By Mark Gutglueck
Tuesday’s election resulted in unprecedented political upheaval in no fever than nine municipalities in twelve different city council and/or mayoral races across San Bernardino County, with four of the county’s six longest serving elected city officials being turned out of office. In total, three mayors once thought unassailable and eight council members have been or appear to have been handed their walking papers by voters.
In the City of Adelanto, which has an established reputation for unconventional politics and intensive contention among its elected leadership, Councilwoman Stevevonna Evans appears to have unseated two term Mayor Gilbert Reyes.
Both Evans and Reyes were among the three then-political neophytes swept into office in Adelanto in 2018 in the aftermath of the implosion that featured as star players former Mayor Rich Kerr and one-time Councilman Jermaine Wright, both of whom ended up in federal prison when their manipulation of city codes and regulations in exchange for bribes put up by a cross section of the entrepreneurs seeking to establish commercial cannabis and marijuana-related business operations in the 52.9-square mile city grew brazenly obvious. While Reyes, Evans and Gerardo Hernandez were elected mayor and to the city council, respectively, largely on the perception that they were reform candidates, the council they were a part of did not rescind the previous actions by Kerr, Wright and another council member, John Woodard, intended to transform Adelanto, which for approaching a decade had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and disincorporation, into the first city in California with an openly cannabis-based economy. Rather, Reyes, Evans, Hernandez and council members Joy Jeannette, Daniel Ramos, Amanda Uptergrove and Angelo Meza ultimately embraced the sale of medical marijuana, marijuana and marijuana-containing products intended to be used for their intoxicative effect and cannabis-based products along with the cultivation of marijuana as acceptable businesses and industries in the city, although with the recognition that they were not intended to be the city’s central economic activity. Indeed, Evans was for a time linked to a cannabis-business principal with whom she was engaged in a personal relationship and Reyes grew into a leading proponent of expanding the scope of cannabis/marijuana-related operations within the city limit as a basis of further economic development. Early on, there was cooperation and an emerging alliance between Reyes and Evans, as Reyes designated her the city’s mayor pro tem and conferred on her prestigious governmental adjunct appointments to regional and joint powers authority boards. That political honeymoon drew to a close however, a mere eight months after both were installed in office when Reyes, asserting that he had lost faith in Evans because he considered her to be untrustworthy and perceived that she was militating against him politically, deposed her as mayor pro tem and elevated Hernandez to the vice-mayor’s spot.
Three years later, in 2022, Evans forewent seeking reelection to the city council and instead challenged Reyes in the mayoral contest. He handily defeated her, garnering 48.32 percent of the vote in a five-person race. While Evans was the second place finisher, she gathered 17.21 percent, as Reyes claimed 2.8 votes for every vote she received, while the three other candidates in the race accounted for 34.48 percent of the vote.
Two years later, in 2024, Evans ran once more for city council, doing so successfully.
This year, she took on Reyes again. Also competing in the race was perennial Adelanto mayoral candidate Ronald Beard, who finished fourth in 2022 with 11.37 percent, in fourth in with 15.47 percent in 2018 and in fourth place in 2014 with 20.45 percent. This year, Evans made up the ground that separated her from Reyes in 2022 and then some. As of today at 6 p.m., she polled 2,186 votes or 46.99 percent to Reyes’ or 40.18 percent. Beard made up the difference between them with 597 votes or 12.83 percent.
Jayshawn Johnson, who ran fourth among ten candidates for the Adelanto City Council in 2020 and is currently an appointed planning commissioner in the city, ran for city council again this year. As of 6 p.m. today, in which he is the sole interloper in a three-way race also featuring incumbent council members Angelo Meza and Amanda Uptergrove, he is in second place, with 2,027 votes or 33.84 percent, behind Meza, who has 2,084 votes or 34.79 percent and ahead of Uptergrove, with 1,878 votes or 31.35 percent.
In Colton, Mayor Frank Navarro is nearing the end of his second term as mayor. He was first elected to that post in 2018, six years after he was first elected to the city council. Prior to that, Navarro had been a founder and among the most active participants in Citizens for Colton First, a grassroots political reform and fiscal watchdog group.
John Echevarria was first elected to the Colton City Council in 2020, representing what was then District 5. With the conversion of the city from six districts to five, he is now representing District 4. He is employed as a lieutenant with the San Bernardino Police Department. He opted to run for mayor this year rather than seek reelection to the city council. As of 6 p.m. today, he is leading Navarro in the head-to-head contest, with 5,007 of the 9,402 votes cast or 53.25 percent to 4,395 votes or 46.75 percent
John Roberts, who was first elected to the Fontana City Council for a two-year term in 1992 and re-elected to four-year terms in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022, is the longest continuously serving council member in San Bernardino County. He is the second-longest serving council member/mayor in the county in terms of years, surpassed only by Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa, who served as a councilwoman and mayor from 1984 to 2004 and reinitiated her tenure as a council member and mayor in 2006, serving continuously since then.
In 2010, Roberts, a retired firefighter and fire marshal, was reelected to the city council for the fifth time, the same year his council colleague, Acquanetta Warren was elected mayor. Very shortly thereafter, Roberts, a Republican, signed on as a member of Warren’s ruling council coalition. Warren, a Republican, has defied the odds in Fontana, where the party affiliation of its voters consists of 45.7 percent of its registered voters are Democrats, 23.6 percent f its registered voters have no party affiliation whatsoever, 23.1 percent of its voters are Republicans and the remaining 7.6 percent are members of the American Independent, Green, Libertarian, Peace & Freedom or other more obscure political parties. Warren held her coalition together by relying heavily on donations from Republican Party supporters as well as principals in businesses seeking approval of projects they were proposing within Fontana City Limits or attempting to land city contracts for goods and services. This approach, which entailed a heavily pro-development approach to governance and what many have consistently characterized as a “pay-to-play” environment, has long had its detractors. Those critical of Warren and opposed to her, however, have consistently been unable to marshal the requisite political forces or make a show of sufficient political muscle to drive her or those with whom she is aligned from office. As a consequence, Fontana, which sits next to a major rail line, two interstate freeways and a third state route that is also a freeway, has proven a magnet for warehouse development. There are substantial numbers of Fontana’s 220,000 some residents – running to over 10,000, who are either passively or more actively opposed to the concept of further warehouse development in Fontana based upon the relatively poor pay and benefits provided to those who work in logistics facilities, the degree to which warehouse operators not only exploit those who work there but victimize nearby residents with their use of large diesel-powered semi-trucks with their unhealthy exhaust emissions and the bane of traffic gridlock they create. Fontanans, both those who are Warren supporters and in favor of further warehouse construction and those who are opposed to it, have taken to referring to the mayor as “Warehouse Warren.”
Roberts, like the two other current members of Warren’s ruling coalition – Peter Garcia and Phil Cothran Jr. – has gone right down the line in supporting Warren’s warehouse building agenda.
When Fontana transitioned from a city that elected its council members at-large to one that is divided into council districts, Roberts fell into the city’s District 4, lying primarily to the south of the city. District 4 contains the 10 Freeway and the rail corridor, which makes undeveloped property there particularly attractive to would-be warehouse developers. Year after year, and now decade after decade, as Roberts has supported the living environment of his constituents being loaded with more and more warehouses, resentment against him had grown. In 2014, 2018 and 2022, however, that resentment had not grown to a level that could overcome the factor of the money being provided by the development industry to Roberts through Warren that allowed him to send upbeat messaging to voters just prior to those elections to convince a sufficient number of them to keep him in office.
Over the last four years, however, Roberts’ disregard for the largely impoverished residents, many of whom do not live in traditional residential subdivisions but rather in what were historically agricultural areas upon which industrial uses and warehouses have encroached as a result of Warren’s efforts to please the donors to her political war chest, has caught up with him. Whereas previously, the residents of Fontana District 4 have not been organized, activists within the community and nearby lying Bloomington, which has been subject to similar treatment by the San Bernardino County Land Use Services Division, the San Bernardino County Planning Commission and the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, have been aided by Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice in coordinating resistance to what is taking place within their living environment. A realization that the control City Hall exercises over the land use policy in the city has the most immediate and direct impact on their quality of life pushed them toward making inroads on Warren’s hold on the council. Warren’s opponents understood that the most vulnerable element of her grip on the council consisted of Roberts. Two opponents against Roberts emerged Ben Vasquez and Luz Perez. Vasquez assailed Roberts, saying that if he were elected he would push for Fontana to adopt a warehouse moratorium. Luz Perez was slightly more moderate in her approach, suggesting that an outright ban on any type of development might prove politically unfeasible while Warren yet had control over the city as mayor and would be legally challengeable as well. “Where air pollution is a major concern,” she said, “I will push for stronger warehouse and diesel truck pollution mitigation.”
As of 6 p.m. today, Perez was well ahead of Roberts.
Of all of San Bernardino County’s 72.4-square mile Hesperia has the greatest infrastructure deficit of all 22 cities and two incorporated towns. That is a product of a lack of diligence by the county and its planning/land use services division in the years before Hesperia’s 1988 incorporation and the pro-development leanings of the members of the Hesperia City Council, which in some cases was exacerbated by out-and-out graft in the form of bribes provided to city officials. Consequently, subdivision after subdivision was constructed in the city without accompanying offsetting utilities and infrastructure, compounding a situation in which existing roads that were unpaved or inadequately paved were neglected and went decades without repair or maintenance. Now, several political generations past the city’s founding, the city council is made up of individuals who neither collectively nor individually understand what they and the city are up against. The city’s voters, particularly those in the city’s District 2, are saddled with the well-meaning but ineffectual and unsophisticated Allison Lee.
Lee’s presence on the city council is nearly as much accidental as intentional.
In 2022, Hesperia faced a unique situation in which its redistricting and election schedule meant that the District 2 council seat held by Bill Holland was to expire in December 2022, and no one had filed to run in the November municipal election The city council, in a special meeting on August 24, 2022, canceled the November 8 election and instead sought applicants for a four-year appointment to fill the District 2 seat Seven residents applied, including Lee, at that time a 22-year Hesperia resident and business owner with her husband running an automotive service business in the city
The council evaluated the applications and selected Lee to serve the full term from December 2022 through December 2026. Lee sought election this year and was opposed by Jessica Navarro and David Bashar Ellis.
As of 6 p.m. today, Navarro held a comfortable lead over Lee,
Montclair over the last three decades has been among the county’s most stable cities politically, with relatively minimal turnover among its mayoral and city council positions, with the death of sitting mayors/council members accounting almost as much for change on the council as officeholders being voted out. Bill Ruh was first elected to the city council in Montclair in 1998. The only elected municipal officeholders in San Bernardino County who have been in office longer than he has are Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa, Fontana Councilman John Roberts, Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, Rialto City Clerk Barbara McGee, Montclair Mayor/former Councilman John Dutrey and Ontario Mayor/former Councilman Paul Leon. Montclair, like only three other cities in San Bernardino County, has not transitioned to district voting. In this Montclair municipal election, no one opposed Mayor Dutrey and both Ruh and Corysa Martinez vied for re-election in the at-larges contest for the two positions on the city council up for election this year. Victor Mendez and Alice Garcia jumped into the race.
As of 6 p.m. today Martinez was in first place and Garcia had captured second. Ruh was trailing, placing him in third and therefore of the council if he does not close the ground between him and Garcia and pass her by November 16. Mendez is solidly in fourth place with , and >.
In Ontario, between them, Mayor Paul Leon and Councilman Alan Wapner have nearly 60 years in municipal office, with Wapner having served continuously as a councilman since his election to the post in 1994 and Leon having served as a councilman from 1998 until 2005 and as mayor from 2005 to the present. During that same period, Wapner established himself as the most prolific political fundraiser among local politicians in San Bernardino County history, taking in more the $3.8 million. Leon during his 28 years was the recipient of nearly $2.4 million. In many cases, that money was being given by owners, administrators or principals of businesses with development proposals or contract/franchise applications with the city who expected, or were led to expect, something in return, i.e., the support of the mayor and city council with regard to the approval of those proposals or applications. Indeed, over the years, Wapner in particular had an established reputation for engaging in pay-to-play politics in which the money being provided to his campaign war chest were recognized as quid pro quos or bribes which ensured that the donors were to be taken care of. There was a significant degree of commonality among those donors to Wapner and to Leon, though Wapner claimed the lion’s share of that money. Those endowing Wapner’s and Leon’s electioneering funds were making hefty donations as well as to another member of the council, Jim Bowman, who had served on the city council from 1986 to 1988 and again from 1990 to 1998 before he ran successfully once again in 2006 and has served on the city council ever since. In this way Leon, Wapner and Bowman became entrenched members of the Ontario Establishment, throughout which there was an understanding that governance in Ontario had been corrupted, infusing virtually every element of City Hall, from the administration downward and involving all departments of the city, most notefully, the police and fire departments, the employee unions for which were Leon’s Wapner’s and Bowman’s leading donors. In 2018, Jason Anderson, who had been a member of the city council from 2004 until 2008 and while in private practice in 2014 had been retained by the city to help Wapner out of a political jam when he was caught beating his daughter in public and had been intimidating his political opponents, was elected district attorney. For approaching two decades the corruption had become so entrenched in Ontario that Wapner and to a lesser extent Leon and Bowman had come to believe they could act with impunity, as the governmental that existed to most logically hold them in check – the police department and the district attorney’s office – had been coopted.
Meanwhile, Leon, a preacher with the Hope Chapel in Ontario, from shortly after the time he was first elected mayor of Ontario in 2005, was grooming Daisy Macias, the then-14 year-old daughter of a parishioner at his church, for a possible career in politics. He employed her doing clerical work at Hope Chapel and when she reached the age of majority appointed her to the city’s park and Recreation Commission and then to the Ontario Library Board, of which she became chairwoman. Leon assisted her in landing first a decent paying position as an account executive with Old Republic Home Protection and then as the community relations manager with National Community Renaissance and the Hope For Housing Foundation, two entities associated with developer Jeff Burum, who has over the years been a generous donor to the Leon and Wapner campaigns. Leon had genuinely hoped that Macias might eventually be elected to the city council, where she might become a reliable vote in the ruling coalition he was hoping to build.
Below the surface was a rivalry between Leon and Wapner that it was generally in neither’s own political interest to have revealed to the world. In actuality, throughout most of the time that Leon was mayor, it was Wapner who was the most dynamic political force in Ontario, as he had early on forged a working relationship with Bowman and Councilwoman Debra Dorst Porada, who was first elect to the city council to form what was essentially a ruling coalition. In this way, it was Wapner who was calling the shots and dictating that those entities who were providing him along with the others campaign donations should not be crossed up when votes relating to their projects or contracts came before the city council. In this way, because the enmity between him and Wapner was kept buried, Leon could maintain the fiction publicly that what was going on in Ontario was a product of his administration. Still, with regard to most certainly the donors with the deepest pockets, there was a recognition that Wapner was he big man on campus at City Hall.
Following the 2022 election, Wapner resolved that he was going to no longer abide keeping secret that he was Ontario’s actual leader and that it was time that Leon’s status as Ontario’s official leader come to an end. He would cease the charade of being a mere member of Mayor Leon’s city council and that he would become mayor himself.
One of the first things Wapner did was to poach Leon’s presumed future council ally. As the 2024 election approached, he approached Macias, who was a resident of District 2, telling her she should make a claim of living in District 4 and run for the city council in the 2024 election. Macias complied, taking out candidacy papers, augmenting them with the requisite number of signatures of District 4 residents and then turning them in to the city clerk. Very shortly
after Macias’s candidacy was qualified, Wapner transferred $40,000 out of his campaign fund to Macias’s campaign and then, a few weeks later, another $10,150.27, from his campaign account to Macias’s political fund. Wapner then put the arm on a whole host of those who had donated money to him in the past to provide Macias with an additional $93,000.
In the November 5, 2024 General Election, Macias, receiving 36.41 percent of the vote in the five-candidate race, captured the District 4 council post.
Wapner kept his mayoral ambition under wraps. He started 2025 with $288,330.42 in his city council campaign fund. He continued to pressure donors for money. Throughout 2025, he collected money for another city council run, but also created a second account to finance his run for mayor. Throughout 2025, he deposited $172,250 in donations into his council campaign fund and another $125,800 into his mayoral campaign fund. Between January 1 and June 30 of 2026, he deposited $2,950 into his council campaign coffers and $323,199.08 in donations were made to his mayoral fund. Under California election law, Wapner was at liberty to move money in his council campaign fund into his mayoral campaign fund.
In contrast, Leon, who started 2025 with $15,781 in his campaign account, collected $48,600 in campaign donations in all of 2025 and followed that up with $47,849 in donations received in the first six months of 2026, giving him $112,230 with which to hold off Wapner’s challenge, fueled by the $912,529.08 he had on hand in his combined campaign accounts.
By mid-2025, the cat was out of the bag, and it was known that Wapner was looking to rip the mayoral gavel from Leon’s grasp.
Wapner nailed down the endorsements of the Ontario Police Association, representing the police department’s officers up to the rank of sergeant; the City of Ontario Police Management Group, representing the police department’s lieutenants and captains; the Ontario Firefighters Association, representing the city’s firemen; the Teamsters Union, which represents roughly 380 Ontario municipal employees; and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Local 3061, which represents roughly 1,260 of the city’s employees. Macias, who had been demonstrating during council meetings throughout much of 2025 that she was inclined toward accepting Wapner in the role of Ontario’s primary citizen, then delivered the coup de grace, announcing that she was endorsing her council colleague rather than the mayor.
Wapner had qualified his candidacy for mayor with the city clerk and the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters. It certainly appeared that Leon’s goose was cooked.
On July 28, a mere ten days before the candidacy filing deadline for the November 3 election, the FBI raided Wapner’s house and home office, while serving further search warrants at the offices of some of his political supporters and the homes and offices of some of his other political associates. The FBI served subpoenas for a wealth of documents at Ontario City Hall as well as the administrative offices of the Ontario International Airport Authority, the governmental entity overseeing Ontario Airport, the board for which Wapner was the president/chairman.
Wapner rescinded his mayoral candidacy application and refiled to run for election in the city’s 3rd Council District. As a parting shot, he called upon Macias to take up a challenge of Leon as he was ducking out of the race. Again, Macias followed his instructions.
As the electoral season began with the close of the filing period on August 7, Leon and Macias found themselves vying against one another and two other mayoral hopefuls, Kevin Kizzee and Nicolo LaLama.
In District 3, Wapner found himself up against Michael Rios, Larry Trinidad and D’Andre Lampkin.
As it would turn out, a huge player in the 2026 Ontario Municipal Election was James Previti, the billionaire owner of Forecast Homes, Frontier Homes, Guardian Capital and the Previti Group. Previti put $250,000 into the Ontario Committee on Ethics.
Previti approached Macias, informing her he would bankroll an effort to get her elected if she would disassociate herself from Wapner, for whom he had a deep and abiding personal enmity. Macias agreed to do so.
Once the race was under way in earnest, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent a total of $1,100 on September 22 designing two mailers attacking Leon, another $1,994.15 on September 23 for data for those mailers and $17,900.01 on September 29 for one of those mailers and $17,966.34 on a second mailer.
On September 22, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spend 550 designing a mailer supporting Macias and on September 25 spent $17,951.72 to print the mailer. The Ontario Committee on Ethics on September 22 spend $550 to design a mailer in favor of Macias and on September 25 spent $17,951.71 on that mailer itself.
On October 12, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $7,500 on a television ad attacking Leon and the same day spent another $1,100 on a television ad attacking Leon.
On October 12, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $1,100 on a television ad supporting Macias.
On October 17, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $17,960.62 on a mailer supporting of Macias and another $17,903.26 on a mailer supporting her.
On October 17, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $1,100 on a Television ad attacking Leon and another $7,500 on a television ad attacking Leon.
On October 17, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $61,865.59 on a mailer supporting Macias.
On October 17, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $7,765.58 supporting Larry Trinidad in his run for 3rd District councilman.
On October 24, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $550 designing a mailer attacking Wapner with regard to his run for 3rd District councilman and on the same day spent $7,254.38 printing the Wapner attack mailer.
On October 24, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $550 designing a mailer attacking Leon and another $17,802.73 printing that mailer. Also on October 24, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $1,500 on the production of a television ad attacking Leon and $1,100 on a radio spot attacking Leon.
On October 24, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $550 on research for a mailer in support of Macias and $17,885.61 to produce the mailer supporting Macias.
On October 27 the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $16,019.19 on a mailer supporting Macias and the same day spent another $15,179.83 on a mailer in support of Macias.
On October 29 the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $1,500 on a television ad attaching Leon.
On October 30, the Ontario Committee on Ethics spent $550 and then another $550 on designing mailers attacking Leon and the same day spent $17,360.11 and $7,890 and another $29,213.88 on producing mailers attacking Leon.
As of 6 p.m. today, Macias was leading in the mayoral race, ahead of Leon. Kizzee and LaLama account for third and fourth place.
As of 6 p.m. today, Rios is in the lead in the District 3 council race, ahead of Wapner. Trinidad is in third place and Lampkin in fourth.
Ana Gonzalez has displaced incumbent Edward Montoya Jr. on the Rialto City Council.

Find a hard copy edition of the November 6 Sentinel to finish reading this article about the incumbents voted out of office in the cities of San Bernardino and Twentynine Palms.