THE PREDICTABLE DEMISE OF THE CITIZEN PROPOSAL FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

At its 22 May working session, the Las Cruces City Council focused on a citizen proposal for a Citizens Police Oversight Board and was attended by citizens concerned about police conduct.  It was, as I had predicted in a previous blog, a sham of a good-faith inquiry into the merits of the proposal.  Apparently, Council, which has done nothing in the past 4 years—not one policy or ordinance to improve the quality of policing and thereby lower the multi-million-dollar, self-insured costs of settlements—cannot be expected to do anything to disturb members over concerns about police threats to citizens or burdens on taxpayers.  Keep that record in mind when Councilors Tessa Abeyta and Johana Bencomo run for re-election and Council Kasandra Gandara runs for mayor.

 

The first indication of a sham session was the half-hour entertainment of dancing children which later led the Mayor, mendacious and manipulative, Ken Miyagishima, to depart from the usual 3 minutes for a citizen’s comments, to stipulate only 1 minute for them.  Otherwise, the nine or ten speakers would have had as much time as the dancers.   Those who had longer comments were unable to make more than hurried remarks.  While I can effectively deliver a well-crafted statement, I cannot do so on a spur-of-the-moment change requiring abridgment and made an awkward delivery of disjointed remarks.  The Mayor, who has long and strongly opposed any board, made a mockery of citizen participation.  Then, undoubtedly with legal assistance, Councilor Abeyta played the hostile prosecutor, aggressively interrogating her special target, Peter Goodman, who had made the case but was bullied by her tendentious quibbles.  She made no effort to pretend to consider the proposal seriously.  Other Councilors asked questions, some reasonable, some not.  Most addressed routine administrative and organizational issues; one or two questioned how effective boards in other cities had been in reducing crime, as if that is what advisory boards so.  Such was the quality of a Council session on citizens’ sensible effort to deal with the problem of poor policing.

 

Unfortunately for the cause, which I support, the panel members—Goodman, Bobbie Green, Earl Nissen—were not so well prepared as they should have been to answer factual questions of effectiveness, to address challenges about conformity to existing city and state laws, and to invoke other aspects of public good which a board can provide.  Goodman did his lawyerly best to establish the framework of such a board and its compatibility with city and state legal requirements.  Green was strong in stating the humane and moral grounds for police reform and support for a board; she added that,  in her capacity as NAACP chapter president, she had written to the Department of Justice to investigate the Las Cruces Police Department.  Nissen had an abundance of facts to support the proposal, but his presentation left everything to be desired.  Yet any Council with even a scintilla of interest in improving the abysmal performance of the police would have encouraged the panel to return in the future to consider further the pro and cons of a board and its best configuration to serve Las Cruces.

 

In what follows, I offer an extended and revised version of my comments intended for that working session.  Although much must be done to prevent the excessive use of force, much must also be done to improve the overall quality of policing, to educate the public about policing, to create trust between the community and the police, to increase citizen participation in the governance of police forces, and thereby to return public safety to democratic, not a police union’s autocratic, control.  Such a board should be a public educator, ombudsman, and advocate for any citizen, whatever the complaint about any police conduct.

 

The need for police reform motivates the proposed Civilian Police Oversight Board.  Although I generally support the idea of citizen oversight, I believe that this proposal gives too much attention to issues involving the police use of excessive force and too little to the culture which enables misconduct, dramatic or not, but too often damaging or deadly.  Too many encounters between civilians and police offend, infuriate, and create distrust among citizens.  Because police dishonesty plays a large part in charges, reports, and responses to citizen complaints, there will be no police reform until there is moral reform.  Indeed, dishonesty is a shield for police misconduct large and small.

 

I undertook my case involving five charges of minor code violations because I knew that their falsity reflected force-wide dishonesty and wanted to expose it for correction.  After years pursuing my case administratively, the Las Cruces legal system has proven itself dishonest from bottom to top: patrol officer, past head of Internal Affairs, past and present police chiefs, past City Attorney, City Manager, and City Council members.  Their pervasive and persistent dishonesty mocks transparency and accountability.

 

One instance in blogs emailed to Council members and citizens illustrates my point.  At a meeting with Manager Pili and Chief Dominguez—Councilor Bencomo and Mr. Peter Goodman attending by Zoom—, I showed, and Manager Pili agreed, that the five charges were false.  He agreed that I deserved an apology and, at my specific request, not a bland statement about poor communications and hurt feelings.  Saying that he wanted to be sure that the apology would satisfy me, he asked me to draft it for him.  I did so, and, in reply, I got a bland statement about poor communications and hurt feelings.  He must have had a good laugh at making me jump through hoops on the pretense that I would get the requested apology.  His ruse trifled with honesty and showed contempt for truth, the law, and citizens.  Chief Dominguez did not withdraw the false charges, and, later, then City Attorney Vega emailed him and me her flagrant lie that the charges were valid, even though Internal Affairs had found them baseless months earlier.  No citizen should be treated as I was.  I suspect that most citizens avoid complaints to avoid this kind of disrespectful and shabby treatment common in city government about police conduct.

 

Although informed about my case, Council members said or did nothing to address police dishonesty.  Their indifference discredits them, specifically, my Councilor, Mayor Pro Tem Kasandra Gandara, who feigned concern about my case all the while informing City Attorney Vega about my strategy and tactics, none, by the way, intending litigation.  Mayor Miyagishima, contrary to his promises to let me present my case to the police auditor (OIR), and, emphatically, Councilor Bencomo supported boundaries on cases for audit which excluded mine, and Council endorsed them.  Council’s dishonesty in excluding this relevant information helped whitewash the police auditor’s report.

 

My case alone indicates why an independent Civilian Police Oversight Board is necessary as a first step to correcting the pervasive dishonesty of the Las Cruces legal system by receiving, analyzing, evaluating, and publicizing public safety information.  At present, only such a board can provide an honest account of police conduct and promote transparency and accountability.  Council support would be a step toward moral as well as police reform.  Its non-support would perpetuate police dishonesty.

 

As then Deputy Police Chief Dominguez has testified, the police are not trusted.  They are not trusted because they are out of control.  Their misconduct ranges from insult to abuse to violence, often deadly; and to dismissive or dishonest responses to citizen complaints.  Chief Dominguez’s biased editing of the body-cam footage of Amelia Baca’s killing justifies the anagram of the word “police”: “cop lie”—where my case began.  It should have ended, if it had existed, before a Citizens Police Oversight Board.

KASANDRA GANDARA FOR MAYOR: ANOTHER FIRST FOR A WOMAN ALSO UNQUALIFIED

Accounts of Kasandra Gandara’s candidacy for Las Cruces mayor appeared in Mike Cook’s 14 April Bulletin article and Justin Garcia’s 17 April Sun-News article.  Both articles note but do not stress the fact that she would be the city’s first female mayor.  Yet, despite the disaster or disappointment of two recent firsts for females—Susana Martinez as state Governor and only women as city Councilors, respectively—, many Las Cruces voters will consider what is between a candidate’s legs more important than what is between the candidate’s ears in this fall’s election.  For them, sex still sells.

 

Garcia’s article reported a coincidence too pat to be a coincidence, one suggesting a comfy, corrupt relationship between Gandara and the LCPD.  The police arrested Jason Estrada, the first candidate for mayor on the grounds of selling cannabis illegally.  He then ended his candidacy; the police then dropped the charges.  In effect, the LCPD cleared the field before the announcement of her candidacy and may have deterred others.  Why?  My guess is that the LCPD appreciates Gandara’s indifference or resistance to police reform—about which, more below.

 

Everyone yawned at her announcement.  Everyone knew that Gandara would seek the office because she is politically ambitious.  But ambition is not a qualification.  Nor, in answer to Garcia’s question why should Las Cruces elect her Mayor, is her claim to be an “experienced leader.”  Nothing in her biographical sketch about residency, education, employment, or status as Councilor or Mayor Pro Tem shows leadership.  She claims to be a leader because of egotistical opinions of her importance based on this biography.

 

Her record is not one of leadership.  Gandara does not cite any initiative of her own on policies or programs.  Without taking the lead in anything, she favors and supports almost everything.  She shares everyone else’s concerns about “public safety, poverty, affordable housing (‘absolutely a top priority’) health and behavioral health, business and workforce development and education.”  I doubt that her support in these areas, even if more than lip-service, would distinguish her from other candidates, though priorities among them might differ.  Speaking of lip-service, I note that she assumes that communication is the key to most issues, as long as they are not controversial issues—which explains her logorrheic discourse.

 

Garcia also asked Gandara whether she believed that the LCPD needs reform.  She ducked the question.  Instead, she bloviated about “community policing” and police building relationships with the community; “She said that she would build trust between the department and the community they police” without saying how (elsewhere, she says that the Mayor has little influence on crime).  In short, she is long on pieties which mean anything or nothing.  She has taken no leadership role in addressing multiple problems reflected in cases of severe police misconduct.  Notably, she made no reference to LCPD murders and maimings, some with multi-million-dollar settlements, some quite recently, which have occurred during her eight years in office.

 

Worse, Gandara has not taken any action, much less a leadership role in action, on an even smaller scale.  I know from my direct experience with her that she took no action when she learned that five code violations alleged by the LCPD were false, that then-Police Chief Patrick Gallagher had lied to me in her presence, and that the LCPD would not address, much less withdraw, its false allegations even when Internal Affairs found them unfounded.  One reason may have been her cozy relationship with former City Attorney Jennifer Vega, who vigorously supported the LCPD and suborned City Council despite this record of LCPD dishonesty.  Gandara’s reluctance to deal with the facts, insist on honesty in city officials, and demand amends for misconduct does not speak well of her moral character and what it would mean for her “leadership” of City Council.

 

In Cook’s article, she claims that “As mayor, Gandara said she will facilitate greater communication between the city and the community….‘I will talk to [note: not with] anybody….I will listen and do my best.  You’re going to get a responsive…mayor’.”  This claim is not credible.  Set aside my case to the contrary.  Readers know that, on 5 March, I publicly asked Gandara questions about Vega’s sudden and surreptitious departure from office.  In the months since, I have had no response, not even the courtesy of a reason for not answering them.  None of the five questions to Gandara is out of bounds of ordinary information about government operations to which the community is entitled.

 

1. Is Jennifer Vega still the City Attorney or not?  If not,

2. When did she leave the position?

3. Did she give notice and resign, or was she fired?

4. What explains her departure?

5. Why has no one in city government announced her departure?

 

All other members of City Council and the City Manager to whom I sent these questions have also not answered them.  So I have grave doubts that Gandara, like her “amazing, compassionate” fellow Councilors, believes in transparency about government conduct or can change the culture of a “black box” Council and Administration.

 

I have even more doubts about her claim to be “a strong proponent of performance-based budgeting that mandates ‘accountability all the way around’.”  If so, Gandara would have asked how the Public Works Department managed to spend $750,000 on a flood control project as ineffective and environmentally destructive as it was expensive.  The answer might lead to measures preventing wasted funds otherwise available to the causes which Gandara supports.  Without exploring waste and the incompetence creating that waste, her talk about performance-based budgeting is blather.

 

Bottom line: no spine.  In terms of character, convictions, and conduct in office, Kasandra Gandara promises more of the same slack, shabby governance long in decline in Las Cruces under current Mayor Ken Miyagishima and more recently under Mayor Pro Tem Gandara.