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Sentinel 10-23-15

San Bernardino County’s governmental structure slipped into further scandal this week with the revelation that the county’s director of human resources, Andrew Lamberto, pleaded guilty in August to soliciting a prostitute in Orange County in March and that at least some county officials knew of the incident within two days of its occurrence but had remained mum about the matter.
What remains unclear is the degree to which knowledge of Lamberto’s misadventure permeated the ranks of county administration and the board of supervisors and whether active steps were taken to keep information hidden from the public. When inquiries about a report pertaining to Lamberto that emanated out of Orange County earlier this week were made on Wednesday, the entire fifth floor of the county administrative building, where the offices and staffs of each of the supervisors and the county’s chief executive officer are lodged, went into a clinch. It was not until this afternoon, Friday October 23, that the county issued a statement, which was released by the county’s official spokesman, David Wert. The statement pointedly avoided alluding to or suggesting any involvement in or knowledge of the effort to keep Lamberto’s action under wraps.
The release was entitled “Statement from Chief Executive Officer Greg
Devereaux,” and read: “Privacy provisions usually preclude the county from disclosing personnel matters. However, in this instance, everyone involved agreed it is in the public’s best interest to provide a full accounting. On March 30, 2015, the County’s Director of Human Resources Andrew Lamberto advised me that during the preceding weekend he had been cited in Orange County on a misdemeanor charge of agreeing to engage in prostitution. Mr. Lamberto stated that he accepted responsibility for his actions and would plead guilty to the charge. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 days of community service, which he has completed, and 3 years of unsupervised probation.”
Devereaux’s statement continued: “Usually, non-work-related misdemeanors do not result in disciplinary action. However, given the nature of this incident and Mr. Lamberto’s position in the county organization, I determined that significant discipline should be imposed, and it was. In addition, Mr. Lamberto clearly understands and has agreed that even one additional issue involving his conduct, public or private, will result in his immediate dismissal.”
The next passage in Devereaux’s statement is now being widely speculated about. It reads: “Historically, disciplinary actions have been handled as purely administrative matters and not brought to the attention of the board of supervisors. Therefore I did not bring this matter to the board’s attention. However, if the board was to direct that it be notified about such matters in the future, I will certainly comply with that direction.”
Seasoned county government observers were unsure as to whether Devereaux’s statement that he had not informed the board should be taken at face value. Some expressed the belief that he was falling on his sword in an effort to protect the five members of the board of supervisors by short-circuiting any accusations that might come their way in the coming days and weeks about what they knew, when they knew it, what action they took and why they were not forthcoming earlier. Now they are faced with questions about what they did not know, and how it was, if in fact they did not know, that they were kept in the dark about pertinent information pertaining to a key county department head.
The prepared release from Wert concluded with an abject apology from Lamberto. It said: “Mr. Lamberto stated, ‘There is no acceptable excuse for my behavior. What I did was wrong, and I accept full responsibility for my actions. I deeply apologize to the CEO, the board, my fellow county employees, and the people of San Bernardino County. Public service is a privilege, and I will continue to work hard to earn the confidence of those I am fortunate enough to serve.’”
As it was, by Thursday and continuing through to today, the staffs of each of the board members were assiduously avoiding any comment at all on the matter, referring questions concerning Lamberto to Wert.
Of significance is that Lamberto, who worked in human resources for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department previously and has been county human resources director since 2005, in effect supervises the entire county workforce. San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos in the last several years has carried out a campaign in which he publicly pillories so-called “Johns,” i.e., prostitution customers, by publicly humiliating those arrested for soliciting prostitutes in San Bernardino County through the releasing of their names and photographs to news outlets. Ramos has characterized the prostitution trade as “human trafficking,” tantamount to slavery. Thus, the county is now in the rather unenviable position of having the head of its personnel division publicly associated with activity the county’s senior law enforcement official has derided as indentured servitude. This association could put county administration at a disadvantage in any future contract negotiations with the bargaining units for county employees.
Wert rejected a suggestion to that effect. “I don’t understand what the connection would be between human trafficking and complaints county employees might have over employment or conditions at the workplace, how those are related,” Wert said.
Wert rejected charges that anyone attempted to hide the incident involving Lamberto. “As Mr. Devereaux said, “It was a non-work related misdemeanor,” which therefore did not necessitate public disclosure. Additionally he said, a news “release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office [relating to Lamberto’s arrest] has been out for more than a month now.”
Asked if he was at liberty to disclose the nature of the discipline meted out to Lamberto that was alluded to by Devereaux, Wert said he was not.
The reverberations of the Lamberto incident go beyond the county government structure, tearing at the foundation of another major institution within San Bernardino County.
Laberto is a part-time faculty member at the College of Business and Public Administration at California State University San Bernardino, where he teaches public administration. He is continuing to teach there following his arrest and guilty plea.
When the Sentinel sought to reach Cal State San Bernardino President Tomás D. Morales, the call was channeled to the university’s public relations division. From that office, Dave Johnson, the university’s assistant vice president for strategic communications stated he was “unable to confirm” that the university had any knowledge about the Orange County incident involving Lamberto. “All I can confirm is that he is an instructor in the public administration department this quarter,” Johnson said.
Wert said he thought it unlikely that Devereaux had informed Morales about Lamberto’s arrest or conviction.

Having achieved a small measure of success with a receivership program that eradicates blighted property by commandeering dilapidated houses from their owners, the city of San Bernardino is looking toward a stepped-up employment of the strategy intended to transform an estimated 4,000 ramshackle abodes into respectable and livable dwellings that will cease driving down the value of neighboring properties.
Deputy city attorney Jason Ewert this week briefed the mayor, council and public on the details of how the city’s receivership program had been applied against a property that had fallen into significant disrepair as the background for a request for an appropriation of $198,904.57 to establish an advanced code enforcement officer position in the community development department and add the position of administrative analyst/assistant of elective officer to the city attorney’s office, both of which are intended to support the city’s receivership program.
Ewert said the use of receiverships to redress the city’s blight problem has been formulated as a last resort, after property owners have been contacted, warned and cited repeatedly about redressing conditions on the land and/or structures they own, at which point a receiver is appointed.
Ewert said the process results in the property being declared blighted and then being entrusted to a receiver who undertakes to rehabilitate the property. Though legal title is not transferred to the receiver, he or she is granted possession and control of the property to undertake the repairs. Legal title is transferred after the property is sold to a new owner after the property is declared as reclaimed.
Ewert referenced the case of a property at 2942 Bangor Ave., which the city undertook as a pilot effort last fall and sold on June 18 for $282,000.
According to Ewert, the city paid the receiver $46,853, spent $134,883.38 toward repairs of the property, had staff costs of $34,583.44, had other costs, including costs of sale and the paying of delinquent property tax, in the amount of $19,948.57, and paid the prior owner of the home a total of $27,180.88.
Members of the city council were enthusiastic about the program.
“I would like to see a significant ramping up of this program, if possible,” Councilman Henry Nickel said. “We need to look at very aggressively moving forward on this program. I’m not talking about dozens. I’m talking about many, many more.”
To his inquiry as to how many disheveled homes in the city would qualify for the program, Ewert indicated that were many but did not offer an exact number. City manager Allen Parker ventured the number 4,000, contrasting it with 40,000 in the city of Detroit. Detroit, like San Bernardino did in 2012, filed for bankruptcy protection.
Nickel said that with respect to houses in squalor he wanted “optimal enforcement. “We need to be moving aggressively on this and quickly. I’ve been through a number of neighborhoods over the last couple of weeks. We have blighted properties and we have good homeowners that are saying we are simply tired of having to deal with degraded properties that are bringing down our property values and endangering our families. We need to take a stand and begin moving forward on this program.”
Councilman John Valdivia said that the program should be expanded and privatized. “If there are in fact 4,000 homes, why not knock on Wall Street’s door?” Valdivia asked. “Who is to say we cannot put a request for proposal or request for qualifications out for a national organization to come out, privately-funded, no-strings-attached from government but let the private industry [do this]. I feel that private industry has great potential here. Certainly there initiative is to make money. If we can wash out government of getting involved and mired and mucked up here, I think there might be an opportunity for our city. Private industry has the ability, the capital, to move forward with private industry money unencumbered by government. I think this is a prime opportunity for our economic development department here. If we go larger, it is attractive for private brokers and Wall Street to get involved where we certainly have the guardrails of government but we are protected by the buoyancy of private industry giving the necessary capital to get this done.”
Nickel called for the program to be pursued with vigor sufficient “to take a significant bite out of the 4,000 properties identified as eligible for this program.” He said he wanted “full cooperation of staff, the community development department and the city attorney’s office. I want this to be multi-departmental. I want to nurture a culture of collaboration between departments.”
Community development director Mark Persico offered Nickel his assurance “This will remain as a joint program.”
Parker sized the program up as “fairly complex. But it but can be done,” he said.
“We concur completely that this program ought to be ramped up,” said city attorney Gary Saenz. “We would expect to see increased numbers. Our current goals are to go up to four a month We expect to be doing fifty a year There is certainly no reason we cannot do more numbers based upon” the success the city had already achieved with the pilot program. “We would be happy to bring back to the council an assessment of what additional resources can be utilized to increase those numbers even greater,” Saenz said.
Two city residents, however, were less sanguine about the program.
“Government should not go into the business of flipping houses,” said Deanna Adams.
Jay Lindberg objected to the aggressive use of the program. “Some of these units are probably multi-family units,” Lindberg said. “You’re probably talking about ten to fifteen percent of the population of this city. When you run into people with serious health care issues, what are you going to do? Just kick them out on the streets? I’m looking at those costs up there and you can practically tear down the place and build a brand new one for 134,000 bucks. It looks like it was structurally sound. It was a mess.
“Some of you might have parents that are still around,” Lindberg continued. “Think of what their places looked like shortly before they passed. Some of them look a lot worse than what they we’re talking about. My mom’s 83 and I have to help her keep the place up. Don’t just assume ‘Let’s kick the poor out on the streets… Yeah, that’ll work.’ Where are you going to put these people? You’re talking about at least 20,000 people living in this and most of them probably do have, if they are living like this, health care problems. I’m sure hitting a lot of these homes is a really good idea. It is probably a great idea, but don’t put on your swastikas and start acting like Nazis here. You know what they did to old and feeble people in Germany? They sent them off and gassed them. It’s like 20,000 people. What are you going to do with those folks? Can’t you show just a little humanity here? Not just, ‘We have to clean up this city. Punish the poor. They deserve it. They’re poor.’ One of these days all of you are going to be senile and you’re going to be doing a lot of stupid stuff in your houses and that stupid stuff would put you right in their crosshairs. Be careful about just kicking these people to the curb, because they are senior citizens.”
Neither Adams’ nor Lindberg’s comments, however, dimmed the council’s enthusiasm for the project and they approved creating the two new positions to facilitate it.
Ewert said, “Code enforcement did a great job identifying properties. I will definitely look at ramping the program up further and explore how we can do more.”
He said the city could possibly increase the number of homes submitted to the receivership process because he had already recruited two firms willing to act as receivers on a deferred billing basis.

SAN BERNARDINO—Both the County of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office in concert with the California Attorney General’s Office are raising objections to subpoenas of former and current county lawyers Ruth Stringer and Mitch Norton and former assistant district attorney James Hackleman issued by defense attorneys in the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution.
Stringer and Norton testified before the grand jury that indicted the four defendants in the case and Hackleman played a role in overseeing the early stages of the prosecution of the criminal case.
The Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution arose from the 3-2 decision of the county board of supervisors nearly nine years ago to confer a $102 million payout on the Colonies Partners development consortium to put to rest a lawsuit that company had brought against the county over flood control issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in Upland. The prosecution maintains that settlement was tainted by extortion, bribery, kickbacks, fraud and graft.
Jeff Burum, who with Dan Richards was one of the two managing principals in the 19-member Colonies Partners, was accused by prosecutors in a 29-count indictment handed down in May 2011 of having worked with former San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy union president Jim Erwin to first extort and then bribe former county supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane to get them to vote in favor of the settlement in November 2006 and then providing a kickback to Mark Kirk, the chief of staff to another former supervisor, Gary Ovitt, whose third vote for the settlement was crucial to its passage.
The indictment was built around the theory that Burum and Erwin, with the assistance of public relations consultant Patrick O’Reilly, conspired to threaten Postmus and Biane with exposure pertaining to their respective homosexuality/drug use and financial insolvency during the 2006 campaign season when Postmus was vying for county assessor and Biane was stumping for a measure to increase the pay of county supervisors. The indictment further charges that the conspiracy broadened and intensified with the provision of four separate $100,000 kickbacks provided to Postmus, Biane, Kirk and Erwin in the form of contributions to political action committees each of those parties set up or arranged to have set up after Postmus and Biane acceded to the threats and voted to approve the $102 million settlement. Kirk, according to the indictment, was rewarded with the $100,000 donation to his political action committee for having persuaded Ovitt to vote for the settlement.
The strength of the indictment in large measure hinged on guilty pleas by Postmus on a host of political corruption charges relating to the alleged scheme, including conspiracy, bribery, fraud and criminal conflict of interest. Both Postmus and Erwin had been previously charged in February 2010 with criminal wrongdoing in relation to the settlement and Postmus’s guilty pleas came in March 2011, one month before he became the star witness before the grand jury that indicted Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk.
But after the case has dragged on for more than four years, including two appeals by prosecutors to the Fourth District Court of Appeals to reestablish charges thrown out at the trial court, two appeals by the defense to throw out charges kept in by the trial court and an appeal by the prosecution to the California Supreme Court to reestablish charges thrown out at the appeal court level, the defense has now intensified its challenge of the prosecution case scheduled to go to trial in February.
One element of the defense’s challenge is the contention that the $102 million settlement was a reasonable one which needed no facilitation by means of extortion or bribery. In this vein, the defense has latched on to the consideration that lawyers for the county, known as the office of county counsel, made representations that the settlement was entirely kosher to the county’s insurance carriers in their attempts to recover a portion of the payout. In particular, the defense is attempting to argue, two of the county’s lawyers, Ruth Stringer, who was appointed as interim county counsel in November 2006 and was given the position of the county’s top in-house lawyer the following year when she acceded to the position of county counsel in 2007, and deputy county counsel Mitch Norton, who represented the county with regard to the litigation filed against it by the Colonies Partners and then played a lead role in seeking to force the county’s insurers to make good on their indemnification of the county relating to the Colonies settlement, in civil court were claiming the county legitimately owed the Colonies Partners the settlement money paid to that company and before the grand jury were prevented by prosecutors because of the form of questions they were asked from disclosing the settlement was above board.
Based upon information available to Biane, who was on the board of supervisors from 2002 until 2010, and former supervisor Neil Derry, who was on the board from 2008 until 2012, defense attorneys have learned that Stringer was serving as an informant against the members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors by reporting to the district attorney’s office confidential information discussed during closed session discussions of the board. In October 2010, Derry confronted Stringer during a closed session and before the other members of the board wrung from her an acknowledgment that she had been meeting with then-assistant district attorney James Hackleman and was reporting to him the contents of closed-door discussions of the board of supervisors as well as details pertaining to the county’s legal strategy, being coordinated between her, Norton and an outside lawyer, Todd Theodora, with regard to efforts to induce the county’s insurance carriers, the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority and Travelers Insurance, to make good on the money the county claimed it was owed for the county’s loss as a result of the $102 million settlement.
Upon the board members learning Stringer had been violating attorney-client privilege and compromising the confidentiality due them as her client, she was pressured into resigning under a threat by Derry to inform the California Bar Association of her conduct.
Six months later, in April 2011, the prosecution team handling the Colonies Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution, consisting of select members of the district attorney’s office overseen by Hackleman and prosecutors from the California Attorney General’s Office, brought Stringer and Norton before a specially-impaneled grand jury. Prosecutor’s elicited testimony from Stringer and Norton that buttressed the case they were making against Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk.
Stephen Larson, the attorney representing Burum, two months ago filed a motion seeking the dismissal of the indictment, asserting that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury. Specifically, it is Larson’s contention that while questioning Stringer and Norton before the grand jury, prosecutors consciously and purposefully phrased their questions to provoke answers that reinforced a narrative suggesting the settlement was tainted by intimidation and extortion of Postmus and Biane before the fact and bribery, graft, kickbacks and fraud after the settlement was entered into while carefully avoiding questions that would have demonstrated to the jury that Stringer and Norton had been attempting to convince the legal teams representing the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority and Travelers Insurance as well as the mediators and judges hearing the case that the settlement was a fair, reasonable and justifiable one. In fact, according to Larson, prosecutors actively sought to lead Stringer and Norton away from giving answers that would disclose the county was making such an assertion in documents and court papers filed with regard to the indemnification case and in a case the county was pursuing against the city of Upland, Caltrans and San Bernardino County Associated Governments, the county’s transportation planning agency, all of whom it asserted had a hand in leading to the circumstance that led to the Colonies Partners having filed its lawsuit against the county and the county flood control district over the flood control issues on the Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads properties. Ultimately, the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority paid San Bernardino County $14 million to settle a long-disputed insurance claim. Travelers Insurance in 2007 provided the county flood control district $9.5 million to satisfy its indemnification responsibility with regard to the Colonies Partners lawsuit settlement.
Larson propounds in court papers that the $102 million settlement was a reasonable one in that appraisers for both the county and Colonies Partners indicated that the Colonies Partners could have sustained, because of the county’s action, as much as “$250 [million] to $300 million in damages.” Prosecutors engaged in borderline prosecutorial misconduct, Larson has alleged, by preventing the grand jury from learning of those appraisals.
Larson has subpoenaed Hackleman, Stringer and Norton. His contention is that during the grand jury inquiry in April 2011, because the defendants were not represented by counsel, the prosecution team was required to inform the grand jurors of any potentially exculpatory information in their possession. He wants to question Hackleman, Stringer and Norton to demonstrate the district attorney’s office knew of the information that might have exonerated his client and his client’s codefendants but withheld it from the grand jury proceedings. Moreover, questioning of Stringer relating to her cooperation with the district attorney’s office in disclosing confidential information gleaned from closed sessions of the board of supervisors without having had authorization from the board to do so might be established as a violation of Biane’s constitutional rights against self incrimination.
Theodora and three other outside attorneys representing the county, Kevin Dorse, Roy Silva, Jerome Friedberg, as well as Norton along with the prosecution team, involving California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Chief Assistant California Attorney General Gerald Engler, senior Assistant California Attorney General Julie Garland, San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos, Deputy California Attorney General Melissa Mandel, San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope and San Bernardino County District Attorney Mark Vos, have filed two separate motions, one to quash the subpoenas aimed at Stringer and Norton and one to quash the subpoena of Hackleman .
According to the first motion to quash filed by Theodora, Dorse, Silva Friedberg and Norton, the subjective opinions, impressions and beliefs that Stringer and Norton may have had with regard to the reasonableness of the Colonies Settlement that they developed prior to the settlement are protected by the attorney work product doctrine and the testimony is “unnecessary” because, Burum’s legal team contends it has already obtained the documents needed to establish the “the prosecutors knew the county’s position regarding the settlement in 2011 and should have disclosed it to the grand jury.”
Moreover, according to the motion, Larson and the rest of Burum’s legal team have already taken the position in previous court hearings and documents filed with the court that the county’s attorneys’ opinions and beliefs with regard to the reasonableness of the settlement are “irrelevant” in that it is Burum’s position that Stringer and Norton were experts in neither land development nor real estate.
Furthermore, according to Theodora, Dorse, Silva, Friedberg and Norton, neither Stringer nor the office of county counsel are affiliated with the prosecutor and they were not themselves required to provide exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. “The issue is what the prosecutor knew, not what county counsel believed,” according to the motion. “The district attorney, not the county attorney witnesses, controlled questioning at [the] grand jury process. The attorney witnesses had no ability or duty to volunteer their current opinions of the Colonies Settlement in the grand jury proceedings. [W]itnesses are not apprised of evidence presented to the grand jury by other witnesses or by way of documents because the proceedings are conducted in secret.”
In their motion, Theodora, Dorse, Silva Friedberg and Norton request that if it is not granted in total, that the court bar Larson from questioning Norton and Stringer regarding their mental impressions and opinions formed after the settlement or any matters that would tend to disclose their mental impressions or opinions, as this qualifies as “work product” that is protected by attorney-client privilege.
In their motion, Harris, Engler, Garland, Ramos, Mandel, Cope and Vos assert, “Defendant’s subpoena of one of his prosecutor’s can and should be quashed… because subpoenas of highly-placed public officials are disfavored. Although Mr. Hackelman retired in 2011, his connection to this case before retirement was as an assistant district attorney, in charge of the Public Integrity Unit among other things and answerable only to the district attorney, himself. Mr. Hackleman remains a volunteer district attorney. The subpoena should be quashed because James Hackleman is a member of the prosecution team, and discovery from the prosecution can be had only through the criminal discovery statutes – and both are exclusive.”
The motion, authored by Vos, asks that if the subpoena is not quashed outright that a protective order be issued to prevent the disclosure of privilieged prosecutorial information.
In conjuunction with the motion to quash Hackleman’s subpeona, Hackleman filed a somewhat contradictory declaration in which he admitted, “I… had contact with members of county counsel’s office, including Ruth Stringer, concerning the Colonies case, including the service of search warrants on county faciliites, the service of subpeonas and the availability of county employee witnesses in trials, preliminary hearings and grand jury proceedings; the status of the ongoing Colonies indemnity action in San Diego Superior Court; and a waiver of the attorney-client privilege by the county in the county’s Colonies civil litigation. At no time during my contacts with county counsel Ruth Stringer or any other county counsel official did I knowingly receive any confidential or privileged information regarding the Colonies case, whether stemming from its related civil proceedings or elsewhere, or any information that I even speculated was privileged or confidential.”
The motions are set to be heard on October 30 by Judge Michael A. Smith, who has scheduled the trial of all four defendants to begin in February.

San Bernardino County this week took a step toward an arrangement with a combination of sanitation districts in Los Angeles County that could generate over $260 million in revenue to San Bernardino County over 15 years in exchange for accepting trash generated by as many as three dozen cities.
This week, the county board of supervisors authorized Gerry Newcombe, San Bernardino County’s public works director, to submit a proposal responding to a request for proposal from the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County for municipal solid waste disposal services, with a range of the per ton charge that will be similar to other contracts the county has approved for the disposal of waste.
Newcombe this week told the board of supervisors, “The Sanitation District of Los Angeles County is soliciting proposals for municipal solid waste disposal services in order to secure capacity for their waste after the expiration of their waste disposal agreement with Orange County, which expires June 30, 2016. The term of the agreement will be for five years, with two additional five year extension options. The county currently allows waste to be imported into the Mid-Valley and San Timoteo Sanitary Landfills through its operations contract with Athens Services at a price of $29.53 per ton. Athens also imports waste to the Victorville Sanitary Land fill at $26.91 per ton. Additionally, the county has an importation agreement with the City of Claremont at a price of $28.72 per ton. Those agreements differ in length of term and volume of waste from the agreement expected to result from this proposal. As a comparison, the various cities within the county that have waste disposal agreements pay $39.38 per ton.”
Newcombe continued, “The San Bernardino County Department of Public Works – Solid Waste Management Division has determined that there is existing, and future capacity at the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill due to the decrease in the volume of the waste stream being delivered to the county’s solid waste disposal system as a result of the economic downturn and increased state recycling requirements. The Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill currently has enough additional capacity to accept 2,500 tons per day of additional imported waste. Should the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works – Solid Waste Management Division be selected for importation of solid waste, San Bernardino County Department of Public Works – Solid Waste Management Division will return to the board for approval of the resulting revenue contract.”
Just prior to the board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Newcombe told the Sentinel that he anticipated any arrangement with the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County for receiving trash at the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill would probably initially be in the range of 1,000 tons per day, which is well below the 2,500 tons he said Mid-Valley has capacity for on a daily basis. The county’s solid waste management division is currently operating at a deficit, he said. Closing a deal with Sanitation District of Los Angeles County, Newcombe said, would very likely result in the San Bernardino County Solid Waste Management District no longer running at a deficit.
Newcombe said the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County provides service to most of the cities in Los Angeles County with the exception of the City of Los Angeles itself.
Newcombe said he was reluctant to disclose at this point what the San Bernardino County per ton rate for receiving trash into its landfill will be because he did not want to tip off any other entities bidding on the disposal contract with the Sanitation District of Los Angeles County. He did not, however, object to the Sentinel’s assumption that the contract, if it is obtained, would generate roughly $27 for every ton of refuse placed into the Mid-Valley Landfill.

An illustration of the sense of entitlement that many critics of government say has grown to typify the attitudes of public employees is playing out in the Fontana Unified School District. Last month, a divided school board gave superintendents Leslie Boozer and four assistant superintendents – Antonio Cediel, Jose Duenas, David Creswell and Randal Bassett – pay increases.
In the case of Boozer, she saw her pay and benefits boosted to more than a quarter of a million dollars per year – $268,705. More than one-fifth of a million dollars per year – $202,645 was conferred upon Cediel, Dueñas, Creswell and Bassett. Nevertheless, in reaction to that, the four assistant superintendents collectively protested the school board’s action for not having voted unanimously to up their pay, suggesting the 3-2 vote reflected a lack of appreciation of their contributions and an insinuation that they were getting more than they deserved.
In staging their tantrum, the assistant superintendents hinted that they might not accept the four-year contracts at the $202,645 per year remuneration rate.
The district’s provision of the four year contracts comes in the aftermath of what had been a seven year-long running economic downturn at the local, regional, state and national level, precipitated by the mortgage meltdown of 2007. During that period, the sputtering economy had resulted in declining sales across the board and the de-escalation in the value of real estate, triggering a decline in the collection of taxes and dwindling revenues to governmental agencies across the board, including school districts. In that atmosphere, the generosity government officials had exhibited in the late 1990s and early 2000s in terms of public employee salaries and benefits became apparent. There was much criticism of an ethos that had developed in which public employee union’s had evolved into the most prolific of campaign donors to the governing boards – the boards of supervisors, the mayors and councilmembers and the board members – who ultimately approved their labor contracts with the unions representing those employees. Projections and actuaries of the financial burden living up to those contracts would represent, eating into the funding intended to pay for the actual services those counties, cities or districts provided, led to cutbacks – in some cases modest and in other cases more substantial – in the service levels those counties, cities, agencies and districts offered.
Fontana was not immune to this. By state law, all California school districts must notify their teachers by March 15 of whether the teaching positions they hold will be extended the following school year. In this way, school districts project in the late winter how many teaching positions they will have in the coming school year.
In March 2013, then- Fontana Unified School District Superintendent Cali Olsen-Binks served 42 teachers, most of them high school math, biology and earth/geoscience instructors, that they were getting pink slips. At the time, there appeared to be a consensus among the school board and district administrators that the district could no longer be profligate with the taxpayer money available to it and that it needed to husband its resources to ensure that the district’s mission – educating the students entrusted to it – would not be compromised by high salaries and benefits to teachers, administrators or non-certificated personnel that would reduce the district’s wherewithal in providing educational opportunities to the students. Among the goals outlined in offering proper educational opportunities was ensuring that classrooms would not be overcrowded. Accordingly, there was a consensus that the district would endeavor to hold the line on salary and benefit increases to district employees because future revenues into the district could not be guaranteed or predicted.
However, with the nascent economic recovery and the hiring of the former head of the Chicago public school system, Leslie Boozer, to replace Olsen-Binks as superintendent, the resolve to maintain fiscal discipline faded. Last month Boozer set a proposal before the school board that called for increases in her own salary and those of the district’s four assistant superintendents whom she refers to as the senior members of her “cabinet,” which, in her words, “reflect the recently approved management increases, equivalent to the increase approved for the Fontana Teachers Association, School Police Officers Association and United Steelworkers bargaining units, and other members of management.” All five of those increases were voted on separately. In each case, board members Barbara L Chavez, Lorena Corona and Mary B Sandoval supported the raises and board members Jesse Armendarez and Matt W. Slowik opposed them.
Shortly after that vote was cast, Cediel, Dueñas Creswell and Bassett, on September 8, wrote to Boozer. In that letter, they collectively stated, “We are writing to express our disappointment in the recent board vote on all 5 of our contracts. We believe that the gravity of the 3/2 vote was somehow lost on those who voted ‘no.’ While they stated that this was not personal, and we should feel supported in spite of the ‘no’ votes, the bigger picture was missed.”
The letter continues, “We work at the pleasure of the board. We must be a team. We all work hard to do incredible things, some of which are enjoyable, many of which are hard and controversial. A 5/0 vote shows our district and community that we are setting out as a team. The vote is symbolic, political, and personal. It demonstrates publicly the support or the lack of support that we have to do very difficult jobs. It has nothing to do with our egos and everything to do with our ability to be effective. In the area of education, a 3/2 vote is considered to be the strongest vote of no confidence short of a vote to terminate. At this level, many in our profession are hesitant to accept a position without unanimous board support. The fact that the board members who voted ‘no’ did not speak up or pull the items prior to the public hearing is also unsettling. We lay our character, reputations and professional lives on the line every day for the Fontana Unified School District. The 3 small points that were bought up could have been easily changed or pulled. Those 3 points do not remotely counter the weight of the overall no votes on us or our positions. We are deeply concerned with the ramifications this public vote has on your position as superintendent. Please know that we are very supportive of you both personally and professionally. This letter is written with respect for you, our positions and the Fontana Unified School District.”
The four assistant superintendents are not living in political reality, a group of parents and teachers in the district say. Slowik and Armendarez’s votes against their pay increases and that of Boozer reflect the widespread perception that Boozer and the management group she has surrounded herself with are more concerned about fattening their paychecks than ensuring continued financial viability for the district that will ensure there is enough money to carry out the district’s educational mission. In a written charge sheet received by the Sentinel, the coalition of parents bemoans “the superintendent’s salary increase” as well as “the huge increase in upper management positions (chiefs, assistant chiefs, directors, coordinators, etc.). Tons of money [is] being spent on new upper management positions. Compare six years ago to now. [There are] so many new positions that they had to move them to a new building.”
In addition, the parents/teachers group said of the Fontana district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan that too much had been spent on “Linked Learning. Over $1 million [has been] spent on it. Huge administrative costs for one program. Is the Local Control and Accountability Plan student focused? No. It is district level focused. The board of education says that it is what the teachers and parents wanted. It is not. It has all been manipulated.”
Furthermore, according to the parents/teachers coalition, “Site budgets have been cut up to 70 percent since [Boozer] was hired. Site monies go to site positions, basic supplies, etc. We are limited on paper, tissues, pencils, printer ink, crayons, etc. With the Local Control Funding Formula [a state-mandated program] sites should have more money but we have less. Why is that? Do an analysis of where the money is spent. The Local Control Funding Formula was meant to help with class size reduction. [Boozer] insists that class size reduction doesn’t work and refuses to look at reducing class sizes. School site positions were cut during the fiscal crisis. Now that we have money, those positions have not been reinstated. Yet the district has money for high priced chiefs. Sites need tutors, outreach consultants, etc.”
According to the coalition “Many people are afraid to speak up but we want what is best for our students. We feel that the district money is being used far away from the school sites. Something needs to be done.”
Some of the parents and teachers suggested that the school board should take the four assistant superintendents at their word, deem that the raises they were offered have been rejected, and request that Boozer terminate all four.
Because of the perception that they are outmuscled politically by their three female colleagues on the school board, Armendarez and Slowik have gone into virtual seclusion and are reluctant to make public statements over concern about retribution for opposing the direction in which Boozer, Cediel, Dueñas Creswell and Bassett are taking the district.

This week the one year countdown toward the date when both the owners of Cable Airport and the City of Upland are free to discontinue its function as an aviation facility began.
Nevertheless, the airport which has been in existence for 70 years, including 21 years before the land on which it lies was enclosed within the Upland City Limits, appears destined to remain as a private aerodrome for at least another generation and beyond, such that planes will continue to take off and land from there when the facility reaches its century mark.
Tuesday marked the 49 year anniversary of the October 20, 1966 agreement between the City of Upland and Dewey Cable and the members of his family to annex the airport into the city.
On that Thursday evening long ago at a specially-held city council meeting, Dewey Cable, and his three sons – Roger Cable, Walter Cable and Paul Cable – as well as his daughter, Mrs. Mildred Cable Stewart, joined with city officials led by then-mayor James Christenson and councilman Ronald Rossiter, in affixing their signatures to what was termed an option-to-lease agreement.
That agreement brought the airport property, described at the time as 118.1 acres lying between the westlying prolongation of 13th and 14th streets and extending 2,679 feet west from Benson Avenue together with another area extending 110 feet north of Foothill Blvd. and 100 feet west of Central Avenue, into the city. By the terms of the agreement, the city rezoned the property, which had been in its sphere-of-influence, essentially making any challenges to the continued use of the property as an airport unviable. The agreement provided protection of the runway approaches. Moreover,
the agreement locked the airport’s ownership into sustaining the aviation use there for fifty years. The agreement gave the city the right to prevent any other use of the facility even if the Cable Family sold the property.
The document signing on October 20, 1966 was followed by the city council’s first vote to ratify the agreement at its November 1, 1966 meeting, followed by its second confirming vote to ratify the vote on November 15. The annexation, which had previously been approved by San Bernardino County’s Local Formation Commission, went into effect on December 15, 1966.
Any thought that what is billed as the world’s largest family-owned airport will no longer host pilots and their planes so that the property can be developed for some other use has never been seriously considered, said Bob Cable, Dewey Cable’s grandson, who is now the president of Cable Airport.
With regard to the 1966 pact, Bob Cable said, “The agreement was an option for the city to take over the airport if we ceased to operate it as an airport. It was actually removed in 2014 by a resolution by the city because it was holding up a construction loan for the airport. We will be in the city’s new master plan and the surrounding areas will be zoned as airport commercial. We aren’t going anywhere for the next fifty years.”
Cable added, “We have received enough federal grants that anyone that wanted to purchase, would have a major bill to pay. We’re not selling and have a current master plan that goes out 20 years for airport improvements.”
Cable-Claremont Airport, as it was known until 1961, was founded in 1945 by Dewey and Maude Cable, who bought the land for $8,500. The Cables divided the land, selling the northern portion for what the entire parcel had cost them. That part was developed into a quarry by Holliday Rock.
Stephen Dunn, the city of Upland’s former city manager, is now the airport’s general manager.
Dunn told the Sentinel, “The Cable Family has had no discussions regarding the airport property other than it remaining as a general aviation airport. Basically, the goal is to have it be the last standing family-owned general aviation airport in Southern California, whatever that takes. That is what Dewey Cable wanted. Our mission now is to promote this as the finest facility of its kind in the greater Los Angeles area.”
With regard to pressure to have the airport property put to a different use, he said there are a number of considerations with regard to making a conversion. “You have to consider the value of the land and the cost of fuel, which drives demand for an airport. There are other factors. But none of that matters in this case. The airport is paid for. There is tremendous opportunity with a facility like this. With a privately owned airport you have far greater flexibility than with one that is publicly owned.”

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
I try to avoid beating on dead horses but in this case the subject has me so vexed that I cannot help myself. I speak of course of the recent travail of Lamar Odom…
I scarcely knew who he was. In fact I may not have known anything about him at all. You see, I am a European by birth but an American by naturalization. Before moving to the United States more than half of my lifetime ago, I cannot remember now whether I even knew about basketball or that the sport even existed. In my youth I never played it, had no consciousness of it whatsoever and I think I might not even have taken notice of it until after I had been living in the United States for several years. I became something of a baseball fan very early on because someone once told me that to understand America and Americans, one had to understand baseball. I became, in fact, a student of that game. But I hardly noticed that the sport of basketball even existed. That is not to say that I do not respect the practitioners, the participants, of the sport. Lord knows it must be wonderful exercise, running up and down the court with the intensity and ferocity that the players do. But I am no fan of the game, know nothing about the sport to speak of and would not presume to pontificate about it in any way. For the purpose of writing this article, which has Lamar Odom as its subject, I consulted with my chauffeur Anthony, who is something of a basketball aficionado and steeped in the pastime…
What Anthony told me was that Mr. Odom was indeed a very good player, remarkable for the intensity of his play and his athleticism. What Anthony said was he demonstrated a praiseworthy lack of selfishness in his play such that he was not a glory hog but a team player content to devote his athleticism to making it so his teammates would excel and score. In this way, Anthony told me, Mr. Odom was far less egotistical than many other players. He also informed me that in recent years Lamar had gained far more attention for being married to a reality television program star – Khloé Kardashian – than for his exploits on the basketball court. The tempestuousness in this relationship, I was told, led to last week’s debacle…
With little more knowledge than that and no insight, really, into Mr. Odom’s life or personality, I am greatly disturbed by what took place last week. I see a man, full of promise, with advantages, fame, youth, health, opportunity and wealth. How and why would he squander all that in the way he did? What I am told is that in the last couple of years, he had dropped off of the top rung of the American professional basketball circuit and was playing for a team in one of my old stomping grounds – Spain [where in my day, to the best of my recollection, there were no basketball teams]. And though he is now in his mid-thirties and nearing the typical retirement age for a basketball player, I am told that there was yet a possibility – given his athleticism and the unselfish ethos of his play – that he might yet return to the basketball courts of the NBA. Instead, he chose to lay in at some suite in a Nevada brothel, choke down, if the news reports are to be believed, fifteen times the normal male dosage of an aphrodisiac interspersed with enough cocaine to throw a horse into cardiac arrest to the point that he collapsed on the ground at death’s very door, foaming at the mouth. He was rushed to a medical center and given all the proper revivification but, I am told, there is the grave possibility the normal function of both of his kidneys is lost or at best permanently compromised, rendering it unlikely he will ever mount to the athletic heights that were once his personal province…
I am an old man and long, long ago, more than twice the lifetime of some mature adults with whom I now share this planet, intoxicants of any sort lost their allure for me. I am not a teetotaler, exactly, as I will take an aperitif now and then and I will drink some strong beverages at weddings and funerals and wakes. But I prefer the sober state. One hopes that impressionable youth, those who may have idolized Mr. Odom for his athletic prowess, will see in what has now befell him a lesson of some sort. One hopes they will seek to avoid his fate rather than emulate his actions…
Yet I am not sure that my hope will be fulfilled. Some may see in Mr. Odom’s descent into dissolution something fascinating. They too may seek to, in a phrase I have heard, chase the dragon. They will see in the road of excess the promise of adventure that has eluded them in their normal lives…
As I said, I am a naturalized American and I am a proud American because I love America with all my heart and I love it in a way – dare I say this? – that native born Americans cannot love her. I have seen many other parts of the world and I know America’s beauty. I know her desirability. I know her superiority. I know this not because it was drilled into me by some schoolmarm but because I have lived with and in and through the disadvantages, the restrictions, the ugliness of other nations. Because of my love for America I am reluctant to speak ill of her, to criticize her, to in any way detract from her. But I somehow feel prompted to speak what is in my mind…
If there is an ugliness in America, it is this: its citizens’ slavish adulation of celebrity. In Europe, we were and still are, in many ways, crippled by our loyalty to royalty. Over there, though it is now dying out, there is, or was, the divine right of kings. People are, or were, ranked socially by birth. America is different. There are no kings. There is no royalty. In America, we are all equal. In America, I am neither better, nor worse, than anyone else. In Europe it is different. Over there, I am better than nearly everyone else. I am, after all, a Count. I inherited my status from my father. You will notice I have not given it up. But, just between us, gentle readers, I am a little bit embarrassed by what I am. I am ashamed, really, that simply by my accident of birth, I, in Europe anyway, am accounted to a higher status simply because of my title. I did not earn it, but it is nevertheless mine. There is something wrong with that…
In America, as I said, there is no royalty, at least officially. But, alas, in America there is unofficial royalty. Who are those royals? Our celebrities…
Khloé Kardashian is a princess and Lamar Odom is a prince. Why? Because they are celebrities. They are famous for being famous. In researching to write this article, I brushed up on a few things. One of them was Lamar Odom. The other was Khloé Kardashian. In the last case I’m not sure brush up is the right phrase for a couple of reasons. One of those reasons? There isn’t much to brush up on. I tried hard to find out what it is that is at the root of Khloé Kardashian being a celebrity. I tried real hard. I don’t know any more now than when I started. She is a nice enough looking girl, although not exactly my cup of tea. But nice looking, nonetheless. Still the world is full of nice looking girls. How does she merit being a celebrity? Damned if I can figure it out. She is famous, like I said, for being famous. That’s it. But her celebrity status gives her influence and I find that worrisome and dangerous. If someone is to have influence, I want there to be substance to them. I want to be able to define why people are swayed by them, what the rationale is. I want them to have gravitas. That there is this rampant and numerically overwhelming mentality that grants celebrities influence simply because they are famous or popular or well known or celebrities, in my mind, cheapens us, detracts from us, robs us, deculturalizes us….
And the danger? That like lemmings we will line up behind these empty vessels of celebrity and imitate them, mindlessly, without considering what we are doing, without considering the consequences, without weighing the merits, but simply because we want to be just like someone who is famous…
If there is to be celebrity, I want it to be universal. I am reminded that we are all precious, every last one of us. Everyone is someone’s son, or daughter, mother or father, brother or sister. Everyone has some facility, some capacity, some talent, some facet, some feature that is absolutely unique. If you ever look around and see someone and you have fooled yourself into thinking you are better than that person, then you have fooled yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are smarter, or taller, or handsomer, or prettier, or more talented or more experienced or a better chess player, because I will guarantee you, I will bet my castle in Germany against your house [and I am not a gambling man, but I will win] that if you look long enough or hard enough you will find something about that person superior to you. He or she will be able to do something you can’t do or at least do it better than you can. I don’t know what it will be – swim, ride, play the harmonica, cook, draw, play backgammon, sing, cinch knots, tune pianos, do pull-ups, fish, tell jokes, weave, skip rope, type, program computers, count, see, plant, bandage, brew tea, dig up weeds, golf, hear, climb, massage, sleep, arm wrestle, play bridge, run, proofread, run backwards, replace fuses, smell fire or maybe nothing I can list, but that person will put you in your place on something….

By Mark Gutglueck
Two of San Bernardino County’s more illustrious practitioners of law, Stanley Mussell and John King, were associated with one another, though Mussell was some 19-and-a-half years older than King
Stanley Wright Mussell was born in Manitoba, Canada, on March 30, 1890. In 1898, he moved to California where he attended grammar school in Artesia and later high school in Redlands. The vast majority of his professional career was that of a public servant. He worked for a time as a deputy sheriff for San Bernardino County.
He graduated from the University of Southern California with his law degree in 1914. Shortly before Mussell entered law school, on October 18, 1909 John Lewis King was born in Upland.
Mussell began practicing law in Los Angeles immediately after graduating from USC Law School, but later that year relocated his practice to Victorville. Subsequently he went to work as a deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County.
In the meantime, King was growing up in San Bernardino County’s West End. He attended and graduated from Chaffey High School, where he was student body president and chosen as the school’s representative to the national oratorical competition. He matriculated at the University of Redlands.
In 1930, Mussell was elected San Bernardino County District Attorney.
In 1930 and 1931, while attending the University of Redlands, John King was a finalist in the Phi Kappa Delta national collegiate oratory competition and took first place in the western regional competition. Redlands University still maintains in its academic trophy case silver bowls and trophies awarded to John Lewis King for winning national debate and oratory tournaments.

After graduating in 1931, King attended Stanford Law School. But because his wife was teaching school in Brawley in Imperial County, he transferred to and graduated from the University of Southern California School of Law. Upon passing the bar, King was hired by Mussell as a deputy prosecutor in the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
In 1933, Mussell became the focus of controversy when during the trial of Benito Reyes, who was accused of killing Antonio Celis on December 5, 1932 in what was then described as the “village” of Cucamonga where they both resided, the district attorney told the jury, “All of the circumstances . . . point unquestionably towards the guilt of this defendant. And, what is the other side of the picture? Well, the State’s case stands absolutely unchallenged . . . All of these facts stand before you uncontradicted and undenied and unchallenged. No explanation by any sworn testimony. There is no denial of any of the substantial facts in this case.” Mussell added, “Mexicans are peculiar; they are a stoical race. They can face death unflinchingly, the average Mexican can, and perhaps that is why they can take other lives unflinchingly and quite calmly.”
Subsequent to Reyes’ conviction, the case was appealed by defense attorneys who said Mussell’s statement relating to the nationality of the defendant prejudiced the jury. The appellate court, however, ruled, “A careful and full investigation of the record convinces us that there were no substantial errors in the admission of evidence; that the jury was fully and fairly instructed; and that defendant was convicted after a full, fair and impartial trial.”
In 1934, Mussell was reelected district attorney. In 1937, however, he resigned as district attorney to create what would become one of San Bernardino’s most prestigious law firms, Duckworth, Harrison & Mussell.
At the end of his tenure as district attorney, Mussell’s office prosecuted Harry Herrick, a San Bernardino dry cleaner for undercutting the prices charged by other dry cleaners and laundry owners in the city for the service he provided. In 1937, the City of San Bernardino had enacted an ordinance setting “a code of fair competition for the cleaning and dyeing industry in the city,” which set a minimum price for various services to be performed by persons engaged in that industry, including a minimum price for cleaning and pressing a man’s suit. It made a violation thereof “a misdemeanor punishable by fine not exceeding $500, or by imprisonment in the city jail for a period not exceeding six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”
When Herrick charged his customers a price below the minimum set by the city, he was arrested and prosecuted and thereupon convicted. He appealed his case. That appeal was heard after Mussell was no longer district attorney. The appellate court, citing a similar ordinance relating to barber pricing in which a barber who had charged less than the specified minimum had been convicted but exonerated upon appeal, likewise vacated Herrick’s conviction.
Within two years, Mussell lured King to join the Duckworth, Harrison & Mussell firm. After Ben Harrison was appointed to the federal court, the firm became known as Duckworth, Mussell & King.
In 1939, Mussell weighed in on local San Bernardino Politics. He supported an amendment to the city’s charter which set police officers’ salaries at a level comparable to police officers in other similarly sized cities.
“I believe that the police officers in San Bernardino are underpaid,” Mussell said. “I therefore favor the adoption of City Charter Amendment Number 1 establishing a minimum salary.” That charter provision, known as Section 186, in recent years has been in the news as a majority of current city officials are trying to rescind it.
During World War II, Mussell served as an appeal agent for the selective service draft.
King served in the U.S. Army from September 1942 to July 1945. He was initially assigned to Washington D.C. as an assistant in charge of criminal litigation for the Office of Price Administration, prosecuting wartime profiteers.
Subsequently, King was sent to officer candidate and training school, where he was the commencement speaker for the graduating class. Thereafter he attended the Army Air Force’s Combat Intelligence School. While stationed in Austin, Texas with the Air Corps’ intelligence division, he lectured civilians and squadrons of the 89th Troop Carrier Group regarding the political rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the growth of the German military. One such speech was entitled, “Background of War.” In late 1945, having attained the rank of major, he was discharged.
By this point, Stanley Mussell was the vice president of the State Bar Association and a member of its board of governors.
After returning to Southern California and San Bernardino County, King took up again with Duckworth, Mussell & King, but shortly thereafter, when Stanley Mussell was appointed to the San Bernardino County Superior Court, he left that firm, going into practice with Stanley Mussell, Jr., forming the firm of King & Mussell.
On August 14, 1948, Governor Earl Warren appointed Stanley Mussell, Sr. as an associate justice to the Fourth District Court of Appeal, replacing Justice Emerson J. Marks, and he took the oath of office the same day.
With the firm of King & Mussell, John King became an even brighter luminary in the San Bernardino County legal community than he had been previously, handling all order of civil cases. Eventually, the majority of his work was defending personal injury cases. He represented nearly every major insurance carrier in the region, but he represented plaintiffs against insurance companies as well. He continued to handle criminal cases occasionally and became recognized as one of the best criminal defense attorneys in California. In time, his law firm hired young attorneys who would become stars of the legal profession in their own right, such as C.L. Vineyard, Bruce Maclachlan, and Florentino Garza.
John King was one of the earliest inductees into the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 1953, at the age of 43, he became the first attorney from San Bernardino County inducted into that august organization. He was also a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel.
Stanley Mussell was an associate justice of the appellate court from August 14, 1948 until January 4, 1960, when he retired and was replaced by Martin J. Coughlin of San Bernardino. Mussell served as a member on the Judicial Council for two years.
King further burnished his reputation into the 1960s as the region’s premier trial attorney. He could be ruthless in portraying police officers as having cut corners in their investigations or placing half-truths or outright lies into police reports. On those days when he would give a final argument for a case in court, many spectators would often attend, a significant number of whom were other lawyers.
For much of the 1960s, Stanley Mussell remained active in many fraternal organizations. Though he was nearly two decades older than John King, he outlived the young lawyer he had helped mentor by nearly three years.
On October 19, 1967, while in the midst of a final argument, John Lawrence King suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He died the next day. King’s legal legacy would live on. He had two children. His daughter, Jennifer, became a court reporter. His son, Jeffrey, was later a lawyer, a councilman and mayor of Rancho Cucamonga, a San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge and today is a sitting justice on the Court of Appeals, Fourth District.
On June 25, 1970, Stanley Mussell died at his home in La Jolla.

By Mark Gutglueck
The desert spring parsley, which is known as both the desert cymopterus, desert spring parsley and by its Latin name, Cymopterus deserticola, is an endangered four to six inch purple plant of the Apiaceae family that is endemic to the Mojave Desert.
It is included in inventory of rare and endangered plants. At present, fewer than 7,000 of the plants are known to exist. It is threatened by sheep grazing, urbanization and vehicles.
It was once relatively common in the area around Apple Valley but by 1988 it had disappeared from there, lost due to urban development and off-highway vehicle use. It also appears to have disappeared from Fort Irwin.
The entire known range of desert cymopterus occurs in the western Mojave Desert within the Western Mojave Planning Area.
It grows in creosote bush scrub and Joshua tree woodland of the Mojave Desert, from east of Victorville to Kramer Junction and the Cuddeback Lake basin, and across the San Bernardino County/Los Angeles County and Kern County borders in the area on and around Edwards Air Force Base, particularly in the Rogers and Buckhorn Dry Lake basins.
The desert cymopterus has no stem, instead sending its erect petioles holding the leaves and erect peduncles bearing the flowers straight out of the sand. Each leaf upon the petiole is a dull green and thick and fleshy, divided into several rubbery-looking leaflets which are again divided into triangular pointed lobes. The inflorescence is a spherical umbel of tiny purplish corollas surrounded by large green bracts.
Cymopterus deserticola was originally described by Townshend Stith Brandegee in 1915.
This species occurs at elevations from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and possibly up to 5,000 feet, in loose, sandy soils. The sandy soils required by this species occur on alluvial fans and basins, stabilized sand fields, and occasionally sandy slopes of desert dry lake basins. As a taprooted perennial, desert cymopterus does not appear to reproduce vegetatively, but rather reproduces via seeds. Seedling establishment has not been reported for this species.
Part of the challenge to the plant’s survival is that the plant needs sufficient water to produce seeds and in dry years, the establishment of new individuals are infrequent. Many reported desert cymopterus populations are highly dispersed and of low density. Their thinning further in dry years and lack of dispersing has resulted in a declining population.
Depending on the year, desert cymopterus flowers between early March and mid-May, and may not flower at all in unfavorable years. Poor seed production or seed survival are factors in infrequent establishment observed in field studies. At a number of sites in several different years little or no seed production has been observed.
A study conducted in 1988 at five sites found that the inflorescences dried up and aborted before setting fruit at each site. In a 1992 study at three sites on Edwards Air Force Base, it was reported that only a small portion of the plants flowered and that even fewer successfully produced seed. On the other hand, in 1995, a wet El Niño year, ninety-five percent of the plants produced inflorescences at the same three sites, and fifty-one percent of the plants had set fruit near the end of the growing season. However, this still indicates a lot of inflorescences aborted before setting fruit.
Fruits of the desert cymopterus are fairly large and do not seem well adapted for dispersal over long distances. Fruits generally seem to fall relatively close to the parent plant. However, the fruits have a marginal wing that may facilitate dispersal by wind. In addition, the fruits mature late in the season, typically after the end of the rainy season, so they remain dry and light. Therefore, given that wind is relatively common in the open sandy habitats where this species is found, it could easily push the fruits along the soil surface, although the fruits probably do not go airborne
As a result of annual variability in rainfall, the underground parts of
herbaceous desert perennials, including desert cymopterus, must be able to maintain the populations over time with frequent years of reproductive failure; in addition, they must be able to survive prolonged periods of low soil moisture and entire years without aboveground photosynthetic activity.
In dry years, desert cymopterus may not produce flowers or fruit and
may even remain dormant underground during the usual growing
season. In very wet years, however, they may produce flowers and fruits abundantly. Observations of abundant desert cymopterus in 1995
on Edwards Air Force Base demonstrated the species’ ability to survive the 1988–1994 drought in large numbers and with great vigor.
In 1995, the largest and most robust populations of desert cymopterus occurred on Edwards Air Force Base. Seventeen population surveys were performed that year, and population sizes at each location ranged from 1 to 1,929 individuals. In total, 14,093 individuals were counted over an area of 1,465 acres. The plant’s numbers have significantly declined in the twenty years since, however.
Desert cymopterus is potentially threatened by habitat alteration and destruction resulting from military activities on Edwards Air Force
Base, the expansion of Fort Irwin, oil and gas development, utility construction, renewable energy development, off-road vehicle use, sheep grazing, land tenure adjustment, urban development grazing by native and non-native herbivores—presumably including mammals, insects, and reptiles. The desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), itself a protected species, is also a threat to the desert cymopterus.
Populations of desert cymopterus are most likely sustained through
periodic recruitment only after years of exceptionally favorable conditions for seed production.
Population sizes appear to vary greatly from year to year, evidently in response to the amount and timing of winter and spring rainfall, making it difficult to determine population trends. The long-term viability of populations may hinge on the protection of habitat corridors between the existing populations and preventing any disturbance where the plants are now known to flourish.