Great moments under the lights for Blue Devils at scrimmage
Birds finding boxes
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Food Learn by doing
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At the Pond
Sports
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enterprise THE DAVIS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2022
Ballot all CommuniCare announces merger set for local elections By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer
By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer The ballot is set for the Nov. 8 elections, and while there will be two contested races for Davis City Council, the Davis school board elections are over before they started. By the filing deadline on Friday, five candidates had submitted their paperwork for Davis City Council, including incumbents Dan Carson and Gloria Partida. Both Carson and Partida were first elected in 2018 during the city’s final at-large election and are now running in their first district elections — Carson in District 1 in West Davis and Partida in District 4 in East Davis. Carson has two challengers — Bapu Vaitla and Kelsey Fortune — while Partida will face off against Adam Morrill. Only residents of those two districts will be voting for a City Council member in November; voters in Districts 2, 3 and 5 chose their district representatives in 2020 (Vice Mayor Will Arnold, Mayor Lucas Frerichs and Councilman Josh Chapman, respectively). The City Council races are the only contested elections for local office on
Fifty years ago, Dr. John H. Jones opened the Davis Free Clinic in the basement of the Friends Meeting House on L Street, a place where he and other volunteers provided free medical care and substanceabuse treatment to anyone who needed it, regardless of ability to pay. Over the ensuing decades, demand for those services grew, prompting the clinic to move first into a house on the corner of Fourth and E streets in downtown Davis and later expanding to multiple sites in multiple communities, collectively known as CommuniCare Health Centers, an official federally qualified health center. In Davis, CommuniCare operates out of a clinic next to Sutter Davis Hospital, on
John Jones Road, and along with clinics in other locations, including in Woodland and West Sacramento, employs hundreds and serves more than 27,000 patients — one in nine Yolo County residents. Not bad for a tiny nonprofit that began with an all-volunteer staff working out of a basement 50 years ago. Now the expansion continues. On Tuesday, CommuniCare announced its intention to merge with OLE Health, creating one regional nonprofit community health center network that will
provide services across Yolo, Solano and Napa counties. All told, there will be 17 sites serving more than 71,000 patients with expanded services across the three counties. Currently OLE Health — founded by migrant workers 50 years ago — operates in four locations in Napa County, caring for 1 in 4 residents, and is Napa’s only nonprofit health center. OLE also has two sites in Fairfield and is the only nongovernmental federally qualified health center in the Fairfield-Suisun area. Like CommuniCare, OLE Health provides comprehensive primary care services to anyone, regardless of insurance or ability to
pay. The majority of patients served by both organizations are on Medi-Cal and live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. Ensuring continued access to quality care for those patients is the reason for the proposed merger. [caption id="attachment_906101" align="alignright" width="139"] Dr. Melissa Marshall, Communicare CEO. Courtesy photo[/caption] “As the healthcare landscape continues to shift, community health centers need to adapt in order to ensure continued access and care for vulnerable populations,” said Dr. Melissa Marshall, CEO of CommuniCare Health Centers. “CommuniCare and OLE Health are very similar, mission-oriented organizations, committed to doing what is best for our patients,” Marshall said. “We believe
See MERGER, Page A4
The Hansen Family Health Center in Woodland is part of CommuniCare Health Centers system. Sue Cockrell/ Enterprise file photo
See BALLOT, Page A5
Two sent to prison for gang homicide By Lauren Keene
Alvaro Gamera, 16, was fatally shot on Oct. 21, 2019, in Woodland. Two men charged with his killing received prison sentences Monday.
Enterprise staff writer Two Woodland men will spend more than two decades in prison for their roles in a 2019 gangrelated shooting that left a teenager dead and two other victims injured. The sentences for Francisco Geovanni Ponce, 23; and 27-year-old Joseph Vincent Gonzalez II stemmed from plea agreements they made earlier this year. Both originally faced murder charges for the Oct. 21, 2019, killing of Alvaro “Vago” Gamera, a 16-year-old Esparto boy shot dead in the area of North and East streets in Woodland, a crime police
VOL. 124 NO. 98
INDEX
At the Pond ������ A6 Events ��������������B5 Obituary ���������� A3 Classifieds ������ A4 Forum ��������������B2 Sports ��������������B1 Comics ������������B4 Living ����������������B3 The Wary I �������� A2
Courtesy photo
and prosecutors described as resulting from a streetgang rivalry. Two other victims were hospitalized for treatment gunshot wounds. Ponce ultimately admitted to counts of voluntary manslaughter, unlawful use of a firearm and attempted
WEATHER Thursday: Sunny and still hot. High 102. Low 64.
murder, for which Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg sentenced him Monday to 21 years in prison. Gonzalez, who pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter, attempted
See PRISON, Page A4
Davis School Board trustees get ready for new year By Aaron Geerts Enterprise staff writer With the new school year around the corner, the Thursday, Aug. 18, meeting of the Davis School Baord is filled with impending approvals to keep the gears of the district running smoothly. At the top of the approval list are the nominees to the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee. Terms are to be served from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2024. The nominees include Kelly Heung, Peggy Kao Enderle, Anoosh Jorjorian, Lori Duisenberg and Josh Restad.
The Capital Adult Education Regional Consortium Memorandum of Understanding will be up for approval as well. As the Davis Adult and Community Education is a member of the CAERC, the MOU documents the relationship and articulates roles and responsibilities between the CAERC fiscal agent, Sacramento County Office of Education and the DJUSD. Another approval includes that of the Education Protection Account Report. As the district receives money from
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