Elections 2007: Show me the money.

The ballots for the city council elections have been mailed out to the odd-numbered wards in this city. They must be postmarked by June 5 to be counted so people in the wards should be filling them out and mailing them in.

But before that, the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee may have to review an ethics complaint that was filed against Ward One councilman, Dom Betro at the city council meeting last night.

Kevin Dawson accompanied by his teenaged daughter spoke before the city council, about an alleged incident that took place last Thursday at the gala opening of some stage of the Fox Theater's renovation before it really, really gets renovated. Dawson, who belongs to the University Neighborhood Association and a group, Save Riverside said that both of them were holding signs which read, "Anybody but Betro" on them. Save Riverside opposes the use of eminent domain for the purpose of selling land to private developers and the Fox Theater was a natural location for a demonstration because this property was seized from a family that owned it through eminent domain nearly two years ago.

Many people passed by including City Manager Brad Hudson and Al Diaz, the vice-chancellor of the University of California, Riverside and none of them made any comments. Dawson said that at around 8 p.m., he had been talking to some people when Betro walked up to him and screamed, "Kevin, you better hope that I lose." Dawson said he responded by asking Betro if he was threatening him and Betro said no he was not.

Dawson said in his speech before the council that he still felt apprehensive at what Betro had said to him because of the power Betro enjoyed as a city official and how Betro had addressed him by name. He worried that Betro would use his power of office to harm him, his family or his neighborhood which was in Ward One.

He handed off copies of his ethics complaint to City Clerk Colleen Nichols and left quietly. The complaint pursuant to the guidelines will be sent to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee meeting to be reviewed by Mayor Ron Loveridge and Councilmen Ed Adkison and Frank Schiavone. Betro, who also serves on this committee will have to step aside and be replaced by another sitting council member.

Chani Beeman, Betro's main supporter, tried to do some advocating on Betro's behalf talking about how these unknown individuals(and if she doesn't know them, no one does) that she had never seen before were "shoving" fliers at people walking by. Hudson chimed in at his employer, Betro's request talking about a group of activists who had engaged in "illegal actions" by posting leaflets on street light poles and traffic signals.

It reminded me of a line in the film, a Cradle Will Rock where one of the main characters in that well-known musical production said that he was "armed to the teeth with leaflets".

Hudson's comments did elicit some laughter from the audience, which is well aware by now of his feelings towards public expression and participation at city council meetings. It's no surprise he now seems intent on criminalizing the posting of fliers.

Neither Beeman or Hudson were able to offer any eye witness account of what exactly did happen at the Fox Theater, except to talk about how it was a glorious event(and no one said it wasn't) and negatively impacted only by the group of activists coming from out of no where protesting nearby. Instead, they seemed to be trying to defend Betro's actions if indeed this is how Betro behaved by talking about how horrible these activists behaved. So it appeared, that neither seemed to question the allegations against Betro themselves, simply to imply that if they indeed were true, that the activists drove Betro to it or something like that.

Why weren't either of them saying instead that this didn't sound like the Betro that they knew or worked with and that they didn't believe he was capable of this type of behavior? Instead, they focused their attention on the complainants, much like what will happen when this complaint is heard by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. After all, there is already precedent set for that.

The behavior by Beeman was ironic, considering that Beeman herself was quite the local activist back in the day, as part of an organization called Women Enraged in the early 1990s that advocated for women's rights, something that is much needed in this society and she moved on to civilian review in the late 1990s. How many brochures did she "shove" at people walking by and how many times did she protest where onlookers including city officials may have thought she was a nuisance?

Probably more than a few especially when she refused to leave the podium at a City Council meeting in June 1999 and Mayor Ron Loveridge shut the proceedings down.

What would she have said to her naysayers in response? What did she say? It's just strange to listen to her use the "outside agitator" argument, the same one that the city has used in previous years. It's even stranger to have watched her evolution from one of Riverside's most formidable activists to becoming yet another part of the current crowd at City Hall making the same criticisms against activists that no doubt were made against her back in the day. Is that what is called coming full circle?

As for this new group being "new comers", they aren't all that new as several of them are from city-sanctioned neighborhood groups in the Ward One area.

Believe it or not, other groups do exist in that ward besides the Downtown Area Neighborhood Association. And if they were "new", isn't that true of all community activists at some point? Every one of them including Beeman had a starting point in their activism. The difference is that Beeman's moved on from her activist roots which helped build her reputation as someone the city apparently goes to when it needs assistance in various areas including the soothing of ruffled feathers out in the city and she apparently is not as open to the processes that other activists undergo which may be similar to her own development, as she could be. After all, she most likely had been there herself as an activist listening to the same words that she is saying now.

More activists and activist organizations will probably emerge as Riverside undergoes many major changes in the next decade or so and yes, they will tend to be more visible during election time because the decisions behind those major changes will most likely come from whoever is sitting on the dais at the time. There's disagreement in this city in terms of how much development Riverside needs to be the next thing out of Orange County as more and more of that county's residents move from there to here. Then there are others who wish to see Riverside maintain its own identity, as well as those who believe that development is not a responsible endeavor unless the city's infrastructure grows along with it in terms of public safety, streets and public utilities.

Then there are those in the city who worry that the city's heading for rough times financially including bankruptcy. Some in the city say that the city is about two years away from going broke and that most of the money spent on the Riverside Renaissance is borrowed money.

And who can forget the activist groups like Friends of the Hills and others which have been around for quite a while and have been suing the city using funds raised at yard sales to push the city into honoring growth-control laws passed by the city's voters? These groups are probably the most effective activists at eliciting change in Riverside and they are entirely outside the social and political scene at City Hall. They don't want to be part of that system or on the city's dance cards or invite lists. They just want the city to honor the voters' mandates.

It's not just the communities which are more active. It's also the city employees, with six labor unions showing up at City Hall last year to protest the city manager's conduct during labor negotiations. That too is in response to the same issues that Riverside is facing which have brought out more participation by community activists. It's all part of a larger reality that this city is growing in fits and starts and people fear that it's biting off more than it can chew during this process. All part of the same package.

So there's a lot of activism going on out there as part and parcel of Riverside's rapid development and growth, even if apparently it's news to those who work at City Hall either officially or in other capacities. I guess unless activist organizations are required to check in at City Hall central, then many people who hang out there will apparently believe that these organizations are the new kids on the block out to serve only as the gadflies that they themselves used to be.


Incidently, this isn't Betro's first trip in front of the committee on an ethics complaint. Several months ago, Letitia Pepper filed a complaint against him but it was not sustained by the committee with Councilwoman Nancy Hart sitting in for Betro. In fact, the committee spent more time talking about Pepper's behavior than Betro's to the point where it became clear that it would be the individuals who filed the complaints who would be on trial rather than the elected officials themselves. Because of the nullification of that process in such a brief period of time, city residents are reluctant to file complaints against sitting elected officials and instead just choose to take their allegations public at city council meetings as well as community gatherings where the behavior of those sitting on the dais during the era of Brad is a topic of some rather lively discussions.

Betro's temper and his tantrums have also elicited much discussion in the parts of Ward One that are not centered in the downtown area where Betro enjoys most of his support. As more and more people witness Betro's outbursts first hand, it's become more common to trade stories about them.


Having been on the receiving end of one of Betro's outbursts myself when asking for clarification on some misinformation he was giving at a meeting about the hiring of a consultant, I can say that it's not a pretty sight to see him going off, let alone being on the receiving end. But the hard part was when those who watched him going at it then said that they hadn't seen a thing or that I had misread him. One reason why being a governmental watch dog and being involved in the election process don't mix because then it becomes harder to hold certain elected officials to higher standards of behavior than others.

If his handlers including those who hope to become future elected officials themselves spent as much time helping him work on his temper issues as they did stepping forward as damage control after these outbursts occur, they would be much more beneficial to Betro's campaign and to his second term if he's elected to serve one.

The guy has brains and he once was a humble person and a successful grass roots campaigner. However, that Betro is not the one sitting on the dais now. The Betro that came into office in 2004 was not so thin-skinned and prone to sniping at people from the dais but was much better than what he apparently has become since. What Betro does is serve as a useful cautionary note for grass-roots campaigners, in that after a year or so, most elected officials forget those who helped get them elected and become more responsive to business interests who make them look good just in time for them to cut bait and run for higher office.

And Betro along with councilman Art Gage have already expressed interested in running in the mayoral race next year. At least until Loveridge apparently decided to rethink his decision not to run.

This doesn't mean that grass-roots candidates are beholden to those who helped get them a seat on the dais but they should at least remember where they came from.

Betro's behavior wasn't the only one commented on at last night's city council meeting.

City residents also complained about the conduct of incumbent, Councilman Steve Adams at a recent candidates' forum in Ward Seven. Apparently, according to several other candidates including Roy Saldanha and Terry Frizzel as well as other Ward Seven residents who attended the forum, Adams verbally attacked a ward resident and called him a liar before this resident could even take a seat. But that's typical Adams. He has also had an ethics complaint filed against him for essentially calling someone a liar or actually several people, liars. The ethics complaint was neutralized by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee who after it did that, set up a process for evaluating ethics complaints.


In other election news, Councilman Frank Schiavone has decided to run for county supervisor against incumbent, Bob Buster, according to this article in the Press Enterprise. He has formed a committee to raise the $1 million or so it will cost to launch an effective campaign for the position which comes up for election in June 2008.

Schiavone becomes the second city councilman in recent years to decide to run for another elected position during a council term. Unlike his counterpart Adams, Schiavone decided to at least wait until his second term in office to do so.


Speaking of campaign coffers, the Press Enterprise didn't write about the latest ethics complaint against Betro but it did write about how much money he and other candidates have raised for their political campaigns.

Candidate William "Rusty" Bailey is at the top of the list with $66, 550 raised so far, including donations from one of the owners of the Riverside Plaza and Councilman Ed Adkison. His rival Art Gage, the incumbent is close behind with around $47,000 including donations from the Riverside Police Officers' Association and several Orange County development firms, but because he started the year flush with funds, he tops the list at around $71,000 in money to spend.

Then again, getting kicked out of the latest quartet probably necessitates some pretty aggressive fundraising.

The money raised is closer between candidates in the heated Ward Five election with Chris McArthur raising $59, 170 to Donna Doty Michalka's $57,500. McArthur's receiving donations from relatives and several developers as well as a loan to finance his campaign. Michalka's picked up donations from city labor unions at the tune of $5,000 apiece.

Betro raised a total of $73,000 including money raised last year. Several housing developers and labor unions including the RPOA have contributed to his campaign. Michael Gardner who's been quite formidable, raised less than $10,000 but has obviously stretched it out quite far. Letitia Pepper needs to turn her statement in to the city clerk's office so it can be determined how much money she has raised.




"They've taken away our livelihood, now what are we supposed to do?"

---Wendy Guan, co-owner of Kawa Market



A thoughtful letter was written in today's Readers' Forum by a Wood Street resident, in relation to the city's seizure of the Kawa Market and a residence from an Asian-American family that have owned both for over 15 years.

The family is heartbroken over losing their store and having to pack up and move on, hopefully with some assistance from the city. They are very nice people, the kind where if they move on, it's the city's loss.

But at least they didn't spend their hard earned money on business taxes to finance projects sponsored by the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership and then faced having their own representative organization sell them down the river by supporting the city's use of eminent domain against them so that their properties could be sold to private developers.

Not that this is much consolation to a hard-working family that's essentially losing its business and their home so that their land can be used for "commercial use" by someone else.