Recently in 6th Ward City Council Category

Sixth Ward City Councilman Rikke Van Johnson and Police Chief Keith Kilmer are scheduled to meet the public at a town hall meeting scheduled for Thursday.

San Bernardino Employment and Training Agency staffers are also set to be on hand to share information on youth job opportunities for the summer.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Inghram Community Center, 2050 North Mount Vernon Avenue.

I was able to speak with 6th Ward Councilman Rikke Van Johnson after I had to turn in my contribution to the library story that will run in Thursday's edition.

Here's what Johnson had to say about the proposed budget cuts:

"There's a little bit of wiggle room right now, but very little," Johnson said. "I'll be talking to the City Manager about making sure I can do what I can to make sure Inghram doesn't close."

Inghram is one of three branch libraries that are slated for temporary closure under interim City Manager Mark Weinberg's proposal to solve a projected $9 million budget gap. Libraries that have closed previously in San Bernardino have not reopened.

Here's the release:

RIKKE VAN JOHNSON PRESIDENT OF BOYS & GIRLS CLUB

(SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.) - Rikke Van Johnson is the new president of the Boys & Girls Club of San Bernardino Board of Directors.

Johnson, a 44-year-resident of San Bernardino, has served on the Boys & Girls Club Board of Directors since 2000. He is also a San Bernardino City Council member, representing the Sixth Ward.

Long before then, as a teen growing up in San Bernardino, he was a member of the Boys & Girls' Club of San Bernardino, where he swam and received guidance from the adult role models there.

"I had great supervisors when I attended the Boys & Girls Club of San Bernardino as a teenager," he said. This is my way of giving back for all the good this club has provided for me."

Johnson said he learned leadership skills in the Boys & Girls Club that helped him during his 27-year career with the United States Postal Service, in his current job as the manager of Greenwood Bail Bonds and as he leads both the Boys & Girls Club and the city.

As the new board president, Johnson will guide the board through its top priority for 2009, which is to raise $100,000 for the Boys & Girls Club of San Bernardino. This will help the program provide more services to the area's children through its programs such as Torch Club, a leadership program for preteens and Triple Play, a program that emphasizes health and fitness for children.

It will also assist the Boys & Girls Club in renovating its kitchen, which is more than 40 years old and hasn't been used for several years. After the renovation, the Boys & Girls Club will serve meals, teach children to cook and promote healthy eating as advocated in the Triple Play program.

To assist in its fund-raising venture, the Board of Directors hopes to expand its own membership. The board now has 11 members, but it's open to community leaders with the passion and tenacity to serve.

"We want people who will be able to bring in resources to meet the needs of the boys and girls who are our members," Van Johnson said. "Many of them are at-risk children, and we want the Boys & Girls Club to be everything it can to help them become successful young adults."

Van Johnson said he also hopes to recruit people to a new advisory board for a Boys & Girls Club. These are people such as elected officials and company executives, who would not have time to volunteer as a governing board member, but who are well-connected to other people in the community and could assist the governing board in that way.

Rikke Van Johnson is the elected City Council representative to the Sixth Ward of San Bernardino where he has lived for most of his life. He is the manager of Greenwood Bail Bonds, and volunteers with several groups including the Boys & Girls Club of San Bernardino and Westside Action Group. He is married to Sharon, and has three children and one grandchild.

The Boys & Girls' Club of San Bernardino operates clubs in the Westside and Delmann Heights neighborhoods of San Bernardino and in Rialto. It has more than 1,500 members, children and teens who are building character, developing leadership skills, building strong, healthy bodies and preparing for a successful future through the programs the Boys & Girls Club offers.

When a candidate seeks a newspaper's endorsement, it's sort of a job interview. That's how The Sun's editorial board views it, to the dismay of 6th Ward City Council candidate Stewart Cumming ("I would work for the 6th Ward, not for you"). The sharpest response comes from 5th Ward candidate Randall Lee, who, in ending his editorial board interview, mused, "It's not like I'm applying for a $150,000-a-year job." The editorial board didn't need to remind incumbent 5th Ward Councilman Chas Kelley. "You know," he said, "this is sort of like a job interview." How'd they do? Stay tuned. The newspaper's endorsements will be published about the time absentee ballots are sent out in early October.

Is it a disadvantage to be a white candidate in San Bernardino's ethnically diverse 6th Ward? No, says Stewart Cumming, who is seeking the Westside council seat. In fact, he's insulted - nay, outraged - by the question. Cumming made that perfectly clear in his endorsement interview with The Sun's editorial board, his anger visible as he explained that society should "ignore" perceived racial divides. He later called the question "morally repugnant and socially irresponsible," and said "that as a society/community we may have focused far too much on multiculturalism and not enough on the common culture." The leading candidates for the 6th Ward seat are incumbent Rikke Van Johnson and Betty Dean Anderson, whom Van Johnson defeated in a close race in 2003. Both are African American. Cumming is white.

6th Ward Councilman Rikke Van Johnson caused a stir when he demanded the 9-11 tapes of a police response to a West side neighborhood ...

A number of calls came into the Sun following a Sept. 10 press release that had the familiar heading of Councilman Rikke Van Johnson with the contact number of Mayor's office staffer D'Ann Lanning ...

Contacted Tuesday afternoon, 6th ward Councilman Rikke Van Johnson reiterated that he wants to hear 9-11 tapes of what happened between police and residents in his ward on Aug. 19.
"I need to do this just from what I've heard talking to the residents," Johnson said ...

6th ward Councilman Rikke Van Johnson released a statement at 5:16 p.m. Monday calling for an investigation into an Aug. 19 altercation between police and residents in a low-income neighborhood on the West side.