(October 26)  A week after the arrest of former Upland city manager Robb Quincey on felony public office corruption and perjury charges, an investigation by FBI agents and district attorney’s office investigators is continuing into several issues at City Hall, including the intrigue surrounding a series of events stemming from Quincey’s involvement in a domestic disturbance incident more than four years ago. The direct and indirect fallout from that untoward July 2008 episode contributed to Quincey’s firing as city manager, the departure of former police chief Steve Adams, the creation of a third captain position in the police department, the promotion of an Upland police lieutenant to captain and the promotion of an Upland police sergeant to lieutenant, as well as suggestions that a law firm that specializes in representing police officers had extorted or blackmailed Quincey into paying it $50,000 in taxpayer money amid an effort to keep the incident hushed up.
Quincey, who had been city manager in Hesperia, was handpicked by then-Upland mayor John Pomierski in March 2005 to succeed Upland’s previous city manager, Mike Milhiser, whom Pomierski together with his then-supporters on the council forced into resigning. Quincey was hired on April 4, 2005 and given a five-year contract with an annual salary of $195,000 and a guaranteed pay raise each January 1 equivalent to the highest percentage afforded any other city executive management employee. Over the five-year span of that contract he was given a series of salary and benefit enhancements such that by January 2011 he was  receiving a base salary and add-ons of $368,529 with benefits of $92,096, for a total annual compensation of $460,625, making him among the highest paid city managers in the state.
Additionally, Quincey was granted extraordinary autonomy and authority as city manager, including what was referred to as a super-bonus, that is, job security in the form of protection from termination on a simple majority 3-2 vote of the council. Rather, to fire Quincey, four votes were required of the council. He was also given the liberty of authorizing payments to city vendors, creditors, or claimants of up to $25,000 per year without first obtaining council authorization.
This last perquisite of his office would contribute to his downfall.
On July 27, 2008 Quincey and his former fiancé, Jennifer Stelzer, became embroiled in a heated argument at Quincey’s Upland home, terminating with Stelzer driving off as Quincey pounded on the hood of her car and kicked her side door panel. Quincey then sent Stelzer three insulting and profanity-laced text messages via their cell phones. The Upland police were summoned and detective Craig Sipple under the supervision of then-sergeant John Moore generated an eight-page police report pertaining to what had transpired. Moore signed off on the report, in which it was recommended that the matter be reviewed by the district attorney’s office for possible prosecution. Quincey contacted Stelzer and persuaded her not to press charges and then sought to have then-police chief Steve Adams intervene in the matter.  Consequently, the eight-page report Sipple originally authored was reduced to six pages and Sipple and Moore’s recommendation that the matter be referred to the district attorney’s office was changed to state that the case was given “Exceptional Clearance. Stelzer does not desire prosecution.” The redrafted six-page version of the report was buried in an inactive police department file that prevented it from being open to public scrutiny. Moore, however, retained a copy of the original eight-page report. When he later applied for one of two open lieutenant posts with the department and was passed over, he retained the services of attorney Dieter Dammeier of the law firm Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir  to represent him. Dammeier, in his discussions with Adams and Quincey, maintained his client had been bypassed for promotion because of his involvement in the Quincey domestic disturbance investigation and threatened to make a public issue of the matter and release the report. In response, Quincey and Adams upped the number of captain positions with the department from two to three, promoted a lieutenant into that new spot, thereby creating another lieutenant vacancy, into which Moore was promoted. Dammeier presented the city with a $57,816 bill for his efforts on behalf of Moore. To keep the matter quiet and from coming to the attention of the city council and the public, Quincey used his maximum $25,000 annual discretionary spending authority as city manager to pay Dammeier’s firm in two $25,000 installments, one in the midst of the 2009-10 fiscal year on January 25, 2010, and another shortly after the initiation of the 2010-11 fiscal year on August 23, 2010. Quincey persuaded then-assistant finance director Ruby Carrillo, with whom Quincey was intimately involved, to miscode one of those checks to make it appear that the payment had been made for another police department related matter the city was negotiating with the police union, specifically payment to officers for the time they spent just before their daily assignments donning their uniforms and the time after their shifts ended doffing their uniforms.
In June 2010, FBI and IRS agents served search warrants at Upland City Hall as well as at Pomierski’s home and the homes and offices of Pomierski’s appointee to the Upland Housing Appeals Board, John Hennes, and of Pomierski associates Jason Crebs and Anthony Sanchez. As FBI agents were carrying out that search inside City Hall, Quincey had an impromptu conference with then-city attorney Bill Curley outside City Hall. Quincey related to Curley the circumstance with regard to the domestic disturbance incident involving Stelzer, the Sipple/Moore report relating to it and the action taken by Quincey and Adams to create a third captain position within the police department to open a lieutenant’s slot for Moore. A  panicked Quincey expressed his concern that documents relating to the irregular activity regarding Moore’s promotion might be obtained by the FBI and he inquired of Curley what could be done to head off that eventuality. To Quincey’s chagrin, Curley informed the city manager that he was not at liberty to interfere in any way with the ongoing law enforcement investigation or to assert any kind of privilege over the documents that were at the root of Quincey’s anxiety. Rather, Curley told a now-mortified Quincey, as an officer of the court who had been provided with information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation, he was duty bound to inform the FBI of what Quincey had just related to him.
Over the next nine months, events would overtake Pomierski, Quincey, Adams, Hennes, Crebs and Sanchez. Shortly after the raid on City Hall, Curley passed along the information he had received from Quincey to the FBI. The FBI then requested from City Hall and the police department a number of documents, memos and emails it had not obtained during the raid. In December 2010, Adams went out on stress leave, never to return to his post as active police chief. In January 2011, the city council put Quincey on paid administrative leave. Later that month, Crebs and Sanchez were indicted by a federal grand jury for their involvement in an extortion and bribery plot involving what was at that point an unidentified city of Upland official. The last week of February 2011, Pomierski resigned as mayor. On March 2, 2011, he and Hennes were indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with involvement in a bribery and extortion conspiracy whereby they were alleged to have shaken down individuals and businesses with project and permit approvals pending at City Hall. In May 2011, Quincey was fired by the city council. In September 2011, Adams officially retired as police chief, ending his ten-month extended stress leave. As of early this month, Pomierski, Hennes, Crebs and Sancez had all pleaded guilty to charges pertaining to the bribery and extortion conspiracy federal prosecutors had alleged against them and had been sentenced to time in federal prison. As part of their pleas, all have agreed to cooperate with the FBI in its ongoing investigation of illegal activity at Upland City Hall.
Eleven months ago, Quincey complicated things for himself when he filed a wrongful termination claim against the city. His civil attorney, Joseph Wohrle, moved to have the matter heard by an arbitrator in closed session rather than in open court. The pursuit of the claim and those hearings provided the city with the opportunity to take Quincey’s deposition, that is, to question him under oath. That deposition was provided to investigators.  Quincey’s case for wrongful termination was heard by arbitrator Sam Cianchetti, who in a decision handed down July 17 upheld the council’s termination of Quincey as justified and rejected in total his pursuit of $7.8 million in damages. Cianchetti dismissed  Quincey’s and Wohrle’s contention that the firing was without cause, that the city council breached the terms of his contract, and that Ray Musser, who succeeded Pomierski as mayor, and councilman Ken Willis defamed him and maliciously and wrongfully characterized his performance in comments they made to the press at that time. Cianchetti further found unfounded the contention that Musser, Willis, Curley, city councilman Gino Filippi and city treasurer Dan Morgan made statements to the press which painted Quincey in a “false light” or  ruined Quincey’s reputation and damaged his future earning potential.
On Friday October 19, Quincey was arrested by investigators from the district attorney’s bureau of investigation and booked at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on felony charges including unlawful misappropriation of public money, gaining personal benefit from an official contract, and giving false testimony under oath.
The complaint filed with the court by Paul Garcia, an investigator with the district attorney’s office, states that with regard to the first count, “On or about January 12, 2010, the crime of public officer crime, in violation of Penal Code Section  424, a felony, was committed by Robin Dale Quincey, who being a person described in Penal Code Section 424 charged with the receipt, safekeeping, transfer, and distribution of public moneys, did willfully in a manner not incidental and minimal without authority of law, appropriate the same, and a portion thereof, to personal use and the use of another.”
Garcia, in describing the second count, wrote, “On or about January 12, 2010, the crime of conflict of interest, in violation of Government Code Sections 1090 and 1097, a felony, was committed by Robin Dale Quincey, who did, while city manager for city of Upland, California, knowingly and willfully become financially interested in a contract made by him in his official capacity, and by a body and board of which the defendant was a member.“
With regard to the third count, Garcia stated, “On or about June 7, 2012, the crime of perjury under oath, in violation of Penal Code Section 118, a felony, was committed by Robin Dale Quincey, who being a person, having taken an oath that he would testify, declare, depose, and certify truly before a competent tribunal, officer, and person, in a case in which such an oath may by law be administered, to wit, binding arbitration, did contrary to such oath state as true a material matter which he knew to be false, to wit that on January 11, 2010, defendant informed the city council for the city of Upland, California that Quincey ‘was going to be resolving a personnel matter related to John Moore.’”
Thus, according to the complaint, Quincey exceeded his $25,000 payment authority when he provided a second check of that amount to the Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir law firm without first getting the permission of the council to do so. He also stands accused of testifying falsely to the effect that he had informed the council of his intent to make that payment. Four of the five members of the city council in January 2010 – Musser, Willis and councilman Brendan Brandt and former councilman Tom Thomas – have all said they were not told of the settlement arrangement with Moore or the payment to the law firm representing him.
Quincey’s attorney, Charles Michael Zweiback, said Quincey “denies all of the allegations relating to the criminal charges filed by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office on October 19, 2012. Mr. Quincey did not misuse public funds and has been the victim of a completely misguided investigation. Mr. Quincey is innocent of all the charges. He looks forward to his day in court when he can present his case and answer these meritless allegations. A full airing of facts will demonstrate that Mr. Quincey acted appropriately at all times in his role as city manager.”
Quincey is scheduled for arraignment on December 20 in West Valley Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga.
The dragnet in which Quincey was caught was undertaken by the Inland Regional Corruption Task Force, which is composed of agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and investigators from the district attorney’s office. That task force is yet pursuing other matters relating to Upland City Hall and the activity of current and former Upland city officials and individuals in contact with those city officials. Among those under scrutiny, the Sentinel is informed, are former police chief Adams, former assistant finance director Ruby Carrillo,  former Upland community development director Jeff Bloom and members of the planning commission who were in place during Pomierski’s tenure as mayor.
Another area of concern for investigators is the involvement of the Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir firm with regard to the criminal charges lodged against Quincey. Specifically of interest to both the FBI and the prosecutor’s office’s detectives is under what basis Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir made the  $57,816 billing to the city. Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir represent the union for  Upland police officers, the Upland Police Officers Association, of which Moore is a member. It is uncommon for an adversary in a legal dispute, either a defendant or plaintiff, to pay the other side’s attorney fees short of an outcome in the case involving those adversaries or a ruling by the court. City officials and investigators have suggested that the circumstance involving Quincey’s use of his expenditure authority to make payment of public funds to the Lackie Dammeier McGill & Ethir firm touched on extortion or blackmail, given that Quincey had an interest in keeping the Moore matter and his oversight of the Stelzer domestic disturbance incident report from coming to light.
Dieter Dammeier, who carried out the negotiations with Quincey and Adams regarding Moore’s eventual promotion to lieutenant, dismissed any suggestion that he or his firm were blackmailing Quincey.
A settlement payment to an opposing attorney, Dammeier said, “is very standard with civil rights retaliation lawsuits. In any litigation the losing defendant would have to pay the fees of the opposite party. In this case, John Moore should not have had to pay the fees because he was the one wronged by Robb Quincey. If we had litigated this to trial the city would have paid fees many times what we collected.”
Dammeier said a defendant’s ability to collect attorney fees in a civil rights action is covered under Section 1988 of the U.S. Code.
As to the suggestion that his law firm was taking advantage of the situation Quincey found himself in by threatening to expose the information contained in the Sipple/Moore report pertaining to Quincey’s verbal altercation with his former girlfriend and the alleged vandalism to her car, Dammeier said, “It was a lawsuit or headed toward one. That is what attorneys do. We are going to sue you unless you fix it. That means we apply pressure to whoever is handing it for the city. It was back and forth between us. There were several phone conversations with regard to what we wanted to settle the case. We went back and forth over it until it ended in a place that was acceptable to John Moore.” Dammeier said that “place” was Moore’s promotion to lieutenant.
Dammeier said he was under the impression that Quincey was consulting with others during the negotiations.
“He said he had to talk to somebody,” Dammeier said. “I’m not sure if it was members of the council or the mayor.”
That the negotiations with regard to Moore did not involve the city attorney was somewhat unusual, Dammeier said, “but I wouldn’t say it was irregular. I have dealt directly with city managers but would not have been surprised if the city attorney  had been involved. In Upland sometimes things are done a little differently.”
Dammeier said the lack of clarity over whether one of the $25,000 payments to his firm was for the “don and doff” issue or pertained to Moore was understandable.
“Where the confusion came up was both cases were going on at the same time,” Dammeier said. “We agreed that the city should pay $50,000. From our perspective it did not matter what account we were being paid from.”
Information that came out during the arbitration process over Quincey’s claim indicated that Carrillo, the assistant finance director, was responsible for miscoding the check. Carrillo and Quincey had a personal relationship, city officials allege. Carrillo left the city of her own volition two months after Quincey was placed on paid administrative leave in early 2011. Carrillo could not be reached for comment.
Jeff Bloom, the city’s former community development director, has been referenced on multiple occasions during the investigation of Pomierski and its follow-up. Bloom oversaw the city’s planning division. Pomierski, Hennes, Crebs and Sanchez told several individuals with projects pending before the city’s planning division or its planning commission that they could expedite the city’s approval process if they were to be hired as consultants by those applicants. Bloom, now the deputy city manager in Rancho Cucamonga overseeing the planning division there, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
FBI agents obtained statements from those involved in the extortion and bribery conspiracy that Pomierski had control over the decisions made by the planning commission and could influence its decisions.
Mark Tundis was one of Pomierski’s appointees to the Upland Planning Commission and the commission’s chairman during much of Pomierski’s tenure as mayor. He said he did not believe Pomierski exercised the control over the city’s planning process attributed to him.
“I don’t believe that happened,” Tundis said. “It  didn’t happen on the planning commission when I was on the planning commission. I did my job, which was to  look at what came before the planning commission and make the best decision for the city.”
He said Pomierski had never pressured him or the commission to make a decision one way or the other with regard to any particular project.
As to Pomierski’s interaction with community development and planning staff, Tundis said, “I have no information about that one way or the other. I don’t know what was going on in the planning division, to be honest with you.”
Tundis said he saw “no evidence” that Pomierski improperly influenced the city’s planning processes.

(October26)  By John Wurm
The San Bernardino County Community College District, which operates San Bernardino Valley and Crafton colleges and serves 13,000 full time students, faces dire fiscal and educational predicaments.  The prospects are dim, both short term and long term.  Like many governmental entities in California and San Bernardino County, the district is shortchanging those it is tasked with serving and has gone on a reckless spending spree.
Short term, the district has cut 20% of its enrollment over four years.  This year alone, it has cut 1,000 students.  In this year’s operating budget, the expenses approved by the district’s board exceed the revenue by $2,000,000.  Part of the problem is that the district is giving $1,000,000 to its TV station and $3,200,000 in raises to employees.  The district gave $1 million to its TV station even though the budget for the TV station is already at $4,000,000.  Why would the district throw so much money into its TV station while it is cutting 1,000 students?
Long term, the fiscal outlook is even worse.  The district has $1,250,000,000 in bond debt.  The payments average $34,600,000 each year for the next 36 years.  The bonds aren’t paid off until 2048.  The district has used capital appreciation bonds, which spread the payments over decades, much longer than a home loan. For instance, capital appreciation onds issued by the district raised $78,000,000 for building construction, but will cost $586,000,000 to repay.  The borrowing cost is about 7.5 times the amount of the principal amount.  By comparison, the repayment cost for a typical home loan is no more than 2.5 times the loan amount.
These types of bonds have been criticized by the Los Angeles County auditor, who states that the repayment cost should be no more than 4 times the principal amount.  Just recently, it was reported that the state treasurer, Bill Lockyer, condemned districts using capital appreciation bonds, stating the district boards that approved such bonds should be “voted out.”  This November, the voters of the district will have that chance as four incumbents are competing with 6 challengers for the four open board positions.
Despite already facing a crushing bond debt, the district still plans to issue another $240,000,000 in bonds.  These bonds are repaid by property tax dollars, $37.30 for every $100,000 in value of taxpayer’s homes and businesses.
The district’s academic practices have also been criticized by the community college state chancellor.  The district still offers “fun” classes like ceramics and walking that can be taken up to four semesters, or for two years.  The core mission of any community college is to get students ready for a four year college or provide occupational training so a student can get a good job.  Two years of walking does neither.  The district ignored the state chancellor’s directive.
The district’s professors and teachers are classified as “instructors”.  The district’s instructors average $79,900 for nine months work. Not too bad.  But the “instructors” at Cal State San Bernardino average $57,100.  Why does a junior college pay its instructors 38% more than the instructors at a four year college?
How does a small community college district get $1.25 billion in debt and lose 20% of its enrollment?  The answer, I believe, is a lack of leadership from the board. The district’s budget is over $260,000,000 annually.  Regular board meetings are only once a month.  That isn’t enough meetings to manage such a large budget.  The seven members act as a rubber stamp, ceremonial body.  For instance, in 2011 there were 199 spending votes, which the board approved.  Each vote was unanimous, with 1,393 votes to spend tax dollars – none opposed.  The board members are generally from the educational establishment, come from government and/or have been on the board for a long time.
The district encompasses San Bernardino, Colton, Rialto, Loma Linda, Grand Terrace, Redlands, Yucaipa, Highland and unincorporated areas such as  Lake Arrowhead, Crestline, Running Springs, Devore, Mentone and Big Bear.  There are 800,000 residents.  The population is about the same size as a Congressional district.
In addition to not holding enough board meetings to manage such a large budget, the board is structured so that the members are not held accountable for their actions.  The board is elected “at large,” meaning that the district’s voters have little chance to learn about basically anonymous  board members.   Breaking the district into seven voting districts, instead of a single “at large” district, would bring more accountability.  Also, a massive “at large” voting district is susceptible to a civil rights lawsuit because ethnic minorities can be underrepresented.  The district has been presented with a plan to create seven voting districts but has not moved forward with it.
This November 6, the voters have an opportunity to stop the decline of the district.  There’s no reason to allow the current board to load down the district and the taxpayers with another $240,000,000 in bonds when they are spending the money they have on classes like “walking” and pay their junior college instructors 38% more than the instructors at a four year college.
As a candidate for the board, I say “Enough is enough.”  I’m running for the board to stop the debt spiral and wasteful spending.  If I’m elected, I pledge not to cut students while giving money to the TV station and raises to employees.  If I’m elected, I’m going to ask the district’s finance staff to come up with a plan to restore the 1,000 students the district cut this year.  I’m a small business owner who knows what it takes to balance a budget.  I pledge to be a good steward of your tax dollars.  We can’t afford for San Bernardino Valley and Crafton colleges to fail.

John G. Wurm is an attorney from Lake Arrowhead and a candidate for the San Bernardino County Community College District Board of Trustees.

(October26)   TWENTYNINE PALMS — The city of Twentynine Palms appears to have made significant headway in convincing California  officials to allow it to continue to utilize bond money it issued last year for redevelopment purposes, despite the passage of legislation that shut down redevelopment agencies statewide.
It remains to be seen whether the city will get that money back.
Twentynine Palms, a city of  the 25,048 in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert Outback, is at the forefront of efforts challenging the redevelopment agency-shuttering Assembly Bills XI 26 and XI 27, which were passed by the state legislature last year at Governor Jerry Brown’s behest and then upheld by the state Supreme Court early this year following a legal challenge by a confederation of cities.
At issue in Twentynine Palms’ challenge is the fate of  Project Phoenix, which is to include a community center, a 250-seat theater, classrooms, a civic plaza, a park, a paseo, residential units, a wastewater treatment plant, and improvements to the downtown fire station.
Even as AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 were winding their way through the legislature in 2011, the city  hatched a plan to protect its redevelopment funding. As the legislation was being considered in Sacramento, the Twentynine Palms City Council, which doubled as the city’s redevelopment agency board, issued two tax allocation bonds for the Project Phoenix downtown revitalization undertaking.  That bond money was made available before the laws went into effect but was never expended.
Having made that precautionary move, the city of Twentynine Palms this year proceeded with its   aggressive challenge of the state Department of Finance in its effort to wrest  back $31 million in bond proceeds.
Twentynine Palms officials maintain that AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 are trumped by federal securities regulations, meaning the money the Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency bonded for last year must be utilized only for the purpose that bondholders were told the money would be applied toward.
Twentynine Palms City Attorney A. Patrick Munoz, of the law firm Rutan & Tucker, believes he can convince a judge the non-taxable bonds issued last year created specific obligations between the city, as  the issuer, and the bond purchasers, and as such are enforceable obligations. If the city were to hand off the bond proceeds to the state  to use the money for a purpose other than what the city had specified in marketing the bonds to the bond buyers, that would constitute fraud, according to Munoz.
Munoz’s strategy calls for having the successor agency lay claim to the redevelopment money and proceeding with the previously ratified redevelopment programs, including Project Phoenix. The state will have to go along with the city’s discharge plan because the bonds are enforceable obligations and the proceeds are secure, Munoz has theorized. Munoz suggested the city will have to be very precise about how the money earmarked for Project Phoenix is expended.
Munoz drafted a contract between the successor agency and the city by which the  successor agency is to  turn over the bond spending authority to the city with a directive that it go toward Project Phoenix. After the contract was presented to the council on May 22 and approved with the 4-1 vote, the oversight board took up the issue and its seven members voted unanimously to endorse a resolution to transfer their duties and obligations to administer the bond proceeds to “the city in its capacity as a municipal corporation. If the proceeds were turned over to the state to be re-allocated for operational purposes, these proceeds would no longer be tax-exempt if they were not used for public works projects,” Munoz maintained. “That creates concerns as to whether we violated federal tax laws and federal securities laws due to promises we made to the public when we sold the bonds versus the way we’re using the bonds.”
Prior to the council’s May 22 vote, on April 27 California Department Finance program budget manager Mark HiIl denied releasing the bond proceeds back to Twentynine Palms because, he maintaind, no contracts were in place before June 28, 2011. Redevelopment agencies were prohibited from performing new business by Assembly Bill IX26, effective June 29, 2011. This included expanding financial or legal obligations, incurring new debt, and buying or selling property. The Project Phoenix bonds, however, had been issued in March of 2011. Hill’s letter referenced the redevelopment agency entering into a contract after June 27, 2011.
The new laws do permit successor agencies to enter into contracts that would allow the transfer of duties that the city enacted in May.
Munoz maintains the oversight board’s May approval of the contract classifies the bond proceeds as an enforceable obligation of the former RDA.
Last month, on September 19,  Twentynine Palms Mayor John Cole, city manager Richard Warne, Munoz and Munoz’s colleague at the law firm of Rutan & Tucker, Bill Ihrke, along with a city consultant, Matt McCleary of the Rosenow Spevacek Group, flew to Sacramento. There, they presented a special consultant to the Department of Finance detailed to deal with local government issues pertaining to shuttered redevelopment agencies, Steve Szalay, and other Department of Finance officials with bond documents, a timeline for Project Phoenix, copies of previous correspondence with the Department of Finance and a highlighted roster of misassumptions and errors on the Department of Finance’s part with regard Project Phoenix, along with a summary of the legal argument that the money should be returned to the city.
There was an acknowledgement at that time that Department of Finance officials had not previously seen or considered much of the documentation relating to Project Phoenix.
In a letter dated October 7, Szalay indicated that the Department of Finance approved the successor agency’s obligations payment schedule for January 1 through June 30, 2013, but left unaddressed a host of questions with regard to the city’s legal and procedural claim for the return of the bond money. Szalay did state in the letter that the Department of Finance’s review “disclosed the improper transfer of the agency’s bond proceeds.”
Twentynine Palms officials are now preparing for a further in-depth discussion of the return of the redevelopment money to Twenty-nine Palms. If that does not achieve the desired results, the city would have the option of suing the state in Sacramento Superior Court for the return of the money.

(October19)  Scot Spencer, who once ruled the roost at San Bernardino International Airport, is on the brink of being evicted from that facility. This morning, October 19, it is anticipated that Federal Bankruptcy Judge Deborah Saltzman will confirm her tentative ruling handed down on October 15 to force Spencer and his companies that remain at the airport to depart in the face of revelations that two Spencer-owned and managed companies are no longer insuring their operations and indemnifying the joint powers authority that has jurisdiction over the airport.
Spencer, who at one time had control of nearly every aspect at the airport, including developing and managing it, was forced into having his companies operating out of the airport  file for bankruptcy in December 2011 and March 2012. He is contesting the vacation order.
The San Bernardino International Airport Authority, known by its acronym SBIAA, is a joint powers authority consisting of the county of San Bernardino and the cities of San Bernardino, Highland, Loma Linda and Colton dedicated to transforming the grounds of Norton Air Force Base, which was shuttered by the Department of Defense in 1994, into a viable civilian aerodrome.
Spencer, who has extensive contacts throughout the aircraft industry, was brought in by the San Bernardino International Airport Authority in 2007 under a no-bid arrangement and entrusted with converting the facility into a true international airport. Spencer was given that assignment despite his 1994 conviction for fraud that ensued after he and financier Jeffrey Chodorow sought to utilize the remaining assets from Braniff International Airways, which went bankrupt in 1982, to create Dallas-based Braniff International Airlines, Inc. Spencer and Chodorow were both convicted of fraud for absconding with $14 million of the company’s funds and Spencer served a four-year prison term from 1995 until 1999 as a result of that conviction.
Spencer leased from the San Bernardino International Airport Authority the lion’s share of property at the airport, where several companies he was an owner or investor in set up shop. Upon his 2007 hiring  to direct what was supposed to be a $38 million renovation of the airport’s passenger terminal and a $7 million development of its concourse, Spencer confidently predicted that upon completion of those projects the airport would attract at least one passenger carrier and as many as a half dozen airlines. The cost of the passenger terminal and the concourse escalated to $142 million and the airport has yet to host any commercial airlines. Spencer was granted the franchise for the corporate jet-hosting Million Air aviation facility at the airport.
The cost overruns for the terminal project, the failure of San Bernardino Airport to attract commercial airlines and Spencer’s relationship with former San Bernardino International Airport Authority and Inland Valley Development Authority executive directors Don Rogers and T. Milford Harrison as well as with Timothy Sabo, the legal counsel for the authority, invited the critical scrutiny of the San Bernardino County 2010-11 Grand Jury. The grand jury  questioned several elements of Spencer’s performance and that of Rogers, calling into question what was characterized as lax oversight of the airport’s operations and favorable treatment accorded Spencer.
From his position of control, Spencer pursued his own corporate aims to the detriment of blimp builder Aeros Aeronautical Systems Corp. and aircraft maintenance specialist BaySys West, both of which were operating at San Bernardino International Airport but elected to leave because of Spencer’s interference.
Spencer utilized Rogers and Sabo to evict Aeros in 2008, despite the consideration that business was booming for Aeros and that company was making its lease payments for Hangar 695 to the airport authority on time and in full. In July 2008, before Aeros vacated the hangar, Spencer and SBIAA signed a lease for Hangar 695 at a rate less than half of what Aeros was paying for the space, even though  Aeros had yet to vacate it. When Aeros did not leave quickly enough to satisfy Spencer, who wanted the space to have one of his companies complete $750,000 worth of repairs on a 727 his company was refurbishing, he threatened SBIAA with legal action.
Aeros, which had offered the promise of remaining as a longtime paying tenant, left in a huff, never to return.
The authority kowtowed to Spencer even further by providing him over $1 million worth of concessions, including the forgiving of a $155,000 balance on a previous loan, the extension of another $550,000 loan at 5 percent interest, and an ongoing $315,000 hangar rental subsidy.
Also in 2008, Spencer forced the exodus of Virginia-based BaySys West, which was employing 300, from San Bernardino International Airport because Spencer apparently felt that company  was in competition with Norton Aircraft Maintenance Systems, a company he owned. BaySys left in December 2008 under pressure from Spencer.
Spencer involved himself in a questionable relationship with T. Milford Harrison, a one-time Loma Linda city councilman who served for a time as the executive director of the Inland Valley Development Authority (IVDA), which is devoted to developing and improving property surrounding the airport property. Harrison was given several lucrative positions with companies involved at the airport which Spencer owns or controls. With Spencer, Harrison is a manager of KCP Leasing and Services. Harrison and Spencer were also listed as officers with Million Air Development Company, LLC, as well as Million Air San Bernardino LLC. Harrison further has an unknown relationship with SBD Aircraft Services. That company had issued to Harrison an American Express Business Platinum card, against which Harrison charged $63,043.45 in expenses and a second Starwood Preferred Guest Business credit card, which Harrison used for $4,642.86 in purchases. None of those charges were related to airport business, resulting in  American Express suing Harrison for payment.
On September 21, 2011 federal and state authorities descended upon San Bernardino International Airport, serving search warrants at five offices, businesses or facilities there as part of a comprehensive investigation into allegations that millions of taxpayer dollars were illegally diverted, mismanaged, laundered, misappropriated or siphoned off by officials or individuals affiliated with the airport’s development.  Targeted in the raid led by the FBI were SBIAA and IVDA headquarters, the San Bernardino Million Air Franchise; three hangars, including Hangar 763, where two Spencer-affiliated companies, Norton Aircraft Maintenance Services and SBAM Technics, are located; a storage facility at the airport, and Spencer’s Riverside residence. According to the search warrants, the authorities were seeking information regarding suspected misuse of federal funds, bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.
On September 28, Rogers resigned as SBIAA and IVDA executive director. On November 9, the SBIAA board hired A.J. Wilson, a municipal manager with an extensive list of top administrative assignments inside and outside of California, to the position of executive director of San Bernardino International Airport. In November 2011, the SBIAA and IVDA boards removed Spencer as the contract developer of San Bernardino International Airport. Spencer legally challenged that move, but on February 17, Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville ruled that the airport authority was legally entitled to assume from Spencer and his company, SBD Properties, control of the airport’s fuel farm, consisting of tanks from which the private jets that fly out of San Bernardino International Airport are fueled.  Spencer had allowed fuel in the tanks, which have a capacity of 150,000 gallons, to dwindle to 1,100 gallons as of February 1. Under the authority’s contract with SBD, a minimum of 20,000 gallons of aviation fuel must be maintained in the fueling system at all times.  On February 21, Million Air Interlink, the Texas-based provider of landing and take-off services for operators of private and corporate jets that had already sued Spencer for $837,290 in long-past-due franchise fees, revoked Spencer’s franchise.
Spencer sought to use bankruptcy filings to block the actions being taken by SBIAA against him and his corporate entities, San Bernardino Airport Management, SBD Properties LLC, KCP Leasing and Services, SBD Aircraft Services, Norton Aviation Maintenance Services and Unique Aviation. In filings before the bankruptcy court, the various creditors of Spencer’s companies or those in contractual relationships with them asked to be able to liquidate Spencer’s assets. Saltzman in her tentative ruling said the airport authority should be able to reassume control over the hangars Spencer’s companies occupy as well as the Million Air facility.
Spencer did not return phone calls seeking comment.

(October 19)  BARSTOW—The new Barstow Hospital opened on October 13, with Barstow Community Hospital staff and Desert Ambulance transporting inpatients to their new beds at the state-of-the art facility, beginning at 6 a.m. Simultaneously, the emergency room at Barstow’s 50-year-old hospital shut down and a new ER, featuring a trauma bay, airborne infection exam room and 15 exam rooms, began taking in patients.
CEO Sean Fowler said the transition was a smooth one achieved through “meticulous planning.”
In 2005, when the city signed its agreement with Community Health Systems to build a new hospital, it was slated as a 60-bed hospital that would cost $60 million.
Due to higher-than-anticipated costs, Community Health Systems delivered a 30-bed acute care facility, although the floor plan and size of the structure will permit future expansion to a 60-bed facility. Hospital officials justify the downsizing by citing the consideration that an average of 23 patients utilized inpatient beds at the old hospital, which was licensed to accommodate up to 56 patients.
The opening of the facility at 820 E. Mountain View  was cleared by the California Department of Public Health Licensing and Certification, which completed a survey of the facility a week previously to ensure the new hospital is in compliance with state licensing requirements. Based on that review, the surveyors recommended licensure for the new facility effective Saturday.
The commencement of operations, however, was marred by protests by registered nurses from the hospital who said that management had “misplaced priorities” in undertaking the construction of a facility that was 15,000 square feet larger than the old hospital while there is yet a lack of clarity with regard to the contractual status of the nurses and other professional health personnel who work there. According to California Nurses Association/National Nurses United spokeswoman Suzette Pornelos Kaliko, “A hospital cannot be state of the art if it is only a building. It also needs committed, highly trained and dedicated RNs. More and more of our experienced nurses are leaving to work in hospitals where they can provide safer patient care.”
The city elected to undertake the hospital replacement as a consequence of Senate Bill 1953, which was passed in 1994 following the Northridge earthquake. That law required that the existing 50-year-old hospital be retrofitted by 2030 or replaced with one that meets state seismic standards. City officials believe replacement to have been the most cost effective approach.

(October19)  San Bernardino County voters are being tasked with deciding whether to support or reject two separate county governance reform measures that touch upon adjusting the compensation of members of the county board of supervisors.
One initiative, Measure R, would radically downscale San Bernardino County supervisors’ annual $151,971 salaries and $67,500 in benefits to $50,000 in salary and $10,000 in benefits annually, a drop in total compensation from $219,471 per year to $60,000.
That measure made it on the ballot through the somewhat unlikely confluence of efforts of  Wrightwood residents Kieran “Red” Brennan and Eric Steinmann, who drafted and initially circulated the petition for the ordinance as a means of reducing the salaries and benefits of county employees in general by starting at the top, and the county’s two largest employee unions, who adopted the petition drive to put the initiative on the ballot as an act of defiance against the board of supervisors because of  that panel’s expressed intention of reducing county employee benefits.
Another initiative, Measure Q, was placed on the ballot by the board of supervisors itself. It calls for a far more modest trimming of the supervisors’ compensation, a $5,269 reduction in their salaries to $146,702.per year, while allowing their annual benefits valued at $67,500 to remain in place.
The San Bernardino Public Employees Association, known by its acronym SBPEA,  and the San Bernardino Safety Employees Benefit Association, known by the acronym SEBA, pumped more than $100,000 into the effort to get Brennan and Steinmann’s measure before the voters. SBPEA represents most of the county’s general line employees. SEBA represents sheriff’s officers and district attorney’s office investigators. As the proponents of Measure R, SBPEA and SEBA maintain Measure R is justified because supervisors’ salaries and benefits are far too generous for the duties they perform – attending meetings twice a month and overseeing the governance of the county’s unincorporated pockets that sit outside the city limits of the county’s 24 incorporated municipalities.
The unions note that county supervisors over the last two years have reduced their meeting frequency from roughly four meetings per month to two per month, while delegating much of their responsibilities to county staff, and significantly increasing the authority of county chief executive officer Greg Deveraux.
The county’s charter currently categorizes  San Bernardino County supervisors as full-time elected employees whose annual salaries  are based on the average salaries paid to supervisors in Riverside, Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties. Voter approval of Measure R will reduce the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to a part-time status.  Measure R equates “part-time” with the requirement for attending a minimum of two regular board meetings each month, while permitting county supervisors to be employed full-time elsewhere.
Notably, the two candidates now vying for supervisor in the county’s First District, which is the largest San Bernardino County supervisorial district geographically and thus involves the most unincorporated land subject to supervisorial governance, support Measure R.
Sheriff’s lieutenant Rick Roelle and employment agency owner Robert Lovingood are locked in a battle to succeed incumbent supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who elected not to seek reelection this year in lieu of an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to be elected to Congress.
Roelle, who will soon be eligible to pull a pension of close $130,000 per year, and Lovingood, who is independently wealthy, are unconcerned that the post they are vying for could see its total annual compensation reduced to $60,000.
Opponents of Measure R argue that “the county needs supervisors who are able to spend the required amount of time carefully scrutinizing the $4 billion annual budget that serves the 2 million people that live within our communities.” Measure R would also reduce the combined supervisors’ staff budgets from $6 million to $1.5 million a year.
Supervisor Gary Ovitt, who draws a hefty public pension as a retired school teacher on top of his supervisor’s salary, asked the county counsel’s office to draft Measure Q, which has no provision for a reduction in the supervisors’ staffs.
Measure Q, eliminates Los Angeles County from the formula of averages for the supervisors’ pay. The supervisors dismiss the suggestion that they have reduced their workload, saying they continue to work closely with Devereaux in formulating the policies he is charged  with carrying out.
“We have not given  up any of our authority,” Ovitt insisted. Collectively, the supervisors have said the impetus behind Measure R was the seriousness with which the board and Devereaux were engaging the unions on the issue of salary and benefit concessions.
The unions began assisting Brennan and Steinmann when the supervisors floated the concept of a ballot initiative to put future pension increases for county employees up to a public vote.
Opponents of Measure R are alleging that disgraced former supervisor and assessor Bill Postmus was involved with Brennan and Steinmann in formulating their measure. In their anti-Measure R campaign, the initiative’s opponents  are set to allege Postmus was the go-between who put Brennan in contact with Steinmann at an early crucial moment when the signature-gathering effort for the supervisors’ compensation reduction effort was just starting.
Brennan, however, told the Sentinel that he knew Steinmann before he knew Postmus.
Brennan said he did not believe Postmus had any involvement in the effort to gather petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot or to promote the measure now that it is headed to a vote.
“I can only speak from what I have experienced, but I have not seen Bill at all,” Brennan said.
He said his motive in creating the initiative and pushing to get it before the county’s voters was simply that “I believe the county supervisors are overpaid for what they do. It may be a full time job, but from what little I’ve seen, they are not working full time. Even if it were a full time job, that is a lot of money to get paid. They are paid more than some CEOs get in the private sector.”
The proponents of Measure R insist that Measure Q is a cynical attempt at sleight-of-hand to fool the voters and have them accept a bogus version of reform. Meanwhile, current supervisors and the other proponents of Measure Q insist that the impetus behind the qualification of Measure R for the ballot was the unions’ animus at the board for seeking to reduce spending in a context of dwindling revenue availability for local governments.

(October19)  NEEDLES—Three  factors have combined to result in significant reductions in the release of Colorado River water from Davis Dam north of Bullhead City.
Reduced water releases will result in lower than normal river water levels along a span of the river abutting San Bernardino County, and boaters below the Hoover and Davis dams are advised to exercise extra caution during this period of reduced river flows as sandbars, boulders and gravel will be exposed, creating hazardous and potentially deadly river conditions.
A break in the Central Arizona Project canal near Bouse, Arizona, approximately 50 miles southeast of Lake Havasu City, is a major contributory factor in the water level reduction. The Bureau of Reclamation is reducing releases from Hoover Dam, creating flow conditions that are atypically lower than those experienced at this time of year. There is also a decrease in demand at present for water downstream.
The reduction from Davis Dam will result in peak flows dropping from what is categorized as a four-unit flow, roughly 19,000 cubic feet per second, to no higher than a two-unit flow, or 9,200 cubic feet per second.  The two-unit change in flow will result in an approximately four-foot drop in the river’s depth below Davis Dam.

()ctober19)  An effort by the city of Chino Hills to have a lawsuit relating to a property line dispute against it dismissed has fallen short.
The city’s attorney’s office had requested that Superior Court Judge Ben Kayashima grant summary judgment in the case lodged by Michael and Kimberly Denton. The Dentons sued the city in 2011 after the city’s code enforcement division informed them in 2010 that the furthest extension of their backyard was encroaching on city-owned open space and that they had to remove their pool and spa along with landscaping that was already extant whey they purchased the home in 1999 from Gloria Vitagliano.
The Dentons, who live on Hunters Gate Circle, offered the city $10,000 for the property, but the city rejected that offer, instead saying it would provide them with a 15-year easement for the continued use of the property for a limited period .  The Dentons then retained the firm of Gresham, Savage, Nolan and Tilden to sue the city.
The Dentons claim the city allowed the Vitagliano/Denton encroachment, which was conspicuous and open, to stand, and did nothing to interfere with Ms. Vitagliano’s or their occupation of the approximately 1,574 square feet of land for more than 15 years. Nor did the city act in a timely manner to prevent them from removing a wrought-iron fence and replacing it with a glass wall and block fence, the Dentons assert.
The Dentons had no knowledge of the encroachment, which the city was obliged to redress in a timely manner, according to the Denton’s lawyer, Theodore Stream.
The city, however, maintains that a document recorded at the time of the sale contains a disclosure statement from Vitagliano to the Dentons stating there is a “possible discrepancy regarding lot size/fence line.” The city maintains that this demonstrates the Dentons were on notice as to the possible encroachment at the time of the sale. The city also maintained in its motion for summary judgment that there were no issues to be tried before the court since the city had offered the Dentons an easement, which the city was not required to offer.
Judge Kayashima rejected deputy city attorney Elizabeth Calciano’s request, and ordered both parties to be ready for trial, which he set to commence on November 13.
The case will conceivably impact other property owners in the city who are alleged to have encroached on open space owned by the city.

(October19)  Marc Steinorth is seeking a position on the city council after living for a dozen years in Rancho Cucamonga, he says, because “I think the city council really needs a business perspective. My experience in attracting businesses, making them sustainable and growing businesses is something this city needs.”
According to Steinorth, Rancho Cucamonga used to rely on its redevelopment agency for growth. But with the redevelopment agency’s dissolution, the city needs a new approach and new perspectives to continue the community’s growth and recovery.
“The redevelopment agency was what created the city’s most successful offerings, like the James L. Brulte Senior Center and Victoria Gardens. With the loss of the redevelopment agency, it is now more dependent than ever before on having businesses flourish. New businesses and better businesses bring in sales tax revenue. Without new ideas and innovative planning, our city is going to stagnate. I believe my experience developing and growing businesses is what the city needs at this time.”
But, according to Steinorth, the city’s first task must be addressing financial difficulties.
“Our focus has to be on the financial welfare of the city,” said Steinnorth. “All of the city’s departments are suffering. State pass-through money is drying-up, as are grants. Funding for the senior center is woefully inadequate. When the city tells more than half of its residents that their only choice is to either agree to raise the assessments in their landscape maintenance districts or the city will decommission the district and walk away from its landscaping, you know things are bad. They are willing to allow millions of dollars in trees and plants to just die; then you know we have a problem.”
Instead, Steinorth offered his solution.
“This shows how my business experience would be of help to the city,” said Steinorth.“This is a matter of business management. When you are dealing with outside vendors, you need to go and renegotiate those contracts or bid them. In this economy, there are plenty of vendors who will make that process more competitive and affordable for the city. Re-examining contracts and expenses is how you achieve accountability.
“City staff are fine and qualified people, but you are just not going to get the best value for the money being spent until you hold the people paying their bills accountable,” Steinorth continued. “They will not be as hardnosed in negotiating prices as they would be if they were being held accountable or were hiring someone to do the gardening or landscaping in their own yard and paying them with their own money.”
Getting the best deal requires a business mentality and accountability, said Steinorth.
“We cannot be wasting our financial resources.”
Steinorth said the city’s leadership has historically done well in building a quality community. But a new era has dawned, he said, and a new guard must take over from the old to move the city ahead.
“In running, I am challenging our current city leaders,” Steinorth said. “If you look at our current civic leaders, they go back for twenty years or more. They have been around and in office longer than our newest voters have been alive. I think it is time the torch was passed to younger people with experience, gifted people who are committed to the community and are willing to contribute.”
Steinorth said that this election gives voters the opportunity to engage the coming generation.
“For two decades we have had the same people running the city. I am not saying they were not right for their time. The economy is constantly updating itself and evolving. For the city to stay up with the rate of change, you need a civic leadership that fully understands what that change is, what it means, and what is going on.”
Steinorth cited accessibility as an example of the difference between the upcoming and the entrenched generations.
“My electioneering material includes my cell phone number on it,” said Steinorth. “I have gotten literally hundreds of phone calls from people saying they can’t believe I answered the phone. They say they have been trying to reach our current civic leaders for years and haven’t gotten through.”
Those he’s heard from include businesses and people who have permits pending at City Hall. In many cases, he says people have to hire consultants to get their permits through engineering and the community development department
“If businesses have to spend that kind of money just to reach members of the city council, the average citizen doesn’t stand a chance. And that is unacceptable,“ he said. “We should be holding our elected leaders to the highest standard of accessibility. They should be responsive to those that elected them. They are the ones ultimately responsible for the city’s policies. They should know what is going on in the city. They should see what their constituents want and need and they should not be constantly referring the people they represent to staff.”
Steinorth said that the best solution that the city could embrace is new leadership.
“The solution to what is bedeviling this city is leadership that views the issues from all sides with intellectual honesty and does not pander to one special interest group or another,” he said. “There are so many issues going on in this city. Being a city council member has to be a bigger job than just showing up at City Hall on the first and third Wednesday of the month.”
Enlarging on that point, Steinorth said, “Intelligent people with independent thought applying logic to resolve the issues will strengthen our city. We have everything necessary to resolve our problems.”
Steinorth pointed to the city’s excellent and well-trained work force, education facilities, and very good infrastructure as resources available to continue improvement in the city.
“We need to overcome the problems we face now by bringing in businesses. Our council members have to realize that by bringing in businesses, we will create a rising tide of opportunity and wealth. If we have more jobs, we have more people spending money, more sales tax revenue, and more than enough money to pay for police and fire services, recreation amenities, services for our senior citizens. Our public employee unions will not need to worry about people being laid off. If we have economic success in the private sector, the public sector’s condition will follow.”
Without the redevelopment agency to continue driving growth and transforming blighted and undeveloped areas, Steinorth said it falls to the city and its residents to continue that mission.
“Rancho Cucamonga did a good job of developing what was undeveloped,” he said. “We are to the point where we do not really need to create more, but what we need to do now is fill in what we have. If we bring in businesses, we will bring in residents, who will then become a factor in growing the economy. More workers mean more buyers for empty homes, improving our real estate market. Similarly, other issues can be resolved as the economy improves. We need to maximize what we have and I think that new blood  can do a better job than those who are running the city now.”
Citing some of his efforts as a private citizen, Steinorth said that he has been out in the community already.
“You do not need a title to go out there and make a difference and I have not been waiting around,” said Steinorth. “I have been extremely active in the community, essentially rebuilding the Lincoln Club. I have been raising money for the senior center. I have gone from organization to organization trying to build a network for the city. I am advocating volunteerism in promoting the city to bring in more business and take up the slack from our loss of the redevelopment agency.”
Steinorth continued. “The council could do more,” he said. “Its members have been focused lately on lowering the hurdles for businesses. They should be focused on eliminating those hurdles.”
Steinorth said he is qualified to serve on the city council because of his experiences in the private sector.
“For over 20 years, I have marketed and proved myself,” he said. “Through that work, I have built a network that has helped me keep my hand on the pulse of the community. Frankly, I care more about this community, and I am already more accessible than those now on the city council.
“I believe the current council has shown some improvement in the last year,” Steinorth acknowledged. “They have discontinued using reserve funds to balance the budget and have reduced the size of government instead.”
But Steinorth said the council slipped backward when it promoted three fire inspectors to captain. “When you lay off foot soldiers, you don’t promote more generals,” he said. “They still don’t seem to have their priorities where their priorities need to be.”
In his assessment of Rancho Cucamonga, Steinorth said, “I see needs. I see vacuums.And my instinct is to try to fill them.”
As to why he should receive his fellow citizens’ votes, Steinorth said, “I think I will be of benefit to the city because I offer an independent perspective. I am not tied to any group. I am an independent businessman with excellent business credentials. I believe I offer the sort of forward thinking that is needed in the city for the years to come.”
Steinorth attended Ramstein American High School at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany while his father was in the military. He then attended the University of Maryland in Munich and obtained his bachelors degree in political science from the University of California at Riverside. He has lived in Rancho Cucamonga for twelve years. Married, he has two children. He owns a full service advertising agency based in Rancho Cucamonga that specializes in print, radio and television media. He is married with two children.

(October12)  Upland Planning Commissioner Carol Timm, who is vying against four others seeking the city council position now held by Ken Willis, finds herself in the uncomfortable position of having to defend a controversial vote she made nearly four years ago to allow a tavern to set up operations inside an historic church in one of Upland’s upscale residential neighborhoods next to a junior high school.
Like all five candidates in the race, Timm is seeking to show that she has the experience, judgment and demonstrated commitment to serve on the council. But the December 2008 vote is being cited by her opponents and residents of the neighborhood where the tavern was slated to be located as an indication that she has not mastered the rudiments of urban planning, as her 14 year tenure on the planning commission would suggest she possesses, and that she was too easily swayed by political pressure placed on the planning commission by now disgraced former mayor John Pomierski.
At the basis of Timm’s political dilemma is Old St. Mark’s Church, the original Episcopal church in Upland, which was constructed at the corner of Euclid and F Street in 1910. In 1965, it was moved to its current location at 525 West 18th Street, between Euclid and San Antonio avenues as part of proposed park,  after the congregation, which now meets at a larger church located on 16th Street, outgrew the picturesque structure. The park was never developed and most of the park property with the exception of the church museum site was sold by the city during Pomierski’s ternure as mayor for residential subdivision use.
The church building was acquired by the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Foundation, which serves as the benefactor to the Cooper Museum, also known as the Cooper Regional History Museum, in downtown Upland. The Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Founcation shares some of its membership with Upland Heritage, a group promoting the preservation of historic buildings in the city of Upland, of which Carol Timm is president.
The church now  serves as a repository of  many of the historical exhibits acquired by the Cooper Museum. Additionally, in 1997, the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Foundation obtained from the city of Upland a conditional use permit to operate 3,125-square foot Old St. Mark’s, renamed a chapel, as a ceremonial forum where weddings and/or funerals were held. The proceeds from these ceremonies, which were restricted to concluding no later than 8 p.m. and host no more than 125 attendees, were used to support the Cooper Museum.
In the fall of 2008, the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Foundation applied for a modification to the conditional use permit granted in 1997 in order to allow up to six events, including  retirement dinners, funerals, weddings and/or wedding receptions per week that would accommodate as many as 175 people and allow for the dispensing of alcohol, in the form of beer and wine, and the serving of meals, accompanied by music. The hour to which the events could continue was extended to 11 p.m. six days a week  and 10 p.m. on Sunday. Under the application, the foundation listed restaurateur Ray Podesta, a longtime political supporter of John Pomierski who at the time operated both Spaggi’s restaurant and the International House of Pancakes in town, as a partner in the effort to transform the chapel to a more lively and profit-making venue.
On December 17, 2008, two of the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Foundation’s board directors, Dave Stevens and Max Williams, succeeded in convincing the Upland Planning Commission to grant the conditional use permit modification, despite the protests of eleven nearby residents, who entreated the commission to consider the incompatibility of a commercial  venture  with an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood beside a school. Project opponents, anticipating that the conditional use permit would be granted, went to the uncommon length of hiring a court reporter to faithfully record the proceedings and take down the utterances of all individuals putting statements on the record. The vote to allow the serving of alcohol and the other intensifications of use inconsistent with the zoning of the property passed by a 4-0 vote, with commissioners George Morris, James Sheridan, Robert Schauer and Timm assenting.
In response to residents’ expressed concerns that the expanded conditional use permit would attact an undesirable element, commissioner Schauer assured those in attendance that “We’re not going to see the Hell’s Angels there.”
Armed with the work of the court reporter, a group of residents, represented by the law firm of Reiss & Johnson, filed an appeal on December 31, 2008, seeking to nullify the planning commission’s decision.
Those involved in the appeal questioned the wisdom of allowing alcohol at the site, a short distance from Pioneer Junior High School, and delved into indications that the city’s planning staff and the planning commission had been directed by then-mayor John Pomierski to facilitate the modification  of the permit. Widely disseminated at that time was a report that Pomierski, who had an affinity for alcohol, wanted to establish Old St. Mark’s as a location where he could carouse into the early morning hours with a select group of his associates outside the scrutiny of the public. Old St. Mark’s, for Pomierski, had the added advantage of being a relatively short driving distance – entailing just five stop sign intersections – from his residence.
An energetic effort to galvanize the public against the modification of the conditional use permit ensued, including the printing and distribution of 8,000 leaflets that protested the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center’s plan to operate the tavern.
More than 300 residents turned out at the February 9, 2009 evening council meeting when the hearing on the appeal was scheduled, filling the entire seating capacity of the meeting chambers and leaving dozens standing in the aisles as the meeting was to begin. Several came armed with information and prepared statements with regard to Pomierki’s role and motivation in the approval process, including notation of the consideration that he had personally appointed five of the commission’s seven members, including three who had voted in favor of the conditional use permit on December 17, 2008.
Earlier, that day, however, at 3:39 p.m., Stevens, the chairman of the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center Board, had filed with the city clerk’s office a letter in which he had stated “The board of trustees for Chaffey Communities Cultural Center are requesting to withdraw our original application for conditional use permit 97-10 modification No. 1 without prejudice. We have listened to the tremendous concerns of the neighborhood and wish to step back and try to work with the citizens of the area neighboring the St. Marks Church building.
“Chaffey Communities Cultural Center wants to re-file at a later date for a conditional use permit that does not include alcohol or outdoor music, Stevens’ letter continued. “We would at that time work with city staff and residents to come up with a compromise that will allow us to have food only. We need time to come up with another plan that the community can be comfortable with.”
Shortly after the February 9, 2009 meeting commenced, Mayor Pomierski informed the teeming crowd in City Hall that the conditional use permit modification had been withdrawn, and speeches and statements by as many as fifty residents who had come to put their concerns  on the record were never heard.
There tumbled out thereafter acknowledgements that locating a tavern in the midst of a tranquil residential neighborhood next to a junior high school was not that good of an idea.  Steve Ipson, the recording secretary on the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center’s board would call the scheme to get the conditional use permit approved “harebrained.”
Even Stevens seemed to distance himself from the alcohol sales concept, although there were indications he was biding his time to reinstitute the application. In time, however, any vestige of hope for the tavern expired when Pomierski’s political career flamed out. In June 2010, City Hall was the target, along with Pomierski’s home and those of three of his associates, John Hennes, Jason Crebs and Anthony Sanchez, of an FBI raid. In February and March of 2011, all four were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to extortion plots against individuals and businesses with permit applications before the city. Pomierski utilized his authority at City Hall and his influence over the city’s planning division and the planning commission to shake down businesses by either threatening to withhold permit and project approval or offering to facilitate that approval. Hennes, who was on the city of Upland’s Housing Appeals Board, was like Timm, a Pomierski appointee. As a consequence of his indictment Hennes was forced to resign his city position.
One revelation to emerge from the Pomierski indictment was the depth of the mayor’s alcoholism. His attorney, H. Dean Steward, told the court that many of the depredations his client had engaged in were alcohol-fueled and the court stipulated that a six-to-eight-month alcohol rehabilitation program should be part of his two-year sentence.
Pomierski reported for prison and alcohol rehab earlier this month, just as the Upland municipal race was heating up. In that race, Timm, who was originally appointed to the planning commission by the late mayor Robert Nolan in 1998 and reappointed by Pomierski three times subsequently, now finds herself pressed to defend why it was that she went along with granting the conditional use permit for the tavern.
She says she stands by the commission’s decision, which she saw less in the context of a land use issue than a historic preservation effort.
“The Chaffey Communities Cultural Center was proposing to have entertainment to include food and beverages at St. Mark’s Chapel,” she said. “This was for weddings and funerals. This was not for the sort of wild parties that some people suggested. It would have been a good thing for St. Mark’s Chapel and the Chaffey Communities Cultural Center, which supports the Cooper Museum. They are in danger of losing St. Mark’s because they can’t afford to pay the taxes on it since it’s not [considered by the county assessor] a nonprofit and Dave Stevens says they will have to sell it or give it to some other entity. They were already having funerals and weddings and they wanted to be able to serve alcohol like they do in restaurants so they could generate money. That money was needed to have more services at the Cooper Museum and to hold on to the chapel. They were simply offering alcohol for entertainment purposes to make sure the museum was properly funded.”
As to the land use aspect of the decision, Timm downplayed suggestions that allowing alcohol to be served there or extending closing time from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. constituted an onerous burden on the neighboring properties.
“I don’t think this would have affected the students at the school,” she said. “The school wasn’t in session most of the times they were having these events. I stand behind how I voted. I am not a large alcohol consumer. I saw this as something more like when you go to a restaurant and have a glass of wine, and they were not having anything there that went past what a restaurant would have. There are restaurants that are close to schools in Upland. There are restaurants that are near the high school. This is a facility like that. It was a restaurant, not a wild party atmosphere. That is how I saw it.  I do not approve of wild bashes where alcohol is served. I am very conservative. I have been a teacher at Christian schools for thirty years. I am a person who cares about kids and I would never put them in harm’s way.”
Timm said she did not think it out of line to suspend the residential zoning restriction on 18th Street in granting the conditional use permit alteration.
As to the overwhelming sentiment of the residents of the area who were against permitting the tavern, Timm asserted she and the commission had done nothing contrary to their interest.
“I don’t consider the commission or myself to have fallen down on this issue,” she said.
Timm categorically rejected the suggestion that she and the commission were doing Pomierski’s bidding in approving the conditional use permit or that she had exhibited weakness of character or resolve by not standing up to him.
“I never heard that it was to be a drinking place for him,” she said. “That is absolutely absurd and something somebody just made up. If that was the case, I would have shut it down myself.”
She dismissed the suggestion that it was the pending revelation that Pomierski wanted to utilize Old St. Mark’s as a nighttime lounge that prompted Stevens to withdraw the conditional use permit modification application. “There was too much controversy,” she said. “That’s why Dave pulled it.”
Timm insisted that she was not answerable to Pomierski and had no contact with him, despite his having thrice reappointed her to the planning commission he was alleged by federal prosecutors to have manipulated for his own gain. “I never had any conversations with Mr. Pomierski,” she said. “He never told me how to vote.”
Her taking the heat  for her December 17, 2008 vote was unfair, Timm said.
“It was not portrayed as a wild place where we would have problems with wild characters,” she said. “This was a non-profit asking for a license. The planning commission looked at it in a balanced way. We never heard this was a drinking establishment. It was supposed to be a place of culture where people would be able to have a glass of wine. These were all pure motives. A non-profit had needs and we were trying to help them. That is why I voted for it.”
Stevens told the Sentinel, “We weren’t thinking of this as a bar or even a restaurant. We wanted to hold retirement dinners, things like that. It was going to be catered by Spaggi’s There was no intent to hurt the people up in that neighborhood. We were doing this to raise money for the museum.”
Stevens said that early on February 9, 2009, Upland’s then-director of community development, Jeff Bloom, informed him that Pomierski was going to vote to overturn the conditional use permit modification and that he elected to withdraw it.
Cathrine Osberg, a resident of 18th Street proximate to the Old St. Mark’s Chapel, said the planning commission’s action on December 17, 2008 was an example of atrocious land use decision making.
“People who purchased property in this neighborhood since 1965 expected they would be able to continue to live in a quiet residential district and to one day learn that a bar was about to go in across the street or just up the block was just outrageous,” Osberg said. “It is ridiculous to think they would even consider encroaching upon a residential neighborhood with a commercial development. Ray Podesta, who owned the International House of Pancakes and co-owned Spaggi’s, would not have gotten involved in something like that if he was not going to see a significant return on his investment. For that banquet facility to be profitable it was going to be heavily and regularly used.  To extend the hours of use to 11 p.m. on school nights or work nights was an insult to the residents of the neighborhood.  And to put in a tavern, which is a place where alcohol and food is served, in a residential neighborhood bordered by a junior high school? Come on! That is unacceptable.”
Osberg related that some time after Stevens withdrew the conditional use permit modification, a funeral for a member of the Devil’s Diciples motorcycle club was held at Old St. Mark’s during a weekday afternoon. The Upland Police were called and remained in place while the outlaw motorcycle gang members congregated in the parking lot and students from the school made their way home on foot.  “I guess commissioner Schauer was right,” Osberg said. “The Hell’s Angels weren’t there.  But the Devil’s Diciples were. Can you imangine what that might have turned into if they had been serving alcohol?”
Osberg questioned Timm’s suitability to serve on the city council, given the disregard she had shown toward the residents of the 18th Street neighborhood and the students at Pioneer Junior High when she was on the planning commission.
“She has fourteen years on the planning commission and you would think that she would be familiar with zoning from the aspect that you cannot compare what goes on along the Foothill Corridor, which is a major thoroughfare, with what we have on 18th Street, which is a quiet residential street where there is very little traffic, especially after sundown,” Osberg said. “The high school was located along Foothill Boulevard into a mixed use zone where the only significant residential properties are apartment complexes that came in as infill development in what is primarily a commercial zone. The junior high fronts on a residential street. That she cannot tell the difference between those two does not indicate to me she learned what she should have in her time on the planning commission.”