(June 4)  All of San Bernardino County’s incumbent politicians competing in Tuesday’s primary prevailed, either winning reelection outright or qualifying for a run-off in November.
In all of the other races involving competition for open seats on the ballot, the best funded candidates consistently won, with few exceptions.
Results available mid-week included tallies from mailed-in ballots and Tuesday’s polling but were unofficial as countywide some  28,080 mail ballots received Tuesday at polling places and 4,513 damaged ballots requiring duplication still had not been counted as of early Thursday.
In the county district attorney’s race, three term incumbent Mike Ramos turned back a challenge by one of his deputy prosecutors, Grover Merritt.  Of the 116,467 votes cast, Ramos captured 71,553 or 61.44 percent. Merritt garnered 44,914 votes, or 38.56 percent.
Sheriff John McMahon, who was appointed to that position in 2012 following the resignation of former sheriff Rod Hoops, received 72,889 of the 116,432  votes cast, or 62.6 percent. Paul Schrader, who works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, picked up 25,830 votes or 22.18 percent. Cliff Harris, a former deputy sheriff in both San Bernardino and Riverside counties who now publishes a newspaper, received 17,713 votes or 15.21 percent.
County Treasurer/Tax Collector Larry Walker, who has held that post for five years since it was merged with the position of auditor-controller and has served in the capacity of auditor-controller since 1998, defeated Ensen Mason in the race for all four posts. Walker polled 86,189 of the 115,452 votes cast, or 74.65percent. Mason claimed 29,263 votes, or      25.35 percent.
The other county government incumbent in the race, Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford, cruised to an easy victory over her opponent, retired sheriff’s department scientific division forensic technician Randolph Beasley, gathering 16,633 or 67.86 percent of the 24,510 votes cast. Beasley claimed 7,877 votes, or 32.14 percent.
Incumbent 8th Congressional District U.S. Representative Paul Cook, a Republican, comfortably outdistanced his three challengers, fellow Republican Paul Hannosh and Democrats Bob Conaway and Odessia Lee.
Cook received 29,269 votes or 59.03 percent to Conaway’s 8,952 votes, or 18.05 percent, Hannosh’s 6,396 votes or 12.9 percent and Lee’s 4,969 votes or 10.02 percent.
In the 47th Assembly District, incumbent Democrat Cheryl Brown overwhelmed challenger Gil Navarro, pocketing  9,953    votes or 68.25 percent to Navarro’s 4,630 votes or 31.75 percent    14,583    votes were cast in that race.
In the 52nd Assembly District race, incumbent Democrat Freddie Rodriguez with 5,662 votes, edged Republican Dorothy Pineda with 5,218 votes, 52.04 percent to 47.96 percent. Despite their second place finishes, Pineda and Navarro qualify for the November runoff.
The incumbents in three of the county government posts up for election this year chose not to seek reelection – county assessor Dennis Draeger, county superintendent of schools Gary  Thomas and Fourth District Supervisor Gary Ovitt.
Draeger endorsed his second-in-command, Dan Harp, who put on a spirited and well-mannered campaign against former State Senator Bob Dutton. Dutton, who likewise conducted an intense but gentlemanly campaign, narrowly won with 58,102 votes, or 50.14 percent of the 115,868 cast to Harp’s  57,766 or 49.86 percent.
In the race for county schools superintendent, Ted Alejandre, who was promoted to vice superintendent last year by Thomas as a ploy to increase his electability, gained the position by pulling 60,585 or 55.01 percent of the 100,144 votes cast, and dousing the electoral hopes of Rita Ramirez Dean, whose candidacy was endorsed by 32,721 or 29.71 percent of the voters, and Frank Garza, who managed to land 16,838 votes or 15.29 percent.
In the election for Fourth District Supervisor, two well-known and well-financed candidates, Congresswoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod, a Democrat, and State Assemblyman Curt Hagman, who is also chairman of the county Republican Central Committee, are seeking to replace Ovitt. Two others, Democrat Paul Vincent Avila, an Ontario city councilman, and Republican James Na, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member, also ran.  The race proved a tight one between Negrete-McLeod and Hagman, with Negrete McLeod capturing 7,796 votes or 42.99 percent and Hagman hauling down 7,276 votes or 40.12 percent. Avila boasted the support of 1,370 or 7.55 percent. Na, who withdrew from the race early and did not campaign but remained on the ballot, drew 1,694    votes or 9.34 percent.
In the 31st Congressional District race, which was thrown wide open when incumbent Republican Gary Miller elected not to seek reelection earlier this year, anti-drug crusader Paul Chabot, a Republican launched himself well ahead of the pack, which was composed of two other Republicans and four Democrats. Democrats actually have a seven percent registered voter advantage over the Republicans in the 31st. Chabot’s 11,329 votes, or 26.79 percent, placed him well in front of the second place finisher, Pete Aguilar, the Democratic mayor of Redlands, who claimed 17.42 percent of the vote, or 7,368. Aguilar only slightly edged Lesli Gooch, one of Miller’s Congressional office staffers. Gooch had 16.5 percent of the vote, i.e., 6,978 votes. The other Republican in the race, Ryan Downing, had the weakest showing, copping 1,421     or votes or 3.36 percent. The three other Democrats, Eloise Gomez Reyes, Joe Baca and Danny Tillman, polled 6,746 votes or 15.95 percent,  4,799 votes or 11.35 percent and 3,648 votes or 8.63 percent, respectively.
Despite his relatively strong showing in the primary, Chabot yet faces an uphill battle in defeating the well financed Aguilar in November, given the district’s favorable lean toward the Democratic Party registration-wise. Overall totals this week showed the Democrat candidates in the 31st District outpolling the Republicans 53.15 percent to 46.85 percent.
In San Bernardino County’s Assembly District 33, one Democrat faced off against nine Republicans. The Democrat, John Coffey, led all of the others with 7,988 of the 33,694 votes cast, or 23.71 percent. But Coffee will yet need to face the second place finisher, big Bear Mayor Jay Obernolte in November. Obernolte with 6,295 votes or 18.68 percent, edged out Michelle Ambrozic, who took third place with 5,755 votes or 17.08 percent. Given the number of ballots yet to be counted, Ambrozic at press time had not conceded defeat.  Others in the race were Rick Roelle with 5,235 votes or    15.54 percent; Bob Buhrle with 651 votes or 1.93 percent;  Art Bishop with 4,674 votes or 13.87 percent; Scott Markovich with 782 votes or 2.32 percent; Brett Savage with 1,427 votes or 4.24 percent; Robert Larivee, with 222 votes or 0.66 percent and Jerry Laws, with 665 votes or 1.97 percent.
In the 40th Assembly District, which is very nearly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats in terms of numbers of registered voters, Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Marc Steinorth, the only Republican on the ballot, captured first place with 16,328 votes, or 53.73 percent. He will face San Bernardino Community College Board Member Kathleen Henry in November. She captured 5,197 votes or 17.1 percent. Melissa O’Donnell carried 4,739 votes or 15.6 percent, and Arthur Bustamonte gleaned 4,123 votes or 13.57 percent.
In the 42nd Assembly District, Republican Chad Mayes, the former Yucca Valley mayor, pulled in 5,156 votes or 48.78 percent to Democrat and Morongo Valley School Board Member  Karalee Hargrove’s 3,208 votes or 30.35 percent. Another Republican, Gary Jeandron, gobbled up 2,206 votes or 20.87 percent.
In the 20th State Senate District race, Republican Matthew Munson outpolled his four Democratic competitors with 9,415 votes or 33.53 percent. Those four Democrats, however, captured 66.47 percent of the vote, presaging a difficult race for Munson in November, when he must face second place finisher Connie Leyva, who received 5,431 votes or 19.34 percent, which put her above Shannon O’Brien, with 4,913 votes or 17.5 percent, Alfonzo Sanchez, with 4,893 votes or 17.42 percent and Sylvia Robles, with 3,430 or  12.21.
Recently elected State Senator Norma Torres was the top vote-getter to replace Gloria Negrete-McLeod as Congresswoman in the 35th Congressional District. Torres, a Democrat, trounced the others, all of whom are Democrats, with 10,614 votes, or 65.68 percent. Anthony Vieyra had 1,303 votes or 8.06 percent. Scott Heydenfeldt captured 1,617 votes or 10.01 percent. Christina Gagnier attracted 2,627 votes or 16.26. There will be a run-off between Torres and Gagnier in November.
In State Senate 16, which covers a portion of San Bernardino County’s desert region and extends into Inyo and Kern counties, Jean Fuller, a Republican, ran unopposed and polled  8,262 votes in San Bernardino County.  Prior to that race, however, Ruth Musser-Lopez. a columnist for the Sentinel,  qualified herself as a write-in candidate, and with the 38 votes she received she has now qualified to compete in the November run-off against Fuller.

(June 2)  Nineteen months after Adelanto rolled into the history books as the  location where the controversial parent-trigger option was first actuated in California, there is no subjective empirical data to determine if taking control of the school targeted in the movement has actually benefitted the students there.
Desert Trails Elementary School in the Adelanto Elementary School District was long one of the most severely underperforming schools in the state of California.
In late 2011, a parent union was formed by parents at Desert Trails Elementary, in large measure at the instigation of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Parent Revolution, which is devoted to challenging the traditional authority of school districts.
In January 2012 the parent union submitted 466 signatures on petitions asking the district to undertake a set of what the parents union maintained would be reforms at the academically challenged school, where students had for years consistently scored near the bottom of state-mandated standardized academic tests.
The petition was based upon the Parent Empowerment Act, authored by former state senator Gloria Romero and passed by the legislature in 2010. The Parent Empowerment Act enables a majority of parents at a school at which students score as low-performers on state academic tests to force a district to implement significant reforms, ranging from replacing the principal and up to half the staff to reopening the school as a charter academy. That process is known by the colloquialism “parent trigger.”
A group of parents opposed to the parent takeover of the school formed and went to work obtaining rescissions of many of the signatures on the petitions.
Those petitions called upon the district to sack the school’s principal, David Mobley, and surrender to the school’s parents authority in hiring his successor, infuse in the new principal hiring authority for the school’s faculty, reduce class sizes and increase the number of school days and instructional hours, and include more science, history and art in the curriculum.
In February 2012, the school district, to whom the parent trigger petitions had been entrusted, announced that it had validated the signatures of only 301 of the 466 signatures on the petitions and declared that the parent trigger petitions were thus 20 signatures short of the 321 needed. The Desert Trails Parent Union, represented by Mark Holscher, a lawyer with the firm on retainer with Parent Revolution, Los Angeles-based Kirkland & Ellis, filed a petition for a writ of mandate and a complaint in Victorville Superior Court seeking a court order that the district verify the signatures and allow the Parent Trigger process to advance on behalf of five of the members of the parents union – Doreen Diaz, Kathy Duncan, Teresa Rogers, Olivia Zamarripa and Bartola Del Villar. Holscher maintained that the district did not make an impartial tally of the signatures and “engaged in a systematic effort to invalidate the petitions.”
Judge Steve Malone, to whom the case was assigned, restored 97 of the signatures tossed out by the district. Malone ruled the district did not have the authority or a basis in law to discount signatures that proponents gathered and he ordered the Adelanto Elementary School District to accept the petition as filed by the parent union.
The parent union modified its demand to having the school converted to a charter academy offering an intensified curriculum. Delays prevented the school district from converting Desert Trails Elementary into a charter school at the initiation of the 2012-13 academic year.
The Adelanto Elementary School District thus became the first district in the state in which the “parent trigger” law had been successfully applied.  In the same time frame, the district’s superintendent, Darin Brawley, resigned.
At about the same time as Dr. Lily Matos DeBlieux was hired as superintendent in January 2013, the school board voted to accept LaVerne Preparatory Academy as the operator of Desert Trails Elementary School.
Under DeBlieux, who took the helm as superintendent in March 2013, the district achieved having Desert Trails converted to a charter school, although that transition resulted in hard feelings and controversy, as well.
A central component in LaVerne Preparatory Academy’s approach consists in engaging parents in their children’s educational process.  That parent involvement had been consistently lacking at the school. Many of the parents and educators opposed to the takeover pointed out that a significant number of the students at Desert Trails Elementary have parents whose first language is not English and nearly all of the instructional materials used by LaVerne Preparatory are in English. Whereas 466 parents at the school signed the petition to move forward with the parent trigger process in late 2011 and January 2012, when the parents union held its election in October 2012 to determine which of the charter schools that had submitted proposals should be chosen to educate their children, only 53 parents participated in that vote.
With the first school year with LaVerne Perparatory Academy in place at Desert Trails, now known as Desert Trails Preparatory Academy, concluded, inquiries have been made to determine whether the parent trigger effort at the school had a positive impact.
Some parents of students at the school were leery about having their children taken out of a traditional learning environment, and roughly 22 percent of them enrolled their sons or daughters in a different school in the district. Seventy-eight percent of the students who had been at the school remained, however, and it was the academic performance of those that educators, interested parents and others contemplating the future of the parent trigger option want to examine.
Unfortunately, a strict apple-to-apples comparison of student performance of those students is not possible.
The California Department of Education, which designates which tests are to be administered at schools and within districts up and down the state, this year abandoned its traditional California Standards Test in favor of the  new Common Core state standards testing regimen, the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association. In this way, results from the California Standards Test which were formerly used to derive Academic Performance Index scores at each of the state’s schools and which would have provided a common baseline to measure possible improvement at Desert Trails Elementary School, were not available this year.
While advocates of the parent trigger phenomenon are naturally hopeful that the movement will succeed, there are interest groups opposed to its success. Some education reformers, in particular Parent Revolution, as well as Parent Revolution’s financial backers such as the Gates Foundation and its service providers such as  Kirkland & Ellis, are anxious to see students brought under the wing of parent trigger actions have their test scores improve.
Others, however, such as some parents devoted to traditional education methodologies as well as the California Teachers Association, would prefer to see statistics showing such students did not achieve any greater academic success following the changes initiated by parent trigger actions. Early on, a counter-parent trigger group formed in Adelanto, initially consisting of parents from Desert Trails Elementary who questioned whether the parents of poor-performing students in the district had the education, understanding, intelligence level, expertise or sophistication to take on the function, individually or collectively, of school administrators. In time, though, that group would find its independence questioned, when it was demonstrated that it was being assisted by the California Teachers Association.
Nevertheless, the belief persisted among a contingent of Desert Trails Elementary School parents that the parent trigger drama in the Adelanto School District was an unseemly spectacle, with agitators in the parent trigger movement seeking to exploit large numbers of parents at Desert Trail Elementary School whose own educational shortcomings, including a lack of facility in the English language, contributed to the poor academic performance of their own children. They resented the intrusion of outsiders into their neighborhood school, and asserted that those agitators had a wider and largely political agenda that was not consistent with their children’s best interest.
Ultimately, that counter-movement foundered, when two of the leading advocates opposing the parent trigger implementation, then-Adelanto Planning Commission Chairwoman Lori Yuan and another parent, Chrissy Guzman, last year were faced with the resolution of the matter in favor of the Adelanto Desert Trails Parent Union and apparently overreacted
Yuan and Guzman, who were both parent volunteers at Desert Trails and were thus given relatively unfettered access to the school’s classrooms, on June 25, 2013, allegedly in a fit of disappointment and protest did $7,700 worth of damage to a Desert Trails classroom while they were disposing of old art supplies in the PTA meeting room at the school. Both were charged with felony vandalism and Yuan was removed from the planning commission.
This week, Yuan and Guzman appeared in court with Yuan’s attorney, Graham Donath. After a closed conference involving deputy district attorney Joel Buckingham and Donath in Judge Miriam Morton’s chambers, Guzman and  were ordered to return for a preliminary hearing on June 23 wwith regard to  PC 594(B)(1) charges, vandalism of $400 or more.
Frustration over the underperformance of instructors and students at the district and the interference of outside entities in the process accompanied by a less than coordinated response from state education officials has not been limited to solely to Yuan and Guzman.
Indications that not all is well in the Adelanto Elementary District as well as at Desert Trails Elementary was given when DeBlieux abruptly announced in March that she will be leaving as superintendent at the end of the school year this month to become the superintendent of the Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix.

(June 4) The county of San Bernardino this week moved to hire the Superior Court staff member who oversees the administration of the county courts’ conflict indigent defense representation, just as the position he held was eliminated by the court system itself.
In San Bernardino County, indigent defense is handled by the public defender’s office. In some criminal cases, however, a conflict between defendants charged in the same case crops up in which the defense of one or both asserts the other defendant is responsible for the act or acts alleged in the criminal complaint. The defense of one or the other of these defendants is then assigned to a criminal defense conflict attorney.
San Bernardino County currently contracts with a single law firm, Earl Carter & Associates, to handle indigent defense adult criminal cases in which the public defender’s office declares a conflict. The Carter firm’s contract is budgeted in the county’s indigent defense budget unit. Beginning in 2004, the administration of the criminal defense conflict contracts were handled by the courts. Recently, the courts informed county chief executive officer Greg Devereaux that they are going to end their administration of the criminal defense conflict contract and return that responsibility to the county.  The courts had for the last several years employed Craig Congdon as the contract administrator.
According to Gary McBride, the county’s chief financial officer, the county offered to pick up Congdon’s contract for the indigent defense conflict contract administration.
“Given the extended period of time that the courts have administered these contracts for indigent defense, finance and administration has no staff with the needed experience to take on this task,” McBride said. “Further, hiring the current contract administrator will allow for a smooth transition of the oversight from the courts to the county and will maintain the good working relationships with the affected judges.”
Congdon’s contract calls for a compensation package of $111,811 per year, consisting of a salary of $75,210 and benefits of $36,601.

By Fritz Koenig
(June 4) As the political birthplace of a string of successful politicians such as Paul Cook, Karalee Hargrove, and Chad Mayes, is the region around Yucca Valley a trend setter that can not be ignored?
Perhaps the latest Yucca Valley push to liberalize government controls and empower government bureaucrats may provide a roadmap for radical changes of residential living across the entire county of San Bernardino.  Or, hopefully not.
Citizens and homeowners may have an interest in an issue that is soon to be decided by elected officials of the Town of Yucca Valley. While many actions taken by town officials have only minimal impact on citizens as a whole, this one, relating to the activities to be permitted next door to homes and residences, could directly impact the quality of life people can enjoy.
In many ways the Yucca Valley lifestyle is quieter, more peaceful, less dangerous, and slower paced than that of busy urbanized areas of Los Angeles or Orange counties.  At issue is whether the town should continue to protect people at home from the noise, commotion, dangers, and visual display of daily business activities originating right next door to them.
Gun dealers and industrial users (indeed heavy industrial users with forklifts, cranes, and diesel trucking, that are not legally permitted under Yucca Valley’s codes) are currently using a few selected homes for such business operations and proposals exist to expand those operations.
On occasion, the town’s code enforcement division has been prompted to confront circumstances where illegal business activity is ongoing in residentially zoned areas of Yucca Valley. In recent months there has been some back-and-forth between residents seeking to prevent the intrusion of business activity into their neighborhoods and those individuals who believe the community’s standards should indulge a few who want to perform gun sales, heavy product manufacturing, diesel trucking, and metal welding and fabrication on their residential compounds and also use public property to support such operations.
In response, town officials, led by Acting Town Manager Shane Stueckle, are seeking to liberalize the town’s code to permit such industrial and commercial activity in all the town’s home neighborhoods similar to communities who pride themselves on being “Industrial City” California. (City of Bell, CA; Industry, CA, South San Francisco, CA)  Along with the revision is proposed a massive increase in the discretion of the bureaucrats and commissioners of the Town to allow activities that do not meet the standards adopted by the Town.
The Town’s planning commission and town council is holding hearings which are now well attended with citizens promoting their viewpoint about the desired character and identity of Yucca Valley.  The next hearing is on June 10, 2014 6 PM at Town Hall.  Your viewpoint may not matter unless you contribute your thoughts and feelings by mail or in person. The feedback the planning commission receives may have a bearing on the non-binding recommendation it will make to the city council.

How do you feel about this issue? Do you want to continue to conduct industrial type of activities at your home, including welding and finished product construction? Do you own, drive or operate heavy pieces of equipment exceeding the town’s current 10,000 pound weight limit which you want to be allowed legally to drive, park and operate on public pavement and in your residential neighborhood? Do you want the town to liberalize its codes so industrial activity can take place in residential areas? Or would you rather that the city maintain the zoning standards and protections it now has? Do you have safety concerns about industrial uses in areas where vulnerable elderly and children reside? Do you want more stringent enforcement of the town’s zoning codes to prevent the proliferation of annoying commercial or industrial activity in residential areas?
Whatever your view, it can count if you contact Yucca Valley Town Council members at the following phone numbers and email addresses:

Regarding Home Occupation Code Update and HOP 11-05 Permit:

Robert Lombardo, (760) 228-1733, rlombardo@yucca-valley.org;

George Huntington, (760) 365-4253, ghuntington@yucca-valley.org;
Merle Able, (760)-792-2090, mabel@yucca-valley.org,

Bob Leone, 760-369-7207 x6, rleone@yucca-valley.org,

Dawn Rowe, (760-369-7207 x6, drowe@yucca-valley.org

Town Hall

57090 Twentynine Palms Highway
, Yucca Valley, CA 92284

760-369-7207 extension 226

(June 5) Failed district attorney candidate Grover Merritt on June 4 sounded calm and resigned when queried about his losing effort the previous day.
Merritt postponed vying for the county’s top prosecutor’s job for two election cycles. He was contemplating running for district attorney in 2006 but when the incumbent, Mike Ramos, caught wind of that in 2004, he fired Merritt, who was at that point the head of the office’s appellate unit, alleging he had been leaking confidential office documents to the press. Merritt fought back, filing a lawsuit and seeking the return of his job through the civil service commission.
At his civil service hearing in 2005, it was determined that the documents in question had actually been leaked by assistant district attorney Mike Risley, then Ramos’s closest political associate, and Ramos was forced to rehire Merritt with back pay. Merritt’s lawsuit was settled without going to trial for $297,000.
Ramos subsequently removed Merritt from his position overseeing the appellate union, assigning him to garden variety financial fraud cases.
Merritt, who in recent years has been increasingly critical of Ramos’s management of the prosecutor’s office, declared his candidacy for district attorney last September and promised a campaign that would highlight what he said were his boss’s various and sundry shortcomings. And while Merritt lived up to that promise on the campaign stump, voicing disapproval of the way the office was being run in public appearances promoting his candidacy, he failed to make penetration with the county’s electorate through other means. He did not, for example, carry out a direct mail campaign with high propensity voters, and his sign campaign, which in an innovative twist featured his first rather than his last name, was lackluster at best and did not cover the county’s 20,000 square mile expanse effectively.
When reached by the Sentinel on Wednesday, Merritt was asked if he had spoken with Ramos to congratulate him and offer him an olive branch. “I haven’t talked to him,” Merritt said.
Asked for his post mortem on the election, Merritt said, “The whole campaign was based on a certain assumption, which was that people who disliked Ramos were going to provide independent expenditures to bring out his considerable baggage, and that didn’t happen. No real negative case was made and I got whomped.”
Asked if he would run if he had it to do over again, or if he know saw his candidacy as an exercise in absurdity, Merritt said, “It was an interesting experiment. I met a lot of very nice people. I had a good time, of sorts. I discovered you can’t do a pincer movement if you only have one claw.”
As to his future plans, Merritt said, “I’m not going to do or say anything. I assume I will do identity theft [cases] here in Rancho [Cucamonga] until I die or Mike Ramos leaves office, which theoretically won’t be for another four years.”
Asked if he was concerned about what might be visited upon some of his office colleagues who had supported him in his campaign against their boss, Merritt said, “Retaliation would be an invitation for a civil suit on First Amendment grounds. I don’t see him [Ramos] doing that.”
As to what had been accomplished by his running, Merritt said, “I would like to think we all learned something from this experience and we will be improved by it. I would hope we’ll work from here and move forward.”

(June 3) Third District County Supervisor James Ramos has removed David Peach from his position on the Morongo Basin Municipal Advisory Council.
Municipal Advisory Councils are impaneled in the county’s unincorporated areas. As a collective of local residents, the councils, known as MACs, offer non-binding recommendations to the member of the board of supervisors overseeing that particular jurisdiction.
MAC members are appointed by the supervisor and serve at his discretion.
Peach is an outspoken member of the community who on and in various forums, including blogs, commentaries and letters to press outlets, has proven critical of some of the Morongo Basin’s elected and appointed political leadership, as well as city staff members in Twentynine Palms and Yucca Valley.
Peach was appointed to the Morongo Basin MAC last October.
Most recently, Peach offered up criticism of the Hi-Desert Water District’s board of directors. The Hi-Desert Water District is serving in the capacity of the lead agency pursuing the construction of a water treatment system in Yucca Valley. The town of Yucca Valley is under a mandate from the state to undertake that project.
Peach suggested that the Water District board is arranging financing and construction of that project in a way that is showing favoritism to friends and political associates of those board members.
This triggered a backlash from the board members and other local officials and movers and shakers, resulting in Ramos’s decision to remove Peach from the MAC.
Margo Sturges, an activist in the Morongo Basin, lodged a protest over Peach’s removal
“While most of us in the Morongo Basin may not always agree with Mr. Peach, we fully support and defend his rights to express his opinions,” Sturges said. “The fact Mr. Peach is a member of the San Bernardino County Municipal Advisory Council should not disqualify him from voicing his valid concerns and giving up his First Amendment rights.”
Sturges asserted that Peach had provided the community with “honorable service” and had himself been subjected to “a culture of bully tactics taking place in the Morongo Basin, specifically in Yucca Valley…  the tactics of a small group of self-appointed citizen vigilantes conspiring to remove or silence anyone who speaks up or speaks out.”
Sturges suggested that Peach had been maligned by former Yucca Valley Town Manager Mark Nuaimi, former town councilman Isaac Hagerman  Timothy Humphreville, the chairman of the Yucca Valley Planning Commission for having opposed Measure U, a tax proposal the city sought in 2012 and which was defeated by town voters.
Sturges insisted charges that Peach was opposed to the concept of Yucca Valley complying with the state’s mandate that it complete the construction of a water-treatment system in stages beginning in May 2016 were false.
“Mr. Peach has always been in support of protecting the groundwater of the Warren Basin and only questions the process to assign the sewer costs equally among his fellow citizens,” she said.

By Ruth Musser-Lopez
June 5, 2014.  I had a chance this week to speak personally with an expert on prehistoric lithic (stone) tool technology,  master flintknapper and authority on “arrowhead” production, Dr. J. Jeffrey Flenniken, about what he thought of one of the most famous landmarks in San Bernardino County–the “Arrowhead.”  I had an ulterior motive as I am trying to convince the editor of the Sentinel to adopt the shape for the paper’s logo (more about that at the end of this story).
The local landmark is a natural arrowhead shaped landform on the slope of the hillside above the city of San Bernardino north of Wildwood Park on 40th Street and Waterman Avenue.  The Arrowhead can be seen for miles around being described as 1,375 feet in length and 449 feet in width.
The outline of the arrowhead is so close to the exact shape of projectile points actually used by prehistoric Native Americans that it appears to be a man-made unnatural landscape, but it is not.  The “face” of the shape is light in color due to the growth of low white sage on light colored decomposing quartz offset by the dark contrasting outline created by the surrounding darker colored creosote chaparral.  The shape of the Arrowhead is similar to what some experts consider to be the first projectile point shape used as an arrowhead in the Mojave Desert–the “Rose Springs” point, after the bow and arrow was introduced 1500 years ago.
Not to Flenniken however—that shape he said was also used for atlatl dart points that predated the arrowhead.  In some parts of America the dart was used concurrently along with the bow and arrow up into the time of Euro-American contact.
For this reason archaeologists prefer the term “projectile point” rather than “arrowhead” since it cannot be assumed that a point was used as an atlatl dart or arrowhead.  Flenniken explained that points were used over and over again and simply reworked if a tip or the “ears” or “tang” at the shoulder or base broke off.  He likened projectile point reshaping to a No. 2 pencil.  A prehistoric hunter would simply rework a point into a new shape.  “Notches at the shoulder of the point had a dual purpose—for both hafting it to the shaft of an arrow but also to create a weak location where the point would break first.  The tangs on the base of a dart or arrowhead make the point hard to pull out so it continues to cause damage when the game runs.  What would be left of the point if it breaks at the notch is a triangular shape that could be refashioned above the break with new notches for a dart or arrow or worked into a lanceolate point for attachment to a thrusting spear.
“Have you ever seen what is referred to as a ‘Gary Point’?  Flenniken asked.  “These are a type of projectile point used for knives and thrusting spears in the southeastern part of North America, long before the bow and arrow came into vogue in the Americas, they are found back east—they look similar in shape as the San Bernardino ‘Arrowhead.’  When the bow and arrow was introduced, the same lithic reduction technology that was used to produce knives, spears and dart points was used to produce arrowheads.  There are differences in size and exactly where the notches are located, but generally the same ‘biface’ technology was being used to produce the oldest spear points and the newest arrowheads—and this technology was passed down from generation to generation.”
Gary points are reported to be associated with artifacts dated 1000 to 4000 years ago.
According to Flenniken, there are numerous technologies, but the “biface technology” is one that was pervasive throughout the Holocene or post Ice Age in North America.  “Actually the biface technology in general is very old world wide, well over a million years old,” Flenniken said. “It entered the Americas through Alaska from Siberia at the end of the Wurm glaciation.   A variety of shapes were being produced for different purposes at the same time using the same technology.  You cannot depend upon the shape of a projectile point to tell you how old a site is.  You might get a thrusting spear which could be a leaf shaped lanceolate, along with a notched dart point and smaller arrowhead all in the same archeological site being used at the same time.
“The Aztecs used atlatls to defend themselves at the onslaught of the Conquistadors,” Flenniken continued. “Desoto was killed in Arkansas by the Tula Indians in 1541, killed by darts from an atlatl.  His scribe discusses it in detail.  The darts could probably penetrate armor.”
Flenniken, began “chipping stones” when he was six following the instructions in an old Boy Scout manual.  He was recommended by his school teachers, then taken under the wing of local archaeologists working on archaeological “salvage” projects in Arkansas during the 1960s.   He went on to college and received his PhD in archaeology at Washington State University, specializing in what was once a worldwide industry, the now dying art of stone projectile point production.  So obscure was the field at the time he graduated that he knew more about the subject than his professors. They were learning from him, participating in Flenniken’s field school.  He taught lithic technology to archaeology students at Washington State University from 1975 to 1986 and then was sent to Australia on a Fulbright scholarship to study aboriginal stone tool production and use where he spent two months in the field and taught at Sydney University.  He then taught lithic technology throughout Brazil on a second Fulbright scholarship and later took over master flintknapper Don Crabtree’s technological field school.
The “biface” or double face technology is different than other technologies such as the prismatic core reduction technology used to produce the long obsidian blades found throughout Mesoamerica (prehistoric Mexico). There are thousands of flake stone reductions technologies that were used in North America, such as bipolar flaking and heat treatment.  Flenniken looks at the waste flakes at an archaeological site and can decipher what type of technology was being used.
One type of waste flake that Flenniken looks for is that of the “channel” flake from the flute of a Clovis point.  Clovis is a unique technology used only during a particular period of time, so it is a time sensitive cultural marker.   The Clovis points with a flute or channel down the middle of the face about 1/3 of the way up from the base, is an example of a technology that only existed in north America during a certain period of time and are associated with deposits 10,000 to 13,000 years old.
“I looked in Russia and Siberia and others have also looked for evidence of the fluted point in Europe and Asia but fluted points simply have not been found there.  The Clovis point is an American invention and one must be skilled to replicate it” Flenniken said.
Clovis points are made out of quartzite, jasper, cherts, chalcedony and glassy obsidian, are long lanceolate in outline and without notches.  They are designed for use on a thrusting spear–a deadly weapon, according to Flenniken.  He said that Paul S. Martin showed that Paleoindian hunters likely played a role in the extinction of large ice age mammals and by association they probably used the Clovis point.
A particular form of projectile point called the Lake Mojave point is named after a place in San Bernardino County.  Pleistocene Lake Mojave for which it is named, includes the area surrounding Soda Lake, Baker and Zzyzx where the Bechtel Corporation currently proposes to install a massive solar plant threatening hundreds of acres of pristine habitat.
Lake Mojave points, first identified and described in 1967 by Dr. Claude Warren of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, In outline, the Lake Mojave points looks very similar to the Gary Point and the San Bernardino “Arrowhead” except that the stem at the bottom is much longer. Warren considered the Lake Mojave form are as old as the ancient 9,000 year old lake shoreline where they were found.  Flenniken stresses that just because you find a point at one site and it is dated at a certain age, you cannot automatically assign that age to a point found elsewhere.  “It is not morphology, it’s the total technological reduction assemblage that one must look at from a particular site,” he said.
Another very old point shape found in San Bernardino County is the Pinto Point. Archaeological materials reported to be associated with that form indicates that it was predominate around 7,000 years ago and persisted until about 4,000 years ago.   These forms were named after the place that Archaeologists Elizabeth W. Crozer Campbell and William H. Campbell first found them in the Pinto Basin of Joshua Tree National Park, just south of our county line.    A concave base rather than a protruding, long stem base, as seen on the Lake Mojave points, characterizes the Pinto point.  Flenniken explains that this difference is more of an indication of how the points were being hafted (tied on to the shaft) rather than any indication of age or typological distinction.
Flenniken says that percussion flaking was used for the initial production and pressure flaking for the final product. Individual flakes could be taken off of a biface core to turn into points using pressure flaking for the finish work.  The biface core could eventually become a projectile point as well.  Biface cores were carried about and a flake was taken off as needed to produce a projectile point or any other cutting edge, knives, scrapers, etc.
Another form called the Elko point is also found in the Mojave Desert.  They have an outline shape that looks very similar to a classic arrowhead but are actually dart points, so serve as a good example of why archaeologists use the all-encompassing term “projectile point” instead of “arrowhead.” Elko points are associated with archaeological deposits dating between 4,000 and 1,500 years old, so they are thought to predate the bow and arrow.
Flenniken understands the various technologies because he practices flintknapping himself.  He uses the same biface technology to make both classic and eccentric forms which you can view on his website, AnachronisticArts.com.
Prior to the arrival of euro-American settlers when it became symbolic of San Bernardino Valley, the Arrowhead landmark was and continues to be recognized by the Native Americans in their local folklore and legend.  The arrowhead is said to have been given by the Great Spirit to point the way to the hot spring below with its healing qualities. It is thus considered to be holy ground.  The intriguingly, romantic version of the legend of the Arrowhead was published in the June 17, 1876 issue of the San Bernardino Weekly Times and can be found at the City of San Bernardino’s website at http://www.ci.san-bernardino.ca.us/about/history/the_arrowhead.asp.
Though many forest fires have blazed the area, the Arrowhead landmark has survived.
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Upon occasion I have attempted to persuade the editor of the Sentinel to upgrade his newspaper’s logo to the use of the “Arrowhead” arguing that its imagery is associated with historic defensive weaponry used by sentinels down through the ages in San Bernardino County and that the current logo, the “Minuteman,” has become ideologically debased.
He typically resists saying that the county of San Bernardino already has laid claim to the Arrowhead icon and that there may be copyright violation threats.
I have now assisted him in jumping over this hurdle by producing an artistic rendering of the San Bernardino Arrowhead of my own.  I did this by capturing a photo image of the Arrowhead, cutting it down the middle and taking the southeast side and doubling it back over to make for a perfectly uniform outline on both sides of the image.  I then rotated the Arrowhead 180 degrees so that point is up and the base is on the bottom, which is the protocol for displaying projectile points in professional archaeological journals.  Here it is:

Now Mark simply needs to think of a logo quip, like “UP in the SBC.”