There has been some limited reference to a health challenge being the reason why Victorville Councilwoman Rita Ramirez has been physically absent from council meetings much of this year, and speculation about that topic has intensified as she has participated in those forums remotely over the last several months. The Sentinel learned only recently how serious of a medical crisis the mayor pro tem had.
Earlier this year, Dr. Ramirez underwent three stages of surgical amputations. Her left foot and lower portion of her leg are now gone.
Dr. Ramirez said, “In December, as I was walking to my car, I fell. I didn’t see a bruise. It was not bleeding. Sometime after the first of January, it was obvious I needed medical care. The bruising was internal. By the Thursday of the next week, the middle toe on my left foot was gangrenous. I was admitted to the hospital. First, I lost the middle toe, then my foot and then the lower leg. I was in the hospital from January until April.”
The onset of Dr. Ramirez’s ordeal came just as the 2020 Primary election season was warming up. She had entered into the race for First District supervisor, a position from which the incumbent, Robert Lovingood, had announced his intention to retire. “I had filed to run and then I fell in December,” she said. Vying with Ramirez to replace Lovingood was Paul Cook, who is currently the incumbent 8th California Congressional District congressman; Adelanto Councilwoman Stevevonna Evans; and Marcelino Garza. “I didn’t want to make use of what had happened to me when I was running for supervisor,” she said. Without raising money or campaigning, she was yet able to finish second in a field of four.
While the election was pending, things were touch and go for Dr. Ramirez. “I didn’t want my leg amputated,” she said. “They wanted to cut my leg. I said, ‘You are not going to touch my leg.’ The doctors conferred with me, and I said I will make the final decision. The mayor [Gloria Garcia] told me I was gutsy.”
Ultimately, Dr. Ramirez said, “It was a choice of life vs death. I took life. I have been blessed because I am alive. I was very resistant to the idea. I had three operations, first the toe, then my foot and now the lower leg. I had six blood transfusions. Six different times they took fluid out of my lungs.”
She was laudatory of the care provided to her by Kaiser Permanente.
“I’m just very blessed,” she said. “Kaiser helped me immensely. It has been remarkable in that I never had any fever or pain in my foot. I have been pinched, prodded and punctured constantly everywhere else. I feel like a pincushion. I’m fine, except I have lost my foot. Thank God, I live in America! I had a wonderful core of medical professionals at Kaiser. The only difficulty I had with them was when some of them referred to my leg as a stump. I had to tell them to quit referring to a part of my body like I was a tree. I am grateful to my friends and family members. I did not want to lose my leg. I did not want it cut off, but I had to be reasonable.”
“The trauma, or major trauma,” Ramirez said, “is over. I came through the surgeries. I did lose 20 pounds. I’ve lost much of my appetite. I’m getting it back but I still want to eat only certain foods. It has to do with the medication. I’m feeling well, in spite of everything. I lost my leg but I am still a whole person. I am still a human being, and that is how I will remain, no matter what part of my body is lost. Now I can see how veterans feel when people do not want to understand them as human beings. All of this makes you no less human than before.”
Dr. Ramirez said, “I was able to finally come home in April. I did go to rehabilitation in order to be able to walk. I had to learn to walk. I was under care at a small hospital in Reche Canyon. Fifteen people there tested positive for coronavirus, and then one of them died. My son heard about it and he called and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to get you out of there.’ He brought me to our family home in 29 Palms where I have been recovering ever since. I have told very few people about this.”
A degree of normalcy is returning to her existence, and she recognizes she has a way to go.
“I will be returning to Victorville as soon as I can, which means as soon as the wound is healed,” she said. “I need to learn to walk on one foot. The wound is still open and bleeding. I still cannot go outside beyond the sidewalk because it is not good for me to get sand in the wound. I hope to be able to stand on two legs. I understand I will be living a part of my life in a wheelchair and will need some form of help for the rest of my life. I can accept that.”
Dr. Ramirez said, “At our family home, I am able to find my way from room to room, from my bedroom to the living room to the kitchen. There are some hurdles. At doorways, someone has to pick up the wheelchair to get over the partition. I still can’t get out into the garage. When I go outside, I have to stay on the cement, the sidewalk, to avoid hurting myself. It is a learning experience. It is a different life, but it is still a life.”
While she was yet dealing with the gangrene issue, she had to dodge the same health threat everyone else was up against, she said. “I was in a very vulnerable state,” she stated. “I have been tested for COVID-19 three times. I have been negative. I am still quarantined pretty much. I have contact with my sons and family. That’s about it. I have to have people cook for me. It is hard on me because I am so independent.”
“No one is an island,” Dr. Ramirez said. “It makes a difference when you have support. I am very grateful to [Mayor] Gloria [Garcia] and the city manager [Keith Metzler], [Councilwoman] Blanca [Gomez] and Mr. [Councilman James] Cox, and [Councilwoman] Debra [Jones] for caring about me and providing support, so I can continue to participate as a member of the council. I am committed to remaining in office for as long as the voters will have me.”
Ramirez said, “I was asked if I was going to quit. I said, ‘Heck, no!’ Number one, I have two years left still in my term, so I’m hoping my health will continue to get stronger and better. As far as I’m concerned, Victorville’s voters and residents are living a life with a bright future in the High Desert,” she said, but she believes their lives can be better and she wants to bring attention to the diverse interests they have and make sure that their needs are met. “They need certain things, and I will always be their advocate for a better life,” she said.
Ramirez said, “I want to be every bit as energetic and even more so in my second two years on the Victorville City Council and potentially beyond as I was in my first two years. People look at me like I’m crazy, but I consider it to be my serious mission to bring businesses to the High Desert. To do that, we need education. I want to bring a new state university. To attract businesses, we need to have more professional people. I believe the Southern California Logistics Airport should become an international passenger airport. We have two runways that can handle 747 and 757 aircraft,” she said. “In Victorville, 52 percent of our population is Latino, and they can communicate in the Spanish language. We should be bringing tourists in from Mexico and South America. We have the airport. We can provide hospitality.”
Ramirez continued, “While I’ve been on the council, there have been people who have complained about off-road vehicles and motorcyclists driving behind their houses and yards. I think we need to create places where people can enjoy themselves without bothering others. Victorville is a desert area and people should be able to go to a park where they can barbecue and ride their bikes. We need to provide safe places for that. I believe in enhancing the quality of life. I think we should make the golf course greener, with landscaping and gardens. Those are the things that make life rich and worth living. Plus, I want to make sure that Victorville gets a boys and girls club. Leadership skills can be learned.”
Ramirez carried on. “We need to rejuvenate downtown,” she said. “What is happening there is resulting in the loss of economic opportunity and income, both to the residents and the city. I am all for celebrating our downtown. In other communities in the county – Yucaipa, Glen Helen, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Chino – there are places where people can go and play soccer and baseball, volleyball, tennis, football, places where there are artists and music, and playgrounds for children, places where a family can go out and walk. We have older parts of the city that could be renovated into a large scale park. We should make it so it’s easy for our residents to enjoy life. As mayor pro tem, I want to lead an effort to bring that to Victorville.”
Where there is a will, there exists means, said Dr. Ramirez. “There is no reason why these things can’t be, unless you accept that it can’t be done,” she said. “God put me on this earth to help people. That is what I want to do as part of the city council, to the best of my ability.”
This latest challenge is a physical one, she said, which is probably far less restrictive than the boundaries which she and others placed on herself years ago. When she was young, she had accepted the limitations put on her, Dr. Ramirez said. “I told my high school counselor I wanted to be a civil engineer,” Ramirez said. “She told me that wasn’t going to happen. She said I could be secretary, a nurse or a teacher.” This was daunting, Ramirez said. “I was 17 years old and I hated kids, and I fainted at the sight of blood.” She set aside the dream of becoming an engineer, and she ended up teaching junior high. Eventually she moved on to being a college professor.
Her horizon has widened, and now she is a retired college professor of 38 years involved in politics, she pointed out. She missed out on getting elected First District supervisor on March 3, perhaps because, she said, her medical condition prevented her from getting out and campaigning. “I know I was a far better candidate and more suited for the job than Paul Cook,” she said of the victor in that race. “I was going to start my campaign in January, but I ended up in the hospital.”
The primary path to enrichment and self actuation, Dr. Ramirez said, is “scholarship. Young people and all of us have the right to be educated. If you don’t have education, it is hard to find your proper and best place in the workforce, and people control you. If you don’t have a trained mind, that is the same thing as being a slave. I will fight for everyone to be able to go to school for as long as they are interested in learning. That is a basic right.”
When it was remarked that losing her foot and lower leg was a tough break, Dr. Ramirez said, “No, I have been lucky. I could have died. Sometimes your fate is destiny. I will do my best with what I have. I am very satisfied with what I have. You can’t win them all. Whatever I do, I do it to the best of my ability. I will be returning to Victorville and will be working with Mayor Garcia and the rest of the council in doing the job, not focusing on my personal needs. That should have nothing to do with your role as a public official. If someone feels otherwise, then that is a politician who puts himself before what he is responsible for and that is when you get into trouble. As a politician, you are a public servant. That is, you have been elected to serve the people, not yourself. Thank you to everyone who prayed for my recovery, and thank you to those who voted for me. God bless you all.”
-Mark Gutglueck

Following a nearly 24-hour interlude of misdirection, the San Bernardino City Council this week put itself on course to reducing the amount of money Mayor John Valdivia is provided with by the county seat’s taxpayers to engage in travel and other activities that take him afield from City Hall but which he maintains relate to his function as the city’s figurehead.
In doing so, through what started out as a 4-to-3 and ultimately became a 5-to-2 voting majority, the council had to overcome Valdivia’s veto attempt.
With the city facing what has been projected to be a $10.3 million budget deficit in the upcoming 2020-21 Fiscal Year, the city’s elected leadership last month tasked City Manager Teri Ledoux and the city’s department heads with slashing spending within municipal operations wherever and however they could to get city expenditures in line with the flow of income into city coffers, which in the last several months has been diminished considerably by the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It was reported that economies of roughly $7.3 million had been identified. On Tuesday of this week, the council carried out a virtual budget workshop meeting intended to determine if or how much of the remaining $3 million in projected overspending could be curtailed before the city approves the upcoming fiscal year budget, which will run from July 1 this year to June 30, 2021. That meeting did not involve the mayor, council members, involved city staff or the public convening in one place, but rather carrying out the session to formulate the city blueprint for spending over the next 12 months through teleconferencing, with the proceedings captured on video and broadcast so the city’s residents could monitor it.
In some measure encouraged by Councilman Ted Sanchez, who asserted that the city’s political leadership needed to set the tone for fiscal discipline amongst city staff by first imposing on itself the austerity that would be asked of others, succeeded in getting his colleagues to agree to collectively forego receiving $28,000 over the next 12 months to cover their travel expenses and/or reimbursements for attending meetings, seminars and conferences while serving in the capacity of the city’s representatives. Prior to the meeting, the city had set aside a total of $42,000 for all seven of the council members – $6,000 each – to cover costs associated with their sojourns related to serving in their municipal legislative capacities. Unanimously, they agreed to reduce that by two-thirds to $2,000 each. Thereafter, Sanchez set his sights on reducing the mayor’s expense account for his travel and extracurricular governmental activities from the $16,200 that had been set aside for Valdivia to $4,000.
It was at that point that what had been a relatively civil meeting descended into utter chaos.
Earlier, the proceedings had begun with a sober assessment of the city’s deteriorating financial picture by the city’s staff members, during which the discussion generally moved into specifics of how and where the city was going to make adjustments to the spending plan that had been formulated prior to the financial devastation of the COVID-19 crisis. The exchanges were for the most part somber but amicable ones, with the most animated elements relating to Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra’s probing with regard to hard and documentable numbers in what was being proposed, the actual depth of cuts to certain departments, those departments’ current performance and effectiveness overall and whether savings were to actually be derived by the economies outlined.
When Councilman Ted Sanchez was given the floor, he said, “I’d like to go over the line item budget for the council as well as the mayor’s office,” and he emphasized that the cost reductions that were being imposed throughout the city were to entail hardship on the city’s employees. Thus, he said, the council itself had to be willing to sustain the same cutbacks. “I hope the public will take note that we are asking people to cut salaries they have earned,” Sanchez said. “They don’t have to say thank you for this paycheck because they have fulfilled their responsibility to the city. We are a municipal corporation, and we exist solely to provide core services, that is: trash, streets, parks, libraries, the administration of our finances and public safety to our police department and our fire. That these individuals are now being asked to make cuts before we make any cuts to our office is a sign of poor leadership if we do not do this. So, I ask: Please, my colleagues, join with me to make the cuts we can make without making any interruptions to the quality of service we need to provide for our residents.”
Sanchez advocated that the council authorize utilizing the lion’s share of savings to be realized from cutting the city council’s travel allowance to sustaining the pay of the two remaining staff members working directly for the city council after that division, formerly consisting of four workers, had been halved, even while the work load for those serving the city was increasing.
“I see this as $25,000 that doesn’t need to be spent right here, right now,” Sanchez said with regard to the council’s travel money. “This $25,000 should be spent to offset the salaries for these two staffers because no employee that works full time for this city should live in poverty without expending every other option we have. There are right now employees who risk living in poverty while they work full-time for this city.”
Councilwoman Bessine Richard acknowledged that the two council staff employees Sanchez had alluded to “work twice as hard if not three times as hard as they did because we went down from a five-member staff to a two-member staff,” but she said the council could not micromanage how city employees were to be compensated, which was something to be left up to management and the city’s human resources department.
City Manager Teri Ledoux pointed out that the boost in salary to the two staffers could not be done because the two employees’ salaries and cuts thereto had been arrived at through the collective bargaining process and therefore could not be altered without further negotiation.
Sanchez then conceded the point and asked the savings to be had from curtailing the city council’s travel stipends be transferred into the general fund.
“We have allotted to every council member $6,000 for meetings and conferences,” he said. “I cannot in good conscience take this money knowing that individuals who provide vital services to our city are taking cuts to their paychecks. I would ask that we reduce the amount to $2,000 per council member, the remaining balance to go back into the general fund.”
Councilman Henry Nickel seconded that motion
After the council showed unanimous support for doing so, Sanchez said, “We are showing real leadership by taking cuts to our budgets first before we do anything else.”
Within a very few minutes, however, as Sanchez sought to instigate a next chapter in leadership among his colleagues, the very concept of leadership in San Bernardino would undergo a severe test.
“On the mayor’s office, the council has made cuts to their travel expenses,” Sanchez said. “The mayor’s current budget for travel is $16,200. I think it would be fair to cut that down to $4,000.”
“What do you base that on, Councilman?” Mayor John Valdivia challenged him.
“$4,000,” Sanchez said. “Divide that between 12 months. I think that should be sufficient.”
“When you become the mayor, you can argue that, but you haven’t had a conversation with me on this,” Valdivia retorted.
“Do you think it’s fair to the city?” Sanchez asked.
“Hold on, councilman,” said Valdivia. “This is a surprise to me. This is, frankly… We’ve never had a conversation…”
Chiming in to support Sanchez, Councilman Fred Shorett interjected, “No one had a conversation with me about changing our $6,000 to $2,000. No one has to have a conversation with you.”
“Well, it’s polite and courtesy,” Valdivia said. “I guess not, Fred, if what you want to continue to do is be uncivil.”
“We can afford you, Mayor, the opportunity to discuss this right now,” said Sanchez. “What do you think would be a fair allotment for your travel?”
“We can have a cup of coffer over that and you can discuss it with me,” Valdivia said.
“No, I think we should discuss it publicly,” said Sanchez.
“Well, I’m not prepared to make that assessment, right now,” Valdivia said.
“I would say $4,000 – Would that be fine, council members?” Sanchez pressed ahead.
“I’ll support you on that,” said Shorett.
“Okay, there’s no opposition to that?” Sanchez asked.
“No, frankly, the privileges of the mayor are afforded in the charter,” said Valdivia. “You guys can go ahead and try to do this, but I have charter authority… the charter affords…”
“Let’s call the question,” said Councilman Nickel, meaning the council should take a vote on the matter.
‘Hold on,” said Valdivia.
“Parliamentary maneuver. Let’s move on,” Nickel could be heard to say as he, Valdivia and Shorett began talking over one another at once, with some of their words growing unrecognizable and their sentences disjointed in the resulting cacophony.
“No, I’m not going to move on,” Valdivia could be heard asserting.
“Point of order,” Nickel said. “Call the question.”
“You are out of order, Mr. Nickel,” the mayor could be heard saying at one hour 53 minutes and 24 seconds into the meeting video.
‘No, you’re out of order,” said Nickel. “Let’s move on.”
“I’m not going to move on,” said Valdivia.
At that point Valdivia, Nickel and Shorett talked over each other some more, with only a portion of their words standing out in a mélange of sound in which their precise syntax could not be ascertained.
“You’re out of order,” Nickel could be heard saying amid the cacophony
“No, I’m not,” Valdivia said. “This is my budget item …”
“All in favor of appealing the decision of the chair say aye,” Nickel said.
There was a chorus of ayes that ensued.
“Mr. Teddy Sanchez, I will now defer to your chairmanship on this vote,” Nickel pronounced.
“No, you’re not,” said Valdivia as Sanchez, who is the mayor pro tem, sought to assume chair authority.
“If there is no dissension on this, Ms. city manager, I think you have direction,” said Sanchez.
“We’re going to take a break,” said Valdivia. “Ms. city manager, let’s take a five minute break…”
“I don’t want to break,” Shorett said.
“I don’t need a break,” said Nickel.
“I don’t need a break,” Sanchez echoed.
“Let’s get this done,” said Councilman Jim Mulvihill.
“Time to get business done,” Nickel said.
“Then you need to allow your elected mayor to respond to this,” Valdivia said, sounding as if he was conceding that he had lost control of the meeting.
There ensued further cacophony during which Valdivia came across as trying to reassert his control, but much of what he was saying was drowned out in the mix of Nickel’s, Shorett’s and Sanchez’s statements.
When Nickel asserted that the meeting was now Sanchez’s to conduct and called the question, the mayor could be heard to say, “Mr. Nickel, you’re out of order, sir. Mr. Nickel you’re out of order. The city charter provides privileges, reimbursements on all of that stuff…”
The cacophony mushroomed once more.
When there was a brief subsidence of the verbal roar, Valdivia said, “This is nonsense, guys. We ought to be focused on… not particular measurements of square footage of the mayor’s office. The city council needs to get to work on overall economic renaissance of this community. You guys are playing games and not doing your jobs as city council members.”
“We are doing our job,” Nickel shot back. “That’s what we’re doing right now.”
At that point, Valdivia redirected the discussion to an exchange with Ledoux about whether her presentation with regard to the upcoming year’s budget was complete. She said that staff had concluded its presentation for the evening. After some further less animated and more civil discussion, Ledoux requested that the council encapsulate its collective recommendations for further adjustments to the upcoming budget to be brought back for ultimate passage by the council. Nickel moved and Shorett seconded that Valdivia’s travel budget be reduced from $16,400 to $4,000, that the travel budget for the council be reduced by $28,000 to $14,000, that $25,000 in savings from the council’s travel allowances be put into the city’s general fund and that there no longer be an annual transfer of $20,000 from the city’s cultural development fund to pay for festivities relating to the mayor’s annual state of the city address. The council approved that motion on a 4-to-3 vote, with Valdivia’s sole remaining council allies, Juan Figueroa and Bessine Richard, voting against it along with Ibarra. Ibarra’s unwillingness to support Nickel’s motion was a consequence of her discomfiture over her colleagues’ unwillingness to institute even more drastic across-the-board economies than they have so far. Previously that evening, she had called for the council to “go department by department” to “discuss how we’re going to balance our budget for this next year, what’s needed and what’s not, our needs versus our wants. I’m not happy with the proposed budget because we’re not going detail by detail.”
Based on the 4-to-3 vote, Valdivia was able to temporarily resist having the amount of money vouchsafed to him to finance his junkets reduced over the upcoming 12 months. His authority as mayor allows him to veto any simple majority council vote, those being ones settled on either a 3-to-2 or 4-to-3 margin.
An issue overhanging the entire discussion were accusations made earlier this year by Mirna Cisneros, a citizen relations employee formerly working within Valdivia’s office, that Valdivia had made improper use of his travel allotments and taxpayer-defrayed expense accounts to take trips and pay for accommodations and other services that were unrelated to Valdivia’s function as mayor.
In documents filed with the court supported by affidavits, Cisneros said that Valdivia had requested her to process a reimbursement request for travel, hotel accommodations and meals, and that in making the request Valdivia had instructed her to be deliberately vague about the meeting for which the reimbursements were being sought, and that Cisneros should not name names in the paperwork filed in the reimbursement request. According to Cisneros, Valdivia told her that “he had raised a lot of money on that specific trip for his campaign.”
Over the last five months, Valdivia has been involved in a burgeoning scandal in which Cisneros and four other members of the mayor’s office, including Valdivia’s closest and most powerful aide, Chief of Staff Matt Brown, have alleged Valdivia has continually overstepped his authority, misused public funds and engaged in graft and bribetaking. Those staff members have been supported in those accusations by Alissa Payne, whom Valdivia arranged to have appointed to both the Arts and Historical Preservation Commission and the San Bernardino Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission, and who was once considered one of his political allies. Payne now maintains that Valdivia was exploiting his position and authority as mayor for his own advancement.
On June 3, the night following the Tuesday evening budget workshop, a regular meeting of the city council was held, one which was again conducted in a virtual environment without there being an actual physical presence in one place of those involved nor where the public was allowed to attend. The public was, however, given the opportunity to participate telephonically in advance. During the meeting, Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra informed the council, “I want to reconsider my vote from last night to make the cuts to our offices, city council and the mayor.” Though that action to reverse the outcome of the direction to city staff was not taken, it is to be incorporated into a future action of the council before the 2020-21 budget is passed, meaning the council’s travel allowance will be reduced to $2,000 for each member and $4,000 for the mayor.
After the Wednesday night meeting, Ibarra told the Sentinel, “I’m not reconciling with the mayor, as many people may have thought. The reason I voted against those two proposed cuts was because there was much more our city council could have made cuts to in the other departments as well, not just the council and the mayor: city clerk, city attorney, city manager. The city manager did not have enough cuts on her end. For further example, the police department has a lot of top paid positions that they are funding. So, there’s a lot of expenses we could have additionally cut from the budget yesterday. That didn’t happen. My colleagues stayed quiet. They are always talking about the deficit, but they didn’t want to go line by line because they didn’t want to be in a long meeting. They made it perfectly clear they didn’t want to be there long hours, and city staff pretty much said to me that ‘No, we’re going to keep these positions in the way our departments asked for because they know what they are doing.’ They are disregarding the budget deficits. There were a lot of line items we could have cut some more. We could have cut more unnecessary and wasteful spending, but there was only one of me, and my colleagues and city staff did not want to. That is why I was not satisfied.”
Nevertheless, Ibarra said, “I changed my vote today, so we’re going to make those cuts to the mayor’s office and the city council as suggested by the mayor pro tem.”
-Mark Gutglueck

Protests in reaction to the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, ones of varying degrees of intensity and civility, have been carried out over the last week at locations throughout San Bernardino County.
Protests in Rancho Cucamonga were staged at the high-traffic-volume intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Day Creek Boulevard, which event was a carryover of a similar protest on May 29. At the May 29 protest, 13 arrests were made after protesters threw bottles and rocks at sheriff’s department deputies who were dispatched to the scene to keep order. At the May 30 rally, there were some reports of vandalism, but no arrests.
The following day, Sunday, May 31, in Rancho Cucamonga, what started as a verbal confrontation between members of the crowd and an Uber driver devolved into protesters throwing an object at the Uber vehicle, which broke one of the car’s windows. The driver responded by pepper-spraying members of the crowd. A more intensive confrontation was avoided when he made a hurried exit from the intersection, but almost ran down some pedestrians in a crosswalk as he was leaving.
After the driver called the sheriff’s department, which provides law enforcement services to Rancho Cucamonga, deputies with the Sheriff’s Department Mobile Field Force team declared the protest had devolved into an unlawful assembly. That provoked a number of verbal taunts being hurled at the arriving deputies, but no arrests were made.
A crowd of protesters estimated at between 200 and 300 assembled at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Peyton Drive in Chino Hills on Sunday afternoon, May 31. Theirs was a peaceable demonstration which featured banners and signs bearing slogans such as “Stop the Killing” and “No Justice, No Peace,” and “Black Lives Matter.”
Perhaps as many as 500 people participated in a largely peaceful set of gatherings in Redlands that began in the late morning and lasted into the afternoon on Sunday. One contingent marched downtown, where those involved took a symbolic knee at Ed Hales Park. That gesture was repeated outside the Redlands Police Department on Orange and Vine streets. There were some minor incidents of vandalism that were reported.
Around the same time on Sunday, a much more intensive display of anger and resentment toward authorities took place in San Bernardino. By late afternoon, that mass protest had become the most violent and destructive one to occur in the county, going well beyond what had occurred in Fontana last week, on May 28.
Protesters made their first show of overwhelming presence near, around and on the off-ramp from the 215 Freeway at Second Street. Some reached the freeway level, but did not interfere with the 60-mile-per-hour traffic.
The protest then manifested a bit later en masse in the downtown area, near State of California, County of San Bernardino and San Bernardino city buildings, including both courthouses, the county administrative headquarters, the district attorney’s office and City Hall. There was at that point a fair degree of vandalism, including graffiti mark-ups. Windows were broken at the Bank of America at 303 N. D Street, which is proximate to San Bernardino City Hall, and across D Street from the Guatemalan consulate and across Third Street from the Mexican consulate.
As marchers progressed through downtown, they headed, eventually, up D Street where they surrounded the police department. By that point, the department had activated the entirety of its roughly 250 sworn personnel, three-fourths of whom were at that point working overtime. Another 150 peace officers from nearby law enforcement agencies, including those with the California Highway Patrol and the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, were in San Bernardino by 4 p.m. There was a tense stand-off at the police department headquarters at 710 North D Street as a number of officers were stationed inside in the lobby, visible from outside of the building through the glass entranceway into the building at the back of the building’s portico. A command decision was made to not have officers exit the building, out of concern that would provoke a large scale physical confrontation that might lead to violence and perhaps fatalities. As the crowd outside police headquarters grew increasingly agitated, some provocateurs suggested that an effort to break out the building’s glass wall and doors on the ground floor be made so the building could be stormed. A religious group, however, had pushed its way to the front of the crowd within the portico and took up a collective prayer. Subsequently, the crowd left the police department headquarters and made its way eastward, where it congregated in the parking lot of the Waterman Discount Mall. As nightfall approached, looting began there. In time, looting would spread to other areas of the city.
With nightfall, numerous fires were lit. Responding police were pelted with rocks, bottles and other objects. There were reports that gunfire was trained on some officers. No injuries from gunfire were reported, however. Windows were broken out in various commercial and professional buildings on Waterman, Baseline Avenue and Highland Avenue in the city’s most heavily concentrated commercial districts. Some of the looting and vandalism spilled over into neighboring Highland that night.
A sheriff’s department helicopter in the evening circled overhead, informing those on the streets that the protest had been declared an unlawful assembly and those who remained in the area would be subject to arrest.
Police Chief Eric McBride on Wednesday reported to the city council that a total of 32 arrests had been made Sunday evening and Monday morning. “I would have to say about two-thirds of the arrests we made were for people with addresses outside the city,” McBride said.
McBride added that much of the protest appeared to be driven by organizers who were using social media to vector those participating to different points of congregation.
At the Waterman Discount Mall the officers were in the presence of a clearly unruly mob engaging in criminal activity, McBride said. The officers, however, did not wade into the crowd to effectuate arrests. McBride estimated that the officers on the scene there were “outnumbered ten-to-one.”
Many officers, McBride said “sustained bruises” that evening.
The number of officers from outside law enforcement agencies that came into San Bernardino to augment the city’s 250 officers rose from 150 in the late afternoon to nearly to 250 that evening. At one point, McBride said “We had close to 500 officers in the city.”
McBride reported to the city council that “Probably until about two in the morning we were encountering looting throughout the city.”
Two major sporting goods stores and both of the city’s Walmarts were looted. A show of police force at the Inland Center Mall, the Target on Orange Show Drive and businesses on Hospitality Lane deterred looting there.
In Rancho Cucamonga on June 1, a fourth straight day of protests were staged. Late in the day, just prior to sunset, eight cars carrying protesters arrived near the Victorian Gardens Mall. Rancho Cucamonga-based sheriff’s deputies approached them as they were exiting their vehicles. Upon ascertaining that they were out-of-towners who had come to the city to protest, the deputies instructed them to leave. When some of those who had arrived refused to depart, the deputies arrested seven of them on various charges.
In the aftermath of what happened on Sunday night and early Monday morning in San Bernardino, protests in two of the county’s other cities provoked reactionary citizen or resident reaction which carried with it fatal potential.
In Yucaipa, a group of earnest protesters marching on Yuciapa Boulevard on Monday was met by an equally determined group of local counterprotestors. What was described as a gang fight ensued, with one man severely injured in the melee. Far greater mayhem was avoided after the sheriff’s department arrived. An arrest was made. A sheriff’s department investigator clad in civilian clothes who made his way into the crowd and interacted with individuals on both sides of the dispute learned that large numbers of city residents present in the area were armed as a preparation to prevent any looting that might break out. As a consequence, what was calculated to be sufficient numbers of sheriff’s department patrol units were dispatched to the area to head off any further confrontations.
Also on Monday, some 37 miles west of Yucaipa in Upland, demonstrators assembled near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Euclid Avenue. What was estimated to be upwards of 300 demonstrators made their way to the Euclid Avenue median north of Foothill Boulevard near architect August Leimbach’s iconic “Madonna of the Trail” statue that faces southward at the intersection. As the afternoon progressed and commuters coming home from work intensified the traffic moving northward on Euclid Avenue, more and more protesters, in an effort to encourage those passing motorists to acknowledge and take stock of the expression of disapproval of police violence and brutality, began blocking the northbound lanes of Euclid. By this point, residents of homes lining the east side of Euclid, having grown increasingly wary of anticipated damage to their property, assembled themselves in their front yards and summoned others to stand with them to repel the crowd should it prove unruly or intent on vandalizing those private properties. At one point, when the crowd surged eastward, one of those gathered with the residents retrieved a gun from his vehicle and brandished it, momentarily raising its barrel to a point parallel with the ground, while he profanely exhorted the crowd to back off. He was later arrested.
Many jurisdictions in San Bernardino County, as in Southern California generally, sought to impose curfews to prevent large gatherings in the evening hours when it was believed looting was most likely to occur.
Again in Yuciapa on Tuesday, self-designated protectors of the city engaged in mostly verbal confrontations with protesters. Those incidents did not reach the level of violence that had occurred there the previous day.
In Highland on Wednesday, a group of mostly peaceful protesters undertook to demonstrate, holding a benediction officiated over by the Reverend Ben Skaug of the Immanuel Baptist Church when the activists first gathered near Greenspot Road and the 210 Freeway. That demonstration proceeded much more peaceably than what had occurred Sunday evening at the periphery of Highland abutting San Bernardino.
At around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest was staged at Colton’s historic Carnegie Library, which is now used as the Colton Area Museum. In addition to registering their objections to the death of George Floyd and police brutality against African-Americans in general, the protesters also made note that the curators of the museum currently and in the past have refused to display any artifacts or materials relating to African-American personages or historical figures in the museum, and that the museum’s operators have spurned requests to host African-American themed events there, as well.
The Sentinel received a report that during the Colton protest, quick reaction by Colton police officers prevented a demonstrator from falling victim to a machete attack by a counterprotestor.
Earlier that day, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and a cross section of activists, writers, protesters and citizens, naming the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the City of San Bernardino, alleging the curfews in place in those places were an abridgment of Constitutional rights. Simultaneously, the executive director of Inland Congregations United for Change threatened legal action against San Bernardino if it did not dispense with its curfew. The San Bernardino City Council at its meeting Wednesday night moved the effective time of the city’s curfew from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., although the city’s website did not reflect the change, instead continuing to state the curfew was in effect at 6 p.m.
On Thursday, June 4 in Fontana, a somewhat more peaceful demonstration than what had taken place in that city on May 28 was held at Don Day Park. A relatively orderly crowd of 400, some bearing placards, gathered to hear speakers inveigh against what was called systemic racism within police agencies that resulted in the brutalizing of minority citizens by cops.
At roughly the same time, in Redlands, a crowd of protesters, ones hitting on the same themes articulated in Fontana, surrounded the entrance to the Redlands Police Department headquarters.
Today, Friday, June 5, the Sentinel received reports that protests are ongoing at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino, Heritage Intermediate School in Fontana, and in the 16400 block of Bear Valley Road at the Hesperia/Victorville city limits/boundary.

By Carlos Avalos, Randy Scott and Mark Gutglueck
The Fontana police officer arrested earlier this week on a charge that he had raped a 16-year-old girl was not subjected to the strict hiring procedure that involved an exhaustive background check that is a standard personnel policy among most California law enforcement agencies when he was welcomed into the department in April 2018, the Sentinel has learned. Rather, department sources report, Nicholas Stark was able to bypass much of the scrutiny routinely applied to new hires by virtue of his familial connection to the department, specifically based upon his father’s status as a captain with the department at the time he was brought into the department in 2017 as an officer trainee.
Yesterday, June 4, Nicholas Stark was arrested on a charge of rape of a minor by intoxication, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The alleged victim was a 16-year old girl, and the alleged crime took place in Rancho Cucamonga. Stark was taken into custody and booked into West Valley Detention Center. His bail was set at $250,000.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the Fontana Police Department had cooperated with and facilitated its investigation of Stark and the circumstances surrounding the case.
In an article published today, the Fontana Herald-News reported that Fontana Police Chief Billy Green had made particularly scathing remarks about Stark and his character. According to the Herald-News, Green said that neither he nor his department will “attempt to justify or mitigate his predatory deviant behavior.” Green told the Herald-News, the lone adjudicated newspaper based in Fontana, that both the city’s residents and department employees had “righteous concern” over what had occurred. “He has tarnished the badge of the Fontana Police Department and our community deserves answers,” Green was quoted by the Herald-News as having stated.
Green made an effort to distance his department and its reputation from Stark, which included, for Green, atypically harsh characterizations and remarks regarding a police officer and department members. “This is not what the Fontana Police Department is about,” the Herald-News article said Green had insisted in an email. Green also made clear to the Herald-News that the rape for which Stark was arrested “occurred prior to [Stark] becoming a Fontana officer.” Green in the email to the Herald-News said that he understood that what had occurred “rightfully calls into question the character of the entire department,” and that he, the department and its 300 personnel were committed “to do what needs to be done to begin repairing the damage.”
Green simultaneously informed the public through the Herald-News that he was absolutely done with Stark. “Based on California law, I cannot immediately fire Nicholas Stark. He is on paid leave and that is disgusting. However, I will endeavor to terminate him in the most expeditious manner possible,” Green was quoted by the Herald-News as saying.
Nowhere in the Herald-News article was any information relating to the manner by which Stark had managed to land his officer’s assignment with the department.
Stark is the son of Michael Stark, who had risen to the rank of captain with the department. As such, Michael Stark was a senior officer and indeed a mentor to the current generation of command officers at the Fontana Police Department, including Green and the immediate past police chief, Robert Ramsey.
Despite his father’s status as a senior member of the Fontana Police Department, Nicholas Stark’s ambition toward becoming a police officer does not appear to have begun early, as there is no indication he participated in the police explorer program through which teenagers intent on a career in law enforcement often make entrée into the profession. Rather, he did not become an actual police officer until he was 26 years old in 2018, having first been hired as an officer trainee with the department the year before, just prior to his father’s retirement.
At the time of his retirement, Michael Stark was receiving a $171,485.62 yearly salary and was provided with overtime pay and various allowances and add-ons of $44,278.84 per year, together with $113,799.76 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $329,564.22. In retirement, he is now pulling an annual pension of $182,452.68.
Prior to Nicholas Stark signing on with the police department, he had obtained a job with the City of Fontana at the age of 19 in 2011 as a water safety instructor. His total pay and benefits for 2011 was $6,935.97. In 2012 Nicholas Stark had promoted to the position of assistant pool manager and his total pay and benefits for that year nearly doubled, zooming to $13,545.26. In 2013 he held the same job title but his total pay and benefits declined to $10,331.17, with his total pay and benefits similarly dropping in 2014 to $9,441.33, while he remained in the capacity of assistant pool manager. In 2015 he made the jump to pool manager, and his total compensation rose that year to $16,166.91. In 2016, while yet in the capacity of pool manager, his overall compensation reached $30,596.78.
In 2017, after he had graduated from the sheriff’s academy, Nicholas Stark was hired by the Fontana Police Department as an officer trainee, a position for which he received total pay and benefits of $38,313.78. In April 2018 Nicholas Stark was hired as a police officer, and he received in both his officer trainee and police officer capacities total pay and benefits of $72,136.70. In 2019 he kept the officer title and his total pay and benefits were $78,249.70.
The Sentinel since yesterday spoke with multiple sources within the department with regard to Nicholas Stark. One stated, “Nicholas Stark was not vetted, analyzed, and scrutinized how normal applicants trying to become law enforcement officers are.” Other officers related to the Sentinel that they were there during young Stark’s efforts in trying to become a police officer. They said Nicholas Stark was given special consideration because of his father’s status in the department. “Right away, we knew he was not being treated how he should have been because his father was a captain,” one said.
Some of the officers acknowledged that there was a “good ol’ boy” element to the department’s culture. “There is an ideology, political belief, as well as the treatment of people which fits that description,” one of the officers said. That ethos carries over into the hiring process, another officer said.
Nepotism has been an issue within the Fontana Police Department for years. In November 2016 the Sentinel reported that an analysis of those employed with the Fontana Police Department at that time demonstrated “one third of officers were related by marriage, blood or sex.” As reported in 2016, according to sources within the police department itself, an overwhelming number of those working for the department were blood-related in some way or another or were or had been involved in a personal, physical, sexual, domestic or quasi-domestic situation with one another. Lifelong friendships, marriages, intimate relationships, and blood relations have historically been among the ways that people in the Fontana Police Department are closely connected and promoted.
In any police force or business atmosphere relationships are forged and kept, and a few intimate relationships and/or marriages within an organization may be inevitable. People become friends, partners, and engage in relationships and marriage. Relationships are expected to be grown and gained. Such is the nature of human interaction and cooperation. At what point human nature and human tendencies within the context of an organizational structure devolve into nepotism and incestual compromise is open to debate. With the Fontana Police Department, where roughly 100 of that organization’s employees had or have a familial, domestic, intimate or close personal relationship in which their financial interests may have been or were merged, there had been concern expressed that professional and accountability standards had been put at risk.
Despite this information having surfaced in the 2016 Sentinel article [ https://sbcsentinel.com/2016/11/fpd-nepotism-one-third-of-officers-related-by-marriage-blood-or-sex/ ], the following year Nicholas Stark was brought into the department as an officer trainee while his father was at the senior level of the department’s command echelon.
In his email to the Herald-News, Green said, “Despite our best attempts to weed out people that should not be hired, we missed the mark and hired someone we should not have.”
Of note is that the rape now at the center of attention allegedly occurred in Rancho Cucamonga prior to Nicholas Stark’s hiring as a police officer, and reportedly involved plying the victim with alcohol prior to sexual intercourse taking place. What was not clear was whether Stark was employed as pool manager at the time or as an officer trainee, as well as whether the victim was 16 at the time of the rape or is currently 16 years of age. There was speculation that Stark had met the young woman while he was serving in his capacity as pool manager in Fontana at its aquatic center, which draws swimmers from a number of nearby communities, including Rancho Cucamonga.
The Sentinel spoke with individuals who knew Nicholas Stark when he was employed at the aquatic center, including his supervisor when he was hired as a water safety instructor/lifeguard. Stark appeared to be a model employee when he was serving in that capacity in his late teens and early 20s, the Sentinel was told, and there was nothing untoward about his comportment noted. His performance never caused any concern, which was reflected in his promotion to positions of greater responsibility and authority while he was working at the center, his one-time supervisor said. The supervisor said that those who worked with Stark while he was a lifeguard, water safety instructor, assistant pool manager and pool manager were “floored” by the initial report of his arrest. Stark was reportedly on the verge of getting married, the Sentinel was informed.
The Sentinel has learned that the case against Stark evolved out of a social media posting by his alleged victim, who gave indication of having been sexually assaulted, and further posted that the perpetrator was a police officer. An inquiry into the matter, including determining the identity of the victim and then contacting her directly ensued. Once Stark was identified, Green interceded directly with San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon to handle the investigation.
Two officers with the department, noting that the pre-hiring background investigation process entails applicants filling out a detailed questionnaire that is then signed under the penalty of perjury and subject to very close scrutiny including a polygraph exam and battery of questions during an oral interview, augmented by an examination by a clinical psychologist, suggested that the investigation into Stark’s hiring should utilize the same methods and techniques employed on line officers prior to their employment with the department as a means of seeking to determine from the department’s management why Stark was allowed to bypass those rigors during his hiring process.

For a dozen criminals in California who were sentenced to prison and incarcerated at the California Institution For Men in Chino, their punishment has become a death sentence.
As of yesterday, June 4, twelve inmates who were in custody at the state penal facility in Chino when they contracted COVID-19 have died.
Three of California’s prisons are dealing with large-scale outbreaks of the coronavirus. Those include the Institution for Men in Chino, Avenal State Prison in Kings County and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe. Initially, the Institution for Men had the largest number of cases of infection among all of the state’s prisons, but has since been passed in that dubious regard by Avenal and Chucawalla.
Nevertheless, according to the prison population COVID-19 tracking page on the California Department of Rehabilitation’s website, no other deaths from COVID-19 or its complications besides those at the Chino prison have occurred within California’s prison system.
Last month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred 691 inmates considered vulnerable to the coronavirus because of their age or medical condition from the San Bernardino County facility to other prisons around the state where until that time there had been no known incidences of the coronavirus.
In more than 20 cases, prisoners from the California Institution for Men who had grown seriously ill with the condition had been transferred to hospitals or medical facilities near the prison, though officials did not disclose the exact locations where this had taken place.
The total number of prisoners at the California Institution for Men who had come down with the coronavirus since the progress of the disease has been charted was not available, although one published report put that number at 672. At present, there are 474 active in-custody inmates there with the condition. According to state prison authorities, 207 inmates at the California Institution for Men are deemed to have recovered from the malady.
At the not-too-distant California Institution for Women-Frontera in Chino, 108 inmates there are currently showing signs of the disease.
Previously, testing of inmates at the California Institution for Men was sporadic because of the shortage of testing supplies. With that shortage addressed, all inmates are now being tested.
-Mark Gutglueck

FBN 20200004315
The following person is doing business as:
SUPERIOR HOME HEALTH CARE SERVICES, INC.   555 N BENSON AVE UPLAND, CA. 91786-5075
SUPERIOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS, INC.    555 N BENSON AVE UPLAND, CA. 91786-5075
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ INNA JOYCE AGUDA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 1/27/2020
SAN V0956 County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22, 5/29 & 6/5, 2020

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004251
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Disinfect CA; Disinfect-CA; SOCAL Disinfection, 8458 Bullhead Ct., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739, Monroe Diversified Companies Inc., 8458 Bullhead Ct., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739
Business is Conducted By: A Corporation
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Lester Monroe
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/5/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: Apr 27, 2020
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/15/20, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20

FBN 20190014933
The following person is doing business as: JS HOBBIES 999 N. WATERMAN AVE, SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410, JAMAL I. THOMAS, 999 N. WATERMAN AVE, SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ JAMAL THOMAS
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 12/27/2019
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 12/02/2004
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 1/24, 1/31, 2/7 & 2/14, 2020. Corrected on 4/3/20, 4/10/20, 4/17/20, 4/24/20, Corrected on 5/15/20, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20

FBN 20200004570
The following person is doing business as: PANTHEON COFFEE ROASTERS
4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763 ARCHER CONSORTIA 4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ PAVAN MAKKER
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 03/01/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/15, 05/22, 05/29 & 06/05, 2020.
FBN 20200004569
The following person is doing business as: AVATAR COFFEE ROASTERS
4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763 ARCHER CONSORTIA 4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ PAVAN MAKKER
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 03/01/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/15, 05/22, 05/29 & 06/05, 2020.
APN: 0209-242-04-0-000 T.S. No.: 2019-2416 NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE YOU ARE IN DEFAULT UNDER A DEED OF TRUST DATED 2/21/2012. UNLESS YOU TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY, IT MAY BE SOLD AT A PUBLIC SALE. IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF THE PROCEEDING AGAINST YOU, YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER. Will sell at a public auction sale to the highest bidder, payable at the time of sale in lawful money of the united states, by a cashier’s check drawn on a state of national bank, check drawn by a state or federal credit union, or a check drawn by a state or federal savings and loan association, or savings association, or savings bank specified in Section 5102 of the Financial Code and authorized to do business in this state will be held by the duly appointed trustee as shown below, of all right, title, and interest conveyed to and now held by the trustee in the hereinafter described property under and pursuant to a Deed of Trust described below. The sale will be made, but without covenant or warranty, express or implied, regarding title, possession, or encumbrances, to pay the remaining principal sum of the note(s) secured by the Deed of Trust, with interest and late charges thereon, as provided in the note(s), advances, under the terms of the Deed of Trust, interest thereon, fees, charges, and expenses of the Trustee for the total amount (at the time of the initial publication of the Notice of Sale) reasonably estimated to be set forth below. The amount may be greater on the day of sale. Trustor: Kenneth Doelker, a Single Man Duly Appointed Trustee: S.B.S. TRUST DEED NETWORK, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION Deed of Trust recorded 3/30/2012 as Instrument No. 2012-0122229 in book XX, page, XX of Official Records in the office of the Recorder of San Bernardino County, California. Date of Sale:6/15/2020 at 1:00 PM Place of Sale: NEAR THE FRONT STEPS LEADING UP TO THE CITY OF CHINO CIVIC CENTER, 13220 CENTRAL AVENUE, CHINO, CA 91710 Amount of unpaid balance and other reasonable estimated charges: $17,448.24. Property being sold “as is- Where is” Street Address or other common designation of real property:10469 E 8th Street Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 AKA 10469 8th Street Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 A.P.N.:0209-242-04-0-000. Lot 7, in Block 65, ofNorth Cucamonga Tract, in the City of Rancho Cucamonga, County of San Bernardino, State of California, as per Map recorded in Book 4 of Maps, Page 8, in the Office of the County Recorder of said County. THE BENEFICIARY MAY ELECT, IN ITS DISCRETION, TO EXERCISE ITS RIGHTS AND REMEDIES IN ANY MANNER PERMITTED UNDER THE CALIFORNIA COMMERCIAL CODE, OR ANY OTHER APPLICABLE SECTION, AS TO ALL OR SOME OF THE PERSONAL PROPERTY, FIXTURES AND OTHER GENERAL TANGIBLES AND INTANGIBLES MORE PARTICULAR¥ DESCRIBED IN THE DEED OF TRUST, GUARANTEES, UCC’S, SECURITY AGREEMENTS. The undersigned Trustee disclaims any liability for any incorrectness of the street address or other common designation, if any, shown above. If no street address or other common designation is shown, directions to the location of the property may be obtained by sending a written request to the beneficiary within 10 days of the date of first publication of this Notice of Sale. NOTICE TO POTENTIAL BIDDERS: If you are considering bidding on this property lien, you should understand that there are risks involved in bidding at a trustee auction. You will be bidding on a lien, not on the property itself. Placing the highest bid at a trustee auction does not automatically entitle you to free and clear ownership of the property. You should also be aware that the lien being auctioned off may be a junior lien. If you are the highest bidder at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien being auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priority, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county recorder’s office or a title insurance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this information. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same lender may hold more than one mortgage or deed of trust on the property. NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER: The sale date shown on this notice of sale may be postponed one or more times by the mortgagee, beneficiary, trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that information about trustee sale postponements be made available to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale. If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you may call FOR SALES INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL (855)986-9342, or visit this Internet Web site www.superiordefault.com using the file number assigned to this case 2019-2416. Information about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immediately be reflected in the telephone information or on the Internet Web site. The best way to verify postponement information is to attend the scheduled sale. Date: 5/5/20. S.B.S. TRUST DEED NETWORK, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION. 31194 La Baya Drive, Suite 106, Westlake Village, California, 91362 (818)991-4600. By: Colleen Irby, Trustee Sale Officer. WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT, AND ANY INFORMATION WE OBTAIN WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. (5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20TS# 2019-2416 SDI-18526)
NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF:
JOHN TUTT BOOKER
NO. PROPS 2000056
To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of JOHN TUTT BOOKER
A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by CORRINE BOOKER in the Superior Court of California, County of SAN BERNARDINO.
THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that CORRINE BOOKER be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.
THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.
A hearing on the petition will be held in Dept. No. S36P at 8:30 a.m. on June 11, 2020 at Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415, San Bernardino District.
IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.
IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under Section 9052 of the California Probate Code.
Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.
YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.
Attorney for the Petitioner: IAN NOEL, Esquire
LAW OFFICE OF IAN NOEL
9800 S. CIENEGA BLVD., SUITE 200 INGLEWOOD, CA 90301
Telephone No: (310) 410 9720
Email address: legalhood@gmail.com
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22, 5/29 & 6/05, 2020
FBN 20200004249
The following person is doing business as: MARWELL 1094 N. WABASH AVENUE REDLANDS, CA 92374 MARWELL CORPORATION 1094 N. WABASH AVENUE REDLANDS, CA 92374 A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION C3281898
Mailing Address: P.O. BOX 139 MENTONE, CA 92359
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ KATHY POWELL
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/05/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/08/2010
County Clerk, Deputy V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004501
The following person is doing business as: BEYOND BELLA SKIN CARE 10601 CHURCH ST. RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730 GINA L SMITH 542 E BONNIE BRAE CT. ONTARIO, CA 91764
Mailing Address: 542 E BONNIE BRAE CT. ONTARIO, CA 91764-1803
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ GINA SMITH
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/13/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/27/2020
County Clerk, Deputy D5511
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004534
The following person is doing business as: SACRED 485 DIAMOND CT APT D UPLAND, CA 91786 ALEXIS V LOVE 485 DIAMOND CT APT D UPLAND, CA 91786
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ ALEXIS V LOVE
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004144
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Bishay Group AVPM CA2LP;AVPM CA LP Bishay Group.; Bishay Group; All Valued Pet Meds, AVPM; Advanced Veterinary Pet Med, AVPM, 448 S Arrowhead Avenue, San Bernardino, CA 92408, General Dog & Cat Veterinary Hospital, 456 S. Arrowhead Ave, San Bernardino, CA 92408
Business is Conducted By: A Corporation
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ George Bishay
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 4/29/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004446
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Essential Garbs, 2490 Kendall Drive, 105F, San Bernardino, CA 92407, Stephanie N. Griffin, 2490 Kendall Drive 105F, San Bernardino, CA 92407
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Stephanie Griffin
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/11/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 5/6/20
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004071
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Chris Armen; Chris Armen Real Estate and Finance, 8439 White Oak Ave Ste 102, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730, Armen C. Bagdasarian, 13126 Baxter Springs Dr, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Armen Bagdasarian
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 4/24/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 3/10/14
County Clerk, s/ A9730
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20
FBN 20200003990
The following person is doing business as: ONTARIO SMOG CHECK 10565 LIMONITE AVENUE SUITE 5 MIRA LOMA, CA 91752 EMISSION WORLD LLC 1310 S RIVERSIDE AVE SUITE 3F-#133 RIALTO, CA 92376
Mailing Address: 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B8 RIALTO CA 92376
CA CORPORATION 2020006510234
This Business is Conducted By: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ BENJAMIN A LIZAMA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200003991
The following person is doing business as: RIALTO SMOG CHECK 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B7 RIALTO CA 92376 EMISSION WORLD LLC 1310 S RIVERSIDE AVE SUITE 3F-#133 RIALTO, CA 92376
Mailing Address: 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B8 RIALTO CA 92376
CA CORPORATION 2020006510234
This Business is Conducted By: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ BENJAMIN A LIZAMA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200003985
The following person is doing business as: THE NORTH SHORE INN 2402 LAKE DRIVE CRESTLINE, CA 92325 SANT&T INVESTMENT INC 129 4TH ST EUREKA, CA 95501
Mailing Address: 19 FALLING LEAF CIR POMONA, CA 91766
CA CORPORATION C4250631
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ SAYED FARID UDDIN
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004086
The following person is doing business as: LGI PLUMBING & DRAIN CLEANING 540 N. CENTRAL AVE #5102 UPLAND, CA 91786 FELTON R LEAGONS 540 N. CENTRAL AVE #5102 UPLAND, CA 91786
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ FELTON R LEAGONS
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/27/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.

FBN 20200004294
The following person is doing business as: STRATTON BAIL BONDS
6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346 MICHAEL GUTIERREZ 6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346 [and] NANCY LOZANO 6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346
Mailing Address: 31 W CIVIC CENTER DRIVE SANTA ANA, CA 92701
This Business is Conducted By: A GENERAL PARTNERSHIP
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ MICHAEL GUTIERREZ
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/28/2020
County Clerk, Deputy C9754
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/29, 06/05, 6/12 & 6/19, 2020.

FBN 20200004319
The following person is doing business as: THE CUT SHOT 9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701 TWILA KNIGHT POULIOT 9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701 [and] MATTHEW R POULIOT    9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701
This Business is Conducted By: A MARRIED COUPLE
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ TWILA KNIGHT POULIOT
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy A8608
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/29/20, 6/05/20, 6/12/20 & 6/19/20.
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004235
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: New Line Network, 16277 Montgomery Ave, Fontana, CA 92336, Keytonn Alonso, 16277 Montgomery Ave, Fontana, CA 92336
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Keytonn Alonso
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/1/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ A8608
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20, 6/19/20
FBN 20200004868
The following person is doing business as: MOSAIC SUITES 948 N. MOUNTAIN AVE. #938 SUITE 129 ONTARIO, CA 01762 JUDITH P. ZAMORA 2302 S. CALDWELL AVE. ONTARIO, CA 91761
Mailing Address: 2302 S. CALDWELL AVE. ONTARIO, CA 91761
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ MICHAEL GUTIERREZ
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/27/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 05/26/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 6/05, 6/12, 6/19 & 6/26, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004987
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Willy’s Speed Shop, 6905 Palm Ave, Highland, CA 92346, Mailing Address: PO BOX 930, Highland. CA 92346, Kenneth M. Brana, Socal Engineering, CA 6909 Center St, Highland, CA 92346
Business is Conducted By: A Limited Liability Company
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Kenneth Brana
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 6/1/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ D5511
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 6/5/20, 6/12/20, 6/19/20, 6/26/20

One can download a PDF of the May 29 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel by clicking on the blue portal below.

Sentinel 05-29-20

By Ruth Cordova and Mark Gutglueck
The precipitate change in alliance on the Victorville City Council that took place in December continues to resonate in the High Desert’s most populous city, as the looming November election moves ever closer. Yet to play out is whether the two once-warring politicians who made an accommodation with each other six months ago will benefit from that shift enough to achieve reelection when they must again be evaluated by the voters in the fall. Whether one or both of them will pay the ultimate political price for having closed a deal with each other after they had been savaging one another for nearly three years won’t be known until the election results are in.
In the meantime, a fair number of those who had formerly grown to become solid Mayor Gloria Garcia supporters primarily because she represented the political bulwark against Councilwoman Blanca Gomez are disillusioned, convinced that Garcia sold her soul and credibility as a public persona in a crass deal to retain her title as mayor.
In 2016 Blanca Gomez burst onto the San Bernardino County and Victorville political stage with a come-from-behind victory over Lionel Dew in the Victorville City Council race. At the time, what seemed the most notable thing about Gomez capturing the third highest number of votes in the ten-person contest in which three positions on the council were up for selection was that both she and Dew had outpolled incumbent councilman Ryan McEachron. Two other incumbents, Garcia and Jim Cox, had captured the top two positions outright.
Not long after Gomez settled into her position on the council, she found herself crosswise of her colleagues. The most obvious distinction between her and Victorville’s other solons was that while they identified themselves as relatively staid supporters of socially and economically conservative policies who concerned themselves with the nuts and bolts of municipal governance, Gomez used her perch on the council as a bully pulpit to espouse her heartfelt beliefs, virtually all of which fell on the left side of the political spectrum, ones that went beyond city issues to matters that were better described as within the purview of state and national politics.
Less than a month after she was sworn in as a Victorville councilwoman, Gomez on December 30, 2016 showed up at Rialto City Hall for a rally put on by Rialto City Councilman Rafael Trujillo in support of Senate Bill 54 and the sanctuary city concept. While in attendance there, Gomez wore a shirt clearly identifying herself as a Victorville official. She enunciated on numerous occasions and in numerous venues her belief that U.S. immigration laws were a racist tool of a racist establishment, that enforcing such laws were racist acts, going so far on one occasion to wear while at Victorville City Hall a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Fuck ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” and on another occasion in the midst of a city council meeting draping herself in what appeared to be a Mexican flag, which she later said was in actuality a symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She brought further attention to herself by her involvement in multiple contretemps in neighboring Hesperia, including what some suggested or insisted was her insensitive effort to video the body of the late Hesperia Mayor Russ Blewett during the viewing at a church prior to his funeral in May 2018 and another incident in August 2018 when she allegedly entered an area off limit to the public at Hesperia City Hall while she was accompanying Hesperia City Council District 2 candidates Gonzalo Gurrola and Robert Lucero while they were filing paperwork relating to their candidacies.
Within the context of the Victorville City Council, Gomez was out of step with all of her colleagues, but most particularly with Eric Negrete, who had been elected to the council two years before her. Negrete stood out from the majority of Latinos in California in general and most particularly among those vying for or holding office in the Golden State in that he was not a Democrat embracing what are commonly described as liberal or progressive ideals. Rather, Negrete identified as a conservative Republican.
Indeed many saw in Negrete the embodiment of the Republican Party’s Great Brown Hope. The Democrats have California locked up, with a Democratic governor, Democratic lieutenant governor, Democratic attorney general, Democratic secretary of state, Democratic insurance commissioner, Democratic controller, and Democratic supermajorities in the State Senate and Assembly. Nevertheless, a reversal of the Democrats’ fortunes could be no further down the road than the emergence of a single charismatic Latino politician affiliated with the GOP, many political strategists believe. Were such a politician to get a berth within California’s statehouse, either as a member of the Assembly or Senate or both, and then move into the Governor’s Mansion at 1526 H Street in Sacramento or into Congress and then the U.S. Senate and go on to make a mark on the national stage as an iconic member of the Party of Lincoln, he or she might trailblaze a path for California’s Latinos by the millions to make their exodus from the Democratic Party and into Republicanism. For some, at least, it was not too far-fetched to think that Negrete might prove to be that politician.
Negrete evinced very limited patience with Gomez’s histrionics. They clashed repeatedly on the council dais and not infrequently off the dais. The council quickly divided into two camps: the Victorville establishment of which Negrete was a member, along with his fellow councilmen Jim Cox and Jim Kennedy and Mayor Gloria Garcia on one side and Gomez on the other. Indeed, some of the glue that held the four-member coalition of the council together had been the unifying principle of maintaining the line against Gomez.
In July 2018, a recall effort against Gomez was initiated.
At its August 21, 2018 meeting, just over 20 months after Gomez had taken office, the council, on an item brought forth by Councilman Kennedy, officially rebuked Gomez for her behavior, a sanction less serious than a censure, but one which registered the council’s displeasure with Gomez nonetheless.
In the run-up to the November 2018 election, in which Kennedy did not seek reelection, Gomez campaigned energetically against Negrete, who was defeated. Replacing Negrete and Kennedy on the council in December 2018 were the two top vote-getters in the election, Debra Jones and Rita Ramirez-Dean.
In December 2018, the deadline for gathering sufficient signatures to force the recall against Gomez elapsed. The recall proponents were so far below gathering the required 9,880 valid signatures of registered voters in the city that they did not bother turning over the signatures that they had gathered to the city clerk. The failure to remove Gomez from office strengthened and emboldened her.
The elevation of Jones and Ramirez-Dean to the city council changed the city’s political complexion somewhat, but did not undo the tension that existed on the council. Jones, a Republican, represented a continuation of the partisan political divide that had grown out of Kennedy’s, Cox’s and Negrete’s GOP affiliation. Ramirez-Dean, however, was a Democrat, a member of the San Bernardino County Democratic Central Committee. To a certain extent, as a result of Ramirez-Dean’s presence on the council, Gomez found herself a bit less isolated at City Hall. Still the same, the poisonous relationship that had developed between Gomez and the mayor, and to a lesser extent Cox, persisted. In certain respects, the animosity between Garcia, whose duties as mayor required that she maintain the order and decorum of the council meetings, and Gomez, deepened. It was rare that a council meeting reached adjournment without there having first been a tart exchange involving the two women. More often, there would be a series of jabs or insults traded between them. Neither did Gomez refrain from occasionally hurling some form of invective at Cox, though he usually restrained himself from responding in kind. When the barbs were too personal, he sometimes returned fire. In relatively short order, Jones too found herself on the outs with Gomez. There were occasional catfights between the two, but those proved sufficiently rare, and most of the sparring between them did not escalate beyond a few sharp pokes back and forth. There was, however, no mistaking that the two had grown to loathe one another.
2019 was drawing toward a close, and with it nearly three years of accumulating bad blood between Gomez and Garcia. Then on December 3, the council meeting at which the council officers for the next year were to be chosen took place. When the meeting began, Gomez and Garcia were as antagonistic against one another as they had ever been. When the meeting ended, a new day had dawned, and the presumed alliance involving Garcia, Cox and Jones was finished, quite possibly forever. In its place was an uneasy and tenuous, yet discernible, political sorority in which Ramirez-Dean, Garcia and Gomez were the prevailing members.
When the Sentinel asked Cox for an explanation of what had occurred, he said, “I don’t know what happened. Gloria and Blanca had a make-up session or something. Suddenly there’s a coalition among the three [Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez] that’s probably due to I don’t know what, but it’s obvious to the people who attend the council meetings.”
With regard to Garcia and Gomez, Cox said, “People are asking, ‘How could they be so critical of one another and now they seem to be together?’”
According to Cox, it was a “custom and tradition” in Victorville that once a member of the council had sufficient experience in office to be able to master parliamentary procedure, he or she would be rotated into the mayor’s position. Generally, he said, a person who had been reelected with the most votes in the immediate aftermath of the election would be selected to serve as mayor for two years running. Another council member, usually the one who had been elected with the most votes two years hence would then become the mayoral replacement.
Cox said there was some slight deviation from that practice, such as when a member of the council had professional commitments that might prevent him or her from participating in the ceremonial duties that fall to the mayor or such as when he was elected to the council for the first time in 2012, after which he was immediately elevated to the mayor’s spot. That exception, he said, was explicable in that he had substantial experience with parliamentary procedure and the ropes of government generally and specifically, having served as Victorville city manager for more than 32 years, including a 30-year stint between 1969 and his first retirement in 1999, and then two further years as city manager from 2009 until 2011.
Garcia represented a rather significant deviation from the city’s mayoral selection pattern, Cox noted.
Elected with Cox in 2012, Garcia was selected to serve as mayor in 2014, as Cox’s two-year tenure as mayor came to an end. In 2016, there was a push to bring Cox back as mayor, but he declined the honor. Consequently, Garcia saw her grip on the mayoral gavel extended.
In 2018, Charlene Robinson replaced Carolee Bates as Victorville City Clerk. That fall was thus Robinson’s first go-round as the city’s chief elections officer. As a result of that November’s election, two newcomers were on the council, Debra Jones and Rita Ramirez-Dean. At that point, Garcia had served four years as mayor, and the expectation was that she would step down from that post to make way for a successor. The logical choice, under the city’s custom, would be that Gomez assume the mayoralty. But the harsh feeling that she had engendered among her colleagues worked against her. The next logical selection would have been Cox, but he was reluctant to take the position. At the December 10, 2018 Council meeting, after Ramirez-Dean and Jones were sworn in and installed as council members, Robinson as city clerk called for nominations for mayor. Nominations were made, one by Ramirez-Dean for Garcia to be reappointed as mayor and then one by Cox to have Jones assume the post, but none were seconded. Instead of redoubling the effort to find a replacement for Garcia as Bates would have done were she still the city’s chief elections officer, City Clerk Robinson at that point permitted Mayor Garcia to resume her position as mayor.
“At this time, the mayor stays,” Robinson said. Immediately thereafter followed the selection of the mayor pro tem, the individual on the council who would be designated to serve as acting mayor in any meetings that Garcia did not attend. In what turned out to be a harbinger of things to come, Mayor Garcia made a motion, seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean, to nominate Ramirez-Dean for the position of mayor pro tempore. At that point, councilmembers Cox and Jones voted no, but Ramirez-Dean prevailed with her own vote and those of Garcia and Gomez in support.
Throughout most of 2019, Gomez and Garcia remained at odds. Indeed, the enmity between the two seemed to intensify, reaching fever pitch on July 16 when in the midst of that evening’s council meeting, Gomez was removed from the proceedings.
As what was Garcia’s fifth consecutive year in the role of mayor progressed, there was discussion about the mayoral succession issue and the city’s protocol and timetable for mayoral selection. A comparison was made to the other municipalities in the High Desert – Hesperia, Apple Valley, Adelanto and Barstow. In both Barstow and Adelanto, the mayor is elected directly by those cities’ residents, with the mayor’s slot being distinguished from each of those cities’ four council members. In Hesperia and Apple Valley, where like Victorville all five of the members of the council are elected by the residents co-equally, the councils observed a policy of selecting from among their members who is to serve as mayor. In an effort toward team building, those councils appoint their mayors on a yearly basis, often but not always having the mayor serve a single year or variously two years. This sharing of the honorary position is intended to bring the members of the council together in an atmosphere of trust and mutual confidence.
On December 3, 2019, with the council scheduled to take up the appointment of the mayor and mayor pro tem for the year going forward from that point, a memo dated December 2, 2019 encapsulated staff’s recommendation for the nomination and appointment process. At least partially to memorialize for Robinson a protocol of persisting with a selection effort even in the face of no quickly-emerging consensus so as to avoid defaulting to a continuation of the existing mayor’s tenure, the memo called for repeating the nomination phase for at least three rounds if a majority vote was not obtained after the first nomination. In the event that a majority vote in favor of one of the council members serving as mayor did not manifest, the memo called for the appointment vote being tabled to a later meeting pursuant to the council voting to do just that.
Upon taking up the issue of making the appointment at the December 3 meeting, Ramirez-Dean nominated Garcia to remain as mayor. That motion died for lack of a second. Cox then nominated Jones to serve as mayor. That, too, failed because it did not get a second. Gomez, somewhat unrealistically since she clearly could not at that point reliably count on the support of Garcia, Cox or Jones, nominated herself. No second followed. Discussion then took place about the proper procedure for proceeding and the distinction between a nomination and an appointment. Ramirez-Dean again nominated Garcia, at which point Garcia seconded the motion. Cox again nominated Jones, which Jones seconded. Gomez then nominated Cox, which Cox seconded. Cox, somewhat redundantly, then nominated himself. No second to that motion followed immediately, but eventually Gomez seconded it. Prior to that second emerging, Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean took issue with the memo, stating that its contents were not consistent with the city’s policy manual and had not been approved by the council. She moved that the appointment process be tabled. Gomez seconded that motion. The council did not suspend, however, further nominations nor actions with regard to an appointment. Gomez nominated herself again, and Cox seconded it. Ramirez-Dean at that point nominated herself and Gomez seconded it.
What was clear from all of the nomination, self-nomination and seconding of the motions that were made was that to some degree or another, all five of the council members coveted the mayor’s gavel.
The council first considered the nomination of Ramirez-Dean, which Ramirez-Dean and Gomez voted in favor of. Garcia and Jones opposed it and Cox did not vote or his vote was not audible. That motion thereby failed, with the city clerk recording that Garcia, Jones and Cox were in opposition. The vote to designate Gomez as mayor ended with Gomez and Cox in favor being outvoted by the remaining three. The vote to appoint Cox was favored by Cox and Gomez, but opposed by Garcia, Jones and Ramirez-Dean. The vote to appoint Jones failed with Jones in favor and Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez in opposition. No vote from Cox was audible. The motion to appoint Garcia failed, with Garcia and Ramirez-Dean in support and Gomez and Jones opposed. Again, Cox’s vote was either not cast or not audible, although the city clerk recorded Cox as having voted against the motion.
After taking a 13-minute recess, the council returned at 9:29 p.m., and Councilwoman Jones made a motion to continue the nomination process to the next meeting. That was seconded by Cox. Gomez made a substitute motion to continue the nomination process that night, which was seconded by Garcia. That substitute motion carried, with Jones and Cox voting no.
Gomez then nominated Garcia to serve as mayor. Ramirez-Dean seconded the motion.
Jones interjected, “I’m going to speak out of order, and I don’t normally do, but this looks like there was some deal cut behind doors when we were on a recess. This meeting isn’t being facilitated very well.”
The motion carried with the ensuing vote, as Gomez, Ramirez-Dean and Garcia supported Garcia’s reappointment as mayor, with Cox and Jones dissenting.
Jones said, “We’re now going to see who is the mayor pro tem as a result of the deal that’s been cut.”
It was moved by Councilwoman Gomez and seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean to re-appoint Ramirez-Dean as Mayor Pro Tem. City Clerk Robinson called for further nominations. Councilwoman Jones nominated herself. The motion died for lack of a second. City Clerk Robinson called for further nominations. When none came forth, City Clerk Robinson reiterated that the lone motion under consideration was a nomination of Ramirez-Dean. It was moved by Councilmember Gomez and seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez to appoint Mayor Pro Tem Ramirez-Dean as mayor pro tem; the motion carried with Councilmembers Cox and Jones voting no.
“The deal was cut,” Jones said. “The deal was cut!”
Garcia and Ramirez-Dean ignored her. Ramirez-Dean said, “I am so pleased and honored. It has taken a little too much time, but you know what? It is a wonderful position to be in, to be here for you.”
Garcia said, “It is an honor and a privilege to serve my city, and not only just the city, but our people. I had some backing tonight, so thank you very much.”
At the end of the meeting, Jones said, “I’m gravely concerned about what happened here tonight. It was disgraceful. It is an embarrassment to me that a process that should be solemn in electing its officers was treated so flippantly. This does not reflect well on our community. It does not reflect well on our leaders.”
Jones said there had been a “repeated” rumor “by different people that don’t walk in the same circles about backroom deals being cut” and that she had the experience that evening of “then watching it play out.” It was, Jones said “a corrupt practice. We are to elevate the will of the people and public service to our neighbors, not selfish ambition, not vainglory.”
Two weeks later, Gomez at the December 17, 2019 council meeting said, “The decision to have a mayor and mayor pro tem was decided in this council. Our leadership is required and for whatever reason whatever may have thought through the heads of these individuals, there is no backroom deals. There is no corruption. That’s not what happens here. It’s just someone requires justice to be required, and when we see justice in a certain particular perspective, we’re going to be deciding on those certain moral values of what’s good and what’s bad, and what’s accessible and what’s fair in terms of opportunity and what qualifies for equanimity. I congratulate these ladies for having that position and being strong.”
This week, Garcia told the Sentinel that the story of there having been a secret agreement between her and Gomez is being oversold in certain sectors of the community.
“The only thing is I have decided to work with everyone a little more amicably, not just with her but the whole council,” Garcia said. “As far as she is concerned, she had a change of heart, evidently, and has been a little more congenial than previously, not just to me but to the other members of the council.”
Those who accused her, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez of choreographing the mayoral and mayor pro tem votes are plain wrong, Garcia said. “I almost fainted,” she said in describing her surprise, which she said verged on shock, when Gomez eventually got around to supporting keeping her as mayor on December 3. “I almost fell out of my seat. I didn’t think she would even vote for me. I thought she would abstain or recuse herself. When she actually voted for me, I thanked her for it.”
At this point, Garcia was measured in making her assessment of Gomez, and her characterizations of the councilwoman did not indicate an affection or alliance between them.
“I don’t really know how to describe her,” the mayor said. “She has a difficult personality that is very hard to deal with. It was tremendously difficult for me in the first days when she was on the council. When she started running for the Assembly, I am not sure what was going on, but it seemed that all of a sudden she has changed her demeanor so that she is a little more pleasant, which from my perspective as mayor has made it easier to conduct the meetings.”
Gomez in the March 3 Primary election this year vied for the California Assembly in the 33rd District. She finished fourth in a field of seven, and did not qualify for the November runoff.
Those that claim there is a newfound camaraderie between her and Gomez are misperceiving things, Garcia said.
“I would not say I am doing anything much different,” the mayor said, but acknowledged that on Gomez’s end things have changed. “She is not so verbal against me,” Garcia said. “She came in with an attitude and would be inciting all of this, and everyone on the council got caught up in that, so to the public it must have seemed that we had a conflict with her on one side and the rest of us on the other. I was just trying to maintain order.”
Asked if Ramirez-Dean had in some fashion served as an emollient in her relationship with Gomez, Garcia said, “I really couldn’t say. Rita has been with us only a very short time. I don’t know whether they communicate.” The theory that the reduction in tension between her and Gomez could be credited to Ramirez-Dean’s diplomatic ability, Garcia said, breaks down because Ramirez-Dean’s recent health challenges have prevented her from being a consistent presence at city council meetings over the last several months.
Previously, Garcia said, the entire council’s relationship with Gomez had reached rock bottom.
“Over time, the whole council just came to the point where they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to communicate with Blanca,” Garcia said. “She has changed her attitude. It’s wonderful, but I don’t know what caused it. The only thing that has been pointed out to me, or which I can attribute that to, is when she started to run for Assembly she started to change the way she spoke to people and dealt with them. She tried to be a little more professional and congenial. I think she is still planning on continually running for higher office. Someone along the line has told her or let her know that she is not going to get anywhere fighting everyone. I don’t deal with that. I don’t have time. I work outside of the city. I have a business to run, and I’m always busy.”
Those who suggest that she has adopted Gomez’s philosophies or orientation with regard to public issues of that she has jumped on the liberal bandwagon, Garcia said, are so out of sync with reality as to be delusional. “It saddens me if anyone who knows me thinks I am trying to be a part of what Blanca is doing because, truthfully, I don’t want to be a part of what she is doing,” Garcia said. “She is involved with the Mexican something or other and the Latin Coalition and La Raza and CHIRLA [the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles]. I was not brought up that way. I was brought up in Victorville. My family has been here, in Victorville, for 120 years, so if you want someone who knows the city, I’m it. I was born here. My family has now had seven generations here, so I don’t have any time to deal with nonsense and ignorance when it comes to the community that is my home that I care so much about. I have been running a business [Garcia Bookkeeping and Income Tax Service] here for 45 years. I don’t want our community to look bad. I don’t want a city that looks like a ghetto. I have poured my heart out in trying to make Victorville better. When I see people who don’t know or care about this town as deeply as I do or see them using their position as a stepping stone to get ahead, I’m just disappointed. I am totally local. I am not going anywhere. I’m not running for higher office.”
She would not be dealing with Gomez at all if it weren’t for Gomez having won a position on the city council in 2016, Garcia said.
“I didn’t know her,” the mayor said. “I don’t know her. I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know anything about her background. I have no information at all about her. I don’t know where she lives. We tried to find out. To this day it is a mystery. Somebody has that information. At this point I don’t really care. Why should I be concerned?”
Asked point blank if she and Gomez had sidled up to each other out of political considerations because this is an election year and it is now in their mutual interest to get along, Garcia said, “I would certainly dismiss that. There is no alliance. I study the agenda and I vote according to what I feel is best by the community. I am not influenced by anyone. Number one, I don’t talk to anyone on the council, so I don’t know what the others are thinking. There is no alliance between me and anyone. It is true that Jim [Cox] and I connected very well from the beginning. I have known him for a long time, going back to those years when we were both young, and now we’re old, and we’re still here. I have always respected him and given him praise for his experience and the things he did for this city as city manager. He did a wonderful job in government. He has guided me when I needed information or assistance in understanding things. He has always been there for me when I have sought him out. Debra [Jones] I don’t know as well. I know she was disappointed when she didn’t get to be mayor this last time. That is just the way it worked out. Rita has not been around very much lately. She has been ill since January. We all thought she would be back by now. She has been participating by teleconferencing.”
She is neither in cahoots with nor at war with Gomez, Garcia insisted.
“Technically speaking, I don’t have anything against her,” Garcia said. “I don’t have any animosity against her, even though she has tried everything she could to ruin me. If you know me, I am not aggressive or loud. I am not an instigator. I would rather handle things calmly, or just avoid it if it is going to be unpleasant. If something is going that way, I just try to avoid it. People who know my character know there is no alliance between me and Blanca and Rita. Anyone who knows me knows that is not true.”
She and Gomez won’t be campaigning together, she said.
“I’m not going to put my name out there with her,” Garcia said. “I’m on the council with her. That’s it. I’m not going to get involved with her or what she’s involved in. I’m not going to allow anyone to smear me at this point in my life. I’m trying to do the best I can for the people of Victorville. If there is anyone who cares about his city, it’s me. I don’t know what people are saying or speculating. I’m just trying to work with everyone to do the best for the city. That is where I’m at, and I’m not in an alliance with anyone. I don’t know what that woman does and, truthfully, I don’t want to know.”
It is his perception, Cox said, that if there is a ruling coalition on the council at this point, it involves Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez. “They are in charge now, and you can’t really do anything about it,” he said.
Cox said he believed it would have been best for the city to have lived up to its tradition of changing mayors every two years. He said the first extension of Garcia’s term in 2016 came because neither he nor anyone else wanted to take the responsibility because of the time demands the ceremonial aspect of the post imposed. Now that the council has extended Garcia to what is essentially a six-year term, Cox said he is bound to accept that arrangement.
“My concern is what is best for the community, but we are required to abide by certain ethical rules as elected officials,” he said. “You swear to uphold the Constitution. Under those ethical rules, you are to represent all of the people and adopt the official policy, even if it is contrary to your own wishes or philosophy. You are not supposed to vote in your own best interest. I subscribe to the belief that once the council votes, that is the official position of the city, and I feel compelled, whether I agree or not, to carry out that policy. I don’t think you bring things back over and over again and try to change the rules.”
As far as the epoch shift that occurred on December 3, Cox said, ‘No one knows what happened. It was as if they were enemies one day and friends the next or allies or whatever you want to call it.”
In the final analysis, it is not that important, Cox said.
“I don’t think there is any perceptible difference in the way the city is being run,” he said. “I think to someone sitting in the audience, they see what we are voting on and how we are voting. We are getting things handled. Overall, we are getting things done. There used to be a lot of argument. Blanca said she was rooting out corruption she was able to find, and she would reveal it when she found it. I said, ‘If there is corruption, where is it? If there is, let’s take it to the grand jury.’ She always hinted that there was a problem, but I don’t remember much in the way of facts or proof. I think maybe she decided that since she is running for reelection, and because Gloria is running too, they thought they should put their best foot forward. If they kept at each other’s throats they both realized they might not get reelected, that the public was upset. So, they made amends, which is good because it makes it better for the city.”
Countering Gomez’s detractors are her defenders.
At the August 21, 2018 meeting at which the council voted to rebuke Gomez, Alejandra Diaz said, “Maybe you bother so much with Blanca Gomez because she asks questions that nobody wanted to ask. The questions bother all of you. Why? Because you don’t want to provide us with the truth.”
The persisting perception among at least some Victorville and High Desert residents is that the December 3 vote by Garcia, Gomez and Ramirez-Dean was premeditated and deliberate, as well as staged to appear impromptu. This has led to a public outcry among some High Desert residents charging Garcia, Gomez and Ramirez-Dean with collusion. Some High Desert residents have alleged that Ramirez-Dean does not live in Victorville, and that Garcia and Gomez are ignoring that reality to preserve their recently-forged coalition. Garcia’s rapprochement with Gomez is inexplicable they say, considering that on February 6, 2018 Garcia suggested that Gomez was a “criminal on welfare” and that the mayor on March 22, 2018 stated that she “felt physically threatened” by Gomez. Part of the current arrangement, they claim, consists of Garcia having handed over power to Gomez, whereas previously Gomez had no influence whatsoever at Victorville City Hall. They are advocating that the California Attorney General initiate an investigation.
Ramirez-Dean could not be reached.
Multiple phone, text and email messages to Gomez seeking her direct input garnered no response.
Sue Jones, Victorville’s official spokeswoman, told the Sentinel, “I don’t have anything to say on the matter.”
Sue Jones, who is no blood relation to Councilwoman Jones, said, “There is a lot of history there,” but would not acknowledge that there had been any difficulty in the past relationship between Garcia and Gomez. Sue Jones claimed to have no knowledge of the August 21, 2018 council vote to confirm then-Councilman Kennedy’s motion to rebuke Gomez, nor of the July 16, 2019 council meeting from which Gomez was removed from the proceedings. She said she was not in a position to verify whether those events had actually occurred. “I cannot speak to that,” Sue Jones said. “That would be better addressed from the councilmembers’ perspective. I’ll pass your questions on to them. That’s the best way to go. Mayor Garcia was reappointed and so was Mayor Pro Tem Ramirez. That’s what we have. That’s all I can say.”