By Count Friedrich von Olsen
What! What, oh what! What has happened to Upland? It once was, with the possible exception of Redlands, the finest, that is to say, the most refined, city in San Bernardino County. In recent years – or decades – it has fallen into an appalling state. I know its former mayor and former city manager involved themselves in some rather nasty business and earned themselves a pair of extended vacations, courtesy of federal and state taxpayers. I have, and so have others, remarked that for a city of its caliber, or past caliber, the quality of its political leadership has long been very disappointing…
In years past, during the reign of the likes of John McCarthy as mayor and Frank Carpenter on the city council, I was always a bit suspicious that something untoward was already ongoing. Frank Carpenter was a little too accommodating of the aggressive development that was ongoing in that era, and he did not seem to mind that the character of the city – with its stately homes and immaculate citrus groves – was being compromised by the cookie cutter development the city was permitting to be constructed within the city limits on a wholesale basis. Had Frank and his colleagues been compromised themselves?
I drove through the city recently. Euclid Avenue, State Highway 83 which ascends toward San Antonio Heights and the eastern extension of the majestic San Gabriel Mountains as if it were the roadway to Heaven itself, was once one of the grandest such boulevards in the world. It has fallen into a deplorable state of dishabille. Near the corner of Euclid and Foothill I saw one character of such aspect and weak bearing – replete with tattered clothing and unshined shoes – that I could hear myself imagining that I would say to him, “My God, man, have you no respect for yourself any longer? Has your shabby life reduced you to this? Pull yourself together. Repent from your slovenliness!” Many of the houses are no longer being cared for. The lawns have grown brown or are now gone to weed…
And Upland’s outward appearance is a metaphor for what the city has become otherwise. Apparently, charlatans and blackguards of the most questionable type are muscling in on the city. A flesh peddler has commandeered the city’s prime commercial venue along historic Route 66, right at the gateway of the city to and from Los Angeles County and its easternmost community, the well respected Claremont. This huckster’s brand of establishments monopolize that district, including a peep show, rumored to be a house of ill repute, accompanied by a shop that sells cannabis, despite an ostensible city ordinance banning such. And while the police department has put out that it is waging warfare against these illicit marijuana sales operations, this one in particular, owned by the vice kingpin, remains operational. It is an open secret, I am told, that elements within the police department and at least a few city officials are being paid off. No one can explain how an illicit operation such as this, clearly out in the open, can remain intact…
The vice kingpen is, state campaign finance reporting documents show, bankrolling the campaigns of several of the candidates for mayor, city council and treasurer in Upland…
Three years ago, the Upland City Council adopted an administrative citation ordinance, giving the city authority to cite violators of the city’s codes and then administratively levy a graduated set of fines of up to $1,000 per day against the transgressors. When objections were raised with regard to the due process implications of this at that time, city officials offered assurances that this fining capability would be utilized judiciously, and was intended to put illicit operations such as marijuana selling clinics out of business…
I was shown a video of this week’s Upland City Council meeting. In it, city councilman and mayoral candidate Glenn Bozar, perhaps inadvertently or perhaps subliminally, obliquely referenced the way in which the police department and other city officials have allowed the vice kingpin’s marijuana distribution operation to remain in operation unchecked. Mr. Bozar requested that the statistics on the enforcement of the city’s administrative citation ordinance be made available, as was earlier intended. Interestingly, when Councilman Bozar made that request, the police chief engaged in a good bit of hemming and hawing. Providing those statistics would reveal whether the police department and its code enforcement division were enforcing the marijuana ban against the vice king and his operations. Researching those statistics, the chief said, would entail a time burden on his staff. He suggested adequate transparency might be had by a review of the appeals made by those cited…
Mr. Bozar, incidentally, is not being supported in his run for mayor by the vice kingpin…