Pacheco, Copley Press and other characters

The Editorial Board at the Press Enterprise has spoken.

This time, against maintaining the secrecy of police officer records by refusing to provide the names of police officers involved in critical incidents from the public.

This editorial stemmed from actions taken by Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco to question California State Attorney General Jerry Brown on whether or not the recent Copley Press decision allowed the release of police officers' names who were involved in shootings and other critical incidents.

Brown said, yes.

Last year, Riverside City Attorney Gregory Priamos provided the same answer when asked the same question about whether or not to release the names of the city's police officers involved in both the Douglas Steven Cloud and Joseph Darnell Hill shootings.

Calling the State Supreme Court's decision on Copley Press "misguided", the editorial board issued further advice on this issue, cautioning agencies against using this decision to stonewall on providing information on police officers involved in incidents that was allowable by law.



(excerpt)



Brown should provide plain guidance that public agencies still have the obligation to release officers' names. The idea that an officer's name is confidential information is nonsense. Police wear name tags on their uniforms, after all.

Law enforcement is a public activity, funded by taxpayers, who are entitled to know the details of police actions.

Withholding officers' names allows rumor to run rampant and unnecessarily protects police at the expense of the public interest. No public official, especially an attorney general, should find that tradeoff acceptable.



On a side note, I guess this explains why Belo.com was on this site last week running searches on "Pacheco" and "Copley Press". It wasn't clear what the two topics had to do with one another. Now it is, and so is the point that the editorial board has raised as well.






The time it took to count votes in this month's city council elections was the topic of some controversy.

It took 43 hours to tabulate the votes in the first round of elections for the odd-numbered wards, a delay that created most problems in the tight Ward Three race between incumbent, Art Gage and newcomer William "Rusty" Bailey. So that left both of them, their supporters, Ward Three and most of man and womankind waiting on pins and needles for the last vote to be tabulated.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"There's got to be a better way to get them counted," Councilman Art Gage said.

City Clerk Colleen Nicol and Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore are promising the June 2009 election will be different. The city contracts with the county to run the election.


The key, Dunmore said, is for the city to pay for her staff to work overtime on election night to get as many votes counted as possible.

Nicol said she had expected this would happen in the recent election but she did not communicate well with Dunmore.

"I didn't say to her what my expectations were," Nicol said.



But although it's important to get the results of elections especially in closely competitive races out quickly, it's more important to be accurate and to be using a process that's accountable to the city residents.


Those in charge of this process assured the public that the kinks will be worked out of it by June 2009.





Is the fire department growing fast enough in the city of Riverside? This was a question asked in a recent Press Enterprise article and the answer according to its chief was, yes.

Four new stations and 27 new fire fighters to staff them are some of the developments in the past year.


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Riverside is booming. Things have grown so much," said Fire Chief Tedd Laycock.


He said that firefighters now look to the Riverside Fire Department as an ideal destination for long-term work.

"We used to consider ourselves a stepping stone where young firefighters would get experience before moving on to bigger places. Now we're finding that they're coming from smaller departments to our department."



Staffing issues have impacted both the fire department and the police department as well. The police officers have 10 positions coming their way as well.




Dan Bernstein, columnist of the Press Enterprise chimed in on the judicial crisis in Riverside County and the actions taken by Sacramento to address it. The chief justice up there is sending 12 judges down here for the summer to handle the caseload.


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This wasn't the locals' idea. This came from the highest levels of Golden State judiciary. It has never been done before. Naturally, I assumed the chief justice had concluded that, with all its spitting and spatting, the RivCo legal community was in dire need of a baby sitter.

"I do not think this is a negative reflection in any way," Chief Justice George told me Monday. He noted RivCo has been growing like crazy, cases have pretty much avalanched the system, and the exec 'n' legislative branches have created new judgeships at roughly the same pace that one ages single-malt scotch.

I could've sworn there was an adult-supervision issue here, but since the chief justice himself says there's not, I'm going to turn my full attention to making sure the 12 "strike force" judges have a boss Riverside summer.

Please sign up here for a game of musical courtrooms.





In San Bernardino, the trial involving former San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department Deputy Ivory J. Webb resumed Monday with further testimony for the prosecution's case, according to the Press Enterprise.

According to expert witness Joe Callanan who's been on the witness stand forever, Webb failed to use proper procedures when conducting his pursuit of the vehicle where Elio Carrion was riding as a passenger.


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And immediately before he was shot and wounded three times, Air Force military policeman Elio Carrion was "mouthy," slow to comply with orders and appeared to be intoxicated, said prosecution witness Joe Callanan.

Yet Carrion's behavior was no justification for then-San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Ivory Webb Jr. to open fire, Callanan said.



"The training is very clear that the officer is supposed to slow down and calm down" when dealing with drunks, the retired Los Angeles County sheriff's lieutenant told Webb's jury. "When emotions rise, reason falls off."



Webb felt threatened, according to this article in the San Bernardino Sun. Statements that the prosecutor, Lewis Cope was trying to keep out of the courtroom were revealed. It's not clear at this point in the trial whether Webb will take the witness stand and testify to his account of events.


(excerpt)



Webb told the detectives he believed Carrion tucked a hand into his jacket as he rose, as though he were reaching for a weapon.

Webb said he believed Carrion was in a position to possibly kill him, according to the statement, and that he had never been so scared in his life.
"I mean, my heart is going crazy," he said.




Also, in San Bernardino, the city wants to hold onto its ability to use eminent domain, according to the Press Enterprise.

This county like others is trying to create laws to keep this power in their arsenal for redevelopment. Residents of those jurisdictions are also trying to create ballot initiatives which would restrict this power.

Here's an interesting excerpt about how San Bernardino County was able to co-opt this process to place a watered down version of an initiative on the ballot which would control eminent domain, albeit still allowing the county supervisors to exercise it to their hearts' delights as representatives of the county's redevelopment agency. Voters passed this toothless piece of legislation.


(excerpt)


A local voter-approved change in San Bernardino County's charter, known as Measure O, prohibits the county from using eminent domain to turn land over to another private entity. But the measure, approved in November, does not apply to the redevelopment agency, a separate legal entity that supervisors oversee.

Wert said the ordinances do not contain any specific properties targeted for acquisition. And he said Measure O, placed on the ballot by supervisors, shows how reluctant current supervisors are to use their eminent domain power.



Included is a survey about whether or not cities and counties should be able to seize property by eminent domain and sell it to private developers.