(June 14)  JOSHUA TREE— Over the strenuous objections of dozens of Joshua Tree residents, the county board of supervisors upheld the county planning commission’s previous approval of Dynamic Development LLC’s application to build and operate a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General retail store in this desert community..
Many in Joshua Tree pride themselves on the rustic character of their town. They resisted the Dollar Tree proposal, maintaining the presence of a national corporate retail establishment would compromise the Old West ambience of a desert town that relies on tourism. In January the planning commission by a 4-1 vote approved the proposal by Dynamic Development in conjunction with the Goodlettsville, Tennessee–based Dollar General Corp. to establish the store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree. Locating the outlet in Joshua Tree is part of a larger business strategy of the corporation which has established a Dollar General store in Yucca Valley and has already obtained approval for a Dollar General store in Twentynine Palms. Having three stores along State Route 62 will create a synergy and economy of scale with regard to supply and delivery, corporate officers believe.
Mark Ostoich, an attorney representing Dynamic Development, said the project met all the criteria of an acceptable property use.
Gus Romo and Ernie Perea, planners with the county’s department of land use services who previously recommended that the commission approve Dynamic Development’s conditional use permit application, set the groundwork for their boss, Terri Rahhal, the  planning director for the county, who was tasked with reiterating the planning  division’s earlier analysis and findings  and building a case to justify the store at its proposed location after several town residents together with the Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance filed a timely appeal of the planning commission’s approval.
Romo and Perea maintained the 1.45 acre site is compatible from a land use standpoint with the applicant’s plans. “Surrounding land uses consist of single-family residential uses located within commercial zoning to the south across 29 Palms Highway, single-family residential uses within multi-family zoning to the north across Commercial Street, vacant commercial land to the east across Sunburst Avenue, and vacant commercial land to the west across Mountain View Street,” Romo and Perea stated in a jointly authored report and recommendation. “This area of 29 Palms Highway is designated for commercial development and intended to cater to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The project is considered a general retail use permitted within the Joshua Tree Community Plan zoning designation subject to approval of a use permit. Therefore, the proposed development and retail use are considered compatible with the surrounding land uses and general plan land use designations.”
Last year, before the project came before the planning commission, local residents militated against the project proposal, objecting to the imposition of corporate “cookie cutter” forms in the rural desert area, resulting in the county land use services division upping the “minor” permit required of Dynamic Development to a conditional use permit. The project opposition culminated in the public comment period for the January 17 hearing before the county planning commission. That opposition included residents, property owners and business operators from the Joshua Tree community.
This time around, the board of supervisors held a hearing that incorporated a video hook-up with the meeting room at the Joshua Tree Community Center, allowing Joshua Tree residents to lodge their protests without having to make the 200-mile round trip to the county seat to be heard.
Peggy Kennedy contradicted Romo, Perea and Ostoich, insisting the project was “inconsistent with the goals and policies in our Joshua Tree Community Plan.”
Levon Kazarian, the owner of Crossroads Café, said the influx of corporate retailers in Joshua Tree would destroy  the community’s “unique rural character.”
Tom O’Key, who owns 20 commercially zoned acres in Joshua Tree, said the county would force an end to the non-corporate ethos of the Joshua Tree business community with the approval of the Dollar General.
Joshua Tree Chamber of Commerce President Eva Soltes  said the county was giving Joshua Tree a “black eye” by approving the project and local artist Shari Elf said the Dollar Tree represented  “a cancer” that would metastasize to consume the town.
One of the appellants, George Kopp, said that Joshua Tree is a vestige of the past that offers a window on the American West before it was besmirched by corporate influence.
“Joshua Tree was targeted by a different type of investor that was focused on quality of life,” Kopp said. “We created a vibrant downtown district. This chain store is out of scale, out of character and out of compliance with our community plan.”
Douglas Carstens, an attorney with Chatten-Brown & Carstens, reminded the board, “The Joshua Tree Community Plan protects independent, privately-owned business in the downtown district.”
Third District Supervisor James Ramos, in whose jurisdiction Joshua Tree lies, joined in with the project’s opponents in criticizing the size and nature of the proposal. “Joshua Tree’s economic plan says to encourage and support small businesses,” Ramos said. “I believe a community has its own right and destiny.”
There were local residents, however, who supported the project. A number of them, including a few who acknowledged they were being paid by the proponent to attend the meeting, wore yellow shirts bearing the slogan, “Dollar General Supporting Local Families.”
One area resident, Julian Gonzales, called the opponents a bunch of namby-pamby “imbecilic personalities” consumed by a “not in my back yard” mentality.  He accused them of being anti-growth. Gonzales said the Dollar General would be a convenience to local residents and would represent a positive economic step for the community. “If you don’t move forward, you die. The Dollar General would provide much-needed services to the low-income people of Joshua Tree,” said Gonzales.
Rahhal said that the county was not bound by the Joshua Tree Community Plan and its precepts, and that it could not be cited as the grounds for keeping a business such as Dollar General from locating in Joshua Tree. “The Joshua Tree Community Plan articulates a vision of the community,” Rahhal said. “lt sets their vision. It is not the sole source of regulation for land use, though.”
Ramos vote was the sole one to overturn the planning commission decision. All four of his board colleagues voted to uphold the January approval of the project.

SAN BERNARDINO — Water rates will increase in the county areas of Morongo Valley, Landers and Pioneertown next month.
The board of supervisors ratified San Bernardino County Director of Special Districts Jeff Rigney’s call for those residents served by the county to shoulder the increased cost of providing water. Morongo Valley, Landers and Pioneertown lie within County Special Districts jurisdiction. Under law, a protest vote was held preparatory to the board’s vote. An insufficient number of residents objected to the increases, allowing the county to up the fees, which Rigney said will cover the cost of providing the service to the communities.
The increases will go into effect on July 18.
The hikes will be graduated over the next four years, amounting to a 50 percent increase.
The Morongo Basin boasts four county water districts. The monthly fees those districts charge vary from to $29.36 to $58.78 on a 3/4-inch meter. The county will initially impose a 19 percent increase on water customers in Landers and Pioneertown. Prolific water consumers in Morongo Valley will be hit with a 51 percent increase once they use water beyond a threshold amount.

YUCCA VALLEY — The Yucca Valley Airport District has called a special election for July 2 proposing a tax to augment operations and maintenance at the airport.
Yucca Valley Airport is located in the town of Yucca Valley,  3224 feet above sea level, the closest civilian aviation facility to Joshua Tree National Park. Yucca Valley Airport is open to the general public and to visiting aircraft 24 hours a day.  It does not have any commercial passenger services but does provide services such as aircraft maintenance and flight training.
Currently, the airport runs on an annual $10,000 endowment from a Caltrans fund that distributes aviation gas tax money as well as the proceeds from private use fees. If the taxing proposal, known as Measure Z, passes,  property owners in the district will be assessed 2 cents per square foot annually, an amount to be adjusted annually for inflation. This will entail an assessment annually of about $250 for typical property owners in the district, depending on parcel size. There are 43 registered voters in the district at present. The measure must be approved by two-thirds of those to pass.
The tax would generate roughly  $146,000 annually, allowing the airport district to soldier on. If Measure Z fails,  the airport district will need to disincorporate  for lack of a stable revenue source. The airport will be able to continue as a private corporation under that scenario.
Yucca Valley is operated with one primary runway, oriented in an east-west direction.   Yucca Valley Airport offers parking for transit aircraft at the west end of the airport. As a public facility, it is used by government agencies utilizing aircraft for firefighting and search-and-rescue operations, as well as by medical teams and medical transport helicopters.

The Redlands Planning Commission on June 11 balked at giving its blessing to the architectural plans for a drive-through CVS drugstore in the already approved shopping center to be built at Lugonia and Wabash avenues.
After considering the plan put forth by the architect on the project, Frank Fraga, the commission directed him to return on July 9 with a more imaginative draft. The CVS will be the secondary tenant at the center to be anchored by a Stater Bros. supermarket. The project was approved by the planning commission in October and the first phase of construction on the property is now under way.
Members of the commission said that the property is a highly visible one that will represent the city to outsiders. A report by the city planning department called for CVS to incorporate architectural details found elsewhere in Redlands.
City planner Manuel Baeza was somewhat deprecating  in sizing up Fraga’s proposed design, referring to it as a “typical prototype building with no distinctive features.”
Fraga took umbrage at that, contradicting city staff and maintaining the building is aesthetically coordinated with other elements of the shopping center design. He pointed out that he has had considerable dialogue with city staff over the last six months and that CVS had agreed to change its recognizable corporate color scheme usually provided for its drugstores. He had also augmented the building with a stone veneer and his current plans include a textured stucco exterior, stone accents, wainscoting and a porte-cochere, as well as a portico feature over the pick-up window.
The planning department requested five changes to the architectural plan, to include a tower with Spanish-style roofing at the building entrance, covered walkways with open, wooden beams, and trellises planted with vines.  Fraga said some of the conditions could be incorporated and the commission scheduled him to return with those plans in hand next month.

(June 14) UPLAND –A divided city council on Monday approved the schedule of fees and charges for the controversial  administrative citation ordinance the council ratified in April which gives the city the authority to fine an offending resident or business up to $365,000 per year.
Given a second required reading on April 22, the ordinance went into effect on May 22. The city’s action this week provides guidance to city staff on what penalties are to be assessed against code violators, although the council simply voted to approve staff recommendations on what those charges will be. The ordinance specifies two classes of violations, those classified as “general” and “building and safety.”
General violations, which relate mostly to the maintenance of property, will entail fines of  $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense and $500 for a third offense.
Building and safety violations, which cover unpermitted structures, unsecured pools, sewage outflows or buildings in a severe state of disrepair, trigger a $500 fine for a first offense, $750 fine for a second offense and $1,000 fine for a third offense.
In making a case for the ordinance, city officials made two contradictory arguments on its behalf. One rationale was that the stepped up fines would allow the city to force offenders into compliance. The second rationale was that it would allow the city to recover its costs in making the enforcement effort.
Opponents of the ordinance countered that residents without the resources to maintain their own property would likely be unable to pay the fines. Unpaid fines are recorded as a tax lien against the offending property, giving the city the right, after five years, to confiscate and sell the property. The accumulated fines in such cases would far exceed the costs of enforcing the code in each specific instance. City officials initially wanted to charge an hourly rate of $92.50 for staff time in processing code enforcement actions but under the ordinance passed this week dropped that to $55, according to the staff report on the matter. .
Mayor Ray Musser, who with his official municipal advisor Tom Mitchell initially championed the ordinance and voted for it upon its first reading on April 8, voted against it on April 22. Councilman Glen Bozar opposed giving city staff members administrative citation authority on both April 8 and April 22.
Opponents cited constitutional grounds in seeking to persuade the council to reject the ordinance, saying it violates due process by allowing the city to serve as the citing authority, arbitrating authority, hearing authority and fining authority. Musser, after his turnaround, acknowledged this.
“I’m all for good code compliance and saving the city and its taxpayers money,” he said, “but I see now the ordinance gives us too much authority. We are giving out the citations and we are collecting the fines. We say we are putting in the added check and balance of an independent hearing officer but that hearing officer will be getting paid by the city of Upland to resolve the matter and I feel that is just not an arm’s length transaction.”
Bozar and Musser’s votes were not sufficient to keep the ordinance from passing on April 22, as council members Debbie Stone, Gino Filippi and Brendan Brandt supported it.  This week, Stone Filippi and Brandt supported the fine schedule. Bozar opposed it and Musser abstained.

Jjune 7) As has been anticipated for the last two months, the city of Ontario this week filed suit against the city of Los Angeles as part of an effort to regain ownership of Ontario Airport, alleging Los Angeles has in recent years failed to live up to all of the provisions of the joint operating agreement for the aerodrome, exacerbated by the larger city’s alleged deliberate mismanagement of the critical Inland Empire economic asset due to a political and regional conflict of interest.
The lawsuit calls for the return of the airport, which has seen a 40 percent decline in passenger traffic over the last five-and-a-half years, to the city of Ontario. The suit also seeks the abrogation of the 1967 agreement that transferred management of the airfield to Los Angeles as well as a reversal of the 1985 transfer of title on the airport property and its facilities from Ontario to Los Angeles.
Represented by the Washington, D.C.-based law  firm of Sheppard Mullen Richter and Hampton, Ontario lodged the suit in Riverside County Superior Court, naming the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners and Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the entity which operates Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Ontario Airport, which is known by its Federal Aviation Administration acronym ONT,  and Van Nuys Airport for the city of Los Angeles, as defendants.
According to Roy Goldberg, a partner at the law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton “Los Angeles World Airports Chief Executive Officer Gina Marie Lindsey decided to abandon the regionalization objective that previously had united the interests of the two cities to their mutual benefit. Los Angeles is focused on growth and development at Los Angeles International Airport, not Ontario Airport, and the result has been an accelerating decline in Ontario Airport’s fortune.”
Claiming that LAWA’s management of Ontario International has neglected marketing while imposing on airlines still operating there exorbitant enplaning and servicing fees that have resulted in the number of passengers flying into and out of Ontario dropping from 7.2 million in 2007 to 4.2 million last year, Ontario asserts the airport has reached “a crisis point.”
“We were disappointed that Los Angeles rejected our administrative claim without addressing the specific and detailed grounds for relief in the claim,” said Ontario City Councilman Alan  Wapner, who also serves as president of the Ontario International Airport Authority. “The rejection leaves us with no choice but to exercise our fiduciary duties by filing a lawsuit as we press our campaign for control of the Inland Empire’s No.1 economic engine. Anyone following Southern California airport conditions over the past five years can only conclude that as long as Ontario International Airport’s fate lies within Los Angeles’ control, the airport’s condition will continue to deteriorate to the detriment of the entire region,” Wapner said.
Los Angeles’ continuing ownership and operation of Ontario Airport represents a conflict of interest, such that LAWA has promoted an agenda to favor Los Angeles International Airport, and has thus proven unwilling to ensure that air traffic is evenly distributed to the regional airports it controls, Ontario maintains. This violates the joint operating agreement’s mandate that Ontario’s interests be served, according to the suit.
“Ontario Airport’s survival is now in jeopardy because Los Angeles has for too long caused ONT’s costs to skyrocket compared with other secondary airports in Southern California and nationwide, has focused on developing LAX’s capacity as an international airport, and has refused to market ONT as a convenient alternative to LAX,” Ontario councilman Jim Bowman, also a member of the Ontario International Airport Authority, said.
“The current administration at LAWA decided to focus its financial and other resources on renovating and promoting LAX, especially to retain and attract more international service, while allowing passenger levels at ONT to dip dangerously low,” Bowman said. “The result is LAWA has breached its contractual and fiduciary duties by failing to promote and expand air service at ONT.”
Furthermore, Ontario represents in the suit’s pleadings, Los Angeles did not live up to a commitment made by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to provide Ontario Airport with up to $7.3 million per year realized by LAWA’s 2008 closing of the Palmdale Regional Airport.
At the time Ontario and Los Angeles entered into the joint powers agreement to allow Los Angeles to use its clout with airlines to increase flights into and out of Ontario International in 1967, the airfield had a gravel parking lot and was servicing fewer than 200,000 passengers per year. Under Los Angeles’ guidance, the airport grew, more airlines began flying out of the facility and improvements were made to its runways and terminals. In 1985, after all of the conditions set down in the 1967 joint powers agreement had been met, Ontario deeded the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration.
Since the airport achieved its 7.2 million passenger high mark six years ago, Ontario officials maintain that LAWA has stifled Ontario International in a deliberate effort to benefit Los Angeles International, where improvements have been made and passenger traffic has continued to rise for the past seven years. In its now-three-year-long campaign to have Los Angeles deed the airport back to Ontario. Ontario officials have publicly insisted that LA should relinquish the airport for no consideration because the airport is considered a public benefit property which has no sale value. Privately, however, Ontario has offered Los Angeles $246 million for the airport. Simultaneously, Los Angeles has sought potential private and public buyers for the aerodrome at reported prices ranging from $225 million to $650 million. Last year Los Angeles revealed the existence of Ontario’s $246 million offer, embarrassing Ontario officials with an exposé of the discrepancy between their public and private statements. Last year, Ontario, with the county of San Bernardino, formed the Ontario International Airport Authority, an entity intended to take over ownership and operation of the airport once Los Angeles relinquishes it.
Los Angeles officials attribute the decline in passenger traffic through Ontario to the recession that has persisted since 2008 and widespread changes in the airline industry in which air carriers have reduced flights to outlying airports or non-centralized hubs. They say the airlines have proven resistant to LAWA’s earnest efforts to lure the airlines back to Ontario.  The terms of the 1967 agreement remain in place and Los Angeles maintains it has consistently and continues to live up to that agreement.
In January, Los Angeles offered to sell the airport to Ontario for $474 million. In April, Ontario rejected that offer.
Maria Tesoro, the spokeswoman for Los Angeles World Airports, on Wednesday told the Sentinel, “We haven’t reviewed the lawsuit, and would not be able to discuss its contents.  However, it has been our hope that instead of a divisive relationship, we would have a partnership with the city of Ontario, to the benefit of all.  A new advertising campaign, ‘Together, the sky’s the limit. Fly ONT!,’ will soon be encouraging people to keep spreading the great news about the Inland Empire’s economic engine and what ONT is best known for – Southern California’s most convenient airport.”
In a seeming contradiction to Ontario’s assertions in the lawsuit, last night Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met Chinese President Xi Jinping at Ontario International Airport after the latter flew into Ontario for his scheduled summit with President  Barack Obama today and tomorrow relating to cybersecurity.

(June 7) Victorville City Attorney Andre de Bortnowsky’s use of legalisms and qualified terminology in asserting  current city officials had no interest in property acquired by the city for the yet-to-be-completed Victorville 2 Power Plant has raised speculation that city officials may have previously been improperly involved in the acquisition of the land purchased by the city.
In the mid-2000s, city officials elected to serve as the project proponent for what would become known as the Victorville 2 Power Plant. They were persuaded to do so after Newport Beach-based Inland Energy in conjunction with Baltimore-based Constellation Energy developed the High Desert Power Plant, sometimes referred to as Victorville 1, the permitting process for which was first undertaken in 1998 and which came on line in 2003 and was widely seen as a lucrative success for the private interests involved and the city, which received tax revenue from its operation.
The city paid Inland Energy $5.5 million to obtain licensing and permits and provided another $182 million to General Electric for fuel generation equipment and related services in an effort to complete the project, which was originally planned as a 663 megawatt “hybrid” plant to consist of a natural gas turbine plant producing 513 megawatts and a solar field producing 50 megawatts. The city had hoped to license and build the plant and then sell it at a profit to an operator and then realize roughly $5 million per year in fees and taxes for hosting the facility near Southern California Logistics Airport.
To complete the project the city had to acquire property on which it was to be built.
Among the properties the city sought to obtain to facilitate the project was land owned by Robert Landwehr, which the city sought to obtain through the eminent domain process in 2007. Landwehr, of Murrieta, protested the city’s use of condemnation to seize a five-acre parcel he owned north of the airport.
Amid rising costs and other considerations, the city eventually put the power plant project on hold. But Landwehr on May 16 resurrected some long dormant issues pertaining to the project and the city’s acquisition of the power plant property when he requested by means of a written complaint that the city address and then “cure and correct” what he suggested were violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open meeting and government law. Landwehr suggested there are grounds to believe Victorville officials and its contractors on the project had or have property interests in and around the Victorville 2 site. He asked the city to disclose any documentation relating to such interests.
At the May 28 Victorville city council meeting, de Bortnowsky used tortured language in responding to Landwehr on the record.
“The city is not aware that any outside contractors have ever had any property interests in selecting the VV2 project site location,” de Bortnowsky stated.
He then turned to the issue of city officials having an interest in and potentially profiting by the city’s acquisition of the plant property.
“Mr. Landwehr has asserted that city officials have interests in the properties selected for development for the power plant,” de Bortnowsky said. “None of the current city officials at this point had any interest in those properties. In addition, our research has indicated that no former city officials had any interest in those properties.”
de Bortnowsky’s statement on behalf of the officials, precluding them from speaking on their own, raised the suspicions of many in attendance at the meeting. Moreover, his use of tense in the sentences and the phrase “at this point” seemed to suggest that one or more city official had sold property intended for the power plant.
A title search on property at the site going back more than ten years did not reveal the name of any city officials, past or present, as owners, including Jim Cox, Ryan McEachron, Angela Valles, Mike Rothschild, Bob Hunter, Terry Caldwell, Joanne Almond or Rudy Cabriales. Much of the property, however, is owned by corporate entities or partnerships with fictitious names.
de Bortnowsky denied Landwehr’s allegation that council members had violated the Brown Act or had engaged in any obfuscation or attempts to evade clarity during the power plant site acquisition. “The city has proved to be in compliance with the Brown Act,” de Bortnowsky said. “In respect to Mr. Landwehr’s claim, there is no need to cure and correct the perceived Brown Act violations.”

(June 6) Gambling that he can make a seamless party affiliation shift, Ontario Mayor Paul Leon is looking to capitalize on the residual momentum from the just concluded 32nd California Senatorial District  Race in his current effort to represent the 52nd District in the California Assembly.
For almost a-decade-and-a- half Leon’s political aspirations seemed to take him no further than Ontario’s city limits. Appointed to the Ontario City Council in 1999, he was elected to that council position in his own right in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. In a special election in June 2005 he was chosen mayor and re-elected to a four year term in November 2006 and another in November 2010.
A Hispanic Republican, Leon was content to reign over San Bernardino County’s most financially successful city, a big fish in a medium-sized pond, where he has built up a sizeable following, partially because of his position at the head of municipal government but also in no small measure due to his life’s work, that of pastor at Ontario’s Hope Chapel Foursquare Church.
Ironically, it would be the action of another Republican mayor across the continent  – New York City’s Michael Bloomberg – and the misfortune of a local Hispanic Democratic Congressman – Joe Baca –  that would set off a series of events that has aroused in Leon a heretofore unexplored ambition to function in an elected capacity at the state level.
Baca, who came to Congress in a special election to replace longtime congressman George Brown in 1999, the same year Leon began his political career, had remained in Congress for fourteen years, being reelected by comfortable margins consistently in the Democratic-leaning districts he represented. Indeed, he appeared headed for easy reelection in 2012, having outpaced his only realistic challenger in the June primary, State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod, another Democrat. With California having transitioned to open primaries last year, Baca again faced Negrete-McLeod in the November general election. Baca prepared for a cakewalk against Negrete-McLeod, looking past her in anticipation of returning to Washington D.C. for his eighth term as a member of the House of Representatives.
Unbeknownst to Baca until too late, Bloomberg provided Negrete-McLeod with over $3 million from his political action committee, infusing her campaign with far more money than anyone counted on. With it she was able to send out multiple “hit pieces” tearing into Baca on his voting record along with campaign literature lionizing herself, augmented with a television ad blitz in the final week of the campaign. Caught flatfooted, Baca saw the election slip away from him and Negrete-Mcleod prevailed with 61,065 votes, or 54.35 percent, to Baca’s 51,285 votes, or 45.65 percent.
Negrete-McLeod yet had two years remaining on her term as state senator. Leon was among six candidates who vied to replace her.  In that race held March 12 were four Democrats – Assemblywoman Norma Torres, San Bernardino County Treasurer Larry Walker, Rialto School Board member Joanne Gilbert and Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila. One other Republican, Pomona Planning Commissioner Ken Coble, ran.  Voter registration in the 32nd Senatorial District overwhelmingly favored the Democrats, with 48 percent registered with that party and 28 percent registered Republican.
Leon was able to run a respectable second in the contest, capturing 8,064 votes or 26.4 percent  in a district stretching from Pomona in Los Angeles County all the way to Colton and San Bernardino  in San Bernardino County. He forced a run-off with Torres, who polled 13,295 votes or 43.6 percent throughout the district.
Leon gamely soldiered on in the follow-up campaign, which concluded with an election held on May 14. Inevitably, Leon lost, but again had a respectable showing, given the voter registration disadvantage he had as a Republican. He garnered 13,445 votes, or 40.6 percent, to Torres’ 19,666 votes, or 59.39 percent.
Because of her victory, Torres has now vacated her Assembly seat in the 52nd District. Though they are not contiguous, the 52nd Assembly and the 32nd Senatorial districts cover much of the same territory. Fresh from a defeat but enjoying a relative advantage because of publicity from the just concluded campaign, Leon has jumped right back into the fray as one of nine candidates seeking to succeed the woman who defeated him.
This time around, however, Leon will be doing things a little differently. He will not be running as Republican. In his filing for candidacy, Leon put himself down as unaligned with any political party.
Several calculations went into the decision to mark the “declined to state” box on  the candidacy application Leon just filed. For starters, the Democratic registration advantage in the 52nd Assembly District  mimics that in the 32nd Senatorial – a 20 point spread. In the 52nd, 47 percent of the voters are Democrats and 27 percent are Republicans. And while Leon did succeed in gathering 40 percent of the vote on May 14, which was 12 percent more than were registered with his party, it was not enough to emerge victorious. This time around he hopes to again capture the Republican vote, but simultaneously reach out to Democrats to pad his totals.
Another reason Leon may find it worth downplaying his Republican Party ties is recent action taken by the city he leads. During the senatorial campaign, Leon hewed to the Republican line of eschewing governmental overregulation and he railed against excessive governmental red tape and environmental protection requirements such as the California Environmental Quality Act. He touted a pro-business agenda of economic revitalization that lambasted environmental lawsuits as anathema to good governance and public policy. But on May 30 the city of Ontario joined with San Bernardino County and the Los Angeles County cities of Culver City and Inglewood in filing a joint lawsuit challenging on environmental grounds the city of Los Angeles’ plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport, including moving runways by 260 feet to improve airfield safety.
Ontario, which sees the lawsuit as a ploy to give it leverage in its effort to wrest control of Ontario Airport from Los Angeles, is alleging with San Bernardino County and Culver City and Inglewood that Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates and manages the airport, failed to provide adequate environmental review of the modernization plan’s effects, including ones on noise, traffic and air quality. The suit is seeking a delay in the project.
It may now be difficult for Leon to campaign using the same themes he did before when he lambasted Democrats for using environmental law to delay progress and economic development and modernization when he himself is a plaintiff in what is a quintessential environmental lawsuit.
Instead, Leon has now cast himself as a politician seeking to elevate himself and his constituents above the partisan fray.
“I’m tired of the dysfunctional nature of partisan politics in Sacramento,” he said. “Ultimately it’s hard-working families who are hurt by this gridlock.  I want to represent all the people of the 52nd Assembly District, not just one faction.  As a councilman and now as mayor of Ontario, I’ve served the people in a non-partisan way.  I want to take that same style of leadership to Sacramento to get California working again.”
He continued with this new theme. “The partisan nature of Sacramento makes representatives vote along party lines rather than what’s in the best interest of the people who elected them,” he said. “If elected, I don’t want to be defined by a political party, but rather by the people who I represent.  We need to stop focusing so much on who’s from what political party and instead focus on the issues candidates stand for.  By registering as a DTS [declined to state], voters can now look at my plan to increase jobs, make sure the Gold Line reaches Ontario Airport, fund our schools and fight for local control of Ontario Airport.”
Leon said he is running because “I look at the direction California is headed and I’m worried for my grandchildren.  I want to take my fiscal conservative principles to Sacramento to balance our budget, fund our schools, and get California working again.”
Leon said he wants to replicate his Ontario success in Sacramento.
“I believe Sacramento should work like the city of Ontario; putting aside petty differences in order to get the job done and better our community,” he said. “Looking at the list of candidates, I truly believe I’m the best qualified to represent our district.”
The other candidates who have declared their candidacies are  Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila, a Democrat;  Chino Councilman Tom Haughey, a Democrat;  business owner Dorothy Pineda, a Republican;  Pomona Councilman Freddie Rodriguez, a Democrat;  Jason Rothman, a Pomona Unified School District board member and a Democrat; former legislative staffer Manuel Saucedo, a Democrat;   Southern California Air Quality Management District staffer Danielle Soto, a Democrat; and political organizer Doris Louise Wallace, a Democrat.

(June 7) CHINO HILLS –As the first of potentially scores of lawsuits over what the city maintains are encroachments by residents on city-owned open space is heading to trial, city officials are contemplating defusing the issue altogether by offering  to sell the strips of property in question to those residents.
Michael and Kimberly Denton 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 when 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.  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.
After attempts by the city to have the case dismissed outright, assistant city attorney Elizabeth Calciano made a motion to strike portions of the complaint. On March 11, Superior Court Judge Joseph Brisco ruled the case will go to trial September 30 with all of its causes of action intact.
The Denton case is of considerable significance in upscale Chino Hills, since it will conceivably impact about 300 other property owners in the city who are alleged to have encroached on public open space. Those encroachments include trees, shrubs and other forms of landscaping in city-claimed open space in the most benign of the cases and consist of fences, walls, pavement and structures in more serious cases.  In some instances, those improvements were undertaken by the present owners of the properties. In others, they were completed by previous owners.
A “global” solution is apparently in the works, with city officials discussing among themselves at present the viability of agreeing to sell most of the disputed encroached-upon property to the homeowners.
Next month the city will host a public meeting/workshop at which the conceptual terms of the property sales can be discussed.  If a staff report on whether there is a community consensus to move ahead with the sale/purchase solution can be formulated in a timely fashion, the council could conceivably have a program in place that could be applied to the Dentons, who have already indicated a willingness to make a purchase similar to what the city is contemplating.  The city has already paid Calciano and her colleague, city attorney Mark Hensley, more than $200,000 for legal work relating to the encroachment question and the pending Denton lawsuit.

(June 7) This week Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford obtained clearance from her colleagues to hire controversial political figure Joshua White as a policy advisor on her staff.
The 24-year-old White is to be provided a total annual compensation package of $98,469, consisting of a $57,190 salary and $41,279 in benefits.
Five years ago, then county assessor Bill Postmus fell under a cloud of suspicion that eventually led to his resignation when it was revealed that he had installed several cronies with little or no practical experience in the realm of assessing properties or businesses as political appointees in his office. Among these was the then-19-year-old White, who was given a simplistic make-work assignment of compiling readily available and already prepared data into the 2007 Assessor’s Annual Report, an assignment for which he was paid $40,000 as an exempt-status employee.
According to a 2009 report by  senior district attorney’s office investigator Hollis D. “Bud”  Randles and district attorney’s office investigator Schyler Beaty, White did little or no actual work related to the function of the assessor’s office during his tenure there. Rather, according to Randles and Beaty, another Postmus political appointee, assistant assessor Adam Aleman, reported that much of White’s time in the assessor’s office was spent making postings to the Republican Party website www.redcounty.com.  Aleman had been hired by Postmus at the age of 22 into the $130,000 per year post of assistant assessor. Aleman was active in Postmus’ political campaigns and served for a short time as a contributing editor to www.redcounty.com.   Postmus was formerly the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. He was drummed out of office in some measure for having allowed his office to be used for partisan political purposes.
A grand jury would later conclude that Aleman, White, and two other Postmus political appointees, Greg Eyler and Michael Richman, were engaged in activities related to Postmus’s “public image” instead of the “core functions” of the assessor’s office. Postmus, Aleman and Eyler were prosecuted and all eventually pleaded guilty. White avoided prosecution by turning state’s evidence.
White had come to Postmus’ and Aleman’s attention as a paid employee of the Central Committee. More recently, White worked as a field representative for Rutherford and was writing for a website,  www.iecrookwatch.com, which was dedicated to the electronic publication of derogatory information pertaining to former San Bernardino County supervisor Neil Derry.
Rutherford also successfully sought to have the $61,337 total compensation contract her office has with Leanna Kobaly, who serves as her executive aide, extended through July 25, 2014.