Over a thousand people, hundreds of whom no longer live in Victorville or California, embarked on a course of action last month that carries with it the prospect of forcing a long-in-the-coming reckoning of the cavalier comportment of the U.S. Department of Defense and in particular the U.S. Air Force in their stewardship of a now-discarded relic of the Cold War located in San Bernardino County’s High Desert. That action also carries with it the possibility that the City of Victorville, which in the 1990s competed so hard against the City of Adelanto to successfully obtain from the Department of Defense annexation and civilian use conversion rights to long-shuttered George Air Force Base to create what is now known as Southern California Logistics Airport, may come to rue its bureaucratic victory over its neighboring municipality as the ecological nightmare it has inherited becomes ever clearer.
The Military Accountability and Transparency Alliance, known by its acronym MAATA and which numbers among its members more than 1,500 Air Force veterans or their spouses who once served or resided at George Air Force Base, on June 30 lodged an administrative claim against the federal government relating to its members’ exposure to toxic chemicals, substances and radiation while at the base. The federal government has the option of responding positively to the claim and seeking to redress to the satisfaction of the claimants the issues and problems raised and referenced in the complaint or rejecting the claim. Upon the claim being rejected, the claimants then have the legal right to sue the government.
The reports of nuclear contamination at the former George Air Force Base near Victorville are legion.
In late August 1973, Frank Vera, a then-20-year-old airman stationed at the base, was motorcycling at an extreme corner of what was then the base grounds, in an authorized recreational area for the base’s personnel, when he came across a mostly-buried metal barrel in what was known as the base’s “southeast disposal area.” Curious, Vera pried the top off the barrel, which appeared to be filled with a substance Vera would later describe as roughly the consistency of powdered porcelain that was a light brownish red or tan in color. Shortly after he began digging into the barrel using his hands and a stick, he passed out.
Vera awoke in the base’s infirmary, bleeding from every orifice in his body. His heartbeat would race for minutes at a time, exceeding 200 beats per minute, and then precipitously drop, to as few as 30 per minute. Likewise, his blood pressure was librating radically, at one minute ranging into the neighborhood of 200/170 and then dropping, reaching standard systolic and diastolic pressure and continuing to decline as low as 60/40 before zooming upward again.
Vera has had extreme health challenges ever since. He had reached what was considered his full adult height, 5 foot 11 inches, more than a year previously, at the age of 19. After his encounter with the barrel, however, he began to experience further growth, reaching a height of 6 foot 3 inches, although his growth was not even, such that one leg grew significantly longer than the other, causing a pronounced unevenness in his pelvic region that would make walking difficult for him.
Furthermore, Vera experienced a variety of physical ailments including hematological damage, neurological damage, further skeletal damage, pulmonary emphysema and chronic lymphatic conditions.
As early as 1975, female personnel at George and the wives of airmen serving at the base were being advised that they should not become pregnant while living on the base grounds.
In a June 2018 Military Times article by Tara Copp, female Airman Kate Kelly, who was stationed at George in 1975 and worked on the George flight line, related that she “fell ill almost immediately upon arriving at George,” experiencing chronic vaginal and urinary tract infections, which base medical personnel treated with antibiotics. According to Copp, Kelly “ultimately had three miscarriages and was never able to have children.”
Additionally, according to Copp, Kelly met her former husband, Ronald Holdren, who was stationed at George. Holdren died in 2008, according to Copp, of multiple myeloma, a cancer that forms in plasma cells.
Copp’s June 2018 Military Times article further related the unfortunate experience of Lisa McCrea, a military wife, who resided on George Air Force Base with her husband while he was stationed there from 1987 to 1991. According to Copp’s Military Times article, when McCrea was 19, she was pregnant and “in her second trimester began to bleed. She’d miscarried. By the time her husband got her to the base emergency room, he had to carry her in, she’d lost so much blood.”
Over the years, after a host of doctors diagnosed Vera as suffering from radiation exposure, the Air Force engaged in a curious round of denial with regard to the former airman’s efforts to actuate the provision of care the Pentagon had designated as appropriate for what were designated as “atomic veterans.” When Vera’s physicians sought to verify that Vera had absorbed nuclear material by means of a body radioactive content analysis, the Department of Defense refused authorization of the tests on the grounds of national security. When Vera pushed beyond that, at one point the Air Force directly maintained that no weapons grade materials were ever present at George Air Force Base.
That claim was problematic.
Built as the Victorville Army Airfield in 1941, just prior to the United States’ entrance into World War II, what would later become George Air Force Base was utilized for training Army Air Corps pilots during the war. It was placed on standby status in September 1945, shortly after hostilities in that conflict concluded. In 1950, three years after the Army Air Corps was reconstituted as the Air Force, the base was reactivated in June of that year and renamed in honor of Brigadier General Harold Huston George.
Over the years George was a key component for the training of fighter pilots sent into aerial combat during the Korean War and the Vietnam War, as well as being a primary base for the Western Air Defense Force. As such it was home to the 1st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, the 94th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 27th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 94th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 452nd Light Bombardment Wing, the 116th Fighter-Bomber Wing, 131st Fighter-Bomber Wing, the 21st Fighter-Bomber Wing, the 456th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 518th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 327th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 329th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 413th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 831st Air Division, the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 431st Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, the 32nd Tactical Fighter Wing, the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 479th Fighter-Bomber Wing, the 479th Fighter-Day Wing, the 479th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 131st Fighter-Bomber Wing, the 35th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 434th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 434th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, the 435th Combat Crew Training Squadron, the 4435th Tactical Fighter Replacement Squadron, the 4452nd Combat Crew Training Squadron, the 20th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 21st Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, the 21st Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 4535th Combat Crew Training Squadron, the 561st Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 563rd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, the 563rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 39th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the 35th Tactical Training Wing, the 35th Tactical Wing, the 37th Tactical Training Wing, the 32rd/8th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing, the 562nd Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, and the 561st Tactical Fighter Squadron.
Among the aircraft deployed at the base were F-51 Mustangs, Douglas B-26 Invaders, North American F-86 Sabres, Republic F-84 Thunderjets, F-102s, A F-106s, F-4 Phantoms and F-105s.
George Air Force Base was officially decommissioned in December 1992.
Throughout the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, George Air Force Base was a key element of the strategy and facilities intended to provide an umbrella over Central and Southern California, Arizona and Southern Nevada to prevent the Soviet Union’s atomic and nuclear weaponry from raining down onto American soil. Planes such as the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-105 Thunderchief, the F-106 Delta Dart and the F-4 Phantom, with ordnance such as the Genie nuclear air-to-air missile affixed to their undercarriages, would take off from George, and fly in a patrol pattern at 30,000 feet or higher, from which perch they could be vectored into position by ground-based radar control with access to the distant early warning radar system or satellite-based radar profiles of any incoming aircraft or missiles to attempt to launch their interceptor missiles to prevent a successful attack on the U.S. mainland.
Ultimately, with the political ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and the Glasnost which he espoused eventually reaching fruition, a thaw in the Cold War occurred, bringing with it the de-erection of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany and ultimately the fragmenting of the Soviet Union. In 1992, the Department of Defense made good on the tentative plans that had been floated as early as 1987 to decommission George Air Force Base.
In short order, the two cities closest to it, Victorville and Adelanto, engaged each other in what turned into a seven-year-running battle, costing Adelanto over $25 million in administrative and legal fees and expenses, and Victorville more than $30 million, to take control of the base property. Victorville, adroitly led by then-Mayor Terry Caldwell, an attorney, and Jim Cox, who had been city manager since 1969, networked with the County of San Bernardino, the Town of Apple Valley and the City of Hesperia in the guise of the Victor Valley Economic Development Authority, a joint powers agency, to draw up a competing reuse plan to what Adelanto was proposing. Equally importantly, Victorville, where the city council was composed of a majority of Republicans, cultivated a close relationship with the area’s Congressman, Republican Jerry Lewis, outmaneuvering Adelanto, which had leadership that was predominantly associated with the Democratic Party. Ultimately, the Department of Defense awarded the lion’s share of the base – about 75 percent – to the Victor Valley Economic Development Authority, which then deferred to Victorville in allowing it to annex the base property. The federal government maintained title to what was variously referred to as “strategic” or “problematic” land.
Along the way, the Air Force and the Department of Defense acknowledged that the base was beset with a host of contamination issues. Most prominent among the chemicals the federal government said permeated the base’s tarmac, the soil and the groundwater below it was a solvent used in servicing the planes throughout the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and into the early 1990s – trichloroethylene, known by its acronym, TCE. In addition, the Air Force readily admitted, there were other heavy industrial solvents that had been used at the base along with jet fuel ingredients such as ethylene dibromide, benzene and naphthalene, as well as chlorinated pesticides like dieldrin and aldrin. Even prior to the base being decommissioned, the Department of Defense in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency in 1990 had the base property declared an EPA Superfund site.
By the Spring of 2016, the Department of Defense/Air Force had had spent $101 million in Superfund money augmented by funding from the Pentagon’s base closure budget to engage in soil and water table remediation on and beneath the former base grounds. Since that time, at least $22 million of the remaining budgeted $53 million projected to complete the job has been expended.
Nevertheless, the Air Force and the Pentagon, even after the Cold War had drawn to a close, were reluctant to make full disclosure of the nuclear policy and military strategy and tactics that had been employed by the U.S. military. Denise Caron, the civilian Air Force employee who in 1993 was overseeing the clean-up of George, publicly stated that no radioactive materials had been present on the base. “We didn’t have a nuclear mission at George,” she asserted. “We didn’t use nukes. We didn’t use tactical nukes.”
Caron’s assertions resulted in a number of former airmen at the base coming forward to contradict her statements, including some who offered documentary and photographic evidence to back up their claims.
Vera, rebuffed by the Air Force, utilized the Freedom of Information Act to obtain internal Air Force documents disclosing a nuclear weapons testing decontamination center, referred to in Air Force parlance as a “hot washdown” facility, had been in place at George in the 1960s. The decontamination center was an inherent element of the Department of Defense’s efforts to obtain data by having planes purposefully fly into the mushroom clouds produced by thermonuclear explosions during atomic and nuclear weapons tests to photograph the internal environment of and area in the aftermath of an explosion and to collect samples of radioactive debris. The information Vera obtained pertained to, according to the documentation, “Nevada Test Site (NTS) training operations,” with cloud debris sampling flights staged from George Air Force Base.
Vera further obtained information generated during an Office of Special Investigations (O.S.I.) investigation undertaken at the base in 1989 and 1990, which was aimed at determining if weapons-grade materials had been disposed of at the base. The investigator heading that inquiry was Christian Filipiak. The standards applied in that investigation required that findings of radioactive contamination not be reported until radioactive contamination readings from a single well were confirmed by two subsequent readings. According to Filipiak, who retired shortly after the investigation at George was completed, the wells at George that showed the presence of radiation were capped in each case after a second sampling showing radioactive contamination was drawn, thus circumventing any mandated report of that contamination.
In December 1993, Caron asserted that the O.S.I. investigation had determined no weapons grade materials had ever been disposed of at the base. Filipiak, however, contradicted Caron, stating publicly that the parameters of the report, as dictated by the Air Force and the Department of Defense, had steered the investigation away from such a conclusion by limiting the scope and content of both the investigation and its report.
In 1994, then-Hesperia Councilman/Mayor Theron Honeycutt related to the publisher of the Sentinel who was then working as a reporter with the Victorville Desert Mountain Express that his company had been hired by the Air Force to go onto George and “cap,” i.e., fill with gravel and then cover with concrete, several existing wells.
Caron’s claims were discredited under an avalanche of data, including lab tests ordered by then-congressmen George Brown and Jerry Lewis and performed by Helgeson Scientific Services, which involved gamma radiation counts showing enriched uranium-235 and other unidentified radionuclides, believed to be Americium and strontium, had been present on the base. Also surfacing were surveys of water drawn from test wells showing the presence of radionuclides in the water table below the base.
The Air Force has continued to avoid publicly and directly addressing the issue of radioactive contamination at the base. Evidence has emerged over time that indicates both its military and civilian leaders have known for decades that nuclear contamination on the base property is a realty. That evidence is most stark in those areas where the Department of Defense has had to cooperate with state government agencies involved in certifying the livability of the former base property.
Nearly five years ago, Linda Stone of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board told the Sentinel, “The water board has information regarding radiological waste at Site RW009, located in the covered portion of the southeast disposal area of the former facility on land currently owned by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, south of Air Expressway Blvd. The Air Force issued a final remedial action completion report [for] Radioactive Disposal Site RW009 in November 2013. The water board deferred review of the radiological issues to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) based on EPA’s expertise on human health risks. The EPA accepted the document and the Air Force’s request for no further action at RW009.”
In the body of the text for the remedial action completion report, the Air Force sought to downplay the seriousness of the contamination issue at the southeast disposal area. Page 2-4 of that document states “Site characterization activities were performed in 1994 and served to investigate the potential for the presence of low-level radioactive wastes. These activities determined background levels of total gamma radiation and quantified radionuclide concentrations. All excavated materials were radiologically screened via a material sorting plant and sampled for analysis where necessary. All soils which represented background were backfilled. This investigation thoroughly explored Site RW009 areas suspected of containing radioactive materials, and two radioactive sources were identified, a 2.3-microcurie cesium-137 source and an electron tube (vacuum tube) containing thorium and uranium. These items were disposed via destructive testing at an off-site analytical laboratory. The identification of very few radioactive materials indicated that large-scale disposal of radioactive waste did not occur at IRP Site RW009. This work demonstrated that no known radiological contamination remained and that the IRP Site RW009 disposal site was suitable for removal as an impacted site from the southeast disposal area.”
Stone further told the Sentinel, “The report also described two groundwater sampling events for radiologic constituents. The first event (1986) found gross alpha activities exceeded the maximum contaminant levels for drinking water in two of five wells at the site. The second event (1987) found all radiologic samples were below maximum contaminant levels in all five wells. Based on the data showing that the groundwater met drinking water standards, the water board did not require additional groundwater investigations for radiological constituents.”
More recently, documentation long buried by the Air Force has surfaced, including a secretive 1979 investigation by Dr. John Sabol, then the Air Force chief of environmental and contract programming. Sabol’s findings demonstrated that larger quantities of radioactive waste were dumped in the disposal area than the Air Force has officially documented or acknowledged and that the intensity of radiation exceeds that which would have been a product of discarded x-ray machines or 1950s and 1960s era electronic vacuum tubes.
In 2015, when the Sentinel approached Don Gronstal, then the environmental coordinator with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center overseeing the Air Force remediation effort at George whose office is at McClellan Air Force Base in Northern California, Gronstal agreed to field any questions put to him relating to the environmental circumstance at the former George Air Force Base, but requested that those questions be put in writing. After the Sentinel did as requested, Gronstal broke off all further contact with the Sentinel, and never responded to the questions.
In publicly available documents, the Air Force has acknowledged groundwater at, around or below the base is “contaminated with jet fuel, trichloroethylene, pesticides and nitrates. Soil is contaminated with total petroleum hydrocarbons, dioxins, construction debris, medical wastes, pesticides, semi-volatile organic compounds and various inorganic compounds.”
One telling indication is that the Air Force has closed off six spots on the former base grounds that will be inaccessible even after the bulk of the rest of the base has been fully transferred to Victorville. It is believed at least two of those are “hot spots” where radioactive materials were discarded and where radioactivity is still present in the soil and water. There have been unconfirmed reports that contractors working for the federal government have done extensive excavation in those areas that are to remain as federal property.
In 2016, in an article authored by Dan Ross which was published by both the Sentinel and Truthout, an independent reporting organization, the experience of Terrine Crooks, originally from New Hampshire, who had joined the Air Force and was stationed at George Air Force Base beginning in the summer of 1980, was related.
Crooks met her husband at George. Toward the end of 1981, she became pregnant. Her son, Brian, was born 13 weeks prematurely in April 1982. Within three months of his birth, Brian sustained multiple brain hemorrhages, thereafter developing, according to Ross’s report, an array of ongoing health conditions and disabilities, including cerebral palsy. Upon reaching the age of 30, Terrine Crooks’ own health deteriorated, and she endured endometriosis, uterine fibroids and heavy bleeding during menstruation, necessitating she have a hysterectomy at the age of 31. At the age of 40, she had a bilateral mastectomy.
Ross reported how Terrine Crooks eventually related her health challenges to her toxic exposure while in the military, whereupon she made a claim to the Veteran’s Administration. In 2014, Crooks prevailed, with the Veteran’s Administration making a finding that her medical conditions were “at least as likely as not” caused by her military service. George Air Force Base was mentioned in the ruling. In 2016, Crooks and her husband were yet caring for their 34-year-old son at their home in Florida, according to Ross.
It has turned out that well over a thousand servicemen and servicewomen who were stationed at George, along with their wives and husbands and offspring, have had similar experiences. A catalyst for that realization was when former Air Force personnel once stationed at George and their spouses, ones who had moved to far-flung locations all over the country after leaving the military, in an effort to preserve their friendships created an informal and loosely knit internet and telephone social club. The more they interacted in this forum, the more they came to learn that many, indeed most of them, were bedeviled with what they eventually came to believe or recognized were the aftereffects of their shared experience in the military, in particular at George Air Force Base. Many of the women suffered from a plethora of conditions that included ovarian cysts and uterine tumors, had undergone hysterectomies, and had experienced miscarriages at a rate ten times higher than the national average. Their children had an inordinate number of birth defects. Those women and their husbands were dealing with multiple maladies of a similar nature, including leukemia and multiple lymphomas, rare cancers and peripheral neuropathy.
Born of their interaction was the Military Accountability and Transparency Alliance. Based on their collective belief that they are living with the devastation wrought by toxic chemical and radiation exposure while they were living at George Air Force Base, the alliance’s members filed their claim on June 30.
Much is riding on whether the Department of Defense/Air Force will recognize the claim or whether it will be rejected, necessitating that the matter go to trial. A trial would very likely entail much of the hidden documentation of what was buried at George Air Force Base – physically, literally and figuratively – being unearthed. That will have implications for more than just those former airmen and their spouses and children. A revelation of the true extent of the contamination at Southern California Logistics Airport could mean that the aerodrome, for so long considered a desirable asset that Victorville was willing to spend more than $30 million to secure, might become a liability.
Multiple municipal water supply wells are threatened by the contamination at George, including wells supplying water to a federal prison facility built on land that was formerly part of the base, and which is to remain as federal property. It is unclear who – the federal government or the City of Victorville – will need to defray the cost of any remediation of the airport property to which the city has already taken title.
-Mark Gutglueck

Less than three months after the Red Brennan Group, a citizens advocacy coalition, qualified a ballot measure in San Bernardino County that would, if passed in November, transform the members of the county board of supervisors into part-time rather than full-time local legislators, the current board members have used their own authority in an effort to sidetrack that referendum by placing before voters a county charter revision package that will obviate the citizen group’s measure even if it manages to pass.
At stake for each of the supervisors is roughly $200,000 per year, the difference between the approximately $260,000 in salary and benefits they are currently paid by the taxpayers in their elected capacity and the $60,000 in total compensation they would receive if the voters approve the Red Brennan Group’s ballot proposal.
Unwilling to see their pay cut, the supervisors this week struck back, beginning the arrangements to put onto the November ballot what they are representing as a county charter reform measure which would have the practical effect of locking into place a salary and benefit level that is comparable to that which they are already receiving.
The diversionary ploy the board of supervisors in conjunction with the top county staff are employing mirrors in multiple respects the same tactic the board utilized in 2012 when tax reform advocate Kiernan “Red” Brennan, for whom the Red Brennan Group is named, qualified what was designated as Measure R for the ballot that year.
Measure R sought to make the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors a part-time governing body, reducing board members’ salary and benefit packages from what was for some of the board members as high as $308,000 in 2012 to $60,000 annually, while simultaneously reducing the budget for the staff of each of the supervisors to $300,000. Kiernan and his associates managed a very successful promotional campaign for Measure R, which prompted the board of supervisors, acting at the last minute in July 2012, to qualify what was designated as Measure Q for the November 2012 ballot. In practical terms, Q was a competing measure to R, one which called for a five percent reduction in the annual salary of board supervisors, but did not impact their benefit and retirement packages or their staffing levels. Adapting the Measure R advocates’ calls for reform, the proponents of Measure Q did not in any overt fashion campaign against Measure R, but rather expounded in generic terms what they represented as Measure Q’s “sensible” and “moderate” approach for achieving salary reduction for the supervisors, dropping what at that time was their $158,000 annual salaries to $151,100. Measure R passed overwhelmingly in November 2012, garnering 326,939 or 64.25 percent of the 508,846 total votes cast with regard to the initiative. Meanwhile, Measure Q passed as well, with 344,226 votes or 67.28 percent of the 511,595 votes cast relating to it. As they covered the same topic, with the passage of both Measure Q and Measure R, the measure receiving the most votes was the one enacted. In this way, county officials succeeded in keeping the terms of the reform proposed by Kiernan Brennan from being put into place.
Brennan died in 2013. Those involved with him in his government reform efforts founded the Red Brennan Group shortly thereafter, dedicating it to reducing the depth, breadth and cost of government while aiming at improving its efficiency.
In 2017, the Red Brennan Group undertook petition drives to qualify two countywide initiatives, one aimed at reducing members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to part time status and imposing on that panel’s members a commensurate reduction in pay, and another more comprehensive measure dubbed the “Leadership Accountability Initiative.”
That measure called for reversing the county’s 2010 move which changed the title and authority of the county chief administrative officer to the county chief executive officer, which had also conferred on the post higher pay. The Leadership Accountability Initiative eliminated the chief executive officer post and reestablished the county administrator position, pegged compensation of elected officials – supervisors, sheriff, district attorney, treasurer/auditor/controller and assessor – to a multiple of the median family income in the region, and eliminated increased accrual of retirement benefits by elected officials. The initiative further sought to restrict bloat within the county’s governmental structure by placing a per capita limit on the number of county employees. It also required the supervisors to use every legal means available to ensure county government employee pay and benefits were equal to private industry pay and benefits in the San Bernardino County jurisdiction.
After the initiative proposals were submitted in 2017 to the county’s stable of in-house lawyers, known as the office of county counsel, the county sued the initiatives’ proponents, claiming the initiatives violated the California Constitution, the current legal authority of the supervisors, and the single subject rule for initiatives. In its lawsuit, the county contended it therefore should not be required to complete its ministerial duty of providing a ballot title and summary for the initiative proposals.
At that point, the Red Brennan Group postponed its efforts, consulting with legal authorities before proceeding. Following that legal guidance and a delay of nearly two years, it resumed its efforts, and began circulating a petition last year to force a referendum on a measure to reduce the total compensation of each of the members of the board of supervisors to $5,000 per month. The group gathered 75,132 signatures, which were affixed to copies of the petition. Those documents, consisting of 10,121 pages, were handed over to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office on March 20.
According to Registrar of Voters Bob Page, a “3% random sample,” of the signatures, consisting of 2,255, were examined. Of those, 1,840 were found to be the valid signatures of registered county voters and 415 were what Page deemed “insufficient.” He found among the valid signatures one duplicate. Thus, he projected, were the full 75,132 signatures to be examined, 60,228 would be determined to be valid. The three percent sampling standard can be used to certify an initiative petition drive, Page indicated, if the sampling projection shows that more than 110 percent of the required number of voter signatures have been attained. The 60,228 signatures is equal to 112.1 percent of the 53,725 signatures needed to qualify a countywide initiative. “Therefore,” Page said, “the petition has been signed by the requisite number of qualified electors needed and based thereon is deemed sufficient.”
The language of the Red Brennan Group’s initiative states: “The total compensation of each member of the board of supervisors shall be five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) per month, which amount shall include the actual cost to the county of all benefits of whatever kind or nature including but not limited to salary, allowances, credit cards, health insurance, life insurance, leave, retirement, memberships, portable communications devices, and vehicle allowances. This compensation shall be in full compensation for all services by the respective member of the board of supervisors.”
Furthermore, the initiative, if passed, would limit board members from serving more than six years on the board altogether, allowing them one elected term of four years, while permitting them to also serve an additional half term of up to two years if the officeholder is appointed or elected to the unexpired term of another officeholder who left office.
In the meantime, at the behest of the board of supervisors, the county’s top-ranking  personnel, including County Chief Executive Officer Gary McBride, County Chief Operating Officer Leonard Hernandez and County Counsel Michelle Blakemore and their staffs cast about to find some administrative flaw or legal fault in the process that the Red Brennan Group pursued in qualifying the measure for the November election to justify disqualifying the measure from appearing on the ballot. Similarly, county staff sought to summon up sufficient facts to support a determination that the measure might adversely impact the county’s operations or have a fiscal impact on the county which could be used as a pretext to prevent the voters from considering it.
The board of supervisors declined to certify it for the ballot at its meeting on May 19, initiating that process at the board’s June 9 meeting after county staff could not find legally adequate grounds to keep it off the ballot.
Their body language indicated the supervisors were not enthusiastic about placing a measure before the voters that would potentially reduce by roughly three-quarters the remuneration they are to receive in their elected capacities in the future. Still, most of the board members were content to allow senior county staff members bad-mouth the proposal by mentioning the drawbacks passage of the measure might have. Supervisor Dawn Rowe on May 19 groused that, given the $60,000 cap on both salary and benefits/expenses, if the measure passes, she would be reduced to nearly “minimum wage,” when her costs for commuting from her home in Yucca Valley to San Bernardino on a weekly basis were factored in.
Supervisor Josie Gonzales, who is to leave office at the end of the year after four terms in office, on June 9 made the most pointed criticism of the measure, personalizing her statement to suggest that those wanting to reduce the amount of money the supervisors were paid lacked decency.
“I would welcome anyone who would like to come and join me and shadow me on a day to demonstrate the depth, the intensity, the great responsibility that this job brings,” Gonzales said. “It’s not just a fancy title. It is an extremely difficult job that challenges the very character, the integrity, the will to serve to the max. I am appalled, and I will say this because I will not be around when all this is happening, at the cheapness, at the crass way, the lack of respect that this office is being treated by the group that is behind this issue. This is wrong. If you do not like your electeds, if you don’t like your governmental representatives, I’ve said it once and I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it again, then vote them out of office.”
In reference to that element of the Red Brennan Group’s proposed measure which called for reducing the supervisors to part-time status, Board Chairman Curt Hagman said, “This is not a part-time position if you are going to be engaged in and serve the people that you have the honor to represent.”
Though they acceded to putting the Red Brennan Group’s proposed measure before the voters, the board members were not willing to surrender to the measure’s proponents the momentum relating to the struggle over determining how much supervisors are to be paid. When the item relating to the Red Brennan Group’s initiative came back to the board this week, on Tuesday, July 14, for the second requisite ratification of it being placed on the November ballot, the board had a “reform” proposal of its own to put before the voters. That item was represented on the agenda as “a study session regarding the proposed revised county charter.” One of the options the agenda gave the board was “to replace the current county charter with the proposed revised county charter and place the revised county charter on the ballot for the November 3, 2020 election.”
The board, indeed, did just that, maintaining that putting the proposed new charter in front of the voters in November was the natural outgrowth of a long process. In doing so, Board Chairman Hagman made a handful of material misrepresentations, including stating that the county had held multiple “workshops” on revising the charter. In actuality, the county had not held any such workshops in which the public participated in framing the discussion. More accurately, the board of supervisors held a single “study session” with regard to the proposed charter alteration on October 29, 2019. No members of the public participated in that discussion.
On Tuesday, Hagman said, “Back in July of ‘19, almost a year ago, this board established an ad hoc committee, assigning myself and Supervisor Rutherford to explore revising the county charter. Basically, I said it back then, this is a living document that needs to be updated on a regular basis, especially with all the state codes and stuff. What we try to do is work with the different groups to try to make a flexible living document, ‘cause there’s so many mandates from both the federal and state government. What the county does for the most part is we’re the operators of what the federal government and/or the state government tells us to do and the funding streams that comes with this. I know there’s been a lot of misconception about the growth of county government. That is directly due to the jobs that were given to us by both the state and the federal government, with the funding sources to say, ‘Do this.’ Most of – the majority of – our budget is considered to be that special funding stream. Soon after the July 2019 meeting, county counsel, human resources, the registrar of voters started research of various options. I know, Janice [Rutherford], that you have taken the lead on this for many years, even prior to when I got on the board, so it’s more like a five or six year quest than a year quest on this. Afterward, county counsel, human resources, ROV [the registrar of voters] reviewed the input from our workshops we had [on] this, and the public continued to work on the advised county charter. We have been meeting, county staff and the select committee, at least monthly if not multiple times a month, especially these attorneys up here have been working diligently on it. So, thank you for your efforts on it. We circulated the draft back to the board on June 30th. July 10th we circulated another draft with the input that we got, and we’re back up to this meeting. I know this has been a passion for open government.”
Rutherford likewise sought to assure the public that the sudden placement of the new charter proposal on the ballot for November had organically grown out of prior discussions, obliquely implying the charter reform measure had nothing to do with the Red Brennan Group’s initiative.
“Since last year the board has had a renewed interest,” Rutherford said, in the form of the charter, which she said is “a century old and did not reflect how we county governments operate in modern California.” She said the current charter contains “outdated language about how we do [a] budget and the courts, to the sexism inherent in a lot of the language.”
Of the newly drafted charter, Rutherford said, “The changes you are looking at today reflect several things. They bring up those modernizations, take out the language that isn’t needed anymore in California because no counties do those things anymore, corrects the sexism, allows for how modern counties function, but also increases transparency, opportunities for public involvement and oversight and the flexibility for the board to change things by ordinance that the voters might wish just to acquire that [we] have a law about without locking it into the charter that a hundred years from now the board at that time doesn’t say, ‘Why did these people do this?’ So, it really is a completely revised and modern document, with the goals. I think those of you who follow my colleagues and I understand that we are committed to transparency and good governance, and that’s what we are trying to embody in this document. So, I’ve been talking to folks about it and taking feedback for the better part of my time as a supervisor.”
In their statements with regard to the new charter, neither Rutherford nor Hagman mentioned the provision that would lock in the supervisors’ salaries at 80 percent of that of a Superior Court Judge, which in practical terms would preserve the roughly $260,000 per year in salary and benefits they are now receiving.
Rutherford sought to diffuse any criticism that the board was rushing forward with the charter change without having first obtained the input of county residents.
“We had certainly intended as the subcommittee and as this board to have greater opportunity for public involvement, and that is something that COVID [the coronavirus pandemic and its accompanying restrictions on public forums] has stolen from us. Nonetheless, we’ve had the information available on-line, and I know the chairman and I have both taken lots of emails, had phone calls, and folks who have had questions and that we have worked with. I look forward to the discussion today and hearing what the public brings to share with us today.”
During his presentation detailing the changes to the charter, Supervising Deputy County Counsel Kenneth C. Hardy explained that currently the members of the board of supervisors each receive total compensation equal to the average of the total compensation paid to the supervisors in Orange, San Diego and Riverside counties. The supervisors in Orange and Riverside Counties receive compensation equal to 80 percent of a Superior Court Judge, while supervisors in San Diego County receive compensation equal to 90 percent of a Superior Court judge.
The new charter would give the San Bernardino County Supervisors a salary that stands at 80 percent of that provided to a Superior Court judge and benefits equal to what San Bernardino County pays its department heads, Hardy said. Hardy also said the new charter would limit the supervisors from serving more than three full four-year terms with the proviso that they could additionally serve up to half of a four-year term in a case in which the board member was appointed or elected to replace a predecessor who resigned from the board.
Unspoken through most of Hardy’s presentation but hanging over it was the suggestion that the board had rushed him and other members of county staff to present the newly drafted charter this week so the county could meet the deadline to have the county registrar of voters, who serves as the county’s elections officer, place the charter change measure on the ballot as an alternative to the Red Brennan Group’s proposal. Despite himself, Hardy made a Freudian slip at a point between 2 hours 30 minutes and 37 seconds and 2 hours 30 minutes and 40 seconds into the meeting video which demonstrated the degree to which the charter revision measure had been driven by the Red Brennan Group’s proposal. After having referenced how a supervisor might have his or her salary reduced if he or she were to take a larger benefit package or were to include his or her family members into the provision of benefits offered by the county, Hardy, through his use of language inadvertently revealed that the charter revision is being undertaken to prevent the supervisors’ salaries from being reduced.
“I think this is one of those unintended consequences situations here. The…” Hardy said, at which point he caught himself as he recognized that his use of the term “unintended consequences” was a reference to the proposal to reduce the supervisors’ total compensation to $60,000 per year as opposed to the total compensation of more than a quarter of a million dollars per year contained in the charter version he was previewing. There followed a four second awkward silence as he sought to refocus the sense of his presentation away from any reference to the Red Brennan Group’s reform initiative.
Speaking to the board of supervisors on Tuesday were Natalie Zuk and Tom Murphy of the Red Brennan Group.
Zuk said, “The charter rewrite proposed by the board is bad history repeating itself. Voters should not fall for it. In 2010, the board on its own authority and in violation of the county charter off-loaded executive responsibility for running the county. These duties were delegated to a non-elected chief executive officer. The board also reduced its meeting schedule to nearly half the available opportunities.”
Zuk continued, “In 2012, via initiative, Mr. Red Brennan asked a simple question – if supervisors are no longer responsible for day-to-day management of the county, why are they still compensated at a full-time rate? The result was Measure R, a small government proposal signed by 73,000 registered voters by which elected supervisors would be designated as part-time with commensurate pay. 327,000 citizens cast a vote in favor of this measure – 64 percent of the voters in the county. So why was it never implemented?”
Zuk answered her question, “Because also in 2012, this board placed a competing measure on the ballot. Measure Q was decidedly not a small government effort. Marketed as a ‘transparency’ measure, the proposal claimed to reduce the board’s annual salary but had no impact on benefit and retirement packages, and did nothing to restrict staffing levels. This board’s action muddied the waters for voters. Measure Q also passed and was controlling after the election. The small government proposal was never implemented.”
Zuk said the board was seeking to do this year what had been done in 2012.
“As I mentioned, today’s proposal is bad history repeating itself,” Zuk said. “A small government initiative is again already approved for the November ballot. Over 70,000 county voters signed a petition setting elected supervisor pay roughly equal to what normal county households earn. This small government initiative also sets term limits at one four-year term of service. A one-term supervisor compensated the same as most households in the county will have different incentives to govern. This approach will allow elected representatives freedom to exercise courage to restrain government’s ever-expanding appetite for the citizens’ tax dollars.”
Zuk told the board, “Rather than courageously acknowledging that proponents have a legitimate political position, and allowing a clear and straightforward vote on the small government proposal, this board once again stirs its self-interest into the mix and muddies the waters for voters.”
At that point Zuk was cut off. The Red Brennan Group subsequently told the Sentinel that the final two sentences to Zuk’s presentation ran along the lines of, “By placing a ‘charter rewrite’ on the ballot, this board again proposes to retain a compensation package that will exceed normal county households by nearly four times, and allow supervisors to serve for 12 long years. If the board today does not reject this proposed revision measure, the voters will in November.”
Murphy, the president of the Red Brennan Group, then addressed the board.
“Quickly passing through the draft charter indicates there is really much ado about nothing for the citizens of San Bernardino County,” Murphy said. “Term limits are still 12 years. Elected official compensation remains largely out of balance when compared to most people living in the county. The CEO position is codified in the charter, so taxpayers are now obligated by the charter to pay for a pretty high-paying job that the current charter requires the chair of the board to do. Interested voters when they read quickly through this thing will probably say, ‘It’s kind of the same old stuff. It removes some of the offensive language, so yeah, let’s just sign off on it.’ We think that’s a bad idea because we believe this document contains a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. The operative phrase is a simple sentence in Section 102. To quote ‘The powers mentioned in the preceding section can be exercised only by the board of supervisors.’ Here’s what that looks like in practice: Under your rights as a California citizen, let’s say you want to submit an initiative requiring the county to control its budget. ‘Sorry,’ the county says, ‘the budget is under the exclusive power of the board of supervisors.’ And rather than granting you your ballot title and summary so you can then try to go out and convince 70,000 voters to sign your petition, you get sued. You go to court.”
Murphy said, “Ask Dave Gates and Gage Bruce, county residents who were sued because they submitted a petition that the county deemed unconstitutional, because it was under the exclusive power of the board. Ask Eli Whitely. Eli believed county employees ought to fill out a time-card and the information should be readily available on-line. His right to submit this initiative is still in court a year-and-a-half later. I believe it is at the appeals court level now.”
Murphy said, “We appreciate the effort to redo the charter, but at some level we believe the draft charter is about power and more power for the expanding county government and less for its citizens.”
The Sentinel’s request that the clerk of the board provide the email communications relating to the charter change proposal that Rutherford referenced as having been submitted to the board were not forthcoming from the county by press time.
Queried by the Sentinel with regard to his misrepresentation that the county had held workshops relating to the proposed charter change, Hagman declined to respond. The Sentinel further offered all five members of the board an opportunity to speak to the perception that the charter revision was a ploy to forestall the Red Brennan Group’s effort to reduce their pay. All five spurned that offer.
Supervisor Rutherford did provide a return email to the Sentinel in which she stated, “I’ve been thinking about reforming our outdated county charter since shortly after I was elected in 2010.” Rutherford in the return email bypassed all inquiries about the element in the charter revision relating to setting the supervisors’ pay level.
None of the supervisors responded to questions asking their reaction to a suggestion at compromise which consisted of incorporating into the new charter a provision setting their compensation at 40 percent of that provided to a Superior Court judge.
-Mark Gutglueck

While it is not yet official, it appears that Chris Robles, who has dominated the Democratic Party in San Bernardino County as the chairman of the county central committee since he wangled election to the position of local party chairman in 2012, is about to be deposed.
The results of an informal poll of San Bernardino County Central Committee members taken over the last several days indicates that sufficient support for Kristin Washington throughout the central committee has manifested to virtually ensure that she will outdistance Robles for chairmanship of the local party when the committee holds a zoom meeting tomorrow, July 18, at which its election of officers, which takes place every four years in July, is held.
Robles was elected by the central committee to serve as chairman in 2012, largely on the strength of his professional experience as a campaign consultant. The belief was that he would bring his expertise to bear in the service of all Democratic candidates across the spectrum in San Bernardino County, from those running for Congress, to those seeking legislative posts in Sacramento to county and city candidates, even though local races are not considered to be partisan ones.
In 2009, the number of registered Democrats in San Bernardino County eclipsed the number of registered Republicans, and the gulf between the parties has widened in favor of the Democrats ever since, until at present they hold a commanding lead over the GOP in terms of registration. At present, 428,643 of the county’s 1,042,158 registered voters, or 41.1 percent are Democrats, and 308,721 or 29.6 percent are Republicans. Nevertheless, San Bernardino County remains one of the last bastions of Republicanism in the State of California, as the Party of Lincoln claims the lion’s share of San Bernardino County’s seats in the California Legislature as well as four of five positions on the county board of supervisors. In 17 of the county’s 24 municipalities, the Republicans represent a majority of the those holding positions on the city or town councils.
Robles was reelected to the central committee chairman’s spot in 2016, but within a year, a number of the central committee members had grown disenchanted with him, and an effort to remove him as chairman ensued. That effort failed, as Robles made skillful use of parliamentary procedure and the alliances he had made among the committee’s executive board to stave off that coup attempt.
At this point, however, Washington, who is the chairwoman of the Redlands Area Democratic Club, has gained the trust of a solid majority of the central committee’s members. She has campaigned for the central committee chair post by asserting that she intends to endorse and elect Democrats through coordinated grassroots efforts, increase party transparency by improving communications internally and with voters, build coalitions throughout the county to amplify the party’s efforts and enhance party visibility throughout the county.
Two important strides made by Washington in her ongoing effort to take control of the county party have been the defection from the Robles camp by Jim Gallagher, whom Robles had installed years ago as a member of the committee’s executive board, and the defeat of Mark Westwood in March in his race to remain as a member of the the central committee. Westwood, whom Robles had also installed onto the executive board, was very active and determined in his previous efforts to keep Robles in charge of the county party.
Washington is running for chair as a part of a slate, which also features Stacey Ramos as a candidate for first vice chair, Gallagher as second vice chair, Leslie Irving as third vice chair, Nancy Glenn for secretary, Martina Ortega as treasurer, and Nicholas Christensen as corresponding secretary.
Adding to Washington’s advantage is that she is endorsed by Assemblyman James Ramos and former San Bernardino County Democratic Central Committee Chairwoman Nancy Ruth White.
The meeting at which the selection of the chair is to occur is scheduled for tomorrow at 1 p.m.

The COVID-19 pandemic this week continued its intensification throughout San Bernardino County, as the total number of confirmed cases since the tracking of the virus began in March hit 23,238, with 315 deaths attributed to the disease. Known cases increased by 4,963 since July 10, the highest single week jump in the disease yet, surpassing the previous county record of 4,599 set last week, between July 3 and July 10. There is concern that those already dire numbers are even worse, as a shortage of testing supplies that commenced last week resulted in the cancellation of tests that were to take place on July 8, July 9 and July 10. As there is a several day lag between the time of testing and the reporting of results, it is possible that the increase in the infection numbers reported this week would have been far higher if the tests that were cancelled late last week had been carried out.
A further indication of how serious the situation has become is reflected in San Bernardino County’s inclusion in an order issued today by Governor Gavin Newsom curtailing plans by virtually all of San Bernardino County’s school districts to conduct classroom instruction on a rotating basis involving all or most students with the onset of the 2020-21 school year.
Newsom ordered schools in San Bernardino County and 29 other counties in the state to switch to remote learning, meaning instruction will take place on-line, with the schools closed and students remaining at home.

As of today, there is limited information available as to who will be vying in San Bernardino County’s municipal elections this year.
The City of Loma Linda already held its city council election on March 3, corresponding with the California Presidential Primary Election. San Bernardino held an election that day in four of its wards, as well, where as a result there will be runoffs in two of wards in the election to be held on November 3. In the Fifth Ward, incumbent Henry Nickel is being challenged by Ben Reynoso. In the Seventh Ward, incumbent Jim Mulvihill is vying against Damon Alexander.
The filing period for open positions on councils for the county’s 20 remaining cities and its two incorporated towns opened on July 13 and will run through August 7. Phone calls were placed this morning to get an as up-to-date list as possible of those who had taken out candidacy papers thus far.
As the city halls in Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Adelanto, Twentynine Palms, Fontana, Colton, Montclair, Rialto, Victorville and Highland are closed on Fridays, no information on those cities’ races was obtained.
In the cities of Hesperia, Grand Terrace, Yucaipa, Chino Hills and Barstow, the Sentinel failed to make useful contact with the custodians of those cities’ electoral rosters. Big Bear has a policy of not releasing the names of those taking out candidacy papers until those papers are returned.
In Needles, no one has taken out papers as of this morning.
In the Town of Yucca Valley’s District 2, incumbent Jeff Drozd has taken out papers as has Melvin Costa. In District 4, incumbent Robert Lombardo has pulled papers along with Jeff Brady and Myra Kennedy.
In Redlands’ District 2, incumbent Eddie Tejeda has taken out papers as did Jonathan Grau. In District 4, Joshua Hall has taken out papers.
In the Town of Apple Valley, District 1 incumbent Larry Cusack and District 2 incumbent Art Bishop have taken out papers to run again.
In Chino, incumbent Mayor Eunice M. Ulloa and challenger Christopher E. Hutchinson have taken out mayoral nomination papers, incumbent Paul A. Rodriguez and Christopher A. Flores have pulled papers for District 1 and in District 4 former Police Chief Karen C. Comstock and Anthony M. Honore have retrieved nomination papers.
In Ontario, incumbent Debra Porada and challengers Elvia Rivas and Celina Lopez have obtained nomination papers for the city council. Incumbent Jim Milhiser and challenger Michael Fillpot have in their possession nomination papers for treasurer, and incumbent City Clerk Sheila Mautz has pulled papers, as well.

The variable checkerspot, also known as the chalcedon checkerspot, is a butterfly in the mymphalidae family with the scientific name euphydryas chalcedona.
The variable checkerspot is usually brown-black with extensive yellow, red and white spots on the dorsal wing. The butterfly’s underside usually contains yellow and orange bands. However, as its name suggests, this insect is highly variable in appearance. Dorsal color can range from a brick-red background with brown and yellow markings in Sierra populations to yellow and black in northern Californian populations. Adult wingspan is 1.3 inches-to-2.2 inches.
The variable checkerspot is found in western North America, where its range stretches from Alaska in the north to Baja California in the south and extends east through the Rocky Mountains into Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming.
Adult butterflies feed on nectar from flowers while larvae feed on a variety of plants including snowberry, symphoricarpos; purple owl’s clover, castilleja exserta; paintbrush, castilleja; chaparral honeysuckle, lonicera subspicata; buddleja; diplacus aurantiacus and scrophularia californica.
The butterfly’s habitat encompasses a large variety of environments, including sagebrush flats, desert hills, prairies, open forests and alpine tundra
During the breeding period, males congregate around larval host plants to encounter females. Males both perch near food plants and fly around them in order to look for females. Male butterflies do not stay in one encounter site for long and do not typically defend the territory of their encounter site. Males depend on visual rather than chemical cues to locate females.
Males court virgin female butterflies via physical displays. Females can play hard to get by flying away. Once a female moves to the ground or to vegetation, the male will persist in following her, succeeding only when the female remains motionless long enough for the male to effectuate coupling. The physical union between a male and female variable checkerspot typically lasts an hour but may continue for as long as six hours. The male provides unto the female during this encounter a nutrient-rich spermatophore as well as a mating plug that hinders the ability of females to mate with other males. This spermatophore left within the female’s bursa copulatrix, on average represents 7 percent of the male’s body weight.
Pregnant females look for host plants like diplacus aurantiacus that are close to nectar sources when they lay their eggs in clusters. The larvae that emerge from the eggs feed and live on these host plants, some of which have developed strategies to deter larvae from eating their leaves.
Pre-diapause larvae often move to fresher parts of the plant in which they are laid to secure a better food source. Before they enter diapause, the larvae leave the food plant to seek better dormancy sites such as under the bark of dead branches, in the hollow stems of dried weeds and in rock crevices. During diapause, some larvae are able to wake up and feed before re-entering dormancy
After diapause, the larvae emerge between January and March with pupation usually beginning in April. However, in high elevations, larvae can hibernate for several years. After pupation, the adult flight season begins between mid-April and May and continues into June. The adult variable checkerspot has a life span of around 15 days.
The variable checkerspot’s main predators are birds. In their evolution, the variable checkerspot has adopted a larval diet rich in iridoid compounds. Iridoids are chemicals produced by plants that bond to the plants glucose or sugar. Iridoids are bitter. Thus, scientists studying the variable checkerspot have observed birds quite often exhibiting head-shaking and beak-wiping behavior after killing a variable checkerspot, characteristic of tasting unpalatable prey.
In contrast to the herbivorous diet of the larva, the adult variable checkerspot’s main food source is the nectar it obtains from flowers.

From Wikipedia