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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 02-FEBRUARY 08, 2026
Lock Dawson: Riverside is ‘leveling up’ in 2026 By Staff
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n the annual State of the City address Wednesday evening, Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson highlighted five key indicators that Riverside is “leveling up” and “rising” with strength and resilience, with its best days still ahead. Proclaiming that “every metric is going in the right direction,” Lock Dawson told the audience at the Riverside Convention Center that crime and unemployment are down, city revenues and local job creation are increasing, while existing businesses are expanding and new businesses are starting up. “Riverside is a city that achieves and strives for more,” the mayor since 2020 said. “It is a city that believes progress is a responsibility According to Lock Dawson, Riverside has successfully focused on improving key quality-of-life indicators — safety and stability, economic opportunities, health and the environment, identity and creating a city that “works for businesses today, residents right now and generations to come.” Overall crime has decreased 35% since 2023, Lock Dawson reported, citing smarter police work, strong partnerships and adding 88 police officers, allowing the Riverside Police Department to attain full staffing for the first time in 25 years. “I am proud to report that Riverside is an incredibly safe city and becoming safer every day,” the mayor said. Riverside’s economy not only growing but is in the midst of transforming, Lock Dawson observed. Roughly 96% of Riverside office space is occupied, giving the city one of the lowest vacancy rates in the United States. “Companies are not just looking at Riverside,” Lock Dawson said. “They’re choosing us.” Set in a region that is among the nation’s fastest-
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Report: More than 170 US citizens have been held by immigration agents. They’ve been kicked, dragged and detained for days. By Nicole Foy, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
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Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson delivers the 2026 State of the City address. | Photo courtesy of the city of Riverside/YouTube
growing economies, Riverside drew $4.3 billion in new construction last year and created 18,000 new jobs. Lock Dawson also noted that Riverside Public Utilities offers some of the lowest electricity and water rates in California, and six international companies have set up shop in the city in the last two years, adding to the city’s innovation economy. “When innovation clusters, jobs follow,” Lock Dawson told the audience at her annual speech. “And leveling up our economy means making City Hall move at the speed of business.” She spoke about a new selfcertification pilot program that aims to help businesses receive building permits quicker. New regulations will make it easier for entrepreneurs to turn underutilized spaces into new businesses, and a new app is encouraging more people to shop locally, the mayor said. Riverside is improving the local environment while closing gaps in health care, according the mayor reported. The UC Riverside School of Medicine graduated its largest class of doctors and is building a new teaching hospital, while California Baptist University has doubled its cohort of physician assis-
tants. Additionally, La Sierra University offers an online MBA in Health Care Management. A nearly $1 billion expansion of Riverside Community Hospital is underway, and an expansion of Kaiser Permanente’s hospital in La Sierra is expected to open in 2027. Riverside ranks as one of the top 11 cities in the U.S. for installed solar capacity per capita and has launched the world’s only Clean Air Carshare Program with 12 hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The city also broke ground at the Northside Agriculture Innovation Center. “But we must do more,” Lock Dawson said. “By 2027, 70 percent of Riverside’s energy will come from renewable sources, it’s not just good for the planet but good for business” Riverside also is leveling up the city’s identity, both with residents and visitors, the mayor said. “People feel connected here,” she told address attendees. “They love where they live. And they’re proud to call Riverside home. The mayor also touted the city’s Arts and Culture District for its designation as a CaliSee Lock Dawson Page 23
fornia Cultural District by the state Arts Council. The city’s Visit Riverside initiative has reached 20 million people and a new initiative, Preserving Riverside’s Treasures, aims to improve many of the city’s 153 landmarks. “Through this initiative, we’re committing to protecting and celebrating these places as living parts of Riverside’s future,” Lock Dawson said. Neighborhood improvements are changing the face of Riverside, where community centers served more than 1.5 million people last year, according to the mayor. Parks and playgrounds were enhanced, with more upgrades planned for Orange Terrace Community Center, Hole Lake and Fairmount Park. In the Eastside neighborhood, $300 million in state funding will support a new Jesus Duran Library, the renovation of the Cesar Chavez Community Center and the construction of the new Dell Roberts Bordwell Park Gym. Riverside’s senior centers now serve more than 75,000 seniors and deliver over 31,000 meals annually, Lock Dawson reported. The
hen the Supreme Court recently allowed immigration agents in the Los Angeles area to take race into consideration during sweeps, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that citizens shouldn’t be concerned. “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States,” Kavanaugh wrote, “they promptly let the individual go.” But that is far from the reality many citizens have experienced. Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched. About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones. Videos of U.S. citizens being mistreated by immigration agents have filled social media feeds, but there is little clarity on the overall picture. The government does not track how often immigration agents hold Americans. So ProPublica created its own count. We compiled and reviewed every case we could find of agents holding citizens
against their will, whether during immigration raids or protests. While the tally is almost certainly incomplete, we found more than 170 such incidents during the first nine months of President Donald Trump’s second administration. Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer. That includes four who were held for weeks with their undocumented mother and without access to the family’s attorney until a congresswoman intervened. Immigration agents do have authority to detain Americans in limited circumstances. Agents can hold people whom they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally. We found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship. They were almost all Latino. Immigration agents also can arrest citizens who allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers. These cases have often wilted under scrutiny. In nearly 50 instances that we have identified so far, charges have never been filed or the cases were dismissed. Our count found a handful of citizens have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Among the detentions in which allegations have not stuck, masked agents pointed a gun at, pepper sprayed and punched a young man who
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