When racism costs: The state of the union in Riverside

"May your life preach more loudly than your lips"

----William Ellery Channing



"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

---Martin Luther King, jr.





Saturday, saw the Juneteenth Celebration in Riverside at the Bobby Bonds Park in the Eastside. It's an event which commemorates the emancipation of slaves that is traced back to Galveston, Texas in 1865. Two years later, then president, Abraham Lincoln had read his Emancipation Proclamation but it took several years longer for the message to spread to some of the southern states like Texas for reasons that are still argued about today. And the War Between the States had pretty much ended in Texas.

It wasn't complete freedom. The slave codes would become the Black codes, sunset laws and Jim Crow would be a fixture in southern states until the 1960s and the rest of the country would be steeped in its own racism. Several years later one abolitionist, John W. North would travel to Riverside, California to set up shop and the city would be born. The city which is the subject of this posting.

Last week, I ran into one of the plaintiffs in a racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation complaint that was filed by current and former Black men and women who worked for the city. Initially numbering about 17 altogether, they represented many of the city's departments including public works, public utilities, the city attorney's office and park and recreation. The city through vigorous pencil whipping as one of the plaintiff attorneys called it, whittled that number down by threatening to charge them with its attorney fees if the plaintiffs took the case to trial and loss or won a verdict that was less than the highest settlement offer. Not long after that, the number of plaintiffs stood at six. I spent hours talking with them on their struggles just to receive due process, equal treatment and a working environment in Riverside which wasn't hostile to their kind.

I also have spoken with other former employees who didn't sue but still said they were mistreated on the basis of race and gender. Some said they believed that after a former Black employee, Joseph Neale had held members of the city government hostage inside a conference room in late 1998, that the city viewed them as potentially dangerous people. Two city council members and the mayor were shot and injured either by Neale or by bullets fired by a team of police officers so hastily put together due to lack of time that it was led by the then Internal Affairs unit and included several sergeants who had come to rescue them which they did.

One Black woman who was a former employee who had worked in the library before her termination said that when she filed a complaint about a workplace issue in the wake of the Neale incident, she was ordered to see a psychiatrist to be evaluated for mental illness. Another male Black employee reported the same story yet they said that White employees weren't required to do the same. They both couldn't believe that the city viewed them as potentially threatening because of what one Black man had done.


Some people might still find it hard to believe that in the tail end of the 20th Century that racism in the workplace is still pervasive even as state and federal laws have been passed to fight it. I've had White women advocating for women's rights tell me that overt racism is over and less accesptable than sexism as if the two can be easily separated and I've had progressives tell me that other issues supersede racism and that racism will be over as a matter of course when other problems are addressed first. I don't subscribe to either opinion. For one thing, what I see and hear puts up a more than adequate argument against both suppositions. Theories don't stack up much when compared to reality.

In Riverside, it's ironic that in a city founded by abolitionists that there would be racism in its workplace. But that's only until you view the history of this city in its entirety when it comes to race and racism and you view what's been happening in more contemporary times as well.

But for the men and women who filed their lawsuit in 1997, it was the beginning all over again.

The allegations in their lawsuit numbered many and included unfair hiring and promotional against Black employees, not to mention hostile work environments and race-based harassment in the workplace, most notably the corporation yard which is located on Lincoln Street and is where the city keeps its vehicles and other equipment. At this location, several Black employees including Anthony Joyner and Rommel Dunbar would experience racist harassment whether it was having feces smeared on their work truck, black dolls hung with nooses or racist graffiti scrawled on walls. And the two men were often left to clean it all up, on one occasion, some White employees assaulted Dunbar while he was cleaning "KKK" off of a workplace wall. The racist who assaulted Dunbar didn't know that he had a black belt in martial arts.


The harassment in the corporation yard against Black employees was first reported in the late 1980s, in fact there was a meeting held by Black and Latino city employees who worked in Streets and Maintenance and Public Works and the city officials. Leading the meeting was Jack Palomarez and representing the city was then city manager, John Holmes and then Community Relations Director Javier Rosales. Promises were made that were of course never kept and the employees filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in 1997. The promises were made more than once and of course, broken more than once as well.

Then the pencil whipping began. The part where the city tries to bury the plaintiffs in legal paperwork to overwhelm them to the point where they'll halt their offensive in court. The part where they try to whittle down the list of plaintiffs by hitting them where it hurts, their wallets through threats to charge them with the city's legal costs.

It was still going on in May 1999 when the city was dedicating its monument to Martin Luther King, jr. The one which currently sits adjacent to City Hall. At that celebration which was attended by King's daughter, the late Yolanda King, Mayor Ron Loveridge said that the city would have zero tolerance of a racially hostile work environment.

Of course by then, the Riverside Police Department had put the city in the international spotlight after four of its White officers shot and killed a Black woman inside her car. In that incident's wake came two hostile work environment claims and lawsuits filed by two male officers of color, former Officer Rene Rodriguez and Officer Roger Sutton. And after the four officers were fired, over 200 of its White and Latino officers had essentially issued a "no confidence" vote by razor, surrendering their hair follicles as a form of protest and shaving their heads. Everywhere, they went, Black and Latino residents watched even more nervously than usual. Those with shorn heads were unaware of their adoption of the skinhead image or they didn't care. All they knew was that the unthinkable had happened with four of their own being given pink slips.

Ironically, it might have been that protest among all others that attracted the attention of the Department of Justice's civil rights division after members of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. objected to the action taken by two-thirds of the police department's sworn force. Congresswoman Maxine Waters gave a speech at City Hall at a rally in the summer of 1999 giving her opinion on the matter. Soon after, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was doing a patterns and practice investigation of the department under a provision of the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Accountability Act of the police department. Then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer initiated a similar investigation from his own office earlier that year which eventually resulted in a five-year consent decree against the city to reform its police department.

Some where while this was going on, the 17 plaintiffs were shaking their heads ruefully at Loveridge's words spoken in the heat of the celebration at the monument of the great civil rights leader. They weren't the only ones in the city ranks that were doing that. But then again, so many promises have been made at the pedestal where King stands in downtown Riverside that have been broken or have gone unfulfilled.

The six remaining plaintiffs would ultimately settle with the city for small cash amounts, after over 10 years spent in the litigating arena. before that, they had waited two years for then presiding judge, Robert Timlin to issue a ruling on a summary judgment motion filed by the city. When it finally came down, all but one survived summary judgment and could take their case to trial. The city then settled with the remaining plaintiffs.

Throughout the process, the city had also used other methods of trying to dissuade them from continuing onward at one point spending over $17,000 on the services of Best, Best and Krieger attorney, Bradley Neufield to monitor an investigation of a complaint against two of the plaintiffs by another employee. One of the plaintiffs was so intimidated, he missed a key deposition hearing and just like that, Timlin axed him from his own lawsuit.

While all this was still playing out in federal court, Riverside's city council had voted 4 to 3 to fire its Latino city manager allegedly for not performing up to its standards but what would come out in a comment made by a city council member caught in the excitement of hiring his replacement would be that the city council had been actively lobbying the head of Riverside County's Economic Development Agency, Brad Hudson for a year before his hiring. And a year before his hiring was before Carvalho had been shown the door in a closed session vote. Some powerful community leaders agitated for a brief period over the firing but soon settled down to work within the new system. Others just shook their heads, chalked it up to the city's continuing issues with racism in and out of its workplace and went back to their communities to focus on other issues.

Hudson made his presence on City Hall immediately felt and soon feeling that impact were Black and Latino employees who held management positions at City Hall. This is a list of those who are gone now, but it's not a complete list.



Art Alcaraz, Latino, Human Resources Director, "resignation"

Jim Smith, Black, interim assistant city manager, demoted, transferred and "resigned"

Tranda Drumwright, Black, Office of Housing and Development, fired after filing grievance and complaint with the Fair Employment and Housing for racial discrimination.

Pedro Payne, Black, community relations director and executive manager of the Community Police Review Commission, "resigned".





Alcaraz, a former human resources director in Moreno Valley and a member of the city's now defunct EEO committee (which merged with its Human Resources Board) was the first to go, as his resignation shocked many people in the community. He was kept on in a consulting capacity for the city department he once headed which had people scratching their heads. Still, by the time he left the city had been rife with rumors that Alcaraz had been pressured by the city manager's office to change requirements for hiring and promotions. One particular employee who was coming in to fill a position which had been advertised as requiring a Masters degree, only had a Bachelors.

Still, perhaps the obviously talented Alcaraz had outgrown working in a city where feudal politics dominated its spheres and the rumors were merely outgrowths of genuine concern about his status and then his departure. He was replaced by current Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout who is assisted in her job by administrative analyst Jeremy Hammond. Both are White. The Human Resources Department would now run much more smoothly, its brief turmoil already a fading memory.


Smith's experience was a telling tale in the rise and fall of a promising management employee and how many obstacles are faced by Black employees at City Hall. Smith served as the city's budget director for several years and one of the employees he supervised was Paul Sundeen, who is White. When the city council lowered the boom on Carvalho, it chose its about-to-leave public utilities director, Tom Evans to fill his shoes in the interim position and elevated Smith to the assistant city management position. Everyone didn't cheer that decision as many were too busy recovering from the Carvalho hiring but people were heartened. Later, many people would say that the city was trying to soften any claims of racism in the Carvalho firing by elevating a Black man to such a prominent position in management. An action taken by a city council member at one of the weekly meetings would cement that belief for many as would nearly everything that followed that.

Before his promotion, Smith had gone back East for several months of what's called "city manager's training" and returned fired up to apply his knowledge towards realizing his dream of being a city manager. He worked in Park and Recreation for a short stint, was instrumental in creating the city's now successful 311 program and for a brief time, was an assistant city manager. He was ready.

When the city hired Hudson, Smith's dreams turned to dust. He was demoted back to budget director and watched as many Black employees across the country do, a White man he had once supervised be elevated into the permanent city manager position. Hudson surrounded himself with three White male city managers as people knew he would and put a Black man at the back of the bus. Hudson also split one assistant city management position that was held by Smith for such a brief time into two positions eliminating the independence of the head of the city's finances from the city manager's office and placing it all beneath him. This would be the critical decision and reorganization done to facilitate the implementation of the mushrooming Riverside Renaissance program. The other assistant position was held by the former public information officer for Riverside County, Tom DeSantis who held a Bachelor's degree.

But Smith's tenure with the city wasn't done yet.

People who attended a city council meeting before his demotion got to see one of the most offensive displays ever made by an elected official who responded to criticism of racism in the employment ranks by calling up Smith to stand before the audience and the cameras as "proof" of the city's enlightenment on racial issues in employment. The councilman said that it was because of that enlightened attitude on its part that Smith got to the position that he did. Black men and women who attended the meeting or watched it at home were horrified at the spectacle. Some said it was like Smith was being put on display at a slave auction. Others including Black former and current employees laughed derisively calling it further evidence of the city's plantation politics. And for Smith who probably knew by then that his position within the city's management ranks was precarious, his reality soon to return to turn back into a pumpkin and mice, just smiled through it all because there wasn't anything else he could do about it.

Not long after that, the fairy godmothers on the city council who had fawned over the brief elevation of Smith as a sign of their enlightened attitudes on race, watched as Hudson demoted Smith and picked Sundeen and other White assistant city manager, Michael Beck. Smith was exiled at City Hall's own version of the Island of Misfit Toys several blocks away from City Hall where some way problematic employees are sent, until he ultimately took another job with the city of Oakland as its budget director.

Drumwright would be next and by the time Smith left, she knew her time was coming. She had a brilliant resume that anyone would be proud of, but had the misfortune of being in competition for a management position with a White woman, who didn't have her resume.

At some point after Hudson's arrival, the department Drumwright headed was being consolidated into one headed by that White woman. Hudson's office decided that the new division would be headed by the White woman, not Drumwright who had much more experience. Suddenly, Drumwright was told by her boss that she wasn't management material so Drumwright filed a grievance and then a complaint with the Fair Employment and Housing. Less than a month after that, she received her pink slip.

Payne who came next was given the assignment when Evans and Smith served as the interim city management team to head both the Community Relations division and the CPRC. Each a challenging and full-time assignment on its own let alone together, but Payne quickly established himself as excellent in both. Which didn't set too well with the city management team on the seventh floor who in just a short couple of years have managed to run the CPRC pretty much aground and had allegedly cut the staffing of the Human Relations Commission (which is under the Community Relations Division) after it sent it a letter asking too many questions about the racial breakdown of the employees who had been fired, demoted or "resigned". Mercifully for the HRC, the mayor rescued that beleaguered commission from the city manager's office yet it still struggles today to retain its membership having one of the highest attrition rates of any board or commission in the city.

But that still left the CPRC.

Payne became the full-time executive manager of the CPRC but there was a catch. He had to agree to be an at-will employee who could be fired at any time without a named cause or reason. City Manager Brad Hudson would explain to me in an email that most of the management level employees who were asked to be "at will" jumped at the opportunity. But still, among at least some employees, fear not excitement was the prevailing the emotion.

The "at will" controversy was drawn into the center arena when attempts to turn three upper management positions in the police department (all of which coincidentally or not, were held by Latino men for the first time in the department's history) brought the furor of the two labor unions in the police department who protested at a city council meeting in March 2007.

As Riverside Police Officers' Association president, Ken Tutwiler put it,


"At-will employees fear losing their jobs so they often become 'yes men'. "



This time the bell was unrung and the same individuals who had tried to promote the "at will" provisions later back peddled saying that they weren't allowed to do so, after consulting the city attorney's office for advice. One would think that this is an action that would have been taken by competent city managers before taking an action which shook the city to its core. But then again, this is Riverside where the verdict often comes before the trial as this case clearly showed.


And many people in the community knew then when Payne became "at will" that his days with the city were numbered and the clock was ticking away. Not too long after that, Payne was barred from attending community meetings with the excuse being that he would be perceived as favoring the community over the police department. Even though public outreach was included in the job description for his position, he was cut off from a large segment of the city, the "community" a word which comprises part of the CPRC's name. It wasn't Payne's fault that the police department didn't seem exactly thrilled in being reached out to by the CPRC at that point in time. But the city manager's office again, instead of addressing those issues amid its own then fractured relationship with segments of the police department, barred Payne from community meetings.

Payne even met with three members of the leadership of the Riverside Police Officers' Association, President Ken Tutwiler, Vice-President Brian Smith and Secretary Christian Dinco, a bold step for both parties that showed initiative from both as well. Still, in 2004, the RPOA leadership did then what the city attorney wouldn't do and that was accept an invitation to attend a workshop meeting to sit down and discuss issues with the commission.

But the city manager's office on direction of several city council members pressed on with the micromanagement of the CPRC especially in the wake of its controversial but absolute sustained finding against Officer Ryan Wilson's actions when fatally shooting Summer Marie Lane in 2004. The depths of the emotions by different individuals in the city manager's office and the police department can only be fully appreciated when reading documents from Wilson's lawsuit against the commission and the city to grant him an administrative hearing or to nullify the CPRC's finding against him including briefs by Wilson's attorneys, a declaration given by Hudson and a deposition given by Police Chief Russ Leach. This lawsuit and its proceedings as much as anything else sheds light on the complex relationship between the CPRC and two out of three of Lockyer's parties mentioned often as stake holders in the police department.

Payne was directly in conflict with the plans the city manager's office had for the CPRC. Thanks in part to the training of former CPRC chair, Bill Howe, a retired police chief, Payne had become too good at two jobs and even better with the one he chose. He managed to accomplish a lot in a short period of time along with the commission which had experienced incredible turnover due to the chain of events catalyzed by the city manager's office in 2006 handled two officer-involved death cases in the wake of the Lane finding.

And then came the April 2006 fatal shooting of Lee Deante Brown at the Welcome Inn of America in the Eastside. Within seconds of the fatal shots being fired, dozens of angry residents began calling the two officers, "murderers" which resulted in them calling for emergency backup. The contentious investigation and review process in the Brown case would last over a year and the fallout for the commission would be immeasurable. Certainly for Payne who oversaw the handling of the very controversial shooting, a difficult position for any manager but more so for one who was clearly not liked by the new city management team who seemingly kept him under its collective thumb in ways obvious to the concerned community members who were watching.

Payne "resigned" effective at the end of a tumultuous year, 2006. Community leaders worried about it for a while then worried about who would or wouldn't be placed on a panel by the city manager's office to pick his successor. The breach between community members and their leaders ever widening. And when it comes to leadership, racial and gender issues often fall by the wayside which have left men and women of color distrustful of most of the city's progressive movements. From the back of the bus to under the bus, they say.


And unfortunately, it didn't end with Payne.


Several years ago, a young Black man working for the city reported the use by another employee of the racial slur, "n----r" in his presence. He reported it to his department head who shrugged it off and said without being there that he was sure the other employee didn't mean it in a bad way. The Black employee filed a grievance and two days after receiving notification that the city had received it, was called into an office to meet with the department head and one of the assistant city managers. Not to talk to him about his complaint but to give him his pink slip, and several hours and one meeting later, to his supervisor without allowing either of them even to pack up their offices. The official explanation? Reorganization of that division, yet interestingly enough that action was taken within days after the man filed his grievance.

A Black female volunteer who had served in one of the city departments alleged that reporting a hostile working environment cost her her position as well. One day, she was out in the field with another volunteer and a city employee and they stopped for coffee. The other volunteer who was a White man asked the city employee if he wanted to hear an "African-American joke" because he had one for him. This woman also allegedly was called racial and gender slurs in the workplace. She reported this and other offensive behavior to her supervisor who not only refused to take her complaint seriously but allegedly told her that this was the way the workplace was and she and the volunteers she complained about would just have to learn how to get along with one another. With three days, you guessed it, she was released from the program by another supervising city employee in that department.

Kelsy Metzler, a White woman, lasted about one day as an officer with the Riverside Police Department before being escorted into a room and getting her pink slip, according to a law suit that she filed in state court first in Los Angeles County and then Riverside County. A lawsuit that was settled by both parties within two months of the city being served. She had filed a complaint of sexual harassment at the Ben Clark Training Academy run by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. After filing it, she alleged that her academy supervisor wrote bad evaluations and that she was approached by two Riverside Police Department officers who informed her that the department knew about her complaint and wasn't happy with it or her.

She alleged in her lawsuit when she asked why she was being terminated, she was told that she didn't have to be told and besides, they didn't like her. Yet, she was asked if she wanted to appeal through a name clearing hearing and then said she couldn't do so unless she knew why she was fired.

It's interesting that a department would invest so much in a hire who then allegedly finished 21st out of 70 in her academy class, who was then fired so quickly. On the day she would have been assigned a field training officer, after an orientation program for new officers which lasted several weeks, according to a claim she filed against the city. It's interesting to contemplate the reasons why someone who had filed a sexual harassment complaint that apparently went unheeded in the academy would be fired so quickly by the city of Riverside after completing the training and two weeks of orientation. Did she do something egregious during that time period that merited being fired or was it true that she was fired because as she claimed, one of them said they didn't like her? Maybe the truth is, that the last thing the Riverside Police Department wants within its ranks is a proven complainer about sexual harassment and if that is indeed the case then why?

Several weeks ago, I submitted a California Public Records Act request for information on the training sessions the department held for its supervisors on sexual harassment in accordance with Assembly Bill 1825 which requires any employer of over a specific number of employees to train their supervisors every two years on sexual harassment with the said training to be done within six months of the promotion of a supervisor. I received a very courteous and timely response in writing from the police department, but in terms of this provision, the department stated that there were no documents that were "responsive" to this request. Giving the department the benefit of the doubt that I perhaps wasn't clear enough in my request for this information, I sent a second one clarifying the request further on May 30, 2008 and am still waiting the department's written response. If there are indeed still no documents or records that are "responsive" to this second request, then there may be a definite problem in Riverside.

One of the key reasons for providing this state-mandated training is so that employers can reduce their risk of civil liability through litigation initiated by employees. If an employer is sued for sexual harassment and it's discovered that the required training isn't being done on a regular basis, it just ups the dollar amount paid out to the plaintiffs during a settlement or verdict of their cases. And if they are public employees, that cost is passed on to the city residents. So not only is racism and sexism in the workplace illegal and wrong, it hits the wallet very hard as well.




The corporate yard's currently the setting for another discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed against the city, this time by former code compliance officers who alleged among other things they were banished to a shack that housed toxic chemicals there for filing workplace complaints. They sued the city citing age discrimination, harassment and a failure to accomodate disabilities. And its problems might not end there.


A lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment has also been filed against the police department by former officer, Laura DiGiorgio who earlier this year was convicted of multiple felonies in association with the filing of a workman's compensation claim. About 10 years earlier, another female officer, former Sgt. Christine Keers filed a sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation lawsuit against the department after she was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in Riverside County.

Two lieutenants in the police department have filed a claim with the city alleging retaliation by two city council members and city management employees for their labor union activism during the city's arduous contract negotiation period in the summer of 2006.

An EEO investigation is allegedly being conducted investigating allegations of racism in yet another city department.


The city's official response to the law suit was its typical one, so much so it's hard to take it seriously. City Attorney Gregory Priamos said the lawsuit would have no merit and there would be a request to the presiding judge to dismiss it. Of course, the same was said by that office after Sutton filed his lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation. As is known today, a jury decided otherwise and issued out a verdict that was over $1 million. As is known today, given how many lawsuits the city has settled that involved allegations of racial and gender discrimination, harassment and retaliation made by men of color and women who work for the city, the city has paid out at least $2 million in settlements and verdicts in less than 10 years and that's not counting litigation costs which were at least in the high six figures in just the lawsuits filed by Sutton and the plaintiffs in the 1997 lawsuit.


The Human Resources Board is assigned the task of reviewing labor issues including discrimination and harassment in the city and it's hard to say what its membership thinks about all that's gone on with the city. At one point, this board too allegedly faced a showdown with the city manager's office after DeSantis allegedly had provided the board with the agenda of his office before being told by one member that the board didn't report to his office, but the city council.

Still, the board hosts various department heads who provide reports on how the departments are doing and apparently believes that if city employees don't appear before it, that discrimination and harassment doesn't happen in the city's employment ranks or it only happens to those with spotless attendance records. Unfortunately, the stress of harassment can be such that an employee may for example use up sick days, something the Human Resources Board appeared to think was merely a negative indication against the employee filing the grievance.

Several times during his tenure on the dais, former Councilman Ed Adkison idly wondered out loud if the city even had to have a human resources board before being reminded that yes it does, because the charter mandates it. But has the Human Resources Board rendered itself uneffective when it comes to addressing these issues?

This leaves the grievance process for employees to file complaints of racial and gender discrimination and harassment, a process that's posted in the workplace in the various departments as required by law. And if that fails, law suits then follow and the costs for city residents go up. The costs for the plaintiffs aren't always as easy to measure. And neither are the costs that came with history.

In 1924, decades had passed since North and other settlers created Riverside and 1924 was a good year for the Ku Klux Klan (mirroring the increase in its membership elsewhere that took place that decade) which backed a candidate for mayor and held at least one rally near what is now Riverside Community College. That was a little more than a decade after the Rialto Theater had premiered one of the most racist films ever made, Birth of a Nation.

African-American residents of Riverside related accounts of being chased across fields by racist mobs, in the 1940s and 1950s and a minister who headed a local church in the 1960s related tales of elected officials gathering in local bars and telling racist jokes. The school district became the first in the nation to voluntarily desegregate and not long after, several schools were set on fire. There's different theories about local historians or long-time residents about who did it, White supremacists or Black city residents but no one knows for sure.


Riversider, an excellent Web site on the history of African-Americans in Riverside provides a lot of information on the earliest Black residents and their families, some of which still live in the city today.

Latinos also faced racist segregation and like African-Americans, were only allowed by law to live and buy property in certain areas of the city until the 1960s, one major reason why neighborhoods like Casa Blanca and the Eastside are primarily Black and/or Latino. One Latina told me that whenever she spoke Spanish in her school, the teachers would wash her mouth out with soap. Latinos like African-Americans were denied use of facilities labeled "White only" a reality that existed and flourished for years outside of the South.

Asian-Americans faced discrimination and harassment as well and several Asian-American neighborhoods, which were known as Chinatowns, no longer exist today except in photographs, memories and artifacts left undiscovered that are currently the center of controversy involving the development of where Chinatown once stood. The lives of Asian-Americans aren't as well documented by academics as those of other racial groups but at least one Asian-American woman is trying to change that.

Later on, Riverside became a city of statues, monuments to individuals including King, jr. and Mahatma Gandhi who fought injustice including racism and colonialism and both died as martyrs leaving a world changed by their footsteps. Some say, that every time the allegation of racism is raised, the city either builds another monument to a civil rights leader who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience or it creates another multicultural event. Not that these aren't important endeavors but what needs greater focus and not further diversion are the issues raised in the litigation and other complaints filed against the city by Black and Latino male employees and women of all races. What needs to be examined is if employees who file grievances alleging hostile work environments or other racism and sexism in the workplace are being pink-slipped in the process. But instead another symbolic gesture is made and the problems continue onward.


To be continued...











Some turmoil up in Sacramento has emerged that could hurt former Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle's chances of getting appointed to the state's parole board. He was appointed but still awaits a confirmation from the State Senate to keep his position. Doyle left the Sheriff's Department under controversy and an even more controversial appointment process of his replacement took place.

The issue is not as much him as it is the conflicting visions of the parole board's function by different elected officials.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Senate Democrats have complained that the board is postponing too many hearings for lifers. In January and February of this year, 37 percent of parole board hearings were postponed, according to Perata.

"Some of these inmates are senior citizens who occupy costly prison beds, have served well over their minimum parole date without incident, cost the state significant dollars in medical care and pose little risk to society," Perata said in April.

Republican lawmakers have criticized Perata's stance. "Packing the parole board with priests and psychologists, as Sen. Perata wants to do, is flat-out-wrong," state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, said earlier this year.

Perata's office declined to comment on Doyle's prospects for confirmation.

"Our concern is making sure that the appointees are following the rules of parole. We're looking at every appointee in that light," spokeswoman Lynda Gledhill said.






The rail museum in Perris is hosting a special Father's Day event while Temecula Valley which knows how to host big events is having its annual balloon and wine festival. Yes, hot air balloons and people do get into them and fly up in the air and it's lots of fun.

Not to mention the cherry festival.




Lake Elsinore, yet another city that is opting out of issuing credit cards.


What's next for March Air Field, the Press Enterprise Editorial Board checks in.



(excerpt)



Capitalizing on the airfield's commercial opportunities also requires the March commission to be a dependable partner. Political stunts like the Riverside City Council's resolution threatening DHL last month raise doubts about the JPA's reliability in business dealings. The council essentially attacked DHL for exercising contractual rights agreed to by the March commission -- including representatives from Riverside's City Council.

Civilian use of March Air Reserve Base will not thrive if businesses think commissioners will give politics a higher priority than upholding contractual agreements.

The region should learn from the DHL experience. March operations can take off and prosper with thorough discussion and responsible governance -- or be grounded by political crosswinds.








Alas, the triple crown still proves elusive as Big Brown's jockey knowing his horse was ailing eased him to the finish line while a longshot made some betters happy by romping wire to wire on the biggest day of his life. But there's a reason why the crown hasn't seen a winner in 30 years since Affirmed outdueled Alydar right down to the wire. His jockey, Steve Cauthen was only 18. Today, he's 48 and retired from riding although he's still involved in the sport.

Both Affirmed and Alydar went to stud after retiring and even wound up as neighbors at the stallion farm of what used to be Calumet Farm. Affirmed died several years ago after living a relatively long life. But what happened to Alydar remains one of horse racing's greatest mysteries.