Drops in the rain bucket

Actually, not very many rain drops unless you count the five or ten that blew into Riverside a couple days ago and this city won't see much if the El Nino proves to be a bust. Even though one's coming, the prediction is for yet another dry winter in the golden state. Hopefully it won't be like the last one which led to less than two inches of rain during the entire season.

But despite that, there's still plenty going on in Riverside.

Labor Pains Relieved?

Riverside's largest employee union, the SEIU General Unit approved changes to its contract.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Tracie Morales, spokeswoman for SEIU Local 721, said 78.5 percent of ballots cast were in favor of the changes. The union represents about 950 city workers. Morales did not disclose how many voted.

"It was a show of support on behalf of city workers to help the city during this difficult economic time," Morales said.

The city pledged not to lay off any SEIU members through Jan. 15 and offered a $20,000 early retirement package to those who are 50 or older and have at least 15 years of service credit.

Councilman Mike Gardner said about 115 workers would be eligible for early retirement. That could cost the city up to $2.3 million, but it would be covered by savings from no longer having to pay those workers, he said.

The City Council will vote on the contract changes next week.

"I think it's clear that the city needs to save the money, and I'm personally glad to see SEIU members line up with the members of the other associations and back what the city's trying to do," Gardner said.

In return, the SEIU has voted to extend its contract until next June and defer a 2% raise. On the bright side at least when the city keeps laying off people, Management employees including those from the Human Resources Department will have to find different people to blame it on which might create a dilemma for some of them (including any who enjoyed raises themselves even if they had to then defer a 2% raise.).


Hopefully, the SEIU General Unit got the pledge for no layoffs in writing but it makes you wonder if any department heads who may have gotten raises last year were asked to defer those raises in the interest of saving the city money including the department head whose spouse allegedly boasted about the sizable raise (even though that particular department received one of the largest slashes to its budget) to some people who were concerned enough about it to check into what was going on with the ceilings on raises for management and executive employees. What they discovered is that in December 2008, those ceilings had been raised from between 2% to 23% from what they had been less than a year earlier.

That led to a major chain of events including the eventual posting of that list on the city's site and to questions as to why it became so important to raise the ceilings for maximum raises of about 40 management and executive city employees during what clearly was going to be the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Did they want to look after their own before the bottom fell out on everyone else?

Mayoral Race Countdown

The Riverside's mayoral race still has over a month to go and it's not clear whether or not there are any debates left between the candidates besides the two sponsored by the Greater Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women's Voters. Many people say that it's pure folly to run against incumbent Mayor Loveridge who's been in power since 1993 but what's a democratic society without a competitive election process? Two candidates have entered into the fray to challenge for the spot including former city councilman Art Gage who's running on a populist campaign of sorts and local artist and activist Ken Stansbury who's a write-in candidate.

The more vigorous an election is, the better representation it is of democracy and the more interesting it is to follow. Now, this term is the abbreviated one and some say that originally Loveridge didn't plan to run until he decided that he wanted to be the president of the League of Cities in 2010. To do so, he needs to hold an elected municipal position. Gage appears to be more intent on building a reputation for himself and putting himself in the public's mind as a mayoral candidate in preparation for the much anticipated and wide-open election in 2012.

Remember, to vote in this election if you;re registered and if you're not a registered voter, ask yourself why you are not and get your butt out and get registered ASAP.

Is 'Advisory' the New Buzz Word for dilution of powers?

The Human Relations Commission is set to host a meeting of its executive committee at City Hall on Thursday Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. One of the agenda items was an "immigration letter" that the Human Relations Commission had planned to send for policy clarification to both the U.S. Border Patrol and the Riverside Police Department. The HRC had met with Chief Russ Leach for a policy discussion involving the police department but had come up with newer questions and needed to follow up on the policy issues raised during that meeting.

A representative from Mayor Ron Loveridge's office said that since the commission was only "advisory" in nature, any direction on sending the letter would have to come from the city council. Well, the fact is that it's most likely that if the HRC sent such a letter to the city council that the body would do what it did when the CPRC sent a letter for "clarification" on its investigation of officer-involved deaths and that is not respond to it in writing. If they call an elected representative or two, they might get some vague reference to their correspondence as happened when the CPRC contacted then Mayor Pro Tem Rusty Bailey last autumn.

The Human Resources Board also tried sending letters for "clarification" to the city council after being told by City Manager Brad Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos (using Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout as a communication conduit) that some information gathering its members were trying to do in terms of obtaining statistics on the very public filing of lawsuits by city employees was outside the board's purview. Now that has to be the sillier side of the micromanagement that is going on involving a city board or commission or two and maybe Strout is speaking for Hudson and Priamos because neither can come to the Board themselves and provide the rationale behind those comments with a straight face.

Chair Erin House delivered some shocking news at a meeting earlier this year that he had discovered that the city council had apparently voted in 2005 to strip the board of its investigative powers through a majority vote to amend the municipal ordinance. Because the investigative power wasn't included in the language defining the Board in the city's charter, this was an easy action for the city government to take, slightly easier than essentially diluting or even stripping the powers of investigation for a commission which has those powers included in the language defining it in the city's charter.

And now the HRC which was under the city manager's office for years but more recently, has been under the mayor's office. The move took place allegedly after City Manager Brad Hudson removed some key staff from that commission after it wrote a letter to his office asking for statistical information on the ethnic and racial breakdown on employees laid off or "resigning" from City Hall. Not long after that, Loveridge took over the HRC but not too long after that, its director, Yvette Pierre became one of the first full-time city layoffs of the current recession. HRC is trying to function with very little if any real staffing but apparently, it's been struggling with micromanagement and inhouse fighting very much like what's going on with the CPRC.

Now there's no argument that the city's boards and commissions for the most part are advisory in nature but it's interesting how that word's been floating around a lot lately involving three of the city's boards and commissions as a means of diluting their effectiveness and powers and trying to render them ineffective at even gathering information. First the CPRC, then the Human Resources Board and then the Human Relations Commission. Will the list grow under a city management that has never seemed too keen on public participation?

We'll see.

Project Bridge dead?

Project Bridge, the once nationally renowned gang prevention and intervention program appears to have been pretty much killed by the city. No funding has been allocated for outreach to gang members and that responsibility was once going to be foisted on regular staff members from the Park and Recreation staff assigned to different community centers. Nobody's really heard much from it in a while.

The city management and various city council members at different meetings made promises about expanding Project Bridge and focusing as much on prevention as it did on intervention but they didn't promise to kill the program. It had spent several years on life support while being volleyed back and forth between the Park and Recreation and Police Departments. But it seemed to be on an upturn when it hired a new director and some staff for outreach several years ago. Still without much funding, there's not much it can do, which is a sad irony considering the fanfare about it several years ago.

So until further information comes out, there will be a Project Bridge Watch. It's the most lauded program that no one at City Hall or other departments seems to really want in this city.

Rocky Waters?

Speaking of the police department, there's been a lot of murmurs in the East Neighborhood Policing Center of concern about the new area commander, Lt. Vic Williams who was assigned to replace outgoing Area Commander Lt. Larry Gonzalez in mid-July. It was Willliams' second area command assignment in about a year after he had been previously assigned to the North NPC and in fact moved his office from Lincoln Field Operations Station into the new digs in the bus terminal earlier this year, initially not a very happy move for anybody. Lt. Chris Manning replaced him in the North NPC at the same time Williams was transferred to the East to replace Gonzalez.

Apparently, some people were unhappy downtown as well and some say that's why he was transferred to the East NPC but it's hard to say because the North NPC has gone through several area commanders in the past several year and it remains to be seen how long Manning will last in that spot. However, it's unusual to see a commander assigned to an NPC only remain in that position a year rather than the standard 2-3 years assignment. In fact, Gonzalez and Tortes, Williams predecessors, enjoyed long tenures of at least 3 1/2 years while they were area commanders in that NPC or in the Eastside before the existence of NPCs. Both of them proved to be very popular which might make it more difficult for a newcomer assigned to that role but Gonzalez had to come into the position in the wake of Tortes' longtime service as a commander in the Eastside (not to mention being raised there)and he managed to make his own mark there and win a lot of support. So it's not impossible for Williams to do the same but it takes a lot of committed effort and good communication and leadership skills to succeed. And you can't alienate or tick off the organizations in those NPCs because they can be your strongest allies.

There were also rumors that Latino Network and other organizations were unhappy with him when he transferred to the position where he oversees police operations in neighborhoods including the Eastside, University area and Orangecrest because he wasn't returning phone calls. If that's the case, he should remember that it is one of the cardinal rules of being an area commander to return every communication from a resident in your policing center even if you don't have any or much information to answer their questions. But the organizations need to be clear about their expectations of their area commanders as well to avoid any confusion.

Outreach is one of the most important areas of being an area commander, somewhat different than the watch command positions that Williams and Manning have both been assigned to fill in the past. Manning does come from a background of having been assigned to community outreach and served as the department's public information officer for a period of time which should help him.

Williams worked a variety of assignments including a stint in the Internal Affairs Division where he was praised by some as an objective investigator. He was promoted out of that division and placed in field assignments but this is his first assignment in years that put him out in the community rather than inside an office. His current bosses praise his professionalism and said that he does the job expected of him but his stint as a commander has been a bit rocky.

It's too early to say whether it's adjustment pains experienced by both Williams and the neighborhoods in the East NPC to his style of leadership and communication or whether there's evidence of some more serious issues. Area commanders should always remember they work for the residents rather than the other way around and the successful ones are the ones who understand this and practice it. If Williams remembers that and practices it too, there's no reason why he can't be a success.

Under Riverside County's couch, lies some loose change!

After putting employees on furloughs, instituting salary cuts and budget cuts, Riverside County discovered it had $23 million extra in its coffers.

(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

County Chief Financial Officer Paul McDonnell said he is unsure why county administrators did not know of the unused reserve money before the end of the fiscal year.

"It is a bit of a surprise," he said. "Certainly, it is a question we will be asking this year."

Still, county officials on Tuesday urged caution. Seven county agencies, including the Sheriff's Department, district attorney's office, public health department and animal services department, ended the fiscal year with unexpected shortfalls.

The departments were over budget by a combined $19.4 million.

McDonnell said the county will use money from the larger-than-expected general fund balance to help the departments that exceeded their budgets. In addition, the county will add $13 million to a rainy-day fund, pushing it closer to its target amount.

But then it turned out that the county was still owed money by Riverside as payment for the contracting of animal control services from the county.


(excerpt)



The department also did not receive a $1.2 million payment from the city of Riverside for the last six months of the fiscal year. The city contracts with the county for animal control.

Riverside City Councilman Mike Gardner said the late payment stemmed from issues with the way the county bills the city.

Gardner said the county was not providing adequate documentation on what it charged. City officials had to seek more information before sending the checks, he said.

County officials expect the city to soon make its payment, McDonnell said.

"Those issues have been resolved," he said, noting there were some discrepancies in the bills it sent to the city. "We are meeting with the city later this week."




A Grand Terrace councilman facing a conflict of interest charge has plead not guilty.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

After the brief hearing in a San Bernardino courtroom, Miller's attorney said that prosecutors haven't proven the felony conflict-of-interest charge against his client.

Miller's attorney, Richard Ewaniszyk, of Victorville, said outside the courtroom that Margie Miller's publication is the only newspaper authorized to publish legal notices for the city. He said that, in order for Miller to have a legal conflict of interest, the councilman would have had to vote to approve a contract to pay the newspaper. Prosecutors have not produced such a contract, Ewaniszyk said.

He praised the San Bernardino County District Attorney's desire to handle accusations of public malfeasance, but he believes the charge against Miller "is a misunderstanding."

The deputy district attorney handling the case could not be reached for comment.

A disturbance in a Riverside County jail facility and allegations of misconduct are being investigated by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Cindy Diaz said she was especially concerned about what happened because her husband underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2006 and has suffered neurological problems since.

Diaz said that the deputies struck her husband because he did not stand up when ordered, even though he told them he had a medical condition that was making it difficult to comply. She said her husband was hospitalized and that she did not learn what happened until days later when she visited him in jail.

Diaz said she believes her husband should not have been housed in that area of the jail to begin with, adding that he was not actively involved in the disturbance.

Nordstrom said he has reviewed the reports on the disturbance and looked at video and did not find any evidence that anyone had been kicked in the head by deputies or shocked with a Taser.

While the inmates were hit with pepper spray, it did not appear to have occurred after anyone was restrained. Still, Nordstrom would not categorically deny that the events reported by the family in a written complaint occurred, he said, because the incident is still under investigation.

Sheriff's officials declined to allow a reporter to view the videos.






There is a lot of commentary on this lawsuit filed by former Riverside County District Attorney's office employee, Eileen Hunt at the Press Enterprise site including here and here. People who are for and against the plaintiff and others complaining about what's going on inside the D.A.'s office.

And while on the topic, here is the 2008-09 Riverside County Grand Jury report on the District Attorney's office.



Then there's this article about the State Attorney General's office taking over the prosecution on an old triple homicide case because the defendant is a distant cousin of Pacheco.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"We did take over the case because of a potential conflict of interest," Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jerry Brown, said Wednesday.

"The investigation into the 1981 murders led to James Hughes, who is fighting extradition. No criminal complaint has been filed, so it is an ongoing investigation."

In 1981, Fred Alvarez, a tribal leader with the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, and two others were fatally shot in his rented Rancho Mirage home. The case has remained unsolved.

But the Riverside County sheriff's cold case unit, under the direction of the attorney general's office, which took over the matter earlier this year, has revisited the investigation.

The attorney general's office issued a triple-murder warrant for Hughes, sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said.






Inside Riverside wrote that Riverside County's furlough program is a bust.







The Press Enterprise Editorial Board announces its endorsements for the San Bernardino City Council election.




Drug charges have been filed against a Tulsa Police Department officer


(excerpt, KJRH News)



Police arrested Officer Travis Ludwig on September 22nd at his Collinsville home. According to police reports, a search warrant was served and cocaine was found in the home.

Police say they recovered undetermined quantities of a white powder, scales and US currency.

Ludwig was booked into the Tulsa County Jail on a charge of possession of a controlled drugs with intent to sell. He posted a $10,000 bond and was released.






The number of officers disciplined in Austin's police department had when the number of supervisors investigating misconduct allegations increased



(Excerpt, Statesman)



Internal affairs detectives had conducted such investigations until July 2008, when Police Chief Art Acevedo decided that the less serious cases — complaints such as profanity, rudeness and inadequate police response — would instead be investigated by an officer's supervisor.

Officials say that the policy change has resulted in a higher percentage of officers getting disciplined and has reduced the number of days such investigations take to conclude.

Police department statistics showed that from July 2007 to July 2008, 69.8 percent of low-level allegations investigated by internal affairs detectives resulted in disciplinary action against officers. That percentage increased to 77.3 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, the first year of the supervisor inquiries.

Meanwhile, the number of days officials spent looking into such complaints went from 44 to 35 days.

During the same period, the number of residents who expressed dissatisfaction about the resolution of their complaints stayed about the same, according to the statistics.

"We obviously wanted to make sure when the cases were completed that they were being investigated appropriately, with appropriate outcomes," said Assistant Police Chief Al Eells, who helped compile the statistics.




Cambridge's Civilian Review Board is facing in the wake of various investigations and reviews of the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, jr.



(Excerpt, Bay State Banner)

While intense global attention has focused on Cambridge since the July 16 cuffing of the Harvard scholar by Sgt. James Crowley in front of Gates’ home, the standing Cambridge Police Review and Advisory Board has been understaffed, overlooked and ineffective, according to critics.

“I don’t want to make any pre-judgments before the review takes place,” said Simmons, who requested the report as part of a broader look at city-appointed independent bodies. “I will say that we can always improve. While I support Police Commissioner Robert Haas, I will say the police department can do better. I see our civilian review board as an opportunity for greater citizen involvement.”

Harvard Professor S. Allen Counter, who has filed a complaint against a Cambridge police officer with the five-member review board, said he was told the panel was essentially nonfunctional at the time he first attempted to file the complaint.

NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 30, 2009

CONTACT:
Nykisha Cleveland
202-727-8327

Police Complaints Board Proposes Monitoring Citizen
Complaints Involving Police Response to Reports of Hate Crime
(Report also urges measures to address underreporting of hate crime)

(Washington, DC) – The Police Complaints Board (PCB), the governing
body of the Office of Police Complaints (OPC), today submitted a report to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, the Council of the District of Columbia, and Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Cathy L. Lanier recommending that the District undertake certain measures to address the reporting of hate crimes.

In December 2008, the D.C. Council's Committee on Public Safety and
the Judiciary held a hearing to air concerns about a recent rash of hate crimes affecting the city's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. PCB's report focuses on some of the issues raised at the hearing.

OPC, which is independent of MPD, investigates police misconduct
complaints filed by members of the public against MPD officers but does not handle complaints of citizen-on-citizen hate crime. However, the agency often receives complaints that MPD officers failed to take action in response to reports of crime, including reports of hate crime. OPC refers these "failure to provide police service" complaints to MPD because OPC lacks authority to investigate them.

To improve police response, PCB recommends that MPD and OPC collaborate to develop a system for identifying and tracking complaints that allege sub-par police service in response to reports of hate crime. Collecting and reviewing these data could help identify specific police procedures that are needed in order to ensure effective responses to hate crimes.

PCB also urges the Mayor's Office to begin complying with its legal
obligation under the D.C. Bias-Related Crime Act to collect, compile,
and publish data on the incidence of hate crime in the District and to
report on its findings to the D.C. Council. Annual issuance of this
required report would aid District government officials and community
groups in developing strategies to reduce the occurrence of hate crime.

PCB further proposes that MPD utilize its involvement with community
advisory boards such as the Fair and Inclusive Policing Task Force and
the D.C. Bias Crimes Task Force to develop ways to correct possible
underreporting of hates crimes across all constituencies covered by the District's hate crimes statute.

"There needs to be an immediate response to the public's lack of
confidence in how hate crimes are being pursued in the District,"
said Kurt Vorndran, PCB's chair. "By implementing the
recommendations in the report, District agencies, including MPD, will be better able to identify trends and tailor programs that will reduce both the occurrence of hate crime and the level of police misconduct in Washington."

For additional information or to view PCB's full report and
recommendations, please visit OPC's website at
www.policecomplaint s.dc.gov .







Events and meetings



Monday, Oct. 5 at 4 p.m., the Human Resources Board meets at City Hall on the Fifth Floor



Eastside Think Tank and Riverside Police Department are sponsoring a community forum with Chief Russ Leach appearing as well as officers and supervisors working in the East Neighborhood Policing Center.

When: Wednesday Oct. 7 at 6-8 p.m.

Where: Zacateca's restaurant banquet room, University Avenue, Eastside.

Snap Shot Gallery

[An abandoned building on Magnolia Street vacated by a business that had to close its doors and be relocated in anticipation of the long-awaited grade separation to be constructed on Magnolia near Merrill street. If you own a business in Riverside, you better make sure to be ready to pack up and move it as many other businesses on both Magnolia and its counterpart Market have found, as those two thoroughfares are pretty much jinked. ]

Updates: CPRC and Finance Committee Watch

I received some emails and other comments on some of the postings that have been done recently on the blog. A few were in response to attempts at the Human Resource Board meeting to stop photos from being taken of people at that meeting by representatives of the Human Resources Department including its director, Rhonda Strout. Now the board itself had no problems with being photographed while conducting its important work so photos were taken of the meeting. The Brown Act doesn't prohibit photos from being taken at public meetings nor does it require that you have a person involved in that meeting provide permission let alone sign a release to do so. The Press Enterprise after all has photographed city meetings for years without being told they couldn't.

But whether or not this is fallout coming from the posting of a photo of Community Police Review Commission Vice Chair Peter Hubbard falling asleep during one of its meetings is not clear. I had several people comment after reading or hearing about the Human Resources Board meeting that it was more of a reaction by City Hall which apparently is "very nervous" about this blog.

Why would that be?

Not that it's news that factions in the city dislike the blog given that I received a harassing email in my own name from a private ISP owned and operated by the City of Riverside several years ago. Not to mention some of the harassment on Inland Empire Craigslist while writing on two of former councilman Frank Schiavone's last political campaigns in 2008 and 2009. And so forth. So it's not exactly news that this blog makes some people nervous and even unhappy because add anger to that and that's where harassment stems from. That's been the case in one way or another since its creation in 2005 when just six months after it was started, it was the subject of an investigation by the city.

Then rumors were going around in early 2007 that representatives of the city manager's office and one department head were making insinuations and innuendos that I was under investigation and "almost a criminal" (which I guess makes as much sense as almost being pregnant) as one city management representative allegedly said to a group of community leaders in early 2007 for essentially reading the same public record on the Lee Deante Brown shooting case that reporters from the Press Enterprise and Los Angeles Times were able to read without facing similar background static about them. Then the city in Riverside County Superior Court hid behind the blog and me in order to defend themselves against a lawsuit filed by Riverside Police Department Officer Ryan Wilson against the city and CPRC for a sustained finding the commission made against him on a fatal shooting in 2005. And then the blog came up in closed session over a posting done on a list of maximum ceiling raises for about 40 management and executive employees.

And then...well it's been a soap opera of municipal proportions. Never a dull moment in Riverside a city that when it's not reinventing itself through the adoption of new slogans, prides itself on being an ordinary metropolis. But while it's frustrating and certainly disturbing at times, that's part of what makes blogging so interesting and the vastly larger amount of positive response I've received has made it worthwhile. That response comes from different areas of local, national and international readership but probably doesn't include those who are "nervous". There are a lot of people who don't speak up who are very nervous and unsure about the direction this city is heading into particularly in light of difficult economic times.

Many of these people don't feel they can come to public meetings at city council without being abused verbally given that some council members engaged in that type of behavior for a couple of years. Two of the electeds engaging in this poor conduct were voted out of office by their wards and replaced by people who are more respectful in their behavior and the third one read the writing on the wall through his own difficult reelection and the ousters of the others and softened his rhetoric somewhat. What hopefully all the dais folks get by now is that the city residents who vote really don't like it when their elected representatives act out publicly because those who have either don't get reelected or they just squeak through an election. It's probably one of the strongest components on a list of criteria of elected officials that influences the political career of an elected official in Riverside and more specifically how long it lasts.

Some might say that the ethics code should be applied on those who speak at city council meetings as well as the elected officials but believe it or not, there's already a written code of conduct that applies to both elected representatives and city residents at city council meetings that's been in place for years. The problem is that changes were made to weaken the enforcement against elected officials and to strengthen that against city residents including provisions that further restricted public comment. So like the current ethics code and complaint process, this behavior protocol is toothless and the boorish behavior of several members of the dais in past years proved that time and time again.

And being polite is no assurance that you'll be treated the same by the city council. Just tell that to the elderly woman who came to city council several years ago because although she lived outside the city limits, a city-owned water pipe burst and flooded her property. She was frustrated and probably a bit frightened and she went to city council to speak on it. Well, she broke the three-minute limit and two former city council members had her physically (but gently) escorted by a very embarrassed looking police officer away from the podium. At least they didn't have her evicted but one would think their first action would be to help her not treat her like a pest to be removed from their sight, even if it's just to "streamline" the meeting. Although no one's been "escorted" from the dais lately when seeking redress like she did.

People in Riverside strongly support accountability and transparency and this belief and expectation of government transcends political affiliations. There's no better evidence of this fact than the outcomes of the charter initiatives that were voted on in 2004. All the ones that encouraged or mandated an increase in accountability and transparency passed. The ones that reduced it, i.e. the initiative that had the mayor appointing committee chairs, failed. The mixed bag of charter amendments that made it in the charter or not speaks to the reality that city residents and certainly those who vote want increased accountability. They want a strong ethics code and complaint process and they want a police commission that's protected from city government. Sadly, in both of these cases it's the city government (though there are exceptions) through the direct employees which continue to try to undermine the public's push for increased accountability and transparency by diluting the effectiveness of both of these vital mechanisms.

Still, there's factions at City Hall who seem to act nervous whenever the public demands accountability from City Hall, much like they did with the city's ethical code and complaint process at two meetings this month. And even with that participation, the city residents and some city council members watched as one key provision that had been forwarded by the Governmental Affairs Committee to the city council was killed in a substitute motion made by Councilman Steve Adams. That was the provision to strike language that was placed in the code under very dubious circumstances in the summer of 2007 through the actions of a city council member who was the subject of a complaint made against him a month earlier. Even though that language was put in the code under questionable use of ethics at best, the city council's majority led by Adams voted to rubber stamp it, which kind of gave a text book example of how the understanding of an ethics code and its purpose continues to elude a majority of those sitting on the dais.

Interestingly enough, the readership of this blog from the city is pretty extensive and has grown particularly in the past six months as more and more troubling issues have emerged involving two elements that are necessary for a healthy and responsive government, accountability and transparency. And it seems like often enough, City Hall is willing to farm both things these away. The city council has turned over most of its financial accountability to the city manager's office and most of its transparency determination to the city attorney's office. Did you know for example that the city attorney now directly handles most if not all requests for public information under the California Public Records Act?

Yes, it's true which I discovered after I sent CPRA requests to the city manager's office for raw data backing up statements its representatives had made about the CPRC's annual operational budget and the police department's officer/supervisor staffing ratios. The city manager's office which is filled with some say too many six-figured employees who used to work for Riverside County was unable or unwilling to handle this CPRA request itself but had Priamos handle it himself and Priamos is 0 for 2 in properly answering CPRA requests. Whether that's due to lack of experience or just being willful is not clear.

On the request involving the CPRC annual budget, Priamos' "response" was a link to the city's then preliminary annual budget. However, while checking out that report, it was discovered that there was no mention at all of what the CPRC's annual budget for the last fiscal year was because the city manager's office didn't include a line item budget for its department. That would have been necessary for that information on the CPRC to be included in the report that Priamos provided a link for. It took six weeks to finally get the CPRC's annual budget from its manager, Kevin Rogan after some weeks of stalling by the city manager's office which offered up one of its administrative analysts (and former CPRC interim manager) Mario Lara as its excuse.

On the request involving the police department's officer/supervisor staffing ratio, Priamos didn't provide any information except a link to the same budget report which again, only provided the department's officer/sergeant ratio in its entire field operations division, not the much more important (and more pertinent to the request) officer/sergeant ratio averages during staffing shifts. The police department was also asked for information pertaining to this request and through Priamos provided a copy of a PowerPoint presentation given by its then consultant Joe Brann as part of regular audits that were being conducted on the implementation of the department's strategic plan. The only problem was that Brann never actually included in writing the staffing ratios in his presentation though he provided them in his oral report. So Chief Russ Leach through Priamos provided information in response to the request which didn't actually include the information requested.

What was really striking about this request in particular is that I had made a similar request in 2005 while the department was under its stipulated judgment with the state attorney general's office and received a lot of documents and CDs including information that was used to calculate the staffing ratios for 2003, 2004 and part of 2005. This package of information provided great insight into the department's trends in fulfilling this required reform under the consent decree and was useful in determining the methods used to calculate those ratios by members of the Attorney General's Task Force which did so on a regular basis.

However, when Priamos' office took over the handling of the CPRA requests, this clearly public information was no longer included in a similar request submitted in 2008, two years after the dissolution of the stipulated judgment. The request made was the same as the previous one but the department in the two years since March 2006 had become less and less transparent and when it comes to requesting information like staffing ratios in the department, this is a very disturbing trend.

Why? Because when it comes to staffing ratios if you read Brann's final report under the stipulated judgment, he mentions that supervisory staffing ratios was one of the most important reforms and one that was key to ensuring that the department would continue to head in the right direction. It's a very important part of keeping the department accountable and of ensuring greater safety for the police officers and the public. Proper supervision by sergeants and watch commanders is very important for the development and work done by officers particularly in a police department as "young" as the Riverside Police Department. The fact that the city would withhold what was previously treated as public information from the public is appalling especially since it's lost enough supervisors through retirements to bring up the issue of whether or not those ratios are being adversely impacted by the loss of four lieutenants and seven to eight sergeants.

Even Leach has admitted, though not in public that the police department has lost its transparency that it enjoyed under the consent decree in more recent years. That can in part be attributed to the city attorney's over zealous interpretation of state laws and the city management's dislike of public participation in their government because both of them are heavily involved in the police department's operations, some say more so than Leach. After all, if you look at just about every mechanism that the public can use to access and work with the government, it's either being whittled down or manipulated and micromanaged as is the case with several of the boards and commissions in this city for example.

Art Gage who's running for mayor made some pretty strong comments about how the current city council is letting the administration run the city and even the city council. Gage while on the city council cast one of the votes that hired Hudson and whether or not this means that he's experiencing "buyer's remorse" or is simply running on a more populist platform isn't clear but his message about who should be running the city is being well received even if he doesn't win the mayor's seat.

Finance Committee Update

As you know if you've been reading this site or have been paying close attention, there has been no meeting of the Finance Committee at Riverside City Hall so far this entire year. The current tentative (and that's a term to be used loosely) meeting of this committee has been scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9 at 2:30 p.m. but before you get all excited and pencil it in your social calendar, there's been other so-called scheduled meetings of this once very active committee but it's never met. As you can see by clicking this link then clicking "Finance Committee" and then clicking "agenda" and you'll notice that there's no category for 2009. At the rate things are going, there's no need to add one either.

The membership of the here-yesterday-gone-today committee is Councilwoman Nancy Hart who chairs it, Paul Davis who vice-chairs it and Mike Gardner who serves at large. Rumor is that Mayor Ron Loveridge had promised Davis several committee assignments after his election last June including the chairmanship of the Finance Committee. If that's true, then Loveridge reengaged on his promise by recommending the appointment of Hart, the former vice-chair of the committee, instead.

Former councilman and current mayoral candidate Art Gage said that during his entire tenure on the city council from 2003-07, he had chaired the Finance Committee but that he had trouble getting items on the agenda for discussion. It's been said that Loveridge picked Hart as chair because he and others at City Hall knew that as long as she was in that position, she would never ask questions and probably would never hold meetings. Hart's only been serving on the committee since late June and the summer months often reduce the opportunities to host subcommittee meetings (especially since the city council itself only meets twice monthly) but there's speculation that the Finance Committee won't meet this year and that it will end with the distinction of being the first in recent memory where the committee (that once met twice monthly) didn't meet at all. Not even to receive and review a report submitted from the city's annual financial audit from an outside firm (which is a separate report than that given annually by Asst. City Manager/Financial Officer Paul Sundeen).

When Davis ran for office, he said he would bring his experience with finance onto the city council and push for more financial accountability including with the annual budget. However, since he's been elected City Hall has made it difficult for anyone to do so and the denial of his assignment to chair the Finance Committee is probably just the most obvious step taken to prevent any close look by the city council in a public forum of the city's financial issues. It's a good bet that if Davis adhered to his philosophy while campaigning then he would as chair called for regular meetings of this committee. Something that either Loveridge realized and didn't like or he realized that it might cause conflict (which is something Loveridge abhors and tries to avoid at all costs).

A trend which is interesting to follow in Riverside is how there's an inverse relationship between the promotion of Riverside Renaissance and financial accountability at City Hall. Of course, the latter started to diminish not long after the city hired its current administrator, Brad Hudson and that includes the decline of the Finance Committee which can be traced back to about mid 2005 which is when Hudson replaced interim city manager Tom Evans. There were fewer Finance Committee meetings in the last six months of 2005 than there had been in the previous six months and the number of meetings began to sharply decline from 2006 onward to the present practice of having zero meetings. Don't be totally amazed out of your socks if the city council upon advisement by the city manager's office decides just to disband its Finance Committee within the next year.

Sounds far fetched? Not really, if you consider the earlier steps taken by the city council to hand over its financial accountability powers piece by piece to Hudson. If there's ever a controversy about how City Hall handles its finances, then the place to start looking begins when the finance department was placed under the city manager's office apparently not long after Hudson arrived. But that was back when the city had only one assistant manager, not three of them and people in those positions were required to have masters degrees. Changing that latter requirement might have cost this city a very fine human resources director in Art Alcaraz and instead replaced that with what appears to be a department with two directors in place. One that reports to Hudson and one that reports to DeSantis, according to some folks.

CPRC commissioner watch update

As you know, the commission has deteriorated to the point where you have commissioners who are apparently starting to oust each other off the body. At its last meeting on Sept. 23, Commissioners Peter Hubbard and Art Santore tried to get the meeting date changed which if it had taken place might have cost the CPRC a commissioner or two. The official version is that Hubbard was trying to push this agenda item for months but that seems odd because there's nothing controversial about such a seemingly mundane item for it to get vetoed by the trio who informally comprise what appears to be the CPRC Agenda Vetting Committee.

These individuals are CPRC manager, Kevin Rogan, City Attorney Gregory Priamos and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis who is involved when he has five minutes free from micromanaging and some say running different city departments including the police department. So it seems unlikely that this item agenda would have been put on ice by this unofficial committee for very long.

At any rate, it finally was agendized and even when it became clear that one commissioner, John Brandriff would have to resign, Hubbard still pushed it and when he finally bailed, Santore picked it up and started pushing it as well. The message they sent the community that attended loud and clear (besides the fact that they don't like community which they always put on blast)is that they don't value each other and that dissent by a minority of commissioners may equate removal of those commissioners by putting them in positions where they could no longer serve. As it stood, Brandriff would have been forced to resign and Commissioners Chani Beeman and Brian Pearcy might have been in a position where their employment might have caused them to consider whether or not they could still serve. What do these three commissioners have in common by the way?

None of them are overly influenced by City Hall and don't comprise the current majority of Hubbard, Santore, Ken Rotker, Chair Sheri Corral and occasionally Robert Slawsby (a former city council candidate himself) who is tight with some of the people hired to handle former Councilman Frank Schiavone's campaign. Slawsby occasionally votes on his own especially if he feels that a particular motion if passed might infringe on his own free expression, i.e. his decision to vote with Beeman to not ban minority reports.

The majority appears intent on wooing Slawsby on its side because if he voted with the previous minority contingent, it would bring both factions of the CPRC to a tied vote of 4-4, at least until the newest commissioner is sworn in and is forced to pick sides. Then again, he barely sat through half of the last meeting before picking up his computer and leaving so it's not clear if he has the stomach to serve on the fractious commission and if so, how long he'll be serving if he gets a job with the Riverside County District Attorney's office and is forced to resign.

The motion didn't really go anywhere, Brandriff's not resigning but he was very disturbed by what happened as he should be and as it turns out there's a commissioner who's leaving soon and it's not him. It's probably going to be Corral who is rumored to be moving out of the city and if that happens, she'll no longer be allowed to serve on the CPRC. That would most likely elevate Hubbard to the chair position and as such, it makes sense the extra furor City Hall put into promoting his election to that position by allowing the first (and only) teleconference vote to be cast during the entire history of the CPRC.

If or when Corral vacates the commission, it will cause a shift in the power dynamic in a way that might freak out the factions at City Hall which are micromanaging the CPRC for a little while but Corral is the only commissioner from the third ward which means that Councilman Rusty Bailey most likely will be rooting around for a campaign supporter to promote for the spot. Even though the mayor and entire city council are involved in the appointment process for the CPRC, it's become clear that it's pretty much the city council member who winds up in a roundabout way, appointing the commissioner to fill his ward's spot. That was certainly the case with the Santore, Slawsby and with the latest appointment as well.

Never a dull moment with the CPRC's dramatics but never a really productive moment as well. It makes one nostalgic for the period in the CPRC's history when commissioners served without whining about how hard it was and were truly interested in the community, not more concerned about what shirts the city could purchase for them (during fiscally difficult times). They actually produced annual reports, did extensive outreach, participated in doing work rather than handing it off to the executive manager and weren't averaging in the three digits for days it took them to process complaints. They held meetings of their subcommittees, well actually they had subcommittees and they met twice monthly. They didn't try to kick each other to the curb over a disagreement or power play. The executive director or manager actually worked full-time rather than being passed off as a full-time employee but actually working part-time hours.

But neither of the full-time executive directors/managers lasted very long and probably the most independent and certainly the most community orientated one, Pedro Payne was pretty much forced to resign by DeSantis and Hudson. After all, his resignation came a scant few weeks after DeSantis allegedly got angry (though his gun thankfully remained holstered) and forced Payne to leave a meeting at City Hall about officer-involved death investigative protocol on the Lee Deante Brown shooting case in December 2006.

One person said that when they ran into Payne, he had been following what had been going on with the current micromanagement of the CPRC and Rogan only being a shadow of what a manager could be and told them that this is why he couldn't do the job anymore. And Payne had loved being the CPRC manager. At the time, he said that it was one of the most rewarding jobs he had ever had. But while the interim city management had given him the opportunity to do that job fully, the Hudson and DeSantis duo decided that the commission really didn't need an independent manager but one they could control instead. Which makes sense given their apparent feelings about having department heads who are actually like...independent managers.

But none of these folks are really the problem here. The problem is having a city government who is willing to give high scores on an evaluation to two direct city employees who are at best allowing the CPRC to become a nonentity, proving once again that when it comes to learning from history, the government's not very good students. If you followed what happened with the CPRC's ancestor, LEPAC in the 1980s and especially the 1990s, then what is happening with the CPRC should be very familiar.

Ron Pacheco learns how to share

The cost of the Regency Tower newly constructed in downtown Riverside has just gone up another million dollars or so. But two departments will be sharing the vast office space with the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The building is almost complete, and the county plans to move employees in on schedule in mid-November, said facilities management spokesman Tom Freeman.

The board agreed in April that the district attorney's office would not grow large enough to fill the building any time soon and should share with the county counsel and the Probation Department's administration. At that meeting, Rob Field, director of facilities management, told supervisors putting the two departments in the building would cost about $3 million.

Since then, the slump in new construction has driven down building and materials costs, Freeman said. As a result, the county will save more than $1 million over the initial estimate, he said.

District Attorney Rod Pacheco told supervisors in April that he had no problem sharing the building with the two departments, but he questioned the millions in additional spending.






The Press Enterprise Editorial Board hands out two endorsements in Norco's upcoming city council election. It hasn't endorsed yet in Riverside's mayoral race, which includes incumbent, Loveridge and challengers Gage and local artist and activist Ken Stansbury who's running as a write-in candidate. It's not clear yet whether there will be any more publicly held debates but there's still just over a month until the election. Brochures on the candidates for the mayoral and school board elections have already been sent to voters in the mail by the Registrar's office.



Press Enterprise columnist Carl Love writes about the battle in Temecula over the young adult novel, Speak and whether it will be taught in class. The school board finally approved it during its meeting.



(excerpt)



So kudos to the school board for doing the right thing because everybody who is in high school, has ever been to high school, or has ever had high school kids should read this book. Did we leave anybody out?

Getting teens to relate to required reading can be like getting a toddler to connect with Tolstoy. This book does the impossible.

It's great literature teens can identify with and therefore take interest in, a huge deal as any teacher knows. As much as I love Hemingway, how much can kids today relate? Unless it's called "The Old Man and the Internet," kids aren't buying.

Great Oak High School English teacher Courtney Evans, who spoke before the school board, shrewdly notes that the third page of "Speak" lists "The First Ten Lies They Tell You in High School." With that as a hook, you think kids won't devour the rest of the book?

By the way, the No. 1 lie is "We are here to help you." And still teachers want kids to see this book. That should tell you how important it is.

The power of the work is that it touches on more sensitive topics than the health care debate: the rape, underage drinking, suicide, depression, teenage ridicule and other matters so delicate that the school board had to weigh in.

Nazi Pride

Some of the Nazis or their supporters have been hanging out on Inland Empire Craigslist to praise the Nazi rally. Apparently, they were upset that there were "Mexicans", gays and lesbians at the rally. Remember, if you read their 25 point plan on the national Web site for the National Socialist Movement, they would banish these individuals (and others) from their United States.

This blond woman who's giving a Heil Hitler sign was praised for her courage by her supporters.

It makes sense for them to show up on Craigslist because not long ago, they were using the site to recruit new members to the state chapter of the NSM that was started in Riverside last year.






Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein tackles Riverside's perplexing habit of evicting downtown businesses and then figuring out what to do with their properties.


(excerpt)

Does the city have a design for this parking garage? No. Has it solicited bids? No. Inked contracts? No. Is it even sure how much of these buildings (there's some history there) it wants to save? No. Is it anxious for demolition to begin before the Fox's mid-January ga-ga gala and Sheryl's later opener? No!

But it wants those tenants out by Dec. 31? Oh, yeah. Out! Out!

Councilman Mike Gardner, who represents the area, seems to be familiar with the city's two-step "redevelopment" procedure: 1. Out you go! 2. Now what?

Gardner: "We have not managed these kinds of things as well as we could." Which led him to add: "We don't really know when they'll (the latest batch of evictees) be out. Nobody wants a bunch of empty buildings sitting there." But that's what the city does!

Unless... unless, just this one time, the city doesn't force anyone out until it has a) come up with a plan and b) is ready to execute it.

Gardner: "I want to close the gap between when the building is vacant and when the construction starts." How wide would this gap be? "An acceptable gap is 30 days between having vacant buildings and going after toxics (asbestos & lead in the run-up to demolition)."

Joe Flyr, owner of Beasley's antiques -- one of the tenants on the brink -- says Gardner has been "extremely helpful" in the hunt for a new Riverside location. Flyr's opinion carries weight since he also had the pleasure of being evicted from the Stalder Building. In that instance, City Hall proved remote and unhelpful; his relocation to Van Buren Boulevard didn't work out; so he opened a retail biz in the back of his huge warehouse, located, as fate would have it, in the Fox Theatre-close buildings that will now give way to a parking garage.

Bernstein also weighed in on a lawsuit filed against Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco by a former prosecutor including allegations he appeared on a "Batman and Robin" videotape with a junior prosecutor accused of misconduct including sexual harassment.





Speaking of Pacheco, the outgoing president of the Riverside County Bar Association launched a strike against him blaming him for the congestion that has plagued the Riverside County Superior Court system.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



There is a huge effort by our judges to free up space for civil litigants, but the criminal cases just keep coming.

The county Board of Supervisors needs to take its share of responsibility for this. Pacheco answers to the board each time he seeks additional funding. Has the board considered where the money is spent? Has the board inquired of the district attorney why the courts are so backlogged with cases? If not, now's the time to ask it to do so.

The public also contributes to court congestion. Citizens want the district attorney to fight crime, but surely they also want to have their civil matters heard in a timely manner. With so few civil cases being tried, it is extremely difficult to get settlements. Where insurance is involved, insurance companies hold back their money for as long as they can, waiting for a litigant to give up and take the paltry sum being offered.

Being tough on crime is one thing, but taking an unreasonable position so that our courts are unable to address the needs of the people is quite another. In future elections this is something that the district attorney's office and the public need to consider.




Wildomar should not elect its council members by district. So states the Press Enterprise Editorial Board.


(excerpt)



Nor does Wildomar have a history of unfairly denying representation to particular areas or populations -- the other usual rationale for council districts. The city is brand new; it has no record of political exclusion.

A new government facing the enormous challenges of creating a sustainable city should be seeking the best candidates for office. Council districts arbitrarily limit city voters' choices to one council seat, instead of all five. And districts can block good people from serving by geographically restricting representation.

At-large elections are the city's best course. Wildomar voters should say yes to Measure I and no to Measures J and K.




Inglewood's police department has been accused of withholding information on some officer-involved shootings.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



n a statement last week, the City Council announced that it had received the report by the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review, a civilian oversight group, but was withholding it because of attorney-client privilege in legal matters involving the Police Department. The council did not specify when the report would be released, stating only that it would "eventually" be made public in its entirety.

"The goal of the review . . . is to inform the public of the reform efforts now underway, evaluate all aspects of the department's operation, preserve public safety, and help officers serve the community at the highest level," the council said in the statement.

City Atty. Cal Saunders declined to answer a reporter's questions about why the report fell under attorney-client privilege, or what legal matters were barring the report's release. Council members and other city officials declined to comment or did not return requests for comment.

The report marks the first independent, external assessment of the department since the shootings, in which officers shot and killed four men over a span of four months in 2008. Three of them were unarmed. The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division is also investigating the department's policies and procedures. The L.A. County district attorney's office and the FBI have opened inquiries into specific shootings.

Update on the Harassment of a Blogger

A while back, a female blogger who wrote on domestic violence involving law enforcement officers was threatened by one of the deputies that she wrote about, this one being employed by different agencies including currently, Palm Beach County named Ira Peskowitz.

More information on this disturbing incident was posted here and on different blogs in the internet.

Recently, she was contacted by his agency's internal affairs division and this is the response they sent her:


(excerpt)



"...The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, Division of Internal Affairs, wishes to inform you that the allegations you made against Deputy Sheriff Ira Peskowitz, ID 7583, were able to be substantiated to a level of certainty where disciplinary action would be authorized. D/S Peskowitz received a Written Reprimad for his actions in this case. A Copy of the Personnel Complaint Report Summary Sheet is enclosed. You may request a copy of the written report..."



Behind the Blue Wall keeps a valuable record of all the cases of law enforcement related domestic violence including this shocking update of how former DeKalb County Sheriff's department, deputy Derrick Yancey, facing two murder indictments, fled the country and was finally apprehended in Belize. It's shocking how someone who's facing double murder charges including killing his own wife would be released on bail in the first place and allowed to run around with a GPS ankle bracelet which he then cut loose and no one knew about that for a while. If he hadn't been given special privileges due to his law enforcement background, a lot of time, energy and expense wouldn't have been spent trying to put him back in jail.

If you want to research this issue or learn more about domestic violence pertaining to law enforcement officers, her blog is the top resource on the internet.






Ward Four Community Meeting

held by Councilman Paul Davis as part of an ongoing series

Thursday Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m.

Orange Terrace Center in Orangecrest

Topic: Gless Ranch Market Place and Grove Preservation





The Group is hosting Mayor Ron Loveridge on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7 a.m. at Coffee Depot on Mission Inn Avenue in downtown Riverside.





Here are five CEOs sitting pretty while their companies tanked last year. Woo Hoo!

Riverside: City of Arts, Innovation and...Nazi rallies

"The Holocaust also shows us how a combination of events and attitudes can erode a society's democratic values."

---Tim Holden



"The Nazis victimized some people for what they did, some for what they refused to do, some for what they were, and some for the fact that they were."


---John Conway

"If you look at the election of the first black president and the state of the economy being what it is today, with unemployment at an all-time high, these types of things are kind of a perfect storm for these feelings to foment and for white supremacists to feel validated."


---Joanna Mendelson, Anti-Defamation League

"Have you noticed that everyone has the freedom of speech except any white group. If it was not for the white man no one would care to live in the US, because it would be just another crime infested country. They have rights to speak out. Sergio Ramos says that they don't have the right to be here. Since when. It is Mr.Ramos who does not have the right to be here."

---Anonymous commenter at PE.com.

Images of the Holocaust




The Press Enterprise wrote this article about the decision of local members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) to hold a rally in Riverside, California as part of a day of similar rallies countywide held at areas where day laborers congregate. The response to this article in the comments section was pretty immediate and prolific.


(excerpts)



Holy Smokes. Riverside is the headquarters for the California branch of this group? Maybe the Chamber of Commerce should host a counter-rally as well. I can't think of anything more degrading to a city than to host these creeps.



Other cities/counties have peace marches and rainbow coalition fairs, but not here. Here in Riverside we host the NEO NAZIs. What is with this place? If want Riverside to be a great place for all then we need to do something about these Neo Nazis who want to make our county it's base! People, wake up!



The Inland Empire...nazi rally, statewide nazi office for California....hate-mongers hired by Neil Derry & paid by the County Citizens.....I have a great idea for a border fence: a huge one surrounding San Bernardino, Riverside, Redlands to keep all of the whackos contained inside of it!




No, I get out a lot.
My point in saying it was, that it's right in Casa Blanca.
And they are NOT moved by any authorities what so ever.
There is a constant presence at that corner.
There is also another just like it, when you make the connection from old Magnolia in Corona going east, right at Home Gardens.
Either way, loitering is a code violation.
Don't see why it is not dealt with.

And they really are no different then the prostitutes.


.
Selling your services, per use of your body.





"The movement supports the expulsion of all nonwhite immigrants."

This doesn't sound Nazi to you? LOL

So its ok for an Irish illegal immigrant to seek work at Home Depot...but not a Mexican illegal immigrant? Nazi's are so silly.

I'm not saying either is right....illegal is illegal. But no one can deny the racial undertone (errr overtone...its so obvious) to this protest.

They are trying to come across as being concerned citizens by ostensibly leading a protest against illegal immigration. You are naïve if you think that is the only reason, that they hate Latinos is an added bonus for them.

Don’t forget these are the same people that won’t think twice about putting their steel toed boots to somebody’s head because they are not of the Aryan race. So for that I hope they’re confronted with an army of concerned citizens, who don’t need their kind of hatred in our community.

Let real citizens protest illegal immigration. Not a bunch of skin-headed hoodlums.

"Hall said armed movement members regularly patrol the California border with Mexico..." Wow. Y'all need to find a hobby. Needlepoint is very calming.

What do Nazis look like? They look like a lot of different people wandering around society. They're White because after all, it's a White Supremacist movement. Most are men though there's some women and a lot of them shave their heads and wear steel toed boots and black tee-shirts with some Nazi insigna on them. But when they're not playing Nazis, they go about their lives like most anyone else, hiding in plain sight.

Until Saturday morning anyway.


The NSM as its members call themselves issued this press release about its decision to launch a county-wide protest in the Inland Empire. Last year a chapter started in Riverside which represents the state but it's not clear how many members have joined up. Several agencies and organizations including the United States Department of Justice and The Anti-Defamation League have been monitoring the situation particularly in the past couple of weeks when news apparently got out that a Nazi rally had been planned.


In the Nazis' press release, they offered themselves up for interviews with the local media and said that anyone who wanted to do a "ride along" with them as they patrolled this country as part of their efforts to build their drive to be the largest pro-white national socialist group in America. And yes, they will be bringing the Nazi flags to fly alongside the American flag. Actually, the flags themselves are a curious marriage between those two flags.

And to say that this group is just about celebrating White heritage, or a White Pride movement or being against illegal immigration, read their 25 points of NSM and see you still believe that.



(excerpt)



25 POINTS OF AMERICAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM

1. We demand the union of all Whites into a greater America on the basis of the right of national self-determination.

2. We demand equality of rights for the American people in its dealings with other nations, and the revocation of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the World Bank, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle surplus population.

4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the state. Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Non-citizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.

5. The right to vote on the State government and legislation shall be enjoyed by citizens of the state alone.

We therefore demand that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the nation, in the states or in smaller localities, shall be held by none but citizens.

We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of filling posts merely in accordance with party considerations and special interests-without reference to character or abilities.

6. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) will be deported.

7. All non-White immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.

8. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties, regardless of class or station.

9. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash within the framework of the community and be for the common good.

We therefore demand:

10. The abolition of incomes unearned by work The breaking of interest slavery.

11. In view of the enormous personal sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

12. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

13. We demand economic reform suitable to our national requirements;

The prohibition of pro-marxist unions and their supplantation with National Socialist trade unions;

The passing of a law instituting profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises;

The creation of a livable wage;

The restructuring of social security and welfare to include drug testing for welfare recipients;

The immediate discontinuation of all taxes on things of life's necessity, such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine etc.:

The replacement of the current tax system with a flat-rate tax based on income.

14. We demand the treasonable system of health care be completely revolutionized.

We demand an end to the status quo in which people die or rot away from lack of proper treatment due to the failure of their medical coverage, Health Maintenance Organization, or insurance policy.

We further demand the extensive development of insurance for old age and that prescription drugs be made both affordable and accessible.

15. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small trades in the placing of state and municipal orders.

16. We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, that shall be twofold in nature:

The primary land reform will be to ensure all members of the nation receive affordable housing. The party as such stands explicitly for private property.

However, we support the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation when deemed necessary for land illegally acquired, or not administered in accordance with the national welfare.

We further demand the abolition of ground rent, the discontinuation of all taxes on property, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

The secondary land reform will be to ensure the environmental integrity of the nation is preserved;

By setting aside land for national wildlife refuges;

By cleaning the urban, agricultural, and hydrographical (water) areas of the nation;

By creating legislation regulating the amount of pollution, carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases , and toxins released into the atmosphere;

And for the continued research and development of clean burning fuels and energy sources.

17. We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, usurers, profiteers, race traitors, etc. must be severely punished, whatever their creed or race.

18. We demand that Roman edict law, which serves a materialistic new world order, be replaced by Anglo-Saxon common law.

19. The state must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education with the aim of opening up to every able and hardworking American the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement.

The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life.

The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the state of the nation through the study of civic affairs.

We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the state.

20. The state must ensure that the nation's health standards are raised by protecting mothers, infants, and the unborn:

By prohibiting abortion and euthanasia, except in cases of rape, incest, race-mixing, or mental retardation

By prohibiting child labor and ending the rudiments of child abuse, alcoholism, and drug addiction.

By creating conditions to make possible the reestablishment of the nuclear family in which the father works while the mother stays at home and takes care of the children if they so choose.

By taking away the economic burden associated with childbirth and replacing it with a structured system of pay raises for those that give birth to healthy babies, thereby returning the blessing associated with children.

To further ensure that the nation's health standards are raised, legislation shall be passed promoting physical strength and providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.

21. We demand the right to bear arms for law-abiding citizens.

22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army, the end to the over-use of our military as a 'Meals-on-Wheels' program in foreign lands of no vital interest to our nation; and the formation of a true national service for the defense of our race and nation. One that excludes: non-Americans, criminals, and sensitivity training.

23. We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a national press we demand:

(a) That all editors of and contributors to newspapers appearing in the English language must be members of the nation;

(b) That no non-American newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be written in the English language;

(c) That non-Whites shall be prohibited by law from participating financially in or influencing American newspapers, and that the penalty for contravening such a law shall be the suppression of any such newspapers, and the immediate deportation of the non-Americans involved.

The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden. We demand the legal prosecution of all those tendencies in art and literature which corrupt our national life, and the suppression of cultural events which violate this demand.

24. We demand absolute religious freedom for all denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the White race. The Party combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common good before self-interest.

25. To put the whole program into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central national government for the nation; the unconditional authority of the political central parliament over the entire nation and its organizations; and the formation of committees for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the nation and the various American States.

The leaders of the movement promise to work ruthlessly-if need be to sacrifice their very lives-to translate this program into action.



And they probably wouldn't mind taking a few (non-White) lives with them during this "work". After all, Tom Metzger, the leader of a White Supremacist organization in Fallbrook was linked to the murder of an Ethiopian man who was killed by members of his racist organization and ultimately held liable at least in civil court. Yet, for a time Metzger was in the mainstream winning the Democratic Party nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980. His party responded by endorsing the Republican who ran against him.

Randall Bowen was attacked and wounded by a mob of Western Hammarskin skinheads in 1999. Two of his attackers went to prison and four others in the mob took plea bargains involving jail time. Metzger sat in the courtroom during several of their court appearances.

Reading the list of "points", it looks like it's adopting positions on issues from several different political issues and some of them are the hot button issues of this time. But what's clear is that these benefits are for Whites only because their version of the United States is very limited in who will be afforded citizenship.


Affordable housing, affordable health care, things that appeal to a lot of people especially right now, but only Whites (and "pure" ones at that) are allowed to live in their vision of the United States. Perhaps and it's scary to think so, they'd actually attract more recruits if they emphasized these two areas, rather than immigrant (and they don't really like non-White legal immigrants much either and have no problem with White undocumented immigrants) bashing.

So as you can see, it's not "illegal immigration" that is their main thrust, but that's the group of people and sentiment they are trying to attract because according to their own "points", anyone who's not White, heterosexual and Christian is essentially an "alien". In Riverside, that means that Councilman Andrew Melendrez is an "alien". It means that Asst. Chief John De La Rosa, Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel and Lt. Larry Gonzalez, all Latino officers from the Riverside Police Department all of who attended the rallies as part of their jobs are all "aliens" as were some of the police officers who showed up to protect the Nazis' right to exercise the First Amendment. None of them would have a right to live in this country under those 25 Points, certainly not as citizens. Even Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco would be an "alien" and subject to deportation and most of all the residents of the neighborhood that the Nazis chose for their protest.

So it's not about citizens having more rights than legal immigrants and especially undocumented ones, it's about skin color and religious ideology and sexual orientation serving as the criteria regarding who would be a citizen in their United States. Oh and you can't be disabled, nor can your children.

That's why you don't see the NSM up in Portland, Oregon for example where 75% of undocumented immigrants are from European countries especially the former Soviet Union. Even though the Northwestern part of the United States has attracted racist ideologists, their focus has been on people of color because those individuals are included in the list of people who wouldn't be allowed to have citizenship in the United States, Nazi style.

But then again, you don't see the Minutemen up rallying up there either. The ones from there come down to California and Arizona to rally against brown undocumented immigrants. The Nazis do turn out at the Minutemen's protests usually hanging out with the guys who fly the Confederate flags. And it's not like the Minutemen chase them off or tell them to leave because they don't want to be associated with their kind.

No, you see the NSM folks rallying further south where stronger concentrations of undocumented immigrants are brown. They chose a neighborhood to rally in that is predominantly Latino and Black, rather than White even though everyone knows that most of the White Supremacists ("groups" because they're hardly ever called "gangs") hang out in the southern areas of Riverside. If you go up to the Mission Grove Plaza, you can see men with shaved heads and "White Pride" tattooed on their arms and if you go on a bus, you might sit down next to a man wearing twin lightning bolts (which is associated with Nazism)
on his arm. It's pretty shocking the first time you see it, but then you get more jaded each time.

Rumors are that White-Supremacist gang members have beaten up Guatemalan immigrants but these immigrants never report it and why should they, now that the police department which is supposed to protect the public is teaming up with the U.S. Border Patrol? Why report a beating when you might get detained and deported after being handed over to Border Patrol? And it's no idle fear as one of the fastest growing categories of hate crimes in the Inland Empire are against Latinos who are either undocumented immigrants or perceived to be because people who are physically violent and hateful towards particular racial groups probably aren't going to ask first. Not to mention that the raids of the day laborer site which was the epicenter of the Nazis' rally started around the same time some border patrol agents in the Riverside office began complaining about being expected to meet arrest and detention quotas or else.

The Riverside Police Department has done some really good work helping undocumented women who are victims of domestic violence (and several federal statutes give these women access to Visas) and treating them as victims or survivors, not as criminals. That's the type of policing that needs more support because for one thing, what if there's a violent crime and your only witnesses are too afraid to come forward because they're undocumented?

The one thing that's clear is that there are hate gangs (and that's what they are under the legal definition) that are attracted to the Inland Empire including Riverside and there are hate groups like this local chapter of the NSM (which haven't been associated with violence locally)that are as well.

And why would the Nazis want to set up a chapter in Riverside anyway? That question is both simple and complicated to answer.

Three Rallies, Different Messages

Saturday morning broke and the Nazis, all nine of them, came and rallied in Riverside. Apparently, their leader Jeff Hall who runs their local office couldn't make it to push their numbers into the double digits because his car broke down en route.

They congregated at the Home Depot on Indiana and Madison but didn't stay there very long before being confronted by several hundred counter demonstrators who apparently grabbed some Nazi flags, ripped them up and chased them back into their cars by about 10:45, just before I arrived. A Press Enterprise photo on its Web site did show two groups of people jostling with a man with the silver cross tattooed on his arm grabbing someone else's arm. It's hard to believe that someone who would tattoo something like that on his body (and experience some degree of physical pain in the process) would not know the horrible history that this symbol represents. Or even worse, he wouldn't care.

The Police Department dispatched riot police and the METRO squad team out to do crowd control and a helicopter flew overhead. Most of the demonstrators who protested the Nazis in Casa Blanca were from outside the neighborhood. Most of the people who lived in the neighborhood who were in the area just watched them rally and didn't join in, some of them wondering why they were protesting the Nazis when they couldn't even see them. and why they had come to Casa Blanca in the first place.

Confronting the Nazis the way that these counter demonstrators did brought increased police activity into the predominantly Latino neighborhood that has long struggled with its relationship with the police department especially considering that one police officer stationed there gets probably more complaints made (but few filed with the CPRC) than any other police officer in the department. He didn't appear to be there but over a dozen other police officers were there to address a situation where a confrontation had taken place and some of them remained even after the demonstrators had moved on.

It's interesting how police administrations believe that there are two classes of protesters. Those who have to be protected by police from others and those that others have to be protected from. The anti-war demonstrators who protested both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2001 and 2003 often felt the police were there to protect other people from their protest even as they were getting egg thrown at them, shot with a flare gun, shot at with a real gun, stabbed by skinheads and in the case of a young woman, hit in the eye with one-inch bolt and losing sight in that eye. By the time someone fired a gun at a group of them near Starbucks on University and Iowa, they had stopped calling police and when the police found out, they got upset at them for not calling them about it. But at that point, these activists didn't feel like they could. After all, when one police officer pulled his car over in front of them, he laughed at them and cracked a joke about what they were doing so people viewed the department as not responding to them because it disagreed with them about the war. After having a long discussion with the police department, there was a greater police presence at subsequent rallies and the peace activists felt more along the lines that the police were protecting them and not others from them. But that conversation had to take place first and often it's communication that makes changes that both the communities and police can live with.

Protesting isn't always safe in Riverside.

So you can argue that the Nazis needed to be protected from harm while they protest because of people's reactions to them based on the history of that ideology and what it's done to people. Six million and more dead in concentration camps, as part of a government eugenics program. Why would anyone want to be associated with that kind of past? Why would anybody want to bring those values back?

Nazism and its symbols invoke strong emotional responses in people who are confronted by it, both in its small and larger displays. Even as Germany spent decades after World War II being split in two by two different political ideologies and governments, a reunified country grapples with its own history of Nazism. And exactly how much free speech and expression given to those who are trying to bring it back.

The United States own history with Nazism and fascism in other countries has been complicated and murky in its own way. After all, many of the major businessmen in the United States brokered deals with fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and sold steal to Italy so it could build its ships and tanks which would later be turned against the United States. Antisemitism was rampant in the 1930s during the Great Depression because it's during the toughest economic times that philosophies like fascism, communism and Nazism take root and grow. Millions of people were killed under the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Josef Stalin and other dictators.

But Mussolini was such a great guy at least for a while according to business men in the United States and who's that standing in the photo with him in the above link? The one with the Charlie Chaplin mustache?


(excerpt)




Before that, though, in the 1920s and even into the 1930s, many leading Europeans and Americans paid honor to the Duce as a wise leader. When Mussolini waged terrorist war against Libyan nationalists in 1927, Winston Churchill said he rendered a service to the whole world. Richard Washburn Child, a novelist who was American ambassador to Italy when Mussolini took power, later ghostwrote Mussolini’s “autobiography,” praising him in the book’s preface as a man who, like few in history, had created a new state with a dynamic program.

Mussolini was not the only dictator of his time. In his Europe, in a time of worldwide economic depression, a whole series of governments were run by “strong men.” Besides Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany, there were authoritarian regimes if not dictatorships in the 1930s in Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. There were Blueshirts in Ireland, Blackshirts in Britain, and Vidkun Quisling’s followers in Norway. At the eastern end of Europe lay the greatest dictatorship of them all, Stalin’s Soviet Union.




But that was then, and this is now, the day that the Nazis have decided to hold their rally in Riverside, the All-American City, the Most Livable City, the City of Arts and Innovation and so forth and now, the host of the state office of the nation's largest neo-Nazi organization. None of the city's political leaders commented publicly on this situation nor did any of them attend the counter-rally in downtown Riverside just outside the building where most of them have offices. And it appears that the aforementioned Chamber of Commerce didn't send representatives either. After all, if Riverside hosts the state-wide chapter of the Nazi Party, does that make this city more business friendly or less? Perhaps they think if they ignore them, then that sends a statement that they oppose their ideology and presence in this city. But some people have often said that silence equals complicity and they are right. Others feel like they're not voicing their objection to Nazism and other hateful philosophies unless they do it more forcefully but if they do that then they're just acting more like...Nazis. Both groups feel like there's only one proper way to respond. To either ignore it and hope it goes away or to stomp out any sign of it, before it can grow.

Believe it or not, there's plenty of room in between to respond to Nazis coming up and trying to set up roots in what they believe is fertile ground in Riverside. There were several hundred of those who did peacefully protest their presence and didn't run up to them and rip Nazi flags and tear them apart. First of all, doing that sends the message that the counter demonstrators are violent which played into the Nazis' hands and 2) the people who are doing it are doing it in someone else's neighborhood. So those that do things like that might feel good believing they've stomped out Nazism, won the game so to speak, when they hop on the 91 Freeway and go back home to your neighborhood or your city but what about the neighborhood they've just left?

Casa Blanca And Day Laborers

The issue of the day laborers is very complicated in Casa Blanca where many congregate at some business areas including McDonalds and Home Depot. It's been an issue that has been debated and discussed at many community meetings including those held by the Community Action Group. Casa Blanca, one of the city's oldest communities has always had a wealth of leaders invested in the many different challenges that it's faced since the days when its residents served as an active labor force for the region's then vibrant citrus industry. But not everyone in the neighborhood agrees on the issue just like any place else.

The community has also engaged with the city council though they had difficulties with their past councilman, Frank Schiavone in terms of getting him involved in the issue. There were many discussions held out whether or not to put up a day laborer center or not and if so, where and how. Other organizations including one at the University of California, Riverside have been involved in the day laborer debate.

The police department met last year with representatives from the local office of U.S. Border Patrol to discuss their efforts at detention and identification of the nationality of people detained. Not long after that beginning in January, both agencies swept in and did arrests and people of mainly Guatemalan backgrounds looking for construction jobs were detained, arrested and some deported. For a while, the police department's leadership was somewhat vague both on these raids and its relationship with Border Patrol, even when pressed. And when the National Day Laborer Network submitted a California Public Records Act Request to the police department asking for data on arrests and detentions of individuals, they received scant information from the department which met their request. The Network then sued the department and the city in the Riverside County Superior Court and a tentative date for a status hearing was set for November.

It's difficult to sum it all up in a few words or catchy slogans in a community filled with diverse opinions on those issues which is one reason why the message that these demonstrators were sending didn't appear to appeal much to people in Casa Blanca. It's always like that when you go into a neighborhood unannounced without talking to anyone who lives there about what their feelings are, including about having Nazis within their boundaries and that's something that should always come first.

Nearby, a long-time Press Enterprise reporter was on his cell phone sounding a bit piqued saying that they would have had to zoom way in to maybe get a picture of the Nazis before they fled the Home Depot. He said that the only thing going on right now was that there were about a hundred of people congregated across the street from Farmer's Boys shouting across the street from where he stood. They were at that time standing near an auto parts shop in a large group. A couple street vendors were selling ice cream and drinks on the very hot day. The riot police and SWAT team were strung out across the driveway and into the drive-thru area of the Farmer's Boy restaurant across the street.

There's some pictures below in this blog that you won't see in the mainstream media like the Press Enterprise because they don't involve people confronting each other and ripping things out of each other's hands. On the Press Enterprise site, there weren't any photos of the demonstration downtown nor were there any photos of the protest that took place after the Nazis left. As far as the newspaper was concerned, the whole issue was settled when the Nazis fled in their cars as if that were what the issue was all about when in reality, it's about Riverside and why they decided to set up their state office here in the first place.

[Over a hundred individuals congregate near Indiana and Madison in Casa Blanca to counter-demonstrate against a Nazi rally going on behind a police barricade at Home Depot.]








[People demonstrating against the Nazi rally that took place at Home Depot in Casa Blanca]

Asst. Police Chief John De La Rosa stood next to Lt. Larry Gonzalez who heads the department's SWAT and Aviation units and one of his sergeants, Eric Charrette who oversaw the action at the site. They seemed pretty calm and most of the police officers were getting into their cars and leaving at this point. Two officers in a patrol car remained parked in one of the driveways to Farmer's Boys which was nestled in between the 91 Freeway and a set of railroad tracks.

Home Depot's head of security, Joe Vazquez also stood in his uniform observing as well. Only about a month ago, Vazquez had been interviewed by the city council for the Ward Two position on the Community Police Review Commission. His security company has contracted with Home Depot and provide security at many of its stores in Southern California including the one on Madison Avenue. His form of security specializes in handling what are called "day laborer issues".

The protesters in Casa Blanca dispersed soon after, leaving the neighborhood they had borrowed as their canvas for a day to go back to its life. Are the Nazis gone for good when it comes to protesting in Casa Blanca, or will they back bolstered by their national headquarters? That remains to be seen what the future holds.


Someone who claimed to have a police scanner commented at the Press Enterprise site on the demonstration.



There was a confrontation and the NSM members left the rally. Some counter-protesters grabbed the NSM flag(s?) and ripped it up and there was some name calling and yelling. I think someone maybe followed the NSM members because later on my scanner someone reported a group of people canvassing a neighborhood door to door looking for Neo-Nazis.


---"Citizen22"

Apparently, information about the founder of the local chapter of the NSM had been passed out at one or both of the rallies and some of the people wanted to protest in the neighborhood where the head Nazi lived. As long as people are peaceful, remain on public property and obey all laws, it's legal to demonstrate in neighborhoods but most people do believe it's an invasion of privacy and it's not the best place or time to protest a philosophy. Even if people in the neighborhood didn't know they had a Nazi living in their midst, they might find visits by counter demonstrators alienating them rather than educating them.


Updates about the rallies were posted at Los Angeles Indy Media here and here mostly relating about how they chased the Nazis out of Riverside. But it remains to be seen if that's the case or whether or not they galvanized other chapters of the NSM to get involved or have helped plant a seed for it to grow. After all, the Nazis got away and they were able to make hay to the press about how they were forced to leave their demonstration and how the police department failed to protect them. This can only help their recruiting cause to get to go to the local media and talk about how they were attacked for exercising their First Amendment rights. After all, they had expressed this reservation that something might happen before they even demonstrated, setting the situation up for a physical confrontation.

After all, hate groups and gangs aren't like most other organizations. Violence or any physical force against them even minor galvanizes their recruitment efforts as they seek out other like-minded individuals during a time in this county's (and country's) history when there's a very unemployment rate and fewer jobs within the city and county. This leaves most parents commuting to their jobs in other counties and their kids home with their computers. Metzger and the heads of other White Supremacist groups and gangs were able to recruit young people in the commuter-heavy cities of Murrieta and Temecula. And in Riverside, another neighborhood that empties out during the day (hence the spikes in burglaries) is Orangecrest, another place of White Supremacist activity.

Gangs exist because they fill voids in young people's lives when there's nothing else to fill them. The same thing is true of White Supremacists including Nazis. You provide them a fertile ground for recruitment and they'll make the most of it.

City Hall Rally under the shadow of King

Meanwhile, in downtown Riverside about 100 people met to rally against the Nazis under the shadow as one speaker said, the Martin Luther King, jr. statue. Access to this rally was somewhat tricky because construction was taking place at City Hall blocking access to most of it. One construction guy joked to another that he had left him in charge for a minute and suddenly all these "squatters" had shown up.

These "squatters" were members of different churches and community organizations who met there to try to show that Riverside is really not about promoting hate. Speakers included a woman who had lost her entire family in the concentration camps during Nazism in Germany. Others said that it was urgent to act to help save others because if you don't, by the time you need saving, there's no one left.

People listened to the speeches while grabbing whatever shade they could find and applauded each speaker as they finished. The Brown Beret representative's speech was bumped up earlier in the program because he and his fellow members were going to go to the rally that was taking place in Casa Blanca. In fact, even though these demonstrators from two dozen organizations meant to send a message in a different way that they wouldn't tolerate intolerance, there was very little mention of them in the daily newspaper and no photographs. In fact, this might be the only photo that you'll see.

[Another 100 or so people rallying at City Hall in Riverside against the Nazi rally taking place several miles away]

The people and organizations who organized the City Hall rally didn't want to engage with the Nazis any more than the Nazis wanted to engage with them, which is one reason why they opted to release the news of their planned location ahead of time. But since they didn't want to engage the Nazis, they weren't going to get the press coverage.

They stood not far away from where demonstrators had stood 10 years earlier protesting the shooting death of Tyisha Miller and where candle light vigils had taken place protesting the firings and resignations of African-American and Latino employees from City Hall, along with lawsuits filed by other Black and Latino workers from various city departments.

To protest in the pedestrian mall these days, you have to purchase insurance and an expensive permit. Whether or not that was a change that came with its renovation or as part of the direction towards enhancing public expression in the vicinity of the city's governmental building isn't clear. But downtown's a location where there's never been a shortage of things to protest. Business owners who were pushed out of downtown by Eminent Domain including many that were owned by Asian-American and Latinos including some who had immigrated to the United States. City Hall is in close proximity to the downtown bus terminal where Greyhound Bus Lines and its 88,000 passengers annually were left in limbo as the passengers found themselves labeled as gang members and parolees even though most of them were seniors, disabled, military personnel, students and poor families who don't own cars.

Ironically the bus terminal used to be a favorite recruitment spot for Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance organization which is based in Fallbrook. He and his associates used to go there on Sunday mornings to hand out racist literature to people. Just down the street as commercially developed Market Street transforms into tree-lined Magnolia, a Chinese-American family was forced to give up their dream and a small market that had stood on the corner of Bandini since World War II was knocked down, primarily because the predominantly White residents of that neighborhood didn't like the predominantly Black residents of several apartment complexes walking down their streets to go to the market.

The people who met in downtown like the people who met in Casa Blanca were trying to defuse the message that was sent by the Nazis and both sides declared their own rallies a success. But what happens the day after?

That's the question that needs to be answered next.

Did Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco retaliate against one of his prosecutors?

"Eileen, people make choices everyday-yesterday, today, tomorrow- and there are consequences for your choices. So remember that,there are consequences for your choices. I hope you make the right choice."


---District Attorney Rod Pacheco to Eileen Hunt when she declined to endorse him for the elected position, according to a lawsuits she filed against him.





"Come on. You can figure it out. Rod told me to set you up so he could get rid of you."


--Former Asst. District Attorney Randall Tagami to Hunt when she asked why her previously excellent performance evaluations weren't so excellent after she declined to endorse Pacheco for office, according to her lawsuit.




"It takes a good prosecutor to convict a guilty man. It takes a great prosecutor to convict an innocent one."


---A much quoted comment that Rod Pacheco allegedly made while delivering a speech during his service in the state assembly. He was appointed as minority leader but was soon removed by members of his own party from that position.



"He's one of us."


--Pacheco about a prosecutor he wanted promoted (amid great resistence) who had lied to supervisors, allegedly violated Brady on a felony case and engaged in sexual harassment.








The recent lawsuit filed by former prosecutor Eileen Hunt alleging that she was among other things retaliated against by her boss, D.A. Rod Pacheco for not endorsing his run for office in 2006 is very interesting reading. She sued him for violating her civil rights, for violating labor codes and for gender discrimination as the once highest ranking female prosecutor in her division was ultimately forced out of her job, according to her complaint filed in Riverside County Superior Court.

Hunt was a very well-known prosecutor who worked extensively on child abuse cases and won awards including one for Felony Prosecutor of the Year. She was promoted to higher positions and given more responsibilities as she built a reputation for herself within the office and within the county.

Apparently that all ended when she declined to endorse Pacheco for the top spot while he was still an assistant district attorney contemplating a run for office in the 2006 election.

The lawsuit makes some serious allegations and mentions a case where she had gone to Pacheco on the disclosure of information to the defense under Brady. In one case, she tried to get Pacheco's authorization to do that in a case where an investigator lied about interviewing a witness in one case. Pacheco said, he didn't believe that was a Brady issue. She pressed him to do that and soon enough, other concerns began to be raised over the same investigator. For what? Lying about interviewing witnesses she had never interviewed.

The concern she had raised onto why this information needed to be disclosed in a number of cases to defense counsel was because one of the department's investigators was under investigation by the FBI and the United States Attorney's office.


Soon after she pushed Pacheco on this issue, she found herself reassigned to the department's Indio office, which is the equivalent of being exiled by the powers that be within the D.A.'s office. Hunt felt this reassignment was an attempt to force her to resign because Pacheco knew it would subject her to a daily five-hour commute to and from her job. She finally agreed and bought a house and had her relocation expenses paid for by Riverside which is required by an MOU between her union and the county.

Soon after, Pacheco informed her he was transferring her back to Riverside. Pacheco was also elected D.A. replacing Grover Trask and the investigator that caused all the controversy was gone. However, Pacheco still insisted that the issue surrounding that investigator's conduct was not a Brady issue. Her evaluations from her supervisor, Sue Steding began to be less glowing and Pacheco met with his upper level staff telling them that they needed to keep information under wraps from media outlets doing coverage on the disgraced investigator who had been investigated for criminal behavior by several federal agencies.

Hunt wound up moving three times in 20 months and faced a three-hour commute to work when she was relocated to Riverside. No D.A.'s office employee had ever been moved around so much in different assignments.


Then another complaint emerged about how a "junior" prosecutor had lied to his supervisor and to Hunt about how he handled a felony child homicide case by reducing it to a misdemeanor without authorization by his supervisor, as required by departmental policies. The prosecutor claimed instead the judge reduced the charge. An investigation substained a detective's allegation that the prosecutor had indeed lied. That didn't seem to matter much to the upper management including Pacheco.

In January 2008, the lying prosecutor, his direct supervisor Hughes and Pacheco made a video where they spoofed Batman and Robin and then sent it out to all the employees through email. The case of child homicide was later dropped because the office didn't feel they could get a conviction while it was at the misdemeanor level.

Hughes then said that she couldn't do anything with the prosecutor found to have lied because it wasn't her jurisdiction even though Hunt was Chief Deputy of the division. She was also forced to reduce the evaluation of an employee in her division from "exceeds expectations" to "meets expectations" or face a charge of insubordination.

Later, she told Hughes she obviously wasn't wanted to serve in management because she hadn't endorsed Pacheco and he told her she needed to "get on the bus". She then started receiving chastizing notices including that she wasn't meeting work hours and she had to do that or face discipline. She said she was being discriminated against because she was a woman because there were male prosecutors who didn't work their full hours with shorter commutes than she had to make on a daily basis.

She then felt pressured to quit her job, but didn't want to because she had spent 19 years working as a prosecutor in the D.A.'s office and things only began to go sour after she refused to endorse Pacheco for election. She told them just to terminate her without cause because she refused to quit.

After that, she received written discipline for dismissing the misdemeanor case that had reduced by the prosecutor who later lied about it. She said that the policy manual had upheld her dismissel of the case and that she had been entitled to an independent investigation from the Human Resources Department and that procedure hadn't been followed. The hours she spent working became monitored even as the male prosecutors didn't face such treatment.

Does Lying to Supervisors (and engaging in sexual harassment) Win You Promotions in the D.A.'s office?

She had difficulty getting promoted but ironically (or not) the prosecutor who had been found to have lied on several cases of felonies getting reduced to misdemeanors and had violated Brady on a felony case was up for promotion too. Nobody really wanted him to get promoted and in fact, those involved in the process voted 28 to 2 recommending that Pacheco not promote him.

However, one person did want this promotion to get through and that was the person encharged to make the final decision. Rod Pacheco allegedly convened an emergency meeting of his managers and demanded to know why this prosecutor wasn't promoted, calling him a "great deputy". Even when information came up that this prosecutor had not lied, had not just withheld evidence violating Brady on a felony case but had sexually harassed other employees, what was Pacheco's response?


"He's one of us."


Pacheco later took this prosecutor on a walk and told him how much he had reminded Pacheco of himself and that he would get his promotion. And sure enough he did, on Jan. 1, 2009.

At that point, Hunt gave up and on March 24, 2009, she tendered her resignation after nearly 20 years as a prosecutor in Riverside County. She filed a claim by the county but it was rejected and she received a right to sue letter from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

It will be interesting to see how this case proceeds in the very stagnated civil court system in Riverside County. Will it be settled by the county behind closed doors or will it proceed to trial? It's probably a good bet that it will be the former as if there's any dirty laundry to be aired out in Pacheco's office, there's no way the county will let that happen in an open forum like a courtroom.




Two more red light cameras in Riverside's intersections. The new ones will be at Arlington and Indiana and Canyon Springs Parkway and Day Street.

Snapshots of a City

[The railroad crossing at Magnolia near Merrill which is set to have ground breaking on a long-awaited grade separation project. In the background is a vacant lot which once was the home of several vibrant city businesses forced to relocate their operations.]








[One of Riverside's lessor known historical landmarks, the Sire's restaurant was oft-rumored to be the unofficial meeting place of city council members who allegedly conducted a lot of business deals and other civic work there.]

Candidates debate at a Public Forum in Norco

Norco's city council race heated up when candidates disagreed about how to generate local revenue.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Candidates' ideas on how to accomplish that varied as they spoke to an estimated 100 people at the forum at Sizzler restaurant in Norco.

Sullivan supported bringing large chain stores to the city, but Bash supported preserving small businesses. All candidates agreed on selling Norco as a destination spot, developing several areas of land to hold events spanning several days to attract visitors and boost hotel tax and business for restaurants.

MacGregor and others suggested developing projects such as Silverlakes -- a 122-acre planned equestrian and sports park that should begin construction this year while Bash pushed hard on the idea of selling Norco's unique rural lifestyle and capturing business from students at the Riverside Community College Norco campus. Bash also suggested buying land from the U.S. Navy to develop. Voters also asked candidates whether they supported building low-income housing next to animal-keeping properties.

"I will never vote to allow one as long as I'm on the council," said Sullivan about apartment complexes. "We're a unique animal-keeping community. ... We don't want any apartments.






The governor up in Sacramento has vowed not to close any state parks. Hopefully, this would include Riverside's Citrus Park which was looking at possible closure due to budget cuts up at the capitol.




No city council meeting next week in Riverside as it's a fifth Tuesday.