-
Sue Greenwald, Candidate for Davis City Council 2012
Presentation and talk before the PBE on October 19, 2011
G Richard Yamagata stated that Sue Greenwald needed no introduction for she is approaching the end of her 12th year on the Davis City Council. Sue started out by apologizing to the citizens of Davis for being too busy and being distracted by the work of the Davis City Council to respond to all constituent e-mails. She stated that this has been the busiest year of her 12 years on the Davis City Council, marked by shrinking city revenues and increased staff planned spending.
Sue stated that she ran to make Davis a nicer place to live and to improve the quality of life, especially the evening leisure life. To that end she has worked to improve the selection of restaurants in town and takes credit for the settling of Bistro 33 into the old downtown police station and the establishment of the independent film theater at the Varsity in downtown Davis. She is also responsible for the lights being put into the trees throughout downtown Davis.
Sue stated that when she first got on the Davis City Council, the town was empty during the summers and businesses on the edge would fail during the summer. Now, the downtown is busy every day of the year and Davis is a Northern California destination for coming to eat and enjoy the night life. She fought for turning the entrance of Davis, out where Cafe Italia currently is, into a hotel conference center. Another of her successes was fighting the establishment of a Federal Biolab in the City of Davis, which would have changed the entire community into a more restricted environment based upon national security.
Lastly, her biggest success is the shaping of the spending on the new water treatment facility. For over two years, Sue has been talking to water experts and has been told that the proposed water treatment plant was over built and cost more that it should. Sue finally convinced the City Council to go along with getting second opinions on the total cost, which was placed at $200 million dollars of $430 million dollars for the complete water project. [The City of Davis is to purchase surface water rights and water will be piped from the Sacramento River to a water treatment plant outside the City of Woodland. The cost of this plant was to be $200 million dollars.] Over this last weekend, second and third opinions were given at a public hearing held by the Davis City Council, where it was revealed that the City of Davis could have a better plant for half the money. The cost of the new treatment plant is now $100 million dollars for a total cost of about $295 million dollars. Sue is proud to say that she saved the City of Davis and its citizens over $100 million dollars. Sue stated, "what is ironic, is that the longer we wait to build the plant, the better the technology of water treatment plants improves and in the long run, we can save more money and get a better plant. As in all things, like computer technology, you have to decide when to jump in to finally purchase your product. For example, if in 1987, if the City of Davis had waited 10 years to build its current water treatment plant, the over all cost of expanding the plant versus building a new plant would have been relatively inexpensive compared to the current $100 million dollar price tag of a new plant."
Sue then opened up the rest of the meeting to questions from the audience.
Sue Greenwald's web site can be found at: www.suegreewald.org
[ Lunch Reservation ] [ Lunch Menu ]
[ Why Join ] [ Join Us ] [ Dues and Fees ]
[ Founding Roster ]
Progressive Business Exchange of Davis © 2012
e-mail at yamagata@virtual-markets.net