Election 2007: Show me the money, part three

The Press Enterprise has provided a financial update on the contributions received by the remaining candidates in the Riverside City Council races to be decided at the polls on Nov. 6. The lists are available at the City Clerk's office on the Seventh floor of City Hall or through email. The time spent reading them isn't a wasted effort.


Given that so many elections often go not to the strongest, brightest, the fittest, the most ethical but to those who have the largest campaign chests, the figures coming out of Riverside's very own Election 2007 are very interesting indeed.




Biggest fundraisers:





1. William "Rusty" Bailey(Ward Three): $161,000



2. Dom Betro, (Ward One): $157,740



3. Chris MacArthur(Ward Five): $144,767



4. Donna Doty Michalka(Ward Five): $129,561



5. Art Gage(Ward Three): $115,000







Biggest fundraisers during last grading period:





1. Betro: $53,765



2. MacArthur: $50,197



3. Gage: $49,569



4. Michalka: $41,764



5. Bailey: $34,517







Biggest spenders:





1. Betro: $160,144



2. Gage: $148,447



3. Bailey: $148,382







*figures for MacArthur and Michalka are pending but believed to probably competitive with the top three*







Largest David vs Goliath ratio:





1. For every dollar Frizzel is spending, Adams is spending about $9.70



2. For every dollar Gardner is spending, Betro is spending about $5.50.







Wards by price tag: TBA





Key contributors:


1. Development firms not surprisingly factor into every candidate's campaign including all three incumbents as well as both Donna Doty Michalka and Chris MacArthur's campaigns as well as Bailey's. The only two candidates not taking in major development money are Terry Frizzel in Ward Seven and Mike Gardner in Ward One.



Given the billion dollar price tag and growing put to the Riverside Renaissance program and the Eastside-erasing UCR Charrette program, it's not surprising to see the development firms coming to town to donate into campaign coffers.





2. City Labor unions also are donating more heavily to this campaign than any since the campaigns which led to the formation of the GASS quartet in 2001 and especially the 2003. The Riverside Police Officers' Association's spending on this election approaches that of 2001 when they financed the campaigns of Paul Fick, Art Gage and Steve Adams. Except for their divorce with Adams earlier this year, this union is sticking with the incumbents like the other unions. What could result is a marriage of GASS and BASS, quartets which were heavily backed by the RPOA and development firms respectively.



This time, you might have both. Only this time, those who protested the loudest against it last time will be cheering this time. This is why politics are never boring in River City.



The union's first attempt at building blocs was due to its animosity and opposition to the Community Police Review Commission and that bloc building began in 1999 and peaked in 2003. That sentiment still might linger as none of the incumbents it has endorsed has or will go out on a limb for the CPRC, but a larger reason might be the turbulent labor negotiations and litigation involving the RPOA and the city in the long, hot summer of 2006. In the light of the past city council's inability to steer the city manager's office in terms of carrying out its instructions during that difficult period as well as the competition between a growing city and an infrastructure that's not keeping up, it's not surprising that the RPOA and the RFA and the other bargaining units are putting a lot of money into this series of races.



But it's interesting watching people involved in some of these political campaigns happily use the same tools they derided their predecessors for doing.





Here are the candidates and some of the major contributors in their campaigns.



Ward One:


Dom Betro:


The Riverside Police Officers Associatio: $10,000

Duane Roberts: $7,500;

Jeffrey Burum Enterprises: $4,000

Reggie King, chief executive officer of Rancho Cucamonga-based Young Homes: $3,500

K&K Developers LLC: $3,500.



Michael Gardner:



Paul Hunter, of Yarrow, Wash: $5,000

Freeman Co. in Riverside: $3,000

Don Wilson: $1,000

Doris Ellis: $1,000

Ron Zimmerman: $1,000

Chuck Hane: $1,000




Ward Three:



Art Gage:


Riverside Police Officers Association: $12,500

K&K Developers LLC: $7,500

Riverside City Firefighters Association: $5,000

PRP Investors Madison LLC: $5,000.



William "Rusty" Bailey:


George Carroll, co-owner of the Riverside Plaza: $15,000

Palm Desert Development Co.: $2,500

John Abel, partner with Mission Pacific Land: $2,500

W.B. Allen Construction: $2,000

Matthew Webb: $2,000

Albert A. Webb Associates: $2,000.





Ward Five:


Chris MacArthur:


Steven Walker Communities in Riverside: $5,000

Riverside attorney Alan Pauw: $4,500

Scott Krentel, of Riverside, chief executive officer of The Preserve LLC: $3,000

Laurie MacArthur Cook: $2,500

Linda MacArthur Ebie: $2,500

Growest Nurseries: $2,500

Albert A. Webb Associates: $2,500




Donna Doty MaChalka:


Riverside Police Officers Association: $17,500

Riverside City Firefighters: $10,000

Riverside builder Nick Tavaglione: $2,000

Abrams & Howells Development LLC: $2,500



Ward Seven:


Steve Adams:


Mission Inn owner Duane Roberts: $6,000



K&K Developers LLC: $3,500



Network Paratransit System Inc: $3,250



Palm Desert Development Co.: $2,500.







Terry Frizzel:





Suzanne Martin: $300



Monique Pegg: $250



The money races are most tight in the incumbent-free fifth ward as both MacArthur who won the first round built largely on a xenophobic campaign targeted largely at his political rivals and Michalka have earned and likely spent pretty close to the same amount of money. That's also the case between Gage who's fighting for reelection and Bailey, who won the preliminary round and the seat almost outright.



Michalka and Gage both have some ground to make up on their rivals to win the final round, though their earning potential through campaign contributions is a closer match.



Several key campaigns are conducting informal polls to get some idea of where their candidates stand and news is that the Betro camp is none too happy with how their guy is faring so far in their polls about a month before Election Day. His opponant, Gardner apparently is making up quite a bit of ground since the preliminary rounds when both of them were pushed into a runoff after no candidate received more than half the vote.



Betro's numbers weren't strong in polls that his campaign conducted during the preliminary rounds and his election figures were pretty close to what his polling numbers were. He's going to have to work hard and his supporters harder to buck that trend this time.

Perhaps that is why he and his supporters are taking potshots at his rival in ways they didn't before. When an incumbent starts slinging mud all of a sudden in the final weeks of an election, it's because he and his backers aren't happy with their numbers.



After talking to Ward One voters, it's clear that especially in some sections, anti-incumbancy sentiment is fairly strong as it probably is in most or all the wards right now. Even though this particular race includes the candidate who has spent the most money pitted against one of the candidates who has spent the least, Gardner's clearly stepped up since his last attempt at running for office and Betro's clearly not made any gains unless he wins the election without the squeaker that took place in the 2003 elections.



The fate of all the incumbents during the first round kind of cast a harsh light on Riverside Renaissance. Not the projects themselves which include seven wards' worth of wish lists that had sat idle for quite some time. Still, what concerned people was the pace and the push of implementing all or most(as few City Hall employees believe all will be realized) of these projects and what short cuts would have to be taken to get them through on the deadline.



The timeline that the city set for all of this meant that "friendly condemnation" and eminent domain would be part of everyone's vocabulary, because valuable time couldn't be spent negotiating with every single property owner standing in their path. The status of the city's infrastructure including its streets, its utilities and its public safety would remain unclear given that in all three of these critical areas, the city's losing ground behind its development and its expansion.



Twenty-one fire fighters? A drop in the bucket. About 45 police officers? Another drop in the bucket. Mayor Ron Loveridge was right, 50 police officers were needed in the autumn of 2005 and that was two years ago. Aging roads and streets needed to be fixed and in some cases, widened not in anticipation of future traffic jams but to address current ones. These concerns have been raised and in the headiness of the Riverside Renaissance have been treated as if people are saying the sky is falling.



Of course, the only poll that matters is that involving what takes place on Nov. 6. If you live in an odd-numbered ward, be there or be square. Your vote is a very important voice.








The swearing in of the new president of the Riverside Bar Association turned into a roasting of sorts between former prosecutor turned state assemblyman turned District Attorney Rod Pacheco and local defense attorney Steve Harmon who while he was president of the RBA, tried to call a meeting with then Riverside Police Department Chief Jerry Carroll to present him with a list of police officers that the defense attorneys in the association believed had committed perjury on the witness stand.

That caused a bit of a stir, more than a few dropped jaws and whether that meeting ever actually took place isn't known.

At this gathering, Pacheco and Harmon exchanged barbs at each other, but in a comfortable fashion.


(excerpt)



"It was like a Hostess convention," said David Bristow, who stepped down as bar prez that night. "There were a lot of zingers going around."

Harmon introduced Pacheco -- tough prosecutor, even of misdemeanors -- as "the man who provides full employment for all criminal defense attorneys in the country."

At one point, Harmon announced that the event's venue -- the Mission Inn Music Room -- would have to be cleared immediately because Pacheco had decided to convert it to a criminal courtroom.

In the fullness of time, Lightning Rod struck back, reminding Harmon that the night belonged to the incoming president, not the emcee.

Pacheco told the audience he follows the "Three Bs" of public speaking: Be brief. Be interesting. Be gone. Then, recalled Riverside lawyer David Werner, the DA turned to Harmon and said, "I'll have those written down for you," suggesting Harmon consider employing the third rule -- be gone -- first.

"It was pretty witty," said Werner. "Rapier wit, maybe. A sharp edge."





Speaking of Pacheco, he's not allowing any of his prosecutors to meet with Eastside residents concerned about the injunction because the Eastside is still too dangerous. However, he did allow Deputy District Attorney Jack Lucky to meet with residents of Casa Blanca about the injunction, which has caused a great deal of consternation in the Eastside because the only preliminary injunction that has been enacted so far has been in the Eastside. Some residents of the Eastside said they feel highly insulted by this.

The topic of the injunction came up at Councilman Andrew Melendrez's community forum that he holds monthly. Lt. Larry Gonzalez, who is the area commander received most of the questions but the police department has been left to answer questions in the stead of the District Attorney's office.

Though the District Attorney's office might send a representative to a future Human Relations Commission meeting to discuss the injunction or at least that's what the commission is hoping.










The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is being investigated by that county's public defender's office regarding allegations that the agency held an arrests contest several months ago, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)



Public Defender Michael P. Judge said his office would review all the arrests made Aug. 15 -- the day of one of the competitions -- and challenge the merits of the cases in court.

"Our contention is that the activities of the deputies may not have been prompted by what they saw but rather by the pressure of producing greater arrest numbers for the competition," Judge said.

The competition in question was dubbed "Operation Any Booking" and was initiated by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department lieutenant who said he wanted to increase the productivity and boost the morale of some deputies in the Lakewood station, which serves the southeast Los Angeles County cities of Lakewood, Bellflower, Paramount, Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens.

The deputies making the most arrests in those cities won "bragging rights," Lt. James Tatreau told The Times earlier this week.




But apparently Sheriff Lee Baca put a stop to it after reading about in this earlier news article, also by the Times.


(excerpt)


After being called for comment by The Times on Wednesday, Sheriff Lee Baca said he spoke with the Lakewood station lieutenant. Baca called the competitions a well-meaning but ill-conceived idea that promoted "the wrong values."

"We train deputies to be independent thinkers and leaders," Baca said. "The lesson learned here is that -- whether it's for morale purposes or to increase productivity -- law enforcement is not the kind of service where you can dictate the activity.

"We're not into numbers, we're into quality," he said. "I don't think it will occur again."