Election 2007: Who represents and who decides?

It's official.

The internet might be completely filled up by 2010. So you better enjoy it while the information highway is not yet as crowded as our regular highways have become.

But until that day comes, there's plenty of Riverside happenings to disseminate and as it turns out, Election 2007, potentially marketed as Days of Our Elections or the Young and the Elected, might be the one that never gets away without more in the way of excitement.




"But just don't look too close into the palm of my hand.

We stood at the alter the gypsy swore our future was right.

But come the wee wee hours maybe baby the gypsy lied."

---Bruce Springstein, "Brilliant Disguise"

Even though there has just been a major extended holiday celebrated in this city not to mention the country, a lot of political intrigue has been taking place, enough to fill several seasons of a reality show based on this city and its events. Because the Writers' Guild of America is currently on strike, there is a wealth of both game shows and reality shows being planned to fill the television airwaves in lieu of fresh programs written by guild members. Consequently, the producers of many of these television shows are looking for fresh ideas for really good reality shows which would garner high network ratings and command impressive advertising rates.

They need not come to any better location than Riverside. There's a wealth of excellent possibilities for high-quality reality show hours here, within the walls of City Hall.

City Hall antics in Riverside are ripe fodder for both types of programming. In fact, it would be a hard decision for any producer to make to decide which genre to use when bringing the latest chapter of Election 2007, River City style, to a television audience. Perhaps, they could mix the two and throw in a little daytime serial format and some musical numbers to move the multiple storylines along.

Start first with the seventh floor of City Hall proper where a very pressing committee meeting is to be held this week among the slightly-below-quorum membership of the city council.



As you know, the Governmental Affairs Committee is holding a clandestine of sorts meeting right after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This meeting will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27 on the Seventh floor in the Mayor's Ceremonial room. Why it's not technically a secret meeting because the Brown Act doesn't allow such things, the public was not really given much notice about a meeting that could become the beginning of what could impact elections in Riverside in the future. In fact, it's a given that the most notice that most city residents will have about this meeting will be Monday or later, due to the extended holiday weekend. So it still has this clandestine feel to it even though the first thing mentioned at this meeting will be about how open and public it is and how everyone in the city has received every possible notice about it except perhaps for something sky-written.

That's by design not by accident. After all, there's no rush to put the election on the Governmental Affairs Committee agenda, because for one thing, the results haven't been finalized yet. There's still time, but then if there's time, more people would find out about it and come to meetings to question both the plans and the intentions of those who would rush an agenda item out and not provide much notice about it ahead of time. And that's not very popular with city council members sitting on these committees who would rather play to people off the Rolodex or if not that, empty houses.

The dashing duo formerly known as "FRED" have shown once again that political minds think alike and placed two items on the agenda of this committee which address the issue of the "conduct" of elections and the "time" when they'll take place. Synchronicity at work? Perhaps, perhaps not, though state law requires it be the former and not anything else, lest there be an issue of serial meetings.

But what happens at these committee meetings is how quickly the agenda topics go sideways. A minute, maybe two into the meeting. New ideas that seem pure inspiration as quickly realized as a lightning bolt flashes across a stormy sky, but in reality, very much rehearsed. Somebody gets a "brilliant idea" that was perhaps born at a restaurant, not at City Hall.

One thing to look for that you don't want to see come out of this impromptu discussion is if two former GASS quartet (and current BASS quartet) members, Frank Schiavone and Ed Adkison dust off and resurrect plans to try and impose a two-tier election structure on this city's voters. This plan was proposed several years ago and roundly rejected as if it were on The Gong Show. However, that was before the utter catastrophic turnabout of Election 2007 or what was seen as one by some serious power brokers in this city when it didn't go their way. But hopefully, these two men are smart enough to know that city-wide voting for ward representation is not in the best interests of ward residents and this dreadful plan won't be reintroduced. But you just never know about such things in this town.

The process reads something like this.

The first round of voting, which is the preliminary round, will either elect a winner or in the absence of a clear winner (who has received at least 50% of the vote), send two top vote-getting candidates to the final round to be held months later. During this "primary" round, the ward residents will cast the votes.

The final round will be between the two top vote getters, but the winner will be chosen by voting residents from all the city's wards not the wards where the candidates are running.


This would take elections out of the hands of ward residents and into the hand of power brokers, quartet builders and all other chess players. This would largely impact the low-turnout wards on the southern side of the city who essentially would have their city council representatives elected by other people. It's a measure to try to ensure that ward representation by elected officials is superseded by city representation and that usually caters to special interest groups namely development interests over city residents. It also could impact how elections are decided in the city's wards which have large Latino representation in their residential and voting demographics including Wards Six and Seven. Meaning that this could be a response by White power brokers against the reality that Riverside is essentially a majority minority city.

Is lower turnout for elections a problem? Yes, in every ward and in some more so than others, but there's better ways to address this issue that are more conducive to living in a democratic republic.

The city already has a city-wide representative. It's called the mayor's office. Though technically not allowed to vote on agenda items, he or she does exercise veto power when he or she is so inclined. And he has a show he takes on the road year-round.

It's difficult not to see this scenario take place unless it's a case of a group of elected officials trying to get "team players" elected while essentially losing its team as probably happened here. This discussion will be taking place among three of these "team players" including one who came up short with the votes needed to win a second term as an elected representative. I dare say if this individual won and the same complaints came in about the voting process, that this same committee would not touch the issue with a ten foot pole and I think I'm right.

And that's the problem with Riverside's political process, is that there are different "teams" out there working so hard to get people elected whether they live in the wards in question or not and different teams trying to unseat other teams and take over the voting majority so that these teams and their supporters can push their agenda forward without much discussion or debate. Somehow, those two words, "discussion" and "debate" have been interchanged with "divisive" and "being part of the solution and not part of the problem" phrases that have been converted into sound bytes parroted about town from one public forum to the next whenever anybody raises a concern or issue.

But these teams forgot to run their intentions past the vast majority of the electorate in this city and then seemed bewildered when voters went the way that their own polls had predicted even if they didn't want to admit that.


The problem is, there hasn't been a quartet yet that's truly represented residents in this city. Which is why most of them don't last longer than one or two election cycles. GASS which was Schiavone, Gage, Adkison and Steve Adams lasted about two election cycles. BASS, which is where Betro was essentially substituted for Gage beginning in mid-2005 with the vote to ban the public from pulling items from the consent calendar, took a pretty good beating after just one. It won't last through two election cycles.

If that's why the rules are proposed to be changed for voting in this city, then it's not about enfranchising people and wards, but about looking out for select interests at the expense of ward representation.

But this process and the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting have reality show written all over them. There just needs to be a better title than Governmental Affairs, which of course can mean all kinds of things. Flashy clothing. Spotlights galore in the Mayor's Ceremonial Chamber and perhaps, an ice skating rink.


Bonus points to all of those who last March said that the Governmental Affairs Committee's proposed changes to the policy and procedures governing city council meetings that it passed back then would not come back to the city council until after the election. And indeed nary a month after the finals of Election 2007, the city council will likely vote to do just that after the issue stagnated for eight months. Usually if an issue takes that long to cross over into a wider public arena, it's in the "lost" pile.

At that Governmental Affairs Committee meeting, The motion to implement these proposed amendments was pushed by committee chair, Frank Schiavone and seconded by Betro before being approved. They sat fallow for over eight months until being sprung on an unwary public after a long holiday weekend and of course, the elections.


Sometimes it appears that the only thing remaining that is transparent about this government is its strategic tactics, which makes for excellent blogging opportunities.








"You can't communicate with them because they're not hearing what you have to say. You can't reason with them. They may say they see a monster there and you're not going to convince them otherwise."



---Lt. Vance Hardin, head of the training division, Riverside Police Department to the Press Enterprise.




"I felt finally the Riverside Police Department had swallowed its pride."



---Dr. Ron Bailey, M.D. said to the Press Enterprise.







In the Inland Empire, the implementation of programs to train officers to interface with mentally ill people are becoming more popular among different law enforcement agencies in the Inland Empire, according to the Press Enterprise.


The Riverside Police Department's training team has been reporting to the Public Safety Committee on a regular basis regarding the progression of both its new POST certified training program and its partnerships with Riverside County's mental health agencies.

The police department began examining this issue after the fatal incidents involving both Terry Rabb who died after being restrained by two police officers while suffering from what doctors call, "hypoglycemic unawareness" and Lee Deante Brown who was shot to death by a police officer while apparently suffering a psychotic episode. Three law suits arose from those two fatal incidents.



(excerpt)


Officers responding to a call have no idea what to expect. The person could be hearing voices, feeling paranoid or be suicidal. He can be violent or not able to respond to the officer's orders.

Before the new approach, officers had limited options that included detaining the person and taking him to a mental-health facility for a 72-hour evaluation. On rare occasions, the person ended up shot.

Riverside has been sued by families of people killed by police and has paid out thousands of dollars in settlements. A lawsuit has been filed against the city in the death of Lee Deante Brown as the Community Police Review Commission finishes its report on the case. The commissioners voted 6-1 that the shooting was within department policy.

Brown was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and had a history of drug arrests. When police encountered him he was yelling for "Mariah." The police say he got a hold of a Taser and was threatening an officer when he was shot and killed.



The department is still trying to work with the county to put its response teams together but there's been problems trying to find volunteers from mental health to staff them particularly on shifts that aren't during the day. One volunteer has come forward so far. On the police department's side, about 130 police officers have done the 30 hour core training with the training expected to be completed by December 2008.

The shortage of volunteer community service people on similar teams isn't unheard of, in fact it's a situation many of these programs from Birmingham, Alabama to several in Los Angeles County struggle with. Hopefully, Riverside can work through that tough period for an important program. Its number of crisis trained officers will outnumber those in most law enforcement agencies that have similar programs in place.




You can still discuss Election 2007 which will begin recounts in two wards tomorrow here. Recounts as announced begin tomorrow for the Ward One and Ward Seven contests, with the results expected to be announced after several days.




The first year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Sean Bell by New York City Police Department officers was remembered through a candlelit vigil, according to the New York Daily News.

The midnight vigil which will be followed by a march at 6 a.m. to a church attracted Bell’s family, friends and others who felt compelled to remember him.



(excerpt)



Several people at the vigil said that though they did not know Bell, they came out in the bitter cold to demand justice for a man whose life was tragically cut short.

"We shouldn't have to be here tonight, but we're here," Joseph Reaves, 22, said. "We have to make sure his death was not in vain."

Nelson Estrella, 38, of Ozone Park brought two of his young triplets to the vigil.
"I just came because I wanted to support him," Estrella said. "The way this young man lost his life, it's just a tragedy."



Are 9-11 workers seeking medical compensation being scared by their own lawyers into settling? This is the question being asked by the New York Daily News after noticing that the law firm that is doing this has used similar tactics on other litigants in the past.



(excerpt)



Lawyer Marc Bern sent a letter to 9/11 workers last month urging them to give his firm permission to negotiate a deal with the city to divide up $1 billion in federal money available to settle their claims.

Bern told 8,000 workers who blame their respiratory ailments on the time they spent working at Ground Zero that they might have to find another lawyer if they don't take a payout now. He warned that prolonging the case would rack up lawyer fees and expenses, siphoning off up to 40% of the payout.

"You get your money now," he wrote. "Your litigation costs are much lower now than they would be if you took your case to trial."




It sounds like what 18 Riverside city employee were told by their own attorneys who represented them in a racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit against City Hall that was filed in 1997. Many of them dropped off the case after receiving letters threatening them with attorneys’ fees generated by the city’s own attorneys if they lost their case at trial or received a verdict that was smaller than the settlement offers, because they were afraid they would lose their abilities to provide for their families if forced to pay these fees.

Five plaintiffs eventually settled their law suits almost 10 years after they were first filed and over 15 years after complaints about racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation were raised in many city departments including public works, public utilities and the human resources department.

In a way, it’s similar to what happens when a SLAPP law suit is filed and the city of Riverside’s legal defense teams are very familiar with that tactic, having used it on Ken Stansbury and Riversiders for Property Rights, a group that was essentially paid off by the city to disband or face thousands of dollars in the city’s legal fees.





Police ask for your help in finding Stacey Peterson, so states the Chicago Sun-Times.




A man from El Salvador who entered into law enforcement to improve his community was arrested and will be deported because he was an undocumented immigrant.


(excerpt, Chicago Sun-Times)




His father's cousin Carmen, who lived in Chicago, would allow Ayala to take the identity of her son, Jose Morales, who was born five months after Ayala in Illinois and died about age 7.

Before his junior year, Ayala, calling himself Morales, switched high schools. The 16-year-old cut his hair, replaced his glasses with contacts and got braces.

He was nervous that his true identity would be discovered when he applied to be a police aide at 17, but he had established a work history. After he graduated in 2001, he entered the police aide program and stopped looking over his shoulder.

''Everybody at work, people at school, everyone I met would call me Jose, so eventually that was me,'' he said.

He became an officer in December 2004, about 10 months after his father died. Eventually, he worked in the same district as his brother Alex, a fellow officer born in the United States. And he found it rewarding.

Ayala says he never told anyone about the switch, but on Feb. 20, an anonymous caller informed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of Ayala's true identity.

Ayala was arrested May 31.


''I thought I was going to retire and live happily ever after, pay my taxes and all,'' he said.




Riverside County has a commission on women's issues. More information about what it's doing and some public hearings planned next summer is here.