By Mark Gutglueck
With the final political piece now in place, there is acute concern among informed individuals concealed within the county government’s structure that the county’s taxpayers are about to be taken on a $7 million to $11 million ride by one of the board of supervisors’ more obscure, but nevertheless generous, patrons.
Of note is the creative fashion in which what have been characterized as payoffs are being delivered to the politicians who will make an ultimate determination on the projects in question and whose personal interests are driving the giveaway of public money.
All five of the current members of the board of supervisors – Curt Hagman, Dawn Rowe, Paul Cook, Joe Baca Jr. and Jesse Armendarez – have been compromised by the ultimate intended beneficiary of the proposed set of projects and his political operative. Continue reading →

The City of Ontario and San Bernardino County are likely on a legal collision course over groundwater contamination issues that are the legacy of operations at separate airports both entities control.
The litigation will commence around the same time that a plume consisting of aviation fuel, solvents used in plane maintenance and other chemicals that are byproducts of aviation operations at Ontario International Airport meets with or merges with the noxious contaminants emanating from Chino Airport, including those originating with the burying of napalm decades ago on that air field’s grounds.
The spreading contamination from both aerodromes represents a hazard to the region’s water supply and the health of the nearly 450,000 people who live in Ontario, Montclair, Chino and Chino Hills.
Both the county and Ontario are seeking to redress the issue at the property they control. Nevertheless, the more serious environmental threat represented by the plume originating in Ontario is threatening to greatly complicate an already challenging effort at remediation being conducted by the county in Chino.
On the afternoon of July 22, 2010, three buried drums were discovered at Chino airport during trenching for installation of a storm drain pipeline for a Southern California Edison facility that was being constructed. The County of San Bernardino Department of Airports was notified, and it contacted the county fire department’s hazardous materials division and TetraTech, an environmental assessment company under contract to the county. TetraTech retained Double Barrel, a commercial hazardous materials emergency responder, to assess the situation. Continue reading →

While 465 of the 978 people who were present during the January 6, 2021 mass protest against the results of the 2000 presidential election have entered guilty pleas and two have been convicted on charges relating to what the U.S. Government says was a seditious insurrection, former Assistant Fontana Police Chief Alan Hostetter is rolling the dice, insisting that prosecutors take him to trial.
A pretrial hearing on his case is scheduled for January 15 and his trial is set to begin on July 6.
Though Hostetter’s claim of innocence has remained constant and unchanged since his arrest on June 10, 2021 and his first appearance in court on June 14, 2021 followed by his response to the government’s superseding indictment filed on December 1, 2021, he has made a radical departure from his initial contention that he stands in solidarity with five associates from Southern California who were with him in the nation’s capital and that the government cooked charges up against all of them. He is now contending that at least some or maybe even all of those five – Russell Taylor, Erik Warner, Felipe “Tony” Martinez, Derek Kinnison, and Ronald Mele – are, in fact, government agents who were seeking to entrap him. Continue reading →

Quietly and without fanfare, the City of Twentynine Palms has distinguished itself both politically, socially and demographically in a way that, if not unique among California cities, is certainly rare.
Last month, Octavius Scott replaced Karmolette O’Gilvie on the Twentynine Palms City Council. For the last year, O’Gilvie had been the 27,435-population desert city’s mayor. As a result of the November 8 election, she was replaced as the city’s District 4 council representative by Scott on the basis of just 8 votes.
Scott claimed 311 of the 614 votes cast in the district, or 50.65 percent. O’Gilvie captured 303 votes or 49.35 percent. Scott, an African American, will replace O’Gilvie, an African American.
The same night that O’Gilvie gave up the mayoral gavel and her council post, McArthur Wright replaced her as the council’s choice as mayor. McArthur Wright is an African American.
A generation-and-a-half ago, a college professor said that in a cultural and political context, the American population had grown too sophisticated to talk about race. Three-quarters of a generation later, the California Legislature begged to differ when it passed the California Rights Act of 2001. Continue reading →

Anyone in Fontana who has the occasion to come into proximity with 62-year-old Susan Faye Martin might want to figure some way to move as rapidly in another direction as possible.
Such was the lesson learned by an unidentified 36-year-old man who had the misfortune of having something she wanted when their paths crossed on December 30. The man was in his car in the 15000 block of Valley Boulevard in the unincorporated area of Fontana at about 2:05 p.m. when the five foot 7, 147-pound Martin confronted him. After approaching the car and getting within striking distance, she used a sharp object to threaten him. She got him out of the car and then took his place behind the steering wheel and drove off.
A call reporting what happened came into the Fontana police department at 2:07 p.m. and that department’s dispatch team notified the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which has law enforcement and patrol jurisdiction in that area, about the carjacking. Continue reading →