Wild horses lose protection from slaughter

Contra Costa Times
January 28, 2005, Friday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

He's the star of this mountain ballet: Mustang No. 04217347, a yearling pinto with one blue eye, one brown.

Graceful, young, charged, oblivious to the frigid temperatures, he gallops in a 5-acre pen with about 20 other wild horses who form a racing collage of rich browns and auburns against a snow-white background.

He was brought to the Litchfield Bureau of Land Management compound outside Susanville, Calif., as part of a regular roundup, designed to keep down the wild horse population on public grazing lands.

In California, the agency brings in "excess" mustangs and sells them at auctions either at Litchfield, Ridgecrest, outside Bakersfield, or through independent "satellite" adoptions, such as annual ones in Brentwood and Livermore.

"How would you like to see that on your dinner plate?" asked a grim Willis Lamm, who trains horses on a ranch outside Oakley.

Far fetched? Not really.

A provision slipped into a federal appropriations bill silently killed a 1971 law that kept feral horses from being sold to slaughterhouses.

Without that protection, horses less attractive than Mustang No. 04217347 could join the lucrative U.S. horse meat export market.

The legislative language, crafted by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Montana, with the help of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., targets mustangs more than 10 years old -- past the age of likely adoption -- and any young horse that has been to three sales and not adopted.

Burns says his goal was to keep the mustangs from overpopulating then starving to death. But backers, primarily cattle ranchers who hold leases on public lands, say the horses interfere in their operations.

Rachel Buzzetti, executive director of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, defended the industry's support of the repeal.

"Water, springs, forage -- they pretty much stomp the springs out," she said. "A lot of ranchers are showing 65 percent (less) forage. If you were to turn 50 goats onto somebody's back lawn, you can imagine what would happen."

But activists wanting to protect wild horses from slaughter are having none of it. After a recent strategizing session, they say a million-horse march on Washington, D.C., is not out of the question.

The crux of the whole problem is competition over the last blade of grass on the 200 public herd areas the BLM provides in 10 states, said Karen Sussman, president of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros.

"Public land ranching is a welfare program. For every dollar a rancher spends on leasing the land, he gets $3 back in subsidies," she said.

Leases to BLM grazing land are renewed automatically every 10 years and are hard to get, as many leaseholders hold onto them for many year. While private ranch lands go for up to $50 an acre, public lands cost $1.49.

In sparsely populated Montana, oil and gas, livestock, mining and forest products interests carry major influence, combining to donate $400,000 to Burns' campaign in 2002, public records show.

Leases on many public grazing lands are held by corporations, including banking interests and oil companies.

Opponents of Burns' rider complain the action was taken without any public discussion.

Not even Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, which oversees the wild horse program, knew Burns had inserted the language into the appropriations bill.

But it came as no surprise to the cattle industry. In fact, the language is nearly identical to a National Cattlemen's Beef Association policy statement dated November 2003.

It calls for legislation to command the BLM to sell unadopted horses and burros and keep the profits.

"This ends 33 years of protection," said Renee Been, a Richmond, Calif.-area equine sports massage therapist who has owned two mustangs, one of whom she adopted from a BLM facility in Kingman, Ariz.

Contra Costa County is home to about 100 adopted mustangs _ one of the largest concentrations in the state.

"California did pass an anti-slaughter law but that doesn't really help, since the mustangs can be bought here and transported to other states," said Suzi Kicker, a Pittsburg woman who has adopted BLM horses.

Burns' office reacted angrily to the criticism.

"Right now we run the risk of these horses starving to death, or being rounded up and kept in feedlots" due to over-population, said Burn's communications chief, J.P. Pendleton.

"The BLM was not taking the adoption process seriously. Do any of these people who claim to love the wild horse want to see them starve to death?"

BLM spokeswoman Celia Boddington said the agency actively encourages adoption.

"We have 10 sanctuaries, and the horses receive a high level of care in them," she said. "We're doubling our efforts to find them good homes."

Government round-ups have reduced the wild horse population to less than 37,000, most in California, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming. Boddington said there are another 14,000 in agency facilities.

The Bureau of Land Management is aiming to get the number down to 26,000 by 2006.

Mustangs are technically feral _ there are no native wild horses in the United States _ but some strains have been wild since they escaped Spanish conquistadors in the 16th and 17th centuries and are nearly pure Spanish stock.

For many, the horses are an important vestige of America's past.

In repealing the Wild and Free Ranging Horse and Burro Protection Act of 1971, the provision orders the BLM to sell its captured horses _ and, an irresistible lure to an agency whose costs have been rising at a rate of 45 percent _ to keep the profits.

But critics say the order ensures the slaughter of the equines.

Since hoof and mouth disease surfaced in 2001, demand for U.S. horse meat overseas has risen dramatically, and individual small ranchers with hopes of adopted a horse say they can't compete with slaughterhouses in price.

There are three horse slaughterhouses in America: two in Texas, one in DeKalb, Ill. All are European-owned.

Ray Field, director of the Wild Horse Foundation of Franklin, Texas, is a neighbor. Field's WHF contracts with the BLM to adopt horses. His organization found homes for 880 horses and burros last year alone.

He accused the BLM, which is drowning under its soaring costs, of pushing for the change.

"Their adoption program is a mish-mash and their marketing sucks," he said. "But instead of saying, 'Your marketing sucks. You're fired.' They said, 'Let's kill us some horses.'"

A high-ranking BLM manager agreed that the agency would save hundreds of thousands of dollars on boarding costs by selling the animals to what he called "kill buyers" in lots.

The U.S. Humane Society Web site says 55,776 horses were slaughtered last year in the United States and thousands more transported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter there. The meat is exported to Belgium, France, Italy, Japan and Switzerland, where it is considered a delicacy.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Belgium imported nearly $20 million of horse meat in 2001, much of it for distribution to other European nations.

Meanwhile, no one has told the BLM how it is expected to change its practices, said Videll Retterath, who manages the Litchfield ranch.

As snowflakes fell on the green steel dash of her Kawasaki tractor cab, she said, "We're always the last to know."

Inches away, mustangs chomped at "cob" -- a treat that mixes corn, oats and barley together with molasses.

"We don't have any guidance whatsoever."

Cuts by Contra Costa may spur nurse exodus

February 3, 2006, Friday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

About 60 women a month gave birth at the county medical center when labor and delivery nursing specialist Liz Llewelyn began working there more than 22 years ago.

Today, more than 200 women a month deliver at the hospital, but the nursing staff has not grown with the patient load.

Hospital administrators are struggling to maintain staffing levels in an environment that gives nurses an incentive to leave.

Now, Contra Costa County finds itself forced to bargain for cutbacks that could send the already harried nurses looking for better paying and more promising jobs.

"We run out of nurses," Llewelyn said. "You can't get any backup."

County Jail nurses say they can come in for a regular shift and find themselves assigned to a double shift.

Records show that nurses work long hours to cover staffing gaps. Studies suggest they suffer more injuries than in years past. Some of that is from overwork and some is from lifting obese patients, an increasingly common experience.

Now the county is talking about withdrawing one of the attractions of the public service job.

In contract talks with the nurses' union, Contra Costa negotiators have proposed making them wait 15 years instead of five to begin qualifying for retiree health benefits.

"I call it the bag lady retirement program," Llewelyn said. "For a part-time person, it would take 30 years to become vested."

Under the gun to cut spending, the county is hoping to back away from a generous retirement benefit that cost $ 179 million last year for all retired employees.

Nurses are in high demand across the country. Pay and benefits in the private sector are enticing them out of county hospitals and public health clinics everywhere. Contra Costa County pays about $ 10 an hour less than private Bay Area institutions employers like Sutter Health and Kaiser.

The county pays first-year registered nurses $ 33.89 an hour, lower than the Bay Area prevailing wage of $ 40. Kaiser East Bay pays $ 39.82, Alta Bates/Summit $ 38.47.

"These are one of the employee groups where we are totally at the mercy of the market," said supervisors' chairman John Gioia of Richmond.

"Every single one could go out tomorrow and get another job -- and often, a higher-paying job," he said. "The way it's always been, the private sector offers higher pay and the public has better benefits. Now, the private sector is starting to pay better benefits. We have less leverage."

The county's conundrum: It must cut back on spending, including benefits, but it has to keep a minimum number of skilled nurses.

Public acute-care hospitals and small private hospitals are scrambling to meet the state's minimum nurse-patient ratios of 5-to-1.

A UC San Francisco study last year predicted a statewide shortage of more than 20,000 nurses by 2012.

Beyond the immediate problem of cutting an attractive benefit, many of the county's health care employees are approaching retirement, another drain on the difficult-to-replace staff members. Hospital administrators nervously note that county-employed nurses average 51 years in age.

The stakes are higher now that voters have rebuked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to dispense with minimum nurse-to-patient ratios.

Few large county hospitals are able to meet the 5-to-1 requirement, said Barbara Patton, vice president of the Camden Group, a Southern California consulting firm specializing in hospital operations.

"We're at a critical juncture," said hospital administrator Jeff Smith. "I'd venture to say there are crises at every turn. The biggest we have is the nursing and departure at a time when the patient population is increasing. We push our nurses to the limit."

Some 100 of Health Services' 450 nurses will retire in the coming three to five years, Smith said.

Other hospitals attract nurses by spending more money. The county does it by promoting itself as a gratifying mission for those who care.

"Attracting people is difficult to do," Smith said. "It requires careful, strategic planning. It requires management expertise. We can't pretend the labor market isn't what it is."

The county employs 2,000 people in its hospitals and clinics and 3,000 in all of health care services.

Those who seek county care are increasingly needy. Yet resources are diminishing, Smith said. Bariatric, or morbidly obese, patients are becoming more common.

"This is the new generation of kids you're hearing about, Llewelyn said. "They have heart disease, they have diabetes, they're on all kinds of drugs to manage it."

In addition to indigent patients, the county hospital is treating more people who had insurance but lost it, Llewelyn said.

Sonia, who is forbidden by the Sheriff's Office policy to reveal her last name, has seen the staffing sink from six night-duty nurses two years ago to three today at the County Jail in Martinez. Double shifts help stretch the staff.

"It's horrible on my shift," she said. "We've totally trimmed to the bone."

They still have to react to the people under their care. Drunken driving checkpoints and warrant sweeps can bring an influx of inmates, some with serious medical conditions, who have pacemakers or are on kidney dialysis or are clinically depressed.

Hospital critical care nurse and union negotiator Kip Norwood calls "a doozy" the weekend that brought in a woman with a severe leg infection and multiple organ failure. Both she and a patient in cardiac crisis "are doing quite well now," partly due to the expertise of a seasoned, specialized nursing staff, the nurse union negotiator said.

The county is willing to bump up the entry salaries by about 10 percent to attract new staff members but nothing to retain midcareer specialists, Norwood said.

The trend away from retirement benefits and toward benefits more appealing to young nurses is common throughout the industry, Patton said.

"The newer nurses -- a 25-year-old-- is looking at other things," she said. "Salary. And they are going to be starting families, so they're interested in flexibility in hours."

The county's most recent offer includes the retirement health benefit change and a two-year wage freeze, with a 2 percent cost-of-living wage in the third year.

The union is seeking more time off, better staffing ratios and better pay.

"We could say, 'Pay us what they pay at Kaiser,' but we know that's not going to happen," Norwood said.

"What we're looking for is the things that make it easier to be at the bedside."

Contra Costa drug shift troubles some patients

May 30, 2006 Tuesday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

It was expected to be only an inconvenience to patients, nothing more, when Contra Costa County decided to close its three outpatient pharmacies.

But among the first wave of patients sent to commercial pharmacies are those who say they are being turned away, charged more than they can afford, and forced to endure numerous trips while desperately ill.

The public facilities are scheduled to close in July and the county is now sending patients with new prescriptions to drug stores, said Stephanie Bailey, director of ancillary services at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.

The closures are part of a $20 million cost-cutting package aimed at balancing the budget. The shutdowns could be risky for county patients, county pharmacists had warned in recent budget hearings. The county workers filled a total of some 21,000 prescriptions a month at sites in Martinez, Pittsburg and Richmond.

Some patients say they have already experienced the consequences.

Some commercial pharmacies were not ready for the wave of new patients -- and won't be until July, when the county submits patient information via computer.

In a few cases, private pharmacies have not recognized the Contra Costa Health Plan, which covers 63,000 people including county employees and people without other insurance.

And, while the county pharmacy employees are accustomed to tracking down doctors at work or at home to fill in missing information, patients have found staffers at private pharmacies too busy, said Raphael Peck, chief of Contra Costa Regional Medical Center outpatient pharmacies.

"I've ... seen a couple come back as predicted when the form was not completed and the doctor was not available," Peck said.

Other patients can't afford the steep fees commercial pharmacies charge certain Medi-Cal patients.

Those who earn more than the minimum income the state uses to calculate benefits must pay a share of cost.

Medi-Cal has not updated its income figures since 1989: The monthly income limit is $600 for an individual and $934 for a couple.

For those who qualify for a specialized program aimed at the elderly and disabled poor, the base income rises to $1,047 a month. But if patients earn even a dollar more than that, they must pay between $400 and $500 a month, said Jeanne Finberg, directing attorney at the National Senior Citizens Law Center.

Payment wasn't an issue at the county pharmacies. Patients were not asked to pay the monthly deductible up front -- and often the county absorbed the cost, said hospital administrator Jeff Smith.

But commercial pharmacies demand the full amount before filling a prescription.

Kathy, who requested her last name not be used so she may keep her chronic health disability private, must now pay $300 a month before her medications are covered, although she brings in $1,100 a month and spends $600 on rent.

"I don't have $300," the 51-year-old woman said. "I'm sick and angry."

In recent days, Peck said he encountered the following problems:

-- Three pharmacies rejected a man with advanced AIDS and a prescription for morphine. His partner wheeled him back to the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and pleaded with Peck for help.

-- A man taking a blood thinner to prevent strokes and clots -- "a life and death kind of thing," Peck said -- learned that the necessary insurance authorization was not in the private pharmacy's computer.

County staffers would have given the man a minimal supply until the authorization arrived, Peck said.

-- A patient with a prescription for Thalidomide, now used to treat certain cancers, went to eight pharmacies before he found one that would fill it.

Major drug store chains say they have seen a wave of new patients, but that most get prescriptions filled without problems.

"If the plan states there is a co-pay, that is the patient's responsibility," said Michael Polzin, spokesman for Walgreens. "That's partly how we cover our expenses."

A spokeswoman for Rite Aid scoffed at the suggestion that its pharmacists would not take whatever steps are necessary to locate doctors when a prescription is illegible or missing information.

"The only thing that would cause a bump is patients who are medically indigent," said Jody Cook. "That is something for the county to address, and we are asking the county for answers."

It's the county's responsibility to let Medi-Cal patients know private pharmacies will not absorb the cost of deductibles, she said.

Picking up the cost of a monthly deductible "is something the for-profits are never going to agree to unless the county pays them more money," said Michael Keys, staff attorney with Bay Area Legal Aid. "In which case, why would the county have cut their pharmacies?"

While state law requires counties to provide health care, including medications, to the indigent, counties are increasingly contracting with private providers to meet their obligation, said

Often, it's a move that winds up costing as much as it saved, Keys said.

San Francisco General Hospital radically cut back its pharmacy about three years ago, but has reinstated it.

"The savings never happened," Keys said.

No patients should be falling through the cracks, said Bailey and the chief of the county's health plan.

The health plan already has a relationship with some 100 private pharmacies, said CEO Rich Harrison.

Despite the complaints from patients and the doubts of the county's pharmacists, Harrison said he has heard no complaints.

As part of the transition, emergency room patients are leaving with a starter pack of medication, and a prescription, to cover the period after their release.

The county can't afford any longer to provide care and charge for it later, Bailey said.

"That's how we ended up in the position we're in," she said.

Rebecca Rosen Lum covers county government. Reach her at 925-977-8506 or rrosenlum@cctimes.com.

WHERE TO FIND HELP

People with problems getting prescriptions filled at commercial pharmacies can call:

-- Protection and Advocacy, 800-776-5746. Can help with Medi-Cal share of cost and other problems

-- Contra Costa Health Plan Member Services, 877-661-6230 option 2. Can steer members to local participating pharmacies

-- Contra Costa Health Plan or Basic Health Care Financial, 800-771-4270. Counseling.

-- Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program HICAP, 800-434-0222. Assists families and individuals with Medicare and other health insurance.

Jails' drug machines costing the county

Contra Costa Times (California)
June 2, 2006 Friday

Automated system was supposed to streamline the dispensing process, but devices still don't work


By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

A new automated system was supposed to streamline the process for getting medications to inmates in Contra Costa County's jails -- and save more than $240,000 a year.

Instead, two computerized dispensers, called ROBOT, are gathering dust -- and leaking tens of thousands of dollars in unanticipated labor costs, according to a new report by the Contra Costa grand jury.

The county spent nearly $1 million on a five-year lease for three dispensers: one for County Jail in Martinez, one for the West County Detention Facility and a third for Juvenile Hall. Two have proved too problematic to get rolling, and a third was never delivered.

Though both the Contra Costa Sheriff and County Health Services departments jointly oversee the new system, it is no one person's responsibility, which the report says it part of the problem.

"No one is minding the store," the report says.

The report also faults the county for failing to thoroughly investigate the system -- and its estimated savings -- before laying the money down.

Before February 2005, when the county changed its tack, a doctor wrote a prescription, a pharmacist filled it, and a nurse dispensed up to a 30-day supply to the inmate.

As part of the shift to the new system, the county replaced the pharmacist with a pharmacy technician, saving more than $89,000 a year. Cutting down the inventory to include fewer brands of medications, then buying in greater bulk, saved another $100,000.

The third leg of the new plan called for the technician to type the prescription into a computer and for ROBOT to dispense only a single day's supply. That was expected to save another $60,000 to $120,000 a year on full prescriptions that must be thrown away

But the county did not reckon on the cost of overtime pay as technology staffers from the health and sheriff's departments struggled to get ROBOT -- which actually looks more like a vending machine -- working.

The bill comes to $60,000 already, and the system still does not function.

A savings analysis that was intended to justify the lease was seriously flawed, the report says. The county achieved three-fourths of its savings without ROBOT.

The county's chief of health services was not reachable for comment Thursday, and Jeff Smith, administrator of the Contra Costa County Regional Medical Center, did not return calls. A spokesman for the Contra Costa Sheriff said the report, while "righteously motivated," wrongly discredits the department.

"We have absolutely and scrupulously done whatever we can do to make this work," said Undersheriff Obie Anderson. "The sheriff isn't in the business of handing out medication. Deputies are in the business of creating a safe environment for that to happen."

Not entirely true, said grand jury foreman Bob Kennedy.

"The equipment is installed in detention facilities and dispenses drugs to inmates -- so yes, the sheriff is involved," he said. "Both departments have an interest in this."

The report recommends that:

The Contra Cost Sheriff and county Health Services get all three dispensers in place and running by September 30.

The county administrator scrutinize costs, savings and challenges in all projects as costly as this.

The county administrator appoint a project manager for this and other projects that involve multiple departments.

The system allows the jails to keep smaller quantities of drugs on site. But from a pure cost savings standpoint, the system is a drain, Kennedy said.

"I'm not sure (backing out) is an option," he said. "They've signed a five-year lease."

Amid protest, board cuts services

May 3, 2006 Wednesday
Pharmacies, Summit Center among programs sacrificed in bid to cover $43 million shortfall; 20 people also face layoffs

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

Over the impassioned and sometimes tearful protests of therapists, parents and advocates for mentally ill children, Contra Costa supervisors Tuesday passed a $1.25 billion budget that carves more than $20 million from health and social services.

"If we funded (programs) the way we have been, we'd be out of reserves in 11/2 years," said Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond, the panel chairman. "This board has found it very difficult to make these cuts" in years past.

County Administrator John Cullen attacked a $43 million deficit in two ways: by identifying $23 million in additional revenues and making cuts that added up to $20 million -- primarily in health and social services.

The county will close its Summit Center home for troubled youths and reduce mental health services and crisis intervention at Orin Allen Boys Ranch and Juvenile Hall.

Public health center pharmacies in Richmond, Pittsburg and Martinez will close. Substance abuse services, child therapists and homeless outreach programs are all on the chopping block.

The final draft includes one change from earlier versions: It will restore more than $152,000 taken from STAND! Against Domestic Violence and Community Violence Services, which provides emergency services for rape victims. The cuts, aimed at trimming educational programs, would have hurt the agencies' direct services for women and children in danger, advocates said.

To restore that funding, County Administrator John Cullen must find an equal amount of additional cuts by next week.

The other cuts include elimination of more than 200 jobs, many of which were not filled. Many of the laid off workers have "bumping rights" and can claim other jobs. When all is done, about 20 people will actually be out of work, said County Administrator John Cullen.

Nonetheless, "for me personally, this has been a very, very difficult thing to do," Cullen said.

The payoff comes with the wipeout of a $43 million deficit and the rebuilding of reserves, which have fallen below 5 percent of the general fund. Both actions will provide a hefty boost to the county's anemic credit rating.

This is the first budget in five years that does not dip into the county's reserves to rescue vital programs.

Critics said a proposed cut in therapists would eliminate care for 245 needy children, some suffering from suicidal thoughts and acute depression. Some could lose their lives as a result, said Kathi McLaughlin, chairwoman of the Contra Costa Mental Health Commission children's committee.

"You are destroying the safety net," she said. "How are you going to live with yourselves? I don't think you can."

The supervisors reacted with both sympathy and anger, saying they had gone beyond their mission to pioneer many of the programs to begin with.

"Nobody came to the board when we approved a $500,000 expansion of mental health services into the West County schools," Gioia said. "Sometimes, I have enough."

Gioia cited a new study by the National Center for Youth Law that places Contra Costa County at No. 1 for protecting child abuse victims and children in foster care.

Homeless feel the sting of cold spell

December 1, 2006 Friday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

As night temperatures plunged into the 30s and high 20s this week, the homeless of Contra Costa are feeling the sting.

Those without shelter and those who advocate for them say services also have plummeted, forcing many to sleep outdoors or in cars.

A fist of cold, dry air punched into the area, coating shrubs and the hard-packed ground, where many huddle in sleeping bags, with frost.

In response to the cold spell, Contra Costa County has made an extra 20 beds available, securing cots from the Red Cross, in addition to 250 beds designated for single adults. But with some 5,000 homeless on Contra Costa's streets, many are left to tough it out in the cold weather.

"Clearly, there are not enough beds to accommodate all the folks," said Lavonna Martin, assistant director of homeless services for Contra Costa County. "We're just making a dent."

The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors earlier this year declined to bail out two privately funded family shelters, citing a crippling funding shortfall. The supervisors called on cities to help shoulder the burden.

A 2005 survey by county Health Services showed more than 14,000 in Contra Costa were without a place to stay at some point during the year. Last year, homeless hotlines took about 18,000 calls from people seeking housing, according to Cynthia Belon, county director of homeless programs.

A new, 75-bed family shelter has opened in Richmond. And from November to April the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa runs Winter Nights, a program that beds, feeds and provides services to homeless families with children and ambulatory elders. It rotates among churches and synagogues. Their maximum occupancy is 30 people a night.

The 2005 survey found more than 900 parents and their children have no place to sleep nightly.

"In this kind of weather, people should be able to go inside and be warm and safe," said Susan Prather, director of Fresh Start, a Walnut Creek day program for the homeless. "Things are much worse now than they were when I started doing this work about 25 years ago. The county has willfully cut back on services for the homeless year after year after year."

In fact, the county, through support services, has moved more than 1,500 homeless people into permanent housing, said Public Health Director Wendel Brunner.

"We're not looking at shelters as the way to handle homelessness," he said. "This is not only more humane, it's more cost-effective. We're actually making progress."

But it looks to Desiree Harding that human kindness is in increasingly short supply.

Like many people without shelter who use Fresh Start's services, Harding, 38, works full-time. She also sleeps in her car.

"Maybe it's the war," she mused. Either way, she says, people seem more contemptuous of the homelessness this year than last.

"The shelters are all full," she said. "A hotel voucher sure would be nice, just to warm up all the way through."

Another woman said her payroll job went to India and she has not been able to find another. She has found a trick for staying warm: She wraps foil blankets around her legs inside her sleeping bag.

The cold can crush the spirit, said Chris Ericks, 36, who spent eight months on the streets. He has found work and a place to live.

"The truth is you never warm up," he said Thursday.

"Your fingers are always numb. Your nose is always running. You wake up around 4 a.m. with ice on your (sleeping) bag and you just shiver. All you can do is stomp your feet until they get warm and hope the sun comes out."

Jury's 'awesome responsibility'

Petaluma Argus-Courier
Weekend edition July 16-18, 1996

By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Argus-Courier Staff

The jury in the Richard Allen Davis trial have met two children -- equally capable, at some point, of sweetness and sensitivity.
Last week, it was a vibrant girl, who roller skated through her grandparents' house, played piano-violin duets with her grandfather, roughhoused with the family dog and played baseball with her father.
This week, they heard about a boy so tenderhearted he didn't even want to see chickens hurt. They also learned of the abuse, terror and rejection he was subjected to by his parents.
That boy was Davis, now 42. Prosecutors say he abducted that vibrant girl and subjected her to an evening of terror, ending in her death Oct. 1, 1993.
According to one legal expert, "an awesome responsibility" faces the jury in weighing the circumstances of both life and loss in the penalty phase of the trial.
The six men and sic women who convicted Davis June 18 of the murder of Polly Klaas must now decide whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or perish by lethal injection.
"This has to stay with them the rest of their lives," said Barry Helft, defense attorney and former director of capital cases for the state public defender's office.
And, according to veteran criminal lawyer Mike Adelson, "There are no guidelines other than, if the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, they shall find death. If the opposite is true, they shall find life."
That the jury took several days to return guilty verdicts when Davis' own lawyer conceded his guilt in the murder indicates they may take equal care during the penalty deliberations.
Ascertaining guilt was the easy part, experts say, despite the barrage of unbearably sad and sometimes gruesome testimony that preceded their deliberations.
"During the guilt phase of a trial, jurors must essentially ask, 'Are all the correct boxes checked?'" said Hastings School of Law professor Terry Diggs. "During the penalty phase, the question is, 'Do we want to kill this human being?' The kind of inquiry we're supposed to make in a capital case is to take a secondary step and look at the hard questions."
If the jury's sentiments reflect those of the public, they may be singularly unimpressed by the grim facts of Davis' early life.
"There's been a lot of coverage about the so-called abuse excuse," Diggs said. "There's been a real tendency in American culture lately to distance ourselves from psychological and psychiatric defenses."
But it is the obligation of defense attorneys during this phase of the trial to present "the crime coupled with the life history, so the jury can understand from whence a person came," said Helft.
In other words, for the defense to succeed, the jury does not need to learn to like Davis -- an admittedly tall order.
Yet, defense lawyers must make the jury understand why Davis is there to begin with, Helft said.
Witnesses like Polly's father, Marc Klaas, created an almost palpable image of a lively, warm girl. He made equally vivid the unmendable tear her death created in his own life.
Klaas is "clearly capable of articulating his pain," Helft said. "But Richard Allen Davis can't tell is defense lawyer why he is the way he is.
"Yale- and Harvard-educated people don't stand trial," he said. "The Richard Allen Davises of the world stand trial. You want the jury to understand the inarticulate environment he came from."
Klaas family members and supporters have little truck for comments that allude to a more complex Richard Allen Davis. They sometimes roll their eyes or whisper with obvious exasperation as defense attorneys Barry Collins and Lorena Chandler question witnesses or present arguments.
"They only thing one can actually do is try to address that -- you can't try to pretend it's not happening," said Diggs, a former Alameda deputy public defender. "Put it into the total presentation. The thing society has planned for us is the examination of more, rather than less. A key part of the attorney's function is to assemble all the parts of this complex picture -- and deal with every issue from within that context.
"All you are trying to do is get the jury to stand back and look at the whole picture," she said.

'The journey of not coming back'

Few make difficult move from Iraq to U.S.

Oakland Tribune, Oct 16, 2007 by Rebecca Rosen Lum

Of the millions of Iraqi refugees seeking new homes, relatively few are making their way to the United States -- and just a trickle reach the Bay Area.

They arrive exhausted and stunned, having seen their homes smashed to rubble, and relatives beaten or shot to death.

They've made their way to Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon or the Gulf states where, as "guests," they cannot work.

They plead for help from refugee workers, and few find a country willing to admit them.

The war has chased more than 4 million Iraqis from their homes, the United Nations has reported. The number is expected to reach 5.5 million by the end of this year.

The United States admitted only 1,608 -- instead of the promised 7,000 -- in the past fiscal year and says it is preparing to increase the flow. It committed in April to take 25,000 Iraqi refugees altogether.

Recent arrivals to the East Bay tell stories of misery and endless waiting.

Hussein, a 42-year-old father of two toddlers, holed up for eight months in Jordan in a two-room apartment with five strangers.

Hiyam, a 45-year-old mother of four sons, fished for food in trash bins during their seven-year limbo in that country.

Nearly all refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, said Kathleen Newland, director of Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization. They know their families in Iraq stomach a daily diet of fear. And they know they themselves will never return.

Refugees International calls the displacement of Iraqis the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.

Catholic Charities is among 10 agencies helping the refugees start a new life. Hussein, now in San Jose, said he is too fearful of retaliation against his family to make his last name public.

Mortar shells pounded the U.N. agricultural office where he worked. Later, insurgents attacked his home. His brother-in-law was shot dead when he went to collect Hussein's belongings, he said.

Karim, an artist and an atheist, once taught Arabic to non- native speakers. In April 2006, an anonymous threat arrived: "You are not needed in this place. Leave here." He sold his car and all his belongings and went to Jordan.

"That's the journey of not coming back," he said.

First walk, then run

Catholic Charities helped resettle the men in Santa Clara County. Karim, who also asked that his last name not be disclosed, has been here for a little more than a month; Hussein for 20 days. Despite the challenges, they plan to stay.

"It's better to live in heaven in the U.S. than in hell in Iraq," said Hussein.

"I prepared myself emotionally," Karim said. "I am going to live in a different place. This is Part Two of my life."

Hussein, a veteran truck driver, wants a license here, and fast.

"I have to work," he said. "I have a family."

The refugees are impatient to get moving.

Hazim, 48, took one English class then quit in frustration. He says he can learn on the job. With a family to support, he can't afford to waste time in class.

"I have to tell them to walk, not run, or they can hurt themselves," said Sister Elizabeth Lang, refugee director for Catholic Charities of the East Bay, who helped Hazim and his family resettle in Concord.

"There is so much disappointment, frustration. It's easy to lose hope."

A difficult adjustment

Hazim's wife, Hiyam, and their eldest son, Ammar, take a bus together to their daily adult-school English classes at Mt. Diablo Adult Education Center. It takes an hour and 20 minutes to get there from the home Hiyam calls "a starter apartment."

In the ground-floor apartment, vertical blinds cover aluminum sliding windows. A relative with a furniture shop brought them a couch and a table and chairs. On the wall hangs a blue plate with an Arabic inscription: "All blessings come from God."

It amazes Hiyam that their rent exceeds $1,300 a month. Refugee assistance, which has been folded into the welfare system, pays the family $980 a month for eight months. The system pays $350 a month for Ammar, 19.

Without a history in this country, they couldn't find an apartment. To get gas and electricity turned on, they had to pay a deposit.

"I asked for emergency food stamps," said Hayim's sister, Suna Salim, a Walnut Creek business owner and longtime resident who is helping settle the family. "They said they had to have proof that they had no money. I said, yes, Catholic Charities gave them some money, but they needed that for a deposit for rent."

Hazim has been suffering from panic attacks. Hiyam breaks out in nervous rashes.

"Every day, I cry at least once or twice," she said. "I am trying to figure out how to pay for things. I can't go to the doctor. I had an ear infection, it was bleeding."

The surprises are relentless. For one, Americans keep to themselves, Hiyam said.

"Here, everybody is in their own world," she said. "(In Iraq), neighbors come over, drink tea, kids play. People look out for each other. If someone makes some food, they bring you some. 'Hey, I'm going shopping -- want to go?"'

Another shock: American schools.

"That doesn't look like a school, that looks like a disco," said Hazim as the family passed by a high school, where girls in low- rise pants and tank tops stood chatting.

No comparison to Gulf War resettlements

Refugee workers note a stark difference between the Gulf War and this one.

"I was responsible for U.S. refugees during the first Gulf War," said Ellen Dumesnil, now director of refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities of Santa Clara. "We were able to process thousands of refugees after that war."

But the Bush administration has fallen far short of its goal of accepting 7,000 this year. At a Geneva conference in April, the United States pledged to take in as many as 25,000.

Dumesnil said the slowdown is a clause in the Patriot Act that bars immigration to anyone who has offered "material support" to the enemy.

That includes people who have paid ransom to insurgents who have kidnapped their loved ones, she said.

But a spokesman for the State Department said the only bureaucratic bottleneck was the lack of "infrastructure" in Jordan and Syria. With two refugee processing centers now in place, 1,000 refugees should now enter the United States each month, Kurtis Cooper said in a telephone interview earlier this month.

"We consider those issues to have been addressed," he said.

"It's mystifying," said Newland. The long processing times occur "partly because they are Iraqis and the U.S. is conducting a war in Iraq," she said. "But it's also because -- the government doesn't want to concede the vast majority will not be able to go back."

Canada will take 5,000 and Australia will take 1,000. Sweden has accepted 6,000 and Denmark several hundred, Dumesnil said.

Priority in this country is given to those who face immediate danger, those who have worked with the Americans and those with family here, she said. The United States has accepted only refugees who have made their way out of Iraq.

Once they are resettled here, refugees can become citizens in five years.

Life is not without its sweet moments. Hazim turned 48 here, and his sister-in-law took the family to Ocean Beach. He had never seen a beach before.

"He ran up and down," Salim said.

And Karim made the rounds of San Francisco galleries, where he touched a Miro and a Picasso.

"I am very eager to achieve a lot of things," said Karim, carefully folding newspaper reviews of his artwork into a binder. "I feel I can really do something in the U.S."

Richmond priest working to get mom out of Kenya

Oakland Tribune, Jan 3, 2008 by Rebecca Rosen Lum

RICHMOND -- As tribal foes descended upon neighborhoods in Kenya, a worried Richmond priest tried frantically Wednesday to wire money to get his mother out of a rural village.

Mobs had already set upon her community, torching neighbors' homes.

"She is in a church, but she doesn't have any food," said the Rev. James Kimani Kairu. He had urged her to take refuge in the parish earlier this week. Soon, some 10,000 desperate Kikuyu had packed in and around it, he said Wednesday, his voice quivering.

More than 5,000 Kenyans have fled into Uganda, and tens of thousands of others have left their homes to escape the chaos wracking the nation. Dozens of people who sought shelter in another church met a fiery death when mobs torched it Tuesday.

His three brothers and two sisters in different areas of the country could not travel because of the unrest, he said. Cell phones in Kenya require a prepaid calling card, but all the stores had shut down.

"They can't call each other, so I am the one organizing," said Kimani Kairu, who practices at St. David of Wales Catholic church in Richmond. He has been in this country for a year and a half while studying for his master's degree at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley.

Wednesday, some army units reached Aldoret to rescue people, Kimani Kairu said at sundown.

But Kalenjin tribal members "are coming to kill all the Kikuyu. I am trying to send money to my brother in Nairobi to get my mother out of there, but how to get her to the airport, that is the problem."

Terrified villagers poured onto the roads but found roadblocks en route to the airport, he said.

Luo and Kalenjin tribes believe incumbent Kikuyu President Mwai Kibaki rigged his Dec. 27 victory over Raila Odinga, a Luo challenger. Kenyans of all tribal backgrounds fear a backlash if a planned meeting between the two comes off in Nairobi today.

"The two are just playing a blame game on each other," Kimani Kairu said. "No one is willing to go a step further and stop it. I don't think any of the candidates is worthy of being president."

An ethnic Kikukyu, the 37-year-old Kimani Kairu said tensions disrupted the peace in 1992 and 1997, once forcing him to sleep in the forest. But he said the usually stable country has never experienced the kind of explosive violence that has erupted in the past several days.

He said his mother built a home on what some Kalenjin tribal members have recently claimed is their ancestral land.

Kikuyu have taken refuge in churches and police stations, he said. Without intervention, they could face slaughter, he said: "This the world must know."

Christian family abandons homeland to start new life

Oakland Tribune, Oct 16, 2007 by Rebecca Rosen Lum

Life in Fallujah was already dangerous before Samiya Bashir, her three daughters and son learned American and Iraqi forces were coming to "clean" their neighborhood.

Men with unfamiliar accents would stop them in their car and demand to know why the women didn't cover their heads. One day, two men sideswiped them, forced them to stop and tried to pull one of the women from the car.

They were Christians in a once-diverse society increasingly dominated by violent Islamic extremists.

In 2005, when American fliers dropped leaflets on their neighborhood warning of a coming air attack, the family threw together some pillows and blankets, documents and a laptop. They rented a car and drove to Diyarbakir, 60 miles inside Turkey. From there, they took a bus to Istanbul, and to a Catholic church.

Recognized by the U.S. State Department as members of a vulnerable minority, the Christians nonetheless waited for two years in Turkey before the U.N. high commissioner accepted them as refugees. The women were given passage to the Bay Area, where they joined a brother in Dublin. Another brother, Raed Toma, still waits in Turkey.

The first of several Iraqi families to be resettled by Catholic Charities of the East Bay, Bashir and her daughters have moved into a sparsely furnished apartment in Fremont and now spend their days running to Social Security, the Department of Motor Vehicles and other agencies to accomplish the tasks it takes to establish a working life.

Her son, Shamil Toma, a testing engineer, has been in the West for 15 years and is helping them learn to make their way in the United States.

When these refugees look back home now, they see a beloved country torn by harsh ethnic and religious rifts.

Twenty years ago, Hana Toma, 50 -- the eldest of Bashir's daughters and a former translator for the Ministry of Culture -- worked happily with a crew that included a liberal Shiite, a Turkman, a Christian and a Muslim, and she knew of many mixed marriages.

Wafa Toma, 45, a primary school teacher, and Sena Toma, 37, a teacher at a technical institute, enjoyed friendships with people of different faiths in Fallujah. In fact, faith was seldom discussed, they said.

Although they were Christians in a conservative Muslim neighborhood, they enjoyed mutual respect.

"Christmas, we set up our Christmas tree," Hana Toma said. "At Easter, Mother would color eggs. Until 2003, nobody knew who was living next to you religionwise. After 2003, everything just fell apart."

As the bombs began falling, the minority Wahhabis -- a Sunni revivalist sect that advocates separation of the sexes and other fundamentalist mores, enforced by a cultural police -- began asserting themselves. Other Wahhabis began pouring into the city.

"It was a catastrophe," Hana Toma said. "People thought there would be democracy and freedom. Those terms are comparative. How can you apply them when everything collapses?"

Freedom of religion has been all but lost in Iraq, according to a U.S. State Department report. The 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom blames the ongoing insurgency and "conservative and extremist Islamic elements" for the sharp decline in religious tolerance.

"We are a minority," said an Iraqi priest on an interfaith tour of California. He asked not to be named for fear of retaliation when he returns home. "We suffer maybe more than other minorities. Why? Insurgents say America is majority Christian. This is the logic."

Christians in Iraq -- Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, Armenians -- still use an ancient liturgy. Although they are a small minority -- 3 percent -- many are doctors and engineers, the priest said.

Chaldean priests have been threatened, kidnapped, tortured and killed. More than 500,000 Christians have fled the country since 2003, according to the State Department report.

"In Iraq, we have the same problem as here -- the silent majority: Muslim clergy don't speak out because they are afraid," the priest said.

"It's ironic because there have been Christians in Iraq since year zero, but Christians are associated in many people's minds with the West," said Kathleen Newland, director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization. "Their asylum claims are less likely to be challenged and there is advocacy on their behalf."

Three months after the attack on their neighborhood, Raed Toma returned to Fallujah and photographed the ransacked ruins of their home.

Now, they sit at a bare table in a room with few other accommodations sorting through the photographs showing a comfortable living room -- then the same room with a hole punched in one wall. Other photos show scorched walls of rooms that looters emptied.

Despite displacement and destruction, they laugh a lot. They have always been a close family, pouring their salaries into a single pot. They built their family home together "brick by brick," Hana Toma said.

Late in the morning on a weekday, the sisters poured Turkish coffee into espresso cups donated by a friend of Shamil's and served visitors helva candy.

"We don't like to just sit here and go shopping," Hana said. "That is not our life. We want to be active again."

Police chief's job on the line

Contra Costa Times
July 6, 2003 Sunday FINAL EDITION

By Karl Fischer and Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writers

RICHMOND -- A perception that Police Chief Joseph Samuels Jr. misled the City Council about disciplining employees for alleged misconduct may soon cost the city's top cop his job.

Numerous city officials say a firm council majority wants Samuels gone in October, when he finishes his one-year presidency of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the world's largest professional organization for police executives.

City Hall sources say City Manager Isiah Turner has given Samuels until the end of that term, Oct. 9, to repair his tarnished public image, heal gaping rifts between the department and Richmond's minority communities, and correct a series of employee discipline lapses that eroded council faith.

If not, Samuels will be removed as quickly as a graceful departure can be arranged, sources said.

"I've received input from community leaders and the City Council expressing concerns about the chief's leadership," Turner said. "I have raised these concerns with the chief and let him know we have certain standards and expectations."

"If these goals are not met, we will come to a point where we have a discussion about his career," Turner said.

Samuels would not comment directly.

"I've heard all the whispers, all the rumors about my job status," Samuels said. "But where I come from, who I am, the only voice I listen to is the voice of God."

Political will to remove Samuels coalesced in December, when City Council members learned a police officer accused of bullying a woman into having sex with him while on duty remained on the payroll, despite assertions by Samuels he was fired, sources said.

Suspicious the police department had given them inaccurate information about other personnel cases, the council investigated certain police misconduct complaints handled in the past two years by the department's internal affairs division and the civilian Police Commission.

The council review took more than two months of closed meetings ending in late April. In the end, the council demanded officials start termination hearings against five police employees, including the chief's closest adviser.

The department's handling of investigation and discipline in at least three cases severely damaged Samuels' credibility with the council, sources said.

In the first case, a 34-year-old female motorist claimed former Officer Patrick J. Sweeney stopped her in February 2002 and, after giving her a break on a ticket, asked for sex.

In a Nov. 21 damage claim against the city, she claims she had sex with Sweeney at least five times over a five-month period -- while he was armed and on duty -- because she was afraid of him.

While the council considered settling the claim at a Dec. 3 meeting, members asked about discipline, and sources say Samuels and other city staff members told them Sweeney had been fired.

Samuels recalls telling them only that he recommended Sweeney be fired. "Maybe I should have elaborated a little more on the process," Samuels said.

The council soon learned on its own that Sweeney took a long-term medical leave months earlier and was not fired.

Sweeney, the nephew of Richmond's former interim Police Chief Ed Duncan, took a medical retirement May 9. The council settled the woman's claim for $35,000 in February.

In a second case, Samuels apparently did not place his top civilian aide on administrative leave or notify him of his termination hearing in late April despite direct orders from the council.

Council members learned nearly two weeks later that Armand Mulder remained on the job after several female city employees who had complained he sexually harassed them frantically phoned to report more problems.

Mulder, who served as the department's commander of support services until his sudden retirement May 19, was the subject of a December internal affairs complaint. Council members were horrified to learn the complainant, whom Mulder supervised, continued to work in the same office after she made the complaint.

A department source said Samuels in December removed Mulder from direct supervision of the city jail, where the woman worked, when the claim "came to (his) attention." Samuels said he could not comment.

In the third case, the council dressed down Samuels publicly for not investigating brutality claims against several officers linked to a notorious police action on May 5, 2002.

The council learned internal affairs investigators contacted some of the primary witnesses for the first time April 29, just hours before the council was briefed on police plans for this year's Cinco de Mayo observances.

This, despite Samuel's repeated assurances his department investigated the incident while the civilian police commission conducted an 11-month investigation into numerous brutality claims.

"In the past they have had a number of bad moments here," said Councilwoman Maria Viramontes of strained relations between police and local Latinos. "Cinco de Mayo was another one of those moments, and it didn't have to go the way it did."

Council demands that Samuels take action resulted in a pink slip for Officer La Raunce Robinson, who was accused in a civil rights suit filed this spring of striking community activist Andres Soto with a metal flashlight during the incident.

The commission's findings did not substantiate claims against any of the officers named in the suit.

The firing had nothing to do with what Robinson did on Cinco de Mayo, sources said, but with evidence he lied to the commission during his testimony about the incident.

"We believe that (his firing) was politically motivated. The complaint was not factually sound," said Alison Berry Wilkinson, an attorney representing Robinson. "They were doing it, in my opinion, to resolve some community issues rather than because it was the right thing to do."

Talk of all these incidents has roiled the city's neighborhoods, igniting a discontent simmering since Samuels arrived in August 1999 and began dismantling the community-involved policing started by his popular predecessor.

When Samuels came to Richmond, the only concern was that the ambitious up-and-comer might not stick around if he were offered a more prestigious assignment.

Samuels seemed like the dream candidate. He had become Fresno's police chief at 42, and Oakland's first-ever African-American police chief. He launched community policing programs in both cities and collected some admirable awards. At only 50, he sat on the board of the world's largest organization of police executives.

"I was very pleased," said Eleanor Loynd, president of the Richmond Neighborhood Coordinating Council. "I thought, 'He's coming from Oakland, he's dealt with all that.' It has been a real disappointment."

Richmond searched for months to replace Police Chief Bill Lansdowne after he went to San Jose in 1998.

Then, in March 1999, word came that Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown planned to purge department heads, including Samuels. Although he says there was no connection, City Manager Isiah Turner dumped a pool of finalists that included three Richmond police captains.

In August 1999, Samuels took a $24,000 pay cut to become Richmond's top cop.

He was given a four-year contract paying $147,000 a year and asked to expand Richmond's popular community policing program.

He is the only city executive, other than Turner, to have a contract. It expires in August.

Samuels needed the job security it provided. He knew he would be president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2002-03, a post he would have to resign if he lost his job.

At the time the contract seemed like a small concession for Richmond. But Samuels soon began rubbing the neighborhood councils the wrong way.

"I've learned that this community wants a hands-on chief," said Samuels, who intends to spend more time in the city once his IACP commitment ends in October.

One of his first acts was to re-assign five of 16 neighborhood-based officers to Narcotic Intervention Team Restoring Order, a nine-member task force targeting gangs, guns and drug dealing.

"He came in with an attitude toward dismantling the community policing we had with Chief Lansdowne," said east Richmond's Nick Despota. "There was a huge outcry, and after that he tried to piece it back together, but he wasn't very effective."

Samuels said promotions, injuries and retirements forced the shifting of officers.

Community policing embraces two tenets: Pairing an officer with a neighborhood over a long haul, and helping an area become crime resistant, said Rudi Raab, a North and East Neighborhood Council representative who works as a Berkeley police officer.

"If you stay on the beat, there's no us versus them. It's us together," he said. "In Richmond, it's a revolving door."

Under community pressure, the City Council in January approved 17 guidelines for community policing. But critics say they have yet to be implemented.

Samuels disagrees, and says a report due this month will show marked improvements in community relations.

"We're looking at making a lot of changes," he said.

Among officers, Samuels has become known as an aloof, hands-off executive, as in Oakland.

He is away on association business so often the council appointed an assistant police chief, paying him $146,500 a year -- only $500 less than Samuels -- to steer community-building efforts and represent the department.

Within the past two weeks, assistant police chief Charles Bennett tendered his resignation, leading residents to despair of community-involved policing ever getting off the ground in Richmond.

"Chuck Bennett is the one who carries CIP," Raab said. "This is really sad."

Raab said his most telling encounter with Samuels came early on, at a meeting that included Turner.

He and others hoped to implement a public education campaign to keep New Year's revelers from shooting live rounds into the air.

"Within five minutes, the chief stood up and said, 'I'm sorry, but I have an important meeting to go to.' I wanted to grab that guy by the lapels and say, 'Listen, we're talking about out-of-control gunfire in your city and you have somewhere more important to be?' And Isiah let him get away with it."

Editor's noteThe Times does not use unnamed sources unless editors determine them to be credible, the information cannot be obtained any other way and the sources have compelling reasons for remaining unnamed, such as fear of retribution. In this case, the situation's gravity and the legal issues involved for the numerous sources led us to take the unusual step.

Woman's damage claim led to police chief's scrutiny

Contra Costa Times
July 6, 2003 Sunday FINAL EDITION
RICHMOND -- The case that triggered an avalanche of mistrust among City Council members and scrutiny of Police Chief Joseph Samuels Jr. began as a routine traffic stop.

Early Feb. 17, 2002, Officer Patrick J. Sweeney pulled over a 34-year-old woman near South 15th Street and Cutting Boulevard for a minor traffic violation, according to a Nov. 21 damage claim against the city.

He checked her record for warrants and, finding none, said he would give her a break -- allegedly with one catch.

"Officer Sweeney told (the woman) that he wanted her to go home, put on lingerie and have sex with him," according to the claim. "(The woman) was shocked, but felt she had to do what Officer Sweeney wanted her to do. He was a police officer, carrying a gun, and she felt that she was powerless given his authority."

The Times does not name possible sexual abuse victims without their consent.

The woman did not respond to numerous attempts to contact her over several weeks. Her attorney said without her permission he could not comment.

Richmond council members, reading the claim for the first time in December, saw that Sweeney was the target of both internal affairs and criminal investigations connected with the incident.

At a closed meeting, members asked whether the officer had been disciplined.

Sources say the council received different answers from three staff members: "Don't worry about it," "He's not coming back," and a statement that Sweeney had been fired.

But soon afterward, a council member stumbled across a monthly statistical report documenting police officer injuries. It showed Sweeney remained on the payroll, using injury leave to nurse an ailing wrist he hurt on the job.

Samuels said he recalls telling the council that he had recommended Sweeney be fired.

According to a series of damage claims filed against the city between September and November 2002, the woman said she performed oral sex on Sweeney the day of the traffic stop.

She filed a complaint against him with police internal affairs on Feb. 21, 2002, only to receive a surprise telephone call.

"After repeatedly being called and threatened by Officer Sweeney, (she) returned to internal affairs to withdraw her complaint," according to the claim.

Despondent and feeling powerless, the woman submitted to sex with Sweeney at least four more times last spring all while he was on duty, according to the claims.

Sweeney, who took a medical retirement May 9 over the wrist injury, denies he ever had sex with the woman or knew her before the Feb. 21 complaint.

He claims to be the victim of an elaborate plot by street criminals to remove him from duty. Sweeney, 33, says many criminals inhabiting the Easter Hill public housing project and other areas he patrolled "hated and feared" him because of his efficacy as a police officer.

"Those people wanted me out of there," Sweeney said. "I was very proactive. I've been shot at, dragged by a car. -- I took a lot of people to jail, got tommy guns, Uzis, rock cocaine, crystal meth, working 13-hour days. I don't know when I would have time to do all this stuff" the woman claims.

After a second internal affairs complaint was filed in July 2002, the department investigated. Samuels said he could not release the findings because it is a personnel matter.

Sources say the police investigation revealed the woman told investigators she and Sweeney were in a relationship.

Still, the case caught the eye of a social worker who helped domestic violence and sexual assault victims, who relayed the information to the police department's Family Services Unit, which investigates sexual assault.

Sgt. Mark Gagan, head of the unit, initiated a criminal investigation. The Contra Costa District Attorney's Office conducted an independent investigation.

"We interviewed her in detail," Gagan said. "I believe that in the end -- all of us were convinced that the actions were not criminal," meaning the facts would not meet the legal tests required to successfully prosecute the case.

Sweeney was not disciplined. Samuels said his injury leave prevented the city from following some steps required by state law to fire him.

Sweeney will receive a portion of his pay and benefits for life, human resources manager Rob Larson said.

In February 2003, the City Council settled the woman's claim for $35,000.

SRO hotel owner: slumlord to some, savior to city officials

Contra Costa Times

By Rebecca Rosen Lum
Times staff writer

Mista Yancey stuffs the holes in his wall with plastic grocery bags to keep rats out of the room he and his wife share. On this oppressively hot, stagnant day, he plucks the pane out of the window and sets it aside. The sashes are so badly rotted, the windows no longer slide up and down.

The room is just large enough to hold a double bed. The sink in the Yanceys' room doesn't work, but they keep a bucket underneath it to catch frequent sewage back-ups. Four or five times a day, they dump the brown water that accumulates in it. They've photographed the rats that congregate at night, but so far they say they haven't been able to persuade their landlord, Inderjit Bal, to fumigate.

"I've been waiting so long for someone to come here and see how we live," Yancey said, waving dismissively at a faceless electrical socket that dangles unbolted along the corridor wall.

For more than 10 years, tenants and their advocates have complained about the rodent-infested, decaying building on Richmond's Macdonald Avenue. They describe the single-room-occupancy hotel, or SRO, as not just dismal but dangerous.

A one-time Bhopal, India, police inspector, Bal bought the two-story, 1910-era brick building in 1991. The City Council issued him a use permit in 1993.

For $435 to $600 a month, tenants get a private bedroom and share a common kitchen, dining room and bathrooms. There are 13 units on the second floor, and Bal rents the ground floor to two storefront churches.

"They are not satisfied with the landlord because I make them pay the rent," Bal said of his critics. "And there are people very fond of making complaints. I am a very good father, a very good brother to my tenants. I am their guardian. I am their well-wisher."

Among other acts of kindness, he volunteered free lodging for a time to a pregnant woman and to a family of five with nowhere else to go, he said.

But the tenants see things differently.

Entire sections of wall and floor have rotted away. Years of complaints about rats, leaks, exposed wire and corrosion have produced no improvements, they claim. One man was so fed up with the slow pace of repair and so terrified that a fire could spark from an oven with no door, that he bought an oven himself last week and had it installed in the shared kitchen.

Longtime renters say the furnace hasn't pumped out heat in years. Only one bathroom works. Much of the fire safety equipment required by the use permit, including smoke detectors in every room and up-to-date fire extinguishers, is missing or inoperative. Yet, despite overwhelming problems, Bal conducts business as he has done for years -- with the blessing of those who could force him to rehabilitate this rooming house.

Fire inspectors and City Council members have repeatedly praised Bal's efforts. His defenders say that without him, these tenants would be homeless. For those who live here -- some of whom work at low-paying jobs, others who collect disability or social security -- it's this or nothing.

Tenants and intruders have kicked in doors, stolen laundry coin boxes, disengaged smoke detectors, broken locks and thrown stones through windows, Bal said.

As for the Yanceys, Bal said they plugged up their own sink. He filed papers threatening them with eviction. "Since then they have been behaving very well," he said. "It costs me $500 to file an eviction. I don't get it back. If I talk about my problems, who cares? But if the tenants have problems, I am a bad landlord, and they are being discriminated against."

Despite documentation of numerous problems by use permit inspectors, Bal has made it through three permit revocation hearings, in 1993, 1994 and 1995, two investigative news reports in 1996 and 1998, and a sustained outcry from neighbors in Richmond's Iron Triangle section. The City Council has reversed every attempt by the Planning Commission to revoke Bal's use permit.

He hired the public relations firm of former Mayor George Livingston and Nat Bates, before Bates was a Richmond city councilman, to advise him before one hearing at an approximate cost of $5,000, Bates said.

"We sort of guided him," Bates said. "He was a very decent man."

The council hasn't addressed the matter since 1998, when it turned down a neighborhood request to close the hotel down.

But if Bates sees Bal as "a very decent man," and one who "probably gives more than he gets in return," Bal's management of the hotel has frustrated local police.

"The other SROs do a better job of keeping up the exterior and the hallways, bathrooms and kitchens," said Police Sgt. Ron Berry, who heads up the city's blight abatement team. "He finds ways to get around requirements. He blames problems on other people. I wish he'd try to see what people go through. But he's in this to make a profit."

Bal has proved a tireless litigator, suing tenants for the costs of property damage, back rent and security deposit increases. He has reported his critics to police, accusing them of breaking and entering when they respond to the pleas of tenants to look at conditions firsthand.

"It isn't just Mr. Bal, it's the city who's at fault here," said Iron Triangle resident and reformer Mildred Carlton. "The city is responsible for these deplorable conditions. They have failed to enforce the conditions on this permit."

Bal first applied for a permit in January 1993 and was rejected. A month later, the City Council OK'd his bid with additional conditions, including a management plan and a schedule of code compliance inspections.

County health officials, who have jurisdiction over Richmond since it has no municipal health department, said they could have ordered repairs -- if Richmond officials had notified them of a problem. In 10 years, no one has.

"We could be influential in getting this landlord to clean up his act, but somebody needs to tell us about it," Supervisor John Gioia said. "There is no excuse for not correcting these problems."

For residents of the hotel and the neighborhood, the explanation is simple. "There is an iron curtain around the Iron Triangle," Carlton said.

There are a handful of clean, functional SROs in Richmond. But 514 Macdonald Ave. has escaped the most dogged efforts of reformers.

Someone slashed open the fiberglass mailbox months ago, and it has not been repaired since then. Fearing checks could be stolen, tenants wait outside for the mail to arrive.

The fire escape dangles by a chain. "Even if you could get to the end, what are you going to do then?" resident Armund Johnson said, gesturing toward a drop of several feet onto a debris-strewn concrete lot. The gate that encloses it is padlocked.

The dining room is furnished with a rickety wooden table, no chairs and three sagging, stained couches.

One section of floor has rotted through. Residents barricaded it "so you don't forget and walk on it," one tenant said. "You'd be on the first floor in a hurry."

A box with a board over it serves as a step outside the single functioning shower. Whole sections of tile have fallen away.

And tenants say Bal does nothing to stop petty criminals from setting up shop in the hotel. They also say there are numerous unlocked entries that allow intruders easy access.

One couple, a man with renal failure and his wife, who works in the daytime, say a tenant's alleged prostitution business makes their nights a sleepless hell.

"I'm tired of it," the man said. "Everybody's tired of it."

"What can I do? I am not strong man," Bal said.

He does not call police; they have "more important things to do," he said. Sgt. Berry said he would respond immediately if called.

"I've got to run people out everyday who don't belong here," Mista Yancey said angrily. "I find homeless people in the furnace room. There's people in there having sex. All kinds of people come in to take showers."

If the conditions have raised eyebrows, so has Bal's record of litigation. He has been in court more than 150 times since 1991, mainly to evict tenants.

In one court action, a tenant claimed Bal sued him for two months' rent during a one-month period and refused to return his security deposit as promised.

Those who malign the business practices of Bal have marveled at his ability to escape enforcement.

"People have always said, 'Well, that's a tough neighborhood. Those people need somewhere to live, and this guy's willing to step up to the plate,'" said Councilman Tom Butt, who is urging the city to more aggressively pursue alleged violators. "That sort of perception has gotten him off the hook many times."

Former tenants Mary Brookings and Grace Wilburn say mosquitoes drove away congregants who came to their ground-floor community church, the result of standing water in the basement, a condition confirmed by a PG&E meter reader's report. Carlton said she ventured into the basement once and screamed when she saw electrical cords running from ice cream freezers to outlets under water.

"If you went down into that basement you could see it was just a matter of time until somebody got hurt," Brookings said.

Today, the conditions governing the hotel are mainly those proposed by Bal. His fire safety plan, approved by the city in 1998, ensures that a bucket of water and a bucket of fine sand are kept on hand. If a fire breaks out, those present are advised to "try to control it with all available equipment as soon as possible," and to "shout for help if necessary."

The city's own files bulge with documentation of alleged health and safety violations. A 1995 photo in Planning Department files shows a rat lounging in a sunny spot on a bathroom floor. In another, a stack of torn mattresses rests against an exterior wall. "Fire hazard," a department staffer wrote in longhand, with arrows pointing to various points on the property.

Inspectors found electrical sockets without cover plates, holes in the floors, overflowing Dumpsters, a jammed garbage chute and wiring protruding from walls. The same year, 1995, a report signed by fire inspector Jerry Pando praised Bal and the condition of the property.

"Excellent condition!" it says. "Owner very cooperative in maintaining code compliance." Also in 1995, building inspector Coy Charles sent a memo to then-Planner Natalia Lawrence saying "no building code violations were observed."

The next year, fire inspector Pando praised the hotel's "good overall conditions," and added that Bal was "to be complimented on keeping building in good order."

Lawrence has moved on, but Pando and Charles are still working for the city.

"He was very conscientious about getting things done," Pando said last week[AMC2]. "When I do inspections, I try to educate the people about what they need to do, and once they know they are pretty good about keeping up what they need to do."

As recently as last Friday, the hotel easily passed a fire inspection.

The city's code compliance chief Fred Clement said he "could not say" why the city has not found problems with the use permit.

"People can say this and that, but I have never failed a fire inspection," Bal said.

After each Planning Commission vote to revoke Bal's permit, the City Council has reinstated it on appeal.

"You just can't win with him," Wilburn said. "You think the council is going to help you, but they always rule in his favor."

That infuriates Yancey. Holding up a 2001 fire extinguisher, he said, "It hasn't even been charged."

"I mean, come on now," he said walking by the display board showing Bal's detailed management plan. "All these papers are out of date."

As a councilman, Bates has consistently protested efforts to curtail Bal's operation.

"We've got rooming houses all over the city," Bates said. "If you really want to attack the problem you have to do it citywide. They offer a service nobody else wants to offer. Yes, they should have hot water, they should be sanitary, but if you close it down, where are these people going to go? You can't expect him to provide a high-class place when he probably seldom collects the full rent."

A Contra Costa County inspector scoffs at that reasoning. "That's the fallback argument: Let them live like that, because there's nothing else for them," said senior environmental health inspector Joe Doser.

Bal said his critics do not understand the daunting challenges he faces. He says it's a battle to collect the rent and keep the place in working order.

"I criticize the welfare system for making these poor people useless," he said. "Why should they work? Food is free, clothing is free, they eat better than I can afford to eat at the soup kitchen. If you study the lives of these people you'll see they live better than us hard-working people. You go over to the park across the street, and you have never heard such sounds of happiness and laughter."

A polite, soft-spoken man, Bal is frequently seen at the hotel in coveralls and a baseball cap. He owns several properties in Richmond, most modest tract homes he subdivides into rental units. He also owns a spacious home in Carriage Hills and another in San Ramon.

Managing the property "is trouble, but I have gone through much worse troubles in my life," he said. "What would be trouble to an ordinary man is no trouble to me. I have a great deal of experience dealing with low-grade people. It's a cat-and-mouse game, a game they play." He was awarded the highest humanitarian award in India for his service on the police force, he said.

Former Richmond planning commissioner Susan Geick says it is Bal who plays a cat-and-mouse game -- with the city.

"It makes me ill," she said. "(Bal) has done terrible things to these people and this city has let him get away with it. We've protected this man far better and longer than our citizens who need us."

Home fraud penalties stiffer because of Richmond woman

Contra Costa Times
Friday FINAL EDITION

By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer

Gov. Gray Davis has signed into law a measure boosting penalties for fraud in the sale of home equity contracts to seniors in foreclosure.

Dubbed "the Irene Feaster bill" for the Richmond resident who inspired it, the law increases civil penalties to $2,500 and the maximum fine to $25,000.

"A sick, elderly woman was pressured into selling her home for an amount well below market value," said state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, the law's sponsor.

"It seemed crazy when I read about it in the newspaper," Torlakson said.

In December 2002, the Times wrote about Feaster, now 76, who had been hospitalized for treatment of breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease and early stage dementia when her home went into foreclosure.

She sold it for $10,000 in 1999 but says she never received the money. She was promised the right to stay there, but the buyer sold the home almost immediately.

It changed hands a number of times, and tens of thousands of dollars in loans were taken out on the Richmond three-bedroom.

Feaster's lawyer, Craig Nevin of Walnut Creek, has asked a court to undo all the real estate transactions back to the original sale. A tentative settlement is awaiting approval in Contra Costa Superior Court.

Court costs have taken their toll on Feaster, a diminutive woman who uses a wheelchair. Her telephone has been disconnected and her power cut off. Friends and neighbors bring her food and assist her.

She remains in her home of 30 years, and if a judge OKs the settlement, she will stay there the rest of her life.