Riverside City Hall: From whence thou shalt we cut?

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"


---Robert Burns (the misquoted version)





"Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves"


---Lewis Carroll






A man who's developmentally disabled has been missing since Dec. 27 according to the Press Enterprise.



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Kandarian lived most of his life in group homes and institutions, Tarvin said. On Dec. 13, 2006, she moved him from a Cathedral City facility to Orangecrest Villa after People's Care employees assured her they could care for him.

"The residents there have their own rooms and their own TVs," Tarvin said. "I was very, very tickled. I thought his quality of life would be much better."

Doctors diagnosed Kandarian with Prader-Willi before he was 2. At 3, he went to live with his paternal grandmother because Tarvin said doctors warned her that his behavior would become more violent. Kandarian was 7 when he moved into his first group home, she said.

He ended up in the Inland area as group homes and institutions closer to Tarvin's home closed or other residents threatened her son's safety, she said.

"We try to go see him once a year," Tarvin said. "We regularly talk to people at the home and we talk to him."

Since his disappearance last month, Tarvin and Wheeler said they have been told that Kandarian previously walked away from caregivers but always returned fairly quickly.








The Press Enterprise published an article about the money spent by the county on providing security for Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco and his family.




About $160,000 was spent according to a public record request submitted by the publication.



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The district attorney's office last month released some details about its spending on security in response to a public records request filed by The Press-Enterprise.

The request sought an itemized accounting of expenditures on security enhancements inside and outside the homes of Pacheco and other members of his staff during 2007.

The district attorney's office said $157,263 was spent on county employee salaries and benefits, $5,432 on county vehicles and $413 on meals during the last calendar year.

Assistant District Attorney Kelly Keenan said the costs include regular and overtime hours. However, Keenan said he was reluctant to disclose how much was spent on overtime pay.

Doing so might allow someone intent on doing harm to the district attorney or his family to determine how many people are working a shift and potentially even when the shifts change, Keenan said.

Susan Mickey, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino District Attorney Michael Ramos, said the office does not disclose details about its security arrangements.



The irony about the article that's hard to ignore is the fact that the man who was arrested and later prosecuted for placing the classified advertisement as an apparent threat to Pacheco was employed by the publication at the time.







Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise addresses the rooster initiative coming on a ballot near you if you live in Riverside. Judging from his article, he doesn't appear too keen on it.


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Measure A -- The Foghorn Leghorn Ordinance -- would slash the number of permissible poultry to seven. From sundown to sunrise, roosters must be confined to an "acoustical structure," such as the inside of a very large guitar. I say a very large guitar. That's a joke, son.

A rooster, as defined by City Attorney Greg Priamos is "any male chicken 2 months of age or older." (For this we sent him to law school?)

But not everybody supports Measure (Chick-fil) A.

Lori Miser's family owns the Magnolia Bird Farm in La Sierra, which buys and sells exotic dancers. (Actually, exotic birds. Just want to make sure you're paying attention). Lori worries that roosters are only the first step. Next, the city will go after macaws.

Where will it stop? Pretty soon, the city will ban parrots, parrot jokes and Peeps. Picture this headline: "City of the Arts Bans Rubber Chickens." Can you say "laughingstock?"

For the first time in decades, it looks like Californians will have a say so about who becomes president. That'll be easy compared to picking a side on Measure (Chick-fil) A.

Right now, I'm thinking that, after Super Tuesday, one group of crowing roosters will fly away, never to be heard from again. If we mute the other group of crowing roosters, it's going to be as quiet as a hen's tooth. I say quiet as a hen's tooth. That's a joke, son.




Here's the poll that people have been waiting for, where you can weigh in on your feelings about Measure A, the initiative that targets crowing roosters.


There are already responses to the survey here.





If you're concerned about the planned renovation of the downtown public library, so is Renew the Library, an organization dedicated to monitoring the process and its progress.



On Jan. 16, at 2 p.m. there is an important meeting at City Hall on the future of the library. If you've got questions about the plans for renovations and what firm is doing them, the site has quite a bit of information including a Q&A section. If you've got concerns on everything from the proposal to combine development of the library and the museum downtown, to who really runs the library and decides where the books are on the shelves, this meeting might be a good one to attend.

Libraries are very important because they provide many different resources for city residents to utilize. But like every other department in the city, the library will be facing hefty budget cuts. If its expansion is umbrellaed under Riverside Renaissance, then it may or may not get done, but what might be in trouble is who will staff the library and what equipment will be bought for this department to use so that it can better serve the public in its "new" facility.

Even Mayor Ron Loveridge brought this issue to attention in this article on the renaissance after its first year. But it's something that he and likely other city council members will push off to their successors to worry about. It's not their problem. A bigger priority was to go about town and repaint all the "Riverside Renaissance" signs to include the current city council members which has resulted in signs with the ward council member's name in big font, the newer council members in slightly smaller font and the original city council members in really tiny font. So now there's a bunch of strange looking signs at construction sites throughout Riverside. And seeing Chris MacArthur front and center for the renovation project involving the Arlington library is just odd considering that it was former Councilman Ed Adkison who played a much greater role in that project.

But the signs are a clever tactic not by the city council members themselves but City Hall. After all, who doesn't feel better about themselves by seeing their name in lights all over town? It's a pretty effective psychological tool by the city manager's office which is one major reason why they needed to be updated after Election 2007.


But it is the problem of city residents, when we try to access services from community development, public safety, parks, libraries, museums and try to maintain and repair streets and buildings through public works and streets and maintenance. Not to mention inflating utility rates for both electricity and water as well to try to make enough money to upgrade utilities to meet the demands sure to be here when the population continues to expand. What will happen to divisions like Park and Recreation and Refuse which have become increasingly privatized since the late 1990s?

We've heard so much about how Riverside's not a town anymore and has to modernize, yet that seems to apply only to the structures that will hold businesses, condos, lofts and similar uses. What we don't hear is whether or not there will be enough park land for both old and new residents to enjoy and enough staffing to maintain it and provide services to community members who enjoy those parks. Whether there will be enough police officers and fire fighters and whether or not they'll be properly equipped and trained. How traffic issues will be addressed with one note so far being that the police department's traffic motor division won't be increased any time soon.

Whether there will be streets that there will be enough employees to maintain especially the streets like let's say, Sedgewick which are intersected by raging rivers that you could almost raft down any time a rain drop falls in this city. Some of those streets like Linden and 14th near the 91 freeway have had their drainage issues addressed within the past several years but others still remain.

I'm not sure what the city council will do with the budget this year. I hope to see cooperation but advocacy for city services as well even in the face of cuts. As much support or even more as they've shown Riverside Renaissance during the past year. But I don't think that will be the case at all, with the entire city council. Some of these members seem unwilling or unable to handle any criticism without either making a fool out of themselves in public or making the usual assortment of facial expressions and noises. They may even call you a liar or other things either directly or indirectly because they just really don't want to hear what you're saying. It's often the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going "la la la". Their time would be better spent combing through Riverside Renaissance to see where they are at and what projects can be delayed several years until economic conditions improve before they cut a single cent from city services or programs that provide a service and a voice to residents. But what's happening instead? As some people pointed out to me, they're adding more projects to the renaissance!

These are difficult times and the city council's reaction to criticism let alone to difficult times is to stifle public participation either through banning residents from being able to pull items from the consent calendar allegedly in the name of efficiency and expediency while bulking up these calendars and putting on high-ticket items including those affiliated with Riverside Renaissance on those calendars. And they certainly don't seem to like large crowds at meetings unless those people are there to praise them. The good thing about large crowds of people at meetings is that the city council wants them out of there especially if they are critical so whatever item they are interested in is usually addressed first so the city council can then take a five-minute break and hopefully, they will leave. You want to get the public comment agenda item moved from the end of the agenda to its front, pack those chambers!

But if you have an issue, you have to be prepared to be there for one week. After all, it's like City Manager allegedly told a group of community leaders he met with about a year ago, according to these leaders.


"You'll send 35 people to a city council meeting and then what?"


Well, "then what" can be seen as an attempt to call your bluff and you can show Hudson and those at City Hall that your issue is very important and the city's budget certainly falls into that and show up at a city council meeting as a group again. Preferably not too long after your first appearance. Watch the jaws drop on the dais even further because this is the last thing that anyone expects a group of people to do, which is not just to show up once, but twice.


But back to the consent calendar which makes up about 90% of the evening session's agenda. Most often, these items are not pulled for discussion, because the city officials rarely pull anything from the agenda. Several seem more intent on getting through the meetings as quickly as possible rather than using it as an honest and transparent forum to discuss projects including those costing more than $1 million. At least one of them will be busy running for higher office potentially leaving his ward without consistent leadership during a very difficult time.

But it will be interesting to see what happens in the months ahead.






Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein also takes on the state budget crisis to the tale of the "Three Little Pigs". People criticize Bernstein for being critical of the city including Riverside Renaissance but he's one of the voices out there who often says what needs to be said on city issues.


But as mentioned above, many of the city's residents will feel the crunch much closer to home than Sacramento.







What is it like to be a law enforcement officer who crosses the line and becomes a criminal?

Ruben Palomares of the Los Angeles Police Department tried to answer that question on the witness stand of his trial on charges related to his role as a ringleader in a home invasion robbery ring involving dozens of crimes, according to the Los Angeles Times.

He's testifying as a witness in the trial of two other former law enforcement officers Jason and William Ferguson who also happened to be brothers.


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Palomares identified both of the Fergusons in court and detailed their alleged involvement in various "jobs." Palomares said William Ferguson, whom he met while the two worked together briefly in the Rampart Division, was a thorough searcher whom he could count on to find drugs or money hidden in locations where they conducted their bogus raids.

"I used to joke that he was like a bloodhound," Palomares testified, a slight smile crossing his face. "If there were drugs, I knew he would find them."

He said Joseph, whom he referred to as "Joey," routinely scouted locations the crew was plotting to rob and provided surveillance while the robberies were underway.

Under questioning by prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blumberg of the Justice Department's civil rights division, Palomares at times sounded like an active duty police officer as he talked about "formulating a plan" prior to doing "takedowns" on the locations.

Blumberg asked about the significance of arriving at the locations in a police car.

"That way we wouldn't have any resistance or any problems," Palomares said.



Palomares said it was God who drove him to confess about his role in the robberies.





The Plains Dealer's editorial board took on the controversial issue of excited delirium after an incustody death involving a young man.


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That may be true in some cases, but every case is different. This one needs to be weighed on its own circumstances.

Broadview Heights should give the Martin family the information it wants now, and the state Bureau of Criminal Identification should accept police Chief Robert Lipton's invitation to investigate the arresting officers' actions.

The coroner's office should expedite a ruling that lays out what it knows and what it thinks about Martin's death.

Martin's family may not get the official conclusions it seems to want. The police may face a lawsuit. The coroner's office may come in for criticism. But further delay won't eliminate any of those possibilities.

Excited delirium, meanwhile, deserves serious study from an unbiased medical point of view. It seems a plausible concept, but where medicine intersects law, something more solid than that is required.