Election '07: Funds and finger foods

Even though the election season has barely begun, the endorsements are already pouring in for several candidates including by those elected officials currently sitting on the dais.

Ward 1 incumbent Dom Betro and Ward 5 challenger Harry Karuni are quickly gathering endorsements from other elected officials, according to brochures put out by Michael Williams Company advertising upcoming fundraisers.

Betro is currently being endorsed by Mayor Ron Loveridge and council members Andrew Melendrez, Nancy Hart, Ed Adkison and Frank Schiavone, as well as county supervisor John Tavaglione.

Karuni has accepted endorsements from Loveridge, Hart and Betro.

Still, it is William "Rusty" Bailey who has received the most endorsements from the dais, having already been endorsed by Loveridge, Betro, Melendrez and Schiavone before even taking out his papers to run.

The endorsement of Bailey by nearly the entire city government is almost unprecedented for a neophyte in the political arena. It is also indicative of a city council that is trying to assert a particular identity. But in recent years, that has often been the case reminding many long-time city residents of the days of the PALM quartet.

After all, first you had the GASS quartet of Schiavone, Adkison, Councilman Art Gage and Councilman Steve Adams, whose main claim to fame was their firing of former city manager, George Carvalho in 2004 and its opposition to the Community Police Review Commission, as each member of the quartet had been endorsed and funded by the Riverside Police Officers' Association's Political Action Committee.

Then you had GLASS when it became clear that Loveridge sided with these council members on most issues, including the firing of Carvalho, whose career in Riverside was over after it became clear that Loveridge would not veto any attempts by GASS to fire him. However, Loveridge did threaten to exercise his veto power if any city council member threatened to vote to severely reduce or eliminate funding for the CPRC. Loveridge had come some distance from the time he called civilian review a "symbolic gesture".

But earlier this year, Adkison decided not to run again and the Schiavone packed up with several other councilmen and Loveridge to oust Gage from the quartet. One member of the audience at a recent city council meeting said that it was a case of the quartet eating its own, but it was also a bit of a power play between several people sitting on the dais. Power plays in local government are nothing new especially now that the stakes have increased greatly as Riverside moves away from being an old-time citrus town vilified on the now cancelled television show, The O.C. and towards being well, something else.

Adkison's departure was a potent sign that the power base on the city council had shifted in a different direction that was not incompatible with his viewpoint on development and redevelopment issues. If there was not a sense that his ward would be represented by an elected officials with different opinions, then his power base probably would have tried to persuade him to run for a third term. A similar situation had led to the decisions of several past council members to run for third terms when they clearly were ready to leave the political arena and move on.

So the city council had a tug of war of sorts earlier this year. Betro's camp and Gage's corner began pointing fingers at each other about alleged misconduct which if it was going on, was something everyone on the dais had to have known about for a while.


The end result was that Gage was out, Betro moved in and what was there when the dust finally settled was a new quartet centered around the Riverside Renaissance, redevelopment and eminent domain, which community activists have called BASS.

BASS has pushed its predecessor aside, particularly in the area of public comment and participation. The loudest complaints and brow beating over this latest state of affairs surrounding the code of conduct is coming from three members of this quartet. These three elected officials also serve on the governmental affairs committee which will "evaluate" the code of conduct again and most likely, push for the implementation of more restrictions.

Quartets like these are made possible and thrive when city council positions cease to become representative of the wards and instead serve to represent the entire city as a whole, only not from the perspective of the city's residents, but from larger entities often outside the city including development firms.

After all, several years ago, several members of GASS tried to change the election rules so that run off elections held for ward seats would be decided city-wide. This never made it past the musing process but why would an idea like this one be batted around in the first place?


Also coming up are several campaign fundraisers held by supporters of the various political candidates in hopes of increasing the money in their coffers to spend on their campaigns. Those city residents who can invest a couple of hundred bucks on finger foods and such activities such as cheese tasting can consider it an investment in the city's future.


Councilman Dom Betro(Ward 1)

Thursday, March 22 at the Marriot Hotel located at 3400 Market St. It will run from 5:20-6:45 pm with the VIP reception beginning at 5pm. This event costs $125.00 per person and $250.00 per person for the VIP reception. Also, if you have six people, you can get in for $1,000.00. Lt. Governor John Garamendi will be a special guest. Betro's come a long way from his grass-roots in just four years.


Harry Karuni(Ward 5)

His official campaign kick-off was held on Feb. 15 and included a cheese, dessert and wine tasting at the same ticket prices as Betro's fundraiser. When he files his 460 statement by April 26 as required under the state's election code, it will become clear how much money those who attended as well as those who didn't tossed his way.


Art Garcia(Ward 7)

Garcia's fundraiser will be held tomorrow on March 14 between 6-8 pm. There wasn't much information on his event, keeping in line to his intent in running a grass-roots campaign. Garcia's a long-time supporter of the CPRC and in fact was instrumental in drafting the measure which was placed on the November 2004 ballot to place it in the city's charter where it sits today. One of his campaign issues is to improve the quality of the streets which is an issue in the La Sierra area and to promote community policing.


Steve Adams(Ward 7)

Adams will be raising money on Thursday, March 29 at the Citrus City Grille which is located at the Riverside Plaza. The time of the event will be from 5:30-8 pm. Tickets range from $125.00 for the steerage event to $250.00 for the VIP reception. Six people can also attend and pay $1,000.00. Hopefully, that's for the VIP reception so they can get a bit of a bargain there. If they are taking reservations, that means they are serving food!


Rusty Bailey(Ward 3)

Bailey will be bucking the sentiment that Friday the 13th is a bad day and will be holding his fundraiser on April 13, at the Victoria Club at 2521 Arroyo St. There is a VIP reception from 5:30-6 pm and the regular event is from 6 to 8 pm. Prices are the same as they are for the Betro, Karuni and Adams events as all of them are Michael Williams Company productions, only at Bailey's event, if you and five others are in the $1,000 crowd, you get some "ranger" designation. There is also some private event in the downstairs card room after the main event for "rangers".



Ramona Ripston, who head the ACLU's southern California chapter wrote this column in today's Los Angeles Times, about the crackdown on the homeless living in Skid Row, in the downtown area of Los Angeles which she called akin to living in a "police state". Ripston said that she believed that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to the homeless living there.


(excerpt)


Some say aggressive policing is working. Today, skid row's streets are strangely empty, as if hundreds of people who just months ago crowded the area's alleys every night have disappeared. Where have they gone? Some are in jail where they belong. A handful are in pretrial diversion programs where they can get the help they need. The vast majority have likely moved — to Hollywood, the Valley or Venice.

These places have fewer services that the homeless need. When this crackdown ends, they'll be back. We know where they haven't gone: into housing that's connected to services such as mental health care and job training, the only solution we know works. Meanwhile, constant police searches have added to the burdens of those who are seeking help for mental illness and addiction in skid row and complicated the efforts of those who would help them.

Ripston compared the city of Los Angeles to New York City, stating that the latter city only began to reduce its homeless population when it began to examine the issue from a perspective that was not simply enforcement-only.

The L.A. Homeless blog also addresses this issue and commented on Ripston's column. The creator of this blog, Joe John Roberts who heads PATH Partners and People Assisting the Homeless, stated in his piece that he did support the Los Angeles Police Department's focus on that area of downtown but that by itself, it was not enough to address the problems.

(excerpt)

However, not at the expense of harassing innocent people who are homeless. Our city needs a BALANCED APPROACH of both law enforcement and compassionate services and housing for the homeless.

For every dollar that the city invests in law enforcement in downtown, they should also invest in additional services and housing

The Los Angeles Mission also has a blog and in its latest entry, the Mission's president Herb Smith wrote about the "Ask the Captain", which was LAPD Capt. Andy Smith, event.

(excerpt)

If we are going to solve homelessness in LA in the next 10 years we need to stop hiding behind name calling and move on to constructive action. Where are the housing units promised by the Mayor? Where are the funds to address mental illness and permanent support housing with the continuum of care promised by the state?

And more to the point, where is the spiritual and moral fiber needed by all of us to get off the talking points and on to the implementation of our vision of housing and services provided with dignity, open to spiritual guidance and underwritten by gainful employment that promotes independence and self esteem?