San Bernardino and the state of California’s public employee retirement system have apparently staved off a potentially earth-scorching battle over the city’s arrearages on pension payments that threatened to undermine the city’s 2012 bankruptcy filing and also threatened to set a precedent by which financially troubled cities might skip out on their obligations in a way that would undercut the pension system’s integrity.
After years of financial challenges, San Bernardino filed a Chapter 9 bankruptcy petition in August 2012. In its filing, the county seat asserted it had $180 million in ongoing unfunded liabilities and a $49 million annual operating deficit. Shortly thereafter, the state’s public employees retirement system, known by its acronym CalPERS, contested the city’s filing, maintaining San Bernardino has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets it could liquidate to make good on its responsibility to its creditors.
CalPERS is San Bernardino’s largest creditor. The city currently has a $26 million annual obligation to the retirement system and it withheld more than $14 million in pension fund payments from July 2012 until July of 2013 and has continued to underpay CalPERS the amount the system’s administrators maintain is continuously due it. The city has offered to make partial payments into the system until such time as it gets back on its feet financially. Even more alarming to CalPERS was the city’s effort to forge a long-term solution that includes renegotiating the amount of its commitment to the retirement system altogether.
CalPERS deemed such an eventuality unacceptable, as it would set a precedent in California of allowing municipalities in financial straits to stiff the pension system. Moreover, the reduction of the pensions of retired or soon-to-retire employees in cities seeking to dodge their commitments to the system could severely undercut the faith of the state’s public employees in the system, a crisis of confidence that could lead to the system’s demise.
In addition to opposing San Bernardino’s bankruptcy petition outright, CalPERS asserted that the pension fund system has a special status among the city’s creditors and that it should go to the front of the line when the city begins to pay those to whom it is in arrears. The federal bankruptcy judge overseeing San Bernardino’s bankruptcy filing, Judge Meredith Jury, did not accept that, ruling that CalPERS has no greater or lesser standing than the scores of other entities the city owes money to.
Moreover, Jury consistently ruled that San Bernardino is as insolvent as it claims. In August 2013, she ruled that the city’s bankruptcy should be granted pursuant to a pendency plan by which the city continues to pay its employees and other expenses critical to its day-to-day operations but services its other debts on the basis of the limited financial means available to it.
CalPERS wanted out of Jury’s courtroom and previously pressed for leave to appeal the matter to another judge, a request Jury denied.
CalPERS took a writ to U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, where Judge Dolly Gee granted the pension fund’s request to appeal Jury’s findings directly to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
While the California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s request to have the 9th Circuit here the case was pending, further efforts at mediation between the city of San Bernardino and CalPERS continued under the guidance of a court-appointed mediator, Judge Gregg Zive.
The mediation between the city and CalPERS was not the only touchy issue that grew out of the bankruptcy. The city is also involved in delicate negotiations with creditors, bondholders, service providers and vendors, as well as city employee bargaining groups.
In May, Jury expressed dismay at the lack of progress in the mediation talks and said the delay in coming to a workable arrangement with CalPERS was preventing the city from coming to terms with the both its police and fire unions, which have disputes with the city over the declining revenue available for public safety employee salaries.
Last week came word that the attorneys for the city and CalPERS have arrived at some form of tentative agreement that will allow the city’s bankruptcy reorganization plan to proceed,  though the terms remain secret.
A terse case status update noted that the terms of the agreement were in Zive’s possession, and an early draft of the agreement had been provided to attorneys for the city’s employee unions and the legal representatives of the city’s other creditors. That document was subject to the confidentiality restrictions imposed by Jury with regard to the mediation effort, such that no public disclosure of any of the agreement’s particulars has been made.
A court filing, however, confirmed that tentative agreement, to which the city and CalPERS are amenable, has been forged.
“The details of the agreement, including the timing and amount of payments to be made, will remain confidential as the mediation regarding a potential plan of adjustment is ongoing,” the filing states. The filing further indicates CalPERS for the time will hold in abeyance its appeal of Jury’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court in which it asserts the city isn’t eligible for bankruptcy.
In return, the city is to “make certain payments to CalPERS on deferred amounts owing.”  The precise amounts the city will pay has not been disclosed. CalPERS maintains the city is at least $16.5 million behind on its payments since July 2012, and owes interest on that arrearage. San Bernardino, in its pendency plan, announced its intention to eventually make CalPERS whole, but has not provided a schedule for doing so.
Because of the confidentiality surrounding the tentative agreement and its precise terms, it is not publicly known whether the break CalPERS has assented to cutting San Bernardino on the money owed it is temporary or permanent, or whether it includes interest payments on the overdue payments or not.
Disclosure of those terms might be counter to CalPERS’ interest, since other large California cities, such as Stockton and Vallejo have declared bankruptcy and other California cities are contemplating such a move. Those cities might seek terms relating to long term debt repayment similar to those CalPERS agrees to with San Bernardino.
The ongoing negotiations between the city and its two most powerful employee unions, those for the fire department and the police department, have been nearly as tense as those with CalPERS.
The San Bernardino City Professional Firefighters have charged that the city has not been negotiating in good faith, and has been less than straightforward in disclosing the city’s actual financial condition. For example, according to the firefighters union, between June 2012, just prior to the city’s bankruptcy filing, and December 2013, the city invested $53 million in notes and federal agency-issued coupons, certificates of deposit, local agency investment funds and other securities. Moreover, according to the firefighters’ union, the city made another $23 million in investments during the first four months of 2014.
City negotiations with the firefighters union on its memorandum of understanding setting salaries and benefits for firefighters are ongoing.
Previously, the city and the San Bernardino Police Officers Association were at loggerheads. But recently, negotiators for the city and the police union have indicated they are within striking distance of closing an agreement on the memorandum of understanding relating to police pay and benefits.
The city is scheduled to come before Jury for an update on its progress toward exiting from bankruptcy protection on July 10.

(June 24)  The town of Yucca Valley this week took a major stride toward the liberalization of its land use policy, with the planning commission making a recommendation that the city council alter its development code to allow greater latitude with regard to the type and nature of home-based businesses that can locate in the town’s residential zones.
Challenges made by some city residents of businesses run out of single family residences in several of the town’s neighborhoods, including at least one that involved a lawsuit, resulted in the town revisiting the issue of home occupation permit regulations earlier this year.  In some of those cases, complainants referenced violations of the town code that had been ongoing for several years.
The operators of those businesses and their supporters, including nearby residents who signed letters or petitions saying they had no objection to industrial or quasi-industrial uses in the midst of their residential neighborhoods, petitioned city officials to amend the town code, in particular Development Code Section 84 with regard to home-based businesses.
There has been some degree of back-and-forth between two differing factions in town – those advocating strict enforcement of the town code to prevent commercial or manufacturing operations in residential areas and others maintaining that commercial and light industrial activities should be deemed acceptable within the town’s rural neighborhoods.
The planning commission on June 24 made a non-binding recommendation that the city council adopt the newly drafted ordinance, which would repeal Development Code Section 84.0615 of the Town Code and amend Title 9 by adding a section and a chapter to the Yucca Valley Development Code.
The ordinance changes the language in the code from a reference to home-based business to home occupation operations. It contains language which states that such activities should “not alter the character of any residential neighborhood, or create impacts or activities that are not typically and commonly associated with residential neighborhoods.  It is the intent of this section to allow for commercial uses that are accessory and incidental to the primary purpose of residential zones homes, which is that of providing a habitable dwelling for the owner or occupant as the primary use of the residential dwelling unit.”
The ordinance would yet prohibit home occupations that entailed “animal hospitals; automotive and other vehicle repair, upholstery painting or storage; junk yards; medical and dental offices, clinics and laboratories; mini-storage; storage of equipment, materials and other accessories to the construction trades; welding and machining; cabinet shop[s]; uses which may include the storage or use of explosives or high combustible or toxic materials; sales of ammunition; [and] massage establishments.” The ordinance also disallows sales of firearms in residential zoning districts other than those designated as Rural Living or Hillside Reserve.
Planning commission chairman Tim Humphreville lobbied his colleagues to allow the sale of firearms in all residential zones.  That request was not endorsed by the full commission, however.
The ordinance identifies four classes of home occupation operations that are permitted.
Class I are those that “shall have no impact on the neighborhood in which they are located” and would include “telecommuting and internet or electronic based business or other similar activities that are transparent inside the residential structure and do not involve customers to the site, employees, or any structural alteration.”  According to the proposed ordinance, “no permit is required for home based businesses where no business activity takes place other than the scheduling of appointments or paper work, there are no customers received at the residence, the exterior of the property is not modified for the business and there is no outdoor storage of materials or vehicles. Operating hours on these Class 1 businesses are limited to the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”
Class II home occupations, according to the ordinance, “may have a limited impact on the neighborhood in which they are located. Class II home occupations shall be allowed in the Residential Single Family, Rural Living and Rural Hillside Reserve zoning districts. Class II home occupations are subject to a field investigation by city staff and may be permitted without notice or a hearing, although the town director of development has the option of scheduling a hearing before the planning commission to establish special conditions of approval. Class II home occupations can feature sales of products on the premises, a maximum three customers or clients per day, one employee who is not a resident of the premises, and can operate between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., but cannot receive customers before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m. No business activity is to take place at a Class II operation outside the home.
Class III home occupations are those categorized as having “a limited impact on the neighborhood in which they are located but are also slightly more intense than Class II in that they may involve outdoor storage of material and or outdoor home occupation activities that do not impact the neighborhood.  Class III operations are permitted in the Rural Living and Rural Hillside Reserve zoning districts and are subject to notice and hearing for the issuance of a permit.  The planning commission is the review authority and can forward the application to the council for consideration. Class III businesses can have sales of products on the premises. Customer may visit Class III operations only by appointment, one appointment at a time. The monthly average of the total trip count for business activity shall not exceed 12 trips per day in all zoning districts.  Class III businesses can employ up to two workers who do not live on the premises.  Operation is limited to between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., with customers restricted to the hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.  Class III home occupation operations located on lots one acre or larger are permitted to have outside business activity or screened outdoor storage of materials.
Class IV home occupations, according to the proposed ordinance, “may exceed the standards provided in classes I, II, and III, subject to the review and approval of a conditional use permit by the planning commission.  No alteration of the home in which a Class IV operation is taking place can be made, according to the proposed ordinance, “in such a manner as to change the residential character and appearance of the dwelling, or in such a manner as to cause the structure to be recognized as a place where a home occupation is conducted.” No limitation is specified in the proposed ordinance as to the number of employees not residing on the premises who may work in a Class IV home occupation setting. No displays, sales, or advertising signs are permitted on the premises other than “one unlighted identification sign containing the name and address of the owner attached to the building not exceeding two square feet in area per street frontage.”
The commission recommended that the home occupation permits, which currently must be renewed annually, be deemed operative for three years. The commission also recommended that any recently granted home occupation permits which contained previous conditions of approval be updated with the new conditions.

(June 26)  ADELANTO— Bankruptcy still looms as a prospect for the city of Adelanto as the city council this week ratified a 2014-15 general fund budget replete with a $2.61 million deficit.
According to city manager Jim Hart, the city anticipates taking in $10,564,589 in revenues to infuse the general fund over the next 12 months and anticipates expenditures of $13,206,499 out of the general fund in the same span.
Last year at this time, Adelanto declared a fiscal emergency just as fiscal year 2013-14 was about to begin. Total revenues though all of the city’s funds – the general fund, special revenue funds, enterprise funds, non-profit funds and agency and trust funds will come to $30,196,210 in 2014-15. Spending from all of those funds is anticipated to be $35,003,531, a deficit of more than $4.8 million.
City officials, including Hart and members of the city council, offered a dire warning that having the city file for bankruptcy protection is in the cards if a majority of the city’s residents do not vote in favor of a utility tax measure the city has placed on the ballot in the upcoming November election.
Hart said he has pared spending on programs to the bone and has nowhere else to realistically cut. The city’s largest general fund expense is its contract with the sheriff’s department for law enforcement, one which runs $4,970,997 annually. The next largest budget expenditure is the other prong of the city’s public safety function, the county fire department, which will eat up $2,467,369 in fiscal 2015-15.
The city’s payroll for non-safety employees is $2.5 million.
Hart said the city is woefully behind most other cities in the county in terms of tax revenue. The city anticipates $4.6 million in tax revenues in 2014-15, which is approximately 35 percent of its budget. The average tax revenue percentage for other cities in the county is 67 percent.
Two years ago, San Bernardino, the county seat and the largest city in San Bernardino County, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.
Adelanto’s leaders are casting about for ways to keep the city of 27,139 afloat financially and avoid becoming the second city in the county to declare bankruptcy.
City officials are relentlessly plugging  the utility tax, one that as currently proposed would entail a surcharge of 5.95 percent to 7.95 percent on residential and business utility bills. If passed, the tax would entail an estimated $20 per month per household increase on utility bills.
A phone poll of a cross section of city residents carried out several months ago indicated that the chances of the tax’s passage were marginal, at best. The perception that city employees are living high on the hog has made many city residents reluctant to impose upon themselves higher utility costs to benefit the city. A recurrent theme in residents’ comments is resentment at Hart’s $280,000 compensation package, one some consider excessive for a manager of a city of less than 30,000 population.
In May, the city put itself into position to seamlessly make the bankruptcy filing if push comes to shove when it hired Orange-based Urban Futures, Inc. as a consultant to deal with its burgeoning fiscal crisis.
Urban Futures guided the city of Stockton with regard to its bankruptcy filing.  Though many read the arrangement with Urban Futures as a confirmation the city will pursue a Chapter 9 filing, city officials sought to suggest that the retention of Urban Futures, at an initial cost of $30,000, was a ploy to avoid bankruptcy.

The success of a federal lawsuit alleging San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies abused and tortured inmates at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga could hinge on a court’s determination of whether that abuse and threats of further abuse prevented the defendants from reporting their ordeals to sheriff’s department higher-ups.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Stan Hodge, Jim Terrell and Sharon Bruner on behalf of inmates John Hanson, Lamar Graves, Brandon Schilling, Michael Mesa, Christopher Sly and Eddie Caldera allege they were physically and psychologically tortured by deputies from January 1, 2013 through March of this year. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs were submitted to abuse and torture that included being shocked with Taser guns, having shotguns held to their heads, being rectally invaded during unreasonably aggressive pat down searches, and having their arms pulled up behind their backs while handcuffed.
Three deputies were fired by the sheriff’s department in March, shortly after the FBI began a probe of abuse of prisoners in the county’s jails.
In mounting a defense to the case, the county has so far not sought to deny that the prisoners were accorded the harsh treatment alleged in the lawsuit but is initially pinning its hopes on having the lawsuit dismissed because the plaintiffs failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available to them before filing the lawsuit.
In this way, the county has cited the Prison Litigation Reform Act, a U.S. federal law enacted by Congress in 1996 in response to an increase in prisoner litigation in the federal courts and which was intended to decrease the incidence of what was deemed “frivolous” litigation relating to the treatment of inmates. Among the provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act aimed at curbing prison litigation was an “exhaustion” requirement. Before prisoners may challenge a condition of their confinement in federal court, the act requires them to first exhaust available administrative remedies by pursuing to completion whatever inmate grievance and/or appeal procedures their prison custodians provide.
Attorneys for the defendants have made a filing with the court requesting that attorneys for the plaintiffs clarify, through an amendment to the federal complaint, on how it was that the inmates exhausted all their “administrative remedies” prior to filing the lawsuit.
It appears, however, that Hodge, Terrell and Bruner anticipated the defense move. They agreed to modify the original complaint.
More than a week before defense attorneys filed their motion, there were press accounts, which seemingly emanated from the plaintiff’s camp that dealt with severe challenges inmates at the county’s jails are faced with in seeking to utilize the administrative process to lodge complaints or file grievances.
According to not only the plaintiffs but other inmates at the jail uninvolved in the litigation, deputies working at the jails are extremely resistant to facilitating the grievance process and have on certain occasions simply refused to provide inmates with grievance forms or used intimidation in an effort to dissuade prisoners from filing complaints.
Hodge is a former Superior Court judge. Along with Terrell and Bruner, he is now seeking to document, to the extent possible, that their clients, and by extension others, faced an unreasonable and even illegal burden in exhausting their administrative remedies.
Once the amended complaint is filed, the county’s attorneys will have until July 11 to respond to it. The Sentinel has learned that the county is already seeking to obtain information, from both deputies who have served as guards at the county’s jails and from inmates, to rebut assertions that inmates faced an uphill battle in lodging complaints about their treatment at the hands of their captors.
That rebuttal will need to extend beyond events occurring at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where all of the mistreatment alleged in the federal lawsuit was alleged to have occurred. Inmates housed at the county’s central jail in San Bernardino and at the recently opened High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto have come forward to corroborate what the plaintiffs have alleged about being unable to bring the action of lower ranking deputies to the attention of their supervisors at the West Valley Detention Facility in Rancho Cucamonga.
One way the county hopes to show that avenues of communication with senior jail administrators were open is to cite, and produce,  grievances filed by other inmates.
Despite the county’s current efforts to vindicate the actions of sheriff’s department jailors, action that was already taken by the sheriff’s department has implicated several of the lowest ranking members of the department in abuse of prisoners of the type alleged in the lawsuit.
In March, three deputies – Brock Teyechea, Andrew Cruz, and Nicholas Oakley, each of whom had been with the sheriff’s department for less than a year, were ignominiously fired.
The lawsuit brought by Hanson, Graves, Schilling, Mesa, Sly and Caldera names Teyechea, Cruz and Oakley. It also names deputies Robert Escamilla, Robert Morris, Russell Kopasz, Daniel Stryffeler and Eric Smale, and civilian custody specialist Brandon Stockman, all of whom remain with the department.
The deputies’ two supervisors up the chain of command, captain Jeff Rose and sheriff John McMahon, are also named in the lawsuit. The Sentinel was unable to confirm a report that efforts are ongoing to have Teyechea, Cruz and Oakley “go quietly,” i.e., accept the loss of their employment and accede to likely eventual criminal convictions for their action that will grow out of the FBI probe and U.S. Attorney’s Office’s action without implicating any of their former colleagues or supervisors in the sheriff’s office, thus allowing the county to represent the inmate abuse issue as an isolated one that was quickly and responsibly redressed, alleviating the county from the imposition of punitive damages as a result of the lawsuit.
Criminal charges of deputies determined to have been involved in the mistreatment of inmates is a given, a former sheriff’s deputy told the Sentinel. “It may take a while, but it’s coming,” the 15-year sheriff’s department veteran said. “Just like it happened with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department when the FBI got involved with what is happening in the jails there.”
The combination of the lawsuit and the FBI involvement in the case has created a perilous circumstance for the officers alleged to have been involved in the abuse and the sheriff’s department as well as the county and its taxpayers. One element of that peril is the obliteration of the Garrity protection law enforcement officers normally have during a probe by their department into any wrongdoing they are suspected of having engaged in while in uniform. When being questioned by their own department’s investigators or internal affairs officers about their action, they are normally given the same Miranda Rights warning as citizens being arrested. If the officers then do not waive their Miranda Rights and continue to maintain their silence during questioning, they are issued an order compelling them to give a statement or otherwise face discipline or discharge. Garrity Rights provide a law enforcement officer with a guarantee that those statements he/she makes under the threat of discipline or discharge will not be used in the criminal prosecution of the officer.
Because the FBI is doing the questioning, however, the Garrity protection does not apply. It is illegal to lie to an FBI agent. Though statements made to the FBI are initially kept confidential to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation, at some point a transcript of the interview will become available to attorneys for use in the civil proceedings.

(June 24)  TWENTYNINE PALMS — The Morongo Unified School District Board of Trustees abruptly placed superintendent Cecelia English on paid administrative leave on June 21.
That move came almost a month after the board balked at giving English a 5.77 percent raise over her $175,000 annual salary, while conferring the same 5.77 percent raise on the district’s three assistant superintendents, Doug Weller, Tom Baumgarten and David Price.
English’s one-year tenure with Morongo Unified was rocky from the outset. The director of academics at the Newark School District in Northern California, English was hired on a 3-2 vote of the board of trustees in June 2013, with trustees Karalee Hargrove and Ronald Palmer in opposition.
English possesses a doctorate in education and seemed intent upon leading the district forward in the aftermath of Jim Majchrzak’s departure as superintendent.  Majchrzak remained with the district for the last six months of 201 as a special assignment administrator applying for grants.
Elements of the community, including Hargrove, Palmer and some members of the Morongo Teachers Association, were critical of the salary provided to English, which was $25,000 more than Majchrzak received and a substantial raise over what English was making in the Newark School District.
English did not hit it off with Morongo Teachers Association President Terri Weitz and her relations with the Morongo Teachers Association never warmed.
With the dawning of 2014, things grew decidedly worse. At a board meeting in March, with emotions running high over teacher compensation, approaching 200 members of the Morongo Teachers Association turned their backs on her as a show of contempt and protest while she was speaking.
In the face of concerted and vigorous opposition by members of the public and a group of teachers, the school board appeared intimidated out of providing to English the same raise as was given to Weller, Baumgarten and Price.
In a special closed session held on Saturday, English was suspended. No reason for the board’s action was given.

By Ruth Musser-Lopez
June 27, 2014.  If you want to see a “glimpse” of Hinkley before it is too late, you should go at once to see what was once “a boomtown,” now just a “doomed town.”
Near Hidden River Road and Highway 58, Pacific, Gas & Electric’s (PG&E’s) bulldozer crews are currently hard at work tearing down farmhouses and dairies that once sat above Hinkley’s trophy “hidden river” now a polluted giant toilet of ever spreading underground hexavalent chromium waste contamination.
The epitome of corporate water heists, PG&E’s “take” of the Hinkley aquifer and now much of the property that sits above it, was unconventional, but effective.   Though it may have been unplanned…it was still a water heist.
First they polluted the water, then by indirect action they polluted the people…many got sick, some have died, and most simply up and left—either bought out by PG&E or simply in hopeless abandonment.
The Hinkley hexavalent chromium contamination came about as a consequence of Pacific Gas and Electric’s operation of a compressor station there beginning in 1952. The compressor station was a facility located on a pipeline that ran between Texas and Canada and delivered in excess of three billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The compressor station in Hinkley was one of eight such stations along the line in California. Natural gas available in the line was used to fuel compressors which repressurized the gas to push it through the pipeline. At Hinkley, the compressed gas was cooled with water circulating through two cooling towers. From 1952 until 1966, hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, was added to the cooling water to prevent corrosion to the cooling towers and the water circulation system. Wastewater from the cooling system was disposed of in unlined ponds at the Hinkley site. Beginning in 1964, after the danger of chromium 6 was recognized, the cooling water was treated to remove the chromium before it was disposed in the pools and a non-chromium-based additive was substituted into the cooling system in 1966. As of 1972 the cooling water was pumped into lined evaporation ponds.
These improvements to the system, however, did not undo the ecological havoc that had occurred up until 1972.
In 1988, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees water quality issues in that portion of the desert, issued a cleanup and abatement order to PG&E to investigate a plume of chromium 6 in the water table. In 1991, the water board issued permits to treat the contaminated groundwater using land treatment units.
In 1993, attorney Ed Masry, with whom Erin Brockovich, a Hinkley resident, was working, filed a multi-plaintiff direct action suit against PG&E, alleging contamination of the town’s drinking water and untoward consequences of that pollution. In 1996, the case was settled for $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit until that time. In 2000, the matter became an international cause célèbre, with the release of the blockbuster movie Erin Brockovich, which related a substantially accurate version of events in Hinkley. Contrary to widespread public assumptions, Pacific Gas & Electric’s payment of the $333 million did not redress the underlying problem. Masry and his law firm netted over $100 million in legal fees. Only a few of the plaintiffs received more than $100,000. No physical solution to the contamination problem was effectuated.
In 1997 and 2004, the water board reissued follow-up permits to PG&E for the use of land treatment units in the treatment of the contaminated groundwater around Hinkley. In 2006, with the Hinkley groundwater contamination issue fading from public consciousness, the water board gave permits for two subterranean remediation systems to clean up the source and central areas of the plume. In 2008, however, the issue was resurrected as one of regional and local concern when, amidst the water board’s provision of a permit for Pacific Gas & Electric to apply additional cleanup measures, it issued redrafted cleanup and abatement orders. Steadily over the last six years, the condition of the lingering contamination in Hinkley has grown into a larger and larger public issue as evidence of how the underground plume of chromium 6 continues to migrate through the water table into the area from which local wells draw water used for household purposes has emerged.
The best hydrological data now available indicates the plume is more than six miles long and two miles wide and gradually expanding.
Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the earth’s crust and as such naturally occurs in rocks, soil, ground water and plants.
Under current guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifies 100 micrograms per liter as the maximum acceptable total chromium contaminant level acceptable in water to be consumed by humans. On July 1, the state of California will reduce the permissible amount of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium to 10 parts per billion.
Pacific Gas and Electric has been wrestling with the contamination issue and has applied a number of experimental cures to the problem which have proven inadequate, including pumping groundwater through a subsurface drip irrigation system and organic matter in the soil around plant root zones to create conditions, which Pacific Gas & Electric hoped  would “chemically reduce the level of chromium 6 in the water [reducing] the hexavalent chromium  to insoluble trivalent chromium.” Pacific Gas & Electric sought ways of keeping the contaminated water from migrating to other areas of the aquifer and tainting the water there. One effort Pacific Gas & Electric made to prevent the spreading of the plume entailed drawing up to 80 gallons of water per minute from supply wells south of the compression station, pumping it north through new underground pipes and injecting the water outside the northwestern plume boundary. This strategy, Pacific Gas and Electric claimed, was intended to “create a hydraulic barrier designed to prevent spreading of the plume.” While partially effective, that measure did not achieve the goal of reducing the chromium 6 in the water supply to an acceptable level.
As a practical means of ensuring that the tainted water does not end up in the drinking glasses, cooking utensils, showers, baths, toilets and garden hoses of Hinkley residents, PG&E offered to provide every household and business in Hinkley with either a filtration/treatment system to capture the chromium before it would be dispensed at the tap or in the alternative, commercial bottled drinking water.
But with no certain, final and comprehensive cure of the problem in sight, Pacific Gas & Electric in April 2012 began surveying homeowners with regard to their willingness to sell their property and move elsewhere. When roughly two-thirds of those surveyed indicated their readiness to depart the community, PG&E began making offers to individual property owners and undertook appraisals of their properties.  As soon as mutually acceptable terms between PG&E and the individual homeowners were arrived at, purchases were made. Since February, houses in Hinkley are being sold to PG&E at a rate of two to four per week.  Once the houses are empty, Pacific Gas & Electric has not spared time in having those homes razed, foreclosing any possibility that squatters or anyone else will be tempted to take up residence therein ever again.
In September 2013, the Santa Ana-based law firm Callahan & Blaine filed suit against PG&E in San Bernardino County Superior Court on behalf of a substantial number of Hinkley residents who were not a part of the litigation brought by Masry. Callahan & Blaine are seeking that the plaintiffs be recompensed for the damages they have sustained as a consequence of the continuing contamination and the ongoing expansion of the toxic plume and its threat to the area’s groundwater.
Of issue is that PG&E, in offering “fair market value” for the properties, is benefiting by its deliberate efforts to convert Hinkley to a ghost town. Under various theories, PG&E should be required to pay more for the homes than they are currently offering, since the company is responsible for the depression in Hinkley’s land values. In early 2012,  Hinkley’s population stood at 1,900. Today it has dwindled to an estimated 1,300, as residents continue their exodus. Earlier this year, the Barstow Unified School District moved to shutter Hinkley School at the end of the 2012-13 school year last month. The town is down to one market, a post office and a tavern.
Now, by court order or in an effort to avoid further court orders, PG&E in a process of buying out property owners and systematically destroying dwellings and other structures that will forever be no more.  Yes, our State of California Department of Water Resources and the Department of Toxic Substances Control has seen fit over the last 20 years to allow PG&E  to monitor its own clean up measures.  Instead of seizing the property and taking over clean up as the public has repeatedly prayed for as relief, the State has instead acquiesced to corporate influence.
How twisted would it be that just as PG&E has completed the purchase and leveling of Hinkley that suddenly a solution to the chromium  6 pollution problem is found.
Though with “The Destruction of Hinkley” it would seem that the county of San Bernardino and the State of California would have suffered significant losses with a local economy that appears to have entirely collapsed, we have yet to see or hear of any action by our state or county officials for compensation from PG&E for lost revenue in the form of income tax, sales tax, property tax and lost federal funds for public facilities such as schools, post offices, etc.

By clicking on the portal below, you can access a PDF of the June 20 SBC Sentinel.

Sentinel 06-20-14

(June 18)  A confluence of events and circumstances has put the status quo of one of San Bernardino County’s major franchise contracts in doubt, as county officials contemplate ending the 33-year-long hold one company has had on the exclusive provision of ambulance service in the nation’s most expansive county.
Since 1981 American Medical Response, and its several corporate predecessors including Mercy Ambulance, has been the county’s ambulance service provider. Its current ten-year contract is coming to an end. County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux and the board of supervisors have not yet decided on whether to simply extend the contract as it is and continue to lock out all other competitors in the 20,105-square mile county, renegotiate the franchise contract or put the contract up for bid.
The board of supervisors, per se, will not be making that decision, but will need to ratify it after the board’s members, acting in another capacity, pass judgment. In actuality, major policy decisions with regard to the county’s emergency medical services are made by ICEMA, of which all five supervisors are board members. ICEMA is an acronym for the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency, which serves Inyo, Mono and San Bernardino counties.
A myriad of factors is militating against American Medical Response retaining its exclusive – and very lucrative – status as the sole licensed ambulance provider in the vast unincorporated areas of San Bernardino County and in Inyo and Mono counties as well.
Known by its acronym AMR, American Medical Response has proven over the last three decades to be a major donor to the political war chests of members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. AMR’s primacy in the jurisdiction the supervisors rule has led to the perception that a pay-to-play ethos dominates San Bernardino County. A series of scandals and political corruption prosecutions aimed at San Bernardino County politicians, including ones that resulted in convictions, have incentivized rebidding the franchise contract to end the unseemly appearance of a single, and politically well-connected, company enjoying a monopoly that has moved into its fourth decade.
Simultaneously, the county fire department finds itself faced with both challenges and opportunities to meet those challenges by, perhaps, flexing and expanding its authority and service capability into the areas previously dominated if not entirely controlled by the private sector, namely emergency medical support.
Last year, the cities of Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley and Adelanto resurrected a more-than-20-year-old proposal to unify their police and fire services and the four municipalities sprung for putting up $200,000 collectively to determine the feasibility of creating unified police and fire services under the aegis of a public safety joint powers authority involving all four municipalities.
For law enforcement service, Adelanto pays the county $4,706,459 to have the sheriff’s department serve as its police department, which features 28 sworn and non-sworn employees. Apple Valley is now paying $11.255 million to have the county sheriff  provide a 71-employee presence of both sworn and non-sworn personnel, vehicles, equipment radio and dispatch. Hesperia pays $12.77 million for the sheriff’s department to serve as that city’s law enforcement provider.  In Victorville, the city is paying $19,417,318 annually to the sheriff’s department under its contract with them to provide law enforcement services.
Under its contract with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, Adelanto pays $3,117,634 per year for a force that consists of one battalion chief, six fire captains, six engineers, six firefighter/paramedics and one paid call firefighter.
The Apple Valley Fire Protection District is an entity that is independent from the town and currently functions on an annual budget of $7.72 million.
Hesperia expends $8,253,243 annually on fire protection service, including a contract with the San Bernardino County Fire Department and maintaining the vehicles and facilities of the Hesperia Fire Protection District.
Victorville’s budget for its fire department, which is also a division of the county fire department, is $13,643,541.
The study was undertaken to determine if the cities could save money and perhaps enhance services by pooling their financial resources and creating a valleywide public safety district with police and fire divisions, and terminating their contracts with the fire and sheriff’s departments of San Bernardino County.
Depending on what conclusions the decision-makers in Adelanto, Apple Valley, Hesperia and Victorville come to, San Bernardino County’s sheriff’s and fire departments may or may not retain their current contracts in the Victor Valley. Thus, the county fire department faces the potential prospect of seeing its contract with three of the county’s cities being terminated.
In the meantime, sources have told the Sentinel, San Bernardino County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig is on the verge of making an energetic proposal that would intensify the level of service his agency provides while simultaneously providing revenue to the county and his department by shifting emergency medical transportation away from the private sector.
Hartwig, a paramedic firefighter who rose through the ranks of the county fire district and then spent six years with the Rancho Cucamonga Fire District as a battalion chief and deputy fire chief before he was selected as county fire chief three years ago, is seeking to convince Devereaux and the board of supervisors to allow county fire to put non-fire suppression personnel, i.e., emergency medical technicians and paramedics, on ambulances owned and operated by the county and have the county assume authority to provide ambulance and paramedic service in all of the county transport areas now franchised to AMR.
One estimate was that through this program the department could generate a $50 million revenue stream per year that could then be reinvested in fire protection programs throughout the county.
A report received by the Sentinel is that Hartwig’s proposal has so alarmed American Medical Response’s corporate officers that they have offered to pay the county an annual $30 million exclusive franchise fee if the county will simply reject Hartwig’s proposal and essentially extend the current arrangement for AMR to continue operating for ten years.
Thus, if the county accedes to AMR’s offer, Hartwig and the fire department would avoid the level of activity associated with converting the fire department’s current operations to accommodate countywide emergency medical transport. At issue is how the county would use the $30 million per year to be put up by AMR and whether all of that money, or at least a substantial amount of it, will be routed to the fire department to augment current operations within it.
To ascertain the authenticity of these reports, the Sentinel went directly to Hartwig, who said that it is inaccurate to state his department has made a formal bid on the emergency medical transport function for the county.
“We don’t have a proposal,” Hartwig told the Sentinel. “The current emergency medical services contract will be up soon and while they are negotiating an extension what I am attempting to find out is does it make sense for the fire district to bid on it. We are the second largest ambulance provider in the county. We run about 20 ambulances a day depending on time of year. It is not like we would be entering into a business with which we are not familiar. We will position ourselves so if the county chooses to put it out to bid, we can take a look to see if it makes sense for us to make a bid.”
Whether his department would operate its ambulances in just unincorporated areas of the county or whether it would cross over into covering areas that fall within the city limits of the county’s 24 municipalities, Hartwig said, “all depends on how the bid is written. ICEMA would write it [the bidding parameters] and we would determine our interest based on what is in the bid, if in fact they put it out to bid. The board may just renegotiate it or continue the contract as it is.”
Hartwig stopped far short of confirming that his department could generate $50 million a year through the provision of ambulance service to paying customers.
“I’m not sure where you got those numbers,” he said, adding that his department has yet to make a calculation to estimate the revenue that could be realized through taking on the emergency medical transport franchise. “To determine what revenue could be available would be a simple exercise where we would take our current transport fee, multiply it by the number of calls, multiplied by our collection rate and then subtract our costs. That is the way we would figure out how much net revenue would be available. At this point, I don’t know if it makes sense to bid. There is some federal finance participation (FFP) money available to us from Medicare for performing medical emergency transportation. Medicare has started to reimburse public agencies for certified public expenditures. If people are discussing large revenue figures, that is likely because there is new Medicare financing available to public agencies delivering healthcare and transport.  Through the new program the fire department is collecting about $800,000 per five thousand transports.  County Fire has collected that revenue for the last three years. Once you figure out how many transports there are in the county and you determine what the reimbursement per transport is, then you can figure out how much all of this is worth.”
Hartwig said he did not believe that as a potential competitor in the bid process the county fire department would have a leg up on any others bidding.
“I don’t think it gives us any leverage,” he said. “The county  has the responsibility to provide ambulance service countywide except in those areas where prior to June 1, 1980 ambulance service was already being provided by some other jurisdiction. In this county that means  everywhere but Rialto and Hesperia.”
Hartwig said he is giving careful consideration to his and his department’s options, but said no decision or commitment has been made, primarily because he does not have all of the information required to make such a decision and it is not yet clear whether the county will put the ambulance franchise out to bid.
“If it is advantageous for the fire district and those that we serve, and bidding takes place, then absolutely, we would bid,” he said. “We know what our costs are. We don’t know what the revenue, or potential revenue, is. It is safe to say county fire is in a holding pattern until we find out what ICEMA and the county board of supervisors will do. County Fire is the second largest provider of medical transportation in the county. The county is the largest provider of pre-hospital care in San Bernardino County. If we could streamline the service and provide a revenue stream, reduce the costs for the users of medical service and provide better service for the taxpayers, sure, we would be interested on bidding.”

(June 17)  TWENTYNINE PALMS—Twenynine Palms has lured Andy Takata. the former Yucca Valley town manager and Banning city manager who is currently serving as the interim city manager in Calexico, to temporarily replace recently fired city manager Joe Guzzetta.
Takata will officially begin as Twentynine Palms interim city manager on June 24, and be paid $100 per hour for his services.
He was offered the position on a unanimous city council vote, four weeks after Joe Guzzetta was terminated on May 13 by a unanimous vote of the council, slightly less than a year after he assumed the city manager position. Guzzetta, the former director of the Joshua Basin Water District,  was provided with a one-year severance package by the city, such that he was essentially paid two years’ salary for one year of work.
Guzzetta replaced Richard Warne, who was likewise terminated by the city council in April 2013 just one month shy of his two-year anniversary with the city. He too was given one year’s worth of pay to depart, so he was in effect paid with three years’ salary for two years of work.
Takata is to relieve finance officer Ron Peck, who has been serving as acting city manager since Guzzetta was fired.
No commitment to Takata was made beyond having him in place as temporary city manager who will work at least 20 hours per week was made, and it is not known whether he will be in the running to compete among those candidates being considered for the full-time city manager’s post. That selection process could take up to six months.
Takata was with Yucca Valley from 2004 to 2010, and Banning from 2010 until February. He has been in Calexico since last month. Two weeks ago, the Calexico City Council voted to extend Takata’s contract as interim city manager there, staking him to a six month contract running until November 30. Reached at Calexico City Hall on June 16, however, Takata told the  Sentinel, “I never signed the contract. I am just on a short term assignment here and I leave Thursday [June 19].”
Takata said he is situated to be able to fill the Twentynine Palms position relatively easily. “I live in Banning and I have a house in Yucca Valley,” he said.
Takata said he will “work forty hours a week until I get up to speed and then probably 20 hours a week after that.”

(June 18)  The events that led to the resignation of Upland City Manager Stephen Dunn were a comedy of errors, miscommunication, misunderstandings and rash acts that were exacerbated by the secrecy surrounding the process in which most or all of the parties involved were unsure of or had no inkling of the actions of the others, the Sentinel has learned.
Though no clear consensus to remove Dunn as city manager ever emerged organically among the city’s five ultimate decision makers, i.e., the city council, events transpired in such a way as to make Dunn’s exodus a fait accompli. There were multiple levels of irony in the string of events, including the consideration that legal requirements which exist as part of the government code intended to protect public employees, together with other restrictions on the open exchange of information or a dialogue between the council members, worked against Dunn’s continued tenure as city manager.
In the end, Dunn’s intemperate reaction to the admittedly awkward and aggravating circumstance he was put in  resulted in three members of the council concluding that his remaining as city manager was no longer tenable.
On May 27, when Mayor Ray Musser announced Dunn’s pending departure at the end of that evening’s city council meeting, a full two weeks after his employment separation agreement was signed and thirteen days after it was approved as to form by city attorney Kimberly Hall Barlow, the story behind what had occurred remained shrouded in mystery. Over the last three weeks, the Sentinel has pieced together the events that led up to and resulted in Dunn’s departure.
Dunn, who in early 2011 was promoted from his position as finance director to serve as first acting and then actual city manager in the wake of the suspension of former city manager Robb Quincey in the wake of fallout from the events preceding the indictment of former Mayor John Pomierski, long enjoyed the support of the city council.
Among his early acts as city manager was the discharging of four of the city’s department heads and the cutting of 25 staff positions at City Hall. That prompted a campaign of anonymous letters sent to the city council, community leaders and the press attacking Dunn on a multitude of issues personal and professional. The council did not accede to the calls, stated both directly and indirectly in the letters, for Dunn’s dismissal. Through more than three years in his function as city manager, the city council had Dunn’s back.
What might be seen as a major turn toward Dunn’s demise as city manager occurred in February when Dunn, who had been working for three years with a salary and benefit package significantly below what was provided to his predecessor Quincey, asked for a raise. The city council, which is struggling with the city’s beleaguered financial condition, deliberated with regard to his request and turned him down.
The following month the council initiated Dunn’s routine annual review. After a first closed session discussion, the review was delayed for two weeks while the council undertook to fill out written forms providing their individual rankings of Dunn’s performance. Dunn’s contract ran through June 2015 and his continuing tenure seemed assured.
Nevertheless, legal prohibitions against the council members communicating with regard to official city business in any forums outside of the public or closed door sessions of the council led to a degree of uncertainty as to the outcome of the review. In particular, councilwoman Debby Stone, who was close to Dunn in part because of their shared membership in the Rotary Club, was Dunn’s greatest champion on the council. The advent of Dunn’s job review, which was routine in nature but followed closely upon his turned-down request for a raise, seems to have been misinterpreted by her as a preparatory move toward terminating him.
In reality, at that point only councilman Glenn Bozar held any significant reservations about Dunn’s management of the city, and he clearly lacked the political muscle, i.e., the accompanying votes, to force Dunn out. Stone, however, because of the spotty communication afforded the council under the rule of law, perceived that Musser and perhaps even Filippi and Brandt might join with Bozar to hand Dunn a pink slip.
Actually, Filippi was solidly behind Dunn, Brandt was philosophically and temperamentally opposed to making any drastic personnel changes at City Hall, and Musser, though smarting from some public criticism leveled at him by the city manager, felt obliged to keep Dunn in place at least until his contract expired some 15 months thereafter. Because of her misgivings about the others’ intentions toward Dunn, however, Stone balked at completing the written evaluation form relating to Dunn, possibly because she believed the delay would forestall any action the council might take toward terminating him.
Ironically, this suspension of the delivery of what would most certainly have been on balance a positive review for another two weeks had the exact opposite effect of what Stone intended. At that point, Dunn appears to have misinterpreted his review having been held in abeyance for nearly a month as, at best, hesitation at or strong differences over giving him a positive review, or at worst, a sign that he was about to be cashiered. Intemperately and ill-advisedly, he issued a memorandum stating he was taking, on his own initiative, a leave of absence.
This caught the council by surprise and Musser interceded to convince him to return to work at once. Nevertheless, the council’s review of his job performance languished, and Dunn at one point cleared his office of his personal effects, sending a signal that he anticipated being fired.
Word of the contretemps between the city manager and the city council at that point wafted beyond the confines of City Hall. Though statements were made for public consumption to the effect that whatever misunderstandings that occurred had been cleared up, that the long delayed job review had been concluded in Dunn’s favor and that Dunn was now back at the city’s helm and coolly in command of municipal operations, a crucial milestone in the Dunn drama had been eclipsed. The council was now faced with negative publicity – negative publicity for the city and negative comments vectored their way by some of Dunn’s supporters.
Despite efforts to make it appear as if City Hall was back to functioning as normal, the tension that existed behind the scenes of power in the City of Gracious Living was palpable.
With his future seemingly hanging in the balance and suspended by the slimmest of threads, Dunn inexplicably escalated the crisis, doubling down and demanding that in order for him to remain as city manager, a member of the city council – thought to be Bozar – would need to resign.
That threw Upland City Hall into full blown crisis mode. Councilman Brendan Brandt, whose previous Sphinx-like support of Dunn had long been the key to Dunn’s continuing viability as city manager, was jolted by Dunn’s histrionics. Yet another corner had been turned, with Brandt having been pushed over the edge. Shortly thereafter, Dunn was overheard demanding that the city council fire him, knowing full well that his resignation would excuse the city from having to fulfill all payments due to him under his contract and that being terminated would trigger the requirement that the city pay him the full $192,768 due him during the final year of that contract. By the second week of May, a consensus among Musser, Brandt and Bozar that the city would best be finished with Dunn had formed. On May 13, a separation agreement had been drawn up and it was signed by both Dunn and Musser.
Dunn, whose primary line of municipal operations expertise is finances, agreed to assist the city in finalizing its 2014-15 budget before departing on June 30.
This week, the council hired Martin Lomeli, the former city manager of La Verne, to serve as interim city manager most likely until November, by which point the city hopes to have hired Dunn’s permanent replacement.
Filippi offered up a wistful post mortem of Dunn’s managerial tenure.
“I supported him from day one,” Filippi said. “We had going on three-and-a-half years of working closely together. We came in almost a month apart. I took the oath as councilman on December 13, 2010 and he was asked to accept a promotion from finance director to the position of acting city manager in January 2011. I have always had positive relations with him and looked to him for guidance. I think he did an excellent job. I did not support his leaving. I do not know, exactly, what he was thinking toward the end there. The road has not been easy for him. He entered [the position of city manager] at a difficult time and so much upset. The mixed signals the council was sending and the actions being taken by three of them and the divisiveness probably created insecurity in Stephen. I’m speculating. I know he was working very hard to lead the city and trying to push through his own recommendations and those of the fiscal task force. I think he grew very frustrated going through delays.”
The end stage was particularly harsh, Filippi said. He said he could not describe what set of events proved to be the final straw. “You would have to ask the three members who wanted him to not continue,” Filippi said. “Three of the council voted to provide him an exit agreement. Obviously, he accepted it and the majority of the council provided it. I can’t tell you what happened in closed session.”
Filippi concurred that a whole series of misunderstandings, miscommunications and mistakes precipitated Dunn’s departure, which Filippi said at this point is irrevocable. “I didn’t want that,” Filippi said. “Stephen’s on his way to retirement. I hope he is satisfied with that. I am now looking toward working with Marty Lomeli.”