Election '07: Campaigning from the dais

It's difficult to forget that it's election season and thanks to the will of the voters, municipal elections of some form or another are now held three out of every four years, instead of only two.

But with election season comes political candidate forums and there's been several of those going on in past weeks.

Traffic issues was the major topic discussed by candidates running for the city council seat in the fifth ward, at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and American Association of University Women.

Whether it was widening streets or bringing more jobs to Riverside in order to shorten the commutes, three of the four candidates running for office listed possible solutions to addressing one of the city's most pressing problems.

The candidates who showed were Donna Doty-Michalka, Harry Kurani and Chris MacArthur.

The issue of public participation at city council meetings was raised as well. What with elderly women getting expelled from meetings and the city attorney's office mailing warning letters to at least half a dozen people who have spoken at city meetings, this has been a topic of pretty intense debate.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


A written question from the audience asked the candidates if they favored restoring the public's right to remove, then discuss, items from the council's consent calendar -- items voted on as a group without discussion.

"I would like to see this restored," Michalka said of the right.

MacArthur said residents need to see City Hall doing its business out in the open. If people have complaints, they should come to him with proposed solutions, he said.

Kurani said there's a balance between the public's right to comment on issues and the need for the council to get its business done. He would be available around the clock so people don't have to come to council meetings to be heard, he said.


Of the three, it's actually Michalka who has advocated for more openess in the sense that she's asking for the right for city residents to pull items from the consent calendar to be restored.

Kurani is mirroring the stance held by councilman and BASS quartet member, Dom Betro in that city residents are supposed to criticize the city council in private, that is if they can fit in visits to Kurani "around the clock" whatever that means or push their way past the development firms knocking down Betro's door. In public, city residents are simply supposed to praise the city council and agree with its decisions.

As for MacArthur, he seems to be closer in idealogy on this issue to Kurani, Betro and the rest of BASS.


Former Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy and Riverside Community College administrator, William O'Rafferty was sentenced to one year in county jail and a $200,000 fine after being convicted of 10 felonies last year in connection with what prosecutors called a scam to misappropriate and steal money from students through collecting their enrollment fees for courses that may not have even existed.

The irony in all this is that several years ago, an RCC instructor who taught accounting named Chip Stern had requested information from the district's budgetary office and performed his own audit. While doing so, he found inconsistencies and other problems within the then-current annual budget. When he tried to raise concerns about this to the college's administrators including then president Salvatore Rotella, he faced retaliation.

Apparently, O'Rafferty was assigned the task of hiring a private investigation firm which was approved by the Board of Trustees to send someone to sit outside Sterns' classes checking to see if he released his students early. Several times when Sterns referred his students to a computer lab to take online tests, the college alleged that instead he was releasing them early. He was placed on administrative leave, investigated and fired. Only Trustee Jose Medina had supported Stearns through his votes.

But 20 months later, Stearns was reinstated into his position. By that point, O'Rafferty and two other administrators had already been indicted. And as it turned out, at least two of those administrators also taught courses at RCC and their attendance records were such that they were much worse than that of Stearns.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


In stating his decision, Kaiser cited O'Rafferty's lack of a prior criminal record, the loss of his job at RCC, his liability for restitution and that he won't be a danger to society.

"This is a factually unusual case," Kaiser said. "The defendant failed to do the necessary research in due diligence."

Bill Mitchell, Riverside County supervising chief deputy district attorney, had sought nine years in prison for O'Rafferty.

"People who steal this amount of money ... and deceive the public trust like he has deserve to go to prison," Mitchell said.

Peter Murray, O'Rafferty's attorney, said he was pleased with the court's ruling.

"I consider it a victory," Murray said. "The judge made a good call."

O'Rafferty got off lightly as many so-called white collar criminals do. The litigation filed against him by the Palo Verde Community College District provided plenty of documentation showing that improper and illegal behavior had taken place and there seemed to be not only an awareness that it was taking place but an active will to engage in it. In fact, after having handed off sums of money to the administrators for months, at some point administrators at RCC obviously became suspicious about how this money was really being spent. Still, the three administrators and one of their spouses still sent invoices asking for more money.

Up in Sacramento, the lines are being drawn in the early stages of the process involving legislation that is being heard both in the assembly and senate houses, involving the public access to cases of police misconduct.

(excerpt, San Diego Union-Tribune)

Senate Bill 1019, by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, passed the Senate Committee on Public Safety on a 3-2 vote. The bill goes next to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

A similar bill in the Assembly ran into opposition so stiff that the author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, decided against requesting a vote in the bill's first committee yesterday. Instead, he asked for a delay.
Both bills would overturn a California Supreme Court ruling last year in a case involving a San Diego deputy sheriff and The Copley Press Inc., publisher of The San Diego Union-Tribune.

After a 2003 disciplinary hearing was closed at the request of the deputy, The Copley Press sued to have the records released.

Supporters of both bills agreed going in that tough battles would be waged and the early rounds of the legislation hearings certainly haven't disappointed. The key vote in the assembly's subcommittee which sent it to its next venue, the appropriations committee was cast by Sen. Gil Cedillo who did it on the condition that changes be made later on which take into consideration the issues that the law enforcement unions had with it.

The article discusses the impact of Copley Press in Los Angeles, where the police commission was forced to shut down public hearings and denied access to others. It released a finding in the fatal officer-involved shooting of Devin Brown, which partially sustained the excessive force allegations. The Los Angeles Police Department which employed the involved officer ruled that the shooting had been in policy. After the public was unable to access more information about what led to the findings, there was much protest.

Ironically, it was the officer involved in the Brown shooting who disclosed the information about what had taken place in the closed hearings. The LAPD's Police Protective League posted that information at its Web site. Something for both the assembly and senate's subcommittees to consider when debating this issue, in terms of the dynamics involved in Los Angeles that are found in other cities and counties as well in California.

The bills may not pass the muster of the state legislative bodies this year, but the debate that led to their creation will still continue. And as long as there are Maywood Police Departments, Rampart scandals, more and more law enforcement agencies coming under scrutiny, the creation of more and more forms of civilian oversight and other issues arising across the country, this issue will keep coming back again and again for further discussion.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board had chastised LAPD Chief William Bratton for first calling for the creation of this legislation and then declining to support it. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also did a flip-flop as well.

The action of both men irritated Sen. Gloria Romero who had answered their call and sponsored one of the two bills, according to a Los Angeles Times article. So she called them out on it.

Police Chief and mayor decline to support bill

Bratton didn't offer any comments to the Times but someone in his agency did.

(excerpt)

"The Police Department's position hasn't changed," said Lt. Paul Vernon, a spokesman for the LAPD.

"We want to go back to the status quo. The way things were before the Copley decision."

He said Romero's bill, as drafted, "does more than that."

Indeed it does.

Her bill and its counterpart in the assembly have inspired much discussion and debate and will inspire much more of the same whether or not they pass or are knocked down.

The Riverside Police Department is moving onward from its audit that it received at Tuesday's city council meeting, hopefully in a direction that means that it will receive a much better "grade"(in deference of Councilman Art Gage's desire for one) next time. Hopefully, the city council hasn't already forgotten about it and is serious this time about remaining engaged in the process. Over a year ago, the city council had issued the same promise and didn't deliver much in the way of results. Hopefully, what transpired last year(or just as accurately, what did not) will give it the necessary incentive to do so this year.

I'm not surprised that there might be issues in management in the department in part due to the transitition between the stipulated judgment and the stage that follows it. That's not even considering how much time Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis has been spending doing his thing when he's not busy shelving books at the local library. He's certainly got a lot of energy. But his involvement may confuse the issue.

A lot of people commented on and criticized the thinly veiled campaign speeches given during the discussion of the police department's audit. They thought that behavior was inappropriate and that the focus should have been on how to address the issues in the department which arose from the report. It's not appropriate to use an occasion when you receive some sobering news about one of your city's divisions to tell everyone in the chambers and at home how wonderful you think you are.

Staffing issues in both the sworn and civilian divisions in the department continue to cause consternation and concern. The mystery of the missing 20 police officer positions did not come closer to being solved at the city council meeting. And as for civilian employees, let's just say it's a bit chilly in that there's been a bit of a freeze there that rivals nature's cold snap that occurred last January.

No clear forecast in terms of how long that freeze will last or the damage that will be done from it. It's not clear where the money that was supposed to be spent on filling the involved positions has gone, but the Riverside Renaissance might be a good place to look for it.