Riverside County Board Of Supervisors Appear Ready For Oversight Of Sheriff's Department

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — A year after a similar proposal was shot down, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday will reconsider whether to form a committee to assess possible measures to improve oversight of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and improve the agency's overall operations going forward.

"This process is intended to support informed decision-making, strengthen public confidence in county government and public safety and ensure that any future actions are tailored to Riverside County's unique operational needs," according to a joint statement by Supervisors Jose Medina and Karen Spiegel posted to the board's agenda for Tuesday.

The two are requesting full board support for the establishment of an ad-hoc committee intended to spend about six months evaluating how best to increase scrutiny of sheriff's operations, and what might be done to make the agency better, ethically and professionally.

"The board has previously considered whether additional advisory or oversight mechanisms should be evaluated or established, but those discussions did not result in formal board action," the supervisors stated. "Since that time, circumstances have continued to evolve."

Last July, Medina proposed the establishment of a committee with essentially the same intention of this latest proposal.

"Given everything that has transpired in the last few years, with the number of lawsuits, indicates that we need a committee," he told his colleagues, none of whom would support his proposal, last summer.

Sheriff Chad Bianco, then running for governor, was rankled by the prospect of a committee to weigh whether a full-time watchdog was needed for the agency.

Bianco dismissed the proposal as "divisive partisan politics."

"We're here because of a lie," the sheriff said. "I will not say our agency is perfect, but we're striving to be the best."

A number of pro-committee speakers at the time pointed to the dozens of in-custody deaths — an exact figure was elusive — that have occurred in the last six or more years throughout the county correctional system, insisting that negligence, poor training and other deficiencies in the sheriff's department were to blame.

The Riverside Sheriffs' Association, which endorsed all of the supervisors except Medina in their election or reelection bids over the last seven years, had more than one representative on hand during the prior meeting on a committee and will likely be present Tuesday.

This spring, a Riverside County Civil Grand Jury Report was critical of the sheriff's department and the county for not being transparent about its jail system and inmate deaths. The report called for a coordinated, countywide oversight framework.

Medina noted in his proposal last year that Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Sonoma counties had all moved forward with establishing oversight committees, but it wasn't clear how much additional financial burden that had placed on the jurisdictions.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department regularly leads among county agencies in the number of lawsuits filed annually naming the department as a defendant. The suits often stem from deputy-involved shootings.

In 2014, then-Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, disturbed by the millions of dollars in liability claims the county was having to settle every year, proposed making agencies responsible for paying their own settlements out of their individual budgets. The sheriff's department was the principal opponent of the concept, which didn't garner support.