Election 2008: Clash of the law enforcement unions?

There's an "all or nothing" assumption going around that if you criticize anything about Riverside, you hate it. On the contrary, I and I'm sure other people who criticize Riverside do like it. Many of us just want it to be Riverside and not a weak copy of what's in Orange County. After all, given the migration from that county to Riverside, things can't be that great because people don't just pack up and leave paradise.

If we're not born here, we've been told to sit down and shut up but a large number and if not already a majority of the people here immigrated to this city. And when it comes to derogatory comments about Riverside and its people, some of the ones I read on Craigslist come from those who allegedly love Riverside. When they talk about change, they talk about how awful and a joke that Riverside used to be. Not that it had problems, but that it was a seriously bad place. How important it is that it needs to change and that's not necessarily wrong, but it's interesting. It's interesting here because most often, the newcomers to a city are the driving force for changing its identity, not the native-born residents.



And what doesn't make sense is that the jokes about Riverside past included the people who live here because the problem's not the people. It's often the decisions being made in different areas by those who allegedly represent the people of Riverside.

Acknowledging that the city has serious challenges and problems and perhaps not the best leadership to handle them, is not hating Riverside. Any more than sitting around with your fingers in your ears and yelling, "La La La" whenever anyone mentions them is a true sign that you love your city. The interesting thing about having a blog is that it enables me to talk to many people about these issues. Cheerleaders are great for a city especially its public relations division but most people don't really want to discuss issues with them because for the most part, they get chastised for being upset that they have to bus their kids out to six different schools because instead they should talk about what a perfect school systems there are in the city.

If they live in a neighborhood where they have to wait longer for basic city services than another, they aren't supposed to complain, they are supposed to take a bull horn and talk about how that's really a sign of a great city or no big deal. If people express concern that the city's infrastructure is lagging behind its development or its rate of annexations, they are silly, complainers and whiners.



If you care about the future of the downtown library and museum, pick up a copy of the latest mailing by the Committee to Renew the Library. I'm sure they love their city but reading through it, you can see the wariness of fighting for something and not quite trusting that the intentions of the city government and city employees are on the same page. Why would that be?





(excerpt from "Your involvement make the difference; You can do it again")







Your continued involvement is critical to making sure the Task Force, the Library and Museum Boards, and the City Council do the right thing for Riverside's Main Library and the Metropolitan Museum.






(excerpt, from "What's at stake in this meeting")







Without yur input on June 18th, Riverside could end back in the same place. The people who devised and pushed the first plan could recommend expansions that are inadequate to catch-up with past community growth, let alone meet Riverside's needs for the next 40 years.





Remember "the first plan" which was introduced by City Manager Brad Hudson a while back? When over 300 people showed up to protest the uni-expansion of both facilities, Hudson and even several elected officials didn't think they or their action were very significant. It took more persistence by these and other individuals to push the city to listen to city residents on the issues that are important to them which ultimately led to the city trying to better library and museum facilities within its boundaries. If these and other individuals had stayed at home, then the city would have pushed its initial library and museum expansion proposal against the will of its residents because after all, it's not an election year.





Perhaps the site of local politicians being responsive and advocating for those residents who haven't slept for years because of the DHL flights has dimmed memories but how many years did these same city residents spend consistently protesting amid derogatory comments made by individuals including elected officials on the March Joint Powers Commission before their concerns were validated by those they voted to represent them?


More information about that long struggle here. Most of these individuals loved their city and want to stay if humanly possible, but they were derided for years as being "crazy", "gadflies" (as if that were a bad thing) and complainers and haters of Riverside. But most of the city's changes whether it's wanted them or not has come from gadflies.


As far as how satisfied people are with Riverside and its direction, there's a very easy way that you can assess that feeling with the city's registered voters. When people are happy with what's happening, they tend to happy with their leadership including their elected representatives. This is great for the elected representatives because what happens is that when their voting constituents are happy with them, they tend to vote for them in large numbers when they are up for election.

Has that happened in Riverside recently? Let's take a look at these election results.



Ward One:

Dom Betro (incumbent) 2,304 49.92&

Mike Gardner (newbie) 2,311 50.08%


Ward Three:

Art Gage (incumbent) 2, 121 43.33%

Rusty Bailey (newbie) 2,774 56.67%



Ward Seven:


Steve Adams (incumbent): 1,337 50.24%

Terry Frizzel (sort of newbie) 1,324 49.76%





So when it comes to people who are either unclear about whether or not the city is on the right path or they are in opposition to that assertion, the voters in a sense have spoken in 2007 and it's anticipated that they will in 2009. They spoke at the polls regardless of the typical round of election-year "three wish" granting that the city council was doing belatedly. You know like raising electric rates in 2006, lowering them in 2007 even in the face of blackouts by 2009 because the increased revenue from the higher rates was going to build power plants needed to meet the demands by a rapidly growing population.

And already, it seems very possible that the mayor and city council races next year will bring out a wealth of candidates vying for seats on the city council to get the opportunity to prove they can do things better.

As for schools, the city shut down one of its two downtown schools for kids even as it tries to bring more families to live in the downtown area through its assorted housing projects. Since Riverside is already having difficulties meeting the demands of its student population in some neighborhoods like the Eastside (which has one horribly overcrowded school and actually buses its students all the way across the city to an assortment of schools). The closure of Grant Elementary School led to even further shuffling of over 100 elementary school children around.


As for Wi-Fi, the activation of it has been delayed (and that appears city-wide given the virtual dropoff of all the visitors to this site who use MetroFi in recent months) and while on paper, it sounds great particularly for those who can't afford internet hookup, the city should have researched the success rates of Wi-Fi programs in other cities. What the companies like AT&T that's doing Riverside's service often finds is that these programs fail to garner the paid subscriptions to their services that they anticipated. Basically, Wi-Fi in terms of the service it provides to city residents is advertising for the companies which provide it. The provision of this service in various cities hasn't been an overwhelming success and unfortunately, Riverside's city government has a penchant some times to adopt programs that haven't been successful elsewhere or even anywhere. Engaging in comprehensive research of an issue or a program ahead of time before signing on the dotted line might alleviate that problem a lot.


The Galleria and the Plaza have improved their services once the city decided what vision it wanted for both of them, but other equally important shopping areas such as Canyon Crest Mall which has lost several key long-time businesses in the past year and University Village, which is a comedy in errors still struggle.


So is this site the cheerleading squad at the big football game? Perhaps not. You can find that here.






David Silva of the Inland Empire Weekly wrote an interesting perspective on the recent hotly contested Riverside County District One supervisor race that incumbent Bob Buster won pretty easily when the final vote was counted.


So Much Bitterness; So Little Chance



He discusses the bitter campaigns waged and all the money spent by both sides for an elected position that pays into the lower six figures. Challenger and Riverside Ward Four Councilman Frank Schiavone had little chance but that didn't stop the knock-down-dragged-out feel that the process had since the filing date for the election.

But what happened in the end, Silva asked.



(excerpt)



How the voters felt about the tone and tenor of the contest isn’t clear. But barely 15% of the voters bothered to show up at the polls on June 3, one of the lowest turnouts in recent memory.



Still, a win is a win and a loss is a loss. When asked if he harbors any ill will toward Buster, Schiavone excused himself from comment on the perfectly reasonable grounds that he still has to work with the guy.



“It’s too close,” he says. “It’s over, so let’s just go forward. I work with Bob on the Joint Powers Commission, so we’ll do that.”



The councilman did say he spent “$300,000 to $350,000” on the race. How much Buster spent is not yet known—final campaign expenditure reports have yet to come out, and the supervisor didn’t return calls for comment by press time. An article in Monday’s P.E., however, reported Buster spent $36 per vote to Schiavone’s $17.



That would make the 2008 District 1 race one of the most expensive mud baths in county history. And it changed absolutely nothing.




The puzzling part of the article was Silva's assertion about the dueling police unions who were pitted against each other because they picked opposite sides of the contest. According to Silva, the Riverside Sheriffs' Association picked Schiavone and the Riverside Police Officers' Association backed Buster. The reason provided for this was that the RPOA had broken ranks and gone with Buster because they still bore a grudge against Schiavone for trying to push a plan in 2004 to bar active police officers from being appointed to the Community Police Review Commission.



(excerpt)



And when it was all over, nothing had changed. Buster, who won by a whopping 38% of the vote, goes back to a job that includes working closely with a man he just publicly called a liar. Schiavone now soldiers on with the business of governing a city whose largest cop union just worked mightily to wreck his political ambitions.



Say what?



This is the first I've read that the two largest law enforcement labor unions in the county were at odds over the county supervisor race and endorsing different candidates and that Schiavone faced opposition from the RPOA (which doesn't quite have a membership of400 given that there are 387 officers as of June 9 and they are split up between two unions).


According to its own Web site, the RPOA actually endorsed Schiavone against Buster. The Temecula Valley News stated that the RPOA and RSA had given Schiavone a total of $30,000 during one campaign contribution disclosure period. The grand total in campaign contributions by both labor unions was probably much higher than that.

These actions indicate not an effort to wreck a campaign but to advocate for one. When placed with the other information on record, the article looks like the RPOA launched a campaign that was counter to what it publicly stated to voters and to its own members and it's hard to believe that this would take place. Whatever anyone might think of its actions from past to present, they've been done because the union places the interests of its members first and foremost, which is its purpose after all. Does that mean that individual members of the union didn't support and vote for Buster over Schiavone? Of course not, but the union's official position that it took on behalf of its members was to endorse Schiavone.



The RPOA has been a longtime supporter of Schiavone going back to at least 2001 when Schiavone was first elected into office. The union wasn't happy with then Ward Four incumbent, Maureen Kane for backing the creation and implementation of civilian review in Riverside when the city council passed the ordinance in 2000 which created the Community Police Review Commission.

During the next election cycle in 2003, the RPOA would heavily back candidates and future councilmen, Art Gage and Steve Adams spending more money than it usually does for city elections. It also backed losing candidate, Paul Fick in the Ward One contest that went to Dom Betro (who would pick up the RPOA endorsement and a fat campaign contribution the next cycle). All three of them along with Schiavone and 1999 Ward Five Councilman Ed Adkison opposed the CPRC. After that viewpoint constituted a majority on the CPRC, things would start to get very interesting within a matter of months beginning with Gage's attempt to defund the CPRC's annual budget by up to 95%.

What probably saved the CPRC's budget that year was a threatened veto by Mayor Ron Loveridge, because since Fick failed to get elected, there wasn't enough of a majority on the council to override it. It's more than likely that Gage was stood up. And this was only the beginning of incidents which ultimately led to voters supporting a measure to place the embattled commission in the city's charter.


While it's true that Schiavone was trying to push a proposal on barring active police officers from serving on the CPRC, there's a bit more to that story as well. If the RPOA was truly bitter at this proposal which ultimately went no where, it didn't express that publicly. At the same time, Schiavone was doing this, the RPOA was pushing to get the CPRC's only active police officer off the panel.

Sheri Corral, a Riverside Community College District police officer, had an exchange with two members of the RPOA's leadership at a workshop held between the CPRC and the RPOA in March 2004. Not long after that, the RPOA sent a letter to then CPRC Executive Director Don Williams, the city manager's office and the city council. It was brief but to the point, in that it demanded Corral's removal for "bias" against officers stemming from a comment that she had made involvement treatment by some of the department's officers. Williams' written response to the RPOA was that he was powerless to take any action and they would have to lobby the city council because according to city policy, commissioners could only be removed by at least five affirmative votes from the city council and mayor. Is that where the union's leadership went next?

About three weeks later, Schiavone contacted me by phone explaining to me his proposal that he planned to take to the city council the next week. And sure enough on Friday afternoon, it appeared on the formal agenda posted outside City Hall. City residents showed up in force to protest the proposed agenda item and it was not voted on but sent to the Governmental Affairs Committee for further study.

That was the summer of 2004. To this day, it's never actually been placed on the agenda of that committee let alone ever discussed. Many believe that this is because it was never really intended to be applied broadly but was a roundabout way to get Corrall off the commission. Another obstacle appeared that wasn't anticipated and that was that Corrall wasn't the only active police officer on the commission. Brian Pearcy, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer and current reserve officer would have also faced removal if the agenda item had passed. After that came out, discussion then quickly turned to applying any banishment towards future law enforcement officers not current ones on the commission.

So it seems odd that the RPOA would be backing Buster because of a grudge against Schiavone for his role in this situation since they opposed the membership of the only police officer on the commission. If anything created friction between Schiavone and the union's leadership back in 2004, it would have been Schiavone's then close professional relationship with Buster and his support of him (as a Republican supporting a Democrat, which mirrors Loveridge's crossing of party lines this time around). At the time, the RPOA supported and financially backed Buster's rival, Linda Soubirous (who is currently the Ward Four representative on the CPRC) as did the RSA.

Schiavone campaigned for supervisor posting signs all over the district stating that he was supported by police officers and fire fighters. Last year, Councilman Steve Adams who ran in the Ward Seven contest, did the same thing, recycling signs from his 2003 campaign. The only thing was while the RPOA had endorsed Adams during that election, in 2007, it had picked another candidate, Roy Saldanha. When the RPOA's then leadership found out what Adams was doing, they complained about his misrepresentation of the union's position in the election.


Schiavone's close political ties with the RPOA continued through its battles with city council on several pivotal labor issues in 2006 and 2007. The first being during the long, hot summer in 2006 when most of the city's labor unions faced great difficulties negotiating their labor contracts with City Manager Brad Hudson's office. The RPOA was locked out of labor talks in mid-summer by the city and filed a lawsuit against the city alleging unfair and possibly illegal negotiating practices.

After the majority of its membership and that of the Riverside Police Administrators' Association (which had filed its own lawsuit) along with community leaders rallied at City Hall (which doesn't happen often), the city council was persuaded to renew its commitment to the process. The RPOA and RPAA returned in March 2007 to rally against the attempts of Hudson's office to convert three classified captain positions (which were two deputy chief and one assistant chief positions) to being "at will" not at the nonclassified level but meaning that they could be fired "at will". This proposal which turned out to be a violation of city policy for police and fire management policies (and one wonders why this wasn't checked out beforehand) created a lot of suspicion that it was the city manager's attempts to micromanage the promotions of the police department at least at its management level. As one RPOA leader said, there was a concern that the "at will" employees could turn into "yes men" for the city.

Schiavone was the councilman that the unions apparently went to for assistance on this issue and they seemed satisfied afterward with his efforts to lobby on their behalf for an issue that they clearly felt passionate about and should have. Several representatives from both the RPOA and RPAA had discussions with Schiavone the day before the fateful city council meeting where this issue came to light.

So it's just difficult to believe given the history that the RPOA would endorse a candidate running against Schiavone especially if it publicly supported him. As for the RPAA is that after its brief foray into political endorsements last year, it didn't appear to endorse anyone this year. Whether this has anything to do with or is fallout from complaints by its former head, Lt. Darryl Hurt and another lieutenant, Tim Bacon that its members faced retaliation and threats if they among other things didn't support at least one incumbent. Schiavone was mentioned in the complaint as allegedly telling an officer that he wouldn't be promoted if he was associated with Hurt and Bacon.

Silva's article did discuss both candidates though Schiavone was depicted as having both an appreciation for small businesses yet alienating his Riverside constinuents in part because of his votes for using eminent domain which as you know was used mostly against small businesses.

Riverside Police Department Public Information Officer Steve Frasher provided the department's response to the decisions by several management level officers to tape political advertisements heard on the phone and the radio.



(excerpt)



“Technically, (Esquivel) is speaking as an individual, and not on behalf of the department,” Frasher says. “I know from what I’ve heard anecdotally from those who personally endorsed Schiavone that what prompted it was apparently some misleading comments from his opponent regarding the matricula consular cards. [Schiavone’s supporters] went on record to refute that allegation. They’re speaking as individuals, which is their right to do.”




But what's not mentioned is that the officers which also included Chief Russ Leach weren't just setting the record straight which they should have done but endorsing the candidate as well (on behalf of the "entire law enforcement community" like Mayor Ron Loveridge speaks for "all Democrats") which unfortunately kind of dilutes the attempt to correct misinformation which should have been done by a member of the agency who's an objective third-party.






Law enforcement agencies in the region participated in the Special Olympics torch relay.



Building permits are down in Riverside and other places.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The city of Riverside issued 303 permits in May, down from nearly 500 the year before.

The city issued just four permits for new single-family homes last month. From July 1, 2007, through May 31, the city issued 3,495 permits, down from 5,009 the year before, records show.






Palm Heights is about to become a historic district.





A judge in San Bernardino County Superior Court has declined to hear the case that the San Bernardino City Professional Firefighters' Association has against the city. The Press Enterprise Editorial Board expressed concern about what it called runaway public employee contracts.




Civilian review boards get mixed reviews according to the experts.



Two police officers with the Miami Police Department were charged with federal corruption charges in connection with the illegal drug trade.


(excerpt, ABC News)



Police Chief John Timoney said the two officers would be fired.

"These two, as far as I'm concerned, are aberrations," he said.

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said the case was particularly disheartening in a year when several South Florida police officers have died in the line of duty.

"It is sad that a handful of individuals choose to repay their colleagues' sacrifice through criminal conduct," Acosta said.




Also arrested on federal drugs charges two Charlotte Police Department officers.






In Chicago, $7.7 million is the price tag for the false arrest of a Good Samaritan who had assisted two police officers.



(excerpt, Chicago Tribune)



Jackson filed a lawsuit, and on Thursday a federal jury found against the city and several Chicago police officers, awarding Jackson $7.7 million for false arrest, malicious prosecution, coercive questioning and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"I'm going to go home and lie down for a little bit," an ecstatic Jackson, 41, said after the verdict. "I feel relieved. I'm happy, and I'm thanking God."

The case began in November 2002, when a car ran a stop sign in Jackson's neighborhood, slamming into the squad car. Jackson was walking nearby and rushed to the scene. When she arrived, the officer behind the wheel was unconscious and the passenger, Officer Kelly Brogan, was dazed.



She pulled Brogan from the wreckage and helped her to a nearby stoop. Soon after, police approached Jackson and told her that the driver's weapon had been stolen. When she was asked to go to the police station for questioning, she thought it was as a witness to the accident.

Instead, Jackson was accused of the theft. She was held for two days with little food and water and was threatened with violence until she agreed to sign a statement police had prepared for her. She was then charged and spent more than 10 months in the Cook County Jail awaiting trial.



An applicant for a job as a police officer at a small agency in Missouri passed his polygraph but didn't get the job. Instead he's facing criminal charges.



(excerpt, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)



Cook, 31, was already a police officer for the University of Missouri at Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) when a lie-detector examiner asked him last year if he ever had any contact with underage girls.

He said yes.

Asked if he had any child pornography, again he said yes.

U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway outlined the details Thursday, a day after Cook pleaded guilty in federal court in St. Louis of one count of possession of child pornography. Such a conviction typically results in a prison term of four or five years.

She said Cook's candor during the polygraph was stunning.

"By all accounts he pretty much just gave it up," Hanaway said. "It does not often happen that people just give it all up in the first conversation."