Bill Lover is out of bounds and he knows it. He’s gone over the top and he knows it. His recent public flareup with Police Chief Sam Granato at the Jan 21st  Public Safety Committee meeting  requires an apology to both the Chief and Cesar Abreu, the crime analyst whose credentials Lover questioned. Lover berated Chief Granato about the crime analyst qualifications, putting the chief on the defensive. Is this the way council members are to work with staff for the betterment of the city? Is this an example of the culture Rick Ensey wants to promote when he brought up the subject at the recent council retreat? This was the full day retreat that Lover hastily left shortly after it started and after Kathy Coffey and Maureen Adkison (to their credit) criticized Lover’s actions as “inappropriate” .
The Yakima City Council should censure Lover for his outlandish behavior and disrespect to city staff. This calls into question the structure of the ethics committee, who should be investigating this incident. That’s not likely to happen. The current structure is for city council members themselves to handle ethical questions. This should be set up with an independent panel of citizens to vet complaints and provide their opinion or recommendations to the city council.
You can view the Public Safety Committee video and/or the day long retreat video from the city website, and/or read this article from Chris Bristol’s blog in the Yakima Herald.
It is interesting to read the interaction between Lover and Granato where Lover says, Abreu was a civilian in the military when he was clearly a Chief warrant officer. Doesn’t he do his homework before showing up to the meetings? I can see why Lover would want the advice of an attorney.
if the resume provided to council members is lacking in details that the Chief bragged about then the chief should provide an updated resume.
if discrepancies still exist then the adequacy of the background check conducted on Abreu is very suspect.
What a tempest in a teapot…
The exchange between Bill and Sam took 25 seconds of a 1 hour meeting. Bill only questioned Sam about a civilian being in charge of intelligence in a war zone. Having been in Vietnam, and being a vet with 23 years in the military, he would be the only one at the table that would have questioned that. And don’t think any other vet with that many years in wouldn’t have done the same.
As Bill usually does his “homework” more thoroughly than anyone else there, I may question whether or not he had that info in his packet. Or there is the possibility that he missed it. In any case, the exchange wasn’t anything like Bonlender is making it out to be.
BOTH men could have been more diplomatic, but it really amounted to nothing.
Amazing what kind of WHINE you can make with sour grapes.
Correctamente! In the Public Safety Meeting (totally separate from the City Council) The question was appropriate, and as Neal says, both could have been more tactful in their delivery. At that other meeting and on Granato’s delivery that Abreu was reported to by seven FBI civilians, Lover said,”…are you sure of that?” Granato pounced. Granato is a smart man, but he does lock up a lot of information in his own closet. Ex: He brought what he called a “7,000 page” something or other to the Public Safety meeting, and then essentially told them it was classified and it all belonged only to his bailiwick. No member of the Public Safety Committee bothered to turn a page. He also said the, Analyst and Intelligence Officer was going to report only to him, because “I don’t want my information filtered. It’s my decision to make and that is how it will be.” I don’t like that sort of attitude, and I can see why Lover bristled over Granato’s remarks. Additionally, Granato beats you to death with words. His comments took more than ten minutes, which he could have stated in two minutes.
The Yakima School’s Superintendent was impressive and she brought along two of her best principals to expound on the need for police officers at the schools.
BTW, someone said during that meeting that those officers do not carry a taser. The one I talked to at Washington Middle School was carrying a 40mm handgun, cuffs, a Taser, and enough communications equipment to start a small scrimmage with Fidel Castro. No criticism, just an observation. I do hope some money can be found to support those officers, because they do fill an important safety need.