By Amanda Frye and Mark Gutglueck
Word late today is that the Redlands City Council has officially suspended City Manager Nabar Martinez, putting him on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a now intensified ongoing investigation into accusations that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior involving former Redlands Human Resources Director/Risk Manager Amy Martin.
Beginning at 5 p.m. today, the Redlands City Council adjourned into a special meeting at which three items were slated for discussion. The agenda for that meeting specified “1. Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation – Government Code §54956.9(d)(1) (Management Services/Finance Director) One case: Notice of complaint of discrimination filed by Ms. Amy Hagan, Nevada Equal Rights Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Agencies Charge No: 480-2018-04689
[and]
“2. Conference with legal counsel: Anticipated litigation – Government Code §54956.9(d)(2)(e)(3) (Management Services/Finance Director Garcia) One case: Facts and circumstances: Consideration of discussion of threatened litigation against the city for medical insurance claim, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment claims by Ms. Amy Hagan
[and]
“3. Public employee performance evaluation associated with the two specific above-referenced closed session matters- Government Code §54957 (Mayor Foster) a. City manager.”
Some three hours later, the council emerged from that closed session discussion, at which point Redlands City Attorney Dan McHugh announced that Martinez had been placed on paid administrative leave.
Martin is now known as Amy Hagan. Previously, she alleged Martinez, who had hired her under the name of Amy Martin to serve in the capacity of human resources director and risk manager, subjected her to a hostile work environment.
Hagan is represented by Las Vegas-based attorney Sagar Raich. Raich, who is not licensed to practice law in California, has in part utilized the forum of the Nevada Equal Rights Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to proceed against both Martinez and the City of Redlands. It is Raich’s contention that Martinez repeatedly sexually harassed his client. “These incidents of harassment included extremely offensive insults, being subjected to sexual conversations, being contacted at night and on the weekends to discuss personal and sexual matters, and being forced to help the city manager with his online dating profiles,” according to Raich.
Martin left the city’s employ in February of this year. Martin, in some measure based upon her expertise and sophistication as a human resources and risk management professional, negotiated with Martinez what has been described as a somewhat unconventional departure handshake, which Raich maintains is binding. Hagan’s interpretation of that agreement, which was put in writing but copies of which have yet to be publicly released, memorialized Hagan’s agreement to not sue the city or seek any further redress beyond being provided with full health benefits until she eclipses the age of eligibility for retirement medical coverage, some 23 years from now in 2041.
At some indefinite point late this spring or early summer, City Attorney McHugh, Redlands Director of Management Services/Finance Director Danielle Garcia and the city council became aware of the full implication of the commitment Martinez had made to Martin, who by then had moved to Nevada and was legally identified as Amy Hagan. Based upon the failure of both Martinez and Martin/Hagan to have Martin’s exit settlement ratified through consideration by, and a vote of, the city council, the settlement involving the 23 years of medical coverage was deemed by the city null and void.
As of July, it was Raich and Hagan’s position that the city’s failure to honor the exit agreement was a breach of contract. Previous closed session discussions of the matter failed to achieve a resolution of the differences between the city and Hagan.
Meanwhile, the substance of Hagan’s accusations regarding Martinez’s comportment have been percolating, and the city has undertaken an investigation to determine if Hagan’s version of events could be controverted. The outcome of today’s closed session signals that the city council considers itself to be in a weak bargaining position, essentially because the preliminary findings of the investigation hold that there is at least some substance to Hagan’s allegations.
In papers filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on September 17, Hagan maintains the city failed to stop Martinez’s sexual harrassment of her. That claim implies that she had made some order of a report with regard to Martinez’s behavior prior to her exit from the city.

County government this week entered into a contract that brought to public attention arrangements that at least some people believe blur the line of separation between church and state.
The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $628,280 contract with the High Desert Abundant Living Family Church to pay for what a county staff report called “a pilot project to reduce jail reoccurrence in the High Desert Region, for the contract period of October 2, 2018 through October 2, 2019.”
That staff report, attributed to Department of Public Health Director Trudy Raymundo, Department of Behavioral Health Director Veronica Kelley and Sheriff John McMahon, was dated October 2, 2018 but posted last week. It stated, “The Department of Public Health, in collaboration with the Department of Behavioral Health and the Sheriff’s Department, are seeking to reduce jail reoccurrence in the High Desert region through a pilot project known as New Hope. During the Fiscal Year 2018-19 county budget process, the board of supervisors allocated $1.0 million into a reserve that would be utilized to fund pilot programs that might reduce jail reoccurrence and recidivism rates throughout the county. The High Desert Abundant Living Family Church (ALFC), located in the city of Hesperia, has been providing recidivism reduction services through Proposition 47 and other recidivism reduction funds allocated through the Board of State and Community Corrections since 2015. In addition, they have been working in conjunction with the sheriff’s department to provide needed transportation services for individuals released from incarceration into the High Desert region.”
The report continues, “The New Hope project being proposed will consist of expanded transportation services for individuals released from the High Desert detention center. In addition, ALFC will hire peer navigators and other support staff to provide supportive case management services to a select group of these recently released individuals, to connect them with physical and mental health services, and assistance in accessing housing, job training, job placement, substance abuse treatment services, transportation and other vital resources needed for successful reentry.”
According to the report, “Currently, there are similar services being provided to reduce recidivism rates, but recipients of current program services must have a mental health and/or substance abuse disorder to qualify and participate, excluding many individuals.”
The report states that “On August 19, 2014, the board of supervisors approved the county’s participation in California Forward’s Partnership (CA Forward). On April 17, 2018, the board of supervisors received a presentation from CA Forward regarding jail utilization rates and recommendations regarding strategies that may reduce or mitigate jail reoccurrence in the county. CA Forward has provided critical data analysis expertise for the sheriff’s department in regards to jail utilization, and will continue to provide program planning and data analysis expertise through the initial three months of the New Hope project. As a pilot, this project will include a mandatory planning period to ensure that a framework is established that will define program objectives and data elements to be collected during the project period, including a potential focus on the homeless population. These outcomes will be evaluated to determine potential expansion and replication in the future.”
At present, according to the report, the High Desert Abundant Living Family Church is a sole source vendor with regard to the New Hope project. “The contract is being recommended as part of a one-year pilot project supported and funded by a collaborative effort between the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health and the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health,” the report states. The Sheriff’s Department presented the need for a data driven jail reoccurrence reduction program to the board on April 17, 2018. Abundant Living Family Church has presented a proposal to provide the services based on prior experience working with the target population, and as a provider of existing, similar services. Abundant Living Family Church is providing other recidivism-related services to this target population under current county contracts, making them the ideal candidate to support the New Hope pilot project efforts. The county’s department of purchasing supports the procurement of these services from Abundant Living Family Church based on the existing contractual relationship and specialized expertise and experience working with the target population. If the program proves successful and additional funding is allocated, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health will evaluate whether a procurement process is necessary to expand the pool of potential providers.”
In response to those who suggested that the county contracting with the Abundant Living Family Church constitutes a violation of the principle of the separation of church and state and that it is improper for the county to be contracting with a church for the provision of those sorts of services, the county’s information officer, David Wert, said, “The county often contracts with community organizations – some secular, some faith-based – that provide, or can provide, community services that align with the county’s mission. It’s common sense and saves a lot of time and money to partner with people who are already doing or have the expertise to do good things in the community.”
Furthermore, Wert said, “The law forbids the county from discriminating on the basis of religion, and that extends to entities that bid for county contracts. We wouldn’t be allowed to refuse to contract with a religious institution simply because they are a religious institution if they can otherwise carry out the assigned work. Also, it is standard language in all county contracts that contractors must comply with all applicable laws. It would be clearly illegal to use county funds to promote religion, and the county would act immediately if a contractor tried to do that.”
Wert said, “Public agencies from the federal government to cities contract with religious institutions if a religious institution emerges as the entity best-equipped and most-able to carry out a particular task. Many religious organizations are doing great things in their communities, and if often makes more sense to amplify what they are doing using their established infrastructure – including community trust and relationships – than start a new government program from scratch and duplicate efforts.”
-Mark Gutglueck

By Mark Gutglueck
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, in the two oldest municipalities on the county’s west end public candidate forums featuring those vying in the Upland and Ontario 2018 municipal elections were held. In the case of Tuesday night’s Upland affair, put on by the city and held within the city’s council chambers at Upland City Hall, it carried the official imprimatur of the City of Gracious Living. Wednesday night’s event in Ontario was held at the historic Granada Theatre and was sponsored not by the city but rather by the Ontario Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It fell outside the category of official, as the three long time incumbents vying in this year’s Ontario municipal race did not participate. Whereas Upland’s forum held at the southeast corner of Euclid Avenue and Arrow Highway was well attended with a near-capacity crowd of more than 170 taking part or observing the proceedings, the event held 2.4 miles south on the northwest corner of Euclid Avenue and C Street the following evening was less impressively attended, with some 80 people in total on hand. Nevertheless, perhaps because the Ontario forum was held outside the auspices of officialdom, it made for what came across as a more genuine and far-reaching exchange of ideas on municipal authority and the issues that are now a part of the public dialogue about the direction in which local governance is moving. While both of the venues were civil and polite, and the formats followed a similar pattern, the Ontario candidates proved far more pointed in leveling criticism at the status quo and their incumbent rivals than had been the case between the candidates in Upland.
The Upland forum was moderated by former Upland Mayor Richard Anderson, who had served in the city’s top elective office from 1984 to 1988. Utilizing questions submitted by the audience that were screened by the team of Dr. Loren Sanchez and Dr. Timothy Worley, Anderson queried the candidates running in this year’s election, giving each of them as they sat at the council dais an opportunity to answer in a pattern that progressed left to right across the panel of candidates from the perspective of the audience, beginning at a randomly selected point in the seating arrangements. Those on the dais in order from left to right were Fourth District challenger Rudy Zuniga, Third District Challenger Ricky Felix, Fourth District Challenger Tammy Rapp, incumbent Councilman Gino Filippi running in the Third District, incumbent Councilwoman Carol Timm running in the Fourth District, Second District Challenger Yvette Walker, Third District Challenger Irmalinda Osuna and incumbent Councilwoman Janice Elliott running in the Second District. Sanchez, who was formerly the superintendent of the Upland Unified School District, and both Anderson and Worley qualify as members of the Upland establishment. Under their guidance the forum maintained a level of decorum that came at the expense of salient intensity, with the candidates inuslated from any type of invective. The most probing and provocative questions submitted by the attendees were not provided to Anderson, and thus not asked. The questions did explore some of the city’s current issues, though ones pertaining to sales tax and utility tax proposals, the current triple redundancy at the level of city manager, the city’s staffing levels, the mounting costs of pensions paid out to former city employees and the city’s dissolution last year of its more than a century-old municipal fire department in favor of moving the entirety of the city into a county fire service annexation zone did not pass muster with Sanchez and Worley, and thus did not come up as topics of discussion. The result essentially was a series of statements from the candidates that were rudimentarily informative with regard to the various incumbents’ and challengers’ positions on basic issues, from which could be extrapolated very little in major differences between them. The closest the forum stepped toward any level of controversy came with two questions, one pertaining to the city’s water division and service rates and the other focusing on the closure or reduction of city parks. Slight exceptions to the general pattern of agreement among the candidates emerged with the answers to the question about whether the candidates supported the city selling off park property. In March, a 3-to-1 majority of the city council did just that, selling 4.631 acres of 38.5-acre Memorial Park to San Antonio Hospital for $4.14 million. The hospital campus adjoins the park and the hospital’s management intends to utilize the property it is purchasing from the city to accommodate both a multistory parking garage and what it terms “future expansion opportunities.” That sale has not been completed, as legal action relating to the proposed sale has yet to clear the courts. Councilwoman Janice Elliott voted in opposition to the sale. Of the current incumbent candidates, Filippi and Timm supported the sale. The city in June gave consideration to trading 16 acres of property used primarily as soccer fields at Cabrillo Park on 11th Street to the Lewis Group of Companies in exchange for quarries now owned by Holliday Rock which Lewis was to purchase and turn over to the city for future park development. After considerable protest, including that spearheaded by Osuna, the city and Lewis backed off from making that swap. Subsequently, the city and Lewis pursued trading the same quarry property involved in the Cabrillo Park deal for property earmarked for park use in the Sycamore Hills district. Last month, just before that deal was to be closed at the September 24 council meeting, public protest again prevailed and the city and Lewis abandoned making that trade. With all of the other candidates inveighing against the city surrendering any park property, Filippi and Timm found themselves in the somewhat unenviable position of having to join in with their rivals in declaring they too would stand in the future against selling off or in any way whittling down the city’s existing parkland. Simultaneously, both sought to justify having consented to the sale of the 4.631 acres of Memorial Park to San Antonio Hospital, variously maintaining that the deal represented no actual loss of park land since the parking structure San Antonio is to build could be utilized by park visitors and that the money the city is to realize from the sale will eventually be used for park improvements.
Similarly, Timm and Filippi found themselves on the defensive when the question with regard to the city’s water system came up. Both had voted to raise the city’s water rates in a 4-to-1 vote, while Elliott had opposed the rate hike. City staff and the prevailing members of the council justified the increases based on the assertion that the city had a more than $1 million deficit in its water operations fund. In the same time frame, Elliott, who is a licensed certified public accountant, had examined the city’s books. Crunching the numbers available to her, Elliott concluded the city’s water fund, far from being $1 million in the hole, was actually flush with a nearly $10 million surplus. Confronted with the numbers, city officials were obliged to acknowledge that the situation was not as dire as had been represented when they stampeded city residents into a rate increase. Timm, in particular, who elsewhere during Tuesday night’s forum had asserted that the city had recovered financially during her now-approaching four-year tenure on the council, had difficulty squaring the need for the full range of the water increase vis-à-vis the water fund surplus and the city’s less-than-bleak financial outlook. In the discussion with regard to water, Zuniga made what was one of the most pointed criticisms of the city’s official representations when he observed that the assertion that the rate hike was in some measure justified because the city was running out of water rang hollow given that a portion of the city’s water supply was being sold to the Fontana Water Company. Throughout the one-hour and fifty-five-minute forum, Anderson managed to enforce a respectful and civil atmosphere, as he effectively discouraged both cheering and jeering, this tenor suffering only occasional lapses of decorum, as when the crowd reacted with laughter to some inadvertent turns of phrase or sardonic observations from some of the candidates. At only one point did the forum feature any direct disparagement among the candidates when after Timm had made a point of repeating the theme from her successful 2014 campaign, “It’s time for Timm,” Zuniga took the opportunity during his closing remarks to retort, “It’s time for Timm to leave.”
Some 22 hours after the Upland event concluded, the forum in Ontario took place. Whereas in the not so distant past there had been a degree of tension and contention on the Ontario City Council, of late there has been considerable cohesion on that panel. A little more than a decade ago, a falling out occurred between Mayor Paul Leon and two of the more strong-willed members of the city council, Alan Wapner and Jim Bowman. After one of Leon’s remaining two allies on the council, Jason Anderson, was supplanted by Debra Dorst-Porada in the 2008 election, Leon’s primacy as Ontario’s leader was compromised, given Dorst-Porada’s close affiliation with Bowman. In short order, the new ruling coalition of Wapner, Bowman and Dorst-Porada moved to politically neuter Leon, hiring a private investigator to surveil him and dig up dirt on him with which they were able to orchestrate a mini-scandal. Simultaneously, they stripped him of several internal and external governmental adjunct committee and joint powers authority assignments as well as the more than $30,000 per year add-on remuneration Ontario provided to its mayor above the standard stipend provided to all members of the city council. Leon managed to garner reelection as mayor in 2010 but remained a near-irrelevancy on the city council as Wapner headed up the ruling coalition that yet included Bowman and Dorst-Porada. In 2012, Paul Vincent Avila was elected to the council. A political iconoclast of the first magnitude, Avila was attitudinally incapable of maintaining a lasting affiliation with anyone. Moreover, his greatest talent appeared to lie in his ability to clash with all conceivable ends of the political spectrum on either side of him. Within a year of Avila’s election, Wapner’s hostility toward Leon shifted Avila, as did Bowman’s and therefore Dorst-Porada’s. In 2014, while the rapprochement between Leon and the Wapner council cabal was not entirely complete, that year’s election resulted in Leon, Wapner and Bowman uniformly touting the progress of the city under their collective leadership in their campaigns, virtually making them a political team as Leon found himself challenged by Avila, while Ruben Valencia, who was vying for a position on the city council, campaigned by aggressively assailing Wapner. Ultimately, Leon, Wapner and Bowman cruised to easy victories, after which the thaw in Leon’s relationship with his council colleagues, sans Avila, continued. In 2016, after Dorst-Porada was reelected to the council and Valencia displaced Avila, Wapner moved to more fully redress his once sundered relationship with Leon, persuading Bowman and Dorst-Porada to reinstate Leon’s mayoral remuneration package, adding $33,549 the $25,135 council stipend all members of the council draw together with the $24,683 in yearly benefits they receive, such that Leon now is provided with a total compensation package of $82,947 annually from the city, making him the highest paid general law city mayor in San Bernardino County. Over the last two years, the hard-edged political enmity that once existed between Wapner and Valencia has softened considerably, and the Ontario City Council now appears to be marching together, if not in absolute lockstep, in substantial harmony with one another. The three of its members up for election this year – Leon, Wapner, and Bowman – have been the recipients of campaign contributions which dwarf those of their challengers. As of September 22, Alan Wapner had received $243,839 since January 1 and had spent $256,541.80 on his 2018 campaign; Leon had received $130,891 in donations and had spent $149,578 since January 1; and Bowman had received $129,399 and had spent $120,054.50 since January 1. Enabled by the money they have to carry out electioneering efforts that include radio and television ads, newspaper ads, mailers and robo-calls to voters, signs and billboards, the three incumbents have spurned invitations to participate in public forums or debates that put them on the same platforms as their challengers, thus keeping their rivals from being seen in the same light or occupying the same stature that they do and simultaneously preventing themselves from engaging in a verbal slip up or other type of faux pas that might redound to their detriment or provide their competitors with campaign ammunition. Hanging together, Leon, Wapner and Bowman were no-shows at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s non-partisan forum at the Granada Theatre on October 3. Participating in that event were Sam Crowe, Rudy Favila and Richard Galvez, all of whom are seeking to displace Leon as mayor; and Paul Mim Mack and Josef Nikyar, who wish to unseat Bowman and/or Wapner. The forum was moderated by Professor John Meany of Claremont McKenna College, who initiated his first round of questions at the far left of the panel as the candidates faced the crowd, beginning with Crowe and moving to the right, giving each candidate an opportunity to respond. With each subsequent question, Meany initated the query one further seat to the right, but with each questioned reversed the direction left or right in which order the questions were answered.
Sam Crowe, who was a member of Ontario City Council from 1964 to 1972, was Ontario city attorney from 1988 to 1998 and has been on the Ontario-Montclair School Board since 2008, said in his opening remarks that he was committed to creating a code of ethics for the city “I believe if I am elected, I will be able to do that,” Crowe said.
Rudy Favila, who was on the city council from 1992 until 1996 and is now vying for mayor, said that more than 60 percent of the Ontario’s population was Latino but that the city’s ethnic makeup was not reflected at City Hall, where the employee lineage was more indicative of what would be expected “in Iowa than in Ontario.” He also said the city’s residents and its political leaders should “push staff to see a higher level of performance.” He said that while the average income in Ontario was in the range of $40,000, the city was overpaying its executive staff with salaries in the $300,000 and $400,000 ranges.
Richard Galvez, noting he was age 29, said he represented “forward thinking toward a new generation” and that he considered it his duty to “bring us into the future.”
Mim Mack said one side of his family had been in Ontario since the 1950s and that the other side of his family had been in Ontario since the 1960s. He said that once he was in office he would seek to impose “limits on campaign finance and elections by district, eliminate conflicts of interest and insist on greater accountability of what is going on at the airport.” He said that one of the incumbents in this year’s election, Alan Wapner,  over $400,000 in his campaign war chest as of June 30.
Nikyar said the incumbents had been “robbing the city. I am not just talk. I have some document to prove it,” he said.
Crowe said that throughout his career he had demonstrated his dedication to public service going back for more than a half of a century, ranging “from practicing law to starting an opera and open air concert series to negotiating to bring the Ontario Mills into the City of Ontario in the 1990s. At that time, the city was basically broke. The Mills gave them more money than they know what to do with. I was on the airport commission and the city council in 1967. At that time we had two flights a day into Ontario, one from Las Vegas and one from San Francisco. We negotiated an agreement with Los Angeles and Los Angeles International Airport and we went from less than a thousand flights a year to 7 million passengers after Los Angeles forced the airlines to fly into and out of Ontario.”
Favila said he would effectively redeploy the city’s police resources. “People ask why I am so focused on crime,” he said. “I believe in putting cops on bikes and citizen participation in our own neighborhoods, in putting officers in our middle schools. We have kids who are taking target practice. They go to school and get jilted by a girlfriend or are bullied and then they bring a gun to school. That happened twice this year at schools in Ontario. I want to put officers in our middle schools.”
Galvez said his forward-looking would “bring a better tomorrow. Our greatest asset is the ability to communicate. I will try to understand. I will feel your pain. I believe as mayor I will serve the people, not myself. I will be a supervolunteer.”
Mim Mack said his strongest suit was ‘my honesty and integrity. I will tell you what I see when I see it and not in a sugar-coated way. I will end conflicts of interest and keep people from doing business with our city if they have made contributions to the mayor or city council. I will make sure no one on the council votes on anything where they have been influenced by money they received. Both of the incumbents [Wapner and Bowman] are retired and they are able to devote themselves full time to raising money and increasing their political capital.”
Nikyar said he had 55 years experience working with government as a contractor and he would “stop the theft and corruption.” He cited the example of the downtown park. “They paid $6 million for it. I could have made it for one million.” he said.
Favila said, “The fire department has a diversity problem. We have very little diversity in that department. Our children need to see people [in the role of firefighters] who look like them, so they will see working as a fireman as a career choice.” Favila suggested that firefighters were held in higher esteem than they deserved and were therefore provided with salaries they did not merit. He contrasted the educational requirements for being hired as a firefighter with those of being a teacher, and noted the discrepancy between what those employed in both professions earn. “To be a teacher you need a four-year degree and further education equal to or close to a master’s degree,” he said. “To be a firefighter you don’t need anything more than a high school diploma. A teacher makes $60,000 a year; firefighters make over $100,000.” Favila added that “We need police protection in our schools,” and said that traffic patrols are called for around schools during the morning in those areas where parents are dropping children off. “We can do this immediately,” he said.
Galvez said, “We should give the police the tools they need,” adding, “I have had many encounters with the police. I feel comfortable with the police. I know them. I make it a point to know them more. I think we need more outreach programs. I do not wish to criticize the police or fire department and put anybody down.”
Mim Mack said that if he is elected, the hiring of “the fire chief, the police chief, the planning director, the city manager will never again be discussed behind closed doors in a smoke-filled room. We need increased diversity in the fire department. I am in agreement with Mr. Favila on that.” Mim Mack said the city should look at “hiring more police as we have more people in our community.” He referenced the “broken window theory,” by which the deterioration of the city intensifies as problems go unaddressed. “I don’t know about you, but I have seen an uptick in graffiti,” said Mim Mack. “If we don’t take that down promptly, the longer we leave it, the more you encourage that kind of behavior.”
Favila said the police should be “out in the community as opposed to in their cars. We need to look at how we can maximize our resources. We need liaisons to schools and not necessarily have them in uniforms. We cannot hire enough police officers to stop every crime or even take reports about every crime. Together we can put neighborhood watch on every block and watch and report to the police and be on top of this ourselves until crime has been dissipated.
Crowe said, “Crime is always dependent on other causes. Look at the economic situation. When times are tough there is more crime. When there is less economic stress, there is less crime. Making a better society begins at the schools. Explaining to children what is right and what is wrong starts in kindergarten. The use of drugs has been a serious problem.”
Nikyar said, “We need to control the people who are bad and do the best we can.”
Galvez said “My father is a small business owner. We have had the office and cars broken into. It is apparent in our city that we have a crime problem As we grow, crime will happen We have to have collective action and people paying more attention to their surroundings.
Nikyar said he would eliminate the city’s code enforcement division, which he said was steeped in corruption, having, he said, “actually made people homeless. People have lost their homes over what they have done. One person even died from the stress of what they did to him.”
Crowe said the city could realize some efficiency and economies of scale in refining its mutual aid arrangement with nearby cities. “We have never had a study to determine what equipment it would be better to own and better to operate ourselves versus having access to that equipment. I don’t think there is a need for Upland and Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga to all have large ladder trucks. One would probably suffice for all three communities. We have no need to have large levels of certain things when there is this tremendous repetition and redundancy among all of the local cities. Police patrols south of Mission Boulevard should be increased by ten percent. Currently, the police and fire unions are donating $15,000 per incumbent at every election. If the incumbents take that kind of money from the unions, they shouldn’t be able to vote on raises for the police department or the fire department.”
Galvez said the city needed to match its codes to the standards the community’s members want. He cited the example of city ordinances which restricted the time and places where yard sales could take place, which he said conflicted with a tradition in some of the city’s neighborhoods which had previously held yard sales on the days now prohibited. “The people want yard sales to be allowed on those days,” Galvez said. “There’s no reason to prohibit what a large number of people want.”
Mim Mack said that with regard to the city’s codes “I want to see greater input from the planning commission. I want to give the planning commission more autonomy.” He likened the current planning commissioners to “bobble heads” who “rubberstamp everything put in front of them by the planning director. And who is telling the planning director what to do?” Mim Mack asked. “Alan Wapner, who has spent half of a million dollars in every election he has been in lately, money he has received from those whose projects the planning commission is rubberstamping. They do whatever Alan Wapner says, so his buddies can do whatever they want. We have 3,000 unit apartment complexes being built.”
Crowe advocated that whenever a subdivision entailing more than 100 units is proposed that the city be required to undertake a study to determine whether there is available water, schools and services for them. “All of these zoning increases are being done without any idea of what the problems are going to be from those developments,” he said.
Favila said positions on the planning commission should be held open for “independent members, people who are best qualified to make the decisions, not just the council members’ buddies. We can’t just pack houses on top of houses without some space in between them for people to enjoy their lives. With our housing development policy, we are pushing people out of the community. This is contributing to homelessness. People should be allowed to construct granny flats in their backyards so families can stay together.”
The bane of homelessness needs to be addressed, Mim Mack said, “at the regional, state and even national level.” An illustration of the problems inherent in dealing with the issue, Mim Mack said, was in the way in which Los Angeles offered assistance to large numbers of people, resulting in other homeless people flocking to the city for help. “The more services you provide, the more homeless they attract,” he said. “Hundreds more poured into Los Angeles. That is not an accident. I would like to see us work with local charities and churches to find solutions and get people back on their feet. I don’t think shelters will contribute to making people functional again.”
Nikyar said that if compassion is to be shown to the homeless, the services should not be provided near or in residential neighborhoods. “We should feed them far away and keep them away from where people live,” he said.
Crowe said that as a member of the school board, he had focused on students that were homeless. “It is a complex issue,” he said. “Once we have determined the numbers and studied who is homeless and why, perhaps we can do something. At the school district we took a one-room school house and made it into a transition house where women and children had a place to stay until we could incorporate them into the community.”
Favila said “Most of our people are one month away from losing their houses, whether they have a mortgage or are paying rent. Your relatives may say they love you but they are not going to provide for you. We need to have homes for those who are displaced until they can reconnect with the general society.”
Galvez said it was “hard to believe” that members of the community had “overlooked the homeless. These are our fellow Americans. They are not lost souls. We need more outreach programs.” At the same time that Ontario shows compassion for its homeless, Galvez said, it should not take up the burden of the homeless from elsewhere. “We should tell our neighboring cities they should take care of their homeless and we will take care of ours.”
All of those involved in the forum said they believed Ontario should have term limits for its office holders.
Nikyar said it was unconscionable to allow those “who are robbing the city” to remain in office. “I absolutely believe in a two term limit,” he said.
Crowe said the voters should be provided with the opportunity to make a decision on term limits, but that he personally believed a two-term, eight-year total limit was best. “I am familiar with the argument that good people will be replaced by this but I believe we need term limits,” he said.
Favila said “We are going to double our population soon now that we are fifty square miles and building in the ag[ricultural] preserve. Term limits are good for the city. We should become a charter city. We should have a seven member council with a full time mayor and six council members, with three terms for the mayor and three terms for the council.”
Noting once more that he is “29 years old,” Galvez said, “Alan Wapner has been on the city council 24 years. I am trying to wrap my head around that.” He said the city has remained suspended in time with the sclerotic and doddering Wapner and Bowman calling the shots. “We will soon be in a way different place,” he said, when new blood replaces the geriatric set on the council. “The city will move forward. I hope to be able to serve [on the council] and after my term move forward to hold other positions and become governor,” he said.
Mim Mack said, “I think term limits are essential. I am in agreement with Mr. Crowe. I think it should be presented as a ballot initiative. When Alan Wapner was first elected, I was in junior high school. We should have campaign contribution limits in addition to term limits. The members of the board of supervisors are limited to something around $4,000 from each donor. It should be the same in our city.”
Favila said “Transparency will eliminate the fraud, corruption and mismanagement. We should have the participation of a citizen advisory board in every department. We need citizens who will ask the questions about why some residents are treated differently than others.”
Crowe said most people don’t participate in the political and governmental processes “because we don’t have full disclosure. If people knew what I know about the way the airport is being run, they would be asking questions about why we are spending much more money than we need to on things we have very little use for. Once people are informed they will step up and do the job.”
Nikyar said he was prepared to use his own money to combat apathy and ignorance. “I will spend $160,000 to bring meals to people,” he said. “I will go to one section of the community at a time. I will serve them coffee and donuts and hold meetings and listen to what they tell me. If they tell me what they want me to do for them, I will do what they tell me. I will meet with a different set of people every week.”
Mim Mack said he looked forward to setting up a district- based  voting system. “I would also like to open up City Hall,” he said. “They have put up barriers there so you are not able to get near the council or the city manager. As a kid, I remember going to the city manager’s office with my farther and grandfather. Those barriers need to come down. People need to be able to meet with them.” Mim Mack further railed against the city council putting significant items of importance on the consent calendar at the council meetings so that they were not discussed before they are voted upon.

Gloria Negrete McLeod, who over the last two decades zoomed to the highest political levels in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. that can be held by a local elected official, is now engaged in extending her political career at the municipal level. As a Chino resident for more than four decades, she is running for city council there.
Beginning her political career as a Chaffey College board member in 1995, she was elected to the California Assembly in the 61st District in 2000, and remained in that position until 2006. In the Assembly, she was chairwoman of the Public Employment and Retirement and the Business and Professions committees. She was on the Higher Education and Health committees her entire Assembly term.
In 2006, Negrete-McLeod moved into the California State Senate in the 32nd District, where she served for six years. As a state senator, she chaired the Local Government Public Employee Retirement System Committee with jurisdiction over and responsibility for early examination of legislation affecting state and local public employees’ retirement, as well as the Business and Professions Committee. She also served as co-chair of the Higher Education Master Plan and Joint Legislative Budget Conference Committee, and was a member on the Health, Higher Education, Legislative Ethics, and Veterans Affairs committees.
In 2012, she successfully vied for Congress, defeating fellow Democrat Joe Baca. During her single term in the House of Representatives, she served on the Agriculture and Veterans committees. “Although it was a great honor and privilege to serve in Congress, the environment was not favorable to getting things done and I chose not to return to Congress,” she said.

Gloria Negrete-McLeod

In 2015 Negrete-McLeod was reelected to the Chaffey Community College Board where she currently serves as board vice president. “In 2017, of more than 1,400 hundred community colleges nationwide, Chaffey College was selected as one of nation’s top 10 colleges,” she said. “Chaffey’s goal is to ensure that more students succeed each year, Moreover, in order to help the environment and be self-sufficient, Chaffey College installed solar panels on all three campuses – Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, and Chino.”
Since leaving Congress, Negrete-McLeod reimmersed herself in local issues at the municipal level. She is a board member of “Protect Chino,” which promotes stable, sustainable, and compatible growth and adherence to Chino’s general plan. Protect Chino wants the city to fastidiously apply the provisions of Measure M, a growth control initiative passed by Chino voters in 1988 which attenuates the authority of the city council and by which land in Chino cannot be rezoned to allow more homes than is specified in the city’s general plan or zoning maps without a vote of the city’s residents. Measure M requires that the proponent of a project looking to override the general plan or zoning code pay for the referendum on the land use standard change unless the proponent is able to gather the signatures of ten percent of the city’s registered voters first. Negrete-McLeod was active in the “No on H” movement, which last year effectively prevented D.R. Horton from constructing 180 dwelling units on 30 acres of rural land south of Francis Avenue between Vernon and Benson avenues.
“High density development of semi-rural property in non-compatible areas circumvents Chino’s general plan,” she said.
Negrete-McLeod said that if she is elected she will seek to ensure a “safe community, efficiency in city services, protecting taxpayer dollars, and local government accountability and transparency.”
A 48-year resident of San Bernardino County, and 43-year resident of Chino, Negrete McLeod and her husband Gilbert L. McLeod, a retired police lieutenant, have 10 children, 27 grandchildren, and 37 great grandchildren.
In assessing her accomplishments in office, Negrete McLeod considers her most important achievement to have been her “active involvement in the cleanup of the area’s groundwater contamination. My legislative priority was to improve the quality of California’s current water supply, ensuring there was a reliable plan in place that would adequately provide for the state’s growing water needs.”
During her State Senate and Assembly terms, Negrete McLeod said she “wanted to ensure affordability and access to higher education, enhance the quality of health care, improve the current transportation system to promote efficient goods movement while reducing traffic congestion in the Inland Empire, and promote the growth of quality job opportunities for district residents. I had 168 legislative enacted bills signed by three governors during my Assembly and Senate service.”
In this year’s election, the second held under Chino’s now adopted district voting system, she is running in District 2, where no incumbent is vying. Also seeking election in Chino District 2 are Dorothy Pineda, Sylvia Orozco and Mark Hargrove.
-M.G.

Sousan Elias said “I am running for mayor because I feel we need some new ideas in the city. Most of the people running the city have been doing so for more than 20 years in some capacity. I believe mixing their experience with some new ideas will be beneficial for the city and its residents.
Her experience and time in the city make her qualified to hold the position of mayor, Elias said. “I am a resident of Montclair as well as a business owner/entrepreneur in the city. I was a paralegal for over 20 years, and a notary public/certified loan document signing agent for over 10 years. My legal background and my real estate knowledge, combined with my business experience, as well as my experience dealing with the Montclair City Council and Planning Commission to get my business approved in the city, has given me valuable experience with the way the city functions. In addition, this helped me to see ways that things can be adjusted in the city to help business owners and residents. I am also on the board of the Montclair Chamber of Commerce, just installed for my third year.”
She is distinguished from her opponents, Elias said, in that “I feel that my background and my newness to the position combine to make me a better candidate. My experience as a business owner/entrepreneur gives me a better perspective regarding helping businesses thrive more in Montclair. Since I live and work in the city, I daily see the effects of decisions made by the city council and the planning commission, and believe that gives me a different view.”

Sousan Elias

The major issues facing the city, Elias said, are “traffic, employment, entertainment, affordable housing, reasons to stay in Montclair and supporting the economy of the city. More should be done to help people become aware of Montclair. As I have learned since moving here, a lot of people aren’t aware of the city.”
As to how the city’s leaders and residents should come to terms with these challenges, Elias said, “Some of this is being addressed with Montclair Place being modernized, but I feel the residents still have to leave the city to do too many things. Some of the issues are being addressed by the Gold Line coming in, which will help connect Montclair to destinations west of the city. This and the development of North Montclair to be commuter friendly will hopefully make more people aware of Montclair and possibly want to stay in Montclair. With the addition of the Canyon Club in the mall, where will the entertainers be staying? There is no motel/hotel in Montclair.”
The city can defray the cost of dealing with its major issues and challenges by simply reorienting its stance with regard to the availability of cannabis, she said.
“One good way to deal with financial challenges would be to allow marijuana dispensaries in the city,” she said. “At any time, the city is usually in the process of shutting down at least three active dispensaries, and there are usually at least three more illegal dispensaries that haven’t been discovered yet. It is costing the city a lot of money to remove these businesses, as well as manpower from code enforcement and law enforcement, and if they allowed them, they would then be able to benefit from the tax-based revenue from these businesses to accomplish more things to improve the lives of all residents.”
Her previous experience relating to government consists, she said, of being a “paralegal for over 20 years and dealing with the city to get approval to open my business in Montclair.”
Elias has lived in Montclair for seven years. She earned a bachelor of arts in liberal studies from California State University, Northridge. She subsequently obtained a certificate in corporate/litigation paralegal studies from UCLA Extension. She is self-employed. “I currently run three businesses with my business partner,” she said. “The first is Dragon’s Tale Brewery in Montclair; the second is Bourbon Squares, handcrafted chocolates; and the third is Casual Closers, a mobile notary service.
Currently single, Elias has a stepson, a granddaughter and a grandson on the way.
Elias said, “It is time for some new ideas in Montclair. I feel that my business, legal and board of directors experience will help give the city a new vision.”
-M.G.

Apple Valley Town Council hopeful Dr. Matthew Pautz is seeking to break into politics in the spirit of the citizen ruler who makes a contribution to the community and then returns to being one of the ruled. “My main purpose for running for Apple Valley Town Council is to fulfill my patriotic duty, as exemplified by many of our founding fathers, George Mason being my model. I envision myself as the modern-day patriot – the farmer who lays down his plow, goes to the government seat, serves his community and then, more importantly, returns to his God-given occupation or trade in service of their community/nation. This country and community have given me so much in that I have been able to fulfill my dream of practicing medicine as an orthopedic surgeon, coming from humble beginnings. I feel it is my obligation to restore the ability to climb the social/economic ladder that has been pulled out from beneath younger generations by burdening them with tax debt, the benefits of which they have not and will not see.”

Dr. Matthew Pautz

Pautz said, “My qualifications for the position of town councilmen, I think, would raise the least questions. In addition to my education, which includes a bachelor’s of science and biochemistry from UC Riverside, a master’s of science in health professions education and a doctorate of osteopathic medicine from Western University in Pomona, residency and training with board certification in orthopedic surgery, I have 18 years’ experience running a small business in Apple Valley. In addition, seeing the problems in caring for my patients through the bureaucratic nightmare that is modern medicine, I attended and subsequently graduated law school from Northwestern California University School of Law and passed the California bar examination last year. My leadership roles include being the medical director of numerous medical organizations and currently the chief of surgery at the Bear Valley Community Hospital District, also serving on the medical executive committee.”
Politically, Pautz falls outside the standard Democratic/Republican paradigm, and proudly celebrates his Libertarian affiliation. He is a member of the San Bernardino County Libertarian Party’s executive committee and is on the Judiciary Committee of the California State Libertarian Party. He said those positions have “given me the ability to listen to all sides of an issue and come to a rational, market-based solution. I will bring all of this education, training and experience to benefit the residence of Apple Valley.” His Libertarian orientation and commitment to the party, Pautz said, “distinguishes me from the other candidates running for this position. Additionally, many of the other candidates are quick to find government the solution to any problem they face while I would look for market-based solutions with a limited role by the government.”
Pautz said individuals and government need to show maturity and exercise discipline in their personal and collective comportment. “The major issues facing our town are not dissimilar from the issues facing all levels of government and, indeed, the middle-class as a whole. We spend too much, rely on others too much, take little personal responsibility and blame others for our problems,” Pautz said. “I will address those issues by a reining in our spending, limiting the role the town plays in individuals’ and businesses’ lives, boosting revenue by encouraging business formation and retention, lowering the regulatory burdens that limit the growth of our economy and looking to new sources of revenue that the future holds.”
He is not in favor of forcing taxpayers to throw money at problems in a quixotic attempt to redress social problems that were in the main created by governmental micromanaging or failed past policies, Pautz said, finding fault with “the current thinking by most people that the town/government must pay for the solutions proposed. If the town is run fiscally conservatively and additional streams of revenue are produced, as long as we don’t continue to overspend, the proposals pay for themselves and provide additional revenue for true disasters and smart growth.” The best government is that which governs the least and gets out of the way of the society’s most productive members. Pautz said.
Pautz said he is ideally suited to put the libertarian model into practice in a place such as Apple Valley. “Although this is the first time I’ll be running for elected office in government, my previous experiences that relate to running and managing businesses, corporations and diverse groups will allow me to serve the best interests of the town’s residents,” he said. “Having a law degree also allows me to see sides of issues that non-lawyers cannot fathom because of the complexity of our legal and bureaucratic system.”
He has a variegated perspective on local government, Pautz said. “I grew up in Redlands, where I met my wife at Redlands High School, where we graduated together in 1985. We stayed in Southern California as long as possible through college and medical school but ultimately had to travel to the East Coast for my orthopedic surgery residency training. My wife and I and our four children moved to Apple Valley in the year 2000, when I started my orthopedic practice. We did this not because of the inviting business environment of California or the relatively poor payer mix in Apple Valley, but because of our commitment and dedication to keeping the family together as most all of our immediate relatives live within an hour’s drive. The separation of families has contributed to our local and national decline and my commitment to family values and supporting the family will be at the core of my candidacy. My wife and I will be celebrating our 30th anniversary next year and we just welcomed our first grandchild from our older daughter in June.”
Voters who are interested and wish to know more about Pautz and his position statements can do so readily. “I have created a website as a repository for all this information and to give those who wish to do so the ability to contact me with additional questions at WWW.DrPautz4AppleValley.com,” Pautz said. “I have also created a Facebook page and Twitter account that can be accessed from the website. I welcome input, especially from those who live and work in Apple Valley, since I will be serving them directly. I have additional hopes that Apple Valley’s success, under my leadership, can serve as a model for other towns and cities in California which, hopefully, will spread to Sacramento so all of California can prosper and enjoy restored liberties.”
-M.G.

Brian Seghers, who is vying in the election being held to determine who will complete the last two years of the council term to which the late Pat Gilbreath was elected in November 2016, said, “I am running for city council because I do not want our kids having the same conversations about change that we are having now in another twenty years.”
Seghers said he is qualified to serve as a city councilman “because I love this city and the history. I want to take what is here and make it the best it can be.”
In sizing up how he can be distinguished from his competition, Seghers said, “I own multiple small businesses. I work with a lot of the nonprofits in town. I work with both the north and south side. I work with the police and fire departments and at risk youth. I have come from nothing, made it through a lot and now I am where I am. More people can relate to me than anyone running.”
The major issues and challenges facing Redlands, Seghers said, are “division within the city, lack of support for small business, lack of police staffing, unfunded pensions and our youth.”
Those challenges can best be redressed, Seghers said, through “equal opportunity for all, supporting all businesses equally throughout the city and promoting our city outside of Redlands. We literally have thousands of people driving right by us weekly that could help our economy grow instead of our raising taxes to pay for new projects and the pensions. We have to think outside the box a little and look at new possibilities and sources of revenue.”
Seghers continued, “A lot of people talk about the homeless but no one is really talking about our youth. If we do not start mentoring more of our young people and leading them in the right direction, then we will have a whole new generation of homeless in a few years. We need more activities for our youth that will bring them together in a positive manner.”
The city can defray the cost of effectively redressing its problems “by taking advantage of previously untapped revenue,” Seghers said.
Redlands is in a state of flux politically. Among other things, Redlands is changing back to a by-district election system, a quarter of a century after the city abandoned choosing its elected leadership in that fashion. In 1989, Redlands voters passed Measure Q, which established a by-district voting system for the city council. For the 101 years previous to that, Redlands held at-large municipal elections in November of odd-numbered years. In 1991, the first vote under a district system was held in two of the city’s then-newly established districts. Under that system, residents were authorized to vote only with regard to a candidate representing their district, where one-fifth of the city’s population resided. Candidates were restricted to running only within the district in which they lived. Two years later, the city’s voters elected council members from the city’s three other districts, but also voted in the same November 1993 election to end by-district voting and go back to selecting members of the city council in at-large elections once again beginning in 1995. Under the re-established at-large suffrage, voters throughout the city for more than two decades participated in all of the elections and the only residency requirement for candidates was that they live within the City of Redlands. During that span, the city moved its elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years.
Last year, however, the city moved to return to holding its elections by-district. This year, the city is slated to hold elections in District 1, District 3 and District 5. The city will have a council elected entirely by-district after the 2020 election, when races in District 2 and District 4 will be held. In 2016, Gilbreath and Eddie Tejeda were elected to four-year terms. Tejeda yet remains on the council. After Gilbreath’s 2017 passing, Toni Momberger was temporarily appointed to take her place. This November, a contest to determine who is to hold Gilbreath’s at large post until it gives way to the city’s fully by-district reality in 2020 is being held. Momberger is competing to remain in the post, challenged by Seghers and Michael Ten Eyck.
Seghers, who grew up in Las Vegas and has lived in Redlands for the last 15 years, acknowledged having no previous experience in government and no post high school education. He asserted, nonetheless, that his status as a self-made entrepreneur positions him to serve Redlands residents in a way that could not be replicated by others who adhere to a more conventional approach to orienting themselves to the world and ticket punching their way into a position of authority. “I do not have any government experience or college,” he said. “On paper every candidate is far more book smart. I have life skills and experiences that help me to make decisions that better the community as a whole. I respect everyone that goes to college and has the discipline that it takes to see it through. A lot of people go to college and never get to do what they want and live out their dreams. I knew what I wanted and went after it.”
Seghers said, “I own two businesses and work at both of them, Rendition Tattoo in Redlands and 454 Tattoo in Encinitas.”
Seghers has been married for six years and has three children.
“I want to do what is best for the community,” Seghers said. “I am only doing this for the community. I have nothing to gain from this but I will guarantee that I will make sure the community grows in ways that it never has. We need a leader who is showing up and supporting all over the community and I already do. I have been called confrontational and not a team player. My team is the community, so if asking questions and confronting the issues that prevent us from coming together is confrontational, then so be it. I will never compromise when it comes to the well-being of the people in our community. I understand the urgency at which things need to be done and I will not waste a day.”
-M.G.

An Introduction to Silence, by Shusaku Endo

By Daniel Webster

Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) is considered by many in Japan to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the 20th century. However, until Martin Scorsese came out with an English-language film adaptation of his novel in 2016, he did not receive nearly as much attention as his near-contemporary Yukio Mishima, in spite of the fact that so many of his works were translated into a number of languages. A great deal of this must certainly have to do with the fact that Endo was a Catholic, with Christians making up only about 1 percent of the Japanese population. To many Western enthusiasts for Japanese literature, Endo may not have seemed “exotically Japanese” enough, especially in comparison with Mishima, whose works were steeped in Japanese tradition.
Silence, first published in 1966, and translated into English in 1969 by William Johnston, is thought to be Endo’s masterpiece. It deals with the efforts of a group of Portuguese missionaries in the early 17th century to convert the Japanese to Catholicism at a time when Christianity was seen as a threat by the Shoguns who ruled Japan with an iron hand during the Edo Era (1603-1868).
In this novel, Endo has fictionalized certain events and historical figures, although the overall description of the characters and their fates is true to historical fact. The main character in Silence is a Portuguese priest named Sebastian Rodrigues, who was based on the real-life Italian missionary Giuseppe Chiara.
Rodrigues arrives in Japan in 1639, directly after what was called the “Shimabara Rebellion,” one of the few serious challenges to the Shoguns’ power during the Edo Era. This rebellion broke out because of the excessive taxation levied against peasants in Nagasaki Prefecture, most of whom were Christians, in order to build a castle there. The rebellion was ruthlessly put down, after which the persecution of Christians began in full earnest. The most notorious form of torture meant to force Christians to renounce their faith was hanging them upside-down over a pit until they died—a process that often took several days. In this torture, the victims’ bodies were bound, but one arm was left free for them to signal that they had apostatized. The Shogun’s government also used that old European (and American) standby of burning at the stake, as well. Another, less cruel, way of forcing Christians to abandon their faith was to have them step on an image of Christ, which was called a fumi-e (literally translated as a “step-picture”).
Having said that Rodrigues is the main character in this novel, I must backpedal a bit by saying that a character of perhaps even more importance is a weasely-looking Japanese named Kichijiro, who (in my view) personifies both human weakness in general and the alien nature of Japan in relation to Christianity in particular.
To my understanding, the main theme of this riveting book is that Japan was—and is—what Endo called a “mud swamp,” incapable of adopting Christianity, or indeed other Western ideas, without distorting them to the point that they become unrecognizable, in order to fit a Japanese mold.

Daniel J. Webster, who is among the vanguard of the New Formalists writing poetry in English today, in addition to having completed several volumes of verse has translated poetry and short stories from German and Russian. He now resides in Japan, where he teaches English at Keio University, as well as at the Universities of Waseda and Meiji.

By Franz Kafka

It looks as if much has been neglected in our country’s system of defense.
We have not concerned ourselves with it until now and have gone about our daily work; but things that have been happening recently begin to trouble us.
I have a cobbler’s workshop in the square that lies before the Emperor’s palace.
Scarcely have I taken my shutters down, at the first glimpse of dawn, when I see armed soldiers already posted in the mouth of every street opening on the square.
But these soldiers are not ours; they are obviously nomads from the North.
In some way that is incomprehensible to me they have pushed right into the capital, although it is a long way from the frontier. At any rate, here they are; it seems that every morning there are more of them.
As is their nature, they camp under the open sky, for they abominate dwelling houses. They busy themselves sharpening swords, whittling arrows and practicing horsemanship.
This peaceful square, which was always kept scrupulously clean, they have made literally into a stable.
We do try every now and then to run out of our shops and clear away at least the worst of the filth, but this happens less and less often, for the labor is in vain and brings us besides into danger of falling under the hoofs of the wild horses or of being crippled with lashes from the whips.
Speech with the nomads is impossible. They do not know our language; indeed they hardly have a language of their own.
They communicate with each other much as jackdaws do. A screeching of jackdaws is always in our ears. Our way of living and our institutions they neither understand nor care to understand. And so they are unwilling to make sense even out of our sign language. You can gesture at them till you dislocate your jaws and your wrists and still they will not have understood you and will never understand. They often make grimaces; then the whites of their eyes turn up and foam gathers on their lips, but they do not mean anything by that, not even a threat; they do it because it is their nature to do it. Whatever they need, they take. You cannot call it taking by force. They grab at something and you simply stand aside and leave them to it.
From my stock, too, they have taken many good articles. But I cannot complain when I see how the butcher, for instance, suffers across the street. As soon as he brings in any meat the nomads snatch it all from him and gobble it up.
Even their horses devour flesh; often enough a horseman and his horse are lying side by side, both of them gnawing at the same joint, one at either end. The butcher is nervous and does not dare to stop his deliveries of meat. We understand that, however, and subscribe money to keep him going. If the nomads got no meat, who knows what they might think of doing; who knows anyhow what they may think of, even though they get meat every day.
Not long ago the butcher thought he might at least spare himself the trouble of slaughtering, and so one morning he brought along a live ox. But he will never date to do that again. I lay for a whole hour flat on the floor at the back of my workshop with my head muffled in all the clothes and rugs and pillows I had, simply to keep from hearing the bellowing of that ox, which the nomads were leaping on from all sides, tearing morsels out of its living flesh with their teeth. It had been quiet for a long time before I risked coming out; they were lying overcome round the remains of the carcass like drunkards round a wine cask.
This was the occasion when I fancied I actually saw the Emperor himself at the window of the palace; usually he never enters these outer rooms but spends all of his time in the innermost garden; yet on this occasion he was standing, or so at least it seemed to me, at one of the windows, watching with bent head the on goings before his residence.
“What is going to happen?” we all ask ourselves. “How long can we endure this burden and torment?
The Emperor’s palace has drawn the nomads here but does not know how to drive them away again. The gate stays shut; the guards, who used to be always marching out and in with ceremony, eep close behind barred windows.
It is left to us artisans and tradesmen to save our country; but we are not equal to such a task; nor have we ever claimed to be capable of it.
This is a misunderstanding of some kind; and it will be the ruin of us.”