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Articles by Gloria Partida
Letter: Councilmember Gloria Partida Supports Dillan Horton
Disclaimer: Opinions are those of the writer and do not reflect those of The Vanguard or its Editorial Staff. The Vanguard does not endorse political candidates and is committed to publishing all public opinions and maintaining an open forum subject to guidelines related to decency and tone, not content. I am encouraging District 2 voters to vote for Dillan Horton for Davis City Council.
Letter: Yes on Measure Q
by Gloria Partida Disclaimer: Opinions are those of the writer and do not reflect those of The Vanguard or its Editorial Staff. The Vanguard does not endorse political candidates and is committed to publishing all public opinions and maintaining an open forum subject to guidelines related to decency and tone, not content. Meeting the fiscal needs of our city has been a challenge for many years. The city has tried to meet that challenge in various ways.
Mayor’s Corner: Trying to find a path back to normal
It is with a sense of melancholy that I write this last Mayor’s Corner. Two years have flown by as years tend to do. It did not help that the bulk of that time was filled, worrying about, coordinating about, and trying to recover from a pandemic. It was also filled with some of the most rewarding work I have ever done. There have been highs, approving the development of a new department of housing and social services, and lows, the shooting of officer Natalie Corona.
Mayor’s Corner: Staying vigilant into the new year
The last week of the year, for many, is a quiet and welcome reprieve from the frenzy of the year. This year, with the rise of yet another new variant, we have begun to once again feel the weight of needing to hunker down and be hypervigilant of how we spend time with others. While there is some comfort in knowing that vaccinations and boosters will give protection from life-threatening illness, we must continue to do all we can to prevent the spread of the virus.
Mayor’s Corner: Seasons of celebration
Happy return to regular daylight hours. While in theory we gain an hour, it often feels like we are losing more with the advent of dusk coming sooner and sooner every day. In these shorter days come the times that highlight many of our happiest memories. Most recently, we honored our veterans. While we could not have our typical in person Veteran’s ceremony at the cemetery this year, we none the less honored all who served throughout the city.
Mayor’s Corner: Get to know your neighbors
As we continue to grapple with our futures under the weight of COVID and the now regular challenge of fires and bad air, the crisp mornings and beginning turn of leaf colors shift our minds to the inventory of task associated with the next season, albeit with the added challenge of modifying for our new reality. Happily, this fall in Davis feels a little closer to our old reality with the welcome buzz of students in town. For many of us the return of students is a welcome event.
Commentary: Making progress on public safety
The city continues to advance towards a new way of delivering public safety in Davis. The pace of that progress has been a point of contention for some in our community. The city council meeting of June 22 was a testament to the amount of passion our community can mobilize towards transformative city topics. For this topic, it has been clear from the beginning that this is not a fringe issue here or nationally.
Mayor’s Corner: Moving forward on police reform
I, along with many in our nation, breathed a sigh of relief when the Derrick Chauvin guilty verdict was read. Along with that sigh came a flood of other emotions tied to a complicated history of race and power. This has been a year of tension and turmoil with the combination of calls for police reform and trying to survive COVID. In the case of the police reform movement, we were called to face difficult truths.
Mayor’s Corner: Thanks, Bob, for a half-century of service
When I came to Davis in 1989, I was essentially doing a do-over. I was moving from L.A., becoming a single parent with three small children and starting classes at UCD. My family was certain this was a disastrous decision. So, it was with much trepidation that I began settling into a place that may as well have been Mars compared to where I had come from. To get a lay of the land I began reading the Enterprise and the Aggie which at that time was still regularly published in print.
Mayor’s Corner: Building on our connections
This week representatives from the city of Davis, Yolo County and UC Davis met to hold the second annual “Town and Gown” meeting. This event was born out of the groundbreaking and binding 2018 memorandum of understanding between the trio to collaborate and partner on a series of shared goals and commitments. A yearly check in to report out on progress and discuss further collaboration was part of the agreement.
Commentary: City’s 10-year plan will pave the way for better roads
By Gloria Partida and Dan Carson Special to The Enterprise Last month marked an important occasion — the completion of the reconstruction of a 1.3-mile section of bike path on the south side of Russell Boulevard from Highway 113 west to the city edge.
Mayor’s Corner: Envisioning what’s next for city
And just like that we are at the end of the first month of the year. With an insurrection, inauguration and major wind storm it felt like more than a month’s worth of time passage. Usually, a month is long enough for the shine of new year’s resolutions to wear off. This year, my sister made us engage in vision boarding (me kicking and screaming). I begrudgingly admit that having a physical reminder on my peg board of the things I want to work on for the year is very grounding.
Commentary: A town without COVID
By Gloria Partida and Gary May Special to The Enterprise Last year at this time, it would have been hard to imagine how normal it would feel to wear a mask every day, that we could celebrate with joy even when we’re not together, and that we could develop effective vaccines in record time. But here we are, doing things we never imagined we would or could. It’s with that same sense of challenge and possibility that we tell you that it is possible for Davis to be a town without COVID-19 in 2021.
Mayor’s Corner: New year, new challenges
First my best wishes to all for a safe and prosperous new year. I can almost audibly hear the collective sigh of relief expressed as this difficult year comes to an end. I am also painfully aware that many have lost their health and even lives to COVID-19 this past year. So as we take stock and count our blessings, let us also pause and remember those that were not as lucky. The change of calendar is a good prompt for many to recommit to improvement of habits and charting of visions.
Mayor’s Corner: Lighted tree helps give us hope for the future
We have reached the end of year. This time of year can be stressful for many, even without the added complications of a pandemic. This year as we try to find ways to continue to make our life moments special, I am continually inspired by the resilience of our community.
Mayor’s Corner: Democracy is worth the wait
“Anticipation, is makin’ me late, is keepin’ me waitin’ …” I don’t think Carly Simon had these days in mind when she wrote these lyrics. Many of us, I am sure, hoped all our waiting would be done on Nov. 3. Even now we continue to wait for the process to work its way through. Democracy is worth the wait. It is the tool we must continually use as intended to achieve the promised result of liberty and justice for all. This election season brought a record number of voters to the polls.
Mayor’s Corner: A new way ahead for Davis
The months seem to fly by faster the closer we get to the end of the year. Not even the challenges of living in a COVID world seem to alter this constant. This time of year normally brings thoughts of planning for holidays and some years very active local elections. This year the addition of a National election adds weight to the typical decision making we wade through around local election items. In Davis, I am pleased with the level of vetting of issues our citizens engage in.
Commentary: Why Davis is different from other college towns
By Gloria Partida and Gary S. May Special to The Enterprise Davis feels different this fall, and that’s by design. The normal activities we look forward to this time of year — the anticipation of move-in day, the surge of visitors to the farmers market, the packed tables at local restaurants, and that heightened energy you feel throughout our city — have been muted. Schools, businesses, and local organizations that are vital community anchors have been working hard to meet public health guidelines.
Mayor’s Corner: Thanks to those who keep us going
I write this going into the Labor Day weekend realizing that this Labor Day as with all the other holidays of 2020 will be like no other most of us have ever experienced. However, now more than ever, it is important for us to stop and mark the events that delineate and make special the time segments of our lives. This Labor Day especially, it is important to recognize that labor has had to reinvent how it delivers the essential services we all rely on.
Mayor’s Corner: Calendar keeps marching forward
When I worked at UC Davis, we acknowledged that the relativity of time was a real thing. There was lab time and real-life time. Lab time was a nebulous, shape-shifting entity. Children graduated and grandchildren were born, but the project you were working on stayed the same. Council time is very similar; back in March there was initial concern, when the COVID response started, that city business would not be able to go forward effectively.
Mayor’s Corner: Meeting today’s challenges
As I write my first Mayor’s Corner, I am feeling the heavy reality of taking up the gavel in a time when many in our community are facing the anxiety of staying healthy, keeping their finances secure and ensuring the education of their children. Additionally, we are facing the reality that the ability to rise through these challenges is not equally matched. Some families, businesses or individuals are much better resourced than others.
Commentary: Police reform in Davis
By Gloria Partida and Lucas Frerichs Special to The Enterprise As we reflect on the senseless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clark and so many other Black lives at the hands of police brutality, Americans are struggling to find answers to stop the graphic visions of Black men and women needlessly dying throughout our country.
Commentary: Ending the killing of Black America
By Gloria Partida Special to The Enterprise As we hunker down in our COVID-19 mandated shelter in place, we have the false sense that the world has slowed, become safer, more sustainable. While we look for ways to maintain order and keep ourselves occupied, it is easy to forget that, for some, the safety of the world has not changed. As in any other crisis, people who are marginalized are at greater risk and take the brunt of the blow and never stop dealing with the oppression they are born into.
Extraretinal Spike Normalization in Retinal Ganglion Cell Axons
Research ArticleResearch Article: New Research, Neuronal Excitability Alex Fogli Iseppe, Genki Ogata, Jeffrey S. Johnson, Gloria J. Partida, Nicholas Johnson, Christopher L. Passaglia and Andrew T. Ishida eNeuro 21 February 2020, 7 (2) ENEURO.0504-19.2020; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0504-19.2020 Abstract Spike conduction velocity characteristically differs between myelinated and unmyelinated axons.
Commentary: The need for a respite center
By Gloria Partida Special to The Enterprise In the late 90s when I was volunteering with STEAC, the number of homeless people in Davis was so minimal that the visibility was almost nonexistent. This is not to say the numbers were not significant, but rather that the detectability was within a level we deemed acceptable. They had little effect on the areas that determined our quality of life.
Keep all our kids close to home
By Gloria Partida Special to The Enterprise On Nov. 28, 13-year-old Max Benson, who had a diagnosis of autism, died while being held in a prone restraint at the private school he attended. These sterile facts tell little about the more important human picture of Max. On Dec. 20 I attended a vigil for Max outside the Davis school board meeting, just before it started. Speaker after speaker told of a loving, caring, boy who loved dogs, rocks, nature and his family.
Measure L helps meet critical need
Providing our seniors with housing options specifically designed for a changing lifestyle will allow Davis to retain its baby boomers and their valuable contributions to our community. Yolo County has 35,000 Baby Boomers at or nearing retirement age. Approximately 25 percent of Davis’s homes are owned by this generation, many of whom live in houses larger than necessary or desired.
WDAAC lawsuit does more harm than good
After Darren Wilson’s non-indictment in the shooting death of Michael Brown in 2014, I read an article by Brit Bennet in Jezebel titled, “I don’t know what to do about good white people.” In it she described the challenges of sifting through nuanced racism in an era where most white allies are doing their best to support people of color. It sums up that doing their best does little to mitigate the energy involved in deciding if a slight was due to your identity or simply to cluelessness.
A good police chief is hard to find
For many, increasing awareness around issues of just policing have resulted from a rise in activism following the Black Lives Matter movement and a recent presidential election laden with hateful rhetoric. Last spring, similar attention was focused with laser-like precision into our corner of the world and collided in the veneer-shattering “Picnic Day incident” (an altercation between plainclothes police and Picnic Day attendees that resulted in injuries and arrest).
Use your free speech to speak up
Being committed to building inclusive communities to prevent hate-motivated violence is a tough business these days. The Davis Phoenix Coalition’s commitment to this mission was spurred by a Davis hate crime that was primed, as most hate crimes are, by the perpetrator using derogatory language about the victim’s sexual orientation. The perpetrator followed his victim for two blocks, shouting homophobic slurs.
Davis gathering focuses on post-election climate
Now, Yolo County groups are sponsoring a community meeting in Davis Sunday to discuss how to respond to actions that will affect local communities, the nation, and the planet. The meeting will be held at Davis Community Church, 412 C St., Davis, from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Pre-registration is recommended at http://bit.ly/CommunityGathering2. Walk-ins will be admitted if space is available.
We must rise from the ashes of hate
I began to write a typical piece about the tragedy in Orlando and the grotesque statements made by the Baptist preacher in Sacramento, denouncing hate, calling to action a stand against intolerance. But I was struck by where do you start when talking about horror? There is no edge to grab gingerly and cleanly peel away to examine the contents. There is no mound to dig through with shape and mass that can be shoveled into manageable piles.
We get by with a little help from our friends
My son has cerebral palsy and uses a power wheelchair to get around. Twenty-six years ago when we moved to Davis and he enrolled in the full-inclusion program at Valley Oak as a kindergartner, a central hope was that being at his neighborhood school would ensure his place in the greater community.
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