Election 2007: If you build it, will they come?
Next week, the Riverside City Council will discuss the arbitration finding involving former Riverside Police Department officer, Chris Gaspard.
Gaspard was arrested on Sept. 1, 2004 for reckless driving, a misdemeanor by the Riverside Police Department. He was ultimately charged later that month with reckless driving and evading a peace officer.
Gaspard plead guilty in the autumn of 2005 to the former charge and received one year summary probation and a $100 restitution fine. After his probation expired, Gaspard applied to have his record expunged in December 2006 and Judge Christian F. Thierbach granted it.
A Press Enterprise article written in 2006 stated that Gaspard had left the department under some circumstance, but if he left and he took his case to arbitration, then that suggests that he was terminated from employment. If the case is back before the city council, then it's likely that he's been reinstated by arbitrators that some say use private sector standards to judge public service employees.
If this is true, then Gaspard would be the third Riverside Police Department officer to be reinstated this year. He's also at least the fourth police officer in the department's recent history to have been convicted of a crime and still remained on the force.
Still given that he apparently was evading officers in his own department when he got arrested, it remains to be seen whether he has developed any respect for the men and women he will be working alongside with, during his time off. It also provides a dilemma for the members of the public that he pulls over in terms of whether they are respecting a police officer who himself apparently had little respect for police officers in his own agency.
Inland Empire Weekly, an online publication takes on eminent domain in Riverside in an article rich in information which is also hilarious, in terms of its take on the relationship between the use of eminent domain by the BASS quartet and the campaign contributions received by its two members up for reelection which are Councilmen Dom Betro and Steve Adams.
Adams doesn't comment on the issue in this article. He probably had his hands full dealing with four political rivals out for his seat in Ward Seven after he returned to the ward after his flirtation with higher office was thwarted by the reality that state politics takes place in a much different arena than that which is local. However, Betro who was forced into a runoff with Mike Gardner by strong anti-incumbent sentiment does not disappoint, providing some prize examples of the kind of quotes that are often said when arrogance overrules political tact.
(excerpt)
Sometime over the past three years, or perhaps earlier (it's hard to say, because Riverside City Hall doesn't talk much to the nonaligned press), the council got it in its head that nearly everything wrong with the city—its moribund downtown, its crime rate, its stunted tax revenue, its inability to attract and keep new businesses—was the fault, not of the council and its misguided policies, but of an unproductive constituency that simply refused to go away. This notion, lovingly nurtured by the sweet milk of out-of-town developers' money, germinated into a working philosophy, which City Councilman Dom Betro expertly articulated when asked why the city condemned an entire downtown block for use by private developers.
“What you have here are long-term property owners who have done nothing to improve their properties, while their properties have appreciated 300 percent,” Betro tells the Weekly . Betro represents downtown Riverside, where most of these unhelpful owners once thrived. “These property owners are, in fact, a detriment to the downtown area, and these property owners have no interest in improving them.”
In other words, the council has seen the problem, and the problem is this crazy concept called private property. If those pesky property owners won't take a hint and go of their own accord, the city will force them to go—the owners, that is. The properties themselves—well, the city would just take that and hand them over to interests more to its liking.
A handful of the city's eminent domain lawsuits were true to the original spirit of eminent domain, such as the condemnation of rundown, seedy motels that have long been the bane of the Riverside Police Department. But most were simply the Redevelopment Agency wading into the real estate speculation game by kicking out the original businesses and replacing them with fancy new developments.
Such was the case with the city's acquisition of businesses on the downtown block bordered by Market and Mission and 1st and 3rd streets. In lawsuit after lawsuit filed November 2, the city moved to condemn a dozen parcels of land to make room for Raincross Promenade, a tony housing project by LA developer Mark Rubin. This action, one of the largest and, at an estimated $5.4 million, one of the most expensive condemnation efforts in the city's history, resulted in dozens of merchants and their employees being forced to find work elsewhere.
Rubin, incidentally, is listed by Betro as a key endorser of his council re-election bid.
It gets better as the article continues. It's hard to believe that this is the same Betro that promised to bring accountability, due process and transparency to the city council, not to mention encouraging public participation. But after the latest city manager was hired, he changed his tune soon enough. Hearts broke all over Riverside when Betro turned and not only failed to counter the GASS quartet which was in power at the time he was elected, but jumped on board to make it his own.
Kicked to the curb was former GASS quartet member, Art Gage, who is mostly responsible for where he got, but in some regards it's like he got cast aside by the new cool kid on the playground. Now Gage's fighting against the neophyte candidate that the club he used to belong to chose to replace him before William "Rusty" Bailey filed his papers with the city clerk's office. Bailey's fairly nice and he's smart but you don't handpick an inexperienced candidate to be either of these things. His roots to development interests and his past stint with the economic development agency of Riverside County are issues seriously underplayed by those who back him.
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds.
---Elvis Presley
In Ward Three, people think they are caught between a rock and the hard place, not really trusting either side. It will be interesting to see who pulls in the votes and whether Peter Olmos' endorsement of Gage plays a role in the final tally.
Betro's method of enhancing public participation was to propose a motion on July 12, 2005 to further restrict public participation including banning members of the public from pulling items from the consent calendar for discussion. Soon after, the consent calendar began getting a lot longer and the discussion calendar much shorter. Today, the latter consists mainly of public reports that actually foster little discussion except that by city council members praising themselves on cable television.
Ed Adkison might be stepping down as councilman in Ward Five but his announcement that he planned to support challenger Chris MacArthur had many shaking their heads. MacArthur has relied on xenophobia instead of stances on city issues to sell himself in that ward. That and the fact that few people really believe that Adkison didn't back him from the beginning is what's causing those heads to shake in skepticism.
It's hardly surprising that those who are most in favor of using not eminent domain but the threat of it downtown are the same elected officials getting campaign contributions from the development firms that are knocking down their doors every day at the office. The demand by development firms on Betro obviously made quite an impression on him during his evolution from concerned grass-roots candidate to as some people call him, a bully or a dictator who wants things done his way when he wants them done. And if he has to knock down a few people and properties to get there, so be it.
That's the quality that most of those who used to support him find most disappointing in him. If power in some cases doesn't indeed corrupt, then it certainly can change a person's attitude that they put on display as his case has clearly shown unfortunately. You keep waiting for those closest to him to put some sense into him but then it's likely that what he represents is what they want. After all, more than a couple of political careers appear to be riding on his success as is the case with several of the other political campaigns as well.
What's interesting is that a lot of what was behind the sentiment of the "anybody but Betro" campaign which swept Ward One was the fact that more than a few of those who were involved had been volunteers in his camp during his first campaign. Many of them felt that he had burned them or that he hadn't kept his promises or stayed true to his roots. The end result of their efforts in Election 2007, part one was that he only captured 44% of the ward's vote.
What's even more interesting is how those who are still loyal to their man have labeled those who worked on Betro's initial campaign either outside agitators or activists they have never seen or heard of. Were those who belonged in Betro's inner circle really that blind to the individuals who were out doing the legwork?
The next in line to be burned by Betro will no doubt be the city's labor unions, including the SEIU, the Riverside Police Officers' Association and others who lined up enthusiastically to endorse part of the status quo that worked against them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me and all that. But then again, the most important number in city government is, four. Some union members say that they're holding their noses to support incumbents for survival purposes.
However, "survival" this past year has translated to strike votes, law suits and rallies at City Hall, not to mention intimidation and even retaliation against people pushing for better working conditions in the city's workforce. Not to mention employees fearing for their expulsion from the workforce, including Black and Latino employees on a "list" and those who refuse to be "yes" men or women while trying to do their jobs. The "list" has pretty much been depleted at this point, having once included some of the city's finest male and female employees. The list of employees who want to act independently and perform their job responsibilities without being micromanaged still goes on and on.
And on that front, it looks like things will be worse before they get better.
Especially puzzling was the decision by the RPOA to do this as besides the SEIU it's been hit the hardest, but I guess its leaders started appearing and participating in community meetings like the Group which is nearly unprecedented by that union in its history after Betro took potshots at its leadership and castigated people for not coming down on the police union for the law suit filed by Officer Ryan Wilson last year. An organization able and willing to take bold steps in community outreach where few of its predecessors have gone before, should be able to have enough fortitude to ask its endorsed candidates questions about their actions or lack thereof regarding recent labor skirmishes.
And the city council kind of sat while Hudson apparently pretty much handed the police department over to Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis to run until a massive campaign against this woke several of them up.
Politics does indeed make strange bed fellows. That's one reason why fewer people even bother voting anymore but it does make for good blogging.
However, Betro is one of City Manager Brad Hudson's strongest supporters on the city council because of all the neat stuff being brought downtown. Erect one sign on a city street about one new project, while putting the ward's councilman in lights and they turn to jello. Not that this isn't human nature and all that, but it does keep the city council happy and apparently either clueless to what is going on around it or just disinterested.
And all those signs advertising projects also serve as free advertising for the incumbents running for office. Well, free for them, not for the people in this city who pay for this advertising.
But what has Hudson done for the city's workers? And that goes for both before and after his huge pay raise given to him by the city council earlier this year. How many employees in this city feel secure in their employment at this time? How many employees feel they will be able to even afford to live in this city in two years? Five years? Ten years?
After all, many of the city's employees live outside the city limits.
But live and learn. And in the wake of a city where there are investigations inside city departments, between city departments, retaliation against union representatives, one state investigation, an unknown number of county grand jury investigations and growing rumors of some sort of federal probe of city government, it makes perfect sense to march lock step behind some of these incumbents at this time. Yes indeed it does.
What was funny in the Inland Empire Weekly article was the quote by the city manager office's own public information officer who was quoted telling the writer of the article that upon having read an earlier article about how the city handles its code compliance division aptly titled "Code Red" that he didn't want to meet or even issue a comment to the Weekly.
Sniff, sniff.
It seems that the powers that be at City Hall can only respond to media outlets who flatter them with the proper number of inches. David Silva, who wrote the latest expose on City Hall in the Inland Weekly shouldn't feel so bad. Several weeks ago, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis told me he was planning to give me the silent treatment to me from that point on. Hopefully that will give him extra time to hunt down some office space for the incoming pupp...I mean executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission besides the cubicle on the seventh floor. But not too much time for him to decide he wants to find another hobby like running the fire department or something.
One can say, boo hoo to all that.
One can also say, pressure on, cover off.
But still it's likely that Carter pulls in a six-figure salary paid for by tax dollars solely to represent the city when it's questioned by the media and try to spin it in the best possible light. It's almost unheard of for a public information officer to respond in such a huff to a request for an interview or a meeting although they might vent at you from time to time which is fine.
You know, if Carter's not up to talking to newspapers outside the Press Enterprise, the city could always go back to paying Sitrick and Company, Inc. about $500/hr to do that job for it and the beleaguered Carter or at least give instructions on how to do this.
The much nicer publication also ran an article about the plans to renovate the downtown pedestrian mall. What's missing is the reaction of local small business owners to what someone called the "ripping out of the mall in front of them". But what they'll get in return, is a little stream down the little of the mall. Not enough affordable parking with a sensible meter system in place, but a cute little creek in the middle of the desert that will probably see very little rain in the next 20-30 years.
Riverside will finally have a river at last actually going through it, well at least one part of it.
Maybe next week, the Press Enterprise will give Development Director Belinda Graham her own column.
In other news, the state of California has announced that there will be no more power outages this summer despite the raging heat, according to the Press Enterprise. That's good news. Knock on wood but keep those flashlights handy just in case.
Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez takes on the dual story lines running through the latest soap opera at Los Angeles' City Hall. One involves the mayor's current girlfriend and the other, the evolving scandal involving the city attorney's wife. Both are playing out on a backdrop of the usual Angeleno politics and it appears that everyone has something to say about it.
(excerpt)
On Wednesday, I heard from a psychologist who took issue with my column suggesting that no one could love Villaraigosa as much as he loves himself.
"True clinical narcissism has nothing to do with self-love," said Victor Silva-Palacios, who explained narcissistic personality disorder. "Rather, it has to do with a severe lack of emotional development."
Very interesting.
"Underneath an apparent 'self-love,' one frequently discovers a fragile ego ... and chronic emotional emptiness. It seems to me that Mr. Villaraigosa is trying to hide his insecurities with choices that are very destructive to himself and others."
Makes sense, but I prefer the diagnosis by an 84-year-old Latina who called and asked me to pass it along to the mayor:
"Tell him that his brains are between his legs, and there's not too much there."
Ouch.
The Times actually ran articles on the saga of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's divorce and its impact on the polls. Must have been a slow news day.
Mariela Carrion, wife of Elio, spoke out against the jury's decision to acquit former San Bernardino County Sheriff deputy Ivory J. Webb of criminal charges stemming from the shooting of her husband, according to the Los Angeles Times.
(excerpt)
"We wanted him to serve his time for what he did," said Mariela Carrion, the wife of Air Force police officer Elio Carrion, who survived three bullet wounds in the videotaped shooting. "There wasn't a fair trial…. The jury already had their minds set on freeing Mr. Webb."
"San Bernardino County makes police officers above the law, which nobody is," she said in a telephone interview from Barksdale Air Force Base.
Elio Carrion was saddened by the verdict, his wife said, but reticent to share his feelings about it, even with her.
Mark Petix who used to write features for the Press Enterprise wrote an article for the Daily Bulletin about Webb's future with his former employer. He was not fired by Sheriff Gary Penrod, but Penrod said he won't be back at work with that agency.
Though Penrod disagreed with some of the tactics Webb had used before the shooting, he doesn't plan to implement any changes in how his deputies act in similar situations.
(excerpt)
At his new conference Friday, Penrod said his department has not made any policy or training changes as a result of the shooting that wounded Carrion, an Air Force senior airman who was on leave from Iraq.
Jurors apparently believed Webb's claim he fired in self-defense while attempting to arrest Carrion and the driver, who he said were drunk and belligerent.
Webb could have faced up to 18 years in prison if convicted.
Penrod defended Webb's decision to make the arrests without backup, saying deputies in rural locations make that decision regularly.
But Penrod said he would not have parked the patrol car so close to the suspects' vehicle, and he probably would have kept the men in the car until backup arrived.
"It probably could have been handled in a better way," he said.
From Where Eminent Domain is King to Go West, Young Men(and Women)
Eminent domain is coming into the Eastside, according to this agenda item at the afternoon session of the city's Redevelopment Agency. It will impact properties on Martin Luther King Blvd between Ottawa and around Park Street. The purpose of using eminent domain is to widen the street and add sidewalks. One property at 1835 MLK Blvd has been mentioned in the report accompanying the resolution for eminent domain to be discussed in the form of property easements. It's believed to be a white clapboard house pictured on page 8-16 of the report.
Rumor has it that an antique store on the street may be a present or future target as well for this or another project.
1835 MLK, Blvd
Map of city block with "subject property"
Meanwhile in the alternate universe...
Sammy Franelli drove through the empty streets of River Bottoms in his latest sports car purchased straight off the assemby line just for nights like this one. The rain that had plagued the town earlier had melted away, into moonlight and a starless night. Franelli liked to call himself the frontman of the city's council, or its whip. But from day to day, he was never sure if he was the player, or simply getting played.
He passed the Mercury, a hot bar and grill where he and his brothers on the council held their weekly meetings before the televised meetings. This is where things got done, decisions were made, partnerships were sealed over steak, medium rare in his case, and bottles of imported brewsky.
By the time they hit the council chambers, everyone was in a good mood. Oh, if their faces were a bit flushed, that could be attributed to excitement over the passage of yet another housing project. Especially on the face of Franelli's colleague Bert Diablo, who was known as the land baron of where Eminent-Domain-Is-King. His face lit up whenever another row of small businesses owned primarily by "those people" were swept up at one blow, to be converted into condos and lofts, which sat empty after it was discovered that people with money did not want to blow it just to live on top of restaurants. Diablo's kingdom was currently very quiet at the moment, as the merry men scratched their heads trying to figure out what to do next. Diablo wasn't worried as he had a secret weapon, his own personal "shadow" council.
Here's some trivia courtesy of the site log. Visitors to the site today included the following:
The city of Riverside
The county of Riverside
The state of California
The United States Department of Justice
Stanford University
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The University of California, Riverside
Gaspard was arrested on Sept. 1, 2004 for reckless driving, a misdemeanor by the Riverside Police Department. He was ultimately charged later that month with reckless driving and evading a peace officer.
Gaspard plead guilty in the autumn of 2005 to the former charge and received one year summary probation and a $100 restitution fine. After his probation expired, Gaspard applied to have his record expunged in December 2006 and Judge Christian F. Thierbach granted it.
A Press Enterprise article written in 2006 stated that Gaspard had left the department under some circumstance, but if he left and he took his case to arbitration, then that suggests that he was terminated from employment. If the case is back before the city council, then it's likely that he's been reinstated by arbitrators that some say use private sector standards to judge public service employees.
If this is true, then Gaspard would be the third Riverside Police Department officer to be reinstated this year. He's also at least the fourth police officer in the department's recent history to have been convicted of a crime and still remained on the force.
Still given that he apparently was evading officers in his own department when he got arrested, it remains to be seen whether he has developed any respect for the men and women he will be working alongside with, during his time off. It also provides a dilemma for the members of the public that he pulls over in terms of whether they are respecting a police officer who himself apparently had little respect for police officers in his own agency.
Inland Empire Weekly, an online publication takes on eminent domain in Riverside in an article rich in information which is also hilarious, in terms of its take on the relationship between the use of eminent domain by the BASS quartet and the campaign contributions received by its two members up for reelection which are Councilmen Dom Betro and Steve Adams.
Adams doesn't comment on the issue in this article. He probably had his hands full dealing with four political rivals out for his seat in Ward Seven after he returned to the ward after his flirtation with higher office was thwarted by the reality that state politics takes place in a much different arena than that which is local. However, Betro who was forced into a runoff with Mike Gardner by strong anti-incumbent sentiment does not disappoint, providing some prize examples of the kind of quotes that are often said when arrogance overrules political tact.
(excerpt)
Sometime over the past three years, or perhaps earlier (it's hard to say, because Riverside City Hall doesn't talk much to the nonaligned press), the council got it in its head that nearly everything wrong with the city—its moribund downtown, its crime rate, its stunted tax revenue, its inability to attract and keep new businesses—was the fault, not of the council and its misguided policies, but of an unproductive constituency that simply refused to go away. This notion, lovingly nurtured by the sweet milk of out-of-town developers' money, germinated into a working philosophy, which City Councilman Dom Betro expertly articulated when asked why the city condemned an entire downtown block for use by private developers.
“What you have here are long-term property owners who have done nothing to improve their properties, while their properties have appreciated 300 percent,” Betro tells the Weekly . Betro represents downtown Riverside, where most of these unhelpful owners once thrived. “These property owners are, in fact, a detriment to the downtown area, and these property owners have no interest in improving them.”
In other words, the council has seen the problem, and the problem is this crazy concept called private property. If those pesky property owners won't take a hint and go of their own accord, the city will force them to go—the owners, that is. The properties themselves—well, the city would just take that and hand them over to interests more to its liking.
A handful of the city's eminent domain lawsuits were true to the original spirit of eminent domain, such as the condemnation of rundown, seedy motels that have long been the bane of the Riverside Police Department. But most were simply the Redevelopment Agency wading into the real estate speculation game by kicking out the original businesses and replacing them with fancy new developments.
Such was the case with the city's acquisition of businesses on the downtown block bordered by Market and Mission and 1st and 3rd streets. In lawsuit after lawsuit filed November 2, the city moved to condemn a dozen parcels of land to make room for Raincross Promenade, a tony housing project by LA developer Mark Rubin. This action, one of the largest and, at an estimated $5.4 million, one of the most expensive condemnation efforts in the city's history, resulted in dozens of merchants and their employees being forced to find work elsewhere.
Rubin, incidentally, is listed by Betro as a key endorser of his council re-election bid.
It gets better as the article continues. It's hard to believe that this is the same Betro that promised to bring accountability, due process and transparency to the city council, not to mention encouraging public participation. But after the latest city manager was hired, he changed his tune soon enough. Hearts broke all over Riverside when Betro turned and not only failed to counter the GASS quartet which was in power at the time he was elected, but jumped on board to make it his own.
Kicked to the curb was former GASS quartet member, Art Gage, who is mostly responsible for where he got, but in some regards it's like he got cast aside by the new cool kid on the playground. Now Gage's fighting against the neophyte candidate that the club he used to belong to chose to replace him before William "Rusty" Bailey filed his papers with the city clerk's office. Bailey's fairly nice and he's smart but you don't handpick an inexperienced candidate to be either of these things. His roots to development interests and his past stint with the economic development agency of Riverside County are issues seriously underplayed by those who back him.
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds.
---Elvis Presley
In Ward Three, people think they are caught between a rock and the hard place, not really trusting either side. It will be interesting to see who pulls in the votes and whether Peter Olmos' endorsement of Gage plays a role in the final tally.
Betro's method of enhancing public participation was to propose a motion on July 12, 2005 to further restrict public participation including banning members of the public from pulling items from the consent calendar for discussion. Soon after, the consent calendar began getting a lot longer and the discussion calendar much shorter. Today, the latter consists mainly of public reports that actually foster little discussion except that by city council members praising themselves on cable television.
Ed Adkison might be stepping down as councilman in Ward Five but his announcement that he planned to support challenger Chris MacArthur had many shaking their heads. MacArthur has relied on xenophobia instead of stances on city issues to sell himself in that ward. That and the fact that few people really believe that Adkison didn't back him from the beginning is what's causing those heads to shake in skepticism.
It's hardly surprising that those who are most in favor of using not eminent domain but the threat of it downtown are the same elected officials getting campaign contributions from the development firms that are knocking down their doors every day at the office. The demand by development firms on Betro obviously made quite an impression on him during his evolution from concerned grass-roots candidate to as some people call him, a bully or a dictator who wants things done his way when he wants them done. And if he has to knock down a few people and properties to get there, so be it.
That's the quality that most of those who used to support him find most disappointing in him. If power in some cases doesn't indeed corrupt, then it certainly can change a person's attitude that they put on display as his case has clearly shown unfortunately. You keep waiting for those closest to him to put some sense into him but then it's likely that what he represents is what they want. After all, more than a couple of political careers appear to be riding on his success as is the case with several of the other political campaigns as well.
What's interesting is that a lot of what was behind the sentiment of the "anybody but Betro" campaign which swept Ward One was the fact that more than a few of those who were involved had been volunteers in his camp during his first campaign. Many of them felt that he had burned them or that he hadn't kept his promises or stayed true to his roots. The end result of their efforts in Election 2007, part one was that he only captured 44% of the ward's vote.
What's even more interesting is how those who are still loyal to their man have labeled those who worked on Betro's initial campaign either outside agitators or activists they have never seen or heard of. Were those who belonged in Betro's inner circle really that blind to the individuals who were out doing the legwork?
The next in line to be burned by Betro will no doubt be the city's labor unions, including the SEIU, the Riverside Police Officers' Association and others who lined up enthusiastically to endorse part of the status quo that worked against them. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me and all that. But then again, the most important number in city government is, four. Some union members say that they're holding their noses to support incumbents for survival purposes.
However, "survival" this past year has translated to strike votes, law suits and rallies at City Hall, not to mention intimidation and even retaliation against people pushing for better working conditions in the city's workforce. Not to mention employees fearing for their expulsion from the workforce, including Black and Latino employees on a "list" and those who refuse to be "yes" men or women while trying to do their jobs. The "list" has pretty much been depleted at this point, having once included some of the city's finest male and female employees. The list of employees who want to act independently and perform their job responsibilities without being micromanaged still goes on and on.
And on that front, it looks like things will be worse before they get better.
Especially puzzling was the decision by the RPOA to do this as besides the SEIU it's been hit the hardest, but I guess its leaders started appearing and participating in community meetings like the Group which is nearly unprecedented by that union in its history after Betro took potshots at its leadership and castigated people for not coming down on the police union for the law suit filed by Officer Ryan Wilson last year. An organization able and willing to take bold steps in community outreach where few of its predecessors have gone before, should be able to have enough fortitude to ask its endorsed candidates questions about their actions or lack thereof regarding recent labor skirmishes.
And the city council kind of sat while Hudson apparently pretty much handed the police department over to Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis to run until a massive campaign against this woke several of them up.
Politics does indeed make strange bed fellows. That's one reason why fewer people even bother voting anymore but it does make for good blogging.
However, Betro is one of City Manager Brad Hudson's strongest supporters on the city council because of all the neat stuff being brought downtown. Erect one sign on a city street about one new project, while putting the ward's councilman in lights and they turn to jello. Not that this isn't human nature and all that, but it does keep the city council happy and apparently either clueless to what is going on around it or just disinterested.
And all those signs advertising projects also serve as free advertising for the incumbents running for office. Well, free for them, not for the people in this city who pay for this advertising.
But what has Hudson done for the city's workers? And that goes for both before and after his huge pay raise given to him by the city council earlier this year. How many employees in this city feel secure in their employment at this time? How many employees feel they will be able to even afford to live in this city in two years? Five years? Ten years?
After all, many of the city's employees live outside the city limits.
But live and learn. And in the wake of a city where there are investigations inside city departments, between city departments, retaliation against union representatives, one state investigation, an unknown number of county grand jury investigations and growing rumors of some sort of federal probe of city government, it makes perfect sense to march lock step behind some of these incumbents at this time. Yes indeed it does.
What was funny in the Inland Empire Weekly article was the quote by the city manager office's own public information officer who was quoted telling the writer of the article that upon having read an earlier article about how the city handles its code compliance division aptly titled "Code Red" that he didn't want to meet or even issue a comment to the Weekly.
Sniff, sniff.
It seems that the powers that be at City Hall can only respond to media outlets who flatter them with the proper number of inches. David Silva, who wrote the latest expose on City Hall in the Inland Weekly shouldn't feel so bad. Several weeks ago, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis told me he was planning to give me the silent treatment to me from that point on. Hopefully that will give him extra time to hunt down some office space for the incoming pupp...I mean executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission besides the cubicle on the seventh floor. But not too much time for him to decide he wants to find another hobby like running the fire department or something.
One can say, boo hoo to all that.
One can also say, pressure on, cover off.
But still it's likely that Carter pulls in a six-figure salary paid for by tax dollars solely to represent the city when it's questioned by the media and try to spin it in the best possible light. It's almost unheard of for a public information officer to respond in such a huff to a request for an interview or a meeting although they might vent at you from time to time which is fine.
You know, if Carter's not up to talking to newspapers outside the Press Enterprise, the city could always go back to paying Sitrick and Company, Inc. about $500/hr to do that job for it and the beleaguered Carter or at least give instructions on how to do this.
The much nicer publication also ran an article about the plans to renovate the downtown pedestrian mall. What's missing is the reaction of local small business owners to what someone called the "ripping out of the mall in front of them". But what they'll get in return, is a little stream down the little of the mall. Not enough affordable parking with a sensible meter system in place, but a cute little creek in the middle of the desert that will probably see very little rain in the next 20-30 years.
Riverside will finally have a river at last actually going through it, well at least one part of it.
Maybe next week, the Press Enterprise will give Development Director Belinda Graham her own column.
In other news, the state of California has announced that there will be no more power outages this summer despite the raging heat, according to the Press Enterprise. That's good news. Knock on wood but keep those flashlights handy just in case.
Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez takes on the dual story lines running through the latest soap opera at Los Angeles' City Hall. One involves the mayor's current girlfriend and the other, the evolving scandal involving the city attorney's wife. Both are playing out on a backdrop of the usual Angeleno politics and it appears that everyone has something to say about it.
(excerpt)
On Wednesday, I heard from a psychologist who took issue with my column suggesting that no one could love Villaraigosa as much as he loves himself.
"True clinical narcissism has nothing to do with self-love," said Victor Silva-Palacios, who explained narcissistic personality disorder. "Rather, it has to do with a severe lack of emotional development."
Very interesting.
"Underneath an apparent 'self-love,' one frequently discovers a fragile ego ... and chronic emotional emptiness. It seems to me that Mr. Villaraigosa is trying to hide his insecurities with choices that are very destructive to himself and others."
Makes sense, but I prefer the diagnosis by an 84-year-old Latina who called and asked me to pass it along to the mayor:
"Tell him that his brains are between his legs, and there's not too much there."
Ouch.
The Times actually ran articles on the saga of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's divorce and its impact on the polls. Must have been a slow news day.
Mariela Carrion, wife of Elio, spoke out against the jury's decision to acquit former San Bernardino County Sheriff deputy Ivory J. Webb of criminal charges stemming from the shooting of her husband, according to the Los Angeles Times.
(excerpt)
"We wanted him to serve his time for what he did," said Mariela Carrion, the wife of Air Force police officer Elio Carrion, who survived three bullet wounds in the videotaped shooting. "There wasn't a fair trial…. The jury already had their minds set on freeing Mr. Webb."
"San Bernardino County makes police officers above the law, which nobody is," she said in a telephone interview from Barksdale Air Force Base.
Elio Carrion was saddened by the verdict, his wife said, but reticent to share his feelings about it, even with her.
Mark Petix who used to write features for the Press Enterprise wrote an article for the Daily Bulletin about Webb's future with his former employer. He was not fired by Sheriff Gary Penrod, but Penrod said he won't be back at work with that agency.
Though Penrod disagreed with some of the tactics Webb had used before the shooting, he doesn't plan to implement any changes in how his deputies act in similar situations.
(excerpt)
At his new conference Friday, Penrod said his department has not made any policy or training changes as a result of the shooting that wounded Carrion, an Air Force senior airman who was on leave from Iraq.
Jurors apparently believed Webb's claim he fired in self-defense while attempting to arrest Carrion and the driver, who he said were drunk and belligerent.
Webb could have faced up to 18 years in prison if convicted.
Penrod defended Webb's decision to make the arrests without backup, saying deputies in rural locations make that decision regularly.
But Penrod said he would not have parked the patrol car so close to the suspects' vehicle, and he probably would have kept the men in the car until backup arrived.
"It probably could have been handled in a better way," he said.
From Where Eminent Domain is King to Go West, Young Men(and Women)
Eminent domain is coming into the Eastside, according to this agenda item at the afternoon session of the city's Redevelopment Agency. It will impact properties on Martin Luther King Blvd between Ottawa and around Park Street. The purpose of using eminent domain is to widen the street and add sidewalks. One property at 1835 MLK Blvd has been mentioned in the report accompanying the resolution for eminent domain to be discussed in the form of property easements. It's believed to be a white clapboard house pictured on page 8-16 of the report.
Rumor has it that an antique store on the street may be a present or future target as well for this or another project.
1835 MLK, Blvd
Map of city block with "subject property"
Meanwhile in the alternate universe...
Sammy Franelli drove through the empty streets of River Bottoms in his latest sports car purchased straight off the assemby line just for nights like this one. The rain that had plagued the town earlier had melted away, into moonlight and a starless night. Franelli liked to call himself the frontman of the city's council, or its whip. But from day to day, he was never sure if he was the player, or simply getting played.
He passed the Mercury, a hot bar and grill where he and his brothers on the council held their weekly meetings before the televised meetings. This is where things got done, decisions were made, partnerships were sealed over steak, medium rare in his case, and bottles of imported brewsky.
By the time they hit the council chambers, everyone was in a good mood. Oh, if their faces were a bit flushed, that could be attributed to excitement over the passage of yet another housing project. Especially on the face of Franelli's colleague Bert Diablo, who was known as the land baron of where Eminent-Domain-Is-King. His face lit up whenever another row of small businesses owned primarily by "those people" were swept up at one blow, to be converted into condos and lofts, which sat empty after it was discovered that people with money did not want to blow it just to live on top of restaurants. Diablo's kingdom was currently very quiet at the moment, as the merry men scratched their heads trying to figure out what to do next. Diablo wasn't worried as he had a secret weapon, his own personal "shadow" council.
Here's some trivia courtesy of the site log. Visitors to the site today included the following:
The city of Riverside
The county of Riverside
The state of California
The United States Department of Justice
Stanford University
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The University of California, Riverside
Labels: Black city employee watch, business as usual, City elections, officer-involved shootings
posted by Five Before Midnight | 10:23 PM
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