Wild happenings and weather in Riverside

"I was outraged when I saw the DHL mailer from Frank Schiavone. After Schiavone led the charge to bring noisy DHL jets to March Field over Bob Buster's strenuous objections, he wants us to believe the noise is Bob Buster's fault"


--- Catherine Barrett-Fischer, Leader of anti-DHL citizen groups. Actually, it's the Community Alliance for Riverside's Economy and Environment.









The educational motif continues in mailers put out by the Bob Buster for Supervisor campaign and the latest one has a portrait shot of a man in a business suit frowning and wearing a conical hat that reads "dunce". It asks the recipients the question, does Frank Schiavone think Riverside County voters are stupid. The brochure tries to answer those questions.



It's interesting that the discussion's turning back to DHL-Gate, where Buster cast a crucial vote several years ago against the night flights when it became clear that there was some problems with the flight path provided by DHL and Globalport and it was already clear that city residents in Canyoncrest, Mission Grove and Orange Crest were not getting a good night's sleep without a good pair of industrial-proof earplugs.



These residents including Barrett-Fischer, her organization and others were essentially told the jet noise which blasted through the early morning hours beginning at about 2:59 a.m. with the liftoff of the first antiquated noise maker, the DC-9 was all in their heads. They were referred to as being crazy, as being gadflies who had no idea what they were talking about and were trying to instigate something. What they were was exactly right as time and more bad decisions would tell. There's probably never been a group of citizen activists on an issue who have proven to be right that wasn't called a bunch of crazy, know-nothing gadflies or something of that nature first.



What do we know now? We know that DHL's attempts to expand its domestic operations into a fiercely competitive market and lost about $900 million its first year. We also know that a consultant stated that if it didn't seriously rehaul its domestic operations strategy, it would be in even deeper financial straits.

We know that there's quite a bit of revision of history about this issue in someone's campaign. Which continues with the recent vote on expanding general aviation use of the air field, with the three votes all belonging to elected officials who well, are up for some elected seat or another either this year, the next or both.



But anything's possible. After all, Riverside is the place which saw twin tornadoes yesterday, hitting near or on the 215.



Over 40 people in Riverside spoke out on the Fox Plaza project in front of the Planning Commission which approved a portion of the project. Public comment was divided and split between the highly influential Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce and those spoilers, the Old Riverside Foundation.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



During the public comment period, 19 people -- many affiliated with the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce -- spoke in favor of the project, saying it would help revitalize downtown.

"This is a shining star that we need to grab onto," chamber President Cindy Roth said.

Twenty-five people -- many of them members of the preservationist group Old Riverside Foundation -- spoke against the proposed demolition of the Stalder building and against Fox Plaza's proposed size, bulk, the number of condominiums and its likely impact on traffic.

Downtown resident Andrew Butler said the project as designed would be incompatible with the rest of downtown.

"This gateway entrance is more like a fortress," he said.




Some people confuse the issue by claiming that a lot of people have spoken on the project in favor of it and that those who disagree with it and are greatly concerned about little insignificant things like environmental impact reports don't favor taking any action.

First of all, the majority of people who spoke in favor of it in two meetings are members of the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce and why there are some individuals who put greater weight on what they say (including the city government) than on average city residents, it's too bad they couldn't have been as passionate about not selling out the businesses whose eviction by the Redevelopment Agency they supported on Market Street. As people claim to be advocates and representatives of business, its attitude towards those businesses is like that "taxation without representation" (unless you're in the pedestrian mall) group called the Downtown Neighborhood Partnership which is merely the beautification committee of the Mission Inn.

The Chamber is one party in the equation but contrary to what people seem to think, they are but one party.

The project is ugly. It looks like somebody snatched a series of buildings from some place else and plopped them downtown, someone who doesn't know much about downtown. And who complained about putting a major chain or two downtown? Why not have shopping options for tourists including those who attend events at the Riverside Convention Center? Why not have shopping opportunities for residents? But who wants a densely packed residential hub without adequate parking, and without adequate parking because not having that is supposed to "encourage" people to be pedestrians in an area which makes few to no accommodations to pedestrians as anyone who actually doesn't drive through downtown knows when trying to cross the streets.

Why not include historic buildings in the design instead of tearing them down?



The Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputies who were involved in shootings at the Soboba Reservation are back to work as investigations continue.





The Riverside County Clerk's office is taking appointments from same-sex couples who wish to get married.



A group of retired judges and justices have given their endorsement to judicial candidate John Vineyard, which isn't surprising because his campaign has been saying that he's got the support of many current and former judges. Well at least the ones who aren't ex-prosecutors which means that this would include few current ones.

Not surprisingly, the argument soon shifted to the problems which have plagued the courts in Riverside County for several years.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



In Riverside County, we have lost the ability to resolve most civil disputes because the civil courts have been hijacked for use in resolving criminal cases, and we are in danger of losing our family-law and probate courts for this purpose as well. We must protect our family-law and probate courts and take back our civil courts.

Our judges face serious challenges in finding ways to restore citizens' right to a forum for their civil issues. Riverside County judges will be called upon to find creative and innovative ways to address these problems.




Actually, they were kind of mandated to by Supreme Court Justice Ronald George, but it still remains to be seen how well that will work out.

Is giving elected officials in the Inland Empire credit cards like juggling grenades? The Press Enterprise Editorial Board pondered this issue. Allegations and convictions for misuse in Canyon Lake and Colton respectively have put this troubling issue under the spotlight.




In a scene that plays out more frequently in California, the Washington, D.C. Police Department was forced to rehire 17 police officers that it had fired.




The officers who had their firings overturned by sympathetic arbitrators had been fired for among other things, falsifying a report to targeting a news reporter they disliked for harassment by other law enforcement officers.


(excerpt, Washington Post)



The officers were dismissed for problems such as lying about when they were on the clock, falsifying documents and looking the other way when another off-duty officer got into fistfights, according to D.C. court and arbitration records. One officer accessed personal information about a City Paper reporter and posted it on the Internet with a suggestion that other police "target the individual for law enforcement," the records show.

The department has struggled for decades to meet disciplinary deadlines and promised the public and D.C. Council years ago that improvements would be made. But in the most recent cases, police officials once again violated timetables in internal affairs cases. As a result, the firings were overruled by judges in D.C. Superior Court or by arbitrators ruling for the D.C. Public Employee Relations Board.

Lanier, who took over the department in December 2006, said that the slip-ups predated her administration and that she had no choice but to bring the officers back -- almost always with full back pay, benefits and seniority. It was unclear yesterday how much the city has spent. Lanier placed most of the officers on patrol.

"If a judge said they were wrongfully terminated and you have to take them back, then I do," Lanier said yesterday. "For any cases where there was an ethics issue -- unless I have no other choice -- I wouldn't return them. It's too important an issue to me."



Apparently, the officers' returns have caused upheaval in the department with other officers asking why these individuals were brought back. And not surprisingly, there's been a lot of criticism of these rehirings from different corners, according to the Washington Post.



(excerpt)



"This is embarrassing for the city," said Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). "The thought of having people back on the force like this gives me chills."

The officers, brought back since October, were dismissed for a range of offenses, including lying on official documents, accessing private information about a Washington City Paper reporter, double-dipping, and getting into off-duty scrapes and other trouble. They won back their jobs after judges and arbitrators determined that the city did not act quickly enough against them.

"If we did things the right way in the first place we wouldn't be in this pickle," Graham said.

For decades, the department has struggled to meet disciplinary deadlines, even promising the public and D.C. Council years ago that it would make improvements. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, who took office in December 2006, said she inherited the problem and is trying to do better.

Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) said he plans to get updates and explanations on the matter from Lanier at oversight hearings throughout the year.

"Discipline should happen in a timely way," Mendelson said. "When it's delayed, we as the public don't benefit, and the officers don't benefit."




I think the point is that the officers don't want discipline, period. They fight it from coast to coast. So obviously, they don't think they benefit from it.