Riverside: A tale of two elections
Here are some quotes floating around cyberspace.
“There’s no use spending $200,000 for a $40,000 job.”
---Ward One Councilman-elect Mike Gardner, to Press Enterprise
“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.”
---Sydney J. Harris
“If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.”
---Will Rogers
"He used to tell my mother that he could kill her and make it look like an accident. "
---“Lisa”, daughter of Sgt. Drew Peterson’s second wife
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
--- H.P. Lovecraft
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
---- Samuel Coleridge
"Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach."
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership."
---Dwight D. Eisenhower, president of the United States
“Was that why you became a cop? To get even?”
---Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential
“How come all your friends are on their way to bein' someone else?”
---One of Switzerland’s finest
”Hey Mary, since your so smart and all of your subject matter is too intellectual for us, may I ask what experiences you have in the area of labor management and law enforcement union activities?”
---Anonymous, here, July 2006
Riverside City Council
The Press Enterprise article today stated that Mike Gardner defeated incumbent Dom Betro by seven votes. It goes without saying but it has been said by the camp of Betro that there will be a recount. In close elections, that’s always a good idea to be absolutely sure.
(excerpt)
Gardner said he believes several key issues swung the election in his favor.
He said he opposed plans to develop a housing community on open space at the former Tequesquite arroyo, a plan Betro initially favored. Gardner said he also has reservations about a proposal to put a six-story multi-use building across from the historic Fox Theater and wants to revise Riverside's paid-parking program downtown.
"I think there were bona-fide issues that people cared about and were given a choice," he said.
Betro released a statement vowing to continue his bid for another term. He declined to talk by phone.
"Unfortunately the fight for a hopeful future for Ward 1 and the City of Riverside must continue," Betro wrote in an e-mail.
At any rate, the tallies for all four races are here.
Ward One 23/3 100%
Mike Gardner: 2,311 50.08%
Dom Betro: 2,304 49,92%
Ward Three 23/23 100%
William “Rusty” Bailey: 2,773 56.64%
Art Gage: 2,123 43.36%
Ward Five 22/22 100%
Chris MacArthur: 2,146 57.73%
Donna Doty Michalka 1,584 42.27%
Ward Seven 19/19
Steve Adams: 1,337 50.24%
Terry Frizzel: 1,324 49.76%
With most of Election 2007 behind the city except for a recount or two, there's been much discussion about what happened involving the ouster of two incumbents, Betro and Art Gage, who once shared dreams of even higher office with Inland Empire Magazine. Both have been replaced by political neophytes Gardner and William "Rusty" Bailey. Also nearly ousted was Ward Seven Councilman Steve Adams who took his focus away from his ward where it was needed to run for state assembly about a year ago. He carried his ward by a scant 13 votes.
Bailey is the newest to the fray of city council elections but was endorsed as a "team player" by four city council members and Mayor Ron Loveridge and received most of those endorsements before he even filed papers early last year. The problem with that strategy is that the "team player" got elected but part of the team was gone and others on that particular "team" received some notice of how the voters in this city felt about that concept.
Gardner, on the other hand, had launched an unremarkable run for office in 2003 while serving on the Community Police Review Commission. He sat at home while then-grass roots candidate Betro nipped local prosecutor, Paul Fick at the wire to win Ward One to great fanfare seldom seen in Riverside politics. Betro's come from behind win so impressed those on the dais that even members of what would become known as the GASS quartet appeared at his celebration party at Zacatecas.
The problem is, that Betro then for whatever reason tried to become something he wasn't, a big-time player. Maybe the turning point for the Team Betro was when they futilely tried to stop the tide waged by the GASS quartet to oust former city manager, George Carvalho in 2004. It's difficult to get anything done or make a name for yourself in a 4-3 world. Who led that rowdy protest at the city council meeting during the period of Carvalho's firing? The same people who incidentally are complaining that city residents are too rowdy at meetings now.
The foot soldiers in Betro's camp began to split off and formed at least three grass-roots groups in the past several years. When news came that the city including Betro was planning to sell off portions of Tequesquite Park and put housing on the land, a grass-roots campaign to save the park began to hit many public venues. That movement was led by Gardner who decided to run for the council seat occupied by Betro. As a result, a new grass-roots campaign began to oust an elected official who likely had lost track with his grass roots. After all, Betro once complained at a meeting at the Coffee Depot that it was the developers who were knocking down his office door not his "allies" as he called them. The core people around Betro were beginning to isolate themselves to the point where they didn't even recognize or remember who their own foot soldiers on the earlier campaign had been. They clearly had more important things to do.
The election process in Ward One was about to come full circle.
After all, Betro's campaign disclosures included at least 20 development firms, many from outside Riverside County, including those based in cities including Tustin, Anaheim and Newport Beach, which had faced citizen-backed efforts to limit their growth and thus development. Riverside was their destination of choice, as it had no measures and in fact, had filed a SLAPP suit against the one community organization trying to bring the issue of Eminent Domain to the city's voters. The city was in turn being sued by other individuals and community organizations to adhere to the growth-control measures already passed by the voters.
During the summer, Betro tried to spearhead himself as the leader of improvement efforts by heading task forces for both Tequesquite and Fairmount Parks, but the committees themselves weren't really representative of either people in Ward One or people using the parks under discussion, unless the only people who comprise either are White, and mostly older people.
Gage never recovered from his ill-fated foray into trying to push for the removal of home owners from a neighborhood near the Riverside Plaza to clear space for local developer and multi-campaign contributor, Doug Jacobs to build more office space, even at one time saying it was for the people's good to move due to air pollution and other problems in this tiny, triangular shaped area.
To no one's surprise, Bailey sailed right on in Gage's seat by a large margin. Most of the support apparently came in the last few weeks of the election.
But ironically, Bailey's huge success drove a nail in Betro's own campaign given that many people in Betro's campaign spent time putting a lot of energy into Bailey's, perhaps believing that was where it was truly needed and Betro's election was a given.
But they were wrong. And it's expected that a recount of votes in the Ward One race will show the same thing. The other irony is that if Betro had stuck to his grass-roots instead of divorcing them to move up the political ladder, he probably would have won during the preliminary round of Election 2007. Even Gardner said that if he had done certain things, he wouldn't have run. Betro's team took that as a concession by Gardner about Betro's superiority as a councilman. Instead, it was a reflection of the overall mood of Ward One, a mood that was played out at the voting polls during the final round of Riverside's very own Election 2007 last week.
Riverside Police Officers' Association Election
"Whenever the police department has found me wrong, the commission has found me right. I like the commission."
---RPOA President-elect Det. Chris Lanzillo, CPRC workshop, March 24, 2004
"At-will employees fear losing their jobs so they often become yes men. "
---Current RPOA President Det. Ken Tutwiler, city council meeting, March 2007
On Thursday, there was a sumptuous luncheon hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where the keynote speakers were Sheriff Stan Sniff and Riverside Police Department Lt. Larry Gonzalez. Their presentations on the organization and goal plan of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and the injunction filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's office against the Eastside Riva gang were greeted with questions.
But one of the nonagenda topics of yesterday in Riverside was what one person referred to as the stunning chain of events involving the recent elections conducted by the Riverside Police Officers' Association. The union which is comprised of officers, detectives and sergeants recently elected its president for the next two years. Conventional wisdom was that the popular Det. Ken Tutwiler would like his predecessor Sgt. Pat McCarthy be elected to a second term. Tutwiler has made inroads with several communities in Riverside that are almost historic in context. Unfortunately for him, it's not the communities who elect him, it's his union. Did Tutwiler's connections that he built with community leaders hurt his chances? The truth to that probably won't be known until communities see whether or not Tutwiler's successor builds upon what's been initiated and continues forward.
Still, after the union had garnered one of its most beneficial labor contracts in recent history for both its officer and supervisory units and added more than three dozen positions to its ranks, Tutwiler seemed to be in good standing, with his men and women. However in an insulated, isolated culture like that of a police department, often a lot of subtext is missed which is clearly the case here. As the officer who announced the results said, obviously there was a lot going on in the union that many people outside of it missed. At the end of the voting period, Det. Chris Lanzillo, the former vice-president of the RPOA was elected by his peers.
Documents involving labor contracts by both units in the RPOA are below.
RPOA Officer Unit
RPOA Supervisory Unit
In 2005, there was some discussion here by anonymous individuals about the election that was conducted that year by the union and obviously some disagreement about the candidates in that so-and-so was the one and so-and-so sucked. So there was clearly turmoil in the ranks then as well that the last round of elections didn't remedy.
Whatever the dynamics in the cloistered union, a message was clearly sent to the management of the department through this election about which direction the department will be going in during Lanzillo's term. And how will the police chief and the management team respond?
Many people might be surprised by this result but I'm not one of them. I saw this one coming both there and in here. In fact, the union election results answered some questions even as individuals said the process begged more about the department's direction.
Still, it will be interesting to see what happens next in that corner of Riverside. Was this election a natural progressive step towards continued reform or is it the inevitable backlash by a very young, inexperienced union chafing under what it feels are too many restraints?
That question is one that should be answered fairly quickly.
A plan for addressing electric rates which had been repealed by the city council received wide support from business owners even though it involved residential rates.
(excerpt)
A number of business owners spoke in favor of the proposal, saying it was needed to pay for projects that would increase the reliability of the city's electric system and help avoid rolling blackouts in summer.
The city utility expects rolling blackouts by summer 2010 unless it builds the second half of a power plant and a second substation and transmission lines to connect to the state power grid.
The Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce board voted in favor of the new rate proposal, Chairman Craig Blunden said.
"Rolling blackouts are not an option," he said.
Resident Ken Rotker, whose complaints about his summer bills helped trigger the repeal of the old rate increase, said he wanted to take a closer look at the new rate structure but at first blush it looked fair to residential customers.
"It's a vast improvement over the repealed one," he said.
Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein gets naughty and discusses both a canceled meeting involving the downtown library and the Riverside Renaissance in the same article!
(excerpt)
Wendell Tucker, head of the library's board of trustees, sees nothing "sinister." He said the "process was moving a little faster than the architects and others were ready for." Hence, today's "postponement."
He dismissed the space dispute as "premature," noting the museum and library will share new turf (the figure I've seen is 4,170 square feet). Score that as "new" space for both concerns.
Tucker said the city assures him museum and library trustees would meet with the architect and city officials before plans are final. He said there will be public meetings, too. So far, no meetings. The Pfeiffer contract was signed in May.
Tucker also allowed that "any time you have joint use of a facility, there's a potential" that one side could be played against the other.
If this "postponement" had occurred in a different context, alarms might have remained muted. But Riverside's Renaissance form of government has frequently shown scant concern for public opinion (see SmartPark, Tequesquite Park) until the public raises a stink.
Maybe that's why today's meeting was "postponed." Sometimes, not even City Hall can avoid getting a whiff of the unwashed masses.
Another columnist from that publication, Cassie MacDuff, takes on the Colton scandals involving a cast of characters including an ousted police chief who's sued the city and a city councilman who may be going on trial soon on corruption charges.
(excerpt)
Councilman Isaac Suchil's son was charged with assaulting a police officer and his niece, a former police dispatcher, was charged with using the police computer illegally. Both have pled innocent.
Suchil, a 22-year sheriff's deputy, denied pressuring Rulon. "I know better than to do that," he said, adding that such impropriety could end a deputy's career.
He questioned why Rulon was raising the allegations only now.
"Had it really occurred back when he said it occurred, I'm sure he would've told my department and they would have investigated," Suchil said.
But why did it take the city almost four years to figure out Rulon couldn't lead?
Because he intim
idated his subordinates into silence, Parrish, Chastain and Suchil each said.
Rulon was popular in the community, but council members received many anonymous letters about problems within the department. Until one employee signed a letter, the situation wasn't taken seriously.
Rulon said more allegations of impropriety by city officials will come out. But Suchil said what comes out in court will be embarrassing for the former chief.
Time will tell who's right.
Kathleen Savio's family said they always suspected Drew Peterson as causing her death, according to ABC News. Peterson is on administrative leave from his job as a sergeant at the Bolingbrook Police Department.
(excerpt)
Just the Thursday before she passed away, she called me and she said — she just felt so strongly that that he was going to kill her and it was going to look like an accident. Take care of the children,'" Doman said, recounting the conversation.
Doman also described another instance in which Drew allegedly grabbed Savio as she came down the stairs and held her by her throat at knife point. "And he threatened to kill her," Doman said. "And he didn't care if he died either."
Savio's body was exhumed earlier this week, after investigators decided to take a second look at what had been called, an accidental drowning in her bathtub. Meanwhile, the family of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacey, who disappeared on Oct. 28 and hasn't been seen since expressed how scared Stacey had been of her husband.
(excerpt)
Drew says he believes Stacy ran off with another man. Her friends and family tell another story.
"'Sharon,' she used to say constantly to me, 'just remember, if I disappear, it is not an accident. He killed me.' She said it all the time," said Bychowski.
Stacy's stepsister Kerry Simmons said, "As controlling as he was, for him to switch off and act like he doesn't care that she left with another man? That would never happen."
Disturbingly enough, Peterson's second wife, Vickie Connolly, shared a similar account of her former husband's behavior towards her, according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
But in the first interview granted by one of his ex-wives since Stacy's disappearance, Connolly, 48, said Thursday that during their marriage an increasingly controlling Peterson told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident. While she couldn't believe he would ever do it, something prompted her to confide in Bolingbrook police officers who she considered friends. "So they would know he said these things to me," she said.
She said Peterson would hit her but not hard enough to go to the hospital, and not often enough for her to expect it. It made it worse, she said, that she never knew it was coming. "It was mind games; it was head games," she said.
Even though Peterson is a suspect in the disappearance of his current wife and could be facing charges in relation to the death of his third wife, he can still collect his $72,000 pension.
Body language experts told the Chicago Sun-Times that Peterson looked among other things ill at ease and anxious during his interview with Matt Lauer on NBC.
(excerpt)
Glass, also a communication psychologist, took issue with what Peterson said and how he said it, including focusing on himself more than his missing wife. "When you look at all of those, your gut reaction is, something doesn't smell right," Glass said.
Sitting rigid in his chair suggested Peterson was trying to control himself, she said. Lifting his shoulders during answers suggested he wasn't telling the truth, she said.
Hogan found it odd that Peterson laughed after asking his wife to "come home."
"Is he guilty of the disappearance, I don't know," Hogan said. "Is he acting out of character for a normal person, very much so."
“There’s no use spending $200,000 for a $40,000 job.”
---Ward One Councilman-elect Mike Gardner, to Press Enterprise
“Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.”
---Sydney J. Harris
“If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these acceptance speeches there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.”
---Will Rogers
"He used to tell my mother that he could kill her and make it look like an accident. "
---“Lisa”, daughter of Sgt. Drew Peterson’s second wife
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
--- H.P. Lovecraft
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
---- Samuel Coleridge
"Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach."
---Rosabeth Moss Kantor
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership."
---Dwight D. Eisenhower, president of the United States
“Was that why you became a cop? To get even?”
---Kim Basinger, L.A. Confidential
“How come all your friends are on their way to bein' someone else?”
---One of Switzerland’s finest
”Hey Mary, since your so smart and all of your subject matter is too intellectual for us, may I ask what experiences you have in the area of labor management and law enforcement union activities?”
---Anonymous, here, July 2006
Riverside City Council
The Press Enterprise article today stated that Mike Gardner defeated incumbent Dom Betro by seven votes. It goes without saying but it has been said by the camp of Betro that there will be a recount. In close elections, that’s always a good idea to be absolutely sure.
(excerpt)
Gardner said he believes several key issues swung the election in his favor.
He said he opposed plans to develop a housing community on open space at the former Tequesquite arroyo, a plan Betro initially favored. Gardner said he also has reservations about a proposal to put a six-story multi-use building across from the historic Fox Theater and wants to revise Riverside's paid-parking program downtown.
"I think there were bona-fide issues that people cared about and were given a choice," he said.
Betro released a statement vowing to continue his bid for another term. He declined to talk by phone.
"Unfortunately the fight for a hopeful future for Ward 1 and the City of Riverside must continue," Betro wrote in an e-mail.
At any rate, the tallies for all four races are here.
Ward One 23/3 100%
Mike Gardner: 2,311 50.08%
Dom Betro: 2,304 49,92%
Ward Three 23/23 100%
William “Rusty” Bailey: 2,773 56.64%
Art Gage: 2,123 43.36%
Ward Five 22/22 100%
Chris MacArthur: 2,146 57.73%
Donna Doty Michalka 1,584 42.27%
Ward Seven 19/19
Steve Adams: 1,337 50.24%
Terry Frizzel: 1,324 49.76%
With most of Election 2007 behind the city except for a recount or two, there's been much discussion about what happened involving the ouster of two incumbents, Betro and Art Gage, who once shared dreams of even higher office with Inland Empire Magazine. Both have been replaced by political neophytes Gardner and William "Rusty" Bailey. Also nearly ousted was Ward Seven Councilman Steve Adams who took his focus away from his ward where it was needed to run for state assembly about a year ago. He carried his ward by a scant 13 votes.
Bailey is the newest to the fray of city council elections but was endorsed as a "team player" by four city council members and Mayor Ron Loveridge and received most of those endorsements before he even filed papers early last year. The problem with that strategy is that the "team player" got elected but part of the team was gone and others on that particular "team" received some notice of how the voters in this city felt about that concept.
Gardner, on the other hand, had launched an unremarkable run for office in 2003 while serving on the Community Police Review Commission. He sat at home while then-grass roots candidate Betro nipped local prosecutor, Paul Fick at the wire to win Ward One to great fanfare seldom seen in Riverside politics. Betro's come from behind win so impressed those on the dais that even members of what would become known as the GASS quartet appeared at his celebration party at Zacatecas.
The problem is, that Betro then for whatever reason tried to become something he wasn't, a big-time player. Maybe the turning point for the Team Betro was when they futilely tried to stop the tide waged by the GASS quartet to oust former city manager, George Carvalho in 2004. It's difficult to get anything done or make a name for yourself in a 4-3 world. Who led that rowdy protest at the city council meeting during the period of Carvalho's firing? The same people who incidentally are complaining that city residents are too rowdy at meetings now.
The foot soldiers in Betro's camp began to split off and formed at least three grass-roots groups in the past several years. When news came that the city including Betro was planning to sell off portions of Tequesquite Park and put housing on the land, a grass-roots campaign to save the park began to hit many public venues. That movement was led by Gardner who decided to run for the council seat occupied by Betro. As a result, a new grass-roots campaign began to oust an elected official who likely had lost track with his grass roots. After all, Betro once complained at a meeting at the Coffee Depot that it was the developers who were knocking down his office door not his "allies" as he called them. The core people around Betro were beginning to isolate themselves to the point where they didn't even recognize or remember who their own foot soldiers on the earlier campaign had been. They clearly had more important things to do.
The election process in Ward One was about to come full circle.
After all, Betro's campaign disclosures included at least 20 development firms, many from outside Riverside County, including those based in cities including Tustin, Anaheim and Newport Beach, which had faced citizen-backed efforts to limit their growth and thus development. Riverside was their destination of choice, as it had no measures and in fact, had filed a SLAPP suit against the one community organization trying to bring the issue of Eminent Domain to the city's voters. The city was in turn being sued by other individuals and community organizations to adhere to the growth-control measures already passed by the voters.
During the summer, Betro tried to spearhead himself as the leader of improvement efforts by heading task forces for both Tequesquite and Fairmount Parks, but the committees themselves weren't really representative of either people in Ward One or people using the parks under discussion, unless the only people who comprise either are White, and mostly older people.
Gage never recovered from his ill-fated foray into trying to push for the removal of home owners from a neighborhood near the Riverside Plaza to clear space for local developer and multi-campaign contributor, Doug Jacobs to build more office space, even at one time saying it was for the people's good to move due to air pollution and other problems in this tiny, triangular shaped area.
To no one's surprise, Bailey sailed right on in Gage's seat by a large margin. Most of the support apparently came in the last few weeks of the election.
But ironically, Bailey's huge success drove a nail in Betro's own campaign given that many people in Betro's campaign spent time putting a lot of energy into Bailey's, perhaps believing that was where it was truly needed and Betro's election was a given.
But they were wrong. And it's expected that a recount of votes in the Ward One race will show the same thing. The other irony is that if Betro had stuck to his grass-roots instead of divorcing them to move up the political ladder, he probably would have won during the preliminary round of Election 2007. Even Gardner said that if he had done certain things, he wouldn't have run. Betro's team took that as a concession by Gardner about Betro's superiority as a councilman. Instead, it was a reflection of the overall mood of Ward One, a mood that was played out at the voting polls during the final round of Riverside's very own Election 2007 last week.
Riverside Police Officers' Association Election
"Whenever the police department has found me wrong, the commission has found me right. I like the commission."
---RPOA President-elect Det. Chris Lanzillo, CPRC workshop, March 24, 2004
"At-will employees fear losing their jobs so they often become yes men. "
---Current RPOA President Det. Ken Tutwiler, city council meeting, March 2007
On Thursday, there was a sumptuous luncheon hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where the keynote speakers were Sheriff Stan Sniff and Riverside Police Department Lt. Larry Gonzalez. Their presentations on the organization and goal plan of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and the injunction filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's office against the Eastside Riva gang were greeted with questions.
But one of the nonagenda topics of yesterday in Riverside was what one person referred to as the stunning chain of events involving the recent elections conducted by the Riverside Police Officers' Association. The union which is comprised of officers, detectives and sergeants recently elected its president for the next two years. Conventional wisdom was that the popular Det. Ken Tutwiler would like his predecessor Sgt. Pat McCarthy be elected to a second term. Tutwiler has made inroads with several communities in Riverside that are almost historic in context. Unfortunately for him, it's not the communities who elect him, it's his union. Did Tutwiler's connections that he built with community leaders hurt his chances? The truth to that probably won't be known until communities see whether or not Tutwiler's successor builds upon what's been initiated and continues forward.
Still, after the union had garnered one of its most beneficial labor contracts in recent history for both its officer and supervisory units and added more than three dozen positions to its ranks, Tutwiler seemed to be in good standing, with his men and women. However in an insulated, isolated culture like that of a police department, often a lot of subtext is missed which is clearly the case here. As the officer who announced the results said, obviously there was a lot going on in the union that many people outside of it missed. At the end of the voting period, Det. Chris Lanzillo, the former vice-president of the RPOA was elected by his peers.
Documents involving labor contracts by both units in the RPOA are below.
RPOA Officer Unit
RPOA Supervisory Unit
In 2005, there was some discussion here by anonymous individuals about the election that was conducted that year by the union and obviously some disagreement about the candidates in that so-and-so was the one and so-and-so sucked. So there was clearly turmoil in the ranks then as well that the last round of elections didn't remedy.
Whatever the dynamics in the cloistered union, a message was clearly sent to the management of the department through this election about which direction the department will be going in during Lanzillo's term. And how will the police chief and the management team respond?
Many people might be surprised by this result but I'm not one of them. I saw this one coming both there and in here. In fact, the union election results answered some questions even as individuals said the process begged more about the department's direction.
Still, it will be interesting to see what happens next in that corner of Riverside. Was this election a natural progressive step towards continued reform or is it the inevitable backlash by a very young, inexperienced union chafing under what it feels are too many restraints?
That question is one that should be answered fairly quickly.
A plan for addressing electric rates which had been repealed by the city council received wide support from business owners even though it involved residential rates.
(excerpt)
A number of business owners spoke in favor of the proposal, saying it was needed to pay for projects that would increase the reliability of the city's electric system and help avoid rolling blackouts in summer.
The city utility expects rolling blackouts by summer 2010 unless it builds the second half of a power plant and a second substation and transmission lines to connect to the state power grid.
The Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce board voted in favor of the new rate proposal, Chairman Craig Blunden said.
"Rolling blackouts are not an option," he said.
Resident Ken Rotker, whose complaints about his summer bills helped trigger the repeal of the old rate increase, said he wanted to take a closer look at the new rate structure but at first blush it looked fair to residential customers.
"It's a vast improvement over the repealed one," he said.
Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein gets naughty and discusses both a canceled meeting involving the downtown library and the Riverside Renaissance in the same article!
(excerpt)
Wendell Tucker, head of the library's board of trustees, sees nothing "sinister." He said the "process was moving a little faster than the architects and others were ready for." Hence, today's "postponement."
He dismissed the space dispute as "premature," noting the museum and library will share new turf (the figure I've seen is 4,170 square feet). Score that as "new" space for both concerns.
Tucker said the city assures him museum and library trustees would meet with the architect and city officials before plans are final. He said there will be public meetings, too. So far, no meetings. The Pfeiffer contract was signed in May.
Tucker also allowed that "any time you have joint use of a facility, there's a potential" that one side could be played against the other.
If this "postponement" had occurred in a different context, alarms might have remained muted. But Riverside's Renaissance form of government has frequently shown scant concern for public opinion (see SmartPark, Tequesquite Park) until the public raises a stink.
Maybe that's why today's meeting was "postponed." Sometimes, not even City Hall can avoid getting a whiff of the unwashed masses.
Another columnist from that publication, Cassie MacDuff, takes on the Colton scandals involving a cast of characters including an ousted police chief who's sued the city and a city councilman who may be going on trial soon on corruption charges.
(excerpt)
Councilman Isaac Suchil's son was charged with assaulting a police officer and his niece, a former police dispatcher, was charged with using the police computer illegally. Both have pled innocent.
Suchil, a 22-year sheriff's deputy, denied pressuring Rulon. "I know better than to do that," he said, adding that such impropriety could end a deputy's career.
He questioned why Rulon was raising the allegations only now.
"Had it really occurred back when he said it occurred, I'm sure he would've told my department and they would have investigated," Suchil said.
But why did it take the city almost four years to figure out Rulon couldn't lead?
Because he intim
idated his subordinates into silence, Parrish, Chastain and Suchil each said.
Rulon was popular in the community, but council members received many anonymous letters about problems within the department. Until one employee signed a letter, the situation wasn't taken seriously.
Rulon said more allegations of impropriety by city officials will come out. But Suchil said what comes out in court will be embarrassing for the former chief.
Time will tell who's right.
Kathleen Savio's family said they always suspected Drew Peterson as causing her death, according to ABC News. Peterson is on administrative leave from his job as a sergeant at the Bolingbrook Police Department.
(excerpt)
Just the Thursday before she passed away, she called me and she said — she just felt so strongly that that he was going to kill her and it was going to look like an accident. Take care of the children,'" Doman said, recounting the conversation.
Doman also described another instance in which Drew allegedly grabbed Savio as she came down the stairs and held her by her throat at knife point. "And he threatened to kill her," Doman said. "And he didn't care if he died either."
Savio's body was exhumed earlier this week, after investigators decided to take a second look at what had been called, an accidental drowning in her bathtub. Meanwhile, the family of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacey, who disappeared on Oct. 28 and hasn't been seen since expressed how scared Stacey had been of her husband.
(excerpt)
Drew says he believes Stacy ran off with another man. Her friends and family tell another story.
"'Sharon,' she used to say constantly to me, 'just remember, if I disappear, it is not an accident. He killed me.' She said it all the time," said Bychowski.
Stacy's stepsister Kerry Simmons said, "As controlling as he was, for him to switch off and act like he doesn't care that she left with another man? That would never happen."
Disturbingly enough, Peterson's second wife, Vickie Connolly, shared a similar account of her former husband's behavior towards her, according to the Chicago Tribune.
(excerpt)
But in the first interview granted by one of his ex-wives since Stacy's disappearance, Connolly, 48, said Thursday that during their marriage an increasingly controlling Peterson told her he could kill her and make it look like an accident. While she couldn't believe he would ever do it, something prompted her to confide in Bolingbrook police officers who she considered friends. "So they would know he said these things to me," she said.
She said Peterson would hit her but not hard enough to go to the hospital, and not often enough for her to expect it. It made it worse, she said, that she never knew it was coming. "It was mind games; it was head games," she said.
Even though Peterson is a suspect in the disappearance of his current wife and could be facing charges in relation to the death of his third wife, he can still collect his $72,000 pension.
Body language experts told the Chicago Sun-Times that Peterson looked among other things ill at ease and anxious during his interview with Matt Lauer on NBC.
(excerpt)
Glass, also a communication psychologist, took issue with what Peterson said and how he said it, including focusing on himself more than his missing wife. "When you look at all of those, your gut reaction is, something doesn't smell right," Glass said.
Sitting rigid in his chair suggested Peterson was trying to control himself, she said. Lifting his shoulders during answers suggested he wasn't telling the truth, she said.
Hogan found it odd that Peterson laughed after asking his wife to "come home."
"Is he guilty of the disappearance, I don't know," Hogan said. "Is he acting out of character for a normal person, very much so."
Labels: battering while blue, City Hall blues, labor pains, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 11:30 PM
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