The city council strikes back
This is not a surprising development in the case of a Chino teenager who was allegedly raped by a Los Angeles Police Department officer. Jeffrey Sandwell, 37, was released from West Valley Detention Center because 48 hours had passed without the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office filing any charges. He could still be prosecuted.
LAPD officer not charged with rape
An article in the Daily Bulletin quoted Sandwell's lawyer, Ira Salzman, as saying that his client was innocent.
(excerpt)
"He did not do what he's accused of doing," Salzman said. "We do not know why this person made up what she made up, but we are going to fight it."
That seems to be putting the cart before the horse because his client hasn't even been charged yet, but a Chino Police Department lieutenant had said earlier that Sandwell would be charged by Feb. 21. He probably won't be charged, as it's rare that criminal charges are filed against law enforcement officers in San Bernardino County and even rarer in Riverside County.
On this week's city council agenda is an agenda item submitted by Councilman Steve Adams, addressing the code of conduct that is enforced at all city council meetings, at least with city residents. These regular reexaminations of this policy appear to be coming more frequently.
The conduct code is primarily geared towards governing the conduct of the elected officials who sit on the dais, but that's not how it's being enforced by the current city council.
Councilman Dom Betro didn't want to hear city resident and property rights activist Yolanda Garland call the ethics code process a "kangaroo court" so he shut her down by immediately saying "point of order" which was seconded by Councilman Ed Adkison. Garland was not being boisterous, she was not being disorderly and she never has been. She just uses her three-minutes allotted time to call the city on its violation of two growth control measures that were passed by the voters, these being Measures C and R. The city still intends to ignore the will of the voters even though a Riverside County Superior Court judge determined that these laws are still in effect.
Garland injects pointed humor in her comments and humor of course, is the sharpest of all tools to use to both educate and make a point. That's why the city council doesn't like Garland, in addition to the fact that she researches the issues so she can speak as effectively as she does every week.
At first Mayor Ron Loveridge, who runs the stage, ignored the two councilmen but he finally called a break. One reason why if he does seek a new term next year he probably won't receive much support from the current city council. Rumor is, that several city council members want a candidate to run who is not as lenient as Loveridge has been at allowing the public to speak.
Betro succeeded in shutting down Garland but only for a five-minute break period while the city council conferred with the city attorney. He's come a long way from the winner of a grass-roots campaign that put him in office four years ago.
So again, the code of conduct is going back to Governmental Affairs where the two councilmen who shut down Garland along with Councilman Frank Schiavone who chairs the committee will tinker with it again. The code has never made a trip to this committee and not come out of it without being whittled down further.
On July 12, 2005, the city council voted to make some changes including one which would prohibit the public from pulling items from the consent calendar for further comment and discussion. That's why you see Marjorie Van Poule speaking on this issue at each and every single city council meeting.
That motion was introduced by Betro and seconded by Councilman Steve Adams. The vote was 6-1, with Councilman Art Gage casting the sole dissenting vote. Most of the public who spoke contested the motion but several members of a neighborhood association in Betro's ward spoke about how sick and tired they were of all the ranting and raving that went on at city council meetings. The city council had decided it was tired too, and so the rule changes began.
That was the last time major changes were made to the conduct code, but more will be on the horizon.
In the meantime, the city council members will remain free to call city residents liars, tell the mayor to stop them from speaking and prohibit anyone from criticizing them at all. These poor councilmen and one councilwoman deserve our sympathy for having made it to the dais without anyone telling them that being an elected official meant having a thick skin and listening to comments you don't necessarily want to hear. When council members and the mayor are elected, that's when they cease to represent only the people who voted for them or as in some cases, only the people who worked in their political campaigns.
Once they take the oath of office, they represent each and every person in their ward or citywide. That's a lesson I don't think any of them have really learned yet. The sad thing, is that several of them are running for second terms this year, having still not learned this. Councilmen who have had residents of their ward criticize them and then ordered the city attorney's office to mail them letters warning them not to disobey the city council or they will face arrest. Garland had already received one of those letters, even though the video tape of the meeting failed to show any disruption from her.
The intelligent thing for Betro to have done in that situation, especially during an election year would have been to sit there gracefully and with dignity and listened to what Garland said. That's part and parcel of being an elected official. Anyone running for office should know that there are perks that come with being in office and then there are parts of it that are not as much fun.
What's most interesting about the reality that this city council is perhaps the most thin-skinned in the city's history, is something that was written in an opinion piece submitted by then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer last year after the dissolution of the stipulated judgement. He had borrowed several statements that are also included in the text of the police department's strategic plan, which includes objectives it will implement until 2009.
Lockyer talked about a partnership that must exist between the stakeholders in the police department for the reforms that had been implemented to remain rooted and to continue growing. Those three partners were the city government, the community and the police department. A further examination of that partnership in the first year of the post-consent decree period will be examined in the second installation of "What would Lockyer think" in the near future. However, it will also be addressed here in terms of how it applies to the reality of the increased inability of the elected government to accept or even tolerate criticism or even differences of opinion in the public arena.
While Lockyer was urging increased communication between the three partners, there were efforts made on several fronts to make it more difficult to do so unless you were praise them. While it's important to include positive feedback in any dialogue with your partners, positive dialogue is not what needs to be protected. What needs to be protected are the criticisms because it's much easier for the city council to sit and listen to speeches which praise them or city agencies than those who criticize them as is evidenced by the placement of further restrictions on what can and can't be said at city council meetings.
Where the police department fits in this equation will be discussed in a future posting. But even it has been a lot more quiet in recent months. That's familiar behavior as well if you have a local history book.
You see, the partners who are city residents for the most part, are not going to be able to meet with their elected representatives especially if it's true as Betro once said, that developers are knocking their doors down for their attention. The reason why many members of the public no longer seek out time with elected officials including Betro(which he also lamented) is because they know that the developers are knocking their doors down and they know that even out of state development interests take priority over ward constituents. Elected officials are also very busy as most of them hold other jobs or run companies and thus the time they have to spend talking to ordinary residents is limited.
This is one major reason why city residents go to city council to speak on issues. Sometimes many will speak on on an issue and sometimes it will be a few or one person. Sometimes they're going to be praising city council and sometimes they are going to be critical of city council. The interesting thing is that because the meetings are televised, you can go to the store, the super market, the movie theater or walk down the street and encounter individuals who watch the city council. Having spoken with many of these people who encourage me to keep speaking, a major topic of interest is how the city council has been conducting itself in recent months.
Even city employees who spoke at meetings were cut off by an elected officials as Lt. Darryl Hurt, who heads the Riverside Police Administrators Association discovered at a meeting last summer.
Still, the election season is young and the filing deadline is still at least a week away. The first round of the election is three months away, with any contestants who don't receive at least half of the popular vote going into the final rounds this November.
Five employees of color in management positions have been fired, demoted or have "resigned" since City Manager Brad Hudson has been working for the city. Who will be next?
Apparently, the next one in line is not working inside City Hall, but further south along the tree-lined road. The diamond in the rough.
"Sentence first. Verdict afterwards."
--Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll
LAPD officer not charged with rape
An article in the Daily Bulletin quoted Sandwell's lawyer, Ira Salzman, as saying that his client was innocent.
(excerpt)
"He did not do what he's accused of doing," Salzman said. "We do not know why this person made up what she made up, but we are going to fight it."
That seems to be putting the cart before the horse because his client hasn't even been charged yet, but a Chino Police Department lieutenant had said earlier that Sandwell would be charged by Feb. 21. He probably won't be charged, as it's rare that criminal charges are filed against law enforcement officers in San Bernardino County and even rarer in Riverside County.
On this week's city council agenda is an agenda item submitted by Councilman Steve Adams, addressing the code of conduct that is enforced at all city council meetings, at least with city residents. These regular reexaminations of this policy appear to be coming more frequently.
The conduct code is primarily geared towards governing the conduct of the elected officials who sit on the dais, but that's not how it's being enforced by the current city council.
Councilman Dom Betro didn't want to hear city resident and property rights activist Yolanda Garland call the ethics code process a "kangaroo court" so he shut her down by immediately saying "point of order" which was seconded by Councilman Ed Adkison. Garland was not being boisterous, she was not being disorderly and she never has been. She just uses her three-minutes allotted time to call the city on its violation of two growth control measures that were passed by the voters, these being Measures C and R. The city still intends to ignore the will of the voters even though a Riverside County Superior Court judge determined that these laws are still in effect.
Garland injects pointed humor in her comments and humor of course, is the sharpest of all tools to use to both educate and make a point. That's why the city council doesn't like Garland, in addition to the fact that she researches the issues so she can speak as effectively as she does every week.
At first Mayor Ron Loveridge, who runs the stage, ignored the two councilmen but he finally called a break. One reason why if he does seek a new term next year he probably won't receive much support from the current city council. Rumor is, that several city council members want a candidate to run who is not as lenient as Loveridge has been at allowing the public to speak.
Betro succeeded in shutting down Garland but only for a five-minute break period while the city council conferred with the city attorney. He's come a long way from the winner of a grass-roots campaign that put him in office four years ago.
So again, the code of conduct is going back to Governmental Affairs where the two councilmen who shut down Garland along with Councilman Frank Schiavone who chairs the committee will tinker with it again. The code has never made a trip to this committee and not come out of it without being whittled down further.
On July 12, 2005, the city council voted to make some changes including one which would prohibit the public from pulling items from the consent calendar for further comment and discussion. That's why you see Marjorie Van Poule speaking on this issue at each and every single city council meeting.
That motion was introduced by Betro and seconded by Councilman Steve Adams. The vote was 6-1, with Councilman Art Gage casting the sole dissenting vote. Most of the public who spoke contested the motion but several members of a neighborhood association in Betro's ward spoke about how sick and tired they were of all the ranting and raving that went on at city council meetings. The city council had decided it was tired too, and so the rule changes began.
That was the last time major changes were made to the conduct code, but more will be on the horizon.
In the meantime, the city council members will remain free to call city residents liars, tell the mayor to stop them from speaking and prohibit anyone from criticizing them at all. These poor councilmen and one councilwoman deserve our sympathy for having made it to the dais without anyone telling them that being an elected official meant having a thick skin and listening to comments you don't necessarily want to hear. When council members and the mayor are elected, that's when they cease to represent only the people who voted for them or as in some cases, only the people who worked in their political campaigns.
Once they take the oath of office, they represent each and every person in their ward or citywide. That's a lesson I don't think any of them have really learned yet. The sad thing, is that several of them are running for second terms this year, having still not learned this. Councilmen who have had residents of their ward criticize them and then ordered the city attorney's office to mail them letters warning them not to disobey the city council or they will face arrest. Garland had already received one of those letters, even though the video tape of the meeting failed to show any disruption from her.
The intelligent thing for Betro to have done in that situation, especially during an election year would have been to sit there gracefully and with dignity and listened to what Garland said. That's part and parcel of being an elected official. Anyone running for office should know that there are perks that come with being in office and then there are parts of it that are not as much fun.
What's most interesting about the reality that this city council is perhaps the most thin-skinned in the city's history, is something that was written in an opinion piece submitted by then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer last year after the dissolution of the stipulated judgement. He had borrowed several statements that are also included in the text of the police department's strategic plan, which includes objectives it will implement until 2009.
Lockyer talked about a partnership that must exist between the stakeholders in the police department for the reforms that had been implemented to remain rooted and to continue growing. Those three partners were the city government, the community and the police department. A further examination of that partnership in the first year of the post-consent decree period will be examined in the second installation of "What would Lockyer think" in the near future. However, it will also be addressed here in terms of how it applies to the reality of the increased inability of the elected government to accept or even tolerate criticism or even differences of opinion in the public arena.
While Lockyer was urging increased communication between the three partners, there were efforts made on several fronts to make it more difficult to do so unless you were praise them. While it's important to include positive feedback in any dialogue with your partners, positive dialogue is not what needs to be protected. What needs to be protected are the criticisms because it's much easier for the city council to sit and listen to speeches which praise them or city agencies than those who criticize them as is evidenced by the placement of further restrictions on what can and can't be said at city council meetings.
Where the police department fits in this equation will be discussed in a future posting. But even it has been a lot more quiet in recent months. That's familiar behavior as well if you have a local history book.
You see, the partners who are city residents for the most part, are not going to be able to meet with their elected representatives especially if it's true as Betro once said, that developers are knocking their doors down for their attention. The reason why many members of the public no longer seek out time with elected officials including Betro(which he also lamented) is because they know that the developers are knocking their doors down and they know that even out of state development interests take priority over ward constituents. Elected officials are also very busy as most of them hold other jobs or run companies and thus the time they have to spend talking to ordinary residents is limited.
This is one major reason why city residents go to city council to speak on issues. Sometimes many will speak on on an issue and sometimes it will be a few or one person. Sometimes they're going to be praising city council and sometimes they are going to be critical of city council. The interesting thing is that because the meetings are televised, you can go to the store, the super market, the movie theater or walk down the street and encounter individuals who watch the city council. Having spoken with many of these people who encourage me to keep speaking, a major topic of interest is how the city council has been conducting itself in recent months.
Even city employees who spoke at meetings were cut off by an elected officials as Lt. Darryl Hurt, who heads the Riverside Police Administrators Association discovered at a meeting last summer.
Still, the election season is young and the filing deadline is still at least a week away. The first round of the election is three months away, with any contestants who don't receive at least half of the popular vote going into the final rounds this November.
Five employees of color in management positions have been fired, demoted or have "resigned" since City Manager Brad Hudson has been working for the city. Who will be next?
Apparently, the next one in line is not working inside City Hall, but further south along the tree-lined road. The diamond in the rough.
"Sentence first. Verdict afterwards."
--Queen of Hearts, Alice in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll
Labels: City elections
posted by Five Before Midnight | 8:10 AM
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