Riverside City Hall: Playing to a full house

Darren Conkerite and Back to the Grind are being honored as the December Arts Honoree of the Month at the city council meeting. This coffee shop which has been a meeting place for many different individuals and groups to discuss arts, culture, music politics and other topics or just to hang out. It's a true fixture in the downtown. Hopefully, the city's honoring of this small business in a climate where it often seems as if there's hostility towards small businesses especially in the downtown, is a sign of good things to come. If you haven't checked out the Back to the Grind, it's on University Avenue and it has hot drinks, coffee, cold drinks and items to eat including sandwiches and desserts including a very decadent 'smore cake.

The Back to the Grind has welcomed everyone and many meetings and forums have been held there. If you're not at a meeting, there's plenty of books to read at the coffee shop. It's one of several independent coffee houses downtown with the Coffee Depot being another one, near the railroad tracks on Mission Inn Avenue.

It was a crowded city council chambers as numerous presentations and items were on the agenda for discussion and people overflowed out the door, into the evening drizzle. Perhaps it's the large number of presentations and discussion calendar items. Perhaps it's the new leadership that's in place, which has brought out more people than most city councils have this past year. At any rate, it was crowded.

I caught up with a former Press Enterprise reporter who left his job there and moved on to become the media relations representative for the county's animal control department. Apparently, many of the publications more experienced journalists are taking off for other jobs, leaving the newspaper with a staff that's mostly new. This trend began not long after the newspaper was bought out by Belo Enterprises, which is based in Texas.





The police department currently has only one female field operations captain. Actually, they only one female captain and one field operations captain and for now, the same person fills both positions. Capt. Meredith Meredyth was working as the captain for the Central and West precincts of the city, until Capt. Jim Cannon retired earlier this autumn. Since then, she's also been serving as the captain for the north and eastern precincts until the department fills the captain position. Her hard work and dedication to her position and her department is another reason why those who claim that women shouldn't be police officers because they will never be as good as male officers is just so ridiculous, not to mention very sexist thinking. But then if recruiting female officers is viewed as being akin to forcing the police chief to kidnap women, indenture them into servitude as officers, thus endangering civilization as we know it, the whole thing is ridiculous.

Meredyth's promotion to lieutenant in 1999 caused a furor along with those of two men of color, by a group of White male sergeants who filed grievances and later law suits claiming they were passed over by then Chief Jerry Carroll in favor of Meredyth and the two men, both of who retired. One of them, Alex Tortes, testified during a deposition and on the witness stand at Officer Roger Sutton's racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation trial about disparate treatment faced by men of color in the command staff, under what they called the "exclusionary rule".

Meredyth was later promoted to captain, and is currently not only the highest ranking female officer, but only the second female captain in the department's history after retired Deputy Chief Audrey Wilson. The next highest ranking female are the sergeants.



Nine lieutenants have put in for the promotion, which requires a bachelors degree.



The deputy chief position vacated by Dave Dominguez who's soon to be chief of the Palm Springs Police Department might not be filled, due partly to the fact that the budget picture isn't looking so rosy this year. The police department like all city departments will be preparing its budget for the next fiscal year. As La Sierra resident, Yolanda Garland called it last night, expect the cuts to hit the city's basic services before the "pie in the sky" borrowing and spending will be curbed.





The department's new mental health training program is apparently receiving a lot of attention and accolades from across the country. Currently, the department is having its officers and other city employees from the fire department and code compliance take the 3o hour curriculum. It hopes that the training which received its POST certification in early summer will be completed by December 2008. The city needs to continue its investment into this crucial training and intervention program that is the result of a partnership between the city and the county's mental health resources in the face of the anticipated budget cuts. Programs in mental health intervention across the country have been slashed during budget cuts and the problems caused by doing so were seen rather quickly including through law suits filed in relation to police contacts with the mentally ill population.

Garland also provided a lot of insight in her comments about the so-called nefarious "dirty dozen" by a member of the "silent majority" in a city which really doesn't have any majority at all. As an apparent member of that "dozen" along with Garland, there's worse things to be called and I think I've been called every single one.



The survey in the Press Enterprise on the recent electricity rate hikes is seeing a lot of action here. There's still time to give your input.




Some of the approved city council actions of last night are here including the budget appropriations to the construction of a seniors room at Stratton Center at Bordwell Park. At least a dozen supporters of this project that was in the works since 1986 came out to support it. There was a call for action to get people down there to speak in support of the appropriations to complete the project and a lot of confusion because it had been approved some time ago. It looks like after 20 years of hard work and waiting, it will finally become reality.




The city will keep contacting its animal control services with Riverside County, although several speakers wanted it to take the reins back, after a scathing report by the Riverside County Grand Jury pretty much took Riverside out of action. Although there were some outstanding employees out in the field for animal control, the management of that department was pretty horrible.

I remember at City Hall listening to the then city council assistant trying to comfort an elderly woman on the phone who was distraught that a dog that she had mistakenly given to animal control that she thought was going to the then neighboring humane society was mistakenly euthanized within several hours of being dropped off.



(excerpt)


The city looked into providing its own animal services or using another provider, but staff recommended the council renew its contract with the county to provide a larger spectrum of services at a lower cost.

"Our pets are more than pets. They are members of the family," said Councilman Steve Adams. "We want to provide the best services we can, and this allows us to provide the finest quality of service."

At the meeting, several speakers praised the changes the county's Department of Animal Services has made since a 2003 grand jury report found widespread mismanagement within the department -- including the needless killing of dogs and cats and deficiencies in accounting and management practices.

Animal advocate Suzanne Martin told the council she wanted the city to provide its own services.

"We are outsourcing these costly contracts that need to stay in the city so we can remain in control," she said.




Given that there have been some reservoirs for the Rabies virus in different city locations including the Evergreen Cemetery downtown, it's important for people to vaccinate their animals against this disease. Coyotes, foxes, raccoons and skunks are all potential carriers of the virus and most often, skunks are asymptomatic carriers, which is why if you call animal control to pick up a skunk, the skunks will be euthanized rather than relocated like other species.

On the rabies note, here's one suggestion. If you're going to test an animal for rabies after it's bitten someone, then it would be really nice, not to mention helpful to call that person with the test results. I'm still waiting to hear the test results from an animal bite from 10 years ago and I guess since I'm still here, the tests were negative but it's definitely not pleasant having to wait for the test results.

The disease is 100% fatal essentially turning your brain to mush according to the photographs and has an incubation period of possibly up to a year but you have about a 72-hour window to get the preventative treatment. Once symptoms develop which start out like a bad flu, you're pretty much dead though it will be drawn out over about a week.

It kills people world-wide mostly due to feral and wild dogs in many countries. In the United States, almost every case is traced back to exposure to bats particularly Brown Bats. Only one person in history has survived rabies without having received the vaccine and rabies antiserum treatment before symptoms developed and that was a teenaged girl in the Mid West.

Treatment is currently a series of five shots with the vaccine and an anti-serum (which causes side effects most of the time) over a period of about two months. Not fun, but survivable, much more so than the previous protocol of 32 shots into the abdomen.




Habitat for Humanity is breaking ground in the Eastside on 11th St. near Park for a new low-income "green" house that is being built for a family. The date is Thursday, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m. for that event.

Habitat for Humanity Riverside is an organization that's active in this city and is committed to providing both affordable and environmental friendly housing.


Here are the houses which have been built so far in Riverside and neighboring cities.



The city council seemed generally supportive of the house and except for some juvenile antics by Councilman Frank Schiavone who was conversing with new dais neighbor, Chris MacArthur while I was talking. I stopped to wait until the two men had completed their conversation and gestured to the mayor why I had stopped. Schiavone sunk back into his chair with a dramatic rolling of the eyes as if a teacher had caught him throwing a spitball in class, as several of his colleagues looked at him, kind of embarrassed by his behavior. There was no need to say anything about it at all, as Schiavone's behavior kind of made a statement of its own.

The mayor looked like an annoyed parent as he often does when several of the council members act out. I'm sure some times he feels like one. I mean, he might have a Ph.D. in political science but probably zero units credit in the field of ECDS.



Steve Adams, the councilman of Ward Seven, had some interesting suggestions on improving the affordability of Habitat for Humanity. Affordable housing is an issue that impacts all the wards, from one end to the other. It's not surprising that this is more of the case given the foreclosure crisis in which Riverside and the other cities in the Inland Empire are impacted more than most other places in the country.



I didn't attend the luncheon held by the city council with legislative representatives from the federal and state government. For one thing, if I'd had the time, it's kind of strange to sit and watch other people eat and hold a conversation. But from what I've heard, the focus is on how little money is available rather than how much. Grade separations for the railroad crossings likely will be delayed further as the pre-Election 2007 city council which castigated earlier ruling bodies as doing nothing, are running into the same obstacles that their "do nothing" predecessors did which is budget woes at both state and soon to be at the local level as well. It's one thing to promise to get the funding that's needed, it's another thing to actually get it.





More than one person told me that during the past two years, the city government was spending money like a "bunch of drunken sailors", a phrase which apparently means spending quite freely in a limited amount of time. The "shore leave" taken by the city has been much longer but apparently it will soon be coming to an end. Riverside Renaissance was ambitious, a truncation of 20 years worth of dreams into a five-year period, but it was also a tremendous and risky gamble on "futures", in this case, the future of the economy. And it didn't get anyone reelected to office, except Adams by about a dozen votes.



As one former city councilman told me who left before the Riverside Renaissance train came to town said, it's risky to not plan for the downturns in the economy when planning such a large scale project. One reason whey he said he would have voted against it, given that signs were beginning to point towards a recession and a housing crisis instigated largely with the interest rates of sub-prime mortgages rising dramatically sending many homeowners down the path to foreclosure.



Some of the city unions are already figuring out that if they want to pursue their two-year option to renegotiate their contracts, they can expect an even steeper uphill battle than last time. If they hadn't, it's highly probable that they will soon enough.



It wouldn't be surprising if they heard the city's doesn't have the money or it can't find the money. That's the response I received from the city manager's office when I asked about the fate of future positions and equipment in the police department for example. That really surprised me to hear that given the millions of dollars including that borrowed from the city's sewer fund that have gone to purchase properties to sell to private developers and the legal expenses spent by the city to initiate eminent domain law suits against them.



The public safety unions do benefit from pledges by several city council members including MacArthur who pledge to support public safety as a major priority. But both unions didn't do well in terms of their city council candidates of choice getting put on or returning to the dais. The Riverside Police Officers' Association was 0 for 4 and the Fire Fighters' Association only was able to get Adams back in. So both unions who backed Schiavone, who's currently running for the county board of supervisors seat in District One against Bob Buster, to push forward. So far, the RPOA has been content to wait another 1 1/2 to renegotiate its new contract but some of its members are concerned about how the other unions are treated by the city. After all, it was the relative united front put on by several labor unions in the summer of 2006 that made a difference. Some said that the removal of one city employee from the labor negotiations process made a huge difference too.



The Riverside County Board of Supervisors are backing U.S. Congressman Ken Calvert in his dubious land transaction, according to the Press Enterprise.


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Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose Second District includes the Jurupa area, urged his board colleagues to vote down the request by the Jurupa Area Recreation and Park District to allow the use of eminent domain to seize the land.

The vote was 5-0.

Tavaglione chastised the park district and the Jurupa Community Services District, which sold the land to the Calvert partnership without the state-required notification to other governmental agencies that the Limonite Avenue property was on the market. The park district has sought the land since at least 2001 as the site for a park or a youth sports field.

Tavaglione said he was unhappy that the long-feuding districts appeared to be trying to drag supervisors into the land dispute.

"The community deserves better," he said.











Former Bolingbrook Police Department Sgt. Drew Peterson won't be getting back his seized items any time soon according to the Chicago Tribune.


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Outside the courthouse, Drew Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, was circumspect about the decision.


"We're a bit disappointed; I would have liked to see the property returned today," he said. "The fact that [Rozak] is going to keep an eye on the process ... I think indicates, to at least some extent, that he believes that while they should be given time to do what they need to do, that the time is not limitless."

Drew Peterson, 53, was not at the hearing. The former Bolingbrook police sergeant has not been charged with a crime and has maintained that his missing wife, Stacy Peterson, 23, told him she left him for another man.

Illinois State Police investigators have named Drew Peterson a suspect in Stacy Peterson's Oct. 28 disappearance. In addition, authorities reopened an investigation into the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, who was found dead in the bathtub of her Bolingbrook home just weeks before the financial terms of the couple's divorce were to be finalized.



In Canton, Ohio, a police captain filed a law suit alleging harassment and retaliation after he complained about his brother being treated unfairly during a department investigation into racial profiling during a traffic stop, according to the Canton Repository.


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Sgt. John Dittmore, Allison and patrol officer Steven Swank were the subject of a four-month internal affairs investigation after Allison filed complaints against the other two. Swank and Dittmore were working as part of the Gang Task Force in October 2006 when they stopped Allison’s brother-in-law in a car that had only one headlamp.

Allison filed complaints with internal affairs accusing the pair of insubordination, but Police Chief Dean McKimm disagreed. Last February, the three officers were issued letters of training.

Allison told investigators that his brother-in-law called him to Tuscarawas Street E and Walnut Avenue when the task force pulled him over. The suit says that Allison, who was off duty, went to the scene “for the good of the department,” contending his brother-in-law had no gang affiliation. A heated discussion followed with Swank and Dittmore.

The suit contends Allison was treated unfairly, both at the traffic stop and during the subsequent department investigation, because he is black. He says he was falsely accused of interfering with the traffic stop.

Allison says he will not advance higher in rank because his reputation at the department has been damaged. Timothy J. Jacob, the Youngstown attorney representing Allison, could not be reached for comment Friday.






More bad news out of Philadelphia, as a police officer there was arrested for home invasion robbery and leading officers on a high-speed pursuit according to NBC-10.


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Investigators said Officer Malik Snell has been charged in connection with a home invasion Sunday in Pottstown.

Police said Snell -- most recently assigned to the 18th district -- is an 11-year veteran. The 35-year-old officer, who is also a father and husband, joined the force shortly after his discharge from the armed services.

Montgomery County prosecutors said Snell and two other Philadelphia men, Stephon Gibson and Tyree Aimes, broke into a Pottstown home and robbed it at gunpoint Sunday morning.

Police sources told NBC 10's Harry Hairston that Snell masterminded the home invasion.

Sources said Snell also drove the getaway car and later led police on a chase reaching speeds of 130 mph.

Sources said police captured Snell after he crashed and tried to escape on foot.


Snell is expect to be fired as a result of the incident.