Elections and electives

I love "fan" mail like this. You can read it right here. Someone's upset about the blogging here on the board of supervisor's race which is heading into the home stretch of its final month. He or she sent one and then two others cheering his or her original words. Taking cloning one's self to a brand new level.


Here's the words right here.



Let's clear the air with some facts about who leaves city council jobs.

Mary rants about Schiavone abandoning his council seat if elected to replace Buster.

What she ignores is that Buster left HIS council seat when he first ran and won the Supervisor office.

Maybe Mary didn't know this, which is another reason why transplanted activists like her should quiet down and take a back seat to native riversiders. You ought to know the facts before condeming Schiavone for doing what Buster already did. And stop pretending to be undecided (unbiased) in this race. Its easy to see right through you.





"Transplanted"?

I've been here for a while and given that I've been told that I'm a wrinkly old bitch or cunt with a uterus that needs to be sewn shut, that's a pretty long time. As far as we "transplants" go, we're outnumbering those who are "native" as the years pass by given how many Riversiders are leaving this city and how we vote or don't vote will ultimately decide Riverside's political future. And until this anonymous babbler and his or her friends get their friends on the city council to pass a city ordinance prohibiting non-native Riversiders from voting in municipal elections, that's the way it's going to be. It's bad enough they're trying to change the runoff election process for ward council seats to be city-wide elections to favor the big-buck candidates at the expense of grass-roots campaigners. And who led that charge just after Election 2007? Why, the folks on the Governmental Affairs Committee.

But it's nice that people from this camp are suddenly so thoughtful of native Riversiders the way they weren't when many of those expressed concern about the Riverside Renaissance including its impact on downtown and how there was concern that it would take what was Riverside and turn it into a carbon copy of an inland Orange County city. Back then, being a native of Riverside concerned about holding on to its identity was seen not as an attribute but a detriment to "progress".

But that was a different election and this is a new one. If Buster abbreviated his council term, I'm sure those who lived in the ward in question probably expressed their pique about it back then as this blog has now about Schiavone doing it now. And we'd both be right to do it.

I am undecided until both of these candidates drop the "who forced the Riverside Police Department to accept ID cards from illegal immigrants" campaigns that they both have been launching and they actually begin campaigning on county issues. In fact, any more mailers that I receive on this ID non-issue will be mailed back to the sender. It's just too bad that you can't do that with the phone calls from the autodialing bank in Massachusetts.



I really appreciate what you said, but I can see right through you too and you didn't even have to sign your name. By the way, your "old pal" Arthur Gage is thinking of running for mayor, what do you think about that?


But then it gets better, the same individual returns here and pretends to be someone else, picking up where the "first" person left off including several of the same syntax errors. Not that this isn't cute.


(excerpt)



Well said from the previous poster[LOL].

Another thing Mary brings up in her personal rant against the city and everyone associated and the election:

She claims Schiavone is taking personal credit for projects accomplished - stating that it takes the entire council to approve items - not one person. Well. . . . . . the thing is political candidates list accomplishments that went into effect while they have served - and they do it without the mention of the other members of the council/board - BUSTER INCLUDED. She FAILS to mention Buster doing the same when ranting about the evils of Schiavone[sounds like a cologne].

I received the flyers - and I've seen Buster's website. He lists HIS accomplishments - not crediting the accomplishments of the entire Supervisorial body.

So what's new? [Plenty, though not you] Nothing - Mary slanting her blog one way as usual.





So what's new? One individual claiming to be two different people but at least sharing the same moniker which is of course... anonymous. Well, not really but the sake of argument, yes.


There's a bit of difference between taking credit for accomplishments on a Web site and taking credit for accomplishments at city council meetings not for the benefit of the city council, not for the benefit of the city staff, not for the benefit of the handful of people who still attend meetings. But for the voters at home. If that's the case, then that's the case. Still, this anonymous babbler is correct and right in pointing out that it's not only considerate to include others in your list of accomplishments, but it's also politically wise because it demonstrates your ability or inability to work with other legislators if you can show a track record of participating in a group process. Certainly this um, anonymous person would agree with this, being the expert on all that's about politics and leadership as previously stated in this medium.



Now that between the two of us, we have the jumping ship and saving the city or county single-handily while the rest of the governmental body twiddles its fingers issues discussed, how about the ID cards which is merely a revisit of the campaign highlights of the Ward Five council race (of which you endorsed McArthur's rival I believe?) as we both know. Because until the candidates return to discussing county issues, only one of us is endorsing anyone.



Still, I think that enough Craigslist visitors will see through this person enough that the only place three separate individuals exists is inside this person's head and they're running amok as clones like Huey, Dewey and Louie.



Or maybe it's three different heads on one body like Ghidrah, which I guess is only a problem if each head endorses a different candidate. Bring on the flying turtle!

While on the county election, residents have voiced objections to the proposed expansion of March Air Base. Not surprisingly, everyone facing an election in the next year or so, voted to delay that decision. It's almost enough to make you wish every year was an election day and every day was Christmas. But then when reality hits, no not really because passions flare up during elections and it's not healthy to keep such emotions at a pique over a long period of time.

But back to the latest episode and vote by the March Joint Powers Authority involving the air base.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Hundreds of Riverside residents in the Canyon Crest, Mission Grove and Orangecrest areas are awakened in the early morning hours by the company's departing DC-9 aircraft, despite assurances from public officials and the airport developer in 2004 that they would not be.

Welton said her family is unable to sleep.

"No one should be driven from their homes by your decisions," Welton said, adding that residents had concerns about security and hazards associated with general aviation.

In the first eight weeks of this year, small airplanes were involved in six crashes that killed 13 people in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Meli Van Natta, a Moreno Valley Realtor, said opening March to general aviation would be an economic boon to the region and could attract corporate executives to the area.

"People buy properties in the path of progress and then complain when the progress reaches them," Van Natta told the commission.

Buster, a Riverside County supervisor, said millions in taxpayer subsidies have gone to help DHL and the airport developer, Global Port.

"Look at the balance sheet and who's making out? Global Port," said Buster, noting that the company recently paid more than $100,000 in fines for operating a hazardous fueling site adjacent to the military airfield.

Buster has repeatedly called on the March Joint Powers Authority to sever its ties with Global Port, without backing from any of his fellow commissioners.


And it won't happen and if you look at the relationships between those with Global Port and some of those on the commission, you might understand why. But you'd think any elected official with foresight and the initiative to not reward constantly poor behavior including lying about flight paths for DHL, with more and more perks including keeping its position. Maybe in another reality.









The Community Police Review Commission met, well kind of on May 14 and had a packed agenda for a "special meeting" yet shortly after, the agenda was jettisoned when Chair Brian Pearcy had to take off after a few minutes much to the surprise of the other commissioners never mind the public and attend another meeting. So most everything including the fact certification process of the Douglas Steven Cloud shooting case was tabled until the next time it can be rescheduled. It's not like this case hasn't had to wait for nearly two years already.

Attending the meeting was Theresa Cloud, who spoke on Douglas and began her comments with a question as to whether or not the commissioners had received copies of the deposition transcripts taken of Riverside Police Department Officers Nicholas Vazquez and David Johansen. It was a question that had been asked before but never answered.



"I was there. I heard it. I think that it contradicts things that have been said," Cloud said.


The circumstances of questioning both officers certainly differed than it did when they were interviewed by the Officer-Involved Death Team. While reading transcripts of interviews with officers provided by the police department's own criminal investigations of officer-involved shootings, what's noticeable is how often at times, the questions asked by the investigators tend to be leading. Something that investigators are specifically told not to do in policy and procedure language that explains the definition of the interrogative process. But it's a problem that's been noted in more than one annual report submitted by the CPRC to the city council, under the category pertaining to trends and patterns shown by the police department in the area of both officer-involved death investigations and those involving citizen complaints.

Improvement had been noted in later reports particularly among investigations done by the police department's internal affairs division, but most of the time it seems the interviews done for the criminal side of the investigation are carried out by homicide detectives.

In the interrogation of Officer Ryan Wilson after the 2004 fatal shooting of Summer Marie Lane, that was especially apparent. And in addition, what was heard on the audio recording and written in the transcripts of the interview was in several spots, laughter by both Wilson and one of the investigators who was assigned the task of obtaining information from him about his version of events. Because after all, shooting a person to death is after all, a funny thing. Cloud said that someone she knew had been in a business and heard one of the officers involved in this shooting bragging about it to someone else.

However, when officers are deposed, they are interviewed by the attorneys of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the city that employs them. It's not their co-workers who they might socialize with or work alongside. In fact, some plaintiffs had complained that officers that they want to depose use up their sick leave to avoid their dates with deposition. So if different versions emerge of events, the form of questioning and the circumstances might be one possible reason why.

At any rate, City Attorney Gregory Priamos provided a copy of the transcripts of both depositions to the commission last week and they'll be available for its members to review. It will be the first case where more than one source of statements including one outside the police department has been made available to the commissioners in an officer-involved death case.

But Cloud went further in her comments, talking about the decision to accept a $800,000 settlement that unknown to many city residents, came with conditions attached. Those conditions included in writing, promising to implement changes in the hiring and training of the city's police officers in terms of how they address excessive force. Priamos' office promised that the department would carry out these measures along with using the Cloud shooting as a scenario in training officers what not to do in similar situations in the future. Which provides some idea of at least how the city attorney's office perceived this shooting indeed. This, in a city where they tell the public that there was no problems with a particular officer-involved shooting, there's no merit to any resultant lawsuits and it's all frivolous. Watch my lips, but don't look at my eyes or my hands, is usually the unwritten motto when it comes to litigation involving the city these days in terms of how it defends itself.

So what's the truth? If the city attorney's office agrees to use a shooting which stemmed from what not to do as a teaching tool, what is that saying when in public, nothing's wrong? Not that it's bad to have such teaching tools if there's a problem, because you want to teach better ways for police officers to address certain situations. Yet, why isn't the public allowed to know that this is happening inside an agency paid for by city funds? And one wonders if the two officers involved in the shooting were clued in about how the city attorney's office was viewing their actions and discussing them. And the city council too because likely they were briefed on this shooting, the lawsuit and perhaps even voted for the settlement.


Is the city like Janus with two different faces?


Because one thing the police department tells community members is how much it values their input and wants to receive their input yet in situations like these, everything is silent. The settling of a lawsuit for this large amount relatively early in its process in the sense that usually the city's more into dragging cases out is a huge red flag. It's not all that surprising to hear that it's become described as another scenario of what not to do given that outcome.


These measures are so much different than what was revealed to the city residents whose tax dollars finance the city's budget including its police department, not just in terms of annual operations but the $22 million and growing costs of the five-year stipulated judgment with then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, not to mention the implementation of the five-year Strategic Plan. The city's main staff spent even more energy than money remolding the CPRC into its image of what it should be, mere weeks after it delivered its ill-fated finding on the Lane shooting. How much attention did it play to addressing any issues that arose which led the CPRC to its finding? How much attention has the city and department paid thus far to implementing any of the 10 recommendations included in the Lee Deante Brown shooting public report that was released several months ago by the CPRC? Has either even read it?

This case was like others in that the relatives of those in the wrongful death lawsuits wanted to encourage changes in the way that the police department handled similar situations. The lawyers representing the parties of two lawsuits filed in federal court in relation to the incustody death of Terry Rabb in 2005 expressed concern about the then lack of comprehensive training in the department's officers and dispatchers in terms of handling cases of mentally or medically incapacitated individuals. Similar concerns were raised early on at CPRC meetings and public forums from the family members of Lee Deante Brown, a mentally ill Black man shot to death by a police officer in 2006. And implement crisis mental health training, the department has done and it did manage to keep the public informed in doing that. Public engagement has helped keep it on that path.

But now that the city attorney's office has made these promises of improvements in the police department to prevent future tragedies, who will ensure that the city attorney's office and its ward, the police department will follow through with what was promised? If the city enters into an agreement with the families of individuals like Cloud to make improvements, then it's important that these agreements are reached in good faith and that the city abides by its promises in a way that it remains accountable to them and the process is transparent at least to the plaintiffs in the settled litigation. If there's problems that have arisen and clearly there were to the point where the city has taken this stance, then following through in a way that fosters better communication and trust rather than the opposite can only better serve the department and the city's residents in the long run. But what remains to be seen is what is actually done.





Press Enterprise columnist, Dan Bernstein provides his take on what's been going on at Sobaba Reservation.


(excerpt)



These guys are, supposedly, leaders. They represent people who are using real bullets. Real people are dead. You'd think Sheriff Stan Sniff and Tribal Chairman Robert Salgado might have a few pressing matters to discuss.

But that'll have to wait. The sheriff was in Washington, D.C., when a P-E reporter caught up to him. Sniffed Sniff:

"The tribal leadership needs to take control and make it known that this type of violence against their own members and members of law enforcement will not be tolerated."

That's your boilerplate law 'n' order lingo, which would be fine, except it glosses over what appears to be the larger context of this dispute: Bad blood. Soboba Indians -- at least some -- don't trust the sheriff. The Sheriff's Department -- at least some -- doesn't trust the Soboba Indians.





Another Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy is facing criminal charges, in connection with stalking behavior


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Cpl. Eric Lance Hamilton, 43, of Canyon Lake, who had worked in the Temecula area, was charged May 2 with embezzlement, making annoying phone calls and two counts of stalking. He was arrested three days later and booked into the Southwest Detention Center. Hamilton was released the same day on $25,000 bond, jail records show.

According to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant, sheriff's Investigator Christian Dekker and Hamilton were members of a special enforcement team that worked out of the sheriff's Southwest Station.



Dekker had witnessed and reported "acts of misconduct" against team members, after which the special team was disbanded pending an internal Sheriff's Department investigation, the affidavit says.

"Hamilton became fixated on Dekker, due to Dekker being a whistleblower," the affidavit states, and began making threats against him in retaliation.

Dekker began receiving annoying anonymous phone calls -- five in one day in late March -- about the time sheriff's officials placed one member of the special team on leave and announced their intention to discipline another team member, the affidavit states.

Phone records show the calls to Dekker were placed using a cell phone purchased by the special team for use as a "confidential informant" phone, the affidavit states. Investigators found that phone in Hamilton's possession. The embezzlement charge against Hamilton alleges unauthorized appropriation of the cell phone.

According to the affidavit, Dekker told Hamilton last August that he intended to report incidents of misconduct related to the special team.

"Hamilton responded by saying Dekker had just signed his own death warrant," the affidavit says.






There's two judge elections going on in Riverside County and the candidates point out their strengths. Not surprisingly on the top of the list is the current state of the courts backlog in this county. Candidates responded.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


Deputy District Attorney John D. Molloy told a gathering at the Woodcrest Community Library that whoever is elected June 3 likely will have to step into a courtroom as a criminal judge.

Opponents John W. Vineyard, a civil lawyer, and Anne M. Knighten, a judicial staff attorney for the Riverside County Superior Court, said they are ready for the challenge.

"Currently, Riverside is faced by a tremendous challenge," Molloy said. "We have 1,100 criminal cases on our backlog. It doesn't matter who is elected. It doesn't matter what their background is. They can expect the very first case they will see in the courtroom is going to be a criminal case."

Vineyard acknowledged that is the most likely scenario. He said his bedtime reading is a criminal procedure book.

"What I also hope to deal with is resolving that problem. Our court has a history of resolving its crises and coming up with creative, innovative ways of dealing with problems," he said.

"Civil is not actually shut down," Knighten told listeners, adding that the three dedicated civil trial courtrooms at the former Hawthorne Elementary School in Riverside are beginning to have an effect on the backlog of civil cases.

Knighten said she also is reading up on criminal law and sentencing guidelines.

"Right now, we don't have a judicial staff attorney over in criminal so we are all handling criminal questions," she said. "It's not that foreign of an area to me."





Riverside and San Bernardino Counties together ranked fourth in the nation on their foreclosure rates.



Coming to a grinding halt in Los Angeles County, is the Sheriff's Department's training academy after a state investigation found serious problems both new and older ones that were never corrected.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



The shortcomings in the sheriff's training program included trainees graduating without taking the required number of physical conditioning classes and recruits who failed training courses being allowed to repeatedly retest until they passed, according to the state report obtained Tuesday by The Times.

The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, which certifies police academies, inspected the sheriff's program last summer and identified a number of violations of state training regulations that the commission said required immediate corrective action.

When inspectors returned to the academy earlier this year, many of the same deficiencies remained, sheriff's officials acknowledged. In response to the state's findings, Baca said the training for new recruits would be postponed until the problems were fixed. The department expects the program --based in Whittier -- to be fully operating in about 30 days.

"We welcome the report. We welcome the advice. We welcome the criticism," Baca said in an interview Tuesday. "I don't see it as systemic problem."





They never do, but Baca is left with the question with where it all begins when even at the beginning level, your operations have been compromised so that your agency is no longer in compliance with state training requirements. What remains to be seen as whether he'll "welcome" having to fix the problems and any others that crop up.

Few law enforcement agencies are vetted as much as the one in Los Angeles County which has its own office of attorneys headed by Michael Gennaco overseeing internal investigations and an independent counsel in Merrick Bobb who was hired by the board of supervisors.




The Reverend Al Sharpton left New York City to travel to Atlanta to hear former Atlanta Police Department narcotics officer Arthur Tesler take the witness stand in his own defense. Tesler is on trial facing criminal charges including conspiracy for his role in the 2006 fatal shooting of Kathryn Johnston, 92.



(excerpt, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)



Sitting quietly in the packed courtroom, the New York-based civil rights activist listened to the Atlanta police officer try to convince a Fulton County jury that he wasn't responsible for the illegal search warrant and botched raid that resulted in the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in November 2006.

Tesler testified that officers regularly took shortcuts in getting search warrants, which he viewed as standard procedure.

He said he was uneasy with the way the narcotics unit operated but had been instructed to "to sit, watch and learn" when he joined the unit that year.

But Tesler maintained he always believed a tip about a kilo of cocaine at 933 Neal St. was solid.

Fabian Sheats, a low-level dealer they had arrested, had told officers he saw the kilo cut up in a shoebox that afternoon, Tesler said.

"He sounded very reliable," Tesler said. "He had eveything to gain by giving us that information because if we went into that jail and there was no more drugs than he had, he was going free."





Speaking of Atlanta, the new civilian review board there has yet to hear a single case even though it's been around for at least 14 months.


Still complaining about it are the police officers working for a department which was determined by the United States Attorney's office to be "rife with corruption" in the wake of scandals erupting from its narcotics division.


(excerpt, Creative Loafing)



The board was created after narcotics officers burst into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston on Nov. 21, 2006. Johnston thought her home was being invaded and fired one shot from a revolver as officers were breaking down her door. They responded with a barrage of 39 shots that killed her. And in the months following the killing, the depth of corruption plaguing the narcotics squad – the type of allegations the review board would investigate – has risen to the surface.

It turned out that officer Jason Smith lied to a judge when he swore that an informant said large quantities of drugs were being sold from Johnston's home on Neal Street. To cover themselves after fatally wounding the elderly woman, the narcotics officers planted drugs in her basement.

Smith and Gregg Junnier have since pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and to federal charges of conspiracy to violate a person's civil rights ending in death. Both officers face at least 10 years in prison; however, their plea agreement stipulates that they could receive less time if they provide "substantial assistance" to a federal investigation of corruption inside the police department.

A third officer involved in the Johnston killing, Arthur Tesler, is currently on trial in Fulton Superior Court on charges that include violating his oath of office, lying in an official investigation and false imprisonment. Last week, Junnier testified against his former colleague, and described how the narcotics squad routinely cut corners to obtain warrants.

The officers all said they were working under pressure to meet arrest quotas. "You definitely had a numbers game in the narcotics unit," says Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.

But Kreher questions whether a review board is even necessary – and whether it might do more harm than good. The real problems that he says plague the department – understaffing, low morale and pressure to meet arrest numbers – would be exacerbated rather than solved by the board.

"Once the ordinance was written, we pointed out issues we think violate officers' due process rights," Kreher says. "When the full council was ready to vote, the city attorney stood up and said they should not approve the ordinance as written. He told them that we would sue the city over this."