By Count Friedrich von Olsen
As I gaze down from my chalet here in San Bernardino County, one of the last bastions of Republicanism in this once great state that is now the most liberal in the land, dominated by Democrats who are little more than socialists in disguise, I count my blessings that I, a Tory, a Bonapartist, a practitioner of realpolitik,  now an American and a proud member of the GOP, am still at liberty to speak my mind.  Read on as I give pen to some of my observations on the recent political scene…
One-time Apple Valley Mayor Rick Roelle and outgoing Victorville Councilwoman  Angela Valles sojourned to the Sandwich Islands last week to tie the knot after living in sin these past many years. It seems Angela was outfitted with a lap band and has lost a good deal of poundage, and indeed she looked quite fetching and svelte, at least in the photos of the wedding I have seen. It is no wonder Mr. Roelle has finally decided to make an honest woman of her, which is quite fitting now that she is to be out of politics altogether…
At this week’s board of supervisors’ meeting, a veritable who’s who of political figures in the Fourth Supervisorial District paid homage to Gary Ovitt, who will be leaving the board next month. Among those offering worshipful attestations of his value to the community were representatives of the offices of Congresswoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod and representatives of Assemblyman Curt Hagman.  Methinks their praise of Supervisor Ovitt was somewhat disingenuous, given that it was the determination of both Negrete-McLeod and Hagman to vie for the Fourth District Supervisors’ post that persuaded Supervisor Ovitt not to seek reelection. I am an adherent to the Eleventh Commandment, which forbids one Republican from speaking ill of another Republican. Thus, I will merely say that I was disappointed, to put it mildly, that Curt, the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Party, would move to challenge Gary, a tried and true Republican of longstanding. There is solace, however, in the consideration that Mr. Hagman proved victorious over Mrs. Negrete-McLeod, a Democrat…
Richard Lewis, the scion of Ralph and Goldie Lewis and one of the keepers of the flame of the Lewis Developmental Dynasty, will travel this week to Dubai. No doubt he will be in counsel with many high powered financiers who will hopefully enable his corporation to continue  and enlarge upon its excellent work at gracing the Inland Empire with its quality residential and commercial projects…
The Adelanto City Council this week granted go-ahead to the construction of a 3,264-bed detention facility in its jurisdiction. I am heartily in favor of the project, objecting only to the consideration that its beds will be reserved for miscreants from Los Angeles County and not for the surfeit of indigenous misdoers in San Bernardino County…

The Count’s views do not necessarily reflect those of the Sentinel, its ownership, its publisher or editors.

By Mark Gutglueck
Relatively little of David Colton’s 47-year-long life was  spent in San Bernardino County.  Nevertheless, he left an indelible impression here, as he was responsible for bringing the railroad through the area and it was essentially his decision to lay the original regional rail line at the south end of the city of San Bernardino rather than into its downtown. That decision gave rise to the city that bears his name.
David Douty Colton was born July 17, 1831 in Monson, Maine to Isaac Watts Colton and Abigail (Douty) Colton. He had no brothers, but did have two sisters,  Angela and Martha. His father was a farmer in north central Maine. In 1836 his family moved to Illinois, settling in Galesburg in Knox County.
He attended Knox Manual Labor College, now known as Knox College. During his freshman year, Colton proposed marriage to Ellen Mason White, the daughter of Dr. Chauncey and Maria S. (Brownson) White and a student in the women’s seminary on the campus of Knox.  Ellen White turned down David’s proposal because, as he later said, her father considered him to be a young man without prospects.
Talked into it by a classmate, Hiram G. Ferris, David dropped out of college and left Galesburg in the Spring of 1850 and headed for the gold fields of California in a light wagon with three horses that Colton had purchased with a loan of a few hundred dollars from his father. The pair traveled to Council Bluffs, Iowa, then a Mormon settlement known as Kanesville, near the Missouri River. Kanesville was a popular outfitting point for those traveling westward by wagon train. Wanting to get to the gold fields as quickly as possible, and wanting to avoid the risk of cholera, a common and fatal disease among wagon trains, they decided to take their chances and crossed the remaining 1,500 miles on their own to California.
Leaving Kanesville on April 25, 1850, Colton and Ferris arrived at Placerville, nicknamed Hangtown, in El Dorado County, California on July 9. The following day they sold two of the horses for $190 and used the money to outfit themselves with mining gear. They did not immediately fare well. Eventually, however, their claim produced enough gold for Colton to repay the loan his father had made to him. Shortly thereafter, Colton contracted  typhoid fever, which lasted six weeks and left him too fatigued to mine. He went to San Francisco and from there took passage to Portland in the Oregon Territory. There Colton joined a group of miners in an expedition into northern California that arrived at Yreka Flats in present day Siskiyou County, California.
Yreka Flats had its county seat in Shasta City. There was an absence of formal law enforcement, and miners gravitated toward their own method of summary justice that involved whippings and lynchings. The miners of the area initiated a county incorporation effort in the spring of 1851. That movement ultimately led to the election of David Colton as Siskiyou County sheriff.
An incident that led to his eventual selection as sheriff involved a group of Klamath Indians, who under the leadership of Chief Chinook, killed two miners. Colton later related to a newspaper reporter that he and a companion, not yet knowing of the murders, entered Klamath village and noticed Chief Chinook was wearing clothing and carrying firearms belonging to the miners. Colton and his companion surmised the miners must have been killed by the Indians, but they kept their silence and returned to camp. They informed the rest of the camp and a group of miners, including Colton, went in search of Chief Chinook and his band of Indians. They were found and a gun battle ensued. Several Indians were killed, but Chief Chinook escaped. Colton led two volunteers in pursuit and after a lengthy search, the chief was captured. While returning the chief to the miners’ Camp they came across a group of squawmen – white men cohabitating with Indian women. One of the men was a dangerous character by the name of Vail, who would later serve a term in prison. The squawmen threatened to free Chief Chinook, but under the cover of darkness later that night, Colton and his companions were able to skulk away with their captive. When they finally reached their camp, Chief Chinook was tried by a miners’ court for the murders, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.
The hanging of Chief Chinook was riddled with miscues. A butcher’s gallows was used for the hanging. When none of the miners was willing to place the noose around the chief’s neck, another Indian was chosen to do so. Because he was somewhat shorter than the chief, to place the noose properly he had to climb on the chief’s back. The chief resisted by taking hold of the noose with his teeth. To assist, one of the miners braced his knee against the chief’s chest, and pulled the noose from his teeth, breaking some of the chief’s teeth. Upon the removal of the plank upon which the chief was standing, his foot caught on a rope supporting the plank. After much difficulty, the rope was cut and the execution was completed.
Siskiyou County was incorporated in 1852, at which time  Ferris had joined his friend Colton at Yreka Flats. Together, Colton and Ferris would play important roles in the new government. The first county elections were held in May 1852. Ferris was elected county clerk and Colton, who had distinguished himself in the capture of Chief Chinook, was the choice for sheriff. At the age of twenty, however, he was too young to hold office. Charles McDermott was elected sheriff and Colton was made undersheriff. McDermott had little interest in being sheriff and David Colton performed most of the duties. At the next general election, Sept. 7, 1853, Colton, now old enough, was elected sheriff over two other candidates, receiving 827 out of 1,457 votes cast.
In December 1853 David Colton returned to Galesburg in Illinois at taxpayers’ expense, ostensibly to apprehend a fugitive and return him to California. Having established himself as a leading citizen of Siskiyou County, he again proposed to Ellen White and she consented. Their wedding was performed by the Reverend George Washington Gale at the local church, March 1, 1854. They returned to California by way of Panama in April 1854, but without the fugitive Colton was supposed to be pursuing. The fugitive had been in Sacramento all the time, it turned out. Nevertheless, Colton billed the state for $1,723 for expenses that were paid by an act of the state legislature.
David and Ellen Colton had two daughters, Helen, born in 1854, and Carrie, born eighteen months later in 1856. Helen would marry Crittenden Thornton, an attorney, who later became a justice on the state Supreme Court. Carrie married Daniel Cook, a prosperous mining engineer but died childless a few years after the marriage.
In 1855, Colton and Ferris, in partnership with three other men, purchased the first newspaper in Yreka, renaming it the Yreka Union. Initially it was agreed the paper would be politically independent but Colton and Ferris, being ardent Democrats, deviated from their stated ideal and the paper took on a decidedly pro-Democrat slant.
David Colton at that point acquired the rank of brigadier general in the Siskiyou Co. branch of the California State Militia. That brigade was organized in 1855, being composed of 75 men and staff officers. The most significant duty as a brigade occurred during the Modoc War of 1856 when several more miners were killed by Indians. The militia was activated and initiated a campaign of pacification. The total force amounted to about 200 men and included Colton’s 2nd Brigade. The war, consisting of a series of skirmishes in which the men provided their own horses, food and weapons, resulted in the death of three militiamen, the death of a Modoc woman during the destruction of a Modoc village and the wounding of several Modoc men. Peace was secured after Chief Schonchin agreed to restrain his people.
Toward the end of his term as sheriff in 1857, Colton ran for state Senate as the Democratic candidate, losing when his questionable journey to Illinois to get married at taxpayer expense became a campaign issue.
Colton was involved as a principal in three duels or near duels. The first arose from rivalry between local Democrats and Whigs. Colton and a southern Whig almost shot it out when Colton accepted the offer to duel. Hiram Ferris intervened, and the duel was called off. The second near duel had Colton as the challenger with his opponent for the state Senate in 1857. Whether the duel was ever fought or not is not known. The last duel occurred in early 1858 between the local coroner and Colton over an article that appeared in Colton’s Yreka Union. Because dueling was illegal in California, arrangements were made for the two men to face off in Oregon, just north of the California border, at forty paces with Mississippi Yager rifles. On the afternoon of February 9, 1858 their seconds and a host of spectators gathered but before shots were fired, friends of the combatants urged a reconciliation. His opponent withdrew and there is yet a dispute over who made the first peace offer.
In November, 1856, Hiram Ferris returned to Illinois. Having lost his bid for state Senate, Colton in 1858 departed to Albany, New York, where he studied law, reading the state’s civil and penal codes in the office of an already practicing attorney, a common form of legal education at the time. He struck up a partnership with another law student, Ralph C. Harrison, who had served in the Connecticut Legislature.  After the completion of his legal studies, Colton, his family and Harrison moved to San Francisco. Colton brought a law library he had purchased in Albany and was authorized to practice law in California by the state Supreme Court on October 3, 1859. Shortly thereafter, he and Harrison entered into a joint law practice in San Francisco. Harrison handled most of the legal work while Colton devoted his energies to politics and business dealings. “Why sit around waiting for a $50 fee when a smart trader can go out and make $500 in half the time?” Colton said.
Through many transactions, David Colton ultimately became a wealthy man. At the same time, the Democratic Party in California, of which he was a part, lost much of its power and backing as a result of the Civil War. In the gubernatorial campaign of 1863, the party split into two wings, the Colton Party, so called because of a movement to endorse David Colton for governor or as a US Senator, and the Buchanan/Breckenridge faction. Slavery was a big issue dividing the party. When Colton called for a state convention, only a dozen supporters showed up. Three hundred had been expected. Recognizing that the Democratic Party had dwindled away to next to nothing in the political atmosphere of slavery and the Civil War, David Colton withdrew from active involvement in state politics, but remained a Democrat until he died.
In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, the Colton family left San Francisco for a two year vacation, traveling through England, Europe, Turkey, Egypt and the Holy Land. While Colton had experienced political disappointment during the Civil War years, his mining and real estate investments proved to be highly profitable. He was president and major owner of the Amador gold mine, which yielded a half-million dollars annually and his San Francisco properties brought in rents totaling $3,000 monthly.
In 1872 Colton built a stately mansion on San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Located on the northwest corner of California and Taylor Streets, it was built on a half city block at a cost of $75,000, it was constructed of wood and painted white, patterned after a white marble palace in Italy. The interior was decorated with works of art and antique furniture acquired during his two year travels and contained a large library stocked with works of English literature. The house became something of a showplace and several architects and artists considered it to be one of the most artistic dwellings in San Francisco. It was recognized as “the second grandest” dwelling in San Francisco, the nicest being that of his neighbor, Charles Crocker, the banker who had been one of the Big Four – himself, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford and Collis Huntington. The Big Four had built the Central Pacific Railroad, which when it jointed the Union Pacific in Promontory, Utah in 1869 formed the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. They became fabulously wealthy in the process.  Colton and Crocker became acquainted and, in time, friends and business associates.
In 1870, Colton accompanied Crocker to the Rocky Mountain Coal & Iron Co. in Colorado. Crocker’s intent was to get Colton to invest in the yet undeveloped company. Colton recognized the potential, with trains needing coal for fuel, and he told Crocker he would invest in its development. Crocker offered him the presidency and general managership if he bought 1,000 shares of stock. Colton accepted and became president and general manager in January, 1871. Over the next few years Colton developed the company into an efficient and profitable source of coal for the railroads.
In 1874 Colton joined a group of Nob Hill residents securing a franchise from the city to construct and operate a cable car up California St. to the top of Nob Hill.. The project was completed in April, 1878 and the cable car proved to be one of the most successful ventures in the city.
Based upon his dialogues with Crocker and his success with the San Francisco cable car line and the coal mining venture, Colton thought he could himself become a railroad magnate and that the Big Four would become the Big Five, with him as the fifth member.
In 1874, after the panic of 1873, Colton became associated with the directors and principal stockholders of the Central Pacific R.R. He signed a promissory note for $1,000,000 payable in gold coin, and in exchange was made a co-director of the most powerful corporation in the American West and gained the opportunity to share in the financial profits. On August 30, 1875, he was elected a director of Central Pacific R.R. and the following day he was appointed the company’s financial director. Eventually he was detailed to work on projects related to the  Southern Pacific Railroad, which had been purchased by the Big Four in 1868 and merged with the Central Pacific in 1870. Colton worked tirelessly in his capacity with the newly-formed company, overseeing the effort to build a second transcontinental railroad, one that converted the track from the railroad once controlled by the Confederacy and which would represent a southern route into the lower part of California with a dual terminus in Los Angeles and San Diego. Meanwhile, the Big Four reaped the rewards of his efforts without engaging in anywhere near the level of effort he was making.
As vice president of the Southern Pacific R.R., in October 1874 Colton attended a meeting in San Bernardino, with Crocker. Residents there wanted the railroad to pass through the city but a line through the county seat would have been off the most direct route and prohibitively expensive to maintain. A stretch of land southwest of San Bernardino was the most likely site for the location of a Southern Pacific train station and so it was the town of Colton came to be. The townsite is said to have been named Colton by officials of the railroad in honor of David Douty Colton.
On August 1, 1875, a Southern Pacific train, the first to enter the San Bernardino basin, arrived at the new station house at the foot of present day 9th Street in the city of Colton, and as a town, the place was in business.
In August 1878, David Colton, then in residence at his Mount Diablo Ranch, sustained an injury while riding a young, unruly horse, which rolled over on him.  At first, the injury was thought to be minor and his wife and daughter Carrie left for a planned trip to New York. The injury, however, involved ruptured blood vessels which eventually produced abscesses. Doctors opened three of the abscesses hoping they would heal, but the operation resulted in blood poisoning. During the next few hours his condition deteriorated. Mrs. Colton and Carrie were advised by telegram to return to San Francisco as quickly as possible. Ralph Harrison, Colton’s former law partner, was summoned to draft a will. Colton hung on for several weeks, and at one point seemed to rally, but he took a turn for the worse and it became apparent to his doctors that recovery was hopeless. Several of his closest friends kept vigil around his deathbed in the second floor bedroom of the Colton Mansion in San Francisco.
He lapsed into unconsciousness. In October his vital signs were so weak the doctors had difficulty determining if he still lived. On Wednesday, October 9, 1878 he was pronounced dead.
In death, Colton would have almost as much of an impact on California history as he did in life.  The Big Four had outmaneuvered him, holding out the promise of riches and a place at the table for him as a full partner, but ultimately withholding that prize. The Big Four never became the Big Five. Instead, his legacy was that Colton, one of Southern California’s railroad towns, would be named after him. To this day, Colton remains a railroad town, with numerous railroad overpasses that would require a billion dollars or more in today’s dollars to replicate. After his death, his wife, attempting to extract from the Southern Pacific Railroad that portion of her husband’s holding she felt were due her, ended up in a protracted legal battle against the Big Four and their heirs. Ultimately, she failed in her effort to obtain one fifth of the company and its profits. In the course of the litigation, she had entered into evidence letters sent to her husband from Collis Huntington. Many of those letters revealed the degree to which Crocker, Hopkins, Huntington and Stanford routinely used bribery as a tool, particularly with regard to the California and Arizona Territorial legislatures to achieve their ends. An enterprising newspaper publisher – William Randolph Hearst – gave the letters prominent play in the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal. The result was that the Big Four’s reputations – particularly those of Stanford and Huntington – were trashed. In response, Stanford and his wife founded Stanford University, ostensibly named after their deceased son, as a ploy to rehabilitate the Stanford name. And Henry Huntington, Collis Huntington’s nephew and heir, established the Huntington Library, likewise to resurrect positive associations, rather than negative ones, with the Huntington name.

(November 19) TWENTYNINE PALMS — Veteran city manager Andrew Takata has replaced Chad Mayes as chief of staff for Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford.
Mayes departed as Rutherford’s senior staff member as a result of his victory November 4 in the 42 Assembly District race. Mayes will depart for Sacramento next month. Rutherford, who is the chairwoman of the board of supervisors, could not afford to have her office without executive direction, and Takata began with her office November 19.
What is the county’s and the Second District’s gain is however the city of Twentynine Palms’ loss. For the second time in five months, Takata left a municipality he headed  in the lurch. Since June, Takata had served as the city of Twentynine Palms’ city manager. After Mayes’ victory, a representative from Rutherford’s office approached Takata and he accepted the job offer and the quick start up date. In this way his departure from Twentynine Palms was unexpected and abrupt.
This spring, Takata was working as the interim city manager in Calexico. On June 4, the Calexico City Council voted to extend Takata’s contract as interim city manager, staking him to a six month contract running until November 30.  On May 13, the Twentynine Palms City Council terminated Joe Guzzetta as city manager and began to cast about in an effort to land a replacement. On June 10, Twentynine Palms offered Takata the city manager’s position there and he accepted, giving Calexico seven day’s notice the following day. On June 16, when he was contacted by the Sentinel, Takata said he was leaving Calexico as of June 19 and that he was free to do so because “I never signed the contract.”
In Twentynine Palms, as late as November 7 Takata was earnestly at work on that city’s behalf, working on recruiting a lobbyist to represent the city in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.; collaborating with the Twentynine Palms Water District, which oversees the Twentynine Palms Fire Department, on a future joint city/district management/operating model for the fire department; and drawing up plans for new traffic signals on Twentynine Palms Highway at Encelia Avenue and Lear Avenue.
Before the weekend was out, however, members of the Twentynine Palms City Council had been informed that Takata’s last day with the city would be November 18.
The council adjourned into closed session on November 12 to discuss finding his replacement.
It is noteworthy that with Mayes and now with Takata, Rutherford has tapped chiefs of staff who are political/governmental creatures of the Morongo Basin, which lies more than 60 miles from the heart of the Second District. Mayes lives in and was a former mayor/city councilman in Yucca Valley. Takata was city manager in Yucca Valley from 2004 to 2010 and owns a second home there. He was city manager in Banning in Riverside County as well, from 2010 until February of this year. The Second District encompasses Upland north of Foothill Boulevard, San Antonio Heights, Rancho Cucamonga, the west half of Fontana, Devore, Lytle Creek, and the entire Rim of the World mountain communities in the San Bernardino Mountains from Cedarpines Park to Green Valley Lake.

(November 12)  The county board of supervisors this month augmented by $16,110 its previously approved program of providing probationers and juvenile offenders overseen by the probation department with prepaid gift cards.
Based upon a recommendation by county chief probation officer Michelle Scray Brown and presented by deputy chief probation officer Scott Frymire, the board okayed the additional expenditure in a total amount not to exceed $16,110 as a means to “maintain public safety and provide for the health and social services needs of county residents.
According to Frymire, “Each year, the probation department provides probationers and juveniles with a variety of prepaid cards as incentive and supportive devices. The use of prepaid cards allows the probation department to reward juveniles for good behavior and to assist probationers in attending mandatory meetings by supplying bus passes. The probation department also uses prepaid gift cards to assist juvenile probationers in the Independent Living Program. This program provides basic life skills, career exploration and job readiness preparation for probation youth who have been in out-of-home placement. In this program, the youth learn skills that prepare them to transition to adulthood and living on their own.”
In June, the board of supervisors approved the probation department’s request to purchase $250,865 of prepaid cards for 2014-15.  Frymire said an uptick in the number of juvenile offenders involved in the rehabilitation program has necessitated an increase in the funding. “This request for an additional $16,110 addresses immediate needs due to more participation in Independent Living Program classes and a greater than anticipated need for bus passes in the general juvenile population,” he said. “The probation department seeks approval to purchase additional prepaid gift cards during the remainder of 2014-15 from the following vendors: $600 for 120 $5 cards from Jamba; $850 for 170 $5 cards from Starbucks: $1,300 for 260 $5 cards from McDonald’s; $1,300 for 260 $5 cards from In and Out;  $550 for 110 $5 cards from Del Taco; $600 for 60 $10 cards from Walmart; $600 for 120 $5 cards from Subway; $600 for 120 $5 cards from Coldstone; $260 for 52 cards from Carl’s Jr. and $6.150 for 150 $41 monthly bus passes from OmniTrans and $1,400 for 100 $14 weekly passes from OmniTrans.

By Diane Dragotto Williams
There is an animal in the forest who is highly misunderstood and greatly feared, and that is the mountain lion. Being known for its prowess and hunting skills, the cat lives a solitary life and is a trophy game animal in many states.  Yet mystery surrounds the life and nature of this marvelous creature.  Powerful enough to take down its prey in short order, this feline is a formidable predator.  However, in our urban environment, it struggles to stay alive.
The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the puma, mountain lion, panther, or catamount, is a large cat of the family Felidae native to the Americas and the greatest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere.  Mountain lion males can weigh up to 220 lbs and females can weigh up to 140 lbs. Adult cougars stand about 24 to 35 in tall at the shoulders. Adult males are around 8 ft long nose-to-tail and females average 7 ft.  Of this length, about 25 to 37 inches, is the length of the tail. Cougars use their long tails for balance, maneuvering rocky outcroppings and mountains, as well as, warmth for a cold winter’s night in high altitudes.
Tawny in color, and sleek of body, this feline is easily recognized in the wild.  Its powerful forequarters, neck, and jaw serve to grasp and hold large prey. It has five retractable claws on its forepaws four on its hind paws. The larger front feet and claws are designed to clutch prey.  Cougars are well known for their screams but sometimes they hiss, growl, purr, as well as chirp and whistle.
An excellent stalk-and-ambush predator, the cougar pursues a wide variety of prey. It stalks through brush and trees, across ledges, or other covered spots, before delivering a powerful leap onto the back of its prey and a suffocating neck bite. The cougar is capable of breaking the neck of some of its smaller prey with a strong bite and momentum bearing the animal to the ground.  It’s not unusual for a cougar to bury its kill, and return to feed on it over a number of days.  Large prey can last a cougar every one or two weeks. However, during the raising of young, kills every three days are normal.
Female cougars are fiercely protective of their kittens, and have been seen to successfully fight off animals as large as American black bears in their defense. Males are not a part of the process of rearing the young and are chased away soon after courtship. Litters between one and six cubs are denned in caves or rock alcoves. Young lions are expected to be on their own by the second year.
California prey includes deer and bighorn sheep, as well as cattle, horses and sheep. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, but can also live in open areas. The cougar is territorial and survives at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. Life expectancy can range from 8 to 13 years in the wild. However, in areas where large prey like deer and big horn sheep are scarce, many yearlings cannot survive, starving to death. It is not unusual for sanctuaries like Wildhaven Ranch to receive spottings of young lions found in pools in the desert drinking water and hoping to capture prey at the “watering hole”.  We have great compassion for these incredible creatures of the wild. We promote the understanding that these cats are not dangerous to man, unless confronted, or if the human runs or “looks like” prey on the run. Reclusive and avoiding people, fatal attacks on humans are rare, and are a gift of beauty!
Contact Wildhaven Ranch for wildlife tours at (909)337-7389 or visit their website at www.wildhavenranch.org.

By clicking on the portal below, you can download a PDF of the November 14 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 11-14-14

(November 14)   By Mark Gutglueck
District Attorney Mike Ramos is maneuvering to create a third assistant district attorney  position in his department, into which he intends to promote his live-in mistress, multiple sources within the district attorney’s office have told the Sentinel.
Ramos’s move, coming just after last week’s 2014 General Election, and six months after Ramos was himself reelected to a fourth term as the county’s top prosecutor in the June primary election, has shocked and angered a wide cross section of the professionals employed by the office he heads. While several of those prosecutors expressed themselves in strong terms while commenting about the situation off the record, none was willing to speak for attribution, given the absolute authority the district attorney has in operating his office.
Ramos’ effort to promote Mary Ashley to the assistant district attorney’s post has been taken as a particular insult to five of the department’s most seasoned and advanced prosecutors, each of whom has considerably more courtroom and supervisory experience than Ashley.
One venerable prosecutor with 37 years in the office, John Kochis, who was widely viewed by his colleagues to be the most logical candidate for promotion to an open assistant district attorney’s position were such a position to emerge, put in for retirement when word of Ashley’s pending ascendency shot through the office two weeks ago. His last day with the department is today.
Members of the prosecutor’s office said Ashley, who was hired as a deputy prosecutor under former district attorney Dennis Stout in 1998, did reasonably competent work in prosecuting sexual crimes against children as well as crimes involving violence against women and children after she was assigned to head the Victorville office of the district attorney’s newly-formed Family Violence Unit in 2004. She remained in that capacity until 2007.
At that time, Ashley bounded, at Ramos’s apparent direction, over more than two dozen of her colleagues with greater and more varied prosecutorial experience when she was promoted to supervising deputy district attorney overseeing selected prosecutions in the San Bernardino,  Victorville and Joshua Tree offices.
Members of the office report that at that stage Ashley was believed to have been involved in a casual but non-exclusive physical relationship with Ramos, who since he had become district attorney in 2003, had extramarital affairs with no fewer than eight of his department’s employees. Adverse publicity about Ramos’s dalliances had proven problematic for Ramos as well as the county, which in 2009 paid the Santa Monica-based legal firm Curiale Hirschfield Kraemer $140,000 to conduct an investigation into the circumstances pertaining to just one of those, a tryst with former district attorney’s office evidence technician Cheryl Ristow.
Accordingly, Ramos attempted to be discrete about his relationship with Ashley as it was intensifying in the late 2011/early 2012 time frame. As it turned out however, the affair was exposed when Ashley sent a cellular phone text message to another member of the office, deputy district attorney Suzanne Patton, telling her that Ramos was at her residence. Word of Ramos’s liaison with Ashley leaked out from there, spreading to numerous other members of the district attorney’s office, as well as among several judges.
By Summer 2012, office members report, the relationship between Ramos and Ashley had progressed to the point that Ramos was cohabiting with Ashley and he filed for divorce from his wife of nearly three decades. Simultaneously, Ramos was seeking to groom Ashley for further advancement, giving her the prestigious assignment of carrying out the office’s  evaluations of officer involved shootings.
Simultaneously,  Dennis Christy, who had long served as assistant district attorney, was moving toward retirement.  Ramos stood by an earlier commitment that had been made to promote Gary Roth, who had held a wealth of assignments throughout the office and was at that time serving in Victorville as the chief deputy district attorney in the county’s desert division, to assistant district attorney. In turn, it was widely expected throughout the office that supervising deputy district attorney Richard Young, who was then overseeing the Fontana prosecutor’s division, would be tapped to succeed Roth. Young for the previous half decade had been entrusted with several top-tier and high profile prosecutorial assignments, including murder and manslaughter cases, the review of officer involved shootings and delicate matters such as those involving trafficking in child pornography and accusations that a teacher had employed sexual battery perpetrated by some of his students against other students as a classroom disciplinary tool. Moreover, Young had cultivated what appeared to be a strong professional relationship with Ramos by supporting him politically in years past and endorsing other politicians with whom Ramos was aligned.
On July 18, 2012 however, whatever expectations Young had of immediate promotion were dashed when Ramos, in an interoffice memo to all district attorney’s staff, announced that Ashley was being promoted to the position of chief deputy district attorney, effective September 6, 2012.
“Mary will be replacing Gary Roth as the chief deputy district attorney in the desert division,” the memo stated.
Members of the district attorney’s office drew an immediate connection between Ashley’s promotion and her relationship with Ramos.  Resentment over her advancement in the office has simmered since, due to the perception that Ramos has created a standard under which competence, dedication, expertise and merit are secondary criteria to maintaining a personal relationship with him. Indications that resentment is boiling over emerged late last week as members of the office began to lash out at their boss In private conversations, precipitated by the announcement of Kochis’s abrupt decision to retire.
While many prosecutors in the course of their conversations with the Sentinel opined that Kochis was the currently employed prosecutor most deserving of being elevated to assistant district attorney, more than twenty other prosecutors, lead prosecutors, supervising prosecutors and chief deputy prosecutors with the office were identified as having prosecutorial, leadership, managerial and organizational talent that exceeded that of Ashley, which rendered them better suited than her to assume the newly created assistant district attorney post. Those mentioned in this regard were: Michael Abney, Bruce Brown, Rob Brown, Terry Brown, Bob Bulloch, Lewis Cope, Michelle Daly, Gary Fagan, Charles Feibush, Joseph Gaetano, Clark Hansen III, Grover Merritt, Kathy Norman, Maureen O’Connell, Doug Poston, James Secord, Reza Sadeghi, Kevin Smith, Denise Trager-Dvorak, Charles Umeda, Ron Webster, Simon Umschied and Richard Young.
Resentment over Ramos’s choice of Ashley is particularly keen among those members of the office assigned to the courthouses in Victorville and Joshua Tree. This is primarily because, her colleagues say, while working in those divisions, Ashley, who was then married to another prosecutor in the office, former deputy district attorney Alex Martinez, initiated an affair with J. David Mazurek, who was formerly a deputy district attorney before he was elevated to a Superior Court judgeship in 2006.  Ultimately, the affair ended badly, with Mazurek divorcing his wife and Ashley’s marriage to Martinez breaking up. Martinez was elevated to the bench in 2010. The relationship between Mazurek and Ashley proved somewhat nettlesome for the court when Ashley was overseeing a district attorney’s prosecution unit in Joshua Tree, where Mazurek sat as a judge, requiring the expurgating intervention of then-assistant presiding judge Michael Welch.  Among some of her colleagues, particularly woman, Ashley was perceived as a climber who was not above utilizing her sexuality to ingratiate herself with the men in the office or the legal community to advance professionally.
Judge Martinez told the Sentinel, “I will have no comment on issues related to the district attorney’s office.”
Bailiffs at the San Bernardino Justice Center, where Judge Mazurek is now assigned, prevented the Sentinel from accessing him for an interview.
That Ashley is now consolidating her position through an intimate relationship with her boss has damaged the morale and esprit de corps of the district attorney’s office. Many office members were dumbfounded by the memo Ramos issued in which he announced his planned reorganization of the office, including creating the third assistant district attorney’s position to augment current assistant district attorneys Mike Fermin and Gary Roth, and his intention of inserting Ashley into the new post. Those that contacted the Sentinel to alert it to Ramos’s move, as well as members of the office contacted by the Sentinel subsequently, while expressing consternation and dismay privately, refused to speak for the record over concern that voicing such pointed criticism of Ramos and the woman he is appointing to a senior position in the office would harm them professionally.
A recently retired deputy district attorney, Sharon Caldwell, was not so reticent. She spoke openly about the damage Ramos had wreaked upon the office by his reported sexual liaisons, his earlier promotion of Ashley and his latest move to elevate her to assistant district attorney.
“There is no denying his reported rampant womanizing has impacted the office,” Caldwell said. “There are many qualified women who have been working there for years and have impeccable credentials who will not put their names in for promotion because they don’t want to be perceived as having advanced because they were sleeping with Mike Ramos. This is horrific cronyism. As district attorney, he is notorious for promoting people who are not qualified. The people of San Bernardino County deserve much better.”
Ashley was promoted well beyond her level of competence when she was made chief deputy district attorney, Caldwell said.
“She is an embarrassment,” Caldwell said. “She has been an absentee chief deputy. Her idea of leading is to bring cookies and cupcakes for the people in the office. She skips meetings, which is unheard of in an organization like the prosecutor’s office. She is not dealing with the job.”
The most recent decision to promote Ashley was “colossally stupid,” Caldwell said, given her demonstrated lack of judgment and disregard for the reputation and wellbeing of the office.  “An example of what I base my judgment of her lack of judgment on was when she was reported to have a dating relationship with Judge Mazurek while supervising prosecutors appearing in his courtroom while they were both in Morongo [i.e., working at the Joshua Tree Courthouse].  They had this relationship while she was supervising the prosecutors who were coming before him every day.  We are talking about hundreds of cases during that period. She and he had the obligation to inform the parties who were being prosecuted that she and the judge were in a dating relationship. To my knowledge, that disclosure was never made. I don’t know what would happen if counsel for those defendants who were convicted took that up. It potentially could compromise hundreds of cases. It is hard to believe that Mike Ramos did not know about this. He’s promoting her anyway.”
The vast majority of the office’s employees disapprove of many aspects of  Ramos’s comportment and are disturbed by his unabashed promotion of his girlfriend, Caldwell said.  “Most everyone knows about them [i.e., Ramos and Ashley],” Caldwell said. “I don’t know anyone in the office who likes it. But no one is going to say anything publicly. People will not stand up to him just to be shipped to Timbuktu and given terrible assignments. He’s a vindictive tyrant.”
She continued, “Ramos has done one outrageous thing after another and nothing has blown up in his face. No one sued him successfully. He just gets bolder and bolder. He thinks he’s bullet-proof. I truly believe that he doesn’t know how bad his decisions are.  The entire DA’s office has devolved under his leadership and he doesn’t care.”
A primary check on Ramos is the board of supervisors, which could closely examine his request to determine if adding a third assistant district attorney position to his staff is truly justified and then inquiring about the qualifications of the individual Ramos intends to tap to fill it, and asking about the relative qualifications of any alternative candidates for the position before agreeing to provide him with the funding to carry it through.
“The Board of Supervisors does not buck Ramos that I have ever seen” Caldwell said. “They’re unwilling to question him.  I believe that they’re afraid that if they do, he might do something to them.  He can file charges against people and let other people do the same conduct and not file.  No one wants Ramos to do to them what he did to [Neil] Derry.”
Former supervisor Neil Derry was criminally charged after district attorney’s office investigators, who were interrogating former supervisor/former county assessor Bill Postmus, obtained a statement from him that he had laundered a campaign contribution from Highland developer Arnold Stubblefield to Derry  through Postmus’s political action committee. Though he was initially charged with two felonies in that case, Derry stuck a plea bargain with prosecutors in which he was convicted of a misdemeanor campaign reporting violation. That conviction, which was widely trumpeted by his opponent, was a key factor in Derry’s defeat in his run for reelection.
Despite her low estimation of Ramos’s ethics and managerial ability, Caldwell said he was highly skilled in misleading the public.
“Ramos filed for divorce some time ago and was thereafter seen publicly with Mary Ashley,” Caldwell said. “I believe when Ramos felt that he would draw at least one opponent in his bid for re-election, he abandoned the divorce proceeding so that he could sell to the voters that he is a devoted family man married for decades.  I told people then that should he win re-election, he would dump his wife and resume his relationship with Mary Ashley.  He got reelected and now he’s refiled for divorce and he’s reported to have rekindled his relationship with Mary. He fooled the voters again.”
David Wert, the spokesman for the board of supervisors, told the Sentinel, “The district attorney has notified the board of supervisors that he plans to reorganize his department  in response to court closures and his proposal would come to the board perhaps as soon as November 18.”
The reorganization is scheduled to be done very quietly as part of an item on the agenda that does not reference the district attorney’s office but rather several of the county’s park and recreation districts, county service areas, the county flood control district, the county industrial development authority, its joint emergency medical agency, its economic and community development corporations, its in-home supportive services agency and the county fire protection district. In one of the attachments to this item, the first quarter budget report, buried on page 59 under the heading “County Positions Action” is notation that a chief deputy district attorney position – the one currently held by Kochis – is to be deleted and that an assistant district attorney position is to be added. The position is to pay $192,150 in salary.  Also shown is that the position will represent a total annual cost to the county of $315,039, which means that Ashley will receive $122,889 in benefits annually in addition to her salary.
The Sentinel made inquiries with the board members to ascertain what information they had been provided with regard to Ramos’s proposed reorganization, including his intention to appoint Ashley to the newly created assistant district attorney’s position.
Don Holland, one of First District supervisor Robert Lovingood’s field representatives, told the Sentinel Lovingood’s office would have no comment on Ramos’s proposal at this time.
Scott Vanhorne, the communications director for Second District Supervisor and Board Chairwoman Janice Rutherford said on November 12 that it was his understanding that Ramos had provided a justification for the reorganization “based upon caseload increases because of the court realignment.”
As to whom Ramos would designate to fill the role of the newly created assistant district attorney, Vanhorne said, “We haven’t got that information. District Attorney is an independently elected office. What he does within his office with his staff is in his realm. The board cannot tell him what staff to put in what positions.”
The board would be able to exercise some discretion with regard to determining whether the new position should be funded, irrespective of who fills it, Vanhorne said. “When it comes to budget requests for additional funding for staff, whether it be the sheriff, the DA, the assessor or treasurer, the board takes a look at it to see whether it wants to approve additional monies for staffing.”
Vanhorne said that Rutherford and the other supervisors have “probably spoken to the district attorney about this. I do know that (assistant district attorney) Mike Fermin has spoken with district staff about the new staffing needs the DA has.”
Precisely how the reorganization Ramos is proposing shapes up is not known to the board at this point, Vanhorne said.
“No one has seen what is going before the board,” he said.
There are two legal considerations why Ramos’s promotion of Ashley might be ill-advised and legally problematic.
One of those is the legal precedent set in the case Edna Miller et al v. Department of Corrections, which resulted in a precedent setting ruling by the California Supreme Court relating to favoritism to a governmental employee based on a relationship with her boss.
In Miller v. Department of Corrections, two former employees of the Valley State Prison for Women, Edna Miller and Frances Mackey, claimed that the warden of the prison at which they were employed accorded unwarranted favorable treatment to numerous female employees with whom the warden was having sexual affairs and that such conduct constituted sexual harassment in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.  The California Supreme Court ruled that employees passed over as Miller and Mackey were had grounds to sue the state and the Department of Corrections for both income lost and punitive damages.
The other legal consideration is Government Code Section 1090, which reads: “Members of the Legislature, state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members. Nor shall state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees be purchasers at any sale or vendors at any purchase made by them in their official capacity.”
To the extent that Ramos and Ashley have created a household together and have commingled their finances, any increase made to Ashley’s pay upon a recommendation or action by Ramos in his elected and official capacity would appear to run afoul of Government Code Section 1090.
District attorney’s office spokesman Christopher Lee did not respond to telephonic and written requests from the Sentinel for input for this article and requested interviews with Ramos and Ashley were not granted.

(November 13)  A development agreement for a 3,264-bed prison that will handle the overflow inmate population in Los Angeles County’s jails will come before the Adelanto City Council for a vote on November 19.
Orange County developer Buck Johns and Corrections Corporation of America Founder Doctor Crants of Nashville, Tennessee in May presented the plan to alleviate crowding in Los Angeles County’s detention facilities to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Johns and Crants told the board the project would save Los Angeles County $674 million in capital costs and could be in place to receive inmates in two years.
Johns and Crants are asking Los Angeles County for no capital contributions toward the project, but want a commitment from the county that it will house its overflow inmates there for 20 years at a cost of $88 per inmate per day, or roughly $104 million per year.
The project proposal is the marriage of two needs on either side of the Los Angeles/San Bernardino County line.
Los Angeles County, the largest county population-wise in California, has been hit particularly hard by the mandates in Assembly Bill 109, legislation aimed at closing California’s so-called “revolving door” of low-level inmates cycling in and out of state prisons. Assembly Bill 109 was drafted in an effort to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce the number of inmates in the state’s 33 prisons to 137.5 percent of original design capacity. The law sent inmates deemed low risk – those who were convicted of non-violent offenses – back to the county where they were convicted for incarceration.
Adelanto, which is San Bernardino County’s sixth smallest city population-wise at 31,765 residents, is also one of its most cash-strapped municipalities, with little in the way of sales tax revenue-generating commercial development. Last year the city council declared it was in a state of fiscal emergency, but its residents have refused to consent to impose on themselves a tax that city officials say is needed to stave off bankruptcy.
Johns and Crants are proposing that the $332 million cost of constructing the jail, which is to be located on 160 acres on Adelanto’s eastern boundary next to the existing federal correctional facility in Victorville, be defrayed with bonds issued by a public finance authority or other agency. The city of Adelanto would own it. Once operating, Johns and Crants say, it would generate enough revenue to debt service the bonds and would provide the city with water and sewer connection fees of  $11,317,482, development impact fees of $3,713,750, public schools impact fees $215,220, and engineering department fees of $91,046. In addition, Johns and Crants, maintain, the project would involve off-site infrastructure installation expenditures of $5,734,000 that would be of tremendous future benefit to the city and would create an estimated 3,769 construction jobs and an estimated 1.250 permanent jobs once the facility is in place.
Thus, Johns and Crants have touted the project as one that will not require the city to put up any funding toward the project, nor require that it put its credit on the line for the project to be completed.
There was something of a Catch-22 that held up progress toward the closing of a deal to get the project under way during the summer. The city of Adelanto wanted Los Angeles County to make a two decade-long commitment to housing its inmates at the facility before proceeding. Los Angeles County wanted Adelanto to commit to building, owning and running the jail before it gave its commitment.
Johns and Crants turned a corner on resolving that stalemate when the Adelanto Planning Commission on November 4 endorsed the project and gave its recommendation to the city council that it approve the development agreement.  The council is now set to consider it on November 19.
While the council’s approval appears likely, a new challenge to the project has emerged in the form of opposition by activist Victoria Mena, a former Adelanto resident and current public administration graduate student at the University of Washington. Mena, in conjunction with a group calling itself Defund Detention, maintains that California residents in general are opposed to the construction of more jails and are against the proliferation of privately-run detention facilities and that Adelanto residents want no more jails, prisons or detention facilities built in their community, which already is host to the county sheriff’s department’s High Desert Detention Center. She asserts that California residents, in passing Proposition 47, which is aimed at reducing property and drug crimes from a felony to a misdemeanor in order to reduce jail crowding. have initiated a trend against detention facility construction.
Moreover, Mena has seized upon the consideration that on the very night the planning commission made its recommendation to the city council, three of those council members – Mayor Kari Thomas, councilmen Steve Baisden and Charles Valvo – lost their bids for reelection in this year’s November 4 municipal election and will be leaving office as a consequence in December. She wants the decision on the jail postponed until the three new city council members are seated. She contends the newly composed council will not approve the development proposal.
Mena is working with the Defund Detention group to hold rallies and otherwise lobby the council to hold off on the November 19 vote, which has already been placed on the council agenda by city staff. She maintains the new council will reflect resident sentiment against the jail facility, based in large measure on assertions that warehousing large numbers of criminals in the community will compromise public safety.
Johns this week told the Sentinel that the project as planned will have safeguards built into it to ensure the safety and security of the community. Documentation Johns provided showed that by agreement with Los Angeles County only inmates serving time for “non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual crimes” will be housed in Adelanto and furthermore “no inmate with a prior conviction for a serious or violent crime” will be imprisoned there.
Johns told the Sentinel the planning commission had already looked at the safety issues. “They did not want the Los Angeles County inmates  who will be held there released into San Bernardino County. The agreement covers that. Once their sentence is served and their time is done, they will be put on a bus and taken back to Los Angeles and will be released from the L.A. Men’s Central Jail.  We have satisfied the responsible authorities on that question. We got a unanimous vote of approval from the planning commission.”
Johns said he and Crants have made substantial progress toward getting the project approved but that they are not there yet.  “Los Angeles County is not going to take any substantive action until we get the approval to build,” Johns said.
Johns said he is relatively confident the city council will see the benefit of approving the project.  “By the terms and conditions of approval, this will spin off approximately $1.2 million per year to the city of Adelanto and it will create 5,000 construction and permanent jobs,” he said.
Johns said he is aware of Mena and Defund Detention.
“I know a little about them and what they are saying but I don’t know who they are,” he said. He had not met Mena, Johns said. “I know some of the local people have talked to her. They know who she is. She is said to be an activist and a community organizer.  She needs to make her case with the city council. I am going to make our case. I think we will win because this project will bring the city of Adelanto two of the things it desperately needs, revenue and employment,” Johns said.

(November 14)  The Book of Matthew says that “No man can serve two masters.” The Book of Mark counsels “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.” The lawmakers and the lawgivers say that the law should be obeyed, no matter what. But what is one to do when two different levels of government give two commands which contradict one another, such that only one can be obeyed?  On Monday, at 10:30 a.m. at Rancho Cucamonga’s West Valley Courthouse in Division R-9, Judge Jon Ferguson will oversee an attempt to answer that question.
Coming before Ferguson is Fernand Bogman, who has been charged criminally under the Upland Municipal Code with letting his lawn die.  Bogman will not come to court armed with an argument that he did not do as he is charged. He acknowledges his lawn has turned brown.
Nevertheless, he insists he is, given the totality of the circumstance, innocent and acting out of principle and in compliance with the state of California’s dictates. Moreover, Bogman asserts, when he attempted to comply with the city of Upland’s demands, City Hall evaded and ultimately would not answer his well-intentioned inquiries that would have allowed him to make compliance.
“My yard is well maintained,” Bogman said. “Starting in August of 2012, I stopped watering my lawn. California was in the middle of a drought. I continued to water my trees and plants and shrubs. Upland is located in a desert. Grass is not a native plant in Southern California. Growing grass here is fine if there is sufficient water. But ethically, morally and legally, to pour buckets and buckets of water on grass is wrong.”
In 2013, the city notified Bogman that he was out of compliance with the city code and would need to “abate” the situation. Initially he was told that he needed to resume watering his yard. But Bogman learned on his own that he did not necessarily have to have grass as a component of his yard’s landscaping and he began looking into replacing it with drought-resistant plants and vegetation that are native to California. He approached Jeff Zwack, Upland’s director of community development, to ascertain which plants the city would deem acceptable for domestic landscaping.
“I asked him to give me a definition of drought tolerant landscaping that would be acceptable to them,” Bogman said. “He said I should come up with something and they would let me know if it was acceptable. The city doesn’t know how to define drought tolerant landscaping. If the city doesn’t know what is acceptable to them, how do they expect us to know?”
The city’s failure in this regard and its insistence on a formula of more watering exacerbated the problem, Bogman said. “It is up to the city to come up with the proper code to implement their policy, which they are not doing,” he said. “All of the city’s officials do not accept my present landscaping. Some say they will accept the drought tolerant landscaping but the others will not let me put it in. Drought tolerant landscaping using native California plants requires that they develop a root system. You must give them some water and the root system will grow, but if you give them too much water the root system will not grow properly. The idea is to conserve water and the city people are telling me to use more water.”
Bogman said the city’s failure to understand this principle is on display on several city-owned properties, including at the Civic Center containing City Hall and the Upland Library. “Go to City Hall,” Bogman said. “Look at other city properties . There is bare ground there. There is no landscaping. So the city is in violation of its own rules.”
The city initiated proceedings against Bogman under its administrative citation authority in August 2013. The matter has now proceeded to court. Technically, the city of Upland and its prosecutor, Dan Peelman, have charged Bogman with  a violation of Upland Municipal Code Section  M8.12.020(D), maintaining nuisance landscaping. Peelman has also charged Bogman with a violation of Upland Municipal Code Section  M12.24.130, maintaining a nuisance parkway. In Upland, parkways are owned by the city but the municipal code requires that the most proximate landowner maintain them.
With regard to the second charge, Bogman maintains that he actually watered and attempted to save the tree in question, which is located on city property in front of the sidewalk in front of his house, but that some unknown condition beyond his control such as blight had infested it. He contends it was the city which neglected its own tree that caused it to expire. He said he believes it is the city’s responsibility to remove it and replace it, if replacement is deemed appropriate.
Bogman said, “The governor has declared a state emergency because of the drought, which is in its third year. We are not allowed to waste water, but the city requires us to spray enough water on the ground to maintain a green lawn. There is a contradiction there. What is more important, the welfare of the state as a whole or keeping up appearances? Don’t forget, we live here in a desert area. The Inland Empire is a desert that has been reclaimed. We can have grass here and people obviously do, but only by using massive amounts of water. In a drought, continuing to do that is immoral, in my opinion. I consider myself a good citizen. I consider myself a responsible citizen. The city of Upland is saying I am a bad citizen. I will go to court on Monday and let 12 other citizens of the state of California decide.”
Councilman Glenn Bozar said he questioned “why the city is handling this in this way. Look at what the governor [Jerry Brown]  did with his mansion up in Sacramento. He let his lawn go brown. There were pictures of it in newspapers all over the state. Taking this guy [Bogman] to court seems to me a peculiar way of doing this.”
Mayor Ray Musser told the Sentinel, “The problem is that this has gone on for months and months and there has been no cooperation. Had he [Bogman] just cooperated and been reasonable, there would not have been a problem.”
Musser acknowledged that some of the landscaping at the Upland Civic Center had been neglected.
“The city doesn’t have anything in the budget to improve our landscaping there at this time,” Musser said, in acknowledging the city is not in compliance with its own code. “What we hope to do is get together with a church group who will adopt that and when they come up with something that is acceptable, we will have that relandscaped at no cost to the city.”
With regard to drought resistant landscaping, Musser said, “When I first saw it, I didn’t like it. But now that I’ve seen more of it, it’s okay. It doesn’t look as nice as grass, which I prefer, but drought friendly plants are starting to grow on me, especially with how precious water is.”
Musser said he had personally gone to Bogman’s home with a city staff member to survey it. “The way he is keeping his plants and shrubs green  as best as he can looks nice, but his lawn is completely dead,” Musser said. “If he is putting in some water saving method, let’s finish it out is all we are saying.”

(November 12)  Congressman Paul Cook, who had previously gone on record as opposing the Cadiz Water Project, in September wrote a letter to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, recommending against any further environmental review of the project.
Cook’s action angered and disappointed environmentalists who had previously endorsed him and his continued tenure in office.
Known by the abbreviated name Cadiz Water Project, the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project  is a proposal by proponent Los Angeles-based Cadiz, Inc.  to extract an average of 50,000 acre-feet of water from the East Mojave Desert annually and convey it via pipeline to Orange and Los Angeles counties for use there.
The Santa Ana Margarita Water District in Orange County, which lies 217 miles from the project area and which has contracted with Cadiz, Inc. to purchase one-fifth of the desert water, assumed lead agency status with regard to approval of the project and its environmental certification, including acceptance of the environmental impact report for the undertaking.  Santa Margarita gave approval to the plan in July 2012. The county of San Bernardino, which contemplated challenging Santa Ana Margarita’s role overseeing the project, ultimately laid aside its authority as lead agency and in October 2012 accepted a water use monitoring plan for the project which gave Cadiz, Inc. procedural clearance to move forward with the project.
A series of nine environmental suits against the project ensued, including six that were remanded to Orange County Superior Court to be heard jointly. Environmentalists and residents of the East Mojave enlisted Cook’s support in opposing the project. As the member of Congress representing the East Mojave, Cook in June 2013 called for a federal review of the undertaking.
In a letter dated June 12, 2013 to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Cook stated, “I am writing to request a reevaluation of the impact the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project will have on my constituents in the 8th District of California. The Cadiz Project, as it currently stands, is likely to impact San Bernardino County’s water resources, harming ranchers, rural communities, East Mojave landowners, and the National Chloride Company of America’s brine mining operation on Bristol Dry Lake. Moreover, the aggressive project pumping could harm the springs of the Mojave National Preserve and regional air quality, while exporting precious water resources out of San Bernardino County to ratepayers in Los Angeles and Orange counties.”
Cook’s 2013 letter continued, “In order to ensure this project won’t adversely affect my district, I respectfully request the Cadiz Project be subject to a National Environmental Policy Act review.  I request that the United States Geologic Survey conduct an updated analysis of the hydrologic features of the project area and that any new or revised Cadiz Project proposals adhere to the principle of sustainable yield, meaning no more water would be pumped out of the aquifer than would be replaced through natural recharge as determined by the United States Geologic Survey. This is intended to protect sustainable water supplies for East Mojave communities and businesses.”
Cook further wrote, “Currently, no federal environmental reviews or approvals have been conducted, despite numerous requests from the Bureau of Land Management that Cadiz Inc. supply them with specific project information relating to the construction of a 43-mile water conveyance pipeline along the Arizona and California Railroad right-of-way.” Cook noted,  “Professional independent reviews have called into question the 32,500 acre-feet per year recharge rate Cadiz Inc. claims will naturally occur. These independent scientists concluded that the actual recharge rate is between 2,000 and 10,000 acre feet per year. There are serious doubts about the validity of the previous environmental studies, specifically the draft environmental impact statement“ for the project. Cook concluded, “This project must be examined thoroughly before it moves forward.”
Two months ago,  15 months after writing that letter, Cook abruptly shifted course.
“Shortly after taking office last year, I wrote to you about the proposed Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project (“project”), which would be located in California’s Eastern Mojave Desert,” Cook wrote Jewell in a letter dated September 16, 2014. “The project will provide an additional 50,000 acre feet of water per year to the state’s dwindling water supply. It is important to me that my constituents and the land itself are protected from significant environmental harm. For that reason, I asked in my previous letter that a federal environmental review be undertaken for the project. Further developments have changed the dynamics surrounding the project, calling into question the need for federal environmental review and signaling a need to allow the project to move forward.
“Recently,” the letter continues, “the Orange County Superior Court denied all six petitions challenging the project’s environmental assessment and upheld the actions of the Santa Margarita Water District and the county of San Bernardino in approving the project.”
“Furthermore,” Cook’s September letter continues, “San Bernardino County suffers from unemployment that far exceeds the national average. The project is expected to employ 1,500 people during every year of construction. Indeed, I have received assurances that 80 percent of the project’s capital cost will be spent in San Bernardino County, and 50 percent of jobs have been dedicated to residents of San Bernardino County, including 10 percent for military veterans.”
Cook’s letter continues, “Project plans specify that San Bernardino County will regulate the extraction of groundwater, and 20 percent of the project water is reserved for county water providers for the next 50 years. Perhaps most importantly, I have reviewed a study of the hydrology in the area; I believe the project to be sustainable in terms of water recharge rates and in avoiding adverse effects on top soil.”
The letter continues, “The project construction is expected to generate close to $1 billion in economic activity and, over the long-term, local governments will receive $6 million per year in new property tax revenues, including $600,000 annually added to the budget of the Needles Unified School District.“
Cook’s letter concludes, “With the court approvals in mind and with so many jobs at stake, I believe further investigation into environmental impacts to be unnecessary. However, as the project moves forward, I will continue to monitor it to ensure that no harm is done to the local environment or water supplies.”
Cook’s letter was written on September 16 while he was engaged in an election campaign against Democratic challenger Bob Conaway. It was not released publicly until November 6, when Cadiz, Inc. did so in conjunction with its strategy to promote the project and stave off further legal challenges, including appeals of the cases in which it prevailed on in Orange County Superior Court.
Ruth Musser Lopez, one of the environmentalists who brought suit against Cadiz, Inc, the Santa Margarita Water District and the county of San Bernardino over the approval of the project in 2012 who was also an unsuccessful candidate for California State Senate in Senate District 16, which encompasses the East Mojave, was highly critical of Cook’s most recent letter.
She said Cook, a Republican, had betrayed the voters he represents by seeking to shut down further environmental review of the project. Musser Lopez, a syndicated columnist whose work has appeared in the Sentinel, said environmental review of the project has been inadequate. She suggested Cook had engaged in underhanded action by withholding the September letter to Jewell while the election was still pending.