Dude, where's my park: The task forces

I ran into an interesting critique of one of my postings at Inlandempire.craigslist.org which actually could have been written by myself a few years ago when I was new to everything at City Hall and actually believed in the task force process before I saw how things really worked in regards to the city's utilization of task forces and community input.


I also used to be really excited at public forums like this too and was even ready to release the doves a couple times by their end except for the one case where doves actually were released. However, experience and admittedly, cynicism developed after I saw so few really good recommendations provided by community task forces bear fruition. I even served on one in 1996 where after a long discussion process, good recommendations on addressing race relations in the city of Riverside were presented to the city which responded by not responding at all. In fact, the city told us that it wasn't responding because it didn't want us to bite off more than we could chew because then we might become disheartened. The city's excuse was that they were afraid we would become undone if it showed too much enthusiasm for the recommendations.

But many people who attended the final meeting felt disheartened because lack of action can also foster a sense of discouragement among participants in a process.

This was an important lesson. It's been repeated many times since.


My participation in that process was a good gateway to become involved in civic issues but it wasn't because the city lay out the welcome wagon. It's still exciting to see the ideas brought to the table by city residents on what they would like to see with their parks but that's usually the best part of the program. Not all of them can be implemented in one project but if more of them were for more projects then this city would in a better place.

But the current administration is not really all that into public participation as shown when it passed restrictions on public participation at city council meetings in July 2005 soon after it hired a city management team that really appears to dislike public participation as shown by its attempts to manipulate and micromanage the Human Relations Commission, the Human Resources Board and the Community Police Review Commission. While compiling information on the latter in order to implement further changes for it, the city manager's office excluded from its list of "stake holders" in the CPRC, the 300,000 residents of this city.

So no, the city manager's team is not really all that community friendly nor do they really care what the community has to say, which became clear albeit behind closed doors at a meeting with community leaders that took place earlier this year regarding the CPRC. And again, the city government, all eight of its members, knew this when it hired the current team.

Four of those city council members fired a city manager who was known for working with and listening to city residents from different communities. It was a quality that didn't exactly ensure career longevity in Riverside. At about the time that George Carvalho was terminated by the short-lived GASS quartet, the city council was apparently taking a look in another direction.

After all, several city council members commented after the hiring of his successor, Brad Hudson that they'd been interested in hiring Hudson for at least a year but never thought they had a chance to bring him on board.

It also appears that all this concern about whether or not the public has the right to contribute input to what's going on in the city seems to peak during election cycles. And it's interesting to see how elected officials and their most fervent supporters play with language and the definitions of certain words in terms of how they shape their political agendas whether or not it's actually an election year. In the future, there will be postings on exactly how this is done and what key words are often used and why to either prop up political agendas or marginalize those who even question them and their actions.

Interestingly enough, the city's management uses these same tactics on its workforce, especially outspoken critics of its practices within its workforce. But then how much experience did the city management team bring to Riverside when it came to addressing labor issues?


Not that it's not still enlightening to read articles written by individuals who still get excited every time a politician listens to his or her constituents for about 30 minutes. After all, compared to some city council meetings lately, that's actually quite a long time.



The individuals who I spoke with who attended that meeting on Tequesquite Park were as concerned when they arrived about the use of the park land or more so than when they left. They did not attempt to derail the meeting nor were they engaging in the use of propaganda. In fact, they didn't provide public comment and some in fact, had to leave early because they had other responsibilities to address in their lives.

But if simple disagreement with a city council member's agenda during an election year is going to lead to accusations of derailment and propaganda spouting, then it's no wonder more people who have concerns and questions about how the city spends their money or utilizes their resources don't speak up or speak out.

The input given by the city's residents was easily the highpoint of the evening but not everyone there spoke publicly. The problem is, that the public when given the opportunity always provides great input, but most of the time, the city government ignores that after the forums are done and does what it wants anyway.

The public input was easily the high point of the meeting held to discuss the future of Fairmount Park. Ideas included installing a children's museum, a historical center and preserving areas as bird watching zones, whether they be bluebirds, ducks or other species. Fred and Ginger, the two egrets who reside in the lake might agree to this recommendation.

It would have been nice to see a more diverse cross-section of the city of Riverside represented on the task force. Of course, it would be nice to see that on most task forces.


The task forces involving both city parks included only White individuals and most of these were men. Not that this is exactly unique to task forces put together by the city's elected officials. For Whites, it's difficult to see how that practice excludes other people. One Latina at the meeting on Tequesquite Park spoke up early asking for the residency of the task force members as she found it hard to believe that drawing from the city pool especially from the downtown area(where actually few task force members were from) would only draw White men and women.

It's perplexing that there were no Black men or women on the task forces given that one of the largest and longest running family gatherings at Fairmount Park is one involving members of some of the earliest Black families in Riverside. One of the best histories I've read on Fairmount Park came from the perspective of these early families and their reunions held there.

There are many different ways to look at the same meeting, depending on where you are coming from.

The membership of a task force itself can show this and elicit different opinions from different people. To my critic, there was no mention of the ethnic and racial makeup of the task force but if he or she is White, there probably wouldn't be, because Whites often take it for granted that they will always be represented or even dominate the city's task forces and other ad hoc committees.

To me, it was noticeable and showed a common thread found in the composition of many of the city's task forces that is disturbing in a city that some day will be majority minority even with the incoming "White flight" from neighboring Orange County.

To the Latina, it led to her feeling excluded from the process because she felt that Latinas and other men and women of color had been excluded from the task force and for whatever reason, they were. She asked questions about the neighborhoods which those on it represented and was pretty much brushed off by Betro saying that this information wouldn't be provided to the public.

Interestingly enough, this woman and I had first met on the same committee in 1996.


Not everyone interested in this project even attended the meeting nor could everyone. As stated, the summer's months are a terrible time to hold community forums but our politicians are fully aware of this. I talked to many people interested in the fate of Tequesquite Park who can't attend the forum meetings but still have opinions on the issues surrounding its use.


Still, given that the original intention of Councilman Dom Betro was to sell off portions of Tequesquite Park and parts of Fairmount Park are still on the chopping block to be sold to private developers in order to finance other Riverside Renaissance projects, I'll err on the side of caution. After all, this status didn't begin to change until it became a major campaign issue in Betro's ward. In addition, after watching the outcome of task force reports when it comes to the city's record of turning recommendations into actions, I'll hold onto my skepticism for a while longer.

The two task forces would have more credibility if it was being chaired by a member of the Park and Recreation Commission rather than a sitting city council member who will be reporting back to that group. The decision to have a council member chair it just makes it clear that the current administration doesn't trust having a mere city resident perform this job. But then after seeing how the city government and its employees have treated the city's boards and commissions as of late, this development wasn't all that surprising.

Besides, it's difficult to put much faith in a city department where anonymous threats are sent to its own employees right before they are to be interviewed in an inhouse investigation involving alleged misconduct by other employees and no protective or investigative action is taken to find the perpetrators or protect the rights of these city employees during an investigation from harassment, retaliation and threats of the most cowardly kind, being the ones which of course don't come with names attached to them.

If the city cares so little about the well-being of employees in this department, then it's difficult to believe it cares how city residents feel about the city's parks.

I've always believed that you can look at the city of Riverside and watch how it treats its own workforce because often that's a reflection of how it views and treats the public at large and it's disturbing that the above behavior towards employees is being done at all, let alone that it's apparently not an uncommon occurrence.





Mayor's Night Out will be held in La Sierra South today, at 6:30 pm at Orrenmaa Elementary School. Bring your questions. Maybe some of them will even receive answers.





Former Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy, John Wayne Leseberg received two years in county jail in relation to convictions for burglary and indecent exposure. However, since he was credited for over 730 days in jail, he was soon released, according to the Press Enterprise.

Leseberg had originally faced charges including elder abuse, assault by a police officer and sexual abuse that could have led to him spending 20 years in state prison but he took a plea bargain.

His victims protested his light sentence at the hearing.


(excerpt)


Two of Leseberg's victims spoke at the sentencing, along with the daughter of one victim, who referred to the sentence as "just a slap on the hand."

Choking back tears as she addressed the courtroom, one victim spoke of her profound shame over what happened and how she feared for her life that night. The fact that a law enforcement officer took advantage of her only deepened her sense of betrayal, the woman said.

"The nightmare you have given me will never go away," she said. Both victims said they now fear any police officers they encounter.

"I called for assistance...and I ended up being victimized," the other tearful victim said, explaining that she was so traumatized by the experience that she has been suicidal.

"I hate you," she said directly to Leseberg, who stood in the courtroom in shackles and showed no emotion as the victims spoke.



Leseberg is one of a group of sheriff deputies facing criminal charges for sexual assault under the color of authority both out in the field and inside the county's jails. He's the first in the group to be given a slap on the wrist for his crimes, but he probably won't be the last.

You wonder how common this odious misconduct is inside any law enforcement agencies and whether law enforcement officers know about it when it is going on and whether or not they report it or look the other way. It certainly seems to be an issue in the Sheriff's Department, but what about other agencies?

Is it really nonexistent, or simply hiding behind the blue wall? After all, if you are a victim of this crime, what's the point of reporting it especially to the same police agency that employs the officer(s) involved?







Fake badges given out by police agencies to supporters may be illegal according to an opinion drafted by State Attorney General Jerry Brown, according to this article in the Press Enterprise. Though not mentioned in the legal opinion, one of the targets involved in this practice for further scrutiny was Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle.


(excerpt)


Doyle said Tuesday that every badge issued by him has been to someone who served a function within the Sheriff's Department, including volunteers and members of his executive council.

Many state and local officials who are not peace officers carry badges, including Riverside County supervisors and some non-law enforcement members of the county district attorney's office, Doyle said.

"If you take the attorney general's interpretation, there is a whole lot of badges that need to be collected," Doyle said. He added he is thinking about asking county supervisors to relinquish their badges.

Doyle said state lawmakers need to consider how far they want to go to rein in the use of badges by those who are not peace officers in light of Brown's opinion.




And why do they give out law enforcement badges to politicians again? This has got to be one of the most stupid examples of political cronyism between law enforcement agencies and politicians ever. It's nice to hear Brown put his foot down on it, so to speak.