Mad, Mad CPRC Tea Party continues

[photo: CPRC meeting at City Hall. Notice how the man on the left, Vice-Chair Peter Hubbard has decided to take a nap. For a closer look, click the photo. But don't worry about it, it's just one of the different "styles" that Manager Kevin Rogan said commissioners bring to the table. This photo will be part of a new series on commissioners' "styles".]



The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it:

`No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

`There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

`Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

`There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

`Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.

`It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the March Hare.

`I didn't know it was your table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a great many more than three.'

`Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

`You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some severity; `it's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

`Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. `I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.


`The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.'

`Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

`No, I give it up,' Alice replied: `what's the answer?'

`I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.

`Nor I,' said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’



----Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I guess we know who the dormouse is.




Party invitation:


Who: Community Police Review Commission

What: General meeting

Where: City Hall, River City

When: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 5:30 p.m. to whenever

Why: So City Hall can provide another lesson in micromanagement through the staging of another puppet show.

Dress Code: Casual attire. Packing concealed firearms (optional)




The Community Police Review Commission in Riverside met once again to hold its own tea party of sorts and almost immediately began squabbling. Commissioner poised against commissioner with loyalty to City Hall's master plan for dilution and micromanagement of the CPRC being the division line between teams, not to mention city staff against commissioner, when things got a little quiet. The audience got a good show entertainment wise, but unfortunately as the commission sinks even further into disarray with a huge helping hand from factions at City Hall, it was also painful to watch especially commissioners like Art Santore and the vice-chair, Peter Hubbard who act like children at times. Not too long ago at least Santore was among the most professionally behaved commissioners but a little power has obviously gotten into this guy's head since then. But unfortunately, the power yielded by commissioners is only as much as the factions at City Hall pulling the strings will allow it to be. As individuals like Santore will find out soon enough.

Lt. Mike Perea who said he enjoyed his stint working with the CPRC said goodbye to his stint as liaison for the police chief's office and was replaced by Lt. Gary Leach who didn't stay for the open session of the meeting. Perea's off to work in Central Investigations replacing a retiring Lt. Bob Meier. Yes retired, apparently this year it really happened. Hopefully he has a good one.


First on deck were Lt. Mike Cook who heads Internal Affairs giving his presentation on complaint policy 4.12 with support from Sgt. Brian Dailey who has spent nearly four years working in the division as an investigator and told commissioners it had taught him a lot. They weren't really shy about answering questions and provided information to a group of commissioners who had their backs turned, worked on their city-issued lap tops and in the case of Vice-Chair Peter Hubbard fell asleep. It was unfortunate that the commission had to put on display how clearly disinterested it was in receiving this type of training. But nothing to worry about, it's just a "style" thing.

Because of this lack of attention paid to this training, very few questions were asked, with only Chani Beeman and several others asking any at all. But again, it's too bad that commissioners engage in such behavior that makes it look like they're not paying attention and asking questions when guest lecturers from the police department or elsewhere take the time to appear before them. One solution to this problem is to give commissioners quizzes or tests on training they receive to determine both their levels of retention and understanding of the information that they have been given. That might solve their problem with visible apathy.

If you're interested in reading policy 4.12 in its entirety, you can read it in the "Section D" of this annual report.



What's a minority report again? Do we vote on it?

(Round three)


Watching the commission battle over the meaning of a minority report for the umpteenth time is like experiencing a root canal without anesthesia. After hours spent on two separate cases, that of Terry Rabb and Lee Deante Brown, the commissioners still have no clue of what a minority report entails and no desire to do anything but try to squelch the production of a minority report in the officer-involved death case of Joseph Darnell Hill.

They actually passed a motion to discuss and possibly vote at a future meeting on a minority report submitted by Commissioner Chani Beeman to the CPRC. Meaning that they would vote on whether the minority report would be allowed to be released to the public with the majority report. This kind of voting decision just shows the ignorance of what a minority report is all about but it's not clear yet whether the commission's ignorance is exactly that or the direction it's being steered by the Seventh Floor of City Hall. Committees don't vote on whether or not to approve minority reports. The committee or commission in this case has already voted on whether the Hill shooting is in or out of policy from the standpoint of the public information received either through investigation or review of the department's own "criminal" investigation. Because there was one dissenting vote cast by a commissioner who felt that Officer Jeffrey Adcox violated departmental policy, that opened up the avenue for the creation and inclusion of a minority report.

This is an experience that former commissioner Jim Ward could relate to very well. He actually authored two minority reports. The one that actually saw the light of day in a public report was included in this report in the Brown shooting case. However, an early minority report submitted as part of this report on Terry Rabb was successfully suppressed from public inclusion or even public distribution by the majority of the CPRC with assistance from City Attorney Gregory Priamos' then legal interpretation of what a minority report was. Ward's minority report in the Rabb case was excluded after the majority of the commission voted not to allow it, which flies in the face of both the process and the purpose of submitting minority reports for inclusion in public reports. It was the first report submitted by the CPRC or a CPRC member that was suppressed since the 2002 fatal shooting of Anastacio Munoz also resulted in a report never released to the public.

Only one copy of the "public" pamphlet which represents the majority of the commission's views on the Hill case was available to the public at the meeting and no copies were available online because the current meeting agenda and related materials was never posted online for this meeting. A situation that Manager Kevin Rogan said would be corrected in the future. But there wasn't much to read, as it was a document produced and written by Rogan and it wouldn't be surprising if he had received his own orders from his own bosses on how to draft it. It didn't read so much like a CPRC report as it did a legal defense on behalf of the officers involved in the Hill shooting if they or more importantly the city had ever been sued by relatives of Hill. Even more so, it serves as a pattern and practice of sorts that the city is apparently attempting to build through the CPRC of defending itself in future lawsuits involving allegations of wrongful death.

The most vocal opponent of the minority report process appeared to be Hubbard who had nodded off earlier in the meeting several times and had suddenly woken up to argue against discussion of a report that some of the others said they hadn't read.

Chani said that she had gone to Rogan to ask that the minority report written by herself be included in the meeting agenda but it wasn't. Rogan's explanation was that it was included in the description as part of the "public report" but then the City Hall quintet of commissioners spent the rest of the hour or so long argument trying to exorcise the minority report from that inclusion. Actually the postponement of discussion on the minority report was reasonable, but what wasn't were plans, tentative or not, to actually cast any type of vote on its inclusion, because the vote on the finding involved with the Hill shooting itself set up a situation through a dissenting vote cast by Beeman to allow her the opportunity to submit and include a minority report whether the majority of commissioners liked it or not. If they want to have a temper tantrum about it and several clearly did, that's their option to do so but it shouldn't have any bearing on the outcome of the inclusion of the minority report alongside the majority report.




A minority report or just mysterious?

But as it turned out, was there only one minority report? A mysterious written report which was not discussed at all except in passing was submitted by Commissioner Robert Slawsby, who's a former endorser of ousted Councilman Frank Schiavone and allegedly tight with political election consultant Brian Floyd. However, since both are clearly out of the picture for a while, Slawsby has the potential to go into rather interesting directions as a commissioner.

It wasn't clear whether he was submitting a minority report, a report that concurred in part, differed in part with the majority report or merely some typed up notes. That riddle won't be solved by keeping it under wraps but perhaps it will be when the report sees the light of day during a discussion.





“For citizens who think themselves puppets in the hands of their rulers, nothing is more satisfying than having rulers as puppets in their hands.”


---Pico Iyer



Watching Rogan is interesting. Whereas most city staff don't speak unless they are asked to assist in a matter or serve as a supportive means for commission members, Rogan actually seems to get some degree of satisfaction out of badgering Beeman. In one case, for making what Rogan called a negative remark about another commissioner's motives for not making a single comment in a meeting where serious decisions were being made. After all, as Rogan said clearly, commissioners are not obligated to talk or even look engaged in what's going on, because people bring different styles to the process. So if they look bored or like they're not paying attention, that's perfectly okay, even if it sends the perception to the community members that they are apathetic towards their civic responsibilities that they signed up for.

It's amazing to actually hear a city staff member actually say something like that at a board and commission meeting in defense of some rather bored behavior. Watching two grown male commissioners behave like children provided some levity to the meeting but was enough to cause two people in the audience including a former commissioner to walk out the door, saying they had enough.

But then when Commissioner Ken Rotker insinuated through a winded speech that Beeman was being manipulative with the minority report which she had actually submitted a while back, he wasn't chastised by Rogan or anyone else in the same way. This was the noise which was heard instead from that corner.


***crickets chirping***


The double standard between how commissioners Beeman and even John Brandriff are treated compared with the majority who are pretty in lockstep with City Hall is rather jarring to watch. No other executive manager or director has acted or in Rogan's case reacted in this fashion. Beeman can actually hold her own with Rogan, while Brandriff treats Rogan as if he's a small child that he has to repeat everything two or three times before his point gets across. But the double standard between when some commissioners are perceived as crossing the line or being naughty and others who engage in bad behavior are not gives pretty ample support to the publci perception that the City Manager's office micromanages the CPRC to the ground and that the CPRC manager just does what he's ordered to do because if that weren't the case, he'd be more neutral and spank both Beeman and Rotker equally rather than allow one commissioner's "bad" behavior to slide and chastise the other one.

The suggestion has been made that CPRC meetings should be videotaped to show the public some of the conduct that occurs from commissioners and city employees during these meetings. Doing so would provide the city council especially with a lot of insight on what exactly is going on during those meetings with some commissioners acting in ways that could be considered violations of the ethics code.





Good leaders must first become good servants.


---Robert Greenleaf




Part of the problem with the meetings is that the current chair and vice-chair don't seem to understand how to lead meetings including any knowledge of parliamentarian procedure or even Roberts Rules of Orders. But then that's not surprising considering that both of the current officers had abysmal attendance records until just a meeting or so before the election. And Beeman who's had nearly perfect attendance since her appointment said yesterday that she would stack her attendance against Chair Sheri Corral who attended maybe about half of the CPRC meetings last year.

The Press Enterprise did cover Beeman's minority report and apparently unlike the rest of the commission actually read it. It included the following recommendations.


(excerpt)





Recommendations

Community Police Review Commissioner Chani Beeman made the following suggestions in her minority report about the 2006 police shooting of Joseph Hill. The full report is available at PE.com

Police provide a public presentation about the proper use of pretext stops.

Revise the audio-recording policy to include all officer contact.

Develop a policy for professional interpreter services for limited English-speaking witnesses to officer-involved deaths.

Re-establish and enhance commission access to independent and parallel investigations.












"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

---L. Frank Baum






Speaking of the police department, Chief Russ Leach has reentered the building, but will he ever lead the department again (as some said he lost that role when the city manager steamrolled him during the "at will" standoff at City Hall), or will it be left to the group of men hiding behind the curtain in River City's own rendition of that city at the end of the yellow brick road? That remains to be seen.

The police department if you include the micromanagers at City Hall seems like a kitchen crowded with chefs. There should be one chief, good or bad, who's accountable for what goes on in the police department and that person should be dealt with accordingly depending on his record in that position. None of these men behind the curtains kind of situation including several at City Hall who if they wanted to be police officers so bad (including the employee with the Glock handgun, some say handcuffs and the Crown Victoria vehicle), they could have just gone out for those positions rather than live out their fantasies at the expense of the police department.




RPD settles another lawsuit on eve of trial




He was part of a lawsuit settlement around $55,000 as an Indio Police Department officer and not too long ago, the city of Riverside settled a lawsuit involving his role in a 2006 fatal shooting for $800,000. Now another lawsuit totaling $36,500 has been settled involving Officer David Johansen.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

On Sept. 7, 2004, Smith was riding her bicycle home after returning a CD to a friend, court records state.

Officer David Johansen had received a tip that a man was in the street waiting for a person on a bicycle to ride by and give him drugs.

When Smith rode past, Johansen stopped her for not having a light on the bike after dark.

Johansen arrested Smith after finding a misdemeanor warrant against her for violating Riverside's dog leash law in 1985, records state.

Johansen took Smith to the Robert Presley Detention Center and requested she be strip searched because he suspected she may have hidden the drugs, according to the court records.

No drugs were found.

In Johansen's written statements, he said he was waiting on a "person" to deliver the drugs.

But the Riverside police communication log stated the tipster said the bicycle rider would be male, court records state.

"You would not mistake my client for a male," Cook said.

Now here's a trivia question. How many bicycles out there even come equipped with night lights?






Riverside begins fiscal year with seven Riverside employees laid off




"(In terms of) intrinsic, historical and scientific value, they're irreplaceable," he said. "The museum's holdings are in many ways much more significant than the general public or certainly, I think, City Hall understands."

---Former Museum Director, Vince Moses about the layoffs and budget reduction to his former department to the Press Enterprise.




I have to say I'm confused about this whole layoff thing. After I wrote a posting quoting a member of the SEIU General Unit saying that he had received a number of notices of intent to layoff city employees I received an email from a city council member that the nine alleged layoffs took place a while ago and of those, two chose retirement, one took a position with a higher salary, one took a lower ranked position, one "lateraled" and three were actually laid off. Okay, that's good to know, if the previous comment made by the SEIU representative had been in error. And I had already heard and blogged about those earlier layoffs through reports given by Human Resources Director Rhonda Strout to members of the Human Resources Board, something she does on a monthly basis upon the board's request for that information. But there had been rumors of another round of layoffs hitting Riverside's full-time employee roster for over a month or so. And that the museum department would be pretty hard hit by this round considering its small size. So with the email, I thought maybe the city had changed its mind and had gone another route in making its next round of budget cuts, which would be good news for city employees. But as it turned out, it really wasn't great news for some more of them.

But now I'm perplexed again because seven city employees had just been laid off during the first month of the new fiscal year which began July 1. It's perplexing in part because the layoffs especially at the museum had been rumored a lot in the past several weeks so some people might be shocked but I'm not one of them. And at some point before they were laid off, they must have been notified in writing of an intent to "lay off" or terminate their employment.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Councilman Mike Gardner said two employees in Public Works and one in the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department were laid off about a week ago. Two Riverside Metropolitan Museum workers lost their jobs Tuesday, and two Planning Division workers were cut Wednesday.

The museum cuts came as a shock to the institution's supporters and a big hit to an already small department. The museum now has a staff of nine, about half the number it had a few years ago.

By contrast, the Public Works and Parks departments each have hundreds of employees, and Community Development, which includes the Planning Division, has about 100 workers.

LAYOFF A SHOCK

Gary Ecker, a restoration specialist who worked for the museum for 25 years, said he was in the middle of working on an exhibit when he was let go Tuesday.

City management and the Service Employees International Union, which represents museum workers, have talked about the potential layoff of several curators, Ecker said, but "my job wasn't even thought about."

Now, he said, "I have no idea what (my) future plans are."





Gardner is to be commended for at least mentioning the layoffs of the part-time employees because people at City Hall never speak about part-time employees pretending they don't exist or count perhaps. Again, unless Riverside is comparing its caliber size in employee retention with Corona (where everything including part-time layoffs and full-time and part-time frozen positions is tossed in the mix). However, it's premature at this point to say the city's seen the last of layoffs in its ranks because the fiscal year has just begun and Riverside just might lose up to $35 million in its coffers to Sacramento so there's a lot of upheaval in balancing the city's own budget ahead.




Dial-a-Ride in Riverside County gets cut.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




A June study by HDR Decision Economics, commissioned in October by the board for $91,377, estimated that 350,740 trips will be taken on Dial-A-Ride this fiscal year. By 2013, Dial-A-Ride will provide 494,713 trips in Riverside County if changes to limit use are not enacted. If all the proposed policy changes are made and fewer riders are eligible, use of Dial-A-Ride could drop to 404,956 in 2013.

Among the changes proposed for Dial-A-Ride are stricter enforcement of the area served by the door-to-door service, who is eligible for a ride, and how much riders will pay.

The HDR report suggested officials offer service only within three-quarters of a mile of existing bus routes. Currently buses will pick people up beyond the federally required three-quarters-of-a-mile distance.

In the future, those living farther away would need to find their own way to a spot where they could be picked up, Riverside Transit spokesman Brad Weaver said.

In addition, analysts suggested increasing the eligibility age for Dial-A-Ride service from 60 to 65, and applying stricter rules to determine whether a disabled person qualifies. Someone with night blindness, for example, could use Dial-A-Ride when it's dark but not during the day under the proposed guidelines, Weaver said.

Reductions in service could save the bus agency $8.6 million over the next five years, analysts estimated, and drop the annual cost in fiscal year 2013-14 from $15.27 million to $12.51 million.

Weaver noted the agency has cut back hours, eliminated routes and furloughed employees in recent months. Though the fare increase affected Dial-A-Ride, cutbacks have not hit the service -- yet.

"We intend to treat it the same way we treat our fixed-route operations in terms of controlling growth," Weaver said.





Also possibly being cut is charitable spending by Riverside County which has led to a supervisor crying foul.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




The board voted 4-1 Tuesday to reduce each supervisor's annual allocation of community improvement designation funds to $500,000, about half of the usual amount. They also agreed to establish specific criteria for the use of the discretionary money, known as CID funds.

The savings will go to bolster the county's reserves for economic uncertainty. Riverside County has cut department budgets for this year and is seeking concessions from union workers. Supervisors warn that the state will likely grab tens of millions of dollars from county coffers to ease its budget woes.

Only Supervisor Jeff Stone, whose CID spending has generated controversy in the past, voted against creating criteria and making cuts to discretionary funds.

"I don't believe these funds should be held hostage to some of the decreases that we have seen in the departments," Stone said.







Wildomar will decide how it will pick its council members. Will it be through districts or citywide?






Former San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus is now facing criminal charges.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Postmus is charged with nine felony offenses including drug violations, perjury and grand theft as well as one misdemeanor.

Postmus appeared in court this morning, when he and his attorney, Stephen Levine, learned of the charges.

Postmus left court without speaking to reporters but released a brief e-mail statement later in the day.

"These charges were just filed today," he wrote. "As such, I cannot yet comment on today's developments."

Levine complained that he and his client hadn't been warned of the charges in advance. At the attorney's request, a judge delayed Postmus' bail hearing and arraignment until Thursday morning.

"He's made every court appearance," Levine told San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Dest. "He's not a danger to society."



The chairman of the County Board of Supervisors reacted to the news.


(excerpt, San Bernardino Sun)




Also facing criminal charges is Moreno Valley's city manager.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Moreno Valley City Manager Robert Gutierrez has been charged with seven misdemeanor counts of harassment, unlawful computer access and identity theft related to accusations he spied on an ex-girlfriend.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney's office filed the charges this morning following a two-month investigation by the Upland Police Department, where the woman lived, Supervising District Attorney David Hidalgo said.

Gutierrez was sent a letter notifying him of the charges and an order to appear in court for a Sept. 8 arraignment in Rancho Cucamonga.

He could not be reached through a call to the city manager’s office.



And Postmus himself clashed with the District Attorney's office.




Redlands closes its budget gap and Menifee has brand new city districts.





Reknowned scholar, Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his own house, a case many called racial profiling.


(excerpt, Yahoo news)



Earl Graves Jr., CEO of the company that publishes Black Enterprise magazine, was once stopped by police during his train commute to work, dressed in a suit and tie.

"My case took place back in 1995, and here we are 14 years later dealing with the same madness," he said Tuesday. "Barack Obama being the president has meant absolutely nothing to white law enforcement officers. Zero. So I have zero confidence that (Gates' case) will lead to any change whatsoever."

The 58-year-old professor had returned from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and found the front door of his Cambridge, Mass., home stuck shut. Gates entered the back door, forced open the front door with help from a car service driver, and was on the phone with the Harvard leasing company when a white police sergeant arrived.

Gates and the sergeant gave differing accounts of what happened next. But for many people, that doesn't matter.

They don't care that Gates was charged not with breaking and entering, but with disorderly conduct after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number. It doesn't matter whether Gates was yelling, or accused Sgt. James Crowley of being racist, or that all charges were dropped Tuesday.

All they see is pure, naked racial profiling.

"Under any account ... all of it is totally uncalled for," said Graves.






***Riverside's municipal Wi Fi services will be down this weekend until at least Monday morning citywide while the system undergoes an upgrade. ****



**** Riverside's Municipal Wi Fi is back up with new login page, servers but for now, you might need more time using it because the internet's quite slow. As expected, the change in networks from the old one to AT&T's Wayport did eliminate the crashing browser problem.

In other news, the city's laser fische (reports) servers have been up and down since Friday leading visitors to a login page instead of the copy of city reports. Currently as of 7:45 am, it's back down.

Gage unveils his 'populist' image and will the Audit and Compliance Bureau pull off a swan song exit?

Former Riverside Councilman Art Gage who was trounced by current Ward Three councilman, Rusty Bailey in his reelection bid has tossed in his hat to run for mayor this autumn against perennial mayor, Ron Loveridge who took 25 people for a hike last weekend. No one else has declared yet just these two but there's still time left for those of you out there who are thinking about it. Come on, drop your name in. The more the merrier. Don't all of you sit on your hands and wait for the free-for-all election that will take place in 2012 to throw your hat in. After all, Gage is in a pretty good situation.

Will he win? The odds are very much against him given how Loveridge has thrashed most of his opposition in recent bids but even if he loses, it sets him up with much more of a name recognition the next time around which will be less than three years later to run against a group of politicians who either left office or were voted out and haven't really been seen or heard much from since.

Well, except for former City Councilman Dom Betro who's doing some campaigning in the Press Enterprise "Local Views" section every now and then.



Gage has this Web site which tells readers what he stands for, what he won't and who's endorsing him so far. Some call it 'populist' or that he's portraying the "outsider" but what can a candidate do when running for office against the ultimate insider?

At any rate, it will be an interesting contest to watch, a preview of sorts to what most people believe will be the big mayoral race in 2012.

This part of his stand on the issues was intriguing.


(excerpt)


2. Open Government - I will work with the City Council to: (a) eliminate the requirement of having audience guests fill out speaker cards before being permitted to address the council; (b) ensure all important items are discussed in public and; (c) schedule open comments at the beginning of the council meeting to encourage more public involvement and; (d) restore our citizens right to pull items from the consent calendar for discussion. We as elected officials must welcome citizens’ right to participate, and this right has been severely restricted.



He's right about that last sentence. People ask me what "BASS" was, and the answer is, they were council members, Dom Betro, Ed Adison, Steve Adams and Frank Schiavone. One of the moments which strongly defined them was restricting city residents' ability to pull items off of the city council agenda for further discussion by their elected officials.


Now Gage has some things in this background that work in his favor for promoting a more open government. He was the sole vote against the Dom Betro/Steve Adams motion to ban city residents from pulling items from the consent calendar of city council meetings, which was passed in July 2005. But his role as mayor to reverse it would still play out behind the scenes because only the city council can undo what it did to deprive city residents of their ability to really hear vigorous discussion on high-ticket items including many of those umbrellaed under the Riverside Renaissance program and right now, the city council even without ousted Frank Schiavone at its helm doesn't have the votes or frankly, enough interest to even bring it up. There's several schools of thought on whether the right to pull items need to be restored or the city government needs to stop stacking its consent calendar with items which require large expenditures of city money.

So basically, what you have on the "discussion" calendar is largely "receive, review and file" oral or written reports and occasionally an item that fosters much interest in the city's communities. But still most of the money spent is being done so via blanket vote on the consent calendar. This coming after the city council cedes more and more of its financial accountability to the city manager's office, through passing motions to allow that office to authorize more spending without their vote and basically diluting the influence and presence of the Finance Committee during the past several years.

This committee which just a few years ago met twice a month hasn't met once this year. Yet, the year's still a bit young and the "next" meeting has been scheduled for Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 at 2:30 p.m. in the Seventh Floor conference room. If the meeting takes place, there will be plenty of smelling salts available for those who might faint at the mere thought of this committee actually meeting again.

Gage's stance on the Community Police Review Commission, is that he hates it but at least he doesn't pretend that he doesn't. He called it a "piece of trash" or "junk" at an open meeting and once pushed a motion in 2004 to defund it by up to 90% (by saying its funding should be equitable to the Human Relations Commission's annual budget). But hopefully, city council members and one mayor are learning that being anti-CPRC might be bad for your political aspirations. Just ask Schiavone who was knocked out in some neighborhoods by his decision to not only take the lead against undermining the CPRC but announcing his decision to do so on his campaign Web site, just like the DHL scandalous mess knocked him out of contention in other neighborhoods within his ward, not to mention the impact of the Bradley Estates debacle.

The mayor's election over an abbreviated term comes to you this November at the polls.

C'est La Vie, Audit and Compliance Bureau?


“A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.”

------Claude Debussy

The future of the Riverside Police Department's audit and compliance bureau hasn't been announced as the tenure of the Strategic Plan set forth by mandate of the stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office nears its end. However, its current head, Lt. Brian Baitx is set to retire and his position will be frozen so that leaves it in the hands of Sgt. Jaybee Brennan who also serves as the department's public information officer and the chief's adjutant. Don't be surprised if they phase the Bureau out by December and don't tell anyone. Hopefully, if they do phase it out, they will have learned from the communications blackout during the 2008 phase out of the Community Policing Services Division, which most people found out had been "decentralized" quite a ways after the fact. That caused more than a little bit of confusion to say the least in the communities.

Communication is key to a healthy, productive and thriving relationship between public agencies and the communities they serve. When the Riverside Police Department embraces that philosophy, it has been served well even during the difficult periods. When it doesn't, is when it experiences problems which often are worse than what started.

Is the Bureau still needed? That's debatable, with many different opinions out there including those arguing with some degree of merit about competing resources. But the vestige of it that remains does serve to audit department functions including staffing ratios so it remains to be seen what will happen to these ratios when their form of oversight (as insulated and top-secret as it might be) is history. And the oh-so-quiet-beneath-our-hats audit of the retention of women police officers some time last year which was so top secret even one of the sergeants didn't seem to know about it when asked.

But then the retention of female officers, a topic which has interested the under-micromanaged Human Resources Board to the point that it wanted to receive a presentation from the department on this very issue.

No can do, said the police chiefs including apparently Russ Leach. That led to a letter being written to the city council for an explanation on why this information can't be made available to them. Yes, there were excuses from it being top-secret even in its general, statistical form, to the department being unable to provide one officer to present the information, to...oh just about anything it seems.

Disappointing but hardly surprising given how quietly the city settled behind closed doors a 2005 defamation of character lawsuit filed by a former female probational police officer at its department. How many lawsuits "go away" in similar fashion within several months of the city being officially served?

Not very many, given how in most cases, the city government through its legal counsel likes to engage in an enormous dose of what some lawyers refer to as "pencil whipping" meaning that they throw so much paperwork against those who sue them in the hopes of overwhelming them physically, psychologically and financially in the hopes that they'll drop the lawsuit.

In related news, Chief Russ Leach did say that as soon as the current Strategic Plan expires, there will be a new five-year plan put in place. Few people appear to know what exactly this latest blue print on departmental operations will be. Hopefully, there will be a public forum announcing it and it won't just be sprung on city residents.

Why is this important?


Communication is key to a healthy, productive and thriving relationship between public agencies and the communities they serve. When the Riverside Police Department embraces that philosophy, it has been served well even during the difficult periods. When it doesn't, is when it experiences problems which often are worse than what started.

Riverside County to close its offices on Fridays due to budget cuts.What it calls the nonessential ones.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




Riverside County plans to close its administrative center in downtown Riverside every Friday along with many other offices that provide residents with nonemergency services, county Executive Officer Bill Luna said.

Luna will impose mandatory furloughs on county managers, and he says their reduced hours will result in the closures on Fridays.

Supervisors are set to weigh in on the plan at Tuesday's board meeting.

Starting Aug. 13, the county's 1,500 managers and other nonunion employees will have to take about two days off per month without pay, Luna says in meeting documents.

The furloughs and Friday closures are intended to cut labor and utility expenses for the county, which is struggling with falling tax revenues and other budgetary pressures.

While Luna is authorized to make the decisions, supervisors will vote Tuesday on agenda items outlining the plans.




But times are tough all around. The shiny new Riverside County District Attorney's office building might have to rely on used office furniture. Still the facility will have quite a few perks.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



County employees are set to move into the new building in mid-November, Freeman said.

In October, the county decided to purchase the structure at Orange and 10th streets from developer Moshe Silagi.

The county plans to consolidate there about 600 district attorney's employees currently spread across about a dozen offices in Riverside. Two of the floors will house probation and county counsel offices.

The county's economic situation has worsened since the building's purchase.

The building will still include refinements such as a marble entry that reads, "Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall." A large, full-color marble district attorney seal will adorn the floor of the lobby. The building will feature a victims' memorial wall, Freeman said.

Keenan said Monday that all of these features were included in the negotiated price of the building and do not add any costs.

"Everything was included in the price of the building," he said. "That's the price the county paid when the board authorized it, and nothing we've ever done has added any cost to the building."






Murrieta's city council is filling spots on its commissions. Let's just hoped the process isn't as politicized as it has become in Riverside.

Menifee, the newest city, is still deciding on its police services.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Earlier this month Councilman Scott Mann suggested that the city explore how to go about getting the most cost-effective police protection possible. For fiscal 2009-10, Menifee will pay the county $8.69 million for police protection.

City Manager George Wentz said he and his staff will research the costs and the pros and cons of various law-enforcement scenarios, including:

The city running its own police department

The city contracting police services from a neighboring city, namely Murrieta

Establishing a joint powers authority with other cities to establish a jointly funded and operated police department

Staying with Riverside County Sheriff's Department but being policed by the Southwest substation in French Valley rather than the Perris station

Wentz said city staff members will aim to deliver their law enforcement findings sometime next spring.

"The question is: Are we delivering law enforcement in the most economical and best manner to the community," Wentz said. "Part of the question is, is the span of area managed by Perris too large? If we move the location to the Southwest station, that reduces the load on both offices."

Former San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus is is fighting a lawsuit filed against him by the county supervisors.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)




The former San Bernardino County assessor, who has battled an addiction to illegal drugs, said in an interview that he has been sober for more than 100 days. He appeared upbeat and eager to talk politics -- he thinks Democrats could have a shot at winning the Inland area's 63rd Assembly District next year -- and eager to once again mix things up politically with jabs at county government and the current Board of Supervisors.

Postmus, who has been spending time in northern Idaho where his parents live, said he can't talk about the ongoing criminal investigation by the district attorney's office.

But he's more than happy to discuss the civil lawsuit supervisors filed against him and five others earlier this year. Postmus said he and his lawyer are preparing his response, due sometime in early August.

"I am looking forward to the process of litigating this civil lawsuit," Postmus said. "We are going to order subpoenas and order depositions of many supervisors."

His goal? To show that doing political work on county time was a widespread practice in county government.





Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein takes on ethics training.



(excerpt)



After the final "Retention Check" (and another perfect score), a jolt: "You have spent 0 hours and 14 minutes on this training. This is less than the required 2 hours."

I read this as a threat. They weren't going to give me a certificate. "If you would like to bolster that time, we have supplemental training available."

Supplemental training? Show me a public official who seeks supplemental ethics training and I'll show you an Alaska governor who serves out a full term.

Legislators who approved AB 1234 and the governor (Arnold) who signed it, evidently felt the same way because supplemental training turned out to be an option I respectfully declined. I clicked "Next" one last time, and now have my own Online Proof of Participation Certificate.

I can't understand why so many politicians get into such hot water when it's so darn easy to be ethical.






The heat is on! A Riverside County Superior Court judge allows new upstart city Menifee and older haunt, Perris to slug it out some more in court.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"It's not that a Riverside court would be unfair but it may be uncomfortable," Martyn said by telephone Monday. "We thought it might be better to move it to another county where nobody knows all the players."

The case was put on the back burner almost a year ago as Menifee and Perris tried to settle the dispute. But three months ago Menifee rejected Perris' settlement offer, which proposed that the two cities split the sales tax revenue from a 970-acre area over a 25-year period. About a decade ago, the Local Agency Formation Commission, which can rule on boundary issues, removed the area in question from Perris' sphere of influence and bequeathed it to the still-prospective city of Menifee. The area now straddles the two cities' east-west boundary around Ethanac Road.

In an April letter Menifee officials estimated that Perris' settlement offer, which was approved by county officials before Menifee became a city, would have cost Menifee about $12 million in lost revenue.

"It is a rough number but it's based on past research in this area," Martyn said.

When Menifee rebuffed the proposal, that city's officials essentially told Perris officials "we can't, in this economy, give you what you ask," Martyn said.




Los Angeles and the Department of Justice have finally said goodbye after an eight year long consent decree.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)



Bratton struck an anticlimactic note Friday, saying that while the decision showed "the department has regained its reputation," the LAPD itself had come to view the decree as outdated and irrelevant. "In the mind of the department, it has been over for a long time," he said. Feess' action does not free the LAPD from making mandated improvements . The judge approved a transitional plan that attorneys for the LAPD and the U.S. Department of Justice proposed to him last month. Under that agreement, the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the LAPD, will assume responsibility from Cherkasky for keeping tabs on the department's efforts to fully implement a handful of still-incomplete or recently finished reforms. If DOJ lawyers are unsatisfied with the commission's oversight, the agreement allows them to object and bring the department back before Feess. One of the outstanding issues is the department's handling of the hundreds of claims of racial profiling levied against officers by minorities each year. As part of the new agreement, the department must press ahead with a plan to outfit all its patrol vehicles with video cameras that will record all traffic and pedestrian stops. In addition, the commission will conduct a series of reports on how police officials investigate and resolve claims of racial profiling. "We're disappointed by the judge's decision. The department has made substantial progress under Chief Bratton, but there's still too much evidence that skin color makes a difference in who is stopped, questioned and arrested by the LAPD," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern California -- the group that had most vocally argued against ending the consent decree.




The creator of a controversial Web site in Philadelphia that led to complaints by Black police officers defended his creation.



(excerpt, Philadelphia Inquirer)



The officer, who uses the screen name "McQ," also wrote that he was not responsible for what registered users post on the site, and said he had never been asked to remove posts or comments.

The site, which began in 2000 and is not affiliated with the Police Department, is a popular forum where officers discuss crime, police news, and gossip, as well as promote local events.

But racially charged news stories often result in controversial and profane comments. A recent post about the day campers who were disinvited from swimming at a suburban pool, for example, described the children as "a bunch of ghetto monkey faces."

On Wednesday, the Guardian Civic League, an association of black police officers, filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the department of allowing its officers to post "blatantly racist . . . and offensive" content on Domelights. Among other claims, the lawsuit alleges that officers moderate the site using the department's computers, thus creating a racially hostile work environment.

The suit seeks unspecified damages, and asks that officers be banned from using the site or posting racially insensitive material.

McQ is identified in his Domelights profile as Fred McQuiggan, which is the name of a sergeant who works at Police Headquarters. He has not returned requests for comment and stated in Thursday's post that he would not comment directly to the media.

Described on the home page as "the voice of the good guys," Domelights "was created specifically to be a forum where ideas of social change could be freely and openly discussed," McQuiggan wrote in his post.

"I categorically REJECT any racist or sexist ideas expressed on the Web site," the post reads. "But I do SUPPORT the right of people on ALL sides of racial issues to EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS . . . There is no progress gained on social issues when angry people stew in their own juices while remaining silent."







A former Bell Police Department officer charged with sexually assaulting a woman during a stop has finally pled guilty. And what did Bell Department heads have to say about it when he was arrested? They were in total shock of course.


(excerpt, CNN)

After learning the woman, identified as R.H. in court documents, did not have a driver's license with her, Sanchez told her he suspected her of drinking and her car would be towed, Mrozek said.

Sanchez offered to drive R.H. to her job, but instead drove her to the parking lot of an auto repair outlet in Bell, Mrozek said.

Sanchez placed his hand on his gun and forced her to perform sex on him in his patrol car, Mrozek said. Afterward, Sanchez drove R.H. to her work place, Mrozek said.

"Officer Sanchez brutalized a person he had sworn to serve," O'Brien said in the release. "As a result of his criminal conduct, Mr. Sanchez now faces a substantial amount of time in federal prison. His conduct eroded public confidence in law enforcement and cast a pall over his former colleagues who obey the law, proudly working to preserve public safety."

Federal prosecutors charged Sanchez with a civil rights violation, according to the release.

The crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison upon sentencing. Sanchez has been held without bond since his arrest in May 2007, Mrozek said. Sanchez's sentencing is scheduled for November 18.

CALPERS takes a huge financial loss.



(excerpt, Los Angeles Times)





The loss at the California Public Employees' Retirement System for the fiscal year ended June 30 is the second in a row for the country's largest fund. A year ago, CalPERS reported an $8.5-billion loss, as the severe recession began to take hold.


The tremendous drop in value is expected to have a direct effect on the amount of money that the state and about 2,000 local governments and school districts must contribute in coming years to pay for pensions and healthcare for 1.6 million government workers, retirees and their families.

As income from the pension investments fall, the governments would have to make up the difference to meet the state's pension and healthcare obligations.



The Community Police Review Commission still hasn't posted its agenda online at its Web site for its meeting to be held on Wednesday, July 22 at 5:30 p.m. Hopefully it's at least posted at City Hall but not sure what they're going to discuss actually or do but it's a given, there will be quite a bit of feuding between those beholden to City Hall and those who aren't.

TGIF: Hate mail and a revenge plot brewing by a former sheriff?

Oh dear, once again someone is unhappy with my blogging and wrote this nice notice letting me know that they're still keeping an (anonymous of course) eye on me.

It's just too bad he still can't spell.


(excerpt)



Hey just wonderin does FBM Mary walk all over town because she choses to or because she doesn't have a choice? I saw her this weekend and was just thinking about the previous allegations.



Hmmm, you mean the ones you wrote in my blog about me having too many DUIs to be able to drive? You know sir, if you did a bit more walking and a little less surveillance of women walking from your car for kicks (so you can write about it later like some kind of creepy stalker), you might actually look a bit more physically fit and less out of shape and who knows? It might help improve your attitude a little bit, giving society just a little bit of a break. Just a thought.

But I guess that former Councilman Frank Schiavone and his unsuccessful reelection campaign aren't the only taboo topics designated by the sock puppet gallery. It's hard to know which blog postings have this individual's knickers in a knot because he's not mentioned anything specifically.

Still, some people hate this blog and the blogger and that's just how it goes when you're writing about what's up (or down) in River City. Some people will like you and some people won't.

Code Red Revisited?

Did Riverside's City Hall force code enforcement officers to single out the vehicle owned by one of the officers of the NAACP for citation? That's an allegation that's come to light and one that will be explored in a future blog posting. As you know, there are at least two separate lawsuits filed in Riverside County Superior Court by code enforcement officers who allege various forms of discrimination, harassment and retaliation including a forced transfer to a tin shack located in the city's corporate yard (which has already seen a lot of racism occur against Black Public Works employees during the 1980s and 90s). There were no appropriate bathroom facilities, air conditioning in the summer and toxic materials were stored nearby.

Inland Empire Weekly in "Code Red" wrote about similar selective citations and about what happened to code officers when they complained about bad practices. Pretty scary reading that a city government and/or its direct employees would ever be responsible for such a shady practice which was clearly intended to punish employees with grievances. And guess what city residents? It's us who will be paying financially for bad decision making by City Hall in this heinous example of mistreatment of city employees.

But if that's the case, it will hardly be the first time.

Is Bob Doyle Plotting His Revenge from Sacramento?

The blogger at Inside Riverside has reemerged from his or her sabbatical to hatch what is claimed to be an ongoing revenge plot by former Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle to regain control of the throne. The blog which has never been shy of its strong support of current Sheriff Stan Sniff who was elected by three of the county supervisors several years ago has taken on his newly announced political rival Frank Robles. And the blog isn't pulling its punches.


(excerpt)

The word we are hearing dear readers is that Robles' campaign is being bankrolled by those contributors who had badges given to them by the Royal Doyle, but had them recalled by Sniff. If this is true, the only reason these people would be stepping up to fund Robles' campaign is if they expect to get either their badges or unearned gun permits back, or both. That's illegal, isn't it?

Either way, Robles is going to have a tough time taking out Sheriff Stan Sniff.

Sniff has done an amazing job rebuilding ties to the community, restoring trust with those that believe Doyle and his cronies violated their trust, and raising morale amongst the rank and file deputies. With the deputies firmly in Sniff's corner, and all the money that that brings to the race, Robles would need to raise a million dollars to beat Sniff next June.

To raise that kind of money Frank Robles will have to sell more badges to rich donors and more promotions to unqualified Doyle cronies in the Sheriff's Department than one can imagine. That's not likely to happen. Frank Robles would probably have to sell his soul to to Devil to prevail against Sniff.

Not surprisingly, his commentary has elicited some anonymous comments.

Fun reading but this tripe is built on "if this is true," and "sources tell us." Stan Sniff, our appointed sheriff, has done nothing to earn my vote. His enormous ego is not justified by his performance in office. I want to see Robles in action before commiting to him, but this hatchet job is built on Jello.

Posted by: Carmichael8487 | July 06, 2009 at 05:05 PM

And all of that matters because why? I read that Robles has basically put management on notice that the gravy train is coming to an end and that the scarce money in the department is going to be focused on the officers and law enforcement workers FIRST. Maybe that's why you're taking pot shots at him...because he's actually taking a stand. A stand for cops, not pencil pushers.

Posted by: Jack | July 06, 2009 at 05:41 PM

Sniff was appointed by the Board to end the corruption that was destroying RSO since Doyle became Sheriff. Even Lingle said he would change the dept's course if they voted for him. Which everyone knows was a lie. The SOFTBALL TEAM still would have been in charge, not the REAL COPS.

Posted by: No On Robles | July 06, 2009 at 08:18 PM

Another thing that discredits Doyle and anyone he endorses is the fact that another idiot with one of his executive council badges was hooked up in Newport last month. Doyle said they had all been collected. So did Lingle. They were lying and you can't trust a damn word either of them says.

Posted by: No On Robles | July 06, 2009 at 08:23 PM

Election 2010 is already coming out of the gate. Let the games begin. Usually sheriff contests represent themselves more like beauty contest coronations (or in the Inland Empire, appointments by county boards) rather than real elections, but it looks like this one has gotten off to an explosive start already.

Where goes the future of the police department's audit and compliance bureau?

Originally, this bureau was set up as the Attorney General's Task Force under the 2001 stipulated judgment between the city of Riverside and the State Attorney General's office to reform the police department. It consisted of a lieutenant, a sergeant, a detective, an officer and a civilian employee. It oversaw the adoption and implementation of the mandated reforms from 2001-2006.

After the decree was dissolved in March 2006, the Task Force because the Bureau and the staff was trimmed a bit. It became mostly a body which performed audits of the department thickly shrouded in a veil of secrecy.

It's assignment was never really all that popular. In fact at a Chief's Advisory Board meeting several years ago, a past member of the Bureau said that he chose to serve on it because it was either that or working on the graveyard shift of the field division. Still, he worked out pretty well during his service period with the Bureau and got a lot accomplished.

Now, its future is pretty much in doubt given that when its current head, Lt. Brian Baitx retires, the position like most others in the department will be frozen and Sgt. Jaybee Brennan, another member of this bureau performs duties for it as well as serving as the department's public information officer and Chief Russ Leach's adjutant. And in December 2009, the department will hit the sunset period of its five-year Strategic Plan implemented under the stipulated judgment, although Leach has told people at various public forums that the department is actually working on another five-year Strategic Plan to guide the police department with different goals and objectives in mind.

The Riverside Community Police Review Commission is actually holding a meeting this summer. It's been scheduled for Wednesday, July 22 at 5:30 p.m. inside the cramped conference room on the Fifth floor. Come down and watch the commissioners squabble for several hours while complaining that it's the public's comments which are slowing the meetings down.

But hey, at least the lights don't turn off every 30 minutes anymore so you won't have any commissioners standing up to leave the meetings, saying I can't take this anymore.

The new liaison for the CPRC from the police department who will be encharged with reporting everything that happens or is said to the department's staff of chiefs is Lt. Gary Leach, replacing Lt. Mike Perea. As of yet, no agenda has been posted for the meeting, which means that someone is going to have to post it either late tonight or tomorrow for it to qualify for proper notification under the Brown Act.





The Mayor's Nomination and Screening Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, July 28 at 6 p.m. (just before the regular evening session of city council) to discuss interviewing applicants for the Ward Two opening on the CPRC.

Mayor Ron Loveridge chairs this commission and Governmental Affairs Committee members, Andrew Melendrez, Steve Adams and Rusty Bailey also serve on it. It's going





A lot of discussion online about the recent Press Enterprise article on the city council's division to close off a street in the Green Belt.


(excerpts)



Seems like my first post got lost somewhere. Now I'll have to remember all the brilliant things I was trying to say.

First of all - I think we all realize that this was not an easy decision for the Council to make. We also all realize that nobody likes traffic speeding along their streets. Finally, we all realize that this is not about protecting the green belt or adhering to measure C/proposition R (you do all realize that, right?). It has become clear that there was a lot of "green" involved with this decision about the "green belt" - why else would the City have chosen the absolute worst of a wide range of options, and then wasted the time of their neighbors pretending that they cared what we thought? As the Council was quick to point out, they didn't need to have this hearing - so why hold it at all? The statistics and studies used to support this motion were flawed (as admitted by the City themselves) and obviously somewhere between unrealistic and blatantly dishonest. Why go through the trouble of conducting a faulty study when you decided six years ago it was going to be closed?

The answer, of course, is that the City was working backwards - one or more folks with deep pockets and loud (probably very annoying) voices wanted this done, so they had to find a way to make it happen with as little blowback as possible. The Council is either slightly corrupt, somewhat stupid, or just plain hostile toward those of us who, by simple accident of imaginary geography, are 500 feet too far south.

The "law" laid down by prop C/measure R clearly does not mandate this closure. The city would not be in violation of the law if it chose one of the other equally-viable means of mitigating the alleged traffic impact in the Green Belt without closing hundreds of residents off from route vital to their safety, not to mention their convenient access to city merchants and their general quality of life. It can be empirically and legally proven that this decision was not necessary - so why was it done? C/R are ignored regularly by the city already, so why chose to fight this battle so vehemently? (That’s a rhetorical question).

None of us want excessive traffic in our neighborhoods. Not all of us are selfish, loud-mouthed bully with the money or connections necessary to garner special treatment, however. It might be a bad day for fairness, honesty, safety and common sense – but it’s apparently a good day to be a selfish bully.

I’m trying to raise my daughter to be a good citizen. I’m trying to tell her that she doesn’t get anything she wants just because she wants it. I tell her that screaming doesn’t get her what she wants. I try to tell her that she doesn’t deserve to be treated differently than her peers.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have her with me at Tuesday’s meeting, otherwise I’d be back to square one.




I do not live in the Greenbelt nor in the county area that is affected by the closure. The closure seems drastic and unnecessary. It makes no sense to me to close a perfectly useable existing road in the name of traffic control. "There's got to be a better way". This really looks like someone's personal beef with traffic in their neighborhod. If it's that much of a problem, post it at 25 mph and station a traffic cop or two behind a tree until people learn to slow down. Speed bumps would work too. Why close the road?



The whole preserving the greenbelt stance the the council is BS..look at all the homes going up......and all the groves being graded over in favor of driveways and streets. The council has is priorities @$$ backwards. They allow building and then more building without improving local roads to handle traffic..and when it gets too bad..as in this case, they come up with a story and stand by it, close it off, rather than improve the area for it's residents & drivers. stupid brainless leadership, it's all about them and what they want, not us, these hearings are just a formality..they already know what's going to be done.



I'm sorry, councilman Davis.

I think he understands something the other members of the council don't: Ignore the voters of Riverside at your own peril.





Hemet and Moreno Valley are teaming up for stimulus money.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



The city councils approved a consortium agreement and an application for the stimulus funds in separate meetings Tuesday.

Because the two cities are among the hardest-hit by foreclosures, they each qualified for a first round of assistance. More than 300 public agencies nationwide received funds.

This second round is competitive and only 80 to 90 applicants nationwide may get a share, according to a staff report by Barry Foster, Moreno Valley economic development director.

Foster said by phone that one reason Moreno Valley is partnering with Hemet is that the cities have similar programs.

"Working together with a consortium of cities and nonprofit housing groups will help you score better," he said.




Hemet is also getting a new (old) city clerk.





A Riverside County Superior Court judge tossed out a lawsuit filed by four San Jacinto Police Department officers.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gary Tranbarger will not give them a chance to amend their lawsuit, effectively ending the case.

Michael Curran, the officers' attorney, said by phone that he is looking at options, including a motion for reconsideration.

Last year Chris Kuhl, a probationary officer, resigned; Ron Navarreta and Scott Jensen, two probationary officers, were terminated; and Pedro Gonzalez, a volunteer reserve officer, resigned.

The plaintiffs said they were threatened with termination after witnessing what they considered inappropriate conduct by fellow officers, including Police Chief Kevin Segawa.





The arrest of a city councilman in Grand Terrace has caused a lot of reflection on accountability issues in that city's government.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



Both Schwab, who was city manager at the time, and City Attorney John Harper said Thursday they had never examined Miller's legally required economic interest statements because they were not required to do so.

"I can't imagine how a city attorney would ever keep track of what potential conflicts there were," Harper said by phone.

He said that looking at the documents would have served no purpose because he would have had to examine every item on every council agenda to determine whether there would be a conflict.

Schwab said the economic interest forms are "not something that anybody is supposed to check. It's up to the individual person to turn in those forms and make sure they are accurate."

He said the city clerk collects them and makes sure they are filed on time, "but nobody goes over them to try to look for anything."







In Philadelphia, Black police officers are suing their police department for allowing its White officers to express online racism atthis Web site.



(excerpt, Philadelphia Inquirer)



The suit says that domelights.com, which bills itself as “the voice of the good guys,” was founded and is moderated by an active duty Philadelphia police sergeant who uses the name “McQ” in his postings.

Sgt. McQ “encourages the racially offensive conduct,” according to the lawsuit.

The Guardian Civic League also sued McQ and the website. The Philadelphia NAACP and the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers joined the league as plaintiffs.

The league said that white police officers post and moderate the site while on duty, sometimes in front of black officers.

On-duty posting contributes to “a racially offensive and hostile employment environment” for black officers, the suit said.

Even the word “domelights,” which normally refers to the police lights on top of cruisers, has taken on an “insulting connotation” among black officers, according to the lawsuit.

The suit cites one posting that reads, “Guns don’t kill people … dangerous minorities do.”




The NAACP is urging people to use their cell phones to report police misconduct.



(excerpt, CNN)



"We know that most of police officers around the nation are excellent public servants. But the few who violate people's rights are often not held accountable," said Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP. "Research has shown that there are many barriers to reporting incidents of police misconduct, including intimidation at police departments and a lack of trust in the integrity of the system, among other reasons. This breakdown leads to an absence of public safety and a deterioration of the quality of life in many communities of color."

The NAACP unveiled the online system Monday at its national convention in New York City. Users can post images from their cell phones or online.

The heat wave continues along with nine employee layoffs

This week, some questions have come to mind that bear some reflection, because answers in this city are sometimes, not always but can be elusive.




Is it the right time to build a new office?



It turns out that amid the threats of employee layoffs and denials of MOU raises and bonus pay, that the city council chambers aren't the only facilities under renovation. At the Magnolia Police Station, construction will begin on the relocation of the watch commanders' office and station into a brand new one at this facility.

Some have asked why the money's being spent on this project when there are freezes in both the department's civilian and sworn ranks and some police cars that need to be replaced before they fall apart on the street.

Not to mention the 80 officers who won't be getting bonus or step up pay or now, officers not getting shift differential pay.

Irony abounds in Riverside during these difficult economic times, beginning at City Hall and apparently branching outward.




How will a slew of retirements at the police department impact its supervisory levels: A manager speaks.


One department representative, Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel, of field and investigative operations, who attended the meeting on July 14 said that the officer to sergeant ratios remain at about 5.3 to 1 according to figures from the department's Audit and Compliance Bureau and are the best the department has ever seen, down from the previous 5.8 to 1. However, at least six retirements are expected to have some impact on those ratios although Esquivel said some of the individuals did not work in the patrol division. One of them, Sgt. Orta might be sticking around for another year and apparently the department is hoping Sgt. Don Tauli will stick around as well. If you recall, Tauli was going to originally retire last year but was persuaded to put in another year, which he has planning to retire in December. He's the department's oldest sergeant and has put in over 30 years in law enforcement.

To cope with the retirements during the past two years, the department has been pulling sergeants out of other "special" assignments and been focusing on staffing the patrol division.

Last year, one of these transfers, that of Sgt. Keenan Lambert out of the then-Community Services Division (which Esquivel called "icing on the cake") to return to patrol struck some controversy. Back then, Chief Russ Leach said that the department was trying to decentralize its community policing program to the four different Neighborhood Policing Centers. The department was actually trying to gradually move towards converting to a "precinct" system when the recession hit and this and other dreams were put on mothballs for a while.

The department had been more circumspect about its supervisory ratios lately, than it had been while under its stipulated judgment with the State Attorney General's office. A CPRA request to the department last year asking for supervisory ratios resulted in a letter sent back not by Leach, but by City Attorney Gregory Priamos (who's apparently one of the "cooks" in the kitchen) sending a copy of a power point by consultant Joe Brann used for an audit he did which didn't include the information requested in the CPRA. Whether Priamos was deliberately trying to be misleading or he sent a document he hadn't read or had little knowledge about, is not clear but since then, the ratios released have been the following:


4.5 to 1 Provided by Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis when sitting in the big chair at a city council meeting in June 2008 when Brann gave his final audit. Attempts to get information documenting DeSantis' figure proved to be as fruitful as getting it from the department via the CPRA process. Like with the department, the response was drafted by Priamos. Again whether he meant to mislead or hadn't read in this case, the city's preliminary budget for 2008-09 is not clear.


6 to 1 Provided by Brann in his oral report of audit at that June 2008 meeting.


6.5 to 1 cited recently by several sources.

"We're not supposed to say this but the numbers aren't what they're supposed to be." which was provided by several other sources.




It would be of great use to the public if the police department as part of its annual report from the chief's office (which actually comes out once every five years), it would provide the statistics and some back material including information on how such stats were collected and calculated on the issue of both officer to supervisory ratios and the percentage of watch commanders on all three shifts who are lieutenants. What would be great too is if the police chief or in this case, chiefs could give a presentation at least twice a year on the work being done by its accountability mechanism, the Audit and Compliance Bureau which has become more deeply buried and thus more secretive in its operations in terms of public enlightenment and education than the CIA.



How many positions are frozen in the police department?

About 10% of the department's positions overall are currently frozen, which means they weren't filled with new employees to take place of those who left. About 30 civilian positions are currently frozen and perhaps up to 19 patrol division positions. The city has applied for federal stimulus grant money to fund up to 15 of these positions for three years.

At the supervisory ranks, the following positions are currently frozen:


Captain: 2 (vacated by Dave Dominguez and Mark Boyer)

Lieutenant: 1 (vacated by Pete Villanueva)

Sergeant: 3 (vacated by Leon Phillips (promotion), Lisa Williams (lateral transfer) and Kevin Stanton)


The sergeant positions held by Randy Eggleston, Terry Meyer and Johnny Romo have been filled by Dan Warren, Chad Milby and Julian Hutzler.


The department said that all detective vacancies are filled, the latest promotion being Lisa Johnson. An early 1990s era MOU requires that the department fills vacant detective position.





Why can't the NPC North hold onto an area commander?


This neighborhood center has gone through quite a few area commanders in recent months. There was Lt. Chuck Griffitts who was at the helm for a while and seemed to be well-liked by the area residents but then he was transferred to being a watch commander and replaced by Lt. Vic Williams, the first area commander to be housed at the new division office at the Greyhound Bus Terminal. He was pretty diplomatic to the press about the new digs for the NPC North even though most of the people including the neighboring Internal Affairs Division hated the move at least for a while, with the field division wondering if they were there as "security guards" for the Internal Affairs Division which allegedly kept itself behind locked doors until the NPC personnel arrived. Those in the Internal Affairs Division had to deal with a building that still needed work, some signage and had interior problems and some of them didn't like being housed so closely to a patrol division because they didn't want employees in that division to see the arrival and departure of their investigation witnesses.

Eventually everyone got over it because people do adapt given time (and the city did finally fix up the downtown station a bit) and Williams presumably would have had some time to get to know the residents in his NPC and tackle some of the issues. But that was not to be. Instead, he was transferred out of there to be the area commander of NPC East to replace outgoing Lt. Larry Gonzalez (who enjoyed over three years in his post) and presumably will be sitting in slightly better digs at Lincoln Station given that the NPC East, the city's largest area-wise, doesn't have a station of its own to call home.

But compared to the other three NPCs which have held onto their area commanders (including NPC Central when apparently it seemed for a while that it might lose its newest one, Lt. Bruce Loftus to a stint leading the Communications Bureau), this one has seen much turnover. Why is that? Is it the challenge of dealing with downtown politics? Is it being crammed in the bus terminal with perhaps not their first choice in neighbors? Or is it the management and city trying to find the proper fit, whatever that means?


But it's difficult for community members to meet an area commander, get to know them to work with them and then soon enough, he's gone and someone else new replaces them. You're left wondering, why do the work because in six months to a year, that person will just be gone. So hopefully, the department will figure out what works soon.

Now Lt. Chris Manning has taken the position over to make his own. But for how long, will he too be subjected to being transferred in a year or less? Stay tuned...




The Internal Affairs Division has seen some turnover at its helm too recently, with Lt. Steve Johnson who served there about a year out and Lt. Mike Cook taking over. If he's replaced soon, then the turnover in this







Why cutting shift-differential pay increments might not be a good thing


Recently, information has been provided that in light of the budget cuts, shift-differential pay increments have been cut at the police department including its patrol division. This decision appears to have been made by individuals who are unaware of the history of this city and department going back into the 1990s.

In 1998, four police officers fatally shot Tyisha Miller inside her car, narrowly avoiding shooting each other in the process. One of the facts that came to light out of the shooting that was heard around the world was that all four officers had a combined experience level of about eight years. So when the Mayor's Use of Force Panel which examined this incident and the police department in early 1999 in hopes of issuing recommendations to reform its patterns and practices, one recommendation was to provide more experienced officers on less popular work shifts including early morning (graveyard), weekends and holidays. At the time, senior officers could put in bids for shifts and of course, many gravitated towards working during the days during the "work" week. In other words, keeping "bankers' hours" or as close to it as possible.

The department's initial response to to this recommendation was to promote more than a dozen officers to be detectives only instead of being sent to investigation units, the majority of them would be assigned to work patrol shifts such as graveyard and weekends. Because detectives start at a base level higher than that of officers, in a sense for at least some of them (discounting the financial impact of over-time worked as officers) would earn more money so in a sense, there were shift-differential pay increases to increase the experience level on these less popular work shifts. After this one action, a former department management employee said that most shifts boasted having 50% of their assigned officers bringing more than five years patrol experience apiece.

Later on, shift-differentials were given to officers who worked night and early morning shifts and provided incentives for more experienced officers to work shifts that were considered undesirable, in part in hopes of diversifying the work experience on a shift and causing a decrease in polarization in shift assignments between more experienced and seasoned officers and the newer, less experienced ones. Cutting that incentive pay as the city has done or plans to do might reverse this trend back to where it could cause the same imbalances which contributed to at least one officer-involved shooting in April 2003 where the two officers had three years work experience between them and the details of that shooting which took at least one year for the department to investigate reflect a lack of experience and seasoning by the two officers including the one who allowed his patrol car to be stolen by the man they were chasing.

That incident allegedly took place on an early Sunday.

So there's concern that if shift-differentials are removed from the equation that might impact the experience level on early morning and weekend shifts. Currently, week day shifts are more skewed towards experienced officers with more newer and inexperienced officers working on the weekends. Without shift differentials, will that increase? And if so, what will the impact be?







Another city councilman got arrested. This time in Grand Terrace from voting to put the city's legal ads in his wife's own newspaper.


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

The arrest came just hours after Jim Miller attended a Tuesday night City Council meeting and voted on the fate of embattled Acting City Manager Steve Berry, who was accused by the Sheriff's Department seven years ago of embezzlement and fraud in connection with the tinting of windows at city buildings by a jail work release inmate.

"How did this perfect little quaint, quiet city turn into a cesspool?" Grand Terrace Councilman Walt Stanckiewitz said by phone Wednesday. "Why is this going on? I'm at the end of my rope with it."

Stanckiewitz said he does not expect the council to press for a resignation from Jim Miller, who has served since 2004 and would face re-election in 2012.

"If it is a legal matter, that will need to be resolved" before Jim Miller's status on the council is addressed, Stanckiewitz said. "I think that's how our justice system works."

Despite a sea of turmoil surrounding them, three planning commissioners in Murrieta received new terms of service


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

Butler, Cohen and Goodman were unanimously appointed, and commissioners voted 4-1 and 3-2 to appoint Long and Daigle, respectively.

When the selection process was over, both council and commission applicants hailed it. .

"While I was initially nervous, the selection process turned out to be a very good thing," said Cohen, who was applying for his post for the third time in three years. "I thought the process was helpful for them to get to hear more about the candidates than they would've heard otherwise."

The council on April 21 voted 4-0, Randon Lane absent, on sweeping changes to how they selected the commissioners, opting for an entire council panel interview session as opposed to voting on the finalists selected by a City Council subcommittee, and voting to institute a training program for the commissioners.

They also placed all five seats up for reappointment, which prompted former Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick and Vice Chairwoman Barbara Lupro to resign. Long also withdrew his application, but resubmitted it after officials addressed some of his concerns about the timing of wholesale changes to the city's chief planning documents.

One city council member is fighting in Norco to have that city directly elect its mayor.



(excerpt, Press Enterprise)

n Norco, as in a majority of California's cities, the mayor is a largely ceremonial position which council members take turns filling, usually on an annual basis.

The alternative is that candidates run specifically for the mayor's job, which holds varying degrees of power in different cities. In Riverside, the elected mayor is the city's spokesperson and a liaison for residents but doesn't have a vote on council matters.

Sullivan, who left the council in 2007 after two terms, said he believes Norco would benefit from a sort of hybrid mayor -- someone who would head the council and basically run the city, but could delegate work to a city administrator.

Norco's council now uses a city manager to run day-to-day operations such as services and finances.

Sullivan believes the current system gives the city manager too much power to set the agenda, and he said he's heard from residents that they don't know who to go to when they need something done.

With an elected mayor, Sullivan said, "They (would) have someone that they feel like is in charge that speaks for the city, that they can go to and get some action."