The Dog Days of Summer Hit River City

[Outgoing Riverside City Manager Brad Hudson and Former Councilman and current mayoral candidate Ed Adksion pair up at the going away party for a photo]

[All the buffet items had name tags which included the caterer, Provider which was the subject of a recent attempt by Riverside's City Hall to investigate its own contracting processes]

UPDATE: Brad Hudson outgoing party took place at City Hall. Coming up, who came, who didn't, who spoke, who didn't and an analysis of the event.

[City employees and community leaders gathered at City Hall to say farewell to outgoing City Manager Brad Hudson but who's missing in the front row?]

UPDATE: City Council denies appeal on ethics complaint filed by Michael Morales against Community Police Review Commissioner and city council candidate John Brandriff. Mayor Ron Loveridge leads call to deny appeal, saying that nothing extraordinary has been found to provide the basis for granting appeal.

Councilman Mike Gardner argues that it's not even "ordinary" and proposes motion to deny appeal. Appeal denied, 6-0.

[Riverside Police Officer Anthony Watkins giving out stickers at National Night Out at Lincoln Park in the Eastside. Similar events were held all over the nation including Riverside]

[The storm drain next to Andulka Park is getting rebuilt in sections to repair damage from last winter's rain storms. Until then, the creek that runs through the part of the city's gone dry.]





[Soon to be the police department's police administrative headquarters' old digs under a plan recently passed by the city government on its consent calendar without any public discussion]





The City Council and city manager need to provide a far better justification for the city office shuffle than anyone offered last week. And a city government truly committed to transparency would never have approved a costly, complex deal with no public discussion.


----Press Enterprise Editorial Board

It's been busy this summer and it's seen its share of heat waves and thunderstorms both provided by nature and through more political channels. Borders Bookstore is selling off all its stock which led to long lines inside the store and another vacancy in the Riverside Plaza complex, which saw the city's darling Instant Riverside replace Citrus Grill which though thousands of dollars in the arrears still almost managed to wedge its way into the downtown scene. I spent time visiting family and friends which meant trying to explain Riverside's canvass to those outside of it which is a challenge in certain areas and that's even without getting into the whole credit/debt rating mess. And with $25o million in bonds coming up due by 2013, there's going to be more to talk about in terms of Riverside's finances. The councilman who fretted about the $5 million in bonds due in January better go back and check the books because it's a lot more money than that which has to be paid. With what's coming up in terms of bonds owed, it's a pretty good time for some folks to look for other jobs, recession aside. The doors revolving on the ground floor will be them leaving, with City Manager Brad Hudson first and possibly more to follow in his footsteps.

Because beginning on January 1, Riverside will be entering a time of reckoning when the cost of its Riverside Renaissance will be coming back for payment. Remember at least 60% of the approximately $2.1 billion put into it is essentially borrowed money or debt. This blog has never been into doing public relations for the Renaissance because it's pretty much going to break this city. And that's not that projects within it most particularly those to address infrastructure issues aren't worthy. It's that so much of particularly the earlier part of the Renaissance was spent by City Hall being the middleman in threatening the use of eminent domain to get properties particularly in the downtown area to hand off to developers who were also getting campaign contributions from them.

Of course, Hudson the master planner of the Renaissance is already pretty much out of the building and he'll be six months into his job up north probably reinventing Sacramento County when the bills really start coming. Riverside won't have a city manager then because City Hall said that it'd take six months to recruit for a permanent replacement and in the meantime, Community Director (and yes, former Riverside County employee) Scott Barber is filling the interim spot.


Was it just me or did the city council's selection for the interim position strike anyone as interesting? Especially since there's three assistant city managers that served under Hudson and that's more than has ever served under any city manager. Yet the city council and mayor didn't select anyone of them to fill in that spot. Not Belinda Graham, nor Paul Sundeen nor Deanna Lorson but then again, there's a betting pool set up on whether any or all of them will be still working at City Hall by the end of that recruitment period. It's always like that when regimes end, and there's speculation that anyone new coming in might try to change the canvas a bit. It's not clear whether that will happen in Riverside.

So there was a lot to explain to people who don't live here about how Riverside does business. Spending time in Los Angeles, is an exercise in contrasts when you compare its artistic, cultural and economic development in comparison to Riverside. It's not fair to compare the two but it's hard not to notice how much more vibrant different areas of L.A. are compared to any part of Riverside. Riverside is not L.A. nor should it be but it should be something more than a stack of dominoes set up in a row downtown which are all dependent on none of them tipping over. The latest being that series of land swaps that's got people talking is just the latest of a series of them going back a few years and all of them are contingent in everything being done just right with the minimum of discussion at least in public.

But then what else is new?

Now there's explaining how Riverside can trumpet having its water revenue bonds bumped to AA+ yet Standard & Poors downgrades the country's rating to the same level and the stock market drops over 600 points. But double dip recessions aside, Riverside's City Hall has been very busy in recent days pushing through on the consent calendar one of those increasingly bizarre moves to essentially shuffle some money around, beginning with projects built by its favorite darling in development, Mark Rubin. One council member at some point broke from the pack and said something along the lines, of gee, maybe we should have pulled it and put it on the discussion calendar. But the problem is, they lack the ability to think of taking those actions until after the fact because what they've shown in the past few years, is that the public is an afterthought. The reason clearly being that the city government just doesn't think it's the public's right to know how it conducts its business when it comes to how it spends money particularly with private developers.


So what created all this fuss again?

The city council and mayor of Riverside without an iota of discussion at least in public approved that three-day deal between City Hall, Best, Best & Krieger and the city's favorite developer, Rubin. That's the mad shuffle where the city helps Best, Best & Krieger it's top outside law firm move into as the first client of Rubin's new Citrus Tower on University and Lime. The city will move Public Utilities into BB&K's old (new) lodging while the police department's administrative headquarters will ditch its current six years left on its $1/year lease and take over the Public Utility offices a couple blocks away. The debt being undertaken by Public Utilities in its own office space was addressed by a commenter on the article site but no one quoted from the city in the article addressed whether the general fund or police department's capital funded budget that would assume that debt in its stead.

Maybe if someone had pulled it for discussion, he (and it's very unlikely Councilwoman Nancy Hart would pull anything) might at least ask "staff" to answer those questions in a public forum.

It's interesting enough that they passed it but what's truly fascinating if disturbing is that the deal was passed with nothing in the way of discussion at least not in public. Everybody moving to new digs is acting really happy about it but that's not the only point. The point is that what looks like a game of musical chairs took place without discussion by elected officials in a public venue and how much is it ultimately going to cost the city. The interesting thing is that the louder the politicians protest that it's a background deal, the more you should be asking whether or not it was one. Yes, of course the city, BB&K and Rubin all came up with the latest elements of this plan independently and at the same time. Yes, and if you believe that, beach front property is going really cheaply in Idaho.

The one given here is that there are members of the city council who believe it but what about the necessity of doing such a deal largely behind closed doors is actually true? Or is just another behind the scenes play being pushed through that's something else entirely? An action done for a private developer?

Because this is what this is about, it's not about finding improved digs for the two public departments, it's about helping Rubin get tenants for his office building. The reason why is woven back into every backroom deal that the city's made in the downtown area going back about five years. It's like a scarf knitted together with fabric from different sources and if one thread is loose and it gets pulled, the whole thing comes unraveled. But if the city council and mayor were too busy patting themselves over this deal before voting it through with a laundry list of other items, at least city residents were asking the hard questions even if no one really cared enough to answer them.

One commenter wrote this about the issues he or she felt might arise with the relocation of the police department from Orange Street Station to the Public Utilities building.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The part of this deal no one is discussing is how much it will cost the City to adapt the Utilities' current office space at Ninth & Orange for the Police Department. Typically, law enforcement facilities of any kind have very special design considerations. How much is it going to cost the City to retrofit that building to meet the Police Department's functional and security requirements?

How, for instance, will the City adapt the structure to deal with the intake of suspects in custody for questioning? Where, exactly, will those suspects be brought into the building? Will they be brought in from police cars parked on the street, in potential contact with the street and foot traffic surrounding the building? Or will they be brought into the Police Department via an entrance within the attached parking structure? If so, how will this impact the existing uses of the parking structure, particularly by the District Attorney's staff? What specialized security measures will have to be installed to secure that entrance, and how much will that cost the City? And what will it cost to install secure holding cells within a facility never intended to function as a jail?

What is the City planning to do with all the communications equipment currently on top of the Police building? Not all of it can be moved to the Magnolia Station, as some part of it is needed for central operations. Will it be moved to Ninth & Orange? If so, at what cost? Will it be left in place and secure lines run down the street to the new location? If so, at what cost? And how much will it cost to retrofit the offices at Ninth & Orange with the secure communications and data lines necessary for a law enforcement operation?

And, what will it cost to retrofit the entire space to be suitable for a law enforcement command center? What will it cost to adequately reinforce and secure all the entrances? What will it cost to replace all the windows with security glass? What will it cost to install the necessary surveillance equipment? What will it cost to secure the perimeter?

And finally, has anyone at the City bothered to chat with the District Attorney about this to discuss the wisdom of placing the Police Department directly across the street from the District Attorney's office building, and relocating it within that parking facility? Has anyone at the City given any consideration at all to the potential threats and hazards this may create, both for staff and the general public?

Has anyone at the City given this scheme any real consideration at all?




Maybe the city will answer these and other questions in the comprehensive presentation including PowerPoint that it must have prepared before approving this plan involving the police department's relocation. The above logistic concerns about that relocation could have gone to the city's Public Safety Committee first for discussion of the logistics. But then oops, you have another layer of transparency in a city government that like to use that word a lot but in practice, has no clue what it really means.

If it did, City Hall wouldn't be such a mystery to so many people in terms of how these deals are being made, how these type of land swaps can just whoosh down the chute of zero accountability to approval. And even the city council members who've run on accountability and transparency platforms can't pull the item (because an earlier city council stripped the public of that right) and have a comprehensive and open discussion on it. If they believe it's so great, they had a perfect opportunity to sell it during a public discussion rather than once again, hide behind staff reports. But they opted out of doing so because the truth is, they didn't care, know or even think to ask the public what they'd think of what's going to be a rather expensive multi-million dollar triple land swap to in actuality, help a developer double his underselling projects in the downtown area.

It's true that the police department's building for example is antiquated and cramped but then again so was the downtown bus terminal when the department decided to move Internal Affairs and then the Neighborhood Policing Center's North headquarters there several years ago.

Into facilities where at least one of those divisions received only a two week notice of their moving day and the facility itself had poor electrical wiring, a leaking roof and zero signage for the first two months so no one knew that it was a police division and not the Greyhound Station. Both divisions weren't all that happy about the move. Internal Affairs apparently were concerned about having investigation witnesses arriving there in view of uniformed officers a doorway away and their neighbors at the NPC were concerned about serving as security guards for the Internal Affairs Division.

Internal Affairs eventually relocated back to the Magnolia Police Station, its third home in several years.

Eventually, that situation more or less ironed itself out. And hopefully the management personnel stationed at the barely habitable Orange Street Station will not run into such obstacles in their move to their own digs. But to rush into an expensive acquisition for new digs when it has a $1/year lease until 2017 while the economy's preparing to tank again just seems to invite concerns and questions.

Once again City Hall has made sure it's too late to ask any but keep your eyes out because soon enough, there will probably be more of these types of land swaps as the city government continues to prop up flagging development projects at taxpayer expense.

But the Press Enterprise Editorial Board scolded the city for its downtown giveaway. So that makes at least two of us who find it highly questionable.

Cool Downtown Signage

[A sign advertising high-priced condos as rentals, if you can have a lot of cash]




[A sign outside of one of the downtown "public" parking garages]



RPD and Wikipedia




[Chief Sergio Diaz (l.) and two of his cabinet members who've both been busy, but has anyone seen Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer lately?]

In the last blog posting, there was the tale of the two postings about the Riverside Police Department at the Wikipedia site which were posted side by side on this page. The I. P. addresses were posted with each entry, with the second, which was 192.248.248.55 being a wireless network which is part of the City of Riverside domain.

Meaning that the amended posting originated from that domain as well. It didn't take long to receive an email from the author of that amended posting along with a detailed explanation of why the changes were made from inside the police department's management. That was interesting but while I disagreed with portions of the original wikipedia posting, I did think that if the city was going to edit pages, that it should not have excised the portion on the DUI incident of former Chief Russ Leach, it should have added a provision of what exactly it has in place inside the department and the city to prevent favoritism from taking place.

Speaking of the department, I've had people ask me about what's happened to Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer who's become nearly invisible in the past few months. He used to be seen in much higher profile at public meetings but now he's disappeared.

Riverside Gets a Train

In the meantime, while Riverside can't get a piece of the high speed railway, it did issue permits for the the transport of "low risk" nuclear waste through the Inland Empire. And Riverside which banned mobile food trucks now plans to embrace them. There's a food truck festival in early September in Riverside being held and maybe then, the city government will have a better understanding of what the mobile food truck movement is and how it's been done in other cities.

Mayor Ron Loveridge Lashes Out at Press Enterprise Editorial Board

[Mayor Ron Loveridge all smiles here but not while lashing out at the local newspaper's editorial board regarding its concerns on redevelopment agencies]

In his latest op/ed piece, Mayor Ron Loveridge vents at the newspaper's editorial board for not jumping on the redevelopment agency train. He didn't look too pleased sitting at the head of the table while the city council interviewed the newspaper's publisher Ronald Redfern for a position on the Charter Review Committee. Redfern didn't get much in the way of votes though he raised some important points during his interview which of course put any chance he likely had of being selected for the committee at risk.

For Loveridge and the others on the dais who have stumped for the Redevelopment Agencies even stripping affordable housing funds off of various projects to pay for the right...to tap into the monies for non-affordable housing, there's a question that's been asked and that's if you're so certain that your handling of the state-owned agency is so right on, then it's a simple step to call up State Comptroller John Chiang's office and ask for a forensic audit.

Not one elected official has offered to do that.

Heavy Redaction in the City's Independent Investigation of Itself

[Riverside City Attorney Greg Priamos who probably has never met a black felt marker he's not liked]

The city has released its "independent" investigation of the allegations of favoritism allegedly raised by different city employees including recently fired Deputy City Attorney Raychele Sterling of favoritism in contracting. Outgoing city manager, Brad Hudson hired Cihigoyenetche Grossberg Clouse from Rancho Cucamonga to do the probe which of course found that the city didn't do anything wrong with both its use of A. Webb firm for the contract on a sewer plant and also that the City Hall Cafeteria wasn't subsidized from money from the Park and Recreation Department because its manager is friends with Hudson and it's been operating in the red.

The investigation went one step further saying that not only didn't the city do anything wrong with its contracting practices (though there's hints of some vague issues) but that it was doing all these things because City Hall was valiantly trying to "shop Riverside".

The report itself is a hoot to read. It closely resembles what classified documents look like when they're finally released which means it's redacted. All the names of city officials and employees (but not private vendors) are blacked out so the reader is left to fill in the blanks as to whose name is hidden behind the black marker welded perhaps by Priamos himself.

But if you've been following what's going on, it's not impossible to figure out who's who. Pick up a copy at City Hall (and it's a pile of papers) and see if you can play a version of Mad Libs River City style.

Wi Fi Outage to be Fixed

[Part of Riverside went "dark" after the monsoon thunderstorms last weekend and is currently under repair]

The unexpected rain storm caused some damage to some equipment that is responsible for broadcasting the signal from the internet to the network, causing an area of the city to lose coverage. The city made arrangements to acquire the equipment and work crews needed to perform the repairs on one of the towers which will be necessary to fix the outage and restore the service to the south-eastern part of Riverside.

There's no timeline on how long it will take to repair the equipment impacting the affected area but it's into its second week so if you're in a dark area, check out the free wi-fi at the areas Starbucks, McDonalds (Mission Grove Plaza), Carl's Jr. in Canyon Crest. Buy yourself a burger, expresso or their more nutritious alternatives while you search.

Public Meetings

Tuesday, Aug. 9 at 1 pm and 6:30 p.m. Riverside's City Council will meet once again to discuss and pass this agenda at City Hall's council chambers.


Tuesday, Aug. 9 at 3p.m., Ethics complaint appeal hearing to be conducted by the city council at City Hall involving an ethics complaint filed against Community Police Review Commissioner and city council candidate John Brandriff by Miguel Morales.

Rearing its head more quietly this time it seems is the city's ongoing lease of terminal space downtown to Greyhound Bus Lines. Only since it's being done in an ultra-secret closed session, there's of course no backup material on this once contentious item.

Here's a blast from the past. Mayor Ron Loveridge is again pushing for the hiring of Roberts Consulting Group to conduct the search for the new city manager. If you remember history, the mayor pushed the same company but the city council interviewed firms though they wound up going with Loveridge's choice. It didn't matter what firm they chose because they had been intent on hiring Hudson the entire time.


I didn't receive a personal invite of course but the city's planning to hold a going away party of sorts for soon to be former City Manager Brad Hudson at City Hall on Tuesday, Aug 9 from 5-6p.m probably in the Mayor's Ceremonial Room at City Hall on the Seventh Floor.

Campaign Disclosure Statements online

Riverside's Web site has links that go to the campaign contribution disclosure forms filled out by all city government political candidates. As an example, here's the latest statement for Councilman Steve Adams.

What jumped out was the sizable payments he received to those political consultants, Brian Floyd and Associates (which sprung from the breakup of Floyd & Lucsko) which is known for its...colorful if highly unsuccessful campaigning style for the likes of past losing candidates including former Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco last year.

Floyd's resume is posted here and who would have ever guessed he's screenwriting partners with former Community Police Review Commission member Robert Slawsby who was appointed to the body when former Floyd client and councilman Frank Schiavone was on the dais.

Their latest screenplay project? An R rated comedy called Bachelor Party Planners.


Also paid for advertising by Adams was local blogger and publisher Salvador Santana whose publication The Truth just returned to print copy form. Both he and his publication received $250 apiece from the Adams campaign for printing expenses.

RPD Sergeant Files Racial Discrimination, Retaliation Lawsuit

[Is the city's brand new guard rail on Arlington more dangerous to pedestrians? And why are pedestrians so expendable in our mayor's "most walkable city"?]

UPDATE: City Attorneys file motion to recuse Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Jackson from the racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by RPD Sgt. Val Graham.

A former prosecutor in both Los Angeles and Riverside Counties, she was a Republican appointed by the last governor several hears ago. Oh and she's African-American but of course that has nothing to do with it. Surely the city wouldn't challenge the assignment of a judge to a case just because of her race so early on with a hearing date six months away. It'll be interesting to read or hear the city's rationale on its motion against her if it shares it with the public that's paying the city's legal bills.



Update: Riverside Red Light Camera program...in the red? And are the stats to be trusted?


Update: The decision on the ethics complaint against CPRC and political candidate John Brandriff was appealed by the complainant. That means it will be heard by the city council on Aug. 9 at 3pm.


UPDATE: Interim City Manager? Community Development Director Scott Barber...Is this the city's way of saying the three assistant city managers just aren't qualified enough to fill in?

UPDATE: RPD's Administrative officesto pack up and move into higher rent district?


UPDATE: This article on the Riverside Police Department showed up on the radar on an online encyclopedia site, one that's sure to attract responses. But what's the appropriate response?

To Be Continued...

UPDATE: Article on Riverside Police Department rewritten and the ISP of the latest writer? 192.248.248.55




Most recent editing changes that were done July 25th. The original draft is on the left, the current one on the right. The ISP on the right? Belongs to the City of Riverside's City Hall and other of its venues. And as it turned out, the author did come out of the city. Its response coming soon.

[Both Chief Sergio Diaz (r.) and Deputy Chief Mike Blakely are named in the lawsuit]

This past week, Riverside Police Department Sgt. Val Graham sued the police department and city of Riverside alleging racial discrimination and retaliation including with its promotional process. Named in the lawsuit are City Manager Brad Hudson, Former Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis, Chief Sergio Diaz, Deputy Chief Mike Blakely and former Acting/Asst. Chief John DeLaRosa.

It's Diaz' second employee related lawsuit since he was hired in July 2010 and Blakely's fifth in the past 15 months.

The lawsuit provided the following narrative of events.

Graham who sued the city had served 25 years in law enforcement and had been a sergeant at the Riverside Police Department for 17 years, making him the most senior sergeant in the department. He's African-American and during the past decade, only two African-Americans, Vic Williams and Darryl Hurt, had been promoted to that rank. During his tenure, Graham had reported instances of racism and retaliation inside the department.

After the 1998 fatal shooting of Tyisha Miller by four officers, he had reported to then Lt. Jim Cannon that one of the onscene officers, Rene Rodriguez had heard racial comments. Rodriguez later sued claiming he faced harassment and retaliation inside the department. He was awarded over $1 million in a settlement with the city. Afterward many individuals in the department treated Graham and Cannon (who later retired quietly without a party) as if they were part of a conspiracy and retaliated.

Graham also testified in the racial discrimination lawsuit filed by Officer Roger Sutton, another African-American, that former lieutenant told him to write up Sutton for being late to roll call. Graham testified at trial that the lieutenant actually took the clock off the wall and moved the time forward to make it seem like Sutton was late. While Graham testified, DeLaRosa who oversaw Internal Affairs at the time sat in the audience giving him cold stares. A jury ultimately awarded Sutton $1.64 million and Blakely then retaliated against Graham by giving him a "meets standards" on his evaluation (when previously he had exceeds standards) stating he was "anti-management" and mentioning the clock incident.

Since 2001, Graham had tested for the lieutenant position annually and he was passed over by the department for non-African-American candidates with less training and experience. In 2001, he ranked in the top five on the promotional list and was nominated for Riverside County officer of the year for his work as sergeant of the Problem Oriented Policing (POP) unit. He had received the highest possible score on his evaluation of outstanding. But he was passed over for lieutenant seven times. Most of the candidates promoted in 2001 were lower than Graham.

The Riverside Police Department and its command staff including DeLaRosa and Blakely had a long history of retaliating against officers they didn't like by opening up bogus internal affairs investigations to prevent or make it difficult for them to be promoted or to be transferred to specialized assignments. It's difficult for officers with open internal affairs investigations to be promoted in practice.

DeLaRosa and Blakely had retaliated against Graham for opposing racial discrimination within the department by initiating sham internal affairs investigations.

In August 2009, DeLaRosa and Blakely initiated an investigation against Graham to prevent him from promoting to sergeant, four months after the alleged incident. He was being investigated for not taking a complaint report from a woman who told him her boyfriend wanted to file a citizen complaint. Because she didn't actually witness the incident, Graham gave her a complaint form to give her boyfriend with instructions to return it upon completion. Graham immediately made the correct notifications within the department including the internal affairs division through email.

Graham was never given an explanation why the department waited four months to initiate the internal affairs investigation. At the time the department was in the midst of creating a promotional list for lieutenant. Eventually former Police Chief Russ Leach heard about the investigation and ordered it to be closed over the objections of DeLaRosa and Blakely.

During 2009, Graham who had ranked eighth on a September 2008 promotional list was not promoted to lieutenant, instead a white male candidate ranked #11, was promoted. In September 2009, a lieutenants list was established and Graham, the only African-American on the list, ranked fourth out of 13 candidates.

On Feb. 19. 2010 DeLaRosa promoted a male Hispanic candidate ranked sixth on the list.

On May 27, 2010 Graham met with Hudson and DeSantis reporting that DeLaRosa and Blakely had used racism and retaliation against him. Less than two weeks later, Graham was subjected to retaliation by the department.

The next day, May 298, 2010 a white female candidate ranked fifth was promoted.

On June 9, 2010, Graham was notified that he was going to be investigated for a 2009 incident that the department was aware of and the initial internal affairs investigation had been started 229 days earlier on Oct. 23, 2009. It was believed to be a sham investigation of Graham initiated by DeLaRosa and Blakely in order to prevent Graham from promoting. The department had established a ranked list for lieutenant and promotions were soon to be made.

On June 15, 2010 Graham was interviewed for the position of Homicide sergeant and four sergeants had put in for that position. Graham had 16 years experience as a sergeant and had three years as a detective sergeant. He also had prior experience with officer-involved shootings. Graham wasn't selected but a candidate who had been a sergeant for four years and with no prior experience with officer-involved shootings was picked instead.

On June 16, 2010 Graham had scheduled another meeting with Hudson and DeSantis but Hudson didn't attend. Graham told DeSantis that after their last meeting, that DeLaRosa and Blakely had retaliated against him by initiating the June 9. 2010 Internal Affairs investigation. DeSantis told Graham that prior to their meeting he had contacted Lt. Cook who headed Internal Affairs (and who also had served on the Hemet School District Board with DeSantis) about that investigation and had been told it was minor. DeSantis seemed irritated by Graham by the end of the meeting.

On July 6, 2010 Graham met with Diaz and reported racial discrimination and retaliation He expressed concern over the timing of the internal investigation as it occurred right when he was going to be considered for a promotion and/or special assignment.

On July 30, 2010 Diaz passed over Graham and promoted three white male sergeants who were ranked second, ninth and 12th on the lieutenant's list. All of the recently lieutenants had less sergeant experience than Graham. Based on information and belief, Diaz relied on input from DeLaRosa and Blakely in making the promotions. Diaz was also upset that members of the police department had met with him to discuss concerns within the police department so he passed over Graham in part because he met with Diaz earlier that month and reported racism and retaliation.

The lawsuit will be litigated in Riverside County Superior Court by attorneys Russel M. Perry and Michael A. McGill.

The lawsuit caught Hudson just as he was preparing his exit to Sacramento County where he's allegedly taking a cut in pay and "bennies" and downsizing his office space.

[City Manager Brad Hudson may be on his way out just in time but he's been named in another lawsuit filed by a city employee]

The city council's set to meet in closed session this Tuesday to decide which of the three candidates they've recently interviewed will serve as the interim city manager until the hiring of the next permanent one hopefully by December. But Hudson's no stranger to being sued given all the employee lawsuits including those alleging retaliation for whistle blowing going around. Even as Riverside hires its own law firm to investigate allegations of misconduct and not surprisingly clears itself. Investigating allegations of misconduct raised by a city employee who is soon fired without even interviewing that employee! Simply amazing! Any city council member who doesn't ask questions about that type of thorough and "independent" investigation shouldn't be on the dais.

Councilman Mike Gardner who's one of roughly three mayoral candidates currently on the dais had this to say about the most recent outside investigation to the Press Enterprise.

"People are looking for something that I don't think exists," Gardner said. "I think people are reading perfectly innocent things as something sinister."

It's kind of like gazing through the looking glass into a world where asking questions or raising concerns about how the city spends its money or whether it really has any or much money left to spend is like transposing "innocent" with "sinister", and it makes you wonder why the denizens at City Hall have taken that view point that it's the concerns and the questions being raised that appear to be the problem more than the reality. Never mind that not one person on the dais has publicly responded to allegations that a former part-time employee at City Hall was paid nearly $700,000 in city funds during a three year period including $25,000 payments (the maximum that can be spent on contracts by most departments without city council approval) from various city departments which had nothing to do with this employee's position.

Why the Sewer fund is used to finance loans to purchase properties that are then handed off or sold to developers. Some who've watched City Hall for years say the sewer fund's always been gutted or "borrowed from" for non-specific sewer purposes but does past practice make it proper? Why four city buildings including one outside a Redevelopment zone were used as collateral for a financial obligation that in most cases, is assumed by a developer on a project not a city.

Hudson's not going to look back when he leaves Riverside, some say just in time before millions of dollars in bonds come up due beginning in January 2012 and with the bulk of them in May and June, bonds the city might not have the revenue stream to pay. The city's doesn't got a lot in its portfolio that's producing a means of revenue and property and sales taxes are still suffering from the never ending recession. The Workman's Compensation fund which actually doesn't go to pay those claims because department's have their own line item budgets for this purpose already seemed like the means to borrow money to buy properties several years ago but soon got tapped out, so the lending accounts soon changed.

With all the money rushing into accounts and then being transferred to others, fast enough to make one's head spin trying to keep up, there's one account that might not have spare funds to borrow against and that's the city's litigation fund which just provided an additional appropriation of $50,000 to the Human Resources Department to pay to retain the further services of the law firm that just cleared City Hall in its investigation...paid for by City Hall.

Considering how expensive civil litigation's been in the city just counting all the employee lawsuits filed alleging discrimination, harassment but especially retaliation and violations of the state and federal whistle blower protection acts, that's one fund that got to remain flush for its intended purposes. As ancient sewers continue to erode treating residents in some neighborhoods including the Wood Streets, to sewer eruptions inside their basements not to mention the occasional erupting toilet and at least one of the city's irrigation systems sets fires on other private property, it's still difficult to keep up with the pace of money moving around the different funds in this city.

The trouble is that when employees report misconduct including with the contract process, they somehow wind up getting in trouble or fired in the process and the city's residents have to pay the monies through taxes that fund these investigations that few people outside the leadership of City Hall give much credence too. So as long as there are concerns that whistle blowing means getting fired or punished for it, you'd better keep the litigation fund filled and untapped. But then who knows, maybe they borrow from the sewer fund to pay for that if it starts to run dry.


Also being sued by Graham as well as other folks is former Asst. Chief, no wait it was Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis who was one of three city management employees who had personal flat badges that were to be made for them before they were deemed to be illegal and destroyed.

[Former Asst. Chief, oops, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis is one of the defendants in the lawsuit]

DeSantis left suddenly not long after that scandal and others broke but it might have been issues of a more personal nature (meaning that it might be similar to why he "left" another county job) that ultimately led to DeSantis' departure including an alleged domestic disturbance call to his residence in another city. He went on to become a municipal management consultant, made a chunk of change doing some consulting for public works in Moreno Valley where the husband of Riverside's public works manager happens to be employed and he tried out for the town manager position in Gilbert, Arizona and made the finals. But not without attracting concern from the local newspaper's editorial board that saw what it called some red flags associated with him and other finalists.

But even though he's no longer in town, he still is being named in a lawsuit in abstentia as the gift that keeps on giving to the city he serviced for five years.


Also departed is DeLaRosa who retired not long after Diaz arrival after coaching him through the first several weeks in his new position. Diaz stood up at a recent meeting that was attended by DeLaRosa and announced that what he had been told about certain individuals on the Riverside canvas by others when he first arrived had been bad information and that these individuals had been wrong about certain individuals.

One of these individuals that Diaz hinted strongly at was DeLaRosa who had attended a housewarming party held by Diaz when he first purchased it last year. Another individual he allegedly had been defending was Blakely. At an earlier meeting when he expressed concern and consternation about someone high up in the ranks undermining him, he had answered a lieutenant's question of an example of that by detailing how City Hall hadn't wanted him to appoint Blakely as his deputy chief. But he had done so anyway, and it was time for everyone to forget history. At the same time, he allegedly made moves to minimize Blakely's role and reach in certain areas and doesn't speak to him very much. Many people remain confused as to the whole dynamic that Diaz shared with DeLaRosa and Blakely beginning when he first arrived last year. After all, DeLaRosa had been implicated as knowing about the decision to allow Leach to be driven home without a sobriety test after he'd been pulled over inside a Chrysler 300 with flat tires by two patrol officers. In contrast, during the time period which followed, there were several DUI stops of vehicles with flattened tires where the drivers were found to be intoxicated and arrested to be taken to jail.

By the time that came to light, he'd already been acting chief several months and the blame had been placed on the lieutenant watch commander who ultimately turned the tables on the police management by getting his threatened demotion overturned by City Hall.

But history still plays a role whether it's incidents several months ago or years ago, meaning that lieutenants who got into fights in "off-duty matters" joke about not getting into fights that day and one of the deputy chief's allegedly played a major role in the departure of another chief over 10 years ago. What's past is often prologue, as the city finds itself hiring another city manager who will run into the legacy left by the outgoing one.

History could very well play out here.



To Be Continued...

[Asst. and Acting Police Chief John DeLaRosa who still appears at events involving Diaz was named in a lawsuit filed by an RPD sergeant]

[City Attorney Gregory Priamos (r.) will have to take time out from putting out fires to comment on the city's response to Graham's lawsuit against it.]

Public Meetings

Tuesday, July 26 at Noon and 6:30 p.m. The Riverside City Council will meet and discuss this agenda and vote how to spend what's left of the city's money. Also on who of three candidates interviewed will serve as the city's interim city manager.


Wednesday, July 27 at 4p.m. The Community Police Review Commission will meet to discuss this agenda. There's this item on the $39 million to be spent from various funding sources on the renovation of the Riverside Convention Center. And the most important but controversial agenda item, which is the city's attempts to retain its Redevelopment Agency. Instead of auditing the Redevelopment Agency or asking the State Comptroller to do it, they want to reinvent it.

Missing in Action: The RPD's Strategic Plan and Firings at the Marriott?

UPDATE: RPD sergeant files racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuits against city, City Manager Brad Hudson, Chief Sergio Diaz and others...

More to come...

[Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz named in racial discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by a police sergeant]

Now here's a shocker! Riverside City Hall picks "outside" investigator which clears it in an investigation into its contracting practices. This is where they stated that the city might have done some favoritism but it was solely so it could "Shop Riverside".

Now here's a quote:

"People are looking for something that I don't think exists," Gardner said. "I think people are reading perfectly innocent things as something sinister."

That's the quote of the day.

No, actually one of people's questions for the city government is why it has farmed so many of its own financial accountability mechanisms to the City Manager's office including most of its oversight of "interfund" transfers.

That and how one ex-city employee made off with nearly $700,000 in city monies for a part-time position several years ago. Why the city's clearly being less than up front about the truth of its financial health.

[The Ethics Complaint Panel decided that Community Police Review Commission member John Brandriff (r.) didn't violate the code of ethics as alleged by community activist Miguel Morales]

[Wi fi access point near Victoria Country Club]

UPDATE: A Smart Riverside Wi Fi Outage has been reported in Canyon Crest area since about yesterday. 311 has been notified of the outage which has led to limited or no connection between the network and its ISP provider over a large section of Canyon Crest that is connected to a piece of equipment located around the Mission Grove area.

More reports as they come in as to whether other areas are also out and on an estimated time of repair.

Two separate outages including one near Riverside Poly High School caused by construction have downed some of the region. On Alessandro, a light pole was vandalized causing some loss of wiring. Both areas are being serviced. The estimated time to replace all the wire lost in the vandalized light pole will be approximately seven days.

UPDATE: 311 reports that the light has been repaired and that the wi fi has been restored, however areas of the impacted area still experiencing outages or very sporadic coverage.

More information on the criminal case involving retired Riverside Police Department Det. Granville "Bud" Kelley.

[Riverside's elected officials make an appearance at a city volunteers recognition ceremony at Fairmount Park on July 13]

You go out of town for a few days and return to find out that even in that short period, a lot has happened in the quaint city of Riverside. The news broke out that the Marriott Hotel had fired 35 of its long time executive employees including one of the city's most well known chefs, Luis Martinez. Most of the employees targeted in the layoffs were not told why they were being fired and most were allegedly older men and women of color. The firings have caught the attention of many people and likely the media as well.

According to Inland Empire's Craigslist, the new owners are advertising to fill low-wage and possibly part-time positions for a hotel bells person, hotel controller,hotel carpet cleaner and hotel front desk. There are others including human resources manager. All of these positions are entry level positions and none of them are new jobs. What's not showing up are the kitchen positions including the chef which were vacated by the layoffs. Some sources have said that there's a reason for why the kitchen jobs haven't shown up on employment listings in that the plans for the Hyatt now under construction are missing a very important feature that's an integral part of many hotels.

One that you would think could be included in the budget of $20 million in a loan from the city via its Redevelopment Agency. But anyway, the terminations come in the face of all that's been said by city officials in Riverside about the Hyatt bringing jobs to Riverside. Some said that just the hundreds of construction workers would bring money to Riverside by flooding to the downtown pedestrian mall restaurants on their breaks. Yet, the truth is most people who work in construction bring their own lunches to work and those who don't often eat off of mobile food trucks. Spend some money downtown, your five or ten bucks might be all that a business in the pedestrian mall makes that entire day.

But then besides the construction workers, the Hyatt itself was going to bring plenty of well-paying local jobs. Except have the Hyatt owners from MetroPacific (and a few other names) made it clear how many jobs will actually be available for locals versus how many employees will transfer into the new Hyatt from other franchises or chain hotels? The problem with bringing in some of the major chain businesses to Riverside to stimulate job growth is that they tend to bring quite a few of their own peeps with them, so jobs are usually limited to part-time and at or near minimum wage as happened quite a bit with the University Village when that strip mall first opened.

This is very important to know because after all the city gave two fire stations and two libraries to the state's Redevelopment Agency as collateral for the bonds payments because the city doesn't own the hotel. At least not yet. And while the city has gone around paying to buy banners to tell people that such and such project was brought to you by your redevelopment agency, it's been woefully slow at telling city residents that such and such library or fire station is being used as collateral to finance private development. Somehow I suspect you won't see a sign like that hanging in front of the Casa Blanca Library (below) or the Canyon Crest Fire Station any time soon.

[Casa Blanca's library, property of the Redevelopment Agency as collateral in a loan to the Hyatt Hotel developers]

The practice of the city taking the financial obligations on the Recovery Zone bonds is not typical because in most cases, that's left for the developer to deal with and that's what people in Riverside were led to believe by the city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge. Remember going to those meetings when people expressed concerns about the city essentially buying a hotel? The city government shook its collective heads at the ignorance of the populace and said that the city residents would have no financial liability, that we had to grab the opportunity of these bonds quickly or we'd lose them to Ontario. I certainly don't recall any elected official saying, oh by the way, we're loaning millions to the developer using our own public facilities as collateral after letting them by the land for less than it was probably worth. I certainly never heard one elected official say from the dais that we're making a sweetheart deal with a group of developers and oh by the way, all the financial risk is on the city, not the developers. If you didn't know any better, you'd think the bonds were the real prize for the city for some reason, rather than building a hotel in the riskiest environment for doing so in the state based on foreclosure rates for hotels. But the city downplayed those risks even before the Marriott was purchased for what's been called a bargain basement price. Seems that if its financial state was all that healthy as the city's been claiming (while selling the Hyatt construction and the proposed "bed tax" which was passed by the voters), then it would have sold for at least a little bit more money.

What the political leadership did say was that if the developer couldn't make the payments, the city would own the hotel. Not the most lucrative of prizes because if people who specialize in running hotels couldn't make it a success, how could a bunch of elected officials do that? Yes, they could spend a ton of cash hiring consultants like they did with the Fox Theater (which is in the red and has to earn $2 million a year to operate if used, $1 million annually if left vacant) but not without problems.

You see, that's why you don't see city governments running around and putting themselves in situations where they might own hotels...or theaters either. And try explaining to people outside Riverside that a city actually put up collateral for a hotel, people think you're lying because on its face, it sounds so ridiculous. Ridiculous at best, reckless at worst.



The Marriott hotel was purchased for what has been called a bargain basement price of $19.3 million by Pinnacle Hotels USA which some have said is tied in with the construction of the Hyatt Hotel. And that when the construction of the Hyatt which was allegedly paid for by over $20 million in Recovery Zone Facility bonds. And not long ago, 35 jobs were lost. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for tons of jobs being brought in by the Hyatt.

More to come on the whole Hyatt/Marriott/Pinnacle Hotels/Pinnacle Everything else situation soon. Because after all, the hotel hasn't even been built yet and it's already generating waves.

Brad Hudson's Farewell Tour Continues onto Budget Talks

[City Manager Brad Hudson still has work to do before heading off to a new job with a pay cut and digs that are reportedly less impressive but more cozy than at City Hall]

City Manager Brad Hudson is still hanging around City Hall more casually attired but with apparently plenty to do before flying off into the sunset towards Sacramento. On Tuesday, July 12, the city council had its meeting to ask questions about the budget and the impact of having to pay what has been called a multi-million dollar ransom to Sacramento to keep its favorite toy, the Redevelopment Agency.

Naturally, the city government's done what it's done before and that's taken funding from Housing which was allocated for affordable housing projects and pay it to insure that they can protect their access to what are called 80% monies, meaning that allotment that's not set aside for affordable housing. Money was allegedly taken from projects in Casa Blanca and the Eastside apparently without realizing that it had already grabbed money from the Lindon/Chicago/Seventh improvement project to pay the balance of SERAF several months ago because the Capital Redevelopment fund didn't have adequate funds. Since the construction of affordable housing has long been a cornerstone of redevelopment, it seemed ironic that the affordable housing funds would be those utilized for the city to pay to keep the agency. Okay, so one of the main reasons that the city argues for keeping its Redevelopment Agency is because of all the affordable housing it provides, yet to keep it the city government pays its "ransom" from that funding source.

Why not? The private developers have already gotten their projects covered by the RDA, and that's witnessed by the newer empty buildings downtown including the new rental properties, the Raincross Promenade owned by the same Rubin who survived the crane controversy on Lime Street.

But anyway, Redevelopment Agencies aside, the discussion of the city's finances apparently got interesting at the afternoon session of the city council meeting with elected officials asking Hudson questions about the city's budget and its financial health. Witnesses said that there were concerned looks on some of the council members' faces and that Hudson's pat answers to the elected officials' questions didn't sound convincing. Not that they have to be because it's beyond clear that the majority of the city council doesn't look too closely at what its city manager has been doing since he arrived here in June 2005. Hudson said that the graffiti and code divisions would face cuts along with other programs.

Just months after the entire cast at the top floor of City Hall said that the city had generated extra revenue, had balanced its budget and had a very healthy reserve. But it also has bond payments do next year possibly starting as early as January. Bond issuers usually make sure that they collect their payments as quickly as possible which means before anything else, like city departments from public works to the police department to parks and recreation.

But if they asked meaningful questions to try to find out what the future holds, then that might be a step in the right direction but probably one taken too late. And nothing came out of Hudson's mouth that had anything to do with the bonds or their payments.

Meanwhile at the Finance Committee meeting

[Asst. City Manager of Finance/CFO/Treasurer Paul Sundeen explains a concept to members of the Finance Committee]

Councilwoman Nancy Hart who chairs the Finance Committee had this to say about all the employment retaliation and termination lawsuits filed against the city. She knew the money spent on them for litigation and settlements though not offhand because she and the rest of the city council made the decisions on the settlements in those cases. But she really didn't want to hear any details about them.

That wasn't the main topic of the meeting, which centered on how exactly the extension of Measure C will be sold to voters so it will surpass the 2/3 super majority needed to pass because it's the continuation of a tax for property owners. The city had announced that it had done a survey of 500 whole people out of over 375,000 and about 72% of those surveyed said they'd vote to pass such a measure. But there was a lot of confusion about the process because no one in the room could provide a definitive answer on whether registered voters as a whole would be eligible to vote on Measure C or only property owners.

Anyway, Hudson outlined that libraries would cut programs, cut more hours even more so than several years ago when library hours were cut while Measure C was still in place. Resident Doreen Johnson who's faced great hardship with her own business because of the Magnolia Grade Separation project and unlike the case with the Lucky Greek's restaurant, hasn't received nearly as much help attended the meeting. She asked why Measure C which wasn't meant to be a permanent tax was being used for essentially operational expenses rather than facility. Several years ago, when all the debate and discussion was being done about what would be done with the downtown library, there was a proposal to put another tax initiative on the ballot for voters to decide whether to create a parcel tax to pay for the renovation or reconstruction of the library.

Hudson had said that the polls on that proposed tax were fairly dismal so the library's work has been put on what looks like indefinite hold even as the facility continues to deteriorate. Requests for a forensic audit of the expenditures involving Measure C funding which could be used to help sell it to the voters didn't receive much enthusiasm even when one speaker said that there had been $10,000 spent on a cappuccino machine for the library that no one can seem to locate. If it's missing, maybe they could put up a "lost" sign for it at City Hall.

But Councilman Paul Davis did ask that the new auditing firm Moss Adams do a five year projective audit including accounting for different scenarios involving the retention or loss of Measure C revenues. The other two council members, Nancy Hart and Mike Gardner were lukewarm about it and the latter referred to being "conceptually" for it in some terms. The financial term minus a dressed Paul Sundeen who holds three titles looked a bit ashen at the request.

It's a very good idea especially if the public's allowed to read it. But what is also needed is to go back the same length of time in the past to do a forensic audit of the city's expenditures and funds including Measure C monies. It's estimated to cost about $2 million and before anyone gets upset about that, there's another possible team of auditors who can do that forensic audit for much less.

They work for some guy in a suit who goes by the title, State Comptroller John Chiang.

And just Underneath the Dome...

Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach is apparently mum on how many investigations are being conducted of Riverside]

Rumors have been pretty prolific about investigations being done out of the domed building downtown that houses more recently elected District Attorney Paul Zellerbach. They've been mentioned in the Press Enterprise newspaper pertaining to the contracting process for the city's sewer plant. But could the entire bidding and appointment process for contracts be under the scrutiny of the county prosecutor? Should it be? Was the city's own self-investigation which some have called a white wash adequate? Did City Hall really exercise favoritism in contracting simply to advocate the principle to Shop Riverside (tm)?

Zellerbach's office has been mum but assorted people from different places have either been contacted by the office, have contacted it or have even been interviewed. Zellerbach's response in one case was allegedly to allow the investigation to run its course. But Zellerbach who did a long stint on the Human Relations Commission while working as a prosecutor certainly has some clue about the city's complex canvas over the past several decades, and was allegedly tied politically to former Councilman Dom Betro where they encountered each other recently on some campaign literature.

But it will be a wait and see situation to see exactly what transpires in the domed building that once belonged to the city and if any of it will ever come to light.

In the meantime, life continued on in Riverside as usual with a few additional developments. Riverside opted not to spend some of the $65 million in bonds opting instead to pay off some debt. Was that due to a reality check in terms of exactly how badly it'd been buried in debt or was that due to public scrutiny over the whole legal but highly questionable practice of Riverside purchasing its own debt when a debt swap it tried to broker with Riverside County fell through because the Riverside bonds weren't rated. Riverside County doesn't purchase bonds without ratings so that was where the two sides parted ways.

This all happened even as political officials bemoan the changes in redevelopment agencies even though those in Riverside won't ask for the State Controller's office to audit its own agency let alone the city's finances. With more inter-fund loans as they're called even though most of them are actually inter-agency loans (between the city and a state agency) going on, it's head spinning trying to keep track with any of them. But apparently others have tried to do that in past years while shaking their heads at it.


Then Councilman Paul Davis wasn't appointed as mayor pro tem even though it was numerically his turn to fill the position of filling in for the mayor when he's absent. He also gets to set in on weekly agenda meetings as well as serve as the point person on the city council for the upcoming city manager search. The first councilman in recent history to have to wait six months for a stint that only arises once in a council member's term. He said in the article the following:


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"I'm kind of new and I don't want to disrupt the process that's already begun," Davis said.



That might be his position and I did get a more detailed answer from him but this sentence by itself in a media outlet is just weak. He's been a councilman for two years now and he's tackled a tough learning curve enough to know what he's doing and he does know what he's doing as a ward representative and also on city issues. He more than holds himself on the dais and when he asks questions, except for a couple rhetorically based ones here (which usually begin with "will you explain to the...") and there, they're thoughtful and based on information which he's gotten and analyzed. Finally a city council member who actually asks questions rather than nods his head like one of those bobble dolls simply because Hudson's opened his mouth.

He's just as qualified as Councilman Chris MacArthur to be a point person for the city manager recruitment and search process, maybe even more so. That's why all this language about not being experienced enough just doesn't quite make sense. None of these city officials currently on the dais were serving when Hudson was hired so no one but Mayor Ron Loveridge has experience with that process.


But Councilman Andrew Melendrez asked why the usual mayor pro tem process wasn't being followed. Which he's entitled to do if he takes issue with it.


(excerpt)


"We haven't done any interviewing (for a city manager) and we haven't done really any selection," Melendrez said. "Generally we give rotations once every six months and I think the rotation needs to be consistent as to what we've done over the years."




One of the commenters in the Press Enterprise had this to say about it.


Davis says it might take him time to get up to speed?? What is he talking about? Where has he been the last two years?

Something doesn't smell right.


No it doesn't but Davis insisted in the article and to me through emails that it's his decision and he's not being passed over. That might indeed be so but no the whole process of appointing the mayor pro tem doesn't smell right and if this is what has happened, then that will be clear with the passage of time as most things will be.


Ex-newsman and president of the Riverside Press Association, Miguel Morales emerges to file an ethics complaint against political candidate John Brandriff. It's scheduled for a hearing by a panel of randomly selected board and commission chairs on July 19. Morales will presumably show up and make his case in some form while staying on topic and Brandriff might show up to launch a counter-argument. But if you've ever wondered what goes on at the ethics code and complaint process, show up.


Hudson pulls a shocker by adding another former Riverside County employee to City Hall's roster this time the new library director.

[Councilman and mayoral candidate Andrew Melendrez questioned the mayor pro tem process and is trying to get an update on the police department's currently MIA Strategic Plan on the agenda at the Public Safety Committee meeting]

Another downtown business, Farmer Boys, has to find creative ways to survive the crunch caused by the presence of the latest Rubin Crane. But at least the latest crane erected by Developer Mark Rubin only is blocking a street rather than dangling over a freeway. How such a dangerous situation was allowed to exist for as long as it did and took a court battle to mitigate, has got to be an interesting story. The restaurant has its own Twitter page to keep people appraised of what's happening.

RPD Strategic Plan: Missing in Action?

[Chief Sergio Diaz's been very busy but what's happened with the Strategic Plan?]

It was actually supposed to be completed at the end of 2009, just in time to pick up where the original Strategic Plan had left off when it sunset in December that year. The very first one had been mandated by then State Attorney General Bill Lockyer as part of the reform process imposed by the stipulated judgment between the city and the state. But while former Chief Russ Leach started stumping it in early 2009 and talking about the need for public input, it had stalled in the autumn allegedly from the city management inside City Hall blocking its development. When that came to light, several city council members put some pressure on their employee to ask what had happened with it, and it didn't take too long before Mayor Ron Loveridge read an email from Leach to the city council stating that the Strategic Plan 2010-2015 would be back in motion.

Public input was then solicited in the beginning of 2010 by the audit and compliance panel through an online survey on the department's Web site and through some public forums that were tailored to several different organizations. At a March 2010 meeting of the Public Safety Committee meeting, then Capt. Mike Blakely and Sgt. Jaybee Brennan unveiled the results of the public input gathering. The plan then continued forward with a draft allegedly being completed later that spring and before the hiring of Chief Sergio Diaz. It's not clear what happened to the draft but the process was stalled by Diaz' arrival and the hiring of two key management personnel from outside the department including that of Chris Vicino who had a background in strategic planning. Diaz assigned the project to him and then they set to have more public forums, this time reaching out to the four Neighborhood Policing Centers allowing more people to participate.

[Chief Sergio Diaz and most of his cabinet sitting in at one of the public forums to solicit input from city residents on the now missing Strategic Plan]

The four management employees attended various forums and both Diaz and Vicino led meetings showing off very different and interesting leadership styles. The input received was then tabulated and an inhouse survey to the police officers and civilian employees was then circulated. The results in the surveys involving the police employees and the public weren't all that different, with "accountability" being a large priority in both survey groups. Not surprising after everything that had happened in 2010 that had led to the hiring of Diaz, Vicino and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer.

The department had been sent to have an extended command staff meeting to discuss the results and how to proceed but that was interrupted by the tragic shooting death of Officer Ryan Bonominio which tested the department in ways much different than it had been tested the first half of its most tumultuous year in over a decade. It was one of the first major challenges faced by Diaz since his arrival.

Several months later, the proposed command staff meeting took place but the focus of the plan had shifted to rewriting the police department's mission statement. Rewriting mission statements was being marketed around to different city departments by the city management and the police department apparently couldn't complete or even progress forward in its Strategic Plan until the mission statement had been done. But then things got really quiet after that and since then not a peep about the police department's Strategic Plan at least not to the public including those who showed up to the forums to provide public input on it or online to fill out the surveys. Not to mention the police employees who participated in that process and represented the department at the forums providing assistance to those who attended.

No one on the dais, not the city council members including Public Safety Committee Chair Chris MacArthur nor Mayor Ron Loveridge have even inquired publicly about it or its status. It's as if the city leadership including those who attended public forums in their respective wards have forgotten that the Strategic Plan was even supposed to exist at all. Greer who's practically disappeared from the public eye outside Chief Advisory Committee meetings and the energetic Vicino haven't had much to say about it either.

But both men have been kept very busy by Diaz and both have had to adapt to the dynamics at the higher level of the police department. Vicino allegedly had clashed with Deputy Chief Mike Blakely to the point where they were raising their voices loudly at each other while getting into their cars on one occasion. Vicino on Diaz' direction has apparently made some changes at the top of the administration including those very much needed while some of the responsibilities that Blakely allegedly has held have been rerouted by Diaz around him and onto other management employees including the captains. Whether or not that created the alleged conflict between Vicino and Blakely who both have strong opinions and pretty rigorous work ethics, it created some interesting if volatile dynamics at Orange Street Station. Diaz appeared to look at it from a distance as if to let it sort itself out.

Yet Diaz during one extended command staff meeting while claiming that someone or some people in upper management were undermining him defended his appointment of Blakely which had not been supported by denizens at City Hall. Someone had asked for examples and Diaz had offered up his experience with the Blakely appointment and then told them to forget their past experiences with the newly re-crowned deputy chief and just accept it, while Blakely sat in the room. Then there were allegedly some complaints about this blog and some swear words attached in the meeting, because Diaz for a former Los Angeles Police Department high ranking employee seems very preoccupied with what bloggers write about him.

He's not a fan of this blog and he doesn't like me much even making snide comments in public that few if anyone who witness them understand the context behind so they just view him as being chilly. It's unfortunate that he feels that way, he's entitled to his opinion but he's got much bigger problems on his plate than bloggers. Some bloggers might choose to focus on his dancing skills but what matters to most people are his leadership skills over the police department.

He's got to figure out where his police operational budget is coming from next fiscal year and who his next boss will be. The fact that the department hasn't filled a non-dispatcher civilian position in four years is a large problem as is that division's 27% vacancy rate. It affects the department, the public and the officers who rely on support but the city's apparently not made any moves to address with this issue though Diaz has tried to make it clear that at least five civilian positions needed to be filled soon. But seriously money, not bloggers are his and the department's most serious crisis beginning next year.


It'll be interesting to see how the dynamics at the top play out among Diaz, Vicino and Blakely but that still leaves Greer who's housed across the city at the Magnolia Policing Center and apparently happy about that.

He has allegedly played it smart and kept his head down a bit handling his workload bringing in his experience from his prior stint. The captains as a class experienced some growing pains adjusting to their new responsibilities, trying to adjust to a new learning curve about what was expected from them. After all, they hadn't risen to that level in anything less than a pretty cut throat environment where the skills to engage in that were emphasized more in promotional choices than one's management skills. Structured mentorship was non-existent and with those higher up in management who preceded Diaz and his cadre pretty much just micromanaging the agency when the city management was preoccupied elsewhere hadn't exactly allowed them to flex their leadership and management skills or even develop them.

In the midst of a department still addressing dynamics including several incidents involving employees at the top who were involved in off-duty behavior that elicited various responses from Diaz, it's not clear where the Strategic Plan fits in. Perhaps the upcoming budget challenges are impacting its progression but a report to the Public Safety Committee is probably a step that should be taken. So that people have some idea that the Plan still exists if it's currently missing and hasn't been abandoned (again) and dropped off the radar completely. Though it was sold pretty well at the public forums, there's not been a lot since to convince anyone that it's really a priority for the department which could use a blue print that's received input from different groups on what the next five years should look like.

And that needs to change or the police department should just tell the city council that it changed its mind about the plan. If it's still working on it and it's just not completed, then it should give an update to the Public Safety Committee, that doesn't seem all that different for at least one of the four management level employees to do quickly enough.

[With a background in strategic planning in Pasadena, Asst. Chief Chris Vicino was a natural point person for the RPD's plan and initially took the ball and ran with it, but what happened to it?]

[The Marriott Hotel in downtown was the setting for one of the public forums held last year for soliciting input on the Strategic Plan]

[Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis who allegedly spent time micromanaging the police department before quitting his job to become a municipal management consultant didn't appear to be a big fan of strategic planning]



More to Come...