Election 2007: Politics and reinvention

The city has announced that it is relocating a historic bungalow to where the Kawa Market once stood, according to this article in the Press Enterprise.


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The agency bought the market and an adjacent house on Bandini Avenue for $653,500 from Lin Lin Guan and Hua Yu, who owned the property for about 15 years. The council approved another $61,500 for escrow fees, board-up costs and demolition, which should take place this month.

The plan to move and renovate the University Avenue bungalow will cost another $260,000, bringing the total cost of the project to $975,000.

The agency should recoup several hundred thousand dollars when it sells the house, said Development Director Belinda Graham.

Whoever buys the house will face several restrictions, including a prohibition against renting the house out and a requirement to keep the property well maintained, she said.




Councilman Dom Betro commented in the article on what is called "friendly condemnation" an oxymoron if there ever was one and that the family was never threatened with eminent domain even though it was included in the contract. He also said that the market didn't "belong" in a neighborhood that it had existed in peacefully in since World War II.

In fact, I dare say this market existed in Riverside before Betro did.

Betro's supporters at campaign coffees told people who questioned the purchase of the Kawa Market that it was essentially a den of crime and a blight, even though news of complaints against the Kawa Market only emerged within the last year.

I guess if you're Asian-American, and live in this neighborhood(and this family did), you don't belong in the Wood Streets neighborhood just like if you're Asian-American and Latino and had a business, you don't belong downtown in the Market Street area. And just like if you're Black, there are certain neighborhoods you shouldn't be walking down even before sundown.



Just ask the two high school graduates who are Black and who were pulled over at least six times by police officers while riding through downtown on their bicycles in two weeks, according to a complaint they filed with the Community Police Review Commission. They were asked each time if they were on probation or parole even though they had never been in trouble with the law. That doesn't matter because they clearly look the part.



The street in the downtown where they were stopped several times used to be home for several Black-owned businesses including barber and beauty shops. Today, they are gone and the Riverside Community College owns that building where it houses several of its offices.



Ironically, while the Black-owned businesses were apparently seen as "blight" and not fitting with the Riverside Renaissance plans for downtown, the adult bookstore was not included in that definition of "blight". It still sits in the heart of downtown Riverside.



In this whole episode involving the Asian-American market that suddenly became persona non gratis under the banner of Riverside Renaissance, one discussion never took place and that was to address the problems in the Olivewood Street neighborhood in terms of the lack of businesses for its residents to buy groceries. But the why should it?



It's much easier to blame the Asian-American owned businesses for the city's lack of interest in discussing issues pertaining to people who are of lower income and their lack of access to businesses to buy the commodities that they need for their families. But then there's not much room in Riverside Renaissance for poor families. That's fairly obvious given that the city's definition of "affordable housing" is for those of "moderate income" and at $71,000 a year.


The same neighborhood that suddenly vetoed the Kawa Market also nixed having a homeless shelter built within a mile of its borders, so what did the city do? The city added it to other homeless shelters in the nearest Black and Latino neighborhood even though except for portions of the University Avenue corridor, most of the homeless population only heads into that neighborhood when it is pushed out of the downtown area where it usually resides.

Even though Eastside residents objected to these actions in large part because they weren't included in the composition of the homeless shelter task force, their concerns were per usual ignored because of course, this is not a "special" neighborhood.

The Ward One councilman at the time, Chuck Beaty, defended the neighborhood's fight against a local church which temporarily housed a homeless day center by saying that the Wood Streets was a "special" neighborhood. Clearly according to the city, the Eastside is not.


After the Eastside is gentrified within the next 10 years, those homeless shelters will probably be gone or relocated as well.






But Betro, did pick up some points with Columnist Dan Bernstein who wrote about the task force meetings that took place earlier this week addressing both Tequesquite Park and Fairmount Park.


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Just a year ago, Betro was touting a land swap that would have sold off part of Tequesquite Park for senior housing, turned over Fairmount Park land to the Redevelopment Agency and padded the city's park inventory with what one parks commissioner called swamp land. A constituent revolt stuffed the "hat trick" and helped spawn political opposition that denied Betro an outright win in June.

"Believe it or not," Betro told me, "I always wanted a park there (at Tequesquite)." He said senior housing on the long-promised parkland was City Manager Hudson's idea. The economic development-minded Hudson "can sometimes be a little light on process. I'm still learning how to put checks and balances on the manager."

And right alongside Hudson, he's still pushing for changes he says are decades overdue. Betro's knowledge of his council ward is encyclopedic; his to-do list is ambitious and exhaustive. This week, in Fairmount Park, he seemed to hit a new stride.

"I was pretty pleased with the meetings." Betro didn't tell me that. Mike Gardner -- Betro's opponent -- told me that. The climate has changed so drastically, said Gardner, that if Betro had initially handled these park projects the way he's handling them now, "I wouldn't have run."

But Gardner says Betro's "conversion," like "my eminent domain conversion," is "somewhat politically driven." (Garner has taken a tougher stance against eminent domain.)

Indeed, it remains to seen if the new and more enlightened Betro will last after the election especially if he wins. After one reason why many of his grass-roots base have stopped supporting him is because they believed that he changed dramatically after his election to become more representative to the development firms which were as he once said, knocking down his door whether than many constituents who probably couldn't squeeze their way through that crowd to get a minute. Then Betro bemoaned that development by complaining that his allies weren't utilizing him as a resource without realizing that perhaps the lack of interaction with his allies as he called them might be related to the developers knocking down his door at City Hall instead.

Some people say I'm too tough on Betro and I'm definitely tougher on him than other members of the city council member except perhaps my own representative. The reason why, is because I too once believed in what Betro stood for, or said he stood for and I have a tendancy to be tougher in terms of holding the feet to the fire of politicians that are more or were more aligned with my beliefs than those who are in opposition.

But Betro's the first member of BASS to actually blame something on City Manager Brad Hudson even though before the fuss was raised about developers coming to Tequesquite Park, Betro hadn't really seemed all that concerned about selling portions of that park.

It's too bad of course that Betro can't be just as vocal about Hudson and Company's actions to weaken the Community Police Review Commission. But don't expect to see any change on that front by Betro even though he's still telling people he ran the first time around on support towards that commission.

His excuse is that he's waiting until a majority of the city council supports the CPRC, but he didn't wait until he had a majority of council members who supported not developing Tequesquite Park before he allegedly took Hudson to task for his plan to put senior housing there.

Speaking of that senior housing, it was then included on a plan involving the use of Fairmount Park, though it received hardly any support from city residents and earned several comments in disagreement with those plans.

Betro's statement about "checks and balances" on the city manager will be addressed in a future posting because it raises several important issues including the above issue involving the CPRC.

Hopefully, this task force process will continue as it has begun after the votes have been tallied in November's election, which is to honor the wishes of the people. Hopefully, the city won't change its course if Betro gets reelected and put its own plans in place.

As for the nefarious lady in the red dress who I guess still remains nameless, it remains to be seen whether or not she is the one who has the last laugh. Hopefully, everything with these projects is on the up and up, but it's been a year of giving away space in the basement of City Hall to corporations and high-ranking employees in the development division being caught with their hands trying to take thousands of dollars out of a city project for personal use.

If so, that would be unfortunate indeed, but many people question how Riverside Renaissance can be fully financed in five years even as sales receipts by local businesses have decreased.






A lot going on in Columbia, Missouri in connection with that city's efforts to create a civilian form of oversight. According to the Columbia Tribune, there is a representative from the Department of Justice's Community Relations Division providing advice on how to do this.

As is usually the case, the city policy makers are reluctant to even discuss the issue, the communities are demanding that discussion take place and the police department is saying that it doesn't want or need it.

For the meeting led by the Justice Department's mediator, Bill Whitcomb, dozens of community members attended, several elected officials and while there were no uniformed officers present, the police department was probably represented as well.


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Although the police department has maintained that a citizen review board is not necessary, some audience members last night said they have been pushing for the establishment of a review board for more than 10 years. The issue reappeared last year after a Columbia woman was restrained by a police officer during a disturbance at Columbia Mall.

Since then, two ordinances have been proposed to the Columbia City Council calling for the establishment of a panel. The city also hired a consulting group earlier this year that concluded the department’s method of investigating complaints against officers is perceived as secretive and biased against residents, especially minorities.

Mayor Darwin Hindman in June called for the establishment of a citizens committee to examine whether citizen oversight is necessary for the department. The city clerk’s office is accepting applications from people interested in being on the committee.

Whitcomb enumerated the traits members of such a committee should have: "You want folks who are objective, rational, orderly thinking and can move away from value judgments," he said.




The Columbia Missourian also wrote an article on the meeting. Community response to the issue of civilian review was very enthusiastic.


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Some people, like Liz Schmidt, came because they had heard about the citizen review board but wanted to learn more about it.

“I came to see if we can straighten things out before it gets any worse,” Schmidt said.

But for those who have been involved in the citizen review board debate, the attendance was encouraging.

“We know we need to be united in what we do,” said Pamela Hardin, the first vice president of the NAACP. “But it was a good first step because the community was here.”

Khesha Duncan of the Concerned Citizens of Boone County said the controversy surrounding the citizen review board is the reason things have not progressed quickly.

“I understand that with something this large, it doesn’t just happen overnight,” she said. “But there needs to be some movement.”






According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Rev. Al Sharpton is coming to town to set up a chapter of his organization there to address ongoing problems with the police department. The Chicago Police Department has been struggling in the wake of several scandals involving videotaped incidents of excessive force being used by its officers.


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"There's been a consistent pattern of police misconduct, and a lot of people feel Daley has been getting a pass," Sharpton said.

In other local news, Chicago ABC7 reported that the city council has voted to improve the department's investigations of police misconduct. It will do this by overhauling the Office of Professional Standards which handles internal investigations.


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"I think this is historic legislation. It will be followed in other cities and states and the federal government," said Mayor Richard Daley.



There were different reactions at the news of the hiring of the new head of the OPS, which is Ilana Rosenzweig.


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The OPS reforms include moving the agency from police headquarters to City Hall, making it more independent with subpoena power to investigate a much wider range of allegations, faster and more openly, with tougher penalties for interference.

The mayor also named an expert on police abuse from Los Angeles, Ilana Rosenzweig, who comes highly recommended by Chicago community leaders to run the newly reformed OPS.

"We are very excited about her. I think the must exciting this is she has done this before," said Andre Grant, OPS search committee.

"It allows me to look at things with a fresh set of eyes which I think is important in this situation. I don't come in with preconceived notions," said Ilana Rosenzweig, new OPS director.

"None of us here knew who it was, we were not consulted, the community was not consulted. We don't know if she's good, bad or indifferent. That's not the way business should be transacted," said Flint Taylor, lawyer for abuse victims.

The local activists who have been fighting police brutality for years also believe the mayor and the police superintendent should be totally removed from OPS.

"I'm very disappointed in the fact that the ordinance does not have the teeth that it should have in regard to true independence," Taylor said.





In Champaign, Illinois, the city council killed the proposal that would have brought civilian review to that city, according to the Champaign News-Gazette. The vote was close so community residents aren't giving up.


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"I think a lot more gains can be made by working with the system we
have now, rather than creating something negative," said Mayor Jerry
Schweighart, a retired city police officer and fierce opponent of a
citizens review board.

As an example, Schweighart said he would consider allowing
organizations that serve the minority community, such as the Urban
League of Champaign County, the NAACP or the Ministerial Alliance of
Champaign-Urbana and Vicinity, to be empowered to take citizen
complaints against officers.

The council vote wasn't a surprise, with a conservative bloc of
council members opposing citizen review. Those members included
Schweighart, Tom Bruno, Deborah Frank Feinen, Karen Foster and Vic McIntosh.