Election 2007: Forums and follies

Lake Evans may be dredged beginning in 30 days according to this article in the Press Enterprise.

The aeration system must be removed. Then the silt and whatever lies beneath. Those who fish the lake hope that whatever is left will help increase the population of finned creatures. The ducks, geese and other waterfowl are waiting it out.


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About two feet of silt, an organic-rich mud created from plant debris and fish and fowl waste, has accumulated on the lake bottoms since the late 1980s when the lakes were last dredged.

"All this leaf clutter and the fish waste and then the duck population here is substantial," Middleton said.

The water quality is not as bad as it appears.

Middleton sampled the water to make sure it would be safe for workers Wednesday.

"It came up really, really nice. No chemicals of potential concern," Middleton said.

"There's a lot of organic carbon and that is to be expected. And nitrogen and phosphate ... You could go swimming in the water. You can be around in the mud and you don't have to worry about any kind of infection or anything like that."





The lake serves as a metaphor for this city in many different ways, both good and bad. It was the focus of police reforms which were imposed on the department by the state attorney general's office four years after three Riverside Police Department officers assaulted and tossed a Latino man into its waters. The man who could not swim struggled to the grassy area to hide until the officers who were hired to protect and serve not abuse individuals had left the scene of their crime.

On better days, it's been the scene of family reunions, picnics, barbecues and Fourth of July celebrations. The same lake where Jose Martinez struggled to live has seen flocks of ducks, paddle boats and fishing derbies.

The elections are seen in similar lights. Many people feel hope. Other people feel despair. Some see the future as unwritten. Others see past and prologue.

At any rate, the debates roll on.



Speaking of city elections, yet another debate was held among city council candidates last night at Riverside Community College and was sponsored by the Greater Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, according to the Press Enterprise. Naturally, issues pertaining to Latinos were the ones on the table. It's interesting, given that these issues weren't raised at other forums including those in neighborhoods in the respective areas of the city where the population statistics place Latinos either in the majority or near majority of city residents in those areas.

This forum should have been a natural spot for Ward Five candidate, Chris MacArthur who ran an entire first-half campaign on what some people said called a racist and xenophobic campaign against Latinos particularly undocumented immigrants but he of course toned his campaign message down for the final round at least in front of this crowd. He was still the only person who mentioned Latinos at all during his campaign and he made it clear what his sentiments were towards them and while we're at it, people of Iranian ethnicities because his campaign workers spent time "warning" prospective voters about former campaign rival, Harry Kurani.

However, the forum was the mantra for the following.


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All candidates spoke about how they would encourage more Hispanics to participate in government, whether it's by serving on a commission or solving language barrier issues at City Hall.



Where does one start addressing this statement, when Latinos aren't even considered fit enough to do business downtown unless they are involved in the food industry, you know selling tacos and burritos and putting salsa and chips on every table? Not that there's anything wrong with setting up a restaurant in Riverside, in fact you have to admire anyone who will try it, but Latinos tend to get pigeonholed as Mexicans(even though other Latino ethnic groups have communities in this city) and of course, their businesses can only sell Mexican food. It seems to be the only businesses they are allowed to own downtown. Everything else is seen as "blight".



With Mexican restaurants downtown, elected officials can talk about how inclusive they are and rhapsodize about Riverside's cultural and racial diversity. But if they choose to own other businesses, forget about that. Quite a few of those businesses are gone or going, like the barber shops and beauty shops owned predominantly by African-Americans and Latinos that also used to exist downtown including on University Avenue where Riverside Community College has more office space.

Whether this new Riverside Renaissance has any room for business owners of color or even people of color in this city remains to be seen.


Incumbent Dom Betro of Ward One continues his forum-side manner, talking about how he's ensured the election of Latinos, meaning Councilman Andrew Melendrez, the only Latino or person of color for that matter currently on the dais because naturally, any man or woman of color needs to be backed by Whites to even try to get elected. Betro's certainly right in that education not incarceration should be a focus. But how much education is built into downtown's development outside of that benefiting UCR, let alone Riverside Renaissance? And Latinos though better represented at UCR than other universities in this system(thanks in large part to the passage of 209 which created a multi-tier system in this system), they are still underrepresented. UCR in their midst, includes students who tell Eastside jokes and make derisive comments based on stereotypes that are passed down to them even though few of them have ever been in the neighborhood.

But then in this behavior, they are hardly alone, are they? At least the students don't belong in a system that essentially rewards them for this behavior while breaking bread with the community's members in meetings and other venues.

Even the UCR's planned Charrette development project is geared almost entirely towards future UCR students. And speaking of the Charrette project, it underwent such an extensive rewrite once it went from the community input level to the UCR and Riverside Development Department level that once this was brought to the attention of Melendrez, he pulled it off of the consent calendar of a meeting several weeks ago. It will be on a discussion calendar of a city council meeting coming soon.

Ironically, the only mention of Eastside students would be to do some cleaning of the University Avenue area, as apparently some sort of unpaid labor source. Melendrez said he was shocked when he saw that recommendation on the list of them several weeks ago, knowing nothing about it. Since it's probable that using children in this way would violate labor laws which is only one of the problems, it will probably be dropped quickly.

Still, Betro got to the meat of it in a manner of speaking.


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"Talk is cheap; action is what counts," he said.



Well, we've definitely seen the action in his ward. More to, rather than for Latinos at this juncture.

And while it might be appropriate to say Latinos benefit from improvements on University Avenue which bisects a predominantly Latino neighborhood, it doesn't seem to be so when it comes to Latinos owning businesses downtown, given that many of the businesses called unsightly and blights by Betro and other elected officials were owned by Latinos including immigrants who paid their share of business taxes into the coffer of the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership for exterior street improvements that their businesses never received. The properties, largely owned by White business owners, on the pedestrian mall got the lion share of these funds with vague promises that outlying businesses would see these improvements as well which of course never happened.

Then the city along with its partners the Greater Chambers of Commerce and the DNP turned around and called the Market Street businesses, "blighted" in part due to their exterior appearance which of course contrasted greatly with the renovated pedestrian mall. These predominantly Latino and Asian-American business owners had no representation, because the two above mentioned organizations sent representatives to city council meetings fully supporting their ousters.

Also, like Ward One candidate Mike Gardner said, there was a dearth of Latinos on the task forces for both Tequesquite Park and especially Fairmount Park given that if you visit the latter park, you will see a large population of Latinos using it for family gatherings and picnics. Yet, it's been a while since the city's had a task force let alone two that have been so well, White but why was there not a single Latino? There were also no Black city residents on either task force, which is odd in the case of Fairmount Park given how many people in this racial group enjoy the park as well, not to mention that one of the oldest family reunions held at the park is still held by descendants of several of the first Black families to come to Riverside.



Art Gage also put his two cents in the discussion of promoting inclusiveness to Latinos during the only night in the entire campaign schedule any of them will be talking about it.


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Gage addressed getting more non-English speaking residents to participate in government meetings. He said translators are available, but the city needs to better communicate this service.

"Clearly it is an issue because you rarely see a person who only speaks Spanish at a meeting," he said





Maybe he doesn't but there are lots of meetings in this city with Latinos, including those who only speak Spanish. There are organizations in the Eastside for example where those who attend are primarily in this category including block groups. The problem is, that either the city has no clue that there are meetings like this or it doesn't really think that bringing English-only city representatives to a meeting where Spanish is the language is an issue. Which is why at many of these meetings, there are no Spanish interpreters(as "translators" deal with written not spoken words) to pass along what the guest speakers are telling them. Often a bilingual city official, like Councilman Andrew Melendrez or a city employee is left to try to do both and interpreters need to be someone who remains independent of the dialogue or presentation themselves. That is what is called in the field of interpreting, an ethical dilemma, when they are not.



Some times, ethics issues are raised by the failure to prepare ahead of time for a meeting with primarily non-English speakers as well.



At one meeting in 2005 where Police Chief Russ Leach of the Riverside Police Department was giving a speech on tactics used by his department to suppress gang activity, he told people that's what he would talk about. He would not listen to personnel complaints against his employees. The city had not provided an interpreter so at the meeting, only former Community Police Review Commission Interim Executive Director and Community Relations Director Pedro Payne was available to interpret.



His role of interpreter clashed with his role directing the CPRC because as an interpreter, he was passing along Leach's message of him not wanting to hear any complaints about police officers while working as a director of a commission who received and reviewed personnel complaints involving police officers. It put Payne in a bad position that he should have never been in and he did the best he could with it, but having the executive director of an oversight mechanism say that complaints won't be heard at that meeting sends a bad mixed message. It was bad enough to hear the police chief say that at the meeting. Accountability and good policing should go hand in hand, after all in the brand new police department that's what has been sold to the city's residents. A police department doing its job in a professional manner has no reason to discourage or even fear hearing of complaints involving its personnel even in a general manner and while Leach is unable to discuss individual personnel issues, there should be a means for communities to discuss the issues in a more general manner and there should be people at the meetings to take complaints or tell individuals about the CPRC and police department's complaint system.



That should have been Payne's designated role, or that of the commissioners who serve on this board if they attended these meetings, to both listen to the community's concerns and represent their commissions. The Human Relations Commission also has a vital role to play in this area.

At least one candidate brought up the role of Latinos on the city's boards and commissions, a very interesting subject to raise in any forum.


Latinos are currently underrepresented on the city's boards and commissions, which serve as important mechanisms for public expression and participation. Elected officials and their most immediate supporters are always chiding members of the public for not opting for these more acceptable forms of civic service over appearing at city council meetings to complain or criticize in front of the city officials and the cameras. Of course, most of those individuals who say these things are themselves White.

However, what has any council member done to encourage better recruitment and screening practices to ensure that the many more than qualified candidates for commissions including the Planning Commission and the Community Police Review Commission don't end up in the "reject" pile? It's not that Latinos don't apply. It's just that in many cases even when their applications are bulging with the highly coveted but ill-defined "community involvement", they don't get interviewed.

For example, there has never even been a Latino candidate for the CPRC in Ward One who has been selected to be interviewed let alone appointed to the CPRC. Commissioners who are Latino have only been appointed from Wards Three, Four, Six and Seven. At one time, there were four Latinos on the commission. Now, there is only one on a commission that addresses issues which disproportionately impacting Latino residents. Yet despite this, a parade of White candidates most of whom have political connections or business connections to City Hall or city council candidates are getting appointed to the CPRC and likely several other commissions as well.

It's like if you're Latino(or Black or Asian-American for that matter) and want to serve on a board or commission, your one option is to serve on the Human Relations Commission, a body that does important work but is so undervalued by the city government(with the possible exception of Mayor Ron Loveridge) that city leaders are pulling commissioners or having them jump ship off of this commission to serve on others most namely the CPRC.

But the Riverside Police Department's sworn division is around 18% Latino while Latinos represent only about 11% of the CPRC's composition. Which of course is another column.

After all, Riverside as of 2006 was at least 38% Latino.





In Colton, the city's fire fighters and dispatchers will be getting salary increases,according to the San Bernardino Sun to bring their pay scales closer to other similar agencies in the region.




Redlands has added to its roster a quality of life department, according to Press Enterprise Columnist Cassie MacDuff.


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Redlands is creating a "Quality of Life Department?"

Has the City Council completely lost its moorings?

The council voted 4-to-1 earlier this month to create the warm-and-fuzzy sounding quality-of-life department, at a cost of nearly $302,000 a year.

This is the same council that last month seriously considered a ballot measure to raise the sales tax because the city government needs more money.

It's the same council that imposed a hiring freeze in February, so the budget would balance for the first time in six years.

It's the same council that passed a balanced-budget ordinance in May, to show how sincere it was about curbing spending. Now this?


Yes, this! As the city slides further and further into not being able to fund its essential services, I'm sure that will keep those taking surveys at this new department quite busy. It's called looking for silver linings to even put a positive spin on the Redlands city manager's latest brainchild.




The power struggle over the state's beleaguered prison system continues with the state in one corner and the correctional deputies' union in the other, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times.



The corrections union is one of the two strongest labor organizations in the state. But the penal system from juvenile halls and California Youth Authority facilities to jails and prisons have been fraught with problems and more than a few scandals. And all these institutions


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After a 16-month stalemate in an increasingly bitter contract dispute, state officials last week took the provocative step of declaring that they would unilaterally impose their "last, best and final offer," attempting to recoup what in most cases amounts to basic powers to run prisons as they see fit.

Over the union's threats to retaliate, the state would reclaim the right to question officers about such nuts-and-bolts items as sick leave and to decide how many guards -- and which ones -- should staff certain posts. Prison authorities also could make changes in operations that the union has blocked, such as determining when inmates visit medical clinics. And the state would vastly restrict the guards' use of grievances.

In response, the union, which holds $4.5 million in political action committees, has filed a complaint with California's Public Employment Relations Board saying the state is acting improperly.

"They are imposing a lot of things that are illegal, that they can't impose without a change in the law," said Ryan Sherman, a spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.

The conflict signifies the degree to which California prisons threaten to blot Schwarzenegger's legacy in the waning years of his governorship.

On his watch, federal courts have appointed a receiver to oversee prison healthcare and are weighing whether to intervene again with an inmate cap -- or even a possible prisoner release -- to relieve pressure on the teeming lockups. Hundreds of inmates die each year, and in many cases there have been allegations of abuse or neglect.







Often people throw around the terms "dictator" and "dictatorship" loosely without having ever set foot in one or actually living under one or a militarized junta. Like Burma.


The whole world is watching.