The homes and offices of Ontario Councilman and mayoral candidate Alan Wapner and Fourth District San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman were the targets of raids by the FBI, the Sentinel has learned. 

Both politicians have long been the focus of investigations into pay-to-play politics within the Inland Empire community where they serve as elected officials, as well as their efforts on behalf of foreign governments, corporations and business interests, including the secreting of what was alleged to be bribe money into the country.

The raids relating to Wapner and Hagman took place inside and outside San Bernardino County, where the duo are both career politicians based in the Fourth Supervisorial District, the most geographically compact and densely populated of the county’s five subjurisdictions. San Bernardino County’s Fourth District includes the entirety of the cities of Chino Hills, Chino, Montclair and Ontario, the southern portion of Upland and the unincorporated communities of as well as the Carbon Canyon, Velano, Yorba, West End, Prado, Narod, Ballou, Racimo and Guasti. Hagman’s career as a politician began with his election to the city council and later ascension to mayor, followed by his election the California Assembly, his acceding to the position of chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, and his election as Fourth District San Bernardino County Supervisor and reelection to that post three time. Wapner, who was employed as a police officer, detective and later a sergeant with the Ontario Police Department, began his political career as a member of the Ontario-Montclair School District Board and was first elected to the Ontario City Council in 1994, having been reelected to that post seven times. He is currently vying for Ontario mayor.
In carrying out the raids, FBI agents were seeking evidence and documentation pertaining to quid pro quos – bribes or kickbacks – provided to Wapner and Hagman by individuals, business entities, business owners and principals in businesses which had applications for project approval with the city or the county, which were competing for contracts with the city or county or which were seeking franchises granted by the city or county that ultimately were subject to approval by the Ontario City Council or the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
In addition, federal agents were seeking instruments or documents relating to Wapner’s and Hagman’s overseas banking activity, most particularly involving financial institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and their ability to access those accounts or transfer money, as well as account codes, pr platform access and management tools for cryptocurrency exchanges.
Wapner and Hagman have been on the FBI’s radar for over a decade, as dozens of their constituents have noted irregularities and improprieties in their operations, and reports of one or the other purchasing the silence of other officials have abounded for years and those who have gone to both state and federal authorities with information or complaints have expressed dismay and frustration at the glacial pace of law enforcement’s and political regulatory agencies’ investigations into that alleged wrongdoing.
Relatively early on, federal investigators took note of how Hagman moved, shortly after he assumed the position of county supervisor, to hire Wapner as a member of his staff. This reflected a similar pattern evinced by Wapner in which he has used the authority vested in him as an elected official to hire individuals known or believed to be in possession of information that is potentially damaging to Wapner on either a personal, legal or political level, as part of what appears to be an effort to keep Wapner in power.
Over the years, federal investigators accumulated what well-placed sources have told the Sentinel was sufficient information to justify arresting and charging both Wapner and Hagman with criminal acts relating to the misuse of their official governmental positions. The U.S. Attorney’s Office held off on that action, it was said, as investigators were attempting to widen the investigative net and cinch up information relating to a number of others involved with them in the activity under investigation. According to those sources, because the activity Wapner and Hagman were engaged in was ongoing, delaying the filing of charges against either of them had no statute of limitations implication.
There are a number of parallels in the political careers of Alan Wapner and Curt Hagman. Hagman, a UCLA graduate, is ten years Wapner’s junior. Wapner, a USC alumnus, was first elected to the Ontario City Council in 1994. Ten years later, in 2004, Hagman was first elected to the Chino Hills City Council. In 2008, Hagman was elevated by his council colleagues to the appointed position of mayor. It was in the capacity of Chino Hills mayor that Hagman campaigned for and won a position in the California Assembly. He was subsequently reelected to the Assembly in 2010 and 2012.
In 2011, Wapner had embarked on an effort to wrest Ontario Airport from the grip of the City of Los Angeles. In 1967, when the annual number of passengers passing through the airport’s gates stood at 200,000, the cities of Ontario and Los Angeles had entered into a joint powers agreement, whereby the larger metropolis was to use its ownership and operation of Los Angeles International Airport to run Ontario Airport, in so doing using its relationship with scores of national and international airlines improve the airport and induce more than just the handful of airlines then willing to fly into and out of Ontario to establish operations there. In 1985, after Los Angeles had succeeded in meeting all of the criteria laid out in the joint powers agreement, Ontario deeded the airport to Los Angeles, which continued with defraying operational costs at the airport and financed or arranged financing on continued modernization of the facility, including constructing what was the largest civilian runway in California, a state-of-the-art concourse and two ultra-modern terminals.
Ridership at Ontario Airport had peaked in 2007 at 7.2 million, but declined steeply as a consequence of the economic downturn that hit the nation, state and local economy that was precipitated by the subprime mortgage crisis, resulting in what was referred to as “the Great Recession.” Utilizing the drop-off in the number of passengers experienced by the airline industry in general as a pretext while arguing that Los Angeles officials were purposely mismanaging Ontario Airport to increase ridership at Los Angeles International, Wapner aggressively demanded that Los Angeles return Ontario Airport to Ontario. His tactics including a highly personal attack on Gina Marie Lindsey, the executive director at Los Angeles World Airports, the corporate entity that Los Angeles used to oversee Los Angeles International Airport, Ontario Airport and Van Nuys Airport. While accusing Lindsey of running Ontario Airport into the ground, Wapner in 2012 convinced Ontario Mayor Paul Leon and his other council colleagues to create the Ontario International Airport Authority, which was intended to step into the role of operating and managing the airport once Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports were out of the picture. Wapner succeeded in being designated as the president/chairman of the board of directors for the Ontario international Airport Authority, which had as two of its five other board members Wapner’s council colleague and political ally, James Bowman, as well as the county’s then-Fourth District supervisor, Gary Ovitt, who had previously been Ontario mayor. Wapner pushed the city toward filing suit against Los Angeles in an effort to recover the airport, and the city retained the law firm of Sheppard, Richter, Mullen, and Hampton to do so.
In pursuing that end, Wapner took a scorched-earth approach in which there appeared to be no regard for the impact the hostile approach would have in the long run, and what bridges were being burned with elected and other officials in Los Angeles, at least some of whom would move into powerful positions in state and federal government. Moreover, Wapner did not take into consideration that Los Angeles, which had control over gate position at Los Angeles International Airport and had strong ties and influence with the more than 90 airlines that fly into and out of that facility, was in a position to, on the positive side, offer airline executives with airlines who had no presence in Ontario inducements or incentives to schedule landings into or flights from there or, from a negative perspective, influence airlines already established in Ontario to discontinue their operations there. A consensus was growing among local, county and regional officials that Wapner was being too aggressive and gratuitously offensive and that his bull in a China shop approach was wreaking more harm than the city or nearby communities stood to gain by returning the airport to local control. Wapner’s determination to have Ontario, which simply lacked the gravitas and leverage of the megalopolis 37 miles to the west, intimidate Los Angeles into capitulation would not only not work, most thought, but create an institutional enmity where none had existed before and which would have no salutary outcome.
To Hagman, as the highest-ranking local elected state official with ties to the Inland Empire’s business community and financial institutions, fell the assignment of attempting to serve as a moderating influence on Wapner, He was designated to approach the councilman and seek to convince him that at the very least he should tone down his vituperative rhetoric with regard to Los Angeles officials and dispense with the strategy of outright seizing the airport in favor of more amicable tack that would be less likely to antagonize some or all of those who yet had say not only in how the airport was being run at that point but were in a position to determine how spiritedly Los Angeles should fight in maintaining its hold on Ontario Airport and the terms by which it was to be relinquished to the municipal jurisdiction in which it is located. A small circle of those involved in government knew that Leon, Ontario’s Mayor, had, as a child, lived in the same East Los Angeles neighborhood as then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. They openly mused, among themselves, as to whether Leon would be able to work out a better deal by applying honey with his childhood chum than Wapner was trying achieve by dousing the situation with vinegar.
At least some federal investigators have come to recognize that it was the contact Hagman was making with Wapner in the 2012 and 2013 timeframe with the intent of getting the councilman to cool his jets and dispense with his solipsistic, indeed delusional, stance as David seeking to slay Goliath in favor of a more reasonable avenue of negotiation and compromise with Los Angeles that gave rise to the collusion between Wapner and Hagman that is at the heart of matter being investigated and which is the focus of the search warrants served today.
Indeed, if it was Hagman’s intention to reason with Wapner and convince him that he was being overzealous in his demands that Los Angeles surrender control of the airport to Ontario and San Bernardino County, the outcome was virtually the opposite. Rather than Hagman convincing Wapner that he should alter his course, it was Wapner that persuaded Hagman to deviate from the path he was on and join him, and that Ontario sizing control of the airport was in their mutual benefit.
Under the term limits then in place for members of the California Legislature, Hagman was required to leave the assembly at the end of his third term, which was to come to a close in December of 2014, a month after the November 2014 election. Logic dictated that Hagman, by that point a committed career politician, next move to California State Senate. That was complicated by the consideration that the Senate District in which Chino Hills, where he then resided, Senate District 29, was occupied by Bob Huff, like Hagman a Republican. Huff had first been elected to the California State Senate in 2008, the same year Hagmna had been elected to the Assembly. California state senators are elected to four-year terms, and under the term limit rules then in effect, state senators were restricted to two terms. Thus, Huff, who was reelected in 2012, was set to remain as the senator representing District 29 until December 2016. This meant that Hagman, as the heir apparent to Huff, would need to wait for two years after leaving the Assembly before stepping back into political office, this time as the state senator representing Chino Hills along with Diamond Bar, Walnut, Yorba Linda, Brea, La Habra, Placencia, Fullerton, Anaheim and Cypress. He was ready to so, as the district was a safe one for a Republican, his experience in the Assembly prepared him to make a transition into California’s upper legislative house, he had represented a large swath of the 29th Senate District as the assemblyman representing Assembly District 55 and he was positioned as an incumbent assemblyman in the 2012-to-2014 timeframe to raise a substantial amount of money for his future political endeavors and he could likely count on Huff’s endorsement.
After meeting with Wapner several times, however, ostensibly as part of the effort to broker a reasonable resolution to the dispute between Ontario and Los Angeles over Ontario Airport, Hagman came away with the idea that Ontario should charge forward with obtaining the airport, the sooner the better, and that he should himself get in on the action. Rather than progress up the political evolutionary chain to state senator in 2016, Hagman concluded, he should take a step backwards to county supervisor in 2014.
Such a move was to take some maneuvering and gyrating. A major factor was that the incumbent Fourth District supervisor was Gary Ovitt, the former Ontario mayor. Ovitt was not only a Republican, but was eligible, under the county’s term limit rule which had been enacted in 2006 and was applicable thereafter, to seek reelection in 2014 and again in 2018 before being termed out in 2022. To run in 2014, Hagman would have to displace a member of his own party, a move not readily accepted within Republican circles.
A decade previously, the county’s Republican leadership, which was later discredited and removed from authority over the party, had consented to the party siding with one Republican over another or set of Republicans over another set of Republicans during primaries. That practice had come to a halt, however, when Robert Rego had been chosen as the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. Rego’s first priority was promoting the Republican Party, which meant electing Republicans and keeping them in office. Not only had Rego, a certified public accountant extremely conscious of the importance of funding and fundraising in a political context, emphasized the importance of the local party building up a substantial amount of money to carry out campaigns promoting Republican candidates and initiatives embraced by the GOP, he had insisted on discontinuing the immediate past practice of allowing county Republican Central Committee money being used against Republican candidates in primary elections. Generally speaking, the strategy under Rego was that incumbent Republicans, who had by definition demonstrated their electability, were to be supported by the party apparatus. In primary elections where there was no Republican incumbent involved, the party was to steer of taking sides. The San Bernardino County Republican Party’s official policy while Rego was at the helm was that in the primary elections held in March in presidential election years and June in gubernatorial election years, Republican candidates would vie against one another without the party becoming involved with endorsements or monetary contributions of any sort, such that, hopefully at least, the best Republican candidate would rise on his or her own merits to the top. The basic understanding was that where an incumbent with a demonstrated track record of winning was seeking reelection, loyal Republicans would stand down, not challenge the incumbent and for the good of the party jump in to help the incumbent perpetuate his or her incumbency. At that point, after the primary was concluded, going forward toward the November general election, the party money and endorsements would be brought to bear in favor of the Republican candidate vying for whatever position was at state, be it for the school district board, water district board, city council, mayor, county supervisor, Assembly member or California state senator.
For Hagman, his path forward was clear. The first order of business was that Rego would need to be deposed. Rego would not countenance a non-incumbent Republican running against a proven incumbent Republican. That meant, Hagman knew, the party would not get behind him challenging Ovitt.
In 2013, while he was yet in the Assembly and functioning largely from Sacramento, Hagman, assisted by his chief of staff, Mike Spence, targeted Rego for removal as the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. Hagman and Spence acted ruthlessly in dethroning Rego, who had done a masterful job during his tenure as chairman of transforming the central committee into an efficient fundraising machine that would be dedicated to the GOP cause. Hagman and Spence used both the carrot and the stick. The stick consisted of threats to Rego himself and his supporters that they would be transformed into party irrelevancies if they supported keeping Rego in the chairman’s post, intimating that Hagman’s ascendancy to the chairmanship was supported by the state party and therefore inevitable. When that eventuality occurred, they said, Hagman would purge the committee’s executive committee of Rego loyalists. This was matched with carrots, consisting of promises that if the committee members went along, those committee members who were part of the Rego Administration’s executive committee would keep their vaunted positions under Hagman. Rego himself was offered the position of treasurer if he gracefully acceded to being replaced as chairman by Hagman.
Ultimately, Rego deferred to Hagman and before 2013 was concluded, Hagman was central committee chairman.
Heading into 2014, Ovitt could feel the ground shifting below his feet. Gloria Negrete McLeod of Chino, a member of the Chaffey College Board of Trustees who successfully vied for the California Assembly in 2000, then ran, again successfully, for California State Senate in 2006 when she was termed out of the Assembly and then leapt into the U.S. Congress when then-New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, then a Republican, endowed her, a Democrat, with more than $3 million to challenge and defeat incumbent “Blue Dog” Democrat Congressman Joe Baca in 2012, opted to leave Congress after a single term and herself step backwards down the political evolutionary chain by running for Fourth District supervisor. While Ovitt confidently asserted he would be able to hold off Negrete McLeod’s challenge, he simultaneously found himself undercut by the reality that Hagman had commandeered control of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. As central committee chairman, Hagman was in a position to cut off a significant portion of the funding that would have otherwise been available to Ovitt and to deny Ovitt the endorsement of the Republican Party as well, while claiming that for himself. Running for reelection as supervisor was suddenly a way more dicey situation than it had been six months previously, Ovitt realized. He pulled out of the race.

There is no legal cap on how much cash an American citizen can take out of the United States. You can carry as much money as you want in U.S. or foreign currency, coins, traveler’s checks, money orders, or other monetary instruments However, federal law requires you to declare any amount over $10,000 USD (or the foreign equivalent) when you enter or leave the U.S. 

Three years after Chino Valley Unified School District adopted California’s first parental notification policy and then did much of the heavy lifting required to break the momentum of resistance to that change within the state’s public education, legislative, legal and court systems to keep that policy from being de-instituted, the Redlands school board is replicating that move.
Over the last decade, a secret that has been well kept from millions of parents of children attending California’s public schools is that at junior high school and high school campuses, students have been furnished with a “changing room,” a facility in which a student who had departed from home wearing clothes traditionally associated with his or her biological gender could change into clothes which by current stylistic and fashion trends are identified with the opposite gender and where, at the end of the school day, the student could change back into the clothes he or she was wearing upon leaving home that morning. Moreover, schools and teachers in California were required to treat transgender students according to their gender identity, addressing those students while on campus and in the classroom by the name and pronouns – she or he, him or her – or the proper first name each student specified. Further, while teachers were called upon to use the names and pronouns of the student’s choosing or preference in daily school room settings, those teachers were required, when meeting in person with the parents of a transgender student during back-to-school nights or parent-teacher conferences or in any written communications with the parents or their guardians, to refer to the students by the names given to them by their parents and make no mention of the student’s change in gender identity on campus.
On July 22, 2023, the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees voted 4-to-1 to adopt a parental notification policy, whereby the district’s teachers were required to inform parents within three days if one of their children assumed a gender identity different from the sexual identification they were given at birth and/or what appeared on his or her birth certificate. Continue reading →

Two pillars of the Yucaipa community who served on the city council and the planning commission during the initial decade of the city’s existence as a municipality died within five days of one another earlier this month.
Diane Smith, who was a councilwoman from 2000 to 2004 and again from 2008 to 2012 and previous to that had served as a member of the planning commission from 1995 to 2000, died on July 9, 2026,
Four days later, on July 14, 2026, Dick Riddell, who was a member of the city council for a quarter of a century from 1995 to 2020, including 14 years as mayor, joined Smith in eternity.
Smith was 77. Riddell was 101.
In recognizing Riddell’s time in public office and his contributions during his lifetime, the city put out a statement remarking on his “decades of dedicated public service and unwavering commitment to the community,” which, it said, “helped shape the City of Yucaipa into the beautiful community it is today.”
After graduating from San Bernardino High School in June 1942, Riddell, who was born on March 28, 1925, enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17 and was trained as radio and signals operator before being assigned to a Naval Arm­ed Guard unit. That unit escorted cargo ships, generally in the Pacific Theater, and Riddell steamed to Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, Gilbert Islands, Guam, Saipan and Tinean in the Marianna Islands, New Cal­edonia, New Hebrides, Tulagi, Australia, including Melbourne, Ade­laide and Port Pirie, as well as Finchhaven and Milne Bay in New Guinea. Over the course of the war, Riddell estimated, he sailed on more than 15 ships and covering over 200,000 nautical miles, with an occasional foray through the Panama Canal to protect cargo ships in the Atlantic and Caribbean.
After he discharged from the Navy, Riddell returned to San Bernardino, where he attended San Bernardino Valley College and then matriculated at Redlands University earning both Bach­elors and Masters degrees in management. He and his wife Cherry married in 1948. They had four children. Continue reading →

City officials in Adelanto, Chino Hills and Highland, having seen their counterparts in 12 other cities cozen their residents into accepting an increase in sales tax, have set about testing whether their constituents will hold still for upping the sales tax they pay.
At the same time, while there was serious discussion in recent months about increasing the current sales tax in Victorville and Hesperia, a vote by the people of those cities to bring that about won’t occur this year.
In California historically, its residents were subject to a 2.5 percent sales tax in 1933. In 1935, California sales tax increased to 3 percent or three cents on the dollar. In 1943, the sales tax rate was knocked back to 2.5 percent.  In 1949, the state sales tax was increased to 3 percent. The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law was enacted in 1955. The law authorizes counties to impose a sales and use tax.  In 1962, the state sales tax increased to 4 percent or four cents on the dollar, based on 3 percent going to the state and 1 percent going to local governments. The same year, cities were authorized to collect up to one cent per dollar, or one percent in sales tax, if the residents of the city authorized doing so. In 1967, California’s state-imposed sales tax increased to 5 percent, with 4 percent routed to the state and 1 percent going to local governments. In 1972, the law was tweaked to drop the state’s share of property tax from 4 percent to 3.75 percent and increase the local government’s share from 1 percent to 1.25 percent, keeping the overall tax at 5 percent. In July 1973, the state sales tax was upped to 6 percent, with the state’s share increasing to 4.75 percent and the local sales tax remaining at 1.25 percent. In October 1973, the overall sales tax dropped to 5 percent, with the state’s share going down to 3.75 percent and the local share remaining at 1.25 percent. In 1974 the full sales tax was upped to 6 percent once more, with the state claiming 4.75 percent and 1.25 percent remaining for local governments. Continue reading →

The California State University system has reached a resolution with Cal State San Bernardino’s outgoing president that leaves the controversy around him and the questions about the cultural values he and the university are supposed to embody unresolved, while the state’s taxpayers foot the resultant $12.343 million bill.
On Wednesday, July 22, the California State University System announced the appointment of a new president for the San Bernardino campus. Terri Gomez, a 27-year veteran in higher education and a lifelong resident of the Inland Empire, is currently the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Cal Poly Pomona, a university statement said.
That move was intended to close out President Tomás Morales 14-year tenure at the head of the San Bernardino campus, a denouement that has been looked forrward to with ever greater intensity over the last several years, but which does not finish entirely Morales’ association with university, the university system and the San Bernardino community. It leaves in place a highly contradictory legend of aspiration and endeavorance toward the progressive ideals of academia compromised by chauvinistic insensitivity at odds with the revered halls of learning that the liberal circle he had been abstracted into idealized him as embodying.
Morales, who was the was president of the College of Staten Island, part of the City University of New York system, before he was appointed as the first Latino president of Cal State San Bernardino, was just the third Hispanic president in the California State University System, preceded only by Tomás A. Arciniega at California State University, Bakersfield in 1983 and Mildred García served as the president of California State University, Dominguez Hills from 2007 to 2012.
Morales’ installation at Cal State San Bernardino was considered to be very important within the social hierarchy that predominates among educators in California today. At the time of his hiring in 2012, his selection to head the San Bernardino campus was considered a major breakthrough.
Tom Rivera, who had been a Cal State San Bernardino dean, was among nearly two dozen Inland Empire educators and civic leaders who had written to state legislators, the Cal State University dean and the board of trustees urging them to consider a Latino candidate, and pressed for Morales’ hiring when he emerged as a candidate for the post. Having a Latino university president was considered more than a symbolic gesture. Cal State San Bernardino had the university system’s second-highest percentage of Latino students at 46 percent. It was believed that Morales could impart an understanding of the university’s demographics that others could not.
He was not new to California when he arrived in San Bernardino in 2012. From 2001 to 2007, Morales served in various capacities at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (CPP), including provost and vice president for academic affairs, vice president for student affairs, and professor of education. While at Cal Poly, he established the Kellogg Honors College, realigned the division of academic affairs and played a key role in completing a $23 million expansion of the Bronco Student Center, among other projects.
Prior to joining Cal Poly Pomona, Morales served as vice president for student affairs and dean of students at The City College of New York (CUNY). He holds a B.A. in history from SUNY, New Paltz, and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in educational administration and policy studies from SUNY, Albany.
Morales’ as Cal State San Bernardino president evinced a sensitivity that was considered important, or at least some thought. He pursued policies widely perceived as positive.
During Morales’ presidency, the university experienced financial and student growth, physical expansion, enhanced student support, and an intense focus on community engagement and diversity, the latter achievement extending to the creation of the Cal State SB Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board. The focus on student support Morales championed included the so-called Summer Bridge programs and strengthening ties with public K–12 school districts and community colleges in the Inland Empire to improve college attainment. He established the nonprofit Growing Inland Achievement to get more Inland Empire students into college. The university campus also began its first fundraising campaign that brought in $54 million, doubling the university’s endowment, thereby enhancing educational resources and campus facilities.
Under his leadership, 552,612 square feet of new space was added to both the San Bernardino and Palm Desert campuses, accommodating a growing student body.
In 2016, Mexico recognized Morales with the prestigious Ohtli Award, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed upon a foreign recipient. Morales was selected for that honorific for his ongoing service and dedication to education, empowering Hispanic students, and strengthening community ties in the region.
It would turn out, however, that even as Morales was making impressive strides in benefiting one class embraced by the liberal academic establishment – Hispanics – he found himself increasingly on the outs with not one but two other groups within the constellation of progressive adherents – women and the union representing college professors and the college’s administrators.
Two administrators in particular, former Cal State University San Bernardino Vice Provost Clare Weber and Anissa Rogers, formerly the associate dean of the university’s Palm Desert campus, came to loggerheads with Morales. In 2023, they sued the California State University system in separate legal action, alleging they were constructively discharge or forced into retirement upon making reports of gender inequities, discrimination and harassment.
Weber’s and Rogers’ suits alleged she suffered at the hands of then-Palm Desert Campus Dean Jake Zhu as well as Provost Rafik Mohamed, who served as the interim provost in 2022 and was appointed provost and vice president for the university’s division of academic affairs in January 2023. In those legal actions, which were filed separately but ultimately conjoined when they were settled, they alleged a pattern and practice of gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against female employees, and that she was terminated after raising concerns about unequal pay between male and female administrators. Mohamed led the university’s largest division, oversaw five academic colleges, its Extended and Global Education program and the Palm Desert Campus. Mohamed and Zhu retaliated against the two women, according to the suits, when Weber, who was characterized by her lawyer as “the lowest paid vice-provost in the CSU system” complained that female vice provosts employed at Cal State universities were underpaid in comparison to their male equivalents, and that this was particularly the case at the San Bernardino campus. Rogers alleged Zhu callously dismissed her complaints about male administrators berating a female employee during a 2021 meeting and then forced her into retirement. Morales did nothing to prevent Mohamed and Zhu from abusing Weber and Rogers, according to the suits.
According to the lawsuit, what Weber and Rogers were experiencing and Morales’ alleged failure to redress what was occurring were reported to then-interim Chancellor Jolene Koester, who likewise failed to stem the abuse. Instead, the suit alleges the university retaliated against Weber and Rogers for making an issue out of the circumstance.
When Rogers’ case went to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court in October 2025, she prevailed, with the jury awarding her $6 million on the basis of the emotional stress she had endured. A decision was made in March to settle Weber’s case for $6 million.
The San Bernardino Chapter of the California Faculty Association, which proved supportive of Weber and Rogers, has also taken the position that Morales’ administration of the college was less than stellar. It was Morales, according to the California Faculty Association, who was responsible for budget cuts to the university imposed by Sacramento after a state audit that found the university’s housing department was $8 million in debt.
Based upon incentive recruitment employment terms at the time of his hiring in 2012, Morales after a dozen years in the president’s post upon retirement can be deemed eligible for a one-time payment of up to a year of his current salary and placement into an academic position with the university or pursuit of a specialized educational project at the campus. Those incentive terms were eliminated by the Cal State system two years ago, and it was unclear whether the university system was obliged to honor them in Morales’ case. The California Faculty Association asserted that the incentives offered to university executives were conditional upon positive outcomes for the university. The erasure of the benefits generally based upon scandals involving other university presidents was justification for withdrawing them from Morales, the faculty union maintains. The California State University Board of Trustees should have exercise its discretion and denied Morales the benefits, the faculty union contended.
Instead, however, upon the appointment of Gomez as the president of the San Bernardino campus, it was announced by Chancellor Mildred Garcia that the university system will pay $343,920 in compensation to Morales, and that his “special academic assignment” will consist of serving as a consultant during a one-year transition from Morales’ stewardship of the university to
Garcia, antagonizing faculty members who believe Morales’ incompetence and abuse of university personnel has been glossed over by the university’s board, lionized during a board of trustees meeting for his “outstanding leadership at Cal State San Bernardino and systemwide.”
Top administrators with the California State University System, through spokeswoman Amy Bentley-Smith, said the Weber and Rogers’ lawsuits “did not result in any findings against him individually, and litigation outcomes do not determine an employee’s standing” and that the decision to settle Weber’s lawsuit before it went to trial was a strategic one “entered into to avoid further costs of litigation.” Bentley Smith said Morales remains in “good standing” as a university system employee and was entitled to a position with the university system and compensation upon his leaving as president.
Morales will not be required to be present on campus over the course of his one-year assignment during Gomez’s transition, but will be available to advise her. He will also “focus on advancing the CSU’s international engagement and strengthening global partnerships,” Garcia said. California Faculty Association San Bernardino Chapter President Tiffany Jones said the $343,920 payout to Morales for what is essentially a no-work assignment over the next year represents a “stunning failure of accountability and a direct betrayal of students, faculty, and staff. At a time when campuses face budget constraints, staffing shortages, and growing student needs, CSU resources must not be used to provide a financial cushion for failed leadership.”

With the filing period for the November election having opened, there is a tentative indication of how the matches for political leadership of the county at the local level is shaping up.
That filing period is to end on August 7 in most cases, but will be extended to August 12 for those contests in which the incumbent does not file for reelection.
In the City of Chino Hills, where Ray Marquez, Peter Rogers and Brian Johsz, respectively are due to stand for reelection this year in Districts 1, 2, and 4, the city is not making information relating to who has taken papers out to run for those positions available at this time.
In Chino, incumbent Councilman Marc Lucio has taken out candidate application papers in District, as has an individual with the last name of Alam and the initials M and S for his or her first name. Curtis Buron, the incumbent in District 2 has also taken nomination papers out, but like Lucio and Alam, has not returned them.
In Montclair, Mayor John Dutrey and council members Bill Ruh and Coryssa Martinez are up for reelection. All three are running and a challenger for city council, Victor Mendez, has emerged. It also appears, based on signage around the city, that there is an effort to recall incumbent Councilman Ben Lopez, who is not due to stand for reelection until 2028, ongoing.
Upland City Clerk Keri Johnson is refusing to disclose whether the three incumbents up for reelection this year – Second District Councilman James Breitling, Third District Councilman Carlos Garcia and Fourth District Councilman Rudy Zuniga – are seeking reelection and whether any opponents to them have emerged or who they are. Continue reading →

In an unprecedented development with a potential to erode an element of the overwhelming political advantage Democrats enjoy over Republicans in California, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber rejected approaching 150,000 of the mail-in ballots cast by California voters in the June 2 Primary.
Weber’s action was based on sound legal and procedural principles and well-supported factual considerations pertaining to the ballots themselves and their submission. Nevertheless, the application of the criteria, including the cut-off thresholds, used in ascertaining whether the mailed ballots initially deemed questionable that were received by election offices in all 58 of the state’s counties were ultimately to be counted or not counted involved a degree of judgment and interpretation on Weber’s part that she alone exercised. The 148,241 ballots that were not counted this year represented a 35.02 percent increase over the 108,982 mail ballot rejections in 2024 and a 40.09 percent increase over the 105,818 rejections in 2025.
Pregnant in the situation were a number of uncomfortable considerations. Quietly within its own limited circle, the Democratic political establishment in Sacramento, of which Weber is a part, expressed, if not disapproval, bewilderment at why she felt it necessary at this time to intensify the validity standard on mail-in ballots. While the Secretary of State’s Office did not identify how many of those 148,241 ballots that were not counted were sent in by voters registered with the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the American Independent Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Peace & Freedom Party, other more obscure parties or voters who declined to state any political affiliation, the widespread assumption is that a plurality of those rejections or, as likely, a majority of them, represented the votes of Democrats. Continue reading →

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIV SB 2618579,
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: Lauren Sanchez, filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Lauren Christine Sanchez to Lauren Christine Ervin, THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: 08/10/2026, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S33The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino District-Civil Division, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415, IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the SBCS ? Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 06/25/2026
Judge of the Superior Court: Joseph T Ortiz
Published in the SBCS Rancho Cucamonga on 07/03/2026, 07/10/2026, 07/17/2026, 07/24/2026,

NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL PROPERTY
CASE NO.: FAMSS 1303808
VICKY CENTER, Petitioner,
v.
ANDREW CENTER, Respondent
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment and Order on a Deed of
Trust issued by the Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, in the above entitled action, directing the enforcement of a Judgment entered on July 24, 2023 and
Amended February 26, 2025, the beneficiary, JAMES J. KENNY by and through his
attorney, Anderson & LeBlanc, APLC will sell at public auction to the highest bidder for
cash, cashier’s check, certified check, or other form of payment acceptable under California
law, all right, title, and interest of the judgment debtor in the following described real
property:
Property Address: 881 State Highway 173, Lake Arrowhead, California 92352
Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN): 0335-231-04-0-000
Legal Description: Lot 30 of Tract No. 8283, in the County of San Bernardino, State of California as per flat recorded in Book 115, Pages 49 to 55 inclusive of maps, in the Office of the County Recorder of said County.
Date of Sale: August 11, 2026
Time of Sale: 8:30 AM
Place of Sale: Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse 8303 Haven Ave. Rancho Cucamonga, California 91730 South Entrance
The property is being sold to satisfy a judgment in favor of the judgment creditor and against the judgment debtor, together with accrued interest, costs, and expenses of sale. Prospective purchasers are advised to independently investigate the nature, extent, and value of the interest being sold.
DATED: June 30, 2026
ANDERSON & LeBLANC, APLC
JEFF W. LeBLANC – STATE BAR NO. 253200
ADRIAN D. VERDUZCO – STATE BAR NO. 336027
RICHARD G. ANDERSON – STATE BAR NO. 041246 – OF COUNSEL ANDERSON & LeBLANC,
APLC
123 E. 9th Street, Suite 105 Upland, California 91786
Tel: (909) 949-2226 Fax: (909) 985-7553
Email: lawoffice@andersonleblanc.com
Attorneys for James J. Kenny
By: /S/ JEFF W. LeBLANC
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on July 3, 10, 17 & 24, 2026

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Concern regarding rare earth metal mining within the vast reaches of San Bernardino County’s outback is reviving.
That concern is vectored from two perspectives that are nearly at polar opposites of the political spectrum. Some have misgivings that the intensive disturbance of the soil, to include pit mining and hydraulicking involving vast amounts of water in an arid environment will ultimately redound in an ecological disaster. Others find it more disturbing that restrictions growing out of that environmental advocacy which are being imposed by both local and state government at present on what they consider to be an activity that has tremendous strategic importance for the Unitied States both economically and militarily are giving foreigners the upper hand in terms of access to a vital resource.
Rare earth metals, also referred to as lanthanides, are a set of 17 minerals – specifically scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, gadolinium, europium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, lutetium and ytterbium.
Prior to the late 19th Century, rare earth elements did not have a crucial or indispensable role in important applications. Rare earth metals first achieved significant industrial and consumer relevance in the 1890s when chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach utilized cerium and thorium to create the Welsbach gas mantle, which allowed for very bright gas-burning street lights. Welsbach thereafter developed “mischmetal,” an alloy of rare earths, which was widely used as flints in pocket cigarette lighters. The advent of color television in the 1950s and its refinement in the 1960s created unprecedented and enduring demand for europium, which creates a bright red illumination within television screens. Continue reading →