City Councilman Paul Davis to Ask Questions about City Management?

[Riverside Councilman Paul Davis is preparing to ask some serious questions about the conduct of City Manager Brad Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis in response to concerned ward residents. Will he have any support for doing that on the dais? ]




Press Enterprise columnist, Dan Bernstein wrote this column which included an excerpt about Riverside Councilman Paul Davis who's been receiving missives from his ward residents complaining about the involvement of city council's own personnel in the guns, badges and cold plates scandals. Bernstein included an emailed response from Davis to one email writer as seen below.


(excerpt)


Riverside Councilman Paul Davis' e-mailed reply to "Disgusted Ward 4 Constituent" who wants to get rid of the Glockstars, Hudson and DeSantis:

I am embarrassed and angered at how those City leaders have handled themselves... I have taken steps to begin the process of bringing this to the full council... Mayor Loveridge and I will be meeting...





It's about time someone on the dais actually had anything to say about the embarrassing scandals which have shaken the public's trust in City Hall and the police department. News about the recent badges, guns and cold plates scandals have reached outside of Riverside and it's interesting to be asked by people outside the city, regarding what the hell is anyone in leadership doing to keep their direct employees in line or at least prevent them from engaging in disturbing and even illegal conduct. In Riverside, you have city management employees who had been equipping themselves like police officers in violation of state law and when it came to light earlier this year, the city council and mayor had nothing to say about the issue. In fact, they appeared to pretend that nothing unusual let alone unseemly had taken place at all. Perhaps they were thinking that the Riversiders who were very upset about what happened would cool down about it hopefully before the election cycle in 2011.

That's not taking place as candidates are already lining up to run against incumbents with more thinking about it and people are still expressing concerns and asking questions about what has been taking place and just as importantly, the incidents that happened and haven't come to public light yet. It's more than probable that if the status quo set by the city council and mayor continue, that Riverside's dais will see four new faces next year. Riverside's residents want leaders who are accountable and who will hold their employees accountable when they engage in unethical and even illegal conduct. But that's not been taking place at City Hall at least not in Riverside even as the frustration among city residents has been growing.

People talk about the scandal happening in Bell and how outrageous it is what money's being paid to all but one of its city council members and some of its employees including the city manager and police chief. And yes what's unfolding there thanks to the diligent work of the Los Angeles Times is absolutely outrageous. But guess what, residents of the poor city of Bell are amassing at city council meetings to express their outrage to the point where the fire marshal (and his salary wasn't included on the list) had to threaten to shut the public meeting down. Bravo to the people in Bell for standing up to this corruption and nonsense in their City Hall. That's as it should be.


And the city council members responded by asking for the resignations of their high-priced employees but the city council should follow suit and resign as well because after all, who approved these salaries in the first place? And who ensured that they would be paid out to these employees until they got caught? But it's more than likely that even after making this move, none of these elected officials who were making close to $100,000 annually through their part-time positions will be elected to future terms of office. Scandals like these when they come to light and are seen as being outrageous as they are have a way of galvanizing people to act through the political tools that are available to them including the vote.


But what's happened in Riverside as revealed by the media is different but no less outrageous. What's happening in Bell may or may not be illegal and who knows, it's definitely worth looking for any illegal conduct there given how money's being spent to benefit a few people in what amounts to a municipal fiefdom there. But it's arrogance and a sense of entitlement by elected officials and their direct employees in Bell that led to that outrageous conduct which no doubt these same individuals worked hard to keep secret and to prevent the public they purportedly served from finding out.

In Riverside, that same arrogance and entitlement has led to behavior that involved the violation of state laws including the distribution of flat badges, cold plates and the sale of guns to city management employees by an agency not legally licensed to do so. Why did individuals like Hudson and DeSantis clearly believe they were above the law? Not once but at least three times between 2005 not long after their arrival to July 2007 when they attracted outside investigations with their conduct? Why were city officials praising Hudson to the media as the best ever, even knowing about this highly questionable conduct at the latest, when they were briefed by their legal team on the city's position on the lawsuits filed by former police lieutenants Tim Bacon and Darryl Hurt? Yes, the scandals started appearing in the Press Enterprise several days after its retrospective on Hudson's five year tenure as city manager but those who praised Hudson would have known or should have known about the guns, badges and cold plates scandals because of the lawsuits and their defense against them as outlined by Priamos. They just didn't think that the public was ever going to find out all about them.

So while Bell's city residents have to deal with the reality of what's finally unfolding there, Riverside's residents have to address what's happened in Riverside and has come to light involving this scandalous behavior. And what's been playing out in the public arena in the past few months has generated a lot of anger in Riverside's city residents.

The police department and its employees unfairly bore the brunt of the criticism for decisions made by City Hall and the department's upper management. And like the overpaid city employees of Bell, some of these people have left or are leaving with generous pensions that are either the same or greater than what they might have been otherwise. The only individual whose pension will be less is soon to be Sgt. Leon Phillips, the watch commander who drove Leach home after his DUI incident on Feb. 8. Which sends the same message that's being sent in Bell which is that the buck stops a lot lower than it should when there's trouble, which in the Riverside Police Department was at the supervisor rather than management level and in Bell, it stops far short of the primary people responsible there, the city council.

This is interesting precisely because many people would think that the responsibility of accountability in both City Hall and inside the police department would begin at their highest levels not fall short of that. At least that's what the people in charge of both have said with their mouths. But as we've learned here in Riverside and they'll also learn in Bell, the actions that are taken often have little to do with what's said. It's something that the voters in Riverside have certainly picked up on. It's the elected officials who are a bit slow on the uptake, much more so than their counterparts in Bell.

But the pique is now more focused on individuals at City Hall especially after the revelations of embarrassing conduct by denizens within it. Not to mention that the elected officials have been absolutely silent on the issue including Mayor Ron Loveridge as if they exist in some parallel universe. It would be much better to see the elected officials remember that the voters in Riverside were the ones who put them in office and can pink slip them. And it would be good to see at least one of them step forward and to the plate and start asking questions in public so that the city residents would know that the concerns which have been raised during the past six months are being addressed. It still remains to be seen if that will actually happen or whether the city government collectively will continue to stick its head in the sand over what's happening on their watch.

Because many people are looking at the city government and rolling their eyes at it because they understand that when its direct employees misbehave and get caught at it or even several years later (when the covers slip), it's contingent on those who employ these individuals to act on it. Yet that clearly hasn't taken place on Riverside's dais and one of the most common questions that I'm asked, is why is the city council doing and saying nothing about what's transpired that's put Riverside once again on the national map. One of the major concerns is along similar lines that the city council and mayor will continue to act utterly clueless as if they're living in an alternate dimension as even more misconduct comes to light. Because in Riverside like most places, when it rains, it pours and the current forecast shows more showers on the horizon.

But hopefully if one city councilman has indeed stepped forward on this issue then the others will follow.

Voila,

Two "Missing" At Will Police Management Contracts Reappear!

[Page one of the employment agreement involving John DeLaRosa's appointment to assistant chief in March 2007. This contract resurfaced in City Manager Brad Hudson's hand at a July 13 City Council meeting after not being able to be found three years earlier.]







The city clerk's office provided copies of the "employment agreements" for both Assistant Chief John DeLaRosa and Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel that were drafted in March 2007. These aren't the signed copies as Esquivel testified that he did sign an "at will" contract with the city. But it's interesting how on Esquivel's contract, there's some highlighting on that he will serve solely at the pleasure and will of the police chief. Their positions weren't classified with job protections and they would receive incremental salary increases.


DeLaRosa's proposed annual salary: $173,559.69


Esquivel's proposed annual salary: $165,294.94



Leach had testified in a deposition taken in autumn 2009 that he had been in Washington, D.C. when he learned that the two men had been promoted. He testified that he had chosen them but he seemed surprised to learn of their advancements while thousands of miles away. Many had thought him to be furious at what had transpired in his absence and had believed that he was going to confront the city management on what had happened but that confrontation never took place. Leach appeared at the March 27 city council meeting alongside his boss, Hudson and the other assorted cast of characters who took the stage in front of an audience of police employees and city residents who had packed the council chambers on the issue. Leach later received a sizable pay increase and things became awfully quiet once again. At that moment, he essentially surrendered what little control he had left of the police department.

Leach had also testified in his deposition that he had believed that the assistant and deputy chiefs would be serving at the will of the city management. The concern that this would be the case galvanized activity within both law enforcement associations including a rally in the city council chambers. But by this point, the micromanagement of the police department by the city manager's office was so extensive that it didn't mean as much to state that the two management employees would be serving "at will" to Leach. After while this was going on, Leach and a representative from the State Attorney General's criminal division had been trading letters on the illicit gun sale involving Hudson, DeSantis and the police department as well as the creation and issuance of badges to Hudson, DeSantis and former Asst. City Manager Michael Beck.

It was also around the time that the city might have been doing its cold plating of cars involving to some of these individuals as well as Councilman Steve Adams. So it appears that since Hudson, DeSantis and Adams were able to do as they liked with the police department that they, not Leach, had control of its helm.

Several police unions had sought copies of these contracts beginning in March 2007 but received responses to their requests by Priamos that after a careful search no documents responsive to the requests could be found. No legal citation was provided stating that the documents weren't allowed to be released and this text is vague in that the recipient of the letter doesn't know whether the document really doesn't exist, it got lost or the city just doesn't want the public to access it especially during times it could be embarrassing exposure. With the documents' reappearance and relatively easy ability to access three years after the "at will controversy", it's pretty clear which of the three categories these particular documents fall into and that would probably be that the city just didn't want them to be released. Why?

Because the documents eventual production means that they do and probably did exist in 2007. Plus, it's difficult to believe that they were "lost" because Priamos claimed in his letter that he did a thorough search and these documents are stamped with the address and phone number of his own department which means that they originated in the City Attorney's office. So how was Priamos able to do a diligent search throughout the city and yet missed finding them in his own office?

So yes, using simple deductive reasoning, it's fairly clear that the city didn't want those unions or their attorneys to have access to them or anyone else for that matter even though they were clearly public documents. After all the letters from Priamos didn't include statements that they were not public, just that they couldn't be found. But since three years have passed and it's now 2010 and these contracts are "old news", it's probably deemed much less risky for the city to rather freely and quickly release them to the public now. The time it took to have access to these documents on a request?

Less than two business days. Really, what a difference three years makes and what a disgrace that public documents such as these ones can be drafted, "disappear" and then reappear defying the laws of physics as well as being in defiance of the CPRA as well.




[Letter written by City Attorney Gregory Priamos dated May 11, 2007 that he couldn't find any documents responsive to the CPRA request for the 2007 at will labor agreements for former police employees John DeLaRosa and Pete Esquivel.]




[Excerpt of same letter showing the text that states "no documents responsive" (to your request) could be found. The signature is Priamos'.]





It's a bit surreal to look at contract agreements that had been requested in the spring of 2007 to the city attorney's office but Gregory Priamos had replied back that after a careful search, no documents responding to the request could be found. But again, is that the documents clearly originated from the same office that wouldn't locate them. That's very interesting considering that the contracts that wound up being rediscovered after not being found in 2007 bear the stamp of the department that claimed to be unable to locate them.










[This text barely legible on the left side is the city attorney's office address and phone number. In 2007, this office wrote a letter in response to a CPRA request that it couldn't find this same document.]




But then this is Riverside after all. And in that light, the Mystery of the Reappearing At Will Contracts has apparently been solved.



Amid a sea of controversy over its management and tepid sales, the Riverside downtown Fox Theater announces its fall schedule.




Four Rialto Police Department officers are placed on leave in the wake of a emerging sex scandal.




If you've been following the recent disappearance of teenager, Norma Angelica Lopez, 17, who vanished while walking home from school, a body found in Moreno Valley is "related" to her investigation. Her father allegedly told media outlets that the body has been identified as his daughter.

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Election Year in River City

[Ward One Councilman Mike Gardner already has attracted two female challengers for his seat in 2011.]






[Councilman Steve Adams will be facing off against at least one candidate in next year's election and stumped himself as knowing the "system" as why people should vote for him. The problem is, people already know he knows how to work what many people believe is a broken system, causing serious loss of trust in City Hall.]





It's still only the summer of 2010, just less than one year away from the opening round of Election 2011 for city council seats in Riverside. Yet the candidates are starting to come forward who will be contesting for the four odd-numbered wards that will be up for grabs during that election process. It's already anticipated that it will be an action-packed election cycle in light of the turbulence which has struck Riverside during the past six months. Beginning with the Feb. 8 DUI incident involving former Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach and then continuing on with a series of aftershocks, with epicenters located inside the Seventh Floor of the City Hall building on Main Street in downtown Riverside. The guns, badges and cold plates scandals implicated city management employees not to mention at least one council member who had his city-issued vehicle illegally cold plated.

During times like those which have impacted and tested Riverside as has been the case beginning earlier this year, city residents have watched and often waited to see how the elected leadership in their local governments conduct themselves in times of crisis, the kind caused by one emerging scandal after another.

And from Riverside's very own City Hall has come well...silence. In fact, it's even more than silence. There's a sense that this city's elected leadership from long-time Mayor Ron Loveridge on down that they're actually living in some kind of parallel universe where Riverside's the City of Arts, Culture and Innovation, the Fox Theater is well managed and raking in the dough, the downtown remains the co-capital of the city along with UCR and everything (except the vanishing Green Belt) is "green". Riverside Renaissance doesn't bring with it a bubble of debt that will burst and isn't wrought with allegations of double and triple billing, many service change orders and incidents where city employees have to be sent to fix problems caused by construction on projects done by independent contractors. A police department that's headed by one police chief rather than a team of micromanagers in City Hall who use their few spare moments to deck themselves out like cops even in ways that have violated state laws and have brought the State Attorney General's office's criminal division to Riverside.

The streets are paved with gold, the water splashing in the fountains is champagne and the trees are really lollipops...well you get the picture. Dr. Pangloss of Candide is sitting in his tower next to City Hall and polishing words repeating the mantra that "the shadows are just the spots in a beautiful picture".

The city council and mayor clearly through their actions see a much different reality than many people do in this city including those who are wondering exactly when some leadership will emerge to address the serious problems brought to light by the scandals which have emerged and if that leadership does step forward, where will it come from? And how will the dearth of leadership in this city during times of crisis impact the election cycle involving four city council seats next year? It's already done that because the candidates are emerging in a couple of the wards up for grabs earlier in the cycle than is usual.

But there needs to be a vigorous election cycle in light of how essentially clueless the Riverside elected leadership has acted since Feb. 8. There's been elected officials praising City Manager Brad Hudson as the best city manager ever. Although for Loveridge, he made similar comments about former city manager, John Holmes, so that has to be taken in the proper context. This wasn't long before the guns, badges and cold plates scandals were reported by the Press Enterprise. But it was after these elected officials were cognizant that these illicit actions and the investigations which resulted that they made these comments. Would they have made them if they had known that the guns, badges and cold plates mess were about to emerge in the press, instead of staying buried as the city council clearly had hoped? Would it matter?

But among prospective candidates thinking about throwing their hats in the rings in all four odd-numbered wards, two words have emerged as key issues to run on and they are "accountability" and "transparency", two qualities sorely lacking in City Hall as evidenced by what's come to light this year. There's been discussions of these two issues taking place in many different venues, enough to know that they will likely remain key issues in the election cycle next year. Interesting in light of a City Hall where documents that are requested get destroyed and others can't be found one moment but then three years later wind up being waved in a city management employee's hands.

Still the city council and mayor as a body of elected representatives remain quiet. Even as the questions about the conduct of their direct employees grows. The city's police department is forced to restructure itself again at great cost including six retirements and the hiring of possibly as many as three high tiered employees including a new chief. Money that could have been spent in other areas of the department experiencing heavy personnel shortages. At least $30 million in claims and lawsuits filed against the department in the past several years ranging from the alleged criminal actions of officers, to labor violations including retaliation to wrongful deaths.

Accounts of micromanagement by elements so intense that even small monied items needed by the department including paper clips had to be signed off by DeSantis. Rumors of City Attorney Gregory Priamos and DeSantis having to approve the use of police resources including emergency response teams to incidents as well as directing the actions at situations where fire and police employees have responded to emergencies. If that's the case, then why would the city bother to even hire a police chief at all? If all this was taking place during Leach's tenure, then were was he?

This is one thing the city council and mayor need to keep in mind and the eve of an election cycle is as good a time as any to remind them. That the current state of the police department beginning with its upper management (well what's left of it) doesn't reflect very well the micromanagement it's faced from City Hall include from its city management. The hefty bills which will be paid to rebuild the department from what's happened to it since 2005 should serve as enough of a reminder of exactly how much the micromanagement from City Hall has benefited the police department.


None of this is mentioned of course by the incumbents interviewed for this article which isn't surprising because as stated earlier, they clearly live in an alternate universe where in that version of Riverside, all this never happened. Councilman Steve Adams in particular shows just how out of touch he is with reality by claiming that people should vote for him because he understands the "system". Well of course he has, he's exploited it by getting cold plates on a city-issued car which is illegal and allegedly getting involved in the police department's promotional process involving at least several captains even though he's not the police chief. And what Adams doesn't realize is that using the #1 excuse that incumbents give for deserving to be reelected, meaning they understand the system and the challengers don't, isn't going to win him many votes because many voters including those in his ward believe the "system" is broken and mired with scandal and needs to be replaced

Speaking of elections, there's some campaign kickoffs taking place in both the first and seventh wards coming up soon.

Ward Seven candidate John Brandriff is holding a campaign kickoff on Wednesday, Aug. 4 from 6 p.m-9 p.m. at Kountry Folks Restaurant located on 3653 La Sierra. He's the first declared candidate who will face off against incumbent Steve Adams next year although other rumored candidates including once again, Terry Frizzel and Jim Martin who have both ran for this position before during earlier election cycles. Adams was first elected in 2004 and will be seeking his third term in office. Last time out, he narrowly eked out a 13 vote victory running against Frizzel after the two of them received more votes against other candidates without achieving the majority required to win outright.




Two women have not officially declared in the first ward's election which will pit any contenders against incumbent, Mike Gardner who was elected in 2007. Marisa Yeager of the Democratic Women's Club is seeking financial support for an alleged bid at office and is seeking backing from many of those who had been backers of former Councilman Dom Betro. That group of political power brokers had searched far and wide to persuade a candidate to run against Gardner in 2011. So far, at least one city union is flirting with the idea of endorsement but it's too early for most of the city's labor unions to commit to city council candidates. Another woman is allegedly set to run against Gardner and is preparing to kick off an election bid as well as a well-heeled male candidate.

Given the multitude of issues impacting Ward One which includes the downtown area, not to mention with the latest round of plans impacting Tequesquite Park involving a proposed project there, this is likely to be one of the most heated contests as it had been in 2007. Yeager has already been picking up quite a bit of political support and some say the financial backing will quickly follow.

The other female candidate, Dvonne Pitruzzello, a former city employee and current teacher is also announced her running and will be kicking off her election soon.

There will be plenty of more elections to report on as the official competition still has months until it gets started. But the flurry of candidates coming forward, all pushing for greater accountability and transparency inside City Hall should be a phenomenon that City Hall pays greater attention to because these are messages that are going to resonate with the large wedge of voters in Riverside who are currently undecided in all four wards. There are people also planning to run in Wards Three and Five but they haven't officially announced yet.







[The Police Department's administrative headquarters on Orange Street in downtown Riverside has a new chief who presumably will soon have his name painted on this front door if it hasn't been done already.]

Someone alerted me to this message at Pe.com. I will address this individual's comments in a future expansion on the issue of women in the RPD.



Hopefully there will be a new lieutenants and sergeants list.

Funny how there is a blogger who crys for the promotion of more females. Got news for ya, just because you're a female, it doesn't mean you should get promoted. And just because you test well, it doesn't mean you're the most qualified. Many agencies lack females within their ranks. It is what it is.




This anonymous poster is absolutely right. It is what it is. And should you get promoted just because you're a man anymore than a woman? Because he or she just mentions that they are women and nothing else. They're just "females" not even "female officers".

I agree that there should be more to the promotional process than testing and clearly that's the case in terms of the relative use of the lists. But what's kind of funny is that when women didn't test as "well", the lists seemed more important then than they are now and it's a bit sexist that this is the only reason women were promoted as opposed to the men? But there's plenty more to write on this subject, so thanks for the feedback. It's always helpful so pass me a handkerchief, I'll need it before I blog on this issue again!

And it's not just women who have tested "well" and been passed over either, it's men. But yes, being a woman I'm definitely interested in how women fare in the RPD because women have asked me if they should apply there or the Riverside County Sheriff's Department? Which would be more welcoming to them? Where are the women and what positions do they hold (as that question comes up) and what do I do if I'm sexually harassed, does the complaint process work? Issues like that often come up in discussions of women pursuing law enforcement along with others about schedules, family leave and similar issue labors which impact women.

I wonder how this anonymous poster would answer those questions. Because they're common ones and they comes up quite a bit among young women interested in law enforcement. Hopefully, they are ones that Diaz can answer as well. And call it sexist but a lot of the answers to that question is highly dependent on how female officers fare in the RPD or the Sheriff's Department or any agency for that matter including the LAPD which is about 19 percent female.

It's like when men who go into female dominated professions like nursing and some levels of teaching often ask if different institutions that hire within those professions are welcoming to men. Men ask questions there like do male nurses advance into supervisory positions or are there glass ceilings? Questions like these often arise among the minority gender in a profession that's overwhelmingly one gender over the other. As they should be asked because that's how more equitable workplaces are ultimately built over time. And yes, judging by some of the feedback I've received since I've first written on this issue, the RPD has some hard work to do before its attrition rate of women will be somewhat less higher than those of its men. From the recruitment process to what happens in the academy, to field training programs to the first several years of a female officer's career where attrition rates are highest. As a woman, these issues do concern me and I've never been shy about that.

But the department also has to work on its attrition rate overall as well.




Press Enterprise Columnist Dan Bernstein interviews the new police chief, Sergio Diaz. Which was very interesting because even though he's been chief for several weeks, there's people asking how independent and effective of a chief is he going to be allowed to be. He brings in some high qualifications and some very high endorsements including from the Southern Californian branch of the American Civil Liberties Union which worked with him on various police/community issues while he was deputy chief (having been promoted after the controversial May Day 2007 incident). But Riverside's City Hall is coming off a history of micromanaging police chiefs and leading that pack has been City Manager Brad Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis.

The city recently settled two lawsuits filed by former lieutenants Tim Bacon and Darryl Hurt in hopes of preventing city residents from finding out just how extensive this behavior turned out to be. But the revelations of the badges, guns and cold plates scandals did provide some major clues. The only ones who can prevent the city management team from continuing this pattern and practice of behavior is the city government, meaning the city council and the mayor and will they exercise the fortitude and leadership to do so? Indications don't appear all that strong given their long silence on the problems that have impacted City Hall and the police department.

But it's not going to be too difficult to tell an independent acting chief with his own viewpoints and vision from one who's not by watching carefully his interactions with City Hall and most importantly the communities. When in full micromanagement mode, Hudson and DeSantis have most often curtailed or restricted the access of micromanaged employees like former Chief Russ Leach and former Community Police Review Commission Manager Pedro Payne from even attending community meetings or interacting with community leaders or members not on the approved list of Hudson and DeSantis. If you're not on that list, like myself which I can definitely live with, you pick up on these things much more quickly than if you get the gold card. Very few people not receiving "E" tickets to see the last chief, Leach, didn't see him very much during the last 18 months to two years of his tenure as chief whereas they had earlier in his chief's tenure. Though many of his own employees didn't see him either.

If they met with him, it had to take place under the radar of Hudson and DeSantis. Payne was forbidden from attending meetings not too long before his "resignation" which took place after a heated argument between him and DeSantis at a meeting in December 2006. But it will be interesting if some of the organizations who criticized Hudson and DeSantis such as the Eastside Think Tank will be allowed to have as good access to the new chief as they did with the past one given that this organization has been highly critical of the Hudson/DeSantis regime. That will be one way to tell whether Diaz is given relatively free rein or is more tightly controlled by his bosses.

So it will at least in this respect become fairly evident if Diaz is allowed to be a chief who's heavily involved in community interaction which wasn't the case with Leach after 2005 and especially during his last two years. That will be an important sign to watch when evaluating the autonomy of the new police chief within the city structure. And as stated earlier, it will be easiest for individuals like myself to pick this one out, not being on the city management's party list.

Diaz raised two important points and that is that the police department is able to readily handle its primary responsibilities on responding to calls for service and following up with detective support. This is because even in the past few months, the majority of the police department's civilian and police employees have acted professionally and done their jobs in difficult circumstances. He addresses the problems as being a lack of leadership at the levels of sergeant to captain and that's in line with the department's problems involving a lack of real infrastructure including leadership, leadership accountability and the practice of creating future departmental leaders at the different ranks.

For one thing there's a dearth in leadership by numbers since the three supervisory and/or management ranks are low in numbers, some critically low. Those shortages will impact the effectiveness of leadership both in terms of its ability to lead due to shortage and also because of the impact on ongoing supervisory and management shortages on individual leaders and their development. But what really destroyed leadership including management within the RPD was the intensive and some say cutthroat environment which became the norm after changes were made in several promotional processes within including at the captain's level in 2005 or earlier.

The promotional processes for both lieutenant and sergeant would later undergo similar changes which led to frustration for those at the top of those lists to see individuals as low as #6 (Andy Flores, in February 2010) and #11 (Leon Phillips in July 2008) get the spots instead, not to mention a promotion earlier of a lieutenant's candidate from the bottom of the the list. The ones passed over including three female lieutenant candidates (in the top five) and two female sergeants, along with several high-ranking African-American candidates on both lists were told that the person chosen had that certain "something" without being told what this quality was by those doing the promoting. Sounds like something out of a Clarol commercial. Some people who ranked high on the list opted out of the process altogether believing they didn't have that "something" which some said consisted of having close personal ties with whoever did the promoting.

Qualities like being drinking buddies or vacation pals with the leadership became the ones to emulate to move up in the ranks whereas others said that in some cases, officers who didn't treat female officers or women in particular well also moved up in what one source once employed there called an environment where sexual harassment of women became the norm or that special "something". Was that true? It's hard to say but the RPD has had tremendous difficulty retaining female officers at all levels. Two female officers, Sgt. Linda Byerly and Lt. Melissa Bartholomew broke lengthy droughts in the promotions of women into supervisory positions going back to 2005 for supervisors and 2004 for lieutenants. But there's one caveat still attached, given that no female promoted into supervision since Sgt. Michelle Jackson in 2004 has passed probation. As of recently, there were no female field training officers, down from the handful that the department's had in preceding years. Marginal progress for female officers at different levels began during the stipulated judgment with the state attorney general's office and then stopped after it was dissolved until just recently.

It was interesting what Diaz said about outgoing Chief John DeLaRosa who's retiring after over 30 years in the department in the wake of his involvement in the mishandling of the Leach DUI incident. There had been some concern among individuals that Diaz would rely too heavily on information received from DeLaRosa to evaluate officers within the department. It's useful that he did brief extensively with DeLaRosa but hopefully this was balanced by similar conversations with a variety of different people within different ranks of the police department. One reason why is the reality that the police department had been fractured in recent years by a dynamic of teams, meaning that different officers "belonged" on different teams which were in intense competition with one another and which team had the edge depended largely on who was at the helm.

For example, "Team Leach" had the edge while Leach was police chief and went into opposition with "Team DeLaRosa" which then had the edge over "Team Leach" when Leach medically retired and DeLaRosa became acting chief. And it's been interesting to watch how members of "Team DeLaRosa" have fared compared to those not on the team. The risk is that by depending too much on DeLaRosa as a source of information on officers, it would increase the perception or actual risk of receiving favorable information on "DeLaRosa" team members and not those not on his team or not on any team.

And we've seen how non-"DeLaRosa" team members have fared in recent months including some of those passed over on the top positions of the lieutenant and sergeant promotional lists particularly during the first round of supervisory promotions in early February along with what's happened to former Deputy Chief Pete Esquivel, a competitor of DeLaRosa, who saw his career end in the wake of threatened internal investigations by DeLaRosa and Internal Affairs head, then Capt. Mike Blakely (who mentored DeLaRosa). Det. Chris Lanzillo clearly wasn't a "DeLaRosa" team member either and saw his 18 year career end with the department within several months of confronting DeLaRosa during a roll call bull session and then suing him along with the city.

But if Diaz is astute which he appears to be then it would be likely that he went to different individuals within the department for feedback on officers within the department. Because what really needs to be removed from the department before any effective leadership can be built at any level is this whole "team" concept which was fostered under Leach. And with several of them high up in promotional lists for lieutenant and sergeant, one wonders what their fate will be when those positions are filled through promotions in the next few weeks or months. Given especially that none of them are likely people who were praised by DeLaRosa during his informational sessions with Diaz.

In fact, DeLaRosa moved Sgt. Jaybee Brennan (#1 on the lieutenant's list) and Sgt. Lisa Williams (#3 on the same list) out of the Orange Street Station not long before Diaz' arrival. The argument had been to fill staffing shortages but Williams was actually replaced not long after by a male sergeant who's sandwiched between the two women on the lieutenant's list and had been on the promotional list for 8-9 years. Brennan had been busy authoring the first draft of the Strategic Plan 2010-2015 which officially is on ice for an undetermined amount of time. But rumor is, that the objective in the plan to diversify the RPD through all its ranks to be reflective of the communities it serves was excised even before reaching City Hall where it wasn't expected to survive to the final draft anyway.

It still comes down in the end to whether a chief with strong qualities and leadership skills can really thrive in Riverside under the current political climate. That's a huge issue that has to be examined and watched over time but the signs will be flagging green, yellow or red fairly quickly after the "honeymoon" period's over and Hudson and DeSantis are clearly informed by their bosses yes or no on micromanaging another police chief. And those of us who are non gratis to Hudson and DeSantis and rightfully so, will be among the first to know which way this tenure's going and who's in control. Hopefully, Diaz will be allowed to use his skills in the way that's best for the department and the communities it serves.

But anyway it's still early and the city's still in watch mode to see how Diaz tenure unfolds and how much autonomy he will enjoy in the position. Only time and keen observation can do that.




Development darling Mark Rubin unveiled the second major condo-turned-rental-housing in downtown Riverside in the past several years. He and his wife are leaving Beverly Hills and coming to live in one of his condos smack in downtown, not to mention Ward One. Does this mean that there might be another candidate in the Ward One race? Interesting because it's rumored that a downtown millionaire man is thinking about running. Is it Rubin? Only time will tell.



Riverside County issues a multi-million dollar settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit related to its Sheriff's Department. It's a reduction of the 2009 jury's verdict.



The state needs to reinvest in college education states two heads of local state universities. And are digital libraries the wave of the future?




Boeing finally debuts its dreamliner aircraft.

Pay Attention to What's Behind the Curtain

"Just how much do we pay these two guys? I know it is over 6 figures each and yet they couldn't even cough up to buy their own glocks and holsters. My wife is a school teacher making a lot less, and she buys all kinds of stuff for her job from her own pocket. The reason it is important for us to look at their behavior with the guns, badges, cold plates, weapons permits, shredding documents asked for in a public records requst, is this.... if we can't trust them to do the right thing when no one is looking on this stuff, how can we trust them with the billions of tax payer dollars being spent with Riverside Renaissance? I think is was a mistake for the council to turn over so much power and oversight to these people."


----"Guest", Press Enterprise





Our values lie in a government that helps its citizens in a timely way to obtain information. Our values lie in a broadening base of public participation, involvement and interest, providing new ideas and energy.
Our values lie not in hiding embarrassment and unpleasant occurrences. Our values lie not in preventing dissent.


---Riverside City Charter




To each his own as another blogger chastises the Press Enterprise for essentially doing its job as a media outlet which is to report the news including that which happens in Riverside. This was in response to the series of articles the publication did on the guns, plates and badges scandals that they wrote after conducting interviews and researching documents including sworn testimony by various figures at City Hall and inside the police department. Then the publication wrote articles and editorials on what it called the city's "spotty" record in complying with public document requests. It did so because it didn't receive copies of all the documents it received through requests under the state's public's record act. If the city had complied with those requests as required by law, then it's more than probable there wouldn't have been coverage of this issue including the disappearance and probable destruction of documents at City Hall.

The blogging raises some interesting points and certainly has the right to criticize the press but doesn't really poise a convincing argument on why city residents shouldn't be concerned about what's transpired in the city and has come to light in recent press coverage. It doesn't offer a viable alternative to the choice to push for better accountability and transparency inside Riverside's City Hall in the light of the events of the past few months and even longer. It essentially tells people to just accept what's happened because look at all the good these people do, which is the most oft used excuse used in cases when corruption and wrongdoing in the public sector come to light. In fact, the city leaders in Bell California are using the same excuses to justify their monstrous salaries they earn or pay their employees.

It labels legal violations involving gun sales as "naivete" by seasoned administrative employees saying that the newspaper's painting a much worse picture than things really are. Well, because this person knows it to be true and has sworn under God. That's well and good and the city management is fortunate to have such a loyal supporter in its corner but the tentative argument that public officials have the right to arm and equip themselves like officers even in ways that circumvent the law and then hide that fact from the public might be a bit difficult to sell in the current climate in Riverside.

The version of the "truth" that the Press Enterprise wrote is viewed as being worse than the reality by this blogger, yet there's not much in the way of support material provided to contest what the Press Enterprise has presented in its series of articles on some disturbing incidents that took place inside City Hall. These events took place between 2005 and 2008, including those which attracted the attention of criminal investigators from the State Attorney General's office. Having reviewed quite a bit of documentation including that involving those scandals, it's provided a bit of foundation to understand that it's quite possible that what the Press Enterprise diligently reported is but a tip of a very big iceberg. Meaning if what's reported is disturbing (and many city residents did agree), then what is going on that hasn't been reported? It would have been interesting to see this blogger explain further why he or they don't believe that what's come to light is an issue that should concern city residents and any supportive material he or they might have to delineate that thesis.

In the meantime, questions are still being asked and concerns are being raised at least in this corner of the universe, outside the shadow of City Hall. It's one thing to swear before God that people are really sincere and nice. It's another to try to sell alternate ways of looking at the recent transgressions simply because they involve powerful individuals at City Hall. This isn't actually about whether people are "nice" or not. This is about what kind of behavior is being engaged in at City Hall when no one appears to be watching in light of what's come to light when attention has been paid to it.


Are the guns, badges and cold plates scandals isolated events, or part of a larger pattern and practice of problematic behavior and decision making at City Hall? That's a question that this blogger runs into very often from those who have been following what's been happening and to say that people are concerned is a bit of an understatement at this point. It's a bit condescending to tell people that it's much ado about nothing...just because. The Press Enterprise no doubt spent hours, days and weeks working on its stories and had to resort to hiring attorneys to try to obtain documents that should have been available to them upon requests because there are state laws in place that dictate so. Were those laws followed, is another question on the growing list of them.

Was it right for the city to thwart the attempts of reporters to uncover the truth about what's going on, that which others might have wanted to keep hidden? Was it for or against the interest of the people, meaning city residents, that City Hall is supposed to serve to keep all this hidden for several years, preferably forever or at least until it became "old news". Was it instead in the best interests of a select group of players at City Hall to keep everyone else in the dark? And doesn't City Hall realize that by doing so, it feeds into the nature of humans to become even more curious? After all, when you're essentially being told not to look behind the curtain isn't it natural to want to take a better look?

What the Press Enterprise is doing investigative reporting and writing about what happens in this city including inside its halls of power. To this, I saw bravo because that's the media's job as the fourth estate is to report on the news including what's being done by local government and it's not like the reporters and their editors and publishers of this publication have had to look too hard or wide to find plenty to write about involving City Hall. It's hardly the media's fault that the news coming out of the 'Hall just isn't so good lately. Tales of illegal actions ranging from creating and issuing badges, to illicit guns sales to the destruction or denial of public records are what's taking place on the Fifth and Seventh Floors of the publicly owned headquarters for the city's government.

Is the press supposed to ignore it because it's being done by what one media outlet calls "nice people" under oath to God? And being in the media doesn't spare you from attacks by "crazy" or upset people either as the Press Enterprise's lobby is manned by security personal to screen anyone who enters presumably to protect its employees. The publication that I wrote for, the Black Voice News, received numerous anonymous threats and had over 20 of its news racks seized by the city upon the order of City Hall and was singled out as the only publication in Riverside required to purchase a $1 million insurance policy. Most likely, for not writing what the city wanted people to read. Later, the publication settled a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court with the city of Riverside.

Inland Empire Weekly was pulled from the downtown main library several years ago after running several critical articles on Riverside's City Hall including its banishment of several code enforcement workers to a metal shack at the city's corporate yard after they filed grievances against the city. Public inquiry led to its restoration soon after.

Politics isn't the only profession that can be dangerous or where people can be attacked.

Many reporters, which this blogger did refer to, have been victims of threats and others have been kidnapped, murdered and tortured in many different countries around the world from Colombia to Iraq to Mexico to the Philippines. I knew a woman who as a little girl in Guatemala saw her father get grabbed from his home late one night by military guards working for the Guatemalan government and he was never seen again. But then hundreds of thousands of people died in countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras, their bones the only testaments to what they endured when they were uncovered years later in mass graves to be identified. Editors and publishers in these and other countries were subjected to having their offices bombed or being killed for reporting what happened in their countries. Do these reporters carry firearms or would it help them to do so? That might be an individualized decisions in their cases.


It's likely that the first woman's father lie in one of those unmarked mass graves simply for being a journalist. Another girl I went to school with lost her father, an NBC cameraman who among with others including a congressman was ambushed and murdered by members of Jim Jones cult in Guyana at an airstrip. From what witnesses said, even while badly injured, he filmed what happened around him until a cult member came and killed him with a final gunshot to the head. People were shocked including students because no one saw that side of journalism where one's life could end abruptly on an airstrip in a country thousands of mile away from home.

Back at the compound, over 900 people drank the fatal Kool-aid and fed it to their children. Ironically, the delegation sent to Guyana hadn't planned to file any complaints against Jones about the conditions of the compound.




[One of the last images taken by NBC cameraman Bob Brown before his murder in Guyana by members of Jim Jones cult who drove up in that tractor trailer. The man standing there is one of the men who fired shots as seen in this video (which depicts the shootings).]



Daniel Pearl was beheaded by terrorists who kidnapped him.

It's not always a safe world for reporters either though in the United States, reporters don't have to worry about such violent incidents within this country's borders. But if we keep in mind the politicians who do a dangerous job, then the same applies to the journalists to whom a democratic and free society wouldn't exist either. And guess what? People feel free to criticize both as they should living in a world where people express opinions and ask questions. That's just as it should be. And then what can't be forgotten are the other professions that are necessary for a democratic and free society as well that are even more risky than either politics or journalism.

Let's just toss out the straw man argument made by the blogger that reporting on what goes on in City Hall in anyway makes you responsible for anything remotely close to the 1998 shooting at City Hall which had nothing to do with the media writing about City Hall or even city residents coming down and criticizing it. I remember that morning quite well as I was on my way to attend the redevelopment agency meeting on an issue pertaining to the homeless since I co-chaired my church's social action committee and arrived when individuals were being taken out of the council chambers including on stretchers as was at one point, the gunman himself. I had seen the gunman attend city council meetings several times before and he never went up to the podium and spoke on any issue including his termination from his part-time job with the city. He mainly stood in the back of the room quietly as others said including at the trial.

I also attended part of that criminal trial (which included surveillance video footage of part of what transpired) which led to Neale's conviction on multiple attempted murder and weapons charges landing him a sentence of life in prison up in Pelican Bay State Penitentiary. Several of his victims never fully recovered from their injuries, requiring multiple surgeries and being forced in one case to retire. The only elected official left from that era was Mayor Ron Loveridge as others retired or were voted out of office. And some of the police officers who saved their lives have left the department since that day as well including then Lt. Darryl Hurt who was part of the make-shift emergency response team that the department put together so it could quickly respond to the unfolding emergency. This team was led by the Internal Affairs lieutenant and included individuals including the department's public information officer as not much time could be afforded to put it together given the speed that the incident unfolded early in the morning. They would go on to earn Medals of Valor, law enforcement's highest honor, in 2001.

Hurt would go on to face retaliation in the workplace including by some of those currently at City Hall and would later settle a lawsuit with the city detailing that harassment and retaliation for his activities as the leader of a labor organization. One wonders if the current residents of City Hall remember his actions in that dark morning in 1998.




[Former Lt. Darryl Hurt, one of a team of police officers who risked his life responding to the City Hall shootings in 1998. Later, because of his activities as president of the Riverside Police Administrators' Association, he alleged that he faced retaliation by some including those currently residing at Riverside's City Hall.]




Just to show that the fates of those who responded to the emergency that morning went in disparate directions. That a hero one day, can be seen as a "disgruntled" employee the next as Hurt was labeled by some individuals at City Hall especially after filing a lawsuit against the city.


It was one of the worst mornings and days in Riverside's history and everyone who was at City Hall that morning certainly felt that as well as Riverside. But for the heroic actions, it could have been much worse.

Neale's decision to use a gun to terrorize, harm and try to kill people had nothing to do with being a citizen criticizing city government or the media writing about it, his was an incident of an event that's happened before in this country which is workplace violence.

Workplace violence involving current or former employees (often those who are terminated) has taken place in both the public and private sector and the causes are very different from those involving city residents or media criticizing city government. But workplace violence, much of which is increasingly domestic violence, fortunately is still involved in a very small minority of workplace interactions that take place in both the private and public sectors every day in this country. The overwhelming percentage of workers in both labor areas do not engage in violent behavior.

The most devastating example in terms of loss of life took place when David Burke fired for petty theft from U.S. Airways bypassed security with his work credentials (which weren't confiscated) and got a gun on an airplane where he possibly confronted and killed the president of the company and possibly then the two pilots of the aircraft causing 43 people to be killed. Neale's violent acts fit in this category when you compare and contrast his incident with similar events.

But anyway, straw men aside, the blog posting in a sense brings up the issue of what's the role of media outlets like the Press Enterprise are supposed to do when allegations of corruption and illegal behavior by denizens of leadership and management positions are brought to them or they uncover suspicions that such has taken place. They can ignore them and try to counter what's going on by pointing to a shiny object and saying, "let's focus on this instead". It's not like that never did happen in the past several years on many serious issues impacting City Hall. Though the publication was undergoing some serious hemorrhaging like many print publications were during the recession which along with the internet hit print journalism severely. The Press Enterprise either bought out or laid off most of its experienced journalists in the past several years.

In fact, one of the few remaining veterans with the publication is David Danelski who covered the Riverside City Hall beat around the time of the 1998 City Hall shootings and was reassigned to Riverside at least to cover more stories, many of which involved City Hall. With his assignment, the timbre of coverage of local government began to change markedly which shouldn't be surprising given his background. The Feb. 8 DUI incident involving the former Riverside police chief catalyzed more focus on the aftermath of that incident because frankly, the reading public including many city residents demanded it.

I was interviewed by Danelski about what transpired at the city council meeting this week involving the Mystery of the Reappearing At Will Contracts. The same contracts being waved around by Hudson as being available were unable to be found by City Attorney Gregory Priamos as being unable to be found, after one of the police associations had to pay an attorney to try to obtain what anyone should have easily received as a public document under the California Public Records Act and under the city charter's amendment 201 that was passed by over 90% of the city's voters in November 2004. City residents, labor unions and everyone else have the legal right to this public information.

How any journalist can defend individuals or define them or their behavior as "good" for not releasing public documents is difficult to understand. But then that's the dangers of being too personally close to the individuals the public entrusts you to write the "truth" about. It's a difficult road to navigate and it's the individual decision on how to do that.

It's not wrong to be "friends" with people that are part of your beat but you still should keep that apart from what you write if you're going to write the "truth" about government. I've been accused off-handedly of hating this person or that one because I write things that are critical of their actions, which isn't true. The focus on City Hall has involved actions of those inside of it. For example, it can be fascinating to watch a Hudson in action essentially selling used cars to people clearly honed from years of experience at doing at but I'd never buy one from him. And witnessing a city council/management form of government actually pull a reversal in those roles is also very interesting even though the results of that dynamic haven't been healthy for Riverside. How does that type of switch in the balances of power in City Hall come to be?

And to ignore what's been transpiring at the 'Hall because I'm friendly with people there would be to ignore the concerns of the majority of my readership who are very concerned about these issues and about what's going on with their government. You know, the one they helped elect into office as part of one of this nation's most fundamental and vital democratic processes. I don't feel any interest and obligation in doing Riverside's public relation work for it because that city's already hired very talented people at generous salaries to do just that and that's not the role I'd choose. But maybe our respective readerships are very different (not to mention that of the Press Enterprise) in what interests them and there's nothing wrong with that. My readership tends to lean towards those who question city government's actions including those involving the management of the police department that's just been forced to rebuild itself for the second time in a decade. A healthy democracy welcomes that kind of questioning and even criticism and in Riverside, the time is certainly ripe for both from its constituency.

Many city residents including likely many voters have been upset, furious and very concerned by what's transpired in the past few months. Many of these city residents don't have places at the trough at City Hall and many of them don't attend social galas with the denizens of City Hall. Many of them don't spend a lot of time at City Hall or refer to individuals there by their first names. Many people do expect an accountable and transparent government that maintains a healthy infrastructure that provides and promotes jobs and basic services without bankrupting the city's future in a sea of debt. Things like public safety departments, the libraries, the streets, museums and utilities with a process of accountability and transparency attached. It should be seen as a very positive thing that city residents are concerned enough about the very fundamentals of a democratic government to express their opinions on the very undemocratic behavior that has been taking place within its walls. Many people called both the police department and City Hall furious with what's been taking place in the past few months and more and more that displeasure if you'll call it that is centered on those at City Hall and less at the police department which is as it should be.

It's been interesting talking to city residents who've read my blog about how they are upset about what's been unfolding at City Hall and want to become more actively involved in instituting political change in this city for a more accountable and ethical not to mention transparent City Hall. One of the biggest concerns is that the elected officials at City Hall including Loveridge have been pretty much silent on everything that's taken place including disclosed conduct involving their direct employees. Why aren't they saying or doing anything, many a person has asked for good reason. Where is the leadership at City Hall and why is it so quiet is pretty close to begin the top questions asked by readers of both this blog and probably the Press Enterprise as well. It remains to be seen how loudly that question is asked during the pivotal election cycle next year when four city council seats are up for reelection and the candidates are already lined up, with at least two female challengers set to face off against incumbent Mike Gardner in Ward One and it's still early. Not to mention between one to three candidates including John Brandriff ready to compete for the seat currently held by Councilman Steve Adams. Don't be surprised if the elections get a bit crowded next year because Riverside's voters have shown an anti-incumbent bent which has already sent three councilmen to early retirement since 2007.

It's not the Press Enterprise or any media outlet that's led to this tendency of Riverside's voters to fire elected officials including Dom Betro, Art Gage and Frank Schiavone, not to mention narrowly doing the same to Adams. Even current mayoral candidate and former councilman, Ed Adkison opted out of running for reelection in 2007, apparently astute enough to read the political climate in Riverside against the council's GASS/BASS quartet members. The city's watched candidates elected through grass roots campaigns turn into development darlings including Betro which hasn't done much for their political longetivity.



[Current Ward One Councilman Mike Gardner who won in a grass-roots election faces a tougher political climate next year with candidates already lining up to run against him.]






[Councilman Steve Adams narrowly avoided being ousted from his seat by nary a dozen votes in 2007. This time around, he's facing up to three or more political challengers in 2011. ]





But it's this section that I wanted to address specifically as someone who's been following what's been going on with the city's police department for over 10 years including its relationships with the communities of Riverside and city government. What former State Attorney General Bill Lockyer called the tripartate relationship of the stake holders in public safety in this city. I had the opportunity to talk about this in greater depth with Lockyer which was helpful.



(excerpt, The Truth Publication)



But we see above that, we see how they have transformed and made progress to a city in such short period of time. They have made of Riverside a proud town, a modern one. The way the crisis in the Police Department was handled it was a masterpiece of administrative skills. The Renaissance Program is the best thing has taken place in the City of Arts and Renovation. And we strongly support their rights to be well armed for their own protection, despite naïve shortcomings in technicalities.




Let's talk about the "crisis" involving the police department which forced it into in depth reorganization for the second time since 1999. The reorganization last time came as the outcome of the fatal officer-involved shooting of Tyisha Miller and the investigations including by Lockyer's office which resulted from that critical incident. It spent much of its five-year period of the city's stipulated judgment with Lockyer's office undergoing that process from top to bottom which was pretty exhaustive not to mention expensive. Seriously whoever would have thought before Feb.8, 2010 that the department would be facing the same situation, different critical incident again? But if you go back and reexamine what had been taking place including the revelations that came to light in part because of lawsuits filed by two former lieutenants including the aforementioned Hurt, what happened was pretty much inevitable. As it turned out, due to what has transpired within the past five years and likely even earlier than that, the department itself lived on borrowed time that finally ran out on the early morning hours of Feb. 8, 2010.

It's certainly not going to make many people happy at City Hall to hear that but it's the truth, the real truth and there's plenty of documentation including that of which City Hall tried to keep under wraps to support that position. Mel Opotowsky ( a former managing editor of the Press Enterprise) researched and wrote an op-ed piece posted here that I received a lot of feedback on which outlined a chronology of problems that former Chief Russ Leach allegedly had with alcohol. Problems that Hudson and Asst. City Manager Tom DeSantis had to know about and most likely did despite Hudson's assertions that he knew nothing about Leach's problematic drinking and intoxication in public places. Incidents that were reported long before the Feb. 8 incident. Some people have asked, what were Hudson, DeSantis and City Attorney Gregory Priamos (who shortly after Leach's DUI incident reportedly denied alcohol was involved to elected officials) thinking when all this took place?

City management was strongly implicated in the lawsuits that were filed by the two lieutenants, the one that the city recently settled for a sizable amount on the eve of trial in U.S. District Court. That trial was to have taken place on April 20 and the lawsuits filed by Hurt and Lt. Tim Bacon were settled not long before that. The last thing the city wanted in the wake of the Leach incident and its aftermath was to have many of the issues that contributed to the scandal put on public display inside a public forum called a courtroom. The city after all hasn't fared all that well in labor lawsuits including those which have gone to trial in front of a jury. And praising the reorganization of the police department as a "masterpiece of administrative skills" by city management is kind of like praising someone who broke something of great value with patching it back together. Because that's what City Hall did including its masterful city management team was that they did far more damage to the police department than they ever did it any good. If they hadn't micromanaged the police department with a free pass from their employers, the city government for the past five years, then there would have been any need to demonstrative any administrative skills, masterful or mediocre, involving the rebuilding of the police department in the first place.

The city had to pay to retire six employees including at least two medical retirements and to pay up to three high ranking personnel including a chief to come in from the outside. And the city will pay out more in lawsuits related to wrongful termination including in the case of a detective fired not long after criticizing then acting chief, John DeLaRosa in a roll call bull session, by DeLaRosa. If the city had been led and managed competently including its police department, none of this would have been necessary especially so soon after the dissolution of the stipulated judgment.

There's quite a bit of work product (apparently not destroyed or "lost" at City Hall) on the trio of scandals involving badges, cold plates and illicit gun sales, it's provided a foundation to work with when figuring out what went wrong with the handling of the police department. Enough to know that naivete about the technicalities of abiding by state law including when acquiring firearms and permits to carry them is probably not the principal cause of what happened here.

Both individuals purport to have extensive experience in administration with DeSantis touting his experience in law enforcement administration through the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to stumble over laws pertaining to guns acquisition, sales, badges and cold plates. In addition, DeSantis has extensive experience as a public information officer with Riverside County and thus would be expected to well trained and versed in public information record laws. Enough to know that "drafts" and post-its, handwritten notes, even what's referred to as "chicken scratch" are all public documents when pertaining to city business or to amendments or changes made to other public records. And when it comes to average people, ignorance or naivete about technicalities has never constituted as an excuse to break laws. Something that Priamos in particular could have advised them on. The thing is too that if the actions of Hudson and DeSantis were truly involving "naivete about technicalities" at work, then the public probably would have been privy to these "mistakes" earlier than the summer of 2010. Why keep them hidden to the point where a large sum of tax money paid behind closed doors to keep these transgressions and the investigations which resulted a secret?

And one of the largest complaints since Feb. 8 has been the disparate ways that people are treated under the law than those in positions of privilege and power like police chiefs, city management and even elected officials. Too much so for some of us to be dismissive and say, well the reasons they committed the legal violations (to arm themselves) is more important than the laws themselves probably because of this status. A philosophy not that many people in this city are buying into particularly lately.

And this list of wrongdoing can be blamed by some of Hudson and DeSantis' supporters as stemming from being naive about technicalities but the damage has clearly been done regardless. And there wouldn't be any need to praise anyone's administrative skills for essentially rebuilding the police department because it's likely that if it hadn't been for the hi-jinks in the past five years or so including at City Hall, as stated that this would have needed to be done again.

Because if the police department in particular is placed in the unenviable and outrageous position of being an illegal gun vendor by city management, then it's not pretty hard to figure out that the eventual outcome of callous, unethical and frankly self-serving behavior is that the city's residents once again are going to be left paying a hefty tab to restructure the police department that had just cost over $26 million to undergo that process in the same decade. Even before Feb. 8, there were definitive signs that the department was heading in a bad direction and facing serious problems within its walls especially up at its management level. And did the bad behavior and law breaking that apparently took place highest in the food chain impact what was going on at lower tiers as well?

Nearly a half dozen (well an even six if you count the former chief) officers arrested and prosecuted on a variety of crimes on and off duty. Seemingly random perhaps but when you examine the lawless attitudes of those that are higher up on the demand's chain of command (of which Hudson places himself at the top, higher than its chief), it seems less surprising that the department experienced an arrest and prosecution ratio of about 1 per 60 officers which is considerably higher than the national average in the profession. The vast majority of officers didn't commit criminal acts, didn't get arrested or charged but enough of those already at risk for various reasons did to cause people to really take a second look at the department especially after Feb. 8.

Enough was revealed in nearly all the cases to indicate deeper issues within the department including those addressing supervisory and especially management accountability. But is that really surprising that a shortage of management accountability could have a detrimental impact on those who are managed when up at the top, there are individuals breaking the law who are treated differently, those who cover up (even if it means destroying or "losing" documents) and apparently those who pick and choose which laws to obey and which to disregard. When caught it, they engaged in finger pointing most often at subordinate employees including the heads of the community development division and the police department. The police chief suggested the cold plates said DeSantis. Then former deputy chief, Dave Dominguez said in the Press Enterprise, no actually it was the city management who did. DeSantis then turns around and calls Dominguez "disgruntled" because he failed to be appointed as assistant chief while working in the police department.

Which is kind of funny when you think about it. Because if Dominguez were truly disgruntled and acting that way, you would think his disgruntlement would be aimed at the police chief who's after all, in charge of promotions and he would be saying, right on it's the police chief's fault! But Dominguez doesn't do that, he sides with Leach's contention that he didn't recommend the cold plating and asserted that city management (which presumably isn't in charge of police promotions, right?) was responsible for that mess. Then another former police employee, current Hemet Police Department Chief Richard Dana said that he had to remove cold plates from city administrators' vehicles there when he discovered their use in those circumstances violated state law. Dana said that city officials and city management employees had cold plated their cars while he worked in Riverside.

But it's interesting to read all this praise heaped on Hudson and DeSantis for their masterful skills with the police department when the city paid out a fair amount of money to avoid having the handling of the police department by these two men and a city council member or two being put on trial in front of a federal jury. So confident were the city council and mayor not to mention Priamos in the city management's strength in this area as a positive managing force for the police department that they apparently wanted no part of defending that contention at trial inside a public courtroom.

It's hard to ignore the city's transgressions in the past six months as part of a disturbing pattern and practice, the extent of which probably hasn't been realized at this point. It's fairly likely that there are more disturbing revelations to come and it doesn't serve the residents of Riverside to keep them hidden especially at their expense and to pretend that they are insignificant in the larger fabric of this city which is coming up on the eve of an election year.





San Jacinto's indicted elected officials who are currently facing recall should just resign already.

Riverside's Voters Wanted More Transparency; River City Gets By on Less

UPDATE: Riverside Public Library Springs Roof Leak in downtown Riverside! General Services has been contracted to take care of it, just one day after the air conditioner broke down amid some smoke.



The Press Enterprise hits it out of the park with an editorial on the mixed responses to public records requests by Riverside's City Hall. And the editorial board nails it right on the head when it states that the city pretty much only turns over records readily and willingly when it's obeying the law or trying to correct a legal violation and its record is somewhat less stellar when it's trying to clearly cover up inappropriate or even illegal behavior by some of those inside City Hall. If a document embarrasses the city, no it doesn't exist or can't be found but if it makes the city look good or like it's abiding by the law or correcting an illegal action, here have a copy of it on us. I was reminded of that just this week after I became intrigued by the Mystery of the Reappearing At Will Contracts. You know the same ones that didn't exist or couldn't be found by City Attorney Gregory Priamos in April or May 2007 and yet three years later, have reappeared in City Manager Brad Hudson's office. And which were apparently held in his hands at a recent city council meeting held on July 13 when he said he had them right there and available for public review.





[Riverside City Manager Brad Hudson magically unearthed two labor contracts that couldn't be found by the city attorney's office only three years earlier at a recent city council meeting.]





[City Attorney Gregory Priamos (r.) stated in a May 11, 2007 letter that the same labor contracts that Hudson produced on July 13 couldn't be found after a search for them when they were requested by a police labor association under the CPRA.]




Were they missing the past three years or did the city just not want to hand them over for public review? And if the city couldn't produce them then, why can it suddenly wave them at the public now?

Why, most likely because they might have been considered a source of public embarrassment during the brouhaha surrounding them back then but now, they're considered "old news" kind of like the badges, cold plates and illegal gun sale scandals were dismissively labeled by a sitting councilman. Because as far as those are concerned, Councilman Steve Adams himself chastised the press and the public by telling everyone they were "old news" of course without explaining why. The contracts weren't available and individuals were told by Priamos' office that they couldn't be found precisely because of the fact that these documents had generated so much controversy in the city's labor force that members of both police associations crowded the city council chambers during a meeting in late March 2007. But since three years have passed and the issue with the "at will" contracts was a past event, now these contracts suddenly reappear in Hudson's hands while he tells everyone attending and watching the city council meeting that now they not only exist but they're available for the city's residents to finally see.

The explanation by Priamos could very well be is that the "at will" contracts were considered "drafts" (even though drafts constitute public documents except perhaps for preliminary drafts) but if that's the case, then that just makes this situation more embarrassing because no where in his response letter from May 11, 2007 did Priamos mention that the requests for these labor contracts were being denied because they were "drafts". And if they were "drafts" and thus taboo in 2007, then why are they being offered up like candy now by Hudson now?

Why isn't the city council more concerned that one of its direct employees, the city manager, is waving around documents at meetings that one of its other direct employees, the city attorney, stated couldn't be found in a search three years ago? And you know that if Priamos had been searching far and wide for documents resembling the at will contracts of two police management employees, he would have begun his search at the city manager's doorstep. And you also know since testimony indicates that Priamos or a representative had been present when former deputy chief, Pete Esquivel had signed his at will contract, that meant he would have been cognizant of its existence.

The irony is that this kind of attitude is partly while this charter amendment was passed by the city's voters overwhelmingly in November 2004. As well as the comments of a councilwoman included below. At least 90% of the city's voters felt it was necessary to insert text to strengthen the accessibility to public meetings and records for people. But then at the time, maybe the voters believed that the city actually abode by its charter all the time.






[Councilwoman Nancy Hart expressed her belief to a daily publication that she supports the release of public records unless the intent is to catch someone doing something in government.]



You can't blame Hart for being honest because she's just saying out loud to a reporter what the rest of City Hall is probably thinking and what it's practicing when it comes to the release of public records to well...the public who paid for them. After all, if the City Attorney's office has such a "spotty" record as some have called it for releasing public records to the media and public, then surely he must be getting direction to do this from well, some corner right?



Hart could just as easily added the title of being spokes person for the city in her very telling responses she gave to a newspaper reporter when she said this:


(excerpt, Press Enterprise)



"If there's a need for (the records request), I don't have any issue with it, but if it's just trying to catch you in something you're doing ... then I might have an issue with it."



My goodness! Either someone like City Attorney Gregory Priamos hasn't been training the elected officials adequately in the application or purpose of the CPRA or there's deeper problems with the elected government that believes through its legal eagle Priamos that it can pick and choose which parts of it that the public, city residents or local media, can access. But her comments off the cuff no doubt do explain a lot of what is happening at City Hall with its public records release and even why it's happening. It's happening precisely because of what Hart said, that if the records risk exposing embarrassing information or even worse, their release puts Priamos on alert that the city's facing potential risk of civil liability, then the documents either don't turn up on diligent searches or they don't exist. Well at least not until a later date anyway in some cases like the magical at will contracts. Because it's not clear from the language in letters that state documents can't be found as to whether they don't exist, got lost or the city just doesn't want to release them. It's especially not clear when those documents that can't be found show up later on.


And here's the exact text of the charter amendment for public meetings and public documents access. It's a pretty good expression of the importance of transparency in government through the insurance of accessibility to public records. It's just too bad that City Hall appears to pick and choose when to abide by it and when to enforce the provisions which govern public records accessibility in ways that don't seem to differ much from Hart's spoken philosophy on the issue. Just like individuals at City Hall have picked and chosen what other laws to follow including those pertaining to badge, cold plates and gun sales.

But here's the charter language that voters went to the polls and en masse pulled the lever for its inclusion.



(excerpt, city charter)



Sec. 201. Access to public meetings and public records.


City agencies, boards, commissions, committees, officials, staff and officers, including the Mayor and members of the City Council, exist to conduct the people's business. It is fundamental that the people have full access to information, not to just what decisions have been made in their name but how those decisions were reached and how they were deliberated. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. The people do not give their agencies or public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.

Our values lie in a government that helps its citizens in a timely way to obtain information. Our values lie in a broadening base of public participation, involvement and interest, providing new ideas and energy.
Our values lie not in hiding embarrassment and unpleasant occurrences. Our values lie not in preventing dissent.

To carry out the purposes set forth in this section, the provisions of the Ralph M. Brown Act (California Government Code Section 54950 et seq.) and the Public Records Act (California Government Code Section 6250 et seq.) shall apply to the City Council, and any commission, committee, board or other body created by Charter, ordinance, resolution or formal action of the City Council, or the Mayor.

Special circumstances dictate that there must be exceptions to access. But those exceptions should be narrowly drawn and narrowly exercised. Public employees must be protected from unwarranted invasions of privacy while the public's right to fundamental information must be protected. Citizen right to privacy must be protected with the knowledge that involvement in government matters necessarily reduces an expectation of privacy.

In general, the value of access should be given a strong presumption of public benefit. (Effective 1/18/2005)




But is the city's government and its direct employees truly honoring the will of the voters and obeying the charter? We've seen what the city has done to charter amendments involving the powers of the Community Police Review Commission which have been weakened by the city government through its direct employees and the much diluted and ineffective ethics code and complaint process. So despite it being the city's Constitution, it's hard to view it as anything but a piece of paper with writing on it stored somewhere because that's how City Hall views and treats it.


So much different than the will of the majority in Riverside and once again, here's that special paragraph written with civic leaders like Hart in mind.



Our values lie in a government that helps its citizens in a timely way to obtain information. Our values lie in a broadening base of public participation, involvement and interest, providing new ideas and energy.
Our values lie not in hiding embarrassment and unpleasant occurrences. Our values lie not in preventing dissent.



But that doesn't seem to jive very well with the values expressed by Hart and the behaviors of Riverside when it comes to upholding and enforcing the city's charter and the state's public records laws which seem to be more on a case by case basis based in some documented cases on whether or not the city wants to release information that it believes either embarrasses it, exposes any misconduct or illegal acts or puts it at increased risk of civil liability.

So why is the city able to get away with thumbing its nose in certain cases at Charter Amendment 201 when violating the charter's provisions constitutes a misdemeanor offense. In fact, Priamos helpfully pointed out to the Community Police Review Commission if tried to investigate officer-involved deaths shortly after they happened, its members would be putting themselves at risk of a hefty fine and up to a year in county jail. Even when there was no definite way to show that if the CPRC took that action, it would be committing a charter violation. But there lies the problem with the enforcement of the city's charter and the investigation and prosecution of charter violations is that those powers lie with Priamos' office and in this case, his office is clearly making some of the decisions which have probably unlawfully denied the Press Enterprise and others of access to public records. Talk about a conflict of interest!

But the direct employees act the way they are instructed to by those who keep them employed, elected officials and if the city council members were truly dissatisfied with what they were doing, they would be re-directed by those who give them periodic performance evaluations. So the only thing that you could really conclude is that the city government as an entity takes no issue with the poor performance of its direct employees including the city attorney on public records release that's been noted by the Press Enterprise and others as well.

As to who employs those who employ Hudson and Priamos, that would be the voters living in the seven wards of Riverside who make that decision every four years. The next round of elections will be for the odd-numbered wards in June of 2011.

River City's Dynamic Duo:

Armed and Ready on City Hall's Seventh Floor

But while labor contracts disappear and then reappear and post-its are in danger of being destroyed some documents are surviving the disclosure process intact including that the dynamic duo in the city manager's office finally paid for their police equipment the city allegedly bought them back in 2005 in that illicit gun sale involving the police department.

Now that was a while in coming from the top floor of City Hall, over four years before they reimbursed the city for the costs of their holsters (paddle and ankle) not to mention those grip extensions. There had been no paperwork available for the Press Enterprise when it had requested it but the purchases came shortly after. Better late than never some might say.



[Yippie-Kai Aaaaay! Assistant City Manager Tom DeSantis finally put his own gun paraphernalia on his own card.]




When the articles in the Press Enterprise came to light on the decisions of City Manager Brad Hudson and his sidekick and assistant city manager, Tom DeSantis were packing concealed heat, there was no mention of why Hudson had applied for his concealed and carry weapon's permit but now it's been revealed that Hudson did it to protect himself from irate people who came into City Hall's Seventh Floor.

Though ironically it was an irate DeSantis who in the summer of 2006 had 911 called on him in another city by a woman who told a Riverside County Sheriff's Department deputy that the former county public information officer wearing his city uniform allegedly flashed a gun and a pair of handcuffs at her. Not much investigation resulted of that incident as would have probably happened if he hadn't been a highly tethered management employee. After all, privilege carries a lot of weight, given how these incidents were committed, then investigated and then hidden by City Hall.

DeSantis himself wanted his gun because in his position, he attended highly emotionally charged meetings in high crime neighborhoods, according to the wording on his permit application. Which in itself is kind of ironic but anyway, it's very interesting how the city management office is oh so much more forthcoming about when they paid for the paraphernalia out of their somewhat generous annual salaries when they were somewhat less than forthcoming when the city had purchased them these items using the police department as an illegal gun vendor. Even the laundered gun sale in January 2006 didn't get publicly released to the city's residents. No, that only came to light after the city tried to take additional steps behind closed doors in over four years later to pay a huge sum of money to settle two lawsuits filed by two former police lieutenants who incidentally were the individuals who brought these illegal actions to light both to the proper authorities and in their civil litigation.


The two had also tried to equip themselves with illegal badges so that when they got out of their city owned (and once cold plated) vehicles to remove illegally posted signs, they could flash their badges as de facto code enforcement officers at anyone who questioned them. Never mind that the city has a pretty good sized code enforcement division to do just that. But it really needs two high-paid, six-figured employees to serve in that capacity. Not that they got to keep their badges or ever use them because the state attorney general's office said, no you can't.

Still, with this city management team, the dynamic duo, you just never know what will happen next. The one thing that you can guess for sure is that if there's any public document requested in relation to it, they may be provided by City Hall. But then again, they might not. But at least their desire to deck themselves out like commando police officers won't be ultimately billed to the city's residents.

Hooray for that at least.






The recall processes have begun for the city officials in San Jacinto who have been indicted in that corruption scandal.




Police furloughs up for discussion in San Bernardino.



A power failure led the downtown library without air conditioning. Which actually wasn't that noticeable.

No City Council Meeting Next Week In Riverside