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Dear Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, As Chair and Vice Chair of the Sonoma County Community and Local Law Enforcement Task Force (CALLE), ... The California Supreme (Court Copley Press v. Superior Court 2006) effectively changed California Penal Code, so that all independent oversight agencies, such as civilian review boards, oversight panels, and civil service commissions, must now cloak all officer records and findings of misconduct in strict confidentiality..., any independent investigation that would yield specific information about officer misconduct and patterns is stifled, and must come through an internal law enforcement investigation, or motions approved by a judge. Even...

Jill Ravitch is Sonoma County’s District Attorney and Gloria Eurotas is the director of Victim Services. You’re late for work, and don’t take the time to kiss your 13-year-old son goodbye as he leaves for school. It’s just another day, and you think nothing of it, you will connect with him in the evening. Then the nightmare begins. The phone rings and you find that a deranged Deputy Sharif unloaded his service weapon down the sidewalk and hit a child as he walked home. You race to the hospital and find officials present with police. The Depuity is not in...

Sonoma County prosecutors spent $63,000 on outside consultants, and other expenses during an investigation into the shooting death of a child, who was shot and killed by a County Deputy Sheriff. The expense, included $10,000 payment to a William Lewinski, director of Minnesota-based, Force Science Institute who bills himself as an authority and is known in legal circles as someone who can be relied upon. The report concluding Gelhaus had to shoot 13-year-old Lopez to stop a perceived threat to the deputy and his partner.

Every year since 2001, the Sonoma County grand jury has reviewed what police call “critical incidents” – officer-involved shootings and the deaths of suspects or criminal defendants in custody. Until this year. The 2013-14 grand jury, whose term ended June 30, declined to examine such cases. That includes the October fatal shooting of teenager Andy Lopez by Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy Erick Gelhaus, among other deaths involving law enforcement in the past year. Citing a lack of expertise, financial support and public misconceptions about their role, Sonoma County grand jurors decided to diverge from the longstanding custom.

Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputy Erick Gelhaus shouted then shot (dead 13-year-old Andy Lopez on October 22, 2013), Eric fired eight rounds. The hit / miss order can never be known. What is known is that Andy had failed to orange tip the bb-gun and that he never returned fire. Forensic indicate the 73 lb. perp took three 44 hollow points in the back and right side (falling?) plus four horizontals, head , neck lower...

A rumor that a decision on the fate of Sheriff's deputy who shot down 13 year old Andy Lopez, is imminent is false, says media coordinator of the Sonoma County District Attorney's office. A press conference (had been) scheduled for today to forgo murder charges against the killer, who challenged, then shot and killed Andy, October 22 last year. "A little mex, walking with a un-tipped look-alike AK-47, BB gun". //Snipp// Santa Rosa City Manager Kathy Millison sent an email Thursday to Santa Rosa City Council members and staff directing talking points to (prop). The assigned roles of the internal...

reid.epstein@newsday.com Gov. David A. Paterson "simply does not have the authority" to name a lieutenant governor, a four-judge Appellate Division panel said Thursday, voiding last month's appointment of Richard Ravitch to the post. The panel concluded that Paterson's July 8 appointment of Ravitch violated the state constitution. "No provision of the Constitution or of any statute provides for the filling of a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor other than by election, and only the temporary president of the Senate is authorized to perform the duties of that office during the period of the vacancy," the court stated. Paterson...

August 20, 2009 Court Rejects Ravitch Appointment By Jeremy W. Peters David A. Paterson’s naming of Richard Ravitch last month to the vacant lieutenant governor’s post was ruled illegal on Thursday by a state appeals court panel that deemed Mr. Paterson had violated the State Constitution. The ruling blocks Mr. Ravitch from serving as lieutenant governor. “The governor’s purported appointment of Mr. Ravitch was unlawful because no provision of the Constitution or of any statute provides for the filling of the vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor other than by election,” said the ruling from the four-judge panel of...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Governor David Paterson will appeal a Nassau County court's ruling that found he lacked the power to appoint a lieutenant governor and blocks him from carrying out his role, Paterson's spokesman said. Spokesman Peter Kauffmann, in a statement late Tuesday, said: "Governor Paterson's appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor is legally sound and we are confident the appellate courts will ultimately rule in our favor." The court fight could interfere with the state senate's ability to approve bills and again casts doubt on who would succeed Paterson, a Democrat, if he could not...

Gov. David Paterson has appointed businessman Richard Ravitch lieutenant governor. In a 5 p.m. address, Paterson said the move was necessary as a result of the “chaos” in the Senate. Paterson called the move unprecedented but necessary. “I see closure to this crisis,” Paterson said, adding that he was seeking New Yorkers’ support for his decision. He also said he expects a legal challenge to his decision and asked there are plans for “future legal action, I ask it be done expeditiously.” Ravitch is the former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chair. Paterson said he appointed Ravitch because the...

Mass transit is on the brink, and there's no single, simple fix. Ravitch wants a tax on all worker payrolls downstate - 33 cents for every $100, yielding $1.5 billion a year. Burdening businesses with new costs at this tenuous time is not to be taken lightly. But it is necessary. Second, he calls for new tolls on East River and Harlem River bridges - which would net another $600 million a year. That won't be painless either. But it, too, is necessary. Third, the plan calls for a new approach to fare hikes - inflation-adjusted increases every two years....

September 16, 2003, 10:30 a.m.On PatrolDiane Ravitch goes inside a protection racket.A Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez iane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, is author, most recently, of The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Ravitch recently talked to NRO about the Language Police. Kathryn Jean Lopez: Who are "the language police"?Diane Ravitch: Read the book and you will see. It is now a process of "bias and sensitivity review" for weeding out anything controversial or offensive. It is self-censorship, which publishers think is high-minded and necessary. It is the result of...

In the early 1990s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued standards that disparaged basic skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, since all of these could be easily performed on a calculator. In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. In the 1998 book, the index listed families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in...

It seems our math educators no longer believe in the beauty and power of the principles of mathematics. They are continually in search of a fix that will make it easy, relevant, fun, and even politically relevant. In the early 1990s, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics issued standards that disparaged basic skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, since all of these could be easily performed on a calculator. The council preferred real life problem solving, using everyday situations. Attempts to solve problems without basic skills caused some critics, especially professional mathematicians, to deride the "new, new math"...

<p>A textbook review process taking place in states across the country has changed or eliminated references to everything from the Founding Fathers to hot dogs, leaving many to charge educators with distorting history in the name of political correctness.</p> <p>The review process, which is routinely done in many states, is meant to eliminate or replace outdated words or phrases. But what’s happening has a lot of people wondering – quite literally – "Where’s the beef?"</p>