Current and recent Davis City Council members might eat
their hearts out about Davis politics in 1964.
In that year, Davis was a town of public abundance and
explosive growth in which--gasp!--a banker was elected to the Council, running
second in a field of six with 55% voting for him.
Equally as odd in current perspective, a Davis junior high school
teacher finished first with 61% (and served as Mayor) and a pharmacy owner was
elected in third place with 52%.
A little of the tenor of that time is conveyed by a campaign
letter and platform card published by the banker, one Robert M. McChesney, that
I reproduce here.
I came onto these two items accidentally. They are so
startling to me that I can not resist sharing them on this blog.
Not least among the many notable aspects of Mr.
McChesney’s platform is the mater-of-fact obsevation that “Davis will triple in
size by 1970.” Today such an assertion would snap heads around, but then,
apparently, it was a mundane truth.
