Moving on to nearly a month after Leonard Hernandez was overtaken by events and forced out of his position as San Bernardino County chief executive officer, mystery yet attends what shift in interpersonal dynamics and accompanying sequence of events led to the change and the degree to which the county’s political leadership will allow the reform of the leadership echelon that was rebuilt in Hernandez’s image during his tenure to progress.
Hernandez exercised rigid control of the county and the standards it enforced across a multitude of latitudes for the nearly three years he held the position of county chief executive officer, overseeing what many employees are openly acknowledging was a reign of terror in which those who questioned the wisdom, logic, purpose, effectiveness, sustainability or legality of the courses of action he was having them embark upon were ignored, demoted or kept from promotion, fired or forced to resign. Consequently, over the course of the last three years, something on the order of two-thirds to three-quarters of the individuals promoted into and yet inhabiting the county’s assistant executive officer, deputy executive officer, department director and deputy department director positions were Hernandez loyalists. With only a few exceptions, those loyalists at one point or another and in many cases on a repeated basis disciplined or at some level took part in the silencing, suppression and/or termination of those who had dissented from Hernandez’s methodologies. In the predominate number of cases, lower ranking county employees who were skeptical or even inwardly disapproving of the action they were being ordered to take by Hernandez and his adherents did as they were ordered to without any show of objection, generally out of a basic survival precaution, as it generally became recognized that disobeying or even quibbling with instructions originating with Hernandez was considered grounds for termination. Though those orders were in the vast majority of cases carried out, this engendered layers of resentment among staff throughout the county. Continue reading →

Moving on to nearly a month after events overtook Leonard Hernandez and he found himself relieved of his $600,000 per year total compensation position as San Bernardino County chief executive officer, mystery yet attends what shift in interpersonal dynamics and accompanying sequence of events led to the change and the degree to which the county’s political leadership will allow the reform of the leadership echelon that was rebuilt in Hernandez’s image during his tenure to progress.
Hernandez exercised rigid control of the county and the standards it enforced across a multitude of latitudes for the nearly three years he held the position of county chief executive officer, overseeing what many employees are openly acknowledging was a reign of terror in which those who questioned the wisdom, logic, purpose, effectiveness, sustainability or legality of the courses of action he was having them embark upon were ignored, demoted or kept from promotion, fired or forced to resign. Consequently, over the course of the last three years, something on the order of two-thirds to three-quarters of the individuals promoted into and yet inhabiting the county’s assistant executive officer, deputy executive officer, department directors and deputy department directors were Hernandez loyalists. With only a few exceptions, those loyalists at one point or another and in many cases on a repeated basis disciplined or at some level took part in the silencing, suppression and/or termination of those who had dissented from Hernandez’s methodologies. In the predominate number of cases, lower ranking county employees who were skeptical or even inwardly disapproving of the action they were being ordered to take by Hernandez and his adherents did as they were ordered to without any show of objection, generally out of a basic survival precaution, as it generally became recognized that disobeying or even quibbling with instructions originating with Hernandez was considered grounds for termination. Though those orders were in the vast majority of cases carried out, this engendered layers of resentment among staff throughout the county. Continue reading →

Will San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dawn Rowe, whose district includes the East Mojave Desert, allow a wealthy Orange County community to take the desert region’s water for nothing in return?
That is the resounding question being asked by a growing chorus of her constituents.
Since the late 1980s, what was then known as the Cadiz Land Company, has had designs on securing water rights out in a remote locale in the east Mojave Desert to then sell that water for use elsewhere. After obtaining more than 3,000 acres of land near Cadiz, the company began growing organic vegetables and fruits, including beans, melons and tomatoes on a portion of that land. Throughout its existence, the Cadiz farming operation failed to operate at a profit. But in the meantime, it was able to make an assertion, based upon the irrigation of the crops at the Cadiz farm, to water rights from the Cadiz/Fenner aquifer.
The Cadiz Land Company seemed to hit pay dirt with its plan when in 1997 the Metropolitan Water District bought into the company’s proposal to convey up to 1.5 million acre-feet of what was referenced as “surplus” Colorado River water to Cadiz and “store” that water by pumping it into the water table there. In “dry years” the Cadiz Land Company proposed allowing the Metropolitan Water District to extract water from the aquifer and conduct it through a 35-mile pipeline that was to be constructed between Cadiz and the Metropolitan Water District’s existing Colorado River aqueduct. Continue reading →

In an action intended to have a statewide impact, California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday morning filed suit against the Chino Valley Unified School District to stop enforcement of the policy the school board passed in July mandating parent notification of children attending the district who identify in school as transgender.
Bonta asserted that the need to prevent “mental harm, emotional harm and physical harm” to those students who are products of families who are not accepting of their choice to deviate from their birth or biological gender trumps the right of all parents to be informed of their children’s sexual identity choice. “This policy is destructive,” he said. “It’s discriminatory and it’s downright dangerous. It has no place in California, which is why we have moved in court to strike it down.”
Legal experts who examined the request for an injunction against the policy, however, said the filing was reliant in its central premise on a questionable legal theory that will likely be subjected to polemics for controversion by the district and any other entities with standing who come forward to challenge the suit or uphold Chino Valley Unified’s policy or similar ones that are being enacted by school districts elsewhere. Those attorneys said Bonta’s filing includes further arguments that fall outside the realm of established case law and which, by variant interpretation, lend themselves to support of the argument for parental disclosure. Continue reading →

The effort by county land use division officials to institute stricter regulations on short-term rentals in the region’s more exotic locales was given a rousing endorsement last month in Joshua Tree.
The area of the desert surrounding the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park or leading toward it is one of three districts in the county, the other being in the Mountains and on the Colorado River, where, for a decade now, the proliferation of single family residences converted into short term-rentals has been an issue of controversy.
Taking stock of the reality that there was an endless stream of wealthy residents of San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Riverside and lower San Bernardino counties who are looking to tour Joshua Tree National Monument, engage in mountain trail hiking, boat on Lake Arrowhead or Big Bear Lake or enjoy a “white weekend” during December, January and February, property owners found that they could rent out a property to one or more occupants on four weekends and make two to three times the amount of money that could be made renting the property on a long-term basis over a comparable one-month period.
This had a host of consequences. Continue reading →

By John Marquez
As a concerned citizen, I want to express my strong opposition to Assembly Bill 349, authored by James Ramos. While I acknowledge the intention behind the bill is to address the urgent issues of housing and mental health treatment for homeless individuals, I believe that the proposed approach of lumping homeless people with elderly, senior individuals for treatment at Patton State Hospital is not a suitable solution and raises serious concerns.
First and foremost, I am deeply concerned about the potential consequences of co-locating homeless individuals with elderly patients in a mental health treatment setting. The needs of these two groups are vastly different and combining them in the same facility could lead to conflicts, safety concerns, and inadequate care for both populations.
Patton State Hospital also treats those that are deemed incompetent to stand trial such as crime offenders with mental health disorders as well as subjects who are found to be not guilty by reason of insanity. Continue reading →

The governing board and staff of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority are currently, and over the next several weeks will continue their effort toward, determining how much of a financial burden those landowners or water users within the authority’s jurisdiction will need to assume in covering the cost of completing a water pipeline project to replenish the region’s dwindling water supply.
Indian Wells Valley lies at the extreme northwestern end of the Mojave Desert and the confluence of the northwestern corner of San Bernardino County, the southeastern end of Kern County and the southwestern extension of Inyo County.
In 2015, in the aftermath of a four-year running drought and a determination by the California Department of Water Resources that Indian Wells Valley overlies one of the 21 water basins throughout the State of California in critical overdraft, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority was formed, pursuant to a joint exercise of powers agreement involving Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County, the City of Ridgecrest and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as general members and the United States Navy and the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management as associate members. Continue reading →

The Mountaintop Ranger District of the San Bernardino National Forest is initiating the preparation of an environmental assessment to consider and disclose the anticipated environmental effects of the Big Bear Mountain Resort Master Development Plan projects.
Big Bear Mountain Resort has requested approval from the forest to complete projects from its
accepted 2020 Master Development Plan. The resort operates on the forest under the existing Big Bear and Snow Summit special use permit.
The proposed projects are located in three areas: within the existing special use permit area; within the
proposed Big Bear Connect special use permit expansion area between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit
(forest land outside the existing special use permit boundary), and; on private land owned by the
resort. Continue reading →

The musicians of the Ontario Chaffey Community Show Band and the Chuck and Patti Pfister Family are proud to present “What The World Needs Now: The Music of Burt Bacharach” on Monday September 18, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. The concert will be held in historic Gardiner Spring Auditorium on the campus of Chaffey High School, 1250 N. Euclid Ave. in Ontario. The Woodwind Celebration Ensemble will present a pre-concert recital in the auditorium lobby at 7:00 p.m. Complimentary coffee and cookies will be served in the lobby prior to the concert. The performance is FREE to the public.
The concert represents the start of the Show Band’s 38th season of providing quality musical performances for the concert goers of the Greater Ontario Community. The program features a repertoire of hit songs from renown composer/songwriter Burt Bacharach. Bacharach, who passed away on February 8, 2023 at the age of 94, is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of 20th-century popular music. His music has been recorded by over 1,000 recording artists, most notably Dionne Warwick, The Carpenters, Elvis Costello, and Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass. Continue reading →