River City Hall: Celebrating a year's actions in seven days

It looks like posts here that are linked at Inland Empire Craigslist are being removed again. If this keeps up and if this blog were a book, it might be on this list.

While we're on the topic, it's that time of year again to think about books. Banned and challenged books.





During the last week of September, there's an event called "Banned Books Week" which is hosted by the American Library Association. The Riverside Main Library in downtown usually participates in this annual event and one of the exhibits it often puts on display is a jail filled with books that have been banned or challenged most often by public school districts over the past 20 years. You should definitely check it out if you are in the area. No doubt, you will find a book or two inside that cage that you read when you were younger.


More information: ALA: Banned Books Week



And what are some of these books? The list for previous years has included Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The most recent list consisted mostly of series books which have hit the Young Adult publishing industry like a storm since the 1990s. They've bumped most of the classics off of the list except for Robert Cormier's excellent book, The Chocolate War, which like its sources of inspiration, Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace along with Rye has lived on this list since its publication. The Chocolate War which jump started the Young Adult genre in a new direction in 1975 was the most recent book to be banned at all middle school libraries in the Riverside Unified School District several years ago.


Challenged more recently was the very dangerous tome, The Adventure of the Super Diaper Baby again by the Riverside Unified School District.


(excerpt, Susan Mernit's blog)


A school board member and a grandmother in Riverside, California propose to ban Dav Pikley's The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, part of the Captain Stinkypants series written by Dav Pilkey and published by Scholastic, because the book has poop as a character and doesn't meet their critical standards (always a good reason to ban a book, doncha know).

The book..." has poor grammar, poor spelling, poor content, and it's an extremely poor example of what I would want my student to learn," said Gayle Cloud, the school board member. "I think Dr. Seuss would be rolling over in his grave."

BTW, Riverside is the school district that banned the highly regarded The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier from middle school libraries in the Riverside, California, Unified School District after a district committee decided the book was inappropriate for seventh and eighth graders to read without class discussion.
What fools.






Also this week, is something called Race Equality Week. It's an annual event sponsored by the Human Relations Commission and it will be kicked off by a presentation at this week's city council meeting. There will be events held in the city this week celebrating this event but a lot of reflection when it comes to remembering what still needs to be done.


I'm not sure what to make of an event that celebrates racial equality for one week out of the year. The events sound good, but shouldn't it be Race Equality Week all year? Is it in Riverside?

I've learned that the more Riverside's city government becomes concerned about racism within its own ranks or has it brought to its attention, the more that city officials hold multi-cultural festivals, erect monuments of civil rights activists in the Main Street Square or hold events like this one. So far, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, jr. stand in the pedestrian mall, as reminders of the importance of the continued work that is necessary for a just society. Both also were arrested numerous times for civil disobedience during their lives. One was in part, inspired by the other and both had families who felt at times part of what the family's patriarch was doing and at other times left out of having them in their daily lives.

The multicultural festivals as they are called are designed to help celebrate different cultures around the world, including the many that are woven into Riverside's fabric. Yet, does the impact that they have last longer than a day including to the city officials who attend them?


Not that I don't think these events and statues aren't great or that they aren't important. They are as celebrations, commemorations of achievements made in the areas of civil rights and embracing ethnic and racial diversity. However, they serve as reminders as well and not always of positive events in this city.




For years, the city held Race Equality Week events at the same time members of its own workforce fought in both federal and state courts to take their racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suits to trial.





In 1997, at least 17 Black city employees representing departments from Public Works, Parks and Recreation, Public Utilities, the City Attorneys office and the Human Resources Department among others filed law suits in U.S. District Court after years of meetings held with city officials and representatives from different departments including the city manager's office.





The racist environment these men and women described particularly the infamous corporate yard was one difficult even to imagine. Feces smeared on city vehicles, Black dolls hung in effigy, KKK and other racist slurs and symbols scrawled on walls and an assault by White employees against a Black employee at the corporate yard who tried to remove the racist graffiti. Fortunately for him, he held a black belt in Karate and was able to defend himself against injury.





Failure to recruit openly for positions, failure to offer equal standards of promotion for Black and White employees and laying off Black employees or refusing to give them promised full-time positions when they were hired as part-time employees were common occurrences reported in almost every city department. In fact, statistics from the city showed that in 2002, Black employees represented 22% of the part-time work force and about 5% of the full-time work force.





The Riverside Police Department had many problems with alleged racism among its ranks as well, with law suits and complaints being filed during the 1990s.





Also around 1997, three men of color in the Riverside Police Department, now-retired Lt. Alex Tortes, now-retired Lt. Ron Orrantia and current Lt. Darryl Hurt filed cases with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging discrimination in promotions.





In 1999, a group of White male sergeants filed grievances with the city protesting the promotions of Tortes, Orrantia and Meredith Meredyth, a White woman, to lieutenant positions.





In 2000, Officer Roger Sutton filed his law suit alleging racial discrimination in connection with a reassignment he received in 1998, harassment and retaliation. Over 5 years later, his case went in front of a jury and that jury awarded him $1.64 million because its majority decided that nearly all of his allegations except one had been proven.



Several years later, there was some grumbling by several White lieutenants after the promotion of Jim Cannon to captain. Cannon was only the second African-American to be promoted into that position and is the department's highest ranking Black officer. The first one, Lee Wagner, left the department in the mid-1990s. Some say, he was forced out of there. He currently works as the chief of the Riverside Community College District's police department.



The department obviously wasn't ready for a high-ranking Black officer. Hopefully that has changed or is changing. After all, it's now the 21st century.

The city as a whole obviously wasn't ready for Black employees who would protest unfair treatment in its ranks. Parties of the law suits involving Sutton and those involving the 17 Black employees all reported incidents of retaliation allegedly against them.

Sutton said that while his vehicle was inside a secured parking lot for employees only, it was keyed while he was in a lengthy interview with internal affairs representatives. He reported being ostracized by his peers and relegated to cleaning closets in the personnel and training division. Both the judge and the jury said that the evidence providing retaliation proved to be the strongest in the entire case and this alleged retaliation continued to at least April 2004, according to trial testimony.

The 17 plaintiffs in the federal law suit saw their numbers drop when their own attorney worked with the city to scare them into dropping out by doing exactly what they are doing now to property rights activist Ken Stansbury. They threatened these plaintiffs with the city's attorneys fees if they either lost their case or won a verdict less than the settlement offer even though at the time there wasn't any on the table.

Every plaintiff received a copy of this letter from their own attorney and many dropped out citing fatigue from the litigation or family hardship until only eight were left.

Two of the litigants who worked in the public utilities division faced an investigation conducted by Best, Best and Krieger Attorney Bradley Neufeld at the cost of $17,000 according to a CPRA request. Another employee had filed a complaint against the two men and it's the first known case of the city hiring an attorney to perform this function. The link on Neufeld includes his extensive background in labor litigation on behalf of cities and counties.

Most of those remaining in the law suit settled with the city several years ago bringing their law suit to a resolution after nearly a decade.

Around that time, whatever had been at the corporate yard and the police department searched for new grounds to haunt. Was City Hall its newest front? And what of older haunts where racism is to be a memory of some past life?



"I have a dream..."

---Martin Luther King, jr. from the speech of his most quoted by city officials

"You must be the change you want to see in the world."

---Mahatma Gandhi



"I have an African American joke to tell you."

---allegedly said among members of the city's work force, 2007



Art Alcaraz

Tranda Drumwright

Jim Smith

Pedro Payne



To be continued...









In Riverside, there's going to be a 10 story business tower downtown and construction is set to begin on it soon, according to the Press Enterprise.

If you want to rent space there, you'd better have a thick wallet. Rents start at $3 per foot. But then if you don't have a lot of money, the future downtown may not be for you anyway.






Never a dull moment in Colton politics as there's a recall effort against Mayor Kelly Chastain, according to the Press Enterprise.

She's getting some assistance against this effort by labor unions representing Colton's police officers and fire fighters.


(excerpt)


Fire Capt. Doug Blinkinsop, a Colton Firefighters Association representative, called the recall divisive.

"Recalls are an action of final resort that should be saved for those who have done something criminal or who are abusing the public trust," he said. "This is clearly not the case with Mayor Chastain."

Colton Police Officers Association President Kyle Kershner said his organization also stands behind the mayor.

Kershner said the recall proponents have criticized development projects such as the proposed Colton Super Block on the west end. With the utility tax expected to end in four years, these projects are needed to keep the city solvent, he said.

"If the utility tax ends, Colton will have to rely on the development programs being considered by this council to continue to provide the public with the services you expect," he said.





But groups of city residents who are calling for the recall say that Chastain has misused her position, pushed for projects that they oppose and has created conflict with outside agencies that the city deals with.

It will be interesting to see what happens next with this ongoing development in the political hot bed of Colton which has seen one councilman indicted on charges and a police chief ousted by its city manager and police unions.




The Press Enterprise's Readers' Forum included letters this week expressing concerns about increasing demands for utilities in Riverside, the city council's decision to rescind electric rate increases and the gang injunction in the Eastside.




Richard Konda, of the San Jose Mercury Newshas urged the city government of that city to not continue to undermine the role of the Office of the Independent Auditor.

Barbara Attard, the current auditor has done the unmentionable, which is to address the possible oversight of the department's investigations of officer-involved deaths.

A group of city officials including the mayor and a councilman who once lead the San Jose Police Officers' Association want to limit that scope to include only deaths caused by onduty shootings, not by tasers, other devices or other causes. This is particularly a thorny issue for both sides at the moment given that five individuals have died shortly after being tased by this city's police officers since 2004.


Mayor Chuck Reed, Vice Mayor David Cortese and Councilman Pete Constant, not to mention Chief Rob Davis all want Attard's office to not investigate all incustody deaths or in Davis' case, any deaths at all during a time when public trust in the department is heading towards its nadir.

The city attorney in this city wrote a memo bolstering the position of these three city officials which is blatantly false. It's not like that has never happened before in other cities but like in these other cities, the attorney which will have to represent San Jose in any civil rights or wrongful death law suit involving the police department is working for his or her bosses.



(excerpt)


San Jose residents deserve better than this proposal. The point isn't to assume that a death is the fault of the police department. Everyone recognizes that police officers have a tough job, and that they have to use force - even deadly force - in certain situations. By having an independent review of a death involving the police, the community gets an additional assurance that police officers acted appropriately. In cases where they did not, the city benefits by having an independent analysis of what went wrong. The city attorney's opposition to such a review will only increase community mistrust of the police.

Four years ago, a San Jose police officer shot and killed San Jose resident Bich Cau Tran because he mistook her vegetable peeler for a dangerous weapon. Her death led to changes in how San Jose deals with officer-involved shootings. Today, it is time for our city to take the next step and institute a similar review for deaths following the use of Tasers and other police actions. Unfortunately, Reed, Cortese and Constant would take us in the wrong direction.






In the Los Angeles Times, there's this survey about whether or not the city should pay out a $1.5 million settlement to a Black fire fighter who sued alleging racial discrimination and harassment?




Also in that publication is an admission by the University of California, Irvine chancellor that he botched the situation involving the hiring and unhiring of Duke University Law School Professor Irwin Chemerinsky.


Nope, it was not outside pressure that led to Chancellor Michael V. Drake's decision to rescind his hiring of Chemerinsky, he said. Nor was his decision to reverse his reversal.


(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)


This is certainly something that I bungled, and I regret it completely and totally," he said. "I am always trying to do what I can to enhance the institution and have it move forward. It's awful that all this has blown up like this. I couldn't regret it more."

After Chemerinsky's firing prompted a national uproar, Drake flew to the professor's home in North Carolina over the weekend, talked through his differences with the professor and rehired him Monday.

But the chancellor acknowledged that his incomplete explanation of why he soured on Chemerinsky last week is not likely to mollify his critics.

"The why of it is straightforward, but I think it's going to be unsatisfactory," Drake said. "It was a personnel issue and there are a lot of things that go into that. We as a university have a policy that we don't talk about personnel decisions.


Chemerinsky, who is well-known for his articles on police issues, will be receiving a pretty generous salary of $350,000 a year while at Irvine.

Better not let word of that get to Riverside City Hall or someone's going to be asking for another pay hike.






The All-Blacks knocked Scotland out of the Rugby World Cup, but the coach wasn't all that happy. They may face off against the Wallabies in the quarter-finals.

For those who watched the Wallabies face off against the Eagles in a non-test match in the mid-1990s that was held at of all places, the corner of Blaine and Canyoncrest, they were pretty formidable then as they remain now.

The Winds of Change: From city to county?

September's storm kind of petered out in these parts but in its wake, record low temperatures could be coming into the Inland Empire.


The Press Enterprise published this article on the history of what's been called Riverside's oldest gang, the Eastside Riva. They are wrong of course, because the existence of the Ku Klux Klan in Riverside preceded its existence by decades but it's still hard for many individuals to see gangs as not just being Black and Latino.


(excerpt)


While the gang, estimated by Pacheco at more than 500 members, has shaped the neighborhood's recent history, even people close to the group cannot pinpoint all the factors that gave rise to East Side Riva, said longtime resident and retired Riverside police Lt. Alex Tortes.

"A lot of kids that get initiated and get jumped in, they don't even know the history of why they do what they do," said Tortes, who now oversees city recreation programs in Eastside parks. "A lot of these kids don't know why they hate the rival gangs or the kids from another neighborhood."

Gabriel Tovar, 25, did not know how long the gang has been a presence in his neighborhood, but said his 85-year-old grandfather, who died recently, had the words "East Side Riva" tattooed along the curve of his thumb and index finger.

Tovar protested in court his inclusion on a list of 114 active gang members in the district attorney's proposed injunction. Authorities have labeled him incorrectly, he said, because he is related to several Riva members, has drug and weapons convictions and has "Riva" tattooed in flame letters on the back of his head and "Inland Empire" on his forearms.

"My uncles raised me. They were Eastside, and you wear what they wear," Tovar said. He added: "You are where you live."



The article discusses the recent gang injunction and the reaction to it both inside and outside of the Eastside.


(excerpt)


These guys are bullet magnets," said Lucky, who wrote the injunction, of the East Side Riva gang. "They attract violence when they get together in groups in front of private homes."

But the last killing on the Eastside was in March 2006. Crime also has dropped about 11 percent over the first six months of this year compared with the same time last year, according to police statistics.

Some have worried the injunction could spark more violence. A classified ad that police believe to be a veiled death threat against Pacheco appeared in The Press-Enterprise last month. Chandler William Cardwell, a former newspaper employee whose brother-in-law was named as an East Side Riva member in the injunction, is accused of placing the ad.

Barbarin, Tortes and others say the neighborhood has learned in recent years to dispel dangerous rumors, put a lid on brewing violence and, in some cases, to appeal to gang members' loyalty to their communities and families.

Gangs were an ugly phase for some teenagers who have since left that lifestyle to work steady jobs and raise families, they say.

Many community members say the neighborhood needs more programs to rehabilitate gang members and to keep younger children and teenagers away from crime and drugs.

"People want to get rid of the gangs. They don't want to get rid of the kids that are in the gangs," Tortes said. "We don't want to stop these kids from associating and being proud of their neighborhood. We want to get rid of the criminal behavior."



The article includes links to previous coverage including videos of meetings, copies of the preliminary injunction and other articles.

Residents in the Eastside said that Latino families are already putting homes on the market and selling them to move out of the neighborhood. Given the interest of the University of California, Riverside and the city in acquiring properties in the Eastside for various planned projects, they shouldn't lack for interested buyers, in what has become a buyers' market given that the housing market's bubble has burst. And sure enough, there's been talk of the development angle of recent actions taken by the city and county in this neighborhood.




Los Angeles will be footing the bill for a $1.5 million settlement to one of its firefighters, according to the Los Angeles Times.


(excerpt)


Firefighter Tennie Pierce had filed suit stemming from an incident in 2004 in which he was served a spaghetti dinner that secretly included dog food while he was on duty at Fire Station No. 5 in Westchester. Although some colleagues described it as a prank that played on the 6-foot-5 Pierce's nickname, "Big Dog," Pierce alleged racial discrimination.

The case originally was headed for trial Monday. A spokesman for City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said the settlement reached Friday afternoon pushed the total cost of the case to $2.8 million once $1.3 million in legal expenses accumulated by the city since December are factored in. That is slightly more than the $2.7-million settlement offered by the council last year but rejected by Villaraigosa.

This time, the mayor gave his blessing to the deal with Pierce, a 19-year firefighter who lives in Cerritos. Hours after the council vote, Villaraigosa released a statement saying the decision "reduces the original settlement by nearly half while protecting Angelenos from further liability."



Some say the settlement will bring the unsettling incident to a close. Others say that the city did it to avoid having its fire department put on trial in front of a jury. For one thing, it's not the only settlement to follow statements made by city officials and their attorneys that they are so sure they are going to win these things.

The city of Riverside can perhaps now relate to this form of decision making. In 2004, this city was faced with paying a $200,000 award that Riverside Police Department Officer Roger Sutton had won when his case was sent to arbitration after one of several shutdowns of the civil court system.

The city nixed paying out the award and took the case to jury trial, and by the trial's end, the amount of money it had to pay out was raised to $1.64 million.

Riverside's also paid out settlements on similar racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation law suits involving Black employees who worked in a variety of city departments from Public Works, to Public Utilities and Waste Management.

It might pay out even more money at a later date given that it faces a federal investigation into one of its departments this autumn and a pending law suit alleging a hostile working environment including the use of racist slurs and jokes in another. If the city has to pay out for either department, unfortunately, it won't be the first time for either of them, which means that while racism does cost, it might take more than one payout for it to sink in that it both costs and has no place in the city's workforce.




Someone at Inland Empire Craigslist invoked the memory of former City Manager George Carvalho, which was really nice because often I wonder if people even remember that we once had the best city manager in the state of California working in our very own city. This individual raised salient points. I remember that chain of events as if it were yesterday.

During Carvalho's tenure, he did not whip out a proposal for a five-year express train of development and redevelopment called Riverside Renaissance which has elicited both positive and negative responses in Riverside but Carvalho was more careful about spending the city's money. As far as I know, he never imposed eminent domain on a property to help private developers let alone threatened it to a large portion of the business district in one area of the city. Part of why eminent domain is used is because governmental officials and their employees in charge of development have poor communication skills and lack the ability to be able to relate with property owners. It's a useful tool to avoid dealing with people and working out an equitable deal, especially when you are in a hurry. And for whatever reason or reasons, this city administration is in a hurry.



What he did do as this person correctly said was he did encourage public participation at meetings and community input into what the city was doing or planning to do. Maybe not city-wide because there are many community members who were active in their neighborhoods who never met Carvalho but he cast a much wider net than his predecessor. And he didn't pack a gun to go to meetings in "dangerous" neighborhoods like the one who followed him.

He did all this even while facing increasing micromanagement by council members who like to quote chapter and verse, the section of the city's charter on what's called, administrative interference only when it's convenient to them.



He was hardly perfect and some of the criticism about him was valid but nothing he did warrented his firing. It's possible that part of what went into the decision to fire him was the knowledge that former Economic Development Agency head, Brad Hudson may have been job hunting. After all, one council member happily said after the hiring of Hudson that they'd heard a year ago that he might leave the county but didn't think they had a chance of getting him to work for Riverside. Count back a year from the vote that was taken to hire Hudson and what date does that bring you to?

And yes he was fired, by the GASS quartet in the summer of 2004, with three city council members, Dom Betro, Nancy Hart and Ameal Moore voting against him. However, not too long afterwards, all seven city council members on the dais at this future point and time celebrated the hiring of Hudson who was about as close to being the polar opposite of Carvalho as anyone could possibly imagine. Allegedly, one of Hudson's first ideas was to submit recommendations to change the rules of public participation at city council meetings to revive that issue and on a fateful day in July 2005, Betro proposed a motion which included barring the removal of items from the consent calendar by members of the public, which was seconded by Councilman Steve Adams and passed 6-1. The motion was opposed by some individuals as being too restrictive and supported by several others who said how sick and tired they were of the ranting and raving at city council meetings.

The recommendation to restrict pulling items from the consent calendar was actually six months old but hadn't gathered enough steam until the summer to be enacted. But what's significant about this chronology of events is that there is written record that shows that there was enough interest among at least the three elected officials, Betro, Frank Schiavone and Ed Adkison, to approve this action months before the actual city council meeting where it was done.

There had been some talk at subcommittee meetings about addressing the pulling of items from the consent calendar but not seriously and most often, changes at the city council meeting were made after recommendations were approved and sent to the city council by the Governmental Affairs Committee. The last discussion of changing the policy of conduct at city council meetings by a subcommittee before that fateful vote was on Jan. 13, 2005 and the recommendations included in a report signed by Interim City Manager Tom Evans and City Attorney Gregory Priamos were on the table. This report was produced in response to a memo dated Nov. 2, 2004 signed by Betro, Adkison and Evans, which addressed other items in the policy including issues pertaining to subcommittee meetings as well as where on the agenda should the pulling and discussing of consent calendar items be placed.

However, the minutes from the Jan. 13, 2005 Governmental Affairs Committee meeting show that recommendation #2 from a motion passed unanimously by that committee was to "eliminate the public's ability to pull items from the consent calendar". That recommendation was put into action by almost the entire city council six months later, which was quite a while for an item from this standing committee to be approved by the city council.

That decision felt like the erasure of the last reminder that there had even been a Carvalho or someone of his caliber working in Riverside. Carvalho was not afraid of the public and he never expressed that he didn't have enough time or interest in listening to them. The city council's decision including by those who opposed Carvalho's firing to hire a city manager whose record is sparse on any area of governmental business outside of economic development was perplexing. Hudson's lack of apparent experience and that of his assistants became most apparent during last year's cycle of labor negotiations with the city's bargaining units which led to near strikes, civil law suits and rallies at City Hall. Though clearly intelligent and resourceful, Hudson and his assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis who was hired despite an absence of a Master's Degree, looked inept during most of this sorry episode.

Hudson is also an individual who has little history of working with community members and even less interest in doing so, at least without carrying a concealed weapon in certain neighborhoods. All this appeared perplexing but after seeing what the city officials have reaped since his hiring, it's becoming less so. And since he's been in his position, it's not that Riverside the city has evolved into being better at being a city, it's evolved into being better at mirroring the structure and operations philosophy of the county it resides in.

And even those who opposed Carvalho's firing three long years ago praise Hudson in public in ways they never really did for Carvalho. This reflects how quickly the wind changes and how the tides change in the political arena in ways that are difficult to follow and confound many of us. The disdain shown for everything pre-Riverside Renaissance would also have to be extended against Carvalho because he was part of that time period, as was the GASS quartet. But only the GASS quartet members rearranged into new voting blocs of course, remains as part of the new, brighter Riverside.

I dare say if even some of these opponents looked back and had to make the decision again knowing that they would get Hudson as a replacement, they may have even changed their votes in that closed session. Well, except for Moore who views the Riverside Renaissance program as reckless spending in a changing and very unpredictable economy.

People have quibbled about my appearing to favor City Councilman Art Gage over Betro in grades assigned to them in connection with the CPRC's report card in an earlier posting. If I was so favorable to Gage, I would have given him a grade much higher than a D+, perhaps an A? Perhaps a B+ as was given to his colleague, Andrew Melendrez?

I do not favor one councilman or councilwoman over another in this analysis except through an examination of their actions or lack thereof. With the possible exception of Melendrez, I do not think I would endorse any of them on the dais for reelection based on their job performances not based on what opposition they are facing or could face because of the turn the city has taken in recent years from restrictions placed on public participation at meetings, the dilution of the ethics code and complaint process, the turbulent relations with the city's labor force, to concerns about what the public is not being told about Riverside Renaissance, to some of the actions taken by elected officials in relation to the CPRC as well as other issues. Not to mention the grand jury investigations allegedly initiated involving this city in recent months and years and the prospect of both federal and state investigations into what's going on in the city's labor force.

Endorsement is a very strong word to use signifying strong, unadulterated support of a candidate, incumbent or otherwise, and what I see are elected officials who make principled decisions one minute and head-scratchers the next, not necessarily in line either way with where I stand on an issue but more to do with the process utilized by the city government when these decisions are made. It's as if they can't make up their minds as to whom they are beholden to.

However, I opt to leave the official endorsement process to others who are more interested in it and will continue praising or criticizing elected officials currently on the dais as I see fit on their actions and inactions. When you endorse an elected official, it makes it much harder for you to even acknowledge that this individual could be wrong on an issue let alone criticize their actions and I'd rather leave that dilemma to individuals who are more interested in the endorsement process as well.

Though if it's true that Betro made comments that he felt disdainful to the CPRC in the past, then he is to be thanked for shedding some more important light on what's happened to it in the past 18 months. Because to be disdainful of something is another way of saying that you don't care about it and that's certainly become apparent since Hudson's come to town.





Can taser discharges cause spinal fractures?

That is a question asked in this article in South Bend Tribune after a law enforcement officer tased as part of his training suffered muscle spasms to the extent that it caused compression fractures in his spine.


(excerpt)


"Normally after Taser exposure, pain stops after the discharge is over," said Dr. James E. Winslow, of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "In this case, the pain continued for a long time, leading the patient to reduce his work hours significantly."


The spinal pain continued and the officer was taken to the hospital where upon examination, two spinal fractures were discovered.


Annals of Emergency Medicine Abstract on this incident.





The Fire Department of New York City released a report about the impact that toxins at the scene of Ground Zero during and after 9-11 allegedly had on the employees of its agencies, according to the New York Daily News.


(excerpt)


Among the findings in the report, "World Trade Center Health Impacts on FDNY Rescue Workers":


Twenty-six new cases of the inflammatory lung disease sarcoidosis in the first five years after 9/11, most of them with asthma. Five or fewer rescuers got sarcoidosis annually before 9/11. Almost none had symptoms.

22% of FDNY rescue workers said they were "feeling as if [their] future will be cut short."

As many as four years after the attacks, 53% said their mood had changed, with about one-third struggling with concentration and feelings of irritation, anger and anxiety.

The extent of sleep problems among responders barely diminished over the first four years after the attacks. Some 61% had them in the first year; 58% did in the next three.

Two-thirds of responders said their exercise routine changed in the first year after 9/11, but 18% said they had started working out more two to four years later.

"Why this report is so important today is that it scientifically shows the connection between 9/11 and illnesses," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) said yesterday at the Gouverneur Hospital, a medical center on the lower East Side that will house one of the two new outposts of the Bellevue WTC treatment clinic. "It's very, very important for making the case in Congress."


The above link includes a link to the FDNY report.



The new president of the Riverside Bar Association is Dan Hantman, one of the nicest attorneys in Riverside.

September Storm Watch: Rain or no rain?

Will it rain or won't it? The rarely seen September storm is currently sitting off of the coast of Santa Barbara trying to decide exactly what to do, which path to take.

In the meantime, the Inland Empire has been busy even if people are keeping their slickers and umbrellas close at hand. If you like rain, enjoy it. The La Nina is building in the East Pacific, chilling the ocean waters so that means dry winter conditions for Southern California next year, although anything will look better than the 15% of a season's worth of rain that fell or more accurately, didn't fall last year.

If you dislike rain, don't despair. This too, shall pass.


One property owner forced by the city's redevelopment agency to sell his property near the Riverside Plaza told the Press Enterprise here that it turned out to be a good thing.


(excerpt)


A few years ago, when he first heard talk of redeveloping Merrill, he thought it would be beneficial for him.

"I just figured my building would get a face-lift," Hickman, 49, said. "I didn't really think I was going to be exited off the property."

With the Plaza's successful renovation, the city Redevelopment Agency began pushing in earnest in 2006 to buy property on the north side of Merrill for a proposed restaurant row.

Hickman fretted about where he would move the shop, even attending City Council meetings to make his plight clear to city leaders.

With his shop's reputation, he thought he might persuade officials to build him a new shop on Merrill next to America's Tires, he said.

"We're like the hot dogs in the entire country" when it comes to high-end car electronics, Hickman said. "I figured I could pull it off and stay."

The owners of the property he leased, Joseph and Mary Yoder, didn't want to force Hickman out by selling, even with the threat of eminent domain hanging over them.

The new site of Alan Hickman's Audio Shoppe is 9,000 square feet, compared with the previous 4,000 across from Riverside Plaza. The installation area is four times larger than the previous facility, and is set up to accommodate television shows.

But in June 2006, the Yoders finally sold the property to the agency for $1 million.




Experts say that at least 60% of businesses which relocate, fail, which is a rate comparable to the 80% failure rate assigned to newly started businesses. Fortunately Hickman's business won't be added to those statistics but what about the others?

Unfortunately, the same success stories aren't true for many businesses that face eminent domain, threat of eminent domain and "friendly condemnation". Unless you've been there and faced any of these three, it's hard to really understand what it's all about especially those who defend its use or roll their eyes when its opponents talk about that topic again.


And if you don't think it can happen to you in Riverside, it can. You may be closer to it than you think. What would happen is that the same people who champion what have been called by some, "courageous" decisions by elected officials to impose eminent domain as in the case of the Fox Theater or threaten to do so, would probably be its loudest critics. Often that is what does happen when the political becomes personal.

Then perhaps individuals won't be calling the action of using eminent domain against the Fox Theater, an act of courage. Was it necessary?

You'll hear different responses from that depending on whom you talk to about the issue.

However, it's difficult to see any action by a legislative body which leads to young children bawling their eyes outside the chambers as happened that day, as an act of true courage.

Then perhaps they would join in Ken Stansbury's continued efforts to get the issue of eminent domain on the city's ballot so that the voters can decide what they want. But the ball is in the city government's court regarding the SLAPP suit they filed against him and the Riversiders for Property Rights including an order for them to pay the now six-figured attorneys' fees generated by the city's litigation. Oral arguments were presented by both sides on Sept. 5 at the State Court of Appeals in Riverside. Stansbury described to the city council the chilling effect the SLAPP suit had on members of the organization, which of course is exactly what the city had intended when it filed the litigation, even though its official word was that it was doing so to "help" this organization in the process it had initiated.

Okay, "helping" a person, organization or a political process is assisted by slapping those involved with at least $150,000 in litigation expenses so far?

Maybe in Wonderland or its neighbor down the rabbit's hole, River City.

If crowing roosters and choo-choo trains are going on the ballots for the voters to decide in the interest as some from the dais in Riverside's City Hall have loudly proclaimed, then this issue should join those two as well, in the same interest of democracy and due process.

That is, if those who beat their chests in public venues about it are really serious about either.








The Readers' Forum at the Press Enterprise includes this letter by an individual discussing its coverage of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors' appointment of new sheriff Stanley Sniff.

Several grand jury reports have been mentioned at various sites in connection with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. They are here. This link contains links to grand jury reports going back to at least 1999. Most or all are on pdf files so you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to access them.

By the way, if you are having problem with Adobe Acrobat and pdf documents, several governmental agencies including the city of Riverside have upgraded so that their documents are best read using Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0 so if you don't have that and are having problems, you might consider upgrading. In fact, you may be prompted to do so while trying to open these documents.

Most online governmental documents are in pdf format because it's convenient and if you want to print out city council agendas in Riverside for example, the pdf versions are much more convenient than the laserfische counterpart.


Speaking of the appointment of Sniff, Inside Riverside has written this posting about asking retired Lt. Mark Lohman formerly of the Sheriff's Department to write a guest column. That would be very interesting. Having talked to Lohman in the past when he worked as public information officer, he was always professional and helpful.



Another letter here involving the indictment by a federal grand jury of Joseph Luis Nazario, jr. on two counts of voluntary manslaughter stemming from two killings of detained Iraqis in the Fallujah region in 2004. He is being tried in federal court as a civilian because he had left the military since that date, becoming a police officer in Riverside until he was fired last month while on probation.



The Human Relations Commission met yesterday, on the precipice of a quorum due to four excused absences and three resignations at City Hall. The planned speaker, Community Police Review Commission Executive Manager Kevin Rogan had to cancel until next month.

Commissioner Gilberto Esquivel did express concerns about the recent preliminary injunction currently being enforced by the Riverside Police Department and the Riverside County District Attorney's office against the Eastside Riva gang. The permanent injunction may go to trial early next year or be granted sooner than that depending on the course it takes through the civil courts.

Esquivel questioned why of all the gangs, Black, White, and Latino in Riverside, only one Latino gang and Latino neighborhood was being targeted through an injunction.

Commissioner A.J. Wilson proposed sending a letter to Kelley Keenan, who works in the District Attorney's office and served on the HRC for a period of time and requesting his assistance in getting someone from his office to appear at the HRC meeting on Oct. 18 to address concerns about the injunction.

Although it's doubtful the District Attorney's office will break its pattern of refusing invitations to address concerns about its injunction, hopefully, the HRC will prevail in holding some form of public forum for that office to attend.

The HRC will also discuss turning into a quarterly event, a discussion on public reports released from the Riverside Police Department regarding its pretext traffic stop studies. In 2005, the HRC held a public forum on what was the last study released by the police department while it was under its stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office.

It conducted a similar study in 2006 but declined to release it to the public because a representative from the department said that all the statistics were the same as previous years so there was no reason to release a public report.

It's not clear who will do the data analysis and report writing for the next study, but Chief Russ Leach said he would like to find some other expert besides Dr. Larry Gaines from the California State University, San Bernardino. One name mentioned by him was Dr. Robert Nash Parker, the director of the Robert Presley Center for Crime and Justice at the University of California, Riverside. He performed a similar study budgeted by the Press Enterprise in 2000 that created quite a stir. Apparently, he has been forgiven, but would be an excellent choice to perform the analysis for the police department.


The commission will also follow up on the information and additional information involving the employment situation of Black and Latino employees in the city of Riverside that it had attempted to address while it was still working out of City Manager Brad Hudson's office. Hopefully, any responses to these requests for information will not be met or will not face shortly afterwards, additional staffing cuts as a "response".

One thing that stands out at an HRC meeting despite the fact that just over half of the commission attended is that there are very few city employees in the room. Even though it's under Loveridge's office, you do not see him at meetings let alone attending them and directing their operations. And even though last night's meeting was a few feet away from the City Attorney's Department, there were no representatives from that office telling the HRC what the law did not allow it to do.

But then again, previous city managers did not attend meetings of the CPRC as they have while this commission has been under the control of the current city manager nor did they pull the interim or permanent CPRC directors or managers to impromptu side conferences of the meetings as they had several times last year when Administrative analyst and interim executive manager Mario Lara was in his position.

As for the city attorney, he had refused to attend a special workshop with the CPRC in 2004 and rarely if ever attended any meetings. So when both the city manager's office and city attorney's office begin to send representatives from their respective offices to the CPRC meetings at the same time, an elected official or more of them are pulling their strings. That is most likely the case with the city attorney's office, but with the city manager's office, the situation is more complex as is the dynamic between that office and elected officials on the dais.

The HRC is also short three commissioners from its latest wave of resignations. All three are city-wide positions and the lengths of each term varies based on how much time had been completed by the commissioners who vacated them.

This commission is currently under Mayor Ron Loveridge's office and is directed by Yvette Pierre.

More on the HRC here.


Big story out of Murrieta's City Hall from the Press Enterprise here.

Former Mayor Jack van Haaster plead guilty to conflict of interest and falsifying a document which might send him to jail for a year.

It started out much bigger.


(excerpt)


Van Haaster, 50, was charged last year with 15 counts, including 10 felonies alleging perjury and filing false documents, stemming from the nearly 13 years he served as a city councilman. If convicted of all the charges, he faced eight years in prison.

"I think the likelihood of a prison sentence out of this case was small," said Deputy District Attorney Michael Cabral, based on van Haaster's record, his contribution to the community and the fact that he was recalled in a special election in May 2005.

Cabral said van Haaster was also ordered to serve 500 hours of community service and pay $9,000 in restitution.

Van Haaster was accused of not reporting his financial link to his daughter's daycare center and not reporting a half-million dollars in loans on government disclosure forms.

He also faced five misdemeanor counts alleging that he pressured planning commissioners to allow expansion of his daughter's business and voted on nearby road improvements without disclosing his link to the project.



Voters already kicked him out during a recall effort and election in 2005.


And in Redlands, a city which elects a city clerk, Lorrie Poyzer who has held the position for 12 years is feeling some heat in the form of an election challenge, according to the Press Enterprise.


Poyzer learned she had a challenger several months ago, when a man called asking for information about running for city clerk, she said. He wanted the information for "a friend," Poyzer said.

"I thought, 'Uh oh, I think I might have to have a campaign going this year," Poyzer said.

She met Ackerman at the counter when Ackerman came to take out and file her papers, Poyzer said. She questioned Ackerman's motives for seeking the clerk's post, characterizing her as "a little pushy."

"If she's mostly looking for a high-paid position, she isn't going to make it," Poyzer said.

Poyzer said she earned $96,800 last year, but the salary is unique to her and might be subject to change if someone new is in the position.

Ackerman said that while she respects Poyzer, the incumbent clerk has a certain sense of entitlement.

"I believe that Lorrie expects Redlands citizens to vote for her, and I am asking Redlands citizens to vote for me," Ackerman said. "I want it, but I don't expect it. You should always have that feeling of competition in government."


What's interesting and what is the subject of this survey is the merging of political candidates running for different offices into a single campaign. Should this be allowed or practiced?


Speaking of Riverside's city clerk, Colleen Nichols, she will be yodeling at a charity fundraiser on Sunday afternoon being held at the Benedict Castle in Riverside.




A woman in Warren, Ohio was tased multiple times by a police officer and it was caught on video, according to many news sources including WABC out of Chicago.

The video depicts the woman inside the squad car kicking at the windows, getting tased and then she's pulled out of the car, she's ordered to walk to the other car or she'll get tased. So she does just that and while passing the officers, she's tased again and then several more times while on the ground surrounded by officers before trying to rise, then falling and striking her head on the front fender of a squad car.

According to CNN, the officer's explanation is that his taser discharged accidentally several of those times.


Two questions to end this week, which were brought to me.


Why are city councilmen bringing up constituents' private business with them in public meetings, to try and embarrass them? Is that a violation of the city's ethic code or is it part of the latest quartet's code of conduct?

Is there a purge going on inside the local Democratic Party of members that aren't in line with its views in a nonpartisian election?

Here's a third to put into the mix.


Will the All-Blacks beat Scotland?


About 44% of readers at the Scotsman.com site believe the Scotland team will make it all the way to the quarterfinals which means there's some pessimism from the home team regarding this weekend's match with New Zealand.

Canary in the Mind: Pointing fingers to win elections

I didn't get to attend the first debate which kicked off the second half of Election 2007, but I did hear about some comments allegedly made by Councilman Dom Betro when asked a question about the Community Police Review Commission. I'm surprised he actually remembers what it is especially after everything that it has faced in the past 18 months in the face of silence from the dais while it was facing its most serious challenges and many say, attacks out of City Hall than it had ever faced since its formation in 2000.

His comments left some people wondering, was Betro saying that his rival, Mike Gardner was responsible for what happened with the CPRC?

This isn't the first time this issue has come up as these insinuations have been made though curiously enough pretty much exclusively during this current election cycle. Hopefully, Betro was smart and politically astute enough not to go there during a public forum because when it comes to his record supporting the CPRC, he's not standing on very solid ground himself. Still, there were questions about whether or not Betro really believes that Gardner is responsible for the "past" problems impacting the CPRC.

This issue makes an excellent topic for examination, as erroneous and some might say, opportunistic as this line of thinking is when shown in the light of day.

I've been asked what I thought about this finger pointing at Gardner. I respond as someone who has followed and advocated for the CPRC for seven years, been to nearly every open meeting and read every public document released by that body including every annual report. I've had conversations with commissioners including Gardner before and after his service on the CPRC as well as city residents both past and present and I'll advocate for it and defend its right to exist and carry out its powers and its responsibilities whether it's politically correct to do so or not and I don't need to stick my finger in the air before doing so like politicians and politically mindful people do.

It's interesting how there's so much silence while the commission languished this past year and then, finger pointing in a rather strange direction.

For those interested in reading the annual reports released by the CPRC, they are located here and are printed in pdf format. Let it be noted that under Gardner, the commission produced an annual report each year that he chaired it. That can't be said about current chair, Brian Pearcy's tenure which has yet to see an annual report released publicly or reported to the city council. The missing report was to have been released this past March but was not because of the current problems afflicting the CPRC created by other parties besides Gardner. Pearcy is not to blame for the lack of a public report because as has become abundantly clear, the chair of this commission has very little power compared to the various factions at City Hall and elsewhere in the city that have acted on the CPRC in a variety of ways. That reality applies both to Gardner and Pearcy to varying extents, both who faced different political environments when they chaired the commission.



Yet it seems that this past year, blame for the CPRC's problems has for some reason been laid at Gardner's door, even though during the past 18 months Gardner hasn't even been a member on the commission, having termed out in March 2006 after six official years of service.

Before that, he had served as its chair for three years, from 2003-2006, a stint which in itself is not typical. Usually a commissioner is only allowed to serve two consecutive terms as chair but the commissioners voted to change the bylaws to allow Gardner a third term. He did not face much or any opposition when he ran for chair and his performance as chair wasn't criticized publicly during his entire three-year stint.

No one showed up and told him at a meeting what a lousy job they thought he was doing.

One problem with the CPRC is that few of its members are willing for whatever reason to put themselves up to chair, but that's a dynamic which is still ongoing that impacts the commission as a whole not just in terms of one past member. As far as any public outcry against Gardner's record as chair of the commission, I guess that would have to come after the fact though the scope of it does appear to be fairly limited at this point in time.

This year's election for the chair position was so convoluted and confusing only the city attorney appeared to understand it enough to explain it. That process produced a chair who resigned from the commission within several weeks and was replaced by a vice-chair. Now, in some circles, it's not an uncommon tactic to get into a chair position through running for the vice-chair seat and nominating a candidate for chair who you know won't be serving out his or her term on the board or commission. For example, it's not a bad way to extend the tenure as a chair. This tactic has played out on boards and commissions in the past but isn't that common.

Then-Chair Les Davidson's resignation was inevitable because he was moving out of the city and consequently could not remain on the commission. Yet, he remained in the chair's race while a tie existed between him and Commissioner Jim Ward, only resigning after winning the election. This election was finally decided through a vote cast for Davidson by newcomer Peter Hubbard even though Hubbard had yet to attend a meeting and learn more about either candidate. How does one vote for a candidate on a commission when one hasn't even attended a meeting of that commission yet? Yet, Hubbard had his clear choice.

Hubbard had received the most support through votes of any commission candidate during the March selection process, including from Betro and Councilman Frank Schiavone as well as several others. In his interview, he said he filed his application for the CPRC to fill a hole in his life that arose when he finished a 10 year stint with the Board of Public Utilities. Recently, Betro had lamented the lack of knowledge of individuals applying for the CPRC, about the CPRC yet he enthusiastically pushed for Hubbard who knew little about the body himself as having the board experience to "hit the ground running" in response to what Betro called, the "current situation" impacting the CPRC even though it was clear that Hubbard knew little about the CPRC.


Lack of knowledge about the CPRC at an interview doesn't doom a person from being an effective or even great commissioner. The truth is that most commissioners, good or bad, expressed very little knowledge about the commission at their respective interviews particularly after the first two cycles of interviews. Few interviews have even been that great, yet some of these commission candidates became quite capable commissioners. What matters more is true interest and investment in community issues, an interest in improving the police department and the ability to put in the time commitment which City Hall greatly underscores in its brochures.

The most successful commissioners are also those who distance themselves from the political scene at City Hall and aren't tied to politicians who reside there though these commissioners are becoming more scarce thanks to the passage of Measure GG which mandated ward represention on the city's boards and commissions as well as other political factors.

Contrast Hubbard with another new commissioner Steve Simpson refused to cast a vote in the election on the first meeting in March because he was not familiar with either candidate, again because he hadn't attended a meeting yet. He had wanted to "see them in action" before making a final decision but wasn't given that opportunity so he abstained.

If Davidson hadn't run for a chair position that he probably had a good idea he wouldn't serve out because of the pending change in his residency status, then Ward would have become the commission's chair and one thing is clear, Ward is probably the last commissioner on the panel that City Hall would want chairing the commission. And if you've seen Ward at commission meetings, you would quickly figure out why.

This year's election was really the only odd election in a string of elections played out involving the CPRC in its seven years. But you certainly can't blame that on Gardner.


Did this happen when Gardner was on the commission? Did it happen when he was chairing the commission? Did it happen when he was on the dais for that matter?


There are more issues that the CPRC faced in the past 18 months or so that could be addressed and they will be in the series of postings involving the CPRC report card. The performance of commissioners past and present will be addressed in future postings.

However, to blame Gardner for the commission's problems makes no sense, except to try to gain political points during an election year and it's offensive that someone would use the situation involving the CPRC during the past year to elevate the standing of a councilman who himself has had nothing to say about actions taken by his own direct employees regarding the CPRC, not to mention directives issued by other elected officials on the dais to these direct employees regarding the CPRC.

There's been some finger pointing at the travesty involving the CPRC and I guess this is one way of doing that but before Betro points fingers elsewhere, he needs to point one straight at himself. Why? Because unlike Gardner, Betro is a councilman, one of seven who are in charge of hiring and firing three direct employees including both the city manager and the city attorney. Both of these employees have directed actions impacting the CPRC during the past 18 or so months that have been detrimental. Did they do them of their own accord as part of their job responsibilities or were they directed to do them? And if so, by who?

And did others knowing full well what was transpiring choose to use it to their own political advantage?

Thanks to some recent information on the matter, exactly what happened is starting to emerge most importantly during some actions taken the month of July, a month where many people in Riverside including those at City Hall are out of town. One thing, it's certainly not pretty but then little has been pretty in relation to the CPCR and its relationship with City Hall for a while now.

In the past year, under City Manager Brad Hudson's watch with the blessing of the city council, the CPRC has become pretty hamstrung, with one employee abruptly resigning and five commissioners also departing, all during a nine month period when Gardner is not on the commission let alone chairing it.

The CPRC has had its ability to perform nearly all of its charter powers, from doing community outreach to investigating officer-involved deaths undermined or challenged by who? Gardner? He's not even on the commission. When he was and when he was chairing it, the commission was allowed to do these tasks. Were they done as well as they could have been done? Probably not, but compared to what has transpired this year, a much better grade could be assigned.


In the past year, there were allegedly plans to delay, impede or even stop the commission from investigating officer-involved deaths and outreach reached a virtual standstill. Not during Gardner's tenure, but during Hudson's and by extension, during the tenures of the council members who employ him. If community members had not pressed Hudson on both of these issues, would these investigations or community outreach been returned to the executive manager and the commission? The community leadership as well as advocates for civilian review did an important thing.

It's difficult to say, but there was some redaction of these actions after community leaders complained. Whether that is truly correct remains to be seen and will be shown in large part by the job performances of both Executive Manager Kevin Rogan and the commissioners.

But the commission was hamstrung in other areas as well.

In fact, the commission is even tightly controlled in terms of how it conducts its own meetings in public and for all the city residents know, in private as well. How much so became clear earlier this year in a public forum.

In fact, the CPRC can't even approve an item for its own meeting agenda unless it's been cleared by both offices first. This is what both Ward and Simpson discovered first hand and guess what, only one of them is still serving on this body after trying to put an item on the agenda that was vetoed by City Hall.

Ward was thwarted by the city manager's and city attorney's office when he tried to place items on meeting agendas in early 2007 to discuss events impacting the CPRC surrounding meetings that took place between the city's list of "stake holders" at City Hall in 2006. It took several meetings for that discussion to take place.


Simpson learned his lesson when he tried to put an item on the agenda for the commission to discuss retaining independent counsel. The city attorney's office blocked that one stating it wasn't germane or under the purview of the CPRC even though there was past precedent for discussing and even exercising the option of retaining independent counsel in the autumn of 2004 surrounding the issuance of a subpoena to a police officer to appear before the board.

All that is known is that vetoing that particular agenda item wasn't the city attorney office's idea.

Does Gardner play a role in this? Is he on the commission? Is he chairing the commission? Is he on the dais at the time this is all playing out?

No, but Betro is and remember, he along with his colleagues acted towards Hudson by giving him a huge pay raise. When it comes to endorsing the actions of a direct employee, it doesn't get more direct than that.

To be a watch dog, the serious kind not the fun kind, you can not affiliate yourself with any particular political candidate. Betro and Gardner both have their followings and their campaigns. They both have their accomplishments and their mistakes, including with the CPRC. The difference is that Betro's inaction and total public silence with the CPRC during the past 18 months has had a much more detrimental impact on the current state of the CPRC than anything Gardner could have possibly done during his years chairing it. And anybody who implies otherwise should be ashamed of themselves and take a closer look at what has been happening at City Hall and its relationship to the commission.

The nadir of the CPRC so far in its tenure has been the questionable behind-the-scenes behavior at City Hall surrounding the sudden resignation of Simpson and the city's refusal to allow a discussion on the issue of independent counsel for the CPRC. Anything else that happens might be a step up at this point.


So is Gardner truly to blame? Did he try to shut down any dialogue on the issue of independent counsel?

As far as I know, Gardner is not an elected official and in a strange way, the better of a political candidate he is, the less his chances of winning election actually are because he can push for elected officials to do what they should have done all along but he can't make the changes himself and he can't get credit for them when compared with a city council vote. That's the incumbent's advantage.

Again, Gardner does not sit on the dais and make decisions like voting a tremendous pay raise to a city manager whose actions involving the CPRC have been viewed by many who advocate it as detrimental to the CPRC. Columnist Dan Bernstein called all seven members of the city council out on voting a pay raise after what he called the "hollowing out" of the CPRC by the city manager's office. This pay raise came not long after former executive manager, Pedro Payne tendered his "resignation" from that position.

Here, Bernstein criticized an earlier decision by that office to ban Payne from attending community meetings. Still, perhaps because that office can promise the city council members their wish list of items for their wards complete with marquee signs with their names in big letters like they are opening up a Broadway play, that's enough both to merit the raise and to merit them looking the other way at actions taken against the CPRC and shrug their shoulders to their supporters about how they can't do or say anything about it. But does the city manager's office act on its own or does it receive orders from those who staff it?



Have I always agreed with Gardner's actions, comments or decisions? No. Have I ever criticized Gardner? Yes, many times. I also realize that he worked very hard for the commission, spent many hours working on it especially as its chair and that at least during his tenure, there was scant criticism about how his performance as a commissioner or a chair from anyone besides me. Certainly at the public meetings which the CPRC holds at least 12 times annually this concern could have been raised but it hasn't been, though many concerns about the CPRC have been raised through the years most especially in the past 12 months since Riverside County began sending its management employees to town.

And no, complaining about an individual in private meetings behind closed doors while certainly compelling stuff doesn't count in terms of providing a person with valid grounds to blame an individual for something after the fact. If that happened, the communities who look to the CPRC to perform a critical function for them were not privy to these criticisms or discussions but they often do experience the consequences of their outcomes.



The problem is that if these sessions take place, those conducting them behind a veil of secrecy whether at City Hall or a local restaurant including but not exclusively Sire's restaurant believe that they actually are serving communities or representing them. It's too bad they don't feel like cluing the communities on to what they're doing especially those they purport to represent. However, this comment is more of a general one, and the more specific topic is the CPRC and the insinuations that have been going around that it sunk because of actions taken by Gardner as its chair.



Bill Howe, the CPRC's first chair, was the best one so far, but Gardner's is probably next in line behind him. Is he being compared to Pearcy who seems to be more interested in delivering the city manager's messages to the commissioners than vice versa as alleged by former commissioner, Steve Simpson through his description of actions taken against him by individuals on the Seventh floor of City Hall during July?



At any rate, hopefully this nonsense as it is will stop or at least those running for city council who support the CPRC will provide more detailed explanations at exactly how they have done so. For Betro, this includes the last two years.

That might produce compelling stuff indeed for any debate.




Inside Riverside takes on its second favorite topic, the Press Enterprise and the coverage given by its editorial board of the controversial appointment of Stanley Sniff into the sheriff's position vacated by the man who fired him last year.



The Los Angeles Times did this article on Sniff here, including his ill-fated run for sheriff all the way back in 1982.



Debates continued at California Baptist University, this time involving candidates from Ward Five and Ward Seven sparring off on the issues, according to the Press Enterprise.

Unlike in some of the other wards, the BASS quartet couldn't decide who to back in Ward Five, with outgoing Councilman Ed Adkison backing Chris MacArthur and his former BFF, Frank Schiavone backing Donna Doty-Michaulka. For those at City Hall who have said that one can't make a decision without the other, this represents a serious break in that so-called pattern but often city council appears to be like junior high school and one of those ways is how quickly some elected officials change their BFFs.

At any rate, MacArthur who it appears actually does have a stance on issues outside of whether or not to mud sling and Doty-Michaulka whose ties to Altura Credit Union have worried some did provide some information about themselves.


(excerpt)


MacArthur said dealing with traffic congestion and noise created by growth and trains passing through Riverside are among his top priorities. He pledged to make City Hall more proactive on traffic issues.

"I think we need to get the traffic engineer out there and get something done," MacArthur said. "We need to get out and knock on doors. We need community meetings. ... That's good government."

Michalka promised to work to obtain state and federal funding to better equip firefighters and police officers and called for more code-enforcement officers to prevent properties from deteriorating.

She also called for replacing plans for high-density housing with high-quality retail and office developments to lessen traffic. Riverside also needs to speed up plans to improve rail crossings with underpasses or overpasses, Michalka said.


In the second act, incumbent Steve Adams from Ward Seven and challenger and former mayor, Terry Frizzel were up on deck. The big issues were traffic, redevelopment and graffiti.


(excerpt)


Adams touted his accomplishments, including resurfacing streets, removing zoning for apartments, reducing crime and creating a redevelopment project to fund needed improvements within the ward.

More work is needed in reducing graffiti and tagging, he said.

The city has put together a task force that issues fines to families of juveniles caught tagging, he said.

"We've collected nearly $50,000. We're getting a grasp on the issue," Adams said.

Frizzel said the city has failed to prepare for all the growth, either in improving roads or increasing services over the years. Now, she said, the city is going to incur debts with the Riverside Renaissance program, an effort to build $1.2 billion in capital improvements within five years.

The Riverside Renaissance program "isn't the best thing to happen," Frizzel said.



Adams' comments about the thousands of dollars the city has collected in civil actions against the parents of those who do graffiti is very puzzling because I had asked an employee of the city attorney's office of Riverside how much money was collected and whether the police department's investigative budget was being repaid for conducting what are essentially civil investigations. The person I spoke with said that the city actually had collected very little money because the parents couldn't afford the fines and that in the majority of cases, the city had put property liens and had reported the civil actions to the national credit bureaus instead.

Strange that Adams' on television and at a debate makes it appeared as if this program is a cash cow when it's not. Maybe if they focused some of their enforcement efforts on the adults doing it including those reported in the Arlington and Green Belt areas by some residents, rather than just the minors.




It's ironic given the lack of newly proposed affordable housing for low-income residents in the downtown area that the city is selling three boarded up historic homes for a buck apiece to who else, but two development firms, according to the Press Enterprise.

Both MFR Development LLC and Mark Rubin who line the campaigns of several key elected officials will be moving the houses to a location to rehab them at some expense, but it's not just the house they purchased, it's the rather lucrative land that the houses sat on so despite the arduous expense involved with fixing up old houses, they are making out quite well as out-of-town development firms usually do in that part of Riverside.

How about rewarding the city's generosity by putting in some low-income housing in the spots where those houses proudly stood? You know, like they have promised to do at the spot where the Kawa Market stood, before being bulldozed into the halls of memory lane.

The storms of September

"Secrecy breeds mistrust, openness breeds trust."


---Mark Schlosberg, the police practices policy director of the ACLU of Northern California to San Jose Mercury News.





The first winter storm is expected to hit Riverside County this week, about four months head of schedule. Other types of squalls have already hit in different venues in the region, right on schedule as various incidents played themselves out in the halls of power, most namely the Riverside County Administration building this past Monday morning.


In Riverside, Mayor Ron Loveridge is left with the task of filling three positions on the currently bleeding Human Relations Commission which has experienced many resignations in recent months and during the past several years. In rates of departures, it's probably second only to the wave of resignations which hit the Community Police Review Commission, a much smaller body.

People are either jumping ship for what they believe are greener pastures, namely the CPRC or leaving for other reasons, including perhaps an increasing gap between what Mayor Ron Loveridge called a smaller focal group and the rest of it.

Loveridge's office, if you recall, currently oversees this commission after its rocky tenure as one of the commissions micromanaged by the city manager's office. Kudos to Loveridge for moving to take it out of the hands of that office, which cut its staffing after the commission submitted a letter asking questions about the string of departures of Black and Latino management employees working with the city. Nothing was answered in writing, however it might not be fair to say that the city manager's office didn't provide some sort of response.

All three spots are at-large positions which means that Loveridge will appoint them after he takes a look at the commission to see which of the applicants for the commission will best balance out its membership.

It's getting harder to encourage people to apply to serve on the city's boards and commissions these days. One applicant and finalist at least in terms of being chosen to be interviewed for the CPRC, withdrew his application because he believed that the process was politicized and after talking to police officers, county prosecutors and other individuals, the commission itself was powerless or as he called it, a "toothless tiger".




In Riverside County, the strike team of judges are in the midst of conducting a backlog of criminal trials but what impact has this had on the law enforcement agencies who investigate these cases and send officers to testify in court?


Here, in the Press Enterprise the local departments, both large and small, report in and it doesn't seem to be pretty.

Hemet, the little town from the 1950s colliding with development, is so overwhelmed that the city wants to reopen its own court building to hear cases involving Hemet. Its current mayor was driven to his keyboard to write a fervent plea to reopen this facility not to the judges and their staff people who run most county courts, but in typical Riverside County fashion, to District Attorney Rod Pacheco.


(excerpt)


"I think it would be justified," Hemet Mayor Marc Searl said Tuesday, citing the city's growth and number of arrests.

Searl has sent a letter to Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco pressing for the reopening of the Hemet criminal court.

In his letter, Searl described the special panel of judges assigned to Riverside County as "exciting news" that should prompt a look into reopening the courtrooms in Hemet for criminal trials.

"Fulfilling the demands placed on the Police Department to meet its obligation of testifying in criminal matters has stretched our limited resources to the brink," Searl said in the Aug. 30 letter.

He said the Hemet Police Department filed nearly 3,000 cases last year.

"Hemet city officers used to be able to be on call and stay in service in the city as they had a five minute response time to court. That response time has increased to 45 minutes to an hour, which means that our officers must now stay in court, taking them off of our streets for extended periods of time," he wrote.



Pacheco's spoke person, Ingrid Wyatt gave him a referral to contact the judges for assistance.


Former Riverside Police Department Commander and current Chief of Hemet Police Department Richard Dana had this to say on the crisis.


(excerpt)


In Hemet, Police Chief Richard Dana said on any day when courts are in session, one or two of the city's 88 sworn officers are in court.

"With the strike force of judges, they don't want the officers to just be on call; they want the officers ready to go," he said.



Dana's former haunt in Riverside is having its own struggles to send its officers to testify in court as the assembly machine moves faster and faster, after having had some performance issues in the past several years due to a variety of factors, amidst a sea of finger pointing.


(excerpt)


The Riverside Police Department has been left scurrying to meet the increased demands.. "We've really seen a difference in last-minute cases," said Scott King, agency court coordinator.

So far, they have not reached the point of leaving an attorney without the needed officers, although subpoenas do keep coming. "Those rare cases of last-minute 'I need these officers today,' those instances, have increased dramatically," King said.

For detectives on complex cases, the juggling can become difficult. If they are designated the case agent, they stay with a trial for its entirety. Sometimes that can be weeks, and it may mean scheduling preliminary-hearing testimony during breaks in the trial and balancing four or five other cases.

"We're getting a lot of cooperation from the officers. They understand; they knew this thing was coming," King said. "Everybody's making accommodations."




Fairmount Park is being renovated and exactly how it could look was discussed at the city council meeting last night, according to the Press Enterprise.

The meeting was sparsely attended as the city council unfolded recommendations from the task force which it later approved, albeit just in terms of receiving the report. The recommendations actually go to the Park and Recreation Commission before coming back possibly in an amended form to the city council.


(excerpt)


At Tuesday night's meeting, residents spoke both for and against the makeover. Most were glad the park would be restored to its glory days and shared childhood memories of time they spent at the park.

Resident Marjorie von Pohle, 89, said she had seen Fairmount become a filthy, horrible place and is glad to see care going into the park again.

"Let's keep it up," she said. "Let's keep Fairmount the best we can and be proud of it."

Resident and task force member Jane Block felt the same.

"Finally, I am going to have a real nice Fairmount Park to go to," she said.

Resident Phyllis Purcell, 71, said she wishes there were more family-oriented activities planned for the park, such as bringing back the carousel or the horseback riding she remembers.

"This should be a family-orientated park and not some type of showcase," she said.

Resident Karen Wright spoke against the added development.

"You voted against protecting the 17.5 acres of the park," she told the City Council later in the meeting.




Not too long ago, Tesquesquite Park was going to be divided with a chunk of it sold off to developers and Fairmount Park was going to host a portion of the commercial district. You've got to love election years.

The city council graciously thanked several individuals who have looked after Fairmount Park all these years but excluded Marjorie Von Pohle and her husband who cleaned up litter and the lake for many years before it received attention from the city. She's compiled a history on the park which is very interesting.

But she's also become a bit of a trouble maker at city council meetings in the meantime, what with her constant reminding the city council about the historic vote which featured the public debut of the BASS quartet on July 12, 2005.




Inside Riverside has been updated with an account of the appointment of new sheriff, Stanley Sniff.



Sniff will be as closely watched by those outside the department as was his predecessor outgoing sheriff, Bob Doyle. The one thing that both of them should have had in common is that they work for the residents of Riverside County as do all of their employees.


The Press Enterprise's editorial board stumped for a special election for the sheriff's position as soon as possible.

The board did not spare any words in its castigation of the board of supervisors which appointed a sheriff, a process the board believed should be left to the county's voters. It is right about that.

Still, it's interesting how the editorial board treats the sheriff's election as if it's similar to those involving other positions such as city council members, mayors and county supervisors.

But does anyone seriously believe that the sheriff is even an elected position? Usually there is only one candidate in the race who can raise any money and much more often than not, that person has been handpicked by his successor and announces his candidacy usually six months before the election with all his endorsements already lined up and standing alongside him.

Part of that is due to the qualifications for the position being more specialized as well as the campaign contributors often being more limited in scope.

Sheriffs are not elected. They are annointed.

Still, the board did raise some excellent points in its editorial, but erred in others perhaps because the stay of most of its members in River City and County has been such a short one.


(excerpt)


But Monday's meeting made vividly clear the wisdom of seeking a special election. The proceedings witnessed a host of accusations tossed about without any proof amid a swirl of ulterior motives.

Doyle's ethics and management came under direct attack, for example. Yet oddly, those criticisms did not show up in last year's election, when 73 percent of voters chose Doyle over two challengers. If mismanagement ran rampant at the Sheriff's Department, election season would be the logical time to raise the issue.

And the supervisors chose a candidate whom Doyle dismissed last year under circumstances that remain murky. Sniff says he was fired because he planned to run for sheriff, while Doyle said the firing was justified, but a confidential personnel matter.

The weeks preceding Sniff's appointment featured complaints that a sheriff's official misused the county's e-mail system to back one contender for the job. And documents emerged last week purporting to show union leaders, some county supervisors and the district attorney scheming to support another candidate.

The messy appointment politics brought no credit to county government. A special election would mitigate that dismal episode and help build public confidence in a department that came off poorly on Monday. Most fundamentally, an election would ensure that the sheriff answers to the voters, not other political interests.



None of what's been plaguing the Sheriff's Department is new, except for the recently round of allegations being said by both sides against the other practically since the day of Doyle's first coro-election. Though the problems actually stem back to the decision in 2002 to again create "at will" positions at management levels in the Sheriff's Department.




A 70-year-old woman in Orem, Utah was arrested for failing to give her name to a police officer and later charged by the city attorney with resisting arrest and for failing to keep up the landscaping on her property, according to CNN.

She's already received an apology from the city's mayor and city council and hired a famous Los Angeles-based attorney, but she's still in court on charges.


(excerpt)


During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.

"I ask the citizens of Orem: How many of you would like to have your great-grandmother taken from her home with bruises and blood and placed in handcuffs for failing to water her lawn?" attorney Gloria Allred said.

"Let's bring sanity back to law enforcement," she said.


I'm sure if Kathryn Johnston, 92, from Atlanta were alive today, she would agree. Frances Thompson, 80, also of Atlanta is alive and probably would agree.




Still in Utah, this time Sandy comes this account of how officials are sifting through allegations of officer misconduct there and what to do about it all, according to the Deseret Morning News.


(excerpt)


Midway through what seemed like an endless litany of police officers' misdeeds, Ken Wallentine shook his head.

"It troubles me to see a criminal violation committed by an officer is not criminally charged," the Utah Attorney General's chief of law enforcement said Tuesday.

Wallentine spoke out during disciplinary hearings at the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Council's meeting here. More than a dozen police officers were disciplined for violations of the law or department policy.

Some officers will not be charged. Instead, they will have their certifications yanked or suspended — effectively ending their law enforcement careers.

A Lehi police officer accused of breaking into a locker and stealing marijuana had his peace officer certification revoked. He was not charged criminally.

A former Utah Highway Patrol trooper accused of working only four hours of his regular shift also was not charged. POST says the other four hours of his shift were spent at home sleeping.

"Over a period of five years working half a shift. That's over $100,000," Wallentine told the council. "That's money that's been stolen from the citizens of Utah. I understand there are times we just want to take care of business and get done, but I'm troubled there are no criminal charges."








According to CNN, two University of Florida Police Department officers were placed on unpaid leave after tasing a student at an event where former presidential candidate John Kerry was speaking.


(excerpt)


During Monday's forum, Meyer came to the microphone to question why the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee from Massachusetts did not contest his loss to President Bush in the pivotal state of Ohio over allegations that African-American voters were disenfranchised, why he did not support Bush's impeachment and whether he belonged to the Yale University secret society Skull and Bones, as Bush did.

Meyer had about a minute and a half at the microphone before police stepped in to haul him away. As he tried to escape their grip, Kerry protested, "That's all right, let me answer his question."

But as Meyer repeatedly questioned why he was being arrested, officers dragged him to the back of the auditorium and then used a Taser on him when he continued to struggle.

While Kerry pleaded for calm, officers warned the student he would be shocked if he did not stop resisting.

Meyer responded, "What did I do? Get off me ... get the f--- off me, man, I didn't do anything. Don't Tase me, bro, I didn't do anything."


The CNN article includes links to the video tape of the incident and also the university's official response to the incident.




The power struggle in San Jose continues between the mighty auditor Barbara Attard and Mayor Chuck Reed, this time over the right to independently investigate officer-involved deaths, according to the San Jose Mercury News.


(excerpt)


Groups such as the ACLU and Asian Law Alliance contend there must be more accountability of police conduct in the wake of five people who have died after being Tasered and a police report that showed San Jose cops have used force against blacks at a higher rate than against criminal suspects from other ethnic groups.

Attard said she was disappointed the mayor interprets her power in such a limited way. She said her office has used - and should continue to use - a city council-granted authority to independently review police shooting death investigations.

"There is a misunderstanding of our authority," Attard said. "If we lose this authority it's a big step backward for the city of San Jose and the efficacy of this office."




The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has given a three year contract to five attorneys to continue to oversee the internal investigations conducted by the Sheriff's Department.

Not surprisingly, the union's not happy.


(excerpt)


The board approved the contract despite objections from the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the union that represents the department's roughly 7,000 sworn rank-and-file deputies.

Steve Remige, the union's president, said the $1.2 million the county spends on the independent monitor could be better used hiring deputies to patrol the county's streets. He said the department could monitor itself effectively without an outside unit.

"We've never been convinced that another level of oversight adds any value whatsoever to the perception of accountability," Remige said.

He said deputies are already monitored internally and by Merrick Bobb, an attorney hired by the Board of Supervisors to produce semiannual reports about the performance of the Sheriff's Department.



Michael Gennaco, who heads the Office of Independent Review, appeared unfazed at the criticism.


(excerpt)


"We ensure that if there's an allegation of misconduct that there's an investigation, and sometimes we have to force the department to make a decision on accountability," said Michael Gennaco, chief attorney for the oversight panel. He said that opposition from the deputies union was evidence that he and his attorneys were making sure that the department holds deputies accountable for misconduct.

"If we were lap dogs and not doing anything and wasting $1.2 million of the county's money, I'm not sure they'd be complaining about it," Gennaco said.





Gennaco has a Riverside connection.

In 1999, while working as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's office, he oversaw a patterns and practices investigation into the Riverside Police Department that ran in tandem with one conducted by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.

He was hired by Los Angeles County after departing his federal job when President George W. Bush was elected in 2000.

In 2006, he conducted a training session for the Community Police Review Commission at City Hall which was also attended by representatives of the police department's internal affairs division.