The bakery is one of the many vendors being featured at the festival, but Kalisky shared what he’s looking forward to most. 

“The chocolate festival is one of my favorite events of the year,” Kalisky said. “I would say I’m personally a ‘chocoholic’ so I have a particular affection for the chocolate festival. It’s always nice to go in and see the other vendors and what kind of tasty treats everybody’s got. Of course, it’s [also] a great way to get our name and our products out there and have some nice interaction with the community. So we always look forward to serving the community and the opportunities to get out into the city.”

Written by: Hannah Schrader —  city@theaggie.org

Thompson announced that a discharge petition had been filed for the Keep Americans Safe Act, requiring a vote in Congress about banning large-capacity magazines

By ANTHONY W. ZAMMIKIEL  — city@theaggie.org

On Jan. 11, Representative Mike Thompson (CA-04), who represents Davis and most of Yolo County, announced his intention to file a discharge petition for the Keep Americans Safe Act. The petition would require a vote from Congress on whether to pass a ban on large-capacity magazines for semi-automatic and automatic guns. 

Accompanied by Representative Dianne DeGette (CO-01) at a DC press conference, Rep. Thompson spoke about the necessity for Congress to take decisive action to regulate large-capacity magazines. 

“Large-capacity magazines are a threat to our kids in schools, our communities and to our law enforcement on the streets who are outgunned by dangerous individuals in possession of these magazines,” Thompson said. “The only reason someone would want a large capacity magazine for a semi-automatic weapon would be to inflict massive amounts of carnage in a short period of time. I am proud to work with Diana DeGette to advance this commonsense piece of legislation, and I implore my colleagues on the other side to work with us to help save lives.”

Rep. DeGette represents much of Denver city and county in her home district. At the press conference, DeGette called the gun violence crisis an “epidemic” and said this petition would address the crisis.

“High-capacity magazines serve no purpose other than to amplify the destructive potential of firearms,” DeGette said. “Sensible gun safety protects our collective well-being, because, as we’ve seen, someone with a high-capacity weapon can commit these shootings anywhere, anytime. So the time to act is now, and this discharge petition gives us the opportunity to address the epidemic of gun violence that has claimed far too many lives.” 

The Keep Americans Safe Act aims to authorize the implementation of a buyback program for individuals within possession of high-capacity magazines. The legislation would also give law enforcement the ability to dispose of any high-capacity magazines that were illegally possessed. 

Roan Thibault, an organizer with Students Demand Action at UC Davis, talked about the move by Thompson to require congressional action to address gun violence.

“Our chapter and the broader national network strongly support Rep. Thomspon’s leadership to keep communities safe from gun violence,” Thibault said. “Guns are the leading killer of college-aged students, and high-capacity magazines make this toll even deadlier. Nearly twice as many people are killed when mass shootings involve high-capacity magazines and nearly ten times as many are wounded.” 

Students Demand Action at UC Davis is part of a national network of 700 chapters with the goal of ending gun violence, according to Thibault.

 “We advocate for a range of solutions to tackle every facet of gun violence,” Thibault said. “From background checks on every gun sale to red flag laws and prohibiting assault weapons, these policies effectively combat gun violence.”

Written by: Anthony W. Zammikiel  — city@theaggie.org