In a masterful orchestration of political forces that transcended both administrative and judicial action, San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee Chairman Phil Cothran, Sr. over the last several weeks manipulated the machinery of county and local government and two superior court judges to limit the chances that the greatest threat to his continued domination of the local GOP will be elected to public office during the current election cycle.
Phil Cothran Sr., who has proven to be Fontana’s most successful insurance broker over the last 40 years, as that city has transition from being a gritty steel mill town that was the eighth largest among what were then the county’s 18 cities to what is now the second largest of 24 cities, acceded, in 2021 to the chairmanship of the San Bernardino County Republican Central committee, a post he had firmly held for more than three years.
Cothran had constructed his political empire initially by rudimentary involvement in Fontana city politics, somewhat ironically through his support and association with Democratic politicians, that initially being Dave Eshleman in Eshleman’s maiden run for the city council, and by extension, Mayor Nat Simon. Eshleman would eventually graduate from the council position he held to being Fontana mayor, whereby Cothran’s political reach and influence was extended. Cothran at heart, however, was a Republican, and it was through his association with Fontana’s Republican officeholders – Councilman John Roberts, one-time Fontana Police Chief and later Councilman Ben Abernathy, one-time Police Chief and later Councilman and Mayor Frank Scialdone, Councilman and later Mayor Mark Nuami, one-time Councilwoman and now Mayor Acquanetta Warren, one-time School Board Member, later Councilman and now-San Bernardino County Supervisor Jesse Armendarez, Cothran’s son, Fontana City Councilman Phil Cothran, Jr. and Fontana Councilman Peter Garcia – that Phil Cothran, Sr. has been able to establish a political machine that has made him arguably the most powerful, and certainly one of the two or three most powerful, political figures in San Bernardino County.
In the decade prior to the 2021 redistricting that followed the 2020 Census San Bernardino County’s Second District was composed of the northern portion of Upland, San Antonio Heights, Mt. Baldy Rancho Cucamonga, Lytle Creek, western Fontana,  Agua Fria, Crestline, Grass Valley, Fredalba, Enchanted Forest, Deer Lodge Park, Green Valley Lake, Lake Arrowhead, Rim Forest, Running Springs, Valley of Enchantment, Sky Forest, Twin Peaks and Smiley Park. Prior to the 2011 redistricting, all of Upland had been a part of the Second District.  Going back two and three generations, the Second District had been dominated by Upland, which had been the primary population center in the Second District in the 1950s, 1960s and well into the 1970s, and Rancho Cucamonga, which had come into its own in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Four straight supervisors from the Second District – Joe Kamansky, Cal McElwain, Jon Mikels and Paul Biane – had originated as Upland/Rancho Cucamonga social and business figures, in which Fontana existed in many ways as an afterthought in planning and the apportionment of governmental resources and largesse in the management of county operations. When Janice Rutherford had been elected in 2010, she was a member of the Fontana City Council. It was thought that her election presaged a shift toward a more prominent consideration of the issues impacting Fontana and an inclusion of Fontana in the overall application of county authority in the provision of services and attention by county departments with regard to the carrying out of mandated state programs to assist the elderly, the impoverished, the mentally ill, the societally disadvantage and in, in general, those needful of a hand up. Shortly after Rutherford had been elected supervisor, however, she moved from Fontana to an upscale neighborhood in Rancho Cucamonga, distancing herself from her previous constituency, and lessening the degree to which Fontana was to increase its influence over the county’s governmental decision-making process.
In 2020, the Republican political machinery, which included Mayor Acquanetta Warren’s very powerful municipal political machine, the Republican Central Committee, which was then headed by its chairman at that time, Jan Leja, multiple political action committees and independent expenditure committees controlled by Republicans, including Phil Cothran, Sr., had rally to support Armendarez in his run for county supervisor in the county’s Fifth Supervisorial District, which then consisted of the eastern portion of Fontana, all of Rialto, Bloomington, Colon and Muscoy and the western portion of San Bernardino. Despite the well-financed Republican network’s effort in support of Armendarez against Democrat Joe Baca, Jr., the Fontana Councilman was unable to match Baca, a Rialto councilman and the son of one-time California Assemblyman, State Senator and Congressman Joe Baca, Sr., in vote gathering that year, particularly given that Baca, a Democrat, had the benefit of competing in a district that was heavily Democratic, with roughly 47 percent of the voters registered as Democrats, 21 percent registered as Republicans, almost 23 percent of the voters having no party affiliation and roughly nine percent affiliated with more obscure political parties. Baca prevailed in the 2020 race.
In 2021, in the county political subdivision redistricting that followed the 2020 Census, San Bernardino county’s Second District borders were redrawn. While upper Upland, Mount Baldy, San Antonio Heights and Rancho Cucamonga remained in the Second District, as did the western portion of Fontana, the district gave up Lytle Creek, Agua Fria, Crestline, Grass Valley, Fredalba, Enchanted Forest, Deer Lodge Park, Green Valley Lake, Lake Arrowhead, Rim Forest, Running Springs, Valley of Enchantment, Sky Forest, Twin Peaks and Smiley Park. In return, the eastern portion of Fontana, which was previously in the Fifth Supervisorial District, was folded into the Second District.
Overnight with the 2021 redistricting, all of Fontana fell within the Second District. In this way, Armendarez, who in 2020 as a resident of eastern Fontana was able to run in the Fifth District, in 2022 was eligible to run in the Second District.
In the meantime, Phil Cothran, Sr. had further solidified his control over the Republican political hierarchy in San Bernardino County, having been elected to the leadership of the Republican Central Committee.  For well over two decades at that point, Cothran had made his mark as a member of the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Board, on which he had served since 2000, having three times served as that board’s chairman as well as heading its numerous subcommittees. Having already established himself as a political force to be reckoned with, he was determined to extend Fontana’s might as the region’s expanding socio-political entity, together with his own sway over the political and governmental landscape of San Bernardino County. Having been thwarted in getting his man – Armendarez – elected to the board of supervisors representing the Fifth District in 2020, he moved on to getting Armendarez onto the board by having him elected in 2022 to represent the Second District.
In Armendarez’s way were three lesser candidates – Eric Coker, Nadia Renner and Dejoae Shea – and one more substantial one: Luis Cetina.
Cetina, a Republican from Rancho Cucamonga, had garnered Rutherford’s endorsement to succeed her and he had a respectable modicum of funds with which to campaign. The immediate size-up of the pending contest was that there was to be slugfest to determine whether it was going to be the traditionalist GOP set from Rancho Cucamonga or the surging Fontana-based Republicans who would prevail. Recognizing that with five candidates in the race to split the vote, there was little likelihood any single candidate could win outright with a majority of the vote in the June primary, Armendarez’s backers relied on the name recognition he had established two years previously to run a solid but not over-the-top campaign. While Armendarez’s campaign and the support network spent enough money in the spring to ensure that Armendarez would pull in enough votes for a strong enough finish to qualify for the November runoff, the idea was not to put Cetina away entirely but to merely remain within striking distance of him. Indeed, when the votes in the June 7 primary were counted, that is what occurred, with Cetina having captured first place with 16,532 of the 50,082 votes cast or 33.01 percent, a slightly better than marginal victory over Armendarez, with his 15,280 votes or 30.51 percent. The primary eliminated Shaw, who had managed a relatively strong third-place finish, with 10,616 or 20.2 percent of the vote, along with Coker and his 4,030 votes or 8.05 percent and Renner, who claimed 3,624 votes or 7.24 percent. The focus then turned to the main event, the November 8, 2022 general election, in which Cetina and Armendarez were to tilt at one another, head to head.
Cothran, Team Fontana and their allies set to work, pulling out all the stops, allowing nothing to stand it the way of Armendarez claiming the San Bernardino County Second District seat. Out the window was the 11th Commandment, which which enjoins members of the Party of Lincoln: “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” Indeed, speaking ill of Centina became the central element of the second prong of the effort to establish Armendarez as Second District supervisor. The first prong was the official Armendarez electioneering [effort], which consisted primarily of informing the Second District’s voters of all of Jesse Armendarez’s positive attributes and accomplishments as a member of the Fontana School Board and Fontana City Council, his success as a businessman, along with glimpses into his personal life as a husband and father.
Rallying to support Armendarez as well were the members of Team Fontana, Warren and the three members of her ruling coalition on the city council – John Roberts, Phil Cothran, Jr. and Peter Garcia, Republicans all. Simultaneously, Cothran utilized his control the politicking machinery of the Republican Central Committee along with the political action committees and independent expenditure committees at his beck and call to carry out one of the more well-funded opposition campaigns in county history targeting Cetina.
The money Cothran expended in this effort – limited to the Second District which is essentially one-fifth of San Bernardino County in terms of the number of voters – was only slightly less expensive than the attack campaign Bill Postmus mounted on the incumbent Donald Williamson in the countywide 2006 campaign for county assessor. It was unprecedented in San Bernardino County in terms of its ferocity and the outright depth of its scurrility, making attacks that were personal, political, and philosophical, ones that dwelt on interpretations made in the most negative of light with regard to often routine governance votes made by Cetina as a member of the Cucamonga County Water District board of directors, ones that in fair comparison were indistinguishable from votes on routine governance matters made by Armendarez in his capacities as a school board member or city council member. Using cheap but clever shots that were unrelenting right up to the week before the election and sent from political action committees or attributed to independent expenditure committees which were, ostensibly, unrelated to the Armendarez campaign so that the candidate could publicly and plausibly make a claim of being above the fray of dirty politics, the attack campaign demonized Cetina so thoroughly that it erased the 1,252 and 2.5 percent advantage he had registered over Armendarez in the primary contest.
When the smoke cleared after the November 8, 2022 balloting and the votes cast at the Second District’s 320 precincts were tallied along with the mail ballots that came in over the next week-and-a-half, Armendarez had prevailed, with 48,104 or 53.64 percent of the 89,677 votes cast, outdistancing Cetina who managed to bring in 41,573 or 46.36 percent.
By vanquishing Cetina and elevating Armendarez, Cothran had achieved his goal of advancing the personal political machine he has created for himself and ultimately for his so. Nevertheless, he had done so at great risk. Under the bylaws of the central committee and the rules of the California State Republican Party, a member who actively campaigns against another Republican can be expelled from the state party structure or the central committee or both. Had the central committee moved to take stock of Cothran’s destruction of a Republican candidate within the context of an organization that is devoted to the promotion of Republicanism and Republicans, his chairmanship would have been on the line. During the 2022 political season, the imperative to get Armendarez elected trumped the party’s rules or Cothran’s need to abide by them. Cothran calculated that his being held to account for what he had done would be extremely unlikely, as that would require someone with standing in the party or the central committee to make an issue of it and bring the matter to a vote, either before the central committee as a whole or its internal executive committee. Since he was chairman of the central committee, few members would be willing to openly question his authority or judgment. If someone did, he could utilize his control of the committees parliamentarian to extinguish the effort, he figured. Moreover, since as chairman he held tremendous sway over the composition of the executive committee and he had stacked it with his allies, most of whom who had assisted him in undercutting Cetina themselves, he would be able to face down any such motion to examine the eithics or rectitude of what he had done to Cetina.
Bad blood remains between Cothran and Cetina. Any hope Cothran had that the loss Cetina was handed in 2022 would have devastated him and convinced him to simply fade out of the San Bernardino County Republican picture was misplaced. In the March 2024 Primary Election, Cetina ran for and was elected to one of the seven positions on the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee from the Second District. Cetina remains a viable force in the party, and Cothran now considers it propitious to prevent Cetina, who forsook his position on the Cucamonga County Water District Board of Directors to run for supervisor in 2022, from capturing any elected position from which he might politically militate against him or undercut his current authority within the Republican Central Committee beyond what he can already do as a central committee member.
In 2022, following the death of Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Sam Spagnola, Cothran and the remainder of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee supported Ashley Stickler in her bid to succeed the late councilman and serve out the remaining two years on his council term. Ross Sevy, who is the deputy chief of staff for Republican Congressman Jay Obernolte, the second vice chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee and who ran on a slate for the central committee with Cothran, served as the manager of both the Armendarez and Stickler campaigns. In addition to giving Stickler his own personal money for her campaign, Cothran has vectored money from his political action committee to her and induced Mayor Warren to provide her money as well.
To remain as First District Rancho Cucamonga Councilwoman, Stickler is due to stand for reelection on November 5. When the election filing period opened in July, Stickler pulled papers to seek reelection and Centina, a resident of Rancho Cucamonga’s District 1, pulled papers as well.
Concerned that Cetina represents an irresistible political force, the suddenly panicked functionaries within the Cothran and Warren political machines began to case about for a way to neutralize Cetina’s candidacy, lest he oust Stickler in November and then use the catbird seat on the Rancho Cucamonga City Council to militate against them in future campaigns. Stickler completed her candidacy filing paperwork rapidly and turned it into the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office, which ran it by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office, which certified on July 29 that she had a sufficient number of valid signatures to qualify her for the November 5 ballot. Similarly, Cetina made quick work of completing the paperwork, and his candidacy was declared qualified by the registrar of voters office on August 5.
The Sentinel is informed that Cothran and his coterie of political strategists hit upon the idea of preventing the Rancho Cucamonga First District race from materializing as a straight head-to-head contest between Cetina and Stickler in which it was felt Cetina would have, despite Stickler’s incumbency, an advantage. The plan was to get another Hispanic candidate into the race to split the Latino vote to attenuate Cetina’s advantage and boost Stickler’s odds of victory. A logical stand-in would be Erick Jimenez, a District 1 resident who had five previous runs for the city council under his belt. His consistent string of losses, however, appeared to have dimmed his political ambition and more than two weeks into the candidate filing period, he had not taken out papers to do so.
Seemingly out of nowhere, with less than a week in the filing period remaining and both Cetina and Stickler having qualified their candidacies, Jimenez pulled papers. Having waited so far along in the filing window to act, however, and needing to complete the paperwork including getting no fewer than 20 valid signatures of endorsement from residents living within the First District, Jimenez was unable to act with sufficient alacrity to complete his application and get it together with sufficient signatures to turn it into the Rancho Cucamonga city clerk’s office by the August 9 deadline to qualify his candidacy.
The following day, however came the announcement from the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office that eight different city council candidates from around the county whose candidacies were previously declared as qualified for the November 5 ballot had in fact failed to qualify their candidacies. What was suggested, though not explicitly stated, was that at least some of the signatures endorsing those candidacies were determined to be invalid.
Curiously, three of those eight cases involved the relatively rare circumstance where the incumbent in the race had not filed for reelection, extending the deadline for the submittal of candidate papers by five days, giving those three unqualified candidates the opportunity to amend their submissions, i.e., obtain enough additional valid signatures, to salvage their electoral bids.
The registrar of voters office had issued to each of the disqualified candidates notice that they could file a legal challenge to request relief from the courts and that any legal challenges had to be resolved by August 29, at which point the final version of the ballot was to be set and no no changes to it could be made.
What ensued with regard to the Rancho Cucamonga District 1 race came across as if it had been scripted by Cothran.
Stickler’s failure to have qualified her candidacy was deemed grounds to extend the filing period another five days, which as it turned out, proved sufficient time for Jimenez to revive the effort that had on August 9 ended with too few endorsement signatures. On the day of the deadline, August 14, he handed over to the city clerk’s office paperwork that was complete enough in all of its particulars to satisfy both the city clerk and the registrar of voters that he was eligible to compete for the District 1 position on November 5.
Simultaneously, though Stickler’s candidacy had been disqualified, the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office extended her the courtesy of issuing her time to remedy the signature deficiency that had been identified over the weekend of August 10 & 11.
On the City of Rancho Cucamonga’s website, its posted list of qualified candidates for the November included Cetina, Stickler and Jimenez, with an asterisk next to Stickler’s name. The notation for asterisk stated: “Amended 8/13/2024: After reevaluation by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters (ROV) of the Nomination Paper on 8/10/2024, the candidate did not have the number of valid signatures. The filing period is hereby extended to August 14, 2024 at 4:30 p.m.”
Not directly stated but certainly implied by the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office was that the filing period was extended for non-incumbents. Stickler took the statement more broadly and she submitted a new set of signatures on August 13.
The Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office, on August 15, posted the notice that Jimenez’s candidacy for the District 1 position had been qualified. That posting further listed both Stickler and Cetina as qualified candidates, with the notation that Stickler’s submissions were “Reevaluated by ROV [and she] may not be qualified.”

This created a logical legal absurdity. Under California Elections Code § 10220, candidates seeking local office have until on or before the 88th day before the election to submit nomination papers to which are affixed at least 20 and no more than 30 valid signatures of voters within the jurisdiction where the office is being sought. Under California Elections Code, § 10225, “if nomination papers for an incumbent officer of the city are not filed by or on the 88th day before the election, during normal business hours, as posted, the voters shall have until the 83rd day before the election during normal business hours, as posted, to nominate candidates other than the person who was the incumbent on the 88th day, for that incumbent’s elective office.”
Thus, the extension of the filing period for the November 5 election beyond the August 9 deadline by which it was made possible for Jimenez to collect a sufficient number of signatures to qualify his candidacy came about based upon Stickler having missed the August 9 deadline to submit at least 20 valid signatures of District 1 residents endorsing her candidacy. It was the registrar of voters office’s contention that only 17 of the signatures she submitted were valid. In this way, she had missed the deadline to qualify her candidacy, which cleared the way for Jimenez to act to obtain the signatures he needed and qualify his candidacy. Under the dual requirements of California Elections Code § 10220 and California Elections Code, § 10225, Jimenez could be qualified for the ballot only if Stickler was not qualified for the ballot. Conversely, if Stickler was qualified for the ballot, the filing extension that allowed Jimenez to qualify his candidacy could not have legally taken place. Under the rules, Cetina was in the race, either against Sticker or against Jimenez, but not against both.
On August 15, the day following the final deadline of August 14, in San Bernardino Superior Court, attorneys Brian Hildreth and Katherine Jenkins filed the petition for a writ of mandate on behalf of Stickler.
Hildreth and Jenkins did so, according to the petition, “on the grounds that respondents, after the last day for filing for Rancho Cucamonga City Council, declared that petitioner has not submitted the sufficient number of valid signatures on her nomination papers for her candidacy to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council, District 1, despite having been previously informed by the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk that she had submitted enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. On Saturday, August 10, 2024, late in the evening, Respondent Registrar of Voters informed the City that it had reevaluated all nomination petition signatures and that Petitioner did not, in fact, meet the nomination requirements because there were not enough valid voter signatures on her nomination petition. On Monday, August 12, 2024, the Rancho Cucamonga City Manager informed petitioner of this finding and forwarded her the updated statistics by email. By this date, it was too late for petitioner to cure any deficiency in her nomination papers. Typically, if a nomination paper is determined to be insufficient, or a candidate fails to obtain the correct number of valid signatures on his or her nomination paper, the elections official issues a supplemental signature petition to the candidate on which the candidate may collect additional nomination signatures. (Elec. Code, § 10221(b.) This supplemental petition must be filed no later than the last day for filing for that office. The last day of filing for petitioner’s office was Friday, August 9, 2024. (Elec. Code, § 10220.) However, petitioner was not made aware of the purported deficiency issue until Monday, August 12, 2024, after the deadline for filing supplemental nomination papers pursuant to Elections Code section 10221. Therefore, petitioner had no time to collect and submit additional valid signatures t0 Respondent City Clerk before the legal deadline to do so. Immediately upon learning of the issue, petitioner did quickly obtain a supplemental nomination paper from the city, and on August 13, 2024, submitted 9 additional valid nomination signatures to respondent city clerk. However, without an order of this court, respondents will be unable to verify and accept these supplemental signatures, so that Petitioner’s name will be included as a qualified candidate for Member of the City Council, District 1, in the City of Rancho Cucamonga, at the November 5, 2024 general election. This Petition seeks to correct any error, omission, or neglect of duty that has or is about to occur. Petitioner therefore seeks an expedited order of this Court requiring Respondent City Clerk to verify and accept the supplemental nomination paper submitted 0n August 13, 2024, and to include petitioner’s name as a qualified candidate for Member 0fthe City Council, District l, in the City of Rancho Cucamonga, at the November 5, 2024 general election”
Hildreth is counsel for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the California Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee.
In reaction, the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office posted on the city’s website a notification of the “List of Candidates” which featured in the District 1 race Stickler, Cetina and Jimenez. Affixed to Stickler’s name and her initial qualification date of July 29 were two asterisks, one of which referenced the encapsulation “Reevaluated by ROV: May not be qualified.” The other asterisk offered the clarification “Amended 8/13/2024: After reevaluation by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters (ROV) of the Nomination Paper on 8/10/2024, the candidate did not have the number of valid signatures. The filing period is hereby extended to August 14, 2024 at 4:30 p.m.”
Tim Prince, an attorney in San Bernardino, filed similar petitions for writs of mandate for two of the other five candidates whose candidacies had been disqualified, Jose Nikyar, running for election in Ontario’s District 4 and Rachel Arzu, running in Highland’s District 3 contest.
While the matter relating to Nikyar and Arzu was assigned to Superior Court Judge Charlie Lee Hill Jr. in the San Bernardino Justice Center in downtown San Bernardino, Stickler’s matter was heard by Judge Winston Keh at the Victorville District Court in Victorville.