The city is recruiting for a new watchdog position created after voters approved Measure L, though some question whether the appointed role can operate independently.
Palm trees frame a snow-capped mountain backdrop at sunrise, viewed from a neighborhood near the Gage Canal and Victoria Avenue in late December 2025. (Karin Westerling) Have a photo that captures the spirit of Riverside? Share it with us for a chance to win two tickets to Hadestown at The Fox!
City Opens Search for Inspector General, a New Watchdog Role
The city is recruiting for a new watchdog position created after voters approved Measure L, though some question whether the appointed role can operate independently.
Riverside has opened recruitment for its first-ever inspector general — a watchdog with authority to investigate fraud, waste, and inefficiency across city government.
Why it matters: The new office, backed by 64% of Riverside voters in 2024, will have real teeth — including full access to city records and the power to put items directly on the City Council's agenda.
Driving the news: Recruitment opened March 3 and closes April 5. The role carries a salary of $160,896–$217,212 and requires at least eight years of executive-level experience in legal, criminal, or investigative work.
After April 5, the selection process takes four to six months on average, with the Council approving the final hire in open session.
Catch up quick: Council voted 6-1 in November 2025 to create the role — a year after voters approved it via Measure L. Councilmember Robillard, who led the subcommittee, said the slow rollout reflected deliberate planning.
"This is not a ceremonial position," Robillard told the Gazette.
Yes, but: Critics question whether an appointee selected by the mayor and council can truly provide independent oversight. Former Ethics Board member Keith J. Nelson argues the structure creates "managed oversight" — not independent accountability — because the same political body that appoints the inspector general may one day be subject to scrutiny by that office.
Councilmember Falcone, the lone dissenting vote, has called the role "expensive, untested, and unnecessary."
What's next: Applications close April 5. A hire is expected by late 2026.
A Life Well Lived: An Introduction to Katherine Siva Saubel
How a Cahuilla elder became one of California's most influential voices for Native language, culture, and rights.
Katherine Siva Saubel, black and white portrait. (Courtesy of Palm Springs Life)
Katherine Siva Saubel learned at a young age that her Cahuilla culture and traditional ways needed to be preserved. By the time Mrs. Saubel was born, March 7, 1920, many changes had occurred to Native people. The reservation system was in place; her family lived on Los Coyotes reservation but moved to Agua Caliente Reservation in Palm Springs a few years after her birth. Riverside had been established decades earlier, and Sherman Institute was still a tourist attraction for guests of the Mission Inn.
The eighth child of eleven children, Mrs. Saubel grew up speaking Cahuilla and taught herself how to speak English as she was virtually ignored in elementary school due to segregation. She became the first Native American woman to graduate from Palm Springs high school. During this time, Mrs. Saubel documented plants and their uses in a notebook with descriptions of food, medicine and tools so they would never be lost to the past. This later shaped one of the advocacies for which she is remembered. At a time when Native scholarship was limited to anthropologists, she took ownership of her community's narrative.
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