Former County Counsel Revealed Closed-Door Board Discussions To DA

(May 29) Former County Counsel Ruth Stringer was serving as an informant against the members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, reporting confidential information discussed during closed session discussions of the board to the district attorney’s office, the San Bernardino County Sentinel learned this week.
In October 2010, Stringer, who had been appointed as interim county counsel in November 2006 and was given the position of the county’s top in-house lawyer the following year, abruptly announced her retirement from the post which paid $230,317.04 in annual salary and well over $60,000 in benefits. She was 61 at the time, having logged 32 years with county, beginning as an employee relations officer in 1978. She attended the University of La Verne School of Law while working with county and passed the state bar exam in 1982, transferring into the county counsel’s office in 1983, starting as a deputy county counsel.
It was expected that Stringer would remain as county counsel until she reached the age of 65. Her departure came almost eight months after the indictment of Bill Postmus, who had been chairman of the board of supervisors when she was elevated to interim county counsel, and Postmus’ one-time political associate, Jim Erwin, a former sheriff’s deputies union president whom Postmus later appointed as assistant assessor after he was elected county assessor in 2006 and assumed that position in 2007. In the February 2010 indictment, Postmus was charged with 14 counts of bribe soliciting, bribe taking, conflict of interest, perjury, fraudulent reporting and tax evasion related to accepting $100,000 in contributions from the two principals of the Colonies Partners, Dan Richards and Jeff Burum, in return for settling a lawsuit brought by the Colonies Partners against the county over flood control issues at the Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads residential and commercial subdivisions in northeast Upland. Erwin, who served as a consultant to the Colonies Partners during negotiations with the county over settling the lawsuit, was charged with facilitating the bribery that allegedly occurred. The vote to settle the lawsuit had taken place on Stringer’s first day as interim county counsel, November 28, 2006, with Postmus and his then-colleagues Paul Biane and Gary Ovitt voting to confer the $102 million settlement on the Colonies Partners and supervisor Josie Gonzales and then-supervisor Dennis Hansberger opposed.
As a consequence of the settlement, the county of San Bernardino made claims against three of its insurance carriers, the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority, AIG and Travelers Insurance. When the first two of those companies’ drug their feet in settling on those claims, the office of county counsel went to work in making procedural and legal filings to induce payment. Part of Stringer’s function as county counsel was to keep the board of supervisors abreast of the efforts to recoup from the county’s insurance carriers a portion of the Colonies settlement money. Moreover, Stringer was routinely available during the board’s executive discussions outside the view of the public touching on all order of sensitive issues under consideration which California law allows elected officials to consider behind closed doors, such as personnel issues, contract negotiations, real estate sales or acquisition and legal matters.
According to Neil Derry, who replaced Hansberger on the board of supervisors after defeating him in the June 2008 election, in late September 2010 the board was in the midst of a closed session when Stringer let it be known that she had been passing along privileged information originating in the board’s closed sessions to the district attorney’s office.
“We were discussing something related to the Colonies indemnity case against one of our our insurance carriers, which involved Todd Theodora [an outside attorney representing the county at Stringer’s recommendation],” Derry said. “It was clear, from what she said, that she had disclosed information she obtained while being present in our closed sessions to the district attorney’s office.”
The information involved, Derry said, touched on both the efforts to induce the insurance carriers to make good on the money owed to the county as well as the board’s discussion about the settlement vote. Stringer had passed the information along, Derry said, “to assistant district attorney Jim Hackelman” on her own initiative without any direction to do so by the members of the board, Derry said.
“She did it without our permission,” Derry said. “She was asked about it and she said she just did it, without asking permission. It was improper. As county counsel she worked for us. It was a violation of attorney-client privilege. And she could not just do it at one member’s suggestion There needed to be a vote of board for her to do that.”
Asked what the reaction of the board was, Derry said, “I can’t speak for the rest of the board. I can tell you in general they were not pleased.”
Stringer’s acknowledgment that she had gone behind the board’s back to the district attorney’s office convinced him that Stringer had to leave, Derry said.
“She should not have disclosed that to anyone,” he said. “I made a request for her resignation. Soon after that she had an agreement to leave the county with a year’s severance worked out with [county executive officer ] Greg Devereaux. If she had chosen to stay, I made it clear I would file a complaint for breach of privilege with the state bar.”
Five months later, Postmus pleaded guilty to all 14 charges against him. The following month, a newly impaneled grand jury, before whom Postmus went as the star witness, heard further testimony on the Colonies settlement matter and in May 2011 that grand jury issued a superseding indictment in which Erwin was again named, along with Burum, Biane and Ovitt’s chief of staff, Mark Kirk. That indictment essentially reiterated the crux of the first indictment and enlarged upon it, alleging that the Colonies Partners, in addition to providing bribes in the form of monetary donations to political action committees controlled by Postmus, showed an equal level of generosity to political action committees controlled by Biane, in return for his vote in favor of the settlement, and to a political action committee controlled by Kirk, in return for his influencing Ovitt to vote for the settlement.
Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk have all pleaded not guilty to the charges and are awaiting trial on the matter.
The county’s efforts to recover the money from its insurance carriers to offset the settlement payment to the Colonies Partners have proceeded very quietly over the past eight years. Those efforts have carried with them the potential for endangering the criminal case against the four defendants. In their initial refusals to make good on the insurance payments, those carriers cited the allegations in the indictment, asserting they should not be forced to make good on the indemnification of a public party with regard to a settlement when that outcome was tainted by bribery, extortion and other public crimes. In response, the county in its effort to force payment of the insurance claims has asserted that the settlement was a legitimate one. One of those making this argument on behalf of the county, assistant county counsel Mitch Norton, was one of the witnesses brought before the grand jury that indicted Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk.
Thus, the defense teams for the defendants are now armed with contradictory statements by a key witness against their clients, those made by Norton before the grand jury damning the actions of Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk and arguments in court papers in which Norton maintains the $102 million payout was a reasonable one to cover the Colonies Partners’ purported damages.
In the case of the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority, it took the county’s claims to binding arbitration in which a determination was made that the authority should pay the county $14.5 million. It subsequently agreed to pay $14 million to settle the case.
In 2007, before public accusations of bribery against the board ratifying the settlement were lodged, Travelers Insurance settled an indemnification claim filed by the county flood control district over the colonies settlement for $9.5 million.
The outcome of the county’s claim against AIG has not been publicly disclosed.

Trans Officials Committed To Toll Lanes On SBC Freeways

San Bernardino County’s transportation agency remains intent on constructing toll lanes on the Interstate 10 and Interstate 15 freeways, in contravention of both public sentiment and the voter approved road improvement funding charter by which a major portion of county road improvements are carried out.
Based upon projections of the burgeoning population in the Inland Empire which will place even greater demands on the already overburdened regional freeway system, public officials are intent on adding lanes to the I-10 and I-15 freeways. But such undertakings must be funded with available public dollars. Other projects, many of them approved as long as a decade or more ago, have taken a place in line ahead of those lane additions. Moreover, a decision made by politicians more than two decades ago to borrow at that time against what was then future transportation project revenue has limited the financial resources of those officials working in the here and now.
SANBAG, an acronym for San Bernardino Associated Governments, acts as San Bernardino County’s primary transportation agency. SANBAG’s 29 member board consists of all five county supervisors plus a representative of each of the county’s 24 incorporated cities.
A consensus among SANBAG’s board members, based upon population increase projections, traffic pattern studies and consultants’ input, is that at least one and more likely two and perhaps as many as three new lanes will be needed to prevent traffic gridlock along the 33-mile stretch of the I-10 at the Claremont/Montclair border to Redlands. But there is not adequate funding available to build even one new lane, the cost of which has been pegged at $55 million in today’s dollars, let alone three. An idea that has picked up considerable momentum is to establish toll lanes not only along that aforementioned span of the I-10, but along the I-15 Freeway as well, from the Riverside County/San Bernardino County line all the way to Hesperia on the north side of Cajon Pass.
SANBAG administrators have previewed the idea of building toll lanes, starting first with the 33-mile stretch on I-10 at a cost of $1.5 billion, aiming at completing them by 2025 or 2026. To finance the project, they will use any available local funding. state funding and federal funding, while simultaneously borrowing against future revenue from the tolls to be collected. The SANBAG board, with the exception of a few dissenting voices, appears to be on board for that plan. It would be followed up with a similar, or equally or even more expensive, undertaking to establish toll lanes on the I-15.
The difficulty in this is that there is a gap between the vision of the planners/political leadership drifting toward the toll lane plan and vast numbers of the traveling public whom the toll lanes are intended to “benefit.” Many see no benefit in the creation of freeway lanes that they will then need to pay to use, especially given the consideration that they, as California residents, are already paying the highest gasoline tax in the nation, and are paying a half cent add-on sales tax whenever they purchase anything in the county, which is intended to fund road and highway improvements. Toll roads, in their estimation, would represent not just double taxation but triple taxation.
A major portion of San Bernardino County’s transportation funding problem extends back to a decision made in the immediate aftermath of what was otherwise a significant breakthrough in obtaining funding to update, expand, and improve the local road system. In 1989, a number of San Bernardino County politicians and civic leaders, led by the late Jon Mikels who was then San Bernardino County’s Second District supervisor, campaigned for the passage of Measure I, which called for a half-cent per dollar sales tax to be collected throughout San Bernardino County for transportation improvements. Voters approved it. Rather than simply collecting the money, pooling it for two or three years to create a nest egg that could then be directly tapped to fund projects in a pay-as-you-go fashion, the SANBAG board members impatiently moved to undertake transportation projects immediately, bonding and borrowing against the then-future anticipated revenue from Measure I. While this had, for those politicians involved, an immediate political benefit in that it allowed them to point to their accomplishments in implementing the Measure I program and demonstrating tangible improvements to the road, highway or freeway system at various spots throughout the county, it diverted a large amount of the Measure I revenue not into improvements but into interest and principle payments to the financial institutions and investors that had lent the cash. As the years went by, right up to the present, more and more Measure I money, nearly fifty percent, is devoted not to projects in the here and now, but to paying the financing costs on past projects.
Moreover, the use of Measure I money to partially defray the cost of building toll lanes would create a potential legal problem. The toll lanes would be of benefit primarily to those prepared to pay the tolls required to utilize them. But a toll system would exclude drivers – many or most of whom are San Bernardino County residents who have been paying continuously an extra half cent per dollar every time they make a purchase for the purpose of improving the county’s transportation system – from using the toll lanes based on their unwillingness to pay the added tolls. This would create a situation in which taxpayers are being denied access to a public facility they have paid – at least partially – for. It is more likely than not that a class action suit over just that issue would be filed, complicating an already complicated issue, further diverting public money intended for building transportation facilities to financing a legal defense of SANBAG’s controversial decision-making process.
Two decades ago, Orange County augmented its freeway system with toll roads. They were controversial and less than successful there. Public toll lanes were established on the 91 Freeway in connection with three privately managed toll roads paralleling Interstate 5, Interstate 405 and the 55 Freeway, with the representation that once the debt taken on to build the roads was paid off, tolls would cease and the roads would be converted to standard freeways. But the public has proven reluctant to pay to use them, and as a result the toll operators have not been able to keep up with their interest payments, let alone the principal. They have had to extend the payments for years, refinancing the debt so that the roads are not projected to become toll free until 2050.
Orange County has a population that is, on average, far more affluent than those people living in San Bernardino County. The use of toll roads, indeed the very existence of them in California, which for more than a half-century prided itself on having West Coast-style “freeways” rather than Eastern Seaboard or Midwest turnpikes or toll roads, is considered elitist. Moreover, many San Bernardino County commuters simply lack the disposable income to pay for the luxury of tolls. For those reasons, in blue collar San Bernardino County, the toll roads’ prospect for success would not be guaranteed. Already, a decade before they are projected to be built, they are being derided by critics as “Jaguar lanes” or “Mercedes lanes” or “Lexus lanes.”
A Facebook page, “Toll Free IE,” with the URL address https://www.facebook.com/tollfreeie, has been created. “This page is committed to halting the creation of toll roads in the Inland Empire, specifically on the 10 from Pomona to Redlands and on the 15,” its description reads.
Spontaneously, a movement to vote out of office any county or city officials supporting the toll lane concept in San Bernardino County has formed.
Nevertheless, elected officials see it differently, pointing out that creating the infrastructure needed to maintain quality of life in the Inland Empire will have a financial cost that not all but most of the region’s citizens will be willing to bear. They point to the toll lanes’ benefits, which include saving motorists on the 10 Freeway up to an hour of time commuting from the Los Angeles County line to Ford Street in Redlands at a cost of $2 to $7 per trip depending on how intense the freeway traffic is. Similarly, those travelling on the 15 Freeway from where it crosses the 60 Freeway to U.S. Highway 395 would pay $4 to $15 in 2015 dollars, depending on the level of traffic, to save themselves as much as an-hour-and-a-half of commuting time.

Plan Change Earns Council Raucous Response In City Of Gracious Living

(May 28) A number of residents’ serious reservations with regard to the scope and direction of the city of Upland’s general plan update publicly manifested this week, seemingly catching the city council unaware. Despite earlier indication of the level of dismay a cross section of the community has with regard to the shifting land use priorities staff is attempting to impose on the City of Gracious Living, the council appeared unsuspecting of and unequipped to deal with the hostility they .encountered at the specially scheduled Tuesday night meeting held this week in lieu of the city’s normal Monday evening meetings because of the Memorial Day holiday.
Seven years ago the city began the effort to update the general plan. It made very slow progress for more than six years, with only a minimal amount of public input into the process. In March, a tentative document emerged, but was not widely distributed, being accessible at a relatively obscure spot on the city’s website as well as at City Hall and at the library.
A utility bill mailing to Upland residents last month heralded the general plan update. The Upland Planning Commission held a public hearing on it on April 22. At over 2,000 pages, the updated general plan had yet to be seen by the vast majority of the city’s residents or entrepreneurs and few of those who had examined it were able to assimilate it in its entirely.
Nonchalantly, city officials suggested that after the planning commission reviewed it and the city council held an open public forum for an overview of it at which some degree of public comment would be obtained, a vote on its acceptance would be held in June. At that point, city staff was asserting that adequate input from the public had been obtained. “The comprehensive update program was completed as a result of ongoing community participation,” the notice provided with the city utility bill stated. “The community input process helped form the vision and key themes that have laid the foundation for the plans; directed the preparation of general plan goals, policies and actions; and formed the zoning code development standards and design guidelines.”
The city’s contention that a comprehensive effort to involve the city’s residents in the general plan update process did not ring true with several city residents actively interested in the city’s approach toward current and future land use. One of the things they found so objectionable was that the process crawled at a snail’s pace for more than six years, shrouded for the most part in the backrooms of City Hall and that of a sudden it was progressing at near light speed toward approval, with the public being shoehorned into just a very limited set of open hearings at which citizen input could be obtained.
At the forefront of those lodging protests were Marilyn Mills and Marian Nichols, residents of the north and south ends of the city, respectively.
Mills questioned the city’s claim of adequate community participation, saying there had been only three actual events at the beginning of the process where the city actively sought to get citizen input, and those venues were related to holiday celebrations or other topics which greatly compromised the effectiveness of the gathering of resident feedback.
“There has been no in-depth citizen discussion and no time to give thoughtful researched answers,” Mills said in April. And, she charged, “The plan has a political philosophy attached to it. It basically changes the character and values of Upland. It has an emphasis on public forms of transportation rather than moving freely about using cars.”
Nichols decried the suddenly accelerated plan update effort as a “stealthy flim-flam orchestrated by the Upland Planning Commission and City Hall. The citizens were not aware this was afoot.”
At the council meeting this week, Mills reiterated her earlier objections, enlarging upon the shortcomings she perceived in the document based upon further study she has devoted to it since April.
After Mills fired the first salvo at the proposed plan, a host of others joined in.
Cary Leach told the council that he had “reservations with regard to the revision of the general plan,” particularly with regard to the proposed new document’s “increase in the density factor.” On average throughout the city, Leach said, “Currently we have approximately six units per acre. Under the new general plan in some areas of the city there will be up to 40 units per acre. That is a six times increase in demand on our services, the fire department, the police department, the sewer system, trash and water, not to mention the impact that will be placed on our schools. My plea to you is to take a second look and a third look at the provisions of this.”
Sheila Binkley said she is “opposed to the crowding and mass density this will create by putting our mini-mansions on these reduced lots.” She said she and her husband had moved to Upland from Alhambra, where city officials there were allowing the population “to expand in all directions, including up. That changed Alhambra. They were allowing large homes on minimal lots and they had mini-storage structures on main streets and adjoining properties. There was a lot of congestion and traffic. It was no longer a gracious and comfortable community to be in. Upland offered all the values of gracious living,” she said, and that is why her family relocated to Upland. With its revised general plan, Binkley said, the city of Upland is on the verge of going in the direction of Alhambra, allowing, she said, “all the things you see in the major cities people are trying to get away from. I am not saying we don’t need to build, but in my opinion, I don’t think we need the higher density. Add me to the list of people who want to continue our city the way it is.”
Maxine Curtis said that a major new feature in the plan is the influx of “multi-level, mixed use apartments,” .which she said are antithetical to the traditional character of Upland and at odds with the imperative of reducing the demand for water.
“We are being told that Upland must cut back on water usage because of a severe shortage,” she said. “In the next breath, we are told Upland has enough water to assimilate 8,000 new residents. Which statement is correct? They can’t both be true. No Upland resident likes to be told there is not enough water for you. However your plan will bring thousands of residents to Upland who will at some point need to share our water. The Upland residents I speak of take pride in their city and their personal property. Many resident have invested countless hours of time, effort and money into their lawns and trees, some of which are fifty years old. For many, their current home is the home they will live in until they die and they do not want to let the landscaping around those homes die first. No Upland resident looks kindly on any plan that poses a higher risk of continual water shortages, particularly if it benefits some unidentified recipients. The general plan will include legally binding contracts to build 1,589 mixed-use apartments in Upland. I understand if we get locked into this plan we increase the possibility of a water disaster for all of us.
Diane Fedele, who has lived in the city for over thirty years, said she had “so many question about this new plan.” In her questioning of the council, she asserted that the city’s current general plan had not been updated but rewritten, and that the city had expended $1.5 million in that effort. “Who authorized spending the $1.5 million to write a new plan?” she asked.
Through the tenor of her questioning, Fedele expressed concern that the city had not fully considered the trade-offs and concessions city officials would need to make to obtain federal subsidies in the form of grants. She questioned whether city officials had adequately monitored the rewriting of the plan or the implication of the changes made in it, in particular the strategy of conforming the city’s housing make-up to state and federal standards that will qualify the city to receive program funding. “What efforts have you as the city council taken to educate yourselves with the outside funding for its implementation?” she asked. “What strings will be attached to accepting the grants and funding? Have you researched and weighed the negative consequences to the residents embedded in the plan? Why are you accepting the directive that Upland’s allotment is 8,000 new residents? Who are these 8,000 people being allotted to Upland? Who is in charge of allotting these 8,000 people? By accepting federal and state grants and other sources of funding from groups linked to these grants, I know you each believe our financial issues will be resolved. But in fact you, our city council, won’t have any issues. You will have no say in anything. The groups you are accepting money from will control Upland. You will be totally irrelevant.”
Their acceptance or rejection of the general plan now under consideration, Fidele told the council, would ultimately define their legacy. “If you vote to pass this plan when it comes before you, you will be known as the mayor and council members who sold out not just the residents, but the City of Gracious Living,” she said.
Gary Gileno accused the city council of having surrendered its decision-making authority to the city’s staff members. “The city is being run by staff,” Gileno charged. Staff, he said, was wrong-headedly committed to accommodating the building of high density units that are not in demand. “They’re not filling up, yet you keep building them,” Gileno said.
A goal of the new general plan includes having the city qualify for so called PACE Loans, i.e., Property Assessed Clean Energy loans, which finance energy efficiency upgrades or renewable energy installations for buildings, such as adding attic insulation or installing rooftop solar panels. In areas with PACE legislation in place, municipal governments offer a specific bond to investors and then loan the money to consumers and businesses to put towards an energy retrofit. The loans are repaid over an assigned term, typically 15 or 20 years, by means of an annual assessment on property tax bills. Gileno characterized the improvements provided as “useless conservation measures,” which require that “a lien is put on the house.” He said the PACE program was part of the “state’s agenda” to foist on the public its theory of “fake global warming.”
Robin Hvidston displayed four stacked and bound reams of paper to illustrate that the plan entailed more than 2,000 pages of material, which she said “is a series of contradictions. We are being told to conserve on water, but this is going to bring in 8,000 new residents to use water.” She lamented that compiling the plan “cost us $1.5 million. That could have helped our homeless or could have fixed our roads. I’d like to see an itemization of the $1.5 million to see how we ended up with this unwieldy plan.”
She invited the council to provide the public with a straightforward and understandable presentation of the updated plan’s contents and “not a confusing presentation by the planning commission where they use a lot of acronyms.” Hvidston said that in the plan, its authors “keep referencing the stakeholders. Who are they?” she asked. She said the plan “needs to be shelved.”
Kathy Pons said that Upland was the “Land of Gracious Living” but that the plan calls for high density residential development. Is this what you want for your children and your grandchildren. and your great grandchildren?” she asked.
Pons asked the council to “not rubberstamp this plan being pushed by outside forces not even living in the city of Upland.”
Jean Potts told the council, “High density is not a way of gracious living.”
Allison Cutler said she believed the city had failed to make adequate disclosure and announcement of the general plan update. “I am appalled at the way the city told us about the general plan update in the little notices in the back of the newspaper. We hired you to do what is best for the city, not to line your pockets with all the income you will get from the stack and packs.” She encouraged the city’s residents to make an effort at “following the money” to see who benefits from the redrafted plan. She said she had spoken with her neighbors and acquaintances and friends throughout the city and “not one person has one favorable thing to say about this.”
At various points throughout the public comments addressing the general plan revision process, members of the audience emphasized the criticisms of the plan made by the speaker at the podium with shouts, bursts of applause and catcalls. Both councilwoman Carol Timm, who was a member of the city planning commission for 16 years before she was elected to the city council last year, and mayor Ray Musser came in for especially harsh treatment by the crowd. When one of the speakers referenced direction Timm had given at a previous meeting for residents to address questions they have about the general plan update not to the council but to community development director Jeff Zwack, Timm attempted to back away from that comment. This brought a crescendo of derision from the crowd. Musser was subjected to similar vociferous expressions of disapproval when he stopped several of the speakers after their three-minute speaking limit was reached. When he did the same with Gileno, who failed to yield the podium to the next speaker, the deputy city clerk turned off the podium microphone. This provoked the crowd into a cacophony of shouts and demands that Gileno be allowed to finish. Musser than announced that the council would take a recess and he left the council dais. When the remainder of the council did not join him in his retreat behind the curtained area that serves as the backdrop to the council stage, the crowd became yet more inflamed. Councilman Glenn Bozar, the mayor pro tem, attempted to salvage the council’s dignity, making a half-hearted justification for Musser’s having pre-empted Gileno, but the crowd’s animation did not dissipate. Bozar then stood up, and moving to the curtains, parted the drapery and prevailed upon Musser to resume his stewardship of the proceedings.
There was no clear upshot from the crowd’s outpouring of hostility toward city leaders, other than vague assurances by the council that the acceptance of the plan would not be rushed into a vote. Coming as the comments did, during the public comment section of the meeting without the subject of the general plan update actually being on the city council’s agenda for that evening, some members of the city council, by their body language and reaction, appeared to believe they had been ambushed. In their reaction to the derision of several members of the crowd, there was an attempt to direct the public to community development director Jeff Zwack, who has been overseeing the update effort from the beginning. The council did not directly respond to Mills’ assertion, which was reiterated by some of the others, that Zwack’s representation that there had been adequate residential input for the update process was patently inaccurate.

New City Numbers

Recently released data from the California Department of Finance shows that San Bernardino County is continuing its upward trend in terms of population growth. Overall, the county, which boasted a population of 2,035,210 in the 2010 U.S. Census, had increased its numbers to 2,104,291 as of January 1, 2015, according to California Department of Finance’s Demographic Research Unit.
Only one of the county’s cities, Big Bear Lake, has seen a population decrease since 2010, having dropped to 5,165 from 5,438 nearly five years ago. Nevertheless, in the last year Big Bear has actually grown slightly, as its population as of January 1, 2014 had slipped to 5,115.
Only one city in the county, Twentynine Palms, suffered a population loss in 2014. Its head count dropped from 26,550 as of January 1, 2014 to 25,846 as of the first of this year. Twentynine Palms’ figures reflect modest growth overall since 2010, when its population was 25,048.
During the 12 months of 2014, the fastest growing area of the county was its extreme southwest corner, where Chino, Montclair and Chino Hills grew, respectively, by 3.4 percent, 3 percent, and 2 percent. Chino as of January 1, 2014 stood at 81,670 people and reached 84,465 one year later. Montclair saw its numbers escalate from 37,332 as of January 1, 2014 to 38,458 on New Years Day this year. During the same period, Chino Hills went from a population of 76,055 to 77,596.
The release of the Department of Finance’s figures, which came on May 1, shot down a false report that was making the rounds several months ago to the effect that Fontana had overtaken San Bernardino as the county’s most populous city. In fact, San Bernardino, the county seat and the oldest of San Bernardino County’s municipalities, remains in the number one position, with a 213,933 residents counted. Fontana is the second largest city in the county population-wise, with 204,312, well ahead of third place Rancho Cucamonga, which numbers 174,064.
The accompanying table shows the populations of the county’s cities and incorporated towns as of January 1 this year and gives their ranking population-wise among the state’s 482 cities. The population of the unincorporated portions of San Bernardino County, that is, those areas lying outside all 24 cities’ or towns’ municipal limits, as of January 1 was 299,110.

San Bernardino County City Populations As Of January 1, 2015

State Rank             City                               Population

17                  San Bernardino                      213,933
21                  Fontana                                  204,312
26                  Rancho Cucamonga              174,064
29                  Ontario                                    168,777
48                  Victorville                                121,168
68                  Rialto                                      102,092
80                  Hesperia                                   92,177
95                  Chino                                        84,465
108                Chino Hills                                77,596
111                Upland                                      75,787
118                Apple Valley                             71,396
121                Redlands                                 70,398
64                  Highland                                   54,332
166                Colton                                      53,384
168                Yucaipa                                    52,942
210                Montclair                                  38,458
230                Adelanto                                   33,084
264               Twentynine Palms                    25,846
279                Loma Linda                              23,751
282                Barstow                                    23,407
290                Yucca Valley                             21,355
350                Grand Terrace                          12,352
426                Big Bear Lake                            5,165
428                Needles                                      4,940

Contrasted with all these numbers are the 2010 U.S. Census population figures, as follows: Adelanto, 31,765; Apple Valley, 69,135; Barstow, 22,639; Big Bear Lake, 5,019; Chino, 77,983; Chino Hills, 74,799; Colton, 52,154; Fontana, 196,069; Grand Terrace, 12,040; Hesperia, 90,173; Highland, 53,104; Loma Linda, 23,261; Montclair, 36,664; Needles, 4,844; Ontario, 163,924; Rancho Cucamonga, 165,269; Redlands, 68,747; Rialto, 99,171; San Bernardino, 209,924; Twentynine Palms, 25,048; Upland, 73,732; Victorville, 115,903; Yucaipa, 51,367; Yucca Valley, 20,700; and the remainder of the county, 291,776.

In Most Recent Back-And-Forth Effort To Outsmart Each Other, Marijuana Access Advocates Best City Of Upland

UPLAND—(May 27) Who is outsmarting whom?
For a time, anyway, it appeared that the entrenched anti-marijuana legalization forces ensconced within Upland’s municipal governmental structure had outmaneuvered advocates of an initiative to allow three medical marijuana dispensaries to operate within a relatively limited zone along the north side of Foothill Boulevard at the west end of the city.
Beginning last October, a group of Upland residents, nominally headed by Nicole DeLaRosa and James Velez, and sponsored by the California Cannabis Coalition, that group’s president, Craig Beresh, and one of its board members, Randy Welty, undertook a petition drive to qualify for the ballot in Upland an initiative aimed at overturning Upland’s ban on marijuana dispensaries. On January 14, the petition gatherers handed over to Upland City Clerk Stephanie Mendenahll the initiative petition endorsed with 6,865 signatures gathered in Upland and later determined by the county registrar of voters to be valid. Per state law, an initiative petition that garners the valid signature endorsements of ten percent of the voters must be put on the ballot at the next regularly scheduled election in that jurisdiction. An initiative petition that garners the signed endorsement of 15 percent or more of the voters requires that the initiative be put on a specially-scheduled ballot within that jurisdiction not more than 105 days after the petition is accepted as valid by the board overseeing the applicable local governmental entity. That governmental entity must bear the cost of that special election. The 6,865 signatures gathered by the petitioners represented more than 15 percent of the registered voters in Upland. Thus, the Cannabis Coalition, represented by its attorney, Roger Diamond, asserted that the city was obliged to put the initiative before the voters no later than June 23, 2015, the first Tuesday after the elapsing of 105 days from the time the Upland City Council on March 9 officially acknowledged that the 6,865 signatures on the petition were valid.
Upland Mayor Ray Musser, councilman Glenn Bozar and councilwoman Carol Timm, all of whom have been labeled as reactionaries by the medical marijuana access advocates, directed city attorney Richard Adams to find a way in which to strew a stumbling block in the path of the petitioners. In short order, Adams brought forth a theory by which he asserted the city could postpone the election until the next regularly scheduled municipal election in November 2016.
The timing of the election was considered significant for two reasons. The first is the cost. The county registrar of voters would charge the city as much as $180,000 to handle the election as a stand-alone event this year. The city would reap considerable savings by putting the election on the 2016 ballot, when the mayor’s post, a single city council position and city treasurer spot are up for reelection. Secondly, advocates of the initiative see a special election as the forum in which sale of medical marijuana within the city limits of Upland is most likely to gain acceptance of the voters participating. Informal surveys of Upland voters show that, on balance, the city’s residents are against the initiative. But special elections normally have poor voter turnout and the initiative’s advocates believe that through the aggressive and energetic use of social media and networking among that portion of the city’s electorate most favorably inclined to the accessibility to medical marijuana and marijuana use in general, they can drive enough voters to the polls to prevail in a special election while a significant portion of the city population opposed to the concept of open access to marijuana fails to participate.
Adams seized upon an element within the initiative which complicates the matter vis-à-vis the California Constitution and has a bearing on when just such an election should be held. Among the set of limitations imposed on the dispensaries’ operators was that no more than three be permitted to operate at any given time and that they would have to be located within the relatively confined area north of Foothill Boulevard, south of Cable Airport, and between Airport Drive to the east and Monte Vista to the west. As part of the protocol for each dispensary’s licensing, each applicant would need to provide a $75,000 nonrefundable licensing fee up front that was intended, the initiative’s sponsors asserted, to cover the city’s costs in carrying out background checks and making other inquiries and efforts to process the applications and patrol the dispensaries once they were up and running.
It was with regard to this last point that Adams said the city had what he termed a “profound” basis for holding off until a regular election to let the city’s voters consider the initiative. Referencing the $75,000 licensing fee, Adams said, “The State Constitution indicates that if the fee exceeds the cost of providing the services, licensing and inspection, it is not a fee. It is a tax.” Further, according to the California Constitution, Adams said, a vote on a tax cannot be held in the venue of a special ballot but must be held during a regularly scheduled election.
In this way, Adams implied, the medical marijuana access advocates had outsmarted themselves.
The city council, in a split 3-2 vote, with Musser, Bozar and Timm in ascendency and councilwoman Debbie Stone and councilman Gino Filippi dissenting, on March 9 voted to accept the initiative petition and schedule the vote for November 2016.
The city’s action prompted Diamond, on behalf of the sponsors of the initiative, to file a lawsuit on March 19 accompanied by a peremptory writ in which it was asserted the city had denied “the signers of the initiative…the full benefit of California law, which requires that the initiative be put on the ballot within 88 to 105 days of the certification of the signatures.”
Ultimately, that matter came to court last week, on Tuesday May 19, before Judge David Cohn. The city asserted that the most realistic cost of processing the licensing applications was around $15,000 and it submitted documentation showing that under the most extreme conditions the background checks, licensing processing, follow-up inspections and investigations would cost no more than $56,540 and that enforcement and prosecutions of violations would run no more than another $10,000. Assistant city attorney James Touchstone maintained that, with the total itemized costs of $66,540 for the city’s licensing/processing/enforcement effort, the $75,000 specified in the initiative qualified it as a tax. After questioning Diamond on that point and not eliciting grounds which he considered adequate to controvert the city’s position, Cohn ruled in favor of the city, finding that holding a vote on the initiative during a specially-called election rather than a general election would be a violation of the state Constitution, and confirming that the election on the initiative would need to be held in November 2016.
That same day, even before an order memorializing that ruling could be drawn up for Cohn’s signature, Upland medical marijuana access advocates, represented this time by Upland resident Felipe Rodriguez, again came to Upland City Hall, providing officials there with a notification that they intended to begin circulating a redrafted initiative.
The new initiative is in large measure indistinguishable from the initiative circulated last year. The primary exception: the licensing and inspection fee for each dispensary has been reduced from $75,000 to $15,000, the figure identified by the city as the best cost estimate for processing the permit applications.
According to Rodriguez, a regime to allow legitimate cannabis clinics to operate under a set of defined regulations is in the community’s best interest. “As we and other cities have seen over the last four years, bans are ineffective,” Rodriguez stated in the petition to the city. “They sound good but do little. Illegal dispensaries merely pay a small fine and continue operating.”
City attorney Richard Adams and his underling Touchstone are reviewing the petition and by law have until June 3 to prepare the ballot title and summary. At that point, Rodriguez and his associates will have to publish a notice of intent, after which point they can begin collecting signatures. Already armed with the names and addresses of the 6,865 residents who signed the previous petition, the initiative advocates figure they are a hop, skip and a jump away from qualifying this one.
Thus, it now appears that the medical marijuana access advocates in Upland have outsmarted the forces arrayed against them, at least for the time being. This was brought home during the Upland City Council meeting held this week, on Tuesday May 26. Pat Almazan, one of the more articulate of those advocating against legalized marijuana access in Upland, made a full frontal attack on the newest initiative petition, calling for the distribution of medical marijuana through traditional licensed pharmacies as well as ensuring that the drug not be made easily available to minors. In attacking Rodriguez’s petition, Almazan asserted that the $15,000 licensing fee it stipulates was a pittance in comparison to the actual costs of the licensing, inspecting and enforcing activity the city will need to engage in at the dispensaries. Almazan’s assertions, which diametrically contradicted those that Touchstone and Adams had used in convincing Judge Cohn to postpone the election on the previous initiative to next year, was indistinguishable from the argument Diamond made in court last week in his attempt to get the initiative on the ballot this year, demonstrating the degree to which the initiative opponents are in disarray and out of synchronization with one another.

SB Planning Commission Overrides Protest Of Highland Hills Project OK

The San Bernardino Planning Commission has affirmed  city staff approval of the “Highland Hills” development just north of Highland Avenue, east of Highway 330 near San Bernardino’s border with Highland. The project, which was originally approved as a 1,516 unit project 33 years ago, has now been reduced to 695 dwelling units.
The protests of the city of Highland and Highland residents to the intensity of the development project as it was originally envisioned led to modifications in the plan which were codified in a settlement agreement signed in July 1989. The project remained dormant for 25 years, until it was resurrected last year.
A specific plan and environmental impact report for the 1,516-unit project, which included multi-family units and a golf course, was adopted by the San Bernardino City Council in 1982. In 1988, a group of Highland residents challenged the project, leading to the aforementioned compromise on the project being worked out in 1989. Development was not actuated at that time and in April 2001, a second amendment to the agreement was filed.
The project was not initiated then  either, and a change of ownership occurred, with the property now in the possession of American Title.  American Title last year joined forces with RSA, a developer, to begin work.
At that point, Jim Nunn, one of the Highland residents who had forged the 1989 agreement with the project proponents, took issue with the newly formulated development plan. He disputed that the changes made to the current development plan constituted “minor modifications” to the earlier accepted plans. In particular, Nunn expressed the belief that eliminating the golf course from the development plan constituted a significant change over what had been earlier proposed, necessitating a new environmental impact report. Moreover, Nunn requested that San Bernardino hold off on approving the project until after it is out of bankruptcy, which it entered into in 2012. Nunn reasoned that Highland Hills, which is isolated from the rest of San Bernardino, has infrastructure and service needs that might get short shrift given the city’s current financial state.
After a delay of 33 years, however, San Bernardino city officials appear anxious to move the project ahead.
On April 15 the matter came before the San Bernardino Planning Commission as the reconsideration of a previous appeal by Nunn and a group known as Highland Hills Homeowners.
Based on his ministerial authority, San Bernardino Community Development Director Mark Persico in August 2014 approved the modifications to the project, which included a 54 percent reduction of the number of dwelling units  from 1,516 to 695, resulting in eliminating all multi-family (i.e., apartment complexes) elements as well as housing deemed “affordable,” removing  the golf course, preserving 65 percent of the property as “open space,” providing for new flood control elements to serve Cook Canyon, dispensing with a corner gas station and market, and encircling the project area with a multiuse trail.   At the April 15 meeting, former Highland City Councilman Dennis Johnson, together with Highland residents Denise Dvorak, Steven Purper, Susan Hodges, Donita Remington, Debbie Carter, Shellrae Hoehn, Marlene Davis, Sesario Perez, Gary Lee, Ann Strawn, Glenn Drewes, and David Hoehn spoke in opposition to the project.
Persico dismissed the gist of their arguments, which essentially boiled down to the contention that the project changes he characterized as minor modifications were in fact significant alterations that should have required another environmental impact report and a new hearing.
Persico said, “The modifications which are requested by RSA shall be deemed to be minor if they are equal to or less intense from the standpoint of environmental impacts.”
Former Highland City Councilman Johnson intimated that he believed there was a “hidden agenda” to the city of San Bernardino’s action.
Commissioner Andrew Machen made a motion to reverse the December 30, 2014 decision of the community development director approving the project and uphold the appeal. That died for a lack of a second.
Vice-chairman Lance Durr then made a motion to uphold the decision of approval. He, chairman Larry Heasley and commissioners Jim Eble, Amelia Lopez and Michael Thomas voted in the affirmative. Machen voted against the motion and commissioner Scott Wyatt abstained. Both Kent Paxton and Casey Dailey recused themselves from voting because of the proximity of their residences to the project.  In the immediate aftermath of the vote for approval, the appellants indicated they might appeal the decision to the next level, i.e., the San Bernardino City Council.

SB Planning Commission Overrides Protest Of Highland Hills Project OK

The San Bernardino Planning Commission has affirmed  city staff approval of the “Highland Hills” development just north of Highland Avenue, east of Highway 330 near San Bernardino’s border with Highland. The project, which was originally approved as a 1,516 unit project 33 years ago, has now been reduced to 695 dwelling units.
The protests of the city of Highland and Highland residents to the intensity of the development project as it was originally envisioned led to modifications in the plan which were codified in a settlement agreement signed in July 1989. The project remained dormant for 25 years, until it was resurrected last year.
A specific plan and environmental impact report for the 1,516-unit project, which included multi-family units and a golf course, was adopted by the San Bernardino City Council in 1982. In 1988, a group of Highland residents challenged the project, leading to the aforementioned compromise on the project being worked out in 1989. Development was not actuated at that time and in April 2001, a second amendment to the agreement was filed.
The project was not initiated then  either, and a change of ownership occurred, with the property now in the possession of American Title.  American Title last year joined forces with RSA, a developer, to begin work.
At that point, Jim Nunn, one of the Highland residents who had forged the 1989 agreement with the project proponents, took issue with the newly formulated development plan. He disputed that the changes made to the current development plan constituted “minor modifications” to the earlier accepted plans. In particular, Nunn expressed the belief that eliminating the golf course from the development plan constituted a significant change over what had been earlier proposed, necessitating a new environmental impact report. Moreover, Nunn requested that San Bernardino hold off on approving the project until after it is out of bankruptcy, which it entered into in 2012. Nunn reasoned that Highland Hills, which is isolated from the rest of San Bernardino, has infrastructure and service needs that might get short shrift given the city’s current financial state.
After a delay of 33 years, however, San Bernardino city officials appear anxious to move the project ahead.
On April 15 the matter came before the San Bernardino Planning Commission as the reconsideration of a previous appeal by Nunn and a group known as Highland Hills Homeowners.
Based on his ministerial authority, San Bernardino Community Development Director Mark Persico in August 2014 approved the modifications to the project, which included a 54 percent reduction of the number of dwelling units  from 1,516 to 695, resulting in eliminating all multi-family (i.e., apartment complexes) elements as well as housing deemed “affordable,” removing  the golf course, preserving 65 percent of the property as “open space,” providing for new flood control elements to serve Cook Canyon, dispensing with a corner gas station and market, and encircling the project area with a multiuse trail.   At the April 15 meeting, former Highland City Councilman Dennis Johnson, together with Highland residents Denise Dvorak, Steven Purper, Susan Hodges, Donita Remington, Debbie Carter, Shellrae Hoehn, Marlene Davis, Sesario Perez, Gary Lee, Ann Strawn, Glenn Drewes, and David Hoehn spoke in opposition to the project.
Persico dismissed the gist of their arguments, which essentially boiled down to the contention that the project changes he characterized as minor modifications were in fact significant alterations that should have required another environmental impact report and a new hearing.
Persico said, “The modifications which are requested by RSA shall be deemed to be minor if they are equal to or less intense from the standpoint of environmental impacts.”
Former Highland City Councilman Johnson intimated that he believed there was a “hidden agenda” to the city of San Bernardino’s action.
Commissioner Andrew Machen made a motion to reverse the December 30, 2014 decision of the community development director approving the project and uphold the appeal. That died for a lack of a second.
Vice-chairman Lance Durr then made a motion to uphold the decision of approval. He, chairman Larry Heasley and commissioners Jim Eble, Amelia Lopez and Michael Thomas voted in the affirmative. Machen voted against the motion and commissioner Scott Wyatt abstained. Both Kent Paxton and Casey Dailey recused themselves from voting because of the proximity of their residences to the project.  In the immediate aftermath of the vote for approval, the appellants indicated they might appeal the decision to the next level, i.e., the San Bernardino City Council.

Forum… Or Against ‘em

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
As the June 15  deadline for the state budget approaches, things are in an utter state of confusion in Sacramento, which is another way of saying that the Democrats are in charge…
Within the ranks of the ruling Democratic Party in California, fights are breaking out among its members over how they can best waste the taxpayers’ money…
There are two main proposals by those considered to be the Democrats’ legislative leaders, who all are assuming, incidentally, that the state will collect something like $2.5 billion  – that’s with a b – more than Governor Jerry Brown – also a Democrat – has projected. That the state’s Democratic leaders  are looking at going beyond what the governor is asking for is outrageous…
It is not that I believe Governor Brown’s $115.3 billion spending plan for the state government in fiscal year 2015-16 is a responsible one – I don’t. I think that Governor Brown should be far more conservative in doling out the money he now has at his beck and command, and remember that over the last seven budget cycles government had to be reined  in because it had become to broad and encrusted with unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation, and its sheer weight was burdening the tax-paying businesses that are the state of California’s economic engines…
The economy was sputtering for six straight years and too many of those engines were in dangers of shutting down completely and forever.  It seems the governor has forgotten how hard that money is to come by. The $115.3 billion budget plan Governor Brown sent over to the legislature two-and-a-half weeks ago was $7.3 billion more than the budget the legislature approved in June 2014 for the current fiscal year. I think the more responsible way to deal with the uptick in revenue the state is receiving is to salt some of it away, restore funding to many of the essential programs – like state courts – that have been drastically cut in years past, and judiciously parcel out the rest based on the tangible benefits these infusions of revenue will provide…
If Jerry Brown can be likened to a frat boy who found an extra ten dollars in the fraternity kitty and decided to blow it all on a couple of six packs of beer, then the Democratic leadership qualifies as a group who, finding the same ten dollars, propose now to venture it along with a $90 promissory note to secure $100 worth of whisky…
According to Governor Brown, as of earlier this month he is projecting the state will receive  $6.7  billion more in revenue throughout 2015-16 than he had projected just four months earlier, in January. That alone is an astounding recalculation and adjustment. The State Senate and Assembly Democratic leadership actually want to commit to spending $8.2 billion more in 2015-16 than the governor projected in January we would have in income during that same period…
How is it that the guys in the Statehouse are relying on figures so different from what the guy in the Governor’s Mansion is using? A little bird told me it is because the first set are rendered up by the California Department of Finance and the latter by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. I have a novel suggestion: Let’s compare which has the most accurate projections over a three-year period and, in the interest of eliminating waste, duplication and inaccuracy in government, close out, permanently, whichever entity finishes in second place in this friendly contest of comparison

Ellen Gould White, Mother Of Loma Linda’s Medical Legacy

Ellen Gould White (née Harmon; November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915), who was named among the 100 Most Significant Americans by Smithsonian magazine, played a role is shaping San Bernardino County. White, a prolific writer, along with her husband James White and with Joseph Bates, essentially founded what is known today as the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
A mystic and visionary, White related her visionary experiences to her fellow believers. She and other Adventist pioneers believed her earthly access to the cosmic reality beyond life on earth to be  the Biblical gift of prophecy as outlined in Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 19:10 which describe the testimony of Jesus as the “spirit of prophecy.” Her Conflict of the Ages series of writings endeavored to showcase the hand of God in Biblical and Christian church history. This other-worldly tension and conflict, referred to as the “Great Controversy theme,” formed the basis of Seventh-day Adventist theology.
Controversy attended White because of her claim of visionary capability.
Ellen and her twin sister Elizabeth, were born November 26, 1827 near the village of Gorham, Maine., to Robert and Eunice Harmon.  There have been claims, never fully substantiated, that some of her ancestors were of African descent.  Her father was a farmer who also made hats using mercuric nitrate. Her parents were followers of William Miller, who in 1833 predicted that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ would occur in the year 1843. Her father’s adherency to Miller’s theology caused the White family to be disfellowshipped by the local Methodist church.
At the age of nine, an older classmate threw a stone that hit Ellen on the face.  This disfigured her features and left her in a coma for several weeks.  On June 26, 1842, she was baptized by John Hobart in Casco Bay in Portland, Maine, and eagerly awaited Jesus to come again. In her later years, she referred to this as the happiest time of her life.  In 1843 came the Great Disappointment, when Miller’s prediction of the Second Coming of Christ failed to manifest. Ellen White experienced her first vision soon after that.
Sometime in 1845 Ellen met her future husband James Springer White, a Millerite who became convinced that her visions were genuine. A year later James proposed and they were married by a justice of the peace in Portland, Maine. James later wrote: “We were married August 30, 1846, and from that hour to the present she has been my crown of rejoicing….It has been in the good providence of God that both of us had enjoyed a deep experience in the Advent movement….This experience was now needed as we should join our forces and, united, labor extensively from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific….”
James and Ellen had four sons: Henry Nichols, James Edson (known as Edson), William Clarence (known as Willie or W. C.), and John Herbert.
Only Edson and William lived to adulthood. John Herbert died of erysipelas at the age of three months, and Henry died of pneumonia at the age of 16 in 1863.
From 1844 to 1863 White experienced between 100 to 200 visions, typically in public places and meeting halls. In later life, the visions occurred at home during the night.
J. N. Loughborough, who had seen White in vision fifty times since 1852, and her husband, James White, listed several physical characteristics that marked the visions. According to them, “In passing into vision, she gives three enrapturing shouts of ‘Glory!’ which echo and re-echo, the second, and especially the third, fainter but more thrilling than the first, the voice resembling that of one quite a distance from you, and just going out of hearing.” Furthermore, according to Loughborough and her husband, she would initially swoon, having no strength but would then be filled with superhuman strength. She would gesticulate gracefully when in this trancelike state and her hands and arms could not be hindered nor controlled by even the strongest person. In 1845, she held her parents’ 18.5 pound family Bible in her outstretched left hand for half an hour. She weighed 80 pounds at the time. According to her husband and Loughborough, White would not breathe during the entire period of a vision that ranged from fifteen minutes to three hours. Yet, her pulse beat regularly and her countenance remained pleasant as in the natural state, they maintained.  Her eyes stayed open without blinking; her head was raised, looking upward as if staring intently at some distant object. Several physicians, at different times, conducted tests to check her lack of breathing and other physical phenomena. According to those around her at these times, she was utterly unconscious of everything transpiring around her, and viewed herself as removed from this world, and in the presence of heavenly beings. When she came out of her visions, all seemed total darkness whether in the day time or a well-lighted room at night. She would exclaim with a long-drawn sigh, as she took her first natural breath, “D-a-r-k.” She was then limp and strengthless.
Ellen White said of her first vision, which occurred in 1844, “While praying, the power of God came upon me as I never had felt it before, and I was wrapt up in a vision of God’s glory, and seemed to be rising higher and higher from the earth and was shown something of the travels of the Advent people to the Holy City…”
In this vision the “Advent people” were traveling a high and dangerous path towards the city of New Jerusalem [Heaven]. Their path was lit from behind by “a bright (light)…which an angel told me was the midnight cry.” Some of the travelers grew weary and were encouraged by Jesus; others denied the light, the light behind them went out, and they fell “off the path into the dark and wicked world below.” The vision continued with a portrayal of Christ’s second coming, following which the Advent people entered the New Jerusalem; and ended with her returning to earth feeling lonely, desolate and longing for that “better world.”
According to Godfrey T. Anderson, the report of her vision convinced the Millerites that Miller had been correct, if somewhat off in his date. “In effect, the vision assured the Advent believers of eventual triumph despite the immediate despair into which they had plunged” as a consequence of the Great Disappointment.
In February 1845, White experienced her second vision in Exeter, Maine known as the “Bridegroom” vision. Together with the third vision about the new earth, the visions “gave continued meaning to the October 1844 experience and supported the developing sanctuary rationale. Additionally they played an important role in countering the spiritualizing views of many fanatical Adventists by portraying the Father and Jesus as literal beings and heaven as a physical place,” according to Merlin D. Burt, a professor at Andrews University.
Fearing people would be disbelieving of the actual spiritual significance of her visions, White initially did not share her visions with the wider Millerite community. In a meeting at her parent’s home, she said she received what she regarded as confirmation of her ministry, later writing, “While praying, the thick darkness that had enveloped me was scattered, a bright light, like a ball of fire, came towards me, and as it fell upon me, my strength was taken away. I seemed to be in the presence of Jesus and the angels. Again it was repeated, ‘Make known to others what I have revealed to you.’”
In time she began giving her testimony in public meetings — some of which she arranged herself — and in her regular Methodist class meetings in private homes.
News of her visions spread and White was soon traveling and speaking to groups of Millerite followers in Maine and the surrounding area. Her visions began to be publicized, the first of which ran on  January 24, 1846, in the Cincinnati, Ohio-based  Day Star, a Millerite paper that gave an account of her first vision in an article entitled  “Letter From Sister Harmon” by Enoch Jacobs. White had written to Jacobs privately, stating the letter was not written for publication. Jacobs printed it anyway. Through the next few years it was republished in various forms and is included as part of her first book, Christian Experience and Views, published in 1851.
Two Millerites claimed to have had visions prior to Ellen White – William Ellis Foy (1818–1893), and Hazen Foss (1818–1893), who was Ellen White’s brother-in-law. Adventists believe the prophetic gift offered to these two men was passed on to White when they rejected it.
Ellen White described the vision experience as involving a bright light which would surround her and she felt herself in the presence of Jesus or angels who would show her events, historical and future, as well as places on earth, in heaven, or other planets. The transcriptions of White’s visions generally contain theology, prophecy, or personal counsels to individuals or to Adventist leaders.
On March 14, 1858, at Lovett’s Grove, near Bowling Green, Ohio, White received a vision while attending a funeral service. In writing about the vision, she stated that she received practical instruction for church members, and more significantly, a cosmic sweep of the conflict “between Christ and His angels, and Satan and his angels.” Ellen White would expand upon this great controversy theme which would eventually culminate in the Conflict of the Ages series.
From 1861 to 1881 Ellen White’s prophetic ministry became increasingly recognized among Sabbatarian Adventists. Her frequent articles in the Review and Herald (now the Adventist Review) and other church publications were a unifying influence to the beginning church. She supported her husband in the church’s need for formal organization. The result was the organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1863. During the 1860s and 1870s the Whites participated in the founding of the denomination’s first medical institution (1866) and school (1874).
She was a very prolific author. Her book titles included A Word to the “Little Flock., 1847;   A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White, 1851;  Supplement to the Christian Experience and Views of Ellen G. White,  1854;  An Appeal to Mothers, 1864;  An Appeal to the Youth, 1864; A Solemn Appeal, 1870; Life Sketches of James and Ellen White, 1880;  Early Writings of Ellen G. White, 1882; Sketches From the Life of Paul, 1883;  Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists, 1886;  The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, 1888; The Sanctified Life, 1889;  Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 1890;  Patriarchs and Prophets, 1890; Gospel Workers, 1892;  Steps to Christ, 1892;  Christian Education, 1893;  Story of Jesus, 1896, 1900;   Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, 1896;  Healthful Living, 1897; Medical Missionary Board, 1898;  Special Testimonies on Education;  The Desire of Ages, 1898; The Southern Work, 1898, 1901; Christ’s Object Lessons, 1900;  Testimonies on Sabbath-School Work, 1900;  Manual for Canvassers, 1902;  Education, 1903;  The Ministry of Healing, 1905;  The Acts of the Apostles, 1911;  The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, 1911;  Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 1913;  Gospel Workers, 1915;  Prophets and Kings, 1917; and Colporteur Evangelist, 1920.
Her 9-volume series of books entitled Testimonies for the Church contains edited testimonies published for the general edification of the church. The spoken and written versions of her visions played a significant part in establishing and shaping the organizational structure of the emerging Adventist Church. Her visions and writings continue to be used by church leaders in developing the church’s policies and for devotional reading.
White is the most translated American non-fiction author of all time – with 100,000 pages of manuscripts and 40 books, with the book Steps to Christ being translated into more than 140 languages.
After 1882 Ellen White was assisted by a close circle of friends and associates. She employed a number of literary assistants who would help her in preparing her writings for publications. She also carried on an extensive correspondence with church leaders. She traveled to Europe on her first international trip. Upon her return she promoted the message of righteousness by faith presented by young ministers E. J. Waggoner and A. T. Jones, leading to a more Christ-centered theology for the church. When church leaders resisted her counsel on this and various other matters, she was sent to Australia as a missionary. There she lived first in Melbourne and later moved to Cooranbong, New South Wales; co-founding Avondale College. After almost 9 years she returned to the U.S.
Almost from the beginning of her public ministry, Ellen Harmon White’s critics cast doubt as to the reliability and authenticity of her visions, beginning after her first vision in 1845. The most prominent critic was Dudley M. Canright, a minister who left the church, and whose criticisms are summarized in his 1919 book, Life of Mrs. E.G. White, Seventh-day Adventist Prophet: Her False Claims Refuted. Criticisms of her included that she suffered from mental illness and that she had  a “complication of hysteria, epilepsy, catalepsy, and ecstasy” and stated that her “visions were merely the result of her early misfortune.” Some neurologists later commented that her early injuries may have caused partial complex seizures and hallucinations. In 1981, pediatrician Delbert H. Hodder theorized that she suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.
She has also been accused of plagiarism, and that she committed a type of heresy by not supporting the teaching of the Trinity in her early writings. Moreover, her views on sexual self-gratification have come under repeated attack in the modern world. Though she never used the modern  term  for this activity, her reference to  “self-abuse, solitary vice, self-indulgence, secret vice, [and] moral pollution”  was clear. Of self-indulgence, she said, “If the practice is continued from the age of fifteen and upward, nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her laws, especially from the ages of thirty to forty-five, by numerous pains in the system, and various diseases, such as affection of the liver and lungs, neuralgia, rheumatism, affection of the spine, diseased kidneys, and cancerous humors. Some of nature’s fine machinery gives way, leaving a heavier task for the remaining to perform, which disorders nature’s fine arrangement, and there is often a sudden breaking down of the constitution; and death is the result.” Moreover, she wrote, “Females possess less vital force than the other sex, and are deprived very much of the bracing, invigorating air, by their in-door life. The result of self-abuse in them is seen in various diseases, such as catarrh, dropsy, headache, loss of memory and sight, great weakness in the back and loins, affections of the spine, and frequently, inward decay of the head. Cancerous humor, which would lie dormant in the system [during] their lifetime, is inflamed, and commences its eating, destructive work. The mind is often utterly ruined, and insanity supervenes.”
In 1904, while she was looking for sites upon which Seventh-Day Adventist-run sanitariums could be located, White  became interested in an abandoned hotel in Loma Linda that had formerly been run as a health resort. White envisioned the property to be an ideal place for a school where medical missionaries, including physicians, could be trained. Her plan was that the Loma Linda facility would be the principal training school on the West Coast. Nursing instruction commenced in 1906 and the first class of nurses graduated in 1907. The Loma Linda Medical College opened on September 23, 1910 and the first class of physicians graduated in 1914. The school evolved into the Loma Linda University and Loma Linda University Medical Center.
Ellen G. White died July 16, 1915, at the Elmshaven estate, her home in Saint Helena, California. She was given three funerals, after which she was buried with her husband James White in Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Michigan.