From Acorns to Oaks: Let the fireworks begin

The Eastside doesn't have a skate park and residents there want to change that. And now as a result, a new one will be built at Bobby Bonds Park.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



When a group of Eastside skaters were told by city staffers to stop skating the stairs at Bobby Bonds Park, they raised a valid point.

"Where should we go?" they asked.

"That was a good question because there really wasn't a place to go," said Parks and Recreation Director Ralph Nuñez.

The city's only skate park is at Hunt Park, about a 15-minute drive from the city's Eastside neighborhood and not worth the gas, the skaters say.

The staff at Bobby Bonds suggested the youths pitch their cause for a skating facility.

The teens immediately got to work organizing a meeting with fellow skaters and city staff. They papered the neighborhood with fliers and posted information on MySpace, a social networking Web site, to get the word out. More than 50 skaters attended the first meeting in support of the facility.






The library system including the expansion of the downtown library continues to be a major concern after the current library director, Barbara Custon presented a report that stated it would be difficult at this time to predict the library system's future needs.


Custon as a city employee who heads a department has to walk on egg shells to express any opinion on any issue related to her department given the measures and memos imposed on the library's employees. But then the other library employees, are they allowed to speak up at all? Who can forget this directive distributed by Custon to the other employees in her department? As you can see, what happens in Riverside has been noticed and commented on elsewhere.



(excerpt, Library Journal blog)



No Talking, Please

May 17, 2007

As some of you who pay attention to such things know, I write LJ's How Do You Manage column, and have been for about ten years now. It's kinda sticky because I'm not a librarian and have never worked in a library. I'm just a guy who can put one word in front of the other in a way that makes sense (most of the time, anyway). I create these sticky little situations, and don't know if I'm off the mark or not.

For the June 1 column, I wrote a scenario about librarians being forbidden to speak to the press or write anything for publication or public consumption—everything from ALA panel speeches to book reviews—without their material first being vetted by their supervisor. The librarians, of course, are rightly pissed off and bitching to their director, who hates the idea as much as they do.

But not all directors are alike.

Along comes this pleasant little story from California's Riverside Library, where director Barbara Custen reportedly has forbid her staff from talking to the media and patrons about the library's policies. The memo sent to staff informing them to shut up says "it is not appropriate, nor acceptable, for staff other than the Department Head to speak with the media or customers regarding policies...deviations from this policy will be cause for discipline." Isn't that nice.

So, I guess my How Do You Manage story isn't off the mark at all.

Custen swears that she is "not in any way trying to stifle the staff's freedom of speech" (it doesn't work both ways, lady, the staff can talk or they can't) and admits that the "words in the memo could have been chosen better." Gee, ya think?




Some very interesting points here from a blogger who's spot on, but blaming the director for the "no talking" policy is a bit unfair. After all, the directive most likely came from the seventh floor at City Hall and the choice most likely is to abide by it or find another job. The librarians should consider themselves lucky if they can choose where to shelve their books.





Not long after the Riverside County Temporary Assignment Program employees decided to unionize, a study was released that found that the county was increasing its reliance on part-time employees, to provide its city services. Surprise, surprise though actually apparently it is to a few people in the county.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The San Diego-based Center on Policy Initiatives conducted the study and will present the findings today at the Board of Supervisors' meeting.

The county shouldn't use the employees to do the same work as permanent workers, said Donald Cohen, executive director of the nonprofit research and advocacy organization.

"When we say temporary, we should mean temporary," he said.

Riverside County officials called the study's numbers and conclusions inaccurate Monday, saying the Temporary Assignment Program has proved effective and can improve the level of services.

The county created the program a decade ago after the amount it was paying to private employment agencies began to skyrocket. The cost in 1997 was more than $5 million.

The release today of the Center on Policy Initiatives' study comes on the heels of an effort this month by the Service Employees International Union to organize workers in the county's Temporary Assignment Program.

The union's Local 721 represents 80,000 government employees around Southern California.

In addition, the Legislature's Joint Audit Committee voted this month to require California's state auditor to investigate the use of temporary workers in local government. The audit will examine six counties, including Riverside, Kern and San Joaquin.

Ron Komers, Riverside County's human resources director, called the move "politically motivated."




In Riverside, the city, it's always been known that the ranks of its temporary employees (who enjoy lower wages and no health benefits) were disproportionately represented by men and women of color. For example, in 2002, even though African-Americans made up about 5% of all permanent full-time employees, they made up about 22% of part-time employees. The disproportionate representation of men and women of color appears to be prevalent in TAP as well. Almost all of the employees who marched up to the Human Resources Department to turn in their signed union cards were Black and Latino.

Though a big concern for Riverside's labor force also appears in at least one city department under fire lately, is the use of its volunteers to do the jobs usually done by those in paid positions.





The bulldozers have come to what used to be the tent city set aside for homeless.





[the disembodied head of the Cheshire Cat appears]

Alice: It's the Cheshire Cat! Oh, hello, Cheshire Cat.

Cheshire Cat: Hello. How do you like the Queen?

Alice: Not at all. I don't like that of losing my head. Would you?

Cheshire Cat: I could hardly afford that.


---Alice in Wonderland







The political fireworks sparked at a March 19 workshop on the future of civilian oversight in Portland continue to reverberate according to The Oregonian. The sparks are stemming from a report that was commissioned by Portland's City Hall to examine the city's form of civilian oversight, a hybrid model consisting of an auditor's office and a citizen review committee. The whole episode in Portland's recent history has been fascinating to follow and well covered in the local press there.



(excerpt)



The debate comes in the wake of an outside consultant's report that found the public lacks confidence in Portland's system of police oversight. Consultant Eileen Luna-Firebaugh, a University of Arizona professor who worked for police oversight agencies in San Francisco and Berkeley, Calif., also found that many Portland residents don't know how the system works and the citizens involved in the process aren't allowed to use the powers they have.

Although the Independent Police Review Division, the intake center for complaints against police, has the power to initiate its own independent investigation of complaints instead of referring them to the Police Bureau's internal affairs division, it hasn't done so since it was set up in 2001. Firebaugh recommended IPR conduct its own investigations where the "complaint is one of public import."

Police union president Sgt. Robert King, who took notes on his laptop during Tuesday's council work session, derided Potter immediately after. He said the union would use grievances or lawsuits to fight any effort to broaden the citizen committee's role in investigations.

King also called Potter's "pandering to community's perception of police" dangerous.

Another of Potter's concerns is how less serious complaints are handled. IPR received about 700 complaints in 2007. Of those, 90 were routed to the Police Bureau as service complaints, meaning they involved what IPR calls "minor rule violations" and are referred to an officer's supervisor for review. These complaints don't result in discipline. A person who files such a complaint can't appeal the Police Bureau's handling of it and sometimes feels the response was inadequate. Potter thinks that should change.

"I think all of those citizens deserve a process. I know you're not going to make everybody happy," Potter said. "But I think we should strive to make more citizens satisfied with the result."



So there's conflict between Potter, the mayor and Gary Blackmer, the city auditor who until just recently oversaw the IPR, before it was removed albeit temporary to be placed under Potter's office. There's also some conflict between King and Potter as well, which is interesting because before he was mayor, Potter was the chief of the Portland Police Bureau.

Traditionally, there's usually lots of saber rattling between police chiefs and union leaders but the fact that Potter is now an elected official adds an interesting layer to the political picture in Portland in general and involving this process with the IPR in particular.



King? He's also playing his role in the ongoing role to perfection. It's a role that's being played out in other cities and counties as well on this issue. Only the faces change. And it will probably more than anything galvanize the support in the community for stronger, independent civilian oversight. You go King! That is what every supporter of civilian oversight in Portland should be saying right now.




The people are lining up to challenge Blackmer's assertion that the city's average annual payouts on police-related lawsuits have decreased because of the Independent Police Review. Some including CopWatch alleged in reports that the payouts by Portland have actually increased by at least 97% in the last several years.


Meanwhile in Riverside, the Community Police Review Commission continues on through its process of continued micromanagement by City Hall. The commission is discussing more changes to its meetings in upcoming meetings including the proposed dissolution of its policy and procedures committee which has barely met in the past two or three years. It's not like there's much left to miss out of that committee but still, it's interesting that the intent is to knock off a subcommittee that played a key role (at least when it met) in terms of one of the commission's powers which is to create policy recommendations.

If that power is done instead through the general meetings of the CPRC, then not much work will be done because about 90% of what the commission meets on has more to do with keeping books rather than discussing substantive issues. In order to accomodate the discussion and decision making processes involved with policy recommendations, the meeting format will require a significant change.

Also, there was some announcement on the upcoming agenda that there will be a discussion of the "diversity" on the CPRC. That's an issue that's arisen lately given that seven out of the nine current members are White and that all but three of them are connected to either law enforcement or the Riverside Police Department in some manner. Prior attempts to address this issue were met with a high level of defensiveness from several White commissioners and one commissioner commented that there weren't any qualified Latino candidates, essentially blaming the lack of ethnic and racial diversity on "low numbers".

One commissioner said there had been more Latinos on the commission and there has been about five during its eight-year history and in 2005-06, they were all serving on the commission at the same time. However, one of those commissioners, Bob Garcia, had termed out and three others resigned mid-term within a short period of time. Not one commissioner has brought up the issue of these sudden resignations, which isn't surprising given that it's not likely to be brought up by one of the White commissioners.

Several commissioners mentioned that there are other forms of "diversity" including sexual orientation which is true. But even within sexual orientation, there is also ethnic and racial diversity and it seems that when other forms of "diversity" are represented, those representatives are still older, middle-class or wealthier White people. People whose contact with police officers is more likely to be social than professional.

Is there a commissioner younger than 40-years-old? Is there a commissioner who's even working-class (i.e. "blue" or "pink" collar) or are most of them if not all of them white-collar professionals? Are there any commissioners without political ties to elected officials?

Are any of the commissioners representative of the demographics of those who get stopped for busted tail lights or other traffic violations often used in pretext stops by patrol officers, sat on the curb, handcuffed and put in the back seat of the car while their vehicle is searched? No, didn't think so and not nearly as likely.

So it's intriguing that this discussion of "diversity" has been put on the meeting agenda to in a sense, put the commissioners on notice that it will be addressed in some form. That's all well and good if it will actually be discussed, because the only thing that's arisen when people have raised concerns about it so far (which have been brought to them by community members), is to be chided as bringing up what's essentially a nonissue. But suddenly is an issue. It's been an issue, is this a sign that the commission is beginning to understand that it's been an issue?

What was interesting is after being chided about it as being wrong about this issue, the chair of the CPRC, Brian Pearcy, spoke on this same issue during the annual report before the city council last month. So suddenly it's an issue, or a perception of an issue or something like that. It's enough to make your head spin.

Stay tuned and we'll find out exactly what it is in future meetings.






Over 400 police officers in the Los Angeles Police Department might be moved from their desk jobs to patrolling the streets.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



The 203-page study comes as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton continue their aggressive push to hire 1,000 officers by 2010 despite a severe budget shortfall facing the city.

Bratton largely endorsed the report's findings but made clear he was girding for a fight with City Council members, whom he expects to use the review as a justification to slow down the hires.

"Let's make it perfectly clear, I have no intention, the mayor has no intention, of retreating back from the hiring," he said at a news conference with Chick. "We actually need 12,500 police officers. . . . Even with the 1,000, we're still short almost 2,500 police officers from what we need in this city."

The study, conducted by an outside consulting firm for Chick, identified 565 jobs in the Los Angeles Police Department -- many administrative in nature -- that are now assigned to sworn police officers and should be phased into civilian posts over a three-year period.





A witness in the trial of three New York City Police Department officers charged in the fatal onduty shooting of Sean Bell said that he believe a man who turned out to be Det. Gescard Isnora was a police officer.




(excerpt, New York Daily News)




"He just came up on the car out of nowhere," Johnell Hankerson said at the trial of Isnora and two other detectives accused of gunning Bell down with a barrage of bullets. "I looked, I said, "Oh s--t, he's got a gun."

Hankerson said "I remember his face" and then pointed at Isnora and fixed him with an icy glare. He said he spotted the cops in the Camry before he spotted Isnora.

"They were moving kind of slow," he said. "They were very observant, looking at people on the right side of the street. I was trying to figure out why would there be a white and a black man on this dark street this time of night."

Detective Marc Cooper, who along with Isnora and Detective Michael Oliver are charged with killing Bell, was one of the officers in in the Camry.

Hankerson, said he was watching the Camry when "another individual approached Sean's car with his gun brandished."

He said he recalled thinking, "If these guys are police officers, he's got a gun out. Things could get really ugly out here."

Moments later the shooting started, killing Bell on his wedding day and badly wounding his buddies, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman.








The Associated Press interviews Drew Peterson at his home five months after the disappearance of his wife, Stacey.





A job opening in Orange County.


Executive Director Office of Independent Review

Orange County, CA: Seeks an executive with 3 years experience in conducting
oversight of law enforcement personnel & departments with active membership
in the State Bar of CA (no imposition of discipline). Under policy direction
of the OC Board of Supervisors will review, monitor, assist, oversee & advise the
Sheriff-Coroner in the investigation of selected internal & citizen
complaints, & selected incidents of death or serious injury occurring to persons while in the custody of employees of the Sheriff's Department.

Compensation Package: Salary up to $216,000 annually DOQ plus a
comprehensive benefits package.

How to Apply: Please submit a resume and cover letter online at
www.ocgov.com or via fax to the attention of Marguerite Adams at
714.834.5523.

If you have questions please contact Marguerite at 714.834.6199.