enterprise THE DAVIS
FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2021
Decline in testing worries officials
Regulska takes lead on shaping international education BY CALEB HAMPTON
BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY
Enterprise staff writer
Enterprise staff writer Asymptomatic COVID19 testing by Healthy Davis Together has given Davis one of the lowest positivity rates in California, but those overseeing the unique city-campus partnership are alarmed by the decline in testing among community members. That testing, along with the genotyping by the UC Davis Genome Center, has helped officials identify multiple variants of concern circulating in Davis. While the B.1.1.7 variant now represents 75 percent of all positive test results picked up through community and campus testing, other variants present locally include the P.1. (Brazilian) variant and the B.1.351 (South African) variant, as well as variants first identified in India and New York, according to UC Davis officials. “The reason we were able to detect these variants was because we were looking for it in everybody who came in for asymptomatic testing,” Dr. Brad Pollock,
ferent additives he tried out to enhance the decomposition of the kitchen scraps. The decomposed food scraps can ultimately be used in a household garden (or something similar), rather than routinely sending the food waste off to a landfill. Xu said his family supported his project. His father, for instance, was helpful in setting up the portions of the project that went into the family home’s back yard. Xu is still adding elements to his emerging system ... in addition to his current work to add a solar panel to provide electricity for the blender, he’s looking at adding a small motor that would turn the
Joanna Regulska, the vice provost and dean of Global Affairs at UC Davis, is among 23 international educators inducted this spring into the inaugural class of the National Academy for International Education, an honorary society and think tank charged with shaping the future of international education. As part of the academy’s inaugural class, Regulska will help establish the group’s organizational structure and advance its mission of “reducing inequalities in and through international education,” the Institute of International Education, which formed the academy, said in a press release. “The National Academy for International Education provides a critical space for some of the most accomplished international education professionals to work together on pressing issues for our field,” said Allan Goodman, president and CEO of the Institute of IIE. “The Academy recognizes these distinguished
SEE SCIENCE, PAGE A6
SEE REGULSKA, PAGE A6
COURTESY PHOTO
Science! DHS junior Joshua Xu earned a scholarship for his project to hasten the decomposition of the food scraps.
Bringing science home BY JEFF HUDSON Enterprise correspondent Joshua Xu, a 16-year-old junior at Davis High School, was recently the recipient of a$500 Earth Day Scholarship from the National Society of High School Scholars Foundation in recognition of Xu’s efforts to develop a new homebased system for composting kitchen scraps more quickly. Xu is working on a system that uses a bin with a blender, which may ultimately be powered by a solar panel, to assist in the composting of ordinary kitchen waste. The system includes a second bin that stores wastewater to aid in irrigation. Xu runs the kitchen scraps
SEE TESTING, PAGE A8
through first bin’s blender, and he’s tried introducing several different added ingredients to enhance and hasten the decomposition of the blenderized food scraps.
XU Looking to future
He said that he developed the idea for his homemade composting system while doing his regular weekly household chores, which include taking out the kitchen garbage, and periodically helping with the household garden. As Xu developed his emerging concept, he wrote notes and took photographs documenting the results of the dif-
Vote on stormwater fee will go ahead UCD panel talks virus, farmworkers BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer The city will proceed with a vote by property owners on whether to increase stormwater fees to pay for system upgrades and improvements. The increased fee would be based on property size, with smaller single-family homes paying about $10 per month and the largest residences closer to $20. The average mediumsized residential property would see its monthly fee increase from $6 to $13. Ballots will be mailed to
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owners of 16,476 parcels in the city later this month, due back to the city clerk by June 25. If a majority of those ballots returned favor the fee increase, it will take effect. The City Council will hold a hearing — tentatively scheduled for July 6 — to tally the votes. All of this follows a public hearing on Tuesday night where the effort would have been quashed altogether had some 8,240 written protests been submitted against the fee hike. Instead, just 18 were received by the close of the
INDEX
SEE FEE, PAGE A8
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Arts . . . . . . . . . .B1 Forum . . . . . . . . A4 Sports . . . . . . .B8 Classifieds . . . . A5 Pets . . . . . . . . . A7 The Wary I . . . . A2 Comics . . . . . . .B4 Senior Living . . A3 Weather . . . . . .B6
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hearing, according to the city clerk. A handful of people also called in during public comment to express their opposition. The process for increasing fees is outlined in Proposition 218, the “Right to Vote on Taxes” initiative passed by California voters in 1996. Prop 218 requires jurisdictions to obtain voter approval by a majority vote of new or increased property-related fees, unless those fees are for sewer, water or garbage
Sa Saturday: Sunny aand windy. High 88. Lo Low 61.
BY EDWARD BOOTH Enterprise staff writer UC Davis LIVE held a panel discussion Thursday about the state of agricultural workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Panelists included Hernan Hernandez, executive director of the California Farmworker Foundation, and Sarit Martinez, executive director of the Binational Center For The Development of Oaxacan Indigenous Communities. Also on the panel was Teresa Andrews, education and outreach specialist for the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at UC Davis. The host, Soterios Johnson, introduced the discussion by noting that agricultural workers have been essential employees throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,
working to keep food on everyone’s tables. But, he said, farmworkers are vulnerable to the virus because they lack access to resources and healthcare. Hernandez said the pandemic has severely affected farmworkers in several different ways. Farmworkers worked less when the economy was shut down early in the pandemic, he said, meaning they had less money to spend on basic necessities. “What we have been noticing is that we have a community in need, a community that many times has been left behind by some of the structures there to help them,” Hernandez said. The role of the California Farmworker Foundation and other community based
SEE PANEL, PAGE A6
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