On Jan. 22, Yolo County Superior Court Judge Dan Maguire issued a tentative ruling stating that the City of Davis’ current and future water rates to pay for the Woodland-Davis Surface Water Project are legal and fair.

The Yolo Ratepayers for Affordable Public Utility Services (YRAPUS) and John Munn filed a lawsuit against the City of Davis in January 2013 alleging that the City’s wastewater and water rates were in violation of Proposition 218, which states that a ratepayer cannot be charged more than the cost of supplying water to their property.

A final ruling on the water rates will occur after a 15-day period to allow the plaintiffs and the city to comment on the tentative decision. Other areas of the lawsuit will be settled in the spring.

Michael Harrington, the attorney for the plaintiffs (YRAPUS), said they appreciated the court’s hard work in analyzing the rates.

“We are disappointed with the ruling but the city attorney acted very professionally in trying the case,” Harrington said. “We are now awaiting the court’s decision.”

Davis City Council members were pleased with the tentative ruling because it allows the city to move forward with the Surface Water project.

Measure I, passed in March 2013, allowed the City of Davis to raise water rates to fund this project, which will supply Woodland and Davis with drinking water from the Sacramento River. It will cost the City of Davis $106 million, with a combined $245 million for both cities. The first of the rate increases became effective on May 1, 2013.

“I am very happy our City has prevailed in court. It is now time for our community to move past the continued attempts to derail this critical project, and onto the important work of bringing a sustainable supply of clean water to Davis,” said councilmember Dan Wolk in an email. “We will continue to collaborate with our partners on making sure the project is built on time, on budget and with as much outside funding as possible to minimize the impact to ratepayers.”

Mayor Joe Krovoza stated that the City Council took the advice of the city’s Water Advisory Committee to ensure the new rates were legal and fair.

“This means our joint project with Woodland will proceed to bring Davis a clean, environmentally sound and fiscally responsible long-term surface water supply,” Krovoza said.

Dianna Jensen, from the Water Advisory Committee and a principal civil engineer for the City of Davis, said the aim of the surface water project is to provide water supply reliability and improved water quality.

“The conjunctive use of surface water with groundwater to meet customer demands will result in an improvement in source water quality, substantially reducing the hardness of the water to customers,” Jensen said.

Harrington said that the opponents of the water rate increase submitted signatures on Jan. 23 for an initiative in the upcoming June 2014 election. This initiative aims to place a measure on the ballot to allow citizens to vote on the water rates that will pay for the construction and operation of the surface water project.

This initiative, if approved by the voters, would repeal these rates and return them to the rates prior to May 1, 2013, Harrington said.

As of Jan. 28, the initiative has been taken to the Yolo County Elections office to verify the signatures. According to state law, 1,161 valid signatures are needed to place the initiative on the ballot.

The total number of signatures collected is 2,233, said Tom Stanionis, the chief of staff at the Yolo Elections office.

Zoe Mirabile, the City of Davis city clerk, said that the next step is getting the signatures back from the county by mid-February if it is to be considered for the June 2014 election.

“By Feb. 11, the City [of Davis] has to take action to call the [June 2014] election, so the initiative has to meet that deadline to be on the ballot,” Mirabile said.

Harrington said he expects this to be a great political challenge for the Davis residents.

“We started this water referendum together as a team in August 2011,” Harrington said. “We want the people of Davis to vote as to whether they think these rates are fair or appropriate.”

Members of the group stated that their aim is to fight for safe, affordable, sufficient water provided by a public utility for Davis residents.

The issues the lawsuit addresses about the City of Davis paying for its water use still need to be addressed, Jensen said. Maguire stated in his tentative ruling that a pretrial conference is scheduled for March 7 to discuss those issues.

The One World, One UC Davis campaign was launched in the fall of 2013. Advertising for the campaign has cost $81,249, according to Associate Chancellor for Strategic Communications, Luanne Lawrence.

The One World, One UC Davis campaign, which focuses on featuring exceptional UC Davis faculty, students and donors and their stories, seeks to improve the general public’s awareness of the University.

The ultimate goal of the campaign is to improve the University by attracting more donors and even greater talent. It is also intended to distinguish UC Davis from other University of California (UC) campuses.

So far, the money has been spent on outdoor banners, promotional items, launch advertising and IT retrographics. Over half of it, approximately $53,000, has gone to television spot production, T-shirts and giveaway items, according to Lawrence.

“We [members of the UC Davis community] know that UC Davis is very well-known and recognized for its agricultural, veterinary and biological sciences programs,” Lawrence said. “But from surveys, we’ve learned that the general public doesn’t really distinguish between the UCs.”

ASUCD Senator Pamela Nonga, who was featured in a One World, One UC Davis campaign video, agreed that all of the UCs can blend together in the view of the public.

“Even when I was applying to colleges and looking at the different UCs, UC Davis didn’t stand out to me as much as the other ones,” Nonga said. “We need to work on getting ourselves out there and advocating for ourselves.”

When asked whether the campaign is a good use of University funding, Shaun Keister, vice chancellor of alumni relations, said that he believes that it is the best way to expose “the best kept secret out there.”

“When you look at all of the things that matter the most to society — water, food, health, the environment, the arts — there are very few universities in the world that can match the caliber of programs and people we have at UC Davis,” Keister said. “Prior to this campaign, we didn’t champion this enough.”

A large part of the campaign involves sharing the stories of people in the University. Banners are currently in place around campus that highlight specific students and their achievements, and their full stories can be read on the campaign’s website. These highlights are not limited to students. The achievements of faculty and donors are also being displayed.

The Campaign for UC Davis, which was launched in 2010, had a goal to raise $1 billion in funds for the University from more than 100,000 donors. The goal was reached in November 2013, a year ahead of the projected fundraising schedule. In late January, One World, One UC Davis will tell the stories of 100 of the donors.

“Our goal is to thank the 100,000 plus donors who helped UC Davis reach the goals of its first comprehensive fundraising campaign … and to show the world at large the face of philanthropy at UC Davis,” Keister said.

The 2020 Initiative, which seeks to add 5,000 undergraduate students and approximately 300 faculty members to the UC Davis community by 2020, should be aided by this marketing of the University, according to Sarah Colwell, the senior manager of communications for development and alumni relations.

“One of the main goals of the 2020 initiative is to grow the faculty. The One Campaign wants to show prospective faculty members why they should want to come work with UC Davis,” Lawrence said.

According to Colwell, UC Davis also has opportunities for expansion that other UCs don’t.

“UC Davis has the largest geographical footprint of the UCs. It’s not like UC Berkeley where they’re surrounded by a major city, we have room to grow and expand,” Colwell said.

Nonga said that she was happy that the funds being used in the campaign didn’t come from raising student fees.

“I’m glad that they were able to find another avenue of funding. Hopefully, whatever kind of visibility that UC Davis gets from this campaign will make it a worthy investment in the long run,” Nonga said.

In June, the One campaign will be expanded outside of the UC Davis campus and will move into the state of California as a whole, according to Lawrence. The campaign will start to appear in all of the admissions materials, and a large part of the project involves connecting alumni with the campus.

“We’re creating an alumni portal on the One website of alumni and student events in specific areas,” Lawrence said.

The One World, One UC Davis campaign is the first UC Davis streamlined marketing campaign which includes all parts of the University. Programs such as the UC Davis Nursing School, which is located across the causeway in Sacramento, often have different marketing strategies than the base UC Davis campus, but the One campaign wants to integrate everything that makes up UC Davis.

“The best part of the campaign so far has been working with the students, because they’ve never had a platform this big to tell their stories or to celebrate their achievements,” Lawrence said.

On Nov. 22, 2013, the UC Davis Bookstore officially announced its partnership with Amazon online — the first partnership that Amazon has had with any university. Amazon approached UC Davis during Spring Quarter of 2013 to pitch the idea of this pilot program.

UC Davis will receive a little over 2 percent of most purchases by  students that shop at Amazon with a UC Davis email account, or customers that shop at davis.amazon.com.

According to a Jan. 27 news release, students can sign up for a free six-month membership of Amazon Prime that would provide free two-day shipping. After the six months, students would pay $39 to continue their membership — 50 percent less than the regular price.

UC Davis Stores Director, Jason Lorgan, says that a portion of the funds will go to support a upcoming textbook scholarship program for students in 2014. The rest will fund other student programs and services.

“They recognized our store was the first university store in the nation to offer our students textbook price comparisons on our ucdavisstores.com textbook ordering page, resulting in UC Davis Stores being one of their larger textbook affiliates among U.S. colleges stores,” Lorgan said.

Lorgan believes the partnership will increase the current revenues for the UC Davis retail operation and that it will not be detrimental to in-store sales.

“The benefits the program provides to UC Davis students include a free six-month trial membership for Amazon Student Prime. Amazon Prime provides our students with free second-day air shipping on Amazon orders,” Lorgan said.

Lorgan explained in a news release that UC Davis has continuously set itself apart from other university bookstores. With the rapidly increasing cost of books and tuition, students are constantly looking for options to find better deals. Three years ago, the UC Davis bookstore began the price comparison for all books, a decision many were critical of at first. Now hundreds of stores have followed suit.

Public Relations Officer for Amazon Brittany Turner explained that the program so far has been a success. They have started an Amazon Brand Student Ambassador program.

“These students are big Amazon fans who want to help spread the word about Amazon’s offerings for students to their friends and peers,” Turner said.

Lead Brand Ambassador for the Amazon Student Ambassador Program, Ting Jung Lee, a fourth-year political science major, believes the program is really beneficial to the student community.

“As a student representative, I aid Amazon’s On-Campus Marketing Team to throw a series of fun and interactive events at UC Davis. During finals week of Fall Quarter, we had several ambassadors all over campus handing out free pizza and other goodies to fuel the students while they study,” Lee said.

She adds that she is excited about how prominent Amazon has become on the campus.

“It really goes to show what an influential university we’re becoming to have such a large brand come in and support us,” Lee said.

All other Brand Ambassadors declined to comment.

The UC Davis-Amazon collaboration is intended to be beneficial to students and the community at large who are already doing much of their shopping on Amazon. Without any additional costs, it will support the school and students.

ASUCD Controller Eric Evans, a third-year managerial economics major, believes that Lorgan’s team has been creative in finding new revenue despite the changing climate of the bookstore.

“I don’t see UC Davis changing our school-owned and school-operated model unless the bookstore becomes drastically unprofitable without a solid recovery in the cards — if that happens, the campus would probably look to an outside contractor to run the Stores to shed the risk,” Evans said.

He expands on why it is important the bookstore remain campus-operated — to give back to students via student employment.

“The importance of a campus-run bookstore lies less in who’s taking home the margin and more in who gets employed there. Our campus is a nonprofit entity, so any money we make at the Stores gets returned to the students in other ways … The university ownership and reporting structure ensure that when CRU is staffing the bookstore or the ARC, they turn first to student employees,” Evans said.

Teresa Torres, a second-year microbiology, genetics and Chicana/o studies major and bookstore employee says she has been seeing a significant increase in advertisement for the partnership. She believes this program is very beneficial because as is, students often struggle with book expenses and Amazon has offered deals on books and other things students need.

“Honestly, I don’t think there [has been] a big impact … so far I haven’t [seen] anything happen. I have seen them hand out discount coupons like $15 off a $50 purchase, but that is about it,” Torres said. “Then again there could be some type of benefit to the partnership since it is still happening. Hopefully, the prices of textbooks go down! Now that would be awesome.”