Election 2007: Decided by whom?
UPDATE: Mike Gardner and Steve Adams win the recount votes.
Read more about it here.
Maxine Frost has died at the age of 76. She served 40 years on the Riverside Unified School District Board, beginning back when the district became the first in the nation to voluntarily desegregate.
(excerpt)
“Maxine’s cause was education and kids,” said Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, whose first social dinner as a newcomer to Riverside in 1965 was at the Frost home. “She gave her life to that. That’s the way she was.”
I didn't meet her until I attended my first school board meeting in January 1998 to speak in support of a proposal to name the new high school in Orangecrest after Martin Luther King, jr. The auditorium at the Palm Adult School was packed, with Whites sitting on one side and African-Americans sitting on the other in the first week of January, 1998.
Most Whites there spoke against naming the school after King, jr. including several who fretted about their kids not getting into Ivy League schools if it was believed that they were attending a "Black school" and when they finished speaking, the White side of the auditorium would stand up, applaud and sit down again like a wave. When a Black person or an occasional White person spoke in favor of King, the same thing happened on that side. The New York Times took a picture of all of us in the auditorium lit brightly by a spotlight put up by CNN, which aired the meeting live. Riverside usually doesn't get this kind of treatment unless there's controversy and more often than not, it involves race. This was no exception and we bring it upon ourselves.
People were so appalled at the naked racism that was displayed in the Press Enterprise's series "Through the Prism" which addressed race and racism in 1996 through inviting people to write in on various issues surrounding race. Word was, the newspaper hoped to win a Pulitzer Prize but what it and the city saw instead, shocked them into taking some sort of action by initiating the study circles program on race relations which was sponsored by the Office of Neighborhoods and the Community Relations Division.
Interestingly enough, one of the letters in the Prism series was written by a former lieutenant, Ron Orrantia, who's Latino. His letter was written before he and two other men of color who were sergeants at the time filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Their actions were pivotal at the time and would be felt later on as well, particularly with Orrantia and then Sgt. Alex Tortes. But that was later. Not long before Orrantia was allegedly pushed to retire by members of the department's management as one of what was called, "Jerry's Kids".
But it wasn't the police department's turn to be put on display until about a year after the King controversy.
My mother called me up, asking me why I was quoted in the New York Times and I explained what had happened. I had been talking to Maxine about what had happened, when a photographer from that publication took our photograph. She appeared undaunted by all the fanfare surrounding the most recent foray by Riverside into the national news arena and she spoke very well at that meeting as the new school became Martin Luther King, jr. High School. And while I might not be up to snuff as a public speaker today, at least I don't throw up afterward anymore. But few people in positions of power held a candle to her that evening.
On that same night, a long-time minister named Rev. Johnny Harris in the Eastside passed, Congressman Sonny Bono was missing on a skiing holiday and a school was born.
Maxine stepped down this year and was replaced by Tom Hunt in this past election. He's got pretty big shoes to fill.
The arduous recount continues in the Ward One and Ward Seven races in front of candidates, attorneys and other observers.
(excerpt)
Registrar Barbara Dunmore said Ward 1 Councilman Dom Betro’s representatives asked that the recount in his contest be finished today.
"We’re doing everything in our power to accommodate that request,” she said.
At the end of the day, the ballots were recounted in Ward One but more steps will be taken in the face of what's likely to happen next. Apparently, if Mike Gardner indeed wins the election, Betro may file a law suit through his attorney challenging the results. It's no surprise to learn that this election may be tied up indefinitely by civil litigation if you've watched how Betro has handled the daunting prospect that he may have been voted out of office.
(excerpt)
In Ward 1, incumbent Dom Betro has asked that the signatures on the envelopes of all 2,586 absentee ballots in his race be compared with the signatures the registrar has on record to make sure they match. This is in case he decides to file a lawsuit challenging the election results, Betro said.
Because the ballots can no longer be matched to the envelopes, it won’t change the outcome, Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore said. That means the city must wait until the signature checking is done to learn who won the Ward 1 race.
Before the recount, sales and marketing executive Mike Gardner was the apparent winner over Betro by seven votes. Gardner said Tuesday he believes he is ahead by six votes.
They say it tells a lot about a person by how they handle the losses in their lives, the setbacks because naturally, these things hurt and sting when they happen. It's something everyone struggles with to varying degrees and how to lose gracefully in competitions might be among the most important lessons most people learn. It's an area that Betro obviously needs to work at. Hasn't he ever lost like the rest of us? But then people in the Betro camp seemed so shocked that he did lose, even stating online that those who voted for Gardner were frightened and intimidated at the time. They seem to think that anyone who didn't vote for their candidate was out of their mind instead of just doing what Betro's supporters did, which was vote for their guy. Only Betro voters were portrayed as people of reason, which means of course that there are at this time, slightly more unreasonable people in Ward One than reasonable ones.
But it's apparently "unreasonable" voters that the city council wants to protect the city from by pushing for city-wide runoff elections, preferably those that are mailin only.
There's certainly an interesting contrast in study between him and Ward Three Councilman Art Gage, the designated "villain" of the dais. Gage has done quite a bit to earn that title especially in regards to his decision to push for eminent domain of a bunch of houses in his ward to further the development of office space by one of the city council's most popular campaign donors, Doug Jacobs, not to mention his foibles against the Community Police Review Commission. He also lost his election pretty early on and didn't have to wait for the conclusion of an arduous vote count and recount so his situation was easier in many ways.
That aside, he hasn't stomped out of city council meetings and rolled his eyes at people he doesn't like who are saying things he probably doesn't agree with. He's not rude to people. He's lost and if he's upset about it, he's not putting it out on display in public, or confusing being voted into office with being entitled to hold that office as long as he wants no matter what the voters say. He hasn't yelled at anyone for asking questions or disagreeing with him and has never been rude to me but has been polite even in disagreement. To his credit, his successor, William "Rusty" Bailey has quietly allowed him to finish out his term.
I probably never would vote for him for several reasons but he's conducted himself the past couple of weeks since his loss as if he's still an elected official with a job to do until he's replaced by the candidate who defeated him. Ward Three might have lost confidence in him but his focus seems to be on finishing his term and moving on with his life. Ward Three's election won't end up tied up in litigation for a judge to decide unlike what might happen in Ward One. But Gage is the "bad" guy and he exits gracefully, when most villains wouldn't. It's not part of the script.
Betro's situation was much different. Less than 10 votes separated him and Gardner through the majority of the initial counting process. That apparently didn't change with the recount as of yet. The ward split wide in half during this election and it wasn't fear or intimidation that made people vote the way that they did. And it wasn't just "two issues". It was a clash between wanting the city to maintain its identity as a medium-sized enclave with a down-home feel and those who wanted a more urbanized look and feel and wanted it yesterday and have acted accordingly. It was also about how people felt about a city that was trying to mirror a county and treat those who elect representatives to office accordingly. It was actually about a lot of things that matter to people in this city, including where it's going from where it's been. But if the elected leadership hasn't figured out what's been going on in the electorate the past couple of years, another opportunity will arise during the next election cycle in 2009 when the voters will issue grades again.
What would be an interesting exercise in close elections would be to see a winner and a narrow loser have to share the title of council representative and reach all decisions and votes through consensus about how best to serve their ward. No ego that runs for an office in a process that often attracts egos would survive that but it would be an interesting way to resolve the issue of having wards that are split almost in half.
Gardner is no savior. He's simply the guy who got the most votes. Twice. And it's up to his ward residents to keep his feet to the fire. I would, if he was my councilman. But he doesn't seem prone to snap at people, charge out of public forums and verbally assault people in public who don't agree with him. Still, it didn't seem that Betro was capable of that when he swept into office four years ago but until someone is in a position of both authority and power, it often can't be predicted how they will act and how they will handle that responsibility.
However, Betro wears his heart and his angst on his sleeve and it's much more visible, which has caused him problems that his handlers should have addressed ages ago. When an ethics complaint was filed against him allegedly for telling activist Kevin Dawson that he'd better pray he didn't get elected, Betro's close supporters didn't challenge that it happened, they simply defended Betro's behavior. What's wrong with that picture?
So Betro's upset with the way the election has gone. Fair enough, but is it enough to tie it up in litigation for an indeterminate amount of time? I guess time will tell if the city does indeed go down this road.
Given that Election 2007 has been a difficult event for many people, I wasn't really all that offended when Betro shook his head at me about 15 seconds into my speech on item #18 which was on city council decorum and then stomped off in a huff. I'm used to it. He's never been particularly nice to me. He seems to be mostly nice to the individuals who he depends upon, as someone told me yesterday after his stormy exit.
Having received the brunt of his anger and pique in front of a large group of people at a public meeting that both of us knew simply for questioning something that he had said, I've seen that part of him. At the time, he had told people that the city was finalizing a contract with an independent contractor and awaiting only the paperwork when in fact, there had been no contract negotiation talks going on for several months because of the city manager's office apparent disinterest in the process or maybe problems with its level of experience as already evidenced through its labor negotiations with the city's bargaining units. It was the city council's job including Betro's to hold the city manager's feet to the fire to do what it had ordered him to do, rather than run interference for its employee when the public starts asking what's going on. It took a while for that to happen for one city council to properly direct its errant employee to get a job done and in the meantime, one of the city's department's that it has invested a fortune in went by the wayside like some forgotten toy.
There's just something fundamentally wrong with that and with trying to say that the opposite is happening. It's dishonest and unfair to the public who trust that a job will be done and it's dishonest and unfair to the individual on the other end of the bargaining table who's trying to practice good faith in the process. It's just not right but I was respectful about it and what I said. I really expected him to be as well.
I didn't deserve his tantrum and his attack, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that he had basically come to a group of his most ardent supporters, criticized them for not speaking out against one of the city's labor unions and then left the meeting without any regard for them. At the time, I had supported much of what he did but not everything. I had not criticized him or attacked him as he did me. I simply had challenged something he said to a group of people who supported him that I knew not to be true. But that didn't matter. He tore into me verbally because I had questioned him and because I had spoke in support of the city's unions right to due process at the negotiation table. His closest supporters had looked at me, with something akin to sorrow in their eyes but they backed him, proving to me that trying to hold governments accountable and getting involved in political campaigns purportedly to do just that, don't mix well. Maybe they're more used to this behavior from their guy than we who aren't members of that group know.
However, the same union that was "bad" in September 2006 because it was suing the CPRC (when it wasn't) donated an amount of money into Betro's campaign that was almost unprecedented. In fact, it financed nearly 10% of his entire campaign coffer by election's end. That's a considerable contribution. The turnaround from lecturing people angrily for not criticizing this union to taking quite a big chunk of its PAC donations didn't seem to faze many people either but if you really want someone to win office because you believe he's the best person or for other reasons, I imagine you overlook a lot of things.
But if Betro's piques of temper in public including several that surprisingly made it through the insulation of the pro-Betro Press Enterprise news section may have impacted the vote in that ward, that wouldn't be surprising. Something his closest supporters should have anticipated instead of telling him it was in the bag.
Ward Seven most definitely won't be finished with its recount today. What's interesting is for all this talk about anomalies and problems in the voting process, all of that concern by this city's elected officials including those on the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting seemed to be aimed solely at the Ward One election and not the other three. Why not problems in Wards Three, Five and Seven? Surely, if an election process is flawed, then every contest overseen by that process would experience problems impacting all the candidates in each race. If it's flawed, it needs to be addressed from that angle, not because several elected officials are unhappy with the results of one election.
But all the fuss was about Ward One, by people who had endorsed Betro and who probably didn't endorse the woman who almost unseated Councilman Steve Adams, which was former mayor, Terry Frizzel. So it's very selective where this concern about election process lies. Very selective indeed.
The Press Enterprise might not provide much indication of it, but the Governmental Affairs meeting was actually well attended for a mid-day session and even video-recorded, despite an objection by Councilman Dom Betro when he saw the camera held by Kevin Dawson from Save-Riverside.
The committee delayed a decision on election changes at the end of the meeting, after a stirring speech by outgoing Councilman Ed Adksion.
But before that, there was the issue of whether or not the meeting could be taped by a member of the public.
"Is approval needed," Betro asked City Attorney Gregory Priamos.
Was he kidding? Surely, Priamos gives city council members a workshop on the Brown Act. I mean, they're required to know the law that they are supposed to adhere to, right?
Priamos said that as long as it was not disruptive, filming could be done and the meeting began on that note. The three elected officials including committee chair, Frank Schiavone looked surprised to see about 10 city residents show up and speak on the issue. It looked like some of them have heard from other individuals on a plan to have the top two vote-getting candidates because first they rushed the process on a Governmental Affairs Committee agenda after a holiday weekend, then they spoke of slowing it down to allow plenty of opportunities for public input. Then they wanted to do a survey but wouldn't say who would be chosen to survey.
It's hard not to remember one allegedly city-wide survey of past years which yielded a majority of its responses from a single zip code from Ward Four.
There was actually mention of a workshop involving the city council and even public hearings. However, the report stated that if an initiative to amend the charter was placed on the ballot, it would be in March next year, which with even more holidays coming upon us, doesn't leave much time to collect public input.
Not so, Schiavone wearing a pretty impressive maroon tie roared. The election dates would be changed! He didn't seem to be as thrilled to enter into some sort of dialogue with the Riverside County Voters' Registrar which the city could be divorcing. Not surprising considering he was running for a county seat on the board of supervisors next year and probably wanted to pick his county appearances and actions wisely. A good political strategy is paramount after all, which puts active elected officials in a bit of a pickle when they are serving one term of office while at the same time, running for a higher elected position. Just ask Adams.
At any rate, Schiavone did most of the talking from his end of the table. City staff on hand included Priamos, Asst. City Attorney Susan Wilson, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis and his palm pilot and City Clerk Colleen Nichols. They spoke when asked to do so.
Ed Adkison gave one of those perfect lame-duck speeches that put it all there. Betro responded by discussing the diversity of his campaign donation portfolio. There wasn't much he could say at a meeting he probably should have excused himself from sitting in due to a conflict of interest. And besides he didn't like some of the comments made by people who attended. "Odd balls" who "spewed" whatever came to their mind.
Schiavone once told me that I behaved myself much better at the podium or in meetings than others that he didn't mention. But you know what? It doesn't matter because everybody who disagrees with them gets treated pretty much the same way through a litany of facial gestures, groans, sighs, shuffling of papers and as of late, getting up and walking out. People who have seen me at meetings are amazed when I tell them how the city council has reacted. The cameras of Charter Communications don't show the other side of the dais when people speak.
Maybe it's time to videotape the city council's behavior and then show it to people the next time it tries to give itself a pay raise.
So Betro spoke of the diversity of his campaign porfolio and given that each development firm is broken down into multiple donors including "individuals" who are president or vice-presidents of these firms, that still counts them as individuals.
It was Gardner, who was elected by special interests narrowed to downtown. I found that interesting. I mean, downtown's got the lionshare of Betro's attention and supposedly, they're crowding around the other guy?
That's also interesting considering that about 10% of Betro's $200,000 came from a single donor, a local labor union, and that at least 20 donors represented development firms from Beverly Hills, Fontana, Tustin and Thousand Oaks among other places including several who have visited this site in the past couple of days. Some of these firms dumped quite a bit of change in his campaign and those of others, especially Adams and they aren't Riverside businesses nor are they Riverside individuals.
Betro attributed Gardner's support to consisting only of some folks downtown which is interesting because the two major downtown organizations, DANA and the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership are strongly in Betro's camp and some say they exert the most power and influence downtown. Also the Greater Chamber of Commerce staunchly supported Betro and it's a big player downtown as is Mission Inn owner Duane Roberts who well, you know. Gardner's support actually was fairly widespread even if he didn't raise as much money. His donations were much smaller in size and far fewer of them were development firms from out of town including those which have gained land on which to build them from property owners who were pushed to sell their properties under threat of eminent domain by the city's redevelopment agency or if they weren't in a designated zone, by the City Council itself.
Governmental Affairs never disappoints when it comes to drama and this time was no different. Schiavone threw out some interesting strawmen about conspiracies being implied. Sometimes it seems they get too defensive. It's like Robert Redford said in All the President's Men said, "they volunteered that he was innocent when nobody asked, was he guilty."
Betro cried that elected officials should not be abused. I agree. Neither should members of the public be so treated by elected officials that their tax dollars pay to employ. And I was, even though I had done nothing to deserve it. But I'm not the only person who initially supported him that was treated that way, when disagreement on an issue or an event arose.
I guess Adkison's speech on why the rush on these twin agenda items made some impact because it's going back to the newly sworn in city council.
But you know what? The truth is in the pudding and that's what happened here. When asked what cities used a similar city-wide election process, Stockton was invoked.
And why did Stockton adopt such a process? It adopted it because the current city council was upset with one of its members and essentialy wanted him or her off the dais. This was, they must have thought, one way to accomplish that. So our city is basically jumping on the wagon of something done by a city that pushed through an election change that was instituted to clear the dais of minority dissent.
I'm amazed that someone actually told that story. But then again, Governmental Affairs is known for its drama and its revelations. That was a good one on the grading scale.
At Yahoo, Riverside, California came up as one of the most popular places to search for foreclosures. About 2,507 of them listed at the site.
According to the Press Enterprise, there is a probe being sought into the San Bernardino election.
(excerpt)
Rick Avila, who came in third Nov. 6 for the Ward 5 San Bernardino City Council seat, said he believes there were some discrepancies in the election and is seeking a recount.
But he said the cost of about $8,100 a day is prohibitive. By comparison, Riverside County is charging about $400 a day for a recount in the Ward 7 Riverside City Council race.
"I want to know why it costs 2,025 percent more than Riverside," Avila said. "Is that a deterrent?"
San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said the estimate provided to Avila is based on a full hand recount. The charges reflect the county's costs and vary according to what kind of recount is requested, he said.
In Riverside County, candidates who request a recount are charged about $400 a day for the four members of the recount board. San Bernardino County charges for the registrar, assistant registrar and three election technicians' time as well.
The Metropolitan News-Enterprise wrote an interesting article about about a recent decision on Pitchess Motions by the California State Supreme Court. A Pitchess motion is filed by a civil or criminal attorney to petition the court for a in camera hearing to determine if information about citizen complaints can be released from peace officers' records and if so, to what extent.
(excerpt)
Justice Carol Corrigan, writing for the Supreme Court, agreed.
“We adopt the rule formulated by the Court of Appeal for this narrow factual situation,” she said. “When complainant information has been ordered disclosed to counsel who, when later representing a different defendant, succeeds under Pitchess in discovering the same complainant information relating to the same officer, counsel may then refer to the derivative information uncovered as part of the earlier follow-up investigation.”
Noting that the protective order was designed to ensure that disclosure of confidential information be limited to the proceeding in which the disclosure was ordered, she said:
“Once a subsequent defendant obtains that same information under a valid Pitchess order, there is little justification for precluding review of derivative information…
“This approach is consistent with the purpose of the Pitchess scheme to balance the police officer’s privacy interest in his or her personnel records with the criminal defendant’s interest in obtaining all pertinent information.”
Corrigan was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, and Ming W. Chin.
Justices Carlos Moreno and Marvin R. Baxter filed separate concurring opinions.
Baxter said that he saw no reason to distinguish between direct and derivative “use.”
“Otherwise,” he said, “counsel could win Pitchess disclosure against an officer in one case, obtain derivative information as a result, then invade the hapless officer’s confidential file again and again… simply by bringing an infinite number of subsequent Pitchess motions, using the previously obtained information to demonstrate the need for new disclosure.”
Arguing from a standpoint of judicial efficiency, Moreno said that Sec. 1045 allows defendants Pitchess discovery in any court proceeding, and that making the same Pitchess determination repeatedly would force attorneys and judges to “reinvent the wheel” with each new request regarding the same officer.
Deputy Public Defender Matthew Braner, the defendant’s appellate counsel, said his client was “pretty happy” with the decision, and said that the court had made a very cumbersome process less so.
Deputy San Diego City Attorney David M. Stotland said that his office had wished for a different outcome. Nevertheless, he said, the decision codified what public defenders have been doing in the last few years, and he noted that the position adopted by the court was the same position that the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office had advocated as amicus curiae.
Other documents on this case and its implications are below.
Text from Chambers v San Diego County Superior Court decision.
Chambers May 4, 2006 appellate decision
League of California Cities amicus curiae brief
Minneapolis has settled a law suit for $4.5 million filed by one of its police officers after he had been shot by a fellow officer, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
(excerpt)
Early on the morning of Feb. 25, 2003, Duy Ngo was working undercover in the central neighborhood in south Minneapolis.
He was sitting in a car when a man approached and shot him in the chest through the car's windshield. Luckily, Ngo was wearing a bulletproof vest. He called in the shooting and tried to give chase, but was winded and stopped to catch his breath.
As he lay in an alley, officer Charles Storlie approached him. Police accounts say Ngo was holding a gun and that Storlie called out to Ngo before he shot him with a submachine gun. But, other accounts say Ngo was easily identifiable as an officer and was waving his arms.
Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson says the Ngo incident underscores the fact that sometimes police officers have to make split-second, life or death decisions.
"By approving this agreement ... we hope to close this chapter -- recognizing that for these two officers, life will never be the same."
- City Council President Barb Johnson"I just want us to reflect on the fact that the men and women of the Minneapolis Police Department put themselves in harm's way to defend us. Unfortunately, sometimes these life and death situations end in the worst possible way," said Johnson. "By approving this agreement today, which I'm going to recommend, we hope to close this chapter -- recognizing that for these two officers, life will never be the same."
The shooting left Ngo with a mangled left arm and damage to his groin. He still works part time for the Minneapolis Police Department.
"We were pleased the city council approved the settlement that was worked out through U.S. magistrate Judge Boylan in St. Paul," said Ngo's attorney Bob Bennett. "We had met earlier with representatives from the city, both the city attorney and council president Barbara Johnson."
In Bolingbrook, former Sgt. Drew Peterson is hailing the decision of the FBI to join in the search for his missing wife, Stacey, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In Chicago, a man who spent years in prison for a rape he didn't commit is now suing the city and its police department according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
In the suit, Marlon Pendleton alleged that detectives mishandled the police lineup procedure and that a lab analyst prepared an incomplete report claiming DNA evidence was insufficient to test.
Independent experts determined that the DNA was sufficient for valid testing and the test was completed. The evidence from that test freed Pendleton late last year.
"What this lawsuit is about is yet another example of a miscarriage of justice produced by egregious failures on the part of the Chicago Police Department," said Locke Bowman, one of Pendleton's attorneys and legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School.
Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona's wife, Deborah, wants out of the federal corruption case.
(excerpt, Belo Blog)
Deborah Carona, 56, wants a federal judge to order prosecutors to specify actions that led to the charge, according to a motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Julian said his office will oppose the motion during a Dec. 17 hearing.
Defense attorney David Wiechert said in court documents that he plans to file a series of motions challenging the claim against Deborah Carona.
"Given the dearth of allegations against the sheriff's wife, the government's intentions in joining her in this indictment are abundantly clear get to the sheriff by getting to his family," Wiechert wrote.
Visitors to this site have included the following. They are late because "Black Friday" and its unprecedented internet traffic, or what's known as cyber shopping, blew out quite a few servers on the stat counter Web site.
City of Riverside
County of Riverside
Lewis Operating Corp. (which is a development firm and campaign donor)
Press Enterprise
Belo Enterprises
Partners HealthCare System
University of Connecticut
Naval Command Control & Ocean Surveillance Center
University of Vermont
VTR Banda Ancha S.A. (Chile)
Wells Fargo Bank
AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSIT
Oxford University
Danish Network for Research and Education
Read more about it here.
Maxine Frost has died at the age of 76. She served 40 years on the Riverside Unified School District Board, beginning back when the district became the first in the nation to voluntarily desegregate.
(excerpt)
“Maxine’s cause was education and kids,” said Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, whose first social dinner as a newcomer to Riverside in 1965 was at the Frost home. “She gave her life to that. That’s the way she was.”
I didn't meet her until I attended my first school board meeting in January 1998 to speak in support of a proposal to name the new high school in Orangecrest after Martin Luther King, jr. The auditorium at the Palm Adult School was packed, with Whites sitting on one side and African-Americans sitting on the other in the first week of January, 1998.
Most Whites there spoke against naming the school after King, jr. including several who fretted about their kids not getting into Ivy League schools if it was believed that they were attending a "Black school" and when they finished speaking, the White side of the auditorium would stand up, applaud and sit down again like a wave. When a Black person or an occasional White person spoke in favor of King, the same thing happened on that side. The New York Times took a picture of all of us in the auditorium lit brightly by a spotlight put up by CNN, which aired the meeting live. Riverside usually doesn't get this kind of treatment unless there's controversy and more often than not, it involves race. This was no exception and we bring it upon ourselves.
People were so appalled at the naked racism that was displayed in the Press Enterprise's series "Through the Prism" which addressed race and racism in 1996 through inviting people to write in on various issues surrounding race. Word was, the newspaper hoped to win a Pulitzer Prize but what it and the city saw instead, shocked them into taking some sort of action by initiating the study circles program on race relations which was sponsored by the Office of Neighborhoods and the Community Relations Division.
Interestingly enough, one of the letters in the Prism series was written by a former lieutenant, Ron Orrantia, who's Latino. His letter was written before he and two other men of color who were sergeants at the time filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Their actions were pivotal at the time and would be felt later on as well, particularly with Orrantia and then Sgt. Alex Tortes. But that was later. Not long before Orrantia was allegedly pushed to retire by members of the department's management as one of what was called, "Jerry's Kids".
But it wasn't the police department's turn to be put on display until about a year after the King controversy.
My mother called me up, asking me why I was quoted in the New York Times and I explained what had happened. I had been talking to Maxine about what had happened, when a photographer from that publication took our photograph. She appeared undaunted by all the fanfare surrounding the most recent foray by Riverside into the national news arena and she spoke very well at that meeting as the new school became Martin Luther King, jr. High School. And while I might not be up to snuff as a public speaker today, at least I don't throw up afterward anymore. But few people in positions of power held a candle to her that evening.
On that same night, a long-time minister named Rev. Johnny Harris in the Eastside passed, Congressman Sonny Bono was missing on a skiing holiday and a school was born.
Maxine stepped down this year and was replaced by Tom Hunt in this past election. He's got pretty big shoes to fill.
The arduous recount continues in the Ward One and Ward Seven races in front of candidates, attorneys and other observers.
(excerpt)
Registrar Barbara Dunmore said Ward 1 Councilman Dom Betro’s representatives asked that the recount in his contest be finished today.
"We’re doing everything in our power to accommodate that request,” she said.
At the end of the day, the ballots were recounted in Ward One but more steps will be taken in the face of what's likely to happen next. Apparently, if Mike Gardner indeed wins the election, Betro may file a law suit through his attorney challenging the results. It's no surprise to learn that this election may be tied up indefinitely by civil litigation if you've watched how Betro has handled the daunting prospect that he may have been voted out of office.
(excerpt)
In Ward 1, incumbent Dom Betro has asked that the signatures on the envelopes of all 2,586 absentee ballots in his race be compared with the signatures the registrar has on record to make sure they match. This is in case he decides to file a lawsuit challenging the election results, Betro said.
Because the ballots can no longer be matched to the envelopes, it won’t change the outcome, Riverside County Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore said. That means the city must wait until the signature checking is done to learn who won the Ward 1 race.
Before the recount, sales and marketing executive Mike Gardner was the apparent winner over Betro by seven votes. Gardner said Tuesday he believes he is ahead by six votes.
They say it tells a lot about a person by how they handle the losses in their lives, the setbacks because naturally, these things hurt and sting when they happen. It's something everyone struggles with to varying degrees and how to lose gracefully in competitions might be among the most important lessons most people learn. It's an area that Betro obviously needs to work at. Hasn't he ever lost like the rest of us? But then people in the Betro camp seemed so shocked that he did lose, even stating online that those who voted for Gardner were frightened and intimidated at the time. They seem to think that anyone who didn't vote for their candidate was out of their mind instead of just doing what Betro's supporters did, which was vote for their guy. Only Betro voters were portrayed as people of reason, which means of course that there are at this time, slightly more unreasonable people in Ward One than reasonable ones.
But it's apparently "unreasonable" voters that the city council wants to protect the city from by pushing for city-wide runoff elections, preferably those that are mailin only.
There's certainly an interesting contrast in study between him and Ward Three Councilman Art Gage, the designated "villain" of the dais. Gage has done quite a bit to earn that title especially in regards to his decision to push for eminent domain of a bunch of houses in his ward to further the development of office space by one of the city council's most popular campaign donors, Doug Jacobs, not to mention his foibles against the Community Police Review Commission. He also lost his election pretty early on and didn't have to wait for the conclusion of an arduous vote count and recount so his situation was easier in many ways.
That aside, he hasn't stomped out of city council meetings and rolled his eyes at people he doesn't like who are saying things he probably doesn't agree with. He's not rude to people. He's lost and if he's upset about it, he's not putting it out on display in public, or confusing being voted into office with being entitled to hold that office as long as he wants no matter what the voters say. He hasn't yelled at anyone for asking questions or disagreeing with him and has never been rude to me but has been polite even in disagreement. To his credit, his successor, William "Rusty" Bailey has quietly allowed him to finish out his term.
I probably never would vote for him for several reasons but he's conducted himself the past couple of weeks since his loss as if he's still an elected official with a job to do until he's replaced by the candidate who defeated him. Ward Three might have lost confidence in him but his focus seems to be on finishing his term and moving on with his life. Ward Three's election won't end up tied up in litigation for a judge to decide unlike what might happen in Ward One. But Gage is the "bad" guy and he exits gracefully, when most villains wouldn't. It's not part of the script.
Betro's situation was much different. Less than 10 votes separated him and Gardner through the majority of the initial counting process. That apparently didn't change with the recount as of yet. The ward split wide in half during this election and it wasn't fear or intimidation that made people vote the way that they did. And it wasn't just "two issues". It was a clash between wanting the city to maintain its identity as a medium-sized enclave with a down-home feel and those who wanted a more urbanized look and feel and wanted it yesterday and have acted accordingly. It was also about how people felt about a city that was trying to mirror a county and treat those who elect representatives to office accordingly. It was actually about a lot of things that matter to people in this city, including where it's going from where it's been. But if the elected leadership hasn't figured out what's been going on in the electorate the past couple of years, another opportunity will arise during the next election cycle in 2009 when the voters will issue grades again.
What would be an interesting exercise in close elections would be to see a winner and a narrow loser have to share the title of council representative and reach all decisions and votes through consensus about how best to serve their ward. No ego that runs for an office in a process that often attracts egos would survive that but it would be an interesting way to resolve the issue of having wards that are split almost in half.
Gardner is no savior. He's simply the guy who got the most votes. Twice. And it's up to his ward residents to keep his feet to the fire. I would, if he was my councilman. But he doesn't seem prone to snap at people, charge out of public forums and verbally assault people in public who don't agree with him. Still, it didn't seem that Betro was capable of that when he swept into office four years ago but until someone is in a position of both authority and power, it often can't be predicted how they will act and how they will handle that responsibility.
However, Betro wears his heart and his angst on his sleeve and it's much more visible, which has caused him problems that his handlers should have addressed ages ago. When an ethics complaint was filed against him allegedly for telling activist Kevin Dawson that he'd better pray he didn't get elected, Betro's close supporters didn't challenge that it happened, they simply defended Betro's behavior. What's wrong with that picture?
So Betro's upset with the way the election has gone. Fair enough, but is it enough to tie it up in litigation for an indeterminate amount of time? I guess time will tell if the city does indeed go down this road.
Given that Election 2007 has been a difficult event for many people, I wasn't really all that offended when Betro shook his head at me about 15 seconds into my speech on item #18 which was on city council decorum and then stomped off in a huff. I'm used to it. He's never been particularly nice to me. He seems to be mostly nice to the individuals who he depends upon, as someone told me yesterday after his stormy exit.
Having received the brunt of his anger and pique in front of a large group of people at a public meeting that both of us knew simply for questioning something that he had said, I've seen that part of him. At the time, he had told people that the city was finalizing a contract with an independent contractor and awaiting only the paperwork when in fact, there had been no contract negotiation talks going on for several months because of the city manager's office apparent disinterest in the process or maybe problems with its level of experience as already evidenced through its labor negotiations with the city's bargaining units. It was the city council's job including Betro's to hold the city manager's feet to the fire to do what it had ordered him to do, rather than run interference for its employee when the public starts asking what's going on. It took a while for that to happen for one city council to properly direct its errant employee to get a job done and in the meantime, one of the city's department's that it has invested a fortune in went by the wayside like some forgotten toy.
There's just something fundamentally wrong with that and with trying to say that the opposite is happening. It's dishonest and unfair to the public who trust that a job will be done and it's dishonest and unfair to the individual on the other end of the bargaining table who's trying to practice good faith in the process. It's just not right but I was respectful about it and what I said. I really expected him to be as well.
I didn't deserve his tantrum and his attack, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that he had basically come to a group of his most ardent supporters, criticized them for not speaking out against one of the city's labor unions and then left the meeting without any regard for them. At the time, I had supported much of what he did but not everything. I had not criticized him or attacked him as he did me. I simply had challenged something he said to a group of people who supported him that I knew not to be true. But that didn't matter. He tore into me verbally because I had questioned him and because I had spoke in support of the city's unions right to due process at the negotiation table. His closest supporters had looked at me, with something akin to sorrow in their eyes but they backed him, proving to me that trying to hold governments accountable and getting involved in political campaigns purportedly to do just that, don't mix well. Maybe they're more used to this behavior from their guy than we who aren't members of that group know.
However, the same union that was "bad" in September 2006 because it was suing the CPRC (when it wasn't) donated an amount of money into Betro's campaign that was almost unprecedented. In fact, it financed nearly 10% of his entire campaign coffer by election's end. That's a considerable contribution. The turnaround from lecturing people angrily for not criticizing this union to taking quite a big chunk of its PAC donations didn't seem to faze many people either but if you really want someone to win office because you believe he's the best person or for other reasons, I imagine you overlook a lot of things.
But if Betro's piques of temper in public including several that surprisingly made it through the insulation of the pro-Betro Press Enterprise news section may have impacted the vote in that ward, that wouldn't be surprising. Something his closest supporters should have anticipated instead of telling him it was in the bag.
Ward Seven most definitely won't be finished with its recount today. What's interesting is for all this talk about anomalies and problems in the voting process, all of that concern by this city's elected officials including those on the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting seemed to be aimed solely at the Ward One election and not the other three. Why not problems in Wards Three, Five and Seven? Surely, if an election process is flawed, then every contest overseen by that process would experience problems impacting all the candidates in each race. If it's flawed, it needs to be addressed from that angle, not because several elected officials are unhappy with the results of one election.
But all the fuss was about Ward One, by people who had endorsed Betro and who probably didn't endorse the woman who almost unseated Councilman Steve Adams, which was former mayor, Terry Frizzel. So it's very selective where this concern about election process lies. Very selective indeed.
The Press Enterprise might not provide much indication of it, but the Governmental Affairs meeting was actually well attended for a mid-day session and even video-recorded, despite an objection by Councilman Dom Betro when he saw the camera held by Kevin Dawson from Save-Riverside.
The committee delayed a decision on election changes at the end of the meeting, after a stirring speech by outgoing Councilman Ed Adksion.
But before that, there was the issue of whether or not the meeting could be taped by a member of the public.
"Is approval needed," Betro asked City Attorney Gregory Priamos.
Was he kidding? Surely, Priamos gives city council members a workshop on the Brown Act. I mean, they're required to know the law that they are supposed to adhere to, right?
Priamos said that as long as it was not disruptive, filming could be done and the meeting began on that note. The three elected officials including committee chair, Frank Schiavone looked surprised to see about 10 city residents show up and speak on the issue. It looked like some of them have heard from other individuals on a plan to have the top two vote-getting candidates because first they rushed the process on a Governmental Affairs Committee agenda after a holiday weekend, then they spoke of slowing it down to allow plenty of opportunities for public input. Then they wanted to do a survey but wouldn't say who would be chosen to survey.
It's hard not to remember one allegedly city-wide survey of past years which yielded a majority of its responses from a single zip code from Ward Four.
There was actually mention of a workshop involving the city council and even public hearings. However, the report stated that if an initiative to amend the charter was placed on the ballot, it would be in March next year, which with even more holidays coming upon us, doesn't leave much time to collect public input.
Not so, Schiavone wearing a pretty impressive maroon tie roared. The election dates would be changed! He didn't seem to be as thrilled to enter into some sort of dialogue with the Riverside County Voters' Registrar which the city could be divorcing. Not surprising considering he was running for a county seat on the board of supervisors next year and probably wanted to pick his county appearances and actions wisely. A good political strategy is paramount after all, which puts active elected officials in a bit of a pickle when they are serving one term of office while at the same time, running for a higher elected position. Just ask Adams.
At any rate, Schiavone did most of the talking from his end of the table. City staff on hand included Priamos, Asst. City Attorney Susan Wilson, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis and his palm pilot and City Clerk Colleen Nichols. They spoke when asked to do so.
Ed Adkison gave one of those perfect lame-duck speeches that put it all there. Betro responded by discussing the diversity of his campaign donation portfolio. There wasn't much he could say at a meeting he probably should have excused himself from sitting in due to a conflict of interest. And besides he didn't like some of the comments made by people who attended. "Odd balls" who "spewed" whatever came to their mind.
Schiavone once told me that I behaved myself much better at the podium or in meetings than others that he didn't mention. But you know what? It doesn't matter because everybody who disagrees with them gets treated pretty much the same way through a litany of facial gestures, groans, sighs, shuffling of papers and as of late, getting up and walking out. People who have seen me at meetings are amazed when I tell them how the city council has reacted. The cameras of Charter Communications don't show the other side of the dais when people speak.
Maybe it's time to videotape the city council's behavior and then show it to people the next time it tries to give itself a pay raise.
So Betro spoke of the diversity of his campaign porfolio and given that each development firm is broken down into multiple donors including "individuals" who are president or vice-presidents of these firms, that still counts them as individuals.
It was Gardner, who was elected by special interests narrowed to downtown. I found that interesting. I mean, downtown's got the lionshare of Betro's attention and supposedly, they're crowding around the other guy?
That's also interesting considering that about 10% of Betro's $200,000 came from a single donor, a local labor union, and that at least 20 donors represented development firms from Beverly Hills, Fontana, Tustin and Thousand Oaks among other places including several who have visited this site in the past couple of days. Some of these firms dumped quite a bit of change in his campaign and those of others, especially Adams and they aren't Riverside businesses nor are they Riverside individuals.
Betro attributed Gardner's support to consisting only of some folks downtown which is interesting because the two major downtown organizations, DANA and the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership are strongly in Betro's camp and some say they exert the most power and influence downtown. Also the Greater Chamber of Commerce staunchly supported Betro and it's a big player downtown as is Mission Inn owner Duane Roberts who well, you know. Gardner's support actually was fairly widespread even if he didn't raise as much money. His donations were much smaller in size and far fewer of them were development firms from out of town including those which have gained land on which to build them from property owners who were pushed to sell their properties under threat of eminent domain by the city's redevelopment agency or if they weren't in a designated zone, by the City Council itself.
Governmental Affairs never disappoints when it comes to drama and this time was no different. Schiavone threw out some interesting strawmen about conspiracies being implied. Sometimes it seems they get too defensive. It's like Robert Redford said in All the President's Men said, "they volunteered that he was innocent when nobody asked, was he guilty."
Betro cried that elected officials should not be abused. I agree. Neither should members of the public be so treated by elected officials that their tax dollars pay to employ. And I was, even though I had done nothing to deserve it. But I'm not the only person who initially supported him that was treated that way, when disagreement on an issue or an event arose.
I guess Adkison's speech on why the rush on these twin agenda items made some impact because it's going back to the newly sworn in city council.
But you know what? The truth is in the pudding and that's what happened here. When asked what cities used a similar city-wide election process, Stockton was invoked.
And why did Stockton adopt such a process? It adopted it because the current city council was upset with one of its members and essentialy wanted him or her off the dais. This was, they must have thought, one way to accomplish that. So our city is basically jumping on the wagon of something done by a city that pushed through an election change that was instituted to clear the dais of minority dissent.
I'm amazed that someone actually told that story. But then again, Governmental Affairs is known for its drama and its revelations. That was a good one on the grading scale.
At Yahoo, Riverside, California came up as one of the most popular places to search for foreclosures. About 2,507 of them listed at the site.
According to the Press Enterprise, there is a probe being sought into the San Bernardino election.
(excerpt)
Rick Avila, who came in third Nov. 6 for the Ward 5 San Bernardino City Council seat, said he believes there were some discrepancies in the election and is seeking a recount.
But he said the cost of about $8,100 a day is prohibitive. By comparison, Riverside County is charging about $400 a day for a recount in the Ward 7 Riverside City Council race.
"I want to know why it costs 2,025 percent more than Riverside," Avila said. "Is that a deterrent?"
San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said the estimate provided to Avila is based on a full hand recount. The charges reflect the county's costs and vary according to what kind of recount is requested, he said.
In Riverside County, candidates who request a recount are charged about $400 a day for the four members of the recount board. San Bernardino County charges for the registrar, assistant registrar and three election technicians' time as well.
The Metropolitan News-Enterprise wrote an interesting article about about a recent decision on Pitchess Motions by the California State Supreme Court. A Pitchess motion is filed by a civil or criminal attorney to petition the court for a in camera hearing to determine if information about citizen complaints can be released from peace officers' records and if so, to what extent.
(excerpt)
Justice Carol Corrigan, writing for the Supreme Court, agreed.
“We adopt the rule formulated by the Court of Appeal for this narrow factual situation,” she said. “When complainant information has been ordered disclosed to counsel who, when later representing a different defendant, succeeds under Pitchess in discovering the same complainant information relating to the same officer, counsel may then refer to the derivative information uncovered as part of the earlier follow-up investigation.”
Noting that the protective order was designed to ensure that disclosure of confidential information be limited to the proceeding in which the disclosure was ordered, she said:
“Once a subsequent defendant obtains that same information under a valid Pitchess order, there is little justification for precluding review of derivative information…
“This approach is consistent with the purpose of the Pitchess scheme to balance the police officer’s privacy interest in his or her personnel records with the criminal defendant’s interest in obtaining all pertinent information.”
Corrigan was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justices Joyce L. Kennard, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, and Ming W. Chin.
Justices Carlos Moreno and Marvin R. Baxter filed separate concurring opinions.
Baxter said that he saw no reason to distinguish between direct and derivative “use.”
“Otherwise,” he said, “counsel could win Pitchess disclosure against an officer in one case, obtain derivative information as a result, then invade the hapless officer’s confidential file again and again… simply by bringing an infinite number of subsequent Pitchess motions, using the previously obtained information to demonstrate the need for new disclosure.”
Arguing from a standpoint of judicial efficiency, Moreno said that Sec. 1045 allows defendants Pitchess discovery in any court proceeding, and that making the same Pitchess determination repeatedly would force attorneys and judges to “reinvent the wheel” with each new request regarding the same officer.
Deputy Public Defender Matthew Braner, the defendant’s appellate counsel, said his client was “pretty happy” with the decision, and said that the court had made a very cumbersome process less so.
Deputy San Diego City Attorney David M. Stotland said that his office had wished for a different outcome. Nevertheless, he said, the decision codified what public defenders have been doing in the last few years, and he noted that the position adopted by the court was the same position that the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office had advocated as amicus curiae.
Other documents on this case and its implications are below.
Text from Chambers v San Diego County Superior Court decision.
Chambers May 4, 2006 appellate decision
League of California Cities amicus curiae brief
Minneapolis has settled a law suit for $4.5 million filed by one of its police officers after he had been shot by a fellow officer, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
(excerpt)
Early on the morning of Feb. 25, 2003, Duy Ngo was working undercover in the central neighborhood in south Minneapolis.
He was sitting in a car when a man approached and shot him in the chest through the car's windshield. Luckily, Ngo was wearing a bulletproof vest. He called in the shooting and tried to give chase, but was winded and stopped to catch his breath.
As he lay in an alley, officer Charles Storlie approached him. Police accounts say Ngo was holding a gun and that Storlie called out to Ngo before he shot him with a submachine gun. But, other accounts say Ngo was easily identifiable as an officer and was waving his arms.
Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson says the Ngo incident underscores the fact that sometimes police officers have to make split-second, life or death decisions.
"By approving this agreement ... we hope to close this chapter -- recognizing that for these two officers, life will never be the same."
- City Council President Barb Johnson"I just want us to reflect on the fact that the men and women of the Minneapolis Police Department put themselves in harm's way to defend us. Unfortunately, sometimes these life and death situations end in the worst possible way," said Johnson. "By approving this agreement today, which I'm going to recommend, we hope to close this chapter -- recognizing that for these two officers, life will never be the same."
The shooting left Ngo with a mangled left arm and damage to his groin. He still works part time for the Minneapolis Police Department.
"We were pleased the city council approved the settlement that was worked out through U.S. magistrate Judge Boylan in St. Paul," said Ngo's attorney Bob Bennett. "We had met earlier with representatives from the city, both the city attorney and council president Barbara Johnson."
In Bolingbrook, former Sgt. Drew Peterson is hailing the decision of the FBI to join in the search for his missing wife, Stacey, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In Chicago, a man who spent years in prison for a rape he didn't commit is now suing the city and its police department according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
In the suit, Marlon Pendleton alleged that detectives mishandled the police lineup procedure and that a lab analyst prepared an incomplete report claiming DNA evidence was insufficient to test.
Independent experts determined that the DNA was sufficient for valid testing and the test was completed. The evidence from that test freed Pendleton late last year.
"What this lawsuit is about is yet another example of a miscarriage of justice produced by egregious failures on the part of the Chicago Police Department," said Locke Bowman, one of Pendleton's attorneys and legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the Northwestern University School.
Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona's wife, Deborah, wants out of the federal corruption case.
(excerpt, Belo Blog)
Deborah Carona, 56, wants a federal judge to order prosecutors to specify actions that led to the charge, according to a motion filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Julian said his office will oppose the motion during a Dec. 17 hearing.
Defense attorney David Wiechert said in court documents that he plans to file a series of motions challenging the claim against Deborah Carona.
"Given the dearth of allegations against the sheriff's wife, the government's intentions in joining her in this indictment are abundantly clear get to the sheriff by getting to his family," Wiechert wrote.
Visitors to this site have included the following. They are late because "Black Friday" and its unprecedented internet traffic, or what's known as cyber shopping, blew out quite a few servers on the stat counter Web site.
City of Riverside
County of Riverside
Lewis Operating Corp. (which is a development firm and campaign donor)
Press Enterprise
Belo Enterprises
Partners HealthCare System
University of Connecticut
Naval Command Control & Ocean Surveillance Center
University of Vermont
VTR Banda Ancha S.A. (Chile)
Wells Fargo Bank
AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSIT
Oxford University
Danish Network for Research and Education
Labels: battering while blue, City elections, City Hall blues, corruption 101, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 12:08 PM
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