By Alfred Birnbaum
The mountains fly past
Kids torture a cicada
Its screams fill the car.

By Mark Gutglueck
Sheriff Shannon Dicus on Wednesday released video and still photographs of one of his deputy’s killing of 17-year-old Aaron James in Victorville on Tuesday, April 2.
James, described by Dicus as “a 17-year-old white male juvenile” was shot during a struggle over a knife while, Dicus said, he “was experiencing mental health issues.” James is the fourth individual to die at the hands of San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in less than a month.
The deadly encounter took place just after 1 p.m. at a home in the 17100 block of Forest Hills Drive, just east of Brentwood Drive, in Victorville. Deputies had been summoned there just after 12:30 p.m.
According to Dicus, “The situation we were confronted with yesterday is the juvenile was just taken three days ago for harming himself, essentially cutting himself, to a hospital for treatment and ultimately to be sent to a mental health facility. During the transition to the mental health facility, the juvenile absconded from the hospital and showed up at a residence in Victorville.” Continue reading →

FBN 20240001154
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
SION CONSTRUCTION 1245 W 28th Street SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92405: KASHE CONCRETE CORP 1245 W 28th Street SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92405
Business Mailing Address: 1245 W 28th Street SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92405
The business is conducted by: A CORPORATION registered with the State of Califfornia under the number 4180274.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: May 20, 2018.
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ EVERADO FRAUSTO-GUTIERREZ, CEO
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 2/06/2024
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J6733
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on March 15, 22, 29 & April 5, 2024.

FBN 20240002531
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
R12 AUTOMOTIVE 1502 WEST D STREET ONTARIO, CA 91762: NEVELLE E PIERSON
Business Mailing Address: 1502 WEST D STREET ONTARIO, CA 91762
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: N/A.
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ NEVELLE E PIERSON
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 3/14/2024
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy K1583
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on March 15, 22, 29 & April 5, 2024.

Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Amidst reports federal authorities are scrutinizing them and their city manager and senior land use officials with regard to their ties to the development industry, the Yucaipa City Council Wednesday night gave approval to the Yucaipa Valley Wine Country Specific Plan, which is to suspend building restrictions on nearly 1,100 acres that were incorporated into the 54,524-population city’s 2016 general plan.
Some saw in the action confirmation of the widespread and penetrating suspicions that reportedly invited federal investigators to take up an examination of the somewhat irregular relationship the city’s decision-makers forged with the city manager they hired in a highly controversial move more than a year ago. Others, however, saw the action as a compromise with a development industry that is salivating at the prospect of converting large swaths of open space on the city’s north end, which was once grazing land or long dormant or more recently forsaken agricultural property, into massive subdivisions to include both residential neighborhoods and commercial centers.
The Wine Country Specific Plan is a proposed phased development to subdivide 1,094 acres in what is referred to as the city’s North Bench into lots for both homes and nonresidential areas for vineyards, wineries, trails, and open space. The plan calls for the primarily undeveloped land to be split into what are very close to halves, with residential uses on 547.4 acres and nonresidential uses on 546.2 acres. The proposed nonresidential land use designations including 465.5 acres for agriculture purposes, 73.6 acres for riparian use and 7.1 acres for utility application by the Yucaipa Valley Water District, the last of which has already been put in place by the water district. Continue reading →

Herbert Stone James, currently the economic development director with Cathedral City, has been chosen to serve as city manager in Twentynine Palms.
James will supplant Larry Bowden at City Hall. Bowden has served as interim city manager since October, when former City Manager Frank Luckino departed to become city manager in Desert Hot Springs.
James, 49, has been economic development director in Cathedral City since 2017.
James’ professional experience in government is limited to this tenure in Cathedral City, although he has other experience in governmental appointed posts. In addition, he has experience in real estate and development liaison capacities.
At present, he is a board member of a private school, Palm Valley School Pre K-12th Grade Independent School. Continue reading →

As homeless assistance projects go, the Step Up homeless faciltity, which had been converted from the former Good Nite Inn in Redlands was an overwhelming success. Insofar as other efforts to formulate a solution to moving people off the streets into a dignified living setting, Redlands city officials had achieved what scores, indeed hundreds and thousands, in actuality, almost all of other elected officials in California had been unable to attain: the application of money into a program where the money wasn’t squandered or eaten up by short-term solutions or consultants and service providers who used the money for salaries or expenses and misdirected the money from those it was intended to help: the destitute.
What Redlands had done was brilliant in its simplicity and workability. The city had taken the Good Nite Inn, a struggling and failing hotel, acquired it using state and federal money, converted it into primitive but yet dignified apartments, each with modest living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette, and then filled it with the denizens of the streets, those who would otherwise be living in alleyways or parks or under freeway on-or-offramps or railroad trestles. Moreover, the city had done it in a relatively short period of time, from conception to occupancy. Continue reading →

Palm Desert-based E-Group PS is seeking permission from the City of Twentynine Palms to undertake a dual industrial/residential project on 477-acre site proximate to the Twentynine Palms Cemetery.
Represented by Terra Nova Planning, which has taken up the cause of preparing for the project presentation and environmental certification effort for at least one other solar project in the 27,000-population 59.1-square mile city, E-Group is asking Twentynine Palm’s planning and building division to consider its proposal to establish a 50-megawatt solar field featuring 160,000 solar panels on the northern 241 acres of the project site North of Two Mile Road and west of Noel Knolls Road and construct 236 homes on the southern 236 acres of the project site.
According to E-Group PS principal Robert Smith, his company had hoped to work directly with the City of Twentynine Palms in refining the project and tailoring its plans to meet local development standards and mitigate the project in accordance with the needs of local residents and businesses. Continue reading →

A rash of use of force incidents, including three that resulted in the deaths of civilians, bedeviled the sheriff’s department this month.
The violent nature of the encounters has provoked loud and repeated charges that sheriff’s deputies are using an excessive and unnecessary degree of force and has tested unto breaking Sheriff Shannon Dicus’s stated commitment to release the relevant footage of the bodyworn video cameras all of his deputies have recently been outfitted.
The most recent such contretemps to come to public attention was the March 26 arrest of a Hesperia-based entrepreneur the sheriff’s department maintains was involved in an armed robbery two days previously. That arrest involved deputies from the Hesperia Station and took place roughly ten blocks from the man’s place of business, a tattoo parlor located at 16138 Main Street next to Ararat Market Avenue on the north side of Main between Third Avenue and Fifth Avenue. Much of the department’s takedown of Alonso was captured on video by a passerby and mounted onto a social media platform, thereafter going viral.
In the video, at first three deputies can be seen grappling with the man, identified as Christian Cardenas Alonso, a 36-year-old resident of Adelanto, at the side of the roadway behind Alonso’s maroon- or burgundy-colored 1964 Chevrolet Impala, bearing the license plate number 72IX939. Alonzo is face down on the pavement, with the deputies kneeling at various angles over him. At several points, Alonso’s head is being scraped or raked with force against the pavement on the shoulder of the road. A fourth deputy then comes into the video’s frame of focus to assist in making the arrest. Throughout the ordeal, Alonso sustains repeated blows to his head. Continue reading →