Sabers rattling on different fronts
"Sentence first, verdict afterwards."
---Lewis Carroll who didn't attend the Community Police Review Commission meeting on June 11 but would have appreciated it.
"What is it that caused this divide? If the officers are doing what they are supposed to be doing why is the city settling these cases?"
---Riverside Community Police Review Commission member, Jim Ward about the city's decision to settle at least three law suits filed in connection with fatal officer-involved shootings even as it has justified each shooting.
Sitting through the most recent special meeting of the Community Police Review Commission on June 11 was an exercise in total confusion. In between commissioners accusing other commissioners of calling them unprofessional and calling each other unprofessional, there was a convoluted discussion where two agenda items were essentially intertwined to the point where they couldn't be separated.
If you ever fell down the rabbit's hole, this might be one place where you might end up as political appointments clashed with remnants of community representation, with those with law enforcement connections chiming in. Several commissioners including those with poor attendance records smirked at others who were confused and frustrated with a process that none of them seem to understand except the lawyers in the room.
Such is the state of the CPRC in June 2008, approximately eight years after it came to be and three years since the current city management has taken it over.
This meeting was confusing from its beginning up to the point it ended about 2 1/2 hours later. The meetings have been following that pattern lately ever since the commissioners semi-approved a process that was supposed to streamline the handling by the commission of officer-involved death cases from the initial briefing by the police department and the dispatching of the CPRC's investigator to the final issuance of the public report to the final decision on a finding in closed session after reviewing the police department's administrative review.
On paper, it looked confusing, so it's small wonder that is how its enactment is turning out.
None of the seven commissioners present appeared clear on the recently unveiled process on how the commission would handle the investigation and review of officer-involved deaths. That's the one that looks like a multi-page outline with a lot of technical terms, like "fact certification" and such, a document that looked like it was drafted by lawyers for lawyers. But what was played out at the meeting were commissioners who were at different stages of not only the "fact certification" process, but were in different stages of the process, period. Part of the reason that they were arguing with each other over which factual questions should be even sent to the police department to be answered.
Several commissioners began debating the shooting while others were trying to figure out "fact certification".
One commissioner wasn't even aware the case file that the police department's officer-involved death team prepares for the District Attorney's office is available for them to read as part of their inquiry process.
There is no orientation, Commissioner Chani Beeman said. Several commissioners including Linda Soubirous and Peter Hubbard retorted back at her.
And there's nothing being to change the fact that there's too much missing in orienting newer commissioners to this complex process. A report of recommendations authored by consultant Joe Brann still remains in apparent limbo as does the commission it evaluated.
So what was the source of all this confusion and chaos? In the interest of being more specific, what was the source of all this confusion and chaos this particular meeting?
That would be the shootings of Lee Deante Brown and Douglas Steven Cloud. The one that the commission had thought it closed the door on and the one that it was to have began processing over 18 months after it happened.
Wait a minute, was that Lee Deante Brown? Again, wasn't the book on that shooting closed a while ago with all its chapters finally completed? Yes, that's what the city had said. That's what the CPRC had also said. But it turns out neither was accurate in their assessment of one of the thorniest officer-involved deaths in recent memory.
As it turns out, again, there was more evidence that the CPRC never received during the time period it needed to access it for its own investigation and review. Similar to what happened in the Summer Marie Lane shooting case when a second surveillance video, the first one showing Officer Ryan Wilson by Lane's car, surfaced two years after the CPRC reached its sustained finding. A video it still has never seen because the one they did receive didn't show Wilson by the car and was barely legible viewing. But the commission is still feeling the fallout of the infamous Lane finding 2 1/2 years after it released it as can clearly be seen.
After the public accounting on the shooting was released by the CPRC, through both its majority and minority reports, more evidence reemerged. It surfaced at least as far as the CPRC was concerned even after it reviewed the confidential administrative review submitted by the Internal Affairs Division which has likely never met a fatal onduty shooting it didn't validate. And yes, that includes Tyisha Miller as the sustained findings against the officers couldn't have included excessive force because according to statistical information given on internal investigation to the Human Relations Commission for 1999, there were no sustained findings for excessive force at all.
Two out of the three new pieces of "evidence" in connection with the Brown shooting were inadvertently omitted from the report submitted by the officer-involved death investigation team due to what was called "clerical error". Which is kind of interesting because the commissioners and community members had asked repeatedly at public meetings about both items of evidence. Is communication between the commission and the police department really that poor that both would assume without checking or informing the other that pieces of evidence weren't where they were supposed to be or where they were thought to be?
So what did the missing evidence consist of?
The first item, are the missing photographs taken of Officer Michael Paul Stucker's pinky finger, where he allegedly had been struck by an errant taser dart and shocked for a period of time seconds before the fatal shooting. The department had initially told the CPRC that the photographs were included on a CD-ROM submitted with the OID investigation case book. Apparently it took several years for the picture to resurface.
Another late comer in terms of evidence in the investigation was a supplemental report written by Evidence Technician Tim Ellis about what part of the taser he swabbed for the DNA sample. According to this document, Ellis stated he had swabbed the X26 taser from both the handle and back strap portion of the device. That part was interesting because there was already a document that stated that in the criminal investigation case book and it's not clear whether or not this supplementary report was similar or even identical to the one that was included in what was assumed to be the final written product of the Lee Deante Brown shooting investigation. And there's no way for the public to know because despite the fact that this is a public document, there were not copies available to the public at the meeting.
The third item didn't have anything to do with the officer-involved investigation but involved depositions given by the officers involved in the Brown shooting. Depositions that had been requested by Commissioner Jim Ward who was told by the city attorney's office to go through the commission to do so but in his path was Chair Brian Pearcy who wanted him to convince the commission to approve this action through majority vote. But all the other commissioners had closed the book on Brown quite some time ago. His motion died for lack of a second. It's not the first time the entire commission has left him high and dry.
That's what happens when ou have one community minded individual and several people who seem more tied to City Hall and its various mechanisms than anything else. For a large part, that's a legacy of the passage by voters in 2004 of Measure GG which mandated ward representation on the city's boards and commissions. A change that thoroughly politicized the process more than it had been already.
There were quite a few motions, some of which were done to undo prior motions.
The commission had also voted at some point before that against adding the supplementary evidence to the Brown public report and then after a motion to do so failed, 4 to 3. They then reopened the agenda item after having begun the discussion on the fact certification process for the Cloud shooting investigation and discussed or rather argued about it for another hour while talking at each other and around each other. But if you fill a commission of people who are more politically attuned than community attuned, none of this should be surprising.
The commission did finally get to the Cloud case and the same issue came up about the depositions taken of the officers who shot Cloud and those who watched. There was another argument about who got the depositions and who didn't get them and whether or not they were in electronic format or not.
The depositions from the recently settled civil case involving Cloud would provide commissioners with the first opportunity to be able to review two different interviews with the involved officers which both exist in the public record. In the past, the commissioners had that opportunity with civilian witnesses because many of them were interviewed by both the police department's investigators and by the CPRC's investigators. This provided Executive Manager Kevin Rogan an opportunity to revise an earlier draft of the Brown report to show inconsistencies in the civilian witnesses' versions of events. Now the commissioners will have the chance to compare and contrast two different interviews given by the involved officers in the Cloud case, something it's quite clear some of them aren't up to doing while others welcome the opportunity to have this additional information. It's not clear whether any of them will read the depositions beyond those who expressed interest in them.
At issue was essentially the status on the three fatal officer-involved shootings that were committed by Riverside Police Department during 2006. One, the Cloud shooting, had its lawsuit settled for $800,000 while the final settlement on the Brown case is still pending. Commissioner Jim Ward asked the question during the meeting that is often asked. Why does the city settle lawsuits involving fatal shootings it finds within policy? Pearcy answered the question for deputy city attorney, Susan Wilson who was present at the meeting by saying that the always present insurance carriers which ultimately pay out a lot of the money spent by the city on settlements and verdicts, tells the city that it would cost too much money to litigate the case so it's cheaper to settle even if the city's not civilly responsible.
Wilson just said when finally asked, that he was correct.
Tell that to Officer Roger Sutton whose case the city fought to the tune of $250,000 and that was spent well before the trial which finally took place five years after Sutton filed his racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case. The city had numerous opportunities to settle the case or pay out on the $200,000 arbitration award given to Sutton in 2004. It opted not to do so and took the case to trial, where the city wound up owing $1.64 million.
Ask the six other Black city employees who had to wait 10 years of intense litigating with the city. By 2002, the city had spent about $678,000 fighting their lawsuit which was ultimately settled several years later.
The city has a track record in litigation of fighting the cases it believes it will win. That includes many labor law suits and eminent domain lawsuits for example. It doesn't like to settle and from the beginning of the filing of lawsuits, its official response is that the allegations are without merit and the city plans to defend itself aggressively.
So where are these shooting investigations at time-wise including the reemerging Brown case?
1) Lee Deante Brown: April 3, 2006 803 days ago
2) Douglas Steven Cloud: Oct. 8, 2006 614 days ago
3) Joseph Darnell Hill: Oct. 19, 2006 603 days ago
The commission will be briefed on the Hill shooting by Baker Street Group investigator, Butch Warnberg at its next meeting on June 25. As for further discussions on Brown and Cloud, they will continue into the summer months. And autumn too, no doubt at this pace.
The Committee to Renew the Library is sending out a mailer which is chock full of information on the whole process involving the much discussed and planned expansion and renovation of both the downtown library and museum.
It includes the text and some analysis of the Task Force's "recommended guiding principles" as well as a chronology of the whole process so far.
Also included is a passionate plea to attend the public forum meeting on Wednesday, June 18 between 6-8 p.m. at City Hall.
The controversy surrounding the development of the March Air Field for civilian aviation continues and is bringing different cities in Riverside County into the fold in opposition to Riverside. Will there be a battle fought? It's too early to tell but things don't look promising.
The center of the controversy is on a records request sent out by Riverside City Attorney Gregory Priamos. Mayor Ron Loveridge a member of the March Joint Powers Commission commented on the action and assured critics it wasn't a political act.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Riverside has sent similar requests to the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports of call and to the cities of Colton and Rialto in San Bernardino County, Loveridge said.
"The requests with Rialto and Colton are particularly looking at traffic impacts. With some advance notice, we are able to work out solutions and mitigate the traffic impacts," said Loveridge, adding that relationships with the cities should not be adversarial.
"Riverside's position has always been focused on quality-of-life issues," he said.
Yes indeed, for several years while hundreds of residents in Mission Grove, Orangecrest and Canyon Crest were forced to wear earplugs to sleep while the city officials on the MJPC assured them the jet noise which shook the sky from 3-5 a.m. six nights a week was all in their heads. But political aspirations and strategies do have a way of fostering concern which might be quite passionate indeed about "quality of life" issues.
Moreno Valley Councilman Richard Stewart shot back suggesting that perhaps Riverside officials were jealous that March Air Field would attract more business than Riverside's own civilian airport.
(excerpt)
Stewart said he did not want Riverside and Moreno Valley to return to the posturing of the "us against them" attitude of the early 1990s.
"What we could do in retaliation is ask the same of Riverside, which probably would cause them more hassle and make extra work for their staff. We did not do that," Stewart said.
Echoing Moreno Valley's sentiment was an elected official from Perris. It's interesting to see Mo-Val and Perris agree on anything. But if politics makes strange bed fellows, battles make intersting allies.
(excerpt)
"Payback. That's exactly what this is," Perris Councilman Mark Yarbrough said of a public records request sent by Riverside's city attorney to Perris, Moreno Valley and the March Joint Powers Authority.
Riverside County District One Supervisor Bob Buster called it "saber rattling" by Riverside's politicians. Previously, he had referred to it as a campaign move by the Schiavone camp.
(excerpt)
Buster said Riverside leaders' posturing over projects in other cities' boundaries was nonproductive, as was the "saber rattling" the city has been making to sue cargo-giant DHL for its noisy night flights out of March.
"The joint powers need to sit down and get a common understanding of what's going to happen with the airport," Buster said. "Otherwise, we will have more divisiveness."
If this is indeed saber rattling which will cost the taxpayers, who will win this latest war of words and who will lose as this latest drama in the latest squirmish between the cities continues onward.
Speaking of tasers, here's an article about an Autralian man who was hit by a taser dart in his eye as shown by a graphic photo included in the article.
Will Soboba Casino be forced to close?
The Fontana Police Officers' Association is negotiating a labor contract while Riverside's SEIU 721 is running radio advertisements about the dismal record that the Riverside County Board of Supervisors has supporting the county's temporary workers. Several months ago, a large number of temporary employees signed cards of their intent to unionize under the SEIU.
Riverside County is interested in hearing from its female residents about the status of women.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Several people already have asked to speak at Thursday's forum, said commission chairwoman Lori Stone. Many others plan to attend and listen to testimony, she said. Stone wants more people to participate so the commission can try to help them.
"They're afraid to talk," Stone said. "You don't have to be a woman in the work force. You don't have to be a woman."
Men shouldn't feel excluded, she said. Issues that affect women and children typically include men, she said.
The forum agenda already includes topics such as domestic violence, care for children and dependent adults, substance and sexual abuse and financial planning.
County of Riverside Commission for Women Forum
WHEN: 9 a.m. Thursday at the Board of Supervisors' chambers, 4080 Lemon St. in Riverside.
TO SPEAK: Go to the commission's Web site at http://cfw.co.riverside.ca.us to download an application to speak at Thursday's forum. Applications should be completed and faxed to 951-955-9310 by 5 p.m. Monday.
INFORMATION: 951-955-1110
Unfortunately faxing an application after downloading it from the site is the only way to register to speak at the forum which in my opinion doesn't make it a legitimate public forum. Most women who experience problems due to gender, classism and racism in the county may not be able to access an application online due to lack of accessibility to a computer and/or internet connection. Then many women don't have fax machines or access to one. The fact that this is a requirement
There should be other ways to register including by telephone or by mail or by handing it in to designated locations or even by going out and holding public forums where more people can attend. The commission will do this when it's interested in not just listening to women with access to fax machines.
For "Dump the Pump" Day, several inland bus companies are offering promotional offers on passes to commuters who can no longer afford to drive with the current gas prices.
---Lewis Carroll who didn't attend the Community Police Review Commission meeting on June 11 but would have appreciated it.
"What is it that caused this divide? If the officers are doing what they are supposed to be doing why is the city settling these cases?"
---Riverside Community Police Review Commission member, Jim Ward about the city's decision to settle at least three law suits filed in connection with fatal officer-involved shootings even as it has justified each shooting.
Sitting through the most recent special meeting of the Community Police Review Commission on June 11 was an exercise in total confusion. In between commissioners accusing other commissioners of calling them unprofessional and calling each other unprofessional, there was a convoluted discussion where two agenda items were essentially intertwined to the point where they couldn't be separated.
If you ever fell down the rabbit's hole, this might be one place where you might end up as political appointments clashed with remnants of community representation, with those with law enforcement connections chiming in. Several commissioners including those with poor attendance records smirked at others who were confused and frustrated with a process that none of them seem to understand except the lawyers in the room.
Such is the state of the CPRC in June 2008, approximately eight years after it came to be and three years since the current city management has taken it over.
This meeting was confusing from its beginning up to the point it ended about 2 1/2 hours later. The meetings have been following that pattern lately ever since the commissioners semi-approved a process that was supposed to streamline the handling by the commission of officer-involved death cases from the initial briefing by the police department and the dispatching of the CPRC's investigator to the final issuance of the public report to the final decision on a finding in closed session after reviewing the police department's administrative review.
On paper, it looked confusing, so it's small wonder that is how its enactment is turning out.
None of the seven commissioners present appeared clear on the recently unveiled process on how the commission would handle the investigation and review of officer-involved deaths. That's the one that looks like a multi-page outline with a lot of technical terms, like "fact certification" and such, a document that looked like it was drafted by lawyers for lawyers. But what was played out at the meeting were commissioners who were at different stages of not only the "fact certification" process, but were in different stages of the process, period. Part of the reason that they were arguing with each other over which factual questions should be even sent to the police department to be answered.
Several commissioners began debating the shooting while others were trying to figure out "fact certification".
One commissioner wasn't even aware the case file that the police department's officer-involved death team prepares for the District Attorney's office is available for them to read as part of their inquiry process.
There is no orientation, Commissioner Chani Beeman said. Several commissioners including Linda Soubirous and Peter Hubbard retorted back at her.
And there's nothing being to change the fact that there's too much missing in orienting newer commissioners to this complex process. A report of recommendations authored by consultant Joe Brann still remains in apparent limbo as does the commission it evaluated.
So what was the source of all this confusion and chaos? In the interest of being more specific, what was the source of all this confusion and chaos this particular meeting?
That would be the shootings of Lee Deante Brown and Douglas Steven Cloud. The one that the commission had thought it closed the door on and the one that it was to have began processing over 18 months after it happened.
Wait a minute, was that Lee Deante Brown? Again, wasn't the book on that shooting closed a while ago with all its chapters finally completed? Yes, that's what the city had said. That's what the CPRC had also said. But it turns out neither was accurate in their assessment of one of the thorniest officer-involved deaths in recent memory.
As it turns out, again, there was more evidence that the CPRC never received during the time period it needed to access it for its own investigation and review. Similar to what happened in the Summer Marie Lane shooting case when a second surveillance video, the first one showing Officer Ryan Wilson by Lane's car, surfaced two years after the CPRC reached its sustained finding. A video it still has never seen because the one they did receive didn't show Wilson by the car and was barely legible viewing. But the commission is still feeling the fallout of the infamous Lane finding 2 1/2 years after it released it as can clearly be seen.
After the public accounting on the shooting was released by the CPRC, through both its majority and minority reports, more evidence reemerged. It surfaced at least as far as the CPRC was concerned even after it reviewed the confidential administrative review submitted by the Internal Affairs Division which has likely never met a fatal onduty shooting it didn't validate. And yes, that includes Tyisha Miller as the sustained findings against the officers couldn't have included excessive force because according to statistical information given on internal investigation to the Human Relations Commission for 1999, there were no sustained findings for excessive force at all.
Two out of the three new pieces of "evidence" in connection with the Brown shooting were inadvertently omitted from the report submitted by the officer-involved death investigation team due to what was called "clerical error". Which is kind of interesting because the commissioners and community members had asked repeatedly at public meetings about both items of evidence. Is communication between the commission and the police department really that poor that both would assume without checking or informing the other that pieces of evidence weren't where they were supposed to be or where they were thought to be?
So what did the missing evidence consist of?
The first item, are the missing photographs taken of Officer Michael Paul Stucker's pinky finger, where he allegedly had been struck by an errant taser dart and shocked for a period of time seconds before the fatal shooting. The department had initially told the CPRC that the photographs were included on a CD-ROM submitted with the OID investigation case book. Apparently it took several years for the picture to resurface.
Another late comer in terms of evidence in the investigation was a supplemental report written by Evidence Technician Tim Ellis about what part of the taser he swabbed for the DNA sample. According to this document, Ellis stated he had swabbed the X26 taser from both the handle and back strap portion of the device. That part was interesting because there was already a document that stated that in the criminal investigation case book and it's not clear whether or not this supplementary report was similar or even identical to the one that was included in what was assumed to be the final written product of the Lee Deante Brown shooting investigation. And there's no way for the public to know because despite the fact that this is a public document, there were not copies available to the public at the meeting.
The third item didn't have anything to do with the officer-involved investigation but involved depositions given by the officers involved in the Brown shooting. Depositions that had been requested by Commissioner Jim Ward who was told by the city attorney's office to go through the commission to do so but in his path was Chair Brian Pearcy who wanted him to convince the commission to approve this action through majority vote. But all the other commissioners had closed the book on Brown quite some time ago. His motion died for lack of a second. It's not the first time the entire commission has left him high and dry.
That's what happens when ou have one community minded individual and several people who seem more tied to City Hall and its various mechanisms than anything else. For a large part, that's a legacy of the passage by voters in 2004 of Measure GG which mandated ward representation on the city's boards and commissions. A change that thoroughly politicized the process more than it had been already.
There were quite a few motions, some of which were done to undo prior motions.
The commission had also voted at some point before that against adding the supplementary evidence to the Brown public report and then after a motion to do so failed, 4 to 3. They then reopened the agenda item after having begun the discussion on the fact certification process for the Cloud shooting investigation and discussed or rather argued about it for another hour while talking at each other and around each other. But if you fill a commission of people who are more politically attuned than community attuned, none of this should be surprising.
The commission did finally get to the Cloud case and the same issue came up about the depositions taken of the officers who shot Cloud and those who watched. There was another argument about who got the depositions and who didn't get them and whether or not they were in electronic format or not.
The depositions from the recently settled civil case involving Cloud would provide commissioners with the first opportunity to be able to review two different interviews with the involved officers which both exist in the public record. In the past, the commissioners had that opportunity with civilian witnesses because many of them were interviewed by both the police department's investigators and by the CPRC's investigators. This provided Executive Manager Kevin Rogan an opportunity to revise an earlier draft of the Brown report to show inconsistencies in the civilian witnesses' versions of events. Now the commissioners will have the chance to compare and contrast two different interviews given by the involved officers in the Cloud case, something it's quite clear some of them aren't up to doing while others welcome the opportunity to have this additional information. It's not clear whether any of them will read the depositions beyond those who expressed interest in them.
At issue was essentially the status on the three fatal officer-involved shootings that were committed by Riverside Police Department during 2006. One, the Cloud shooting, had its lawsuit settled for $800,000 while the final settlement on the Brown case is still pending. Commissioner Jim Ward asked the question during the meeting that is often asked. Why does the city settle lawsuits involving fatal shootings it finds within policy? Pearcy answered the question for deputy city attorney, Susan Wilson who was present at the meeting by saying that the always present insurance carriers which ultimately pay out a lot of the money spent by the city on settlements and verdicts, tells the city that it would cost too much money to litigate the case so it's cheaper to settle even if the city's not civilly responsible.
Wilson just said when finally asked, that he was correct.
Tell that to Officer Roger Sutton whose case the city fought to the tune of $250,000 and that was spent well before the trial which finally took place five years after Sutton filed his racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation case. The city had numerous opportunities to settle the case or pay out on the $200,000 arbitration award given to Sutton in 2004. It opted not to do so and took the case to trial, where the city wound up owing $1.64 million.
Ask the six other Black city employees who had to wait 10 years of intense litigating with the city. By 2002, the city had spent about $678,000 fighting their lawsuit which was ultimately settled several years later.
The city has a track record in litigation of fighting the cases it believes it will win. That includes many labor law suits and eminent domain lawsuits for example. It doesn't like to settle and from the beginning of the filing of lawsuits, its official response is that the allegations are without merit and the city plans to defend itself aggressively.
So where are these shooting investigations at time-wise including the reemerging Brown case?
1) Lee Deante Brown: April 3, 2006 803 days ago
2) Douglas Steven Cloud: Oct. 8, 2006 614 days ago
3) Joseph Darnell Hill: Oct. 19, 2006 603 days ago
The commission will be briefed on the Hill shooting by Baker Street Group investigator, Butch Warnberg at its next meeting on June 25. As for further discussions on Brown and Cloud, they will continue into the summer months. And autumn too, no doubt at this pace.
The Committee to Renew the Library is sending out a mailer which is chock full of information on the whole process involving the much discussed and planned expansion and renovation of both the downtown library and museum.
It includes the text and some analysis of the Task Force's "recommended guiding principles" as well as a chronology of the whole process so far.
Also included is a passionate plea to attend the public forum meeting on Wednesday, June 18 between 6-8 p.m. at City Hall.
The controversy surrounding the development of the March Air Field for civilian aviation continues and is bringing different cities in Riverside County into the fold in opposition to Riverside. Will there be a battle fought? It's too early to tell but things don't look promising.
The center of the controversy is on a records request sent out by Riverside City Attorney Gregory Priamos. Mayor Ron Loveridge a member of the March Joint Powers Commission commented on the action and assured critics it wasn't a political act.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Riverside has sent similar requests to the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports of call and to the cities of Colton and Rialto in San Bernardino County, Loveridge said.
"The requests with Rialto and Colton are particularly looking at traffic impacts. With some advance notice, we are able to work out solutions and mitigate the traffic impacts," said Loveridge, adding that relationships with the cities should not be adversarial.
"Riverside's position has always been focused on quality-of-life issues," he said.
Yes indeed, for several years while hundreds of residents in Mission Grove, Orangecrest and Canyon Crest were forced to wear earplugs to sleep while the city officials on the MJPC assured them the jet noise which shook the sky from 3-5 a.m. six nights a week was all in their heads. But political aspirations and strategies do have a way of fostering concern which might be quite passionate indeed about "quality of life" issues.
Moreno Valley Councilman Richard Stewart shot back suggesting that perhaps Riverside officials were jealous that March Air Field would attract more business than Riverside's own civilian airport.
(excerpt)
Stewart said he did not want Riverside and Moreno Valley to return to the posturing of the "us against them" attitude of the early 1990s.
"What we could do in retaliation is ask the same of Riverside, which probably would cause them more hassle and make extra work for their staff. We did not do that," Stewart said.
Echoing Moreno Valley's sentiment was an elected official from Perris. It's interesting to see Mo-Val and Perris agree on anything. But if politics makes strange bed fellows, battles make intersting allies.
(excerpt)
"Payback. That's exactly what this is," Perris Councilman Mark Yarbrough said of a public records request sent by Riverside's city attorney to Perris, Moreno Valley and the March Joint Powers Authority.
Riverside County District One Supervisor Bob Buster called it "saber rattling" by Riverside's politicians. Previously, he had referred to it as a campaign move by the Schiavone camp.
(excerpt)
Buster said Riverside leaders' posturing over projects in other cities' boundaries was nonproductive, as was the "saber rattling" the city has been making to sue cargo-giant DHL for its noisy night flights out of March.
"The joint powers need to sit down and get a common understanding of what's going to happen with the airport," Buster said. "Otherwise, we will have more divisiveness."
If this is indeed saber rattling which will cost the taxpayers, who will win this latest war of words and who will lose as this latest drama in the latest squirmish between the cities continues onward.
Speaking of tasers, here's an article about an Autralian man who was hit by a taser dart in his eye as shown by a graphic photo included in the article.
Will Soboba Casino be forced to close?
The Fontana Police Officers' Association is negotiating a labor contract while Riverside's SEIU 721 is running radio advertisements about the dismal record that the Riverside County Board of Supervisors has supporting the county's temporary workers. Several months ago, a large number of temporary employees signed cards of their intent to unionize under the SEIU.
Riverside County is interested in hearing from its female residents about the status of women.
(excerpt, Press Enterprise)
Several people already have asked to speak at Thursday's forum, said commission chairwoman Lori Stone. Many others plan to attend and listen to testimony, she said. Stone wants more people to participate so the commission can try to help them.
"They're afraid to talk," Stone said. "You don't have to be a woman in the work force. You don't have to be a woman."
Men shouldn't feel excluded, she said. Issues that affect women and children typically include men, she said.
The forum agenda already includes topics such as domestic violence, care for children and dependent adults, substance and sexual abuse and financial planning.
County of Riverside Commission for Women Forum
WHEN: 9 a.m. Thursday at the Board of Supervisors' chambers, 4080 Lemon St. in Riverside.
TO SPEAK: Go to the commission's Web site at http://cfw.co.riverside.ca.us to download an application to speak at Thursday's forum. Applications should be completed and faxed to 951-955-9310 by 5 p.m. Monday.
INFORMATION: 951-955-1110
Unfortunately faxing an application after downloading it from the site is the only way to register to speak at the forum which in my opinion doesn't make it a legitimate public forum. Most women who experience problems due to gender, classism and racism in the county may not be able to access an application online due to lack of accessibility to a computer and/or internet connection. Then many women don't have fax machines or access to one. The fact that this is a requirement
There should be other ways to register including by telephone or by mail or by handing it in to designated locations or even by going out and holding public forums where more people can attend. The commission will do this when it's interested in not just listening to women with access to fax machines.
For "Dump the Pump" Day, several inland bus companies are offering promotional offers on passes to commuters who can no longer afford to drive with the current gas prices.
Labels: CPRC vs the city, labor pains, public forums in all places
posted by Five Before Midnight | 6:33 AM
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