(June 11)  Less than a month after the rejection of a contract worked out between San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux and the union representing the lion’s share of county employees, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association (SBPEA), a slightly revamped contract has been presented to the SBPEA membership.
Coinciding with the presentation of the new contract, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has initiated a decertification campaign to remove the San Bernardino Public Employees Association as the designated union to represent the lion’s share of San Bernardino County employee bargaining units.
In April Devereaux asked that county workers make a seven percent contribution to their retirement fund, a contribution which here-to-now was paid for by the county. Workers were also to be required to pick up a larger share of their health insurance premiums. With some 7,000 county employees represented by the association not participating in the vote, 3,523 voted against the contract and  2,001 members of the San Bernardino Public Employees Association cast ballots of acceptance.
Mediator Dave Hart was brought in to further the collective bargaining process with regard to the pending contract. Hart proposed that a previously offered one-time $1,750 agreement incentive for accepting the terms of making their own seven percent contribution toward their retirement
fund be paid out in full to the county’s employees in July 2014 rather than in installments over two years. Hart also proposed that an additional promotion, known as a step and providing a 2.5 percent increase in pay, be inserted into the contract and go into effect next month.
Hart called for a reopening of bargaining in September 2015 and threw in the county’s provision of $2.3 million in add-ons to the contract known as equities be provided in September 2014, with another $2 million of the equity pool be implemented in July of 2015.
The remainder of the contract as was offered in April and rejected by all but the bargaining units for nurses and nursing supervisors last month is to remain the same.
Almost simultaneous with the offering of the new contract, mailers sponsored by the Service Employees International Union were sent to SBPEA members along with decertification signature cards.
The mailer bears the heading “More Than 5,000 Reasons To Vote No” and states: “SBPEA can’t fool us. They are sending another bad proposal back to us that will cost each county employee an average of $5,173. Respect our no vote. Join SEIU.”
The mailer further states” We have already spoken. Two weeks ago we voted no to a tentative agreement negotiated by SBPEA. Instead of listening, SBPEA is asking us to vote again on a contract that has not improved. We must vote no again.
Six bargaining units – nearly 12,000 employees – made their voices heard by rejecting the first SBPEA tentative agreement. Now we want our no vote respected and the opportunity to join SEIU 721.”
The signature cards began arriving in the mailboxes of SBPEA members on June 9. If a sufficient number of cards are signed and returned to SEIU, that union can use them to trigger an election of the full SBPEA membership to determine whether they want to transfer their collective bargaining representation to SEIU.

(June 10) Victorville—Chrissy Guzman and Lori Yuan, the mothers of Desert Trails Elementary School students whose  discomfiture over the “parent trigger” takeover of their children’s school allegedly incited them to vandalism, have decided to go to trial rather than accept a plea deal on lesser charges.
Students at Desert Trails Elementary School collectively were among the lowest performers on the state of California’s Academic Performance tests for five years running.
Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based organization that challenges the traditional lines of authority in California’s school system, targeted Desert Trails on the basis of its spotty performance and used that to make it the first school ever subject to California’s 2010 Parent Academic Empowerment Act, known by the colloquialism parent-trigger. Parent trigger allows parents who gather signatures from more than 50 percent of a failing school’s parents to relieve the district and school principal of their control of the school and fire up to half of the school’s faculty and dictate other academic policies.
Yuan, who was chairman of the Adelanto Plasnning Commission, and Guzman were active in the Desert Trails Elementry Schools Parent Teacher Association and served as volunteer assistant instructors and tutors at the school. They had strong opinions about the school’s academic challengers and failrures, believing that the schools test performance problems were rooted largely in the consideration that more than 30 percent of the students at the school had parents who did not speak English. Yuan and Guzman were highly critical of the parent trigger movement being applied into such a situation and thereby allowing those whose own academic failings were responsible for the underlying problem being permitted to take on authority over the learning environment at the school.
After the parent union at the school obtained the requisite number of parent signatures in early 2012, the school district challenged the validity of the signatures and sought to prevent the takeover from proceeding. A law firm on retainer to Parent Revolution intervened, however, and the takeover was granted through a court order in the late summer of 2012, but did not come in time for the change, which called for the firing of the school principal and allowing the parent union to essentially hire half of the school’s teachers, to take effect in the 2012-13 school year. Subsequently, the parent union’s agenda changed to converting the school to a charter school and La Verne Academy was chosen as the operator. That plan was finalized in June 2013. On June 26, 2013, according to the district attorney’s office, as Yuan and Guzman were assisting with the shuttering of the school for the summer, they used ketchup, mustard and paint to deface a Desert Trails Elementary School classroom.
The pair was not charged with the vandalism, alleged to represent roughly $8,000 in damage until November 27. Yuan and Guzman pleaded not guilty to the charges but in February the Adelanto City Council removed Yuan from the planning commission.
Since November, the pair has made nine court appearances. There were indications last month that a plea arrangement had been struck by which Guzman and Yuan would pay restitution and plead to a lesser misdemeanor, and be put on two year’s probation. That deal fell through, in part it has been suggested, because one of the witnesses the district attorney’s office is relying upon cannot connect either of the defendants to the crime.
Two individuals who are scheduled to testify on behalf of the prosecution are  Adelanto Elementary School District’s director of classified human resources Donna Landry and district maintenance supervisor Phillip Gonzales.
The district attorney’s office is now proceeding with felony vandalism charges against both defendants in lieu of the plea. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for June 18 and the preliminary hearing on the matter is set for June 23.

(June 11) On July 1, the state of California will reduce by a factor of five the permissible amount of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, in drinking water, a move that will have a decided impact on the contamination issues plaguing Hinkley.
Hexavalent chromium contamination in Hinkley, a San Bernardino County Mojave Desert community ten miles west-northwest of Barstow, came about as a consequence of Pacific Gas and Electric’s operation of a compressor station there beginning in 1952. The compressor station was a facility located on a pipeline that ran between Texas and Canada and delivered in excess of three billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The compressor station in Hinkley was one of eight such stations along the line in California. Natural gas available in the line was used to fuel compressors which repressurized the gas to push it through the pipeline. At Hinkley, the compressed gas was cooled with water circulating through two cooling towers. From 1952 until 1966, hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, was added to the cooling water to prevent corrosion to the cooling towers and the water circulation system. Wastewater from the cooling system was disposed of in unlined ponds at the Hinkley site. Beginning in 1964, after the danger of chromium 6 was recognized, the cooling water was treated to remove the chromium before it was disposed in the pools and a non-chromium-based additive was substituted into the cooling system in 1966. As of 1972 the cooling water was pumped into lined evaporation ponds.
These improvements to the system, however, did not undo the ecological havoc that had occurred up until 1972.
In 1988, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees water quality issues in that portion of the desert, issued a cleanup and abatement order to PG&E to investigate a plume of chromium 6 in the water table. In 1991, the water board issued permits to treat the contaminated groundwater using land treatment units.
In 1993, attorney Ed Masry, with whom Erin Brockovich, a Hinkley resident, was working, filed a multi-plaintiff direct action suit against PG&E, alleging contamination of the town’s drinking water and untoward consequences of that pollution. In 1996, the case was settled for $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit until that time. In 2000, the matter became an international cause célèbre, with the release of the blockbuster movie Erin Brockovich, which related a substantially accurate version of events in Hinkley. Contrary to widespread public assumptions, Pacific Gas & Electric’s payment of the $333 million did not redress the underlying problem. Masry and his law firm netted over $100 million in legal fees. Only a few of the plaintiffs received more than $100,000. No physical solution to the contamination problem was effectuated.
In 1997 and 2004, the water board reissued follow-up permits to PG&E for the use of land treatment units in the treatment of the contaminated groundwater around Hinkley. In 2006, with the Hinkley groundwater contamination issue fading from public consciousness, the water board gave permits for two subterranean remediation systems to clean up the source and central areas of the plume. In 2008, however, the issue was resurrected as one of regional and local concern when, amidst the water board’s provision of a permit for Pacific Gas & Electric to apply additional cleanup measures, it issued redrafted cleanup and abatement orders. Steadily over the last five years, the condition of the lingering contamination in Hinkley has grown into a larger and larger public issue as evidence of how the underground plume of chromium 6 continues to migrate through the water table into the area from which local wells draw water used for household purposes has emerged.
The best hydrological data now available indicates the plume is more than six miles long and two miles wide and gradually expanding.
Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the earth’s crust and as such naturally occurs in rocks, soil, ground water and plants.
Under current guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifies 100 micrograms per liter as the maximum acceptable total chromium contaminant level acceptable in water to be consumed by humans. The current California state standard is half that at 50 micrograms per liter. But that standard applies to the most benign form of chromium, and not hexavalent chromium or chromium 6.
Trivalent chromium – chromium 3 – is the dominant form of chromium in nature, and is virtually insoluble in water and stable and immobile in soil. Hexavalent chromium – chromium six – is not abundant in nature, is soluble in water and is a potential carcinogen if inhaled.
Earlier this spring, the Department of Public Health submitted its final regulation decree to the state Office of Administrative Law which placed a cap on chromium-6  of 10 parts per billion. That standard has now been accepted by the state under the Administrative Procedures Act.
Project Navigator Ltd., an environmental engineering firm based in Brea which is the scientific adviser to the Hinkley community has been monitoring wells in the area. There have been contradictory reports about the level of chromium contamination in the area, with the distinction between chromium 3 and chromium 6 often being blurred.
PG&E has been providing bottled water to some Hinkley residents and providing a costly whole household replacement system to others who have had trace levels of chromium-6 showing up in their groundwater.
Pacific Gas & Electric sought ways of keeping the contaminated water from migrating to other areas of the aquifer and tainting the water there. One effort Pacific Gas & Electric made to prevent the spreading of the plume entailed drawing up to 80 gallons of water per minute from supply wells south of the compression station, pumping it north through new underground pipes and injecting the water outside the northwestern plume boundary. This strategy, Pacific Gas and Electric claimed, was intended to “create a hydraulic barrier designed to prevent spreading of the plume.” While partially effective, that measure did not achieve the goal of reducing the chromium 6 in the water supply to an acceptable level.
As a practical means of ensuring that the tainted water does not end up in the drinking glasses, cooking utensils, showers, baths, toilets and garden hoses of Hinkley residents, PG&E offered to provide every household and business in Hinkley with either a filtration/treatment system to capture the chromium before it would be dispensed at the tap or in the alternative, commercial bottled drinking water.
More than two years ago, with no certain, final and comprehensive cure of the problem in sight, Pacific Gas & Electric in April 2012 began surveying homeowners with regard to their willingness to sell their property and move elsewhere. When roughly two-thirds of those surveyed indicated their readiness to depart the community, PG&E began making offers to individual property owners and undertook appraisals of their properties.  As soon as mutually acceptable terms between PG&E and the individual homeowners were arrived at, purchases were made. In early 2013, homes in Hinkley were being sold to PG&E at a rate of two to four per week.  Once the houses are empty, Pacific Gas & Electric has not spared time in having those homes razed, foreclosing any possibility that squatters or anyone else will be tempted to take up residence therein again.
In 2013, the Santa Ana-based law firm Callahan & Blaine filed suit against PG&E in San Bernardino County Superior Court on behalf of a substantial number of Hinkley residents who were not a part of the litigation brought by Masry. Callahan & Blaine are seeking that the plaintiffs be recompensed for the damages they have sustained as a consequence of the continuing contamination and the ongoing expansion of the toxic plume and its threat to the area’s groundwater.
In early 2012,  Hinkley’s population stood at 1,900. Today it has dwindled to an estimated 1,100, as residents continue their exodus. Last year, the Barstow Unified School District moved to shutter Hinkley School at the end of the 2012-13 school year.  The town is down to one market, a post office and a tavern.

(June 11) While he was able to bask for more than a week in the intoxicating afterglow of his strong showing in this year’s primary election for the 31st Congressional District which put him more than nine percentage points above and 4,800 votes beyond his closest rival, Republican Paul Chabot is now confronted by the sober realization that both his strategy and tactics in obtaining the nomination to run as one of the two finalists in the November race may have made his June victory a pyrrhic one.
Against odds and contrary to the demographic numbers, California’s 31st Congressional District is currently represented by a Republican, Congressman Gary Miller. But the Republican grasp on the district is a tenuous one.
Of the district’s registered voters, 124,412 or 40.4 percent, are affiliated with the Democratic Party.  Registered Republicans in the district number 104,154, or 33.8 percent. There are a smattering of Green Party and American Independent voters in the district, along with 64,571, or 21 percent who have declined to state a party affiliation.
In 2012, after an absence of many years, California reinstituted open primaries, in which voters of all parties are free to vote beyond the confines of those parties, for any candidate who qualifies for the ballot. The two top vote getters, regardless of party are thus allowed to proceed to the general election in November.
With the nearly seven percent registration advantage they held over the Republicans in the 31st Congressional District, Democrats had good reason to consider the 31st to be a reliable Democratic stronghold.
But events transpired to undo them.
Four Democrats – Pete Aguilar, Justin Kim, Rita Ramirez-Dean, and Renea Wickman – sought election in the 31st in 2012. Miller, who had been a member of Congress since 1999 and represented the solidly Republican 42nd District in southwestern San Bernardino County, northeastern Orange County and southwestern Los Angeles County, had seen his district reapportioned out from under him. Instead of vying against fellow Republican Ed Royce in a newly drawn Congressional District in Orange County, Miller opted to run in the 31st, believing his superior fundraising capability as incumbent might allow him to offset the registration advantage that fell to the Democrats. As it turned out, another Republican, Bob Dutton, who was in his last year as a member of the California State Senate at that time before being termed out of office, also ran for the 31st Congressional District seat.
Despite the nearly seven percent Democratic voter registration advantage in the 31st, simple mathematics hurt the Democrats as their vote was divided four ways, while the Republican vote was split two ways. Dutton and Miller proved to be the two top vote-getters and under California’s open primary arrangement, the Democrats who ran third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the June race were shut out and the November general election came down to a race between Republicans Miller and Dutton. Miller prevailed in that race.
Earlier this year, the specter of déjà vu seemed to have descended on the 31st District. In February, Miller announced he would not seek reelection. By that point, Aguilar, the top Democratic vote-getter two years ago, attorney and Democratic Party activist Eloise Gomez-Reyes from Colton, former Democratic congressman Joe Baca from Rialto and San Bernardino City Unified School District Trustee Danny Tillman, a Democrat, all qualified their candidacies in the race.
Miller’s announcement brought two Republican hopefuls into the race, Lesli Gooch, a member of Miller’s congressional staff, and Chabot, a self-styled anti-drug crusader who in 2010 had made a name for himself when he made a strong showing against the eventual victor in the race for  40th  District state assemblyman, fellow Republican Mike Morrell.
For a time, it appeared that the Party of Lincoln might be able to recreate the outcome of 2012 in the 31st District, with each of the two Republicans managing to share enough of the Republican vote in the primary to outpoll all four of the Democrats dividing the Democratic vote. That scenario was attenuated somewhat when Ryan Downing, a Republican from Whittier, jumped into the race. Downing was able to run for the post because members of Congress need not live in the district they represent but must merely reside in the state in which their district is located. While Downing’s presence in the fray certainly complicated matters for Chabot and Gooch, his was a marginal candidacy at best, as he had virtually no name recognition, no monetary backing to speak of, and woefully little in terms of electioneering sophistication.
Early on, Democrats  at the national level and some at the state and local level threw their support behind Aguilar.  Democratic strategists, conferring about what steps could be taken to ensure that Democratic disarray in 2014 did not perpetuate Miller’s incumbency beyond the current Congress, in short order hatched a game plan by which Aguilar was chosen as the logical party standard bearer. By promoting Aguilar early, engaging in brisk fundraising on his behalf and warding off any other Democrats so a concentrated party electoral effort to advance Aguilar could be mounted, high-ranking Democratic Party officials believed Aguilar could beat Miller in a toe-to-toe slugfest in November.
Well-connected Democratic-functionaries acted to boost Aguilar.  In May 2013, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee selected Aguilar as one of five candidates nationwide to be included in its Jumpstart Program, which is intended to assist early-emerging Democrats seeking to unseat incumbent Republicans deemed to be vulnerable.
Party leaders convinced California’s two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to endorse Aguilar. Party donors, inside and outside California, were encouraged to provide him with campaign cash, and money started pouring into Aguilar’s political war chest. More attention was drawn to him, ensuring even more contributions, when the Washington-based news organization, Politico, in July named Aguilar one of “50 Politicos to watch in 2013.” By this spring, Aguilar had over $1 million in his political war chest.
Despite all that, Baca, Gomez-Reyes and Tillman somehow failed to get the message and each of them campaigned as if they believed they not only merited being sent to Washington, D.C., but had a realistic shot at getting there. Myopically, the two best funded Democratic candidates – Aguilar and Gomez Reyes – after utilizing a modicum of their available resources to promote themselves, spared little expense in attacking each other as well as Baca. With only one exception, a hit piece put out by Gomez Reyes that zeroed in on Baca, Aguilar, Gooch and Chabot by labeling them as “lobbyists,” Aguilar and Gomez concentrated on trashing one another, and Baca, ignoring the woefully underfunded Tillman and Downing, and carrying on as if neither Gooch nor Chabot were in the race.
This provided Chabot and Gooch with a golden political opportunity, one by which they could soldier on as earnest and dignified candidates who remained well above the fray, allowing the residual benefits of the vitriol among the others to redound to their benefit. Curiously, however, a mudfest broke out between Chabot and Gooch.
Chabot’s initial electioneering involved touting various endorsements he was receiving from local officials and political figures. On March 19, however, the Chabot campaign actuated the first negative informational blitz relating to either of the Republican candidates in the form of an email from John S. Thomas, Chabot’s chief strategist, and Ryan Hall, Chabot’s communications director, assailing Gooch as a “lobbyist and DC insider.” Gooch, Thomas and Hall insisted, “Lies to voters about [her] business experience. If Gooch is willing to lie to voters about this, what else is she hiding?” The email then quoted Chabot as saying, “My opponent, Lesli Gooch, has exaggerated her business experience. By her own admission, via her LinkedIn profile, she has done nothing except work for elected officials and then was paid to lobby them for their vote and now she’s trying to perpetuate the cycle by running for office.”
When the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee followed the lead of Miller and endorsed Gooch, Chabot and his election crew went ballistic.  Chabot charged that the county’s Republican Central Committee and its most influential members were “corrupt.”
On March 28, Hall sent out an email to high propensity Republican voters stating that “In a shocking revelation, news broke yesterday that Congressional candidate Leslie Gooch, running in the 31st district, was a long-time lobbyist for infamous indicted developer Jeffrey Burum.”
The reference was to an ongoing criminal case that had been filed against Burum relating to his activity prior to the 2006 settlement of a civil suit brought by his company against the county of San Bernardino over flood control issues at one of his company’s development projects in which the county paid out $102 million. Burum has maintained his innocence and the case has yet to go to trial.
Thomas was quoted as saying, “Voters should be appalled and disappointed to discover that Leslie Gooch has not only been dishonest about hiding her past as a lobbyist, but she has represented indicted individuals in our region’s biggest political corruption scandal. We don’t need someone who will sell access to the highest bidder.”
Hall then reiterated Chabot’s call for Gooch to “withdraw from [the] race.”
In mid-April a spate of emails attacking Gooch went out, this time originating from sources ostensibly unconnected to the Chabot campaign.  Subsequent events, however, suggested they were connected to the Chabot elective effort.
On April 15, an email from Steve Gutierrez of the San Bernardino Citizens for Public Integrity dwelled upon Gooch having resided in Alexandria, Virginia while working as a congressional staffer. An attachment to one of those emails was a letter Gooch had written to local Virginia officials regarding a land use issue there in which she advocated against approval of a proposal to allow an ethanol transloading facility. The clear implication of the email was that Gooch, who had grown up in the Inland Empire and had attended UC Riverside, had abandoned the local area for bigger and better things in and around the nation’s capitol
On April 16, an email from Sabrina Wooten-Smith informed recipients that “Lesli Gooch, a volunteer community representative in Alexandria, Virginia running for Congress in California, has quickly racked up $113,000 in campaign debt, according to a Wall Street Journal article printed today.”
On April 25, an email from Trevor Bird of the organization CA 31 Clean Slate stated “Lesli Gooch is a phony weasel,”  charging she had not made her position on several issues such as abortion, Afghanistan, marriage, gun rights, minimum wage, security, or government spending  clear.
Like the Gutierrez and Wooten-Smith emails, the provenance of the email was not clear. Verbiage in the attack piece indicated that CA 31 Clean Slate supported Tillman, suggesting but not stating the email was emanating from the Tillman camp.
The Gooch campaign’s initial responses to Chabot’s attacks were relatively mild and low key, with Gooch campaign spokesman Jeff Corless saying merely that Chabot had become “unhinged” over the central committee endorsement going to Gooch.
In May, however, the Gooch campaign sent out a mailer to high propensity Republican voters in which Chabot was lambasted as a “failed lobbyist” who was “a political bureaucrat for Bill Clinton.” The mailer went on to accuse Chabot of misrepresentations and misuse of governmental grant money utilized by his non-profit foundation “Partnership For A Drug Free California.”
“Paul Chabot pocketed nearly $1million of taxpayer money funneled through non-profits on failed government programs and government salaries. We can’t afford Paul Chabot’s costly decisions,” the mailer stated, further tagging Chabot with “A history of reckless decisions costing taxpayers millions.”
This prompted a response from the Chabot campaign in which an email went out from Ryan on May 28 stating “Gooch violates campaign disclosure laws with last minute smear mailer.”
In the June 3 election, of the 51,972 votes cast in the 31st Congressional District, 13,868 or 26.68 percent went to Chabot. Gooch came tantalizingly close to second place, with 8,842 votes or 17.01 percent, but was edged out by Aguilar, who polled 9,023 or 17.36 percent.
Typically, after hard fought primary elections, Democrats and Republicans alike close party ranks and support the primary victor against the rival party’s candidate. Moreover, the Democratic and Republican national parties normally offer monetary and other resource support to their respective party’s standard bearer in the November contests. Chabot and his team, who continue to celebrate his first place finish in the primary as an absolute indicator of his front running status in the November contest, represent that they fully anticipate being the recipients of GOP support and bonhomie in the present circumstance.
Given both the circumstances of the primary race and the Chabot team’s willful attacks upon his fellow Republican in a race which necessitated partisan cooperation rather than intraparty acrimony, the Republican support that Chabot will absolutely need to defeat the well-funded  Democrat Aguilar in a district that leans Democrat in party registration by 6.6 percent is not guaranteed and, in fact, probably unlikely given that there are races elsewhere in which the GOP has better prospects of victory.
This week, the Chabot camp was carrying on as if the just concluded battle royal with Gooch was nothing more than a minor squabble between brother and sister. The campaign team maintained its ebullience over its 9.32 percentage point margin over Aguilar and was unapologetic about having curtailed the possibility of a Republican vs. Republican runoff in November in which the GOP would have been guaranteed to hang on to the seat.
“We ran a clean campaign,” Hall told the Sentinel. “We handily won. We’re moving forward. We are going to use the same message of public safety and job creation in the general campaign. We’re not worried about who gets second place, Aguilar or Gooch. Our message definitely resonated with the voters. We think that message will continue to resonate not just with Republicans but Democrats and independents. We won by ten percent. That is a big number. We know we won’t get most of the Democrats in November, but we will get some and we will do well with the independents.
Paul is not an establishment candidate. People don’t want a candidate that is in with the establishment. People wanted Paul Chabot. The voters overwhelmingly supported him in this election. Paul’s numbers far exceed the other candidates from both parties. Everyone had the same amount of time. Lesli had more money to spend and we still have these results. People want someone who represents the community. He is a Navy combat veteran and a sheriff’s officer who is helping kids get off drugs. He is going to high schools and giving presentations. His whole life has been focused.”
Hall downplayed any lingering animosity over the tenor of the campaign and Chabot’s torpedoing of another Republican.
“I think that when everything shakes out, we’re hoping Lesli will endorse Paul when it comes to that point. I don’t think there was any animosity. That is what politics is about. The minority whip supported Paul a few days ago. The tide is turning in that direction. We hope for more endorsements. We are going to continue to stick to our message. Paul is a strong candidate with a strong message. Lesli Gooch attacked Paul. We are not going to sit idly by but try to set the record straight.”
With regard to calling Gooch a lobbyist who had advocated on behalf of someone who had been indicted, Hall said the Chabot campaign was merely pointing out what Gooch did for a living.
“Arguing about her being a businesswoman and lobbyist wasn’t negative or positive. Being a lobbyist was what she had done in the past. That’s not a bad thing. Paul is proud of the work he does,” Hall said. “She should be proud of the work she did. That is all we were saying.”
As for the slew of mailers attacking Gooch that went out in April from nebulous sources, Hall attributed them to Tillman.
“Those were from Dan Tillman’s supporters,” he said.
The Sentinel contacted Tillman to confirm that assertion.
“I didn’t do anything negative during the campaign at all,” Tillman said. “The whole thing was focused on telling people about myself and that was it.”
Hall sought to extend an olive branch to Gooch.
“We’re over this first part and we would like everyone to get behind Paul. Paul is a gracious man and would be honored to have those who ran against him endorse him. He would do the same for her [Gooch] if the situation were reversed. If the people spoke and wanted Lesli to represent them, Paul would endorse her.”
Hall dismissed the suggestion that the Democratic registration advantage in the district and Aguilar’s larger campaign war chest would be major factors in the November election and said neither he nor Chabot nor the strategist Thomas believed heavy Republican Party support was needed to overcome those Democratic advantages.
“The public is weary of all the political infighting and so is Paul,” Hall said. “He is someone who is not part of that system. Gooch and Aguilar are establishment candidates. Paul is not an establishment candidate. He was ten percent ahead of both of them. The public is weary of establishment candidates. They are not happy with the status quo. The other candidates are part of that status quo. The voters wanted someone more like Paul, who is working in a different sense and not in a way the establishment wanted him to.  Paul has conservative values. He is going after the support of people who matter, like local politicians. Pete Aguilar has support in Redlands and from the national Democratic Party. Paul wasn’t getting fundraising dollars coming from other groups. Our support was from regular people. Lesli outspent us eleven to one. We were outspent and still did what everyone said he could not do. He wasn’t just sending out mailers and flyers and hit pieces. I am not saying this is not an uphill fight to win but we expect to be on top. No one expected us to be on top in the primary and we showed everyone. We did it handily. We will do the same in November.”

(June 3)  The city of Grand Terrace faces a catalog of daunting challenges, according to the 11-page strategic plan covering the years 2014 to 2020 city officials accepted last month.
Grand Terrace is the third smallest of San Bernardino County’s cities population-wise and the smallest in terms of land area. Several geographical factors have put it at a disadvantage financially throughout its 36-year history. On the city’s east side lies Blue Mountain, physically separating it from the city of Loma Linda, and over which no significant roads or points of access traverse. South of the city is the 3,988-population unincorporated Riverside County community of Highgrove and beyond that the essentially unpopulated Riverside County frontier, with likewise no significant points of access.  The 215 Freeway runs through the southwestern portion of the city, but on the city’s northwest and northeast sides it rises majestically above the city of Colton, as its name implies, leaving the city separated and in some fashion isolated from its surrounding neighbors. While the city’s elevated distinction from its neighbors and its resultant quietude is considered to be a plus by many of its residents in terms of living environment, the  lack of population and dearth of vehicular traffic through the city proper has resulted in only minimal commercial development within the city. Thus sales tax revenue, which is a major source of capital in most California cities, is severely limited in Grand Terrace.
The strategic plan accepted into the record in May by the city council, which is one member short following the resignation of councilman Bernardo Sandoval earlier this year, does not dwell on the relative advantages and disadvantages of
the city’s geographical setting, but does ponder the several disadvantages that reality has created.
In 2007, with the advent of the recession that has gripped the nation, state and region for more than a half decade, Grand Terrace initiated the first of a series of economies, including drastic cuts to the city’s work force and service levels. In 2011, the state of California’s dissolution of all municipal and county redevelopment agencies was a particularly tough blow to Grand Terrace. Past councils and management had place the entirety of the 3.502 square mile city in one of two redevelopment project areas and put a number of city employees on the redevelopment agency’s payroll. This accelerated the already-begun slashing of City Hall.
So severe were the cutbacks that there was talk of deincorporating the city altogether and  Grand Terrace once again having all of its governmental functions administered by the county of San Bernardino or, in the alternative, being subject to annexation by the city of Colton.
The strategic plan identified “insolvency/uncertain revenue stream [and the] redevelopment agency dissolution” as major threats to the city’s ongoing viability as a municipal entity. Further threats were outlined as the California Department of Finance’s rejection of the city’s plan to convert the redevelopment funding that was previously available to civic programs and projects, as well as actual or potential litigation the city is facing and the financial liability this represents.
Also listed as disadvantages to city operations were the “temporary” status of senior staff in the wake of former city manager Betsy Adams’ departure, what the plan referred to as the “total loss of institutional memory” the  departure of city staff has imposed on the city, which has resulted in the “lack’loss of staff to address/skills to address key issues.”
The staff turnover and attrition has led to “staff insecurity,” according to the plan, and “no clear vison.”   The plan assert that Grand Terrace is further hampered by a “vocal minority opposition to development” within the community that has led to a “perception of an ‘anti-business’ climate.”
The report sums up what is perhaps the city’s major challenge/disadvantage with three words: “lack of revenues.”
Furthermore, the plan states the city suffers from a “lack  of  training/cross training/clear  policy/procedures guide for staff.”
The city further needs to overcome a “lack of public understanding of the city’s form and function” and needs to redress infrastructure needs to allow development to take place and must gain “access to current technology,” the plan says.
Other city shortcomings listed are inconsistent code enforcement  and an imbalance in service levels.
Upon accepting the strategic plant, the city council resolved to strive toward fiscal sustainablity, maintain public safety, promote economic development, develop and implement successful partnerships and engage in proactive communication.

By Diane Dragotto Williams
My first introduction to a Northern Flicker was when a red-shafted male flew into my high A-frame windows and knocked itself unconscious. With a wingspan 19 to 21 inches and 12 to 14 inches in length, this large woodpecker is often found in open spaces. However, it spends considerable time on the ground foraging for ants and insects in summer, and berries and seeds in winter. Flickers often go after ants underground, hammering at the soil the way other woodpeckers drill into wood. Their tongues can dart out 2 inches beyond the end of the bill to snare prey!  They are found in woodlands, forest edges, and open fields with scattered trees, as well as city parks and suburbs. In the western mountains they occur in most forest types, including burned forests, all the way up to the treeline. You can also find them in wet areas such as streamside woods, flooded swamps, and marsh edges.

As I held this beautiful creature, seemingly lifeless, my heart sent prayers for life to flow back into its body. Admiring its striking colors and patterns, I reflected on his beauty, including a gray face, a red moustache (males only), and a brown forehead, crown and nape, and a black crescent bib surrounded his head. Buff to grayish feathers filled his body underparts with heavy spotting, ending in a white rump patch. But the most amazing surprise under the brown back, and dark barred wings, was bright salmon-red to red-orange underwings and undertail! What a brilliant sight it must display in flight, as I learned later.   Holding this handsome, black-scalloped plumaged bird for nearly an hour, I kept hoping for revival, and studied its habits in a book.  In breeding season, you can hear the “wick-er”, “wick-er” notes, but year round, the flicker makes a single, loud “klee-yer” or “clearrr” call.  Spring courtship brings noisy, animated behavior. Rivals face off in a display called a “fencing duel,” while a prospective mate looks on. Two birds may face each other on a branch, bills pointed upward, and bob their heads in time while drawing a loop or figure-eight pattern in the air, calling with a rhythmic “wicka”.  Solitary nesters, they’re monogamous and lay 3 to 12 white, oval eggs in snags, nest boxes, and even buildings. Couples excavate nest holes in dead or diseased tree trunks, or large branches in a cavity 6 to 20 feet above the ground. The entrance hole is about 3 inches in diameter, and the cavity is 13-16 inches deep. The cavity widens at bottom to make room for eggs and the incubating adult. Inside, the cavity is bare, except for a bed of wood chips for the eggs, and chicks to rest on. Once nestlings are about 17 days old, they begin clinging to the cavity wall instead of lying on the floor. Unlike many woodpeckers, flickers often reuse cavities that they or another species excavated in a previous year. Like most woodpeckers, Northern Flickers drum on objects as a form of communication and territory defense. In such cases, the object is to make as loud a noise as possible, and that’s why woodpeckers sometimes drum on metal objects.

Waiting for the rise and fall of breath to return to his body, the improbable happened, and his head that at impact, had bobbed loosely back and forth, suddenly grew taut, and he opened his eyes, and stared up at me. Wobbly at first, he perched on my deck railing, overlooking the forest floor.  As a wildlife artist in oils, I went back to my studio, leaving the bird to rest on its own, so it could fly back to its family.  What happened next in that following hour was a gift, as my new friend, flew to a nearby tree, climbed deftly up it, and gazed intently at me, through my third-story window.  With a gentle expression, he remembered me, and in his own quiet way, came back to let me know he made it.  I’ll never forget that special moment in time when an animal being and human being shared a celebration of life!

Wildhaven Ranch is a wildlife sanctuary in Cedar Glen that gives programs to the public by appointments only.  Bears, Bobcat, Coyotes, Deer, Eagles, Falcon, Hawk, Owl and Raccoons are seen “up close and personal” in guided tours.  For reservations, call (909) 337-7389.

By Ruth Musser-Lopez
6-13-14.  Some were fortunate enough to be able to attend our county’s sentinel cultural event of the year–the San Bernardino County Fair–held May 24 through June 1 at the fairgrounds, 14800 Seventh Street in Victorville.   It’s a temporary one-week “affair” so if you missed it, make sure you mark your calendar for next year.  It’s an annual event–a time when our friends and neighbors gather together to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and enjoy the associated carnival or fun zone entertainment.
Our fair is actually an extraordinary event, first of all because it is all about us, here in the largest county of the lower 48 contiguous states.  It’s not just clowns, concerts and cars, but a huge variety of our local arts and crafts, showing off the array of products from our gardens, farms, vineyards and orchards, plus a large assortment of poultry, farm animals, livestock and show horses.
The word fair comes from the archaic term fayre, “of pleasing appearance” and it is things that are pleasing in appearance that you will see here, no matter what age you are.  As a matter of fact, as you probably have already learned, what is fun and pleasing changes over the years of a human’s life span.
For example, I can recall when I was a girl in the 1950s, being escorted along with my mother and siblings to both the L. A. County and San Bernardino County fairs by my Dad.  We had to first be promenaded by the livestock pens, see all the pigs, horses and cows before being allowed to spend a dime at the fun zone.  The anticipation was sometimes unbearable and obviously our minds were not on cows and pigs which we saw every day at the dairy.  It was understandable on the part of my dad, of course, however since he was chief herdsman at the Musser family’s Shady Grove Dairy then on 7th Street between Upland and Ontario.   Seeing the competition was a first priority and he would often look for potential new purchases to improve the herd stock.
When we were young we were taught to be thrifty and learn to do for ourselves or Shady Grove.  My dad, Alvin Musser, or Shady Grove Dairy,  would often donate calves to the 4H Club for the purpose of providing an opportunity for young members to learn “the ropes,” raise them, groom them and feed them.  He would then buy the heifers, back at the SBC fair auction.   The young people would compete for highest auction price and then were awarded for best in show.   Not only was this a learning experience for the young people, it also helped raise funds for the 4H Club and was good publicity for the local dairy business to boot.  It was a win-win situation all around.
My Dad, bless his heart, also set us up in our own business….we politely called it the “manure bagging business.” It was actually a business that he thought up for my brothers—selling bags of steer fertilizer at the “cash & carry” corner store, the Shady Grove Dairy market on 7th and Grove just a block from the dairy in the late 50s, early 60s.  My brothers would sell a bag for 25 cents but paid me a nickel for every bag I filled.  That’s what you call “pecking order.”  Later, they replaced me with a bagging machine.  That is what you call “progress.”  With pecking order and progress working against you, “ya’ jes’ gotta move on.”
Oh, but I must first tell you about the new equipment by brothers were so excited about.  It was an entire operation complete with all of the latest technology:  a conveyor belt to carry up the “dried material” to the grinder, which would release the pulverized product into the bagger when a lever was pulled.  When I bagged we were using a stapler, but with the new operation–there was a hand held zip “sewer.”  The boys were really in business then with a professional looking product all neatly sewed up at the top.
Well, back to the fair.  Its funny how people change, as they get older.  Just like my Dad, I am an animal lover and now enjoy the animal exhibit more than anything else at the fair.  I don’t particularly enjoy seeing birds or animals in cages and small pens temporarily while they are on exhibit, but I do like seeing the animals treated as pets, being cared for and respected while the young people are learning animal husbandry and what it takes to run a business, the costs and work involved.   The animal section for sheep, cattle, and pigs is still a really big deal at the San Bernardino County Fair even today.   There are strict rules including 120, 90 and 30-day weigh ins, tagging and ownership deadlines for livestock entries.   “Most of the entrants are 4H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) with the animals being judged when the fair isn’t even open, and of course Barstow Country Butchery does 40-60% of his yearly business after the animals are sold” a fairgoer informed me.
Thank goodness for liberation and change–“back in the day” in the fifties and sixties, in our public schools, female students were still ushered into domestics, home economics, sewing and cooking and male students filed into wood shop and mechanics.  The 4-H Club on the other hand was always pretty good about allowing young people to pursue the path of their desired training. I recall my first cousin Bernice, who I am very proud to be closely related to, being awarded with her picture in the paper with the cow she raised.  Who would have ever guessed that she would eventually go on to become the “Quilt Queen” of Upland, auctioning off quilts mid May every year at the historic Upland Academy gym to benefit the needy as part of the Mennonite World Hunger Relief project.
Speaking of quilts, the San Bernardino County fair is a great place to show off domestic products of all kinds and a good place to look for quilt donations for next year’s World Hunger Relief auction.  I understand that the entire Building #4 where the Domestic Arts are displayed is filled with quilts hanging from the 30-foot ceiling.
Linda DeLuca-Snively, of Newberry Springs, tells me that she went to the fair twice before she found that building, after which she decided to enter into the fair herself.
“It’s really fun to attend and see your items on display” she told me.  I guess so—she won!  First Place in Peach Preserves, Second Place in Cherry Preserves, Third Place in Prickly Pear Jelly, Honorable Mention in Pineapple/Peach Jelly.  She also won “Best of Division” in the ceramics section plus two 1st places, three 2nd places, two 3rd places and one honorable mention.   For joy!  Bradley YardArt of Arizona gave her one of his art pieces, a clay turtle from his garden display that he sets up each year, and she received $32.00 in award money, plus two $20 gift certificates from an Italian Restaurant in Hesperia “only 65 miles one way” she said, “but what the heck.”
Its pretty amazing, too, to see the wonderful produce that comes out of San Bernardino County from the Inland Empire to the High Desert to the Colorado River – the corn from Chino, the citrus from Upland to Redlands, the grapes from Rancho Cucamonga and Guasti, the pistachio nut crop from Newberry and all of the alfalfa, cotton and okra being grown north of Needles on the Mojave Indian Tribe’s farm. Sometimes you will see exotic fruit or giant zucchini, watermelon or pumpkins that were grown in someone’s back yard.
I don’t know how much of all this is being displayed at the fair this year, but it should be and I plan to look for it next year—especially a display of the organic crops being grown right smack in the middle of the desert with just a little water brought to the surface there at Cadiz just south of the southern most point of Route 66 between Barstow and Needles–incredible amounts of citrus and grapes by the tons.  These crops add to our San Bernardino County economy and tax base while the transfer of fifty thousand acre feet of water a year as the Cadiz Corporation proposes, for use outside of our county on the Orange County coast, only acts to transfer jobs, resources and growth elsewhere, not to mention the strong potential of the downdraft causing subsidence and further drying and warming of our desert.
I missed the fair this year, committed to an archaeological “dig” out in the Mojave Desert that had long before been scheduled for the same week.  I am not trying to make an excuse, but the work was important–the prehistoric site had been looted and destroyed by pothunters in 1997 through 2001.   The looters were first caught up with in Death Valley, arrested, served time and fined about $345,000.  You can read about it by looking up “Operation Indian Rocks” on the internet.
I was part of a team of archaeologists who were following up on the damage assessment and strategy to mitigate or repair the damage done by the looters at two particular archaeological sites evidenced to be well over 2000 years old.  Measures had been implemented around 2004 by a damage assessment team, to restore the site to “normal” appearance.  In the restoration work, bails of straw had been placed in the huge pits dug by the looters and then covered with the vandals’ “back fill” (also described as the piles of cultural soil the looters had removed from the holes while looking for relics).
Our assignment was to determine if this restoration measure worked—but ten years later the straw had been scattered all about by the wind and rodents.  It was obviously a failed mitigation attempt.  The site looked like a nativity scene manger–all we needed was a baby Jesus.  We had to scrape up and sift the straw mixed with the looters backfill to check for any remaining clues of the prehistoric past.  We then set about installing a barrier fill of block tile between what undisturbed deposit was left and the holy mess the looters had made.  It was not an easy task to remove the straw from the soil mix.  On further thought, if only we had one or two of those lowing fair cows and perhaps a goat to eat all the straw that had scattered about, it would have saved us a lot of work.

Copyright 2014 Ruth Musser-Lopez All rights reserved.

By clicking on the portal below you can download a PDF of the June 13 Sentinel.

Sentinel 06-13-14

By clicking on the portal below, you can download the June 6 SBC Sentinel

Sentinel 06-06-14

(June 3)  San Bernardino County appears set on a course to become the last of Southern California’s counties to implement the provisions of Proposition 90, which will allow elderly and disabled homeowners from outside of San Bernardino County to locate within its confines and transfer the state of California’s Proposition 13 property tax protection to their new property.
Proposition 13, which was officially named the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation, was an amendment of the Constitution of California enacted as part of the statewide voter approval process in 1978. It survived a challenge on constitutional grounds, and was declared fully enforceable by the United States Supreme Court.
The proposition decreased property taxes by assessing property values at their 1975 value and restricted annual increases of assessed value of real property to an inflation factor, not to exceed 2 percent per year. It also prohibited reassessment of a new base year value except in cases of (a) change in ownership, or (b) completion of new construction.
In addition to decreasing property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases of any state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires a two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to increase special taxes.
Proposition 13, however, did not lock in the tax advantage to the homeowners but to the property. Those who purchased homes after 1978 did not enjoy the full benefits of Proposition 13.
Subsequently, voters passed propositions 60 in 1986 and 90 in 1988. Proposition 60 allowed homeowners who had Proposition 13 protection to sell their home and purchase another within the same county and transfer the Proposition 13 protection to the newly purchased home. Proposition 90 allowed homeowners to purchase a home outside of the county where the home with Proposition 13 protection was located and transfer the Proposition 13 protection there.
Both propositions 60 and 90 required that individual counties implement their provisions for them to be applied in each prospective county.
San Bernardino County implemented Proposition 60 but it remains as the last major Southern California county to not have an ordinance implementing Proposition 90.
Last month the board of supervisors directed the county administrative office, with the assistance of county counsel, to prepare a report describing the process of implementing Proposition 90 tax benefits in San Bernardino County and analyzing the impact on the county and other governmental entities.
On the basis of that report, it is anticipated county counsel will ready an ordinance initiating the applicability of Proposition 90 in San Bernardino County by summer’s end.