The Deputy Chief Retires...Amid a Stormy Sea

"I was aware that Steve Adams was unhappy about the RPOA endorsement or non-endorsement."


----Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel, Jan. 5, 2010 according to court records about Adams' reaction to not being endorsed by the RPOA in 2007. The union endorsed Adams not long after he flexed his political muscle at its leadership leading the charge to reverse the investigative protocol changes instituted by the city council in 2009.



"I don't recall anything. It was a nightmare."


---Former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach regarding the March 27, 2007 where the "at will" issue involving two key management personnel came to a head.




"I saw him walking down orange street from the coffee shop on Thursday night. I told my gf, that guy looked very important, Good luck sir in the future."


----"Guest" at PE.com





"I have no regrets."


---Esquivel to Press Enterprise about his 36 year career.








On the eve of the completion of his 30 plus year career at the Riverside Police Department, Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel talks to the Press Enterprise about his retirement. It comes in the wake of the scandal that erupted in the police department after the Feb. 8 DUI accident and traffic stop involving his former boss, Chief Russ Leach and in the wake of several current power plays taking place inside the department as a power vacuum developed not long after Leach's departure and revelations that Acting Chief John DeLaRosa had been connected to what took place at the traffic stop and to watch commander, Lt. Leon Phillips (who supervised the stop) through his city-issued cell phone records.

It's a crisis which has put the department and the city in the national spotlight and has breached public trust in both entities, mostly through the actions of a relatively few leaders at the top. Another crisis that the city has been left to address to the public as it scrambles to find its next police chief to lead a department where management at least inhouse had been severely lacking in the past several years including by Leach.

At one point, it looked like the 36 year veteran who had begun his career as a young cadet would put in for the chief's position. At one point several years ago, Esquivel had even been approached by individuals asking him to run for the top spot at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and clearly had the intelligence and political savvy along with the ambition to compete for the helm of a law enforcement agency. He had many supporters in the community, and inside the department and friends on the dais including former officer, Councilman Steve Adams and former councilman, Frank Schiavone. But he attracted controversy as well inhouse, in part due to his close political ties with Adams and individuals within the police department who manned the promotional lists at the highest ranks (including rumored offers of trades of promotions for political endorsements involving two candidates in the 2007 and 2009 elections), a process that became one of the focal points of a lawsuits filed by two former lieutenants that were recently settled by the city. And how one of his promotions into upper management was handled by the city manager's office ignited a firestorm, the impact which is still felt inside the department and City Hall.

Esquivel's Career Trajectory

Educational:


Riverside Community College, A.A.

Cal Baptist University, BA in Political Science, 1997

University of Redlands, Master's Degree, Business Management, 2002





Professional:


Cadet: 1975

Detective: 1985

Sergeant: 1990

Lieutenant: 1993

Captain: 2005

Deputy Chief: March 2007




Esquivel worked a variety of different assignments at each rank during his tenure with the department and his career took a steep upward trajectory within the past five years. He was well known in the city's neighborhoods including Casa Blanca where he had spent years working in various assignments and when many people in community meetings talked about community policing, his name had been mentioned. Even as he moved through the ranks, he often thought about how to improve community and police relationships particularly in communities where relations had been less than congenial.

He worked in homicide where he handled cases including at least one involving a serial killer. And he moved up the ranks through his career, slowly at first given that he worked as a lieutenant for over 10 years and more quickly when Hudson arrived. His trajectory served as an interesting contrast to that of DeLaRosa who zoomed up the ranks quickly beginning after Leach's arrival in 2000, earning the nickname "Johnny Who", working a variety of different assignments at each level but none for very long. Esquivel was an extrovert, to DeLaRosa's more introverted approach to policing.

DeLaRosa's upward movement mirrored that of a previous chief, Jerry Carroll who had moved from sergeant to chief in less than five years, which consequently didn't leave much time for him to develop sound management skills even though for a while, he was a pretty popular officer.

Riverside's police department's leadership trends matched those of other agencies including the Los Angeles Police Department meaning that it alternated between being run by an insider and being delegated to the outside. But it appears that Riverside most likely is about to see its second "outsider" coming in to manage its operations and personnel in a row. Not surprising given the dearth of leadership at the top, a casualty of the promotional practices of the department during the past five years and the fact that the dominoes have already started to fall.

The first of which appears to have been Esquivel.

Signing Hudson's "At Will" Contract

"And police unions are kind of an anomaly to have a police unit, especially in a management group, in any kind of industry. It's kind of an anomaly. And the original RPAA was established for the purpose of negotiations and separated from the RPOA. The reason that it separated from the RPOA was to create a clear divide between rank-and-file activities and those of management."

---Esquivel, Jan. 5, 2010






[Acting Chief John DeLaRosa, one of two employees whose promotional process in March 2007 generated a firestorm. Three years later, his actions would come under close scrutiny again in connection with the Feb. 8 traffic stop involving his boss, Leach.]


During much of his career, Esquivel had been popular with other officers due largely to his years spent on the front lines of policing. Though some others would view him later on as promoting his own interests when he reached the management level and entered into a system where promotions were apparently bought, sold and traded as different candidates held onto their marbles until game time and called in markers, in one case at the 11th hour to do anything to land that top spot. In a world where promotions could be shot down even after they were made and couldn't be finalized unless candidates cleared the air with elected officials over a beer in another city, it fostered a less than friendly environment and any tendency for people at that rank to cohabit at it once they reached the top, were pretty much destroyed in the process just to get there. Seriously, it's human nature to have a little bit of a hard time working with a colleague who stabbed you in the back to become a captain and that played greatly into the creation and fostering of the dynamic which dominated the command staff during the past five years in a department where it seemed at times where people kept their friends close and their enemies closer.

And how can you foster a healthy command staff environment when to get at that level, required a certain level of ruthlessness and a lot of self-promotion?

The answer to that is that you can't. And the RPD couldn't either, and didn't.

A Controversy Brews

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts...


---William Shakespeare, As You Like It

However, Esquivel's promotion to his final rank, that of deputy chief that took place around March of 2007 attracted a firestorm of controversy after it came to light that both he and DeLaRosa who had been elevated to the oft-vacant position of assistant chief had allegedly signed "at will" contracts with the city manager's office meaning that their positions would be reclassified from captain and they could be terminated by whoever they reported to as being "at will". Leach had believed that the two men would be serving at the will of Hudson's office rather than at his own will and had been out of town when the promotions were actually made. Esquivel said in court records that he had signed that contract and according to him, Leach had signed it as well along with Hudson and City Attorney Gregory Priamos.




"I was going to receive a pay increase, some insurance benefits and, I believe, a severance package and, I don't recall, but maybe some other minor incentives," Esquivel said.




He had said that Leach, not the city management office, had offered him the position, if not the contract. Leach had allegedly told him the terms of the contract and that he had asked Esquivel if he were willing to be a "contract employee". Esquivel had said he would be "receptive" to doing that.


Benefits which were all apparently withdrawn when this contract along with that of DeLaRosa's become null and void as told to him by Hudson and DeSantis, after much controversy and a rather contentious showdown over the issue by involved parties at a March 27 city council meeting which attracted quite a crowd. The promotion had gone through earlier, around March 16.

For an employment contract which had been offered out, accepted and signed by different city representatives, that hasn't pretty much kept it from disappearing from the city's written records. Some of those representatives disagreed on whether it was a contract or a "draft" (and thus restricted from public release although a signed draft isn't the requisite preliminary one to fall under this ruling) but at any rate, any contracts that were signed by DeLaRosa and Esquivel for these "at will" positions have disappeared from at least the public record. Which just places that unfortunate chapter of the city's history further under a dark cloud.

Different parties disagreed on the existence of those contracts either in official or "draft" form. Some like Esquivel say that it was signed including by Leach while Leach said that he doesn't remember seeing it or signing it.


"No. I don't think they had a place there for me to sign," Leach said in November 2009.


An interest observation about a contract he had just testified that he had never seen.


Esquivel said in court records later on that he had felt piqued that his promotional process had been brought into question. It would be hard not to take it personally but the process that involved the elevation of him and DeLaRosa to their current positions was such a deviation outside the normal process that perhaps the two of them should have been asking questions about why they had to sign onto that program to get promotions which have gone to individuals before them without surrendering away their labor rights as members of the Riverside Police Administrators' Association. Traditionally, assistant and deputy chiefs have served as "at will" captains to the chief meaning that the chief picked them for those spots and they could be "demoted" back to their classified captains positions when their stints were done with that particular management head because most of the time, the successor would either appoint his own staff from the captains' pool or bring his choice from outside the agency.


But because the selection process had been changed by the city manager's office under the guise of having it more closely match the command structure of the county's Sheriff Department, there was a lot of concerns and many questions about what these positions now entailed and who these individuals who filled them, DeLaRosa and Esquivel, would be reporting to, the police chief or Hudson.

Leach himself provided one interpretation of that situation on Nov. 17, 2009. At the time of the two promotions which would fill the positions directly beneath him, he would be in Washington, D.C. In fact, he was at the Bull Feathers, when he got the phone call.



"So I assume--when the early conversation came up, I assumed they meant at will to me, as the Police Chief; right? But there's a direct contact between Tom DeSantis, I believe, and Esquivel and DeLaRosa about making them at-will employees. But I didn't know that communication took place. I was in Washington, D.C. sitting in a place called Bull Feathers next to a lieutenant of mine. I'll never forget this because a phone call came in and told me what happened. In breaking that down, it looked like I was completely mistaken; that the contract would be between those two and the city manager's office, making them essentially at-will employees to the city manager's office, not to me, the Police Chief. So I didn't like that."



Why would any police chief who wanted some autonomy over the agency he or she had been hired to lead? Leach expressed further discontent with the change in the process that had been done over his head by his bosses.



"I can always reduce them to captain if I want. So I thought we were sort of solidifying that process, when it turns out they were taking a different direction. And this at-will status would be to the city manager's office. So therefore, I couldn't support that because I'm their boss, essentially, but I'm not their boss because they would end up working directly for the city manager's office. So that's sort of where we parted company on that particular issue."



Leach's statements make it clear that it was his understanding or at least that's what he said, that the positions that were designed to report directly to him and serve at his will as the police chief were instead transforming their enforcement of accountability to that of his boss, Hudson. That sends a powerful statement that Hudson, not Leach is responsible for handling the day to day operations of the police department because why else have two key management personnel in the department report directly to him and place themselves in the situation where their employment lies in the hands of the city manager's office? In other words, into a situation not dissimilar to that involving Leach.

Leach appeared on stage at the March 27, 2007 meeting where hundreds of members from the RPOA and RPAA along with community leaders congregated at the city council meeting, to address this contentious issue that drew the question of who was really running the police department into the public arena. Because after all, if the two top management positions under Leach were going to serve at the will of not Leach, but Hudson and DeSantis, then that would essentially make Leach a puppet chief under the real department heads inside the city manager's office.

Leach spoke not much about the "at will" issue or the controversy it had generated within the ranks of the police department, calling it a "miscommunication that took place a while ago" which is much different than what he said about it above.

In Hudson's speech, he focused on saying that this change was part of one he had implemented city-wide. He generally called his relationship with Leach a working partnership.


"I cannot think of a single instance where Chief Leach and I have disagreed over significant matter-over any matter, for that matter. I think we're in agreement; it's his department, I handle the money, he handles the police work."




The comments that Leach and his boss, Hudson made at that public meeting provide an interesting contrast to Leach's comments above which he made on the "at will" issue and the impasse of sorts that he had with Hudson. And at that meeting, different representatives from City Hall assured the audience that there wouldn't be any positions "at will" to the city manager's office, except for the police chief's of course. Behind the scenes, it was said that Leach had been furious about what transpired and had come back from his trip back East for a showdown, at least until he was given a hefty pay increase by Hudson's office.

Esquivel chafed from the experience of having his promotion become the focus of much controversy as he made clear in court records. Speakers at the city council meeting had said that they weren't contesting the individuals promoted or their records but the process. Still, it rankled at least one of the men promoted, a key event in a professional career.



"I have been personally maligned by some of the things that were said to some of these groups, and there were fliers that were roaming around about, you know, got to show up to the council meeting, to this, to this to that or whatever. And some of these people--that part is okay. But the part of me being personally maligned, I didn't think that was acceptable."



Things got a bit quieter after that...at least for a while. Business resumed as usual inside the department and City Hall.

But it would only prove to be the quiet before the storm.

Feb. 8, 2010:

The Police Stop Heard Around the Country

The early morning hours of Feb. 8, 2010, not long after the Super Bowl festivities had wound down was when Leach drank a lot of alcohol including on surveillance video taken at Club 215, downed some prescription medications and then drove through Riverside, the last ride he would take during his nearly decade career as Riverside's top cop. He crashed his vehicle into some object, shredding his tires down to their rims which threw sparks as he navigated his car through the city streets, running a red light and nearly hitting several other vehicles, apparently completely unaware of where he was and where he was going.

Two patrol officers finally caught up with him and pulled him over but not before 911 calls had been made to dispatch about the black Chrysler 300 throwing up sparks and alarming the motorists out on the streets. Officers Jeremy Miller and Grant Linhart, both fairly new, saw what they had which was their boss exhibiting "objective" signs of being drunk, as they later told California Highway Patrol investigators when interviewed. They called for their supervisor, Sgt. Frank Orta, who had over 30 years on the job and was looking to retire in July after having postponed his original retirement plans in light of the serious ongoing supervisor shortage in the police department as vacancies in both the sergeant and lieutenant ranks piled up and were unfilled by City Hall.

It didn't take long for people to suspect especially after reading what passed for a police report on the incident, that clearly a cover up had taken place involving at least the upper management of the police department though most of the command staff including those at the captains' level had been left out of the loop at least for a little breathing a collective sigh of relief as rage began to be vented against the department and the city which through its silence offered up Miller and Linhart and Orta as sacrificial lambs for nearly two months while City Hall under the guise of an internal "sweeping" probe tried to figure out what to do.

Esquivel had not been connected to what transpired on Feb. 8 though there were reports that his signature was included on a copy of Orta's police report not released by the city. But except for that, his name was pretty absent from the Leach incident as focus turned instead to DeLaRosa who had been named acting chief and had started showing up at city council meetings and even some community meetings including one in one of his former haunts, Casa Blanca. A remarkable change from the days when Leach used to have to push his assistant chief out of the insulated environment of the police administration and out in the community, something which DeLaRosa apparently didn't particularly like. Esquivel on the other hand didn't have to be asked twice to do public speaking and whatever his reputation within the department might have been, the city residents tended to speak and view him fairly positively because he engaged them. Particularly during the past two years when Leach began to fade away and DeLaRosa remained at the office focusing on administrative and personnel issues.

But DeLaRosa despite the hand shaking and smiles must have known that he was sitting on a time bomb. Namely the city's phone records which would tie his work-issued cell phone to that belonging to Lt. Leon Phillips who had served as the watch commander during Leach's traffic stop. He had initiated phone contact with Phillips at around 3 a.m. and then Phillips had called him twice within the next hour. And the two probably weren't exchanging cookie recipes during the wee hours of the morning when most of Riverside slept but were most likely, planning on how to handle this delicate situation involving the man who outranked them both.

Sure enough after the release of the phone records to the Press Enterprise, it was DeLaRosa's turn to fade back into the woodwork, the least visible acting chief in probably the histories of many a city. He spent most of his time relegated to the department's administrative headquarters located in some rental space in downtown Riverside and has barely been seen since. Perhaps he's been ordered by city management to keep a low profile during the rest of his tenure as acting chief.

City residents no longer saw him except during occasions like the recent officer memorial ceremony where ironically, both he and Phillips addressed the crowd of over 1000 individuals paying their respects to the fallen. And at the law enforcement's famous relay race from Baker to Las Vegas (and relays are probably one of the most challenging long-distance running disciplines in a sport which usually focuses on individual performance), where he showed up to give support as the police department's team accomplished its best performance including some personal bests but apparently DeLaRosa thought at least one runner hadn't done well enough and had complained about it during the race.

However, it seemed that why DeLaRosa instead of being placed on paid administrative leave as would be customary in many other cities given that he had been tied to an alleged cover up of criminal activity by his boss (who was later charged and convicted of drunk driving involving that incident), he remained at the helm. There apparently were discussions about removing him and placing Esquivel in that position until a permanent chief was found, but that didn't take place because not long after that, Esquivel announced his own plans. The prudent action to take might have been to do what the city did when Carrol was retired, which was to hire an interim to take the helm on a temporary basis due to all the problems at the top of the department including the alleged involvement of its second in command in a cover up. What wound up happening instead is that DeLaRosa ended up keeping that position in large due to default, meaning that while City Hall didn't appear to have much confidence in his leadership ability at this point, neither did it or many people inside the police department for that matter have faith in those below him in rank.

When the city announced its hiring process, both DeLaRosa and Esquivel apparently had planned to at least consider tossing their applications and resumes into the mix which would of course include a pool of unknown size attracted from outside the department. There were murmurs within the community and even the department that Esquivel might be a good replacement for Leach, a good "fit" as it's often been called with the city.

But others warned that if Esquivel did put in for the position, he would run into trouble right away because of problems internally involving him. Many people viewed him as being comfortably apart from the scandal that rocked the department and put DeLaRosa in the crosshairs of the city's own probe. Hudson would later release a partial statement about his probe, one month before its anticipated completion blaming police management for what happened that morning without naming anyone specifically pursuant to state law. But DeLaRosa had already been essentially identified by the press and connected to the decision making process behind Leach's traffic stop. If Leach were given a ride home instead of a ticket to jail on a DUI and there's multiple phone contacts between DeLaRosa and Phillips, then between the two of them, it seems abundantly clear who made the call to give Leach special treatment given how the command structure works inside a law enforcement agency similar to that within the military.

DeLaRosa would rather angrily respond to Hudson's statement by returning to his command staff and supervisors by criticizing Hudson's release of informtion blaming management when the investigation hadn't been completed. And that he would do his best to take care of the other officers involved. He had apparently already given notice that it wouldn't be easy for the city if it wanted him to leave quietly. And this officer had battled his way back from a life-threatening illness several years ago and returned to work against some pretty formidable odds so he had no shortage of resolve to go after what he wanted.

That it wouldn't define his entire career with the department. But as it turned out, the application list for the chief's job most likely didn't include his own name.

And it wouldn't include Esquivel's either.

A Power Shift...and Check Mate?

In the meantime, the furor among city residents didn't die down when these revelations came to light despite City Hall's attempts to clamp down on the crisis before they lost control of it, a strategy that began not long after the mysterious woman caller contacted the office of an absent Mayor Ron Loveridge who was hob-nobbing up in Sacramento that day. The phone calls to the department and City Hall only increased. Within various corners of the city, people were quietly promoting Esquivel as the city's next chief, that he should be placed in that position. He's always been popular and highly visible in different neighborhoods, including during a time period when the department's other highest ranking leaders were practically invisible including Leach.

But some people shook their heads and said that if Esquivel did apply for the position, that he would have problems of his own and that doing so might actually bring his career to an end rather than elevate his position within the department. After Leach's departure and DeLaRosa's virtual disappearing act, a power vacuum opened up in the department's upper echolon and like most such situations, it attracted someone to fill it, in this case Captain Mike Blakely, a long-time employee who had lateraled in as a deputy chief when the city hired Ken Fortier to run its department during the early 1990s.

Currently, he heads the department's personnel division which includes under its umbrella, the Internal Affairs Division which staffs a lieutenant and five sergeants including a couple who were closely associated in Leach's social circles, which created no shortage of difficulties when it came time to assign investigators to the so-called Leach probe. Among allegations that Leach had staffed some special assignments the same way he did promotions, giving them to his friends, drinking buddies and vacation pals, it created an environment where there was a lot of questioning and even more doubts regarding these positions and the people assigned to fill them.

Blakely had been placed back in the captain's rank after Fortier's ouster and had remained there since as the command staff which joined him were promoted through a series of rather interesting events which took place after Hudson and DeSantis took over the city's administration and some say, police department's management in mid-2005. The controversies involving the city's promotions at the management level began almost immediately. After the two men arrived, DeLaRosa was promoted to captain later that autumn and his upward advancement accelerated from that point onward. And the veteran captain wound up being outranked by the man who had been a detective when he had arrived as a deputy chief. But Blakely had something that DeLaRosa didn't have and that was a more solid foundation in management having spent years at that level whereas DeLaRosa had zipped through from the lieutenant's rank, which is the entry point into management to assistant chief in about six years. A whirlwind of advancement that might have caught up with him.

But Blakely quickly moved in to fill the void and soon there were internal investigations being opened or reopened on a variety of individuals, largely those at his own level or just below it. Among those in the captain's rank, Blakely's own work ethic is the strongest, he puts in the most hours at the office. And in the wake of controversy and crisis, Blakely became more energized as those around him became more apprehensive and less certain of their own positioning in the every changing dynamics of department in transition which is a gentler way of describing an agency in chaos. At least four officers were placed on paid administrative leave and several officers were the focus of an internal investigation after hitting a dog to make sure they hadn't engaged in a hit and run (oh the irony considering the initial handling of Leach's own suspected hit and run, not to mention the noninvestigation of that allegedly involving a sergeant in Leach's social circle) and do it on purpose.

And allegedly not long after Esquivel considered submitting an application for police chief, he became the focus of internal investigations and not long after that, his retirement was announced in the Press Enterprise. Just like that, a long-time career of a veteran cop had ended. In his interview with the newspaper, he clearly alluded to the turmoil that has probably been going on before it threatened to spill out in public view.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

"I did have aspirations of being chief in the city of Riverside," Esquivel said Thursday in an interview preceding his formal retirement. "But the whole series of circumstances over the last few months would have made that very difficult."

The city hasn't confirmed that these investigations were initiated and it won't ever do that, due to peace officer confidentiality laws, but it's been said that ironically, Esquivel just like DeLaRosa's problems were tied to his city-issued cell phone. Some viewed it as a rather decisive power play launched by Blakely against the deputy chief as a counter offensive to one against DeLaRosa, while others saw it as something that had been on ice and reopened or a weakness in a rival exploited as part of the ongoing chess game inside the police department's upper echelon that might see more than a couple of retirement parties until it ends. If not quite Survivor Island, the crumbling of the department's highest levels of command have been sobering even as it's been inevitable.

But then this is all part of the legacy and Esquivel's and DeLaRosa's both have become intertwined in it, that was brought to the police department courtesy of decision making outside of it, from inside City Hall. Whether it's relegated to what Leach has called the "Seventh Floor", it's only begun to exact its price from the police department that had spent nearly a decade and over $26 million undergoing intensive reform mandated by the State Attorney General's office under Bill Lockyer. But while many things were fixed, and others improved, other problems lurked and ripened even under the watchful eye of the state's highest law enforcement agency.

There had been tremendous upheaval in the department's ranks in part due to what some called inadequate leadership and supervision which has its own oversight even as it provides it, including at least five arrests (and prosecutions) of officers involved in onduty and offduty alleged criminal conduct during a 14 month period in 2008-09. Some sudden "retirements" at the supervisory level and some demotions as well, including that of a sergeant for allegedly failing to properly supervise two officers investigating a burglary call.

If management's got deficiencies including the department's leader, then at some point, those problems will permeate the ranks. The majority of officers perform their jobs very professionally even in times of departmental free fall taking place around them, while a smaller subset of them (who may be somewhat more at risk to begin with due to a variety of factors including external stressors and possibly, disciplinary histories) began to experience greater problems when supervision and management break down. The five officers who have been prosecuted with two of them convicted of criminal offenses along with a third one preparing to resolve his case, all had problematic histories for various reasons, warning of more problems to arise. Most if not all of them should have garnered extra care and oversight by a sound management structure of monitoring and addressing potential problems (especially those involving alcoholism, drug abuse and family violence) arising in its officers before they reach crisis level. Doing that wouldn't eliminate issues regarding arrests and prosecutions of officers for alleged illegal conduct but it would probably reduce the rates particularly when they spike up which appears less and less like a random cluster of events in light of recent events.

Several people said that when the consent decree expired and Leach essentially checked out, that behavioral expectations including that "off duty" (especially given that it's difficult for officers to ever really be off duty even if they're off the clock) was not held up to the level that it should have been.

If there's allegations of inadequate management and even supervision in some areas of the agency, that's not surprising given the actions that have been taken by City Hall during the past five years including changes in promotional processes beginning at the captain's level and then apparently working their way down from there. If these processes were manipulated by city management and even elected officials to become a barter and trade process rather than that involving the promotional process, then the costs which result are nearly impossible to calculate let alone contain. How do you begin to do such a thing?

And these situations if they have indeed erupted will be left for any incoming chief to address presuming that he has the autonomy and frankly, permission of the city manager’s office to do so. But would city management really hand either off to a police chief faced with a mess of its own making and give him or her the autonomy to address it? And as long as the city government as a majority body continues to check out of the destructive dynamic that has existed between Hudson, DeSantis and the police department, then the destructive cycle will resume after the so-called “honeymoon” period and continue unabated. History will be left to repeat itself once again until the next crisis disrupts the fabric that's been woven leading right up to it.


What's past being prologue until the pattern's broken and a new one begins.

Finance Committee to Meet

One of the city's most on again, off again love affairs is well, back on again but don't blink or you might miss something.

You have to dig a bit around for it online at the city's Web site but the Finance Committee will be holding a meeting on May 10 at 2:30 p.m. to discuss this agenda. It's interesting how not long after the subject of this mothballed committee comes up for discussion in some forum or is written about in the media like with the recent Press Enterprise article, it winds up having a meeting.

So if you're into trying to keep an eye on how City Hall's spending the money, you might want to check this meeting out...before the committee goes back into hibernating amidst the mothballs again. That might sound cynical but this is definitely a committee that's been coming and going since 2005 as some members of City Hall struggle with that thorny issue of financial accountability and transparency occasionally giving city residents a front row seat.







Interesting in the wake of all the controversy about officer-involved death investigations being conducted by the Community Police Review Commission and how adding that body's investigator to the crime scene might contaminate or in other ways compromise a crime scene, that Esquivel once made this observation about the crime scenes of officer-involved deaths or shootings.


"Let me cut to the chase here. The practice had been that a group of detectives, like a herd, would go into the scene and tromp around and march around. And that many of them probably didn't need to be in there and they were just along because they were detectives or they were supervisors to go into the crime scene to see what had occured. The addition of an extra individual [in his case, referring to the city attorney] would absolutely be--would contaminate nothing. And the effort would be that if the individual is escorted into the crime scene and the proper care and consideration would be taken, that no harm would be done."

Chief Hiring Watch

Interestingly enough, there's been accounts that Riverside County Sheriff's Department Undersheriff Valerie Hill is soon to retire. She applied for the sheriff's position and interviewed along with current appointment, Stan Sniff for the job but had made it clear that she wouldn't compete against him if he had enough votes. She later worked with him, focusing on the expansion of the department's correctional division including the construction of a new jail facility.

If she's retiring, it's really interesting timing isn't it? Has she applied for the top spot in Riverside's very own police department? It's hard not to be interested in this hiring process and what it might bring, what might unfold even though City Hall will likely be keeping most of the process a secret from most people.

The hiring process so far had attracted 27 applications with 48 hours still to go in the application process which isn't necessarily all of them because customarily there are often last minute applications submitted in chief hiring searches. At this point, those involved in hiring which is the city manager's office along with the Human Resources Department (as Director Rhonda Strout told the Human Resources Board her department would assist in this process) should be evaluating applications and making selections on which ones will be pushed forward for increased scrutiny. The chief's hiring process should be very extensive and thorough and professionally done, because it's probably the most important position filled since Hudson's been in town.

Interviews with the so-called "community" and city panels were expected to be done in May and hiring hopefully by sometime in June or at least before the police department undergoes its next shift change in July.

According to an article in the Press Enterprise, the final applicant count? 60.






Want a used car? You can bid online here for a city-owned one. Though you might have to have it towed in this case because it doesn't start.


Not to mention bidding on the maintenance of the city's Wi Fi network which just closed. The city's actively seeking a new vendor to maintain and run its free wireless network in the wake of AT&T's decision to walk away with still a year to go left on its contract.

Have Bag; Will Travel?

As part of its network changes after its divorce with AT&T is finalized, the city might be relocating up to 40% of its current wi-fi coverage, leaving the city just under 50% coverage unless it qualifies for federal stimulus grant funding. This BA 100 was one of the last installed, on Glenhavin Avenue and most likely will be among those relocated.

More information on the status of the city's Wi Fi system including the recall of the BA 200s which took place earlier this year. The city is currently trying to receive grant funding to expand the network to 95% or better and if it doesn't win the grant, then the city will provide approximately 52% coverage, down from its current 70 as it will be relocating the hardware that supplies about 40% of the city to areas focusing on low income neighborhoods and shopping centers. Whether or not this will help improve service in these areas remains to be seen as in areas where the maximum distance between access points and network users is about 200 feet, performance doesn't really improve when using it in locations where access points are closer together including where BA 100s are in closer proximity to BA 200s. Increasing the density of nodes in these areas leaves two issues unaddressed.

One being that the primary challenges for access to the network by low-income neighborhoods remains the difficulty of accessing the wireless inside structures, due to construction materials especially in the older houses which dominate some low-income neighborhoods like parts of downtown, the Eastside and Casa Blanca. Tests conducted inside several commercial businesses in fairly close proximity to BA 100s show that even within a 5o feet distance, performance tests indicate challenges accessing ISP connectivity even through glass windows as opposed to more physically challenging barriers such as walls. It's virtually impossible to connect to any wireless signal outside from inside without the amplification of an external antennae attached to the wireless card or connected outside, or through an ethernet device regardless of how close the computer actually is to the BA 100 or BA 200.

The major difficulty with increasing node density in commercial areas namely malls is that most of these places, i.e. Riverside Plaza and Canyon Crest Town Center (both of which lack coverage to the wireless network on at last 80% of their property) for example, are located on large tracts of private property and thus would require appropriate light fixtures which are often lacking to install the BA 100s as well as encroachment permits to place them on private property. Both Canyon Crest Town Center and Riverside Plaza offer wireless spots which are "free" (i.e. Borders at the Plaza) and several coffee places in the Town Center (although Starbucks currently requires a subscription to ATT wifi though that might change).




A closer look at the current Riverside County District Attorney's race.

Public Meetings

Monday, May 10 at 3:30 p.m. on the Seventh Floor of City Hall, the Community Services and Youth Committee will be meeting and will discuss the city's summer programs.


Tuesday, May 11 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. The Riverside City Council will meet and discuss this agenda.

Community Police Review Commission Meeting Update

The Community Police Review Commission as you know recently voted 4 to 2 with three members absent to move its meetings from the late afternoon to late morning/mid day with general meetings now scheduled for 12:30 p.m. in what was a deliberate move by the City Hall backed contingent to thwart public participation in that commission's process, not to mention an attempt to prevent other commissioners not in line with this group (which is now a voting minority when all nine are present) from attending meetings, knowing very well from past discussions on meeting changes which commissioners can attend the meetings at which times. Because they knew that they were inhibiting other commissioners from fulfilling their duties of city council appointment, many believed that this action taken by vote is akin to a clear violation of the city's ethics code which does apply to members of boards and commissions.

Not to worry, this meeting change threatens the commission's ability to do business under the Brown Act by creating a situation of potential failure to meet quorums and it has already attracted a fair amount of consternation from several elected officials, which in itself could promote further discussion and debate on the fractured commission.

Election Candidate Forums

Forums will be held at :
Stratton Community Center/Bordwell Park
2008 Martin Luther King Blvd., Riverside, CA 92507

SPONSORED BY:
The League of Women
The Group The Latino Network
Voters Riverside
NAACP Riverside Branch
The Pick Group
The Raincross Group
http://www.riversideleague.com


RIVERSIDE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Incumbent - Rod Pacheco (invited)
Challenger - Paul Zellerbach (Confirmed)
Tuesday, May 11th, 7:00pm - 8:30pm

RIVERSIDE COUNTY SHERIFF
Incumbent - Stanley Sniff
Challenger - Frank Robles
Thursday, May 13th, 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Has Riverside City Manager Brad Hudson Already Picked His Next Chief?

****UPDATE: Finance Committee breaks meeting drought again, to meet and discuss agenda items on May 10. More details to come...




Rumors have been rampant as of late and now one media outlet has announced that a new Riverside police chief has been selected already by City Manager Brad Hudson and that individuals have been given advance notice of his selection on the condition of keeping it under wraps from everyone else. It's hard to know what to say about these rumors and this statement because common logic would dictate that the city wouldn't be so foolish to commit acts including the circumvention of a fair and just hiring process so soon after news arose of a cover up of criminal conduct involving the last police chief and then going around advertising about it. Revelations that shook the city's confidence in the police department and City Hall to its core, would then lead to more inquiries including possibly by outside agencies about what was taking place in Riverside's halls of power. Why on earth would they go down this road again when the majority of people in Riverside wouldn't choose that path? Do they really want to face another round of losing public trust in City Hall? If they've picked the police chief already, then the answer to that question would be maybe not, but then who cares what the public thinks or if it trusts the city and its operations anyway.

Because it's not just the chief's identity which would be kept under wraps but the fact that any selection made at this point of the next chief would prove that the hiring process itself as reported to the public by Hudson and also city officials was a sham. As a blogger and city resident, it's not the former that's the major problem (though that's relatively speaking) but the latter, because the fact that during a huge period of distrust by city residents towards City Hall and the police department, the city had made this plea to trust in its ability to hire the next police leader. And by circumventing the promised hiring process, the city would be violating that currently fragile trust.

My first question with this information would not have anything to do with the identity of any police chief (which frankly I wouldn't want to know particularly at this stage of the process in exchange for silence about much more than just that chief's identity), but instead why was the process circumvented by City Hall and why if this is the case, were over 350,00 city residents and police employees (who were also informed of the hiring process like the public) lied to by their city government and its direct employees? How was this allowed to happen on everyone's watch? Because this city, its employees and residents have been through too much already to be retreading the same steps that led to the point where we are now, involving all the turbulence and uncertainty of the past few months. And then it's necessary to research that hiring process to see if indeed it had been circumvented by Hudson or others in this fashion because that's something that should be determined and if so, then there needs to be some explanations of how this happened and why.


Interestingly enough, there had been reports of people being told that the new police chief had been hired but they couldn't divulge the identity because they were sworn to secrecy, beginning first about a month ago. But people had dismissed them when they had heard them because they thought the city hadn't been that foolish to repeat its old mistakes which have been largely responsible for the image beating it's taken lately. But is it really foolish to believe that there's that enough foolishness at City Hall? That it really hasn't learned from the events of the past couple of months?

It's interesting how not a day goes by where there's not more intrigue coming out of the city, this being just the latest of what's been going on in hopes that city residents aren't paying attention. But it's very disturbing to consider as well, that even after everything that's unfolded in the past couple of months, it would be business as usual at City Hall which would involve in this case parading out a bogus hiring process as a lie to so many people and then convening the real one behind closed doors on what the former police chief described as the Seventh Floor of City Hall.

Not being a member of Hudson or City Hall's PR division or that whole Seventh Floor brigade, this blog wasn't on the list of people notified about the incoming police chief which isn't really such a bad thing, but as of yesterday, neither had been the employees of the public safety department that this individual would oversee, replacing former police chief, Russ Leach nor have the city's residents.

And it's in the opinion of this blogger that the very first people who should be told the identity of their new boss, are the around 600 employees of the police department. Are people curious and concerned about who the next police will be? Most definitely so, but there's an appropriate order to this process and that includes notifying the employees first and then city residents after. The two parties who have been the most often screwed over by this kind of duplicity by the upper floors of City Hall.

And if it's only being told to people who aren't critical of Hudson under a vow of secrecy, then it's not just the chief's name that would be kept confidential but the fact that this premature selection would prove positive that the publicly announced selection process was indeed a sham. That part of a sordid situation would be kept confidential as well from the majority of the city's stake holders.

And that's the true travesty of this kind of situation if it has indeed risen in this city, that this form of corruption would be kept under wraps including by individuals outside the decision making processes inside City Hall. The ultimate joke would be played by relatively few people in power against the majority of those who are left to trust (with very little of that left) in the city to hire a chief in an ethical, professional and responsible manner. And one that's truly accountable and transparent to everyone in this city. But then those are two big words that the city has often struggled with and the situation that led up to the implosion that took place on Feb. 8 involving the police department and has continued since as surely as it had begun before years ago, is a major example of that.

And rest assured, if any such process of secrecy about the integrity of the hiring processes involved any direct employee of the city council or city government members themselves, they would notice a difference when they ran for reelection next year in how the public would respond to them at the voting polls. The past elections have amply proven that Riverside's voters are sick and tired of what's passed for professional behavior from elected officials both on the dais in public and behind closed doors at City Hall or inside restaurants like The Sire, El Toritos and a couple hot meeting places in Corona as well where of course business is conducted by people who don't want to be seen associating with each other by the locals. That's just not how city business should be conducted in Riverside.

But there's been persistent rumors that this hiring process has been a sham for some weeks now and that various individuals have been sworn to secrecy about the identity of the new chief but if that were the case (and it would certainly show an appalling amount of stupidity among other qualities), that would be truly unfortunate and frankly, indicative of corruption in this city, not to mention being a huge violation of public trust both for the city residents as well as public safety employees. But this situation's more solid than those rumors in that someone is confirming that this same thing happened to them, that this individual was given the name of the next police chief in exchange for his silence.

If it's true that a police chief were already selected, it would strongly indicate that the new chief was drawn from the Riverside County pool (and there have been rumors of people like James McElvain and recently retired assistant sheriff of administration Peter Labahn applying though he's currently on the state's parole hearing board) and that this new police chief wouldn't be anything but a pawn of Hudson and assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis. Because otherwise to hire a police chief from a pool of individuals unfamiliar to Hudson and DeSantis, that would require an extensive vetting process of the current hiring pool of at least 27 candidates by Hudson and DeSantis before any person would be chosen for hire from the official pool of candidates. If any vetting took place earlier so much so that there were a police chief selection floating around a mere five days after the closure of the application process, then it would have to be a candidate of which two former county employees were already very familar with. Including whether or not that individual would go along with their currently in place program involving the police department without raising a fuss.

And after all the years of mismanagement of the police department by that office and the reality that the police chief was essentially a puppet position, it would be highly unfortunate if that destructive legacy were to continue in this city, including with the continued blessing of the majority voting members of the city council who after settling the recent lawsuit involving two former police lieutenants can't really plead ignorance on the matter.


But then they don't call this place River City for nothing.



It would be truly a travesty if a selection were made this early in a process where the city spent a sizable sum of money during fiscally difficult times to hire a firm without going through a competitive bidding process to lower the costs of recruiting a new police chief. After all, this city in the guise of budget cuts (of which it could face more given a projected $17 million cut in redevelopment funding taken by the state) reduced library hours, laid off employees and left vacancies unfilled which has contributed to a 10% overall vacancy rate in the police department not to mention that current 33% vacancy rate in the lieutenant's rank which has substantially impacted morale among individuals who have to work double to make up for having less. In fact, the department is in the process of going back to having upper management personnel staff the relief watch command positions, an action also taken last year for a period of time. Hudson and his employers, the city government would and should have some serious questions to answer if they supported the manipulation of a recruitment and hiring process at such public expense while at the same time authorizing layoffs and the vacancies of public safety positions.

This recruitment process apparently did its job and attracted over 27 individuals by the April 30 deadline who applied from different places but was this truly a serious attempt at recruiting high quality candidates for the job? That does remain to be seen in upcoming days and weeks. These individuals responded and applied for the opening in good faith believing it was a professionally conducted recruitment and hiring process and one in integrity attached during a time period in the city's history when many people doubted the integrity of what had been taking place surrounding Leach. It would definitely be unwise to hire someone without conducting a competently done and thorough background investigation including interviews with associates and family of at least the leading candidates, a financial audit and a polygraph test and that kind of extensive checking takes time to carry out, especially on more than one prime candidate. But there are truly no shortcuts here and the public right now is not in the mood for the city management to take any such shortcuts especially in this area.

What came out at least in the community forums was that people wanted a police chief with a high degree of personal and professional ethics and integrity and that's not something that can be determined by reading an application and certainly not by hiring a crony (which would be the only way the hiring process would end a couple vital steps short in its process).

It would really be downright seedy (though in itself not surprising) if a selection was made before the community and city panels were able to interview the top applicants. The interview panels which are expected to be announced soon are to include business and community leaders, police union representatives and as rumored, Councilmen Steve Adams (which in itself generates concern and questions) and possibly Rusty Bailey. At its May 3 meeting, the Human Resources Board had announced that it had sent a letter or was planning to do so to Hudson asking for its assistance in the recruitment process as well as on the interview panels but hadn't received as of yet any response. Integrity and professionalism in this hiring process must remain paramount and those qualities must be accounted for by the city government which of course hires and fires direct city employees as well as provide them direction.

The panels themselves have been referred to some as a "dog and a pony" show even before being used by Hudson, as something more than just a carrot to dangle in front of community leaders to try to keep them quiet and in line with the program. And if a new chief has already been announced and kept under wraps, then any interview panels would simply serve as a rubber stamp if they approved the already selected candidate and out of touch if they opted instead for one of the confederates instead. It wouldn't be the first time that these panels were used in this manner but it would prove to be a disappointment to city residents who looked towards City Hall for leadership in this latest crisis and found it somewhat lacking anyway.

Blowing big bucks on a bogus recruitment process to disguise the hiring of a specific employee is of course not without precedent because that was what happened when the city hired Hudson in 2005, using the same recruitment firm, Roberts, though at least this hiring process including competitive bidding by a variety of headhunting firms. But it's hoped that the city government is aware of the full price that that corruption of the hiring process involving one of its direct employees wouldn't be repeated on its watch. If it's indeed engaging in any shenanigans, then it's not learning from its own history.

Truth be told, it's really hard at this point to be really excited about any hiring announcement about the new police chief. On one hand, the department and city residents deserve the best employee to lead the troubled agency that the city can hire and there's talent out there who would prove to be a very good fit in the department and in this city. But...it's difficult given the travesties which have taken place involving the police department under Hudson's watch that anyone hired by Hudson will be allowed to be truly independent. The reasons listed by the Eastside Think Tank for example, when it issued a press release pushing for a change in the charter which would assign the hiring process to the city council rather than the city manager. In order for this to be changed, it would have to pass the muster of the majority of the city's voters like any other charter amendment. That wouldn't be a cure all for the current problematic dynamic between the police chief and City Hall especially given the antics of several current and former council members who participated and/or directed that dynamic but it does put accountability for that misbehavior in the hands of the voters.

And if there are indeed any premature selection of the next police chief by the city manager's office or anyone else before the employment process has even really began, then perhaps that's an argument to push for such a change and just hope that the city council entrusted with that tremendous responsibility and confidence vote by city residents would prove worthy of both. At any rate, there would definitely be a push for some kind of investigation of the hiring process of the police chief. Not that Hudson couldn't engage in this back door conduct if he chose but it would truly be shabby conduct by him if he did so and even shabbier conduct by the city government if they allowed or endorsed it.

But it's clear that there will have to be much closer oversight and scrutinizing of one of the more important hiring processes in the city's recent history by those outside of it especially if Hudson is truly circumventing the hiring process he announced to the public at the expense of the public and the future of Riverside including its police department. And no, it's too early to truly pick a police chief and to know about it as part of an inside joke being played on the city's residents and at the expense of what should be an ethical and professionally conducted hiring process. The identity of the future police chief shouldn't be known at this point and is not nearly as important as the knowledge of whether or not the city manager's office is engaging in the appropriate manner with the very important hiring process and that the city council and mayor are providing the necessary direction to ensure that this is what takes place during a pivotal time in the city's history.





And speaking of rumors, several individuals had paired the name of a former city council members, a corrupt land deal and the name of a prosecution agency in the same sentence. Stay tuned to see if there are any official or otherwise announcements on that but these rumors on this situation have come and they have gone like the wind so you never really know.


Still no news on whether Hudson was drug or alcohol tested after his recent "fender bender" involving his city issued car.







Speaking of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, if you're interested in its command structure, you can access the rather extensive chart here and like that involving the Riverside Police Department, vacancies are highlighted.



The Press Enterprise Editorial Board tells the city council, rethink your budget spending! Columnist Dan Bernstein of the same publication discusses spending closer to home.





Retaliation over the corruption in San Bernardino County?


It used to be air conditioners that were plundered for copper and nothing's nicer than spending days in a building without air conditioning until it's replaced. Now it's back flow devices.

The Finance Committee Returned to Hudson's Toy Box

[Finance Committee Chair Nancy Hart (r) and member, Councilman Paul Davis sitting in that rarity of events, an actual meeting of this committee. In the midst of the "great recession" (not to mention Riverside's own Renaissance) as one individual called it, this committee's been kept in mothballs. Is it a dying relic or will it rise again?]






[The man that the city government has handed all the keys to the city's coffers including nearly all the city's financial accountability and checks and balances systems, which is City Manager Brad Hudson. After seeing how well it worked when he had received all the keys to the Riverside Police Department, with a sea of outside investigations and promotional mayhem following.]






It's been covered as an issue plenty of times in this blog but the Press Enterprise asked questions about why Riverside's Finance Committee's not holding hardly any meetings.
The answers to that question of course vary on which member of the barely there committee is asked, with committee members, Councilmen Paul Davis and Mike Gardner wanting to meet more often while its chair, Nancy Hart (who calls the meetings) doesn't seem to agree. She seems perfectly happy and has said at city council meetings when this question has arisen that she's perfectly happy to let Asst. City Manager Paul Sundeen tell her when there's an issue worth meeting about. So there you have it, the chair of that committee that is supposed to be both oversight of the city's financial processes and provide a layer of transparency for city residents is handing off that responsibility to the head of the department the committee is supposed to oversee. It's equivalent to the hens giving the fox the keys to the coop, just another example of the city government's strong willingness to reduce the areas of city government that it's responsible for overseeing including its main responsibility, the city's financial state including its annual budgets and funding sources.

And what's really at stake underneath the hubris is that there's a difference of opinion in this city about whether or not the city council, its legislative body elected by the residents, should retain control of any of its financial accountability mechanisms. At least as far as the majority vote of the past several city councils has been, the answer is a resounding no, as one by one the city council has surrendered these mechanisms to the city manager's office.

The Finance Committee's barely met since 2005 and if you look at that year, you'll notice that the majority of the meetings were held earlier that year, before June, with only two out of the 11 meetings that year being held after the first week in May. In fact, the meetings began to dry up after June that year the month that City Manager Brad Hudson came to City Hall.

And it's also more than likely that the scheduling of Finance Committee meetings began to decrease at about the same time that the once independent Finance Department became added under the umbrella of the city manager's office creating a conflict of interest situation. That decision which created a stir among community leaders and governmental watchdogs at the time if not the city council, was done just before the city launched to great fanfare its Riverside Renaissance program several years ago, the ambitious five-year program that's not really being paid for now as much as it will be paid by future generations of city residents.

The committee experienced a long drought after its December 2008 and the only reason it's met since then was because it was pressured to do so. But what's interesting to add to this situation is that involving another financial body, the city's so-called Investment Committee which was scheduled to meet last Monday. Just finding out what that committee entailed and who served on it, which is essentially Sundeen, Hart and city staff, took some deep probing at City Hall, conversations with several different city departments including Finance and several phone calls by city employees. Finally a gentleman from the Finance Department was very helpful at providing that information but the whole experience was very surreal in that it took all that time and effort just to find out more about a committee that seemed to be so much of a mystery that no one even knew who was responsible for posting the meeting agenda in the Brown Act case in front of City Hall. Why are the processes involving the city's finances and its accountability mechanisms either nonexistent, dying on the vine or some deep seated mystery?

Welcome to Hudson's world, the one where the veiling or even elimination of the city's financial accountability mechanisms began almost immediately after his hiring in June 2005. But these questions are worthy questions to ask the city officials including during the next city council election cycle in 2011.

Some interesting comments were included in the online article. Maybe City Hall doesn't think city residents have a clue what's going on or are paying attention but these two comments really nail the issue on its head in a way that should really put some of the cast of characters at the 'Hall in their places. Oh and look there's that naughty word again, oversight. Some individuals at City Hall pretty much duck and cover whenever that word floats inside on the wind.


(excerpts)



Hey Nancy, it's called OVERSIGHT! You aren't CFO's staff, and you aren't dependent on his decision to call a meeting. If finances are too boring for you then resign and let someone else take over who is concerned (and interested) in these issues.





The CFO says there hasn't been any controversial or complex financial issues, so there's no need to meet. In the midst of a Great Recession ??Who elected him ??

Pretty amazing that our electeds aren't watching the cash register closely and frequently.




It's interesting how both comments reflect what I've heard people say when talking about the handling of finances by this city government, about how it's bit by bit sold off in some cases through majority vote most of its role as a financial accountability mechanism to counter the administration that it employs. Requirements for authorization of the interfund transfers were liberated by city council vote several years ago, amidst the fanfare about the city's sewer system. And that impacted how money is borrowed and returned in the city's many different funding sources, sometimes causing certain accounts like the oft-raided sewer fund to not be used for what they are intended to be used for but as glorified ATM machines, albeit ones with high interest costs which aren't always visible at the time.

The inactivity of the Finance Committee actually didn't go without notice during the past several years.

Jennifer Vaughn-Blakely and other members of the Group and League of Women's Voters including Barbara Purvis were attending Finance Committee meetings when that committee was actually meeting. But it's so typical of the city government to first give away most of its accountability mechanisms to its administration and like Hart so amply showed, await direction on how to lead the city. And under the city's charter, it's the city council which as the legislative body that's supposed to lead through direction and in some cases, delegation involving its three direct employees, the clerk, attorney and city manager.

The charter does prohibit a type of micromanagement of direct employees called "administrative interference" but the interpretation of that has differed among different elected officials and on the situation at hand. For example, when Hudson and his assistant city manager were micromanaging one of their favorite toys, the Community Police Review Commission, council members who opposed the commission kept saying that to redirect him away from doing that would be engaging in administrative interference. But no doubt, it was these same elected officials who were directing him to engage in the micromanagement in the first place. After all, one city officially allegedly told someone else that if any employee didn't do as they were told, they would be gone and listed a former city manager who had been fired by the city council as an example. And indeed former city manager, George Carvalho was somewhat more resistant to being directed day to day by the city government at the time. But if this conversation took place where this former city council member said it's my way or the highway, then what does that say about whether the dog's wagging the tail or the tail, the dog? That can be a difficult question to even begin to answer sometimes, since City Hall has become much more insulated in recent years. But not everything that has slipped through the cracks is good news.

The Toys That City Hall Broke

[Another one of Hudson's favorite toys, the Riverside Police Department which he usually hands off to his assistant city manager of public safety (lol, the irony), Tom DeSantis to play with.]



In 1999, the Riverside Police Department faced its greatest crisis, and its biggest test. Complete mayhem swept the city and inside the department as well in relation to a decade or so of deterioration and neglect which finally erupted like a boil in a very visible way. Two years and several outside investigations later, the State Attorney General's office forced the mayor and city council's hand by essentially sending its leader, Bill Locker, down to Riverside to say, reform or we'll sue you in court. The city council blinked except for one, and voted to instead settle the lawsuit with the state's highest prosecutory agency and institute reforms which in actuality were needed years before due in part to the department's failure to modernize with the city it served.

But even as the reforms took place, the department split into two different directions when it hit a fork in the road during 2005. On one hand, it had set itself down a much more progressive path, instituting reforms which would allow it to transform itself into one of the most modern police departments in the state and much healthier than it had been in years. But that development exacted a price and caused a fundamental part of the police department to head off in a much less progressive and ultimately destructive direction. Which began when individuals in positions of power at City Hall began to believe that since the department was pretty much out of the hands of the police department and overseen from outside of it, then what were a few more extra hands in the pot? The consent decree though vital to the department in a sense had also opened Pandora's Box and after that, quite an interesting cast of individuals jumped into it.

Former Chief Russ Leach was officially in charge of the department as its top ranking officer on the chain of command. But above him through a mandate issued by the state's courts including the Riverside County Superior Court in downtown, was someone in a position of overseeing everything that the department carried out on the laundry list of reforms mandated by the state. A liaison existed between the state and the city in the form of police practices consultant Joe Brann. So within six months after Leach had arrived to take the helm of the troubled department in the midst of the turbulent city, he had been handed a script to follow courtesy of the consent decree. And by 2005, that process had begun to wind down as the city and department finalized its remaining reforms and underwent periodic audits for the rest, which was at about the same time Hudson and his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis rode into town. Hudson from leading the Economic Development Agency and DeSantis pretty much from exile.

The previous city managers, semi-permanent and interim, had pretty much given Leach the autonomy and space to run his department and there were varying degrees of opinion on whether he was a highly capable leader or one that was less than that. However, when Hudson and DeSantis came in, almost immediately a power shift began probably within days or weeks of their arrival that summer of 2005. And the troubles began almost immediately after, the ones that laid the groundwork for the implosion that would take place nearly five years later. Hudson and DeSantis loved to micromanage what was placed in their hands by their employers, the mayor and city council including as stated earlier, the Finance Department but also the police department. But Hudson and DeSantis had special designs for the police department, in part because they were major police aficionados, although for some, a different term came to mind that's been batted around in connection with the two men.

Not that they are the only two city employees affected by the allure of a profession that's often painted much differently than it is in reality. It's been said that City Attorney Gregory Priamos has or at least had a display akin to a shrine for law enforcement in his office. Not that admiring a profession is a bad thing at all, but there's a different between admiration and what these men apparently experienced and admiration rarely is destructive in its expression, not so with idoltry.

DeSantis in particular seemed to embrace law enforcement and what it represented, authority, power and status if seemingly less fond of its pitfalls and responsibilities. When he carried a firearm, he chose the Glock, a gun commonly used by law enforcement officers including those with the Riverside Police Department. His city issued car? A series of Crown Victorias which are also a popular choice of "take home" vehicle for law enforcement officers. Not that DeSantis was always glowing about law enforcement officers because when it came time for the creation of more police positions (in the midsts of freezes)and issues of salaries and benefits, he was often known to sniff that it didn't merit such because it wasn't that difficult of a job and anyone could do it. Which really as most people are aware isn't the case at all. Certainly not for DeSantis who might face scrutiny for his altercation with a woman in a parking lot at Hemet that got awfully quiet, awfully quickly in a way that works only for people in positions of power or connected to those places.

This information might seem trivial, but actually it's not at all. It explains a lot of the actions that transpired between these two men, Leach and the handling or mishandling of the police department. Issues which attracted quite a bit of attention from outside the department and city as it turned out even as elements at City Hall tried to clamp down on them. But Hudson and DeSantis didn't stop there, they decided to exercise their management skills in other areas of the police department as well including its day to day operations, also beginning not long after they arrived. It's not always clear whether or not they were acting on their own volition because at about that time, the kitchen of cooks that operated and ran the police department got a little bit more crowded when elected officials began enlisting themselves in this effort as well, including one currently active council member and one who was ultimately voted out of office by his ward.

And so the downturn of the police department began.

Most of this happened behind closed doors at City Hall and inside one of those insulated and isolated environments which is your typical law enforcement agency. After all, most police departments to members of the public are like icebergs especially when crises occur from the inside out. They leave many people scratching their heads and asking, is what they see happening really only a small portion of what's actually taking place inside? As far as the police department in this city and the incident that finally broke it which was the Feb. 8 accident and traffic stop involving its chief, the answer is definitely and definitively, yes.

If most city residents in Riverside really knew what had happened in the police department they funded and the incidents that had transpired between it and elements of City Hall including what Leach often referred to as its "Seventh Floor", they would truly be shocked and while the police department would be the initial focal point for that shock and upset as it had been after the Leach incident, attention would soon turn towards the forces inside City Hall as they should.




But it's fascinating if very unsettling to watch the dynamics between the city manager's office and the city government that appears to give him carte blanche to administrate even in situations where the outcome has been detrimental, most notably involving the Riverside Police Department. The scandal that erupted involving former police chief Russ Leach's DUI accident and traffic stop had been at least a few years in the making and reached its inevitable outcome during the early morning hours of Feb. 8, after the police department had faced nearly five years of micromanagement by the city manager's office either with the city council's blessing or in several cases, active involvement by current and former members. And what's interesting is that more city residents are noticing the connections between the events involving the beleaguered department and the machinations of the city manager's office which oversees its operations, some say those that are carried out on a day to day basis.

The city government which oversees those who have overseen the police department knows fully well what has happened during the past several years and if not, its members have no excuse for being in the dark. Yet every time this issue isn't addressed when Hudson comes up for his performance evaluation, the city government is playing the city residents for fools. Because the damage involving the police department took place under their noses and on their watch and the price tag that it's exacting is climbing in more ways than one, with no leadership to be found to set things right again.

There is much more of this story to be told and it will be told and the only thing that's really both telling and very, very unfortunate is that those who should be telling it, the elected officials of City Hall, won't be performing that task.

But there's still a story to be told.





[One of Hudson's other toys, the spayed and neutered as Press Enterprise columnist, Dan Bernstein called, it, the Community Police Review Commission members and a couple of the Team City Hall players.]



When it's not micromanaging the police department and plundering its resources (and more on that later too), the city manager's office still had time to manipulate the commission and prevent it from operating as it's intended under the city charter. In 2004, nearly a year before Hudson and DeSantis were even on Riverside's map, the majority of the city's voters placed the commission in the city's charter in recognition of attempts by city council members who opposed it to either dismantle it or dilute its authority. Then when Hudson and DeSantis came in, two city council members, a current and a former, directed him and likely, Priamos as well to come up with means and methods to undermine its charter powers including the power to investigate and review officer-involved deaths. That process continued to play out until first the Governmental Affairs Committee and then the city council were forced to come out from behind their direct employees and take direct responsibility through several public votes to essentially strip the commission of its investigative power (and the commission's failure to investigate the 2008 of Carlos Quinonez is an example of this). The city council ultimately reversed this vote earlier this year led by of all people, Steve Adams who had actually along with former council member, Frank Schiavone spearheaded the original action. But these are two names that will come up very frequently not only in future discussions about the micromanagement of the CPRC but also that involving the police department as what will be clear is that it's the same cast of characters at City Hall which was behind both patterns and practice.

Currently, the commission is unable to perform the majority of its charter powers ranging from community outreach, to serving as an advisor to city government on police/community matters, in an adequate fashion although attempts to place restrictions on its ability to undergo policy review and recommendations failed because it conflicted with the city's charter as well as the commission's own bylaws and policies and procedures. It's still not known why the CPRC's current manager, Kevin Rogan, who's an "at will" employee of Hudson, tried to reduce policy review and recommendation only to cases where they stem from filed complaints when the language in the commission's own rule book clearly provides a more general and generous interpretation and application of this charter power.

It's fascinating to string together the common threads that all point to the same origin and the tapestry that's created will become much more clear in the days and weeks ahead.










The latest developments on the development of the latest parking garage in downtown Riverside.


Evidently election forums for political candidates are producing more no-shows. This became an issue particularly this year given that Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco has avoided every single one during his reelection bid. His hired consultant Brian Floyd has simply said that the other candidate, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach is a "gad fly" and not worth debating but it sounds like Pacheco just is more worried about looking bad in front of voters.




Press Enterprise Columnist Cassie MacDuff writes about how the paths of San Bernardino County prosecutors has been cleared.




The court settlement which pitted the Riverside County supervisors against a tiny little rodent is revisited.

Public Meetings

Monday, May 3 at 4 p.m. The Human Resources Board meets to discuss this brief agenda. As you know, the Board has recently been targeted for "handling" by City Manager Brad Hudson through his conduit, Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout, which is why the agenda item regarding defining its mission is on the agenda. That was Hudson's suggestion after the Board invited him to its meeting to explain why he and his office had been blocking attempts by the Board to invite Development Director Deanna Lorson for a round of questioning in the wake of the massive number of employee departures through resignations (including men of color and older women) during a difficult economic time when most employees would remain in their jobs. Hudson showed up and made the suggestion that the board come up with a new mission. Which is no doubt because it's been stripped of most of its powers including its investigative power (through a city council vote to change its ordinance language several years ago) so it's got to figure out a new decision to pursue especially if City Hall weakens it further.

But what would be a key issue that could be researched by this board which is under its purview is the promotional process involving city departments most especially the police department and whether city management and city council members are unduly or in the case of elected officials, unlawfully manipulating it.

Tuesday, May 4 at 6:30 p.m. The Riverside City Council holds a pretty short meeting at City Hall to discuss this agenda. Don't blink your eyes, sneeze or go to the kitchen to refresh those snacks because you might miss it.



Wednesday, May 5 at 4 p.m. The Governmental Affairs Committee meets to discuss the issue of neighborhood governance. Is this City Hall's attempt to micromanage community organizations? Well that remains to be seen at this point. But even as employees have been laid off and vacancies frozen (with the police department's lieutenants at a current 33% vacancy rate for example) the city wants to create another paid position.



And so far, the Finance Committee meeting scheduled for May 10 hasn't been canceled yet by Hart.

The Women's Rape Crisis Center which has assisted many people is itself in crisis.