(May 7)  A longtime Democratic Party activist who has supported others in their political aspirations but had never run for office herself, Eloise Gomez Reyes said she believes she is now qualified and prepared to seek office herself. She is currently one of seven candidates seeking to succeed Congressman Gary Miller in the 31st Congressional District following Miller’s retirement announcement in February.
“I think, to put it in fewest words possible, working families need a real voice in Washington and that is something I can provide,” Gomez Reyes said.
Of the challenges facing the 31st District, Gomez Reyes said, “Number one has to be jobs and the economy. We need to bring jobs back to America and that includes ending tax breaks to corporations that send jobs overseas.”
In addition to discouraging the outsourcing of job opportunities, Gomez Reyes said efforts have to be undertaken to train the current and emerging local work force so potential employees are matched with the skills needed by employers.
“Local economist John Husing talks about logistics and health care,” she said. “If those are the jobs of the future, we have to train our students to go into those areas. We need to train our children for those jobs in the 21st Century. We need to accept that not every student wants to go to college. That is something we encourage all students to do but some do not want to go to college and some need vocational training. That should be provided to them.
“We also have to ensure that small businesses succeed,” she continued. We have to figure out a way to promote small business growth, especially in the neighborhoods that have suffered the most. We have to help them manage their start up costs, perhaps by deferring payroll taxes during their first year of operation.”
She continued, “We need to  invest in infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the Inland Empire a D plus on our physical infrastructure. We need to figure out what we should do with our bridges and roads.”
Workers need to be economically empowered, Gomez Reyes said. “The other thing is we should raise the minimum wage,” she said. “There is no reason why we can’t go to $10.10 an hour.  We should make sure there is equal pay for equal work. It doesn’t just affect woman or individual workers. it effects families. When we talk about raising the minimum wage, we are talking about the future. Wages up the social security investment. Women, we know, on average get less in social security than men do. We need family leave and paid medical leave. We need to make that available to them.  Another area is green jobs. We have to provide incentives for companies doing research and development in renewable energy. We have to get our veterans back to work. I will make sure that I never vote on anything that reduces social security to our seniors.  In fact, I believe we need to figure out some way to expand it.”
Gomez Reyes took up the issue of veterans’ benefits.
“We make promises to our veterans,” she said. “I am passionate about that. I am tired of how we make our veterans wait. I take this issue very personally. I had a brother-in-law who served in Viet Nam. He was exposed to Agent Orange. When his health started to deteriorate he applied for help and the health benefits that were due him. He died before he received a single benefit. Then after he was dead, his widow had to start the process all over again and reapply. She is now finally getting those benefits, but we can’t make our veterans wait. When we asked them to serve, they did not tell us to wait.”
Gomez Reyes further stated that it is hard to draw a distinction between local and national issues in the 31st District since so many national issues impact the local area.
“An issue very important to our district is comprehensive immigration reform,” she said. “We need a true path to citizenship. We can’t continue inhumane deportations separating families. I have been volunteering legal aid for 25 years. I have seen landlord tenant issues where tenants cannot afford an attorney. I have seen single woman who cannot afford an attorney to get the right child support. These issues are so local. We need to get our children through our educational system.  These are national issues but they are also issues of this district.”
She expanded upon how San Bernardino County and the 31st District are a microcosm of the country as a whole.
“When I talk to my future colleagues, as when I have gone to Washington D.C. to talk about my race, there is not anyone who did not express concern with regard to the economy and job creation in their districts. Those are also on the top for them.”
A broiling national issue that has piqued her interest, she said, is governmental surveillance of its citizens.
“I am concerned about the NSA [National Security Agency] and other issues having to do with our privacy, especially now that the NSA has access to people’s records, which are being held and reviewed. That is a concern of many I have talked to.  Immigration and education are local issues but also national issues.
“With regard to immigration, we do have to find a true path to earned citizenship,” she reiterated. “We need to secure our borders from terrorists, felons and gang members. When we know someone’s criminal record already, we need to move forward and make sure they go back to their country. There is a Senate bill that was passed. I think that is a great beginning. We need to look at how we proceed with deportations. We have students here who have been here their whole lives who are being separated from their families. That is something I am concerned about and which we need to be concerned about.”
The federal government should play a role in raising scholastic standards and ensuring education is universally available, she said.
“We need to look at the quality of education and equity in education,” she said. “We want all of our students to have opportunity. I was provided with opportunity. I want students to get education of the quality that was available to me. I believe we need  pre-kindergarten programs. That is something that is of benefit to them later on. By third grade, we want them reading and writing. Studies show those are important periods. We should do whatever needs to be done to make sure they are getting that. We should also make sure that we over intensive education programs in science, engineering and made. We need to be able to provide technical schools and vocational training. We should have short term adult education in place. We should have short term education and training for available jobs. These are paths to upward mobility. Without this, people are stuck and won’t be able to enter the middle class. We need to change the terms of student loans. We strap our students with huge loans. They leave college with a degree and huge debt. After graduating they should be free to get a job and start a family without being strapped with these huge loan debts where the federal government is making billions of dollars on the  interest.”
In the field of candidates in the 31st with Gomez Reyes is former Congressman Joe Baca, Danny Tillman, Lesli Gooch, Paul Chabot, Ryan Downing, and Pete Aguilar. Gomez Reyes said she is the best choice for the post because, “I am not a career politician. I am going to Washington to do a job, not to get a job or keep a job. I have served this community for over thirty years because I love this community. I want it to prosper like it once did. I believe I can lead it back. When I was 12 years old, I went to work, picking onions. That is how we bought our school clothes. That is something I am proud of. I was the first Latina to open a law office in the Inland Empire. I never shied away from hard work, not as an onion picker or as an attorney. I am not going to shy away from the hard work required in Congress.”
Gomez Reyes graduated from Colton High School, where she was ASB president. She attended San Bernardino Valley College and received an AA degree in liberal arts there before matriculating at USC, where she obtained a BA in public administration. She obtained her juris doctor degree from Loyola Law School and has been practicing law for 30 years in the areas of worker’s compensation and personal injury.
She is married with one child.

(May 6)  John Coffey is again seeking election to California’s lower legislative house representing the 33rd Assembly District because, he said, “this area has been without legitimate representation since 2010.”
Coffey, a Democrat, lost in his previous bids for the assembly against Republican Tim Donnelly. Voter registration in the district solidly favors the GOP. Two-termer Donnelly, who would have been eligible to run once more for the Assembly under California’s term limit law, opted to instead run for governor this year, resulting in eight Republicans and Coffey seeking to replace him.
Coffey asserted his belief that the Republican domination of the district has done it no good, given the supermajority the Democrats currently have in the legislature and the near supermajority they have had over the last several years.
“What has happened to the area, which is essentially mountains and desert, is inexcusable,” Coffey said. “Without legitimate representation it has lost a lot of funding, lost out on infrastructure, lost every court in the High Desert and Mountains. It has been poorly treated. The odds are never in our favor.”
Coffey said he is an established Democrat activist who could go to Sacramento and immediately translate his status as a party insider into respect for the district.
“I have been representing, on my own time, environmental activist groups for the last 12 years including Helphinkley.org and the Defenders of Wildlife and I have attended hundreds of evidentiary meetings with Pacific Gas & Electric and Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, as well as Bureau of Land Management applications on renewable energy projects,” he said. “I have attended  school board meeting all over the desert when there are issues that affected classified employees or special needs students.”
Coffey intoned, “I have been active in Democratic politics in the desert and before that in San Diego and I was the endorsed  Democratic candidate in the 33rd in 2012 and received that endorsement at large for 2014. I’m a known associate of [current Democratic Congressional Candidate]  Bob Conaway and we have worked together on many projects and issues.”
Asked to size up the challenges facing the 33rd District, Coffey said, “There’s a housing crisis. There’s a lot of underwater mortgages. There are many foreclosures and many vacant properties which are deteriorating rapidly. Employment is rapidly disappearing. The military employers are cutting back. There’s a hunger problem here in the desert  There’s a majority of students on reduced or free lunch, and that is a primary indicator of food insecurity in the home.  We have no reliable public transportation within Barstow or intercity transportation between Needles, Barstow and the Victorville area. The closure of the courthouses, specifically in Needles, Big Bear and Barstow and the substantial closure of Victorville  has disenfranchised every resident of the 33rd Assembly District and denied us equal access to justice and the equal protection of the law.  The state Supreme Court has stated this is a constitutional crisis and I concur. Someone has to be in Sacramento with a seat at the Assembly committee table and the Democratic caucuses to make this right. Gun wielding conservatives will not help. However I am a gun owner and I believe in the right to bear arms and an open system for concealed carry permits. I support Mr. Donnelly’s bill to that extent.”
Coffey continued, “Health care is another crisis area in the High Desert. The Barstow area has limited primary care and no tertiary care specialist treatment available.  When you put the transportation deficit together with only minimal primary care available in Barstow and other rural communities, the result is disability and early death for many and the early death of senior citizens. This must be resolved.”
Coffey said he will not restrict his efforts to improve the situation in the 33rd District to legislative ones, but will embark upon litigation as an elected representative of his constituents to obtain what is due them.
“I am no stranger to the courthouse,” he said. “If necessary, I can bring a class action federal lawsuit to restore equal access  to justice for residents of the 33rd District and I will be the lead plaintiff. If we are to preserve rural areas as a place to live, there must be adequate public transportation.  Private transportation for senior citizens is an illusion, because many senior citizens are one doctor visit away from losing their license. There must be a transportation network at least in part sponsored by the medical providers to make sure the seniors and disabled can get to the tertiary care they need to stay in their homes. The same dynamics apply to an alarming number of disabled children in the 33rd District, who have even fewer options for their treatment.”
If elected, Coffey said he will “make sure that school districts stay on top of the entitlement of free and reduced lunches and I will expedite  food stamp applications for households with minor children.”
Coffey said he more than any of the other candidates in the race are committed to maintaining the districts ecological integrity.
“As far as environmental issues go, as Mark Twain said, ‘Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.’ No area signifies that more than the High Desert. The largest toxic water plume in the country was in Hinkley. After 28 years of do-nothing hearings, it is time for the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to declare Hinkley a Superfund site.  Barstow must also begin to deal with its perchlorate issues more effectively with the state’s help  to avoid another water shutdown. In  Cadiz the aquifer should only be used as an asset to protect and support environmentally sensible development and endangered species habitat conservation.”
He continued, “The Bureau of Land Management is in the middle of a land grab for private developers in the Silurian Valley. They must cease. The Silurian Valley is a national park quality park wilderness area  that bridges the transition from Death Valley to the Mojave preserve. It is irreplaceable and the home of six endangered species.”
Coffey offered his theory that “The chief driver of poverty is the lack of available affordable housing. Not only are younger adults living with mom and dad again, that group in turn has been forced to move in with the grandparents.  I don’t know where those people can go for the next step. Cities need to reinvent themselves with their homes for their residents or become irrelevant. If there is no one living there, there is no incentive for private industry to provide goods and service to that area. Strong neighborhoods build strong communities. If the HUD Section 8 housing assistance program was funded in accordance with demonstrated need we would not be having this housing crisis.”
Coffey decried the “absence of younger people in activist groups. Activism is the province of mostly people my age or close to it. The groups must reach out to the next generation to involve them and make sure they are welcome, make sure their views and lifestyles are appreciated and valued.  I understand why young people run the other way, when they have been watching my generation swimming upstream the last 25 years. But we can turn this around if we can just focus on how to fix the problems, the problems are solvable and we need to convince the power brokers in Sacramento that their time is running out to fix them in a reasonable way.”
Coffey said he was distinguished from the other candidates in that “I am a person of mature years, a lifelong activist with a law degree and a willingness to use it where appropriate. I am 68 years old. This is not about me. It is about our kids and our grandkids.  If we aren’t going to leave them an economy and environment that is functional and sustaining, then we have failed.”
At graduate of St. Justin High School in San Diego, he attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and later  graduated from St. Martins College in Lacey Washington with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and clinical social work. He obtained his juris doctor degree from Western State University School of Law San Diego, but is not currently practicing law. “I am still an honest man,” he said.
He served in the U.S. Army for eight years, having achieved the rank of staff sergeant upon his discharge.
He has worked as a car salesman, a psychiatric social work supervisor, a claims representative for the Social Service Administration, a paralegal, a civil and criminal investigator and is  currently a bilingual special needs student teacher.
He has three children and four grandchildren.

(May 8)  A significant portion of the $31.7 million worth of construction work that was to be completed on the Ranchero Road/I-15 Interchange went up in flames on May 5, when a worker using a blowtorch to cut steel reinforcing bars accidentally ignited the wooden bracing for the structure.
Efforts to douse the flames failed as in high winds fanned and spread the fire.
According to Eric Sherwin, a public information officer with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, his agency received multiple reports of the fire at the interchange construction site near the confluence of the freeway and Ranchero Road south of Highway 395 at about 1:30p.m.
“Callers stated that flames were visible on the underside of the bridge in the center divider area,” according to Sherwin. “First arriving units discovered a well-established fire that carried across the entire bridge project which spans the interstate. They also noted debris falling onto the freeway and immediately requested a full closure of the north and southbound lanes for commuter safety.
“Suppression efforts were hampered at many points during the extended attack,” Sherwin continued. “Falling debris and ongoing collapses prevented crews from fighting the fire from beneath the structure, Once personnel pulled back out of the collapse zone, constant winds of 25 mph with 35 mph gusts kept hose streams from penetrating deep into the bridge and to the seat of the fire. These same winds contributed to the quick spread as flames were pushed through the construction area much like a wildland environment. Being on the interstate, access to fire hydrants was reduced. Therefore, a number of water tenders were brought to scene to support the large volume of water being utilized to combat the blaze.”
As efforts to bring the flames under control on the afternoon of May 5 continued, eleven engines, one truck company, one patrol, six water tenders, and one hand crew totaling over 60 personnel were assigned to the incident along with multiple chief officers.
By 10 p.m. on May 5, the fire appeared to have been suppressed but some time later reignited and burned again until after 6 a.m. on May 6, at which time firefighters managed to douse it.
During the fire and in its aftermath, Interstate 15 was closed in both directions. Because of the debris covering the freeway and the efforts needed to clear it, the freeway remained closed for well over 24 hours. Both lanes were reopened at 11:45 p.m. on May 6.
According to Tim Watkins of SANBAG, San Bernardino County’s transportation agency, as of Thursday, May 8, there were neither precise nor approximate estimates of the monetary loss the fire caused. SANBAG is the lead agency on the project.
Watkins told the Sentinel on May 6 that the fire occurred after the concrete columns had been put in place but about a week before the concrete was to be poured to form the overpass superstructure.
The fire sparked when workers were using blowtorches to cut off excess steel bars where metal box cages are tied together, he said, further characterizing that action as “a normal practice in bridge construction work.”  He said that extensive inspection of the columns will need to be done to determine whether the columns can remain in place or will need to be torn down and replaced. The bridge’s false work, that is the wooden framing that held the ironwork in place prior to the pouring of the concrete, was completely destroyed in the fire as was the ironwork. Some other elements of the construction that had been completed escaped relatively unscathed, Watkins said.
“The ramps and the area leading to the abutment and the drainage system were all unaffecdted by the fire, so it was not a total loss of the construction effort,” Watkins said. “All of the false work, the timber plywood forms and the rebar steel that was in place and the steel beams were destroyed. All of the surface work will have to be redone. We have to assess whether the fire had any effect on the columns themselves, from either the heat or the falling structure. An engineering team will go in and make that assessment.”
A published report on May 8 held that the monetary damage had been tentatively pegged at “between $5 million and $6 million.” The same day, Watkins indicated that those figures had not been issued from SANBAG. “There is no way to speculate on that without the engineering assessment being done,” he said. “Yesterday [May 7] there was digging work performed on the roadway and they took steel from the columns to submit it to an analysis. The results of that will help calculate how extensive the damage was.”
Watkins said, “The loss to be determined will be based on the total impact of the fire and only partially on how much has been spent to date, since some of the completed work is salvageable. We will eventually know, going backwards from what had been completed and will need to be redone, what our losses are. I cannot tell you at this time what the cost of the recovery effort will be to get back to the stage of construction we were on Monday morning.”
Watkins said the scheduled completion of the project will now be delayed for an indeterminate time, dependent upon the engineering assessment of how much of the still standing structure will need to be torn down and rebuilt as well as the availability and delivery of materials.

By clicking on the portal below, you can access a PDF of the May 2 San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 05-02-14

(May 1) The Upland City Council this week on a 4-1 vote approved spending $75,000 of  taxpayer money in an effort to convince the city’s residents to approve the imposition of a half percent city-wide sales tax and an increase in the city’s business tax.
For seven months, Upland City Manager Stephen Dunn has been pushing the city council to seek residential approval of these measures to shore up city finances and head off projected deficits in upcoming fiscal years. The council shied away from immediately approving that request but in October appointed a budget task force to look at the city’s fiscal circumstance. One option outlined by the task force was that the city council could seek, through a ballot measure, city voter approval of a tax.
Simultaneously, however, a growing number of vocal city residents have advocated against any tax increases, asserting that past decisions by the city council have conferred upon city employees salaries and benefits that are too generous and which are leaving the city in the position of having to pay exorbitant  pensions to employees upon retirement. They are calling for a renegotiation of the employment contracts with municipal employees to reduce ongoing and future operating costs and pension obligations before residents are called upon to cover  those costs in the form of new taxes.
This week Dunn requested the council appropriate $75,000 from the city’s general fund reserves “for two purposes: to engage a firm to survey the citizens of Upland about the potential sales tax and business license tax measures and to engage the services of a public relations firm to assist staff in providing the public with accurate and correct information on many of the task force recommendations that will be addressed over the next 12 months. The estimated cost for these services are $27,000 and $48,000 respectively.”
Councilman Glenn Bozar, the leading advocate on the council for reducing city expenses, in particular its pension costs before increasing taxes, pointed out that the language in Dunn’s request, specifically  “providing the public with accurate and correct information on many of the task force recommendations” may involve  undertaking an effort to convince residents to approve the sales tax by means of the polling questions being asked.
Dunn had previously discussed the city’s pension cost increasing to $7.7 million per year in fiscal year 2014-15. According to the California Public Employees Retirement System, pension costs are scheduled to increase by more than 50 percent in the next six years. Currently, after working for the city for 30 to 35 years,  city employees are eligible to retire at the age of 55 and receive 90 percent of their highest annual salary as a pension. Dunn’s projections indicate that nearly all revenue raising initiatives that are being considered will be consumed by pension costs.
Bozar sought to convince his colleagues that the informational campaign Dunn is seeking could be done at less cost by including information in the utility bills the city sends to utility service customers.
Bozar’s colleagues, however, said that they felt Dunn had to be given the support he requested.
Councilman Brendan Brandt expressed faith in Dunn’s judgment and decision-making, encouraging the others to approve his recommedation.
“We do not have the money, but we need to find it and move forward,” said councilwoman Debbie Stone.
“I voted against that expenditure because I don’t think it is necessary and it is an unwise use of public funds,” Bozar told the Sentinel. “If you want to educate the public as to what these measures are, you could do it through our utility bills at a fraction of the cost.”
Indications were that Steve Lambert of the 20/20 Network would be given the $48,000 no-bid contract to lobby the public with regard to passing the half percent sales tax. The 20/20 Network is a communications firm  headed by Lambert and Tim Gallagher specializing in media and community relations, branding, strategic planning and crisis management. Lambert is the former editor of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Upland. The 20/20 Network represented the city of Rialto in its public relations effort to promote the privatization of its water division, blunting resident outrage over a resultant 115 percent increase in water rates in that city.
On May 1, Lambert  told the Sentinel materials for public consumption would not be ready for at least another two weeks. “We will be sitting down with the city to do a strategic review in the next couple of days,” Lambert said.

SAN BERNARDINO (April 28)—The much ballyhooed  and equally maligned sbX bus service was initiated this week, getting off to an inauspicious start with protestors gathering at the christening of the project to voice objections to the danger they say the underground  fuel tanks at the bus line’s refueling facility pose to a nearby neighborhood.  The inauguration of the system  was further marred when one of the high speed busses collided with an SUV that intruded into the bus-only lane on its first day of operation, Monday April 28.
Omnitrans, the public transit agency serving the San Bernardino Valley which operates the sbX line, and SANBAG, the county transportation agency which acted as the lead agency in obtaining $75 million in federal funding which was applied toward th $192 million project, hailed the opening of the line as a major leap forward for beleaguered San Bernardino, which declared municipal bankruptcy in 2012.
Running 15.7 miles from near the Veterans Administration Hospital in Loma Linda to just north of Cal State San Bernardino, the sbX line features 60-foot long articulated buses that use clean-burning compressed natural gas as fuel. According to a schedule released by Omnitrans, from three to six busses will cover the route each hour during daylight.
Like the unconventional capitalization and spelling used in its acronym – sbX stands for San Bernardino Express – the route embodies unusual features such as a dedicated lane for more than a third of the route that has been fashioned from what were once street medians. And each sbX bus driver has been given virtual command of the traffic lights encountered along the route so that the busses will rarely if ever encounter a red light.
Indeed, from its inception, the sbX concept was sold on the speed of travel it would offer. This week, project planners and engineers were gathering data to determine if the busses are consistently making the entire trip from Loma Linda to San Bernardino State University or vice versa with 13 stops in between in just under 39 minutes.
Initially, planners had envisioned the route having only five stops between its starting points/end destinations and completing its run in just under 25 minutes., rivaling or actually bettering what a commuter utilizing a car typically encounters over the same span utilizing the freeway during the morning or evening rush hour.
In 2012, however, the city of San Bernardino  approved a transit overlay district entailing 13 stations/bus stops. Moreover, Omnitrans officials were unable to live up to the representation they had made to Federal Transit Administration officials that dedicated center lanes for the busses would run for nearly the entirety of the route. Instead, only about six miles of the stretch, along Hospitality Lane and in the downtown area, have dedicated center lanes. The dedicated lanes help speed the busses along the route by eliminating interaction and merging with traffic.
The 39-minute terminus-to-terminus trip still compares favorably with the 65 minutes users of public transportation endured on the previous conventional bus route that covered the same 15.7 mile stretch.
The bus route entails a departure from a station near the Veterans Hospital and other medical facilities just off Barton Road in Loma Linda, a turn north on Anderson/Tippecanoe Street, a turn left on Hospitality Lane and then a right turn  north on E Street before terminating at San Bernardino State College. The return route covers the same span in reverse.
On all five workdays this week through today, May 2, riders have been and are able to ride sbX for free. Omnitrans is confident that if riders are exposed to the route as users, many, especially students attending Cal State San Bernardino or Loma Linda University, will be persuaded to forsake their vehicles in favor of taking the bus. Officials are equally hopeful that veterans who frequent the Jerry Pettis Memorial Veterans Administration Hospital in Loma Linda will alos elect to use sbX.
Omnitrans and SANBAG officials also are hopeful that bus ridership along the 15.7 mile route will increase significantly over the far less impressive numbers that utilized the conventional buses that ferried passengers over the same route up until last week, thus justifying sbX’s  expense and imposition on the community.
Part of that imposition consists of the elimination of the turn lanes along Hospitality Lane and E Street, such that motorists are now unable to make left turns and are now obliged to continue further down the street to make a U-turn where that is possible and then retrack back to access  businesses, including many of the restaurants in that area. The owners of several businesses located along the route, including Ammons Diamond & Coin Gallery, Burger Mania, Pride Envelopes and Barber Shop 215, claim  their operations have already been negatively impacted by the street alterations.
As Omnitrans and SANBAG officials gathered on the morning of April 28 together with San Bernardino city officials at the central city bus platform to celebrate the opening of the system, dozens of sign and placard bearing protestors were assembled to insist that Omnitrans  remove liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas tanks at the refueling station on the city’s Westside in midst of an impoverished residential zone and an elementary school.
“There is danger in San Bernardino thanks to Omnitrans” one sign in Spanish said.
Officials did their best to carry on with the ribbon cutting festivities, despite the protests.
Later that day, another dreaded element relating to the advent of  the sbX bus system manifested when some nine  hours after the busses began running, one of them with about nine people on board ran into an SUV on E Street just south of Mill Street around 4 p.m.  A girl, described as about ten years old was injured  in the mishap, and she was transported to a local hospital with injuries described as non-life threatening. The driver of the SUV was injured, but was able to drive away from the scene.
The SUV was apparently caught in the bus-only lane and the bus, running at an accelerated rate of speed approaching or exceeding 60 miles per hour, was unable to break in time to avoid the collision.
Critics of the sbX system had inveighed against it on the basis of the traffic hazard represented by the buses traveling at speeds in excess of the speed limit for passenger vehicles along the same span of roadway.
Officials had hoped that posted signage informing motorists that the bus lanes are to be used exclusively by busses and that the minimum fine for entering the bus lane is $341 would deter drivers from doing what the driver of the SUV near E Street and Mill Street did on Monday afternoon.

(April 29) Cliff Harris is running for San Bernardino County sheriff, he said, “because first of all, I want to change the culture of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. I want to stop the institutionalized abuse of the inmates in the jails and on the streets. I want to stop racial profiling. I want to establish a human rights commissions and civil rights commission with subpoena powers.  I want to implement written guiding principles and use those principles as the basis for the department and the county’s residents to move into the 21st Century and so everyone can stay on the same page.”
Harris said he believes establishing defined standards, goals and guidelines is key to raising law enforcement function in San Bernardino County to the level of professionalism that has been lacking historically.
“I want to implement a set of written values and address all identifiable problems,” Harris said. “I want on an ongoing basis to announce to the communities the substantial changes that will be made in the department affecting the delivery of services to the community. My bottom line is moving the department into the 21st Century as I stated, to transform the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department from where it is today to a better organization. The potential to do that exists because of the many good men and women there. There has been a lack of consideration of the economic and sociological issues associated with our society so that what we have is a culture of officers enforcing their own personal belief system on citizens due to the lack of leadership.”
Harris said he anticipates encountering resistance to his reforms, but believes he has the determination and strength of will and character to push them through.
“The changes I have indicated I would like to make would be difficult but with those changes and the ability to manage the change, we will conduct business in a way that is more acceptable to our citizens,” he said. “I intend to bring citizens into an oversight role within the department and end the adversarial relationship that exists in many parts of the county between the department’s deputies and citizens.  I want to bring modern technology into the process,  meaning we should start utilizing what’s available – optical storage disks, chips, artificial intelligence,  parallel processing,  optical computers,  nanotechnology, the list goes on. For the residents, these are difficult to understand let alone embrace. But they represent important tracking capabilities that will help us reduce crime and use our man-and-womanpower in a more effective manner.  I want law enforcement to participate in the developing era of information technology used throughout the country to better serve communities.”
Harris said he will be strict with his command echelon in forcing it to be strict with the department staff.
“I want to demand and will demand accountability for all managers in my administration  and that way we will be able to let our citizens know what they are getting for their money,” he said. “I will have the performance with regard to every member of the department prominently displayed and I will have that information incorporated into negotiations, so the cities we serve can see what they are getting for their money. I believe in the principle of holding those working for the public accountable and engaging in a philosophy of service that gives the public a clear picture of what the department believes in. By having consistent overall values and goals for the department, we will take away the guesswork about what we are trying to achieve and what we are doing. This principle will also provide the same basis for operational strategies and a framework through which all branches of the department will operate and this will make evaluation easier for those on the outside.”
He believes in swift and intensive policing operations in dealing with bona fide criminality,  Harris said.
“Under my leadership, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department will react in a way that emphasizes crime prevention through vigorous law enforcement,” he said. “I want to embed a message that intensive preventative law enforcement is important as a deterrent. The department must establish a commitment to work with the community to help the community help us.   Vigorous enforcement and vigorous  prosecution of the perpetrators who prey on our citizens will address those in community who will make accusations of the department being too weak.”
Fair and unbiased enforcement is a requisite, Harris said.
“As a democratic society we must project that we stand for democratic values,” he said. “Every deputy sheriff must be a living expression of the values and potential for the democracy we serve.  I will implement a new way of thinking, so that we embrace the community and become advocates for the community.”
Harris is one of three candidates in this year’s race. He is challenging John McMahon, the incumbent sheriff, who was appointed to the post following the resignation of former sheriff Rod Hoops midway through his term less than two years ago. Also running is Paul Schrader, a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
“I believe if you look at our backgrounds and our education and my vision, the difference between us is obvious,” Harris said of McMahon and Schrader. “I have not heard or seen vision from the other two candidates. They may have vision, but they have not expressed it. I have looked at their websites. I don’t see anything that stands out about what they believe. I have not heard them talk about fair and equitable treatment of all citizens. I have not heard about what they consider to be our role within the law. I have not heard about our youth. I will engage our youth through elements of service. Our society has changed. Part of that change is we do not deal with the challenges we face, law enforcement and otherwise, just by locking people up. That is not to say we will not be putting people, and in this case I am talking primarily about young people, in jail. If the offense is large enough and serious enough, we will not hesitate to jail people. But we have to be careful that we deal with young people who are at risk of embracing a criminal lifestyle in a way that is not counterproductive and we must take care not to push them into a life of crime by exposing them to hardened criminals who will then mentor them into a far more serious world of criminality. We have created more criminals by the sheriff’s department’s current policies in dealing with juveniles than we have turned around.”
Harris said, “The biggest part of law enforcement should ideally be crime prevention and deterrence. I have spent time in the academic world. That has given me a chance to look at the other side of society, not just that involved in law enforcement. I am advocating emphasizing human rights and civil rights protection. All I have heard from the others is the need to build more prisons. We are never going to prison build our way out of the situation we are in socially. In today’s world we have to be flexible and have flexible policies to deal with what is changing. This county needs different medicine to deal with different problems. I have not heard from either of the other candidates about accountability, integrity, equal law enforcement or respect for others.”
A San Bernardino High School graduate, Harris attended college at the University of La Verne, where he obtained a degree in business. He served in the U.S. Army. He held various jobs, including management training positions with J.C. Penney and Ford Motor Company.  After a two year stint as a reserve deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s department from 1994 to 1996, Harris was hired as a deputy. He remained with the department until 1991, having achieved the rank of detective. He subsequently hired on with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, remaining in that assignment until he retired in 1999.
He is currently a newspaper publisher.

(April 30) Chaffey Union High School District Board Member Art Bustamonte said he hopes to parlay the commitment and passion he has for the community into a berth in the California Assembly representing the 40th District.
Bustamonte, a Democrat, is joined by sister Democrats Melissa O’Donnell and Katie Henry and Republican Marc Steinorth in this year’s race to represent the 40th, which stretches from Rancho Cucamonga in the west and across the San Bernardino Mountains to cover portions of San Bernardino as well as Highland, Redlands, Loma Linda and Grand Terrace.
“I am running to make a difference,” Bustamonte said. “I want to make a difference. I want  progressive policies to promoted the  middle class because the middle class has been neglected. I want to be able to bring jobs to the district, help single parents, especially single women who have children,  with day care so they can work and I want to be able to provide jobs with higher wages. I want to be more connected to the community and I feel this is the best way  for me to do that.”
The major challenge facing the district is “finding jobs for the people who live here,” Bustmonte said. “I see the main issue in San Bernardino County is rejuvenating our economy. San Bernardino County has the highest unemployment rate in the state. We need to attract companies manufacturing companies to the Inland Empire because we have all the necessary infrastructure to connect three airports, our  railroad stations and highways. We have something Los Angeles doesn’t have – space to provide manufacturing companies to come over here and set up shop here. That is not necessarily going to happen until we get our house in order. We need to improve our schools. We need to have a more stable political arena. To stabilize our politics, we need to end corruption in government because companies will not come here or relocate here unless we have good schools and the politics are stable. No company is going to want to come into an area where we have unsafe streets and neighborhoods. We need  good law enforcement and political stability and an educated workforce. Without those three things, companies will not come here. The first thing they look at is will  they have employees who are trained or who they can easily train, and is their police protection and  political stability that allows government to function and be fair. We need to work on those things.”
Bustamonte said a  more coordinated effort among the various political and governmental entities and jurisdictions is needed.
“The counties and cities have their own economic development departments to lure business into their respective cities or into the county,” he said. “We are not working together in unison. It is important that we get everyone working together to bring manufacturing jobs to the county. We have good infrastructure to make that possible. We are not working in unison.  We need to bring jobs to the county.”
As a 17-year member of the Chaffey Union High School Board of Trustees. Bustamonte gravitated toward the subject of improving the education system.
“We need to improve our schools,” he said. “The high school dropout rate in the county is very disappointing. We need more resources from the state to turn that around. The state has cut back on school budgets and that has resulted in class sizes being increased and teachers are not being adequately compensated. We have quality  teachers going elsewhere. I want to  bring resources from the state to the Inland Empire, mores school funds, more money for schools.”
Bustamonte said he is a different kind of Democrat who understands the damage overregulation of business is having on the economy and the well being of everyday citizens.
“I believe I can help create a consensus and work with cities to lure more business to this area through tax incentives if those businesses commit to hiring a certain number of employees,” he said. “We’re  losing manufacturing companies. More are going out to other states are than are coming in. California has twelve percent of the nation’s population. We should have twelve percent of the manufacturing activity. We need to stop the migration of jobs to other states and overseas.  The state needs to look at the reality that  businesses are needed to create jobs. The  most important challenge to the state is to  stop businesses from leaving. By being a part of the majority party – because I am a Democrat – I should  be able to do something about that. My goal as part of the majority is to have a voice in getting things done versus if I were in another party. We have the governor of Texas coming to California offering business owners tax incentives and painting a picture of Texas as a state with lower taxes and actively soliciting companies to leave here.  We should be over there, bringing companies here. It appears at this time we need to put together a fact finding committee to see why our companies are leaving and how can we keep them here.”
Bustamonte said that the state needs to keep large corporations interested in maintaining an operation presence in the Golden State.
“Small businesses are great  but they are not going to employ everyone in California,” he said. “We need manufacturing jobs, good paying manufacturing jobs that will stop the decline in the middle class. We need higher wages  the middle class is in the decline. At the same time, I would like to see tax incentives for small businesses. I want to assist   those who start a small business and want to employ people.”
The government should work to see that its citizens are not gouged, Bustamonte said.
“Look at the gas prices in the Inland Empire,” he said.. We seem to be paying more for gas than surrounding counties. I’d like to know why.”
And state government should vector its resources to assist local governments that are struggling, Bustamonte said.
“I know the city of San Bernardino is having severe problems with their finances,” Bustamonte said. “It has lost a lot of police officers. They need more police officers but they can’t hire them because they don’t have the money. I would  like to get together with San Bernardino officials and the police chief  and go to the state for help. Until the city can get its financials back in order, I would ask the state to loan  CHP officers to  the city of San Bernardino to help them in their law enforcement, to  help them protect the citizens of the city.”
Bustamonte said he offers the voters in the 40th District the best choice “because I have been serving my community all my life. I served my community as a police officer. I am still serving my community as a member of the board of trustees of the high school district. My background, my experience, I think, coupled with my education, far exceeds my competition. I am the only candidate that supported and endorsed a bond measure for the Chaffey High School District that was passed by 60 percent of the voters  a $848 million school bond. That is something no other candidate has done  The bond will build the infrastructure for the school district and increase the technology in the  schools. this is a seven-year project and is going to bring money back into the Inland Empire.”
Bustmonte continued. “I am connected to the community,” he said. “As a member of the school board for 17 years, I have handed out hundreds if not thousands of diplomas to kids. I talk to people in the community  every day. I know what they feel. I know they are not happy with the way things are as far as job wages and having a better life. I can’t say the other candidates are as connected to the community as I am. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I am who I am. This is me. I have passion. I  have had a passion all my life, working for the middle class. I am in it for the duration. I want to fight for the middle class.    I will do what I said I am going to do. I will not hold back.”
Bustamonte graduated from Garfield High School in Los Angeles and obtained a degree from Cal State Fullerton in criminal justice. He served with the Marine Corps for three years on active duty and four more in the reserves. He was a police officer with the city of Huntington Park and retired from that agency after he was felled by a work related injury. He is now an investigator with the San Bernardino County Public Defender’s Office. Divorced, he has three children.

(April 30) Upscale Chino Hills, located at the extreme southwest tip of San Bernardino County and surrounded on three sides by Riverside County, Orange County and Los Angeles County, is leading the way in the economic recovery from the downturn/recession of 2007 in the home building sector.  Some 253 homes involved in six projects, many of which have been on the drawing board and delayed for years, will soon be constructed, if the applications and approvals that have been granted hold true.
Several of the projects were originally proposed  and approved by the county prior to the city’s  1991 incorporation and are now moving toward completion under the city’s more exacting standards.
The largest of the projects is Chino Hills Country Club LLC’s proposed 107 estate home subdivision, to entail 537 total acres on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road at Canyon Hills Road.  The project has undergone several adjustments since it was first proposed under the city of Chino Hill’s land use authority in 1998 as the 341-dwelling unit Canyon Meadows Development by then- proponent the St. Clair Company. St Clair had deviated from a previous entitlement to build 114 homes, to be known Soquel Canyon Country Estates, as  granted to Wayne Napthal by the county of San Bernardino in 1989.  The project was reconstituted as the Ranch at Carbon Canyon in 2000, but it, too, never materialized.
A tentative application has been submitted for 23 other homes in the Carbon Canyon area, at the extreme end of Red Apple Lane south of Carbon Canyon Road.
Stonefield LLC is resuming its attempt to make good on the 2009 approval of 28 homes on 35 acres within a gated community at the northeast corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Fairway Drive.
The second largest pending project in Chino Hills is Forester Canyon Hills’ 141-acre gated community of 76 homes, described as “mini-mansions” across from Hidden Hills and west of Canyon Hills Road.
On October 20, 2009, Richard and Soledad Meaglia obtained an entitlement to subdivide  6.64 acres into 11 residential lots, two open space lots and one lot for a private street on the north side of Pinnacle Road south of Carbon Canyon Road.  The Meaglias have sold the property and the new owner intends to begin construction later this year.
Recently, Caltrans redressed landslide issues in the environs of property south of Carbon Canyon Road and east of Canon Lane  The elimination of rock and mudslide hazards, it is anticipated, will allow a 38-dwelling unit project on 68 acres there that was originally approved for applicant Shanghai Aviation Industrial Corporation by the county of San Bernardino in 1988.

SAN BERNARDINO (April 28)—Boeing is once again pulling up its stakes at San Bernardino International Airport, where for the last eleven months it has been flight testing 747 and 787-8 aircraft.
It was announced this week that Boeing will leave San Bernardino International in favor of Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville.
The Seattle-based company, the world’s leading manufacturer of large scale passenger aircraft, last week signed a three-year $1.8 million lease at Southern California Logistics Airport, known by its acronym SCLA.
Boeing had a previous arrangement with San Bernardino International for test flights intended to shake out both  aircraft as well as the GE engines that power them, but left the facility three years ago after growing disenchanted with the way Scot Spencer, the airport’s former contract developer, was managing the facility.
In September 2011, the FBI conducted a search warrant at San Bernardino International Airport and many of Spencer’s corporate facilities and offices. In February 2012, the San Bernardino International Airport Authority – a joint powers agency combining the interests that the county of San Bernardino and the cities of Highland, Loma Linda, Colton and San Bernardino have in the airport – moved to break its contract with Spencer after a series of operational miscues at the airport, including the depletion of its aviation fuel stores to the point that planes flying out of the facility could not be refueled.
Spencer was subsequently criminally charged. In May of last year, Boeing resumed test flights out of San Bernardino.
The decision by Boeing to utilize Southern California Logistics Airport as the staging area for its systems flight testing, is a setback for San Bernardino International.
Though it has an ultra-modern concourse and terminal, which was completed at a cost of more than $136 million, San Bernardino International has virtually no commercial flight activity. There is little prospect that will change in the near future. It is in direct competition with Ontario International Airport as a hosting ground for commercial carriers and flights into and out of Ontario have diminished over the last six years as flights at Los Angeles International Airport have risen.
San Bernardino International Airport was formerly Norton Air Force Base, which was shuttered by the Department of Defense in 1994. Southern California Logistics Airport was formerly George Air Force Base, which was closed by the Department of Defense in 1992.