The San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health is paying just under a quarter of a million dollars per year to have a limited subset of county residents receive electroconvulsive therapy.
Somewhere on the order of seven to eleven of what are deemed psychiatric patients within the county are subjected to the controversial process, which is intended to assist them in recovery from cases of severe mental illness, on an annual basis. While the sessions are represented as being therapeutic in nature, they have also been utilized as a form of punishment or means of behavior modification in circumscribed cases.
At the time the county entered into an arrangement with the Loma Linda University Behavioral Medicine Center for the provision of electroshock therapy, former San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health Director Georgina Yoshioka described the treatment in question as involving vectoring electrical charges into the brains of subjects, resulting in “a brief painless seizure which causes changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain severe mental health conditions, such as depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, which have not responded to reasonable pharmacological treatment. It is an evidence-based, safe and effective alternative that may provide relief.”
According to literature put out by the American Psychiatric Association, electroconvulsive therapy, also referred to by its acronym ECT, is a psychiatric treatment consisting of passing an electrical current through the brain for the purpose of causing a generalized seizure. Electroconvulsive therapy has been used as an intervention for mental disorders when other treatments are inadequate. Conditions responsive to electroconvulsive therapy include major depressive disorder, mania, and catatonia, according to the association.
Modern electroconvulsive therapy, having evolved from earlier seizure-inducing treatments, advanced in the 1930s into a formal procedure with the development of equipment designed to deliver electrical currents to the brain using either unilateral or bilateral electrodes positioned on the scalp to stimulate one or two of the brain’s hemispheres. Electroconvulsive therapy became widely used in the 1940s, 1950s and into the 1960s. Its use declined by the 1970s in reaction to negative publicity, untoward side effects, misuse extending into abuse and safety concerns. Continue reading →

The Morongo Unified School District, like 76 percent of the school districts throughout California, has experienced declining enrollment in the last several years. Moreover, the drop-off in the number of students throughout the Morongo Basin has been more pronounced than in virtually every other part of the state and appears very likely to persist.
Throughout California in the 2014-15 school year, there were 6,163,001 students from kindergarten to the 12th Grade in all of California. In the 2025-26 school year, as a consequence of declining birth rates, that number had dropped to 5,731,260, a diminution of 7.533 percent.
Meanwhile in the Morongo Valley Unified School District, enrollment has receded from 9,700 students in 2006 to right around 7,300 students at present, a whopping 24.7 percent.
Despite the Morongo Unified School District being San Bernardino County’s largest such jurisdiction geographically at 1,342.44 square miles, there are 17 other school districts in the county with a more substantial student enrollment.
With 11 elementary schools, two middle schools and three high schools, the number of students in the district had climbed to 8,005 at the beginning of the 2020–2021 school year, when in-class instruction had been suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline in students attending district school has remained constant since. Prognostication suggests that by 2031, the number of students in the district will have attrited to approximately 6,821. Continue reading →

In one fell swoop, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved contracts worth $90 million to cover work and supplies to be provided over the next four-and-a-half years to the county’s public works division.
In approving the disbursement of the funds, the board, acting as both the the governing body of San Bernardino County and as the governing body of the San Bernardino County Flood Control District, approved contracts of $10 million each with with Yucaipa-based Alexander Lawrence Bohanek doing business as A.B. Landscape; San Bernardino-based Bridgewater Equipment, Inc.; Chino-based California Arbor Care, Inc; Rancho Cucamonga-based Connected Enterprises Group, Inc. doing business as Galloway Boys Trucking; Victorville-based CornerStoneCC doing business as Cornerstone Construction Company; Adelanto-based MWC Group, Inc.; City of Industry-based Quinn Rental Services; Seven Hills, Ohio-based SCA of CA, LLC; and Lancaster-based Spadaro Enterprises, Inc.
The nine vendors were contracted to provide “on-call public works maintenance services.”
Work being contracted for includes chip seal material testing, concrete and concrete-repair work, debris control, erosion and sediment control, electrical services, fence installation and repair, guardrail installation and repair, hazardous waste removal, pavement maintenance and repair, snow removal and snow plowing, street sweeping, traffic control and flagging, traffic striping and weed abatement. Continue reading →

Yermo, which throughout most of the 20th Century was an independent and flourishing community in San Bernardino County’s vast desert outback, over the last several months has made preparations toward surrendering a key element of that independence. Further anticipated administrative action later this and next year will likely result in all aspects of the Yermo community’s public safety operations residing in the hands of county officials in San Bernardino.
Situated at a division point of the old Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad which was later absorbed by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Yermo was founded in 1902. A post office was established there in 1905. During the decade from 1910-to-1920, as the federal government was attempting to establish what was referred to as the all-weather Auto Trails System in the Southwest, the Arrowhead Trail, running from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, was routed through Yermo. In the 1920s, the Arrowhead Trail would be rechristened U.S. Route 91. It was as a major stop along Route 91 that Yermo came to full fruition as a community.
In its heyday, Yermo featured 27 gas stations, most of which employed mechanics, a machine shop capable of fabricating a host of auto parts, a hardware store, four real estate offices, seven restaurants, two grocery stores, a hardware store, seven bars/taverns, three motels, a thrift store, roadside camping sites and two parks. Continue reading →

Almost six years after Victorville’s voters by a very narrow margin passed a measure to impose on themselves an additional one-cent-per dollar sales tax burden, three of the five members of the Victorville City Council on June 16 indicated their willingness to ask for another cent in sales tax to be borne by the city’s consumers every time they make a dollar’s worth of purchases.
A bare majority vote of the council – 60 percent – was not able, however, to put the measure before the voters in November. A request of the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office to place the proposed tax ballot measure before Victorville’s 70,572 registered voters needed to be approved by a supermajority of the council, meaning four of its five members.
In 2020, public safety advocates, in particular supporters of the sheriff’s department, which serves as the contract law enforcement agency/police department for the City of Victorville, proposed a sales tax override, the proceeds from which would be used to beef up the city’s contract with the sheriff’s department to include putting more deputies on the city’s streets.
It is a peculiarity of the California Government Code, the California Tax Code and the California Elections Code that tax measures involving a tax proposed to be used for a specific purpose must be passed by a two-thirds margin, i.e., a 66.67% supermajority. General tax measures in which there is no commitment as to how the tax proceeds are to be spent need obtain a mere majority of the vote, i.e., 50.01 percent, to pass. Continue reading →

SUMMONS – (FAMILY LAW)
NOTICE TO RESPONDENT (AVISO AL DEMANDADO): WILLIAM DAVID BLACKWELL
YOU HAVE BEEN SUED.
Read the information below and on the next page. Lo han demandado. Lea la informacion a continuacion y en la pagina siguiente.
PETITIONER’S NAME IS (Nombre del demandante): ANGELA McKINNEY
CASE NUMBER FAMSB2507678
You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (Form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnership, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs. For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.cagov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services Website (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.
Tiene 30 DIAS DE CALENDARIO después de haber recibido la entrega legal de esta Citacion y Peticion para presentar una Respuesta (formulario FL-120) ante la corte y efectuar la entrega legal de una copia al demandante. Una carta o liamada telefonica o una audiencia de la corte no basta para protegerio. Si no presenta su Respuesta a tiemp, la corte puede dar ordenes que afecten su matrimonio o pareja de heco, sus bienes y la custodia de sus hijos. La corte tambien le puede ordenar que pague manutencion, y honorarios y costos legales. Para asesoramiento legal, pongase en contacto de inmediato con un abogado. Puede obtener informacion para encontrar un abogado en el Contro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California (www.sucorte.ca.gov), en el sitio web de los Servicios Legales de California (www.lahelpca.org) o poniendose en contacto con el colegio de abodgados de su condado.
NOTICE – Restraining orders on page 2: These restraining orders are effective against both spouses or domestic partners until the petition is dismissed, a judgment is entered, or the court makes further orders. They are enforceable anywhere in California by any law enforcement office who has received or seen a copy of them.
AVISO – Las ordenes de restriction se encuentran en la pagina 2 : Las ordenes de restriccion estan en vigencia en cuanto a ambos conyuges o miembros de la pareja de hecho hasta que se despida la peticion, se emita un fallo o la corte de otras ordenes. Cualquier agencia del orden publico que haya rocibido o visto una copia de estas ordenes puede hacerlas acatar en cualquier lugar de California.
FEE WAIVER : If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party.
Exencion de cuotas : Si no puede pagar la cuota de presentacion, pida al secretario un formulario de execion de cuotas. La corte puede ordenar que ested pague, ya sea en parte o por completo, las cuotas y costos de la corte previamente exentos a peticion de usted o de la otra parte.
The name and address of the court is: (El nombre y dirrecion de la corte son):
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT
351 N ARROWHEAD AVE
SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92415
The name, address and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or petitioner without an attorney, are: (El nombre, direccion y numero de telefono del abogado del demandante, o del demendante si no tiene abogado, son):
ANGELA McKINNEY, In Pro Per
18268 LAPIS LN
SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92407
(213) 610-0903 360-9821
Filed: NOVEMBER 12, 2025 by Christa Martin Del-Campo, Deputy clerk (Asistente) for Clerk of the Court (Secretario)
Published in The San Bernardino County Sentinel on June 12, 19, 26 and July 3, 2026.

Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
As the candidacy filing period for positions up for election in 22 of the 24 municipal elections in San Bernardino County this year approaches, the major operative question in Colton is whether either or both of Mayor Frank Navarro’s two rivals on the city council will oppose him for reelection.
Navarro has been Colton’s mayor since 2018, when he convincingly beat Mark Garcia with 77.37 percent of the vote. He was reelected mayor in 2022, when he again trounced Garcia, although not quite as lopsidedly, with 69.28 percent of the vote. Previously, in 2012, he had been elected to the city council representing the city’s Third District, having unseated then-incumbent Vincent Yzaguirre in that contest by polling 56.74 percent of the vote. In 2016, he defeated Kelly Chastain to remain as the Third District councilman. Chastain had previously been mayor and was previously Third District councilwoman.
Navarro had been a founder and among the most active participants in Citizens for Colton First, a grassroots political reform and fiscal watchdog group. The organization was formed to advocate for municipal transparency and fiscal responsibility, ensured through government monitoring. The group scrutinized city budgets, sought what was referred to as fiscal responsibility and advocated for cost-cutting measures such as eliminating perks to city officials such as auto allowances for city council members. Citizens for Colton First and its members also filed complaints with the Fair Political Practices Commission to enforce transparency laws, while targeting dark money and unregistered political action committees serving as major donors in local elections and eliminate or expose backroom dealings.
Citizens for Colton First’s political activism took place in an atmosphere in which no fewer than five elected Colton officials – former Mayor Karl Gayton, former Mayor/Councilman Abe Beltran, former Councilman Don Sanders, former Councilman James Grimsby and former Councilman Ramon Martinez were charged with acts of political corruption by federal and state prosecutors and ultimately convicted. Continue reading →

Judith Valles, who was San Bernardino Mayor from 1998 until 2006, had an illustrious career in the educational field before entering politics and the daughter of what is now recognized as one of the foremost families of the county seat, has died. She was 93.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants Gonzalo and Jovita Valles, Judith Lopez Valles was born in 1933, the seventh of eight siblings. Valles was heavily influenced by both of her parents and her older brother, Amilcar Michael Valles, known as Mike.
In 1942, when she was nine years old, her brother, Hanibal Antonio Valles, known as Tony, was killed in a training accident while serving with the U.S. Army Air Corps in the opening year of the United States’ involvement in World War II.
Judith would later recall, “Tony’s body was flown home, and my father went to the cemetery to arrange his burial. After everything was arranged with the church, my mother went to select a casket, and the employee asked, ‘Are you Mexican?’ When she said she was, the employee told her Mexicans could not be buried there, that Mexicans and Negroes were to be buried in the section on the other side of the hedge.”
This made her father, Valles said, apoplectic.
Gonzalo resolved to defy the lack of respect that was being shown toward his on. He removed Tony’s body, in the casket, to the Valles family home’s living room, where it remained while her father got in contact with Congressman Harry Sheppard. Continue reading →

Controversy – or a wealth of differing opinion – has broken out with regard to the efforts by Redlands police officers to pressure the city council and the city manager to raise their pay.
In recent weeks, Redlands Police Officers Association president Jeff Frisch has sent out emails to a cross section of Redlands residents, seeking their assistance in persuading top city officials to up the pay and benefits of the city’s police officers.
“Our city and residents support us, but the budget for the Police Department is woefully inadequate,” Frisch wrote in the missive. “Over the past ten year’s [sic] the Redlands total city budget has increased 100% from approximately 70 million dollars in 2016 to approximately 140 million. Despite this increase and additional funding from Measure T, our police department budget has lagged far behind the rest of the city’s spending, leaving officer pay and compensation well below other law enforcement agencies in the Inland Empire.”
According to Frisch, “Our average 10-year Redlands police officer now ranks dead last in compensation compared to neighboring Inland Empire agencies. Please give the city council and city manager the courage to follow through on years’ worth of promises to resolve this problem so that our city can recruit police officers and fill positions that have been vacant for multiple years. Please Visit www.RedlandsPoa.org for the complete salary survey.” Continue reading →