The City of Adelanto is reportedly on the brink of selling Mavericks Stadium, a transaction which is to include the 3,800-seat stadium itself and the surrounding land.

There is no confirmed specific information as to who the buyer is or what is to be paid for the entire 16.2 acres of ground. One report held that the city is to receive $3.2 million in the deal.

Whether the city in making the deal is, as some suggest. cutting an albatross from around its neck by ridding itself of a white elephant or, as others believe, surrendering a facility city officials could yet, despite past missteps, transform into a vibrant economic engine is a matter of perspective.

There is no doubt, on one hand, that the stadium, built in 1991 to house the Mavericks Class A minor league California League baseball team when it made its move from Riverside, offered the city both cultural and social enrichment, which extended to, in addition to fare for minor league baseball fans, a forum for various events, including concerts, festivals, and trade shows. Undeniably, however, there were those within the Adelanto’s governmental structure and its business community who exploited the facility for their own benefit and financial gain, to the detriment of the city and its taxpayers. A case can be made that had the city officials who were not involved in bending the stadium to their own personal interest been just a tad more diligent in preventing those who were using it for their selfish purposes from…

By Mark Gutglueck
William Richards, who after four trials in 1997 was wrongfully convicted of his wife’s 1993 murder and spent 23 years in prison, this week prevailed in a federal civil rights action against San Bernardino County and was awarded $25.4 million in total damages for what he endured.
The Richards case has grown infamous as a demonstration of the degree to which the law enforcement structure in San Bernardino County will go in stretching facts and utilizing questionable and even manufactured evidence to obtain a conviction.
It took the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and prosecutor Michael Risley four tries to convict Richards, changing the approach and some of the facts alleged each time, with the first three go-rounds ending in mistrials or deadlocks in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. In the fourth trial, the eight-man and four-woman jury again deadlocked. It was only after the judge requested that they deliberate further that on July 8, 1997, Richards was convicted.
From the outgo, Richards’ story has never changed.
He claimed he had returned the evening of August 10, 1993 from his machinist’s job in Corona at about 11:50 p.m. to find the motorhome in which he and his wife lived on the five-acre Summit Valley property they owned dark and empty. The couple was living in the motorhome while efforts to construct a house on the property were ongoing. He went to look for his wife and found her dead in a pool of blood on another part of their property between the motor home and the Santa Fe railroad line.
He claimed he turned his wife’s body over and cradled her before summoning assistance.
Then-Deputy District Attorney Mike Risley prosecuted Richards each time.
In all of his prosecutions of William Richards, Risley suggested there was strife in the Richards’ 22-year long marriage, an allegation it is now acknowledged was made up out of whole cloth and which was never backed up with any evidence of substance. Risley put on an expert witness who testified splatters of Pamela Richards’ blood that were found on William Richards’ shoes and clothes were tell-tale evidence indicating William Richards had wielded the cinder block used to crush his wife’s head. Continue reading →

The Redlands City Council in a split 3-to-2 vote on June 24 conferred $1.2 million on a former evidence technician in the police department who had engaged in a sexual relationship with the department’s former deputy chief of police in what is alleged by some and denied by others to have been an effort to advance to a position as a sworn peace office. That action, and the further revelations about the sexual entanglements between members of the department’s male commanders and some of its lower-ranking female officers or support personnel has provoked characterizations of the department as a 21st Century Peyton Place.
A solid cross section of Redlands residents and taxpayers have noted that this was not the first, second or even third lawsuit settlement touching on issues relating to the command echelon’s sexual manhandling of women working for the department and that at least two further such lawsuits are now pending. Meanwhile, the primary perpetrator of the sexual harassment at the center of those claims continues to draw his $178,959.50 per year pension after he exited from the department some two years ago when knowledge about and attention to what he was engaged in made its way outside the confines of the department.
This lack of accountability has sparked calls for reform, amid accusations that Redlands police officers are cynically manipulating the public trust that has been place in them. Three of the department’s former chief, who once commanded the esteem and respect of other law enforcement professionals statewide and nationally, have seen their reputations sustain substantial damage as a consequence of the public airing of the secrets that were suppressed while they headed the department.
After a short stint as an identification technician trainee in 2015, Julie Alvarado-Salcido late that year was hired into the $37,335-salary position of community service officer with the Redlands Police Department, which provided her with 4,870 in perks, $6,459 in benefits and some minimal overtime pay, for $48,760 in total annual compensation.
According to Alvarado-Salcido’s lawsuit, filed on her behalf by attorneys Critel Cabrera and Griselda Rodriguez, two weeks after she began as a trainee, Alvarado-Salcido began what has been termed a “quid pro quo” sexual relationship with Reiss, at that time a lieutenant, in which there was an expectation that she would advance with the department. Early in their acquaintance, according to the lawsuit, she acceded to his request that they go together to the bar at the Doubletree Hotel in San Bernardino. After a few rounds of drinks, she went with him out into the parking lot where she performed fellatio on him in the backseat of his car.
Her accommodation of Reiss had the desired result, and by January 2016, Alvarado-Salcido landed the community service officer position.
The lawsuit provides a further description of an encounter between Reiss and Alvarado Salcido, again in Reiss’s car when she orally copulated him as they were driving to a specials weapons and tactics training exercise in Menifee. Continue reading →

By Carlos Avalos
Several San Bernardino County school districts offer preschool programs in which children with disabilities are welcomed into classroom settings that also accommodate three-year-old and four-year-old students with normal cognitive ability. These include Alta Loma School District’s CHAMPS program (“Creating Happy Achieving Motivated Prepared Students”), Upland Unified Step Up Preschool, and Etiwanda School District’s C.L.O.U.D.S. program (“Creating Learning Opportunities and Understanding Differences in Students”).
In these settings, an early childhood special education teacher co-teaches alongside a general early childhood instructor, integrating special needs students with average achievers in the same class. By contrast, Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) uses a “peer model” approach that separates its publicly-funded special education inclusion classes from any tuition-based general preschool offering.
In the operation of its Creating Happy Achieving Motivated Prepared Students (CHAMPS) program, the Alta Loma Unified School District charges a monthly tuition to parents of general education children, who are cataloged as non-individualized education program students. As of the 2024-25 school year, Alta Loma advertises a flat $290 per month fee for CHAMPS 4 days a week, 3 hours per day. A one-time registration fee of $75 per family is also required; this is a common figure across the programs. These fees apply only to general-ed peer students; special education students, meaning those enrolled in an individualized education program, attend free as part of the services school districts are mandated to provide to preschool age children with learning disabilities residing within their jurisdictions.
Upland Unified School District’s Step Up inclusion preschool program follows a similar tuition model. General education students are charged roughly $300 per month in tuition, plus a one-time registration fee of approximately $75. This fee is billed monthly regardless of absences or holidays, with late payment penalties and eventual disenrollment if not paid. As with CHAMPS, only the general education students pay; those enrolled via an individualized education program do not incur fees.
Etiwanda Unified School District’s C.L.O.U.D.S. and Etiwanda’s inclusion preschool C.L.O.U.D.S. also require general education students to pay tuition. The standard rate has been $300 per month with a $75 registration fee. District policy explicitly states that “payment in advance of applicable, non-refundable fees” is required for general education students. No tuition is charged for preschoolers who have disabilities and qualify for special education – their attendance is free as part of the State of California’s “Free Appropriate Public Education” program, known by its acronym FAPE. Continue reading →

Big Bear Fire Chief Jeff Willis has exited as the fire chief in Big Bear, if not entirely on his own terms, at the end of his contract and not at the dictate of the firefighters union, with which over the last several years be grew crosswise.
Unknown at this time is whether his successor, who has yet to be determined and who will be saddled with the same financial limitations and will be answerable to the same political masters Willis has dealt with for 13 years, will be able to forge any better of a relationship with the firefighters union than Willis did. Bets are now being placed as to whether the replacement fire chief, who will need to come to terms with the same Big Bear Fire Authority Board of Directors beset with its inner tensions that Willis coexisted with, will encounter any less rough sledding than he did.
Willis began working with the Big Bear City Fire Department as a very young man in 1984. In January 2008, he became the youngest fire chief in that department’s history. At that time, there were no fewer than five separate fire agencies in the Big Bear community and its environs. In July 2011, the Big Bear City Community Services District Board and the Big Bear City Council acquiesced in having Willis take on the assignment of fire chief with the Big Bear Lake Fire Department, even while he was yet heading the Big Bear City Fire Department. Thereafter, Willis divided his time between Station 281 in Big Bear Lake and Station 282 in Big Bear City, Station 283 in Sugar Loaf and Station 284 in Big Bear City, with occasional sojourns to the paid call stations in Boulder Bay and Moonridge.
In 2012, the Big Bear Lake City Council and the Big Bear City Community Services District Board of Directors committed to the merger of the Big Bear Lake Fire Department and the Big Bear City Fire Department under an arrangement that included the creation of the Big Bear Fire Authority and its governing board. Continue reading →

A Fontana man and his newfound girlfriend, Southern California-based fitness trainer and influencer Gloria Zamora, were gunned down by Zamora’s estranged husband in North Fontana on Saturday June 21.
Zamora’s husband, Tomas Alberto Tamayo Lizarraga, made an impromptu decision to confront his wife and Hector Garduno at the Falcon Ridge Town Center at around 9:30 p.m., after he had trailed her all the way from their former home in Perris.
That move turned out to be an unfortunate one for Lizarraga, as several off-duty law enforcement officers were in the area engaged in unrelated social activity at the time of the shooting. The gunshots resulted in one of those officers, a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy, alertly spotting Lizarraga and giving chase when he attempted to flee the scene. The deputy, who was armed, drew his gun and cowboyed Lizarraga not far from where he had dropped his wife and Garduno.
The background to the matter includes marital strife between Tomas Lizarraga, 45, and Gloria Zamora, 40, who were in the process of being divorced. There were suggestions of previous incidents of domestic violence by Lizarraga, but a search of available records show that he had no convictions nor that any such charges had been lodged against him.
Zamora, prior to the break-up of the marriage, had gained considerable notoriety as an in-person trainer to women and internet-based fitness adviser, who had set up an Instagram channel, which had attracted some 153,000 followers. Over the last 18 months, the relationship with her husband became increasingly strained, and Zamora had not held back on posting social media content that was less than flattering of her husband. Continue reading →