Sunday mornings are a good time for reflection

The 17th annual AIDS walk took place in Fairmount Park yesterday. Hundreds turned out to raise money which will be spent trying to find a cure and better treatments for this disease.




Sorry folks, but there are delays in the construction of the Hyatt Place Hotel project in the downtown area, according to this article in the Press Enterprise.

The delays on the hotel which was to be built on Fifth and Market streets have been blamed on finalizing the contract, said the guy who is responsible for both this project and the renovation of the Fox Theater.


(excerpt)


Fox Plaza is meant to attract "empty nesters" -- suburban couples whose children have left home and who are looking for a smaller, more urban home close to entertainment and dining -- as well as young professionals, Barmand said.

City officials, including Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, have repeatedly stressed the importance of projects like Fox Plaza. They are meant to boost the number of downtown residents with disposable income in order to attract more upscale restaurants and stores.

In addition to the hotel, the block between Fifth and Sixth streets would include 40 condominiums wrapped around a parking garage. The condos should be ready for move-in by mid-2009, Barmand said.

Originally, there were only going to be 23 condominiums on this block. The redesign adds one floor and a mezzanine, Barmand said.

The block between Sixth Street and Mission Inn Avenue would have 160 living units -- condominiums and live/work lofts -- and two levels of underground parking as well as street-level space for stores and restaurants.

The living units would range from 750 square feet to 1,200 square feet, Barmand said.

This portion of the project's first phase should be done by Christmas 2009, he said.



It's clear from the article especially Loveridge's comments that gentrification has taken hold of downtown, an area of the city reserved for those with plenty of what is called "disposable money", in other words people who haven't come to this city including "White flighters" fleeing an increasingly diversified Orange County.

What's too bad is that downtown Riverside should be for everyone, especially as so many city officials and civic leaders, most of which probably have quite a bit "disposable income". It should also be a place for families of all different economic classes and there's plenty of room to have businesses to cater to different people. A children's museum with plenty of hands-on exhibits for children would be nice. Restaurants for families who need to watch their budgets would also fit nicely. But unfortunately, this won't happen until city residents actually elect city officials who fit these demographics. Until then, people who don't have a lot of "disposable income" and who have children will probably just have to stick to their designated areas outside of the downtown area.

But Riverside should really learn that it's not just wealthy White men and women that downtown should cater too. In fact, there's quite a few poorer people including elderly who still live downtown who are worried that they will have to travel further to get what they need especially after the closure of a small market which was threatened with "friendly condemnation" earlier this year. They'll have to sidestep past the long blocks filled with businesses that they can't afford to get to places where they can afford to shop. Unfortunately, they don't count for much in Riverside Renaissance.

The comments in this article also made me concerned about the future of many of the downtown businesses. After all, all these "upscale" restaurants have to occupy space. That's the law of physics. How much more eminent domain will small businesses face downtown to make way for what the city calls "revitalization" and "progress"?

Until a ballot measure like that proposed by Riversiders for Property Rights gets approved by the city's voters(as has happened legally in other cities), the city government pretty much has been left with a blank check for eminent domain and its nicer and friendlier cousin, "friendly condemnation".




The Press Enterprise wrote this article on a preliminary injunction that was granted by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Edward D. Webster against Eastside Riva and all but two defendants listed in the original complaint. A copy of the injunction and a live blog on the court hearing is also available at the above link.



The date for the meeting the police department plans to hold with community members in the Eastside has not been announced yet.







This excellent guest article published in the Blue Oregon provided a lot of food for thought about civilian review both in Portland and in Riverside, California which as you know established the Community Police Review Commission.

These were recommendations provided in the article to improve civilian oversight in light of a system present in that city which seems thoroughly compromised. Portland's not the only city where that's happened. There's some parallels between Portland, Oregon and Riverside, California in terms of how civilian oversight was and is implemented and some very important differences as well.


(excerpt)


In 2001, Portland created the so-called 'Independent' Police Review division in order to 'help improve police accountability, promote higher standards of police services, and increase public confidence.'

In Riverside, the CPRC was created by ordinance by the city council, which included members who weren't thrilled about implementing civilian review in Riverside but the community showed up in force enough times to demand it and were beginning to circulate a petition to gather signatures to put it on the ballot. The mission statement by the community members nearly matched that in Portland.

But as long as IPR continues to have all complaints of police misconduct investigated by the Police Bureau's own Internal Affairs Division, and as long as IPR lacks the power to compel testimony from witnesses, including officers, public confidence in the process will not materialize. Fortunately, City Council has recently hired an independent contractor to evaluate IPR's performance. The NW Center hopes to see a series of recommendations based on the following principles.

Although the CPRC has the power to independently investigate complaints as it deems necessary and hold public hearings, it only has done the latter less than 5% of the time and it has yet to hold a public hearing. The closest it came, was twice in late 2004 when the body had issued a subpoena to former officer, Tina Banfill Gould to appear, be sworn in and answer questions asked about the fatal shooting of Volne Lamont Stokes which happened in May 2003.

Banfill Gould appeared with her attorney, Michael Lackie but was not sworn in at the first meeting. This led to two actions being taken in response. First, the city council threatened to file a contempt of court citation against her, for violating the terms of the subpoena. Second, Police Chief Russ Leach threatened her with termination if she didn't appear to be sworn in. In December, she and Lackie returned and after he and the CPRC's own attorney exchanged legal arguments, Banfill Gould was sworn in but exercised the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination for each question.

In March 2005, Banfill Gould received an industrial retirement from the city. That was the first and the last exercise of subpoena power by the CPRC, though there was some discussion of it during one meeting in relation to the Lee Deante Brown case.

First, the oversight body must be independent and free from conflict of interest, particularly when conducting investigations. It must also have the power to conduct hearings, subpoena witnesses and report findings and recommendations to the public, and must have complete access to police witnesses and documents.

This is important to note. However, it's not only important to have these powers, it's just as important to exercise them when the consensus is that the situation renders it. It's also important that the city has a system in place that not only allows these powers(many of which for the CPRC, are listed in the charter) but encourages their use. In contrast, Riverside's own local government has hindered their exercise.

For the CPRC, it can't even free itself of conflict of issues during its appointment process which has undergone some changes in recent years. As noted earlier, the passage of Measure GG mandating ward representation on the city's boards and commissions has contributed to elected officials politicizing the process.

One example, was a gentleman who addressed the commission at its most recent meeting last week about a horrifying incident involving his wife where he had allegedly told officers that she was suffering a severe reaction to a prescribed drug for a medical condition, the officer called to the scene stated in his report numerous times that she had taken a drug called Vicodin which was negative in a toxicology screening performed on his wife. Instead of being taken to a medical hospital to be treated, his wife wound up spending several days in a county mental facility, her medical condition deteriorating due to lack of treatment. When the man finally tracked down his wife(who suffers from a form of dystrophy), she was crawling on the floor and an attendant was trying to lift her up with his foot.

Included as potential witnesses in his complaint to the commission are emergency medical technicians from American Medical Response, who were present with the officers listed in the complaint when some of the allegations took place. However, sitting on the commission is Peter Hubbard(who wasn't at the meeting) who manages what company?

American Medical Response.

When I spoke with the man afterwards, that issue did arise and if you had seen the look on his face when I told him that a representative of this company which contracts public safety services with the city was actually serving on the commission, it might hit home for you how ridiculous the appointment process has become. And that was the second difficult conversation I had this week about conflict of interest issues with a prospective complainant.

What this shows and what the appointment process overall has shown is that City Hall's idea of a cross-section of Riverside's population is a bit different than reality.

Second, the police oversight body must have access to information from the city and the police bureau which will aid it in addressing policy considerations as efficiently and quickly as possible.

This is important, and the CPRC has often utilized information it has received from the police department to create policy recommendations. In the first several years, there were quite a few such policy recommendations and about half of them were accepted by the police department for adoption. A rate that's slightly better than that of its predecessor, LEPAC.

After that, policy recommendations kept coming in but are much more rare these days. Several important policy recommendations were nixed either by the City Attorney's office or by the police department including those involving expanding the audio recording policy utilized by field officers as well as having the Internal Affairs Division conduct its own investigations of officer-involved deaths as mandated by departmental policy #4.8 or rewrite the policy to fit its current practice of administrative review.

Third, the oversight system must conduct open hearings, which are essential for enhancing public confidence in the process, and should address problems with current policies through hearings and other fora for developing policy reforms.

The CPRC has the power as stated to conduct public hearings but has yet to do so. It's a very underutilized power, tied with the CPRC's failure to perform its first power, which is to report to the mayor and the city council on all issues pertaining to community/police relations. It has yet to conduct a public forum or hearing even to solicit feedback on the issues which impact different communities so that it would be able to report to the city council or mayor as an informed entity.

Fourth, the police oversight system must have a staff and members of the citizen committee that are broadly representative of the community it serves. The oversight body must also have adequate levels of funding and should not be a lower budget priority than police internal affairs systems.

The CPRC doesn't have a body of commissioners which represents the communities it serves. Although Riverside is only about 58% White and the Riverside Police Department is about 72% White, the CPRC is 78% White.

Even though Riverside has a residential population that is 38% Latino, this demographic only makes up 11% of the CPRC's composition.

Out of the current nine members, four members worked or are currently working in law enforcement. Two others have relatives in law enforcement including one working as a officer in Riverside. Another commissioner manages a company which has entered into a contract with the city to provide public safety services.

Four of the commissioners currently serve or have served on other boards and commissions in this city. One has taken campaign donations from the local police union and another, has been actively involved in the campaign of a current councilman.

As for budget, the operating funds allocated for this commission at the beginning of the year were markedly lower than in previous years. Before the current city management team was in place, the commission received $306,000 a year. As of lately, its annual starting budget has been closer to $285,000, even as both City Manager Brad Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis have said that including inflation, they have been more financially generous to the CPRC in recent years.

Of course, there's budget allocations that can be made within a fiscal year but it's not clear whether or not the CPRC has received any such additional funding.

Finally, the oversight board must have the power to recommend disciplinary measures for officers that engage in unlawful conduct or violate internal bureau policy.

The CPRC does not have this power. In Riverside, the police chief has the power to assign discipline.

It's difficult to know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing not to have any role in that process, in the wake of the 2006 Copley Press decision which has largely impacted and in fact, nearly shut down civilian review mechanisms which are involved to varying degrees with the disciplinary process including the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland.

The disciplinary process remains a mystery to most city residents given that City Attorney Gregory Priamos also blocks access to any statistics pertaining to citizen complaints and internal investigations done by the police department, as well as their dispositions, which is in violation of P.C. 832.7(c).

(excerpt)

(c) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a department or agency that employs peace or custodial officers may disseminate data regarding the number, type, or disposition of complaints (sustained, not sustained, exonerated, or unfounded) made against its officers if that information is in a form which does not identify the individuals involved.


Maybe Priamos skipped over that part. Fortunately, for residents of other cities including Berkeley, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Oakland and many others, their city attorneys either have not or do not have their hands tied by outside interests.

But try sending him a letter under the CPRA and other relevant laws asking for these statistics, the same statistics that the department provided for the Use of Force Panel(albeit after it threatened to shop around for an independent attorney) in 1999 and the Human Relations Commission from 2000-2002 and you'll get a letter that states back, request denied.

At any rate, this article all the way from Oregon raised many good points about civilian oversight closer to home. Intrigue continues inside and outside of City Hall about who or what exactly controls the CPRC, including who pulled the strings on Priamos to get him to pull an agenda item off of the CPRC meeting agenda which would have addressed whether or not the CPRC should retain its own independent counsel.


Never a dull moment for the micromanaged CPRC, alas. Never a moment off either.

The Yin to his Yang.

First he was going to be dean of the University of California, Irvine's law school. Now he's not. According to this editorial in the Los Angeles Times, Erwin Chemerinsky discovered that the offer given by him by administrators had been rescinded.


(excerpt)


What makes Chemerinsky stand out is not his liberalism but the intellectual rigor of his analysis and the effectiveness of his argument. He works well with scholars of other viewpoints, as attested to by the cries of outrage from conservative scholars at his treatment by UC Irvine. Chemerinsky also sets a fine example for law students by putting his abilities to work not just in the courtroom and the classroom but in service to community. He co-wrote the current Los Angeles City Charter. He conducted, for the Police Protective League, a study of the LAPD's handling of the Rampart corruption scandal.

It was a great loss to the region when he left USC for a position at Duke University in North Carolina. It will be a shame not to bring him back to Southern California.

But in an updated article, there might be hope that he might wind up at U.C. Irvine after all. That's good because Chemerinsky is a cool guy who will answer even the most mundane questions on these issues with patience and style.

A popular Web site set up and frequented by St. Georgia(MO)Police Department officers allegedly posted a death threat against a videographer, according to Newspaper.com.


(excerpt)


The messages appeared on St. Louis CopTalk, a site that describes itself as a site "for the use of law enforcement officers employed by the St. Louis Police Department and their supporters in the St. Louis Metropolitan area." While it has no official ties to the city, it does allow officers to log into official police email accounts from the front page. In June of this year, Darrow had sparked outrage among the forum's members after he videotaped a disputed traffic stop involving what Darrow argued was a perfectly legal turn and what a Saint Louis police officer said was not.

In the course of researching the incident, TheNewspaper learned from an inside source about a CopTalk posting dated June 29, 2007. A user calling himself "STL_FINEST" wrote the following item, presented unedited and in full:

in reply to "Who is this terd?"
I hope this little POS punk bastard tries his little video stunt with me when I pull him over alone- and I WILL pull him over - because I will see "his gun" and place a hunk of hot lead right where it belongs.

We verified the existence of the post which, until some time around July, was publicly available here. It has been deleted. Because the CopTalk forum allows anonymous posting, only the site's administrator has the ability to confirm the identity of a poster or his status as a law enforcement official. When contacted by TheNewspaper this week, the forum owner had no comment beyond, "Sorry, the posting log I have access to only contains the most recent 300 messages, and that particular message cycled off some time ago."

Still, participants did not disavow the posting. Instead, another added, "I'm going to his house to check for parking violations." We informed Darrow of the existence of the messages, but withheld publication not wishing to interfere with an expected investigation into officers' behavior at the well-publicized traffic stops. To our knowledge, no such investigation was ever made.

CopTalk now bans discussion of Darrow's videos. A message dated September 10 reads: "We are already very much aware of Mr. Darrow and his antics. There is no need to post any of his award-winning videography here." Still, discussions of last Friday's St. George traffic stop made their way onto the site for a few hours before being removed by the administrator. One poster expressed contempt for Darrow:

"Other than CYA and a heads up why do we give this [expletive] any thought? He lives for this type of [expletive]."

Another CopTalk user referred to a discussion on the online forum AR15.com by saying:

"I have a discussion going on another board where someone is basicly [sic] calling me a liar. The retards have even invited Brett to join to tell his side of what he does."



Brett Darrow was the man who was stopped recently by Sgt. James Kuehnlein who was caught on videotape threatening. Attempts to locate Kuehnlein's own videotape of the incident taken by a camera in his car were unsuccessful. The comment was allegedly posted three months before that traffic stop.

In Kipton, Ohio, the chief of the police department is stepping down in the wake of criminal charges he would have faced if he had not done so, according to the Chronicle Telegram.

So Chief Pablo Cruz is done and soon so might be the department that he once led.


(excerpt)


Village Council accepted the resignation, which came with a caveat that village officials would not pursue charges against Cruz, at a meeting Monday, said Mayor Dennis Watson. Cruz, who did not return calls seeking comment, also retained the right to file a lawsuit, village Solicitor Dan Mason said.

“He said, ‘I will retire if everything is dropped,’ ” Watson said.

With Cruz gone, the village of about 280 residents remains without a police department and reliant on county sheriff’s deputies to handle any problems. Watson said council members are weighing whether to try to create a new department from scratch.

“We’re letting it ride temporarily,” Watson said.

Lt. Robert Wolfkill, who had led the department since Cruz was first suspended in February, was suspended himself after being indicted on theft charges in Huron County. The department’s other two officers resigned last month as council was considering dissolving the department.

Billings, Montana is looking for two individuals to serve on its citizens police advisory board, according to the Billings Gazette. Meetings are expected to begin in the next couple of months.