LAKE COUNTY – For the first time in nearly 16 years, the race for Lake County sheriff-coroner will have a challenger.
Francisco Rivero, 50, of Middletown has announced his candidacy for the 2010 sheriff-coroner's race.
Rivero took out a candidate intention statement and signed the code of fair campaign practices on Aug. 27.
Currently a deputy within the department, Rivero is mounting an aggressive campaign against incumbent Sheriff Rod Mitchell, 51, first elected in 1994 out of a five-candidate field.
The forming race for sheriff comes not long after Lakeport attorney Don Anderson announced he would challenge District Attorney Jon Hopkins for his post next year.
It will be early next spring before all of the candidacy paperwork is complete and the names on the June primary ballot are finalized, but already the issues are forming in the sheriff's race.
Rivero is alleging poor morale, favoritism and a lack of transparency in the sheriff's office.
He's also raising concerns about public trust and perception in the wake of the Bismarck Dinius boat crash trial, in which a Carmichael man was prosecuted for a fatal crash after the sailboat he was steering was hit at night by an off duty sheriff's chief deputy, Russell Perdock.
The District Attorney's Office did not charge Perdock in the case, despite witnesses stating he was traveling at high speed – in excess of 35 miles per hour, with estimates as high as 50 miles per hour – on a dark night.
Mitchell has not faced a challenger since his first race for sheriff, and he's emphasizing his experience and knowledge as he prepares to seek his fifth term.
Adding to the race's unique and complicated landscape is the fact that Mitchell is being challenged by one of his own men for leadership of the agency, which has a $26 million annual budget.
Rivero says he's an outsider
Rivero was born in Cuba, son of a prominent attorney who “took on a job nobody else wanted,” specifically, defending political prisoners against the regime of Fidel Castro.
“He did it so well that one day they came and hauled him away,” said Rivero, who noted that the arrest of his father – who died last year – marked him permanently.
The family eventually fled Cuba, settling in Miami, where his father continued his advocacy and shared with his son the need to guard the control of power carefully. “He really ingrained those things in my mind and I believe them to this day.”
Rivero came to California in the early 1980s, joining the San Francisco Police Department in 1984. He was valedictorian of his police academy class, worked patrol in San Francisco’s toughest and most diverse neighborhoods, and later worked in the department's crime suppression units and the Narcotics Bureau.
While still working as a police officer, Rivero earned his California Funeral Director’s License and founded Pacific Interment Service in San Francisco, which became the second largest volume cremation service in the Bay Area.
He left the San Francisco Police Department in 1990 and continued to run his business. He later went on to win a federal lawsuit against the city of San Francisco's medical examiner.
In 1989 he had won a bid to handle the city's contract to handle indigent dead. In 1993, when the city decided to reduce expenses they terminated his contract and he sued the city and several individuals, including medical examiner Dr. Boyd Stevens, for breach of contract.
The suit also alleged interference with the contract based on Rivero's race, and accused city officials of retaliation and interference with Rivero's First Amendment rights, according to court records.
Rivero said he had found “phantom bodies” were being charged to the government, and that bribes and illegal embalmings were taking place.
He made a complaint to the city's District Attorney's Office and shared the information with the media. Rivero also testified before a criminal grand jury, which later issued reports pointing to misappropriation of funds and indigent cadavers being used as lab specimens in mortuary colleges. It was in retaliation for his whistleblowing that he alleged the contract was canceled.
The lawsuit survived appeals, with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in his favor in December 2002. In March of 2004, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved settlement of the $1.7 million lawsuit.
By that point, Rivero already was dividing his time between the Bay Area and Lake County. In 2001, after falling in love with Lake County, he purchased a home in Middletown, where he lived part-time for several years. He is a single father, with a 6-year-old son.
“I always missed law enforcement,” he said, and later he would return to it when he was hired as a deputy with the sheriff's department in May of 2007.
Earlier this year, Rivero filed a complaint against the sheriff's office with the federal US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
County Counsel Anita Grant could not comment on the complaint, and neither would the EEOC when contacted by Lake County News.
Rivero said he also is limited in what statements he can make. “It is pending so I can't go into detail.”
However, he noted that he's one of two people who recently have filed such complaints against the sheriff's office.
He said his claim deals with the lack of merit-based promotions in the sheriff's office. “It is an issue that I fully intend to tackle when I become sheriff,” he said.
He said he wants to support the decent, hard working people of the sheriff's office, who take on the challenging work of protecting the community. Rivero said their work is being made all the more difficult because of lack of appropriate training, supervision, and leadership – which Rivero said has caused the public’s distrust and left deputies demoralized. That's resulted in the majority of the department being judged “by the conduct of a small group of less-ethical co-workers.”
Rivero, who said he's “definitely an outsider,” said his decision to run was “the culmination of the boat trial, the morale being so low, watching my fellow officers being investigated and mistreated.”
He added, “As a whole, this department is on survival mode.”
Rivero said that part of that arises from the Dinius case, which he said could have been handled better if Perdock had been put on leave and if the investigation had been immediately and completely handed off to an agency from out of the area. He thinks Mitchell still should turn the case over to federal investigators, who would assess possible improprieties.
Rivero said he plans to aggressively pursue grants to provide training, education and state-of-the-art equipment for the department and its members. He also wants to “reengineer the department” and redirect departmental resources – including moving more officers from desks and back out onto the streets – to better protect the public.
In addition, he said he'll fill the positions of elder abuse and child abuse detectives that have remained vacant for years.
He said his goal is better public service and giving the agency's employees a rewarding experience on the job, which he said can be very rewarding when you're helping people.
Mitchell emphasizes experience
Rod Mitchell became the youngest sheriff in the county's history when he was elected in 1994 at age 36. Since then, he's never faced a challenger.
However, Rivero's challenge comes at a time when Mitchell is the focus of intense criticism and questioning in the wake of the Dinius trial.
In an attempt to answer those concerns, he's currently hosting a community “debriefing,” requesting questions from the community about the handling of the Dinius case which he plans to answer.
As he prepares to seek reelection next year, Mitchell is emphasizing his experience in law enforcement, which includes 29 consecutive years of service, beginning in 1980.
Like Rivero, Mitchell isn't a Lake County native.
Raised in the Sacramento area, he first worked for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office from 1980 to 1983.
In 1983, he arrived in Lake County. “I wanted to live here,” he said, explaining his reasons for coming.
Joining the Lake County Sheriff's Office that year, he worked his way up through the department, beginning as a deputy sheriff and eventually moving on to detective and then to sergeant.
It was as a sergeant that the married father of two ran for the open sheriff's seat in 1994, winning election that November and taking office in January of 1995.
While Rivero is critical of Mitchell's administration, Mitchell emphasizes his uninterrupted experience, pointing out that most of Rivero's time in law enforcement came during a six-year period in the 1980s.
Mitchell said he hired Rivero in 2007 after he relocated to Lake County, and noted that Rivero recently attempted to advance in rank after less than two years with our department.
“The qualifications for the office of sheriff include not only the need for current and relevant experience but it also includes the ability to take responsibility for failures or shortcomings,” Mitchell said.
He added, “An office with this level of responsibility should be about much more than Frank’s personal disappointments. Impulse control is an important job dimension for all peace officers but even more so for the chief executive.”
Mitchell also addressed Rivero's allegations about flagging morale among the agency's rank and file.
“Our deputies have always been well respected by the public at large so when their integrity is called into question, it does impact their morale,” Mitchell said. “It is my job as the leader of this department to stand with them and gird them up and deliver the truth to the public.”
He said the reason he has enjoyed the support of the members of his department is because he has never called into question their integrity to advance his own political position.
“Surely their morale can also be impacted by divisive comments similar to some that Frank has been making recently,” Mitchell said.
Election season formally starts next year
While both Rivero and Mitchell have confirmed their intentions to run for sheriff in 2010, the formal election season is still months away.
In addition to sheriff-coroner and district attorney, the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office reported that on the 2010 ballot will be the District 2 and 3 supervisorial seats, county superintendent of schools, assessor-recorder, county clerk-auditor and treasurer-tax collector.
The registrar of voters reported that the election calendar for the direct primary election on June 8, 2010, begins Jan. 4, when candidates can begin circulating petitions to offset all or part of their filing fees. Those petitions are due Feb. 25.
Declaration of candidacy and nomination papers will be circulated between Feb. 16 and March 12, the registrar's office reported.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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