Odds and ends here and there
Dan Bernstein wrote a nice column about Yolanda Hernandez's eclectic record store on Magnolia Avenue in Riverside. It puts one of the city's businesses in the spotlight for a brief period of time. Unfortunately, that might not be the best place for it, given the current climate coming from the dais at City Hall.
Someone on the city council or city manager's office might read the column and notice that her business attracts a lot of young people including teenagers and decide that a congregation of young customers constitutes "blight" and decide to put this record store on the list of businesses to be ousted off the city's map as part of the "Riverside Renaissance".
Bernstein gets this and wrote the following.
(excerpt)
This is the kind of shop that oozes unpredictability and surprise, much like the antique stores evicted from downtown Riverside to make room for "Renaissance" retail, whatever that may turn out to be.
Having a Latino surname doesn't exactly help ensure her business's survival unless she has a restaurant that sells Mexican food. Otherwise, like other Latinos along with Asian-Americans she could find the business she's spent her life building on the city's shopping list for parcels to purchase under eminent domain or what precedes it, which isn't much nicer.
And it's not like teenagers are wanted in the downtown, given that the city has done just about everything to show that they're not welcome downtown. Not all teenagers behave badly and everyone's been one, and many that do probably need something to do or businesses to frequent that are attractive to them. So do younger children and one of the downtown places which was great for children was the children's museum in the downtown pedestrian mall which included among its services after-school programs. Unfortunately, the city didn't know a diamond when it had one in its palm so it lost that museum to its sister city, Hemet several years ago.
Councilman Frank Schiavone has gone on one of his campaigns again and this time he's taking on Union Pacific Railroad, according to the Press Enterprise. If you've ever been driving through Riverside, then you've probably seen incidents where trains from this freight delivery company have been parked across intersections, most notably Jurupa, Magnolia and Third Streets. It's a necessary job to speak out on this issue and someone's got to take a stand on a problem which has turned Riverside's streets into parking lots and delayed the passage of emergency vehicles for up to six hours each day. That's the amount of time that Union Pacific and Burlington North Santa Fe trains spend crossing Riverside's streets daily.
About a year ago, a deal was struck between the city and Union Pacific to reduce the amount of time it spent blocking the streets. It came about when the incident arose that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back when Magnolia Avenue near Merrill was shut down for seven hours because of a train blocking the intersection.
The deal is as follows.
(excerpt)
As a result of the episode and subsequent meetings with city officials, Union Pacific:
Issued a standing order to its Inland dispatch center not to send any eastbound train past Jurupa Avenue until BNSF accepts the Union Pacific train onto its rail line.
Agreed not to send trains through Riverside unless the operating crew has at least 90 minutes to two hours remaining on its shift. This part of the agreement is meant to avoid a time-consuming crew switch when a train stops in Riverside near the end of a shift.
Provided Riverside City Hall with phone numbers for the Inland Union Pacific dispatch center to get information on train blockages.
The average time the trains spend blocking the city's streets has dropped down to a little over three minutes per train, which the city says is a sizable improvement but it hasn't impacted the safety issue which occurs when emergency vehicles can't get through to get where they are going.
And trains still stop and block the streets as happened last week on Olivewood when a Union Pacific train stopped for five minutes. Or several incidents involving Magnolia Avenue where trains were stopped for at least 10 minutes, including one incident where fire trucks and ambulances had to find alternate routes to get around a shut-down street.
If you see a train shut down a street for at least five minutes by stopping on it, here are some local phone numbers to call to report this incident to the city.
(951) 826-5991 (city council)
(951) 826-5311 (information and assistance)
Apparently there is some furor over a campaign letter sent out by Councilman Steve Adams bashing the Riverside Police Officers' Association. Perhaps Adams should read the fable written by Aesop where he dealt with the adage about biting the hands that feed you.
Four years ago, Adams was a virtual unknown who apparently decided he wanted to seek political office. He was a retired Riverside Police Department officer collecting a disability retirement either for being injured in the line of duty or in an intramural football game played off duty, depending on who you ask. He had made a name for himself as a financial consultant of some sort since retiring from law enforcement in the 1980s.
He first tried to gather signatures in Ward Three where current councilman Art Gage was running for office. Alas, Adams had difficulty even gathering the signatures needed to put him in the ballot, which means he would have had even more difficulty gathering the votes to win in Ward Three.
That didn't thwart his efforts one bit. Adams did what a lot of city council candidates do. He packed up his efforts and perhaps his household in Ward Three if he had one there and he set off for what he thought would be greener pastures in Ward Seven. Rumors traveled around the city that he was actually recruited by unknown parties from out of state to run for office in Riverside. The RPOA's members along with members of the Riverside Fire Fighters Association campaigned heavily for him in Ward Seven and in a squeaker of a run-off election, he prevailed and became a councilman.
But Adams' biggest problem was that he was essentially viewed by many as someone who merely came into the ward to get a seat on the dais and thus he had no roots in the La Sierra area. He had a difficult time coming up with residents in his ward to represent it on the city's boards and commissions. He nominated Frank Arreola for a seat on the Community Police Review Commission and Arreola lasted on the panel for about a year before leaving in an apparent huff. Soon after, Adams hired him to be his legislative aide even though many in Ward Seven questioned Arreola's qualifications for the job. Even more serious, were allegations by some Ward Seven residents that Arreola's hiring was Adams way of rewarding Arreola for work he had done for him while he was serving on the CPRC. Whether or not this was indeed true, it caused some degree of bad feeling in the city.
After Arreola's departure, Adams pulled John Brandriff off his seat on the Human Relations Commission and had him fill in for Arreola. It appeared that Adams was unable to come up with a candidate to fill the opening on the CPRC without using someone he had already tapped to serve some place else.
While on the dais, Adams seemed to be more concerned about carrying out a city-wide agenda, rather than a ward-specific agenda and supported high-density housing projects that were opposed by many in his ward and projects that violated several growth-control laws passed by the city's voters. And Adams had a wandering eye, as before his term was even over, he would run off to join the circus that surrounded the state assembly elections.
Despite major backing by many law enforcement associations, Adams didn't even make it past the first round and decided that at least for now, he really, really wanted to be a councilman so he focused his efforts towards his reelection in Ward Seven. One problem as some saw it, was that while Adams was off running for another office, his ward had received the smallest slice of the billion dollar pie called Riverside Renaissance.
Not surprisingly his actions led to other people filing papers to run against him and he faced off with them in what is expected to be the first round of elections in Ward Seven.
But what was different this time, is that the RPOA didn't choose to back the candidate it had fronted four years ago. It, along with the Riverside Police Administrators' Association, opted to support veterinarian Roy Saldanha who it felt better represented their views on civic issues.
No doubt, that ticked Adams off. But interestingly enough, he still circulated old campaign brochures and posted old signs that said police officers backed him. That ticked the RPOA off, as it stated in a Press Enterprise article not too long ago.
(excerpt)
"This is the kind of thing we don't appreciate," Riverside Police Officers Association President Ken Tutwiler said, clutching one of the campaign brochures. "This is wrong."
Soon after, Adams disavowed himself of an organization that he had once belonged to while he worked as a police officer in the city's police department, saying he had to consider the city's interests not those of "special interest groups". But only four years ago, this same "special interest group" was instrumental in putting him on the dais although that's not what he called it back then. Without the RPOA's efforts, it's doubtful that Adams would have been elected to serve in a ward where few if any people even knew who he was at the time.
But in the four years since just like everyone else sitting on the dais, Adams has been engaged in a love affair with development firms especially since the city council voted to hire City Manager Brad Hudson in 2005. Frankly, that just doesn't give them much time for anything or anybody else. And since Hudson's been in place, there's been much turmoil in the city's workplace as was seen last summer and just several months ago and much turmoil among city residents who support Riverside Renaissance as a concept but are apprehensive about its administration in a city that's been spending money on projects like it's dipping into a bottomless coffer. The problem is, some at City Hall say it's nearing its bottom.
This time around, the RPOA has opted to endorse another candidate which is its prerogative as it is with all the city's labor unions who are involved in the endorsement process. Perhaps its members should remember that Adams is the councilman who calls city residents, liars from the dais and at candidate forums, which are two examples of venues where usually elected officials are on their best behaviors. Its members should also remember that Adams often makes comments that are inflammatory in order to provoke a response, which is the favored tool of several council members as of late. Bait the public, it responds then try to push the police officers to eject them from meetings. Adams himself has participated in these actions along with others on the BASS quartet. With these incidents in mind whenever you hear his words, you have to consider the source.
His words at best, are to be taken with a grain of salt. As has been said, whoever said silence was golden hadn't met Adams. His sound bytes are surely ones for the ages, to look back upon if anyone's bold enough to do a retrospective of Election 2007, the GASS quartet, the BASS quartet and the council career of Adams.
Also, regarding the city manager's office, word is that Hudson discovered the difference between an appointed position and an elected one when he allegedly tried to lean on a particular individual for criticizing him. That list has apparently been growing.
The number one critic of Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton appears to be his predecessor Bernard Parks who now holds a city council seat. The Los Angeles Times published a commentary written by Parks where he criticizes the newspapers for playing nice with Bratton and castigating former LAPD chiefs, namely him.
His article details a series of articles including those written on the May Day incident where he alleged reporters praised Bratton for initiating investigations and disciplining officers while holding him and his predecessor, Darryl Gates to more stringent standards.
(excerpt)
During my years as chief of the LAPD, from 1997 to 2002, I fired more than 130 problem officers, more than the previous two chiefs and the current one combined. The newspaper never applauded my administration's uncovering of the Rampart incident despite the fact that its news story of Aug. 26, 1998, announcing the arrest of one of the scandal's central figures, reported that it had come following a six-month internal investigation initiated by me.
When Bratton, in one of his first acts, relaxed the department's disciplinary system, no news analysis or editorial questioned the wisdom of the move in a city with a history of troubled relations between the LAPD and minority communities. When this paper reported last year that of the roughly 6,400 complaints filed by residents against LAPD officers in 2005, only about 400 officers were disciplined, no follow-up news analyses or editorials criticized or questioned Bratton's commitment to officer discipline or his stewardship of departmental reform mandated by the consent decree.
Yet when he disciplined the two top-ranking officers in the MacArthur Park incident, the chief won praise for his swift action. No editorial or news analysis pointed out how clearly inconsistent this decision was with the day-to-day administration and application of discipline in the LAPD.
One memory of Parks is him talking to reporters about the Democratic National Convention as his riot officers were shooting less lethal munitions at demonstrators and media representatives as they had for several days. Two of the reporters shot were from the Press Enterprise with one being shot in the back of the knee and the other in the stomach.
Joe Domanick's commentary on the past six police chiefs in the LAPD followed Parks' article and provided an interesting perspective on their performances and the impact they made or did not make in the department's progression. Domanick wrote a comprehensive history on the LAPD, titled To Protect and To Serve.
Here's his view of Parks performance as police chief from 1997-2002.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
Riordan's handpicked successor to Williams, the LAPD veteran wanted to impose tough discipline and accountability on the department. But his imperious attitude offended much of the rank and file, and his contempt for the media and some politicians cost him civilian allies. His old-line managerial style of shunning compromise hurt him as well. When the Rampart scandal came to light in 1999, and the city and department were forced into a humiliating federal consent decree, he reacted defensively and wasn't rehired.
A New York City Police Department officer who contracted sarcoidosis after the 9-11 terrorist attacks sued the city, police department and current police commissioner for denying him medical benefits according to the New York Daily News.
Officer Christopher Hynes worked over 100 hours at the location where the World Trade Center had once stood without a face mask.
(excerpt)
"I never smoked in my life," said Christopher Hynes, 36, who suffers from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that causes scarring of the lungs and other organs. "I never had a breathing problem in my life."
Now the 13-year veteran cop, who patrolled the perimeter of Ground Zero beginning three days after the terror attacks, can barely walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.
"I feel like I'm not getting treated properly," said Hynes, who is suing for more than $1,600 in medical costs and for the line-of-duty designation for his ailment, which would make the city responsible for his medical bills.
Someone on the city council or city manager's office might read the column and notice that her business attracts a lot of young people including teenagers and decide that a congregation of young customers constitutes "blight" and decide to put this record store on the list of businesses to be ousted off the city's map as part of the "Riverside Renaissance".
Bernstein gets this and wrote the following.
(excerpt)
This is the kind of shop that oozes unpredictability and surprise, much like the antique stores evicted from downtown Riverside to make room for "Renaissance" retail, whatever that may turn out to be.
Having a Latino surname doesn't exactly help ensure her business's survival unless she has a restaurant that sells Mexican food. Otherwise, like other Latinos along with Asian-Americans she could find the business she's spent her life building on the city's shopping list for parcels to purchase under eminent domain or what precedes it, which isn't much nicer.
And it's not like teenagers are wanted in the downtown, given that the city has done just about everything to show that they're not welcome downtown. Not all teenagers behave badly and everyone's been one, and many that do probably need something to do or businesses to frequent that are attractive to them. So do younger children and one of the downtown places which was great for children was the children's museum in the downtown pedestrian mall which included among its services after-school programs. Unfortunately, the city didn't know a diamond when it had one in its palm so it lost that museum to its sister city, Hemet several years ago.
Councilman Frank Schiavone has gone on one of his campaigns again and this time he's taking on Union Pacific Railroad, according to the Press Enterprise. If you've ever been driving through Riverside, then you've probably seen incidents where trains from this freight delivery company have been parked across intersections, most notably Jurupa, Magnolia and Third Streets. It's a necessary job to speak out on this issue and someone's got to take a stand on a problem which has turned Riverside's streets into parking lots and delayed the passage of emergency vehicles for up to six hours each day. That's the amount of time that Union Pacific and Burlington North Santa Fe trains spend crossing Riverside's streets daily.
About a year ago, a deal was struck between the city and Union Pacific to reduce the amount of time it spent blocking the streets. It came about when the incident arose that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back when Magnolia Avenue near Merrill was shut down for seven hours because of a train blocking the intersection.
The deal is as follows.
(excerpt)
As a result of the episode and subsequent meetings with city officials, Union Pacific:
Issued a standing order to its Inland dispatch center not to send any eastbound train past Jurupa Avenue until BNSF accepts the Union Pacific train onto its rail line.
Agreed not to send trains through Riverside unless the operating crew has at least 90 minutes to two hours remaining on its shift. This part of the agreement is meant to avoid a time-consuming crew switch when a train stops in Riverside near the end of a shift.
Provided Riverside City Hall with phone numbers for the Inland Union Pacific dispatch center to get information on train blockages.
The average time the trains spend blocking the city's streets has dropped down to a little over three minutes per train, which the city says is a sizable improvement but it hasn't impacted the safety issue which occurs when emergency vehicles can't get through to get where they are going.
And trains still stop and block the streets as happened last week on Olivewood when a Union Pacific train stopped for five minutes. Or several incidents involving Magnolia Avenue where trains were stopped for at least 10 minutes, including one incident where fire trucks and ambulances had to find alternate routes to get around a shut-down street.
If you see a train shut down a street for at least five minutes by stopping on it, here are some local phone numbers to call to report this incident to the city.
(951) 826-5991 (city council)
(951) 826-5311 (information and assistance)
Apparently there is some furor over a campaign letter sent out by Councilman Steve Adams bashing the Riverside Police Officers' Association. Perhaps Adams should read the fable written by Aesop where he dealt with the adage about biting the hands that feed you.
Four years ago, Adams was a virtual unknown who apparently decided he wanted to seek political office. He was a retired Riverside Police Department officer collecting a disability retirement either for being injured in the line of duty or in an intramural football game played off duty, depending on who you ask. He had made a name for himself as a financial consultant of some sort since retiring from law enforcement in the 1980s.
He first tried to gather signatures in Ward Three where current councilman Art Gage was running for office. Alas, Adams had difficulty even gathering the signatures needed to put him in the ballot, which means he would have had even more difficulty gathering the votes to win in Ward Three.
That didn't thwart his efforts one bit. Adams did what a lot of city council candidates do. He packed up his efforts and perhaps his household in Ward Three if he had one there and he set off for what he thought would be greener pastures in Ward Seven. Rumors traveled around the city that he was actually recruited by unknown parties from out of state to run for office in Riverside. The RPOA's members along with members of the Riverside Fire Fighters Association campaigned heavily for him in Ward Seven and in a squeaker of a run-off election, he prevailed and became a councilman.
But Adams' biggest problem was that he was essentially viewed by many as someone who merely came into the ward to get a seat on the dais and thus he had no roots in the La Sierra area. He had a difficult time coming up with residents in his ward to represent it on the city's boards and commissions. He nominated Frank Arreola for a seat on the Community Police Review Commission and Arreola lasted on the panel for about a year before leaving in an apparent huff. Soon after, Adams hired him to be his legislative aide even though many in Ward Seven questioned Arreola's qualifications for the job. Even more serious, were allegations by some Ward Seven residents that Arreola's hiring was Adams way of rewarding Arreola for work he had done for him while he was serving on the CPRC. Whether or not this was indeed true, it caused some degree of bad feeling in the city.
After Arreola's departure, Adams pulled John Brandriff off his seat on the Human Relations Commission and had him fill in for Arreola. It appeared that Adams was unable to come up with a candidate to fill the opening on the CPRC without using someone he had already tapped to serve some place else.
While on the dais, Adams seemed to be more concerned about carrying out a city-wide agenda, rather than a ward-specific agenda and supported high-density housing projects that were opposed by many in his ward and projects that violated several growth-control laws passed by the city's voters. And Adams had a wandering eye, as before his term was even over, he would run off to join the circus that surrounded the state assembly elections.
Despite major backing by many law enforcement associations, Adams didn't even make it past the first round and decided that at least for now, he really, really wanted to be a councilman so he focused his efforts towards his reelection in Ward Seven. One problem as some saw it, was that while Adams was off running for another office, his ward had received the smallest slice of the billion dollar pie called Riverside Renaissance.
Not surprisingly his actions led to other people filing papers to run against him and he faced off with them in what is expected to be the first round of elections in Ward Seven.
But what was different this time, is that the RPOA didn't choose to back the candidate it had fronted four years ago. It, along with the Riverside Police Administrators' Association, opted to support veterinarian Roy Saldanha who it felt better represented their views on civic issues.
No doubt, that ticked Adams off. But interestingly enough, he still circulated old campaign brochures and posted old signs that said police officers backed him. That ticked the RPOA off, as it stated in a Press Enterprise article not too long ago.
(excerpt)
"This is the kind of thing we don't appreciate," Riverside Police Officers Association President Ken Tutwiler said, clutching one of the campaign brochures. "This is wrong."
Soon after, Adams disavowed himself of an organization that he had once belonged to while he worked as a police officer in the city's police department, saying he had to consider the city's interests not those of "special interest groups". But only four years ago, this same "special interest group" was instrumental in putting him on the dais although that's not what he called it back then. Without the RPOA's efforts, it's doubtful that Adams would have been elected to serve in a ward where few if any people even knew who he was at the time.
But in the four years since just like everyone else sitting on the dais, Adams has been engaged in a love affair with development firms especially since the city council voted to hire City Manager Brad Hudson in 2005. Frankly, that just doesn't give them much time for anything or anybody else. And since Hudson's been in place, there's been much turmoil in the city's workplace as was seen last summer and just several months ago and much turmoil among city residents who support Riverside Renaissance as a concept but are apprehensive about its administration in a city that's been spending money on projects like it's dipping into a bottomless coffer. The problem is, some at City Hall say it's nearing its bottom.
This time around, the RPOA has opted to endorse another candidate which is its prerogative as it is with all the city's labor unions who are involved in the endorsement process. Perhaps its members should remember that Adams is the councilman who calls city residents, liars from the dais and at candidate forums, which are two examples of venues where usually elected officials are on their best behaviors. Its members should also remember that Adams often makes comments that are inflammatory in order to provoke a response, which is the favored tool of several council members as of late. Bait the public, it responds then try to push the police officers to eject them from meetings. Adams himself has participated in these actions along with others on the BASS quartet. With these incidents in mind whenever you hear his words, you have to consider the source.
His words at best, are to be taken with a grain of salt. As has been said, whoever said silence was golden hadn't met Adams. His sound bytes are surely ones for the ages, to look back upon if anyone's bold enough to do a retrospective of Election 2007, the GASS quartet, the BASS quartet and the council career of Adams.
Also, regarding the city manager's office, word is that Hudson discovered the difference between an appointed position and an elected one when he allegedly tried to lean on a particular individual for criticizing him. That list has apparently been growing.
The number one critic of Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton appears to be his predecessor Bernard Parks who now holds a city council seat. The Los Angeles Times published a commentary written by Parks where he criticizes the newspapers for playing nice with Bratton and castigating former LAPD chiefs, namely him.
His article details a series of articles including those written on the May Day incident where he alleged reporters praised Bratton for initiating investigations and disciplining officers while holding him and his predecessor, Darryl Gates to more stringent standards.
(excerpt)
During my years as chief of the LAPD, from 1997 to 2002, I fired more than 130 problem officers, more than the previous two chiefs and the current one combined. The newspaper never applauded my administration's uncovering of the Rampart incident despite the fact that its news story of Aug. 26, 1998, announcing the arrest of one of the scandal's central figures, reported that it had come following a six-month internal investigation initiated by me.
When Bratton, in one of his first acts, relaxed the department's disciplinary system, no news analysis or editorial questioned the wisdom of the move in a city with a history of troubled relations between the LAPD and minority communities. When this paper reported last year that of the roughly 6,400 complaints filed by residents against LAPD officers in 2005, only about 400 officers were disciplined, no follow-up news analyses or editorials criticized or questioned Bratton's commitment to officer discipline or his stewardship of departmental reform mandated by the consent decree.
Yet when he disciplined the two top-ranking officers in the MacArthur Park incident, the chief won praise for his swift action. No editorial or news analysis pointed out how clearly inconsistent this decision was with the day-to-day administration and application of discipline in the LAPD.
One memory of Parks is him talking to reporters about the Democratic National Convention as his riot officers were shooting less lethal munitions at demonstrators and media representatives as they had for several days. Two of the reporters shot were from the Press Enterprise with one being shot in the back of the knee and the other in the stomach.
Joe Domanick's commentary on the past six police chiefs in the LAPD followed Parks' article and provided an interesting perspective on their performances and the impact they made or did not make in the department's progression. Domanick wrote a comprehensive history on the LAPD, titled To Protect and To Serve.
Here's his view of Parks performance as police chief from 1997-2002.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
Riordan's handpicked successor to Williams, the LAPD veteran wanted to impose tough discipline and accountability on the department. But his imperious attitude offended much of the rank and file, and his contempt for the media and some politicians cost him civilian allies. His old-line managerial style of shunning compromise hurt him as well. When the Rampart scandal came to light in 1999, and the city and department were forced into a humiliating federal consent decree, he reacted defensively and wasn't rehired.
A New York City Police Department officer who contracted sarcoidosis after the 9-11 terrorist attacks sued the city, police department and current police commissioner for denying him medical benefits according to the New York Daily News.
Officer Christopher Hynes worked over 100 hours at the location where the World Trade Center had once stood without a face mask.
(excerpt)
"I never smoked in my life," said Christopher Hynes, 36, who suffers from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that causes scarring of the lungs and other organs. "I never had a breathing problem in my life."
Now the 13-year veteran cop, who patrolled the perimeter of Ground Zero beginning three days after the terror attacks, can barely walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.
"I feel like I'm not getting treated properly," said Hynes, who is suing for more than $1,600 in medical costs and for the line-of-duty designation for his ailment, which would make the city responsible for his medical bills.
Labels: business as usual, City elections
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