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Sentinel 09-04-15

Former Colton City Manager Stephen Compton will be allowed to proceed with his lawsuit against the city for wrongful termination and violations of California’s Open Public Meeting Law, a Superior Court judge has ruled.
The city of Colton, through its attorney, Elizabeth Han, had attempted to have the case thrown out entirely, claiming that the terms of Compton’s employment contract allowed him to be cashiered for any reason or no reason at all and under any terms the council deemed appropriate.
Han, who is with the law firm of Best, Best & Krieger, with which the city of Colton has a contract for municipal attorney services, sought to have Compton’s lawsuit terminated though the filing of demurrers to all three causes of action in Compton’s suit. A demurrer is an assertion by a defendant that although the facts alleged by the plaintiff in a complaint may be true, they do not entitle the plaintiff to prevail in the lawsuit in that there is insufficient legal backing for the claim.
On September 3, however, Judge David Cohn denied the demurrer motions across the board, clearing the way for the matter to go to trial.
Compton went to work for Colton in March of 2013 after holding over a period of 32 years varying finance and administrative positions with Ridgecrest, Fountain Valley, Indio, Soledad and Omnitrans in California and the city of Richland Center and the village of Sturtevant in Wisconsin and the city of Greenville in Texas. During the latter part of his first year at Colton’s helm, he came across a number of operational and accounting anomalies in the city’s public works division and capital projects. He utilized his authority as city manager, under which he could enter into contracts of up to $25,000 without first obtaining city council approval, to initiate reviews of the public works department and the city’s capital works operations and funding.
That proved to be a political faux pas on Compton’s part. Colton’s public works director, Amer Jakher, was held in high esteem by the city’s then-mayor, Sarah Zamora, the widow of the mayor who preceded her, David Zamora. Before he was elected mayor in 2010 and died in 2011, David Zamora had been Colton community development director and had a close friendship with Jakher. Following her husband’s death, Sarah Zamora was chosen as his replacement by a city council that was stunned by David Zamora’s untimely demise. In office, Sarah Zamora proved both reluctant and incapable of reining in Jakher or holding him to account, even as his department undertook projects that had not been given previous approval by the city council. Zamora’s attitude was emulated by most of the remainder of the council.
Moreover, among the issues explored in Compton’s reviews were what appear to have been unauthorized expenditures of funds on projects which benefited property owned by at least two then-council members, councilman Frank Gonzales and councilwoman Susan Oliva. This situation, however, was secondary to indications that there had been multiple unauthorized diversions of reserve funds to cover cost overruns on public works and capital improvement projects.
Alarm among some of the council’s members over the information Compton had procured triggered several closed session evaluations of Compton’s performance by the city council in the spring of 2014. After three such discussions in April and May, the council again met on June 3, 2014 to discuss and evaluate Compton’s performance in secret. As before, the council emerged from the June 3 meeting to have the city attorney report that it had taken no reportable action. But toward the close of the business day on June 5, Compton was confronted in his office and told he was being put on administrative leave and was then ignominiously escorted out of City Hall by a plainclothes policeman.
Compton remained on administrative leave for more than two months while an investigation into Compton’s action by then-city attorney Christina Talley and another attorney, Ontario-based Kathy M. Gandara, was ongoing. In the meantime, rumors and unsubstantiated reports abounded that Compton was to be terminated for exceeding his spending authority in carrying out the review of the public works department and the managerial decisions of public works director Amer Jakher.
Three members of the council – Gonzales, Oliva and Mayor Sarah Zamora – pushed to have Compton terminated with cause. On August 4, Gandara gave the city council an oral briefing of her findings, which showed that Compton had expended roughly $48,000 on various different outside work orders for consulting services including the review of the public works department, some $23,000 more than his $25,000 independent expenditure limit.
Gandara’s public report, however, was selective in its presentation and did not clearly delineate that the $48,000 worth of expenditures entailed a multitude of work orders, none of which exceeded Compton’s authority to engage in individual expenditures up to $25,000 each. No action with regard to Compton’s status was taken on August 4.
Ultimately and abruptly, on August 21, the city council terminated Compton, but cited no cause in doing so, thereby conferring on him the payment of four month’s salary as part of the severance clause in his employment agreement. At least four of the council’s members – Gonzales, Oliva, Zamora and councilman Isaac Suchil – were firmly in favor of the termination.
On October 9, 2014, attorney Cory Briggs filed on Compton’s behalf a writ of mandate combined with a verified complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief. Ultimately, that action was followed up with a lawsuit filed on May 18, 2015, alleging wrongful termination.
In his legal action on behalf of Compton, Briggs asserted, “On 8-21-14, on the advice of Colton’s city attorney [Christina Talley], the city of Colton and the Colton mayor and city council wrongfully terminated plaintiff in breach of his employment agreement and in retaliation for his reports to them of unlawful activities, including misappropriation of public funds by elected city officials, overstated account balances, improper use of the general fund to balance excessive spending by public works, and after he informed them that he needed to conduct an investigation on those matters.”
The lawsuit revolves around what Briggs maintains are violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, which he asserts was disobeyed when the council met to discuss Compton’s performance on June 3, at which time it took a vote which ended in a 4 to 3 decision to suspend him. The Brown Act requires that any vote on action taken during a closed session be disclosed at once. The council, however, allowed the city attorney to report that “no reportable action” had been taken.
Compton alleges the city refused to hold a public hearing at which the charges against him and the grounds for his termination were disclosed, as he requested and which request must be honored by the council, as required under state law.
In their demurrer on behalf of the city, Han and Best Best & Krieger maintain that the city’s sacking of Compton was entirely permissible in that under the terms of his contract he was serving at the pleasure of the city council, which at all times had the contractual right to terminate him with or without cause. The city also asserts it did not violate the Brown Act and in any event was not bound by the Brown Act in utilizing its right, specified in Compton’s contract, to fire him at will, as his contract said it could. No reportable action took place during the June 3 meeting, Han said.
Of moment, according to Best Best & Krieger is that Compton did not inform the city council of the investigation into Jackher but that he complains that he was retaliated against for having initiated an investigation. But since he did not inform the city council as a whole of the investigation, according to Best Best & Krieger, he has acknowledged that there was no retaliation. In fact, according to Best Best & Krieger, it was his duty to bring problems he encountered while running the city to the attention of the city council and doing his duty did not make him a whistleblower.
The city could have fired Compton with or without cause, according to Best Best & Krieger, and the intent of the language in his contract was that his employment with the city could be terminated without holding an open public hearing. Since there did not have to be just cause for his termination, there was nothing to prove and there was no need to have a public session at which the reasons for the termination would be explicated, the city maintains.
Judge Cohn pointed out, however, that there was evidence of a closed session agenda item that used the language dismissal and discipline in reference to Compton.
Cohn said that Compton is alleging a breach of contract and good faith and fair dealing. According to the judge, Compton’s employment contract says in section 9.1 that Compton’s employment is at will and section 9.2 says the council may remove the manager for cause by a majority vote or may remove the city manager by a unanimous vote of all members of the council.
Cohn said the problem is that the city’s reasoning for holding a closed session vote ignores California Government Code Section 54957. “State law trumps a local ordinance because it is the government code,” Cohn said. “A local ordinance cannot contravene state statute.”
Nor is it clear that Compton was fired by a unanimous vote of the council since the vote was taken in closed session.
Cohn then began to analyze the cited city ordinance and state government code section.
“Subsection 5 of Section 54957 is what we are concerned with,” Cohn said, “It says that essentially, the city can hold closed sessions to do a variety of things which include dismissal of a public employee and which include hearing complaints or charges brought by another employee, unless the employee requests a public session. The question is that last clause. Does it not modify everything that the city can do? It would be clearer if the legislature had put the phrase at the beginning of the statute.”
Cohn said that he interprets it as applying to the entire section, meaning Compton had the right to demand an open hearing. .
“The other thing,” Cohn said, “is that as a practical matter, somebody had to make some complaint or charge against Mr. Compton because otherwise they shouldn’t have had to consider his dismissal. Someone had to make a charge. The council does not say, hey, let’s put on the agenda an item sacking Mr. Compton. Government Code Section 54957 probably applies here. If it does apply, then the council didn’t give Mr. Compton the necessary notice. Guess what: He is still an employee, because the council action in closed session is null and void. There are some damages that come from it. If you prevail on the Brown Act, the dismissal is null and void.”
In effect, if that is the case, Compton will be due back wages until the present.
At this point, Sarah Zamora is no longer mayor, Gonzales and Oliva are no longer on the city council, and Talley is no longer city attorney.
Briggs pointed out that an element of Compton’s suit is a whistleblower action in which it is alleged he was retaliated against because he had uncovered wrongdoing by city officials. One way in which Best Best & Krieger had attempted to convince the judge to grant the demurrer was to argue that Compton could not be considered to be a whistleblower because he had reported wrongdoing to those he thought were the wrongdoers. The whistleblower law requires that that one report to someone with authority over the wrongdoers, i.e., someone who can do something about it. Briggs said that Best Best & Krieger has assumed that the wrongful acts were perpetrated by members of the city council. “We don’t even say that the actual wrongdoers are on the city council,” Briggs said. “We used the word implicated. It does not say that the council are the ones that are fleecing the taxpayers. Anyone that might be implicated are any of those who the investigative report was about, not necessarily the council members who were reported to. This is an appropriate subject for discovery and judgment, but not for demurrer.”
Cohn then issued a tentative ruling overruling the demurrer as to the first, second and third causes of action. He gave both parties 15 days to answer.

Chad Mayes, the former mayor of Yucca Valley who was elected to the California Assembly last year, was selected as leader-elect for the Republican Caucus in the state Assembly Tuesday.
Mayes will transition fully into the position on January 4, 2016 when the California Legislature reconvenes after the Christmas/New Years holiday. In the meantime, he will on certain days shadow current Assembly Republican Leader Kristin Olsen, of Modesto, to become acclimated to the duties he is to accept.
Mayes has moved quickly since coming to Sacramento, and already serves as the chief Republican whip on the floor of the state Assembly.
Mayes has been both propelled forward and held back by his conservative Republican, Bible-thumping ideology. He is the son of Roger Mayes, the pastor of the second largest church in Yucca Valley. Together with Jarel Hagerman, the pastor of the largest church in Yucca Valley, Roger Mayes is one of the most influential members of the Yucca Valley community. His influence has been key to his son’s political ascendancy.
Though Yucca Valley is the second-most impoverished incorporated municipality in San Bernardino County, it is decidedly Republican-leaning. By tapping into the Hagerman/Mayes conservative Christian political movement, Chad Mayes quickly vaulted to the top of the political heap in the town of 20,700. He holds conservative credentials in his own right, having graduated from the fundamentalist Christian college Liberty University with a bachelor of science in government. He was hired by San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford in 2011 to serve as her chief of staff in the county’s Second District, which is far removed from Yucca Valley.
His embrace of conservative Republican values, which eschew big government and big government mandates, resulted in the town of Yucca Valley resisting calls by the California Water Resources Board to end the town’s dependence on septic systems and construct a modern sewer system. Lampooning the state effort as an “unfunded government mandate,” the community collectively convinced itself it could ignore the state request, and next May the town is scheduled to be subjected to penalties if the sewer system is not in place or well on the way to completion by that time.
Mayes’ anti-government regulation ethos puts him out of tune with the general flow in Democrat-controlled Sacramento. His political stances have earned him election to public office over and over again, but have compromised his effectiveness, given the larger political context within which he now must function.
Mayes is considered a protégé of Paul Cook, a retired Marine colonel, who was Yucca Valley mayor and then held the assembly seat now occupied by Mayes. Cook is now a U.S. Congressman. In 2004, Mayes and Cook voted against a proposed 42-percent pay increase for town elected officials. In Mayes’ final budget as mayor, Yucca Valley spent $8.7 million, a slight decrease from the previous year, and had over $5 million in reserves.
Despite his strong identity as a Republican, Mayes has had some success at crafting bills that obtain bipartisan support. He introduced AB 851, which provides an orderly process for municipal disincorporation; AB 1286, which would create a body to examine the state’s regulatory environment; and AB 1202, which would have reduced the California State Fire Prevention Fee for residents who also pay for fire prevention at the local level. All three bills received unanimous bi-partisan support in their policy committee hearings.
In a statement, Mayes said, “I am humbled by my colleagues’ confidence in my ability to lead the caucus. I plan to build upon Kristin’s vision of bringing the caucus and its supporting operations into the 21st Century. I look forward to partnering with her over the next few months to ensure a seamless transition and to chart a path towards policies that will improve the quality of life for all Californians.”

In the aftermath of the city of Los Angeles’s decision to return ownership and control of Ontario International Airport to local authorities, there have been three developments with regard to the fortune of the facility.
In an unforeseen blow to those who were looking at an early significant turnaround of the contraction that has been ongoing at the airport for seven years, Jet Blue, the low-cost airline that ceased flying out of Ontario in September 2008, airline announced it would make its return to the Inland Empire not at Ontario, but at Palm Springs International Airport.
Beginning this week, Jet Blue began taking reservation for flights running from Palm Springs to New York City on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sunday and Mondays beginning on January 14, 2016. Jet Blue has committed to keeping that schedule, which is to involve non-stop red-eye flights departing at 11:49 p.m. and arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 7:43 a.m. Eastern time, through May 1. Inbound flights to Palm Springs from JFK will leave New York on the same day at 7:45 p.m. Eastern time and arrive in Palm Springs at 10:56 p.m. Pacific time.
Jet Blue will use its Airbus A320 aircraft, with a typical cruising speed of 640 miles per hour-to-650 miles per hour, for the flights. Introductory fares are to begin at $99.
Jet Blue was founded in 1999 as a low-cost airline. Ontario was JetBlue’s original West Coast city, with the first flight from JFK touching down on July 21, 2000. JetBlue flies 32 million passengers to 90 cities in the U.S., the Caribbean and Central and South America. It currently has flights to eight cities in California, including Long Beach Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, and San Diego International Airport in Southern California.
There was hope among Ontario officials that the airline might be persuaded to return to Ontario, but the company’s choice to resume inland California flights out of Palm Springs presages a different scenario.
Also this week, it was announced that the Ontario International Airport Authority will carry out an executive search to find a manager to assume operational responsibility of the airport from Los Angeles World Airports, the corporate entity which manages Los Angeles International Airport, Van Nuys Airport and Ontario International Airport for the city of Los Angeles and its division of airports.
The Ontario International Airport Authority, a joint powers authority which involves the city of Ontario, the county of San Benardino and the county of Riverside but is dominated by the city of Ontario, has earmarked $95,000 which it will pay to Boyden Global Executive Search, a headhunting firm based in Washington, D.C., to find a full-time executive director to oversee the transfer of authority over the airport from Los Angeles World Airports to an executive team overseen by the authority and the city of Ontario. The new executive suite will be charge with expanding the airport, as well.
The authority’s decision to hire Boyden, which is headed by managing partner Timothy Connor McNamara, to conduct the search pretty much ends the likelihood that Ontario will maintain a working relationship with Los Angeles World Airports for the operation and management of the aerodrome.
Under Los Angeles’s guidance following the formation of a joint powers authority between Los Angeles and Ontario in 1967, the airport grew immensely, with fewer than 200,000 passengers passing through its gates in 1967 and 7.2 million departing from or arriving there in 2007, following the construction or application of more than $500 million worth of improvements over four decades. But ridership at the airport dropped off drastically beginning with the economic downturn in late 2007 and Ontario officials blamed Los Angeles, its political leadership and the management within Los Angeles World Airports for the decline, asserting that Los Angeles officials were deliberately mismanaging Ontario Airport while completing upgrades at Los Angeles International Airport that boosted passenger traffic there. Ultimately, Ontario in 2013 launched a lawsuit against Los Angeles aimed at wresting control of the airport back from the megalopolis. For two years, Ontario escalated the war of words with the bigger city, engaging in pointed and insulting rhetorical flourishes that painted Los Angeles officials as greedy exploiters hell bent on destroying the Inland Empire’s economy. Just weeks before the trial on the case was set to begin, Los Angeles, in a display of magnanimity, agreed to return the airport to Ontario/the Ontario International Airport Authority, with little further ado beyond having Ontario pick up responsibility for the bonded indebtedness at the airport, and reimbursing Los Angeles for money generated at Los Angeles International Airport that was used for improvements in Ontario along with Los Angeles-owned equipment necessary to the operation of Ontario Airport that must remain there. That $260 million deal is well below the $450 million to $600 million it was estimated private investors would have been willing to pay Los Angeles for the airport. After Los Angeles thus left at least $190 million on the table in agreeing to return the airport to Ontario, there were grounds to believe the vituperation between the two cities would be set aside and Ontario would see the usefulness of having Los Angeles, with its global reach, continuing to operate and manage the airport.
It now appears, however, that Ontario, which has no division devoted to the airport and virtually no experience in running a municipal airport operation let alone an international facility, will be going it alone – or virtually alone – in taking on the monumental task of managing the airport on a day-to-day basis. The Ontario International Airport Authority does count as one of its members the county of San Bernardino, which does have a department of airports, but the largest airport that entity operates is the Chino Airport. Moreover, the county has been involved in the effort to convert the former Norton Air Force Base, through the San Bernardino International Airport Authority, into a going aeronautical operation. But that undertaking has been an unmitigated debacle, with the expenditure of more than $140 million toward the construction of an ultra modern terminal and concourse, and no airlines agreeing to use facility.
Los Angeles World Airports has immediate entrée with the more than 70 airlines worldwide which fly into and out of Los Angeles International Airport. Ontario officials lack that access to the different airlines’ corporate officials.
One of the reasons Ontario International Airport Authority board members chose Boyden was because of McNamara’s track record in a similar search, that for an executive director in for San Diego’s Lindbergh Field as it left the control of the San Diego Port Authority to be overseen by a newly created Airport Authority in 2003.
Meanwhile, on August 27, Jess Romo, the airport manager for Ontario International Airport employed by Los Angeles World Airports, announced that “Passenger traffic at Ontario International Airport was up 1.45 percent in July. Ontario International Airport airlines served 367,458 travelers compared to 362,220 travelers in July 2014. It’s a good summer season as we continue to see passenger activity in positive territory.”

The San Bernardino County’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) will hold a public hearing on September 16 at which it will consider a recommendation by LAFCO staff that the Chino Basin Water Conservation District’s “sphere of influence” be conformed with that of Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA).
Neither the conservation district nor the utilities agency has requested the change. The recommendation was generated within the LAFCO office after a service review was carried out. The option is being presented to the board as a consequence of the findings of that service review but also as a follow up on a previous move to dissolve the Chino Basin Water Conservation District, which employs nine, and incorporate its functions into IEUA, which employs 285. More than a half decade ago, LAFCO staff recommended that continuing the level of service with regard to water conservation in West Valley would best be achieved by the Chino Basin Water Conservation District being consolidated into the Inland Empire Utilities Agency. The conservation district’s board opposed that option.
The full consolidation effort has not been revived. Instead on September 16 the Local Agency Formation Commission board will consider expanding the water conservation district’s sphere of influence to be “coterminous” with that of IEUA, or expanding the sphere of influence to include the whole of the Chino Groundwater Basin within San Bernardino County, or eliminating the water conservation district’s sphere of influence entirely.
The first of those three options is perceived as some as a way of getting the camel’s nose under the tent so that folding the Chino Water Conservation District into the IEUA can take place eventually.
The Chino Basin Water Conservation District’s board is amenable to having the district’s sphere of influence made “coterminous” with that of IEUA. A sphere of influence is considered to be the geographical area into which an entity, functioning within certain jurisdictional boundaries or a service area, is most logically set to extend into in the future. A sphere of influence is not the same as a current service area.
The Chino Basin Water Conservation District is supported by property taxes collected within the district and it undertakes to promote water conservation through public education and practical limits on water use within its boundaries. The district’s board is intent on promoting water conservation within the larger context of the west end of San Bernardino County and thus is not averse to sharing the same territory with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, but it does not want to lose its independence.
The Inland Empire Utilities Agency’s first order of business is the provision of sewer services and the recycling of water within its service area but has not been a leading advocate of water conservation.
According to Kathy Besser, the manager of external affairs for IEUA, her agency has not taken a position on the options to be considered by LAFCO on September 16. With regard to the option to have the water conservation district’s boundaries expanded to match those of the utilities agency, she said it was unclear if such a move was to set up a future absorption of the water conservation district by her agency. “I don’t know if it is a precursor for anything,” she said. “Their operations are funded by property tax collected inside their boundaries and they can’t spend money for services outside their boundaries. Our board has not taken a position on it. We feel it is important for us to continue to offer the same level of service we now have.”
Besser said her agency sometimes contracts with the water conservation district for water conservation education programs.
She noted that a proposal went to LAFCO “several years ago which recommended consolidation between us and them but the commission did not support it.”
She said that the LAFCO board and staff have a comprehensive understanding of how local agencies and entities fit together and that the IEUA “will support whatever decision LAFCO makes.”

ADELANTO — As a lull in the political unrest that gripped the city of Adelanto has set in, city council members in the city of 31,765 are contemplating videotaping city council and planning commission meetings for live streaming and internet viewing.
Adelanto, which was incorporated as a city in 1970, has historically been the most politically unstable city in the county. Particularly in the 1990s, but continuing into the early 2000s, Adelanto was a hotbed of recall efforts, with warring factions that vied for political ascendancy continuously. Two of those warring factions were ones led by Patricia Chamberlain, who had been active in the founding of the city and went on to serve as a council member, mayor and city manager in the city, and Ed Dondelinger, a flight line sergeant at George Air Force who settled in Adelanto and went on to be elected as mayor there. An erstwhile Chamberlaine ally, Dondelinger gradually developed differences with her and, as mayor, moved to terminate her as city manager. This precipitated a bitter feud between the two, with Chamberlaine organizing a political resistance to the Dondelinger regime that involved a series of both unsuccessful and successful recall attempts of Dondelinger and his council confederates. Once out of office, Dondelinger engaged in political reprisals of his own, organizing a multitude of recall efforts that both successfully and unsuccessfully targeted Chamberlaine and her legion of affiliates.
This bitter back-and-forth grew to include activity by the then-Adelanto Police Department, which ultimately sided with Chamberlaine in the dispute based upon her promises of promotions and raises to the city’s police officers, who utilized on a number of occasions their power of investigation, including that of obtaining and serving search warrants, as well as their authority to make arrests, all of which were employed in targeting the Dondelinger forces. Ultimately, the politicization of the police department would lead to its disbandment in 2002 and its replacement by the sheriff’s department.
While the vitriol of the Chamberlaine/Dondelinger era faded after their respective withdrawal from the political picture roughly a decade-and-a-half ago, Adelanto has retained its much deserved reputation as a place that is highly volatile politically. A matter of speculation and debate is whether that volatility is a cause or an effect of the city’s precarious financial circumstance. Lacking a strong commercial tax base and hosting less than stellar real estate and thus hampered by marginal property tax revenues, the city has been hovering over a financial abyss for a half dozen years, sliding ever more perilously toward bankruptcy with every annual budgetary cycle.
In 2013 the city council declared that the city was in a state of financial emergency and sought to have city residents impose a new tax on themselves to shore up City Hall financially. Voters rejected that proposal, however, and former city manager Jim Hart’s efforts to generate revenue through a host of strategies foundered.
Last year, the city’s dire economic circumstance contributed to yet another manifestation of the city’s political volatility, when all three city council members up for reelection – mayor Cari Thomas, councilman Steve Baisden and councilman Charles Valvo – were ousted in favor of Rich Kerr, who replaced Thomas, and Charles Glasper and John Woodard. In the final throes of their tenure in office, Thomas, Baisden and Valvo voted with councilman Ed Camargo to allow two more large-scale detention centers to set up operation in Adelanto, complementing three such existing facilities within the city limits. This move was not favored by a vocal minority of the city’s population, who believe the city should move beyond its role as a host for prisons.
After the new council was sworn in in December, the old ruling coalition of Thomas, Baisden, Valvo and Camargo was defunct, replaced by Kerr, Glasper, Woodard and councilman Jermaine Wright. Kerr’s loosely-knit political machine was in ascendancy. Nevertheless, by February, there was considerable frustration on the council at the city’s inability to get its arms around the looming financial crisis. With Kerr stepping up his pressure on Hart and staff, Hart abruptly took leave of his post, delivering the city’s state of the city address on the afternoon of February 25 but not showing up at the city council meeting that evening. Within the next month, the city’s finance director Onyx Jones, likewise departed the city. The inability of staff to act forthrightly in addressing the financial challenges or to make sacrifices in response to it, led the ruling council coalition to the conclusion that wholesale city staff reductions were in order. By late spring, the Kerr-led council was moving to implement those changes.
In the political cauldron of Adelanto, however, the abrupt and substantial changes the council was advocating triggered alarm. Spurred by information provided by city employees whose jobs were now on the line, a collection of city residents, including ones close to Thomas as well as Carmargo began discussions about addressing alleged misconstructions of Kerr’s mayoral authority and misapplications of such, as well as the either passive or active support that Wright, Woodard and Glasper had given him.
Several current and former employees joined in with the growing juggernaut of resistance that Kerr was encountering.
The group, armed with a cache of internal city documents, including emails and memos that passed between Kerr and others, alleged that Kerr routinely overstepped his authority and in fact broke the law. In July, city public works director/city engineer Thomas Thornton, who had served as interim city manager upon Hart’s departure and was promoted to the position of actual city manager on May 12, resigned the city manager’s post to return to the post of city engineer/public works director. In that atmosphere, the collection of residents formalizing into a coalition against the city’s newfound direction signaled its readiness to initiate a recall effort that would target Kerr and quite likely name Wright and Woodard as well.
Recall advocates allege that Kerr, Woodard, Wright and perhaps Glasper had met covertly to discuss official city action outside the forum of agendized council meetings, a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. During the course of those meetings, it is alleged, Kerr, Woodard and Wright formulated a strategy of paring city staff and subsequently directed Thornton to carry out hirings and firings. Evidence that has been marshaled to support this includes emails from Thornton to city attorney Todd Litfin. In those emails, which have now put Thornton, who is returned to the position of public works director, in Dutch with a majority of the city council, Thornton states that three of the council members appear to have gone “rogue” and are giving him improper orders and “constantly” intruding into “the day-to-day operations of the city.” Thornton bemoaned the motives of and methodology the council majority was using to clean house at City Hall. He said the council probably had “the authority to eliminate positions [but that] it is my opinion based on many actions that have transpired since Dec 2014 that their reasons are personal in nature and not in any way connected with saving money,” Thornton stated.
Thornton expressed concern that directives outside the proper chain of command he had received to fire public works superintendent Nan Moore and senior planning management specialist Mike Borja would lead to a lawsuit against the city.
Kerr, a retired Marine, acknowledges having a “gung ho” attitude and having moved aggressively to redress the city’s problems from the start and having failed to follow the often-times plodding procedure required in the carrying out of public policy. But he has rejected the assertions by recall proponents and other critics such as former city conservation specialist Belen Cordero, who have leveled charges that Kerr and his council allies are power mad, have routinely violated the Brown Act – the state of California’s open meeting law – and are targeting specific employees for personal reasons. Cordero said she was forced to resign after refusing to terminate certain of her colleagues.
Kerr has gone on record as disputing those assertions, saying he is interested in altering the city’s charter to institute a “strong mayor” form of government in Adelanto so he and his successors can cut through the red tape and malaise that is preventing Adelanto from instituting the reforms needed to ensure the city remains solvent, provides the essential public services it should and avoids bankruptcy. He said there is no personal animus toward anyone in particular but the city needs to trim its staff of inefficient and unproductive employees who are not making a positive contribution toward the city’s current function or its future survival.
He said that despite the recall effort, he wanted to encourage more citizen participation in government rather than less. He said an informed citizenry was necessary to make positive change. He dismissed the suggestion the council is being secretive or violating the Brown Act. Accordingly, he wants to have the city live stream city council and planning commission meetings and have them available on the city’s website for viewing by residents after the meetings have concluded.
The precise ins-and-outs of doing so have not been established, but the council has asked city staff to come up with options.
“Adelanto is changing, for the better,” said Kerr, “and we want our citizens to see first-hand what we are doing to make Adelanto a better place to live.”
He acknowledged the council has run into a problem of perception with some city residents and that giving them a ready window on the operations of the governmental decision-making process will at least partially alleviate that. “Live-streaming will not only help us to engage our electorate, but it will serve to keep those on the dais honest and transparent,” Kerr said.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office charged three of the eleven deputies involved in the April 9 arrest of Francis Pusok with one count each of felonious assault by a public officer.
A KNBC news helicopter captured the final minutes of a chase extending by vehicle from Apple Valley and through unincorporated sections of the county, Hesperia and finally to a rugged hillside in the Deep Creek area south of Apple Valley, where Pusok abandoned his car and set out on foot and commandeered a horse near Bowen’s Ranch.
As Pusok eluded the several deputies that had followed him by vehicle to that area who were obliged to give chase on foot across terrain that could not be negotiated by motor vehicles, several more deputies were brought in by a sheriff’s department helicopter to assist in the pursuit. With the news helicopter high overhead and one of three sheriff’s department helicopters criss-crossing near the ground, Pusok fell or was thrown from the horse as first one and then and then another deputy came into the view of the video camera.
The news helicopter continued to capture video footage of Pusok, who momentarily attempted to flee on foot after falling from the horse but soon thereafter dropped to the ground in a compliant posture, being pummeled with fists and a Taser gun and kicked as the first two officers and then eventually eight more officers swarmed him.
After what he said was a careful examination of the footage on the videotape as well as the audio captured on belt recorders that were activated by several of the officers, district attorney Mike Ramos on September 1 said a decision had been made to file charges against deputies Nicholas Downey, Michael Phelps and Charles Foster.
According to Ramos, the videotape showed “deputy Nick Downey, when Pusok was down with his face down and his hands behind his back, kicked him once and then twice in the head area.” The video further depicted, Ramos said, “Mr. Pusok with his hands behind his back and his head on the ground in a prone position as he [deputy Phelps] is kicking him in the groin area.”
Four and a half minutes later on the video, “after Pusok is hobbled – after he has been handcuffed and his legs are bound and he is turned on his side – the deputy rears back and kicks him. That would be deputy Charles Foster,” Ramos said.
Ramos said, “This morning we filed three charges, three counts, of assault by a public officer in violation of Penal Code Section 149, a felony that was committed by deputy Nicholas Downey, Michael Phelps and Charles Foster, who assaulted and beat Francis Jared Pusok under color of authority, the defendant being then and there a public officer, to wit, a peace officer.”
Ramos described the elements of the crime as the three officers acting in their capacities as police officers during which time “they assault[ed] or beat another individual without legal necessity, using more force than was necessary under the circumstances.” Factors considered, Ramos said, were “the severity of the crime at issue” as well as whether the suspect presented “an immediate threat to the officers or others [and] whether at the time the suspect was resisting or attempting to evade arrest.”
In addition to the kicks he described, Ramos said Pusok was pummeled with “hands and fists.”
In his narrative, Ramos referred to ten sheriff’s officers whose images were captured on the video. An examination of the video, however, shows that there were 12 deputies in all captured on the six minute and two second video released by KNBC. An eleventh member of the department can be seen entering the video screen’s field at 3:02 on the video and another comes into view at 3:09. At that point Pusak is yet on the ground and almost entirely obscured from view by the deputies hovering over him.
The department has released the names of seven members of the department depicted on the video, most or all of whom can be seen using some level force on Pusak: deputies Scott Hamilton, David Moore, Dominic Moody, Raymond Perez, Tyler McGee, detective William Doemner and sergeant James Evans. The two other department members have not been identified.
Ramos said the others were not charged because their actions were less egregious than those of Downey, Phelps and Foster in that they may have had grounds to believe, based upon what they saw of others’ reactions and what they individually may have heard as the events unfolded, that the level of force they used was appropriate, given the circumstance.
“A peace officer may presume that a fellow officer has acted lawfully,” Ramos said. “If one of several deputies acted unlawfully or engaged in unreasonable excessive force, that officer’s action – those officers’ actions – are not imputed to another officer unless that office knew or should have known the fellow officers were acting unlawfully.”
Ramos further sought to explain why the others had not been charged, stating that they might not have seen the excessive force applied by Downey and Foster at the outset of the incident. “Those bushes are tall,” Ramos said of the vegetation around the spot where Pusok was lying on the ground. “You can’t see around them. So when these other officers are running up, what they hear on the belt recordings – and I am not going to get into the details; I am going to leave that for court – they hear something. The other officers are yelling. Not knowing the circumstances, they can’t see when they come upon Mr. Pusok and the other officers there.“
Thus Ramos said, “In fact, the use of force that they showed was reasonable under the circumstances. A lot of those officers just put their foot on him to hold him down to make sure he wasn’t moving. We took all those factors into consideration on why we did not charge the others. I believe the deputies that were filed on today crossed the line under color of authority but their actions should not tarnish the badge of those that honorably serve every day.”
Attorney Richard Hirsch, who in conjunction with attorney Michael Nasatir is representing Foster, said of his client that he has “ten years of distinguished and unblemished service to the sheriff’s department and was awarded the medal of valor in 2012 for saving a citizen’s life. Foster served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. We’ve carefully reviewed the video and audio recordings in this incident, and it is clear our client used minimal and reasonable force to restrain a dangerous individual who was resisting arrest. We are confident that when the evidence is presented in a court of law, that a jury will agree that deputy Foster is innocent of this charge.”
Attorney Michael Schwarz, who is representing deputy Nick Downey, told the Sentinel, “We are asking the public to withhold judgment until the facts are presented at trial. One of the things that has been kind of lost in the shuffle in the public discussion is the fact that the information my client had at the time of the event was that the suspect was violent, armed and dangerous and had terrorized his family just a few days before. That was the knowledge base he had when he was chasing this suspect on treacherous terrain who was basically going nowhere. The video is a small window into a much larger picture. People should keep that in mind.”
Ramos’ statement that Phelps had “gone over the line under the color of authority,” Phelps’ attorney, Steven D. Sanchez, told the Sentinel, “is not a fair description. Phelps acted in conformity with his training and experience, basing his decisions on the actions and reactions of the suspect. The portion captured on video by the helicopter was after a three-hour pursuit of a fleeing felon on a crime spree. Phelps’ only intent was to get the suspect into custody, and that’s what he did. He knows there are three helicopters and half of the Hesperia Sheriff’s Department is looking for this guy. He’s aware that Pusok is not yielding to authority…that’s been evident. A reasonable deputy must assume he won’t submit to an arrest without resistance, even if at first blush he may appear to do so. Phelps had no idea if Pusok had any hidden weapons. Phelps was emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted by the time he reaches Pusok…He’s been running in to where he finds Pusok…Everyone else was driven or helicoptered in. The elements played a huge role in this incident. He was knocked over by the wind of the helicopter; you see that on the video. His vision was blurred, sand was caked on the lenses of his sunglasses and he had no idea when back-up would arrive.”
Sanchez continued, “He’s the one that gets cuffs on Pusok, and once they are on and double-locked, and the arrest is effectuated and the suspect is finally in custody, Phelps extracts himself from the situation, doubling over in exhaustion from the struggle of using every limb trying to immobilize the suspect. The initial kick that is often spoken of was to the leg, not the groin, as the suspect was starting to get up, and designed to prevent that. It caused no injury whatsoever.”

Sanchez said the force Phelps used was appropriately applied.
“When Phelps went to handcuff Pusok, he saw movement,” Sanchez said. “He saw Pusok move his body and his right leg. That’s a bad sign for a deputy trying to arrest a fleeing, and potentially violent, suspect. Movement means escape. Movement means reaching for a weapon. Movement means injury or death to that deputy, unless that suspect is immediately restrained. Phelps did not see the leg strike to Pusok’s head, but he saw movement. At that time he is not in the position to presume that Pusok’s movement was not volitional, or an attempt to cause him harm. Phelps had no intent to kick him in the groin or to unnecessarily injure him. He wanted to kick him in the thigh to prevent him from getting up and running away. If you do not want a suspect to get up and run, you kick him in the thigh to briefly immobilize him. This is not prohibited by SBSO department policy.”
Sanchez said the frame by frame analysis of the videotape that has occurred since the incident has been done by individuals who were not in the arena of action and jeopardy the actual incident entailed.
“Phelps did not have his remote control with him,” Sanchez said. “He could not press pause and control live TV, nor did he have the opportunity to view Pusok’s threat in slow motion, frame by frame. Further, Pusok was not injured by Phelps. Pusok is seen hopping fences in San Bernardino a week later, so I seriously doubt he was hurt by Phelps.“
Sanchez suggested that his client might have been singled out unfairly by the district attorney’s office as part of an effort to placate public sentiment.
“Public pressure to prosecute police officers in today’s climate over any use of force, justified or not, is always at the forefront in any charging decision,” Sancez said. “It’s impossible to avoid. It seems like the charging decision with respect to my client was…misplaced. In this case, our client pulled out his cuffs, used only the force necessary to effectuate the arrest, then withdrew. Based on my reading of department policy, his actions were not specifically prohibited, he caused no injuries to Pusok, he arrested Pusok. To say I am surprised based on the supportive sentiment within the department and law enforcement community in the area would be accurate.”
The San Bernardino County Safety Employee Benefits Association, known by its acronym SEBA, is the union representing the sheriff’s department officers below the command level. A statement by SEBA President Laren Leichliter said that while “it is not our place to pass judgment” his organization would “offer support of our members and make sure each deputy in this case has access to legal representation. The primary focus of SEBA is to ensure members have the same legal right to representation as any private citizen, including the notion of being innocent until proven guilty.”
The Pusok beating, at least briefly in the wake of the broadcasting of the KNBC video, became something of a cause célèbre. Within short order, he was being represented by Victorville-based attorney Jim Terrell, who immediately began negotiations with the county, which in a little more than a week offered Pusok $650,000 to settle the matter and head off any legal action. Pusok accepted offer and the county board of supervisors, with the support of sheriff John McMahon, approved the settlement on April 21.
Nevertheless, Pusok’s ordeal had not ended. His home was subjected to the serving of a search warrant after he was taken into custody. On May 28, Ramos’s office charged Pusok with 11 felonies and three misdemeanors in connection with the April 9 pursuit, including evading arrest, auto theft, horse theft, animal cruelty, being under the influence of drugs, and reckless driving. Both he and his wife were further charged with being in possession of stolen property, based upon items recovered from his residence during the serving of the search warrants.
Terrell said the district attorney’s office’s action was disproportionately harsh in dealing with Pusok and disproportionately lenient in dealing with the officers who beat him. He said that based upon beatings Pusok had suffered at the hands of sheriff’s deputies in the past, he “had the right to run away. They’re savages,” he said of the deputies.
Terrell said at least five of the deputies at the scene of the arrest who had participated in the beating of his client should also have been criminally charged.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Talk about hoist with her own petard…
I would like to focus my readers’ attention well across the country to the state – or is it the commonwealth – of Pennsylvania. Playing out there is a perfect illustration of the issue of prosecutorial secrecy that my readers know has so animated me in the past…
Kathleen Kane, the first woman and the first Democrat to be elected Pennsylvania attorney general since that position became an elective office in 1980, has, like her predecessors and prosecutors throughout the United States, made use of the grand jury process to achieve indictments. She has lived by indictments, and now, it seems, she is about to die by the indictment process…
My problem with the use of a grand jury is that it seems to me a particularly unfair, unjust, unwise, dishonest and un-American way of operating. In Europe, secret indictments and trials are referred to as star chamber proceedings. Outside the scrutiny of the public, someone – it could be anyone, rich or poor, good or evil, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile, Moslem or Hindu, believer or agnostic, tall or short, handsome or ugly, guilty or innocent – is taken behind locked doors, charged with a crime and given a hearing at which judgment is pronounced. There is no open examination of evidence, showing of guilt or opportunity to present testimony with regard to innocence or mitigating factors. The prosecutor has absolute authority and power. Those on the outside have no choice but to accept that authority and trust that nothing venal, or crooked, or corrupt or evil is ongoing inside the chamber…
Grand juries are America’s version of star chambers. They are conducted in secrecy. The jury is impaneled and charged with reviewing a case presented to its members behind closed doors. In many or even most cases, the person accused does not even know of the charges being made against him, let alone have the chance to utter even a word in his own defense. Based upon this one-sided presentation of unverified and untested information, the grand jury almost always returns an indictment…
Kathleen Kane, after giving countless numbers of Pennsylvanians the star chamber treatment, was recently given the star chamber treatment herself…
A number of Pennsylvania officials, some Democrats, some Republicans, grew displeased with the way she was running her office. They believe she was using the power of investigation the attorney general’s office possesses to accumulate damning or embarrassing information about Pennsylvania politicians and public figures and was using that information as a form of crude blackmail or character assassination. They put together a case in which they alleged she had obtained secret information that was presented to a grand jury in 2009 and then leaked it to the Philadelphia Daily News and perhaps some other newspapers to embarrass a political rival, Frank Fina, who happened to be one of the lead prosecutors working for former Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett…
Kane, who is now 49 and in my book terribly physically attractive despite being a Democrat, is charged with lying under oath about the leak, ordering her aides to illegally snoop through computer files to keep tabs on the investigation into it and harming the reputation of a former civil rights leader named in the leaked documents. She could face up to seven years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge, perjury.
There has been some information that has made its way out to the public: the man in charge of special investigations for Kane’s office, David Peifer, testified he provided Kane with a copy of a transcript of grand jury testimony referenced in a Daily News article months before it was published. Peifer also testified he had a copy of a memo related to a confidential case emailed to Kane last summer. Kane told a grand jury last November she had never seen the memo, according to the prosecution…
A top aide to Kane left a package containing the material between his front and screen doors, according to special state prosecutor Kevin Steele, and a political consultant who helped Kane get elected three years ago picked up the package and delivered it to a reporter for the Daily News…
Steele has gone to great lengths to show that in years past Kane professed the belief that grand jury proceedings are sacrosanct, such as in 1999 when she was a county prosecutor. She claimed that to protect the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings, she would feign ignorance or even lie. Last November, however, she testified that she was not subject to secrecy rules surrounding the 2009 grand jury investigation because she was never sworn in to that grand jury…
Gentle readers, I am giving you an irony alert. Read on…
Kane is now asserting in public statements that she is being prosecuted because as Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor, she for some time has been sitting on explosive material relating to pornography and crass sexual and racist jokes being passed around by high ranking officials in the Pennsylvania state – or commonwealth – government. This pornography ring, she said, was investigated by a grand jury, which apparently has yet to hand down indictments. She has intimated that it is precisely because these officials fear the exposure of their misadventures involving this pornography and other illicit or embarrassing activity that they have moved, using the authority and machinery of government, to indict and discredit her…
The problem, Kane says she faces, is that to prove what she is saying is true, she will need to violate the confidentiality of the grand jury process. She cannot do that because to do so would be to break the law…
Everyone who knows me knows my Republican leanings. Sight unseen, I distrust Kathleen Kane based on her Democratic Party affiliation. I am three-quarters or even seven-eighths ready to convict her right now. But if I set aside my partisan prejudices, I must admit to myself that there just might be something to what she is saying. Just maybe, in the clubby male-dominated world of Pennsylvania politics, boys have been boys and these very powerful people did go over the line and they were trafficking in smut. And maybe, just maybe, this lady prosecutor stumbled on it and instead of ignoring it or maybe even indulging in a little prurient gander of her own, decided to forthrightly investigate it, get to the bottom of it and prosecute anyone who had acted illegally. And maybe this so upset the apple cart that now she is being raked over the coals and persecuted for doing what is right. But at this point, there is no way for us to know, because of the confidentiality surrounding the grand jury process…
My point is that secrecy when we are dealing with official actions and inquests and investigations into inherently public actions and public issues is a blatant absurdity and a blot upon the law…

By Mark Gutglueck
By late 1913, the California Land Company was marketing property touted as suitable for growing all order of fruit as well as alfalfa for $5 to $25 per acre. That year, farmers with mature apple and pear trees were netting as much as $1,000 per acre in produce sales. Produce merchants in Los Angeles were paying from $5 to $10 more per ton for apples grown in Apple Valley and Hesperia than from other apple districts of southern California.
In 1914, a train wreck stranded the world famous pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewsky in the Victor Valley, whereupon he repaired to the Hesperia Hotel and there gave a concert in the parlor of the famous red hotel. Hundreds of residents crowded into the hotel to hear the master
Roy Walters, who was the Hesperia Postmaster, recalled that his father, George F. Walters, ran the Hesperia Hotel until 1912. It was later managed by Miss Harriet C. Welch, but was closed in 1926 when it was announced that the town would be by-passed by Hwy. 66.
In 1914, Carl Leonardt began work on the Southwestern Cement Plant.
In November 1914 Stanley Mussell, a young attorney formerly practicing in Los Angeles, relocated his practice to Victorville. Sixteen years later he would be elected San Bernardino County district attorney.
In 1914, a high school for the city of Victorville and the surrounding area was opened in the home of the Richardson family.
Sometime in 1914 J..L. Watts of Los Angeles began working a mine at Black Mountain, an elongated and isolated butte southwesterly from Gray Mountain and El Mirage dry lake. Some of the rock Watt unearthed contained as much as $2,000 per ton in gold and chromium, with osmium and platinum present in the ore as well. Watts uncovered a vein estimated to be 1,200 feet wide, located between walls of granite that also contained abundant copper ore. The mine was still being worked in 1929.
On March 27, 1915, a Saturday, an election was held to determine whether the community would back the creation of a public high school. The measure passed 284 to 17.
In June, three of the students who had been schooled at the Richardson home, graduated with non-accredited diplomas.
In June and September, votes were then held with regard to the issuance of bonds to build a high school, passing overwhelmingly 199 to 27 and 169 to 9.
In November 1915, there were over 400 functioning water wells in the Victor Valley.
In September 1916, Carl Leonhardt’s Southwestern Portland Cement Plant began operation.
In March 1917 , the Victor Union High School, a modified Mission type structure located on a 20 acre site, was completed. Classes began at the school on March 13. The building featured ample room for up to 150 students, with four classrooms, a science lecture and laboratory hall and an assembly hall as well as an office for the principal, all lighted by electricity. The basement contained a furnace and heating plant. W. W. Green was the principal.
On May 26, 1917, the First National Bank of Victorville opened. By the end of that day’s operations, 188 individuals had made deposits totaling over $10,000.
On June 15, 1917, Ruth Sanborn became the first graduate of Victor High. She was the only member of the Class of 1917.
In July, the selective draft list for Victorville and its adjacent precincts was released, showing 142 young men listed in Victorville, 46 from Hesperia, 25 from Lucerne Valley and 30 from Oro Grande. Later that month, following a lottery, the number of those to be subjected to actual draft pursuant to physical examinations was down to 28 from Victorville, six from Lucerne Valley, five from Hesperia, eight from Oro Grande and two from Phelan. In August another 32 men from Victorville, four from Hesperia, six from Oro Grande, one from Lucerne Valley, two from El Mirage and one from Adelanto were called in for physical examinations to be held in Barstow. At the end of August, it was announced that 17 total from Victorville were called into the service; along with one man from Hesperia, two from Lucerne Valley, two from Adelanto, one from Oro Grande, one from Lugo and one from El Mirage. From throughout the Victor Valley 23 were granted draft exemptions and 24 were physically rejected.
The first full school year at Victor High started on September 3, 1917
On September 4, 1917, sixteen months before the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified and 26 months before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors passed a countywide prohibition ordinance that had been submitted by district attorney T. W. Duckworth.
In October 1917, the Victor Valley Irrigation District was organized.
In November 1917, the California Highway Commission voted to construct a concrete highway fifteen feet wide from Cajon Summit to Victorville and an oiled gravel road the same width from Victorville to Barstow. Actual improvements to the road would not come for another four years.
On May 30, 1918 two students – Georgia Margaret Richardson and Joseph Fred Turner, graduated from Victor High.
On September 12 1918, 142 new draft registrants from the Victor Valley complied with the provision of the new military manpower bill.
In December 1918, John Christenson, agricultural inspector for the Victor Valley, reported that 89 train carloads of fruit from the local area were shipped out of the county in 1918.
In June 1919, there were three graduates from Victor High.
In July 1919 a labor dispute at Golden State Portland cement plant at Oro Grande resulted in the facility’s closure for nearly eight months.
In September 1919, Victor High School had 43 students and six teachers. The elementary school started with 74 pupils and three teachers.
That month Charles H. Fuehrer was appointed constable of Hesperia township.
In its October 10, 1919 edition, the News-Herald reported the resources of the First National Bank of Vicrtorville amounted to $148,818.98.
In November a school census at Victorville’s elementary school and high school, conducted by Reverend M. K. Stone, showed 132 boys and 107 girls of school age, ages 6 to 16, of whom “33 were Mexicans, 15 colored, and 10 Indians. There were 78 children under school age and 101 families counted, all of these being in the Victor school district and most of the population in Victorville,” the Victor News-Herald reported.
In March 1920, the Golden State Portland Cement Plant in Oro Grande resumed operations.
In March 1920, San Bernardino County Assessor E. J. Gilbert announced a new policy of assessing homesteaders on the land they were occupying but which they had not yet patented. The homesteaders, known as entrymen before the homesteads were officially recorded, protested this new process. The entrymen argued that until they completed the improvements to the property required under the Homestead Act the property in fact represented a liability to them and that it had no real worth. Moreover, the homesteaders claimed, the title to the property in question was not held by them, but by the federal government. Possessory rights on homestead lands were not assessed in other counties, although a state law seemed to uphold such assessments. Other counties proceeded on the theory that the settlers on dry homestead lands had enough expenses without the government adding more. No relief was offered by the assessor’s office. Those who did not pay found the records in the county showing taxes due against the property, and to clear the title they had to pay the taxes or enter into an expensive suit to quiet title.
Beginning in March, electric lines were being extended to Apple Valley, Rancho Verde, Hinkley and Wild.
On April 3, 1920, an election was held within the Mojave River Irrigation District, resulting in the issuance of $5.6 million worth of bonds for the purpose of purchasing land and water, water rights, reservoir sites and for constructing canals and reservoirs.
In April 1920 N. W. Weidrick began operating a creamery in Victorville, putting out “Victor” brand cream, butter, and ice cream.
In May of 1920, the First National Bank’s books showed that institution had resources of $236,000.
In June five young women composed the entirety of the 1920 Victor High School graduating class.
In July, The Southern Sierras Power Company extensions were completed to Apple Valley and juice was turned on there for a number of ranchers.
After complaints, petitions and a hearing, it was determined in July that the possessory rights of homesteaders on land should be assessed $1 per acre
In August Clarence S. Crane, of Victorville; Dr. C.E. Stauter, of Needles; John T. Bennette, of Oro Grande; and A.B. Mulvane, the incumbent, were candidates for supervisor of the First Supervisorial District. At the August 31 polling Bennette captured 122 votes, Crane 750 Mulvane 285 and Stauter 362.
In September Bert L. Lunceford opened a meat market in a building formerly occupied by a co-operative store.
On November 2, in the run-off election between Crain and Stauter, Clarence S. Crain bested Dr. Stauter 9,399 to 3,163 the same day Warren Harding was elected U.S. president.

Widely distributed throughout the Mojave Desert, Chuckwallas are large lizards found primarily in arid regions of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Some are found on coastal islands. There are five species of chuckwallas, all within the genus Sauromalus; they are part of the iguanid family, Iguanidae.
The common name chuckwalla derives from the Shoshone word “tcaxxwal” or Cahuilla “caxwal,” transcribed by Spaniards as “chacahuala.”
The generic scientific name, Sauromalus, is a combination of two Ancient Greek words:σαῦρος (sauros) meaning “lizard”. and ομαλυς (omalus) meaning “flat.”
Chuckwallas are a stocky wide-bodied lizard with a flattened midsection and prominent, rounded belly. Their tails are thick, tapering to a blunt tip, and will regenerate if detached. Loose folds of skin characterize the neck and sides of the body, which is covered in small, coarsely granular scales. The common chuckwalla (Sauromalus ater) measures 15 3/4 inches in length.
They are sexually dimorphic with males having reddish-pink to orange, yellow or light gray bodies and black heads, shoulders, chest and limbs. Sometimes the dark coloring is covered with light spots and flecks. Females and the immature have bodies with scattered spots or contrasting bands of light and dark in shades of gray or yellow. Males are generally larger than females and possess well-developed femoral pores located on the inner sides of their thighs; these pores produce secretions believed to play a role in marking territory. The body and tail of young chuckwallas are more prominently banded with dark and yellow coloring.
The genus Sauromalus has a wide distribution in the desert environment of the Sonora and Mojave. The common chuckwalla (Sauromalus ater) is the species with the greatest range, found from southern California east to southern Nevada and Utah, western Arizona and south to Baja California and northwestern Mexico. The peninsular chuckwalla (Sauromalus australis) is found on the eastern portion of the southern half of the Baja California Peninsula.
The other species are island-dwelling and therefore have much more restricted distributions. The Angel Island chuckwalla (Sauromalus hispidus) is found on Isla Ángel de la Guarda and surrounding islands off the coast of the Baja California Peninsula. Two rare and endangered species – the Montserrat chuckwalla (Sauromalus slevini) and and the San Esteban chuckwalla or painted chuckwalla (Sauromalus varius) – are found, respectively, on Islas Carmen, Coronados and Montserrat in the southern Gulf of California and on San Esteban Island, Lobos and Pelicanos.
Chuckwallas prefer lava flows and rocky areas, ones typically vegetated by creosote bush and other such drought-tolerant scrub. They range to elevations as high as 4,500 feet.
Primarily herbivorous, chuckwallas feed on leaves, fruit and flowers of annuals and perennial plants; insects represent a supplementary prey. The lizards are said to prefer yellow flowers, such as those of the brittlebush (Encelia farinosa).
Harmless to humans, these lizards are known to run from potential threats. When disturbed, a chuckwalla will use its rough skin and strong claws to entrench itself tightly into a crevice, sometimes inflating its lungs in order to wedge its thick midsection.
Males are seasonally and conditionally territorial; an abundance of resources tends to create a hierarchy based on size, with one large male dominating the area’s smaller males. Chuckwallas use a combination of color and physical displays, namely “push-ups”, head-hobbing, and gaping of the mouth, to communicate and defend their territory.
Chuckwallas are diurnal animals and ectothermic, spending much of their mornings and winter days basking. These lizards are well adapted to desert conditions; they are active at temperatures of up to 102 °F (39 °C). Juveniles emerge first, then adults, as temperatures reach around 90 °F. Chuckwallas hibernate during cooler months and emerge in February.
Mating occurs from April to July, with five to 16 eggs laid between June and August. The eggs hatch in late September. Females may skip one or two years between laying eggs. Chuckwallas may live for 25 years or more.