In a remarkable reversal of traditional unionist advocacy, the members of the faculty association at Cal State San Bernardino are calling upon the California State University System to withhold retirement benefits from outgoing President Tomás Morales based on what its members are calling performance criteria.
Traditionally, unions have held that promises of benefits made to employees by an employer – within either the private or public sector – are sacrosanct and an employee’s work product quality or lack thereof should not have any impact on whether the employer is to make good on benefit guarantees.
Unions have consistently taken the position that the withdrawal of agreed-upon benefits or loyalty rewards would created a dangerous precedent whereby employers in the future would be, or feel themselves to be, at liberty to welsh on the assurances they gave to employees singly or collectively during the contract bargaining process or in individual contracts. Such precedents would, it was generally considered, strengthen the hand of corporate or government management and weaken laborers.
In the case of Morales, however, sentiment against him on a widespread personal basis among Cal State employees and others is so strong and runs so deep, that union members and even union officials appear ready to throw caution to the wind and focus on evening scores with him.
For the unionist and Democratic-leaning faculty at San Bernrdino State University, such enmity toward Morales, who has held the university presidency since 2012 and was the first Latino to accede to that post overseeing an institution of higher learning that boasts one of the highest percentage of Hispanic students in the country, is noting short of remarkable.
While the university and the university system are public institutions, the Cal State University Board of Trustees which oversees the governance the 23 California State University campuses, just like the University of California Board of Regents, which oversees the ten campuses of the University of California, has adopted an incentive program for the top educational administrators it employs, somewhat akin to but not quite as generous as what is provided to senior management in the private sector. Corporations routinely provide their chief executive officers, chief operating officers, chief financial officers, presidents and vice presidents with bonuses – and occasionally very substantial seven or eight figure bonuses – when those corporations reach economic performance goars or register earnings beyond what was projected for them.
While Morales has no shortage of detractors, he also has a list of accomplishments and a wellspring of supporters.
During Morales’ presidency, the university experienced financial and student growth, physical expansion, enhanced student support, and an intense focus on community engagement and diversity, the latter achievement extending to the creation of the Cal State SB Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board. The focus on student support Morales championed included the so-called Summer Bridge programs and strengthening ties with public K–12 school districts and community colleges in the Inland Empire to improve college attainment. He established the nonprofit Growing Inland Achievement to get more Inland Empire students into college. The university campus also began its first fundraising campaign that brought in $54 million, doubling the university’s endowment, thereby enhancing educational resources and campus facilities.
Under his leadership, 552,612 square feet of new space was added to both the San Bernardino and Palm Desert campuses, accommodating a growing student body.
Mexico recognized Morales the prestigious Ohtli Award, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed upon a foreign recipient.
To Morales’ critics, however, those are achievements that likely would have manifested under any other leader during the 13 years he has been in place.
They have a far less charitable estimation of Morales both as a university president and and a person.
To a number of, though not all, university professors and the San Bernardino chapter of the California Faculty Association, Morales was a “walking scandal” who could do little right, was chauvinistic, weak, ineffective and damaging to the university and its reputation.
They claim gender discrimination flourished during Morales’ watch. They point to two lawsuits against the
California State University System stemming from what went on at Cal State San Bernardino, at both its San Bernardino and Palm Desert campuses, going back more than a half-dozen years.
In 2023, former Cal State University San Bernardino Vice Provost Clare Weber and Anissa Rogers, formerly the associate dean of the university’s Palm Desert campus, sued the California State University system, alleging they were constructively discharge of forced into retirement upon making reports of gender inequities, discrimination and harassment.
The suit alleged that Weber and Rogers suffered at the hands of Provost Rafik Mohamed, who served as the interim provost in 2022 and was appointed provost and vice president for the university’s division of academic affairs in January 2023, and then-Palm Desert Campus Dean Jake Zhu. Mohamed led the university’s largest division, oversaw five academic colleges, its Extended and Global Education program and the Palm Desert Campus. Mohamed and Zhu retaliated against the two women when Weber, who was characterized by her lawyer as “the lowest paid vice-provost in the CSU system” complained that female vice provosts employed at Cal State universities were underpaid in comparison to their male equivalents, and that this was particularly the case at the San Bernardino campus. Rogers alleged Zhu callously dismissed her complaints about male administrators berating a female employee during a 2021 meeting and then forced her into retirement. Morales did nothing to prevent Mohamed and Zhu from abusing Weber and Rogers, according to the suit.
When Rogers’ case went to trial last year, she prevailed, with the jury awarding her $6 million on the basis of the
emotional stress she had endured. A decision was made in March to settle Weber’s case for $6 million.
According to the faculty union, Morales allowed the situation that resulted in the $12 million payout to Weber and Rogers and he was equally responsible for budget cuts to the university imposed by Sacramento after a state audit that found the university’s housing department was $8 million in debt.
Based upon incentive recruitment employment terms at the time of his hiring in 2012, Morales after a dozen years in the president’s post upon retirement can be deemed eligible for a one-time payment of up to a year of his current salary and placement into an academic position with the university or pursuit of a specialized educational project at the campus. Those incentive terms were eliminated by the Cal State system two years ago, but on the basis of major faux pas by other university administrators, they have been discontinued. It is unclear whether the university system is obliged to honor them in Morales’ case. The union is arguing that the incentives offered to university executives were conditional upon positive outcomes for the university. The erasure of the benefits generally based upon scandals involving other university presidents is justification for withdrawing them from Morales, the faculty union maintains. The California State University Board of Trustees should exercise its discretion and deny Morales the benefits, the faculty union contends.
For many of those sensitized to San Bernardino County’s historic political missteps and the accompanying erosion of the integrity in its governance, developments during the 2026 electoral season so far have intensified concern that the dominant financial forces which have commandeered the community’s social and moral essence will tighten their grip on the lives of the jurisdiction’s more than 2.2 million residents.
By chance or perhaps design, the arrangement having been made so long ago that no one today knows, the election of all four of San Bernardino County government’s constitutional officers – sheriff, district attorney, treasurer and assessor – corresponds with California’s gubernatorial election that takes place in even-numbered years in between the U.S. presidential election that takes place in leap years. Also running for election or reelection in the gubernatorial election year are two of the county’s five members of the board of supervisors and the county superintendent of schools.
There are, quite naturally, differing opinions as to whether having six of the county’s nine highest profile leaders and its chief education official selected in an election cycle in which fewer voters turn out to participate than during the presidential determination process is good or bad.
Some maintain that democracy would be better served if those key functionaries in county government were to come before the voters when there is the greatest number of those to be impacted by their decision-making participating. Moreover, because the rules of engagement in those contests is that a candidate who manages to take at least 50 percent plus one vote in the June primary election prevails and does not need to take part in a run-off election in November and further because voter turnout in primary elections is consistently inferior to that in November general elections, a candidate elected in these contests can get into office by receiving as little or even less than 20 percent of the number of actual registered voters.
Others point out that while, generally, more people take part in electing the president than in electing the governor, the core of voters that go to the polls or mail in ballots when the election is not revolving around issues of national concern are far more likely to be ones who are knowledgeable about state and local issues, on average, than those who are driven to take part because of the attention, commotion and interest that is naturally stirred up by a presidential contest. This, they argue, makes for a better informed electorate participating in the determination as to who will hold office.
Informed or not, the county’s voters have elected a number of politicians to county office who were notoriously corrupt. Over the last two generations, a former sheriff, a district attorney-turned-judge, three members of the board of supervisors, a county treasurer, a county assessor – all of whom were elected to office – and two of the county’s top administrators and the county’s chief investment officer – all three appointed on the sole authority of the board of supervisors or the treasurer – have been convicted of crimes that involved extensive and intensive violation of the public trust extending to kickbacks, bribery, embezzlement, theft, misappropriation of public funds and the gross misuse of their public office. Another district attorney who served during that era was disbarred and can no longer practice law.
The citizens of the county have made efforts at reform and to limit the unchecked or excessive power of the politicians who have seized control of and sought to monopolize the reins of power. Some of those efforts, at least nominally, succeeded. Nevertheless, the county’s politicians, whose own fortunes in case after case advanced with the unbridled exercise of their power, have acted, using the vast political reach which yet remained in their grasp, to counteract those reforms and, in some cases, increase or compound their power. In do this, they have most often utilized the financial assistance of their political support network – their campaign donors who are the primary beneficiaries of their corrupt manipulation of their authority as elected officials – to carry off their depredations.
In 2006, the county’s voters passed Measure P, which limited county supervisors going forward to three terms in office. Thirteen years later, after a multiplicity of scandals during which four elected county officials were indicted or criminally charged and three were convicted, an indigenous San Bernardino County government reform group concluded that limiting members of the board of supervisors to three terms or 12 years in office was insufficient to ward off the graft that had consumed the halls of power, and placed Measure K, which called for reducing the supervisors to a single four-year term, on the 2020 ballot. Measure K passed by an overwhelming margin of more two-to-one, with 516,184 votes or 66.84 percent in support to 256,098 votes or 33.16 percent opposed. Instead of allowing Measure K to go into effect, the board of supervisors directed county counsel, the county’s top attorney who oversees a stable of in-house lawyers, to examine the measure for a flaw or some grounds upon which to challenge it. County counsel then recommended and the board of supervisors complied in hiring the Los Angeles -based Sutton Law Firm to challenge Measure K in court. Ultimately, after two years, the court would determine that Measure K was valid in all respects. Nevertheless, while the case against the measure was pending, the enforcement of its provisions were suspended.
In the meantime, developer Jeff Burum, who since 2018 had established himself as the most prolific political donor in San Bernardino County and was at that time seeking to convince county officials and residents to seceded from the State of California, in conjunction with other business interests rallied to the supervisors’ aid, bankrolling and employing political consultants who masterminded the placement of Measure D on the 2022 ballot.
In addition to $25,000 put up by Burum, a virtual who’s who of the county’s developers, others dependent on county approval of their business proposals and those with governmental service/materials provision contracts made a show of appreciation to the board of supervisors, raising $829,000, which was applied toward a campaign in favor of Measure D. These included trash service provider Athens Services, which holds the county franchise for managing landfills laying out $12,500; the Building Industry Association of Southern California, which was good for $20,000; trash hauler Burrtec Waste Industries coming through with $5,000; developer Nachattar Chandi offering $10,000; $5,000 from the Galaxy Investors Partners Fund ponying up $5,000; HIP So-Cal Properties LLC coming through with $25,000 Ontario-based Loboso Ventures coming $7,500 to the cause; Prime Healthcare Services supporting the supervisors to the tune of $20,000; attorney Robert Wheatley putting up $5,000; the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company offering $10,000 in support; Colton-based Medical Personnel Management Corporation forking over $5,000; the Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents some county employees, signing on for $20,000; the California Association of Realtors Issues Mobilization disbursing $20,000 to the campaign; the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians contributing $25,000, which was matched penny-for-penny and dollar-for-dollar by Henderson, Nevada-based Equinox Gold Corporation Castle Mountain Venture; Chandi Enterprises adding $5,000 to the $10,000 its chairman and owner Nachattar Chandi had already provided; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents some county employees, supporting the supervisors with $25,000; $15,000 from the Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalitions Issue Political Action Committee; the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Employees Benefit Association, which represents the county’s sheriff’s deputies coming across with $150,000 and topping that with another $25,000 from its political action committee; Majestic Realty Company providing $49,000; the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council making a $50,000 show of support; Las Vegas-based MP Materials offering $25,000 in largesse; the California Association Realtors Issues Mobilization giving the supervisors a $30,000 hand-up; The Crossings at Redlands LLC and David Wiener bestowing $5,000 each; Thomas Buttgenbach kindly providing $10,000; MGR Property Management tossing in $2,500; Symbiosis Symons Emergency Specialties Inc. donating $5,000; Cadiz, Inc. assisting with $20,000; Paul Herrera making a convincing display of his faith in the board with $45,000; and FH II Homebuilders Inc, an entity owned by Jim Previti, showing his loyalty to the board with $49,900.
Measure D erased the provisions contained in Measure K, reestablishing the three-term limit on members of the board of supervisors. Burum’s financial assistance extended to defraying the cost of a campaign – entailing polls, newspaper ads, radio and television spots, mailers, yard signs, billboards and phone banks to promote Measure D, which in the November 2022 election passed by a margin.
In the reestablishment of the three-term limit on supervisors, Measure D reset the clock on the three terms allotted to each supervisor from going into effect as of 2006 to going into effect as of 2022. This allowed any members of the board of supervisors who had been in office prior to 2020 to discount their time in office when calculating the time they could remain in office.
Supervisor Curt Hagman had originally been elected to the board of supervisors in 2014 and was thus allowed under Measure P to remain as supervisor until 2026 and was scheduled to depart as supervisor as of 2022 under Measure K. Supervisor Dawn Rowe had been appointed to the board of supervisors in 2018 and won election for the first time as an incumbent in 2020, and was scheduled to leave office as supervisor in 2032 under Measure P and set to leave as supervisor in 2024 under Measure K. Supervisor Paul Cook had originally been elected to the board of supervisors in 2020, and would have been allowed to remain as supervisor until 2032 under Measure K but was scheduled to depart as supervisor in 2024 under Measure K. Supervisor Joe Baca had first been elected to the board of supervisors in 2020, and would have been allowed to remain as supervisor until 2032 under Measure K but was scheduled to depart as supervisor in 2024 under Measure K. At the time that Supervisor Armendarez was elected to the board in 2022, there was a question as to whether he was subject to Measure P, in which case he would have been permitted to remain in office until 2034 or Measue K, in which case he was to be required to leave office in 2026.
The county’s voters, inundated with electioneering material in support of Measure D during the two months prior to the November 8, 2022 election, approved it 241,894 votes to 173,582 votes, or 58.22 percent to 41.78 percent. Despite the courts ultimately determining that Measure K, as passed by the voters in 2020 was valid and Measure K having passed by far more votes and by a greater percentage than Measure D, Measure K was never put into effect.
In this way, despite current Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman having been elected to the board of supervisors in 2014 and having twice been reelected and nearing the end of his third term, he is again seeking reelection. It is is his contention that the two terms he served from 2014 to 2018 and then from 2018 to 2022 and the third term he is now serving do not count toward the three terms he is now limited to under the stricture of Measure D. It is Hagman’s position that the spirit of limiting terms to be served by the county’s supervisors as expressed with the 2006 passage of Measure P, the 2020 passage of Measure K and the 2022 passage of Measure D is trumped by the legalisms attending Measure D, one of which puts it into effect following its 2022 passage and another of which provides that anyone elected thereafter is entitled to three terms in office going forward.
Hagman is opposed in the 2026 race for Fourth District county supervisor by Christina Gagnier, who was formerly a member of the Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees.
Hagman ended 2025 with $386,040.52 in his political war chest as of December 31 of last year. Since January 1, 2026, he has taken in another $286,956.69 in donations meaning he has $672,999.21 and counting to hold off the challenge by Gagnier to unseat him in the June 2 primary.
Gagnier, by contrast, as of December 31, 2025, had in her electioneering fund just over ten percent of the money Hagman had: $38,740.12. In the time since then, she has raised another $147,934.99, giving her a total of $186,675.11 with which to make her case to the voters of Supervisorial District Four that she represents a better choice to represent them in San Bernardino than Hagman.
In 2010, the same year that Bill Postmus, the one-time chairman of the board of supervisors and county assessor, was charged, among other crimes, with accepting bribes in exchange for voting as supervisor and board chairman to approve a $102 million legal settlements and misappropriating public funds as county assessor and slightly more than a decade after San Bernardino County Treasurer/Tax Collector Tom O’Donnell and the county’s chief investment officer who worked under O’Donnell, Sol Levin, were convicted of receiving and conspiring to receive bribes in exchange for the awarding of millions of dollars in county contracts, the board of supervisors as it was then composed approved a plan to consolidate what had previously been the county’s separate auditor/controller position with that of the treasurer/tax collector and simultaneously remove the county recorder/county clerk function that had coexisted within the auditor/controller’s office to the county assessor’s office. The move was questioned and criticized, most particularly because it was considered unwise to eliminate the separation and independence of the auditor/controller’s function by entrusting the same individual fulfilling that role, which traditionally had served as a means of providing critical oversight of the treasurer’s office, with the responsibility of simultaneously functioning as the treasurer. A year later, when Postmus was convicted of fourteen including conspiracy to accept a bribe, soliciting bribes, accepting bribes, conflict of interest, misappropriation of public funds, grand theft, misuse of public funds and perjury, despite concern about the consolidation of overlapping authority in the county’s highest ranking elected officials intensifying, the reorganization was not rescinded.
District Attorney Jason Anderson, who was elected to his current post in 2018 and faced no opposition in 2022, will again be returned to office by proclamation this year, as no challenger to him emerged. There is concern, nonetheless, at Anderson’s laissez-faire approach to the political landscape in which he functions. Anderson has a demonstrable distaste not only prosecuting but even considering prosecuting others who have gravitated toward the top of the political establishment he himself occupies. In 2024, questions emerged about the residency status of three women vying for political office in San Bernardino County during that year’s election cycle. All three were convincingly accused of phonying up their residential claims in order to qualify their candidacies for the offices they held or were seeking, information and documentation which was publicly available at that time demonstrated. The three women under question were then-Ontario Recreation and Park Commissioner Daisy Macias who was running for election to the Ontario City Council representing that city’s Fourth District; Tiffany Gaudin, who was seeking election to the Victorville City Council and then-Palm Springs Councilwoman Christy Holstege, who was vying for Assemblywoman in the 47th District;
Anderson steadfastly refused to have his office’s prosecutors look into the matters relating to Holstege, Macias, Gaudin and Holstege.
Macias, a lifelong resident of Ontario who grew up in that city’s De Anza district, vied for the Ontario city council in District 4 in 2024. District 4 covers all of the northeast corner of the city east of Districts 1 and 2 and extending down to a boundary generally formed by the 60 Freeway where it borders District 3 and the unincorporated county area west of Fontana. Throughout her early life and right up until relatively recently prior to the 2024 election, Macias’s stomping grounds had been primarily in District 2, specifically within the De Anza District. In prior years, Macias resided at 170 East De Anza Circle, which is on the east side of Euclid Avenue, less than a quarter of a mile south of De Anza Park and but a stone’s throw west of the De Anza Junior High School Campus, which fronts on Sultana Avenue, the first major north/south street east of Euclid. Two internet sources showed Macias yet residing at 170 East De Anza Circle, with one of those stating she had lived there since 2009.
In public statements made as late as August 2024, Macias herself stated that one of the issues that ignited her civic activity was seeking to eradicate crime and drug dealing in close proximity to her residence, including on the campus of De Anza Junior High School, which is immediately adjacent on the east to homes on De Anza Circle, and at De Anza Park. In one of those statements, Macias implied, but did not directly state that she was still living in the De Anza District, which would make her a resident of District 2. At the same time, however, information provided to the district attorney’s office which originated with individuals at the highest level within Ontario government, Macias at that time was not living in Ontario, either within District 3 or District 4 but in the City of Upland. Both Ontario City Clerk Sheila Mautz and Assistant Ontario City Clerk Claudia Isbell acknowledged that they had no specific proof of Macias’ residence within Ontario.
Of note is that during the 2024 election cycle, the virtual entirety of the Ontario political establishment had lined up behind Macias. She had Ontraio Mayor Paul Leon’s endorsement, the endorsement of Councilman Alan Wapner and the endorsement of Councilwoman Debra Dorst-Porada. She declined the endorsement of Councilman James Bowman because of his entanglement in an impaired driving hit-and-run incident that summer.
In August, Wapner transferred $40,000 out of his electioneering fund into her recently opened political war chest. Thereafter, other major donors who had in the past lined up behind the ruling coalition on the Ontario City Council chipped in massive amounts of money to fund Macias’s campaign. Those include $30,000 from the Ontario Police Officers Association, $31,000 from the Ontario Professional Firefighters Association IAFF Local 1430, Paul Hofer gave her $5,000, Maclin Markets endowed her with $2,000, JRC Real Estate Investment provided her with $5,000 and Sacramento-based Community Prosperity Partners handed her $12,500, while Building A Stronger California, which is sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, gave her a $4,000 bequest and Councilwoman Dorst-Porada provided Macias with an in-kind $3,037.12 contribution.
The money provided to Macias in an effort to ensure her election was an indication of the intensity with which the business community and political establishment in Ontario wanted to get Macias into office.
Anderson is, after a fashion, a member of the Ontario political establishment himself, in that he was formerly an elected member of the Ontario City Council, from 2004 until 2008. When reports with regard to Macias not being a resident of Ontario were made to the district attorney’s office in the fall of 2024, Anderson or someone at a senior level in the district attorney’s office countermanded any effort by the office’s investigators to look into the matter.
Macias was elected to the council in November 2024.
In 2024, much mystery surrounded the way in which Tiffany Gaudin, who previously had been employed, for nearly a decade-and-a-half, as an emergency medical technician and then some years back took on the position of the pastor at the Apple Valley First Assembly of God before she moved on to the Victorville First Assembly of God Church as its community outreach director, seemingly out of nowhere appeared on that year’s ballot as a candidate in Victorville District 1 city council race. Until that summer, the steadfastly apolitical Gaudin for years had been a resident of Apple Valley, where she lived with her husband at 15480 Navajo Road. Her husband operated a business that was registered at the address.
On July 13, the day the filing period for council positions on cities and towns throughout the county opened, Guadin reregistered as a voter with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office, from 15480 Navajo Road in Apple Valley in the Town of Apple Valley, to 16761 Kayuga Street in Victorville, which lies within that city’s First District. The same day, she pulled papers city council candidacy papers from the Victorville City Clerk’s office, which she completed, including getting at least 20 signatures of voters living within District 1 to qualify her candidacy for the First District position. That put her in competition with Leyda Fernandez, Valentin Godina, and Robert Andrew Lucero, who were also seeking the post in the November 5 balloting.
Gaudin’s husband did not change his voter registration to the Victorville domicile and he continued to live and operate his business out of the 15480 Navajo Road address in Apple Valley. It was reported by several of Gaudin’s friends, acquaintances and her neighbors that Gaudin was in the summer of 2024 and into the fall of 2024 continuing to reside in Apple Valley, and was not in fact, living in Victorville at the Kayuga Street address. 91-year-old Fleta Joyce Brown, the owner of the property at 6761 Kayuga Street where Gaudin was claiming to rent property and reside, did not confirm that Gaudin was domiciled at that address. ting the quarters to Gaudin.
When Victorville residents in late September and early October 2024 questioned whether Gaudin in fact had moved to Victorville and was living at 16761 Kayuga Street, seeking a determination as to what the case was with the district attorney’s office, no response was forthcoming.
A complaint with regard to Gaudin’s misrepresentation of her actual abode then was made in writing to the district attorney’s office.
Anderson did not see his way fit to file any order of criminal charges against her or instigate any order of an investigation.
Gaudin was elected to the council on November 5, 2024.
Though it was a minor consideration, Holstege’s exact domestic whereabouts was of some relevance in her application for candidacy in the 47th Assembly District. There were requests that the prosecutor’s office’s in both San Bernardino County and Riverside County look into the matter. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was reluctant to address the matter. While the 47th Assembly District 47 straddles both San Bernardino County and Riverside County, Holstege was a resident of Palms Springs, which lies in Riverside County. Ultimately, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin took action against Holstege, base on her residency in that city’s District 3 while she was representing District 4 in Palm Springs.
Holstege was not successful in her Assembly bid.
Anderson’s unwillingness to involve the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office in ferreting out and punishing alleged or actual wrongdoing involving local politicians during the 2024 election has, some of those advocating political reform have observed, carried over to the 2026 election.
In California, a district attorney, as the public prosecutor for the county, has broad authority to enforce laws, including provisions of both the California Government Code and the California Elections Code, and have the authority to file civil enforcement actions on behalf of the residents of the county. That authority extends to quo warranto proceedings. A quo warranto proceeding is a special civil action that tests whether a person has the legal right to hold a public office. If a term limit has been imposed on a public office and the officeholder has exceeded that limit, a valid ground for a quo warranto proceeding exists.
In San Bernardino County, despite the controversy that exists over the manipulation of measures K and D to overcome the term limits set in Measure P, District Attorney Anderson has elected to remain aloof from the question of whether Hagman’s 2026 attempt to stretch the definition of three terms and twelve years to four terms and 16 years and beyond that to potentially six terms and 24 years is in fact legal.
Another area within the realm of politics and the 2026 election where Anderson is refusing to apply the district attorney’s authority is that which cropped up in the assessor’s office race or at least what was supposed to be the contest to elect the assessor.
Bob Dutton was elected assessor in 2014 and returned to office without opposition in 2018 and then unopposed again in 2022.
In 2022, Dutton had dodged a political bullet but did not evade an existential one.
Josie Gonzales, who had served as the county’s Fifth District supervisor from 2004 to 2020, was termed out of office in 2020 per the term limits that were then in place as a consequence of Measure P. She had, upon leaving office as supervisor in 2020, some $604,881.91 remaining in her political war chest. She utilized some of that money to support candidates and causes with whom and which she considered herself politically aligned. This included seeking to extend her legacy in the county’s Fifth Supervisorial District by assisting her chief of staff as supervisor, Dan Flores, in what was ultimately an unsuccessful effort to succeed her as supervisor in the 2020 election. She transferred a substantial amount of money from her campaign fund to that of Flores. She also supported Rosalicie Ochoa Bogh in her run for State Senate, Bessine Richard in her unsuccessful but hard-fought and spirited San Bernardino City council reelective effort, the reelection campaign of Judge Stanford Reichert and Dave Mlynarski unsuccessful attempt to be elected to the San Bernardino City Council She also contributed $80,000 to Inland Empire Priorities Political Action Committee.Gonzales, however, had not, however, given up on perpetuating her own political career. Her focus fell on two potential positions, one being a return to the office she had held before she was elected to the board of supervisors in 2004, that being a member of the Fontana City Council, and the other being San Bernardino County assessor/recorder/clerk. On February 19,n2021, she transferred $75,000 out of her at-that-point-dormant supervisorial campaign account to a newly-created campaign fund to cover an electoral effort for the Fontana District 4 council position, which. On March 2, 2021, Gonzales transferred $498,000 from her then-dormant supervisorial campaign account into a newly-created fund to finance her electioneering activity in pursuit of the county assessor’s post. Ultimately, however, Gonzeles opted against running for the Fontana council, as doing so would pit her against Councilman John Roberts, with whom she had served in the late 1990 and early 2000s, or opposing Dutton, despite having a substantial enough political war chest to have waged an intensive campaign.
Thus, Dutton, having been retained in office as assessor in 2018 by proclamation when no one ran against him, was given another free pass in 2022.
The month after the June 2022 primary election in which he was the only candidate for assessor on the ballot and some five months before he was to be sworn in to serve what was to be his third term, Dutton in July 2022 died. The board of supervisors appointed the assistant assessor, Christopher Wilhite, to serve as the interim assessor until a special election could be held in 2024. Josie Gonzales, who had served as the county’s Fifth District supervisor from 2004 to 2020, vied for the assessor’s spot against former Assessor Donald Williamson, then-Victorville City Councilwoman Blanca Gomez and Dara Smith, an employee with the Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office. Gonzales prevailed in the race to fill the position for the next two years.
Gonzales made clear two years ago her intent to seek reelection this year. Virtually immediately after her 2024 election, she embarked on her 2026 campaign. In the process, she retained Bill Postmus, the former assessor and county supervisor with whom she had served, as her campaign manager, hiring him through his company, Mountain States Consulting Group, LLC. It was while Postmus was serving with Gonzales on the board of supervisors in 2006 that he engaged in the activity that formed the basis of eight of the felony political corruption charges against him, including each of two political action committees he controlled receiving $50,000 kickbacks in exchange for his vote in 2006 in favor of having the county confer a $102 million legal settlement on the company that provided him with the kickbacks. In 2006, Postmus successfully vied for assessor, spending in excess of $2.2 million on his campaign in what is yet the most expensive campaign for county office in San Bernardino County history. Postmus remained in office as assessor for slightly over two years until early 2009, at which point he resigned in the wake of revelations about the abuse of his authority as assessor, which included filling 11 of the office’s 14 top-ranking position with political appointments consisting of individuals who had no previous experience or expertise with regarding assessing property or taxable assets and whose primary function consisted of engaging in partisan political activity or arranging to reduce the assessments of individuals or the companies of individuals who had proved out to be political donors or supporters of Postmus and his circle of favored politicians. Six of the 14 felony political corruption charges that were filed against Postmus and to which he in 2011 pleaded guilty to stemmed from his misuse of the assessor’s office and misappropriation of public funds during the slightly more than 25 months he held the county assessor’s title.
Among the charges Postmus entered a guilty plea to was conflict of interest by a public official. His conviction on the conflict of interest by a public official charge carried with it a prohibition on him ever holding public elected office in California.
In 2013, desperate to get back into the political game but faced with the reality that he could never again serve in a publicly elected capacity, at least in California, Postmus sojourned to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he set up a business, Mountain States Consulting Group LLC. He then registered Mountain States Consulting Group as a Wyoming domestic limited liability company with the Wyoming Secretary of State’s corporate division.
Having been involved in bribetaking and other forms of graft and corruption, Postmus was acutely conscious of the potential pitfalls in such activity and precisely how it was that he had been caught. Through his time in office, his arrests and ensuing prosecution and conviction, Postmus gained an implicit and explicit understanding of how the political and justice systems work and mesh, as well as both the reach and limitations of the prosecutorial arm of the government in making politicians adhere to the law. He had attained a flawless feel for the circular pay-to-play element of control and governance where politicians take in money from those with an interest in the governmental decision-making process, use that money to get into office or stay in office and vote to approve the development projects or the contracts or the franchises of those who have donated that money.
With Mountain States Consulting Group, Postmus created a political money laundering operation, a device by which politicians can engage in pay-to-play trade-offs without getting caught and being stigmatized with criminal convictions as he had been. Mountain States Consulting Group takes money originating with individuals or companies with a stake in governmental decisions, launders that money through his company and then provides that cash, either as political donations or payments in some other form to the politicians making those decisions. Postmus employs Mountain States Consulting Group and several other entities and political action committees he has direct or indirect control over, such as the Inland Empire Political Action Committee, the Conservatives for A Republican Majority Political Action Committee and the Citizens Against Wasteful Spending Political Action Committee, as cutouts, insulating the recipients of the money – the politicians – from those who are providing the money. When Postmus properly executes on this mission, it protects the politicians from the perception that their votes are being purchased, which has political benefits, while serving to lessen to a considerable extent the possibility that the politicians he is funneling money to will be subject to law enforcement action for engaging in what in the final analysis are quid pro quos, out-and-out bribes or kickbacks. Postmus also utilizes Mountain States Consulting Group to employ politicians or those considered to be up-and-coming in politics with phantom assignments, providing them with revenue without actually having to work, freeing them up to engage in campaigning or other electioneering activity to advance their political prospects, standing or careers.
Using such entities at his disposal to launder political donations to elected officeholders and by sponsoring fundraisers for current officeholders, Postmus has created and continues to create the opportunity for individuals to provide money to politicians in a way that the individuals or companies from whom or from which the money originated could not and cannot be traced.
Having been an intrinsic part of the pay-to-play ethos in San Bernardino County, Postmus has cultivated a host of clients such as landowners, investors and developers looking to get their project’s approved, service providers or equipment/material vendors seeking contracts with local governments or those seeking to be granted franchises for service provision to the public governments. Another set of clients Postmus has cultivated are those who are seeking subsidies provided or loans guaranteed by governmental entities.
A crucial element of Postmus’s formula is the use of cut-outs, both corporate and human, or at least ones that are ostensibly human. By having an individual who is interested in influencing public policy to benefit himself or his company provide money to another individual or another company, which in turn passes the money to another individual or company, which then provides the money to the politician who will vote to institute the public policy positively impacting the individual from whom the money originated, it becomes exceedingly difficult for those observing the governmental action – be they observers, members of the public, political reformers, monitors or investigators with regulatory agencies such as the California Fair Political Practices Commission, law enforcement investigators and/or prosecutors – to follow the chain of events which are tantamount to or actually entail out-and-out bribery. Indeed, Mountain States Consulting Group itself employed a cut-out to insulate itself. While the Postmus was registered as the principal of the company in Wyoming, when Mountain States Consulting Group LLC was registered with the California Secretary of State in 2023, there was no acknowledgment of his involvement with the company. Rather, its sole principal was listed as “Paul Brown,” who was credited with being the manager at the company’s location at 12127 Mall Boulevard 189 in Victorville, which is actually a post office box at the UPS Store at the Mall of the Victor Valley. The use of Paul Brown as the principal in the California branch of the Mountain States Consulting Group is a way of distancing the operation from Postmus himself. Among those knowledgeable about Postmus’s history, however, there is widespread speculation that Paul Brown is none other than Postmus himself – his alter ego or an alias. The name Paul Brown appears to be an amalgam of two of Postmus’s associates, Paul Biane and Matt Brown, when he was in his heyday as a San Bernardino County politician. In the 2004-to-2006 timeframe, when Postmus was chairman of both the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors and the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, Paul Biane was the vice chairman of both the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors and the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. At that time, Matt Brown was Paul Biane’s chief of staff within his supervisorial office and was with Biane the founder and operator of the San Bernardino County Young Republicans Political Action Committee. At that time, the San Bernardino County Young Republicans Political Action Committee was, with two political action committees established and controlled by Postmus, the Inland Empire PAC and “Conservatives for a Republican Majority PAC, the three most dynamic political fundraising vehicles in action at that time, and all three were dedicated to promoting a core group of officeholders and office seekers with whom Postmus, Biane and Brown were then aligned.
A key element of Postmus’s and Mountain States Consulting Group’s effectiveness is the ability to control or at least impact the political fundraising landscape, thereby not only effectively raising funds and enabling politicians Postmus/Mountain States is working on behalf of but simultaneously cutting opponents or would-be opponents of the politicians Postmus and his company are working for off from donors, in so doing crippling the electoral efforts of the opposition candidates or persuading those would-be opponents to opt out of running.
While it is impossible to know with certainty whether it was Postmus and Mountain States Consulting Group that were responsible for dissuading other potential candidates for assessor in 2026 from coming forward to challenge Gonzales, indeed no one one threw his or her hat in the ring for assessor in this year’s race other than the incumbent. Gonzales, who at that point was serving as her own campaign treasurer, secured the services of Postmus/Mountain States, campaign finance documents show, with an initial retainer of $15,000 at some point between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2025.
Postmus, despite being banned from direct participation in the political process in California as a candidate for elected governmental office, has been active in running/managing political campaigns in San Bernardino County or advising those candidates, many of whom proved successful, at least since 2014. In the years since, election cycle after election cycle, by fits and starts as the candidates and politicians he has worked with have been voted into or out of office, his influence over local government has grown to rival, if not actually equal or exceed, that which he enjoyed while holding office from 2000 until 2009. That influence has, in some instances with regard to certain current politicians in San Bernardino County, come to replicate the pay-to-ply ethos that he embodied as supervisor and assessor.
By late 2021, reports were abounding with regard to multiple members of the board of supervisors entrusting to him decision-making authority with regard to selected issues or relying upon his input in making those decisions for themselves. In the same timeframe, reports circulated that Postmus was being given extraordinary access – beyond that which would be the case with normal county residents – within the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office. Then-Registrar of Voters Bob Page in early 2022, amid reports he was doing so because of improper external efforts to impact county elections, resigned his post in San Bernardino County to take a similar position heading the elections office in Orange County. As he did so, Page denied having single one-on-one meetings with Postmus or one-on-two meetings with Postmus and San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee Chairman Phil Cothran.
In February 2022, upon the Sentinel seeking through the California Public Records Act the then-County Chief Executive Officer Leonard Hernandez’s, then-County Chief Operating Officer Luther Snoke’s and then-Registrar of Voters Bob Page’s meeting calendars for the entirety of the time they held those positions through through February 3, 2022, the county denied the requests, stating “all calendar entries are subject to the deliberative process privilege (Gov. Code § 6255(a)). The disclosure of all calendar entries of the county’s chief executive officer, chief operating officer, and the registrar of voters, would, among other things, inhibit meetings and chill the flow of information to these county officers/employees in the county administrative office and/or the office of the registrar of voters. As a result, the public interest served by not making all calendar entries of these county officials/employees public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of these records. The County will also not disclose all calendar entries of the county’s chief executive officer, chief operating officer, and the registrar of voters under Government Code section 6255(a) due to safety concerns for its officers/employees. Finally, the county is prevented from disclosing all calendar entries due to the fact that some entries are also exempt from public disclosure for other reasons, including, but not limited to, unwarranted invasion of personal privacy and the attorney-client privilege.”
Four years later, as the clock is winding down to the June 2026 primary election, District Attorney Anderson, acutely conscious that Postmus has reinsinuated himself into San Bernardino County’s political establishment, of which he is himself a central player, is not utilizing the investigative capability or prosecutorial authority vested in him to look into the corrosive and corruptive influences a substantial number of county residents perceive Postmus to be involved in.
Ted Alejandre was initially elected San Bernardino County superintendent of schools in 2014, some six years after he had been hired by the San Bernardino County Office of Education to serve as the assistant San Bernardino County superintendent of schools for business services in 2008 and a year after having been promoted into the position of deputy superintendent of San Bernardino County schools.
At the time of his election, San Bernardino County schools and school districts, with a few exceptions, lagged behind the majority of their counterparts throughout the state. Trhoughout Alejandre’s tenure as county superintendent, the academic performance of San Bernardino county public school students, on average and overall, has not appreciably improved.
At present, San Bernardino County public school students on average score at levels below that of public school students outside of San Bernardino County in California, particularly in math and reading, based upon standardized tests administered statewide.
According to the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress and the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California test results for the 2023/24 and and 2024/25 school years, 47 percent of public school students statewide met or exceeded English language/literacy standards, while in San Bernardino County 42.66 percent of students met or exceeded those standards. Statewide, 35.5 percent of public school students met or exceeded mathematics standards, while 29.20 percent of public school students in San Bernardino County met or exceeded math standards. Throughout California, 30.7 percent of students met or exceeded science standards set for the state’s educational system, which exceeded the 26.2 percent of San Bernardino County public school students achieving at or above the science standard.
Throughout his first term as county schools superintendent as was the case in his second term, Alejandre and his support network managed to provide for him consistent positive publicity, including praise from educators and other politicians in the area, which led to his being returned to office without opposition in 2018 as well as in 2022, when he overcame a challenge by Ken Larson while garnering more than 65 percent of the vote.
It was not until Alejandre was into his third term as county superintendent that he was overtaken by scandal, the basics of which involved cronyism and nepotism which explicated to no little degree how benefits accruing to Alejandre and his family took precedence over ensuring competence in key educational posts throughout his oversight of the county’s schools and school districts.
Alejandre’s wife, Barbara Alejandre, in 2012 obtained a position with the San Bernardino County Office of Education as an assistant to then-San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Gary Thomas, who preceded Ted Alejandre as superintendent. As Ted Alejandre’s transition into the elected position of superintendent was being orchestrated, Barbara Alejandre was promoted into the position of chief of intergovernmental affairs for the San Bernardino County Department of Education, which involved a bump up in annual salary. Over the next five years, Barbara Alejandre saw her salary as the head of intergovernmental affairs increase steadily. In 2020, she was promoted to the head of Classified Management for the San Bernardino County Department of Education, in which position she was provided with $219,614 in total annual compensation. In 2021, Barbara Alejandre retired and began pulling a public pension which currently provides her with $133,441.41 annually.
Throughout his time as superintendent, Ted Alejandre has made a practice of becoming involved in the political campaigns of other local politicians, in particular ones involved in the educational system. There have been recurrent disbursements and transfers from his superintendent of county schools electioneering fund to the campaign funds of candidates, primarily incumbent ones, seeking election to various school boards within San Bernardino County, most particularly members of the San Bernardino County Board of Education.
The San Bernardino County Board of Education and the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools articulate within the overall function of the San Bernardino County Department of Education, which operates with an annual budget of about $370 million. In some respects, the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools oversees the San Bernardino County Office of Education and in some respects, the San Bernardino County Office of Education is overseen or governed by the San Bernardino County Board of Education. Still the same, members of the San Bernardino County Board of Education rely in large measure on guidance provided to them by the county superintendent of schools. A basic precept in this system is the independence of the individual actors involved – the county superintendent of schools and each of the five members of the county board of education – in the operation of the region’s schools and school districts.
For this reason, at least some residents in San Bernardino County, most notably the parents of students attending public schools and occasionally teachers employed in public schools throughout the county, have grown alarmed at the political affiliations that have developed between or among at least some of those six individuals at the pinnacle of decision-making with regard to San Bernardino County’s public schools. While the money involved in these cross-donations is not substantial in comparison to the amount of money being donated to politicians in other contexts by corporations and deep-pocketed individuals, the real or implied alliances the donations from one elected educational official to another undercuts the independence those officials are expected to maintain from one another.
Recent examples of the money passing between members of the county board of education and Alejandre include County Board of Education Member Ryan McEachron, representing Trustee Area A, having donated $1,000 to Alejandre’s campaign in April 2025. Two months later, he voted to approve Alejandre’s raise to nearly $350,000. Alejandre had previously donated $500 to McEachron’s 2022 board campaign.
San Bernardino County Board of Education Member Laura Mancha, representing Trustee Area C, gave Alejandre $1,000 in October 2024 and continues to make decisions regarding his employment. Alejandre donated $1,000 to her 2020 campaign. She, too, supported conferring the raise on Alejandre, as did an Bernardino County Board of Education Member Gwen Dowdy-Rodgers, who received $500 from Alejandre in 2022 for her board race.
What for many is seen as the most egregious violation of the trust placed in Alejandre has been the long-ongoing arrangement between the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools and the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools for the entity known as the Inland Personnel Council, or IPC.
Despite Alejandre and other district officials for well over a decade referring to the Inland Personnel Council as a joint powers authority, when pressed, San Bernardino County and Riverside County officials with their respective offices of education insisted it was not a joint powers authority but rather a specialized function of local education agencies extending to public school districts, community colleges, and county offices of education in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties intended to access certain legal services and provide training, workshops, and seminars related to personnel matters. The IPC, the district’s maintained, was administered by the San Bernardino County superintendent of schools and the Riverside County superintendent of schools in their official capacities, with the assistance of the law firm of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo.
What the Inland Personnel Council was doing, the superintendents maintained, was carried out under California’s Joint Exercise of Powers Act, which permits public agenciesto exercise common powers jointly, but which nevertheless did not constitute a separate joint powers agency. The IPC was not delegated any governmental authority and did not make any governmental decisions, did not employ a staff, receive or disburse funds and did not operate any bank accounts and did not incur obligations, according to the superintendents. It was simply, they said, a coordinating mechanism for the benefit of the local educational agencies regarding the joint exercise of their common powers to obtain training, workshops, seminars, and legal guidance regarding personnel, contract management, and collective bargaining related issues that they routinely confronted.
The problem came in with the role of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo. In numerous cases, individual school districts in both San Bernardino County and Riverside County employed Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo or one or more of its attorneys as that district’s general counsel. This put Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, in some cases, of overseeing or serving as a reviewing or previewing entity with regard to its own work, an arrangement which was, if not a legal conflict of interest, an ethical or practical one.
Last summer, it was revealed that Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, earlier in the year, on May 2, 2025, donated $10,000 to Alejandre’s reelection campaign. Given that it was the county superintendent of schools directly responsible for the Inland Personnel Council arrangement which was ongoing when the Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo donation was made and Alejandre accepted it, Alejandre appeared to be in violation of California Government Code Section 84308, which prohibits any local elected government official from taking action that would have a financial impact on an individual or company that had provided that official with $500 or more in political donations.
Coming as it did in conjunction with revelations about the nepotism and cronyism Alejandre was engaged in, he made an apparent decision to get out of office before the scandal widened or deepened. On August 29, 2025, Alejandre put out a news release announcing he would not seek re-election in June 2026 and would retire from public education when his current term ends in January 2027.
In the time since, it appears that Alejandre is taking steps, while he is yet in office and has the reach and ability to do so, to ensure that after his exit, arrangements that have existed for years can either continue or, if they are to be eliminated, fuller and deeper revelations about their implication can be limited, such that his legacy will not be tarnished any further.
One apparent such effort is Alejandre’s attempt to impose on the county his choice for his successor as superintendent.
Four individuals came forward to vie for San Bernardino County superintendent of schools following Alejandre’s announcement that he will not seek reelection last August: Ken Larson, Cali Binks, Ray Culberson and Alejandro Vara.
Alejandre was opposed by Larson four years ago and sees him as a figure inclined to dwell upon and make the most of the shortcomings of the county’s educational establishment and Alejandre’s part in that. As a hedge against having his legacy torn down, Alejandre has gravitated to the candidate in this year’s race he sees as having the best shot at winning and who would be most likely to maintain the county’s educational and political status quo. Fitting that bill is Binks.
Cali Olsen-Binks is a lifelong educator whose major progression toward the top of that profession took place in the Fontana Unified School District. She began as an elementary school teacher in 1990, advancing upward in Fontana Unified on the basis of both ability and familial connections. Her mother-in-law, Kathy Binks, a harsh critic of the school district in Fontana in the early and mid-1980s, was elected to the school board in 1988 and remained in that capacity for 24 years, many as board president. By 2008, Cali Olsen-Binks had acceded to the position of Fontana Unified School District superintendent. Her time in that post was sometimes difficult, as the state was steadily reducing education funding because of the economic downturn that was then gripping the state and nation. Moreover, Olsen-Binks had to contend with factionalism on the school board.
Her performance, however, was impressive enough to convince the board members tiht e Yucaipa-Calimeas Joint Unified School District to seek to lure her there. She left Fontana Unified for ucaipa-Calimesa in 2013, and has gotten on well there ever since.
For a number of reasons, including polling and general name recognition, Alejandre and other members of the educational and poitical establishment in San Bernardino County consider Binks to be the front runner in the county superintendents race.
On January 7, 2026, Alejandre, who had previously provided Binks with $500, transferred $10,000 out of his political war chest to Binks’ campaign fund.
It is unknown what arrangements and/or requests Alejandre has made with Binks regarding her keeping a lid on the documentation, records and materials kept in the superintendent of schools office regarding contracts entered into by the county superintendent of schools and the San Bernardino County Office of Education during his more than 11-year tenure as superintendent and those that were entered into when he was the assistant superintendent for business services.
Standing for reelection this year is Treasurer-Tax Collector/Auditor-Controller Ensen Mason, who after vying unsuccessfully for the position in 2010 and 2014, was elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Challenging Mason this time around is Rancho Cucamonga City Councilman Ryan Hutchison.