Describing his new job as a Yolo County supervisor, Davis's former mayor Don Saylor (photo r.) says, "This is not an in-box job," meaning that supervisors can't wait for issues to come to them but must articulate the issues and prepare to meet them on an ongoing basis. Your reporter met with Saylor on his third day in office and was almost immediately apprised of the issues that will get priority attention from him. He detailed them - there are three - in a virtually non-stop hour-long mind dump.

First mentioned was economic development, and Saylor promised to continue his work with Designing a Sustainable and Innovative Davis Economy (D.S.I.D.E.), the development think tank jointly founded this past fall by the Davis City Council, the Davis Chamber of Commerce and UC Davis. He cited as a key resource, the county's unique knowledge base of which UCD is the most important contributor. He talked about our county as a "destination" noting such attractions as Yolo's unique history and identity with its agricultural, open spaces heritage, its wine making, its wealth of outdoor activities, and its diverse population of creative people who live here.

Focusing on agriculture, he noted Yolo's favorable climate, soil and water resources which he says makes our county the "breadbasket to the world." Saylor doesn't regard ag. as something for Yolo to "preserve" but as a key industry that needs support to thrive, support that includes, most importantly, improvements to the county's transportation infrastructure to get what we grow to market.

Supervisor Saylor then moved on to talk about the need to share services among the county and the communities within it. He commended the leaders of our four city councils and five school districts and other elected and staff officials of the county for a series of recent meetings to plot how services can be consolidated for efficiency. An example he held up is the merger of the administrations of the Davis city fire department with the UCD department, moving toward the complete merger of the two. Saylor also cited Davis's and Woodland's agreement for joint development of water resources to save millions of dollars. And, he cited the fact that Yolo and all of its communities need to maintain roads making paving services an opportunity to cooperate.

A third focus for Saylor as a supervisor will be maintaining as much as possible the safety net of social services Yolo has provided its less fortunate and neediest citizens. "The budget crisis has starved the safety net," Saylor lamented, leaving many in the county suffering for loss of life sustaining services. "Government can no longer do many things all by itself. One example he mentioned was a $30,000 cut for suicide prevention. The suicide hotline, which also functions as a school violence hotline, now has to train a cadre of volunteers to man the phone lines and find ways to replace some of the lost state funding. Toward that end, Don Saylor is devoting his annual "Soup's On" fundraising event for Suicide Prevention and Crisis Services of Yolo County with all proceeds going to the agency. This dinner event, now in its seventh year, features delicious specialty soups of some 40 local cooks and will occur Friday, January 28 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Davis Flight Support at Yolo County Airport just off Aviation Avenue to the right. Suggested donations for adults range from $25 up to $500. Kids are $10 and students $15. Saylor invites all Yoloites, especially the Davis Democratic Club members, to attend.

Saylor says his approach to championing his three priorities won't be to get on a soap box but rather to nurture, nudge, cajole and sometimes lead in moving them along with his fellow supervisors. Your reporter urges his fellow Davis Democratic Club members to throw their hearty support behind him as Don Saylor launches on this newest phase of his outstanding public service career. We thank him for all he's done.