Nine years after a previous Chino Valley Unified School District board majority sustained a definitive and what was for the district an expensive legal setback by testing the prevailing state/church separation standard that prohibits school prayer, the current school board majority is attempting again to imbue its proceedings with the aura of divine guidance.
The district filed a motion in the same forum, U.S. District Court, in which its practice of opening school board meetings with a prayer or invocation was rejected in 2016. The board, which has three members at present who were not in office in 2016, is pinning its hope for a different outcome on a substantial changeover on the U.S. Supreme Court and a slightly different tenor that panel has set with regard to public displays of religiosity in the interim.
One factor with regard to this matter in the Chino Valley that has not changed is the inspiration for the trend – the Reverend Jack Hibbs of the Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Congregation. Hibbs is a denominationalist, who holds that Christians have a duty to stand up for their beliefs by either running for election to public office themselves or supporting other Christians who do run, and then, upon taking office, Christianize public policy.
Beginning with the successful candidacy of Sylvia Orozco, a Calvary Chapel parishioner, to the school board in 2006, Hibb’s followed that up with the election of another Calvary Chapel attendee, James Na in 2008.
In 2012, a third member of Hibbs’ congregation, Andrew Cruz, was elected to the school board. Cruz, Na and Orozco, representing a religious trifecta that constituted a majority on the board, set about making significant inroads on the district’s policies.
A major milestone in this regard was making Bible study part of the district curriculum, as well as including benedictions at the beginning of the school board meetings and later, after Na became board president, outright evangelism from the district board dais, with Na telling those present at meetings that they should seek out Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
When the district began to move toward including daily prayer as part of basic instruction at the district’s schools, the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin in 2014 stepped in and filed suit in Federal Court in Riverside against the district on behalf of two named plaintiffs, Larry Maldonado and Mike Anderson, and 21 unnamed plaintiffs who asserted they were alienated or intimidated at school board meetings because of the insistence of some district officials to engage in so-called Christian witnessing, including “prayers, Bible readings and proselytizing.”
A ruling on the Freedom From Religion Foundation lawsuit by Federal Judge Jesus Bernal resulted in overt religiosity and proselytizing within the district’s schools being eliminated in 2016. As a consequence of that ruling, the district had to reimburse the Freedom From Religion $546.70 for its cost in filing the lawsuit and cover its $202,425.00 in attorney’s fees.
Nevertheless, the Na, Cruz and Orozco voted for the district to appeal Bernal’s ruling to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit ultimately upheld Bernal, which resulted in the district being responsible for another $75,680 of the Freedom From Religion’s legal fees with regard to the appeal.
In 2018, Orozco did not seek reelection and Christina Gagnier and Joe Schaffer were elected and thereafter joined with Board Member Irene Hernandez-Blair to form a board majority that countered Na and Cruz.
For four years, the denominationalists in the Chino Unified School District were one vote short of exercising the control over the district they had formerly. In the 2020 election Cruz and Na had been returned to office and Hernandez-Blair did not seek reelection. She was replaced by Don Bridge, who was as committed as was Hernandez-Blair to preventing a religious takeover of Chino Valley’s public schools.
Gagnier, an attorney, had aspirations of moving on to higher office, such as the state legislature and/or Congress. A politician in the mold of Congresswoman Katie Hill or Palm Springs Mayor Christy Holstege, Gagnier had the backing not only of local Democrats but those at the state and national levels, and she was a particular darling of the progressive establishment. She was being groomed to move up to Sacramento in conformance with the strictures of California’s term limits, from which perch she was to eventually launch her run for Congress. This plan was contingent upon her maintaining her status as an officeholder. In 2022, the Democrats, as the dominant party in Sacramento, joined forces to assist her in hanging onto her incumbency. California Superintendent of Public Schools Tony Thurmond, formerly a Bay Area assemblyman, was prominent among the Democrats campaigning on her behalf.
Despite the Democrats pulling out all, or most, of the stops in the effort to keep Gagnier in office, she ran head-on into Hibbs’ denominationalist political machine, which was militating to recapture the high ground it had occupied until the combination of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Judge Bernal, Hernandez-Blair, Gagnier and Schaffer had successfully obstructed it. The 2022 election did not go the Democrats way in the 2022 Chino Valley Unified School District election. Two further members of the Calvary Chapel Chino Hills congregation, Sonja Shaw and Republican Central Committee Member Jon Monroe, proved victorious, displacing Gagnier and Schaffer on the board.
That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court in considering the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which a football coach challenged his having been disciplined for praying with members of his team on the field after games, in a 6-to-3 ruling dispensed with the previous standard, one embodied in the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman relating to such issues. Under Lemon v. Kurzman, laws could not have a religious intent, could not advance a particular religion but could not inhibit any religion either and could not promote government involvement in a particular. The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, indicated that in prohibiting the coach from praying with his players, the coach’s free speech rights might have been violated and that before prohibiting prayer straight out, a governmental entity should consider “historical practices and understandings” with regard to prayer in the particular community involved.
With Na and Cruz yet on the school board and their being joined by Shaw and Monroe, the school board last month week at last got around to rolling the dice to determine if the ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton unwinding the controlling precedent in Lemon v. Kurzman will result in a different outcome than in 2016 and 2018.
At its July 17 meeting, the board, with Shaw and Monroe absent, discussed with the district’s legal counsel the retaining of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a Murrieta-based nonprofit law firm specializing in issues relating to religious liberty to represent it with regard to what was generically described as “anticipated litigation.” No announcement of any action with regard to that matter was made that evening, but it was revealed that on Thursday, July 31, Advocates for Faith & Freedom, on behalf of the district, filed with the District Court in Riverside for relief from Judge Bernal’s 2016 injunction enjoining the board from permitting or endorsing prayers during meetings.
The district’s filing incorporates wording from the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kennedy v. Bremerton case, propounding that a majority of the board are intent on adopting a policy of kicking off the board meetings with an invocation or a prayer in keeping with the district’s “history and traditions.”
In a statement that minimized the degree to which the board as it was previously composed including Na and Cruz had virtually exclusively utilized Christian prayer as the board homilies, Shaw insisted that the district had “welcomed voices of all faiths without coercion or preference.” She said that secular “groups driven by political agendas” had straitjacketed the district into having “to abandon a unifying tradition,” namely prayer recitation. “We will not quietly surrender our right to reflect the values of our community and the freedoms our nation was built upon,” according to Shaw.
Robert Tyler, an attorney for Advocates for Faith & Freedom who was involved in 2016 and 2018 when the district policy was successfully challenged by the Freedom From Religion Foundation and lost on its appeal of Judge Bernal’s ruling, indicated the district this time will be hanging its hat on the reorientation the Supreme Court has made with regard to the subject of public religious expression in recent years.
Almost as soon as the filing was made, the Freedom From Religion Foundation indicated it will step up to oppose the district’s latest legal effort.

Two homeless women were mauled, one fatally, by pit bulls in San Bernardino on Thursday.
The attacks occurred proximate to the shantytown that formed along the chain-link fence barrier to East Twin Creek near Pacific Street and Perris Hill Park Road after city officials forcefully removed dozens of people who were living in Perris Hill Park in November 2024.
The dogs made a savage attack on the woman late in the afternoon on July 31. An emergency 911 call reporting the attack on one of the women was made around 5 p.m. and was patched through to the police department. Several units were dispatched to the scene.
The first of the officers to respond located one of the woman, believed to be the woman about whom the emergency call had been made. He summoned an ambulance and was attempting to tend to her wounds when two of the dogs that had been obscured by nearby vegetation emerged, moving quickly toward him.
The officer used his service firearm to shoot and kill one of the dogs, while the other scampered away.
Shortly thereafter, another woman, subsequently identified as 51-year-old Teodora Mendoza, was found nearby, with severe injuries to her face. She had lost a substantial amount of blood. She was transferred at once to St Bernardine Hospital, which was located roughly two-thirds of a mile away.
Despite the rendering of medical care, Mendoza succumbed to her injuries.
A series of events stretching back for more than a year and taking place at various locations, one as far as 2,610 miles away and another less than a mile distant, led to Mendoza’s demise.
On June 28, 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court’s entered a ruling in the case of the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson allowing local governments to be more ruthless in the way the homeless population is handled.
The Supreme Court’s final disposition of the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson matter essentially undid previous rulings in the 1962 case of Robinson v. California and the 2018 case Martin v. Boise.
In Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits criminalization of a status, as opposed to criminalizing criminal acts, in striking down a California law that made being addicted to narcotics unlawful. By extension, this pertained to being homeless, such that it made applying traditional vagrancy laws difficult, problematic or even impossible. In this way, from that point on, at least until last year, an individual could not be prosecuted for being homeless.
In Martin v. Boise, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that city officials in Boise, Idaho could not enforce an anti-camping ordinance whenever its homeless population exceeds the number of available beds in its homeless shelters. The Ninth Circuit includes the nine western states and all of the Pacific Islands.
Both Robinson v. California and Martin v. Boise had the practical effect of preventing government in general and local governments in particular from declaring open warfare on the homeless. Whereas previously, before the Grants Pass vs. Johnson ruling, local officials had to walk a very fine line in evicting homeless from parks and other public areas, officials as of June 2024 have had a much freer hand in sending the homeless packing.
In the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the punishments of fines, temporary bans from entering public property, and one-month jail sentences imposed by the City of Grants Pass on trespassers at its parks were neither cruel nor unusual and that that the Grants Pass’s anti-camping ordinances were neutrally applied against both the homeless and those who are not homeless. The upshot was that the Supreme Court held that local governments can ban the homeless from public areas.
This was of substantial significance in San Bernardino, where the homeless had established what was, for all intents and purposes, permanent residency there, living in tents or using other means such as sleeping bags laid out near the parks’ picnic tables to make it through the night and on to the next day and then the next and then the next.
The city first cleared the homeless from Secombe Lake Park and then Meadowbrook Park.
For years, city officials and many residents decried the homeless habitation of the parks, which many complained made city residents reluctant, unwilling and afraid to visit and make use of those amenities.
In October 2024, San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran said the city would initiate the removal of homeless individuals from the Perris Hill Park as soon as it had two new homeless shelters in place. A month later, those shelters had yet to materialize, but officials impatient with the situation on Thursday, November 14, dispatched city employees, accompanied by police officers and employees of the Burrtec trash company, to begin forcefully evicting the remnants of the homeless population living in Perris Hill Park.
On that day, Mendoza was separated from the place she had for months off-and-on been calling home.
There were expressions of relief and accomplishment among a certain set of the city’s population over the homeless having been booted from the parks.
As an inducement to get many of the homeless to leave Perris Hill Park, officials offered them vouchers to stay at local motels or hotels. Based upon the Sentinel’s inquiries at the time, those dislodged from the park who accepted the offers of the vouchers were given respites from living under the stars for, in one case, three days, another for 10 days and a third for a week. A fourth person enjoyed a motel stay of eight days. Thereafter, all were again living under dire conditions in San Bernardino.
The homeless who left the parks took up lodging in areas nearby that proved as problematic as their presence in the parks. This included living in alleyways, abandoned buildings, in flood control channels, in and near riverbeds and creekbeds and under freeway overpasses.
Mendoza’s situation was not much different from those of others caught up in the inhumane conditions that come with living on the streets. Whereas previously, while she was among others while subsisting in Perris Hill Park, there would have been enough people in close proximity to her to, perhaps, have pulled a vicious dog that had locked its jaws onto her face, had such an attack occurred there. As it turned out, roughly a half-mile away from Perris Hill Park, in the area near Twin Creek where she had been reduced to dwelling on July 31, she found herself isolated just enough that when she had her final encounter with the dogs, there was no one there to save her.

A week after reports were abounding that Paul Cook was on the brink of resigning as First District San Bernardino County supervisor in order for former State Assemblyman and ex-Hesperia Mayor Thurston Smith to be appointed to that post, word now comes that the 82-year-old Cook is determined to remain in office until the end of his term in 2028 and is openly talking about running for reelection that year.
The Sentinel and other news outlets in July reported that Cook and others had engaged in considerable backroom maneuvering and political horsetrading involving other supervisors, high-level county staff and members of the committees and subcommittees of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee to make way for Smith to succeed him.
Cook, who was formerly the mayor of Yucca Valley, a California assemblyman and for almost eight years a member of Congress, left the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 to run for First District San Bernardino County Supervisor. Based on his name recognition and the considerable amount of money in his political war chest, he was handily elected supervisor in 2020 and comfortably reelected in 2024.
Cook, who actually resides in the county’s Third Supervisorial District in one of the nicest homes in Yucca Valley, worked around the residency requirement in his run for First District supervisor by claiming he lived in the home of his designee as chief of staff, Tim Itnyre, who was the son of a fellow Marine with whom Cook served when he was a commanding officer at the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base prior to his retirement from the military.
In recent years, Cook has faced health challenges, and episodic lapses of memory and lucidity. Nevertheless, his vote in support of the decisions made by the ruling coalition on a Republican-dominated board of supervisors that currently consists of himself, Second District Supervisor Jesse Armendarez, Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe and Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman is considered important, and those on the fourth and fifth floor of the county administrative building at 354 Arrowhead Avenue in San Bernardino have been walking on eggs in an effort to keep from offending him. Nevertheless, there have been occasions in public, including at board meetings and during speeches he has made at open events where his “verbal eccentricities” have raised concerns.
To preserve the county’s political, administrative and managerial order, a move was afoot, the Sentinel was informed, since shortly after Cook’s reelection in March 2024, to make a smooth transition from Cook to some other Republican as the supervisor overseeing the county’s 10,063-square mile First District comprising just a tad over half – roughly 50.05 percent – of the county’s 20,105 square mile land mass and roughly one-fifth of the county’s 2.15 million residents. Cook’s successor, it was understood, would need to be at one with the shared agenda of Hagman, Rowe and Armendarez. It was widely represented that Smith, a now retired cement and concrete contractor who spent eight years on the Hesperia City Council and a single two-year term in the California legislature and goes by the nickname “Smitty” rather than his given first name of Thurston, had emerged as the person best suited to take over from Cook.
The political establishment believed having Cook vacate the supervisorial position mid-term and promoting a “safe” individual who would not obstruct or get in the way of the general direction the current board of supervisors is moving the county in would be preferable to having a number of unknown entities vie for supervisor, creating a circumstance in which the victor might prove unreceptive toward the ideas the current majority has with regard to how the county should be governed or, worse, hostile to those ideas or, worse still, a Democrat.
A plan, reportedly signed off on by San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee Chairman Phil Cothran Sr., was for Cook to resign later this year, for the board to decide to make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy, to accept applications for the post from among First District residents, including Smith, and to then appoint Smith to the position, which provides its holder with a yearly salary of $194,806.47, another $37,133.02 in perquisites and pay add-ons, and $63,200.50 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $295,139.99. The board was also purposed to set a special election to choose someone to hold the post in the final two years that Cook had been elected to in 2024, running from December 2026 until December 2028. This would allow Smith to run for election to the post in the November 2026 election as an incumbent, which, it was calculated, would confer upon him an advantage that would likely result in his remaining in office.
When information about what was in the offing went public last month, it set off a wave of denials among officeholders, county officials and staff, higher-ups in the San Bernardino County Republican Party and Smith himself, who said his eye is on running from the California Assembly in 2026. Cook, it was reported, was talking about beginning preparations, some three years in advance for his 2028 reelection run.
“More fake news,” was a common refrain.
“You guys never get it right,” one politico said of the Sentinel, specifically. “Or if you do, it’s by accident.”
“Wrong again,” said another.
There were few people who wanted to speak on the record regarding Colonel Cook.
One politician whose résumé included service as an elected city council member and member of the board of supervisors among other elected posts, held an appointed commissioner position, no fewer than four joint powers authority directorships and has had a career within government that spanned from senior administration to overseeing government finances including a multi-billion budget, spoke to the Sentinel under the condition of anonymity.
The Sentinel, the politician said, had not gotten the facts wrong but had broken the information prematurely, before the changeover to Smith was to be actuated.
“I’m not sure of the timing,” the politician said. ”Word is that the Colonel was to leave as soon as everything was in place, and the leak of this information to the general public has thrown things askew. Paul is an honorable guy who has always been interested in doing all he right things, but as everyone has seen, at 82 years old, the comparisons being made between him and Joseph Biden are not that far off. There is a real question as to his fitness to serve as supervisor at this point. He has health challenges. It is legitimate to ask whether he was in any shape to be supervisor when he was elected in 2020. His staff runs the office, with very little input from him. That is not any different than with the other supervisors. The county supervisors’ staffs and the county CEO run the county. All of the supervisors are disengaged and have been that way going back ten years or more. They used to dominate the county transportation agency, but they’ve given that over to the mayors and council members. The supervisors have tremendous power, but to exercise that power, they have to work, work hard. There is a risk that something will go wrong if they take any initiative and they will end up in the doghouse. There is a slightly better chance something good will come of it and they’ll get glory. But no one wants to work that hard and no one wants to take any risk. Give me an example of one major proposal the board has made in the last decade. I can’t think of one. They’re engaged in housekeeping, keeping the county running, day-to-day and making sure they get reelected. That’s it. Paul is just like the rest of the board, except a little bit slower and even more disengaged.”
Cook has stayed out of trouble by doing, essentially, nothing, the politician said.
“He has two people, Tim Itnyre [his chief of staff] and Dakota [Higgins, his assistant chief of staff], who are competent guys, knowledgeable about the district and the way the county is run,” the politician said. “They are capable of looking after the interests of the district’s constituents and keeping most of them happy. They’re running the office. They’re in charge. They’re the First District supervisor, by proxy, if you will.”
Henry Nickel, who is currently a member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, served two terms as the Fifth Ward councilman with the City of San Bernardino, and captured the Republican nomination for Assembly in the 40th District in 2018, losing ultimately to the far-better financed Democrat, James Ramos.
Nickel was willing to speak on the record regarding Smith’s prospective replacement of Cook.
That talk among the county’s political elite has turned to easing Cook out of office is not surprising, Nickel said.
“Paul Cook had his moment, but he is getting up there in age,” Nickel sad. “He used to be really dynamic, animated, smart and on his toes. He is not as sharp as he used to be. He doesn’t have the energy or snappiness anymore. He is aloof. It was different when he was in Congress or in the Assembly. He was a leading Republican, but was never all that involved in the [San Bernardino County Republican] Central Committee.”
Replacing Cook with someone like Smith makes perfect sense, Nickel said.
“I have always liked Smitty,” Nickel said. “Everybody likes Smitty. He was successful in business, and he has learned the ropes of being in office. Smitty has been in the trenches. I have worked with him on so many levels. He is definitely someone everybody could work with. He’s just one likeable guy. He can reach across the aisle to the other side and get support. People can get enthusiastic about him. I don’t know if Cook has that kind of support. I don’t think Cook has had the kind of energy Smitty has since before he left Congress.”
Nickel said he wanted it clear that “I have nothing against Colonel Cook. Years ago, because of his experience and understanding of what was happening around the world and within our own country, and given his prestige, he was the right guy to send to Sacramento or elect to Congress. But how long does he or anyone want to keep going? At some point, everybody has to hang it up. You can’t just take the approach that you’re going to run out the clock. You don’t want to make it so you die in office. That is something that is uncomfortable to think about. If you have someone who is in office just to hang on just for the sake of hanging on and then they die, that will lead to instability. There comes a point where you step down and let the younger generation in there to do what they can. Selecting Smitty as the person to take over going forward just makes sense. You want someone who can keep the engine running, money flowing in and can excite the base. Smitty makes a lot of sense because he is someone who is cued in and energetic. In the central committee he is involved in fundraising. He is someone who can use his clout and vitality to advance the interests of our party and our county. If we were doing this as a job interview, I would hire Smitty.”
Nickel beamed, “Now, I think it’s time for someone like Smitty to step forward. Because of the political circumstance, Smitty fits the bill. I can support him, 100 percent.”

Big Bear Lake Councilman Randall Putz has confidently tossed his hat into the ring to succeed District 34 Assemblyman Tom Lackey, who will be termed out of the California legislature when his current term ends in 2026.
Putz’s hope that he can convince the voters of the district, which stretches across swathes of San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Kern counties, to send him to Sacramento to represent them contrasts with multiple phases of political reality, not the least of which is that his base represents only slightly more than one percent of the entirety of the district’s population. Moreover, outside the eastern San Bernardino Mountain communities, Putz has at best limited name recognition in the San Bernardino County portion of the Assembly district and is entirely foreign to the district’s voters in Los Angeles and Kern counties.
Beyond that, Putz, a lifelong Republican in a one of the few areas within California where Republicans yet predominate, inexplicably recently changed his party affiliation to Democrat. Within the 34th Assembly District, 44.49 percent of the  247,249 voters are Republicans and 27.7 percent are registered Democrats, with 4.82 percent belonging to the American Independent, Peace & Freedom, Green, Libertarian and other more obscure parties and 22.58 having no party preference.
In 2022, when the district was redrawn pursuant to the ten-year reapportionment/redistricting that followed the 2020 Census combining sections of what had formerly been the 36th District and 33rd District, Lackey, a retired career Highway Patrol Officer and Assembly incumbent representing the former 36th District since 2014 was thrown into a match against another Republican, then-33rd Assembly District incumbent Thurston Smith, who had been in office just a single term at that point. In that race, Lackey took home a 56.5 percent to 43. 5 percent victory, based largely on Lackey’s name recognition advantage over Smith with the voters in Los Angeles and Kern counties.
In that match-up, Smith within the San Bernardino County portion of the 34th District outpolled Lackey, garnering  35,676, or 52.39 percent of the 69,092 votes cast on the easternmost side of the district to Lackey’s 32,415 votes or 47.61 percent.
In Los Angeles and Kern counties, however, Smith, whose claim to political fame consisted of his eight years on the Hesperia City Council including two years as mayor, a short stint as a member of the Mojave Water Agency Board of Directors and his single term as a member of the California Assembly, was a virtually unknown commodity.
On the 34th District’s west and northwest side within Los Angeles and Kern counties, Lackey earned 31,425 or 71.53  percent of 43,931 votes cast there to Smith’s 12,506 votes or 28.47 percent.
When 2024 rolled around, Smith, fully conscious that not only were the numbers still against him but that Lackey held vaunted standing within the GOP, did not vie to return to the Assembly. That year, both the March open primary contest for the two top 34th Assembly District run-off positions in the November election and then the November General Election were limited to Lackey and Democrat Ricardo Ortega. Lackey gave Ortega a 65.71 percent-to-34.29 percent thrashing in March and then trounced him in the November contest  63.36 percent to 36.64 percent.
Meanwhile, Smith was biding his time, knowing that following Lackey’s 2024-to-2026 term, his sixth as a member of California’s lower legislative house, Lackey under California’s term limits could not run again, clearing the way for his re-entry into the statehouse.
The vision of Smith and his supporters, however, has been clouded by developments beyond their control, both on the west and northwest end of the 34th District and at the level of the statewide GOP. This exists in the personage and ambition of  Charles Hughes, a member of the Antelope Valley Union High School District Board of Trustees and a retired U.S. Navy veteran and California Department of Corrections lieutenant. Hustling hard, Hughes captured not only Lackey’s endorsement but that of California Assembly Caucus. i.e., 18 of the current 19  current Republican members the Assembly. Additionally, Hughes made a show of how intent he is on succeeding Lackey by collecting more than one quarter of a million in donations into his campaign war chest by June of this year.
While Smith and his support network, which extends to the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee and most of its members, are not, exactly, giving up, they recognize that they have a Herculean task before them that is going to require a well-oiled-and-maintained political machine firing on all eight cylinders. This approach means that Smith must succeed in capturing the vast majority of Republican votes on the San Bernardino side of the district, a fair smattering of the Democrat votes on the San Bernardino side of the district and that he has to make a better showing against Hughes in Los Angeles and Kern counties in 2026 than he did against Lackey in 2022. That is for Smith a difficult strategy in the face of Hughes’ showing of fundraising capability that will allow him to run an aggressive campaign, but one that is achievable. An assumption, however, was that no third candidate was going to get into the action and split the San Bernardino County vote with Smith.
Putz’s emergence as a candidate has really gummed up the works for Smith and the Republicans in San Bernardino County who feel that they should be the beneficiaries of their region’s Republican plurality and that one of their own – a San Bernardino County Republican – should be representing the 34th District in Sacramento, not someone from Los Angeles County, which currently is home to 25 of the California Assembly’s 80 members.
The anger at Putz among San Bernardino County Republicans is palpable. His motivation, for them, is simultaneously incomprehensible, absurd and enraging. For his abandonment of the Republican Party, he is perceived as a turncoat. As a Democrat, by virtually any handicapping yardstick that might be applied, his chances of winning are infinitesimal. If Ortega runs again, having two Democrats in the race would compound the odds against him. Putz’s limited base – consisting primarily of the 5,044 inhabitants of Big Bear Lake and the city’s 2,804 voters – when gauged against the 34th Assembly District’s 466,780 population and 247,249 registered voters, severely compromises his electoral viability. Four years ago, Putz’s Big Bear Lake City Council colleague, Rick Herrick, provided an illustration of the futility that surrounds Putz’s council run when he sought, unsuccessfully to capture the 33rd Assembly District seat in the last election before the merging of portions of the 33rd and 36th districts into the 34th. Herrick, a Republican in what was the equally-heavily Republican 33rd found himself at a disadvantage to Smith, who hails from Hesperia, which at that time had a population of 99,818, virtually 20 times that of Big Bear Lake. The question many want to ask Putz is this: If the Republican Herrick from Big Bear Lake could not beat Smith in the Republican-heavy 33rd District, how now does the Democrat Putz think he can beat either Smith or Hughes in the Republican-heavy 34th District, when nearly 39 percent of the voters in the district reside in Los Angeles and Kern counties?
To a vast number of the San Bernardino County Republicans focused on questions of governance and politics extending to the struggle between the two major parties that has been going on in Sacramento since shortly after California became a state, Putz is a traitor whose true aim is to serve as a spoiler who is working to ensure that a good portion of San Bernardino County consisting of the major part of its mountain communities and a good part of its desert is represented by a politician who is closer to Los Angeles than he is to San Bernardino.
Putz acknowledges none of that, and he blithely celebrates himself as a new breed of bipartisan politician, who is seeking to rise above the bickering of the Democratic/Republican divide.
As what was once a seemingly dyed-in-the-wool Republican who has swung leftward into being a Democrat, Putz suggests
A former Republican turned Democrat, Putz said he has a unique perspective on serving the 18,000-square-mile 34th District, which includes all of Bear Valley, as well rural areas of San Bernardino and portions of Kern and Los Angeles counties.
He is less focused on what is dividing Republicans from Democrats, Putz insists, than the issues of importance to the mountain-and-desert-dwelling population of the 34th District, people who live in an environment that is more rustic and rural than urban. He is one of the “Good Country People,” as someone such as Flannery O’Connor might have put it, rather than one of those city slickers. He’ll be the voice of the redheaded and neglected countrified folk, California’s forgotten stepchildren, when he gets to Sacramento, according to Putz.
“I’m a fighter,” according to Putz. “I feel a deep obligation to use my experience and abilities to serve the people of Assembly District 34. We need to make sure our voices are heard, resources come our way, we move forward together, and build the future our region needs and deserves. For the past 25 years, I have lived, worked, and built my life in this region. I’ve spent 16 years in local and regional government leadership, solving problems and working with people from all walks of life to get things done. Now, I want to take that experience to Sacramento to fight for our fair share and bring meaningful change to our district.”
Despite having reinvented himself as a Democrat, Putz sometimes has difficulty unbinding himself from his Republican roots. He owns a niche retail establishment that caters to bird lovers, selling bird feeders, bird seed and related merchandise. As an entrepreneur himself, he has an especial sensitivity to the things that make a business work, the red tape and regulation or over-regulation that can make a business fail and the challenges in the private sector, an orientation that has led him to serve, as a member of the city council who was elevated for a time to the appointed mayor’s spot, as a voice for the business community in Big Bear. In Big Bear, the business community is, in major measure, the tourism industry, including some highly profitable out-of-state corporations. In this way, Putz’s personal and political identity is wrapped up in the advancement of business interests, those of his own and those of others, of small mom-and-pop retail or service providers, mid-size operations or corporate behemoths. When issues before the Big Bear Lake City Council that involved balancing the profitability of a business against the quality of life of residents, Putz on more than one occasion sided with those who had invested or risked money to make money. In this way, his conversion into a Democrat is not entirely convincing. He has spoken about preserving nature and land and the wilderness, which in the 34th District means the forest and the desert. Still, in those instances where business interests come into direct conflict with the conservation of land and the protection of the species that live upon it, such as when development is to occur on property occupied by desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii or Joshua trees (yucca brevifolia) or Mohave ground squirrels (Xerospermophilus mohavensis) or bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) or San Bernardino bluegrass (Poa Atropurpurea) or California dandelion (Taraxacum californicum) or Johnston’s rock-cress (rabis johnstonii) or Bear Valley sandwort (Arenaria ursina) or as-grey Indian paittbrush (Castillegja cinerea) or southern mountain wild buckwheat (Eriogonum kennedyi var. austromontanum) or Hidden Lake bluecurls (Trichostema austromontnum ssp. compactum), Putz has retroceded, backing off or backpedaling from the characteristic Democratic endorsement of strict environmental protection or ecological prioritization, suggesting that “common sense” or “realistic” principles should be applied so that some order of compromise between on one end the developmental imperative, the expansion of a ski lodge/resort or a moneymaking venture and on the other end the protection of the environment can be effectuated.
Interestingly, while he has donned the identity and outer trappings of a Democrat and even though this aligns him with the party that has a supermajority in both houses of the legislature and which occupies every constitutional office in California’s state government from governor at the top down through lieutenant governor, state attorney general, state controller, secretary of state, state treasurer, superintendent of schools and insurance commissioner, he yet decries his new party’s dominance, which is leading at least some to question whether his political transformation is a genuine one, whether he is actually on the Democratic Team, whether he is malingering and is a Republican agent who is trying to insinuate himself into the Democratic ranks or if he is merely engaged in an effort to advance himself electorally.
Of the system in Sacramento where his new party has control, Putz offers the assessment that “It’s broken. Our democracy thrives on balance—balance of power, balance of ideas, balance in solving problems that impact the lives of everyday Californians. But for years, we have drifted further from that balance, slipping into deeper polarization, resentment, and disengagement. Extreme politics, media bubbles, and divisive algorithms are keeping us stuck. And yet, despite these challenges, we remain one of the longest-standing democracies in the world. That is something worth fighting for.”
He continued, “Pegging people on one side or another is a big part of our problem. No one is all red. No one is all blue. We are all a little purple. The extreme political swings of recent years have only served to stall progress, deepen divisions, and make governing harder. It’s time to restore balance. We need to move away from the unhealthy extremes and return to reasonable compromise—where real solutions are found. The current culture of polarization is manufactured for selfish gain, and in the end, it’s the people who lose. I will work to find common ground, bridge divides, and focus on what unites us rather than what separates us. We need to turn off the noise, step away from social media outrage, and get back to governing with purpose.”
He will be both an old fashioned and a new age politician from here on out, Putz vowed.
“I will work to ensure our region gets the resources it needs, that we solve problems in a bipartisan way, and that we make real progress,” he said. “I will keep lines of communication open, check in with the people I serve, and ensure that policy decisions reflect the realities on the ground.
Putz took aim at the enemy of the people – the press – whom he accused of utilizing disingenuous means such as artificial intelligence to try to fool them by telling them what to think.
“It’s time to move beyond the distractions, break free from the grip of media algorithms and talking heads, and reconnect with the real needs of our communities,” he said. “Because good governance starts with being present, engaged, and accountable. And that is exactly the kind of leadership I will bring to the State Assembly.”
Putz said his formula for success as a politician is to “listen, unite [and] serve. Good leadership starts with listening. Too many people feel unheard and unseen by their government, and I want to change that. I will work to increase civic participation and ensure that all voices—especially those different from my own—are heard and considered with empathy and respect. Listening is not just a task to complete; it’s the foundation of strong representation. I have always made it a priority to meet with anyone who wants to talk, to gather data, and to stay connected with my community. Because when people feel heard, they engage. And when they engage, we build a stronger, more effective government. Governing isn’t about rhetoric—it’s about action. I believe in rolling up my sleeves and making things happen. I will work to ensure our region gets the resources it needs, that we solve problems in a bipartisan way, and that we make real progress. I will keep lines of communication open, check in with the people I serve, and ensure that policy decisions reflect the realities on the ground.”
-Mark Gutglueck

By Phill Courtney
Every year, around the Fourth of July, my wife and I, along with the many dogs we’ve had, must go through those nerve-shattering sieges of blasts in the night, supposedly celebrating the independence of our country. Now I say “around,” because this annual ordeal isn’t just on the Fourth, but, lately, seems to have started much earlier than that, while often extending a number of days afterwards, becoming particularly noticeable starting in 2020—the first year of COVID—when statistics show that sales of fireworks basically doubled.
Of course, we know that we’re not the only pet owners who’ve had to endure these terrible trials, and while, yes, in the words of that old aphorism: misery loves company—that doesn’t mean it still isn’t misery.
This year was a little different, though, not because there were less fireworks, but because I wasn’t here this July 4th to comfort our two canines. A long-time friend, whom I’ve come to regard as my “honorary kid sister” since I’ve known her since she was twelve, had asked me (and my wife) if I could spend a week with her in Ohio, and the tickets she offered to pay for were cheaper if I was willing to fly on the 4th. I was, which resulted in a “first” for my life: seeing many of the sparkling shows from above as we descended into Columbus.
This doesn’t mean, though, that I avoided the siege entirely, since a number of what seemed to be M-80 explosions went off in our neighborhood before I’d left. Meanwhile, as for the evening of the 4th itself, my wife was home dealing with a hysterical female husky, who, she told me later, slipped into our shower to hide, then tore up the curtain with her paws. Thankfully, though, our male lab did somewhat better this yar.
Now I tell you all this as a way to bolster what I’m asserting here: that it’s way past time to phase out fireworks in favor of the several alternatives that are finally coming into fashion as many of the “negatives” associated with both professional firework shows and those “safe and sane” home versions (which, many times, are neither), continue to make the news.
Yes, as we’ve seen above, and as many of us know first-hand, fireworks and pets just don’t go together, especially when they run off and are killed in traffic. But there’s also the human toll to consider as well, with many people dying in accidents every year.
For instance, firework factories ignite on a fairly regular basis, with hundreds of deaths in diverse countries throughout the world, many in India and Mexico, and while we’d like to think that this is basically only a problem in countries with lax safety standards, it’s a problem here too throughout the U.S.
One of the most recent examples happened in the Sacramento area just this past July 1st, when an unlicensed fireworks warehouse, the ironically name Devastating Pyrotechnics, went up in flames, taking seven employees along with it, while a house storing fireworks (again illegally) in Ontario in March of 2021, went up, killing two on the site, with millions of dollars of damages to surrounding homes.
Another one of the more bizarre local firework incidents happened in September of 1987 in Rialto and I was personally involved in the extent that I heard it. But what set that explosion apart was this: it was not an accident.
It happened in the early morning hours while I was sleeping at my apartment complex in the eastern part of Riverside. Suddenly there was a jarring air blast outside that reverberated impressively throughout the entire auto courtyard below.
Only later, after I’d checked the news, did I discover what had happened. Apparently, a man, who worked at a fireworks factory in Rialto, was experiencing some dissatisfaction in his relationship with a woman and decided to show her just how dissatisfied he was by “going out with a bang”—a bang she’d never forget.
So, he called her and told her to look out the window at a certain time in order to see a sight showing her just how unhappy he was. Then he set off the entire factory and that was the sound I heard.
Fortunately, unlike a lot of men, he didn’t feel the need to kill his lady-friend first in a murder/suicide, nor involve anyone else in his dramatic act (the factory was empty at the time), so it was just him and that memorable sight for his girlfriend.
Shortly after that, and partly because I’d heard it at my location some 15 miles away, my then girlfriend (who was asleep next to me at the time but didn’t hear it) and I were curious, so we drove over to see the site of the explosion for ourselves (with her two young children in tow). Fortunately, it was an area that was mostly industrial, with just a few scattered homes, so the neighborhood damage was minimal. Most memorable for me were the large chunks of concrete that had been blasted sky high and then fell into the surrounding streets.
Besides these incidents, there’s also been a long, sad list of firework disasters at, among others, nightclubs; religious ceremonies; and wedding celebrations. In 2013 a nightclub firework accident killed 242 in Brazil; while unlicensed fireworks at a Hindu temple in India set off a conflagration that killed 111 in 2016. In the U.S., one of our most infamous was the 2003 Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 100 partiers when pyrotechnics adjacent to the rock band performing, ignited flammable acoustic ceiling panels.
Recently, one the ghastliest incidents of all (perhaps because it was captured on video) was the September 2023 fire at a wedding in Iraq when yet more fireworks set to shoot towards the ceiling as the couple took their first dance, immediately ignited flammable decorations displayed above. Although the couple survived, what should have been their joyous day was forever tainted by their 107 guests who did not.
Besides all these spectacular incidents, the many rather mundane injuries and some deaths that result from “safe and sane” firework accidents each year should be mentioned, as well as the wildfires they occasionally set off. In August of 2017, my wife and I had just driven through the Columbia River Gorge on our way to see the total eclipse of the sun that August, when a knuckleheaded 15-year-old and his friends playing with fireworks during that summer’s “no burn ban” (one of whom videotaped it, leading to his arrest) set off a wildfire several weeks later that burned for three months and cost millions to contain.
Which is not to say that I didn’t have my own knuckleheaded days as a teenager myself. For several years we went over from Corona to some family friends in Fontana (where fireworks were legal) to set off our own, including, of course, sparklers, Piccolo Petes and other devices, some of which went off unexpectantly one time in a bucket, causing much excitement, while on another Fourth, some other celebrants across a dry field, set it on fire. Fortunately, the Fontana fire department was ready.
Another memorable occasion was the time I and a friend, who’d managed to come into possession of an M-80, decided to drive up into an unpopulated canyon above Upland and set it off. We then quickly ran, and I’ll never forget how the explosion reverberated throughout that canyon.
M-80s, by the way, do not, as the long-time urban myth holds (which I’d always believed until I researched this column), equate to a fourth-of-a-stick of dynamite, since dynamite consists of different chemicals.
Despite these incidents and a few others like them, I managed to avoid any teenage injuries myself, but one of my two younger brothers was not so fortunate, having injured an eye (while a friend blistered his hand) in our own backyard when what’s called a “cherry bomb” went of prematurely after the fuse failed. In one of my wiser teenage decisions, I’d opted out for once, advised them not to do it, and then went inside before I heard the explosion.
Finally, one more negative outcome from firework displays that should be mentioned is one that often goes unrecognized: the air and even ground pollution they create. The chemicals, which range from antimony sulfide to even arsenic, are dispersed by both smoke in the air, and in ground particles.
Although some firework advocates argue that the effect are negligible, there’s no denying that millions of dollars of valuable chemicals go up in smoke every year, and have led to some debates about fireworks in places like Lake Arrowhead, and their blast affects not only on pets, but on the beloved eagles nesting there, along with the chemical residues that coat the lake afterwards. The carbon dioxide and monoxide that fireworks release can also trigger attacks in people with asthma.
Now, with all this said, the question remains: where do we go from here? And, fortunately, there are a number of alternatives to fireworks that can been seen on the internet. Although there are what is known as “silent fireworks,” they still release chemicals, so much more promising for public displays are the evolving technologies of drone and laser beam shows, which many cities are already switching over to.
These shows have the advantage of both eliminating pollution, but also the nerve-shattering blasts which opened this piece—like the ones that not only sent our husky into the shower and then under the bed but also drive me up the wall.
That takes care of the official shows, but what about those blasts that seem to come from all directions and from just down the street? and that’s a much more challenging problem because they continue to happen despite being banned for many years here in Redlands and in other municipalities, with rather stiff fines when “firework fools” are occasionally found and fingered.
Aye, but there’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say, and I once talked to our city’s former police chief about the problem, and he acknowledged how difficult that is. Authorities are working on it though, with some cities not only employing drones in shows, but also for surveillance to “smoke out” (so to speak) those thoughtless morons who seem to possess no empathy at all for pets and their owners.
Finally, I also had another simple reason I wanted no fireworks this Fourth of July: considering what’s been going on in this country lately, I don’t think we deserved them. Instead, I stand ashamed as millions of Americans continue to trash what those brilliant men in 1776 attempted to establish. But that’s another column for another day, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Instead, let me ask you to communicate with lawmakers and other community leaders, urging them to work on phasing out fireworks. For all the reasons mentioned above, it’s well past time, both for people and for pets, like our sweet and loving, lady husky, shivering under the bed.
***
Phill Courtney has taught high school English and was a candidate for Congress twice with the Green party in Riverside County. His email is: pjcourtney1311@gmail.com

By Natsume Sōseki

Over the wintry

Forest, winds howl in rage

With no leaves to blow.

FBN 20250006062
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
RISEWELL COACHING AND CONSULTING
[and] RISEWELL COACHING
[and] RISEWELL
[and] RISEWELL EXECUTIVE COACHING
18265 LAPIS LN SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92407: PATRICIA J TUCKER
Business Mailing Address: 18265 LAPIS LN SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92407
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: January 1, 2025
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ PATRICIA J TUCKER, Principal
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 07/01/2025
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J99653
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 4, 11, 18 & 25 and August 1, 2025.

FBN 20250005892
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
RIVERA’S ROLLING SUDS
6985 GROVE AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346: JUAN C RIVERA
Business Mailing Address: 6985 GROVE AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: June 1, 2025
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ JUAN C RIVERA, Owner
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 06/24/2025
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J6733
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 4, 11, 18 & 25 and August 1, 2025.

FBN 20250006129
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
MAYA’S STORY LAND
6571 BRIGHTON PL RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91737: NICOLE McPHETRIDGE
Business Mailing Address: 6571 BRIGHTON PL RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91737
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: June 17, 2025
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ NICOLE MCPHETRIDGE
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 07/02/2025
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J6733
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 4, 11, 18 & 25 and August 1, 2025. Continue reading →

The Sentinel has learned that First District Supervisor Paul Cook, who this year turned 82, is purposed to resign from the board of supervisors to make way for former Assemblyman and Hesperia Mayor Thurston “Smitty” Smith to succeed him.
Considerable preparation, including backroom maneuvering on the fifth and fourth floors of the county administrative building in San Bernardino and among the members of the committees and subcommittees of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, has been undertaken to effectuate the transition.
Cook, who was formerly the mayor of Yucca Valley, a California assemblyman and member of Congress for almost eight years, left the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 to run for First District San Bernardino County Supervisor. He did so, despite the far greater prestige of being a member of the federal legislative branch and that he was not, in actuality, a resident of San Bernardino County’s First District. Given his name recognition, the advantage of his sizable campaign war chest, his support network and his standing among the Republican Party, which dominates politics across the majority of San Bernardino County, Cook cruised to an easy victory in 2020, capturing the supervisor’s seat with 64.66 percent of the vote in the March primary voting, obviating the need for him to run in the November general election. In 2024, despite occasionally being dogged by controversy pertaining to his actual place of residence being outside the First District, he handily won reelection during the primary voting when he polled 63.86 percent, again avoiding a November run-off. Continue reading →