By CLAIRE MALDARELLI Aggie Staff Writer

Editor’ note: The following arti-cle is part of a new series intend-ed to give students information about various neighborhoods and apartment complexes in Davis.

Formally defined as the area north of I-80, east of Pole Line and north of E. Eighth Street and east of J Street, East Davis is a short bike ride to campus, an even shorter ride to downtown and is home to a variety of apartment complexes. One apartment complex is the J Street Apartments, located at 1111 J Street between East Eighth and East Covell Boulevard. The complex offers two different floor plans — a one bedroom, one bath for $850 and a two bedroom, one bath for $999. The apartment complex includes many features such as a pool, tennis courts, an exercise room and a game room with a Ping-Pong and pool table. Jessica Cole, a senior neuro-biology, physiology and behav-ior major who currently lives at J Street Apartments, said she chose to live at the J Street Apartments

because she got a great deal on the apartment and she wanted to be close to downtown. “I like the neighborhood. Across the street is an elementa-ry school and downtown is only a couple minutes away. I’ve lived at [other places] in Davis and have enjoyed living in East Davis the most,” Cole said. The complex allows all cats as well as any dog that is fewer than 25 pounds, an aspect that Cole was very happy about. “I live with my best friend and my young cat Luna. And many of the [other] residents here have small dogs and cats that are often seen in windows or being walked on sunny days,” Cole said. A few blocks down from J Street Apartments is the Pinecrest Apartment complex at 920 Cranbrook Court also sit-uated near the corner of J Street & Covell Boulevard. Pinecrest Apartments offer a one-bedroom, one bath for $885 and a two-bed-room, two-bath for $1100. The complex is professionally man-aged by the Riverside Residential Group, which also owns Alder Ridge Apartments, Renaissance Park Apartments and Silverstone.

Pinecrest has outdoor BBQ and picnic areas, a pool, is pet friendly and has huge walk-in closets. Becky Fu, a senior genetics ma-jor and Pinecrest resident, said price was her main reason for choosing this complex. “I chose Pinecrest because it was the least expensive apart-ments I could find. Anything clos-er to campus was just way too ex-pensive,” Fu said.College Square apartments is lo-cated almost exactly one mile from campus at 801 J street, near the intersection of Eighth street

UC Regents discuss state funding, new revenue options

Today’s weatherRain earlyHigh 55Low 37

ForecastAfter a cold and wet start to your week, plan for a warmup by the

weekend. I didn’t think this could happen already but I’m just about over this winter weather business ...

Alex Neigher, atmospheric science majorAggie Forecasting Team

Mostly sunny A.M. fog

Wednesday

High 62Low 41

Tuesday

High 58Low 41

Yahoo! News has recently concluded that the most useless majors are, in order, Agriculture, Fashion Design, Theater, Animal Science, and

Horticulture. Did anyone else notice that these are all popular majors at our dear UC Davis?

Amanda Nguyen

serving the uc davis campus and communit y since 1915www.theaggie.orgvolume 131, number 7 monday, January 23, 2012

Neighborhood navigator: East Davis

Residents describe area as friendly, convenient, inexpensive

Student protesters interrupt meeting

Closures will provide $150 million annually

Department of Agriculture to close 259

offices across nation

By HAnnAH StRuMwASSER

Campus Editor

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, the UC Regents met for their January meeting at UC Riverside. The regents, who meet six times a year, discussed new rev-enue ideas for the UC system along with the issue of increasing state funding. “Believe me, this board is work-ing diligently to find alternative funding strategies and creative solutions to this budget crisis,” said Chair Sherry Lansing. Thursday’s meeting was inter-rupted by 15 UC Occupy protest-ers, who began to chant during the meeting. Hundreds of students also gathered outside of the meeting in protest of tuition hikes. Two students were arrested. Reports of police brutality outside the meeting alleged that police used batons and rubber bullets. Student protests at the regents meeting come in the wake of the

last regents meeting, at which students on four different cam-puses interrupted the meeting in protest. “The meeting was both in-formed and disrupted by pro-testers. There was some produc-tive protesting and public com-ments made, but there was also a group of students that occupied the meeting and shut it down,” said UC student Regent Alfredo Mireles. “Also, the regents and UC Office of the President staff were trapped inside the building the meeting was held in at Riverside — and in a few cases inside cars — for several hours. The situa-tion was extremely tense.” While tuition hikes were not discussed at the meeting, many

students came out to tell the re-gents how they felt about the po-tential of future tuition hikes. “Tuition has doubled over the past five years. This will contin-ue unless we see real leadership for a long-term plan to increase state revenues to fund education. Students believe that the elim-ination of corporate loopholes within Prop 13 must be urgently addressed. Everyone should pay their fair share,” said UC Student Association President Claudia Magaña in a press release. In 2011, the state cut $750 mil-lion in funding to the UC system. The regents discussed Gov. Brown’s 2012-13 budget proposal and how it would affect the UC. A plan for a stable funding mod-el from the state is being devel-oped, however it will be depen-dent upon Brown’s tax initiatives passing in November. The regents also discussed in-creasing revenue from UC in-ventions. They are looking to-ward supporting new technolo-gy created on UC campuses and

Doin’ it Green: in Lecture

Editor’s Note: The E n v i r o n m e n t a l Policy and Planning Commission (EPPC) is an ASUCD commis-sion responsible for researching environ-

mental issues affecting the cam-pus and its surrounding area, and providing recommendations for improvement.

Upon receiving an iPad for Christmas, the eco-warrior in me was torn: could I ever take enough notes on my glamorous new device to justify the environmental costs? The obvious argument in favor of the iPad is that by switching from your typical paper notebook to an electronic one, you’re saving trees. Here at EPPC, we cannot overstate our enthusiasm for trees and for-ests, so seemingly sparing the trees was a strong selling point for me. However, the choice becomes less clear when we compare the real-ities associated with production, use, and eventual disposal: iPads are a product of an energy-inten-sive and socially questionable gen-esis, requiring coltan to be mined from politically unstable countries such as the Congo. On the other hand, the paper in your seeming-ly innocuous notebook is the result

of large-scale deforestation, which presents a host of consequent envi-ronmental and social threats such as biodiversity loss and decreased water quality. Comparing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the course of usage of both products shifts the metric in favor of the iPad, es-pecially if you already own the de-vice and are considering extend-ing its use to include your school-work. The production of a single piece of notebook paper equates to about 0.03 pounds of GHG, which matches a full day of iPad usage (at 0.003 kilowatt-hours per hour). Unless you’re an incredibly effi-cient note taker with microscopic handwriting, the mighty iPad wins out. However, savvy students know that it’s wasteful to buy something you don’t need, and this sustain-able shopper suggests refraining from a major electronics purchase if your only goal is “greener” note-taking. However, if you plan on ex-ploring the full utility of your device by downloading e-books, stream-ing lectures and doing your home-work, the iPad could go from a glo-rified Facebook stalking device to a green machine indeed!

Ask EPPC questions or tell us how to live green every week. Submit to margaret.link@gmail.com.

EPPC

Shazib Haq / Aggie

J Street Apartments, located between east eight and east covell Blvd., is noted for its lenient pet policy and proximity to the e unitrans line.

Annika Hammerschlag/Daily Bruin

By CLAIRE tAnAggie Staff Writer

On Jan. 9, the United States Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack introduced the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Blueprint for Stronger Service at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting. According to the USDA press re-lease, it is a plan that helps producers continue driving American’s econo-my by streamlining operations and cutting costs. Vilsack believes this will be better for the challenges farm-ers face today as opposed to 150 years ago when the department was founded. “We must innovate, modernize and be better stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars,” Vilsack said in a statement. “We must build on the record accom-plishments of farm communities in 2011 with a stronger, more effective USDA in 2012 and beyond.” The USDA plans to close 259 do-mestic offices, facilities and labs as well as seven foreign offices. This will impact roughly 20 agencies, with USDA headquarters in Washington and 46 states and one U.S. territory. One USDA agency, the Farm Service

Agency (FSA), will be consolidating the most offices in the country — 131 county offices in 32 states. “We have 131 offices that quali-fy under a congressional mandate known as the [Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008],” said Chief of Public Affairs of FSA Kent Politsch. “If the FSA wants to consolidate offices, it could only do that under specific cir-cumstances.” The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, also known as the 2008 Farm Bill, states that it will govern the bulk of federal agriculture and related programs for the next five years. “The offices consolidated would have to be within 20 miles of another office and have two or fewer employ-ees,” Politsch said. The USDA expects FSA offices to close by the beginning of July and all other agencies will have closed their offices by the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. According to Politsch, the largest numbers of offices that will be affected are in the state of Texas. There were no consolidations proposed in California. Politsch said of the 131 offices, roughly 174 employees will be affected, but will

See reGentS, page 2

By CLAIRE tAnAggie Staff Writer

The Davis Police Department (DPD) and the UC Davis Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) are both advo-cating bicycle safety through programs designed to educate the public about bicycle laws and safety practices. The DPD conducted a Bicycle Safety Education and Enforcement Operation during the week of Jan. 9. Due to the increased patrolling around areas fre-quented by bicycles, numerous bike citations had been given out. In the city, a fine for running a stop sign is around $200. Likewise, UC Davis, in partner-ship with TAPS, has been continuing to enforce bicycle safety through its Bike Enforcement Education Program (BEEProgram) that was introduced in October 2011.

Lt. Paul Doroshov of the Davis Police said halfway through the safety week, about 115 citations were issued. “The most common violation was rolling through stop signs,” Doroshov said. “The California Vehicle code states bikes have to follow the same laws as cars. At stop signs, bikes have to cease movement completely.” Doroshov said other citations were given out due to the lack of bike lights or having headphones in both ears. Simone Levy, a senior landscape architecture major, received a tick-et in 2011 while biking downtown at around 11 p.m. Levy said she had just gotten off campus after 14 hours of studio work, when she was pulled over by a police car for not completely stop-ping at a stop sign on F Street. “I’ve never gotten a warning before but he didn’t care about that and gave me a ticket,” Levy said. “It bothered me

that I didn’t get that first warning. But I do feel tickets are necessary, although they could be less strict with bicycles by at least charging less for tickets.” In reaction to the bike citations giv-en out last week, students voiced their thoughts about the trend of bicycle traffic violators. “I guess it’s good because it keeps the biking community safe,” said Jody Chiang, a sophomore biological sci-ences major. “When I see police, I in-tentionally take out my headphones or hop off my bike if I’m on the wrong side of the road.” Ralph Nuno, the only full-time cam-pus bike police officer, said the univer-sity has been utilizing the BEEProgram so that students, faculty and staff have 14 days within the issuance of the cita-tion to go to the TAPS website, watch a

Students issued bike citations during Bike Safety week

Bike safety promoted on- and off-campus

Shazib Haq / Aggie

ralph nuno is uc Davis’ only full-time campus bike police officer. See BiKe, page 4

See APArtMentS, page 2 See uSDA, page 3

Anyone who knows me understands that I find great pleasure in pub-

licity train wrecks, so natural-ly I’m completely transfixed by Lana Del Rey right now. Back in November, when she was just another talent-ed YouTube sensation wait-ing to blow up, I wouldn’t have known, or frank-ly, cared, about the or-igins of indie pop’s latest girl du jour. Additionally, I wouldn’t have familiar-ized myself with the pomp-ous term “girl du jour” specif-ically for the purpose of de-scribing her. But after much hype and a calamitously un-der-prepared “Saturday Night Live” performance, she be-came the new hipster “it girl” of my heart. The Jan. 14 appearance, which was Del Rey’s main-stream American TV debut, was more akin to a break-down than a breakthrough. When she sang “Video Games,” her biggest success to date and a song which is ordinarily quite breathtak-ing, the result was a mish-mash of husky warbling and painfully discomforted swaying: obviously, I “favor-ited” it on YouTube. This isn’t because I en-joy mocking Lana Del Rey in particular, even if her pillowy upper lip and lack of condi-tioned stage presence pro-vide me and every other troll in the internet dungeon a lot of ammunition. Watching a precocious celebrity fall into a downward spiral just re en-ergizes my joie de vivre in a way I can’t really explain. Truth be told, even five years after the fact, I’m still running on the endorphin-rush of cueballed Britney Spears’ umbrella-swinging rampage. And thank good-ness for Britney’s shears be-cause by ’07, I was already coming down from the high of Ashlee Simpson’s “SNL” hoedown. Of course, we must acknowledge that stories like these are all buoyed along by the omni-present flow of Lohan dra-ma, which, although having lost some of its luster, re-tains all dependability. It’s comforting to know that even if Christina Aguilera finds a way to stop look-ing like a drag queen version of herself tomorrow, I can still rest easy knowing that Lindsay Lohan will probably be back in a SCRAM bracelet before the slated apocalypse. This is good, because the

way critics are discussing Del Rey’s performance, the end may be more nigh than previ-ously thought. The most striking thing about the critical respons-es to the performance — es-pecially those circulating the internet — is the melo-drama. People are acting like it’s the second coming of Sinead (O’Connor, who shredded a picture of Pope John Paul II during a live 1992 broadcast). “RIP Lana Del Rey’s Career, December 2011 — January 2012” reads one of the more forthright Tumblr posts; “Worst per-formance ever?” asks a Huffington Post headline. It was, of course, the very melodramatic essence of these headlines that piqued my interest in the first place. But it was when Juliette Lewis and Eliza Dushku – two thriv-

ing em-bodiments of celebri-ty — tweet-ed their neg-ative opin-ions on the perfor-

mance that I could no longer resist seeing for myself. Disappointingly, though, what I saw ended up being less catastrophic than I had previously hoped. I figured any girl who Eliza Dushku felt qualified to deem “Wack-a-doodle” stood a chance at being my new Heidi Montag circa 2009. But once again I found that, not unlike many of Lewis’ and Dushku’s ca-reer decisions, the critiques were misguided. The performance was bad — perhaps even terri-ble — but it won’t fuel my fire nearly as long as, say, Mel Gibson’s alcohol-in-duced anti-Semitism; that kind of scandal doesn’t ex-pire for at least two years. Of course I still have every intention of basking in the LDR fiasco’s afterglow for as long as I can; I just wor-ry about what I’m going to do if its novelty wears off before the next media-cov-ered meltdown. Will I have to resort to reading about celebrities’ happiness? Comebacks? Baby bumps (belonging to anyone but Jamie Lynn Spears)? That isn’t nearly as fulfilling as watching some-one revered by the public flub in a profound fashion. I can’t make fun of that. I can’t write about that. I think I’ll just have to settle for pro-longing this whole Lana Del Rey mess and hope that the Jan. 31 release of her album sees a renewed sense of hate aimed in her direction. A small part of me might be sad to see this happen to my girl du jour, but that’s the price you pay for follow-ing juicy media drama like a national pastime. Besides, something tells me that, so long as nobody else steps up to take her place in the spot-light of embarrassment, I’ll be happy to join in on the mockery soon enough.

DYLAN GALLAGHER would love to hear your Christina Aguilera drag queen names at dylaaaaan@gmail.com.

After the tents of Occupy Wall Street have been packed,

the drum circles silenced and the signs of fury dis-carded, there is at least one thing that will car-ry on the movement’s leg-acy: a new crop of start-ups that are looking to capital-ize on con-sumer an-ger against banks. One such company is Simple, whose name was re-cently reduced from BankSimple; a good thing too, seeing as the finance company isn’t really a bank (nor is it really that simple, but more on this later). Simple is waging a war against commercial banks by improving upon ex-isting standards of tech-nology, design and cus-tomer-friendliness that are, well, a bit lacking in-dustry-wide. The compa-ny doesn’t charge any fees (not even for overdrafting or paying late), and runs exclusively on the web, with not a single teller or brick-and-mortar branch in sight. To be clear, this isn’t a column about finance (that’s what my colleague Danny Brawer does on Tuesdays). This is a column about the virtual vs. the real. The classic exam-ple of virtual triumph is Amazon, who offered con-sumers a large selection, built a reputation for ex-cellent customer service and watched as their fol-lowing amassed. Slowly but surely, they poached customers from brick-and-mortar shops, trump-ing independent book-sellers and big box stores alike. What Amazon did for re-tail is what Simple can do for banking. Simple has shown signs of promise that it, too, could reinvent an indus-try online. The Portland-based company is creat-ing just the kind of new-age product that 20- or 30-something young pro-fessionals won’t be able to resist. Here’s how it works: Simple issues its cus-tomers a Visa debit card. Since Simple has no ATM network of their own, cash can be withdrawn at any ATM and the compa-

ny will refund all incurred fees. Depositing cash, on the other hand, is where the company deviates from its claim to simplicity. You can deposit your money at one of Simple’s “part-ner banks”, but will have to deliver special instruc-tions to the teller in or-der to do so. You could also take the cash to a bank, turn it into a mon-ey order, then deposit it through Simple’s mobile app. It’s likely you’ll be charged either by the de-positing bank or the agen-cy providing the money order. In actuality, Simple doesn’t deal with your money — its partner banks do. Simple just pro-vides the technological infrastructure to manage

your mon-ey, requir-ing you to own a camera-enabled smart-phone to

access it. This focus on technology is precisely why it will appeal to the young and the tech savvy. Simple requires you to manage your personal fi-nances through the mo-bile app that lies at the core of its services. The application allows its us-ers to view a map of where they’ve purchased items and exactly how much money they spent there. It can even calculate a dai-ly “Safe-to-Spend” number for you that takes into ac-count what you earn, what you spend and what you need to save. Other fea-tures include an advanced search function where-in you can sort transac-tion history by time (lunch dates), type (coffee) or size ($20 and up). It is Web 2.0’s answer to banking. On top of it all, the beautifully designed, minimalist user interface might make you (dare I say) like doing banking on your phone. But the real question is, will it catch on with the banking population at large? Since Simple will only accept smartphone own-ers, it restricts its mem-bership to a fairly nichey crowd and excludes peo-ple who could really use the service but don’t spend a lot of time check-ing Twitter on their iP-hones, like busy heads of households. The service is still in Beta, and interested parties can request an invite at sim-ple.com (epic domain grab, right?). If Simple does what it sets out to do, it will change how people man-age their personal financ-es — but it may for only a select few.

If you’re glad Congressperson Lamar Smith said NOPA to SOPA, let NICOLE NGUYEN know at niknguyen@ucdavis.edu.

ASUCD Senate meetings are scheduled to begin Thursdays at 6:10 p.m. Times listed are according to the clock at the Jan. 19 meeting location, the Memorial Union’s Mee Room. The ASUCD president is not required to attend senate meetings. Meeting called to order at 6:10 p.m. Adam Thongsavat, ASUCD president, presentBree Rombi, ASUCD vice president, presentYena Bae, ASUCD senator, presentJared Crisologo-Smith, ASUCD senator, presentMiguel Espinoza, ASUCD senator, presentJustin Goss, ASUCD senator, presentAnni Kimball, ASUCD senator, presentAmy Martin, ASUCD senator, presentMayra Martín, ASUCD senator, presentErica Padgett, ASUCD senator, presentBrendan Repicky, ASUCD senator, presentPatrick Sheehan, ASUCD senator, presentRyan Meyerhoff, ASUCD senator, presentYara Zokaie, ASUCD senator, present

PresentationsAkshar Gopal from Aggie Pack said that anything over the $ 6,000 expense for 2011-12 homecoming given from ASUCD was covered by Athletics. Aggie Pack generously received 4,000 t-shirts in donations for homecoming. He also said that those who donated the shirts had control over advertisements on the back of the shirts.

Appointments and confirmationsSomitra Butalia, Aysha Pal, Nadia K. Mulji and Jennifer Nguyen were confirmed to the ethnic and cultural affairs commission (ECAC). Mymy Nguyen, Matt Remick, and Karen Lee were confirmed to the Outreach Assembly (OA). Candidates Michael Matoisch and Felisha Ong were confirmed to the External Affairs Commission (EAC) Christine Sifferman and Stephanie Johnson were confirmed to the Academic Affairs Commission. Candidates Rachael Valler and Desun Oka were confirmed to the Gender and Sexuality Commission (GASC) Jasmine Garcha was confirmed to the Internal Affairs Commission (IAC)

Unit director reportsSabastian Belser of Tipsy Taxi said that the unit is doing very well. There is now one full quarter of data on the website. He also said that the basic phone service for Tipsy Taxi now has a menu. He said that his two-year reign is coming to an end, and he will be posting the position for hire within the quarter.

Consideration of old legislationSenate Bill 38, authored by Andre Lee and co-authored by Ho, Hu, Maemura and Thongsavat, to require all ASUCD units to purchase t-shirts through Campus Copies/Classical Notes’ garment printing service. Martin stated that she was hesitant to pass it because of confusion over if current bill was

part of the initial bill. Thongsavat stated he was more than happy to table the bill, and the bill was tabled. Senate Resolution 41, authored by Lee and co-authored by Barnett, Maemura, Martin, and Sheehan, to strengthen accountability, transparency and informed decision – making in the ASUCD Annual Operating Budget. The resolution was withdrawn by Sheehan and tabled. Senate Resolution 47, authored by Patrick Sheehan and co-authored by Lee, to extend the contribution matching period for the Campaign for ASUCD Scholarships, passed unanimously. Senate Resolution 48, authored by Patrick Sheehan, to allocate $1,496.14 from STS/ Tipsy Taxi Equipment Reserves to reimburse Unitrans for the purchase of a GPS unit, passed unanimously.

Public discussionRepicky said that the Aggie Restore has been cool so far. Goss said that news reached him that the frequent occupation outside US Bank in MU is bad and workers are starting to fear for their safety, they can’t operate and have talked about pulling out of the MU. Goss further stated that should the bank leave, UC Davis is then liable for their expenditures, and $40,000 is the cost to get them out of the building. Sheehan further stated that there is even the possibility of the campus being sued if the US Bank pulls out and that if they support the occupation of the bank, there is the possibility of hurting the students more than the bank. Losing one bank is not going to hurt US Bank at all, but could hurt ASUCD directly, Sheehan said.

Public announcementsMeyerhoff said that the new coffee house in the Student Community Center , the South CoHo cafe, opened Friday. Rombi said that there will be a CalPIRG kick-off meeting today at 7p.m. in Hunt 100. There will be free pizza. CalPIRG also talked to over 7,000 students and hired over 60 students for internships in just a week. Annamarie Stone said that there is an event Thursday for the two year anniversary of Haitian earthquake. A Facebook event will be launched shortly. Espinoza said on Wednesday there will be an all day youth conference at Ali Baba. Margaret Link, chair of Environmental Policy and Planning Commission, said The Aggie is featuring a section titled Doing it Green, if you have an suggestions how to do it green, e-mail The Aggie. Meeting adjourned at 9:05 p.m.

Open positions within ASUCD can be found at vacancy.ucdavis.edu. ALICIA KINDRED compiles the senate briefs. She can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

PAge two The california aggie2 Monday, January 23, 2012

dAily CAlendArdailycal@theaggie.org

ACCUrACyThe California Aggie strives to ensure that all of its facts and details are accurate. Please bring any corrections to our attention by calling (530) 752-0208.

Truth be told ... I’m still running on the endorphin-rush of ... Britney

Spears’ umbrella-swinging rampage

What Amazon did for retail is what Simple can do for

banking

senAte briefs

Bank in Beta

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todAy

yoga/Meditation Class10 to 11 a.m.TB-16, across from Regan HallThe House Peer Counseling Center offers a free class on yoga and meditation.

the House Peer Counseling info session11 a.m. to noonMoss Room, MU Third FloorGet information about becoming a peer counselor at The House and pick up an application. Another info session will be held Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Moss Room.

summer Abroad info session: “design in britain: inside and outside Museum walls” NoonEducation Abroad Center, Third and A Streets Learn how you can study design in London, meet the instructor, and ask questions.

biomass Potential in turkey: Projects and Applications12:10 to 1 p.m.1003 Kemper HallDr. Turkan Aktas, professor in the biosystems engineering department at Namik Kemal University in Tekirdag, Turkey, will speak as part of the Energy Institute/BAE/Plant Sciences Winter 2012 Seminar Series.

summer Abroad info session, “from tango to techno: Music in the global City” 4 p.m.Education Abroad Center, Third and A StreetsLearn how you can study Spanish and music in Buenos Aires; meet the instructor and ask questions.

yolo natural Heritage Joint Powers Agency Meeting5:30 p.m. Yolo County Administration Building, Atrium Training Room, 625 Court St., Woodland Members of the public will have the opportunity to address the board during the meeting.

tzu Chi Collegiate Association (tCCA) Meeting7:10 p.m.ARC Meeting Room 1The TCCA is a community service organization that provides an opportunity for volunteer work within the local area during college life. Upcoming community service and social events will be discussed at the meeting.

To receive placement in the AGGIE DAILY CALENDAR, e-mail dailycal@theaggie.org or stop by 25 Lower Freeborn by noon the day prior to your event. Due to space constraints, all event descriptions are subject to editing, and priority will be given to events that are free of charge and geared toward the campus community.

NicoleNguyen

DylanGallagher

Love to Hate

and J street. The apartments are composed of concrete, two sto-ry buildings located right next to the train tracks. It offers one-bed-room, one-bath for $850, two-bed-room, one-bath ranging from $1100 to $1395, and two-bedroom, two-bath for $1,150 to $1,295. It also has a BBQ area and pool, study rooms with many units having their own patios. Serena Carbajal, a senior mechan-ical engineering major who lived in College Square for two years, said the location was what she liked most about this complex. “It’s a quick bike ride to both downtown and campus. You can even walk if you wanted to,” Carbajal said. All three of these apartments, and most others in East Davis, are accessi-ble by Unitrans buses. The E line stops in front of the J Street and Pinecrest Apartments and the P and Q Lines are

also only a block away. College Square is on the E and L line as well. Cole said that she takes advantage of both the short bike ride and the ease of the buses for transportation. “When feeling spicy I bike ride to campus. But on a sluggish day I take the E line which stops right in front of my apartment and comes by twice an hour,” Cole said. One of the few downsides to the apartments in East Davis is the prox-imity to the train tracks. The tracks are just behind all three apartment com-plexes and can sometimes be a source of considerable noise. Fu encour-aged other students to take this into account when considering Pinecrest Apartments. “I would warn them not to get the apartments near the west end. I used to live [there] and would be woken up everyday at 7 a.m. by the sound of the train,” Fu said. The stores and businesses with-in East Davis are also a driving force that pulls residents in. Some of the restaurants in East Davis frequent-ly visited include Subway, Dominos

Pizza, Nobu Hiro, Nugget Market and Taqueria Davis. There is also a CVS and the Grocery Outlet. Carbajal said that the Nugget was a little hard to get to and wished that Grocery Outlet had been there when she lived at College Square. “I didn’t have a car so it was hard to get to the grocery store. But I would have gone to Grocery Outlet had it been open when I lived there and that would have been a lot easier,” Carbajal said.East Davis is also home to Slide Hill Park, famously known by students and Davis residents alike for its enor-mous concrete slide. Other apartment complexes in East Davis include Alhambra Apartments, Cambride House Apartments, Cascade Apartments, Cranbrook, Pennsylvania Place Apartments, and University Village — all of whose floor plans, prices and other fea-tures can be found on their respec-tive websites.

CLAIRE MALDARELLI can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

apartmentsCont. from front page

lead to finally put things away in the last minute for a dramatic win in a rivalry game.The win moved the team to 7-1 at home this season. “I hope that the t-shirts brought them here, but the team keeps them here,” said Gross of Saturday’s at-tendees. “I hope the crowd enjoyed what they saw and they want to come back.” I hope so too, but with four more home games re-

maining in the regular sea-son, I fear it won’t be the case. And it’s a shame that a team with this much suc-cess — made up not only of excellent basketball players, but players that love the game and work hard both on and off the floor — is not receiving the attention it deserves.

TREVOR CRAMER can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.

CramerCont. from page 4

increase the rate at which in-ventions become economic successes. “The people who work in research do extraordinary things that often lead to new businesses and can lead to tremendous sources of reve-nue if we own a certain per-centage of the discovery,” Lansing said. Chair Lansing also an-nounced that the next re-gents meeting would be held in Sacramento on May 16

and 17, and there will be a rally for state funding on May 17. Students are encouraged to attend. “If the state cuts the UC again the regents will be fine. They are all fortunate people that will not be per-sonally affected. Many stu-dents are not as fortunate. Students are going to be the ones that will have to see tuition rise and have servic-es cut if we don’t get more money from the state,” Mireles said.

HANNAH STRUMWASSER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

regentsCont. from front page

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be offered reassignment. “One requirement [by the 2008 Farm Bill] is a public meeting must be held with-in 30 days of the initial an-nouncement of a closure,”

said USDA Communications Coordination team member Matthew Herrick. “So we’ve put up a schedule of pub-lic meetings across the coun-try about when they’ll take place.” Herrick said anyone can at-tend these public meetings to comment about the pro-

posed office closures. He said 90 days from the initial an-nouncement, the Agriculture Secretary will make a decision and the USDA can move for-ward with closures. “Our secretary pointed out that this is necessary to mod-ernize the department to en-sure that we’re doing all that

we can do in the services we have to do for folks on a con-strained budget,” Herrick said. “This is part of the 12 percent, or $3 billion, reduction plan.” Congress requires the USDA to operate with 12 per-cent less than it did in 2011. Through the decision to close and consolidate offices

around the country, $150 mil-lion will be saved annually. According to Herrick, more than 7,000 people have left the department in the last 15 months. They have either re-tired or taken early retirement or buyout options. “It was done mainly to pro-vide flexibility in our budget to

provide services to folks at the same level as before with no disruption in service,” Herrick said. “We are planning for the future instead of letting bud-get cuts and restraints man-age those decision for us.”

CLAIRE TAN can be reached at city@theaggie.org.

USDAcont. from front page

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012 3The cAlifORNiA Aggie

The california aggie4 monday, january 23, 2012

THE BACKSTOP

There’s a program on the UC Davis campus that is going under-rec-

ognized and it’s getting a bit frustrating. Women’s basketball — the most consistent major sport in UC Davis’ short Division I history — goes up and down the floor in an all-too-often sparsely crowded Pavilion. The program, which made its first ever NCAA Tournament appearance last season, is averaging just 513 fans per-home game. By con-trast, the UC Davis men’s bas-ketball team (which is cur-rently 1-17 and statistically one of the worst teams in the nation) plays in front of an average crowd of 1,646. The obvious reality is that men’s basketball is simply more popular. Most fans prefer to watch powerful dunks, long-range threes and spectacular blocks — all of which are far more prevalent in the men’s game. But if you haven’t made it to a women’s basketball game this season, you are simply missing out. While you are not likely to see Hana Asano or Kasey Riecks throw down a two-hand jam, you will see a team that runs a complex and ex-citing offense and plays an aggressive and tenacious zone defense. Furthermore, unlike most men’s teams, the UC Davis women’s basketball team will rarely have a player break the 15-point barrier — not be-cause they struggle to score, but because they play as a team. This group of players is at its best when it has four to six players with eight to 12 points apiece, spreading the scoring around and keeping opponents off-balance. But even with their im-pressive team skills, UC Davis garners a smaller crowd than even most women’s teams. The Aggies typically play in front of an average of over 1,000 fans when playing a road contest, nearly double their average home atten-dance — and they even draw over 800 fans per-game when they play at a neutral site. Pacific leads the Big West Conference with an average of over 1,000 fans per home game. But the lack of a rous-ing home crowd is something the Aggies have had to get used to. During last season’s NCAA Tournament run the Aggies averaged just 640 attend-ees per-contest, including a lackluster attendance of 889 when they hosted the first round of the Big West Conference Tournament — a game that was also the last home game for legendary head coach Sandy Simpson. It took a t-shirt giveaway in Saturday’s game against the Tigers for the Aggies to break the 1,000-fan barrier. The at-tendance number skyrock-eted to over 1,400, by far the best of the season. “It was an amazing atmo-sphere in the Pavilion,” said head coach Jennifer Gross after the Aggies defeated Pacific. “That was definite-ly one of the biggest crowds we’ve had in a long time, and that crowd was a big part of the win today.” When asked what the Aggies could do to garner that type of atmosphere on a more consistent basis, Gross laughed as she responded: “I guess we’ve got to keep giving away t-shirts.” But even with the give-away, the shirts were only enough to keep a portion of the attendees around. After the shirts were dis-tributed at halftime a consid-erable number of fans made their way towards the exits — leaving the Pavilion with a noticeably diminished crowd for the second frame. Still, the Aggies put on a show, holding on to a late

TrevorCramer

Occupy women’s basketball

By CAELUM SHOVEAggie Sports Writer

The UC Davis men’s basketball team turned in another listless performance on the road this weekend, losing 64-48 at Pacific. The loss was the Aggies’ 14th in a row and drops their record to 1-17 on the season and 0-6 in the Big West Conference. Eddie Miller was the high scorer for UC Davis with 12 points, but no other Aggie scored in double digits. “Our defensive effort was much better,” head coach Jim Les said. “We changed up defenses and guys were all in tune with those changes and I think we disrupted what they wanted to do.” Junior guard Ryan Howley was injured in the second minute of the game and did not return to the contest. Les said that he and the train-ing staff considered Howley’s return, before ul-timately deciding against it. Already having lost Ryan Sypkens for the sea-son due to injury, the Aggies could be crippled by the long-term loss of another starter. Howley is the only player to have started every game so far this season for UC Davis. “Hopefully it’s a short term thing,” Les said of the injury. Defensively the Aggies were strong against Pacific, holding them to just 36.7 percent shoot-ing in the contest. UC Davis couldn’t get stops against Pacific’s main scorers, though, allowing three players to score 13 or more. Ross Rivera was the high scorer for Pacific with 19 points and Markus Duran made five

threes and finished with 17 points. Only six players scored for the Tigers, com-pared to eight for the Aggies. The Aggies were in trouble right from the opening tip. Starting center Alex Tiffin picked up his first foul just 12 seconds into the game, leading to one made free throw and an early 1-0 Pacific lead. On the following Aggie possession, their first of the game, Harrison DuPont drove into the lane and gathered to shoot before being called for traveling. The next trip down the court, Pacific made a three and just 57 seconds into the game the Tigers had a 4-0 lead. The fouls and turnovers by UC Davis contin-ued throughout the game. Tiffin was called for his second personal foul within the first four minutes and ended up only playing 12 minutes in the contest due to foul trouble. Paolo Mancasola and Tiffin both finished with four fouls for the Aggies, while nobody on the Tiger’s roster had more than three. UC Davis forced 14 Pacific turnovers, but still lost the turnover battle as it had 15 of its own. The Aggies are last in the Big West in turn-over margin, averaging nearly two lost turn-overs more per-game than any other team in the conference. UC Davis never held a lead in the contest and was unable to cut the lead to single digits at any point during the second half. Tyler Les continued his outstanding three-point shooting, making three of five from be-hind the arc. UC Davis ranks first in the Big West in three-point field goal percentage. After a tough three-game road stretch, the

Aggies return home this week, playing confer-ence opponent UC Santa Barbara on Thursday in the Pavilion.

CAELUM SHOVE can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.

By MATTHEW YUENAggie Sports Writer

In a game devoted to promot-ing breast cancer awareness, the UC Davis women’s basketball program found itself in a tight tussle with the Pacific Tigers. In front of easily the biggest crowd for the Aggies this year, UC Davis did not disappoint, putting away Pacific by a 59-51 score. The two teams entered the game tied for third place in the Big West Conference with identical 3-2 con-ference records. Add to that the ri-valry UC Davis has developed with Pacific over the years, and the game had a high enough level of intensity to keep all 1,427 fans on their feet. “There’s definitely a little bit of extra buzz in the air when Pacific comes,” head coach Jennifer Gross said. The Aggies came out all guns blazing, shooting lights out and slamming the door on defense to build up an 18-6 lead seven min-utes into the game. The first half was all UC Davis, and the Aggies were looking more red-hot than the shades of pink they sport-ed on their socks. They shot 11-24 from the field and held Pacific to 28.6 shooting percentage. UC Davis would walk off the court at halftime with a 27-20 lead. The Tigers came charging back out of the locker room and put togeth-er a 6-2 run to close the gap to 29-26. Junior Hannah Stephens stopped the bleeding when she knocked down a jumper with 14:45 remaining. The game of tug-of-war reached a 53-51 score with 37 seconds re-maining when Pacific scored a long three-pointer that bounced off the

backboard and somehow fell in the net. The Aggies took the ball back and missed an opportunity to ex-tend their lead, and the Tigers had a chance to grab their first lead since

they went up 4-3 two minutes into the game. With the game in their hands, and the chance to seize a come-back victory, Pacific missed a wide open three-pointer that would

have all but put the Aggies away with nine seconds to go. At this point, the game took a strange series of events. Junior Blair Shinoda was fouled with four seconds remaining and went to the line for a one and one opportuni-ty. She drained both free throws to put the Aggies up 55-51, essential-ly out of reach for the Tigers. Yet, the scoring would not stop there. Pacific coach Lynne Roberts got two straight technical fouls and extended the game. Shinoda drained the four ensuing free-throws to put up six points with-in two seconds on the game clock, and gave the Aggies a 59-51 lead. The win move the Aggies to 12-6 on the season, 4-2 in Big West play, good for third in the conference. Shinoda’s perfect 9-9 from the charity stripe helped her score a ca-reer high 18 points on the game. Stephens contributed 13 points and four steals for the Aggies. “It was just a great team win and we really focused on ourselves this week,” Shinoda said. “Everyone just came out and played hard.” Yet, this is not the area that Gross is most proud of, citing the defense that trapped the Tigers so many times and prevented them from scoring. “To hold them to 51 points, I’m very pleased,” Gross said. The UC Davis defense shut down the Pacific offense, which has aver-aged over 70 points per game this season and has scored over 90 points three times already. “Our defense got it done for us to-day without a doubt,” Gross said. “We had stretches where we strug-gled to score a bit but we just kept coming up with big stops.”

MATTHEW YUEN can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.

Swimming and divingUC Davis notched its fifth-straight duel match victory against Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday by the score of 173-114. The win kept the Aggies a per-fect 6-0 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation action. Senior Kayleigh Foley won both the 50 yard and 100 yard free, while sophomore Liliana Alvarez won the 100 yard and 200 yard breast. Sophomore Sabrina Cochrane won the 100 yard back with a career best time of 1:01.16. Freshman Cara Silvas took first in the 1,000 yard free, fellow freshman Sara Ramos won the 200 yard fly and sophomore Megan Leung won the 100 yard fly. UC Davis will return to action Saturday at the Schaal Aquatic Center for its final home meet of the

season.

Women’s tennisUC Davis opened its season 1-1 this week, as it traveled for a pair of matches in Arizona. The Aggies opened with a dom-inating 7-0 victory over Northern Arizona on Friday. UC Davis took two of the three doubles matches and won five of the six singles matches in straight sets. The Aggies followed that with a narrow 4-3 loss to Arizona State. The Sun Devils took all three dou-bles matches, and the Aggies were only able to take three of the six sin-gles matches. The Aggies will return to the court at Tennessee on Friday.

— Trevor Cramer

Aggie Digest

From bad to worseAggies losing streak hits 14

men’s basketball

Kristina Geddert / Aggie

senior eddie miller led the aggies with 12 points in their loss to the tigers.

UC Davis trumps Tigers in thrillerShinoda nets career high 18 points

Aaron Juarez / Aggie

blair shinoda scored a career high 18 points in UC Davis’ win over Pacific.

women’s basketball

see CRameR, page 2

20 minute video on bike safety, take a test and then submit a $70 fee. This applies to citations given on campus, not in the city. Nuno said this way the public will be more knowledgeable in bicycle laws and practices. Regarding on-campus bike safety, a student comment-ed on the moderately new BEEProgram.“Before, the money [from fines] would go to Yolo County,” said Chris Wilson, a junior psychol-ogy major. “Since the proceeds don’t go to the Yolo County traffic court and go to the university, the university enforces [bicycle laws] heavily now.” According to Nuno, the $70 fines sustain the program, allow-ing for the university to keep it running. “Now that we can offer re-duced fines, that’s probably why you’re hearing people talk about the tickets,” Nuno said. “The ci-tations’ fines are significantly re-duced because police officers struggled with justifying writing

a ticket that’s so expensive for everybody.” With the DPD partnering with local bike shops, bicycle safety is more enforced around the City of Davis as well. “With more traffic congestion on our city streets, and more peo-ple turning to bicycles as a trans-portation alternative, we need to make sure that all road users un-derstand the rules, laws and safe behavior,” said the DPD in a press release. Nuno said the challenge the police officers have every year is the 5,000 new students who have to be educated about bicycle laws and safety. He said he will be put-ting on a law enforcement bicy-cle class at the end of January to train five additional police offi-cers. This will provide more on-campus officers on bikes to pa-trol every day. “Bicycle citations are justified even though they might not seem like an impact,” said Nate Bales, a junior science and technology studies major. “Due to the poor economy, I’m not surprised that citations are being handed out.”

CLAIRE TAN can be reached at city@theaggie.org.

BikECont. from front page