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Sentinel 08-14-15

SAN BERNARDINO—The consultant the city of San Bernardino has relied upon to make a determination about the financially beleaguered municipality’s best option for providing future fire service has recommended outsourcing fire protection to the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
As early as 2012, city officials were kicking around the concept of dissolving the municipal fire department and contracting with another provider of fire service, most likely a governmental entity, to staff the city’s fire stations.
In August 2014 the city council directed city manager Allen Parker to seek bids from a host of agencies that might provide fire services. Parker approached the county, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and the fire departments of some surrounding cities, in particular Colton, which has a cooperative service arrangement with the city of Loma Linda, to see if they would, in exchange for a set fee, take on the burden of providing fire protection to the county seat.
The city earlier this year put out a formalized request for proposals to the three aforementioned public agency fire service providers, along with Centerra Group, a Florida-based private company.
Given San Bernardino’s weak financial picture and its ongoing bankruptcy in which it was withholding payment from the lion’s share of its vendors and service providers, both the Colton Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, led by its chief Ken Pimlott, declined to make formal proposals.
San Bernardino County Fire and Centerra did respond and the city retained Citygate Associates to evaluate their bids.
This week, Citygate delivered to Parker its conclusion that a long term service relationship with the county fire division, given all of the existing regional arrangements and the firefighting assets and facilities currently owned and employed by the city and the county, is the city’s best option. Parker presented Citygate’s findings to the city council.
According to Parker. liquidating the city’s fire department and contracting with the county fire division would save the city $7 million annually and increase the level of fire and emergency response, and in some areas of the city decrease department response time.
According to Parker, one of the city’s existing fire stations would be shuttered, but its service area would then be served by one of the county’s fire stations. Overall, the number of firefighters working in the 59.645 square mile city would increase from the current 38 to 41 per shift. In effectuating the change, the city limits would become a county fire district.
The dissolution of the fire department, which has existed as a municipal entity since 1878, is an outgrowth of the severe financial challenges facing the city. After more than two decades of a deteriorating local economy and several budgetary cycles of deficit spending, the city filed for Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection in 2012. Both past and current city leaders have stated the belief that some of the city’s financial challenge is attributable to what they characterize as overly generous wages guaranteed to the city’s public safety employees.
Provisions put into the San Bernardino City Charter by means of a citywide vote in 1939 – which became known as Section 186 – require that the city’s public safety employees – firefighters and police officers – be paid on a scale equal to the average pay of police officers and firefighters in ten similarly-sized California cities.
San Bernardino, the county seat and the largest city in the county, has a population of 213,708. Yearly, city officials and police and fire union heads start with a list of California cities with populations between 150,000 and 250,000. In turns, each removes a city from that list until ten remain. Salaries are then computated upon the average pay to that particular group – firefighters or fire department management or policeman or police management – in the remaining ten cities.
Despite the city’s bankruptcy filing it has continued to give firefighters and police officers raises in keeping with the provisions of Section 186 of the city charter. The city council last year put on the ballot a referendum to remove Section 186 from the city’s charter. The city’s police and fire unions strongly opposed the initiative, known as Measure Q, and in the face of the spirited campaign against it, the initiative was defeated.
In the current fiscal year, police department and fire department operations represent 68 percent of the spending out of the city’s general fund. Salaries make up the lion’s share of those departments’ operating budgets. A majority of the city council is convinced that the continuation in the escalation of public safety employee pay in a city that has declared bankruptcy and is stiffing its other creditors is both unseemly and unsustainable. Confronted with the unwillingness of the fire department’s employees to adjust their salaries and benefits downward, as expressed through the action of the firefighters’ union action with regard to Measure Q, Parker, in conjunction with Mayor Carey Davis and assistant city manager Nita McKay, has moved full speed ahead toward liquidating the fire department. In doing so, Davis has elected to damn the torpedoes represented by the resistance or opposition of the firefighters and their unions. Parker’s resolve to see this effort through has resulted in a protest by the president of the San Bernardino Fire Management Association, which represents seven of the fire department’s senior staff. Previously, the management association had maintained its silence, even as the San Bernardino Professional Firefighters Association, with its much larger hundred-plus members, had vigorously opposed the city’s efforts to pare back fire department operations to save money.
According to San Bernardino Fire Department Battalion Chief Michael Bilheimer, the management association’s president, he had been given assurances by Parker that before any move to close down the fire department, Parker would confer with the management association. Bilheimer said Parker did not live up to that commitment.
Upon learning of Citygate’s recommendation and the fait accompli it represents, Billheimer put out a communiqué which states, “Outsourcing the fire department is a bad idea for San Bernardino. There is an overwhelming amount of information being circulated concerning the contracting out of the San Bernardino Fire Department. Sadly, much of the information has been inaccurate or deliberately kept from the public. I feel obligated to share with you the position of your fire department’s fire management association. We remain confident that your current fire department is best suited to provide all aspects of fire protection to our community. It remains our position that we are able to provide an unparalleled level of service for the lowest cost possible.”
According to Billheimer, “The fire department’s actual cost for FY 2014/2015 was approximately $22 million dollars, not $30 million dollars as is often touted. During FY 2014/2015, the fire department was more than 8 percent under budget, saving approximately $2.5 million dollars that was returned to the general fund.”
According to Billheimer, transforming the city of San Bernardino into a county fire district will entail hidden monetary costs to city residents that have not been disclosed.
“The San Bernardino County Fire Department has shared the fact they intend to assess a $139 district fee to every parcel of property within the city,” Billheimer wrote. “This $139 tax, paid for by homeowners and businesses, is proposed to generate an additional $7.8 million of revenue that is intended to be ‘kicked back’ as a pass-thru to the city’s general fund. This newly imposed fee, at the expense of homeowners and businesses, will serve to subsidize the city’s general fund. The San Bernardino County Fire Department has proposed full annexation as the means by which to provide fire protection. This will result in no control of the cost for your fire department. More importantly, this results in the forfeiture of all property tax funds to the county of San Bernardino ($30 million per year). The loss of property taxes will become even more costly in years to come as property values and development continue to increase.”
In addition, Billheimer wrote, “There are many other concerns about outsourcing your fire department that have failed to be addressed. Other potential impacts are: personnel layoffs, pension liabilities, forfeiture of millions of dollars of assets (fire stations, fire apparatus, etc.), loss of emergency medical services, revenues, etc. The San Bernardino Fire Department has been providing fire protection to the community of San Bernardino for 137 years, and it would be shameful and irresponsible to see it discarded. We are proud of the men and women that make up this exceptional fire department. There is no replacement for the experienced and knowledgeable firefighters currently serving this community; any substitute stands to compromise public safety.”
Billheimer acknowledged that his sudden entrance into the discussion regarding the fire department outsourcing was a departure for the fire management association. “The association stands up just for the seven chief officers in the department, who are the leadership component,” Billheimer told the Sentinel. “We have always been quiet and have had a get-along attitude. We are part of the team who are soldiers for the fire department and we take our orders from our bosses who take their orders from their bosses at City Hall. We have never gotten caught up in the fray. We keep our heads down and work hard. But over the last few weeks, within social media and at public meetings you have seen what is happening and there has been a breakdown in labor relations and there is now a realization that we are here in the eleventh hour and the department is about to cease to exist. The signs that the department will be extinct are there. It is incumbent upon us to take action. We have generated a factual document for the stakeholders in the community.”

The insensitivity of the city council, the planning commission and city staff to density concerns and several other land use considerations voiced by members of the public is pushing a group of Upland activists toward seeking a referendum on the city’s controversial proposed new general plan.
In 2008 the city of Upland undertook to update its general plan, the comprehensive blueprint for the city’s development which was last revised in 1992. That effort, which was being shepherded through the process by Upland’s development services director, Jeff Zwack, remained relatively dormant for nearly seven years, with three holiday/get together events in 2008 providing a forum where citizen input was sought followed by four planning department-sponsored workshops and one open house over the next six years where the public was invited to offer input on the city’s long term planning approach.
After crawling at a snail’s pace for more than a half dozen years, the update effort accelerated to near light speed earlier this year. A utility bill mailing to Upland residents in April heralded the general plan update, and a planning commission hearing on the subject was held on April 22. Zwack and other officials anticipated that another public review of the document would be staged in May and that it would then go to the city council for its review and approval in June.
At over 2,000 pages, the updated general plan presages changes in the nature of the city’s residential zones, with an upticking in housing density that will put as many as 55 units on a single acre while most of the city’s existing neighborhoods have fewer than eight homes per acre and the vast majority of those built more than three decades ago have fewer than six units per acre. In addition, the plan as drafted calls for what is referred to as mixed-uses, which include placing residential units atop commercial and office buildings.
A number of residents, alarmed that the changes envisioned in the newly drafted general plan would in large measure change the character and ambiance of what is known as “The City of Gracious Living,” appeared in droves at planning commission and council meetings, including those where the general plan update was and was not an officially scheduled topic for discussion. In overwhelming numbers those animated by the controversy expressed both general disapproval of how the public was being shoehorned into a very limited set of open hearings at which its input was to be obtained and specific elements of the general plan as pertained to density, land use and restrictions aimed at modifying transportation, circulation, recreational and entertainment options and resident behavior would be previewed.
In response, city officials lengthened the planned consideration and examination period for the document and added two public hearing dates – one for the city council and one for the planning commission – to allow for further public input.
Those efforts, however, failed to mollify those most animated by the proposed community character alterations layered into the plan. Over time even more city residents learned of the proposed changes in zoning and density codes and regulations relating to a host of matters previously considered to be the inviolate purview of property owners, such as landscaping and design choices in the city’s residential zones. This generated yet further resistance to the plan.
The city engaged in the faux pas of having the public comment period for the environmental impact statement accompanying the plan end the day before the last planning commission hearing on the plan was held on July 22. At that planning commission hearing, nearly two dozen residents, supported by an overflow crowd in the city’s meeting chambers, registered objection upon objection to specific elements contained in the proposed document.
The planning commissioners are to provide their recommendations on any changes to the land use blueprint they feel proper to the city council before that body’s final hearing at which approval of the new plan is to be voted upon. As a practical matter, however, the environmental impact statement will not include any of the input expressed at the planning commission hearing. This resulted in the perception of many of those residents participating at or attending the planning commission meeting that the city was not taking seriously or heeding in any way their input.
City officials further courted controversy by the seemingly complacent air all of them have maintained in response to the outpouring of resident discontent with the contents of the proposed general plan document. In particular, city officials came across as dismissive of objections to the higher level of density laid out in the plan versus what is currently permissible under the 1992 standards. Both Zwack and Mayor Ray Musser appear to be setting the tone for this escalation in density. Zwack is perhaps influenced by trends in general among urban planners responding to pressure for higher densities in Southern California, which historically has not embraced the dense residential neighborhood model popular in high population areas on the East Coast. Musser, a member of the county’s transportation agency, San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) and Southern California’s regional planning agency, Southern California Associated Governments (SCAG), has been swayed by those agencies’ emphasis on promoting mass public transportation and permitting high density residential development in and along those transportation corridors, including mixed uses which combine retail shops on the ground level with residential units on the second and third floor.
Some residents are opposed to the high density concept altogether, while others, who are perhaps willing to accept it in select areas such as within transportation corridors, are alarmed that the city is allowing the high density footprint to expand into parts of the city beyond those limited areas. Many have expressed frustration and despair over how Zwack and Musser, and by extension the rest of city staff and the city council, are unmoved by the protests relating to the density upsurge in Upland the plan calls for.
Crucial areas of concern are whether the sentiments expressed by residents will be disregarded altogether, whether they will be heeded by city officials in any degree and if so, how the residents’ input will be interpreted and converted into change to the document. City officials appeared reluctant to disclose anything related to those questions or to create sufficient timelines for residents to determine how their feedback has been evaluated and perhaps assimilated into the final planning document.
On July 22 residents broached the subject of a rumored “red lined” document that had been created by city staff, i.e., one containing staff’s emendations to the new general plan as originally drafted, which staff was refusing to release publicly. Expressed was the perception that city staff was being far too secretive about exactly what would be in the final draft presented to the city council.
Thus cornered, Zwack acknowledged a “red lined document” indeed existed, but he said it represented a work product that was not finalized, calling it a “midstream document. It is not appropriate to release it midstream,” he said.
It is unclear when the document finally generated based upon the “red lined” work in progress now undergoing revision will be available for public review. One indication was that the final general plan to be voted upon by the council will not be released until the Thursday evening before the Monday night city council meeting when the vote would take place.
The resistance to the city’s general plan revision process has resulted in the creation of a website by a group of residents using the slogan “Don’t Urbanize Upland.” According to postings on that website, “issues and specific requests pertaining to the new proposed general plan are being ignored… There are questions about the logic of high density housing projects while residents endure water restrictions… The city has attempted to minimize protest over the new general plan… Upland is going to be transformed into an urban city with high density housing with incentives to developers to build for low income residents, all based around anti-car transportation hubs – buses, bicycles and walking.”
Marilyn Mills is one of the prime movers in the organized resistance to various elements of the new general plan. In July, she provided to the city council a letter signed by 542 Upland residents who are opposed to the plan. She told the Sentinel this week that growing numbers of those she is in contact with have lost confidence that Zwack, the planning commission and the city council will make any substantive changes to the general plan as proposed in response to the opposition and protest rendered against it. Consequently, she said, a movement is coalescing around the goal of qualifying a referendum for the ballot that will, in essence, allow the city’s voters to override the anticipated approval of the new general plan by the city council.
Such a petition drive would require that the group seeking the vote obtain the valid signatures of at least ten percent of the city’s registered voters, a daunting task, but one that was accomplished late last year and early this year by a group seeking a citywide vote on allowing medical marijuana dispensaries to legally operate in the city. Residents skeptical about the new general plan said they believed there is a depth of passion about the future of the city and the prospect that the new general plan will erode its character which would provide the impetus to allow the petition gathering effort to succeed. They said the signatures Mills had already gathered for the letter represented a solid start toward that process.
Mills said that she was particularly concerned that “72 hours will not be enough time for everyone or anyone to read this final product that is supposed to evolve out of the red lined document they are working from. The council is not being responsible. They should let everyone have a chance to know what they are voting on before that vote takes place.”
Mayor Musser told the Sentinel that the city is on target to have the council consider the new general plan “at the second Monday in September.”
Asked about the growing belief among many Upland residents that staff, the planning commission and the council are not being responsive to their concerns about the general plan, Musser said, “I don’t see why they can’t wait to see if the commission addresses all of their concerns and makes all the changes necessary before they pass along their recommendation to us.”
Apprised of discussions among some residents about seeking a referendum on the general plan, Musser said, “I didn’t know about that,” but then offered an off-the-cuff reaction. “I don’t think that’s possible. If it is an item about taxes, that clearly goes to a vote of the people but this is about land use. The marijuana people did get their petition qualified, but how are they going to get 36,000 voters to make a decision on land use? That would be a disaster. They don’t have enough information. Most of them are commuters. They don’t know what is going on in terms of building or development.”

A crisis over the credibility of town officials is complicating the already tangled effort by Apple Valley to take over the Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company.
In response to charges that they loaded the dice in carrying out a resident survey and then cherry-picked the information gained from the results of that survey to justify their effort to shoehorn Apple Valley into subsuming the Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company, town officials this month disclosed more of the data obtained by Encinitas-based True North Research, Inc. during its study of the water service takeover issue.
Town officials are bullish on the plan to purchase – either in a willing exchange or a forced one using the town’s power of eminent domain – the Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company from Park Water Company. But Park Water is resisting the move and the town, in an effort to stampede it residents into supporting the purchase, has engaged in a public information campaign that, while embroidering threads of accuracy throughout the tapestry it is weaving, has at some points deviated from the strict truth, leaving crucial information out of the total story and outright prevaricating with respect to certain considerations.
A fair number of town residents indeed are on board for taking action that will hold down the amount of money they will need to pay in the future for water. Yet some among them question whether town officials are using that sentiment to justify a power grab that ultimately is not guaranteed to achieve the goal of keeping water service rates reasonable but is calculated rather to extend the reach of Town Hall.
The Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company was created in 1945 by Newt Bass and B.J. Westlund as an adjunct to their real estate company, Apple Valley Ranchos. The water company’s infrastructure, however, was built piecemeal rather than in accordance with a comprehensive plan of lasting duration and quality of construction, and the water company merely expanded as the town grew in fits and starts, a hodgepodge of water mains and lines built one after the other, patched together in correspondence to the new development it was called upon to serve.
Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company outlived the Apple Valley Ranchos Real Estate Company, and was eventually acquired by Park Water Company, which was then owned by the Wheeler Family and provided water to Compton, Downey and Norwalk in Los Angeles County. When the town incorporated in 1988, city officials had the opportunity to purchase the company for $2.5 million, but declined, choosing not to convert the Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company to a municipal division, concerned less about the initial expense of acquiring the utility than with the projected ongoing and constant costs of having to repair, upgrade and maintain the system. In 2011, the Carlisle Group acquired from the Wheeler Family at a cost of $102.2 million the Park Water Company, which in addition to its Los Angeles County and Apple Valley holdings, also owns the Mountain Water Company, based in Missoula, Montana, serving some 50,000 people there. The Carlyle Group saw owning Apple Valley Ranchos as a sound long term investment strategy, providing it with a future return upon its sale while providing incoming revenue in terms of the continuing sale of water to a reliable customer base.
In 2011, 23 years after having missed the opportunity of buying Apple Valley Ranchos at a reasonable or even lower-than-reasonable price, the town of Apple Valley impaneled a so-called blue ribbon committee to consider acquiring Apple Valley Ranchos, which ultimately advised against the acquisition. Prevailing sentiment abruptly changed in 2014, however, when Park, after beginning to implement in 2012 rate increases on Apple Valley Ranchos customers totaling 19 percent and then completing $8.1 million in capital improvements to the Apple Valley Ranchos water system in 2014, instituted another 30 percent rate hike on Apple Valley Ranchos customers to be implemented from 2015 until 2017. Shortly thereafter, town officials began trading notes with Missoula city officials, who were in the midst of an eventually successful effort to utilize the power of eminent domain to condemn and seek to acquire Mountain Water Company from Park Water Company. Even before Missoula prevailed in that case, town of Apple Valley officials began angling to take Apple Valley Ranchos away from Park Water Company, through a financing strategy involving issuing bonds to make the purchase. Town officials say the town will be able to service the bonded indebtedness and carry out improvements to the water system by means of the payments made to the town by water users/customers, i.e., the town’s residents, all the while providing water at a rate lower than what Park/Apple Valley Ranchos will charge its customers. Town officials say this can be achieved by simply dedicating the revenue from the water sales solely to this bonded debt service and water division operations and maintenance.
In its initial representations, the city said it envisioned Park Water selling Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company’s full assets for around $50 million. In support of this, the town obtained from what it referred to as “an independent appraisal firm” the rather wishful “fair purchase price” of $45.54 million.
That was met by Park’s response that Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company is not for sale. To town officials’ consternation, they learned that Park is in discussions with Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., a Canadian utility company, for the sale of all of its California and Montana assets. A publicly disclosed offer was $327 million.
In this way, the $45.54 million the town’s “independent” appraiser said Apple Valley Ranchos is worth previously was shown to be unrealistic. Word leaked out three months ago that despite Park Water’s insistence that Apple Valley Ranchos was not for sale separately, the town made an informal $50 million offer to purchase the company. That offer, the Sentinel is informed, was met by derision from Park Water corporate officers.
Consequently town officials undertook a more realistic assessment of what will be required to persuade Park Water to sell Apple Valley Ranchos to the town. According to town officials’ analysis, “Based on our understanding of the announcement by Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp., the purchase price was $257 million ($327 less $70 million in assumed debt) – well more than double the $102.2 million purchase price paid by the current owners, the Carlyle Group, just three years ago.”
Referring to that number as “over-inflated,” town officials state “any discussion of the acquisition of Apple Valley Ranchos must begin by separating it from the other two entities in the Park Water portfolio: Park Water in Los Angeles and the Mountain Water Company in Missoula, Montana. The town is interested only in Apple Valley Ranchos – one third of Park Water. One third of the announced purchased price by Algonquin is $86 million, which is within the range of possible values anticipated.”
Overnight, it seemed, town officials abandoned the $45.54 million valuation of the water company, engaging in a sleight-of-hand that substituted a figure that is nearly 189 percent higher than the purchase price it was previously claiming as fair. Moreover, since that calculation, Apple Valley Ranchos has moved to finalize its acquisition of the
Yermo Water Company, which will raise Apple Valley Rancho’s value yet more.
The town is holding in reserve the threat of using eminent domain against Park Water to force the sale of Apple Valley Ranchos, while carrying out an energetic public relations campaign, including what some referred to as a “push poll” to both accumulate data to allow the town to claim its residents are in favor of the acquisition and simultaneously sell the acquisition idea to residents.
Push polls are a tactic used to influence public opinion in which an ostensible survey is carried out to determine public sentiment with regard to a certain issue when in fact the questions are laced with information designed to “lead” or “push” the respondents into giving answers deemed desirable by those sponsoring the polls. Such polls do not provide a scientifically certifiable or statistically valid sampling of public opinion.
Upon learning of Encinitas-based True North’s surveying of Apple Valley residents about the water takeover proposal, Apple Valley Ranchos General Manager Tony Penna went public with the charge that the town was conducting a “push poll” to arm itself with statistics to justify its water division takeover plan.
In the aftermath of Penna’s statement, the town released selected elements of the “research” conducted by True North, all of which suggested town residents are overwhelmingly in favor of the takeover.
In the meantime, some of the people who were contacted by True North were skeptical of the methodology used in conducting the survey, characterizing it as an informational briefing in favor of the town followed by questions that sought to elicit responses amenable to the town’s goal.
In an effort to quiet criticisms that the town was seeking to manipulate data in its favor while utilizing what was purported to be a “scientific pole” as a propaganda vehicle, the town council authorized the release of 43 pages of documents related to the survey, including summaries intended for public consumption.
The “survey” was conducted between June 26 and July 3, reaching 400 registered voters in town.
The town claims in all cases and scenarios presented, voter support for the town takeover of Apple Valley Ranchos was at or greater than 60 percent.
The documents can be viewed at www.avH2Ours.com and on the town’s website at www.applevalley.org.
Richard Rorex, an Apple Valley resident and member of the chamber of commerce, indicated actual support for the water takeover is far softer than the town is indicating.
“About two thirds of the people are paying no attention to this at all. Ten percent, which includes many of the town’s movers and shakers, are avidly in favor of it. The rest of us are against it,” Rorex told the Sentinel the same week the survey was carried out.
Rorex said he was among those skeptical of both the town’s actions and its claims.
“They are justifying this proposed takeover by trying to sell the residents the idea that they can lower the water rates the residents will pay,” Rorex said. “It is going to cost X amount to provide water, no matter who delivers it. Now they are talking about eminent domain, which is total thievery, as far as I am concerned.”
Rorex said there were three prime movers behind the takeover effort – town manager Frank Robinson, assistant town manager Dennis Cron and town attorney John Brown. “They’re looking to make their name with this,” Rorex said.
Rorex said he questioned the wisdom of having the town getting involved in an arena in which the private sector has been functioning for so long. “I have never seen a government agency take over a private business and do a better job of it,” he said, citing the example of “the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which is going broke because they have been hiding their true costs.”
Rorex acknowledged that Apple Valley Ranchos’ rates have risen, and said he understood the desire to keep a check on rising prices. Even if, he asserted, the town keeps water rates down, water users will be hit with hidden fees once the town is operating the water company as a municipal division. He noted that “In all of the talk about a takeover, they never discussed connection fees. Apple Valley Ranchos does not charge a connection fee. Over in Hesperia, which owns its water agency, they charge $5,000 to $7,000 every time you want to connect to the city system. My guess is that is exactly what the town of Apple Valley will do.”
Rorex said that in the headlong rush to absorb the water company, town officials are neglecting to consider all of the angles.
“The town doesn’t have the expertise to run the water system,” he said. “When the town incorporated in 1988, they could have had it for nothing. They didn’t take it then. Now they are saying we can do it better and cheaper and that people will have control over our own water. But how much control do you have through a bureaucracy? We have a nice town council but they do not know how to run a water company.”
Rorex said he questioned the town’s assertion that “the revenue from water operations would pay for the infrastructure repairs, maintenance and water operation and cover the cost of the bonds the town will need to float to make the purchase. I do not think those are valid numbers.”

The county’s land use services department has committed $2.22 million toward payments to seven firms scheduled to provide permit inspection and plan reviews over the next three years.
Five of those companies are based outside of San Bernardino County.
Without specifying the amount each of the service providers will receive, Tom Hudson, the director of the land use services department recommended that the board of supervisors authorize the county’s purchasing agent to issue a master blanket purchase order, in the aggregate amount of $2,220,000, for the provision of building & safety permit inspection and plan review services with Bureau Veritas North America, Inc. of Costa Mesa; California Code Check, Inc. of Westlake Village; CSG Consultants, Inc. of Santa Ana; Jason Addison Smith Consulting Services, Inc. of Upland; JLee Engineering of Alhambra; NV5, Inc. of Sacramento; and Willdan of San Bernardino.
According to Gia Kim, the assistant director of land use services, “On May 22, 2015, Request for Qualifications (RFQ) No. LUSD15-LUS-1474 seeking proposals from qualified vendors for various plan review and inspection services for all of the unincorporated areas of San Bernardino County was advertised through the County’s Electronic Procurement Network (ePro) and was sent to all vendors within the ePro system with a vendor code that aligned with the services being requested.”
She said that Bureau Veritas North America, California Code Check, CSG Consultants, Jason Addison Smith Consulting, JLee Engineering, NV5, and Willdan responded .
“A three-member committee, which included staff from land use services department administration and building & safety, evaluated the proposals for technical qualifications, cost, and references,” Kim reported in a staff memo to the board of supervisors dated August 11. “After completion of the evaluation process, the land use services department is recommending purchase orders with all the vendors as each met the RFQ requirements and are well-qualified to provide the requested services.”
According to county building official Jim Sowers, “The work will be apportioned by availability of the vendors to provide plan reviews and inspections. At the same time we will look at the cost associated with each of their services and how to make sure they can comply with our performance measures, which will include inspection plan turnaround times. No one company will end up with all of the money distributed as we go forth.”

The judge overseeing Falossi vs. Koenig, one of two interrelated civil suits testing the extent industrial uses can fit into desert neighborhoods, has entered a tentative judgment in that matter. Judge David Cohn ruled, essentially, that David Falossi, whose art studio engages in the fabrication of oversized sculptures involving the use of industrial processes including welding, stone grinding and glass grinding, long ago established a prescriptive easement allowing him to travel over property now owned by his neighbors Fritz Koenig and Nora Fraser. That easement allows Falossi to access his land, upon which his home, which houses six of his seven children and his art studio, is situated.
Koenig and a lawyer for Fraser, Louisa Pensanti, have asserted that Koenig and Fraser had through “neighborly accommodation” permitted Falossi and his family members to transit over Hoot Owl Trail, a dirt road that winds through the rustic neighborhood Falossi, Koenig and Fraser share in the town of Yucca Valley. Hoot Owl Trail along two spots passes entirely over separate properties Koenig and Fraser own. Koenig and Fraser maintained that Falossi and his family were permitted to utilize the portion of Hoot Owl Trail on their property only because they had granted them permission and that Falossi and his family did not have an established right – or easement – to use the road without limit or restriction. Koenig and Fraser maintained that they were at liberty to withdraw the permission they had granted Falossi and his family at any time.
An easement is a right to use and/or enter onto the real property owned by someone else. In January 2013, Falossi filed suit against Koenig and Fraser, seeking to obtain the permanent right to transit over the portions of Hoot Owl Trail which stretch across their properties and prevent both Koenig and Fraser from stopping his forklift or loaded or unloaded ten-ton transport truck from traversing their land.
Koenig has long taken issue with what he characterizes as the industrial nature of Falossi’s fabricating operation that is central to his sculpturing and artwork, which involves industrial processes. Koenig maintains that such activity is incompatible with a rural residential neighborhood and out of compliance with the town’s codes that were in effect since shortly after the town’s incorporation. Moreover, Koenig has objected to Falossi utilizing the dirt road across his property to drive forklifts and a large truck to transport both the raw material Falossi uses in his fabrication process as well as the finished artwork, which in some cases weighs in excess of ten thousand pounds, to and from his home studio.
After Falossi filed suit against him and Fraser, Koenig upon investigation responded with a lawsuit of his own against Falossi, charging the sculptor with operating a nuisance and engaging in violations of the business and professions code and unlawful business practices, maintaining in his suit that Falossi was operating his home-based studio without a home occupation permit for the previous three-and-one-half years and at other times since 1989.
Falossi’s case against Koenig and Koenig’s case against Falossi is being heard by Cohn, who is conducting both cases as a bench trial in which no jury has been impaneled. Instead of a jury, it is Cohn who will render the verdict in the matter. Cohn heard Falossi’s case against Koenig and Fraser first, beginning on July 13. The presentation of evidence in that case and closing arguments concluded last week. On Wednesday of this week, August 12, Cohn entered his tentative opinion which found that Falossi, who has occupied his property since 1989, established a prescriptive easement by continuous use of the road for the statutorily required five year period needed to establish such an easement. In making his finding, Cohn rejected theories propounded by both Koenig and Pensanti
based upon an entire column of cases starting with the 1901 Clarke v Clarke seminal case that asserted for a prescriptive easement to be established, the property in question had to be used in a fashion that is “adverse” or “hostile” to the title and a claim of right had to be asserted. In his testimony, Falossi stated he had not been “hostile” in his use of the road and had made no claim of right to it while he was using it.
Key points argued by Koenig and Pensanti but rejected in Cohn’s tentative ruling is that the “use adverse to the title” and the claim must be communicated to the landowner(s) in order to have the prescriptive period begin. Koenig and Pensanti took the position that the existence of a dirt trail used by many people did not communicate that David Falossi is claiming any right. Central to the defense presented in Koenig and Fraser’s behalf was that the “notice of adversity” must be more explicitly communicated than just through the existence and use of the driveway.
Koenig, and Pensanti on behalf of Fraser, asserted that all of Falossi’s use and all the use since 1989 by the various neighbors in the enclave of others’ property took place as an extension of neighborly accommodation, an informal working system among those living in the area and that Koenig’s and Fraser’s predecessors’ in interest likewise gave “permission by silence” just as the Supreme Court in Clarke v Clarke 1901 discussed.
Case law in California with regard to easements is contradictory, with some court rulings holding that a forthright claim to the easement must be made by the eventual easement holder for five years prior to the easement being granted and other case law saying continuous use and occupation of another individual’s land constitutes a claim.
Koenig had stated that he had no objection to Falossi or his family using the road to reach their destinations while using passenger vehicles but that he drew the line at the use of large scale and heavy vehicles not normally associated with typical residential use.
In his ruling, Cohn held that Falossi’s continuous use of the road for the aforementioned but unspecified five year period, including that by his family’s cars and the truck used to transport the raw materials he used to fashion his artwork and the completed large scale pieces of sculpture, qualified him to continue to use the road in that fashion. Cohn’s tentative ruling, however, did not explicitly reference Falossi’s forklift or his crane.
Both sides have until August 22 to file responses to Cohn’s tentative ruling.
This week the courtroom action moved on to the matter of Koenig vs. Falossi. In an early ruling in that case, Cohn dismissed the causes of action pertaining to Falossi’s violations of the Business & Professions Code and unlawful business practices, but allowed the nuisance claim to proceed.

Vestiges of the 2013 San Bernardino recall are apparent in the 2015 election season in the county seat.
Two years ago, San Bernardino Residents For Responsible Government, which was founded by, led and in large measure bankrolled by developer Scott Beard, circulated petitions seeking to remove from office mayor Patrick Morris, city attorney Jim Penman and council members Wendy McCammack, Fred Shorrett, Rikki Van Johnson, John Valdivia, Virginia Marquez, Robert Jenkins, and Chas Kelley.
Penultimately, the group dropped or failed to qualify its recall effort against Morris, Shorrett, Johnson, Marquez, Jenkins and Kelley. Ultimately, the recall succeeded against Penman and McCammack, though McCammack qualified, despite her recall as a councilwoman, for a run-off election as mayor, losing to Carey Davis. Of note is that in short order, two of the others originally targeted for recall, Kelley and Jenkins, resigned from office after being charged and then convicted with criminal conduct.
Gary Saenz was selected by voters in 2013 to succeed Penman when he was recalled. This year Saenz is unchallenged in his bid for reelection.
James Mulvihill was elected that same year to succeed McCammack on the council in the city’s 7th Ward. Unlike Saenz, he faces opposition in the form of Beard – the recall proponent – as well as Damon L. Alexander, Leticia Garcia and Kimberly Robel.
Valdivia, who turned back the recall effort against him in the Third District in 2013, is running again but will face no opposition, ensuring him a berth on the council until 2019.
Fifth Ward Councilman Henry Nickel is up for re-election, after serving less than a half term upon being elected in a special 2014 election to replace Kelley. He is being opposed by Brian W. Davison.
In the 6th Ward, Rikke Van Johnson has been on the council for nearly three terms since he was first elected in 2003. He has chosen to not seek reelection. Four candidates have filed their candidacy papers to succeed him: Anthony Jones, Rafael Rawls, Bessine Richard and Roxanne Williams.
Perennial city treasurer David Kennedy, who has faced an electoral challenge only once since being elected in 1991, is being challenged by Karmel Roe.
City Clerk Georgeann Hanna is not facing opposition.

The county this week issued $450,000 worth of non-competitive master blanket purchase orders to six vendors for vehicle and equipment parts and services for the county’s fleet management department over the next three years.
Four of the six vendors are located within the county.
According to a report dated August 11 from Roger G. Weaver, the director of the fleet management department, to the board of supervisors, “The fleet management department provides vehicle maintenance and repair services for the majority of the county’s fleet of vehicles and heavy equipment. The recommended actions will authorize the purchasing agent to issue non-competitive master blanket purchase orders to six vendors for vehicle and equipment parts and services for the period of August 11, 2015 through August 10, 2018, for an aggregate total amount not to exceed $450,000. Purchase orders will enable fleet management to provide parts and/or services in the most efficient and expedient manner possible. These vendors have been issued non-competitive purchase orders annually; it was determined that this item requires board approval since fleet maintenance has used these vendors for parts and services more than three years or they are exceeding $100,000.”
According to documentation contained in the report, Allsup Corporation of Upland has already been paid $37,179 to serve as the department’s compressed natural gas station contractor and was given the non-competitive bid because it is the only authorized distributor in the area; Crafco Inc. of Chandler, Arizona has already received $29,886 toward its contract as a crack sealer machine manufacturer because it is a proprietary equipment maintenance provider; Cummins Cal Pacific of Bloomington was given $89,571 as part of its contract to supply Cummins engines and Onan generators because it is a proprietary equipment maintenance provider; Nixon-Egli Equipment of Ontario has received $18,077 on its contract for the use of a Gradall excavator because it is the only authorized distributor; the RDO Equipment Co. of Riverside has been paid $53,582 on its contract for the use of John Deere Equipment because it is the only authorized distributor, and Yale-Chase Equipment Fontana was given a $30,384 contract for a Generac Generator because it is the only authorized distributor.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Is Ontario flying by the seat of its pants?
Now that Ontario has regained control of its hometown airport, Ontario officials would have us believe that the evil genii has been stuffed back into his bottle, Lucifer has been banned to the most distant spot in the universe and encapsulated in a million mile thick wall of ice surrounded by an impenetrable and inescapable ring of fire, God is in his Heaven, all is right with the world and things have gone from being execrably bad to perfect in Ontario. Ontario’s control of its own airport, which after all is its God-given right, has given it control of its very destiny and has already transformed life in the Inland Empire, as we know it. Last month, Los Angeles was hell bent on destroying the Inland Empire’s economy and had in its possession the means to do just that. Now that Ontario Airport has slipped from its grasp, Ontario is economically invulnerable…
According to Ontario officials, the activity at Ontario Airport was not an indicator of Ontario’s economy and that of the area surrounding the city, but the economic engine of Ontario, western San Bernardino County and the hub of the Inland Empire. Now that Ontario has control of the airport, in the days and weeks ahead, the number of airlines flying into and out of Ontario will go from the rather anemic eight currently to twice that number. By October or November there should be three times that many. Early next year there should be a good thirty airlines flying out of Ontario. Those already there will double and then triple the number of their flights. The airport’s problem next year will not be too few flights but rather too many. The planes will be backed up a couple of dozen at a time on the taxiways waiting to take off…
There is a common warning that people should be careful about what they wish for because sometimes those wishes come true. Ontario officials’ collective wish of regaining full control of Ontario Airport has now been granted. For a mere $260 million, far less than the $450 million to $550 million Los Angeles could have sold the airport for to a private company, Ontario will have complete autonomy over that facility. For the last five years, as ridership there continued to slip from the 7.2 million passengers that embarked or disembarked there in 2007 and as the airlines became increasingly reluctant to schedule flights into or out of Ontario, Ontario officials have attributed this to the incompetence, malevolence, and perfidy of Los Angeles…
Perhaps Ontario officials are correct. Under their Midas touch, the airport may make a comeback. But it is just as likely it will not. Whom will Ontario then blame? Will Ontario officials seek to demonize themselves?
A lot goes into running an airport. I happen to know that from experience. And my experience is just with a small airport. An international airport is a horse of a different color. One complaint registered against Los Angeles and its corporate entity, Los Angeles World Airports, over and over again was that the cost of flying out of Ontario was too high. Passengers, faced with ticket prices to travel to the same destination that were anywhere from $50 to $80 to $120 to $140 more at Ontario than Los Angeles, often opted to fly from Los Angeles International Airport. Ontario officials laid the blame for this at the feet of Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports. But this blame was misplaced. It is true that Ontario Airport imposed a higher enplaned passenger fee on the airlines than did Los Angeles International Airport. But it is barely significant: $14.50 per enplaned passenger at Ontario, which is $3.50 more than the $11 charged at Los Angeles International. The $3.50 difference was not what drove the airlines to charge higher traveling rates to passengers embarking at Ontario as opposed to Los Angeles. Rather, it is a basic principle of business economics controlling that difference: customer volume…
In business, whatever you do – making widgets, manufacturing Styrofoam cups, baking apple pies, cutting hair, laying concrete, repairing carburetors, flying airplanes – costs you money. You make money by having customers buy or pay for the products you make or services you deliver. An important component of going into business or taking on a certain job is having the confidence that you will have sufficient sales to defray your costs of production or service. The more customers you have, the lower you can set your prices, and therefore your profit margin, because increasing your volume of sales ensures you will have enough incoming revenue to offset or defray your expenses and, beyond that, provide you with a profit. If you do not have the confidence of having a decent volume of customers, you must then raise your prices to increase your profit margin per item or service delivered to ensure you will meet your production or service provision costs. Thus, this confidence has a synergistic effect: Low prices bring in more customers. More customers mean higher volume, allowing you to keep your prices low. But there is an anergistic effect from a lack of confidence: If you don’t have the guarantee of a lot of customers, you must charge more for each product or rendering of service to justify producing that product or providing that service in the first place. And the more you charge, the greater the likelihood that your potential customers, faced with the possibility of purchasing the product you sell or the service you deliver at a lower cost elsewhere, will elect not to do business with you…
The few airlines flying out of Ontario were beset with this anergy. For them to schedule flights into and out of Ontario, they ideally wanted to have the confidence that there would be, not just on a single day or once in a while but on a consistent basis, a lot of passengers. Each flight costs the airlines a set amount of money for the plane’s flight crew, its ground crew, its fuel, its maintenance, its depreciation. It is therefore desirable that the planes be filled or be close to filled with passengers on those flights. A flight here or there with a half full plane is acceptable if the vast majority of that airline’s flights from or to that particular destination are near capacity. But if on a regular basis flights from a specific place or to a specific destination involve planes that are two-thirds full, or half full or at a third capacity, the airline is in danger of losing money. To offset this, the airlines must raise their prices for flying to or from those locations…
It is a simple fact that Los Angeles is a much larger place than Ontario. In addition, it is a more economically vital place than Ontario. Therefore, Los Angeles enjoys a greater volume of passengers at its airport than does the airport in Ontario. This is a simple mathematical reality. There is no sinister element there. There is no malevolence in Los Angeles by virtue of it being larger than Ontario. Los Angeles, Ontario’s big brother, did not seek to smother its little brother in his crib. The airlines were simply reacting to mathematical and economic reality in limiting their flights into and out of Ontario and in charging their passengers more for providing service from Ontario…
Volume or lack thereof manifests synergistically and anergistically in other ways. Ontario is about to learn this. Take fuel, for instance. Modern airports have fuel farms, i.e., large tanks or bladders, sometimes above ground but usually underground, which hold jet fuel of different types, such as kerosene or naphtha. The larger the airport, the more fuel it buys. The more fuel you buy, the better the price you can get. I will let my readers derive for themselves a rough mental comparison of how much fuel Los Angeles World Airports buys for Los Angeles International Airport and how much it buys for Ontario International Airport. I don’t know the precise number of gallons, but I can tell you it is a lot. When Los Angeles World Airports stops buying aviation fuel for Ontario Airport, it will still be buying a lot for Los Angeles International Airport. It will still be buying so much, it will be able to get that fuel at as about as low of a price as it can be purchased. When Ontario starts buying aviation fuel for Ontario Airport, it will be purchasing at most about ten percent of the fuel that Los Angeles World Airports is purchasing. My guess is Ontario will be paying more for the fuel that will go into Ontario Airport’s fuel farm than Los Angeles World Airports will be paying for the fuel that goes into its fuel farm. So when the airlines fuel up at Ontario Airport, they will be paying more than they will pay in Los Angeles. Those prices will be reflected in the ticket prices passengers will purchase for flights from those respective airports. Tell me again how Ontario owning and running Ontario Airport is going to make it a more viable aerodrome…
Before and during World War II the Nazis whipped the German people up into a frenzy through the use of propaganda. That propaganda consisted of telling the Germans that they were the Übermenschen, the supermen, and that foreigners were Untermenschen, or subhumans. I have a great deal of respect for Germans and German culture. As far as appealing to German pride goes, telling them they were very capable and had a lot of potential was probably okay, and they did well for themselves and their country, at least initially, constructing the Autobahn and an impressive industrial sector that made it very difficult to defeat them when the war came. The problem, or one of the problems, however, was that along the way the German people started to actually believe the propaganda. They believed they were supermen and that all others were subhuman. It took a Herculean effort and a lot of ugly things and destruction and the shedding of a lot of blood I would rather forget about, but in the end, the German people learned that the propaganda they were fed was just not true…
Ontario’s officials engaged in a propaganda campaign. They have suggested they are supermen and that Los Angeles officials are evil and selfish men from whose clutches Ontario Airport needed to be plucked so that Ontario can assume its rightful spot as the economic center of the Inland Empire. They, and they alone, they assured all of us, could make the local economic engine hum if they were just entrusted once again with control of airport, which is the key to financial security for the rest of the coming generation. A lot of people have come to believe this propaganda. The deal returning the airport to Los Angeles has been worked out but it will take another year or so for it to be finalized, with the city councils for both cities having to vote on this and the Federal Aviation Administration having to approve the hand off. The deal could yet be rescinded or called off if the parties determined that it is in their own or mutual interest to allow Los Angeles to continue to guide Ontario Airport’s operations…
I ask again: Is Ontario flying by the seat of its pants?

By Mark Gutglueck
The indigenous inhabitants in the Mojave Desert area of what later became part of San Bernardino County, the Mojave and Serrano Indians and their ancestors, according to anthropologists, evolved into 22 clans living along the Colorado River and four clans living along the Mojave River by the time the first European explorers arrived in the 18th century.
A surprisingly complex social arrangement between the clans was established, mandating marriage was to take place only between but not among clans, which had the salutary effect of limiting interbreeding and extending genetic diversity within a population estimated to have never exceeded 14,000.
There is evidence that hostility did exist from time to time between the Mojave and other tribes, for example with the Chemehuevi, although there is indication that at various times there was cooperation between the two peoples and, indeed, in the face of some challenges the Mojave and Chemehuevi were allies. The clans were dispersed to the more habitable, that is to say the least inhospitable, spots in the desert, ones which generally featured a watershed and natural geological formations that afforded some level of natural shelter from the wind. They also constructed homes and sometimes partially subterranean structures composed of wattle, clay, mud, and arrowweed. Each clan reserved unto itself possession of weapons, such as bows and arrows, and traps, as well as tools and pottery and baskets.
A source of food for the Serrano and Mojave Indians consisted of rabbits, which were hunted down by parties of men who drove the game into a pre-positioned mesh net by beating in a coordinated row through areas of the desert bush known to be heavily populated with rabbits.
Among the more habitable spots in the area of the Mojave now known as Victor Valley were Atongai in what is now the eastern end of Hesperia, Guapiabit in what is now South Hesperia, Nakaviat near the upper Mojave Narrows and Arongaibit in present-day Summit Valley, all of which were Serrano outposts.
In 1772, Pedro Fages, a Spanish military commander, set out to chase some deserting soldiers from San Diego. He followed their trail up the San Diego River Valley and, high up in the Descanso Mountains, he found that the AWOL soldiery had continued east into the Borrego Desert. Subsequently, he made is way into what is now San Bernardino, encountering the native inhabitants there.
On January 8, 1774, the Sonoran-born Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza departed from Tubac, south of present day Tucson, Arizona accompanied by three Catholic priests, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, 65 cattle and 140 horses. On this expedition, De Anza traveled along the Rio Altar in Mexico before heading north to eventually cross the Colorado River at its confluence with the Gila River. Establishing good relations with the Yuma Indians, De Anza headed across the California Desert and reached Mission San Gabriel Arcángel near Los Angeles on March 22, 1774. He then followed El Camino Real to Monterey, Alta California’s capital, which he reached by April 19th. He returned to Tubac by late May, 1774. de Anza, who was looking for a trade route between Sonora and Monterey in Alta California, encountered both the Mojave Indians, who inhabited the desert region of what is now San Bernardino County, and the Cahulla, who occupied what is now the lower end of San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
One of the three priest accompanying De Anza was Father Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés, a Franciscan who in 1768 had been assigned to Mission San Xavier del Bac, today Mission San Xavier, located about ten miles south of Tucson Arizona.
The Franciscan commitment to poverty and self-denying labor in the cause of spreading the Gospel of Christ prepared Garces for the arduous life he led as an explorer. His contemporaries, including another priest, Pedro Font, described him as having “little difficulty with Indians.” He made a study of Indian customs and habits that was unsurpassed by his peers, including Father Junipero Serra. There are accounts of his dining with relish on what the Spaniards described as the Indians’ disgusting foods, which Garces defended as good for the stomach and digestion.
According to other trailblazers who had traveled with DeAnza, in Garces God had fashioned a man for but one purpose: to live among the Indians.
In late 1775, Garces left the de Anza expedition and traveled alongside the Colorado River, crossing to the California side at what is present-day Needles, and took on two Mojave Indian guides to make his way across the Mojave Desert westward. It was during this sojourn that Garces became the first white man to pass through the Victor Valley. He came into present day Barstow, Helendale and Hesperia while traveling along the Mojave River early in 1776, then following the Indian trail down the Cajon Pass, reaching Mission San Gabriel on March 26 1776.
It was not until 1806 that non-native exploration of the desert resumed, when Father Jose Maria Zalvidea, departing from El Camino Real, set out eastward across the Mojave, taking an Indian trail which led him to Atongai and then Guapiabit, both in present-day Hesperia.
Throughout the early 1800s, the Indians in Atongai, Guapiabit, Nakaviat and Arongaibit sheltered runaway Indians from the Missions who had fled from the lives of European discipline enforced by the Franciscans.
In 1810 San Bernardino was founded and named by the Franciscan missionary-priest Francisco Dumetz. Dumetz had been invited into the area by some natives, who had begun to live on local rancherias and were interested in European know-how. On May 20, 1810. Dumetz built a rude shelter to serve as a chapel and raised a cross, probably at Bunker Hill, as a beacon to the natives to come to the spot to worship.
Some Guachama, who were described as Gabrielino Indians and “docile,” came into the San Bernardino Valley to live. After the earthquake of 1812, they migrated back toward Los Angeles.
Two adobe warehouses were built on Cottonwood Row in 1819, when the fathers at San Gabriel again looked to the San Bernardino Valley, this time as a suitable place to pasture excess cattle. There they found the Serrano and to a lesser extent the Cahuilla as occupants.
Perhaps as early as 1820 but no later than 1823 construction of a zanja, an aqueduct conveying water from the Santa Ana River, began. Daniel Sexton, an American, was said to be present during the latter stages of the Zanja’s construction. Sexton married an Indian girl who was a niece of Chief Solano of the Serrano. The old chief later lived with Sexton.
Sexton recounted that Solano built the zanja with assistance of his Indians, the men using shoulder blades of cattle for shovels and the women carrying off the dirt in baskets.
In 1826, Jedediah Smith, who traded in pelts, crossed the Colorado River and followed the Mojave River upriver and then climbed over the Cajon Pass and continued west to Mission San Gabriel. Smith was among the last white man to have non-hostile interaction with the Serrano Indians, whom he believed to be “Amachubas,” prior to the Mojave Massacre of 1827. Kit Carson came through the Mojave Desert in 1829. The same year Antonio Armijo, a wool and livestock trader, established a trail that ran almost directly across the Mojave to the Cajon Pass. In the early 1830s, two Americans who had become naturalized Mexican citizens led a party across the Mojave on a trail that would become a major livestock driving route.
Beginning in the 1830 and continuing over the next four decades, diseases that had originated in Europe and elsewhere outside of North America took a tremendous toll on the Indians in the Mojave Desert, nearly wiping out the relatively peaceful Serrano clans. In time, the Serranos who some anthropologists say had survived for nearly a hundred centuries in the Mojave River Valley, were replaced with Mojave Indians, described in contemporary accounts as somewhat more aggressive than the Serranos, and Paiute Indians, who were characterized as far more aggressive.
Don Antonio Maria Lugo, who was born in Spain, came to California as a soldier of Spain and was given a land grant to San Antonio Rancho by the Spanish Viceroy in 1810. Don Antonio had three sons – Jose del Carmen Lugo, Jose Maria Lugo and Vicente Lugo – as well as a nephew, Diego Sepulveda. He purchased for his sons and his nephew the Rancho San Bernardino from the Mexican Government in 1842.
In 1841, more than 20 Americans, including William Workman and John Rowland, came to California over the Spanish Trail as part of the annual Overland Trade Exposition and remained, building homes and establishing permanent residences.
In the early and mid-1840s, horse, mule and cattle thieving had grown so rampant in California that Mexican officials in Los Angeles dispatched inspectors to examine the markings on eastern bound cattle before they ascended the Cajon Pass.
In 1844 General John Charles Fremont passed through the Victor Valley, using the Mojave River as a guide for a portion of his route to Kansas City.
Following the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845, hostilities broke out between the United States and Mexico, culminating in the Mexican American War, which lasted from April 25, 1846 until February 2, 1848.
During the war, many Americans then in Southern California who were living peaceably under Mexican rule and had assimilated in large measure into the California population and had married into Mexican families, ultimately sided with their native country and fought against the Mexican forces.
In June 1846, the Bear Flag Revolt, led by a group of Americans living in California, began. The rebels defied the continuation of rule by the Mexican government and proclaimed California an independent republic.
The Battle of Chino took place some five months after the Mexican-American War began, on September 26–27, 1846.
Prior to the battle, 24 Americans led by Benjamin D. Wilson took refuge at the adobe house of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino then owned by Isaac Williams. Williams, originally from Pennsylvania, had become a Mexican citizen – a prerequisite for owning land – and married Maria de Jesus Lugo, daughter of Antonio Maria Lugo. The Californios doubted the loyalty of Wilson’s men and set out to arrest them.
Serbulo Varela, Diego Sepulveda and Ramon Carrillo left Los Angeles with about fifty men, while José del Carmen Lugo with another fifteen to twenty men left from San Bernardino to converge upon Rancho del Chino. On the night of September 26, 1846, the adobe ranch house was surrounded by the Californios. At dawn, the following day, gunfire was exchanged resulting in one Californio, Carlos Ballesteros, son of the grantee of Rancho Rosa Castilla, being killed with two wounded and three Americans wounded. When the Californios attempted to set fire to the roof of the house, Wilson surrendered to Varela. This brief engagement became known as the Battle of Chino.
Wilson and his men were taken prisoner and marched to Paredon Blanco in Boyle Heights, the main camp of the Californio forces. The prisoners were nearly executed in retaliation for the death of Carlos Ballesteros. But because many of the Americans were related by marriage to Mexican families, Varela and others intervened. The prisoners were taken to Rancho Los Cerritos, near present-day Long Beach, where they were detained and ultimately released.
The Bear Flag Republic was short-lived because soon after the Bear Flag was raised, the U.S. military began occupying California. In 1848, the U.S. Congress presumed to form a commission to look into the validity of the existing Spanish and Mexican land grants in California, and most of those were recognized and sustained.
Also in 1848, just after the United States took legal possession of California, Mormon soldiers who had garrisoned California during the Mexican War cleared a trail that could accommodate a wagon up the Cajon Pass.
California came into the union in 1850.
Don Antonio Maria Lugo had engaged in the life of a cattle rancher until the coming of the Mormons in 1851. He had purchased Rancho San Bernardino for $800 in hides and tallow. He sold it to the Mormons for $77,000,
In 1851, 437 Mormons traveled from Utah across Nevada and then the California Desert, traveling up the Mojave River and then taking the Cajon Pass down to a settlement in San Bernardino. For most of the 1850s, the transportation of materials, supplies and goods between Mormons in Salt Lake City and the Mormon colonies in San Bernardino and the San Bernardino Mountains constituted the major activity along the Old Spanish Trail, which bisected today’s Victor Valley. In 1855 an outpost called the Mormon Grocery was in existence along the Mojave River near present-day Barstow.
The trail was used by prospectors from the east heading to the goldfields in Newhall but by the mid-1850s some seeking fortunes were panning and sluicing along the Mojave River near the San Bernardino Mountains.
In 1853, San Bernardino County was formed, an offshoot of Los Angeles County.
In May 1855, San Bernardino County was divided into three separate districts, with the county’s desert area designated as the First District. On May 7, 1855 Daniel Stark was named the First District’s supervisor, William C. Crosby the county’s Second District supervisor and Louis Rubidoux the county’s Third District supervisor.