Councils and courtrooms
Two city council candidates popped up this past week in different places in Riverside. Michael Gardner who is running for the ward one seat and Pete Olmos, who is running in the third ward were out walking their respective precincts. Supporters for Olmos also appeared at the city council meeting on March 27.
Gardner, who once served on the Community Police Review Commission, said that he intends to serve the entire ward, not just the downtown area. Residents of the first ward who don't live downtown are said not to be that enthusiastic about voting for incumbent Dom Betro, because most of his interest is in downtown development at the expense of other areas in his ward, they said.
His support in the Wood streets neighborhood is said to be shaky and pretty much nonexistent in the neighborhood to the north side of the University of California, Riverside. But Betro put his eggs in one basket, catering to people who either didn't live in his ward like the majority of the membership of the Greater Chambers of Commerce and the development firms, many of which are either from Orange County or out of state. Still, his relationships with these interests have paid some dividends through projects being built to turn the downtown area into the cultural jewel of the Inland Empire, but many residents including those in ward one feel like it was at their expense.
The Tequesquite Park fiasco was a big test for Betro and Gardner through his very well organized and implemented grass-roots campaign won that round, because he and other residents forced Betro to blink and go retro, as Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise called it.
Still, Betro has already picked up the endorsements from several key city employee unions as announced at his recent fundraiser. His refusal to speak out publicly on the "hollowing out" of the CPRC that took place earlier this year will probably reap him some rewards, though probably not at the polls.
Olmos hasn't been as visible as Gardner but his platform seems to be more of a counterargument to the city council's emphasis on development to the expense of almost everything else on its plate including the support of the city's infrastructure, which is failing to keep up with the growth that's taking place, let alone that which is to come. The lack of law enforcement positions in the mid-year's budget and the still-aging utilities system in this city have shown that.
Olmos pledged to change all that in his campaign pamphlet, by emphasizing the funding of the city's basic services as well as the improvements of the city's parks, streets and sanitation. He also stated that he was a staunch opponent of eminent domain used by the city government to obtain property for private developers.
Still, Olmos faces an uphill battle trying to unseat Gage, as does the other ward three candidate, William "Rusty" Bailey, Jr. who despite being endorsed by most of the sitting city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge has not taken that momentum anywhere. Also, what his supporters aren't mentioning when they stump for him is that Bailey once worked for Riverside County's economic development agency, the same one that City Manager Brad Hudson headed before coming to Riverside. Why is that? It's very interesting considering that the council members who support him for the most part, are BASS quartet members.
The key in several of these election bids, especially in wards five and seven is if these competitions make it past the initial rounds. Usually, the candidate who wins the initial vote fails to win the runoff election because those who voted for the other candidates including at least one of them who makes it into the final round tend to stay firm in voting against the initial winner. Add to that the fact that too often candidates especially neophytes make the mistake of thinking that if they won the initial round, they will cruise through the final and pick up even more votes in their favor.
Elections are an endurance contest as surely as a marathon race. Candidates need to work as hard when the starter's pistol goes off at the initial filing date to the date that the very last vote is collected and counted.
Still, this promises to be a very interesting election season.
On the Tequesquite Park episode, Gardner elicited compliments from the one city council member who isn't close friends with Betro. The one who was displaced when GASS became BASS.
(excerpt)
Mike rallied community members to effectively block the sale of Tequesquite Park and "averted a disaster for the citizens of Riverside."
---Councilman Art Gage
Interesting, indeed.
Daniel J. Schmidt, a public defender with the office in Riverside county wrote a thought-provoking piece about the crisis in the local judicial system. His piece discussed the morale problems in his office which has seen a record number of senior attorneys quit in the past year.
(excerpt)
From where I sit in the courtroom as a deputy public defender, the crisis is much worse. Overworked, undertrained and often unsupervised deputy public defenders struggle as best they can with increasingly difficult caseloads -- not only in sheer number of cases, but in complexity and in the consequences for defendants.
Deputy public defenders constantly are forced to continue cases, unable to set aside enough time to prepare for trial. This adds to the congestion of the courts.
Schmidt continues by stating that judges should dismiss weak cases and stop granting continuances to attorneys who too often are not prepared to try their cases. This problem is exacerbated by the assignment and reassignment of different public defenders to handle the same case. When Schmidt said that often at least six public defenders will be assigned to the same case, he wasn't exaggerating. In fact, the part he left out is that it might be six different public defenders to represent the same defendant for six straight appearances in court.
And it's not just public defenders, who each traditionally handle over 600 cases annually, it's also prosecutors. Last week, a prosecutor with barely any experience was assigned to handle what was then a misdemeanor trial on the eve of that trial.
That case which became an infraction was dispatched by scheduling judge, Gary Tranbarger to Judge W. Charles Morgan's courtroom where a murder trial was going on rendering that courtroom in use. It then was dispatched to Judge Edward D. Webster, whose courtroom is in the old civil courthouse, but after hearing the majority of the trial, he formally recused himself from the proceedings with an apology. The infraction case went back on the last day it could be sent to a courtroom for trial and Tranbarger did find a courtroom for it.
What lies in the future is more of the same and probably worse problems as long as prosecutors change the way they handle cases knowing full well they are adding to a system that's been broken for a while. As long as you have a demoralized public defender system that is entrusted with the power and responsibility of ensuring that even those who can't afford it are given their constitutional rights as criminal defendants.
As long as Sacramento tries to stem the drought in Riverside County when it comes to judicial officers who can hear cases, in incremental amounts akin to giving thimbles of water to thirsty people. Even finding judicial candidates who will accept for what many attorneys who apply or might apply is a cut in salary and a balance of experience on both the civil and criminal sides of the court system is very difficult as a member of the commission in charge of that process said at a public meeting not too long ago.
(excerpt)
The public grows weary of overzealous prosecutors who lack the discretion, dignity and maturity to resolve the vast majority of cases that otherwise needlessly clog our courtrooms.
The "tough on crime" veneer wears thin when the sheriff is forced to release inmates early because the prosecutor has stuffed our jails with offenders awaiting trial for crimes that aren't serious.
At the end of the article, there is a statement that reads that Schmidt's views are his own, meaning that his employer, Public Defender Gary Windom, didn't endorse what he wrote. But if you survey many of the other people working for him, you will find that many of them do.
The CPRC is still in the process of drafting its public report on the case involving the fatal shooting of Lee Deante Brown.
(excerpt)
Unidentified Male: How many rounds did you fire?
Officer Stucker: None
Officer Ellefson: My trajectory was down.
(source: Transcript of Officer Terry Ellefson's belt recording included in Butch Warnberg's summary report)
Gardner, who once served on the Community Police Review Commission, said that he intends to serve the entire ward, not just the downtown area. Residents of the first ward who don't live downtown are said not to be that enthusiastic about voting for incumbent Dom Betro, because most of his interest is in downtown development at the expense of other areas in his ward, they said.
His support in the Wood streets neighborhood is said to be shaky and pretty much nonexistent in the neighborhood to the north side of the University of California, Riverside. But Betro put his eggs in one basket, catering to people who either didn't live in his ward like the majority of the membership of the Greater Chambers of Commerce and the development firms, many of which are either from Orange County or out of state. Still, his relationships with these interests have paid some dividends through projects being built to turn the downtown area into the cultural jewel of the Inland Empire, but many residents including those in ward one feel like it was at their expense.
The Tequesquite Park fiasco was a big test for Betro and Gardner through his very well organized and implemented grass-roots campaign won that round, because he and other residents forced Betro to blink and go retro, as Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise called it.
Still, Betro has already picked up the endorsements from several key city employee unions as announced at his recent fundraiser. His refusal to speak out publicly on the "hollowing out" of the CPRC that took place earlier this year will probably reap him some rewards, though probably not at the polls.
Olmos hasn't been as visible as Gardner but his platform seems to be more of a counterargument to the city council's emphasis on development to the expense of almost everything else on its plate including the support of the city's infrastructure, which is failing to keep up with the growth that's taking place, let alone that which is to come. The lack of law enforcement positions in the mid-year's budget and the still-aging utilities system in this city have shown that.
Olmos pledged to change all that in his campaign pamphlet, by emphasizing the funding of the city's basic services as well as the improvements of the city's parks, streets and sanitation. He also stated that he was a staunch opponent of eminent domain used by the city government to obtain property for private developers.
Still, Olmos faces an uphill battle trying to unseat Gage, as does the other ward three candidate, William "Rusty" Bailey, Jr. who despite being endorsed by most of the sitting city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge has not taken that momentum anywhere. Also, what his supporters aren't mentioning when they stump for him is that Bailey once worked for Riverside County's economic development agency, the same one that City Manager Brad Hudson headed before coming to Riverside. Why is that? It's very interesting considering that the council members who support him for the most part, are BASS quartet members.
The key in several of these election bids, especially in wards five and seven is if these competitions make it past the initial rounds. Usually, the candidate who wins the initial vote fails to win the runoff election because those who voted for the other candidates including at least one of them who makes it into the final round tend to stay firm in voting against the initial winner. Add to that the fact that too often candidates especially neophytes make the mistake of thinking that if they won the initial round, they will cruise through the final and pick up even more votes in their favor.
Elections are an endurance contest as surely as a marathon race. Candidates need to work as hard when the starter's pistol goes off at the initial filing date to the date that the very last vote is collected and counted.
Still, this promises to be a very interesting election season.
On the Tequesquite Park episode, Gardner elicited compliments from the one city council member who isn't close friends with Betro. The one who was displaced when GASS became BASS.
(excerpt)
Mike rallied community members to effectively block the sale of Tequesquite Park and "averted a disaster for the citizens of Riverside."
---Councilman Art Gage
Interesting, indeed.
Daniel J. Schmidt, a public defender with the office in Riverside county wrote a thought-provoking piece about the crisis in the local judicial system. His piece discussed the morale problems in his office which has seen a record number of senior attorneys quit in the past year.
(excerpt)
From where I sit in the courtroom as a deputy public defender, the crisis is much worse. Overworked, undertrained and often unsupervised deputy public defenders struggle as best they can with increasingly difficult caseloads -- not only in sheer number of cases, but in complexity and in the consequences for defendants.
Deputy public defenders constantly are forced to continue cases, unable to set aside enough time to prepare for trial. This adds to the congestion of the courts.
Schmidt continues by stating that judges should dismiss weak cases and stop granting continuances to attorneys who too often are not prepared to try their cases. This problem is exacerbated by the assignment and reassignment of different public defenders to handle the same case. When Schmidt said that often at least six public defenders will be assigned to the same case, he wasn't exaggerating. In fact, the part he left out is that it might be six different public defenders to represent the same defendant for six straight appearances in court.
And it's not just public defenders, who each traditionally handle over 600 cases annually, it's also prosecutors. Last week, a prosecutor with barely any experience was assigned to handle what was then a misdemeanor trial on the eve of that trial.
That case which became an infraction was dispatched by scheduling judge, Gary Tranbarger to Judge W. Charles Morgan's courtroom where a murder trial was going on rendering that courtroom in use. It then was dispatched to Judge Edward D. Webster, whose courtroom is in the old civil courthouse, but after hearing the majority of the trial, he formally recused himself from the proceedings with an apology. The infraction case went back on the last day it could be sent to a courtroom for trial and Tranbarger did find a courtroom for it.
What lies in the future is more of the same and probably worse problems as long as prosecutors change the way they handle cases knowing full well they are adding to a system that's been broken for a while. As long as you have a demoralized public defender system that is entrusted with the power and responsibility of ensuring that even those who can't afford it are given their constitutional rights as criminal defendants.
As long as Sacramento tries to stem the drought in Riverside County when it comes to judicial officers who can hear cases, in incremental amounts akin to giving thimbles of water to thirsty people. Even finding judicial candidates who will accept for what many attorneys who apply or might apply is a cut in salary and a balance of experience on both the civil and criminal sides of the court system is very difficult as a member of the commission in charge of that process said at a public meeting not too long ago.
(excerpt)
The public grows weary of overzealous prosecutors who lack the discretion, dignity and maturity to resolve the vast majority of cases that otherwise needlessly clog our courtrooms.
The "tough on crime" veneer wears thin when the sheriff is forced to release inmates early because the prosecutor has stuffed our jails with offenders awaiting trial for crimes that aren't serious.
At the end of the article, there is a statement that reads that Schmidt's views are his own, meaning that his employer, Public Defender Gary Windom, didn't endorse what he wrote. But if you survey many of the other people working for him, you will find that many of them do.
The CPRC is still in the process of drafting its public report on the case involving the fatal shooting of Lee Deante Brown.
(excerpt)
Unidentified Male: How many rounds did you fire?
Officer Stucker: None
Officer Ellefson: My trajectory was down.
(source: Transcript of Officer Terry Ellefson's belt recording included in Butch Warnberg's summary report)
Labels: business as usual, City elections
posted by Five Before Midnight | 9:32 AM
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