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Sentinel 08-23-19

By Mark Gutglueck
Adelanto Mayor Gabriel Reyes this week offered his perspective on recent turns of events in the City With Unlimited Possibilities, contesting the widening perception that City Manager Jessie Flores has come to represent a torch of graft that has been passed to him from the Rich Kerr regime that Reyes and two of his council colleagues deposed in the 2018 municipal election.
Flores, with his thin curriculum vitae, marginal academic and professional background, sketchy governmental experience and highly dubitable track record, was plucked from relative obscurity last year by then-Mayor Rich Kerr to serve as Adelanto city manager. Previously, as the city’s contract economic development director put into place by Kerr, Flores carried out Kerr’s marching orders to transition the financially-challenged city to a marijuana-based economy, and had facilitated a free-for-all atmosphere in the city for actual and would-be cannabis entrepreneurs that had caught the attention of the FBI. With Kerr as mayor, Kerr’s two allies on the city council, Jermaine Wright and John Woodard, and Flores in the role of unchecked economic development consultant, Adelanto in the first three-and-a-half years of Kerr’s tenure as mayor had burned through six city managers, each with greater or lesser misgivings about the way in which Kerr was having the city conduct its affairs by partnering with dozens of questionable business applicants, often suspending its own ordinances, regulations and rules to please those business people. Along the way, Wright had been arrested by the FBI and charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with bribery as a consequence of his having personally cashed in on the marijuana bonanza all around him, and both City Hall and Kerr’s home had been raided by the FBI seeking to uncover evidence of kickbacks being delivered to city officials by grateful marijuana entrepreneurs granted lucrative marijuana cultivating and marketing licenses in the city. Upon being elevated to the city manager’s post, Flores expressed his gratitude to Kerr by intensifying the effort to establish Adelanto as the California city with the largest number of legalized and licensed operations involving the cultivation of marijuana, the wholesaling of marijuana, the manufacturing of cannabis-based products, the distribution of unaltered marijuana together with cannabis infusions and derivatives, and the storefront retailing of marijuana and cannabis-based products. Accompanying that intensification came ever more bold suspensions of the city’s own regulations, greater scrutiny of the city’s action by the FBI and suspicion among the public in general that a mob-like element, led by Kerr with Flores as his capodecina managing his made guys, had muscled in on City Hall.
In that atmosphere, with the growing perception that bribes and kickbacks were the reality in Adelanto’s municipal culture, a reform movement grew, crystallizing around the mayoral candidacy of Gabriel Reyes and the council candidacies of Stevevonna Evans and Gerardo Hernandez in the 2018 election. All three were successful, driving Kerr and Woodard from office.
A clearly pronounced expectation was that upon their installment in office, perhaps even as early as the day all three were sworn in, Reyes, Evans and Hernandez would vote to terminate Flores. No such move played out upon the trio taking their places on the council dais. Reyes, as the new mayor, quickly established the pecking order on the council, nominating Evans to serve as mayor pro tem. In fielding the obvious and expected questions about what the council intended to do with Flores, Evans acknowledged Flores’ undeniable connection to the Kerr regime and the outstanding issues with regard to the activities within the city over the previous three years and the way in which Flores represented both a real and symbolic obstruction to the reform of City Hall that the voters had expressed so clearly at the polls. Still, Evans said, she and her colleagues could not precipitously fire Flores for no stated cause whatsoever in what might be widely perceived as a crass political move. She said the council was reviewing the city manager’s past and current performance very carefully and would take whatever action, including termination, was appropriate based upon methodical evaluation.
In the meantime, the marijuana entrepreneurs who had backed Kerr and Woodard to the hilt with generous donations to their campaigns before the election in November had to come to terms with having wagered their money on the wrong political horses. They looked to make amends, swooping in to provide post-election campaign donations to the victors, hoping doing so would help them forget that they had opposed their elections so they might not hold that against them when votes impacting them came up in the future. Central among those was Brad Eckenweiler, the chief executive officer of Lifestyle Delivery Systems, which had obtained an operating license for a sizable undertaking involved in all order of cultivation and production, which included manufacturing under-the-tongue absorption cannabinoid strips. Eckenweiler provided Reyes with a $7,000 peace offering in the form of a political donation.
As 2019 progressed, the will to part with Flores did not materialize. While Councilman Ed Camargo, who had been at odds with Kerr over the direction he had been committed to taking the city in from the outset, was a solid vote to cashier Flores, Councilwoman Joy Jeannette, a holdover from the Kerr political team, remained foursquare behind Flores. By late January, it was clear that Hernandez was in agreement with Camargo, and was willing to jettison Flores. Still the same, Reyes and Evans, who were both being heavily lobbied by Kerr and his supporters, including those from the cannabis industry, were learning of the city’s dire financial position. They were being prosthelytized with the mantra that the capital to be generated by the marijuana trade that had been created for the city by Kerr, Wright, Woodard and Flores represented the one surefire prospect the city had of being able to find the revenue needed to remain as a going concern and avoid eventual bankruptcy or disincorporation.
On February 13, after Reyes learned of a $30,000 severance payment Flores had made to a city code enforcement officer Flores had apparently forced into resigning, the mayor made a point of raising the issue during a closed session and the city council voted to place Flores on paid administrative leave while an internal investigation relating to the matter was carried out. On March 7, the council voted 3-to-2 to reinstate Flores to his full duties as city manager, with Reyes, Evans and Jeannette prevailing and Camargo and Hernandez dissenting.
Last week, it appeared that a third vote had materialized to hand Flores his walking papers. Evans had sent signals indicating she would be willing to entertain another review of Flores’ performance, to be accompanied by an up-or-down vote to hand him a pink slip. Camargo arranged, through City Attorney Victor Ponto, to put the evaluation and possible action on the agenda for discussion at the council’s August 14 meeting. Before adjourning into that executive session, however, Mayor Reyes objected to the item being resurrected after the council had endured a recent closed session discussion relating to Flores’ performance and Flores had come away from that evaluation unscathed. Enough is enough, Reyes maintained, saying he objected to again subjecting Flores to a life-or-death vote. When Reyes called for a vote to remove the item from the closed session discussion, Hernandez, who was widely assumed to be a reliable vote to get rid of Flores, swung to support Reyes and Jeannette, preventing Evans and Camargo from being able to take the issue up in that evening’s closed session. Later, Reyes, Hernandez and Jeannette foreclosed an effort to schedule Flores’ possible firing during a future closed session.
Evans’ unanticipated reversal showing her willingness to fire Flores was thus accompanied by an equally surprising flip in the opposite direction by Hernandez, who went from gunning to remove Flores to supporting his retention as city manager. That development sent shock waves through the community, raising suspicions and hackles. Compounding the confusion, it was revealed that Reyes is on the verge of asking his colleagues to rescind Evans’ appointment as mayor pro tem and to confirm his nomination of Hernandez to the position.
The full implication of all of this requires a contextual understanding.
The November 2018 election cycle that heralded the ascendancy of Reyes, Evans and Hernandez matched by Kerr’s, Woodard’s and former Councilman Charlie Glasper’s removal from office mirrored the 2014 election when Kerr, Woodard and Glasper had ousted incumbents Cari Thomas, Charles Valvo and Steve Baisden in a clean sweep.
Upon joining Ed Camargo and Jermaine Wright on the city council in 2014, Kerr, Woodard and Glasper, mindful that in June 2013 the Thomas-led council had declared Adelanto to be in a state of fiscal emergency, a move preparatory to a declaration of bankruptcy, embarked on an effort to rejuvenate the city financially.
Without hesitation, Kerr and Woodard embraced dispensing with the city’s longstanding ban on the sale of medical marijuana within the city limits, calling upon staff to prepare the way for the city to utilize the freedom it had under the auspices of the 1996 passage of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act, to license entrepreneurs to sell medical marijuana within the city and capture the revenue from taxes imposed on the sales of the drug to fatten city coffers. Because of Glasper’s advocacy against making marijuana available for any purposes and his contention that a significant number of those purchasing medical marijuana for medical purposes would actually be using it for its intoxicative effect, Kerr and Woodard, by that point joined by Wright, compromised with Glasper to change the nature of the marijuana-based businesses the city was contemplating permitting from dispensaries and storefronts marketing or selling marijuana to end uses to large-scale indoor cultivation facilities operating exclusively from buildings within the city’s industrial park. Councilman Ed Camargo remained in opposition to allowing any commercial activity that entailed the production or sale of marijuana. The council majority also had to overcome the resistance of several city staff, which included former City Manager Jim Hart, former City Engineer/Public Works Director/interim City Manager Tom Thornton and City Attorney Todd Litfin.
By late 2015, having succeeded in getting the city moving full speed ahead on a strategy that would allow the agricultural production of marijuana to create tax revenue for the city, Kerr, Woodard and Wright began to maneuver around Glasper, who at that point was in the early throes of dementia, to broaden the city’s toleration of a cannabis-based economy from cultivation alone to retail sales of the medical marijuana product. Moreover, looking forward to what they anticipated would be the November 2016 statewide approval of Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act which would allow marijuana to be used for its intoxicative effect, Kerr, Woodard and Wright began militating toward opening areas of the city within its industrial and commercial districts to retail establishments.
The council majority arranged to hire Jessie Flores, a longtime political hanger-on, whom Kerr, Woodard and Wright recognized might be useful. Flores, who would do practically anything for money, was given a position as the city’s contract economic development director, under a contract which skirted conflict of interest regulations and allowed him to seek out business interests and entrepreneurs and facilitate their applications for business licenses and permits and, if the applicants were amenable, hire Flores to work for them or retain him as a consultant. On the face of this, it appeared that Flores might be acting as a means of conveyance – through accepting money from the applicants for Adelanto business licenses – as a bag man for bribes being delivered to members of the council to guarantee the approval of those business license applications.
As the City of Adelanto expanded its acceptance of marijuana-related businesses to include retail establishments, it adopted a host of zoning, permitting, inspection and regulation measures meant as window dressing to reassure the public that the city was seeking to ensure the move toward liberalization of marijuana use did not create a lawless environment. These regulations were offered as a demonstration that the new age of enlightenment was not ushering the city into an era of chaos after more than a century of marijuana prohibition. As importantly, the regulations at least appeared to be an assurance that the permitting fees and taxes that were to accompany the marijuanification of Adelanto that was to generate money to sustain the city would be fairly, uniformly and conscientiously collected.
In short order, however, it was growing ever more apparent that the Kerr regime’s publicly announced plan to get Adelanto in on the ground floor of the California marijuana revolution and thereby see to it that the city moved ahead of other municipalities in terms of hosting lucrative tax- and fee-producing  businesses was essentially a cover for venal and self interested purposes. Initially Kerr and his team said the number of cannabis related business licenses would be limited to six operations citywide and would need to comply with a requirement that those operations draw at least fifty percent of those who work there from Adelanto itself.
Virtually overnight the limit on the number of operations to a half dozen was dispensed with. For a time, city officials said the untoward impacts of businesses selling a substance, the possession of which California law previously designated as a felony, would be minimized by strict zoning codes. Those zones were generally in areas away from residences, schools, churches and other sensitive uses. But as the number of applicants for marijuana-related business permits burgeoned, the council casually expanded the zones. In multiple cases there was evidence to suggest that marijuana-related business applicants were provided with information in advance of those zone changes with regard to where land previously designated as off-limits to commercial cannabis or agricultural activity was to be altered to permit such operations, allowing the entrepreneurs to secure quarters in which to operate before those zone changes caused the price on the property to escalate. Word on the street was that members of council or Flores were providing that inside information, at a price.
As Kerr, Woodard and Wright persisted in their headlong pursuit of allowing virtually unbridled permitting of any marijuana-based businesses in the city, some city employees openly questioned the wisdom, propriety and legality of what was occurring. Others were less expressive but quietly protested by insisting on adhering to protocol and having the applicants meet both the spirit and letter of the city’s ordinances. This brought a reaction from Kerr, Woodard and Wright, expressed both officially and unofficially, instructing staff to get with the program and clear the way for the project applications to proceed, or else. Both code enforcement and building and safety officials were ordered to stand down and simply check off the inspection documents relating to the new cannabis-related businesses. When some applicants learned that many of the properties that had been zoned to allow for water-intensive and electricity-intensive indoor cultivation facilities were located in areas of the city that were not yet outfitted with the utilities to supply water and electricity, they made offers to purchase city facilities where such utility hook-ups were in place. In one case, C.B. Nanda, a marijuana cultivator who was a principal with two companies, AMN, LLC, and American Scientific Consultants, who had entered into an agreement with Canniatric, LLC, a company which makes tinctures of cannabis, tendered a $1 million offer on the city’s public works yard, located at 17451 Raccoon Avenue in Adelanto. The public works yard featured two two-story metal buildings, one of which housed the city’s emergency operations center, which had been constructed on the site and outfitted through a $375,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the city received expressly for that purpose in 2011. City officials committed to selling the public works yard to C.B. Nanda for $1 million, despite one time-City Manager Gabriel Elliott’s insistence that it would cost the city two-and-one-half times to three times that amount to replace it. Because of that resistance, Elliott ultimately found himself on the wrong side of Kerr, and was suspended and eventually fired. Similarly, other city employees were shown the door because they were not on board with the then-council majority’s agenda to transform Adelanto into the marijuana capital of California. Those included Senior Management Analyst Mike Borja, Conservation Specialist Belen Cordero and Public Works Superintendent Nan Moore, former City Clerk/City Manager Cindy Herrera, former City Attorney Julia Sylva, former City Attorney Curtis Wright, former interim City Manager Brad Letner, former contract City Engineer Wilson So; former Assistant City Engineer Aaron Mower; Senior Planner Mark De Manincor; and a former public works employee, Jose Figueroa.
Under the contract that Flores had to serve as the contract economic development director that had been approved by Kerr, Woodard and Wright, Flores was able to serve work both sides of the street with marijuana project applicants by ensuring that they received approval and were given permits and licensing to operate while going to work on their behalf on his own as a consultant. This became a laundering mechanism for kickbacks to the city council members who were approving the projects and the needed zone changes to allow them to set up. Wright, dissatisfied with having to accept only a portion of the money coming back to him through Flores, chaffed under that arrangement and took to making deals with the cannabis entrepreneurs on his own. Ultimately, in 2017 he was tripped up when he accepted a $10,000 cash payment from an FBI agent who was posing as an applicant for a marijuana distribution business. Wright agreed to accept the money in return for protecting the putative marijuana distributor from enforcement and regulatory action by city employees. After a failed attempt by the FBI to utilize Wright to gather information for them relating to Kerr’s, Woodard’s and Flores’ involvement in receiving and distributing bribes and kickbacks, the FBI arrested Wright in November 2017 and he was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with bribe-taking. He remained incarcerated for more than six months after his arrest, and on January 3, 2018 the council voted to remove Wright as a council member based on California Government Code §36513 and the Adelanto City Charter §505, under which city officials are obliged to vacate a council member’s position when that official has been absent from all regularly scheduled city council meetings for a period of 60 consecutive days.
The city five months later held a special election corresponding with California’s June Primary in which Kerr and Woodard marshaled their political forces to get their ally, Joy Jeannette, elected to the council. Kerr’s political machine continued to dominate the city for the next five months, during which Kerr and Woodard manipulated Jeannette and Glasper to support elevating Flores, who possess no educational degrees beyond a high school diploma and whose only governmental experience other than his contract position as Adelanto’s economic development director consisted of political appointments to field representative posts by former San Bernardino County supervisors Bill Postmus and Brad Mitzelfelt as rewards for work he did on their electoral campaigns, to be city manager. In the November election, the city’s voters wary of the direction the Kerr regime was moving in, chased Kerr and Woodard from office, voting in Reyes, Evans and Hernandez, who were widely perceived as reformists. Glasper did not seek reelection.
After assuming office, Reyes, Evans and Hernandez came face-to-face with example after example of Flores’ missteps, incompetence, questionable judgment, skirting of the law and outright violations of city ordinances and state law. An examination of the record and city documents showed that in return for his promotion to city manager, Flores had agreed to more fully institute the graft-tainted paradigm of municipal governance that met with Kerr, Woodard and Jeannette’s expectations. That involved tweaking the policies that applied to Adelanto making the transition to a reliance on a marijuana-based economy and simultaneously favor a set of cannabis entrepreneurs who were being provided with, if not a monopoly within the cannabis market, a position of dominance over the lion’s share of their competitors and some order of assurance that they would get fees waived, would not be required to pay duties and taxes, and would not be subject to the basic regulations such enterprises were supposed to be functioning under. The upshot of the evidence within the record was that Flores had accommodated Kerr and Woodard in providing favorable treatment to the marijuana-based operations that had taken care of them financially. The expected revenue to the city that was to come from the marijuana operations that had been allowed to set up in the city so Adelanto could turn its dire financial circumstance around had not materialized. Indeed, the city had failed to collect the lion’s share of the taxes that were supposed to be provided by those operations. The council learned that under Flores the city had failed to record a whole host of its transactions, allowing its books to fall into such disarray that they did not lend themselves to being audited.
By March, a majority of the council appeared to have lost its nerve as well as the pre-electoral zeal to reform operations at City Hall. Indeed, several principals among the coterie of cannabis-entrepreneurs, as well as Kerr himself, had taken to lobbying the council, asserting that the city’s only hope for avoiding financial ruin was to stay the course with the gameplan that Kerr, Woodard and Wright had formulated, which consisted of allowing the cannabis industry license to function essentially unmolested by the city’s regulatory arm, primarily its building and safety as well as its code enforcement divisions. They urged the council to look beyond the consideration that the highest grossing marijuana-based businesses were paying minimum taxes or not paying any taxes at all and that they were essentially functioning on the so-called “honor system,” by which they were trusted to report their proceeds without having to allow an independent set of eyes to see their books. Keeping Flores in place was imperative toward the goal of the cannabis operations making their way through their individual start-up phases to gather the strength to sustain themselves and continue to operate into the future, the industry’s advocates maintained.
Those elements of the community that were yet calling for reform pointed out that in early 2018, Kerr and Woodward were confidently predicting that milk and honey were just around the bend for Adelanto, which merely needed to continue to allow the marijuana operations to put one foot in front of the other on a daily basis and that by the time the city got to fiscal 2019-20, some $5.2 million to $5.6 million in marijuana tax revenue would be flooding into the city, such that Adelanto City Hall could meet all of its needs, and further allow city officials to restore line items to the city’s budget that had been taken out years ago and still more than balance the city’s ledgers. They predicted the city would boast a $1.1 million surplus when the new fiscal year began more than a month-and-a-half ago, as of July 1, 2019. In actuality, as June 30, 2019 and the end of Fiscal 2018-19 approached and the beginning of Fiscal 2019-20 was moving up on the city, the reality was that Adelanto had a $6.5 million budget deficit.
At this point, nine months after the election, with Flores yet in place as city manager, Reyes finds himself fending off charges that Adelanto is essentially engaged in the same dance as it was during Kerr’s tenure with a different partner.
This morning, in a wide-ranging exchange with the Sentinel, Reyes sought to dispel that notion.
The city is wrestling with overwhelming financial challenges that in many ways have limited its options, Reyes said. At the same time, the city needs to be run and managed on a day-to-day basis, and the council and city administrators have to devote some of their focus toward sustaining the city into the future. These are daunting tasks, the mayor said, that require calm and reasoned analysis that can only be carried out in an atmosphere of stability. Frenetically lurching from one desperate action to the next in the face of one crisis after another is likely to lead to a cascade of further crises, he said.
He acknowledged that excess and corruption marred the city under Kerr.
“I personally believe that, yes,” Reyes said. “One of the reasons I believe there was corruption is the episode with Bug [i.e., Woodard, who was a real estate professional] being the broker on the deal for the Jet Room.”
The Jet Room was a bar located at 17535 Adelanto Road, that was a popular drinking establishment and night spot frequented by airmen when George Air Force Base was operational. It went into decline and closed after George Air Force Base was shuttered in 1992. It lay fallow for more than two decades and was purchased at the bargain basement rate of $450,000 in October 2016 by David Serrano, who subsequently transformed it into a medical marijuana dispensary. When Serrano purchased the property, it lay outside the zone that would permit uses involving the retailing of marijuana. Woodard brokered the sale to Serrano, receiving a commission of $12,375. A month-and-a-half later, Woodard was involved in council action which expanded the cannabis retail zone to include the property.
“I hope there was no wrongdoing,” Reyes said. “I hope all of this is not true, but personally, I believe something [illegal] was done. I do believe the FBI will eventually arrest all the people who are guilty.”
That Flores was mixed up in what was going on at City Hall while Kerr, Woodard and Wright were on the council is undeniable, Reyes said, but he pointed out that a whole lot of people were working for the city during the four years Kerr was mayor and they cannot all be painted with the same brush or be held to be complicit in what Kerr, Woodard and Wright were doing simply by association. Both the high ranking staff, such as the city’s several city managers during that time, and those lower down on the chain of authority were overwhelmed by Kerr, he said.
“None of them were able to stand up to Rich [i.e;, Kerr],” Reyes said. “If they didn’t do what Rich told them to do they were fired.”
When it was pointed out that Flores, before he was city manager and while he was still in the capacity of the city’s contract economic developer, was militating on Kerr’s behalf and functioning in such a way that he had removed himself from being answerable to any of the city managers, and was in essence enabling Kerr to assert his authority in ways that were improper, Reyes acknowledged that it was possible that Flores had acted in ways that were, at best, ethically questionable, and there were probably other instances in which he had crossed over into skirting the law. The mayor said there is currently an effort to determine the full extent of the abuses that occurred under the past regime. “We are still looking into that,” he said. “I’m really trying to understand how the economic development director could have more power than the city manager.”
When he trained his focus on the consideration that Flores was working for the city under a contract that called for him to interest businesses, investors and speculators in establishing operations or investing in Adelanto while allowing Flores to go to work for those business interests he was courting on behalf of the city – a classic case of a conflict of interest – Reyes indicated it did not seem right to hold Flores to account for a shortcoming in the terms of a contract he was functioning under. “I can’t say that is the type of a person who should be fired,” Reyes said.
With regard to recurrent reports that under Kerr’s watch as mayor favorable treatment was provided to certain marijuana-related entrepreneurs, in particular ones believed to have kicked back to Kerr, Reyes reacted, “Did Jessie take part in setting that up? Did he create it on his own? Would he have orchestrated that by himself or was that something done by Rich?”
Reyes acknowledged that the city has failed to realize the tax income from the cannabis trade in the city that was predicted, and he did not dispute that an element of that shortfall might have been due to favoritism that was shown to a select, or even large, number of marijuana cultivators or cannabis purveyors.
There are three factors at play which have significantly reduced the city’s revenues from the cannabis-related operations that have already been permitted in the city, he said, of which, he added, the public is generally unaware.
One is that a deal was cut with some growers that allowed them to make an upfront payment at the time they were licensed and then forego having to make tax payments for several years thereafter. He said it is not clear which companies entered into such an arrangement, which is favorable to the companies but disadvantageous to the city. “There were companies who paid that tax in advance,” he said. “The city is trying to determine which companies those are,” Reyes said.
Another factor which has severely limited the success of the cultivators in Adelanto and thereby has cut the city off from a commensurate amount of tax revenue, Reyes said, is that at least 65 percent of the properties where cultivation operations are licensed in Adelanto do not have electricity and therefore are not engaged in operations.
“No more than 35 percent – and it is probably less than that – have electricity,” the mayor said. “I have talked to So Cal Edison and they say that those utilities will not be extended to that area until 2021 or 2022.”
And the mechanisms for collecting the tax revenue was neglected, Reyes said. “No one thought about the infrastructure system that had to be in place,” he said. “No one thought about the cannabis tax collection end of this. The collection system that we have now was put in place by my administration. Before, the city collected $40,000 per month. Since I have come into office, our collections are now up to $160,000 to $170,000 per month. Year to date, we have collected $920,000. By the end of the month we will have collected almost $1,000,000.”
Reyes took on the invective that was hurled his way which suggested that he was deposing Evans as mayor pro tem to punish her for her move toward terminating Flores, and that he was rewarding Hernandez with the mayor pro tem appointment for his support for keeping Flores in place.
“Jerry is not a sell-out,” Reyes said. “He wouldn’t change his vote for a promotion and I am not making Councilman Hernandez mayor pro tem for a vote. I am not in control of this council and how it votes. I have run into plenty of opposition and been outvoted on at least five occasions.”
He said he was seeking to remove Evans as mayor pro tem because “I don’t trust her.”
Asked to explicate Evans’ change of heart toward Flores, he said that her motivation was “political and personal,” citing four issues.
He said Evans’ loyalty to the Democratic Party outran her loyalty to the residents of Adelanto, which he said was demonstrated by her reaction to Flores’ unilateral decision to terminate the city’s contract with GEO Group at the Adelanto East Prison facility. That cancellation was done, Reyes said, for sound financial reasons and was entirely within Flores’ purview as city manager. Evans took umbrage at it, the mayor said, because GEO Group is a generous backer of the Democratic Party, in which Evans is highly active.
Reyes said that after the city council inadvertently engaged in a violation of the Brown Act – the State of California’s open public meeting law – the city’s law firm advised the council to make a correction of the error. Evans, Reyes said, used the incident to assert the law firm had not been diligent in preventing the violation from having occurred in the first place, and she sought to have the city switch its legal representation to another firm with which she has a relationship. Reyes said he believed this was inappropriate.
Evans was miffed with Flores’ move to reduce the number of service groups and nonprofit entities, including the city itself, from the eligibility list for the sale of fireworks within the city, according to Reyes. That is another element of her motivation against the city manager, the mayor said, and does not form a rational basis for removing him.
A fourth animus that Evans has against Flores stems from his suspension of three employees in the city’s water division, one of whom is Evans’ friend, the mayor said.
“All of those things are personal or political,” Reyes said. “Those should not be factors in the decisions she is making about the city and its policies in her role as a councilwoman. That is why I feel she should be removed as mayor pro tem.”
With regard to Flores’ qualifications and performance as city manager, Reyes said, “Jessie is not the best city manager, but we haven’t given him the tools to be successful. He has been effective with the resources he has.”
The city has the need for experienced and skilled leadership, Reyes said, but at present, it does not have the wherewithal to obtain it, and the challenge of finding someone with the skill set to guide Adelanto out of the straits it finds itself in is daunting.
“I’ve talked with five city managers,” Reyes said. “One of them was Jim Hart.”
Hart had been the administrative services director in Rancho Cucamonga, the city manager in Twentynine Palms and the city manager in Rancho Margarita before he landed the job as Adelanto city manager in 2004. Hart was fired in February 2015, three months after Kerr became mayor.
“We went through five city managers in three years after Rich became mayor,” Reyes said. “Everyone I talked to said it would be professional suicide to go to work in our city. I was told that we would have to pay from $325,000 to $375,000 [yearly salary to convince an experienced and fully competent city manager to come to work in Adelanto]. We’re paying Jessie $150,000. That’s what we can afford.”
Reyes said he is acutely conscious “of the rumors that are out there. People are saying I’m taking bribes from the cannabis crowd. They say all kinds of things I would rather not hear. None of them are true. It would be so easy to just fire Jessie. That would end a lot of what people are saying. But that’s not a reason to fire someone.”
Kerr made the mayor’s bed in Adelanto, and now he, as Kerr’s successor, has to lie in it, Reyes said.
“We have the cannabis industry here,” Reyes said, adding that it is in substantial disarray. “I am trying to stabilize that industry.”
Voicing stoic resignation, he asked, rhetorically, “Do I want Adelanto to be known for nothing more than weed?”
After a pause, he said. “No, I don’t. Adelanto is much more than that. But it is a major industry here, and I have to support any industry in my city.”

A property owner’s appeal of the Victorville Planning Commission’s approval of a solar project on the north end of the city has refocused attention on a chapter of city history in which city officials appear to have openly colluded with private developers to maneuver an elderly couple into selling their land for less than 17 percent of what it was worth, cheating them out of $437,800.
The well-documented incident is not the only time city officials, working in tandem with private sector interests intent on obtaining property in the possession of elderly and vulnerable landowners, have used the threat of eminent domain and accompanying intimidation tactics that employ governmental authority to in essence steal property or force its sale at bargain basement prices, another younger landowner who successfully fought off the land grab said.
This year, Middle River Power succeeded in reviving a long-dormant plan to construct a solar power facility on 642 acres on property within the Southern California Logistics Airport planning area located near the intersection of Helendale and Colusa Roads north of the airport runway, south of the Victorville city limit line east of Helendale Road and west of the Mojave River and Victor Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Bob Landwehr with his siblings owns a five-acre parcel that is located within the footprint of the site where Inland Energy, headed by Buck Johns, the original proponent of the solar power facility then referred to as Victorville II,  proposed to place the solar arrays. While some owners of the property Inland Energy coveted for the project agreed to sell their land to Inland Energy, other did not, and Inland Energy turned to the City of Victorville to help it acquire sufficient acreage to proceed with the project. Landwehr was among those targeted in the effort by the city in its use of eminent domain to seize by condemnation the property of those unwilling to sell. Landwehr, even in the face of the city’s threatened use of eminent domain, resisted giving up his and his siblings’ property. Before Inland Energy was able to complete Victorville II, in 2010 it postponed the undertaking and then gave up on it, in some measure because of serious mismanagement of the project and in some measure because of the downturn in the economy that began in late 2007 and intensified over the next several years.
Subsequently, Middle River Power, headed by Mark Kubow, sought to revive the project, with much of the discussion toward that end taking place behind closed doors at Victorville City Hall. Landwehr was unaware of the re-initiation of the project that was again on the verge of encircling his family’s property until he belatedly received a planning commission action notice in May of this year, informing him of the action Middle River Power and the city were taking that would impact the property, most notably by taking away the access easement, Martin Hollow Road, the Landwehrs used to access their property. The Landwehr family had not set up a residence on the property but made use of it, with the family and friends camping and picnicking there. Bob Landwehr wanted to keep it as a getaway property, with the option of developing it as a place to live at some indefinite point in the future. Though Middle River and its corporate subsidiary, HDSI, LLC, again considered and threatened to have the city use its power of eminent domain to obtain the Landwehrs’ property, ultimately a decision was made to forgo obtaining the family’s land and instead building the solar facility on the expanse of ground surrounding its five acres.
On July 10, 2019, the Victorville Planning Commission, by a vote of 4-to-0, approved the project. Landwehr then appealed the decision, citing the city’s violation of California Environmental Quality Act requirements and asserting that his land would essentially be taken from him as a consequence of the project development, that Middle River Power could not be trusted, that past land use decisions by the council were damaging to Landwehr and other land owners and that the action would eradicate the easement to the Landwehr property, Martin Hollow Road. Rob Kurth, a member of the planning commission who is a principal in the Kursch Group, a real estate company handling land acquisition for Middle River Power, did not participate in the planning commission vote. The remainder of the commissioners did take part in the vote, however, despite the financial interest of their commission colleague in the project.
At the council meeting on Tuesday, the city council heard the appeal, ultimately voting 4-to-1, with Councilwoman Blanca Gomez in the minority, to deny Landwehr’s appeal. Along the way, however, Landwehr referenced what had occurred to two of his neighbors – Christopher and Linda Iseman – at the hands of the city and Middle River Power.
The Isemans were full-time residents at 13612 Martin Hollow Road. They owned two 5-acre parcels (APN 0460-242-07 & 0460-242-08). In December of 2008, the Isemans signed an agreement to accept a purchase offer from Epic Land Solutions, which was hired by the City of Victorville to acquire parcels for the Victorville II footprint. Epic Land Solutions appraised each five-acre parcel at $261,000. The offer to the Isemans thus stood at $522,000. Prior to Epic Lands Solutions handling the land purchase offers for Victorville II, bidding on the needed properties was being conducted by Bill Johns from Inland Energy, Inc. Inland Energy, Inc was offering $55,000 per 5-acre parcel. Bill Johns is Buck Johns’ son.
At one point, the Iseman’s had found a buyer for their property, which is proximate to the Mojave River and upon which there is a well, for $400,000. The buyer backed out, however, after being informed by Inland Energy and the city that there was an eminent domain hold on the property.
The Isemans later received a letter from the city attorney’s office claiming that their parcels were no longer needed for Victorville II. This was a prevarication. The Isemans’ parcels were both identified as being part of the land needed for the solar array for Victorville II and subject to “eminent domain” according the California Energy commission licensing case that was still active when the Isemans sold their 10 acres to HDSI, Inc., as the corporate intermediary for Middle River Power, in August of 2017.
On February 17, 2009 Linda Iseman appeared for public comment at that evening’s city council meeting. There she put on the record how, after she and here husband were victimized by vandals who had illegally damaged their property, city officials doubled down, illegitimately using municipal authority to persuade them to just give up and sell their property. She said that she and her husband had been cited by code enforcement for a mobile home that was abandoned on Martin Hollow Road, which blocked the Isemans’ access to their home. At that time, Jim Cox was there in his then-capacity as city manager. Mrs. Iseman complained about how the city reneged on the purchase of their property, as well. She talked about her husband losing his job after the Alcoa plant closure in Vernon, and being unable to feed her horse.
At a subsequent point there were only two parcels that the city did not own for the Victorville II portfolio. One of those other parcels was owned by the Landwehrs, who were resisting the pressure to sell and contested the application of eminent domain. In 2011 the court ordered that the property be returned to those owners. The city was by that time having difficulty unloading the Victorville II project to any other potential buyers because Buck Johns, the original proponent on the project, had layered a clause into the agreement that no matter who developed the power plant he was to get five percent of the net profit from the operation. As efforts to package the deal proceeded,  HDSI, Inc. pressured the Isemans, who were still under the threat of eminent domain, to let go of the property for $84,200.
Some of those who have examined the case observe that it appears the city was party to what was tantamount to theft. Others are slightly more charitable, saying that it needed to be noted that the Isemans had received something – $84,200 – and that technically this did not constitute theft. Rather, they said, the city merely assisted HDSI and Three River Power in cheating the Isemans out of $437,800. When the Isemans’ name was brought up during this week’s city council meeting, Jim Cox, who was Victorville city manager from 1969 until 1999 and then served as city manager again from 2009 until 2011 before retiring once more and being elected to the city council in 2012 and reelected in 2016, somewhat nervously asked Landwehr if he was the Isemans’ legal representative.
Landwehr said he was not representing the couple, who, records indicate, have moved to South Carolina.
The Sentinel reached Cox this afternoon. Asked if the city would consider looking into having HDSI and/or Three River Power adjust the $84,200 they had been paid for the property upward by $437,800 to match the fair market appraisal on the property, Cox said, “I don’t know.”
Cox, who in 2013 while serving as Victorville’s mayor was a prime mover in extending the 5-year licensing agreement for what had been the Victorville II project including the eminent domain authorization to obtain property for the undertaking, did say that an effort should be made to determine if the city’s past misrepresentations and the underhanded tactics employed by Inland Energy and then HDSI on behalf of Three River Power had resulted in the Isemans being defrauded.
Cox acknowledged that he had taken action as city manager in 2009 that might have inadvertently resulted in the city undercutting the Isemans as they were acceding to the offer to have them part with their property.
“I came back to the city in January 2009,” Cox began, explaining, “I was interim manager for 90 days and I was trying to figure out what the debt was and where we were going financially. On April 1 [2009], I was hired as the permanent city manager. The first thing I did was was cancel all contracts relating to buying property north of the base [former George Air Force Base, now Southern California Logistics Airport]. All of this was new to me and if there was any question about the need for the property or there was any litigation or if the property owner had not sold, I canceled the purchase.  At that point or shortly thereafter, it became evident they [Inland Energy] could not proceed with the power plant which was then called Victorville II. There was a whole lot of litigation, and so I talked to the attorney for the city and he confirmed we had the power of eminent domain, and I was told they had used eminent domain. Some people had fought that in court including the fellow that was there this week [Bob Landwehr]. When the whole thing was done, we came up with a policy that unless you are going to use the property within a five-year period you could not move on with eminent domain. If the project was canceled the city could not sell bonds and we were in a suit with General Electric [over the loss of $50 million the city had to pay for failure to take delivery of power plant turbines that had been ordered]. The city could not sell bonds and as they were going further with the project we told them [Inland Energy] ‘If you don’t own it [the land for the project] stop all of the proceedings.’ We went on to win the lawsuit [with the Carter & Burgess engineering firm over the design flaws and delays in the Foxborough Power Plant project, which was being managed by Inland Energy]. That land stood vacant for years, and then an individual [Mark Kubow of Three River Energy] came in who wanted to put a solar plant in there. But everything was on hold – the plans, the permits, the approval – because the project had been stopped. It came back to the council to see if the council wanted to move on that to lease the property to the individual [i.e., Three River Power] and the council said, ‘Of course we do. We can’t just let the property sit there.’”
Upon hearing about what had happened to the Isemans, Cox said, “I asked the attorney to provide me with the details. I didn’t know if the offer was made, when the offer was made, who made the offer, whether it was someone who worked for the city or an agent of the city or an agent of the proponent. The only one who would have that information is Keith Metzler, our city manager. Looking at the staff report for the first time, I saw details of what was going on. I listened to what he [Landwehr] said. What he was referring to was not his property, and we were there for the appeal about his property. We voted to uphold the planning commission because he didn’t deliver any new information [relating to his own property]. I drove out to the site and I could see it is vacant. He and his family camp there from time to time and there are others who camp there, I believe without his permission, but that individual did not deliver any new information, so we upheld the planning commission decision. Now, maybe he can force an environmental impact report to be done for the project.”
What was new to him, Cox said, was the information, incidental to Landwehr’s appeal, about the Isemans.
“It struck me as odd that they were made an offer and it was purchased at a different price,” Cox said. “I want the city attorney to look at that and see what occurred. I do not recall at any time anything coming back to the council where we were asked to make a condemnation. I don’t know if someone threatened them with condemnation, but I want to find out. I need the facts to see if it did occur or didn’t, and if there was a misrepresentation or an abuse of discretion. We represent all of the residents of the city and I think we have to make sure the city didn’t do anything wrong. I had several years of not being involved and I didn’t have authority at the time the condemnation process was in use, so I don’t know what that was about, at all. Since I have been on the council, I have no recollection of us being asked to approve any eminent domain condemnation.”
Landwehr told the Sentinel that Victorville’s use of eminent domain authority to blow landowners out of their property was par for the course.
“In 2007, I made the mistake of believing a deputy city attorney and Bill Johns while attempting to negotiate the land sale of my aunt’s property (APN 0460-242-04),” Landwehr said. “At the time I had complained to the city about the strong-arm tactics of threatening eminent domain, which scared my aunt into selling. She sold her property for $67,500. Fifteen months later, $261,000 was offered to the remaining property owners. The e-mail that I had sent to the deputy city attorney complaining about not being aware that Aunt Fran was by law entitled to an independent appraisal of her property paid for by Victorville was later viewed by three deputy city attorneys who each billed the city for reviewing it.”
His aunt has not been made whole, Landwehr indicated, by the city or anyone else.
Sue Jones, Victorville’s public information officer, did not respond by press time to a host of questions the Sentinel had posed about the city’s use of the eminent domain process as tool to pressure property owners to sell their land at prices below fair market value.
-Mark Gutglueck

The San Bernardino City Council’s decision against imposing a stop work order on developer Scott Beard and his company, 27th Street TAD, LLC, is looming ever larger in sparring over the city’s approval of a 38,150-square-foot building for a welfare office near the confluence of the Second, Fifth and Sixth wards in northwest San Bernardino.
San Bernardino is already host to three transitional assistance department facilities operated by San Bernardino County’s human services division, one at 2050 N. Massachusetts Avenue, another at Fourth Street and Waterman Avenue, and a third at 1895 Del Rosa Avenue, built in 2016.
The transitional assistance department, which is sometimes referred to by its acronym TAD, provides a wide array of federal and state-mandated social services and income assistance programs to the residents of San Bernardino County, particularly those whose loss of jobs or income has put them at risk of becoming, or has rendered them, homeless. In common parlance, it is referred to as a division of the welfare system.
The site where Beard is now in the process of constructing the building, the northwest corner of 27th Street and Little Mountain Drive in San Bernardino, also described as Assessor Parcel No. (APN) 0148-021-66-0000, lies along the periphery of the Muscupiabe District, an historic neighborhood nestled between the triangular intersection of the 210 Freeway and 215 Freeway, contained within the city’s Second Ward and immediately adjacent to Ward Five, and a stone’s throw across the freeway divide to Ward Six. Wards Two, Five and Six, are represented by council members Sandra Ibarra, Henry Nickel and Bessine Richard, respectively.
The project was approved last year, after the November 2018 election was held, but before those elected in that contest were established into their positions as mayor or council members. Thus, the approval of the project came during the tenure of the city’s immediate former mayor, Carey Davis. Davis, who was in office for nearly five years, was defeated in November by John Valdivia, who had been a member of the city council in the Third Ward since 2012 following his election in 2011, at which time the city was holding its municipal elections in odd-numbered years. Throughout Davis’s time in office, Scott Beard had been one of his major political backers, providing Davis’s campaign fund with substantial amounts of money and other assistance in his electioneering efforts, including his reelection effort against Valdivia last year.
In this way, the timing of the approval was noteworthy, coming as it did in a rushed fashion just weeks before Davis left office. Moreover, there were a number of other anomalies in the consideration and approval of the project. Instead of the project being presented to the city’s planning commission for analysis, recommendation and approval before being signed off on by the city council, the city’s development and environmental review committee, consisting of various members of city staff, primarily department heads and those from the community and economic development department, vetted the project. This was done outside a public venue, with no opportunity for members of the public to scrutinize and analyze the project, its documents or particulars.
While at the county level and at the internal city level the project was clearly defined as what it was – a building to house an office of the transitional assistance department, a division of the county’s human services department, at one stage the city utilized an architect’s description line on a rendering for the building which substituted “resources” for “services” in the heading human services. This changed the implication to suggest that the building was intended to house the county’s human resources or personnel department. A second misnomer unrelated to the blurring of services/resources nuances occurred when in internal memos to the city council relating to the project and in the disclosure notifications to the residents living in proximity to the project, the building was referred to in planning profession jargon as “office professional,” which in common parlance was taken to mean the structure would be a professional office building, which rubric, technically, a transitional services office falls within. Ultimately, however, a significant segment of the populace, including many people living within the Muscupiabe District, were unaware of the actual intended occupant of the building.
That distinction was applicable in another crucial consideration, which related to the city’s development code and zoning regulations. The neighborhood office zoning that the property at Little Mountain Drive and 27th Street falls under is different from office commercial zoning. In essence, neighborhood office zoning allows for offices in which the businesses contained therein have employees who can carry out clerical or business functions individually or among themselves without interacting with customers, clientele or outside members of the public. Office commercial zoning allows both employees and customers to access the premises on a continuous, ongoing and daily basis, anticipating a high volume of vehicular and foot traffic. Because of the withholding of information that the tenant for the office building that Beard/27th Street TAD, LLC intended to construct was the transitional assistance department, which if provided would have signaled that there was to be a significant degree of vehicular and foot traffic onto and out of the site, neither members of the city council nor the public were adequately apprised of what the full impact of the project would be if it were approved. Given subsequent developments, including widespread discomfiture among residents in the Muscupiabe District over the placement of a welfare office in their neighborhood, there is suspicion that officials in the city’s community and economic development department, at the behest of Mayor Davis in the final throes of his primacy at City Hall, were militating to provide a favor to one of his political donors by deliberately processing the project application under a shroud of secrecy and misrepresentation to minimize opposition at a critical earlier point when the project’s approval could have possibly been prevented.
After Beard/27th Street TAD, LLC  began work at the project site by fencing the property off and initiating work preparatory to grading, some local residents inquired as to the nature of the project, learning definitively at that point the project was a transitional assistance facility – a welfare office. Word spread almost instantaneously throughout Muscupiabe, and wave upon wave of residents began registering protest with the city and with city officials.
Fifth Ward Councilman Henry Nickel and Second Ward Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra emerged as the members of the council most animated about the pending project, and at the August 7 city council meeting, they insisted that the burgeoning crisis come up for discussion. Former City Attorney James Penman advised the city that it “needs to preserve the status quo and freeze the situation. You protect the city from liability by issuing a stop work order. You also protect the developer, because he doesn’t continue to build and spend money.”
Penman said Beard would continue with the project based on the permits that were issued, whether they were lawfully issued or not. “You have to preserve the city’s position,” Penman told the council. “You have to stop and freeze everything in order that you can do a proper investigation to determine what happened. If you don’t issue the stop work order, the developer continues to build and acquires vested rights. Later [when] the residents get a writ of mandate and make him stop, he is going to sue the city for allowing him to continue to build and spend money. It’s a Catch-22 situation.”
Ibarra attempted to usher the council toward action before Beard proceeded with actual building activity beyond the grading he had done up to that point. Ibarra asserted that the nearby property owners “were misled by the notices they received in October. I think it is fair that we ask that property owner to apply for a conditional use permit and allow for a public hearing allowing the residents who are going to be greatly affected by what’s going to happen with that project being put up in their neighborhood. We were highly misled. I don’t know how it goes from a human services building to a human resources admin building. The traffic is going to change drastically in that neighborhood. There is a preschool across the street and maybe two or three blocks over is Davidson Elementary, so a traffic study is needed. If he can apply for a conditional use permit the right way as it should have been, I have no objection, but it has to be done the proper way.”
Nickel made a motion to “direct our city manager to issue immediately a stop work order on this project and take appropriate corrective action.” That motion was seconded by Ibarra, but before a vote was taken a discussion ensued in which City Attorney Sonia Carvalho cautioned the council against imposing a stop work order on Beard after the city had given him approval to proceed with the construction of the building. She advised the council that it could yet seek to require that his tenant – the county – obtain a conditional use permit to operate a social services office at that location. Putting Beard and his tenant on notice that the transitional services facility may not meet the city’s codes and standards could potentially give the city the leverage to head off the eventuality of the operation setting up at that location, she implied.
Sensing that there was not will on the council to move ahead with the stop work order, Nickel made a motion that the city council direct City Manager Teri Ledoux and city staff to proceed with the ongoing investigation and report its findings back to the city council on August 14.
Councilman Jim Mulvihill suggested that Beard be prevailed upon to voluntarily impose on himself a “good faith stop work order.”
Though Ledoux went through the motions of conducting an investigation into how the project had garnered approval, she did not, the Sentinel has learned, extend that inquiry to determining if there was any overt communication among city officials to prevent the matter from going before the planning commission or if there was any discussion among city officials about heading off the prospect of public opposition manifesting before Beard’s project was provided with approval. For reasons Ledoux has not made clear, when her report was delivered to the council on August 14, she had not reviewed emails from, to and between Davis, then-City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller, Community and Economic Development Director Michael Huntley, other key members of the Community and Economic Development Department, Beard or Beard’s representatives in the timeframe leading up to the approval of the project in November.
It does not appear any representative of the city followed up on Mulvihill’s suggestion and requested of Beard that he voluntarily suspend work at the project site. Beard said publicly on August 8 that no such request had been made of him. Whether, indeed, Beard was requested to discontinue work on the project or not, he seemingly has no intention of doing so. As of earlier this week, concrete was being poured at the site, and the building’s foundation was being laid.
This week, at its August 23 meeting, the city council adjourned into a closed session, at which point they were informed that Beard has threatened the city with legal action if it in any way obstructed the project, including, as Carvalho suggested, requiring the county to obtain a conditional use permit before it could operate the building as a transitional services facility.
Because of the potential for adverse legal action against the city, the city council essentially acceded to Ledoux’s decision to withhold the results of her investigation from the public.
At this point, the city’s failure to heed Penman’s recommendation that the city suspend work at the site to minimize Beard’s costs stands as a lost opportunity.
Whether, indeed, Beard is actually prepared to initiate a legal suit against the city or whether that threat is a bluff is unclear. Were a suit to be filed, elements within two existing resident interest groups, the Muscupiabe Neighborhood Association and the Blair Park Neighborhood Association, could file separate lawsuits or band together to file a single suit against Beard and 27th Street TAD, LLC, alleging they are interfering with the Muscupiabe district residents’ rights to equal protection under the law and to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and that they have been victimized in this regard by Beard and 27th Street TAD, LLC through the application of political grease that garnered Beard and his company an advantage over the city’s residents when it came to the determination of land use in the city. The primary evidence and exhibits to support such a suit would consist of the records of substantial political donations Beard made to city officials, most prominently Davis, over the years, and the suspension of the protocol normally used for the approval of development projects in the city when the planning commission was bypassed and the development and environmental review committee instead signed off on the project in a backroom at City Hall.
Moreover, such a lawsuit would very likely resurrect long dormant ghosts that Beard would much rather remain buried. In 1998, two of San Bernardino County’s top administrators, Harry Mays and James Hlawek, were indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery charges that related to their acceptance of cash in return for arranging lucrative county contracts for several entities. Ultimately, Hlawek began cooperating with the FBI, telling agents that Mays, who was in partnership with Beard and Lance Goodwin in a company known as SHL Associates Ltd., provided him with a briefcase stuffed with $60,000 in cash during a meeting he had with Mays, Eaves and Beard as a payoff for securing a $26 million 15-year county lease for a K-Mart building in Rialto owned by SHL. SHL stood for Scott, Harry and Lance, so named after the three principals in the company. That lease was approved in a controversial 3-2 vote on June 23, 1997, with then-supervisors Jerry Eaves, Jon Mikels and Kathy Davis prevailing. The building was converted for use by the county’s behavioral services department. The deal was promoted by Hlawek, who was then the county’s chief administrative officer. Hlawek was Harry Mays’ protégé and successor as the county’s senior staff member. Eaves, a former Rialto mayor, California assemblyman and thereafter a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, was the recipient of scores of thousands of dollars of political donations from Beard. Beard narrowly avoided being indicted by both county and federal prosecutors during the scandal. Eaves was less fortunate, and was charged or indicted on both state and federal counts, after which he was eventually, in 2003, removed from office.
In the years since, Beard has worked toward reestablishing his reputation and the good name of several business entities with which he is associated. Thus, his threatened lawsuit against the city is considered by some to be a paper tiger, as such a suit would very likely garner negative publicity that in the long run would cost him more in the loss of future contracts than he might hope to recover from the city.
“Even paper tigers can get expensive and can be very politically damaging,” Councilman Henry Nickel observed. “We as a city are not in a position to afford any more lawsuits. We have many lawsuits currently in many stages of litigation. It is unfortunate, but we are not in a position financially to defend every lawsuit that comes our way.”
Nevertheless, Nickel said, if Beard were to file a suit against the city for insisting on the county first obtaining a conditional use permit before initiating its transitional assistance operation at Little Mountain Drive and 27th Street “I think it would be frivolous. I don’t think he will prevail in the end on something like that. I have looked at the documents. His permit specifies something different than what he says he is entitled to. I don’t see anywhere in his application nor anywhere in the documents where it is reported to be a welfare office. It was an office use quote unquote. He applied for something that didn’t require additional security. Now he is saying if you try to stop me I will sue you. That is the purpose of the development code, and its enforcement is meant to ensure this type of behavior does not occur. The residents need to have their interests protected and the city needs to have its interests protected as zealously as the developer’s. My fear is that is not happening. My hope it the council will have the courage to stand up for our residents and protect their interests and make sure the law is upheld.”
Nickel continued, “If we don’t uphold the development code, this will embolden those who do not want to comply with it. Developers will thumb their noses at us by threatening lawsuits. This will create a death spiral for the city. If you can’t defend your city or your codes, of what use is the city?”
Nickel quibbled with those who advocated slapping Beard with a stop work order. He questioned whether that course of action would be efficacious.
“He is authorized to build an office building,” he said. “There is no contesting that. He is not authorized to use it as a welfare office. If we stop him from constructing the building we will be liable for damages. In terms of the construction of an office building, in my mind that needs to continue. He is allowed to build an office building. He is not allowed to accept tenants from the transitional services department or open it as a welfare facility.  There are more restrictions on an office building in a residential setting than there are on an office building in a commercial zone. In a residential office building you have employees sitting in cubicles and desks. That is different from having customers coming in at all hours of the day, driving in and dumping trash and causing issues in the surrounding neighborhood. At that point we have a different use. The minute Mr. Beard leases the build for use by the transitional assistance department he is in violation of the permit he was issued. We need to follow the law, respect the rules and go through the process so we can put some mitigation in place to limit the impacts.”
Nickel insisted, “The city never permitted a social services facility at that location. Under our code a social services building is different from an office building. Clearly, the application did not reflect the intent to use it it as a welfare office. The building was approved as an office building. As of today, they have a permit to operate it as a professional office building. A conditional use permit would provide for mitigating the impacts, building a wall around the site, coming up with a security plan and other items stipulated in our development code. We cannot overturn his permit to complete a building. We can require that the county get a conditional use permit if they seek to have occupants that are other than a professional office provided for in our approval. This will have a major impact on people in the surrounding area.  We have to mitigate those impacts.”
Of Beard, Nickle said, “Either he misinterpreted our code or he screwed up. And we screwed up. It was not proper to have the development and environmental review committee approve this project application.”
Nickel said he suspected but could not at this point prove there was some collusion between the Davis regime and Beard to sneak the project by everyone.
“In the investigation that we requested, the [current] city manager [Teri Ledoux] did not produce the emails from members of the development and design review committee, [former City Manager] Andrea Miller, Carey Davis and Scott Beard. I have requested that all of those be produced. I anticipate there may be something there. I haven’t seen anything up to this point. The city manager hasn’t provided emails or communications or phone records yet.”
Nickel said the project glided by without his scrutiny at the time. He said, “I casually heard about it about a year ago. I was told it was going to be a human resources building. All this time that is what the building was intended to be used for.”
He did not fully understand that the county was going to install the transitional services department there “until six weeks ago,” Nickel said. “That was not what it was represented to be originally. We were told it was a human resources building.”
-Mark Gutglueck

By Gail Fry and Mark Gutglueck
In a significant reversal, San Bernardino County homicide investigators arrested 27-year-old Alex Opmanis of Crestline on August 9 on suspicion of murder in the shooting death of 29-year-old Sammy Lee Davis, also of Crestline.
That shooting took place at approximately 9:17 p.m. on July 11 in the parking lot of Goodwin’s Market at 24089 Lake Gregory Drive in Crestline.
Deputies were dispatched to the scene after a 911 call reported that shots had been fired. Upon their arrival, the deputies found Sammy Davis on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound and an off-duty nurse administering medical aid. Davis was transported to St. Bernadines Hospital where he was pronounced deceased at 10:12 p.m.
Subsequently, homicide detectives responded to the Goodwin’s Market parking lot where they initiated their investigation and conducted preliminary interviews with witnesses and Opmanis. Opmanis told detectives that Davis and two other men had approached him.
In its initial statement on the case released shortly after the incident, the sheriff’s department referred to Davis as the “suspect.” In that  account of what had occurred, Opmanis was not identified by name but described as being 27 years old and a resident of Crestline, referring to him as the “victim.”
“The victim recognized one of the men as an associate of the suspect that assaulted him in January 2019, which resulted in hospitalization,” according to the sheriff’s department’s statement dated July 12. “He felt threatened as the three subjects approached, verbally taunting him, and retrieved his firearm from a compartment in his car. One of the subjects, Sammy Davis, grabbed the victim’s shirt and punched him multiple times. The victim fired his gun, striking Davis and stopping the assault.”
According to the July 12 statement by the sheriff’s department, the investigation was yet ongoing and was being conducted by Detective Eric Ogaz under the supervision of Sergeant Angelo Gibilterra.
There were varied reactions to the incident. On social media and in other forums, opinion against Davis and in favor of the shooter were running at a rate of roughly four-to-one, with some expressing the view that Davis got what was coming to him and others stating the shooting was a clear case of justifiable self-defense. Many of those commenting dwelt on what was perceived to have been the physical assault that precipitated the shooting. Still the same, there were expressions suggesting the shooting was an overreaction, and reservations were articulated about the necessity of the shooting as well as questions about or statements relating to the legality of the shooter’s possession of the firearm.
Davis had a criminal record. Superior Court files show that on April 18, 2012 he entered a plea of guilty on a charge of burglary filed against him on May 11, 2011. On April 11, 2011, he entered a plea of receiving stolen property that was filed against him on April 1, 2011. On February 15, 2012 misdemeanor charges of drunk in public and failure to appear filed against him on November 17, 2011 were dismissed. On February 29, 2008, Davis pleaded guilty to a felony burglary charge that had been filed against him on February 26, 2008.
Opmanis was convicted on May 26, 2017 of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol on a case filed on March 21, 2017 relating to an incident on New Year’s Day 2017.
A report shortly after the time of the shooting, yet to be verified or in any way confirmed, was that Opmanis did not have a concealed weapon permit. The information supplied by the sheriff’s department in the July 12 statement implied, but does not explicitly state, that the gun retrieved by Opmanis from his car and used in the shooting was loaded.
Under California law, an individual without a concealed weapon permit can transport a firearm in a vehicle only if the firearm is unloaded and locked in the trunk or in a reasonably secure place in the front of the vehicle, with the ammunition for the gun in the opposite location, either the trunk or in the vehicle, which also must be locked.
While many of those who carry firearms in their vehicles consider having them unloaded to be impractical, carrying a loaded firearm in a car or truck can be charged as a misdemeanor if discovered by a law enforcement officer. A second such offense can be ratcheted up to a felony.
While the July 12 report seemed to indicate that the sheriff’s department took Opmanis at his word when he said he had a fear for his safety when he encountered Davis, a follow-up statement from the sheriff’s department released August 22, indicates investigators now have grounds to question Opmanis’s assertion.
“On Friday, August 9, 2019, Alex Opmanis met with homicide detectives to provide an additional statement,” according to the August 22 sheriff’s department release. “Following the interview, detectives determined Opmanis’ statements were inconsistent with the evidence gathered and placed him under arrest for the murder of Sammy Davis.”
According to the department, Homicide Sergeant Joseph Steers was detailed to the case.
Of note is that the August 22 sheriff’s department statement refers to Davis as the “victim,” while referring to Opmanis as the “suspect.”  Opmanis remains in custody at Central Detention Center with bail set at $1,000,000

This week, two of Jeremiah Brosowske’s Hesperia City Council colleagues, including one who was directly responsible for advancing his political career and supporting Brosowske’s past and current berth on the council, initiated what appears to be the most serious and concerted effort yet to check the political advance of the young political juggernaut.
At the age of 28, Brosowske appears to be an irresistible political force, whose advance in politics and into positions of governmental power is being guided by a hidden hand or set of hands. The avowed purpose of the mysterious but unmistakably powerful cabal behind him is to advance him toward assuming California’s governorship or a position in the U.S. Senate, from which he can launch a campaign for U.S. President, in what is hoped will be the most viable effort of a third party candidate in U.S. History, exceeding those of both Theodore Roosevelt and Ross Perot. In short, Brosowske embodies the ambition for reinventing the Libertarian Party as a political mainstay in the United States in the 21st Century.
To incubate his political career, Brosowske ran successfully for office as a representative of the associated student body at Victor Valley College, thereafter working assiduously on the candidacies of several Republican candidates. He was taken under the wing of Curt Hagman, a former Chino Hills mayor, California assemblyman and now the chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors and Fourth District county supervisor, who in 2014 was the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. Hagman arranged for Brosowske’s hiring as the executive director of the Republican Central Committee. In that capacity, Brosowske ingratiated himself with a multiplicity of Republican Party stalwarts in San Bernardino County, which is one of the last bastions of the GOP in increasingly Democratic Party-dominated California. Brosowske is a protégé of Bill Postmus, a former First District county supervisor, former chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, former chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee and former San Bernardino County assessor. As one of his last accomplishments before he was imprisoned on political corruption charges last year, Postmus guided the effort to establish Brosowske into elected office, doing so by an effective campaign to have Brosowske appointed to a vacant position on the Hesperia City Council after the death of then-Mayor Russ Blewett in May 2018. Postmus pulled that feat off by a series of secret arrangements which included putting the arm on three members of the Hesperia City Council as it was then composed – Bill Holland, Rebecca Swanson and Paul Russ, Republicans all – to rig Brosowske’s appointment. Participating in the arrangement was Bill Jensen, a former Hesperia mayor and city councilman who had been one of Postmus’s political associates.
Brosowske, along with Brigit Bennington, Victoria Dove, Russell Harris, Linda Holder, Robert Nelson, Anthony Rhoades, Veronica Rios and Chester Watts, applied for the council position. On July 11, 2018 the city council held a specially-scheduled meeting to interview the candidates and thereupon make an appointment. All of the candidates participated in that forum except Watts, who was infirm and could not attend. The appointment candidates were excluded from the meeting chambers so they would not have an opportunity to hear the questions in advance of their own interviews. Holland, as the mayor, arranged to have Brosowske interviewed second last. Jensen, after witnessing the interviews of the first four candidates, retreated to the foyer in City Hall, where Brosowske was waiting to be called in for his interview. He provided Brosowske with the questions being asked and an outline of the responses his rivals for the position were giving. With that advantage, Brosowske came in and knocked them dead with his answers. The council voted 3-to-1, with Paul Russ, Bill Holland and Rebekah Swanson prevailing and councilman Larry Bird dissenting, to appoint Brosowske. In November 2018, Hesperia held its first by-district election as opposed to at-large elections in its 30-year history as an incorporated city. On the strength of his incumbency, the advice and guidance Postmus provided him throughout that campaign prior to the former county supervisor having to report for incarceration in the state prison system on November 30, 2018 and a campaign war chest of a staggering proportion that was twenty times the size of anyone else in the municipal race, Brosowske outdistanced the other candidate vying in the city’s newly created Fourth District, Brigit Bennington.
Curiously, despite his having moved into office so that he can ticket punch his way toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Brosowske had encountered some rough sledding, alienating many of his allies, including virtually all of those who were instrumental in putting him into the elective office he now holds.
This spring, an effort to recall Holland from office was hatched. Reports poured in that Brosowske was behind that campaign. That, quite clearly, disenfranchised Brosowske from Holland and appears to have affronted Swanson. More recently, Russ, who was defeated in November and replaced on the council by Cameron Gregg, has voiced dismay at what he believes is Brosowske’s disruption of the Republican camaraderie on the council. And Jensen, who was a major factor in getting Brosowske appointed, has turned on him, as well. Jensen, who is active in the real estate industry, was reportedly involved in finding Brosowske digs in Hesperia to make him eligible for appointment to the council last summer as well as to run in the Fourth District last fall. Jensen is now claiming Brosowske never lived in Hesperia.
At Tuesday night’s council meeting, Brosowske seemed to have an inkling of what was coming his way. He attempted, somewhat awkwardly and ultimately ineffectively, to hold an olive branch out to his council colleagues.
“I think its time to move in a positive direction,” Brosowske said. “I get tired of public comment being constantly negative and negative and negative. I hope we can work together to find solutions. I don’t care if you don’t like me, you never voted for me, if you’re one of the biggest donors to my opponent, I want to work with you. I hope we can all come together in a positive light to make this city better instead of negative rhetoric time and time again with personal attacks. I think it’s time to move the city forward and try to give back to this community.  We might not all agree on everything, but I will say something nice about all of my colleagues. Ms Swanson loves animals and cares greatly about this community. Bill Holland has a record of service that’s pretty much unmatched. If I wanted to ask him what happened in 2010, he can tell you the fight with the truckers and you don’t want to go in that direction because you’re going to get lit up on it, and he’s usually right on it. I probably hate to admit that. Mr. Bird [i.e., Mayor Larry Bird] is a principal who cares deeply about Sultana [High School], as much as he does [about] being in the mayor’s seat. I know he loves being the mayor right now. He works hard at it. He goes to community events.  Cameron Gregg, I’ve seen you from the first time when you were a candidate when you looked nervous as hell til now. You come up here, you are confident, you dress well, you are very poised and you have a direction you want to take the city in. I think you grew up in the city and you want to move the city forward. Myself included, I want to bring relationships forward. I want to make the city better. We might not all be able to agree on things, but the commonalities is [sic] what we should find, whether we’re in the middle of chaos or not. We’re here to represent our residents, and personally, I’m not going to let the negativity bring me down or upset me and if people want to say negative things, I might get upset. I’ll probably walk away from the dais from now on because I don’t want to listen to that. If you want to come to me, come to me with what you think is a problem with me, I will sit down with you and buy you a coffee and totally try to find a solution with you.  This might be my last term on this council because I don’t like the negativity because I feel like there’s so many positive things to do for the city.”
Gregg said, “Corruption has to go. No political kickbacks. With that being said, I’d like to place on the next agenda an item for discussion, a request to appoint a special counsel for an investigation of potential felony voter fraud committed by Councilmember Jeremiah Brosowske, and that will settle that dispute there. Like you said,” Gregg said, turning to Brosowske, “I’m more than happy to move on, and this is the best way to do so, where the light is out there shining and we all have clear heads moving forward with facts versus comments and all that stuff, so I’d like to see that happen. Place that on the agenda, if you can,” Gregg instructed City Manager Nils Bentsen.
Gregg added, “Additionally, keeping with that same tradition there, I’d also like to place on a future agenda, whether the next coming up one or down the road, a ballot initiative aimed at campaign finance reform to where we can actually create some sort of standards where there is not all kinds of outside money being funneled into this city. I think that will cut down on a lot of the corruption.”
Holland said, “Along the lines of what Cameron brought up, I’d also like to agendize a future item, and that is to enter into a discussion and possible vote to vacate the seat held by Jeremiah Brosowske due to non-residency. There’s been a lot of chatter, talk folks presented indicating he didn’t live here during the appointing process, during the election process and to date. I’d like to see that come back at the next meeting.”
In addition to Brosowske’s apparent efforts to assist in the Holland recall, his move to disassociate himself from the Republican Party to move to a leadership role in the Libertarian Party may also have ruffled some feathers. Brosowske has embraced California’s move toward the legalization of marijuana, a position more in keeping with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. The Party of Lincoln touts itself as pro-law enforcement and considers marijuana legalization to be a step toward chaos and widespread criminality. In a recent screed, Brosowske put out that marijuana use should be tolerated by society and that its legalization is in keeping with libertarian principles. He announced his readiness to work with applicants for cannabis-oriented businesses to assist them in obtaining government-issued permits and licenses to operate.
An indication of some hidden hand sponsoring Brosowske’s political aspirations was his having been hired as an assistant general manager with the West Valley Water District in Rialto. That position pays an annual salary of $189,592 augmented by $62,500 in benefits. Brosowske has virtually no experience or expertise in water operations. The position is widely considered to be a sinecure that was provided to Brosowske so he has personal financial stability and can fatten his résumé to pursue furthering his political career.
Word came today of another blow to Brosowske’s political aspirations with the death of billionaire David Koch, a dual Republican Party and Libertarian Party political activist, who has been attempting to guide the Republican Party toward Libertarian principles and is said to be one of the patrons bankrolling the campaign to promote Brosowske.
-Mark Gutglueck

Robert Lovingood, San Bernardino County’s First District supervisor, will not seek reelection in 2020.
Lovingood was first elected to the board, representing the lion’s share of San Bernardino County’s vast desert outback, in 2012. He succeeded Brad Mitzelfelt, who after a term-and-a-half, had essentially wore out his welcome in the First District. Lovingood had a loose affiliation with Mitzelfelt, though that association did not interfere with his election in 2012 and his reelection in 2016.
No First District supervisor has served more than two terms on the board since Arthur Doran. Doran was appointed by Governor C.C. Young on December 2, 1928 to succeed C.S. Crain as First District San Bernardino County supervisor after Crain’s death, was elected in a special election in 1930 and then reelected in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944 before leaving office in 1948. Lovingood appears unwilling to test fate by running for supervisor once more. It has been suggested that he may seek election in the 33rd Assembly District next year if Jay Obernolte, the incumbent, seeks election in the 8th Congressional District, if the incumbent there, Paul Cook, opts out of seeking election. Cook, Obernolte and Lovingood are all Republicans. Lovingood has sometimes been mentioned as a possible successor to Cook.
Lovingood made no mention of his future political intent in making his announcement.
“I have decided not to seek a third term as supervisor of the First District for San Bernardino County,” Lovingood announced today. “The decision has been a very difficult one, as I have truly enjoyed serving as First District Supervisor for the past seven years. Some of my proudest endeavors have
been launching our “Made in the High Desert” Manufacturing Summit and Veterans Resource Fair. Both of these annual events have allowed us to serve our local residents by connecting them to resources within the county.”
Lovingood said, “During my tenure as First District supervisor, the county has faced many challenges. Despite the difficulties, there are many accomplishments to be proud of. Some noteworthy achievements include:
* A Technical Training Center is in process of being established in the High Desert through the collaborative efforts of San Bernardino County Workforce Development Board, Victor Valley College, private employers and business partners.
* The Vision2Succeed Initiative launched in late 2018 through the collaborative efforts of Workforce Development and the county administrative office. This initiative is designed to strengthen the career skills of our local workforce and enhance their qualifications to support existing employers and attract new employers to our county.
* Road and Infrastructure improvements have been an important focus area with some great progress.
* Through advocacy work with the District Attorney office, attention has been given to address Welfare and Workers Compensation Fraud in San Bernardino County. The impact of this work has resulted in significant savings to both taxpayers and employers.
* GenerationGo! was established by the County through our Workforce Development Board. This program provides internship opportunities for high school seniors to be dual enrolled with a community college and gain on-the-job training experience with a local employer, allowing a student and employer to find a good career fit for long term success.
* Community Advocacy is a continual effort of staff to help connect our residents with resources within the County.”
Lovingood continued, “Although I will no longer be serving as a county supervisor after November 2020, I plan to stay actively involved as a business and community member. I am committed to ensure that our district receives the best education and economic opportunities possible and will continue to advocate for the growth of jobs in our region.”
-M.G.

By Gail Fry and Mark Gutglueck
In a significant reversal, San Bernardino County homicide investigators arrested 27-year-old Alex Opmanis of Crestline on August 9 on suspicion of murder in the shooting death of 29-year-old Sammy Lee Davis, 29, also of Crestline.
That shooting took place at approximately 9:17 a.m. on July 11 in the parking lot of Goodwin’s Market at 24089 Lake Gregory Drive in Crestline.
Deputies were dispatched to the scene after a 911 call reported that shots had been fired. Upon their arrival, the deputies found Sammy Davis on the ground suffering from a gunshot wound, and an off-duty nurse administering medical aid. Davis was transported to St. Bernadines Hospital where he was pronounced deceased at 10:12 p.m.
Subsequently, homicide detectives responded to the Goodwin’s Market parking lot where they initiated their investigation and conducted preliminary interviews with witnesses and Opmanis. Opmanis told detectives that Davis and two other men had approached him.
In its initial statement on the case released shortly after the incident, the sheriff’s department referred to Davis as the “suspect.” In that publicly released accounting of what had occurred, Opmanis was not identified by name but described as being 27 years old and a resident of Crestline. The department referred to him in that narrative as the “victim.”
“The victim recognized one of the men as an associate of the suspect that assaulted him in January 2019, which resulted in hospitalization,” according to the sheriff’s department’s statement dated July 12. “He felt threatened as the three subjects approached, verbally taunting him, and retrieved his firearm from a compartment in his car. One of the subjects, Sammy Davis, grabbed the victim’s shirt and punched him multiple times. The victim fired his gun, striking Davis and stopping the assault.”
According to the July 12 statement by the sheriff’s department, the investigation was yet ongoing and was being conducted by Detective Eric Ogaz under the supervision of Sergeant Angelo Gibilterra.
There were varied reactions to the incident. On social media and in other forums, opinion against Davis and in favor of the shooter were running at a rate of roughly four-to-one, with some expressing the view that Davis got what was coming to him and others stating the shooting was a clear case of justifiable self-defense. Many of those commenting dwelt on what was perceived to have been the physical assault that precipitated the shooting. Still the same, there were expressions suggesting the shooting was an overreaction, and reservations were articulated about the necessity of the shooting as well as questions about or statements relating to the legality of the shooter’s possession of the firearm.
Davis had a criminal record. Superior Court files show that on April 18, 2012 he entered a plea of guilty on a charge of burglary filed against him on May 11, 2011. On April 11, 2011, he entered a plea of receiving stolen property that was filed against him on April 1, 2011. On February 15, 2012 misdemeanor charges of drunk in public and failure to appear filed against him on November 17, 2011 were dismissed. On February 29, 2008, Davis pleaded guilty to a felony burglary charge that had been filed against him on February 26, 2008.
Opmanis was convicted on May 26, 2017 of misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol on a case filed on March 21, 2017 relating to an incident on New Year’s Day 2017.
A report at that time, yet to be verified or in any way confirmed, was that Opmanis did not have a concealed weapon permit. The information supplied by the sheriff’s department in the July 12 statement implied, but did not explicitly state, that the gun retrieved by Opmanis from his car and used in the shooting was loaded.
Under California law, an individual without a concealed weapon permit can transport a firearm in a vehicle only if the firearm is unloaded and locked in the trunk or in a reasonably secure place in the front of the vehicle, with the ammunition for the gun in the opposite location, either the trunk or in the vehicle, which also must be locked.
While many of those who carry firearms in their vehicles consider having them unloaded to be impractical, carrying a loaded firearm in a car or truck can be charged as a misdemeanor if discovered by a law enforcement officer. A second such offense can be ratcheted up to a felony.
While the July 12 report seemed to indicate that the sheriff’s department took Opmanis at his word when he said he had a fear for his safety when he encountered Davis, a follow-up statement from the sheriff’s department released August 22 indicates investigators now have grounds to question Opmanis’s assertion.
“On Friday, August 9, 2019, Alex Opmanis met with homicide detectives to provide an additional statement,” according to the August 22 sheriff’s department release. “Following the interview, detectives determined Opmanis’ statements were inconsistent with the evidence gathered and placed him under arrest for the murder of Sammy Davis.”
According to the department, Homicide Sergeant Joseph Steers was detailed to the case.
Of note is that the August 22 sheriff’s department statement refers to Davis as the “victim,” while referring to Opmanis as the “suspect.”

In California, the fall schedule has no timeline. Blame it on the overall great weather we have. With that said, it can get consuming as to what is going to be trending this fall. Dressing for this weather can be tricky because of the in-between season weather shifts. Some things I’ve picked up on are dresses over pants, which are perfect for a breezy day. Big wide pants with or without pleats look great with boots. Let’s not forget what’s really hitting the streets: The back to school look and the uniform. These embody the easy-pressed and proper look for education. There really is no schedule for fall, but don’t be confused. The pieces are out there and you can start grabbing your booties, sweaters, pants, and everything else in between. Make your wardrobe fun and workable and you’ll be pre falling before you know it.

 “Fashion is what you’re offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose.” – Lauren Hutton