(January 9)  Gil Navarro has been removed from his position as a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Education based upon San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Sachs’ determination that Navarro’s simultaneous incumbency on the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District Board constituted a conflict of interest.
The dilemma besetting Navarro grew out of his having outdistanced George Aguilar in the November 2012 race for a position on the San Bernardino Municipal Water District representing that entity’s  Division 2, with Navarro capturing  11,643 votes or 56.21 percent to Aguilar’s  9,070 votes or 43.79 percent. At that point, Navarro, who had been a member of the school board since 2006, still had two years remaining on his term as a school board member.
Navarro’s victory prompted county superintendent of schools Gary Thomas to seek a legal opinion from San Bernardino County’s in-house lawyers, known as county counsel, as to whether holding both positions would represent a conflict. Thomas, who is independently elected to his post and has had a few run-ins with Navarro over the last several years on issues pertaining to education, said he was prompted to obtain the opinion because of concerns expressed by members of the public about possible conflicts that might arise if Navarro is called to vote on specific matters over which both the county division of schools and the water district might have competing interests.
On December 7,  2012, head county counsel Jean-Rene Basle authored a letter in which he and his staff summarized published opinions from the California Attorney General’s Office which they said indicated Navarro’s circumstance entailed a potential conflict of interest.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has overarching authority with regard to water issues in the central portion of the county, dictating policy with regard to water availability and setting wholesale water rates for smaller water retailers and other public water agencies, including those that provide water to several school districts.
Such a circumstance creates a conflict under California law that might preclude Navarro from voting with regard to, on one hand, the water district making water available to school districts or determining the price of that water, or, on the other hand, the county’s schools and school districts purchasing that water. Basle said this would lead to a conflict that Navarro and both the water district and the county superintendent of schools office should avoid. An attorney general’s opinion from 2002 opines, Basle said, that “A significant clash of duties and loyalties may arise in such matters as the water district setting the wholesale water rate that will be passed on to the school district by the retail water agencies involved” and could further occur when the water board votes on “determining the need for restrictions on water usage during times of water shortage.”
Navarro, however, maintained that no such conflict existed given that there was no squabbling over water rates and that he could sidestep any conflicts that did arise by abstaining if and when such conflicts materialized. He refused to surrender either position.
The matter was referred to the California Attorney General’s Office, which made a determination that there would be sufficient grounds for the board to undertake a lawsuit to seek Navarro’s removal from the county school board.
An outspoken Latino activist who has pushed for the political and professional empowerment of Hispanics, Navarro insisted he was encountering opposition because of that activity. In his effort to remain on the school board, he cited the legal precedent involved in the case of  Blanca Estella Rubio, a board member with the Baldwin Park Unified School District, who in 2004 was challenged by another member of the Baldwin Park Unified School District Board, Anthony J. Bejarano, because he claimed Rubio’s school board position and that of board member or director of the Valley County Water District, to which Rubio had previously also been elected, constituted the holding of “incompatible offices.”
Bejarano and the school district took Rubio to court and in a civil trial held in October 2005, a jury ruled in a 9-3 decision that Rubio could keep her seats on both the school board and the water board.
Legal  authorities, while conceding there were direct parallels between the Rubio and Navarro cases, claimed there is superseding law which undercuts Navarro’s position. In 2005, the California State Legislature acted to define incompatibility of office as applicable whenever there “is a possibility of a significant clash of duties or loyalties between the offices.”
Sachs, in a finding and accompanying order for Navarro’s removal issued last month, said Navarro is “not entitled to hold or exercise the office of San Bernardino County Board of Education Trustee as it is an incompatible office with his position as a San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District Board Member.”
The Board of Education voted on January 6, to replace Navarro on the board by an appointment process that will entail the acceptance of applications until January 16, interviews of candidates and a selection by the board as early as January 23.

(January 9)  Fourth District County Supervisor Gary Ovitt this week announced he will not seek reelection later this year, capping his political career with ten years in office as supervisor and twelve years in office as city councilman and mayor in Ontario.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Sentinel at the Ovitt Family Library, the municipal library in Ontario named in honor of him, his wife and his father, Ovitt reminisced and sized up his 22 years in public office.
The son of an Ontario policeman, Ovitt was born at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland in 1947, attended Chaffey High School and then graduated from the University of Redlands. His first career employment was with his high school alma mater, where he originally was a physical education teacher and coached football, baseball and cross country. He broadened his teaching arena, eventually becoming a social studies, history, economics and government teacher.
His public office career started when, as a high school employee, he was appointed to the city of Ontario’s parks and recreation commission in 1974. The commission had representatives from both the Chaffey High School District and the Ontario-Montclair School District on it.
In 1992, Ovitt was encouraged to run for city council by Mike Milhiser, who had been the city manager in Montclair and Ontario as well as by Gus Skropos, Ontario’s mayor who had once been one of his students, and Jim Bowman, an Ontario council member with whom Ovitt had gone to high school. In what was his first attempt at elected office, he won.
“It was a relatively easy assignment,” he said. “It required two nights a month for you to do the best you could representing people.” Six years later, he ran for mayor. He won.
Of his time on the council and as mayor, Ovitt said he had been part of a coordinated effort to “build up the city economically. We invested heavily in our industrial area and brought Ontario Mills on board. Through that we were able to get sufficient tax revenue to buy property and put in the infrastructure where the Citizens Business Bank Arena now sits. I wasn’t there when they remodeled this library, but was there during the planning stages. We made the senior citizen center become a reality. We developed the teen center at De Anza Park. The convention center was built during that time. We worked with Los Angeles World Airports to construct two new terminals at Ontario International Airport. We hired Greg Devereaux as city manager, which helped us get a firm financial footing, where we could meet our community development goals. As a result, Ontario today is the largest generator of sales tax revenue among all the cities in the county.”
Ovitt provided a window on the hiring of Devereaux, who at that point in the mid-1990s, was city manager in Fontana where he was successfully working to rejuvenate that city in the aftermath of the closure of Kaiser Steel.
“I was on the council at the time,” Ovitt said. “The mayor [Skropos] was out of town and the mayor pro tem called for a special meeting. At the meeting we looked at the performance of the city attorney, Sam Crowe, and the interim city manager, Michael O’Connor. With the four of us, we accepted Sam Crowe’s resignation and then put Michael O’Connor on administrative leave. We temporarily appointed Otto Kroutil, the community development director, to serve as acting city manager. The mayor was very impressed with Greg Devereaux. He was a good man who had done a good job in Fontana and Gus [Skropos] made the arrangements to hire him.”
Ovitt had been mayor for six years when the recall of California Governor Grey Davis took place and Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to replace him. Then-San Bernardino County Fourth District supervisor Fred Aguiar resigned to take on a position in the Schwarzenegger administration. Aguiar’s wife, Patty, temporarily replaced him on the board, and the following year a special election was held to fill the Fourth District supervisor’s post for the remaining two years of Aguiar’s term. Ovitt ran against a large field of candidates, the most noteworthy of whom were then-Chino mayor Eunice Ulloa and former supervisor, assemblyman and state senator Ruben Ayala’s son, Maurice. Ovitt won that race.
“At that point I had taught for 35 years and I enjoyed what I was doing, but I saw running for supervisor as a new challenge and an opportunity to try my hand at the county level and to interact with other cities and build relationships. It was an opportunity to do things I had not done before,” he said.
County government at that time, he said, was “much different as opposed to city government. I came from a well-run city. When I actually went to the county, it was like the frontier, the wild, wild West. You could do pretty much whatever you wanted to do in your district. You could deal with someone in your district and task staff to remedy the situation along whatever lines or rules needed. Mark Uffer was the county administrative officer at that time. He had become top administrator around the time I got there. Mark was a very capable administrator at the county hospital but when he was hired to oversee all 42 of the county’s departments and 19,000 employees he took on far more responsibility. It was an almost unworkable situation. The board had tremendous power and the chairman of the board was more responsible than the county administrator, more powerful and more in control. Immediately, I realized if it was to work better we were going to need someone like Greg as administrator, someone of his caliber who understood the workings of a municipality and could make it come together with structure and order. I looked around at the board and none of the five of us had the technical ability to do that. Bill Postmus was a politician. Dennis Hansberger had been involved with his family’s business but didn’t have experience running something like the county. Josie Gonzales had run a good family-owned restaurant but didn’t have the necessary experience. Paul Biane’s family had a business and he had experience selling real estate but that was it. I had been a high school teacher.
“We needed a structure where we could bring in a professional, someone who could run an administration for the entire county and its departments and we [the board] could then deal with policy and devote ourselves to issues in our district on a more efficient basis,” Ovitt said.
In his initial years on the board, Ovitt said, he felt board members were out of their depth in dealing with issues placed before them and were without the top tier administrative guidance that could delegate decisions on pressing issues to those with the requisite technical expertise or experience.
“One of the things I was concerned about was our decision-making on how we spent money and our budgeting,” Ovitt said. “Much of it was done by the chairman of the board. As supervisors we had no idea of what equipment we were missing, whether we needed an 800 megahertz capability, what equipment needed to be purchased. Josie and I were elected at the same time. There was a learning curve for both of us. We have changed all of this for the better.”
His greatest contribution to the county, he opined, was to reorganize leadership and management by strengthening the role of the county administrative officer, a position which is now termed the county’s executive officer. It is manned by Devereaux, who was lured away from Ontario in 2010 while Ovitt was chairman of the board.
“It is now a matter of whoever is elected supervisor, that person will have the resource of a strong leader in the form of the CEO, instead of rushing to meet whatever happens to be the trend of the day,” Ovitt said. “The supervisors before were able to spend money on whatever they wanted in their own district but there was no control, their request was not agenized and no vote required. As supervisors we have lost direct access and control of that money, but now there is a much more intelligent and structured control on how our money is spent. Although tasked with setting the budget, we really didn’t play much of a role in shaping the budget. The sheriff had tremendous power. The district attorney had power. Public safety is always important and the public demands we provide safety for them and their communities. Now we budget ahead and do not throw money at a problem when it arises. It is not so much that Mark Uffer failed but that the system of governance wasn’t wired so that we could rely on a professional who knew government structure and how to organize and recognize the difference between policy decisions and operations. The county is now setting goals, so that we know where we are going instead of doing just what the board happens to bring up. We no longer give the sheriff or DA whatever they ask for without question. There is a new organization and Greg has made it so it reflects the way we work, separating the board, as policy makers, from the day-to-day operations. We involved the public in developing a Community Indicators Report to establish a baseline for what we need to improve – health, education, economy. We now have a basis to work from to develop priorities.”
Ovitt said he also believes that the county board and management structure is now “smarter about the way we do our budgeting, putting money away and trying to build reserves. We negotiated with the [labor] associations to pay 7.5 percent of their retirement costs. There is now something built into the budget for the future. Costs will continue to be reduced and we will be able to continue to bring more money into our programs, into building jails and into meeting other important goals.”
The hardest part of the job of being a supervisor/policy maker is having the discipline to say “no,” Ovitt said.
“I think the county is huge and it has tremendous opportunities,” he said. “We can’t fund them all. We have to work with the CEO to develop priorities. We have to work with each other and other governmental entities. We spend our money according to the mutual goals we have. Previously, we were acting and reacting blindly in many respects.”
He said his advice to his successor is to “continue” with the improvements made under his watch on the board.
Ovitt said that he does not think he would have done anything much differently if he had it to do over again. “I don’t see any regrets,” he said. “You take risks and make changes. You do your best. I don’t think I’ve hurt anyone. That is the key to what I did. I obviously had a tough vote with the Colonies [in which he joined with supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane in November 2006 to confer a $102 million settlement of a lawsuit brought against the county by the Colonies Partners]. My vote made sense because I saw real liability on the part of our county.”
Of those he worked with on the board, Ovitt said of Bill Postmus, “He was a strong leader at the beginning but he became absent halfway through his last term.”
Paul Biane, Ovitt said, “expressed his opinions and fought for what he believed in.”
Josie Gonzales, he said, “is the Eveready Battery. She goes to many, many events. She is not afraid to express her opinion. She speaks from her heart.”
Dennis Hansberger, Ovitt said, “was a great mentor. He studied the issues. He was bright and articulate. I think he was old-fashioned but in a good way in that he loved to debate issues. Debate became less of the plan of governance under Bill Postmus. With Bill Postmus, you didn’t debate.”
Neil Derry, Ovitt said, “came in to make a name for himself and be Mr. Clean, if you will, and sometimes it was harmful to other supervisors.”
Janice Rutherford, he said, “is bright, articulate and is a good leader.”
James Ramos “wants to solve everyone’s problems. He has more to learn about the county. He cares.”
Robert Lovingood, Ovitt said, “brings a businessman’s perspective to every issue and is good to work with.”
Brad Mitzelfelt, he said, “overanalyzed and tried to do too much of the work himself.”
Before Ovitt became board chairman and after Postmus had been  chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, Ovitt became central committee chairman.  He said that he “tried to keep our party activity separate from my being on the board of supervisors,” which he said was counter to Postmus’ approach, which blurred the distinction between the two lines of authority.
Ovitt, like the rest of the board, is subject to recently enacted term limits, but those were not applicable until this term, meaning he could vie for reelection this year and again in 2018, if he chose to. His intent to depart at the end of the current term now has contributed to the perception that he is leaving because another Republican, assemblyman Curt Hagman, has given indication he covets being Fourth District supervisor and was prepared to put Ovitt to a real electoral test.
Ovitt insisted he was not driven to leave office by Hagman’s resolve to vie for Fourth District supervisor or reports that Congressman Gloria Negrete-McLeod was also contemplating leaving the House of Representatives to make a bid for supervisor.
“The truth is my wife and I talked about this and had come to this decision independent of the other issues,” Ovitt told the Sentinel. “I am 66 years old. I always intended this to be my last term. I ran 7 times and I won 7 times. I’ve accomplished things I never would have envisioned I would accomplish. I have been councilman and mayor, supervisor and chairman of the board of supervisors. I was the SCAG [Southern California Association of Governments] president and helped return it to a highly respected planning organization. I don’t see too much more I can accomplish.”
Ovitt acknowledged that he was aware Hagman was looking to challenge him this year.
“He is aggressively looking at being supervisor,” Ovitt said. “He will be termed out of the assembly and has nowhere else to go. If he ran and I ran, I would have run on my record and I believe I would have done well.  The labor unions have not been encouraging me to run.  Congresswoman McLeod is also considering running. She has over $900,000 in her campaign account and she doesn’t like the partisanship in Washington. It would have been an interesting race. My plan had always been to step down after this term. The only reason I was looking at serving another term was the encouragement I was getting from others to run again. My wife and I both looked at it. I go out on my own terms now. I am a man of faith and I prayed about it. This is a good time for me to bow out. I can be just as effective in the other roles I am contemplating,” Ovitt said.
“I am still healthy and I would like to get involved in education again,” he said. “That is what I loved doing and what I am trained for. I am looking at a chance to finish up in the field. When I look at water boards, school boards, city councils, I see people who want to represent their communities but who have not been trained in leadership. I do not see a ‘bench’ of people who know how to run agencies and governments.  I want to get involved in making leadership training opportunities available. This could be done at our colleges or universities or be privately funded. The idea would be to train leaders of the future. Not many young people join service organizations anymore. The young people who do show an interest are not experienced because there isn’t anyone out there developing the skills and providing the experience we need for our future leaders. I am excited about getting involved in that.”
Ovitt said, “For me, I have benefitted greatly from the relationships I have formed and the experiences of serving with so many committed public servants.  I step back knowing that I have done my best.”

(January 8)  CHINO HILLS—The City Council has chosen Konradt Bartlam to succeed Mike Fleager as city manager.
Bartlam, 54, will become the city’s fourth city manager since incorporation.
Fleager, who has been with the city since 2009, in November 2012 had been given a contract extension through May of this year. Abruptly last May, however, Fleager announced he would leave the city last November. He has remained in place while he city was seeking his successor.
Bartlam was chosen after a statewide search and the consideration of 85 candidates.
Bartlam worked as Lodi’s community development director from 1996 until 2005, at which time he departed to work for Lilley Planning Group, a land use consultancy. He was with Lilley for three years before returning as Lodi’s community development director in 2008.
After he completed the supervision of Lodi’s update to its general plan in April 2010, he was promoted to the position of interim city manager. In November 2010, he was made Lodi’s full fledged city manager.
He has 25 years experience in municipal planning. He served as a city planner for the city of Brea from 1989 to 1996; a development services manager and senior planner for the city of Pomona from 1987-89; and an associate planner in the cities of Glendora from 1987-89 and Simi Valley from 1986-87.
In addition to expertise in land use, Bartlam has experience with regard to utility division operations.
Bartlam was making $180,746 per year as Lodi’s city manager. In Chino Hills, he will be provided with a yearly salary of $202,800, accompanied by benefits totaling slightly more than $40,000 annually. Chino Hills has also agreed to pay him a one-time residence relocation stipend of $10,000.

(January 9) The parent company of Barstow Community Hospital has made a major corporate expansion, swallowing in one gulp its major competitor.
North Naples, Florida-based Community Health Systems, which owns Barstow Community Hospital, acquired Health Management Associates Inc., the company announced January 7.
Community Health Systems, which is the largest for-profit hospital system in the United States, is utilizing its own capital as well as borrowed money to take on ownership of Health Management Associates in a $7 billion transaction. The takeover is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
While the purchase strengthens assurances of the continuing provision of health care to the Barstow Community, there are anti-trust implications to the takeover. There have long been concerns about health care costs at Barstow Community Hospital. Community Health System’s elimination of its single largest competitor in one fell swoop does nothing to allay those concerns.
A study conducted by National Nurses United and the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy places Barstow Community Hospital’s markup rate for medical services among more than 4,000 hospitals in the country as being near the highest in both California, fourth, and the entire country, at 39th.
Word of the possible merger leaked out in August. It became a reality this week. There is concern being expressed that the company will now up its rates further to pay for the merger and will simultaneously reduce the acquisition of state-of-the art equipment. That is not too much of an immediate concern in Barstow, given the recent opening of the new replacement hospital.
A coalition of groups representing registered nurses from across the country has begun coordinated protests against the merger but they are not likely to result in any legal or regulatory action that will prevent the merger from proceeding.
More than 97 percent of Health Management Associates shareholders approved the purchase.

(January 9)  TWENTYNINE PALMS — With the removal of the county’s moratorium on commercial solar projects in San Bernardino County, a Chinese company with its American headquarters in Silicon Valley has applied to construct a 1.5 megawatt solar plant just outside the Twentynine Palms city limits.
Clean Focus, based in Beijing and headed by chairman John Chang and president and CEO Stanley Chin, represents the investment firm GSR Ventures, a venture capital fund with substantial operations in China that invests primarily in early stage technology companies.
Clean Focus specializes in financing and leasing solar power installations in the commercial, government, and utility sectors, and works with system integrators to identify economically compelling solar projects and provide financing through power purchase agreements or long-term leases.
John Chang has experience with start-up and multinational companies, including a solar photovoltaic start-up and an energy-management services provider. He co-founded a casino slot-machine manufacturer in Shanghai and worked with Chin on the merger of his company, StarCite, with OnVantage to form what he said is the dominant player in cloud-based meeting-management technology.
Slightly less than a year ago, the city of Twentynine Palms prohibited commercial solar power plants within city limits. The project is to be located on unincorporated county land on a 12-acre portion of a 160-acre site on the southeast corner of Raymond Drive and Mesquite Springs Road, putting it under the jurisdiction of the county’s land use services division.
The land is zoned for rural living, which is deemed suitable for solar project development based on the county’s newly adopted commercial solar development guidelines. Twentynine Palms officials have said they will raise an objection to the project, which is to utilize photovoltaic cells to generate 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
County officials are accepting comments on the proposal until January 14.  No public hearing on the proposal has been set. Citizens can weigh in on the project by emailing them to christopher.conner@lus.sbcounty.gov, faxing them to (909) 387-3223 or mailing them to 385 North Arrowhead Avenue, First Floor, San Bernardino, Calif., 992415-0182.

(January 9)  Rep. Paul Cook (R-Apple Valley) will host a Twitter Town Hall on Wednesday, January 15 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM PST.
Anyone wishing to follow Rep. Cook’s Town Hall can visit his Twitter page, @RepPaulCook , on Wednesday, January 15 between 12:00PM to 1:00PM PST. A Twitter account is not needed to view the Town Hall. Those wishing to ask questions, however, must have a Twitter account and can tweet questions to Rep. Cook using the hashtag #AskCook.
Cook said, “Engaging with constituents across the 8th District remains one of my top priorities. I’m excited to find new ways to connect with the people, families, and communities I’m proud to represent.”
Constituents are encouraged to participate by asking questions on Twitter throughout the course of the week.
A member of the House Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs Committees, Cook served as an infantry officer and retired after 26 years as a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps. During his time in combat, he was awarded the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

By clicking on the following portal, you can download a copy of the January 3 Sentinel.

Sentinel 01-03-14

(Published January 3)  San Bernardino County’s contribution to its employee pension system, which has seen steady and significant increases over the last several years, will escalate to beyond the $200 million mark in 2014-15.
While previous increases in the county’s contribution reflected the growing number of surviving retirees, next year’s increases will include an escalation of the percentage rate now being employed in the contribution formula as a consequence of a new state mandate under the Public Employee Pension Reform Act. That law requires that a governmental entity’s pension contributions be consistent with actuarial projections.
Accordingly, the county board of supervisors authorized increasing, effective June 28, 2014, the county’s contribution rates for its two tiers of employees.
In response to concern that escalating pension costs would threaten the county’s solvency, retirement benefits were reduced for county employees who began participating in the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement System on or after January 1, 2013.
San Bernardino County’s scheduled contribution to the county employee retirement fund in the current fiscal year was $179,068,000. By taking advantage of a provision of state law contained in Government Code Section 31582, which allows the county to advance pay part or all of the county’s estimated annual retirement contribution within 30 days after the commencement of the county’s fiscal year, the county was provided with a discounted simple interest rate of 3.68 percent, translating into a savings of $6,589,943. Thus San Bernardino County actually paid $172,478,057 into the retirement fund for this year.
In the fiscal year commencing on July 1. 2014, the county is due to see its pension liability zoom up by $23.37 million to $202,438,000.
The county’s pension contribution costs have been escalating by an average of $20,107,480 per year over the last two years.
In 2011, the county made a $132,263,097 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2011-12 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,299,603 from the $137,562,700 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund that year. In 2012, the county made a $154,626,037 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2012-13 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,907,863 from the $160,533,900 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund through June 30, 2013.
Pursuant to the board of supervisors’ action on December 17, the retirement contribution rates for the county’s first tier (i.e., long term) general employees will increase from 18.96% to 20.24% of compensation earnable. The retirement contribution rate for second tier [i.e., hired since December 2012] general employees will escalate from 16.53% to 18.02% of pensionable compensation. The county’s contribution rate for first tier safety employees will increase from 39.99% to 43.15% of compensation earnable. The county contribution rate for second tier safety employees will go from 32.9% to 37.02% of pensionable compensation.  The Superior Court retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will jump from 19.87% to 21.75% of compensation earnable. The Superior Court retirement contribution rate for second tier general members will rise from 17.44% to 19.53% of pensionable compensation. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will increase from 27.69% to 29.91% of compensation earnable. The increase in the retirement contribution rate for non-county/special districts general second tier members will entail a change from 23.83% to 25.44% of pensionable compensation. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for first tier safety employees will shoot from 57.82% to 59.65% of compensation earnable. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for second tier safety members will decrease from 50.87% to 50.73% of pensionable compensation.  The South Coast Air Quality Management District retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will rise from 25.22% to 27.76% of compensation earnable. The South Coast Air Quality Management District retirement contribution rate for second tier general employees will increase from 22.86% to 25.36% of pensionable compensation.
In addition the general member employee survivor benefit contribution rate for employer and employee will go from $1.34 to $1.85 per pay period.
Despite the overall escalation of the cost of pensioning its employees, the county is beginning to see a decrease in the rate of its escalating costs in that the contribution for second tier general members is a reduction of 4.22 percent the county would have paid under the previous rate and 6.13 percent for second tier safety employees compared to what is being paid to their first tier counterparts.

(December 30)  The county of San Bernardino will pay a Sun Valley-based company a cool $5 million to micrograph and index documents filed with the assessor/recorder/county clerk’s office over the next two years.
In 2010, San Bernardino County in a reorganization transferred the county recorder’s function to the county assessor’s office and the auditor-controller was  made the county treasurer-tax collector.
Since that time, the office of the assessor, recorder and county clerk have been held by a single individual overseeing those departments.
At its last meeting in 2013, the board of supervisors  approved a $5,000,000 contract with PFA, Inc. of Sun Valley to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction services for the assessor-recorder-county clerk- recorder’s division from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016, with two one-year options to extend the term of the contract.
According to San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County  Clerk Dennis Draeger, “The assessor-recorder-county clerk [will] utilize the services of PFA, Inc. to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction work for a three-year term, with two one-year options to extend the term of the contract. This contract is necessary to support assessor-recorder-county clerk’s current and future information management plans and will allow assessor-recorder-county clerk to function in a fiscally-responsible and business-like manner.”
Draeger continued, “This contract includes four distinct types of work, all of which are vital to the daily operation of the recorder division. The first type of work, micrographics, involves converting scanned images to microfilm and vice versa. More than 550,000 documents were recorded by assessor-recorder-county clerk in calendar year 2012, and all of those documents were received in image form or were scanned in-house. Those documents are then converted to microfilm to preserve permanent county records as mandated by state law. The second type of work, film conversion, places digital, microfiche and film images of documents on silver or Diazo film for more durable preservation. The third type of work consists of indexing fields on recorded documents that can then be used to retrieve the document images within the recorder’s system. The fourth type of work, redaction, involves creating a public record version of each official record by redacting the first five digits of each social security number found in an official record, as mandated by Government Code Section 27301. All four types of work will involve current documents; in addition, documents dating back to January 1, 1980, will be redacted as mandated by Government Code Section 27301.”
According to Draeger, PFA has had the county contract for these services since 2006.  He said the county sought bids on the service in April, obtaining bids from seven interested vendors, HOV Services of  Carson; CSI Computing System Innovations of Apopka, Florida; Extract Systems of Madison, Wisconsin; American Cadastre LLC of Herndon, Virginia; Xerox ACS Enterprise Solutions of San Ramon; PFA; and Midwest Micro Imaging of Golden Valley, Minnesota.
“Staff from the  assessor-recorder-county clerk’s office and the purchasing department reviewed all of the proposals and independently evaluated each proposal’s merit based on technical ability, cost and references,” Draeger said. “To determine technical ability, the evaluators took care to note minimum vendor and proposal requirements and rated the vendors on understanding of the assessor-recorder-county clerk’s needs, accurate and complete description of technical processes, ability to handle sensitive data, ability to meet timelines, and experience. The vendors were asked to provide costs per unit of service instead of estimating an overall contract amount. Requesting costs per unit of service is more realistic than requesting an overall contract amount because the work is very technical and involves many components, the amount of work required will fluctuate with the activity of the real estate industry, and the vendor will be completing additional preservation projects of county records. Estimates of an overall contract amount could have resulted in a vendor significantly over- or under-bidding the contract.
Providing costs per unit of service also reduced the likelihood of unanticipated costs developing during the contract.”
According to Draeger, “The evaluation committee recommended PFA for a contract to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction services to the assessor-recorder-county clerk’s office based on the cumulative decision that their technical ability exceeded the ability of the other vendors and their references were superior. PFA was not consistently the lowest or highest bidder when comparing vendors’ costs. However, due to the technical nature of the work involved, accuracy was felt to be more critical than cost. PFA provides an accuracy rate of 99.95% with quality assurance controls at no additional charge. Due to a previous protest regarding redaction services, great effort was taken to assure uniformity and fairness during the evaluation process. Despite staff’s effort, an appeal to the decision to award the contract to PFA was received by the purchasing department. The purchasing agent  communicated with the vendor and addressed the questions put forth in the protest.”

(January 2)  Jon Mikels, one of the founders of the city of Rancho Cucamonga and a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors for four terms, died this week after an extended illness. He was 66.
In 1977 Mikels was working for the California Youth Authority when he successfully ran to become a member of the charter Rancho Cucamonga city council at the conclusion of an incorporation drive that melded the communities of Cucamonga, Alta Loma and Etiwanda into a municipality.
After he was on the city council, his political clout redounded to professional advantage when then-Second District County Supervisor Joe Kamansky successfully lobbied the presiding judge of the county to appoint Mikels, who possessed a degree in psychology from Cal State LA, a masters degree in behavioral science from Cal State Dominguez Hills and a masters degree in public administration from USC, court coordinator at the West Valley Courthouse, which was then located at Sixth Street and Mountain Avenue in Ontario. After several of his older council colleagues rotated into the position of Rancho Cucamonga mayor, Mikels was chosen for that honor in 1982. In 1986, he successfully vied against incumbent San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor Cal McElwain.
The then-38-year-old Mikels rapidly moved to become one of the dominant political figures in the region, ascending to chairmanship of the board of supervisors in 1990. While he was yet Rancho Cucamonga mayor, Mikels acceded to a regional political leadership role, that of chairman of Southern California Associated Governments. He was reappointed to the post of chairman after he became county supervisor.
. Mikels held the chairmanship of a second regional planning agency, the South Coast Regional Air Quality Management District Board.
Throughout his quarter of a century as an elected official, Mikels oversaw what was the most dynamic period of growth for both of the entities he headed. Rancho Cucamonga, which consisted of 30,000 residents upon incorporation, saw accelerated growth during Mikels’ tenure on the council, nearly tripling in population by the time he departed to become supervisor. That frenzied pace continued for the duration of the time Mikels represented the Second District – consisting of the western portion of Fontana, Wrightwood, Lytle Creek, the unincorporated frontier between Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, all of Rancho Cucamonga and Upland, San Antonio Heights and Mt. Baldy. San Bernardino County, which had eclipsed the million population mark at about the same time Mikels became supervisor, maintained its explosive pattern of growth while he remained in power at the county seat. His district in the later portion of his tenure included Crestline and Lake Gregory and a portion of the San Bernardino Mountain Community extending nearly to Lake Arrowhead. Today, eleven years after Mikels left office, Rancho Cucamonga boasts nearly 170,000 residents as the third largest city in the county. San Bernardino County’s population today exceeds 2.1 million.
Even with the aggressive land use policies that occurred under his watch, Mikels nevertheless maintained a reputation as a moderate in terms of growth, whose accommodation of development extended only as far as the willingness of project proponents to participate in defraying a major portion of the cost of the infrastructure needed for that development.
Mikels’ educational background in psychology, behavioral science and public administration equipped him when he was a Rancho Cucamonga official with the tools to get along with others, and handle the onslaught of growth that was emanating further inland from Orange and Los Angeles counties, and the accompanying self interest and influence of developers. He sought to temper the growth and maximize concessions from project proponents with design and land use intensity standards that were more exacting than were then current in other communities. He also successfully pushed for historical preservation and tree-saving ordinances. This approach did not endear him to some elements of the building industry, who saw such measures as ones that interfered with their profit margins.
While he evaded scandal, Mikels was subject to controversy.
In 1986, as he was putting on an energetic campaign against McElwain for supervisor, he was deposed as mayor by his city council colleagues who sensed that his political ambition might leave him vulnerable to being influenced by campaign donors. As supervisor, Mikels became estranged with the political leadership in Rancho Cucamonga over development issues involving land in the city’s sphere of influence as well as the divided city council’s decision, in 1989, to fire city manager Lauren Wasserman, who had headed city staff throughout Mikels’ tenure there.
In particular, Mikels was embittered when a prominent developer, Joe DiIorio, who had relocated from Orange County to make heavy investments in and around the area that became Rancho Cucamonga, saw a large scale project by his development company, the Caryn Company, falter in the early 1990s because of difficulty he encountered in dealing with the city of Rancho Cucamonga. DiIorio had named his company after his daughter who was killed in a traffic accident and he had been one of the sponsors of the drive to incorporate Rancho Cucamonga. Early on, while Mikels was still serving as an elected official with the city, DiIorio experienced success with his development projects and was in seeming consonance with the higher design standards Rancho Cucamonga was insisting upon to distinguish itself from its surrounding cities.
A few years after Mikels left the city to become supervisor, however, DiIorio saw his financial empire collapse when he became embroiled in litigation with the city of Rancho Cucamonga over issues related to his entitlement to proceed with his project. This created a technical default in more than $20 million in outstanding loans secured by the property he was developing. One of the loan requirements was that there be no lawsuits encumbering the project. The loans defaulted when the suit was filed. The lawsuit held up the project. As the project stalled. DiIorio, who had been one of Mikels’ major political backers, took his own life.
In the late 1990s, Mikels was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party. But two of his family members – his wife, Marjorie Musser Mikels, and sister-in-law, Ruth Musser-Lopez, began to actively campaign against then-Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s effort to site a nuclear waste repository in Ward Valley at the northeastern end of the county. Though the county, including Jon Mikels, initially endorsed Wilson’s plan, a petition drive against the nuclear dump proceeded. Eventually, Mikels and his colleagues on the board endorsed opposition to the project, ultimately resulting in the project proposal being abandoned. The break with Wilson, then the most powerful Republican in California, curtailed Mikels’ political advancement.
As Second District Supervisor, Mikels opposed having the county’s flood control division undertake at taxpayer expense stormwater diversion infrastructure improvements at the Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads projects, which were developed on what had formerly been regional flood control and water recharge property in northeast Upland. His colleagues on the board of supervisors deferred to Mikels’ judgment with regard to this issue within his district. This led to wrangling with the developers of the property, the Colonies Partners, who bankrolled in large measure the 2002 election effort by then-Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Paul Biane against Mikels. Biane ousted Mikels as supervisor, bringing the curtain down on Mikels’ political career. Simultaneously, the Colonies Partners sued the county over flood control issues at the Colonies developments. That lawsuit was settled in 2006 with a $102 million payout to the Colonies Partners by the county.
Dennis Stout, Rancho Cucamonga’s first directly elected mayor after the city went to direct mayoral elections in 1986 and later a two-term district attorney, was close to Mikels. In the maiden 1977 Rancho Cucamonga municipal election, Stout had been with Mikels one of the 36 candidates for the five-member city council. Stout ran thirteenth in the race, losing out to Mikels, who placed fifth; along with Jim Frost, the city’s first mayor; Phil Schlosser; Mike Palombo; and Charlie West.
“I first got to know Jon through my wife,” Stout said, “before the city incorporated. His wife and mine worked in the department of social services at that time as social workers. That is how I met him.
“I liked Jon,” Stout said. “He and I were friends. He was beneficial to the city. He was bright. You usually do not find people in local politics who are as educated as he was. He had a degree in public administration. During the infancy of Rancho Cucamonga he was innovative, and instigated some of the things that made the city unique. He was instrumental in attracting other people with good ideas. He wasn’t as threatened as some other elected officials by having people on the planning commission who might prove to be future candidates for city council.”
Among those were Stout, whom Mikels first appointed to the Rancho Cucamonga Municipal Advisory Committee and later to the planning commission. It was from the platform of being a planning commission member that Stout successfully ran for mayor in 1986.
It was a feather in Rancho Cucamonga’s hat to have one of its young lion’s accede to the board of supervisors, Stout said.
After Mikels moved on to the county, DiIorio became involved in a protracted dispute with the city over his large planned residential subdivision, which was to be built on land that lay both within the city limits as well as north of the city in the unincorporated county area. DiIorio, a graduate of Harvard Business School, sought to use his status as one of the city’s founders and his connection to Mikels to make headway in his negotiations with the city. When the city and DiIorio did not iron out their differences, Mikels sided with DiIorio.
“After Jon got on the board of supervisors the relationship between the county and the city became somewhat strained over what should be going on in the county area within the city’s sphere of influence,” Stout said. “The differences were over what the density should be there and we weren’t in agreement over some design specifications as well. The city wanted tile roofs and a few other things. There was some tough discussion while I was still mayor and as a city we took the position that we wanted our design and density criteria if that property was going to be brought into the city. We took the position that if they did not build to our design standards and density specifications, they could build but we would not annex the property. It would have to stay in the county. What occurred, in the end, was they built to our design standards but at greater density than we would have allowed. The property was eventually annexed. So there was a compromise.”
Stout said Mikels had strength of character. ‘”He was able to stand up to people who had money, big money” Stout said. “It takes courage for a politician to be able to do that.”
Moreover, Stout said, “There are others who have not given him the credit he was due. The consortium that came about so that the Etiwanda storm drain system near the I-15 Freeway could be built was almost entirely his doing. It involved the cities of Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, and Ontario, along with the county and the federal government which consisted of the Army Corps of Engineers. It was very involved and required intense cooperation and coordination. It took someone with his skill and patience and vision, his political ability and negotiating capability to make that work.”
Stout said Mikels’ talent as a political leader was beneficial at a regional level.
“He also deserves credit for protecting the right-of-way for the 210 Freeway,” Stout said. “Other cities allowed development in the area where the freeway had been planned because they did not think, after years and decades of delay, that it would actually be built. It took foresight and courage to protect that right-of-way.  People do not realize how much more difficult it would have been to build the 210 Freeway if that corridor had not been protected.”
As a relatively young man in office in Rancho Cucamonga, Mikels was looking ahead toward long term goals that will be appreciated by future generations, Stout said. “He was part of the leadership in the city that set aside 100 acres obtained from Lewis Homes for Central Park,” Stout said. “At that time the city had no park land and the breakthrough the city achieved in having set aside 100 acres was a major accomplishment.”
Despite Mikels’ considerable accomplishments, Stout said, he probably did not reach his full potential when his political career was foreclosed in 2002. Mikels never ran for office again.
“My belief is he grew frustrated with politics at the county level,” Stout said. “At that point it had turned into a vicious bloodsport.”
A lifelong smoker, Mikels was felled by lung, prostate and bladder cancer. He is survived by his ex-wife, three daughters and seven grandchildren, his brother, sister and mother..