RIVERSIDE - The Jose Medina for Assembly campaign recently announced that it continues to lead in fundraising, raising $112,000 thus far, which is more than double the amount any candidate has raised in the race for the 61st Assembly District. The campaign also reported more than $72,000 cash on hand - while his main opponent, Republican Bill Batey, reports only $3,755. 

"Contributions from residents of the 61st Assembly District are at the core of my campaign to attract and retain good jobs in Riverside County," said Jose Medina, a Riverside Democrat. "I am also proud to have leaders in business, labor, and public safety among my donors."

A former Riverside Community College District Trustee, Medina outraised GOP contender Bill Batey by more than 2-to-1 in the latest reporting period. Medina raised $41,214 while Batey reported only raising $17,300.

"These resources will help me communicate with voters throughout the 61st Assembly District in time for the June Primary," said Medina. "In the coming months, our continued fundraising efforts and aggressive ground campaign will allow me to share my vision to protect education and promote job creation with the families of Riverside County."

A Riverside Unified School District teacher, Jose Medina is the Democratic candidate in the race for the 61st Assembly District. He is backed by a bipartisan base of elected leaders, and leaders in labor, business, and public safety. The 61st Assembly District includes Riverside, Highgrove, Perris, Mead Valley, Moreno Valley, and March Air Reserve Base. The California Legislative Latino Caucus and the California Democratic Party have identified Medina's race as a top priority in 2012.

For more information please visit www.medinaforassembly.com

San Bernardino - More than 2,000 students at The Art Institute of California - Inland Empire are joining other local college students who are packing Omnitrans buses. The two organizations will partner for a two-month pilot program starting on May 7, allowing students from The Art Institute of California - Inland Empire to ride Omnitrans with a swipe of their college ID card.

The Art Institute of California - Inland Empire, located at 674 E. Brier Drive in San Bernardino, is served by Omnitrans Route 2, which provides 15-minute frequencies on weekdays. The school offers Associate and Bachelor programs in design, media arts, fashion and culinary arts.

"We are excited to be joining the 'Go Smart' program and offering this benefit to our students," said John Andersen, Dean of Student Affairs, The Art Institute of California - Inland Empire. "This program not only helps students get to and from school but also benefits the community decreasing carbon footprint and traffic congestion." The pilot program is funded by The Art Institute -Inland Empire and if embraced by the student body for the initial trial (May through June) the program will transition into an ongoing program.

"The tremendous success of the 'Go Smart' program is a major contributor to our total ridership being up 8.2 percent year to date," said Omnitrans Director of Marketing Wendy Williams. "We are seeing students make a choice to save money and save the environment by using transit."

Students at Chaffey, Crafton Hills and San Bernardino Valley Colleges and California State University San Bernardino have racked up over 1 million bus rides since a one-year pilot program was launched last August. Over 22 percent of enrolled student have utilized the program and in the process have eliminated more than 68 tons of emissions compared to driving to campus.

Students can use their student ID card to ride Omnitrans at anytime on any route, not just trips to and from campus. ID cards are swiped in the fare box on board buses, which allows the agency to capture usage data by school, by route and even individual ID. Omnitrans offers trip planning at 1-800-9-OMNIBUS or www.omnitrans.org.

Financial planning is a personalized approach focused on one’s individual goals to support a standard of living now and in the future. On Thursday, March 22, 2012, Tillman Riverside Mortuary will sponsor a free Community Informational Seminar at Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church, 1910 Martin Luther King Blvd.,

Riverside beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the hopes of providing the community the tools needed to secure their future financially.

This event will bring together professionals from the social security administration, Veteran’s Administration, Coroner/Public Administration, probate and living trust attorney, as well as other invited guests providing essential information for financial security.

For more information on the seminar or to RSVP contact (951)682-6433.

This event is co-sponsored by the African American Historical Society, NAACP, and Park Avenue Missionary Baptist Church. A continental breakfast and lunch will be served.

By Marian Wright Edelman

Every parent raising Black sons knows the dilemma: deciding how soon to have the talk. Choosing the words to explain to your beautiful child that there are some people who will never like or trust him just because of who he is—including some who should be there to protect him, but will instead have the power to hurt him. Training him how to walk, what to say, and how to act so he won’t seem like a threat. Teaching him that the burden of deflating stereotypes and reassuring other people’s ignorance will always fall on him, and while that isn’t fair, in some cases it may be the only way to keep him safe and alive.

But sometimes it isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to protect Trayvon Martin. Seventeen-year-old Trayvon’s English teacher said he was “an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” Trayvon loved building models and taking things apart, his favorite subject was math, and he dreamed of becoming a pilot and an engineer. Instead, he was gunned down by a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain vigilante who profiled him, followed him, and shot him in the chest. His killer, George Zimmerman, saw the teenager on the street and called the police to report he looked “like he’s up to no good.” At the time Trayvon was walking home from the nearby 7-11 carrying a bottle of Arizona iced tea and a bag of Skittles for his younger stepbrother, leaving many people to guess that the main thing he was doing that made him look “no good” was wearing a hooded sweatshirt in the rain and walking while Black. George Zimmerman’s decisions made that suspicious enough to be a death sentence.

Now there is widespread outrage over the senseless killing of a young Black man who was doing nothing wrong and the fact that the man who killed him has not been arrested. People are trying to make sense of the series of gun laws that allowed George Zimmerman to act as he did—starting with the Florida laws that allowed someone like Zimmerman, who had previously been charged for resisting arrest with violence and battery on a police officer, to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon in the first place. Many more questions are being raised about Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which also has been described as the “shoot first, ask questions later” law, and gives the benefit of the doubt to Zimmerman and others claiming “self-defense” by allowing people who say they are in imminent danger to defend themselves. Some states limit this defense to people’s own homes, but others, like Florida, allow it anywhere.

As Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, says, this law “has turned common law—and common sense—on its head by enabling vigilantes to provoke conflicts, resolve them with deadly force, and avoid ever having to set foot in a courtroom.” The fear in Trayvon’s death is that this is exactly what has happened so far: that the story told by witnesses, phone records, and Zimmerman’s violent past and earlier complaints during his neighborhood patrols shows an overzealous armed aggressor who followed Trayvon even after police told him to stop, chased Trayvon down when the frightened boy tried to walk away from the stranger following him, and then shot the unarmed, 100-pounds-lighter teenager while neighbors said they heard a child crying for help. The prospect now that Zimmerman might never set foot in a courtroom for the shooting has caused widespread frustration and fury.

Just as sadly, Trayvon’s death was not unique. In 2008 and 2009, 2,582 Black children and teens were killed by gunfire. Black children and teens were only 15 percent of the child population, but 45 percent of the 5,740 child and teen gun deaths in those two years. Black males 15 to 19 years-old were eight times as likely as White males to be gun homicide victims. The outcry over Trayvon’s death is absolutely right and just. We need the same sense of outrage over every one of these child deaths. Above all, we need a nation where these senseless deaths no longer happen. But we won’t get it until we have common-sense gun laws that protect children instead of guns and don’t allow people like George Zimmerman to take the law into their own hands. We won’t get it until we have a culture that sees every child as a child of God and sacred, instead of seeing some as expendable statistics, and others as threats and “no good” because of the color of their skin or because they chose to walk home wearing a hood in the rain. And we won’t get it until enough of us—parents and grandparents—stand up and tell our political leaders that the National Rifle Association should not be in charge of our neighborhoods, streets, gun laws, and values. In Trayvon’s case, his father Tracy speaks for what his family needs: “The family is calling for justice. We don’t want our son’s death to be in vain.” I hope that enough voices will ensure that it is not.

Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.