Posts Tagged ‘Alameda County Family Justice Center’
Family Justice Centers, revisited (Model Programs with Major Design Flaws) [post updated 5-31-13]
Family Justice Centers, revisited (Model Programs with Major Design Flaws) [post updated 5-31-13] (Post title with case-sensitive short-link ending “-1IF”
(This segment comes from the middle of the “Jump in and Start a Conversation” post. Taking it out cut the post size by about half! Guess I have a lot to say….. [The first several paragraphs were added during the “move” process..responding to more information found about some of the collaborations.] I also back-dated the publish date by two days to 5/28/2013, so as not to interrupt the current subject matter focus around the matters of CT AFCC, and getting the evidence on the corporations in the courthouse….)
Please notice the gap between when an individual survivor and person (me) discovered this programming, compared to when the justice centers began: seven years, two years — years, before we catch up to which model is being applied where LOCALLY. Another way to understand this in advance is the simple concept: CIVIL SERVANTS have become experts at forming NONPROFITS according to NATIONAL MODELS AGREED UPON IN THE CONFERENCE CIRCUITS OF THEIR OWN TRADE ASSOCIATIONS. Hence, it all gets back down to the public’s habit of tolerating forking over their earned income in advance (as income taxes) and continuing to believe we can individually survive in the face of collective, organized, tax-exempt incorporated entities whose membership include people whose salaries we, the public, have already paid — because they work in government.
These conferences, multi-state, specifically move discussion on the important matter away from the public, who can’t afford to attend them all. I’m not the only person noticing this (Center for Public Integrity, noting which two universities sponsored the most judicial conferences). The for-profit/not-for profit itself (even if operated totally “legally”) creates a caste system to enable further centralized control (and private influence). Excerpt from another post “Circles are for Girls, Councils are for Boys, and Trademarked Trainings are for . . .”
So many of our public issues relate precisely to the income tax and the caste system created by the for-profit/non-profit power differentials. ALL social and societal relationships are affected by this, with the favor and advantage going to those whose social connections and/or background are willing to take advantage of wage-earners by themselves operating under nonprofits. I hope this post sheds some light on the situation through a single example.
The other day I also added a page on “Abolishing Government Through Regionalism.” All fun and mocking aside (one possible response to the ludicrous concepts), this is a sobering issue, and I believe it’s creeping (only not creeping, more like rapidly spreading — with the speed of incorporation) FACISCM. This is what governments tend to do, period, unless held in check. If they hold “the checks” (the money), it becomes less and less relevant what the laws, or statutes, actually are.
More individual people need to accelerate their learning curves, and deepen their understanding. If it sacrifices something less important, so be it. There’s a reason I come down pretty hard on advocacy groups which derail the conversation from the money trail. Find out who’s funding them, it gets pretty interesting; the groups are far less naive then they may seem.
RE: The Family Justice Centers:
I also did a few articles in earlier years on “Fast Food” One-Stop Family Justice Centers hit San Diego in 2002, Oakland, and London, 2007,” (posted Dec. 2010) and “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys (June 2010)” and “Mrs. O’Malley Goes to Washington: SB-577 Legislating the One-Stop Justice Shop” (May 2011), Mrs. Nancy O’Malley being an Alameda County (SF Bay Area/East Bay, Oakland, Berkeley, etc.) District Attorney, and the O’Malleys being politically active (superior court judges, D.A.’s, etc.) in the area. Here’s Ms. O’Malley’s election statement, taking credit for creating the Alameda County Family Justice Center (actually, the model was borrowed from San Diego). Of which she is, or at least was, very proud:
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For BMCC Day 1: Why VAWA, DV Groups Basically Can’t (Won’t?) Stop [Terroristic Threats, Murder, Assault, Battery, Stalking, False Imprisonment, Harrassment– Child Molestation–or other Crimes]
Why?
Well, I have one line of reasoning — that there is a family court around basically creates an immense loophole; any police officer anywhere can just about get out of arresting domestic violence perpetrators (they could anyway) by, when children exist, simply failing to arrest, and letting it land in the family venue. Ditto with CPS. But even if they didn’t, they still have immense discretion to simply not arrest. If they DO arrest, the DA’s have immense discretion not to prosecute also.
WOMEN’s JUSTICE CENTER /CENTRO de JUSTICIA PARA MUJERES
Santa Rosa, California
(a site I quote below, and refer to often enough) I see has written an October 2011 letter to:
I’m a women’s rights advocate who has been working for the last 20 years in the exasperating struggle to end violence against women. I’m writing because we’re stumped, and we need your help.
My opinion: these feminist law professors and women, in many respects, have for over a decade completely ignored the role of the family courts, and their relationship to the criminal prosecution of (see title) real-time crimes play in simply invalidating domestic violence law, child abuse law, in fact most criminal laws of any sort for women who have given birth. And women who give birth, aka MOTHERS, represents a significant portion of women against whom violence is routine.
In this current climate, and while that off-ramp from the criminal justice system (if the reporting and prosecution even gets there), it is next to impossible for these women to get free from an abuser – with children — and stay free unless HE simply chooses not to sue for custody or further bother her. And, if there’s a Title IV-D child support order around, even if he doesn’t want to bother her, the county can and will go after that family and those kids anyhow. That’s My take on it. So I would not be asking a feminist law professor for help, based on the track record and under-reporting of this scandal. And I’ve talked to some of them (including in my area). However, this writer has a point:
The problem is this: Modern violence-against-women laws are in place throughout most of the U.S., as are crisis centers, hotlines, counselors, and shelters. But a critical piece is missing. We don’t have anywhere near adequate enforcement of the laws. Nor do women have any legal right to enforcement of the laws, nor any legal remedy or redress when police and prosecutors fail to enforce the laws.
As such, the laws are meaningless to us. However, it takes a while — and sometimes costs a life — to recognize this.
. . . But the daunting and particular problem for women is that these absolute discretionary powers are in the hands of law enforcement agencies that are rife with anti-women biases, structures, and traditions. Violence-against-women cases are the cases these officials are most overwhelmingly prone to ignore, ditch, dismiss, under-investigate, under-prosecute, and give sundry other forms of disregard. This disparate impact and denial of equal protection is undermining all the other monumental efforts to end violence against women.
Despite all the high flying official rhetoric to the contrary, way too many police and prosecutors don’t want to do these cases. They know they don’t have to do these cases. They know a million ways to get rid of these cases. They know nobody can hold them to account. And the Supreme Court keeps driving this impunity deeper into the heart of American law. Not surprisingly, the violence against women rages on.
We can social work these cases endlessly, but when police and prosecutors don’t do their part and put the violent perpetrators in check, the perpetrators easily turn around and undo any stability and safety we and the women have attempted to secure. The freer she gets, the angrier he becomes. Without adequate law enforcement, victims of violence against women are doomed. And then they are double doomed by the void of any legal cause to hold unresponsive police and prosecutors to account. And then, all too often, she is dead
Notice that at the end of this eloquent (and I believe, truthful) letter, she refers to the “Judicial Ghetto of Family Law.” It is this Ghetto that has to be addressed if “violence against women” is to stop. To date, we are still the gender that produces children, gives birth to them, no matter how nurturing Dad is. As such, this arena, that ghetto, ALSO has to be addressed, or as an obstacle to life itself for those in it, removed:
We urgently need your help. Not in the judicial ghetto of family law where victims of violence against women are too often shunted to fend for themselves.
Why NOT? Why should women have to fend for themselves in a biased system — because thats where it typically goes after any civil restraining order (see VAWA, below) is put in place. Perhaps if there’d been more “feminist law professors” who’d gone through leaving DV AS MOTHERS, this might have been handled by now. Not saying that it wasn’t a tough uphill battle to start with. But we mothers are certainly not ballast in this journey; just treated like it in these circles!
But in criminal law where the state itself must take responsibility for securing justice for these heinous crimes. We can’t solve this problem without you.
As a first step, please pass this on to colleagues you think would most fervently fight to create a women’s right to justice. And then consider joining in yourself.
Thank you for your concern.
Marie De Santis, Director Women’s Justice Center Centro de Justicia para Mujeres
mariecdesantis@gmail.com www.justicewomen.org
We like to believe that criminal law always applies when crimes are committed (the title lists some of the crimes which comprise “Domestic violence” and “Child abuse” and characterize the lives of people who sometimes, after years enduring these things, end up dead, or paying their abuser, which is a form of institutionalized extortion).
BUT — when a case is labeled “high-conflict” or “custody dispute” of any sort, BY LAW (apparently) it comes under the jurisdiction of a different court — which is not a real court, it’s a business enterprise. (See this blog. See other NON-federally-supported blogs or articles.
For example get this (“johnnypumphandle, re: Los Angeles “Public Benefit Corporations Supported by Taxpayers” Not only ALL the people walking through the halls — but the real estate — the halls themselves, apparently are often part of this enterprise! Why this never occurred to me before reading these matters, I don’t know. The family court is in a separate building from the main (Criminal) courthouse in MANY towns and cities across the county. That alone should have caught our attention. Now (same general idea), they are building, sometimes, “Family Justice Centers” as part of a National Alliance movement (see “One-Stop Justice Shop” posts, mine).
I reviewed this material carefully before, it takes a while to sink in. It will NOT sink in if all you see mentally is the visual of the building and its inhabitants. In order to “See” straight, one needs to see and be willing to think in terms of corporations, tax returns, and cash flow. And something relating the words “taxpayer” with “tax-exempt.” As the site says:
We have again reminded the IRS of the same scheme being perpetrated by the Private Corporation – Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation – with the same bond guarantees by the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers. Taxpayers are still getting stiffed by this scam, since there is no accountability for the money and NO TAX FORMS HAVE EVER BEEN FILED!
Key in this EIN#
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to This Charitable Search Site (for California) — and tell me why the Relationship Training Institute — which does business with and takes business FROM the court, evidently — is still marked “current” when no (zero, nada, zilch, nothing at all) has been filed (and uploaded) by this organization for the state of California as a charity -EVER; even though it’s filed with the IRS? Is that cheating the citizens of California, or what? Here they are (and here goes continuity in my post today):
Relationship Development and Domestic Violence Prevention, Training, and Consultation
The Relationship Training Institute (RTI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established in 1986* by David B. Wexler, Ph.D. to provide training, consultation, treatment, and research in the field of relationship development and relationship enhancement.
| Entity Number | Date Filed | Status | Entity Name | Agent for Service of Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C2583174 | 05/17/2004* | ACTIVE | RELATIONSHIP TRAINING INSTITUTE | DAVID B WEXLER |
Because — in the 7 years (at least) it’s been operating in California, David B. Wexler, Ph.D.’s group has not bothered to file it’s (by law) annually required tax return with the state (NOTE — which provides the California Attorney General with a Schedule B showing names and addresses of contributors, and has to list government funding) and because the CA Corporations search site is so limited, I can’t see from there OR its founding articles if this is a domestic (Ca originated) or “foreign” (out of state) corporation.
On the other hand, the group California Coalition for Families and Children which incorporated in 2010 (per same site) — and is critical of the San Diego Family Court Practices — has twice received a “file your dues” letter, which you can search at the same charities link, above. It has no EIN# because it hasn’t registered yet.
| Entity Number | Date Filed | Status | Entity Name | Agent for Service of Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C3284403 | 03/09/2010 | ACTIVE | CALIFORNIA COALITION FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN | CORPORATION SERVICE COMPANY WHICH WILL DO BUSINESS IN CALIFORNIA AS CSC – LAWYERS INCORPORATING SERVICE |
I believe any group that calls itself a 501(c)3 (or “4”) should fulfil the requirements of it. However, there seems a bit of favoritism (OR, This group has no bribe to pay — below the table — for the regulatory agencies, including the OAG?); Emad G. Tadros, Ph.D., checked out the suspicious credentials of a custody evaluator, discovered a custody Mill (plus that a house cat got a diploma from the same place) and put up a website about all this, plus filed a suit, which was simply the right thing to do. In retaliation for challenging the right of the courts to continue their fraud up on the public he was fined $86K in fees, and an attempt has been made at obtaining interest, too. Apparently, this group has not cut a deal with anyone, and so the OAG WILL go after their nonprofit status. Here’s the link to “San Diego Court Corruption.”
So, as to The Relationship Training Institute, I guess not filing with the state is “close enough for jazz The Office of Attorney General.” And also close enough for an NIMH sponsored grant on Domestic Violence in the Navy, too. If our Navy was run this way, we’d be losing a lot more wars.
RTI offers an on-going series of informative workshops and state-of-the-art training programs for mental health professionals and for the public, bringing innovative leaders and teachers to the San Diego community. RTI staff also travel throughout the world training professionals in the treatment models that we have been developing and publishing for over 25 years
So, don’t try to tell me the courts and attorney general are unaware — see its website, and see the detail on its charitable registration. A letter has been sent to this charity, and its site claims it’s approved by the Judicial Council of California to provide CLE credits for its trainings!
(the logos of approving organizations).
Approving Organizations
By the way, Dr. Wexler is listed under another one, IABMCP or something:
| David B. Wexler , Ph.D., Diplomate IABMCP | |
| Director, Relationship Training Institute, San Diego, California | |
International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling and Psychotherapy (group registered in Dallas, TX in 1979, EIN has 11 numbers # 17523304719. Usually it’s 9 or 12):
| Name | Taxpayer ID# | Zip |
|---|---|---|
| INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE COUNS | 17523304719 | 75225 |
The actual EIN# is 751726710 and it’s registered in Colorado as a 501(c)6 ” Business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, etc. formed to improve conditions..” It has a tiny budget and apparently exists to distribute a newsletter, per 990 (2010 ruling.), registered as a foreign nonprofit (citing the Texas org.) since 1999 and apparently is filing its reports in Colorado OK.
| 2010 | 751726710 | International Academy of Behavioral Medicine Counseling and Psychother | CO | 1980 | 06 | 31,455 | 1,402 | 990 |
Dr. Wexler anyhow, is on its Advisory Council, along with a long list of mostly but not all male personages, including Deepak Chopra…
I also note that this domestic violence training is very man-friendly… But RTI is apparently the group that does the trainings OUTSIDE the courthouse, which makes them part of the personnel bill. The earlier article was about who pays rents on the real estate, who owns the real estate, of the courthouses themselves? Reading on:
August 25, 2001 – Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation and others. e.g. Los Angeles County Law Enforcement-Public Facilities Corporation and (too many to name or to discover). The Crusaders think that there are over a dozen of these ‘Public Benefit’ Corporations hiding in LA County. If you are aware of any of the others, drop us a line.
These companies are established as Tax exempt ‘charitable trusts’ under the Federal Statute – 501(c)(4). They direct millions of dollars but are basically unaudited. The Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation (LACCC), for example, controls projects for $632 million, but as yet has not registered with the California Department of Corporations even though they have issued outstanding securities for this amount.
They have established trust agreements with banks, lease and leaseback agreements with developers, securities agreements with underwriters, legal assistance from high powered law firms, yet they have no employees. All work is done ‘outside’ on authorization from an officer of the Company. e.g. bills are paid, rents are collected, legal services are performed by outsiders through agreements. As an example, O’Melveny & Myers pays the fees for this Corporation.
Is this a donation? Somehow, I think O’Melveny & Myers are not providing legal services for free.
The company has offices in the LA County facilities, claims no employees, but has all of its utilities, telephone, rent, etc. paid by the County.
Who answers the phone? A county employee, doing ‘part time’ work but receiving no pay. At least the Corporation claims to have no employees.
How are bills paid? We have a letter to Henry P. Eng, an auditor , who is told that he will receive a check for $4,730 and a like amount will be charged to the rent due to the corporation in order to balance the books. You see, the Corporation has issued bonds (Certificates of Participation) recently for $115 Million to build the Antelope Valley Courthouse. The Banc of America and four other underwriters have guaranteed the purchase of all of these certificates.
So WHY do I make those claims in the Title of this post today? Well, for one, I research TAGGS grants, and read conference brochures, and pay attention to what groups do – -and don’t — report on, including the various elephants in the room…
I’m not the only one, either, questioning what VAWA is for, except to inspire a lot of anti-feminist backlash, give Fathers & Families (GlennSacks hounds) something to complain about, and a source of funds to set up websites and conferences (ad nauseam) to perpetuate the illusion that whatever a civil — or even criminal — domestic violence action DOES, Family Courts will not quickly UNDO, even if neither parent asks them to!
You might want to look at this article:
VAWA Critique
In Which a Little-Known Legal Brief Plows into Hallowed Terrain
I almost felt like a traitor (though I was sure in my opinion) with this round of requests I write someone to reauthorize VAWA. WHY? I thought. I already know who’s collaborating with these other courts. Well, another (non-federally funded, intentionally so) site – I like this site, too — explains:
Ever since the U.S. Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed in 1994, women’s advocates have rallied again and again to assure that VAWA stays authorized and funded. The steady torrent of threats against the act from antagonist men’s groups has left advocates with little inclination to question whether VAWA is truly delivering what’s needed to end the violence and secure justice for women. But a little-disseminated legal brief we came across recently rips along the fault lines and suggests that giving VAWA a thorough critique may be one of the most important steps we should be taking to advance the struggle.
“The legal brief, signed by a dozen domestic violence scholars from around the country and submitted in 2007 to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, emphatically makes the case that VAWA not only is failing to protect women, but that this failure is rooted in fundamental flaws in VAWA’s structure and administration. “VAWA is a limited remedy,” the document states, “That fails to protect women or to discharge the United State’s obligations under international law.”
(it’s going to talk about the Jessica Gonzales case, and the IACHR. However, NO — I say that these DV scholars have simply fallen asleep at the switch, or decided to look the other way, to keep their publications, etc. coming. )
In summarizing their analysis, the brief states, “VAWA fails to accomplish four crucial things: 1) It does not provide any remedy when abuser’s or police officer’s violate victims’ rights, 2) it does not require participation of all states or monitor their progress, 3) it does not fully or adequately fund all the services that are needed, 4) it does not require states to pass or strengthen legislation around civil protective orders or the housing rights of domestic violence victims.” . . .
VAWA: “primarily a source of grants” which has not reduced domestic violence
The brief goes on to characterize VAWA as “primarily a source of grants” with non-binding terms, voluntary participation, unmonitored compliance, and which mandates nothing. And the funding is paltry. According to the brief, in 2007, the median total of VAWA grants to individual states was 4.5 million dollars. That’s less than the cost of one wing of a fighter jet allotted per state to combat violence against women.
If the core of this brief is accurate, despite the services VAWA has provided to tens of thousands of women, the message VAWA delivers to law enforcement and other public officials throughout America is disastrous. ‘You can prevent, investigate, and punish violence against women – if you feel like it. But if you’d rather not, don’t worry about it. VAWA doesn’t mandate that you do anything. And if women are upset by that, rest assured, VAWA and the courts have also made sure there’s not a darn thing women can do about it to hold you to account.‘
Most troubling of all, the brief finds that in the time from VAWA’s passage in 1994 to 2007 when the brief was filed, VAWA has not reduced domestic violence in the U.S., despite the U.S. government’s claims to the contrary. As stated in the brief, “Since the passage of VAWA, domestic violence rates have not been reduced in proportion to other violent crimes
This site writes their rationale:
And perhaps worse, these fundamental flaws in VAWA are not even a matter of discussion, debate, or protest among frontline women’s advocates. It’s critical for progress in ending violence against women that that discussion begin.
The Tie that Binds
VAWA requires that shelters and rape crisis centers that receive VAWA funding must demonstrate their cooperation with their local law enforcement agencies.
Individual states that administer the VAWA grants have implemented this requirement in various ways. But typically the shelters and crisis centers seeking VAWA grants must obtain signed operational agreements with their local law enforcement agencies. This has given law enforcement veto power over the survival of the violence against women centers, a controlling power law enforcement has not hesitated to use.
Copyright © Marie De Santis
Women’s Justice Center,
www.justicewomen.com
rdjustice@monitor.net
VAWA is a Federal Act of Congress first passed in 1994. By Contrast (and to oppose its premises), the National Fatherhood Initiative is a NONPROFIT started by someone with close connections to HHS, and Washington, and now many legislators — and is not only still funded, but has permeated the structure and purpose of violence prevention, child welfare, and child abuse prevention areas of goverment. While VAWA (which at least went past Congress initially — the NFI did not) promotes one kind of training, NFI promotes the opposite theories.
Then the two groups get together, for example, The Greenbook Initiative and congratulation their federally-paid-behinds for being able to get along, while women continue to die after breeding and leaving abuse. And etc.
The DOJ Defending Children Initiative: even has an “Engaging Fathers” link:
The ILLUSION that there is protection for women and children through groups such as “Child Protection Services” is fatuous. That’s not what they’re there for, apparently. Nor, apparently, are the civil restraining order issuers (typically a domestic violence nonprofit of some sort, or possibly a parent might get one on his/her own) there to prosecute or punish any crime.
I heard this from a woman (grandparent) in an unidentified urban area, regarding her grandchildren’s being in the sole custody of an abusing father AFTER CPS and police had confirmed sodomy and forced copulation with the (young boy):
Hearsay #1:
There are no laws or penal codes against child abuse by a parent. Child abuse by a parent comes under the Welfare and Institution Code (WIC).
The welfare and institution code does ONE thing — offers reunification services to the abuser. The one and ony law mandated by legislators (in such cases) is reunification.
Since the theme is “reunification” (and really, let’s get honest — “supervised visitation” concept comes from this field, reunification), no family court has any interest in re-unifying a protective mother with her child once that child has been completely (and physically) “reunified” with the abuser father. There are no fatherhood-promotion services for this (access/visitation concept is actually a fatherhood concept). Supervised visitation with a sex offender (young) father and mother has resulted in child-rape INSIDE a supervised visitation facility in Trumbull County, Ohio, recently. It has resulted in financial fraud on East and West Coast both (Genia Shockome/Karen Anderson of Amador County, PA), it has resulted in a child literally being supervised by a woman who had criminally sexually assaulted a DOG in Contra Costa County California courts (Welch v. Tippe), and — the commissioner? who made that order, as recommended by her court-crony, is I believe still on the bench — and has been, while we’re at it, on the Board of Kids’ Turn, too. After all, it’s all about the “Kids” and what’s best for them, right? How often do women whose children have been abused get put on supervised visitation for “alienating” the father by reporting — or allowing their kids to even report to someone else unsolicited, like a schoolteacher — real live criminal activity upon themselves?
Hearsay #2:
Child Protective Services labeled our case high-conflict which put it in custody court. Neither the father or I had even mentioned divorce at the time.
This mother says she saw it on their report. I’d like to see that report. Assuming it’s true, this means that CPS knows quite well that they don’t have to prosecute anything against a parent when it comes to abuse of children; they can shunt it off to family court.
Hearsay #3 (to you — this is my case):
When my children were being stolen (abducted), and I was protesting on the basis of a valid court order giving me physical custody, an attempt was made to bring CPS in — although no abuse was being alleged! When I pointed this out, the officers supervising the exchange — which I’d requested for personal safety — refused to enforce the court order, mocked me, and when I realized there was no recourse from this crew, I had to let my “ex-batterer” and the children’s father, drive off into the sunset with children I’d raised, and from this point forward (til today) not ONE single court order was consistently obeyed for more than a month, including visitation or phone contact with me, alternating holidays, or the children with the mother on mother’s day, all of which remained in the CUSTODY order.
In short, if I wasn’t going to voluntarily justify bringing on more (paid, public employee) professionals AFTER existing paid, public employee professionals simply refused to do their job (which I later learned — they don’t have to, even if not doing their job results in someone’s, or even three children’s, deaths. See Castle Rock v. Gonzales).
Talk about “interlocking directorate” – – – – I also heard from a savvy investigator (mother) (noncustodial) in another state how that, literally, when a father is accused AND found guilty of abuse in one sector (for example, criminally, or child support services) this literally causes the father to be declared “incapacitated” or incompetent — making the child a “dependency” case. The court that the mother then walks into is, in effect, a “dependency court.” The state owns her child, and if she can’t ransom it back, too bad. The ransom process is simply this: the hearings go on, and on, and on and as much money is extracted from the mother, who WILL fight back, until she’s broke too, if not in spirit. That’s the plan. That’s not an anomaly or “burp” of the system — that IS the plan.
We have heard also of horrendous situations, and I’ve reported this, of dual electronic docketing. (“Computerized or Con-puterized?” Janet Phelan on Joseph Zernik reporting. One week after she published the layperson’s explanation of this, he was picked up by police without cause and held). We’ve heard of collected but intentionally not distributed child support, in the millions of $$ (Silva v. Garcetti (who was Los Angeles D.A., involving Richard Fine). Even a brief look at what happened to Mr. Fine (besides getting incarcerated and disbarred) and how the California Legislature handled the fact that the entire judiciary was subject to bribery at the county level by payments to judges — from the county — in cases where — the county — was a party. It retroactively granted immunity, and did this quickly, lest the entire judicial system get shut down. (SBX-211) — that brief look should say, what we are dealing with is XX % crooks, and X% enablers or people who can’t themselves get out of the system because by participation, they’d be prosecuted too. Talk about “gangs” . . . that’s a Gang. Sometimes deals go between one jurisdiction and another, making them a little harder to catch (Gregory Pentoney)
Two other things which I’ve heard of from a non-BMCC “let’s ask the expert source” in recent times — and again, I present this as Hearsay, but it’s entirely in character for the venue — of more than one physical case file being kept. One is shown to the litigant when she can afford it (which ain’t always), or qualifies as low-income enough to be shown it. The other is shown and hauled out when it comes to justifying program billing — that one or both parents may be totally unaware of, occurring in their case, under their or their kids’ social security #s, and in their name.
Again, my plan is to curtail posting on this blog (I believe I’ve “said my piece” on most major points) at the end of January, and get about other aspects of life. Oh yes, and I signed the blog up for Twitter, which should curtail the length some, like by ca. (10,000 to 14,000) – 140 characters!
I realize that conversational style isn’t communication, yet the information is urgent to present and get out. The “end of January” date was in honor of the BMCC conference, which I plan to comment on every day it’s in session. Ideally, you will see one post a day from here til 1/31, however, some of the material does cause vicarious trauma to report, which may affect quality of post, or my getting one out on a certain day. While I know what I know, from study, research observation, reflection, and synthesis, expressing it is another matter.
Also, the conversing with the material style is laborious, and takes hours. Whereas in a personal conversation, say, by phone, with interaction, I know I could convey the key FAQs, overall, in 10 minutes or less, and tell people where to find more information, should they be motivated.
So here we go:
Some people I know are headed up again to the Battered Mothers Custody Conference IX in Albany, New York again this year, where the same basic information will be presented by experts, while mothers are welcome to participate from the floor and by adding their square to the quilt, by buying books which the presenters will be selling (last year’s hot-off-the-press available in softcover and at a discount – only $59 — for conference attendees) and donate, too. This is addressed to mothers who are probably being fleeced in the courts, have tortuous situations to handle, and some are paying child support to their child’s or their abuser, which is why they pull it together to come to this conference, seeking help and answers — from the experts.
One difference — a positive one — THIS year is the attendance of Dr. Phyllis Chesler, who also will be selling her newly revised “Mothers on Trial” which I know incorporates some new stories, and I plan to order it on-line.
However, I also know that it’s not about to contain the information on this blog, on NAFCJ.net, or much on the AFCC, Welfare Reform (1996), and the role of the Child Support $4 billion industry in prolonging custody conflicts, for profit. However, it will be a new presenter, and an experienced feminist who I’ll bet is not afraid to address some of the issues of Gender Apartheid (which also results in “Battered Mothers”) in front of this audience, and on which she is an expert. Perhaps she will — as I don’t think others have — bring up the impact of religion on this situation in the family courts. It’s there – -not talking about it would hardly make sense.
At the bottom of this post, I am going to list the Presenters, and brief comments or links on the ones I know. The ones I don’t, I’ll look up. Perhaps in the next post (as this one expanded into handling a few other items).
And in this post, I’m going to charge pretty hard into the entire concept behind this conference, as I did last January, afterwards.
NB: I attended one conference in all its years, but primarily to meet mothers I’d been blogging with; I’d already realized that it was a marketing conference. That’s responsible behavior for people shelling out travel, hotel, and conference fees, not to mention in general. You find out who’s saying what and evaluate it.
The Title of this year’s conference is apparently “IS WHAT WE’RE DOING WORKING”?
HUH?
-
We who? (Mo Hannah, Barry Goldstein, et al.?)
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Working for whom?*
-
Define “working” — what’s the goal here? (Sales, Self-Promotion, Shaping Distressed Mothers’ Perceptions?)
Ask a foolish question, you will get a very foolish answer. Act on those answers and you become a fool. A sucker is born every minute, and I regret every minute of my own “suckerhood” which listened to domestic violence rhetoric for too long, and didn’t think to GO CHECK TAX RETURNS AND NONPROFIT FILINGS FIRST, which might’ve had a different result.
That’s why I believe that it’s the “experts” that should be sitting around the tables in the conference and taking notes, and the women themselves that should be up on stage giving testimony, ideas — and controlling the microphones. Then some of the questions they have might get some answers, through collective wisdom, as women tend to do — when not co-opted into the hierarchical model of relating to each other which is more characteristic of males, and of this society we live in.
The structure of this type of conference is didactic — from presenter to participant. They are the dispensers of wisdom, women & mothers attending, the recipients. Go forth and deliver the expert wisdom to your areas, (seek to hire us as expert witnesses in your court cases) and if it doesn’t work — next year we are going to do the same basic routine anyhow, and your feedback will NOT be front and center, if it is allowed at all.
Seriously — that’s how it goes. And anyone with a child in a custody case has a ticking clock, if not time bomb, which is running. We do not have time to beat around the bush and fail to address things in PRIORITY order.
So anyhow, “is what we (?) are doing working?”
Somehow this is going to be stretched out into a weekend’s worth of material? Is there a better question to ask, such as — what can we do to either clean up or shut down the family law courts if they refuse to clean themselves out, which is unlikely? How many experts does it take to distract a mother’s attention from who is paying her abuser and the judges that gave that kid to the abuser? Why doesn’t this conference ever bring up child support, welfare reform, or mathematical issues, such as economics?
Or, for that matters, why are not the people who experienced abuse considered THE experts, and why are the true experts (the battered mothers) not as informed as the presenting experts on things that others figured out over 15 years ago in this field?
This is, among other things, a marketing conference, and a chance for women to sit with each other and have company in their distress. It is NOT a place for them to actually reform the courts, or learn the most direct possible ways (if any ways are possible) to get their children back, or a crooked judge off their case. That I can tell.
*A comment on the site says women can contribute to a quilt for missing children. (Which somehow reminds me of a church situation — you may attend, women: Here — serve some cookies, greet perhaps, and of course work child care, the sermon and other important things will be piped in from our (male) minister). . . . . now, there are presenters who are mothers on the platform, some of who I know by name, and I know those mothers are not about to rock the boat — by reporting on what you’ll find here, NAFCJ.net, Cindy Ross, Richard Fine (Emil Tadros either, for that matter) and other places. Somehow that information isn’t worth informing Moms of, which results in Uninformed Moms, wondering why things aren’t changing.
You see, professionals (and I was one in one or two fields) know they’re not expert in other fields and so tend to defer to people presenting as the experts in a different field. This works REAL well when mothers in panic, danger, or serious trauma go for help to DV experts who are hired (or volunteered) with agencies which do not themselves see fit to look at the larger picture AND TELL THE MOMS ABOUT IT.
Moreover, once a case — or person — moves out of their area of “expertise” — meaning, case in point for mothers, into the family law system — it becomes “not my problem” and they can, I suppose, somehow sleep with themselves at night (those who actually have functional consciences) without drugs or sedatives, by saying – it’s out of my hands now, I did my part!
Ay, there’s the rub. It’s a win-win for the civil restraining order (DV agency) field AND for the Family Law Field, because no one “out-ed” either field’s collaboration and centralization over the years. No one has done this much to date because so few people follow the funding, particularly experts protesting “Child abuse, Domestic Violence” and so forth.
RE: “IS What We’re Doing Working”
Here’s a short answer: “ExcUUse me? You * #$!- ing (kidding) me, right?”
Slightly Longer answer, Fresh kill, two children (10 & 14) into someone else’s care (foster? relatives?) this week in California. The woman showed up, obediently, for a family court hearing, and was murdered in cold blood, in her car.
Authorities say the man shot his wife, gave chase to police, then shot himself; they were scheduled to appear in family court for a hearing
BY JOHN ASBURY AND KEVIN PEARSON
STAFF WRITERS
kpearson@pe.com | jasbury@pe.com
Published: 04 January 2012 08:42 AM
A man at the Hemet courthouse for a child-support hearing calmly walked up to his wife’s car and fired two fatal shots, then led police on a car chase before killing himself Wednesday morning, according to witnesses and police
. . . .
Costales had no criminal record in Riverside County, and the couple had no history of domestic violence with each other, nor was there a restraining order in the case. However, Costales was accused of domestic violence in a previous divorce.
The two children now aged 10 and 14, we don’t know who their biological mother was –whether the woman slumped over in her car that day, or the former Ms. Costales: However, they were born (do the math, see article) prior to this marriage: 2012 January minus ten, minus fourteen years. Mr. Costales prior marriage had mutual restraining orders as of the year 2000.
‘A HORRIBLE SIGHT’
Kimberly Jones, 45, of Hemet, said she was in her car when she heard the first gunshot, which she thought was a firecracker. She looked back to see Schulz back away quickly.
Jones ducked as additional shots were fired, then ran over to find Schulz bleeding and slumped over in the driver’s seat. Jones, who is a nurse, said she tried to resuscitate the woman in the parking lot as Costales casually walked back to his car.
. . . She moved out, not him….
Schulz told the court in September that she was unemployed and receiving $550 in monthly aid. She asked for Costales to be required to make child and spousal payments and to make payments on their Honda Pilot until she could afford to get her own vehicle.
“I need hearing because of no income but aid,” Schulz wrote in court documents. “Living on my brother’s couch, looking for work daily, been unsuccessful. Children need their own home and stability.”
The age difference: Him vs. Her — was 17 years. We don’t know this situation, but here’s a woman who never apparently even SAID “domestic violence” — and yet still died asking for something reasonable. Did she bring children into the relationship (was he their father?). Did he seek a needy woman with children to make up for loss of his first wife and two sons (now adults)?
Do second wives EVER believe the record on the first wives’ court docket?
I went to look this one up at the Riverside Court, but found out that it’s not even free to view the images, and in doing so, they will know who is looking. So much for public oversight from a safe distance!
Police closed off a portion of the courthouse parking lot, stranding about 50 people who were unable to get to their cars to leave, but the courthouse remained open. The Hemet branch of the Riverside County courts handles family law cases in addition to civil, small claims and traffic issues.
Why did she leave? Who knows? Was this unreported violence, nonsupport, or what? Where are the children going to live now? Who HAS them now?
This was a TANF case. She was on aid — that means that only if there has been violence, or some severe extenuating systems, is she allowed some sort of diversion away from seeking child support from the father. The county wants its programs funded. If “aid” goes out, the County controls the collection of child support. This was likely an administrative hearing — there seems not to be any discussion over custody or visitation. This woman didn’t know, and now never will, what receiving welfare from anywhere in California puts one at risk of. Had it not ended this way, it might have stretched out for years in the courts as well.
Suppose this man had not been just Mr. Costales, but Mr. DeKraii, and been in a real bad mood that day? Who else might have died?
Hence, we have to re-think this phrase: “Clear and Present Danger.” It has 3 usages.
1. In the law, unless it’s been rescinded by now — in California, a Batterer is a “Clear and present danger to the mental and physical health of the citizens of California.” If one continues reading the law, they then talk about something like a task force at the District Attorney level.
2. In Usage by AFCC, “Lack of Resources” to the family courts is the “Clear and Present Danger.”
3. I feel it’s safe to say now, clearly, and quite presently, that “the family courts are a clear and present danger to the citizens (not just parents) of the state of California.”
So much for the domestic violence industry. It doesn’t hold water once it’s in “conciliation court.” They just forgot to tell the mothers this, evidently.
I fully realize that’s “heresy” (but the courts themselves are based on psychological theory and clear intent to undermine the meaning of criminal law and drive business to therapists, etc.) but anyone concerned about my POST-battering relationship, POST-family law custody matters (like we say, it goes, so long as minors and two parties are all alive, until the children reach majority) — I have no criminal record and no criminal intents either. I showed up to court hearings no matter how scared I was, and was forced to sit at the table with my ex, and from this close range, somehow “negotiate.”
People want to “reform” Family Court. That’s crazy thinking. It doesn’t account for the roadkill.
Although I can’t blame the average citizen, who thinks that his /her taxes are going to support something noble or good when it pays these salaries for family courts throughout the land, and more. When the situation hits them, personally (evidence is that not all close relatives or friends figure it out, either), perhaps the 2 + 2 will = 4. Who has it helped, and what’s the ratio of helped to roadkill, to children being tortured, children sent into foster care, parents experiencing MIA children, etc.? That’s a system someone can supposedly MANAGE?
Here’s a summary, a post from long ago (about 1.5 years ago) which I’m amazed it still gets attention, and was today:
Toms River NJ femicide/suicide post-mortem concludes strangled DYFS worker should’ve hooked up with “agencies such as ourselves”
I posted this on August 17, 2009
| 2012 PRESENTERS Bios to be added shortly
Jennifer Collins Carly Singer Michael Bassett, J.D. Carol Pennington Liora Farkovitz Lundy Bancroft- author Barry Goldstein – author, former attorney Joan Zorza – DVLeap, doesn’t blog family law matters Kathleen Russell* — *of Center for Judicial Excellence. Won’t report on AFCC, barely reports on fatherhood funding, but loves high profiles. Not a mother. Connie Valentine (CPPA) Karen Anderson (CPPA and her case is detailed in Johnnypumpandle — but this crowd simply ain’t interested.) Phyllis Chesler (if there were better company I’d try and get there this year, to meet her) Gabby Davis Loretta Fredericks Loretta Fredericks in my opinion should not be allowed to present. She should be put on the spot and have women fire questions about her. Unfortunately, so few women know ANYTHING about MPDI, Duluth Abuse Intervention Programs, Battered Women’s Justice Project, how much TAGGS says the MPDI (etc.) got (HHS funding) — or the infamous collaboration with the AFCC in “Explicating Domestic Abuse in Custody” (or similar title) which was also public funding. She also is featured in AFCC as a presenter, i.e., on the conference circuit? Has she influenced them to understand abuse — or vice versa. This situation (not her personally — we’ve never spoken) PERFECTLy represents what Liz Richards of NAFCJnet has correctly (my research validates this) calls a DV expert functioning as a “heat shield” for fatherhood providers. They lend legitimacy where there is non. Michele Jeker Maralee Mclean Angela Shelton Wendy Murphy Jennifer Hoult Sandy Bromley Renee Beeker (advocates court watch) Joshua Pampreen Nancy Erickson Karin Huffer Jason Huffer Crystal Huffer* *Huffers talk about and help women deal with Legal Abuse Syndrome). Holly Collins Jennifer Collins Zachary Collins Garland Waller **Collins and Waller are central to the conference and high-profile, I believe people know about them.
Dara Carlin* *Formerly DV advocate from Hawaii, then it happened to her. Didn’t notice that the legislator she was sure was on women’s side actually had close ties to a Fatherhood Commission in Hawaii (a What?). This was how I learned about Fatherhood Commissions, actually. She didn’t “Get” it. Also hadn’t noticed that AFCC was presenting — in Hawaii — on PAS, etc. Toby Kleinman Linda Marie Sacks (mentioned in my 2nd “About This Blog” — how to get to the Supreme COurt citing Dr. Phil, Oprah, and a Radio show onesself was interviewed on, thereby giving the rest of mothers protesting abuse a nice reputation for not being too bright. Seriously!) Rita Smith* (NCADV Leadership. NCADV is atop the pile of statewide Coalitions Against Domestic Violence which are state-funded, although not too much funding. It takes fees from these organizations and sells things, has conferences, etc. Was cited positively by Women in Fatherhood, Inc. which I find interesting …..) Eileen King (“Justice for Children” also I think on Linda Marie Sacks case, which Supreme Court refused to hear). Mo Therese Hannah (self-explanatory — and running the conference, with help It says from Ms. Miller. I don’t recoqnize the other names). Liliane Miller Raquel Singh Tammy Gagnon Louise Monroe Chrys Ballerano |
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When Faith in Faith-Based Nonprofits [with Missions to Rescue Helpless (Boys)] is Badly Misplaced. And Potential Remedies.
(this is a 15,000 word post, including quite a bit of quotes…. and the result of a whole day’s writing, plus some).
NARRATIVE:
On Christmas Day, yesterday, having no (biologically-related) family contact, I was driving around noticing society’s nearly unanimous agreement to shut down business-as-usual for December 25th, every year, as I know they did across the country. Streets and curbs that were normally full of cars, and ripe pickings for the parking monitors (producing income for Traffic Court, etc.), were barren.
So why can’t this same society unanimously also decide to shut down “business-as-usual” for more than one day a year, or in a row, when it comes to child abuse?
Perhaps I’m a heretic in bringing up what happens to young boys in a season focused around the Birth of Baby Jesus to (most likely) what we’d now call an underaged young woman, and Who was the real father??
But let’s get honest — it’d be a hard sell to convince anyone that this season is not about sales to start with. The news, television, local street lighting some places, house decorations, stores, on-line offers, and did I mention, churches?, are all out strutting their stuff, as newspapers frantically take the measure of the economy and encourage people to step up to the plate for the economy and BUY something that won’t outlast the season, might contribute to a diabetic condition, and is otherwise useless in normal life.
And, if possible, another car, or diamond, to show how much you really love each other.
Therefore, I excuse my own lack of reverence for, participation in, or collaboration with this insane holiday. It has been the source of equal amounts of joy and pain since I got married, and afterwards, a colossal sense of loss (after kids are gone), preceded by sense of dread for which incident was going to be concocted for THIS year’s holiday. I could write a chronology of my life based on the transformation of this one holiday (in association with probably also Easter, and the beginning and ends of every school year as well) from, special occasions for wonder, joy, fun, and sharing into the Nightmare on Elm Street. This metamorphosis began shortly after marriage (I remember the marriage — ALL of it, practically — as a living, and pretty much waking nightmare, and it went on quite too long).
So could many others in similar situations. Still yet others can’t, because one year, the holiday cost them their lives. And this is still going on, and “blessed be” anyone that has the guts to keep track by reporting — mine can’t stomach it, for sure.
To me, it’s “Business as Usual,” which is reporting on this– or that. Today’s post is a “that.” It’s been eventful (for sure) in the land of local message-boards stopping local corruption (they’re up / they’re down / they’re up — but is it a real one or a mirror site?) and the parties running them (they’re heroes/ they’re villains), and so forth. This is why I keep an ear to the ground for character indicators, but like to keep a closer eye on the financial flow — which is a little more of an objective thing.
And monitoring and controlling financial flow is a great handle for stopping abuse, better than saying “We Stop Abuse” loudly, often, and expensively. (Wow. I found Women’s Justice Center in Sonoma County CA, is with me on questioning not only these bogus “domestic violence” agencies — which are sleeping (figuratively speaking) with both the family law and the law enforcement sectors, plus some — AFCC — while taking ongoing grants labeled “discretionary” — but also the VAWA itself. Part of my holiday fund-appeal came from a VAWA-related group (it seems), which I think is funny, because when I appealed to some VAWA-type organizations for real-time, tangible help in my situation — the phone line went dead, so to speak. I fail to see what help they are doing anyone besides the program adminsitrators, and anyone whose expertise is in setting up beautiful websites, i.e., a lot of the telecommunications and conference-hosting sectors of the economy.)
TODAY’S TOPIC:
- Remember Kids for Cash in Luzerne County?
- Remember the Penn State Scandal?
- Remember my blogging Project Pierre Toussaint and consistently blogging the problems with nonprofits that keep on collecting AFTER they’ve lost their corporation status (let alone after their founder gets arrested, as Doug Perlitz did)?
- Are You Aware of the Administration’s Knee-Jerk Response in Appointing another Task Force to help others stop embarrassing themselves by getting caught?
Some of my (former) associates are always trying to get a Congressional Hearing to Form a Task Force to appoint Somebody Else to fix the problem they are upset about. They often do this without even bothering to consider what the job of “Task Forces” is to actually do, namely get grants to justify their existence and issue reports (unmonitored, often) about what they actually are doing, did do, or promise to do. That, among other reasons, is why these are FORMER associates. See title of this post.
The other thing Congressionally Appointed Task Forces do – becuase typically they are addressing some systemic outrageous problem that government itself previously created — is to expand authority and expense of the Federal Government’s control over (everyone), while blaming (everyone but itself) for the problems it is solving.
Sooner or later all of this looks to be coalescing, pretty swiftly, into one big, fat, fascist mechanism in which we all will play our federally-assigned places in the newly designed breathing mechanism called “one world” government, aka please re-read Brave New World, 1984, and even A Wrinkle in Time. It’s not like the authors, artists, musicians and playwrights actually ARE functional authors, artists, musicians and playwrights to start with because they don’t notice what’s going on around them, and synthesize it into understandable and symbolic translations, now — is it? Government and faith groups certainly understand the power of the arts (and architecture) to communicate world views, and restructure reality — that’s why they pour so much money into them. Nowadays, this includes anything on the internet as well.
In this version of the future, perhaps we will all be one big happy family (that’s certainly the True Parents’/Sun Myung Moon et al.’s vision, which appears to have folded into the US Presidents’/Administration’s fetish with marriage/abstinence/faith-based & fatherhood programs) — and our futures will have no violence, if only we could just stop thinking, feeling, observing, and leave it to the qualified experts we are paying for to do this for us. But in the meantime we already have had CAPTA (see below) since 1974. There’s been a multitude of task forces and other entities stopping violence against children around.
~ ~ ~ ~
History tells us that this thing about putting everything in “order” with a single, all-knowing & of course kindly male at the top of the heap, and at the top of every family (kind of like the Pope & Santa Claus & God & a Sugar-Daddy all rolled up together) is less benign and altruistic than it may seem. Everybody know your places, and don’t get out of them, either! Just accept another Task Force, and we experts will take care of the problems of:
- Child Abuse AND
- Children Exposed to Violence AND
- woman abuse (VAWA) AND
- domestic violence (NCADV etc.) AND
- father-absence (Fatherhood.gov) AND
- also your local affiliates of the US Government (state/county, Unified Family Court etc.) will take care of local domestic ‘disputes’ as directed by the local AFCC & CRC chapter, about which we are not interested. (i.e., compartmentalization of tasks, but the most important ones lead back to an executive agency).
Go back to work, don’t worry. Somebody, after all, has to pay for this great leadership. Consume, consume, consume — and we will organize and fix.
~ ~ ~ ~
Now, 2011, from the Federal Register — I am talking about, what happened to all the previous Task Forces (etc.) and Initiatives? Why a new one, and what’s so different about it this time? Who wishes — really — to analyze why the other ones have failed in their missions? And why does it take this amount of firepower to convince ANYONE that children being exposed to violence in the home is bad (and can we discuss that it’s also bad for both adults — the person committing the violence as well as the person taking it on the chin, and other body parts). Parents of these children have been reporting it for decades. So have news headlines. So have DV organizations. So have Child Abuse organizations. So now, it’s official?
Notices Establishment of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Pages 67761 – 67761 [FR DOC # 2011-28319] PDF | Text | More Hearing of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Pages 67761 – 67762 [FR DOC # 2011-28322] PDF | Text | More
Justice Programs Office(Below, I post Task Force Members and talk about it more….)
I’m not real informed on CAPTA, but here’s a summary on it from a 2009 Congressional Research Service (fairly neutral gov’t source, I believe; their function is summary explanations; I’ve cited their works on other topics before). Wikipedia describes CRS as the “public policy research arm of the US Congress” or example, they will summarize bills and post it on Thomas.gov, I think… Although Wikipedia also notes:
CRS reports are highly regarded as in-depth, accurate, objective, and timely, but as a matter of policy they are not made directly available to members of the public. There have been several attempts to pass legislation requiring all reports to be made available online, most recently in 2003, but none have passed. Instead, the public must request individual reports from their Senators and Representatives in Congress, purchase them from private vendors, or search for them in various web archives of previously-released documents.
(which what I’m about to cite probably is):
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act: Background, Programs, and Funding
[[==”CAPTA”]]
by Emilie Stoltzfus, Specialist in Social Policy, November 4, 2009
7-5700 http://www.crs.gov R40899
Child abuse and neglect is a significant social concern. Children who experience abuse and/or neglect are more likely to have developmental delays and impaired language or cognitive skills; be identified as “problem” children (with attention difficulties or challenging behaviors); be arrested for delinquency, adult criminality, and violent criminal behavior; experience depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems as adults; engage in more health-risk behaviors as adults; and have poorer health outcomes as adults.
Currently we have a conflict of interest in this statement with the fatherhood groups. All of the above situations are supposedly caused by father absence. This is neatly handled by combining the concept of “father absence” with “child welfare” as seen in the multitude of fatherhood programs on the site “childwelfare.gov.” Actually, a far more significant problem is likely to be father PRESENCE, in some cases, and society’s reluctance to accept that when for the child’s safety father ABSENCE is required, that the mother then (the careless, overly fertile bitch in heat that can’t choose a companion right, and what’s worse is burdening the public welfare caseloads. Oh yes, we forgot to mention that in initially passing Welfare Reform, we (the US Congress– see ethnic & gender profile) particularly are concerned about this characteristic among women…, and hereby “tweak” the “AFDC” (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) to create “Welfare-to-Work” concept, from which adequate and ever-increasing amounts of marriage/fatherhood(abstinence, relationship skills education, etc.) will be diverted so this problem can be stopped at its (alleged) root!!”)
This being a typical publication (notice the domain name, Child Welfare.gov)
The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children
| Author(s): Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, U.S. Children’s Bureau Rosenberg, Jeffrey., Wilcox, W. Bradford. |
| Year Published: 2006 |
In fact, for a REAL quick “Cliff Notes” (summary at a glance) version of the field, FIRST click on that title above, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” I mean, (sorry, I mixed up my comedy of errors period piece titles), “The Importance of FATHERS…”) and see all the hyperlinks in the outline. Then go down to “Appendix B” and do the same thing. That’s about as good a quick education on what’s happening to public funding of untested theory (although the tests continue….) on fatherhood and preventing child abuse through it as one can get.
Appendix B – Resource Listings of Selected National Organizations Concerned with Fatherhood and Child Maltreatment
Listed below are several representatives of the many national organizations and groups that deal with various aspects of child maltreatment, as well as several that address fatherhood issues. Like (by now any regular readers of this blog should know a few of these names). Under the section “For Fathers and Fatherhood Groups” (as opposed to general public)
Bootcamp for New Dads (Irvine, CA)
Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy (Madison, WI)
Center for Successful Fathering (Austin, TX)Family and Corrections Network (Palmyra, VA)The Fathers Network (Seattle, WA )— I guess this one is in case the various state-level Commissions on Fatherhood are falling behind on their nationwide PR, and Fathers and Families Coalition of America ever gets busted for how many improperly incorporated organizations are among its affiliates, that is, allegedly are improperly incorporated — meaning, I haven’t gone through all of them yet).National Center on Fathering (St. Louis, MO)National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (Ogden, UT).National Fatherhood Initiative (Gaithersville, MD)National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute (Los Angeles, CA)National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, Inc. (Washington, D.C. and see my blog)let’s not forget this set of fathers: Stay At Home Dads, who (just like some Moms) might feel isolated, and need a support group. This is a resource for helping them connect with each other. It just merged with “AtHomeDad” and can be found there (I linked)with the motto (at new site — angelfire.com carries it) “men who change diapers change the world.”
Which gets me thinking – if we could enforce this policy with members of Congress — get them to practice this — perhaps there’d be fewer fatherless children around — there’d be fewer wars!
CONGRESSIONAL RESOURCE SERVICE ON CAPTA, cont’d. , now that I’m through with the sarcasm part… This 2009 summary seems to be in preparation for making sure funding for this act continues. CAPTA started in 1974. We are on the topic of how forming child abuse prevention task forces is a surefire way to stop child abuse, as Penn State and the Haitian Fund, and for that matter, a recent child-rape during a supervised visitation (with both of her parents, one with a sex abuse prior on his record, as I recall) in an FCFC (that’s Families & Children First) funded type building, supported 77% by government funding, including a recent state-wide “Children’s Levy” in Trumbull County, Ohio. Ohio is very “up” on preventing abuse of children — because it has BOTh a commission on Families and Children AND a commission on fatherhood, not to mention a Governor’s Office of FaithBased and Community Initiatives which draws funding (probably) from both sides of that fence (promoting fatherhood and protecting children, as it did the family in Trumbull County which also (I forgot to mention) had an older child — snatched at BIRTH — later (not much later — at about age two) die in foster care too. Which brings me also to the concept of federal incentives to states for foster care, ALSO, and so on . . .. ).
LIKE I KEEP SAYING — IF YOU WANT TO PREVENT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, PASS A LAW AGAINST IT, SET UP A TASK FORCE, PAY, EVALUATE, REPORT, AND HOPE. THIS IS FROM THE CRS 2009 REPORT ON CAPTA:
In FY2007, states reported an estimated 3.5 million children were in families investigated or assessed by CPS workers and some 794,000 were identified as victims of abuse or neglect.
In 1974, Congress enacted the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, P.L. 93-247) to create a single federal focus for preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect. As a condition of receiving state grant funds under that act, states are required to have procedures in place for receiving and responding to allegations of abuse or neglect and for ensuring children’s safety.
YES. and by the same logic, to receive federal fatherhood grants, the state organizations or (whatever) are supposed to have procedures in place to prevent domestic violence also. Neither says that there is supposed to actually be any evidence that the program LAST year (or last 5 years) actually did prevent child abuse or domestic violence. Just to have procedures in place. Again I say — where do all these horrible parents come from to start with? Who raised THEM? (See public education, USA?? Foster Care USA? Prior failure to stop child abuse or domestic violence in or out of the home, USA?).
Further, they must define child abuse and neglect in a way that is consistent with CAPTA, which defines the term as “ at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”
Since its enactment, CAPTA has been reauthorized numerous times, most recently by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-36). Currently, it authorizes formula grants to states to help improve their child protective services; competitive grants and contracts for research, demonstration, and other activities related to better identifying, preventing, and treating child abuse and neglect; and formula grants to states for support of community-based child abuse and neglect prevention services. Funding authorization for these CAPTA programs expired with FY2008. However, Congress appropriated $110 million for CAPTA in FY2009 (P.L. 111-8) and a similar amount has been proposed for FY2010 (H.R. 3293). In addition, CAPTA authorizes grants to improve the prosecution and handling of child abuse and neglect cases. These formula grants to states, commonly referred to as Children’s Justice Act grants, are funded via an annual set-aside of up to $20 million from the Crime Victims fund.
CAPTA is LARGE, PERVASIVE, INVASIVE & EXPENSIVE — has it been successful? The CRS summary here shows some of the extent:
Between 1963 and 1967, every state and the District of Columbia enacted some form of child abuse and neglect reporting law to permit individuals to refer cases of suspected child abuse or neglect to a public agency.
Reminder: by definition any “Public Agency” is being financially supported by the public. We pay income taxes, sales taxes, city, state taxes, property taxes, and you name it. Our taxes are used for things far beyond our awareness and comprehension at times, including unwarranted wars on foreign soil (Iraq) and otherwise protecting such things as corporate wealth and Bush Family Interests, aka Oil. Citizens with or without children pay for public schools that apparently are turning out child abusers, and we also pay for the world’s largest per-capita system of prisons, again, which are getting privatized. In these prisons, there’s plenty of outcry about juvenile abuse — as in rapes, isolation, you name it. We fund all levels of law enforcement from the local up to Mr. Holder. So when a public agency exists to protect children and is failing — that’s a very serious situation, and that IS the situation.
I come from a region of the US where a man previously convicted of kidnapping and raping, and had done jail time for it, was let out and thereafter, something got lost — and he was able (with a wife he married, who met him on a prison visit) — to kidnap another minor, hold her hostage in a series of sheds in the backyard in a suburban area outside the SF Bay Area — and while on probation. In this matter, he also went to prison for some other reason for a while — and the wife (living in a mother’s home) held down the fort. This young woman was not only kept hostage and raped, giving birth to two children which she then somehow managed to raise and thought she was their SISTER — she also financially assisted her rapist/captor in his printing business. This went on for 18 years. I’m talking about obviously Phil Garrido & Jaycee Dugard. So I believe from these and plenty of other instances, that it’s time for people at the street level — not the top, most official levels — to examine WHY child abuse continues to be such a horrible problem decade after decade. And to do this we have to start looking at our mindsets (the cult of the experts) and our willingness to believe everything said on the internet and in a very officious manner — without the means to check it out.
Or, our habits of simply throwing up our hands and saying, it’s out of my control, I don’t know. Suppose it were your kid?
Sometimes the most valuable learning comes after the most serious setbacks and defeats — but it happens with a cost, a cost of somehow making the TIME to reflect and investigate “how did we get here” and an insistence on acknowledging when the usual answers simply make no sense.
BACK to CAPTA description:
The rapid adoption of these laws was aided by a model reporting law disseminated by the Children’s Bureau, which is housed within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In 1974, Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, P.L. 93-247) and state reporting laws were modified to conform to the standards it established. In creating CAPTA, Congress sought to increase understanding of child abuse and neglect and improve the response to its occurrence by establishing a single federal focal point on the issue. Since its enactment 35 years ago, the law has been reauthorized and amended numerous times, most recently by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-36).2 Currently, CAPTA authorizes:
• State Grants: Formula grants to states and territories to help improve their child protective service (CPS) systems, in exchange for which states must comply with various requirements related to the reporting, investigation, and treatment of child maltreatment cases. The FY2009 appropriation was $26.5 million.
• Discretionary Activities: Federal data collection, dissemination, and technical assistance efforts related to child abuse prevention and treatment, as well as competitive grants to a range of eligible entities for research and demonstration projects or other activities related to the identification, prevention, and treatment of child abuse or neglect. The FY2009 appropriation was $41.8 million (including a $13.5 million set-aside for the ACF home visitation initiative, $500,000 for a feasibility study related to a national child abuse and neglect
CAPTA — Children’s Bureau in HHS/ACF sets the standard – CPS strengthening — Federal leadership — millions invested. Lots of data collection, dissemination, and technical assistance, plus research & demonstration grants. The same approach has been used for fatherhood and for domestic violence activities, wouldn’t you say (with HHS often the lead public agency, alongside DOJ)…. (All these years, has anyone IN government or HHS bothered to investigate the role of the AFCC, CRC, etc? directorates?)
As a consequence of this huge effort, there are now major reform efforts by parents (and complaints) about CPS abuses of families. It appears their invasions, tossing away due process, guilty-til-proven innocent (but then after proven guilty, other systems still exist to put kids back into the care and comfort of their abusers) and other — a multitude of other — issues tend to bring up whether or not CAPTA was actually a good idea.
See Nancy Schaefer (sorry to keep bringing this up, but a questionable murder/suicide of a State Senator & Her Husband — from Georgia — I feel bears remembering!)
Backing up to 2001 (this is for purposes of simply stating who CAPTA is, and what it’s supposed to be doing, in very basic format, just an intro):
And testimony on its reauthorization in 2001, from a Disabilities Consortium (Disabled Children are at much higher risk of assault, and are assaulted more often, it asserts — which only makes sense when one considers what kind of creep mentality gets off on assaulting helpless children:
Testimony for The Committee on Education and the Workforce Select Education Subcommittee
United State House of Representatives Hearing on
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act [[= “CAPTA”]]
August 2, 2001
Room 2175 Rayburn House Office Building
Submitted by:
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD)
Task Force on Child Abuse and NeglectAccording to an HHS report released in April 2001, substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect investigated by child protective service (CPS) agencies numbered an estimated 826,000 children nationally in 1999. States report that nearly half (44.2%) of the child victims or their families in confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect receive no treatment or any other kind of services following investigation of the report. Deaths from child maltreatment remain unacceptably high: an estimated 1,100 children died of abuse or neglect in 1999 alone. And, as noted above, near-fatal child maltreatment leaves thousands of children permanently disabled each year.
Now here’s the resulting Task Force from recent Congressional Hearings:
Here’s an article on how we need — OBviously– more government funding to study and raise people’s consciousness about the effects of domestic violence upon children (i.e., all those parents reporting all these years, and the children themselves reporting, plust abusers that go on to kill their children is not “real” evidence presented in JUST the right way to convince (who? precisely) that it’s actually bad for children to witness one of their parents beating and abusing the other? We need more evidence that it’s bad WHY? Perhaps to counter the institution — called, for one, the family law system — that tells one parent (often the mothers) that it’s all in their heads? Here it goes, again:
Read on for the translation of what is really meant by this: . . . what do they really want? First the rhetoric:
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First of all, whoever wrote this should start talking — we want to listen in of course — to the marriage/fatherhood movement, which asserts that NO, it’s NOT domestic violence that causes criminal behavior and substance abuse, plus suicide — it’s fatherlessness! . . . But I believe the reason they are NOT getting their talk lined up right is that it’s just too convenient to lump them together — when it comes to obtaining grants and starting up certain groups to get them — and too inconvenient to let on that they know thats the racket! First of all, we have to hear how no one has done anything to prevent domestic violence against, or traum from witnessing it against someone else, on behalf of children since at least 1974, when CAPTA was passed:
While it is common to hear calls for an “end to the cycle of violence,” it cannot logically end without a substantial focus on the children
Domestic violence programs throughout the country are focused primarily on adults who are involved in violent relationships. A range of services are offered, including temporary housing, crisis counseling, legal assistance, health services, vocational aid, substance abuse programs and anger management and other behavioral modification initiatives for perpetrators. The focus on children comes as a distant second concern.
Perhaps that’s because domestic violence groups are aware of CAPTA already. In fact, they’ve had plenty of conferences with both the child abuse prevention and the fatherhood promotion groups (including BWJP with AFCC on custody matters) already. But if this were publicized then what would justfiy more grants with the “new, improved, re-labeled” emphasis?
OF COURSE, here’s yet ANOTHER (presumably nonprofit — should I check them?) calling the Congressional Hearing a bunch of baloney, and reporting AGAINST it. I’ve heard of this group before, maybe you have:
Here’s their E-Alert about the (then’) upcoming 10/12/11 conference on this theme:
ELERT: Trash-Talk: Call on Rep. Gwen Moore to Cancel Gender-Biased Briefing
A Congressional Briefing on the Effects of Domestic Violence on Children has been scheduled for this coming Wednesday, Oct. 12 in Washington DC. The event is hosted by Makers of Memories and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV).
See, when one group sees another group making some inroads against THEIR interests, here comes the negative press, and they go after them with crying gender bias
I see the same reporting and (with my particular background) think: “Hmmm. NCADV — I’ve looked at this group, some of its conferences, grants received, items for sale, and bedfellows, but who is this “Makers of Memories”??? And then I read on — it’s a FOUNDATION. It’s a Nonprofit.
Now here comes “SAVE” to SAVE the day with counterintelligence to the feminists:
As you can see to the side, the image they chose to promote the briefing shows a man, presumably a father, yelling at a small girl who is cowering in the corner. And no surprise, the websites of Makers of Memories and the NCADV are brimming with gender-biased information.
SAVE supports evidence-based efforts to address young victims of family violence. These are the facts that need to be highlighted:
1. Women are at least as likely as men to engage in intimate partner violence. One national survey found mothers are twice as likely as fathers to engage in severe marital violence. [i]
Well, I’m going to say this anyhow — OK, “SAVE,” show me all the headlines on the “estranged husband” “custody dispute” “crime scene cleanp” and the wife was the killer. . . .. . Anyhow, the next two points made:
2. Most child abuse is committed by mothers. According to the DHHS, “approximately one-half (53.8%) of child abuse and neglect perpetrators were women and more than 40 percent (44.4%) were men.” [ii]
3. Partner-abusing mothers are equally likely to abuse their children as partner-abusing fathers. [iii]
(I slogged through some of these type of reports on-line in earlier 2011 on the SFWeekly series by Peter Jamison on California Courts giving Custody to Pedophiles. The GlennSacks hounds were talking like SAVE and NCADV people arguing back. Some look at the stats shows how the word “mothers” breaks down into biological, step- etc. I say there is a difference, but more to the point, let’s talk about what all this talk is really about anyhow — it’s going to be, in the bottom line, about who gets more funding. And I say, it’s about time we scream “WHOA!” — and inspect whether there has been a pattern of tax-compliance and reporting, or tax-EVASION and non-reporting, before voting ANY more appropriations for this stuff. And then I want more parents like me (mothers, and fathers) to get up there and say what difference did it make in My case, or in anyone’s case in our neighborhoods, that we can point to — or that any of these organizations can point to their having tracked.
The truth is, apparently — most of them do not track much more than who was “served” — and notice the quotes.
– – – — ANYHOW — HERE WE ARE WITH ANOTHER TASK FORCE: (found at “findyouthinfo.org”)
December 05, 2011
National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence Holds First Public Hearing
On November 29, Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence, part of the Defending Childhood Initiative, convened its first hearing in Baltimore, Maryland. This hearing is the first of four that will aim to gather expert and community testimony on the epidemic of children’s exposure to violence. Coming out of these hearings, the Task Force will identify {{WHAT ELSE:…..}}} promising practices, programming, and community strategies used to prevent and respond to children’s exposure to violence and will issue a comprehensive report presenting its findings.Learn more.
I’d bet my bottom dollar that this “comprehensive” report doesn’t address — at all — what is going on in the family law system, or how all the previous helping groups (particularly certain categories of them0 are presently using the federal grants stream, which apparently goes underground, lots of it, once it’s out of the the very large faucet pointed at favorites.
Who is actually ON the task force is a real slap in the face to common sense. let alone pointing another one — at all — on the issue. Like it’s a TASK FORCE — get it? How many simultaneously operating and funded task forces does it take to turn the other way while some adult in another “help the children” nonprofit (or situation of professional ongoing access to children which already has severe and highly publicized violations of trust track in the record)?
I don’t know — but looks like here’s another one. Public Outcry — Appoint a Task Force — Go through the routines solemnly — distract the public — end of story.
HERE’s the DOJ Description of Who’s ON that Task Force:
The task force is composed of 13 leading experts from diverse fields and perspectives, including practitioners, child and family advocates, academic experts and licensed clinicians. Joe Torre, Major League Baseball executive vice president of baseball operations, founder of the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation, and a witness of domestic violence as a child himself; and Robert Listenbee Jr., chief of the juvenile unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, serve as co-chairs of the task force. The full list of Task force members is located at:
How appropriate — in view of recent VERY high-profile incidents of sexual abuse (allegations) to a high-profile sports figures functioning as substitute father figure for youngsters (i.e., young boys especially) , and highly positioned religious leaders (which seems an unending parade), to make sure the leading edge of this “prevent abuse” includes a Leading Sports Figure with close associations with Fatherhood Promoting Organizations (which Joe Torres has) and a Jesuit Priest, simultaneous with a federal lawsuit against “The Society Of Jesus” for outrages in Haiti, and subsequent money-laundering (?) or at least continuing to collect funding after the perpetrator was arrested!
This “Task Force” membership reveals the public expectation that ONLY prominently placed citizens and people running other nonprofits and foundations (etc.) are truly qualified to report on how to stop child abuse — no matter how often we come to understand that it’s exactly in some of these fields (Child Psychiatry much?) that this abuse takes place and is covered up! I’m listing them all here.
FYI, when I saw this list, I wasn’t just disheartened (hardly unexpected) but also incensed. Another person, who forwarded the link, although we all seem to know how eager certain protective mothers groups are to get a “Congressional Hearing” and feel victorious once they get one — said (she) was “livid,”
This is who is on the force. There are 13 members, and to their credit, 6 are women, but that’s beside the point. Look at the associations:
http://www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood/tf-members.html
Co-Chair:Joe Torre, Chairman of the Joe Torre Safe at Home® Foundation
Mr. Torre, Major League Baseball’s Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations and former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, created his foundation to educate students, parents, teachers, and school faculty about the effects of domestic violence.
Everyone wants to educate others about domestic violence. What an industry. I don’t mean to disrespect or pick on Mr. Torres as a person, however, as myself a person — and a victim of domestic violence — I can assert most groups dono’t want to hear about it. Particularly judges in the family law system, GALs, mediators, faith-groups, and for that matter, when I sought help in recent years from a local DV group, they didn’t have anyone to sit with me until the hearing to renew, or re-instate a restraining order to protect my right to work without harassment from this ex. No money in the budget. I heard the same thing from another judge after my kids were stolen on an UNsupervised visitation exchange: No money in the budget. Eventually, I am out of work and go to the local employment agency looking for some — and lo and behold, there’s LOTS of money from one of the same organizations — to go into middle schools and teach about domestic violence and preventing it. Something’s wrong with that picture — you can perhaps support yourself (as a DV survivor) by becoming a DV advocate, a professional, if you are willing to promote programs that you already now do not, actually, prevent domestic violence or address what happens when children are involved. A.k.a. Sell your Soul, join the business.
Just perhaps people who’ve gone through years of this might want to work in something OUTside the field?
Anyhow — briefly — Joe Torres LOVES the Family VIolence Prevention Fund (and vice versa) which is a major resource center (per HHS) in Preventing Violence. Obviously it’s working — which is why we need this task force, right? Here he is, with FVPF founder Esta Soler, amid other luminaries, rejoicing at the new, groundbreaking “Futures without Violence” set up at the SF Praesidio, as reported in “SF Philanthropy”
Photographer: DREW ALTIZER PHOTOGRAPHYPublication Date: JANUARY 17, 2010House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, Major League Baseball Manager Joe Torre and Actress Joan ChenCelebrated Renovation of Family Violence Prevention Fund’s New International Center and Exhibit Hall on the Main Post of San Francisco’s Historic Presidio. . . .
The Family Violence Prevention Fund, one of the world’s most innovative and respected agencies working to stop violence against women and children, broke new ground on Friday, January 8th with the start of construction on an international conference center and exhibition hall.
Among those who joined Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) Founder and President Esta Soler for the groundbreaking ceremony were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose support has provided significant funding for the $18 million project, actress Nicole Kidman, who will appear on behalf of UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who has been an active supporter of the FVPF’s highly successful national campaign, Coaching Boys Into Men . . .
Building 100, located on the Main Post of San Francisco’s historic Presidio, will be redesigned and reconstructed as a global action center to serve as a forum for international discourse, leadership training, education programs and public exhibitions designed to change attitudes and practices that harm women and children who are oppressed or exploited around the world. Architectural design was provided by BAR Architects and construction is being managed by Oliver and Company.
Success attracts success attracts federal funding — and the architectual firms, etc. and management, and all kinds of businesses are EXACTLY who is profiting from these types of projects. From a group that has used years of “DISCRETIONARY” funding, to be shared with battered women’s shelters in the area — to expand it’s customer base, at its clients expenses. Here’s their own website’s description of the same event.
Meanwhile — in the same city! — we see how the propensity for glamour and royalty and love of the theatrical occasions is shared by family court commissioners and judges — and POOR (Silenced) Mamas continue to speak out against this. No federal funding fro THAT activity! (At least since last I checked). I just about started my blog (unintentionally) contrasting Poor Mamas with “what a friend we have in each other” rhetoric, back in 2009. I didn’t realize at the time that this may have opened a local can of worms. Anyhow, here’s the latest from the same source (looks like the on-line got SOME funding, as it’s had a facelift also, but nothing close to Futures without Violence’s):
(I have posted this photo before on the blog, but from different URL):
Silenced Mamas Speak back to Commissioner Slabach! (LGH: please read!)
PNNscholar1 – Posted on 29 September 2010
San Francisco Family Law Commissioner Marjorie A. Slabach was featured as a “queen” alongside of other California county judges in “Familawt” years ago. Picture featured on the Rogues Gallery at http://home.earthlink.net/~elnunes/camelot.htm Silenced Mamas Speak back to Commissioner Slabach!
. . .Below are details of the upcoming event “Through the Eyes of Children” presented by The Family Law Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco and Rally Visitation Services ** of Saint Francisco Memorial Hospital:
Where: Pierrotti Pavillion Saint Francis Memorial Hospital 900 Hyde Street San Francisco, CA 94109
When: October 7th, 2010. Time: 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Keynote Speaker: Janise Mirkitani, President, Glide Foundation Honoring: Dr. Patricia Galamba and Commissioner, Marjorie A. Slabach Lifetime Achievement Award presented to: Judge Donna Hitchens In a continued effort in re-porting and supporting the “Silenced Mamas” movement, POOR Magazine/PNN will be at this event to protest the honoring of Marjorie Slabach.
**Translation: Access/Visitation funding, Supervised Visitation Network, and how to extract a child from a mother, for profit . . . and other things FVPF simply refuses to acknowledge or properly report about – –in their own back yard! There are 94 signatures on the petition page to have her removed, revealing several of the common practices in family law courts that FWV (formerly FVPF) could care less about — and has treated with silence.
Here’s a slide from an “Winslow Events” organization about this wonderful “futures without violence” group. Obviously the kind of individuals who would know firsthand about the matters they’re dealing with…. They are poor, they are oppressed, and they have walked the walk, particularly with communities of color and helping (groups like Winslow Events — which produced “Produced a stage program and reception event for 500 guests” in order to help stop violence).
Mr. Torres — who says that baseball was a safe refuge for him from violence at home (I understand how getting involved in such activities can help counter it — and until MY family went into the family law system, and even during abuse, I was able to negotiate, bargain and get them there. However, once the custody courts eliminated the ability to work safely, and insisted on frequent and continuing contact (without REAL protection for me at any time past removal of the restraining order) I could not handle this entire burden — which FVPF simply wasn’t interested in — nor could other women in the same situation. You can get help from the Feminists to join a DV group, and simultaneously from the Fatherhood Groups (either directly, or while participating in a so-called DV prevention group), but good luck getting any help going through family law as a result of, or after, leaving abuse. That’s why I believe BOTH terms: “Domestic Violence” AND “Fatherhood” need to be retired, and instead, let’s just look at the nonprofits foundations, and etc.
I don’t see the photo was looking for (Mr. Torres actually holding a banner of FVPF), but this will show his close association:
He tells his story on their website; baseball was a place where he could hide from his father.
On Mother’s Day, he created a video in honor of his mother for the Founding Fathers. Mr. Torre is a member of the Founding Fathers movement which promotes the Coaching Boys Into Men media campaign and training programs. Mr. Torre is featured in the Coaching Boys into Men playbook. You can learn more about the program at the Futures Without Violence’s (formerly the Family Violence Prevention Fund) web site. Mr. Torre also created a PSA for their RESPECT campaign.
Mr. Torre’s story was featured in “Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories,” a PBS special funded by the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation.
Here’s a listing of a whole BUNCH of the Stop Violence, End Abuse, Prevent Domestic Violence, and “A Call to Men” type groups, including “Safe at Home.” This one happens to link to another film, “TELLING AMY’s STORY” which likewise, I have some serious issues with. It is billed as a “Domestic Violence Documentary Film and Public Service Media Project.”
Moreover, it was out of PENN STATE! If you judge by the beauty of the websites and film productions — I’d rate it highly. If you judge by content, I give it a zero! The “Amy” in this situation had a custody case. They dono’t report anything relevant on the family law situation, and she dies at the end, by making a very foolish decisions right after confronting the father (around getting some diapers!) and her parents were lucky they didn’t die too, given the circumstances. The film made no commentary on this, and did not reply when I made several attempts to contact (phone messages, phone contact, as I recall email) about this very disturbing omission. This one even has the One-Stop Justice Shop alliance (that’s what I’m going to call them):
The Family Justice Center Alliance aims to create a network of national and international Family Justice Centers and other models of co-located, multi-agency service centers for victims of family violence and their children with close working relationships, shared training and technical assistance, collaborative learning processes, and coordinated funding assistance.
A LET”S GET HONEST MOMENT (actually, COMment):
The laugh truly is on the public if we continue to believe that people who insist on associating with each other as luminaries, reformes, educators, and collaborators — the coalitions of coalitions, the alliances, the partnerships, the centers, the projects, the initiatives, and — case in point — the Task Forces — are going to ever do anything other than MORE OF THE SAME until it becomes unprofitable for these individual groups to keep doing so. Seeing as we have been taught to look up them and be reassured by them that “someone” is on the job, that’s probably not anytime soon.
NEXT MEMBER OF THIS DEFENDING THE CHILDREN TYPE TASK FORCE:
Co-Chair:Robert Listenbee, Jr., J.D., Chief of the Juvenile Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia
Mr. Listenbee also serves as a member of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.Father Gregory Boyle, S.J., Founder of Homeboy Industries
Fr. Boyle was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1984 and serves as a member of the National Gang Center Advisory Board.
I believe that this Father Boyle very likely has done wonders, and helped lots of people. But as I am in the business of looking at the business angle, I first of all noticed that (no offence) I think it’s relevant that someone decided to put a sports figure (above) and a Jesuit Priest on a task force of this nature, when there’s an open federal court, and a SCANDALOUS one involving a Jesuit Priest at a (I think) Jesuit University scamming the public by continuing to collect funds AFTER arrest of a perp — in Connecticut, USA regarding Haiti. Would it not make sense for members of some of these organizations, rather than trying to save everyone and stop gang violence, instead started cleaning their own hosue and examining their own consciences?
Be that as it may — and this might be a separate post (except it’s been a long day, and I need to close out). I looked, naturally, at Fr. Boyle, S.J. and noticed that he was recipient of an “Opus Prize.” I know Latin, and had heard of a cult called “Opus Dei,” however, this relates to the Opus Corporation. TO cut matters short, they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, except that this kind of behavior apparently goes with the territory of being wildly successful as a corporation (particularly real estate) and figuring out the proper use of foundations –and subsidiaries — which is to funnel money torwards the family trusts (in this case “Rauenhorst”)
In such situations, along the way helping stop some gang violence, sooner or later somebody reports. No matter — at this level, one can afford lawyers, and/or to settle when caught (or accused). This settlement kind of reminds me of child support contractor, the megalith “Maximus” having to settle for about $30 million on fraud (or — see record) charges in more than one state. No matter– it’s still in business all over the US and abroad also.
Wealth Accumulation and “keeping it in the Family” hasn’t exactly been a new practice for this religion, or others, but here’s how it played out this time.
To make it clear — I’m not at all connecting the individual, Fr. Gregory Boyle, S.J. — with this corporation other than to say its Prize is funded by its Foundation which is funded by its Corporation, which apparently has some ethical issues. Didn’t take me too long to find the reports on it — so goes the internet, if you look…..
05/20/2011
Opus Corp. Quietly Settles Suit Filed by Subsidiary
The Star Tribune, citing “two people familiar with the case,” said that the two parties settled last month for $45 million; Opus West had accused its parent company of siphoning tens of millions of dollars and causing its demise.
Once-prominent developer Opus Corporation quietly settled a lawsuit brought by subsidiary Opus West, which claimed that it siphoned vast portions of Opus West earnings and kept the subsidiary in a constant state of financial dependency that ultimately led to bankruptcy.
{{Sounds like family court already, only played larger….}}
The case, which dates back to 2009, was officially dismissed April 29, according to court documents.
The parties aren’t revealing the terms of the settlement. But the Star Tribune, citing “two people familiar with the case,” said that they secretly settled last month in Dallas for $45 million. The case was set to go to trial within a matter of days.
About one-third of the settlement—or $15 million—will go to lawyers, the sources told the Minneapolis newspaper. Most of the remaining $30 million will reportedly go to the two largest creditors in Phoenix-based Opus West’s bankruptcy case: Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank. The two banks were collectively owed more than $260 million.
Approximately $3 million will be shared by about 150 Opus West employees who lost their jobs when the subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in 2009, according to the unnamed sources. ($3,000,000 / 150 = $300,000/15 = around $20,000 each, other things being equal (which they probably aren’t). Wonder how many lawyers were involved…
Opus West’s lawsuit claimed that Minnetonka [MN]-based Opus Corporation routinely engaged in “self-dealing transactions, blindly siphoning tens of millions of dollars that left Opus West with almost non-existent levels of working capital…”
{{Like I said, reminds me of conciliation court.}}
It went on to call the once-sterling reputation of the Rauenhorst family—which owns Opus Corporation—a “carefully-cultivated myth, an appealing veneer specifically designed to hide the true guiding ethos of the Rauenhorst business empire: to make sure the Rauenhorst family and their ultra-rich friends got rich and stayed rich.”
According to the suit, 10 percent of Opus West’s pretax income went to charity—and three-quarters of the subsidiary’s remaining income went to Opus Corporation. Opus Corporation and its executives knew that the payments were leaving Opus West “chronically undercapitalized,” according to Opus West’s complaint.
. . . .
Opus Corporation has since shut down and reorganized under a newly restructured parent company—Opus Holding, LLC. The assets of the two remaining subsidiaries were later bought by Opus Holding.
The Opus Group now includes Opus Holding, LLC, and Opus Holding, Inc., and their operating subsidiaries—Opus Development Corporation; Opus Design Build, LLC; and architectural arm Opus AE Group, Inc.
Legal battles for Opus haven’t ended with the recent settlement. The company still faces a lawsuit filed in July 2010 by 16 former Opus West employees who claim to be collectively owed $32.4 million in deferred compensation, bonuses, and pensions.
According to the complaint, Opus Corporation transferred more than $193.8 million of former subsidiary Opus West’s assets into family trusts linked to Opus founder Gerald Rauenhorst while failing to compensate Opus West employees.
—Christa Meland
Posted in
Thank you, Ms. Meland. Moral: Always! look up the businesses behind the people!
1999 Feature ARticle from “American Catholic” on the “Jesuit Gang Priest” and his work in East L.A. I’m sure he’s doing great work, but if he’s almost too busy to tell his story to the reporter here, how is he going to have time to effectively serve on this 2011 task force?
Pico Gardens and Aliso Village, sometimes called “The Projects,” is the largest tract of subsidized housing west of the Mississippi. This huge piece of social engineering hasn’t worked out so well. It’s poor, crowded and packed with gangs.
Some of Pico/Aliso overlaps Boyle Heights (different era, different Boyle). Within those 16 square miles, 60 gangs claim 10,000 members, Hispanic and black. This equals violence and plenty of action at the Hollenbeck division of the Los Angeles Police Department—if Father Greg Boyle doesn’t get there first…
Here he is giving a commencement address at Creighton U in 2009 (A Jesuit university in Omaha, NE . . . . HOW close to BoysTown is Creighton??)
And in 2011 getting the OPUS PRIZE $100,000 Opus Prize Recipient
Father Gregory Boyle, S.J.
Homeboy Industries
Los Angeles, United States
Fr. Greg Boyle grew up in the “gang capital of the world,” Los Angeles, California, just west of where he has spent more than 25 years ministering to the families of Dolores Mission parish, and mentoring hundreds of young people whose daily lives have been dominated by membership in neighborhood gangs. A Jesuit priest, he is the founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries, an organization that he created 23 years ago as a modest job training program in the east Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights that continues to be wracked by a seemingly unending cycle of gang violence and murder passed on from generation to generation.
Homeboy Industries — “Nothing Stops a Bullet Like a Job.” (tell that to the former employees of Opus West).
| Entity Number | Date Filed | Status | Entity Name | Agent for Service of Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C2226433 | 02/29/2000 | ACTIVE | HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES | LARRY KERVIN |
(EIN# 954800735, and it seems they are at least filing in CA. I used the Charity Research Tool)
| Year | IRS Process Date | Form | Type | Assets | |
| 2008 | 11/06/2009 | 990 | Initial Return | $12,635,874 | |
| 2007 | 01/17/2009 | 990 | Initial Return | $16,009,890 | |
| 2006 | 04/04/2008 | 990 | Initial Return | $16,070,640 | |
| 2005 | 08/25/2006 | 990 | Initial Return | $6,567,183 | |
| 2004 | 10/06/2005 | 990 | Initial Return | $2,982,741 | |
| 2003 | 09/10/2004 | 990 | Initial Return | $1,940,179 | |
| 2002 | 09/16/2003 | 990 | Initial Return | $2,148,684 |
WELL — with the IRS, but not with the STate. Someone needs to tell this prospering organization that CALIFORNIA gets some of the reporting, and fees, too, please! Status is still current, despite this pretty poor track record — as to the state level filings at least:
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(To read these, one probably has to search the group again on the “Registry Search” page for California) This little square, above, tells us that the 2011 winner of a $100K OPUS Prize, run by someone who just got appointed to help Defend Childhood and (see task force description), etc. — is himself running an operation which DOESN”T FILE ITS STATE TAX RETURNS, INCLUDING AFTER DELINQUENCY LETTER REQUESTS…. it is also engaging at least two professional fundraisers. . . . .
There are two Delinquency letters dating to 2009, including the 2nd one with a significant threat. No answer is posted, and this is now the end of 2011 and the charity is marked “current.” There has (meantime) also been a change of administration in the Office of Attorney General (which oversees), so presumably they either made peace with HomeBoy Industries, or it’s now too big to fail (note: Assets in 2007 were $15 million, Revenues $6 million — and they get a pass?) (This was a very tough time in many people’s lives — but as a foundation, well, what the heck….)
You know the routine — I’ve posted these before on my blog. (also posted to link in above chart. The link is inactive, but the description is viewable if you hover cursor over it without clicking):
HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES 130 W. BRUNO ST. LOS ANGELES CA 90012
State of California DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
1300 I Street P. O. Box 903447 Sacramento, CA 94203-4470 Telephone: (916) 445-2021 Ext 6 Fax: (916) 444-3651 E-Mail Address: Delinquency@doj.ca.gov
December 16, 2009 CT FILE NUMBER: 118772
RE: SECOND NOTICE : WARNING OF ASSESSMENT OF PENALTIES AND LATE FEES, AND SUSPENSION OF REGISTERED STATUS
Unless the above-described report(s) are filed with the Registry of Charitable Trusts within thirty (30) days of the date of this letter, the following will occur:
1. The California Franchise Tax Board will be notified to disallow the tax exemption of the above-named entity. In addition, the above-named entity will be billed $800 plus interest by Franchise Tax Board, which represents the minimum tax penalty. (See Revenue and Taxation Code section 23703).
2. Late fees will be imposed by the Registry of Charitable Trusts for each month or partial month for which the report(s) are delinquent. Directors, trustees, officers and return preparers
Doc CT-451A Warning Impend Tax Assess 2nd Notresponsible for failure to timely file these reports are also personally liable for payment of all late fees.
PLEASE NOTE: Charitable assets cannot be used to pay these avoidable costs. Accordingly, directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file the above-described report(s) are personally liable for payment of all penalties, interest and other costs incurred to restore exempt status.
3. In accordance with the provisions of Government Code section 12598, subdivision (e), the Attorney General will suspend the registration of the above-named entity.
As that is now TWO YEARS ago, either they complied — and no one has posted it yet; or the next Attorney General felt differently (and was too busy), or like I say, something else is up. Because as you and I can see — the OAG has not followed through with its warning. They are still marked “current.” Assuming they still ARE current, we can safely assume that such warnings are pretty meaningless, perhaps? They might affect a smaller group, but not one that is too closely linked with government operations, I’ll speculate. That’s speculate, but — what do you think? (Comments field available).
Tax returns should be looked at, and whether or not they are the finalized returns (complete with signature), etc. For example, I just looked at an (unsighed) 2008 return stating that the organization’s main operation was formerly a bakery, formed in 1994. That’s not what the date of incorporation shows above: it says 2000. In which case it’s been more than – not just about 11 years — in which this L.A. business has NOT been filing its returns (?). The 2008 return shows about $37K of “Donor Determined” vehicle donations, yet a 2010 letter shows that they omitted the “donated vehicle” question #8 on a state RRF that (for once) actually was sent in). These are definite red flags — and we’re to expect that a LARGE Hoop-law on thhis 13- member task force, recently appointed by US Attorney General Eric Holder (If I got WHo appointed it right) is to help somehow???
QUESTION; If they don’t notice things like this — which an amateur like myself can pick up IMMEDIATELY — out in the open (once I know enough to look) how do they plan to prevent things like abuse — where the perpetrators obviously are pretty smart and don’t want to get caught? Unless there is collaboration somewhere along the way….
So the question becomes, what is that “something else” that acounts for why HomeBoy Industries, given its resounding success, doesn’t have to take some of its millions of revenues — or sell off some of its larger millions of assets — to pay a tax return person? Also, it seems to me that above a certain level of funding (I DNR which) an orgnization ALSO has to hire an independent auditor for its financial statement (not that I see any financial statements here).
Why can individuals get thrown in jail for contempt of IRS (or, for that matter, a child support order), but charities — who cares? Perhaps the share is being obtained by some other method than traceable tax returns (and, perhaps not). All I know is, I sure don’t like it!
One more minor detail about this Homeboy Organization — it says it started the bakery operation in 1994 with the homeBOYS. That’s fine, why not (the Oakland area also had a Bakery operation: (Google Chauncey Bailey, Oakland, CA) you’ll read all about it). And then finally in 2004, something for the girls — which was restaurant/cafe. Boys create, Girls serve it up? Not to mention a 10 year gap?
SO NOW — HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? Since this is a DOJ task force, and clearly the person is working from Los Angeles, why wouldn’t someone run at least the 10 minute background check I just did (actually, a bit more) and figure out (which part took 2 minutes) that this organization isn’t filing? If he can’ handle or delegate someone to correctly file — with $12 million in assets — more than like 3 times in 10 years, why should he be put over a NATIONAL issue of this significance. Part of protecting the public has to include protecting them from public theft — which failure to file obviously puts us at risk from?
Oh — I forgot — this is in Los Angeles….
ANYHOW, here’s the Opus Prize:
And the Opus PRIZE: $1,000,000 (writeoff) per year, plus 2X $100,000:
The Opus Prize is given annually to recognize unsung heroes of any faith tradition, anywhere in the world. This $1 million faith-based humanitarian award and two $100,000 awards are collectively one of the world’s largest faith-based, humanitarian awards for social innovation. Father Greg is one of the two $100,000 Opus Prize finalists, the other is Sister Rita Pessoa, R.S.H.M. from the Association of Small Rural Producers of Jacare in Filadelfia, Brazil. The $1,000,000 grand prize winner announced on November 2 at Loyloa Marymount University is Lyn Lusi from Heal Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A big congratulations to all three leaders — “unsung heroes who are conquering the world’s persistent social problems, who have dedicated their lives to help tranform others.
The Prize’s Funding is the OPUS PRIZE FOUNDATION
Origins and Values
The Opus Prize Foundation is a private and independent nonprofit foundation. Established in 1994 by the founding chairman of Opus Corporation, the Opus Prize Foundation is a self-sufficient foundation independent from The Opus Group™.
The Opus Prize Foundation selects universities as partners to organize and execute the Opus Prize selection process and award ceremony. Through these partnerships, students are challenged to think globally and inspired to live lives of service.
The remaining members of the Task Force. Every One of these associations should be checked out. However, on the face of it — it’s celar that NOT ONE of them is reporting on the HHS fatherhood grants the Access Visitation grants (in any critical manner) or for that matter — specializing in issues relating to the family law venue. It’s like it just does not exist!
Sharon W. Cooper, M.D., CEO of Developmental & Forensic Pediatrics, P.A.
Dr. Cooper serves as a consultant and board member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).Sarah Deer, Citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma
Professor Deer is an assistant professor at William Mitchell College of Law and her scholarship focuses on the intersection of tribal law and victims’ rights.Deanne Tilton Durfee, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (ICAN)
Ms. Tilton Durfee also serves as Chairperson of the National Center on Child Fatality Review.Thea James, M.D., Director of the Boston Medical Center Massachusetts Violence Intervention Advocacy Program
Dr. James is Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center/Boston University School of Medicine.Alicia Lieberman, Ph.D., Director of the Early Trauma Treatment Network
Dr. Lieberman is Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair of Infant Mental Health at UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Child Trauma Research Program, San Francisco General Hospital.Robert Macy, Ph.D., Founder, Director, and President of the International Center for Disaster Resilience-Boston
Dr. Macy is also the founder and Executive Director of the Boston Children’s Foundation and serves as Co-Director of the Division of Disaster Resilience at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.Steven Marans, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence
Dr. Marans is Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, and also serves as director of the Childhood Violent Trauma Center at Yale University.
The NCCEV was established in 1999 at the Yale Child Study Center by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This occurred in response to the pioneering success of the Yale Child Study Center’s Child Development-Community Policing Program (CD-CP), a community policing model first launched in 1991 in partnership with the City of New Haven and the New Haven Department of Police Service.
Supported by:
NCCEV is supported by grants from the U.S. Departments of Justice (OJJDP grant # 2005-JW-FX-K001) and Health and Human Services (SAMHSA grant # 5 U79 SM54318-06); U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Office of Domestic Preparedness: Urban Area Security Initative (UASI) Program; Pritzker Early Childhood Foundation; Seedlings Foundation & New Alliance Foundation
Jim McDonnell, Chief of Police, Long Beach Police Department, California
Chief McDonnell teaches public policy issues at UCLA and served with the LAPD for 28 years.Georgina Mendoza, J.D., Senior Deputy Attorney and Community Safety Director for the City of Salinas, California
Ms. Mendoza has been involved in the California Cities Gang Prevention Network for the past four years and serves as the Salinas lead in the White House’s National Forum on Youth Violence.Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, President of TDLS Consulting, LLC, and Chairman of Pan Pacific American Leaders and Mentors (PPALM)
General Taguba served 34 years on active duty, including serving as Deputy Commanding General for Support, Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC)/ARCENT/Third U.S. Army, forward deployed to Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A Retired Major General has earned his stripes, so to speak, and I think him for his service. However the nonprofit PPALM has NOT, yet. Look:
Pan-Pacific American Leaders & Mentors is an all-volunteer organization comprised of Military and Civilian professionals committed to mentoring and promoting professional development, retention and the advancement of Asian American Pacific Islander leaders – Active, Reserve, Army National Guard, and DoD Civilians. Pan-Pacific American Leaders & Mentors Organization is incorporated with the Commonwealth of Virginia (April 21, 2010) and approved by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization.
{{just barely — their meeting notes sound like they’re still working on it (See site)}}:
“At the Board of Directors meeting on November 19, 2011, we finalized the revised By Laws as required in the PPALM Strategic Plan 2011-2013, and in concert with IRS reporting requirements to maintain our tax exempt, non-profit status. This is to ensure PPALM is compliant within the established governance rules for the Board members and within the leadership, operations and fiscal functions currently and into the future.
We will announce elections of new Board members not later than January 20, 2012 and to be held not later than March 20, 2012. This will be done thru the PPALM website and other forms of notification. I will appoint new members of the nominating committee who will represent the interest of PPALM members at the national level. Written guidance will also be published to ensure we are compliant with the By Laws in electing new members of the BoD.”
{{But the ABOUT US says it was “activated” in November 2007. In what corporate format, and in which state?}}:
Complementing the Army Strong Campaign, PPALM was activated on November 11, 2007 to mentor and counsel US Army officers and civilians in achieving their career goals. While PPALM’s current focus in the US Army, we are expanding to include members of the other uniformed services. Membership is open to Veterans, National Guard, Reserve, Active Duty personnel, and Department of Defense Civilians. It is also open to spouses and supporters of PPALM’s goals and objectives.
(Virginia Corporations Search shows it incorporated (not as a nonprofit) 6/19/2007) and the Charities Search, that it hasn’t showed up yet as a Charity — although website has donation and membership collection pages already.) Virginia requires annual filings; there is no history (showing) of efilings so let’s presume they filed elsewhere that isn’t uploaded yet. 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and this is year 2011.
Pan Pacific American Leaders and Mentors
SCC ID: 06792519 Business Entity Type: Corporation Jurisdiction of Formation: VA Date of Formation/Registration: 6/19/2007 Status: Active Shares Authorized: 0
Filings for Corp ID: 06792519
AR Year Filing Date View Filing 2011 6/28/2011 Click Here To View Report 2010 4/21/2010 Click Here To View Report
LIKEWISE — TDLS CONSULTING, LLC — was also formed by Retired Major General Taguba, one year ago:
SCC ID: S3454347 Business Entity Type: Limited Liability Company Jurisdiction of Formation: VA Date of Formation/Registration: 11/23/2010 Status: Active
AGAIN — HERE’s ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT OF THIS TASK FORCE. Now it’s coming back to me; I remember protesting among on-line advocates; “Puh-LEEZ” stop begging the White House to help you. All they are going to do is form another initiative, appoint their cronies to it, and laugh there way to more retirement income (multiple streams) and/or grants-funded evaluations.
Department of Justice Announces the Defending Childhood Task Force
October 14, 2011
On October 13, 2011, the Department of Justice issued the following press release:
WASHINGTON – Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli today announced the establishment of the Attorney General’s National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence. The task force is part of the Attorney General’s Defending Childhood initiative, a project arising from the need to respond to the epidemic levels of exposure to violence faced by our nation’s children.
“Our vision of justice must start with preventing crime before it happens, protecting our children, and ending cycles of violence and victimization. Every young person deserves the opportunity to grow and develop free from fear of violence,” said Associate Attorney General Perrelli. “The task force will develop knowledge and spread awareness about the pervasive problem of children’s exposure to violence – this will ultimately improve our homes, cities, towns and communities.”
Following the release of the compelling findings of the first National Survey on Children Exposed to Violence (2009), Attorney General Eric Holder launched the Defending Childhood initiative in September 2010. The goals of the initiative are to prevent children’s exposure to violence as victims and witnesses, reduce the negative effects experienced by children exposed to violence, and develop knowledge about and increase awareness of this issue.
The Defending Childhood Task Force is composed of 14 leading experts from diverse fields and perspectives, including practitioners, child and family advocates, academic experts and licensed clinicians. Joe Torre, Major League Baseball Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations, founder of the Joe Torre Safe at Home® Foundation, and a witness to domestic violence as a child himself, will serve as the co-chair of the task force.
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder today officially unveiled Defending Childhood, a new Department of Justice initiative focused on addressing children’s exposure to violence. The goals of the initiative are to prevent children’s exposure to violence as victims and witnesses, mitigate the negative effects experienced by children exposed to violence, and develop knowledge about and increase awareness of this issue.
What’s WiTh our society’s always figuring out we can pay someone to do our monitoring, prevention, enforcement, defence (including of Childhood), protection (including of Children), and so forth? The more money is extracted to supposedly stop all this (see CAPTA, 1974) — the less responsibility the cash-drained individuals locally can, really, be expected to take for it. After all — they paid, right? What are police for? What is CPS for? What are Judges for, what are prisons for, and all the other superstructure and infrastructure.
What makes us think that the massive infrastructure, as great as it is at wiretapping, computer hacking, monitoring who signs what books out of the library (talking more general here, obviously), and did I mention what happens when people try to get on an airplane flight? (Like the Mom who was forced to pour out her breast milk, and punished for complaining about the process on a return trip, see courthousenews). — what makes us even THINK that this is going to change Business As Usual?
WILL EVEN FEDERAL LAWSUITS — and I HOPE this one produces some remedies — STEM THE TIDE OF HUMAN FOOLISHNESS ABOUT WHO ELSE IS GONNA DO WHAT WE OUGHT TO DO FOR OURSELVES, BY KNOWING OUR NEIGHBORS, INBETWEEN RUNNING OFF TO JOBS TO FUND THE SYSTEM THAT IS PROMISING MORE JOBS — BUT INSTEAD DELIVERING GRANTS TO JUST ABOUT ANYBODY WHO KNOWS HOW TO INCORPORATE — AND PRIZES TO GROUPS THAT DON’T FILE TAXES YEAR AFTER YEAR, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE LOCAL CONTRACTS (Homeboy Industries seems to have one with City of Los Angeles or County — see the tax returns) AND POSSIBLY OTHER FEDERAL GRANTS?
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homeboy Industries | LOS ANGELES | CA | 900121815 | LOS ANGELES | 874873987 | $ 799,988 |
Did it occur to either of the principal investigators of this grant’s projects below to check up on the organizations tax filing status?
Grantee Class Award Number Award Title Action Issue Date Principal Investigator Sum of Actions 2011 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 05/19/2011 FAJIMA BEDRAN $ 0 2011 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 06/27/2011 FAJIMA BEDRAN $ 399,994 2010 SAMHSA Homeboy Industries Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations TI022609 PROJECT STAR (SUBSTANCE USE TREATMENT AND RECOVERY) 09/29/2010 MARNEY STOFFLET $ 399,994 (SAMHSA grants, 2010 and 2011 — even though the California OAG dinged this group the same year and earlier on nonfiling) for Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery, or some such. Take that “DUNS” # over to USASPENDING.gov and find out what else, if anything.
Well, it’s the end of my blogging day which started with concern about THIS:
PROJECT PIERRE TOUSSAINT victim’s FEDERAL LAWSUIT:
JOSEPH JEAN-CHARLES, a/k/a JEAN-CHARLES JOSEPH,
Plaintiff
v.
DOUGLAS PERLITZ; FATHER PAUL E. CARRIER, S.J.; HOPE E. CARTER; HAITI FUND, INC.; FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY; THE SOCIETY OF JESUS OF NEW ENGLAND; JOHN DOE ONE; JOHN DOE TWO; JOHN DOE THREE; JOHN DOE FOUR; JOHN DOE FIVE; JOHN DOE SIX; JOHN DOE SEVEN; JOHN DOE EIGHT; JOHN DOE NINE; JOHN DOE TEN; JOHN DOE ELEVEN; AND JOHN DOE TWELVE,
CIVIL ACTION NO.
Defendants
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
COMPLAINT AND JURY TRIAL DEMAND
COMPLAINT AND JURY TRIAL DEMAND
A. INTRODUCTION
1. Defendants Douglas Perlitz, Father Paul E. Carrier, S.J., Fairfield University and other Defendants established a residential school in the Republic of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This school, Project Pierre Toussaint, purported to provide services to the poorest children of Haiti, many of whom lacked homes and regular meals. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was the director in Haiti of Project Pierre Toussaint, which provided him with an image of substantial trust and authority. Defendant Douglas Perlitz used that trust and authority, with the assistance of other Defendants to sexually molest Plaintiff and numerous other minor boys who attended Project Pierre Toussaint. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. §2423(b), Travel With Intent To Engage In Illicit Sexual Conduct. In molesting Plaintiff, Defendant Douglas Perlitz was aided by the intentional or negligent acts of the other Defendants. Plaintiff seeks damages for Plaintiff’s personal injuries pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §2255 and common law.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
That’s about how most abusive systems get their start, seems to me. Anyone who is intending to get access to kids, a flow of them, to molest and abuse has to have at least enough strategic organizing ability to know where to get the vulnerable kids, how to convince some people with the money that your real intent is to HELP them, not to – – E W them (i.e., use them carnally, and allow others to). In addition such personalities also need to have – or associate with people who have — knowledge of incorporations, how to get a nonprofit status & board together, and start fundraising.
FOR EXAMPLE TAKE DOUG PERLITZ & FRIENDS, who I see have been sued in Federal Court in New Haven, Connecticut. My post today started here — because I browse Courthouse Forum News in general. See my Dec. 2, 2011 post, Outrageous Outreach Activities in Haiti //Project Pierre Toussaint. I will be coming back to this — but it’s a long introduction. One thing someone forgot to consider when structuring a family court system that eliminates fully-adult mothers (like me) from their primary occupation — taking care of and fighting for their kids’ welfare — and often the secondary one, called normal employment (which often is a battle casualty) — is that, if we are not homeless or dead in the process, that leaves us a lot to think about, and some time to think about it in, time which otherwise would be involved in seeing one’s own children regularly! And in the process of this thinking, we come with some very unique analyses and creative thinking on how to make sure this type of scam is stopped, permanently, from occurring again in the U.S.
USUALLy our creative thinking — the best of it anyhow — doesn’t come up by repeating the same processes that enabled the abuse to start wtih, such as assuming someone else in the public domain is going to do their job right, or that the systems that be even allow them to actually DO what their appointed job’s title allegedly is for. Like, for example, “Children’s Protection Services,” ethically, honestly and effectively? (you answer that question on your spare time….don’t forget to go ask Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer, or at least what remains of her pre-murder communications on-line, said murder having happened while she was in the process of investigating and reporting on CPS abuses in her state).
ANYHOW, for those who by definition don’t have access to religiously-sanctioned normal marital relationships and a lifelong partnership for normal sexual relationships with consenting adults, other options are alas, sought.
And what better place to do such things and find such unprotected children than “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere”??
1. Defendants Douglas Perlitz, Father Paul E. Carrier, S.J., Fairfield University and other Defendants established a residential school in the Republic of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This school, Project Pierre Toussaint, purported to provide services to the poorest children of Haiti, many of whom lacked homes and regular meals. Defendant Douglas Perlitz was the director in Haiti of Project Pierre Toussaint, which provided him with an image of substantial trust and authority. . .
And what better type or organization to do this than being a priest? (exception; Being certain types of Congressional legislators or other powerful civic leaders — see The Franklin Coverup).
HOW FEDS STOP THINGS THEY DON’T APPROVE OF, EVEN IF IT’S LEGAL IN SOME STATES:
TO CONTROL ALLEGED OR REAL ABUSE OF TRAFFICKING IN SUBSTANCES — WHEN THE FEDS ARE ACTUALLY SERIOUS ABOUT THIS, WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY GO FOR THE JUGULAR — THE CASH FLOW!
For example*, California has its fights over legalization of medical marijuana, and one dispensary is fighting the feds to stay open, apparently. Here’s their site: http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/ and here’s how the Feds are trying to stop distribution, even in states which have legalized it, as reported in July 18, 2011 MiamiHerald(.com): “Federal medical marijuana memo stirs angst in industry”
(*and don’t think that this is something I’m following closely. I have a wide-ranging field of vision and simply happen to live in California which, unlike being a mother in the family court system, doesn’t per se make me a “criminal” to be restrained. I actually look at the news . . . . and bring this up for a teaching point about a different topic).
By Peter Hecht The Sacramento Bee
In October 2009, medical marijuana advocates celebrated a U.S. Department of Justice memo declaring that federal authorities wouldn’t target the legal use of medicinal pot in states where it is permitted.
The memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden was credited with accelerating a California medical marijuana boom, including a proliferation of dispensaries that now handle more than $1 billion in pot transactions.
But last month brought a new memo from another deputy attorney general, James Cole. And this time, it is stirring industry fears of federal raids on pot dispensaries and sweeping crackdowns on large-scale medical pot cultivation. Cole asserted in the June 29 memo that state laws “are not a defense” from federal prosecution, saying, “Congress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug” – and that distributing it “is a serious crime.”Justice Department officials said the memo offered “guidance” for states permitting medical marijuana and didn’t mark a harsher shift in federal policy. But it was a clear signal of the government’s concern about a move toward industrial-scale operations that would generate millions of dollars in revenue.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/18/2318955/federal-medical-marijuana-memo.html#storylink=cpy
The federal government is always going to be interesting in anything that generates millions of $$ of revenue. . . . . So are City Goverments. It’s as much about who gets to control & regulate the funding as about the harm to citizens, if you ask me. Generally speaking:
In February, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag in San Francisco declared that the Justice Department was “considering civil and criminal remedies” against anyone trying to set up “industrial marijuana-growing warehouses in Oakland.” The Alameda County district attorney* warned that meant public officials weren’t immune from prosecution.Oakland City Councilwoman Patricia Kernighan said the city hasn’t given up on taxing and licensing medical marijuana cultivation.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/18/2318955/federal-medical-marijuana-memo.html#storylink=cpy
*re: “Alameda County District Attorney” — search the term “Steve Boatbrain” (investigative reporting on IndyMedia, will bring up my blogs on the One-Stop Justice Shop, and I just saw another older result from San Mateo, County (California) on greatly reduced bail for accused child molester/Child Psychiatrist Ayres — who was being fed victims (per the active comments field analysis) from the Juvenile Court. See comments thread 21-48 for Boatbrain input — but it sure does make one think): “Hunched over and clad in an orange jumpsuit, a prominent child psychiatrist charged with 14 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with three children under the age of 14 stood before a judge Friday . . . .” and among the comments, Blogger “Here They Go Again” April 7, 2007, writes:
It is interesting that this accused child molester was commending him for his “commitment to children” by none other than the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and had clients (victims) referred to him by Juvenile Court Supervising Judge Marta Diaz, Chief Probation Officer Loren Buddress, and Gerry Hilliard, managing attorney for the Private Defender Program in juvenile court and now he gets a reduction in bail from $1.5 million to $250,000 by San Mateo Superior Court Judge Thomas McGinn Smith. I guess these folks stick pretty close together.
What type of people do we have running San Mateo County’s government? It appears that the reckless and grossly negligent decisions and actions by people in positions of power in San Mateo County’s government are endangering the community.
Maybe it is time for the FBI to investigate San Mateo’s County government?
AND, a little later, commenter “Happy1” writes:
The biggest problem in this case is that the judges themselves are involved because they and their associates in the juvenile justice system were feeding this guy victims. Now, they appear to be getting together and participating in a whitewash by reducing his bail to a ridiculously low level and working behind the scenes to help him.
By helping this guy, isn’t the San Mateo County judiciary making itself part and parcel of the child molestation problem?
SAN MATEO is a county south of SAN FRANCISCO which is just a little west of the East Bay’s ALAMEDA COUNTY. In Pennsylvania, there were also some judges feeding juveniles — without due process -to institutions the same judges had a financial interest in. You think that’s just in PA? Follow the nonprofits ! ! !
Someone then (we’re talking 2007) called the blogger a crazy (paranoid conspiracy delusion) and got this response:
Fred-o wrote:paranoid conspiracy delusion.Read the papers fool. This creep’s victims were referred to him by the San Mateo County Courts and Juvenile Probation Department.
To which conversation “George” from Seattle, WA (a few months later — June 2007) added:
Cinque- If you read the papers, you will see that boys came forward in the 1980s shortly after they were molested. The police did nothing. That’s why they are coming forward again.
and eventually (Sept. 2007) Mr. Boatbrain:
I want to be absolutely sure on this, Judge Thomas Smith in the past referred boys directly to Dr. Ayres, and now he is not recusing himself from this case? That smells bad, doesn’t it? I am not saying he did anything wrong, but he should not be on this case.
In fact, it sounds like the Attorney General should be handling this altogehter with all these connections between people.
(ALL font changes, italics, underlining, bolding etc. added by me — not the posters).
Let’s think (briefly, here) about the role of the top of the Law Enforcement Pyramid in any state: Attorney General. They are over District Attorneys and a whole lot more. I used to believe (not understanding except by unfortunate experience — see child-stealing — the supreme amount of discretion District Attorneys have in whether to prosecute or NOT prosecute. As such they are very powerful when it comes to protecting (or not) women & children. See Sonoma County nonprofit site “Justicewomen.org” on this one, and I’ve blogged it too.
I had had children taken on overnight visitation –completely illegally — no factual or legal justification ever given by any judge, and I had contacted District Attorneys in more than one county (who I understood to be responsible in prosecuting criminal matters, or getting someone to HELP ME recover access to the children, when it was a clear violation of existing court order). This was somehow mixed in with very abusive treatment by their underlings, county sheriffs and police, in the matters leading up to the situation of an entirely preventable crime. I’m starting, gradually, to comprehend that the phrase “District Attorney” includes the words “Attorney” and the word “District” simply refers to their territory, turf, and essentially fiefdom.
Regarding the Attorney General should be investigating, that term — while now in California it’s Kamala Harris, who is going to have her hands full if she seeks to ever fully follow up on unregistered or just ain’t filing with the state charities in the state continuing to do business — sometimes WITH THE COURTS & PROBATION– and seek donations. And one of whose employees (Fay) just had a young girl kidnapped on court-ordered visitation, not returned, and discovered too late as the “murder” victim in a murder-suicide (Samaan/Fay), previously we are talking about Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose wife Nadya was somehow shuffled to the front of the pack to take over this ONE_STOP_JUSTICE_SHOP in Alameda County, which I’ve blogged on as well. See my blog or, as I said, google the phrase “steve boatbrain” who obviously has his brain in operation on these matters, too. Thanks, mister!
CHARITIES THAT DON’T FILE ARE UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL:
By habitually, and at some point I have to say intentionally refusing or failing to file properly with the Office of Attorney General, these groups are depriving the public, including the taxpayers, of the opportunity to review their tax returns, sometimes their articles of incorporation, or other sources to check who is on their boards, to verify if what’s said on the websites is true, or junk information, and connections between multiple organizations with similar board members. Which is already hard enough to do on the California Secretary of State Business search site — which doesn’t enable ANY search by incorporator (i.e, person/business who set up the corp.), or even by EIN#!
FROM THE BIBLE: “HE THAT IS FAITHFUL IN THAT WHICH IS LEAST. . .”
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(“Say no to SB 557,” cont’d.) Local Connections and Faith-Focused OVW Grants: “All in the Family”– but Whose?
This post is: “(“Say no to SB 557,” cont’d.) Local Connections and Faith-Focused OVW Grants: “All in the Family”– but Whose? (Published 6-5-2011, with case-sensitive short-link ending “-J1”)
Seriously, now …..
What did a District Attorney, a City Attorney, and a Republican Faith-Family-Marriage-Fatherhood-pushing President have in common? In 2003, or since?
(Besides an urge to jumpstart an alliance of
One-Stop Family Justice Shops Centers)
BUSH: Family of Secrets (by Russ Baker)
Russ Baker shows that Decision Points is no candid memoir.
Investigative journalist Russ Baker updates what he uncovered in Family of Secrets about the Bushes with his responses to the former President’s best-selling book. In sum, Bush started a war under false pretenses, allegedly left the cockpit because of substance abuse, got fabricated religion in order to keep power, desired to invade Iraq even before his presidency, and works to set up his brother Jeb for the Presidency. Baker finds the Bush Family political system to be a brilliant con job, benefiting large wealthy interests, and being continued by Obama.
Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years [Interview]
(note: I don’t have this book. But my work here, continues to run across the Bush brand of religion influence and its infiltration of the legal, judicial, etc. systems).
”Or,
“The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” by Jeff Sharlett:
(from Harpers article 2003 by author. Note: The President’s Family Justice Center Initiative (below) began in 2003)
Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.
The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family’s leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.”
Suharto reputedly involved, that he engaged in anti-Communist massacres didn’t seem to matter…Search “Suharto” and “Somalia” here (interview):
“The Family’s devoted membership includes Congress members, corporate leaders, generals, foreign heads of state, dictators. The longtime leader, Doug Coe, was included in Time Magazine’s 2004 list of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America. “
The connected, the powerful, the very wealthy, the dishonest, the means-justifies-the-ends crowd. I am not being facetious at all by placing these two books here in preface to protesting the expansion of a “National” (and planned INTERnational) Family Justice Center Alliance. I am alerting us to question exactly which “families” are referred to her, and not to be fooled about the underlying intents. Look at who is sponsoring the movement!
OK, let’s look back to the West Coast Connections and Family of Inter-connected politicians, including some who are indeed Family to each other.
DA = Alameda County Family Justice Center — headed up originally by someone with real “family” connections, til she began running for County Supervisor,
a post she got, though the retiring supervisor endorsed her opponent. Her husband just happens to be (presently) California State Treasurer, previously State Attorney General. Later in the post, more on this process is discussed. Mr. Gwinn & startup of the San Diego Family Justice Center has been addressed (in part) in earlier posts towards the end of May, 2011, and the topic itself is not exactly a new one to my blog.
ex-CA = San Diego County Family Justice Center
President = well, he was always into promoting Family.
Let’s Get Honest (that’s me) generally looks behind the scenes at funding and organizational histories of new Initiatives, Institutes, Centers, Movements, and other Projects proposed by those with political connections to better serve those without them, whose lives will be used to justify whichever project is next.
Right now, it seems that the Family Justice Center Alliance is proudly endorsed by the OVW (White House) starting back in 2003, and up and running. How the first two got up and running is a bit debatable. Used to these, I ignored it for a while, until I ran across CA SB 557.
California’s SB 557 has been passed by Senate and is awaiting in Assembly
Here is some of the voting and excerpts — plus my comments
The California Bill SB 557 is to streamline and authorize the Family Justice Center Model. It’s whizzing by committees, and as we speak, was read in the Assembly June 2, and being held at the Assembly Desk. Right now, per “aroundthecapitol.com,”
Votes
- 06/01/11 – Senate Floor: 39-0 (PASS)
- 05/26/11 – Sen Appropriations: 9-0 (PASS)
- 05/10/11 – Sen Judiciary: 5-0 (PASS)
- 03/29/11 – Sen Public Safety: 6-0 (PASS)
and
I am pleased to send you the enclosed Resource Manual for the Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 (Assembly Bill 233). Passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor last fall, this landmark legislation will take effect on January 1, 1998. Under the new law, funding of the trial courts will be consolidated at the state level to ensure equal access to justice throughout California.
Over the last several months, the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), along with the California State Association of Counties and the Department of Finance, have worked together to familiarize the state’s judges, court administrators, and county executives with this historic new funding law. As part of that process, we are presenting this Resource Manual to assist you in understanding and implementing the new law.
There aren’t too many places in California politics, or its recent history, [SF performing Gay Marriage v Schwarzenegger] that one can go without finding the imprint of Mr. Lockyer.[Pension issues]
So I’m just wondering whether the relatively fast passage of this SB 577 was affected by the legislature’s knowledge (it’s obvious) that his wife was the former CEO of this grants-grabbing initative. And that the local D.A., who helped get this wife installed, was recently in Washington, D.C., lobbying with the OVW director for it . . . ..
- 06/02/11: In Assembly. Read first time. Held at Desk.
This bill would authorize a city, county, or city and county to
establish a multiagency, multidisciplinary family justice center to
assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, and
human trafficking, to ensure that victims of abuse are able to
access all needed services in one location and to enhance victim
safety, increase offender accountability, and improve access to
services for victims of crime, as provided. The bill would permit the
family justice centers to be staffed by law enforcement, medical,
social service, and child welfare personnel, among others.
About privacy of information:
The bill would authorize a family justice center to share
information [WITH WHOM — each other?] pursuant to an informed consent process, as provided. The bill would authorize the National Family Justice Center Alliance, subject to certain limitations, to maintain nonidentifying, aggregate data on victims receiving services from a family justice center and
the outcomes of those services.The bill would provide immunity from civil liability to staff members of the center for information shared with others based on an established client consent procedure, provided that the center has a formal training program with mandatory
training for all members, as specified.
There are so many issues with this (again, original version) its hard to know where to start. But those familiar with the history of the founder of this system can see why (he/they) might have addressed specific issues, including civil liability for sharing info.
(c) For purposes of this title, family justice centers shall be
defined as multiagency, multidisciplinary service centers where
public and private agencies assign staff members on a full-time or
part-time basis in order to provide services to victims of** domestic
violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, or human trafficking from one
location in order to reduce the number of times victims must tell
their story, reduce the number of places victims must go for help,
and increase access to services and support for victims and their
children. Staff members at a family justice center may be comprised
of, but are not limited to, the following:
**First of all, public agencies are on the public payroll.
Child victims and parents coming for help are quite likely to have business before some arm of the courts where any member of those public agencies may have a built-in conflict of interest in the case. Consider, if it has to do with guardianship of a child, child support, or other issues. When it comes to private agencies— (private organizations, individuals, or “agencies” — what is a private “agency”?) there are issues of where does the law protect the victims seeking help by accountability to any of these private members. The “consent process” has to be taken with a grain of salt — a person in desperate circumstances such as these crimes, may not comprehend what it is they are signing away at the time, their emphasis is survival. Anyhow, potential staff might include:
(1) Law enforcement personnel.
(2) Medical personnel.
(3) District attorneys and city attorneys. {{note: = who created the 1st & 2nd justice centers in CA….1 of each.
(Tell me — for what purpose might a CITY attorney have any business in a family justice center? )
(4) Victim-witness program personnel.
(5) Domestic violence shelter service staff.
(6) Community-based rape crisis, domestic violence, and human
trafficking advocates.
(7) Social service agency staff members.
(8) Child welfare agency social workers.
(hey — are there still readers (active in this field as advocate, or survivor parent) who don’t understand, yet, that there are FEDERAL incentives to the states for
any number of actions which might quite well involve a social service agency staff member, or a child welfare agency social worker — such as adopting out, fostering out, or
declaring a child in need of services that may not, really, be in need of services. There are program funds for these activities. What about program administrators of such funds?
and so forth…..)
(9) County health department staff.
(10) City or county welfare and public assistance workers.
(Translation: People administering TANF funds. We already have become aware that the fatherhood movement has a significant interest in portions of Title IV-D (welfare) finances going towards facilitating increased “noncustodial parent” (i.e., possibly perpetrator) access. No. Uh-uh, No. )
(11) Nonprofit agency counseling professionals.
(12) Civil legal service providers.
(13) Supervised volunteers from partner agencies.
(14) Other professionals providing services.
Huh….
Excerpts from “Analysis” of this bill again specifies already-existing justice centers by name and requests they expand who gets served:
This bill authorizes the City of San Diego, the City of Anaheim, the County of Alameda, and the County of Sonoma to create a two-year pilot project for the establishment of a family justice center, as specified. This bill defines the Family Justice Center model in the law and expands the reach for whom services will be provided to include, not only victims of domestic violence, but also victims of officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying, and human trafficking.
(The cyber-stalking (stand-alone) and cyber-bullying provisions would just about make the average high school student eligible for services…)
This bill also allows for the FJCs to be staffed by, among others, law enforcement, medical, social service, and child welfare personnel.
This bill provides that victims of crime will not be denied services based solely on the grounds of criminal history.
(don’t quite know where to file that last statement. )
Votes so far, if you live in California and in any of these are your legislators:
03/29/11 Sen. Committee on Public Safety: 6-0 (1 not voting) — PASS
Motion: Do pass as amended, and re-refer to the Committee on Judiciary.
- 05/10/11 – Sen Judiciary: 5-0 pass as amended (see site)
Ayes – 5 Blakeslee, Corbett, Evans, Harman, Leno
- 05/26/11 Sen Appropriations 9-0 — PASS as amended
Alquist, Emmerson, Kehoe, Lieu, Pavley, Price, Runner, Steinberg, Walters
- 06.01/11 – Senate Floor 39-0 (1 absent abstain or not voting – Emmerson)
Alquist, Anderson, Berryhill, Blakeslee, Calderon, Cannella, Corbett, Correa, De León, DeSaulnier, Dutton, Evans, Fuller, Gaines, Hancock, Harman, Hernandez, Huff, Kehoe, La Malfa, Leno, Lieu, Liu, Lowenthal, Negrete McLeod, Padilla, Pavley, Price, Rubio, Runner, Simitian, Steinberg, Strickland, Vargas, Walters, Wolk, Wright, Wyland, Yee
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Some of the Senate Amendments (strikeouts, replacement):
The bill would prohibit victims of crime from
being denied services at a family justice center solely on the
grounds of criminal history and would prohibit a criminal history
search from being conducted during the client intake process.prior sections a, b, & c, were struck through.
Sections e, f:
(f) Each family justice center shall develop policies and procedures, in collaboration with local community-based crime victim
service providers and local survivors of violence or abuse, to ensure coordinated services are provided to victims and to enhance the
safety of victims and professionals at a family justice center who participate in affiliated survivor-centered support or advocacy
groups. All family justice centers shall maintain a formal client feedback, complaint, and input process to address client concerns
about services provided or the conduct of any family justice center professionals, agency partners, or volunteers providing services in a
family justice center.
No criminal background checks to be run, but protection for victims & professionals in the center who participate in affiliated survivor centered support or advocacy groups (off-grounds? How would this be done). This seems to address in part the situation Casey Gwinn’s employee Josie Clark sued him over (see recent posts).
Formal feedback good: (don’t recall that this even entered the original version — feedback fro participants…)
WELL, THERE WE HAVE IT. IT”S PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS, SO FAR, AND IS SITTING ON THE ASSEMBLY FLOOR. MAYBE IT WILL PASS IN TIME FOR FATHER’S DAY, BUT I HOPE NOT. See “District Attorney Dubious Doings.” and re: nepotism, cronyism, racism:
Politics in this famous SF Bay Area, at least Alameda County are, in one blog I read — while probably not equal to Chicago’s or New York’s, known for:
Nepotism, Cronyism, Racism and Corruption
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is also famous for nepotism, cronyism, racism and corruption. D.A. Orloff, did not start this tradition, but he certainly has continued it.
{{Quote is from a blog post dated July 2009,
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is also famous for nepotism, cronyism, racism and corruption. D.A. Orloff, did not start this tradition, but he certainly has continued it. . . . By hiring Chris Bates and Lisa Lockyer, Orloff had the kids of both the local assemblyman, Tom Bates, and the local Senator, Bill Lockyer (later became the Attorney General of the State of California), working for him. He already had the local Congressman’s kid, Jeff Stark, working for him, and he prmoted Stark.
And one of the articles I drew off in reporting this:
Attorney General’s Wife. with no previous experience, Gets Top Job in Alameda County Domestic Violence Center
Steve White 14 Dec 2006 15:36 GMT
This is a very short article and commentary on Nadia Lockyer, wife of Attorney General Bill Lockyer, being givena a $90,000 per year job as Executive Director of the Alameda County Family Justice Center, a job for which she seems to have no special qualifications. The article also questions the propriety of her employment, considering her husband’s position.The Alameda county Family Justice Center is one of meny local agencies funded by the Federal Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, (OVW).
{{more on this, below — LGH…}}
The center is relatively new, and there was a recent search for the Execuitve Director. Eventually, Nadia Davis Lockyer was given the top job, which pays about $90,000 per year. (initial pay was $65,000 but extra money was found to make it $90,000. I am researching where the extra money came from)
…Selection process was all for show, Nadia Lockyer is DA staff
Steve White 01.Jan.2007 15:47
I have just received a letter from the Alameda County District Attorney’s office which indicates Nadia Lockyer is an employee of that office.
The letter goes on to respond to my Public Records Act request for all info relaated to her hiring. The DA’s office claims all the info is exempt from disclosure, except for a brochure announcing the job. So they sent me a copy of that announcement.
The denial of information was expected. What was surprising to me is that Lockyer is an employee of the DA’s office. I thought the Family Justice Center was an independent entity which worked with the DA, not a subordinate office.
and, more, after he contacted the OVW for grant applicant guidelines:
[he] clicked the first link, which as the first page of a book on guidelines and rules for Federal graants, then went to the chapter entitled “Conflicts of Interest”
Reading that, it seems pretty clear Lockyer violated the Federal law, and presumably this is why they went through the big show of pretending to use an objective process to pick his wife for the job. These folks knew they were doing something shady from the start. Further evidence is that everyone involved is trying to duck my Public Records Act requests for more information. More on that in my next post
Phony Statistics put out by ACFJC
Steve White 25.Sep.2007 13:37
The first week of September, 2007, the ACFJC announced a large grant from the US Department of Justice, and in the grant announcement, which naturally everyone was very happy about, they added some statistics on how much good the ACFJC had done so far.
The stats were impressive. They claimed “Since it’s launch” the ACFJC had reduced Domestic Violence (DV) deaths from 26 to 6 in 2005, and, they had provided services to “20,000 victims and their families”.
Both claims were untrue. I checked with the Alameda County Public Health Department, and it turned out there has been a very long term decline in DV deaths, from 26 in 1996, eleven years back, to 6 in 2005. The Center opened in the last half of 2005, in August.
MORE (9/2007) INFO FROM Steve White “Boatbrain” on the ACFJC fudging (lying) on its statistics, in addition to improper appointment of CEO. Please read entire article we find further conflicts of interest and very disturbing dishonesty, reminiscent of the San Diego outfit:
The Alameda County Family Justice Center is an agency set up two years back as “one-stop shopping” for victims of domestic violence.
It was started by a Federal program to centralize several different types of services, (prosecutors, counselors, emergency housing) to DV victims. There are about 15 around the US, the Alameda center has been open two years as of August 2007.
I have already published, on Indymedia, an account of how the ACFJC hiring of Nadia Lockyer, the wife of then Attorney General Bill Lockyer, a Executive Director of ACFJC was rigged by Nancy O’Malley, the Chief Assistant DA in the County.
Now, it appears the ACFJC is involved in other nefarious activities.
Recently, the ACFJC received another US Dept. of Justice grant, and the award was announced on their website.
The announcement gave several detailed claims for the achievements of the ACFJC, two of which seemed unlikely to me to be true: Since I knew the ACFJC was only open a bit over four months in 2005, I knew there was no logical basis for attributing all the 2005 decline to their actions.
But more than that, the reduction from 26 to 6 in one year struck me as extreme and improbable. That is an almost 80% reduction, too good to be true.
So, I called the Alameda County Public Health Department to try to get DV death rates, and called the office of the County Supervisor quoted in the article, Alice Lai-Bitker, to ask about the number.
My conversations with Public Health and Supervisor Lai-Bitker’s staff confirmed my suspicions. Too good to be true was exactly right. To get a death toll of 26 in the County, you have to go back to 1996, nine years before the ACFJC existed. There has been a steady long term decline in DV deaths since then.
The number for 2004, the year right before the ACFJC opened, was 11. Obviously, 6 in 2005 is a lot better than 11 in 2004, but there is a problem in the stats, in that Nancy O’Malley, the effective head of the ACFJC, is also the head of the DV death reporting team for the County, so she can fudge the figures.
I realize, one would not think deaths can be fudged. You are either dead or you or not. But, by using varying protocols for what the death was caused by, there is some maneuvering room for this. I am contacting the DV death reporting trainer for the state to try to nail this down.
All that aside, the point is, as far as attibuting the reduction in DV deaths to ACFJC, that was an extremely misleading claim, and I would argue deliberately misleading
He goes on . . . . after challenging the “20,000 victims and their families served…”
It seems much more likely they deliberately lied, to justify more funding in the future.
The County Administrator, Susan Muranishi, who was the highest paid employee of the County, a few years back, at $231,000 per year, is also quoted in the press release, expressing approval of the ACFJC and the grant.
I called her office to try to get documents to indicate what numbers ACFJC has been giving the County to justify the County’s funding. The receptionist there claimed they did not have any figures, and I had to contact ACFJC. If this was true, it seems to indicate a severe lack of oversight. No reports to the County Admin from the Center? How does Ms. Muranishi know how the County’s money is being spent? I doubt there are no reports, and intend to push them to release them, to see if there are any false numbers in the official accountings. Ditto for the Feds, who I have also requested info from.
That kind of reporting is why we most definitely need INDEPEPENDENT media centers, and pesky bloggers like myself and Mr. White (wonder what happened to is FOIA and Public Records requests on the ACFJC…
In 2010, here’s an article (and comments) on Ms. Davis-Lockyer running for county supervisor, replacing one of the retiring supervisors who, improperly, voted in Nancy O’Malley (per indymedia Steve’s writing). WHat goes around comes around. Again, for non-Californians, this is about how policies get institutionalized in practice, regardless of what results they produce — including initiatives, collaborations, institutes, coalitions, and so forth. This Family Justice Center seems symptomatic of what’s wrong, from both this end and (below) the White House end.
WHITE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE ON FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS – AND GWB DECLARES OCTOBER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MONTH (in 2003).
I have a general rule of thumb. If it has the word “families” on it — it has a fatherhood (and possibly governmentally endorsed) / faith influence. This appears to be the case with the FAMILY justice centers, as it did with the FAMILY violence prevention fund of SF (see recent posts). After all, US is just one big “family” and everyone in power is there to serve and protect the little vulnerable ones among us, right?
The “Family Justice Center” model is absolutely federally funded, and here is the October (DV awareness month, or as I put it, DV Industry Awareness month) October 8, 2003 White House Press Release:
This offers $20 million of funding to establish 12 centers. The emphasis is Under One Roof (after all, the service providers are just one big happy family, right?) and with a particular emphasis on including Faith Based Initiatives, says our former Prez:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov
Contact: Angela Harless
202-307-070
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO SPEARHEAD PRESIDENT’S
FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INITIATIVE TO BETTER SERVE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMSWASHINGTON, D.C. — Attorney General John Ashcroft today announced the Justice Department will lead a $20 million-dollar program to develop comprehensive domestic violence victim service and support centers in 12 communities across the country. The unprecedented pilot program, the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative, will make a victim’s search for help and justice easier by bringing professionals who provide an array of necessary services together under one roof. President Bush unveiled the initiative earlier today at a White House event formally declaring the month of October as “Domestic Violence Awareness Month.”
“Domestic violence is unacceptable, and this Administration is determined to end the vicious cycle of violence,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft. “Our efforts across the federal government have made it possible for tens of thousands of women and their families to renew their hope, reclaim their dignity, change their lives and protect their children.”
{{HYPOCRITES!!}}
The President’s Family Justice Center Initiative will provide comprehensive services for domestic violence victims at one location, including medical care, counseling, law enforcement assistance, social services, employment assistance, and housing assistance. The Department of Justice will award grants to 12 communities nationwide to develop Family Justice Centers. Communities will be encouraged to look to the family justice centers in pioneered in San Diego, California and Indianapolis, Indiana for the development and creation of their own centers.
{{Sounds like Casey Gwinn (note: Republican) had a White House connection here… Indianpolis, home of Sen. Evan Bayh, is prime “fatherhood” country. Unbelievable….. The Indiana “Child Services” (a.k.a. Child Support Services) government website directly solicits “Fathers and Families” to pursue grants, as well as notices CRC (Children’s Rights Council)….. I doubt that the choice of these two cities was anything approaching accidental. Who else (grassroots up) was starting Family Justice Centers, around the United States, at this time?}}
Justice Department efforts will be further supported by its partners from the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development and Department of Labor.
{{So much for treating domestic violence as the criminal/legal issue it really is, with consequences, of course, across the spectrum of life, as crime does….}}
“The President’s Initiative will provide communities with the resources designed to co-locate coordinated services to domestic violence victims into one facility,” said Office on Violence Against Women Director Diane M. Stuart. “The services provided by the Family Justice Centers will help victims pursue safe and healthy lives.”
Family Justice Centers are designed to bring together advocates from non-profit, non-governmental domestic violence victim services organizations, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, probation officers, governmental victim assistants, forensic medical professionals, civil legal attorneys,chaplains and representatives from community-based organizations into one centralized location.
Involvement of the faith community is integral to the Family Justice Center Initiative, as well as to the President’s overall strategy to end domestic violence. The Justice Department, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Defense Department are coordinating their efforts to ensure that faith communities nationwide get the training and tools necessary to help domestic violence victims in their communities.
{{Chaplains, imams, and rabbis don’t lack the “tools” to stop wife-beating — or the ability to network — but the problem has been historically the desire to do so. They are mandated reporters, too, and of child abuse. GO ask “SNAP” about how well that goes….
{{Reading this now, and as a survivor of domestic violence which was rationalized through religion, though I never accepted that basis, — I understand, and believe I’m right about this — that this has a more sinister purpose than “helping” victims from the faith-based perspective. Many of those victims that end up using the legal system went first to their spiritual perceived authority (translation, pastor, priest, etc.) and were ignored and the danger trivialized. SOme of the perpertrators were those people at times. Welcoming this group into these “centers” with open arms is simply wrong….but, how very “Bush”!!}}
“The faith-based component of the Family Justice Center Initiative is critical to its overall success,” said Office of Justice Programs Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels. “Faith-based institutions are often the first place a domestic violence victim turns to for support and guidance.”
(and the last place they are about to find it — which has been documented repeatedly . . . . ) Next steps, integrating the faith community into the system (2004 release)…
I got on the SB 557 kick, here, because I heard about it accidentally. Accidentally, I happened to browse the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office Annual Report of 2010 (yeah, this is my “casual reading material” at times)… only to find that this San Francisco Bay Area [“East Bay”] county leadership was running up to the OVW and trying to sell legitimizing the Family Justice Center” model (see “Kicking Salesmanship Up a Notch” post)….
District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and the Alameda County DA’s Office are proud to announce the publication of the 2010 Annual Report.
We invite you to view this comprehensive report.
Alameda County District Attorney’s Office 2010 Annual Report (7MB PDF).
Because I’m familiar with the Justice Center idea already, I picked up on the graphics and mottos that also supported further promotion of it: the 2nd page of the report is a full page photo of a child and parent(?): “Justice isn’t served – – – til Crime Victims are.” On the palms of their hands is written: “I have the right to protection” “I have the right to be heard.”
Compare: (graphic on banner of the Alameda County Family Justice Center reads, next to an icon showing scales carring heart & dove, plus two figures reaching for them) “Justice isn’t served until victims are.”
Welcome to the Alameda County Family Justice Center
Welcome to the Alameda County Family Justice Center (ACFJC), a one-stop center for families experiencing domestic violence.
{{Domestic violence is a crime, and is committed by an agent. Note the grammar change: “families experience” it — no one actually DOES it. The District Attorney’s Office is the office deciding which crimes to prosecute, and which NOT to prosecute, and doing so ethically and honestly. District Attorneys offices in East Bay (and SF) counties have been experiencing multiple scandals recently, along with police departments… such as tampering with drug evidence and causing cases to be dropped, infighting during an election that resulted in an office fist-fight (Contra Costa County — nearby) and other serious problems, as well as having various members of their forces from time to time being prosecuted by employees or fellow colleagues on rape or other sexual harassment issues. In this context, I don’t recall hearing a major grassroots call for centralized, one-stop services.}}
The ACFJC provides, under one roof, the services required by domestic violence victims and their families:
- Crisis intervention, survivor support, and victim advocacy, incl “MISSSEY”
- Legal assistance services
- Medical care and mental health counseling for victims and children impacted by family violence
- Employment assistance, and information and referral to other community services
- Law enforcement investigation and prosecution of offenders
In the past, domestic violence victims often had to seek help from a fragmented, disjointed system of separate agencies offering related by frequently uncoordinated services.
I’m thinking diversity, rather than inbred centrality might be the better order of the day overall. After all — was our country designed for efficiency or liberty?(But I’m talking, pre-Bush Dynasty there…..)
From the DA’s report, a segment:
5. Putting Victims First Page
Alameda County Family Justice Center 22
Domestic Violence Unit 23
Restitution Unit 24Victims’ Rights & Services 25
Marsy’s Law 25
Victim -Witness Assistance 26
AND . . . .
Legislative Initiatives . . . p. 33
Under the leadership of District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, members of our staff frequently consult on, testify about and assist in drafting new legislation at a state- wide and national level. Working with lawmakers, we propose and support legislation that fits with our mission to champion the rights of victims and to keep our community safe.
…. such as (one of several — the others sound legitimate, although if parents are involved, it’ll bounce to family law and become “moot” point sooner or later) . . . .. . . .
SB 557: to define family justice centers in California law, thereby acknowledging the trend towards multi-disciplinary, multi-agency service delivery models for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. This legislation is currently pending.
The TREND towards, meaning, the PUSH, enabled by BUSH towards . . . . . for these models. (other than, since the 1980s, the Duluth Model has been pushing this also, called “Coordinated Community Response.” So, how’d we say it’s going?
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CA SB 557 — Just say “NO!” or at least “Whoa!! (Show me the money!)” to Scandalous San Diego’s One Stop Justice Shop Pyramid Scheme. [[First Publ. May, 2011, Format Fixes March, 2017; Some Updates/Broken Link Fix, March 31, 2023].
Post Title:
CA SB 557 — Just say “NO!” or at least “Whoa!! (Show me the money!)” to Scandalous San Diego’s One Stop Justice Shop Pyramid Scheme. [[First Publ. May, 2011, Format Fixes March, 2017; Some Updates/Broken Link Fix, March 31, 2023]. Shortlink with case-sensitive ending: http://wp.me/psBXH-HG. [click on either title or that link]
About 8,800 words with 2023 updates including to add the Dates Published/Updated to the title, replace a certain missing image, and in general make it more readable.
A Family Justice Center (like a Family Physician?) — what a warm and fuzzy concept!
The ‘California Initiative” (per graphic) has a motto: “Bringing Hope to Hurting Families Across California.”
Hope of what? I didn’t ask for hope. I would’ve settled long ago for simple enforcement of existing court orders!
How warm and fuzzy is it? Was the public asked whether it’s a good idea, before, during, or after its conception, the labor ($3 million grants, etc.) to bring it forth, and the subsequent cloning actions?
Let’s consider (and then, I’ll get to the colors and graphics part, don’t worry….)
- First, the “Family Justice Center Initiative” in San Diego (#1 site) is the project and brainchild of a City Attorney whose handling of the City’s pension funds (see below) has been labeled “negligent” and eventually brought the FBI and US Attorney’s Office investigating the corruption. In Alameda County (#2) it is a District Attorney Dubious Doing (see my post) and was pushed by this person to get a founding grant, and promptly install a crony, that, improperly.
- Second, the concept of combining “services” and “collaborating” is questionable — I question it, for one. It has a dark side.
My post is long, but don’t forget to read THIS site (hover, I’ve copied text of Obstacle #4 (relevant here) onto the URL description) from Sonoma County, where another proposed Justice Center is to start (or has already, perhaps). “Mapping the Obstacles to Criminal Justice for Women” :
The six principle obstacles to protection and justice for women in the criminal justice system are:
1. A near absolute police and prosecutorial discretion to pick and choose which crimes the system will treat seriously and which they will ignore, and to do so with impunity. The exercise of this enormous discretionary power is virtually outside the rule of law.
2. An intractable, deep-rooted sexism and racism that remains institutionalized throughout the criminal justice system. This sexism and racism, combined with the system’s absolute discretion to ignore crimes whenever they wish, means that violence against women cases are the cases most often ignored, dumped, or given short shrift.
3. Society’s failure to answer the question of who polices the police, and the failure to even ask the question in regard to district attorneys, means the criminal justice system is not only legally unaccountable when dumping cases of violence against women. In addition, there is also virtually no other viable social mechanism by which the public can make the system implement its powers on behalf of victims of violence against women.
4. The repression of effective victim advocacy due to increasing criminal justice system controls over the funding and functioning of rape and domestic violence centers.
5. The invisibility of denial of protection and justice to victims of violence against women to the public, often to the victims themselves, and even to the officer’s supervisors who review the officers reports.
6. The failure to target the district attorneys.** Advocacy groups, social justice groups, and civil rights groups that aim to correct abuses in the criminal justice system usually do so by focusing on the police, while completely ignoring the District Attorney. This is monumental and puzzling mistake, since the District Attorney is the most powerful law enforcement official in your community.
[Below]. Does its pretty purple-bordered website with vivid graphics look nice? Sure.
See? http://www.familyjusticeinitiative.com/
[Images could be looked up and replaced I’m not going to do that just now, trying to get some current posts at — LGH/2017] [Six years later, I decided to look it up again:…] (Former Image html pointed to: “www.FamilyJusticeCenter.org/…/fjcinstitutessmall.jpg”)
(Updating Broken Link, MARCH 31, 2023; I am still referring to this and nearby posts on Twitter):
I took the above link to Archive.org (the Internet Archives or “Wayback Machine” and among the options to search, one of them showed how (seldom) it had been crawled (by the archives “bots”) — only twice. Once in February, 2011, I then posted as above, May, 2011, and again later in that year…). If possible, I’m going to insert two images showing (though in far less focus, they are fuzzy snapshots in Archive.org) what I was looking at then, with this quote from the main text on the page: Text First, then Image Upload, if I can pull it off on a different device now…]
FamilyJusticeInitiative.com ℅ WayBackMachine (Archive.org) — saved 15 times between Feb. 2, 2011 and August 1, 2015. For 3/31/2023 reference to post http://wp.me/psBXH-HG (May, 2011) In two images..
(The main content on this page reads (copied from Internet Archive page, as shown above. I added some check marks, a link to this post and other markings, but this text is a select, copy & paste action. //LGH 3/31/2023)
This exciting new Initiative has been funded by the Blue Shield of California Foundation and involves the development of six “learning laboratories” across the state where multi-agency, co-located service delivery models will be supported and expanded. Three regional training sites have been created to assist expanding and developing multi-agency service delivery models around the state including the six new sites.
The three regional training centers are: Alameda County Family Justice Center; Anaheim Family Justice Center; and the San Diego Family Justice Center. The six communities selected to participate as “learning laboratories” are: Shasta, Sonoma, South Bay (San Diego), Stanislaus, Valley CARES, and West Contra Costa County. The Initiative includes a learning collaborative model with teams from each selected site, grant funding for each selected site in the second year of the initiative, and technical assistance and strategic planning support for two years for the participating sites.
The California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Blue Shield of California Foundation, and the Family Violence Prevention Fund are represented on the Initiative’s Advisory Committee along with representatives from each of the regional training sites.
For more information, please call (619) 236-9402.
FamilyJusticeInitiative.com ℅ WayBackMachine (Archive.org) — saved 15 times between Feb. 2, 2011 and August 1, 2015. For 3/31/2023 reference to post http://wp.me/psBXH-HG (May, 2011) In only images..
Do (and should?) public stamps of approval from:
a former San Diego City Attorney, a current Alameda County District Attorney, Verizon, Blue Shield of California Foundation, at least one prominent Domestic Violence Professional** — and in 2003, even former U.S. President George Bush
earn OUR stamps of approval? Because we will be helping to pay for it….
(And, should we encourage our local CA legislator to vote “YES” on SB 557, which seeks to legitimize and expand these, naming specific cities)
**Domestic Violence Professionals should be clearly distinguished from Domestic Violence Victims, although in some cases, the latter have become the former. The way you can tell them apart – DV Professionals generally have a paycheck, DV victims are often losing theirs.
The Professionals profess things at conferences, and sometimes even interview each other on TV. The steady stream of DV victims, new, and ongoing, provide ample material to practice on (practice makes expert, right?) and talk about. …
Another way you can find domestic violence professionals, is going to TAGGS.hhs.gov and looking up the CFDA category relating to “Family Violence Prevention and Services” which often has the word “discretionary” attached. Or, it goes to a [statewide] coalition. If you [i.e., your organization that you run, founded, and work or volunteer for] get a grant or two, you are viewed as (and may be, but the grant sure helps lend authority) a professional. So Here’s a TAGGS.hhs.gov summary (from 2005 forward, only, nationwide) of two types of violence prevention grants:
Showing: 1 – 2 of 2 CFDA Programs
[CFDA#] 93591 [CFDA#] 93592
CFDA Prog. No. OPDIV Popular Title Number of Awards Number of Award Actions CAN Award Amount 93.591 ACF Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Grant to State Domestic Violence Coalitions 219 271 $50,573,527 93.592 ACF Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants 324 624 $165,460,776 Page Total 543 895 $216,034,303 Report Total 543 895 $216,034,303
Ellen Pence compatriot Denise Gamache, for example, shows up on a similar search, with more fields. Last time I looked at this, the amount was only $1.78 million,
I see that there has been great success in stopping violence (either that, or failures) hence, more funding to prevent it in the same manner — conferencing, and figuring out best practices, and of course collaborating and training. See? Also note this is a “Social Services” (not legal, criminal) activity, preventing violence.
[UPDATE: NOTE re: this chart: The report could be re-run at TAGGS.HHS.Gov (Advanced Search) and should be; it would generate a url link to share. I have recently (2017) blogged on these CFDA Numbers and this topic for further information). I see the column headings do not match the contents. A re-run would present an easier to read format; fixing it from this stage is not a good use of my blogging time… I also learned that some of these categories were, at least by year 2010, written into the FVSPA Act, which is under CAPTA (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act). See my later posts for more info. //LGH]
At some point the “MPDI” (Minnesota Program Development, Inc.) I see below was renamed “Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs” or whatever TheDuluthModel.org says its current name is.
| Program Office | Grantee Name | City | Recovery Act Indicator | State | Award Number | Award Title | CFDA Number | Award Activity Type | Principal Investigator | Sum of Actions | Award Abstract |
| FYSB | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC ** | DULUTH | NON | MN | 90EV0375 | FOUR SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | 93592 | SOCIAL SERVICES | DENISE GAMACHE | $ 2,407,624 | |
| FYSB | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC | DULUTH | MN | 90EV0248 | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | 93592 | SOCIAL SERVICES | DENISE GAMACHE | $ 2,686,366 | Abstract Not Available | |
| FYSB | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC | DULUTH | MN | 90EV0375 | FOUR SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | 93592 | SOCIAL SERVICES | DENISE GAMACHE | $ 3,536,432 |
| OCS | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC | DULUTH | MN | 90EV0104 | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES – SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTER | 93592 | SOCIAL SERVICES | DENISE GAMACHE | $ 3,925,981 | Abstract Not Available | |
| OCS | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC | DULUTH | MN | 90EV0248 | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | 93592 | SOCIAL SERVICES | DENISE GAMACHE | $ 3,957,873 | Abstract Not Available |
The “93591” category is grants to “domestic violence coalitions” which must be how everyone gets their terminologies, communication lines, and practices nice and coordinated. Meanwhile, others who have worked at street level (but had less backing), take a different point of view than “Constant Collaborations.”
Here’s a San Antonio, TEX Family Justice Center (2010) Conference List of materials one can purchase. After all, these are professionals… I missed that conference — somehow are not on their email alert “cc’s” and at the time, didn’t have airfare, either….
As to BUSH:
I think I made my feelings known about former President Bush, and his concept of “Family” in my last post. The actual “Families” in this case are the associations and collaboratives of people who get the funding.
If Bush had required that all — without exception — STOP VAWA grantees inform ALL — without exception — female clients with children where the perpetrator of violence against them was the father of the FATHERHOOD.GOV infrastructure, and that this was actually enabled by the federal office of child support enforcement (OCSE) — then it would’ve been OK. There’s no question that fatherhood groups know about VAWA, they are constantly complaining about it.
If all grantees would’ve been required to alert women of pro-VAWA and anti-feminist (feminists are destroying the country, of course) “family” courts lay ahead between them and freedom, that’d be one thing. But apparently, the two sets of untraceable grant expenditures go along side by side quite nicely, watching the genders war it out themselves on-line, in the streets, and lobbying legislators to change the law sin their favor.
Well, now, let me think a moment on that last one…. in fact, let me ask Josie Clark:
- Statement of City Attorney Casey Gwinn re: Family Justice Center Lawsuit:
September 28, 2004
“The Clark lawsuit deals with personnel matters, involving employees who are on my staff. The courtroom is now the appropriate place to respond to these allegations where I believe my office and staff members will be cleared. Therefore, I decline to be interviewed. I am referring your call to our outside legal counsel, Kathryn Bernert, who is handling the case. Here is her phone number which was provided to you last Friday morning by Maria Velasquez.”
Statement by Kathryn Bernert
Outside Legal Counsel for the City of San Diego
Partner with Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP
Sept. 28, 2004
?? What Lawsuit?
This Family Justice Center isn’t even that old….
Lawsuit Alleges Cover-up at Family Justice Center
September 29, 2004
Clark is suing the city and Gwinn, not for what happened to her co-worker, but for the way she said she was used to cover it up. Official records show that police responded to numerous calls at the victim’s former home on Armacost Road. Several workers at the City Attorney’s Office and the Family Justice Center told 10News that the victim came to work with broken bones, bruises, cuts and black eyes.
“If Casey Gwinn didn’t notice that on one of his own — seeing her every single day — then what is he doing at the Family Justice Center?” questioned Clark. According to the lawsuit, a long history of severe abuse against a Family Justice Center employee was going to be made public when the woman threatened to kill her husband and was arrested. Clark was then assigned a special project to quietly help the woman.”(Gwinn) said that my job was going to get her into rehab, because that was the only way she was gong to be able to keep her job,” Clark said. The assignment came from Gwinn, (pictured, [below]), 10News reported.
[Missing image/broken link deleted]Clark took on the new responsibilities that lasted more than two months. She said the woman called her seeking help day and night — once every half hour at work and at home at 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Late last year, Clark said the woman’s estranged husband threatened her life.
“Her husband basically said I was going to regret it for interfering and said he was going to come after me and that he was going to kill us both,” Clark told 10News. After her arrest [and obviously, release], Gwinn had the woman working as a receptionist on the 16th floor near his office. But when the death threat allegations against Clark surfaces, the woman was moved to the 11th floor, just 30 feet from Clark.
“She still comes to the office beaten up, and Casey Gwinn has done absolutly nothing to help her,” Clark said. The lawsuit itself, the plaintiff’s attorneys say, is about how Clark was forced into the mess and then discriminated against after she had nervous breakdowns and clinical depression. Conditions, they say, came directly from her “special project” to basically act as a drug, alcohol and abuse counselor for a co-worker.
If what she says is true (and there seems some backup corroboration), then why didn’t such a highly connected individual so concerned about Domestic Violence as Casey Gwinn is, talk with some of the District Attorneys — or the abused woman — about getting some criminal prosecution of her husband’s behaviors, rather than wait til the situation got to death threats, and then watch his own employee be arrested for someone driven to threaten back to get free from ongoing broken bones and beatings? I mean — is this who you want spearheading nationwide, nay, global, justice centers? Charity begins at home, brother….
Here’s the self-report of how great this justice center is:
At least they acknowledge it’s a personal narrative: ”
Acknowledgements
This story focuses on the evolution of the criminal justice system’s response to domestic violence in San Diego. It does not develop the entire history of the battered women’s movement in San Diego. We should also note that “The San Diego Story” in this book was written primarily from the recollections of Ashley Walker, Casey Gwinn, and Gael Strack. Many others in San Diego County have played powerful roles and would clearly highlight other aspects of San Diego’s criminal justice system journey based on their own experience.
I have a little more background on this than some, including how the justice center followed Mr. Gwinn from his role as City Attorney, out to an exterior location (I think originally at the Y). You can also see here, Task Forces, a Council and some heavy funders who are thinking in terms of Collaboration that did not come right from within San Diego City Attorney’s Office. (Just for a little background):
Philanthropists and funders like Joan Kroc (wife of Ray Kroc, the Founder of McDonalds) also played a powerful role. They encouraged members of the domestic violence, child abuse and substance community to work together. As a substantial funder of these programs, in 1990, Joan Kroc made collaboration a part of her granting process.{{i.e., you want our money? You will collaborate!}} She paid all expenses for twenty community activists in these fields to spend a week at the family program at Hazelton in Center City Minnesota. She also held special fully-funded trainings at her ranch at Santa Ynez Valley to encourage collaboration.
During this same time, Dr. David Chadwick, a pediatrician, at Children’s Hospital, also dedicated major resources by creating the Family Violence Program, under the leadership of a social worker named Sandy Miller. Dr. Chadwick too had a strong vision for focusing on the co-occurrence of child abuse and domestic violence. Sandy Miller developed a close partnership with Deputy City Attorney Casey Gwinn and even housed a portion of her staff in the City Attorney’s Office in the early 1990’s.
Pause. Because later on, I have a post from the succeeding City Attorney, Mike Aguirre, who had to clean up a lot of the accounting (over-billing) from Mr. Gwinn’s office, and wrote an interim report in the practice of over-billing (for work that did not happen) as part of the “SLA” (Service Level Agreements) and “MOU” (Memo of Understanding). This July 28 2006 this report on “IMPROPER BILLING PRACTICES BY THE CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICEmentions the Justice Center a few times. For example, ”
Gwinn ran unopposed for City Attorney in 1996 and 2000. Prior to assuming office in 1996, Gwinn was allowed to put his leadership team in place and begin making policy. It is around this time that billing to SLAs was modified (Exhibit 5), and as time went on the program was expanded to increase staff and services.
In 7-21-06 phone contact was made with Investigator Brendan McClory at the Family Justice Center. The following is a summary from a statement taken from McClory:
During 2002 – 2004 McClory worked for the City Attorney’s Office Civil Division. He was assigned to bill 60 hours per pay period to MWWD due to the fact that he was assigned to Kelly Salt, Ted Bromfield, and Tom Zeleny. McClory noted that he was directed to bill 60 hours to the enterprise Department even though in actuality he only worked on average 10 hours per pay period for these individuals. The vast majority of his time was working for Trial Unit attorneys. He noted that he advised Robert Abel that this was the case, and Abel responded that he should bill the hours anyways per office policy.
In 2004, soon after Aguirre took office, this policy changed and McClory was directed to only bill for hours worked
or, ….
Maria Velasquez
On 7-28-06 personal contact was made with City Attorney Director of Communications Maria Velasquez at the Offices of the City Attorney. The following is a summary from a statement taken from Velasquez:
Velasquez was hired by the City Attorney’s Office as Casey Gwinn’s Press Secretary in May of 2001. She was assigned to handle community and media relations for the Office. Her daily responsibility was to handle all calls from community members and press regarding the Civil and Criminal Divisions. She was responsible for coordinating and responding to community events. In 2004 she worked almost exclusively on developing the Family Justice Center by educating the public, attending community functions, and media events. She billed all her time to the City Attorney’s general fund.
These key steps helped lay the groundwork for the Family Justice Center and for the close working relationship between the Center for Child Protection, the local child advocacy center (now the Chadwick Center), and the domestic violence community. [sic]
The Domestic Violence Council was created in the November, 1991. A number of key events occurred in those early years.
In 1992, the Council became part of the Mayor’s Office under the leadership of Mayor Maureen O’Connor
In 1994, the Council was asked to leave the Mayor’s Office by Mayor Susan Golding and soon re-established itself as a private, non-profit organization housed in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office
In 1996, the Council suspended its non-profit status, electing to return to a grassroots approach consistent with its beginning in 1987…[[Continued below next comments..]]
[[March 2023 interjection/commentary: “whatever that grassroots approach means.” Status is one thing (entity, or not. Part of local government or not). “Approach” is not relevant in comparing status (a) to status (b). The description above (from what I can see) doesn’t reference “1987” beginnings, but it DOES 990 funding by McDonalds/Kroc family wealth, and a 1990 conference OUT OF STATE (in Hazelton, MN) to rehearse the “let’s combine three causes” concept.
Between the lines, it might mean that the State of California suspended it, i.e., SOS/FTB suspended for failing to file. I thin, it would take more than three years too get IRS-suspended… Key concept here (I’m speaking in 2023): nonprofits housed in public offices and run by public officials. Reminds me in several ways of how AFCC had operated for years… “under cover” and in and out of entity integrity… That’s why it’s so essential, regardless of what any thing (or, non-entity) CALLS itself: Council, commission, initiative, institute, etc., to find and identify the legitimacy (if as a nonprofit, from its filings, as part of some government operations, from relevant government reports, too). The concept of “Domestic Violence Coordinating Council (fashionable later?) seems related. Those “Coordinating Councils” forms of centralized control of programs which, ultimately, will impact people’s personal safety and ultimately, at most points, will be public-funded one way or another.]]
Casey Gwinn led the Council until 1999 and hosted the Council out of the City Attorney’s Office. His secretary, Jean Emmons, provided the administrative support to the Council and handled all mailings, meeting notices, and coordination of all committee meetings. The Council did hire an Executive Director, Denise Frey, for some of the early years of its development. Denise worked at the City Attorney’s Office and played a very significant role in helping to organize the committees, the structure, and the advocacy agenda of the Council.
In 1999, Assistant City Attorney Gael Strack became the President and Gael’s tenure for two years played a critical role in the early planning stages of the Family Justice Center. The entire Domestic Violence Council and all member agencies endorsed the vision for a “one stop shop” Center and much of the focus of the Council in 2000, 2001, and 2002 was on the development and opening of the Center. Subsequent Council Presidents, Verna Griffin Tabor and Diane McGrogan, made the Family Justice Center a high priority during their tenures.
There are more than two serious red flags in this Family Justice Center Alliance (starting in San Diego) concept. I’d say one indicator that the guy didn’t help someone in his employee is a huge one. The second one, Alameda County, another author believes seriously exaggerates their “people served” figures (see my “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys” post), and I would have to tend to agree, as I am local to the area and courts. Moreover, these nonprofit 990s need to be scrutinized better in ALL the little reproduced family justice centers which are taking, for example, public (government) employees, forming nonprofits and then where, exactly is the funding coming from and going to?
Fiscal (dishonesty) in San Diego was not limited to the Water and Sewer Departments, but also the Pension, which (among other reasons) is why I sarcastically refer to this collaborative as “Casey Gwinn’s Retirement Plan.” (Someone has to do it!) His city attorney’s salary was $175K (it says below) — like a CA judge. His “measly” pension, only $79K (a great perspective from which to understand domestic violence issues). He’s canvassing all over for this model and so are like-minded individuals, as we have seen.
My question is, are they like-minded in (1) failing to actually provide service to victims; (2) overbilling (3) over-reporting the impact of the services provided?
- NEGLIGENCE IN CITY PENSION FUND SCANDAL REPORTED :
THE KROLL REPORT
Ex-City Attorney Gwinn called ‘negligent’ in pension fund messBy Mark Sauer
STAFF WRITERAugust 16, 2006
Past and present city officials cited last week for acts ranging from malfeasance to mischief in the long-awaited report by Kroll Inc. on the city’s pension mess are ranked according to culpability.
NADIA BOROWSKI SCOTT / Union-Tribune file photoThen-City Attorney Casey Gwinn (right), with former Mayor Dick Murphy at his side, was criticized in last week’s Kroll report on city finances.In the top tier are those who acted with “wrongful intent,” a violation of civil law, in hiding from bond investors the pension fund’s severe underfunding and the city’s twisted sewer-rate structure.
One step down are those found to be “negligent” in carrying out their responsibilities. It is in this section that former City Attorney Casey Gwinn appears.
The report is blunt: “The City Attorney’s Office failed the City.”
In singling out Gwinn, the report said, “As the top official in the City Attorney’s Office – which certified to the accuracy of incomplete and misleading disclosures – City Attorney Casey Gwinn negligently performed his disclosure responsibilities to the City, and failed to supervise other attorneys” under him.
Among the lapses by Gwinn’s office cited in the Kroll report:
Its certification of the city’s financial disclosures to the “investing public” without independently verifying the accuracy of the information.
It kept quiet about the city’s potential obligation of up to $370 million for breaking “grant and loan covenants” while in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. (“the city” is supported in part by taxes from wages of its residents, right)
Gwinn’s deputies failed to identify “the central illegality” of underfunding the city’s pension plan as officials made those decisions.
Like it seems he also “failed to identify” that an employee showing up with bruises and broken bones and her husband calling her constantly at work is a domestic violence victim . . . . . .
It also chastised Gwinn’s office for years of falsifying billing records to the city’s water and wastewater departments for legal work.
Kroll, a risk-management firm based in New York, spent 18 months investigating the city’s financial practices. Kroll was paid $20.3 million for the report.
Who pays for that? This is starting to add up — $370 million risk, $20.3 to audit something that shows up as needing an audit….
The company’s investigators didn’t get to query Gwinn about his actions during his 1996-2004 tenure as city attorney. He was among 53 city officials and employees who refused to be questioned.
“But he was not known around town as a good attorney. He didn’t want to get bogged down in pensions and water rates and all that confusing stuff,” Stutz said. “It was, ‘Let me deal with guys who smack their wives and I can get on TV.’ ”
The description does seem to hold. Some people just love the limelight….
After term limits forced Gwinn out as city attorney, he has devoted himself to his anti-domestic-violence cause.
I have been trying to tell us — this is a personal retirement project of what now looks like a negligent and dishonest City Attorney, who became City Attorney running unopposed, partly because his predecessor (John Witt, who seemed to favor him) delayed announcing his departure so long it was hard to prepare a campaign against him. I”m remembering how it seems Alameda County’s Tom Orloff, similarly, handed over the reigns to Nancy O’Malley by retiring early and assigning her as interim D.A., thereby skirting the open election process neatly. She then stacked the decks (per “Steve White” of indymedia report) to make sure another crony, Nadia Davis-Lockyer, Esq., got the plum job as Executive Director of THEIR Family Justice Center. The question comes up — who is in “The Family” here ???
In addition to being a trustee for the San Diego Family Justice Center, Gwinn works part time on special projects for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who stands behind him.
“I hired Casey because he is a well-known and respected expert in domestic-violence matters,” Dumanis said. “He’s doing a great job in that area for us.”
She said Gwinn, who began working for her in December 2004, originally was a manager for the victim-restitution and crime-prevention programs, but now is a contracted employee.
“He works on special projects, mainly the regionalization of family-justice centers,” Dumanis said. The main Family Justice Center in downtown San Diego is a one-stop facility for domestic-violence victims, with police officers, social workers and medical personnel available.
Well, it’s in on the VAWA grant streams, so there’s some potential financial reward in the model. It’s an identified VAWA “purpose model.”
There’s more, but probably too much for one post. Casey Gwinn’s negligence as City Attorney was not limited to water and sewer matters, but also — well this NYT article says it much better, and SHOULD be read if we want to begin to understand family justice centers, their originators and promoters, and get a sense of how they’ve handled previous, smaller, responsibilities — like heading up the City Attorney Department and reporting honestly what was going on in it:
Sept. 7, 2004 NYT article (notice, around time of Josie Clark lawsuit)
Sunny San Diego Finds Itself Being Viewed as a Kind of Enron-by-the-Sea
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: September 7, 2004Correction Appended
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 1 – In the summer of 2003, Diann Shipione, an investment adviser at UBS Financial Services in San Diego and a trustee of the city’s employee retirement system, was scanning a prospectus on a proposed San Diego sewer bond issue when alarm bells began to ring in her head.
Important financial information was missing. The prospectus did not mention that the city had for years been shortchanging its public pension fund, leading to an unfunded liability of more than $1.15 billion, or that the city owed nearly $1 billion more in health care benefits to retirees and did not have the money. And it implied that the pension fund’s actuary had approved the underfunding when Ms. Shipione knew that he had not.
In a letter to city officials, and in a commentary in the local newspaper, Ms. Shipione blew the whistle.
“I had completely lost confidence in the city’s financial decision making,” she said in an interview on Wednesday. “I just couldn’t let this go forward.”
Jack Smith for The New York Times
Diann Shipione did not like the way San Diego was handling its employee pension system, and let the world know. Mike Aguirre calls the situation “a powder keg.” |
Well, I”m suggesting (and blowing a whistle) on the thing that came OUT of this department, called the “Family Justice Center Initiative” and all things associated with it. Just because things are central, doesn’t mean they are honest. Moreover, would you buy a used car — or program — from someone who’s last time in office was marked by having the FBI and US Attorney’s office investigating your city’s finances? That’s why I’m posting a lot from this article:
And the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States attorney’s office in San Diego opened investigations this year into possible fraud in the city’s financial statements and potential political corruption. Subpoenas were served on a number of city offices and several people confirmed that they had been interviewed by the F.B.I. in connection with the inquiry.
“This is a powder keg, a major, major problem,” said Mike Aguirre, a securities lawyer and former financial fraud investigator for the United States Senate and the Justice Department who is running for San Diego city attorney.
Mr. Aguirre said that the city’s inability to produce a credible financial statement made it impossible to know just how severe the crisis was. He said that a corporation that behaved like the City of San Diego would be delisted from the stock exchanges. He suggested that the best solution might be reorganization under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy law to allow the city to rescind pension benefits.
Mr. Aguirre blamed San Diego’s laid-back civic culture in which a handful of influential businessmen, union leaders and political figures called the shots while issuing reassurances to the public that everything was on the up-and-up.
“The basic story is that San Diego has become a thoroughly corrupt community in which the power players cut the deals, you don’t ask any questions, and everybody gets what they want,” Mr. Aguirre said. “People don’t realize that one of the largest cities in the United States is on the verge of bankruptcy, and it’s on the verge because of a massive amount of local corruption that has resulted in the thorough mismanagement of city finances.”
I realize Aguirre also was running for City Attorney — however look at his background. He’s qualified to say this. And the more I look at it (and I am a California resident, domestic violence survivor and family law veteran, I have been looking a LONG time, locally not just nationally) — would you buy a bridge from these guys? Corruption cannot bring forth justice, and if these centers are multiplying and expanding, I have to ask, just WHAT is being disseminated in the model?
A GREAT measure of how honest a person (or organization) is — is its financial statements, and their accuracy. Particularly when it’s public money.
NOW is the time to say “HALT!” — and not when it’s too late. Stop, Look, & Listen.
San Diego now ‘Enron by the Sea’
By John Ritter, USA TODAYSAN DIEGO — This laid-back city seems to have it all — stunning beaches, best weather this side of Honolulu, a national image as a vacation playground and top convention destination.Nearly a decade of fiscal shenanigans came to light when Diann Shipione, a pension board trustee, blew the whistle. But it took some doing. She wrote letters to the mayor, city officials and fellow trustees. She spoke up at City Council meetings. She wrote opinion columns in the San Diego Union-Tribune. [“Diann Shipione says her many warnings to the pension board were ignored.” photo by Robt Hanashiro, USA Today]
By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
Funny how often it’s women noticing and blowing the whistle, and how often they are just not heard, til it becomes a crisis…
But the City Council and the trustees ignored her. At one point the pension board bought an ad in the Union-Tribune that scoffed, “Chicken Little Would Be Proud.”
Only in September 2003, when Shipione alerted a lawyer handling a municipal sewer bond sale to facts the city hadn’t disclosed, did Wall Street pull the plug. The bond issue was canceled. Soon the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FBI and the U.S. attorney were asking questions. In January, the city admitted errors and omissions in its financial statements.
“The city’s conservative image is completely false,” Shipione says. “It’s reckless, it spends wildly and lavishly, it saves nothing and it hides the truth.”
SPEAKING OF WHICH REGIONALIZATION EFFORTS: — from the FamilyJusticeCenter.com website on “The California Initiative.” This is about as much purple-framed plain text as you are going to get anywhere on the site, perhaps there just wasn’t a desire to really pull attention to this page. Read it, though!
The California Family Justice Initiative (CFJI) is funded by the Blue Shield of California Foundation under the leadership of the National Family Justice Center Alliance. {{headed by guess who…}} The Initiative aims to create shared learning, shared expertise, shared capacity building, shared on-line resources, and shared technology to achieve a statewide network of Centers using model protocols, best practices, and innovative strategies to meet the needs of women, children, men, and families exposed to trauma and abuse.
What has happened to the concept of “justice” here? However, one of the critical areas of need these populations still have, is understanding the FAMILY law system — about which little seems to be said here. OK, here comes that expansion — like it or not — and
CA SB 557 INTRODUCED BY Senator Kehoe
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Atkins and Fletcher)
FEBRUARY 17, 2011
An act to add and repeal Title 5.3 (commencing with Section 13750)
of Part 4 of the Penal Code, relating to family justice centers.
will certainly help this personal retirement plan of some key public figures. No wonder it’s catching on..
[Back to the FJC site….]
The CFJI consists of two 2-year phases. Phase I operated from March 2009-March 2011 and Phase II will operate from March 2011-March 2013.
You know why the “Crisis in the Courts” people aren’t paying attention to this and letting mothers know (nor do the justice centers, naturally, report on the Crisis in the Courts when women come on for restraining orders — which are certifiably insane, potentially lethal, … [Incomplete sentence in 2011, a dozen years later, I do not remember what the rest should’ve read, except to emphasize that these should’ve been reported on by the “Crisis in the Courts” people, several organizations of which came from California and were around when this model was being propagated. WITHOUT QUESTION they knew about it, and did not feature in either mailings, or websites.]
In Phase I of the Initiative, five communities were selected from across California to participate as “learning laboratory sites” where multi-agency, co-located service delivery models for victims of domestic violence were supported and expanded. The five founding centers from Phase I are: Shasta, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Los Angeles (San Fernando Valley), and West Contra Costa County. The Alameda County Family Justice Center, Anaheim Family Justice Center, and San Diego Family Justice Center served as Regional Training Centers, assisting sites in expanding and developing multi-agency service delivery models around the state.
I.e., if you weren’t in the loop, you just missed the roots spreading and establishing a presence in 3 California Counties — one north, one south, one Anaheim.
Phase II of the California Family Justice Center Initiative will maintain and expand a network of Centers across California.
Not if I have anything to do with this!
I suggest that they be forced — with supervised visitation monitors paid for from their last set of royalties or anywhere but a federal or foundation grants stream — to sit through classes from the “California Healthy Marriages Coalition” whether or not they have faith
(This $2.4 million/year grant from HHS was to establish a coalition of coalitions on the other side of the issue of DV _- i.e., it’s just a “family” matter, you guys should work it out…. stay (or get) married, marriage is good!).
Make everyone wanting to expand these centers take time (Get off a plane! Skip a conference!) and sit through a session of KIDS’ TURN SAN DIEGO at their own expense, and then publish narratives of it.
This (my proposed, hypothetical) meeting of the Family Justice Center Alliance staff with the Faith-based abstinence and marriage/fatherhood promoters should definitely be live and You-tubed, so we can see one trying to convert the other. OR, if they set up another mutually profitable “collaboration” we can catch them in the act and tweet it.
OR, have them hire Diann Shipione to audit Kids’ Turn books, too! There are a number of alternatives I can think of which might free up some public monies in these troubled times….
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Ongoing support to the five founding centers created during Phase I will be provided. Five additional California communities will be selected to receive technical assistance and planning support for expanding multi-agency, co-located service deliver models for victims of domestic violence.”
[Good grief, read the language….]
Here’s SB 557 as of now, and an AROUND THE CAPITOL BILL TRACK link to it:
Existing law provides for various services and programs to assist victims of crime, including grants to proposed and existing child sexual exploitation and child abuse victim counseling centers and prevention programs, and the establishment of a resource center to operate a statewide, toll-free information service consisting of legal information for crime victims and providers of services to crime victims.
This bill would authorize the cities of San Diego and Anaheim, and the counties of Alameda and Sonoma, until January 1, 2014, to establish a multiagency, multidisciplinary family justice center to assist victims of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and human trafficking, to ensure that victims of abuse are able to access all needed services in one location and to enhance victim safety, increase offender accountability, and improve access to services for victims of crime, as provided. The bill would permit the family justice centers to be staffed by law enforcement, medical, social service, and child welfare personnel, among others.
Good grief — some of the hardest times women have is reporting to police officers or sherriffs, or DA’s offices, and getting a response. This is already documented in SONOMA COUNTY-based: “Women’s Justice Center.”
The police and enforcement profession historically has been rough on women — in 2000s, and ongoing.
Sexual Harassment at
SRJC Police AcademyMarch 17, 2001
Mr. Robert Agrella, President
Santa Rosa Junior College
Santa Rosa, CADear Mr. Robert Agrella,
We’re writing to express our concerns that months of unchecked sexual harassment at the SRJC Police Academy this past year resulted in the loss of five promising female cadets from the evening academy.
We are especially concerned that, according to a number of cadets, this harassment went on for months and that the director of the evening academy, Deputy Peter Hardy, repeatedly ignored or minimized cadets’ reports of the harassment. In fact, according to cadets, Director Hardy protected the perpetrator at the expense of the cadets, and allowed the perpetrator to graduate in December. The perpetrator is now eligible to become a police officer in California. The careers of the female cadets have been lost to the community.
Here’s some more from this public letter, although this is not my only concern about having “JUSTICE CENTERS” (which as we can see are nonprofit organizations, or foundations set up (ACFCJ) to channel $$ to nonprofit organizations) but sometimes staffed and working by public employees, as with Mr. Gwinn.
In fact, it could be said if anything, these centers might specifically have been designed to NOT allow the independence women need to protect themselves,
and later, their children, by demanding equal treatment by officers as well as in the family law systems (although, the family law system was set up for “wide discretion with judicial immunity” and nothing approaching equality. ). Read on:
Here are just some of the indicators of the problem:
- The national average of female sworn officers on police forces is 14%. The percentage of sworn females among the sum of police in Sonoma County is less than half the national average.
- In the last four years, at least ten female sworn officers have left the Santa Rosa Police Department, five of whom stated to us that they left because of the hostile work environment in that department against females. Santa Rosa Police Department has never had a female in any position of rank, not even a female sargent. As of August 4, 2000, Santa Rosa Police Department had only 13 sworn female officers (7%) out of a total of 173 sworn officers.
- In the same time period, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department has had at least 10 female deputies and corrections officers file sexual harassment complaints and lawsuits. As of August, 2000, the Sheriff’s Department had only 17 sworn female officers (7%) out of a total of 218 sworn officers.
- Sebastopol Police Department has never had a female sworn officer until this year,
- Sonoma State University Police two years ago paid off a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a female officer who was sexually assaulted by one superior, and ordered by another to falsify a domestic violence report so that the report would favor the male suspect.
In addition to the gross injustice to the women in these situations, what’s equally disturbing is the intolerable cost to our communities. Two decades of research on women police is conclusive. Women officers exceed male officers on many of precisely the skills that are so sorely needed to correct chronic problems plaguing our police. The research shows that women officers have much lower rates of excessive use of force, they better handle rape and domestic violence, and they excel at de-escalating volatile situations.
Feel free to photocopy and distribute this information as long as you keep the credit and text intact.
Copyright © Marie De Santis,
Women’s Justice Center,
www.justicewomen.com
rdjustice@monitor.net
The bill would prohibit victims of crime from being denied services at a family justice center solely on the grounds of criminal history and would prohibit a criminal history search from being conducted during the client intake process.
The bill would require the family justice centers to submit a report to the Office of Privacy Protection for review and comment, and then submit the report to the Assembly Committee on Judiciary and the Senate Committee on Judiciary, no later than January 1, 2013, as specified. The bill would require each family justice center to maintain a formal training program with mandatory training for all staff members, volunteers, and agency professionals, as specified.
Sandra Ramos’ “StrenghtenOurSisters.org” image from a link on my May, 2011 post, http://wp.me/psBXH-HG. (Undated news article)
Goes with (near the bottom of) Post http://wp.me/psBXH-HG, that is a May 2011 expose protesting the rapid expansion of the Family Justice Center model (Case Gwinn/Gael Strack) but this group was present at a Battered Mothers Custody Conference the same (January)…//LGH 2023 update.
SB 557 is a personal project of politically connected people from Enron-By-the-Bay [San Diego County is Southern California, the very southern tip] and a county with some of the highest homicide rates in the country (Oakland, Richmond) [Alameda County is in Northern California, San Francisco Bay Area]. I have suffered for years in this county** and experienced multiple problems with honesty among law enforcement. Never during the years of severe abuse in one of those cities did anyone inform me of laws or legal options to have the batterer arrested for assault & battery (it was my husband). Then when I became independent and “off the system” the real troubles began — probably for those reasons. Again, police were called to help at times, and finally, in what the California calls a felony — but family law calls a “dispute” — and law enforcement, I learned later, calls a “wobbler” — meaning, the D.A. exercised HIS option not to prosecute — my children were illegally and permanently removed from my custody (as so often happens) with no judge, anywhere — giving a legal OR factual basis for doing so. This was done knowing that the method of removal was itself an act of violence and blatant violation of about 3 types of codes (Educational, Family, Penal) at a time — and that was just the beginning.It was done around the issue of child support (which pretty much eliminated child support from my kids). ALL of this happened with clear knowledge — and what sure seemed to me like complicit acceptance — by the county sheriffs, various police (not Alameda County) and eventually, theDADistrict Attorneys in two different counties, as initially I didn’t know which one had jurisdiction.
- 05/26/11 – Sen Appropriations: 9-0 (PASS)
- 05/10/11 – Sen Judiciary: 5-0 (PASS)
- 03/29/11 – Sen Public Safety: 6-0 (PASS)
To go back to the top of this post, Click on either link:
CA SB 557 — Just say “NO!” or at least “Whoa!! (Show me the money!)” to Scandalous San Diego’s One Stop Justice Shop Pyramid Scheme. [[First Publ. May, 2011, Format Fixes March, 2017; Some Updates/Broken Link Fix, March 31, 2023]. Shortlink with case-sensitive ending: http://wp.me/psBXH-HG. [click on either title or that link]
About 8,800 words with 2023 updates to add the Dates Published/Updated to the title, to replace a certain missing image, and in general make it more readable.
This under-reported phenomenon continues. Family Justice Centers continue to exist and to regionalize, and new ones still are being created. Therefore the HISTORY of some of the originals -— and believe me, this early post was only a taste of their origins and design problems —- is always appropriate.
I have much deeper write-ups (off-line) which might not hold the average person’s attention (drill downs of the many entities and name-changes). Unfortunately too many of these also incidentally (in header or footer) reveal my legal name, which I don’t really want publicized, given how “to-the-contrary” my blogging has been all these years. I also have specific personal safety issues (still….) as my Twitter account my indicate in its profile: I FLED California in (summer) 2018 for good reasons. As a senior. .. I’d love to take full credit for my own work under my own name, but until that time comes, a lot of revising (painfully long) would have to take place both off-line and on (too bad!) a very few images, perhaps, still even on this blog. //LGH 4/15/2023.
Today I spent nearly a half hour making some specific copy editing and a few formatting changes to clarify the opening passage by “Women’s Justice Center” (six bulleted points). The input device is behaving differently, and after about a half hour of repeated “Updates” (and times when “Update” button was de-activated), removing excess font codes from the html, I gave up. I did manage to correct the title tor dad, “Broken Link Fix, March 31, 2023” which had read “2017” as recently as last week. Perhaps this post should be parsed out and re-published (minus the extra formatting) again. File it under “What the Coercive Control” (Evan Stark, author) forgot (?) to mention”…
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Ms. O’Malley goes to Washington, selling SB 557 (Legislating the “One-Stop-Justice-Shop”)
Memorial Day Weekend. Let’s remember that people who started out an organization pulling a fast one on the public -successfully – are likely to try the same thing, again.
Keep an Eye on our Public Servants: District Attorney’s Offices
Always.
Take for example (1), Los Angeles County‘s:
(By way of finding out WHY one better watch one’s local DA’s office..and make sure they know you are.)
For a clue what may happen when one doesn’t, see Gil Garcetti, L.A. D.A. (retired?)
BIOGRAPHY
Although Gil spent 32 years in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, eight years as the elected District Attorney, much of his life has been spent as an urban photographer. His first photo book, IRON: ERECTING THE WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, (November 2002, Balcony Press), received much critical praise in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. The photographs emphasize the contribution of the ironworkers to the building of America, but they also document the beauty of the curved, angled, and bent raw steel of this building before being covered by its exterior skin.
Photographs from his second book, FROZEN MUSIC, (November 2003, Balcony Press), have been featured in multi page features in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, American Photo, Newsweek, Time, Harvard Design Magazine, California Lawyer and other magazines. Gil’s second book is his interpretation of the abstract art created by the finished building. The book is a portfolio of 45 panorama lithographs.
How Nice.
I’d love to resume arts, leisure, writing activities like this, too — or even the concept that I might have some sort of “retirement” whatsoever. HOWEVER, thanks to this system, a lot of time is spent reconstructing where my kids, time, legal rights and finances went. Why does it keep leading back to these offices, in particular — whose function is to prosecute crime AFTER it happens fairly, and do it right & without corruption, to the extent of their budget. Just imagine in a world where crimes to & by men, women, and minors actually received prompt punishment as a deterrent and a message to others….
While Mr. Garcetti’s retirement plan includes urban photography and some book royalties, up here (and in San Diego), the retirement plan, I figure probably includes selling and letting someone else run, FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS — which is why this post. If the demand isn’t great enough for a family justice center, it helps to have a nice District Attorney well-positioned to get funds to start one anyhow, and with connections to staff it — and it appears also even connections enough to then legislate it into a business model for all times (and counties).
But this is the Los Angeles District Attorney’s legacy, here:
Pre-Retirement (from the office):
WIKIPEDIA describes — clearly from a bit of a disgruntled fathers’ perspective (and with good cause — ) his “Life as (Los Angeles) District Attorney” – First and Second Terms, 1992-2000 starting right after Rodney King riots, prosecution of O.J. Simpson, Ramparts scandal, and, as it mentions:
In the late 1990s, Garcetti’s use of default judgments in child support cases were considered by many to be particularly heinous. Garcetti openly refused to rescind judgments against men who later proved through DNA evidence that they were not the fathers in question. By 2000, 79% of paternity judgements in Los Angeles County were assigned by default.
Which is why I bring him up, as representing a Southern California leading District Attorney’s legacy…
Wikipedia (voice of the people, or at least people who write Wikipedia articles) goes on about the child support issue, a bit of heartfelt passion enters into the narrative…
Gil Garcetti created so much chaos and heartache that even diehard feminist attorney Gloria Allred protested.
Gloria Allred was a single mother in need of child support — which she went after. As this was before the invention of the post-feminist (?) “fatherhood” movement to keep people like her in place, and also became pregnant because of a rape, possibly part of how she became a “protester” activist lawyer: “During her years in practice, she has successfully sued Los Angeles County to stop the practice of shackling and chaining pregnant inmates during labor and delivery; put a halt on the city of El Segundo from quizzing job applicants about their sexual histories, …”
Allred, who has perhaps done more than anybody to promote the phrase and concept of ‘deadbeat dads,’ called Garcetti’s office ‘an organization without a heart, without any compassion, and without a sense of priorities…[it’s] a system run amok’… Jackie Myers, a former Deputy District Attorney under Garcetti, said that she quit her job because ‘we were being told to do unethical, very unethical things.’
Allred didn’t find out about the $14 million of collected child support cooling its heels (and earning interest) in Garcetti’s office, instead of going straight to its recipients, the children. Richard Fine did. The law said, if they couldn’t find the mother (parent) within 6 months, it goes back to the father. Narrated briefly here: When Fine saw them dismiss the Silva v. Garcetti case, it led to the discovery of payments to judges in the County (Sturgeon v. County of Los Angeles). Funny the upset for fathers wikipedia guy didn’t mention this — but MSM silence on certain cases can be effective.
This was an unbelievable mess. Child Support collections was eventually (in CA at least) specifically removed from the province of the District Attorney’s Office, probably because of this, and now the practice of holding onto child support collections while they collect interest (at least 30 days before anything is considered “late”) and attempt to divert them for private crony use, or otherwise seriously mess with mothers (and fathers) — is in the hands of a different centralized agency in California — and “Local CSA’s” (child support agencies) by county, for the most part. They’re doing approximately as well when it comes to conflict of interest and honesty, but at lest someone else had a crack at screwing families financially for a change.
See? CA.Gov
Welcome to the Department of Child Support Services Website!
California’s Child Support Services Program works with* parents – custodial and noncustodial – and guardians to ensure children and families receive court-ordered financial and medical support. Child support services are available to the general public through a network of 52 county and regional child support agencies (LCSAs).
* this must be why it’s “Child Support SERVICES” not collections, or enforcements. How ‘holistic.’
and (from same website, different tab) a note about the administrative costs:
The May 2011 Revision updates the DCSS local assistance budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2010-11 and SFY 2011-12. It provides the estimates of the administrative costs for the local child support agencies, as well as the detailed methodology for each estimate. The total administrative costs for local assistance are estimated to be $906.3 million ($277.7 million State General fund (SGF)) for SFY 2010-11 and $866.6 million ($270.8 million SGF) for SFY 2011-12.
and such financial concepts as:
Federal Performance Basic Incentives
DESCRIPTION:
This premise reflects the Federal Performance Basic Incentives. Pursuant to the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998, the federal incentives passed onto local child support agencies (LCSAs) are to be based on the five performance measures and Data Reliability Audit compliance. California’s historical performance is displayed in the Auxiliary Tables section of this document on the Historical Incentive Performance Measures chart (Chart A-10).
IMPLEMENTATION DATE:
The federal performance incentive methodology was implemented October 1, 1999 and phased in over three years.
OR, say, a measly almost $100,000 to keep the pipelines open to Strengthening Families and other Cross-Collaborations which many child support recipients (meaning payees/ payors) would be hard-pressed to comprehend, or track (if they even knew these existed). No doubt this is far better than having ONE corrupt District Attorney’s Office simply sitting on the stuff, Los Angeles Style, until caught at it and sued to stop it:
Partnership to Strengthen Families Grant
DESCRIPTION:
This premise reflects the funds for the Partnership to Strengthen Families Federal Grant. The project will support partnerships among state child support program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) agencies and university scholars and researchers. Research and data analysis will be performed to improve coordination between the state child support program and TANF agencies.
The child support program and TANF program serve many of the same customers and share a program goal of family self sufficiency. Cross organizational partnerships can support improved efficiency and effectiveness by bringing together program experts to evaluate policy making and to assess processes that cross both organizations. The policy choices of each program can have a significant impact on the other. Isolated decision making is not in the best interest of the child support program nor the TANF program. This demonstration grant will serve as the foundation for an integrated and more effective communication between programs.
This partnership will benefit both the child support and TANF programs with the help of university faculty and scholars to design and support data exchanges, store and analyze data, and conduct special studies or evaluations of program policies or practices. Additionally, the steering committee for the partnership will also involve local child support and TANF welfare directors so that all elements of the program leadership are included. A collaborative effort is expected to add substantial value to otherwise independent planning and actions by these organizations in isolation.
IMPLEMENTATION DATE:
This premise was implemented September 30, 2009.
KEY DATA/ASSUMPTIONS:
• Authorizing statute: Section 1115(a)(2), 1115(b) and 1115(b)(3) of the Social Security Act [42 United States Code 1315].
• This grant is effective from September 30, 2009 through February 28, 2011.
• The total project cost consists of Section 1115 grant funds, a required 5 percent state match, and federal financial participation. The 5 percent state match will be funded through redirection of existing resources. [from Childsup.ca.gov, various links]
Now, instead, they can figure out what to do with approximately $4 billion (per year) of federal funds to states intended to enforce child & family support (or, promote marriage, a.k.a. fatherhood), including Compromising Arrears (that they ran up to start with), jailing fathers for nonsupport of outrageous amounts — then letting them out into classes about “How to be a father” (including abstinence education — go figure) run by court-affiliated program promoters.
But that’s another topic.
Take for example (2), Alameda County’s:
Now, for ALAMEDA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
I casually noticed that the Alameda County District Attorney actually had an Annual Report 2010, I figured, why not take a look? (note: I also look other places – so should we — such as vendor payments for this one, contracts, payrolls, etc.)
For Annual Report, read “Sales Promotion” for receiving more money for more programs. It’s basically going to be a Business Plan, or part of one, right.
Being the smart woman that I am, I went straight to “LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES.”
I’ve been around the block a few times, and know what the word “initiatives” means
I find it odd that the law enforcement is so eager to write the law also. Kind of like the Executive Branch of the US changing the legal system (and adding a faith-based office to help the separation of church and state just a little more) and the Judicial Element forming nonprofits and directing traffic to them. Or the Legislative Element getting press for helping the homeless, while their wives are busy charging $225 an hour to subcontract work that probably should’ve been done by a public agency (which the public pays for) to start with.
Makes you kind of wonder where the criminal element of society really is, sometimes. I mean, what’s truly causing the level of poverty and street crime and disrespect for authority seen throughout this county (home to the 4th and 5th highest homicide cities in the country, last I heard — Oakland, and Richmond, California). Does no responsibility ever rest with this department?
So, here’s “Nancy (O’Malley) goes to Washington” — What a Wonderful Life it must be.
Once there she has some nice chats, by mutual request it seems, with Dianne, about SB 557 – instead of having this chat first with the citizens that actually live in this state and who don’t always have our U.S. Senators’ ear. They’re lucky, many times, if they can get law enforcement’s ear, if it’s just a “family matter” (aka domestic dispute), even though these matters can get both family and officers killed, and have.
And here’s SB 557. Glad I happened to hear about it. And guess who proposed it (sponsor, co-sponsor):
CORRECTED APRIL 27, 2011
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 25, 2011
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 05, 2011CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2011–2012 REGULAR SESSION
SENATE BILL No. 557
________________________________________Introduced by Senator Kehoe
(Coauthor(s): Assembly Member Atkins, Fletcher)
Wow —Senator(SB117) Kehoe (SB747) & Assemblyperson Atkins (SB 887): the Dynamic Duo strikes again
- This time, to help their cohorts get proprietary language to promote a certain concept promising “justice” coach parents suffering from domestic violence and separation, including with their kids, from abusers.
- This is not to say the same people don’t also propose better bills — like adding “strangulation” to the definition of “traumatic injury.” However, this still ain’t gonna change how little family law judges care about it, as opposed to pushing co-parenting, therapy and marriage & fatherhood to people who are, er, divorcing (etc.). Generally, they fall under the category of “special interests” it seems, including:
- SB 117 (Kehoe)
Public contracts: prohibitions: discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. (see my last 2 posts on how Atkins’ partner got San Diego business…)
While this may be a good concept, common sense says to take it up with the California Healthy Marriage and the Bush-originator and perpetuators of National Fatherhood In Aeternum. Isn’t there some way we could lock the different factions into a single room — like is done with a sequestered jury — and duke it out while the rest of us get about our own business, and sex lives? Note: no minor children should be allowed into the room for any purpose during this time.
Actually, it was Kehoe sponsoring SB 2263 nine years ago, trying to one-stop shop an all-expense-paid (i.e., public funding through California Judicial Council) assessment of (Kids’ Turn). Has she had children? Has her partner had children? So what’s with this fascination with coaching others about how children feel about divorce, and what parents should tell them during the process?
Somehow I”m starting to wonder how these types of bills relate to each other.
So long as family court judges continue to exercise “wide discretion” and retain immunity for screw-ups, and so long as parents are too busy on on-line forums (arguing PAS or anti-PAS) and going to rallies to Washington, D.C. to plead for mercy — it doesn’t matter that Governor Gray Davis vetoed that one, saying gently that perhaps the highest judicial body in the state wasn’t, er, qualified to measure mental health (i.e., attitude adjustments that certain mental health professionals wish to see).
Family Law already makes just about any other law a moot point, no matter what gender you express this in — it’s possible to get permanently screwed in 2o minutes, or ex parte, and with or without a $$ to spare.
We, the People of California (insert your state, but this state has a well-earned reputation for being off the charts sometimes, it seems) should instead actually investigate who’s married to, in business with, or on the board of directors with whom, and we’d better keep our eyes peeled about whassup in the legislature, and whassup in Washington, too. And start respecting bloggers that do (historymatters of Sandiegooneline, or Ronkayeinlaw, etc.), rather than on-line weekly reporters (Mr. Peter Jamison of SFWeekly) that don’t.
February 17, 2011
________________________________________
An act to add Title 5.3 (commencing with Section 13750) to Part 4 of the Penal Code, relating to family justice centers. **
**the last suggestion (see my recent posts) was to simply amend Civil Labor Educational Insurance and Penal codes to clarify that gender expression is a civil right (as I understood it). This one simply adds a Title subdivision, i.e. 5.3.
While AFCC is busy legitimizing and legalizing “Parenting Coordinators” to further undermine due process (and confidentiality) a.k.a. legal rights, the DA’s office itself is trying to legitimize and hallow “family justice centers” that shouldn’t even be necessary IF the DA’s office (law enforcement and prosecution) had been doing their jobs right to start with, including taking criminal activity committed by one parent against the other without respect to gender. Same general idea — exploiting prior screwups by the same people to add another layer of bureaucracy to “coordinate” all the services needed.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL DIGEST
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGESTSB 557, as amended, Kehoe. Family justice centers.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1.
Title 5.3 (commencing with Section 13750) is added to Part 4 of the Penal Code, to read:
TITLE 5.3. Family Justice Centers13750.
(a) A city, county, or city and county may establish a multiagency, multidisciplinary family justice center to assist victims of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and human trafficking to ensure that victims of abuse are able to access all needed services in one location in order to enhance victim safety, increase offender accountability, and improve access to services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, and human trafficking. Family justice centers, if established in a city, county, or city and county, may include community-based domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and human trafficking agencies in partnership with survivors of violence and abuse in the planning and operations process of a family justice center, and may establish procedures for the ongoing input, feedback, and evaluation of the family justice center by survivors of violence and abuse and community-based crime victim service providers.
(b) For purposes of this title, the following terms have the following meanings:(1) “Abuse” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 6203 of the Family Code.
(2) “Domestic violence” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 6211 of the Family Code.
(3) “Sexual assault” means an act or attempt made punishable by Section 220, 261, 261.5, 262, 264.1, 266c, 269, 285, 286, 288, 288.5, 288a, 289, or 647.6.
(4) “Elder abuse” means an act made punishable by Section 368.
(5) “Human trafficking” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 236.1.(6) “Victim of crime,” “crime victim,” or “victim” means a victim of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, or human trafficking.
(c) For purposes of this title, family justice centers shall be defined as multiagency, multidisciplinary service centers where public and private agencies assign staff members on a full-time or part-time basis in order to provide services to victims crime from one location in order to reduce the number of times victims must tell their story, reduce the number of places victims must go for help, and increase access to services and support for victims and their children. Staff members at a family justice center may be comprised of, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) Law enforcement personnel.
(2) Medical personnel.
(3) District attorneys and city attorneys.
(4) Victim-witness program personnel.
(5) Domestic violence shelter service staff.
(6) Community-based rape crisis, domestic violence, and human trafficking advocates.
(7) Social service agency staff members.
(8) Child welfare agency social workers.
(9) County health department staff.
(10) City or county welfare and public assistance workers.
(11) Nonprofit agency counseling professionals.
(12) Civil legal service providers.
(13) Supervised volunteers from partner agencies.
(14) Other professionals providing services.
Text found at Survivors in Action (which addresses stalking — not parenting — issues)
Wow. I felt SO o o o o distracted by investigating the Nonprofit Filings of the “Alameda County Family Justice Center” which I already knew was itself a Dubious District Attorney Doing. San Diego (where the model started) also reported on their Doubts as to why a retiring City? attorney should simply move functions that belonged to government over to the Y, later to become what I like to call Casey Gwinn’s Retirement Plan Model.
I found out that after getting a $3 million grant, producing a nonprofit structure (channel?) that has 0 $$ and 0 boards of directors (if one looks at the paperwork) yet suddenly a subsidiary group, “Family Violence Law Center” is getting flush with $millions of education & prevention programs under a different EIN.
Having wondered why none of these groups actually tell us how Family Law Operates (which is through AFCC/CRC and a host of nonprofit groups to receive federal funds to fix families, even though the fix is getting some of them killed from the resulting mix of turmoil & entitlements) — I see that the Executive Director of this Family Violence Law Center, has a background in Family Law.
Together, while they do not talk honestly about each other (or their relationships), they comprise an assembly line that shuffles families from separation through dissolution to destitution, getting grants along the way to “prevent family violence” at the top of the chute (abandoning those halfway down).
Wait a minute — don’t we deserve some better accounting of the EXISTING family justice Centers before they become the model of how to (not) help Victims of Crime navigate the family law system?)
FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT:
D.A. Nancy E. O’Malley and U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein
In May 2010, Alameda County D.A. Nancy O’Malley led a team from the District Attorney’s Office to Washington D.C. to honor fallen officers at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and meet with legislators.
The team met with many officials to discuss the Office’s nationally recognized programs and initiatives. Highlights included presentations on the Restitution Unit, the H.E.A.T. Watch program, and the Alameda County Family Justice Center
(A Nancy O’Malley/Davis-Lockyer, affiliate of the San Diego Family Justice Center model, founded by someone who was personally sued by one of his own staff for ignoring severe domestic violence and what appears to be death threats to one of his own employees, to which it seems he (Casey Gwinn) responded by moving the situation to a different floor, and thereafter ignoring it. Which I have blogged. Guess they don’t read my lovely, graphics-intensive, professionally organized posts.)
. Also overviewed was the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center and the innovative and successful partnerships between the D.A.’s Office, Probation Department, Alameda County Office of Education and Alameda County Health Care.
In a briefing with the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, D.A. O’Malley spoke about the Family Justice Center’s concept of collaborative comprehensive services.
Time to review (From FIRST AMENDMENT PROJECT), “The Brown Act.”
THE BASICS
Meetings of public bodies must be “open and public,” actions may not be secret, and action taken in violation of open meetings laws may be voided. (§§ 54953(a), 54953(c), 54960.1(d))
WHO’S COVERED
This is my HOLIDAY (or the Sunday before it) and catching up with a Northern California District Attorneys’ latest Dubious Doings and proposed legislations wasn’t on it. Can I — like Kehoe recommended that Kids’ Turn (initially) — get some public funding to study the effectiveness (or rather, lack of it) of both kids’ Turn AND all spinoffs functioning in my area — AND of the local Family Justice Center closest to me? (I posted others, from an IRS lookup of charities with the name, yesterday, bottom of the post).
In other words, we can either work, and trust our local representatives and elected officials to do their jobs at least as well as we do our own — OR, we can scale back on work (and thus fewer taxes for them to waste) and take time to divert some of the slush funds to our scrutinizing the rest of the slush fund activity.
Having a family law attorney running FVLC is a conflict of interest, as shown (last I heard) on the total SILENCE on the characters, traits, and habits of the family law system and the nonprofits surrounding it, like
NAUCRATES DUCTOR (pilot fish):
(no, the term is not familiar to me, but isn’t the image appropriate? Because what they are escorting is indeed a shark. And the nonprofits surrounding the family law system, which may or may not be smaller than it (who knows? WHo is tracking) — are feeding off a fish which itself is paid for by the public to start with. At some level, this is starting to resemble family COURT systems, not just FAMILY courts. And I’m not the only person that seems to think this way — I have a photo on here of a bunch of judges (SF area) dressing up as royalty at an AAML meeting. They composed a cute song based on “Camelot” (itself a reference to the Kennedy White House as royalty) to go along with this and seemed to think it was funny. )
From the Legislative Initiatives section of the Annual Report.
Legislative Initiatives
Under the leadership of District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, members of our staff frequently consult on, testify about and assist in drafting new legislation at a state- wide and national level. Working with lawmakers, we propose and support legislation that fits with our mission to champion the rights of victims and to keep our community safe.
In 2010, we were instrumental in writing numerous pieces of legislation, including:
SB 557: to define family justice centers in California law, thereby acknowledging the trend towards multi-disciplinary, multi-agency service delivery models for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. This legislation is currently pending.
As with “fatherhood” programs — this “trend” is hardly a grassroots demand for justice centers. No, certain people have a vested interest in continuing to “initiate” them.
I have a motto to counteract this trend:
JUST SAY NO!
Meanwhile…
Anyone willing to do some legwork and track the nonprofit status and get some verified results from any of the existing family justice centers — please do so. Are they all set up like this one? Are they obtaining public & private monies and funneling them to a favored nonprofit and changing the character of a nonprofit which used to simply help its clients?
How many of the board members are actually public servants — and let’s get some payroll records.
A reminder — someone who walked through the doors — in fact even someone who got a restraining order (already proven to have a good risk of getting him/her (a) dead or (b) eventually completely eliminated from (her) kids’ lives — when the people who should be instead supporting court order enforcement are those collaborating instead to “educate” and “train” others inside new centers…
McDonalds is hugely successful — it serves a lot of people. That doesn’t mean everyone should buy all their food form fast-food franchises…..
This “trend” is going to increase the number of DISenfranchised citizens, whose real needs don’t fit neatly into such expensive and unproven collaborations.
Just Say No. Then get on-line, and get involved demanding a better explanation of why we should put up with this.
Take time from TV and do some FOIA requests under the Sunshine Ordinance. Each one teach one — we can do this!
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What’s Money got to do with it? This is about love, helping kids, protecting gender expression, right?
Yesterday, I almost got lost among AB 887 (redefining gender) and the backgrounds of its sponsor, after my recent post about the attempted (in 2002) AB 2263, suggesting that our top Judicial organization in the state (California Judicial Council) get paid — assuming it could also find other funding — to judge the mental health efficacy of Kids’ Turn, excuse me, (this is the sanitized version)”
projects or programs that provide services to assist children and their families while the parents are in the process of obtaining a divorce or legal separation... [[not mentioned -- this process can and does often take years -- like 10, 15, 18...]]
and which measures, among 5 standards, 3 which deal such hard data as “degree of conflict,” “mental health of children,” and “change in (parental) attitude”:
(1) Any decrease in conflict between the parents regarding custody issues, as reported by the parents.
(2) The mental health of the children, as measured by their attitudes before and after participating in the project or program.
(3) Any change in the attitude of the parents who participate in the project or program.
Conflict is obviously bad — this is why, the US never engages in wars abroad or at home, such as on terror, drugs, homelessness, poverty, or fatherlessness. Conflict is Bad. Having the Judicial System involved in receiving public monies to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral modification programs (run by family law professionals and supported by millionaires and billionaires — see my posts, it’s true!) — is, per our Legislators (in 2002) Good. All they wanted was $50,000 — plus matching funds. In the cleaned up version…
Original version was more direct – but someone thought better of that and reworded it from the original, as reported May, 2002:
•AB 2263, by Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, which would require the Judicial Council to study the effectiveness of expanding the Kids’ Turn program, which assists children while their parents are in family court obtaining a divorce or legal separation. The bill was approved by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on a 23-0 vote May 15, passed the Assembly on a 72-2 vote May 23 and was sent to the Senate.
FYI, for a perspective Assemblypersons in 2011 have salaries ranging from $95,291 (most) to $109K (one) and a few $102K. Judges outrank them by ca. 50% as to salaries. Kids’ Turn is a judges project (if not slush fund..) Judge are always being so helpful, because they love kids.
One legislator (Atkins) had previous been chief staff of the other former assemblyperson, now Senator legislator (Kehoe), it turns out and both were “out” lesbians (hardly unusual for California, but sometimes even I forget). Another Sunburst Youth Housing Project has Atkins & Partner/Wife’s name on it.
January 2005, after more than 3 1/2 years of hard work, The Center announced the creation of an innovative youth supportive housing project. This cutting-edge program is one of the first projects of its kind in the United States. The Youth Housing project provides 23 units of affordable, supportive housing for youth between 18-24 years of age, with a special focus on LGBTQ+ youth. These high-risk youth were living in the streets or in public spaces after having been ejected from their homes because of their sexual orientation.
This project has been made possible by the leadership and vision of Rev. Tony Freeman, Dr. Heather Berberet, San Diego City Councilmember Toni Atkins, Jennifer LeSar, The Center and its project collaborators — YMCA Youth and Family Services, San Diego Youth and Community Services, Metropolitan Community Church, Walden Family Services and the Chadwick Center at Children’s Hospital. We opened our doors to youth at the beginning of February 2006.
Oh yes, and the AB 887 sponsor’s wife was caught — well reported — exploiting the homelessness problem in San Diego to turn a nice penny as consultant for herself ($225/hour) by farming out the work to others, while her wife (Assemblyperson Atkins) was photographed with the volunteers counting the homeless.
2011, SanDiegoReader seems to be keeping tabs on these conflicts of interest:
Why Was Toni Atkins Consulting for Developers Vying for Redevelopment Dollars After She Was Elected to State Assembly?
By historymatters | Posted January 27, 2011, 3:51 p.m.
Why was State Assembly Majority WHIP Toni Atkins working for LeSar Development Consulting firm as the Senior Principal of Housing Policy and Planning even after she was elected to State Assembly? Toni was consulting with developers and helping them lobby to get these redevelopment tax dollars for their projects. So how in the world can she vote objectively as a State Assembly member let alone State Majority WHIP to freeze this redevelopment money and return it to schools and other state resources when she has a definite financial stake in seeing that the money remain in the pockets of developers like her wife and their clients.
…
How is it that Atkins and her wife Jennifer LeSar are continually allowed to financially benefit from the affordable housing gravy train. Affordable housing is a multi million dollar issue with a multi million dollar bounty at stake to the most cunning and shrewd land developers and Atkins is voting on this issue despite her personal financial stake. LeSar served as a CCDC Board Member for years while Atkins simultaneously served on City Council and voted to approve millions in redevelopment funds.
Meanwhile, Hunting for the Homeless (2011 Feb. Press article)
State Assemblymember, 76th District, Toni Atkins uses a flashlight to look for people sleeping in a canyon as she participates in the Point in Time Count in Hillcrest. This year’s numbers were up
I’m starting to like this blogger, “historymatters” — who seems to be on top of the issues — not that anyone seems to be stopping this flagrant wearing two hats at once while selling projects (contracts to cronies — or partners (nepotism?) — which are to help the public, allegedly). San Diego is not my area — except for the reputation they have in messing with parents around family law, and the infamous “Family Justice Center Model” (Casey Gwinn retirement program), same general idea. Our public servants are I guess to busy working on (and dreaming up, or expanding) projects to help the rest of us that it slipped their minds to report who was getting the contracts for those projects. During an era of increasing unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices, closing libraries, thousands of California prisoners being released due to overcrowding, and such — it’s very important to sell educational programs to parents undergoing divorce (and measure whether they worked) — and of course SOMEBODY has to go hunt up the homeless (while, during the daytimes, they are encouraged to keep moving….)
In “I’ve Got Issues” (I’m starting to like this blogger):
Jennifer LeSar was on the Board of Directors of the Centre City Development Corp. (CCDC) from 2002 to 2009. She started her development consulting business in 2005 consulting many of the same developers she was working with on CCDC. http://lesardevelopment.com/about-us/ CCDC recently asked the City Council to approve the contract extension with redevelopment money, yes that same redevelopment money that Atkins as State Assembly WHIP will vote on in Sacramento….sound like a conflict of interest?
2009 Article stating that Kehoe is going to back her former staffer, ex-City-Councilwoman Atkins for State Assembly( which we can see, she obviously got).
2010, January — The GayandLesbianTimes protests politicking by this duo (Kehoe & Atkins) (control of a nonprofit board? stacked — under threat to the organization if it didn’t comply?)
Former board resigns, San Diego Democratic Club appointed by Kehoe to take over PrideThe reconstituted Board of Directors of San Diego LGBT Pride met Wednesday, Jan. 27. The first order of business was to accept the resignations of board members Philip Princetta, Co-chair and Mike Karim, Treasurer. According to Pride, the new board members are fully committed to transparency and will honor the duties and responsibilities of the organization and continue the mission of San Diego Pride. However, the first meeting was closed into executive session soon after it began.At a special meeting held last Saturday, attended by City Councilmember Todd Gloria and former San Diego deputy mayor Toni Atkins, State Senator Christine Kehoe demanded that San Diego LGBT Pride board members Chair Philip Princetta, Treasurer Mike Karim, Secretary Carl Worrell either resign or she would place the organization into receivership – a court action that places property under the control of a receiver during litigation – according to an anonymous source at the meeting.Kehoe, Atkins and Gloria packed the San Diego Pride Board with a crossover of supporters, donors, and endorsers of their political campaigns – appointing the San Diego Democratic Club to take over Pride.Community members are questioning if they have legal authority to take such actions under the Brown Act….In a letter, obtained by the Gay & Lesbian Times, Worrell said, “I don’t know that I have ever before found myself in a situation where every alternative solution is wrong. But, in my opinion, that is the situation now. After the unconscionable bullying we took from Christine Kehoe, Todd Gloria and Toni Atkins; it is obvious that my involvement in shaping the future of Pride must end.In addition to demanding that the three current board members resign, Kehoe also stated that all Pride board meetings would be attended by a representative from both Kehoe’s and Gloria’s offices. She ordered a hiring freeze and said all Pride business must go through her office before any actions were taken, according to the anonymous source.
One reason I steer clear from nonprofits. Another reason is that I learned the hard way that they are answerable to their funders more than the clients they serve. I would NEVER deal with a nonprofit (If I were you) anymore without knowing who is on the board of directors, and who is footing the bills. Moreover, nonprofits can have their boards taken over and start firing staff, totally change the character of any organization which may have started out well.
So, I’m interested why these people would be so interested in controlling the nonprofit here San Diego LGBT Pride and looked it up. “Year Founded:1974 Ruling Year:1995” (meaning actually showed up as a nonprofit 21 years after it started… Wow, kinda like AFCC, which took forever to incorporate properly and start reporting income and paying taxes…). Income they deal with listed at $1.47 million… Purpose:
Foster pride in and respect for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Transgender communities locally and globally.
(See yesterday’s post on the gender expression bill. Guess some real progress has been made there.)
Guidestar’s IRS form 990 for the year 2009 shows only the 3 ousted officer, plus Exec. Director Ron deHarte earning $113K, and the main activity rallies, festivals, etc. (and operating in the whole). The income is mostly “program service revenue.”
Whether or not this type of behavior and leadership qualities is played out in the LGBT community or not, it seems common in these combos, I have noticed:
- Legislator Connection
- City level control (Councilmen, Councilwomen), and County Level Supervisors
- Redevelopment Connections (real estate developers, or those financing it)
- Favored nonprofits controlled by one of the above to provide services
- Cronies getting the contracts, or cronies/spouses getting to be Exec. Director of the favored Nonprofit/agency (Example: “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys — Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s (3rd) wife gets coveted $90K job over a $3million-grant-initiated “Alameda County Family Justice Center” (I think was the title) whose actual benefits to the public are questioned (if ever proved). The process by which this Executive Director was appointed took the cooperation of County Supervisors, helped by the early resignation of a (as I recall) District Attorney (rather than waiting out is term to let the appointment happen normally: i.e., From Orloff to Nancy O’Malley.
Case closed: One big reason the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted to name retiring District Attorney Tom Orloff‘s handpicked successor, Nancy O’Malley, to the plum job was her role in helping launch the Alameda County Family Justice Center – a federally funded program that helps victims of domestic violence.
Not only are Supervisors Gail Steele and Alice Lai-Bitker big supporters of the program, but its executive director is Nadia Maria Davis-Lockyer – the wife of longtime East Bay pol Bill Lockyer. Nadia is also running for supervisor.
Attorney General’s Wife. with no previous experience, Gets Top Job in Alameda County Domestic Violence Center
Steve White 14 Dec 2006 15:36 GMT
This is really changing the way the system is responding to victims.”
-Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County Chief Assistant District Attorney“We use business principles to address social problems and build lasting solutions.”
-Nadia Davis-Lockyer, Esq., Executive Director
Well, well — the Sneak Peak of ACFCJ finds out that Ms. Nadia is going to take retiring County Supervisor Gayle Steele’s place — very appropriate, because Supervisor Steele probably could have — but like Lai-Bitker, chose not to — protest the improper propelling of this woman to the head of the ACFCJ to start with (see the articles i’ve linked to). TWO county supervisors protested swishing the appointment past the public improperly. THREE County supervisors (including those two) did not. So here we are —
Congratulations and Thank You, Nadia Lockyer
On November 2, 2010, Nadia Lockyer was elected to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to fill the seat vacated by retired County Supervisor, Gayle Steele. Nadia’s last day as the Executive Director of the ACFJC was December 31, 2010. We wish to thank Nadia for all she did for the ACFJC and we wish her well in her new position. We know she will continue advocating to ensure the safety and health of all children and families in Alameda County.
Senior Deputy District Attorney, Kim Hunter, will be the Acting Director of the ACFJC. She and Cherri Allison of FVLC will work together to provide leadership until a new director is installed.
And of course a blurb in this ACFCJ newsletter celebrates the inauguration of Nancy O’Malley, who helped get this ACFCJ started:
District Attorney, Nancy O’Malley, Sworn in at ACFJC
The Inauguration Ceremony of Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County District Attor- ney, took place at the ACFJC on January 3, 2011. Approximately 250 people gathered on the 2nd floor to hear an introduction by Chief Assistant District Attorney, Kevin Dunleavy, and the Oath of Office administered by Cali- fornia Supreme Court Associate Justice Carol Corrigan. Nancy ended the ceremony with a touching speech that thanked her mentors and family. A reception immediately followed at Z Café.
Congratulations Nancy!
Convenient for the providers, not necessarily the best for the clients.
Also Known As:
- Physical Address:
- 470 27TH St
Oakland , CA 94612
2008 IRS Form 990 (contains warning notice on potential errors in this version)EIN# 942300454This group’s budget is small fry among big fry (Grants $650,000) and its Executive Director, Marcia Blackstock has something worth hearing about this group and practices in general:
If you’ve got ears, listen up to this one:
Biography
Blackstock is the Executive Director of Bay Area Women Against Rape, which was founded in 1971 and is recognized as one of the first three victim assistance programs in the nation.
Initial Involvement in the Crime Victims’ Movement
Marcia Blackstock became involved in Bay Area Women Against Rape (BAWAR) as a volunteer in 1978. BAWAR had been formed in 1971 by an outraged foster mother whose high school-age daughter had been treated badly both by the police and the emergency room staff after she was raped.
Context of the Era
BAWAR had a “huge adversarial relationship” with law enforcement, hospital personnel, mental health professionals, and the judiciary in the early days. Blackstock remembers that BAWAR’s views were not trusted, nor did BAWAR trust anyone in the system to appropriately assist sexual assault victims. “It was a lot of upheaval, a lot of anxiety, and frustration,” Blackstock recalls. On the other hand, there was substantial community support from the local universities and other collective groups such as the Berkeley Free Clinic and the Women’s Health Collective that were also working and organizing to see that people were treated with dignity and respect and that their needs were met.
Greatest Challenge
Looking back, Blackstock believes that the greatest challenge was establishing credibility among professionals in the various fields that dealt with rape victims. The therapists, law enforcement officers, judiciary, and hospital personnel considered themselves the “experts” and maintained an adversarial relationship with BAWAR mainly because of its grassroots origins. The BAWAR advocates were not considered to be “professionals.”
“We were coming from a peer-support, community-based, grassroots organization that brought in a huge variety of people from a variety of backgrounds and education and ideas, but all coming together and focusing on a common goal. But we were considered ‘peer’ and not ‘professional’, at best paraprofessional and rarely that.”
One of the problems that BAWAR faced was that licensed counselors who felt that they were more knowledgeable had no experience at all working with sexual assault victims.
A high school student who refused to cheer on her “rapist” has been ordered to pay $45,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit. Where’s the justice in this?
By Cord JeffersonPosted: 05/05/2011 02:54 PM EDT
“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she told reporters in 2009. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
To that end, HS refused to cheer for Bolton when he stepped up to take some free throws during a game in January 2009, four months after he had pleaded guilty to the attack. When she folded her arms and stood silently, however, her school’s superintendent, Richard Bain, ordered her outside and told her she had to cheer for Bolton. When she refused again, HS was kicked off the cheerleading squad.
(How much money, fame, press does a good basketball team attract to a school?)
HS later sued the school for kicking her off the team, but the results of that lawsuit have time and again gone terrifyingly against her.
(What’s Gender got to do with THAT situation? Or, money? –or Justice? The rapist paid $2,500, and she has to pay the school district $45,000 for protesting — not with violence, but with silence?)
ALAMEDA COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INC [EIN# 26-1141080]
Also Known As:
- Physical Address:
- 470 270TH StOakland , CA 94612
- At A Glance
- Category (NTEE):
- Human Services / (Victims’ Services)
- Year Founded:
- 2010 Ruling Year: 2010
I’m looking at a 990 signed this past February by Harold Boscovich. (You can too — it’s free). There are no officers, no income, and no officer, it says, was paid. Now THAT’s an unusual tax return! “The purpose of this corporation (not nonprofit?) it “to provide comprehensive collaborative professional services to victims of domestic violence and their children, to victims of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation; to victims of elder abuse, and to victims of child abuse, at no cost.
QUALIFYING FOR PUBLIC CHARITY STATUS: The Section 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) and 509(a)(1) Test and the Section 509(a)(2) Test
Tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code permits a charitable organization to pay no tax on any operating surplus it may have at the end of a year, and it permits donors to claim a charitable deduction for their contributions.
There is a further division in the world of Section 501(c)(3) organizations, classifying them into private foundations and public charities.
The private foundation laws impose a 2 percent tax on investment income, limit self-dealing and business holdings, require annual distributions, prohibit lobbying entirely, and restrict the organization’s operations in other ways. Also, large donors to a private foundation have a lower ceiling on the amount of deductible gifts they can claim each year. In most circumstances, public charity status is preferable to private foundation status.
And it appears that this Alameda County Family Justice Center (“ACFJC” as I might refer to it again), started by District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, hand-picked by the retiring one TOm Orloff as a shoo-in (or to be the incumbent shortly before he retired) whose connections I’m sure helped get the $3 million grant to start this particular ACFCJ — and who then helped get another connected individual, Nadia Davis-Lockyer, Esq. become Executive Director and at once get a 50% increase in salary, to just below what a California Legislator (Assembly) typically gets ($90,000 / $95,921)….
Well, back to our IRS stipulations / qualifications link:
To determine the charity’s support base, (we might as well look at this….)
Gifts, grants,(Footnote 3) contributions, and membership fees received.
• Gross investment income (e.g., interest, dividends, rents, royalties, but not gains from sale of capital assets).
• Taxable income from unrelated business activities,4 less the amount of any tax imposed on such income.
• Benefits from tax revenues received by the charity, and any services or facilities furnished by the government to the charity without charge, other than those generally provided to the public without charge.
{{Hmmm….Does this rule have anything to do with why a new location was needed for the Center?}}
Footnote 3 In some limited circumstances, an unexpectedly large grant may be excluded from both public support tests as an “unusual grant” described in Regulation § 1.170A-9(e)(6). These technical rules are beyond the scope of this memorandum.
Not becoming a Private Foundation — Well, if there’s a whole lot of wealth involved, this could be annoying. Also, if you want very large private donors to support you, they deductible for those donors is also lower, which may make them wish to contribute instead to 501( c)3s as “Public charities” — like the Kids’ Turns of the family law world?
A Section 501(c)(3) organization can avoid private foundation status, and thus be classified as a public charity, in any of three ways: (1) by being a certain kind of institution, such as a church, school, or hospital; (2) by meeting one of two mathematical public support tests; or (3) by qualifying as a supporting organization to another public charity. In this memo, we discuss the two mathematical public support tests.
The Public/Governmental Support Test of Sections 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) and 509(a)(1)
This public support test was designed for charities which derive a significant proportion of their revenues from donations from the public, including foundation grants, and from governmental grants. The test has two variations. If an organization can satisfy either of the two variations of this support test, it will qualify as a public charity under Sections 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) and 509(a)(1).
The first variation is known as the one-third test. A charity can satisfy this test if public support is one-third or more of the total support figure. Nothing more is needed if this mathematical fraction is attained.
The second variation, known as the 10 percent facts and circumstances test, has two requirements. First, the charity’s public support must be at least 10 percent of its total support. Second, the charity must demonstrate, with reference to facts and circumstances specified by the IRS, that it is operated more like a public charity than like a private foundation.
Income: $3,250,900
Also known as: FVLC
Oakland, CA 94623Category: I71 (Spouse Abuse, Prevention of); P43 (Family Violence Shelters and Services); P62 (Victims’ Services)Physical Address:PO Box 22009 Oakland , CA 94623Web Address:www.fvlc.org Telephone:(510) 2080220 Facsimile:(510) 2083557 Contact:Ms. Cherri N. Allison, , Esq.cherri@fvlc.orgExecutive Director(510) 2080220 x32
Mission Statement
Family Violence Law Center (FVLC) has been working to end domestic violence in Alameda County since 1978, when a small group of abuse survivors founded the agency. To advance our mission of ending domestic violence, FVLC employs a holistic approach that integrates a comprehensive service model with dedicated efforts to address and change institutional barriers for domestic violence survivors within the legal, health, education, and criminal justice systems.
Yeah, “holistic” and “comprehensive service” are definitely the keywords these days. Please notice carefully (underlined) which systems it tries to address and change “institutional barriers for domestic violence survivors” within — it specifically does NOT mention within the Judicial system, and it most definitely does not mention anything — at all – about the “FAMILY LAW SYSTEM” although it’s title says ‘Family Law Violence Center.”
Go figure, huh? And how telling. The most critical information people coming through “stage one” of leaving domestic violence, assuming kids are involved, is what is coming up next — which IS the “family law system.”.
After looking at the 990 (as usual, I often go straight to the officers’ page), and notice the Executive Director is being paid a modest (for this size of operation) salary of $90K year, and her name is:
ABOUT THE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Cherri N. Allison, Esq. is the Executive Director at FVLC. A lifetime resident of Oakland, Ms. Allison has more than 7 years of legal non-profit management experience. Ms. Allison also has over 12 years of experience as a family law attorney.
Prior to coming to FVLC, Ms. Allison was the Director of Programs at the Alameda County Bar Association. In addition to Ms. Allison’s expertise in non-profit management, she has experience in board development, program development, grant writing and investments. She currently serves as the President of the Board for the Women Lawyers of Alameda County, is a former member of the FVLC Board, and is a member of the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence and the Charles Houston Bar Association.
In 2008, she is (not inappropriately, I’m sure) awarded by the Bar Association for the work with this Community Organization, along with other judges, attorneys, etc., as it says (tickets, $125),
2008 Installation and Distinguished Service Awards Dinner
Join us on Thursday, January 17, 2008, as we swear in our Officers and Directors and honor the recipients of our Distinguished Service Awards while we enjoy a delectable dinner buffet and cool jazz. The festivities will take place at the Claremont Hills Resort & Spa, majestically resting on 22 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens in Berkeley.*
(*starting to sound like some of the wonderful AFCC, or for that matter, Kids’ Turn promoting retreats and seminars.)
(the “California Alliance Against Domestic Violence” is a grants recipient, from my understanding, through HHS and is where CPEDV went….). WELL, I guess that FAMILY LAW EXPERIENCE may tell us why this group doesn’t seem to educate its clients about the family law process, and what’s happened to it since, say, 2001 (Bush, faith-based), or even 1998, 1999 (US Congress passes resolutions on fatherhood). However, it’s clear Ms. Allison must be informed about the intersection of DV & Family Law; she has written about it:
Domestic violence remedies in California family law cases, 2008. Cherri N. Allison, et al. (CEB, 2008) KFC 115 D664 not accessible to general public, unless you are in L.A.?
Get this (2009)
Women Lawyers of Alameda County (WLAC) honors Exec Director of ACFCJ, District Attorney (who helped fund and start ACFCJ) who also honor a retired woman judge (Hon. Peggy Hora., Ret’d.) who pushed “therapeutic jurisprudence” – a VERY problemmatic practice in the judicial field, and also endorsed by AFCC.
How sweet — aren’t these professionals all close friends with each other then? (Except the women driven homeless through family law system and twice-thrice-and ongoing-abused (Legal abuse syndrome) through its practices, or while (out of state — MD — another state pushing Therapeutic Jurisprudence through Univ. of Baltimore School of Law “CFCC”) a pediatrician mother (is that professional enough?) lost 3 children, drowned in a bathtub on a scheduled visitation, although she warned, pleaded, and asked for visitation to be curtailed based on the prior mental health history and state of the father. (“Cabrillo”).
WLAC “Honor Roll”
This Issue’s Honor Roll:
Cherri N. Allison, Executive Director of the Family Violence Law Center of Alameda County, was recently named “Woman of the Year” for the Justice Category of the Alameda County Commission on Status of Women and will be inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame on April 25, 2009.
I think that instead of professionals honoring and decorating themselves in nice ceremonies (Sun Myung Moon and the U.S. Senate mock coronation ceremony comes to mind) instead some of the women who DIED because of stupid family law rulings, sometimes along with their children or in front of them, in scheduled exchanges with the father for co-parenting purposes — THEIR names should be honored.
I do not live in this county and so am not familiar with which is most dramatic, but how about honoring the mothers who, having left an abusive relationship (or possibly separated because of the abuse) thereafter, by complying with family court orders to fork over their children to an ex-batterer or abuser, ended up dead.
If this is too many low-income people to consider at once, then why not go for someone closer to the legal profession’s social class — Hans Reiser. Why not honor his wife, Nina. I’m not sure which county this case was in, but sounds like her body was unearthed Alameda County.
And whoever is recommending Batterers Intervention Programs gets my “dunce award of the year; here’s why from “Sagaria Law” — they don’t complete the programs anyhow! Or, (in one high-profile case) they complete the programs and then walk back and kill the woman anyhow (Scott McAlpin).
The programs draw funding — is there something too hard to spell about that?
I started this blog to warn others! after years of the rollercoaster (downhill slide, overall) of the family law system that no one who was involved warned me about when I separated from the abuser. In retrospect, it might have been better to ask for self-defense lessons, mace training, and just utilize it, so I could communicate directly to this person that was is and is not acceptable is, in marriage, a two-way street, and wives are people, too.
FVLC’s services include both protection initiatives for people currently experiencing abuse and prevention initiatives to eliminate future abuse. Today, FVLC is recognized as a leader in the community in both delivering exceptional services to abuse survivors and in advocating for long-term social change for victims.
During FY 07-08, FVLC achieved the following accomplishments [(accomplished the following)]:
- Provided legal services (representation, paperwork preparation, and advice and counsel) to 525 clients, for a total of 2,250 contact hours and 692 court orders.
- Provided crisis counseling and safety planning to 2,823 clients, for a total of 3,250 contact hours.
- FVLC’s HEAL (Healing Emotions and Loss After Domestic Violence) Program provided intensive parent/child psychotherapy to 31 children and their primary caregiver, for a total of 900 contact hours.
- FVLC’s RAP (Relationship Abuse Prevention) Program provided intensive leadership training to 56 youth and violence prevention education and outreach to 1,008 youth.
FVLC has set the following goals for the current year (FY 08-09):
- Continue to strengthen collaborative relationships with other agencies co-located at the Alameda County Family Justice Center with FVLC. This includes the Oakland Police Department, Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, and numerous other community-based agencies.
- Engage in policy work around domestic violence by playing a leadership role on several state and countywide task forces, including the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence, California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Alameda County Family Violence Council, Domestic Violence Advisory Council for the Social Services Administration of Alameda County, and Alameda County Teen Dating Violence Task Force (formed and led by FVLC).
(As you can see, it’s now fashionable to say the words “domestic violence” and form task forces to do something about it, allegedly. Look at the variety of groups that do: The ABA, CPEDV, and something from Alameda County itself I can’t even find (yet), as well as a SSA “Domestic Violence Advisory Council.” How many of these talk to victims they helped 5 years down the road or so?
- With our collaborative partners Youth ALIVE! and Youth Radio, expand leadership training and policy work around teen dating violence at Oakland middle schools through various classroom, after-school, and summer activities, effectively reaching approximately 1,600 adolescents. This is made possible through a generous four-year, $1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
(Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is very big into funding fatherhood materials. )
This is simply taxation without representation, and totally unacceptable in my book.
And I’m not a Tea Partier.
It sheds a whole different light on the “social contract” that most of (what remains of) the middle class has bought into. If they stick to their jobs, neighborhoods, kids, and planning for leisure & retirement (and don’t ask too many questions about the top layer) — then the top layer will structure society so as to kind of leave them alone, and of course (this goes without saying) make sure the rabble doesn’t get out of control.
FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS, per IRS search (on the name):
Name City State Country
Code ALAMEDA COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INC. Oakland CA USA — ANAHEIM FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INC. Anaheim CA USA — FRIENDS OF THE RIVERSIDE COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER Riverside CA USA — NATIONAL FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER ALLIANCE San Diego CA USA — SOUTH BAY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER Torrance CA USA — STANISLAUS FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER FOUNDATION Modesto CA USA — FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY INC. Tampa FL USA — FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER FOUNDATION OF IDAHO Nampa ID USA — FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY INC. South Bend IN USA — THE FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF BOSTON INC. Boston MA USA — ESSEX COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INC. Roseland NJ USA — CENTER FOR FAMILY JUSTICE Albuquerque NM USA — TRI-COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF NORTHEAST NEW MEXICO INC. Las Vegas NM USA — FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF ERIE COUNTY INC. Buffalo NY USA — YOUTH AND FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER INC. New York NY USA 4 FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OF GEORGETOWN COUNTY Georgetown SC USA — KNOXVILLE FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER Knoxville TN USA — BEXAR COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER FOUNDATION San Antonio TX USA — FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER San Marcos TX USA — RESTORATIVE JUSTICE MINISTRY FAMILY SERVICES CENTER Woodville TX USA —
to Be Continued…
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District Attorney Dubious Doings — SF Bay Area
OK, I have done it again folks. I think sometimes all day about what I am going to post, or for some days. Then I toss it onto a post in the form of links I have previously read, or a close approximation.
We have a race for District Attorney in my area, and the Mighty Dan O’Malley’s posters are visible from the commuter bus lanes and even the highways. Dan O’Malley running for D.A. in Contra Costa County, and through the Tunnel to Oakland’s East Bay (Alameda County) Nancy O’Malley it seems was a key figure in obtaining a major grant to start something called the Alameda County Family Justice Center. (ACFCJ).
Now you begin to see the relevance of the topic. Justice Centers are supposedly where one goes to get help getting some justice, or at least information on how to. HAH! Maybe out the door to start with …. D.A.’s of course help prosecute crime, that’s what they do, and we hope that ALL of this is done with due process.
It gets a little upsetting then, to realize that not only is what’s being marketed not making it down to “street level,” when it comes to certain volatile / violent / and criminal / issues that land in family court, but that the head of this major center (a JUSTICE center) might even have been appointed without due process to start with.
This is a $90,000/year post (it says) presiding over and receiving, presumably, federal grants to help us poor men & wimmen who just can’t get along with each other or figure out how to navigate the justice system on our own. Or get attorneys who can stick with us through several years of the process, rather than start, then dump when funds run out, which they will….
And, depending on whether the posts I’m going to paste are accurate, it seems Nancy O’Malley also figured in getting a certain wife of a certain Attorney General appointed to be the Executive Director of this.
THIS POST IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE HARSH, EVEN THOUGH THE RESEARCH IS NOT MY OWN. UNDERSTAND, THESE MAY BE REAL “NICE” PEOPLE, AND MAY GET A LOT DONE. BUT I’M THINKING IN TERMS OF MY YEARS IN THE AREA (MANY) OF PEOPLE I KNOW GOING THROUGH THIS SYSTEMS, AND STANDING IN FRONT OF, OR HAVING APPEALED FOR (ENFORCEMENT) HELP FROM SOME OF THE SAME D.A.’s, judges, prosecutors, and justice centers. Most of the individuals I haven’t actually met. HOWEVER, my point is, when people go and ask some branch of the system to fix itself (pay your taxes, leave it to the experts, and appeal to one of the experts if another area is “off.”) – that’s not simply how things work.
So, unrealistic promises and procedures should NOT be marketed to women, or men, attempting to leave seriously dangerous situations, or with lives, livelihoods, or children at stake. Or friends and relatives.
OK, here goes:
Politics in this famous SF Bay Area, at least Alameda County are, in one blog I read — while probably not equal to Chicago’s or New York’s, known for:
Nepotism, Cronyism, Racism and Corruption
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is also famous for nepotism, cronyism, racism and corruption. D.A. Orloff, did not start this tradition, but he certainly has continued it.
{{Quote is from a blog post dated July 2009,
The Alameda County District Attorney’s office is also famous for nepotism, cronyism, racism and corruption. D.A. Orloff, did not start this tradition, but he certainly has continued it.
It’s the first two that concern me today, although the outside ones aren’t much better. I note this blog author didn’t say “sexism.” Hmm…
Here’s a trivia sampler of Keeping it “All in the Family” in these interlocked systems — generally speaking:
Some people related to VIPs/Judges hired or promoted by Orloff:
1. Nadia Lockyer, wife of Bill Lockyer [former Calif. Atty. Gen] (hired);
{{She runs the “Family Justice Center” in Alameda County. Questionable appointment process}}2. Lisa Lockyer, daughter of Bill Lockyer [Current Calif. State Treasurer] (hired);
3. Chistopher Bates, son of Tom Bates (hired);
4. Jeff Stark, son of Pete Stark (promoted);
5. Erin Kingsbury daughter of Alameda County Judge Kenneth Kingsbury (Ret.);
6. Paul Hora son of Alameda County Judge Peggy Hora;
7. Paul Delucchi son of Alameda County Judge Alfred Deluchhi (Dec.);
8. Maya Ynostroza, daughter of Alameda County Judge Yolanda Ynostroza;
9. Catherine Horner Dobal, Mother of Alameda County Judge Jeffrey Horner;
10. Jason Chin, son California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin; and
11. Judge Stuart Hing, Son of Alameda County Administrator Mel Hing (Stuart Hing and Kenneth Kingsbury were employed together as D.A.’s by Orloff.There are other judge’s relatives who are working of did work in the DA’s office, but we are not sure if Orloff hired or promoted them, as we say, nepotism, cronyism, racism and corruption is a tradition Orloff has followed:
12. Mattew Golde, Appointed head of D.A. Juvenile Division in 2007, son of Judge Stanley Golde (Dec.);
13. Ivan Golde, son of Judge Stanley Golde (Dec.); and
14. Amilcar Ford, grandson of Judge Judith Ford.There are many more judge’s kids who got hired, but I believe they pre-date Orloff.
Note: It seems, the relationships are already prepared, groomed, in place.
By hiring Chris Bates and Lisa Lockyer, Orloff had the kids of both the local assemblyman, Tom Bates, and the local Senator, Bill Lockyer (later became the Attorney General of the State of California), working for him. He already had the local Congressman’s kid, Jeff Stark, working for him, and he prmoted Stark.
Names to keep straight here:
- ORLOFF (D.A.) (and Nancy O’Malley, coming up, Assistant’ D.A.)
- LOCKYER
- BATES
- STARK
An Orloff is going to help a Nancy O’Malley stay in place for his position. In turn (or, also), this same O’Malley is going to help Lockyer’s wife get a prime position that attracts a lot of federal grants (Article 1, below). A Deborah Stark commenting on Mrs. Lockyer going for Supervisor (January 2010):
http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2010/01/27/deborah-stark-endorses-nadia-lockyer/
Deborah Stark endorses Nadia Lockyer
By Josh Richman
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:27 pm in Alameda County Board of Supervisors
Alameda County Board of Supervisors District 2 candidate Nadia Lockyer today announced she has the endorsement of Deborah Roderick Stark, whom she described as “a nationally recognized expert in child and family policy” and a First Five Alameda County Commission member.
The news release delves deeper into both women’s professional bona fides, but doesn’t mention that Lockyer, 38, is the wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, 68, or that Stark, 43, is the wife of Rep. Pete Stark, 78.
The question is: should it?
On one hand, Lockyer might be trying to campaign only on her own qualifications, which seems admirable; on the other hand, her husband’s long political career indisputably enhances her name recognition and political connections. Ditto Stark, to some extent; though she’s certainly a respected child and family policy expert, I find it hard to believe she’s not better known around here as Pete Stark’s wife.
Or is that just because hacks like me keep pointing it out? Does a candidate omit the information with the knowledge (and/or tacit consent) that journalists most likely will report it anyway? And, should we?
…
OK, back to quoting the first blog above, which charged nepotism, cronyism, etc.
None of this would matter, except that the same kind of favoritism is shown by the fact that Orloff never prosecutes a politician or connected person for corruption unless that person has already been caught by the media, and sometimes not even then.
LET’s GET HONEST’s 2 cents worth:
I’ve lived in these two counties for some time, and I wouldn’t give 25 cents for half of what these people say, especially the D.A.’s. Why? I miss my daughters. ONE sheriff saying no ONCE to either domestic violence (in my home while there) or no, do NOT take those girls because the court order says you can’t — oh my, what a difference this would have made.
Especially on inflated numbers of DV victims “served.” I’m still looking for a woman — any woman — who after custody switch on hearsay, or overnight, or by any action involving a felony or violation of due process, actually got them back. Or who, after a restraining order was obtained, then countered by sending the thing to divorce court, actually kept it on and kept custody of and access to minor children in her home.
For more, continue to google these names & “Steve White”. He reports a lot of “stuff” I happen to think smells right, and his manner of reporting includes some research on topics not usually mentioned. I’ve not met him, but now that elections are up, and several officials proclaiming they are against violence towards women and of course adamantly against child abuse, then we should ask, have the figures dropped recently in these areas? And what’s up with the funding.
An on-line look only, then cannot tell the whole story. Another source to be considered is actually walking into the courtrooms, the child support offices, and getting the temperature of an area by living in it, and seeing how incidents are reported in the news, AND by talking with people. Don’t forget to also talk with poor & homeless people (male & female) who are NOT pressing for justice at this point in time; they might just have given it up as a waste of their time.
Because this will make for a VERY long post, I’m going to start with one article dating back to 2006, and then a separate post, perhaps the google references and another article or so. I do not pretend to have researched this thoroughly, just wish to call attention to what’s between the lines and the relationships between KEY PLAYERS in the justice system.
ARTICLE 1: Dec., 2006
(this is a little laborious, but shows how the author thought & acted to get his questions answered).
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/876740.shtml
Attorney General’s Wife. with no previous experience, Gets Top Job in Alameda County Domestic Violence Center
Steve White 14 Dec 2006 15:36 GMT
This is a very short article and commentary on Nadia Lockyer, wife of Attorney General Bill Lockyer, being given a $90,000 per year job as Executive Director of the Alameda County Family Justice Center, a job for which she seems to have no special qualifications. The article also questions the propriety of her employment, considering her husband’s position.
Here is a link to the brochure she put out on her past work and life experience:http://www.alamedacountyda.com/nadialockyer.pdf
if that does not work, please type in:
http://www.alamedacountyda.com/nadialockyer.pdf
This brochure actually gave me a very good laugh. Ms. Lockyer spends three pages telling us about herself, (which all boils down to she had a lawyer father who was involved in Hispanic politics, and she is following his path) and talks about little volunteer work things she’s done, but does not tell us her most important qualification for the job, that she’s married to the Attorney General. All she says at the end is, “Ms. Lockyer is married and lives in Oakland”.
The name Lockyer is relatively rare. Ms. Lockyer uses it, rather than her maiden name, it would seem she wants to have it both ways. She wants political people to know who her husband is, but she doesn’t want the public to realize how she got her job. (a job which is a great political platform, this issue of domestic violence is now thoroughly mainstream)
There is not much question that many long time activists in this field wanted the top job. The Center is only ten minutes drive from the Rockridge area which has been a locus for this movement.
I will attempt to find out what intrigues occurred before she got the job, where her salary is coming from and if any ethical rules have been violated, as far as nepotism and special influence by the Attorney General are concerned.
e-mail:: boatbrain@aol.com
Variations of Ms. Lockyer’s name, in case anyone wants to Google her
Steve White 17.Dec.2006 04:27
Nadia Davis-Lockyer
Nadia Maria Davis-Lockyer
Nadia Davis Lockyer
Nadia Maria Davis Lockyer
Wife of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
Wife of Bill Lockyer
Wife of Attorney General Bill Lockyer
Wife of State Treasurer Bill Lockyer
Arranged by the District Attorney’s Office
Steve White 28.Dec.2006 18:37
After speaking to several people involved in the selection process, I’ve been told the main player was the Alameda County Chief Assistant DA, Nancy O’Malley.
This was not a big surprise. Alameda DA Tom Orloff is an old ally of Bill Lockyer. In fact, Orloff hired Lisa Lockyer, his daughter, in her first job out of law school. After many years as a DDA, Lisa Lockyer got a job with NASA.To understand how it worked, it’s important to look at who was involved in the process. According to the brochure, there were two selection committees. One for initial screening, the other for final interview.
The first committee was made up of the person who wrote the brochure, (unnamed) and three other people. One of the others was Harold Boscovich, he is a DA staffer.
The second stage was a committee made up again of four people. Of those four, two were local DA staff, prosecutors Karen Meredith and Lisa Foster.
With half the votes in the process, the DA could block any applicant in a tie for the ultimate selection. If the writer of the brochure was Nancy O’Malley, as I suspect, that stage was controlled by DA staff as well.
If Lockyer did commit a crime, under Calfornia Govt. Code Section 81700, he seems to have been helped by three or four people in law enforcement.
Selection process was all for show, Nadia Lockyer is DA staff
Steve White 01.Jan.2007 15:47
I have just received a letter from the Alameda County District Attorney’s office which indicates Nadia Lockyer is an employee of that office.
The letter goes on to respond to my Public Records Act request for all info relaated to her hiring. The DA’s office claims all the info is exempt from disclosure, except for a brochure announcing the job. So they sent me a copy of that announcement.
The denial of information was expected. What was surprising to me is that Lockyer is an employee of the DA’s office. I thought the Family Justice Center was an independent entity which worked with the DA, not a subordinate office.
Under the Alameda County Charter, the District Attorney can hire, fire, and promote anyone he wishes, without any need for approval from other branches of county government. (Alameda County Charter Section 35)
The entire selection process seems to have been unnecessary as far as Alameda County law is concerned. There was no need for two selection committees, or even one selection committe.Therefore, one has to suspect that process, which was pretty much a farce anyway, was either for show, or was intended to create the appearance of complying with Federal rules on spending the Federal grant money given to the project.
The plot thickens. I wrote to Bill Lockyer and told him if there is any basis for it in California law, (and now maybe Federal law) I will be suing him for violating California Govt. Code Section 87100.
Violations of Federal Laws
Steve White 11.Jan.2007 17:10
It seems there was a violation of Federal Laws in the actions taken to get Nadia Lockyer the top job.
The OVW, Office on Violence Against Women, sent me the following letter:
————————————————————————-
Dear Mr. White:Thank you for expressing your concerns regarding the Alameda County Family Justice Center. All OVW grantees, including Family Justice Centers, are required to follow the Office of Justice Programs Financial Guide, which is available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/finguide06/index.htm. In addition, grantees must follow certain circulars from the Office of Management and Budget, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/OMB/grants/grants_circulars.html.
Thanks again,
Marnie Shiels
Office on Violence Against Women————————————————————————–
I clicked the first link, which as the first page of a book on guidelines and rules for Federal graants, then went to the chapter entitled “Conflicts of Interest”
Reading that, it seems pretty clear Lockyer violated the Federal law, and presumably this is why they went through the big show of pretending to use an objective process to pick his wife for the job.
These folks knew they were doing something shady from the start.
Further evidence is that everyone involved is trying to duck my Public Records Act requests for more information. More on that in my next post
Phony Statistics put out by ACFJC
Steve White 25.Sep.2007 13:37
The first week of September, 2007, the ACFJC announced a large grant from the US Department of Justice, and in the grant announcement, which naturally everyone was very happy about, they added some statistics on how much good the ACFJC had done so far.
The stats were impressive. They claimed “Since it’s launch” the ACFJC had reduced Domestic Violence (DV) deaths from 26 to 6 in 2005, and, they had provided services to “20,000 victims and their families”.
Both claims were untrue. I checked with the Alameda County Public Health Department, and it turned out there has been a very long term decline in DV deaths, from 26 in 1996, eleven years back, to 6 in 2005. The Center opened in the last half of 2005, in August.
So, that first claim gave the Center credit for something that happened long before it existed. And, by the way the DV death decline is a nationwide phenomena, with the national numbers approaching the same as the county.
As for the “20,000” victims claim, I pointed out to the aide to Supervisor Lai Bitker that I doubted that number was true as well. I had no way to check on it, there was no other agency with hard numbers such as Public Health has for death rates, (actually, the death rates may not be solid numbers either) but I doubted there were that many victims helped. The reason is simple. If you go to ACFJC and just stand outside, watching the people come in, not many do. Not nearly enough for them to have helped 20,000 victims in just two years.
Since the web page has been changed to say, “provided 20,000 services” I think my guess was right there. I think it’s very likely, to get that “20,000 services” number, ACFJC included every time they answered the phone or gave out a brochure. Seriously, stake the place out, you may wait a couple hours before anyone who is not staff comes in.
I don’t doubt they are helping some people, but the claims made should bear some resemblance to reality. There was a big push for the need to centralize DV services in the County, but to me it looks like it could not have made much difference in how many people they actually reach. What is lacking is any kind of cost/benefit analysis. By inflating the numbers, the ACFJC was trying to deceive the public into thinking the benefit was much greater than claimed.
The Alameda County Family Justice Center is one of many local agencies funded by the Federal Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, (OVW).
The center is relatively new, and there was a recent search for the Executive Director. Eventually, Nadia Davis Lockyer was given the top job, which pays about $90,000 per year. (initial pay was $65,000 but extra money was found to make it $90,000. I am researching where the extra money came from)
{{Endquote}}
ARTICLE 2: Sept. 2009
Op-ed: Orloff and Other Oakland Stories
Clinton Killian
Last Updated on September, 22 2009 at 02:19 PM
(original link has a nice photo)(style changes — bold, color, etc. –are mine)
Earlier this month, Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff announced his resignation after 15 years in office. He was slated to run for re-election June 2010. In his resignation letter to the Board of Supervisors, he requested that his second-in-command Nancy O’Malley be appointed to succeed him.
This caused quite a stir since the District Attorney is an elected office. When the vacancy occurs before an election, the law gives the Board of Supervisors the power to appoint a successor to fill out the unexpired term. This means that there would be no open election and the appointee would not have to face policy questions.
{{Naturally, the domestic violence community women, the family law courts, flourishing as ever, weren’t really notified that we might want OUR issues — like unenforceable court orders, for one — like violation of due process through the entire system, for another — like unfair practices within the child support system, and the grants behind those practices, or like why programs that claim they are to help both “parents” only help one gender of parents, generally speaking (Access/Visitation, etc.). And much more… }}
This early retirement and appointing your successor is an old political ploy. It gives the successor a leg up to run for election as an “incumbent” against all challengers. It is one of the ways that the Oakland City Council remained Republican dominated until the late ‘70s. Not to be out done, the Alameda County DA’s office has not had an open election without an incumbent in nearly 100 years, the last one being before 1920. This appears to be the same thing that Mr. Orloff and Ms. O’Malley have practiced.
The Board of Supervisors rushed forward with the appointment by holding a perfunctory public hearing and then took a vote. They did not have any type of public selection process whatsoever. That’s right: no public notice inquiring if there was anyone interested in being appointed, no public interviews, no public hearings, no vetting of candidates — nothing. Three of the five supervisors determined what normally all Alameda County voters should get a chance to decide.After all, no public scrutiny is an Alameda County DA tradition.
Notice there was not not one peep out of the three who voted for this instant appointment. There was no justification of their exclusionary “hurry-up” process. It has to make you wonder why it was so imperative to appoint a successor immediately. The number two person could easily run the office in an interim basis while the Board of Supervisors took 10-20 days to hold public hearings, gather comments, vet applicants and make a public decision.
It would have been nice to hear from the potential District Attorneys about their views regarding prosecution of criminals in Oakland and Alameda County, the use of preventive measures for minor crimes to keep people out of the criminal justice system, targeting violent criminals throughout to remove them from our streets, targeting drug dealers to reduce crime – It would have been great to see democracy in action.
Instead, we had a gang of three make the decision for you, the voter, now and in 2010. Yes, lets’ hope someone shows the gumption to run. Applause should be given to Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley who refused to go along with this charade. Maybe the Board of Supervisors should write better ground rules for the appointment of elected officials so that there is an open public process.
(Carson is African-American, O’Malley is, whattaya think?)
((Of note to me — LetsGetHonest blog author — two of the county supervisors who DID vote for this, apparently (Alice Lai-Bitker & Gail Steele) are outspokenly proclaiming themselves against violence against women, and child abuse. They have a reputation for this…. )))
The drama and pain and trauma and economic devastation — NEEDLESS, I believe — my particular family (3 generations of at least our kids’ two family lines are now involved, plus some elderly relations to another ex- ex-girlfriend, if you can keep that straight…) been going through has gone under these reigns, and these individuals’ jurisdictions. ))
And the guy Steve White commenting on it again:
Nancy O’Malley’s political scheming
The objections about the appointment process did not seem to include any objections to Nancy O’Malley personally. That’s a shame, because her true character should be made known. One example – when the former head of the Alameda County Family Justice Center quit a few years back, O’Malley rigged the selection for the new one so that Nadia Lockyer, wife of then Attorney General Bill Lockyer, would be sure to get the job. This was not really legal, both state law and federal law were against it, so O’Malley used a ruse to create the appearance of an impartial system. She used two “selection committees” of four person each to chose who got the job, but then stacked the committees with two DA staffers each, in other words, her own subordinates. With a tie vote on each committee, she could block any other candidate from being chosen while she blocked Lockyer from being rejected. This is the way she operates. Worse than Orloff.
By :Steve White On : September, 30 2009 at 01:43 PM
When I think about the salaries of some of these officials, the grants-funded organizations and the salaries of some of those heading them up (some of which I from time to time research) and the simple truths of this system that are NOT told to women separating from abuse, or how the few guided steps they take now may have put entire lives off course for a decade or more — – – – well, I have an issue with nepotism, cronyism, inflation of “people served” and violation of simple appointment rules for people with this amount of influence in our community.
When I remember how hard I worked to penetrate this bureaucracy, and to find even a phone or a internet access after years in the courts, or how to obtain unemployment after the last job was lost, and how humiliating it is to be in this position for simply seeking JUSTICE and OUT — it’s a little much.
Nothing personal, Orloff, O’Malley, Lockyer (although your agency did “squat” (nothing) for me this decade, and yes, I DID call, more than once over time), Stark, Steele, Lai-Bitker, and so on.
My personal experience with the D.A.’s departments (sheriffs, police, etc.) was it was almost as horrifying as dealing with my ex, to realize armed men were angry with me for expecting a court order to be respected. I no longer believe that family, civil, and criminal are any more separate than Legislative, Judicial or Executive Branches of the U.S.
I have been shouted at for seeking help to protect my own children from being abducted, as if I was the problem, and not seeking to solve one, and I called supervisors, and got little to no response. Go ask someone else…
It would’ve been better to have the “forget you” emblazoned on posters, and move on with life understanding how lawless a land we live in, and plan accordingly.
Next post, I hope to simply put up some more search results on these topics and these people.
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
How Much Mileage Can DV Advocates get out of the press on San Francisco’s Ross Mirkarimi/Eliana Lopez case?
with one comment
This has been headline news for how long? It definitely brings up mixed feelings on my part — knowing how many women are receiving far more severe battery, false imprisonment, endangering children and intimidating witnesses throughout the Bay Area, and have been for years — many years. While each time there is some press, someone from one of the organizations gets quoted.
March 31, 2012, last Saturday, Section “C,”* an article laid out at top of the page, full width, and by Columnist C.W. Nevius), reads:
(*Bay Area section of the SF Chronicle)
**not sure this is the same “Myrna Melgar, just included the LinkedIn profile which shows her professional/civic leadership in the area. It probably is)
This is the Bay Guardian article, and it seems well written enough. I’m glad someone filled in a few of these details, including a factor that until 5 Mr. Mirkarimi was raised in a bi-cultural family (Russian Jewish mother/ Iranian Muslim father), and then was separated from his father. There seems to be a sense of father-absence here:
(The bulk of my post is addressing topics raised in this article, particularly a certain reference to a Canadian sociologist for insight into this Californian incident).
Whirlwind romance, charmer? Another article (reporting on this one) adds:
Heather Knight Thursday, March 29, 2012
(He got his girlfriend knocked up in the course of leisure? or business? Not mentioned — were they married at the time?
(Michael Macor/The Chronicle)
Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, speaks to the news media about the three misdemeanor charges against her husband, on Friday Jan. 13, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/28/BAS31NRKL3.DTL#ixzz1qv1dHpDm
Bay Guardian Op-Ed, cont’d.:
Now, about prosecuting the low-level domestic violence against the wife’s wishes:
I don’t know Ms. Melgar’s life story (or whether she’s currently married — sounds like not). However, there are TWO ways the District Attorney’s Office can disempower women — if this is correct, prosecuting against the woman’s wishes when it’s supposedly a “minor” event. Or (and this was my situation and MANY other women’s) NOT prosecuting them despite severe domestic violence, when prosecuting them might save a life, or save ongoing destruction of life. See
And in this politically charged event — MADE TO ORDER for anyone who didn’t want Mirkarimi’s Progressive Politics disrupting the city (notice — nothing to do with domestic violence in that phrase) — because the events had some validity.
INTERJECTION — information from Purpleberets.org — and the topic is well-covered at the Sonoma County (Northern CA, not too far from SF) “Women’s Justice Center.” This is talking about much, MUCH more severe cases where DA refused to prosecute. (And if you know my blog, the case underlying it — and which eventually led to my blogging habit — was when district attorneys in TWO Counties refused to stop a child-stealing in action, or to prosecute it — ever. The general practice over a number of years (by law enforcement, specifically — I’m talking police in a number of cities, county sheriffs in more than one, and the district attorney’s office. As it turns out later, the person in charge of the “Alameda County Family Justice Center” (a hybrid creation by DA’s office and others modeled on San Diego’s one which came out of the City Attorneys’ Office — I’ve blogged this plenty elsewhere), Ms. Nadia Lockyer, then went on to win the position of County Supervisor (with help of a $1 million campaign funding and very, very, very well connected spouse 30 years her senior) — had a substance abuse problem, started an affair with someone (closer to her age) she met in rehab — himself getting off ‘meth’ — and had an incident requiring 911 assistance in a Newark (California) motel early a.m. This is the Bay Area leadership . . . . . it’s typically about politics and careers — and NOT about preventing violence against women and services to them. In the larger scope.
So, re: the immense power of the District Attorney’s Office: Written, I believe, around the year 2000:
California Passes Tough New Domestic Violence Laws — by Maria DeSantis, director Women’s Justice Center
Back to Myrna Melgar’s article, minimizing the incident:
It seems Myrna is oblivious to the fact that, through the family court, if Eliana did decide (later) to go to Venezuela without her husband’s assent, he could — in a moment, and don’t think such a person is unaware of this — charge her (or find someone to charge her) with parental kidnapping, put an arrest warrant out for her, and in the meantime get practically ANY family law judge in San Francisco — unless they had a personal grudge or other political reason to not do this — to switch sole custody to him, demand some sort or extradition, and/or have her thrown in jail if she came back to work things out. And don’t think that this isn’t a possibility. Maybe they would’ve worked it out — or maybe not. But one thing’s for sure — I read a LOT of material put out by domestic violence groups, and have networked with hundreds, literally, of mothers over the years, and most of them were completely ambushed by the concept that appealing to domestic violence laws to protect themselves and kids, even if they were IN a battered womens’ shelter — was no shield at all for later transfer of their children to their abusers. This is literally a third line of advocacy, now — “protective parents.” So, while it did not NOW rise to that abusive level, it certainly could’ve later.
In contradiction to the concept of “no-fault” divorce law…
**Jargon translation: wife-beating is no reason to restrict a child who witnessed this having access to their biological father. Let us do supervised visitation, etc. — hence (in the US) HHS “Access/Visitation” funding, with help from the (also international) Children’s Rights Council, which developed the term “access” to replace the term “visitation.” This model will be ADMINSTRATIVELY or PRACTICALLY begun (or has been already) and then other highly placed individuals (state by state in the US) will suggest — hey, why not make it a law? (Example: PA: Commission on Justice Initiatives: Changing the Culture of Custody).
PRAXIS means “practices.” Who is practiced upon? (Sorry, this wasn’t brought before our voters — except it went through the US Reps House Appropriations Committee, I guess. . . ..
Not before endorsing and propagating a system of educational institutions — taking public funding — based on social theory, and which have attracted a host of inappropriate misappropriations of public employees times, and which set up a built-in HIERARCHY — the exact OPPOSITE of what women, particularly mothers, leaving abuse need. This hierarchy is a lose/lose situation for any person imagining he/she has enforceable, legal rights in the USA — as an INDIVIDUAL. It sets up the hierarchy of the TEACHERS (for hire // mercenaries) versus the “TAUGHT.”
The social science THEORY that one can educate or train men out of violence is just taht — a theory. It is also contrary to the american (USA) form of government, which is to expect people to keep an identifiable law, and maintain a fair process of assigning punishments for those who choose not to. This means all people can be informed of WHAT their laws are — and leaves no room for speculations on the social impact of father-absence, single-parenthood, or even violence against women — and then millions of $$ which the public (and private interests) fund to tinker with the demonstration projects each time they get it wrong.
Back to the C.W.Nevius article (top of post), which continues:
FYI, I do not live in San Francisco (some may wonder), but have lived in the area for over two decades, and worked frequently in the city and in surrounding counties — both during and after my “domestic violence” marriage. I notice that whenver there’s a high-profile event, here is this SF DVConsortium and Beverly Upton being consulted for help. I never got any help from them, nor did I get ANY help from the Family Violence Prevention Fund, although, they do throw a great conference, and how validating to know that domestic violence is a health risk (like, I didn’t know that?). It did NOTHING to address the ongoing violence enabled by the family law system to any and all mothers who, after doing the right thing, but having for some reasons, very persistent Exes — are thereafter psychologically, economically, legally and in other ways tortured (if not extorted) — in the custody realm.
This group apparently could care less, so long as they get their funds and keep up the reputation for protecting women from violence – without addressing the land mines ahead of them. SEE MY BLOG! no one gave me a federal fund to publicize this, and apparently the more other groups immunize themselves from DV rhetoric, the better it is for BOTH pro and con grantseekers. So, here — for a quick update — this “Consortium” consorts in getting public grants to continue their agenda. I gather this is a progressive agenda because it’s under the umbrella of the (very large) TIDES Foundation, which also sponsored the nonprofit “Stop Family Violence” — which appears (best I can tell) to consist of a website, and one or two professionals who got to fly around to conferences nationwide (Irene Weiser, i forget who the other person was) and now is perhaps inactive, although the website is still up there.
Members of this agency
Obviously this is important work — HOWEVER — notice the collective grants-obtaining clout they have? That must be HOW there has been such coordinated and collective silence on the fathers’ rights grants and movement I report, and so have other UNsponsored INDIVIDUALS. Do they teach women about to file a kickout order about the upcoming Access/Visitation grants (in place, $10 million a year since 1996), how the Federal Incentives to the Child SUpport Enforcement system include running demonstration grants on how to increase noncustodial (father) time with the children, and how if they go on welfare, they are quite likely to be ex-parte consolidated into a divorce action, and thrown to the family court wolves, whose funding is MUCH larger?
NO — not last I heard.
Do they say anything about the organization AFCC, which practically runs the local Family Courts, let alone the Family Court Facilitators’ offices where people NOT as well-off financially (probably) than Ms. Lopez will end up seeking remedies? AFCC publishes most of the brochures available there — and (I checked in recent years) the coverage of domestic violence issues is highly diminished. So, what does that say about women’s right to know and make an INFormeD decision about whether to confront their batterer (sometimes with a civil protective order — not even mentioned in these dialogues), or call the police and hope a criminal one is instated?
LASTLY (and that’s enough for today!), I wanted to also show the Mayor Ed Lee catering to the FUTURES WITHOUT VIOLENCE organization, which currently owns prime real estate (or owns the organization that owns the real estate) in the SF Praesidio. Futures without Violence, indeed. The antidote to tyranny in our country (whether by domestic individuals within their family walls, or outside them by public officials) is a balance of powers between (1) the government and (2) the people, and fair enforcement of crimes against the state which jeopardize the safety of the public — which domestic violence DOES, and there’s plenty of evidence in the form of innocent bystanders shot, businesses disrupted, as well as responding police officers. We live in one of the more violent countries in the world, in many levels, and despite decades of advocacy by DV groups, their inherent demand for public funds to “coordinate services” and educate — the world, essentially — they are not open to criticism from the street level about this agenda.
TOO BAD – it’s here, it’s coming and I’m not going to stop, if I can help, this outrage. I have one-third of my adult life thrown down this rabbit hole ,and the concept of betrayal is absolutely high. MSM is owned, and is never going to tell the whole story. More bloggers are needed — bloggers that cite their sources where possible, and make sure that this situation is no longer covered up, or specially framed when it comes time to renew the funding for the VAWA act and the counterintuitive simultaneous funding of the next round of fatherhood/marriage etc. grants. No wonder this keeps going on, perhaps — our society is so stressed and compartmentalized, and has been already pre-trained to have their income taxes garnished, so garnishing wages for child support is a short step away. No privacy, no safety, and no justice. Just more debt!
My parting shot, I think: The Mayor that wants Mirkarimi out references Futures without Violence. Label this: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours!”
Ed Lee addresses domestic violence conference
Rachel Gordon
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/30/BASJ1NSMGF.DTL#ixzz1qux42sTZ
(STATE CHARITABLE RETURN FOR 2009) FORM RRF-I INFORMATION REGARDING GOVERNMENT FUNDING STATEMENT 14 ART B, LINE 6
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
April 2, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Posted in 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Funding Fathers - literally, Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood (cat added 11/2011), Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids
Tagged with Access-Visitation, AFCC, Alameda County Family Justice Center, Child Support, custody, Declaration of Independence/Bill of Rights, domestic violence, Esta Soler, family law, fatherhood, Feminists, Futures Without Violence (FVPF) 2010 return $11mil revenues $36mil assets rejected-Sched B omits names&addresses of contributors, FVPF becomes Futures without Violence, Intimate partner violence, Laureen Snider (Toronto), men's rights, Myrna Melgar, Nicholas Bala (Toronto), Nonprofits investing in Real Estate, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..