Black History Month: Black City Employee Watch
Today, the downtown area will be hosting the Annual Black History Parade beginning at 10 a.m. If you have some time, you should check it out. There's also an expo with food stands and booths providing information on different businesses, city departments and also selling products.
The parade will take place only steps away from City Hall, where people have wondered if it's as welcoming a place for its Black employees as the streets are to the annual parade.
One item on this week's city council agenda serves as a reminder of why this question needs to be asked. And asked. And asked again.
During its closed session, the city council in Riverside will receive an update on another racial discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed by a former city employee who was fired by the city not long after filing a discrimination and harassment complaint with the city.
Tranda Drumwright, who is Black, once worked as the head of the city's Housing, Neighborhood and Community Development Department. She began her stint for the city in April 2000 but five years later in June 2005 she was discriminated and harassed on the basis of race and her workplace constituted a hostile working environment.
In her lawsuit, Drumwright stated that she was subjected to false claims of misfeasance and unfair micromanagement of her working environment.
She also alleged that her boss, Belinda Graham told her she lacked management skills and was not management material. But, Drumwright alleged, Graham was about to promote a White woman as her supervisor in management, who had less professional experience than she did.
That happened when her department was combined with the Office of Neighborhoods to become the Housing and Neighborhood Department and Eva Yakutis-NcNeil was chosen over Drumwright to head it.
It's not like that hadn't happened before at City Hall. Former interim assistant city manager, Jim Smith, who is Black, was demoted to be supervised by his new boss, Paul Sundeen, a White man who had once worked below him. Smith soon left the city and now works for the City of Oakland.
Drumwright filed a complaint with then Human Resources Director Art Alcaraz, who would soon also resign from his position, and Assistant City Manager Michael Beck in November 2005 not long before Graham promoted McNeil.
On Feb. 27, 2006, Drumwright filed a complaint with an outside agency, the state's Fair Employement and Housing Department. Perhaps she didn't know it but she wasn't about to be employed by the city much longer.
On March 15, 2006 Drumwright was fired by the City of Riverside and received a notice of termination from Beck.
Beck would send these notices out to more than one employee under his branch of the city manager's office. Two employees who worked for a special program under the Park and Recreation Department's umbrella would also be fired and locked out of their offices. One of them had filed a similar complaint of a racially hostile work environment as Drumwright only weeks before. In fact, he had received a notice of receipt from the city mere days before that it had received his complaint and then closed it out.
So Drumwright's experience is hardly unique, unfortunately. It's amazing how a Black woman with a lot of education on her resume and experience in her job, including in Riverside would not be seen as being management material yet a White woman with less experience of course would be.
It's unfortunate that Drumwright had to experience this at all, given the pledge of Mayor Ron Loveridge during the dedication of the Martin Luther King, jr. statue in downtown Riverside that there would be a zero tolerance for racial harassment or a racially hostile work environment in the workplace.
About a year after Loveridge's speech, Officer Roger Sutton who is Black would file his own racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit, which would eventually culminate in a jury trial which awarded him $1.64 million. Other employees who were Black and worked in several different city departments settled similar law suits before the Sutton case went to trial.
But here are some questions for Loveridge's City Hall, as of February 2008?
How many racial discrimination, harassment and hostile work environment complaints, grievances and law suits have been filed?
How many of the city's departments have been investigated by either the state's Fair Employment and Housing Commission, the State Attorney General's office and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?
How many are currently being investigated by any of these entities now?
How many people who held either paid or volunteer positions in this city complained about a racially or gender hostile working environment?
How many who did so, were told that they needed to learn how to get along with other employees including those doing the harassment?
How many received notices of intent to terminate or let go within a week or so of filing these complaints with either their supervisors, department heads or an outside agency including those listed above?
In what city department was an individual of color allegedly asked with others if he or she wanted to hear "an African-American joke" within the past year?
Who was fired his or her first day of work in one of the city departments after filing a complaint within the past several years?
Two of the lakes of Fairmount Park will be dredged by boats for three months, turning them sparkling clean by the end, the city promised this week. It's strange because I thought the city had planned to start drudging the lakes last August. But it appears that it did begin this week as witnessed by the Press Enterprise and city officials who attended a sit-down luncheon apparently in its honor.
(excerpt)
Work began Friday to dredge the lakes, removing 2 feet of pasty siltthat has accumulated on the floors. Wind-blown dust, soil, fish and fowl feces, and runoff have settled on the bottom since the lakes were last dredged 25 years ago.
"The water quality is going to improve dramatically," said Keith Ayres, the project manager with JND Thomas Co., the dredging contractor hired by the city.
On Friday, council members and city officials, wearing outfits from suits and dress shoes to jeans and tennis shoes, cheered as charcoal-colored gunk from the bottom of Lake Evans blasted out of a pipe and into an offshore basin -- the start of the lake cleanup. The group celebrated the muck removal with a sandwich-and-salad lunch on white tablecloths near the sediment deposit site.
"Eww, oh my," Councilwoman Nancy Hart said as she watched the fountain of black liquid pour into the 12-acre waste area. "That is dirty, dirty. If anyone sees this they'll know why we are doing it. It looks like tar."
The residue will be left to dry and later used as grading material.
In the wake of bad news from City Hall regarding the planned renovation of Tequesquite Park, it's a bit unsettling as city residents await news about whether the Fairmount Park renovation project will have the necessary funds available to move forward.
Six massage parlors were busted in Riverside after a three month operation by Riverside's police department and the code compliance department. Neighborhing businesses began to get alarmed, they said, when they saw men in expensive looking cars come to the businesses at night.
The state's primary season has begun in the wake of the defeat on Proposition 93. So if you're a person with political ambitions, who wants to make a difference at the state level or are an elected official who wants to step up the ladder of the political sphere, perhaps you too should consider filing papers to run for a seat.
More intrigue in the federal corruption case involving former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona as the transcripts of the secret tapes have been released, according to the Los Angeles Times.
They depict conversations that Carona and some associates had when they were trying to work out which accounts they would tell investigators.
(excerpt)
In one section of the transcripts, according to prosecutors, Carona and his one-time confidant Don Haidl discuss money Haidl had paid the sheriff. Carona didn't know that Haidl, a former assistant sheriff, was by then cooperating with the FBI and was wearing a wire.
"On my end, nothing's traceable. It's hidden," Haidl tells Carona, explaining that money he had given Carona had come from a private safe.
"Well, on my end of it, completely untraceable, completely untraceable," Carona responds.
"So we're going to be . . . facing these guys at some point, I believe," Haidl says, referring to federal authorities.
"Oh, I guarantee it," Carona responds. "Guaran-damn-tee it."
The obscenity-laden transcripts were contained in a motion by federal prosecutors opposing defense efforts to exclude the Haidl tapes as evidence against Carona, who is scheduled to go to trial June 10 on charges he sold access to his office for tens of thousands of dollars and tampered with a witness by trying to get Haidl to lie to a federal grand jury.
The pdf link for the actual transcripts comes with a disclaimer that the language used might offend some readers.
Also in Orange County, the lawyer of a male inmate who with others is accused of killubg another inmate in a jail are seeking the personnel records of one of the deputies who was on duty at the time
He believes that this deputy and two others ordered his client and other inmates to beat the man and now he wants to see if the deputy has any prior record of excessive force or other misconduct while onduty. This development came days after the family of the man killed received a $600,000 settlement from the county.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
John Chamberlain, a 41-year-old computer technician from Mission Viejo, was awaiting trial on charges that he possessed child pornography. Instead, he was killed by other inmates in 2006 in the first slaying in an Orange County jail in two decades.
Joe Heneghan, a lawyer for Jared Petrovich -- one of seven defendants charged in the killing -- said he needs the personnel files to see whether they show any previous incidents involving excessive force or lying during the deputies' law enforcement careers.
Heneghan said the files may determine the type of defense he plans for his client.
"At least I want to explore that area," he said.
The man who shot and killed four people including Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officer Randal Simmons, 51, has a history of significant mental health problems.
(excerpt)
Edwin Rivera, 20, first developed signs of "significant mental health problems" shortly after the death of his mother about a decade ago, Deputy Chief Gary J. Brennan said at a news conference attended by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and top police officials. The signs of trouble, which Brennan did not detail, grew worse over the years, culminating in the killing spree that unfolded early Thursday morning and ended when Rivera was shot dead by an LAPD sniper.
Rivera had a juvenile criminal record that included three convictions. The most serious came in 2004, when he was found guilty of assault with a firearm and sentenced to probation for pointing an unloaded gun at people during an argument, according to police.
The parade will take place only steps away from City Hall, where people have wondered if it's as welcoming a place for its Black employees as the streets are to the annual parade.
One item on this week's city council agenda serves as a reminder of why this question needs to be asked. And asked. And asked again.
During its closed session, the city council in Riverside will receive an update on another racial discrimination and harassment lawsuit filed by a former city employee who was fired by the city not long after filing a discrimination and harassment complaint with the city.
Tranda Drumwright, who is Black, once worked as the head of the city's Housing, Neighborhood and Community Development Department. She began her stint for the city in April 2000 but five years later in June 2005 she was discriminated and harassed on the basis of race and her workplace constituted a hostile working environment.
In her lawsuit, Drumwright stated that she was subjected to false claims of misfeasance and unfair micromanagement of her working environment.
She also alleged that her boss, Belinda Graham told her she lacked management skills and was not management material. But, Drumwright alleged, Graham was about to promote a White woman as her supervisor in management, who had less professional experience than she did.
That happened when her department was combined with the Office of Neighborhoods to become the Housing and Neighborhood Department and Eva Yakutis-NcNeil was chosen over Drumwright to head it.
It's not like that hadn't happened before at City Hall. Former interim assistant city manager, Jim Smith, who is Black, was demoted to be supervised by his new boss, Paul Sundeen, a White man who had once worked below him. Smith soon left the city and now works for the City of Oakland.
Drumwright filed a complaint with then Human Resources Director Art Alcaraz, who would soon also resign from his position, and Assistant City Manager Michael Beck in November 2005 not long before Graham promoted McNeil.
On Feb. 27, 2006, Drumwright filed a complaint with an outside agency, the state's Fair Employement and Housing Department. Perhaps she didn't know it but she wasn't about to be employed by the city much longer.
On March 15, 2006 Drumwright was fired by the City of Riverside and received a notice of termination from Beck.
Beck would send these notices out to more than one employee under his branch of the city manager's office. Two employees who worked for a special program under the Park and Recreation Department's umbrella would also be fired and locked out of their offices. One of them had filed a similar complaint of a racially hostile work environment as Drumwright only weeks before. In fact, he had received a notice of receipt from the city mere days before that it had received his complaint and then closed it out.
So Drumwright's experience is hardly unique, unfortunately. It's amazing how a Black woman with a lot of education on her resume and experience in her job, including in Riverside would not be seen as being management material yet a White woman with less experience of course would be.
It's unfortunate that Drumwright had to experience this at all, given the pledge of Mayor Ron Loveridge during the dedication of the Martin Luther King, jr. statue in downtown Riverside that there would be a zero tolerance for racial harassment or a racially hostile work environment in the workplace.
About a year after Loveridge's speech, Officer Roger Sutton who is Black would file his own racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suit, which would eventually culminate in a jury trial which awarded him $1.64 million. Other employees who were Black and worked in several different city departments settled similar law suits before the Sutton case went to trial.
But here are some questions for Loveridge's City Hall, as of February 2008?
How many racial discrimination, harassment and hostile work environment complaints, grievances and law suits have been filed?
How many of the city's departments have been investigated by either the state's Fair Employment and Housing Commission, the State Attorney General's office and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?
How many are currently being investigated by any of these entities now?
How many people who held either paid or volunteer positions in this city complained about a racially or gender hostile working environment?
How many who did so, were told that they needed to learn how to get along with other employees including those doing the harassment?
How many received notices of intent to terminate or let go within a week or so of filing these complaints with either their supervisors, department heads or an outside agency including those listed above?
In what city department was an individual of color allegedly asked with others if he or she wanted to hear "an African-American joke" within the past year?
Who was fired his or her first day of work in one of the city departments after filing a complaint within the past several years?
Two of the lakes of Fairmount Park will be dredged by boats for three months, turning them sparkling clean by the end, the city promised this week. It's strange because I thought the city had planned to start drudging the lakes last August. But it appears that it did begin this week as witnessed by the Press Enterprise and city officials who attended a sit-down luncheon apparently in its honor.
(excerpt)
Work began Friday to dredge the lakes, removing 2 feet of pasty siltthat has accumulated on the floors. Wind-blown dust, soil, fish and fowl feces, and runoff have settled on the bottom since the lakes were last dredged 25 years ago.
"The water quality is going to improve dramatically," said Keith Ayres, the project manager with JND Thomas Co., the dredging contractor hired by the city.
On Friday, council members and city officials, wearing outfits from suits and dress shoes to jeans and tennis shoes, cheered as charcoal-colored gunk from the bottom of Lake Evans blasted out of a pipe and into an offshore basin -- the start of the lake cleanup. The group celebrated the muck removal with a sandwich-and-salad lunch on white tablecloths near the sediment deposit site.
"Eww, oh my," Councilwoman Nancy Hart said as she watched the fountain of black liquid pour into the 12-acre waste area. "That is dirty, dirty. If anyone sees this they'll know why we are doing it. It looks like tar."
The residue will be left to dry and later used as grading material.
In the wake of bad news from City Hall regarding the planned renovation of Tequesquite Park, it's a bit unsettling as city residents await news about whether the Fairmount Park renovation project will have the necessary funds available to move forward.
Six massage parlors were busted in Riverside after a three month operation by Riverside's police department and the code compliance department. Neighborhing businesses began to get alarmed, they said, when they saw men in expensive looking cars come to the businesses at night.
The state's primary season has begun in the wake of the defeat on Proposition 93. So if you're a person with political ambitions, who wants to make a difference at the state level or are an elected official who wants to step up the ladder of the political sphere, perhaps you too should consider filing papers to run for a seat.
More intrigue in the federal corruption case involving former Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona as the transcripts of the secret tapes have been released, according to the Los Angeles Times.
They depict conversations that Carona and some associates had when they were trying to work out which accounts they would tell investigators.
(excerpt)
In one section of the transcripts, according to prosecutors, Carona and his one-time confidant Don Haidl discuss money Haidl had paid the sheriff. Carona didn't know that Haidl, a former assistant sheriff, was by then cooperating with the FBI and was wearing a wire.
"On my end, nothing's traceable. It's hidden," Haidl tells Carona, explaining that money he had given Carona had come from a private safe.
"Well, on my end of it, completely untraceable, completely untraceable," Carona responds.
"So we're going to be . . . facing these guys at some point, I believe," Haidl says, referring to federal authorities.
"Oh, I guarantee it," Carona responds. "Guaran-damn-tee it."
The obscenity-laden transcripts were contained in a motion by federal prosecutors opposing defense efforts to exclude the Haidl tapes as evidence against Carona, who is scheduled to go to trial June 10 on charges he sold access to his office for tens of thousands of dollars and tampered with a witness by trying to get Haidl to lie to a federal grand jury.
The pdf link for the actual transcripts comes with a disclaimer that the language used might offend some readers.
Also in Orange County, the lawyer of a male inmate who with others is accused of killubg another inmate in a jail are seeking the personnel records of one of the deputies who was on duty at the time
He believes that this deputy and two others ordered his client and other inmates to beat the man and now he wants to see if the deputy has any prior record of excessive force or other misconduct while onduty. This development came days after the family of the man killed received a $600,000 settlement from the county.
(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)
John Chamberlain, a 41-year-old computer technician from Mission Viejo, was awaiting trial on charges that he possessed child pornography. Instead, he was killed by other inmates in 2006 in the first slaying in an Orange County jail in two decades.
Joe Heneghan, a lawyer for Jared Petrovich -- one of seven defendants charged in the killing -- said he needs the personnel files to see whether they show any previous incidents involving excessive force or lying during the deputies' law enforcement careers.
Heneghan said the files may determine the type of defense he plans for his client.
"At least I want to explore that area," he said.
The man who shot and killed four people including Los Angeles Police Department SWAT officer Randal Simmons, 51, has a history of significant mental health problems.
(excerpt)
Edwin Rivera, 20, first developed signs of "significant mental health problems" shortly after the death of his mother about a decade ago, Deputy Chief Gary J. Brennan said at a news conference attended by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and top police officials. The signs of trouble, which Brennan did not detail, grew worse over the years, culminating in the killing spree that unfolded early Thursday morning and ended when Rivera was shot dead by an LAPD sniper.
Rivera had a juvenile criminal record that included three convictions. The most serious came in 2004, when he was found guilty of assault with a firearm and sentenced to probation for pointing an unloaded gun at people during an argument, according to police.
Labels: corruption 101, public forums in all places, racism costs
posted by Five Before Midnight | 3:06 PM
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