By clicking on the blue portal below, you can download a PDF of the December 23 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel.

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By Mark Gutglueck
Nearly five months after the San Bernardino City Council gave and then rescinded its approval of Mary’s Village, a transitional housing project for homeless men, the six members of the city council present to vote this week gave a unanimous final go-ahead to the undertaking.
Crucial to the passage was the absence of councilman John Valdivia, who inveighed against the project so successfully this summer that he undid the initial approval. Without Valdivia present, the council found itself caught in the spirit of Christmas charity. Thus incined, it gave no mind or homage to the arguments that Valdvivia and his council colleagues Henry Nickel and Bessine Richards had proferred earlier this year to the effect that the lodging where homeless men would be welcomed for an extended stay might prove to be a magnet for even larger numbers of homeless to flock to San Bernardino.
At the July 18 meeting when the project was initially considered, Councilman Henry Nickel had promulgated the philosophy that past efforts toward assisting the indigent, itinerant, displaced and penurious had made only the shallowest of inroads on the problem, squandered taxpayer money and invited other transients and vagrants into the county seat, which, according to official nose counts carried out by county officials on an annual basis in compliance with a federal mandate, hosts 40 percent of the county’s dispossessed while composing ten percent of the county’s overall population. Nickel characterized the proposed Mary’s Village as yet another in a string of haphazard gestures toward dealing with the homeless problem that was neither coordinated nor part of an overall strategy.
On July 18, Sixth Ward Councilwoman Bessine Richard had also questioned the location selected for the home, which is in the Third Ward. She indicated during the discussion that she would vote against the project because of that consideration. “The people that are in support of it don’t live there,” she said, adding that the city’s most intensive commercial area is within the Third Ward and that putting a use that will serve as a magnet for the homeless so close to the tax revenue producing assets in the city was unwise.
Absent from the meeting on July 18 was councilman John Valdivia, whose district was to host the transitional housing project for homeless men, where they would have received counseling, job training, help overcoming drug and alcohol problems and other kinds of aid toward the goal of becoming productive citizens, and the project was given first reading, tentative approval on a 4-2 vote.
Previewed by the city’s planning division manager, Oliver Mujica, who supported the project along with other city staff, as a “comprehensive center for homeless men on an 11-acre project site… intended to offer housing, job training and other services to up to 115 homeless men, Mary’s Village had as its proponent Mary’s Mercy Center, which long ago established two similar facilities for homeless, battered, troubled or dislocated women and children in San Bernardino, one called Veronica’s Home of Mercy and another called Mary’s Mercy Table, which are about a mile-and-a-half away from the proposed site Walnut Street.
Mary’s Mercy Centers are funded through the Arrowhead United Way, the City of San Bernardino’s pass-through of federal Community Development Block Grants and emergency shelter grants, Catholic Healthcare West, the San Bernardino Community Foundation, the S. L. Gimbel Foundation, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the Sisters of the Incarnate Word, a Diocese of San Bernardino Sacrificial Giving Grant, the City of San Bernardino Economic Development Agency, the Crestwood Corporation and the San Manuel Mission Band of Indians.
On August 1, the project came back for a second consideration by the council, which by law has to reconfirm all development projects and ordinances with what is called a “second reading.” Present that evening was Valdivia. Valdivia asserted that Mary’s Village would be bad for residents and businesses in his ward. “This item certainly does impact upon Third Ward neighborhoods… affecting the quality of life,” Valdivia intoned. “At the very outset I would like to suggest the quality of life with this project would be impacting local neighborhoods… impacting neighborhoods, residents and certainly businesses in the Third Ward, specifically along the Mt. Vernon and Walnut Corridor. When I do a simple calculation of the impact to the immediate area on the quality of life issue, my constant refrain is this does have an impact on public safety.”
After Valdivia allowed Nickel and Richard to reiterate their earlier expressed objections, he came out in full force against the project, saying, “This is not equitable. It is not equitable to the other hardworking taxpayers in the community that have been burdened.” He said the project was good neither for the city as a whole nor the Third Ward. “Third Ward residents… have already been burdened with one less fire station that closed in October of 2014,” he said, decrying “the idea that more residents, 118 residents, may have the potential of calling 911 for services and impacting the other area residents that are not in favor of this. [That] they’re going to have to wait additional time for a fire truck or police personnel to respond to their medical or police issue is disturbing.”
Valdivia raised the specter of an effective program serving to attract other homeless people. “This certainly will have a more inviting welcoming effect for other homeless individuals in our region to come to have resources in our community,” Valdivia said, going on to enunciate his belief that the project did not represent a robust boost to the local economy. “The fourth point is: What about true rooftops?” Valdivia said. “I don’t consider this build a true rooftop. When I look at the expansive acreage of about ten acres of land, imagine the possibilities for true rooftops to be built. We have this presupposed idea that rooftops would add to the economic resurgence of this community. This mammoth rooftop does not address my concerns on the economic development of this city. It doesn’t provide any economic growth opportunities or job creations and it certainly does not coincide with my priorities on economic development. I cannot support this. This is inconsistent and incompatible with the needs of the community.”
Council members Fred Shorett, Virginia Marquez and Jim Mulvihill took issue with Valdivia’s characterizations and propounded countervailing arguments to the effect that the project represented an ideal solution to a substantial portion of the homeless problem besetting the city.
Councilman Mulvihill said, “Homelessness is a very touchy issue in our city, but this is not temporary housing. This is not enabling. This is not a soup kitchen. This is a relatively long term solution to the problem. It is taking people in, establishing some stability in their lives, and then providing case management to take care of the issues that created the chronic homelessness. We’re not dealing with the short term. We’re dealing with chronic homelessness, people who have addictions, people with psychotic issues or combinations of the two. It has been estimated at the national level that the cost of homelessness on local jurisdictions is anywhere from $35,000 to $125,000 [per individual]. This is not an enabling process. It is a process to cure the situation.”
At that point, councilman Benito Barrios represented the swing vote with regard to the fate of the project, and a repetition of his vote from two weeks previous was needed to keep the project on track for final approval. With a degree of dramatic flair, Barrios then reversed himself, consigning the project approval to a 3-4 defeat. Widely remarked at the time was Barrios’ tendency to vote in lockstep with Valdivia, with one observer remarking that Valdivia possesses a Svengali-like hold on Barrios and a command over his voting patterns.
Indeed, when an effort to resurrect the project was mounted in September, Barrios again signaled his unwillingness to break with Valdivia and that move died.
On December 5, however, Michael Hein, the director of Mary’s Mercy Center, reapplied for project approval and the project was reintroduced. At that time, many of those who had expressed support of the project reemerged, including Terry Kent, a board member with Mary’s Mercy Center; Father Manuel Cardoza; Ray Osborne, the executive director of HomeAid Inland Empire; Ron Drews, of the Central City Lutheran Mission; John Morrissey, a board member of Mary’s Mercy Center; Kent Paxton; Carlos Rodriguez; Pastor Joshua Beckley; the Reverend Leonard DePasquale; Kathleen McDonnell of Saint Benradine’s Hospital/ Dignity Health; Father Mike Barry; Sandi Roberts; Shaana Boehm; M. Victoria Bianci; Aaron Cox; and Marsha Holguin.
Just as his vote reversal in August knelled the death, or seeming death, of the project, it would be Barrios’ second vote reversal, this time running contrary to Valdivia, that garnered for the project tentative approval on December 5. At that time, the project passed muster by the bare majority of 4-3, with Berrios, Mulvihill, Shorett and Marquez in favor and Nickel, Richard and Valdivia dissenting.
On December 19, when the project was due for a second reading, Valdivia was not present, and did not have the opportunity to wheedle, cajole or browbeat his colleagues. When it came down to a vote, both Richard and Nickel bowed to the inevitable and the project was given a 6-0 approval.
That vote confirmed changing the general plan land use designation on the 11.02 acres from residential urban to residential medium and granted a development code amendment for a four phase development. Phase I will encompass approximately 2.92 acres of the project and includes the construction of four single-story residential buildings containing approximately 7,000 square feet each that will accommodate up to eighty-five residents. These buildings will include common kitchen, dining and living areas, training rooms, and administrative offices. Phase 2 will encompass approximately 2.91 acres of the project and includes the development of approximately 17,000 square feet of medical, administrative, and educational space in up to three buildings. Phase 3 will encompass approximately 3.05 acres of the project and envisions the construction of up to fifteen (15) rent-subsidized housing units for graduates of Mary’s Village programs. Finally, Phase 4 will encompass approximately 2.14 acres of the project for the future construction of two buildings containing up to a combined total of approximately 20,000 square feet to house support/community services and a chapel. According to a staff report, “The project consists of the development of a men’s residential complex that will provide comprehensive on-site medical, behavioral health, training and support services that offer a healthy alternative to substance abuse, mental illness or homelessness.”

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Ochoa has entered a ruling that Verizon Wireless must complete an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act before it can proceed with its planned installation of a cell phone tower in the community of Mt. Baldy.
Since the early 2000s, the fire department in Mt. Baldy has been pressing for the establishment of cell phone service in Mt. Baldy Village and its rugged environs, which straddles the county line between Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County in the Angeles National Forest.
After Supervisor Janice Rutherford was elected in 2010, the fire department again approached Town Hall requesting cell phone service in Mt Baldy. With Rutherford’s help, elements of the community and fire personnel successfully persuaded Verizon to accelerate the priority of an already-planned Mt. Baldy cell tower site, according to hearing testimony by Verizon lobbyist Douglas McAllister. Although the fire department, Town Hall, and Rutherford played an integral role in creating a sense of urgency and importance, the project to bring cell phone service to Mt Baldy was spearheaded by Verizon itself.
The first Mt. Baldy cell phone tower was proposed to be sited at the fire station, which is on property owned not by the county but rather the Baldy Homeowners’ Association, which had to approve the use. The matter was put to a vote before homeowners association households, resulting in denial by a margin of 57 percent (28 votes) to 43 percent (21 votes).
Verizon eventually changed the proposed location of the first Mt. Baldy cell phone tower to a location near the trout pool property near the heart of the village.
Over the course of several Town Hall and homeowners association meetings, numerous residents expressed concern about the proposed location of the first Mt. Baldy cell phone tower, mostly regarding proximity to homes and the school. A group of concerned residents intensified discussions on the matter and eventually evolved into the Keep Baldy Wild Coalition. The coalition gathered signatures of an appreciable number of the town’s residents on a petition that called for “prudent avoidance” of the “potential harmful biological effects of radio frequency radiation exposure from cell phone towers and antennae” while advocating “a tower placement that serves the needs of Search and Rescue/Fire Department and is at least 3,000 feet from human habitation, schools and sensitive species habitat.”
Initially, Verizon represented that its application was for a single cell phone tower – a “standalone site” – which was to be located near the trout pools. In June 2015, Verizon lobbyist Douglas McAllister conceded that one tower would not provide coverage for adequate emergency services and that a network of two or three towers was planned, contradicting the wording in Verizon’s original application. Randi Newton, a Verizon subcontractor who had previously testified that only a single tower was planned for Mt Baldy, subsequently admitted that two additional towers were planned, one at Sunset Ridge and the other near the ski lifts. While the clear discrepancy between what Verizon applied for and what it intended to do seemed to disturb the planning commission, ultimately it made a mitigated negative declaration with regard to the project.
A mitigated negative declaration is a statement that a full blown environmental impact report with regard to a project in question need not be completed because the project itself incorporates revisions and/or mitigation measures that will avoid or mitigate impacts to a point where no significant impacts on the environment will occur and that there is no substantial evidence in light of the whole record before the public agency that the project, as revised and/or approved, will have a significant impact on the environment.
A number of Mt. Baldy residents did not concur and had gone on record against the project when it was under consideration by the San Bernardino County Planning Commission, contending the towers represented an unacceptable degradation of the sensitive mountain habitat.
Simultaneously, there are a handful of Mt. Baldy residents who have expressed the view that Keep Baldy Wild is an obstructionist group categorically opposed to cell phone service in Mt. Baldy on the sole basis of a misguided fear of radio frequency radiation.
Under the rubric of Keep Baldy Wild and in conjunction with the Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation, who were especially concerned about their ancestral spring in the vicinity of the project site, Mt. Baldy residents opposed to Verizon’s intended location for the cell tower appealed the planning commission decision to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. In October 2015, the board of supervisors heard the appeal. In preparation, Keep Baldy Wild hired a wildlife ecologist, a former county planner, and several other experts, who scrutinized Verizon’s application and pressed a case based upon what it contended were a whole host of oversights and inadequacies. The board of supervisors nevertheless upheld the planning commission.
According to the project opponents, the county’s land use services division and other county officials exhibited a bias in favor of Verizon from the outset.
“San Bernardino County officials did everything they could to thwart our group and facilitated Verizon at every step,” said Alison Denning, a spokeswoman for the Coalition to Keep Baldy Wild. “On our second visit to the county offices to review the file on the proposed cell tower for our village, the original file we had seen on our first visit was missing. We had been submitting documents for months and they were not there. We were told that the few pages we were shown were all they had. A year later we were told the ‘lost’ file had been found in the desert office. When we requested a video recording of the first hearing before the planning commission, it arrived missing the section where county counsel misinformed the planning commissioners which led to not allowing their 2 to 2 decision to stand. Fortunately, we had made our own audio recording of that discussion, which is posted on our website.”
The Keep Baldy Wild Coalition took legal action, challenging the approval under the California Environmental Quality Act in San Bernardino Superior Court. On September 26, Judge Gilbert Ochoa found in favor of the plaintiffs.
“Contrary to respondents’ assertion,” Ochoa stated, “there is no basis in the record to find the testimony of the Mt. Baldy residents as insubstantial. Moreover, there is nothing in the record to indicate that the board of supervisors discussed any opposing evidence of significant impacts or made any factual determinations regarding the credibility of any such opposing evidence. Indeed, in the updated staff report for the October 2015 appeal hearing staff merely set forth the opposing argument and the county’s corresponding response but there was no discussion of the opposing evidence provide by the petitioner and others. Instead, the staff simply stated the project will not cause adverse visual impacts due to the 45 foot height of the facility. Similarly, at the October 2015 appeal hearing, the board of supervisors did not make any specific credibility determinations which would require deference based on the evidence in the record. Petitioner has demonstrated there is substantial evidence supporting a fair argument that the project may have a significant aesthetic impact on the environment. Although there is also evidence supporting the county’s decision to issue a mitigated negative declaration, it cannot be upheld under the fair argument standard. Accordingly, the mitigated negative declaration should be set aside and the county is ordered to prepare an environmental impact report.”
The group’s attorney John McClendon stated, “In 27 years of litigating environmental cases, I have never seen a trial court judge provide such a meticulously detailed ruling. Judge Ochoa’s ruling reads like an appellate court decision and explains why an appeal of it would be futile.”
Dr. Gary Stickel, the tribal archaeologist for the Gabrieleno Band of Mission Indians / Kizh Nation said the ruling “acknowledged that Verizon did not conduct a proper environmental impact study in which they were to consider alternate sites to the one favored in Mt. Baldy. I am pleased that the judge mentioned the Kizh Tribe and its full support to keep their sacred mountain of Joat (Mt. Baldy) from being desecrated by an unnecessary facility there.”
Gerald Braden, a wildlife ecologist who reviewed the Verizon biology report completed by FirstCarbon Solutions/Michael Brandman Associates, stated “The court recognized that San Bernardino County Supervisors and Verizon were trying to subvert the environmental process. In essence, the San Bernardino County Supervisors were putting the influence of Verizon ahead of the interests and well-being of the people they are elected to serve.”
While the ruling does not permanently stop the planned development, it orders the county to prepare a thorough study of potential impacts on a wide array of environmental factors, including migrating and seasonal species. Going forward, the coalition is concerned that Verizon might contract with a firm known to have corporate ties with developers and planners in San Bernardino County. Keep Baldy Wild plans to remain vigilant as the environmental impact report is completed. The coalition has collected records documenting corporate-government alliances between known consultants, county land use division employees and supervisors, and Verizon.

A key player in San Bernardino County’s representation on the joint powers authority that will ultimately formulate the rules, procedures and prerogatives regarding the future pumping, use and distribution of water at San Bernardino County’s extreme northwestern tip will come from the industrial sector, the Sentinel has learned.
Indian Wells Valley straddles southeastern Kern County, southwestern Inyo County and Northwestern San Bernardino County. Underlying it is the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin, from which the City of Ridgecrest and its outlying area’s domestic, commercial, industrial and agricultural water users draw their water, as does the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the Searles Valley Mineral Company in Trona and the remainder of industrial, commercial and domestic users in Trona.
Historically, the Indian Wells Valley Water Basin experiences roughly 7,000 to 11,000 acre-feet of annual natural water recharge per year but for three decades has been using on average 28,000 to 30,000 acre-feet of water annually. Last year, California Governor Jerry Brown, in the face of a four-year running drought, mandated water saving measures throughout the state. Water use in the Indian Wells Valley Water Basin was reduced to under 24,000 acre-feet, which still exceeds the estimated 7,300 acre-feet of recharge by 16,700 acre feet.
In September 2014, Governor Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local agencies to draft plans to bring groundwater aquifers into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. Indian Wells Valley must form a groundwater sustainability agency by June 30, 2017, and adopt a groundwater sustainability plan by January 30, 2020.
What has been proposed and is now being actuated is that through a joint exercise of powers agreement, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority is being created with Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County, the City of Ridgecrest and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as general and voting members and United States Navy and United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management as non-voting associate members.
Practically speaking, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority is dominated by Kern County together with Ridgecrest and the water district. Nevertheless, the City of Trona, which is well past its heyday as an industrial and mining powerhouse, nonetheless possesses tremendous potential as an important industrial asset, and its access to water in sufficient quantity to sustain mining operations and production efforts based upon the availability of an abundance of minerals locally is crucial to realizing that potential.
While the other voting members are people who have established status as political representatives and possess sensitivity to the use of water in domestic settings, San Bernardino County was able to get a commitment from the other participants that it would be able to place on the groundwater authority board a personage employed with the major mining company in Trona.
Kern County Supervisor Mick Gleason chairs the authority’s board and he has tasked Alan Christensen, Kern County’s deputy county administrative officer, with hiring and appointing employees of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority board. The concept going forward is to form a policy advisory committee with legal and administrative experience to draft a framework for the groundwater sustainability plan with input from a second advisory committee steeped in hydrology expertise to be referred to as the technical committee.
Both will exist as official governmental committees subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open public meeting law. Their meetings will be open to the public, with the exception of closed session discussions relating to personnel, real estate acquisition and litigation. The committees will not have ultimate, final say in the drafting of the plan, but will serve in an advisory capacity to the board of directors.
There will be seventeen members of the policy advisory committee, one from each of the five general members and two associate members; two from large agriculture interests, specifically Meadowbrook Farms Mutual Water Company and the Mojave Ranch; one from small agriculture interests; two business; two domestic well owners; one from a planning agency/background; an environmental-oriented member, in this case a board member of the Eastern Kern County Resource Conservation District; and one industrial, that being a representative of the Searles Valley Minerals operation in Trona.
The technical advisory committee will have 12 members, one from each of the authority’s five general and two voting members; one each from agriculture, domestic well and industrial interests; one from Kern County Water Agency; and the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority’s technical consultant. The committee members are to have formal education and experience in a water/groundwater-related field, a technical background in hydrology, hydrogeology or geology and have a familiarity with Indian Wells Valley.
Gleason and Indian Wells Valley Water District board member Peter Brown appear to have been the most active and energetic participants in the authority formation undertaking.
Already, there is indication that the far more numerous domestic and agricultural interests have jockeyed or are jockeying into positions of advantage and political leverage with regard to the authority’s composition. Derek Hoffman, an attorney representing agricultural interests is seeking two positions representing farmers on both the policy and technical committees.
The most intensive industrial portion of the Indian Wells Valley District lies in San Bernardino County, in the district around Trona.
Situated at San Bernardino County’s extreme northwest corner, Trona is one of the county’s most obscure communities. The north Trona City Limits is the Inyo County border, which stands at the mouth to Death Valley.
Adjacent to the dry Searles Lake bed, Trona came into existence as a remote mining outpost in the 1880s where borax was mined. Subsequently, the mining of the mineral trona, either in the form trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate or sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate, became more predominant, and the town’s name was in this way derived. Trona is the primary source of sodium carbonate, also known as soda ash, produced in the United States. Soda ash is used in the fabrication of glass, detergents and dyes. Potash was also a major mineral mined in the Trona area.
In 1913, the American Trona Corporation, a mineral mining company, undertook to establish a company town at Trona, and planned and designed a community in which the workforce employed at the mines and in the chemical plant built there could live. As a self-contained company town, Trona became something of a world unto itself and thrived as the local population, the lion’s share of whom were company employees, utilized for the most part not greenbacks or checks but rather company scrip, which was tender in the company-owned stores and shops in the town. The American Trona Corporation built a library, a school, a dance hall, recreation facilities, including a bowling alley and other amenities in the town. The Trona Railway was built in 1913–14, providing the town with a rail connection to what was then the Southern Pacific line at Searles.
The American Trona Corporation became the American Potash & Chemical Corporation in 1926, at which time its major products were borax, soda ash and sodium sulfate. In 1967, Kerr-McGee Corporation (now a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation) acquired American Potash and Chemical Corporation and they held operations of the Searles Valley facilities until 1990. That year the operations were purchased from capital investors D. George Harris and Associates, resulting in the formation of the North American Chemical Company. Ownership changed yet again in 1998 when IMC Global Incorporation acquired the North American Chemical Company.
In 2004 Sun Capital Partners purchased IMC Global Incorporation and renamed it Searles Valley Minerals, Inc. In November 2007, Nirma, based in Ahmedabad, India purchased the company from Sun Capital Partners.
While the population of Trona in 2000 stood at 2,742, it has been steadily declining ever since.

Chino Valley Unified School District Superintendent Wayne Joseph ran into a buzz saw of disbelief, denial and anger this week during a forum at the Chino Hills High School Auditorium in which he sought to explain to parents of students currently attending Oxford Preparatory Academy why the district is no longer sponsoring that charter school.
Oxford was founded by Sue Roche in 2010, the principal at Rhodes Elementary School, the highest-performing school in the Chino Valley Unified School District in the early 2000s. With Joseph’s backing, the school district’s board of trustees gambled more than $3 million in opening Oxford Academy at the shuttered El Rancho Elementary School, located at the corner of C Street and Oaks Avenue in Chino. Utilizing Roche’s formula of a rich curriculum, old-fashioned book learning, intensified classroom focus and heavy doses of parental involvement, Oxford exceeded all expectations.
Students at Oxford Preparatory Academy performed spectacularly on academic achievement tests administered by the state and in 2011 collectively outperformed their counterparts at every other elementary and junior high school in San Bernardino County and did so again on California’s Standard Testing And Reporting (STAR) exams in 2012 and 2013, finishing near the top in 2014, and again besting all others in 2015.
The Oxford undertaking had proved so successful that the number of student applicants to attend the school routinely outran the number of desks and classroom space for them by as much as 600 per year, requiring that the district hold a lottery as a means of granting admission to it. In 2011, the school board unanimously extended Oxford’s charter for five years, from 2012-13 through 2016-17. To accommodate the overwhelming uptick in applicants, the district increased enrollment there to the point that at present it stands at more than 1,100 students.
For Roche, however, the accolades for her teaching method, the achievement of the Oxford students and her lionization as an educator did not translate to a sufficient financial reward, even after she was permitted to expand the Oxford model, convincing the Capistrano Unified School District to sponsor another campus, the Oxford Preparatory Academy in Mission Viejo, where in its first year of operation students at the Mission Viejo campus rang up an impressive 993 academic performance score on the 1,000-point maximum index during the first year the school was open.
Dissatisfied with the monetary remuneration she received as the top administrator at Oxford, Roche withdrew from the position of executive director of Oxford Preparatory’s corporate entity and promoted Barbara Black to that position. Roche then created a for-profit entity, Edlighten Learning Solutions, in which she is the central figure and prime mover. Upon Roche’s direction, Black had Oxford Charter Academy enter into a contractual arrangement that would have paid Edlighten $5.3 million to, essentially, serve as a district vendor and employ Roche as the school’s contract administrator and operations director.
With the date for the school board’s determination with regard to renewing Oxford’s charter approaching last spring, Joseph learned of what Roche had done. Perceiving that Roche was seeking to financially exploit the non-profit Oxford Preparatory Academy, Joseph publicly accused Roche of engaging in a financial conflict of interest which would have the effect, he implied, of shortchanging Oxford Preparatory’s students while enriching herself. Upon Joseph’s recommendation, the school board declined to renew Oxford’s charter.
Oxford’s internal board initially disputed any and all accusations of wrongdoing but then ended its relationship with Roche and appealed the school board’s decision to the county school board, which declined to consider the appeal because the district had altered its original submission by ending Roche’s involvement. Oxford then sought the intercession of the state, but San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Ted Alejandre beat them to the punch, calling for the California Department of Education to do an audit. The Fiscal Crisis & Management Team, an adjunct to the department, carried out that audit. Last month, just as Oxford’s request for a reconsideration of its charter renewal was about to be heard by the Chino Valley Unified School District Board, the Fiscal Crisis & Management Team released that audit and its accompanying report. The conclusion of said report spelled out that Roche’s action may have crossed the line into criminality. The audit cataloged how Roche created a system that involved Yorba Linda-based Edlighten and another entity, the Nevada corporation Educational Excellence, in dodging accountability through what was characterized as a “daisy chain” of payments between for-profit companies which employed her family, friends and associates, including her husband Terry Roche, married daughter Rebecca Baty, son Brian Roche and cousin Nick Califato, all of whom were paid through the organization.
Roche purposefully hid or obscured financial transactions and operations in such a way that the auditors, not to mention Chino Valley Unified officials and even Oxford’s own in-house employees, could not easily track them, according to the audit report. Ultimately, public school funding was diverted to bank accounts controlled by Roche and her associates, according to the audit.
“Interviews indicate that following the petition renewal in 2012, the founder created a complex structure of charter management corporations that exercised significant influence over transactions and contracts between these entities, and secured considerable financial benefit through contracts that charged management service fees up to 10 percent, funneling charter school dollars from Oxford Preparatory Academy schools,” the audit report states, such that Oxford was charged “for services that already existed.”
Oxford Preparatory paid Edlighten $4.2 million in management fees between January 2013 and June 2016, according to the audit. Those numbers were steadily growing, from $821,490 in 2013, $1.2 million in 2014 and $1.3 million in 2015. Edlighten was on track to take in more than $2 million from the academy in 2016, when Edlighten’s contract with Oxford was terminated in May. Prior to the early termination of the contract this year, Edlighten received pre-curtailment payments of just $834,522 in less than four months of 2016.
On November 28, the district board of trustees, again at Joseph’s urging, rejected the charter renewal petition.
On December 20, a number of parents of children attending Oxford showed up to hear Joseph’s explanation of why their children will not be able to attend the school where over the last several years they have achieved such stellar academic success and why they must be recirculated back into district schools where students’ scholastic performance has been far more lackluster.
Few parents seemed interested in or inclined to believe Joseph’s explanation that it was the action of Roche, whose educational formula had led to their childrens’ scholastic enrichment and academic achievement, that necessitated the district’s action in dechartering the school. To the extent that they would permit focus on Roche, some seemed less than convinced that her action was a serious matter and none appeared prepared to accept that her action, no matter how egregious, justified the closure of the academy.
Joseph attempted to drive home his point with a synopsis of the audit’s conclusion, and then used some harsher language of his own to explain the implication of what had occurred by telling the parents Roche had “laundered” public money and that Roche had consigned the money needed to keep the school alive to “a runaway train.” Somewhat apologetically but yet forcefully, Joseph intoned, “The past is gone,” sounding the death knell of Oxford Charter Academy.
That assertion very nearly subjected the superintendent to mayhem. His focus was on the wrong thing, parents insisted. He should be committed to keeping the academy up and running, they fairly shouted. Instead, they said, he was intent on destroying it and running it into the ground. Some echoed one another – and Roche’s attorney Marc Greenberg – by asserting that Roche had radically outperformed Joseph, as the schools he oversees were badly outperformed by the school Roche led.
“You’re not doing anything to help us,” one woman wailed.
Soberly, Joseph responded, “You need to know the truth. I’m trying to tell you what has happened and is going to happen and why.”
Many parents of Oxford students have yet to accept that their children will need to pull out of the school. Just under 400 have at this point bowed to reality and are seeking transfers to specific schools in the district. The parents of roughly 700 students are staking their hopes on some sort of miracle.
Something close to a miracle – or at least an unlikely reverse – will be needed. Oxford’s internal school board on December 7 voted to appeal the Chino Valley Unified School District’s November 28 renewal of its charter to the San Bernardino County school board, which declined to take up a previous appeal on the matter, and instead elicited County Schools Superintendent Alejandre’s interest and resulted in the audit so unfavorable to Roche and by extension the academy. The academy is preparing that appeal to get it before the county school board by the first week of January. If that body rejects it, Oxford could then take the matter up with the state school board, hoping, that despite the audit which excoriated Oxford’s founder, state officials will be impressed enough with Oxford’s performance to keep it alive.

A somewhat uncommon circumstance has manifested in the Yermo Community Services District.
Typically, officials involved with a particular public agency close ranks when allegations or claims against that agency are made. Even if members of a given governmental agency board are political rivals, they share an interest in the financial integrity of the institution they jointly represent. If a lawsuit against the agency succeeds, depending on the determination of actual and punitive damages, the agency can see its operating capital diminished significantly, resulting in the widespread perception that the agency is not acting effectively, is squandering public money, and is poorly managed generally.
For that reason, recent public statements by Yermo Community Service District Board President Michael Cint are eye-opening. Cint applauded a judge’s finding that a
prima facie case in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Yermo Community Service District, its former board president and former fire chief appears to exist. That ruling portends that the case will now be heading for trial, bringing with it the possibility the district and its taxpayers will be shelling out a substantial amount of money.
On December 20, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Donna Gunnell Garza rejected motions for summary judgments filed by former Yermo community Service District President Robert Smith, former Fire Chief Sean Cloughen and the Yermo Community Service District in a wrongful death suit brought against the district by the family of Larry Thomas.
Garza’s ruling set the path clear for trial on the lawsuit to begin on February 27. Santa Monica-based attorney David Feldman filed the suit on behalf of Thomas’ family on July 7, 2014 in which it is alleged the district and its fire department bore responsibility for the factors that led to Thomas’ death on November 8, 2013.
The fire department was thoroughly familiar with Thomas and his condition, which included congestive heart failure, according to the suit. When his family called 911 early that fateful morning because Thomas was having trouble breathing, according to the lawsuit, there was a critical delay in response that ultimately led to Thomas’ death.
According to the lawsuit filed by Diane Merchant and Anna Thomas on July 7, Merchant called 911 at about 4:13 a.m. on November 8, 2013. She said her husband Larry Thomas was having difficulty breathing. At 4:15 a.m., the dispatch for the state fire department, known by its acronym Cal Fire, radioed notification of a 911 emergency call to the Yermo Fire Department, the nearby Fire Station 402 from the Yermo Annex of the Marine Corps Logistics Base and Desert Ambulance in Barstow.
The complaint says Cloughen, a captain in the fire department at the time who was also employed as a police officer at the Marine Corp Logistic Base in Yermo, was on duty at that time with two other firefighter trainees. The complaint says that Fire Station 402 is equipped with an advanced life support paramedic unit ambulance, but the Yermo Fire Department does not have the same lifesaving assets.
“Nonetheless, upon receiving the call, Capt. Cloughen ordered the Cal Fire dispatch to cancel out Fire Station 402,” the lawsuit reads. “Diane and Larry’s home is about half a mile from the Yermo Fire Station. In July and August of that year Capt. Cloughen was clearly familiar with Larry Thomas’ house. Nonetheless, at 4:21 a.m. Capt. Cloughen called the ‘911’ dispatch and told her that he could not find the home in question. The dispatch operator, Angie, then called Diane back and told her that Yermo Fire Department was having difficulty finding her house.
“Diane then, while on the phone with Angie, told her that she sees the Yermo Fire Department pickup truck and was waving to them while standing in the driveway,” the suit continues. “At that point Capt. Cloughen drove away from the house, prompting Diane to tell Angie ‘they are now driving away.’ Capt. Cloughen eventually turned around and arrived at the house at 4:24 a.m.”
The complaint also alleges that Cloughen is not trained nor certified as a firefighter.
“Capt. Cloughen left the bag-valve-mask in the oxygen bag without using it on Larry,” the complaint reads. “Then, Larry stopped breathing and lost consciousness.”
Another firefighter who is a certified emergency medical technician, Gary Yearsley, arrived shortly thereafter. Yearsley, according to the lawsuit, told Captain Cloughen to initiate chest compressions and told one of the trainees to radio Cal Fire to recall Fire Station 402. Yearsley then used the bag-valve-mask with oxygen and the automatic-external-defibrillator. After the first round of 30 compressions, according to the suit, Thomas’ heart started to beat and his eyes opened. But Thomas continued to falter and after several automated external defibrillator shocks, his heart stopped.
An ambulance arrived and CPR continued, the complaint reads. After personnel from Fire Station 402 arrived, Thomas was taken to Barstow Community Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The lawsuit claims that Smith, the fire chief at Yermo Fire Department at the time of Thomas’ death, and Ray, the fire commissioner, had direct responsibility for training of fire department staff on how to manage and respond to emergencies. It accuses them of instituting “a policy whereby the Yermo firefighters were told to cancel the advance life support paramedic treatment units on each and every call.”
The lawsuit further alleges that there was some hanky-panky on Cloughen’s part that may have contributed to Thomas’ death. According to the suit, in September 2013, Jeffrey Stumbaugh, Thomas’ son-in-law, who was the Yermo Fire Department’s fire captain, complained to Smith that Cloughen, a firefighter at that time, was engaged in inappropriate behavior with a high school student working as an intern at the fire station.
According to the lawsuit, “One evening following a Yermo community meeting, Bob Smith called Jeffrey into his office to talk to him about the recent allegations against Sean Cloughen. When Jeffrey entered, the high school (girl’s) father was sitting on a chair. Bob Smith said to Jeffrey, ‘so you have a claim that Sean Cloughen was acting inappropriately with the man’s daughter, right?’”
The lawsuit continues, “Jeffrey said yes. Bob Smith turned to the father, who then said ‘I fully trust Sean.’ Then Bob Smith told Jeffrey that the whole thing is put to rest. There was no issue. Finally, Bob Smith said, ‘oh, Jeffrey you can turn in your equipment tomorrow. You will no longer be needed.’ And just like that he was terminated.”
The lawsuit goes on to allege that on the morning Larry Thomas died, Capt. Cloughen arrived at Thomas’ house at 4:17 a.m. and noticed Stumbaugh’s car parked outside. Instead of entering the house as quickly as possible in order to assist Thomas, the lawsuit alleges “Capt. Cloughen first canceled the Fire Station 402 unit, took his time and then lied about not being able to find the house while being parked directly in front of it.”
According to the lawsuit, the Yermo Community Service District, Yermo Fire Department, former Yermo Fire Chief Sean Cloughen, former CSD Board President Bob Smith and others are responsible for Thomas’ death. All of the defendants have denied the allegations.
Shortly after Garza’s ruling, Cint made public statements to the effect that the matter going to trial would bring a quantum of justice to the Thomas family, going so far as to say he was optimistic the jury would find in favor of the plaintiffs.
Without dwelling on the financial hit the district will take if the case goes in the Thomas family’s favor, he indicated his belief just such a verdict will push the district – which he now heads – toward a more responsible stewardship of the public trust. He said the lawsuit pertained to a classic case of right vs. wrong.

Less than four months after the demise of the High Desert Mavericks and the exodus of that team from Stater Bros. Stadium, the City of Adelanto has forged a deal with another professional team, ensuring the stadium will not go dormant in the upcoming baseball season.
This year, the Mavericks were the 2016 champions in the California League, with a record of 82 wins and 58 losses. They swept the Visalia Rawhide in the first three games in the five game league championship series, arguably the team’s best performance in its 25 year history. As impressive was that the team carried all of this off against a backdrop of the ownership’s dispute with the City of Adelanto that had nearly resulted in the team not being allowed to play at Stater Bros. Stadium in 2016 at all.
The Mavericks came into existence in 1991, when city officials were intent on using whatever means or gimmicks available to draw people into the city. Perhaps for that reason, the terms of the Mavericks’ lease on the stadium lacked a certain definitude on many points. That contract was entered into well before the Stater Bros. sponsorship that gave the stadium its subsequent name,
Subsequent redraftings of the contract were little better. Almost a quarter century later, a new set of elected Adelanto leaders would come to the conclusion the team’s owners – Main Street California, LLC – were exploiting the city and its taxpayers. They would make the claim that the city had subsidized the High Desert Mavericks by roughly $600,000 per year totaling more than $1.8 million between 2012 and 2015, covering an estimated $675,938 of the team’s rent costs, $486,635 for city personnel in support of the stadium operation, $157,500 in
janitorial fees, $46,521 for insurance, $14,000 in parking fees, $229,688 for utilities and another $200,000 in miscellaneous costs including catering.
For its part, however, Main Street California asserted the city was actually costing the ball club money. Without fanfare, four months prior to the start of the season, on December 18, 2015, the city served Main Street California with a notice to vacate the stadium. When Main Street resisted, the city in January went to court in Barstow, filing an unlawful detainer action against the High Desert Mavericks, essentially seeking to evict the ball club from the stadium. Simultaneously, the city went public with what was referred to as a “subsidization” report, cataloging the city’s costs in allowing the Mavericks to play at the stadium. Current city officials no longer valued the prestige of hosting a minor league ballclub, having become more focused on the contention that the facility use contract with the team did not serve a public purpose and that it was harming taxpayers.
On January 29, the Mavericks went to court, filing suit to force arbitration with the city. Two-and-a-half weeks later, on February 16, Main Street California filed another suit against Adelanto for breach of contract.
In its suits, Main Street alleged the city’s action was damaging to the Mavericks’ fans, players, charitable organizations, the Adelanto economy and the California League.
In its suit, Main Street maintained, “The city is actively taking steps to disrupt the team’s upcoming season in a blatant attempt to force the team out of the ballpark. The team will be irreparably harmed if the city is permitted to continue sabotaging the upcoming baseball season” and that the team, its employees and players had been locked out of the ballpark. Judge Brian McCarville turned down the city’s request for an expedited eviction of the team from the stadium, granting Main Street California LLC’s motion to quash a five-day summons in the city’s unlawful detainer civil suit. McCarville directed the city to instead proceed with the serving of a 30-day summons and by the time everything was in order to proceed against the team legally, the season had begun. Once under way, the season played out to what was for the Maverick’s on the field a winning conclusion.
Despite the Mavericks’ winning ways, the city was no more favorably disposed toward the team than before. In Bakersfileld, the California League team there was likewise in disagreement with the city over the use of its stadium. In August, the California League, fazed at the uncertainty over the playing venues, eliminated both teams from the league as of the beginning of the 2017 season, drawing down from ten teams to eight.
It has now been announced that the independent Pecos League, which has been in existence only since 2011, having been launched after the Continental Baseball League folded, will now include the Adelanto Yardbirds as it expands to twelve teams. The league, which is technically not considered a minor league since its teams do not have an affiliation with any major league teams, has been steadily growing, from six teams in the 2011 and 2012, to eight teams in or 2013, to 10 teams in 2014.
The season is highly condensed, with teams playing 70 games in 72 days. Players make $50 per week. The other current teams are the Garden City Wind and the Salina Stockade, both in Kansas; the Santa Fe Fuego, the Roswell Invaders, the Las Cruces Vaqueros and the White Sands Pupfish in New Mexico; the Trinidad Triggers in Colorado, the Bakersfield Train Robbers, the California City Whiptails and the Monterey Amberjacks in California; and the Alpine Cowboys in Texas.
The team uniforms for the Yardbirds will be orange, red, yellow and black.
“The new team, the High Desert Yardbirds, will be playing at Adelanto Stadium, formerly Heritage Field and formerly Maverick Stadium,” Michael Stevens, Adelanto’s officials spokesman told the Sentinel. “The city’s plans are to rely upon the expertise of the 28 District Agricultural Association, the staff for the San Bernardino County Fair, to manage and coordinate re-use of the stadium.”

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
“Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” –The 11th Commandment
I will dedicate this sermon – I mean column – to the importance of adhering to the Eleventh Commandment…
Moving on toward seven weeks after his victory in the November 8 presidential campaign, president-elect Donald Trump is mending fences with the Republican leadership in Congress and elsewhere, individuals with whom he seemed to be at such odds during the campaign. To be accurate, many Republicans were skewering him as well. I cannot say, exactly, where it all started or who threw the first punch. The fact is it happened…
Mr. Trump looks to me to be on the road toward patching it up with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who recently gave Mr. Trump, whom I take to be a New York Giants or New York Jets fan, a Green Bay Packers Jersey. He has found a job in his administration for the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He has given top jobs in his administration to five sitting lawmakers. Much of this might well be vice president-elect Mike Pence’s doing, along with that of the incoming White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus…
I’d like to use an analogy here. I think we can see the machinery of government in Washington, D.C. as a wagon. The lawmakers are the horses. With the Republican majorities in both houses, we are now free to hook Republican lawmakers up to the wagon, with essentially little or no Democratic interference, and take the wagon in any direction we decide on. The best way to do this, I think, is to hook all of the horses up to the same side of the wagon, such that they are pulling in the same direction. It is counterproductive to have some of the horses pulling north, others south, others west and still others east…
The Republican Party is the party of conservatism. But it is not a monolith. It has a progressive wing. It has a libertarian wing. If those progressive ideas prove themselves and if the libertarian approach is practical, those principals, narrowly defined on an issue-by-issue basis, can be embraced by the party as a whole. Mr. Trump is close to some hard-line conservatives, including his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and senior political aide David Bossie, Both got caught up in the vitriol I referenced earlier and both made some pretty powerful and acerbic statements over the years about the GOP establishment. This has left lingering hard feelings on both sides of the conservative/progressive divide in the “big tent” of the Republican Party. And this could make sledding difficult for President Trump in pushing through his legislative agenda…
My point in all of this is not to begrudge those of ultra-conservative bent or those in the middle of the road or those who are progressively oriented their views. Indeed, I welcome them and if in stating those views they can, using logic and deduction and respectful assertion convince me or any other Republicans to alter my view or their views, and change the direction of our party, I encourage that. But those views should be calmly expressed, without rancor and without vindictiveness. In eschewing vituperation, we preserve the collegiality of the party, and once all sides have made a case and a decision is rendered, we can all hitch the horses to the same side of the wagon and pull it in the agreed-upon direction…
So, I will conclude by saying that God knew what he was doing when he etched those tablets high on Mt. Sinai, and the wisdom contained in the 11th rule – “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican” – is clearly evident…

Fort San Bernardino depicted in a 1976 painting by Hazel C. Olson

By Mark Gutglueck
Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormons, was constantly seeking places where colonies of Mormons might safely establish themselves. To this end, he had instructed Jefferson Hunt, a member of the Mormon Battalion involved in the building of roads during the Mexican American War who had traveled extensively throughout the Southwest, to report to him any sites of advantage he might espy during his travels.
Hunt recommended that the church consider creating a major colony in Southern California. This was based in some measure on the potential Hunt saw for the place, which offered a ready supply of lumber from the nearby mountains, verdant soil and adequate water for irrigation and human consumption, as well as an offer by Isaac Williams, an American who had married into the Spanish-California aristocracy, to sell the Rancho Santa Ana de Chino to the Mormon Church on attractive terms.
By 1849, Young, convinced of the wisdom and advantages of having immigrant converts traveling by sea who would land in California settle either in California or travel overland to the Utah Territory, resolved to establish a Mormon colony in California. In September 1849 Young instructed Elder Amasa M. Lyman and six foot-four inch tall Charles C. Rich to lead an expedition to establish a Mormon foothold in southern California. When Williams withdrew his offer, an alternative purchase of the Lugo Family Rancho, located somewhat further eastward from Chino and owned by Williams’ in-laws, was eventually arranged.
In March 1851, 437 Latter-day Saints under the leadership of Lyman and Rich left Great Salt Lake City. After traversing the Cajon Pass, the group purchased Rancho San Bernardino from the Lugo family, tendering on September 22, 1851 a down payment of seven thousand dollars, leaving a balance of over seventy thousand yet to be paid. The deed was in the names of Elders Lyman and Rich.
Together with Hunt, they established a colony. Upon their arrival in San Bernardino, there was a legitimate fear of an uprising among the Utes, Chemehuevis and other desert Indians. To secure themselves from this threat, the Mormons resolved to build a fort similar to a stockade built in Salt Lake.
To that end, they constructed a “palisade enclosure” on the east side, which contained the main entrance, and the two ends north and south. They used split willow trees and cottonwoods, hewing them to fit flush and sunk them to a depth of nearly three feet in the ground at the base. The wall stood 12 feet high uniformly. The west side of the enclosure was composed of houses which preexisted the construction of the fort. Walls were constructed between those existing houses to provide a fourth exterior barricade. A number of one-story log and adobe houses were constructed inside, along with a school house, wagon shop, headquarters for the colony and a store house. Residents of the fort were obliged to provide a tithe of ten percent of their non-perishable edibles, skins and needed supplies into the community storehouse. The fort had dimensions of 750 feet by 320 feet. It was located at the downtown courthouse located at Arrowhead Avenue and Court Street.
In lieu of wells, efforts to divert a stream of water into the fort were made by means of a ditch from Lytle Creek.
More than 100 families set up residence in the fort, together with a number of unmarried men. David Seely, Andrew Lytle and Jeffeson Hunt headed separate companies of men, numbering 50 each.
Jefferson Hunt was the commanding officer of all three companies. There was never any attack on the fort.

Santa Ana Sucker

Development and the encroachment of civilization on the Santa Ana River has heightened the possibility of the extinction of the Santa Ana Sucker Fish.
The Santa Ana Sucker Fish lives in two known areas: the Santa Ana River, which has its headwaters at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains near Highland and winds through San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties to its terminus in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Angeles National Forest’s San Gabriel River, in portions of its west, north and east forks, all of which are located in Los Angeles County.
The fish needs gravel-size rocks upon which to lay its eggs. Various activities along the Santa Ana River which dam up or stop the flow of the river water, along with the drought respresent a mortal danger to the species, Catostomus santaanae.
A freshwater ray-finned fish, the Santa Ana sucker has dark grey upper parts and silvery underparts. It grows to a maximum length of 10 inches, but most adults are much smaller. It feeds on algae, diatoms and detritus on the floor of shallow streams with sand, gravel or cobble bottoms. Because it is found in only a few streams in Southern California, and virtually all of those have at various spots been converted into concrete channels, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated this fish as “endangered.”
This fall, an extraordinary effort was made by volunteers to protect the fish along a portion of the river that is downstream from where the shutdown of a rapid infiltration and extraction wastewater treatment plant in Colton owned by the cities of San Bernardino and Colton took place for maintenance purposes.
Roughly 50 volunteers divided into six teams, some of them brought in by four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicle, fanned out along a two-mile stretch of the Santa Ana River, where biologists believe upwards of 80 percent of the Santa Ana sucker fish yet living in the world reside, just prior to the shutdown of the plant, concentrating on those portions of the river where its contour and shallow depth would become the most likely spots where the fish would become stranded.
There are spots in the river where the water flows on a relatively constant basis and others where the water pools into something akin to ponds. With the closure of the plant, the water flow downstream from it essentially ceased, and many of the ponds dropped to critical levels.
The teams of volunteers stood by the ponds or moved from one to the other as the water continued to draw down and used nets to capture the fish, or in cases where they became stranded in mud used their hands, to put them into buckets of water fitted with oxygenators to keep the fish breathing during their confinement, which lasted for the roughly four hours the plant stayed closed. Some 650 fish were hauled out of the water and returned to their home once the river was again flowing. The following day, a survey of the critical span of the river turned up seven dead fish, significantly fewer than the 40 to 50 that typically dies previously when the plants along the river are shut down.
The November effort was the fourth such operation during rapid infiltration and extraction plant shutdowns organized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since early 2015.