SATURDAY

Psst! PSSST!

An individual threw a rock through a bedroom window on University Avenue, resulting in the window shattering.

That’s what we call a BUI

A rather intoxicated individual fell off a bike at Duke Drive and L Street.

Welcome to Pleasantville

A cat was stuck in a tree on Cranbrook Court.

Haunted business

Noises were heard coming from a locked business on West Covell Boulevard.

FRIDAY

Til the fat lady sings…

A man was walking east on Colgate Drive, yelling, “It’s not over!”

Drunk in public, err private, err, public?

An intoxicated subject kept coming inside and outside of a building on Anderson Road.

Or maybe she’ll bring magical groceries!

An individual on Rockwell Drive called to report that her house cleaner came to the house when she was not scheduled to come. The individual was concerned that the house cleaner might take something due to money issues.

National graffiti day?

Twenty-five separate incidences of graffiti vandalism were reported throughout the city.

THURSDAY

Assault with a deadly weapon

An out-of-control child with a pen was trying to stab an individual on Fifth Street.

“I really do live here”

A stranger knocked on an individual’s door on Wake Forest Drive claiming to live there and then walked inside.

POLICE BRIEFS are compiled by JEREMY OGUL from the public logs of the Davis Police Department and represent the official version of what happened. The DPD crime blotter can be viewed online at cityofdavis.org/police/log. This segment appears on Mondays during the summer.

Though the air is still heavy with the smoke of fires from all over Northern California, the burden got a little lighter this weekend as pledges of support came in from a variety of sources.

President Bush declared a state of emergency for California on Saturday, authorizing federal assistance to alleviate the effects of the fires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security will now be able to use federal funds to assist local agencies in helping those affected by the fires.

California has already seen broad support from the military and other out-of-state agencies. Local fire personnel have benefited from six federal Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems from Wyoming, Colorado and North Carolina, according to the governor‘s office. Four helicopters have been sent in from Nevada, Arizona and Oregon, and an RC-26 aircraft has been sent in from Mississippi.

In the meantime, local officials are advising residents to continue to take precautions against unhealthy air by avoiding outdoor activities and staying inside. A bulletin from the Yolo-Solano Air Quality Management District instructs local residents to keep doors and windows closed as much as possible and to contact a doctor if they experience coughing or shortness of breath.

Officials also advised those with heart disease to be especially careful due to a known link between the presence of particulate matter and heart attacks.

According to Cal Fire, the state fire department, a total of 1,420 fires have burned 356,134 acres so far. More than 18,608 fire personnel are trying to get control of the fires.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a statement warning about additional lightning storms.

“We‘ve seen hundreds of blazes started recently as a result of these lightning strikes, and we are making sure the state has the emergency response resources in place to put out any new flames as quickly as possible,” he said.

The governor also warned about the risks associated with fireworks in the week leading up to Independence Day. He said fire-affected counties should take a good look at their resources and consider taking steps such as firework bans to protect against further fires.

The fire closest to Davis in Fairfield was fully contained by Wednesday. State Representative Lois Wolk (D-Davis) thanked local and state agencies for their quick response to the fire.

“I want to thank the governor for coming to Solano County and for drawing particular attention to this devastating wildfire,“ Wolk said at a press conference last week. “With the additional support from the governor and the Office of Emergency Services I have no doubt that the community is getting all the attention and resources needed.“

The National Weather Service issued a red flag warning Sunday about dry lightning for the mountains of eastern Shasta County. Many of the fires that are still burning in California were caused by lightning storms last week.

JEREMY OGUL can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com. 

Family, friends and law enforcement from all over Northern California gathered at the ARC Pavilion on Friday morning to say goodbye to Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz, who was shot and killed in the line of duty on Father’s Day.

“Officer down,” said Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto. “This is the call every member of the law enforcement community dreads and hopes never to hear. These are the words broadcast by Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Diaz on Sunday, June 15 at 9:30 p.m.”

Prieto fought back tears as he opened the ceremony to honor his fallen colleague. Addressing a crowd of over 600 people, he remembered the 37-year-old deputy as an honorable peace officer, devoted father of three and a good friend.

“We take this moment not just to remember, but to pay tribute to Tony, who upheld the dignity and honor of law enforcement and because of his dedication … paid the ultimate sacrifice,” Prieto said.

Diaz’ ultimate sacrifice came a little over two weeks ago when he was shot in the chest on County Road 99W in Dunnigan during the pursuit of an allegedly drunken driver. Diaz was airlifted to Woodland Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

“Tony will be posthumously awarded the department’s Gold Medal of Valor,” Prieto said. “Not because he followed the suspect – as many have done that – but because when he was mortally wounded, he did not back down…. He made sure that when his backup arrived he was able to give a description and the direction of travel of the suspect that had wounded him.”

The suspect, later identified as 35-year-old Marco Antonio Topete of Arbuckle, Calif., fled on foot. His abandoned car was discovered with his unharmed infant daughter in the backseat.

Police closed down a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 5 after the shooting until Topete was apprehended early the following morning. The suspect has ties to gangs and served 12 years in prison for a previous shooting.

Friday’s ceremony, however, focused more on remembering the life of Tony Diaz than the circumstances surrounding his death.

“Tony’s interest in law enforcement began as a young child,” Prieto said. “But as a career path it would be a long and winding road.”

Diaz, the third-youngest of 10 children, emigrated from Mexico with his parents when he was 4 years old. He began working in the fields with his father when he was 7.

“He came from a foreign country and English was not his first language, but somehow Tony never got the message that life is a struggle,” said Mike McGowan, Yolo County supervisor.

Diaz graduated from Dixon High School and went on to work for Yolo County in the Information Technology Department after teaching himself how to work with computers.

“He would come to the office to work on the computers with a very positive attitude and often had that silly humor that he was famous for,” McGowan said. “He always left the folks in the office in a better mood.”

Diaz attended the sheriff’s academy at night while working for the IT department. He graduated in 2004 and entered field operations in 2005.

“He was proud to be a deputy sheriff – uniform always pressed, boots were always shined, brass was always polished,” said Sergeant Al Williams, Diaz’ supervisor.

By all accounts, Diaz was first and foremost a dedicated father to his three daughters, ages 2, 4 and 16.

“He made it known to all that family came first no matter what,” Williams said.

Diaz was engaged to Julie Yu and spent the afternoon of the day he died celebrating Father’s Day with Yu and her four daughters.

A slideshow complete with everything from black and white pictures of Diaz as a child in Mexico, to home movies of him playing with his children, to a video of a tearful goodbye read by his eldest daughter followed the eulogies.

After the memorial finished, hundreds of law enforcement officers lined both sides of the bike path immediately east of the Pavilion. They saluted as the deputy’s flag-draped coffin was loaded into a car while an honor guard with 14 bagpipes and drums played “Amazing Grace.”

Diaz’ alleged killer has not yet entered a plea but is scheduled to appear in court July 3.

The Sheriff’s Department has created several trusts to benefit Deputy Diaz’ family and children. They can be accessed through the department’s website, yolosheriffs.com.

ALYSOUN BONDE can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com. 

Davis’ Climate Action Team has reached another milestone in its quest to reduce the city’s carbon footprint.

The CAT hosted its first community forum Thursday, aimed at gathering feedback and ideas from residents on improving the city’s plan for reducing emissions.

According to sustainability program manager Mitch Sears, 97 percent of Davis’ emissions come from the community, while the remaining 3 percent are produced by the city government. CAT has been charged with finding ways to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions.

“We need your help to identify what the public is willing to support,” Sears said to the crowd of over 200 residents who came to the meeting at the Veterans Memorial Center.

Public works director Bob Weir said that he was thrilled with the turnout for the event, which should engage as many people as possible in deciding how Davis can combat climate change.

“CAT is a pretty good cross-section of experts in Davis, but it’s still only a handful of people,” Weir said. “We need the community’s input to make sure we’re surfacing the right things.”

The high level of community support will help CAT find the appropriate actions that should be taken to achieve the city’s goal of reducing emissions, he said.

In order to organize feedback, the open house was divided into workstations by sector: transportation, consumption and waste reduction, land use/planning and energy. Each workstation included a large poster with proposed changes, and attendees marked their approval or disapproval of each proposal with red and green dots. Alongside the list was room to post longer explanations of opinion, and evaluations forms were distributed and collected throughout the evening.

Residents who attended the open house came with ideas and concerns for the community, and many are already taking steps to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Nancy Davis and her husband recently made the decision to sell their car. The couple focuses on having very low energy use in the home they rent, which allows for the use of natural light as it faces north-south, she said.

“We realize that if climate change isn’t going to happen, these things are still good,” said Davis, who works at UC Davis as an advisor in the department of electrical and computer engineering. “I’m not a scientist, but I know these things will have benefits.”

Davis is also a member of the organization Davis Bicycles!, and said asking oneself the question, “Can you do it on your bike?” is a good rule of thumb for residents looking to minimize their carbon footprint.

Bicycles were a popular topic at the forum.

A May 2008 analysis by CAT found that transportation makes up 53 percent of Davis’ emissions, but people had mixed feelings about proposals to change streets to give bicycles a larger priority and to modify the downtown parking situation.

“I think they should [leave downtown] the way it is,” said Richard McAdam, a resident of the Village Homes neighborhood. “The high price of gas is getting me on my bike if I can’t park downtown conveniently.”

McAdam said in addition to riding his bike downtown, he shops in Sacramento, where he commutes to work, so that he can do more in one trip. He suggested eliminating traffic circles in new developments and removing fireplaces from future housing designs.

The residential sector was the second highest contributor, with 33 percent of total emissions, according to the CAT analysis. The commercial/industrial sector came in at 11percent, city operations at 3 percent and waste at 2 percent.

Concentrations of green dots showed that Davis residents are willing to support car sharing with UC Davis, expansion of mass transit to nearby communities, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified neighborhood design, citywide collection of gray water and rain water, a city salvage yard to promote the reuse of goods and a city “thermometer” to show progress of the greenhouse gas reduction, among other ideas.

Now that CAT has collected ideas from the community, the next step is to set targets, which is still underway and partly dependent on public input from Thursday’s forum. By the end of 2008 CAT will complete its action plan with the help of the Natural Resources Commission.

Public feedback from the community forum will be available online once it is catalogued, and another community forum will be held in the fall.

For more information on the Climate Action Team and for resources on how to reduce your emissions, go to cityofdavis.org/cmo/Sustainability/ClimateChng.cfm.

NICOLE L. BROWNER can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.

In the June 23 issue of The California Aggie, the article “Legally saying ‘I do‘” had a misspelling of Sharon Hale’s last name. The Aggie regrets the error.

The Yolo County Board of Supervisors voted on June 17 to approve a budget for 2008-2009 that is widely considered to be the most difficult in over a decade.

All county departments will have to tighten their belts, but the most significant cut is the $4.1 million being taken out of the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health department’s long unbalanced budget.

“For the last three years, the [ADMH] department has been operating in the red,” said Ed Smith, interim director of ADMH. “This is kind of catch-up.“

Due in large part to the declining real estate market and a slowdown in consumer spending – two sectors of the economy that generate the majority of county revenue – the county’s general fund no longer has the resources to fully fund the department’s budget.

“It’s a very simple formula, an unyielding formula, that revenues are down and costs are up,” said county administrator Sharon Jensen at the board’s meeting last week.

While the total budget for the coming fiscal year weighs in at $349,713,940 in expenditures – $22.9 million over last year’s budget – the numerical increase is not what it seems. The county is receiving $32.2 million in new restricted capital spending funds for four major projects including the remodeling of the Davis library and expansion of the adult detention center. The county’s net operating budget shows a 1 percent decrease from the previous year, coming in at $282,721,025.

“It doesn’t seem like a big a cut, but it’s a very significant amount because when you look at the rising costs of doing business, spending less than you did in the previous year is a big deal,” said Pat Leary, assistant county administrator. “I‘m not an economist but with the decrease in property tax, sales tax and a jump in unemployment it feels like a recession.“

Earlier this year the county brought in a consultant to examine structural and fiscal issues within the department and recommend ways of balancing its budget. As a result, the predicted deficit was reduced from $5.7 million to $4.3 million. This was not sufficient, however, to save the 62.32 full-time equivalent positions that are eliminated under the new budget or the Beamer Street Detox alcohol and drug residential treatment program proposed for closure.

“We’ve had to cut everything from the assistant director of mental health to clerks,” said Smith of ADMH. “I think we’re cutting five clinicians and another four or five program specialists. The remainder were administrative positions.“

The county is working to make sure the 15.6 percent cut won’t affect citizens who need ADMH services the most.

“We’re making a number of changes throughout the system in the way we provide services, the duration and frequency,” Smith said. “The sickest people will always get served. The reductions will affect the people who can go longer between appointments.“

ADMH operates a clinic in Davis on A Street that will take a hit because of the cuts.

“We’ll still have physicians and the elderly program [in Davis] but we’ll lose the ability to do individual office space therapy where you come in for an hour to see the therapist,” Smith said.

Other departments face similar challenges with a total of 118 fewer funded positions on the books for next year – a 6 percent decrease in county staff.

“All departments right now are having to live through a hiring freeze, reduction in services and supplies, some programs, equipment, travel and training – all things you would expect when you’re in difficult budget times,” Jensen said.

The District Attorney’s Office has eliminated all of its extra investigative help and part-time employees. It also will not be filling existing positions as they become vacant, said Ann Hurd, chief deputy district attorney.

“It’s going to mean a lot of belt tightening,” she said. “Training will be slashed and we’ll be pinching pennies in terms of supplies and expert witness fees.“

The DA’s office currently employes 38 attorneys, four of whom will soon be leaving to serve overseas in the military, Hurd said. Under the new budget, those positions will not be filled once vacated. The office could also lose attorneys to a new retirement plan authorized by the board of supervisors with a younger minimum age which will go into effect in January.

“Certainly the work will have to be distributed among the other attorneys, our investigative staff will have to step up and do more work as will our professional staff,” Hurd said.

Further complicating matters for Yolo County is the problem that lawmakers in Sacramento continue to haggle over the state’s budget, which faces a $17 billion shortfall.

“We still may have to come back and make additional adjustments later because we didn’t include any impacts from the state budget because we don’t have one,” Leary said. “There’s no way to know what they’ll do but all we know is that it will cost us money.“

The state budget was scheduled to be completed June 15, but it remains anyone’s guess as to when legislators will agree on a final version, Leary said. County staff is estimating cuts to the state budget will cost Yolo County between $3.5 and $5.5 million.

While this coming fiscal year’s budget has been balanced at least on paper, county staff is not optimistic for the future. As property values fall, property taxes – which account for 68 percent of county general fund revenues – are flattening or declining. The county is also projecting a 5 percent decrease in sales tax revenue and a 21 percent decline in property transaction revenue.

“While we know that this year’s budget is the most difficult we’ve had in 10 years, we anticipate the next year will be just as difficult if not more so,” Jensen said.

The county has been preparing for just such a dark period during recent times of growth by setting aside what county staff call “rainy day” funds to provide the county with a little leeway in balancing the budget.

“This board has been very careful about putting money aside over the last four years and has built up a small reserve between $17 [million] and $18 million,” Jensen said. “But in this one year we’re using close to half of those reserves that have been saved.“

ALYSOUN BONDE can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.