UKIAH, Calif. – At the end of a Friday morning hearing, a Mendocino County judge granted the city of Lakeport a preliminary injunction in its suit against the county and the sheriff over access to law enforcement records.

Judge Cindee Mayfield ruled that the city's suit against Sheriff Frank Rivero and the county of Lake – alleging that Rivero had violated the dispatch agreement between the two governments by cutting off access to the records system in April – had a reasonable likelihood of success on its merits.

Mayfield found that the parties' history of implementing the dispatch agreement showed substantial evidence of an intent to allow access to the records information management system, or RIMS.

She also granted the continuation of a temporary restraining order she granted in the case on July 1, which prevents Rivero from once again abruptly cutting off Lakeport Police's access to the records.

In addition, Mayfield found that the potential harm to the city and its police department far outweighed potential harm to the sheriff's office and the county.

City Manager Margaret Silveira, Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen and Lt. Jason Ferguson were present for the proceedings, and were pleased with the outcome.

“There's going to be no change to our access to that information,” Rasmussen said.

The suit seeks to have Lakeport's full access to RIMS restored permanently, and also asks for attorney's fees.

The city alleges that Rivero violated the county's longtime dispatch contract with Lakeport – most recently updated in 2005 – by cutting off access to the shared RIMS system, which is how the Lakeport Police Department accesses information from the calls for service that go through the county's Central Dispatch.

Lakeport officials have accused Rivero of undermining a longtime “cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship” the city had enjoyed with the county prior to his unilateral action to cut Lakeport Police off from the information.

After filing the suit against the county and Rivero this spring, the city requested that the suit be moved out of Lake County, and it subsequently went to Mendocino County, where it was assigned to Mayfield.

The two sides made their first appearance in court before Mayfield on July 1. At that time she granted Lakeport's temporary restraining order request, ordering Rivero to restore Lakeport's access to RIMS as it had been before he cut it off without warning on April 23. She also scheduled the Friday preliminary injunction hearing at that point.

After cutting off Lakeport Police's access in April, Rivero initially had claimed it was merely an auditing issue, according to Rasmussen.

Rasmussen criticized the sheriff publicly for the action, asserting that by cutting off access to vital information – that for more than a decade had been readily available to Lakeport Police – Rivero had created a safety issue not just for officers but for Lakeport's residents.

Rivero denied there were any safety issues, and in return accused Rasmussen and his staff of misusing the system, allegations that a District Attorney's Office investigation dismissed as baseless.

Separately, a Lakeport Police Department internal affairs investigation also concluded there had been no wrongdoing by the officers who use the system.

Rivero also had claimed that Lakeport Police was being provided with information they needed from the system.

However, Rasmussen had countered that what they really had been offered were time-consuming workarounds – such as having to call Central Dispatch to ask for a dispatcher to pull case details – and that as a result they were not able to get the information they needed in an efficient manner. The information also was incomplete, he said.

After Rasmussen and the city failed to make any headway in getting Rivero to restore access – Rivero refused a request to do so by the Board of Supervisors, who held a special April 26 meeting on the matter – the Lakeport City Council voted to move forward with litigation, which was filed in May.

County argues dispatch contract didn't include RIMS access

On Friday, Deputy County Counsel Shanda Harry, representing the county, argued that the city's contract with the county did not specifically reference RIMS and that therefore an intent to provide the access couldn't be inferred.

Deputy County Counsel Lloyd Guintivano, who represented Rivero, said the county had provided in its papers evidence of 400 to 500 in appropriate accesses to the RIMS system by Lakeport Police during the first three months of the year, and 35 since Mayfield had restored access through the temporary restraining order on July 1.

Guintivano said the California Department of Justice is now beginning an audit of the system.

However, Mayfield struck out statements by Rivero submitted in court documents alleging that those accesses in question were illegal, as well as Rivero opining on the intent of the 2005 version of the county and city's contract, which was created about two years before Rivero joined the sheriff's office as a deputy.

Mayfield said that the temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction don't preclude Rivero from carrying out his law enforcement duties in monitoring RIMS access.

“He can investigate and do whatever he wants,” she said. “But if there is a particular violation he is to treat that violation narrowly and not cut off access to the entire Lakeport Police Department.”

She said the county also is not required to provide RIMS access in perpetuity. Referring to the 90-day termination clause in the city and county's contract, Mayfield said the county could return at any time to seek to have the agreement terminated.

David Ruderman of the law firm of Colantuono and Levin PC, which was hired to pursue the litigation and also now holds the city attorney's contract with Lakeport, said during the hearing that the county's allegations of improper RIMS uses were a “red herring.”

Rasmussen explained after the hearing that the accesses to RIMS that the county alleged were improper were the same kinds of information queries his officers use the system for on a regular basis.

Ruderman that the county now has 20 days to answer the city's suit in preparation for a trial.

With the extensive steps required next, Ruderman said a trial for a permanent injunction could be a year out.

He said the county also could appeal the ruling to the First District Court of Appeals.

Email Elizabeth Larson at [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.