The discontinuation of any known overt business activity on the part of a company Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner has operated for nearly a quarter of a century is an outgrowth of his wife’s medical condition, the councilman told the Sentinel this week.
Alan Wapner & Associates was founded in November 1998, according to documents on file with the State of California. Within the last two months, the company’s website went dormant.
Wapner, who has been on the Ontario City Council since 1994, is the third longest serving local official in San Bernardino County after Mayor Eunice Ulloa in Chino and Councilman John Roberts in Fontana.
Wapner possesses a degree in political science from USC and juris doctorate from Whittier Law School. He was a police officer with the Ontario Police Department for 16 years, reaching the rank of sergeant. In his capacity as a city councilman, he served as an appointed representative to multiple regional joint powers authorities, including the Southern California Association of Governments, known by its acronym SCAG; the San Bernardino Associated Governments, the county’s transportation agency formerly known by its acronym SanBAG and now known as the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority or SBCTA; the Ontario International Airport Authority, of which he has been the continuous chairman since its inception more than a decade ago and other joint powers authorities, committees and boards. His perspective and knowledge of how governmental agencies work and articulate with one another and their policies and procedures are deemed valuable to some individuals or businesses, particularly ones that must deal with governmental entities for project or contract approval or getting a franchise or seeing success with some program or other.
Under the law, those needing assistance or guidance with a project application or franchise/contract competition in a jurisdiction outside of Ontario can consult with Wapner, and it is legally permissible for him to offer assistance to such entities in exchange for money. At the same time, it is illegal for an elected official, to accept payment/remuneration from an individual or company looking to obtain project approval or a contract with or which is competing for a franchise with or wants to be a program participant within or from the jurisdiction where that official serves in an elected or appointed capacity, as is the case with Wapner in Ontario or at Ontario Airport or with SBCTA or SCAG or any other joint powers authority in he has a direct or perhaps even an indirect hand.
Over the years, as Wapner & Associates has had varying degrees of success in bringing in clients, some of them relatively high paying ones, Wapner has been subjected to scrutiny and accusations that he is in some fashion profiting by his holding of public office.
Early in his tenure in office, the statements of economic interest he is by California law required to file every year, known as Form 700s, showed no reportable interests in terms of investments, real estate property holdings, real estate property holdings through a business entity or trust, income, travel payments advances and reimbursement, loans, gifts, honoraria, commission income, income and loans to business entities or trusts or income from real property beyond the income of his then-wife and routine household purchase loans through the Ontario Public Employees Credit Union.
Later in the 1990s, he began reporting receiving gifts in the form of movie and sporting event tickets, clothing items and the like from individuals and companies with items and issues before the city, including franchise holders and airlines flying into and out of Ontario Airport.
In 1998, he took a disability retirement from the police department because of his inability to wear a gun holster around his waist and he for a time showed income from RSG International as a security and private investigations consultant of between $1,001 and $10,000.
In 2000 he reported purchasing in September 1999 a sole proprietorship in a Straw Hat Pizza restaurant in Chino Hills at a fair market value of between $10,001 and $100,000, from which he made no immediate reportable profit. He continued in 1999 to work as a security and private investigations consultant for RSG International, generating income of between $1,001 and $10,000.
For the year 2000 he reported his continuing ownership of the Straw Hat Pizzeria, but showed it generating less than $499 in income. Meanwhile, his security business clientele continued to include RSG International and added the Chino Valley Unified School District, attributing both of those to being primary reportable sources of income of between $10,001 and $100,000 to Alan Wapner & Associates, to which he ascribed the general description “security consultant” in describing the business activity it involved.
In the Form 700 disclosure form Wapner filed in 2002 for the year 2001, he yet described the business activity of Alan Wapner & Associates as “security consultant.” Its primary client list had dropped to include only the Chino Valley Unified School District, though the reportable income remained at between $10,001 and $100,000. That reporting remained the same for the year 2002.
Upon filing the Form 700 disclosure from for 2003 in March 2004, Wapner changed the general description of the business activity of Alan D. Wapner & Associates to “public affairs/government relations/security consulting.”
The Chino Unified School District was gone as a reportable source of income of $10,000 or more but was replaced by Caltrop Engineering and Portrait Homes. Overall, Alan D. Wapner & Associates’ reportable income remained at between $10,001 and $100,000.
In 2004, Alan D. Wapner & Associates’ list of clients providing a reportable source of income of $10,000 or more grew by two to four, again with Caltrop Engineering and Portrait Homes, augmented by WalMart Stores and the Young Electric Sign Company. It again showed reportable income remained at between $10,001 and $100,000.
In 2005, Alan D. Wapner & Associates’ list of clients providing a reportable source of income of $10,000 or more grew, in this case by two to four, again with Caltrop Engineering and Portrait Homes, augmented by WalMart Stores and the Young Electric Sign Company.
In 2006 and 2007, Alan D. Wapner & Associates hit its first high water mark. In each of those years, the company took in somewhere between $100,000 and $1 million for the consulting work performed primarily by Alan Wapner. The document filed by Wapner on March 21, 2007 to cover the year 2006 shows that there were just three clients – Caltrop Engineering, Wal-Mart Stores and the Young Electric Sign Company – which were sources of $10,000 or more to Alan Wapner & Associates that year. Total income for the company exceeded $100,000 but was less than $1 million. The document filed by Wapner on March 31, 2008 to account for the year 2007 lists Caltrop Engineering, Wal-Mart Stores, the Young Electric Sign Company and Sobrato Development as sources of $10,000 or more to Alan Wapner & Associates that year. The document shows that for 2007, the total income for Alan Wapner & Associates was between $100,000 and less than $1,000,000.
In 2008, the total income for Alan Wapner & Associates was between $10,001 and $100,000. Caltrop Engineering, Encore Image, IBI Group and Wal-Mart were listed as the company’s sources of $10,000 or more that year.
In 2009, Alan D. Wapner & Associates reported receiving between $10,001 and $100,000 in income, with two sources each a source of $10,000 or more that year, those being Caltrop Engineering and Bingo Innovations, Inc.
In 2010, Wapner, through his entity Alan Wapner & Associates, once again zoomed to the top of the local governmental relations consulting establishment. That year, according to the document he filed on January 27, 2011, his consultancy brought in between $100,000 and $1 million, with Caltrop Corporation and Bingo Innovations of California, Inc. each being a single reportable source of $10,000 or more of that money.
In 2011, the amount of money Alan Wapner & Associates brought in dipped below $100,000 again, though it remained above $10,000, according to Wapner’s Form 700 filing. Caltrop Corporation and Bingo Innovations of California, Inc. again were major sources of that money. They were joined by Airport Mobile Towing as a provider of more than $10,000 of the income to Alan Wapner & Associates in that year’s reporting cycle.
In 2012, Alan D. Wapner & Associates took in, according Wapner’s Form 700 filing in March 2013, between $10,001 and $100,000. No single entity provided him over $10,000 that year. The same was the case in 2013.
In 2014, according to the Form 700 form Wapner filed on March 11, 2015, the income of Alan D. Wapner & Associates dropped off precipitously. That year, income stood at between $0 and $499.
There is an anomaly with the reporting document that Wapner filed on March 29, 2016 for 2015, but it appears that the company once again took in between $10,000 and $100,000 that year, with Ghost Networks LLC being the sole entity that served as a source for over $10,000 to Alan D. Wapner & Associates that year.
There is an anomaly with the reporting document that Wapner filed on March 29, 2016 for 2015, but it appears that the company once again took in between $10,000 and $100,000 that year, with Ghost Networks LLC being the sole entity that served as a source for over $10,000 to Alan D. Wapner & Associates that year.
In 2016, based upon the Form 700s Wapner filed in March 2017, it does not appear that Wapner & Associates was active at all.
Wapner’s economic interest reporting documents for 2017 indicate that there was little or no activity involving Alan D. Wapner & Associates, consisting of income between $0 and $499. However, in 2017, according to the Form 700s he filed in 2018, on July 24, 2017, Wapner created another consulting company, Edinburgh Consulting, LLC. The company did not do much in the way of any remunerative work, however, as the amount of gross income received is listed as matching that of Alan D. Wapner & Associates, that being between $0 and $499.
In 2018, Alan D. Wapner & Associates and Edinburgh Consulting, LLC were virtually nonfunctional, each reflecting income of between $0 and $499. That was again the case in 2019.
In his Form 700 filings for 2020, 2021 and 2022, Wapner makes no mention of either Alan D. Wapner & Associates and Edinburgh Consulting, LLC.
On July 27, 2023, the Facebook page Ontario Political News had a posting that attributed the proliferation of warehouses in Ontario, said to have reached a saturation of 12 per square mile, to a “pay-to-play” ethos in the city that was demonstrated by warehouse proponents being “re-routed to Alan D. Wapner & Associates by Wapner himself.”
Within a week, the website for Alan Wapner & Associates became inactive.
The Sentinel inquired of Wapner with regard to the perception of some that it is improper of him, as an elected official who has ultimate governmental decision-making authority with regard to land use, contracts, franchises, development, projects, programs and the like within Ontario, to be accepting work from individuals who have business interests which might be impacted by the decisions of the Ontario City Council. The Sentinel asked Wapner if there was any validity to the concern that by hiring him through Alan Wapner & Associates, an individual or business could influence, or at least seek to influence, the decision-making process in Ontario. In addition to asking about suggestions that by and through Allen D. Wapner & Associates he was engaging in influence peddling, the Sentinel asked about the recent social media posting relating to his company and if that had a bearing on his decision to discontinue its operation.
Wapner responded, stating “Alan D. Wapner [& Associates] was established as a sole proprietorship in 1999 to engage primarily in private investigations services. In the years following, I began engaging with clients doing work in other cities. My standard agreement included specific language concerning potential conflicts. This language was approved by the city attorney. Pursuant to that agreement and state law, I never participated on any project in the City of Ontario.”
According to Wapner, “I never ‘shuttered’ my business. When my wife was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease and breast cancer, I ceased all outside business to spend time with her and family. Huntington’s Disease is a fatal disease with no cure. As such, we are committed to spending every moment together. While I continue my responsibilities as a councilman, any other time is spent with my wife. That is why the business ceased operations.”
Wapner said he puts no stock in what is posted on Ontario Political News.
“I have no idea what is discussed on social media,” he said. “I never use social media or look at it. I get my information from reliable sources.”
–Mark Gutglueck