(January 6)  The county of San Bernardino is on the verge of leaping into the funding guarantee gap that has come about because of the city of San Bernardino’s financially disadvantaged state, and serve as the guarantor for a federally subsidized improvement project at the Val 9 Apartments in San Bernardino.
On Tuesday, the board of supervisors consiered but held off on a recommendation by Dena Fuentes, the director of the county’s community development and housing division, to approve a “sub-recipient revenue agreement” between the city of San Bernardino and the county of San Bernardino in the amount of $834,999, pursuant to the federal HOME Investment Partnership Program.
Essentially, Fuentes called upon the county to put up an $834,999 loan to the developer that otherwise would have been provided by the city.
“A HOME Investment Partnership Program Sub-Recipient Agreement is a revenue agreement between the city of San Bernardino and the county of San Bernardino,” said Fuentes. “Because the city is in the process of restructuring its financial position, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) asked the county to assist the city in investing its Fiscal Year 14-15 HOME funds towards a project that meets HUD’s national objective of providing low and moderate income housing. The agreement provides the formal mechanism between the county and the city to ensure the continued access of affordable housing funding opportunities will exist for the city’s low and moderate income residents. Per the agreement, the sub-recipient (the county) is designated to carry out all actions necessary to implement the city’s HOME Program objectives, comply with all HOME federal regulations and ensure the funds are invested in a project that results in the development of affordable housing to eligible low and moderate income individuals and households. As a HUD HOME entitlement jurisdiction, the county manages its own HOME affordable housing development program and is familiar with the federal regulations, financing of affordable housing along with the affordable housing monitoring requirements.”
The developer involved in the Val 9 Apartments rehabilitation is National Core Renaissance National Community Renaissance, a non-profit corporation founded by Jeff Burum to provide affordable housing to low and moderate income home buyers. Steve PonTell is currently serving as its president and chief executive officer.
“In October 2014, National Core Renaissance and its development partners received an allocation of $1,139,951 of 9% low income tax credits over a ten-year period from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee to assist in financing the development of the Val 9 Apartments,” Fuentes said. “The project consists of 70 affordable housing units on 4.65 acres at the corner of Valencia Drive and 9th Street in the city of San Bernardino. This project is the initial phase of the Waterman Gardens revitalization effort sponsored by the Housing Authority of the county of San Bernardino. The total construction budget for this development is $23 million. Currently the developer is securing all funding resources in order to commence construction in February 2015.”
Fuentes said the participation of Community Renaissance in the project could yet fall through.
“The department of community development and housing will be negotiating a HOME Loan agreement between the county and the developer to invest the city’s HOME funds to finance the project. It is anticipated that the HOME Loan agreement between the developer and the county would be considered by the board of supervisors in January 2015. If the county is unsuccessful in the negotiations with the developer for the project, the department of community development and housing would undertake a notice of funds availability to identify other potential multi-family affordable housing developments located in the city of San Bernardino that meet the city, HUD and county objectives. The board of supervisors is being asked to approve the $834,999 HOME investment partnership program subrecipient agreement between the city and the county. This unique solution among HUD, the city, and the county will ensure that limited affordable housing resources are retained in the county and invested in the city, in compliance with the Federal HOME regulations.”
The item was taken off calendar on a motion by supervisor Robert Lovingood. Fuentes’ report indicated the matter will come before the board some time later this month.

(January 8) Now that he has assumed county office, Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman has made it two for two, appointing a second staff member who had served in the capacity of one of his field representatives when he was state assemblyman to the position of district director.
Hagman, assemblyman in the 55th District from 2008 to 2014, successfully vied against Congressman Gloria Negrete-McCleod last November to replace Gary Ovitt as San Bernardino County supervisor in the Fourth District.
Immediately, Hagman moved to hire Mike Spence, who had served as his chief of staff during his tenure as assemblyman, as his chief of staff in the Fourth District. This week, the board of supervisors approved his hiring of Ed Graham as the Fourth District director.
Hagman, Spence and Graham are Republicans. Spence and Graham are currently serving city council members, Spence in West Covina and Graham in Chino Hills. Graham and Hagman served together on the Chino Hills City Council from 2003 to 2008. Hagman shook off criticisms of his having chosen institutional government employees as staff members.
“The particular person we are talking about worked outside government for thirty years in addition to being an educator and administrator, so he has long time experience in the private sector as well. He covered constituent services on my assembly staff and he is well connected to the district as an elected official in one of its cities, where he puts in voluntary service as an elected official that far exceeds the $600 a month he makes in that capacity. He is a good fit for the position.”
Spence has been a fixture in Sacramento for two decades as a consultant and legislative staff member, including a spell as the chief of staff for then-assemblyman Joel Anderson (R- El Cajon), and lobbyist. Graham was a high school teacher for a portion of his professional career.
The district director position pays $71,480 in annual salary, with an additional $39,111 in benefits for a total annual cost of $110,591.
Hagman noted that “Staff services to members of the board of supervisors are provided through contractual arrangement, as required by the county charter. Approval of this item will authorize an employment contract with Edward Graham to provide support services to the Fourth District Supervisor as a district director.”

(January 6) The San Bernardino International Airport Authority has increased by $2.72 million the amount of money it is charging the county for a 25-year lease on hangar space for the sheriff’s department aviation division.
According to a report to the board of supervisors from Terry Thompson, the director of the county’s real estate services department, his division received notice that the authority was experiencing cost increases that necessitated ”increasing the contract price from $9,600,000 to $12,320,000 for the construction of the Sheriff’s Department Aviation Facility.”
Word of the increase came nine months after the closure of Rialto Airport, where the sheriff’s aviation division has been located for the last several decades, and some three months before the aviation division is set to leave Rialto itself.
The sheriff’s Aviation Division is the last hangar tenant scheduled to relocate out of Rialto, with a projected departure date of April 15. At that point, the entirety of the sheriff’s aviation division is to be transferred into a 61,640-square-foot aviation facility now under preparation at San Bernardino International Airport.
San Bernardino International Airport is located on the grounds of the former Norton Air Force Base, which is located at the confluence of the San Bernardino, Highland, Loma Linda and Redlands boundaries. The San Bernardino International Airport Authority is a joint powers agency, made up of the cities of San Bernardino, Loma Linda, Highland and Colton and the county of San Bernardino, which is committed to the conversion of the facility to civilian aviation use.
On February 25, 2014, the county board of supervisors approved a $9.6 million, twenty-five year lease with the San Bernardino International Airport Authority for a new aviation facility for the sheriff consisting of approximately 50,000 square feet of hangar space for aircraft storage and maintenance, 11,640 square feet for office space and other aviation related site improvements on approximately eight acres located at the San Bernardino International Airport based on the need to relocate from the now closed Rialto Municipal Airport and to provide additional hangar and office space to accommodate the expanded aviation needs of the sheriff’s department.
According to Thompson, “On November 7, 2014, the San Bernardino International Airport Authority received construction bids for the project. The San Bernardino International Airport Authority (SBIAA) indicated that the bids reflected increased costs that resulted from additional requirements by the city of San Bernardino related to the fire suppression systems; and additional requirements required by the Federal Aviation Administration related to the heliport designation. SBIAA and county staff reviewed the bids and the projected soft costs, and recommend that the project construction budget (including a contingency allowance) be revised as follows: construction $9,750,000; construction contingency $975,000; and soft costs (design, permits and inspection) $1,595,000, for a budget total of $12,320,000.
On December 17, 2014, the SBIAA board approved the amendments to both the lease agreement and the work letter agreement based on the revised project budget.
The total rent for the initial twenty-five year lease term for the sheriff’s department aviation facilities to be leased from San Bernardino International Airport Authority is $12,320,000, and will be paid in full, for the entire lease term, upon completion of the construction of the facilities. The funding sources are $4,121,878 from the city of Rialto; $1 million from the sheriff’s state asset seizure funds; $7,198,122 from discretionary capital in the county general fund, from which $4,478,122 was appropriated on a vote of the board of supervisors in the 2013-14 capital improvement program budget, $1,456,440 was taken out of excess funding from the sheriff’s crime lab expansion project, $1,063,560 was provided from the cancellation of the High Desert Juvenile Detention Center Secondary
Water Source Project, and $200,000 from savings on the High Desert Detention Center expansion project.

(January 7)  The county this week took a major step toward constructing a new fire station in Needles, a project for which it has budgeted slightly more than $3 million.
The board of supervisors on Tuesday awarded a design contract on the project to STK Architecture, Inc., in the amount of $230,458. That contract covers the provision of design and construction administration services for the undertaking. According to Carl R. Alban, the director of the county’s architecture and engineering department, the cost breakdown of the Needles fire station project includes $149,200 for the purchase of the site, $26,430 for preliminary site investigation, an estimated $16,520 for conceptual design, $230,458 for design and construction administration, $240,000 for project management, testing and inspection, $20,000 for permits, $2,066,175 for construction, backed with a construction contingency of $206,617 and $50,000 for furnishing, fixtures and equipment.
Thus, the total project budget has been set at $3,005,400, though it is likely the actual cost will exceed that amount.
According to Alban, “The current budget for the Needles Fire Station is based on the construction cost for the Spring Valley Lake Fire Station which was the same design. It is expected that the construction cost for the Needles Fire Station will exceed the current budget based on an escalation of costs for the passage of time, rural nature of the Needles location, and a higher construction cost estimate recently prepared by an outside consultant. Award of a construction contract is expected in July 2015.”
The established and anticipated funding sources for the project include discretionary general funding of $1,962,316 and federal Community Development Block Grant funding of $1,043,084.
Alban said, “If additional funding is required, it is anticipated that Community Development Block Grant funding will be requested. Necessary budget adjustments will be requested at the time of the award of the construction contract and included in a future quarterly budget report presented to the board of supervisors for approval.”
The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District provides emergency services to he unincorporated region surrounding Needles, including the Interstate 40 and State Highway 95 corridors, Park Moabi, and the Colorado River recreation area. The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District contracts with the city of Needles to provide emergency services and currently leases the facility located at 633 Front Street from the city for use as Fire Station No. 31. Built in 1953, the fire station is in need of updating and repair and is no longer adequate or large enough to support the needs of The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District, according to Alban.
“A modern facility with room for expansion of current and future services is needed in order to better serve the community,” Alban said. “Completion of the new, larger and better equipped Needles Fire Station will enable County Fire to provide emergency services and maintain public safety to the expansive unincorporated region around Needles and fulfill its contract responsibility to the city.”
On September 24, 2013, the board of supervisors approved the purchase of property located at 1113 East Broadway Street in Needles for this purpose. On January 24, 2012, the board of supervisors approved a design and construction services contract with STK Architecture, Inc. for the Spring Valley Lake Fire Station Project. The design was a site adaptation of a design that had previously been developed for a future fire station which was to be located in the city of Needles. Included in that board item was the stated intention of the architecture and engineering department and the county fire division to utilize and adapt the design developed by STK for future fire stations with similar requirements. The design services approved by the board this week will be primarily a site adaptation of the existing fire station design, and will include the necessary civil engineering and landscape design specific to the new site, as well as any code upgrades that have occurred since the last plan review and approval.
According to Alban, “Adapting standard designs and construction processes allows the county to realize substantial savings in the design of future fire stations.”
Accordingly, Alban recommended awarding the design and construction administration contract in the amount of $230,458 to STK utilizing and adapting the design previously developed and completed by STK for the Spring Valley Lake Fire Station Project.
Agreements for design and construction administration services typically run concurrent with the project timeline. Actual construction of the fire station is expected to commence in August 2015 and is anticipated to be completed in late summer 2016.

Years ago I had a friend who would periodically blurt out, “They have the wrong people in charge!” I had reason to think of him this week when Judith Oakes, the one time accountant for the Rialto Unified School District who stole either $1.8 million or $3 million – no one seems to know for sure – was finally sentenced for her misdeeds…
As I understand it, Judith Oakes went to work for the school district in the late 1990s and was given a position of some trust and responsibility, overseeing the district’s school lunch program, counting the money and depositing it. Video cameras had been installed in the counting room but had not been operating for many years…
Sometime in the late spring or early summer of 2013, someone became suspicious and, apparently without the knowledge of the district superintendent or Judith Oakes, the video cameras were repaired, including one that was placed directly over the counting station Judith Oakes utilized. Just after the 2013-14 school year began, on August 5 and August 6, she was was caught on camera slipping handfuls of bound bills into her bodice…
She was arrested the following day and resigned thereafter. She initially maintained her innocence in the face of the charges against her. The superintendent and assistant superintendent were placed on paid leave the following month and the superintendent chose to resign seven months later…
The inference I have drawn is that it was the district’s assistant superintendent for financial affairs, a fellow by the name of Mohammed Islam, who had discovered the pilfering. Mohammed Islam had previously served as the financial services director with the San Bernardino City Unified School District before coming to Rialto in the 2012-13 school year. I draw this inference because it was Mohammed Islam who was immediately elevated to the position of acting superintendent when the superintendent and acting superintendent were placed on leave…
Indeed, it was the hiring of Mohammed Islam and is promotion that appears to be the only thing the Rialto Unified School District did right during this entire debacle…
When the district, the investigator it hired and the police department requisitioned district records pertaining to Oakes, they were missing. It seems the precaution Mohammed Islam had taken in seeing to it that the video system was returned to operational status without alerting anyone at the district’s administrative level was a wise one…
The district then moved to fire its auditing firm, Vavrinek, Trine and Day, a not unreasonable development. A new firm was brought in, which ascertained that in the five year period before she was caught and resigned, Judith Oakes had embezzled $1,845,137.81. How it was that she had taken the 81 cents in change on top of the paper cash was never explained, at least to my satisfaction. The exactitude of that finding was not replicated in the other forensic examination of her perfidy. Rather an estimate of over $3 million was given with regard to the total amount of money she had taken out of the fund intended to provide food for the mouths of hungry students, beginning in either 1999 or 2000…
I happen to know that if the district had wanted to do so, it could have insisted on a much more accurate accounting. And achieving a more exact number would have been worthwhile. Judith Oakes was married to Jack Oakes, a former principal of Ramona-Allesandro Elementary School in San Bernardino, who died as the result of injuries he sustained in an off-road accident in 2010. That Jack Oakes did not have an inkling about what his wife was up to strains credulity. What implication does this have for the San Bernardino City Unified School District?
Oakes at last bowed to the inevitable and entered a guilty plea on December 4, short of going to trial. She has spent the last 17 months in jail and came before Judge Colin J. Bilash, a former deputy district attorney, for sentencing on Thursday…
At that sentencing hearing, Rialto Unified School District Associate Superintendent Tom Haldorsen stated that $3 million in district funds are indeed unaccounted for since 2001 and that it is a logical assumption Oakes is the party responsible for that money’s disappearance. Needs no ghost come from the grave, My Lord, to tell us this…
Judge Bilash made a determination that she merited a sentence of five years, given that eight of the other charges against her had been dropped as a consequence of last month’s plea deal in which she acknowledged stealing the $1.8 million. Judge Bilash further sentenced her to make $1.8 million in restitution payments. The catch? Officers of the law have apparently scoured, to the extent they can, her known bank accounts and other holdings. This apparently entailed some level of cooperation from her, but it is unknown, at least to this observer, how complete that cooperation has been. What is known is that within the last fortnight she has disgorged $339,002.08, culled from her accounts and holdings. What I do not know, and what I suspect no one knows other than Judith Oakes, is what she has hidden and where it is hidden. Does she have accounts in her own or a different name in any banks or institutions? Does she have a security deposit box? How many? Where are they? What investments has she made?
Under the terms of what Judge Bilash set down for her, Judith Oakes will be on probation of three years after she leaves incarceration. With time served and credit for good behavior, she could be released as early as July of 2017. If that is the case, she will be 52 years old when she is released. I wish I was 52 again…
Judge Bilash’s restitution order further requires that she begin paying down on the $1,460,997.92 she still owes, starting within 60 days of leaving custody, at no less than $150 per month. If she stays current on her suit, she will have paid back her debt to society in full in the year A.D. 2853. That does not include interest…
Like my friend said, “They have the wrong people in charge!” Well, except for Mohammed Islam. The Rialto Unified School District still refers to him as the “interim” superintendent. Let me go on record as saying they should drop the “interim” from his title…

By Mark Gutglueck
Jefferson Hunt has a legitimate claim to being the father of San Bernardino County. As an officer in the Mormon Battalion, he traveled to California before it was a state. A few years later he was an original pioneer of the Mormon settlement at San Bernardino. He twice led parties from Salt Lake to California by way of the southern route through the Cajon Pass and was at one time the American most thoroughly acquainted with the area in and around San Bernardino County and its inhabitants.
Hunt was born in Kentucky in 1805. He married Miss Celia Mount, and in 1835, he and his wife were baptized into the Mormon church by Sidney Rigdon. They had moved to Missouri and Jefferson Hunt at once took an active part in the church, becoming an elder and being employed by Joseph Smith, both in the religious and secular affairs of the community. He was a prosperous farmer and businessman during his stay in Missouri, and when the call from Brigham Young came to move westward, he was able to equip his own family comfortably and also to aid many of the less fortunate Mormon brethren in their outfitting.
Hunt was an officer of the Mormon Battalion, in which capacity he had first become familiar with the advantages of Southern California.
The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history, and served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. The battalion was a volunteer unit of at least 534 and perhaps as many as 559 Latter-day Saints men led by Mormon company officers, who included Hunt, and commanded by regular US army officers. During its service, the battalion made a grueling march of nearly 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego.
The battalion’s march and service proved instrumental in helping the United States secure much of the American Southwest, and opened a southern wagon route to California. When the Mormon Battalion was mustered into volunteer service on 16 July 1846 as part of the Army of the West, Hunt and two of his sons, Gilbert and Marshall, were among the first to enlist. The battalion arrived at Fort Leavenworth on 1 August 1846 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Allen. Allen ordered the battalion forward along the Santa Fe Trail, but on 23 August, Allen died. Captain Jefferson Hunt at that point took command of A Company, serving as acting commander until he was relieved by a regular U.S. Army officer dispatched from Council Grove, Kansas in response to a message that Allen had died.
The Mormon Battalion arrived in Santa Fe in October. On 16 December 1846, the battalion engaged with a small detachment of provisional Mexican soldiers in the Battle of Tucson. Thereafter, the Mexicans retreated and Tucson fell to the Americans. The battalion continued westward, crossing into California. On its sojourn to its southwestern terminus in San Diego, the Battalion passed through Temecula, in the aftermath of the Temecula Massacre, a conflict between the Californios and the Luiseño tribe. The Mormons stood guard to prevent further slaughter while the Luiseños gathered their dead and interred them into a communal grave.
The Mormon Battalion arrived in San Diego on 29 January 1847, having covered more than 1,900 miles since departing Iowa. In California the battalion carried out occupation duties for five months, and was ultimately discharged on 16 July 1847 in Los Angeles.
When the company was discharged, Hunt and his sons went north to the gold fields near Colima. They were very successful in their mining operations, and when they went on to Salt lake City, they carried a considerable amount of gold dust with them. Here Captain Hunt found his family, which he had left at Santa Fe in 1846, when the battalion started for California. They had come on to Salt Lake City with the other Mormons and were now in almost destitute circumstances. Very soon after his return, Captain Hunt organized a party to return to California by a new Indian trail which had not been hitherto traveled by white men. This led southward and through the Cajon Pass. He purchased 300 head of cattle from the Lugos at San Bernardino Valley, and bought horses at Puente and supplies in Los Angeles; then returned to Salt Lake by the northern route.
In 1849, Captain Hunt, together with Mormon Missionary Addison Pratt, blazed a route from Salt Lake City southward through present-day Las Vegas and San Bernardino, and then northward to Sacramento. The trail they carved would be followed by many settlers and Forty-niners. For much of its distance, that route is now traced by the I-15 Freeway.
The Hunt and Pratt Party discovered gold and silver in Southern Nevada, sending back to Brigham Young a recommendation that Southern Nevada, including Las Vegas specifically, be colonized. Accompanying the Hunt and Pratt Party were a group of pioneers from the Eastern United States, later identified as the infamous Death Valley Party. Many of them became impatient with the slow progress of the Mormon leadership, as Hunt insisted that they collectively travel only as fast as the slowest wagon. They chose to set out on their own from the larger group. After these malcontents split with Pratt’s and Hunt’s leadership, they tried to cross the Sierras farther north. They encountered great difficulty on their own, eventually arriving at Death Valley, narrowly avoiding death. Those remaining with Hunt made the sojourn safely and without serious incident. Later, some members of the Death Valley party rejected their new leaders and rejoined the Hunt party after one of Hunt’s scouts discovered them nearly starved to death.
In 1851, as he was transiting through Iron County as elections were being held, Hunt was prevailed upon to stay just long enough to be elected to the Utah Territorial Legislature, even though he was not an actual resident of Iron County. He served only a brief time in that capacity. That same year, Hunt was called upon by Brigham Young to help create a Mormon colony in San Bernardino. He served as the principal guide of the Mormon colony and assisted Amasa Lyman and Charles Rich in their prospecting for a permanent place of residence for its members. He took a prominent part in the building of their fort in San Bernardino, and was the leader of their military organization. Under his direction the road through Twin Creek Canyon to the timber district was constructed and he was one of the first to engage in the lumber industry. In 1852 he was chosen as assemblyman for Los Angeles County, which then included the expanse that later became San Bernardino County, and it was he who presented the bill for the formation of San Bernardino County. He represented San Bernardino County in the legislature from the time of its organization until his departure in 1857.
A Democrat, Hunt in 1855 was commissioned as a brigadier general in the state militia by Governor John Bigler.
Soon after coming to San Bernardino, he secured a contract for carrying the mail from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City via San Bernardino and he held important mail contracts throughout his stay in the state.
According to San Bernardino County’s foremost historian, Luther Ingersoll, “Captain Hunt was a man of strong character. Deeply pious by nature, he believed with all his heart in the divine revelation of the Mormon doctrines, although he found many of them a sore trial to his faith. Energetic, clear-sighted and indomitable in will, he was especially fitted for the leadership which he always acquired, in whatever position he was placed, Generous to a fault, his home was always open to the less fortunate brethren, and he gave a helping hand to many a needy man, Saint [i.e., Mormon] and Gentile [i.e., non-Mormon] alike, for he was above petty distinctions. He deserves a large place in the memory of the citizens of San Bernadino, for he filled a large place in the early and vital events of the history of the town and of the county.”
After his return with the Mormons to Salt Lake in 1858, Captain Hunt took a mail contract from Salt Lake to Humboldt. He also took up land in Utah and later secured a large ranch in Idaho. In 1860 he founded Hunsville a flourishing agricultural settlement near Ogden, Utah. He died at Oxford, Idaho in the spring of 1866.
Mrs. Hunt survived him and died in 1897 at the home of her daughter Mrs. Sheldon Stoddard, in San Bernardino. Captain Hunt had eleven children, of whom four were yet living in 1904: Mrs. Nancy Daley, widow of Edward Day, and Mrs. Harriet Mayfield, of San Bernardino, as well as his sons and John and Gilbert of Arizona. Three daughters, Mrs. Nancy Daley, Mrs. Harriet Mayfield and Mrs. Sheldon Stoddard lived for most of their lives in San Bernardino. As of 1904, Hunt’s grandchildren numbered 89, and according to Ingersoll, his great grandchildren numbered one hundred forty nine, and his great great grandchildren had reached seventeen as of 1904.

(January 9)  On Friday January 8, Fernand Bogman, an Upland resident who is being prosecuted criminally for complying with Governor Jerry Brown’s suggestion that people should go “Brown” on their lawns during the drought, refused to accept a plea bargain offered by the city’s prosecutor which Mr. Bogman and his attorney feel would have compromised his principles.
Until today Mr. Bogman was being defended by the San Bernardino County’s Public Defender but discharged them from his case and replaced the Law Office Of Marc E. Grossman as his counsel. Michael P. Vollandt, the Managing Attorney from Mr. Grossmans law firm, will be defending Mr. Bogman when the case goes to trial.
In a last ditch effort by the City, Upland Prosecutor Mr. Danny Peelman made an offer to Mr. Bogmam to pay to the City $1,000.00 by Civil Comprise (PC 1377) or face trial
Mr. Bogman, who maintains it is immoral to “pour buckets and buckets of water on your lawn during a drought,” refused that offer, expressing confidence in his lawyer’s ability to convince a jury that he is acting responsibly and in compliance with the law.
Mr. Bogman is charged with a criminal misdemeanor which could land him in jail for up to six months for not watering his lawn. It goes brown but when the rains occur the lawn is green and then goes brown when the weather changes. Bogman, Grossman and many others do not believe aesthetics should be a subject of a criminal complaint.
“There has been a history of corruption within the City of Upland resulting in other city residents being charged and convicted by crimes we do not believe they were guilty of,” said Vollandt. “The City continues to use Draconian methods of forcing citizens to violate the policies of the State of California, which has mandated reasonable conservation measures intended to alleviate the severity of the three year old drought. The city wants to put his citizens in jail if they conserve water by not watering their lawn. We believe a jury of Mr. Bogman’s peers will feel differently if they are given access to the facts of this case.”

The Desert Daisy is a flower common to the Mojave Desert, as it is to much of the Southwest.
Its scientific name is the Chaenactis fremontii, and uses common names such as Fremont’s pincushion and the Desert pincushion. These are a a species of annual wildflower in the daisy family, of the group Dicot and the family Asteracae. Both the latter common name, and the specific epithet are named for John C. Frémont, one of the founders of the state of California.
Chaenactis fremontii grows in sandy and gravelly soils in the deserts and low mountains.
Typically, Chaenactis fremontii grow in patches of long stems which are green when new and turn red with age. They may branch to extend into a multitude of tall, almost naked stems. These flowers have sparse, fleshy and long and pointed leaves. The erect stems have an inflorescence bearing with at least one flower head, though there are usually more. The heads feature densely packed disc florets, oftentimes with large ray florets around the edge of the discoid head. The flowers are white, yellow or very light pink.
In height, they reach 14 to 18 inches and spread out to cover an area of two feet. The flower rays are narrow and pale in color. They bloom in the early to mid spring, from March to May.
They crave full sun exposure and thrive at elevations from 0 – 4,000 Feet. Their typical habitat involves sandy and gravelly soils or hillsides, deserts, and low mountains.

You can download a PDF of the January 2 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel by clicking on the portal below.

Sentinel 01-02-15

YUCCA VALLEY—(December 31) This desert town of 20,700 is up against a formidable deadline by which it must complete the first phase of a large scale wastewater treatment system within less than 17 months.
That deadline was imposed by state water quality officials in 2011 because of a mounting water quality crisis local officials had previously failed to address. Despite Yucca Valley’s incorporation as a municipality in 1991, it remains the only one of San Bernardino County’s 24 cities without a sewer system.
But a combination of factors, financial, political, ideological and even religious – not to mention out and out cronyism – have prevented the town, its residents and its local water district from coming to terms with a reality that will, if it is not redressed, severely impact all of the area’s residents.
Long a remote and rustic desert area that attracted those wishing to remain well off the beaten track and free of the strictures of urbanization, Yucca Valley made its first lurch toward modernity in the 1950s when Norman J. Essig promoted it as both a getaway to and private residency for entertainment celebrities. He ventured capital toward that end, acquiring hundreds of acres, which he improved with roads around the region’s major arterial, Highway 62, also known as Twentynine Palms Highway.
While attracting movie stars as well as recording and visual artists was only marginally successful, the improvements did succeed in luring others by virtue of the relatively inexpensive land prices, and Yucca Valley grew sporadically over the years, appealing to the independent minded and lovers of its remote desert beauty. As early as 1973, when the area’s population was hovering below 5,000, there was a push to outfit the core of Yucca Valley with a rudimentary sewer system, one that would extend only to the town’s modest commercial area and the relatively sparse residential neighborhoods that surrounded it. But a water treatment facility and skeleton sewer system to which future developments could connect carried a price tag of roughly $10 million, well beyond the tiny community’s fiscal means at that time.
After the town’s November 1991 incorporation, civic officials continued to reflect and embody the values of their constituents, who eschewed big government and excessive regulation and put a premium on maintaining the town’s rural character. There was little collective will to pave any roads other than the town’s main thoroughfares and many town streets remain dusty trails to this day. A modern, urban sewer system has been an imperative to few locals. At the same time, the town council has been accommodating of most developers who expressed an interest in Yucca Valley, and over the first 23 years of the town’s history as an incorporated entity, gave builders what has essentially been carte blanche to build aggressively without incorporating urban land use standards.
Thus, the septic systems that had proliferated in Yucca Valley for three-quarters of a century remained the accoutrement of homes and businesses built within the 40 square mile city limits.
Ten years after incorporation Yucca Valley’s officials were notified by the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board that the lack of a sewage treatment system had resulted in nitrates accumulating in the water table. Simultaneously, the Hi-Desert Water District, which serves the Yucca Valley community, experienced nitrate traces in district wells.
Local officialdom did not respond with alacrity. Rather, some feigned outrage that the state felt it necessary to involve itself in what many perceived as a local issue. As a good number of those who had moved to Yucca Valley were senior citizens and retirees living on fixed incomes who had been attracted to the area by cheap land, they were alarmed by the concept of having to defray the cost for the installation of a sewer system. They were heartened and to a certain extent lulled into a state of complacency by their political leadership, which asserted the town would not fall victim to overreaching regulation imposed on it by Sacramento. Thus, the water table contamination issue was kicked down the road.
In the early 2000s, monitoring carried out by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board and the United States Geological Survey demonstrated that residues left in the ground that seep into the aquifer had increased to levels that presaged health threats if the matter was not addressed. Those contaminants included nitrates and other pollutants including pharmaceuticals and salts.
Historic pumping increases from the 1940s to 1995 resulted in the water levels dropping faster than the nitrates from septic systems seeped downward. Thus, for years Yucca Valley was able to avoid the consequences of the contamination accumulating in the local soil. Eventually, however, as the water table dropped lower and lower as a result of greater utilization combined with limited recharge from rainfall, the water district began importation of state aqueduct water into Yucca Valley. Completion of the Morongo Basin Pipeline project and the accompanying completion and activation of recharge basins in Yucca Valley allowed the Hi-Desert Water District to begin percolating water into the aquifer and the water table began to rise. That water came in contact with the high levels of nitrates left over from decades of septic discharge and the nitrates found their way into some of the Hi-Desert Water District’s wells. Notice of the contamination triggered a scaling back of the Hi-Desert Water District’s recharge efforts, and the goal of reestablishing the Yucca Valley water table to the natural level present in the 1940s has not been achieved.
For a time, at least, the imported water actually diluted the nitrates so water tests showed nitrate levels below the maximum contaminant level allowed by the state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In the meantime, the discharge of septic waste continues and the United States Geological Survey determined that nitrates accumulating beneath Yucca Valley are present in ever increasing concentrations and at depths that pose a threat to the groundwater, including a calculation that 880 acre-feet of septic discharge currently reaches the groundwater every year.
In 2007, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state agency responsible for protecting water quality, adopted a resolution identifying the town of Yucca Valley as one of 66 communities throughout the state with groundwater threatened by the continuing overuse of septic systems. The board further declared Yucca Valley as a top priority for eliminating the use of septic systems, meaning Yucca Valley’s is one of the five most seriously threatened significantly-sized water supplies in the state.
Nevertheless, local officials resisted taking immediate action, as they lacked the financial wherewithal to undertake the construction of a sewer system. Nor did the city have the will to impose any kind of building or development moratorium that would stabilize the problem.
For a while, town and the water district officials were able to delay the imposition of state mandates by forging a memorandum of agreement with the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Hi-Desert Water District to allow interim permits for new septic systems while planning for a wastewater system proceeded. But they could not suspend the consequences indefinitely.
By 2010, Yucca Valley’s population had zoomed to 20,700, an increase of 3,835 or 22.7 percent over the 16,865 town residents counted in the 2000 Census.
In 2011, the town was firmly informed it had only five years to take a definitive step toward water quality compliance.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board at that point imposed three progressive phases of septic discharge prohibitions on Yucca Valley. Under the state mandate, phase 1 of a waste water system must be completed or significantly on its way to completion by May 19, 2016 or enforcement action will be initiated. The first phase of the project is to cover the downtown area of Yucca Valley, the area most proximate to the heart of the groundwater basin. Similarly, phase 2 must be completed or nearly completed by May 19, 2019 and phase 3 must be completed by May 19, 2022. The last two phases lie further out where future concentrated development is most likely to occur.
The imposition of that deadline nearly four years ago was intended as a wake-up call to local officials to undertake an effort to avert the growing water quality crisis. But woefully little progress toward the goal of planning and funding the system has been made and there has been absolutely no physical progress with regard to establishing it.
If the town, its residents and the local water board do not collectively act to fund and begin building the sewer system that will eliminate Yucca Valley’s reliance upon septic systems that are now overwhelming the area’s water table, the state is threatening action that could reduce Yucca Valley to a ghost town by 2022.
Nineteen months ago, the State Water Resources Control Board’s sub-executive director, Jose Angel, told those gathered at the Yucca Valley Community Center the state will be methodical and thorough in enforcing the prohibition, holding the town to account to complete each phase of the project by the succeeding deadlines and taking steps to ensure that each residential and commercial property within each phase’s geographical boundaries ties into the sewer system once it is in place.
In the last nineteen months. the High Desert Water District, which is to be the lead agency on the project, has not completed anywhere near two-thirds of the work needed to meet the first deadline on May 19, 2016, while more than two-thirds of the time since the deadline was announced has elapsed. The tangible progress it can point to consists, basically, in having undertaken an effort to inform local residents of the problem and having completed cost comparisons on paper. The primary cost projection identifies the difference between having a contractor undertake building the system and having the water district manage the project – between $133,248,401 and $140,651,089 for the design and construction work to be performed by Atkins North America and somewhere between $111,539,901 and $117,736,562 for the district to construct the project using Atkins North America’s proposed design. The system would consist of a water treatment plant and a collection system entailing over 400,000 linear feet of pipe.
The district has made some tentative projections with regard to obtaining grant funding, but has made no substantive progress toward actually receiving such grants, other than obtaining a $20 million authorization from the Bureau of Reclamation. It has also applied for a low to no-interest loan through a state revolving fund. Ultimately, there will yet need to be significant financial participation by the town’s residents and businesses. A dated calculation, using the assumption that the overall cost of the project will amount to no more than $125 million, is that each parcel in Yucca Valley will be counted upon to provide $16,700 toward the system construction debt burden. If the cost of the project can be defrayed over 30 years, water district officials calculate the project can be financed through homeowner assessments of $20 to $40 per month to cover just the construction costs of the system.
Costs could rise due to unforeseen circumstances or complications with regard to easements, particularly on the north end of town, where the proposed trunk line will be laid alongside a steel natural gas line accompanied by electrical pumps. The cost of upgrading the trunk line to one consisting of steel seamless pipe could raise the cost.
Of tremendous moment is the community’s ability to pay for the system, which includes town residents’ willingness to embrace a debt servicing mechanism to cover the financing arrangement on its construction costs. One such effort was Measure U, sponsored by the town in 2012 and which appeared on the November ballot. If passed, Measure U would have imposed a one-cent sales tax within Yucca Valley. Town officials said the lion’s share of those proceeds would go toward building the sewer system. Measure U was defeated, however.
If the multiple issues with regard to the sewer system are not resolved, and resolved soon, Yucca Valley will have no conceivable prospect of meeting the May 19, 2016 deadline.
The water quality crisis may prove insoluble because of a host of social realities in Yucca.
The town in many ways defies definition along any traditional political measure. In terms of median income, household worth and property values, Yucca Valley is among the poorest of San Bernardino’s 24 incorporated cities, and is surpassed economically by many of the county’s unincorporated communities as well. Yet it is a decidedly conservative bastion, with the Republican Party dominating politically. Among the town of Yucca Valley’s 9,963 registered voters as of last week, 4,096 or 41.1 percent were Republicans and 2,601 or 26.1 percent were Democrats. Within the slightly larger confines of the Hi-Desert Water District, which includes the entirety of Yucca Valley and some outlying area, there are 11,473 voters, of whom 4,634 or 40.4 percent are registered Republicans and 2,996 or 26.1 percent are Democrats. The town’s residents are predominantly of a minimal-governmental-interference philosophy and that has traditionally been the platform of its elected leadership.
Indeed, Yucca Valley’s leading citizen, Paul Cook, who served on the Yucca Valley City Council for eight years, from 1998 until 2006, was later a member of the California Assembly and is now beginning his second term in Congress representing the 8th District, which includes Yucca Valley. Cook, perhaps more than any single political entity, in reflecting the attitudes of his constituency, has prevented the wastewater project from moving ahead. As the region’s representative in Sacramento until two years ago, Cook effectively undercut the project’s proponents, referring to the demand that Yucca Valley transition from septic systems to a sewer system as “just another unfunded state mandate.” He dwelled at length upon the cost of the project and what he considered his constituents’ inability to bear that cost.
“We have to look at this from some perspective of a cost analysis,” Cook, while still serving in Sacramento, said. “This is never going to happen. We have to remember what type of community this is. We got to be very, very careful when we start talking $125 million to people who cannot afford it because we do not have the businesses and the state’s not going to give you the money. I’m not afraid to talk to Governor [Jerry] Brown. I work for you and we’re not afraid to get a bloody nose.” Cook bragged he would tell Brown, “In Yucca Valley, we want you to declare Yucca Valley a historical site because we’re going to be a ghost town!”
Just prior to leaving the Assembly, Cook acknowledged that building the sewer system is a desirable goal, but maintained the state is overstepping its authority by requiring that it be built on the local dime.
“When a state bureaucracy imposes a septic tank prohibition, sets a 2016 deadline, and doesn’t offer funding to deliver the project, it is without question an unfunded mandate,” Cook said. “It is imperative that the California Water Resources Control Board provide Yucca Valley residents and businesses access to extended term, reduced interest rate loans along with debt forgiveness. Additionally, every Proposition 84 dollar appropriated to our region needs to be made available to the Hi-Desert Water District to help deliver the lowest cost sewer system to our community. While protecting water quality is a laudable goal, the costs associated with constructing a sewer and wastewater treatment plant could have a potentially devastating impact on Yucca Valley without these resources.”
As a member of Congress, Cook has not achieved the provision of any federal money to assist in the water treatment system’s construction.
As or even more remarkable as Cook’s role in the matter is the influence of the religious community in shaping Yucca Valley’s approach to governance, and by extension, its indolence in addressing the wastewater contamination crisis.
Like Loma Linda, where the Adventist Church’s sway over the political affairs of that city is well recognized, Yucca Valley is dominated politically by politicking from the pulpit. The entities exercising the strongest pull in this regard are Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel, where the Revered Jerel Hagerman is the pastor; Grace Community Church, where Roger Mayes is the pastor; and to a lesser extent St. Mary of the Valley, the Catholic Church in Yucca Valley that counted Paul Cook among its parishioners. Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel boasts a membership approaching 3,000 and Hagerman can deliver somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 votes for a candidate or for or against any measure that appears on the town ballot.
Both Hagerman and Mayes are credited with being the actual co-regents behind the throne in Yucca Valley. Their sermons set not only the spiritual and moral tone of the town, but appear to define its political tenor as well. Both pastors share a born-again zealotry and conservative political ethos that carries itself beyond the two or so hours they have the attention of their parishioners on Sunday, and into everyday life and into the halls of power down at Yucca Valley’s civic center. Indeed, both Hagerman and Mayes were instrumental in launching the political careers of their sons, both of whom served on the Yucca Valley City Council.
Isaac Hagerman, Jerel’s son, was a member of the town council that effectively ignored or resisted for so long the state’s dire warnings with regard to the deterioration in the quality of the town’s water supply and championed the further growth of Yucca Valley by providing developers with carte blanche to build aggressively without incorporating urban land use standards.
Chad Mayes, the youthful mayor of Yucca Valley who captured his position on the city council in some measure because of the advantage conferred upon him by his father’s position as a leading religious figure in the community, promoted limited government throughout his tenure in office before he resigned to become chief of staff to San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford in 2010. Chad Mayes was similarly opposed to imposing the intrusion and expense of creating a sewer system on the town’s residents, businesses and landowners. Last year, in November, he was elected to serve in the California Assembly.
In addition, the Reverend Roger Mayes has been directly involved in the water quality issue, having himself served several terms and continuing to serve as a board member of the Hi-Desert Water District Board of Directors, where he has proven himself to be a longtime advocate of limited government.
Complicating the issue is the cronyism that stands side-by-side with the political and religious fervor against big government and state mandates.
A minority of town residents now, and have for some time, recognized that the water contamination issue is a real one and that the state government is purposed to apply some harsh remedial action if progress toward a solution is not made. Some have expressed a willingness to impose on themselves and their fellow residents some order of a regime to effectuate the construction of the waste water treatment system. But at the level of the water board they have been met with resistance because a majority of the water board members have been backed by town business interests who are opposed to any taxing or assessment schedules that would impact upon the profitability of their business operations.
This has led to a cynicism on the part of many residents who are now resistant to the water district’s overtures to form an assessment district out of the belief that the assessment district will be formed to favor the political backers of the board’s members and will finance the construction of the system largely upon the backs of the town’s residents.
There are indications that the Hi-Desert Water District’s board has begun to factionalize. Sarann Graham and Dan Munsey appear to have charted a path at odds with the board majority, consisting of Roger Mayes, Bob Stadum and Sheldon Hough. At the board’s most recent meeting December 17, Mayes, Stadum and Hough overlooked Munsey, who was reelected to the board in November with the largest number of votes, in choosing who would serve as the board’s chair and vice chair. While Graham sought to elevate Munsey, she was outvoted by Stadum, Hough and Mayes, who chose Stadum as board chairman and Hough as vice chair.
Unless dynamic action is taken by the board, either independently of the town or in conjunction with it, the residents of the town are very likely to see themselves uprooted from their homes and community.
The state of California has utilized draconian measures in the past against other communities that failed to come into compliance, such as in Los Osos, which was under a similar order from the California Water Resources Board and failed to heed it. The entire community of Los Osos became subject to an enforcement action, which was done in a lottery fashion, in which random property owners were selected to receive cease and desist orders with the potential of daily fines for non-compliance. They were ordered to discontinue the discharge from their septic systems, seal them off and pump them at regular intervals. If they did not, they were subjected to fines of up to $5,000 per day.
Many in the town of Yucca Valley evince an abiding, almost pious, faith that the coming tribulation of the state’s cease and desist order will be averted, and through some miraculous suspension of bureaucratic authority and ecological reality, the bitter cup will pass over them.