Mayor Helen Tran and six of seven members of the San Bernardino City Council this week found themselves under intensive pressure to place Police Chief Darren Goodman on administrative/medical leave following the assertion by Goodman’s attorney last week that the police chief is under constant and continuing medication to alleviate insomnia, depression and anxiety.
Joseph Richardson, an attorney with the Redlands-based law firm known as the McCune Group, publicly broached the subject of Goodman’s use of drugs in a lawsuit he filed on September 24 on behalf of Goodman. That lawsuit names the City of San Bernardino, as a public entity, and Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz as defendants, along with 25 other potential further defendants, who are unnamed. The suit alleges Goodman is the victim of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in violation of California’s fair labor law, both Government Code § 12940(k) and Labor Code § 1102.5 and that he was subject to a hostile work environment and the intentional infliction of emotional distress at the hands of Ortiz.
The suit maintains that he had responded to and met with Ortiz in November 2023 and again in August 2024 during the run-up to and during her successful campaign for 7th Ward councilwoman in regard to her accusations that her opponent in that election, James Penman, had access to and made use of information pertaining to her contained in one of the databases available to law enforcement agencies. It was Ortiz’s contention that entries in that database – the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System – had been accessed by a member or members of the San Bernardino Police Department and provided it to the Penman campaign, which used it in formulating electioneering material provided to voters in the 7th Ward which supported Penman and attacked Ortiz. It is both Goodman’s and Richardson’s contention that Ortiz made an illegal recording of her conversation with Goodman’s meeting with her at San Bernardino Police headquarters on August 29, 2024 during which they discussed how the San Bernardino Police Department detective, Steve Desrochers, who had obtained that information using one of the police department’s computer terminals, in an apparent violation of the law, which prohibits the use of information contained in such databases to which law enforcement agencies have shared access from being used for political purposes or anything other than legitimate law enforcement activity or investigations.
Two weeks prior to the August 29, 2024 meeting between Ortiz and Goodman, Ortiz had, at Goodman’s suggestion, met with Sergeant Jose Loera, the president of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association at restaurant in north San Bernardino on August 15, 2024. She recorded that conversation as well. Loera, during that conversation, acknowledged that Desrochers, one of his predecessors as union president, had run her name through one of the databases shared by law enforcement agencies.
While Goodman during the August 29, 2024 conversation with Ortiz enunciated his belief that Desrochers had overstepped his authority by accessing the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym CLETS, and that the use of the information gleaned thereby for use in support of Penman, who had been endorsed by the San Bernardino County Police Officers Association was illegal, making prosecution of Desrochers for misuse of government assets appropriate, he subsequently shifted in his opinion. Members of the police department/police union claimed that in 2020, Ortiz, then a community activist, had made statements with regard to then-Mayor John Valdivia that were deemed “threatening,” and that the department, accordingly, undertook an investigation of Ortiz, which included Desrochers, on March 12, 2020, accessing the CLETS database to look into Ortiz’s criminal history.
Meanwhile, Ortiz, who had unsuccessfully competed for appointment to the position of Third District San Bernardino County supervisor in 2018 and ran unsuccessfully for Third Ward San Bernardino Councilwoman in 2019 and failed in her run for San Bernardino mayor in 2022, prevailed in the November 2024 race for 7th Ward councilwoman in November 2024 and was sworn into office in December 2024. Ortiz was not kept abreast of the developments in the investigation. When no prosecution of Desrochers ensued, in March 2025 she filed a claim against the city alleging CLETS had been improperly accessed as part of the San Bernardino Police Officers Association support of Penman and its opposition to her candidacy.
Thereafter, Ortiz, who, despite her victory in the 2024 election, had never been on good terms with the San Bernardino political establishment, experienced a further deterioration in her relationship with her council colleagues, city staff and everyone involved with the police department. On repeated occasions, city officials dismissed the allegations in Ortiz’s claim as misrepresentations, falsehoods, inaccurate and fabrications. In May 2025 the city rejected the claim, following that up with further statements denying its substance and assertions. Ortiz augmented her previous social media postings that included snippets from her recordings of her conversations with Loera and Goodman in which they acknowledged that Desrochers and the police union had made use of the data extrapolated from CLETS to assist Penman in his 2024 electoral effort against Ortiz. In reaction, city officials, most pointedly the mayor and members of the city council, relied upon Goodman, his gravitas, his status, his reputation and hismmmmmm to counter Ortiz’s narrative.
Ortiz, for her part, did not relent. She had already contacted the FBI and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office with regard to what she alleged was the unlawful use of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System in Penman’s campaign against her. On August 13, 2025, she held a news conference in front of San Bernardino City Hall, at which she publicly declared that the accusations in the claim she had filed against the city were accurate and that she was being pressured by city officials to drop the matter, extending to Chief Goodman seeking to “blackmail” her by threatening to publicly release information regarding her arrest record if she proceeded with a lawsuit based on the claim. The following day, on August 14, 2025, in an effort to get the district attorney’s office to act on her previous complaint regarding Desrochers’ accessing of the CLETS data base for information regarding her, she provided copies of the recordings of her August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024 conversations with Loera and Goodman.
In November 2025, Ortiz, represented by attorney Peter Schlueter, filed suit against the city in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging a member or members of the San Bernardino Police Department had improper accessed the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to obtain access to her confidential records and had engaged in a conspiracy in doing so and thereafter. The suit named the City of San Bernardino, Steve Desroachers, Darren L Goodman, Jose Loera, Former San Bernardino Police Chief Eric McBride, James F Penman and the San Bernardino Police Officers Association It sought $2 million in damages.
The substance of the suit was in large measure built upon the contents of the recordings Ortiz had made of her conversations with Loera and Goodman, respectively, on August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2024.
On January 21, 2026, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed the two Section 632(a) charges against Ortiz, alleging she had not disclosed to Loera or Goodman that she was recording the August 15, 2024 and August 29, 2025 conversations she had with them nor sough their permission to make the recordings.
Also in January, Goodman and Loera lodged complaints with city administrators regarding what they said were Ortiz’s false accusations about their involvement, either actively or passively, in the abuse of the access the San Bernardino Police Department had to the law enforcement agency databases that resulted in information relating to her having been used during the 2024 electoral season and other examples of what they characterized as her harassment of each of them, retaliation against each of them and her abuse of her authority derived from her position as a council member. The following month, on February 3 and February 10, respectively Loera and Goodman filed notices of claims against the city, citing their separate but similar ordeals in having to weather the accusations that were being leveled against them by Ortiz.
In reaction to the claims filed by Loera and Goodman, the city issued, at the direction of the city council, a cease-and-desist letter to Ortiz on February 27, 2026. Slightly more than a month later, on April 1, 2026, the city council voted 6-0 to approve a resolution of censure against Ortiz, making findings that she had “participated in a pattern of retaliatory actions against city appointees and employees… engaged in slanderous commentary targeting city employees [and] disseminated illegally recorded confidential communications.” The resolution further stated that “Many of Ortiz’s actions that created the need for censure were directed at Chief Goodman.”
The matter with regard to those two misdemeanor charges went to trial before Judge Melissa Rodriguez and a six man-six woman jury. On September 10, after a 9-day trial and two partial days of deliberations, the jury returned a mixed verdict, exonerating Ortiz on the charge of illegally recording the conversation with Loera but convicting her of illegally recording the conversation with Goodman.
With that pronouncement by the jury in the criminal trial behind them, Richardson and McCune Law Group on behalf of Goodman, filed suit against the city and Ortiz. The primary issues cited in the lawsuit stem from mostly direct acts of commission Ortiz’s part, accompanied by indirect acts of omission on the city’s part for railing to “reign in” Ortiz. In this way, according to the lawsuit, Ortiz created a hostile work environment in which Goodman was carrying out his duty as police chief and subjected him to harassment, while elected city officials at Ortiz’s level of authority – the mayor and city council – and senior city staff had knowledge of Ortiz’s conduct but not take “timely or adequate action to investigate” her conduct. In Ortiz’s capacity as a city councilwoman, according to Richardson, Ortiz “exercised superior authority over the [police] department.”
While the lawsuit names both the city, a so-called “deep-pocket” entity which is presumably in a position to pay out a substantial amount of money to Goodman in the event of a settlement or judgment in his favor, and Ortiz, whose financial circumstance is far less solid, the language of the lawsuit has Goodman adhering to the city’s position on virtually every issue with which it has a substantial difference with Ortiz. Whereas the contents of the recording Ortiz made of the conversation she had with Goodman on August 29, 2024 show the police chief in essential lockstep with Ortiz with regard to the use of the shared law enforcement agency database by at least one member of the police department in connection with the 2024 Penman campaign’s strategy to keep her from being elected and that the abuse of that access constituted an illegal act, since the filing of Ortiz’s claim in March 2025 Goodman has backed the city in its contention that neither the department nor any of its officers nor the police officers’ union illegally or improperly accessed information pertaining to her in the database.
Goodman’s lawsuit disputes the allegations in Ortiz’s federal lawsuit as well as the statements made in the August 15, 2024 Loera recording or the August 29, 2024 Goodman recording up upon which her lawsuit is based indicating her file in the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System database was improperly accessed by Desrochers. Richardson instead indicates that the investigation into Desrochers’ use of the database to obtain information about Ortiz was not completed as of August 29, 2024 and that Ortiz launched an attack on Goodman when the investigation failed to reach the preconceived conclusion that Ortiz wanted.
“Following plaintiff’s [i.e., Goodman’s] failure to validate Ortiz’s unsubstantiated allegations, Ortiz commenced a sustained campaign of harassment, intimidation, and retaliation against plaintiff, conducted through and under the authority of her elected office.”
Ortiz’s vote against providing Goodman with a raise constituted retaliation, according to Richardson.
“At a public city council meeting at which the criminal charges against her were read into the record, Ortiz retaliated against plaintiff by voting against a routine executive-classification salary adjustment and publicly singling out plaintiff’s compensation,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further suggests that in exercising her fiduciary authority in another incidence, Ortiz’s contempt for Goodman was manifest.
“Most recently, on or about August 6, 2026, plaintiff wrote city representatives about what seemed to be Ortiz’s attempts to prevent the SBPD [San Bernardino Police Department] from getting approval to submit a funding request in response to a notice of funding opportunity from the Model Cities Initiative (MCI). Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that Ortiz had the item removed from the agenda, and made inaccurate and misleading statements to thwart SBPD’s attempts to take advantage of a significant funding opportunity. Plaintiff stated in that letter that he believed Ortiz’s actions to be yet another act of the continuing retaliation that she directed toward him, through punishing the [police] department’s attempt to gain funding, and through undermining the authority plaintiff expected to normally operate in. In short, plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that even functions that SBPD, through its chief, a mutually understood matter of course were now subject to undue scrutiny by Ortiz that undermined plaintiff’s attempts to do his job in obtaining badly needed funding for SBPD.”
Moreover, according to Richardson, Ortiz’s standing as a councilwoman imbued her personal criticisms of the police chief with a false authority.
“Throughout the conduct described above, Ortiz used city resources to attack plaintiff, including her official title and elected office, City Hall and its facilities as a backdrop, city time, and her official City-sanctioned social media accounts” to attack Goodman, the lawsuit states. “Ortiz weaponize[d] her elected office against the chief.”
In making the case against Ortiz contained in the lawsuit, Richardson relied on a number of items that were contained in the resolution of censure passed by the city council as well as the language included in the cease and desist letter. Those included the city’s contention that Ortiz had in April 2025 posted a video to her social media channels announcing she had filed a legal claim against the city while at the same time claiming the city has a reputation of mismanagement, corruption, and operating with disregard for the rule of law, asserting that violations are ignored and power is abused. Goodman’s lawsuit utilized the city’s assertions that in pushing for an investigation of the misuse of the law enforcement databases, Ortiz’s “allegations of being targeted were presented as fact, despite being unsupported by conclusive evidence.” Richardson further relied on the city’s assertion that the lawsuit Ortiz “initiated against the parties” and “the factual basis for [her] claims, remains unresolved and unproven.”
In making accusations against Goodman that the department had failed to follow through on a thorough investigation of the use of the CLETS data for political purposes while she was serving in the capacity of a city council member, Richardson suggested, just as the city council had in its resolution of censure and cease and desist letter that Ortiz’s action “constitutes conduct that can reasonably be perceived as harassing, derogatory, and damaging to the professional reputations of city employees.”
Richardson repeated the city council’s assertion that Ortiz in referencing alleged corruption within the city and the police department and subsequently making statements directly attacking the character, credibility and integrity of city staff, had done so after she “had been informed [her] claims were false and dishonest, rendering [her] continued repetition of those allegations based on knowing indifference to factual findings.”
The lawsuit also rehashed the cease and desist letter’s claim that Ortiz knew her “legal claim to be frivolous, filed in bad faith, dishonest, and an improper attempt to obtain money from the city.”
Despite utilizing the city’s resolution of censure and the cease and desist letter sent to Ortiz as much of the documentation of the factual basis upon which to base the lawsuit and back his own claims of wrongdoing by the councilwoman, he delaying its action against Ortiz, leaving Goodman to twist in the wind.
“The city knew of Ortiz’s conduct for many months – including through Chief Goodman’s repeated complaints to the city manager and his formal February 2, 2026 written complaint of harassment, retaliation, and abuse of authority – and did nothing meaningful to protect him until it issued the belated cease-and-desist letter and censure.”
The suit states, “A great deal of damage has been done by the city, through not only the actions of Ortiz, but the indifference of the city in reigning those activities in, while they were done under the cloak of city legitimacy, using the city’s resources. In short, Ortiz weaponized her office – while the city watched, to undermine the credibility of Chief Goodman through thwarting the progress of SBPD. As a direct, foreseeable, and proximate result of the conduct alleged herein, plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer economic harm, including lost employment and consulting opportunities and a loss of earning capacity, and injury to his professional reputation.”
Without marshaling much in the way of proof, Richardson in the lawsuit suggested that Goodman, who is African American, was being discriminated against because of racial prejudice.
“Plaintiff was subjected to discrimination, harassment, and/or discriminatory and retaliatory policies, practices and procedures based upon his race,” the lawsuit states.
Near the end of the 23-page lawsuit, on page 22, Richardson included, as part of the sixth and last cause of action, some language that either was intended to give Goodman an earlier exit from his post of police chief into retirement than was previously thought would be the case or which inadvertently is complicating the prospect that Goodman can remain as police chief in San Bernardino.
That paragraph reads, “As a direct, foreseeable, and proximate result of Ortiz’s conduct, plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress, including humiliation, anxiety, and chronic insomnia requiring prescription medication and therapy, in an amount to be proven at the time of trial. The aforementioned conduct constitutes malice, oppression, or fraud, thereby entitling plaintiff to punitive damages.”
A cross section of San Bernardino residents – ones from all walks of life, ranging from those who are passionate supporters of Ortiz, others who have expressed intense antipathy toward her, those who are apolitical and indifferent to developments impacting members of the city council or the contention and rivalry that exists among those politicians to supporters of the police department in general and the only slightly smaller subset of that group who are indefatigable supporters of Goodman and regard him as an almost deific figure – there was a uniform sense of shock at what Richardson had disclosed.
That put the ball squarely in the court of the mayor and city council. On Wednesday, October 7, the council is set to meet in a closed session, one from which Ortiz is virtually certain to be excluded, to discuss what action the council is to take with regard to Goodman’s lawsuit. Under different circumstances, that discussion might simply confine itself as to what preparations the city should make in defending against the suit or what stance to take in seeking to come to a negotiated settlement with Goodman and Richardson to put the litigation they have launched behind the city and behind Goodman so that there can be a resolution which allow him to focus on the operation of the police department. Richardson’s faux pas, if indeed it was a faux pas, in letting the cat out of the bag with regard to Goodman having to be medicated in order to show up to work every day and deal with Ortiz as one of his political masters brings into the equation another set of variables which defy easy resolution. That the police chief has to be constantly drugged just to get through the day is a concept and situation so antithetical to the culture of policing and the police profession on a multitude of levels that his immediate placement on administrative appears to be the first order of the council’s business on October 7 if Goodman does not take action first by voluntarily suspending his status as chief for as long as he must until his need for the pharmaceuticals in question can be set aside.
The Sentinel spoke with individuals at, and surrounding, the heart of the city’s decision-making process in the aftermath of the filing of Goodman’s lawsuit.
“None of this is a surprise,” one said. “We haven’t been properly served yet, as far as I know. I haven’t seen the lawsuit. I saw the precursor – the claim – of course. We rejected that, so we knew a lawsuit was at least possible, but I think most of us hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
Of Goodman, it was said, “He is a smart and very capable professional with a great record in law enforcement. He is highly skilled and educated, a quality guy. She [Ortiz] created a hostile work environment. He just didn’t want to put up with what he had to anymore. In his claim, he said we didn’t stop her from harassing him. I don’t see where we could have done much more than what we did. There is a limitation on what you can do with someone who is elected. She was censured. I had hoped that he would see that she wasn’t really a threat. It’s not like she had control of the council. A majority of the council had his back. Having an enemy or two comes with the territory of working in the public sector. It would have been nice if he could have hung on. He just decided it would be better to sue.”
Goodman’s admission that he is on medication is problematic, the Sentinel was told.
“Sedated?” the official responded when the subject was brought up. “That sounds strong. He is apparently taking some sort of medication. A lot of people function, many at a pretty high level, under different kinds of medication. There are different types of drugs and just because you are medicated doesn’t mean you are incapacitated. If he is taking something that would have a drastic impact, that is something else again. We would need to know what medication is being administered to him and how strong it is. I am not capable of making that kind of determination. I am not a physician. I am sure it will come up during the closed session. I am not sure I or anyone will be able to talk about it, even if he is put on administrative leave.”
There seemed to be a consensus that Goodman is not going to remain in San Bernardino for long. At present, Goodman has the backing of Councilman Ted Sanchez, Councilman Juan Figueroa, Councilman Fred Shorett and Councilwoman Kim Knaus. Sanchez is on his way out, having placed third in the June primary election in the 1st Ward. Shorett is competing to remain in the 4th Ward in the upcoming November election. While Mayor Helen Tran and Goodman treat each other with a professional cordiality in public, there is tension between them. There have been persistent reports that if two or all three of those aligned with her emerge victorious in the 1st Ward, 2nd Ward and 4th Ward elections in November, Tran, with the votes of Ortiz in the 7th Ward and that of Mario Flores in the 6th Ward, would replace Goodman with someone of her choosing.
Goodman may not be interested in remaining in San Bernardino under any realistically foreseeable conditions. At present, he is being paid $376,549.46 in salary along with $30,023 in perquisites and pay add-ons and another $38,801 in benefits. He eclipsed his 34th year in law enforcement last year and is moving toward his 35th year in the profession. Under the retirement formula used by both the California Public Employees Retirement System and the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement Association, both of which apply to him, he is due a pension equal to his highest salary times the number of years he has been employed times 3 percent. Thus, he will receive an annual pension equal to his current salary or greater if he were to immediately retire. Financial considerations are not likely to keep him in place as police chief.
That Goodman consented to Richardson making reference to his use of medication to offset the stress of dealing with Ortiz as an element of his lawsuit is widely seen as an indicator Goodman is ready to retire now.

FBN20260007258
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
CAN DO SERVICES 223 SOUTH RIVERSIDE AVENUE RIALTO, CA 92376: TERESA D ARNETT
Business Mailing Address: 11171 OAKWOOD DR APT G303 LOMA LINDA, CA 92354
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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
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Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on September 11, 18 & 25 and October 2, 2026.

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The following person is doing business as: EBMRE; EBMRE.COM EBM REAL ESTATE 1808 FOOTHILL BLVD STE 160 RANCHO CUCAMONGA CA 91730;[ MAILING ADDRESS 1808 FOOTHILL BLVD STE 160 RANCHO CUCAMONGA CA 91730];
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s/ M A PONCE DE LEON, PRESIDENT
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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
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 08/14/2026, 08/21/2026, 08/28/2026, 09/04/2026 CNBB33202605MT

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Less than two months after a series of FBI raids at the homes and offices of two Ontario International Airport Authority commissioners and those of their political and personal associates put Ontario Airport under the glare of a public spotlight, another development involving the airport’s executive director/manager is subjecting the aerodrome and those running it to a further round of controversy.
In early 2020, then-Ontario International Airport Authority Board President Alan Wapner and the airport authority’s deputy executive director for communications and marketing, Afif Elkadi, sought to assist their fellow USC alum, Scott Jacobson, after the latter had been sacked from his position as the associate athletic director at the University of Southern California in the aftermath of the “VarsityBlues” college admissions scandal that felled a multitude of celebrities, blue bloods and influential titans of finance and industry who used their wealth to have their children accepted at some of the country’s most prestigious colleges and universities in exchange for bribes paid to scholastic deans and other guardians of the gates of academia. Caught up in the scandal along with Jacobson were USC senior associate athletic director Ron Orr, USC athletic department chief operating officer/chief financial officer Steve Lopes, USC soccer coaches Ali Khosroshahin and Laura Janke, athletic department administrator Donna Heinel and water polo coach Jovan Vavic, all of whom were either sacked or resigned. Revealed at the time were that scions of famous actors and wealthy businessmen or industrialists had been given athletic scholarships to USC despite having no skill, no ability and in some cases no familiarity whatsoever with the sports for which those scholarships had been provided in return for a minimum fee, i.e., bribe of $250,000 and in a few known cases as much as $500,000. An internal review of the situation by USC determined that there were grounds to believe that 33 students were admitted to the college under circumstances that involved fraud or deceit, in which 12 of those students were not involved or could not be proved to be involved in violating the school’s admissions procedure, while the remaining 21 were found to have knowingly made false representations about themselves or had others do so, and were in various ways involved in patently dishonest acts such as having others take SAT tests for them or assume their identities in completing the admissions process, including sitting for interviews.
Initially, Wapner and Elkadi entertained the idea of creating an in-house advertising arm for the airport, one that would include promoting the airport at various sporting and entertainment events and venues, and installing Jacobson as the head of the department. They ran head-on into the consideration that two of the divisions of Lamar Advertising – that pertaining to advertisement in general and its airport advertising division – at that point was not quite three years into a ten-year contract related to advertising with Ontario International Airport and the Ontario International Airport Authority that had been initiated in July of 2017 and yet had seven more years to run. Lamar’s was a multidimensional national advertising agency with contracts with 25 airports around the country and established penetration into a wealth of venues. Within Ontario specifically, Lamar was responsible for the airport advertising program, including indoor and outdoor advertising displays within Terminals 2 and 4, which handled the domestic traffic at the airport departing and arriving, and airport parking venues, as well as billboard signage on airport property.
Mark Thorpe, then the airport authority’s executive director who oversaw management, operations, development, and marketing of the airport, was skeptical about what services Jacobson, whose primary experience confined itself to being a university associate athletic director, could offer the airport authority and the airport. He was satisfied with Lamar’s performance and saw no benefit from instituting a redundancy of the nature that Wapner and Elkadi were advocating with the creation of an advertising department and the hiring of Jacobson.
Wapner hit upon an alternate strategy. By the summer of 2020, as the entire airline industry was hit with substantial downturns in ridership as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wapner began bewailing Lamar’s performance. Utilizing the very tangible evidence of the declining numbers of passengers passing through Ontario International Airport’s gates, he maneuvered around Thorpe, working in unison with Elkadi, who directly oversaw the airport’s advertising. On February 1, 2021, the Ontario International Airport Authority entered into a $96,000 annual contract with Fuse Advancement, as it was identified in the contract. At that point, Fuse Advancement had no contracts with any airports or any entities, for that matter. It did not, in fact exist. According to the California Secretary of State, Fuse Advancement was not registered as a business entity until February 18, 2021, 17 days after it was first granted a contract with the airport authority.
Subsequently, on May 27, 2021, the contract with Fuse Advancement was increased to $240,500 per year.
Though both Lamar and Fuse Advancement fell under the rubric of being advertising and promotion companies and both engaged in advertisement at Ontario International Airport, there were elements of their separate functions that differed somewhat. The break with Lamar did not come off as cleanly as Wapner had hoped, and the Ontario International Airport Authority had to buy out the remaining six years of the contract with Lamar.
A significant number of Ontario International Airport Authority employees, indeed upwards of 80 percent of them, and at least one of the airport authority board members knew nothing about the previous relationship between Wapner and Jacobson as the transition from Lamar to Fuse Advancement was being effectuated.
Wapner is a member of the USC Class of 1978 and self-identifies as a Trojan. Like hundreds of other USC alums, Wapner is a participant in the Trojan Athletic Fund, and as such was frequently in attendance at USC’s home football games at the Coliseum/United Airlines Field, where he viewed the action on the gridiron in a seating section reserved for VIPs. More notably, documentation obtained by the Sentinel shows that Wapner was the recipient of a lagniappe arranged for him through Jacobson, the value of which cannot be quantified, that being the rare privilege of traveling with the football team on certain away games such as those vs. Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana on October 12, 2019 and the contest against the University of Texas in Austin, Texas on September 15, 2018. During the years Jacobson was associate athletic director, he regularly made arrangements to have Wapner fly with the team to the locations where they were playing. Subsequent to Jacobson’s departure as associate athletic director, there was a carryover of the rapport the councilman had established with the USC athletic department through Jacobson, as when he continued to travel with the football in in 2020 and 2021, such as to Denver, Colorado for the team’s match-up against Colorado on October 2, 2021.
Thorpe’s tenure as interim executive director of the airport/airport authority lasted from July 2017 to October 2017, and his official tenure as the full-fledged executive director last four years and five months from October 2017 to March 31, 2022. Throughout the last three years of his time as executive director, Thorp and Wapner were on increasingly acrimonious terms, as Wapner dominated the airport board of commissioners and was dictating policy virtually unilaterally, pursuing policies, including overtures to sell what he defined as “surplus” airport property to real estate speculators and development companies which had made substantial donations to his political fund. Thorpe resisted several initiatives that Wapner was pursuing in this regard. By October 2021, the relationship between Wapner and Thorpe had deteriorated that Thorpe was placed on a special assignment, during which time he was restricted from contacting staff except with regard to those areas relating to his limited assignment. From that point forward, Elkadi, having been designated by Wapner, began serving as the de facto executive director of the airport, despite his lack of expertise in virtually all areas beyond communications and marketing. On January 21, 2022, Thorpe submitted his resignation as CEO, with his term ending March 31, 2022.
Elkadi immediately transitioned to acting CEO and in short order Wapner lined up the votes to promote him to the airport and airport authority’s chief executive officer.
Even before Thorpe’s departure, complaints emanating from Ontario residents relating to Wapner’s actions in his role as president/chairman of the airport commission had been lodged with the FBI.
The focus of that investigation over the course of more than five years has expanded and evolved to touch on quid pro quo arrangements, specifically alleged bribes or kickbacks from individuals, businesses, and entities seeking project approvals, contracts, or franchises from the airport authority, the City of Ontario and San Bernardino County’s government structure, as well as overseas banking activity, particularly involving financial institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and related cryptocurrency exchange access and account codes pertaining to Wapner and another member of the Ontario International Airport Authority, San Bernardino County Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman.
On July 28 of this year, the FBI served search warrants at homes of Wapner, Hagman, James Su and Frank Lizarraga, located, respectively, in Ontario, Chino, West Covina and in Rancho Cucamonga. A search warrant was simultaneously served at a mansion in the 600 block of North Canon Drive of Beverly Hills, the domicile of a yet undisclosed individual.
James Su is the owner, president and manager of EDI Media, the California-based West Coast arm of Guoguang Century Media, which consists of 34 radio stations in 14 countries. Guoguang Century Media is backed and funded by China Radio International, the state-owned international radio broadcasting network of the People’s Republic of China. Guoguang Century Media is dedicated to producing content aligned with Beijing’s interests, both domestically and internationally. In 1993, using funding provided to him by the Chinese government through Guoguang Century Media, Su founded EDI Media, Inc., which is now affiliated with G&E Studio Inc. and CiTi News, a company of which Su is the president that includes multiple TV stations, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers. Su and his employees were substantial donors to Hagman’s political campaign fund. Lizarraga is closely identified with the City of Ontario, having had three offices in the city. He was a member of the Ontario Planning Commission for 13 years. He has served as Wapner’s personal attorney and that of Wapner’s wife, for Ontario Councilwoman Daisy Macias and for Ontario Councilman Jim Bowman, who is also a member of the Ontario International Airport Board of Commissioners. Lizarraga was the former general counsel to the Southern California Association of Governments, representing six counties.
In addition, on July 28, search warrants were served at Hagman’s San Bernardino County Fourth District supervisorial office located in the Chino Hills municipal government complex; the EDI corporate office in West Covina; Lizarraga’s law office in Ontario; and the business offices of Andrea “Andy” Sehremelis in Chino. Sehremelis is a major donor to the campaign funds of both Wapner and Hagman. In addition, the FBI submitted subpoenas to the offices of the Ontario city clerk and the airport authority’s executive suite and administrative offices on Avion Drive at the airport.
The FBI’s activity proved to be unsettling in the Ontario community, the Fourth Supervisorial District in Southwest San Bernardino County, at Ontario City Hall, at the airport, its administrative offices, the offices of the airport authority and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Los Angeles County in West Covina and the Mansion District of Beverly Hills. Before the FBI raids, Wapner was running for mayor in the upcoming November 3 election, challenging the incumbent, Paul Leon, and Hagman’s son, Jonathan, was vying for a position on the Ontario City Council, representing the city’s Third District. Following the raids, Wapner dropped out of the mayor’s contest to run for election in the city’s Third District and young Hagman dropped out of the council race entirely.
In the midst of this, in the last two weeks comes word that Elkadi’s 24-year-old daughter, Abigail daughter, Abigail Elkadi, has been hired by Jacobson to work for Fuse Advancement. This has caused quite a stir. While some see no particular problem with young Elkadi finding a job, and there are assertions that as a parent, Elkadi has no control over what his adult children do., nevertheless, some are suggesting that Jacobson hiring Elkadi’s daughter at Fuse when Elkadi played a primary role in providing the company with a contract that has resulted in payments to that company of more than $1.25 million over the last five years is improper. At the very least, some of the same people who were instrumental in getting the FBI investigation rolling that resulted in July 28 serving of search warrants are saying, it looks bad. Others have alleged that it constitutes nepotism that crosses the line into a criminal conflict of interest.
The Sentinel this morning in an email to Elkadi asked him to on the record on behalf of the airport authority with regard to the matter. The Sentinel asked him if it was appropriated for Fuse to hire his daughter and if there was any problem with Fuse having hired a member of the airport authority’s general manager’s family. The Sentinel asked Elkadi, if he did not consider the situation to be problematic, to provide a cogent refutation to those who say it is. The Sentinel sought from him an encapsulation of the airport authority’s position vis-à-vis those calling for him to resign over what has occurred. The Sentinel further sought from him what the airport authority’s position is with regard to those who are calling for the airport authority to end its relationship with Fuse and Jacobson. The Sentinel asked if the airport authority is reevaluating its contractual relationship with Fuse.
Elkadi did not respond. However, the airport authority’s/airport’s spokesman, Steve Lambert did react to an email posing similar questions to the airport authority for official comment, stating, “Your ridiculous inquiry attempts to manufacture a controversy out of the employment of the CEO’s daughter by a private company. She is an adult, pursuing her own career and making her own professional decisions. The suggestion that her employment somehow constitutes grounds for her father’s resignation—or should dictate the airport’s relationship with an outside firm—is an extraordinary leap, and nothing presented in your inquiry establishes a factual basis for it.”
Lambert said, “More troubling is the decision to make a family member part of the Sentinel’s continuing campaign against Ontario International Airport. The airport has tolerated a steady stream of Sentinel stories and inquiries built around accusations, innuendo and false claims advanced by individuals who plainly have grievances against the airport and its leadership. You have repeatedly and apparently intentionally misstated generally available facts about the airport, its success since its return to local control and its impact on this vibrant region we serve. You have steadfastly refused to provide the same level of scrutiny to those who are feeding you misinformation, all while hiding their identities. But going after someone’s daughter is beyond the pale. Public officials and executives of public agencies should expect scrutiny. Their children should not become collateral damage simply because someone is looking for another angle of attack.”
Making no acknowledgment of Fuse’s status as a contractor to a public agency or Elkadi role in heading that public agency, Lambert implied that Fuse’s hiring of Elkadi’s daughter had no public relevance.
“Your predicate—asking the airport to rebut unnamed people who are supposedly demanding resignations and terminated contracts—is not a factual one,” Lambert asserted. “It is an invitation to participate in the creation of a controversy. We decline to do so.”
The Sentinel’s coverage of the matter relating to the Fuse contract, Atif Elkadi’s role as the executive director of the airport and airport authority, Abigail’s hiring by Fuse and a host of other issues pertaining to Ontario International Airport and the airport authority, Lambert said “is unfair, misleading and driven more by personal vendettas than by a legitimate effort to inform the public. This latest inquiry fits a pattern we have seen repeatedly, and bringing an adult daughter into it takes that pattern to a disturbing new level.”
The matter pertaining to Abigail Elkadi’s hiring by Fuse following her father’s participation in extending a public contract to Fuse is paralleled by the circumstance involving former Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was also at one time a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, an Assemblyman and a California State Senator. Ridley-Thomas was convicted in 2023 on five counts of honest services wire fraud, one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery involving programs receiving federal funds.
The case centered on a quid pro quo scheme between Ridley-Thomas, then a Los Angeles County Supervisor, and Marilyn Flynn, then dean of the USC School of Social Work. Prosecutors alleged that Flynn arranged for benefits for Ridley-Thomas’ son, Sebastian – including USC graduate school admission, a full-tuition scholarship, and a paid professorship – in exchange for Ridley-Thomas’ support for a telehealth contract between Los Angeles County and USC.
In March 2023, a Los Angeles federal jury found him guilty on the seven counts but acquitted him of 12 other fraud charges. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison and a $30,000 fine The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his convictions in August 2026.
Unlike Ridley-Thomas, Atif Elkadi is not an elected official. Nevertheless, Elkadi served in a key decision-making role with regard to the hiring of Fuse Advancement. As in the Ridley-Thomas matter, Ontario International Airport receives federal funds. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, which prosecuted Ridley-Thomas, is overseeing the production of evidence being accumulated in the FBI’s investigation of Ontario International Airport and the airport authority, and will handle the prosecutions that may result from that investigation

3 years of records show the San Bernardino County Gangs & Drugs Task Force never produced a single executive board agenda or minutes – giving a window on information discussed only at meetings open to the public

By Carlos Avalos
For more than three decades, the San Bernardino Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force (GDTF) has presented itself as a nonprofit coalition of educators, police chiefs, prosecutors and community volunteers working together on gang and drug prevention. Its letterhead in 1992 already listed county supervisors, mayors, police chiefs, the sheriff, the district attorney, and county counsel among its ranks. Today, according to its own bylaws and public materials, the organization is administered by the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS), its finances are handled by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and its leadership includes the sitting president of the county Board of Education, the county’s district attorney, a state assemblymember, and, as documented below, the sitting mayor of the city of San Bernardino.
When a county resident sought the task force’s meeting agendas, minutes, and financial records through the California Public Records Act, what came back, and what didn’t, turned out to be one of the more telling parts of this story. This account is based on a direct review of three years of those records, dozens of agendas and minutes spanning 2023 through 2025, along with the bylaws, a formal Brown Act cure-and-correct demand, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ response, and the organization’s own promotional materials.
A Familiar Playbook: The San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools Precedent
The underlying legal question isn’t new. In February 2024, the California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued Opinion No. 22-402 , concluding that another San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools-affiliated group, the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools, or SANDABS, qualifies as a ‘legislative body’ under the Brown Act (Gov. Code § 54952) because it was created by public agencies, staffed by public employees, funded through public channels, and administered by the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, known by the acronym SBCSS. That opinion is the yardstick against which the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force’s own structure is now being measured, and the parallels are substantial: San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools performs the San Bernardino Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force administrative functions under its own bylaws; the Sheriff’s Department serves as fiscal agent; the Executive Board is dominated by elected officials and agency heads; and the organization operates from public facilities under a mission coordinating law enforcement, education, probation, and elected officials on public-safety programming, which mirrors the kind of governmental function the Attorney General cited in the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools, opinion.
What Three Years of Records Actually Show

• The bylaws require San Bernardino County’s Gangs & Drugs Task Force to have an Executive Board to meet monthly, apart from July, to elect officers, approve budgets, and govern the organization. Separately, the bylaws call

   

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  for General Membership meetings on a different schedule. That distinction turns out to matter enormously, because a direct review of the records the county produced shows something the earlier legal analysis had only suspected: every document turned over, every single agenda and every set of minutes from 2023 through 2025 is labeled a General Membership Meeting. Not one Executive Board agenda, and not one set of Executive Board minutes, appears anywhere in three years of production. 

  That is not a minor omission. It means the public record shows only the informational, presentation-driven meetings the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force has holds for outside groups and community partners, never the sessions in which its governing board, by its own bylaws, is supposed to elect officers, approve its budget, and make binding decisions. If those Executive Board meetings happen, as the bylaws require, there is no public paper trail of them in what the county has disclosed.
  A second pattern emerged from reading the agendas themselves. Every agenda reviewed for this story follows the same template: Call to Order, Introductions, Minutes, Program Presentation, then Announcements and Adjournment. Some agendas add a ‘Questions & Answers’ item, but it is tied specifically to that meeting’s invited presenter, never a standing invitation for members of the public to address the board on any subject of their choosing, which is the kind of general public-comment period the Brown Act requires of bodies it covers.
  A third pattern involves where the meetings are held. With only occasional exceptions, the minutes show meetings held at the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department headquarters at 655 East Third Street or at the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ Dorothy Ingraham Learning Center, never at a neutral or privately operated venue. Both are public buildings staffed by the same agencies that run the task force’s administrative and fiscal functions.
  The Rotating Chair
  The bylaws limit board members to three consecutive terms ‘per title,’ while explicitly allowing unlimited service if members simply rotate titles. The minutes show that provision in action. From 2023 through 2025, both Dr. Gwen Dowdy-Rodgers and Dr. Scott Wyatt appear, in different months and different years, personally calling meetings to order and personally adjourning them, the functions of a presiding chair. San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ own 2025 roster lists Dowdy-Rodgers as Chairperson and Wyatt as Vice Chair; earlier minutes show Wyatt exercising the chair’s gavel just as often. Whatever the formal title on paper in a given month, the same two people have effectively shared the task force’s top leadership position for years, one of them the sitting president of the county Board of Education, the other a San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ employee and elected trustee of the San Bernardino City Unified School District.
  A City Mayor on the Board
  The executive board roster already included the county’s district attorney, its schools superintendent, and a state assembly member. The minutes add another name: San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran is listed as a citizen-at-large executive board member on the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools’ own 2025 roster, and appears in an August 2023 meeting delivering a presentation, in her capacity as mayor, on the city’s homelessness response. A sitting city mayor serving on the governing board of an organization administered by the county schools office and financed through the sheriff’s department is one more thread tying the task force’s leadership to elected officials whose own agencies the task force regularly showcases.
  Where the Scholarship Money Comes From
  The minutes also put a number on the grant and scholarship activity the earlier analysis flagged as an open question. In 2024, San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force has awarded 44 scholarships of $1,000 each; the following year, roughly 30 more were awarded. The June 2024 minutes state plainly that the scholarship program was made possible through the Children Deserve Success Department with San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, the Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office, the Probation Department, and the Public Defender’s Office, five different public agencies. Applications were reviewed by a panel that included a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant sheriff, and a San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ staff member, not an independent scholarship committee insulated from the agencies whose money and staff time fund the program. Separately, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools has publicly touted a $20,000 grant from the county Probation Department presented directly to the San Bernardino County Gang and Drug Task Force.
  The Paper Trail: A Cure-and-Correct Demand, and an Unusual Denial
  On August 28, 2025, a formal “cure and correct” demand under Government Code § 54960.1 was addressed to County Superintendent Ted Alejandre and the San Bernardino County Board of Education. The demand alleged that the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools’ executive board was violating the Brown Act by holding monthly meetings without public notice, agendas, or an opportunity for public comment, with meeting information effectively hidden inside an internal San Bernardino County superintendent of schools staff event system accessible only through a school-district registration portal. A follow-up addendum on September 1, 2025, renewed the demand and invoked the California Attorney General Office’s opinion relating to the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools matter directly.
  The response came on September 26, 2025, not from the board of education or Superintendent Alejandre, but from Jenny Owen, the San Bernardino County superintendent of schools’ director of communications and intergovernmental affairs. Owen’s letter stated plainly that “the task force is not a part of SBCSS,” while acknowledging in the same paragraph that the San Bernardino County superintendent of schools “serves as the administrative agent for the task force.” The letter asserted that the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools was never created by a legislative body, that participating officials serve “in their personal capacities” rather than as agency representatives, and that neither the San Bernardino County superintendent of schools nor the sheriff’s department is itself “governed by a legislative body,” a characterization that, on its face, is difficult to reconcile with the county board of education’s own role as the San Bernardino County superintendent of schools’ governing board, or the sheriff’s department’s status as a county department under an elected sheriff. The letter separately asserted that a cure-and-correct demand was the wrong legal vehicle in any case, since the cure-and-correct demand had not identified a specific board action to invalidate, only an ongoing pattern of closed meetings. It closed by declaring the matter concluded.
  Who Sits on the Board – and Whom They Answer To
  Public records and the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force’s own materials show an Executive Board with substantial overlap between the task force’s leadership and the very institutions meant to oversee, fund, or answer to it:
  • Gwen Dowdy-Rodgers – San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force Chair (2025 roster), and, separately, President of the San Bernardino County Board of Education, the body that governs the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ . Minutes show she and Scott Wyatt have effectively alternated the chair’s duties across 2023–2025.
  • Scott Wyatt –San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force Vice Chair (2025 roster), a San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ employee, and an elected trustee of the San Bernardino City Unified School District, the same board Dowdy-Rodgers previously served on. Minutes repeatedly show him presiding as Chair in other years and months.
  • Ted Alejandre– County Superintendent of Schools, serving as San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force ex officio member, while his agency simultaneously administers the task force.
  • Jason Anderson– San Bernardino County District Attorney, listed as an Executive Board member and shown in attendance at task force meetings, whose office would ordinarily be positioned to evaluate potential Brown Act or conflict-of-interest complaints touching county bodies.
  • Helen Tran– Mayor of the City of San Bernardino, listed as a Citizens-at-Large Executive Board member, who has also appeared before the board as a featured presenter on city policy.
  • James C. Ramos– State Assemblymember, listed as the board’s Legislative representative; Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a state Senator, is listed in the same category.
  • Brenda Dowdy– a Citizens-at-large representative on the board who, according to the underlying cure-and-correct correspondence, is Gwen Dowdy-Rodgers’ sister, and who has chaired the scholarship-announcement process at board meetings.
  • Sherman Garnett and Don English– Garnett is a former San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools administrator and current San Bernardino County Drug and Gang Task Force Executive Board member; English, the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force Executive Director, is also a San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools administrator whom Garnett is said to have recommended for the position. Garnett has separately been paid by the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools on a per-attendee basis for workshops– compensation that, according to the cure-and-correct correspondence, has at times equated to more than $3,000 per instructional hour.
  None of these relationships is illegal on their own. Family members, former colleagues, and overlapping public officials serve together on boards throughout California without running afoul of any law. But taken together, a rotating chair shared by two San Bernardino County Superintendents of Schools-linked officials, a city mayor, a district attorney, a state legislator, and a scholarship-review panel staffed by the same sheriff’s office that holds the money, the pattern is precisely the kind of fact pattern that open-government advocates say the Brown Act was written to reach.
  Laws Potentially Involved
  The following is a summary of the legal frameworks that the documented facts above could implicate. None of this is presented as an established finding of wrongdoing; each depends on facts, the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force’s precise legal structure, who controls its funds, and how its leadership actually functions, which have not yet been resolved by a court, the Attorney General, the Fair Political Practices Commission “FPPC”, or any other authority.
  State Law
  • Ralph M. Brown Act, Government Code §§ 54950–54963– California’s open-meetings law for local legislative bodies. Whether it applies turns on whether San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force meets the statutory definition of a ‘legislative body’ under § 54952, the same question resolved against San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools, SANDABS, in AG Opinion No. 22-402 . The complete absence of any produced Executive Board agenda or minutes, across three years of CPRA production, is a documented fact directly relevant to that analysis, whichever way it is ultimately resolved.
  • California Government Code § 54960.1 (the ‘cure and correct’ procedure) whether San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ staff-level denial, issued without an apparent Board of Education vote, satisfied the statute’s requirement that the legislative body itself respond to a cure-and-correct demand.
  • California Public Records Act, Government Code § 7920.000 et seq. (formerly § 6250 et seq.) bearing on whether San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force has Executive Board agendas, minutes, and financial records, none of which surfaced in the production reviewed for this story, exist and were properly disclosable, or whether their absence reflects that such records are simply not being kept.
  • Political Reform Act, Government Code § 87100 et seq., enforced by the state Fair Political Practices Commission– potentially relevant to the compensation arrangement involving Sherman Garnett, and to any instance in which an official with a personal or financial interest participated in a governmental decision affecting that interest. (Underlying research referenced an open FPPC matter involving Garnett; this account makes no independent finding as to its status or outcome and describes it only as a matter under review, not a proven violation.)
  • Government Code § 1090– the state’s core conflict-of-interest statute barring public officials from having a financial interest in contracts they help make; potentially relevant to the Garnett-English hiring and compensation history described above, and to a scholarship-review process staffed by the same agencies that fund it, if any participant had a financial interest in the outcome.
  • Incompatible-offices doctrine, Government Code § 1099, and common-law incompatibility principles–potentially relevant to Scott Wyatt’s simultaneous status as a San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ employee and an elected school district trustee, and more broadly to officials sitting on multiple interlocking boards that oversee or fund one another.
  • Supervision of Trustees for Charitable Purposes Act, Government Code § 12580 et seq., and related charitable-solicitation rules– potentially relevant if the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force solicits donations or scholarships from the public without the registration such activity typically requires.
  Federal Law
  · 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(3) and related IRS tax-exemption requirements- relevant if the San Bernardino County Gangs and Drugs Task Force holds itself out as a tax-exempt nonprofit without a corresponding IRS determination on file; this account does not confirm the GDTF’s IRS status either way.
  · Federal grant-compliance requirements- if any federal funds (for example, federal juvenile-justice or Byrne-type grant dollars administered through county agencies) are commingled with San Bernardino County Gangs and Drugs Task Force activities, those funds would carry their own federal reporting and use restrictions. Nothing in the records reviewed for this story confirms that federal funds flow directly to the San Bernardino County Gangs and Drugs Task Force, and this item is flagged as a question for further reporting, not a documented violation.
  Local / City Considerations
  • San Bernardino City Unified School District board policies and Education Code provisions governing trustee conduct and outside employment, as they may bear on Scott Wyatt’s dual role.
  • Any City of San Bernardino conflict-of-interest or outside-activity policy governing Mayor Helen Tran’s service on an Executive Board administered by the county school’s office and financed through the county Sheriff’s Department.
  • San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors’ oversight authority over the Sheriff’s Department’s role as fiscal agent for an outside organization, and whatever county policy, if any, governs county departments serving in that capacity.
  What the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Says
  San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ position, as stated in Jenny Owen’s September 26, 2025, letter, is unambiguous: the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force is a separate, private coordination platform; the public officials who sit on its board do so in a personal capacity; and neither the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools nor the sheriff’s department is itself a Brown Act ‘legislative body’ in a way that would extend coverage to a group they administer. San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools did not, according to the records reviewed, address why the response came from a communications director rather than the board of education itself, nor did the board of education take any public action on the underlying cure-and-correct demand.
  What’s Still Unknown
  Substantial questions remain open, and answering them would likely require additional public-records requests, an Attorney General opinion, or litigation:
  • Do San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force Executive Board meetings, as required by the bylaws, actually take place every month, and if so, why has not a single agenda or minutes document from any Executive Board meeting surfaced in three years of CPRA production?
  • What is the San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force actual legal form, an unincorporated association, a government program operating under an assumed name, or something else, and who formally created it?
  • Who has legal custody of San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force funds, who approves its budget, and has that budget ever been independently audited?
  • Did the San Bernardino County Board of Education ever formally consider the cure-and-correct demand before San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools’ staff declared it ‘concluded’?
  • What is the status of the FPPC matter referenced in connection with Sherman Garnett’s compensation, and has any determination been made?
  • Are there written policies governing conflicts of interest for the panel that reviews San Bernardino’s Countywide Gangs & Drugs Task Force scholarship applications, given that reviewers have included sheriff’s department personnel from the same department that serves as fiscal agent?
  Editor’s note: This article is based on bylaws, three years of meeting agendas and minutes obtained through public records requests, correspondence between a county resident and SBCSS, and the organization’s own promotional materials, supplemented by publicly available Attorney General opinions. Statutes are identified as potentially relevant to the facts described; none of the legal questions raised here has been resolved by a court, the Attorney General, the FPPC, or any other authority with jurisdiction to make that determination, and no individual named in this story has been found by any such authority to have violated the law. This story will be updated as records requests are fulfilled and as SBCSS, the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools, or named individuals respond to requests for comment.

As one of San Bernardino County’s most recently incorporated municipalities, Twentynine Palms over the years has also proven to be one of the county’s jurisdictions most resistant to the State of California’s usurpation of local land use authority. It was therefore to the surprise, dismay and delight of many that one set of the city’s officials made a 180-degree reversal from that tradition and this month embraced what is in many circles considered to be the most radical of Sacramento’s notions with regard to modern urban planning.
At its September 15 meeting, the Twentynine Palms Planning Commission broached the concept, which will be considered and wielded into a policy that is potentially to be adopted by the city council as early as next month.
By a 3-to-0 vote, the planning commission, in essence, recommended that the city council revamp the city’s development code in a way that will allow homeowners – that is, those who hold title to existing single family residences – to augment their properties with as many as three so-called accessory dwelling units.
What is afoot as a consequence of this reorientation toward what the standards for living arrangements the community is to adhere to is the quality of life a significant portion of the population in Twentynine Palms over the next several generations. In essence, the planning commission is calling upon the city council to allow the density of single family homes already built in the city or to be built in the future to be quadrupled.
A multitude of factors is at play. Continue reading →

As part of its concerted effort with other public agencies to drive the homeless population out of San Bernardino County, sheriff’s deputies on September 4 confronted 64 people they had grounds to believe were living on the streets of Loma Linda, Grand Terrace and unincorporated areas of San Bernardino County. The deputies offered to drive them and their belongings, no questions asked and without checking to see if they had any outstanding warrants, to any destination of their choosing in contiguous Los Angeles County, Riverside County, Orange County, Kern County Inyo County, Kern County, Clark County in Nevada and Cochise County in Arizona. Those who accepted the offer were given conveyance to wherever they wanted to go, and provided with a hot fast-food meal to boot. Those who refused were identified by the forced production of identification or the use of what one lieutenant in the department called “alternate means.” They were then subjected to checks utilizing their names, birthdates, license or registration numbers against the data bases shared by California law enforcement agencies – NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, considered the United States’ primary database and information registry for tracking crime-related information, maintained by the Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, known by its acronym CLETS, consisting of information compiled by the California Attorney General’s Office to include criminal histories, arrests, convictions and information on California’s licensed drivers provided by the Department of Motor Vehicles and other databases at the disposal of California public safety agencies; Continue reading →

While corporate officials with Brightline West are putting the best face possible on the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing done by its parent/sister company across the continent, a host of developments indicate that the sword of Damocles is stretched perilously above the Southern California-to-Las Vegas high-speed rail project.
Brightline West is proposing to build a 218-mile, all-electric, high-speed passenger rail system connecting Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga.
Brightline has built and established a 235-mile intercity higher-speed passenger rail network connecting South and Central Florida. Brightline operational rail routes and infrastructure in Florida is impressive. From south Florida to the central Florida corridor, Brightline operates a line running from downtown Miami to Orlando International Airport, covering the full distance in about 3 hours and 25 minutes at top speeds of 125 mph. Brightline’s Phase 1 in South Florida, which launched in 2018, utilizes upgraded tracks along the century-old Florida East Coast Railway corridor connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach. The company’s Phase 2 East-West Connector, which opened in September 2023, is a dedicated 35-mile, fenced, grade-separated rail corridor alongside the Beachline Expressway, also known as State Route 528, from Cocoa to Orlando International Airport. The established stations in Florida include MiamiCentral Station, the Aventura Station, the Fort Lauderdale Station, the West Palm Beach Station and the Orlando International Airport Station. Continue reading →

Circumstances support 180 degree opposite interpretations of the prospect that prosecutors will be able to get the murder charge lodged against 53-yer-old Jeff Anthony Maiorca to stick.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office is proceeding with the theory advanced that Maiorca, then 33 years old, murdered his ex-wife, 29-year-old Jill Maiorca, in November 2006, more than two years after he had initiated divorce proceedings against her.
The case involves more than one anomaly.
Jill Maiorca was not reported as missing until 2007. Based upon evidence developed by homicide detectives with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, she died as the result of foul play months prior to that. Ultimately, investigators say, her body was disposed of beneath the wooden floor joists of a home in a residential area of Big Bear, in the community where the couple lived prior to their divorce, and where Jeff Maiorca was yet residing as of earlier this month. Continue reading →