Note: I will be including the City Council video clips with this blog so residents can review the public comments, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson’s remarks, Councilmember Sean Mill’s response, and the Council debate on the new City Attorney contract for themselves.

Riverside’s Mayor and City Council appear to have discovered a new governing strategy: blame the past, blame staff, blame prior administrations, blame prior councils, blame anyone except the elected officials currently sitting at the dais with the legal authority, budget authority, appointment authority, and political responsibility to run the City.

That was the most troubling theme from the Council discussion surrounding Items 7a and 7b: the rushed waiver of the Sunshine Ordinance and the proposed employment agreement for a new City Attorney.

Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson attempted to shift responsibility to prior administrations for actions and failures that occurred under her watch. Councilmember Sean Mill then compounded the problem by responding to public comment with a claim that sitting members are not responsible for the failed hires and failures of charter officers.

That is not accountability.

That is revisionist governance.

Riverside is a Charter City. The City Council is not a collection of detached spectators who can point at City Hall from across the street and pretend someone else is in charge. The Council is the governing body. The Council hires the charter officers. The Council evaluates the charter officers. The Council approves their contracts. The Council extends its contracts. The Council controls the budget. The Council sets policy.

And when things go wrong, the Council cannot escape responsibility by pretending only some prior version of the Council made the mess.

Mayor Lock Dawson cannot Pretend This Happened Somewhere Else, Under Someone Else’s Watch

Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson’s attempt to shift responsibility to prior administrations is not credible.

She has not been a bystander. She has been the Mayor of Riverside since December 2020. That means she has held office through years of warnings, years of public comment, years of charter officer controversy, years of transparency concerns, and years of residents asking this Council to take governance seriously.

This did not suddenly appear on the Council’s doorstep.

I, along with others, repeatedly alerted the Mayor and the City Council to shortcomings in the City Manager’s office. We warned about the lack of transparency. We warned about the culture of defensiveness. We warned about resistance to public review. We warned about the need for independent oversight. We warned that the City could not continue operating as if public scrutiny was a nuisance rather than a constitutional and civic obligation.

Those warnings were not made once.

They were made repeatedly, over the years.

So when the Mayor now suggests this is the fault of prior administrations, she is asking the public to forget the record. She is asking residents to ignore the fact that these problems continued under her watch. She is asking us to pretend the Council had no authority, no notice, and no ability to act.

That is false.

The Mayor had notice. The Council had notice. The public record contains years of residents raising these issues.

The problem was not a lack of warnings.

The problem was a lack of will.

Governance Requires Presence, Discipline, and Oversight

Riverside needed serious executive oversight from its elected leadership. Instead, too often, the Mayor appeared more focused on image-building, media moments, regional networking, and a social-media-influencer-style of public office than on the hard, unglamorous work of supervising the government she was elected to help lead.

Photo opportunities are not governance.

Social media branding is not governance.

Regional titles and political networking are not governance.

Governance is reading the contracts. Governance is asking hard questions. Governance is recognizing when a charter officer is creating risk. Governance is protecting the taxpayers before damage is done. Governance is listening when residents, commissioners, former officials, and community members warn that City Hall’s internal culture is drifting away from accountability.

If employees within the City do not respect leadership, as the Mayor’s comments seemed to imply, then the responsible question is not what is wrong with the employees.

The responsible question is what leadership has done to lose that respect.

Respect is not created by a title. It is earned by competence, seriousness, consistency, fairness, and accountability.

If the Mayor believes City employees lack confidence in City leadership, that is not an excuse for the Mayor and Council.

It is an indictment of their leadership.

I Warned This City Years Ago About Its Opposition to Oversight

This moment is especially frustrating because many of us have been warning Riverside for years about the City’s hostility toward meaningful oversight, integrity systems, ethics reform, and true public review.

I spent eight years addressing many people on or connected to this dais about the need for independent oversight. During my time working in and around the City’s ethics framework, I repeatedly pointed out that Riverside’s oversight structure was too dependent on the very political system it was supposed to review.

The issue was never whether Riverside could create another committee, title, office, or ceremonial reform. The issue was whether Riverside was willing to create oversight with actual independence.

Again and again, City leadership resisted that.

Now, even in light of the current embarrassing situation involving charter officer leadership, transparency failures, and public distrust, this Council still appears committed to the same old model: an Inspector General concept controlled, shaped, or hand-picked by City Hall insiders rather than a truly independent oversight mechanism with the authority, structure, and insulation necessary to serve the public.

Riverside does not need an Inspector General selected to dance to City Hall’s music.

Riverside needs independent oversight that can investigate, report, question, and challenge without fear of political retaliation or internal pressure.

Anything less is theater.

A City Council Is a Continuing Governing Body

Councilmember Sean Mill’s response to public comment was not merely wrong. It was materially misleading to the public.

The argument seems to be that because not every current member participated in every original hiring decision, the sitting Council is not responsible for the failed hiring, supervision, retention, or contract management of charter officers.

That is nonsense.

A City Council is a continuing legislative and governing body. Individual members come and go, but the institution remains. Contracts remain. Policies remain. Budgets remain. Obligations remain. Consequences remain.

When a new councilmember is sworn in, that member does not inherit the luxury of selective amnesia. He inherits the responsibility to govern. That includes reviewing prior decisions, correcting bad contracts, demanding performance, refusing to rubber-stamp failed leadership, and protecting taxpayers from continued exposure.

In Riverside, the sitting Council had every opportunity to act.

The Council had the authority to evaluate the City Manager. The Council had the authority to hold closed-session performance reviews. The Council had the authority to refuse extensions. The Council had the authority to demand corrective action. The Council had the authority to protect the City.

Instead, this Council reviewed and extended Mike Futrell’s contract after having constructive notice of serious concerns, public complaints, governance failures, and warnings about the City Manager’s office.

That matters.

Once the Council reviewed and extended Mike Futrell’s contract after being placed on notice of his failings, the Council owned the decision. It cannot now pretend the issue belongs only to a prior administration or some earlier version of City Hall.

Constructive notice is not a technicality. It means the warnings were there. The complaints were there. The public record was there. The Council had enough information for a reasonable governing body to investigate, question, correct, or refuse to reward continued failure.

Instead, they extended the contract.

Sean Mill’s Statement Shows Why Riverside Needs Independent Oversight

Councilmember Sean Mill’s response from the dais was one of the clearest examples of why Riverside needs real independent oversight of this governing body.

Mill tried to tell the public that the sitting Council is not responsible for the failed charter officer decisions now damaging public confidence. That claim is materially misleading.

This Council did not merely inherit the Mike Futrell problem.

This Council reviewed him.

This Council evaluated him.

This Council had constructive notice of serious concerns.

This Council still chose to extend his contract.

For Sean Mill to stand on the dais and suggest that sitting members are not responsible for these failures is functionally dishonest. Whether intentional or reckless, the effect was the same: the public was given a distorted version of how municipal accountability works.

And perhaps the most revealing part was not only Mill’s statement.

It was the silence that followed.

Not one member of the Council corrected him. Not one member clarified that the City Council is a continuing governing body. Not a single member reminded the public that charter officers serve at the Council’s pleasure. Not one member explained that reviewing, retaining, and extending a City Manager after notice of problems creates responsibility.

That silence speaks loudly.

It shows why Riverside cannot rely on the same political body to police itself. It shows why controlled, hand-picked, City Hall-approved oversight will never be enough. It shows why Riverside needs real independent oversight with the authority to review charter officers’ decisions, contract extensions, closed-session practices, ethics concerns, public transparency failures, and Council conduct, without depending on the approval of the very officials being reviewed.

Riverside does not need an Inspector General selected to dance for City Hall.

Riverside needs an independent watchdog with enough insulation, authority, and public reporting power to tell residents the truth when elected officials will not.

Sean Mill’s statement, and the Council’s failure to correct it, should be Exhibit A.

Councilmembers Cannot Vote for the Benefits and Deny the Consequences

A councilmember cannot vote to extend a contract and then claim he is not responsible for the consequences of that contract.

A councilmember cannot participate in closed-session evaluations, budget approvals, compensation decisions, and charter officer supervision, and then pretend failed leadership belongs only to some prior group of elected officials.

A councilmember cannot approve expensive executive agreements while telling residents there is no accountability for the elected officials who approve them.

That is the core misrepresentation being made to Riverside residents.

When the Council wants to hire a City Attorney, it claims authority.

When the Council wants to waive the Sunshine Ordinance, it claims authority.

When the Council wants to approve salary, benefits, severance, car allowances, retirement contributions, administrative leave, vacation credits, and executive perks, it claims authority.

But when the public asks who is responsible for the failed judgment that led Riverside into repeated charter-officer controversies, the answer suddenly becomes: not us.

That is not governance.

That is a shell game.

Charter Officers Are Not Independent Kingdoms

Riverside’s charter officers are not independent kingdoms floating outside democratic accountability.

The City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk serve at the pleasure of the City Council. That means the Council is responsible for selecting them, evaluating them, correcting them, and, when necessary, removing them.

The City Manager runs the administrative branch, but he does so as the Council’s appointed chief administrative officer. The City Attorney advises the Council and represents the City, but the Council appoints the City Attorney and controls the City’s legal business. The City Clerk performs essential public records and governance functions, and the Council also appoints the Clerk.

This structure exists for a reason.

It creates accountability.

It prevents elected officials from claiming they are powerless when a charter officer fails. It prevents staff from operating without oversight. It prevents the public from being trapped in a shell game where everyone has authority when things go well and nobody has responsibility when things go wrong.

That is exactly the game Riverside residents are now being asked to accept.

We are told the Council cannot be blamed for failed charter officers because some original hiring decisions were made earlier. We are told current leaders should not be held responsible for problems that started before them. We are told the City needs urgency when leadership wants to rush a contract, but patience when the public wants accountability.

That is not governance.

That is evasion.

The New City Attorney Contract Shows the Same Failed Pattern

The debate over the new City Attorney contract showed that this Council has not learned the right lesson from the City Manager controversy.

Instead of using this moment to reset the standard for charter officer accountability, the Council appears ready to repeat the same mistakes with a new title and a new compensation package.

The City Attorney is one of the most powerful positions in Riverside government. The City Attorney advises the Council on closed sessions, public records, litigation, employment matters, conflicts, ethics, contracts, charter interpretation, Brown Act compliance, and taxpayer exposure.

This is not a ceremonial role.

This is a position that directly shapes whether the public can trust City Hall.

That is why the contract should have been negotiated from the taxpayer’s perspective first.

Instead, the agreement presented to the public appears to protect the executive far better than it protects the residents paying the bill. The Council is again offering a lucrative charter officer package while asking the public to ignore the same red flags that have created problems before: high compensation, generous benefits, severance protection, weak taxpayer-side leverage, and a rushed process that limited meaningful public review.

This is not fiscal discipline.

This is not reform.

This is not accountability.

It is the same City Hall culture with a new contract.

Waiving the Sunshine Ordinance Was the Wrong Message

The decision to waive the Sunshine Ordinance for this contract sent exactly the wrong message.

The City claimed urgency. But the timeline itself raises the obvious question: if Riverside has known for many months that it needed permanent legal leadership, why did the public process still arrive at the last minute?

A failure to plan should not be used as a justification to waive public notice.

When the City is hiring one of its most powerful charter officers, and when that officer will advise the Council on legal risk, public records, closed sessions, contracts, lawsuits, ethics, conflicts, employment matters, and taxpayer exposure, the public deserves maximum transparency, not minimum notice.

This should have been handled during the evening session, with full public visibility, ample time for the public to review the agreement, and a clear explanation of why this contract better protects Riverside taxpayers than the contracts that came before it.

Instead, the Council did what it too often does: rush, excuse, rationalize, and demand trust it has not earned.

The Windfall Salary and Employment History Deserve Their Own Review

This blog is focused on the Mayor’s and Council’s refusal to accept responsibility for governance.

In a separate follow-up blog, I will document the windfall salary being offered to the new City Attorney, the full compensation package, the severance exposure, and the public record regarding his history of moving through government positions.

That review matters because Riverside residents deserve to know exactly what they are being asked to fund.

When a city facing serious budget pressure offers a charter officer a compensation package far above what most taxpayers could ever imagine earning, the burden is on the Council to explain why the package is necessary, why the terms protect the public, and why the candidate’s employment history supports the risk.

The Council should not expect residents to simply trust them — especially after the City Manager debacle.

Trust must be earned.

And this Council has repeatedly shown that when it comes to hiring, supervising, negotiating with, and holding charter officers accountable, it has not earned that trust.

This Is Bigger Than One Contract

The larger issue is not only one City Manager, one City Attorney, one Mayor, or one councilmember’s defensive comments from the dais.

The larger issue is Riverside’s governing culture.

This Council has shown a pattern of resisting oversight, minimizing public concern, rushing major decisions, waiving transparency protections, and then acting surprised when residents no longer trust the process.

For years, I warned this City about its opposition to meaningful independent oversight, ethics reform, integrity systems, and true public review. I spent eight years addressing many people connected to this dais about the need for oversight that is independent of the political structure it may one day need to investigate.

Now, after another embarrassing charter-officer controversy, the Council still appears more interested in controlled oversight than in real oversight. It wants an Inspector General model that can be shaped by City Hall rather than an independent watchdog with the authority and insulation necessary to serve the public.

Riverside does not need an Inspector General selected to dance for the same people who need to be watched.

Riverside needs independent oversight capable of investigating, reporting, and challenging City Hall without fear of political retaliation.

Until that happens, the public should expect the same cycle to continue: warning signs, denial, rushed decisions, expensive contracts, public backlash, and then elected officials blaming someone else.

Riverside Needs Adults at the Table

Riverside is not suffering from a lack of press conferences, slogans, photo opportunities, or expensive executive contracts.

Riverside is suffering from a lack of disciplined governance.

We need elected officials who will negotiate as if they were spending public money — because they are.

We need elected officials who will stop hiding major decisions in rushed agenda items.

We need elected officials who understand that charter officers serve the City, not the other way around.

We need elected officials who will stop blaming prior administrations while continuing the same behavior.

We need elected officials who will tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.

The residents of Riverside are not unreasonable. We understand that government is complex. We understand that mistakes happen. We understand that transitions can be difficult.

But we should never accept a governing body that refuses to own its authority.

The City Council cannot have it both ways. It cannot claim authority when hiring, extending, compensating, and defending charter officers, then deny responsibility when those decisions fail.

Riverside deserves better than excuses.

Riverside deserves transparency.

Riverside deserves charter officer contracts that protect the taxpayer.

And Riverside deserves elected officials who understand that leadership means taking responsibility — not rewriting history from the dais.