(March 7) In September 2012, Judge Marsha Slough succeeded to what might have otherwise been considered the apex of her judicial career when she was elevated from the position of assistant presiding judge to replace Ronald M. Christianson as the presiding judge of the San Bernardino Superior Court.
That crowning achievement, while no doubt an honor and tribute to her and the esteem she is held in by her fellow jurists, came at a most unfortunate juncture.
Even before the economic downturn of 2007, the court system in California was inadequately funded and San Bernardino County’s courts were particularly lacking in both financial and human resources.  When Slough became presiding judge five years later, San Bernardino County had the most substantial shortfall of judges of any of California’s 58 counties, with 91 jurists serving a population of over 2 million residents. That was 65 fewer than the 156 judges the state of California’s Judicial Needs Assessment said San Bernardino County should have. As one of those overworked judges, Slough was more than conscious of the massive caseloads and mounting backlog of cases she and other members of the bench were staggering under.
Immediately upon being chosen to fill the presiding position, Slough was buffeted by further cuts.
Judge Larry Allen, the assistant presiding judge, in late 2012 summed it up this way: “Our court has been operating on a shoestring budget for many years. Now the state is taking away the shoestrings.’’
Slough, Allen and then-court executive officer Stephen Nash huddled and came up with a painful but nonetheless necessary strategy to meet the challenge, which involved $22 million in further state funding cuts for 2012-13 to be followed by another $13 million in funding reductions in 2013-14. In a series of moves, Slough shut down the Chino Courthouse, which served residents in the southwestern portion of the county, the Needles Courthouse, which served the northeastern portion of the county, the Barstow Courthouse, serving the northernmost portions of the county and the Big Bear Courthouse, which served the San Bernardino Mountain Communities.
Those economies saddled county residents with an immense burden. Far flung San Bernardino County, which spans more than 20,000 square miles, is the largest county in the lower 48 states, with a land mass greater than the states of Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.
The Joseph Campbell Courthouse in Victorville was the closest courthouse to most people living in the High Desert, and residents in the communities of Trona and Needles were obliged to make round trips of nearly 200 miles to obtain justice.  After a massive protest, the Barstow Courthouse was opened one day each week, with a single judge there hearing cases.
A year-and-a-half into her tenure as presiding judge, Slough is on the verge of yet another response to the financial challenge to the county court system. This response is of such scope that it is being billed as a “realignment.”  The terms of the change are so sweeping and in the phraseology of some so “radical” that the move is one that has garnered virtually no support of attorneys, who are traditionally highly accommodating of the forum within which they must function.
While the general public is virtually unaware of the coming changes, Slough’s tentative announcement of the pending changes last October sent shock waves through the legal community. Echoing outrage grew into a deafening crescendo last month when Slough through her office gave official notice that the realignment would indeed go into effect in May.
The makeover will include transferring all civil cases countywide to the new San Bernardino Justice Center, an eleven story edifice with 40 courtrooms now in the final stages of completion. In addition, San Bernardino district criminal cases, now being heard in the San Bernardino Central Courthouse built in 1927, will be tried in the new San Bernardino Justice Center.
West Valley Superior Courthouse in Rancho Cucamonga, which currently is the venue for both civil and criminal cases originating on the west end of the county, will be devoted primarily to criminal cases, including those arising on the county’s west end and other felony and misdemeanor cases from the county’s central district which are currently routed to the Fontana Courthouse.  A small portion of the criminal cases now heard in Fontana will be adjudicated in San Bernardino. At least temporarily, hearings on both civil and domestic violence restraining order matters will be heard at the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse.
The historic San Bernardino Courthouse will remain as the forum for the family law cases it currently hosts and will soon serve as the venue for the family law cases presently heard in Rancho Cucamonga.
The Fontana Courthouse will become the stage for all small claims, landlord tenant disputes and traffic/non-traffic infractions from the San Bernardino, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga districts. The lion’s share of criminal cases now being heard in Fontana will transfer to Rancho Cucamonga. A lesser number of the Fontana criminal cases will go to San Bernardino.
The Victorville Courthouse will remain a venue for High Desert family law cases.
David H. Ricks, the president-elect of the Western San Bernardino County Bar Association, spoke to the Sentinel in his capacity as a private attorney and citizen, making clear that he was not representing with his comments the Western San Bernardino County Bar Association, which he said has not officially committed to publicly opposing the realignment as an organization. Ricks said virtually every attorney he has discussed the realignment with is adamantly opposed to it.
“I had a meeting with [then-county court executive officer] Stephen Nash and Judge Slough, who are the architects of this whole thing,” Ricks said. “I asked point blank ‘What is the financial benefit to be realized?’ The presiding judge said in essence that there is none. That is not the purpose of this. It is a convenience maneuver to address the use of judges and court reporters. This is intended to consolidate the court clerk’s office for efficiency purposes.”
Ricks said, “Their position is this is not a matter of cost. It is a matter of convenience to the courts and the ability to move people around as well as the ideal with regard to the movement of prisoners. The Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse and the new San Bernardino Courts are situated atop holding facilities and they are designed for moving detainees in and around the courthouse. They have elevators that can go unmanned between floors and have hallways that are not exposed to the public or the judges.  One justification for doing this is that in Fontana where there are currently a lot of criminal matters handled, the prisoners have to be walked with bailiffs and sheriff’s deputies as escorts. There is no secure hallway there to move prisoners. This is not going to result in any appreciable cost savings, nor did they do a study to see if cost saving would be obtained.”
Ricks continued, “On the weekend in October before I learned about this, there was a meeting between Judge Slough and the western San Bernardino County judges. I talked with several of the other judges just as what was going to happen was announced. It was a surprise to them. There had been no information about it or discussion prior to that morning. There was no consultation with any bar organization or any local government agency. The cities did not know about this until it was announced and officially decided that it was going to be done  [Board of supervisors chairwoman] Janice Rutherford did not know until it was announced. Members of the board of supervisors then had asked that the courts not to do this and were basically told it will happen and that is the way it is.”
One of Ricks’ predecessors as Western San Bernardino County Bar Association president, Jim Banks, told the Sentinel, “The only savings that result from realignment are saving administrative headaches allocating clerks, court reporters and other court personnel.  The truth is that for every judge you need a clerk, usually a bailiff and often a court reporter, regardless of whether they are in one building or three.  Civil court reporters are charged to the litigants.  Some clerks and research attorneys may be more conveniently located among all of the judges in one building, but each of them will be on the court payroll whether they are sitting in San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga or Victorville. Realignment, therefore, is not a solution to the budget shortfall.  It is little more than an attempt to make the court easier to manage.  The problem is that while it makes court management a little bit easier and possibly a little bit cheaper, it has disastrous consequences for the public, the litigants and attorneys in Rancho Cucamonga and Victorville.”
Banks continued, “The elderly, poor and other disadvantaged persons may not be able to get to court at all.  Even if they can afford the transportation, the trip will be exhausting and they will be in a strange place, exhausted, frightened, weakened and confused.   Fewer people will be able to afford to go to court because it will cost more for litigants due to travel time for witnesses, experts, attorneys and others.”
Banks said the city of San Bernardino is not equipped to handle the influx of both civil litigants and jurors.  “Jurors, from Needles to Chino Hills, will be expected to travel to San Bernardino, find a parking place because they’re not furnished by the court, move their cars from time to time, walk several blocks through the streets of San Bernardino, sit and wait or serve, then hike back to their cars and drive back home.  Presumably their outcry will be swift and loud.  For that reason alone, realignment is a disastrous alternative.”
While Banks said the realignment would hurt county residents, he pointed out that at least one public entity, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, would suffer significantly as a consequence of the concentration of criminal cases in the courthouse there.
Banks said the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse will become “a magnet for criminals of every stripe imaginable. What is the prognosis for the beautiful Rancho Cucamonga Civic Center and its surrounding neighborhood?  Most experts (Realtors, lawyers) agree that it will be turned into a campground for all sorts of accused criminals including gang members, drug dealers, child molesters, rapists, other violent offenders and their friends and relatives, all collected from Chino to Rialto and concentrated in one courthouse.  Attorney offices will be replaced by bail bondsmen.  The buildings and other improvements will be subjected to excessive vandalism and eventually fall into a state of disrepair.  The civic center will be converted from a beautiful and peaceful environment to an ugly and dangerous neighborhood.”
Sal Briguglio, who has worked as an attorney in San Bernardino County for more than three decades and has had an office in Rancho Cucamonga  for most of that time, told the Sentinel, “I have multiple concerns, the first of which is how people without a vehicle are going to reasonably get to the new courthouse. We checked the bus system. To take a bus from Rancho Cucamonga, you have to take two busses. The first has 27 stops to get you to the middle of Fontana. You then pick up a second bus, which after 31 more stops will take you into San Bernardino. You then have to walk a half mile to get to the courthouse. If you are coming from Chino or Chino Hills, you have to take four busses or you can take a bus to the MetroLink, which will dump you a half mile from the courthouse. If you live in Barstow and don’t have a car, there is no bus service to Victorville. You have to hitchhike.”
Briguglio said the concentration of civil cases in San Bernardino was going to precipitate a logistical nightmare for litigants, their lawyers and witnesses.
“The new court building has no public parking,” Briguglio said. “It was built with only 200 parking spaces. They have not thought out what this means in practical terms. Where are the attorneys. litigants and jurors going to park?  When you get three blocks past the courthouse you are in a high crime residential area. You have to leave your car there and hope it is there when you get back. To get to the courthouse you will then have to walk through a very rough neighborhood. You will not be able to take anything with you to protect yourself such as mace because you are not allowed to bring that into the courthouse. Safety accommodations have been made inside the building but the safety issues outside the courthouse have not been addressed.”
Briguglio said the state and local officials are to be commended for having done something  –  in this case constructing the new courthouse  –  to overcome the shortcomings at the historic courthouse.
“I have been practicing law for 35 years and I can’t remember a time when everyone was not complaining  about the outdated and miserable conditions in what is called the historic courthouse,” he said. “There is no air conditioning, no heating. The only air conditioning is opening windows when it gets too hot. The lighting is poor.  The elevator dates back to the 1930s. The bathrooms are in less than standard condition.  It is not compliant with Americans With Disabilities Act requirements. The whole thing needs to be torn down. I believe that is why the judiciary approached the state to provide the funds to build a new courthouse. That old building is not an appropriate place to be conducting trials. A new courthouse has been on the books for many years and we had been waiting for state funding, which came in.”
Unfortunately, said  Briguglio, the offsite accommodations for the new facility are vastly inadequate.
“If you are going to have 40 new courtrooms, then you need to provide for the needs of the public,” he said. “No private sector developer could build an 11-story office building anywhere in the county of San Bernardino and get a permit to build with only 200 parking spaces.  I do not know what went into the decision-making to set that up. I do know that there are going to be four empty courtrooms in the new building, which could be filled with operations that should  be transferred over from the old courthouse, so they could just knock it down and turn the land where it is now into a parking lot.“
Briguglio said he had not expressed his concerns directly to Slough, indicating he felt doing so as a private attorney would be inappropriate. He said the sentiments of lawyers in that regard would be better provided through the collective forum of the San Bernardino County Bar or Western San Bernardino County Bar associations.
The Western San Bernardino County Bar Association was formed in the late 1950s by a group of lawyers in the Ontario, Chino and Upland area. The association’s primary mission was to convince court officials of the need to provide a court on the west side of the county, an effort which successfully culminated in the construction of a courthouse in Ontario at Mountain Avenue and Sixth Street. That facility was later closed down and replaced by the courthouse in Rancho Cucamonga.
One attorney who asked that his name not be used uttered  a sentiment similar to those of several of his professional colleagues when he told the Sentinel that closing out the civil division in Rancho Cucamonga  would throw the west end of San Bernardino County “back into the dark ages.”
Richard Anderson, who has been practicing law since 1968 and was the mayor of Upland from 1984 to 1992, told the Sentinel, “I have to tell you I am against what they are calling the realignment. I have yet to ascertain the purpose or what the benefit is to the community or the court system. There is absolutely no economic benefit that I can see. Initially, there was some discussion about how in these difficult economic times there was a need to bring about court efficiency and that the courts need to save money. But that is just not so with this. There is no way this will bring about economic benefit. We are still going to have the same judges and the same staffs. In fact we will have additional costs because of the need for so many people to travel. That this will bring about savings is a canard. I also see in this that justice will be denied here because people who live in the more remote areas of the county, because of the realignment, will have to travel greater distances. This will certainly put an undue burden on people who must go to court on family law matters or unlawful detainers to protect their property interests. I can’t see a benefit, either to the administration of justice or to cost efficiency.”
Anderson said he is joined by many other attorneys in his perception.
“That is the way I feel,” he said. “I deal with many other attorneys in the civil arena and I can tell you that others agree with me. Sundry other attorneys have expressed the same thing and they are wondering ‘Why are they doing this?’”
Dennis Stout, who was both the mayor of Rancho Cucamonga for eight years in the 1980s and San Bernardino County District Attorney for eight years in the 1990s and early 2000s, said the realignment is “a non-starter in terms of the better administration of justice or cost efficiency. All governmental entities are supposed to serve the people. What they have done with this, I am afraid, is totally ignore the needs of the public.  This may make sense to people oriented around their own self needs, but it just bypasses the principle of why we have a justice system that is accessible to everyone.  In order for the justice system  –  both the criminal justice system and the civil courts – to operate and operate fairly,  it has to be done in a public way. That is why things are open to the public. It encourages people to participate. What this is going to do is put a hardship on everyone who either needs to participate or wants to participate. There may be some marginal savings to the courts in this, although I don’t know that for a certainty. But this is going to transfer the costs to members of the public and to other government agencies, for example police departments who will have to send their officers way out of their jurisdictions. This is going to impose costs on the sheriff’s departments, the district attorney’s office, the public defender and at least some of our county’s cities. This isn’t going to represent any savings in the long haul.”
While some attorneys were willing to speak on the record, many were not. Some said it would be impolitic, unwise or poor form to be critical of the bench and the presiding judge in particular. Significantly, no attorneys speaking publicly or privately to the Sentinel supported the concept of realignment. The Sentinel was unable to locate a single currently serving judge willing to publicly comment on the pending move. All but one of those judges, current and former, who did consent to speak with the Sentinel regarding the realignment did so only under a strict understanding of anonymity. All of those were uniformly opposed to the realignment. The Sentinel’s survey of the bench was by no means exhaustive or scientific, but indicated widespread skepticism about the workability of the arrangement Judge Slough will be imposing in May. One confided that realignment would in short order prove to be “disastrous” and that Slough had been autocratic in devising the realignment strategy, and had not consulted with the bench in drawing it up. The Sentinel did learn, indirectly through Western San Bernardino County  Bar Association President-elect David Ricks, that there was a judge who is supporting Slough’s realignment. Ricks did not identify who that judge is.
“I can tell you without indicating who, because I have agreed not to share their identities, I have found one judge in favor of it,” Ricks told the Sentinel. “That’s it. The other ones I have had conversations with have not been in favor of the change. That is also true of bailiffs and the court clerks. Of the ones in Rancho Cucamonga, none are thrilled about the idea of going from Rancho Cucamonga to San Bernardino and making that daily commute to work.”
The Sentinel located one former judge willing to weigh in on the realignment issue.
Gus Skropos was a Superior Court judge from 2000 until 2005. Prior to that he was mayor of Ontario from 1994 to 1998, as well as city councilman in that city for six years, and served  as an appointed member of the county board of supervisors. He worked as a deputy prosecutor with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office for 12 years.
Skropos said he considered the realignment ill-advised and an approach that reflected the degree to which the judiciary has lost touch with the citizenry it is supposed to serve.
“If this were the first effort to consolidate our courts I think we lawyers and the public at large would be more tolerant and understanding,” Skropos said. “I remember the days when we had municipal courts before they were consolidated with the Superior Court. Municipal court judges were elected and had to live in the local community and as such were inclined to meet the local constituents’ needs. Since the consolidation of the municipal courts, which no longer exist, with the Superior Court, we now have judges who no longer have to live within the county or the communities in which they serve and I see that as a defining moment in why we are now headed in this direction. Judges can, and many do, live elsewhere in the state and I don’t think judges are as well connected to their local constituency as they were two decades ago. This is not a huge problem, but I think there is a disconnect there. I know our judges work hard and are dedicated and sincere, but this particular decision is headed in the wrong direction, in my mind.”
Skropos decried the move as one that will render justice hard to achieve for the common citizen.
“I can recall when we had courtrooms in Twin Peaks, Chino, Redlands, Needles and 29 Palms,” Skropos said. “All of that has evaporated and it does a disservice to local residents. I think people understand that those courthouses were shuttered because we were experiencing tough times and our facilities needed to be streamlined and made more economical. But whereas with the first round of cuts and closures, court services continued to be relatively accessible to the public and the legal community, that is no longer the case. Access to the courts and the dispensing of justice exists to serve the constituents, not the other way around.  The public does not exist for the convenience of the courts. I understand these are difficult economic times. There has never really been a time when money was flowing. There are going to continue to be hard budgetary times. Civil courts, family law courts, small claims courts are very important to the community. Some people tend to think that the courts are just there for criminal matters. That is not the case. If this goes into effect, and I believe it will, people in very populated areas of our county, not just at the extreme ends but people living in the desert and the mountain communities are going to need to drive in excess of 100 miles in many cases on family law matters, custody matters, property cases to access the courts. We have already shuttered five of our courthouses in the last decade. If this were just going to be an inconvenience for attorneys, there would probably not be a lot of sympathy for them with the public. But this will be a major strain on many of our residents who will have business before the court. I don’t envy the decision-makers who have to make these tough calls on the allocation of our public dollars, but I believe there needs to be a reanalysis of this decision. If there were substantial savings to be had, I think people would be a little more inclined to go along with this. But from what I understand, this is just a one or two percent savings at the most. In the larger scheme of things, I think there are better places to look to achieve that economy.”
In response to a request for an interview, Slough told the Sentinel via email, “[O]ur county court system has historically been underfunded, and the cuts unfortunately hit us harder than it has in some of the better funded county courts.  Our cuts went straight to the bone, as we did not have fat to trim! The closure of Needles, Big Bear and the almost complete closure of  Barstow Court have clearly added stress to an already stressed court system.
“The decisions I and others of this court have been faced with have truly weighed heavily, not only on me, but on our court and court family as a whole,” Slough continued. “Of course, these decisions have come at a steep price to our county citizens, and have not been made lightly. I do understand that the realignment plan which has prompted your contact is met with opposition, as have all of these very tough decisions.”
Judge Slough has extended the Sentinel   an invitation to meet with her and the county court system’s recently-hired executive officer, Christina Volkers. This will, Judge Slough said, allow her and Volkers  to “discuss these issues and the backdrop of the past years with you. This will give us the opportunity to discuss the questions that you included in your email and also to brief you on our budget and operational difficulties which have led to the most difficult times this court has probably ever endured.” The Sentinel’s interview with Judge Slough and Volkers is scheduled for March 19.
In the meantime, concern is mounting that the course Slough has set for the court system will be one that will be extremely difficult to reverse, even after what critics call its multiple drawbacks manifest.
“This is going to be set in stone,” Ricks said. “There are no contingency plans to bring civil back to Rancho Cucamonga. No plans. If the budget changes it is more likely they would reopen the Barstow Courthouse before they do anything else. Under this court administration, it does not look like the resumption of civil cases in Rancho Cucamonga is going to happen.  The difficulty in trying to reverse what will happen in May is there won’t be money in future budgets to move back or revert back. It will eat up $1 million from the budget to make this change.  No one thinks using the money that way is advisable other than the presiding judge. No one is able to stop it. The county will have to find more quarters for the DA. The county will have to rent office space for the DA in Rancho Cucamonga. The public defender has the same problem.  This will have a dramatic effect on businesses around the courthouse, which support attorneys and civil clients from out of the area. They will not be there anymore.”
Ricks said that several civil and family law attorneys contemplated legal action to block the realignment, but that option was ultimately rejected.
“In 2012, Los Angeles County made modifications to its court system,” Ricks said. “Personal injury cases were consolidated downtown. They basically closed tons of courts. All civil courts in Pomona except two to handle business cases were shut down.  A lawsuit was filed by lawyers, but it did not get anywhere.  I talked to the firm that handled the lawsuit. They told me the lawsuit was essentially thrown out. We did not see filing a lawsuit or an injunction as worthwhile.  If it was tried and defeated in another county, we could expect the same results here.”
It has widely circulated that there is a hidden impetus for the court realignment, one involving a former presiding judge. That impetus has nothing at all to do with court efficiency or economies of operation, according to that line of thinking. Rather, the goal is one of urban renewal, specifically the rejuvenation of the county seat, the city of San Bernardino.
Just this week, Patrick Morris retired as the mayor of San Bernardino. Prior to his mayoralty, Morris was a Superior Court judge,  and acceded to the position of presiding judge.  Morris’s eight year tenure as San Bernardino mayor was marred by the city’s 2012 filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.
The advent of the new courthouse in San Bernardino is seen as one of the first major developments in the city’s effort toward financial recovery. By filling it with a majority of courtrooms devoted to civil rather than criminal cases, the courthouse can be utilized as a strategic means of drawing a well-heeled clientele to downtown San Bernardino on a daily basis.
“I can’t prove it, but my sense of it tells me that Patrick Morris is a prime mover in this realignment,” one attorney said. “He was highly respected as a jurist. He was a mentor to many of the judges who are still on the bench. The city where he has just finished up two terms as mayor has gone through this horrific financial debacle. This changeover that will be putting all of the county’s civil courtrooms in downtown San Bernardino is a Godsend for that community. Maybe this is just a coincidence. Others can draw their own conclusions, but I see the influence of Patrick Morris behind this.”
While stopping short of attributing the shape of Slough’s realignment to Morris’s influence, Richard Anderson expressed the belief that an effort to improve the situation in San Bernardino was a factor in the new court operations policy.
“The only conceivable benefit to this is the urban renewal it represents for San Bernardino,” Anderson said. “What this is doing is throwing a bone to the city of San Bernardino in the form of trying to bring in some additional business. I think that is what they are trying to do here but it doesn’t make sense. I know from experience that the parking situation around the existing much smaller courthouse is atrocious.”
It is a battle of wills at this point, Ricks said, and given her position of power and authority, Slough appears to be destined to win, no matter what the consequences.
“When I met with her in November,” Ricks related, “in an attempt to encourage her not to do this, I said, ‘Look, we attorneys are businessmen and businesswomen and we have ideas about how to streamline things and save money. What  if we can come together to come up with ideas to reduce costs to preserve our courts where they are, so the West Valley area could be served locally rather than have civil courts transferred to San Bernardino? I as an attorney have lots of ideas.’ At that point I was told it was not about budgetary issues and it was not going to make any difference. This was being done for the convenience of the court and the ability to manage their manpower more than anything else. The idea of savings was shot down.  According to Judge Slough, it is far more convenient for them to have the ability to cover for judges who may be sick or out for some other reason when you have them in the same location. For administrative purposes it is much more efficient when you have court reporters in the same location. You can pool court reporters to cover more courtrooms. Under the realignment, they are not firing anybody, they are not terminating anyone. From a cost standpoint, this is not making any difference. The state has created a real problem for the courts. Because of the state’s dictates the courts have only a one or two percent reserve available at any time, which means they have just enough money at any time to keep operating for two weeks or at most a month. The courts cannot operate at a deficit so they have to become much more efficient to avoid the potential losses. We understand that and are more than happy to work with the courts to reduce costs and increase efficiency and avoid unnecessary costs. The private sector is much more efficient and we could go through the courthouse and see where efficiencies could make big differences.”
But Judge Slough has proven impervious to the entreaties to reconsider the realignment,  Ricks said, and no one has the leverage to prevent it from occurring.
“Basically, the public does not at this point care and has not reacted,” Ricks said. Janice Rutherford met with Judge Slough and district attorney [Mike] Ramos met with her as well as someone from sheriff’s office, all of whom encouraged her not to do this. During a walk-through of the new building, someone asked her not to do what she has said will come in May. They were told it is going to happen.  Many people express anger about it in private and in confidence, but no one wants to oppose the presiding judge.”
Once the move is made, both Ricks and Briguglio said, the public will awaken.
“For us attorneys, it will be ‘Oh, well, we get paid anyway.’” Ricks said. “It will be something way different for someone who has to travel all that distance, a 200 or 300 mile round trip. It will dawn on people then.”
Said Briguglio, “Everyone is going to have to adapt and the general public will have to deal with it as the rest of us are. My hope is as these problems arise there will be some flexibility and willingness to make adjustments for what is unexpected.”

(March 4) Over the strenuous opposition of nearby residents, the Chino Hills City Council last month opted to allow Overton Moore Properties to proceed with its high density apartment project on the east side of Butterfield Ranch Road.
The project will entail 331 apartment units on 16.5 acres. The project site is bordered on the north by the Heights Apartments complex, low density single residential homes to the south, medium density single residential homes to the west, and the 71 Freeway and Pinehurst Park, which Overton Moore is to develop as part of the project, to the east.
The property was formerly zoned service commercial and the project approval entailed a general plan amendment and a change of zoning to very high density residential. Overton Moore is involved primarily in the development of real estate for commercial purposes and acquired the property primarily because of its previous zoning. The conversion of the property to high intensity residential use is potentially as profitable for Overton Moore as developing it commercially.
According to city manager Konradt Bartlam, at the January 7 planning commission hearing for the project,   seventeen members of the community commented on the project, one speaking in favor of it and sixteen expressing concerns or in opposition.   Bartlam conceded that community concerns included  the project representing an overconcentration of multifamily residential development within the southern portion of the city, that the project was too dense and did not comply with the Chino Hills Development Code, that there is already significant traffic on adjacent roadways,  that the project would add students to the nearby already overcrowded schools, that there was inadequate onsite parking that would lead to overflow parking into the park site and into adjacent neighborhoods, that noise impacts would be onerous, that the project would result in decreased property values, and the development of the property would have effects on privacy.
But  Bartlam said “The California Department of Housing and Community Development allows cities to satisfy their Regional Housing Needs Assessment requirements by rezoning properties to a very high density, which in metropolitan areas such as southwestern San Bernardino County is a density of at least 30 dwelling units per acre.”
As approved, the development will consist of 18 buildings of 1 – 3 bedroom units. A new public street is proposed off of Butterfield Ranch Road, which will serve as the main access for the apartment development and the public park.
Gross density of the project is 20 units per acre, and net density exclusive of the 1.03 acre street and the 1.10 acre drainage channel is 23 units per acre.
The city council unanimously approved the project, pursuant to Bartlam’s recommendation, in so doing making what is called a negative declaration, that is, asserting that no unmitigated impacts to the community will come about as a consequence of the project.
One project opponent bitterly complained that the council’s action “proves that the needs of special interests trump the voice of the citizens in Chino Hills.”
The city council gave only “lip service” to its general plan and development standards, he said.
Overton Moore Chief Executive Officer  Timur Tecimer said the council’s vote drew to a close two years of needless delays over the project.

(March 4) The city of San Bernardino made its transition from the eight year-long administration of Pat Morris to that of Carey Davis on Monday.
Davis was elected with the support of Morris, turning back the candidacy of former councilman Wendy McCammack, who for the last eight years was a Morris rival. McCammack was recalled from office in November, on the same day she ironically qualified for the February mayoral run-off.
Under the stewardship of both Morris and McCammack, the county seat had not fared so well, having declared bankruptcy in 2012.
In another layer of irony, McCammack, a Republican, had been a supporter of the city’s employee unions, in particular the police and fire bargaining units, despite her party affiliation, while Morris, a Democrat, had proven a leading advocate against generous union-negotiated city employee salary and benefit contracts, which he said had led to the city’s economic decline and collapse.
Democrats are traditionally pro-union, while Republicans take a generally anti-union stance.
On his first day in office, which entailed a city council meeting following his inaugural, Davis plunged headfirst into the political fray, as the council took up his recommendation that the city create a committee to specify municipal charter changes.
Davis is looking toward changes in the city charter which lock in annual city employee salary raises. Those charter changes must be ratified by city voters and need to be placed upon the ballot. Davis hopes those proposals could come before voters as early as November.
The vote on the creation of the panel was deferred until a special meeting March 11, after the city attorney’s office pointed out that the charter review body cannot be formed as a commission without a vote of the city’s residents. Rather, it appears the council on March 11 will reconsider the matter by determining whether to create the task force as a committee.
Councilman John Valdivia, one of the few remaining Morris rivals on the council, also sought to have the format and composition of the panel reconsidered.  Davis had proposed having the council appoint representatives from the business community, city staff and citizens at large, along with a hired municipal charter “specialist.”
Valdivia indicated he wants the committee to have members appointed to it at least partially on the basis of their residency or affiliation with the city’s wards.
On Monday, the two other newest members of the city council, Benito Barrios and Henry Nickel, were sworn in.

(March 3)  The county is increasing by another $1.13 million the $1.3 million it has already paid the environmental engineering consulting firm Geo-Logic Associates  for assistance with regard to perchlorate contamination in northern Rialto.
Upon the recommendation of public works director  Gerry Newcombe, the  board of supervisors last week, in the words of Newcombe’s official staff report, approved an amendment to a contract “with Geo-Logic Associates to provide continuing and additional maintenance and operations support for the perchlorate and volatile organic compound groundwater treatment system at city of Rialto Well No. 3, in the amount of $1,131,550, increasing the total contract amount from $1,299,342 to $2,430,892, for the contract period of July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2016.”
Geo-Logic’s work is related to activities at the former Broco facility, which the county purchased two decades ago and included as part of the operations at its Mid Valley  Landfill.
In the late 1990s, a plume of contaminants containing perchlorate was found to be migrating through the local water table. It is believed that five corporate entities – Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich, and Emhart Industries – were engaged in manufacturing activities that resulted in the accumulation and release of the perchlorate.
Water agency officials, state officials and federal officials believe the county of San Bernardino may have engaged in activity that exacerbated the perchlorate problem.
The county runs the Mid-Valley Landfill in north Rialto.
Officials with the Rialto-based West Valley Water District and their lawyers have alleged that San Bernardino County razed and buried a hazardous waste-disposal facility at the site, an act those officials maintain was not only illegal but has worsened the contamination of the groundwater below Rialto.
Broco Inc. maintained the hazardous-waste disposal operation in northern Rialto from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s. The county purchased the property in 1994 and used it in the expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
According to attorney Barry Groveman, who represents the West Valley Water District, it appears the county simply knocked the hazardous waste facility down and spread the debris around before burying it. That action was against the law, Groveman said.
Groveman said the county was in violation of state hazardous waste handling regulations and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Burying hazardous waste and storing it without a permit is illegal.
In the area around the Broco site, Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich and Emhart Industries had operations that were ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Public health officials have identified that area as the origin of the plume of perchlorate.
Perchlorate is a product used in the manufacture of both fireworks and ordnance. In very minute quantities perchlorate can wreak havoc on the thyroid gland.
The site has been designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as one of its Superfund sites, which makes federal funding for the remediation available but also carries with it a requirement that the parties responsible for the contamination assist in the effort. Simultaneously, the EPA will apply the Superfund money toward the remediation. Eventually, if any of the parties deemed responsible for the contamination refuse to sponsor or otherwise pay for a share of the remediation, the EPA will sue and under federal law, any party proven responsible will be required to pay triple the cost of that portion of the clean up for which it was the contaminating party.
The ability to impose triple damages serves as an incentive for the responsible entities to undertake the clean-up on their own or participate in funding an EPA-sponsored remediation.
Previously, the city of Rialto sued BF Goodrich over the contamination issue. Rialto dropped that lawsuit after the company agreed to undertake a remediation effort. BF Goodrich did pay a total of $4 million – $1 million each to the cities of Fontana, Rialto and Colton as well as to the West Valley Water District. That money was used to treat specific wells that were producing perchlorate-laden water but did not redress the underlying problems in the aquifer. BF Goodrich, like the other companies, will yet likely be on the hook for millions of dollars more in decontamination efforts.
An EPA-designed program of remediation, consisting of contaminated water being pumped out of the ground to then be treated and distributed to water districts, is underway. It will likely take two decades or more for the perchlorate levels to be reduced to acceptable limits.
Rialto officials had initially resisted the call to have the area declared a Superfund site, largely because doing so could have a deleterious impact on property values in the area. As the expense of completing a remediation of the problem has been driven home to city officials, it is now accepted that the Superfund designation is the only realistic way of coming to terms with the problem.
The county of San Bernardino, nevertheless, has committed  several million dollars to a court battle to obtain a finding that it is not responsible for the contamination.
In May 2009, then-county counsel Ruth Stringer convinced the county board of supervisors to retain the law firm of Gallagher & Gallagher at an original cost of  $710,000. The legal services Gallagher & Gallagher was to provide pertained to allegations against the county for perchlorate contamination in connection with particular matters that fall outside of the defense work covered by the county’s insurance. Gallagher & Gallagher currently represents the county in connection with the federal and state court litigation and federal and state agencies’ investigations of the perchlorate groundwater contamination in the Rialto-Colton Basin.  Records show that so far the county has paid Gallagher & Gallagher  a total of $2,325,000 and that another law firm, Price Postel & Parma has been paid $4 million by the county for its work with regard to perchlorate contamination litigation.
According to Newcombe, “ Amending this contract allows for the continuation of certain services associated with the replacement of media, such as resin and activated carbon filters, and laboratory analysis of the groundwater treatment system samples at the perchlorate and volatile organic compound (VOC) treatment system at City of Rialto Well No. 3, through years two and three of the contract. In addition, this amendment includes laboratory analysis of the groundwater treatment system samples from the first year of the contract term to continue through years two and three, and for additional services for the repair and replacement of miscellaneous groundwater treatment system equipment, as needed, to maintain operation of the system for the remainder of the contract term.”
Newcombe said the county is working in cooperation with Santa Ana Region Water Quality Control Board and the Department of Public Health  to remediate the circumstance at the city of Rialto Well No. 3, “thus reducing the long term financial liability of the county. This amendment will ensure the county continues to meet its obligations under state-mandated Cleanup and Abatement Order No. R8-2004-0072 and the Department of Public Health permit for perchlorate and VOC related impacts to the groundwater from city of Rialto Well No. 3.
On June 25, 2013  the board of supervisors approved a sole source contract with Geologic Associates (GLA), for a three-year term to provide consulting services to conduct maintenance and operations support, groundwater monitoring and reporting related to perchlorate and VOC impacts to groundwater in the vicinity of the  landfill, and to provide review and oversight of the perchlorate and VOC removal by the groundwater treatment system at city of Rialto Well No. 3.
Newcombe told the board of supervisors, “Costs approved by amendment consist of the following: two resin replacements per year with an average cost of $119,400 per replacement; and two granular activated carbon change-outs per year with an average cost of $51,700 per change-out. In addition to media replacement costs, this amendment includes a budget of $75,000 per year to cover expenses to repair or replace miscellaneous groundwater treatment equipment. Examples of such expenses are as follows: replacement bag filters and ultra-violet unit bulbs (costing about $50 to $1,500 per order), electrical repairs required to service the system booster pump (originally costing about $65,000), variable frequency drives (originally costing about $25,000) and “CLA” valves (new cost about $15,000), flow meters (new costs about $3,500). Hence, replacement costs for such equipment  may range from $24,000 to $65,000 per item which would consume most of the annual cost  originally allocated for this task. This amendment accounts for a five percent annual increase in costs for equipment, media replacement and labor.
“Based upon the discussion above approximately $995,000 ( 88%) of the amendment increase is attributed solely to media replacement and equipment repairs and replacement,” Newcombe said.
“The term of the contract commenced on July 1, 2013 and will continue through June 30, 2016,  unless extended pursuant to contract section 29 or terminated pursuant to contract Section 7, or as otherwise provided for in the contract.”

(March 3) The county will pay a sole-source vendor $2.96 million to monitor its compliance with federal law in providing social services to its impoverished residents.
The county of San Bernardino Transitional Assistance Department  administers the Cal Works, Cal Fresh, Medi-Cal, General Relief and Child Care programs.
CalWORKs provides temporary financial assistance and employment related services to families with minor children. Homeless Assistance is included in that program.
The CalFresh program (previously Food Stamps) is a nutritional assistance program designed to help single people and families with little or no income to buy food.
The Medi-Cal program pays for health care for certain needy residents of California, including public assistance recipients.
The County General Relief (GR) program provides loan assistance to indigent individuals and families in temporary need of housing, food, and/or transportation. General Relief is the only TAD program that is totally funded, as well as administered, by the County of San Bernardino.
The Transitional Assistance Department operates a child care program funded by California Department of Social Services (CDSS). This program provides child care payments to providers on behalf of CalWORKs recipients in approved work or training programs, parents in child protective services cases, and the working poor.
Last week, at the recommendation of Nancy Swanson, the director of the county Transitional Assistance Department, the board of supervisors approved a contract with Exemplar Human Services, LLC “to provide customized automated performance management monitoring reports and services in the amount of $2,961,999 for the total contract period of March 1, 2014 through February 28, 2017.”
Swanson said Exemplar will provide “analytic  performance management services,” which she described as a “web-based subscription service” that will give her department “the necessary tools to enhance overall performance in order to meet mandated program requirements and improve service delivery and accuracy of benefits provided to eligible residents of San Bernardino County. The  reports provide work lists for specific categories, caseload activities, and statistics that show key ratios related to specific operations at all levels of the organization. This information allows executive staff, managers, supervisors, and line staff to monitor performance and manage daily caseload activities. In an effort to meet mandated performance standards, the Transitional Assistance Department  must have a reliable system to effectively monitor mandated program requirements, including timely processing of status reports, redeterminations of eligibility, and various other caseload activities related to administration of the programs.”
Swanson continued, “The Transitional Assistance Department utilizes the Statewide Automated Welfare System (C-IV) eligibility system to manage caseloads and associated tasks. However, C-IV is not currently programmed to provide the Transitional Assistance Department with reports necessary to effectively monitor performance and manage workload activities and productivity. Therefore, the Transitional Assistance Department, as a C-IV county, has had to purchase these services from another vendor. Exemplar is the only vendor currently providing these services in California.”
According to Swanson, “Exemplar specializes in providing analytical services to public assistance, Welfare to Work, and human services agencies nationwide to monitor and analyze key elements of performance.”
County spokesman  David Wert told the Sentinel  Exemplar Human Services will “measure the performance of employees who process these benefits. All of the various programs are federal programs the county is required to carry out at the local level. Along with providing the county with the funds for the benefits, the federal government requires that the county processing of the recipients and management of the programs be maintained at a certain level. The county does not have a way to measure this performance in giving out these benefits. This will allow the federal government to measure the county’s performance in administering these programs and will provide the federal government with a report to show how well the county is managing these federal mandates.”

(March 3) Family, friends, associates and acquaintances participated in a remembrance for former San Bernardino County Supervisor Jon Mikels       at the Upland Brethren in Christ Church on March 1.
Mikels passed away on December 31.
More than a hundred attended the memorial service, which was held at the house of worship in Upland where Mikels married Marjorie Musser four decades ago.
Marjorie Mikels and her three children with Jon – Angela Dunning, Jessica Appelgren and Amanda Mikels Vigdal – offered their vision of their husband and father, panegyrizing him as a community leader who had risen to the challenge of guiding an explosively growing community in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s.
Jon Mikels was a member of the charter Rancho Cucamonga City Council when that city formed in 1977. At the age of 30, he placed fifth in a field of 36 candidates. He was later selected by his council colleagues in 1982 to serve as mayor. In 1986, he challenged and defeated incumbent Second District Supervisor Cal McElwain.
Mikels made his mark as chairman of the board of supervisors and as chair of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. He took the lead with respect to several regional planning issues, having co-sponsored the effort to approve Measure I, which imposed a half-cent countywide sales tax to pay for traffic improvements. He also sought to protect the right-of-way for what was then called the Highway 20 corridor and which is now the extension of the 210 Freeway from La Verne to San Bernardino.
Dunning, who is now an attorney working in San Francisco, said that as a child she had not realized the magnitude of the public issues her father was involved in. “All I knew as a kid growing up was I had a big, strong dad who was always there to protect us or scare us if we got out of line.”
Dunning said her father “wasn’t interested in being famous or being a politician.” Rather, she said, he “had a vision. He saw what this community could be and he saw what the county could be if we worked together and actually thought about the future and how to plan ahead.”
Marjorie Mikels credited him with instigating progressive action on the board of supervisors, even though he had not always initially embraced the ideas of his more liberal-minded constituents.
Like her daughters, Marjorie Mikels said her husband relished the role of being a “farmer.” After he would return from work and take off his business suit, which she referred to as his professional “costume,” she said he would delight in pruning the fruit trees on their property, many of which he had planted himself.
Among those paying their respects were Jeffrey King, who succeeded Mikels as mayor of Rancho Cucamonga and then went on to become a Superior Court judge and is now serving on the appellate court; former supervisor Dennis Hansberger; and Dennis Stout, who succeeded King as Rancho Cucamonga mayor and went on to become county district attorney.
Stout remembered Mikels as a “larger than life figure.”
Perhaps the most poignant tribute to Mikels was made by his boyhood friend, Don Robertson, who first encountered Jon Mikels, he said, when Mikels was about nine years old and living in the Los Angeles County community of Herman Valley. He said that Mikels was highly competitive, having committed to memory all the defensive and offensive plays possible in a primitive toy football game set they played as youngsters. He said that Mikels was a star basketball player whose skill eclipsed that of another local basketball luminary, Jim Marsh, who went on to play at Pasadena City College, USC and with the Seattle Supersonics.  Mikels’ college and professional basketball aspirations were thwarted, Robertson said, by a vindictive former coach who had Mikels suspended from the high school athletic federation on the basis of his having not met residency requirements at the high school he had transferred to. Basketball would have diverted Mikels from his true calling, Robertson said, which was serving as an elected official.
“The NBA’s loss was your gain,” Robertson said
Robertson then recited two poems that took Jon Mikels as their topic.
The first was one written by Mikels’ friend, Ron Evans, who grew up with Jon and later lived near Mikels in the community of Bandon, Oregon, where he had retired and ultimately passed into eternity.
Robertson declaimed:
“We were not like minded, you and I
Almost polar opposites, truth be told…
I, in my desire for purposes beyond view,
Would in flights of fancy pass through reality’s bounds
Often blurting out what to both of us was nonsense.
We were not like minded, you and I
Almost polar opposites, truth be told …
You, so self assured in the sweep of your grasp
You, not trusting what could not be verified
Restrained by tangible matter
Beyond which we did not speak.
Yet both of us were amazed and speechless
And so we would often sit silently
Just glorying in the truth of now.”
Robertson then recited his own composition, Big Bad Jon.
It goes:
“He stood tall and stout and strong
But one day he finally fell.
Friends once called him Big Bad Jon.
In the end, the weight of living would tell.
He liked to live in splendid isolation
But with arms spread wide to welcome a friend.
The visage of loved ones were his consolation
And their every need he did attend.
He once had been a political man
Who fought to make fairness abound.
One day he took a courageous stand
And a pack of crooks brought him down.
Three marvelous daughters he left behind
Who are jewels of achievement and grace.
A finer legacy one could never find
And they mourn he left in haste.
Jon trudged through his last years a lonely man.
The love of his life was gone.
It was a constant pain he could barely stand
But he carried on, smiling and strong.
Friends came together to say goodbye
In his chosen town, Bandon-by-the- Sea.
We joined with his family to laugh
And to cry and to celebrate
All that Big Jon loved to be.”

By clicking on the following portal, you can access a copy of the February 28 Sentinel.

Sentinel 02-28-14

February 25)  The county of San Bernardino has moved to claim $33,818,415 it maintains it is due back from the state in the aftermath of the shuttering of its redevelopment agency in 2011.
In 2011, the state legislature at Governor Jerry Brown’s instigation passed legislation, ABX1 26, closing out the more than 400 municipal and county redevelopment agencies in California.
Redevelopment agencies were formerly adjuncts to local governments which were chartered to reduce blight in those communities and generate economic development. They were empowered to utilize money available from the state and federal government, otherwise obtain loans or financing, or to use their own authority to issue bonds, the proceeds from which were used to eliminate blight and build infrastructure. The improvements from this redevelopment activity would then, theoretically, result in an increase in the value of the property within those redevelopment agency project areas. The increased property tax revenue from those areas would  be used to pay back the loans or debt service the bonds, that is, pay the bondholders.
The law called for the creation of successor agencies to the defunct redevelopment agencies, which would then oversee the discharging of the redevelopment agencies’ debt.
This week, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement between the successor agency to the county redevelopment agency and the county to have the successor agency pay back $12,180,971 in outstanding loans from the county to its redevelopment agency. Those loans included one to the Cedar Glen Redevelopment Project Area of $10,365,000 and another to the Mission Blvd. Redevelopment Project Area of $50,000. In addition to principal on those loans, the first had accrued $1,755,628 in interest to reflect a debt of $12,120,628 and the second had accrued  $10,343 in interest to reach a total debt of $60,343.
The county claims that under a law passed after the redevelopment agencies were closed out, Assembly Bill 1484, the obligations the loans involved could be reestablished if it is demonstrated the loans were made for a legitimate redevelopment purpose.
Those loans thus now stand as enforceable obligations, according to the county, and the California Department of Finance is obliged to make those payments in full to the county.
Furthermore, according to the county, it is applying to have the successor agency to its redevelopment agency transfer all remaining funds, estimated to be $21,637,444 of outstanding successor agency bond proceeds to the county relating to bonds issued for redevelopment efforts in Cedar Glen and San Sevaine.
Cedar Glen lies within the San Bernardino Mountains and San Sevaine is in the unincorporated area between and north of the Rancho Cucamonga/Fontana city limits.
According to Dena Fuentes, the director of the San Bernardino County Department of Community Development and Housing, the aforementioned Assembly Bill 1484 gives the board of supervisors the authority to “act as the governing body of the successor agency to the redevelopment agency of the county of San Bernardino [to] adopt a resolution approving the agreement regarding expenditure of bond proceeds between the successor agency to the redevelopment agency of the county of San Bernardino and the county of San Bernardino  for the transfer of all remaining funds, estimated to be $21,637,444 of outstanding successor’s agency bond proceeds to the county, to be expended in a manner consistent with original bond covenants.”
That money, Fuentes said, included $4,756,226 in Cedar Glen Tax Exempt Bonds, $3,810,122 in San Sevaine Tax Exempt Bonds, and $13,071,096 in San Sevaine Taxable Bonds.

(February 25)  After years of delays, the county board of supervisors this week officially committed to relocating the sheriff’s department’s aviation division from Rialto Airport to San Bernardino International Airport.
Upon the recommendation of David Slaughter, the director of the county’s real estate department, and sheriff John McMahon, the county entered into a 25-year lease and fuel service agreement with the San Bernardino International Airport Authority for an approximately 61,640  square foot aviation facility consisting of a 27,500 square foot aircraft maintenance hangar, a 22,500 square foot storage hangar and 11,640 square feet of office space on approximately eight acres of land.
The county also signed a work agreement with the authority for the completion of 348,639 square feet of site work improvements.
San Bernardino International Airport is located on the grounds of the now shuttered Norton Air Force Base, lying between the cities of Highland and San Bernardino and north of Loma Linda. The airport is owned and operated by a joint powers agency, the San Bernardino International Airport Authority, which consists of the county of San Bernardino, and the cities of Highland, Colton, Loma Linda and San Bernardino.
According to a report to the board of supervisors jointly submitted by McMahon and Slaughter, “This item is for a twenty-five year lease with San Bernardino International Airport Authority for a new aviation facility for the sheriff consisting of 50,000 square feet of hangar space for aircraft storage and maintenance, 11,640 square feet for office space and other aviation related site improvements on approximately eight acres located at San Bernardino International Airport in San Bernardino because of the need to relocate from the soon-to-be closed Rialto Municipal Airport and provide additional hangar and office space to accommodate the expanded aviation needs of the sheriff.”
On July 5, 1977, the board of supervisors approved a twenty-year lease agreement with the city of Rialto for 6.77 acres of land at the Rialto Municipal Airport for rent of $1 per year. The county constructed a 12,750 square foot aviation facility for the sheriff to store and maintain fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, and conduct aviation operations. In the thirty-seven years since the lease was originally approved, the board approved two amendments adding language regarding use of the airport and extend the term thirty years to the current lease termination date of June 30, 2027.
In 2007, however, the continuation of the sheriff’s department’s aviation operations at Rialto Airport was attenuated when the city of Rialto and its redevelopment agency entered into a development agreement with Hillwood/Lewis, LLC, pursuant to which the Rialto Municipal Airport would be decommissioned and the site redeveloped for non-aviation related uses.
At that point the county’s real estate services department and the sheriff began searching for a new location from which its aviation division, the 28th largest air fleet in the world, could be operated. According to McMahon and Slaughter, “The parameters for the search were based on response times, weather conditions (ground fog, wind), sufficient ground to construct a larger facility to provide on-going maintenance and storage for ten helicopters, four fixed wing aircraft and six command post/trailer vehicles, and the overall cost for a new facility.”
San Bernardino International Airport, Chino Airport, Ontario International Airport and a site in Redlands were identified as potential locations for a new facility. County chief executive officer Greg Devereux was a strong proponent for basing the sheriff’s air fleet at Chino Airport. All other participants in the process, however, favored San Bernardino International Airport, which was determined to be the best location and to have the best weather conditions for deployment in response to calls to the sheriff for aviation assistance, 71% of which are for services in the east end of the San Bernardino Valley. On April 6, 2011, the county administrative office approved Capital Improvement Program request No.11-188, submitted by the sheriff for a new aviation facility in San Bernardino consisting of approximately 39,000 square feet of hangar space, 16,000 square feet of office space and 4,200 square feet of shop space. Another factor emerged in headquartering the sheriff’s aviation division in San Bernardino. The sheriff’s emergency operations division includes both the aviation and volunteer forces units. The emergency operations division has forty-four full-time personnel and oversees over 2,000 reservists, citizens on patrol, and other volunteers throughout the county. The emergency operations division provides aviation support to all agencies in the county and handles major disaster and large scale search and rescue operations. The volunteer forces unit is currently located at sheriff headquarters in San Bernardino.
According to McMahon and Slaughter, “Operationally and in the event of an emergency, it is ideal to have both units, aviation and volunteer forces, located in one facility and under one  unified command structure. Consequently, the emergency operations division will also be located in the new aviation facility at San Bernardino International Airport.”
Despite the paltry $1 per year lease payments the county is making to Rialto for the use of the facilities at Rialto Municipal Airport, Rialto is required to provide relocation compensation and assistance to the existing tenants because of its closing. In order to provide a facility of like size and cover moving costs, Rialto offered to pay the county $4,121,878, which the real estate services department and sheriff staff determined to be reasonable. The $4,121,878 payment will be deposited into a Federal Aviation Administration required escrow account and disbursed directly to San Bernardino International Airport Authority as part of the $9,600,000 prepaid rent for the new sheriff aviation facility.
The twenty-five year lease agreement includes five five-year options to extend the term and will commence upon completion and issuance of a certificate of occupancy for the 50,000 square feet of hangar space, the 11,640 square feet of office space and site improvements. The rent for the hangar and office buildings for the initial term of twenty-five years is $9,600,000 and will be paid in full upon completion of the facilities and commencement of the initial twenty-five year lease term.
The initial ground rent for the eight acres for the first five years of the lease term is $6,850 per month. After the initial twenty-five year lease term and upon exercising one or more of five five-year options to extend the term, the county can acquire the hangar and office buildings for $100. The county will be required to continue to pay ground rent during any extended term. The lease is exempt from requirements of County Policy 08-02-01 regarding leasing privately owned real property for county use because San Bernardino International Airport Authority is a public entity.

(February 25)  David Lewis, a third generation member of the Lewis Homes homebuilding and shopping center development dynasty, was driven to suicide in 2010 by pressure put on him by district attorney Mike Ramos to act as a cooperating witness against members of his family, according to a lawsuit filed by his widow and surviving son.
Lewis Operating Corporation and the Lewis Group of Companies today stand as two of the premier business operations in San Bernardino County. They are the corporate successors to Lewis Homes, which was founded in Claremont in 1955 by Ralph Lewis, an attorney, and his wife Goldy. Starting with small subdivisions, to which he had his wife devoted intense focus with regard to design and living space detail, Ralph Lewis gradually expanded the company’s operation to involve larger and larger development projects.
By the 1970s, Lewis Homes, which had relocated its corporate headquarters to Upland, had grown to become one of Southern California’s major homebuilders. In the 1980s, the company became known for its large master planned developments, involving specific plans that included homes, retail centers, schools and parks. By 1990, Lewis Homes was the single largest homebuilder in the western San Bernardino County cities of Ontario, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, and the torch had been passed to the second generation of the Lewis family – sons Richard, Randall, Robert and Roger –  who guided the company’s scope of operations beyond California to Nevada, Arizona and Utah and transformed the paradigm of Lewis Homes to include an array of partnerships and ventures falling under the umbrella of the Lewis Group of Companies. Now in its 59th year, the Lewis juggernaut has completed the development of 56,000 homes, 10,000 apartments and 14 million square feet of retail, office, and industrial space.
With the march of time, two members among the third generation of the Lewis Family were stepping into the shoes of their forebears, David Lewis and Jennifer Lewis, the son and daughter of Richard Lewis. Jennifer, with a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning and development from the University of Southern California, was involved in the planning of new development projects.
David, who graduated cum laude with a B.A. in business economics and accounting from UCLA and went on to obtain a masters degree in real estate development with a specialization in finance and construction management from the University of Southern California,  had acceded to become the executive vice president of the Lewis Group of Companies, overseeing both land acquisition and obtaining building entitlements in Nevada and Southern California.  He had also worked closely with his uncle Randall on the marketing of the company’s various proposed and completed projects, such as in March 2009, when the two made a presentation to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council relating to a proposal by a consortium the company had formed with several other developers known as  Rancho Partners with regard to that group’s plans to acquire 1,400 acres of surplus flood control district property within and straddling Rancho Cucamonga’s city limits and subdivide it for both residential and commercial use.
By 2008, David Lewis was at the seeming pinnacle of success and was being groomed as the heir apparent to succeed his father as the head of the company. Along the way, he was elected to the board of directors of the Baldy View Chapter of the Building Industry Association, was a member of the Urban Land Institute, a member of the National Association of Office and Industrial Properties, as well as a member of USC’s Graduate Real Estate Association.
Married and with a young son he had named after his grandfather Ralph, David was working in large part out of the company office in Las Vegas where he had established a second home, though he continued to have a role in pursuing business for the company elsewhere.
Sometime in 2009, however, his life took a sharp turn downward, subjecting him to heretofore unimaginable and, apparently unbearable, pressure. That pressure included an intensifying battle with drug addiction, pending criminal charges and the attempts by law enforcement to subjugate him into a role of informant against friends and acquaintances, politicians with whom his business dealings had brought him into contact, others in the building industry, and, worse still, members of his own family.
While the precise set of circumstances that led David Lewis into the depth of despair have long been shrouded, that fog has now begun to lift.
What is established is that on June 22, 2010, he returned to his Las Vegas Vegas home and, according to the Las Vegas Metro Police, used a shotgun to kill himself.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office ruled the death a suicide.
On July 11, 2011, Lewis’ widow Rachel and son Ralph Lewis filed a lawsuit in San Bernardino County Superior Court naming the county of San Bernardino, state of California Highway Patrol, San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos, a State Highway Patrol officer identified only by his last name, Bissett, and three San Bernardino County sheriff’s department employees.
Rachel and Ralph Lewis are represented in the suit by New York-based attorney Paul L. Mills.
According to the lawsuit, between June 6, 2010 and ending on June 22, 2010, Lewis “undertook a series of actions whose combined goal and intention was to commit suicide. During this period he (Lewis) was subjected to coercion by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, defendant District Attorney Mike Ramos and other San Bernardino County employees, against decedent, to cooperate in an investigation of his family, including by wearing a concealed electronic recording device and other actions, when these defendants knew or should have known that, due to his vulnerable mental condition, this coercion was reasonably likely to cause decedent substantial or permanent mental injury, or cause him to take his own life.”
The complaint highlights the fact that Lewis was arrested the day prior to his death. On June 21, 2010, Lewis was pulled-over by a CHP Officer on Interstate 15, and subsequently arrested for being under the influence of drugs. Several hours later, Lewis was released from the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
The complaint states that approximately 12 hours after his arrest, at or about 11:00 a.m., Lewis killed himself.
The lawsuit contends that the Lewis family was, at the time of Lewis’ suicide, under investigation by the San Bernardino County District Attorney.
During the last seven to eight months of his life, there were indicators that David Lewis was working with either the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office or another prosecutorial or investigative agency,  meeting with or phoning witnesses and criminal suspects and their associates, seeking information and statements that would be of use in constructing any of a number of public corruption cases. The district attorney’s office has not confirmed or denied that Lewis was acting in any such capacity.
Some public officials were completely unsuspecting of Lewis. Others grew wary of him and his approaches. It is unknown what information he may have been successful in garnering. With his passing, he will not be available to testify against anyone, though it is conceivable that audio recordings made of conversations he had with various individuals might yet be produced as evidence against some targets of those investigations where criminal charges have already been filed. The three-year statute of limitations has elapsed against any targets not already charged.
Rancho Cucamonga city councilman Rex Gutierrez, who was charged by the district attorney’s office and subsequently convicted of theft, fraud and conspiracy for working on personal and politically-related issues while employed at the county assessor’s office, told the Sentinel in an article published on July 9, 2010 and before his conviction in 2010 that he considered David Lewis, with whom he had become acquainted over the previous  several years, something of a friend. But they were not overly close, Gutierrez said. Early in 2010, Lewis evinced an increased interest in speaking and meeting with him, Gutierrez reported. The timing of this coincided with Gutierrez’s progress toward trial on the charges of which he was eventually convicted and which were filed against him in 2009. The first trial held on the matter ended in a mistrial on June 30, 2010, eight days after Lewis’s death. Gutierrez was convicted at a second trial in October 2010.
The district attorney’s case consisted of allegations that Gutierrez had voted favorably as a Rancho Cucamonga city councilman on projects by developer Jeff Burum and that Burum had essentially rewarded or bribed Gutierrez by interceding with then-county assessor Bill Postmus, to whom Burum had delivered over $400,000 in political contributions, to hire Gutierrez into a no-work assignment at the assessor’s office. After a two week trial and less than three days of deliberations, the jury deadlocked.
In the  weeks and months before the trial, David Lewis made repeated contact with Gutierrez, inquiring about how the preparation for his trial was going and other issues involving Burum.
“I felt it was amazing how he would call me so often and ask questions about the Colonies and my involvement with Jeff Burum. I didn’t think about it at the time, but in retrospect I think it is conceivable he was looking for information that might have been of use in my prosecution or in a case the district attorney’s office wants to make against Jeff Burum. I really didn’t get too deep into it with him. I pretty much told him I didn’t think Jeff had done anything illegal and said I didn’t know of anything inappropriate that went on.”
Gutierrez’s reference to the Colonies is to The Colonies at San Antonio project, which was undertaken by a company co-managed by Burum, the Colonies Partners. In 2002 the Colonies Partners sued the county over flood control issues at the Colonies project, located in northeastern Upland and in 2006, that lawsuit was resolved by a controversial 3-2 vote of the board of supervisors to confer a $102 million settlement on the Colonies Partners. That vote was supported by then-supervisor Bill Postmus, and supervisors Gary Ovitt and Paul Biane. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and the California Attorney General’s Office indicted Postmus and Jim Erwin, a former president of the San Bernardino County sheriff’s  deputies union who served as a consultant to the Colonies Partners during their efforts to settle their lawsuit against the county and who was later hired by Postmus as assistant assessor, charging them with involvement in an extortion, bribery and conspiracy scheme in connection with the $102 million settlement and Burum’s provision of four separate $100,000 contributions to political action committees controlled by Postmus and Erwin, as well as Paul Biane, and Mark Kirk, Ovitt’s then-chief of staff. Postmus subsequently pleaded guilty to all charges against him and turned state’s evidence. A superseding indictment named Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk, charging them with bribery and conspiracy in relation to the settlement.
In the earlier referenced July  9, 2010 Sentinel article, Erwin said that the month before the original February 2010 criminal indictment was handed down he received a call out of the blue from David Lewis. The call was both unexpected and unwelcome, Erwin said, in that there was no particular affection between him and Lewis and indeed some small degree of tension in their relationship, in that his affiliation with Burum and his company, which to a certain extent has had a historical rivalry with the Lewis Group of Companies, put him at odds with Lewis.
“He told me he had some Lakers tickets and that he would send a limousine out to pick me up so we could go to the game together,” Erwin said. “I didn’t really consider him to be a friend or even an acquaintance. I didn’t think it was a good idea. It occurred to me, and seemed more likely, that he would be wearing a wire. I mean, this phone call came out of nowhere. I politely told him, ‘No, thanks.’ It’s one thing to go out on the town with someone for a fun evening,  but something again when they are trying to record you.”
David Lewis on multiple occasions over the last six months of his life was witnessed in the company of Upland Mayor John Pomierski, who, was eventually, in March 2011, indicted by a federal grand jury on political corruption charges involving, bribery, extortion and money laundering. He subsequently pleaded guilty and is now serving time in a federal penitentiary.
Lewis Homes, with its corporate headquarters in Upland, has historically been one of the major residential developers in the city.  The Lewis Operating Company and the Lewis Group of Companies and their principals had been major donors to Pomierski’s electioneering funds over the ten years he was in office.
Exactly what information was exchanged between Pomierski and young Lewis during their various huddling sessions is not publicly known. The exchanges, at the time they were taking place, were viewed simply by many as innocent social contacts between the up and coming developer and an established older, and more gregarious, political hand. Nevertheless, the FBI focus on potential political corruption involving Pomierski and reports that developers were being shaken down for kickbacks or having their projects and proposals benefited by upfront under the table payments made many developers doing business on the west end of San Bernardino County in general and in the City of Gracious Living in particular, very nervous.
David Lewis may have taken to his grave specific knowledge about any such kickbacks if indeed he ever had such knowledge at all.
The reason for Lewis’ apparent cooperation with law enforcement authorities is not entirely clear. For some time, his drug use was whispered about in rarified quarters of the community. His arrest by the CHP  gave credence to those subliminal suspicions. Such a proclivity, augmented by a sub rosa arrest, could have given the district attorney’s office or the FBI leverage with which to secure his cooperation in their investigations.
Perhaps of relevance is the possibility that he had either fear, or direct or indirect knowledge, of facts related to the FBI’s inquiry and where it might lead and was potentially personally caught up in the investigation into allegations of kickbacks and bribery involving developers and local elected officials.
In the lawsuit filed on behalf of his widow and son, however, the only reference to his acting as an informant is on behalf of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, not the FBI or U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“There was a state-created danger as to the district attorney, because he [Mike Ramos] coerced the decedent into conduct that pushed him in his fragile condition of mental disability into becoming suicidal. This affirmative action left him in a worse condition and caused his death,” a filing made on December 1, 2011 in U.S. District Court states.
That filing came after the case was transferred on October 4, 2011, pursuant to a motion by the county, to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Eastern Division, due to the federal causes of action listed in the lawsuit.
In addition to claiming that Ramos and district attorneys’ office subjected David Lewis to psychological pressure that led to his suicide, the suit also propounds the theory that the CHP and the sheriff’s department acted with callous disregard to David Lewis’ safety and wellbeing because several items indicating he was suicidal were found in his car at the time of his arrest, including books about committing suicide and the use of a firearm, as well as containers of a prescription drug used for the treatment of a mental disability.
On December 14, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips dismissed the civil rights claims, and remanded the case back to the state superior court to hear the wrongful death claim.
On January 9, 2012, Phillips’ decision was appealed by the Lewises.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on February 24 issued a decision denying the appeal and upholding Phillips, in effect returning the case to West Valley Superior Court for litigation regarding the wrongful death allegations minus the civil rights violations aspects contained in the complaint. The state court action had been stayed pending the ruling from the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that despite David Lewis’s “erratic driving and materials in the car suggesting suicide,” there were insufficient grounds “to plausibly allege that an officer conducting a routine DUI arrest was deliberately indifferent to a suicidal arrestee.”
The Lewises have two weeks from February 24 to request another hearing before a circuit court judge panel or appeal the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and special damages against the county and state, and punitive and exemplary damages against the individual defendants.