Bob Hammock

Bob Hammock, whose tenure in political office corresponded with a significant portion of the “Golden Age of Corruption” in San Bernardino County and whose tenure in county office was marked by his ability to do the bidding of his cronies and political benefactors while advancing and enriching them and himself, has died.
His parents, Lynn Benoit and Mary Etta (Sites) Hammock, came to San Bernardino County’s High Desert from Eagle Pass, Texas shortly before his birth. It was in Lenwood, near Barstow, that Robert Lynn Hammock was born on November 20, 1940. In 1944, the Hammock family moved to Rialto, where Bob received his education at San Bernardino High School, San Bernardino Valley College and California Polytechnic University in Pomona, where he majored in aeronautical engineering.
On January 17, 1959, Hammock married Anita Thumma, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ralph W. Thumma. They raised a son, Ralph, and two daughters Kathy and Patricia. Over the years, Robert and Anita, prior to their divorce, welcomed nine foster children into their home.
From 1962 until 1969, Hammock was employed in the title business, becoming familiar with all elements of the real estate industry while working for the Title Insurance and Trust Company in San Bernardino. In 1968, he was elected to the San Bernardino City Council. In 1969, he went to work for Glen Ludwig as a civil engineering technician with the San Bernardino office of the Ludwig Engineering Company. In this capacity he became intimately familiar with the development industry.
At the same time, through his status as a councilman and volunteer work with the YMCA, the Boys’ Club, the Zoological Society, the Boy Scouts, serving as a coach of his son’s Little League team, as a sponsor of a girls’ softball team, and fundraising activity on behalf of the Arrowhead United Way, the March of Dimes, and the Jaycees, he husbanded important community-based contacts and connections. He also conceived and directed the “Newspapers for Viet Nam” program, by which the Sunday editions of the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram were mailed to serviceman from San Bernardino serving in Viet Nam. In 1976, he parlayed his considerable public stature into a successful run for Fifth District county supervisor, replacing Nancy Smith.
Hammock’s primary constituency as supervisor was the development industry, and he jockeyed as a supervisor to put himself into a position by which he could clear the way for development companies and individual developers to carry out their agendas and designs. In this way, he virtually commandeered control over one of the primary elements of governmental function: land use authority. He served as the head of the county’s redevelopment agency and as the vice-chairman of the San Bernardino County Industrial Development Authority. He served on the East Valley Planning Agency’s airport land use committee and East Valley Transit Service Authority. He was a member of the Omnitrans Board of Directors and wangled an appointment as California’s designee on the National Housing and Community Development Committee of the National Association of Counties.
His most effective gambit in taking control of the government’s regulatory function with regard to development was achieving a position on the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which possesses the authority to hash out jurisdictional and border disputes between the county’s cities and other governmental entities. During the era in which the LAFCO board was under Hammock’s influence, he used his power and votes on that panel to arrange deals with cities that were competing with their neighbors to annex properties between their then-existing mutual borders. Of significance to the development companies that coveted building within those disputed areas were the development standards that the cities intended to apply to that land once it was annexed. More exacting standards on infrastructure and restrictions on density could make developing that property less profitable than it would be otherwise. Accordingly, Hammock would ascertain which city would be willing to apply the least cumbersome land use standards and then make arrangements to have his Local Agency Formation Commission colleagues support giving that city the nod in making the annexation. This redounded to the benefit of his development industry patrons, who rewarded him with hefty political contributions which Hammock then utilized to wage effective election campaigns consisting of slick and glossy mailers sent to voters in the Fifth District, together with radio and newspaper advertisements and billboard ads, all of which kept him in office. In the 1980s, the Local Agency Formation Commission board also seated William Kragness, then a Fontana City Council member who would go on to become that city’s mayor. During Hammock’s and Kragness’s tenures, with developers and landowners connected to Hammock who had interests in or options on land in the Fontana area driving the agenda, LAFCO consistently granted Fontana’s annexation requests along its eastern border with Rialto and similarly accommodated its aggressive jurisdictional seizures along its western frontier with Rancho Cucamonga. In virtually all cases, Fontana committed to and delivered upon allowing the developers to build housing that was of inferior quality to that being built within the city limits of their adjoining communities, augmented by public improvements that were one, two or even three cuts below that which would have been tolerated on the other sides of the civic divides. Three decades later, Hammock’s legacy consists of neighborhoods at the periphery of Fontana that are marginal, at best. And today, the excesses of that time resonate, as Rancho Cucamonga has striven to ward off any further territory grabs along its extreme ends by maintaining a presence – a significant one – on the LAFCO board. Two of the LAFCO board’s seven voting members hail from Rancho Cucamonga: Rancho Cucamonga Councilwoman Diane Williams and James Curatalo, a member of the board of directors for the Cucamonga Valley Water District.
Hammock proved an astute politician. He was twice appointed chairman of the board of supervisors, serving in that capacity from 1980 until 1982 and again from 1985 to 1987. A Republican, he hewed to a pro-business philosophy and line, which coordinated perfectly with his pro-development political formula and provided him with cover on those relatively rare occasions when questions about his favorable treatment of his cronies and benefactors surfaced. He furthered his political reach by serving as a member of the executive board of Inland Manpower and as a member or alternate member of both the Tri-County Council on Criminal Justice and the San Bernardino County Criminal Justice Planning Committee. He was also a member of the Southern California Air Pollution Control District.
Following his initial election to the board of supervisors, he was reelected thrice, in 1980, 1984 and 1988. His power seemed to increase with his time in office, to the point that in 1990, he was at the height of his status as a public official.
Despite the marginal, highly questionable and even illegal activity Hammock involved himself in as an elected official, he was never held to account or prosecuted. Throughout the entirety of his time as a politician in San Bernardino County he functioned within an ambience in which self-dealing by politicians was not only tolerated but expected and accepted as a part of the county’s ethos. He developed a nonchalance with regard to the outrage his unabashed support of his financial supporters on occasion engendered, providing a standard answer to challenges of his votes and actions, telling those who inquired that he was “comfortable” with his votes. When county residents, citizens or his political opponents came forth with evidence, documentation or allegations of his wrongdoing, Hammock did not need to stand up for himself. Rather, he would be defended by his political colleagues, many of whom were emulating him, albeit with a lesser degree of audacity. Meanwhile, a cross section of his accusers found themselves as the targets of crooked high ranking county law enforcement officials and prosecutors, and at the mercy of dishonest judges aligned with the political establishment of which Hammock was a part, a circumstance that served to dissuade others from becoming too vocal in their opposition to him and providing him with further insulation.
He garnered the Republican nomination for Congress in California’s 36th District in 1990. In a contest against the entrenched Democratic incumbent, George Brown, Hammock came very close to ousting his opponent, garnering 47.2 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, that would prove to be Hammock’s high water mark, which somewhat ironically led to his political demise. The scrutiny that came with his run for national office led to revelations about the depth of his untoward associations with developers, the quid pro quos that were an undeniable element of his successful political formula and more and more hints about how he had utilized insider information gained from his position as a county supervisor to guide his investments or those of his friends, associates and family members in properties or buildings which were subsequently leased or purchased by the county. His divorce from Anita alienated many of his supporters.
In 1992, with then-assemblyman Jerry Eaves, a Democrat, announcing he would depart from Sacramento to vie for Fifth District supervisor, Hammock decided to again challenge Brown, in so doing foregoing running for reelection as supervisor. But with the rampant revelations about the backroom dealing he had engaged in on a constant basis, members of his own party had now come to see him as a liability. His political career was dealt what turned out to be a mortal blow when Bob Gouty, a Covina-based political consultant to Republican candidates who had handled Hammock’s electioneering efforts going back to his maiden run for supervisor, abandoned him in favor of Dick Rutan in the 1992 Republican Primary. Rutan outpolled Hammock in that election, knelling the end of Hammock’s days as an elected politician.
Nevertheless, he was able to capitalize, for a time, on the connections he had amassed while in office. He left San Bernardino for an upscale neighborhood in Redlands, and there he embarked on a fourth career as a lobbyist, working under the auspices of his firm, Empire Consulting. He yet had contacts with county government staff members whose careers he had helped advance, including top ranking members of the county’s planning division, later referred to as the land use services department, and the county real estate department. Calling in favors, for over a decade he was able to influence decisions at the level of the board of supervisors and the county’s administrative echelon that redounded to the benefit of his clients and associates, measurable in tens or hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars when they received county contracts or achieved approval of their project proposals.
The last several years of his life, Hammock carried out a spirited battle against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which did not prevent him from enjoying playing golf, traveling, and spending time with his family. On December 12, 2017, he passed into eternity. He is survived by his wife Barbara; sister Linda Butler and her husband, Alan; brother Kenneth; and his children, Kathy Martin and her husband Mike; Patricia Runzel and her husband Steve; his son Ralph and his wife Kathryn; five grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Mr. Hammock’s family suggested that those who wish to honor and remember the former supervisor consider supporting the American Cancer Society or the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
–Mark Gutglueck