Happy Holidays!

Doug Hastings: Shall we dance?


----Strictly Ballroom




With Riverside like everywhere else settling in for the holidays, even politics takes a break.

Election recounts will begin next week and the city council will resume its meetings, so watch for the agendas to be posted online and at City Hall by Friday to find out what meetings and what agenda items are coming to you soon.

On Friday evening, the city will have its annual lighting of the Mission Inn Hotel special event. Tens of thousands of people will pack downtown to watch a switch get flipped. The ice skating rink is supposed to be frozen over by then but with Santa Anas expected to pick up, that might complicate that issue.

Perhaps the quartet of ice dancing police officers who conducted clandestine practices last year will return, in sequins and sparkles this year. Hopefully, event planner, Belinda Graham won't order the non-figure skating police division to remove youth choirs while they are performing carols for visiting dignitaries.

Hopefully, all the elected officials and other dignitaries will submit the appropriate names and titles of their companions so that some of the confusion which resulted during one of the introductions last year are not repeated this year.



In Lawrenceburg, Indiana, the police department's SWAT Team raided the wrong home and left the owner to clean up the mess according to WLWT Television.


(excerpt)


It looked like my apartment was on fire. The smoke was just blowing out of my windows," Kayla Irwin, the tenant of 407G said.

Irwin, a single mother of two, said she is unable to live in her apartment and didn’t even know the the man sought by police, who said Deaton had left the apartment before officers arrived.

Now, she said, she has been left with the mess and no apology.

"It's all covered with poison. I don't know where to start over with two kids," said Irwin. "How do you start with replacing the items that your kids have had since the day they were born?"

She said one of her pet guinea pigs was also killed during the incident.

Neighbors said the police action was simply overkill.

"Overpowered. In my opinion it looked like they were enjoying what they were doing. They did not need to do all this," Emanuel Brightwell, an Iraq veteran and neighbor said.

Irwin said she appealed to the police, but hasn’t gotten anywhere.

"They basically just said, sorry for the inconvenience. Go ahead and clean it up. Clean up our mess," Irwin said.





The Orange County Board of Supervisors revoked a provision to allow Sheriff Michael Carona to relax promotional standards when appointing two men to fill assistant sheriff positions, according to the Los Angeles Times. One was working at the rank of lieutenant but had the exemplary qualification of having run his campaign and the other was a businessman.


The board felt it was necessary to remedy the situation.



(excerpt)



"We're reinstating some good personnel practices," said Supervisor Bill Campbell of the unanimous vote.

As sheriff-elect, Carona sought the waiver to relax the department's requirements so he could appoint George Jaramillo, a retired police lieutenant and Carona's campaign manager, and Donald Haidl, an Orange County businessman, as assistant sheriffs.


Neither man met the job qualification that required him to have served as a department captain for at least two years.

Supervisor John Moorlach, who made the motion to reinstate the stiffer requirements, said it became apparent to the board that had the waiver never been approved, "maybe our current problems might have been avoided."

"When it's easier to become an assistant sheriff than it is a captain, there's a problem," Moorlach said.



Carona as you know has been indicted along with his wife and his girlfriend on corruption charges in relation to how he ran the sheriff's department.





Bolingbrook Police Chief Ray McGury said that Sgt. Drew Peterson had disgraced the police department according to the Chicago Tribune.



McGury was upset with the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners' decision to accept Peterson's recommendation because this means that he will be unable to recommend that Peterson be disciplined after the outcome of the department's internal investigation.


(excerpt)


The board recognizes the seriousness of the charges presented by the chief," commission attorney Kathleen Elliott said, reading a statement. "Unfortunately, the board is without jurisdiction. ... Peterson's resignation was effective immediately when tendered, and therefore he is no longer a member of the Police Department and no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the board."

McGury said he would have "cherished the opportunity" to discuss the internal investigation with board members. He would not discuss the alleged violations, but said they occurred over a year and were serious enough to warrant termination.



He did not say what the investigation was about but noted that Peterson was suspended several months ago for showing a "lack of serious judgment" in a pursuit.

McGury said that he plans to take his issue to State Attorney General James Glasgow, the official who had recommended the reopening of the investigation into the death of Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio.






Another woman came forward, saying that Peterson had stalked her after she broke off with him, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.



(excerpt)


In the end, though, Kyle Piry resisted the mature charms of a man who has persuaded four other women to become Mrs. Peterson. But rebuffing the Bolingbrook police officer in the early 1980s came with a price, Piry, 46, told the Chicago Sun-Times this week.

"He would follow me and stalk me after I broke up with him," Piry said. "He would pull me over on a Friday or Saturday night and give me tickets for stupid stuff, like bald tires. They were ridiculous things."

At one point, Peterson came to the Bolingbrook hair salon where Piry worked and arrested her for accumulating too many parking tickets -- a trumped-up charge, Piry says.

Piry said she had to talk to some of Peterson's cop friends to persuade her ex-fiance to drop the charges.

Drew Peterson refused to discuss his relationship with Piry.

"You guys are reaching," he told the Sun-Times late Tuesday. "I remember her. I was engaged to her."




Home Sweet Home has been blogging on the Peterson case. As is Writer's Reviews.




Since the Riverside County Board of Supervisors appointed Stan Sniff as the new sheriff, he's made staffing changes and some who worked closely under former Sheriff, Bob Doyle may still be coming to another county department near you.



Happy Thanksgiving!