Davisville

Bill Buchanan
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Davis has interesting people, ideas, connections, and events. On Davisville, host Bill Buchanan presents stories that have some connection to Davis. The program has won 17 Excellence in Journalism awards from the San Francisco Press Club since 2018, including first place in radio/podcast public affairs programs for 2025, plus a national Hometown Media Award for excellence from the Alliance for Community Media in 2024, and first place nationwide in news/public affairs programs among small stations from the Public Media Journalists Association in 2026. Contact: davisville @ dcn.org

  1. 6d ago

    Davisville, Oct. 5, 2026: Davis as a model ran into constraints

    When Bapu Vaitla (pictured) joined the Davis City Council in 2022, he says today on Davisville, he was interested in pursuing policy solutions that would work for Davis and might be a model for the state or other communities. That approach ran into constraints.  “One of my primary motivations for running for council is I thought that Davis would be an ideal community to try to model some solutions that are more widely applicable, solutions around affordable housing or climate change, perhaps mental health,” he says. An idea that worked well here might inspire the state or other communities to do the same. “I’ve learned in the intervening time that there are a lot of constraints to that kind of theory of change,” he says, “about local government modeling innovations that then get scaled up.” On this week's Davisville, Vaitla, who opted not to seek a second term and leaves the council in December, elaborates on the constraints — fiscal and cultural — and other experiences from his 4 years helping to lead Davis.

  2. Sep 22

    Davisville, Sept. 21, 2026: Superfreak tells his story

    Imagine that you’re a child of 5 or 6, in a family with two younger siblings, your mom, and your dad. It’s the early 1970s. Your family quits the family home and steady employment in the United States to drive a van across Europe through countries including Morocco, Yugoslavia, Iran and Afghanistan, eventually deep into India. The goal is to be free. Uninhibited. Not square.  Your mom has an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Your dad is paraplegic, the result of contracting polio when he was 13. You encounter gurus, groups with colorful names, and “fast-friends” along the way. You live through some scary moments, and some happy ones. How’d this work out? This week on Davisville we talk with Caleb Dardick, the onetime child who lived this trip and wrote about it in his new book, “The Adventures of Superfreak: My Childhood on the Hippie Trail.” He’ll talk about it on Sunday, Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. in the main Davis library with Rachel Howard, a Davis author who's also part of today's program. The photo shows Caleb Dardick in India in 1972; photo from Dardick Family Archive

  3. Sep 8

    Davisville, Sept. 7, 2026: Four of the latest five Davis City Council races have each had just one candidate

    Davis has a City Council election this fall — sort of. There is a city election in November, with two seats open on the five-person council, but with just one candidate for each seat, the winners are already decided. Uncontested elections are also occurring in other districts, in Yolo County and beyond. Why is this happening, does it affect governance, and what does it mean, if anything, to the candidates who take office when no one is running against them? We talk about this today on Davisville with the two people who, barring something unexpected, will start 4-year terms on the Davis council in December after running uncontested this fall: Gloria Partida, current vice mayor, former mayor and council member since 2018, who will start her third term on the council; and Judy Ennis, who will be the district 1 council member, and is new to the council. General approval of the candidates who ran might be a factor. So might Davis' switch to district elections, and the anger aimed at public figures. There are probably other reasons too. Whatever the causes, the outcome is that starting in December, Linda Deos will be the only Davis City Council member who faced an opponent in her latest election. She won a three-person race two years ago.

  4. Aug 25

    Davisville, Aug. 24, 2026: Psychedelic-era icons are still on the clock, 60 years later

    The story is unlikely, especially if you know ’60s American pop music and how time usually works, but it’s true. The Strawberry Alarm Clock, whose psychedelic classic “Incense and Peppermints” scored a No. 1 U.S. hit in 1967, released an entirely new record this month, Where’s One? And here’s the time-defying part: Five of their six musicians in 2026 are original members from 1967. The sixth joined in 1986. A band this active and intact from 60 years ago is a story worth hearing. Where’s One? is the band’s sixth album, their first since 2012, and only their second since 1969. Full of life and variety, it’s getting good reviews. Today on Davisville we talk about their story, music, and fabled name with Randy Seol, Mark Stephen Weitz, George Bunnell, Steve Bartek and Howie Anderson (Gene Gunnels, stuck at an airport, couldn't make the interview). The Strawberry Alarm Clock played in Freeborn Hall at UC Davis on Picnic Day in April 1969. Anyone remember? Photo of the Strawberry Alarm Clock by Daniel Coston.

  5. Aug 11

    Davisville, Aug. 10, 2026: Changes coming downtown, especially if you drive

    People who drive downtown will see some changes starting in September. The immediate change is the switch to paid parking in three central parking lots with about 330 spaces. The change that will take awhile to show up is the impact of approximately 340 new apartments planned along G Street, mostly without space for parking (the photo shows the demolition in progress on Aug. 5 of a former Davis Ace building, where some of the new apartments will be built). If the renters don’t bring cars, then this change should add more life to downtown without amping up the competition for a place to park. If. Today on Davisville we talk about these changes with Brett Lee, executive director of the Davis Downtown Business Association (and a former mayor), and Trish Price, vice president of Bike Davis. As the discussion shows, these changes contain more nuance than might appear at first glance.

  6. Jul 28

    Davisville, July 27, 2026: Where business and academia cross paths in Davis

    Tim Akin spent 26 years at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, which gave him a large window on the business world. He retired as the school’s executive director of marking and communications in June, and today on Davisville we talk about what he has seen and learned over the years. The topics include whether he thinks business is ready to manage AI, what the school brings to the different worlds of business and academia, and the value of business education that includes other areas of study, and doesn’t just focus on itself.    The photo shows Tim, with a few items he once kept on his desk at UC Davis, in KDRT’s studio on July 25.

  7. Jul 14

    Davisville, July 13, 2026: Davis and Bob Dunning ‘saved my career’

    Editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman is good at skewering whatever he targets in his cartoons, a talent recognized by the honors he has received, including the Pulitzer Prize a decade ago and the Herblock Prize this year. Most people in Davis know him for the cartoons he drew for the Sacramento Bee for a decade. But Davis and longtime local journalist Bob Dunning also helped Ohman save his career, he says today on Davisville. Three years ago McClatchy, which owns the Bee, fired Ohman and the company’s two other editorial cartoonists, saying it didn’t want to run daily editorial cartoons anymore. Ohman, then 62, joined the San Francisco Chronicle part-time as a columnist and cartoonist, and a larger recovery followed when he launched You Betcha!, a Substack home in 2024 for his cartoons and columns. He got advice from Dunning and others — Dunning, of course, launched his own Substack after the Davis Enterprise cut him loose two years ago, and quickly surpassed the salary he’d lost. Other topics today: How Ohman works; developing a meta sense of San Francisco from regular meetings with Willie Brown; fishing; becoming a political columnist; and his project, currently idle, to write a graphic personal memoir of the Apollo 11 moon landing 57 years ago this month.

  8. Jun 30

    Davisville, June 29, 2026: Measure V, unsafely dark streets, a lovely place to live, and other opinions of Davis

    Today we talk with two accomplished people at different stages of life about their experiences of Davis: Ken Wagstaff, a former mayor who moved here in the 1960s, and Adithi Sumitran, who just graduated from UC Davis and heads to law school at UC Berkeley this fall. The subjects include Davis, the recent defeat of the Measure V housing measure, and what they think the community needs more of, and less of. Davis has a “big issue of safety, and the feeling of safety in Davis, that maybe we don’t talk about enough,” Adithi says. She cites the sense of menace created by the fatal stabbings (article might be paywalled) during her freshman year, and more recent incidents like the indecent exposures along Olive Drive, where she lived. Davis needs to improve street lighting, improve late-hours transit, and add policing in areas, she says. Ken says Davis’ dark skies ordinance is a point of pride, but supports adjusting it when needed for safety. We also talk about what drew each to Davis (“it’s a lovely place to live,” she says), what Adithi will miss about the community, and Ken’s concluding appreciation for “people like [her], who comes here and sees the benefits and sees the things we’ve created, and we sort of take it for granted. So I hope you come back, Adithi, I hope we’ll have places for you and your friends to enjoy.” She says yes. (The photo shows the tracks at the Davis train station near sunrise this spring.)

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Davis has interesting people, ideas, connections, and events. On Davisville, host Bill Buchanan presents stories that have some connection to Davis. The program has won 17 Excellence in Journalism awards from the San Francisco Press Club since 2018, including first place in radio/podcast public affairs programs for 2025, plus a national Hometown Media Award for excellence from the Alliance for Community Media in 2024, and first place nationwide in news/public affairs programs among small stations from the Public Media Journalists Association in 2026. Contact: davisville @ dcn.org

Information

  • Creator
    Bill Buchanan
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
  • Show Website
    Davisville

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