Home Case Studies Video Advocacy Campaign Helps Defeat Davis Mega-Development Ballot Measure

Video Advocacy Campaign Helps Defeat Davis Mega-Development Ballot Measure

Author

Date

Category

In the Summer of 2022, Progressive Source participated in an effort to stop a farm destroying  multi-billion dollar development project in the City of Davis, California. Proponents of the development sought to change Davis’s general plan to allow a massive construction project. Because changes to the general plan require voter approval, this potential general plan amendment was named Measure H and put on the ballot for the June 2022 city election. If Measure H was approved, the project would have caused major traffic problems in the already congested college town, would have caused retail space in the city core to go vacant, and would have been terrible for the environment, turning untouched farmland into a multi-hundred thousand square feet of shopping centers, strip malls, and apartments.  

Progressive Source was hired by the Davis Community Vision Alliance and the No on Measure H – No on Davis Innovation and Sustainability Campus (No on DISC), a community group opposing the development. Progressive Source produced a video and managed a video marketing campaign to alert voters to the dangers of the project. Our short video used persuasive scripting, intelligent graphics, and a Davis-targeted advertising campaign. Nearly twenty thousand people watched the video in the small city-at a cost of only $600.

The project’s backers spent $600,000 on the campaign, greenwashing the development with sophisticated marketing and the use of campaign mailers. The opposition mailers and campaign had a budget of less than one tenth of that.

A total of 11,000 people voted in the election, and Measure H was voted down by a large margin of 3,000 votes. The final tally was 63.5% against and 36.5% in favor of the development. 

Progressive Source also produced a campaign video for Julliette Beck, an environmentally minded candidate for Yolo County Supervisor, who also opposed the development and general plan change. While Beck did not win, her video was viewed by nearly 40,000 people, and as a previously unknown candidate, she still managed to secure 35% of the vote. While Beck was not able to secure a supervisor seat, because of Progressive Source and the rest of the community’s efforts, Measure H was voted down, preventing the destructive project from going forward.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent posts

Full House MUST VOTE for Impeachment Inquiry So Congressional Subpoenas Can Overcome Trump’s Lies

The Democrats should not assume that Nancy Pelosi’s decision to begin impeachment this week will be sufficient to bring critical documents and witnesses to...

How Donald Trump silenced the people who could expose his business failures

(This article first appeared in the Washington Post here on June 14, 2019.) How did Donald Trump, a self-serving promoter who lost billions of dollars for his...

3 Reasons Congress Must Start Impeachment Now or Lose to Trump in 2020

I hope that Nancy Pelosi realizes very soon that to stop the most dangerous autocrat in our nation’s history from stealing the next election,...

What Trump’s John Baron Deception Says About our Truth-less President

My article last year in the Washington Post about Donald Trump lying his way onto the first Forbes 400, accompanied by a 1984 audio...

Wash Post Expose: 6 Essential Cons that Define Trump’s Success

(This article first appeared in the Washington Post here on February 22, 2019. It was the most read feature on the Post in the days that...

Trump’s John Barron Con Exposed in Washington Post

(first published here in the Washington Post April 20, 2018) In May 1984, an official from the Trump Organization called to tell me how rich...

From Standing Rock To Maui: Tulsi Gabbard Joins Resistance to A&B’s Massive Water Theft

For generations, the myth that what was good for the Alexander & Baldwin corporation was good for the residents of Maui allowed Hawaii’s largest...

In Bypassing Warren As VP, Clinton Raises Risk Of Losing To Trump

(This July, 2016 column won First Place in the Greater Bay Journalism Awards for political columnists). Hillary Clinton’s decision to pass over populist Democrat Elizabeth Warren to...

Campaign to Stop the Monsanto Doctrine

In the spring of 2016, Progressive Source was hired to build a public awareness campaign to support a grassroots coalition of Native Hawaiians, environmentalists,...

Vote Bernie Now More Than Ever

Bernie Sanders has run the most successful grassroots campaign in American history, and his second American revolution provides the first real opportunity that We,...

Despite media deception, Bernie scored four big wins on Super Tuesday

SHOCKER: Bernie scored four major wins by large margins in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Vermont during the March 1 Super Tuesday contest, doing far...

Investigative Series on Palm Drive Hospital Wins Top SF Area Journalism Awards

Last weekend, the SF Peninsula Press Club announced the annual winners of its 2015 Greater Bay Journalism Award contest for work published last year....

State Parks Agency Uses Drought As Excuse to Cut Beach Showers That Benefited Millions

Last week, in the middle of a record hot summer, and for the first time in California history, all the public showers at 44...

Despite Record Budget Surplus, Supervisors Refuse to Restore Library Hours

It has been a phenomenal year for Sonoma County’s economy. Joblessness is below 5%, home values are soaring, and the treasury enjoys a record surplus...

“Stop Incarcerating Parents for Victimless Marijuana Crimes”

On April 3, 2015, Sonoma County’s secret war on marijuana confronted an unprecedented roadblock.  A freedom flash mob had gathered, overfilling a courtroom and packing...

Tougher Tactics Desperately Needed to Win War on GMO Food

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post). As I listened to the ads from the ill-fated campaign to label genetically modified food in Washington, I...

Epic Local Government Failure Results in Closed Libraries

(This article first appeared in the Bohemian). Dr. Carmen Finley, a retired research scientist and genealogist, still remembers the "Juvenile Hall" of the Santa Rosa...

Shame of Sonoma County: Supervisors Fund Escalation of War on Marijuana Instead of Libraries

(This column first appeared as a Guest Commentary in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on June 12, 2013). Since August 2011, my two young children,...

Ten Grassroots Lessons From Monsanto’s Swift-Boating of Prop 37 to Label GMO’s In California

(This post first appeared in the Huffington Post on November 11, 2012). The populist campaign to label genetically modified food has been successfully swift-boated by...

Struggling to Re-Open Sonoma County Libraries

(This column first appeared as a guest commentary in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on October 13, 2013). On Tuesday, Sebastopol's City Council will hear...

Help Wanted: Responsive Government

(This article first appeared in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat). You don't need to be a revolutionary to be disappointed with our federal government. Even...

Will the New Pope Help the Christian Left Fulfill MLK’s Vision?

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post). For 80 years, Catholic Workers have helped lead the nation's peace movement. With a growing number of...

A Tea Party Christmas: An Oxymoron Causing Millions to Suffer

(This article first appeared in the Huffington Post).   Corporations are not people, and regulating corporations -- and our economy, so that we can all be part...

Reflections On Creative Writing Class: The Taught

(This article first appeared in the New York Times Education Life on April 14, 2002). The year was 1974 and I had just turned 16....