Litigation, libraries and ladies

The weather is cooling down about five degrees or so in Riverside County but things are heating up after a local activist group filed a lawsuit against the development of general use aviation at March Air Reserve Base. Friends of the Hills filed its civil action through its attorney in Riverside County Superior Court.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The March Joint Powers Airport Authority has ignored a state law requiring it to study the environmental impacts that small airplanes, charter jets and helicopters would have on surrounding communities, Johnson said Monday.

"General aviation has the potential to result in substantially increased noise, toxic contaminants, air pollution and poor water quality," he said.

Johnson pointed to a recent legal settlement in which the civilian airport's master developer, March Global Port, paid more than $100,000 for its hazardous jet-fueling system adjacent to the military airfield.

The lawsuit seeks to undo a May agreement between the airport authority and the U.S. Air Force opening the airport to broader civilian uses.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires airports to stay open to the public around the clock in order to qualify for airport-improvement grants.




The litigation comes at no surprise given the nightmare that the March Joint Powers Commission and GlobalPort have put the residents of several neighborhoods through in the past several years. DHL Express made a convenient scapegoat readily used by two of Riverside's elected officials who are also members of MJPC and who are running for political offices in 2008 and 2009.

Friends of the Hills has been a very necessary burr in the city's saddle on other occasions. At the neighborhood conference, a person at one of the seminars mentioned their success at litigation before one city employee at the session nervously added, that it didn't encourage filing lawsuits to achieve change. Well of course it doesn't. But this area is where community activists have achieved the most change in this city especially with holding the government's feet to the fire on growth-control laws passed by the voters.





Also not cooling down is controversy which took place at Fairmount Park stemming from a promo for golfing from Riverside's Park and Recreation Department.


(excerpt, Dan Bernstein, Press Enterprise)



The cashier told Bob his wife could play for free. But Carol? Sorry. The rules (and flier) say: "Ladies play free when accompanied by a paying partner." Carol had no paying partner. Pay up. On Ladies Day!

Fumed Carol, "Only a man could come up with something like that."

She wrote to the Parks & Rec Department: "The assumption (for Ladies Day) would be that ladies get to play free. However, if you go to the next paragraph on the flier, you have to be accompanied by a paying partner which would have to be a 'man' to able to play free."

Carol called the rules "very sexist because if two women go to play together one is going to be free and the other woman has to pay."

Carol even raised the specter of domestic discord. "If one man takes two women, one pays and the other doesn't. That could be a problem for the man."

"This is Ladies Day at Fairmount Park? I don't think so. If you're going to have Ladies Day, make it Ladies Day. If not, it should be one person pays and one person doesn't."





But there's good news at City Hall after the Board of Library Trustees voted to endorse recommendations created by a task force involving the expansion and renovation of the downtown library and museum. With each step in this direction, the prospect of City Manager Brad Hudson's original vision of a combined effort to renovate both cultural institutions grows less likely but never say never in this city. The drama has just began and it will continue when the task force takes its recommendation to the city council. Who's vision will win out in the end? It's too close to call at this point. Too close to even try. But it will be interesting to watch.


The discussion about Hudson is whether or not he will replace Larry Parrish as Riverside County's CEO. But one thing that you must remember is that Hudson doesn't apply for governmental positions, he has the recruiters come to him which makes it much easier for him to exert greater control over the negotiation process. This worked out quite successfully for him to land his current job in Riverside and it led the city council back in 2005 to actually believe it was the one who'd taken initiative over the situation.






The trial of former Riverside Police Department officer and U.S. Marine Sgt. Jose Nazario has been postponed.


The Press Enterprise finally reported on the situation involving Jermaine Nelson, the United States Marine who was held in contempt of court twice for not fully answering questions during a federal grand jury proceeding that's focused around Nazario's involvement in the killing of Iraqi detainees in Fallujah in 2004.



(excerpt)



Nazario's attorney, Kevin McDermott, said he believes the prosecution is asking the grand jury for murder charges. Such hearings are held in secret.

On Monday, Nazario's trial was rescheduled from July 8 to Aug. 19.

Nelson and Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer are charged with murder and dereliction of duty in military court, each accused of killing one detainee at the same house as Nazario.

Weemer also has refused to testify and has been held since June 12 in the San Bernardino County Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, according to jail records.

Nelson previously served nine days before being released when he agreed to listen to the prosecution's questions.

He appeared before the grand jury last week.

"He answered the ones he could," his attorney Joseph H. Low IV said.


Euphoric Reality series on Jose Nazario case.






The Eastside Riva injunction at five months. All parties report including Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco filed his second gang injunction, also against a Latino gang. Pacheco also said that the Riverside Police Department asked for the Eastside Riva injunction when at past meetings with community members in the Eastside, the police department said it was Pacheco's office.

One of those interviewed for that article, former Riverside Police Department lieutenant, Alex Tortes has just been hired to serve as a liason between the American Indian tribes and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. This is in the wake of the controversy surrounding the relationship between the Sheriff's Department and Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, in the midst of several officer-involved shootings on the reservation.






Even among a fiscal budget crisis, Moreno Valley's city council members are actually considering giving themselves 10% salary raises. One elected official however sees a problem here. I'm sure many city residents including those who vote in city elections do as well.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Councilman Richard Stewart said he thinks the fiscal climate is wrong for a pay increase.

"It's not the amount of money, it's the significance," Stewart said by phone.

The proposed pay increase is part of a series of actions the council is expected to vote upon as part of approving the 2008-09 budget of $244.8 million. The budget closes a $7.1 million deficit in the general fund by cutting some services and using reserve or unspent funds to make up the difference.

The proposed budget includes funding for the council's pay increase, city Finance Director Steve Chapman said by phone. If approved by the council, the pay raise would not take effect until Jan. 1, or after the Nov. 4 City Council election.

Stewart said he would argue against the pay raise.

"It's a bad signal to cut department budgets and then raise your own pay," he said.





More prison sentences given out in connection with the home invasion robbery ring run by several police officers. About 17 individuals employed by three local law enforcement agencies and state corrections have been busted in this crime ring.



(excerpt, Associated Press)



Former Los Angeles Police Department Officer Jesse Moya was sentenced to 30 months in prison, three years of supervised release and fined $5,000. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Rodrigo Duran was sentenced to 66 months in prison and five years of supervised release, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Geronimo Sevilla was sentenced to 87 months in prison, three years of supervised released and fined $1,500. Steve Quintero received 57 months in prison, three years of supervised released and fined $5,000, according to the statement.







In New York City, the pastor who was to have presided over Sean Bell's wedding instead is teaching new police officers in the police department about cultural diversity.



(excerpt, New York Daily News)



And the message from Bishop Lester Williams, one of five community leaders asked to help teach the new cops how to deal with diverse cultures, was one of progress and hope.

"It is improving," Williams said of police-community relations.

"I think its very important that we maintain this level of trust, and maintain this level of service and work with each other. The more we build these bridges, the better the community we can have," he told the cops at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater, in their last week of training before next month's graduation.

Williams' joined the panel after taking Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly on a two-hour tour of South Jamaica last Thursday.

The tour -- which started at Williams' Community Church of Christ and wound through two housing projects -- was to gauge the temperature of police and community relations since three detectives were cleared of all charges the Nov. 25, 2006 Bell shooting.

Williams said Kelly was in a difficult position, but was "bending over backward" to try to heal relations between cops and sections of the black community.




Five days of diversity training are provided to the new officers, provided from various leaders from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Comments from some of the students appeared to be positive.


(excerpt)



"It is just so different from what I grew up with," said rookie Steven Jehl, 27, who was raised in a predominately white, upper-middle class suburb outside Lansing, Michigan.

"It's a different world here, so programs like these are invaluable," Jehl said.
Black and Hispanic rookies said the sessions were a reminder to treat residents with the same respect they want as cops.

"My experience growing up will help me out on the streets," said a 26-year-old African-American rookie, who said cops stopped him about a dozen times while he was growing up in Morris Heights section of the Bronx.

"You know the usual line: 'You fit the description of a man in the area.' As a cop you have authority, you should be trying to diffuse that divide," he said. "I want to treat people the way I wish I was treated."





More information about Orange County's newest sheriff, Sandra Hutchens including her fatal officer-involved shooting nearly 25 years ago.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Plasencia family lawyers R. Samuel Paz and Gilbert Varela said the lack of gunpowder burns indicated Hutchens was much farther from the victim than she had testified. They said she and Anderson had no reason to fire. County lawyers said blood spatter on Plasencia's gun proved he was pointing it at her when he was shot.

A jury awarded the family nearly $1.4 million in damages -- then the largest police misconduct verdict in California. The family agreed to a $1-million settlement after the county appealed.

The family's lawyers said they still believe Hutchens testified falsely about the events that night.

"Oh, she lied, definitely lied. There is no way that she couldn't remember," said Varela, who said the shooting and her testimony should have raised questions about her qualifications to be Orange County's sheriff.

Hutchens said the shooting was tragic but justified.

"The outcome -- I was stunned," she said of the jury's verdict. "I believed that what I did was right. I don't think the jury connected with me. They felt this family needed help."

One of the jurors, Beverly Provo, said the evidence left her with the impression that deputies "just busted in and started shooting." She said sympathy for the Plasencia family played a role in deliberations.

"It was really a tragedy," Provo said during a recent interview in her Inglewood home. "I felt so bad for them because they lost their father."

The verdict's sting lingered, Hutchens said. For years, she had a recurring dream in which she faced a life-and-death situation and her weapon would not fire.

"It was hard to talk about for a while," she said. "Taking somebody's life does impact you."


The FBI caught two Broward County Sheriff's Department deputies in a narcotics sting.



The deadline to submit an application for the assistant United States attorney position has closed, but here are the requirements.



In Minneapolis, some police officers were charged with firing their guns from a vehicle while drunk.



(excerpt, Minneapolis Star Tribune)



Because the charges are felonies, Scott Mars, 34, and William Thornbury, 28, could lose their peace officer licenses if convicted. Both officers were also charged with carrying a gun while under the influence, a misdemeanor.

Mars admitted to driving up to the house of a man who complained about the noisy party, yelling a profanity while the man stood in his yard, and then firing shots from a 9-mm handgun out of the sunroof of his sport-utility vehicle, a court document said. More shots were fired as he drove away.



Mars has a prior history of shooting an unarmed 15-year-old man while on duty.