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Sentinel 03-14-14

(March 12) A Superior Court judge has suspended, at least for the time being, the county’s approval of a permit to construct a chain discount store in Joshua Tree.
In January 2013 the county planning commission by a 4-1 vote approved a proposal by Dynamic Development in conjunction with the Goodlettsville, Tennessee–based Dollar General Corp. to establish a Dollar General store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree.
Maintaining that they prided themselves on the rustic character of their town, a number of people in the community including the entire membership of the Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance,  resisted the proposal to build the 9,100-square foot Dollar General. They said the presence of a national corporate retail establishment would compromise the Old West ambience of a desert town that relies on tourism. They appealed the planning commission’s approval to the board of supervisors.
In June 2013, the board of supervisors held a public hearing to consider the appeal that incorporated a video hook-up with the meeting room at the Joshua Tree Community Center, allowing Joshua Tree residents to lodge their protests without having to make the 200-mile round trip to the county seat to be heard.
Gus Romo and Ernie Perea, planners with the county’s department of land use services who previously recommended that the commission approve Dynamic Development’s conditional use permit application, set the groundwork for their boss, Terri Rahhal, the planning director for the county, who was tasked with reiterating the planning division’s earlier analysis and findings and building a case to justify the store at its proposed location.
Romo and Perea maintained the 1.45 acre site is compatible from a land use standpoint with the applicant’s plans. Romo and Perea stated in a jointly authored report and recommendation, “This area of 29 Palms Highway is designated for commercial development and intended to cater to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The project is considered a general retail use permitted within the Joshua Tree Community Plan zoning designation subject to approval of a use permit. Therefore, the proposed development and retail use are considered compatible with the surrounding land uses and general plan land use designations.”
The board of supervisors denied the appeal and approved the project.
Joshua Tree residents and the downtown business alliance filed a lawsuit the following month, asserting the county’s land use services division did not fully examine the negative impacts of the project, including cutting into the profitability of preexisting businesses and upsetting the rural character of the district.
San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez sided with the plaintiff, ruling that the county needs to rescind Dynamic Development, LLC’s permit for the Dollar General retail store while county undertakes the preparation of an environmental impact report which Alvarez directed should specifically analyze the potential economic effects on surrounding businesses.
The county’s mitigated negative declaration of any untoward impacts of the project was insufficient, Alvarez ruled, in part because the analysis of the possible economic effects to existing businesses, which could result in urban decay, had not been done previously.
In reaching his conclusion, Alvarez relied upon a 29-year-old case pertaining to proposed new development in a less-than-highly-urbanized setting, the ski-resort community of Bishop. In that case, the court determined the California Environmental Quality Act called upon the governmental agency overseeing the project to “consider the secondary or indirect environmental consequences of economic and social changes.”
Though Alvarez said the California Environmental Quality Act is “not a fair competition statutory scheme intended to protect against economic competition,” he said the impact on preexisting businesses “must be considered if the loss of businesses affects the physical environment by causing or increasing urban decay.”
David Fick, speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs, told the Sentinel, “The Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance commends Judge Alvarez’ decision that requires the county to do an environmental impact report for the approval/disapproval of the Dollar General project according to California Environmental Quality Act requirements.”
Dynamic Development has given indication it will very likely appeal Alvarez’s ruling to the state appellate court in Riverside. Mark Ostoich, an attorney representing Dynamic Development, said the project met all the criteria of an acceptable property use.
The land uses surrounding the project site consist of single-family residential uses located within commercial zoning to the south across 29 Palms Highway, single-family residential uses within multi-family zoning to the north across Commercial Street, vacant commercial land to the east across Sunburst Avenue, and vacant commercial land to the west across Mountain View Street.
Opponents of the store alleged the project was inconsistent with Joshua Tree’scommunity plan, which encourages small businesses. The lawsuit also raised the issue of the project requiring a traffic study. Alvarez did not find in favor of the plaintiffs on those issues.
Rahhal said that the county was not bound by the Joshua Tree Community Plan and its precepts, and that it could not be cited as the grounds for keeping a business such as Dollar General from locating in Joshua Tree. “The Joshua Tree Community Plan articulates a vision of the community,” Rahhal said. “lt sets their vision. It is not the sole source of regulation for land use, though.”

(March 12) The county board of supervisors this week held a public hearing at which it certified the environmental impact report for the Desert Stateline solar project, adopting a finding of overriding considerations and approving the issuance of two production groundwater well permits to allow the project to proceed.
The federal government has given go-ahead to Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc.’s  2.6 square mile Stateline Solar Project, which is to be located just west of the California/Nevada border near Primm, Nevada in the Ivanpah Valley.
First Solar’s Stateline project will utilize mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on a heating tower to run a steam turbine, thereby yielding roughly 223 megawatts, adequate electricity for 82,800 households.
The project needed go-ahead from the county, as the local land use authority, to proceed.
According to  Tom Hudson, the director of the county’s land use services department, he and his department are relying upon a March 18, 2008 memorandum of understanding between the county and the Bureau of Land Management that he said “established guidelines for an effective, efficient and cooperative process for conducting environmental reviews of proposed projects that are located on public lands managed by the BLM and that may or may not include private land under the jurisdiction of the county.”
Hudson said the federal government had already certified the project as being in compliance with the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and that the county has now looked at the project in terms of regulations and limitations specified under the California Environmental Quality Act, which he said was similar to but in some particulars different from federal regulations and requirements.
“A comprehensive joint draft environmental impact statement and environmental impact report was completed for the project,” Hudson said.
Hudson said the project is deemed to be consistent with the county general plan in that the “county general plan does not impose conditions on public lands, including the project site, so there are no inconsistencies to discuss.” Hudson further maintained that the project is consistent with state goals and objectives. “The project will help California meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard goal, which imposes interim requirements to procure 20% of retail electric power sales from renewable sources today and 25% by 2016. By 2020, utilities must procure 33% of electrical power retail sales from renewables,” Hudson told the board of supervisors.
Additionally, Hudson stated, the project will have a favorable greenhouse gas offsetting factor.
“The energy produced by the project would displace approximately 294,728 Metric tons of carbon dioxide each year that would otherwise be emitted by fossil fuel-fired power plants,” Hudson said.
With regard to visual impacts of the project, Hudson acknowledged that the proposed project is located within an area “characterized by rough, rocky mountains formed by northerly trending fault blocks [and] views from travel routes within the vicinity of the study area tend to encompass broad, sweeping desert expanses bordered by rugged mountain ranges,” which would be disturbed by the project’s introduction of “with industrial character into the foreground and background views from I-15, the Primm Valley Golf Course, the Mojave National Preserve, and the Stateline Wilderness Area.” Given other facilities in the area, including the adjacent Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, Hudson said, “The impact of the proposed facility on the existing visual character of the site and its surrounding landscape would be less than significant.”
Hudson also said that “Construction of the project would have a direct adverse effect on the desert tortoise, resulting in the displacement of approximately 40 adult desert tortoises, and permanently impacting approximately 2,023 acres of desert tortoise habitat. Impacts to desert tortoise individuals and habitat would be reduced through implementation of applicant proposed measures and mitigation measures required for protection of wildlife and other resources.” Those efforts include, Hudson said, reducing potential direct and indirect degradation of desert tortoise habitat, taking efforts to protect the tortoises by relocating them, eliminating noxious weeds in the area that are a hazard to the tortoises, engaging in dust control and taking care with chemical and fuel storage as well as trash disposal.
The project will also have regrettable impacts on the golden eagle, which species has a dozen nesting territories within 10 to 12 miles of the project site. “Seven of the 12 nesting territories were determined to be active during the 2010 golden eagle nest surveys,” Hudson said. “The closest active nest is approximately two miles to the northwest of the project site, near the Umberci Mine. Although no golden eagle nest sites occur within the project study area, the project site is located within foraging distance from the identified nests. Potential impacts to golden eagles would be reduced through mitigation measures required for protection of wild life and other resources. Implementation of the measures would reduce impacts on the golden eagle to less than significant levels.”
Water for the project, Hudson said “would be obtained from two new groundwater production wells; the primary well to be located on the southeastern corner of the facility, and the secondary well located approximately 4,250 feet west of facility. The Applicant has prepared and received approval from the county geologist of a groundwater monitoring and reporting plan, fulfilling the requirements of the San Bernardino County groundwater monitoring program guidelines.”
Hudson prepared a statement of overriding considerations for the project which the board approved. That statement said the project would support the Bureau of Land Management in meeting federal land policy by  serving to “manage public lands for multiple uses that take into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and non-renewable resources” and “support the Bureau of Land Management” in achieving “Executive Order 13212 (May 18, 2001) which mandates that agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management,  act expediently and in a manner consistent with applicable laws to increase the production and transmission of energy in a safe and environmentally sound manner [and] Secretarial Order 3285A1 (March 11, 2009 and amended on February 22, 2010) which “establishes the development of renewable energy as a priority of the Department of the Interior.”
The statement of overriding considerations further states that “The project will support investor-owned utilities in meeting the Renewable Portfolio Standard to supply 33% of California’s total electricity through renewable energy generation by 2020 [and] The project will assist the state in reaching the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals in Assembly Bill 32 to 1990 levels by 2020, by generating electricity without the use of fossil fuels or natural gas fired generation.”
The statement of overriding considerations also noted that “The project will establish 300 megawatts of generating capacity for emission-free photovoltaic solar electricity in an area of high solar insolation to maximize the use of available sunlight.”

(March 11) The board of supervisors this week awarded a lucrative county contract for the provision of what is known as conflict representation for indigent defendants in the county’s courts to a firm that was underbid by its competitors on two portions of the contract.
Conflict representation for a defendant without the financial means to hire an attorney to represent him/her comes about when the crime he/she is charged with involves [an]other defendant[s] of likewise modest financial means who is represented by the public defender’s office, which is dedicated to providing a defense to the county’s accused who are without the wherewithal to retain an attorney on their own. In those cases where one or more of the defendants is contending or may contend that he/she is being accused of a crime actually committed by his/her codefendant[s], a separate attorney is needed to prevent one defendant from being exploited by the defense but on by the other defendant.
Whereas previously three separate law firms provided the conflict representation, the county, by its action this week, is allowing a law firm headed by Earl Carter to handle all of the county’s conflict representation.
Through December 31, 2013, four law firms had contracts to serve as conflict attorneys representing defendants in San Bernardino County.  The Law Firm of David Goldstein had a $9.35 million contract to provide conflict attorney representation in the West Valley region of San Bernardino County. The law firm of Carter Spring, Shank & O’Connor,  headed by Earl Carter and Jim Spring, had an $18.75 million contract to represent defendants in the East Valley as well as a $12 million contract to represent defendants in the county’s North Desert Region. Attorney John Burdick had a $1.875 million contract to do conflict representation in the East Desert region.
On September 26, 2013, County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereux approved the solicitation of bids for court-appointed adult indigent defense representation service providers. A proposal evaluation committee consisting of representatives of the county and the Superior Court was formed to review the submitted proposals. When that committee did not arrive on a decision on which firms to extend the conflict representation contracts to by December, the board of supervisors extended the contracts with Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor, the Goldstein Law Firm and attorney John Burdick through March 2014 for $2,450,000, $1,070,000 and $200,000, respectively.
In response to the September 26 bid solicitation, six law firms submitted bid proposals for the work, including Earl Carter’s firm under the name Inland Defenders; Burdick under the name Contract Defenders; Greenline Partners, headed by attorneys Daniel Greenberg and Raj Maline; Robert Ponce; the law firm of Brown, White and Newhouse; and the law firm of  Skipper, Singer & Associates.
The county board of supervisors this week, in the words of County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereux, approved an agreement with Inland Defenders “to provide adult indigent defense services in an amount not to exceed $8,000,000 annually and $20,000,000 total over the 30-month term of April 1, 2014 through September 30, 2016 with two additional one-year options if in the best interest of the county.”
That contract applies to all four of the county’s regions.
Devereux made his recommendation and the board its vote in favor of Inland Defenders despite the consideration that with regard to the contract for representation of the East Valley region, Inland Defenders was substantially underbid by Greenline Partners and with regard to the contract for representation of the North Desert it was underbid by both Greenline Partners and Robert Ponce.
Inland Defenders bid $3,085,680 on the East Valley portion of the project. Greenline bid $2,142,480 on the East Valley portion of the project.
Inland Defenders bid $1,847,880 on the North Desert portion of the contract. Greenline bid $1,347,840 on the North Desert portion of the contract. Ponce bid $1,500,300 on the North Desert portion of the contract.
Devereux’s recommendation was based in large measure by a review done by a team of evaluators consisting of  Superior Court judges Annemarie Pace and John Vander Feer as well as chief assistant county counsel Michelle Blakemore and deputy county counsel Phoebe Chu.
The evaluation committee of Pace, Vander Feer, Blakemore and Chu ranked the competitors using a process by which each firm was eligible to receive up to a maximum of 100 points each measuring the level of service they offered, for a total maximum score of 400 based upon the rankings of all four evaluators.
Inland Defenders scored a rank of 353. Contract Defenders scored 315. Greenline Partners was ranked at 309. The Ponce law firm achieved a 306 ranking. Skipper, Singer and Associates as well as Brown, White & Newhouse scored an identical 240.
In his report to the board of supervisors on the contract agreement this week, Devereux indicated that the bottom-line cost of the service was not a controlling factor in the bid completion. He equivocated somewhat with respect to whether Inland Defenders had qualified as the lowest bidder overall or in relation to portions of the contract.
“Upon receiving the scores, the finance and budget office noted that the cost portion of the
scores were difficult to compare since one proposal was countywide only and the others were countywide and/or for specific regions,” Devereux wrote. “To make an equitable cost score comparison, the finance and budget office ran two scenarios using a formula from the county purchasing department to objectively score the cost portion of each proposal. The first scenario separated each proposal into stand alone regional proposals and scored the cost in each region separately. The second scenario merged the second best scoring proposal in each of the individual regions to form a countywide proposal for comparison to the two countywide proposals. In each scenario, Inland Defenders’ proposal remained the highest scored, both countywide and in the individual regions.”
Participants in the competition as well as others protested that favoritism was shown to Inland Defenders when it was permitted on January 2, 2014 to submit via fax a revised fee schedule, one day before the intent to award was declared. That opportunity to resubmit a key part of its bid was not extended to any of the other competitors.
In his report to the board of supervisors on the contract agreement this week, Devereux gave what appeared to be a justification for allowing Inland Defenders to submit a follow-up bid.  “After confirming Inland Defenders’ proposal as the highest scoring, inclusive of cost, and reviewing the cost proposals from each respondent, the finance and budget office determined that it was in the county’s best interest to negotiate pricing with Inland Defenders as permitted under the request for proposals rather than move forward immediately with a notice of intent to award. Inland Defenders offered a revised cost proposal of $6,724,560, an annual reduction of $437,220.”
Inland Defenders originally offered to handle all four regional contracts annually for $7,161,780. The only other firm that bid on all four regional contracts was Brown, White & Newhouse, which bid  $7,828,020 on the overall contract.
Unaddressed in Devereux’s report are perceptions that were aired during the last two months that Carter and the other attorneys associated with Inland Defenders had bought an advantage in the contract sweepstakes by making hefty campaign contributions to San Bernardino County officials.
Documents on file with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters’ office and the California Secretary of State’s office show that Earl Carter, together with his recently deceased law partner Jim Spring, and his law firm, Carter, Spring, Shank & O’Connor, donated a total of $120,500 to district attorney Mike Ramos from 2004 until 2012. Additionally, together with his law firm and law partners, Carter has made $88,500 in political donations to all five current county supervisors, including $38,000 to Gary Ovitt, $32,050 to Josie Gonzales, $12,750 to Janice Rutherford, and $1,500 each to both Robert Lovingood and James Ramos.
District attorney Ramos, whose deputy prosecutors are the professional and courtroom adversaries of defense attorneys including those employed by Inland Defenders, intensified this controversy when he wrote a letter of recommendation for Inland Defenders that was submitted to the evaluation committee.
Devereux in his report indicated he and county staff were aware of the controversy over the county’s intention to award the contract to Inland Defenders and that they had discounted the protests that controversy had engendered.
“Subsequent to issuing the notice of  intent to award the contract, the purchasing department  received a number of requests for copies of documents from proposers who were not selected,” Devereux wrote. “To accommodate these requests and allow time for the proposers to prepare an appeal if desired, purchasing extended the appeal period. During the extended appeal period, purchasing received two written appeals from Greenline Partners and Robert Ponce. The appeal requests were reviewed by the purchasing agent and denied, resulting in the recommendation to award all four regions to Inland Defenders, the highest scoring proposer.”

(March 10)  Rialto Unified School District Superintendent Harold Cebrun, who was caught up in the Judith Oakes scandal just as the current school year was beginning, elected to retire earlier this month, effective March 31.
Former district accountant Judith Oakes, who stands accused of stealing $1.8 million in lunch money proceeds from the district’s Nutrition Services Department over the past eight years, was alleged to have had a personal relationship with the superintendent.
Cebrun denied their was anything improper or untoward his relationship with Oakes, but the extent of her thefts left Cebrun under a cloud.  At least four separate investigations of the thefts have been carried out by the Rialto Police Department, the district attorney’s office, a private investigator hired by the school district and the state superintendent of schools. According to the Rialto Police Department, Cebrun was not involved in and had no foreknowledge of Oakes’ embezzlement.
In the immediate aftermath of Oakes’ arrest on August 7, a pall fell over the 26,485-student district. On September 12, 2013, as the investigation into the matter was proceeding, Cebrun and deputy superintendent James Wallace were placed on paid administrative leave. They were never returned to active status.
The investigations of Oakes’ activity showed that her thefts from the district had predated by many years Cebrun’s arrival at the Rialto district in March 2009. Previously, Cebrun was superintendent in the Compton and Lynwood school districts.
Oakes was charged by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office on October 8 with eight counts of embezzlement by a public or private officer and eight counts of a public officer crime.
An audit confirmed that Oakes, who was an accountant for the district overseeing the school lunch program for nearly 14 years, stole more than $1.8 million since 2005.
According to investigator Jeff Stewart , who was hired by the district to look into the thefts, it is likely that Oakes stole more than $3.1 million since 1999. On top of the $1.8 million in cash Oakes is documented as having taken in the last eight years she was with the district, another $1.3 million is unaccounted for in the years between 1999, the year Oakes is believed to have begun her depredations, and 2005. The examination of the disappearance of district money prior to 2005 was less rigorous because those crimes fall outside the statute of limitations.
Oakes was married to Jack Oakes, an educator who eventually rose to the position of school principal in the San Bernardino City Unified School District. In the mid-1990s, Judith Oakes was working as an accountant at the Bank of Redlands, which is now known as Community Bank.
In 1997, she went to work in the Rialto Unified School District as an accountant. Eventually, she was given virtually unfettered oversight of the cash receipts from the district’s school lunch program. Not only did she oversee the crew that had physical custody of the money, she was given ultimate accounting authority over the funds.
Beginning in 1999, Oakes is believed to have begun pilfering roughly $4,000 a week from the batches of bills collected and processed by the district’s money-counting machines prior to bank deposit, according to Stewart. Having begun the thefts, it seems Oakes was obliged to continue stealing approximately the same amount of money every week – an average of between $4,100 and $4,300 weekly – so that the pattern of thefts would remain undetected.
According to Stewart, sometime after she was put in charge of the staff counting and bundling the lunch money and then depositing it into a school district account, Oakes was entrusted with security arrangements in the office where the money was counted, as well as the loss control procedure devised for the money-counting function. That increase in trust and duty came after, Stewart said, she had begun her thefts. “The [district nutrition] department has a money-counting machine that counts bills, and informs workers when there’s enough to ‘strap’ into batches,” Stewart said. “Ms. Oakes was involved with the installation of the camera system and was aware of what areas in the room were visible to it,” according to Stewart.
Oakes engaged in two levels of sleight-of-hand in first secreting the money she took out of the money counting room and then obfuscating the books that tallied the lunch receipts district-wide.
In the first instance, according to Stewart, “Oakes reportedly would bind the bills up at the back counter of the room, rather than on the table next to the computer, where she couldn’t be seen on camera. Ms. Oakes would then quite frequently take a strap or two of twenty-dollar bills or other denominations and stuff them down her top after checking to make sure the person at the computer was not looking.”
Oakes, who had an overview all of the money flowing in from all of the district’s schools, would then provide falsified deposit slips after the money was bundled and ready for deposit. Oakes overcame the scrutiny of the district staff member responsible for reconciling the bank statements with the district’s deposits by falsifying a spreadsheet which she substituted for ledgers containing entries related to the checks and cash collected from each school.
On occasion, it appears, some staff members noted inconsistencies and irregularities with regard to the total amount of money counted and the amount deposited, but Oakes was able to use her position and authority to override any questions and staff members did not, at least until relatively late, make an effort to report those irregularities out of fear of getting on Oakes’ bad side.
The roughly $210,000 Oakes was stealing from the district yearly augmented an already very comfortable $190,000 yearly household income she and her husband pulled down. Jack Oakes, who had ascended to the position of principal at Ramona-Alessandro Elementary School in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, made $119,771 during the 2009-2010 school year. Judith was making over $70,000 at that time.
In April 2010, Jack Oakes was severely injured in an off-roading accident in the desert and died of a trauma-induced heart attack.
After her husband’s death, Judith Oakes continued the thefts from the district she had previously been engaged in for over a decade. By the end of 2011, it has been alleged, she had begun a relationship with Harold Cebrun.
In May 2013, discrepancies with regard to the receipt and depositing of district lunch money was suspected. Video cameras showing perspectives from different angles than those Oakes had previously established were installed in the money counting room unbeknownst to Oakes and Cebrun. She was caught on video stuffing money into her brazier on at least two occasions.
When she was arrested on August 7, Oakes had two packets of $2,000 in $20 bills in her possession. More packets were found at her San Bernardino home later when it was searched pursuant to a warrant. Oakes made incriminating statements to police officers, characterized as a confession. She immediately posted $50,000 bond and was released.  She resigned her post on August 8.
Cebrun repeatedly denied any knowledge of Oakes’ illicit activities. The district has kept elements of the district’s investigation carried out by Stewart very close to the vest. It was unclear whether the district had sufficient grounds upon which to terminate the superintendent. The district kept him in limbo for more than six months, continuing to pay him but taking no official action to severe him. One member of the board, Joseph Ayala, advocated for returning Cebrun to the helm of the district. He was outvoted by his colleagues.
The case for keeping Cebrun employed was dealt two separate blows in January, when two reviews of the Rialto Unified School District by the state of California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team were delivered to the district.
The district administration had failed to utilize industry standard purchasing and accounting procedures and had engaged in making contractual or purchasing commitments on behalf of the district without prior authorization from the school board, according to a management assistance team review of the district’s contractual and purchasing practices dated January 6.  Another report pertaining to the district’s special education programs referenced shortcomings in the oversight of expenditures that resulted in the squandering of over $1 million and a “systematic lack of focus on instruction” for special needs students and a “lack of guidance from the highest level of leadership.”
Firing Cebrun outright at the present time would have been costly. A clause in his contract requires that he be paid 18 month’s salary if he is terminated. Thus, the school board’s acceptance of his retirement at his own volition on March 7 appears to have saved the district $360,000.
“The board respects Dr. Cebrun’s long history of service to public education, thanks him for his service to the district and wishes him well in the future,” the district stated in a prepared release that came after a two-hour closed executive session outside the view of the public on March 7. The vote to accept his resignation was made on a 4-1 vote, with board member Edgar Montes dissenting.
Unresolved at this point is the status of Wallace, who is still being paid his $170,501 annual salary.

(March 11)  Four years after the city of Chino threw its weight behind a group of mobile home park residents in their ongoing difficulties with their landlord, those residents have turned on the city and have filed a lawsuit against the municipality.
In 2009, the owner of the Lamplighter Mobile Home Park, Tom Morgan and his company, Chino MHC LP, sought to subdivide the park and develop property within that would be vacated by its residents or sell the coach spaces to any residents willing to purchase them.
The planning commission approved the subdivision of the park at 4400 Philadelphia St., essentially allowing the rental units to be turned into ownership lots.
On April 20, 2010, the city council overturned the planning commission.
The city council took the action largely out of sympathy for the mobile home park’s 260 residents, many of whom are elderly and living on fixed incomes. The city has long had a rent control ordinance which sets rents at the Lamplighter at two-thirds of the consumer price index. Rental rates for Lamplighter residents ranged from $300 to $600.
City staff and the city attorney, Jimmy Gutierrez, advised the city that Morgan and Chino MHC LP were acting within the law by moving to subdivide the property even if by doing so an indirect result was that the mobile home park was getting around the limitations of the ordinance.
At least two of the council members said they were persuaded to overturn the planning commission because they believed the residents at the park would be unable to qualify for loans to purchase their lots and would essentially be thrown out on the streets.
Councilwoman Eunice Ulloa, while acknowledging that Chino MHC LP was legally entitled to undertake the subdivision, argued that the conversion should be denied on “humanitarian” grounds.
In July 2010, Morgan and Chino MHC LP, represented by attorney Richard Clouse, filed suit against the city of Chino in San Bernardino County Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga, seeking $34 million in damages and assurance that the units could be transformed into ownership lots.
The city made a spirited defense of its action in court, expending close to $500,000 in legal fees.  Ultimately, however, the city took a drubbing.
The judge hearing the matter, Superior Court Judge Joseph Brisco, in  January 2011 ruled that the city could not prohibit the conversion of the park and issued a court order for the  city council to reverse its decision.
The city appealed but lost in October 2012, when the Fourth District Court of appeal ruled that the city could not stop conversion of the mobile home park to tenant ownership unless it could show the owner was taking the step to avoid rent control.
Clouse succeeded in demonstrating that the conversion was a legitimate undertaking to maximize the value of Chino MHC LP’s investment.
The state supreme court refused the city of Chino’s further appeal.
Out of options, the city council on October 15, 2013, with Mayor Dennis Yates absent and councilman Glenn Duncan abstaining, voted 3-0 to allow Chino MHC to sell the lots in the park.
On November 5, 2013, the council gave final approval of the conversion plan.
As a consequence of that vote, the park residents’ association has retained Irvine-based attorney Robert Solomon and on February  3 filed a civil action in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court, naming the city of Chino as respondent and Chino MHC LP as real party in interest.
The suit filed Feb. 3 in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court asks the court to overturn the Chino city council’s Nov. 5, 2013, approval of the park owner’s plan to convert his rent-controlled property to tenant ownership.
The suit maintains the council abused its “discretion” by approving the plan in the face of information indicating that a survey of residents conducted by Chino MHC contained inaccurate and misleading information and that the approval violates the city’s general plan and the state Fair Employment and Housing Act. Moreover, according to the suit, the conversion will put the city of Chino out of compliance with state-mandated  low-income housing availability requirements.

(March 13)  Elections for all seven of the county offices up for a vote this year will be contested.
In San Bernardino County, elections run on a four-year cycle, with the heaviest elective season falling in the year where the California gubernatorial elections are held. Thus, this year, the district attorney, sheriff, treasurer-tax collector, assessor and superintendent of county schools and the supervisors in the county’s Second and Fourth districts are up for election. In the years corresponding to the presidential election, supervisors in the first, third and fifth district must stand for election.
Mike Ramos, the district attorney first elected in 2002 who had no opposition in 2006 and turned back challenges by Frank Guzman and Robert Conaway in 2010, is being opposed this year by Grover Merritt, a deputy district attorney who formerly headed the district attorney’s office’s appellate unit.
Sheriff John McMahon, who was appointed to that position by the board of supervisors in 2012 following the resignation of then-sheriff Rod Hoops, will face two challengers in June, former San Bernardino County sheriff’s department lieutenant Clifton Harris and current Los Angeles sheriff’s department deputy Paul Schrader.
Incumbent Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Walker is being opposed by certified public accountant Ensen Mason, who previously ran against Walker. In San Bernardino County, the treasurer-tax collector’s function has been combined with that of the auditor-controller. Walker was first elected as auditor controller recorder in 1998 after serving 12 years as Fourth District supervisor. He has been the treasurer tax collector for more than three years, following the consolidation of the treasurer and auditor roles.
Incumbent assessor-recorder Dennis Draeger is not seeking reelection. His chief deputy, Dan Harp is seeking election and is being opposed by former state assemblyman and state senator Robert Dutton.
County superintendent of schools Gary Thomas is not running for reelection. Ted Alejandre, who was recently promoted to the position of assistant county schools superintendent by Thomas to assist him in his electoral bid, is running,  as is Rita Ramirez and Frank Garza.
In the Second District, incumbent Janice Rutherford is being challenged by  Randolph Beasly, a retired sheriff’s department scientific analysis division employee.
In the Fourth District, incumbent supervisor Gary Ovitt has opted not to run. Instead, Congresswoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod and California Assemblyman Curt Hagman are vying against one another and two others, Chino Valley Unified school board member James Na and Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila.
Other political match-ups in San Bernardino County include:
Incumbent 8th Congressional District Representative Paul Cook, R-Apple Valley, faces three challengers in the personages of Robert Conaway,  Paul Hannosh, Odessia Lee.
Lesli Gooch, Eloise Gomez Reyes, Danny Tillman, Pete Aguilar, Joe Baca, and Paul Chabot,  are seeking to replace Representative Gary Miller, R-Rancho Cucamonga, who announced in February that he would not seek re-election in the 31st Congressional District.
Christina Marie Gagnier, Scott Heydenfeldt and Norma Torres are running in the race to succeed Negrete-McLeod as 35th Congressional District representative.
Connie Leyva, Matthew Munson, Shannon O’Brien, Sylvia Robles and Alfonso Sanchez are vying to replace Norma Torres, who is running for Congress, as state senator in the California 20th State Senate District.
Michelle Ambrozic, Art Bishop, Bob Buhrle, John Dennis Coffey, Robert Larivee, Jerry Laws, Scott Markovich, Jay Obernolte, Rick Roelle and Brett Savage are seeking election in the 33rd Assembly District, where incumbent Tim Donnelly is not running for reelection and is instead running for governor.
Art Bustamante, Kathleen Marie Henry, Melissa O’Donnell and Marc Steinorth  are running in the 40th Assembly District, where Mike Morrell is currently the incumbent. Morrell is a candidate to replace Bill Emmerson in the California State Senate in a special election later this month.
Karalee Hargrove and Chad Mayes are running for state Assembly in the 42nd District.
Gil Navarro is challenging incumbent Cheryl Brown in the 47th Assembly District.
Dorothy Pineda is vying against incumbent Freddie Rodriguez in the 52nd Assembly District.
In the Loma Linda Municipal Election slated for June, incumbent councilmen Phillip Dupper and Ron Dailey are the only candidates on the ballot.

(March 13)  The San Bernardino Police Officers Association is maintaining a move by newly installed San Bernardino Mayor Carey Davis and his supporters on the city council to create a committee to review the city charter is illegal.
San Bernardino is a charter city as opposed to a general law city. Its charter and amendments thereto, per state law, are approved by the city’s voters. Provisions put into the charter by means of a citywide vote over a decade ago require that the city’s public safety employees – firefighters and police officers – be paid on a scale equal to the average pay of police officers and firefighters in ten similarly sized  California cities.
San Bernardino has been beset with financial difficulties that culminated in the city’s filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2012. Former mayor Patrick Morris has maintained that a major factor in the city’s fiscal deterioration is excessive salaries and benefits provided to city employees and retirees. Davis, an accountant by profession and a political ally to Morris, is of like mind.
As one of his first acts in office, Davis called for the creation of a municipal commission to consider charter changes, suggesting that the requirement that police and fire officers be provided with raises based on salaries given to their counterparts in cities free of the financial challenges San Bernardino faces should be done away with. That move failed when it was pointed out that a municipal commission cannot be formed without prior voter approval. The city council has now adjusted the proposal to seek the creation of a citizens committee to review the city charter.
San Bernardino Police Officers Association Attorney Rockne A. Lucia Jr., however, has taken issue with the proposal to charter the committee. Lucia maintains state law does not permit the appointment of committee members who are to act in the capacity of a commission. Those members must be elected by a vote and must reside within the city, according to Lucia.
Lucia hinted that by creating the panel to consider and recommend charter amendments, Davis and the council were seeking to provide the city’s voters, who must ultimately ratify the changes, with the impression that any endorsement of the changes by the committee were independently derived by a body that is at arm’s length from the city council.
Rather, Lucia suggested, the council should simply act on its own to place whatever charter amendments it deems fit before the city’s voters without cloaking them in the patina of an independently arrived at proposal.
Lucia said “the Council may simply propose amendments to the city charter directly, and ask city residents for an up or down vote on its proposals.” This, Lucia said “would streamline the process, and provide more direct political accountability or praise for any amendment’s fate.”
It is anticipated that on Monday, despite the police union’s protest, the city council will consider the creation of a charter review committee to be composed of one city business owner and one resident appointed by Davis and one resident appointed by each council member, along with a hired “charter specialist” steeped in municipal law.

(March 12)  The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors this week upheld the county planning commission’s September denial of Sycamore Physicians Partners’ application for a permit to construct a solar energy project in Oak Hills.
Sycamore Physicians Partners’ application had been filed with the county prior to the county’s imposition of a moratorium on the consideration and approval of solar projects that went into effect in May of 2013 but has now elapsed.
Sycamore had asked the county land use services division to certify a 2.7-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility on 20 acres in the unincorporated county area south and west of Hesperia in a rural living land use district on the northeast corner of Fuente Avenue and El Centro Road.
County staff, however, acceding to widespread objections by homeowners in rural desert communities throughout the county who maintain that solar fields are a too-intensive use that is incompatible with nearby residential neighborhoods, recommended that Sycamore’s application for the conditional use permit be denied. According to the county land used division’s staff report from last year, the project would have a “significant impact on the environment, specifically with regard to scenic resources.” According to county planning director Terri Rahhal, at public hearing for the project held on August 8, 2013 , there was considerable public opposition to the project and  some participating “expressed concerns about land use compatibility, given the location of the project site in an area surrounded by rural residential uses.”
Rahhal said the planning commission made a tentative finding at that time that the proposed project “would not be compatible with the rural character of the Oak Hills community and would therefore not be consistent with the Oak Hills Community Plan. On September 27, 2013, Sycamore Physicians Partners, LLC, filed a timely appeal of the planning commission’s action to deny the project. The applicant’s appeal contended that the planning commission’s findings for denial were inaccurate and that the project is consistent with the goals and policies of the county general plan and the Oak Hills Community Plan. The applicant contended that the project will provide a much-needed renewable source of energy and that the design of the project will not impact existing view sheds or significantly impact the environment and will be compatible with the existing rural character of the neighborhood.”
As first proposed, the project would have entailed an unmanned solar array operation including 54 arrays containing non-reflective modules mounted on a fixed tilt system.
The proposed modules would have been oriented to the south and angled to a degree to maximize solar resource efficiency. The modules were to be connected to inverters, which convert direct current into electrical alternating current. The electricity was then to be stepped up and collected in conduits that terminate at the point of interconnection to the local electricity grid via an existing Southern California Edison (SCE) power line along Fuente Avenue.
Each solar module was to have been fastened to the ground surface via hydraulically driven, two-inch diameter, galvanized pipe. Sycamore Physicians Partners maintain this method of fixing the arrays would result in minimal topsoil disturbance and would allow retention of much of the on-site vegetation, which would moderate ground-level wind speeds and, consequently, minimize erosion. The maximum height of the panels had been set to range from 8-10 feet depending upon existing site topography.
Project approval would have required a conditional use permit. A conditional use permit is a discretionary application that requires a finding of consistency with the general plan and any applicable community plan, among other findings for approval. The proposed project would have provided, according to Rahal, a renewable source of energy for the surrounding community, consistent with several conservation policies of the general plan. Rahal also maintained that the proposal “conforms to applicable design standards of the development code. However, based upon the testimony and information provided at the August 8, 2013, and September 19, 2013, planning commission hearings, the commission found that the project is incompatible with the existing rural community and that sufficient evidence has not been provided to justify a finding of no significant impact on the existing aesthetics and views of the area.”
On December 27, 2013, Sycamore Physicians Partners submitted a proposal to scale down the project from 2.7 megawatts to 1.5 megawatts, reducing the number of solar arrays from 54 to 15, while the boundaries of the project site were to remain the same. The applicant requested that the board of supervisors consider approval of the revised site plan, which was not presented to the planning commission.
“Staff continues to recommend upholding the planning commission action on the project because the site plan revisions do not alter the basic land use compatibility and aesthetic issues cited in the findings for denial,” Rahal said.

You can download a copy of the March 7 Edition of the SBC Sentinel in pdf form by clicking on the following portal.

Sentinel 03-07-14