"It's beginning to look a lot like an election year" and the DHL smackdown

This upcoming blink-and-you'll-miss-it city council meeting in Riverside has got a couple of interesting items on its agenda this week.


The one that leaps right out off the page mostly because of the events that have been taking place is the one where Mayor Ron Loveridge and Mayor Pro Tem Frank Schiavone basically tell DHL where to stick it when it comes to brokering a deal with Polar Express to add one more flight to the DHL "red eyed" roster which would be one heading overseas to Asia.


Oh, if there had only been a similar proclamation from the city council the day after or even before DHL had begun its current domestic flying schedule which begins at 2:59 a.m. in the morning, six days a week. No wait, if there had only been enough nay votes from the commission including its Riverside City Hall contingent who as they said, represented the area "disproportionately affected" by the DHL flights. If that had been the case, perhaps the southern half of Riverside could have been spared this nightly nightmare that they were told for several years was all in their heads.


My favorite statement in the report is the last one, before the signatures provided by Loveridge and Schiavone which states the following:




"By expanding this operation, the additional flight will directly impact the City of Riverside and its residents and create substantial adverse environmental impacts including elevated noise levels which will negatively impact the quality of life of the residents of the City of Riverside."






It's amazing how one flight by a 747-400 airplane, a model much quieter than the DC-9s which have dominated DHL's domestic fleet until just recently, can be worth a resolution from the city council, yet for several years, the same complaints about multiple flights in one night yielded not only no response but when these same officials did respond, it was with something more akin to denial, disbelief and even contempt.





Of course, there's one factor that comes to play. Actually two, and that's this year and the next. Why? Because both of these years are election years. In case you haven't heard yet, Schiavone's running for the District One Board of Supervisor seat held by Bob Buster (who though he cast some crucial negative votes, is missing in action in this report) on June 3 and Loveridge and possibly Schiavone (if the supervisor thing doesn't work out) will likely be running for city government seats beginning when their papers are filed in March 2009.



For one thing, even though Buster voted against the night flights, there's no mention of his dissenting votes on various issues impacting the use of the air field that have been the subject of complaints by nearby residents. In fact, Loveridge and Schiavone in their report are acting as if were the lone champions in terms of fighting for the rights of city residents to sleep through the night, something that's been elusive to many for several years now. Yet how did the vote go down when it came to making the decision to begin those night flights? Why exactly are we at the point where two men have to go to the city council to push a resolution two weeks before one of them finds out whether or not he's going to be a county supervisor.

Oh yeah, right.


It's almost like they're borrowing some well known lyrics from Helen Reddy's song, "You and Me Against the World".







You and me against the world

Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world

And for all the times we've cried

I always felt that

The odds were on our side

Except that if it weren't a hotly contested election year for Buster and Schiavone, then maybe instead of the dynamic duo, it would be the three Musketeers, except for the fact that only one of these three men cast a dissenting vote for the early morning roof-raising flights once it became known that residents were very upset about the situation. The whole history of the placement and replacement and multiple movements of the flight path used by DHL including a bait and switch is fairly well known at this point and even though there was dishonesty about the flight path and exactly over what portions of Riverside and Riverside County the DHL planes were actually flying, there were no similar moves to bring similar resolutions before the city council to address these issues and to take a stance against DHL's practice of keeping city residents up at night. But what's amazing is how far the dishonesty and duplicity surrounding the process of determining DHL's flight plath was allowed to go before it was criticized or the concerns about city residents once it came out were taken seriously by these same two individuals.

But that was all then, and this is now. 2008 and 2009 are both election years so it's time for some rewriting because the rules have changed. DHL is far from a cash cow, having lost nearly $1 billion and having one of its own consultants tell it that if it didn't seriously rehaul its flight plan, the damage to its finances could be far worse. And so the square dance began and so it continues on.

It's not like both politicians can admit that they might have erred in their initial decision making and have learned through time that they had done so and are trying to right a wrong which they both participated in. If they did on Tuesday night, then any action they take might actually have a more meaningful impact on a bad situation. They screwed up, people know it including those who will be voting in 2008 and 2009 and even from a political angle, admitting it and then planning a course of action based on that would yield dividends for both men. After all, it was the inability of several other former councilmen to do so which is part of the reason both are taking recesses now.

However, that's probably not going to happen.

Neither can afford to do so or to take that chance. So what's happening is that they're pretending they never did anything but look out for the interests of the residents who lived under DHL's different flight paths. They are acting like it's the two of them (and forgetting that one politician voted against the flights), against the big bad March Joint Powers Authority. The audacity of what they are doing is such that the first reaction, should be a jaw left agape. But then it's been one of those election years so this latest revelation is not all that shocking.

Is the resolution going to accomplish anything? It's really saber rattling from two elected officials who frankly need to look better on this issue than they do, because someone else decided right and they decided wrong and there's elections at stake. And if it's the right thing to do, isn't it long over due and almost anti-climatic that so much fuss is being raised over a 747-400 and not a multiple of DC-9s and then later 767s? Maybe it will do some good and maybe the intentions behind it aren't all opportunistic, but what would be nice is if the resolution included a profound apology to the city's residents who were treated badly and written off by the same individuals during the time period before it became clear that DHL wasn't a cash cow and there were no elections taking place or looming.

Here is where you can find the Out-Out-Damn DHL proclamation. It's not written by Lerner & Lowe but it's the next best thing. If you want a perspective on the issue that's not from the city, this is the place to go.

Don't be stunned if they put something on the agenda the following week, a resolution or signed affidavit that the city council never even heard these words before, Mexican Consulate ID cards let alone considered them. After all, there's still a couple of city couple of city council meetings before the election including the night of the election itself.

Stranger things have happened. And this after all, is an election year. So is next year, which means more excitement ahead.




This report comes up for discussion on Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.






Is City Manager Brad Hudson taking off for the county?



The city council in Riverside doesn't seem to think so and one said completely in jest, she would kill him if he did.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




"A direct quote is, 'I am not a candidate for that job,' " said Councilman Mike Gardner.

Hudson, who has been city manager for three years, said the county hasn't approached him and he's enjoying his current position.

"This is a fun job," he said.

He wouldn't comment on the possibility of taking the job if it were offered.

Hudson didn't apply for the city manager job, either. The council recruited him.

"I just don't think he's going to go," Gardner said.

"If I had to lay money down, I'd say he stays," Councilman Frank Schiavone said. "I think he has a long bright future with the city of Riverside."




One thing the article mentioned was that Hudson didn't apply for his current job but was recruited. Actually what happened, is the city council voted to select the most expensive bid submitted by a recruitment firm (which was favored by Loveridge) to launch a search that was apparently never intended to seriously pick the future city manager while it was wooing Hudson behind the scenes. And one city councilman in a self-congratuatory moment during one city council meeting let it slip that the wooing began up to a year before Hudson was actually hired. And guess what? If that's true, then it was during the time period when Riverside already had a city manager that it later fired.

With that kind of background in his resume, I can see Hudson brokering an offer with the county behind the city's back and then six months after the current CEO Larry Parrish retires, packing up his bags and moving back home. I'll be surprised if that's what doesn't happen and if Riverside's able to hold onto what it seems to see as its golden goose, then the bill for the next salary increase will be on all of us if Hudson does what some employees have done which is to use a job search as a bargaining chip to negotiate a higher salary from his bosses.

And Riverside County residents might be stuck with the bill for a "search" for the new CEO, while the county is preparing for Hudson's return in grand style. Sometimes, history does repeat itself.








An ongoing discussion on the Fox Square project is taking place here. There's a difference of opinion on what should happen but it's been interesting to follow. The postings on Riverside's history are always among the most interesting to read.



And then there's the creep who wrote that lovely posting last Monday complaining about being lumped in with someone else. Cry me a river.


Between here, Craigslist and even through emails sent me, I've probably read or received over 350 hateful postings or messages, most of them mentioning little or nothing about civic issues or using them as an excuse to be nasty and call me lovely names like whore, bitch, cunt and other gender slurs among other bad behavior. After all, if someone is writing about having to replace a new keyboard because they soiled their current one while jerking off, it's hard to tie that in with any criticism on a civic issue. If someone writes something on an issue (i.e. how awful it is for police officers to have to use digital audio recorders), then says, oh you're such a whore, I think their mind is some place else and not on city issues.

So it's not like I've never seen hate before or people who want me to spend more time over my shoulder. People who don't want me to blog on Riverside or any of its departments have been pretty vocal and many of them have been disgusting.

Fortunately, if you do blog that's not all that you will see. There's a lot of people who contact me and get something out of reading the blog or become more interested in some of the issues it covers. If it weren't for them with all the hatred and frankly scary, stalking crap I've received, I might have given up a long time ago.




Speaking of elections, there's three candidates vying for one judicial seat in Riverside County.





In the wake of State Attorney General Jerry Brown's legal opinion about releasing the names of law enforcement officers involved in onduty shootings, the Riverside Police Department responded by releasing the names of three officers involved in two recent nonfatal shootings. They volunteered this information without being asked yesterday morning. It is good to know that the department and the City Attorney's office addressed how the legal opinion from Sacramento impacted their operations in an expedient manner.




Dec. 6, 2007 at North Park: Officer Miguel Rivera

Jan. 11, 2008 at Casa Blanca: Officers Dave Reeves, jr. and Daniel Floyd



The shooting in Casa Blanca in particular caused much confusion and concern after the officers' names weren't released, because many people seemed to think that Floyd was involved as he's well-known in that neighborhood, but the department wouldn't respond to their concerns at the time. Now it has, thanks to its decision to honor Brown's legal opinion on this issue and its decision (through counsel from City Attorney Gregory Priamos) to provide the public with this information.





Is reinbursing police officers who are serving suspensions a good idea? Some experts not surprisingly say no.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



It tends to make the discipline process somewhat meaningless," said Merrick Bobb, executive director of the Police Assessment Resource Center.



He said the ability to recoup the docked pay "also sets up a presumption among officers that any punishment that is handed down is unwarranted. And that attitude is not good."

David Lewin, a UCLA professor who trained top New York police officials in management strategies, echoed Bobb.

"The practice is a bad one, and I don't think it's even a close call," he said. "What you're trying to do with discipline is to get people to correct their actions . . . but this is working at complete cross-purposes to that. The officers don't have the same motivation to eliminate their misconduct. It also sets a tone that I would be worried about. It gives rise to a mentality that 'If I can game the system here, I'll be looking around for places where I can game it elsewhere.' "




The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled that motorists can access information from police agencies to determine whether or not racial profiling is taking place, according to the Boston Herald.

There are some caveats attached to the decision.


(excerpt)



"It's sort of a Catch-22," said Murray Kohn, a staff attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state's public defender agency. Kohn wrote the amicus brief to the court in support of Andres Lora, a Hispanic man who contended he was stopped in 2001 on Interstate 290 in Auburn by State Police based on his race.

"This is an overarching case that establishes that racial profiling of motorists is unconstitutional," Kohn said. "But, at the same time, the courts are saying you have to make a case that you were subjected to racial profiling to get the statistics."

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled on three separate cases yesterday, all dealing with allegations by members of minority groups against state troopers.





A portion of race horse, Big Brown's earnings will go into a college fund of a man whose father a police officer, was injured. Big Brown is currently undefeated, has wrapped up two jewels of the sport's triple crown with the last race scheduled at Belmont Park in two weeks.






Former Mount Kisco Police Department Officer George Bubaris is currently on trial on manslaughter charges in relation to an onduty incident which left Rene Perez dead.




(excerpt, FOX-TV)


Perez, a chronic drunk, was an irritant to the police who had arrested him dozens of times in the neighboring towns of Mount Kisco and Bedford.

One night about a year ago, Perez called police from a coin laundry, possibly seeking a lift to a hospital. Instead, prosecutors say, Bubaris drove him to Bedford, hit him hard and left him to die.

Prosecutors say Bubaris, 31, drove an intoxicated Perez to an out-of-the-way area and "inflicted blunt force trauma to Perez's abdomen," leaving him severely injured.

Though the indictment does not say how the trauma was inflicted, a civil lawsuit filed by Perez's brother suggests a nightstick was used.





Former Bolingbrook Police Department Sgt. Drew Peterson isn't too concerned about his weapons charge. In comparison to two ongoing investigations involving one missing wife and a murdered ex-wife where he's been named, the latest investigation probably isn't much a concern for him.




This from the National Organization for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement has released the following announcement:


NACOLE's 14th Annual Conference "Impacting Policy & Practice" will beheld in Cincinnati, Ohio Monday Oct. 27 through Thursday Oct 30, 2008,at the Hilton Netherland Plaza.


We've just posted an updated conference schedule, hotel information,and details on our training certification program on the NACOLE website, http://www.nacole.org/

See you there!