Riverside Tales: The board, the commission and what happened to their investigative powers

It was a busy week in Riverside with two meetings that addressed the scope of investigative powers of two of the city's boards and commissions. And when the dust was settled by the end of the action-packed week, what was learned was the difference between a commission having its powers inscribed in the city's charter and one that alas, did not.



The two boards and commissions which had their investigative powers challenged in recent months were the Human Resources Board and the Community Police Review Commission. Both tried to exercise their investigative powers in recent months in different areas of the city's operation and both had their efforts rebuffed by the dynamic duo, City Manager Brad Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos. Both bodies opted to write letters to the city council, the direct employer of the duo, asking for "clarification" on the issue. The CPRC already did this and received a "received, reviewed and filed" response from Mayor Pro Tem Rusty Bailey who spoke on behalf of the city council whether its members were aware of that or not.



The Human Resources Board is still drafting its letter. One penned by Chair Erin House was circulated and discussed at last week's meeting but then sent back to him to rework the changes in and restore it back into letter form. Still, even though the final letter hasn't been approved by the board let alone sent to the city council, several members believe that the response to it will be the same as that received by the CPRC: Received, reviewed and pretty much dismissed. One board member also said that the situation involving the board could wind up in the same venue as that involving the CPRC, which is the Governmental Affairs Committee.



So there were two very different meetings last week involving two of the city's boards and commissions and taking place in different venues. But both boards and commissions were fighting for the same thing. But with one difference. One of the panels had its investigative powers inscribed in the city charter and the other one didn't.

And that's why the former still has investigative power (at least in writing) and the other one no longer does according to the city which in 2006 tried to erase it out of existence.



The Mystery of the Missing Power


First up, was the Human Resources Board which met on Monday afternoon in the fifth floor conference room at City Hall. This board has been energized in recent months to commit itself to being more active and the pledge to do so was in fact discussed at several meetings during the past few months. The board had decided at one meeting to make some requests through Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout to ask for statistical information pertaining to lawsuits filed against Riverside by members of its workforce. The lawsuits themselves are public information once they are filed in the appropriate judicial venue so therefore, any statistical information about them should be public information as well.

However, the board received a response back through Strout that Priamos along with Hudson had vetoed the request, denying the statistical information by claiming that to request such information was outside the purview of the board. House and others objected saying that the board had investigative powers, citing in one case language from a 2005 document that included a section (D) outlining this power.

Imagine the shock of the board members when they discovered that this section had been changed in a later document, erasing the investigative powers and stating that in this area, the board didn't report to the city council but the city manager's office. These changes were date stamped early 2006 and hadn't been made in the city charter (which would have required a majority vote at the election polls) but by changes made by the city council to the city's ordinance that outlined the role and responsibilities of the board.

What one city council could give, another one could just as easily take away.

And in 2006, the city council did probably upon advisement of Hudson's office. Or so they thought, because actually there's a loophole in that plan and the ordinance which still allows the board to use investigative powers. But the language might be subject to interpretation and who's been designated to provide that? The same attorney whose representing the city's interests in those filed lawsuits. And the board never actually declared any intention to do any investigation when it sent the letter, it merely was interested in information gathering of statistics pertaining to labor issues in this city.

Why the city is really not thrilled about handing these lawsuit-related statistics over to the board is a topic for future blog postings but at this juncture, the Human Resources Board is still drafting its letter to be sent out to the city council.

Not Lerner and Lowe, but close

Later in the week, the investigative powers of the CPRC were the topic of much discussion and debate at a Governmental Affairs meeting that began as a staged production and then took several steps off the beaten path. The cast of characters in this one-performance-only play all read nicely from their scripts and showed that they were capable of taking direction as all good performers should be. Even the tedious process of scene blocking appeared seamless throughout the nearly two hour long meeting.

But this stage show involved a non-traditional stage venue and a somewhat participatory audience (though not to the point of throwing rice, toast or dancing in the aisles or anything like that) so it took on a life of its own.

Alas, it premiered too late in the awards season to qualify for collecting any guys named Oscar or Tony or even Obie but if Entertainment Weekly or PEOPLE had been there, the nominations could have put it at the top of any list.

The "Best Actor" category was pretty thin, because this being a stage show about a ship, there can only be one or two captains. And sometimes elected officials can be like actors when it comes to sharing the stage. Some are more graceful than others but the Governmental Affairs Committee was truly an ensemble piece.

However, Councilman Frank Schiavone could very well be in a position of going toe to toe with one of his fellow cast members, Councilman Steve Adams. Schiavone's take-charge speech from the time the credits faded out, where he pulled that splendidly executed reversal making it appear as if the audience (and other city residents) were responsible for the "miscommunication" and the "controversy" was truly masterful. His choice as an actor to use a softer vocal tone sold that scene and guaranteed him a nomination, but it was his bold move to step off the beaten path and channel in the late great actor, Jimmy Stewart to push for an ad hoc/task force/special/meeting committee even at the cost of the Brown Act that stamped his performance as the one that sets the bar in the main acting category.

Adams' role was smaller, almost too small for the category but some "best actors" get on the list through name recognition, an organized effort to commemorate them for a body of work and through one pivotal make-or-break scene, which for Adams was when he stumped his support for the CPRC that he's had since day one which was a revelation to anyone listening. Pick any monologue by any of the great ones in any film or stage play (or even musical) about governmental angst and politics and his will stand up among the truly greats.

The category for "Best Actress" will alas, remain empty because City Hall as you know it, and the Governmental Affairs Committee in particular is testosterone infused. So this category's submissions have been closed until at least next year and probably longer.

The "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" category is loaded with nuanced and talented performers which isn't surprising considering this production used an ensemble cast. Leading the pack is Councilman Andrew Melendrez, who took what was meant to be a walk-on part and ran away with it. Originally an understudy of Councilman Rusty Bailey (who probably would have kept the part as a walk-in or been relegated to the chorus given his before-and-after election views on the CPRC), Melendrez stole the show.

His understated performance never risked treading on the thin line of scenery-chewing even when he delivered some of the best lines in the production. In this category, he was challenged by Chief Russ Leach, whose portrayal of a long-time chief caught between the city manager's pull and the push of city residents was deft and on target. His almost inaudible response to the question of whether or not the department had ever complained about the CPRC's investigations contrasted with his declaration that his relationship with the commission hadn't outlasted the leadership of its first chair. CPRC Executive Manager Kevin Rogan showed some range, took direction very well and his addition of one simple word to one of his lines provided one of the twists that the production has become known for.

As for the category of "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role", the nominations here are closed for the year due to an estrogen shortage on the Seventh Floor but special mention should be made of Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely who delivered the single best line of the show, about Ralph Brown, the inspiration for the state's sunshine laws concerning open meetings and was spot on.

The best directors never act in their own films and the nomination from this production stayed away as well. Hudson who's skilled in this area wins another nomination in the directing category.

Despite extensive rewrites at the last minute, the script for this production is sure to garner a nomination in the adapted screenplay category which is that given to scripts based on another medium. In this case, the screenplay for this stage show was simply borrowing from an older and oft-used script.

Setting the production in an informal talk-show type setting is sure to garner further nominations for art direction and set design.

But what became clear in this staged production is that the CPRC is in a different category than the Human Resources Board because the investigative power is in the city's charter and it was put there by the majority of the city's voters in November 2004 in response to all the political attacks being made or threatened against it by the majority of the city council who at that time opposed the CPRC and civilian oversight. Those city council members didn't really listen to the voters and likely have been giving directions to Hudson (who after all is employed by the city council) and Priamos (who is likewise) even though they don't constitute the majority of the city council anymore. And what the experience of the Human Resources Board clearly showed is that if the CPRC's investigative powers had been left out of the city charter and remained in existence only in the municipal ordinance which created it, they would have been erased as well. It's very possible though not as likely that the entire commission would have been revoked.


It's likely that there are officials at City Hall are cursing that Section 810(d) of the city's charter even exists even as they try so hard to manipulate it all of a sudden. Pleading ignorance of established practice isn't working out very well either. It's unlikely that the city council or the city manager's office are truly in the dark as they have claimed to be about the CPRC's investigative protocol that it's used for 11 officer-involved deaths from 2002-2008. It's just as unlikely that the issue suddenly was noticed in June 2008 (a point of time where there hadn't been an officer-involved death in over 18 months) and thus suddenly became a topic of great concern. Given the micromanagement by Hudson and DeSantis (that by Priamos came a bit later) of the CPRC since it issued its sustained finding on the Summer Marie Lane shooting case in late 2005, it's very improbable that they were truly clueless about the investigative protocol and it's insulting to the residents of this city that this is now what everyone's trying to say.


But City Hall says this assuming that people won't know any better and will buy into it. The over 30 people who attended the Governmental Affairs Committee didn't believe them and as it turns out, many others don't as well.

Just like members of the Human Resources Board are having difficulty buying into the fact that they report to the city manager and not the city council (and one member said he doesn't and won't report to Hudson's office) and have lost their investigative power.

Put these two disparate bodies consisting of dedicated city residents who volunteer their time together and you'll find that despite their efforts to do so, their own city government doesn't trust that they are able. And that too is a shame.







The CPRC will be holding a special meeting this Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 5:30 p.m. which will include taser training by the police department. On the CPRC site, there's this link which shows pictures of the X26 Taser from various angles.

Right after the meeting, the commission will adjourn and Commissioner John Brandriff who chairs the Policies, Procedures and Bylaws meeting will hopefully get to actually direct the meeting and not have it commandeered by city employees including Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis.

One difference is that Brandriff and other commissioners were actually granted permission to put items on the agenda for this subcommittee. As you know all agenda items submitted by commissioners for their regular meetings, special meetings and committee meetings have to be approved by the dynamic duo. Alas, Brandriff had items that he had planned to put on the agenda of the special inaugural edition of this reinstated committee but none of them made it past the vigilant eye of the duo.














A Riverside County Superior Court judge came down on the employer of a trial juror for pressuring him to get out of a trial.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Luebs summoned Scott Cullen of Anaheim-based PCS Solutions Inc. to his Riverside courtroom after the employee, known as Juror No. 10, reported that Cullen was pressuring him via e-mail to get out of jury service in a case expected to take six weeks because the juror's presence was needed on a major company project.

Wearing a windbreaker, Cullen stood alone before the bench at the Friday afternoon hearing. Sternly, the judge warned Cullen that it is a crime for an employer to intimidate, harass or pressure a member of a jury.

"His mind and focus has to be on his duty," Luebs told Cullen.

Cullen argued that the man was working on a project that was crucial to the company's financial future. Luebs countered that "I'm trying a case where a guy's life is on the line. That's important."

The telecommunications company has five employees and will not be paid for the project until it is completed, Cullen said.

"We're in financial straits," Cullen told Luebs.

"I would think the courts would be more sympathetic to the plight of the small business person," Cullen said after the hearing

"We're not saying we don't want him to do jury duty," Cullen said. "We would just prefer that he has a shorter assignment. We can't do without him for two months."






Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein discusses one way Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco did cut his budget. And it's the latest episode, sans organ music of the one of the most popular sudsers involving the office that has lost 20% of its legal eagles, seen its conviction rate of felonies taken to trial plummet and the court system gridlock to the point where a whole fleet of retired civil and criminal judges were recruited to come in and bail out the leaking boat.

But this column is about a story, one of many to come out of that office, told on a much smaller scale.



(excerpt)



Guy Pittman is a supervising deputy DA.

In 2007, on the 20th anniversary of his employment, the county executive office gave him a pin, a certificate and a catalog. As part of the county's Service Award program, Pittman was invited to select a free gift. He took the catalog home and promptly pack-ratted it.

About a year later, the DA's budget watchers noticed something: The county exec office was billing the DA whenever a DA employee claimed a Service Award gift. Assistant DA Bill Mitchell:


"We notified them (the county exec) that if the gifts weren't coming from us, we weren't going to pay for them."

The DA's office also noticed that two supervisors, including Pittman, hadn't yet claimed their gifts.

Mitchell: "In order to cut costs, we asked them to refrain from putting in for them." ("Cut costs"! See?)

This didn't sit well with Pittman. If the DA wanted to opt out of the Service Award program, fine. But take it out on a 20-year man who had already been offered a free gift? Pittman browsed the catalogue and ordered a watch. (The catalog doesn't say how much it cost, but we ain't talking Rolex.) His stainless Bulova with a "second hand sweep" and black leather strap arrived within a week. Then, last month, Pittman was "called to come downtown" where Mitchell informed him that he wasn't (in Pittman's words) a "team player."

Fine thing to tell a 20-year man.







San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus in the heat of public uproar resigned from his position.




(excerpt, Press Enterprise)







Supervisor Josie Gonzales said she was relieved that the board would not have to proceed with the investigation and hearing process it began in an effort to remove him. She said the process would have been a distraction when the county needs to deal with more important issues like the declining economy.


"It was something I would much rather have happen and bring this situation to an end," she said.


Gonzales said she felt some grief and frustration to see a once-promising career end. She credited Postmus for taking the step to resign.


"He recognizes that he has a health issue, a drug problem, and he is making the very bold statement in wanting to get help and recover," Gonzales said.


In his resignation letter, Postmus said he was delaying his departure by one week to ensure a seamless transition to his successor.


"It is with tremendous sadness that I submit this letter, which announces my resignation from the office of San Bernardino County Assessor," Postmus wrote.




A former Murrieta city councilman gets weekend jail time instead of a prison sentence.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Judge Douglas E. Weathers decried Warnie Enochs' behavior in a case stemming from his divorce before sentencing him to 180 days in jail on weekends, five years probation and anger management.

"There were overt attempts by Mr. Enochs to quite frankly, cheat and defraud his soon to be ex-wife," Weathers said. "The defendant was proven in many instances to be an arrogant individual ... as if he was well above the law."

He begins his jail sentence Feb. 27.




San Bernardino Police Chief Mike Billdt has put his retirement that was supposed to take place next month on hold and is staying on until his replacement can be found.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Union officials said the chief takes too long to investigate citizen complaints, has reneged on a promise to revise reporting policies when officers must use force, and fails to follow a consistent policy on investigations when officers are accused of crimes.

Union President Rich Lawhead criticized the decision, saying the union board suspended a public appeal to force Billdt's ouster after the mayor privately promised him that the chief would leave in March.

Morris denied any such promise. The Police Department needs day-to-day leadership, and the mayor would never guarantee Billdt's departure without a successor in place, Morris said.

"You don't lop off the chief's head because some officers are crying in their milk," he said.

Lawhead also questioned the chief's judgment on budget issues. As an example, he said the department had spent more than the city can afford on overtime.










The Los Angeles Police Department and Police Commission circulated an electronic version of a document that addressed the investigation of a number of officers for racial profiling, believing it was exactly the same as the hard copy.

As it turns out, it was not. It was a little bit different.







(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)







"This was an unfortunate mistake," said Richard Tefank, executive director of the civilian oversight body. "The Police Commission will work with the Police department to insure that it does not happen again."



An electronic version of the report, which was disseminated to members of the news media in an e-mail and posted to the city's website, included the names of about 250 officers recently investigated by the LAPD's Internal Affairs Group over allegations that they used a person's race to justify a traffic or pedestrian stop.



The commission and department staff had reviewed an earlier paper copy of the report that did not contain the confidential information and assumed the electronic version would be the same, Tefank said.





An audit performed on Marlboro Police Department unveiled many problems.


(excerpt, News Transcript)


The report highlights inefficiencies, including a lack of strategic planning to address an excessive number of burglaries in the township. The report places a lot of the blame on Robert C. Holmes Sr., the former police chief who retired from his position at the end of 2008. The report states that "the chief's performance is disruptive to the dayto day operations of the police department."

Questions were raised concerning Holmes' performance in 2007 when Robert Kleinberg, who was Marlboro's mayor at the time, asked for Holmes' resignation and sought to place a director of public safety in the position to restore some of the leadership Kleinberg believed was missing from the department. Holmes refused the mayor's request to step down.

Mayor Jonathan Hornik said while he running for office against Kleinberg in 2007 it became clear through conversations that things in the police department were not as they should be.



Hornik said that after he won a four-year term as mayor and took office, he reached out to Gov. Jon Corzine on Jan. 2, 2008 to seek state assistance to perform the audit on the police department.

"I was not pleased with the report, I realize there is much work to be done to restructure the police department," Hornik said of his reaction upon receiving the state's final report.




The Denver Police Department's complaints are down overall but high-profile incidents of force have attracted wide-spread attention.



(excerpt, Rocky Mountain News)




Although it's easy to identify a handful of high-profile use-of-force incidents, determining whether that translates to widespread brutality is far more difficult. In fact, complaints of "unnecessary force" were down 13.6 percent in Denver last year.

Andrew Reid, a civil rights lawyer in Denver, said allegations of brutality are the result of failures in training and supervision and a culture that rewards police officers with medals of valor when they are involved in fatal shootings.

"They have, in my opinion, a number of felons on the police force. They know it, and they refuse to address it," he said.

Chief Gerry Whitman said it's important to remember that there are "a lot of details to these situations" that are not made public, either because of personnel issues or because of an active investigation.

"You have to take into consideration that we handle hundreds of thousands of calls and last year we made 72,000 arrests," he said. "We get very few complaints about how much force we use and about the conduct of the officers. That doesn't mean we don't take seriously the complaints that we do get, but by and large, the conduct of our officers is exemplary."

Denver officials say the system in place to deal with rogue officers is effective.



Isn't that the city where they came out with that lovely shirt proudly advocating excessive force or treating it like a joke? Yes, now if there were only an effective tool to deal with rogue systems.




Atlanta's police review board hasn't even really gotten started, but the battles wage on.



(excerpt, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)



About a dozen citizens joined five city council members in blasting Mayor Shirley Franklin’s plan to reduce the group’s access to criminal investigation files.


“I cannot support something that will dilute (the board’s) power,” Atlanta City Council member H. Lamar Willis said. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

The City Council formed the review board in 2007 after the shooting death of Kathryn Johnston in a botched drug raid. The board’s purpose is to investigate complaints about the way Atlanta police and corrections officials handle citizen complaints.

Franklin’s administration has drafted a revision of the ordinance that created the review board. It would limit the panel’s access to pending criminal investigation files.





Some Salinas Police Department officers opened fire on a couple during a traffic stop for a broken tail light after believing that one of them had been shot. The article didn't explain why the officer thought that he'd been shot while approaching the car.



The 10 most ticketed vehicles

Eminent Domain is here, the CPRC gets a breather and yes, rain is wet

"A black killer in Texas 20 years ago had a fairer hearing before he was lynched than the Ridgeline Ordinance."


---Former Canyonlake City Councilman John Zaitz in an email to elected officials that led to protests that he had included racist and homophobic comments in emails.




****** UPDATE*******

San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus resigns.





An issue arose during the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting after Riverside Police Department Chief Russ Leach dropped a bomb when he blamed the members or one specifically unnamed member of the Community Police Review Commission for authorizing the posting of autopsy photos in one of the officer-involved deaths on the internet. He said it was the most despicable act and used it as an argument against the commission launching its own parallel investigation into officer-involved deaths.


Some of the commissioners in attendance were surprised at his words because apparently no one from the police department had addressed the commission on what had happened in a similar fashion. And Councilman Frank Schiavone prevented Commissioner John Brandriff from speaking in that meeting to provide an account of that incident, but then Schiavone has shown that he would rather the commissioners be seen and not heard.



Perhaps if someone had been allowed to speak, they would have realized what had actually happened. The way Leach painted it was that one particular commissioner was advocating specifically for the photos to be posted when in actuality, several commissioners simply asked that the police department's own investigative case book become accessible for the public when it became a public document. The commissioners said that either the members of the public should be able to check the book out and read it in the CPRC office or access it online at the commission's Web site. So they decided in unison as a body to direct the staff of the CPRC office to do such. Not one person specifically mentioned the autopsy photos either from the CPRC staff or the commission and maybe that's where the problem started in that a discussion didn't take place on that issue.


The police department is not responsible for posting the autopsy photos online because it didn't even know that this decision had been made. The commissioners had only asked to increase accessibility to the case book and asked their staff to facilitate that and the staff did that by posting the case book. Once the commissioners became aware that family members of the deceased person were upset by the photos, they authorized the casebook to be removed from the Web site and sent it off to the CPRC and the police department for redaction. And when the commission posted the case book for the Joseph Darnell Hill case, the police department had redacted material including autopsy photos.



Commissions aren't the only entities that post autopsy or crime scene photos of murdered individuals online. It's pretty clear how many crime scene photos from major police departments make it into books and online different sites especially those involved with high profile murder cases. Most of these cases have gone to trial and it might be within policy to do this but it doesn't make it less jarring. I had to do a research paper on a serial murder case in Los Angeles that took place during the 1970s and one of the source materials, a book about it had photos of naked women lying dead on hill sides, any one of whom could have been the daughter of a family friend. So the issue that Leach speaks to is not just restricted to civilian review boards.



But the larger issues here are that commissioners and one commissioner were slammed for something that they didn't do and did any of them know that Leach or the police department felt this way? Did they know that this issue would arise at the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting?



Considering that I had one high-ranking city employee tell individuals at a meeting held in early 2007 that I was trying to "instigate something" or was "almost criminal" (whatever that means) for reading a public record which was the Lee Deante Brown case book, I find it interesting that the attitude towards posting the case book and making it accessible has become an accepted practice as it should be. Both the commission and police department are to be given credit for facilitating this process.



But what Leach said at the public meeting could have just as easily been said through a phone call to the CPRC or an appearance at their meeting saying that he was concerned by what had happened with the posting of those photos rather than using it to drop a bomb at the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting months later to help sell the investigative protocol of his employer. It was something that they should have sat down and talked over first. But did that take place or was this the first time that any of the commissioners had heard about it?



Leach lamented what he said was the loss of communication with the CPRC since the early days when Bill Howe chaired it and it's true that he definitely seemed more invested in enhancing that communication back then. But communication is a two-way street, in any relationship between two people and even two entities like the commission and the police department. He could facilitate that development or redevelopment in different ways, such as presenting an annual report to the commission on a topic that is relevant to both of them or inviting them to special events. If Leach wants to rebuild his relationship with the commission and it with him, it begins one step at a time and if either waits for the other to do it, it won't get done.




The Governmental Affairs Committee meeting as reported played to a full house for nearly two hours. Two of the committee members had signed (with a third council member who later contradicted herself in the daily newspaper) onto an opinion piece only last summer touting the Hudson Directive to bar the commission from initiating any investigations into officer-involved death until both the police department and City Attorney Greg Priamos provided their blessing.

A six-page report trumpeted the Hudson protocol which was to hybridize the Community Police Review Commission even further by injecting the dose of Long Beach's commission which he felt was sorely missing from the provision in the charter which governs the commission's investigations of officer-involved deaths. It's probable that the two city council members who have long been backed by the Riverside Police Officers' Association in part due to their not so friendly stance on civilian review were hoping to ride that horse all the way to a future city council meeting and thought that the committee level would be the way to start.

The meeting started with a scolding from Schiavone about how "miscommunication" had led to "controversy" when actually it was pretty obvious to many people who have been following civilian oversight, the CPRC and its up and down struggle in this city for eight years what was going on. No one in that room and many people outside of it don't need elected officials telling them what is going on with civilian review in Riverside. Many of them get it. It's the city council and its direct employees who don't get it. If an elected body violates a long-established precedent of allowing the CPRC to set its own bylaws, policies and procedures without interference from City Hall, then it's puzzling that they think no one is paying attention and believe that any questioning to that amounts to "controversy".

Then the audience had a survey of California oversight mechanisms which conduct parallel investigations change into a survey of California oversight mechanisms which conduct parallel criminal investigations with a deft slight of hand. Parallel criminal investigations do exist for officer-involved shootings and/or deaths but are not commonly associated with civilian review mechanisms. Parallel criminal investigations in these cases involve having city or county police agencies and/or prosecutor's offices conduct an investigation and then having federal or state law enforcement agencies conducting a separate investigation.

Then several committee members seem to label themselves as "police advocates" and it's interesting how they never advertise themselves at meetings like this as being "community advocates". Some people in the audience turned to each other and said, they were police advocates too. If there's a rule book attached with having that title, they didn't know it.


The surprise of the meeting was Public Safety Committee Chair Andrew Melendrez who delivered what he had promised the previous day and that was a lively conversation. He asked questions about logistics which appeared to put the other two members off guard and that spearheaded the vote to send the issue of investigation protocol to a committee consisting of Leach, CPRC Manager Kevin Rogan, more city staff and community members. Chair Frank Schiavone came up with this committee deal and despite tripping over the Brown Act a few times, instituted it. Maybe the committee members aren't sure where the rest of the city council lies on this issue. Maybe it's becauses it's election year. Maybe their hearts are in the right place. The truth will tell.

It remains to be seen where this process will go.







Eminent Domain is rearing its head in downtown Riverside.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Dhalla bought some of the property next to the Fox in the 1980s and leased the space to antique stores. He also owns or co-owns three parcels that the Redevelopment Agency wants for the garage.

The City Council, acting as the agency board, in November authorized the use of eminent domain to acquire the property but asked city officials to try to negotiate a deal with Dhalla before filing a court case.

An appraisal for the agency valued the property at almost $3.2 million. Dhalla paid for his own appraisal. There is a difference of more than $1 million, said Councilman Mike Gardner, whose ward includes downtown.

"My objective is to reach an amicable agreement with the doctor," Gardner said.

Dhalla backed Gardner in his successful 2007 campaign to unseat Councilman Dom Betro.

Dhalla said he believes there is plenty of parking space for the Fox, either in existing garages or on land other than his where a garage could be built.

But Dhalla said he is still trying to reach an agreement and thinks he can if the city is reasonable.

"I think it will be resolved," he said.






Both Riverside County Sheriff Stan Sniff and Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said no to 10% budget cuts.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



But county supervisors and County Executive Officer Bill Luna say all departments must slash their spending in order to balance a stretched but shrinking county budget. They say Pacheco and Sniff can accomplish their share of cuts without risking residents' safety.

Luna reviewed reports from all department heads stating how they will cut their county spending 10 percent next year.

Sniff said he could only do it by scaling back on deputies patrolling unincorporated Riverside County.

Pacheco did not present a plan to spend less next year than this year. Instead, he asked the county for almost $7 million more.

Assistant District Attorney Kelly Keenan said the department is still looking to make cuts but that it will be difficult.

"Is there some victim you want us to tell that we shouldn't prosecute their case? That's what we do," Keenan said. "Everything in our office supports that mission of trying to keep this community safe by providing justice. What crime don't you want us to prosecute?"




Another question is what do you tell crime victims when you've lost about 20% of your legal work force through attrition including some of your most experienced attorneys and can't adequately prosecute cases?






More protests against the raids of a day laborer area in Casa Blanca in Riverside took place at the Border Patrol Station in Riverside in the wake of allegations by agents there that they were required to fulfill quotas or face punishment by their supervisors.




If you missed Mayor Ron Loveridge's state of the city address at the Riverside Convention Center last month, here is part of his speech.






Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein takes on Border Patrol and the Riverside County District Attorney's office.

He commented on the depletion currently taking place in the D.A.'s office since Rod Pacheco took over the top position. The office has also seen its conviction rates for felonies taken to trial (which is nearly every felony these days) go into a free fall.


(excerpt)



Item de News: More than 60 prosecutors (out of a staff of 250 lawyers) have parted company with RivCo DA's office since Cuddles took over in 2007.
Impressive stat. With defense lawyers piling up so many not-guilty verdicts, look for the DA Rod Pacheco to downplay his conviction rate and start touting his attrition rate.

DA ADD -- I was a little worried about the thinning ranks in the DA's office (would there be anyone left to fill that new $126 million palace?) until I read the P-E account of the choreographed arrival of the extradited Joseph Duncan, accused killer of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez back in 1997.

"The news conference Friday was attended by several of Pacheco's staff members, including two public information officers, a staff writer/photographer, audio-visual experts and a legislative aide."

Not to mention a huge rostrum displaying the DA's name in big block letters. (The letters on the roof of his building will have to be much bigger.)






Bernstein's colleague, Cassie MacDuff wrote about the new sheriff in town in San Bernardino County and the old one who's left the building.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Make no mistake, Penrod could make the tough decisions, giving free rein to investigations of his friend Tidwell over hundreds of weapons missing from the property room and of Tidwell's sons in a jailhouse bail-bond scheme.

His tenure wasn't without controversy: He endured criticism for receiving a $21,000-a-year stipend for heading a "security" office that had no staff or budget.

His retirement mid-term enabled county supervisors to appoint the successor he recommended, Assistant Sheriff Rod Hoops.

Such maneuvers deprive voters of the free elections intended to winnow the best leaders. On the other hand, they avoid putting people like Assessor Bill Postmus in office.

Hoops takes the reins at a challenging time, when the tanking economy makes initiatives like the ones Penrod spearheaded unlikely.

But Hoops has promised to continue Penrod's legacy and try to avoid layoffs. I wish him the best of luck.







Another columnist muses about the situation involving that county's assessor, Bill Postmus.


As for labor leaders, they want Postmus gone.






To win an election in last year's Moreno Valley city council race, challengers had to outspend the incumbents.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Jesse Molina and Robin Hastings spent about four times more than incumbents in their run for the Moreno Valley City Council last year, according to the latest campaign finance reports.

Molina, who won the 1st District seat, outspent incumbent Charles White $43,724 to $10,995.

Hastings, who won the 3rd Council District seat, spent $102,790 last year, while incumbent Frank West spent $25,906. Hastings reported having $69,286 in unpaid bills submitted by various vendors, but said she is disputing some of those expenses.



A former Canyonlake city official is upset because people are upset with him for sending racist and homophobic emails to other elected officials.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




When asked about his e-mail, Zaitz said the comment about gays was meant as a joke, and the lynching reference was to illustrate the unfairness of the proceedings.

"I don't think what happened in Texas is any different than what is happening here," Zaitz said. "There is no innocent or guilty, right or wrong; they just have to stop Goat Hill."

The Goetz Hill development is known among locals as Goat Hill.

"The (gay) remark was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, similar to if I were to say that I am a guy and don't understand ambiance," he added. "It was a personal thing, I thought, between three people."







The shooting of a young man by Chino Police Department officers has sparked controversy and criticism against the department.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)


"He was never told to stop, never told to get on the ground, just shot," said Algorri, adding that he plans to file a claim against the city, likely next week.

The 23-year-old Balandran and a friend went to the McDonalds on Central Avenue after inline skating at a Chino skate park, Algorri said.

After going through the drive-through, they were sitting in their car eating when they heard gunshots, saw a shootout at the neighboring Papa Johns and tried to get away, Algorri said.

The two got out of the car and were headed away from the shooting when they encountered two police officers coming around the corner of the McDonalds.

Balandran was shot and later pronounced dead at the scene. His friend, whose name has not been released, was handcuffed but later released.

"They made a mistake, a tragic mistake," Algorri said.





Civilian oversight in the United States was discussed in many places today besides Riverside.





In Eugene, a review committee has urged the city government there to pass an ordinance ensuring that the independent police auditor's office is adequately funded.



(excerpt, Eugene Register-Guard)

It’s a worst-case scenario for Eugene police oversight advocates: A hostile city manager or City Council shrinks the budget of the police auditor, making it difficult for the auditor to monitor complaint investigations against police officers.

To prevent that, a proposed ordinance requiring the auditor’s office to get a sufficient budget to “carry out all duties” dictated by the city charter should be sent to the City Council, an advisory group indicated Thursday.

The idea was one of two tentatively endorsed by the police auditor ordinance review committee appointed by Mayor Kitty Piercy and the council.

“The intent here is to prevent the city manager from woefully underfunding the auditor’s office,” said City Councilor Alan Zelenka, a committee member.

Good luck with that endeavor if that office is occupied with anyone like Hudson. The city council in Riverside had tried to cut the CPRC's budget in 2004 after Councilman Art Gage, a known foe of the CPRC, made a motion to cut its budget by up to 80% during budget reconciliation hearings. That motion was seconded by Councilman Steve Adams and threatened with a veto by Mayor Ron Loveridge who had never issued a veto during his entire mayoral career. Any hopes the then GASS quartet had of defunding the CPRC in one swift vote died because there was no fifth vote on the dais at that time to back up Gage's motion.

Schiavone tried to portray himself as the savior of the CPRC during that episode but did he and the two remaining quartet members really decline to support Gage due to their consciences or because they knew that it would never pass? That question has in a sense been answered during the past several months.




Fresno is pressing onward again to adopt a form of civilian oversight over its police department.



(excerpt, ABC Local)


Former mayor Alan Autry pushed the idea four times while he was in
office, but it fell short in city council. Now, the faces on council
have changed, and three members who fought the auditor are gone.

There's a new mayor too, and Ashley Swearengin says she's in favor of
a police auditor. But with a tough budget already looming, she's not
focusing on it right now -- and when she does, she may find just as
much resistance as the former mayor faced.

Governmental Affairs or the CPRC: Cut off at the pass?

"Ralph Brown did away with that."





---The Group Chair Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely at the Governmental Affairs Committee meeting in response to the creation of a not-officially-an-ad hoc committee which will meet privately. The California "sunshine" open meetings law is named after Brown.









The Governmental Affairs Committee met in front of a full crowd in the Mayor's Ceremonial Chamber at Riverside City Hall to discuss the protocol of how the Community Police Review Commission conducts its officer-involved death investigations. However, it was more like being in the middle of a cornfield with the straw men being flung around by two city council members and a few city employees who all work for someone else filling out the supporting cast of performers. Included among them were City Attorney Gregory Priamos, Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis (in for the oft-absent City Manager Brad Hudson), Executive Manager Kevin Rogan and Chief Russ Leach.

Each one of them had their role to play, their own scripts they were assigned to read from and perform they did although Leach seemed to resist his direction on several occasions to acknowledge points made by members of the audience. He committed a faux passe by blaming the CPRC's commissioners for posting autopsy photos in one shooting case online on its site (which will be addressed in a future posting in greater detail), but when asked whether or not any police investigation had been compromised by the CPRC, he answered the truth which was no. That was actually more refreshing than what others in the cast of performers had to say but still a distance away from the pre-Hudson Leach of 2002 who boldly told the CPRC that it had to decide when to initiate its own investigations.

The adherence to the script was especially noticeable among the "at will" employees who were in the same room as their employers who will ultimately decide how long they will work for the city of Riverside (as at least one former executive manager found out) and these employers were "at will" employees of the elected officials. The dynamic among those at City Hall is often painfully on display and this was one example although during the meeting, some individuals broke the mold at different times including one elected official.

But the lower-ranking employees in the production represented some of the job titles with the shakiest histories, whether it's police chiefs in the 1990s or executive directors/managers in the first decade of the new century. Still watching them perform on cue was a fairly sad state of affairs because management employees dancing on command perhaps sounds more pleasant to watch than it actually is.

But then again, elected officials are also "at will" employees of the electorate and some people left the Governmental Affairs more excited about candidates like Ward Four's Paul Davis than they were walking in. Davis' has been somewhat critical of how the city council's handled the CPRC at some of his public appearances and it's included as a plank in his political platform.

Is it in Schiavone's? Not likely.

At any rate, it's hard to write about this meeting because so little of what was said by any of these players really had anything to do with the issue at hand. In fact, none of them even directly addressed the critical issue even though most of them sidestepped around it more intent on alarming individuals with visions of interfering investigators and trampled crime scenes. Easier to do try and hoodwink people with thinking that was truly the issue at heart than in addressing why City Hall is so intent with interfering with established protocol by the commission and then defending that action by claiming they took no action for years because they had no idea what was taking place in their midst. The truth is, they knew or should have known all along, certainly those in the city manager's office and if that office knew, one would think it would have passed along this newly gleaned information to the apparently clueless city council and mayor much sooner.

Instead, they chose not to act for years perhaps because there were no city council members giving them the direction to do so at that time.

The problem with this strategy of ignorance is that many people in this city have followed the progression (and some say regression) of civilian oversight and the CPRC very closely so they know a lot more about what is really going on and were involved in its progression even before Hudson, DeSantis and Rogan came to town. They were advocating for the CPRC even before any of the current city council members were elected to office including those on platforms that weren't exactly friendly towards civilian review including two members of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

Some of those in the audience have followed this issue for decades, participated in many meetings, worked on the campaign to put the CPRC in the city's charter and knew that what unfolded before them had very little to do with what was actually the heart of the issue. And the employees performing on stage didn't really know how formidable the audience collectively was with its knowledge of a process that some of its members had advocated in favor of for decades. But the conversations afterward were filled with questions about whether or not it was the city council, its direct employees and the police chief who needed to be educated on civilian oversight in Riverside and whose responsibility that should be. Who's willing to take that one on?

The lack of information and ability to present a truly compelling argument became apparent right away. The gap of knowledge on the CPRC among those in the audience compared with those on stage including individuals who repeatedly misidentified the CPRC as a "complaint driven" body. Hence the need to walk into the meeting with a sturdy umbrella to deflect the falling straw men and the need to push for public outreach (which has essentially disappeared along with the annual report) not just for community members but for those who truly need it, the city council.


Chair Frank Schiavone opened the meeting by saying that "miscommunications" had led to "controversy" over recent changes to the CPRC's protocol to launch parallel investigations into officer-involved deaths. For some reason, he thought it strange that people would react to a directive issued by City Manager Brad Hudson which halted the commission from investigated officer-involved deaths until the police department had completed its own investigations as it had done for 11 investigations conducted in a six year period. He then insisted that there had been no change in protocol instituted by Hudson in his directive. His words brought to mind a quote from the film, JFK which is spoken by Kevin Costner's character at one point.


"We're looking through the looking glass here, people...white is black and black is white."



For the first time since the CPRC's inception in 2001, the city has tried to dictate how the commission has conducted its officer-involved death investigations through a directive issued by Hudson and clearly if people had an issue about that, then they were the victims of "miscommunication" and creating some "controversy". Strong words that were meant to invoke a response but were also meant to detract from the fundamental issue and that's the city's violation of a precedent that the commission had successfully adhered to since its inception and that was the right like all the city's boards and commissions to establish its own bylaws, policies and procedures without any interference from either the city council or its direct employees.

For its first eight years, the CPRC was allowed to do just that without any involvement let alone interference from any faction at City Hall. They weren't ignorant as they claim they were today. They just weren't involved.

The policies and procedures take the language that is used to establish a board or commission in the city's charter or through ordinance and translate it into practical applications of the language that governs the existence and operation of the board or commission. The CPRC was established by the city council through an ordinance in 2000 and began fulfilling its duties in January 2001.

In 2001, it began to create its own bylaws, policies and procedures including the much cited Section VIII(B), which was drafted to address complaints. Initially, the members of the subcommittee who drafted it had simply plugged in "Riverside" for "Long Beach" but when more commissioners reviewed the product, they discovered that its language conflicted with the ordinance governing the CPRC. It was revised and one of the after effects of this event was that today, eight years later, it doesn't include any references to officer-involved deaths. Which in a way makes sense because you won't find any similar reference in any language that has to do with the establishment of the Long Beach model. Why? Because Long Beach's model is entirely complaint driven right down to its officer-involved shooting reviews and investigations.

Riverside's however is not.

If you plugged the CPRC into the Long Beach model, none of the 12 deaths that have been investigated nor the four deaths which have not would be under the purview of the CPRC to investigate because complaints weren't filed for any of them. But look at the charter and all of them are subjected to investigations. The ultimate irony in this whole exercise in micromanagement is that time and energy was spent investigating alternative models of civilian oversight for whether or not they pass investigative muster and the city gravitates towards instituting one that only investigates complaints. But then that's hardly an accident, it's design.

The commission initiated its investigation into the fatal shooting of Vaseuth Phaisouphanh six months (after nixing an investigation of the fatal shooting of Officer Doug Jacobs in 2001) after the police department briefed the commission about its own initial investigation into that shooting. Both the commissioners and the police department were dissatisfied with this process because it took so long so when the second officer-involved death, that of Anastacio Munoz, took place in November 2002, the commission voted to initiate the officer-involved death investigation shortly after. No faction in the city or police department objected to the initiation of this investigation anymore than they had told the CPRC how to handle its investigation into the Phaisouphanh death. In fact, the city and police department's approach to the commission was to let it determine how to interpret the mandates first in the ordinance and then in the city charter and to use that interpretation to dictate its policies and procedures in different areas of its operations.

Before the Munoz shooting death, Leach had told the commission during one of its meetings in the autumn of 2002 that it had to decide when it was best to start investigating but that investigations were best conducted as soon as possible. The Leach today might curse the Leach of 2002 or not even recognize him but they both existed. The Leach before and after City Manager Brad Hudson and his assistant, DeSantis became his boss and he their "at will" employees.

This protocol used by the CPRC far from being "sometimes" applied was soon established into a pattern and practice that lasted until 2008. The process moved fairly seamlessly in contrast to the city and police department which were mired in a lawsuit filed against them by the Riverside Police Officers' Association over their apparent failure to successfully manage their own parallel investigations into both officer-involved deaths and shootings. According to departmental policy 4..8, the department's Internal Affairs Division is supposed to conduct its own independent and separate investigation into these critical incidents. However, the commission itself observed during its review of the practices used by the department's own investigators that instead Internal Affairs was performing "administrative reviews" and stated in several officer-involved death reports that this situation needed to be addressed. The problems surrounding the apparent failure to do parallel investigations (as alleged by the CPRC and RPOA) spiraled into a series of related problems involving how both those processes were handled inside the department.

So while the commission successfully handled its own investigations into officer-involved deaths without a single complaint or concern raised by anyone in the police department or City Hall, the city and department were dragged into Riverside County Superior Court to litigate ongoing problems with the police department's own investigations at tax payers' expense. Problems that even the commissioners on the CPRC and most loudly, Commissioner Jim Ward had expressed concern about in their own investigations of some of the same fatal incidents.

In 2004, the majority of the voters passed Measure II which placed the commission including its power to investigate officer-involved deaths into the city's charter. Its supporters hoped that doing so would prevent the CPRC from being used as a political football for good. But as it turned out, it had only just begun. That was also the year the CPRC sponsored workshops with the city manager, city attorney, Leach and the RPOA. All showed except for Priamos who cited that he couldn't discuss his purview with the commission unless it was in closed session. None of these entities expressed any concerns or issues with an investigative protocol that had been in practice by the commission for nearly two years and had led to the initiation of three fatal shooting investigations at that point.

The city and department eventually settled affairs with the RPOA and moved on and continuously ignored the CPRC's policy recommendation to either hold its Internal Affairs Division to abide by policy 4.8 or to rewrite that provision of the policy to conform with its current practice.

The commission continued onward with its practice of initiating investigations after being notified of officer-involved deaths either by the department or through an article in the Press Enterprise. It continued to do this without any hint of complaint or concern from City Hall or the police department. It continued to do this without ever in its entire history ever sending an investigator to the "crime scene" while it was being processed. It did this with full disclosure to the city council and its direct employees as well as Leach who knew exactly what was going on every step of the way despite protests now that they all had been left in the dark. The city manager's office continued to approve expenditures involving investigators and the city attorney, city manager and police department sent representatives to all the CPRC meetings and continued to monitor the process over at least a three year period.

That's why Schiavone's comment that if the city council and city manager's office had been truly micromanaging the CPRC that they would have put its investigative protocol to a stop right then and there is so illogical. First, it exposes his hand that his intent has been (and likely still is) to break long-standing precedent of allowing the CPRC to set its own policies and procedures unmolested by the city but even more clearly, it shows that they have no other reason to rationalize the complete lack of response by the city over the CPRC's investigative protocol over a lengthy period (and for Schiavone, seven years) by pleading ignorance over the process. If that's the only defense left for allowing the commission to follow its own established protocol for seven years without saying anything, then I guess it's worth a try to see whether anyone will believe it.

Leach was asked a question by Schiavone that he didn't answer in his first speech, where he provided a historic perspective of the relationship between the CPRC and the police department. He said that while Bill Howe chaired the commission, the relationship between the two entities had been more positive but that now the commission. Later on, he did answer Schiavone's question and then talked about the importance of maintaining the integrity of a crime scene which no one had even argued against since this whole debate began six months ago when Hudson issued his directive to break a long-standing precedent of allowing the CPRC to determine its own policies and practices without interference from City Hall. This precedent breaking action didn't just impact the CPRC, but the future of other boards and commissions in this city as well. But then again since this issue couldn't and wouldn't be addressed at all, the sidelines into compromised investigations whipped up by a frenzy of fantasies by various individuals had to suffice, to supplant reality.

CPRC Manager Kevin Rogan talked about several 11th hour phone calls that he had made to several models of civilian oversight in California and said that none of them did parallel criminal investigations in response to the reality that no one said that they did because parallel criminal investigations and parallel investigations aren't the same thing. But then Rogan's made it a rather interesting practice of misstating what people said and then arguing against his version of what they said.



What the Governmental Affairs Committee showed is not only how well city employees can perform when called on to do so by their superiors on the Seventh Floor but that the CPRC remains a viable issue in city politics because efforts to spearhead a proposed protocol by Hudson were offset by some seriously good questions being asked by one Councilman Andrew Melendrez, who had substituted onto the committee in lieu of Councilman Rusty Bailey just to hear this item.



And it was Melendrez, usually the most soft-spoken city official on the dais who made the biggest impact on the direction of the meeting. While the other two members of the Governmental Affairs Committee might have been prepared for an audience (if not one that filled every chair in the room), clearly they weren't ready for one of their own stepping outside the box and asking questions that ultimately led to Chair Frank Schiavone's decision to create a quasi task force like committee loaded with city staff and containing several spots for "ordinary people" to sit on to agree on the common use of terminology and information.

With some simply worded questions, Melendrez deftly boxed his two colleagues and through extension their cast of performers in a corner. Schiavone countered by performing a fairly sophisticated political move to remove the discussion from the public arena to a back door room through the creation of a task force. It remains to be seen how that plays out. Will it be a sincere effort to work together with community members or will it be for show? Everyone will have to wait and see.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Councilman Frank Schiavone, chairman of the committee, said the split boils down to one side believing the commission should review the police documents first and then investigate, and another that believes the commission should investigate shootings and then conduct a policy-and-procedure review.

Assistant City Manager Tom DeSantis, who was present at Wednesday's meeting, agreed to organize a meeting of the police chief, commission manager and members of the Riverside Coalition for Police Accountability to gain some understanding on the differences.

For the last several years, the commission has begun independent investigations into fatal officer-involved shootings about a week after the incident.

City Manager Brad Hudson's report


RCPA rebuttal




How much did the actions of the Los Angeles Police Department on May Day 2007 cost? $12.85 million. These are pretty much just the claims. There are still other lawsuits including those filed by journalists injured in the melee.

Attacks against civilian review aren't only restricted to Riverside. Other cities get to join in on the fun.

There's changes already being proposed to Atlanta's new form of civilian oversight even though it's just gotten started. The community wants a stronger form but the city's already intent on weakening. However, the city could better spend its time and energy cleaning up its police department so elderly women aren't shot in their own homes by narcotics detectives operating on illegal search warrants.


Two female officers with the South Carolina State Police are filing a sexual discrimination lawsuit alleging they were denied promotions.


(excerpt, The Post and Courier)



State Law Enforcement Division agents Laurie V. Caldwell of Lexington County and Melody D. Wright of Richland County claim in lawsuits filed last week that they were unfairly denied lieutenant positions in 2006 and 2007.

Wright, who is black, also alleges that she was passed over because of her race.

Former SLED chief Robert Stewart, who was not named in the lawsuits, told The State newspaper of Columbia that government agencies had investigated the women's claims and found no basis for them.

"There were a number of females in supervisory positions when I was at SLED," said Stewart, who retired in November 2007 after 20 years as the state's top police officer.

State Human Affairs Commission chief Jesse Washington told the newspaper that his office closed both women's cases with "no cause" findings.




If you are in Albany and have friends from that city's department, you may get a ticket but you won't have to pay a fine.

Introduction to board and commission micromanagement: Let the games begin

But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride,
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died.



---Don McLean, "America Pie"


The day the music died...

(Feb. 3, 1959-Feb. 3, 2009)






The city council in Riverside interviewed a select group of city residents to fill vacancies on both the Board of Public Utilities and the Community Police Review Commission. First the city council and Mayor Ron Loveridge went through the arduous process of interviewing and selecting a Ward Five specific member for the Board of Public Utilities and decided on Gustavo Segura. That no doubt won't be good news for former CPRC commissioner Jack Brewer who had been lobbying for the position for a while.

The city council couldn't come to a consensus on the citywide vacancy for this board so they postponed it to fight it out another day and moved on to the increasingly politicized CPRC after lunch.

Only two candidates showed up for their interviews. Riverside County administrative manager Robert Garafalo and ESPN associate director, Robert Slawsby. Neither of them seemed to really know much about the CPRC. In fact, one of them, Garafalo said that he believed that Riverside had a civilian review board for about 15 years.

Wrong. Many community members who could never get an interview before the city council know it was created through ordinance in 2000. Some of the city council members actually seemed to know this which makes it hard to understand why they nodded their heads in agreement with Garafalo's assertion that it's been around since the 20th Century. Maybe the reason there's so much rewriting of the CPRC's history is because not everyone on the dais knows about the real history.

Garafalo begin his interview earlier than the scheduled time on the agenda. He didn't seem to know very much about the CPRC but talked about similar review mechanisms in different places in Florida so he had some clue about what civilian oversight was about. He believed it should function as a single unit and that the opinion of it probably changes over time.

Some of the elected officials said they just about fell out of their chairs when they found out he worked with former county supervisor Tom Mullin. Not exactly in those words but close and it's a head scratcher to think about why they would be so surprised given that he did work for Riverside County where guess what? Word has it the supervisors work there too.

The interview process stayed exciting when they parted ways with Garafalo and brought in Slawsby who works for ESPN which elicited the obligatory talk about NCAA basketball. In fact, Slawsby had just flown in from Waco, Texas to this interview after covering a basketball game. Given his propensity for traveling around the country for his job, he did say that the time commitment for serving on a board or commission (in general) and perhaps the CPRC (in particular) would be the biggest problem. And no one bothered to tell him that he would be putting in a minimum of 30-40 hours a month. Too busy being excited about having a real live ESPN employee in their midst.

For a while, it appeared indeed that the electeds seemed more enamored that he worked for ESPN than in his qualifications as a CPRC commissioner.

But he did bring some City Hall connections as well.

While he lived in Ward Three, Slawsby ran for city council in 2003, a race which was ultimately won by Art Gage. He also served on the Charter Review Committee several years ago.

They actually did ask him some questions about civilian oversight and the commission in Riverside. It's hard to watch this part of the interviews because it's painfully clear that not all the elected officials are up to speed about the CPRC as outlined in the city's charter. Like Garafalo, he'd been appointed to different commissions including the Airport Commission which is along the lines of the CPRC turning into an "insider's" club with prior commission experience being more important than actual knowledge about the CPRC.

Slawsby said that his work in sports journalism made him objective and unbiased. He added that the commission was "complaint driven" (borrowing from someone's words) which it's not but then some of the city council members are still grasping with understanding that fact.

Someone asked Slawsby how he would work towards getting police officers to like the commission. He laughed.



"I don't think you'll ever be able to do it," he said.

He added that the police were so to "policing us" that the role reversal was somewhat wierd for them and considered the commission a "public relations tool". No wonder the members of the Governmental Affairs Committee swooned and voted as a unit to pick him.


The voting was hilarious if somewhat scary to watch. Eight elected officials (including one with a Phd in Political Science) could not figure out after all this time, how to vote by paper ballot. Some voted twice. Some forgot to put which ward they represented. Maybe they forgot what ward they represented. Three rounds were necessary before they could effectively count the votes for the first round.

When the dust settled and the confusion abated, the vote was 4-4 with the following elected officials casting the following votes.



Mike Gardner: Garafalo

Andrew Melendrez: Garafalo

Rusty Bailey: Slawsby

Frank Schiavone: Slawsby

Chris MacArthur: Slawsby

Nancy Hart: Garafalo

Steve Adams: Slawsby

Ron Loveridge: Garafalo





With an even numbered governmental body there's always the possibility of a tie which totally happened. So the city council and mayor were left with the dilemma of having to vote again. But how to break the tie? Schiavone said it's my ward and I vote for Slawsby. Hart then said, "I have to problem at all." Then Schiavone said, "There's your vote." To make it all official, they went through the motions of trying to cast more paper ballots and this time, they had shown that they mastered that skill at last.




Mike Gardner: Garafalo

Andrew Melendrez: Garafalo

Rusty Bailey: Slawsby

Frank Schiavone: Slawsby

Chris MacArthur: Slawsby

Nancy Hart: Slawsby

Steve Adams: Slawsby

Ron Loveridge: Garafalo



So essentially despite all the bells and whistles of trying to make it seem like the CPRC was being done through an interview and voting process, it still all comes down to a city council member appointment. So that is how the city council appointed in a new commissioner whose version of the CPRC resembled LEPAC (review polices and make recommendations is main function) than what's in the city's charter. But perhaps that's how the city council wants it.

The appointment of the new commissioner came about 24 hours before the Governmental Affairs Committee will likely adopt Hudson's Long Beach template approach to how the CPRC conducts its investigations of officer-involved deaths. The meeting will be the first stage of the latest round of micromanagement of the CPRC by Hudson, City Attorney Gregory Priamos and several city council members, with the next stage likely to come when the Governmental Affairs Committee tries to push the Hudson protocol to the full city council which pretty much follows the dictate of its direct employees who of course most likely are following the directive of one or two city officials on the dais. So essentially you have several city council members dictating and others submitting to that direction with two direct employees as conduits to that process.

Hudson wrote a six-page wrote rife with inaccuracies and revisionist history. You can't blame him for that because neither he, nor executive manager, Kevin Rogan nor Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis were in the vicinity let alone City Hall when any of this history was unfolding. Still as one observer pointed out today, it's their responsibility to learn the history through responsible research methods and to not misstate it because this person said that he or she hadn't been here when it played out but was aware of it because of doing the research to find out what actually did happen.

That research wasn't done here. The most in depth research done on the report was to dig up some article about the disgraced governor or Illinois which has nothing to do with the issue at all. As someone said, you throw a lot of [insert word of choice] just to see what will stick.

This latest episode does provide an accurate historical repeat event. It provides a blast from the past back when the city council tried to weaken the CPRC's predecessor, the Law Enforcement Police Advisory Committee (LEPAC) which is the model that several city council members wish to mold the CPRC into (city charter be damned) while neglecting the police department. Toss in a budget crisis even worse than that which produced sizable budget cuts and you very well might have what community leader Mary Figueroa called the "perfect storm".


The Press Enterprise writes about the upcoming Governmental Affairs Committee meeting here.

News that the city council had apparently amended an ordinance in 2006 which stripped the Human Resources Board of its investigative powers (or so it thought, as the wording is gone but the powers are included in an "others" clause) has created a bit of a shock wave. The board just found out three years after the fact that this had happened. At first Chair Erin House said that he had received a new amended charter and that he thought the charter had been amended as an offshoot of the Charter Committee Review Process in 2004. But that committee never made any recommendations to change the function of the Human Resources Board and the changes were made one year after the new charter amendments passed in the November 2004 election went into effect.

So at that point, Deputy Human Resource Director Jeremy Hammond piped up after the meeting and said it was done through the municipal ordinance. House said he's going to do his own research to find out what happened.

The Human Resources Board has been making increased efforts to tackle some more information gathering about the state of the city's labor force in recent months. But standing in its path (as has been the case of the CPRC) are the dynamic duo of micro managers, Hudson and Priamos. They denied the board access to statistics on lawsuits filed against the city by employees stating that to ask for this information (which is public right down to the individual lawsuits by the way), puts the board in the position of acting outside of its purview. Sounds familiar? The CPRC had been listening to the same song and dance for months now. Like the CPRC, the Human Resources Board is taking the issue to the city council.

One individual upon hearing of the chain of events said that the reason why the city doesn't want the Human Resources Board to view even the general statistics is because of the sheer number of labor-related lawsuits that are and have been filed against the city especially since the hiring of both Hudson and DeSantis several years ago. Lawsuits that no doubt if they are as numerous as claimed have all been viewed by the city council (through Priamos) as being "meritless" and "frivolous" as were other lawsuits filed before them which were quickly and quietly settled even after the claims that preceded them were rubber stamped, denied.

It will be interesting to watch and see how quickly and quietly they are settled by the same city.

At one point and more than once, the racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by police officer, Roger Sutton was viewed the same way, but a $1.64 million jury verdict in 2005 might not have made a liar out of the city but it helped put those words, "frivolous" and "without merit" or better yet, "completely without merit" in doubt.

And speaking of lawsuits, was the one filed by Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Wayne Guillary who sued the city alleging he was racially profiled by the Riverside Police Department, the only one of its kind in the works? Was he the only off-duty Black law enforcement officer to raise these allegations in Riverside?







Ward Six city council candidates, Nancy Hart and Ann Alfaro discussed another candidate named James Perry during a break in the interview schedule to fill spots on the city's boards and commissions, with Hart saying, "Hmm, never heard of him." Alfaro who ran against Hart four years ago is throwing her hat in the ring. And not much is known yet about Perry.

More rumors that the city's laying off more people that aren't being counted and that many of them are men and women of color. But officially only one full-time employee, a senior librarian was laid off this week. The city is trying to see if it can move the business/reference desk person to another position in the city. It's hard to be fully comfortable and confident with the city's rosy picture of the layoff when you consider that only some employees are counted among those layoffs while at the same time these same city officials are including freezes, part-time employee layoffs, contract employee layoffs along with full-time employees in the totals for cities like Corona.










San Bernardino County swore in its new sheriff, Rod Hoops.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Hoops thanked Penrod, who supported him for the top job.

"He promoted me four times," Hoops said. "So Sheriff, thank you."

Hoops said a few words afterward, beginning his tenure as Sheriff on a humorous note.

Gesturing to his mother, Hoops joked "My Mom was 17 when I was born. Thanks for keeping me."

Hoops said his most pressing priority would be budget cuts. County authorities are expected to ask for 8 percent across-the-board cuts for all county departments. Hoops said he would seek to keep deputies on the street and find savings in other areas of his department. County authorities have said public safety would be spared cuts, but Hoops wants to be prepared.

"I don't think that any department is going to be exempt," he said.




Hoops discusses the budget crisis.






This might be difficult to believe but votes from last November's election are still being counted in Riverside County.





A fire department employee in Temecula has filed a harassment lawsuit.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




The lawsuit accuses Buckley of creating a hostile work environment based on Beauchamp's sex and age. Buckley would belittle Beauchamp to the point where she cried daily, the lawsuit alleges.

"(Buckley) would scream and yell at plaintiff and call her stupid, telling her that she couldn't do anything right," the lawsuit reads. "He told her to get on her hands and knees and clean the scuff marks off of the floor and to clean the (urine) off the bathroom floors."

The lawsuit also alleges Buckley had a personal relationship with another woman and "he would yell and scream at plaintiff for telling his wife (when she called) that he was not there, because plaintiff refused to lie."

Buckley was eventually removed as Beauchamp's supervisor, but he continued to demean her by calling her new boss and telling him her work was "all wrong," the lawsuit alleges.



Corona says bye bye to its police helicopter.




About 130 jobs will be cut by the city of San Bernardino. No one will be spared including 29 police officers and 10 fire fighters.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Because senior city employees have the right to "bump" employees with less time on the payroll, Weinberg said he doesn't yet have a breakdown on how many vacant positions will go unfilled and how many people will lose their jobs. Weinberg said he'll present a list at the Feb. 16 Council meeting.

Rather than cut public safety hours, Weinberg is seeking a 10 percent pay and benefits concession from the police and firefighter unions.

If they balk, Weinberg said he'll have to request "dozens" of additional job cuts.




Riverside County's board of supervisors voted to sue the state of California for millions of dollars being withheld to pay for state-mandated programs. But the supervisors also voted to take some of the most vulnerable residents of the county, including the disabled, mentally ill and poor families and seniors hostage as well.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Supervisors also voted to take legal action to relieve the county of the responsibility to provide those state-mandated services, such as welfare, assistance for disabled people and mental health services, if the state does not fund them.

"The action was taken despite grave concerns about the effect on the programs that serve the county's most needy and vulnerable residents," county counsel Pamela Walls said at Tuesday's supervisors' meeting in Riverside. "However, the county cannot bear the overwhelming costs of taking on responsibility for programs that the state is obligated to fund."

Supervisors voted 4-0 during closed session to authorize Walls to file or join existing lawsuits on behalf of the county.

Supervisor Roy Wilson was not present for the vote.

As part of its reform effort, Maywood's police department is preparing criminal cases against some of its worst officers in a department which hired officers who had been fired, failed to make probation or even prosecuted while working elsewhere.

The latest case involves an officer accused of four sexual assaults.

More naughty behavior by Orange County Sheriff Department officials who sent derisive text messages during a marathon meeting of the board of supervisors.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Sheriff Sandra Hutchens decided to review and tighten the department's policy on the permits given out under former Sheriff Michael S. Carona. At the Nov. 18 meeting, hundreds of permit advocates showed up to oppose the review in a meeting that lasted about eight hours.

"We are locked in mortal battle. . . . It is ugly. We will survive, however," wrote Asst. Sheriff Mike Hillmann on his BlackBerry at 1:17 p.m. as he sat in the audience.

In another message, sheriff's spokesman Damon Micalizzi wrote, "Is that Elton John?" in reference to one of the speakers who wore a bow tie and tinted glasses.


At 4:59 p.m. Hillman wrote: "I may just take myself as hostage for 'good cause.' Then I intend to revoke my sanity. Following this I believe we should consume a glass of wine."

"Good plan," wrote Undersheriff John Scott.

"I hope Janet has a pet she can call a friend," Hillman wrote back, referencing Supervisor Janet Nguyen. At 6:44 p.m., Hillman wrote to an FBI agent: "No end in sight. This has been unbelievable. Am ready to stick a pencil in my eye."

Supervisor Chris Norby said Tuesday that the transcripts reflect a "contempt and cynicism toward the whole democratic process."

"We had a six-hour public hearing with a lot of people there, and a lot of them took time off of work at their own expense," Norby said. "They should be heard with respect, not belittled behind their back at taxpayer expense."

The county also voted in an amended budget which would lay off more than 200 county employees by next year.

In the trouble-plagued Minneapolis Police Department, another officer has been suspended for being all wrapped up in yes, a corruption scandal.


(excerpt, Minneapolis Star Tribune)




Lt. Lee Edwards, 51, began the suspension this week, but the length of the disciplinary action was not disclosed. The department's Internal Affairs Unit found that Edwards violated codes of conduct and ethics in dealing with a high-ranking member of the Gangster Disciples street gang. He faced six Internal Affairs allegations; four of them were sustained in a report completed last summer.

Edwards was the main target in an FBI probe of police corruption as alleged by Taylor Trump, the gang member. Trump, a convicted drug dealer who is awaiting sentencing on federal mortgage fraud and drug charges, told authorities in June 2007 that he had knowledge of at least six Minneapolis officers who gave him information to protect his criminal enterprises.

Edwards, a former commander in the Homicide Unit and inspector in the Fourth Precinct on the city's North Side, was taped by the FBI conversing with Trump and providing him with the license plate number of a city-owned vehicle.

The Internal Affairs report stated, "Edwards should know that a vehicle listing to the City of Minneapolis Equipment Division is likely to be an unmarked squad and that revealing this information to a known gang member and drug dealer could result in physical harm or death to an undercover police officer."




The feds let him off the hook but the lieutenant is still facing ethics violations.






A story coming out of Miami is about what happens When an Internal Affairs Division gets too cozy with the police officers it investigates, only in this case it means that literally. One department's Internal Affairs commander wanted to get lucky with a female officer so he started spilling information about investigations to impress her.



(excerpt, Miami New Times)



The sordid saga involving Pichardo and Rifkin
began in February 2008 when she and her estranged ex-husband, Richard Pichardo, a former chief of the county police's Cutler Ridge district who retired in April last year, were having problems. According to court documents, the ex-beaus filed for restraining orders against one another last February 19 and 20. In addition, the Pichardos were being investigated by the Professional Compliance Bureau on several matters, including domestic violence and fraud.

Shortly after the IA investigation into her began, Pichardo received a phone call from Rifkin inviting her to lunch, according to the FDLE's report, which was released to Miami New Times today. Pichardo and Rifkin had two meetings, one at Café Italia and another at Las Delicias Peruanas, both located on Hollywood Boulevard. The encounters took place this past March 23 and July 13.

During their first encounter, Rifkin -- without being asked -- brought up the two cases against Pichardo's ex-hubby. One involved allegations of domestic violence against Richard by his current wife. The other inquiry was into allegations he was using steroids. Pichardo alleges Rifkin informed her that internal affairs was consulting with doctors to determine what the steroids "were intended to be used for." According to Pichardo's interview with FDLE, "Rifkin walked her to her car and hugged her really tight, squeezing her breasts."

When they met at the Peruvian seafood joint over the summer, Rifkin gave Pichardo a copy of an email Richard sent to Miami Beach Police Chief Carlos Noriega, Miami-Dade Police Director Robert Parker, and County Manager George Burgess. Rifkin also divulged that Richard was under investigation for allegedly forging a signature on a quit-claim deed. Pichardo claims she never asked Rifkin to give her the intel on her ex-hubby.

After the last meeting, Pichardo said, "It became clear what his intentions were as he became more aggressive with his text messages," including one this past July 30 asking her to take a day off "so he could come over and rub her neck and feet."





Over in Hawaii, a police sergeant was fired for sexual assault.



Fort Myers, Florida may be getting its civilian review board at last. The city council is preparing to draft its ordinance.

Quotas and questions and is City Hall stripping boards and commissions of investigative power?

"What behavior was taking place, I don't know. We've just come to the conclusion that he was definitely not a suspect."


---Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokeswoman for the Chino Police Department after officers shot and killed an innocent bystander.





The Human Resources Board in Riverside found out today that its power to launch investigations into employment matters no longer exists because it was erased by the city council from the municipal ordinance governing the board over three years ago and none of them were ever notified about it.

This happened courtesy of an ordinance change that apparently took effect in 2006, which was clearly an attempt to water down the board's powers to obtain information about what's going on in the city of Riverside's labor force and to strip it of its investigative powers. It was done not long after City Manager Brad Hudson was installed by the city council to his current position. And now, Chair Erin House plans to research exactly what happened and when.

The Board also found out that the language that replaced what was once Section D of the municipal ordinance now stated that the board had to report to the city manager to the city council.

One board member upon hearing this news had the following to say:


"May I ask a question? Why am I here?"



No one really had much of an answer to that. Vice Chair Ellie Bennett asked why if the board members were appointed by the city council that they were reporting to the city manager. Another member said that several other components of the same ordinance stated that the board did still report in some instances to the city council. Another member called this situation, a "conflict of interest".

Still another had a more succinct response when asked if they intended to report to Hudson's office.


"I don't," he said, "I'll change that. I won't."


Uh oh, once the city council gets wind of that, this board member might receive a letter scolding him from city council members and even be subjected to several hours of reprogramming through special "ethics training" by Priamos as happened to one member of the Community Police Review Commission.

The issue arose in an interesting way when the board was discussing a letter it was drafting to the city council to ask for clarification on why its attempts to get statistics on lawsuits filed by city employees against the city and/or city departments from the Human Resources Department at a meeting in December 2008 were halted by both Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos according to a progress report given by Human Relations Director Rhonda Strout given at the board's January meeting. The reason given indirectly by both employees through their conduit, Strout was that these requests fell outside the purvue of the board's purpose.

The board strongly disagreed.

The letter was to ask the city council to intervene and help them get the statistical information that its direct employees have denied them, which incidentally, is a public record. But the city council remains pretty unresponsive to requests in writing from the city's boards and commissions for "clarification" after two direct employees of the city, Hudson and Priamos, place restrictions on their actions out of the blue.

Just look at what happened when what's becoming a pattern and practice of micromanagement by the dynamic duo first hit the Community Police Review Commission which is now on a collision course with the Governmental Affairs Committee which might try to launch the first blow to force the commission (which has fairly strong investigative powers for officer-involved deaths which are backed by the city's charter) into a template of a model of civilian oversight with much more limited abilities to investigate officer-involved deaths. Essentially watering down the city's charter without taking it to the city's voters.

It's possible that the Human Resources Board might also have its day of reckoning with the Governmental Affairs Committee as well now that this body is entrusted to micromanage boards and commissions on behalf of the entire city council. At least one Human Resources Board member believes that is where they are heading.

Although the ability of the Human Resources Board to launch investigations may have been targeted by City Hall through the ordinance change that took effect in 2006, another provision of the ordinance actually could pick up the slack and provide the board with that same ability to investigate but shhhh, don't tell the Hudson and Priamos duo that! So actually the investigative power may be intact. But if so, watch for another ordinance amendment to wipe out any trace of it to appear before the compliant city council in a venue near you.

The letter drafted by Chair Erin House was extensively revised and will be rewritten by House to bring back to the board's next meeting in March. It will then be submitted to the city council and the board hoped, not just "received and filed" but that it would receive a response. One can dream.

But on the bright side, there were actually some employment statistics which the board was allowed to read and review.

The Human Resources Board also heard a presentation on grievances and separations involving city employees by Employee Relations Officer Steve Espinoza. In the report, the complaints were broken down into formal grievances (done in relation to MOUs) and complaints (which involve other alleged problems).

Two fairly large city departments Public Works and Public Utilities led the pack. Public Works had 12 grievances and 12 complaints while Public Utilities had 10 grievances and 10 complaints. Deputy Human Resources Director said that these employees comprised about 7% of the total employees in these departments.

The police department ranked third with five grievances and two complaints. Four of the grievances filed were involving employees represented by the Riverside Police Officers' Association.

Some smaller departments like the museum department had 12 employees but two complaints filed. Bennett said that these figures were statistically high. One would look at it and say, "that's a terrible department."

But Bennett also said she was disturbed to learn that some of the city's larger departments had zero complaints. She worried that this could mean that employees were too intimidated by management or supervisors to file complaints.



"That is very worrisome," she said, "I would have that department head in my office."

The police department had notable increases in grievances and complaints and increased rates of discipline allotted out according to statistics in that same report, the highest of any city department. Espinoza attributed it to high turnover among the civilian division's positions including the dispatch unit and with cadets. One board member asked if the number of complaints sprung from an aggressive police union. That question wasn't really answered.

The board will be receiving these statistics from the Human Resources Department bimonthly.

Layoff Watch: A male senior librarian who operated the business/circulation desk was laid off. The city is looking to see if it can transfer him to another position. However, there are unconfirmed reports that other employees may have been laid off including men and women of color.


Lawsuit watch: A high profile case that the city attorney not too long ago said had no merit might be in the process of getting settled. Is that why certain quarters have gone silent? Will the public ever know what's really going on?



If so, it's getting to be that so many lawsuits filed against the city settle not too long after Priamos issues his statement that the claim or lawsuit is "frivolous" or "without merit" that he should really carry a sign that states the following during his speeches:


"Either the city council or city manager told me to say this."






It was hard to find out that the Human Resources Board was having a meeting at all at first. The agenda wasn't posted as of the day of the meeting at the front of City Hall in the glass meeting agenda box. A representative of the Human Resources Department said it had been posted one week earlier (because it was done by then) and during the week, it might have been inadvertently removed. It was reinstalled by the time the meeting started at City Hall.





The city council in Riverside will be interviewing applicants for vacancies on the Board of Utilities at 11:00 a.m. and the Community Police Review Commission at 1:45p.m. When filled, these new board and commission members will be sworn in by March 1. Interviews will be conducted and then elected officials will vote by paper ballots to select the winners.



The council report is here.



The applicants for the CPRC are vying for a Ward Four vacancy that resulted when Linda Soubirous resigned.

The candidates are as follows:

Robert B. Slawsby

Robert Garafalo

David V. Baker

Allison R. Merrihew





More controversy erupted after U.S. Border Patrol agents working the Riverside office made allegations that their supervisors ordered them to meet quotas in their arrests or face discipline. This revelation came in the wake of increased raids by agents assigned to the same office. The Border Patrol Agency denied it but critics including those who are agents said that a quota system could encourage the detention of Latinos who are legal residents and citizens if pressured to reach quotas, agents stop people on the basis of racial identity.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



"The Border Patrol has never had a quota system and is not expected to operate on quotas," said Agent Richard Velez, an agency spokesman. "Right now these allegations are under investigation. We will soon find out what happened."


The issue surfaced last week when some of the office's nine agents told their union representative that they were ordered to make 150 arrests in January or risk having their job schedules rearranged, said Lombardo Amaya, president of Local 2554 of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents the Riverside office.

"Quotas are unfair," Amaya said. "You cannot tell my members that they need to generate this number of apprehensions and if they don't, they don't get their days off or they get their shift changed. I have received complaints from almost the entire office."On Monday, Amaya met with Jeffrey Calhoon, chief patrol agent for the El Centro Sector, which oversees Riverside, to discuss the situation.


Calhoon "said he did not impose any quota and that quotas were against policy," Amaya said.

"He said the 150 was a goal, not a quota, and that there was a miscommunication. He said he would conduct an investigation and we as a union will wait for the outcome."




The United States Border Patrol Agency said that the Riverside office is the only one in the country which targeted day laborers. And activists in Riverside County said that they might file a lawsuit against the Agency and the Riverside Police Department. A press conference is being scheduled for sometime Thursday and a march and protest at Riverside City Hall on Friday, Feb. 6 at 10 a.m.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




The Border Patrol doesn't permit quotas that involve threats of punishment, said Agent Richard Velez, a spokesman for the agency's El Centro sector, which includes the Riverside office. Velez acknowledged that the Riverside office has a "goal" of 150 arrests a month, but he said it doesn't violate agency rules because agents are not punished for failing to reach those goals. The agency is investigating whether threats were made for not meeting targets, Velez said.

Quotas cause agents to spend their time pumping up numbers rather than targeting the most dangerous illegal immigrants, said Rich Pierce, national executive vice president for the border patrol agents union.

"You want to dedicate resources to quality arrests: criminal aliens, smugglers, maybe narcotics interdiction," he said.

Lombardo Amaya, president of Local 2554 of the union, insisted there are quotas.

"I have seven, eight, nine agents in Riverside telling me they were mandated a quota" and told they would be punished if they didn't meet the target, said Amaya, who Monday morning met with El Centro sector chief Jeffrey Calhoon.








One person who might be filing papers with the Riverside City Clerk's office to run against Ward Two Councilman Andrew Melendrez during Election 2009 is Ahmad Smith.

More information is available on Smith at his Web site here. He joins Garth Newberry in that contest if both turn their paperwork in on time.



News is coming out of Ward Six that resident Larry Allen is considering a run for office. Allen's a local businessman who serves on Chief Russ Leach's advisory board and was flirting with the idea of running about a year ago because he was frustrated by what's been going on at City Hall.



Since then he'd been considering whether or not to run in recent discussions and for a while, it wasn't clear whether he was going to take the plunge. It seemed that he was back to thinking seriously about throwing his hat in the ring for the seat currently being held by Councilwoman Nancy Hart and then wavered again. But given that he's been indecisive about running, it's likely that he'll keep everyone quessing and no one will know for sure until the filing deadline.

Right now, he's the Ward Six wild card but if he ran, he'd be a very formidable candidate against Hart.




Riverside County is preparing to lay 250 of its employees off.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



About 150 to 200 county employees -- roughly 1 percent of the county payroll -- could lose their jobs in fiscal 2010, which begins in July.

Riverside County supervisors are scheduled to hear Luna's midyear budget report today and vote on the layoff plans and other recommendations.

Luna's office anticipates a continued economic downslide and tens of millions of dollars in losses in property and sales tax revenue. The report addresses a projected $60 million in budget shortfalls this year and an estimated $90 million budget gap next fiscal year, said county Chief Financial Officer Paul McDonnell. The county also stands to lose crucial funding from the state, which is floundering to fill its own $40 billion budget deficit.

"Am I overjoyed by this report? No. It's grim. It's sobering," said Supervisor Marion Ashley, adding that he fully supports its recommendations. "This will bring our fiscal situation under control."

The cuts to the county's roughly 20,000-strong workforce would not include hundreds of expected resignations and retirements.



The public safety departments also face cuts.



(excerpt)



County staff has been meeting with the sheriff's office and other public safety departments to help them make the needed cuts for next year, McDonnell said.

Those departments -- which include the district attorney, the public defender and the sheriff -- cannot be exempt from budget cuts because public-protection services receive more county funds than any other area, according to the report. If they remain exempt, all other departments would have to cut their county funding by two-thirds to balance the budget, the report says.

"It is grim and it appears to be getting worse. And it's very important that everyone realize just how bad it is," Smith said of the county's budget outlook.

"Everyone has to understand that this is not going to be an easy solution, and it very well might be that there are some programs that have gotten broad support that are just going to have to be cut," he said.





This post on Inland Empire's Craigslist lists streets in Riverside which increased their speed limits upon a vote by the city council. What's ironic about these zone increases is that for many of these streets particularly Alessandro Blvd, the speeds on these streets are actually slowing down due to increased traffic congestion within the city limits even with street widening.

As for Central Avenue, in the areas mentioned in the report, construction has been going on in the center dividers and the sidewalk, resulting in work vehicles often being parked in the street lanes.

Market and Magnolia are parking lots during portions of the day and Brockton's only a little bit better. RTA bus lines which travel down Market/Magnolia and Alessandro/Central are routinely late at arriving at their time stops on their respective routes, according to passengers who use those lines.

Given the number of speed traps on some of these streets, it's puzzling too that the city is opting to (fiscally speaking only) reduce an important source of revenue for its coffers during an economic downturn. But then a recent article had alleged that law enforcement officers in some cities were more aggressively citing people so that more fines could refill the coffers of their cities depleted by difficult economic times.





More interesting comments in relation to the Press Enterprise article on the imploding Riverside County District Attorney's office.


(excerpts)




The PE needs to get input from all the local police agencies in the county regarding this issue. They do most of the leg work and spend a lot of time and resources to get these cases to the D A.





I personally know numerous DA's and their is a serious problem in the Riv. Co. DA's office. I can tell folks over their are afraid to make a decision for fear of upsetting Pacheco. I enjoyed working with DA's when they were prosecuting one of my arrests, but it looks like things have changed. [!]






Overworked and underprepared prosecutors lead to big mistakes and convictions overturned on appeal. A 29 % losing percentage sucks. It sounds like it is a good time to be a criminal defense attorney in Riverside.















The wife of a former Canyonlake councilman was released from jail after posting $400,000 bail.





Chino Police Department officers shot the wrong guy.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Daniel Baledran of Rubidoux was ruled out as a suspect late Monday afternoon based on the statements of witnesses and officers, said Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokeswoman for the Chino Police Department.


Baledran died at the scene late Sunday after he was shot by officers responding to a report of an armed robbery at a Papa John's pizza shop on Central Avenue.

Several rounds were fired between police and two suspects, who were hospitalized with critical injuries, according to police. A Chino police officer also suffered gunshot wounds but was in stable condition Monday, officials said.



More on the fatal officer-involved shooting of Daniel Baledran,21.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Chino police responded to a 10:13 p.m. call about an armed robbery and were engaged by suspects at the scene. Two suspects and an officer were wounded and police believed Baledran to be a third suspect when they shot at him, Chino police spokeswoman Michelle Van Der Linden said.

It was later determined that he was not involved in the robbery following interviews with witnesses and officers at the scene, Van Der Linden said.

"This is a tragic event that is still under investigation," Chino Police Chief Stan Stewart said in a statement. "Our deepest sympathy goes out to the Baledran family during this difficult time."





Writers' Week takes place at UCR this week.




Also at UCR:




- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

Join UCR Students in a Coordinated Statewide Demonstration Tomorrow Tuesday February 2 at 1PM at the UCR Bell Tower Marchers gather at the Bell Tower (central campus), March downtown along University Ave. to police station (on Orange) protesting murder of Annette Garcia by Riverside Sheriff on Jan. 23rd