Canary in the Mine: Politics and process

While perusing the political notebook briefs section in the Press Enterprise, I saw a notice regarding candidates lining up to run for two available seats in the California State Assembly next year.

What was so interesting wasn't the news about the candidates who were planning to toss their hats in the ring for positions currently held by Bonnie Garcia and John J. Benoit who will term out at the end of 2008, it was the news that one prospective candidate was already dropping out of the contest before it really had even begun.


That candidate, Linda Soubirous had already ran for a political office when she took on Riverside County Board of Supervisor Bob Buster in 2004. It was surprising to hear that she was taking her political ambitions and her 0-1 record to the state level rather than trying again at the county level first. It was not nearly so surprising to hear that she wasn't going to run for that office after all.


Why is that the case?


Because several weeks ago, Soubirous was appointed by the Riverside City Council to represent Ward Four on the Community Police Review Commission when four members of the city government voted to approve her selection. Those four included Ward Four Councilman Frank Schiavone who announced several weeks ago that he intends to run against Buster for the county supervisor position that Soubirous had tried and failed to net for herself four last time out. Before her selection for the CPRC, rumors had been floating around that Soubirous was considering another run at Buster's seat.

Schiavone was joined by council members Ed Adkison, Nancy Hart and Steve Adams. Why Adkison's vote is so important in this case might be more apparent next year. For now, Soubirous had enough votes to get a seat on the commission. So now she's got the commission to keep her occupied, hopefully too occupied to keep her from seeking political office especially one where she might step on someone else's toes.


Two city council members, Dom Betro and Art Gage, cast no votes at all for any Ward Four candidate to serve, for reasons that apparently differed greatly from each other. And as to whose reasons for removing themselves from the selection process arose from higher moral principles, the answer might surprise you.

Gage said that he didn't support having anyone on the CPRC who arose from a law enforcement background and cited her past financial support by several law enforcement labor unions including the Riverside Police Officers' Association as one of his concerns. The words of any governmental official up for election has to be taken with a grain of salt but this was the answer that Gage provided when asked.



Betro didn't provide a reason for not casting a vote, but defended the city council's flip-flop vote on the Ward Six representative by saying that when there's a tie, the council compromises. And he's absolutely right. The city council has thoroughly compromised the CPRC during the past six months and it hasn't even needed a tie vote to do that. Not with its current city management team in place.



That statement, with the key word being compromise, might explain and has explained a lot of things both in terms of how the current city council operates in general and its behavior towards and against the CPRC. Last year, the city council changed its mid-term selection process for three of the city's boards and commissions including the CPRC. So far under that current process, it has made it clear that its selections will become increasingly politicized as positions on the CPRC become items that different elected officials can bid on and barter for, as has become the case beginning last year. Maybe that's what the word, compromise means.


As for Soubirous, it was not clear when she had put her application in for the position except that it had not been received before the annual appointment period for the city's board and commissions which took place in March. Copies of it were not available at the city council meeting where the selection process took place. But then that's the case with political appointments. Members of the public are not provided with copies of their applications to read, as most often they are said to have gotten lost or delayed some place.



What's more clear is that her departure from the state assembly race followed her selection onto the CPRC. In one sense, if she's dropping her political ambitions to show her commitment and dedication to her new role as a CPRC commissioner then that's one way to show those qualities.



On the other hand, if she's dropping out of the race because she's been selected to the CPRC and elected officials knew that going in, then that's a problem. One sure way to sort through all the intrigue is just to watch and see if there are any city officials looking for new jobs in the political arena who may plan to jump into that assembly race by next year.



Any medium with a crystal ball can tell you that one place to look first for prospective state assembly candidates is for the last name, first initial to be at the very beginning of the alphabet rather than its end.



But now that Soubirous is on, why weren't the issues raised about her prior endorsements and campaign contributions by any of the city council members? Why did several of them apparently know that she had the votes before they even cast them if had abided by the Brown Act and not discussed the appointments prior to the vote?


Again, that word, compromise. Wait long enough and it will become clear what was promised to the city council members who didn't contest Soubirous' appointment as a conflict of interest. Hopefully whatever it was and whoever it does benefit is worth it to the city's residents who trusted a selection process used by the city council that was to be fair, equitable and transparent. Trust that it's growing more clear, has been very much misplaced.



Another question to ask would be have you ever heard of the term, quid pro quo? Welcome to the board and commission selection process in the city of Riverside.



Most people who apply to the city's boards and commissions really believe that they have a chance to be appointed to serve on one of them, but more and more the people who are getting picked to fill those spots especially on really "important" commissions like the CPRC are those who either have served on other boards and commissions or who are currently serving on a board or commission and want to bail off that one to seek the "greener pastures" of the CPRC.



Most of those who apply, even those with impressive resumes filled with years of community service don't make it through the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee's selection process. To get out of that committee, it all depends on who you know, especially if that elected official sits on that committee. Are you on a first-name basis with the city's elected officials like the past four individuals selected to the CPRC have been or would you refer to them by their governmental titles because you don't know them?



You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours and so forth. Expect to see more of that philosophy in future appointments to the CPRC because when it comes to treating the CPRC like a toy, the city manager's office isn't the only game in town. For all the talk about the city manager's office intending to "improve" on the CPRC, Brad Hudson and Tom De Santis appear more intent on micromanaging it much as they've been doing with the police department.

The results so far? A reduction in complaints filed including from several of the city's neighborhoods where they stopped filing them completely last year. What is also being seen is a slow, but steady increase in civil litigation being filed against the police department especially during the latter six months of last year.



What is past is prologue. Riverside is coming full circle again.




In Sacramento, there's been more appointments of Black and Latino judges according to this article in the Press Enterprise.



(excerpt)



Schwarzenegger agreed last summer to work for greater diversity on the bench as part of a political compromise to get a funding bill passed for 50 new judgeships.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, had cut the number to 25 until the governor agreed to supply annual reports on the makeup of the state judiciary and applicants for its openings and make other efforts to improve diversity on the bench.

Riverside County will get seven new positions, combined with seven planned or announced retirements for 2007, said Riverside County Presiding Judge Richard Fields, who is the county's first black jurist. Four of the retirement positions already have been filled.

Among the appointments made since mid-April were the county's first black woman jurist, Irma Poole Asberry. The county, which has a 41 percent Hispanic population, now has two Latino judges with Wednesday's appointment of Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Angel Bermudez to the bench.

[Richard]Fields called the number of openings this year "unprecedented. ... The entire face of the Riverside County bench is going to change."




Still, it's mostly White men who sit on the judicial benches with over 70% of judges being White and 75% of them are male. About 6.3% o.f all judges in California are Latino with 4.4% apiece being Black and Asian-American.


Both Riverside and San Bernardino Counties will be receiving about seven new judges to address the growing shortage of judicial officers. As a result of that shortage, Riverside County is about 1,000 felony cases behind schedule and its civil courts have been virtually shut down since last summer.




In Los Angeles, the Police Protective League is calling on the department to further train its offices in crowd control, according to the Los Angeles Times. The department's labor union is proposing its own list of recommendations stemming from the May Day incident along with those that likely will be generated by other investigations taking place.



(excerpt)


The union said changes can avoid a repeat of the "kind of missteps" seen May 1. League officials on Monday called for all new officers in the Metropolitan Division, the unit involved in the melee, to attend "new person school" to ensure they are trained immediately in crowd-control tactics. The union also called for all command officers to be required annually to attend crowd-control management classes.

"Constant, updated training ensures that officers know not only what to do, but can implement the department's policies, procedures and expectations for any given incident," said league President Bob Baker. "The May 1 incident revealed the downside of the department's cost-based decision over the past several years to abandon introductory training for new Metropolitan Division officers, and to not train all officers for large tactical situations."



These recommendations and others including mandatory training for all credentialed media in terms of how to act in these situations where they're attacked by police officers come as the city council prepares to receive a briefing from LAPD Chief William Bratton on the status of the department's own investigations into the incident where over 60 Metro officers stormed into MacArthur Park, hitting dozens of people assembled there with their batons and shooting them with less lethal bullets.




Capt. Colleen Walker will be in charge of the Coachilla and La Quinta cities' police services. She's the Riverside County Sheriff's Department's only female captain.


(excerpt)



"She'll fine-tune it," he said of Walker, adding that she was his second-in-command during his first year at the Indio station and is familiar with procedures and programs.

Walker has raised three children while she and her husband worked full-time. She's faced bullets and survived being hit on the head by a drunk, she said.

The new role will offer challenges, but she's ready to confront them with an open mind, she said.

"I like to think differently about how to solve the problem," Walker said.



Walker said that she's intent on keeping the current programs including Neighborhood Watch in place.