LAKEPORT, Calif. – A month after the county's sheriff cut off the Lakeport Police Department from its longtime access to a law enforcement records management system, the city of Lakeport filed a lawsuit against the county citing breach of a dispatch contract.
The suit, which names Sheriff Frank Rivero along with the county, was filed on Monday. It alleges breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief.
City Manager Margaret Silveira said Rivero's “unilateral and unjustified actions” have harmed the city and its residents, threatened public and officer safety, and undermined the “cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship” the city and county previously enjoyed.
No amount of damages can compensate the city for the breach of its contract, and so the city is seeking to obtain specific performance of the contract. Silveira said the city is seeking a preliminary injunction to return the parties to the status quo prior to the contract breach.
“Time is of the essence in this matter because every day the LPD is denied access to RIMS the public and officer safety is jeopardized,” Silveira said in an email to Lake County News.
County Counsel Anita Grant said Tuesday evening that she had not yet seen Lakeport's suit and therefore couldn't comment on it.
The lawsuit's filing follows Rivero's decision last month to cut off the Lakeport Police Department's access to the Records Information Management System, or RIMS, without warning, at first telling Police Chief Brad Rasmussen there were no issues and later, after Rasmussen went public with his concerns, alleging inappropriate uses and access.
However, during a special Board of Supervisors meeting called to discuss the matter, Rivero – when pressed – acknowledged that he could not say for certain if the access had been inappropriate because Lakeport's police officers were not under his management and he couldn't launch internal affairs investigations on their actions.
At the same time Rivero also cut off access to RIMS for Lake County Probation, and has a long-running issue with the District Attorney's Office over cutting off access to that agency as well.
Despite requests by the city, Lakeport Police and the Board of Supervisors to restore Lakeport Police's access, Rivero has refused to do so, according to Silveira, which she said is in “wanton disregard” of the county's and Rivero's obligations under the dispatch services contract between the county and Lakeport.
At the end of last month the Lakeport City Council emerged from a closed session discussion to vote to hire the law firm of Colantuono and Levin PC – which specializes in government-related casework – to handle the suit against Rivero, as Lake County News has reported.
Silveira said that for nearly 25 years Lakeport and the county have worked cooperatively with one another to share dispatch services for their respective law enforcement agencies.
Under that contract the city holds with the county, Silveira said the county's dispatch services include providing the city access to the county RIMS system, which she said is a vital tool law enforcement agencies use to gather and maintain all dispatch records as well as other local criminal offender record information.
The city maintains that under the dispatch services contract, Lakeport Police has the right to use RIMS to access records of its own calls for service through dispatch dating back some 10 years, as well as related law enforcement information gathered by the county and other agencies that pooled resources to centralize dispatching services within the county, Silveira said.
She added that the Lakeport Police Department relies on the records in the county RIMS database for day-to-day operations, using the information to conduct investigations, respond to requests for information from the public and media, prepare reports and conduct statistical analysis necessary to obtain and report on grant funding opportunities, and develop better policing methods by identifying and targeting areas of greatest needs.
She said Lakeport Police's access to RIMS protects public safety and help ensure the safety of its officers by quickly providing up-to-date information about potentially violent suspects before an officer arrives on scene.
As examples of the importance of the information, the case documents cite a May 1 incident involving a grass fire that had been dispatched near a Lakeport residence. A Lakeport Police officer had incomplete information through dispatch and was not able to quickly access information in RIMS about the fire's location.
In other instances since Rivero cut Lakeport Police's access in late April, officers have overhead incomplete radio dispatches involving sheriff's deputies “responding to potentially high risk incidents just outside the City limits,” and have not been able to quickly determine location in order to provide assistance, the suit states.
When filing cases with the District Attorney's Office, Lakeport Police is required to submit information including Computer Assisted Dispatch, or CAD, logs, from the RIMS system. Officers used to be able to easily access the information but now must call Central Dispatch and request that the CAD logs be prepared, a time consuming approach for both dispatch and officers, according to the suit.
Lakeport Police also needs to access the information in order to apply for grants and meet other grant reporting requirements, according to case documents.
In addition to having RIMS access restored, the city is asking the court to award attorney's fees.
No date has yet been set for an initial hearing in the case.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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