THESACRAMENTOBEE

A STINKY SPECTACLE
Two steps forward,
one back for Kings
10 facts on CSUS corpse flower
OUR REGION | Page B1
SPORTS | Page C1
THE SACRAMENTO BEE
Monday, March 16, 2015
sacbee.com
• • • •
$1
Politics
paid
well in
2014
“We are surrounded by ag land, but there has been nothing in the city that allows a true interaction
with the city and agriculture. You can’t really learn about how it works.”
MIKE WEBB, Davis community development and sustainability director
CAMPAIGNS USED
COMPANIES’ HELP
By Jim Miller
[email protected]
Manny Crisostomo [email protected]
A barn is under construction at The Cannery, a unique housing project at an old tomato processing plant site in Davis, combining housing with a
working commercial farm. Nearby, carpenters are framing a farmhouse with a wraparound porch to serve initially as a sales center.
Farm-to-fork taking root in Davis
CANNERY OFFERS
A NOVEL BLEND
OF HOUSING, AG
By Tony Bizjak
[email protected]
Work has started on the most
ambitious expansion in Davis in
more than a decade, a new residential and business development that city officials and developers say may be the first farm-tofork community in the region, if
not the state.
The project has prompted the
question, though: Just what is a
farm-to-fork community?
The site, where a Hunt-Wesson
tomato processing plant once
stood, is called The Cannery, and
will include more than 550 homes
on 100 acres off Covell Boulevard.
The diverse housing mix, from garage units to condos to detached
Construction workers install pipe for electrical conduits at The Cannery, which is being built on 100 acres of land off Covell Boulevard in
Davis. Every home will have a fruit or nut tree in the yard.
homes, is part of a push in Davis to
provide neighborhoods for a
broad variety of people: singles,
couples, families with children,
first-time buyers, empty nesters
and renters.
Every home will have a fruit or
nut tree in the yard. But it’s the
neighborhood’s nonresidential
features that will most reflect the
Obama collects data
to sell Iran nuke deal
RESEARCH GOAL:
TO LIMIT ABILITY
TO MAKE BOMBS
By Paul Richter
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON – Inside a topsecurity building at a classified
U.S. site, government experts intensely monitor rows of tall, cylindrical machines that may offer the Obama administration its
best hope for persuading the
public to back a nuclear deal
with Iran.
Using centrifuges acquired
when Libya abandoned its nuclear program in 2003, as well as
American-built equipment, the
government has spent millions
of dollars over more than a decade to build replicas of the en-
richment facilities that are the
pride of Iran’s nuclear program.
Since negotiations with Iran
began in earnest, U.S. nuclear
technicians have spent long
hours tinkering with the machines to test different restrictions and see how much they
would limit Iran’s ability to convert uranium into bomb fuel.
Soon, the administration may
use the results of that secret research to try to convince the public that negotiations produced a
good deal.
Diplomats appear to have
made significant progress in
their effort to reach the outline
of a nuclear deal by the end of
this month.
But the administration still
faces a daunting task not just to
complete the deal, but also to sell
IRAN | Page A2
town’s farming roots.
Crews have carved out a 7-acre
section along the eastern flank of
the development where they have
furrowed the ground and begun
regenerating the soil for what will
become a working farm. The city
has enlisted the Center for LandBased Learning in Winters to run
the farm as a commercial enterprise. It will serve as a training
ground for beginning farmers.
“The goal is to get farming businesses started and flourishing in
the region,” said the center’s executive director, Mary Kimball. “The
(concept is) to incubate these beginning farmers, so their focus
can be on farming, not on the cash
outlays. It is like a graduate program.”
The project will include a large
barn, under construction, near
the front entrance to the community on Covell. Crews will hammer
DAVIS | Back page, A10
Big fees discourage
access to documents
AGENCIES POINT
TO HIGH COST TO
MEET REQUESTS
By Michael Felberbaum
The Associated Press
Doug Mills New York Times file
The United States has used a
cache of centrifuges turned over
by Libya in 2003 to build replicas
of the nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran.
RICHMOND, Va. – The
public’s right to see government records is coming at an
ever-increasing price, as authorities set fees and hourly
charges that often prevent information from flowing.
Though some states have
taken steps to limit the fees,
many have not:
_ In Kansas, Gov. Sam
Brownback’s office told The
Wichita Eagle that it would
have to pay $1,235 to obtain
records of emails between his
CAPITOL & CALIFORNIA
expected to protest a
proposed Highway 50
interchange. B1
Freshman legislator Evan
Low says he’s driven to
fight discrimination. A3
NATION
WORLD
SPORTS
Two gay and lesbian
groups march Sunday in
the Boston St. Patrick’s
Day parade. A4
Benjamin Netanyahu
could keep control in
Israel even if his party
loses Tuesday. A6
Ex-Royal Justin Maxwell
competes for a spot on
the Giants roster. C1
A protester stands accused of shooting two
Ferguson police. A5
United Nations officials
expect millions more
Mideast refugees. A6
Where are UC Davis and
Sac State basketball
teams headed in the
postseason? C1
SUNSHINE WEEK
office and a former chief of
staff who is now a prominent
statehouse lobbyist.
_ Mississippi law allows
the state to charge hourly for
research, redaction and labor,
including $15 an hour simply
to have a state employee
watch a reporter or private citizen review documents.
_ The Associated Press
dropped a records request after Oregon State Police demanded $4,000 for 25 hours
of staff time to prepare, review
and redact materials related
to the investigation of the director of a boxing and martial
arts regulatory commission.
Whether roadblocks are
created by authorities to discourage those seeking inforACCESS | Page A8
INSIDE
A Yolo County birdLos Angeles authorities
watcher finds decapitated arrest real estate scion
chickens and a turtle. B1
Robert Durst in connection
with a 2000 slaying. A3
Gold River residents are
$300
million
SUNSHINE WEEK
TOP STORIES
OUR REGION
Printers churned out tens of millions of dollars’ worth of campaign
mailers and signs. Media buyers
locked up pricey political airtime at
dozens of TV and radio stations
around California. Digital marketing companies helped campaigns
target ads and videos at voters surfing the Web.
In many respects, California’s last
election cycle will go down in history as a snoozer. Gov. Jerry Brown
cruised to re-election. Only 42 percent
of
voters
showed up in November, something
of an improvement
over the dismal 25 Appproxipercent turnout in mate amount
June.
paid to
But the past two consultants,
years were anything fundraisers,
but ho-hum for the pollsters,
hundreds of consul- media buyers
tants, fundraisers, and various
pollsters,
media operatives by
buyers and various California
campaign operatives campaigns in
that collectively net- the last
ted almost $300 mil- election
lion from campaign cycle.
committees for state
offices and initiatives, according to a
Sacramento Bee review of records
filed with the secretary of state last
month. The total doesn’t include
tens of millions in additional campaign dollars that went to TV stations, postage and taxes – or spending on high-profile congressional
races such as the face-off between
Democratic Rep. Ami Bera and Republican Doug Ose.
California’s campaign payday
rolled across Sacramento and other
cities, as well as more than threedozen states and east to Washington, D.C., during an election cycle
that featured multiple open seats,
same-party runoffs, and the increasCONSULTANTS | Back page, A10
Bridge
B5
Classifieds
C7
Comics
B3, B6
Crosswords B3, B6
Horoscope
B5
Jumble
B6
Letters
A9
Lottery
B2
Obituaries
B7
Movies
B2
Scoreboard
C6
Television
B5
This week marks
the 10th anniversary of Sunshine
Week, a weeklong
open government
initiative. This year,
the McClatchy and
Gannett Cos., the
American Society of
News Editors, and
The Associated
Press teamed up to
develop a package
of stories, video,
photos and graphics
for the occasion.
This is one story in
the series.
OPINION
Democracy depends
on everyone having
all the information
on what their government’s doing. A9
Partly
sunny
73 | 53
Complete forecast Page B8
VOLUME 303, NO. 75
A10 The Sacramento Bee | Monday, March 16, 2015
FROM THE COVER
WHICH COMPANIES MADE THE MOST
Media companies
An interactive list and
map is at sacbee.com
State filings show that California campaign businesses took in plenty of money during the 2013-14 election cycle. The top 10:
Payee
Description
Location
Net payments
Largest clients
NW Democracy Resources Inc.
Petitions
Portland
$6.6 million
Proposed ballot measures to limit health executive pay, minimum
wage for home-care workers
GCW Media Services and sister firm
Redwood Pacific Public Affairs LLC
Media buyer
Roseville
$5 million
No on Proposition 45
Campaign management,
communications
Roseville
$1.2 million
No on Proposition 45, Neel Kashkari for Governor
JPM&M Inc.
Consulting, direct mail,
media
Sacramento
$3.9 million
No on Proposition 45, No on Proposition 46, Californians Allied for
Patient Protection (health-industry independent spending committee)
The Monaco Group Inc.
Printer
Santa Ana
$3.8 million
Janet Nguyen for State Senate, Young Kim for Assembly
Milner Butcher Media Group LLC
Media buyer
Los Angeles
$3.6 million
Luis Chavez for Senate 2014, Sharon Quirk-Silva for Assembly 2014
Kaufman Campaign Consultants Inc.
Campaign management,
communications
Sacramento
$3.6 million
No on Proposition 46, Tim Sbranti for Assembly 2014
Red Printing & Mail
Printer
Simi Valley
$3.3 million
No on Proposition 48, Alliance for California’s Tomorrow
Olson Hagel & Fishburn LLP
Political law firm
Sacramento
$3.2 million
California Democratic Party, others
David Binder Research Inc.
Polling firm
San Francisco $3.2 million
No on Proposition 46, California Labor Federation’s Million More Voters
Insource Print & Design Inc.
Printer
Sacramento
$3.1 million
Multiple
Net payments
Largest clients
■ Broadcast TV stations in
California made at least
$104 million from state
campaigns and other state
political advertising during
2013 and 2014.
Top area stations, in millions
$5.0
$7.4
$3.7
Description
Location
$4.7
$3.7
Printer
Sacramento
$2.9 million
Multiple
Petition company
Roseville
$2.9 million
American Plastic Bag Alliance (qualifying referendum on SB 270)
Political Data Inc.
Voter registration data
Sacramento
$2.8 million
California Democratic Party, California Republican Party
Ground Works Campaigns Inc.
Campaign field programs
Sacramento
$2.6 million
California Democratic Party, Jose Solorio for Senate
Commerce Printing Services Inc.
Printer
Sacramento
$2.2 million
No on Proposition 46, California Democratic Party
Bell, McAndrews, & Hiltachk LLP
Political law firm
Sacramento
$2.2 million
California Republican Party, others
Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello,
Political law firm
Sacramento
$2.1 million
No on Proposition 46, Californians for Energy Independence
GOCO Consulting LLC
Campaign field programs
Sacramento
$2 million
California Republican Party, Vidak for Senate
McNally Temple Associates Inc.
Political consulting agency
Sacramento
$1.8 million
Spirit of Democracy, California Real Estate IE Committee
Bertolina and Barnato Inc.
Fundraising
Sacramento
$1.7 million
$1.7
California Democratic Party
received $26 million.
■ Additional millions went
to cable, an affordable
option for campaigns with
tight budgets and a way to
target segments of voters,
especially sports viewers.
■ Social media sites and
search engines also saw
millions. State campaigns
reported $1.7 million in
payments to Facebook,
$1.9 million to Google, and
about $300,000 apiece to
Yahoo and Twitter.
Note: Numbers reflect campaign committee filings for Jan. 1, 2013, through Dec. 31, 2014. Totals reflect direct payments from campaign committee, pass-through
payments to subvendors and subvendor payments. Some campaigns likely failed to report all subvendor payments.
Sources: California secretary of state, TV station invoices filed with the Federal Communications Commission; compiled by Jim Miller
Consultants
Jose Luis Villegas [email protected]
JPM&M is a Democratic campaign consulting firm. It was among the highestearning payees in the last election cycle. Josh Pulliam, right, looks at posters
with Pat Dennis, left, and Gil Caravantes of Commerce Printing.
passed; and Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari.
Richard Temple of McNally Temple Associates Inc., a large Sacramento consulting firm, said last
year’s political landscape was friendlier than usual for Republican candidates. The party out of the White
House traditionally does well in
midterm elections, and California’s
November ballot lacked any competitive statewide races to spur
higher turnout, something that usually benefits Democrats. Temple’s
firm, which handled Republican activist Charles Munger Jr.’s Spirit of
Democracy outside spending committee, netted $1.8 million, state filings show.
“In 2014, donors and the political
leaders recognized that there were
opportunities. Those opportunities
don’t come around often, and they
did last year,” Temple said.
Of the more than 800 campaign
payees that received at least
$50,000 in 2013 and 2014, more
than a third of the money went to
recipients in and around Sacramento.
The Sacramento-based Republican firm GOCO Consultants netted
about $2 million in 2013-14, among
the most in the state. Veteran GOP
operative Jimmy Camp – the C in
the firm’s name – said the company
had a great cycle and credited it to
the state party’s improved finances.
“Money goes where people tell it
to go,” said Camp, whose firm oversaw door-to-door efforts in several
competitive races for the state Legislature. “The state party was really focused on the legislative races. We
busted a supermajority and took out
a couple incumbents.”
CANNERY DEVELOPMENT
The 100-acre site will include 550
homes and a seven-acre working farm.
Davis
UC
Davis
The Sacramento Bee
State campaign committees reported paying Democratic consulting firm JPM&M Inc. a net of $3.9
million during the last cycle. Among
other efforts, the firm worked for
the No on 45 campaign, as well as
for the opponents of Proposition 46,
which would have lifted the painand-suffering cap on medical malpractice claims.
“We’ve been really fortunate
we’ve done as well as we’ve done,”
the firm’s Josh Pulliam said, adding
that its goal is to elect good people
and improve the state.
Besides the spending on state races, hundreds of California-based
companies received direct payments of $187 million from federal
campaign committees in 2013 and
2014, records show. Unlike the state,
federal committees do not disclose
subvendor payments, so it’s impossible to get a full picture of where
federal campaigns spent their money.
The secretary of state reports underscore the extent to which, several
years after Barack Obama’s presidential campaign broke new ground
in using technology to target voters,
California campaigns increasingly
make use of high-tech tools.
Temple, the Republican consultant, said two things are behind the
shift. One is a steady drop in the
number of people watching TV, listening to radio or reading campaign
mail, which are traditional methods
of communicating with voters. At
the same time, he said, technology
now allows campaigns to target specific voters with specific online ads,
rather than just putting a banner ad
on Facebook.
“It’s like sticking a sign on some-
one’s front door as they walk in the
house,” Temple said.
The reports also highlight the extent to which the state’s political
business, which traditionally has
broken down along ideological
lines, has evolved in an era of highspending outside groups and runoffs between members of the same
party.
In some cases, Republican consultants worked for independent
groups that favored a Democratic
candidate, or Democratic firms
worked for outside groups involved
in Republican vs. Republican contests. Some union-allied firms
worked for outside committees
mostly bankrolled by business,
while companies specializing in environmental causes in some cases
signed on with groups that received
funding from oil interests.
The firm of Democratic political
consultant Gale Kaufman received
$3.6 million from state campaigns
in 2013-14, records show, and advised the No on 46 campaign as well
as Democrat Tim Sbranti in a bitter
East Bay Assembly race that attracted several million dollars in outside
spending. Other Democrat-aligned
firms worked for outside committees that criticized Sbranti or backed
union-opposed Steve Glazer during
the primary.
“I watched friends of mine do
things that made me very upset,”
said Kaufman, adding that the scale
of the spending last year “does feel
to me like it’s become more of a
sport than it used to be.”
Call Jim Miller, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5521. Follow him on
Twitter @jimmiller2.
80
113
Housing
Retail, office,
commercial
Farm
Clubhouse
DAV I S
Pool
CITY
YO LO
CO.
LIMIT
g
Workin
Park
F St.
Manny Crisostomo [email protected]
farm
A huge barn is being raised at The Cannery, and part of the design calls for distressed siding to
make the structure look as though it’s been there a long time, a fixture on the Davis landscape.
Davi s
Farmhouse
UP RR
FROM PAGE A1
up distressed siding in the
coming weeks to make the
barn look as though it’s been
there a long time, a fixture on
the landscape. Nearby, carpenters are framing a farmhouse with a wraparound
porch that will serve initially
as a neighborhood sales and
information center, then will
be used by the city as a meeting space or farm-related education site.
City leaders say turning a
concrete-covered former industrial site into shared space
for residents and farmers lets
Davis modernize and reconnect with its roots at the same
time.
“We are surrounded by ag
land,” said Mike Webb, Davis’
community development and
sustainability director, “but
there has been nothing in the
city that allows a true interaction with the city and agriculture. You can’t really learn
about how it works.”
Kevin Carson, Northern
California president for The
New Home Company, the site
developer, said the project is
unusual. He never thought
he’d be building a barn. “This
is cool stuff you don’t normally
get to do in homebuilding,” he
said. “All that adds to how
much fun this is for us.”
He said Davis residents
have a distinct aesthetic.
“They really value neighborhood and location more than
they would, say, a fancy car.”
His company is marketing
The Cannery as “California’s
first farm-to-table new-home
$1.7
■ California radio stations
National Petition Management Inc.
Davis
$3.2
$3.2
KCRA KOVR KXTV KTXL
Mailrite Print & Mail Inc.
FROM PAGE A1
ing role of outside spending groups.
Web companies and online targeting firms, meanwhile, received a
growing share of the business.
“Any way you could have spent
money on a campaign 30 years ago,
that still exists,” said Sasha Issenberg, author of “The Victory Lab,” a
book on modern political campaigns. “But now you have this
whole new set of categories you can
spend money on, all in the realm of
digital.”
Politicians and campaigns that
once could reach the vast majority of
voters with a mix of TV, mail and radio increasingly confront a fragmented media landscape that requires more specialists, even for races far down the ballot, said Issenberg, a fellow at UCLA’s Center for
Civil Society. “People are clearly
spending more money on campaigns,” he said.
Some campaign businesses did
particularly well during the 2013
and 2014 cycle, state filings show,
with net earnings from California
campaigns running well into the seven figures, according to state reports.
Roseville-based Redwood Pacific
Public Affairs, and its sister mediabuying company GCW Media Services, were the biggest earners in
California, netting about $6.2 million, according to campaign filings.
Their main clients were the campaign to defeat Proposition 45, a
measure that would have given the
state insurance commissioner veto
power over health rates had it
$6.1
$2.9
10 additional Sacramento-area campaign businesses that ranked highly
Payee
Federal
State
$9.7
Amphitheater
Barn
E. Covell Blvd.
The Sacramento Bee
community.” The New Home
Company website talks about
residents making meals with
vegetables they picked that
day, and declares: “Life tastes
better here.”
But Kimball of the Center
for Land-Based Learning said
The Cannery isn’t a farm-tofork community in one key
sense. “You don’t get to walk
out into the rows and pick
what you want. This is not a
community garden. We want
the farmers to be as connected
with the community as possi-
ble, but it is definitely a working farm.”
Residents, instead, will be
able to observe the on-site
farm through the seasons,
gaining an appreciation of
what goes on there, city officials say. There likely will be
some sort of produce stand or
small farmers market, possibly near the barn or the farmhouse, with products from
this and other local farms. The
on-site farmers potentially
could sell boxed products to
residents, and there may be
opportunities for volunteer
work on the farm.
Kimball calls the farmer
training project an experiment. “We’re going to learn a
lot from this,” she said. “It’s not
easy (but) we wouldn’t be involved in it if we didn’t see the
long-term goals being worthwhile, and the potential for it
to be a model for other places
in the region, if not the state.”
Davis officials say the project will pack together nearly
two dozen housing types, including single-family detached homes, row houses,
apartments, stacked condominiums, accessory dwelling
units or granny flats, cottages
and bungalows. They will
range in size from 500 square
feet to as much as 3,500
square feet.
“The city is pressing pretty
hard to (build) diverse housing types,” Webb said. “The
cannery is representative of
the new way of housing and
neighborhood development
in Davis. It encapsulates all
that Davis holds dear into one
package.”
All housing in The Cannery
will be built with universal design elements that allow people with physical limitations,
including people in wheelchairs, to get around. The
three-story row houses are designed so owners can add elevators. Each home will have a
photo-voltaic solar system to
produce electricity.
The neighborhood will include a clubhouse, pool, dog
park and practice soccer field.
Bike paths will wind through
the site. The front of the property, along Covell Boulevard,
will have commercial spaces
that could house incubator
businesses, shops, cafes and
restaurants.
Home sales at The Cannery
are scheduled to begin in late
July. A few model homes will
be up by then. Developers said
they have not set prices, but
similarly sized resale homes in
Davis are fetching $300,000
to $800,000.
Regional planners have taken notice. Mike McKeever,
head of the Sacramento Area
Council of Governments, said
the project breaks from the
traditional development approach, in which all houses in
a subdivision are nearly the
same size and have the same
designs.
The variety of housing and
the site’s tighter densities will
help reduce “pressure to grow
onto prime farmland,” he said.
“It’s good growth, not just any
growth.”
Call The Bee’s Tony Bizjak,
(916) 321-1059.