Before rain, comes the clouds
"Now is the winter of our discontent".
----William Shakespeare, King Richard III
"There is little chance that meteorologists can solve the mysteries of weather until they gain an understanding of the mutual attraction of rain and weekends."
---Arnot Sheppard
A major winter storm is heading to the Inland Empire during what weather forecasters had called a year of drought. They still believe that, even though so far this "La Nina" year has produced more rain than last year's "El Nino" visit.
It's hard to predict weather patterns and set them to hard rules, because nature will always bend them and go about its way.
The mayor's state of the city address is an annual function that's at least as much a social event as it is an informative one. The city's photographer was taking pictures of different important people, almost like they would at a social fundraising event. There was a luncheon where the food served there received varying reviews from those who ate it.
I met some more readers of my blog at the event, particularly those who have been reading postings on the forecast of budget cuts for this city and its impact on the city services as opposed to the city's development projects. The city does helpfully state that the money going into these projects isn't coming directly from the general fund, but doesn't say how much of that money's been borrowed.
But the city does have a pattern of borrowing money allocated to certain accounts for unrelated expenditures. One example was borrowing against the city's sewer fund to purchase businesses through threat of eminent domain on Market Street. Some residents of University City, the area that's soon to vote on whether or not to be annexed by Riverside expressed frustration at this development, given that one of the key issues involved in this community is who will pay for the construction of a sewer that serves their homes and just as importantly, will they be forced to pay for the construction of a sewer after they are annexed by the city.
Somebody once said, well this is how household accounts get budgeted and organized so what's the big deal? The deal is, the difference. The city after all, is handling money that once belonged to city residents, particularly through property and sales taxes, not to mention utility money. So if people are concerned about what's going on with how the money is spent particularly in fiscally difficult years than this one,
Here's the city's budget information site for this fiscal year and past ones. More and more city documents are converting or being posted as pdf documents so it's important to have access to Adobe Acrobat Reader, preferably version, 7.0 but the older versions should still work.
The Community Police Review Commission's report on the officer-involved death of Lee Deante Brown, both the majority and minority reports, is soon to be available online here, by next week. Just looked under "reports" for "officer-involved deaths" or just try here.
The CPRC site is being updated as well. Some of the links don't work and some of the pages most notably the first page have to be updated. Also, monthly reports will resume being release and posted here. The last official monthly report was released for September but as you can see at the site, it's about three months behind even that.
More than 20 people apparently read Inland Empire Craigslist including the most recent discussion on the downtown pedestrian mall and the role of capitalism in the city's development which is actually quite interesting to follow and I recommend that people read it and participate. It's hard to estimate how many people the Craigslist politics site reaches, but it's quite a large number judging by the number of visitors who access my blog through Craigslist each day. This unidentified person here is clearly upset about the removal of posts referencing or linking to this site. Not about the removal but that people are complaining about it.
I don't know who is removing them but I doubt it's a city employee. I'm sure they visit the site but it's hard to determine how these individuals feel about issues in the city. Who knows how many of them agree or disagree with the direction the city is moving in, especially from a fiscal perspective including at City Hall?
It could be and is more likely an individual or individuals who either believes that he or she is supporting the city like the individual who called me "Riverside's Most Prolific Racist" might have believed that he or she was supporting the elected official who doesn't like my blog. It could be someone who's just bored or just doesn't like me or other individuals who post on Craigslist or elsewhere.
It's not exactly like these individuals ever leave their names, much like those who write posts so who is doing so is really anyone's guess. Only one anonymous person ever bragged about removing posts on Craigslist linking to this site but that was some time ago. The rest prefer not to take credit even anonymously.
It's not really surprising because of the response this blog has received on different fronts including on it during the past several years from people who haven't liked it, whether it's an elected official making comments at a public meeting, the one city employee who's bowled over in his chair laughing in response or the anonymous individuals who have commented on it over the years. For a period of time, it was truly the blog that people loved to hate and for some, it serves that function.
There's certainly some merit to the concern of identifying yourself on the internet, but that's one reason. If some anonymous person is calling me a cunt, a bitch, a skank, a wigger, a whore or any variation of those endearments, then it's likely they won't post their names because they don't want to own their own comments. The one anonymous unidentified individual who helpfully included a whole laundry list of them and attributed those slurs to being said by elected officials didn't include his or her name. The individual who posted some unknown photograph of me attached to a rant, did not use his or her name. The one who said he was masturbating while using his keyboard and had to toss it out and get a new one, or one asking to be spanked or whipped or some strange thing did not leave his or her name. The anonymous individual who compared every woman to his personal favorite pinup, Ann Coulter or Dr. Laura or the one who called me a control freak and then descended into an incoherent ramble that ended in some renditions of bodily noises.
Nor did the character who chided me for my attempts at psychoanalysis before adding that he or she was leaving me to my "conspiracy" and running off to get drunk at Events. Then there's the unidentified individual who loved bubble baths and was clearly suffering from some sort of envy due to a really, really bad case of SPS or MPS. Unfortunately, there's no easy cure for that.
And so on.
It's probably a good bet that these individuals are not identifying themselves by their real names because they simply don't want people to know what they are doing. Perhaps, they are showing a side of themselves they don't want other people to know about. Perhaps this is how they act in other situations as well. Perhaps they harass more than one individual. Perhaps they got lost on the way to Dear Abby or a frat party or both.
But I've seen all kinds of comments including the following by a specimen who kind of split his or hers into two parts. The informative part with the "hit and run" approach that ends with the insult to elicit a shock reaction. It was paired with another comment which weighed in on about the proper slurs to use for female genitalia. I wouldn't be surprised if this individual acted out in public to elicit similar responses from individuals as a form of humor akin to that at a much younger age level. Whoever he, she or it is, they clearly aren't enamoured with me. Oh well.
The reason cops did not want the madatory recordings are because when they failed to record for different and ofter times reasonable reasons, they could and usually would face some type of discipline. Your such a whore!
---Anonymous individual, February 2007
Whatever, and you clearly have a lot of endurance. I really appreciate the input but I'm going to blog. I got that, but I'm still going to blog. I haven't thought of that, but I'm still going to blog. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm going to blog. I'm not sorry you feel that way and I'm going to blog.
I've received quite a few of these, hundreds.
But if there are negative comments, then there's also people who like the site and talk to me about it and they often don't come from corners easy to predict. It's interesting to talk to individuals who do read the blog and what their concerns are about the city.
It's hard to believe that people would be so irate if only 20 people frequented the Craigslist site because it's likely that these individuals expressing their frustration are hoping that their postings are read by more than 20 people in a city of 300,000 people. It's the fact that no one really knows the answer to the question of how popular Craigslist is that causes the consternation, and also the post removals. But it's interesting to see which topics elicit the most response on that front that they have to be removed by any party.
It's one useful way of learning which topics also deserve further attention, examination and discussion. DHL, being just the most recent example but then it's hard for many people not to be passionate about an issue that impacts their daily lives and those of their families in terms of quality of life. The DHL issue is truly one of those issues that has been mishandled just about from day one and while it's reassuring to learn that some elected officials will be saber rattling on behalf of city residents who only several years ago were written off as disgruntled gadflies, much more needs to be done.
Some of this blog's most popular topics include the following. Some were more longer duration than others in terms of how events unfolded. There are others like DHL and others that more recently have attracted attention as stated above.
1) City union labor negotiations of 2006
2) The "at will" positions involving the police department's upper management
3) Election 2007, city and city union elections and related issues of eminent domain, city parks and libraries
4) Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's legal problems and Riverside County Sheriff's Department appointing the new sheriff
5) Community Police Review Commission
6.) City's annual budget and planned cuts
Most popular side links:
1) CPRC
2) The RPD novella
3) Riverside County's Grand Jury report on the RPD.
This week's most popular links include the following.
1) Story on Lee Deante Brown case
2) Story on Summer Marie Lane settlement/Announcement of closed session on Douglas Steven Cloud shooting case
3) Announcement of State of the City Address
4) DHL noise on YouTube video
5) Letter written to Mayor Ron Loveridge on DHL
6) Riverside Police Department janitor becomes police officer article
By the way, if you love popcorn with your reading or watching televised city council meetings, try out Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Korn brand. Not bad at all.
The "Friends of Fairmount Park" will meet on Jan. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Stewart Boathouse. Lots of plans and discussion being planned. If you want to keep Fairmount Park as your park, check the meeting out and become involved.
The man who was at large after being shot at by a Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy at the county administrative headquarters in Riverside has been arrested in Norco, according to the Press Enterprise.
Riverside County Superior Court has two new judges to add to its overburdened court system.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Michael B. Donner, 61, of Riverside, a founder and partner in the Donner, Fernandez & Lauby law firm, and Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Anthony R. Villalobos, 42, of Indio, were appointed under SB 56.
That legislation added 50 new judgeships statewide, including seven in Riverside County. The appointments of Donner and Villalobos mean all seven slots are now filled, Presiding Judge Richard Fields said Friday.
"I could not possibly be happier," Fields said of the appointments. "These are two men who are outstanding lawyers and outstanding people."
It's not been announced yet which courthouse or failing that, which school they will be making their judicial debuts
If you live in Mission Grove, Orangecrest or Hillcrest, your water bills are going up courtesy of Western Municipal Water District.
(excerpt)
The rate increase took effect Dec. 10. The district serves about 22,000 retail customers in the Riverside and Murrieta areas. The bill for an average household using 33 "units" of water per month, a unit being 100 cubic feet or 748 gallons, will rise $3.50 per month, to $75.25, in the Murrieta area served by Western, south of Wildomar and west of Interstate 15, including Old Town Murrieta.
The bill for the same water usage will go up $4.50 per month, to $54.45, in the Riverside area served by Western -- the Mission Grove, Orangecrest and Hillcrest neighborhoods within the city limits and the area around Lake Mathews south of the city.
Western's water rates vary based on the cost of the water, the pumping costs required to bring the water to a customer, labor costs, water quality testing, materials costs and other operating expenses.
Before the district board's Dec. 5 vote, it received six letters about the rate increase, five of them in opposition.
Mission Grove resident John Farnsworth said new customers should bear the cost the district is incurring to supply them.
"Why should existing customers pay higher costs to add new service customers, who then pay the same rate as existing customers?" he wrote.
So when the DHL planes wake you up again, engage in water conservation behaviors only.
The Fontana mayor is like all mayors facing fiscal challenges.
Is the police auto fleet in San Bernardino in good condition? That's the question being debated by the department and the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association.
(excerpt)
In a recent letter to Police Chief Mike Billdt, Rich Lawhead, of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association, calls the general condition of the fleet "very poor."
Assistant Police Chief Frank Mankin responded by saying that despite occasional backlogs, the department practices timely vehicle maintenance and is working expeditiously to bring new patrol cars into service.
Lawhead's letter cites a series of delays:
Police sent members of an extra patrol team for a high-crime area home because they couldn't provide them vehicles.
On a recent visit to the city yard, Lawhead saw between 20 and 25 patrol vehicles undergoing or awaiting service. That's a quarter of the patrol fleet.
New patrol cars sat unused for roughly a year.
"It is my understanding that to this day, those vehicles are collecting dust in the yard and are still awaiting preparation for service," the letter states. "Simply put, it should not take a year to purchase and ready for service these vehicles we are desperately lacking."
Mankin said there was no such delay.
Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona wants some tapes recorded secretly of conversations between him and an aide excluded from the evidence, according to the Los Angeles Times.
(excerpt)
One of the seven charges against Carona alleges that he tried to persuade Donald Haidl, his former assistant sheriff and close friend, to withhold information from a federal grand jury. The charge stems from conversations Haidl secretly recorded during three meetings with Carona last year.
The defense contends that federal lawyers improperly sent Haidl to meet with Carona while the former sheriff was represented by attorneys. Ethical guidelines governing California lawyers prohibit them from communicating directly or indirectly with parties represented by legal counsel, Carona's attorneys contend.
U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford will be asked to decide whether the government can get around that restriction by sending a third party, not employed by authorities, to communicate with a represented suspect.
Prosecutors declined to comment on the matter, saying they intended to file a response within two weeks. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Feb. 29.
New York City Police Department "safety agents" handcuffed a five-year-old boy and sent him to a psychiatric facility.
(excerpt, New York Daily News)
"He's 5 years old. He was scared to death," Dennis Rivera's mother, Jasmina Vasquez, told the Daily News. "You cannot imagine what it's done to him."
Dennis - who suffers from speech problems, asthma and attention deficit disorder - never went back to class at Public School 81 in Queens after the traumatic incident.
His mom and a school source said Dennis threw a tantrum inside the Ridgewood school at 11 a.m. on Jan. 17.
Dennis was taken to the principal's office, where he apparently knocked items off a desk.
Rather than calling the boy's parents, a school safety agent cuffed the boy's small hands behind his back using metal restraints, the school source said.
Portland must rehaul its civilian oversight mechanism according to a consultant that's been hired to evaluate the Independent Police Complaint Review.
The amazing Eileen Luna-Firebaugh was the one who worked six months to do the report.
(excerpt, Portland Tribune)
Luna-Firebaugh, a veteran of municipal police oversight agencies who now is a professor at the University of Arizona, concluded that IPR needs to be more aggressive in becoming involved in the PPB’s internal investigations, including utilizing its already-granted authority to conduct fully independent investigations as it sees fit. IPR has not yet used that authority in its six-year existence.
Luna-Firebaugh also said that the citizens review committee — often described as the public’s window into how the Portland Police Bureau conducts its investigations — should have more power and independence.
Specifically, Luna-Firebaugh said that the citizens committee, which currently is more of an advisory body, should:
• Be granted authority and direction over a city staff person.
• Be granted direct authority on whether to consider the appeals filed by citizens who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their complaints. Currently that authority rests with the IPR director.
• Be granted authority to direct IPR staff to conduct independent investigations, rather than relying on police bureau internal investigators.
Mayor Tom Potter told the Oregonian that he hoped the recommendations were taken seriously.
(excerpt)
Mayor Tom Potter praised the expert's credibility and said the city needs to look at her recommendations.
"I want the community more engaged. I want them to feel that it's a system they can trust, and whatever steps we need to take to do that, we need to consider," Potter said. "Unless the community is satisfied, I'm not satisfied."
What's a shame is that the director of the Independent Police Review office admitted she hadn't even read the report.
Portland CopWatch's response to the report is here.
(excerpt)
There is no mention at all of the conflict of interest inherent in the City Attorney advising both the Police Bureau when they get sued for misconduct and the IPR/CRC when they investigate misconduct.
Actually, this concern has been voiced here by community members in response especially to City Attorney Gregory Priamos' decision not to allow an item involving the discussion of independent legal counsel to be put on a July meeting agenda. Priamos vetoed the item submitted by then commissioner Steve Simpson, stating that it was not "germaine" to the CPRC. Some might call it protecting one's own position and that of the city's and given that the city is currently paying out on several law suits filed in connection with officer-involved deaths, it clouds the issue even further in regards to the issue Luna-Firebaugh raised in her Portland report. But if you ask the CPRC questions about putting issues on agenda, you receive a response focusing on how much paper work complaints generate and there's more to what they do than putting out an agenda. What the very real issues with the shortage of staffing in the CPRC office have to do with showing a bit of fortitude and telling City Hall that you intend to put this item on the agenda and this is why, is really nothing. It's just a way of sidestepping the issues that concern the community but then again, it hasn't really been the community's commission in quite a while now.
Speaking of reports, the CPRC is due to receive one soon from a consultant the city hired to evaluate the CPRC and offer recommendations for implementation. It will be interesting to see what they are and what becomes of them, especially which ones if any get shelved by the city manager's office. And as usual, the community will be on the sidelines awaiting to see what the city will do to its commission kind of like watching a theatrical production to see what comes next.
In Atlanta, Georgia, another officer's been arrested, this time for extortion. The behavior was discovered while the department was investigating the murder of Kathryn Johnston, 92, by narcotics detectives who falsified a warrant and broke into her house in 2006.
If you want to vote early in the primaries for the presidential election, here is one way how. Your vote is your voice so it's important to participate.
----William Shakespeare, King Richard III
"There is little chance that meteorologists can solve the mysteries of weather until they gain an understanding of the mutual attraction of rain and weekends."
---Arnot Sheppard
A major winter storm is heading to the Inland Empire during what weather forecasters had called a year of drought. They still believe that, even though so far this "La Nina" year has produced more rain than last year's "El Nino" visit.
It's hard to predict weather patterns and set them to hard rules, because nature will always bend them and go about its way.
The mayor's state of the city address is an annual function that's at least as much a social event as it is an informative one. The city's photographer was taking pictures of different important people, almost like they would at a social fundraising event. There was a luncheon where the food served there received varying reviews from those who ate it.
I met some more readers of my blog at the event, particularly those who have been reading postings on the forecast of budget cuts for this city and its impact on the city services as opposed to the city's development projects. The city does helpfully state that the money going into these projects isn't coming directly from the general fund, but doesn't say how much of that money's been borrowed.
But the city does have a pattern of borrowing money allocated to certain accounts for unrelated expenditures. One example was borrowing against the city's sewer fund to purchase businesses through threat of eminent domain on Market Street. Some residents of University City, the area that's soon to vote on whether or not to be annexed by Riverside expressed frustration at this development, given that one of the key issues involved in this community is who will pay for the construction of a sewer that serves their homes and just as importantly, will they be forced to pay for the construction of a sewer after they are annexed by the city.
Somebody once said, well this is how household accounts get budgeted and organized so what's the big deal? The deal is, the difference. The city after all, is handling money that once belonged to city residents, particularly through property and sales taxes, not to mention utility money. So if people are concerned about what's going on with how the money is spent particularly in fiscally difficult years than this one,
Here's the city's budget information site for this fiscal year and past ones. More and more city documents are converting or being posted as pdf documents so it's important to have access to Adobe Acrobat Reader, preferably version, 7.0 but the older versions should still work.
The Community Police Review Commission's report on the officer-involved death of Lee Deante Brown, both the majority and minority reports, is soon to be available online here, by next week. Just looked under "reports" for "officer-involved deaths" or just try here.
The CPRC site is being updated as well. Some of the links don't work and some of the pages most notably the first page have to be updated. Also, monthly reports will resume being release and posted here. The last official monthly report was released for September but as you can see at the site, it's about three months behind even that.
More than 20 people apparently read Inland Empire Craigslist including the most recent discussion on the downtown pedestrian mall and the role of capitalism in the city's development which is actually quite interesting to follow and I recommend that people read it and participate. It's hard to estimate how many people the Craigslist politics site reaches, but it's quite a large number judging by the number of visitors who access my blog through Craigslist each day. This unidentified person here is clearly upset about the removal of posts referencing or linking to this site. Not about the removal but that people are complaining about it.
I don't know who is removing them but I doubt it's a city employee. I'm sure they visit the site but it's hard to determine how these individuals feel about issues in the city. Who knows how many of them agree or disagree with the direction the city is moving in, especially from a fiscal perspective including at City Hall?
It could be and is more likely an individual or individuals who either believes that he or she is supporting the city like the individual who called me "Riverside's Most Prolific Racist" might have believed that he or she was supporting the elected official who doesn't like my blog. It could be someone who's just bored or just doesn't like me or other individuals who post on Craigslist or elsewhere.
It's not exactly like these individuals ever leave their names, much like those who write posts so who is doing so is really anyone's guess. Only one anonymous person ever bragged about removing posts on Craigslist linking to this site but that was some time ago. The rest prefer not to take credit even anonymously.
It's not really surprising because of the response this blog has received on different fronts including on it during the past several years from people who haven't liked it, whether it's an elected official making comments at a public meeting, the one city employee who's bowled over in his chair laughing in response or the anonymous individuals who have commented on it over the years. For a period of time, it was truly the blog that people loved to hate and for some, it serves that function.
There's certainly some merit to the concern of identifying yourself on the internet, but that's one reason. If some anonymous person is calling me a cunt, a bitch, a skank, a wigger, a whore or any variation of those endearments, then it's likely they won't post their names because they don't want to own their own comments. The one anonymous unidentified individual who helpfully included a whole laundry list of them and attributed those slurs to being said by elected officials didn't include his or her name. The individual who posted some unknown photograph of me attached to a rant, did not use his or her name. The one who said he was masturbating while using his keyboard and had to toss it out and get a new one, or one asking to be spanked or whipped or some strange thing did not leave his or her name. The anonymous individual who compared every woman to his personal favorite pinup, Ann Coulter or Dr. Laura or the one who called me a control freak and then descended into an incoherent ramble that ended in some renditions of bodily noises.
Nor did the character who chided me for my attempts at psychoanalysis before adding that he or she was leaving me to my "conspiracy" and running off to get drunk at Events. Then there's the unidentified individual who loved bubble baths and was clearly suffering from some sort of envy due to a really, really bad case of SPS or MPS. Unfortunately, there's no easy cure for that.
And so on.
It's probably a good bet that these individuals are not identifying themselves by their real names because they simply don't want people to know what they are doing. Perhaps, they are showing a side of themselves they don't want other people to know about. Perhaps this is how they act in other situations as well. Perhaps they harass more than one individual. Perhaps they got lost on the way to Dear Abby or a frat party or both.
But I've seen all kinds of comments including the following by a specimen who kind of split his or hers into two parts. The informative part with the "hit and run" approach that ends with the insult to elicit a shock reaction. It was paired with another comment which weighed in on about the proper slurs to use for female genitalia. I wouldn't be surprised if this individual acted out in public to elicit similar responses from individuals as a form of humor akin to that at a much younger age level. Whoever he, she or it is, they clearly aren't enamoured with me. Oh well.
The reason cops did not want the madatory recordings are because when they failed to record for different and ofter times reasonable reasons, they could and usually would face some type of discipline. Your such a whore!
---Anonymous individual, February 2007
Whatever, and you clearly have a lot of endurance. I really appreciate the input but I'm going to blog. I got that, but I'm still going to blog. I haven't thought of that, but I'm still going to blog. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm going to blog. I'm not sorry you feel that way and I'm going to blog.
I've received quite a few of these, hundreds.
But if there are negative comments, then there's also people who like the site and talk to me about it and they often don't come from corners easy to predict. It's interesting to talk to individuals who do read the blog and what their concerns are about the city.
It's hard to believe that people would be so irate if only 20 people frequented the Craigslist site because it's likely that these individuals expressing their frustration are hoping that their postings are read by more than 20 people in a city of 300,000 people. It's the fact that no one really knows the answer to the question of how popular Craigslist is that causes the consternation, and also the post removals. But it's interesting to see which topics elicit the most response on that front that they have to be removed by any party.
It's one useful way of learning which topics also deserve further attention, examination and discussion. DHL, being just the most recent example but then it's hard for many people not to be passionate about an issue that impacts their daily lives and those of their families in terms of quality of life. The DHL issue is truly one of those issues that has been mishandled just about from day one and while it's reassuring to learn that some elected officials will be saber rattling on behalf of city residents who only several years ago were written off as disgruntled gadflies, much more needs to be done.
Some of this blog's most popular topics include the following. Some were more longer duration than others in terms of how events unfolded. There are others like DHL and others that more recently have attracted attention as stated above.
1) City union labor negotiations of 2006
2) The "at will" positions involving the police department's upper management
3) Election 2007, city and city union elections and related issues of eminent domain, city parks and libraries
4) Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's legal problems and Riverside County Sheriff's Department appointing the new sheriff
5) Community Police Review Commission
6.) City's annual budget and planned cuts
Most popular side links:
1) CPRC
2) The RPD novella
3) Riverside County's Grand Jury report on the RPD.
This week's most popular links include the following.
1) Story on Lee Deante Brown case
2) Story on Summer Marie Lane settlement/Announcement of closed session on Douglas Steven Cloud shooting case
3) Announcement of State of the City Address
4) DHL noise on YouTube video
5) Letter written to Mayor Ron Loveridge on DHL
6) Riverside Police Department janitor becomes police officer article
By the way, if you love popcorn with your reading or watching televised city council meetings, try out Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Korn brand. Not bad at all.
The "Friends of Fairmount Park" will meet on Jan. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Stewart Boathouse. Lots of plans and discussion being planned. If you want to keep Fairmount Park as your park, check the meeting out and become involved.
The man who was at large after being shot at by a Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy at the county administrative headquarters in Riverside has been arrested in Norco, according to the Press Enterprise.
Riverside County Superior Court has two new judges to add to its overburdened court system.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Michael B. Donner, 61, of Riverside, a founder and partner in the Donner, Fernandez & Lauby law firm, and Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Anthony R. Villalobos, 42, of Indio, were appointed under SB 56.
That legislation added 50 new judgeships statewide, including seven in Riverside County. The appointments of Donner and Villalobos mean all seven slots are now filled, Presiding Judge Richard Fields said Friday.
"I could not possibly be happier," Fields said of the appointments. "These are two men who are outstanding lawyers and outstanding people."
It's not been announced yet which courthouse or failing that, which school they will be making their judicial debuts
If you live in Mission Grove, Orangecrest or Hillcrest, your water bills are going up courtesy of Western Municipal Water District.
(excerpt)
The rate increase took effect Dec. 10. The district serves about 22,000 retail customers in the Riverside and Murrieta areas. The bill for an average household using 33 "units" of water per month, a unit being 100 cubic feet or 748 gallons, will rise $3.50 per month, to $75.25, in the Murrieta area served by Western, south of Wildomar and west of Interstate 15, including Old Town Murrieta.
The bill for the same water usage will go up $4.50 per month, to $54.45, in the Riverside area served by Western -- the Mission Grove, Orangecrest and Hillcrest neighborhoods within the city limits and the area around Lake Mathews south of the city.
Western's water rates vary based on the cost of the water, the pumping costs required to bring the water to a customer, labor costs, water quality testing, materials costs and other operating expenses.
Before the district board's Dec. 5 vote, it received six letters about the rate increase, five of them in opposition.
Mission Grove resident John Farnsworth said new customers should bear the cost the district is incurring to supply them.
"Why should existing customers pay higher costs to add new service customers, who then pay the same rate as existing customers?" he wrote.
So when the DHL planes wake you up again, engage in water conservation behaviors only.
The Fontana mayor is like all mayors facing fiscal challenges.
Is the police auto fleet in San Bernardino in good condition? That's the question being debated by the department and the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association.
(excerpt)
In a recent letter to Police Chief Mike Billdt, Rich Lawhead, of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association, calls the general condition of the fleet "very poor."
Assistant Police Chief Frank Mankin responded by saying that despite occasional backlogs, the department practices timely vehicle maintenance and is working expeditiously to bring new patrol cars into service.
Lawhead's letter cites a series of delays:
Police sent members of an extra patrol team for a high-crime area home because they couldn't provide them vehicles.
On a recent visit to the city yard, Lawhead saw between 20 and 25 patrol vehicles undergoing or awaiting service. That's a quarter of the patrol fleet.
New patrol cars sat unused for roughly a year.
"It is my understanding that to this day, those vehicles are collecting dust in the yard and are still awaiting preparation for service," the letter states. "Simply put, it should not take a year to purchase and ready for service these vehicles we are desperately lacking."
Mankin said there was no such delay.
Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona wants some tapes recorded secretly of conversations between him and an aide excluded from the evidence, according to the Los Angeles Times.
(excerpt)
One of the seven charges against Carona alleges that he tried to persuade Donald Haidl, his former assistant sheriff and close friend, to withhold information from a federal grand jury. The charge stems from conversations Haidl secretly recorded during three meetings with Carona last year.
The defense contends that federal lawyers improperly sent Haidl to meet with Carona while the former sheriff was represented by attorneys. Ethical guidelines governing California lawyers prohibit them from communicating directly or indirectly with parties represented by legal counsel, Carona's attorneys contend.
U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford will be asked to decide whether the government can get around that restriction by sending a third party, not employed by authorities, to communicate with a represented suspect.
Prosecutors declined to comment on the matter, saying they intended to file a response within two weeks. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Feb. 29.
New York City Police Department "safety agents" handcuffed a five-year-old boy and sent him to a psychiatric facility.
(excerpt, New York Daily News)
"He's 5 years old. He was scared to death," Dennis Rivera's mother, Jasmina Vasquez, told the Daily News. "You cannot imagine what it's done to him."
Dennis - who suffers from speech problems, asthma and attention deficit disorder - never went back to class at Public School 81 in Queens after the traumatic incident.
His mom and a school source said Dennis threw a tantrum inside the Ridgewood school at 11 a.m. on Jan. 17.
Dennis was taken to the principal's office, where he apparently knocked items off a desk.
Rather than calling the boy's parents, a school safety agent cuffed the boy's small hands behind his back using metal restraints, the school source said.
Portland must rehaul its civilian oversight mechanism according to a consultant that's been hired to evaluate the Independent Police Complaint Review.
The amazing Eileen Luna-Firebaugh was the one who worked six months to do the report.
(excerpt, Portland Tribune)
Luna-Firebaugh, a veteran of municipal police oversight agencies who now is a professor at the University of Arizona, concluded that IPR needs to be more aggressive in becoming involved in the PPB’s internal investigations, including utilizing its already-granted authority to conduct fully independent investigations as it sees fit. IPR has not yet used that authority in its six-year existence.
Luna-Firebaugh also said that the citizens review committee — often described as the public’s window into how the Portland Police Bureau conducts its investigations — should have more power and independence.
Specifically, Luna-Firebaugh said that the citizens committee, which currently is more of an advisory body, should:
• Be granted authority and direction over a city staff person.
• Be granted direct authority on whether to consider the appeals filed by citizens who are dissatisfied with the outcome of their complaints. Currently that authority rests with the IPR director.
• Be granted authority to direct IPR staff to conduct independent investigations, rather than relying on police bureau internal investigators.
Mayor Tom Potter told the Oregonian that he hoped the recommendations were taken seriously.
(excerpt)
Mayor Tom Potter praised the expert's credibility and said the city needs to look at her recommendations.
"I want the community more engaged. I want them to feel that it's a system they can trust, and whatever steps we need to take to do that, we need to consider," Potter said. "Unless the community is satisfied, I'm not satisfied."
What's a shame is that the director of the Independent Police Review office admitted she hadn't even read the report.
Portland CopWatch's response to the report is here.
(excerpt)
There is no mention at all of the conflict of interest inherent in the City Attorney advising both the Police Bureau when they get sued for misconduct and the IPR/CRC when they investigate misconduct.
Actually, this concern has been voiced here by community members in response especially to City Attorney Gregory Priamos' decision not to allow an item involving the discussion of independent legal counsel to be put on a July meeting agenda. Priamos vetoed the item submitted by then commissioner Steve Simpson, stating that it was not "germaine" to the CPRC. Some might call it protecting one's own position and that of the city's and given that the city is currently paying out on several law suits filed in connection with officer-involved deaths, it clouds the issue even further in regards to the issue Luna-Firebaugh raised in her Portland report. But if you ask the CPRC questions about putting issues on agenda, you receive a response focusing on how much paper work complaints generate and there's more to what they do than putting out an agenda. What the very real issues with the shortage of staffing in the CPRC office have to do with showing a bit of fortitude and telling City Hall that you intend to put this item on the agenda and this is why, is really nothing. It's just a way of sidestepping the issues that concern the community but then again, it hasn't really been the community's commission in quite a while now.
Speaking of reports, the CPRC is due to receive one soon from a consultant the city hired to evaluate the CPRC and offer recommendations for implementation. It will be interesting to see what they are and what becomes of them, especially which ones if any get shelved by the city manager's office. And as usual, the community will be on the sidelines awaiting to see what the city will do to its commission kind of like watching a theatrical production to see what comes next.
In Atlanta, Georgia, another officer's been arrested, this time for extortion. The behavior was discovered while the department was investigating the murder of Kathryn Johnston, 92, by narcotics detectives who falsified a warrant and broke into her house in 2006.
If you want to vote early in the primaries for the presidential election, here is one way how. Your vote is your voice so it's important to participate.
Labels: business as usual, civilian review spreads, judicial watch, labor pains
posted by Five Before Midnight | 1:18 PM
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