Citizen Ray will be remembered at the April 25th Planning Commission Meeting
For the first several years of the 21st century, an irascible contrarian attended nearly every council and planning commission meeting, and took every opportunity to thunder and rail at the elected, the appointed, and even, on occasion, their supplicants. His name was Joe Ray Davis, Jr., but he preferred to be known as Citizen Ray.
Citizen Ray lectures the planning commission
“Whether or not we agreed or disagreed with his comments and his delivery,” Los Gatos Planning Commissioner Marico Sayoc said at the commission’s March 14th meeting, “I think we can all agree that his comments and his advocacy are one thing that will be remembered when we think of Los Gatos politics.”
Citizen Ray is the reason that Los Gatos installed a timer and began limiting public comments to three minutes. Davis sometimes refused to stop talking and, on occasion, was escorted from the chambers by police. He knew his rights, and he demanded the opportunity to speak at each public hearing and during verbal communications, and to pull consent items–parliamentary procedures that kept him stepping to the podium again and again in a single meeting. Ray Davis obviously agreed with the Quakers, who have long believed that citizens must “speak truth to power.”
“When you’re as effective as I am in the public arena, you draw the ire of those seeking to influence the process,” Davis told a reporter in 2000.
Citizen Ray receives a warm reception at a Los Gatos Union School District board meeting
Citizen Ray’s statements could be rude and insulting. He would sometimes bang his palm on the podium for emphasis, or hold a sheaf of papers high like a torch. He used belittling nicknames for targets of his ire, calling the late Mayor Steve Glickman, “Mr. Slickman,” and he would sneeringly speculate on the nature of the unspecified corruption driving officials such as Joe Pirzynski, Mike Wasserman, Town Manager Deb Figone, and current Mayor Steve Rice.
But he knew his facts. He studied the issues and the prevailing law, and he was often way ahead of the public’s knowledge on a subject. He told this reporter about the new police facility months before the purchase of the old Verizon building was officially confirmed.
Davis chats with then-councilmember Mike Wasserman before the 6/4/07 council meeting. Davis dressed as an Indian to remind the council of the Boston Tea Party.
While the Los Gatos Planning Commission seemed perplexed by his outbursts, and the Los Gatos Town Council privately seethed, Citizen Ray was welcomed wholeheartedly at School District board meetings and by the Monte Sereno and Saratoga city councils. He championed safety measures for Highway 9 that have since been adopted. The City of Saratoga gave him a plaque for that. He urged the construction of sidewalks where children walked to school, and they were built. Fisher Middle School gave him a commendation for suggesting that they install windows in the doors at the Fisher gym. Countless bruised noses have been averted thanks to Mr. D.
Ray wore a cap with "Honesty" and "Integrity" written all over it. His shirt reads, "Citizen Ray: The Anti-Evil."
Davis’ was often a voice in the wilderness in Los Gatos, however. He wanted a skatepark to keep skateboarders off the dangerous streets, but the ballot measure he supported was defeated. He joined the Friends of the Hillside in trying to block construction of Rob DeSantis’ mansion. After a drunk driver badly injured Sara Cole at the Blossom Hill Park parking area, Davis argued for a real parking lot with curbs that might have protected her. (Construction began on the parking lot almost coincident with Davis’ death.) He received no satisfaction from Los Gatos politicians tired of being called names.
Good Stock
Undated photo of Ray Davis. (Courtesy Kimberly Davis)
Citizen Ray’s family came to California from Stephenville, Texas, situated between Fort Worth and Abilene. Ray’s grandmother, who called him Raydie, drove her children to Berkeley in the pre-highway days of the 1920s. Tales of the long journey, in places over wood plank roads, are still remembered in the family.
Joe Ray Davis, Jr. was born in Berkeley on April 13, 1928. His younger brother, James, was born less than two years later. Ray was a cub scout and later a member of Boy Scout Troop 28. At 6’3”, 220 pounds, Ray naturally played basketball for Berkeley High School, and he was the captain of the team that won the league title his senior year. He joined the army right out of high school and served as a paratrooper in the 11th Airborne Division, earning medals and an honorable discharge after two years.
Proud Ray Davis with grandson Nick. (Courtesy Kimberly Davis)
On his return from Sapporo, Japan, Ray enrolled at UC Berkeley and joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He made the football team, but after a year, he quit football to return to basketball. The football coach was too angry to speak. It was a dumb move, in hindsight–Ray watched the second string player who took his position play in the Rose Bowl the next year.
Graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in wildlife biology, Davis immediately took a job with Carnation, then worked selling slide rules, surveying equipment, and other engineering tools for Keuffel and Esser for many years before switching to property management, working for his brother. Jim and Ray Davis were always competitive–Jim also went to Berkeley and added a law degree from Boalt. Jim founded the Bank of Alameda in 1997.
In 1965, a developer proposed a 17-story office building that would have impacted Davis’ home in Walnut Creek. The ensuing battle taught Davis about planning departments, California law, and the power of persistence.
“I have a very distinguished nose,” a smiling Davis told journalist Nathan Huff in 2000, “I can smell the slightest stink of corruption.”
In the 1990s, Citizen Ray was nearly at war with the City of Orinda. He was involved in a “physical altercation” with a former Orinda police chief, and he participated in a successful class action lawsuit against the city for violations of the Brown Act. He appeared at Orinda city council meetings wearing a Nazi Stahlhelm, a vintage helmet, shouting “Sieg Heil!” in response to perceived fascist statements. He ran for Orinda city council in 1990 and 1996.
“Davis stays within the law,” Orinda Councilperson Laura Abrams told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1997, “yet I think he denigrates, insults, slanders and humiliates anyone who disagrees with his position, and sometimes even people who agree with him.”
“Ray Davis…stands up for the little guy in Orinda,” homeowner Len Snyder told the Chronicle. “I think [the Nazi helmet] is a put on. It doesn’t say anything about his true character. He’s a sweet guy.”
In 2000, Davis moved to Los Gatos to be close to his daughter, Kimberly, and his grandchildren. His other daughter, Victoria, and grandchildren live in Washington state. He attended the grandchildren’s sporting events with the same zeal he showed in the council chambers. Players, coaches, and fans knew him and sometimes cheered when he would shout “Baloney, Ref!” to protest a bad call. Granddaughter Taylor, a senior at Los Gatos High, plays lacrosse, and Nick, a sophomore, is a quarterback on the football team.
Davis teaches grandson Nick to value quick reactions. (Courtesy Kimberly Davis)
“He was a ‘high-bar’ Dad,” daughter Kimberly explains. He was also an inspiring grandfather, offering what he called “pearls of wisdom.”
“When you’re playing team sports, you’re always playing for the team,” Ray advised Nick years ago. “But if the team sucks, you have to play for yourself, to use the opportunity to improve your game.”
“Do something about the things you can change,” went another pearl. “Forget the others.”
Ray’s perfect attendance record at Los Gatos council meetings ended in 2009 or 2010, due to ill health, and he moved to an assisted living facility. He underwent his second hip replacement surgery in September 2011, and contracted some sort of a blood infection. “His heart took a hit,” Kimberly says. He suffered a “soft” heart attack. He passed away, surrounded by family, February 24, 2012, aged 83.
Thinking of how hard Citizen Ray strove to improve every aspect of our town, I was not surprised to learn that the one pearl of wisdom he emphasized the most was, “Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it.”
Friends of Citizen Ray will gather for a brief observance at the Los Gatos Planning Commission meeting, Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the council chambers.
Ray Davis explains a complicated point during contentious hearings concerning Rob DeSantis' mansion
