Ethics 101: 24/7 city council member; Part-time accountability

"Blogs are like the brown stuff that you flush down"

---Councilman Steve Adams during a city council meeting last year. He led the vote to muzzle a recommendation proposed to the full city council by the Governmental Affairs Committee that it revoke language stating that complaints can only be filed against city officials while they are acting as city councilmen in public. The language was added not long after Kevin Dawson filed his complaint against Councilman Dom Betro who participated in the process of voting to approve the added language.





The Riverside City Council discussed whether or not to implement any changes to the ethics code and complaint process after receiving a report from the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting held last week.

Mayor Ron Loveridge who's been talking more at meetings during his reelection season than is usual introduced the item.

Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Andrew Melendrez said that some recommendations had come out of last week's committee meeting and that he hoped the city council would embrace and endorse them.

The list of recommendations were as followed:



1) Remove provision that code of ethics and conduct that it only applies to individuals in their official capacity and the discharge of their duties


2) Add aspiration that members of boards and commissions and committees make a diligent effort to attend all the meetings of their boards, commissions and committees.

3) Add provision when members of boards and commissions participate in a quasi judicial process can't contact mayor or city council members to influence their vote.

4) City should provide a written response to complaining party within 90 days.

5) Annual review take place as a notified public hearing in an evening session of regularly scheduled meeting.

An Also-Ran?

The committee also discussed the creation of an independent panel to review and decide on complaints as an alternative to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee that could provide an objective and unbiased process. Melendrez recommended that it go back to the Governmental Affairs Committee for further discussion.


Melendrez said the city council needed to focus on bridging the relationship between the city council and the community. The reason for wanting to create an independent panel is because a breakdown already had taken place in the process, according to Melendrez.

Loveridge asked Melendrez to frame the motion for the city council and Melendrez said he wanted the city council to accept the recommendations and return the concept of substituting another committee for addressing complaints to Governmental Affairs. He also discussed the eight core values included in the ethics code as if he really believed in them. Here's one councilman that can convincingly convey their importance in a way that some of his dais mates cannot.

What he said made a lot of sense. You would think that the rest of the city council members would try to outdo each other endorsing his vision including his emphasis on the core values. But then you'd be wrong.

Public Comments

Community members showed up to speak on the issue during the public comment period, using their three-minutes in the most effective and economical manner. Kevin Dawson, from Save-Riverside, asked that the recommendations be accepted by the city council and he asked for consideration of there being a choice for complainants between having an independent panel of retired judges or the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee do it. He discussed the practice of city council members and mayors on the dais endorsing each other during the election and that hurt the trust in believing they could be objective in the process of deliberating and deciding on ethics complaints. He also said that the process should follow the resolution in that if complaints are supposed to go to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee, they should go there and not the City Attorney's office which he believed was a violation of the code. The code of ethics should be the minimal standard of professional conduct and they should be ready to set the standard for ethical behavior.



"Let's strengthen the code of ethics for a time when the council might not be so good," Dawson said.




Linda Dunn, a member of the committee which developed the code of ethics after voters put it in the city charter in November 2004 by passing Measure DD. She praised the improvement in outreach including the production of a brochure in English and Spanish to give to the public. She said it wasn't clear that the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee will handle complaints and who served on it.

Loveridge interjected and said it consisted of the mayor and members of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

Dunn continued by saying that the turnout for the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting was very good and the members of the committee were receptive producing recommendations that people could support. More clarity was needed on the screening process especially since out of the five complaints actually filed, only one of them even was heard by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. She said that an explanation needed to be provided by the city council as to what happened with the process, but the answer is really quite simple. People in the city either don't have much information about the ethics code or complaint process or they have little faith in it given that only 20% of the ethical complaints filed have even made it where they were supposed to go according to the ordinance language pertaining to the code and complaint process.

She believed that an outside panel to hear complaints should be put into place, a recommendation supported by many people.

Barbara Purvis from the League of Women's Voters said that the city council needed to establish a committee of citizens as part of a blue-ribbon panel to review the code of ethics including a review of other cities and one produced by her organization years ago. She thought the code needed to be expanded to include city management and to go beyond what the citizens required as a minimum. She supported recommendations that Governmental Affairs Committee referred to the city council including returning the issue of the impartial panel to review complaints against elected officials back to the committee as long as they're asked to get a response back within three months.

She praised City Clerk Colleen Nicol's excellent efforts to publicize the meetings held involving the ethics code and process.

The Group Chair Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely who chaired the committee that created the code said that the recent Governmental Affairs Committee meeting was the most productive in the committee's history of performing annual reviews on the ethics code and complaint process.


"We've made more progress than we've ever made," Vaughn-Blakely said.



She said that the only recommendation that didn't get forwarded was the one involving the aforementioned creation of the independent panel.

Comments from the Dais

Loveridge said last year, action had been taken to eliminate the screening of complaints by the City Attorney's office and have them sent to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. He asked Priamos to talk about how Riverside wasn't just following the parade but was leading the parade in terms of the creation and implementation of ethic codes. He also said that apparently other cities were using Riverside as their models. But given that the history of complaints not being steered past Priamos' office is so paltry, is it a case of the image being much more stellar than the reality of the implementation?

Priamos discussed the ethics training that members of boards and commissions undergo. He finished by saying that they weren't "part of the mainstream but ahead of the pack".

Councilman Steve Adams said he missed the meeting as a member of the committee but discussed how the changes had actually taken place within the last year or so when of course, he was on the Governmental Affairs Committee doing the annual reviews of the ethics code and complaint process. Although he missed the earlier committee meeting due to surgery, he more than made up for lost time by seizing control of the direction that the discussion would go in during the city council discussion. Though several people on the dais tried to slow down the Adams train, ultimately it proved futile.

Priamos told the city council that there were no complaints filed in the past two years. Adams continued to give some of his speeches on how the voters kept the elected officials accountable through the election process.


"There have been some radical changes," Adams said.


What he didn't mention is that one of the "radical changes" which have led to an almost complete turnover on the dais in the past few elections almost happened to him in his last election cycle. Well, not counting his failed attempts to win a state office by not even getting out of the Republican Primary while still serving as a council member. But the lead he enjoyed in his first council election win in 2003 had shrunk considerably by four years later, so much so that there's already rumors that he's decided not to try for a third term and there are a handful of prospective candidates thinking about tossing their hats in the ring in 2011 regardless of whether he runs or not. Adams has his moments when he speaks out and does the right thing but his motion was all about protecting his own interests and trying to scare enough of his dais mates with worst-case scenarios to get them to fall into line behind him. What can you say about it because it worked.


Adams said that the massive changes have been made in part because voters didn't like the way they behaved and voted them off. He said that neither he nor the city council had endorsed those individuals but apparently he seems to believe that city residents only remember former Councilman Art Gage's lack of support on the dais while running for reelection in 2007 and while running for mayor against Loveridge this year. But city residents remember how either the majority or several city council members on the dais did support the losing reelection bids of former Councilman Frank Schiavone earlier this year and former Councilman Dom Betro in 2007. The city council has given blanket endorsements to enough losing city council members to lead people to think it's more of a statement of their closing ranks as a private club of sorts than at successfully picking the winner of an election race.

As Adams has done in the past, his comments provided some unintentional humor as his last bid to be reelected to his seat produced a squeaker of a run-off election which he won by barely more than a dozen votes despite outspending his rival by more than 20 to 1. So the number of constituents in his ward who support him isn't quite the 50,000+ he cited throughout the meeting. In actuality, only a few thousand registered voters cast votes in the 2007 election for Ward Seven, which has never had a history of high-voter turnout. Some of the statements that Adams put out as "factual" besides this one will be analyzed further in future blog postings as there are too many of them he made to be addressed in this posting.



"We don't arbitrarily endorse our colleagues," Adams said, then went to say that several people who they didn't endorse in recent elections "were no longer here" and they didn't endorse them because of their conduct.



One candidate who wasn't endorsed by the majority of the city council didn't win reelection but two others who did enjoy these types of endorsements were actually voted out.


Adams strongly vetoed the striking of the provision on elected officials maintaining a standard of behavior at all times. He said that it sets up the city council officials to be harassed and targeted by "special interest" groups during election cycles and essentially in a back-handed way accused city residents of harassing elected officials by filing complaints against them. Perhaps that's because he has received two of the five complaints filed against him, neither of which made it past the City Attorney's office. Both complaints were filed against him for statements he made from the dais insulting city residents who criticized him at the dais including calling them liars or saying they had "no class".



"There is no bridge to gap," Adams said, "There are always people who are going to disagree as a whole of what we do."


Apparently, Adams hasn't been in his ward lately if he believes that. Most candidates who win elections by such narrow margins as he did in 2007 would fully understand that at least in their own district, there may be a few bridges that needed to be gapped. But Adams keeps acting as if he won his last election by a landslide and it's interesting to watch him try to sell his vision of the election which differs so much from the results provided by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. Below are links which will take you to the election results for the Ward Seven contests held in 2003-04 and 2007.

Some interesting election statistics

Ward Seven City Council results for 2003, first round are here. According to these results, Adams loses to Terry Frizzel by 21 votes.

Ward Seven City Council results for the runoff election in 2004 are here and show Adams beating Frizzel by 161 votes.


Ward Seven City Council first round election results are here and show Adams beating Frizzel by nearly 300 votes.



Ward Seven City Council final results for 2007 are here and they show Adams narrowly defeating Frizzel by only 13 votes.



What's different between the two elections is Adams' failure to build on his first round election, the second time around because the "anybody but Adams" vote was strong enough to nearly knock him out of contention. Why did that "anything but..." sentiment grow so much during the four year period between his election bids? Why was it nearly successful at pitching him out along with Betro and Gage?





Adams said that striking the provision encourages the harassment of city council members and that it required city officials to be under the code and subject to discipline 24/7. City Council members are only part-time according to the city charter so that this language in the charter that was passed by the Governmental Affairs Committee in July 2007 should remain in the code.


"The main censure of my conduct is those who vote in my ward," Adams said, again not adding that he only won his reelection bid in 2007 by 13 votes.




Adams provided a substitute motion to accept the recommendations except the one stripping the "professional capacity" language.



Councilman Mike Gardner said that elected officials should know that if they're at grocery stores or the movies, people who recognize them will come up to them, causing him to feel like he's "on-duty" a lot of the time.

He knew that elected officials are held to a higher standard by the public and he knew that going in and he believed that elected officials need to hold those higher standards.

He spoke of changing the guidelines of allowing three unexcused absences being grounds for leaving the boards or commissions and believed that the rules needed to be changed to be stricter because if board and commission members miss too many meetings, they can't do the work. Well, that might be true for most board and commissions but for the Community Police Review Commission, they can miss more than three meetings and be elected as chair and vice-chair of the commission. But he did raise a critical point, that hopefully will be addressed but it wasn't part of the substitute motion suggested by Adams.

Gardner said he didn't necessary oppose the independent panel but that it needed to move beyond a concept with further addressing of questions including how people would be appointed and also added that the only body that could discipline an elected official is the city council. So any finding that a city council member misbehaved, would go back to the city council for action.

Councilman Chris MacArthur asked Priamos about the "professional capacity" provision and he said that city council members who ran for office didn't always act in that capacity as a city council member. Whether or not he was aware that he had brought up the complaint that Dawson filed against Betro as an example, wasn't clear. The same complaint that Priamos played a role in burying as directed by one or more elected officials.

MacArthur said he agreed with Gardner that they were onduty 24 hours a day, seven days a week but agreed with Adams about the provision which would strike the provision about "professional capacity" which he believed could be misused. He believed that the language needed to stay in to produce a "level playing field" so a council member who's a candidate can fully get his message out. His comments were pretty disturbing.

It's clear that someone wants to be able to take the gloves off when he runs for reelection without worrying about the ethics process and considering the mudslinging and racism that took place in the Ward Five race mostly by the MacArthur campaign including the labeling of one of his challengers Harry Karuni as of Middle-Eastern descent in a negative and stereotypical way and false statements made about candidate, Donna Doty-Michalka that led to protests by the Riverside Police Officers' Association which in 2007 endorsed her over MacArthur and didn't endorse Adams.

He also wanted an online reference to conflict of interest statements and Adams eventually added that language to his substitute motion.


Melendrez spoke up again and said that he believed that the online issue MacArthur raised was a separate matter. He said that the city council needed to go back and focus on the eight core values. As long as the city council complies with them, there should be no fear about the "professional capacity" language being taken out.

Adams beat the gavel some more by saying that what if Bailey flunked a student as a teacher and then someone files a complaint against him as a councilman, it will go forward if the language is removed. He says they've opened the door for the filing of more complaints by anyone who wants to file against them.



"I'll defy anyone who says they put more hours here than I do," Adams said, but added he wanted his own private time.

He talked about council members being intimidated by people who could file complaints against them for everything and then said that there's been no complaints filed by a rush of his constituents and that it's inappropriate to put that kind of power in the hands of those who would abuse it because they don't need it. Which is ironic because person after person has said that they're either too afraid or intimidated to attend and speak out at city council meetings because of abusive comments made by essentially one current and several former city councilmen.

Councilwoman Nancy Hart asked Priamos about the outside committee and wants him to tell the community about what he said to her. Priamos went forward to explain that any decision an outside body makes is strictly advisory. The only body that can take action against a colleague who violates the code is the city council and the only action that can be taken by the city council is a public censure.

The issue to be decided is whether or not the city council wants to provide an advisory body but they'll have to decide the scope of their duties and responsibilities. It's too bad that discussion's going to have to wait.


"It sounds like an abdication of our own ability to do what we're encharged to do," Hart said.

She said she didn't recall any complaints being filed involving a council member's outside employee and then Priamos said that only one was filed.


Councilman Paul Davis said that he realizes that he's a 24/7 council member and has to be accountable as a council member and a political candidate if that's the case.

"That puts us on notice," Davis said, "We need to check our facts."

He didn't seem sure about whether or not he agreed with the creation of an independent review body but that it should be done on a case by case basis.


Loveridge called the motion by Melendrez which he supported as well as Adams' substitute motion to a vote. He said that a person can come up with a lot of "what ifs" but he considers himself an elected official beginning when he wakes up in the morning.



"Rather than having too many complaints," Loveridge said, "There have been zero in the past two years."




Being judged as a city official at all times "comes with the territory," Loveridge said.



Melendrez praised the mayor as being an appropriate example of someone behaving professional as a professor and as an elected official. He stayed with his initial motion adding the portion to evaluate the attendance provisions of boards and commissions, on Gardner's recommendation.

Adams said that they serve as 24/7 city council members but they have times when they're not city council members. He seems awfully worried about being subjected to complaints for outside activities, more so than someone like Melendrez.


"I take the voice of my 50,000 plus constituents over something like this," Adams said.




Adams' motion passes by a 4-3 vote, with Gardner, Melendrez and Davis voting against it and Hart, MacArthur and Bailey joining Adams in passing it. Even though Loveridge said he supported Melendrez' motion, he didn't veto the vote to even let Melendrez' come to a vote but then Loveridge has never exercised his veto power only threatening to use it once in 2004 involving the CPRC.

So Adams' ranting about being persecuted over his off-duty behavior was successful but talk about drawing attention to it which is exactly what he did whether he intended to do so or not. The vote left some with the feeling that it clearly delineated who's concerned that their "non-24/7 behavior" will be judged and who frankly doesn't give a damn because they don't feel like there's reason to do so.


Melendrez is to be commended for the leadership he showed at the Governmental Affairs Committee when really, the first genuine annual review of the ethics code and complaint process took place. Even though part of his success came about because Adams pulled a no-show, he really brought integrity to a process, far more than his predecessor and former councilman, Frank Schiavone. But what the vote proved is that the city council as a whole with several exceptions hasn't progressed as far as he has done. Alas, they tout the greatness of the image of the ethics code and complaint process but are decisively clueless about its application. His career as the Governmental Affairs Committee chair has gotten off to a promising start but he won't face his toughest test until he has to chair a committee meeting with Adams in attendance because the other committee member, Rusty Bailey just showed how quickly he'll cleave to Adams.

Gardner and Davis also took principled votes while it's likely that Adams' scenario of the massive harassment of elected officials got Bailey (who's been searching for direction since Schiavone's ouster) and MacArthur (or more likely, his legislative aide) scared for some reason and Hart? Well, she goes along with the crowd which is unfortunate because occasionally she steps away and takes intelligent and principled votes on different issues. But Adams had tried to frighten his dais mates with scenarios which reeked of an "us vs them" mentality to vote alongside him and what the final count showed is which council members feel they need a reason to feel vulnerable about their being held accountable as elected officials 24/7 rather than simply being allowed to say they are council members 24/7 and which ones don't.

There will be further analysis of what took place on this issue in future blog postings because it was quite interesting.

Upcoming Candidate Forums

Last week, there were blog postings on forums that will take place involving the mayoral candidates. Now, it's been announced that the League of Women's Voters will hold candidates forums including in the mayor's race fairly soon.



Mayoral race:

Thursday, Sept. 24 at 7-8:30 p.m.
at All Saints Episcopal Church, 3847 Terracina Drive




Riverside Unified School Board:

Chuck Beaty, Kathy Allavie, incumbents and Christopher Lorenz and Mark Schwartz, challengers


Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 7-8:30 p.m. at Gage Middle School, 6400 Lincoln Avenue



Be there to check out what the candidates participating in the local elections in November have to say on the issues to help get a better sense of which one deserves your vote.




Two different county court systems. Two different strategies for dealing with the impact of budget cuts on availability.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Each Inland court system will take a different approach to the day. San Bernardino County courts will be empty of personnel, while Riverside County courts will be doing paperwork and filing.

"With the empty buildings, we have turned it into a true furlough," said San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Presiding Judge James McGuire. Savings for the system are estimated at $2.5 million.

Court Executive Officer Tressa Kentner said of the approximately 1,000 court workers, only about 20 would be working today, most of them assigned to meet anyone who mistakenly comes to court. While court personnel cannot accept paperwork, they can direct people to drop boxes, she said.

Under an agreement reached with the San Bernardino County Public Employees Association, court workers will get four hours of unpaid leave per pay period, spread over 10 months --approximately a 4 percent pay cut, Kentner said.

In Riverside County, the state's most congested court system, officials decided losing one day a month in handling stacked-up paperwork would only set the system farther behind, and clerks will be at their desks to work through waiting files.

"To take away 5 percent of our time each month makes our job more difficult," said Riverside County Presiding Judge Thomas Cahraman, who had opposed the one-day monthly shutdown when it was proposed.

"Statewide closure may provide overall benefits for the judicial branch, but it is not the most effective approach for Riverside County," Cahraman said.





Amid all the turmoil it's been facing in the past year, the Mount San Jacinto College District now says it's short on police officers.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The tentative budget for the college's Police Department is $1.062 million, but officials are assessing the fallout from the state budget crunch and possible future cuts in state revenue, according to MSJC Superintendent/President Roger Schultz.

College trustees are expected to consider approval of a final budget next month. As part of that holistic approach, the college must look at its mission and how best to provide safety and security services, he said.

"I want to make it emphatically clear that it is a board decision, and a board discussion that has not taken place," Schultz said by phone. "We're in the middle of a year of assessment."


Police staffing has been depleted since last year.

Two probationary officers were terminated, one officer resigned and a volunteer reserve officer resigned.

Later in the year, those four filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit in Riverside County Superior Court against the college, and characterized themselves as whistleblowers pointing to alleged wrongdoing by others in the department. Their lawsuit was dismissed, but they are filing an appeal.

The suit alleged that another sworn officer was put on leave last year, but the college has declined to comment, citing personnel reasons.

The college now has five campus safety officers on duty. Schultz said there is at least one sworn officer in the field.






Civilian oversight mechanisms in this country have been in the news a lot lately.


Does the civilian review board in Minneapolis even work at all? Some people who used to belong to it say it doesn't.


(excerpt, The Minnesota Daily)



About halfway through, then-Assistant City Attorney Lisa Needham explained the contents of an inter-office memo she sent out earlier that day: Her office had reinterpreted state data laws. As of that day the Authority could no longer release to the public that they sustained a complaint, meaning they sent it off to the police chief with a recommendation for discipline.

Some Authority members protested the ruling, alleging that it was made under pressure from the Minneapolis Police Federation.

Current and former members say the inability to release this information to the public severely cripples the Authority’s ability to perform effective civilian oversight of Minneapolis police.

Twenty-one months after the meeting , a community watchdog group led by a University of Minnesota employee sued the city for violating state data laws . A Hennepin County judge ruled on the case earlier this month, siding mostly with the city, and an appeal is in the works.

The case — which is at its core a simple semantics debate — will determine if the Authority unknowingly violated Minnesota data practice laws for 16 years and, according to experts, could hold the key to interpreting data laws for city employees across the state.

It also begs a question that has been heatedly disputed since 1991: Does the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority work?





Studies done by Jacksonville Police Department and other agencies give mixed reviews to the effectiveness of tasers, according to the Jacksonville.com.


(excerpt)



The Taser might not fire, the probes might not stick or the suspect might shrug off the shock, DiFranza said. Certification courses teach officers not to get flustered if a Taser fails to work properly as the result of mechanical or human error.

“You just kind of point it out there, aim for their center and hope it catches them right,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office doesn’t record statistics tracking Taser failures, but officers are trained to switch to another weapon in the eventuality of a Taser failure, a spokesman said. An interview request with a Taser instructor from the police academy wasn’t granted after multiple requests. No reason was given.

Calls placed to Taser International, the company that manufactures the X26 model used by the Sheriff’s Office, weren’t returned. But a three-year-old study of the Green Bay, Wis., police department’s Taser use, hosted on the company’s own Web site, reports a failure rate of 12 percent, most of that from weapon malfunction or missed probes.

Another factor is the intended target’s mental state, which can sometimes push them to overcome the shocking force.

A mentally ill man who lunged at Jacksonville officers while wielding a pair of knives was Tasered repeatedly before he was shot to death in March 2008. The 30-year-old man, Sierra White, became combative with police and a mental-health counselor and pulled out a pair of knives when they tried to administer his medication. Sgt. Rob Beers and two other officers urged White to drop his knives and repeatedly jolted him with their Tasers. But the blade-wielding man kept coming and swiped at Beers, who shot him multiple times.

Beers was cleared in the shooting. He declined to comment.




A delay in developing civilian oversight for the BART police department in the wake of a controversial shooting of a young man on New Years Day this year.


(excerpt, San Francisco Chronicle)


The BART board voted last month to hire an independent auditor to investigate allegations of police misconduct and to set up a civilian police review board. However, lawmakers must approve that change.

BART did not get enough legislative support to pass the plan before the session ended Friday.





The question has been asked in Columbia, Missouri which just created a new civilian review board What qualities should its members have?


(excerpt, Columbia Missourian)



Forty-nine Columbia residents submitted applications by the Sept. 4 deadline to serve on the nine-person board. The council will choose eight members, while the Columbia Commission on Human Rights will appoint a ninth.

Applicants included professors, teachers, attorneys, retired military and law enforcement officials, health care workers, business owners and more. Most applicants expressed a desire to improve relations between the community and the Police Department.

Those applicants eventually selected to serve on the board will be responsible for examining cases of alleged police misconduct where the internal affairs unit's decision has been appealed. The board’s decisions can then be appealed to the city manager by residents and police officers involved.









An op-ed article on "Excited Delirium".





Deaf Awareness Week Sept. 20-26, 2009

Is the Human Resources Board being 'censored' by City Hall?

The Human Resources Board meeting was a really happening event this month and this usually nine-member board meets monthly during the first Monday at 4pm at City Hall, usually in the Fifth Floor conference room.

No Photos allowed at a public city meeting?

Attempts to photograph this meeting were initially blocked by the head of the Human Resources Department Rhonda Strout who said that permission had to be gained from the board and even mentioned something about needing to get a written release. When the board members were asked permission, they gave it and then Strout said to wait until the entire board was there. It makes one wonder, who runs the HR Board meeting, the HR department or the board chair who had agreed to allow photos to be taken at the meeting. Chair Erin House and other board members had no problems being photographed. It's a city board and commission that was created by a publicly elected body, is subjected to the Brown Act and takes place in a public building paid for through revenues generated at some point largely by city residents for its operations and staffing. The cookies and bottled water that the board members enjoy at their meetings are paid for by those same revenues.

So to say that board or commission members or elected officials at public meetings inside public buildings have to give their permission to be photographed is ridiculous and it can be seen as an attempted act of censorship at a board or commission meeting by the city, only it's not likely that the city instituted any such directive to its employees because no doubt, it's too astute to try to censor a meeting that takes place involving public business in a public forum so it was probably a statement made by a department head who hadn't been instructed on meetings as public forums rather than just places where the city conducts business. Perhaps it's more usual for many of these people to conduct even the public portions of their business behind closed doors. But hopefully that's a situation the city can remedy in the future.

But telling people they can't take visual depictions of public meetings is a no-no. In fact, when a former city council member tried to object to a city resident filming a Governmental Affairs Committee meeting without asking for "permission", the elected official was advised not to do so by City Attorney Gregory Priamos and rightly so.

The board members who had no issue with photos being taken are attending meetings, not participating in television commercials and there are city residents who like having some idea who's serving on the boards and commissions, where they meet and what they do because when allowed to do their jobs, many do important work. Too often, the city's boards and commissions don't really have a face on them because most people can't attend the meetings (especially those in the mornings and afternoons) of these vital bodies which were created to allow city residents to have a voice and participate in their city government.

The employees are paid to do outreach at board and commission meetings, they make pretty handsome six-figure salaries and these employees allegedly received pay raises last year as well while most other city employees had to give up 2% raises without benefit of incrementing their salaries first. As someone whose picture has been featured in city-issued brochures, videos and reports, I don't recall ever being asked to sign a release form.

Since the commissioners gave their permission but the city department heads didn't want to be photographed at a public meeting, there will only be pictures of the board members. When the city employees asked where the photos would be used, they were provided with a URL to this blog which admittedly didn't seem to thrill them.

But inquiries on this issue have been forwarded to CalAware, the California First Amendment Coalition and the ACLU for further information if the situation should arise again.

[Agenda from the Human Resources Board meeting. The keynote speaker didn't show but there were still plenty of fireworks at this monthly event.]



What: Human Resources Board meeting'

Where: Fifth Floor conference room, City Hall, Riverside

When: Monday, Sept. 14 at 4pm.

Keynote speaker, a no show

The Human Resources Board held its monthly meeting expecting to receive a presentation on the police department from Chief Russ Leach but he was a no show so it had to make do with discussing other items on the agenda.


It's not clear why Leach didn't appear before the board at its afternoon meeting given that his secretary had told the board that he would be at the meeting. But Chair Erin House said that if the chief didn't show up, he was going to call up his secretary and ask why.


Still, the meeting went on without its keynote speaker who was to present on the retention of male versus female officers in the department. Admittedly, not one of the police department's favorite topics but it would have been an interesting presentation and one that the Board had been waiting for after months of excuses from the City Attorney's office against even the discussion of general statistical information and stalling by the department or whoever is in control of it at the time.

The Human Resources Board had plenty of other issues to discuss and unlike its micromanaged cousin, the Community Police Review Commission, its members seem willing to discuss them.






[Human Resource Board members Woodie Rucker-Hughes (l) and Vice-Chair Ellie Bennett enter into the debate of whether or not the board has a tense relationship with City Hall. I'm clearly no Ansel Adams or Dorothy Lange so is it really worth trying to block photos from being taken at public meetings at City Hall? ]

"We think he's wrong."

First the board had to make quorum which took about 20 minutes and the board held it for nearly an hour. Since one member had to leave, the Board was forced to postpone several items including the discussion of EEO statistics until next month. But it still discussed quite a bit of business most notably the ongoing and completely ridiculous situation mentioned in prior blog postings about the Board's attempts to obtain basic statistical information on how many lawsuits have been filed by city employees in federal or state court. And who forbade them from receiving this basic statistical information that would be based entirely on public court records, why the City Attorney's office of course. Only since that office doesn't actually send any of its staff members to attend the H.R. Board meetings, it essentially denies requests for public information through the department heads who do attend the meetings.


The board discussed the response or rather lack of response that it received from its letter sent to the city council asking for clarification of City Attorney Gregory Priamos assertion made through Strout that when the board asked for statistical information on lawsuits filed by city employees, it was operating outside of its purview. Only one response came from Riverside's governing body in response to the letter and that was a phone call from the office of Mayor Ron Loveridge which made an "inquiry" but not much else about the letter. House told the board members that he had called his council member, Nancy Hart but that it seemed that she had to be brought up to speed on the issue before responding to it.


Hart's representative didn't even seem to be aware a letter had been sent to Hart or anyone on the city council.


"You sent a letter to council," that person allegedly asked and then said he or she had never seen any such letter.




The board members then discussed whether or not to send a second letter and if that one failed to generate a response, then they would consider addressing the city council at one of its weekly evening meetings. Some board members wanted a second letter sent. Others questioned whether it would be more likely to generate a response than the first letter.


"If not," House said, "what?"


Other members said the letter had to be sent because they disagreed with the city attorney's office which incidentally happens to deliver its legal opinions on issues using other department heads including those from the Human Resources Department as its conduits.



"We disagree with the city attorney," one member said, "We think he's wrong."




Others including Woodie Rucker-Hughes, chair of Riverside's chapter of the NAACP said they wanted to know what the appropriate procedure for asking for assistance from the city council.


"We're not trying to be argumentative," Rucker-Hughes said, "We just want to know how to proceed."



Vice-Chair Ellie Bennett who works for Riverside County agreed with sending another letter. Then she per usual had some very pointed words but then she's a member of the board who speaks her mind which is actually quite refreshing in comparison to attending CPRC meetings where the majority of its members seem to try to outdo each other as rubber stamps for City Hall.


"The letter should not have been ignored," she said.


But Bennett in her comments went even further than that as she talked about the process of communication for members of the board to the city government on a larger scale.


"It seems like every step we are taking, there is a censorship," Bennett said, "There is a great deal of mistrust between the city administration and the board."

It's hard not to agree with the "censorship" claim having seen it at work at this meeting before it even got started. But what Bennett means is that she and other members have felt that each and every attempt they have made simply to get access to public information is being thwarted indirectly by two direct city employees working for the city council (which the H.R. Board answers to) which are the city manager and the city attorney. The latest vocabulary word that's in vogue with City Hall these days when it comes to the city's boards and commissions appears to be "purview", used in the context that just about every bit of business that a board and commission tries to perform in accordance with charter and/or municipal ordinance that makes the city uncomfortable is suddenly outside that purview.


Bennett had only gotten started and then asked why the city appeared to be afraid of the board's work. House appeared to agree with her observation.

"I feel constricted," he said.


He wasn't the only one. One other board member had this to say.


"The Council and Legal is risk managing us out of business."



And that brings up the critical issue that pairs the H.R. Board up with its spayed and neutered counterpart, the CPRC which is whether or not the city believes rightly or wrongly that the work done by these bodies increases the city's risk of civil liability. After all, both the H.R. Board and the CPRC might be perceived as increasing the city's chances of getting sued on labor dispute issues or wrongful death cases if the respective board or commission doesn't come out with the decision or a finding that favors the city's risk management division. That's one major reason why the city manager and city attorney's offices are winnowing down the charter powers of the CPRC while the city council watches in silence or even participates as the majority of it did through a city council vote that actually wrestled away from one of the city's boards and commissions the right to implement its own policies and procedures. The issue in that case was the filing of wrongful death cases in four officer-involved deaths since 2004, all of which have settled for amounts between $75,000-800,000.

The H.R. Board can be viewed as being in the same position if the city's risk management division believes that any actions or discussions by this board involving the city's work force even at the policy level could lead to more lawsuits or grievances being filed against city management. Even the collection of statistical information on the city's labor issues including the lawsuits filed by city employees can be viewed as being potentially risky to the city. After all, the city council through its vote apparently stripped the Board's investigative powers in 2005 by removing language from the municipal ordinance. Unlike the CPRC, the investigative powers of the H.R. Board aren't cemented in the city's charter. Not that doing so through popular vote was enough to prevent the CPRC from essentially losing its ability to exercise its power of investigation involving officer-involved deaths through a city council vote earlier this year. And if you don't think that's the case, just ask the CPRC if it's initiated investigations yet in two officer-involved deaths that hit their first year anniversaries earlier this month.

The answer is, of course not.

It's becoming clear that members of the H.R. Board are realizing the relationship between how they do business and the city's perception of its civil liability. Much more clearly than their counterparts on the CPRC.

But if discussing the issue of failing to get an adequate response from the body which oversees the H.R. Board was interesting, the discussion of the layoffs was much more so. Bennett, who works for Riverside County began asking questions about whether or not the city management including department heads had instituted furloughs for city employees.

Strout said there were no mandatory ones, but they were heavily promoting voluntary furloughs as this positive thing that allowed employees more time with their families even though they were making less money to support them. Bennett asked a question that it's amazing that it wasn't asked before and that was why the city was laying people off rather than resorting to the use of furloughs first. She said that the vast majority of Riverside County including management and executive level employees were doing furloughs so that the entire workforce could share the sacrifice of budget cuts and that had actually improved morality with the labor unions. She said it made no sense to take the most extreme action first of laying off employees rather than trying out furloughs and that furloughs would be significant if they even saved 12 city jobs.

In response, Strout started doing what she's allegedly been doing when she's met with full-time city employees that have been laid off and that's telling them it's been the SEIU General Unit's fault. A woman posting anonymously at the Press Enterprise Web site who said she was the fiancee of a laid off Public Works employee said that her fiance had been told by Strout that if it weren't for the SEIU voting for the 2% increase that he would still be employed. At the meeting, Strout said that the SEIU had voted to take the increase even knowing its impact on the workforce but that she hoped the city would reopen talks with the union, a comment echoed by Steven Espinoza at the Board meeting.

Woodie Rucker-Hughes said that the SEIU members were concerned about job security and said that they were willing to take the 2% cut if they were able to get it returned during better economic times. The city essentially told them, they couldn't promise that. Most of the debate including in the media after the city manager's office allegedly took its case to the Press Enterprise has focused on the SEIU and very little on answering the questions about whether or not raises were given to management and executive employees last year even when the city knew that it was facing an even larger budget shortfall than initially expected.

Bennett said that management and executive employees in Riverside County took the furloughs and the actions that penalized the employees first, before making decisions that exacted the same consequences out of the other employees including members of the SEIU and the other labor associations and unions.


"We went first," she said.


She then turned around and asked an interesting question to the department heads that attended the meeting.


"Who has given up 5% of their pay to help other employees," Bennett said.


And what was their response?


**Crickets chirping**



Meaning that they didn't have much to say about what sacrifices they had made before they had to lay off employees. And the city really needs to speak up and say something because much of the issues involving the controversy over the 2% raise developed after the SEIU and other labor unions discovered that apparently raises were given out last year to higher-level employees. Is it the case that employees who head city departments were given raises last year, a development which may have led to the push to publish a list of maximum ceiling raises for about 40 management and executive level employees last December? And when is the city going to explain why it was "certifying" (i.e. increasing) the maximum ceiling raises for these employees from 2% to over 20% with a lot of them falling between 12-15% raises in the first place, right at the point in the past fiscal year when they were adding $14 million more dollars to the total estimation of lost revenue?

Citywide, employees were not given 2% raises except for the SEIU and the HR representatives implied other labor unions, yet did some employees get hefty raises before they gave up their 2% raises? What measures have department heads taken involving their own salaries even as they've witnessed or even laid off employees in their own departments?

Why were layoffs considered before furloughs and what was the balance involving sacrifices made by the general work force in comparison to those made by the city's management and department heads? Because Bennett seemed to believe that the city had it backwards, by laying off employees first, when she said that she considered that the absolute last resort after other actions had been taken and by expecting lower-level employees to make all the sacrifices rather than having the management and executive employees make those sacrifices first to set an example for the rest of the employment ranks when they are asked or expected to do the same thing.

It doesn't make much sense to waggle fingers at unions because they didn't make sacrifices unless the department heads that are doing the finger waggling most likely because they are told to do so by their bosses have made similar sacrifices themselves and if they actually did get raises while others were expected to keep their salaries at a status quo, then what kind of message does that send?

When the library and museum laid off employees recently and cut back their hours, what happened to the salaries of their department heads?

When the police chief signed a new five-year contract last year, did his salary go up or remain the same while salaries were frozen and merit pay stopped within his own agency?

When the public works employees were laid off several months ago, did the public works department head get a pay raise or did her salary remain at the status quo in 2008 or 2009?

And what Human Resources Department management employees? Did they get raises last year even as their budgets received some of the severest cuts?

And what of employees in management positions who don't actually manage any employees? Why are they called management employees?


There needs to be much more public disclosure at what's going on at the management and executive levels involving salaries going up or down or staying in between before anyone points any fingers at anyone else, because Bennett is correct, the buck stops there and in Riverside city, it's not clear it even gets there.

The city council is discussing the ethics code and complaint process at its weekly meeting held Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The council will consider five recommended changes. Two key items are a 90-day deadline for the city to respond in writing to complaints -- no deadline now exists -- and removal of a provision that the code applies to officials only "acting in their official capacities and in the discharge of their duties."

That last suggestion has the full support of activist Kevin Dawson. He filed a complaint in 2007 against then-Councilman Dom Betro over a comment Dawson considered threatening, but the complaint was dismissed without a formal review after the city attorney determined that Betro was not acting as a councilman during the incident.

"That provision should never have been in there," Dawson said in a phone interview Monday.

Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely, who lobbied for the creation of an ethics code and headed the citizens committee that wrote it, said she supports the proposed changes but would like to see the code strengthened even further, and Dawson agreed.

Both Vaughn-Blakely and Dawson said they believe the council should designate an independent panel to hear ethics complaints instead of the mayor's nominating and screening committee, which now addresses them. That idea was discussed at a Sept. 2 council subcommittee meeting, but no recommendation was made.

"We feel that to have an outside body review complaints will definitely help to increase and maintain public trust and transparency," Vaughn-Blakely said.




The report for this agenda item is available here.





Correction: In regards to the boat race event planned for Fairmount Park for October, I received an email from Councilman Mike Gardner that they are indeed racing sailboats around Lake Evans. The class of boat, the Sabot which has an eight-foot sideboard and they are currently housed in a new building.

That should be interesting and hopefully, there will be a full field of competitors from the city council but don't forget those life jackets because sailing can be pretty rough and watch your heads when you turn about.





The Riverside County Superior Courts will be closed on Wednesday Sept. 16 as part of the furlough program which impacts courts state-wide and will lead to the court facilities being closed on the third Wednesday of each month.

Labor unrest at City Hall and what's the fate of Chinatown?

This notice states an invitation to the Riverside City Council meeting on July 14, at 6:30p.m. to speak out against what it says is the threats of supervisors in their departments to not accept raises or they get laid off. Their complaints won't likely be heard by certain elected officials on the dais (probably the ones beholden to City Manager Brad Hudson that are still left) unless they pack the chambers filled with people spilling out the doors but hopefully, if this is what is going on, someone will pay attention.

Members of the SEIU General Unit, the city's largest union, for example are up for the final 2% salary increase of their most recent MOU they had negotiated and entered into with the city and then there are the 80 or so police officers who haven't yet received their bonus or step up pay. If it's true that threats are being made, does it involve these employees or others? Isn't it interesting how this happens in our city all the time and yet, the city officials and their direct employees say in public certainly during election times how much they value and support their city employees? But you have to watch what happens behind the increasingly closed doors of City Hall often times to know the real story.

This comes in the wake of a recently circulated list of employees who had their maximum salary range that they can receive raised by up to 16% (for the police chief) in December 2008. The city claims that no one has received any of those raises but it's interesting that when the emphasis is on budget cuts and salary and employee freezes that anyone in the city actually had the inkling to want to raise these maximum salary levels of mostly management employees and department heads. The creation of these higher levels does mean that the door has been open for these raises to be given out and it would be easy enough to do that without many people even knowing it was being done. Ironic indeed if it does turn out that when no one is looking, department heads and management employees in the city manager's office do get raises and everyone else is told to take a salary cut or else.

Let's see. How many employees are being offered to have their maximum salary raises raised to being 15% higher so when they get raises in the future, that's what they might receive? And when the police chief received another five-year contract last December and the new fire chief got a contract recently, did their salaries stay the same as in being frozen, were they cut in light of the budget constraints or were they increased? What do you think?

And that's interesting considering that some say, the police department has many chiefs at its helm, not just one. One of them Hudson, put himself at the 9% increase level.

And speaking of such, has a single department head, management employee, the city manager, the city attorney or elected official for that matter even offered to take salary cuts that they appear to be imposing on other employees?

So far, that hasn't happened. After all, this is the same city that claims it's only laying off a minuscule number of city employees and some city departments have lost up or over 1/3 of their staff. But then again, if you're part-time, non-benefited and non-union, you're not a city employee unless you work in Corona and get laid off there.

But you never know, perhaps this Tuesday will be the day that Hudson and his subordinate employees and a department head or two stand up and offer to take the same pay cuts they want their employees to take just to keep their jobs. Miracles happen every once in a while, even in River City.






Speaking of money spent, the city has declared that 70% of Riverside Renaissance has been completed. But at least one city official and probably only one has concerns about the expenditures. The others should but in the past three or four years, they've pretty much turned the keys to most or all mechanisms of financial accountability from merging the finance department with the city manager's office to pretty much mothballing the finance committee, to City Manager Brad Hudson.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



As of May, finished work represented $216.7 million of the plan, projects under construction were projected at $271.9 million, and work either in design or out for bid was expected to cost $603 million, according to the most recent city figures available.

Hudson said bids have been coming in between 20 and 40 percent lower than expected on some projects. The city is using a combination of county, state, federal and private money, and its own dollars from bonds, electric, water and sewer funds, development fees and the proceeds from the sale of land and bonds.

"There's very little general fund debt associated with this program," Hudson said. "This program will not threaten the provision of public safety of other services in the future."

The costs of the Riverside Renaissance remain a concern to Councilman Paul Davis, who said right after his election last month that he wanted to take a closer look at city spending.

Davis said Thursday that he supports the city upgrade overall, but that the city needs to do more to anticipate costs and plan projects on the front end.

On some projects, he said, officials have decided part way through to alter the plans, which results in expensive change orders.

"Unfortunately the cost of those can be very devastating," Davis said.

He said he would rather see the savings from unexpectedly low bids spent on new projects rather than added costs for existing ones.





Both sides of the Chinatown debate were left scratching their heads over a judge's tentative ruling on a lawsuit filed involving the historical land site.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




In a move that encouraged preservationists, Judge Sharon Waters said she intended to rule that the Riverside County Office of Education did not follow state law governing sales of surplus public land when it agreed two years ago to sell the 2.3 acres to developer Doug Jacobs.

But on another issue, the tentative finding apparently favored the developer. Waters said it appears the city of Riverside did not violate state environmental laws when it approved the office building last year.
Story continues below

Waters did not say when she would issue final, written rulings. She kept in place a preliminary injunction that prevents construction of the medical building from moving forward.

A group called Save Our Chinatown Committee sued the city of Riverside and the Riverside County Office of Education to protect remnants of the historic Chinese settlement. Among other points, the group challenged the Office of Education's sale of the property and contended the city had not adequately considered alternatives that would better preserve artifacts buried on the land.

After the arguments in Riverside County Superior Court, some observers were unsure what will happen.

"It is disappointing that protecting an important historical place has to hang on the technicalities of surplus land laws," said Margie Akin, a member of the Chinatown committee.



San Bernardino County's Board of Supervisors are calling for the formation of an ethics board.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Derry provided more details about the proposed ethics commission and the new proposal for a "sunshine ordinance" in a meeting with The Press-Enterprise editorial board Thursday. He also said he may take the latter idea to voters in a ballot measure if his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors reject it.

Last week's county grand jury report, which included a section on governmental reform that backed the establishment of an ethics commission, has provided fresh momentum to the proposal, Derry said.

He said he hopes the supervisors can begin discussions of the ethics commission within the next few months.

"We want to push it back to the front seat and get it moving," said Derry, who made forming an ethics commission part of his election platform last year.

The commission would be an independent panel of five members empowered to review the conduct of elected county officials and their staff and fine them for any campaign finance violations. Members would be randomly selected from applicants who meet a list of criteria and serve two- to four-year terms, Derry said.

He said the commission would have an annual budget of $500,000 and three staff members.




It almost appears as if Derry and the county are almost serious about tackling ethics issues in San Bernardino County government rather than playing at doing so like Riverside's city government has been by taking the will of the city's voters for an ethics code and complaint process and tailoring it to actually protect city officials from city residents filing complaints rather than having an accountable process for doing so.





The human resources director in Redlands has a lot to say about labor negotiations and concessions in that city.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The offer by the Redlands Professional Firefighters Association to defer -- not give up -- previously negotiated pay raises due this year comes with an expectation that the current contract will be extended beyond its current expiration date, including the extension of a number of expensive benefits the council believes should be subject to negotiation.

The firefighters association offer as it currently stands provides minimal real savings to the city over the course of the contract extension. In addition, the deferral of pay raises in one fiscal year does not address the city's ability to fund those negotiated raises as they come due in subsequent years, especially if the current national economic crisis continues, as expected, for several more years.

Revealing or openly discussing negotiating strategies in public, as MacDuff apparently wants the council to do, can put one side or another at a disadvantage.

It is the reason labor negotiations are one of the areas (along with litigation, personnel matters and real estate negotiations) that the state's Ralph M. Brown Open Meeting Act specifies may be conducted by city councils in closed session, outside of the public eye.

While MacDuff forms erroneous conclusions based on necessarily limited information, residents should be assured that the City Council is actively engaged with the process of employee contract negotiations and is well aware of the offers on the table, their full current and future implications and their impact on the city's budget this year and in years to follow.



More clamping down by Western Municipal Water District on its customer's use of water during the latest drought.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



No watering is allowed on Fridays for the district's 24,200 retail customers in Murrieta, western Riverside County and the communities of Orangecrest, Woodcrest, Lake Mathews, El Sobrante and Eagle Valley. Violators will get two written warnings; the third violation brings a fine of $100 per day; the fourth violation is $400 per day; and a fifth violation means service shut-off.

"We're just now getting more aggressive," said Tom Evans, president of Western's board of directors. "We believe this will get us the reductions we're looking for, which is 10 to 15 percent. If it doesn't happen, we'll have to be more restrictive."

Riverside resident Shari Barnes worries that her landscaping will suffer with three days of watering in summer's heat. Though she and her husband have grass only in the front, the backyard has trees, bushes and groundcover planted four years ago when their Orangecrest area house was new.

"There are a lot of houses that have brown yards already because of foreclosures. This could make it worse," said Barnes, adding that she makes an effort to conserve water.

"I know it is something we're going to have to deal with in the future. Everyone."




Temecula giving a little more love to its developer friends.

Ethics complaints and the confusion around them at City Hall

With Halloween coming, here's the annual coverage of haunted haunts in Riverside. The most haunted locale is of course the Mission Inn Hotel in downtown. It's got hosts of ghosts and it's hard to find someone who's worked there over a period of time who doesn't have a tale or two to tell. Partial and full apparitions. Strange smells. Strange music. Even a spirit which allegedly pushes newlywed couples down flights of stairs. Stories not included in the Mission Inn Hotel's official guide.

Stories also abound from owners of local businesses about strange occurrences. Books falling out of shelves in the bookstore by themselves and strange noises in one of the antique stores nearby.

In the midst of the Halloween season, Riverside's very own City Hall is gearing up for yet another city council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 28 beginning with the session of the Redevelopment Agency (aka as the city council) starting at 2 p.m. This agenda is filled with items for both the afternoon and evening sessions but alas, there won't be discussions for most of them although the consent calendar is robust.


Up for discussion in the 6:30 p.m. session is this report from the Governmental Affairs Committee on its annual review of the ethics code and complaint process which was actually scheduled for an earlier meeting but was postponed. Actually, it's two attempts at the annual review by the committee that took place and were recorded because it forgot to follow its own written guidelines under the resolution passed by the city council which included inviting the mayor and the officers from the city's boards and commissions. The mayor and chairs were no-shows at the first meeting held on Sept. 3 although Mayor Ron Loveridge dropped on by at its end and that was the first he heard about the annual review having not received an invite. Not surprisingly, there was an attempt to review the code and complaint process again on Sept. 12, this time with Loveridge and some of the chairs of boards and commissions in attendance. What was discussed will now be discussed by the full city government.

This of course includes a recommendation that the complaints against elected officials will actually be handled the way they're supposed to be under the policy and procedures outlined in the resolution passed by the city regarding the Ethics code. That language states that the complaints against elected officials are to go to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee to be processed and decided upon. Yet, on the majority of complaints involving elected officials, instead the complaints completely bypassed this committee and being sent to City Attorney Gregory Priamos who sent out rejection letters to the complainants. Instead of serving as a "resource" as stated in the resolution, he was the designated arbiter.

But this category of complaints isn't the only one where elected officials either have problems understanding the process or implementing it properly. In these letters, Councilman Frank Schiavone appears to have some difficulty outlining the appropriate process for ethics complaints filed against members of boards and commissions.

In his letter to Police Review Commissioners Chani Beeman and John Brandriff, Schiavone writes the following.


(excerpt)


"While in my judgment the letter might not rise to the level of a formal complaint to be reviewed by the Mayor's Nomination and Screening committee for any ethics violation, others may differ."



However, this is not the correct process for this category of complaints.

Here and here it states that complaints involving boards and commission members are supposed to be sent to the city clerk's office which passes them along to the chair of the relevant board and commission for resolution. If the complaint isn't resolved at this level, it goes back to the city clerk's office which then forwards it to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. In his letter, Schiavone who chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee and serves as a member of the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee omits the first couple of steps. A situation of error which might be resolved by providing a refresher course in the process to the current city council because if a committee of elected officials or the entire city government for that matter are going to review, discuss and make decisions on the ethics code and complaint process, then they should be fully cognizant in its rules and regulations. And it doesn't seem as if at least some of them are judging by these recent examples.

At any rate, Tuesday night should be an interesting discussion of this process which doesn't seem to be very well understood at City Hall, given all the fumbles that have taken place implementing the provisions of the resolution for the code since its inception. And remember attendance for this debate is free to the public.


Speaking of the PRC, one of the reports that was given to the commissioners last week was one about the letter written by Loveridge and Mayor Pro Tem Rusty Bailey in support of City Manager Brad Hudson's directive to essentially halt timely independent investigations by the PRC of officer-involved deaths. What the city government has essentially done is to convert investigations of these deaths into "reviews" because no one is going to come out and say that an effective investigation of an incident can be conducted six months, a year or longer after it took place unless they've got a horse in this contest. Because the city government has essentially converted these investigations into "reviews"(and in this opinion piece, three city council members essentially reduced the PRC's role even further to that of its predecessor LEPAC which is to engage only in a policy review and recommendation process) which doesn't seem even close to really abiding by the language that was included in what about 60% of this city's voters intended to put in the city's charter.


But Riverside's been busy doing more than just impacting the role of civilian oversight in this city. There's been more movement on the labor front when it comes to filing lawsuits against the city alleging unfair employment practices.With labor contract negotiations colliding with an election cycle beginning in early 2009, who knows what will happen. The city's negotiators, City Manager Brad Hudson and his assistant, Tom DeSantis come into the process with a record of negotiations from the long, hot summer of 2006 which resulted in two strike votes, three lawsuits filed against the city and several employee rallies at City Hall. Hopefully, their record is more successful than it was two years ago in terms of avoiding all this strife and in having better relations with those they negotiate with, but then again, quite a few people seemed to think that the contract negotiations improved last time out when DeSantis was absent from the room.

But allegations of union busting have been made since that summer, including in civil litigation. The Riverside Police Administrators' Association appeared to wrestle with that issue given that some of its members were assigned to positions which were at the management level and that is the union which was allegedly targeted for union busting. And many employees at the management level in Riverside including department heads are "at will". Hudson once said that his employees jump at the opportunity to be "at will" and take the offer. But others say that they fear "at will" because they think if they take it, their careers will be shorter than they would otherwise like. Others are afraid those who are "at will" will become "yes men" for the city manager's office.


Here are some of the lawsuits which have been filed against the city in the last several years by current or formal employees. These come in the wake of a $1.64 million trial verdict in the case of Officer Roger Sutton and the quick settlement behind closed doors of another lawsuit filed by a former female police officer in 2005.

The first two lawsuits come from the code enforcement division of the city.


Mary Furfaro, Todd Solomon, Steve Livings v the City of Riverside



Kathie White, Theresa Steffen v the City of Riverside



This one below involves two lieutenants who are suing two city councilmen, the police department and the city for retaliation for their involvement in the Political Action Committee of the Riverside Police Administrators' Association during Election 2007. Hurt was president of that labor bargaining unit at the time and while the unsuccessful attempts by Hudson to make three upper management positions in the police department "at will" was taking place. Some people wondered why the lawsuit filing received very little press including the lack of mention of the plaintiffs' identities. Did City Hall play a role in that?


Lt. Darryl Hurt, Lt. Tim Bacon v the City of Riverside



Another female police officer filed this one before going to trial on criminal charges associated with workman's compensation fraud.


Laura Digiorgio v the City of Riverside






Riverside's got to wait until next year before it will hit another one of its election cycles with the mayor's position and four city council seats being up for grabs, but it's a busy election year just about everywhere else.



Here is some blogging on the Murrieta local elections.



The Norco political candidates are selling their qualifications to the voters.


Who's winning the campaign fund raising race in Temecula? The incumbents, that's who!


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



As of Oct. 18, Mayor Mike Naggar has $29,606 and Councilman Chuck Washington has $26,408.97 left in the bank. Between the two, they raised nearly $11,000 from Oct. 1 to Oct. 18 and have spent more than $65,000 this calendar year, according to state-required campaign disclosure forms submitted Thursday.


By comparison, challengers Al Abbott, Rita Hernandez and James "Stew" Stewart have raised a combined $17,900 since Jan. 1. They spent just under $12,000 since then.

The five are running for two four-year seats on the five-member council, which serves staggered terms.

Despite the fund raising gap, Stewart, a barber making his second City Council run, said he's satisfied with how his campaign is going. He said his campaign Web site has gotten more than 17,000 hits.

"I ran it the way I wanted to this time," he said. "Win or lose, I'll be happy either way."





All this election intrigue in a county which might set records in voters' turnout at the polls this year.




The Press Enterprise Editorial Board has made its decision and it's that San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus must go.



(excerpt)



Postmus is not the victim of a political witch hunt, but of his own actions. The grand jury's revelations are only the latest entry in Postmus' long record of ethical lapses.

A county government with a history of corruption does not need officials who shrug off questions of integrity. Postmus' attitude toward the accusations against him is unacceptable. He needs to go.





A San Bernardino Police Department sergeant spoke out against a plea arrangement for defendants in a murder conspiracy case.


The federal corruption trial of former Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona continues with testimony expected to begin this week. Over 100 witnesses are expected to testify for the prosecution alone.




An interesting series in the Los Angeles Times about the history of the Los Angeles Police Department vs organized crime.






What aren't nearly half of all law enforcement officers wearing when they are on duty?




Former Bolingbrook Police Department sergeant, Drew Peterson's lawyer met with a judge to discuss his upcoming trial on weapons charges.



What are bloggers saying about the Inland Empire in the wake of the "Obama Bucks" mailer scandal?

The ethics code and complaint process finally makes it to city council

The Riverside City Council will finally be discussing the annual review of the ethics code and complaint process sent to it by the Governmental Affairs Committee. This meeting will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the city council chambers at City Hall. This is the agenda and this is the report. It was originally scheduled for an earlier meeting but was postponed.

One of the recommendations being forwarded from the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting on Sept. 12 is that all complaints involving elected officials will be submitted to the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee. This is in accordance with the process stated in the resolution and in this document about the process of filing complaints on the city's Web site. However, only one ethics complaint that's been filed against an elected official had actually followed this process that's been so clearly outlined by the city so there shouldn't be any confusion. At least two other complaints against elected officials were forwarded instead to City Attorney Gregory Priamos who sent out letters to the complainants essentially tossing their complaints out without the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee ever laying eyes on them. The resolution for the code of ethics allows Priamos to serve as a "resource" but what the Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee did instead was turn him into an arbiter.

The committee also recommended that it conduct its annual reviews every September instead of its previous practice of scheduling them haphazardly throughout the year.

The ethics code and complaint process as watered down as it's become has attracted a lot of attention and brought people to the Governmental Affairs meeting to speak on its implementation by the city council at two meetings in September. This year, there had to be two meetings on the issue because the Governmental Affairs Committee neglected to follow policy and procedure again outlined in the resolution and invite the mayor and the chairs of all the boards and commissions to offer input on the process. After the first meeting, Mayor Ron Loveridge told several attendees that he had never been notified let alone received an invite to the meeting to review the process. Initially he said that the situation would be remedied next year but apparently he changed his mind because the do-over was scheduled fairly quickly after he became aware of what had happened.





In closed session at the same meeting, the city council will be reviewing another workman's compensation case involving a police officer, this time Det. Darren Woolley.


The Old Riverside Foundation is also suing the city in Riverside County Superior Court so the city council will be discussing or hearing about legal options in closed session.




A new award named after the renowned former police chief, Bill Howe.





The elected officials in Riverside are suffering pangs of remorse for letting the Regency Tower get away to Riverside County. Towergate resulted after the redevelopment agency helped get the developer his land to build office space and provide parking, hopefully for downtown employees and visitors and to bring in new customers. Of course, this never happened, not in an economy where it really couldn't come to fruition in the midst of a recession. The developer wanted to make money on his investment so he sold his building to Riverside County who will use it to house District Attorney Rod Pacheco's new headquarters. This purchase by the county was approved 4-0 by the board of supervisors earlier this week. Supervisor John Tavaglione explained that the office space most likely wouldn't be leased out for the next couple of years for private use given the current economic crisis.


Still several elected officials mused about the fate of the tower which they believed to be part of the adage, if you build it, they will come. In better economic times, maybe but now?


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"In hindsight, it probably should have said in the ... (development agreement) that it shouldn't be sold to a public agency," City Councilman Frank Schiavone said this week.

Former council member Dom Betro said he had hoped that 10 stories of prime "Class A" office space would have given downtown a big economic boost by attracting a flock of new professionals supporting restaurants, stores and other city initiatives, such as a renovated Fox Theatre.

But now the 10-story building will shift government employees already downtown and put on the market lower-quality office spaces that the district attorney will vacate, Betro said.

Schiavone and Councilman Mike Gardner said they will never let it happen again.




Campaign signs are the source of conflict between a councilwoman in Hemet and a former supporter of hers while the mayor in Perris is getting the most support.

Corona's candidates are spending much less money than usual.





The San Bernardino City Council had voted to approve a plan to have two police practices experts review the beleaguered police department but will it work?



(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)




Estrada made her views public at Monday's City Council meeting. In an interview the following day, she repeated her concerns that Gaines and Scialdone may not be given enough scope to completely assess how the Police Department may need to be improved.

"The whole point of having Frank Scialdone go in there was to do an unbiased review and look into everything without being filtered," Estrada said Tuesday.

The proposed contract would use $24,500 in city money, Estrada said. That amount is $500 below the threshold that would require the council to vote on the contract.

Estrada said that as presently conceived, the possible contract that would let Gaines and Scialdone have an insider's view of the Police Department would assign a police liaison and also focus the probe on three issues.

Those issues are the department's use-of-force reporting policy, the length of time it takes to complete internal-affairs investigations and what factors are used to determine whether officers accused of wrongdoing are investigated by the Police Department or outside agencies.

The police union has cited those issues as major points of concern. Monday, Morris said that zeroing in on those matters could allow Gaines and Scialdone to get to the bottom of labor-management problems in the department.

The deal "is one that addresses the three central issues that were raised by the (police union)," Morris said.




A Fort Worth Police Department officer was fired for breaking his girlfriend's nose.


(excerpt, Star-Telegram)



According to the letter detailing the reasons for Flores’ termination, Flores and his girlfriend, a sergeant with the Police Department, began arguing while drinking at the Horseman Nightclub on the night of Aug. 3.

Flores drove himself and his girlfriend to her complex, where he parked the car and grabbed her by the face, telling her to look at him.

She pulled away. The two got out of the car and a physical altercation ensued after Flores took her keys, license and cellphone and refused to give them back. When she tried to take the items, Flores pushed her back. She then hit him in the chest in an attempt to get her items back and he pushed her to the ground, injuring her knees and elbows.

The letter states that during the altercation, Flores punched his girlfriend in the nose and head area and threw her into a brick wall and metal railing. He then shoved her into her apartment and bedroom before retrieving his children and going to his own apartment.





Not surprisingly, this officer had served a lengthy suspension just five years ago for similar misconduct and that was only the second example of prior discipline he received while working as a police officer.