The county this week extended by five years and seventeen days the time a meat packing plant will be permitted to maintain its ongoing operations on county owned property in the former Chino Agricultural Preserve.
On October 6, the board of supervisors approved an amendment to its lease agreement with American Beef Packers, Inc. to extend the term from October 15, 2015 to October 31, 2020 for 34.77 acres of county-owned dairy land and improvements in Ontario for total revenue in the amount of $314,947.
According to Terry W. Thompson, the director of the San Bernardino County Real Estate Services Department, “On May 18, 1993, utilizing funds made available to the county under the provisions of Proposition 70, the county purchased a 34.77 acre dairy, which included a 3,050 square foot single family residence and a 3,275 square foot single family residence, located on Schaefer Avenue in Ontario. The dairy has been leased continually to two tenants, including American Beef Packers, since 1993, with the exception of a two-year period from December 2008 to October 2010, during which time, the dairy remained vacant and unleased.”
The county paid $2.2 million for the property, located at 7777 Schaefer Avenue, the Sentinel has learned. The county made the purchase under the auspices of California Proposition 70, or the Wildlife, Coastal, and Park Land Conservation Act of 1988, which was approved by voters on June 7, 1988 and authorized a $776 million general obligation bond to provide funds for the “acquisition, development, rehabilitation, protection, or restoration of park, wildlife, coastal, and natural lands in California including lands supporting unique or endangered plants or animals.”
According to Thompson, “On November 16, 2010, the board of supervisors approved a three-year lease, with one two-year option to extend the term with American Beef Packers for the 34.77 acre dairy, including the two residences, for use in producing beef cattle. Loss of dairy equipment, due to vandalism and theft during the period of the vacancy, precluded the use of the property as a dairy. The original term of the lease was from October 15, 2010 to October 14, 2013. In the five years since the lease was originally approved, the board has approved one amendment which extended the term from October 15, 2013 to October 14, 2015.”
Over the last two years, American Beef Packers was leasing the property at the bargain basement price of $51,000 per year, i.e., $102,000 from October 2013 until this month.
American Beef Packers signaled to the county’s real estate services department it wanted to renew the lease and remain on the property.
According to Thompson, “The real estate services department conducted a market survey of comparable leased dairy property in San Bernardino County and determined that the rent should be increased to more accurately reflect current market conditions. This new lease agreement provides for the continued use by American Beef Packers of 34.77 acres of county-owned dairy land, which includes two residences at 7777 and 7849 Schaefer Avenue in Ontario, from October 15, 2015 to October 31, 2020 [and] provides for an increase in the monthly rent, and excludes the use of the dairy barn and associated milking equipment. All other terms and conditions of the lease remain the same.”
In this way, the monthly rent will jump from the current $4,250 to $5,201.58 per month.
Under the lease, maintenance on the property is to be provided by the tenant except for the residential septic system, roof, heating and air conditioning system, and all major subsurface infrastructure systems including water wells, well casing, septic systems and utility piping located on the dairy, unless the cause of such failure is due to negligence of the tenant.

Major environmental and financial liability brought on through cavalier action by officials in the county’s public works division in the 1990s continues to haunt San Bernardino County, despite the expenditure of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in an effort to redress the situation.
This week, the board of supervisors appropriated another half million dollars for engineering and contamination monitoring services at the former location of a hazardous waste disposal facility within the footprint of the Mid-Valley Landfill in Rialto. That expenditure follows $2.43 million already paid to the engineering firm, Geo-Logic Associates, doing that monitoring and at least $6.325 million paid to two law firms the county has retained to represent it with regard to legal claims made against it by local water agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.
At the root of the matter is perchlorate contamination in north Rialto that has seeped into the region’s water table and is continuing to spread.
In north Rialto, Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich and Emhart Industries had operations that were ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. All of those operations utilized perchlorate in their manufacturing processes. Near those operations Broco Inc. maintained a hazardous-waste disposal operation which was active from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s.
The county purchased the Broco property in 1994 and used it in the expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
In the late 1990s, a plume of contaminants containing perchlorate was found to be migrating through the local water table. Perchlorate is a product used in the manufacture of both fireworks and ordnance. In very minute quantities perchlorate can wreak havoc on the thyroid gland.
It has been established that the five aforementioned corporate entities – Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich, and Emhart Industries – were responsible for the accumulation and release of the perchlorate.
Water agency officials, state officials and federal officials also believe the county of San Bernardino engaged in activity that exacerbated the perchlorate problem.
Officials with the Rialto-based West Valley Water District and their lawyers have alleged that San Bernardino County razed and buried structures at the Broco facility to make way for the landfill expansion, action those officials maintain was not only illegal but worsened the contamination of the groundwater below Rialto.
According to attorney Barry Groveman, who represents the West Valley Water District, it appears the county simply knocked the hazardous waste facility down and spread the debris around before burying it. That action was against the law, Groveman said.
Groveman said the county was in violation of state hazardous waste handling regulations and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Burying hazardous waste and storing it without a permit is illegal.
The Environmental Protection Agency has designated the north Rialto area as one of its Superfund sites, which makes federal funding for remediation available but also carries with it a requirement that the parties responsible for the contamination assist in the effort. Simultaneously, the EPA will apply the Superfund money toward the remediation. Eventually, if any of the parties deemed responsible for the contamination refuse to sponsor or otherwise pay for a share of the remediation, the EPA will sue and under federal law, any party proven responsible will be required to pay triple the cost of that portion of the clean up for which it was the contaminating party.
The ability to impose triple damages serves as an incentive for the responsible entities to undertake the clean-up on their own or participate in funding an EPA-sponsored remediation.
In 2004, Rialto filed an action in the U.S. District Court, known as City of
Rialto v. United States Department of Defense et al. relating to the perchlorate contamination, alleging defense contractors were in part responsible for the situation. In early 2005, Colton filed a similar action in U.S. District Court, known as City of Colton v. American Promotional Events, Inc. West, et al. Rialto and Colton brought their respective actions against a number of defendants, including the county and Emhart, seeking response costs and injunctive relief to, among other things, ensure that perchlorate and TCE in the Basin would be cleaned up.
In June 2010, the District Court consolidated the United States action with actions which had been refiled by Rialto and Colton. Rialto dropped the portion its lawsuit against BF Goodrich after the company agreed to undertake a remediation effort. BF Goodrich did pay a total of $4 million – $1 million each to the cities of Fontana, Rialto and Colton as well as to the West Valley Water District. That money was used to treat specific wells that were producing perchlorate-laden water but did not redress the underlying problems in the aquifer. An EPA-designed program of remediation, consisting of contaminated water being pumped out of the ground to then be treated and distributed to water districts, is underway. It will likely take two decades or more for the perchlorate levels to be reduced to acceptable limits.
In May 2009, then-county counsel Ruth Stringer convinced the county board of supervisors to retain the law firm of Gallagher & Gallagher at an original cost of $710,000. The legal services Gallagher & Gallagher was to provide pertained to allegations against the county relating to perchlorate contamination in connection with particular matters that fall outside of the defense work covered by the county’s insurance. Gallagher & Gallagher currently represents the county in connection with the federal and state court litigation and federal and state agencies’ investigations of the perchlorate groundwater contamination in the Rialto-Colton Basin. Records show that so far the county has paid Gallagher & Gallagher a total of $2,325,000 and that another law firm, Price Postel & Parma has been paid $4 million by the county for its work with regard to perchlorate contamination litigation.
Last month, the county entered into a four-party implementation agreement with Emhart Industries, Inc.; the city of Rialto and the Rialto Utility Authority, collectively; and the city of Colton.
That agreement calls for the construction of a combined water capture and treatment system to be operated by the city of Rialto and its utility authority that will reduce the perchlorate in the water table to the state standard of 0.004 mg per liter or less. The system is to consist of two groundwater extraction wells; a combined treatment plant; conveyance piping connecting the extraction wells to the combined treatment plant; distribution piping and any necessary valves connecting the combined treatment plant to Rialto’s municipal water supply system;  distribution piping and infrastructure necessary for the delivery of water to Colton’s municipal water supply system as well as, if needed and reasonably necessary, distribution piping and infrastructure necessary for the delivery of water to a water purveyor other than Colton, which would most likely be the West Valley Water District; up to seven monitoring wells; and at least two and perhaps more piezometers required by the California State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water for the extraction well and the city of Rialto water well closest to the contamination site.
The county has already paid the environmental engineering consulting firm Geo-Logic Associates $2,430,892 for assistance with regard to perchlorate contamination in northern Rialto.
This week the county, at the recommendation of county Counsel Jean-Rene Basle approved a $500,000 extension of the contract with Geo-Logic Associates.
“Geo-Logic Associates provides important and necessary consulting services including required groundwater monitoring and reporting related to perchlorate and volatile organic compounds impacts to groundwater in the vicinity of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill, and provides review and oversight of the perchlorate and volatile organic compounds groundwater treatment system at city of Rialto Well No. 3,” Basle said. “These services assist the county in maintaining compliance with legal requirements, including the state of California Regional Water Quality Control Board Cleanup and Abatement Order R8-2004-0072, which requires investigation into the extent of perchlorate and volatile organic compound impacts and the cleanup and abatement of the effects of the discharge of perchlorate and volatile organic compounds from or near the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill. Geo-Logic Associates has provided highly critical and successful specialized consultant litigation and technical support services to county counsel and outside counsel related to hydrogeologic analyses and identification of the contamination and treatment issues in the Rialto-Colton Basin.”

Outsiders are so impressed with the computerized workload management system devised by programmers on the staff of San Bernardino County’s information technology department for use in the coroner’s office that the first of what may soon be several California counties has agreed to pay a licensing fee to the county to utilize the system.
According to Jennifer Hilber, San Benardino County’s chief information officer who oversees the county information services department, “The information services department has developed a coroner case management system, a successful software application for managing case information related to investigation of deaths, which includes a variety of critical data on the decedent and next of kin, forensic and medical information, and cause of death. This application also generates multiple reports and allows clerical staff to view and input data, depending on the user access granted by administrators.”
Hilber said, “The Marin County Sheriff-Coroner has requested, through the county’s sheriff/coroner/public administrator, to purchase a license to use the coroner case management system. The Marin County sheriff-coroner has the legal authority to execute an agreement with San Bernardino County. As a result of this agreement, the Marin County sheriff-coroner will receive a perpetual license for the coroner case management system and will be charged based on the board-approved fee for the time spent to implement the application. Application maintenance and support services and enhancements to the application may be requested at a later date and will be charged at the board-approved programmer hourly labor rate in place at the time work is performed.”
Accordingly, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved a revenue agreement with the Marin County sheriff-coroner in an amount not to exceed $13,000, for the county of San Bernardino to grant a nonexclusive, irrevocable and perpetual license and implementation of the county-owned and created software application. San Bernardino County’s programmers are to be paid at an hourly rate of $107.75 while working on readying the system for use by Marin County.
The licensing arrangement on the program was reviewed and approved by deputy county counsel Phebe Chu.

In advance of what is anticipated to be the wettest fall and winter in the last decade, the county this week recommitted to its agreement to fund two-thirds of the cost of the United States Geological Survey’s operation of surface water gauging stations at key points along three crucial waterways in the county.
Acting as the governing body of the San Bernardino County Flood Control District, the board approved a joint funding agreement with the United States Geological Survey related to the operation and maintenance of three surface water gauging stations located at Caruthers Creek near Ivanpah, the West Fork Mojave River near Hesperia and Santa Ana River in San Bernardino from November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2016.
According to Gerry Newcombe, who serves as the director of the county flood control district, “Based on the agreement, the district will continue to partially fund the operation and maintenance of three surface water gauging stations from November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2016 located at:(1) Caruthers Creek near Ivanpah; (2) West Fork Mojave River near Hesperia; and (3) Santa Ana River in San Bernardino. The data gathered by the stream flow gauging stations is beneficial to both the district and the USGS in developing hydrology models. These models enable engineers to plan and design flood control facilities that better protect existing and new development. This data is also used during emergency storm operations for evaluating the threat of flooding.
After four years of an unrelenting drought in California, weather prognosticators are predicting an El Niño weather system will soak much of Southern California with torrents of rain by the end of the year.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Up here in Lake Arrowhead, at 5,174 feet above sea level, the air is a little more rarified than it is down in 1,242-foot altitude Upland. As a matter of fact, up here we refer to places like Upland as the lowlands…
Despite the thin air in these parts, I don’t feel particularly dizzy or lightheaded. I wonder, though, about what the problem down there in the lowlands, er I mean Upland, is exactly. Have they developed some sort of condition from breathing all that thick air? For whatever reason, some of those lowlanders, er I mean Uplanders, are acting awfully dizzy or lightheaded…
I refer in this instance to the incipient recall effort against that city’s mayor, Ray Musser. In reading the newspaper accounts about this latest political undertaking in The City of Gracious Living, I found myself taking off my monocle and cleaning it with a tissue to see if I was perhaps misreading what was on the page before me. I reread the words, then squinted and reread them again. I read them right the first time. At that point I was left scratching my head…
Let me see if I have this right: Ray Musser is about 14 months away from the time he is to retire from the city council, at this point in the capacity of mayor, after having first been elected to the city council in 1998. At the first city council meeting in December 2016, which will be held on December 12 or thereabouts, he will call the meeting to order, lead the pledge of allegiance and then as his last official act swear in his successor, whoever that is to be, and then hand his gavel over to him or her. But a group of people in town, who it goes without saying don’t have too terribly high of an opinion of Ray Musser, are not content to wait until December 12, 2016 to be rid of him and they are going to some level of effort – at yet we do not know exactly how much or whether it will be sufficient – to end his tenure as an elected official…
Without getting into Mr. Musser’s merits as a human being in general, a public official in greater particular and mayor of his lowland city in precise exactitude at this point, let us right now examine the logic of pursuing a recall at this time and under the current circumstance…
Under California law governing the recall of local officials, recall proponents in cities with populations greater than 50,000 and less than 100,000, must gather the signatures of 15 percent of that city’s registered voters to force a recall question onto a ballot and they must gather those signatures within 120 days of the time they qualify for the right to circulate the petition. The signed petitions are then turned over to the city clerk who has two weeks or so to coordinate with the county registrar of voters and count the signatures, examine the petitions and the signatures to ascertain that the signatures are indeed of registered voters, determine whether the signatures can be reasonably ascribed to each of the registered voters purported as having affixed his or her signature to the petition and examine whether, in signing the petition, each registered voter used the same form of his or her name as was used in signing his or her voter registration affidavit. At that point, assuming the registrar of voters determines the 15 percent threshold has been achieved, the city clerk takes the petition for recall to the city council at its next scheduled meeting to either validate that the vote will take place or delay the matter by another 30 days by carrying out a “random sampling” of the signatures to determine that they are in order. If in the random sampling it turns out that a sufficient percentage of the signatures fall into question to suggest that enough valid signatures might not exist on the petition to force the recall, then another delay can be brought about in which all of the signatures are examined with exacting scrutiny. Assuming the petitions move beyond that point and the city council certifies the recall request and orders the recall, the recall election must then be held “not less than 88 nor more than 125 days after the issuance of the order.” That is the technical aspect of this as I can best explain it…
Now let’s do some math. Assuming the recall proponents have now, as of this date, October 9, 2015, qualified to circulate the petition, they will have 120 days hence, i.e., they will have until February 6, 2016 to circulate the petition for signatures and turn it over to the city clerk. At that point, the city clerk will have until February 20, or thereabouts to confer with the registrar of voters and make a preliminary determination as to whether there are enough signatures to proceed further. It would seem then that the item might be scheduled to come before the city council at its February 22 meeting. But February 20, 2016 is a Saturday, and Upland City Hall is open only Monday through Thursday. Moreover, agenda items have to be posted 72 hours in advance. So, under this scenario, given that February 29 falls on a Monday and the city council meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month, the city council would not receive the item until its March 15, 2016 meeting. If at that point the council votes to do a random sampling of the signatures, it could delay by as many as 30 days further processing of the recall request. The first Upland City Council meeting after April 14 is to be held April 25. Assuming the council found at that point that enough of the city’s voters had properly endorsed the recall petition, it would then issue its order for the recall election, which would have to take place, again according to California law, “within 88 days and 125 days of the order.” Thus, the election, under this scenario, could not take place any earlier than July 21…
But wait. According to California law, “A recall may not be commenced against an officer if… the term of office ends within six months or less.” The November 2016 election is less than four months from July 21…
I realize there are alternate scenarios here. One is that the recall proponents will be whirling dervishes of signature gathering efficiency and they will have enough signatures by the end of the month we are in – October 2015 – to get the show on the road and the recall election might be scheduled as early as March. Another weakness in my scenario is that the interpretation of the word “commenced” above might pertain to the effort itself, rather than the election. Nevertheless, my point stands, I think. There are questions as to whether the recall proponents, who don’t appear to have thought this through, will be able to gather the requisite number of signatures in the time allotted. Perhaps they can. But if they do, the smart money would bet it will take them something close to the 120 days permitted to them to do just that. Assuming they qualify the recall vote for the ballot and it is held as early as June, or let us say as early as late May, and assuming further still the voters choose to remove Ray Musser from office when that vote is held, if indeed it is held, what will have been gained? Ray Musser will leave office five or six or at most seven months before he would have otherwise. Is that what these people are working so hard to achieve?
There are other considerations. Try this one on: What if this recall effort fails? What if it fails abjectly? What will that do to Ray Musser? He recently had heart bypass surgery and my sources tell me he was preparing to call an end to his political career and not run in 2016. But there is a saying that goes: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I don’t know if I believe that, exactly, but I can’t speak for Ray Musser. Maybe he does believe that. Maybe, after he bounces back from his cardiac condition and he stands down those who would have laid his political head on a platter, he will feel his oats and run again. Will this recall fail and embolden him to heights that his enemies will rue? If history is any guide, if he runs again he just might win…
Here are two other considerations: The so-called basis for the recall and the tactics employed by the recall proponents in seeking to convince their fellow voters to support them. In their recall process paperwork, the recall’s proponents list one of the grounds for seeking Ray Musser’s removal from office is that he was a “beneficiary of Mayor Pomierski’s political machine.” John Pomierski, of course, was the now discredited former mayor of the lowland city who in 2011 was indicted, then convicted and subsequently housed in a federal prison…
What the recall proponents are more than suggesting, indeed stating, is that Ray Musser was in with John Pomierski. That is an out and out prevarication. John Pomierski ruled Upland with an iron fist from the time he came into office in 2000 until he was forced to resign ten years-and-not-quite-four-months later. The record clearly shows that John Pomierski had one political opponent and one political opponent only: Ray Musser. Ray Musser opposed John Pomierski for reelection in 2004. He almost beat the entrenched incumbent that time, but fell short. John Pomierski and his henchmen and political allies on the council – Brendan Brandt, Tom Thomas and Ken Willis – retaliated by stripping Ray Musser of his internal city committee assignments and his outside agency membership appointments. Even as questions were emerging about the way John Pomierski was doing business and using his authority at City Hall to shake down people with permit applications and projects under city review, he continued to draw support from the likes of the district attorney, the sheriff and other local city officials. Ray Musser alone stood up against John Pomierski and he did not benefit from it but suffered as a consequence, even as Brendan Brandt, Tom Thomas and Ken Willis cowered in the wings and spinelessly and slavishly licked John Pomierski’s boots and then headed for the tall grass when his political machine imploded under the weight of an FBI investigation that was impervious to influences of local governmental graft and corruption…
The question now is: When the recall proponents say that Ray Musser was a “beneficiary of Mayor Pomierski’s political machine,” do they really believe that? Or do they know it isn’t true, but are using that as a propaganda tool to achieve their political end? Which is worse: That they are ill-informed, ignorant or just mistaken? Or that they are deliberately lying? I would say the latter is worse, but even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and conclude that they just don’t know that they are talking about, doesn’t that alone go a long way toward discrediting this whole recall effort?

The county is going to pay more than $665,028 per year for the next 33 months to have an outfit known as Volunteers of America, Southwest provide what CaSonya Thomas, the director of the county’s department of behavioral health, referred to as “sobering center services.”
According to Thomas, “Sobering center services are diversion services offered to inebriated adults in lieu of being incarcerated. Sobering centers are designed to provide short term stay services in a clean, safe environment to allow the effects of chemical intoxicants to subside and allow the adult time to regain minimal levels of functionality. In addition, adults staying at the center will have the opportunity to receive a screening and referral to other substance use disorder services to meet their individual needs.”
Thomas said “The county department of behavioral health is responsible for providing mental health and/or substance use disorder services to county residents who are experiencing major mental illness and/or substance use disorders. Sobering center services is a new county department of behavioral health alcohol and drug services voluntary countywide program providing an alternative to the more expensive cost of incarceration, as well as providing information and/or referrals to recovery treatment programs. It is anticipated that Volunteers of America will provide sobering center services to approximately 4,332 adults annually at an estimated cost of $148 per adult.”
Thomas said, “Volunteers of America, Southwest will provide sobering center services countywide. Initially, there will be one location, in the West Valley/Central Valley region, with the specific site to be determined mutually between Volunteers of America and the department of behavioral health upon approval of the contract. Volunteers of America will aggressively search for a site in the West Valley/Central Valley region where sobering center services will be provided. Remodel or modification to the site will be a priority with an anticipated operation date of no later than January 2016. The Volunteers of America sobering center will operate 24/7 to provide a short term stay, on average six to eight hours, for adults referred and received from law enforcement officers. Once the individual reaches a sober state, a screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) will be administered by agency staff. SBIRT is a comprehensive health promotion approach for the delivery of early intervention and treatment services to people with, or at risk of developing, substance use disorders. The adult will then be provided information about substance use disorders and offered the opportunity to enter into recovery treatment programs or other appropriate services within the county based on their individual needs.”
The total contracted amount of $1,828,849 includes $1,768,829 intended for services and $60,000 for start-up costs. The program is funded through driving under the influence fines and 2011 Realignment funding. Bidding on the project was initiated in September 2014, when proposals were solicited. Six agencies attended the mandatory qualifications conference on September 30, 2014. Two applications were received in response to the request, one from Anka Behavioral Health, Inc. of Concord and Clearwater Residential Care for the Elderly, Inc. of San Bernardino.
During the evaluation process, the evaluation committee, comprised of individuals from the county of San Bernardino Behavioral Health Commission, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, San Diego County Behavioral Health Services and behavioral health staff found that the applications from Anka Behavioral Health, Inc. and Clearwater Residential Care for the Elderly, Inc. did not meet the qualifications of the request for qualifications to adequately provide sobering center services in that the facilities were converted residences located in residential neighborhoods on busy thoroughfares and safety requirements outlined in the request were not sufficiently addressed. As a result, the department of behavioral health terminated the request for qualification on December 8, 2014 and began exploring other options. Because Volunteers of America had a facility in San Diego County, department of behavioral health staff members toured tthat Volunteers of America sober center on more than one occasion.
According to Thomas, “Department of behavioral health staff was able to ascertain that the San Diego model operated by Volunteers of America will meet all of the county’s needs to successfully offer these critical services. After termination of the request for qualifications, the department of behavioral health engaged in discussions with Volunteers of America to determine the feasibility of Volunteers of America providing these services in San Bernardino County. Volunteers of America has extensive knowledge of the target population, the facility needs and requirements, safety requirements and the staffing required to provide these services successfully. The county purchasing department concurs with non-competitive justification of specialized services. The recommended non-competitive contract with Volunteers of America to provide sobering center services includes the option of two one-year extensions, contingent upon funding and contractor performance. The implementation plan will be expedited upon approval of the contract. The department of behavioral health will monitor contractor performance on a regular basis to ensure performance and compliance standards are met.”

In the not so distant pre-history of California, scientists tell us, much of the Mojave Desert was water-rich, with both the Mojave River that originated in the San Bernardino Mountains winding out into the desert and lakes formed from the high water table providing surface water. Indian tribes flourished in this environment from at least 300 B.C. until much of the water dissipated in the 1500s. There were still Indians living in the Barstow area, separated into clans, when the Europeans arrived in Southern California.
Because of its relative inhospitableness, the Mojave Desert did not attract inhabitants migrating eastward from the Spanish settlements along the coast of California in the late 1700s nor Americans coming across the continent westward in the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s, although the likes of Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith and the Mormon settlers did pass through the area on their way to San Bernardino and Los Angeles using the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe, the Mojave Road or along the Salt Lake Road.
In the late 1840s and early 1850s, many of those traveling along the Salt Lake Road would temporarily hold up in Barstow along the banks of the Mojave River as the weather cooled in the fall and winter and rain produced new grass growth, which would serve as feed for livestock. With the coming of spring the travelers would move along.
Barstow’s earliest history as a place inhabited by Americans is associated with the areas around it such as Calico, Daggett and Fort Cady.
In May 1855 Daniel Stark became the initial First District San Bernardino County supervisor. Barstow was at that time, and for the next 155 years, located within the First District.
Difficulties with the Paiute, Mojave and Chemehuevi tribes manifested in the 1850s with the influx of American settlers moving through the area. In 1860 Camp Cady, a U.S. Army post was established 20 miles east of Barstow and was occupied sporadically until 1864, then permanently, by soldiers occupying other posts or patrolling in the region until 1871.
With the discovery of gold and silver in the Owens Valley and in mountains to the east of Barstow in the 1860s and 1870s, miners began arriving in Calico and Daggett. The famous 20-mule teams came into being when 10 teams were hitched together with two wagons and a water wagon to haul ore from Daggett to the town of Calico.
Barstow, then known as Waterman or Waterman Junction, grew into a town that provided goods and services to the miners. The U.S. Post Office located into Waterman Junction.
Daggett, five miles downriver, was founded in the 1860s, and was originally called Calico Junction. A silver vein was discovered six miles north in the Calico Mountains in 1882. Shortly thereafter it was renamed after California Lieutenant Governor John Daggett. The same year the Southern Pacific Railroad began construction of a line from Mojave, through Barstow and Daggett toward Needles. In 1884 ownership of the yet-to-be-completed line from Needles to Mojave was transferred to the Santa Fe Railroad.
The Casa del Desierto station and hotel, later called the Harvey House, was built in Waterman Junction in 1885.
On January 15, 1886, Waterman Junction was renamed Barstow after William Barstow Strong, the president of the Santa Fe Railroad.
The Calico Railroad (later called the Daggett-Calico Railroad) started hauling ore from Calico to the Oro Grande Milling Company, across the river from Daggett in 1888. That same year, the Santa Fe Railroad arrived in town.
By 1896, the silver in the mines had been played out and the mines effectively shut down, although prospectors continued to try their luck on claims in the area.
But thirteen years before the silver at last ran out, the presence of borax in the area was noted and a borax rush ensued in Calico. By 1902, there were three borax mines employing 200 men in and around Daggett. It is estimated that borax taken from the Calico Hills amounted to more than $9 million in 1900 dollars, while more than $90 million in silver was removed.
With the turn of the century, Calico and Daggett diminished while Barstow grew. It became a major rail center.
In 1908, the original Casa del Desierto/Harvey House burnt to the ground in a fire.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway established the new Harvey House, which opened in 1911.
Arthur Doran, who was born in Clyde, Kansas in 1878 and first came to Barstow in 1901 where he went to work at the Harvey House and then the Gooding Mercantile Company as a bookkeeper while moonlighting at the post office and engaging in some prospecting on the weekends, returned to Barstow in 1911 after he had left to work for a hydraulic mining company in Alaska in 1907 and then did some mining in Rhyolite and in Greenwater, Nevada. He served as the Barstow postmaster for a year and then went to work as the assistant manager for the E.T. HIllis Contracting Company.
Barstow High School was first established in a home near corner of First and Williams Streets on September 15, 1915
The first Barstow Branch Library started as part of Barstow High School in 1916.
The first units of the Hillside Apartments on the end of Cottage Street were completed and occupied in 1917. The apartments are the longest continuing running business in Barstow.
In 1919, Arthur Doran became the administrator of the E.T. Hillis Estate upon the death of Mr. Hillis. Hillis was a contractor who did road building and grading work for the Sana Fe Railway and San Bernardino County. The Hillis company was one of the first such firms to use mechanized equipment – i.e., Model T Ford Trucks. Doran remained in the capacity of executor of the Hillis Estate until 1931.
In 1924, Doran opened the Barstow Garage, the largest garage between Albuquerque and San Bernardino at that time.
On July 4, 1925, the Barstow community had a grand opening “of our newly rebuilt city” after the business district was moved from in front of the Harvey House in between the railroad tracks to where Old Town Barstow is today.
Route 66 was established in 1926, with Barstow being the second city on the route after Needles encountered by easterners driving into California. This was a boom to Arthur Doran, who subsequently opened a second garage and a hotel.
Doran was appointed by Governor C.C. Young, on December 2, 1928, to succeed C.S. Crain as First District San Bernardino County Supervisor after Crain’s death. Doran served as supervisor until 1948. None of his successors as First District Supervisor has achieved his longevity on the board.
On October 1, 1929 Barstow International Airport opened after the site near Lenwood Road and National Trails Highway was chosen by Charles Lindbergh for TAT (later TWA) airline.
The First Street Bridge, allowing motorists to cross over the massive Barstow Rail Yard, opened on April 26, 1930.
The Beacon Tavern, a top of the line hotel, had its opening delayed because of the stock market crash of 1929. It opened in 1930.
Southwest Gas was established in Barstow in 1931.
Barstow’s first Mardi Gras Parade was held on October 31, 1932
The modern Barstow High School opened in September 1938.
Harry Partch, avant garde composer and hobo, hitchhiked through Barstow in February 1940, and was inspired to write his seminal work, Barstow-Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions.
The Mojave Anti Aircraft Range, which later became Camp Irwin, was established in 1940.
The Marine Corps Logistics Base was established on December 28, 1942
Lee Berry Founded Slash X Ranch in 1942
Victory Homes was established in Barstow in 1943
Brunner’s Tiny Time Shop “The World’s Smallest Store” opened in Barstow in 1946.
The city of Barstow incorporated in 1947.
Griego’s Market, which later became Rosita’s Restaurant, opened its doors in 1948.
The Barstow Park & Recreation District was formed in 1948.
On June 6, 1950 two cousins, Ronald Brubaker and William Mann, established Brubaker-Mann, Inc, a manufacturing operation that used a mill to produce naturally colored landscaping and roofing rock.
The Idle Spurs Restaurant opened in 1955.
The Printer Review became the Desert Dispatch in 1958.
Barstow Community Hospital, which previously existed in a much smaller facility on Williams Street, opened on June 9, 1957, and then closed on July 25 due to lack of funds. It reopened on January 15, 1958.
The Pioneer Antenna at Goldstone, intended to track Soviet satellites as well as monitor the Pioneer 3 mission, was put into service in October 1958. Known as Deep Space Station Eleven or DSS-11, it became the prototype antenna for the Deep Space Network and went on to track a variety of NASA missions including all Pioneer spacecraft, the Echo Balloon projects, Ranger, Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor, Apollo, Helios, Mariner, Viking and Voyager.
Barstow College welcomed its first students at its temporary campus at Barstow High on April 1, 1960.
Camp Irwin became Fort Irwin in 1961
Henderson Pool at Fogelsong Park opened in 1961
The Barstow College Campus opened in February 1964.
Ed Hackbarth and David Jameson opened the first Del Taco restaurant in Yermo on September 16, 1964.
The I-15/I-40 Interchange construction project began in 1965.
The Mt. St. Joseph Church was built at its Mountain View location in 1966
Calico Ghost Town was donated to San Bernardino County from the Knott Family in October 1966.
Ida Pleasant was elected Barstow’s first female mayor in 1966.
The Mojave River Valley Museum was built with donated funds and dedicated on April 26, 1968
Before the decade was out, Barstow City Hall/police headquarters, Kennedy High School, a waste water treatment facility and the Sun & Sky Goff Course were built. The Santa Fe Roundhouse was torn down and the Harvey House was closed.
Fort Irwin was deactivated and used as a National Guard training center from 1972 to 1979.
The second Del Taco restaurant in existence, what is now a local landmark, opened on First Avenue on February 22, 1972.

Prior to Melissa Russo’s assumption of the directorship of the San Bernardino County Museum, the board of supervisors has moved to dissolve the San Bernardino County Museum Advisory Commission, which has been in existence for 55 years.
In April 2014, Robert McKernan, who had been the museum’s director for a dozen years, resigned, expressing concern that the effort to complete a multimillion-dollar exhibit hall was yet languishing, seven years after it was begun.
Leonard X. Hernandez replaced McKernan as interim museum director. Last month, the county announced that it had hired Melissa Russo, the former executive director of the Western Museums Association and the director of institutional advancement at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, as the new county museum director as of October 19. Russo, who also uses the name Melissa Rosengard, is an aggressive fundraiser who is married to John Russo, the city manager of Riverside since May.
This week, Hernandez recommended that the board of supervisors “dissolve the Museum advisory commission,” stating “In April 2014, Museum Management Consultants was retained by the county to do an assessment of the San Bernardino County Museum. The Museum includes the main site in Redlands, the Victor Valley site, and seven historical sites found throughout the county. Through a process of interviews and comparative analysis, Museum Management Consultants created a report and benchmark study that assessed the museum’s future which included its ability to be re-accredited, collections management, operations, exhibits and services, and its non-profit fundraising support. On January 13, 2015, during a special study session, Museum Management Consultants presented a report to the board of supervisors which included 29 recommendations that addressed many aspects of museum operations and specifically provided recommendations in order to prepare for the 2017 re-accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. The board subsequently adopted all 29 of these recommendations.”
Hernandez continued, “One of these recommendations addressed the museum advisory commission, which was originally established in 1960. The museum advisory commission was established in the San Bernardino County Code as consisting of 11 commissioners appointed by the board of supervisors, to provide advice and assistance with regard to museum matters. As part of Museum Management Consultants’ assessment process, interviews were conducted during which many current museum advisory commissioners felt that their participation could be utilized in a more productive capacity and felt that dissolving the museum advisory commission would not have a detrimental effect on the museum system. From this feedback and in conjunction with other recommendations, Museum Management Consultants concurred with the commissioners and recommended the museum advisory commission be dissolved. Museum Management Consultants also recommended that an active recruitment of museum advisory commission members to join the museum association board of directors commence to assist in greater fundraising efforts.”
The board on Tuesday complied with Hernandez’s recommendation.

In a disturbing sign, the tranquility of another residential neighborhood was rendered by a double homicide in 36,664-population Montclair for the second time in eight months.
Early in the morning of October 4, Montclair police were summoned to a single family residence in the 4300 block of El Morado Street by 911 calls reporting gun shots. At the home they found three men shot and another severely beaten. Emergency medical personnel also responded. One of the wounded men died at the scene. A second survived until he was transported to a hospital, but died shortly after arrival there.
Montclair homicide investigators were tightlipped about the details of the case. None of victims, including the two who were slain, had been identified at press time.
The only information vouchsafed to the public is that police believe the killings were gang-related.
While this week’s incident does not put Montclair into the same league as the county seat, 213,708-population San Bernardino, where 47 people were murdered in 2012 and 45 were killed in 2013, including a rash of eight murders over a period of nine days at the end of April and first week of May in 2012, the violence represents a distressing trend at the west end of the county. The deaths bring to a total of four those murdered in Montclair in 2015.
All four of those deaths involved gangland overtones. Montclair’s first double homicide this year took place on February 8 in the 11000 block of Monte Vista Avenue. Livied Arturo Sanchez, 33, of West Covina, and Mario Padilla, 34, of Pomona, both of whom had been bound with duct tape, were killed “execution-style” according to Montclair police. A third victim, since identified as Edgar Rivera Calderon, was able to escape the assailants with his hands yet bound by duct tape behind his back. Bloodied and terrified, Calderon fled on foot southward down Monte Vista. Montclair Police have since located him.
What is known is that those who perpetrated last Sunday’s act were not the same ones responsible for last February’s mayhem. The two men Montclair police say killed Sanchez and Padilla, Richard Corry Roach, 37, and David Nash McKell, 35, have been behind bars since August and April, respectively. Both have been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the February slayings.

Gilia latiflora is a species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common names hollyleaf gilia and broad-flowered gilia. Native and endemic to California, more than 80 percent of the broad-flowered gilia grow in the deserts and mountains of San Bernardino County.
Gilia latiflora is an annual, perennial herb that is generally erect with a glabrous, hairy, glandular, or cobwebby stem. It starts from a basal rosette of frilly leaves, each of which is simple, generally alternate, many-toothed, pinnately lobed, entire or cauline. Sometimes the leaf tips have acute calyx lobes, or are acuminate or needle-like.
The stem is generally too small to notice; instead the plant is scapose, sending stemlike inflorescences directly up from the ground.
Each multibranched inflorescence is green to reddish in color and approaches half a meter in maximum height. These are topped with fragrant calyx flowers one to three centimeters across, that are membranous between ribs, with the membrane splitting or expanding. The corolla is greater than the calyx, with lobes that are generally ovate. The flowers are solitary or clustered, many in axils of bracts.
Each flower is lavender to purple with a white throat from which protrude a long style and several shorter stamens.
The Gilia latiflora is noteworthy because it adds lavender to the colorful carpet of spring wildflowers on the sandy washes of both the desert and the mountainsides.
The flower produces a fruit that is generally ovoid with three chambers and valves separating from top. It contains brown seeds that become gelatinous when wet.
The plant was named after Felipe Gil, an 18th Century Spanish botanist.