Less than a month after the Barstow City Council cited overriding considerations in disregarding ecological concerns to give approval to what was touted as being the world’s largest rail freight handling and truck transfer complex at a site on the city’s west side, a coalition of conservation and environmental groups and local residents has filed a lawsuit that seeks to block the $4 billion project.
In concert, Earth Justice, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice assert in a lawsuit filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court that the seven-square-mile project will weak havoc on the wildlife in the area of the Mojave Desert where it is to be established, exacerbate already dangerously intense air pollution and impose upon those living nearby serious health and safety hazards.
The Barstow International Gateway project is a 4,500-acre project that is to create an integrated rail facility, consisting of a new and separate rail yard than the one that already exists in the city, what is to entail an intermodal installation and warehouses for transloading freight from international ship containers to vessels suitable for domestic train or truck transport.
The facility will allow the direct transfer of containers from ships at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to trains for transport through the Alameda Corridor onto the Burlington Northern Santa Fe mainline up to Barstow. Once the containers reach the Barstow International Gateway, they will be processed at the facility using cargo-handling equipment powered by clean energy, and then staged and built into trains moving east via Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s network across the nation.
Touted as having a $1.5 billion baseline cost when the project was first unveiled in 2022, the evolving scope of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s plans have pushed the total estimated price of the undertaking to $4 billion. Whereas the proposal’s primary focus four years ago was on the core rail yard, transload warehouses, and the intermodal facility required to shift freight from international containers to domestic ones, the revised project reflects broader and more comprehensive goals that include extensive supplementary infrastructure. The higher price tag accounts for zero-emission cargo-handling equipment, channel upgrades to reduce regional flooding, roadway circulation enhancements, and the replacement of the Hinkley Road Bridge over the Mojave River.
The initial $1.5 billion estimate contained in the preliminary 2022 projection underwent a 266 percent increase by the time the comprehensive total investment package by Burlington Northern Santa Fe of $4 billion was given approval by the city on June 2, 2026.
A coalition of conservation and environmental justice groups within a month moved to file a lawsuit against the city of Barstow over its approval of the  BNSF’s Barstow International Gateway project, naming Burlington Northern Santa Fe as a real party in interest.
The groups claim the nearly 5,000-acre project, which will become the largest rail facility in the U.S., will devastate the Mojave Desert ecosystem, worsen air pollution, and pose serious health and environmental risks to nearby communities.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said the legal opposition flies in the face of the overwhelming support of the project expressed by state, county and local officials.
The Barstow International Gateway project is the first project certified by Governor Gavin Newsom under Senate Bill 149, which was intended to facilitate red-tape reduction within the administrative and judicial processes relating to transportation-related infrastructure improvements.
A noteworthy element of the Barstow International Gateway project is that from an overarching perspective, it will streamline the transportation of freight and reduce pollution, in particular diesel exhaust, nitrogen oxide emissions, carbon monoxide emissions, greenhouse gasses, particulate matter, ozone precursors, low-lying ozone and smog in general, in that it is part of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s more comprehensive goal of eliminating the need for containers on ships arriving at ports in Los Angeles County and Long Beach to be placed on trucks, which then separately remove the goods to hundreds of thousands of warehouses and factories where differing arrangements for their delivery elsewhere are effectuated. In this way, the Barstow International Gateway and its proposed function is linked to the San Pedro Bay Port Complex, which consists of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. Those ports are the two largest seaports in the United States and together handle approximately 40 percent of the nation’s waterborne cargo. Cargo arriving at the ports is presently transported throughout the region by rail and truck through an interconnected goods movement network.
Upon the completion of the Barstow International Gateway and the initiation of operations there, far fewer diesel-powered trucks will operate out of San Pedro and Long Beach, such that the vast majority of containers arriving by ship will be moved onto rail cars which are to convey them via the currently-underused Alameda Corridor to Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s proposed Barstow facility, which is to entail a 140-acre solar farm, multiple rooftop solar warehouses, solar rail yard canopies and other related infrastructure, powering non-polluting electric powered means of conveying the freight from the rail cars to trucks at that point. This will, according to Burlington Northern Santa Fe, result in 800,000 fewer diesel-powered truck trips between Long Beach/San Pedro and Barstow per year, reducing both freeway congestion and air pollution along that route.
Of note, nonetheless, is that despite the lessening of emissions into the air along the approximately 137 mile route between the Pacific Ocean and the Mojave Desert rail yard, there will be an immense concentration of trains and trucks at the Barstow International Gateway and a resulting increase of emissions at the project site, located generally north of Main Street, between Hinkley and Lenwood roads.
In California, development projects are subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, which calls for some order of an evaluation of the environmental impacts of any development to be carried out, which is supposed to outline what specific mitigation or mitigations of those impacts are going to be undertaken or, if the impacts cannot be offset or remedied, an acknowledgment that the impacts are unmitigable. The governing body with land use authority over the land where a project is to take place has the option, if it so chooses, to recognize that a project, despite involving environmental impacts and hazards which will go unredressed, nevertheless entails redeeming qualities and attributes which merit it being allowed to proceed. In the case of the Barstow International Gateway, the Barstow City Council, in deference to the pollution reduction elements of the plan to substantially reduce truck traffic and freeway congestion between the southwesternmost tip of Los Angeles County’s land mass and the High Desert, create substantial solutions to logistics and supply chain problems and serve to create approximately 20,000 new jobs in Barstow over the next ten to 20 years, made a declaration of overriding considerations relating to the environmental issues the project would entail and gave approval to the undertaking.
According to Earth Justice, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the statement of overriding considerations and approval of the project are not only on a trajectory to do irreparable harm to individuals who live in proximity to the project and a multitude of species in the area but the evaluation of the hazards was incomplete, such that report upon which the council’s action was taken did not accurately assess the level of damage the project represents.
Yasmine Agelidis, representing Earthjustice; Tyler Szeto and Colleen Fitzgerrell, representing the Sierra Club, East YardCommunities for Environmental Justice and the Natural Resources Defense Council; Alison Hahm, representing the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Peter Broderick and Seth Alston, representing the Center for Biological Diversity, in the lawsuit assert “The freight and logistics industry is one of the biggest polluters in Southern California. The goods movement industry contributes a significant amount of emissions near portside communities, Inland Empire residents, and individuals across the region. While the city and Burlington Northern Santa Fe tout this Project as a greenhouse gas-reducer because it will move goods by train rather than by truck, this oversimplifies and masks the project’s significant contributions to local and regional environmental pollution. The City of Barstow’s environmental impact report for the project concludes that at the height of operations, the Barstow International Gateway will emit over 550 tons of health-harming nitrogen oxide per year and burn approximately 18 million gallons of diesel per year. These figures are jarring, but they severely underestimate the project’s environmental impacts on Barstow and the surrounding Southern California community. Instead of performing an honest assessment of the project’s impacts, the environmental impact report relies on faulty assumptions and makes promises outside of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s control to claim the Barstow International Gateway will reduce tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel consumption per year. The city’s environmental impact report analysis lacks substantial evidence and must be corrected. To make matters worse, the final environmental impact report alters some of the draft environmental impact report’s most critical conclusions without explanation, and without recirculating the document for full public review and comment.”
In illustration, Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston state that “Whereas the draft environmental impact report concluded the project will decrease fuel consumption by 5 million gallons of diesel per year compared to existing conditions, the final environmental impact report newly determined without justification that the project will increase diesel fuel usage by over 3 million gallons per year compared to existing conditions. This 8-million-gallon difference in annual diesel fuel consumption certainly amounts to significant new information that required environmental impact report recirculation.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, the project’s untoward effects are not confined to the people living in Barstow but extend to flora and fauna in the environs of Barstow.
“In addition to the region-wide and global harms posed by the project’s air pollution greenhouse gas impacts, the construction and operation of these facilities will transform the local landscape of Barstow and the Mojave Desert,” the lawsuit states. “The project will destroy or degrade thousands of acres of habitat relied upon by numerous special-status wildlife species and native plants, and will imperil the adjacent Mojave River, a critical water source for both people and wildlife in the arid region. The environmental impact report fails to adequately address or reduce these harms.”
Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston hold that the project will severely impact the quality of life of those living in proximity to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railyard facility that is to be created.
Further, beginning during construction and continuing throughout operations, railyard and warehouse facilities will impose huge burdens on nearby communities “due to constant light, noise, dust, and traffic; all of which are impacts the city refused to mitigate through feasible measures or alternative designs,” the lawsuit states. “On June 2, 2026, the city council approved the Barstow general plan update, which takes actions to accommodate the Barstow International Gateway Project and forecasts Barstow’s significant development over the next 25 years. The massive BIG [Barstow International Gateway] project will move shipping containers from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach 130 miles to the High Desert town of Barstow, where goods will be repackaged before they are shipped nationwide. Likewise, goods will travel from the rest of the nation to Barstow and then onwards to the Ports. The Barstow International Gateway will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. BIG will use diesel locomotives, diesel trucks, and diesel railyard equipment, all of which contribute significant amounts of pollution to a region already plagued by the nation’s worst air quality. Specifically, the project proponent, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, intends to operate diesel switcher locomotives, which are locomotives that move trains within the railyard itself; a ‘captive fleet’ of diesel line-haul locomotives to travel back and forth from the ports to Barstow on a closed loop; diesel line-haul locomotives to travel to and from the project from the east; and diesel railyard equipment, such as rubber-tired gantry cranes and transport refrigeration units to manage goods at the project site. The Barstow International Gateway will also receive hundreds of trucks per day, all of which are expected to be fueled by diesel. The city, as the lead agency for the Project, must prepare a California Environmental Quality Act environmental review disclosing the project’s environmental impacts for public review and comment, and must adopt all feasible mitigation measures to reduce the project’s significant environmental impacts to the extent feasible.”
Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston said the city could and should have required, in giving go-ahead to the project, that Burlington Northern Santa Fe dispense with diesel-powered train engines in favor of ones running on electricity.
They maintain that “the project is ideally suited to operate entirely—or at least partially—with non polluting equipment, including switcher locomotives, ‘captive fleet’ locomotives, railyard equipment, and trucks. In fact, on June 5, 2026, the South Coast Air Quality Management District awarded $190 million for 31 battery-electric switcher locomotives and supporting charging infrastructure, the largest award of its kind. Electric freight locomotives are also widely used around the world, and there are more than 2,500 non-polluting heavy-duty trucks operating across the country today. The Barstow International Gateway project was proposed and paid for by Burlington Northern Santa Fe, one of the largest Class I railroads in the United States, which enjoyed net profits exceeding $5.475 billion last year. Despite repeated attempts for years by members of the public and the Sierra Club, the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Center for Biological Diversity, collectively the ‘petitioners,’ requesting the city address the deficiencies in its California Environmental Quality Act environmental review for the project, the city failed to, among other issues, adequately disclose, analyze, and mitigate environmental impacts before approving the project. The city’s findings and statement of overriding considerations, adopted in connection with the project, are also invalid both because they unlawfully purport to override impacts that can and should have been analyzed and mitigated more fully and because they are not based on substantial evidence supporting either the purported benefits of the project or the environmental effects being outweighed, including the adverse economic consequences of such effects. For all these reasons, we ask this court to issue a writ of mandate directing the city to vacate and set aside its approval of the project, certification of the environmental impact report, adoption of related findings, statement of overriding considerations, and mitigation monitoring and reporting program.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, both Barstow officials and Burlington Northern Santa Fe took advantage of those who are to be most directly impacted by the project because those being hurt most are too impoverished and unsophisticated to fight back and are in large numbers what are defined as “protected racial and ethnic minorities.”
“Approximately 25,415 people reside in Barstow, including over 40 percent Hispanic or Latino residents and over 19 percent Black or African American residents,” according to the lawsuit. “Only 13.2 percent of Barstow residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher coupled with a median household income of $53,380 compared to the $100,149 median household income in California. An estimated 23.1 percent of the population earn income below the federal poverty level. CalEnviroScreen, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s health screening tool, identifies census tracts in Barstow as having an overall pollution burden as high as in the 86th percentile, meaning these census tracts experience more pollution than 86 percent of all census tracts in the state. The area also has census tracts that are in the 99.9th percentile for asthma and cardiovascular disease. Residents in and near the project area are exposed to more diesel particulate matter than 97.8 percent of census tracts, more ozone than 87.8 percent of census tracts, and more traffic impacts than 73.5 percent of census tracts. The Mojave Desert exceeds federal public health standards for ozone and particulate matter.”
Barstow municipal officials shortchanged the community by failing to carry out an adequate assessment of the environmental impacts of the project, Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston maintain.
“On or about February 15, 2024, the city issued a notice of preparation of a draft environmental impact report and notice of public scoping meeting for the project,” the lawsuit states. “On or about March 13, 2024, the city held a public scoping meeting for the project. On or about November 9, 2025, the city issued a notice of availability of the draft environmental impact report. On or about November 10, 2025, the city released the draft environmental impact report and circulated the document for a 56-day public comment period for the project. On or about November 13, 2025, the city issued a notice of completion of the draft environmental impact report. On or about November 21, 2025, petitioners submitted a written request that the city extend the comment period by an additional 45 days to allow for adequate evaluation of the lengthy, complex, and highly technical draft environmental impact report, particularly in light of the federal government shutdown, attacks by the federal government on communities impacted by the project, the lack of Spanish translation of the draft environmental impact report, and the comment period falling largely over the holiday season. On or about December 30, 2025, 6 days before the original deadline and 39 days after petitioners submitted their request for an extension, the city extended the public comment period for the draft environmental impact report from January 5, 2026, to January 12, 2026. Numerous organizations, individuals, and agencies, including CARB [the California Air Resources Board] and and SCAQMD [the South Coast Air Quality Management District], submitted comments highlighting flaws in the draft environmental impact report.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, “The draft environmental impact report is internally inconsistent regarding the project’s truck trips. The draft environmental impact report estimated the Barstow International Gateway would process 108,405 trucks per year in 2028, 137,605 in 2033, and 169,725 in 2048, but also stated the project will move significantly higher numbers of containers by trucks—128,000 in 2028, 160,000 in 2033, and 200,000 in 2048. Reasonably assuming one container per truck, these figures cannot be reconciled, and the draft environmental impact report offers no explanation for this disparity. By presenting contradictory, unexplained, and misleading information regarding the number of the project’s train trips, the draft environmental impact report fails to provide an accurate, stable, and finite project description. For example, the draft environmental impact report is internally inconsistent, without explanation, regarding the number of trains that will pass through the Barstow International Gateway over the course of the project’s lifespan. At one point, the draft environmental impact report anticipated 24 daily freight train pass-bys in 2028 and 35 in 2048. At another point, the draft environmental impact report assumed 32 trains per day as a present-day baseline and anticipated 37 trains per day in 2028, amounting to a 5-train per day increase. At yet another point, the draft environmental impact report assumed the existing trains per day total 45.3, and that this will increase with the Barstow International Gateway to 134.9 trains per day in 2048, amounting to nearly 90 additional trains per day. The draft environmental impact report’s project description for the Barstow International Gateway is inaccurate and severely underestimates the project’s impacts by relying on faulty and inaccurate assumptions in the trucks analysis, which underpins the project’s entire environmental impact analysis. For example, the trucks analysis relied on nationwide ‘reduced on-road truck trips’ and ‘reduced diesel fuel usage’ figures without adequate justification, and this conceals the true, localized impacts on Barstow and the surrounding region. The trucks analysis also rests on unenforceable assumptions that Burlington Northern Santa Fe will not replace supposed truck trip reductions by increasing cargo volumes at Burlington Northern Santa Fe railyards in the region. Moreover, because the trucks analysis failed to disclose critical information, including where the project will generate additional truck trips, omitted sources, underlying data, and assumptions, and presented an incoherent, scattered document that is not accessible to the public, the draft environmental impact report’s project description is inaccurate, inconsistent, and unstable.”
Those seeking to prevent the project from proceeding are the ones shortchanging the Barstow community, Southern California and the entire nation, according to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad spokeswoman Lena Kent. The $4 billion investment into the facility in Barstow will be a boon to the local economy, bringing in much-needed employment to the area, she insisted. Furthermore, Kent said, “The Barstow International Gateway will allow for fast, efficient and cost competitive rail service, moving goods on trains directly from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through the underutilized Alameda Corridor to Barstow.”
Kent emphasized that what Burlington Northern Santa Fe is offering to Barstow and the Mojave Desert is “a state of the art master planned intermodal facility, with fully integrated rail and transload capability for a streamlined supply chain. This will include on-site warehouse development, access to the fastest intermodal route and the world’s largest hub network and a more sustainable supply chain solution.”

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” – Yogi Berra

In what is for San Bernardino County a rare effort, one that is considered by the community’s social and political establishment hopelessly quixotic, the incumbent county treasurer/auditor is contesting the outcome of last month’s primary election in which he was defeated.
At issue in the challenge is not the accuracy of the tally of votes received by Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Ryan Hutchison or current San Bernardino County Treasurer-Tax Collector/Auditor-Controller Ensen Mason in the balloting that corresponded to and concluded with the June 2, 2026 California Primary Election. Rather, Mason is seeking exacting scrutiny of Hutchison’s qualifications and bona fides as a financial professional whose skill in number crunching and money management would ensure that he can carry out the heavy load of assignments demanded by the four separate assignments with which the voters entrusted him over the upcoming four years from January 2027 until January 2031.
Mason has brought the matter foursquare into public consciousness through a lawsuit, the second one he has filed relating to Hutchison’s ability to perform in the capacities he is now otherwise due to take on as of January 2, 2027. In the previous proceeding, Mason raised the same issues at play in the current legal battle, which provoked arguments that sufficed in convincing Superior Court Judge Stephanie Tañada, who heard the case in April, to leave Hutchison’s name on the ballot and to allow the voters to make the decision as to who will oversee disbursements from and through the county’s annual $10.9 billion budget and the management of its $15 billion investment pool. Judge Tañada’s decision more than three months ago, however, was made during a time-compressed window in which the court was seeking to meet a pressing deadline imposed by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office so it could meet its target date by which it was to finalize the form of the ballots that had to be printed for the June 2 election. Continue reading →

The City of Redlands has issued $76.645 million in certificates of participation.
According to limited information put out by the city, the money generated by the certificates of participation will be utilized to finance the construction of municipal capital improvements, including a police headquarters.
The former police station, known as the Safety Hall located at Brookside Avenue and Eureka Street, was closed in 2008 due to unsafe structural conditions. The building was subsequently demolished, and the city sold the vacant property in 2016 to help fund a new headquarters.
In 2021, the city acquired for $16.1 million the Kmart building and its parking lot located on Redlands Boulevard at Alabama Street which had been closed in 2018. In December 2021, the city said its intent was to convert the building and the premises into a police station. In the five years since, however, that changeover has not taken place. The city has committed to entirely demolishing the Kmart building and erecting in its place the Redlands Safety Hall with the address of 1625 West Redlands Boulevard at a cost of $93 million. Representing as being what is cataloged as a “centralized facility” it will include a single-story 65,000 square foot-police building and presumably a separate building to house the fire department’s administration. The site, to be surrounded by an 8-foot perimeter security wall, will feature new parking areas, solar canopies, along with secure equipment and evidence storage. In May, the Kmart building was razed, and preparation for construction on the property is underway, with a completion date set for October 2028. Continue reading →

For the first time in his more than seven years as a member of the California Legislature, Assemblyman James Ramos is encountering intense opposition to his efforts to pass a law having a direct bearing on an issue related to empowering Native Americans residing in the Golden State.
Since his election to the California Assembly in 2018, James Ramos has compiled a remarkable, indeed unrivaled, track record of sponsoring and gaining passage of legislation pertaining to the state’s indigenous population. This is undoubtedly an outgrowth of his status as the California Legislature’s first and yet only lawmaker who is a member of a Native American tribe.
Two key elements of Ramos’s success in this regard consists of his being a member of the Democratic Party, which dominates politics in California, and that party’s affinity for identity politics. Moreover, Ramos has capitalized on the willingness of the state’s current political leadership to erase, counter, reverse or eradicate prejudice against Native Americans that historically existed in the state, including policies that outright discriminated against American Indians that were codified into law by both the upper and lower houses of the California Legislature in the past. Consequently, there was no resistance, or at least no effective resistance, to the bills he authored and introduced, up until now. Continue reading →

Jashanpreet Singh, whose big rig traveling in excess of 60 miles per hour plowed into three vehicles at a standstill on the 10 Freeway and then careened across two lanes of traffic and utterly destroyed two further vehicles while killing three motorists and injuring four others last October, has quietly pleaded guilty to three felony counts of vehicular manslaughter.
The resolution of the criminal charges against the 21-year-old Singh, who came into the country illegally by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 and began illicitly operating tractor trailers before reaching the age of majority and without having proper licensure or a full understanding of the English language, leaves a multitude of questions unanswered.
A video taken by a dash cam inside the cab of the Freightliner that Singh was driving westbound on the 10 Freeway near the 15 Freeway Interchange on October 21, 2025 provides a perspective on the roadway in front of the speeding truck in the seconds leading up to the collision, the collision itself and its immediate aftermath. The video’s field of view was virtually indistinguishable from what Singh would have seen as the driver, if he were in fact conscious or not in some way distracted.
That dash cam video, obtained by the Sentinel, shows the red Freightliner tractor in the number five lane on the seven-lane westbound portion of the freeway, counting the two high occupancy/toll lanes to the left/south as the number one and two lanes, traveling at a high rate of speed estimated to be no less than 63 miles per hour, failing to brake entirely as it runs into the back of and obliterates a white Kia Sorento that had been at a full stop for several seconds before the impact. The video shows the Freightliner continuing into the back of a white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, which is hit hard and reels to the left as the Freightliner continues unabated into the backside of another semi-tractor-pulled trailer, the rear of which momentarily lifts into the air upon impact. The momentum of the Freightliner at that point was diminished somewhat, though it pitches to the right across two lanes of traffic where it ran into the front of a disabled tractor connected to a long flatbed trailer and the back of a service truck in front of the disabled tractor that were in place on the shoulder of the freeway while work was being done on the disabled tractor. The disabled tractor’s front hood was draped open forward so a roadside mechanic could get access to its engine. The opened hood appeared to have been clipped and destroyed along with major elements of the tractor’s engine in the crash.
The collision resulted in at least one of the vehicles, or what was left of it, igniting. Killed instantly were 76-year-old Clarence Nelson, a former assistant basketball coach at Pomona High School, and his 69-year-old wife, Lisa Nelson. A third person, 54-year-old Jaime Flores Garcia, who was grievously injured, was transported to a hospital, where he later died. There were at least four people injured other than those killed, one seriously.
Officers with the California Highway Patrol determined that Singh, whose residence in the United States was given as in Yuba City, was at the wheel of the Freightliner when the collision took place at around 1:10 p.m. on October 21, 2025. In relatively short order, Highway Patrol investigators were able to obtained the dash cam video from the Freightliner’s cab.
Remarkably, the truck Singh was in sustained less damage overall than three of the vehicles involved in the wreck and experienced no more damage than did two of the others.
Singh came away from the crash relatively intact, with only a minor contusion. Based not only on an objective assessment of his condition after the crash but on the analysis of the dash cam footage, Singh was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and three counts of manslaughter.
In California, driving while intoxicated in a situation in which a collision results in death can be prosecuted as murder or gross vehicular manslaughter. Anticipating that toxicology tests on blood that was drawn from Singh would confirm he was intoxicated, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was loading up to pursue a murder conviction against him.
In a blow to the credibility of the Highway Patrol and the district attorney’s office, toxicology tests determined there was no alcohol or illicit drugs present in Singh’s blood at the time the blood was drawn, less than two hours after the collision took place. This presented complications with regard to how prosecutors were to proceed against him.
The driving under the influence counts were dropped, but the district attorney’s office pressed forward with the three aforementioned counts of manslaughter in addition to three counts of VC23558-E: causing bodily injury or death; and two counts of PC12022.7(A)-E: great bodily injury on a person.
The matter was complexified by an intense power struggle that was unfolding between federal and state authorities as the case against Singh was being initiated in earnest.
Singh in 2022 came to the United States illegally, entering across the Mexican border. He was an unregistered alien and went to work that year as a truck driver, despite being underage and undocumented. He subsequently applied for asylum, but was yet an unregistered alien.
Soon after Donald Trump’s second go-round as U.S. President began in January 2025, his administration initiated a crackdown on illegal immigration into the country. An element of that enforcement effort related to the upsurge of foreigners, many of them undocumented, who had found employment in the trucking industry. In 2000, roughly 310,000 of the 2.6 million truck drivers in the United States were foreign-born. In 2025, the number of truck drivers in the country had grown to 3.55 million. Of those, roughly 639,000 had been born outside of the United States. Some 22 percent or 140,589 of those had become, as of last year, naturalized citizens. Another 37 percent of those foreign-born drivers, 236,430, had visas allowing them to be in, and remain in, the country. The remaining 41 percent of truck drivers in the country who had been born on foreign soil – 261,990 – were in the country illegally or as undocumented aliens.
In California, particularly under Governor Gavin Newsom, the state government had taken a laissez-faire posture with regard to many of those drivers not being naturalized citizens and having no visas. The Trump Administration had a demonstrably different attitude. Its position was that the 261,990 truck drivers in the country illegally or who were otherwise categorized as undocumented aliens should have their commercial driving licenses revoked and be deported.
Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, took steps to enforce a requirement that truckers speak and read English proficiently. According to the Transportation Department, achieving minimal literacy on the part of truck drivers was a necessary element in a program to improve road safety.
In July 2025, Duffy said the Transportation Department carried out a “spot review” of 145 commercial driving licenses issued to foreigners. Of those, he said, 36 should not have been issued. Extrapolating on the results of that review, nearly one quarter of the foreign-born truck drivers in the country had insufficient skills or training or were otherwise incapable of being licensed to operate the road machinery they were driving on a regular basis, according to the federal government.
Following that review, the Transportation Department issued an order, signed by Duffy, which went into effect on September 26, 2025, calling upon individual states to rescind the commercial driver licenses they had issued to non-citizens.
There was rancorous partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats on that issue.
California officials said Duffy and other federal officials were overreacting and that positions within America’s vast logistics industry such as those of truck driver represented an excellent entrance opportunity for those immigrants seeking to integrate themselves and their families into American society as newcomers to the country.
The Transportation Department under President Trump and Duffy also grew serious about enforcing long-standing regulations with regard to drivers considered too young to drive commercially. Traditionally, commercial driver licenses, which permit a holder to drive large rigs across state lines, are issued only to those 21 years of age or older. There is, however, an exemption made for those 18-through-20 years of age taking part in the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Program. Involvement in that program requires adhering to certain strict guidelines, including constant supervision, as well as registration requirements.
Singh was born on October 15, 2004 and began working as a commercial driver sometime in the summer of 2022, when he was still 17. Thus, until just seven days before he killed three people and injured four others, October 14, the day before his 21st birthday on October 15, 2025, Singh was in violation of two provisions of the law relating to commercial truck drivers, and had eluded being subjected to those regulations, meant to enhance the safety of the nation’s highways, largely because of the lax nature of California’s policies.
Shortly after he arrived in the United States, Singh began driving large two axle vehicles, including stake bed and box trucks. It appears that he was doing so without having first obtained a standard, noncommercial Class C license, the basic licensure for all drivers in California. Without being registered as an alien present in the country, he thereafter obtained a standard Class C license. It was during this time that he first began driving three-axle commercial vehicles. He was doing so without having a commercial Class B license, which applies to 3-axle vehicles weighing over 6,000 pounds or two-axle vehicles with a gross vehicular weight of up to 10,000 pounds, as well as without having a Class A license, applying to any single vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds and semi-trucks.
He began driving semi-trucks without having the requisite Class A license and before obtaining a Class B license. Ultimately, by 2024, the State of California issued him a Class A license, with which he was authorized to drive semi-tractors pulling trailers. It is not clear how he was able to obtain that license after having, on numerous occasions, driven vehicles he was not licensed to operate.
Moreover, there are multiple indications that Singh had demonstrated a degree of disregard for traffic laws and the safety of other motorists and himself. The Sentinel, which confined itself to researching the traffic citations issued to Singh in San Bernardino County alone, uncovered ten citations for traffic law violations issued to him in the two-and-a-half years before the October 21, 2025 collision.
San Bernardino County Superior Court records show that of the ten citations he was issued while he was operating a big rig over that two-and-a-half year span, two of those matters were dismissed, he was convicted or entered guilty pleas on five and three had yet to be fully adjudicated as of the October 21, 2025 incident.
At the Fontana Courthouse, he was acquitted of a charge of violating VC22348(C)-I: operating a vehicle out of its designated lane that was filed against him on April 26, 2023.
On July 11, 2023, September 10, 2024 and October 8, 2024, Singh was charged with violating VC22406(A)-I, exceeding the maximum speed allowable for trucks. In each case he appeared at the Needles Courthouse to answer those charges and was ultimately convicted.
On October 7, 2024, he was charged with violating VC21460(A)-I, riding left of a double yellow line. He answered that charge at the Joshua Tree Courthouse and was acquitted.
On February 27, 2025 he was once more charged with speeding. He appeared in Needles Traffic Court to answer that charge, entering a not guilty plea, and the matter is yet to adjudicated.
On April 18, 2025, he was again charged with exceeding the maximum speed allowable for trucks. He was convicted of that charge in Needles Traffic Court.
On May 1, 2025 and again on May 26, 2025, he was charged with speeding while operating a commercial vehicle. Both of those matters were scheduled to be heard in Needles Traffic Court, on dates after his October 2025 arrest and incarceration.
On July 10, 2025, he was issued a citation for not having an operator’s license, driving a vehicle for which the registration fees were delinquent and not having evidence of insurance coverage. He failed to appear on that matter at the Fontana Courthouse on October 10, 2025. No bench warrant was issued, but a courtesy notice was sent to his home in Yuba City.
These are citations issued only in San Bernardino County and do not include citations issued in any of California’s 57 other counties or in states outside of California.
Following his arrest on October 21, 2025, Singh had, as of June 16, 2026, remained in custody 238 days on a no-bail hold. That day, June 16, he appeared in Department R-2 in the West Valley Justice Center in Rancho Cucamonga before Judge Katrina West. Present were Deputy District Attorney Jamie Cimino, who had been prosecuting the case against him from the outset and Deputy Public Defender Jason Tucker. Tucker had representing Singh, along with Deputy Public Defender Zoe Korpi, who had also previously served as his defense counsel.
Based on a deal arrived at between Tucker and Cimino, Singh entered guilty pleas to three counts of felony PC192(C)(1), vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. As part of the deal, the prosecution dropped a VC23103(A)-23105-F charge of felony reckless driving, a vehicle code violation; and dropped two PC12022.7(A)-E sentencing enhancements that could have added three to five years each onto his prison term.
Judge West ordered him to appear again before her on July 14 for sentencing.
The matter pertaining to Singh in San Bernardino County appears to be drawing to a close without any trial, which is depriving the public of an explanation as to precisely what was going on in the cab of the Freightliner that Singh was operating on October 21, 2025, and whether he had completely abandoned the wheel, was incapacitated in some fashion, was dealing with unresponsive controls, had fallen asleep or was otherwise unconscious. The video shows the truck rushing headlong onto the completely immobile line of traffic in front of it. While the truck remains on a perfectly straight course within its lane, the throttle or accelerator remains fully engaged and there is absolutely no indication that braking of any sort occurred.
During his first court appearance in October, it was revealed Singh was in need of a Punjabi translator for his subsequent court appearances. This has been widely taken as an indication that his skill with English was insufficient to have allowed him to read the California Driver Handbook.
There has been no indication that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is contemplating any action with regard to the state offices or bureaus or officials who granted Singh his commercial truck driver license.
The federal government, however, appears intent on following through with some order of action against Singh, who was born in India and has lodged a request for asylum, despite his having come into the country illegally and having consistently failed to apply for legal visiting status.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Singh illegally entered the United States in 2022 and remained present in the country without authorization thereafter. The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has requested a detainer of Singh from state authorities, including the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which is housing him at its High Desert Detention Facility, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which will presumably accept him after his sentencing. The detainer requests federal authorities be given notification at least 48 hours in advance of Singh’s release from local or state custody. That is an indication that federal authorities are looking to apprehend him and either question him, perhaps extensively, about his entry into the country and whom he might have networked with to do so and remain in California unregistered and undetected, or to perhaps initiate deportation proceedings against him, or both.
-Mark Gutglueck

A July 4 fireworks explosion at ground level in a residential neighborhood in Chino killed a 23-year-old woman and sent two other adults to the hospital with what were described as “severe” injuries. A child, who was nearby but at a slightly greater distance from the explosion when the detonation occurred, was also transported to a local hospital for evaluation and has since been released to a parent.
On Saturday, July 4, 2026, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Chino police and fire department personnel responded to a reported vehicle fire in the 5600 block of D Street.
Upon arrival, public safety employees discovered that an explosion had occurred and several people had been injured. First aid was rendered to multiple victims. As a result of the explosion, a nearby vehicle also became engulfed in flames.
Based on the preliminary investigation by the Ontario Fire Department’s bomb squad, it appears a large quantity of fireworks ignited, causing the explosion.
The Chino Police Department’s investigation resulted in Derion Tradon James Jr., a 28-year-old Hesperia resident, being detained at the scene and later being booked at the West Valley Detention Center for Penal Code section 192(b), involuntary manslaughter. James was released from custody on July 6, upon posting $50,000 bail. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is evaluating the matter for the applicability of criminal charges against him.
The Los Angeles County Office of the Medical Examiner, which is conducting the death investigation, identified Leslie Viguerias Bustos of Hesperia, a 23-year-old Hispanic female, as the deceased. Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Emily Lo gave “blast injuries” as the cause of death and the manner of death as an “accident.”

SECOND AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIV SB 2614066,
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: ROMAN BISHOP HILL filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: ROMAN BISHOP HILL to ROMAN BISHOP EPPS
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: 07/27/2026, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S31
The 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  San Bernardino County Sentinel once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 06/12/2026
Judge of the Superior Court: JOSEPH T. ORTIZ
Erika Hernandez, Deputy Clerk of the Superior Court
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on June 19 & 26 and July 3 & 10, 2026

FBN20260004086
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
ALLIED TOWING [and] ALLIED HEAVY DUTY TOWING 1335 W RIALTO AVE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410: ALLIED TOWING, LLC SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
Business Mailing Address: 1335 W RIALTO AVE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
The business is conducted by: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY registered with the State of California under the number 201917010092
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: July 19, 2024.
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/ JOSE RODARTE, Managing Member
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/04/2026
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 K9232
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 May 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2026. Corrected on June 19 & 26 and July 3 & 10, 2026.

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Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner is on the brink of being overtaken by events following his decision last year, 31 years after he was first elected to the city council, to run for mayor.
There were two primary factors and several smaller considerations in Wapner opting to seek the mayoralty at this juncture. One was his sense that upon turning 70 this year, the sands in the top half of his political career hourglass are nearly depleted and he has already waited far too long in claiming the mayoral title which he believes is rightly his. The second major factor was his belief that his relative strength vis-à-vis Paul Leon, who has monopolized the mayor’s post at this point for 21 years, has grown to the point that he can exploit what he takes to be the incumbent’s current, ongoing and long-dormant weaknesses.
Foremost in Wapner’s panoply is his readiness, or the readiness of his supporters, to revive a womanizing scandal that in the early going of Leon’s run as mayor crippled but did not topple him. Wapner now stands ready, with the funding and resolve, to vector attention to that now obscure matter in a way that will make it impossible for Ontario’s voters to not know about that nadir in Leon’s tenure as the city’s leader.
Unbeknownst to Wapner and his circle of supporters, however, is that the below-the-belt tactic he is set to utilize in vanquishing his rival is about to be turned on him, and in a way he will be unable to deflect, given that his own improper behavior involved an underage girl whose care and protection had been entrusted to him.
Over the last two decades, Leon and Wapner have stood at the apex of the Ontario community, both politically and in a larger social context. Because of Ontario’s position as the wealthiest of San Bernardino County’s municipalities, both elected officials have taken on an even larger significance as pillars of the Inland Empire. Continue reading →