Riverside City Hall: Thursday's Child Has Far to Go

Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Press Enterprise discussed the recent elections including the passage of Measure A. Some people think Bernstein never thinks positive but others think he's one of the few veteran writers of the Press Enterprise left. Either way, he's pretty cool, a talented musician and writes some pretty funny and insightful stuff. Today, he's taken on the election process including ballot measures.


(excerpt)


Residential roosters got clocked by Measure Foghorn Leghorn, which restricts their number to an Unmagnificent 7. Bonus: Riverside received recognition for this measure on National Public Radio. Shockingly, not even a mention of the "City of the Arts."






Sadly, this city won't be called "City of the Roosters" either. One mere day after the initiative passed, Riverside's Animal Control killed over 60 roosters seized from a residence.


What's interesting about the raid is that the doomed roosters were taken from a part of Riverside that's not covered by the new ordinance and that it clearly showed that there are currently laws in place already to handle the crime of cockfighting and any raising of roosters for cockfightng should the situation arise. The birds were healthy and bore no sign of injuries. The only evidence found of a potential link to fighting was the discovery of blades that are used in fights.


There did not need to be an ordinance passed to prevent these individuals from being raided and the roosters confiscated to be destroyed. It would be interesting to know if the timing of the raid was more than coincidential. While some may view this latest plot development in As the Cock Crows as reason to pass this ordinance, what the article shows is that it's no pun intended, overkill.


(excerpt)


Police officers found the 61 birds in the 5000 block of Jones Avenue while investigating a different possible crime, according to a news release from the Riverside County Department of Animal Services.

The roosters' owner signed them over to Animal Services, the release said.

The roosters had to be killed because they might have been adopted by someone who would sell them back into cockfighting, and they cannot exist with other animals because they are trained to fight, said John Welsh, spokesman for Animal Services.

The birds did not appear to be injured, and officers found no evidence that cockfights were being held on the property, Welsh said.





Instead of telling people upset at the passage of Measure A to eat cake, former Councilman Ed Adkison, who sponsored the bill, told them to eat more beef.

Huh?

I've got mixed feelings on Measure A, more so on its provisions but voted against it, because it's hubris to what's already in place for the city to deal with this problem and because it targets a specific area of the city that developers have allegedly been salivating at for quite a while. And the police department and animal control services as seen in the recent Press Enterprise article, have managed to address the issue just fine without the ordinance. The neighbors of the property that was raided weren't important enough to enjoy what Adkison would call, "a higher quality of life". But as soon as their neighborhood is viewed as needing ordinances like that to urbanize it for developers, that could change.

The arrogance in Adkinson's statement is typical of the arrogance which has been coming from several elected officials on the city council for a while and that's really too bad. It would have been nice to see him provide more information than a snarky sound byte and if he did for the publication to publish it. However, on the other hand, there's an election every two years and the past election handed two such council members pink slips.



Adkison said the bill has improved the quality of life for people in that area. Hopefully, he's not just talking about his company if the zoning change makes it easier for his company, Adkans Engineering, and others to do more business in the designated area. It will be interesting to watch this area of Riverside for ahem, future developments. Expect much more urbanization of the area in the next five years and the noisy crows of roosters will be replaced by the songs of the power tools and the symphony of construction vehicles.

What's wrong with this too, is that when people tried to turn in paperwork to produce a rebuttal argument for Measure A, they said they received bad information from City Hall that at best, was a clerical mistake but at worst, was deliberately misleading. If this is so, then this is why there was no rebuttal argument presented for Measure A for voters to access. That's not exactly democracy at work.


Still, it passed and that should be respected. But as far as votes that appear fine in theory but not as fine in implementation, I'll put it up there with the passage of Measure GG in November 2004.

Now if they could only be as enthusiastic about stumping for a ballot initiative to address Riverside's number one noisemaker, DHL. I'm sure the folks in Orangecrest, Mission Grove, Sycamore Canyon and Canyon Crest will take a rooster or a dozen or so over a low-flying flock of DHL DC-9s during the wee hours of the morning any time at all. Maybe instead of killing these poor animals, they could issue them out as rebates to serve as "white noise" to block out the sounds of DHL's early morning flights.


Still, Riverside needs to work harder at finding positive things to put us in the national spotlight even though making the air waves of National Public Radio is always exciting. They do exist in this city, but it always seems like it's the negative things that define us in the national media spotlight, whether it's our pollution, traffic congestion, the foreclosure rate, Whites screaming at naming a high school after a noted Black civil rights leader, the officer-involved shooting heard around the world and well, the list grows.

I'd say the city's citrus heritage would be an excellent way to do so except that it's disappearing. It's admirable that the city wants to save some of the last vestiges of it from the state, but alas, only one city council member, Chris MacArthur, waxed fondly about the gentle smell of citrus blossoms and the beauty of it all.



Apparently, my use of the word "sabbatical" at a recent city council meeting has let the fire under a couple of rumps here. To each his or her own. I've been enjoying my sabbatical from attending city council meetings quite a bit. The meetings resemble brief performance recitals more than they do governmental meetings where more items were discussed and more input from the public was encouraged. Mayor Ron Loveridge who has been a no-show at quite a few afternoon sessions lately took off in the middle of the meeting and left the dais but not the gavel (which I guess former Councilman Ed Adkison took with him when he stepped down) to Councilman Frank Schiavone. It was Yolanda Garland's excellent comments about the upcoming budget crisis in this city and some exorbitant expenditures that was worth dropping by the last meeting.

Her insightful and pointed comments caused Schiavone to give one of his patented rebuttals but his insistance that because Riverside's reserve fund puts it in a better position than 99% of the cities in Riverside didn't take into consideration that this isn't necessarily great news, especially if what it really means is that at least 99% of the cities in this state will be in for a whole lot of hurt in the upcoming recession if what any of them has in their reserves is not enough. And incidently in most cases, the reserve money is to be reserved for times of crisis and calamity including earthquakes from other causes besides a budget deficit.

But he's been more quite and somewhat subdued as a mayor pro tem since he filed his papers to run for the District One position in the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. It's pretty clear the campaigning will begin in that part of Election 2008 in earnest soon as will the hunt for funding and political backing.


Coming soon, a brand new "drinking game" for city council meetings that can be played at home! Speaking of Adkison, he said he really enjoyed reading an old posting on the old game so in the spirit of that, there should be a new one.




Speaking of City Hall, yet another department is in turmoil with the head of it on the chopping block for an action carried out in its name. But who really makes the decisions for the department heads in this city anyway? Ask different people, you'll get some different and very interesting responses. At any rate, there are sure to be more developments in what's become unfortunately commonplace in City Hall and other surrounding city work areas. Plus more on why it's important for people to care about what's going on with the city's labor force including this department.



Here's some advice, if a politician who's running for office comes up to you and asks you for your support or money. Ask the following question below particularly if he or she has shown very little interest in you or your organization before this date.


What have you done for me (or us) lately?


If the answer is negative, you should probably tell the individual to shop elsewhere and any promises made to you by this politician should be notarized and in writing. Don't feel that you have to settle for an individual who's got nothing to show in terms of support on issues you care about but then wants your backing.




Is there racism inside the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside? An outside examination has been done and its results weren't very encouraging, according to the Press Enterprise.



(excerpt)



Octavio Villalpando of the University of Utah and UCLA professors Daniel Solórzano and Mitchell Chang visited the campus in January to review faculty hiring policies and to investigate the treatment of minority students within the Graduate School of Education.

They met with more than 100 faculty, students, alumni and community members over three days in January to address issues raised by a coalition of minority community groups.

The coalition had expressed concern that there were no black, Latino or American Indian tenured full-time faculty members within the school. They also said that minority students within the school were discriminated against and discouraged from pursuing graduate studies.

Wartella said the school has extended offers to four educators whose research fields are important to the Inland area, and all four are members of underrepresented minority groups. Two have formally accepted the university's offers, and two are in negotiations, she said.




Here's an interesting article on laws being passed to prohibit the infamous "robo calls" which are computerized political messages. Apparently, they are banned in the state of California which was news to me because there always seems to be a bunch of them around any election time. None I've heard have left any contact information that's useful to call to be removed from their lists as they are not covered under the national or state "Do Not Call" laws.






Wildomar has become its own city within Riverside County. Measure C passed by a large margin.




A shootout in Compton involving Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies who fired over 120 bullets at a vehicle and also each other was the focus of a civil trial according to the Los Angeles Times. Before the trial, the county's attorneys offered $500,000 to settle the law suit filed by Winston Hayes.



(excerpt)


On Tuesday, Deputy County Counsel Dennis M. Gonzales said deputies were justified in shooting at Hayes because they legitimately feared for their lives when it appeared he was going to run them down with his sport utility vehicle.

The trial is about "a tragic monster incident that was created by one man -- Winston Hayes," Gonzales said.

Jurors were shown a clip of a video made by a freelance photographer, who captured the shooting. It showed deputies maneuvering on foot and in squad cars around Hayes' SUV, followed by a heavy burst of fire. A deputy is shown slipping to one knee, then quickly getting back up. The SUV moves very slowly and taps a police car, coming to a halt. Then there is another burst of gunfire.

Dunn argued that the deputies weren't properly trained and ignored the training they were given. Deputies were taught to avoid shooting at vehicles, and if they fired, to fire in two- and three-round bursts, "then stop and reassess," Dunn said.

"Many of the deputies fired until they could not fire again, reloaded, and kept firing," Dunn said. "The force used was excessive, unnecessary, and most important, it was deadly force."



Steroid use and domestic violence have reared their ugly heads again in Boston only with a twist.

The officer busted for using steroids was assigned to the Boston Police Department's narcotics division. Another officer arrested for assaulting his girlfriend was working as a detective where else, but the domestic violence division.



(excerpt)



I'm extremely disappointed in their actions," Commissioner Edward F. Davis said in a telephone interview yesterday. "They both certainly know better than to be doing these activities, and I think that what's important is we're taking corrective action immediately."

Davis said Josey has been stripped of his department-issued firearm and has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation of the charges. Police said Josey's girlfriend did not immediately seek medical attention.

Neither detective could be reached for comment yesterday.

Jack Parlon, president of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society, said the union stands behind the detectives.

"I have every faith that everyone will come out on the shining side of this," he said. "They're both great. They're good detectives, very credible, very capable guys."



If these two officers are examples of what is "good" in Boston's police department, it kind of makes you wonder what type of misconduct if any would be defined as "bad". What would have been better is simply stating that your role is to defend them in any legal or administrative proceeding. Because if you have a any officer but especially a narcotics officer coming back with a positive steroid test, you've got a problem. That officer has a serious problem and the department in general and the narcotics unit specifically has a serious credibility problem. To act otherwise, seems to be either ignoring a serious problem or circling the wagons. Hopefully, at some point somone will care enough to pull that officer aside and tell him, you need to drop the steroids for your health and the welfare of the public and other police officers. That seems to be the best thing anyone can do for him.


Police unions are obligated in many but not all situations (as was seen recently in San Francisco) to provide legal support for officers accused of misconduct or charged with criminal offenses. However, statements like these are one more reason while many cities and towns adopt some form of civilian oversight mechanism because they don't provide people with much confidence that officers report other officers who do engage in misconduct or that agencies take these situations seriously.




The decision to review a case involving misconduct at a demonstration in Eugene gets a thumbs up from the local newspaper's editorial board.






At 1 a.m., Los Angeles Police Department Officer Randal Simmons, 51, became the first SWAT offficer killed in the unit's history. More information on a tragic incident that left five people dead is here.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Officer Randal Simmons, a veteran of the unit, was shot in the head and mortally wounded as SWAT officers broke through the front door, police said. Sources said a round entered Simmons' neck, lodging in his brain stem. He was rushed to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he died just after 1 a.m, officials said. Simmons, a married father of a teenage son and daughter, spent his off-hours mentoring youth in South Los Angeles -- a sign of how passionate he was about his work and the community where he had been a gang officer for years, colleagues said.

Originally from New York, he had been a football player at Washington State University and was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. But an injury shortened his pro football career and he ended up in the LAPD police academy, and then as a patrol officer, starting in 1981.

He worked Pacific Division, gang units in South Los Angeles, and then SWAT.

"He was always there to support, mentor and help," said LAPD Capt. James Craig, a close friend and academy classmate. "He was a kind person."