Riverside City Hall: The Dirty Dozen?

Major John Reisman: Which one of you guys wants to be a general?
[to Pinkley]

Major John Reisman: Pinkley?

Pinkley: What kind of general, sir?

Major John Reisman: Just a plain, ordinary, every day, home-lovin' American general.

Pinkley: I'd rather be a civilian, sir.


----The Dirty Dozen





Juror #5: Boy oh boy, it's really hot, huh? Pardon me, but don't you ever sweat?

Juror #4: No, I don't.


---12 Angry Men





"No, sir, I will not yield! And this same man, Mr. James Taylor, came down here and offered me a seat in this Senate for the next 20 years if I voted for a dam that he knew, and I knew, was a fraud. But if I dared to open my mouth against that dam, he promised to break me in two."


---Mr. Smith Goes to Washington





"I had the fire in the belly just like you, Kevin, and the odd thing is I still have it. Never left me! I had the dream... and I had the weight. Like one of those guys before me said, "If a sparrow falls in Central Park, I feel responsible."


----City Hall




"They say I can sell anything; I'd like to try to sell something to you."

---Network

"Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings."

---David Niven

Officer Ryan: You think you know who you are?

[Officer Hanson nods]

Officer Ryan: You have no idea.



---Crash




Julie: He basically called me white trash! He said I was from Riverside!

Jimmy Cooper: Honey, you are from Riverside.

Julie: It was his tone!


---O.C.




"No that's fame. Fame has a fifteen minute half-life, infamy lasts a little longer. "

---The Insider

"It's time for us to restore that trust."


---Councilman Chris MacArthur, Ward Five




"Like the north wind whistlin' down the sky
I've got a song, I've got a song
Like the whippoorwill and the baby's cry
I've got a song, I've got a song
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud
If it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud"


---Jim Croce





They say for everything there's a pair and bad things always happen in threes, but the really good things come by the dozen. And last night, one of the all-time classic films was invoked when a city resident talked about what he called, the "dirty dozen". I heard that and thought of the film and thought, what another remake? Is there any film where the original can stand on its own that's left?

But the man explained further that the "dirty dozen" was something or some people who were so repugnant that when they came up to the dais at meetings, the city council members or the mayor should turn off the microphone, thus silencing them to the viewers of City Council meetings at home. That's assuming that all the viewers are "hearing" which they're not. The meetings are also watched by members of Riverside's large Deaf community. Apparently they weren't included in what this man believed is the audience who watches the meetings from home.



But shutting off the microphone is indeed one possible action that can be taken to shut out viewpoints that the city council disagrees with or find offensive to a portion of the meetings' audiences. The other option this gentleman had at his disposal was to turn down the volume on his television set or turn the channel. That way, he could allow everyone watching the televised meetings to decide for themselves whether to listen to a speaker's words or not, whether to turn the channel or not, rather than having Mayor Ron Loveridge or Mayor Pro Tem Frank Schiavone make that decision for everyone by flipping a switch.



Loveridge is too smart to even look comfortable when a city resident makes that kind of suggestion. His political science education and experience on the dais has taught him what a land mine comments like those can be and that navigating through them is necessary no matter how tempting it is to do otherwise. That's one reason why every time a police officer or two has been ordered by an elected official leading a meeting to expel elderly women, it's never been Loveridge at the helm. It's always been a mayor pro tem that has issued those orders. The police officers don't have much of a choice in the matter if an elected official wants to use them to be a "bouncer".

Schiavone, the current mayor pro tem? Before last night's oratory exercise, he looked like he was up to it. However, it's becoming clear that the months of having to listen to people who don't agree with the direction that the city council's going, that he's had enough and his impulses are overriding his smarts. I've never met an elected official who can compliment you on your "aura" one week and castigate your lack of ethics the next so I'm learning to take what he says with a grain of salt. It's all politics after all, or so many people say.

But as far as the "dirty dozen", perhaps it's the list of people who got threatening letters from city council members through the conduit of the city attorney's office or maybe it's those who haven't jumped on the Riverside Renaissance express train, but are kind of more concerned about the city's bond rating and the fact that city employees are being told there's no money available and police and possibly other staffing has been cut back due to cuts in overtime expenditures.

Maybe it's just a flashy remake of an old movie, Riverside style, after all.




More was said on the issues of the trains using Riverside's streets as parking lots, a situation which has been going on for years.

But all the saber rattling from City Hall at Union Pacific hasn't led to that company being any more responsive to the city on the ongoing train issues, including the malfunctioning crossing guard at the Brockton intersection that was first reported to the city council over a month ago. But even as the Transportation Committee and Governmental Affairs Committee armwrestle over who gets to take on the train companies next, the fact is that not a single person at City Hall has succeeded in really getting Union Pacific or its sibling, Burlington North Santa Fe to even take them seriously.


Discussion of the ethics code and complaint process if you can call it that took place in several different venues in recent days. Last night, it took place at City Hall where the city council passed a measure to dilute the process even further. In some ways, it seems like what's happened to the Community Police Review Commission in the past 18 months, only slightly more public.


One of the reasons that's so is because while the CPRC is under the jurisdiction of the city manager's office, the ethics code and complaint process is under the purvue of the city council which is governed by the Brown Act which states that the vast majority of its business and nearly all of its discussions and votes as a full city council must be conducted in public. The similarities between the two will be analyzed and discussed in future postings, but not for the first time last night, I was reminded that about the relationship that does exist.

I might be in the minority compared to what many people think on this issue who speak on it at City Hall but I actually disagree that it's the public that needs to be educated on the ethics code and the ethics complaint process. I've had enough discussions with different people following that particular process to know that they're not the ones who appear to be confused or who particularly need what can be an expensive "outreach" program.



To me, it appears that it's the elected body that is confused on this issue and last night's discussion showed that. What ethics are and what an accountable review mechanism for ethics complains is all about.

Fortunately, there are other agencies which provide mechanisms to file ethics complaints involving elected officials. There's the Riverside County Grand Jury and the Fair Political Practices office for the State of California. They might not be as proactive as many watchdogs would like, but at least they don't flagellate you during a public hearing simply for daring to use the process that they set up for use. If you file a complaint that actually makes it to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee, what you'll hear is very little deliberation about the actions of the elected official and negative attacks against the complainant.

You have an ethics complaint? You're probably better off avoiding the current ethics complaint process.


If you need an example of how such a hearing was and may in the future be conducted, feel free to purchase a CD copy of the Feb. 13 meeting held by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee held earlier this year to hear the only ethics complaint that made it past the city attorney's office. It's yours to own for a nominal fee if you visit the Seventh Floor's city clerk's office.


Then there are other ways that people try to shut people down from public participation and that's through other means like what happened to me yesterday.


If you want to see what this type of tactics looks like, here's one that appeared with a posting at Craigslist calling me, "Riverside's Most Prolific Racist". At the bottom of the incoherent diatribe is a small head shot photograph of me that did not appear to have been taken of me recently. I don't recognize where it might have come from. The writing is however, very familiar as is some of the word choice.


The link doesn't work because the posting was apparently flagged some time after it was posted at 4:30 p.m. by an anonymous poster who was apparently upset with some comments I made at a city council meeting last night and a blog entry I posted today about that meeting.


If you missed it, here it is in its entirety as it appeared at Craigslist.


(excerpt)


I just read Mary's blog and was amused by her rendition of what took place last
night. She's clearly in denial.



But the camera captured the truth. Be sure to tune into the rebroadcasts, or the
webcast, of last night's Riverside City Council meeting.


The highlight was the public exposure of Mary Shelton's racist agenda. Her bigotry
was laid bare for all to see as her racist blog postings were raised in public.



Shame on Mary for going to meetings and reducing people to numbers of whites, blacks
and latinos. We're all humans, Mary, and sorting and counting us by color is simply
degrading. Besides it only perpetuates divisions among us. But deep down that's what
you really want so that you can continue to have a reason for your racist crusade.



Mary is the only one who doesn't see this fact.


Maybe she should review the broadcast.

To everyone else, sit back and relax and enjoy watching Riverside's Most Prolific Racist get her due which is long overdue.




Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I've been called a "racist" by someone failing to use his or her name for even bringing up the issues of race and racism, I'd have enough for an island in the tropics. And being labeled the "most prolific racist" of what, the world? Ooooh. Does it come with a tiara and a bunch of posies? A decoder ring and a petunia?

After all, I was called a "liberal racist puke" or was it a "racist liberal puke" a while back as well. I've been called a "bitch", a "whore" a "skank" a "tramp", all noticably gender-specific terms.

Prose like this is right up there with the circle jerk that took place on my blog in the spring of 2006 where I was simply called "granny pants girl" and who could forget the anonymous visitor who called me Queen Mary, the wigger? There's been no shortage of pathetic characters who have ejaculated or crapped on this blog, drawn by the chance to have a spotlight but it's doubtful they received much of one, because a recent poll stated that only about 5% of blog visitors even read comment threads.

Based on the writings they've left here, in their own minds, that is exactly how they see their actions. Not surprisingly, their choice of language reflected that.

It's a bit strange that a person would bother posting a photograph of me but it's also desperate. However, if you speak out on issues in this city, you'd better be ready for it. The rest of it, is simply the usual reactionary prose of someone who's convinced him or herself that people of color and Whites would just get along fine if people of color didn't confront Whites on racism and Whites didn't have to examine their racial privilege. It's silly and it speaks volumes about the individual who authored it.

Unfortunately, if you're female and you blog, this is usually behavior that you have to put up with. The rewards that come with blogging matter so much more than the hateful, resentful, hostile and sometimes threatening stuff that is posted if people don't like or are upset with what you write. Just ask many female bloggers including Kathy Sierra who blogged about what she probably thought was the innocuous topic of information technology and was stalked online to the point of not going to conferences and refusing to leave her house.

I do agree with this anonymous poster on one thing. I do agree that individuals who are interested should watch the broadcast for themselves and decide what they think of it. Fortunately, I encountered many people who did and they supported me on what I said. They couldn't believe that a sitting city council member would have made the statements that he did. They thought the posting, which made the rounds at several places, was childish, silly and vindictive. Maybe. It's more a definition of its author than it is of me including the fact that he or she lacked the courage to even sign their name to it.

The next airing of the Dec. 11 city council meeting is on Saturday, Dec. 15 at 9 a.m. on 3 for those who are interested.

It did foster some interesting discussions last night when I circulated it around yesterday and they told me their stories of racism and White Supremacism in Riverside past and present. Whites often speak loudest that calling out racism is being "divisive" because they can't or don't see the divisions that already exist between people of different races due to racism that people of color often do. Whites were shocked when I showed them this post. Black and Latino individuals were not. Unfortunately, it seems like this "division" already exists when it comes not to race, but with racism. Posters like this one look at division caused and manifested by racism and confuse it for actually being a "division" of different races. But then they don't have to think about race at all, except to flagellate their critics or those who criticize their favorite elected officials on the dais.

And I do have to say, I'm damn proud to be philosophically so different than any individual who would post things like this incoherent diatribe online. This is definitely someone I don't want to be on the same page with in any way what so ever.

Never fear, the still-anonymous individual posted it (as they usually do) and you can read a truncated version of the post here at 10:32 p.m.





The Eastside Think Tank's attempts to get a meeting with any representative with the Riverside County District Attorney's office continues without bearing fruit, even in light of the revelation of the terms mandated by that office just to conduct a meeting with it on the Eastside Riva preliminary gang injunction.

Chair Mary Figueroa said that the District Attorney's office would meet with the Think Tank only on the condition that she provide it with a list of people from the organization who would attend so that it could be given to its investigators to look into. The Think Tank refused those terms in a written response, stating that at that point, the agency was taking it too far. Some of them said they felt like they were being treated like criminals. And if a community's leaders are even viewed in any light as being criminals, then what does that say about an agency's opinions of the residents of that communtity?

One major reason why the Think Tank was correct to take the stance that it did. It also bothered me and I addressed this issue at the meeting because frankly, it's more important than telling a councilman I don't take ethics lessons from him.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


The questions have gone unanswered, residents say, and the district attorney's office has not agreed to a meeting with residents or community leaders, according to the board of the East Side Think Tank.

"(Pacheco is) an elected official and he has a responsibility to the community," Mary Figueroa said at a Think Tank meeting Monday night. The Think Tank was formed by community members in 2002 to combat violence by bringing the community together.

District attorney's office spokeswoman Ingrid Wyatt would not comment other than to say that the person who would arrange any such meeting was in Sacramento and could not respond.



Actually, Wyatt is correct. There is an individual in Sacramento who could arrange a meeting and that's State Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose the state's top prosecutor.




The Tyler Galleria's new movie theater is hosting a benefit for Habitat for Humanity.



(excerpt)



"Doubles" is an informal theme for the evening: Celebrity look-a-likes of actors such as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp will arrive for a red carpet walk at 6:30 p.m.

Guests will be allowed to have complimentary pictures taken with the look-a-likes, and walk the red carpet in their wake to a party.

The premiere will include popcorn and soda during the movie, which is being kept under wraps, and a free souvenir key ring.

The event costs $10 for adults and $5 for children. Tickets may be purchased at the customer service department at the mall, which is on the second level near the food court, or from any Habitat for Humanity representative.






When I read this article, I first thought it was a joke, but it appears that civil trials in Riverside County Superior Court will be tried in classrooms at a local school,according to the Press Enterprise.


(excerpt)


Looking to lighten a backlog in civil cases, the Superior Court in Riverside will transform eight classrooms at the Indiana Avenue campus into three temporary courtrooms. Hawthorne Elementary's occupants will move to a new campus on Irving Street, a little more than a mile away.

The Riverside Unified School District trustees on Monday voted 5-0 to give the Superior Court of California a six-month license to occupy those classrooms for deliberating civil cases only, starting Jan. 2. District officials said three civil judges, support staff, bailiffs and sheriff's deputies will be assigned there.



A jam in countywide civil cases numbering in the thousands has sprung from a heavy backlog of criminal cases. Those take precedence over civil trials because the Constitution guarantees speedy trials for criminal defendants. As a result, civil judges throughout the county often have had to preside over criminal cases.

Justice Richard Huffman said state Chief Justice Ronald George has been seeking a way to jump-start civil cases in the county.

Huffman, of the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego, heads the strike force of judges brought in to relieve the criminal backlog. He said Tuesday that he didn't know when the Hawthorne site would be ready for court use.

"The facility is not suitable for criminal trials," Huffman said in a phone interview. "They cannot be conducted there, so there is no choice but to conduct civil trials there."/em>




Fontana's city council voted themselves a a huge pay raise beginning next year.



Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona must be paid while being prosecuted on federal indictments of corruption of his office, according to the Los Angeles Times.



(excerpt)


The legal report was prompted in part because board Chairman Chris Norby wanted to know if the county was required to continue paying Carona during his leave of absence.

"There is no provision in the law for depriving an elected officer of his or her salary during the officer's temporary absence from his or her duties on account of personal reasons," the report said. The sheriff draws an annual salary of $199,680.





Atlanta's civilian review board is off to a slow start, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


(excerpt)


The board's chairwoman, attorney Sharese Shields, stood before the City Council's Public Safety Committee to explain why Tuesday.


Shields said the board, composed of volunteers, plans to hire a full-time executive director, two investigators and an administrative assistant with the goal of fielding complaints from the public by spring 2008.

Council member C.T. Martin, one of three city lawmakers who lobbied to create the board, expressed frustration that it's still in the developmental stages.

"I want it up and running," he told Shields. "It's been too long."