(November 9)   SAN BERNARDINO – The county board of supervisors this week significantly reduced restrictions on small scale windmills utilized for the generation of electrical power. In particular, the revision of the county’s development code will allow more wind turbines to be constructed on residential properties in the county’s rural areas.
According to Christine Kelly, the director of the county’s land use services division, the ordinance presented to and approved by the board on November 6 was intended “to revise the regulations for accessory wind energy systems to recognize new technologies and amend the development standards for these systems, which standards currently prohibit the installation of smaller, less impactful systems on residential properties.”
Following the July 1, 2002 implementation of Assembly Bill 1207, which pertained to small wind energy systems, San Bernardino County adopted an ordinance in November 2002, that established procedures and development standards for the installation of such devices within “non-urbanized” settings in its jurisdiction.
According to Kelly “These new regulations proved to be inadequate for the protection of the residents within the county. Primarily, the visual impacts of these wind energy systems and the lack of notice to the surrounding property owners produced considerable reactions from the residents within the various neighborhoods of the county, particularly in the Oak Hills area.
Due to the numerous complaints from local residents, staff reevaluated the 2002 development code procedures to address these issues associated with the permitting process for wind turbines. On December 20, 2005, the board adopted revisions to these regulations in order to provide a uniform and comprehensive set of standards, conditions, and procedures for the placement of these systems in a manner that minimizes visual and safety impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the community.
“Since that time,” Kelly continued, “new technologies have been developed to generate electricity with smaller, less impactful systems that should be recognized by the county in its development standards for these systems. Recently wind energy proponents have been frustrated by development standards that they believed hampered their attempts to employ new wind electrical generation technologies such as roof-mounted systems and small-blade technology. Limitations on the number of turbines permitted and separation requirements made it difficult to design effective new roof or building-mounted systems. In response to public input, including requests from various industry representatives, staff has evaluated the current regulations relative to these systems, along with those from other jurisdictions, and has determined that the county should amend the code to reflect these new technologies and to clarify other provisions of the code.
The code amendment adopted by the board revised the regulations for accessory wind energy systems. Previously, each less-than-20-acre parcel was permitted a maximum of one windmill and larger parcels were permitted to have no more than three windmills. If the units were less than 50 feet in height, a maximum of two turbines per five acres was allowed.
The new rule does away with the limitation by number of units and instead imposes a limit based upon wattage. In this way, the number of units is limited to a maximum of produced wattage of the combined systems of ten kilowatts for residential and fifty kilowatts for non-residential properties. The new rules allow for more than fifty kilowatts to be generated if it can be demonstrated that the total amount of electricity is being used on site.
“The goal was to not necessarily limit the number of units, but to ensure that energy generation remained an accessory use,” Kelly said. “The new county policy will ensure that wind energy systems remain accessory uses by limiting the amount of energy produced to energy that could be used on-site. The maximum power generation was based on typical usage estimated by the American Wind Energy Association.”
The new regulations  address what Kelly referred to as “building-mounted systems.”
The previous rules did not define building-mounted systems but involved so-called “separation requirements,” which prohibited more than one system attached to a structure per parcel.
The new rules require applicants to meet manufacturer’s separation requirements, but allow the possibility of multiple units to be located on one parcel. This new regulation addresses new technologies which involve smaller units but greater numbers of units.  The previous separation requirements required a separation of 240 feet between systems on the same parcel. Under the new rules, both towers and building mounted systems need to be located appropriately to function efficiently. Other regulations with regard to setback requirements from the property line still apply even with the elimination of the standard for separation between units.
With regard to permit requirements, the county’s previous policy called for windmill operators to obtain an accessory wind energy permit for all systems greater than 35 feet in height but contained a permit exemption for units of lesser height. The new policy maintains the exemption from the land use permit requirement if only a single unit of less than 35 feet is proposed for a parcel. Such projects, however, still require a building permit. If multiple units are proposed for a parcel, the exemption from the permit requirement would not apply even if the units are 35 feet or less in height.
The revision allows for the notification of neighbors when multiple units are proposed. The accessory wind energy permit is a discretionary permit that requires noticing to all surrounding property owners within 300 feet from the subject property boundaries. The code establishes the staff review with notice procedures to process such an application. This permit and notice are primarily required to ensure that all units are located on a site with the least impact to neighboring properties. Any decision made on these permits may be appealed only to the planning commission, the decision of which is final. The board of supervisors does not hear appeals on windmill permits.
Retired county planning director James Squires, whose tenure with the county predated Kelly’s hiring and who had dealt with the windmill issue in years past, by special arrangement was brought in to present the proposed code changes to the board.

(November 9)    In San Bernardino County’s municipal elections this week, 29, or 72.5 percent of the mayoral and council incumbents were reelected or unopposed. Eleven incumbents were turned out of office by voters. Nine incumbents chose not to run or had resigned before the election was held.
In Adelanto, incumbent Ed Camargo won and incumbent Trinidad Perez lost to challenger Ronald Beard.
In Apple Valley, former fire chief Art Bishop and fire board member Larry Cusack outpolled seven others to capture two town council seats.
In Barstow, councilwoman Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre was unopposed in her run for mayor after incumbent Joe Gomez chose not to run. Rich Harpole and Carmen Hernandez captured the two contested council positions, in the process turning out incumbent Tim Saenz.
In Big Bear Lake, incumbent mayor Bill Jahn and Bob Jackowski were reelected and elected, respectively, to the city council.
In Chino, mayor Dennis Yates held off challenger Lee McGroarty. Incumbent councilmen Tom Haughey and Glenn Duncan were unopposed.
In Chino Hills, mayor Art Bennett, who was appointed to the council four years ago rather than elected, and Cynthia Moran were victorious in a field of five.
In Colton, incumbent District 3 councilman Vincent Yzaguirre was turned out of office by Frank Navarro. In Colton’s District 5 race, councilwoman Deirdre Bennett was reelected. In District 6 Isaac Suchil regained the council position he lost four years ago to Alex Perez. Perez finished third among three candidates.
In Fontana, incumbent Lydia Salazar Wibert won, but another incumbent, Matthew Slowik was chased from office by Jesus “Jesse” Sandoval.
In Grand Terrace, councilwoman Lee Ann Garcia was displaced after 18 years in office. Reelected was Darcy McNaboe. Two other challengers, Sylvia Robles and Jackie Mitchell were elected.
In Hesperia, where there were eleven candidates in the city council race, Mike Leonard was reelected to a third term. Incumbent Paul Bosacki was ousted by Eric Schmidt.
In Highland, incumbents John Timmer and Penny Lilburn turned back a challenge by Tony Mauricio.
In Montclair, incumbents John Dutrey and Carolyn Raft were reelected.
In Needles, there was no suspense to the polling at all as mayor Ed Paget and councilmen Tony Frazier and Jim Lopez were unopposed.
In Ontario, incumbent Debra Dorst-Porada was reelected but her colleague Sheila Mautz was displaced by Paul Vincent Avila in the nine-candidate race.
In Rancho Cucamonga, Marc Steinorth ousted longtime councilman and one-time mayoral candidate Chuck Buquet. Incumbent councilman Sam Spagnolo retained his position.
In Redlands, where seven candidates competed, mayor Pete Aguilar was reelected and former mayor Pat Gilbreath made a political comeback from her defeat two years ago by being elected to the council position now held by Jerry Bean, who chose not to run.
In Rialto, councilwoman Deborah Robertson defeated councilman Ed Scott in the race to replace outgoing mayor Grace Vargas. Incumbent councilman Ed Palmer retained his seat and newcomer Shawn O’Connell polled his way to the top of five challengers.
In Twentynine Palms, Incumbent John Cole was reelected, while schoolteacher Cora Heiser bested incumbent Joel Klink.
In Upland, incumbent mayor Ray Musser turned back challenges from council members Gino Filippi and Debbie Stone. In the race for a single council seat, Glenn Bozar bested four others.
In Victorville, longtime councilman Mike Rothschild was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection, while mayor Ryan McEachron captured reelection. Jim Cox, who was Victorville city manager for 32 years, was given a berth on the council along with Gloria Garcia.
In Yucaipa, the only two incumbents vying for reelection, Denise Hoyt and Dick Riddell, handily won reelection among a field of six. Also victorious was Bobby Dean Duncan.
In Yucca Valley, incumbents George Huntington and Robert Lombardo were unopposed.

(November 9)   High Desert businessman Robert Lovingood edged Apple Valley town councilman Rick Roelle in the race for First District supervisor.
Roelle, a sheriff’s lieutenant who has served two-and-one-half terms on the Apple Valley council, held a fundraising advantage over Lovingood in that he had the support of the two major public employee unions representing county employees that proved to be the major donors in this year’s First District supervisor race. The San Bernardino Public Employees Association, representing over 12,000 county non-safety division workers, and the Safety Employees Benefit Association, representing sheriff’s officers and district attorney’s office investigators, had lined up behind Roelle and provided him with over $100,000 in contributions.
Lovingood, who lives in Apple Valley and owns ICR Staffing Services in Victorville, loaned his campaign enough of his own money to be able to answer, if not entirely match the advertising blitz put on by his opponent. Despite the funding disadvantage, Lovingood benefitted from sentiment that is turning against public employee unions’ domination of local politics.
Lovingood jumped to a 5.61 percent lead over his rival with the tallying of absentee ballots shortly after the closing of the polls on Tuesday night.
Throughout the evening and into the morning, Roelle was making a show of closing the gap, but fell short when all 357 of the First District’s precincts had reported. The final numbers showed Lovingood with 38,640 votes or 51.22 percent to Roelle’s 36,798 votes or 48.78 percent.

(November 2)  The community of Hinkley is trending toward extinction as a significant number of its residents are electing to pack up and leave in the face of what appears to be an ineradicable hexavalent chromium contamination problem. That exodus is being hastened by the willingness of the entity responsible for the contamination to essentially buy them out as part of a plan to convert the rustic desert hamlet into a ghost town.
Contrary to widespread public assumptions, Pacific Gas & Electric’s payment of $333 million in 1996 as part of what was then the largest settlement in a direct action lawsuit in U.S. history did not redress the underlying problem.
Hinkley, with a population of something over 1,900, is an unincorporated zone in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert just north of State Highway 58, 14 miles northwest of Barstow, 59 miles east of Mojave, and 47 miles north of Victorville.
The town came to international prominence in 2000 with the release of the blockbuster movie Erin Brokovich, in which Pacific Gas and Electric was portrayed as a corporate villain that had recklessly endangered the lives and health of Hinkley’s residents. The movie was a substantially accurate version of what had actually occurred.
The Hinkley chromium 6 contamination came about as a consequence of Pacific Gas and Electric’s operation of a compressor station there beginning in 1952. The compressor station was a facility located on a pipeline that ran between Texas and Canada and delivered in excess of three billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The compressor station in Hinkley was one of eight such stations along the line in California. Natural gas available in the line was used to fuel compressors which repressurized the gas to push it through the pipeline. At Hinkley, the compressed gas was cooled with water circulating through two cooling towers. From 1952 until 1966, hexavalent chromium was added to the cooling water to prevent corrosion to the cooling towers and the water circulation system. Wastewater from the cooling system was disposed of in unlined ponds at the Hinkley site. Beginning in 1964, after the danger of chromium 6 was recognized, the cooling water was treated to remove the chromium before it was disposed in the pools and a non-chromium-based additive was substituted into the cooling system in 1966. Beginning in 1972 the cooling water was pumped into lined evaporation ponds.
These improvements to the system, however, did not undo the ecological havoc that had occurred up until 1972.
In 1988, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees water quality issues in that portion of the desert, issued a cleanup and abatement order to investigate a plume of chromium 6 in the water table.
In 1991, 1997 and 2004, the water board issued permits to treat the contaminated groundwater using land treatment units. In 2006, with the Hinkley groundwater contamination issue fading from public consciousness, the water board gave permits for two subterranean remediation systems to clean up the source and central areas of the plume. In 2008, however, the issue was resurrected as one of regional and local concern when, amidst the water board’s provision of a permit for Pacific Gas & Electric to apply additional cleanup measures, it issued redrafted cleanup and abatement orders. Steadily over the last four years, the condition of the lingering contamination in Hinkley has grown into a larger and larger public issue as evidence of how the underground plume of chromium 6 continues to migrate through the water table into the area from which local wells draw water used for household purposes has emerged.
The best hydrological data now available indicates the plume is about six miles long and two miles wide and gradually expanding.
Pacific Gas and Electric has been mandated and tasked to take a number of steps to ensure that the tainted water does not end up in the drinking glasses, cooking utensils, showers, baths, toilets and garden hoses of Hinkley residents.
Essentially, all or nearly all of those strategies have been deemed ineffective or inadequate to the task of preventing human consumption of the hexavalent chromium, which is a known carcinogen that is harmful in even the most minute of quantities.
Among those strategies was one championed by Pacific Gas & Electric that called for “irrigating crops as an effective means of providing both hydraulic control and treatment of extracted hexavalent chromium tainted water.” That process entailed pumping groundwater through a subsurface drip irrigation system and organic matter in the soil around plant root zones to create conditions, Pacific Gas & Electric claimed, would “chemically reduce the level of chromium 6 in the water. Hexavalent chromium is naturally reduced to insoluble trivalent chromium. Trivalent chromium joins and becomes bound with the trivalent chromium naturally occurring in the subsurface soil.” Using this method, Pacific Gas and Electric maintained in 2009 that “Total hexavalent chromium concentrations in extracted groundwater have decreased from approximately 60 micrograms per liter in 2004 to approximately 20 micrograms per liter today.”
The effectiveness of that approach was questioned by others, including the water board and residents of the area.
Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the earth’s crust and as such naturally occurs in rocks, soil, ground water and plants.
Under current guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifies 100 micrograms per liter as the maximum acceptable total chromium contaminant level acceptable in water to be consumed by humans. The California state standard is half that at 50 micrograms per liter. But that standard applies to the most beneficent form of chromium, and not hexavalent chromium or chromium 6.
Trivalent chromium – chromium 3 – is the dominant form of chromium in nature, and is virtually insoluble in water and  stable and immobile in soil. Hexavalent chromium – chromium six – is not abundant in nature, is soluble in water and is a potential carcinogen if inhaled.
For that reason, Pacific Gas and Electric believes that a strategy of converting the hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium is an acceptable one. Pacific Gas & Electric has never been able to execute upon that theory in actuality, however.
In addition to treating the water within the water table, Pacific Gas & Electric sought ways of keeping the contaminated water from migrating to other areas of the aquifer and tainting the water there. One effort Pacific Gas & Electric made to prevent the spreading of the plume entailed drawing up to 80 gallons of water per minute from supply wells south of the compression station, pumping it north through new underground pipes and injecting the water outside the northwestern plume boundary. This strategy, Pacific Gas and Electric claimed, was intended to “create a hydraulic barrier designed to prevent spreading of the plume.” While partially effective, that measure did not achieve the goal of reducing the chromium 6 in the water supply to an acceptable level.
Pacific Gas & Electric was hamstrung in its undertaking by a multitude of challenges and obstacles that included low background chromium levels in the Hinkley area, a legacy of extensive agricultural use in the area that introduced other contaminants unrelated to chromium 6 into the water table, ongoing active use of the aquifer, potential revisions of the chromium standard and difficulty in accessing all portions of the plume.
Pacific Gas and Electric, in an assertion disputed by many environmentalists and local activists, claims that there are average chromium background levels of 1.2 micrograms per liter in the Hinkley area and maximum chromium background levels of 3.1 microgram per liter in certain areas around Hinkley.
That assertion was attacked by critics as an attempt by Pacific Gas and Electric to lower the degree of clean-up work it should have been required to do.
With the continuing migration of the plume, Pacific Gas & Electric offered to provide every household and business in Hinkley with a filtration/treatment system to capture the chromium before it would be dispensed at the tap. Last year it began supplying all homes and businesses in the area with commercial drinking water.
But with no certain, final and comprehensive cure of the problem in sight, Pacific Gas & Electric at the corporate level began casting about for some way out of the dilemma the operators of that company two generations ago created. A possible solution? Buying the entire town of Hinkley, lock, stock and barrel.
To test that approach, in April, Pacific Gas & Electric sampled the attitude of the 300 Hinkley homeowners most impacted by chromium 6 groundwater contamination. They offered them, essentially, three options. Under option one, the company offered to continue to supply them with bottled water, apparently into perpetuity. Option two consisted of the company replacing in its entirely each home’s water hook-up and piping and plumbing arrangements, and providing each with a state of the art filtration, purification and treatment system. The third option was that Pacific Gas & Electricity would purchase their property at fair market value, providing them with enough money to move elsewhere. The residents were given an October 15 decision deadline.
Remarkably, two-thirds of the homeowners – 200 – accepted Pacific Gas & Electric’s offer to buy out their property. The process is by no means complete, as the properties yet need to be appraised and the full terms of the sales have to be negotiated and determined. Moreover, fully one third of the queried residents have not indicated a willingness to leave. And there were at least 200 other homeowners and another 100 or so property owners who have not been approached by Pacific Gas & Electric about their readiness to sell their land and go. But the startling number of residents who appear prepared to simply sell out and depart town altogether raises questions about the viability of the community as a lasting concern. Once homeowners begin their exodus, property values are likely to plummet and the customer base for most of the local businesses will diminish, leading to their closure. Some remaining property or homeowners may continue to hang on, either because they do not view living in solitude in a negative light or because they believe that Pacific Gas & Electric might be induced to up its offers to achieve complete ownership and autonomy over the area.
At issue are a few public facilities in the area and what their fate would be in the event of the essential shut down of the town. Hinkley Elementary Middle School is maintained and operated by the Barstow Unified School District. In addition to students from Hinkley, the school draws about fifty others from outside town. If the school were to be shuttered, the district would likely ask to be recompensed in some way, perhaps involving Pacific Gas & Electric’s purchase of the school site along with an agreement to partially defray the cost of a replacement school.
Despite the expense, Pacific Gas & Electric appears to be prepared to make a de facto purchase of the town. That purchase would, until the plume migrates to another populated area, stanch the flow of money being spent to redress the local hexavalent chromium contamination problem.

(November 2)  In a ruling that on balance was more favorable to the defense than to prosecutors, the California 4th District Court of Appeal in Riverside on October 31 clarified what issues will be heard when the celebrated Colonies Settlement Political Corruption case goes to trial.
The appeals court, while rejecting a request by prosecutors to reinstate previously dropped bribery charges against the Rancho Cucamonga developer at the center of the case, sided with the prosecution in its request that charges of misappropriation of public funds against the three other defendants in the case that had been dropped be reinstated. In another portion of the appellate ruling favorable to the defense, conflict-of-interest charges against two of the defendants were also dismissed.
The Colonies Settlement Political Corruption case grew out of the November 26, 2006 3-2 vote of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors as it was then composed to approve a $102 million settlement of the civil action brought against the county and its flood control division by the Colonies Partners over drainage issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in northeast Upland.
Prosecutors allege that earlier in 2006 Jeff Burom, who was with Dan Richards one of the two managing principals of the Colonies Partners, conspired with former sheriff’s deputies’ union president Jim Erwin to blackmail two of the then-members of the board of supervisors, Bill Postmus and Paul Biane, by threatening to reveal in mailers to be sent to voters the former’s homosexuality and drug use and the latter’s insolvency. After the November 2006 vote in which Postmus and Biane joined with their board colleague Gary Ovitt to approve the settlement, prosecutors maintain Burum during the first six months of 2007 delivered four separate $100,000 bribes to Postmus, Biane, Erwin and Ovitt’s chief-of-staff, Mark Kirk, in the form of political donations to political action committees the four had founded or controlled.
Postmus and Erwin were indicted on bribery and extortion counts relating to this alleged scheme in February 2010. After Postmus in March 2011 entered guilty pleas on 14 felony counts contained in that first indictment, he appeared as the star witness before a newly impaneled grand jury that heard a total of 45 witnesses in April 2011. The following month that grand jury handed down a superseding 29-count indictment naming Burum, Erwin, Biane and Kirk, who were charged variously with conspiracy to commit a crime, bribery, conflict of interest, tax fraud, tax evasion, perjury, forgery, and aiding and abetting.
In August 2011, after demurrers were filed on behalf of Burum, Erwin, Kirk and Biane by their lawyers, Judge Brian McCarville granted some but not all of those defense requests to throw out charges based on their lack of clarity or insufficiency, dismissing five of the counts lodged against Burum, two of the counts Biane faced, two of the counts Erwin was charged with and one count pending against Kirk.
The prosecution then appealed McCarville’s ruling to the appellate court to have the charges reinstated. Defense attorneys likewise filed with the appellate court, arguing that all charges that had been tossed should have been dismissed and asserting that McCarville should have sustained more of the demurrers than he actually did.
After nearly a year of consideration, the 4th District Court of Appeal in a 41-page decision written by Justice Art W. McKinster and joined by associate justices Betty Ann Richli and Douglas P. Miller, upheld McCarville’s dismissal of part of a conspiracy charge plus four other counts against Burum, and tossed out a conflict of interest charge against Burum. At the same time, the appellate justices restored some elements of the conspiracy charge along with an aiding and abetting charge against Burum.
In the case of Erwin, the appellate judges dismissed three charges against Erwin that included engaging in a conflict of interest and that he aided and abetted Biane in his reception of a bribe. The court restored one charge against Erwin, that of misappropriating public funds. It upheld McCarville’s denial of a bid to dismiss the conspiracy and two other charges.
For Kirk, the judges denied his request to throw out two charges pertaining to conspiring with Burum and misappropriation of public funds. They also restored a charge that he had improperly lobbied his boss, Ovitt.
Members of the prosecution, including deputy state attorney general Melissa Mandel, declined comment.
Raj Maline, Erwin’s attorney, said that McCarville’s ruling last year taken together with the appellate court’s ruling this week showed that “The prosecutors are having a hard time even coming up with something to allege. That the Court of Appeal knocked out three of the counts against Mr. Erwin shows the prosecution has a problem stating a cause of action in this case.”
Maline said he is not going to appeal the matter any further prior to trial. “We’re eager to get back to the trial court, so we can show the world Mr. Erwin is innocent of these charges. We do not want to delay this any further in the appellate region. We want to get back to the trial court and present our defense. Hopefully that will happen very soon.”
Stephen Larson, the attorney for Jeff Burum, told the Sentinel, “All of the bribery counts have been dismissed against my client. We believe the remainder of the charges are groundless factually as well as a matter of law.”
Larson said he was not sure at this point whether the prosecution will go forward with the case against Burum, but said that if it does, “We will welcome the opportunity to take this case to trial. There are serious legal deficiencies with regard to the two remaining counts against my client. We’ll be asking the trial court to dismiss the two remaining counts.”
Larson added, “We believe this was a politically motivated prosecution from day one. It is entirely improper for any prosecuting agency to allow political motives to affect their prosecutorial discretion. We are looking forward to presenting as complete a picture as possible of what happened and why.”
A petition with a court to dismiss a case prior to trial in California is known as a 995 motion. The Sentinel has learned that two such likely motions will be based on statute of limitations considerations as well as grand juror and prosecutorial misconduct.

(November2)  The two candidates for First District supervisor this week summarized their opposing cases for election, saying why each felt he offers voters a superior choice, touting their own experience and orientation as more appropriate, assailing their rival on his weak points and defending themselves against criticisms each had sustained on the campaign trail.
Rick Roelle, a sheriff’s department lieutenant and town council member in Apple Valley for the last ten years, is facing Robert Lovingood, who since relocating to the High Desert in 1989 has owned and operated an employee placement service. In the June primary, they both outdistanced five other hopefuls who were looking to replace Brad Mitselfelt, the incumbent supervisor who also in June unsuccessfully sought to step up to the federal level by running for Congress.
Roelle boasts the backing of two high powered county public employee unions, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association, which represents some 12,000 county workers and the Safety Employees Benefit Association, which represents county sheriff’s officers and district attorney’s office investigators. The sheriff’s deputies union, known by its acronym SEBA, has infused his campaign with $50,000. The San Bernardino Public Employees Association has given him $50,000.
Lovingood, whose success with his company, ICR Search/Staffing, has left him well fixed, is defraying the cost of some of his campaign, along with modest donations from over 100 backers who see him as a voice that is independent from the public employee unions which many believe to be dominating local governments and preventing needed wage and benefit reform.
Roelle told the Sentinel that he is the best candidate in the race because, “What it comes down to is San Bernardino County needs a change. We need somebody in there with ethics and knowledge of how government operates who is there for the right reasons and not to make money for his friends, who will look after the basic needs of the people he is elected to serve.”
Lovingood said he offers a realistic alternative to Roelle, one who will prevent the public sector from wasting money and burdening the private sector.
“At the end of the day a million dollars is a million dollars, whether it is being spent by government or business,” Lovingood said. “It comes down to who will spend your money more efficiently. In government, money is treated as an endless stream. People are going to learn quickly within the next three to four years that there will not be enough to sustain government and its wasteful programs. People are afraid of government, but it is just like in the Wizard of Oz, in the end it is just a little man behind a curtain with a loudspeaker.”
Roelle said Lovingood is doing fine in the private sector and should remain there. He said Lovingood is inadequate to the task of being supervisor because “He has never been involved in any type of government at all. People can say we want to get away from people who have been in office for years and are continually involved in government but if you are going to be effective and accomplish anything, you have to have a knowledge of how the system works. That is what I offer, experience instead of saying I am a businessman who wants to use government to create jobs. My opponent is saying he is going to create a million jobs. How do you do that with government? You can’t do that with taxpayer money. Government should not be involved in trying to create businesses. The city of Victorville got involved in using taxpayer money to start projects that in the end cost the taxpayers going on $200 million. We should look to the free enterprise system to create jobs.”
Lovingood said his experience in the private sector has prepared him for the duties of being supervisor in a way that Roelle’s functioning as a government employee has not. He said he is not in favor of government creating jobs. He said he just wants government to stop strewing obstacles in the path of businesses that will offer employment opportunities.
“My opponent has never had the accountability of meeting a payroll or the responsibility of knowing that if he doesn’t perform, people are going to lose their jobs and people have to step away and head to the unemployment office,” Lovingood said. “I respect people such as my opponent who work in public safety. They do a job I do not want to do myself but that does not qualify them to be the head of the government and it doesn’t give them an understanding of what  is required to run and administrate a going concern.”
Lovingood said he presents a superior choice as supervisor because he possesses a degree of “understanding” Roelle does not.
“I started here in the High Desert in 1989 and have directly or indirectly influenced bringing in over 30,000 jobs,” he said. “I have contributed by employing people and convincing a number of companies that they should not relocate. I have understanding. Understanding of what employers are faced with. An understanding of what regulation is and what it means. An understanding of the ceilings and restrictions federal, state, county and municipal governments place on a business. Government is not going to create jobs. What we need to do is find a way to remove the government as an obstacle. We have development fees that are killing investment, killing business. We have too high of a price tag for people to develop. I was talking to a developer who wanted to build a housing tract. He had the money to start the project but the government wanted half of a million dollars up front to pay for road improvements. He did not have the money to start his project and construct all of the roads at the same time. This project would have represented economic development and jobs. I say what should have been done is, based on the financials, the government should take 20 percent the first year and 20 percent each year for the next four years thereafter to pay for those roads. We need to get our government out of the way. I have an understanding my opponent does not have. I have a general understanding of how government is in the way. I understand that in government we have a whole host of unsustainable programs and I understand that we have to make some hard decisions of what we have to do away with. I understand that there has to be accountability to go along with that whole process.”
Roelle retorted, “My opponent is somebody who owns an employment agency that provides businesses with temporary employees. That is his only experience. I think my superiority with regard to experience in government is pretty cut and dried.”
Roelle gave his estimation what he considered to be the major challenges facing the county and the First District.
“Basically, the biggest three issues are unemployment, crime and corruption,” he said. “We need to bring investment back into San Bernardino County. For that to occur we have to get rid of the county’s reputation as the most corrupt in the state if not in the nation. We need to reduce crime.  No one will invest in San Bernardino County if we do not make it business friendly, safe and a place where people want to move in and raise families. That is what I would look after if I am elected supervisor. Nothing fancy, just basics.”
Roelle said he has the requisite talents to deal with those problems “I know how crime affects not just individuals but communities as a whole,” he said. “In the time I have been in the High Desert, I have seen it go from one of the nicest communities to live in to bordering on anarchy and lawlessness. As a police officer and my involvement on the town council for two terms I have seen the good, bad and ugly of how the system works.”
Lovington had a different take on what is ailing the county.
“Sacramento has robbed local government point blank,” he said. “The state has taken away our redevelopment authority. We are losing professionals in the 25 to 40 age bracket to other states and other countries. Skilled people are seeing that they can go from a two income to one income family and afford to live in other states and have a high quality of life. There is a professional shortage that is occurring here in the county now and will occur in our nation in just a few years. We are suffering from a lack of professionals in the technical and medical arena. I had a doctor fly in from Kansas and he spent a weekend driving around the High Desert. He did that and said he was not interested in relocating here. Professionals are not interested because of the excessive regulation they encounter here. The atmosphere of overregulation is strangling us in California.”
Lovingood offered a potential solution.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but first, once I am elected, I will work collaboratively with the other supervisors as a united voice and reach outside our community to unify other boards in other counties, convince Democrats to come together with Republicans and say to the governor that the only thing this state is doing effectively is working to eliminate industries and opportunity and innovation for citizens,” he said. “I would work collaboratively in trying to address in one voice what the heart of the problem is, which is excessive red tape and overregulation.”
Lovingood continued, “We need to level the field for the development of our natural resources. People out of our area beyond the board of supervisors are controlling the land use decisions on some of what are the county’s most valuable revenue and tax producing operations, our mines. Mining companies in the First District are some of our most powerful generators of property and sales tax. We need to streamline our land use decision processes. We need to facilitate renewable energy projects. Once the environmental certification is done, they should start turning dirt on those projects in a short period of time. Some have federal funding. Others have private investors. The private investors are confronted with a five-to-ten year window of uncertainty We need to give them that certainty, so they can go into production without hesitancy. If they have $50 million, they can invest it in gold and be pretty certain they will see a decent or even hefty return. If we want investment in our county, we need to give those contemplating putting their money down here that they can get a good return. We need to remove their uncertainty.”
Roelle responded to what is perhaps the major criticism leveled at him at him by both those opposing his candidacy and those who are undecided as to how they are going to vote. Roelle’s major shortcoming, some say, is that he is a dyed-in-the-wool government employee, one backed by the public employee unions, a future recipient of a public employee pension that will total nearly $130,000 per year, and that he is thus disinclined to undertake the public salary and pension reform measures that are the basis of local government’s financial crisis. As Lovingood stated with regard to Roelle’s public union support, “He is a product of the system. His support comes from three public employee groups. When 90 percent of the money you are using to run for office comes from that narrow of a constituency, you are beholden.”
Roelle said, “I have been a policeman for nearly thirty years. Pension reform is happening as we speak. It is being legislated as we speak. Pensions can no longer be spiked. Nothing can stop that reform from going forward. Nothing can stop that. The system will collapse if the reform is not carried out. It is very hypocritical of my opponent to be criticizing the unions that endorsed me when he begged them for the same damn money that they are giving me and now he is begging them to quit giving me that money. I paid into the system for thirty years. Others could go to work for the government and if they want to run it that long they can get a pension, too. I worked for thirty years. I deserve a pension. That is the way the system was. If you work for the government, you get a pension. I am guilty of being a government employee, I guess.”
That upon retiring he will be eligible to draw a pension that provides him with three percent of his highest salary times the number of years he was with the department is irrelevant to the concept of pension reform as it is being instituted now and will have no impact on those reforms being carried forward, he said. “New cops are already getting two percent at 55,” he said. “That was just voted in by the union. Those decisions were already made by law at the state level and the [deputies’ labor] association voted to reduce the pension. How would I get involved in changing that? It is already occurring. From now on, the new cops coming in won’t get three percent at fifty. It is a dead issue. It is not on the table for the board of supervisors to discuss.”
Lovingood similarly sought to face down the most poignant criticism he has sustained during the campaign, which is that he is being supported by current supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who was elevated to the supervisor’s post largely on the strength of his ties to now-discredited former supervisor Bill Postmus, who was indicted on political corruption charges and has since pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts. Mitzelfelt was Postmus’ chief of staff and widely perceived to have been aware of or complicit in many of Postmus’s depredations.
Lovington said that in years past he had worked in conjunction with Postmus when he was the duly elected supervisor, and that he has been endorsed by Mitzelfelt in this race. But he said, “There is no quid pro quo. Brad has been supportive. I have not had any contact with Bill for years. If people look at my broad base of support and listen to what I am saying, it should be clear that I am my own person.”
He said coordinating on policy or undertakings with others in office is part of the public process and that he has reached out to those in office for support in achieving his goals.
“I have 110 donors,” he said. “I have the support of the chairman of the board of supervisors, who feels I have something new to offer. I have the support of two of my opponent’s colleagues on the Apple Valley Town Council. That speaks volumes. I have the support of four people on the Victorville City Council and three on the Hesperia City Council. I am willing to work with others.”
Roelle said he will work to improve the circumstances in the First District if he is elected.
“The board of supervisors needs to put an emphasis on quality of life issues rather than staying in office,” he said. “The first government priority has to be the safety of its citizens from domestic or foreign threats. Local government needs to concentrate on ensuring the safety of its citizens and letting the free enterprise system work. Everything will fall into place if we do that.”
Another issue facing the First District, Roelle said, is the “falling home prices. Up to 50 percent of the value of homes has decreased. I think of the High Desert as a blue collar community. We need more emphasis on education to have high technology job opportunities come in here. We need to have an educated and skilled work force. Thirty percent of the people who live in the High Desert have not attended a college class.”
Lovingood said the First District has some advantages it needs to exploit. “Our water rights have been adjudicated,” he said. “We are blessed with a separate air quality management district that is not tied into the regulation of other areas in Southern California. Right now we are exporting a talented work force down the hill we need to keep here and employ here. My goal would be in the next four years to take ten percent of the commuters off the roads. That would take the stress off our infrastructure and it would be better for our families and communities.”

(November 2)  One of the brightest stars in San Bernardino County’s academic constellation was Chino’s Oxford Preparatory Academy. For two years running, Oxford had the highest score of any school in the county on California’s Standard Testing And Reporting exams, in 2011 and 2012. Known by the acronym STAR, the tests provide an academic performance rating or index, known as API, for second through 11th graders in every class, and at every school and district in the state. The tests measure students’ progress toward achieving California’s state-adopted academic content standards in English–language arts, mathematics, science, and history/social science. The results are used for student and school accountability purposes.
Oxford, a charter school that offers kindergarten through eighth grade classes, is sponsored by the Chino Valley Unified School District. It had an Academic Performance Index (API) score of 958 in 2011 and improved to 972 last spring.
But all that has fallen under a cloud, as reports of teacher and administrator orchestrated cheating on the state tests have surfaced against the Oxford Preparatory Academy school in Mission Viejo.
At the Mission Viejo campus, which functions under the aegis of the Capistrano Unified School District, students rung up an impressive 993 academic performance score on the 1,000-point maximum index during the first year the school was open.
Capistrano District officials became suspicious, however, and hired a private investigator, Nicole Miller, and an attorney, Dan Shinoff, to look into the possible inflation of the scores.
The district has drawn the curtain on the matter, which is still under investigation, but the Sentinel has learned that a target in the investigation is Jason Watts, the current chancellor of the Mission Viejo campus who was the principal of the Chino campus at the time of its impressive 2011 academic performance showing. Also under scrutiny is Oxford executive director Sue Roche, who oversees both the Chino and Mission Viejo campuses at a corporate level and has interaction with both instructors, referred to as professors, and students.
Efforts by the Sentinel to reach Roche were unsuccessful.
Allegations that surfaced in the course of Miller’s investigation were that Oxford professors who administered the tests erased incorrect student answers and filled in correct answers before the tests were scored, that the professors pointed to correct answers during testing, that before the tests were taken some of the parents of the school’s poorer performing students were contacted by school officials who asked those parents to have their children excused from taking the STAR test and that Roche engaged in “inappropriate coaching” of students prior to the test.
The Sentinel has learned that some of the students reported that professors had filled in some of the “bubbles” on the answer sheet for the multiple choice questions on the test and some parents indicated they were pressured by school officials to have their children excused from the testing.
The district spurned an offer by Oxford officials to engage with the Miller in carrying out the investigation.
Capistrano district superintendent Joe Farley was unwilling to discuss the investigation or what action the district is contemplating.
Oxford hired its own attorney, Hollis Peterson, to carry out an inquiry into the matter. Peterson on October 24 delivered the results of what she said was “an impartial” investigation into the matter. “No credible evidence was found that testing procedures or test results at the Oxford Preparatory South Orange County Charter School were compromised during administration of the 2012 STAR test,” she stated.
In her report, Peterson said she interviewed Roche and Watts, as well as the Orange County charter campus’s former principal, six former teachers, ten current teachers and eight parents.
Peterson wrote in the report, “There is no credible evidence that the school had a practice of targeting low performing students and then encouraging or pressuring their parents to opt their children out of the STAR testing. Only one parent reported feeling being pressured by a teacher to opt her child out of testing.”
Peterson further reported, “There is no evidence that OPA teachers were walking around during STAR testing and pointing to correct answers on the test.”
And Peterson stated in the report, “There is no evidence that OPA staff members erased incorrect student answers and filled in correct answers on the STAR test.”
In her conclusion to the report, Peterson wrote, “It is this investigator’s opinion that  the numerous and varied teaching strategies, test preparation techniques used at OPA throughout the year, as well as the staff’s heavy focus on teaching standards have yielded atypical results.”
The Capistrano District has not concluded its investigation and did not provide Peterson with access to the witnesses Miller and Shinoff have interviewed.
The Chino Unified School District said it was not yet launching an inquiry into the matter but would await the Capistrano District’s determination before deciding on whether an investigation into the Chino campus of the charter academy’s teaching or test administering activities is in order.

(November 2)   A coalition of environmental groups on November 1 hit San Bernardino County with their  second lawsuit related to the controversial Cadiz Valley Water project.
Los Angeles-based Cadiz, Inc. is the proponent of what it has officially dubbed the  Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, which would extract an average of 50,000 acre-feet of water from the East Mojave Desert and convey it via pipeline to Orange and Los Angeles counties for use there.
Instead of applying with San Bernardino County for approval of both the project and its environmental impact report for the water extraction, Cadiz, Inc. succeeded in having Orange County-based Santa Margarita Water District, which lies some 217 miles from the Cadiz Valley, serve as the lead agency for the project application and environmental certification.
Santa Margarita had an interest in the project in that it has agreed to purchase at least 20 percent of the project water. Project opponents  assailed this as an unacceptable conflict of interest. Nevertheless, the Santa Margarita Water Board of Directors approved the project and certified the environmental impact report on July 31.
A month  later,  the Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club San Gorgonio Chapter and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society filed a lawsuit against the Santa Margarita Water District and San Bernardino County, contending the water district should not have usurped the county’s authority to oversee the  environmental review of the project and the county should not have allowed  Santa Margarita do so.
San Bernardino County contemplated but ultimately elected against challenging Orange County-based Santa Margarita’s assumption of lead agency status on the project and entered into a memorandum of understanding with that district and Cadiz, Inc. and its corporate entities over a groundwater monitoring plan to facilitate completion of the project.
On October 1, in keeping with that memorandum of understanding, county supervisors voted 4-1 with supervisor Neil Derry in opposition to approve a groundwater management plan for the project. The groundwater management plan reserved the county’s right to shut the water extraction process off if the water level in the desert aquifer drops below a level deemed inadmissible. Critics, however, said that the monitoring regime would not provide adequate or timely warning of such an exigency.
Even as its previous lawsuit remains pending, the coalition of the Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club San Gorgonio Chapter and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society lodged another suit on November 1 that maintains San Bernardino County failed to provide an environmental review as required by its own groundwater ordinance, which was passed in 2002 to protect the desert’s water supply.
“This shortsighted water grab will benefit those pushing more sprawl in Orange County, but it’ll rob some of California’s rare species of the water they need to survive,” said Adam Lazar, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our desert, the residents of San Bernardino County and Orange County ratepayers all deserve better.”
“We are very disappointed that San Bernardino County has decided to ignore the need for the county to act as lead agency on this project and to complete a full environmental review.  San Bernardino County Sierra Club members expect this minimum level of responsibility on the part of the county,” said Kim Floyd, conservation chair for the San Gorgonio Chapter of the Sierra Club.  “Full compliance with the county’s own groundwater ordinance would seem to be a reasonable expectation but the county has decided that Cadiz, Inc. deserves a ‘free pass’ around the county’s own ordinance.”
“The so-called Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project will actually take water away from ordinary citizens and responsible business operations, not just wildlife” said Drew Feldmann, conservation chair of the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society.
Former government hydrologists from the U.S. Geological Survey have disagreed with the Cadiz consultants on the recharge rate of the aquifer and identified the project as unsustainable over the long term.
The $260 million project would utilize water sufficient for roughly 400,000 people every year and be sold by Cadiz, Inc. to  six water districts in Southern California, all of them outside of San Bernardino County.
The filing on Wednesday is the fifth lawsuit challenging the project. In addition to the suit filed by the same four environmental groups on August 31, the River Branch of the Archaeological Heritage Association filed suit against the county of San Bernardino, Cadiz, Inc., Santa Margarita Water District, the U.S. Department of the Interior, its secretary Ken Salazar, and the Bureau of Land Management, contending both the county and the federal government failed to ensure that federal protocols with regard to the approval of the project were followed, including protection of Native American and historical artifacts on federal land which might be destroyed  or disturbed as a consequence of the project’s pipeline construction.   Delaware-based Tetra Technologies Inc., which operates a brine mining operation on dry lakes in the Cadiz Valley, has also sued San Bernardino County and Santa Margarita Water District, contesting the county’s failure to live up to its land use authority responsibility by allowing the Santa Margarita Water District to serve as lead agency. A group of ratepayers in the Santa Margarita Water District have also filed suit over the project approval, based on concerns that potential defaults and foreclosures on million dollar loans taken out by Cadiz, Inc., could place project liability upon those ratepayers.
Lame duck First District San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, in whose district the project lies, received more than $48,500 in campaign contributions from Cadiz, Inc. before supporting the project and approving the groundwater management plan to facilitate the project. He was defeated in his run for Congress in June, an outcome that was in some part attributed to his support for the project and the exportation of water from the desert.
Project opponents maintain the project would deprive the desert of much needed water for economic development, and environmentalists said the project’s overdrafting of the water will trigger a precipitous decline in the water table that will parch the desert and dry out springs supporting bighorn sheep and other wildlife, and further create dust storms on the valley’s dry lakes.

(October 26)  SAN BERNARDINO—The city of San Bernardino is on the brink of skipping out on pension payments to its retirees.
While pension payments to those who once worked for the city are at this moment still being made, the city, which declared bankruptcy nearly three months ago, is risking draconian action by the California Public Employee Retirement System by not making any of the payments to the state pension system it was contractually committed to make as a participant in the system. No payments have been made since the city’s bankruptcy filing in August.
City officials maintain they are not making the payments because they simply cannot – there is not enough money in city coffers to pay many of its creditors. The city currently is $5.3 million in arrears to the system, known by its acronym CalPERS.
With expenditures and debt outrunning revenue, there is not even a clear consensus among the city’s decision makers about what payments the city should make with its available remaining resources after day-to-day operations are taken care of.
The city council and city management have committed to maintaining the operation of current essential services and making payroll to keep current city staff in place. Other expenses are being put on hold while the city’s creditors are forced to stand in line at bankruptcy court to ensure some portion of payment on that outstanding debt in the future, pursuant to the restructuring of that debt and a federal judge’s orders.
Meanwhile, the California Public Employee Retirement System, which is a vacuum for an increasingly large percentage of city capital, is of the opinion that the contractual arrangement between it and the city is not something that can be attenuated in bankruptcy court. That contract gives CalPERS the authority, or so CalPERS maintains, to assert priority for available remaining city money. Ultimately, if the city’s obligations to CalPERS are not met and met soon, retirement payments to former San Bernardino city workers will cease, CalPERS officials state.
Another major California city that has filed for bankruptcy protection is Stockton. Unlike San Bernardino, however, Stockton is continuing to make its scheduled payments to CalPERS. And while San Bernardino officials are seeking to defer payments to the system, CalPERS officials are inching closer to terminating the plan with San Bernardino, endangering not only the future pensions of current employees but the current pensions of former employees.
According to CalPERS general counsel Peter Mixon, San Bernardino officials are mistaken in their belief that the bankruptcy court has authority over the retirement system, which he said is not subject to bankruptcy protection provisions because it is part of the state government.
“Several public agencies that provide retirement benefits through CalPERS have recently filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code,” Mixon said. “CalPERS is a creditor of these agencies and of course has an interest in the outcome of these bankruptcy proceedings. CalPERS is, of course, an arm of the State of California. California, like every other State in the Union, has sovereign powers. The United States Constitution created a system of dual sovereignty which divides powers between the federal government and the states. The United States Supreme Court has held on several occasions that certain state laws, which may inhibit the power of a bankruptcy court, are not preempted by the Supremacy Clause.”
Mixon continued, “The drafters of the Bankruptcy Code acknowledged that certain powers have been reserved to the states under the United States Constitution and therefore limit the power of the Bankruptcy Court to interfere with the state’s control over municipalities and state agencies in a bankruptcy case. In enacting section 903 of the Bankruptcy Code, Congress further determined that Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code would not preempt state laws that control the political and governmental powers of municipalities and arms of the state. Congress acted wisely to avoid a constitutional clash by preserving the authority of states over their core aspects of sovereignty in any municipal bankruptcy case. The limitations on the power of the bankruptcy courts extend to the relationship between CalPERS and a participating public agency employer. The relationship between CalPERS and a municipal employer is not a mere commercial contract between a creditor and a debtor. Instead, it is an aspect of the state’s control over a municipality that is protected from interference under constitutional principles and federal bankruptcy law. Accordingly, Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code does not preempt the State of California’s control over the system of benefits provided to its employees and the employees of participating municipalities.
An agreement between a municipality and CalPERS reflects the choice of the municipality to participate in the system. Once a municipality commences its relationship with CalPERS, the municipality is bound by the constitutional and statutory provisions governing the system and the decisions of the CalPERS board of administration  As created by the legislature, the CalPERS pension plan is a trust fund, which consists of the assets that are needed to pay retirement and other benefits that participating public employers have promised to their employees.”
Mixon intimated that if San Bernardino ceases to hold up its end of the bargain it has with CalPERS, CalPERS will be put into a position of having to end its payments to San Bernardino retirees.
“As trustee of the retirement system, CalPERS is a fiduciary and must ensure the integrity of the State of California’s benefits system,” Mixon said. “CalPERS does not have the right to ‘forgive’ or reduce employer contributions which are necessary to sustain the soundness of the system and ensure the payment of promised benefits.
Under the law of the State of California, a participating public employer in bankruptcy may not terminate its relationship with CalPERS through ‘rejection’ of its‘contract’ with CalPERS in the bankruptcy proceeding.”
If San Bernardino withdraws entirely from CalPERS, Mixon said, CalPERS would have the option of ceasing pension payments to San Bernardino’s retirees or in the alternative laying claim to some of the city’s assets and liquidating them in order to continue to make pension payments to San Bernardino city retirees.
“Participating public agency employers do have the right, under California law, to terminate their relationship with CalPERS,” Mixon said. “However, termination of this relationship does not terminate the obligations of the public agency to make contributions to CalPERS to fund benefits accrued prior to termination. Instead, California law provides for a valuation of the assets and liabilities of the employer at the time of termination. Because termination of the relationship essentially closes the pension plan, any unfunded liabilities as of termination must be fully paid by the employer. These amounts are typically much larger than the ongoing obligations owed by the employer prior to termination. Termination by a municipal debtor would create a much larger obligation to CalPERS, which would impair the ability of the debtor to make payments to its unsecured creditors and severely dilute the return to such creditors.  When a participating public agency terminates its relationship with CalPERS, CalPERS is entitled to priority over unsecured creditors under the laws of the State of California. An example of a statute that affords CalPERS a priority is California Government Code Section 20574. This statute provides that CalPERS has a lien on all assets of a municipality to secure all liabilities of the municipality to CalPERS owing upon a termination of the relationship, including any deficit in funding for earned benefits, interest, and attorneys’ fees and other collection costs. As secured creditors are paid before unsecured creditors, this lien creates a priority in favor of CalPERS.”

(October 26)  Having abandoned its federal lawsuit against Cadiz, Inc.’s East Mojave Desert water mining project in favor of seeking administrative relief,   the River Branch of the Archaeological Heritage Association (RiverAHA)  is now seeking a Congressional inquiry and a Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation of the project.
Cadiz, Inc. obtained approval for the plan to extract 50,000-acre feet of water from the desert to sell to users in Los Angeles and Orange counties by having the Orange County-based Santa Margarita Water District, which lies 217 miles from the Cadiz Valley, to serve as the lead agency for the project approval and its environmental certification.  RiverAHA sued Cadiz, Inc. and the U.S. Department of the Interior, its secretary Kenneth Salazar, and the Bureau of Land Management, and the county of San Bernardino over that approval but has since voluntarily dismissed the suit for what RiverAHA founder Ruth Musser-Lopez called strategic reasons. She said there were insufficiencies in the law, such that “Individuals do not have the right to seek judicial action without first going through a lengthy administrative process.”  She and RiverAHA are now seeking a Congressional inquiry into the failure of officials to conduct what she said would be a mandatory federal review of the project’s impacts under the National Historic Preservation Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.  Asserting that Cadiz, Inc. has mischaracterized the availability of water to investors and potential investors with misleading visual displays of snow packs in the east Mojave, that the company downplayed the expense of treating the water, and further wrongfully told investors that the court dismissed her federal claims, she is seeking an SEC investigation.  RiverAHA claims that federal review is necessary for numerous properties eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places that would be directly impacted by the construction of the Cadiz pipeline on a federal right-of-way issued for railroad purposes.
RiverAHA is requesting the assistance of San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry in obtaining the Congressional inquiry and SEC investigation.   Derry was the sole dissenting vote earlier this month when the county board of supervisors voted to accede to the Santa Margarita Water District’s approval of the project.