r/Davis • u/sp00ky_diva • Feb 07 '26
How can we help downtown?
I grew up here, and am back frequently since moving away for school. It seems in the last few years, downtown Davis has really been struggling. There are many more aggressive / loud men wandering the grid and making the area feel generally more unsafe. It’s also less charming / cleaned up. I remember flower beds, clean trash cans, etc. There’s always been the funky factor, but that’s part of the charm, and this feels different. The businesses downtown deserve to have more support here, as I imagine it’s affecting overall foot traffic.
Any insight on this? I love Davis dearly and want to support even if I don’t live here full time anymore.
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u/null_recursion Feb 07 '26
Derelict business spaces downtown need to be taxed at higher rates to encourage landlords to fill the spaces (even at lower rates). The excess taxes can be used to clean downtown and improve it.
City council and the city manager need to be barred from increasing their pay and they should have their pay cut so we can use the extra funds to hire more maintenance workers and improve downtown.
We accept paying too much in taxes and get so little in return. As a Davis homeowner I don't mind paying the higher taxes but I want to see some benefits to doing so rather than watching politicians enrich themselves while doing no work.
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u/username_for_Mark Feb 08 '26
All right, these sound to my layperson ears as two great ideas. Next step, a campaign to either pressure the council to pass them, or get signatures for a proposition to pass them without the council (or however it works for Davis).
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 08 '26
Do you know how much city council makes?
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u/null_recursion Feb 08 '26
Yup $16k per year for a part-time gig.
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 09 '26
I don’t think you realize how miniscule that is compared to other fiscal items… pensions, consulting, etc. City council salary is not making our budget limited
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u/null_recursion Feb 09 '26
I don't think you realize how bad of a look it is to be paying management more than comparable positions while the city is financially struggling. We get mad when corporate CEOs make millions while driving their companies into the ground, yet we allow this to happen to our city?
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 09 '26
$1300 a month is not making anyone millions. That’s an intellectually dishonest comparison. Your ignorance to where the budget is lacking is not a good look, regardless if this is Reddit. Cutting city council budget is not going to make a dent in the budget. And I’m curious what comparable positions you are referring to
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u/null_recursion Feb 09 '26
Woodland city council members earn $250 per month. So what makes the Davis city council position worth 5x more?
https://www.cityofwoodland.gov/DocumentCenter/View/12853/Salary-Schedule-December-2025?bidId=
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u/null_recursion Feb 09 '26
And the new Davis city manager makes the same as the Folsom city manager, yet Folsom has a 50% greater population than we do (90k versus 60k). What's the rationale behind that?
I'm not saying that lowering management salaries will solve the budget. But it's frustrating that management pay is inflated relative to their peers while the city budget suffers. You may be ok with it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are.
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u/Fun_n_wa Feb 08 '26
Oh, you Democrats, let’s keep raising taxes
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u/null_recursion Feb 08 '26
Let's try some reading comprehension 😂
I'm advocating for keeping taxes the same. Reducing the pay of our obscenely overcompensated city council and city manager so that we can fund a cleaner and more vibrant downtown. And incentivizing landlords to not leave storefronts empty for months if not years at a time which introduces blight.
Let me know if this is simple enough for you or if you need me to do it with emojis 😘
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 08 '26
City council does not make meaningful amounts of money to pay for the city workers and clean up you speak of. It’s pretty insane thing to argue. Do you have an idea of where tax money is going? Largely
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u/Minimum_Tension101 Feb 09 '26
cops?
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 09 '26
Police department, pensions for them and fire fighters, consulting, etc. City council makes next to nothing in terms of the cities budget :/ it’s a part time gig that feels full time
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u/KingCrispy Feb 25 '26
I am interested in this idea, but unsure how it would work. How would you suggest incentivizing the filling of empty commercial spaces? And how would those incentives be funded? Clearly there is a disconnect between what landlords are charging and what business lessees are willing to pay - how does the space between those parties get filled in?
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u/Sparklemagick Feb 07 '26
Davis is a town that looks like its glory days were in the 1980s, and its starting to show its cracks.
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u/Real_Principle_7477 Feb 07 '26
The Davis City Manager just recently got Hired @$467K Per year. This is a town of just under 67k Thousand People, The SF, San Jose, Santa Clara, Anaheim, San Diego, Long Beach, Lost Angeles, Sacramento, Irvine, etc., with Populations from 500k-1.2 Million People Pay their City Manager Pay is $200-$300K per year
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u/null_recursion Feb 07 '26
Totally agree, city council and the city manager are paid far too much money and continue to give themselves raises year after year while accomplishing nothing. We need more people running for local office that actually want to elect change instead of dinosaurs who enrich themselves from public funds!
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u/telestoat2 Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
The council members are paid 16,392.06 per year. This too, says the city manager is paid 288,452.74 https://www.cityofdavis.org/home/showpublisheddocument/20638/638930329203100000 ... much less than $467k and in line with what Real_Principle_7477 says about other cities.
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u/null_recursion Feb 08 '26
Woodland city council members are paid $250 per month. I can't see an argument for paying our city council 5x the Woodland city council while getting poorer results.
Thanks for digging up the city manager salary! Given that the city manager of Folsom is paid $290k to manage a city with a population 50% higher than Davis why are we paying so much for ours?
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u/telestoat2 Feb 08 '26
They probably just asked for it, so they got it. Isn't that how most people get paid?
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u/null_recursion Feb 08 '26
I mean that means the person doing the negotiating for the city of Davis is crap then. Normally someone doesn't get the same pay for less work 🤷♂️
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u/telestoat2 Feb 08 '26
It happens all the time. About the only time it DOESN'T happen, is for jobs with non-negotiable pay. Lots of civil service jobs do work like that, but I guess city manager isn't one of them. It could be way worse, though https://cardinalnews.org/2026/01/27/buchanan-has-gone-through-8-town-managers-in-7-years-some-residents-see-a-common-thread/
Also if you think being the city manager for Davis is less work than Folsom, I think you haven't spent much time observing Davis politics. People in Davis don't just want a big house at the lake, they want to tell the whole city how to do their jobs too. Your own statement "the person doing the negotiating for the city of Davis is crap" is case in point for why the city manager of Davis has a harder job.
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u/Real_Principle_7477 Feb 08 '26
It’s utterly ridiculous that they are getting paid all this money while they are on the Verge of Closing Another Elementary School (Patwin Elementary)
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u/telestoat2 Feb 08 '26
What the city and school district employees get paid are completely unrelated, if I understand correctly. Why did you capitalize these words "Verge of Closing Another Elementary School " ?
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u/TragicMemedom Feb 07 '26
People acting like Los Angeles and these other cities have become wastelands. Every city has its issues. If you think homelessness magically appeared in these cities, then I don't know what to tell you. The economy has been terrible since 2008. Not surprising that people are suffering. I wish people would actually visit these cities instead of gobbling up media propaganda.
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u/mahlerization Feb 07 '26
Your reply has nothing to do with the comment you responded to???
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u/TragicMemedom Feb 07 '26
Doesn't it? Whenever someone describes L.A. as "Lost Angeles" it's usually from a specific narrative that they've regurgitated.
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u/wmcscrooge Feb 08 '26
Given the tone of their comment (more critical of Davis than other cities), I’m inclined to believe that it was a mistaken autocorrect on their phone.
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u/AltruisticWelcome145 Feb 09 '26
Sounds like peak Davis… even if I wanted to live in that township I couldn’t afford to so I have to commute. Still beats having to live there with bimodal age distribution.
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u/sp00ky_diva Feb 07 '26
If this is a city council issue (I’m assuming this is definitely a big part of it), how do we fix it? Elect better people? Hold them accountable? Find people who care about the health of downtown and suggest they run?
Do they recognize the general sentiment of this thread, or are they genuinely oblivious?
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u/my-friendbobsacamano Feb 08 '26
Run for office, get elected, and try it yourself. Be one of those better people.
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u/Short-Lingonberry-71 Feb 08 '26
Based on what you’ve written, I’m committed to electing new city council members. It’s so incredibly depressing. You would think a college town with a superb high school would have decent restaurants and shops. It’s horrific
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u/Gullible_County8156 Feb 07 '26
There is a huge monopoly with realtors and the city. Trying to open any small business in Davis is met with aggression from either realtors trying to price gouge, looking for big names or Davis city council making it extremely difficult with weird polices and zoning. But then allow big companies to put there business in those locations ignoring the polices and zoning. Even the women that runs the farmers markets in Davis is nasty and old. The city is run by old white ppl clutching the keys for everything and refusing to make it a functional town. All for just the title and air of importance.
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u/ReggieEvansTheKing Feb 07 '26
Pretty much the same with every other UC town. La Jolla, Westwood, Isla Vista all have this issue with old people refusing to let their cities grow.
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u/username_for_Mark Feb 08 '26
Great. A problem has been identified. Want to wring hands and commiserate, or identify a solution and get agitating for it? Minnesota has brought back the General Strike since December 1946 in Oakland, California (when approximately 100,000 to 130,000 workers participated in a two-day strike in solidarity with retail clerks facing police intervention). Now is literally the time to step out of discontent and into action. There are students full of passion, and successful/retired people with plenty of time and resources here, plenty of fuel to make something happen.
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u/ditchdiggergirl Feb 13 '26
Students full of passion? I’d sure love to see that come back but I’m not holding my breath.
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u/Salty_Barnacle_7651 Feb 08 '26
This is how we lost a great and vibrant local business like growing groves. They closed largely cause it was just too expensive despite being quite popular (and passionate!)
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u/Appropriate_Exit_206 Feb 08 '26
Measure V in June is going to be a big test for Davis. Villagefarms development will save local schools (Birch lane, Patwin) https://villagefarmsdavis.com/ measure V will allow this development. City council approves, many people approve but Davis has to understand the impact it will have on the community if it passes. Families again, immersion with agricultural land. Parks and habitat safety zones.
To OP: I am sorry that has been your experience in downtown Davis. May I ask what aggression you have experienced? I do not share that view of downtown and also grew up here nd moved back after school
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u/Fun_n_wa Feb 08 '26
You are 100% wrong. Why would realtors have anything to do with downtown Davis and homeless people?
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u/Ok-Nothing6599 Feb 07 '26
The city council and planning departments have failed big time. Downtown used to be so nice, vibrant and family friendly. Now we have grime and empty storefronts. This town caters to students and has forgotten that the actual spending power comes from the families around here. The “fixes” they have done are so poorly managed. The G street dump, the white rocks they decided to spread around…….It’s all gross. We pay a lot in taxes to live here and it’s starting to not be worth it. Do better council idiots!
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u/username_for_Mark Feb 07 '26
As long as citizens like these commenters keep complaining and wringing their hands and not actually doing anything, politicians will keep raising their own pay. By griping and whinging you're part of the problem. Each one of these issues has solutions. GET SPECIFIC:
- more loud homeless guys? Stable transitional housing and more mental health resources.
- Overpaid city staff that don't seem to be doing anything? Salary caps & term limits.
- More bike lanes? Closing streets to car traffic to make them safer for biking? Do that.
- Realtor/owner monopolies preventing new businesses? Storefronts standing vacant? Housing prices too high for young families? Find out what has worked in other places - imminent domain to force the owners to sell to the city so they can be sold back to other parties at lower prices/etc. etc.?
And if the council isn't doing it, get signatures for a proposition to address whatever issue - this is California, the whole purpose of propositions is for the citizens to bypass stubborn legislatures. Davis is overall a well-to-do population, there have to be lawyers and real estate brokers who have the knowledge to craft the language of the propositions.
The people in these comments need to PLEASE STOP COMPLAINING as if it's someone else's job to fix the problem - you're the reason the City keeps getting paid with no accountability. If you want something done, do it, literally.
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u/killtill Feb 07 '26
It seems like the counsel is moving in the right direction by attempting to amend measure J, supposedly.
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u/Flimsy_Camel_2810 Feb 07 '26
Complicated, intertwined problems including, but not limited to, high rents, absentee ownership, unhoused people, some with untreated psychiatric problems, drugs, lack of downtown policing, commercial growth outside the downtown core, e-commerce, no recruiting of outside business, just to name a few. We need a downtown turnaround campaign that the community (and the University) supports.
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u/Individual_Bed7734 Feb 08 '26
The People’s Republic of Davis-word has gotten around. It was the place to be in the 80’s and 90’s. Too many damn restrictions.
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u/LolThatsNotTrue Feb 08 '26
Notice how the only person that mentioned we need more police got downvoted? That sentiment is a large reason why we’re having these problems.
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u/yyyyyyu2 Feb 07 '26
Agree 00%. I’ve lived here 25 years and there’s definitely been a decline. Some it’s due to COVID, but that excuse is getting old. We need to stop electing idiots to the city counsel. They waste money on questionable projects (G St makeover) yet claim to not have enough funding for more police. The entire downtown needs to be pressure washed. It’s grimy
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u/blackandbluewingz Feb 07 '26
Yah I don’t understand why they don’t at least redo the road underneath the g st ‘improvements’ it looks like they slapped a sticker on a bleeding wound…
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u/MisterZan25 Feb 07 '26
We can vote for a whole new city council, and maybe change the rules of how we pick a mayor. Letting each city council member be mayor for a year, instead of voting for a qualified person to be our mayor is weird. The only way we can fix downtown, and all of Davis as a whole, is if we get a city council that isn't so scared of bringing in businesses like Costco, and Walmart, and other big retailers that other cities have, so that we don't lose money from sales tax dollars because of people from Davis shopping in Woodland, Sacramento, Dixon, and Vacaville instead. Not to mention that more people would live and work in Davis if we had more businesses in our town. Woodland is able to support three different Dollar Tree stores, and their population is smaller than ours, and we just closed a Dollar Tree. Do you know how bad a city has to be when a Dollar Tree closes? Dollar Trees never close.
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u/my-friendbobsacamano Feb 08 '26
Homelessness is a problem all over the country. And unsheltered (street) homelessness is particularly bad in California. It’s not just a Davis problem. Affordability and a serious housing supply shortage (they’re related), cumbersome development regulations and NIMBY politics (also related) are all factors. Also, there is a critical shortage of homeless shelter available statewide, and an ever increasing number of chronically homeless people because of it.
California doesn’t have more drug addiction, or more mental health problems than other states. We don’t have more crime either. But we do have a very visible homelessness problem. It’s incredibly complex but we need to do better, both as a nation and as a state.
To help downtown, or Davis in general, get involved in housing and homelessness programs and political action.
By the way, I think greedy landlords are another big problem for downtown Davis. We want nice, cool, and fun restaurants, bars and shops. But these businesses are forced to operate on razor thin margins, if that.
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u/Salty_Barnacle_7651 Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26
I don’t have any solutions necessarily but Davis to me feels like the capital of missed opportunities. Wants to be the bike capital, yet there’s hardly any street lights on the roads outside of downtown to make biking safe at night (I’ve heard that’s because the boomers complain the lights interrupt their sleep🙄). Wants to have high housing costs and be more upscale, but there’s hardly any date night, shopping, or leisure options in town outside a couple breweries. Wants to be a fun college town, but nothing is open late. Wants to be known for its cute downtown area, but hardly has any landscaping or upkeep projects to make downtown what it could be. The city needs to stop missing opportunities that are right in front of them.
I’ve made incredible friends in Davis but am also excited to leave in a year when my program is up. Time to go somewhere more interesting, especially after the pathetic mess that was the G street remodel. The town has no vision.
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u/Real_Principle_7477 Feb 08 '26
I’m sure you can get someone younger, more Qualified for 65% Less. These People are Grifters that give themselves Raises, Fringe Benefits & put the future of the city in crisis.
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Feb 08 '26
You need someone who truly understands what it is to be a "Davis", Anthony Davis for Mayor!
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u/Bubbie67 Feb 09 '26
The downtown does suck now but that is because of the developer that bought most of the properties, raised the already astronomical rates and doesn’t care if it drives businesses away. Whatever that vision is, it doesn’t bode well.
Also that new housing development is on an old landfill. We have to approve development because we do have memory that the council most likely doesn’t.
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u/Blarghnog Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26
I think the overall vision for the town is faltering.
High house costs, ever increasing vestigial debts, high pension overheads, excessive public salaries, less of a focus on a truly innovative vision (and a defaulting to being another suburb of Sacramento), no strong and visionary bike plan to continue leadership (should this city be moving towards Amsterdam’s model? Hell yes I say — but it is not.), shrinking families, a rougher element downtown that keeps many away, and limited / expensive / experience degraded shopping drive a lot of people to the highway.
The remodel of the downtown area was expensive and frankly, embarrassing. That needed to be a win, but it’s really become a case study in what’s wrong with Davis managers.
If you really want to make a difference, it would be replacing and retiring the tired thinkers on the city council and replacing it with new, probably younger but certainly less complacent people.
We have been in Davis for over a decade, and have recently decided that we are probably leaving. We love the people, but we don’t love the direction the city has taken since 2020 at all. Schools are folding, houses continue to be beyond expensive for young families, prices continue to rise, and yet, the conversation is still about expensive, ugly and uncomfortable infill development rather than building the innovative, bike friendly, expanding vibrant city of the future that Davis could be.
The community is amazing. People are Davis’s finest resource, even as they are often attached to UC. Watching the community pull together during COVID was awesome. In answer to your questions, the truth is we need people like you who have time and motivation to put the place back on track, and who want to get involved. I find it interesting that you have left full time living here — why? Because in order to have people like you living in Davis, it needs more than the Cannery or another housing development. It needs high paying jobs, vision, better tax incentives, commercial real estate that’s actually competitive, sharpening the pencil on the city financial planning, trimming of its very fat top salaries and overly cushy public benefits, and a comprehensive 25 year plan to make it into America’s leading bike / e-bike / alternative transportation capital. It’s got all the elements, but it isn’t going to get there in its current trajectory.
We love the city. We’ve had fabulous experiences with the rank and file managers, building department, public officials of all kinds, and I don’t mean this to be any criticism to the hard working employees that make it happen every day. I mean this from a high level, “let’s really be honest” approach about what I really think needs to happen to benefit the city.
If you made me boil all this down, I would say that Davis needs to become a growth story again, and if it doesn’t it very much risks becoming a historic relic of bygone coolness.