(February 18)  HESPERIA—The defunct Rancho Las Flores project, which was originally projected to result in the construction of 9,100 residential units in Summit Valley, has been resurrected by its current corporate successor as a three-phase 19,396 home development.
Shortly after the city of Hesperia’s 1987 incorporation, the Dana Point-based ARC Las Flores Corporation sought city approval of the 10,000-acre property at the city’s extreme south end that consisted of the 490-acre Las Flores Ranch and several adjacent parcels, including Bureau of Land Management property obtained through a series of land swaps.
Hesperia’s first city manager, Robert Rizzo, convinced members of the city’s maiden city council – Percy Bakker, George Beardsley and Bruce Kitchen, among them – that the project would generate economic development and create neighborhoods to rival those in upscale Orange County. Within two years, under Rizzo’s guidance as well as that of Hesperia Planning Director Rob Zuel, the scope of the project grew and in 1990, the city approved the Rancho Las Flores specific plan, which called for development of 15,540 housing units in eight phases.
The project never got off the drawing boards, however, and suffered setbacks after Zuel left the city in 1991, followed by Rizzo’s demise as city manager in 1992 following revelations about his illicit efforts to filter money from Orange County development interests into the campaign coffers of council member candidates amenable to the aggressive development proposals that would have doubled the city’s population.
The proposal remained active under succeeding city managers and the guidance of community development director Tom Harp and principal planner Dave Reno, but encountered significant challenges that retarded its progression, such as the economic downturn of 1991 and 1992, the listing of three species that inhabited the property – the  arroyo toad, the Least Bell’s Vireo and the willow flycatcher – as endangered.
In 1993, the project encountered a significant roadblock when the city of Barstow filed a lawsuit against upstream water users along the Mojave River, resulting in protracted litigation over water rights. The lawsuit led to a stipulated settlement in 2000 among the municipal and other water rights holders within the Mojave River Basin and a water allotment to Hesperia that brought into question whether Hesperia would have access to enough water to allow the project to proceed. The city subsequently sought to secure the project’s viability through the purchase of $30 million in water rights, deemed sufficient for ARC Las Flores’ purposes. The developers also obtained from the federal government clearance to proceed with the project subject to certain habitat protections for the endangered species living upon the property.
That ten year delay, however, resulted in the expiration of the project’s specific plan and its environmental impact report, requiring ARC Las Flores to reformulate those documents, which were not finalized until 2008. By that point, the economic downturn of 2007 inhibited progress on the project and in 2012 ARC Las Flores declared bankruptcy. Texas-based Terra Verde Group last year purchased the 10,000 acres for roughly $45 million.
The company has since rechristened the Rancho Las Flores project as the Tapestry Project, by which it intends to maintain the eight-phase nature of the undertaking.
Last month, Terra Verde’s director of development, John Ohanian, gave indication to the Hesperia City Council his company is now purposed to proceed with the project.  Without defining the terms he was using, Ohanian said the density of the residential units would fall in the “low-to-medium” range. The currently applicable specific plan calls for the construction of 11 schools on 207 acres,  372 acres of recreation facilities, two mixed-use town centers on 137 acres, public and civic buildings and a wastewater facility.
The project would retain an element of the historical nature of the property, with a portion of the residential neighborhoods being reserved for equestrian use and a 114-acre trail system built into the overall project as open space.
The massive subdivision would have three major points of access, including Ranchero Road and  State Routes 138 and 173, together with four lesser methods of ingress and egress, including the extensions of Summit Valley Road and Maple and Santa Fe avenues.

(February 20)  The federal government has given go-ahead to another large solar project at the extreme northeast end of San Bernardino County.
Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc.  is the proponent on the 2.6 square mile Stateline Solar Project, which is to be located just west of the California/Nevada border near Primm, Nevada. In giving its blessing to the Stateline Project, which is to lie within San Bernardino County, the Barack Obama Administration also endorsed First Solar, Inc.’s Silverstate South Project proposal, an even larger 3.8 square mile project east of Primm in Nevada.
Both are within the Ivanpah Valley, which occupies portions of both California and Nevada.
On December 30, BrightSource Energy Company’s $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the largest solar project ever built, went online. It is located about five miles from the Nevada border, some fifty miles northwest of Needles. It was tied into the state’s power grid last September.
BrightSource’s project consists of 173,500 heliostats, paired mirrors that track the sun and focus the captured thermal energy onto a 459-foot tall tower to produce heat to boil water to create steam to run an electricity-producing turbine, putting out 377 megawatts, enough electricity to meet the needs of 140,000 California homes.
First Solar’s Stateline project will likewise utilize mirrors and the sun to generate heat and run a steam turbine, thereby yielding roughly 223 megawatts, adequate electricity for 82,800 households.
While federal officials and some environmentalists are enthusiastic about the prospect of the availability of copious quantities of energy derived from essentially non-polluting solar fields, some environmentalists had opposed the project on the grounds that the massive undertaking would destroy habitat of the desert tortoise and other wildlife, interrupt or disconnect the passages by which wildlife transit in the desert, and compromise the majestic vistas from the nearby Mojave National Preserve as well as ones of the Soda Mountains, Silurian Valley and the Chuckwalla Valley.
The National Parks Conservation Association, the Western Watersheds Project and Defenders of Wildlife went on record against the approval of both of First Solar’s projects. During the five-year long application process for the projects, First Solar agreed to requirements by both the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that it acquire and set aside 7,200 acres of desert tortoise habitat elsewhere and bankroll $7 million in tortoise protection efforts.

(February 19)  Republican Congressman Gary Miller’s announced decision last week to not seek reelection in the Democratic-leaning 31st District has prompted three members of the GOP to step up in an effort to succeed him, despite the obvious disadvantage any member of their party will have in this year’s electoral contest.
Miller, who has been in Congress since 1999, decided not to seek an eighth term in Congress at least in part because his own electoral chances in the 31st were grim. Miller’s capture of the seat in 2012 was something of a fluke.
In 2012, California had switched to an open primary system, which ended sequestered party ballots and effectively brought to a close the tradition of guaranteeing that a Democrat would face a Republican in the November general election.
After the redistricting that followed the 2010 Census, the 31st District encompasses parts of Upland and Rancho Cucamonga, and stretches eastward across San Bernardino County through a large portion of Fontana, Rialto, Colton, San Bernardino and Redlands. Miller, whose previous district, the 41st, covered the southwestern portion of San Bernardino County and southeast Los Angeles County and northeast Orange County, was apportioned into other districts already held by Republican lawmakers after the 2010 Census. He chose to run in the 31st, gambling that his fundraising ability as an incumbent would offset the Democratic registration advantage his opponent would enjoy.
Members of Congress do not need to live in their district and are eligible for election as long as they live within the state they represent in Washington, D.C.
As it turned out, four relatively unknown Democrats – Pete Aguilar, Justin Kim, Rita Ramirez-Dean, and Renea Wickman – joined Miller in the 2012 31st  District race. In addition, another Republican, Bob Dutton, entered the fray in the 2012 primary. Despite the seven percent Democratic voter registration advantage in the 31st, simple mathematics hurt the Democrats as their vote was divided four ways, while the Republican vote was split two ways. Dutton and Miller proved to be the two top vote-getters and under California’s open primary arrangement, the November general election came down to a race between Republicans Miller and Dutton. Miller prevailed in that race.
For solid reasons, the Democrats consider the 31st District to be one that should naturally fall to them. Of the district’s registered voters, 127,690 or 41 percent, are affiliated with the Democratic Party.  Registered Republicans in the district number 104,938, or 33.7 percent. Independent political appraisers see the 31st as a Democratic asset as well.
Even  before Miller defeated Dutton in 2012, Democratic strategists set their sights on the 31st District and Miller, determined to prevent the disarray that tripped their party up in 2012 being repeated again. In short order, a game plan was hatched by which Aguilar, who had polled the most votes among the four Democrats in the 2012 primary, was chosen as the logical party standard bearer. By promoting Aguilar early, engaging in brisk fundraising on his behalf and warding off any other Democrats so a concentrated party electoral effort to advance Aguilar can be mounted, they believed Aguilar could beat Miller in a toe-to-toe slugfest in November 2014, despite Miller’s incumbency and formidable fundraising capability.
Consequently, Aguilar has been the beneficiary of a concerted Democratic fundraising and endorsement effort on his behalf. Seeing the writing on the wall, Miller opted out of the equation, announcing earlier this month that he was leaving Congress to devote time to his family.
Either lacking the political sense Miller possesses or possessed of determination to show the GOP flag no matter how dire their prospects, three Republicans – San Bernardino County Councilman John Valdivia, perennial elected office candidate Paul Chabot and Miller’s senior policy director Lesli Gooch, have issued announcements that they will test the waters in this year’s 31st Congressional District Primary.
Valdivia who last year handily beat an effort by a Democratic Party-affiliated group of local political activists to recall him from office, indicated that as an Hispanic Republican he believes he stands a fair chance of success given the demographics of the district.
Chabot is an anti-drug crusader who claims to have been one of the youngest drug addicts on record before he underwent rehab at the age of 13. He has served as a reservist in both the sheriff’s department and Navy and saw active duty in Iraq. Chabot previously sought election to the California Assembly and was actively campaigning to become assemblyman upon Mike Morrell’s anticipated departure from the Assembly to succeed resigned State Senator Bill Emmerson when Miller announced he would not run for reelection. Chabot initially indicated he would support Bob Dutton in his ambition to succeed Miller. After Dutton gave indication he would continue to pursue his previously announced decision to be elected county assessor, Chabot abruptly abandoned his pursuit of the assembly spot and jumped into the 31st Congressional District race.
Reminding the electorate that he is the most conservative of the candidates in the field, Chabot said, “This seat is too important to lose to a career politician who will give us more of the same – empty promises and failed results. Americans deserve elected officials who are willing to place the needs of the people they represent before partisan bickering in order to get things done.”
He claimed the endorsements of former Congressman Jerry Lewis and current Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford.
Gooch launched her campaign with an endorsement from Miller.
“Lesli has spent the past 15 years on Capitol Hill fighting for San Bernardino County families,” Miller said. “Lesli has worked tirelessly developing programs to ensure safe, decent, and affordable housing opportunities for Inland Empire families; securing funding and administrative victories to improve our streets and schools; and fighting to ensure Inland Empire small businesses thrive and create good paying jobs.”
Saying she was “disappointed” that Miller is departing Congress, Gooch said she has already secured $100,000 in campaign funding.
Counteracting Rutherford’s endorsement of Chabot, Fourth District San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt endorsed Gooch.
Despite efforts by the National Democratic Party to get members of the party to coalesce behind Aguilar, there is concern that the Republicans could again capture the 31st Congressional seat as three Democrats other than Aguilar are in the race – Colton attorney Eloise Gomez Reyes, San Bernardino school board member Danny Tillman and former Representative Joe Baca. Gomez Reyes, Tillman and Baca have so far proven resistant to calls for them to drop out of the contest in favor of party unity.

(February 20)  Gas service to residences and businesses in Needles, San Bernardino County’s smallest and easternmost city, was shut off for nearly 24 hours this week.
According to a representative of Southwest Gas, the outage occurred Wednesday morning following what was supposed to be a routine test of lines, during which individual pipes are shut down temporarily. A Southwest employee inadvertently switched off the wrong valve, turning off the flow of natural gas to nearly all of the 4,844-population city. When the valve was reopened, the city’s lattice of gas pipes had lost their prime.
Restaurants and hotels had to shut down because of no hot water or cooking fuel. Homes were without fuel for cooking or heating water for showers.
While Southwest Gas maintained that 200 of its customers were without gas as of Wednesday night, reports were that at least 2,300 residents were without the service.
“Southwest Gas crews worked until 11:15 last night, and have restored service to approximately 200 customers, including all priority customers (elderly, etc.) and commercial. Restoration efforts are continuing this morning. Additional personnel from Las Vegas were brought in to assist and speed up the relight process,”  Stephen Miller, Analyst I, Communications at Southwest Gas Corporation, told a locally-based media outlet, ZachNews, on Thursday morning.
Southwest Gas established a command center for the service restoration effort near the intersection of East Broadway and Goodwill Street in Needles. Into the afternoon of Thursday, February 20, work crews were observed driving into and out of the command center, retrieving work orders for points all around the community.
As of mid-morning on February 20, the gas was not yet turned on at the Denny’s restaurant, nor the Taco Bell, nor the Carl’s Jr. and Green Burrito, nor the Munchy’s Mexican Restaurant, nor Lucy’s Mexican Restaurant, nor Cook’s Cuisine, nor China Garden, nor Valenzuela’s Café, nor Riverfront Cafe & Cocktails, nor Porky’s BBQ Restaurant, nor Burger Hut.
Gas was turned on at the River City Pizza Company, the Wagon Wheel, the Subway and Dairy Queen and Juicy’s Famous River Café and McDonald’s.
Information about the status of Domino’s Pizza and Jack in the Box was unavailable.

By clicking on the portal below you can download a pdf of the February 14 Sentinel.

Sentinel 02-14-14

(February 14)  A delay in the selection and approval process for four lucrative county contracts for the provision of what is known as conflict representation for indigent defendants in the county’s courts has resulted in the exposition of a series of apparent irregularities in the rating and recommendation system being used in the competition for the contracts.
One of the competitors has now launched a challenge of the rating system that favored the politically connected firm that currently holds two of the county’s four regional conflict representation contracts, after evidence surfaced to show that the incumbent firm was allowed to revise its bid after several of its competitors came in at prices well below its offer.
The Constitution and California law provide for the right of all persons against whom criminal court proceedings are brought to be represented by counsel. The public defender provides legal representation to the criminally accused in the county who do not have sufficient money to secure lawyers on their own. In a number of cases, primarily ones in which there is more than one indigent defendant, a conflict arises that prevents the public defender’s office from representing both parties in preparation for trial as well as at trial.
California Penal Code Section 987.2 allows counties to contract with panels of attorneys, known as “conflict panels,” to provide defense representation services for indigent defendants the public defender is unable to represent. The county has contracted for adult indigent defense representation services since  1993. The costs for such appointed services are an obligation of the county. The county of San Bernardino Indigent Defense Program administers appointed representation service contracts, and the services of other court-appointed attorneys, investigators and experts for the county’s impoverished defendants.
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 selection committee, the Sentinel has learned, was leaning in favor of hiring Carter as the conflict panel attorney for all four of the county’s geographical areas, having carried out a ranking of each firm based upon administrative, fiscal, record-keeping and audit compliance capability and resources; company reliability and financial resources; strength of representative capability and coordination and oversight of investigators; and cost evaluation.
The four members of the selection committee, which included Superior Court judges Annemarie Pace and John Vander Feer as well as chief assistant county counsel Michelle Blakemore and deputy county counsel Phoebe Chu, participated in that evaluation in which each committee member could assign the competitors up to 100 points each, for a total maximum score of 400 based upon the rankings of all four evaluators.
Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor scored a rank of 353. Contract Defenders scored 315. Greenline Partners were 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 late January, Greenline Partners caught wind of the intended recommendation of Carter and Spring as the contract recipient. On January 31 it submitted a letter of appeal in which the firm charged there was “faultiness [in] the evaluation process” or “biases” on the part of the evaluators.
The pending conclusion that Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor should receive the contract, potentially worth more than $40 million, Greenline maintains, “does not reflect the best interest of the county, nor does it support any notion of fairness.”
The bias in favor of Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor, also known as Inland Defenders, was demonstrated, according to Greenline, by the consideration that the committee ranked Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor more favorably than Greenline in terms of cost evaluation despite Greenline having significantly underbid Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor.
“This is notwithstanding the fact that over three years, Greenline Partners is approximately $2.25 million less expensive to the county than is Inland Defenders,” the appeal states. Moreover, according to Greenline, after all of the competitors had submitted their bids, the county permitted Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor to submit a lower bid than it had previously submitted.
“While Greenline Defenders was contacted to verify the low fees for some services, Greenline Defenders was never afforded the opportunity to adjust its bid to further compete. A January 2, 2014 fax from Inland Defenders to the county contained a revised fee schedule, merely one day before the intent to award was declared. Greenline Defenders believes that this was unfair and potentially a violation of due process of law,” according to the appeal letter.
Greenline took issue with the unfair treatment another of the firms bidding on the contract was accorded by the county.
“While Greenline Partneres was not directly affected by this particular example, Evaluator A gave Brown, White and Newhouse a 32/100[ranking],” the protest states. “They were awarded particularly low scores in categories that do not justify the low scores (cost, for example, receiving far lower scores than other bidders with the same fee schedule). Clearly there was significant bias against that bidder. The integrity of the entire process is compromised in that result.”
There were two significant conflicts of interest in the favorable treatment accorded Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor, Greenline asserted.
One involved Judge Pace, who afforded the Inland Defenders access to her during the evaluation process not given to others. The other involved district attorney Mike Ramos, who provided a written recommendation for the law firm, despite the consideration that the current and future contracts for conflict attorney service directly involve attorneys acting in an adversarial role to the district attorney’s office.
“During the bidding process, Earl Carter and Sean O’Connor were observed entering evaluator Hon. Annemarie Pace’s chambers,” the appeal letter states. “Carter and O’Connor remained there, according to the letter, “for approximately 40 minutes.” The letter goes on to say, “While the conversation that took place was not observed, the potential for impropriety and the conflict of interest is apparent.”
According to Greenline Partners, “Michael Ramos, the district attorney and professional adversary of the award recipient, not only listed himself as a professional reference, but wrote a letter of recommendation for Inland Defenders. This is clearly improper, and the potential for abuse and bias is readily apparent. A district attorney should not be endorsing any individual or organization as an adversary.”
The Sentinel has obtained a copy of that letter. It reads, in part:
“I have been the district attorney for the county of San Bernardino since 2003. We have the largest criminal caseloads in the state and I can say that our law and justice partners, including the defense bar, work hard at being efficient and seeking justice in our criminal courts. Mr. Carter’s defense attorneys’ work is no exception. These attorneys do not shy away from jury trials and are tough advocates for their clients, according to my attorneys who work with them and against them on a daily basis…  One may wonder why the district attorney is writing a letter for indigent defense attorneys, but it’s basic. They are tough, yet fair and ethical advocates as we seek justice for victims while protecting the rights of the accused.”
In the aftermath of the Greenline appeal, the county has postponed ratifying the Carter firm as the conflict panel attorney. Meanwhile, further information has surfaced, raising questions about the county’s readiness to confer all four of the regional conflict representation contracts upon Carter’s firm.
Documents on file with the 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.
The more than $200,000 in political donations made by Carter and his law partners to San Bernardino County politicians raised the specter of pay-to-play politics having tainted the judicial process. This tawdry image was worsened when allegations were made that Carter and his firm had earlier captured the two conflict panel contracts it currently holds and was about to take on all four such contracts because it made a practice of providing lackluster legal defense to indigent clients as a means of lessening the burden on the county’s clogged court system.
By putting up weak or non-existent defenses for the accused the firm represents or by persuading its clients to enter guilty pleas or accept plea bargains, criminal cases were disposed of expeditiously and court calendars cleared, critics of the Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor law firm alleged. To facilitate quick pleas, some who had been convicted reported, investigators from Earl Carter’s firm arrived at the county’s jails and detention facilities to interview clients with a plea arrangement document in hand. Those investigators would in many cases, it was alleged, persuade the defendants to sign the plea document at that point. Thus, many of the Carter firm’s clients never actually met with an attorney before paperwork on their cases was filed with the court, according to those questioning the quality of work done by Carter’s firm.
Repeated phone calls to Blakemore for comment went unreturned.
County spokesman David Wert told the Sentinel that the board has yet to award the conflict panel contracts but will very likely have the contracts in place and ratified by March, when the current contract extensions expire.
With respect to district attorney Ramos’s letter of recommendation on behalf of Carter’s law firm, Wert said, “That letter from the DA is not something over which the board of supervisors would have any jurisdiction. I am not aware of anything that would curtail the district attorney’s ability to write a letter like that. As to why he wrote it, that is something you have address to the district attorney. It is up to each individual [on the selection panel] as to whether the recommendation means anything. I do not think a letter like that would have any influence over the process because a recommendation from the DA was not one of the contract qualification criteria.”
With respect to Greenline’s contention that Carter’s law firm was given an unfair advantage in being able to submit a revised fee schedule after all of the competitors had submitted their bids at a point just before the panel made its recommendation,  Wert said that submission “wasn’t a second bite at the apple. The competitors had already been eliminated. What happens in these things is the panel decides who the top bidder was. At that point, county staff began negotiating to get a better price. In the exchange with Carter at that point the first issue was can we get a better price. It wasn’t an opportunity to get an advantage in the competition with Greenline because Greenline was out of it. It was an effort by county staff, not the panel but county administrative staff, to go and get a better price once the panel had chosen and before this went before the board of supervisors.”
As to the Carter firm being given a more preferential rating with regard to cost than firms that had submitted lower bids, Wert defended the panel’s ratings by asserting, “First of all, cost was only 30 percent of the consideration for awarding the contract.  This is not a dump truck full of sand or cement. You don’t automatically go with the lowest price. Submitting the lowest price doesn’t make you the best bidder. When you compare Carter to the other firms, you are comparing apples to oranges. Carter’s bid reflected prices for the entire county. Greenline only bid on two regions of the county. To make sure we were clear on the price evaluation, what the panel did is it broke down the prices by region and found that Carter was in fact lower than in the two regions Greenline bid in. Greenline was only bidding for the East Valley and High Desert. Carter’s price represented the entire county.”
Wert said he was not in a position to respond to the charges leveled at the Carter Law Firm regarding the alleged practice of having its investigators approach clients with plea agreements in hand before any investigation or evaluation of the cases or allegations or facts involved took place.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Wert said. “That is not something the county needs to respond to. That is something Carter needs to be accountable for if someone is making that statement.”
By press time, Earl Carter did not return any of nine phone calls from the Sentinel made to his office on February 11, 12 and 13 seeking his input. Nor did his law firm or the county supply data with regard to how many court appearances the Carter law firm’s lawyers have made on behalf of the indigent clients the firm represents or how many of those cases were taken to trial.
Maline told the Sentinel, “I don’t have personal knowledge of Inland Defenders’ investigators obtaining plea agreements from their clients in the jails.”
He did say, however, that he believed the way in which the county structured the arrangements for retaining criminal conflict attorneys was “flawed. The system has a built-in incentive that facilitates quick pleas. The indigent conflict attorneys do not have an incentive to fight the cases they take. They get the same amount of money if they make one court appearance or multiple court appearances.”
Wert said the suggestion that the county was acceding in an arrangement that facilitated those quick pleas was wrong.
“The court system is a separate entity from the county,” he said.
He dismissed the Greenline appeal of the panel’s recommendation as grousing that is typical of entities that fail to capture county contracts.
“The county administrative office feels the process has gone how it was expected to go and how it should go,” Wert said. “We would never expect someone who did not come out on top of the bid process to be happy about how things went. Those that lose do protest, and there are a lot of appeals. That is the nature of things.”
Wert said the “appeal has not made its way through the process. It is still going on. There is always the possibility the appeal will cause the panel to rethink things. We don’t want to say there is nothing to this before we hear the appeal. That would not be fair to the people making the appeal. The board has not been a part of the process yet; the process is still going on. The board is not going to have anything to do with the process until the appeal is considered and the administrative review is done and a report for the board is completed. The only reason this hasn’t come to the board is this appeal is dragging things out.”

(February 13)  Upland City Councilman Glenn Bozar this week sounded an alarm to his city’s residents, warning that the City of Gracious Living must deal with a  pension liabiliy that is on the verge of overwhelming it.
Fully 73.6 percent of the city’s operational costs consist of paying for personnel, including meeting  current payroll, covering workers’ compensation and paying the pensions of retired employees. Projections are that those costs will increase, leaving less and less of the money in city coffers available for taking care of its physical needs, such as paving streets, maintaining trees, sidewalks and parks and the  upkeep of other city infrastructure.
In 2013-2014 the city’s pension costs stand at $6 million. The most reliable figures currently available show the city will incur an additional $1.5 million in pension costs next year, 2014-15, escalating to $7.7 million the annual amount city pays  into the public employees’ retirement system.
Bozar said he had made an in-depth effort to study the issue and had learned that the increases in pension costs were outpacing the city’s growth in revenue.
“The most stunning revelation that came out was when city manager [Stephen] Dunn was  talking about this issue and he disclosed that the $4.2 million generated out of the Colonies [commercial subdivision] goes to paying these pension costs,” Bozar said.
“How did we get here?” Bozar asked. He then referenced page 4-10 os a 13-year-old budget task force report which explicated how city officials in the year 2000 assumed “a false sense of security” by relying on data and projections provided by representatives of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). Those pension fund representatives maintained that the retirement system, including coverage for Upland, was “superfunded” well into the future. City officials, who were influenced by the public employees retrement system board, believed, Bozar said, that the city  could continue providing generous retirement benefits to employees without having to make equally escalating contributions to the system.
“In 2001, the city was told that we could [rely upon available money from the California Public Employees Retirement System to pay for the pensions of city public safety employees for 35 years and our miscellaneous employees indefinitely,” Bozar said. “That was what was put forth by the Public Employees Retirement Board.”
Bozar said those board members, who also participate in the retirement system, had a conflict of interest in making that false projection.
“They benefited from this,” he said.
The city relied uponfalse projections, Bozar said. “When we look at the dates, you can see that  in the first four years [1999-2000 to 2003-04] we paid nothing into this Public Employee Retirement System fund. This was a dream world the Public Employee Retirement System board was in. Then things went wacky in 2004-5. The city paid over $2 million in 2004. Then it doubled the following year. It went down the following year. After that, our previous city manager negotiated a higher formula and you can look and see our pension liability from that point is going up and up and up. The projected cost for the next fiscal year is $7.7 million.”
Also appearing before the city council on February 10 was one of Bozar’s appointees to the  most recently formed city fiscal task force, Robert Nelson, a former corporate chief financial officer and certified public accountant. Nelson  said the city had been far too generous in making promises to its employees in the past with regard to guaranteeing their pensions and it now must take action to either undo what was done or significantly curtail operations to be able to afford providing those too-generous payments to people who are no longer working for the city.
“The biggest cost driver of this general  fund is high wages and benefits that amount to  74 percent of the budget,” Nelson said, saying the financial burden was putting the city into “a death spriral. This is impossible to sustain. Today the public is slow in waking up  to what this means, but we see the  evidence in man of the bankruptcies of California cities. Upland is now on that road.”
Bozar said, “We’re very grateful and appreciative of the employees who now contribute,”  but he reiterated that employees who have worked with the city for most or all of their careers are eligible to retire and get 90 percent of their top pay while they were with the city. That formula is breaking the city’s bank, he said.
“What we are faced with in the immediate and near term is ‘How do we come up with this money?’ We. have to work with our employees who do a great job” to find a solution, he said, or face dire consequences for both the city’s residents and employees.
He said he was against outsourcing, that is, closing out city departments wholesale and contracting with other municipal agencies or private companies for services. But he warned that the outsourcing solution would become increasingly attractive in the future because it would allow the city to get out from under its pension obligation with regard to its future workforce.
“Why do we want to outsource?” he asked, pausing for effect before answering, “To get rid of these salaries and pension costs.” He noted that under the current pension system, the formula for calculating pensions is tied to salaries, so that increasing employee salaries automatically increases pensions.
After his assessment of the city’s financial state, Bozar nevertheless expressed confidence that a solution could be found. “We have to work together with employees and get costs under control,” he said.
City manager Stephen Dunn was less sanguine, saying, “It’s not a problem that we can solve.” He noted that outsiders had a too simplistic notion of how the city’s listing financial ship could be righted.  “It’s really easy to fix what you are not responsible for,” he said. “We do have a lot of work ahead of us.”
He said he had been unfairly set upon by critics who had complained that he had advocated unpalatable solutions to the city’s financial problems, such as selling the city’s water assets.
“People are saying [about me] ‘You want to do this and are wanting to do that.’” The truth is, he said, he was merely providing the city council with money generating or money saving options to consider and that it was up to the council to make the decisions.  “I want to give you guys ideas, and have staff do the work so you guys can make decisions based on the best information available. People get the feeling we can just go to the expenditure side [and make cuts]. Our pension costs are eating us from the inside out. We have reduced our work force in the last two years by 25 percent. The amount of work hasn’t decreased.”
Bozar, pointing out that contracts with employees will remain in place until June 2015, said the council and senior staff should begin to chart now how they will approach the issue of getting concessions from employee unions on salary and pensions in the succeeding contracts.
“We need to start laying the foundation now,” he said.

(February 13)  The Mojave Water Agency’s Tactical Advisory Committee has recommended against the agency relying upon water available from the Cadiz Water Project as part of its integrated water management plan.
Los Angeles-based Cadiz, Inc. is undertaking what is officially known as the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, a plan to siphon billions of gallons of water from the East Mojave Desert for use elsewhere.  Since the 1980s, Cadiz, Inc. has operated a 500-acre organic grape, citrus, melon and pepper farm in the Cadiz Valley, thereby obtaining water pumping rights. In 2012 Cadiz, Inc.arranged to have the Santa Margarita Water District, to which it is contracted to deliver a portion of the water to be extracted from the desert, assume lead agency status for the project’s approval. Many of those opposed to the project considered that to be a conflict of interest.
San Bernardino County contemplated, but in March 2012 ultimately elected against, challenging Orange County-based Santa Margarita’s assumption of that lead agency status on the project. Instead on May 1, 2012 the county entered into a memorandum of understanding with that district and Cadiz, Inc. and its corporate entities, including the Fenner Valley Mutual Water Company, allowing Santa Margarita to oversee the environmental impact report for the project and conduct the public hearings related to project approval.
On July 31, 2012, the Santa Margarita Water District Board of Directors approved the Cadiz Water Project and certified the environmental impact report for the Cadiz Water project.
On October 1, 2012, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors gave approval to a groundwater monitoring plan to facilitate completion of the project.
Cadiz intends to import the lion’s share of the water to Orange and Los Angeles counties but is also looking to sell water to other entities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The Mojave Water Agency, which oversees water usage in the western Mojave communities of Apple Valley, Adelanto, Hesperia, Baldy Mesa, Victorville and Barstow, Helendale and Oro Grande, is interested in augmenting that region’s water supply and has done so by purchasing water from the State Water Project.
As part of its Integrated Water Management Plan, the agency contemplated becoming one of Cadiz, Inc.’s customers.
Last week, however, the Mojave Water Agency heard protests from various individuals opposed to the Cadiz project.
Historically, entities in San Bernardino, Redlands, Riverside, Rialto, Anaheim and Los Angeles have sought to commandeer water originating in the western Mojave Desert, all of which included elaborate schemes involving large scale aqueducts to carry the water down the Cajon Pass. None of those succeeded after residents of the Victor Valley opposed those efforts. Indeed, the Mojave Water Agency was formed in part to manage the West Mojave’s water resources and prevent it from being diverted elsewhere.
At least one of those protesting against incorporating Cadiz, Inc.’s water into the MWA Integrated Water Management Plan referenced those earlier efforts to seize the Victor Valley’s water for distant use, asserting the Mojave Water Agency would set a bad legal precedent and lose its moral authority to oppose any efforts to take local water if it went along with the Orange County raid on the East Mojave’s water supply.
Those opposed to the Cadiz project object to the use of the terms “conservation” and “storage” in the official name of the project, maintaining that the project purports to “conserve” water by exporting it for consumptive use. Legal challenges to the project, which are ongoing, contend that Cadiz, Inc. and the Santa Margarita Water District should have included the Metropolitan Water District, state or regional water resources control boards, and the California Department of Fish and Game, and the state Department of Water Resources as responsible agencies in the environmental impact reporting drafting process. The Santa Margarita Water District did not do so.
Opponents of the project also maintain that the county of San Bernardino should have been the lead agency overseeing the approval of the project and its environmental certification as opposed to the Santa Margarita Water District.
The MWA’s Tactical Advisory Committee on February 6, after a protracted debate, voted to advise the Mojave Water Agency board of directors to not incorporate Cadiz Water Project water as an element of its water management plan.
Cadiz, Inc. and the Santa Margarita maintain that there is adequate legal precedent for diverting water from one region to another.

(February 12)  It now appears that the real dogfight in this year’s 31st Congressional District race will be between Democrats Joe Baca and Pete Aguilar, now that the incumbent, Republican Gary Miller, has announced he will not seek re-election.
Ever since Miller in 2012 gained election in the 31st District, which leans Democratic, the prospects for the 2014 race have been closely watched and there has been much speculation about the eventual final matchup and outcome in the district race.
With the Republicans holding a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives and California being an overwhelming Democratic state, Miller’s hold on the 31st Congressional District provoked the Democrats to begin early and in earnest in their efforts to unseat him as part of a larger strategy to capture control of both houses of the legislature.
Miller’s 2012 victory in the 30th Congressional District, which had been redrawn after the 2010 Census, was an extraordinary occurrence.
In 2012, California had switched to an open primary system, which ended sequestered party ballots and effectively ended the tradition of guaranteeing that a Democrat would face a Republican in the November general election.
In the 31st District, which encompasses parts of Upland and Rancho Cucamonga, and stretches eastward across San Bernardino County through a large portion of Fontana, Rialto, Colton, San Bernardino and Redlands, four Democrats – Pete Aguilar, Justin Kim, Rita Ramirez-Dean, and Renea Wickman – sought election in 2012, as did Miller. In addition, another Republican, Bob Dutton, joined the fray in the 2012 primary. Despite the seven percent Democratic voter registration advantage in the 31st, simple mathematics hurt the Democrats as their vote was divided four ways, while the Republican vote was split two ways. Dutton and Miller proved to be the two top vote-getters and under California’s open primary arrangement, the November general election came down to a race between Republicans Miller and Dutton. Miller prevailed in that race.
With no little justification, the Democrats consider the 31st District to be one that should naturally fall to them. Of the district’s registered voters, 127,690 or 41 percent, are affiliated with the Democratic Party.  Registered Republicans in the district number 104,938, or 33.7 percent. Independent political appraisers see the 31st as a Democratic asset as well.
Even before Miller outpolled Dutton in November 2012, Democratic strategists were conferring about what steps could be taken to ensure that Democratic disarray in 2014 would not perpetuate Miller’s incumbency beyond the current Congress. In short order, a game plan was hatched by which Aguilar, who had polled the most votes among the four Democrats in the 2012 primary, was chosen as the logical party standard bearer. By promoting Aguilar early, engaging in brisk fundraising on his behalf and warding off any other Democrats so a concentrated party electoral effort to advance Aguilar can be mounted, they believed Aguilar could beat Miller in a toe-to-toe slugfest in November 2014, despite Miller’s incumbency and formidable fundraising capability.
Relatively early on, well-connected Democratic-functionaries acted to boost Aguilar.  In May 2013, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee selected Aguilar as one of five candidates nationwide to be included in its Jumpstart Program, which is intended to assist early-emerging Democrats seeking to unseat incumbent Republicans deemed to be vulnerable.
Party leaders convinced California’s two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to endorse Aguilar. Party donors, inside and outside California, were encouraged to provide him with campaign cash, and money started pouring into Aguilar’s political war chest. More attention was drawn to him, ensuring even more contributions, when the Washington-based news organization, Politico, in July named Aguilar one of “50 Politicos to watch in 2013.”
Joe Baca, who since 1999 had represented California in the Washington D.C.’s lower house in the heavily Democratic-leaning  42nd and 43rd Congressional districts with solid Democratic support, in 2012 found himself unseated when he was opposed by another Democrat, then-state senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod, in the race to represent the newly drawn 35th Congressional District. In the June 2012 primary Baca comfortably outpolled Negrete-McLeod 12,619 votes or 47.17 percent to 9,078 or 33.93 percent in a race that also featured Green Party Candidate  Anthony Vieyra. Nevertheless, in November 2012 Baca was vanquished by Negrete-McLeod, 61,065 votes or 54.35 percent to 51,281 votes or 45.65 percent, after Negrete-McLeod’s campaign was boosted by an infusion of $3.8 million in donations from a political action committee controlled by Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which paid for a $2.3 million television advertising blitz during the last week of the campaign.
Baca for the last ten months has defied members of his own party in their promotion of Aguilar, and he is using the name recognition he has with local voters, his indirect and residual political clout as a former member of Congress, together with an insider’s knowledge of issues and alliances to obtain big money backing from national and even international players to regain entrance to the House of Representatives. He is joined by Democratic Party activist Eloise Reyes and San Bernardino school board president Danny Tillman in challenging Aguilar.
With Miller out of the picture and no other Republicans having immediately stepped in to make an attempt to succeed Miller, the National Democratic Party’s emphasis on promoting Aguilar is very likely to be tempered in the days ahead, as it now appears quite likely that the seat will fall to a Democrat, as Miller and his prodigious fundraising capability are out of the picture.
There was nonetheless a minor indication that a Republican candidate might crop up to show the flag for the GOP in the 31st. Paul Chabot, who is already seeking state office as a successor to Michael Morrell should Morrell need to vacate his current position in the Assembly as a result of his candidacy to succeed resigned 23rd District State Senator Bill Emmerson, said he has been approached by members of his party to run for Congress in the 31st District. Chabot said he would not diverge from his current ambition with regard to the state Assembly unless Dutton does not leap into the breach.
“I am humbled by the overwhelming number of calls and emails offered by my friends and supporters to run for the congressional seat,” said Chabot. “My position is clear – I am 100 percent behind Dutton who ran for the seat in 2012, if he chooses to run. If he decides not to run, I am seriously considering making a bid.”
In announcing he would not seek reelection, Miller said he was doing so for “family reasons,” making no mention of the consideration that the Democratic Party was targeting him.
“When I came to Congress in 1999, my children were grown and out of the house. Today, we have a full house again. My wife and I are raising our three grandchildren,” he said. “It has been a great honor to spend so many years in public service, striving to make a difference for Southern California families. While there is still a lot of work to be done, it is now time for me to pass the baton.”

(February 12)  Chino Hills Public Works Commissioner Barry Fischer on January 29 tendered his resignation in apparent protest over the city’s policies and actions with regard to animal control.
The 72-year-old Fischer, who was named by the major newspaper in Chino and Chino Hills, The Chino Champion, as Chino Hills Outstanding Citizen of the Year in 2013, has been active for several years in advocating that Chino Hills operate on its own or contract with a no-kill animal shelter.
He has decried city policies and city council decisions which run counter to that goal, in particular the city’s ongoing contract with the Inland Valley Humane Society, which has a policy of euthanizing animals that come under its stewardship if adoptions are not effectuated within a 30-day deadline.
An outgrowth of Fischer’s dedication to that issue was his inability to accept  the city’s code enforcement and ensuing legal action against Charles and Lisa Price, who had taken it upon themselves to operate a private non-kill animal adoption clinic which had saved hundreds of dogs and cats from being put to sleep at the Inland Valley Humane Society facility. Ultimately, the Prices were prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to jail time for what Fischer saw as their acts of compassion and courage.
Fischer said that Charles Price was an individual of “high moral character” whose military service and volunteer work demonstrated a personal value system that should have been embraced by the community.
Fischer was councilman Peter Rogers’ appointee to the commission. In tendering his resignation,  Fischer sought to vector the community’s attention to the upcoming annual renewal of the city’s contract with the Inland Valley Humane Society in July, and suggested that city residents insist that the council either end its relationship with the society or alter the contract it has with it for animal control services to disallow the euthanizing of animals originating in Chino Hills that are taken in at its shelter.