(October 29)  Former congressman Joe Baca said he is running for mayor in Fontana ”to take the city to a higher level. I’ve served in Congress and in the California Assembly and State Senate. I want to use my expertise to make Fontana a better place. I have worked with three different presidents – Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama and two governors, Pete Wilson and Grey Davis. When people ask me why I want to serve at the city level, I tell them I have the ability to work on a bipartisan basis to see projects to completion after I served in getting the federal  funding in place to start them. I served my country in time of war when I was in the Army and then in the state legislature and in Washington, D.C. I am blessed to be able to run for mayor now.”
Baca said, “I think the major issue Fontana is its leaders just don’t have a vision for what the city should be. There hasn’t been a master plan for the past ten years. The city should have been preparing for where it is going. Major problems facing us here in Fontana are we are experiencing higher and higher water rates and traffic congestion. I believe with the population growth we have to have a vision. San Bernardino’s population is down to 203,023.  Fontana is up to 206,000. We are now the largest city in the county. We need a plan that is worthy of our status as the county’s major city. We have to deal with the growth. We need a plan to take Fontana to a higher level. We need a plan that is inclusive of the whole city and its diversity.”
Baca offered a glimpse into his vision for the city.
“We have to focus on what is important to each of the city’s different areas,” he said. “We need roads and infrastructure. I’d love to see a movie theater in the northern portion of Fontana. We also need another sports complex to allow basketball, volleyball and wrestling to take place indoors for our youth. Right now, to get that, you have to lease athletic facilities from the high school.  I would like to see us build a hotel in the northern section of the city.  In the Duncan area around Citrus we need a retail square. I would like to see an opera theater outdoors to attract people from the surrounding communities, Redlands, San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland and, of course, Fontana. I would like to see a California University in Fontana. In San Bernardino County we have community colleges and a Cal State University and private universities but we don’t have a UC system campus. I was instrumental in helping Merced when they got the University of California to come in there and I believe I could utilize my experience with the state legislature to get Fontana a University of California campus. We have access to the 15 Freeway, the 19 Freeway and the 210. I would love to see downtown Fontana become a cultural center for fashion and the arts. We need an amphitheater. With the right retails stores we can make it so we have something like Rodeo Drive and Palm Springs. We should bring the Kaiser Museum, which is currently located in Rancho Cucamonga, to our downtown area. I think we need a movie theater and retail stores in the south part of Fontana. We need recreation facilities for our youth. We have no urgent care facilities in Southridge. We have Kaiser Hospital but there is nothing on the other side of the freeway. I would like to see us reach out and put an annex of the boys and girls club on the south end of town. We have one in the north but nothing in the south. Boys and girls clubs are of assistance with after school programs and tutoring . I believe on the west side we should bring in a a national automobile training center associated with NASCAR for vocation training for mechanics. We could make it an attraction. We should attempt to bring professional soccer to Fontana.    We need to work with kindergarten through 12th grade education and a university to make sure our kids are prepared not only for the jobs of today but the jobs of tomorrow. We need a collaboration, a partnership with businesses. Teamwork will make the dream work.”
This year, five candidates are vying in the Fontana mayoral race – Baca, incumbent Acquanetta Warren, Luis Vaquera, Daniel Quiroga, and Jason O’Brien. For many political observers, the race is deemed to be one between Warren and Baca, the two who boast the greatest name recognition as well as the most experience in office.
Baca compared himself to Warren.
“The incumbent has no vision,” he said. “This city must deal with its growth.  It has grown, but that was because of the efforts of the two previous mayors, Mark Nuaimi and Dave Eshleman.  Fontana does not have a ten-year plan. It has not updated its general plan since she has been mayor.  There are a lot of positive things about Fontana, but she was not the one who instigated those. It was the mayors before her. She has been mayor for four years. We should have a new general plan or be well into the process. We have to look at growth and our population and see how we are going to meet our needs in the future.”

(October 29) Stephen Lyster Siringoringo, the 1999 Fontana High School graduate who seemingly made good by becoming an attorney specializing in modification services for clients facing foreclosures during the height of the home mortgage meltdown four years ago, has agreed to disbarment.
Losing his license to practice law will mollify some, though not all of the hundreds of former clients who claim Siringoringo took advantage of them, took their money, allowed their homes to be taken from them and then provided them with no accounting or records to assist them in the aftermath.
According to the State Bar, Siringoringo visited upon his clients significant harm by failing to provide promised services to them and aided in the unauthorized practice of law by other when he allowed non-attorney employees to meet with clients, set fees and perform legal services without supervision.
A stipulation filed October 15 in State Bar Court ratchets an earlier discipline to the state of disbarment for Siringoringo. Last December, the Bar found Siringoringo culpable of collecting advanced fees for loan modification work in 20 client matters and recommended an 18-month suspension. In partial mitigation Siringoringo has agreed to provide refunds ranging from $1,500 to $5,970 to 14 former clients named in the stipulation.
That relates to but a fraction of the harm Siringoringo is alleged to wreaked. The State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel indicated it has received 796 additional complaints regarding alleged misconduct by Siringoringo. Those clients may be eligible for reimbursement by the State Bar’s Client Security Fund after the disbarment is finalized by the California Supreme Court.
Under the terms of the stipulation, Siringoringo was not eligible to practice law as of Oct. 18.
Siringoringo and his firm took money up front from clients, maintaining action could not be taken if there were no funds to work with.  The firm typically asked for $3995.00 to initiate work and would bill clients $135.00 each month thereafter. When employees were pressed by clients about what action had been taken, they would be met with claims that the process required time to mature. Delays of eight, ten, 12, 14 and 16 months before informing clients that their loan modifications had been denied were common. Subsequently, clients were told that another method for obtaining a modification was in the works. Few, if any of the sought modifications were ever achieved.

By Mark Gutglueck
The rugged and remote San Bernardino Mountains and the highest peak among them were the setting for the death of Dean Paul Martin more than a quarter century ago.
Dean Paul Martin was the son of performer Dean Martin and his second wife, Jeanne Biegger, the fifth of Dean Martin’s seven children, and Jeanne’s eldest son. He attended the Urban Military Academy in Brentwood and at age 13 set off on a career path that emulated his father when he joined Desi Arnaz Jr. and Billy Hinsche in the pop group Dino, Desi, & Billy, which achieved a few minor hits in the U.S. between 1965 and 1968, landing in the Top 30 twice, including their biggest charter, “I’m a Fool.”
At the age of 16, he obtained his pilot’s license.
In his late teens, he began using his given name of Dean Paul instead of the nickname “Dino.” Something of a playboy and a member of the jet set, he flew Lear jets, drove fast cars, and competed as an amateur racer, and dated Candace Bergen and Tina Sinatra. He also was a serious tennis player, competing in a junior competition at Wimbledon, eventually going on the pro circuit and achieving ranking among the 400 best players in the world.
In 1971, he married actress Olivia Hussey, from whom he divorced in 1978. He was married to Olympic gold medalist Dorothy Hamill from 1982 to 1984.
After his years as a teen music idol came to a close, he became an actor. He starred with Ali McGraw in the 1979 movie, “Players,” in which he was cast as a professional tennis player and for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as best new actor of the year. He subsequently starred in the TV series “Misfits of Science,” co-starring Courtney Cox, which aired during the 1985-1986 television season, and was working on a pilot for Fox Television, “A Single Man,” at the time of his death.
Co-existent with his life of privilege, Dean Paul Martin had a serious side, having attended UCLA as a premedical student and working to achieve his instrument rating as a pilot. He was among a coterie of Hollywood luminaries including John Travolta, Wallace Beery, Jimmy Stewart and Wayne Morris, who took flying very seriously.
Inspired by an air show he saw at the age of 26 in 1978, he resolved to be a military pilot but was initially rebuffed. Determined, he flew to Washington, D.C. and personally persuaded Major General John B. Conway, then the director of the Air National Guard, to permit him to enlist.
He attended officer candidate training in Knoxville, Tennessee starting in November 1980 and advanced to Phantom jets, capable of speeds reaching 1,200 miles per hour, which he flew out of March AFB. Martin exhibited patience in getting the status he sought. Because there was a surplus of qualified military fliers in the Guard, he was first relegated to “GIB” status, or guy in the back, tending to radio, ordinance and navigational assignments. He said that experience made him appreciative, after he became a full-fledged military pilot, of what his crew member was enduring.
He was an esteemed pilot and had achieved the rank of captain in the National Guard.
On March 21, 1987, he brought his son Alexander to March Air Force Base to allow him to witness the preparation for his take-off on what was to be a routine flying exercise. With his weapons officer, Ramon Ortiz, 39, aboard, Captain Martin, himself 35, went airborne in the company of two other Phantom craft.
On that last day of winter, the San Bernardino Mountains were covered in heavy snowpack and snow was falling at the windswept higher altitudes, clouding visibility. Shortly after the three planes took off, all three were ordered by air traffic controllers at Ontario International Airport to change course in order to avoid 11,800-foot San Gorgonio Mountain,  Southern California’s highest peak. Shortly thereafter, while instrumentation indicated his Phantom was at an altitude of around 11,300 feet, Martin’s plane dropped off the radar screens. It had apparently clipped Mt. San Gorgonio and then streaked into the side of a granite mountain about five-and-a-half miles to the south.
The plane was carrying a large amount of fuel and burned when it struck the ground in an area known as Wood Canyon.
About two feet of snow continued to fall over the next several days, as wind and other conditions hampered the search for the craft, which was spotted by a U.S. Air Force helicopter pilot four days later near the San Bernardino County/Riverside County boundary. The wreckage was reached by searchers on March 25. They found it in “large pieces and small pieces” at the 5,500 foot level. There was no indication that Martin or Ortiz had attempted to eject.
Martin and Ortiz died in a confrontation with Mt. San Gorgonio, where, a little more than ten years earlier, on January 7, 1977, a Lear jet taking Frank Sinatra’s 82-year-old mother, Natalie (Dolly) Sinatra, crashed in a blinding snowstorm at 10,000 feet, 200 feet below a ridge. She was traveling from her Palm Springs home to see her son perform in Las Vegas.
Dean Paul  Martin is buried in the Los Angeles National Cemetery, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs cemetery in Los Angeles.

The Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura, engages in what many people consider to be disgusting behavior.
Its name is derived from the red skin on its head and dark body feathers that resemble a turkey. This carrion feeder is common to the United States and seen in habitat from woodlands and farms to the desert. Gliding over open country, looking for food which it finds by its scent, it often roosts in flocks, and many birds will converge to feed at a carcass.  It prefers meat to be ripe, making it easier to strip off the bones, and for the bare head to be bacteria free after engorging on a bloody mess.
Soaring birds hold their wings above their back in a shallow V called a dihedral and rock side to side as if unsteady in the air. Circling above treetops and up to 200 feet high, they are a master at flying.  Turkey vultures frequently circle and gain altitude on pockets of rising warm air, or thermals. When they reach the top of the thermal, they glide across the sky at speeds up to 60 miles per hour, gradually losing altitude all the while. When they need to gain more altitude, they locate another thermal and so begins another sequences of circling, rising, and then gliding. Turkey vultures can cover many miles going from thermal to thermal without ever needing to flap.
Twenty-five to 32 inches long, with a wingspan around 6 feet a healthy adult turkey vulture can weigh approximately 5 to 6 pounds. Nesting on the bare ground, in caves, rock outcroppings, hollow trees and even empty buildings, these avians have few predators. Except man, golden eagles and large mamals that may take adavantage of their presence on the ground, their eggs or nestlings can be taken by bald eagles, great horned owls, raccoons, oppossums and foxes. Turkey vultures have weak, chicken-like feet, which are suitable for running on the ground but not for grasping and cannot lift or carry food with their feet. They can only step on their food to hold it in place while eating. Without a voice box, turkey vultures either hiss or grunt, or sometimes growl around food, which gives them their only appearance of aggression.  Though the bulk of their food is carrion, they sometimes eat rotten fruit and vegetables, stranded mussels, shrimp and fish, and even coyotes and sea lion feces.
Standing in a spread wing pose, the turkey vulture warms and dries itself in the morning sun to rid itself of bacteria and bring its temperature up from its night time almost hypothermic degrees to save energy.  Efficiency a standard, and unable to sweat, on warm days, urinating on its legs cools the vulture as the urine evaporates.  In addition, this urine contains strong acids from the vulture’s digestive system, which may kill any bacteria that remain on the bird’s legs from stepping in its meal.
Their most disgusting behavior is vomiting at will.  Usually this is done as a means for vultures to off-load some weight as predators approach when the vulture has eaten too much to fly.  But they will also regurgitate under stress or to keep anything threatening at bay.  Also semi-digested food can be offered up to a predator as an easy meal instead of attacking the intended vulture!

(October 31)  At the October 27 Upland City Council meeting, a sizeable contingent of residents, predominantly concerned parents, turned up to address the city council on the need for crossing guards in the aftermath of the death of Isaiah Shelton, a sixth-grader at Cabrillo Elementary.
Young Shelton was killed in a hit-and-run accident on his way to school October 23 as he  stepped off the southeast curb on Benson Avenue to cross Arrow Highway. He was struck by a white Jeep Cherokee driven, police later said, by Jason Fehr, 25 of Rancho Cucamonga.
Fehr, 25, was arrested and booked on felony hit-and-run charges at the West Valley Detention Center.
In 2009, the city of Upland reprioritized its public safety budget, eliminating paid crossing guards in favor of upping police officer and firefighter pay and benefits. No action to restore that funding has taken place since.
Maxine O’Neill said, “We need to protect our children. Everyday thousands of our children walk the line of life and death. Think about it carefully.”
Melinda Aguirre said, “There are 11,665 students in this school district going without protection every single day until we solve this. Please honor Isaiah. Let’s protect our students. These are your kids, too.”
Christy McKenzie said she was “outraged. You say you are going to do everything except care for our children’s safety.” She then reminded the city council about the upcoming election. “Think about losing your jobs for crossing guards,” she said.
Todd D’Braunstein, a member of the city’s traffic advisory committee, said that he and his colleagues “respectfully” looked for input from the community on the issue of improving pedestrian safety.
D’Braunstein’s colleague on the committee, Rod McAuliffe, lamented that the commission had not held a single meeting for the last two years, which he attributed to malaise on the part of the city council and city management. They, as much as anyone, he said, “failed to act to restore the crossing guards to save these kids.”
Neil Jacoby, a certified public accountant who rides his bike to in the morning said that the traffic on Benson at that hour of the day is heavy and dangerous. “This is horrible,” Jacoby said. “The Bonita Unified School District has crossing guards everywhere. Hopefully this will wake everybody up.”
Billy Velto said he did not understand why there were no crossing guards at present, given that they had been in place when he was a student a relatively few years ago.
Anthony Smith, who had coached Isaiah in a youth sports league, encouraged the council to “get out into the community and meet the kids you are supposed to be protecting.”
Stephanie Logan, who had recently moved to Upland with her family from Redding, told the city council “There will be crossing guards in Upland. My husband has been practicing law for 15 years and I will use him. This must be solved now.”
Tamara Strong, Isaiah’s grandmother, said. “Little things can make a difference. Nothing we can do from this point on can bring back my grandson, but …anything we can do so we don’t lose another child.”