By Mark Gutglueck
Former Caltrans engineer Raymond Wolfe’s nearly 13-year tenure as the head of San Bernardino County’s transportation agency has drawn to a close, with the board of county solons overseeing the region’s transit issues having voted to elevate Carrie Schindler as his replacement.
Since 2013, when he replaced Ty Schuiling as the executive director of what was then called San Bernardino Associated Governments, Wolfe has overseen the cooperative effort among San Bernardino County’s 22 cities, two incorporated towns and its county government to deal with the full range of transit-related challenges that apply to San Bernardino County. Those are outsize challenges: San Bernardino County, at 20,105 square miles is larger than New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island, combined.
It was believed that Wolfe was up to the technological challenge. He had a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from USC, a more down-to-earth master’s degree in in civil engineering from the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona and a doctorate in civil engineering from USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering He had qualified as a registered civil engineer after leaving CalPoly, and in 1991 went to work for the California Department of Transportation as a transportation engineer. In 1998, he was promoted to the position of senior bridge engineer, and in 2001 was entrusted with the assignment of opening a new bridge design office as the Southern California region’s supervising bridge engineer. He managed the structure design implementation efforts related to accelerated bridge construction throughout Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties. In 2008, the California Department of Transportation, also known by its acronym Caltrans, designated him as the director of its District 8 office, overseeing both San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Upon assuming the District 8 director role, Wolfe was also delegated an ex-officio member of the San Bernardino Association of Governments board.
San Bernardino Associated Governments, known by its acronym SANBAG, was created in 1973 as San Bernardino County’s council of governments and its regional planning agency. It subsequently took on the role of the county’s transportation agency overseeing freeway construction projects, regional and local road improvements, train and bus transportation, railroad crossings, call boxes, ridesharing, congestion management efforts, freeway service patrols and emergency freeway service, and continued to serve as the county’s council of governments. When voters in 1989 passed Measure I, a half-cent sales tax override, the proceeds from which were intended to provide transportation improvements countywide, SANBAG was entrusted with the administration of that funding. Continue reading →

Defying not only the predominate political currents in the Golden State but convention and the odds that our nation’s chief executive would choose a Muslim to head up the justice department in one of the largest metropolitan districts in the county, Bilal Essayli has been appointed to be the U.S. attorney for the justice department’s Central District of California.
As a consequence, Essayli was required to, and on Tuesday April 1, resigned his position as the Assemblyman representing California’s 63rd Assembly District.
On Wednesday, April 2, he was sworn in as U.S. Attorney by U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee.
“I am honored that President Trump and Attorney General [Pam] Bondi have placed their trust in me to serve as United States Attorney for the Central District of California,” Essayli stated afterward.
Unlikelihood has been a watchword throughout and even preceding Essayli’s personal existence.
In 1981, within Lebanon, fighting between Lebanese Christian militias, which had been forced together by Bachir Gemayel, and Palestinian insurgents backed primarily by the Palestine Liberation organization intensified. In 1982, the skirmishing erupted into a full-blown war, with forces that included the Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims, pan-Arabists, and leftists, backed by Syria and Iran, taking on the Christians, who had formed an alliance with Israel. That same year, Gemayel was elected, at the age of 34, president of Lebanon, making him the youngest president-elect in that country’s history. He did not take office, as he was assassinated before being installed as president. Instead, his older brother, Amine Gemayel, became Lebanon president. Continue reading →

Those who live in the San Bernardino area are curious as to the subtext of the police department’s application to obtain state funding to cover the cost of enforcing prohibitions on illegal off-road vehicle use both at the city’s periphery and within its more central and largely undeveloped areas falling within city limits.
Some believe the city wants the money to cover the cost of its vigilance with regard to some World War II-era metallurgical facilities that may yet contain material or equipment used in the designing and construction of the United States’ first generation atomic weaponry which may be vulnerable to vandalism or theft by individuals or entities inimical to the public interest.
Additionally, the patrols may prevent dirt bikers and other off-roaders from inadvertently coming upon spots where runoff from the San Bernardino International Airport – the former Norton Air Force Base – has left deposits of contamination from legacy atomic and early thermonuclear weaponry that may be extremely hazardous to their health.
San Bernardino’s atomic history, once well-known among a small circle, has since been forgotten and purposefully obscured. Continue reading →

Some Omnitrans buses running between San Bernardino and Ontario and those linking Fontana to Ontario International Airport are arriving and departing on a far less frequent basis than usual, due to a labor action by drivers who are seeking higher pay and more comprehensive benefits.
Omnitrans is the largest government-established public transportation agency in San Bernardino County, serving the most densely populated 480-square miles of the 20,560-square mile county. Established in 1976, it includes 15 cities in its service area and portions of unincorporated county areas with routes that reach into Riverside County and Los Angeles County. Carrying about 11 million passengers per year or about 25,000 per weekday.
Omnitrans operates fixed route bus service, bus rapid transit and a paratransit service for the disabled, referred to as “Access.” Its routes run from Chino Hills, Chino, Montclair through Upland, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Rialto, Colton, San Bernardino, Highland, Grand Terrace, Loma Linda, Redlands and Yucaipa, south of the San Bernardino Mountains. Continue reading →

Despite Yucaipa voters passage of Measure S, the one-percent sales tax override that was on the ballot in November, Yucaipa city officials are moving to cancel the Five Winds Country Music Festival scheduled for October 2025.
In making his pitch to Yucaipa’s voters to give approval to Measure S, the architect of that initiative, then-City Manager Chris Mann, said it would, among other things, preserve the city’s commitment to cultural events, a reference to performances at the city-owned-and-operated Yucaipa Performing Arts Center and other events such as the Five Winds Country Music Festival, which has been held on an annual basis since COVID restrictions ended.
In not so many words, Mann suggested that events such as the Five Winds Country Music Festival, which has been held, variously, at the Five Winds Ranch, located on properties spanning from 37186 Oak Glen Road to 37254 Oak Glen Road or at El Dorado Ranch Park, would continue to be held.
Those events are on occasion modestly subsidized by the city.
In the case of the Yucaipa Performing Arts Center, the venue generally turned a profit or broke even. In some cases, operations with regard to certain performances ran at a deficit.
In the case of the Five Winds County Music Festival, billed as a celebration and spectacle of music, dance, art, and community spirit, acts such as Chris Janson, Rodney Atkins, Adam Doleac, Frank Ray, Russell Dickerson, George Birge, Dillon Carmichael and Drew Baldridge performed. Continue reading →

With a new finance director in place and a full year after their city’s voters approved Measure V, a one cent per dollar sales tax override to redress municipal economic challenges, the Chino City Council was blindsided this week with the revelation that the city’s general fund is $6.3 million in the red.
The gloomy news was unleashed by Kim Sao, who last month replaced Robert Burns as the director of finance in the 94,498-population city.
In the staff report and documentation relating to an item on the agenda for the Tuesday April 1 meeting titled “Fiscal Year 2024-25 Midyear Budget Review” and “Midyear Budget Adjustments for Fiscal Year 2024-25” was a memo from Sao to City Manager Linda Reich which contained what in retrospect may have been a forewarning, although it was leavened with other data that did not seem to presage any type of fiscal crisis.
The action this week came slightly less than two-and-a-half months after the city council approved the mid-term budget on January 21.
Staff went over the budget with a fine-tooth comb thereafter, with an analysis of the deviations from the projected spending that were turned up.
According to Sao, it was learned that there was to be a “decrease [to] the general fund revenues estimate by $3,420,211 and all other funds by $12,839,480 for a total decrease of $16,259,691.” Continue reading →