Election '07: Incumbents, see you in November

Election 2007 is turning out to be one of the most interesting cycles in recent memory, with the results being released from its preliminary round which took place through the mail system during the past month. The city's turnout was an impressive 30%, higher than it had been in previous civic elections.

All three incumbents who ran to retain their seats appeared to have failed to receive even half of the votes in their respective wards. All three of them would then be going into the finals in November. All three of them have no one to blame but themselves in case any of them are crying in their buffet tables right now.

A lot of people will analyze the results of Election 2007 Part One but what it came down to was that, "anyone but..." was the slogan that appeared to carry the day and the vote. This message that the voters sent to their elected officials was that okay, maybe we'll give you a second chance but we're going to make you work damned hard for the privilege of representing us for another four years. You're going to have to put the voters first, yourselves second if you want to continue to collect a paycheck representing us.

It remains to be seen whether Councilmen Dom Betro, Art Gage and Steve Adams can park their egos long enough to listen, pay attention and learn from their constituents. Gage took the hardest blow, not even winning the first round over political neophyte William "Rusty" Bailey who apparently narrowly missed winning the seat in this round. Of the three, he has the most potential to learn from his experience. Being kicked out of a quartet of egos by its other members on the dais tends to do that for you.

One lesson they should all take home with them and their supporters should as well is that the "anyone but..." crowd will probably ultimately decide who sits in the dais the next four years. In those groups which exist in each respective ward, lies the hearts and minds that the incumbents will have to win over if they hope to win second terms.

After all, the developers may knock down your office doors at City Hall, but they don't vote. Those who do may be the ones who no longer visit their council members or call them up on the phone because they believe that their elected officials no longer care about people, just buildings. Either to tear them down, take them through eminent domain or threat of it or to pack more of them closer together even on the city's few remaining hillsides. When it comes to people, either city residents or city employees, they are a distant second to development firms.


After Riverside's year-long song and dance over its Riverside Renaissance project which was supposed to ensure the reelection of the incumbents, the voters in three of the odd-numbered wards sent a loud message back.

No dice. Oh, and by the way, see you in November.

Remember that special meeting held in a special place, the Riverside Municipal Auditorium where the city government met beforehand with the Greater Chamber of Commerce and arranged to have key members from its roster line up to speak at the podium in full support of the project? They were followed by key members of the various political campaigns involving the incumbents who did the same thing. Then came the dozens of kids dragging their parents who just wanted a place to call home and play soccer in a city that still is below the state average for park land set aside to be provided for residents to enjoy in major cities.

Then came concerns about the costs to be incurred by those children when they grew up, and the futures of the city's parks,affordable housing, city services and streets. Those speakers were pretty much ignored by their elected officials and they were chided as raining on the parade that the city council was putting on.

Remember one of the champions of the city's parks? Michael Gardner, a candidate who ran four years earlier and barely garnered any votes is now in a runoff with the man who himself won in a runoff election back then before forgetting how precariously his victory had been. Now, Gardner's off to the final round against Betro to determine who will represent Ward One.

What a difference four years makes.

Four years ago, Betro was the ultimate grass-roots campaign success story and his narrow win over Paul Fick was celebrated throughout Ward One. Betro should have swept his reelection round easily and he would have, if he had been the same Betro he was in 2003. He might have still made it except for what has been referred to derisively in his camp as the "Pepper factor". Letitia Pepper, another champion of the city's parks swept enough votes to help ensure that Betro would have to work to win the seat that he apparently thought was owed him.

Betro garnered 45% of the votes, but the problem with Betro is that the news that he now faces a runoff is not good news, because the "anyone but..." sentiment is strongest in Ward One. As much as it may irk him, Betro will have to work to win some of these voters over to win reelection. Even people that he and his affluent campaign backers think are beneath them or derided by them as the new kids on the block. One wonders if they're up to the task or how badly they want their candidate to stay in office.

Gage faces a similar battle in his ward, given that he's going to have to eke out a come from behind win, which is what is seen most often in runoffs anyway so that's not necessarily bad. Bailey and his backers will have to work harder to get him on the dais, which means that many of his key supporters will be splitting their attention and time spent campaigning for him and trying to ensure Betro's election.

BASS wasn't built in a day and consolidating its power base won't come easily either.

But Adams who barely made off with 1/3 of the vote in his ward faces a really tough challenger in former city councilwoman and mayor, Terry Frizzel and his victory here is very deceptive. These two were neck and neck last time around and Frizzel has a much better chance of upsetting him this time because although the voters in Ward Seven were niche voters in the preliminaries, the "anyone but..." sentiment is very strong here as well. Roy Saldanha's poor showing was a bit of a surprise but it's possible that his name didn't resonate as much to voters as the two that finished ahead of him.


The real bad news was in Ward Five where development interests superseded the tasteless mudslinging tactics exercised by election leader Chris McArthur who will face off against one of his rivals, Donna Doty Michalka in November.

It's likely if there were parties, they stopped in several camps when the votes began to be tabulated. The celebration will have to wait, as will the news about who will be celebrating until November, six months from now.






Ethics, what ethics?



"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' was his response. 'I don't know,' Alice answered. 'Then', said the cat, 'it doesn't matter.'"


----Lewis Carroll




Setting: The jewel of the Inland Empire's version of Wonderland, downtown Riverside

Time: Election 2007, the morning after.




It seems that local activist Kevin Dawson finally heard a peep from the city in regards to the ethics complaint he had filed against Riverside Councilman Dom Betro at a city council meeting nearly a month ago.

But the news for him wasn't good because he had received a letter that was written on the eve of the election deadline stating that his complaint was being tossed out on what City Attorney Gregory Priamos stated was essentially a technicality.

Dawson was upset and who can blame him? He had to wait a month just to receive a letter from a city employee whose performance gets evaluated on an annual basis from his eight bosses, one of whom happened to be the subject of the ethics complaint.

That's after having had to come to a city council meeting on May 8 to relate his account of an encounter he and his teenaged daughter had with Betro across the street from the Fox Theater where a gala was taking place. Dawson and others were protesting there against eminent domain because the Fox Theater itself had been taken by the city from its previous owners through eminent domain. The only case of the use of that power that the city will recognize because it's the only time that the threat of eminent domain alone didn't clear the path for it to acquire a business from either the downtown area or the Wood Streets neighborhood.

Anyway, Dawson had a sign that read "Anyone but Betro" in Betro's ward and according to his complaint, Betro came charging over towards him and shouted that Dawson had better hope that he doesn't get elected. Another activist said that Betro had approached him, took a leaflet, crumpled it in a ball and threw it in his face. Dawson's daughter also tried to give a leaflet to some people in a car and Dawson said Betro tried to cut her off.

Dawson said in his complaint and to the city council that he felt that Betro's statements were threatening and that if Betro were elected, he would use his power to make things difficult for him and his family who live in Ward One.


But who said there were ethics in Wonderland, I mean Riverside?


And Dawson is correct. There is apparently no consistently applied process for handling ethics complaints in this city as this letter clearly states if not in writing, then indeed between the lines. In fact, after reading it, it's not difficult to wonder if there are indeed any ethics at all.

The truly depressing thing is that this incident will be a blip on the radar of many of the insiders at City Hall and the community leaders in this city. Why? Because most of them may have believed strongly in the importance of an ethics code and a complaint process, but they believe in their candidate Betro and what he can deliver even more. That's one reason why an ethics process can be installed in this city that's basically a sham but no one complains about it. That will likely be the case until a city council member with a lower "Q" rating among this crowd receives a complaint including someone like Councilman Art Gage. When it appears that if Betro is a liberal, so is former President Ronald Reagan.

But while Dawson may be unhappy about the outcome of his complaint and rightfully upset about a process that is no more than a paper tiger, he should consider himself luckier than his predecessor, Letitia Pepper who also filed a complaint against Betro several months ago. The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee put on a show that was worthy of the Queen of Heart's judicial process in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.





(excerpt)


White Rabbit: Your Majesty, members of the jury, loyal subjects... and the King... the prisoner at the bar stands accused of enticing Her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts, into a game of croquet, thereby and with malice of forethought, molesting, tormenting, and otherwise annoying our beloved...

Queen of Hearts: Never mind all that! Get to the part where I lose my temper.

White Rabbit: ...thereby causing the Queen to lose her temper.

Below is the city's written response printed on its official stationary paid for by the sales tax generated by those who shop in Riverside, which apparently according to City Manager Brad Hudson was fewer people spending less money than in previous years.




Dated June 4, 2007

Dear Mr. Dawson:


After review and consideration of the complaint which you presented to the City on May 8, 2007, it has been determined that the allegations of the complaint do not fall within the scope of the City's Code of Ethics and Conduct. Mr. Betro's comments were not made in the capacity or in the discharge of his duties as a member of the city council.

I am sorry that we cannot advise you more favorably,


Gregory Priamos, City Attorney who signed the letter.


CC: City Manager Brad Hudson, City Council and City Clerk Colleen Nichols



So basically, Dawson's ethics complaint has been tossed aside before it could receive due process. As for whether or not Betro was operating in his capacity as a city council member at the time, was he attending the gala at the Fox Theater as Betro, the city resident or Betro, the elected representative from Ward One. A city council member's work schedule isn't necessarily nine to five, but can include functions that he or she attends at night if they are representing their elected position at the function.

Also, the allegations involved statements that Betro allegedly made to Dawson which included one where he said that Dawson should hope that he doesn't get elected. Betro didn't deny making the statement, calling the incident an "insignificant campaign interaction" according to a brief published in the Press Enterprise. Having been on the receiving end of Betro's bad temper, I'm not surprised he would consider any one exercise of it "insignificant".

It's like someone told me over the weekend, Betro has a temper and provided another example of when he had seen Betro exercise it at a community meeting.





But back to the alleged statements Betro made to Dawson near the Fox Theater.

A person making that kind of statement who already holds the elected position that he is running for may be acting as an elected official and whether or not he actually was can't be determined without allowing the complaint its due process in front of an objective committee. That decision can't be left up to an employee who serves at the will of elected officials including the individual receiving the complaint. Like City Manager Brad Hudson, Priamos knows how to count to four. Only for now like Hudson, the count is probably seven.





The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee doesn't exactly fall in the category of an independent judiciary body especially given its behavior during the last complaint hearing, where the knave of hearts, otherwise known as Letitia Pepper, was essentially put on trial. What was a worse example of biased behavior, the actual proceedings or the trash talking several committee members did afterward to defend their decision? That's a tough one to call.



An independent panel of city residents might have reached the same conclusion as the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee had but even so, it's more likely they could have done so without putting her on trial.





Unless the city residents push for a more fair, just process for handling ethics complaints involving elected officials, it's all that there will be. But if it comes about, it will be from elsewhere, not the Betro camp which will probably be hard at work trying to get him reelected in November.





Being a governmental watchdog and endorsing political candidates is not a marriage made in heaven but some place else a little bit hotter. The two don't mix any better than oil and water do.

On the bright side, as most people know, there's already a mechanism in place to hold elected officials in government positions accountable or to at least try. It's called the county civil grand jury.









The city of Columbia, Missouri's residents are moving closer to establishing a civilian review board, with the Minority Men Network proposing the creation of one to the city council, according to the Columbia Missourian.


(excerpt)


Charles Nilon, president of the network, said the purpose of the resolution is to bring the review board issue forward.

“We want the City Council and the mayor to start addressing questions about a citizen review board in a very serious way,” he said.

The establishment of a citizen review board has been an ongoing issue in Columbia.

Last year, the Douglass Coalition, a group of residents concerned with police misconduct, proposed a similar review board to the City Council. City Manager Bill Watkins dismissed it.

Watkins said the proposed ordinance would give the citizen board too much authority.

In January, a consulting agency, hired by the city to audit the internal review policies of the Columbia Police Department, suggested some of the department’s policies were outdated but made no mention of a citizen review board.

Police Chief Randy Boehm said he did not think such a review board was necessary, adding that the community as a whole is supportive of the police department.

“I think we do a good job of policing ourselves,” Boehm said.



How many times times have those words been said by police chiefs before something embarrassing and/or tragic happens in their agencies that either leads them to be investigated by outside agencies and/or implementing some form of civilian oversight. Give Columbia time, and it will probably find itself in the same position unfortunately. Better to institute civilian review now before that happens. Learn from the mistakes made by other cities and counties.


The latest news might have been published in the Columbian Tribune which stated that Mayor Darwin Hindman will install a committee to research civilian review and whether or not it's necessary over the Columbia Police Department.


(excerpt)


Hindman asked the Columbia City Council last night to allow him to appoint a study committee and said the high level of recent interest had prompted the move. He made clear, though, that the panel would study a number of options, not just the creation of a civilian review board.

"I think there is a sufficient amount of concern in the community that we need to act," Hindman said. "I’m not saying, ‘Let’s have a commission to look at civilian review.’ I’m looking at having a committee to look at oversight."

In recent months, calls for a civilian review board have come from local attorney David Tyson Smith, the Frederick Douglass Coalition and the Minority Men’s Network, which asked council members again yesterday to consider creating such a panel. The local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also favors the move.

A 128-page report released in March from consultants hired to review the police department’s internal affairs process said many of the city’s policies on reviewing charges of misconduct against officers are secretive and unfairly biased against residents, especially minorities.