The City of Adelanto is reportedly on the brink of selling Mavericks Stadium, which is to include the 3,800-seat stadium itself and the surrounding land.
There is no confirmed specific information as to who the buyer is or what is to be paid for the entire 16.2 acres of ground located just off Highway 395 at Stadium Way.
One report held that the city is to receive $3.2 million in the deal.
Whether the city in making the deal is, as some suggest. cutting an albatross from around its neck by ridding itself of a white elephant or, as others believe, surrendering a facility city officials could yet, despite past missteps, transform into a vibrant economic engine is a matter of perspective.
There is no doubt, on one hand, that the stadium, built in 1991 to house the Mavericks Class A minor league California League baseball team when it made its move from Riverside, offered the city both cultural and social enrichment, which extended to, in addition to fare for minor league baseball fans, a forum for various events, including concerts, festivals, and trade shows. Undeniably, however, there were those within the Adelanto’s governmental structure and its business community who exploited the facility for their own benefit and financial gain, to the detriment of the city and its taxpayers. A case can be made that had the city officials who were not involved in bending the stadium to their own personal interest been just a tad more diligent in preventing those who were using it for their selfish purposes, it might have been and could still be a feather in Adelanto’s cap.
When the stadium was opened in 1991 for the Single-A Mavericks, the team’s ownership, Mains Street California made a sincere and earnest effort to promote the baseball operation, which served as a farm club for, over the years variously, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers. In the team’s inaugural season in Adelanto after moving from Riverside and changing its name from the Red Wave to the Mavericks, with Bruce Bochy as coach, it rang up a 73–63 record and first place in the California League. For more than 20 years, the Mavericks were the primary, indeed the only, professional sports team in the High Desert and a popular draw and defining element of the community.
By 2013, there was discontent on both sides of the equation, that is, with the team’s ownership, which was finding fault with the city in its role as the team’s host, and with the city, several officials of which felt the team was not generating sufficient revenue or sparking enough economic activity.
City officials complained that the Mavericks had for years failed to provide an accurate accounting of revenues owed to the city which the city claimed were generated from facility parking lots and the facility conference room. The baseball operation was supposed to be a self-sufficient enterprise, but, the city claimed, the financial burden of sustaining the minor league club fell on Adelanto’s taxpayers. The City of Adelanto maintained it was footing the bill for water, gas and electricity used at the stadium and for landscaping and maintenance of the field and its surroundings.
In 2015, Stater Bros. which was paying the city a fee for the facility to carry the name of Stater Bros. Stadium, offered the city $1.6 million in cash to purchase the stadium outright. The city council, still believing the stadium could be key to the financial rejuvenation of Adelanto, spurned the offer.
In January 2016, the Adelanto City Council voided the team’s lease at the stadium, which was then referred to as Heritage Field at Stater Bros. Stadium. The Mavericks gamely played through the 2016 season, while negotiations continued between the team’s ownership and the city with regard to a mutually acceptable arrangement by which the Mavericks would remain in place at Heritage Field. On August 22, 2016, the California League announced the Mavericks would not return for the 2017 season and would cease operations as a team in the league, in Adelanto or elsewhere.
In 2017, the High Desert Yardbirds replaced the Mavericks as the home team at Stater Bros. Stadium. The High Desert Fury soccer team also played there. Meanwhile, Main Street USA was suing the City of Adelanto, seeking $10.8 million. In March 2019, the City of Adelanto arrived at a settlement, agreeing to pay Main Street USA $3.8 million, including an immediate $1.5 million disbursement from the city’s general fund followed by 24 monthly installments of $95,800.
For over a decade, a combination of the city’s elected and top administrative officials involved themselves and the city in some extremely questionable arrangements involving Mavericks Stadium. The stadium hosted a number of ventures, some of which generated a marginal amount of money for the city and others which cost the city money and some that provided certain business entities with a base to operate from in way that had the appearance of being a gift of public funds or, more accurately, a gift of public assets loaned at no cost, to businesses or individuals, most of whom had ties with the city’s elected officials or were those politicians’ primary political supporters.
On January 14, 2017, the Adelanto Grand Prix was staged at and around Stater Bros. Stadium in Adelanto. The promotional event involved a number of local entrepreneurs and had as four of its sponsors Malcolm Smith Racing, American Motorcycle Association, Grand Prix Series and So. Cal. M.C. Many local personages and officials took part in the festivities, including Kerr. That afternoon, then-Adelanto Mayor Rich Kerr, who was reportedly intoxicated, was riding his own dirt bike outside Stater Bros. Stadium and was being trailed by his children and grandchildren within the Grand Prix area when his front wheel hit a soft spot in the dirt and he was thrown from the cycle. He broke his left collarbone, cracked several ribs and suffered a partially collapsed lung. Kerr was laid up for several days thereafter, but was able to go to City Hall and function out of his office there within ten days of the mishap.
In the 2015-2017/2018 timeframe, Kerr, in conjunction with then-councilmen John Woodard and Jermaine Wright, were in a headlong effort to convert Adelanto to a marijuana/cannabis product-based economy, predicated on a plan to take advantage of the full decriminalization of marijuana to get in on the ground floor of the cultivation, processing, refinement, packaging, storage, delivery and sale of the formerly contraband substance to, in Kerr’s words, convert Adelanto into “the marijuana capital of California.”
In actuality, what Wright, Woodard and Kerr were doing was using their collective authority over the city’s land use, zoning, legislative and regulatory functions to obtain money from entities looking to establish marijuana-related or cannabis-related businesses in the city. This included Woodard, a real estate agent, deriving broker fees from those purchasing land which he and his council colleagues subsequently rezoned for use relating to marijuana cultivation and/or marijuana/cannabis product activity or sales. Wright and Kerr exchanged their votes in favor of granting permits or licenses to business entities involved in the marijuana/cannabis-product industry for out-and-out bribes, activity for which both politicians were ultimately criminally charged by federal by prosecutors and sent to prison.
On January 14, 2019, the last day before the two-year statute of limitations following Kerr’s motorcycle accident at the 2017 Adelanto Grand Prix elapsed, Kerr, represented by Philip E. Rios and Keith A. Adesko of the Professional Lawyers Group, sued the Adelanto Grand Prix organizers with regard to the injuries he had sustained on January 14, 2017.
A member of the Professional Lawyers Group was Attorney David Serrano.
In September of 2016, David Serrano and his wife, Julia Orama-Serrano, initiated and in October 2016 completed the purchase of the Jet Room at 17499 Adelanto Road, what in years past had been a bar that catered to airmen from George Air force Base. While initially the Serranos represented that their intent was to convert the former Jet Room into a law office, the hidden plan was to convert the 2.23 acre lot and the existing structure at 17499 Adelanto Road, the northeast corner of Adelanto Road and Joshua Avenue, into a marijuana dispensary. That plan was revealed on February 16, 2017, when David Serrano submitted $1,000 in fees to the City of Adelanto in conjunction with a “comprehensive plan” for the Jet Room premises to be converted into a marijuana dispensary
The FBI, having been tipped off by former Adelanto city managers Jim Hart, Gabriel Elliott and Cindy Herrera about what Kerr, Wright and Woodard were up to, obtained warrants to monitor their bank activity. According to FBI Agent Kevin Boles in 2017 and 2018, $35,000 in payments were made to Kerr by the Law Offices of David Serrano and the Professional Lawyers Group, San Bernardino, which were referenced as advancements on the settlement of Kerr’s lawsuit against the city over the dirt bike mishap at State Bros. Stadium in January 2017, despite that lawsuit having not yet been filed. Kerr believed that his authority as mayor, taken together with the backing votes of Wright and Woodard, and the city’s ownership of the stadium, would allow him to ensure that the lawsuit he was going to file would be settled in his favor.
As the series of those who served in the capacity of city manager or were brought in to replace the managers who left during first three years of the single term Kerr was Adelanto Mayor came to realize what was taking place in the city, they resisted both subtly and more directly what Kerr, Wright and Woodard were doing, leading to their ousters or resignations. A key promotion under the Kerr Administration had been Jessie Flores, whom Kerr had initially brought into the city as Adelanto’s contract economic development director Ultimately, after the other city managers had departed, unwilling to go along in the direction Kerr, Wright and Woodard had mapped out for the city, Kerr in August 2018, promoted Flores to city manager.
In one of the first contracts inked by Jessie Flores after he had been installed in the post of city manager, the city agreed to pay Aaron Korn and Darrell Courtney $20,000 per month for two years to manage Adelanto Stadium.
For years, the city was concerned over the money it was losing at the facility, and it had been seeking a buyer.
After the Mavericks were evicted, the city had an arrangement with the San Bernardino County Fair, which goes by the corporate name of the 28th District Agricultural Association, to mind the grounds. The 28th District Agricultural Association had brought in Korn, who once had run for city council in Victorville, to serve as the stadium manager. When the city ended its arrangement with the fair, Korn was kept on as an independent contractor to continue what he had been doing, at a rate of $5,000 per month.
That $5,000 covered the salary of both Korn and Courtney, and was to remain in place for six months. Not quite six months later, Flores altered the deal, quadrupling the amount Korn and Courtney were to receive.
They committed to work with booking agents and promoters to bring entertainers to the stadium for events that would draw customers to the city’s businesses, and simultaneously generate rental revenue for the city from the acts using the stadium as a performing venue.
The ability of the stadium to meet the goals the city had in mind was uneven. Some months the city made a little money. Other times, the money brought in was less than was being paid to Korn and Courtney.
With the onset of the Coronavirus crisis and the mandates against public gatherings and the stay at home orders emanating from Governor Gavin Newsom and local authorities, the stadium stood empty and remained so for the next three years.
At that point, Kerr, Wright and Woodard were long gone. Wright was arrested by the FBI in November 2017 and removed as councilman in 2018. In 2022, Wright was convicted of bribery and given a five-year federal prison sentence. In November 2018 Kerr and Woodard were voted out of office. In 2023, Kerr, who had been indicted on seven counts of wire fraud involving deprivation of honest services and two counts of bribery, pleaded guilty to one count of honest services wire fraud and accepting $57,000 in bribes. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Adelanto officials have consistently been unable to convert the potentially lucrative asset of the stadium into a net money-make rather than a blackhole that sucks more and more money into it. As such, it has made known for some time that the stadium is on the auction block. Simultaneously, it has informed any and all parties that are interested that the city will be accommodatingly flexible with regard to zoning and rezoning of the property.
For sale is the stadium, a 185-cacity event center, a parking lot with a capacity for more than 800 vehicles and a total of 16.2 acres.
Last year, the city intensified its effort to divest itself of the property, putting out an invitation for bids on September 12 and requiring submissions come in by a deadline of November 20. That invitation stated, “The City’s goal is to complete a sale of the Event Center to a qualified and experienced entity with a proven track record of successfully owning and operating comparable facilities that are similar in size/scale. The City also seeks a partner who is committed to giving back to the local Adelanto community, and demonstrates innovative ideas for developing the Event Center as an important regional amenity to the entire High Desert region.
The invitation resulted in what city officials say were “several” qualified bids in which the prospective buyers’ financial bona fides checked and the city functioned with the consultation of commercial real estate brokers.
While a sale is imminent, escrow has yet to close, and city officials say they are not able to disclose the buyer yet.