Here, there and everywhere

It's not clear when the Community Police Review Commission will meet again to continue the drafting of its public report on the Lee Deante Brown shooting. Very little progress was made during the special meeting which took place on June 13, except that a few commissioners aren't sure or don't remember why they had participated in the 6-1 "straw poll" vote stating that Riverside Police Department Officer Terry Ellefson didn't violate the department's use of force policy when he shot and killed Lee Deante Brown in April 2006.



The problems currently impacting the seven-year-old commission are of course, a shining example of the city manager's ability to handle job responsibilities outside of the economic development arena. Since he's taken over the operations of the CPRC, the following has taken place.



1) Executive Director/Manager Pedro Payne resigned as of Dec. 31, 2006 and before his departure, restrictions were placed on him by Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis.

2) Five commissioners have left. Four resigned in the past six months and two others are or will be having their appointments challenged by various outside parties.

3) The CPRC has only issued one annual report since City Manager Brad Hudson was hired in June 2005 and that was in March 2006.

4) The election process for chair and vice-chair was so confusing and so convoluted, no one understood what was going on and the public was not even informed about who ran and how each commissioner voted.

5) The CPRC has been relegated to a cubicle. When the new executive manager is finally hired sometime this summer, it's not likely that there will be adequate office space to place him so he can fulfill his job responsibilities.

6) Outreach has virtually been nil since autumn 2006. The Outreach Committee has met sporadically. The acting executive manager has done zero outreach to the community.

7) The subcommittees have either held few meetings or no meetings in the past year.

8) People in several neighborhoods aren't filing complaints, are throwing complaint forms away or are allegedly being discouraged or roadblocked by department personnel into not filing complaints.

9) The selection process for commissioners has changed twice and the process is very politicized and transparent only in the sense that community members have expressed a lack of faith in the process and believe that it's merely a venue for the bartering and exchange of political appointments.

10) The CPRC has faced major changes without any opportunity for community input.


11) Commissioners have failed to receive training in the past year including training in the Brown Act.


12) While the city manager's office has said that the basic operations budget for the CPRC is comparable with previous years, at $285,000, it's actually up to $20,000 lower than what was similarly proposed at starting budgets during earlier fiscal years.



When the city manager comes up for his annual evaluation in front of his direct employers, the city council, are these issues even discussed? What's bizarre is that you actually have elected officials who believe that the CPRC has never been in better shape.

Then again on second thought, maybe as far as they are concerned, that's the truth.





Dan Bernstein, local columnist at the Press Enterprise wrote about one man's effort to cut through the red tape of bureaucracy to contact the local Social Security office for assistance. He also passed along the news that the Riverside City Council approved the construction of the Walmart Supercenter near the 60 freeway and interstate 215. The vote was 4-1 in favor, with Councilman Andrew Melendrez dissenting and two council members on vacation.



The city council's Land Use Committee voted 2-1 to take the issue of chickens and roosters to the city's voters through a ballot initiative, according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Councilman Ed Adkison proposed the measure. Councilman Frank Schiavone agreed it should go to the voters.

Councilman Art Gage dissented, saying the problem appears limited to one house.

"I haven't been shown this is necessary," he said.

Code compliance officers should be able to enforce the existing law, Gage said.

The municipal code permits keeping five poultry, including crowing fowl such as roosters, on any lot in the residential agricultural and residential conservation zones for noncommercial purposes as long as the animals are kept at least 50 feet from any residence on an adjoining lot.





Adkison whose still serving on the council because the election to replace him went into a November runoff obviously wants to leave something behind for the voters to remember him by.

City residents showed up at the meeting to object to the proposed initiative.


(excerpt)


Council watchdog Mary Humboldt, who lives on Dufferin Avenue in the agricultural greenbelt, said she sees the ballot measure as an attempt to whittle away at the growth-control measures, which were partly designed to preserve Riverside's rural neighborhoods.

"I think that this is overkill," she said.








It could be an election ploy by two elected officials who may be running for other political seats next year because roosters and other fowl haven't been this hot, well since County Supervisor John Tavaglione went after them in his district several years ago, which sparked an unsuccessful recall campaign against him. Some say, it's a lot of crowing about nothing.

Schiavone has already announced his plans to run for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and expressed confidence that he will win, so much so that he has said that's why candidates are already lining up to run for his Ward Four council seat. However, one could also read it as a situation that if Schiavone runs for the county seat and loses, his position as a councilman might suddenly be more vulnerable if voters express their displeasure at yet another council member contemplating jumping off the ship to run for higher office. No offense to ambitious politicians but people in a district or ward do feel a bit put off when their elected officials decide mid-stream to seek out other pursuits.

Witness Steve Adams 34% showing in Ward Seven after his ill-fated decision to run for the state assembly.



Don't be surprised if Adkison slides into the spot in the California State Assembly race recently vacated by former political candidate and current CPRC commissioner Linda Soubirous.



Speaking of Schiavone, apparently, he's a reader of this blog and mentioned that when he said he was unaware of Soubirous' endorsements from law enforcement agencies, he only meant that he didn't know if or that she had been endorsed by the Riverside Police Officers' Association. He said he did know that she had been endorsed and had received $193,000 from the Riverside Sheriffs' Association. He's checking to determine how much money she did receive from the RPOA during the 2004 county election.








The annual neighborhood conference is coming up on June 30 at California Baptist University from early in the morning to late afternoon. It's free, including the food in the cafeteria and it's got a lot of interesting workshops. This year, they seemed to be tailored more to what's useful for the city than for the community residents.



The one that solicited the most unsolicited laughter appears to be the topic on effective communication at city council meetings. If all the city council members attend this workshop, would this constitute an unagendized meeting under the Brown Act? Oh wait, this workshop is voluntary and intended for city residents only? No lessons on how to behave properly on the dais, such as paying attention to what your constituents are saying rather than blatantly holding private conversations, playing with your hand gadgets and rolling your eyes(sorry Councilman Art Gage) and flying into boistrous displays worthy of Wonderland(sorry, members of BASS).

That's no offense to presenter Colleen Nichols who is the city clerk and who no doubt will bring some dignity to this seminar but still, at the very least there needs to be a companion training session for elected officials and it should be required training at least before anyone even thinks of putting a gavel in their hands.



Maybe that one will be on the agenda next year. As far as the rest of them, they seem heavy on the code-compliance-is-your-friend angle which I'm sure it can be but it's also a tool of the city to impose its redevelopment policies against poor families though they've brought back some favorites. Hopefully, City Hall 101 will be one of them.



Cultural diversity and inclusive neighborhoods? There's always one workshop like this one put on, as the city's efforts to appear "inclusive" at its neighborhood conferences. But again, it's put on by a White woman and Whites just have a tendency to hit this topic from an academic perspective as well-meaning as those efforts often are. This city purports to celebrate cultural diversity but in reality, much of the actions taken against local small businesses have been against Latino and Asian-American business owners. Most of the areas labeled "blight" due to years of disproportionate treatment and neglect by the city are areas where predominantly, Latino and Black families live.

One suggestion, would be to have a panel of city residents who live in culturally diverse neighborhoods who could share their experiences and perspectives, but given that it's the neighborhoods which are predominantly populated by people of color that are diverse, that wouldn't provide much space for Whites to be at the table, let alone "teach" this kind of subject matter. It just makes sense that those with the most life experience in this area should lead the forums, not be relegated to sitting there and listening to Whites tell them how to be inclusive and diverse.

Riverside Renaissance is another word for gentrification, in the minds of many residents who fear they will be forced out or displaced from their neighborhoods while the city is making way to put mixed use villages that will be geared towards more affluent White city residents, including those fleeing Orange County as it becomes populated by more and more Latinos.





The curfew rules at several local shopping malls whose renovation was paid for by city funding discriminate against Black and Latino teenagers when they apply these rules. Black teenage males are afraid to leave their houses in the downtown area because the first question they receive when they are spotted on the streets by police officers are, "are you on probation or parole?" In the Eastside, residents complained last week that the majority of motorists pulled over by police officers at a series of purported DUI checkpoints were Latinos and that White and Black motorists were allowed to pass on through, sparking concerns that these stops were the enforcement of federal immigration sweeps. Hopefully, these concerns will be addressed by the city.



These complaints come in even as the police department suspended a proposed traffic stop study report that was to be released last March, not to mention its decision not to release to the public a report it apparently commissioned in March 2006. The police department's management stated that this report was actually done, but neither the city council nor the Human Relations Commission(which usually receives them) has any record that this ever was done.



Most of the city's boards and commissions are filled with primarily White city residents. The CPRC has seven Whites, one Latina and one African-American on it and saw three other Latinos leave it in the past six months.


One individual commented to me that there are very few Black men on any of the city's boards and commissions. Unfortunately, he's right.



The city itself has been sued by Black city employees including 17 men and women who filed a law suit in U.S. District Court in 1997 and a Riverside Police Department officer who won a $1.64 million verdict from a county jury in 2005.



A local market owned by an Asian-American family was targeted by the city for potential eminent domain after residents of the neighboring streets were upset by mostly Black residents from Olivewood Street walking down their streets to frequent the market because they lacked one in their neighborhood.



So for a city that presently is not inclusive which also mirrors its history as not being inclusive, to have a workshop taught by a White woman on inclusive neighborhoods and no doubt, the "importance" of inclusiveness that's based on appearances only. After all, the Human Relations Commission once gave a forum on diversity and brought in all these experts to discuss it on a panel. One Black woman stood up and asked, where's the diversity?

All the panelists were White.



Inside Riverside, a blog set up which deals largely with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and the county addresses the results of the city election, including an interesting list of "winners" and "losers" of the first stage of the current election cycle. Some seem to make sense, others don't but it's interesting reading albeit from a right-wing perspective.

The blog appeared at about the same time as the Stanley Sniff controversy was taking place involving his termination from the Sheriff's Department so there's quite a bit of information on that agency.







Former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputy, Ivory J. Webb was stressed when he shot Elio Carrion according to an expert testifying at his trial. Joe Callanan, a police practices expert testifying for the prosecution was back on the stand again.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Earlier this week, Callanan testified for the prosecution that Webb was under only moderate stress before and during his shooting of Carrion.

Callanan has not recanted his earlier testimony that Webb was emotional, panicked and out of control and that he violated many police procedures.

But on Thursday, he told defense attorney Michael Schwartz that Carrion had a duty to comply with Webb's orders and that any reasonable officer -- faced with the apparently irrational behavior of Carrion and a companion -- might have concluded that the suspects had weapons.





Barbara Attard of the San Jose Independent Police Auditor's office filed a report critical of the police department's response to complaints according to the San Jose Mercury News. The report and the problems noted on it have sparked a power struggle between Attard's office and the police department including its chief, Rob Davis.



(excerpt)


"I think the system has some serious flaws," said Attard. "We've heard concerns from the community that their complaints are not being taken seriously. I think their concerns are justified."


The city went one up on the police department by hiring an auditor, a private firm, to audit the auditor's report. Denial is a strong emotion in municipalities.

Attard's report states that complaints against San Jose's police officers are up, including complaints of excessive force and racial discrimination and that the police department's administration is stonewalling on these complaints and filing them away as less serious allegations.


Predictably, the police chief got very upset and responded in another San Jose Mercury News article.


(excerpt)



"The trust and confidence the residents of San Jose place in us as we perform a difficult, demanding and dangerous job is of the utmost importance. Errors can be made, and they are made," Davis said. "This is why we take complaints to our department so seriously."

White agreed, saying the police department complaint procedures "do not need to be overhauled, they need to be tweaked."


But Attard refused to back down.

While acknowledging San Jose has an "excellent police department,"
she said, "I think it needs a lot more tweaking than the San Jose
city manager is stating."


The trust by the public in San Jose Police Department is not absolute if the auditor's office came to be.