Making the Grade: Portland and Riverside

"No one knows what goes on behind closed doors."


---Charlie Rich, singer





"This deputy, she looked at me and she didn't believe I was a quadriplegic, and she walked behind me with those handles on the back of that hospital-grade wheelchair, sne she just dumped it straight forward."


---Brian Sterner to WCBS-TV




Rusty Bailey from Ward Three has been selected as the City Councilman of the Evening with his challenge of the city's double standard between charging businesses and residents fines for false alarms but exempting the city's own facilities. Other people on the dais seemed either startled or nonplussed, which is something that's become more apparent since the new city council members were sworn in last December. Bailey's employee, City Manager Brad Hudson's response to Bailey's comments was a bit of a pot shot followed by a bit of silence from the dais until people started chuckling.

Some councilmen were concerned about the impact of false alarms on the work load of both fire fighters and police officers. Some feel that the new ordinance would address these problems.

However, if elected officials are truly concerned about the shortage of available police officers to deal with false alarms, the only way to deal with that issue is to address the shortage of available police officers. It's ironic that this concern was expressed after the city announced its freezes which it has placed on new positions in both the fire and police departments.

Like other departments in the city, the police department wasn't exempt from the latest hiring freeze and as a result, has had a number of positions that were intended to be filled that won't be. When Hudson said that he was essentially balancing the budget on frozen personnel positions, he really wasn't kidding. And last year, Riverside experienced a large spike in 911 calls so with fewer people available to respond to that increase from the two major public safety departments, it creates an interesting dilemma. But considering the number of positions frozen, it makes me wonder if the budget picture is truly rosy as elected officials and city staff members are painting it.

It will be interesting to see how the elected officials respond to these issues whether they will be up for reelection, are just up for an election or have just been elected especially if they plead their cases in exchange from the city's labor unions in the form of endorsements and campaign donations.

Anyway, the ordinance for false alarms apparently passed with some form of six month review, with both Councilmen Frank Schiavone and Chris MacArthur voting against it. It was indeed moving to see the concern shown by council members towards "seniors" or the elderly residents whose access to security systems is often their lifeline. While it is true that elderly people are among the most vulnerable in our population in general, they seem to be among the most vulnerable at city council meetings as well.

It's too bad that the demographic of those either removed from the podium or expelled from the city council chambers are elderly women. Remember Marjorie Von Pohle who at 89 told two police officers they would have to carry her out of the chambers? Remember the woman who's property was flooded by a city-owned pipe that ruptured who was led away from the podium by an embarrassed police officer after former councilman, Ed Adkison barked, "point of order" at her?

Von Pohle was at the meeting in full force speaking on behalf of the individuals who have received letters from the City Attorney's letter that are warning letters that people will face arrest if they commit violations. Von Pohle said one city resident had received four of them and wasn't coming back. She encouraged this individual to keep speaking out. Von Pohle herself has received at least one of these letters.

Councilman Frank Schiavone asked the City Attorney Gregory Priamos to clarify the issue, probably because he's directed or ordered the city attorney to send these letters out himself a time or two. After all, it's a pretty good bet that the vast majority of letters were written by the city attorney's office upon direction by only three to four of the council members who served on the city council last year. Most of those on the dais have shown little inclination in that area and the majority of those in the dais feel little need to editorialize after hearing public comments.

Interestingly enough, almost everyone who's ever received one of these letters is over the age of 50 and guess what, nearly all of the known recipients of these letters have been female. It's kind of been called, Gadflying While Female.

But looking at the issue from a slightly different angle doesn't show a much different path. You can be polite, you don't have to be considered "loud" and you can still have elected officials call you a liar or say you lied or be told that you have no ethics because the fact is, they just don't like what you just said. They also know that they can say these things and there's no opportunity for the target of these comments to respond. However, you can look at the situation as a glass half-filled which was that when council members act out in this fashion, it often leads to many interesting conversations about civic issues and city council conduct including with city residents I hadn't met before who are befuddled and dismayed at the conduct from the dais. Even if my hate mail has spiked a bit since, so to speak.

Yolanda Garland hit it out of the park with her comments on the city's budget crisis and the multimilions of dollars being floated in bonds. People should pay attention to what she's saying about what's happening to the city's coffers if they are interested in the future of their basic services and city employees who aren't exempt from having their departments' staffing cut or frozen should pay attention to what Garland says as well. It's very interesting because the same scenario plays outself out every meeting when she speaks. And it goes something like this.

First, Garland says her three-minute speech interlacing serious facts with dry humor and then one councilman or another jumps in afterward to do a rebuttal, disclaimer, PSA or whatever they call it. It's kind of funny because if these same councilmen were truly secure in their political positions, they would simply smile and say thank you for speaking like Mayor Ron Loveridge so wisely does. After all, these elected officials used to be secure enough in their positions on issues to not feel the need to sermonize after members of the public spoke, especially on an issue like this one. And many people who watch the meetings are picking up on this recent change in behavior. Garland's also likely received at least one letter from the city attorney's office and has been expelled from at least one city council meeting for answering a question thrown out to the audience by a city official who after people appeared at the podium to answer his question then decided he didn't like that and ordered police officers to expel four people.

Riverside has many residents who are fiscally conservative and many out there are concerned about the state's deficit, the city's shortfall and how both will impact how well the city will provide its basic services. Projects like Riverside Renaissance remain vulnerable to the ups and downs of the economy as one former councilman told me and this master plan to truncate 30 years worth of projects in five years hasn't gotten any of its supporters reelected at a comfortable margin or even at all. Despite all the hype and even some of the delivery, two city council members and nearly a third were sent packing after a single term.

The politically smart thing to do is to avoid the urge to jump in and speak, especially when you're trying to present yourself as a capable, confident and solid leader on any dais. What it does is make people more compelled to listen to what Garland is saying, which is after all, a good thing.

I hope that Garland knows how many supporters she has out there, including some in some very interesting places. I had an interesting conversation lately about how viewers who watch the meetings might not see the behavior of those on the dais but many of them do somehow know and comment on it when I see them at different places around town. And what we discovered in the past election year is that many of those people vote in city elections. That praying for low turnouts at the polls so you can win through the absentee vote isn't necessarily a winning strategy in reality as it appears to be in planning sessions.

Speaking of which, I didn't get to attend the mid-year budget hearings at City Hall during its afternoon session but I've been thinking about this issue a lot, trying to get the numbers to add up. After hearing some of the numbers in different departments given for positions that will be frozen, it's difficult to believe that the percentage of the budget cuts are 5%. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

One group that will not be tightening its belt are the private development firms as the city council while not queasy about not filling certain city positions is certainly so about increasing the fees paid by private developers.




Some excitement at the meeting of the Metropolitan Museum Board after 17 people appeared to again veto the combined renovation of the museum and library

But it appeared that a member of the Metropolitan Museum Board is pretty much done with hearing public comment and he selected several commissioners with his board to have discussions with several members of the Board of Library Trustees. This member, Norton Younglove supports combining the two projects.



(excerpt)


We need to have a discussion with the two boards rather than a sit-and-listen-to-the-public kind of meeting," Younglove said.

The appointment followed about an hour of public comment at Tuesday's board meeting criticizing the city's current $25 million proposal to expand the library and add another building that could be used jointly by the library and the museum.

The proposal is part of the larger $1.2 billion Riverside Renaissance Initiative, a five-year plan to build or improve city parks, libraries, railroad underpasses, and utility power projects.

Several of the 17 people attending the meeting told board members they believed the library and museum expansions should be separate.

Dawn Hassett, a member of the citizens group Committee to Renew the Library said she feared a joint venture would shortchange both entities.

"We need separate plans, plans for the future, not just a Band-Aid for today," Hassett said.




If people want the two projects to be treated separately, then they'd better remain vigilent on this issue, attend meetings and participate, because it appears that the city's waiting until they get tired and go away before doing its thing. Because the "amicable solution" mentioned appears to be to combine the two projects. It's always interested that community input is viewed under the lens of creating conflict and division especially when it disagrees with the city's agenda or plans.




Here is a list of reports released by the Inspector General's office with the Los Angeles Police Commission. Expected to be added to it is the recent audit of the police department's handling of citizen complaints, which received a failing grade.






Portland CopWatch has responded to the report of the Independence Police Review with its own analysis. Not surprisingly, the city's auditor, Gary Blackmer doesn't get a much higher grade from the organization than the process that he directs received during its audit. Not surprisingly, he wasn't happy about that.





The key points hit upon by Portland CopWatch's analysis on the report are below. What's interesting is how many of these issues are related to those impacting the Community Police Review Commission which also is the focus of a public report.



Overview/IPR Lacks Community Confidence;



In its analysis, Portland CopWatch stated that the Independent Police Review, which is an auditor form of civilian oversight has created little faith in the process due to its weaknesses and the lack of willingness of the city to stengthen it even when recommended to do so in earlier audits. Investigations were also not done in a timely manner, weren't thorough and there was no sense that the process had any impact on reducing officer misconduct.



Written annual reports hadn't been released in several years from the oversight mechanisms in Portland and had not been regularly presented to the city council. The CPRC in Riverside has struggled in that area as well during its stint so far under the current city management. Although annual reports are often released in March of each year and presented to the city council shortly afterward, there was no 2006 report until last autumn and to this date, it still hasn't been presented to the city council (though it's been scheduled for Feb. 28 after some pushing).



The lack of first the latest annual report and then monthly reports is related to staffing issues with the CPRC which has one executive manager and one administrative staff support position. Consequently, when the one staff member requires a medical leave, whether or not there's enough staff persons to accomodate the workload depends on whether the city manager's office will offer up some part-time assistance. The 2007 annual report is scheduled to be completed in approximately six months.



Issues of confidence in the community with the CPRC are not caused solely by the staffing shortage with the CPRC. In fact, many issues that lessen confidence in the process have little or nothing to do with the current staffing levels and their workloads. It has more to do with whether or not individual commissioners and the commission as a whole have the gumption to do things like assert their right to put items on the agenda without having to vet them through most of City Hall first or defend the right of commissioners to speak freely during public meetings. There needs to be some recognition from the designated chair of the commission that he's there to serve the will of the commission, not the city manager's office and thus shouldn't be placed in positions where he has to deliver a message for the city manager's office or even elected officials if that case should arise, "counsel" or "mediate" differences between the two factions.



The city should encourage confidence in the process by first implementing a process that is deserving of that confidence, apppointing commissioners in a process that's not politicized and then by treating the community members as "stake holders" in the process which it hasn't done. Commissioners, city staff and employees of the police department are the designated "stake holders". Community members are not.



This is reminiscent of comments made by Blackmer about who is considered representative of "community" in the city and who isn't. And those who criticize his process as being nonindependent, aren't.



Officers not Disciplined;





Portland CopWatch expressed concern that investigations done by the Portland Police Bureau weren't thorough and officers were not disciplined even if misconduct was sustained against them.



In Riverside, it's impossible to even obtain statistical information regarding the discipline of the department's officers even though there's no state law which prohibits doing so. In fact, the department used to release this information quarterly to the Human Relations Commission until it ceased releasing these reports in 2002, not because they contained confidential information but because the department was changing the format including the time interval between reports.


A letter from City Attorney Gregory Priamos in July 2005 denied a request for this information without citing any new case law or laws passed to justify denying information the city freely released in the past in response to a simple oral request for it.

So what's the truth? At any rate, whatever it is on any given day, it doesn't matter because statistical information in this area is allowed under the law and the city and police department won't provide it.


The ACLU has expressed interest in looking into this failure by the city and department to release this statistical information.



Transparency;

There's not much transparency either in Portland, according to the CopWatch's report and there's less in Riverside, in large part because California's laws on peace officers information are among the most restrictive in the country and the Riverside City Attorney's office takes that law and cranks it up a notch, producing what must be one of the most conservative interpretations of these laws if not the most in the state. So no one is left with a feeling that they really know what's going on.

Almost all serious problems inside law enforcement agencies are only exposed when some officer or officers breaks the wall of silence and then of course, is thoroughly ostracized, which is why it's difficult to believe that people inside law enforcement agencies are willing to do this when it needs to be done. Especially since their first and strongest instincts are to circle the wagons and not to tell on one another inside the department with the city or county's major concern being to protect itself from any potential civil liability through law suits. So exposing serious problems inside the law enforcement agency doesn't really work because there's not really much motivation for the agency to correct them, let alone build itself from the ground up or the top down if that's what is necessary. That's why Riverside's police department and city government didn't really successfully achieve long-lasting reforms inside the troubled agency until former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer threatened to sue them.

Often that's why it feels to many, many people that the most protected officer is a dirty one.

Otherwise, serious problems are exposed through outside scrutiny whether it be exposes done in newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1970s during the Frank Rizzo era or series done on these issues in other cities including Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It'd be nice to believe that law enforcement was truly interested in addressing its serious problems internally but most of the incidents of police corruption for example tend to show the opposite and law enforcement agencies don't create and utilize good and safe processes for employees to report corruption inside their agency.

Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovic's book, Fallen Blue Knights, is a good read and addresses many of these issues, including the roles played or not played by both internal and external control and investigation mechanisms.



Independent Investigations;

This is one of the aspects of civilian oversight which is most strongly stressed by community members and organizations which push or are supportive of this oversight. It's also the one most resisted by police departments, police labor associations and city governments. In Portland, the IPR doesn't investigate individual complaints except in certain cases and the Citizen Review Committee can't recommend that complaints be investigated, only the director of the IPR can do that.

With the CPRC, very few complaints are independently investigated by the CPRC so the focus of this component is officer-involved deaths. It's also one of the major factors in terms of how this power included in the city's charter was treated by the city that likely played a role in the resignation of its executive director. Why? Because most of the changes the city manager's office was trying to sell at the time had focused on the commission's investigation of officer-involved deaths, particularly three which occurred in 2006. And by doing so, the city essentially issued a red flag alert or it might as well have done so.

The city manager's office has done in less than two years has done what other entities have tried and couldn't do in seven, which is pretty much neuter the CPRC and render the power of the commission to investigate and review officer-involved deaths meaningless. But interestingly enough, even though this process has been diluted, the city has been either settling or on the verge of settling law suits filed in two shootings. Even if the Lee Deante Brown shooting law suit settles, there are still about four law suits filed in federal court on deck.

One City Hall official said that Hudson is pretty fired up to do whatever in whichever direction his handlers point him in. If that is the case, then who gave him the directive to micromanage the CPRC by pointing him in that direction?

It will be interesting to see how the city's recent hiring of Ray Martinelli's firm to provide services in the area of investigations will play out. Martinelli had applied for the executive manager and had done very well on his oral interviews with two separate panels. However, he was only interested in a part-time position. The city hired him anyway.




Portland CopWatch's recommendations




--The City change the charter to make the IPR fully independent, with an
empowered system such as recommended by the Mayor's Majority Work Group in
2001; IPR/CRC needs its own legal counsel to greatly enhance the system's
credibility.

--The IPR and CRC be granted the power to recommend discipline, which
would then allow them to directly use the power to compel testimony and
actually conduct independent investigations.

--Cases investigated by civilians should include: high-profile shootings,
deaths, use of force with serious bodily harm, racial profiling, illegal
searches, and when there is "high emotion in the community," and or a
conflict of interest.

--The City fund citizen oversight of shootings and deaths cases, as
suggested by the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) in 2003.

--CRC be expanded to 11 or 13 members, even if they are not all required
to be a part of every appeal hearing.

--The standard of proof for CRC be changed to "preponderance of the
evidence," from the current, confusing "reasonable person" standard.

--Declined cases be eligible for appeal; citizens have a say in Service
Complaints; and appeal forms go out with all "disposition letters."

--The IPR adopt review board expert Sam Walker's proposal that "A police
auditor may reject any and all demands by the law enforcement agency to
see draft copies of public reports."

--Civilians' deadlines should be relaxed so long as officers' are.

Some of Portland Copwatch's further observations include:

--While much is made about the "Sustain" rate in Portland, it is just as
important to look at the "Insufficient Evidence" rate-- the officer's word
is weighted more than the citizen's in roughly three quarters of the cases
investigated.

--These findings, combined with lack of thoroughness and imbalance of
citizen and officer satisfaction, is indicative of an institutional bias
even if it is not overt in the individual case files.

--When policy issues are resolved "behind the scenes," the solutions could
be contrary to the wishes of the public.

--When the IPR was created, Auditor Gary Blackmer resisted including
shootings and deaths in its purview, but he now prides himself that the
IPR's hiring of outside consultants from the PARC has led to major
positive changes in the Bureau's shootings and deaths policies. He should
therefore be willing to embrace the recommendations made by the consultant
which can also improve Portland's Police Bureau and its oversight system.

These are pretty interesting and for the most part, are some of the reasons why Blackmer viewed this organization and pretty much the people who provided feedback on Portland's oversight mechanism to Luna-Firebaugh as meaningless and not really "community" which of course only includes those residents who support the city's position on civilian oversight. A sentiment which is very familiar even over 1,000 miles away.








State Attorney General Jerry Brown pressured Maywood's mayor to withdraw his support of the city's new interim police chief, Al Hutchings, according to the Los Angeles Times.


Senior Assistant State Attorney General Lou Verdugo said that Hutchings' selection would have violated state law and his office would have taken legal action. So the city council has selected a new guy with and sit down while you hear this, no criminal record.




(excerpt)


On Tuesday night, Maywood city leaders voted 5 to 0 to appoint Maywood Cmdr. Frank Hauptmann as their interim chief while a search for a permanent replacement was conducted.

Unlike Al Hutchings, whose selection for the job on Feb. 1 prompted an immediate outcry from residents and officers, Hauptmann is generally supported by the rank and file and has an unblemished record, according to officials with the state attorney general's office.

"I think I made it very clear in the beginning . . . my goal was to help reform the department," Hauptmann said after the vote. He said he would bring a new policy manual to the department and institute a new recruiting process, among other improvements.



There's always something going on with the saga of Marywood's police department so I'm sure this won't be the end of it.







In Florida, sheriff deputies dumping a quadraplegic man out of his wheelchair and laughing at him. Fortunately, they were committing this horrible act in front of their own surveillance cameras.



The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department claimed it had no idea this had taken place. Brian Sterner was left with two fractured ribs which were diagnosed after he spent five days in jail. He had been arrested after driving 5 miles per hour in a 30 miles per hour zone and waving his arms.


There's some discussion of this incident here.