Who's Declared War on Whom in RiverCity?

UPDATE:

**JOIN Team Sahagun**

Don't let the city thrown him under the bus



First a Custodian, now a Police Officer 



I wish I’d done this a long time ago. I didn’t think it would really
happen, until it happened.”

---Sahagun, who grew up in the Eastside about becoming an RPD officer at the age of 39



call city council and mayor at 826-5991
or send emails to protest the city hall's actions:

mgardner@riversideca.gov
asmelendrez@riversideca.gov
rbailey@riversideca.gov
pdavis@riversideca.gov
cmacarthur@riversideca.gov
nhart@riversideca.gov
sadams@riversideca.gov
rloveridge@riversideca.gov      






RPOA Weights In; Blasts City Hall

Says Officer "thrown under proverbial bus"
(I do agree by the way) 

RPOA LETTER 
 (Brian Smith wrote a pretty epic letter in my opinion, it's definitely a must read)

 

Meet Chief Gregory Priamos



City Attorney told him to do it 


RPD Incident Report  (N.Sahagun/Romano and supervisor Sgt. Lisa Williams_)   (PDF file for downloading)





Police report involving the arrest of  Karen Wright points finger at City Attorney Gregory Priamos. Priamos refuses to give his side of the conversation with the officer citing "attorney/client" privilege as the story of the latest embarrassment in Riverside spreads across the land...


“Priamos requested that during future meetings, I should stop S1 [Wright] from going too long past the three minute allotted time.”

---Officer Nick Sahagun from his police report 

Glad this finally came out. I never believed for a second this arrest came from anywhere but the city council dais. Now can the CC and mayor explain again in public why they threw the officer under the bus?  And why they denied having any control of the handling of gadflies by the police?   Their change of protocol behind closed doors, if they thought the actions were appropriate?  These and other questions challenged the veracity once again of our city council and mayor. 

I mean if you can derail a promotion or block it with a phone call from somewhere on the dais, it makes you wonder who's really in charge. 




Hyatt Hotel Vs Riverside





The city might wind up owning this hotel...and its debt.




Dan Bernstein writes on the mess with the Hyatt Hotel.


Who wants to bet the developers for the Hyatt don't file a lawsuit and include an injunction against further "loan" payments until the lawsuit is litigated?  I wouldn't bet against this scenario.


The Most Disturbing Officer Arrested Ever

 NYPD Officer Arrested for Alleged Cannibalism Plot

 More coverage on the City Council Arrest:

Los Angeles Times Blog

The Mayor in the blog posting says the city council chair will make the decision on who to expel not the police officers from now on. If the police were always making the decision and the arrest was justified under that discretion, why change the practice now?  Or did Mayor Loveridge just throw the police officers under the bus?

KTLA news report on incident

CBS News in Los Angeles

Press Enterprise on changes to expulsion protocol

Dan Bernstein on the incident 

Fox Chimes in on how she must have gotten under someone's skin 
  

 

Karen Wright handcuffed  after she'd turned away from the podium after exceeding the three minute rule  (picture: TMC)

The police department's newest captain comes to supervise handcuffing of Karen Wright

(Photo: TMC)

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

--Benjamin Franklin

Eyewitness narrative of incident 

Press Enterprise Alicia Robinson Twitter at meeting

Should City Council critic have been handcuffed at meeting?

Councilman Andrew Melendrez has found himself in between a few political cross hairs for asking the wrong questions

Alas, things are not currently very peaceful in Riverside, or River City as it's affectionately or not referred to by people  who follow the political tides that have shaped the city going back over a century. But while the denizens of the dais had for the most part held their cohesiveness together for the past several years as one regime or another marched in and then were voted out of office, that era might be coming to an abrupt end as there have been some dust ups on the dais and all out war is threatening to break out between various elected officials.  It's getting harder and harder to create a scorecard for all the conflicts that have erupted in public not to mention those brewing behind the scenes.

Councilman Paul Davis and Councilman Steve Adams have been at odds with each other to say the least going back even before the last election impacting Adams' ward back in 2011.  In that election, Davis supported Adams' challenger, John Brandriff who hoped to oust Adams but it wasn't to be and Adams quite easily won his reelection. Since then, Adams appears to have been itching to get Davis back for that transgression, that break from the unity that had defined Riverside's dais since well, before Davis got on it in 2009.

Davis has his flaws like any politician. To be one is to be flawed but he's got his strengths too and one of them is breaking from the traditional "go along to get along" and "I didn't see/hear/say that."  Which in some ways sets him apart from the others in the dais.  He asks questions on various issues from the whole AMR monopoly to the issue with the Red Light cameras and it's these two particular issues that quickly enough got him into trouble.

Picture at least six people on the dais doing just this all the time!

But as it turns out, Adams is busy getting ready to go to war with another councilman and that's Andrew Melendrez.  This war is really one that is linked to two major issues, the aforementioned Red Light Camera issue and also the complaint filed against Davis by an employee from the city's fire department. Adams right now is loading himself on information to use as ammo against Melendrez in upcoming days as rumors have been brewing for several weeks that a huge blowup is looming on the dais. 

Meanwhile, several of the city council members and one former one now running for mayor have shown up on an email that was written to Melendrez from political consultant for hire, Michael Williams which looks like some sort of cease and desist notice to Melendrez that he shouldn't be expecting any help from Williams and Company the next time he runs for election which will be for city council next year. All those carbon copied on an email sent by Williams to Melendrez two months ago are clients of Williams either for the mayoral election or for city council.  Missing is Councilman Rusty Bailey who was a client of Williams during his city council reelection bid last year but he's not shown up on the client list for his mayoral bid. 

Williams already had allegedly not accepted Davis as a client when Davis first ran for city council in 2009 because as some have said, he was pressured by others on his client list that they'd rethink their own status with Williams if he accepted Davis. At the time, there allegedly wasn't any bad blood between them, it seemed amicable and civil involving both parties that just wouldn't be working together. But it's clear that judging from Williams August 2012 email, things have changed.

First city council member to appear on the Williams' blacklist during his 2011 campaign

Councilman Steve Adams doing some digging on Melendez and appears on the carbon copy list along with the mayoral candidate that he endorsed of Williams' email.

But even some time after Williams had drafted his email to Melendrez, Adams was off doing his own research on Melendrez on the Red Light camera issue submitting a request for the paper trail between Melendrez and the city on that extremely polarized issue.

Adams sent this email to the city clerk's office to get into that paper trail. 

From: Adams, Steve
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2012 1:27 PM
To: Nicol, Colleen; Morton, Sherry
Subject: Public Records request

Please provide me with any and all e-mails sent or received by Council
Member Melendrez over the last 60 days in regards to the Red Light
Camera Program and or Council Member Steve Adams.

Thank you,
Steve Adams

So what is Adams looking for in relation to that issue? Well the answer's really quite simple. The two erupted in what was one of the most contentious issues to come across the formerly peaceful dais in years. The city council had voted 3-3 (with Nancy Hart being absent) on a motion to keep the controversial, money losing program. Mayor Ron Loveridge cast the deciding vote in favor of the program but it was supposed to come back for reevaluation after a period of time. Imagine the shock of some of those in the dais when their own employee, City Manager Scott Barber tried to keep the program running as  is with some changes without bringing it to the city council for a vote which was the stated purpose of the approved motion. He just said the problems in it had been fixed and that was that.  But the issue being treated like that created a brouhaha and like what happens in situations that cause furor among city residents, it went back to city council and  then the issue arose of putting it on the ballot next June for people to vote on its fate.  But in the meantime...two motions were in conflict, one to dismantle it until the election and one to keep it going until the election.  Guess which one Adams led the charge on?

The Red Light Camera issue is probably the best intended project ever to get totally screwed up so that it became an ineffective, overreaching, nonenforceable, possibly illegal (or at least being seriously challenged as such), costly mess of a program in the city's recent history.  It's not uncommon as a pedestrian to see cars slow down for intersections with cameras and then completely blow the red light of the next one in their path and vice versa. Some people just like to blow red lights period. What hasn't been studied by the city is that there's a relationship between the Red Light Camera program and the decrease in police officers assigned to the traffic division. At one time in the early 1990s, there were about 18-19 traffic officers assigned to the streets but even as Riverside's streets became more congested, there were too few highway off and on ramps and the population grew, the number of traffic officers steadily dropped as low as 13. Were the cameras one way of dealing with this trend in the diminishing of these positions including two that were phased out even before being implemented in 2008?  Did they supplement the traffic officers or supplant them?

Anyway, whatever the merits or pitfalls of the Red Light Camera program, the blowup between Adams and Melendrez if it can be called that happened not because of the issue itself, but by the fact that Adams had actually participated in the vote to decide its fate.  Most people know by now despite the Press Enterprise's initial under reporting of it that Adams' brother, former police officer Ron Adams is one of the retired officers hired to part-time to run the program. At least as of a few years ago, he was paid a salary out of the former city manager's discretionary fund.   But Adams participated in the vote to keep the program going which meant that his brother would keep his job there.  Melendrez questioned that and Adams took offense.  He asked City Attorney Greg Priamos about it and Priamos said that under the law, since the Adams were only brothers and not father and son or married that it didn't constitute a conflict of interest for him to vote.

But Priamos didn't touch the city's ethics code of conduct in his narrative. Under the code, the perception or appearance of a conflict of interest is also governed under the code and its complaint process which differs from the law. Priamos clearly chose to dodge that issue by not including it in his rather expansive narrative on the issue.

The two argued back and forth about it at the most recent and prolonged meeting on the Red Light camera issue and Adams complained that Melendrez had sat in the negotiations involving the contracts with the Riverside Police Officers' Association even though his son, Aurelio was a police officer and a member of that union.  Melendrez said that they could discuss the appropriateness of that but stood his ground on the ethics of allowing Adams to vote on the Red Light Camera program's fate.

At evening's end, the vote was very tight with Hart there to cast her vote and Adams as well. As it turned out, Adams vote to "save" the program was needed which is why he didn't recuse himself.  But no matter how he phrased it, the consensus was that he voted to keep his brother employed by the city and he can't really blame anyone for that. The voters will ultimately be the ones who will decide the fate of this problematic program where any money made seems to go everywhere but back into perhaps funding traffic education programs (which are funded by diminishing sources of  grant money). That would make some sense to put it rather than paying the lion share of money to a private company in Australia that has a satellite office in Arizona.

 But it was clear that Adams and Melendrez only postponed an even bigger confrontation ahead.

Melendrez and Adams also tangled over the complaint filed against Davis by a fire department inspector at a event earlier this year involving a food truck festival which involved a disagreement or argument where Davis allegedly acted disrespectful to and interfered with her performance of her duties.  The employee filed a complaint against Davis which was her perogative under a system that's available. But the investigation including its process was fraught with problems.

The investigation was mentioned as being "independent" meaning by an investigator working for an outside form. That was technically true but mostly due to a chain of events tied with the state's enforcement of employment rules pertaining to PERS retirements. Jeffrey Collopy the investigator who did the investigation was a former employee first of the police department where he retired as a lieutenant and then he went to work for Priamos directly as an investigator in his office. It was only because of the enforcement of new rules involving PERS that he's still not an official city employee today. The investigation of a complaint against an elected official should have been done by a business outside the city's own employment roster but that didn't happen.

Plus the investigation process wasn't explained at all to the public either before it happened or even after.
Apparently some of the members occupying the dais didn't understand it either because Melendrez asked questions about how it had been handled. He'd been ill with a heart  condition when it had been handled so he was asking followup questions on the process and some of them were critical in nature. But this was an appropriate action for him to take to ask questions as part of a fact finding process.

Was investigating a complaint against Davis wrong?  No. But the process followed seems very problematic at best and when an elected official asks questions about it he shouldn't be penalized for it.But apparently Melendrez would be paying a price for his inquisitiveness.


Then Michael Williams  of  Michael Williams Company sent out the following declarative statement on how he felt about the city council and mayor these days. For those who don't know, Michael Williams is one of the top political consultants in Riverside specializing in the area of campaign finance.  He helps candidates throw those parties to attract partygoers who will donate funds to the candidates' campaign chests. He's pretty popular and boasts an impressive roster of clients.  

It was in response to the apparent resolution of the complaint against Davis.


Loveridge. Ron 

From:   : admin@michaelwilliamscompany.org 

To:  Melendrez,Andy

Cc:  EdyAdkison; Loveridge,Ron;steveadamsward7 @yahoo.com;ChrisArthur

Wednesday,August 29,20126:54 PM 

Subject: Yesterday'sCouncilMeeting.

 August 29, 2012 

Dear Andy, This letter pains me to write, you are a very nice man. We probably disagree on alot of issues, but you're a good honest man. I have been extremely disappointed with the current council and mayor of this city. Yesterday is probably the best example of what I'm talking about. Through my extensive rumor mill, there was to be some discussion about misconduct by one of your fellow members. I know you were absent during the meeting, but the result has me very disturbed by the LACK OF WILL TO STAND UP, by this council and current mayor. 

The Dom Betro's/Frank Schiavone's/Ed Adkison's/Steve Adams's/Art Gage's/and yourself were vital in the creation of the Renaissance program and implementation in this city. These people took risks and in some cases it cost them their jobs. This current council has borne the fruits of these risk takers and taken the accolates of this. That's politics. Frankly, I don't know where you come down on the mayor's race, but there needs to have someone in that position and on the council seats who want to STAND UP and not roll over on everything for the lowest common denominator to NOT get anyone upset. If a council can't make a basic decision on conduct and show some leadership, why are they there. At this point Andy, I think that it best that I NOT do your fundraising and frankly, during the next cycle I will just do stuff for Steve and Chris. Davis has won re-election already because NO one will join a chorus. This is very disturbing.

 If this council can't do the right thing against Mr. Davis .... why is the Council there? The bully has won and those that have enabled him totally, in my opinion, lack any character on this issue and others. Some of my past emails also have referred to things that I got involved with this city ...particularily the Fox Theatre. No one listen to me then .... everyone rolled over to a mayoral appointment committee that did exactly what shouldn't have been done ... and you have a $34million White Elephant on your hands---with NO solutions to deal with it. And, I could go on about other issues as well. The Emperor and some colleagues have no clothes ... all of your council members are friends of mine, but the disappOintment with the lack of will to do the right thing is pathetic. Andy, like I said, this pains me to say no to you at this time. But, until I see some spunk (LEADERSHIP) out of this council, I think I'm going to pass on all the races in 2013. 

My best always, 

 Mike Williams 

This Council (with a few exceptions) and Mayor can't stand up 




Williams is right on about the Fox Theater in that it's turned into a white elephant at least financially speaking because it's losing money. But his view that the Renaissance was this great program that involved elected officials taking risks and losing their jobs wasn't exactly factually true. The electeds didn't take the risks themselves, they made sure the public took the risks, after all it's not their money they gambled on and then when it wasn't spent (including utility revenue funds used to pay for expenses outside utilities), the city borrowed, and borrowed and borrowed some more, putting itself in debt over $2.1 billion just on the Renaissance.

The city's going to face major cuts because it won't have the cash to spend. Only last week, reports came in that police chief, Sergio Diaz was telling people including his own advisory board that the police department won't be able to address certain crimes, and that there will be more streetwalkers and such due to the budget cuts to the police department. Other reports include programs like UNET not being adequately funded on the city's side and such including the Vice unit. And if the police department is facing these kinds of budget cuts and more then what does that say about the state of the city?

But will Williams go through with his boycott of Davis and now Melendrez or will he change his mind or just fund other candidates? Stay tuned, after all the email was written in August and there's been some developments since then including one that will surely impact Davis' reelection bid. 

RPOA Declares Neutrality in Mayoral Election

(So now there's at least two of us)

The Riverside Police Officers' Association is neutral in mayor's race according to this letter submitted by its current president, Sgt. Brian C. Smith.

Text of RPOA letter:

To Whom It May Concern: 

After careful consideration and a thorough review process that included one on one interviews and questionnaires, the Riverside Police Officers’ Association has determined that both Mr. Bailey and Mr. Adkinson are exceptionally qualified to serve as Mayor for the City of Riverside.

 The Riverside Police Officers’ Association has decided to stay neutral in this race and not endorse a specific candidate. Each Candidate has wide range of experience and differing views on how to best serve the residents of Riverside and are prepared for the challenges that await them once in office. 

 The Riverside Police Officers’ Association looks forward to working with the Mayor’s office to help promote Riverside as a city rich in history and tradition and a safe place to raise a family. I encourage every registered voter to cast his or her ballot in November! 

Respectfully, Brian C. Smith

I have to say that I thought I would be the only one to not choose to endorse either candidate though I've been pressured about having to endorse one or the other for a myriad of reasons. Not by the candidates so much but by supporters.  If I don't endorse one, I'm getting the other elected as if one vote truly equals a thousand. I'm flattered that they think my vote counts more than I do but I dug my heels in this one and said, no endorsement.   Sorry but my memory of history just isn't that short on either of them. They both have so much to prove and in some cases a very steep curve.  The people looking for a "reformist" mayor, better keep looking because it'll take someone who's never served on the dais to reform what's wrong with city government.

It seems that I'm not the only one. The Riverside Police Officers' Association's own PAC has opted out of endorsing either candidate either and as Smith stated, is taking the neutral position. All I can say is you go, union. I think that the union opted for the right choice in the mayoral race and I applaud it. Whereas the Riverside Firefighters' Association opted to endorse the closest thing to an incumbent (and historically its PAC nearly always endorses incumbents), the RPOA just said no...or if not to the candidates themselves, just that they won't pick one over the other.

Some people might view this as being indecisive but I'm not one of them. It's in fact very decisive. The reasons for my neutrality are the opposite of those stated in the letter. I'm not sure either of them is fit to be mayor not that the mayoral position is that powerful in Riverside and with good reason if you've studied local history going back into the 1920s when you had a Ku Klux Klan guy running for mayor, a financially corrupt government and a police chief arrested for public intoxication. They both would need to prove it to me and that's impossible without serving in the position.

Sometimes history repeats itself. But the union did have a struggle with this one or so I've heard and that's not surprising. It's a thorny issue to decide to endorse...nobody but sometimes it's just what you got to do. Allegedly endorsing either candidate would have created issues with membership that couldn't be reconciled. No matter what the qualifications of the candidates, what the union leadership might have been showing is that it listened as it should do to what its members had to say. That's a very good and important step on its part.

Any endorsement of Bailey would have been highly problematic for its leadership as Bailey had been accused by former Police Chief Russ Leach through his most latest deposition of interfering with the promotional process surrounding now Lt. Val Graham. The city's already paid out settlements to former police employees in part on allegations that Adams had interfered with the promotional process involving two police captains. Leach's second deposition which addressed Adams' alleged involvement stamped him even harder in that camp than his earlier one.

The RPOA wasn't the only police union that apparently opted out of endorsing Bailey as apparently the Riverside Sheriffs' Association did the same thing. Bailey had gone around looking for support among law enforcement and the issues pertaining to his alleged involvement in Graham's promotional process was one he apparently couldn't run away from.

Some also said that some union members were also leery of Adkison in part because of problems associated with the use of police officers by elected officials as "bouncers" to eject public speakers at the dais speaking on issues including two incidents. This happened when people like Dom Betro, Frank Schiavone and Adksion were on that dais, the ones mentioned in Williams' email. One incident involving four individuals including 90 year old Marjorie Von Poule and the other, an 82 year old woman complaining about a city pipe bursting and flooding her house who exceeded the three minute speaking rule.  Police officers were allegedly so unhappy with how a former quartet of council members ran the dais that it was getting harder to find enough of them willing to work security at the city council meetings back then.  Who really wants to be the police officer ordered to eject the 82 year old woman anyway just for speaking past three minutes like she's a criminal?  If someone does something like that, it should be an elected official instead.But none of them could apparently take responsibility for it so they had some officer or officers take the heat for it instead. Then during the first incident, several councilmen allegedly ordered former City Manager Brad Hudson to call up the DA and the detectives at the department to do cases against those four individuals but thankfully everyone they called refused to do it and frankly had other work to do instead as well.

This is just history in case memories have faded  or some people in City Hall don't want it remembered. 

At any way however way the RPOA reached its decision, it made the right one and I think future events no matter who wins (because one of them will) will bear that out. It was the best decision to make and it was the right one.

In the meantime, Rusty Bailey's campaign mailers ignite criticism from the Adkison camp causing many to question the integrity of his Team Bailey campaign.

Photo Gallery

The City Council Chambers while under construction to have prior re-construction undone to bring it up to governmental code.  But are other laws being broken inside it?

 We are family...I got all my brothers and...well that's the way it used to be for the now battling and fractured city council in River City.

Summer's over and city council is once again back holding its regular sessions.  In recent months, the city council have recently  broken away from their "go along to get along" Group Think (tm) way of doing city business and have started jousting with one another. It's hard to keep track of the playlist of who's ticked off at whom because it changes almost every week. Some of that was outlined in the above paragraphs but it's all subject to change at any moment.

One meeting got so contentious that Mayor Pro Tem Rusty Bailey had to take action. Outgoing Loveridge who's been mentoring Bailey has been skipping evening meetings so that it gives Bailey a showcase to show off  his leadership skills to the public both in the audience and watching at home or online. But lately that's meant breaking up some fighting on the dais between some of the other members. As already stated, Bailey and Melendrez have been going at it a bit on various issues.

At one point at a recent meeting, Bailey broke in at some point and asked Adams to vacate after Adams waggled his finger at Melendrez.  It's getting to the point where people in the audience want to hand out boxing gloves or nerf sticks to the battling city council members. As much as Loveridge has been grooming Bailey, he just looks lost up there.

The aforementioned red light camera issue came back to be rehashed all over again and the Press Enterprise blogged about city staff getting dressed down by elected officials as if that's actually news. Okay, the part about the city council members dressing down their city staff most definitely is news especially this part: 

( excerpt, Press Enterprise)

My issue is with staff asking us to rubber stamp something we knew nothing about,” Hart said.

“This is not the way we as a council want to do business,” she added.

Councilwoman Nancy Hart, you don't want to be a rubber stamp, don't act like one!

Maybe Hart's not aware of it, but she's been a rubber stamp used by "staff" for years.  After all, she's the one who as chair of the Finance Committee chose not to conduct meetings unless former Asst. City Manager/Chief Finance Officer/Treasurer Paul Sundeen said there was a reason to meet or anything to discuss. Public pressure put Hart in the hot seat of having to explain her inaction with the Finance Committee and when she tried to do her usual direct examination of city employees adding them leading questions, it didn't acquit her well. Soon after the Finance Committee dusted itself off and started holding monthly meetings apparently finding plenty to talk about from developer's fees to audits to amnesty periods on parking tickets.

But it was when the Finance Committee didn't meet was when most of the questionable expenditures and uses of the city's finances took place.

But the fact that city staff including City Manager Scott Barber (who's obviously picked up a few things from his predecessor) spent money to the tune of $2.5 million this time on that debacle called the Fox Entertainment Plaza isn't really news at all. It's called pattern and practice and city managers have been doing such in Riverside since way before two weeks ago.  And the other times, the city council and mayor sat up there like bobble heads smiling their way through it.




Every scandal that erupted in Hudson's watch was responded to as if the city council were bobble heads who thought if they smiled widely enough and pointed quickly away from the latest embarrassment at a pretty trinket, no one would notice illegal and/or unethical behavior. Point out anything untidy like illegal badges, illegally purchased guns and the city council and mayor would just smile and point out the lovely tree over there...you have to wonder why after that and more happened under the watch of past and current city council members why Hart's only complaining now about being a rubber stamp.

 The Citrus Towers stood at the top of a four way land swap which means that the city will pay $2 million plus annually just to make sure this project has its anchor tenant, Best, Best and Krieger.  Like the top end of any Ponzi Scheme like designed structure or just the first seat filled in musical chairs, this building looks splendid.

Okay, the Citrus Towers looks magnificent and it's filled with Best, Best and Krieger lawyers who vacated their old digs at the Wells Fargo building closer to City Hall to occupy space there. Loveridge even chose to have his very last (and  this time it's true) Mayoral Ball there on the sixth floor. If he did that to dissuade the people from seeing the situation involving the infamous quadruple land swap as a gift of public funds to the two private companies which benefited the most from it, all it did was raise more questions.

Questions like who's picked up the BB&K lease which is quite pricy at its old home and who's paying the $1 million or so of the bond indebtedness at the building on Orange Street near City Hall that's still housing a portion of the Riverside Public Utilities office.  Barber refuses to answer this question asked repeatedly at City Council meetings and in fact the last time it was asked, he was playing with his i Pad.  The answer as it turns out is that the Riverside Public Utilities is paying the "lease" on both buildings instead of just one of them.  It moved its administration and engineering division to space on the 3rd and 4th floor of the Wells Fargo Building (though the marquee of suite space on the ground floor hasn't been updated yet) and the finance division is still housed at its old haunt on Orange Street with the fate of Customer Service currently at its headquarters at a building that was transferred to the RDA before that collapsed unknown as to where it'll be going.

So basically what Barber doesn't want to say and no city council member either wants or allows or cares enough to get him to admit is that essentially the Public Utilities department is paying roughly twice the "rent" it was paying before this land scheme was engineered. If that hadn't happened, then this division would have simply stuck to paying the bond indebtedness on one building.  But the city needed Public Utilities to occupy both buildings so that the unused lease period of one and the bond indebtedness of the other could be paid for by utilities funds and then the cost passed on of course to the consumer most likely through rate increases and new fees and taxes.

Just like anything towards the end of a Ponzi Scheme, this building is a shell of itself with Riverside Public Utilities forced to pick up the tab for a building it barely occupies any longer, save for its Finance Division while it also allegedly picks up the tab for its pricier digs downtown. 

But the part of the land swap that narrowly avoided a bad situation was the police department. Originally the administrative offices at the Orange Street Station were going to fill the vacancy at the RPU building. That of course didn't happen because logistically it couldn't be done in a way that would work for the police  department services being relocated. The police department thus avoided paying $700,000 in renovation and relocation expenses not to mention having the department's budget or the general fund try to come up with the $1 million plus annually to pay the bond indebtedness. The police budget simply wouldn't be able to come up with this cash annually as it stands and it's also unlikely that it wouldn't have to pay at least a sizable portion because the general fund itself (which finances most of the police budget) is not able to really cover the costs either. Why do you think the city put RPU there instead to cover that bond debt each year? Because it has its own financial resources that it generates that the general fund doesn't. 

Imagine what would have happened if the city had tried to force this insane transfer through, given that the police budget is facing cuts at least that's what Diaz and his cabinet have been telling people in the communities of Riverside about police services. He's said to his band of "good" business and community leaders that some crimes won't be policed due to budget cuts. Other members of his leadership inside the department have been at meetings warning of cuts or reduced investment including financially in programs like UNET and Vice.

Chief Sergio Diaz and company have been warning their trusted band of business and community leaders about the impact of budget cuts on future policing

It's not exactly clear why Diaz is doing this or most anything for that matter because he only chooses to explain things to his set. But if it's in hopes that the leaders on his advisory board for example will take their concerns to the city officials to stop the budget cuts or if it's just facing the reality that the city's financially strapped, it's not clear yet.  But it makes what the city nearly did to the police department in the quadruple land swap a crime in my opinion. When the city was preparing to foist an extra start up cost of $700,000 on the department and that's before increasing its annual rent on its administrative headquarters from $1 annually to over $1 million, it should have been anticipating that the worst recession since the Great Depression might impact the city's budget including that of its police department. 

So why when they should have known that the budget could face serious cuts did they choose to help both Mark Rubin (who owns the Citrus Towers) and to a lesser extent, BB&K at what could have been high costs to both the police department and RPU?   Rubin needed to pay the $37.5 million in state bonds with lease revenue generating stream which was to have been the Raincross Promenade luxurious condos turned rental apartments which he hoped would be leased out.  The city claims that all of the units are leased out but that place is still quite dark at night and at any rate if it was fully occupied, it would have used the rent to pay the bonds on the Citrus Tower and the city would have never had to get involved in the business of helping promote private enterprise at the expense of its own city departments. So who was going to benefit from all this. 

Rubin, Citrus Towers: He gets an anchor tenant in BB&K so he can remain eligible for the bonds used to build the Towers by the use of lease revenue generation. Also an anchor tenant can attract more business for high-end office space which is not exactly experiencing a shortage in Riverside right now. 

BB&K:  The city's #1 law firm doesn't benefit as much giving up premium if expensive office space in exchange for what some in the firm have called smaller, more cramped digs at the Towers. And then there was the issue of not completing their lease on the Fargo building space. Presto, the city steps in and offers to finish out the lease for BB&K facilitating the move. 

Cost to BB&K: Maybe slightly higher but thanks to the city, it avoids a lawsuit by building owner for breach of contract.But city risked a lawsuit filed against it for "tortious interference".

RPU:  Winds up having an incremental lease hike as the costs of living at the Fargo digs costs more than what they were paying at the building that housed administration, finance and engineering. Now they're paying two lease tabs instead of one since after the deal with the RPD fell through, they couldn't backfill the space. 

Cost to taxpayers:  higher than what was paid in its current digs. Now it's paying roughly twice as much as earlier which will no doubt be passed on to customers.  

RPD: Would have seen its lease on administrative headquarters go from $1 (until end of 2017) go up to over $1 million annually. Not to mention the $700,000 to relocate most of Orange Street and additional monies of over $1.4 million to do the much needed relocation of dispatch, some of which was grant funded, the rest bond money tied up in the RDA mess. Dispatch was never going to be relocated to the RPU building and could have been relocated independently and in fact was relocated independently from the situation at Orange Street Station.

Cost to tax payers:  Anyone who thinks that it's not going to increase the cost to city residents by multiplying one's "rent" by over a million times, raise your hand. Or that it wouldn't have substantially worsened cuts currently being faced by the RPD to its services as told by Diaz and his cabinet at meetings.

The Fire Station That Just Wants to Be Finished

Construction halted on downtown fire station.  If you're a licensed contractor that can finish a fire station for a good price, the city needs you!

 An older photo of the new downtown fire station which has been in limbo since Edge Construction walked away from it. It does look a bit more finished than this photo but is unable to open.

Or that really pretty looking fire station downtown that hasn't seen a crew construction for months. You see Edge Construction bailed from the project and walked away, something that contractors usually only do when their bills aren't getting paid meaning they're out of liquid cash. But the company has indeed shutting down. Initially Randy Carter, its onsite supervisor at the fire station said the project would be completed but we're guessing that's not happening.What's confusing is that work shut down some time ago allegedly because payments weren't being made to contractors back when the building parcel was tied up in the RDA shutdown.

Councilman Mike Gardner did helpfully respond to an email on the matter.


Mary,

The surety company has taken over construction responsibility since Edge Construction failed.  Work has stopped until a new general contractor is brought on board.  I expect that to be fairly soon.  This may delay opening which was scheduled for right about first of the year.  The length of the delay depends on how long it takes to get in a new general and how long it takes them to ramp back up.

Hope this helps.  I know it is not 100% definitive, but it is the best information we have right now.

Best regards,

Mike



The project is currently on hold for an undetermined amount of time.But this project is included on the Building Watch. We'll all see what happens with this much needed fire station. The only thing that can be said is that hey, at least it's one of two city fire stations (with #4 being the other) that's not collateral on some bond deal including those involving private projects by developers like the Hyatt Hotel downtown.

It's so nice that the city did its best to loan money to a developer to get the Hyatt done on schedule but one of our fire stations which is badly needed is left fallow until at least early next year.

Former City Manager Brad Hudson has left the building but does his legacy live on?

City Manager Scott Barber got royally dressed down by his bosses, was he waiting for his BFF City Attorney Greg Priamos to bail him out?  

But Priamos has been too busy lately with his own problems and wearing his tongue out defending the right for Councilman Steve Adams to vote for a position that employs for his brother.

TO BE CONTINUED....

If Councilman Steve Adams isn't in his seat, it must be public comment time but the beleaguered councilman with the golden tongue is running out of buds on the dais.

In Search of the Naughty Nine?

Riverside's Police Administrative headquarters still resides here but what of the "Naughty Nine"? And how this elite list could wind up costing tax payers.

Did this leopard ever really change his spots?  And why slapping someone on the wrist for an offense that can get them fired isn't always "best practices".

Ever since Chief Sergio Diaz first arrived in Riverside with great fanfare in mid-2010, there's been issues arising within Orange Street Station with what's been going on there.  Whether it's a turf war between two members of Team Diaz leading to a call for a locksmith or a physical altercation between lieutenants that led to Diaz allegedly putting his hands over his ears and walking away from someone saying he didn't want to hear about it. The sudden vacations which arise after allegations of  on duty incidents arise  not to mention the internal investigation involving sexual harassment being done against one captain (who's expected to have the complaint reach that middle finding of not sustained). Then there's  another captain who'd brought baggage into the position from sustained misconduct some years ago facing a new crisis of sorts. That's all sometime after yet another captain allegedly tried (and failed) to get the watch commander of another police department to release his son (who was also hired by the RPD as an officer) without a booking trail.

I look at this and I wonder what the hell is going on here?  And how is this any different than the department under Leach at least when it comes to behavior or misbehavior at the highest levels?

It's hard to know what to make of all this given that the individuals at the very top are supposed to set the example for others in a hierarchical type organization of leadership and management. The public's left in the dark about the mechanisms of accountability used to ensure  that management adheres to professional standards of conduct and when someone who critiqued the Strategic Plan asked about such mechanisms and what they were, the answer simply is that the department doesn't share that information with its partners in the community. Then those in charge of it including Diaz wonder why or flail their arms and get upset when people challenge them or just ask them on that when one of the individuals they chose for a management position gets in trouble. 

What has Diaz actually done with management that's any different? Management personnel got in trouble under Leach, as witnessed by some major retirements on the heels of Leach's own medical retirement. Some apparently still get in trouble now and even when they allegedly commit assault and battery there's no investigation of "private" or "off-duty" matters. Two police officers get different types of discipline for committing sexual misconduct on duty by their chiefs. One, an officer re-offends and winds up being criminally prosecuted and convicted of a felony charge, another, a supervisor gets promoted at least twice. .It's hard to know how to look at these differences in treatment for similar offenses when the initial offenses committed by both most often lead to job termination. If an officer commits a sexual offense on duty and sees that someone above him in rank gets wrist slapped in comparison, does that make it seem like the department takes a hard stance against it or an easy stance or is which you get decided by rank?

Two officers investigated for making the same racial slur. One, a detective is going to get the book thrown at him. The other, the lieutenant in charge of the division investigating him gets nothing...except for a job with the city after his retirement. Once he gets nothing, the detective is retroactively un-disciplined which when you think about it seems fair on one hand but makes the whole incident somewhat bizarre on the other.This was under Leach but is it different under Diaz?

Never a dull moment but it's an issue of concern given how the promise of accountability of upper management and supervision was woven into Diaz' new Strategic Plan as one of its most critical objectives. That was an important stance to take given the crises of confidence impacting the RPD in 2010 where the trickle down effect of management that got into serious trouble including the chief may have contributed to the arrests of more than six officers within 14 months with some of them facing prosecution and conviction for crimes. That didn't just happen in a vacuum. It has partly to do with the very mixed messages that are sent officers when people higher up above them commit misconduct and not only are not investigated but sometimes have been rewarded for it. 

This issue is one that arose and was discussed in a matter of speaking already at the city's highest levels.

With Diaz and two of his cabinet members facing the ends of their three-year contracts in the summer of 2013, what lays ahead for the future of the police department including at its very top? Some say Diaz might be vulnerable and that Barber and he don't have the best relationship in part because Barber didn't hire him. Inhouse criticism of Diaz by several fronts has led to trying times for the police chief though it seems likely at least right now he'll survive that.  Some say that Asst. Chief Chris Vicino has his eye on the spot while others say that it's possible that Deputy Chief Jeffrey Greer who's practically invisible to everyone except when they need him to be in a hot seat on a controversial sell like the Red Light Camera program might be leaving. 

If that were to happen, who does the department have to replace him or anyone else for that matter? In the three years that Diaz has been here, who's ready to step up into those management positions? Who won't be bringing a trouble history with him? Will Diaz reign be a decade long like he predicted?

All this remains to be seen.

Will Heads Roll in City Hall Amid the Mayor's Race?

UPDATE: Riverside Oversight Board to hold first meeting this week on Thursday, March 15 at 1pm to discuss this agenda.

The board membership consists of the following people:

Mayor Ron Loveridge of Riverside

Robyn DeHoog, Development employee, Riverside

John Tavaglione Board of Supervisors, Riverside County

Larry Paulson, Riverside County

Charles Krieger Riverside County Flood Control

Mike Fine Riverside Office of Education Chancellor of Community Colleges


Fine was the first member appointed on Jan. 30 while the two mayors were appointed on Feb. 9 and everyone else on Feb. 28. This Board was set up to address all the obligations resulting from the dissolution of the city's Redevelopment Agency. This meeting is open to the public and includes public comment.



Flashing Police Lights on Motor Vehicles in Riverside? City Attorney Gregory Priamos responds.

[Denied ever equipping his city issued vehicle with any emergency lighting]




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

As for city officials outside of the police department using such lights, Priamos said, he doesn’t have them on his car.

“It was a myth that started some time ago with the former city manager and former assistant city manager,” Priamos said. In 2007 and 2008, they and five other city officials had “cold plates,” untraceable tags that are supposed to be reserved only for law-enforcement vehicles, on their cars.

“They never had emergency red and blue lights,” Priamos said.

UPDATE: Riverside Police Department's new Strategic Plan. In the wake of an interesting ripple in the Riverside Police Administrators' Association elections...
And will a charity foundation need to be set up by the residents of River City to pay for the relocation of the vitally important emergency dispatch center?

[So much activity, only four walls to contain it]





Hopefully this guy's on retainer

And Coming Soon: The next installment of the ongoing serial, It's a Mad, Mad World at Orange Street Station. In this next episode, Chief Sergio Diaz adds to his "naughty" list as he's unveiling the Strategic Plan while the dispatch unit still remains in limbo and there's still so much to pack up at the office before the eviction date.





First the city won't talk about it now official state State Controller John Chiang's two month audit of state bonds is "routine".


But why did the Press Enterprise put information about This complaint filed by a former deputy city attorney in the 14th paragraph?






Does this behavior involving RDA funding look familiar? This article about Montebello created an incredible sense of deja vu.





THIRTY MILES OF CORRUPTION AND CONCERNED CITIZENS WILL OCCUPY CITY HALL IN SUPPORT OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE CONTROLLER’S AUDIT OF THE CITY OF RIVERSIDE’S MISUSE OF PUBLIC FUNDS. EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH DURING PUBLIC COMMENT.

TUESDAY, MARCH 6TH, 2012

8:00 AM – 3:00 PM: GENERAL ASSEMBLY

3:00 PM- COUNCIL CHAMBER

6:30 PM- COUNCIL CHAMBER

IT TAKES A WHOLE COMMUNITY TO CLEANSE CORRUPTION… TAKE BACK RIVERSIDE!

Sacramento:

More labor Unrest at the County from one of CEO Brad Hudson's "reorganizations".


Riverside:

The Finance Division's management vacates its offices to go attend an unspecified conference until Monday March 5.

In the Mayor's Walkable City,

Damned if you do; Damned if you don't

[One of two construction projects that blocks pedestrian access on the south side of University Avenue at Lime]

[The construction project that blocks pedestrian access on the north side of University near Lime and on the other side, the sidewalk leads straight into the construction site for Citrus Towers]

UPDATE:

Guess Who's Coming to City Hall (but not for dinner)?





[These three men huddled with City Manager Scott Barber after the city council meeting, suddenly in a rush to discuss city business after the grueling three hour session]

Guess Who's Coming to Riverside City Hall Next Month? State Controller John Chiang is sending a team of auditors to occupy City Hall to check the books. when this announcement was made at the city council meeting, city council members giggled, some sighed but at the end of the meeting, Mayor Ron Loveridge, Councilman Steve Adams rushed to speak with City Attorney Gregory Priamos and City Manager Scott Barber. What could be so pressing that they all needed to talk to "staff" at once?

Coming Up...The Price of Doing Business (as usual) in River City

Hundreds of people were initially expected to take park in the peace march from Bordwell Park to Patterson Park in the Eastside in response to the fatal shooting of Larenz Simmons, 14. But after NPC East Area Commander Andy Flores cautioned against the march in the wake of a non-fatal shooting on Chicago and University yesterday, many stayed away. That it might not too unsafe to march in the heart of the Eastside's Patterson Park.

Still about 100 people showed up or joined the march to Patterson park where civic leaders including Mayor Ron Loveridge, Councilman Andrew Melendrez and Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster showed up to provide support.

Simmons was shot at as he fled two allegedly Latino men in or near a car on Georgia Street near Kansas and was hit by one gunshot to the head among the half dozen fired. He was hospitalized in critical condition on life support allegedly so that his organs can be donated.

Also unconfirmed reports of police activity at Riverside Poly High School yesterday. His family will be posting information on a trust that will be set up to help pay for funeral costs.

"What do you have to do, keep him inside the house because he's Black?" ---One marcher about her son

We need to come together for change. We all bleed the same blood and it’s red. This has to stop.”


---Sonia Stewart-Watson, Simmons' aunt

[Mayoral Candidate Ed Adkison hits the Friday Morning Club on the candidate trail]



Riverside needs more jobs, more business friendly permit practices

Mayor's office needs less spending money, staffing but more power over budgetary spending The contracts given by the city to a former police chief's ex-wife might have shown "nepotism" And what was with that "quadruple flip" involving the Citrus Tower, Best, Best and Krieger, Public Utilities and the police station downtown?

To be continued...

The following blog posting is not endorsed by either the City of Riverside or the Riverside Police Department. No one who's "anyone" in Riverside reads this blog

but

Their spouses do.

Never a Dull Moment at the "Hall of Debt" as Turbulence Grows...after the "theft" of Redevelopment by "black hatted" Governor Jerry Brown
while the eight self-appointed white knights are left to create an exit strategy





[The Riverside Public Information Department films Councilman (and mayoral candidate) Mike Gardner in front of City Hall]

Who will inherit the Crown as King of Riverside?

[An adage by a very old politician near City Hall that wasn't well liked by the previous city manager]

I ran into Aurora Chavez who told me of her intent to enter into the current mayoral race and she's the latest candidate to declare intent to run in what's turning out to be a rather interesting crop of mayoral candidates. Chavez has issued her campaign paperwork, one of three candidates so far to do so since the filing date officially opened.

You've got politicians needing to remember what it's like to be normal folks and normal folks figuring out how to navigate a system ruled by politicians and that's a win-win situation for those who love to view candidate debates before casting votes. Hopefully, there will be at least one mayoral debate that's truly open to public attendance and doesn't cost major bucks to access or require membership in one of the city's "insider" organizations like the Greater Chambers of Commerce or Riverside Downtown Partnership (which surprise, surprise just elected a Best, Best and Krieger attorney on its board) for example. I was thinking there were just too many past and current politicians running and it's nice to see the more ordinary folks get involved from Dvonne Pitruzzello to Peter Benavidez to Bryan D. Pelkowski and now Chavez. Now it's time to hear everyone get together and discuss and debate the issues facing this city.

The mayoral seat pays more than the more powerful city council positions and has a larger staff that's able to enjoy merit increases even as employees are laid off in other city departments or don't have increases in pay or benefits including public safety employees. It's deliberately left weak under the current city council/city manager system since the 1920s where the city elected a Ku Klux Klan member as mayor who then created a huge financial scandal at the same time the then police chief was busted for public intoxication.


No I didn't make that up. A city resident who researches the history related that tale at an early Charter Review Committee meeting. But you'd think they were giving out the keys to the Holy Grail considering the number of current political officials who's jumped on board the mayoral train while still holding city council seats. In fact, two members of the dais club declared candidacy not long after their reelections to city council, including one who told the Press Enterprise Editorial Board, no he would not run for mayor.

But something about the siren call every four years (give or take an abbreviated mayoral cycle) and you have a group of people already on the dais showing up announcing their candidacy because it's the mandate or will of the people because of electoral victories.

Well not exactly. Actually all these voters thought they were electing or reelecting city councilmen to represent them at City Hall not simply voting for them to focus on that office for a year or two before campaigning for a "higher" seat.

But anyway there are three council members running for the seat.

[Councilman Mike Gardner (l.) after disembarking from his boat]

[Councilman Andrew Melendrez gets ready to set sail]

Councilman Rusty Bailey back in earlier times

And of course one former councilman who declined to run for reelection during 2007 for his seat but has reappeared on the political canvas to run for mayor.

[Former Councilman Ed Adkison (r.) saying goodbye to an outgoing Brad Hudson at his rooftop soiree]

An ex-city council member, Ed Adkison is also running even as the Jurupa Extension project came back for discussion not to mention the rebirth of that rather interesting land swap involving contaminated properties, golf courses and Friends of the Airport coming back in a manner of speaking on the city council agenda as part of the Jurupa Extension project.

Hopefully more will jump into the election, the more the merrier! And let the debates begin!


Resources so far for the Mayoral election with more to be added:


Ed Adkison for Mayor

Mike for Mayor (Facebook)

Andrew Melendrez for Mayor (Facebook)

Rusty Bailey for Mayor

Michael Williams Company (political fundraising event site)

City Clerk Twitters (including updates on election candidates filings)

Dan Bernstein to be Flogged at City Hall

(Only figuratively speaking so far)



[The Old Guard at City Hall is most displeased with Mr. Bernstein]

This wasn't long after Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein acted like a naughty boy with this rift on the Riverside Renaissance and the ridiculous revisionist history already associated with this era that cost the city over $2.1 billion with at least 60% of that funding borrowed or bonded.

Yes, some projects that improved the city infrastructure were needed but others involving questionable and high-risk projects for private developers should never had been part of the Renaissance. They certainly haven't done anything to help pay for it when they were built or purchased for renovation.

I sat in the interviews for the city's Board and Commission interviews with the city council and mayor and watched them rip this column apart. Mayor Ron Loveridge called it "the worst column ever" and "mean spirited" bemoaning Bernstein's lack of ability to "connect the dots" and understand what happened when Redevelopment Agencies went away. Councilman and mayoral candidate, Mike Gardner called it "slanted" and Councilman Steve Adams just said what else was new when it came to Bernstein targeting him for some criticism. Bernstein had brought up Adams' peculiar habit of walking out during public comment either in general or on particular agenda items which he did during discussion of the future of the downtown city library.

[Councilman Steve Adams empty chair, which tells you it's public comment time]

It might not put me on the blogroll at City Hall's seventh floor to say this nor will it get me invited to many campaign fundraisers either. But I agreed with Bernstein's column and considered it one of his bravest in recent years. Oops, did I just get removed from the invite list for the mayoral ball or the Fox Theater Dancing with the Stars gala for saying that? But then why hang out with a bunch of politicians and their monied supporters at some party while Rome burns?

Even if it's doing a slow burn.

The city council continued to grumble a bit over Bernstein's fiery column at the last city council meeting and so have their supporters some who say that Bernstein's just against redevelopment because his bosses who publish the struggling publication are against it in their editorial board. Ergo it's just biased propaganda against the government or something like that. This might indeed be completely accurate and the case, that Bernstein's nothing but a hired hack, a mouthpiece for his anti-redevelopment bosses.

Except for one thing. The Press Enterprise is a beneficiary of Redevelopment and thanks in part to it, got a brand new office building (that's apparently mostly empty but that's another story). It's a beneficiary in other ways through its complicated relationship with City Hall and its relationship with Redevelopment Agencies is much more complicated than suggested in its editorials which mostly question its implementation not the original intent of their creation and existence.

There's an important difference between that stance and that the powers that be there hate redevelopment period. That was clearly indicated by an interview that publisher, Ron Redford when he was interviewed by the mayor and city council as part of the Charter Review Committee process but was soundly rejected. He didn't take a hard stance against redevelopment or even redevelopment agencies but questioned and softly criticized the implementation of these agencies not just by Riverside but other cities as well. Criticism only equates opposition to redevelopment to those who were the strongest supporters of Redevelopment Agencies.

With a global economy struggling to crawl out of a recession and both the federal and state counties taking every dime they can get to attempt to reduce their huge deficits, the county and cities are simply on the bottom of the food chain. But when it comes to the issue of Redevelopment Agencies, the cities and counties were already in deep trouble long before that evil dastardly Governor Jerry Brown even thought of undoing redevelopment agencies in an attempt to solve the state's budget problems. Riverside was already carrying over $1 billion in debt just from the RDA.

The state created these Agencies and thus can decide their fate even if that's dissolution. The State Supreme Court backed the state's power to do it as it should. It didn't completely support the state's powers over the Agencies, it also compromised by supporting the local cities and counties' powers to avoid regulation of certain monies by the state. Also a balanced and sound ruling on the part of the state's highest court. It didn't favor one party against the others, it was the cities and counties that doomed Redevelopment Agencies through their unwillingness to compromise and take an all or nothing approach when they filed their lawsuits in response to two different and partly contradictory bills put out by the state's legislative houses.


California Supreme Court's page on the Redevelopment Agency case.

It's very disingenuous of anyone including elected officials to assume that the Press Enterprise is the only one with a slanted view of Redevelopment Agencies and not wonder the same about the city government which has benefited much more from the existence of Redevelopment Agencies than any person or entity. After all, when signs go up, it's their names that are part of the marquees even if all they did was cast a vote or two on a particular project, rather than the names of those who actually physically brought it together and built it. Private developers who benefited from their relationships with RDAs then turned around and donated to political campaigns of those on the dais at the time their deals went through.

But face it, if Riverside the city had been using the Redevelopment Agency in an appropriate manner, then there wouldn't have been such mad scrambling in the past year to transfer funds, loans and properties back and forth between the city, the RDA and back again not to mention all the inter-fund hopping. that's happening so fast and furious in the past year, it'll make your head spin. Loans to buy properties on Market Street starting with workman's compensation funds then utility funds, then short-term sewer fund loans, then longer termed sewer fund loans. Fire stations and libraries put up for collateral as Riverside pays off the bonds instead of the developer on the Hyatt Hotel. About 149 properties being rushed from the RDA's ownership to the city in anticipation of the RDA deadline date, July 1, 2011. Of course as that deadline approached, the movement of at least money started going from the city back to the RDA which had possessed it only months earlier. Money tied up in loans otherwise known as "unenforceable obligations" might be gone for good including $20 million in loans from the city's sewer fund.

The dilapidated downtown library watches as its $64 million rehaul becomes a $19 million renovation job which is discussed and applauded at city council without anyone realizing that one facet of it remained undiscussed. That being how would the city pay for it. The answer being of course that the city won't, the city residents will through another ballot initiative involving another parcel tax. But who wants to break that news during a mayoral election that probably will last until November?

But how can the city fork over $19 million when it hasn't even come up with the funds to relocate and renovate its emergency dispatch unit (which somehow wound up as an RDA project even though it's not covered by the criteria) which will face losing its current spot when the lease on Orange Street Station expires on Dec. 31, 2012 instead of in 2017. Yes, the unit definitely has to move out of that crumbling building but it has to have the funds to have its new home at Magnolia Police Center renovated to enable it to serve its purpose. It's great to see Police Chief Sergio Diaz much more enthused about relocating the dispatch center out of Orange Street than he appeared to be at a public forum at Orange Terrace Community Center in the autumn of 2010. A former dispatcher addressed the issue and was treated rather dismissively by Diaz as a complainer saying we're not moving the unit into "a new red bricked building."

So it appears that after being flush for years and "balancing its budget" last year (albeit thanks to a hefty and timely transfer from the city's public utilities monies), the city's running a bit dry. If you can't come up with a measly million bucks and change to fund an emergency dispatch center, then your coffers are in trouble. Call the currently in limbo dispatch center the canary in the mine in this whole financial quagmire. It's not an optional or luxury budget item, but a necessary one so where's the cash?

Not one person in City Hall on the dais or in the finance department including its head, Paul Sundeen can answer the question of how it's going to be funded.

Still, it's difficult to take anything at face value from the dais because most of the city council members seemed ill-prepared to discuss anything of substance on the RDAs except that they gotta have them. And they create jobs only if they did that, why is Riverside reporting none of these jobs to Sacramento in its annual reports on its RDA? Pretty sad state considering that the city council members get paid an additional stipend per meeting to act as a state agency while bringing their own city or ward oriented interests into the meeting.

But the dissolution of Redevelopment Agencies have provided City Hall with a convenient scapegoat to blame for its financial problems which for the large part are of its own making. They can collectively point the finger at Brown and the evil state of California and blame it for its own poor decision making and lack of fundamental ability when creating Riverside Renaissance that periods of plenty are often followed by periods of famine. Booms are followed by busts, what goes up comes down and so forth. The recession and the collapse of both the housing market and the entire new construction industry (so vital, too much so in fact to the region) led to the end of the Renaissance just as a few spoilsports at its unveiling party at the Municipal Auditorium had predicted.

It's the city council during the past decade and Mayor Ron Loveridge who brought a whole wall of debt on the city's finances that is beginning to show itself. The layoffs have taken place in the sewer division and projects are being abandoned even if not related to the RDA dissolution. Employee unions are being told that the financial state of the city's worse than being presented and to agree to open up pension negotiations in 2013 if the city's financial situation worsens. It seems like some folks at City Hall in management positions do know all too well what the future likely holds.

Why is that? Because the hundreds of millions in bond payments come up due starting in 2012 and going into 2013.

Latest update of the Enforceable Obligation Payment Schedule. Nearly $140 million of the total $1.7 billion tied to the dissolution of the RDA are coming up due. Pretty sobering even though it states that there is no fiscal obligation associated with the report, at least that part of it's still free. The tragic part of it is if the city hadn't done exactly what was criticized in RDAs which was overextend itself in bonds and debts, this payment schedule wouldn't be nearly as formidable. This isn't the big bad state robbing Riverside, this is Riverside borrowing against its own future and leaving the city residents including those in future generations to be saddled with this enormous debt. The city has a general fund that won't be seeing as much property and sales tax revenue. It has an alleged $40 million reserve and about $350,000,000 money in its investment portfolio with Merill Lynch.

As you can see, not much movement of the money so far but then the RDAs spent part of the fiscal year being "stayed" by the state courts.

The above schedule is for this fiscal year which still leaves 2013 which will see more of the same. This is not all the city's debt just its RDA enforceable obligation debt.

City Hall needs to stop blaming all its financial woes on the state since it's responsible for most of them due in large part from the elected leadership's decision to opt out of the financial accountability part of their job. Look at the fuss that arose just to get something on the ballot that would allow the city's voters to decide whether or not the internal auditor should report to the city council. Interestingly the two city council members most vehemently opposed to that initiative were also the most opposed to expanding the city's ethics code. Not a coincidence as it turns out.

The city government made its decision actively or through passive means to hand off its job as financial overseers, a form of checks and balance off to "staff" and now we're all paying for it. They and their supporters will continue to point fingers at and blame the state while the city's residents likely will start seeing higher utility bills sooner rather than later.

Brad Hudson Continues His Spending Spree:

This Time It's Sound Proofing Toys

Meanwhile up in Sacramento County CEO Brad Hudson is continuing to expand his new fan base by purchasing sound masking gear to not be overheard while the Sacramento Bee declares that he needs a reality check. Tell those of us in Riverside who didn't ride his gravy train what we don't know.

But here's this poll on whether or not Hudson's blown his allowance. Hopefully the county's not foolish to give him one that's tens of millions of dollars of city funds. But his tenure there's still young.

[Brad just went out and bought himself some sound proofing equipment charging it to his nearly broke county]

[Heir apparent, but without as much money to play with as Brad what's a city manager in River City to do?]

In the meantime, current city manager, Scott Barber who allegedly was Hudson's designated heir to the spot has to figure out how to scrape up funding to pay the city's bills. What's noticeable is what's not getting done. Street lights burn out (or have wiring ripped up to sell for scrap) sometimes darkening a block or longer and streets erode even as aging pipes beneath them bubble to the surface creating new streams in their urban environments. Sewage smells permeate the air in several spots including by a major park.

The city reinvents itself nearly on a weekly basis and subsidizes both developers and restaurant owners to get them to do business here and then leaves the quagmire of trying to set up shop here for mere mortals to struggle to navigate through. But what it doesn't realize is that if you commit yourself to your infrastructure, from public safety to streets, to parks and libraries and partner successfully with school districts and neighborhood organizations, it helps create cities that attract people including business owners just because it becomes known as a great place to do business and relocate them.

But Riverside just doesn't do it that way. It's subsidized developers, paid off their bonds, provided collateral for them using city owned buildings and even in at least one case paid for a developer's demolition fees. It's prioritized public works projects based on the whims of elected officials running for election (using "change orders" (read blank checks) on prior projects for funding) and sometimes has circumvented very important steps of the process. But Public Works has always seemed to be one of the most precarious of city departments to be employed in going way back and continuing today. From Code Enforcement employees being bullied and exiled to tin shacks storing toxic chemicals in the corporate yard to punishing whistle blowers on questionable projects. And a clearly stressed out Public Works Director Tom Boyd (from some questions at the podium) at the last city council meeting as his boss' bosses allowed him to pick and choose which of the public's many questions about his department he wanted to answer. Only he didn't want to answer most of the questions on the sewer system.

Let alone the sewer bonds or sewer fund.

But back to infrastructure issues, here are some typical examples of problems cropping up in the city to be addressed, nothing extraordinary and will they be within an average time frame or even at all?

[Riverside Public Works Director Tom Boyd chilling with Senator Barbara Boxer]

Let's look at Central Avenue. The part of the street that joins Canyon Crest up to the 215 freeway. Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park, an amazing natural park that's seen its own attempts to usurp its open space is bordering an area that is inundated with sewage odors due to venting from an aging sewer line. That renders about 100 feet of it nearly unnavigable unless you cover your nose. More recently, rancid smelling water has begun to bubble out of the street both near the east entrance of the park and near the central divider.

During Riverside Renaissance, some streets were fixed for aesthetic reasons, i.e. land scaping and then ripped up again to repair infrastructure like plumbing and sewer lines underneath them.

[This sewer or bad smelling water leak appeared on Central near Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park and in several other sections of the street. Notice all the patchwork done on where the leak's bubbling]

What's interesting about this section of Central isn't just the leaks which basically come from either water or sewage seeking out means to egress to the surface through cracked areas, but how much patchwork has been done. Just in the area of this leak there were three separate patch jobs, the most recent being in October 2011. Large sections of the street almost look like they were patched up or replaced and some of the cracked areas look newer than others.

311 and Riverside Public Utilities were notified of this leak on Feb. 22. In past years, the city responded to leaking pipes within 1-2 days.

Another aspect of the same area of the city are the burned out or nonfunctional street lights. Sometimes entire block long stretches or longer no longer have working lights and they remain this way for some time with no visible construction taking place that might require power to be cut off for a duration.

This stretch is going up the hill on Chicago above Andulka Park. About six lights were not working at that time. Some lights are taken out of service because thieves break into them and rip out live wires for the metal to sell at scrap markets. If a light's been broken this way, rewiring the cables can take at least a week.

Sometimes it can take up to nine months for a street light to be replaced but it has also been done in less than a week.

[What's missing in this photo are working street lights. On this section of Chicago near Rustin, about six of them were not working.]

When I tried to send an email on the problem with the leaking street, I tried to access Smart Riverside near City Hall. Nothing happened when I tried to load a few pages and I wasn't too surprised because alert users notified me of problems downtown. In contrast, it worked quite well in the neighboring RCC area with good connectivity.

Further testing in the downtown area inside and around City Hall showed that while the Access Points are powered and broadcasting, there's no viable internet connectivity. Ping testing showed that the assigned IP4 address pings clearly but results were negative (with 100% packet loss) for the DHCP server as well as the network's two domain servers. It connects with the computer, goes to limited connectivity for a while (indicating problems with the server assigning an IP address even though the server's broadcasting its appropriate SSID) and then goes to a strong signal and connectivity only without the connectivity.

This is a fatal error for the network and indicates one or more antennae on access points that are not working or have gone offline. Since the area impacted is at least four square blocks thus involving at least eight access points, it likely indicates an issue with a larger piece of equipment. The network appears to be functioning quite well around this area.

The city has been notified by different individuals. Under its current contract with the network management, serious outages have to be responded to within 24 hours of notification of problem to vendor. Less serious outages have a 48 hour response time. Repairs can take from a few minutes (resetting offline routers) to 2.5 months (to replace recalled devices in 2010) but usually it's about 1-2 weeks. If you have questions for 311 on Smart Riverside internet, ask for Tina.

[An attempt to load a web site on the city's Smart Riverside location at City Hall in the Council Chambers. A large section of the downtown has been offline for about two weeks.]

The libraries outer building surface has been allowed to deteriorate and its sign was missing a letter as shown here.

[Hopefully now that the downtown library is back on the civic and political radar, this sign has been fixed]

But there's cash or so there was readily available to be loaned out, transferred out or just plain spent on all kinds of projects and that's the city's sewer fund that is comprised of monies paid by city residents billed for commercial and/or residential accounts. Only how much of it's actually spent on anything that actually has to do with sewers? And what are the staffing levels looking like in that division of Public Works lately?

What the Sewer Fund Looks Like

The sewer fee schedules for restaurants came up for vote and in some form, they help some businesses that have been disenfranchised but one question that remains to be answered is the part of the report that ties the fee payments to monies used to expand the Waste Water Treatment Plant which was to be funded at $200 million. And through the purchase of federal bonds geared towards building new sewer infrastructure in our city. About $250 million in those bonds were taken out and so what's happened with that money? And why was this project apparently tens of millions of dollars short?

Then there's the sewer fund which operates like an ATM machine to finance other "projects" by the city through "loans" from it. This has been going on for decades but in the past one, rose to an art form. This sewer fund will receive even greater attention when the city adds new fees on it possibly doubling it fairly soon which will show up on the bills of people who own commercial enterprises and/or live in Riverside. About $20 million in sewer fund monies is tied up in some loans on the RDA side and it remains to be seen whether the city will ever see that money again. The finance department and Sundeen said they intend to vigorously lobby for those funds in front of the Oversight Board.

The Oversight Boards are set up upon dissolution of the RDAS to make decision on remaining assets and obligations. They are selected in different ways including the following:



California State Supreme Court decision on RDAs

Palos Verdes Mayor appoints two to oversight board

Solano Beach accepts applications for oversight board


Desert Hot Springs Blog Ron's Log: City's Oversight Board


California Special District Association

But how much of this sewer fund money will be gone forever if the custodians of the money at City Hall can't get it back? And what of all those $250 million in federal taxable bonds taken out for sewer infrastructure construction?

Ask the people sitting on the dais that question and listen to the crickets chirp away, the tumbleweeds to roll well you get the picture. But the two areas for average city residents to watch are the sewer and the public utilities because of the bills paid into these areas by residents. Watch how much the rates increase in upcoming months and how many fees or taxes are added to bills. Many cities which incurred huge debt who also owned their own utilities raised rates and introduced new fees and taxes to attempt to pay it all off.

Add Riverside to that list, is what is most likely to happen.

Best, Best and Krieger's Paid by Charge Card for $65 million bond "undone" bond deal




[Asst. City Manager of Finance/Chief Financial Officer but no longer City Treasurer Paul Sundeen]






What's Councilman Nancy Hart got to say about the $65 million "undone" bond deal?

As usual, not very much.

Mayoral candidate and citizen auditor Dvonne Pitruzzello presented these documents on how the city paid its law firm of choice Best, Best and Krieger. What's interesting is that if the bond deal was reversed, why was BB&K paid so much money as "bond counsel" because there are rules about this kind of thing including the compensation of attorneys. In the olden days, bond counsel could only be paid if the bonds were sold on the open market which even with the city's version of the transaction didn't take place because it was an inhouse deal once Riverside County balked and ran away from the deal.

The balance on the corporate charge card for BB&K is just over $1 million.


The city's Finance Department underwent some changes including this reorganization which places Finance Director Brent Mason in the city's Treasurer position which used to be held by his boss, Asst. City Manager of Finance/Chief Financial Officer Paul Sundeen. Sundeen said that this action was being taken because he was only a part-time employee and Mason was a full-time employee so it was more appropriate for him to hold the position. The Finance Department also kept Jason Al-Imam as its Controller but if voters approve the "language cleaning" charter ballot initiative detailed in his report his position could be eliminated and he'll be relegated to being a mere finance director.

If Al-Imam's name sounds familiar for those in the financial auditing community, there's a Ken Al-Imam who's an independent auditor and partner for Meyer, Hoffman, McCann the city's last outside auditor on contract.

Riverside Police Department and City Recognize K9 Doctor



[The Riverside Police Department K9 Team at its new training facility including its newest member Officer Eric Hibbard who begins his academy training at Adlerhorst International in March]

Dr. Gezbera, a local veterinarian and his staff were recognized by the city council, mayor and Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz for his outstanding work done in taking care of the police K9 officers. That care extends to after the dogs retire when their medical care is taken care without cost. That saved one officer about $1,000 when his dog needed a medical procedure while living with him in retirement.

The city handles the vet bills for the K9 officers whose are cared for out of stipends given to the K9 officers to pay for care of the dogs which are city-owned property and cost about $15,000 apiece. Most of the dogs are purchased overseas by David Reaver who's also known as the "dog whisperer" for his rapport with future K9 officers. They are usually German Shepards or the smaller but very athletic Belgian Malinois and some are assigned to collateral duty as bomb, narcotic or SWAT dogs.

Many are found at kennels and field trials which are very popular in different European countries though recently the department obtained two K9s who had backgrounds in military service including the British Royal Navy.


Reaver selects dogs with particular officers in mind but sometimes purchases dogs that excel who are then brought to the States and assigned to an officer later as happened with one current K9. The officers work with the dogs and make the decision based on experience and observation if the dog is suitable for police work.

Every police officer selected for this special assignment goes to the Adlerhorst training academy with a dog for five days a week, 8-5 for about six weeks. They also do supplemental training both individually and with the rest of their unit on a regular basis. Most officers who want to be future K9 officers undergo "agitator" training at Adlerhorst and then put on the heavy suits to serve as "chew toys" for the K9s during training and in demonstrations including at the annual air show at Riverside Municipal Airport. It can take several years and up to nine or more for an officer who's interested in being a K9 officer to make it into the unit which traditionally has very low turnover with most K9 officers retiring out with a couple being promoted out.

K9s are often purchased out of what's called the Canine Trust Account which receives donations from assorted businesses including Fritz Ford of Riverside. When received, the money is earmarked specifically for the program and those who remain committed to the K9 unit keep close tabs to ensure that which was critical when some time ago a city management employee allegedly tried to put some of this money in the general fund to mingle it with other funds. But it was due to strict diligence by those trying to make sure it was spent appropriately on an important program that this didn't happen. Apparently that sent a message to the individual responsible and it hasn't been done since.

It's important to honor the K9 teams and those who take care of them but one of the best ways to honor them is to ensure that there's strong fiscal accountability at City Hall to ensure that those who donate to it with the best intentions have those gestures treated with respect.




Adlerhorst International has a site that's filled with information for those interested in the K9 program including law enforcement officers of different agencies. And shopping Adlerhorst is shopping Riverside as it's a local business.

[K9 Officer Carat and his partner, Officer Ray Soto before both retired]

The city also declared K9 Carat "surplus property" and gave him to now retired Officer Ray Soto.

Coming Soon:

It's a Mad, Mad World at Orange Street

(and you can never be sure who's listening)