[OldNorth] Information on Mediation Services Available to All Davis Residents

[Andrew P. Wallace]

May 7, 2004

To:  Old North Davis Neighborhood Association
Re:  Mediation Services

Anne Brunette, the Neighborhood Partnership Coordinator, thought you and
your neighbors may want to know of a City service that is available to you
if you need it.  Our agency, Community Mediation and Fair Housing Service
(CMS), has been providing mediation services since 1990.  If you are a
resident, employee or own a business or property in the City of Davis you
are entitled to the use of our services free of charge.

Many people believe that there are only a couple of ways to settle disputes,
either through the courts or with police involvement.  Mediation is an
alternative to those methods.  Mediation is voluntary, confidential,
convenient and non-threatening.  Any agreement reached in mediation is by
consent of all involved.  There is no judge.  The people involved in the
dispute, with the help of trained community mediators, decide for themselves
how they will resolve the situation.

In the last three years we have provided mediation services in over 250
disputes.  Eighty percent of those cases involved housing and/or
interpersonal issues and over three-quarters were settled in mediation and
did not proceed to court.  Many of the cases involved neighbor-to-neighbor
relations ranging from the need to replace a fence to property maintenance
and noise issues.  These kinds of disagreements can be resolved without
costly legal intervention or police involvement.

In addition to mediation we also provide meeting facilitation services.
While mediation is appropriate for individuals or households, larger groups
like boards of directors, associations and neighborhoods in conflict are
often better served through facilitation.  Some of the groups that have used
our facilitation service have been Luz Place Neighborhood, Dos Pinos Housing
Cooperative, Point Reyes Homeowners Association, Hillel House, Acacia Lane
Homeowners Association and the Board of Habitat for Humanity.

If you would like to find out more about CMS, visit our website at
http://www.cityofdavis.org/pcs/mediation/ or contact us at (530) 757-5623 or
by e-mail at mediations at ci.davis.ca.us.

Sincerely,



Sandra Schneider
Program Manager
Community Mediation Service