A look back in time: Know your ABCs

" This is one of those forums that is out of our hands. We need to move it forward onto the ballot."


---Riverside Councilman Frank Schiavone, July 13, 2004



"We all know where some of the votes are on the hot issues."


---Former Councilman Ed Adkison before proposing the motion to include all the charter committee's recommendations on the November 2004 ballot.





"As Mary correctly states, had it not been for our former council friend A. Gage, the charter measure would not even have appeared on the balott. Way to go Athur"



---Anonymous, Craigslist, Dec. 26, 2007





"It removes the commission from being a political football through one of its recommendations or its makeup."


----Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely, who chairs The Group told the city council in July 2004





"Please, please let it go to the people."


---Attorney Jack Clarke, jr. who chaired the Mayor's Use of Force Panel in 1999, on July 13, 2004





The above insightful comments were all made in response by various identified and unidentified people, not just to what would become Measure II, but also to all of the 23 recommendations made by the Charter Review Committee to the city council on July 13, 2004. References made to the role played by former councilman, Art Gage in getting the Community Police Review Commission into the city's charter is good reason to reexamine these events from the city's recent history. Gage does bear some of the responsibility for the CPRC's inclusion but not all of it as there were more layers to the dynamics and the cast of characters surrounding the Charter Review Committee and its amendments than first appeared. It would take several years to pass before it became more clear how much.

The basis for assessing the responsibility of Gage for the change in status regarding the commission that among other things, provides oversight over the police department's complaint process, is that it was actions taken by him before the July 13 meeting was what drove the Charter Review Committee to include it with other recommendations to submit to the city council. However, that's only partly true. Members of the Charter Review Committee were considering the possibility of doing this, not long after Gage and Councilman Steve Adams were sworn into office in 2004. It was also discussed whether or not this action should be proposed for all the city's boards and commissions that weren't already included in the city's charter but that idea failed to attract much support and of all the commissions raised individually, only the CPRC was voted for inclusion in the committee's final recommendations to the city council.

And who served on the Charter Review Committee?

The members were appointed, several apiece from all seven city council members and the mayor in 2003. They included among others current Ward Three city councilman, William "Rusty" Bailey, former Press Enterprise publisher, Marcia Mcquern and city council meeting regular, Marjorie Von Pohle. They and others listened, talked, debated, argued, deliberated and ultimately decided on the group of recommendations to submit to the city council.


Once the recommendations were presented to the city council, Councilman Ed Adkison proposed the motion to place all the recommendations offered up by the Charter Review Committee in toto and was backed by both Councilman Frank Schiavone and Councilman Dom Betro, who wound up seconding his motion. If it weren't for these three men's actions that evening, then the amendments including Measure II would never have been on the ballot. And neither Adkison nor Schiavone are any fan of the CPRC, which both have opposed since at least either their first election in the case of Schiavone and when the creation of the CPRC came up for its final vote in Adkison's case.

Most of the people who spoke at that city council meeting spoke in favor of the recommendation which would become Measure II than for or against any other committee recommendation. In the midst of the discussion on the prospective ballot initiatives, a showdown occurred between Mayor Ron Loveridge and several other council members because Loveridge opposed the committee recommendation which would eventually become Measure GG. This was a recommendation that was proposed to ensure that all the city's boards and commissions have at least one representative from each ward.

Traditionally, wards six and seven have been underrepresented on most boards and commissions with wards one, two and four providing the most members of these bodies. It's important to have well-rounded boards and commissions that are representative of the city's residents. However, this action also removed the power of the mayor to screen and nominate prospective board and commissions through the committee he chairs for that purpose and put more power into the city council members to pick nominees or even front their own candidates for positions on the city's boards and commissions. The impact of Measure GG has already been seen from a more political perspective with the CPRC for example as well as the Planning Commission and has become a tool by city officials to try to shape the city's boards.

Loveridge opposed putting the future Measure GG on the ballot and argued over an hour against its inclusion. Adkison threatened to withdraw his motion and have all the recommendations be evaluated for inclusion on the November ballot, one by one. Loveridge realized that it was a lost cause which could result in very little net gain, potential losses and he finally blinked.

Measure GG like Measure II and others passed the muster of the voters and were placed in the city's charter that autumn. Some people including city officials grumbled about it in the immediate aftermath but it wouldn't be at all surprising if they haven't become converts of it since.


According to the minute record for the July 13, 2004 meeting, the vote was 5 to 2 with Gage and former councilman, Ameal Moore voting in opposition to Adkison's motion. Gage said during the meeting that he thought that the city council should discuss and vote on different proposed amendments one by one and many in the audience, did see that as an attempt to try to prevent the CPRC's amendment from being placed on the ballot. Perhaps some of the ones who backed Gage's actions to do so and also his actions to push for defunding the CPRC by up to 95% during the budget reconciliation hearings of 2004 only saw later on that it probably wasn't the best strategic move in the long run. Still, Gage only deserves part of the credit or the blame depending on how you look at it for what happened in three and one-half years ago.


Gage campaigned on the attitude that he wasn't decided if he was for or against the CPRC. But considering that he was receiving what at the time was pretty sizable campaign contributions from the Riverside Police Officers' Association which opposed the CPRC, many people correctly guessed that he actually opposed it and it didn't take longer for it to be crystal clear how true that was.

The gloves came off several months after Gage was sworn into office when he pushed a motion to defund the CPRC by up to 95%, which he did by saying that he believed that the CPRC should receive the same funding budget as the Human Relations Commission even though their roles, responsibilities and powers are vastly different. He proposed the motion twice about a week apart at two separate meetings. The first time, he received a tepid second by Councilman Steve Adams which was later withdrawn and no support from the city council. Why? Maybe because the others thought it was bad strategy. Maybe it was as Adkison and Schiavone had said, they opposed the commission but as long as it was there, it should be properly funded to do its job. Perhaps it was related to Loveridge's decision to do something he hardly has ever done which is to threaten to veto any action in that direction. Veto is not exactly a commonly used word in Loveridge's vocabulary since he's been mayor.

The second time it was proposed, Gage didn't even receive a weak second.

Gage later called the commission a piece of trash at a city council meeting, which upset people but at least what you saw was what you got with Gage. Apparently not so for other members of the dais who said they would follow the will of the voters but you couldn't ever be too sure of what was happening on the "Seventh Floor".

The actions coming out of both the city manager's office and the city attorney's office at the same time in early 2006 with both pulling reversals on past practices of keeping their distance from the CPRC's operations is just not a coincidence, which means that the orders to both of these direct employees who are independent from one another but have the same bosses have to be coming from some corner of the top floor of City Hall. Several city council members didn't speak out on the CPRC at all even though they allegedly supported it, hinting that the majority of the city council still didn't want it.

Maybe that's why at least one of them still bristles when the words, "Measure II", "the will of the voters" and similar ones are mentioned, they act out. But given that the measure passed in every precinct, in every ward in this city, though it might pain some individuals including politicians in office to admit it, a majority of those who voted in the November 2004 presidential election recognized the importance of providing an extra layer of protection through the city charter from turning as several speakers at the July 13, 2004 city council meeting called it, a political football.







Habitat for Humanity will finally be constructing some homes in Temecula. The inclement weather of several weeks ago caused some delays.



Retail outlets may have a hard time surviving or might face slumps, as a result of the troubled housing market, according to the Press Enterprise.



(excerpt)


Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said real estate professionals can find an appropriate slogan after their previous inventions, such as "It's great to be alive in 2005," or "It'll feel like heaven in 2007," but it will have a different tone.

"How much will you hate 2008?" Kyser said.

He said as long as housing is in the dumps, retail will have a precarious existence. Kyser predicts a 2.5 percent decline in taxable retail sales for 2008. He said that will startle a lot of people who are used to growth.

While conventional wisdom may suggest that the Inland region is underserved by retail, Kyser said there are some subsectors in which there won't be a need for expansion without population growth.

"I think the (Inland Empire) is underserved by certain types of retail -- that's why people were excited by Victoria Gardens -- but what we call the near-luxury brands are struggling," Kyser said.

He said retail will get healthy again after housing does.

"The key is the health of the home-building industry," Kyser said. "When does unsold inventory go down? When will mortgages be freed up?



Riverside's busy operating on the principle for both business and housing that if you build it, they will come. Perhaps. But as more and more "for sale" signs appear on many blocks in Riverside and more and more stories are related about trying to sell homes in the Inland Empire, it will take quite a while before that adage holds.




According to the Boston Globe, a police officer in that city has been arrested for robbing a gas station.



Michael T. Jones had worked for the department 20 years before his arrest.


(excerpt)



Police received a call shortly before 4 p.m. that a man had fled the gas station after robbing the clerk at gunpoint. Police issued a "be on the lookout" alert on the radio.

Elaine Driscoll, department spokeswoman, said a "vigilant citizen" listening to a police scanner heard the message, spotted the car driving by on Canterbury Street, and contacted the department with the license plate number.

"Witnesses were very helpful," Driscoll said. "They gave a very detailed suspect description as well as the description of the suspect's vehicle."



And so Jones was caught. He had used his own service gun in the commission of the crime.





Can our criminal-justice system mete out justice when the criminal is one of its own?



This is the question asked by the San Diego Tribune Columnist Gerry Braun in connection to a police officer who was being sentenced for killing his wife.



(excerpt)


It's a question that Superior Court Judge Allan J. Preckel is more qualified than most people to answer, which may account for how the Bruce case landed in his courtroom.

In the 1980s, Preckel ran the special operations division of the District Attorney's Office, a group that prosecuted law enforcement officers for crimes committed on and off the job.

It was a “no-win position,” Preckel noted at the time. The public had long been wary of the cozy relationship between police and prosecutors, and those groups had little enthusiasm for internal-affairs investigations. Preckel tried to play it straight down the middle.

“Our job is not to make people happy,” he said, “but to do what is right.”

Trying to do right by Kristin Maxwell-Bruce has earned Preckel nothing but abuse from District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who is trying to kick him off the case.

His offense? He thinks Dumanis is letting Bruce off too lightly. Preckel is not alone in that view.

We often tell ourselves that people in positions of public trust are held to higher standards. But the sad truth is that when one of them crosses the line – be it a politician or a police officer – that high standard usually translates as less punishment.



The interesting but not very surprising aspect of this fatal domestic violence case is that the district attorney is actually accusing the judge of being too harsh on the convicted killer. But then how can that be surprising considering that he's running for city attorney and has already been endorsed by the San Diego County Sheriff and hopes to add several law enforcement labor unions to the list.

Braun argued that the current judge's history shows that he gives equitable sentences to people who commit the same type of crimes whether they are from law enforcement backgrounds or not.


Braun does write that he reached the following conclusion. This case may not prove it wrong.


(excerpt)


We often tell ourselves that people in positions of public trust are held to higher standards. But the sad truth is that when one of them crosses the line – be it a politician or a police officer – that high standard usually translates as less punishment.