The Chino Police Department will be one of the first law enforcement agencies in San Bernardino County to add facial recognition technology to its crime fighting arsenal.
Using biometric software to map individual human facial features abstracted from a video or photo, facial recognition systems match or contrast that data with information digitally cataloged elsewhere in a data-processing module to verify identities. This allows police investigators to scan rapidly through tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of photos to find potential or actual criminal suspects, those merely wanted for questioning or witnesses.
Facial recognition tracking technology has evolved considerably over the last three decades, and has been used in the public domain increasingly over the last 15 years, in many cases to enhance security, as when it is used as a second key in entrances to homes and businesses. In recent years, it has been adapted as an access code for cell phones.
Within the last several years, facial recognition has been used effectively in a multitude of law enforcement contexts, to identify suspects caught on photographic or video surveillance systems as well as in long dormant cold cases where photographic or video evidence may be available.
Photographic or video analytics typically use a first layer of human operation in which obvious non-matches are eliminated, whereafter photos or individual frames from a video are fed into a filtering system that seeks to match visual criteria and metrics relating to the dimensions of human visages.
Facial recognition can speed up ongoing investigations and alert officials when a known or wanted suspect or subject turns up on camera.
Privacy issues attend the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies. The reliability of the technology has also been questioned. While manufacturers of facial recognition systems say they are foolproof and that human faces are as unique as human fingerprints, the systems have been demonstrated to have blind spots, and there is documentation to suggest that certain software is unreliable in differentiating facial characteristics among members of some racial and ethnic segments of the population.
Reportedly, the Chino Police Department will not, at least initially, link its system to various video cameras in the city, but rather use the technology in a relatively limited venue, that being analyzing booking photos. An expansion of the system and its applicability is possible, however.
The Chino Police Department in recent years has cultivated a reputation for being on or near the cutting edge in the use of newfangled methodologies in policing. In 2014, it became the third agency in the county to outfit its officers with body cameras.
Next week, on Wednesday February 12 at 6 p.m. at the Chino Police Department Headquarters, 5450 Guardian Way, officers with the department will brief the public about the facial recognition system it is to soon deploy, and address any concerns or questions about it.
-M.G.

By Mark Gutgueck
The preliminary hearing for Alex Opmanis extended into its second week on Monday and this morning, as prosecutor David Starr Rabb continued to seek traction in his effort to convince Superior Court Judge Charles Umeda to bind Opmanis over for trial for murder in the killing of Sammy Davis on July 11, 2019.
The case is playing out against a backdrop of recurrent suggestions, elements of which have been confirmed during the preliminary hearing, that a central piece of evidence in the case had been tampered with as part of an effort to prevent Opmanis’s legal team from presenting a credible self-defense claim.
Sheriff’s department investigators initially reached the conclusion that Opmanis had acted in self-defense after his encounter with Davis and two of Davis’s companions, Robert Shuey and Shane Codman, on the evening of the second Thursday of last July. Davis, Shuey and Codman, all of whom have criminal records, had surrounded Opmanis, who was standing to the side of his vehicle in the parking lot of Goodwin’s Market in Crestline. Davis’s and Shuey’s criminal records were extensive, and Shuey roughly six months previous to the shooting had assaulted Opmanis in an incident that required Opmanis’s hospitalization, required facial reconstructive surgery and permanently damaged his vision in his left eye. After Davis, 29, and Shuey, 29, initiated a physical attack on Opmanis, 27, Opmanis accessed a gun inside his vehicle and fired it, striking Davis once. The shooting took place at 9:14 p.m. Opmanis used a cellphone to summon both the sheriff’s department and paramedics, remaining in place until the sheriff’s department arrived. Codman left the scene within three minutes of the shooting, and after Shuey retrieved at least two items from the ground near where Davis was lying, he too remounted his motorcycle and fled.
After the fire department responded to the scene, paramedics loaded Davis into an ambulance and transported him to Saint Bernardine Hospital in San Bernardino, where he was pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m.
In its initial public release of information with regard to the incident, the sheriff’s department did not release Opmanis’s name, providing only his age and identifying him as a resident of Crestline while referring to him as the “victim.” The release referred to Davis as the “suspect.”
Opmanis was arrested by the sheriff’s department on August 9, 2019, after he met with homicide detectives at their request to provide them with additional information relating to the shooting, and the detectives heard what they believed were statements from Opmanis that were inconsistent with his previous statements and evidence gathered since the shooting.
Opmanis has been charged with with PC 187, murder; PC12022.53(B), unlawful use of a firearm; PC12022.53(C), unlawful discharge of a firearm; and PC12022.53(D), unlawful discharge of a firearm causing death.
The case has garnered attention and controversy because Goodwin’s Market has security apparatus entailing a video system utilizing multiple cameras, including one which captured moving images of the events leading up to the shooting, the shooting itself and the events following the shooting. It was a viewing and auditing of the action and sounds captured on that video, which was purportedly unaltered and unedited from its original continuously-running state at that time, that convinced the sheriff’s department investigators initially assigned to the case that the shooting occurred in self-defense. At some subsequent point the video was altered, however, and chopped up into a series of irregularly staggered segments. At least three versions of the video exist, with inconsistencies between each. In at least two of those three versions, a crucial 12-second segment that occurs just prior to the shooting has gone missing. It was those two versions of the video that were provided to the defense. Footage from the video just prior to and just after the missing 12 seconds suggests that the physical assault on Opmanis being administered to him by Davis and Shuey was excised before the evidence was provided to the defense. There are other deletions from the video, including audio passages during which Opmanis claims Shuey and Davis were taunting him.
After a series of delays and continuances, Opmanis’s preliminary hearing began on Friday, January 31. Testifying that afternoon were detectives Gerardo Moreno and Kevin McCurdy, as well as Deputy Victor Ruiz.
Because Opmanis’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender David Spiker, is currently involved in another trial which is being played out before a jury Monday through Thursday, the preliminary hearing for Opmanis is being held in fits and starts on Fridays, though there was a brief hearing on Monday, February 3 before Judge Umeda relating to the provision of discovery material to the defense, during a break in the trial Spiker is involved in. That discovery material involved a police report relating to the arrest of one of the investigators on the Opmanis case, Eric Dyberg. Dyberg’s credibility as a witness could prove crucial, as he was involved at some level in securing the video of the shooting. Spiker was provided access to the arrest report on Dyberg, subject to a protective order by Judge Umeda which prohibited him from disclosing any of the information contained within it to the press or anyone not immediately involved in the preparation of Opmanis’s defense.
The first witness put on the stand by Rabb this afternoon was Detective Michael Cleary of the sheriff’s department’s homicide division, who testified that he had been present at the post mortem done on Davis’s body starting at 9 am on August 9. Cleary confirmed Davis’s birth date of August 20, 1989 and the tracking number for the body bag containing Davis’s corpse, which matched that testified to by Detective Gerardo Moreno last week as the one he witnessed Davis’s lifeless body having been sealed into for transportation to the coroner’s office. Moreno last week testified he had arrived at Saint Bernardine Hospital late in the evening of July 11 following the pronouncement of Davis’s death, after which he had made his own perusal of the body prior to it being dispatched to the coroner’s office.
Cleary identified a photo of Davis’s body taken during the post mortem. He said forensic pathologist Brian Hutchins had performed the autopsy, and that he himself had taken notes as the examination proceeded.
Rabb asked what Hutchins had related to Cleary during the autopsy, and Cleary said that there was an entrance wound above the left nipple and that the bullet had passed through the area of the sixth rib, then the lung, struck the aorta and exited at a location on Davis’s back. There was a metal endo-tube yet in Davis’s mouth and nasal passages, as well as an intravenous clip near his left elbow, and an incision on the left side of his chest, Cleary stated.
Rabb asked Cleary if Hutchins had made a determination as to the cause and manner of death. Cleary stated that Hutchins’ finding was that the cause of death “was a single gunshot wound and the manner of death was determined to have been homicide.”
On cross examination, Spiker asked Cleary if the single gunshot wound in the chest moving from the front to back and from the left side to the right side of Davis’s body in a downward trajectory was “consistent with Mr. Davis being shot from the front?”
“Yes,” Cleary said.
Spiker in his cross examination dwelt on the manner of death being homicide, seeking to elicit from Cleary clarification that homicide being the cause of death did not preclude the conclusion that the fatal gunshot had been fired in self-defense. This brought objections from Rabb that Spiker was asking Cleary to provide a legal conclusion he was not qualified to give.
Judge Umeda overruled the objection, which allowed Striker to ask Cleary if “someone shot someone one time in lawful self defense and the cause of death was a gunshot wound, would the manner of death be homicide just as it was in this case?”
“Yes, as far as it being consistent with the coroner’s conclusion,” Cleary responded.
Cleary also stated that his involvement in the case went no further than attending the autopsy performed by the coroner.
Thereafter, Davis’ death certificate was introduced by Rabb and entered into evidence.
The next witness was Detective Eric Ogaz, who led the investigation into the shooting under the supervision of Sergeant Angelo Gibilterra after the initial examination of the matter by Detective McCurdy had concluded the day after the shooting with a finding that there were plausible grounds to demonstrate Opmanis had acted in self-defense.
After he was assigned to investigate the shooting that took place in the parking lot at Goodwin’s Market, Ogaz testified, he had interviewed Shane Codman in the interview room at the sheriff’s station on July 25, 2019. Present for the interview, Ogaz said, was Codman and his attorney, Michael Fadin, and Detective Moreno. He said that Codman was not in custody. Codman told him that he had attended a motorcycle event put on by Harley Davidson in Riverside on July 11 and had ridden up the mountain in the company of Davis and Shuey to Twin Peaks, and went to Goodwin’s market to pick up hamburger meat so they could barbecue it, Ogaz said. Codman told Ogaz they had arrived at Goodwin’s Market at approximately 9 pm and parked in front of the market by the propane tanks. When he, Shuey and Davis were leaving the store, they were approached by a woman who asked if she could take pictures of them by their motorcycles, Ogaz testified Codman told him. When the bikers were leaving, Ogaz said, Codman indicated they were traveling at under five miles an hour as they headed out of the parking lot, and that Codman was wearing a helmet. As Codman was driving away, Ogaz said, he spotted someone standing on the railing of his vehicle waving his arms at him, and that he did not know who it was, so he turned around before leaving the parking lot and came back, at which point he recognized the person who had waved to him was Opmanis. According to Ogaz, Codman said he had known Opmanis for about four years and that prior to this incident he said they were friends, but that as he approached Opmanis “he appeared to be hostile and angry.”
Rabb asked if Shuey had also returned to the parking lot, and Ogaz indicated Shuey on his motorcycle had likewise approached Opmanis at his vehicle. Ogaz, relaying to the court what he had been told by Codman, said Opmanis was getting angrier, and had an exchange with Shuey “and stated something like ‘You jumped me.’ Robert told him he never jumped him and just wanted to be friends with him.”
Rabb asked Ogaz if he had questioned Codman about whether he was aware of an incident involving Shuey and Opmanis in January 2019.
Ogaz related that Codman had been present at the Dogwood Bar, which preceded the fight between Opmanis and Shuey that later took place at Shuey’s home. Codman did not witness the fight, according to Ogaz.
With regard to the night of July 11, according to Ogaz, Codman had said that while Opmanis was angry and accusing Shuey of jumping him, he was wearing a hoodie [a hooded sweatshirt], and had his right hand inside the hoodie. Ogaz said that Codman told him “He felt Alex [Opmanis] had a gun in his hoodie and was acting more brave than he normally does.”
In this fashion, Rabb endeavored to suggest to Judge Umeda by Ogaz’s testimony that the shooting was not one that spontaneously arose out of Davis’s assault on Opmanis.
Rabb then asked Ogaz what Codman had said about Davis’s presence at the scene of the shooting before it took place.
“Mr Davis was just kind of standing in the background,” Ogaz said Codman had told him. At some point, according to Ogaz, Codman said that Davis said something to the effect of “‘Do you want to get down,’ and started to approach Alex.”
Ogaz said that Codman stated that Davis did not place his hands on Opmanis and that he was not close enough to place hands on Opmanis or hit him, and that he did not witness Davis or Shuey point weapons toward Opmanis. It was while Davis was yet approaching Opmanis that Codman said Opmanis shot Davis five times, Ogaz testified.
When Davis fell to the ground, Codman told Ogaz, he and Shuey ran over to Davis, at which point, Codman related that Davis said, “You shot me in the heart. I’m dying.” Ogaz said that Codman told him he and Shuey moved Davis toward the back of Opmanis’s vehicle, away from Opmanis. After people started to come out of the store, Codman told Ogaz he told Davis, “I love you,” and then mounted his motorcycle and left.
Rabb asked Ogaz if Codman had gone to the sheriff’s station on July 12 to make a statement about what had occurred the previous night. Ogaz said that Codman did go to the station but had not made a statement.
Rabb asked Ogaz about Codman’s statement that Opmanis had fired five shots. Ogaz said it is not uncommon for a witness’s recollection of the number of gunshots fired to deviate from the actual number of shots.
Ogaz further testified that he interviewed Shuey on July 29, 2019, and that also present at the interview was Shuey’s attorney, Gary Smith, as well as Detective Moreno.
Rabb questioned Ogaz about what Shuey told him about the physical altercation Shuey had with Opmanis in January 2019. Ogaz said that Shuey told him he and Opmanis were together at the Dogwood Bar, which is walking distance from Shuey’s residence, that Shuey met a girl there who then returned with Shuey to his home, and that he had told Opmanis not to drink and drive, and to spend the night at his house. At some point, Shuey told Ogaz, he awakened that evening when Opmanis threw up on him, at which point he noticed there were several other subjects in his home drinking his alcohol. There ensued a physical altercation in which Shuey claimed that both he and Opmanis had hit each other with closed fists. According to Ogaz, Shuey claimed that Opmanis had given him a black eye and had loosened one of his teeth, and he had given Opmanis a black eye and a bloody nose.
Shuey told him during the July 29 interview, Ogaz said, that he had not seen Opmanis between the January 2019 and July 2019 incidents.
Shuey said in his July 29 statement, Ogaz testified, that on July 11 he, Davis and Codman had been at the Bike Night in Riverside earlier in the evening, whereafter they went up into the mountains to Goodwin’s Market to get hamburger meat and some beer. In leaving the parking lot, Shuey said that he led, with Davis and Codman behind him. Shuey had further stated that he had poor vision, indicating he had not seen Opmanis while they were in the market, in the parking lot or when initially leaving. After leaving the parking lot, he had seen in his side mirror that neither Codman nor Davis were behind him, and since Davis had a mechanical problem with his bike earlier, he thought Davis’s motorcycle might have broken down. When he returned to the parking lot, he told Ogaz during the July 29 interview, he saw Codman and Davis talking to someone near a dark SUV. As he approached the vehicle, Shuey said he could tell that Codman and the subject near the vehicle were in an argument, but it wasn’t until he walked up to them that he recognized Opmanis.
“What happened next?” Rabb asked
“Alex accused him [Shuey] of jumping him,” Ogaz said.
Opmanis was wearing a black hoodie and had his hand inside the hoodie, said Shuey, who told Ogaz that he thought Opmanis had a gun. When Shuey attempted to shake hands with Opmanis and say that he wanted to “just be friends,” Opmanis would not extend his hand to reciprocate, and Opmanis was “angry and hostile,” according to Shuey as related to the court through Ogaz’s testimony.
According to Ogaz, Shuey did not see Davis hit Opmanis.
Shortly thereafter, according to what Shuey told Ogaz, when Davis began to approach Opmanis, without warning Opmanis shot Davis.
After Davis fell to the ground, according to Shuey’s statement, he and Codman dragged Davis behind Opmanis’s SUV.
Shuey told Ogaz he left the scene because he was scared.
Rabb drew out from Ogaz that Shuey had said that prior to pulling out of the parking lot and then returning, he had not seen Opmanis.
Ogaz also testified that Shuey had come to the Twin Peaks sheriff’s office substation on July 12 to make a statement, but did not make a statement to him or other members of the department that day.
Rabb questioned Ogaz about the surveillance video, including referencing the critical gap in the footage just prior to the shooting. Ogaz  acknowledged that there were sequences missing from the video. He said he had spoken with Detective Eric Dyberg and another sheriff’s department employee, Matt Meyer, about “why there were gaps in the video.”
Rabb examined Ogaz with regard to the detective’s interview with Opmanis.
Rabb asked Ogaz if he had shown Opmanis the video and had asked the defendant why he did not just leave the parking lot prior to the shooting taking place.
In response,  Ogaz related that Opmanis said he could not remember what he was doing when he was in the parking lot.
Ogaz testified that he had interviewed Opmanis on August 13, 2019, beginning at 3:43 p.m. at sheriff’s headquarters in the homicide office. He said Opmanis was accompanied by his lawyer, whom he misidentified as Jeffrey Morse, the lawyer’s actual name being Jeffrey Lawrence. He said Opmanis was not in custody at the time, was voluntarily participating in the interview and was free to leave had he chosen to do so. He said Opmanis was calm during the interview.
When asked if he was under the influence on July 11, Opmanis said he was not, according to Ogaz.  Opmanis had met two friends and got groceries, he told Ogaz, and put the groceries away into his vehicle.
“According to Mr. Opmanis, he was by his vehicle when three motorcyclists came by, revving their engines, trying to intimidate him,” Ogaz said. The motorcyclists surrounded him, Ogaz said Opmanis claimed. Ogaz said that the three were trying to talk to him in a friendly manner but that he didn’t trust Shuey. When someone struck him in the head, Opmanis said he had reached into his vehicle and that he had fired the gun “backwards, under his arm” indicating he almost shot himself in doing so. After Davis, whose name he did not know, fell to the ground, Opmanis told Ogaz, he told the others to back off, and he called the police.
Ogaz testified that he had shown Opmanis the surveillance video during the interview, pointing out that he had put his groceries away well before the encounter with Davis, Shuey and Codman and that there was thus a discrepancy in Opmanis’s version of events and the timing of the events leading up to the shooting. Ogaz also referenced interaction between Opmanis and whom Ogaz referred to as Opmanis’s “two friends,” whom the Sentinel has identified as Johnny, whose last name has not been specified in any court documents available to the Sentinel and Osvaldo Nuno.
The testimony Ogaz gave this afternoon was somewhat inexact in that he was providing his recollection of what was depicted on the video without the video being played.
“While playing the surveillance footage, did he point out his vehicle and [that] he was in the surveillance video?” Rabb asked Ogaz.
“Yes,” Ogaz replied. “Did he identify his two friends?” Rabb asked.
“Yes, he did,” Ogaz said.  Ogaz also said that Opmanis was able to identify Shuey, Codman and Davis on the video.
In his questioning of Ogaz, Rabb angled at illustrating to Judge Umeda that Opmanis was in some fashion loitering in the parking lot prior to Shuey, Codman and Davis leaving, to suggest that Opmanis was lying in wait.
Ogaz at one point in his testimony indicated that Johnny and Nuno had left the parking lot.
Asked by Rabb if they had returned, Ogaz responded, “I don’t believe so.”
That however, is belied by one of the videos of the activity taking place in the parking lot both prior to, during and after the shooting, which shows that roughly six minutes prior to the shooting Johnny and Nuno are assisting Opmanis in loading groceries into his car, followed two minutes later, just about four minutes before the shooting, with them getting into their vehicle and leaving. The video, obtained by the Sentinel, shows the two returning in their vehicle to a position in the parking lot directly behind Opmanis’s vehicle roughly two minutes later. They were still there when the shooting took place, but left within seconds after the shooting.
Thus, in his questioning of Ogaz, Rabb comes across as emphasizing, as does Ogaz in his answers, that Opmanis was lurking in place.
Ogaz testified that when he asked what Opmanis was doing in the parking lot around the time Shuey, Davis and Codman emerged from the store several minutes after he had, Opmanis indicated he was putting his groceries away. Ogaz, however, who had already indicated that Opmanis’s friends had driven way, said that the groceries had already been stowed in Opmanis’s vehicle.
“Did you point that out?” Rabb asked Ogaz.
“Yes, I did,” said Ogaz.
“What did he say in response to that?” Rabb asked.
Ogaz indicated that in trying to get Opmanis to respond on that score, he made a point of the video showing Opmanis standing on the floorboard of his car, looking in the direction of Shuey, Davis and Codman as they were heading toward, and then at, their motorcycles.
Pregnant in that part of Ogaz’s testimony was that Opmanis had not taken the opportunity to leave in the minutes ahead of the shooting.
Moreover, Ogaz suggested, Opmanis honked his horn several times “until he got their attention by honking.”
In this way, Ogaz’s testimony implied, Opmanis was seeking a confrontation with the trio.
Ogaz said that Opmanis had explained his honking of the horn by saying he was “trying to get everyone’s attention just in case they attacked him.”
The video, however, Ogaz said, shows that as the bikers passed in front of Opmanis as they were purposed to leave the parking lot, the defendant reached into his vehicle to honk his horn “three or four times, which seemed to catch Shane Codman’s attention.”
It was Codman who turned around to then drive up to Opmanis, quickly followed by Davis and then later by Shuey. This element of Ogaz’s testimony underscored the prosecution’s theory that Opmanis had invited the confrontation that led to the shooting.
Rabb asked Ogaz what Opmanis’s response was when he asked him why he didn’t simply leave. The detective said that Opmanis said “he wanted to stay in the parking lot because he knew it had cameras and if Robert Shuey assaulted him the cameras would be his evidence.”
Rabb asked, “During the course of the interview, did Mr. Opmanis change his story?”
Responded Ogaz, “He changed his story a bunch.”
In his cross examination of Ogaz, Opmanis’s defense attorney, David Striker, succeeded in getting the detective to acknowledge that Davis and Shuey were childhood friends, that the interviews with Codman and Shuey did not take place until two weeks and more after the shooting, and that when Codman and Shuey were interviewed they were accompanied by attorneys, and that they had likely spoken with one another before their respective interviews took place to coordinate their narratives. Striker pushed Ogaz with regard to whether he frequently encountered witnesses represented by an attorney, and Ogaz stated that it was uncommon.
In an effort to undercut the prosecution’s suggestion that Opmanis had been lying in wait outside the market, Striker questioned Ogaz about whether Opmanis had seen Shuey, Codman and Davis inside the store and whether they saw him, and Ogaz stated that “apparently” they didn’t see each other.
Striker also wrung from Ogaz that Opmanis was not in violation of any law by simply being in the parking lot.
“Mr. Opmanis has the right to be where he is?” Strike said in an assertive question.
“Absolutely,” Ogaz responded.
Striker was also able to get Ogaz to acknowledge that Davis, Shuey and Codman had been drinking that evening, asking if Codman had said whether they had consumed alcohol at the motorcycling event in Riverside.
“I believe he stated they had been drinking,” Ogaz said. To a follow-up question, Ogaz said he had not determined how much the three had been drinking or if they were intoxicated. Striker asked if the intoxicative effect of alcohol “could affect one’s perception of events?”
“Yes,” said Ogaz.
Striker asked if Ogaz had verified Shuey’s claim of having been injured by Opmanis during the January 2019 incident between the two men. Ogaz indicated he had not. He then acknowledged that there was a police report and photographs that documented Opmanis’s injuries in the January 2019 fight, though he indicated he had not pulled the report himself.
In response to one of Striker’s questions in which the defense attorney characterized the three bikers as surrounding Opmanis, Ogaz corrected the defense attorney to say that they had “parked by him.”
Ogaz further confirmed that according to Codman, Davis had said to Opmanis “Do you want to get down [i.e., fight]?”
Ogaz also stated that Opmanis did not reciprocate Davis’s threat, at which point Striker zeroed in on Codman’s description of Davis’s aggressive demeanor after Davis got off of his motorcycle. Striker referenced Codman’s statement that “Mr. Davis quickly approached him and came in hot and confrontational and ready to fight. Is that the essence of what he said?” Striker asked.
“Yes,” said Ogaz.
Striker referenced Ogaz’s statement that the video did not show Opmanis being hit by Davis, but then stated that on at least one of the versions of the video “Mr. Davis is walking toward Mr. Opmanis and then 12 seconds is missing.”
Ogaz acknowledged there was a segment of the video missing.
Striker also asked if Opmanis had, after the shooting, “put the gun back in the car immediately?”
“Correct,” Ogaz responded.
Ogaz also confirmed, in response to Striker, that Codman and Shuey left the scene shortly after the shooting when Opmanis and others were summoning the authorities.
Striker noted that when Codman was interviewed on July 25, Ogaz had asked him why he had left so rapidly after the shooting, while his friend was on the ground dying. “You asked the obvious question: ‘Why did you leave the scene?’ That is when his lawyer objects and you never got that answer. You do believe that’s an important question?” Striker asked.
Ogaz acknowledged it was.
On Friday, February 14 at 1:30 a.m. in Judge Umeda’s courtroom on the second floor of the San Bernardino Justice Center, Opmanis’s preliminary hearing is set to resume, with Ogaz scheduled to return to the witness stand.

The Walmart Corporation has pulled the plug on its nearly 15 year-long effort to establish a supercenter in Redlands.
Legal challenges over the years had delayed the undertaking, and now other considerations and a changing commercial environment convinced the retail giant, which at the moment occupies the number one spot on the Fortune 500 list of world corporations and thus stands as the largest and most successful company in the world, to abandon the plan to establish a 256,000- square foot retail center anchored by a 210,000- square foot megastore at the southeast corner of San Bernardino Avenue and Tennessee Street.
The proposal to locate a Walmart on the 33-acre patch of ground at that location was first publicly floated in 2005. The Redlands Good Neighbor Coalition in short order inserted itself into the approval process. One issue that group seized upon was an argument that the project was in conflict with the city’s growth limitation regulations, in particular, Measure U, which was passed by the city’s voters in 1997. Measure U put a premium on preserving the “unique character of the City of Redlands as a quiet university town surrounded by agricultural and citrus producing lands,” and maintaining “principles of managed development within the City of Redlands to accommodate growth over time in a manner that will not lead to a deterioration of the quality of life enjoyed by the citizens of Redlands.”
The coalition filed two lawsuits, which ultimately failed to halt the development plans at the time they were adjudicated in 2013 and 2014. Further delays, ensued, however, as appeals on those lawsuits were pursued. In the meantime, in October 2012, the Redlands City Council gave the project official go-ahead in a 4-to-1 vote, over heavy public opposition. For a variety of reasons, work on the project never actually began. Still, Walmart kept the project concept alive, by seeking on a regular annual basis a multitude of one-year extensions for its conditional use permits and parcel map, such that it did not need to submit a new application for approval of the project to the city. The last extension on the project was signed off on in April 2019.
Support for the project had remained solid at City Hall, which looked forward to the considerable sales tax revenue the store would bring to the city. City officials believed that the city would achieve a synergy with the completion of the project, which would in effect have created a series of power centers in close proximity to one another, which included the Mountain Grove at Citrus Plaza and other close by retail attractions, that counted among them T.J. Max, Ulta, Aldi’s, Kay Jewelers, Nordstrom Rack, Banana Republic, Hobby Lobby, Old Navy, Ross, Nike, as well as other customer attractions like 24 Hour Fitness and Harkins Theater. Redlands officials had hoped the concentration of retail options in such a relatively close environment would lure shoppers away from the Montclair Plaza, The Shoppes in Chino Hills, The Tyler Mall in Riverside and The Mills in Ontario.
Nevertheless, during the last half dozen years the entire retail industry has experienced a sea change, as traditional brick and mortar sales outlets have been in some measure supplanted by internet sales. While Walmart, with 11,277 stores and affiliated Sam’s Clubs in 27 countries, remains at the top of the Fortune 500 list, Amazon, which began as an on-line retailer of books and audio and video media, has branched into the sale of virtually every type of consumer product, and has climbed to the position of sixth on the Fortune 500 list, doing so without having made a major investment in physical locations where customers shop. This has prompted Walmart to begin experimenting with its own on-line retail sales approach in places such as Indiana, and made it rethink its aggressive effort to develop more and more stores. In some cases, Walmart employs home delivery vehicles to drop its merchandise off at the homes of customers. In other cases, the customers go to store locations or warehouses to pick up their purchases from a loading dock. In many locations, Walmart stores have seen both subtle and dramatic drop-offs in sales. Last year, Walmart initiated or completed the closure of 27 stores throughout the United States and Canada.
Word emanating from Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas was that Walmart’s strategy to remain at the top of the retail game was evolving toward a proper mix of traditional stores and e-commerce, and that at present the company needs to reduce the number of its physical stores to achieve that balance. Thus, as of last month, Walmart was pursuing the construction of only two further stores in all of California. Following what corporate officers characterized as a “standard, periodic review process protocol” a determination was made that the expense of following through with the development of the Redlands store was contrary to the corporation’s overall strategy and plans at this time, and the number of stores it is building in California dropped to one. An illustration of Walmart’s move away from store construction exists in the consideration that a little more than five years ago, in 2014, Walmart held 198 grand openings at newly completed locations in the United States, with that number zooming to 313 more in 2015. By 2019, that number had declined to just eight new stores.
Reportedly, the calculation that went into the decision included both the general migration of the retail industry away from expensive physical stores as well as the general approval and regulatory trend in Redlands as elsewhere in California entailing long term delays between the time of proposal and actual completion of a project. Despite California’s burgeoning population, which makes it an attractive place for operating huge department stores such as Walmart, which typically features 200,000 different products or items for sale, the governmental regulations for building and opening a large retail facility are prohibitive, experts in the development and retail industry say. Walmart’s plans for a supercenter in Fontana and in Rancho Cucamonga are now on hold.
Still, the same, Walmart is not abandoning the lion’s share of its existing stores. On the contrary, last year it spent $145 million in California alone, remodeling and refurbishing stores in the Golden State.
Walmart now plans to sell the 33-acre Redlands property.
Though city officials had apparently known of Walmart’s decision for a fortnight, it was only earlier this week that the public at large was informed.
On the rebound from Walmart’s decision, city officials had already begun talking about departing from the intent to have the property developed for commercial purposes to openly considering rezoning the property for high density residential purposes.
-Mark Gutglueck

Seventh Ward San Bernardino Councilman Jim Mulvihill, who was first elected to the council on November 5, 2013 as a consequence of the recall of his predecessor Wendy McCammack, is now standing for reelection in the municipal contest corresponding to the March 3 California Primary Election. Mulvihill was reelected in 2016, after he was the top vote-getter with 501 votes or 28.11 percent in November 2015 in a five-way race against Scott Beard, Kim Robel, Damon Alexander and Leticia Garcia, and then outdistanced Beard in the February 2016 run-off with 874 votes or 52.86 percent.
Mulvihill said he is running for a third term “because the city is in a state of turmoil caused by the present administration. I have a background in urban planning, so I have a good understanding of how a city is supposed to operate. I have background and experience. I can’t imagine any of my opponents doing the same kind of job I am capable of.”
In this year’s race, Mulvihill is opposed by Esmeralda Negrete, John Abad, David Mlynarski and Damon Alexander.
Mulvihill said the “major issue that affects residents is homelessness.”
He said over the time he has been in office, the city has come up with “a number of programs to aid the homeless and rehouse the homeless.”
Mulvihill said the problem is an essentially challenging one which defies straightforward and comprehensive solutions. He said the rationale approach is to take a realistic tack to make inroads against the condition, and get as many people off the streets as possible in conjunction with the homeless populations’ willingness to cooperate in the efforts of those willing to show it compassion.
“There are two major groups of homeless,” Mulvihill said. “One will be receptive to our efforts and can be rapidly rehoused. These are people who are experiencing problems because of foreclosure, or divorce, loss of employment and those sorts of things, ones who will accept help. Then there is the second group, who don’t want help and won’t accept it, who are addicted to drugs or are mentally ill, who don’t want to get off the street.  Those are people who have problems that are a little more difficult to address.”
The city has made some marginal progress on the homeless front, Mulvihill said.
“We have been able to get grants, several hundred thousand dollars for emergency shelters, housing vouchers to ‘the Rapid Rehousing Program’ in order to get people over rough spots and keep them off the streets until they can get back on their feet and regain employment and fend for themselves,” he said. “We have tried to take a ‘Housing First’ approach. With the second group, we haven’t given up. With the second group our first goal is to get them off the streets, provide them with some unconditional help, give them a little space with the hope that if they are not taking their medication we can get them back on medication or if they are taking [illicit] drugs we can eventually get them off of drugs. We try to look toward the long run. We want to get them a case worker, bring in the county work force development department to apply solutions to not only get them off the street but into employment.
“The city is working with Catholic Charities. It is working with Mary’s Village, which already has shelters for women and is now establishing a housing and job training facility for 115 homeless men,” Mulvihill continued. “The city is working with Kim Carter with Time For Change, the Salvation Army and the Lutheran Mission, who are working to provide housing for those who are out on the streets. We are trying find homes for them.”
The city is constrained by law in what it can do to overcome the homeless problem, Mulvihill said. The law will not allow the city to use its authority to simply force the dispossessed to leave, he said.
“In the Boise Decision, the Supreme Court ruled that if you can’t find homes for the homeless, they they can sleep on the sidewalk. Governor Newsom ratified that for California.”
Those who want to simply run the homeless out of town will need to go to Plan B, Mulvihill said.
He offered a suggestion.
“In the military we had tents large enough to house a platoon,” he said. “I propose that as a way to get the homeless off of our streets. We have space at the sheriff’s academy where we can pitch those tents and put in facilities. We need case managers for groups of individuals so we can reach them, provide them with health care, get them services and other forms of assistance. We may not be able to fix the problem in its entirety, but we can start to help those who will accept our help turn their lives around. The reality is that having them on the streets presents not only them, but all of us, with health issues. People defecating on the streets – that is a violation of public health regulations.”
Of the homeless, Mulvihill said, “We need to house them immediately and place them into facilities, even if that is only an immediate and short term solution. We need to get them off the streets.”
Mulvihill continue, “A big problem is the state is not really helping. Fifty years ago, when Ronald Reagan was governor, they closed down our mental health hospitals.  That has created a whole subset of homeless who are most resistant to help. The state needs to step in and provide programs and make policy changes right now. When they say to us ‘It is your problem,’ that is baloney.”
Without faulting any of those seeking to address the bane of homelessness, Mulvihill said that what is needed is a far more coordinated and universal approach, and that real and meaningful progress won’t occur until all of the horses are hitched up to the same side of the wagon.
“Right now every jurisdiction is developing its own approach to this problem,” he said. “What we have done in the City of San Bernardino in conjunction with San Bernardino County is try to apply a ‘Housing First’ solution by providing housing vouchers to those who want them and will accept them. Other jurisdictions are approaching this in their own way. The state needs to develop laws and guidance and establish a statewide policy.”
Beyond  homelessness, Mulvihill, said, the city is saddled with the scourge of crime.
“The best best policy to deal with crime is to hire more police officers,” he said. “In 2010-11, we had 349 sworn police officers on the street fighting crime. Right now, under the [John] Valdivia administration, we have 249. We are down 100 officers. The mayor’s approach is to hire more clerical staff and lobbyists. In terms of rational fiscal management, the direction of His Honor and his council majority is wrong. We need more police officers. We only have four code enforcement officers. We need 20 or 30. His answer is to hire more administrative staff and lobbyists.”
Mulvihill said, “I support Operation Ceasefire,  the violence intervention program. It intentionally goes out and does data analysis to identify individuals who have a higher probability of committing violent crime. We are finding that 15 to 20 percent of the people who have criminal records between the ages of 18 to 24 have such potential. For them, living in the environment they do, joining a gang is a rational decision. So, under this program – Operation Ceasefire – what occurs is probation officers, in conjunction with people who have been released from prison, will search these at-risk individuals out and tell them ‘This is the direction your life is going in, and you can see where you are going to end up. This is your opportunity to develop job skills with Operation Ceasefire.’ People going into gangs, given the environment they are in, are making a rational decision. Here is a path to give them a better option. This violence intervention approach has had a high success rate in Boston, Chicago, North Carolina. Oakland and Stockton.”
Mulvihill said that “According to [Police] Chief [Eric] McBride, “The crime rate has dropped a little bit between 2018 and 2019. Homicides are down 6 percent, rapes are down 9 percent. Burglaries are down 9 percent. Whereas in 2015 we had 218 sworn officers, we now have 249. We are going in the right direction. That is still inadequate.”
Mulvihill said the third major issue the city has been struggling with and which he is anxious to continue to work on is economic development.
“I have kept in close touch with business people, people in the building industry, associates within the chamber of commerce, the League of California Cities,” he said. “There are some business people who are interested in doing things in our city. I was contacted most recently by someone about the Arrowhead Country Club. He had asked me about developing it for housing. I had to tell him I can’t support that, but I use that to illustrate that there is interest in development within our city. There are some proposals. One was at the northwest corner of Valencia and Highland where there is a Chinese Smorgasbord, and they are interested in putting in a Starbucks and a 7-Eleven. I think we would be interested in that. I am in close touch with the business community. I think we need to hold something like an opportunity fair, just like the retail industry holds conventions, just as the shopping center developers hold shopping center conventions in Las Vegas on an annual basis. We should hold a community opportunity fair to promote our work force, where we talk about our labor pool, and show potential employers from across the country what we have to offer. I can see us having an opportunity fair at the Orange Show and bringing in employers from all over, retailers nationally to see what we have here. Corporations from all over the country should see San Bernardino, and the opportunity waiting for them here.  If they look at our transportation system and see the airport, we may get retailers and manufacturers interested in coming here.”
Mulvihill said, “I would like to see more quality housing in San Bernardino.  We really need to seek to attract that. Dignity Health, which owns Saint Bernardine’s Hospital and owns 39 hospitals across the country has a group of investors looking to build 800 homes, in conjunction with National Core and the county housing authority and mortgage financing firms. We have the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation looking to make grants to support major housing projects. We have already gotten a small grant for planning. We are looking for securing the Robert Wood Foundation grant for our community. We should be facilitating those efforts and I will lead that.”
Despite the consideration that he is the oldest member of the city council, Mulvihill said he is perhaps the member of the panel most sensitive to the vulnerabilities of those who are four and five decades his junior.
“We need to engage our youth,” he said. “I am a member of the community college bond oversight committee. At the community college [San Bernardino Community College] we have a new technology building to train young people and anyone, actually, who wants to develop modern job skills. We have achieved a portion of a half of a billion grant and that has been used to buy the former San Manuel Administration building on Highland where the Building Industry Association has established a construction industry program to train construction workers. The building industry has lost a lot of construction workers who have moved out of state because housing is so expensive. If someone has been formerly incarcerated, the Building Industry Association will make that training free to those who need work to turn their lives around and keep from going back to prison. The school district is gearing itself to job training. We have steep unemployment rates. We need to fix that. We need to give people the opportunity to get skills.”
Mulvihill elaborated, “Among minorities in our city 18 to 24 years old, the unemployment rate is between 40 and 50 percent. We need to give those who want work the opportunity they need to work. College is not for everyone, but in today’s working world, you need something beyond high school. There is available now a training program, which runs 30 to 35 hours, which can be done in a couple of weeks, that will teach you how to operate a forklift truck. That will provide someone with what everyone needs, which is a solid first rung on the ladder. You can get training in welding, or in being an electrician. Valley College has the facilities for that.”
Mulvihill went on, “Allen Stanley bought the Heritage  Building, where he is now housing start-up businesses. I have maintained contact with Michael Gallo, whose company is involved in constructing the Phoenix space glider, and he has a technical education training program at Norton that uses modern metal lathes. I used lathes when I was in metal shop in high school, so I remember back in the day how we used a lathe to chisel off metal and shape things.  I toured the operation at Norton, and now lathes are computerized. People can train on lathes, and they are making tools and parts for all kinds of engines.”
The City of San Bernardino has to actuate upon the resources and tools it possesses now, rather than suspend its expectations until a later date when one prospect or another may or may not materialize, Mulvihill said.
“I’m not a gambler, and I don’t ever want to lose sight of what is possible, but I think we have to work on probability,” he said.
A case in point, he said, is that employment within the logistics industry is available to a significant segment of San Bernardino’s population.
“Obviously, the San Bernardino International Airport offers all kinds of opportunities in the realm of logistics, and that industry is booming,” Mulvihill said. “I realize there is some resistance against all forms of logistics operations because of the accompanying pollution and the lower wages, but these operations bring with them benefits. A third of the adult population in San Bernardino does not have a high school diploma and what kind of jobs can those who fall into that category compete for? Those logistics jobs are not super-high paying, but they come with health care, vision care and dental insurance. That is worth it just in itself. We have to understand that right now we don’t have the skill level in much of our population to attract high tech companies here.”
At the same time, he said, the population itself must be inspired to take it upon itself to obtain the training and education it needs to compete in the modern business world.
“We have so many universities and colleges here, the state university, Redlands University, Valley College, Crafton Hills,” he said. “San Bernardino has one of the best educational environments in the state. It is hard to attract technical industries when you have the kind of low skill levels in our population that we do. We need to move that part of our population that does not want to get that level of training into the jobs they can perform, and push those who want to go onto a higher level of education and training to do that so they can land those better paying and more demanding jobs.”
Success in life requires situational awareness, the agility to adapt and a willingness to work hard, Mulvihill said.
Mulvihill, with another member of the city council, Fred Shorett, stands as a counterweight to Mayor John Valdivia, whom he considers to be dishonest, self-interestedly misfocused and wrongheaded in his orientation with regard to governance and leadership.
“Investors in our community want to know that we offer them something that is predictable and stable,” he said. “The current mayor has made San Bernardino unpredictable and unstable. I fault him for that, and it is not getting better. The people who might invest in our city are looking at the council and the mayor. He has four people who are pretty much backing him and going along with what he wants to do. The investors want to see better decisions being made.”
Mulvihill said he offers the voters of the 7th Ward the best choice to represent them among the current crop of candidates.
“I’ve got the record,” he said. “I’ve got the experience inside and outside of government. There are people running against me who say they will end homelessness, but they are not specific about how they are going to do that. I think they are genuinely concerned, but they are not very realistic. I say to them, ‘You’re going to end homelessness? Really? How are you going to do that?’ I can list the programs I have helped implement. I am very concerned about getting things right and I’m not here to make promises I cannot fulfill. I am not on my own going to end homelessness. But I am going to get people off the street if they want to get off the street and I will try to create programs to help them enter back into society.”
Mulvihill said, “The theme of my campaign is ‘Performance. My past record. Performance, not promises.’”
Asked about how the city is to finance itself going forward, Mulvihill said, “Well, that’s the sore point, isn’t it? The issue is we have stagnant revenue and rising costs. So, we need to be very adept in terms of fiscal management. In the short term, rational fiscal management of the funds we do have is critical. We have expenses and liabilities that are not well known. This year we spent $26 million on payments to the California Public Employee Retirement System. $5 million of that was for current pensions and the other $21 million to pay off some of our obligation. Right now we have a $420 million unfunded future obligation to the California Public Employees Retirement System. We have a $126 million general fund budget. The police and fire departments take up up $85 million of that. So, after police and fire and pensions, we have $15 million to pay for the rest of our employees, streets, sidewalks, lights and everything else. We’re paying twice as much for pensions –  to people who no longer work for the city – as we are for the people who are working for us right now. We are in dire circumstances, and need to recognize that and be cautious about the choices we make.”
Mulvihill said, “We need to renew Measure Z [the voter-approved quarter of a cent sales tax override passed in San Bernardino on November 7, 2006, which went into effect for a period of 15 years, beginning April 1, 2007] in the next election. That means we will continue to receive that quarter of a cent revenue directly. But I will not support it myself and will be against it unless we come up with a logical financial management strategy, so we don’t fritter it away on lobbyists and pensions.”
Mulvihill said the city needs to calibrate its policies so it reacts to immediate problems while husbanding its resources to deal with longer range issues.
“When you look at it in the short term, we need to coordinate applying for grants, such as the one available from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,” Mulvihill said. “We can apply that to move ahead with the projects to rejuvenate the Arden Guthrie neighborhood, what we are now calling Arrowhead Vista, which National Core is working on. There are $20 million grants out there. We need to go after them. We have already succeeded in getting a $2.3 million grant to help support the police department  There are grants for sustainable communities, for safer schools. The Southern California Association of Governments offers operational grants. These aren’t enough to transform the entire city, but they will help us fix some of the marginal issues we have. After that, we need to think in the long term. We need to renew the general plan. We can’t let these day-to-day brush fires take up all of our attention. We need to think about what do we want to be in 15 years. We should do data analysis and determine the need for housing. The general plan is a road map for how we get to that point.”
His steady had on the tiller of government is needed, Mulvihill said.
“We’re in trouble,” he asserted. “We need to be aware of that. We need to be fiscally realistic and refine our fiscal management policy because we are on a very short rope, and we really need to think about what the long term is. We have people who are interested in bringing jobs into our community. We need to promote people like that.  The airbase is now an international airport. The reality is the logistics industry is the one advantage we have to use to our benefit right now.”
Mulivihill said there was a sense of déjà vu once removed to his perspective on San Bernardino’s circumstance and the generation that is on the brink of inheriting it from those who have preceded them.
“After I graduated from Amherst Central High School in Buffalo, New York,  I got a job at a company on the night shift loading trucks,” he related. “It was a good job for an 18 or 19-year old. I made enough money to buy a convertible.  But there were guys who were 28-years old I was working with who were making the same amount of money, ones who had little children or babies on the way. The ownership closed out that business and I was unemployed for several months. I managed to get a job with United Parcel Service in January 1965 on the day shift. Sometimes you stand on someone’s shoulders and things fall into place at the right time. At that point I started going to night school part time, got good grades. In 1968 I was drafted into the Army, was in Vietnam in the Central Highlands from July 1969 until August 1970, came home, got discharged and after that I had the GI Bill to finish my education. That wouldn’t have been my first choice on how I wanted to do things, but it worked out for me.
“I see a parallel from my life back in New York in the 1960s when I was a young man to what is here in San Bernardino for young people now,” Mulvihill said. “Look at what is available. That is logistics. That is assembly. Mike Gallo at the airport has an operation deconstructing parts and remaking them into aircraft components.   We have [San Bernardino International Airport Authority Executive Director] Mike Burrows, [ Kelly Space & Technology CEO] Mike Gallo, [property speculator and entrepreneur] Allen Stanley who are creating the means for young people who are just beginning to make their way in the work force, starting families or whatever to get started toward what the future holds for them.”
Mulivhill obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Buffalo, which transitioned into the State University of New York, at Buffalo. Subsequently, he obtained Ph.D. in urban policy and geography from Michigan State University in 1976. He taught urban and municipal planning at Maryland State University in Frostburg for three years before accepting a similar teaching assignment at California State University San Bernardino in 1981.
He has a daughter and two grandchildren.
-M.G.

San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia, who has been on the dodge from allegations and suggestions of financial improprieties and abuse of his governmental authority since before he assumed the county seat’s highest elected position in December 2018, was hit with public accusations of sexual harassment this week by two women who abruptly resigned as members of his four-person staff last week.
Allegations that he was behaving inappropriately toward one of the women,  Mirna Cisneros, had been festering for nearly a year. Accusations pertaining to Karen Cervantes relate to Valdivia’s interaction with her since shortly after she was hired last fall.
Claims delineating the allegations in specific detail will be filed with the city next week, according to the two women’s attorney. A claim is a precursor to a lawsuit. The city will have the option of acknowledging either or both of the claims as valid and conferring a settlement on one or both of the women. Upon the city’s rejection of the claim in either case and the exhaustion of the claimants’ potential administrative remedies, each of the women will have clearance to proceed with a civil suit.
Cisneros, 30, and Cervantes, 24, submitted letters of resignation to Valdivia’s chief of staff, Matt Brown, on January 29.
In a terse statement, the city has said it has begun an investigation into the accusations.
The lawyer representing the two women, Tristan Pelayes, at a press conference held yesterday morning, February 6,  in front of the city’s 48-year-old City Hall that is now shuttered because of seismic instability, said, “My clients were subjected to repeated sexual harassment and mistreatment by the current City of San Bernardino mayor, John Valdivia. The claims are backed by evidence, including numerous messages, and those who witnessed the behavior. The harassment included sexual advances toward my clients, vulgar comments about women and his sexual activity, and numerous comments by the mayor telling them that they needed to spend more alone time with him after hours in order to be successful and secure their employment.”
Pelayes said both Cisneros and Cervantes while working for the mayor and serving in roles answerable directly to him became aware of Valdivia having failed to report contributions, that he was using city facilities, equipment and resources to raise campaign funds, and that he was engaging in other questionable or illegal activities and financially-based improprieties and misuses of public funds.
According to Pelayes, “Additional conduct of concern included the mayor being drunk while serving in his official capacity, and repeatedly hiding and misreporting financial activities, which is a violation of the law.”
City officials have known of Valdivia’s depredations, and have been remiss in not acting to stem them, Pelayes said.
“All of these incidents have been reported numerous times to city administrators, yet nothing was done, and they continued to be victimized by Mayor Valdivia,” Pelayes said.
The continuation of Valdivia’s misdeeds and the failure of city officials to shield Cisneros and Cervantes resulted, Pelayes asserted, in his clients “experiencing health issues, and they had to seek medical treatment, which was directly correlated with the severe stress they experienced.”
As a consequence, Pelayes said, Cisneros and Cervantes were left with “no choice but to resign from their positions at the City of San Bernardino. It wasn’t until they resigned and retained an attorney that the city started looking into the claims that they had been aware of but did nothing about.”
The city’s response has been little more than window dressing, Pelayes said, and he accused city management of carrying out a sham inquiry into the matter.
“Although the city has begun an internal investigation, they declined our requests to collectively work together through the process and choose an independent investigator to ensure a fair investigation, put the mayor on leave during the investigation, and provide alternate positions for my clients to return to without losing their employment status and benefits,” Pelayes said. “They stated that our requests were unreasonable.”
Cisneros said, “I was employed with the City of San Bernardino as a senior customer service representative. While working for Mayor Valdivia, I was subjected to countless inappropriate acts of harassment. This included him calling the office, saying he was drunk and needing assistance scheduling an appointment with Councilman Henry Nickel.” Cisneros said that Valdivia told her there was such a priority on his meeting with Nickel that “If need be… [she should] perform a sexual favor on one of Nickel’s staff members. He also offered me his credit card, would buy me whatever I wanted and said that his wife didn’t have to know. It disgusts me that that man, who swore to serve the community with integrity, used his position of power and authority to victimize people with no consequences.”
Cisneros said, “I never wanted it to get to this point, but I had no choice after the city failed to protect me and to hold the mayor accountable for his actions.”
Cervantes said, “I was employed with the City of San Bernardino as the mayor’s assistant. Over the last four months, Mayor Valdivia harassed and mistreated me repeatedly. He would talk about sexual escapades and desires in front of me and others. When I refused or didn’t respond to his advances and inappropriate correspondence, he would mistreat me, yell at me and make comments insinuating my job would be in jeopardy if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do. He said ‘What kind of bills do you pay? Do you have a mortgage? I just want to know: Are you worried about not having this job?’ My employment became what I called, the ‘misery program.’ He told me that the situation was my fault and that if I wanted things to change and to have a good relationship with him, I would have to spend time with him after hours. It got to the point where the right side of my face and arm became numb and stiff.”
Cervantes said, “After reporting the mayor’s inappropriate behavior and being told that because he was an elected official nothing would be done and he was above the law, I knew I had no choice but to take legal action and resign from my position.”
Pelayes said, “Based on the information that we know so far, it is my belief that there are others out there who have been victimized by the mayor. Valdivia’s abuse of power has cost my clients their jobs and impacted their physical and mental health, not to mention the disservice to those who put their trust in him as a community leader.”
Wednesday night, at the close of the public portion of this week’s regularly-scheduled council meeting, at the request of San Bernardino City Councilman/Mayor Pro Tem Ted Sanchez, Deputy City Attorney Sonia Carvalho provided this statement, “Mayor and council members, I wanted to assure you and also especially members of the public that the city manager and director of human resources have taken immediate action to address the recent claims that have been referred to in a newspaper article. The city has outside legal counsel that advises the city on all employment matters, and this firm is advising staff on its legal obligations to strictly comply and follow with all of your personnel rules, and to conduct a thorough investigation. We ask for your patience, knowing that staff needs to comply with these policies and state and federal law. The public should know that all of you have been advised of your legal responsibilities and your fiduciary duties, and your obligation not to disclose confidential personnel information, and this may be why some of you cannot speak to the press or members of the public.”
Valdivia for some time has been under investigation by both the FBI and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office’s public integrity unit with regard to allegations and reports of bribe-taking and influence peddling, as well as misuse of public funds. One of those accusations relates to his having entangled himself, less than two weeks after his election as mayor in November 2018 and while he was yet serving in the capacity of the city’s Third Ward councilman, in financial investments involving business interests who are pursuing licensing of marijuana-related operations in the city, over which the city council has a degree of permitting discretion.
Valdivia’s chief of staff, Matt Brown, told the Sentinel, “The city is taking these allegations very seriously.”
-Mark Gutglueck

Councilman Henry Nickel said he is seeking reelection in the March 3 election to get the voters’ consent to serve in what will be his third term as San Bernardino’s Fifth Ward councilman “because we have a lot of work to do.”
In enumerating his accomplishments in office, Nickel first said, “We have gotten through bankruptcy.”
The councilman’s reference was to the city’s 2012 filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which came just about a year-and-a-half before his victory in a special election held on February 4, 2014 to replace Chas Kelley, who was forced to resign as a consequence of his having misused campaign funds.
“Our priority was to get the city back on sound financial footing,” Nickel said. “We now have reserves, we have balanced the budget, and implemented the plan of adjustment. We are moving ahead with our recovery plan.  We did what we promised to do four years ago and now the city needs to build on its tax base. Our main focus over the next four years will be on rebuilding the city.”
Nickel said he is able to function effectively as an elected official by campaigning hard as a politician, but is also able, after the election season is over, to cooperate with both his rivals and allies that head local government.
“My record shows I am working across party lines,” he said. “We received  $3 million from Assemblyman [James] Ramos [a Democrat against whom the Republican Nickel vied in the 2018 election to represent the 40th Assembly District]. I am able to work with the council and other officeholders so my constituents don’t fall victim to the petty factionalism that historically divides the city.  We need to get past the personal differences that prevent cooperation in key areas. Holding political grudges is not being responsible toward our residents. I meet with residents of my ward twice a month before council meetings and I take every opportunity to continue to work together with everyone in the city.”
According to Nickel, “Our major challenge immediately is our available revenue is 60 percent of what it is for comparable cities in our region. It is only in the last few decades that we have become an impoverished community. It was always a middle class city prior to that. We have experienced an economic disaster, so we have to work hard over the next four years to change our trajectory. I am paying attention to our businesses and residents. We need to streamline the delivery of public service in accordance with our plan of adjustment. We have brought down our pension obligation and we should start to realize a return on that over the next decade. We need to convince people that this is a safe and clean environment and a sustainable place they can call home that will attract middle and upper income families we have to this point lost from the city, families with $60,000 plus per year per household income. That is what we need. If you look at San Bernardino right now,  we are at $37,000 per year per household median income. You can’t sustain a city with that kind of income. With those limitations on our finances, we won’t have the tax base to keep the city operating at the level we need to. As our revenues are declining, our need for services goes up. So, as revenues are declining,  you are seeing more crime, more blight. Businesses leave and our income declines. We are in a death spiral. We cannot sustain a city in this situation. We need to implement our plan of adjustment to fix this.”
Nickel continued, “The other key component is we updated our charter in order to get past the dysfunctional politics of the past and adopt a model that is much more aligned with the cities surrounding us and that are in line with best practices of the other cities round us and across the nation. I have never fallen into the trap of of negativity. I think San Bernardino is the most well-placed city within the overall environment of the Inland Empire. It offers opportunities that are unique.  There is no reason for us to remain as the most impoverished city in the Inland Empire, given our position and resources.”
Nickel decried the city’s problems as being ones brought on by senseless rivalries and bickering. “A lot of that is the dysfunctional politics,” he said. “My goal is to rise to a level that is above this political dysfunction and work with my colleagues, and I feel I have done that.”
The city needs to work on the nuts and bolts of municipal function, including advanced urban planning befitting an entity that has been a metropolitan center for more than a century, Nickel said.
“We need to improve our general plan,” Nickel said. “Our development code is a shambles. Refining our codes and making improvements to our land use polices is a key component of or future if businesses are to be convinced to locate here. We need for them to have confidence that their customers are going to be safe. We are not going to be able to attract the type of businesses you need to improve the quality of life without that.”
He said, “Law enforcement is a key component, as is code enforcement. There is a need to address the blight and vacant properties throughout the city. Eliminating blight will contribute to the quality of life and create an opportunity for us to attract businesses. If you look around the 5th Ward, you can see it is doing quite well and is able to sustain itself. The 5th Ward has neighborhoods with higher home values than most other areas of the city. We have worked hard to protect those home values and the area in general. We have to do the same with other areas of the city, and I have a record of doing that, as well.”
Asked why the 5th Ward’s voters should support him rather than any of his five opponents in the March 3 election, Nickel said, “I think the voters have to do their homework and look at what all of the different candidates bring to the table in terms of experience, their records of accomplishment, life experience. Ultimately, it is up to the voters to decide. I cannot tell them I am the best candidate. I would tell them to look at experience and qualifications. Look at what I have done. I think most of the voters will find I have served them in a way that will give them confidence in me. Unfortunately, many people in office believe they are in charge. They are not in charge. I believe that once you are elected you need to maintain humility, to know you are not in charge and that you are there to represent your constituency. I have always listened to my constituency. There are, I know, members of my constituency that disagree with my ideas. I have always respected my constituency’s ideas and sense of direction, and I follow it on the dais.”
Nickel said, “I am working hard to stay in touch with the residents of the 5th Ward and I appreciate the feedback I am getting from from the city’s residents. I look forward to working with the other candidates in the 5th Ward after the election, no matter the outcome, to pull together and do what is right for the 5th Ward and the city. For anyone to take on being a candidate and offer their services, you have to admire and respect that.”
Nickel responded to criticism leveled at him from several quarters within the city and in particular by one of his challengers, Brian Davison, with regard to the city council’s move in June to reduce the compensation of the city’s outgoing city attorney and city clerk.
In 2016, San Bernardino’s voters passed a municipal charter makeover plan which, among other reforms, eliminated the city’s elected city attorney and city clerk posts, designating them as appointed positions, simultaneously moving the city’s elections from odd-numbered to even-numbered years. Despite that, both Gary Saenz and Georgeann Hanna, were entitled to remain, respectively, in the elected city attorney and elected city clerk posts they had been reelected to in 2015, with their terms running concurrently until March 3, 2020. Last May, Mayor John Valdvia formed a subcommittee of the city council to consider cost-saving measures, to which he appointed Nickel, Councilman Ted Sanchez and Councilman Juan Figueroa. After just two such meetings, on May 30 and June 5, the Nickel, Sanchez and Figueroa troika called for reducing by 45.8 percent the compensation Saenz was to receive during the nine months of 2019-2020 that he had remaining in office, and reducing the compensation Hanna was to receive during the remaining duration of her tenure by 59.2 percent. Prior to the charter change, the city had set Saenz’ total annual compensation at $246,266, including salary, benefits and add-ons. Hanna had been provided with $171,466 in total annual compensation as city clerk, including salary, benefits and add-ons. The subcommittee passed on to the full city council a proposal to reduce the compensation Saenz was to receive from July 1, 2019 until March 3, 2020 from $184,700 to $100,000 and the compensation Hanna was to receive over the same nine-month span from $128,600 to $52,500. Thus, Saenz was being called upon to see his compensation reduced by $84,700. Hanna was to sustain a reduction of $76,100.
When the council took up the compensation reduction issue on June 10, 2019, Nickel, Sanchez and Figueroa were joined by Councilwoman Bessine Richard in a 4-to-2 vote, with Councilman Jim Mulvihill absent and councilmembers Sandra Ibarra and Fred Shorett dissenting, to make the reductions. Subsequently, however, both Saenz and Hanna sued, contesting the pay cuts. In August 2019, a ruling by Judge David Cohn disallowed the pay reductions, and he ordered that the duo’s pay be restored, with back pay. The council dug in its heels and appealed that ruling, in the course of which it expended more than $75,000 in legal fees. Ultimately, this week, the council decided to drop the appeal.  Thus, the ploy suggested by Nickel, Sanchez and Figueroa to save the city $160,800 instead ended up costing the city’s taxpayers more than $75,000.
Nickel was unapologetic over the issue, explaining that it was in response to his constituents’ demands that the city discontinue the inflated pay for the two elected posts that motivated him to seek the pay reform.
“Ever since the new charter was approved more than three years ago, I have been receiving comments asking me why after those posts were eliminated we are continuing to pay Gigi [Hanna] and Gary what amounted to more than a million dollars,” Nickel said. “The positions were eliminated as elected posts. I looked into it and asked that question on behalf of the voters, the residents, the city’s taxpayers. I never got a good answer. There have been few cases in California where there is a change in the elected status of an official and that official continues to receive pay at what is, after all, a significant level above what is paid for similar work in the private sector. This was nothing personal against Gigi or Gary, but they were being paid very handsomely after the voters of the city voted to eliminate the positions they held. We merely attempted to scale down their pay in accordance with the work they were yet in place, and assigned, to do. The input I was receiving from my constituents was that we had to reduce their pay, since we could not justify in any way paying them the more than a million dollars we were paying them and providing them in benefits. That question was especially appropriate, since just a few years before that vote to change the charter this city had filed for bankruptcy and was still in bankruptcy at the time of that vote to redo the charter. Obviously, we lost at the trial court level, and my decision, after that decision, was to not support moving this into the appellate court after that.”
Nickel studied at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, latter transferring to American University in Washington, DC where he received his undergraduate degree in communication, legal institutions, economics and government in 1999. He also has a graduate degree from California State University San Bernardino in national security studies.
In 2012 he was elected to the San Bernardino County Republican Party Central Committee and was chosen by his colleagues in that body to serve as the secretary of the county party shortly thereafter. Nickel is the chairman of the city’s ways and means committee and a member of the legislative review committee. He is a board member of the League of California Cities’ Transportation, Communication and Public Works Committee and its Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Caucus.
-M.G.

The Walmart Corporation has pulled the plug on its nearly 15 year-long effort to establish a supercenter in Redlands.
Legal challenges over the years had delayed the undertaking, and now other considerations and a changing commercial environment convinced the retail giant, the largest and currently most successful company in the world which at the moment occupies the pinnacle number one spot on the Fortune 500 list of world corporations, to abandon the plan to establish a 256,000 square foot retail center anchored by a 210,00 square foot megastore at the southeast corner of San Bernardino Avenue and Tennessee Street.
The proposal to locate a Walmart on a 33-acre patch of ground at the location was first publicly floated in 2005. The Redlands Good Neighbor Coalition in short order inserted itself into the approval process. One issue that group seized upon was an argument that the project was in conflict with the city’s growth limitation regulations, in particular, Measure U, which was passed by the city’s voters in 1997. Measure U put a premium on preserving the “unique character of the City of Redlands as a quiet university town surrounded by agricultural and citrus producing lands,” and maintaining “principles of managed development within the City of Redlands to accommodate growth over time in a manner that will not lead to a deterioration of the quality of life enjoyed by the citizens of Redlands.”
The coalition filed two lawsuits, which ultimately failed to halt the development plans at the time they were adjudicated in 2013 and 2014. Further delays, ensued, however, as appeals on those lawsuits were pursued. In the meantime, in October 2012, the Redlands City Council gave the project official go-ahead in a 4-to-1, over heavy public opposition. For a variety of reasons, work on the project never actually began. Still, Walmart kept the project concept alive, by seeking on a regular annual basis a multitude of one-year extensions for its conditional use permits and parcel map, such that it did not need to submit a new application for approval of the project to the city. The last extension on the project was signed off on in April 2019.
Support for the project had remained solid at City Hall, which looked forward to the considerable sales tax revenue the store would bring to the city. City officials believed that the city would achieve a synergy with the completion of the project, which would in effect create a series of power centers in close proximity to one another, which included the Mountain Grove at Citrus Plaza and other close by retail attractions, that counted T.J. Max, Ulta, Aldi’s, Kay Jewelers, Nordstom Rack, Banana Republic, Hobby Loddy, Old Navy, Ross, Nike, as well as other customer attractions like 24 Hour Fitness and Harkins Theater. Redlands officials had hoped the concentration of retail options in such a relatively close environment would lure shoppers away from the Montclair Plaza, The Shoppes in Chino Hills, The Tyler Mall in Riverside and The Mills in Ontario.
Nevertheless, during the last half dozen years the entire retail industry has experienced a sea change, as traditional brick and mortar sales outlets have been in some measure supplanted by internet sales. While Walmart, with 11,277 stores and affiliated Sam’s Clubs in 27 countries, remains at the top of the Fortune 500 list, Amazon, which began as an on-line retailer of books and audio and video media, has branched into the sale of virtually every type of consumer product, and has climbed to the position of sixth on the Fortune 500 list, doing so without having made an major investment in physical locations where customers shop. This has prompted Walmart to begin experimenting with its own on-line retail sales approach in places such as Indiana, and made it rethink its aggressive effort to develop more and more stores. In some cases, Walmart employs home delivery vehicles to drop its merchandise off at the homes of customers. In other cases, the customers go to store locations or warehouses to pick up their purchases from a loading dock. In many locations, Walmart stores have seen both subtle and dramatic drop-offs in sales. Last year Walmart initiated or completed the closure of 27 stores throughout the United States and Canada.
Word emanating from Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas was that Walmart’s strategy to remain at the tip of the retail came was evolving toward the proper mix of traditional stores and e-commerce, and that at present the company needs to reduce the number of physical stores to achieve that balance. Thus, as of last month, Walmart was pursuing the construction of only two further stores in all of California. Following what corporate officers characterized as a “standard, periodic review process protocol” a determination was made that the expense of following through with the development of the Redlands store was contrary to the corporation’s overall strategy and plans at this time. An illustration of Walmart’s move away from store construction exists in the consideration that a little more than five years ago, in 2014, Walmart held 198 grand openings at newly completed locations in the United States, with that number zooming to 313 more in 2015. By 2019, that number had declined to just eight new stores.
Reportedly, the calculation that went into the decision included both the general migration of the retail industry away from expensive physical stores but the general approval and regulatory trend in Redlands as elsewhere in California entailing long term delays between the time of proposal and actual completion of a project. Despite California’s burgeoning population, which makes it an attractive place for operating huge department stores such as Walmart, which typically features 200,000 different products or items for sale, the governmental regulations for building and opening a large retail facility is prohibitive, experts in the development and retail industry say. Walmart’s plans for a supercenter in Fontana and in Rancho Cucamonga are now on hold.
Still, the same, Walmart is not abandoning the lion’s share of its existing stores. On the contrary, it spent $145 million in California alone, remodeling and refurbishing stores in the Golden State.
Walmart now plans to sell the 33-acre property.
Though city officials had apparently known of Walmart’s decision for a fortnight, it was only earlier this week that the public at large was informed.
On the rebound from Walmart’s decision, city officials had already begun talking about departing from the intent to have the property developed for commercial purposes to openly considering rezoning the property for high density residential purposes.
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