December 29 SBC Sentinel Legal Notices

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: FRANK A. VIRAMONTES
CASE NO.  PROVA2300218
To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of FRANK A. VIRAMONTES has been filed by PHILIP A. VIRAMONTES in the Superior Court of California, County of SAN BERNARDINO.
THE PETITION REQUESTS the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.
THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that PHILIP A. VIRAMONTES be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.
THE PETITION REQUESTS the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.
THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.
A hearing on the petition will be held December 13, 2023 at 9:00 a.m. at
San Bernardino County Superior Court Fontana District
Department F1 – Fontana
17780 Arrow Boulevard
Fontana, CA 92335
Filed: OCTOBER 25, 2023
DiAnna Verdugo, Deputy Court Clerk.
IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.
IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under Section 9052 of the California Probate Code.
Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.
YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.
Attorney for Philip A. Viramontes
Tyler H. Brown
SBN 259620
BROWN & BROWN
Attorneys at Law
10681 Foothill Boulevard, Suite 490
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
(909) 982-5086
tylerbrown@brownandbrownllp.com
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on December 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2023.

FBN 20230012053
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
ATKINSONS’ 3045 S. ARCHIBALD H238 ONTARIO, CA 91761: DAMION K. ATKINSON 3045 S. ARCHIBALD H/238 ONTARIO, CA 91761
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: N/A.
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/ DAMION K ATKINSON
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 12/06/2023
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 J7550
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 December 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2023.

FBN 20230011975
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
UNLIMITED ME CONSULTING GROUP 9459 PEACH AVENUE HESPERIA, CA 92345: MARVIN ESPINOZA 9459 PEACH AVENUE HESPERIA, CA 92345
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: N/A.
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/ MARVIN ESPINOZA, Principal Consultant
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 12/04/2023
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 J5842
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 December 8, 15, 22 & 29, 2023.

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Big Bear Lake Mayor Targeted For Recall

A little more than a year ago, the community of Big Bear – in particular the City of Big Bear Lake – was engaged in a recall effort against Councilman Alan Lee and a city wide referendum on vacation home rentals
That election is now more than 13 months in the past , but the issues at the heart of those two votes have not yet been resolved. Today, Big Bear Lake remains a city divided, a place where a cultural war remains in full swing between those who see the rustic mountain paradise hidden away in the northeast corner of the San Bernardino Mountains as a place to live and others who consider the county’s second smallest municipality population-wise and third smallest city geographically to be a place to ply their trade as entrepreneurs who run the community’s booming tourist industry.
With Lee having been removed from office by a majority vote of his constituents, a move is now on to remove another council member, Perri Melnick, who was recently elevated from councilwoman to mayor.
Big Bear Lake is a city divided and the division runs so deep that there appears no prospect of resolving the division. Lee sided with residents over entrepreneurs and found himself removed from office as a result. Other members of the council have sought to steer a middle course, bt they have done only marginally better. They remain in office but by trying to please both sides, they have ended up pleasing no one.
Residents in the 5,102-population , 6.42-square mile city find elements of the toruism industry that pervades what is a winter wonderaland in the winter and a boating, hiking, fishing and swimmming attraction from late spring until fall to be problematic. In addition to welcoming outsiders into the city’s hotels and motels, many landowners have converted their homes into vacation rentals, otherwise known as short-tem rentals, which they lease or ent out to people from lower San Bernardino County or Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange or San Diego counties or elsewhere on weekends or sometimes for aweek or two, getting a return for just a day or two that equals or exceeds the income typically produced for renting out a property for a mont. Occasionally the dwellings will be occupied by not just one or two people or a family but as many as dozens of skiers or fishermen or boating enthusiasts, such that already narrow streets are overparked with vehicles. Big Bear’s taverns, bars, saloons nightclubs and public houses are well-frequented establishments at nighttime, particularly on weekends, sometimes with rowdy patrons. A byproduct of a thriving local tourist industry is that one has a constant parade of new neighbors, most of whom remain forever strangers as opportunites of introduction are limited. Occasionally, those who come into the community for a short stay are less considerate of those living within shouting distance is less than is ideal, and some untoward events occur.
For years, local residents had been asking elected offiicals and City Hall to put into place some municipal regulations that would ameliorate the situation. Big Bear officials reacted by codifying some modest rules, which many residents found inadequate. When the residents asked for the rules to be intensified, only Councilman Lee indicated he was amenable to that request. The other city officials, somewhat aligned with, or otherwise wary of the tourist industry, responded by saying that they preferred to see if the rules already being employed would achieve the desired results. If, after a fair interim they did not, city officials said, they would consider revisiting the issue. . Still unsatified, local residents created a grassroots organization, one they settled upon calling Big Bear Lake United to Limit Short Term Rentals, with which they were able to get 762 of the city’s 2,887 registered voters to endorse a petition to put a measure on the November 2022 ballot, ultimately designated by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters as Measure O. That measure asked the city’s residents whether the city should amend the Big Bear Lake Municipal Code to limit the number of vacation rental licenses the city may issue to a maximum of 1,500 and limit the number of vacation contracts to 30 per year per property. Also put on the ballot was Measure P, which called for increasing the hotel tax from 8 percent to 9 percent on January 1, 2024, and then increasing it from 9 percent to 10 percent on January 1, 2025, with the revenue dedicated to general services in the city. A third issue, other than the regularly scheduled elections of two/three? of the council members, was the recall question against Lee. Lee in his advocacy of spme residents and through the natural manifestation of his personality had made himself at odds with all four of his colleagues, and a combination of the council’s political supporters as well as representatives of the tourist industry pushed the effort to qualify the recall election against him.
While the strong sentiment of the contingent of residents who lived in Big Bear who had no personal financial stake in tourist trade who had had isolated or in other cases multiple negative interactions with short-term renters initially drove the perception that Measure O would pass by a solid margin, those with a dog in the hunt when it came to tourism in Big Bear – the owners or investors in motels, hotels, restsaurnats, drinking establishments, businesses that catered to boaters, fishemenan skiers, snowboasrders and the owners of skie resorts and boast and jet-ski rental concerns and their investors and employees networked with one another to create a campasign against Measure O. The No on O campaign, which dubbed itself Residents for a Better Big Bear, was not larking about, intending to overwhelm those do-gooders who wanted to limit short-term rentasls in the city. Residents for a Better Big Bear – the forces arrayed against Measure O – collected $173,978.07 in contributions to fight it, much of it in huge increments from deep-pocketed interests. Over 98.44 percent of the money provided to Residents for a Better Big Bear – No on O Committee, consisting of the $171,278.07 of the total $173,978.07 raised, came from individuals or entities outside of Big Bear Lake.
The Committee to Expand the Middle Class, an entity sponsored by AirBnb, Inc, put up $50,153 to support No on O. The California Association of Realtors Issues Mobilization Political Action Committee donated another $49,999. The National Association of Realtors put up $49,999.99.
The money in the possession of Residents for a Better Big Bear’s No on O Committee, then used that money to buy television and radio spots, newspaper ads, mailers, andnd handbills as well as to man telephone banks to convince Big Bear’s voters that voting for Measure O was against their interest, Ultimately, when all was said and done, the outside money used to run the campaign against Measure O doomed it to failure. Measure O fell short of passing, with 832 votes or 41.39 percent in favor and 1,178 votes or 58.61 percent in opposition.
Measure P, which had no committees promoting nor fighting it, passed with 1,044 votes or 53.87 percent in favor and 894 votes or 46.13 percent opposed.
The campaign to recall Councilman Lee, which was supported by a substantial number of those who supported the campaign against Measure O, likewise prevailed. Simultaneously, incumbent council members Rick Herrick, who was then the city’s appointed mayor; Councilman Randall Putz and Councilwoman Perri Melnick, were returned to office.
With more than a year having gone by, the division over tourist-related activity within the community of Big Bear continues unabated.
As a community, Big Bear is much larger than its municipal area.
The 38.45-square mile Big Bear community is home to 17,784 residents. There is some confusion, however, particularly among outsiders, about jurisdictional issues in Big Bear, as it consists of two entities, the City of Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City. Despite its name, Big Bear City is not a municipality but rather an unincorporated county area and a designated census place. Big Bear Lake is an incorporated municipality. Despite its status as an actual city, Big Bear Lake is smaller than Big Bear City both in terms of land area and population. Big Bear Lake is 6.42 square miles and has 5,046 inhabitants. Big Bear City is an expansive 32.03 square miles with 12,738 residents. While both qualify as rustic mountain districts, the more compact Big Bear Lake is slightly more urbanized and densely populated.
In Big Bear Lake last year, four-fifths of the city council appeared have a common foe in Lee, which created an alliance between them. Since Lee’s departure and the continued acrimony between lements fo the community over short-term rentals,further fissures or divisons have developed or become apparent on the city council. Councilwoman Mote, it appears, has developed personality differences with Councilman Putz, although the feeling on that does not seem to have run as deep as was that between Lee and his estranged colleagues.
With the 2024 election approaching, the tension between the pro-tourism element of the community and residents is again in evidence. It is not clear how the two individuals up for election – Mote and Kendi Segovia, who replaced Lee upon his recall – will seek to position themselves on that issue.
In Big Bear in 2012, the City of Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City Community Services District completed the merger of their fire departments, establishing Jeff Willis, who was then the Big Bear City Fire Chief, as the newly created department’s fire chief. Willis has managed the department using the available funding the city and the district have budgeted for the department over the years, which has rankled the department firefighters, who do not consider Willis aggressive enough in demanding from the city and the district more money to operate the department. Meanwhile, city and district elected leaders – including the Big Bear Lake City Council and the Big Bear City Community Services Board of Directors – have at least subliminally recognized that the firefighters’ hostility toward Willis is redirected hostility toward them since. At the same time, some elements of the community, perhaps not sophisticated or knowledgeable to understand the dynamic between the city council and fire chief in which the fire chief is taking heat that would otherwise be directed at the them, have leveled criticism at members of the city council because they have not acceded to the demands of the firefighters and their union that they cashier Willis.
This week, after issues relating to the short-term rentals have been roiling for a year, the city council was scheduled to take up a set of proposals by Big Bear Lake City Manager Erik Sund which recontoured the short-term rental ordinance that was passed in January 2021 by reducing the terms of some of the fines. Whereas under the prior ordinance fines were $2,500, $5,000, and $7,500, including $5,000 for operating without a license or an expired license, under the new fine structure that violation is to be reduced to $1,500. With the newly adopted ordinance, the fine structure was reduced to $1,500, $2,500, and $5,000. The City also added a 60-day warning system with 5 separate notices (4 emails and a mailer to the license holder) to provide ample notice/warning for renewing their license, thus avoiding any application of the fines or related penalties unless a violation has taken place in a deliberate fashion. Additionally, the ordinance adds a second option to the so-called “check-in process.” The prior ordinance only allowed for in person check in; with the new ordinance the city council was scheduled to approve a virtual check in/registration option, in addition to the in person check in option.
In the public hearing portion of this week’s city council meeting on December 19, which came prior to the city council’s vote on the matter, which was placed on the meeting’s consent calendar, Big Bear Mountain Brewery Owner Rick Snow, who was there on behalf of a group calling itself the Big Bear Voter Coalition, served an intent to recall notice on Mayor Melnick.
There seemed to be some degree of miscommunication at multiple levels, as Snow, by his statements seemed to suggest that he and his group were displeased with the city’s efforts to intensify the penalties applied to those out of compliance with the short-term rental ordinance that was to be voted upon that night when, in actuality, the newest form of the ordinance deintensifies those penalties.
By the sense of much of his input, Snow seemed to be pro-tourism in his orientation, but the upshot of his statement implied that the council was about to raise the penalties and fines. Two speakers that followed him seemed to make the same assumption.
Upon being called to the speaker’s podium, Snow served the recall papers upon Melnick. He then said, “This city council is not listening to the voters. They’re coming to me in droves. I got 38 signatures in 72 hours and half of the town is not here. The last city council meeting was disgusting: you guys thinking you could define who a relative is after they stay at someone’s house 20 minutes. Is it a cousin? Is it a father-in-law? What right do you have to do that?”
Snow’s reference was to how short-term rentals were to be defined and what exceptions would be or should drawn in the ordinance going forward.
“You guys aren’t listening and there’s a wave coming,” Snow said. “Start listening to the voters instead of making decisions that aren’t what the voters want. You can’t justify this STR [short term rental] ordinance. Anybody that votes for it should be recalled. To give [City Manager] Erik [Sund] more authority to fine our property owners and Big Bear Lake voters is disgusting. You’ve had poor judgment. The last three or four months, it’s all because he’s fining people for being late $5,000. That’s all they asked you to do: Stop the fines. Give notifications and do electronic checking. I don’t even have one [a short-term rental property]. I have no skin in the game. This is not about bullying, Randy [Putz]. It’s about public participation. And this whole STR [short term rental ordinance] being completely revamped? Two inches and four inches of snow and all the other stuff? Nobody asked for it. Nobody. And everybody’s pissed off. They didn’t even come because they know you are just going to railroad it it in. I don’t even know why. You can make a lot of people happy by refunding the exorbitant late fees that are people who are paying their TOT [transient occupancy or hotel bed] tax that never had code enforcement infringement and you are costing them ten and twenty thousand dollars? It’s just ridiculous. Start listening to the voters.”
Snow was followed by Barbara Olson, who said, “I understood after Measure O was defeated, that we would be relooking at the ordinances to make them less restrictive, but what I’m seeing happened over the last couple of weeks is they went from a small amount of ordinance to a huge amount of pages and pages and pages, things redefined, people called something different, check-in calling, registration. How is this helping our vacation rental business? People already think that we’re not visitor friendly. It’s out there. We hate that. I think that Big Bear has always been a friendly community. We’ve always been a tourist town. I think that the people who are making up some of these ordinances don’t have an understanding about who we are in Big Bear. We are a tourist town. We’ve been a tourist town for 50 plus years. We’ve always welcomed our tourists in the past. I had a chance today to look over the changes to these ordinances. I didn’t hear the city council ask for all these changes. One person came up with all these changes. Why do we have to just bend to what the city manager wants? Why isn’t it about what us (sic) as residents, homeowners and property owners want?”
Ronald Snow said, “Perri Melnick is a very outspoken supporter of high fines and punitive enforcement to fund more government control. Melnick has no empathy for us or our needs. Melnick criticizes residents for their comments, using their personal beliefs and agenda to be dismissive instead of compassionate. Melnick complains about taking her time to prepare for and attend meetings. Melnick has been absent through all – all – fireboard meetings in 2021, neglecting her responsibilities as a vice chair and contirbuting to the safety and the budget problems. Melnick’s relationship with the preceding mayor has created distrust in their transaprency and concerns with Brown Act violations very evident last week. Melnick approves paying exorbitant consultant fees to learn about our visions in or city instead of simply just talking to us. Melnick’s defensiveness and lack of oversight of the city manager [and] the fire chief has gone on and on. With this excessive spending and dictatorial rule Melnick is not who we need in charge. Thank you for helping us to fix this before its not too late. I vote yes to recall Perri Melnick. I haven’t been here too long, but I’ve been to a few meetings here and all I hear is spend, spend and allocate funds, spend and allocate funds, form overpriced city employees to these awards you have to hand out every month. I think it’s ridiculous. All you do is spend.”

Concern Over Local Pols’ Cash Smuggling As Ontario International Gets Expedited Customs Desk

There is apprehension among political leaders, local law enforcement, National Transportation Authority officials, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Transportation Security Administration, FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice and Interpol over the establishment of the Global Entry Enrollment Center at Ontario International Airport.
In recent years Ontario International Airport has become a hotbed of document and money smuggling/transfer/exchange operations, in many cases involving government and corporate officials seeking to overcome constantly shifting and evolving regulations relating to materials, equipment, licenses and property purchases in which both American citizens and foreeign nationals are involved. Ontario International, as a lesser-used international airport, does not have the same intensity of scrutiny by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency as larger international airports in Southern California, such as Los Angeles International Airport, San Diego International Airport, John Wayne International Airport. Ontario, with its 17 airlines and 5,740,593 total passengers in 2022 compared to Los Angeles International’s 79 airlines 65.29 million total passengers, garnered little attention from Customs. Less than .03 of one percent of the agency’s $16.29 billion 2022 budget was spent in Ontario and fewer than a dozen of its more than 60,450 employees were assigned there during that time.
Politicians who have been tweaking governmental policy and decisions in favor of foreign businesses, foreign governments and internationalist interests without registering as foreign agents, which would potentisally undercut their effectiveness as shapers of policy in their elected capacities, have utilized offshore accounts to collect payments from their foreign employers but often have difficulty in transferring those funds to one of their domestic accounts without alerting authorities and triggering notification/investigation by the IRS or state taxing authorities. Consequently, governmental officials who are seeking to fly under the radar of the U.S. federal government with regard to the monetary transactions they engage in on foreign soil are commonly interested in converting that money into U.S. currency while out of the country and then bringing it into the country undeclared.
As Ontario International Airport was already a popular port for that activity, doing so just became that much easier as the airport board was able to successfully lobby U.S. Department of Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas to allow the airport and and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency to establish a Global Entry Enrollment Center at the airport’s international terminal.
According to the Ontario International Airport Authority, “The new center is the sixth in California and will offer a convenient, local option for international travelers from the Inland Empire and nearby communities who wish to enroll in the popular program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Up until now, the nearest Global Entry Enrollment Center has been at Los Angeles International Airport.”
Ontario City Councilman Alan D. Wapner has served as president of the Ontario International Airport Authority Board of Commissioners since the creation of that entity more than a decade ago in anticipation of the conclusion of Ontario’s successful effort to liberate the airport from the control of the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Airports, which was effectuated in 2015, thirty years after Ontario transferred control of the airport to the megalopolis to the west in 1985, as a condition of a joint powers arrangement that allowed the much larger entity to bring its leverage as one of the operator of one of the world’s largest airports to bear in convincing airlines to increase their ridership at the Ontario aerodrome. After the number of passengers passing through Ontario’s gates peaked at 7.2 million in 2007, the downturn in the economy triggered a decrease in airline use altogether, and Wapner spearheaded an effort to once again have local control over the airport by having Ontario assume from the Los Angeles Department of Airports both ownership and management of the facility. That goal was achieved with the December 2015 agreement between Los Angeles and Ontario to have Los Angeles transfer ownership of the airfield and responsibility for its operations to Ontario for a series of payments by Ontario totaling $250 million.
Yesterday, a ribbon cutting for the new expedited customs desk at Ontario was held. Wapner hailed the development.
“We are thrilled that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has selected Ontario International Airport to serve as the site of its newest Global Entry Enrollment Center and look forward to helping residents across Southern California access this time-saving international travel amenity,” Wapner said.

“The new center reflects U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s commitment to improving the customer experience as Global Entry continues to attract thousands of new applicants in the Greater Los Angeles area and neighboring communities,” said Cheryl M. Davies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Director of Field Operations in Los Angeles. “We are very pleased with this expansion which brings visitors to the area and helps boost the local economy.”

“Ontario International Airport is a valued asset for the Inland Empire. As your Congresswoman, I am proud to have supported this project and others like to ensure ONT – which sits in the heart of our district – can get people and cargo where they need to be quickly and efficiently,” said Congresswoman Norma J. Torres (CA-35).
Global Entry uses specialized processing technology and dedicated lanes to expedite clearance for arriving international travelers who have passed what the Ontario International Airport Authority characterized as “a rigorous background check and in-person interview.” To set up an interview at the Global Entry Enrollment Center, travelers must first receive on-line pre-approval.”
Global Entry would allow an individual being processed who is carrying cash secreted about himself/herself or within his/her luggage to successfully import that money without detection.
Participating in yesterday’s ribbon-cutting with Wapner was another member of the airport board, San Bernardino County Supervisor Curt Hagman.
In 2014, Hagman, who was then serving in the California Assembly but was due to be termed out of the legislature that year, ran successfully for Fourth District supervisor. Shortly after being installed as supervisor, Hagman assumed a position on the airport board, a post he has held ever since, based on his reelection to the county board of supervisors in 2018 and 2022. In a development noted by many, in 2015 Hagman hired Wapner to serve as his policy advisor in his county supervisor’s office. The arrangement raised eyebrows at it created a circumstance in which Wapner, in one sense of the word, was Hagman’s superior on the airport board while Hagman was Wapner’s boss in that Wapner was working for him as a member of his supervisorial staff.
Wapner and Hagman over the next two-and-a-half years made several trips to China to promote Ontario International Airport as a destination with Chinese airlines as well as general opportunities for economic cooperation, investment and expansion involving Chinese capital and companies and investment opportunities and projects in and around Ontrario and San Bernardino County. When it was suggested, however, that Hagman’s and Wapner’s discussions did not confine themselves to meetings with airline executives but that they were actively recruiting Chinese Communist capitalists to make investments in property around the airport, concerns about the wisdom of allowing China to take a lead in developing and thereafter controlling assets that are key to the region’s economy resulted in a years-long paralysis with regard to development in the district around the airport.
There ensued questions about the scope and depth of the discussions that were taking place between Wapner and Chinese business and economic interests as well as between Wapner and Chinese business and economic interests along with what the nature of the relationship was between the two politicians and those foreign economic interests. In late 2018, after a decent interim following Hagman’s relection as supervisor, he ended Wapner’s tenure as his political adviser, a development not particularly well appreciated by Wapner. Wapner has remained as the dominant force on the airport authority and Hagman has remained as an airport authority board member.
The establishment of the Global Entry Enrollment Center at Ontario International Airport comes as the airport is seen international travel volumes double over the past year, with popular direct flights to Tqiwan, Mexico and Latin America. In October, Ontario International Airport and the Customs and Board Patrol Agency partnered to introduce another international travel amenity, Simplified Arrivals, which uses facial biometrics – facial recognition technology – to automate the manual document checks required for admission in the country. The technology provides travelers with a touchless process that further secures and streamlines international arrivals.
“Ontario International Airport is proud to partner with the Customs and Border Patrol Agency in providing an opportunity for our community to avail themselves of the Global Entry program,” said Atif Elkadi, Ontario International Airport Authority chief executive officer “As we expand our international travel options, all CBP programs will play a significant role in providing a more expedited and safe inspection process and today marks the start of how our region has proven itself as a key gateway into Southern California.”

Civil Libertarians Wary As County Officials Mull Acceding To Governor’s Conservatorship Plan

Civil liberties advocates in San Bernardino County are on their toes, acutely regardful of how local government officials might be willing to use California Governor Newsom’s promotion of aggressive application of conservatorship authority to round up, narcotize and institutionalize those whose mental state can in any way be questioned might to silence local government critics.
According to the governor’s office, conservatorships are a tool in the government’s panoply to be used in reducing the number of homeless in the state. Newsom encouraged the legislature to expand such authority, whereupon State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) obliged him with Senate Bill 43, which allows local authorities to appoint a conservator for anyone deemed to be “experiencing a serious mental illness or severe substance use disorder and most at-risk of harm to themselves.” The threshhold for taking such action is not high. If two or more governmental officials concur that some one falls into such a category, the individual can be apprehended, handcuffed until placed into a straitjacket and then kept straitjacketed until he or she has been administered anti-psychotic medication. Individuals refusing to take the medication prescribed for them willingly can be forcibly drugged.

Five medications likely to be prescribed to the county’s homeless are old school Thorazine; Serioquel, also known as Quetiapine; Risperidone, also known as Risperdol; Haldol, also known as Haloperidol; and Stelazine.
Serioquel was described to the Sentinel as a mild antipsychotic. Risperidone is referred to as a mid-range anti-psychotic. Stelazine, Thorazine and Haldol are powerful anti-psychotics.
Thorazine leaves most of those who take it in an uncommunicative, nearly vegetative state, rendering even the most violent-prone individual docile. Because of the degree to which it incapacitates its users, many American psychiatric professionals have migrated away from using it in recent years.
A side effect of Serioquel is seizures.
Risperidone’s side effects may include users developing potentially permanent involuntary body movement; death resulting from an increase in body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure; and an increased risk of suicide.
Likewise, Haldol’s side effects include potentially permanent involuntary body movement and death resulting from an increase in body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.
Stelazine use will after a short duration result in involuntary repetitive body movements, involuntary jerks, movent movement disorders, sustained or repetitive muscle contractions result in twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal fixed postures. Prolonged use will result in the onset of Parinson’s Disease or Parkinson’s-like conditions.
According to a medical professional the Sentinel consulted with, most of the above anti-psychotics given in sensible doses would remain effective for roughly six hours. An alternative dosing methodology to oral ingestion with Haldol, particularly those resistant to taking it on a daily basis, would be to intermuscle inject a time-released formulation every four to five weeks. Such intermuscle injection can take place while an individual is straitjacketed.
There is nothing in Senate Bill 43’s provisions that makes any sort of representation available for those deemed critically mentally unstable to contest such a categorization.
Those is authority are therefore at liberty, under Governor Newsom’s encouragement and the letter of Senate Bill 43, to not only drug but take physical control of individuals and their effects, particularly if, they are homeless. Under certain circumstances, those who are not technically homeless can be subjected to conservatorship.
A major practical shortcoming in Senate Bill 43 is the lack of housing facilities for those deemed homeless or otherwise subject to Senate Bil 43. Some three generations ago, the state’s mental hospitals provided beds for those designated mentally unfit. Toward the end of then-Governor Ronald Reagan’s first term, California began limiting access to those facilities and during his second term began what was ultimately a four-decade-long shuttering of the lion’s share of state-run mental wards. Thus, at present, those to be subject to conservatorships would need to be housed elsewhere. In San Bernardino County, the availability of housing for such conservatees is virtually non-existent. This might limit county officials options to declaring an individual to be a danger to himself and others, addicted or chronically homeless and then forcefully restraining the individual or taking him/her into custody long enough to straitjacket him/her, and administer some Thorazine, Stelazine, Serioquel, Risperidone or Haldol.
Homeless individuals do not have and are unlikely to develop the means and sophistication to legally challenge whatever it is that powerful and enabled government official are to be subjected to.
Even those who have a greater degree of control over their destiny are in danger of having their lives negatively impacted by Governor Newsom’s embrace of Senator Talamantes Eggman’s legislation.
There is concern that the county, led by elected officials who are hypersensitive to criticism, such as Sheriff Shannon Dicus, Supervisor Dawn Rowe, Supervisor Curt Hagman and Supervisor Paul Cook, might take the opportunity that Governor Newsom’s advocacy of conservatorships is presenting to have those they see as either political foes or effective opponents of their policies and utilize the virtually non-existent criteria in Senate Bill 43 as mentally deranged and drugged.
While Thorazine, Stelazine, Serioquel, Risperidone or Haldol suppress any overt manifestations of psychosis in the truly psychotic, they carry the potential of severely impacting the cognitive function of a normal individual. If and individual were to be shot up with Thorazine, he or she would likely be beset with a shuffling walk, tic-like or twitching movements, a swollen tongue that would make speech difficult, as well as motor coordination and mental challenges relating to multiple of normal or routine reasoning capability.
Whereas previously government officials had to establish that a person had “either a condition in which a person, as a result of a mental health disorder, is unable to provide for their basic personal needs for food, clothing, or shelter or has been found mentally incompetent” in order to subject someone to the strictures of a conservatorship, Senate Bil 43 dispenses with that red tape. Under Newsom’s program, proof that an individual was homeless would not be required to put a conservatorship into place. In San Bernardino County, a citation by a sheriff’s deputy along with a backing signature from San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health Director Georgina Yoshioka or virtually any one of the employees of her division would suffice to get anyone straitjacketed and drugged. If that person had some financial means and either family, friends or contacts who became aware of what had befallen him/her, conceivably an effort to intervene in the effort to establish the conservatorship could be made. That intervention would need to be lodged in a timely fashion in court to be effective. An individual, straitjacketed and drugged, remanded into the custody of the sheriff or the Department of Behavioral Health and sequestered in a psychiatric ward would potentially be unable to inform anyone of his or her wherabouts and could be, on the basis of security measures applied, actively prevented from doing so.
Even in a case where the judicial proceedings to finalize a conservatorship encountered a challenge from an advocate for the individual whose mental health is being adjudicated, prior to that happening there would be ample opportunity for those working on behalf of a politician interested in discrediting a critic or political opponent to obtain sound video of a drugged and apparently non compos mentis individual for whom a conservatorship is being sought, and then using those indelible moving sound images for political purposes.
At present, both Rowe and Cook are seeking reelection to the board of supervisors. Discrediting the political opposition in San Bernardino County and elsewhere is a long-established campaign tactic.
It is for those reasons that many county residents are wary that San Bernardino County officials might misapply the authority that Governor Newsom is seeking to entrust to them.
Such opposition is a bunch of hogwash invented to prevent good work from being done, according to the governor.
“The counties are the front lines of this battle to address the crisis of our time, and that’s what’s happening on the streets and sidewalks,” Newsom insists. “They have to do their job with a deeper sense of urgency. They have to recognize people are dying on their watch.”
Civil rights advocates want the county to hold off until Janauary 2026 on liberalizing the definition of “mentally disabled” as permitted in Senate Bill 43 to allow literally thousands more county residents as being subjectable to guardianships/conservatorships, while Newsom and his supporters want the county to make the definition transition as of January 1, 2024.
At issue, from a practical standpoint, is who will fund the provision care and housing for those to be placed into conservatorship. Senate Bill 43 does not make any state money for that purpose available to counties.