By Carlos Avalos
Acquanetta Warren has been mayor of Fontana since 2010 and is asking voters for a fifth term this year. Her campaign filings, from a 2009 run for the state Assembly through September 2026, record $1.87 million raised from 672 contributors. These are public records, open to the people of Fontana and San Bernardino County, and the San Bernardino County Sentinel has reported on parts of them over the years. Read line by line, they show who pays for her campaigns, where her campaign sends the money, and where the money might raise legal questions.
The largest identifiable group of donors builds and sells property. Real estate developers, homebuilders, their executives and their trade groups gave at least $396,498, about 21.2% of the total, led by developer David Wiener of DW Development, her largest donor at $109,100. Auto dealers, trucking and pallet companies, utilities, tribal governments and public-safety unions also give to her. Two developers who give heavily in San Bernardino County politics, Jeff Burum and James L. Previti, and companies or organizations they lead gave her $36,699. In 2021, the same year Previti’s homebuilding company and family foundation gave to Warren, a company tied to his businesses became the registered owner of a private jet that had belonged to Jeffrey Epstein.
Warren’s campaign also gives money away. From July 2022 through September 2026, her committee reported $276,794.52 in contributions and loans to 59 recipients, most of them other candidates and political committees, and it has forgiven $68,579.18 in loans to nine campaigns. The largest recipient was the 2024 water board campaign of Aajee Warren, whose campaign website identifies the mayor as Aajee’s mother. It received $66,611.82 in loans, most of it after Election Day, and has repaid none of it.
In several places, the money might raise legal questions. Warren’s committee gave the 2022 campaigns of Germaine Key and Janet Koehler-Brooks more than twice the city’s annual limit each, mostly as loans, and gave the 2026 campaigns of Key and Joseph Armendarez more than the limit again in October 2026. One donor’s 2025 contributions to Warren exceed the limit on their face, and her 2021 and 2022 statements, recovered for this story, show four more donors over the limit, with the excess assigned to a later election instead of refunded. Fourteen contributors gave her 2010 Assembly campaign more than the per-election limit, so part of their money could count only toward a general election she never reached, and the filings show no refunds. Donors report at least $4,700 in contributions that her committee’s statements do not show. The only enforcement action found against her personally is a $900 fine the Fair Political Practices Commission imposed in 2021 for late disclosures on her statements of economic interests.
None of this is a finding of wrongdoing. The files reviewed cover Warren’s 2010 Assembly and mayoral races and her current committee from July 2020 through September 30, 2026, plus one statement from her 2014 campaign, covering July to September 2014, that the reporter obtained on paper. Other records from December 2010 through June 2020, including the rest of the 2014 campaign and all of 2018, were not reviewed, and 54 contributions to her 2010 mayoral campaign could not be checked against an original filing. The reason is the same for both: the statements are not online. Fontana stopped accepting electronic campaign filings in 2011, the San Bernardino County Sentinel reported, and did not require them again until December 2021, so Warren’s statements from those years were filed on paper with the City Clerk. They are not posted on the city’s NetFile portal, which holds her committee’s filings only from July 2020 on, or on the city’s website. The 54 contributions appear only in a data export of the city’s campaign filings; the 2010 mayoral statements that would confirm them are also not posted. All of these statements are public records that can be requested from the City Clerk under the California Public Records Act, and this review has not yet obtained them (see Constraints).
Who gives
Warren’s current committee, state ID 1256423, raised $868,383 from August 2022 through September 30, 2026 in the export. With the recovered statements described below, its itemized contributions from July 2020 through September 30, 2026 total $1,405,682.37, three-quarters of all contributions reviewed. Its statements carry the name “for Mayor 2022” through the one covering September 25 to October 22, 2022, and “for Mayor 2026” from the next one, which covers October 23 to December 31, 2022 and was filed January 31, 2023. It received $229,043 between the November 8, 2022 election and June 30, 2024. The export did not include the committee’s statements for July to December 2020, for 2021 or for January to June 2022. They are posted as scanned images: the 2020 and 2021 statements on the city’s NetFile portal, and the January to June 2022 statement in the City Clerk’s online document center, under the file name “Form 406 – Acquanetta Warren.” Their itemized contributions were transcribed for this story: $149,307.20 from July to December 2020; $122,334 from January to June 2021; $111,600 from July to December 2021, including a $7,146.47 in-kind reception and net of a $1,296.47 refund; and $150,650 from January to June 2022. The committee’s October 22, 2026 report also adds 12 contributions under $1,000, totaling $3,408.26, dated September 20 to 30, 2026. All of these are included in the tables below. Most of the 2010 mayoral figures rest on the export alone; see Constraints.
Many donors gave at or near the legal maximum. Fontana caps contributions to mayoral candidates at the amount in state Government Code §85303(a), applied per calendar year: $8,100 in 2022, $9,100 in 2023–24, and $9,800 in 2025–26. Single contributions of exactly that year’s limit appear 36 times in the current committee’s records from 2021 on, 22 of them from August 2022 on.
In the current cycle, a contributor listed as “San Bernardino GOP” gave $7,300 on September 30, 2026. Unions and employee groups giving in this cycle include the Fontana Police Officers Association PAC, San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters Local 935 PAC, Laborers Local Union No. 783 PAC, and the Southern California District Council of Laborers PAC.
Developers and big companies
Real estate developers are the largest identifiable group of donors in the records. Development and homebuilding companies, their owners and executives, and their trade groups gave Warren’s committees $396,498.34, about 21.2% of all contributions reviewed, in 140 contributions from 62 donors. The largest were David Wiener of DW Development ($109,100, including $55,000 in the second half of 2020); the Lewis Group of Companies, its executives and Lewis family members who work there ($39,248 combined); Reggie King, chief executive of Young Homes ($35,900); the National Association of Industrial & Office Properties’ Inland Empire PAC ($23,300); The Related Companies of California ($16,253.08); James L. Previti and his homebuilding company, FH II Homebuilders ($21,200); and the Building Industry Association of Southern California and its state counterpart ($14,500).
Real estate brokers, realtors, property managers and their political committees gave another $87,801, led by Gerald W. Beard Realty ($27,800) and its broker Scott Beard ($9,750). Large corporations and utilities gave $59,147. They include San Gabriel Valley Water Company ($18,399), Commercial Metals Company and its PAC ($3,499), Burrtec Waste Industries ($7,800), Fontana Union Water Company ($7,800), Southern California Edison and Edison International ($5,900), NASCAR and its Fontana speedway ($3,900), Sempra Energy, ConocoPhillips, Republic Services and California Steel Industries. Three tribal governments that run casinos gave $21,800, led by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians ($15,400).
Donors were sorted by their names and by the employer and occupation they reported. Donors whose business could not be identified, including dozens of limited liability companies with no stated line of business, and family members who listed no business of their own, are left out of these totals, so the figures are minimums. Each donor’s group is shown in the online donor list.
What Jeff Burum and James Previti gave Warren
Jeff Burum and James L. Previti are developers who give heavily in San Bernardino County politics. Burum, of Rancho Cucamonga, is chairman of the nonprofit National Community Renaissance and a partner in Diversified Pacific Development Group; he was acquitted in 2017 of bribery-related charges in the Colonies case. Previti, of Ontario, heads The Previti Group, formerly Frontier Homes, and is chief executive of FH II Homebuilders, Inc. and president of the John P. Previti Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation. He is a different person from his father, James P. Previti of Guardian Capital, whose contributions are not counted here.
Warren’s filings show $36,699 from the two men and companies or organizations they lead. Each entry below was checked against the original statement:
Burum also gave $249 on October 18, 2024 to Warren for Cucamonga Valley Water District 2024, the campaign of the mayor’s child, Aajee Warren; it is not included in the total. The San Bernardino County Sentinel reported that Burum gave $4,500 toward Warren’s 2020 campaign. Her July to December 2020 statement, transcribed for this story, shows his $1,000 on July 24, 2020; her January to June 2020 statement, which would show any earlier 2020 contributions, is not posted online and was not reviewed. The 2021 contributions from FH II Homebuilders and the Previti foundation raise a limit question and a tax-law question (see item 2b).
A Previti-linked company bought Jeffrey Epstein’s jet
Counted together, Previti, FH II Homebuilders and the Previti foundation gave Warren’s committee $26,200. That would place them eighth among the roughly 670 donors in the records reviewed, with other donors counted individually. In 2021, the same year FH II and the Previti foundation gave to Warren again, a company tied to Previti and his businesses became the registered owner of Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet.
By then Epstein’s sex crimes were a matter of public record. In June 2008 he pleaded guilty in Florida state court to felony solicitation of prostitution and to procuring a minor for prostitution, a charge that required him to register as a sex offender, according to a 2020 U.S. Justice Department report. On July 8, 2019, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to traffic minors. He died in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York on August 10, 2019; the New York City medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general.
The jet is a Gulfstream G550, serial number 5173, which Epstein owned under tail number N212JE through his company Plan D LLC, according to Newsweek. Business Insider reported in August 2024, citing the Miami Herald, that Epstein’s estate sold it to N550GP LLC for $10.6 million, below its $17 million asking price. The Federal Aviation Administration’s aircraft registry lists the jet, serial number 5173, as a 2007 model under the tail number N550GP. Its registered owner is N550GP LLC, 2151 E. Convention Center Way, Suite 222, Ontario. The registry gives a certificate issue date of February 24, 2021, shows a temporary registration certificate issued July 22, 2021, and lists the registration as valid through February 29, 2028. The registry’s document index also shows two security agreements, documents typically filed when an aircraft is pledged as collateral for a loan, received for N550GP on June 5, 2026; the index does not name the parties.
N550GP LLC was formed in California on December 10, 2020. California business records list its address as 2151 E. Convention Center Way, Suite 222, in Ontario, the same suite The Previti Group lists as its office, and name Richard Munkvold as its manager. Munkvold is secretary and chief financial officer of FH II Homebuilders and an officer of the Previti foundation, and his 2018 contributions on San Bernardino County’s NetFile portal list his employer as Frontier Enterprises, Previti’s company, and his occupation as chief financial officer. Business Insider reported, citing the Miami Herald, that N550GP LLC’s corporate documents were signed by an employee of Frontier Communities, the company’s name before it became The Previti Group, and, citing the flight-tracking firm JetSpy, that the jet “is operated by James L. Previti.”
The jet is managed by Threshold Aviation Group, a charter company at Chino Airport, which makes it available for hire. In August 2024 Donald Trump’s presidential campaign used it for a weekend of campaign stops, including Jackson, Wyoming and Aspen, Colorado, after its usual plane was grounded. A campaign spokeswoman told the Miami Herald the campaign had no awareness that the plane had been owned by Epstein, and Quartz reported that the campaign said it would avoid using the plane in the future.
Neither Previti nor Threshold Aviation responded to Business Insider’s requests for comment. The records reviewed name N550GP LLC as the buyer and owner but do not show who owns the LLC or whose money paid for the jet. The purchase does not appear on Fontana’s or San Bernardino County’s NetFile portals, which record only political contributions and spending. The bill of sale and registration application are part of the aircraft’s FAA record, which can be ordered from the agency but was not obtained for this story. Buying an aircraft once owned by Epstein is not itself evidence of wrongdoing.
Sources for this section:
• FAA Aircraft Registry, N550GP (serial 5173, owner N550GP LLC, certificate dates): https://registry.faa.gov/AircraftInquiry/Search/ult?nNumberTxt=550GP
• FAA Aircraft Registry, document index (search N550GP): https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/DocumentIndexInquiry
• Business Insider (Jacob Shamsian, Graham Rapier), “Trump spent the weekend flying around America on a plane previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein,” Aug. 14, 2024, as republished by Yahoo News: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-spent-weekend-flying-around-210409870.html
• Miami Herald, “Why Trump flew to campaign events on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane last weekend,” Aug. 12, 2024 (Yahoo republication): https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-trump-flew-campaign-events-204127736.html
• Newsweek, “Was Trump Replacement Jet Once Owned by Jeffrey Epstein? What Report Says,” Aug. 2024: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-campaign-jeffrey-epstein-former-jet-plane-1938228
• Quartz, “Donald Trump used Jeffrey Epstein’s plane to campaign,” Aug. 2024: https://qz.com/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-plane-1851621045
• BizProfile, N550GP LLC (formed Dec. 10, 2020; manager Richard Munkvold): https://www.bizprofile.net/ca/ontario/n550gp-llc
• BizProfile, FH II Homebuilders, Inc. (James L Previti, CEO; Richard Munkvold, secretary and CFO): https://www.bizprofile.net/ca/ontario/fh-ii-homebuilders-inc
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, John P Previti Memorial Foundation: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/274256513
• The Previti Group, Contact (Suite 222, Ontario): https://www.theprevitigroup.com/contact/
• Patch, “Builder rebrands, now Previti Group,” Nov. 4, 2024: https://patch.com/california/los-angeles/builder-rebrands-now-previti-group
• San Bernardino County NetFile transaction search (search “Munkvold”): https://netfile.com/public/SBD/campaign/transactions
• Inland Empire Business Daily, Threshold Aviation Group, Nov. 30, 2022: https://iebusinessdaily.com/chino-based-aviation-business-thrives-with-women-in-leadership/
• U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, executive summary of report on the 2006–2008 Epstein investigation, Nov. 2020 (2008 guilty plea; sex-offender registration): https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl
• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, “Jeffrey Epstein Charged In Manhattan Federal Court With Sex Trafficking Of Minors,” July 8, 2019: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/jeffrey-epstein-charged-manhattan-federal-court-sex-trafficking-minors
• U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, report on the Bureau of Prisons’ custody of Jeffrey Epstein at MCC New York, June 2023 (death ruled a suicide): https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/23-085.pdf
Loans to a family member’s campaign
Warren’s committee reported six loans to Warren for Cucamonga Valley Water District 2024 between August and December 2024, plus a $500 contribution on August 12. Aajee Warren’s committee reported receiving loans in the same amounts, some on different dates.
Aajee Warren received 7,602 votes (48.8%) to Mark Gibboney’s 7,975 (51.2%), according to San Bernardino County’s official results.
The Fair Political Practices Commission says the state’s default local contribution limits do not apply to special district races such as this one. The water district had no contribution limit of its own in 2024. Its board adopted one, Chapter 2.22 of the district code (Ord. No. 2025-9-1), on September 9, 2025. It took effect January 1, 2026 and caps contributions at $5,900 per person per election, the FPPC’s AB 571 amount at the time. It also requires every loan to a candidate to be made under a written agreement filed with the campaign statement that first reports the loan. It postdates the 2024 loans. Warren’s committee’s most recent Form 460, covering September 20 to October 17, 2026, lists all six loans as still outstanding, $66,611.82 in all, with no payments received and nothing forgiven. Each was due January 1, 2026. Later filings list no new lending to the committee.
In the same months, Warren’s committee lent $24,564 and gave $500 to Fort for Etiwanda School District 2024, the campaign of Cathline Fort, who has given $1,150 to Warren’s committees. The same October 2026 report lists all six Fort loans, $24,564, as outstanding; they were also due January 1, 2026.
Aajee Warren’s campaign website says she works as a water resources analyst for Royal Blue Consulting. California Secretary of State business records, as republished by the directory BizProfile, list Acquanetta Warren as the manager of Royal Blue Consulting, LLC, a Fontana company formed in June 2015 (entity No. 201518110199). Her 2024 opponent, Mark Gibboney, wrote on his campaign site that the firm had no clients and that Aajee Warren’s contract with it began March 1, 2024; the Sentinel has not verified those claims. The Sentinel has not reviewed the company’s filing with the Secretary of State directly or the mayor’s Form 700 entries for it. A 2021 FPPC settlement, described under Past enforcement, shows the mayor did not timely report Royal Blue Consulting as a source of income on her 2018, 2019 and 2020 statements.
Money to other campaigns
Besides the two 2024 campaigns, most loans recorded went to candidates in 2022 local races. Warren’s committee later recorded the following loans as forgiven:
Warren’s committees also made 12 payments totaling $8,600 to churches and ministries in the records reviewed, all coded as civic donations: Ephesian New Testament Church ($4,000), Decently & In Order Ministry ($2,200), Crosspointe Church ($1,000, in 2014), Mt Zion Church of Ontario ($1,000), New Life Christian Church ($300), and South Side Bethel Baptist Church ($100). The 2014 statement also reports $400 to RJ Jackson for “Sponsorship for the Saturday Morning Christian Women’s group,” coded as a civic donation. State law (Government Code §89515) allows campaign funds to be donated to bona fide charitable, civic or religious nonprofits, provided no substantial part of the money will have a material financial effect on the candidate, the treasurer or their families. No transactions with Water of Life Church appear in the records reviewed.
Potential violations and legal questions
The items below are potential violations or open legal questions drawn from the filings. None has been found to be a violation by any agency, and each depends on facts the records do not fully show. The review tested every donor’s calendar-year total against Fontana’s limit for 2021 through 2026, checked spelling variants of the same name, and tested the money Warren’s committee gave to Fontana city candidates against the same ordinance.
1. Money to the city clerk and treasurer races above Fontana’s limit
Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b) bars any person from giving a candidate for mayor, city clerk, or city treasurer more than the §85303(a) amount per calendar year, which was $8,100 in 2022. A committee counts as a person, and state law (Government Code §84216) treats a loan to a campaign as a contribution.
In 2022, Warren’s committee reported giving the reelection campaign of City Treasurer Janet Koehler-Brooks $18,600 and the campaign of City Clerk Germaine Key $19,350. All but $250 was made as loans:
On October 20, 2022, Warren’s committee recorded $8,100 of the Koehler-Brooks loans and $7,275 of the Key loans as forgiven. Key’s committee separately reported an $825 in-kind contribution from Warren’s committee on September 6, 2022. Both candidates won in November 2022. Warren’s committee’s Schedule H filings show how the rest was settled. Key’s campaign repaid $11,825, including the full September 12 and October 11 loans and $825 of the August 11 loan, by October 22, 2022. Koehler-Brooks’s campaign repaid $10,500: $7,000 by October 22, 2022, and the last $3,500 by December 31, 2022. The forgiven amounts match the $7,275 and $8,100 above. Warren’s filings put the year’s total to Key’s campaign, counting the in-kind contribution, at $20,175.
Potential laws: Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b); Government Code §84216. Whether loans that were later repaid count against the city limit is a question for the city and the FPPC. The candidates’ own filings, which would show how they reported the money, are not in the exports.
1a. The same pattern in 2026
Both offices were on the ballot again in 2026, when the limit is $9,800. Warren’s filings on the city’s NetFile portal, including reports filed after this review’s September 30 cutoff, show:
Germaine Key for Fontana City Clerk 2026 received $11,217.50 from Warren’s committee: $2,000 on July 29, $951 in kind on August 18, a $2,534 loan on August 24, $1,087.50 in kind on August 31, and $4,645 in kind on October 8. That is $1,417.50 over the limit. Key’s committee reported the same items, listing one on September 1 rather than August 31. Key repaid $2,000 of the loan between September 20 and October 17, leaving $534 outstanding. Without the repaid $2,000, the total would be $9,217.50.
Armendarez for City Treasurer 2026, the committee of Joseph Armendarez, received $9,912.62: $4,673 on August 6, $951 on August 18, $1,087.50 on September 3, $2,534 on September 30, and $667.12 on October 2. That is $112.62 over the limit. The amounts are as Warren’s committee reported them; Armendarez’s committee reported the $4,673 item under a September 16 date.
Through September 30, both totals were under $9,800; the October contributions put them over. The same question applies as in 2022: whether repaid loans count against the city limit. Potential law: Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b).
2. A 2025 total above Fontana’s limit
California Parents Association PAC gave Warren’s 2026 committee $2,500 on May 12, 2025, and $8,000 in December 2025. That is $10,500 in one calendar year, $700 over the $9,800 limit.
Both sides’ filings agree. Warren’s committee reports receiving $8,000 on December 22, 2025; the PAC, which files with San Bernardino County, reports making it on December 10, 2025. No refund of the excess appears in the records reviewed. The PAC gave another $5,000 in 2026, within that year’s limit. Potential law: Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b).
2a. 2021 and 2022: money over the limit, assigned to a later election
Fontana’s limit has applied per calendar year since Ord. No. 1857 took effect on January 7, 2021, 30 days after its adoption; it was $8,100 in both 2021 and 2022. Warren’s statements for 2021 and January to June 2022, which were not in the export, show four donors above it, counting Bel-Air Swap Meets and its owner Hae Park as one, as the committee did. In each case the committee’s “per election” column assigns the excess to a later election instead of refunding it:

Under the committee’s own per-election accounting, two 2022 totals are also over. Reggie King’s is $10,000: the $1,900 it assigned to 2022 plus the $8,100 he gave on October 3, 2022. Bel-Air and Hae Park’s is $15,000: the $6,900 assigned to 2022 plus the $8,100 Park gave on December 1, 2022. Pallet Market’s $6,200 on September 2, 2022 brought its 2022 total under the same accounting to exactly $8,100. Two other donors, Shina Park and Eunice Park, also list their occupation as owner of Bel-Air Swap Meets; Shina Park gave $8,100 on May 11, 2022 and Eunice Park $4,500 on August 8, 2022. Whether their contributions should be combined with Bel-Air’s under Government Code §85311 depends on who directs and controls the company’s giving, which the filings do not show. The statements show the committee did refund excess money in one case. It returned $1,296.47 to Cole Burr in December 2021, holding his 2021 total, including an in-kind reception, to $8,100. Fontana’s code applies the limit per calendar year and says nothing about carrying contributions forward to a later election. Potential law: Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b).
2b. 2021: money from two Previti entities
FH II Homebuilders, Inc. gave Warren’s committee $8,100 on May 24, 2021, and the John P. Previti Memorial Foundation gave $5,000 on December 1, 2021. Business filings list James L. Previti as FH II’s chief executive and a director, and IRS filings list him as the foundation’s president; both list Richard Munkvold as an officer. State law combines an entity’s contributions with those of the person who directs and controls them (Government Code §85311). If Previti directed both contributions, the 2021 total was $13,100, $5,000 over Fontana’s $8,100 limit. The filings do not show who directed them. Separately, federal tax law bars a 501(c)(3) organization from contributing to a political campaign, and a private foundation’s spending to influence an election is a taxable expenditure. Potential laws: Fontana Municipal Code §7-27(b); Government Code §85311; Internal Revenue Code §§501(c)(3) and 4945(d)(2).
3. Assembly money after a 2010 primary loss
In 2010, state law limited contributions to Assembly candidates to $3,900 per election ($7,800 for small contributor committees). A candidate may collect general-election money before the primary but must refund it pro rata if defeated, under Government Code §85318.
Fourteen contributors gave Warren’s Assembly committee more than $3,900, so part of their money could only have counted toward the general election. One of them, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association, is a PAC; even at the $7,800 small-contributor committee limit, its $8,300 total is higher:
Warren lost the June 8, 2010 Republican primary. The records show no refunds to these contributors. They do show the Assembly committee transferring $9,285.32 to “Citizens and Friends of Acquanetta Warren” on June 30, 2010, and $115.91 to her 2010 mayoral committee on September 30, 2010.
The Assembly committee (Secretary of State ID 1315947) filed with the state. Its Cal-Access record shows it terminated on September 30, 2010 with an ending cash balance of zero, after $246,099.03 in expenditures for 2010. Its itemized expenditures list no refunds to contributors. Potential laws: Government Code §85318, the per-election limit in §85301, and the small contributor committee limit in §85302.
4. A union contribution missing from Warren’s receipts
Laborers Local Union No. 783 PAC reported giving Warren’s committee $1,000 on April 21, 2023. No matching receipt appears in the committee’s 2023 filings, either in the export or in a search of every e-filed transaction on the city’s NetFile portal. The portal does show Local 783 giving Warren’s committee $2,500 on April 30, 2025, and giving Germaine Key’s 2022 campaign $1,000. A check of filings by state-registered donors, as compiled by Transparency USA from the Secretary of State’s records, turned up four more contributions that do not appear in Warren’s committee’s e-filed statements under any name: $500 from Edison International and Affiliated Entities on June 24, 2025; $1,200 from Patrick Mahoney and West Coast Arborists, Inc. on November 14, 2025; $1,500 from the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation on November 21, 2025; and $500 from the Edison International Civic Action Committee on October 9, 2026. They total $3,700. Each donor reports the payment as a contribution to Warren’s campaign. They are also absent from the water board committee’s filings. Warren’s statements do list other contributions from three of the four donors on other dates, including $1,200 from West Coast Arborists on May 2, 2025 and April 16, 2026, and $5,000 from the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation on October 10, 2026. Potential law: Government Code §84211(f), which requires committees to report every contributor who gives $100 or more.
5. Loans to a family member’s campaign
No contribution limit appears to apply to the $66,611.82 lent to Aajee Warren’s water board campaign, because the FPPC says the state’s default limits do not cover special districts, and the district’s own limit did not take effect until January 1, 2026. The legal question is how the money was used. State law requires campaign spending to be reasonably related to a political, legislative or governmental purpose, and spending that gives a substantial personal benefit must be directly related to such a purpose. Most of the loans came after the election, when the campaign could no longer win votes. Warren’s committee’s October 2026 filing shows none of it repaid. Aajee Warren’s own filings, described below, show what the money paid for.
What the water board campaign bought. Warren for Cucamonga Valley Water District 2024 (state ID 1475176) files with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters. Its Form 460s from January 2024 through June 2026 report $179,219.59 in spending, $178,376.05 of it itemized. In 2024 it raised $141,296 in contributions and borrowed $66,611.82 from the mayor’s committee. It spent $178,019.29 that year, $107,554.75 of it by October 19. Its itemized payments, grouped by the payees and FPPC expenditure codes it reported, break down this way:
The campaign’s itemized payments include nothing to Royal Blue Consulting, Aajee Warren, the mayor or any other member of the Warren family. It also paid Stephen Dunn for treasury services; a Stephen Dunn is paid for professional services in Warren’s 2010 Assembly committee records, is listed as treasurer of the Koehler-Brooks committee, and signed Warren’s 2014 mayoral statement as its treasurer.
What the loans paid for. The campaign’s records line up with the mayor’s loans. Four of the six loans equal a specific payment, or one day’s payments, to the cent, and a fifth roughly matches a day’s payments. The four loans made after the election paid for campaign literature and TV or cable production. The payments were made after the election; the filings do not say when the work was done:After the election. After losing, the committee kept raising money but spent little of it. Itemized contributions from November 7 to December 31, 2024 total $31,375, including $20,000 from David Wiener on December 26 and $5,000 from Fleet Yards Inc. In 2025 it raised $33,500, including $10,000 from Burrtec Waste Industries, Inc. on March 31 and $13,000 from P. V. Consulting. Its donors include several who also give to the mayor’s committees, among them David Wiener, Burrtec, Hae Park and Luis Echeverria. From January 2025 through June 2026 the committee spent $1,200.30: credit card fees, $500 for treasury services and a $500 contribution to David Rouzer for Congress.
Its most recent report, for January 1 to June 30, 2026, shows $62,188.73 in cash and $66,611.82 in outstanding debt, the full amount of the mayor’s loans. Its filings show no payment on them.
Potential law: Government Code §89512 (use of campaign funds).
6. Smaller items
• In 2025, Final Touch Construction & Design gave $6,600, and Luis Echeverria, who lists the occupation office manager there, gave $3,500. State law (Government Code §85311) combines an individual’s and a company’s contributions when the individual directs and controls the company’s contributions, or owns more than half of the company, unless they act independently; the records do not show whether that applies.
• In 2010, several donors gave Warren’s 2010 local committees more than $5,000: Green Hills Landscape ($15,000), Fontana Police Officers Association PAC ($15,000), All-Specks, Inc. ($10,000), the Wiener Family Survivor’s Trust ($10,000) and The Related Companies of California ($8,153.08). None of those amounts exceeded a city limit, because Fontana had no dollar limit then. The same was true in 2020, when David Wiener gave Warren’s current committee $25,000 on July 28, $20,000 on September 18 and $10,000 on October 14, the largest contributions from a single donor in the records reviewed. From Ord. No. 1495 (December 20, 2005) until Ord. No. 1857 (December 8, 2020), §7-27 said only that contribution limits for candidates “shall follow the state’s regulations.” That is the text in the April 2012 version of the code archived on Municode. The section’s history notes list no other change between 2005 and 2020. State law set no limit on contributions to city candidates in that period. The limits in Government Code §85301 apply to candidates for state office, and the FPPC’s AB 571 fact sheet says the Political Reform Act did not impose a contribution limit on city and county candidates in 2020. The first dollar limits for Fontana candidates took effect January 7, 2021, 30 days after the council adopted Ord. No. 1857.
Apart from the items above, the review found no donor above Fontana’s annual limit from 2021 through 2026. The export lacks donor addresses, so it cannot test for straw donors or for contributors sharing a household. The city’s NetFile portal lists each e-filed donor’s city and ZIP code, which would allow a partial test.
Past enforcement and news coverage
The only enforcement action found against Warren concerns her personal financial disclosures, not her campaign. On September 16, 2021, the FPPC fined her $900 (case No. 21/597) for failing to timely disclose sources of income, travel payments, and gifts on her 2018, 2019, and 2020 annual Statements of Economic Interests, in violation of Government Code §§87206 and 87207 (nine counts). The stipulation lists the nine items: Royal Blue Consulting as a source of income on her 2018, 2019 and 2020 statements; two 2018 travel payments from what it calls a foreign government association; and four 2018 gifts, from the People’s Consulate of China, the Chinese People’s Association of Friendship, the People’s Government of Baoying County and the People’s Congress of Yunnan Province. Royal Blue Consulting is the company, described earlier in this story, that state business records list Warren as managing and where Aajee Warren’s campaign website says she works. The case was handled through the FPPC’s streamlined penalty program.
A June 2014 FPPC release lists a $400 fine against the Maldonado Ballot Measure Committee to Protect California Families and “Acquanette Warren, Treasurer” for failing to file a 2013 campaign statement electronically on time. The case is FPPC No. 14/002. The release and the stipulation spell the name differently and give no address. A May 2013 Santa Maria Sun article on Abel Maldonado’s campaign to repeal AB 109 named “Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren” among the committee’s members. That makes it likely the treasurer is the mayor, but the Sentinel has not confirmed it.
This review’s searches of FPPC enforcement releases and news coverage found no fine or finding against Warren’s own campaign committees. The San Bernardino County Sentinel has written about her fundraising and her support for allied candidates, reporting in October 2022 that her campaign account held more than $331,325.16. That is the ending cash balance on the committee’s January to June 2022 statement, which also reports $72,263.53 in spending for those six months, the figure the Sentinel cited.
Every contributor
All 672 contributors to Warren’s committees in the records, with each one’s committees, number of contributions and total, are listed in Warren’s campaign records, linked under Sources at the end of this story. Contributing to a campaign is legal, and appearing on the list implies no wrongdoing.
How this review was done
The source is a 3,240-row export of campaign filings from Fontana’s disclosure system covering Warren’s committees and filers that reported transactions with them, from 2003 through September 30, 2026.
• Contributions counted are those Warren’s committees reported receiving monetary (Form 460 Schedule A), in-kind (Schedule C), and late contributions (Form 497). Interest income and loans received were excluded. Money Warren’s committee gave or lent to others comes from its Schedule D (contributions made), Schedule H (loans made), and Schedule E entries marked “Loan Forgiven.”
• Rows from superseded filings were dropped in favor of their amendments. Late-contribution reports already repeated on a later Form 460 were counted once.
• A Warren for Cucamonga Valley Water District 2024 committee in the export received money from Warren’s committee rather than giving to it, and is excluded.
• Limits were tested by calendar year per donor, as Fontana’s ordinance specifies. The 2021 and 2022 tests include the recovered scanned statements, transcribed by hand; each transcribed page was checked against the statement’s own subtotals. The 2014 statement’s contributions were transcribed the same way, and every page matched its subtotal. Two 2014 donors whose names resemble later donors, Stephen Lambert and Salah Michael Tahan, are listed separately because the filings do not show they are the same people. The “2022” and “2026” committee names share state ID 1256423 and are treated as one committee. On October 27, 2026, the story’s figures were rechecked against the original filings on Fontana’s and San Bernardino County’s NetFile portals and on Cal-Access. The loan, forgiveness, top-donor and limit findings matched. On October 30, 2026, the 2010 Assembly committee’s contributions were checked line by line against the Secretary of State’s Power Search database and Cal-Access. Power Search reports $307,017.86 in 294 contributions; that figure includes $3,998.02 in unitemized contributions, a $2,000 loan from Janice Rutherford for City Council, a $2,000 loan from Cook for Assembly 2010 and an $822.89 loan from Warren, none of which this story counts. The check found one error in the earlier count: a single $1,000 contribution from the CA Independent Petroleum PAC (listed in Power Search as CIPAC State PAC), reported on an original and an amended late-contribution report and again on the committee’s statement, had been counted three times. It is now counted once. A second line-by-line check against Cal-Access the same day found that the $2,000 received from Cook for Assembly 2010 on May 19, 2010, which the committee’s statement lists as a loan, had been counted as a contribution. It is now excluded, like the other loans. Also on October 30, every e-filed contribution in the review was matched against a fresh download of the city’s NetFile records, with no differences in date, contributor or amount, and every page of the scanned 2021 and 2022 statements and the 2014 paper statement was re-read against the original. The July to December 2020 statement was transcribed the same day; each of its 16 pages of contributions matches its printed subtotal, and together they match the statement’s itemized total of $149,307.20. One date was changed: a $1,500 contribution from David Reynolds that the January to June 2021 statement lists as received July 10, 2020 had been entered as July 10, 2021; it is now shown as filed. The committee’s 2022 report counts it toward 2021. Contributions that state-registered donors report giving Warren’s local committees were also compared with Transparency USA’s compilation of state filings (see item 4). Donors were grouped by industry from their names and the employer and occupation reported on e-filed statements and in Power Search; donors in the scanned statements were grouped only where their business is evident from the name or from other filings. Contributions from Burum, Previti and their companies were identified by name, employer and business address and checked against the original statements. On October 30, 2026, the money Warren’s committee gave and lent to others was recounted from its e-filed statements for July 1, 2022 through September 30, 2026, using amended statements in place of the originals they replaced. Its Schedule D lists 108 contributions and loans totaling $276,794.52 to 59 recipients, named as filed. That includes 33 loans totaling $171,376.62, which also appear on Schedule H, and $30,423.43 in goods and services. Five late-contribution reports the committee filed in 2022 list another $6,429 to four school board campaigns (Lauren Gomez, Martinez, Adam Perez and Gordon) that does not appear on its statements; it is not included. The committee’s Schedule E lists 21 loan forgiveness entries totaling $68,579.18, matching the table above.
Constraints
The export is incomplete. Follow-up searches of Cal-Access, the city’s NetFile portal and other public records closed some of its gaps; the rest are listed below.
2010 mayoral contributions not checked against a filing. Of the $130,004.31 counted for Warren’s 2010 mayoral committees, $110,103.08 in 54 contributions comes only from the data export of Fontana’s campaign filings. The 2010 mayoral statements themselves are not posted online, so these contributions could not be checked against an original filing: their contributors and amounts are as the export lists them, and their dates are not known. The other $19,901.23 was confirmed in state records: four contributions totaling $10,500 that donors reported to the Secretary of State, and the two transfers, totaling $9,401.23, from Warren’s Assembly committee. The 2010 mayoral statements are public records that can be requested from the Fontana City Clerk under the California Public Records Act; this review has not obtained them.
2014 and 2018 campaigns. Fontana stopped accepting electronic campaign filings in 2011, the San Bernardino County Sentinel reported, and did not require them again until the City Council adopted an e-filing ordinance on December 14, 2021. The city went fully paperless with Ord. No. 1942 in April 2024. Statements for Warren’s 2014 and 2018 races would have been filed on paper with the City Clerk; the city’s NetFile portal holds her committee’s statements only from July 2020 on. They are public records and can be requested under the California Public Records Act.
The Sentinel reported in November 2014 that Warren had raised $173,622 for that year’s race. It named Reggie King ($50,000), Hae Park, Yoon Kim, Richland Management, and David Wiener ($10,000 each) among the donors. Those figures come from the newspaper, not from filings reviewed for this story. Fontana had no dollar limit on contributions to its candidates in 2014 (see item 6). No 2018 fundraising totals were found online. Warren won in 2018 with 56.4% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.
The reporter obtained one of the 2014 statements: the Form 460 for July 1 to September 30, 2014, filed on paper and stamped received by the City Clerk on October 6, 2014. It was filed by “Citizens and Friends of Acquanetta Warren for Mayor 2014,” under the same state ID, 1256423, as the current committee, and signed by treasurer Stephen Dunn. It itemizes 37 contributions totaling $40,150 for the three months and reports $154,574 in contributions for calendar 2014 through September 30. The largest was $20,000 from David Wiener on September 8, which the statement says brought his 2014 total to $30,000, more than the $10,000 the Sentinel listed. San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters Local 935 PAC gave $2,500, for a 2014 total of $7,500, and Lewis Investment Company $2,500, for a total of $5,000. None of this exceeded a city limit, because Fontana had none in 2014 (see item 6). The 37 contributions are included in the totals above and the online donor list.
The statement itemizes $115,318.39 in payments, mostly campaign literature: $46,636.60 to Freeman Public Affairs and $39,520 to West Coast Consulting. It reports $2,050 in contributions to other campaigns, including $1,000 on August 19 to Stephen Dunn for Upland City Council 2014, the campaign of the committee’s own treasurer. It also reports $1,944 for items donated to a Fontana Police Department Explorer golf tournament and the church payments described above. The committee ended September with $94,842.78 in cash. The filing has arithmetic errors. Two pages of payments carry subtotals that do not match their entries ($40,574.75 written where the entries total $43,117.88, and $1,120.35 where they total $1,259.90). The Schedule D summary reports $1,150 in contributions made, while the itemized entries total $2,050. Three pages are headed January 1 to June 30, 2014, although their entries are dated in August.
Earlier filings of the current committee. The city’s NetFile portal holds scanned copies of Warren’s committee’s semi-annual statements back to July 2020, and the City Clerk’s online document center holds the January to June 2022 statement, filed July 26, 2022 and stamped received August 2, 2022. The July to December 2020, 2021 and January to June 2022 statements were transcribed and are included in the totals above; the 2021 and 2022 statements are also in the limit tests. The July to December 2020 statement reports $149,555.20 in contributions ($186,055.20 for calendar 2020), $149,307.20 of it itemized in 77 contributions. On the posted scan, a redaction covers the date of one of them, $125 from Wallace E. Burch. The January to June 2020 statement is not posted on the city’s NetFile portal, whose filings for this committee begin with July 2020, and was not found on the city’s website; it must be requested from the City Clerk. The July to December statement’s calendar-year figures indicate the committee received $36,500 in contributions from January to June 2020. Contributions in 2020 were not subject to a city dollar limit. The committee’s loan records show it lent to Jesse Armendarez’s campaign in 2016, Jasmin Hall’s in 2017 and Joe Armendarez’s in 2020.
Newer filing. Warren’s committee filed a Form 460 for September 20 to October 17, 2026 on October 22, 2026. Its contributions dated September 20 to 30, 2026 are counted in this review. Contributions dated October 1 to 17, and late-contribution reports filed after October 17, fall after the September 30 cutoff and are not counted. The report was otherwise used only for loan balances and payments to Fontana city candidates (see items 1a and 5).
Donor addresses. The export lacks addresses. The NetFile portal lists each e-filed donor’s city and ZIP code, and Cal-Access does the same for the 2010 Assembly committee. A straw-donor or shared-household check is possible at that level. It was not done for this story. Donor names are as filed; identical names may be different people.
Still unresolved. Warren’s other 2014 statements, including January to June 2014 and the post-election reports, and all of her 2018 statements exist only on paper with the City Clerk. A search of the city’s website and its public records portal on October 30, 2026 found none of them posted; they must be requested under the California Public Records Act.
What the money shows
The filings reviewed for this story span seventeen years, from a $100 contribution Acquanetta Warren made to her own Assembly campaign in February 2009 to her 2026 campaign for a fifth term as mayor. In that time, 672 contributors gave her committees $1.87 million.
Her largest donors over those years were developer David Wiener, $109,100; Hae Park of Bel-Air Swap Meets, $56,100; Reggie King of Young Homes, $35,900; Pallet Market, Inc., $35,100; the Fontana Police Officers Association PAC, $28,300; Gerald W. Beard Realty, $27,800; Hamed Monshizadeh, $26,400; James L. Previti, his company and his foundation, $26,200 combined; the National Association of Industrial & Office Properties, $23,300; and Michael Wiener, $20,900. Developers and homebuilders as a group gave at least $396,498, about 21% of the total, more than any other identifiable group.
Her committee also gives money to others. From July 2022 through September 2026 it gave or lent $276,794.52 to 59 recipients, most of them candidates and political committees, and it has forgiven $68,579.18 in loans. The largest recipient was Aajee Warren’s 2024 water board campaign, which received $66,611.82 in loans that the committee’s latest report lists as unpaid.
Several questions remain open: whether money given and lent to the 2022 and 2026 clerk and treasurer campaigns, and some donors’ contributions, exceeded Fontana’s limit; whether the Previti entities’ 2021 contributions should be combined; and why no refunds appear for Assembly contributions made for a general election Warren did not reach. Those are matters for the city and the Fair Political Practices Commission. Most of her statements from 2010 through mid-2020 are on paper at the City Clerk’s office and have not yet been obtained.
Contributing to a campaign is legal, and so is lending to one. Every amount in this story comes from reports filed by the people who gave or received the money. The full list of contributions and sources is available in one place. Fontana votes on Tuesday, November 3.
Sources
Every contribution in this review, each contributor’s total, and every document, filing, statute and article this story relies on (144 entries in 18 sections, each with its full web address where one exists) are in Warren campaign records.