The foreword to that story began
with a push from Mayor Brett Lee for a
new economic development plan for Da-
vis. Brinkley and Tamimi, members of
the Downtown Plan Advisory Commit-
tee, took the opportunity to suggest a
plan that hinged on food. “Food is such
an integral part of the identity of Davis,”
says Brinkley. “The city is known for its
thoughtful relationship to preserving
farmland, its thoughtful relationship
toward food and sustainable living.”
Food also forms the overlap in
the authors’ Venn diagrams of influ-
ence. Tamimi provides marketing,
event planning and other services to
food-based causes for Land & Ladle,
while Brinkley studies the interactions
between food systems and communi-
ties. Evans, perhaps the closest Davis
has to a Michael Pollan-style celebrity
food advocate, was a logical ally.
The authors organized a series of
invite-only meetings with dozens of
stakeholders, including restaurateurs,
farmers and leaders from organiza-
tions such as the Yolo Food Bank and
Slow Food Yolo. A draft report was
offered to the public for comment, then
revised by the authors and adopted
by the city council, who agreed to
allocate staff to consider how the city
could be involved in implementing it.
The result suggests more than
50 specific steps, separated into five
areas: climate-smart food practices,
food access, food entrepreneurship,
food and ag tech innovation, and
cohesive branding for the city. “These
great, disparate parts can be brought
together through marketing, storytell-
ing, through experiences ... through
connections that need to happen
between the right people,” says Tamimi.
Not everyone was satisfied with this
broad sweep. Lorin Kalisky, owner of
Upper Crust Baking, felt honored to be
included among the “glitterati of the
Yolo County food scene” invited to the
meetings. However, he’s unsure about
the effectiveness of the approach.
Co-author Ann Evans says the “FED” report
repackages ideas that have long existed in
the city.
“Davis is a city full of people who
have strong opinions, and so there’s
often a lot of debate about what
should be done and what’s the right
thing to do,” he says. “I think the
‘FED’ report is a great first step, but
it’s still too broad. We need to boil it
down to something concrete, some-
thing that resonates with people.”
amending the city’s mobile food
vending regulations to comply with
state law, a point suggested under the
food entrepreneurship category of the
“FED” report. The state’s Safe Side-
walk Vending Act, which went into
effect in January 2019, makes it illegal
for local governments to set rules for
where vendors can operate, except
“Food is such an integral part of the identity
of Davis. The city is known for its thoughtful
relationship to preserving farmland, its
thoughtful relationship toward food and
sustainable living.”
Catherine Brinkley, co-author, “Food and Economic Development (FED) in Davis”
In October 2019, city staff began
this distillation process in a written
response that points out steps already
being addressed by city programs,
those better suited to private-nonprofit
partnerships — including the sugges-
tions to allocate funds to support food
and agricultural tech startups — and
those that need immediate action.
The highest priority will go to
for reasons of public health, safety or
welfare. Davis still has archaic rules
that require sidewalk vendors and food
trucks to move every 10 minutes.
The Safe Sidewalk Vending Act
doesn’t apply to food trucks, but
city staff says it’ll take the oppor-
tunity to reconsider Davis’ strin-
gent rules against them. Currently,
food trucks can only set up at spe-
March 2020 | comstocksmag.com
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