Citizens' Oversight Projects

CopsWiki | COPs Videos | Calendar of Events

Hot News

Protest Blackwater's Federal Court Misuse on 6/17, 10 a.m. Join us in front of the Federal courthouse, at the corner of Front and Broadway in San Diego at 10 a.m. on June 17th. The hearing starts at 10:30, argued by City Attorney Mike Aguirre before President's father appointee, Hon. Marilyn Huff. Bring signs! (but you can't bring signs, t-shirts, etc. into the court hearing.)
See pictures of Protest Rally on 6/11 with Jeremy Scahill, award-winning and best-selling author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army who addressed the crowd. (In front of the recently discovered Otay Mesa mercenary training facility... This madness must stop!
Blackwater Worldwide wiki
Blackwater Otay Secret Facility - Blackwater attempts to open a secret facility by Cal-Mex border by calling it a "vocational school" and using the name "Southwest Law Enforcement." Sorry, Blackwater, the cat is out of the bag!!

Press Conference and Rally -- 25 Apr 2008

Our rally to put pressure on Blackwater to pull the plug on this project too! We won on their first ridiculous project in Potrero We can do the same here!
Ray Lutz explains the situation on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman:

Sunrise Powerlink - Sempra Energy pushes another ridiculous project, the Sunrise Powerlink (or more accurately, the Desert Deathlink ) Learn about it here.
BorderFence - Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has declared that no further environmental review will be conducted for the Border Fence project. You will lose your enthusiasm for this project when you find out the facts, that it will leave a ten-mile gap and will do little to stem the flow on its own.
Vote Count - San Diego County - Feb 5, 2008 - Video details the vote counting process in San Diego.

OpenCanvass <-- The Open Canvass Method is proposed as an open and secure method for election processing. This is immediately deployable and provides for OPEN and REDUNDANT tallying of the vote. VERY IMPORTANT!
- Secretary of State Debra Bowen has said verbally that the Open Canvass Method does NOT require certification and can be deployed immediately if allowed by law.

COPs Collaboration

Common Collaboration Site <-- Click here to enter our Wiki collaboration site!
View videos published by Citizens' Oversight Projects. These videos include Blackwater related meetings, Covert Canyon tour, "Wind Zero" presentation, and others!
Calendar of Events <-- Click here to see a calendar of all upcoming events!!

Other News

CCT/ABM Operation of ECPAC - In an outrageous move by El Cajon City Council, the operator of the Theater, Arts Center Foundation was "sabotaged" to make them appear to be in heavy debt with the City so their contract could be canceled and the operation turned over to sweetheart Christian Community Theater, DBA Art Beat Management. This is akin to a landlord turning over rent collection to his largest tenant, and then forgiving the rent of that tenant, giving him the rents, and then also giving him $340,000 for all his work. In the end, the City is out nearly 3/4 of a million dollars, like giving every patron to the theater $21 in cash to attend. All this while the City deals with $6.2 million in red ink. Learn more...

COPs Program Details You've heard about our COPs Program, that is, Citizens' Oversight Panels. Don't wait to get involved. This is the easiest way to get your feet wet in local politics: just watch a particular board, council, or elected official. Once you get accustomed to the issues, you may even want to run for office... Apply today to become a panelist!

EXAMPLE: Raymond Lutz, Founder of COPs, discovered that the City of El Cajon was playing videos made by David Barton (the Texas Evangelical, and recently the Vice Chair of the Texas Republican Party) on the City-Funded Government Access Channel. The films have been pulled, but the taxpayer should be reimbursed nearly $20,000 by Bob McClellan who was the driving force behing this unethical behavior. We have submitted a request to the San Diego County District Attorney's office to open a Grand Jury investigation into this illegal behavior!
For details, and a full rundown of the interaction between the COPs and the City, see the collaboration page Government Access Channel

Mission

Holding feet to the fire

Officials in office today are frequently in bed with businesses, churches, special interests and others in the area. They sometimes sneak in decisions that may never reach the light of day, to line their own pockets, improve the position of their friends, or promote their own religious or partisan beliefs. This sort of corrupt behavior is unfortunately more prevalent than can be at first imagined, and yet, putting ethical Democrats in office is all but impossible. And to top it off, local media is frequently just as corrupt, with no desire to point out the ineffective operation of these bodies. We are left with only one option, police these government positions, 'holding their feet to the fire,' making sure we review their decisions and make sure that bad decisions are revealed to the media and the public. How do we do this?

Citizens' Oversight Panels (COPs)

We need an organizing principle to help us police the behavior of these boards, councils, and candidates. Here, I will say 'body,' although it may be an individual official, such as a assembly, house, or senate official. For each such body, a set of volunteers will serve on a Citizens' Oversight Panel. The Panel would attend their body's meetings, if possible, or else monitor their actions, and become well versed in the nuances of the politics and decisions that are being made. Unsuccessful candidates for those bodies or seats are an obvious first set of members for the panels. Other activists in the area may also find themselves drawn to particular a board, council, or official, and may wish to become a part of that panel. If we have enough people involved, we can have elections to the leading positions on each panel, with other volunteers welcomed to be a part of any panel.

Benefits:

Meetings Monitored. Meetings of the governing body are attended by outside reviewers who are well versed in the agenda items of the body. Even having one outsider in the room will remarkably change the climate for corrupt insider decisions or even rude comments about the "pesky public."
Public Speaking. The Panel may determine a formal position and invite members to speak to that position, or panel members may speak on their own behalf. Regular speaking and bringing issues to the floor keep the body from ignoring them completely. Public speaking on these issues is good practice and mastering such speaking is essential to being successful in any campaign.
Media Exposure. Panels can easily bring information to the media if it is not already being covered. "Reports of COPs" make an interesting media addition. Occassionally, "COP Citations" may be presented to an official or governing body, leveraging the (intentional) wordplay, whenever the COP detects a particularly corrupt or unacceptable action.
Candidates Trained. Members of Panels automatically become members of a pool of possible candidates for elections to the governing body being monitored. Recruiting candidates is a natural consequence of the network of COPs, instead of an ad-hoc and last-minute event right before the application deadline. Candidates are well trained in the politics of the body, and can easily present a viable position on any topic.
More Effective Campaigns. The public will be kept informed of the decisions of the body, with bad decisions listed in full during the campaign instead of being lost in the short memory of the populace. Members of the COP have kept a high profile in the run up to the election and may have some name recognition by the public. Their speaking skills are honed by practice at the meetings.
Shared Responsibility. Many club members are tired of going to feel-good events and want to be productive and be a part of the governing process. The COPs provides an opportunity for many members to be involved, working as a group to obtain results that would be impossible as individuals. For example, a Panel responsible for a given governing body can share the responsibility among its members of attending long or frequent meetings. Those members don't need to try to be a involved in all the boards and bodies in the area, so the scope of their volunteer efforts can be focused while others track other bodies. Reports from the various COPs can be reviewed by everyone, keeping everyone up to date. Detailed research on agenda items can be split up amongst the members of the Panel.
Continued Attention. To keep the governing body from lapsing back into bad behavior, constant vigilance is frequently necessary. For example, the City of El Cajon has agreed to pull the partisan and religious videos from the government channel, but will they start playing them again? They might, if we don't continue to request the logs on a monthly basis. In this case, we need to send a letter to the City of El Cajon every month requesting the logs to maintain a watch on this problem. If we stop asking for the logs, they might sneak the videos back on.
Mitigates Incumbency Advantage. On many board in this area, we witness a common strategy. The member quits in the middle of the term, and substitute is appointed to fill out the term. Then, that person is considered an incumbent, even though they were never elected to office, and they are then usually successful in the election. Being a member of the Citizens' Oversight Panel for that board is an excellent springboard to launch into office. This fact can be included on the candidate statement, "X years on the Citizens' Oversight Panel for the XXX Board," for example. It's almost as good as being an incumbent.

Participation

This proposal will only be effective if the workload is shared among many people. What we don't want are the same key players on every single COP. Each COP should have at a minimum, a Chair and Co-chair, and once we get things rolling, the Immediate Past Chair. Any other club members or associates may be a member of the COP. It is preferred if the Chair and Co-chair do not serve on multiple COPs. Unsuccessful candidates of past elections are prime candidates for COP membership.

Duties of COP Participants

The amount of work will vary significantly depending on the schedule of body meetings and the extent of the agenda of each meeting, as well as how corrupt the group is. Indeed, federal and state officials will necessarily be monitored from afar, by monitoring voting records and other actions.

Previously unsuccessful candidates to those bodies will find participation on the COP provide a high-profile citizen action position that will keep their head above the fray. A short summary of the actions of the body can be presented at each club meeting to keep others informed, and to get advice on how to proceed with interaction, media exposure, or possible legal action. However, due to the rate of most local bodies, decisions on most actions will necessarily be made at the level of the COP with the input of Club Board.

Candidate Selection

One of my observations about the recent elections is that in some cases, I saw much more advertising and promotion during the primary than during the general election. Most of the thrashing around in the primary was a total waste of time. The realities of lop-sided voter registration made the primary an exercise in futility.

This program will allow us to more easily determine our top choice for any elected position, board seat, etc. based on who is active on the COP, and how productive they have been. If we can avoid unnecessary expenditure during the primary, more resources can be devoted to the general election. I'm not certain how to handle it, but a initial selection in a caucus can reduce the expenditures and consternation in the primary. The COP for that governing position can be a help in this process.

Listserve

At this time, the Citizens' Oversight "COPS" list will be used for discussion and announcements. You are welcome to request subscription to our emailing list for COPS-related announcements and discussions. However, we do request that you introduce yourself first.

Mailing list summary

Meetings

http://www.CitizensOversight.org

For information call: 619-820-5321

View our entire calendar here! (Particularly if we've neglected to update the notice above.)

Contact Us

Donations always accepted!

Mail to:

Citizens' Oversight Projects
P.O. Box 252
El Cajon, CA 92022

Phone: 619-820-5321
Email: info -AT- citizensoversight.org (Replace the -AT- with the @ symbol.)
Web: http://www.citizensoversight.org

GET INVOLVED!

-- RaymondLutz - 23 Sep 2007