Election 2007: Who makes the grade?

Aric Isom, who's on the Human Relations Commission, provided an update on his blog of the candidate forum that he sponsored that took place at Back to the Grind in downtown Riverside last week. The column has already inspired comments including some by the three Ward One candidates who attended, so check them out at his blog.

Isom offered his views at the end of his forum as to how he thought the candidates did. The one thing none of them did do is stomp out of the forum in a huff. That was a huge relief. It also wasn't covered by the Press Enterprise but given its apparent need to focus on its editorial board's selections, that was probably a relief too.

The food was very good, especially the shrimp cocktail and those pale, but still tasty peanut butter cookies. For those that don't know, the Back to the Grind coffee spot does have a downstairs meeting room. And it was there that the candidates spoke on the issues that they were passionate about and took questions from the audience of about 30 people.



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At the forum I tried to make sense of what was being said by each of the candidates. Mike Gardner seemed to be the smooth talker of the bunch. He is not a naysayer, and seems to have a realistic view of what can be done and what the city council has little influence over. He has shown his abilities as a levelheaded member and Chair of the City of Riverside’s Citizens Police Review Commission. He has also proven that he can mobilize citizens behind a common cause.

Derek Thesier exhibits a passion for the youth of our city, but shows his newness to the process. I feel that he didn’t really explain why he is running for public office. As far as am able to figure through Internet searches and contacts in local community groups he is not a member of any organization that dedicates itself to Riverside, nor has he taken up any civic causes prior to this election. I believe that Derek needs a little more experience before he takes office. Maybe get appointed to a commission or volunteer for a non-profit or two.

Letitia Pepper on the other hand has displayed a long-term commitment to a number of causes in our city. She is still preaching the same sermon to all that listens as she did fifteen years ago. She has a strong voice as well as a growing public following. I believe that she shows that she has a strong backbone, excellent experience, and wants the best for our city, but some say that she has burnt to many bridges, will she be able to get anything done in City Hall. At first glance she would be my choice as the new Ward One Council Person, but read on.

Dom Betro did not attend the forum so I did not let anyone speak ill of him. For the most part he wasn’t mentioned by name, but I think that he was alluded to. I wish that he were there to answer questions in the format that I presented in. Last year I supported him, but this year without more info I must reserve my opinion.



Isom misstated the name of what is the Community Police Review Commission, but that's all right. These days, it's looking more and more like the City Police Review Commission after the attention that pistol packing duo, Brad Hudson and Tom DeSantis, have paid to it during the past six months.


While short on dramatics, the forum was filled with valuable information provided by candidates, Michael Gardner, Derek Thesier and Letitia Pepper. They may be more or less novices to the political arena but when you see how the more experienced incumbents like Betro and Steve Adams have been conducting themselves this year even as their backers keep rushing up to defend them, the new kids on the block provide a breath of fresh air to the process.

Gardner's skillfully taken his campaign to save Tesquesquite Park from developers after pressuring Betro to go retro as columnist Dan Bernstein called it and parlayed it into a broader political campaign. A much more formidable candidate than he was four years ago, Gardner might have placed lower in an unofficial straw poll conducted by Betro, but if he makes it into a runoff with Betro by either finishing ahead of him or slightly behind him, he stands a greater chance of picking up more votes in the five months until November's runoff than the incumbent does.

Pepper serves in the Betro campaign as a thorn in his side and a spur to push voters to Betro by telling them that a vote for Gardner is really a vote against Betro and for Pepper, mirroring an oft used strategy in national politics. But Pepper could and probably will pick up a load of votes particularly from the University area. Word was the night of Isom's forum that Betro was campaigning either in the Wood Streets neighborhood or in the University area, so he's cognizant that he needs to gain a foothold there because winning the downtown vote won't be enough to keep him on the dais.

Thesier is quite a bit behind the other three candidates but he brings to his campaign a necessary voice, humility that is often sadly lacking in political candidates and lots of good ideas. But as Isom stated in his column, this election may serve as a growing process for Thesier and there's nothing wrong with that.


If either Gardner or Pepper win, that will be good news for the beleaguered Community Police Review Commission which has suffered from benign neglect under the current city council. It's almost ironic to make that statement given that the actions taken against the CPRC by some of the city council members is what led to the voters supporting its inclusion in the city's charter but it wasn't until after that election that the city decided to really taken on this commission by actually doing very little except giving the city manager free rein.

Given the intense infatuation that the current development bloc, known as BASS, has for what it perceives as the magic of City Manager Brad Hudson, it pretty much allows him and his trusty sidekick Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis to micromanage most of the city's departments and several of the city's boards and commissions as well.

Betro's role in all this? Apparently, he supports the CPRC as an idea but he's clearly made his choice that compared to the goodies that he's being promised by the city manager, the CPRC is but a small price to pay. His silence has spoken volumes and actions taken by his closest backers to defuse any dialogue of the CPRC precisely because they do not want it to be a campaign issue speak loud and clearly as well.

Some of Betro's supporters stump for him as a champion of the CPRC, but while on the dais, all Betro has done is allow Hudson to do as Bernstein stated in a recent column, which is to hollow it out from the inside. And with Betro picking up an endorsement from the Riverside Police Officers Association, the same union he bashed at a public meeting only six months earlier, don't expect him to break his silence on Hudson's actions towards the CPRC and two other commissions, the Human Resources Board and the Human Relations Commission. The interference against the HRC by Hudson's office reached a crisis point when Hudson removed its staffing after the commission had drafted a letter to him asking him questions about the sudden departures of Black and Latino city employees who had worked in management positions at City Hall. Of that purge, only two employees remain. Currently, the HRC itself is under the protective wing of Mayor Ron Loveridge.

But Betro's silence from the dais on the CPRC has been downplayed by his backers who also claim to be supporters of the CPRC but it has not gone unnoticed in the communities including those in Ward One.



Gardner chaired the CPRC for three years and has kept abreast on the difficulties it's faced both since the city's residents voted it into the city's charter and after it reached a finding of excessive force on the 2004 officer-involved shooting of Summer Marie Lane. Pepper once filed a complaint with the CPRC and supports the work done by the body.


In Ward Three, incumbent Art Gage has never hid his contempt for the CPRC calling it a piece of junk or trash on one occasion. Of course, how many city council members have ever filed a complaint with the CPRC? None. If Gage has a complaint against a police officer like he did last summer during the arduous contract negotiations when he was upset at criticisms made by several off duty police officers, apparently he just gives Chief Russ Leach a call. In contrast, William "Rusty" Bailey has supported the CPRC on a small scale, signing his name as a member of the Charter Review Committee to the measure which was to place it in the city's charter. But is he a strong supporter? That remains to be seen as it's not clear whether he will pull a silent act like Betro has or actually advocate for it like Councilman Andrew Melendrez(whose son is a police officer) from Ward Two has done.





Ballots are out and there's still some time to fill them out, sign them and mail them in, before the June 5 deadline. Remember, if you have to pay postage it's now $0.41 for a first-class letter. If not, then that's the city's problem.





The Press Enterprise brief section broke the news that according to Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco, Councilman Steve Adams didn't violate state law when he unveiled his thinly disguised campaign "newsletter" talking about his accomplishments as an elected official that was paid for by the city dime.

Upon receiving it in their mail boxes, several candidates facing against Adams in the Seventh Ward as well as ward residents complained at several city council meetings. Candidate Roy Saldanha took his complaints to Pacheco's office, making a formal inquiry.

Although the newsletter received Pacheco's stamp of approval, it still left many people with a bad taste in their mouths.





Gregory Rodriguez, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times wrote an article about whether or not demonstrations are effective at getting one's point across. He refers to the immigration rights rallies and marches that took place this past May Day including the one in Los Angeles where Los Angeles Police Department officers charged a park and engaged in hitting people there with their batons and shooting less lethal shotguns at them.



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"I think there are three reasons," said Marshall Croddy, director of programs for the Constitutional Rights Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that helps educate students on the importance of civic participation. "First, it's an iconic way of getting a message across. It has the sanctity of the civil rights movement. Second, it gives organizers a sense that something is happening. And third, it's relatively easy compared to the difficult political work that has to be done."

This year and last, the Los Angeles Unified School District asked Croddy and his organization to develop a curriculum to help students learn about and discuss the issues involved in the protests. Among other lessons, the foundation's study guide describes the variety of options people have to affect public policy. While demonstrations have their strengths, it tells students, they run the risk of becoming violent, which can sway public opinion against the marchers and their cause.

Remember, on May 1, the police overreacted to violence that was initiated by protesters. Yes, they were part of an anarchist fringe, as the media has carefully pointed out, but they were marchers nonetheless.

Therein lies the main reason the immigrant rights organizers should leave well enough alone. They can't control who comes to their protests, let alone manage their behavior. Nor can they control how the media will frame whatever story emerges. Police behavior dominated the headlines this time. But what if the anarchists' bottle-throwing had sparked crowd violence and had been the focus of all those video cameras. And what if the police had showed restraint? Would that have been good for the cause of immigrant rights? Hardly.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is right to assure immigrants that they have a right to protest peacefully. But surely he too is uneasy with the potential for mass demonstrations to go awry. Why else would a vocal supporter of immigrants' rights have flown to El Salvador on the day of the protests? Like disc jockey Eddie "Piolín" Sotelo, who helped put so many people in the streets last year but is now advocating a massive letter-writing campaign, perhaps His Honor should encourage citizens and noncitizens to push for change in other ways.




Why is it that any dialogue or activism pertaining to immigrant rights remains centered on what Whites do?



At the Los Angeles Times, there was a wire brief about an investigation being done about allegations of abuse at the juvenile halls.


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IN BRIEF LOS ANGELES COUNTY LOS ANGELES COUNTY
Possible juvenile hall abuse to be probed
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
May 9, 2007

To comply with federal Justice Department requirements, the county
Probation Department will hire an independent investigator to review
possible incidents of child abuse in juvenile halls, the Board of
Supervisors voted Tuesday.

Robert Spierer, a retired head of the Sheriff's Department's Internal
Affairs Division, will contract with the county for at least one year
starting June 1 at a salary of $150,000.

Spierer will evaluate internal child abuse investigations triggered
by deputies' use of force against youths or other incidents, and then
make recommendations to the department.

Probation officials estimate that Spierer will consider 40 to 75
incidents a year.



There had already been probes done of the California Youth Authority facilities involving allegations that male correctional officers were having sex with female inmates and selling them drugs. And there's been probes done of the adult correctional facilities, with at least one federal probe placing the state's prisons under conservatorship.