Whether the City of San Bernardino’s residents and taxpayers will be spared the expense of having to pay for its immediate past mayor’s failed effort to use the power of his office to construct a political machine will depend on the how rapidly the lawyer representing the city in a lawsuit brought against it by Valdivia’s one-time chief of staff can come up to speed with regard to the depredations virtually all of those in Valdivia’s political orbit were engaged in.
Valdivia’s political career kicked off with his failed 2009 run for Fourth Ward Councilman followed by his successful challenge of Third Ward Councilman Tobin Brinker in 2011. That was followed by his aborted run for Congress in California’s 31st Congressional District in 2014, his uncontested reelection as 3rd Ward Councilman in 2015, his successful run for mayor in 2018, his never-fully gestated run for Fifth District San Bernardino County supervisor in 2020 and his defeat in his run for reelection as mayor in 2022. Throughout the successful phase of his time as a politician, he tapped into the support of public employee unions, which bankrolled his campaigns in 2011 and 2018, and padded his political war chest in 2015 to the point that no one was willing to run against him.
Key to his rise as an elected official was political consultant Chris Jones, who was associated with both the firefighters’ union and police officers’ union, which made hefty contributions to those politicians in San Bernardino who prioritized paying police officers and firefighters top dollar salaries and providing them with generous benefits. Those unions simultaneously threw money into attack campaigns against any politicians who dwelled upon how the city’s deteriorating financial position was a consequence of its generosity to the city’s employees.
In particular, Valdivia’s success as a politician initially came about because in 2011 he was promoted by the firefighters’ union in his run against Brinker. Firefighters and police officers were wary of Brinker, who was a member of the city council coalition that was backing then-Mayor Patrick Morris in his financial reform effort. Morris at that point was acutely conscious that in 11 of the previous 13 years, San Bernardino had engaged in deficit spending, such that the city’s financial reserves were virtually gone and the city was on a trajectory toward bankruptcy. Morris, who understood that 67 percent of the city’s budgetary outlays went to paying the salaries and benefits of the city’s safety employees – firefighters and police officers – was calling for the council imposing on the city financial discipline that would entail denying any further raises being provided to city employees as part of an effort to reduce spending in order to balance the budget and prevent the city from spending more money on an annual basis than its yearly revenue. Thus, Valdivia found himself supported by a coalition that included the police and fire unions, campaign consultant Chris Jones and City Attorney James Penman, who had been consistently elected city attorney with the support of the public employee unions. Those unions had similarly supported Penman in his two unsuccessful election attempts for mayor against Morris in 2005 and 2009.
Once in place on the council representing Ward 3 in 2012, Valdivia was looking to capitalize on his status as an officeholder and consolidate his power and advantage. Recognizing that incumbency provided him with an inside track on raising money to be used in his future campaigns, whether for reelection in the Fifth Ward, for mayor, for county supervisor, for state legislator, Congress or beyond, Valdivia expanded his concentration on potential donors from the public employee unions to others who had a stake in the decision-making authority of the city council, such as businesses interested in obtaining city contracts for goods or services, ones looking to obtain city franchises and developers who needed city council approval of their project proposals. Involved with him in this effort was Jones, who had taught Valdivia the ropes by showing him how willing the police officer unions and firefighter unions were to install him in office in return for his votes to make sure they received regular and steady increases in their salaries and benefits.
Though many people perceived a political hierarchy in which a position such as governor would be the apex below which were, in descending order, U.S. Senator and then Congress member followed by State Senator and Assembly member, with the lower positions consisting of county supervisor, mayor, council members and then school district/water district/fire district board members, Valdivia aspired to be a county supervisor more than any other elected post that was realistically within his reach. While Valdivia knew the post of county supervisor was, in the view of most people, less prestigious than that of Congress member, state senator or assembly member, he knew that, measured along certain lines, being a county supervisor was a more powerful post, one that represented virtually endless possibilities for someone with his particular ambition, which related more closely to advancing himself and his financial position than effectuating public policy. Rather than being one Congressman among 435 members of the House of Representatives or one state senator within California’s upper legislative house with its 40 members or one assemblyman among 80 Assembly members, a county supervisor was one of five voting members overseeing the county, which in the case of San Bernardino County involved what at that time was an annual budget of $7 billion to $8 billion and which in 2025-26 has reached $10.5 billion. Instead of being a sardine or a minnow in the ocean or a sea, Valdivia figured, he would do much better as a gargantuan fish in a lake.
Even before he was elected mayor in 2018, he was telling those around him that he believed his true calling was to become San Bernardino County Fifth District supervisor.
As 2018 approached, Valdivia saw the opportunity that was ahead of him. Carey Davis was the incumbent mayor. Fully 68 percent of the San Bernardino population was Hispanic, while 62 percent of registered voters were Hispanic. Were he to get into an electoral battle against the incumbent, Valdivia knew, the demographic factors would be tilted in his favor. In addition, he had a substantial amount of campaign cash at his disposal. He threw his hat in the ring. In the June primary, competing against Davis and five other challengers, Valdivia demonstrated that he was not only a contender but the favorite, polling 35.75 percent of the vote, which gave him a significant lead over Davis, who managed to finish in second with 27.78 percent. Davis hustled and worked hard in the November two-person runoff against Valdivia, making up considerable ground, capturing 17,327 votes or 47.49 percent. It was not enough to hold Valdivia off, however, as the Third Ward councilman was elected mayor to succeed Davis with 19,155 votes or 52.51 percent.
Truth be told, a victory though it was, Valdivia had not gained as much with his election as mayor as he would have preferred. He was the mayor of the county’s largest city, but there was a certain hollowness to the win. Under the city charter that had been put in place in 1905, San Bernardino’s mayor was not an inherently strong political figure. In fact, the mayoral post in the county seat was weaker than most mayors in terms of political function, at least on the surface. In San Bernardino, while presiding over the seven-member city council, the mayor had no vote, with the exception of those pertaining to hirings or firings of city employees or the appointments of city commissioners or in the event of a tie vote on other issues. The mayor did possess veto power on any 4-to-3 votes or 3-to-2 votes of the council, which, some argued, actually gave the mayor the power of two votes when it came to matters of close contention. Where the post, under the 1905 Charter, gave the mayor political power was in his role as the presiding officer over the meetings where the votes were taken, such that he could control the ebb and flow of debate by recognizing who had the floor during discussion and debate and by being able to recognize members of the public who might add to the discussion. Nothing in the charter prevented the mayor from having a strong personality and using his position of authority to construct, or at least try to construct, alliances or coalitions among the council that might be amenable to his viewpoint and influence. Thus, the San Bernardino mayor, while lacking inherent political power and reach, could yet build himself into a force to be reckoned with politically by virtue of his own politicking skill, if he indeed had the stomach and personality to be dominant through sure will.
Making up for the mayor’s lack of political muscle, the 1905 Charter infused in the mayoral post tremendous administrative authority. The mayor and city manager were empowered to act as the city’s co-regents, such that acting in tandem with the city manager the mayor could hire and fire department heads and even line employees, give directives with regard to everyday operations of the city without having to first clear them with the council, make decisions on the fly as challenges presented themselves and serve as the city’s chief executive using his or her own judgment.
In 2016, 111 years after the 1905 Charter went into effect, a measure to revise the charter went before the city’s voters. That revision eliminated the elected positions of city attorney, city clerk and city treasurer, converting them into appointed posts. It threw out provisions of the charter that had been added to it since its 1905 adoption which essentially guaranteed that the city’s safety employees – police officers and firefighters – were to be given pay equal or greater to that provided to their counterparts in other Southern California cities, a change that was at least partially unnecessary given that the city the previous year – 2015 – had acted to close out its municipal fire department and arrange to have the county’s fire division provide it with fire service.
Most bothersome to Valdivia was that the 2016 Charter had done away with the mayor’s administrative authority which had been a central provision of the 1905 Charter. Gone was the mayor’s ability to, in tandem with the city manager, hire employees, discipline employees, fire employees or in any other fashion enjoy or exercise executive authority. While the 2016 Charter took the mayor’s administrative power away, it did nothing to make up for that on the political side. It did not give him a vote on routine matters decided by the council. He did retain his ability to vote on matters relating to the city’s hiring of a city manager, city attorney and city clerk and to vote to break a tie vote when the city council deadlocked. The charter preserved, as well, the mayor’s veto power on votes that ended in a tally of 4-to-3 or 3-to-2. The mayor remained as the council’s presiding officer, who wielded the gavel at meetings and controlled, to a point, the parliamentary progression during which official decisions were made. The mayor yet had a role in overseeing the procedure of governance in San Bernardino.
Still, the mayoral position was no longer a dynamic one in which the holder could take unilateral action with regard to municipal policy and action, and by which he or she could sway, or even outright control, decisions in which the expenditure of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions or, conceivably, tens of millions of dollars were at stake. Valdivia had worked his way into a position of note, recognition, some limited authority and even prestige. Yet real power – unbridled power in which he could take unilateral action without being subject to being countermanded, controlled and canceled out – yet alluded him.
Worse, he soon lost the political reach he had initially cultivated upon coming into the office of mayor. In the weeks and months after his election as mayor, he had consolidated what looked to be a solid ruling coalition on the seven-member city council. In his corner and on his team were five of the council’s members – First Ward Councilman Ted Sanchez, who came into office in 2018; Second Ward Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra, whom he had supported in the 2018 runoff when she was first elected; Third Ward Councilman Juan Figueroa, who had been elected in a special election in 2019 to fill the position Valdivia had vacated when he was elected mayor; Fifth Ward Councilman Henry Nickel, with whom he had over the previous few years built a rapport; and Sixth Ward Councilwoman Bessine Richard, whose successful 2016 electioneering effort had been bankrolled by Valdivia through transfers of funds from his own campaign war chest or donors vectored to her by Valdivia.
One by one, Nickel, Ibarra and Sanchez grew disenchanted with Valdivia as he pressured them to support a variety of schemes that either involved favors for his donors or political supporters, his associates or the various companies that had retained his consulting company, Aadvantage Communications, usually in the form of approving the company-in-question’s development project, its contract with the city or municipal franchise arrangement. Then-Seventh Ward Councilman Jim Mulvihill and Councilman Fred Shorett had never counted themselves as Valdivia allies, and by the end of 2019, the only remaining support on the council Valdvia could count on consisted of Figueroa and Richard.
Shortly after coming into office, Valdivia had filled out his mayoral staff, hiring Renee Brizuela as his secretary and executive assistant, Karen Cervantes as a special assistant, Mirna Cisneros as a senior customer service representative, Jackie Aboud as a field representative, Don Smith as a field representative and Alexander Cousins in the capacity of a paid intern/policy analyst. He then began casting about for a chief of staff, ultimately settling on Bilal Essayli, who had been obliged, because of the Hatch Act, to resign as assistant U.S. Attorney to run for a position in the California Assembly in 2018. Valdivia had been led to believe that Essayli, as a politician himself, would understand that officeholders have to “dance with the ones who brung ya” by “playing ball” with the donors who make it possible for them to raise enough money to get elected.
Several months into his role as Valdivia’s chief of staff, Essayli grew alarmed at the pay-to-play atmosphere around Valdivia. Privy to activities Valdivia was involved in and deals that were being cut behind closed doors, Essayli determined that for his own good he should part ways with the mayor. In the words of someone close to Essayli, “Bill saw something that gave him reason to leave rather quickly.”
Confronted with a circumstance in which his staff was meandering without direction, Valdivia again found himself looking for a chief of staff. This time, he was intent on finding someone who understood the rough-and-tumble of politics and that there are individuals who are looking to profit by having a professional relationship with government and are willing to invest money in the political careers of officials who are prepared to make sure those donors will realize a return on that investment. He was given the name of Matt Brown.
Brown had been a close associate of former Rancho Cucamonga Councilman and San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane. Together with Biane, Brown had founded San Bernardino County Young Republicans, a political action committee which was used to collect money from entities that had a lot riding on decisions to be made by the county’s city councils and the county board of supervisors. The political action committee then distributed the money to those politicians who were willing to use their voting power once they were in office to make sure those donors got what they wanted. Biane was a major recipient of the money collected by San Bernardino County Young Republicans. Brown also served as Biane’s chief-of-staff.
San Bernardino County Young Republicans found itself at the center of a major political scandal in 2011 when Biane was charged by the California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office with bribery over a $100,000 donation that had been passed through San Bernardino County Young Republicans to him that originated with a development company, the Colonies Partners, for what prosecutors alleged was a vote Biane made in his capacity as county supervisor that benefited the Colonies Partners. Both the California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office contemplated charging Brown in the case along with Biane, but ultimately elected not to file charges against him in return for his testimony against Biane. The deal cut between the prosecution and Brown wrecked the once close relationship between Biane and Brown, and Brown was forced out of his position as Biane’s chief-of-staff. Brown, nevertheless, sidestepped havoc, wangling a transfer to the county treasurer’s office as part of the deal that secured his eventual testimony. When Biane, nearly six years later, went to trial, Brown joshed and jived around, claiming, once he was on the witness stand, brain fade, asserting he could not recall clearly the events that had transpired so many years before, and Biane was acquitted.
Valdivia found Brown to be a suitable candidate to serve as his chief of staff in some measure because of the latter’s skill and experience with regard to bringing in political contributions from individuals and entities willing to pay for favorable treatment from the government and thereafter bypass accountability for having done just that if such quid pro quos were to come to the attention of prosecutorial authorities. Brown embodied a further advantage, or potential advantage, that Valdivia could exploit, as well. Brown’s mother-in-law was Sandy Harmsen, the executive director of the San Bernardino County Workforce Investment Board and the director of the county’s Workforce Development Department.
The San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department had value to Valdivia in multiple ways.
Councilwoman Bessine Richard, who was one of his two remaining allies on the council, was an employment development manager with the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Board. Gaining leverage in any way that would keep one of his allies securely employed would accrue to Valdivia’s benefit. Councilman Henry Nickel, upon whom Valdivia formerly relied for support on the council but from whom he had become estranged, worked as an analyst with the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department. It was not unthinkable that through Brown Valdivia might be able to influence Harmsen one way or the other – to perhaps promote Nickel or perhaps to fire Nickel – and thereby have a means to persuade Nickel to vote his way when issues came before the city council.
And there was another reason why having reach within the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department was of value to Valdivia. The San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department’s offices were located in the Inland Center shopping mall in San Bernardino. The Inland Center shopping mall is owned by the Macerich Corporation, a company based in Santa Monica, which also owns shopping malls in Walnut Creek, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Lakewood, Cerritos, Victorville, Ventura, Downey, Corte Madera and Modesto in California; in Eugene, Oregon; in Tysons and Harrisburg in Virginia; in Davenport, Iowa; in Lubbock, Texas; in Phoenix, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Glendale, Chandler and Mesa in Arizona; in Danbury, Connecticut; in Freehold and Deptford in New Jersey; in Evansville, Indiana; in Rosemont, Illinois; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Brooklyn, Elmhurst, Niagara Falls, Glendale and Valley Stream in New York; and in Boulder and Broomfield in Colorado. Macerich was among Valdivia’s major campaign donors. Whether or not Harmsen was satisfied with the office space out of which the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Department functioned could have an impact on whether Macerich was able to keep a fair amount of the space at its San Bernardino mall property tenantized. Valdivia’s ability to influence Harmsen was the sort of thing which, when brought to the attention of Macerich executives, might induce them to double – or maybe even triple – the amount of money being donated to the San Bernardino mayor.
In August 2019, Brown came in to replace Essayli.
Prior to Brown’s arrival, a substantial amount of Valdivia’s focus was set upon his making the transition from San Bernardino mayor to San Bernardino County Fifth District supervisor. He already had sufficient money to run a campaign for that office, Valdivia knew. Money, however, even in the exorbitant quantity that was available to him, might not be enough to ensure a victory.
Politics in San Bernardino County appeared, deceptively, simple. Despite appearances, there were complications and issues below the surface. Despite Democrats holding what otherwise might appear to be a convincing 42 percent to 34 percent advantage in registered voters over Republicans, San Bernardino County was – and remains – a Republican County. Simply put, in San Bernardino County the better coordinated and organized Republicans, who are better schooled, experienced, sophisticated and ruthless in utilizing electioneering tactics, consistently outhustle their less sophisticated, lesser disciplined and hapless Democratic counterparts. As of 2019 and 2020, on 17 of the county’s 24 city and town councils, Republicans outnumbered Democrats. In only one of the county’s five supervisorial districts, the First District, which consisted primarily of the High Desert portion of the Mojave Desert, did Republicans outnumber Democrats. In three of the supervisorial districts, Democrats significantly outnumbered Republicans. In one district, the Third Supervisorial District, the numbers were relatively even, though at that time the Democrats held a slight advantage. Despite this, four of the county’s five supervisors were Republicans. Only in the Fifth Supervisorial District were the residents represented by a Democrat. In this case, the Fifth District supervisor was Josie Gonzales, a former Fontana councilwoman who had been county supervisor for 15 years at that point, having first been elected in 2004 and reelected three times thereafter. She was to be termed out in 2020. Despite the consideration that the Democrats enjoyed a 46 percent to 22 percent registered voter advantage over the Republicans in the Fifth Supervisorial District, it was believed that because there would be no incumbent in the race, a Republican with name recognition who ran an aggressive and well executed campaign could conceivably defeat a Democrat, particularly if the Democrat was unable to spend enough money to counter greater spending by the Republican. Moreover, two Democrats had emerged as potential successors to Gonzales, one being Gonzales’s chief of staff, Dan Flores, and the other being Joe Baca, Jr, a Rialto councilman and the son of a former Congressman. If a Republican with decent name recognition were to enter the primary and Flores and Baca were to run hard in the primary, committing a substantial amount of their campaign money to their respective causes, either or both might deplete the money left to them to wage the November runoff campaign. Moreover, a catfight between Flores and Baca could result in them damaging one another, such that one would end up in third place, allowing the Republican to advance to the November election, while hurting the surviving Democrat enough to deplete his chances in the toe-to-toe contest with the Republican in November.
Surveying the situation, Valdivia believed he could be that Republican.
He and his political consultant, Chris Jones, began to lay the groundwork for Valdivia’s 2020 supervisorial run and his anticipated victory. That groundwork included building Valdivia’s already formidable political machine into a supermachine. Simultaneously, Jones was awork, seeking to take advantage of Baca’s and Flores’s collective Democratic Achilles’ heel. As Democrats, both Flores and Baca would ultimately, if they were to make it to the November runoff, need to tap into the Democrats’ quintessential campaign funding wellspring: union money. Jones, however, had an advantageous angle in this regard. In his function as a political consultant all along, he had coordinated with, he had carried the water for, he had assisted public employee unions in their efforts to elect politicians who were committed to supporting public employees with higher salaries and increased benefits. And the candidates that Jones had succeeded in helping into office had consistently lived up to the commitments made to the public employee unions that had supported the candidates he worked for. Jones had cultivated a level of trust with the unions, and he was now ready to bring the advantage this represented to bear on Valdivia’s behalf.
There was, however, a glitch in this march toward Valdivia’s anticipated 2020 victory. It existed in the form of another Republican who coveted a position on the board of supervisors every bit as much as Valdivia did. That hopeful was Jesse Armendarez, who was then a councilman in the City of Fontana. When it came to appealing to the Republican establishment – meaning the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee – Armendarez had advantages Valdivia did not.
First, there was precedent with specific regard to endorsing Valdivia. In 2018, under Jan Leja, who was then the central committee chairwoman, Valdivia had competed with Carey Davis for the Republican endorsement in the mayor’s race. Despite Valdivia nosing Davis out for the endorsement in a vote of the committee’s membership, Leja had applied one of the central committee’s rules that in making an endorsement the committee was to side with an incumbent Republican over an upstart unless the challenger garnered more than 60 percent of the central committee members’ support. Since Valdivia had fallen short of that threshold, the Republican endorsement went to Davis in the 2018 election. Valdivia had been vocal in his criticism of Leja as a result. In 2020, Leja was yet the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee Chairwoman. The enmity over the 2018 endorsement had not diffused.
Armendarez was a member of the Republican ruling coalition on the Fontana City Council headed by Aquanetta Warren. That coalition defied the lopsided registration advantage the Democrats had in Fontana to remain intact. Warren had initially been in favor of the Republicans getting behind Clifford Young, a former member of the board of supervisors, in the 2020 Fifth District supervisor race, but once support began coalescing around Armendarez, she backed him. Like Valdivia, Warren was a prodigious political fundraiser, and her willingness to channel money from her campaign coffers to candidates she favored was influential in convincing others to support her choices.
More important yet were two other factors, one being Armendarez’s personal wealth and the other being his connection with Phil Cothran Sr. Armendarez was a successful real estate professional based in Fontana. For years, he had been showing generosity toward Republican candidates and Republican causes, particularly in Fontana. He had been rewarded, first with support in his successful run for the school board and then in 2016 in his successful electoral effort for the city council. In this way, Armendarez had become a virtual charter member of “Team Fontana,” a juggernaut of committed Republicans who were dominating Fontana despite more than half of its voters being registered Democrats and the Republicans accounting for only 22 percent of the city’s voters. An indispensable member of Team Fontana was Phil Cothran Sr, a fabulously successful insurance broker in Fontana. His income level allowed him to bankroll Republican candidates, who were then able to run well-financed campaigns that balanced out or overcame the advantage the Democrats they were running against had in terms of the number of voters affiliated with their party. Cothran’s and Armendarez’s combined donations – along with those of some other committed Republicans – had allowed Warren to make it to the top of the political heap in 2010, when she was elected mayor, and to remain there ever since, burnishing her reputation as San Bernardino County’s leading Republican woman. In 2018, Cothran’s son, Phil Cothran Jr, was elected to the Fontana City Council. In 2021, Phil Cothran, who had long been a member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central committee, was elected chairman of the committee, a position he yet holds.
Back in 2019, Valdivia was seriously angling toward a run for Fifth District supervisor, believing he had enough money to capture first in the March primary against two or maybe more Democrats who would split the Democratic vote. Jones was working at orchestrating a scenario in which the electoral battle would be joined the following year, when it was anticipated the Democrats Baca and Flores would spend all of their money in the March primary election in an effort to secure a runoff position in the November 2020 election with the expectation that the unions would come in to back the Democrat who prevailed against Valdivia during the fall campaign, only to find that Jones had succeeded in convincing the unions to stand down, at which point Valdivia would bring his overwhelming financial advantage to the fore and capture the Fifth Supervisorial District seat.
Valdivia was making promise upon promise to those business and development interests who already had proposals before the San Bernardino City Council or were waiting in the wings to present them. A lucrative, or at least potentially lucrative, revenue stream Valdivia and Jones were seeking to tap into consisted of the more than a score of would-be cannabis business moguls who were seeking licenses and permits for the limited number of such operations that the City of San Bernardino was going to allow to be established in the city.
Previously, while he was Third Ward councilman, Valdivia had been, or so it seemed, unalterably opposed to the marijuanification of San Bernardino. He had stood firm against allowing medical marijuana dispensaries being allowed to operate in the city. With the November 2016 passage of Measure O, which allowed the sale of medical marijuana in San Bernardino to take place, however, along with the passage of Proposition 64 in the same election legalizing the use of marijuana for intoxicative purposes throughout California, Valdivia turned on a dime, becoming, seemingly overnight, a champion of marijuana law liberalization, asserting that he was now intent on seeing San Bernardino get in on the cannabis bonanza by welcoming the sale of marijuana and cannabis-related products out of storefronts in the city and collecting the fees and taxes that were to come with it. In a very short time, Valdivia became legendary through accounts of how he was promising the granting of more permits to prospective cannabis-related business owners than the city had declared it would issue while reportedly shaking those business applicants down for “donations.”
From the time he came into place as chief-of-staff, Brown was aware that Valdivia was on the make politically. Indeed, he recognized that his own history and what he had accomplished for other politicians had a great deal of appeal to Valdivia. That history included Brown delivering key assistance to a city council member – Biane – who had made the jump to county supervisor by creating the San Bernardino County Young Republicans Political Action Committee as a mechanism which could capture money coming in from entities looking to influence government their way and then pass that money along to Biane so he could outspend his political opponents and get elected. That history included comporting himself in just the right way when the authorities caught up with Biane and the San Bernardino County Young Republicans with regard to how money seemed to be changing hands between politicians and those benefiting from those politicians’ votes so that in the end prosecutors were unable to prove their allegations that bribery had taken place. And the position that Biane had acceded to and occupied for eight years was that of county supervisor, the same office that Valdivia aspired to occupy.
Those who were in Valdivia’s orbit in the summer and fall of 2019 say that the political maneuvering he and his team were engaged in was intense. Subsequently, court documents and official action taken by the city council would verify that. Within hours of learning that Armendarez had emerged as a rival for the role of the Republican who was going to take the electoral battle to the Democrats in the 2020 election for Fifth District San Bernardino County supervisor and convert that position into another important political position held by the GOP, Valdivia and his team had formulated an argument that the San Bernardino mayor, who had been that city’s Fifth Ward councilman for six years before that, was the better candidate and had begun to press it. Valdivia had a strong case. Obviously, his status as mayor of the county seat and the county’s largest city was a more prestigious one than that of a first-term councilman in Fontana. In addition, Valdivia had been a municipal officeholder more than twice as long as Armendarez. When it came down to money, even though Armendarez had proven to be a generous donor and had deep pockets, Valdivia and those around him were highly adept at collecting money and pooling it for use in promoting himself, those he was allied with, and Republican causes. Armendarez had limited himself to that point, essentially, to Fontana and its environs. Valdivia and Jones had reached well beyond San Bernardino and San Bernardino County, putting the arm on donors from all around Southern California, California in a larger sense and a handful from outside of the Golden State. Moreover, Valdivia had the assistance of Jones, a sophisticated political operator who had the impressive ability to neutralize the public employee unions, which were a major and important element of the Democrats’ strength, to the extent that they had any strength at all.
Simultaneously, those behind Armendarez dug in their heels. All parties realized that the primary advantages the Republicans could make use of in this case were that 1) Gonzales was termed out, creating a clean slate by which the power of incumbency was not going to be an advantage to the Democrats and 2) the head-to-head battle between Baca and Flores was going to divide the Democrat vote, providing the Republicans an advantage that could be exploited. That advantage would be lost if two Republicans jumped into the race, dividing the Republican vote, particularly in the primary. If that were to occur, the likelihood would be that the Baca and Flores would finish first and second in March, setting up a November runoff in November from which both Valdivia and Almendarez would be excluded.
Valdivia was determined he would neither blink nor back down. His election to the board of supervisors would put him in the catbird seat, a position that had seemingly been designed for him. With his existing contacts in and outside San Bernardino and inside and outside San Bernardino County, his strength of will, his existing network, his personality and the assistance of Jones, he was destined, he truly believed, to be the emperor of San Bernardino County, all 20,105 square miles of it, an expanse larger than Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island taken together or Massachusetts and New Hampshire combined. It was only when it was made clear to him that several luminaries in the Republican Party – Cothran in particular – were dead set on promoting Armendarez that Valdivia came to accept that 2020 was not his year. One of the things brought to bear was that Cothran was a longstanding member of the San Bernardino County Workforce Development Board, which was of such import, or so Valdivia and those he was affiliated felt, to San Bernardino.
In the end, Almendarez’s support network gambled and gambled hard. Not knowing, precisely, what Valdivia was going to do, almost immediately upon the filing period for the March 2020 primary opening, Almendarez’s team beat everyone to the punch, pulling nomination papers and then submitting the documents with the requisite signatures to qualify Almendarez for the ballot. Even then, Valdivia did not back off, toying well into December with filing papers himself. It was only when the filing period elapsed at 5 p.m. on December 6, 2019 that it was known for sure he had forwent running for supervisor in 2020.
As things turned out, that was probably a prudent move. By late December 2019, there were rumblings about things not going well with Valdivia’s staff. The first overt sign to confirm that came during the first week of January 2020 when Jackie Aboud, then 27, was fired by the city, less than nine months after she had gone to work as a part-time field representative for Valdivia. Cisneros, Valdivia’s constituent services technician, at that time 34, and Cervantes, his 28-year-old special assistant, anticipating they were to be accorded the same treatment as Aboud, retained one-time Adelanto Mayor Tristan Pelayes to represent them. Three weeks after Aboud’s termination, Cisneros and Cervantes simultaneously resigned from their positions, making public statements as to why, which would have greatly complicated Valdivia’s run for supervisor if he had been in that race. They were joined by 36-year-old Alissa Payne, Valdivia’s appointee to two city commissions, who uttered statements similar to theirs. All four said the mayor had subjected them to unwanted sexual advances, innuendo and crude remarks, sought to press them into compromising circumstances, insisted that they perform tasks outside their job assignments, and either sought to involve them in, or acknowledged to them his, skirting of the law pertaining to the use of public funds as well as his violation of the reporting requirements imposed on public officials relating to the reception of donations, money or services.
Cisneros said Valdivia was misusing public funds for personal use and was at the very least in violation of the gift-receiving reporting requirements that are applicable to elected and public officials, and that on occasion he appeared to have gone further over the legal line into accepting bribes. Cisneros said that Valdivia had pressured her to work on political campaigns while she was serving in her capacity as a city employee, and that the mayor suggested that she should use the vacation time she had accrued to work on Richard’s and Figueroa’s 2020 city council campaigns.
Cervantes said Valdivia had plied her with gin and tonics in an effort to get her to have sex with him.
According to Aboud, when she earnestly sought to live up to her job description and serve as a liaison between Valdivia and his constituents, Valdivia informed her she was not there to do that but rather function, essentially, as his courtesan. “He told me I needed to spend time with him after hours and invest in a friendship with him if I wanted to reach my career goals,” Aboud said. “He told me that my job was not to serve the community but to serve him and meet his personal needs.”
Aboud said Valdivia grew particularly angry when city staff was responsive to the requests of city residents in the Fourth and Seventh wards, where Valdivia’s two longest-standing rivals on the council, Fred Shorett and Jim Mulvihill, held office.
Payne said Valdivia sought to pressure her into a physical relationship.
Pelayes’ representation of Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud raised obvious problems for Valdivia, whereupon he sought to discredit his accusers. He called upon Brown to have Brown as well as his secretary/executive assistant, Renee Brizuela, his field representative, Don Smith, and Alexander Cousins, who was then serving in the role of policy analyst in Valdivia’s office, to provide him with false written statements refuting the allegations from Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud, according to Pelayes. Brown would later relate that in February 2020, the mayor requested that he speak with Smith and Cousins and “coach them” prior to their interviews with the human resources investigator assigned to look into the women’s accusations because he wanted their interviews to reflect positively on him. Brown subsequently maintained that he knew the accusations against the mayor to be true, since he had witnessed at least some of what Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud were alleging.
It is Brown’s contention that he counseled Valdivia against interfering in the internal investigation the city was carrying out and that he approached Teri Ledoux, who was then San Bernardino city manager, to ascertain what should be done about the deteriorating situation.
It is Brown’s avowed belief that Ledoux, like multiple other employees, had been accorded shabby and unprofessional treatment by the mayor. Ultimately, according to Brown, Ledoux sided with Valdivia in order to hang onto her $346,616.77 total compensation per-year assignment. According to Brown, he was thereafter frozen out of his once-meaningful and powerful role as the mayor’s right-hand man.
Meanwhile, Smith was failing to accede to the pressure being brought on him to make what he claimed were false statements about his former colleagues Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud.
Ultimately, Smith crossed over and approached Pelayes to inform him about the effort by Valdivia and those yet loyal to him to undercut his clients. Then Smith went public with some statements about Valdivia that were every bit and maybe even more damaging to the mayor than those by Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud.
According to Smith, Valdivia assigned him to tasks that had no relation to legitimate city business, including running personal errands for the mayor such as getting the mayor’s car serviced and chauffeuring Valdivia to various locations while the mayor would be engaged in heavy petting in the back seat with various women he was not married to. Smith signed an affidavit under the penalty of perjury in which he related being present in October or November 2018 for a 1 a.m. rendezvous Valdivia had with Danny Alcarez, the owner of Danny’s 24 Hour Towing, Inc., at the Denny’s restaurant in San Bernardino when Alcarez provided Valdivia with “a thick white envelope that appeared to contain a large amount of money,” which Smith said he was given to understand was a kickback provided to Valdivia for his support of city tow franchises remaining as the exclusive province of several of the city’s towing operations.
Unsurprisingly, Smith soon found himself on the outside looking in and he retained Pelayes, who sued the city on his behalf.
Eventually, San Bernardino fired Brown, who likewise retained Pelayes, who is now pursuing a wrongful termination suit against the city on Brown’s behalf.
In 2022, Valdivia, whose reputation had taken hit after hit after hit as a consequence of the lawsuits filed against him by Cisneros, Cervantes, Aboud, Smith and Brown, not to mention a multitude of revelations relating to the pay-to-play atmosphere that had intensified in San Bernardino during his tenure as mayor, six challengers emerged in that year’s mayoral race, including Valdivia’s one-time political mentor and supporter, former city attorney and twice-unsuccessful mayoral candidate Jim Penman, and Helen Tran, who had been the city’s human resources director while Valdivia was mayor and who left the employ of San Bernardino to take a similar job in West Covina in in an effort to protect her professional career just as the scandal over the treatment of Aboud, Cisneros and Cervantes was hitting in 2020. Despite Valdivia’s overwhelming financial advantage in the June 2022 primary, he finished a weak third, thus failing to make it to the November runoff, which instead pitted Penman against Tran. Tran prevailed in that race and is now San Bernardino mayor.
In June 2024, the city quietly came to terms with Cisneros, conferring upon her $600,000; Cervantes, paying her $425,000; and Aboud, who was awarded $175,000. The settlements with the trio were made on the condition that they drop their suits and not make any further claims against the city nor seek further damages as a consequence of their experience in San Bernardino.
The city posted checks to all three on June 20, 2024 and made no public announcement with regard to the settlement.
The case brought against the city by Smith was dismissed earlier this year. The case brought by Brown, who last year launched a political career of his own by running successfully for the Grand Terrace City Council, continues.
Depositions in the case have been scheduled and are to take place in the coming weeks and months, including one of former Councilman Henry Nickel next week.
Representing Brown are Pelayes and attorney Joseph Bolander.
The city is being represented by attorneys Abraham Escareno and Angelo Mishriki of the Cerritos-based law firm of Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd & Romo.
Based upon filings in the case and statements by individuals familiar with the overall circumstance and the proceedings so far, Escareno and Mishriki appear to be allowing Pelayes and Bolander to dictate the direction of the litigation, with Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd & Romo in reactionary mode, waiting continuously for the next shoe to drop. A major problem for the city, the Sentinel was told, is that neither Escareno nor Mishriki have any institutional memory or understanding of San Bernardino, Valdivia, how he conducted himself, the atmosphere that attended his administration, his relationship with Jones, the events major and minor that took place while he was in office, the overall context in which he operated, the decision-making process that led to his hiring of Essayli and Brown as his successive chiefs of staff or Brown’s history.
On the other hand, Pelayes and Bolander are thoroughly familiar with San Bernardino County, Pelayes having once been an elected official and his former partner, Dennis Wagner, San Bernardino County Counsel.
“Right now, the way this litigation is going, the city looks like a sitting duck,” one of those very close to the case and the events it involved told the Sentinel. ”Unless the firm [Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd & Romo] gets in gear, Matt Brown is going to end up with a bigger payout than any of those women [Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud] did. The city’s not without some leverage here, but the lawyers apparently don’t know enough about the facts to use it. While Matt Brown was chief of staff, John [Valdivia] and Chris [Jones] were looking at creating a political machine that was supposed to be the center point and means of raising money, a lot of money, to influence future elections. All of that was going on in the mayor’s office. Matt had to see how much money was coming in and going through the mayor’s office. He couldn’t have missed it. He’s too smart to have missed it. A lot of that money ended up being passed along to the mayor’s legal defense fund. Eventually, Matt finally objected to what was going on, sure, but that was only after John was in trouble and on his way out because of how he was running the mayor’s office and the city into the ground and all the womanizing and engaging in all the other behaviors that brought his office down. Matt was in place before John started to fall apart and while John was being John and taking money in exchange for votes. Why didn’t Matt speak out then? Was he looking at getting in on John’s [political] machine and generating enough money that would be spread around to everybody, including himself? Chris might have been the architect in what John was trying to create, but Matt was holding everything together so they could do it. Is that going to come out in these depositions? Let’s face it: Tristan [Pelayes] is building a pretty strong case for Matt, that he got screwed by John, but if this law firm [Atkinson Andelson Loya Rudd & Romo] asks the right people the right questions, then Matt gets tied in with John. And don’t forget where the county Workforce Development Department stands in relation to what went on and the way Matt connects that to John. There are a whole lot of dimensions to this.”