The dust having settled following an election season chock full of irregularities, some of which appear to have militated in favor of winners and some which did not influence the outcomes in the direction in which their perpetrators intended, San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson is precluding his office from examining any of nearly a dozen circumstances that present prima facie cases of fraud or election code violations.
In some of the cases, the misdeeds were aimed at improving the electoral chances of individuals with whom Anderson has a political connection, however tenuous. In others, the electoral dice were being loaded against candidates he is actually or potentially aligned with. In others still, it does not appear Anderson had any dog in the hunt. There are clashing theories of why Anderson does not have the stomach to use the investigative and prosecutorial power of his office to police the electoral procedures that determine the make-up of the local political and governmental establishments.
One theory is that he will not go after those who have winged his allies because in doing so he would set up a damning comparison of the instances where he left unredressed circumstances where one of his political affiliates benefited by such chicanery. Others have expressed the belief that he is reluctant to take any action, at least this time around, because some of the misdeeds involve the electoral system itself or those who man it, and he is himself subject at least conceptually, every four years, to the electoral process to remain in office himself. In one of the cases, the primary official caught up in what a court determined before the election to be a miscarriage of the candidacy qualification process was one of his former colleagues.
This year there were at least two, quite likely five and perhaps as many as seven known instances where a governmental official singly or government officials jointly unjustifiably and perhaps even illegally sought to terminate the candidacy of an office seeker, and a matter related to one of those cases in which the action taken appears to have allowed an individual who had missed the deadline to file for candidacy to be placed on the ballot. Involved in these matters were deliberate actions taken by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office and one or more of its employees, the Ontario City Clerk and one or more of her employees, the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk and one or more of her employees and the general counsel for the Adelanto Elementary School District.
In Ontario, City Clerk Sheila Mautz in early August sent a notification to Jose Nikyar, who had filed candidacy papers for the newly created position of District 4 representative on the Ontario City Council, that his candidacy, which was previously certified, was being rejected because at least 11 of the 30 signatures of District 4 voters endorsing his run for office were deemed invalid, such that Nikyar had not submitted the requisite 20 endorsements of his candidacy. Nikyar immediately gathered more signatures, which he submitted to the city clerk’s office, and retained San Bernardino-based attorney Tim Prince, who filed on his behalf a petition for a writ of mandate naming Ontario City Clerk Sheila Mautz and Registrar of Voters Stephenie Shea.
Prince in his filing called upon Mautz and Shea “to promptly accept additional signatures in satisfaction of the requirement they admit they previously determined petitioner had met, and if those signatures are verified and acceptable in satisfaction of the legal requirement of 20 signatures, to include petitioner’s name as a qualified candidate for member of the city council, District 4, in the City of Ontario, in the November 5, 2024, general election.”
Ultimately, Judge Charlie Hill Jr. granted Nikyar the writ of mandate reestablishing him as a candidate.
A more convoluted rejection of a candidacy took place in Rancho Cucamonga’s 1st District, where both incumbent Councilwoman Ashley Stickler and Cucamonga Valley Water District Board Member Luis Cetina filed candidacy papers in July and were cleared to be placed on the ballot by the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office and the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters. In Stickler’s case, she had pulled papers shortly after the July 13 filing period opened and by the evening of July 24 had completed the paperwork and had secured more than the requisite 20 signatures of voters in Rancho Cucamonga’s First District to accompany the forms. On July 25, fifteen days prior to the San Bernardino County Registrarof Voters Office’s August 9, 2024 deadline for the filing of candidacy papers, she submitted the nomination papers to the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s office. Four days later, On July 29, the registrar of voters informed Stickler that her nomination papers were sufficient and contained the correct number of valid signatures, accepting them.
Late in the evening of August 10, 2024, a Saturday, an employee with the registrar of voters office informed Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk Janice Reynolds that a reevaluation of all of the signatures contained on the nomination
page for Stickler’s candidacy application indicated that some were invalid and Stickler therefore had not met the full requirements to qualify her candidacy. On Monday, August 12, 2024, Rancho Cucamonga City Manager John Gillison informed Stickler of the registrar of voters office’s finding and forwarded her the relevant information relating to her candidacy by by email. While someone applying for candidacy is normally afforded an opportunity to cure a deficiency relating to candidacy application that involves there proving to be fewer than 20 valid voter signatures affixed to the nomination page of the filing through election officials issuing a supplemental signature petition to the candidate so additional nomination signatures can be collected by the deadline, on August 12 the deadline had elapsed, making it too late for Stickler to make a corrected filing. Protesting that she had not been made aware of the purported deficiency until three days after the deadline, Stickler was able to use her authority as a sitting member of the city council to induce an employee in the city clerk’s office to give her a supplemental nomination page, which she was able to get nine voters in District 1 to sign. She submitted the supplemental signature page to the city clerk’s office the following day, August 13, 2024.
It is a peculiarity of election law and custom that in those races where an incumbent does not file for reelection, the filing period is extended for five days to allow a non-incumbent, who presumably was reluctant to challenge the incumbent, can take out nomination papers, complete them with the requisite signatures of nomination of voters in the jurisdiction in which the incumbent holds office, and submit them.
Erik Jimenez, a resident of Rancho Cucamonga’s District 1 who on five previous occasions ran unsuccessfully in at-large races for the Rancho Cucamonga City Council prior to the city forming council districts and conducting by-district elections, learned that Stickler had failed to qualify her candidacy. He retrieved nomination papers from the city clerk, filled them out, garnered more than a sufficient number of signatures on the accompanying nomination page and filed the documents with the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office by the August 14 ultimate deadline.
Simultaneously, the Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk’s Office, which had previously posted on the city’s website that Stickler’s candidacy had qualified, posted that Stickler had failed to qualify her candidacy for reelection.
In the meantime, Stickler, a Republican, was assisted by the San Bernardino County Central Committee, which directed her to the assisted her assisted by ’, which had previously that

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 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. 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 to respondent city clerk before the legal deadline to do so. Immediately
Hildreth and Jenkins maintain that “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.”
the Sacramento-based law firm of Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk. Stickler then retained two attorneys with that firm, Brian Hildreth and Katherine Jenkins, in what had to be a speedy effort to contest the action of the city clerk’s office and registrar of voters office in disqualifying her candidacy, as the deadline for finalizing the names to appear on the November 5 ballot fell at the end of August.
Hildreth and Jenkins then initiated legal action in the form of a petition for a writ of mandate filed in San Bernardino county Superiror Court naming Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk Janice Reynolds in her capacity as the city’s election official and San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Stephenie Shea in her capacity as the county’s senior election official. Stickler’s petition requested “a peremptory writ of mandate ordering respondents, and their officers, agents, and all persons acting by, through, or in concert with them, to accept petitioner’s supplemental nomination petition, qualify petitioner as a candidate for member of the city council, District 1, for the City of Rancho Cucamonga, and place petitioner’s name and ballot designation on the ballot, sample ballot, voter information guide, and all other official materials, for the November 5, 2024 general election.”
The case was assigned to Judge Winston Keh at the Victorville District Court in Victorville.
Cetina filed a cross-complaint to Stickler’s suit, maintaining that either Stickler had qualified her candidacy, in which case the race for the District 1 council seat was a contest between him and Stickler exclusively or that Stickler had not qualified her candidacy, in which case the race for the District 1 council seat was a contest between him and Jimenez exclusively. Cetina’s argument was that the California Election Code required that Stickler qualify her candidacy by the August 9 deadline and that the deadline to qualify Jimenez’s candidacy was likewise August 9 if the incumbent, Stickler, qualified her candidacy, and the deadline for Jimenez to qualify his candidacy could be extended to August 14 only if Stickler did not qualify her candidacy and was not a candidate for reelection in District 1.
On August 29, a hearing on the matter was held before Judge Keh in Department V-11 at the Victorville District Court, at which Jenkins appearing by Zoom represented Stickler, Mark Rosen represented Cetina, Cetina appeared via zoom, Stephen Lee appeared by Zoom representing Rancho Cucamonga City Clerk Reynolds, Jolena Grider represented San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Stephanie Shea and Chad Morgan represented Jimenez.
Judge Keh denied Cetina’s petition for a writ of mandate; granted Stickler’s petition for a writ of mandate; and ruled that “All names will appear on the ballot.”
On the same weekend of August 10/11 when the registrar of voters office completed its reconsideration of the signatures that it had earlier indicated sufficed to qualify Nikyar and Stickler’s candidacies but which it claimed contained a number of invalid signatures which negated its earlier determination, the registrar’s office further determined that there were, despite contrary determinations earlier, insufficient valid signatures to qualify the candidacies of: Rachel Arzu, challenging incumbent Highland District 3 Councilwoman Penny Lilburn; Joshua Augustus, running against incumbent Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson; Ted Bohanon, opposing Apple Valley District 1 Town Councilman Larry Cusack; Gregory Hogan, running in the wide-open contest for Highland District 1 city councilman; Bill Jensen, seeking the open post as Hesperia District 5 city councilman;and April Ramirez, a hopeful for the Twentynine Palms District 2 city council position. On August 12, notifications to that effect went out to Arzu, Augustus, Bohanon, Hogan, Jensen and Ramirez.
In the cases of Hogan, Jensen and Ramirez, the consideration that the incumbents who held the posts they were seeking were not seeking reelection meant that the filing deadline was extended until August 14 for those considering whether to compete in those contests. All three, Hogan, Jensen and Ramirez, were informed of the inadequacies in their previous filings and were able to use the added time to go out and find enough valid signatures of bona fide registered voters to add onto their already-existing string of signatures to validate their candidate applications.
For Arzu, Augustus and Bohanon, however, the outcome was far less sanguine. Arzu filed a petition for a writ of mandate to reestablish herself as a candidate in Highland municipal election. Judge Charlie Hill Jr denied that petition. Because Augustus and Bohanon did not challenge the registrar of voters office over the matter, no inquiry into or determination whether the action taken against them has been made.
Elsewhere in the county this election season was an effort, indeed an unsuccessful one that is widely perceived as having been illegitimate and either or both highly improper or illegal, undertaken by a public official to force a candidate to drop out of the race.
That matter involved Michael Kraus, who ran, successfully it turned out, against incumbent Adelanto Elementary School Board Member Christine Turner.
Kraus in October 2020 was hired by the Adelanto Elementary District to serve as assistant superintendent of business services. in July 2022, with the departure of then-Superintendent Dr. Kennon Mitchell, the school board, which included Turner, appointed Kraus to serve as the interim superintendent until Mitchell’s replacement could be found. After six months with Kraus in the acting superintendent role, the school board considered promoting Kraus to take on the full-fledged superintendent assignment as Mitchell’s actual replacement. In January 2023, the board voted to do just that. appeared to be entirely satisfactory to the board, The board, which suffered the loss of Holly Eckes in February 2023 and filled that vacancy with the appointment of Miguel Soto the following month, appeared to be entirely satisfied with Kraus’s performance in the superintendent’s assignment throughout the remainder of 2023 and into the dawning of 2024.
Toward the end of January 2024, Krause resisted what he said were actions by the board collectively or requests by board members individually which he felt were illegal, constituted graft or were conflicts of interest or what he otherwise deemed to be contrary to the interests of the district’s students and the district’s overall educational mission. When members of the board redoubled those requests, according to Krause, he again objected. On April 9, during a closed-door session of the school board, by a 4-to-1 vote, with members La Shawn Love-French, Christine Turner, Miguel Soto and Christina Bentz prevailing and Stephanie Webster dissenting, Krause was placed on administrative leave. John Albert, the assistant superintendent for human resources was appointed as the interim superintendent.
In June, the district and Krause signed a separation agreement, effective June 30, by which he was to continue to receive his salary as superintendent through to the end of 2024 and was to continue to receive for six months or until he found employment elsewhere the health benefits he had been provided as an employee, which included coverage for his family.
In July, Krause, a resident of Adelanto within the School District’s Area 1, filed for candidacy in the November election for the District Area 1 position on the board, held by Turner, which was up for election. The registrar of voters office determined he had met all of the requirements to qualify his candidacy and his name was placed on the ballot with that of Turner, who likewise was qualified to stand for reelection.
Also in July, Krause and his daughter were in a vehicle that was rear-ended by a semi-truck. Both were helicoptered to Loma Linda University Medical Center. Krause was released in August, but his daughter has been transferred to a facility specializing in pediatric trauma and recovery.
In his campaign, Krause primarily made reference to his educational and managerial experience and credentials, as well as his academic game plan for the district. He mentioned during candidate forums that the district had a lack of administrative continuity extending back over the last decade in that it had employed eight superintendents in the last ten years and that the district had not provided raises to faculty for more than two years running.
On October 18, Dominic Quiller, the district’s legal counsel, informed Krause by letter that he was being given notice that the district was rescinding the separation agreement it had with him, further demanding that Krause reimburse the district all of the payments made to him and benefits provided under the terms of the agreement since it went into effect on June 30, 2024.
“Even though you agreed to discontinue all contact and relationship with this district, you ignored your promise and entered the race for a board seat,” Quiller wrote. According to Quiller, Krause had abrogated the separation agreement, in particular its non-disparagement clause, which prohibited both the district and Krause from making any disparaging or derogatory remarks regarding the other party. Krause and the district had also agreed to take no action intended or reasonably anticipated to harm the other party’s reputation or interests individually or collectively, in the language of the agreement “even if truthful, or which would reasonably to lead to unwanted or unfavorable publicity to the other party, regarding issues related to Krause’s employment with the district, [extending to] statements made to the press [and] in social media.”
Quiller’s letter went on to state, “As you are aware, you have made several comments in public forums that are disparaging to the district. This includes publicly discussing events that occurred during your employment, which you pronounced reflected badly on the district – in other words, disparaging the district’s reputation.”
In the letter, Quiller issued a “demand that you immediately withdraw from the race for a district board seat. Failure to cooperate will result in immediate litigation.”
Quiller’s letter tests how far the First Amendment principle of free speech and expression extends before being curtailed by the restrictions of contract law. It further raises the question of the propriety or legality of a district official, such as Quiller, acting in his official capacity to assist a board member, as in this case Turner, in a reelection campaign and whether the October 18 letter constituted a use of public funds for political purposes, which is prohibited under California law. As seriously, questions attend to whether the letter, which threatened Kraus with legal action if he did not drop out of the race, comprised extortion or blackmail in in political context.
Ten days after the November 5 election, questions about the residency status of three women vying for elected office in San Bernardino County this election cycle – Christy Holstege, Daisy Macia and Tiffany Gaudin – have been convincingly accused of phonying up their residential claims in order to qualify their candidacies for the positions they sought and which two, apparently, captured.
Those questions about where they lived surfaced prior to the election and have yet to be convincingly refuted.
Each of the three was celebrated as a prominent figure in her own right with a promising political future
Information and documentation provided to the Sentinel suggests that each made questionable claims as to where they live or lived on the nomination papers they filed to run for office. Those documents are signed under the penalty of perjury.
Holstege, currently a councilwoman and formerly the mayor in Palm Springs, vied for Assemblywoman in the 47th District against incumbent Greg Wallis, who narrowly defeated her, by 85 votes, in 2022. Ontario Recreation and Park Commissioner Daisy Macias sought a position on the Ontario City Council representing that city’s Fourth District, succeeding by capturing Gaudin, a woman of the cloth and former ambulance driver/emergency medical technician, ran for the 1st District position on the Victorville City Council.
An advanced case has already been put together against Holstege by the Riverside District Attorney’s Office. Holstege represents District 4 on the Palm Springs City Council. Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin earlier this year tasked assigned one of his investigators, Lauren Swirsky, to determine where Holstege and her family – her husband and child – are actually residing. Swirsky on at least three days and nights in the summer of 2024 staked out Holstege’s claimed domicile in the District 4 as well as the home she owns with her husband in District 3. According to Swirsky, the District 4 house at all times appeared to be or was unoccupied, while there were indicators, including the presence of the vehicles driven by Holstege and her husband at the District 3 house, that she was residing at the District 3 address.
Furthermore, according to the district attorney’s office, Holstege’s District 4 residence has been consistently listed as a rental home on Airbnb.com and rented out since 2022.
In a letter written by Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin which was sent to Palm Springs Councilman Ron de Harte, Palm Springs City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger and Palm Springs City Manager Scott Stiles on August 20, 2024, the district attorney informed them that “Our investigation revealed that Ms. Holstege owns a residence located in District 3 within in Palm Springs. We have found sufficient credible evidence that Ms. Holstege primarily resides at her home in District 3, instead of the residence located in District 4. According to our investigation, we have determined that Ms. Holstege does not own the residence that she publicly claims as her primary residence within District 4. Based upon the facts as we understand them, our legal analysis has concluded that Ms. Holstege’s occupancy of her primary residence in District 3 constitutes a clear violation of the City of Palm Springs Code of Ordinances. In the event that a councilmember no longer resides in the district that they represent, Palm Springs Municipal Code §2.02.005(A)(3) deems the councilmember to have vacated their seat on the city council.”
In his letter, Hestrin submitted “a formal written demand asking the Palm Springs City Council to cure or correct Ms. Holstege’s vacancy of her District 4 council seat as set forth above, as well as to cure or correct any illegal action taken during her vacancy in compliance with all applicable California laws.”
While Stiles and Ballinger had the city clerk’s office initiate a review of the council’s votes going back until 2022 to determine what votes by the council resulted in a 3-to-2 outcome in which Holstege voted in the majority, Ballinger simultaneously in an August 22 letter to Hestrin requested that the district attorney’s office provide him with the evidence it had to back up the claim that Holstege was not living at the residence in District 4 she had declared as her domicile and what evidence it possessed to show she was actually living in District 3 so he could make a determination how the city could best proceed. After Hestrin, whose office had functioned at least partially in the initial stages of its investigation on information provided by confidential informants, declined to hand over that evidence, the Palm Springs City Council met in a closed session on September 12. That panel voted to again have Ballinger formally request the district attorney’s office to provide the evidence at the center of the accusation against Holstege. When the district attorney’s office refused that request a second time, a stand-off between the city and the prosecutor’s office ensued. After more than a month had elapsed following Hestrin’s August 20 letter, the district attorney’s office forwarded a complaint including a quo warranto proceeding request to the California Attorney General’s Office on September 30. The quo warranto procedure is a
challenge questioning the legality of an elected official remaining in his or her elected capacity council and seeking a resolution of the whether the official has the legal right to hold the elected position and has, already under the law, vacated the post he or she holds.
The 47th Assembly District straddles Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with roughly 77 percent of the voters in Riverside County and 23 percent of the voters in the district in  San Bernardino County. On the San Bernardino County Ballot and its comprehensive voter guide, Hostege was listed as a “City Councilmember/Businesswoman.”
This year, though Holstege jumped out to a lead over Wallis early after returns from the polls came in, she is now trailing the incumbent, with 108,684 votes to his 112,580.
In Ontario, Daisy Macias, a lifelong resident of that city who grew up in that city’s De Anza district, successfully vied for the city council in District 4. This year’s 4th District and 1st District contests were part of the city’s first election cycle in which those chosen to the council are done so by district. Previously, the council and mayor were elected at-large. The mayoralty, representing all of Ontario’s 184,705 residents citywide, will yet be voted upon at-large. The four council positions on the five-member panel are to represent roughly one quarter of the city’s population, which is distributed somewhat unequally geographically, with District 1 the smallest and most densely populated district occupying the northwestern corner of the city; the slightly larger and marginally less dense District 2 covering a swath of territory in the middle and west side of the city; the less dense portion of the city that contains the areas most recently annexed to the city formerly consisting of the former Chino Agricultural Preserve referred to as Ontario Ranch at the southern end of the city comprising District 3; and District 4, which covers all of the northeast corner of the city east of Districts 1 and 2 and extending down to a boundary generally formed by the 60 Freeway where it borders District 3 and the unincorporated county area west of Fontana.
Throughout her early life and right up until recently, the now 33-year-old Macias’s stomping grounds had been primarily in District 2, in which is featured De Anza Park right off Euclid Avenue and De Anza Junior High School, which is east of Euclid and fronts on Sultana Avenue, the first major north/south street east of Euclid. For years, and until relatively recently, Macias officially resided at 170 East De Anza Circle, which is on the east side of Euclid less than a quarter of a mile south of De Anza Park and but a stone’s throw west of the De Anza Junior High School Campus. Two internet sources show Macias yet residing at 170 East De Anza Circle, with one of those stating she has lived there since 2009.
In public statements made as late as August 2024, Macias herself stated that one of the issues that ignited her civic activity was seeking to eradicate crime and drug dealing in close proximity to her residence, including on the campus of De Anza Junior High School, which is immediately adjacent on the east to homes on De Anza Circle, and at De Anza Park. In one of those statements, Macias implied, but did not directly state that she was still living in the De Anza District, which would make her a resident of District 2.
Mayor Paul Leon, in statements made earlier this year, indicated he associated her with the city’s De Anza District and that she resided in that area. When queried in September about Macias’s actual residence, which has now raged for the better part of three weeks, Leon gave indication that she was yet living in the De Anza District, within the city’s District 2. Asked if Macias had moved out of District 2, the mayor responded, “I don’t know.”
According to Ontario residents in District 2, who knew or knew of Macias and live proximate to the De Anza District, she moved within the last two to three years, after her marriage, departing not just from De Anza Circle but Ontario altogether.
In October, some three weeks before the election, city officials were quite vague about precisely exactly where Macias was living. Employees with the city clerk’s office, with which Macias filed her candidacy application, said they were restricted by privacy considerations from disclosing her residence. Ontario City Clerk Sheila Mautz was unwilling to address the Macias residency controversy and refused, through her staff to confirm that Macias in fact resides within District 4. In a phone call and a follow up email to Assistant City Clerk Claudia Isbell, who is also Ontario’s records management director, the Sentinel, in a general question, sought a description of what examination the city clerk’s office normally engages in to ascertain whether candidates for the Ontario city council in fact live at the addresses they claim in their candidate applications filed with the city clerk’s office and what the office and/or the city does to determine that those who qualify for the ballot meet the residency requirements in the district which they are seeking to represent.
The Sentinel then questioned Isbell as to Daisy Macias, specifically. Noting that the only information available from open sources was that Macias was a resident at 170 East De Anza Circle, within District 2, the Sentinel asked Isbell if she could confirm that the city clerk’s office had verified, to a complete certainty, that Macias lives somewhere in District 4, even if the exact location could not be disclosed. The Sentinel further inquired whether the city clerk’s office merely accepted Macias’s assertion that she lives in District 4 without any independent verification.
Isbell made no response to the questions posed over the phone, requesting that they be put in writing. After the Sentinel did so in an email, Isbell did not respond to the email.
The Sentinel fared no better with Macias, herself. Repeated phone calls, phone messages, texts and an email in which the Sentinel raised the question with regard to her residency and directly asked if she was yet living in District 2 or had in fact moved to District 4 elicited no response.
Of note is that the virtual entirety of the Ontario political establishment has lined up behind Macias. She has Leon’s endorsement, the endorsement of Councilman Alan Wapner and the endorsement of Councilwoman Debra Dorst-Porada. She declined the endorsement of Councilman James Bowman because of his entanglement in an impaired driving hit-and-run incident this summer.
In August, Wapner transferred $40,000 out of his electioneering fund into her recently opened political war chest. In the two-and-a-half months prior to the election, other major donors to the ruling coalition on the Ontario City Council – consisting of Leon, Wapner, Bowman and Porada – chipped in massive amounts of money to fund Macias’s campaign, in quantities that dwarfed the money available to the other candidates for the District 4 council post: Jose Nikyar, Celina Lopez, Andrea Galván and Norberto Corona, even when combined. Those include $30,000 from the Ontario Police Officers Association, $31,000 from the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association IAFF Local 1430, Paul Hofer gave her $5,000, Maclin Markets $2,000, JRC Real Estate Investment provided her with $5,000, JM Realty donated $2,500 to her, Circle Green, Inc Beneficial AG Services came through with $1,000, Sacramento-based Community Prosperity Partners handed her $12,500, Mission Viejo-based Reina Holdings provided $1,000, Building A Stronger California, which is sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, gave her a $4,000 bequest and Councilwoman Dorst-Porada provided Macias with an in-kind $3,037.12 contribution.
On November 5, Macias convincingly outdistanced her four opponents, having garnering 38.46 percent of the vote by Tuesday of this week, with her closest competitor, Lopez, polling 26.18 percent.
In Victorville this election season, there has been much controversy over Tiffany Gaudin’s advent as a candidate in District 1 race. Until the day that the filing period for this year’s election opened on July 13, Gaudin was a resident of Apple Valley, where she had lived with her husband for the better part of a decade at 15480 Navajo Road.
On July 13, Guadin reregistered as a voter with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office, changing her official residence from the 15480 Navajo Road address in Apple Valley to 16761 Kayuga Street in Victorville, which lies within that city’s First District. The same day, she pulled papers city council candidacy papers from the Victorville City Clerk’s office, which she completed, including getting at least 20 signatures of voters living within District 1 to qualify her candidacy for the First District position. That put her in competition with Leyda Fernandez, Valentin Godina, and Robert Andrew Lucero, who are also seeking the post in the November 5 balloting.
Gaudin’s husband did not change his voter registration to the Victorville domicile and he continued to live and operate his business out of the 15480 Navajo Road address in Apple Valley.
Information emerged to indicate that throughout the remainder of July, all of August and through to the end of September and into October, Gaudin continued to reside in Apple Valley, and was not in fact, until October 14, living in Victorville at the Kayuga Street address. The 16761 Kayuga Street home is owned by 91-year-old Fleta Joyce Brown, who, it was asserted, was renting the quarters to Gaudin.
In the meantime, Victorville residents who learned of her candidacy began to question whether Gaudin in fact had ever moved into the living quarters at 16761 Kayuga Street. Some of the Gaudins’ neighbors in Apple Valley reported Tiffany Gaudin is yet residing at 15480 Navajo Road, and that they have seen her at the Apple Valley residence frequently in August, September and into October. A complaint with regard to Gaudin’s misrepresentation of her actual abode was lodged with the District Attorney’s Office.
Gaudin captured the 1st District seat with 43.27 percent of the vote against her three rivals.
A set of irregularities swarmed about the City of Upland’s revival this year of its unsuccessful bid in the November 2022 election to have that city’s voters approve a proposal to up the sales tax levied on goods sold in the city by one cent per dollar. In 2022, the Upland sales tax override had been dubbed Measure L. Measure L failed when 10,222 voters or 44.6 percent of the 22,919 who turned out for the election supported it and 12,697 or 55.4 percent opposed it. This year the council deliberately misled its citizens by asking the registrar of voters office in July to put a measure on the ballot that called for changing the city’s business taxation formula, one that would generate for the city somewhere between an added $3 million to $4 million. With only 24 hours notice before the August 9 deadline for placing measures on the ballot, the Upland City Council scheduled an urgency meeting for August 9 at noon to ditch the changed business taxation measure and ask the registrar of voters office to replace it with a do-over of Measure L. In doing so, the city failed to post an accurate version of the measure it was substituting for a full 24 hours prior to the urgency meeting, as is required under California law. The council nonetheless held the meeting on August 9, canceled the business tax formula alteration measure and approved calling upon the registrar of voters office to replace it with another one cent per dollar tax override proposal. The city clerk then expedited the delivery of the ratified request to the registrar of voters just a few hours before the ultimate deadline. The registrar designated the new tax proposal as Measure N and slated its placement on the ballot.
An eagle-eyed city resident, Lois Sicking Dieter, however, spotted at once that the language contained in the ballot language and its description was loaded with terms and promises biased in favor of the measure and which were intended to induce the city’s voters to approve it. She retained an attorney, Cory Briggs, who filed a petition for a writ of mandate, excoriating the city for utilizing the loaded language and alleging, “The statement is not a true and impartial synopsis of the purpose of the proposed measure. The statement is expressed in language that is argumentative and/or likely to create prejudice for or against the measure.”
The city characterized Sicking Dieter’s objections as irrelevant nit picking. City officials, advised by City Attorney Stephen Deitsch, who had drafted the ballot language, and a partner in his law firm of Best Best & Krieger, Richard T Egger, confidently told city officials that they anticipated the magistrate to whom the case had been assigned, Judge Stephanie E. Thornton-Harris, would dismiss the challenge in short order. At the August 28 hearing on the matter in San Bernardino district of San Bernardino County Superior Court, Judge Thornton-Harris indicated her review of the language had convince her the language was misleading and prejudicial.  Egger, who was counting on Judge Thornton-Harris simply accepting his assertion that the ballot language was honest and straightforward, immediately switched gears, fearing that any resistance on the city’s part would result in Measure N being pulled from the ballot entirely.
When Judge Thornton-Harris suggested rephrasings to the verbiage to bring the measure language into what she said would be rough compliance with Elections Code Section 13247 and Elections Code Section 13119, Egger accepted it in all of its particulars, heartened especially by the judge’s willingness to allow references in the measure language relating to infrastructure maintenance and improvements as well as public safety, which he at that point was prepared to see deleted if that was to have been the price for keeping the measure on the ballot.
Prior to the campaign to get Measure N passed began in earnest, there were further suspensions of the regulations and violations of the law on the part of the city and city officials. It is a peculiarity of California election law that tax measures which are earmarked for a specific purpose, because they are likely to appeal to voters more than if the tax to be levied is to have no specific goal in mind, must pass by a two-thirds margin or more. Taxes that are not intended for any specific purpose need only a simple majority to pass. An element of the city’s approach was to give the voters the impression that Measure N was had been committed for specific purposes, which the city represented as enhancing public safety by hiring more police officers and improving the city’s streets. In fact, as Measure N was actually set up, it could be used for any purpose the city council designated at any time. This was part of the city’s deception. Higher-ups in the city, in confidential exchanges with city employees assured them that if Measure N passed, city employees would be provided with raises and increased benefits. This contradicted what the members of the city council were telling the public and what was being promoted in the materials being disseminated to the public by the group that had formed to press for the passage of Measure N, Upland Taxpayers in Support of Measure N 2024.
Several of the city’s employees took the promises of raises to heart and undertook to promote Measure N, in multiple cases doing so by supporting the aggressive sign campaign that Upland Taxpayers in Support of Measure N 2024 was seeking to orchestrate. This involved city employees utilizing city equipment and vehicles to post the signs, doing so while they were at work and on the city clock, being paid with taxpayer money, all of which are violations of California law. In hundreds of cases, the Yes on Measure N signs were paced on city property in the parkways along streets and within neighborhoods, which is prohibited under the city’s sign ordinance.
Complaints about those violations were made to Upland City Manager Michael Blay by individuals associated with the group opposing Measure N, Uplanders for Quality of Life Against Measure N. The city made no effort to curb the action of city employees engaged in the illegal promotion of Measure N.
There is virtually no prospect that the district attorney’s office will investigate the instances of local ordinance and election law violations or the apparent instances of fraud, perjury, criminal threats, extortion, blackmail or misuse/misappropriation of public property, assets and personnel that were exhibited in San Bernardino County during the November 2024 election season largely because doing so would be awkward and distasteful for District Attorney Jason Anderson.
While the violations and crimes in question were carried off individually and, essentially, independently, with most people making no association between them, were even one of the offenses to be put under the spotlight of a prosecution, those conscious of the other misdeeds would have grounds to question why the prosecutor’s office was taking action with regard to one offense or set of offenses but not others.
Another element of Anderson’s reluctance to bring his authority to bear in the arena of crooked politicking is his own personal political connection to the established governmental and social figures involved in the transgressions.
For the ten years before he was elected district attorney in 2018, Anderson had taken a hiatus, or at least a semi-hiatus, from the political world. However, from 2004 until 2008, he had been a member of the Ontario City Council. His departure from that office had been an involuntary one, as he was defeated in his reelection bid in 2008. His four years in that office, while he with the current mayor – Leon – and two of the current council members – Wapner and Bowman – oversaw what is San Bernardino County’s wealthiest municipality, with what at that time was more than two-thirds of a billion dollars coursing through all of its various funds on a yearly basis such that it was spending as much money as the three next wealthiest cities in the county combined rendered him not just a member in good standing of the Ontario social and political establishment but a member of the San Bernardino County social and political establishment.
Anderson’s day job was as a prosecutor while he was on the city council but later went into private practice. One of his clients during that time was the City of Ontario and Councilman Wapner in particular, after Wapner during the 2014 election in which he and Bowman were being challenged by three other candidates, including then-future and current councilman Ruben Valencia had gotten himself in trouble. Wapner had taken it upon himself to go to the City of Industry Sheriff’s Station in Los Angeles County, where Valencia was then working as a deputy, to lodge accusations that Valencia was engaged in political activity relating to his run for council in Ontario out of the sheriff’s facilities there. This prompted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to examine the circumstance and determine that Wapner’s accusations were groundless, whereupon he found himself the subject of a restraining order that was creating a mountain of bad publicity which was harming not only Wapner’s reputation but that of Ontario. The entire affair was unseemly, though Wapner managed to be reelected in 2014 and he managed to stave off Valencia’s challenge. Two years later, however, Valencia was elected to the Ontario City Council, where he instantly became Wapner’s most persistent rival, someone who is giving the world a constant reminder of the pay-to-play ethos on the city council that Wapner, the most prolific recipient of political donations among municipal elected officials in San Bernardino County history, exploits to benefit his cronies and political patrons.
In this way, Anderson’s association with Ontario and Wapner in particular, exposes him as being entangled in San Bernardino County’s sleazy world of politics and power brokering. If he is to take up even the smallest crusade against political corruption, he invites scrutiny of his own questionable connections and association.
Macias is the latest darling of the Ontario political establishment, having been endorsed by Leon, Wapner and Councilwoman Dorst-Porada, who defeated Anderson in the 2008 election. Indeed, Wapner, just as the campaign for this year’s election got under way, purchased Macias’s support on virtually all votes on the Ontario City Council in the future by transferring $40,000 out of his political war chest to Macias’s campaign fund. That alone, takes Macias off the prosecutorial board for Anderson. Since he is practically prevented from investigating and/or prosecuting Macias for falsely claiming to live in a district where she does not truly reside, he very well cannot file charges against Holstege or Gaudin for doing the same thing, although there is precedent for such a prosecution. One of his predecessors, Dennis Kottmeier prosecuted then-Fontana Treasurer Ron Hibble, albeit unsuccessfully, for falsely claiming he was residing in a makeshift room in his own house’s garage when he ran for office, while he was renting that house to a tenant and actually living at his girlfriend’s home in Grand Terrace.
Anderson is now living in Upland and is tied into the same political donor network as Upland Mayor Bill Velto, whom he would rather not embarrass by launching an investigation and prosecution with regard to the city’s suppression of campaign rules or the violation of Government Code Section 8314, which prohibits the use of public resources on a political campaign.
There is information available suggesting that the wholesale revocation over the weekend of August 10/11 of the previous certifications of the Arzu, Augustus, Bohanon, Hogan, Jensen, Nikyar, Ramirez and Stickler candidacies were deliberately and fraudulently effectuated as an element of a strategy to get Jimenez onto the ballot with Stickler and Cetina in Rancho Cucamonga’s 1st District.
For three reasons, Anderson is resistant to getting to the bottom of that fiasco.
The first is that it would reveal that the registrar of voters office is vulnerable to political influence.

Evidence suggests that Arzu, Augustus, Bohanon, Hogan, Jensen, Nikyar, Ramirez and Stickler in fact had qualified their candidacies but that by suspending all of their candidacies, the registrar of voters office created a situation in which the ploy of allowing Jimenez to qualify his candidacy under an extended deadline would not be tellingly obvious.
The second reason Anderson would not want to carry out an investigation into the matter is the devastation revelation of the motivations for that action would have on the local Republican Party. Getting Jimenez onto the ballot appears to have been a predicate to split the Hispanic vote in Rancho Cucamonga’s 1st District, allowing Stickler to slip past Cetina. The strategy of splitting the Latino vote in the Rancho Cucamonga First District was hatched within the San Bernardino Republican Central Committee, which has multiple vectors of influence over the registrar of voters office. Cetina, a Republican who is on the outs with the leadership of the of the county Republican Central Committee over its use of money from Republican donors to finance an attack campaign against him in his 2022 run for Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor, was elected to the Republican Central Committee in this year’s March Primary. The local GOP leadership was concerned that his advancement from the board position with the Cucamonga Valley Water District he now holds to the more prestigious and power position on the Rancho Cucamonga City Council, would complicate the inner politics within the Republican Central Committee. Anderson recognizes that the optics of Republican Central Committee operatives cynically bending the rules and engaging in a back channel manipulation of the county elections office to pit two Hispanic men against one another in an electoral contest so a white woman could win could lead to widespread charges and the resultant belief by a large segment of the community that San Bernardino County and its institutions are racist in nature.
Anderson is a Republican and on good terms with San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee Chairman Phil Cothran.
Rarely does a prosecutor come across a piece of evidence in writing as egregiously implicative of an intent to extort someone as Quiller’s October 18 letter to Kraus in either a political or nonpolitical context. What may give Anderson pause in launching a prosecution in the matter, aside from his disaffinity altogether for any application of his authority within a political framework, is Quiller’s ability to assert that he was merely seeking to impose the terms of the contractual arrangement he had with Kraus, and that his intent was not to interfere with the democratic process.