(February5)  Two of the hospitals serving San Bernardino County’s vast desert area recently experienced departures of key members of their leadership teams.
In Joshua Tree, the vice president of the Hi-Desert Medical Center’s board of directors, Paul Hoffman resigned.
Eighty-five miles away, in Barstow, the chief executive officer of Barstow Community Hospital, Sean Fowler, has departed.
Hoffman, who had served on the hospital board since 2000, announced his resignation on January 28. Fowler, who had been chief executive officer at Barstow Community Hospital since July 2011, left to head another California hospital in Southern California.
Both Hi-Desert Medical Center and Barstow Community are in a state of flux.
The Hi-Desert Medical Center’s governing board, including Hoffman, on December 11 voted unanimously to promote Robert Tyk, the hospital’s chief financial officer,  to the position of chief executive officer less than two months after what was termed a mutually agreed-upon  decision  for the hospital’s previous chief executive officer, Lionel “Chad” Chadwick, to depart at the end of 2013. Tyk took over officially on January 1.
The Hi-Desert Medical Center and its board of directors are facing a series of financial challenges to the institution, including burgeoning patient care costs and dwindling revenue from solvent patients, insurance carriers and governmental programs set up to cover the medical costs of indigent patients or those otherwise eligible for subsidized medical assistance, most notably 25 percent cuts from the Medicare and MediCal programs, entailing an annual loss of revenue to the institution exceeding $500,000.
Moreover, many of the services rendered at the hospital by doctors are not billed for by the hospital but by the physicians themselves, who are not employees of the hospital, by law.  The hospital does not now have clearly delineated revenue sharing agreements with local healthcare providers such as Oasis Healthcare and the county of San Bernardino.
The Hi-Desert Medical Center is mandated by federal law to deliver emergency care whether or not patents have medical coverage or the ability to pay for that treatment.
The situation in Barstow is less dire.
Barstow Community Hospital relocated to a newly constructed facility in October and on January 7 the parent company of the hospital,  North Naples, Florida-based Community Health Systems, announce it would subsume its major competitor, Health Management Associates Inc.
Community Health Systems is the largest for-profit hospital system in the United States. It utilized its own capital as well as borrowed money to take on ownership of Health Management Associates in a $7 billion transaction. The takeover was completed last week. Simultaneously, Fowler departed.
John Rader, the spokesman for Barstow Community Hospital, told the Sentinel, “Sean has departed for a hospital in the South Bay Area that is not affiliated with Community Health Systems. Because his transfer there has not been announced internally at that institution, we are not at liberty to disclose which hospital that is.”
Community Health Systems transferred Steven Foster, who had been the CEO of Community Health Systems’ Oklahoma City-based Deaconess Hospital, to  serve as interim CEO in Barstow.
Barstow Community Hospital is conducting a national search for a new CEO. The selection committee is to consist of the hospital board, medical staff and hospital management.

NEEDLES (February 5)—While traditional broadcast television on the VHF [very high frequency] and UHF [ultra high frequency] bands has died out across most of the United States, the phenomenon remains alive at the extreme east end of San Bernardino County.
Ironically, traditional television remains a staple in one of the county’s most remote areas because initially television broadcasts did not reach there. The U.S. Federal  Communciations Commision  designated a portion of the VHF band for television in 1941 on channels one through six. During World War II, channel one was removed and used only for war purposes.  In 1945, channels seven through thirteen were added. Subsequently, a portion of the UHF bandwidth was allotted to television stations to meet  the demand for additional over-the-air television channels in urban areas.  In 1983, UHF channels 70–83 were taken away from TV broadcast services. As cable and satellite television service saturated most of the country, the use of the portions of the VHF and UHF spectrums reserved for television broadcasting throughout most of the country ended and those bandwidths became available for relicensing or sale after a transition period, which ended June 12, 2009 in the United States.
More than a half century prior to that, however, The Needles Community Television Club was founded in 1958.  Because surrounding mountains blocked VHF and UHF line-of-sight signals, Needles and the Mohave Valley across the river in Arizona were unable to tune in television stations. Local officials on both sides of the Arizona/California border enlisted technicians from Kingman, Arizona to conduct tests from around the region to set up “translators,” i.e., signal repeaters that allowed locals armed with a UHF antenna to get television broadcasts on their TV sets.
After experimentation, trial and error led technicians to determine that the ideal spot for the translator was atop the Black Mountains near Oatman, Arizona. The club in partnership with Mohave County operated – and continues to operate – ten channels that are received over the air by means of a simple antenna.
Even with the advent of cable television and satellite TV service, the club and its service persisted because of the expense of such in-home services and the consideration that cable service is not available in many outlying areas.
The Needles Community TV Club remains a going entity, committed to ensuring low cost over-the-air television is available in the region, having made an adaption from analog to digital mode, broadcasting in high definition nine network channels. A digital tuner is required to lock onto the broadcasts. Those with a high definition digital tuner can receive the signals for all stations in high definition and view them in high definition as well, depending on the screening capability of their sets. Vintage televisions must be augmented with an external converter box to change the digital signal to analog. Converter boxes are available for roughly $60.
The translator facility is maintained through voluntary donation dues of $10 per year, precisely the same cost as was instituted in 1958. Donation dues can be sent to Needles TV Club, 1101 W. Broadway, Needles, CA 92363.
The club is overseen by a board of directors elected by dues-paying members at an annual meeting. Rolland Hartwick is currently serving as president of the board.
Dues paying members of the club are provided with instructions on setting up a reception antenna. Club brochures are available at the Big O Tires/NAPA Auto Parts in Needles as well as the Needles Point Pharmacy. The Big O Tires/Napa Auto Parts Store features a demonstration television in its waiting area to allow potential club members to  experience the quality of over-the-air all digital and high definition broadcasts.

FORT IRWIN—Ted Martin, the commander of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin since February 2013 and one of the U.S. Military’s leading experts on countermeasures to the improvised explosive devices used with such devastating effect against American soldiers in Iraq, has been promoted to major general.
Martin, who was a brigadier general when he arrived at Fort Irwin last year, received his second star on January 24.
The promotion ceremony was officiated over by General Daniel Ally, the commanding general of the United States Army Forces Command, who had travelled from his headquarters at Fort Bragg to confer the honor on Martin.
Martin serves as the training lead for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, maintaining and managing a counter-improvised explosive device training unit. He is also responsible for enabling the development and propagation of new operational techniques and tactical procedures and provides a venue for training and support for the experimentation and testing of emerging counter–improvised explosive device equipment and concepts.
He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1979 to 1983, was commissioned an armor officer upon graduation and in 1987 completed the Infantry Officer Advance Course after serving his initial company grade assignments at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He was then stationed at Schweinfurt, Germany, where he was the commander of Charlie Company, and later, assistant S3 (Air), 2d Battalion, 64th Armor, 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized).
Martin later served three years as a staff officer in the U.S. Army Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He then spent two years as a senior military advisor for the Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization Program, Saudi Arabia.
He has served in a number of other command assignments, including commander of 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Hood, Texas, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq; commander, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq; commander, Operations Group, National Training Center, Fort Irwin; Commandant and 45th Chief of Armor, U.S. Army Armor School, Fort Benning, Georgia. Prior to his current assignment, he served as the 73rd Commandant of Cadets, U.S. Military Academy.
His other assignments include serving as the G3 for the 4th Infantry Division and Task Force IRONHORSE in Iraq; the Iraq field team leader for the Joint IED Defeat Task Force in Baghdad, Iraq, and as the chief of the Armor Branch Division, and later, as chief of the Combat Arms Division, U.S. Army Human Resources Command, Arlington, Virginia.
Martin has a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College, a master’s degree in strategic studies from the Army War College, a master’s degree in business from Webster University and a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy.
His awards, decorations and badges include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit (two oak leaf clusters), Bronze Star Medal (with ‘V’ device), Bronze Star Medal (oak leaf cluster), Meritorious Service Medal (six oak leaf clusters), Army Commendation Medal (oak leaf cluster), Army Achievement Medal (five oak leaf clusters), the Combat Action Badge and Parachutist Badge.
All three of Martin’s brothers are graduates of West Point. His father served in the Navy and Army and served in Korea and Vietnam before medically retiring in 1969. Martin and his brothers are the tenth generation of his family to serve in the U.S Military, spanning back to the Revolutionary War, when Pvt. Daniel Martin fought against the British as an enlisted member of the 1st New Jersey Infantry Regiment, including participating in the storied encampment at Valley Forge.

By State Assemblyman Curt Hagman
Governor Jerry Brown recently introduced his budget plan for the 2014-15 fiscal year, setting off a six month debate over how best to use our state tax dollars. If nothing else, this year’s conversion will be different in tone from previous years as the state is projecting an unexpected surplus.
I welcome the discussion on how to use this potential surplus. However, we should treat such news with caution because this surplus is dependent on personal income taxes, California’s most volatile revenue stream. During the “dot-com” bubble of 2000, personal income taxes made up 60 percent of state revenues. With the passage of the Governor’s Proposition 30 in 2012, personal income taxes now make up 75 percent of General Fund revenues – the highest level in state history. We see a surplus because the state raised taxes and Wall Street is doing well. These funds will immediately disappear if businesses, job creators, and our highest contributing taxpayers continue to abandon California.
Despite the lessons of history, legislative Democrats want to spend any surplus on expanding government programs. They want to commit the state to massive ongoing spending increases that taxpayers cannot afford, thereby setting the stage for even higher taxes and more severe cuts in the future. It is naïve to think that we can pop the champagne and spend away money that may never materialize.
That is why I agree with the Governor’s call for spending restraint. He was correct in saying that we are not out of the “wilderness” and “we must be very prudent in the way we spend public funds.” I support efforts to deposit any real surplus into a strong rainy day fund that can only be tapped in true emergencies such as earthquakes and wildfires. Having such a fund will protect schools and other vital programs from drastic budget cuts in the future.
I also support the Governor’s call to reduce the state’s “Wall of Debt” that is taking precious dollars away from needed services. The state faces a combined $350 billion debt in unfunded state retiree health care and pension obligations along with owing $10 billion to Washington to repay a loan for unemployment insurance increases during the recession. The quicker we can pay off these debts, the better off we will be for future pressing needs.
Additionally, any final budget that the Legislature approves should invest in infrastructure projects that create and promote jobs which are essential to the state’s economic health instead of spending money on social programs. By tending to long-neglected infrastructure needs, we can help create jobs, improve the movement of goods, ensure a better-trained workforce and generate more tax revenue for education.
From now until sometime in June when the Governor signs a budget into law, lawmakers need to be open and transparent when crafting a final draft. I will continue to fight to protect funding for priorities such as education and public safety, and to end wasteful spending on projects such as the high-speed train to nowhere.
We may have a unique and rare moment to pay off past debts and invest in the future this year – if the legislature should seize it. Doing so will ensure we will be better prepared for the challenges of tomorrow. Like that of your home budget, the legislature should plan for the future.
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Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills, is the Assistant Republican Floor Leader and represents the 55h Assembly District in the California Legislature.

(February 6) At least seventeen deaths in San Bernardino County in the last six weeks have been attributed to the flu.
According to the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, those 17 deaths have been confirmed as flu-related, the worst flu season since 2009-10.  Most of those fatalities occurred in individuals 40-59 years of age.
“The number of confirmed flu-related deaths within San Bernardino County has increased from 2 to 16 since January 10, 2014,” a health department bulletin put out on January 31 stated. “The confirmed deaths are scattered throughout the county with no specific regional trend.”
Thirteen of the flu- related deaths proceeded from cases of the 2009 H1N1 strain that caused the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic. During the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, the county reported 45 flu-related deaths. The total number of deaths reported for the entire 2012-13 influenza season in the county of San Bernardino was five.
“This flu season is severe and may be peaking earlier in comparison to previous seasons,” said Dr. Maxwell Ohikhuare, health officer of county of San Bernardino Department of Public Health “Everyone who has not yet had a flu vaccination is encouraged to do so immediately. The influenza vaccine remains the most effective way to protect oneself from the flu.”

(February 5)  The city council in San Bernardino will undergo a significant change in compositi next month, following this week’s special election that saw a new mayor elected and the selection of a new 5th Ward councilman to replace the disgraced former holder of that post, who resigned last fall following his guilty plea to campaign fund misuse charges.
The lone official retained in Tuesday’s election was councilman Fred Shorett.
Of note was that former councilwoman Wendy McCammack, who was recalled from her 7th Ward office in November but was paradoxically the top vote getter in the same day’s 10-candidate race for mayor, lost this week, ensuring that three of the seven council members and the mayor who ruled the city last year will no longer be city office holders.
McCammack was defeated by Carey Davis, who was supported by soon outgoing mayor Patrick Morris, one of McCammack’s longstanding political rivals. McCammack, a 55-year-old Republican, had been in office 13 years. Morris, a former Superior Court judge and a Democrat, is now closing out eight years as mayor.
The city filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, a result, Morris contended, of years of excessive spending at City Hall, which he said was a direct outgrowth of too-generous salaries and benefits provided to municipal employees, in particular firefighters and police officers. McCammack had steadfastly supported those pay and benefit increases and was in turn strongly supported by the police and fire unions.
The 61-year-old Davis, like Morris, sounded the drumbeat of financial austerity as the formula for the city to get back on its feet. The theme of his campaign was “fiscal sanity.”
Early on, the contest appeared to be a dead heat between the two finalist mayoral candidates, with a near 50-50 split in the absentee ballot count. Early returns from the polls on election Tuesday favored Davis slightly, giving him a 51%-49% lead. As the city’s final precincts reported, Davis’s lead widened. By 10:30 p.m., with all votes counted, Davis bested McCammack 6,211 votes or 56 percent to 4,811 votes or 44 percent.
Shorett dodged a wave of voter resentment over the city’s decline and declaration of bankruptcy, largely because of a political faux-pas by his opponent, Anthony Jones.
Jones appeared to be poised to make a strong challenge of Shorett, a Republican whose fiscally conservative principles put him in alignment with Morris with regard to holding the line on municipal employee salaries and benefits. After the 23-year-old Jones entered the race, the police union endorsed his candidacy in a display of opposition to Shorett.  The police union endorsement had the effect of boosting Jones above another declared candidate in the race, Kathy Pinegar, but Jones’ candidacy imploded when a rap video he had recorded, one that was characterized as advocating criminality, violence and disrespect toward women, began making the rounds. Before Jones’ electoral debacle concluded, the police union withdrew its endorsement, Shorett polled 1,529 votes or 48.22 percent to Jones 985 votes or 31.06 percent and Pinegar’s 657 votes or 20.72 percent in the November 5 election. Jones thus limped into this week’s run-off election as damaged political goods, and lost to Shorett  1,913 votes or 66.21 percent to 972.33 votes or 69 percent.
In the city’s Fifth Ward, four candidates vied to replace Chas Kelley, whose guilty plea to misuse of campaign funds ended his political career. Henry Nickel, with 886 votes or 38.49 percent, outdistanced Randy Wilson, with 691 votes or 30.02 percent, Larry Lee, who pulled in 459 votes or 19.94 percent and Karmel Roe, with 266 votes or 11.56 percent.
Voter turnout in the election was anemic. With 209,924 residents, the county seat is also San Bernardino County’s largest city population-wise. 77,588 of those residents are registered to vote. Only 11,175 actually participated in the election, with 8,031 or 10.35 percent of the city’s registered voters voting by mail, and 3,144 or 4.05 percent casting ballots at the polls.
Next month, those victorious in Tuesday’s election will be sworn into office, along with incumbent Virginia Marquez, who defeated challenger Casey Dailey on November 5 and Benito Barrios, who defeated incumbent Robert Jenkins.
James Mulvihill, who was chosen to replace McCammack upon her recall, has been in office for three months.

You can download the PDF version of the January 31 Sentinel by clicking on the following portal:

Sentinel 01-31-14

(January 30)  East Valley Water District Board Member Kip Sturgeon is being investigated for leaking confidential district information to the press, officials have confirmed.
The investigation pertains to allegations that Sturgeon provided information pertaining to salary and bonuses for district general manager John Mura that the board was contemplating and which they had discussed behind closed doors.
Of note is that Sturgeon’s board colleagues had requested the investigation, citing  “possible violations of the Brown Act” by Sturgeon in making the request despite suggestions that the board had itself skirted provisions of the same law by conducting the private discussions without proper and full disclosure, which is itself a violation of another provision of the Brown Act.
The Ralph M. Brown Act is California’s open meeting law, which requires that deliberations with regard to the actions of public agencies by their governing boards, with very narrow exceptions, be carried out in public. The exceptions contained in the act relate to discussions involving litigation involving the agency, the purchase or sale of real estate, and items relating to agency personnel.
In the current case, the board discussed Mura’s salary and benefit package during an executive session. The board agreed to utilize a survey of the salaries provided to the general managers of other water agencies to arrive at a consensus of what would be offered to Mura. When the district’s personnel division completed that survey, it emailed a list of positions and salaries to the board members.
Sturgeon has acknowledged that before any vote was taken on what Mura would be offered, he provided a copy of the list to the Highland Community News. He maintains that he believed the list, which contained information that was publicly available from each of the district’s surveyed, qualified as public information.
The other members of the board – James Morales, Jr., Ben Coleman, Ronald Coats, and Matt Levesque, maintain the list was the work product of ongoing closed door deliberations and should not have been distributed to the public. Levesqe, who at that time was board chairman, was particularly incensed at Sturgeon’s action.
The complaint to the district attorney’s office contained further reference to Sturgeon having publicly disclosed, again through the Highland Community News, that the board was contemplating conferring on Mura a $50,000 bonus. The newspaper then reported on the matter before the board made a public announcement regarding it.
Coleman and Coats appeared to be prepared to let the matter be redressed by a stern warning to Sturgeon. But Levesque, who is somewhat of a political rival of Sturgeon, was determined to see the matter taken up on an official level, particularly because Sturgeon had initially denied being the source of the leak, which, Levesque implied, demonstrated criminal intent and consciousness of guilt.
He prevailed upon the board to send the matter to the district attorney’s office and its public integrity unit.
While the Brown Act, which exists as California Government Code  §54950 et sequitur,   is intended to ensure that public issues are handled in the open so that citizens can participate in the governmental process, it does permit some degree of confidentiality to be maintained where secrecy is deemed appropriate and premature disclosure of information might be detrimental to the public interest.
Government Code Section 54963 provides that a person may not disclose confidential information that has been acquired by attending a properly closed session to a person not entitled to receive it, unless the disclosure is authorized by the legislative body.
Confidential information is defined as a communication made in a closed session that is specifically related to the basis for the legislative body to meet lawfully in closed session.
If that prohibition is violated, it may be, according to the California Attorney General’s Office, enforced by injunctive relief to prevent the disclosure of confidential information, disciplinary action against the official or employee who has willfully disclosed the confidential information or referral of the matter to a grand jury. Disciplinary action must be  preceded by training or notice of the prohibition.
It is  Government Code Section 54963 that Levesque, with the reluctant endorsement of his three board colleagues, wants applied against Sturgeon.
There are loopholes in section 54963. Under it, no action can be taken against a person for making a confidential inquiry or complaint to a legally constituted authority concerning a perceived violation of law, including disclosing facts that are necessary to establish the illegality of an action taken by a legislative body or the potential illegality of an action that has been the subject of deliberation at a closed session if that action were ultimately to be taken by the legislative body. Nor can action be taken against an official who has made disclosure of material or discussion from a closed session if that person is expressing an opinion concerning the propriety or legality of actions taken by a legislative body in closed session, including disclosure of the nature and extent of the illegal or potentially illegal action.
Moreover, no violation of section 54963 can be deemed to have occurred if the disclosure involves information that is not in fact confidential information.
Levesque’s insistence that the district attorney be brought into the case is a curious one in that he has himself admitted that he violated one of the provisions of the Brown Act, specifically engaging in serial meetings of the board’s members, which is prohibited under  Government Code Section 54952.2(c)(1).

(January 28)  PHELAN—A proposal by SunEdison in conjunction with the Snowline Joint Unified School District to establish a 50-acre solar project in Phelan has run into opposition by several local residents.
SunEdison wants to locate the 5.8-megawatt photovoltaic solar farm west of White Road and north of Muscatel Street in Phelan. The school district owns the property and has agreed to lease it to the company in exchange for 4 percent of revenues generated there.
The company is not affiliated with Southern California Edison. It was founded in 2003 by Jigar Shah and owns and operates power plants in North America and provides solar-generated energy to commercial, government, and utility customers. Sun Edison LLC was formerly headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, but now has its main corporate office in Belmont, California with additional offices in Denver, Colorado and San Clemente, Sacramento, and the city of  Ontario.
In 2010, SunEdison completed construction on seven megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar power plants in Spain. In December 2007, SunEdison completed an 8.22 MW, 80-acre solar power system in Colorado. SunEdison has built fields with a generation capability of 52 megawatts and retains control over facilities with 31 MW of generating capability.
In November of 2009, Shah relinquished SunEdison for $200 million to MEMC Electronic Materials.
A number of Phelan residents said they were in strong opposition to the project proposal, including the parents of children attending school in the Snowline district. The district, which serves the communities of Phelan, Pinon Hills and Wrightwood, believes it can net as much as $100,000 annually through its participation in the project.
The district, which in 2011 arranged with SunEdison for the construction of solar energy generating systems at Serrano High School, Pinon Mesa Middle, Quail Valley Middle and Vista Verde Elementary, gave notice of its intent to work with SunEdison on the Phelan project in August.
SunEdison has since applied with the county’s Land Use Services Division for a project permit. Land Use Services will continue to accept public input on the proposal through February 10.

(January 28)  Multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct have so marred the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Case that it should be dismissed altogether, according to four motions filed by the attorney representing the defendant central to the case, a businessman who is accused of extorting and bribing four former public officials.
The California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office obtained an indictment against Jeff Burum, Paul Biane, Mark Kirk and Jim Erwin in May 2011. That indictment alleged Burum, one of the two managing principals of the Colonies Partners, first extorted and then bribed then-supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane to vote to approve conferring a $102 million payment to the Colonies Partners in 2006. That payment was made to settle a lawsuit brought against the county by the Colonies Partners in 2002 over flood control issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in northeastern Upland.
According to the prosecution, Burum, with the assistance of Erwin, a former president of the San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies union who was working as a consultant to the Colonies partners, in 2006 threatened Biane and Postmus, who were that year involved in political campaigns, by creating political mailers that dwelled on derogatory information pertaining to both. Prosecutors further allege that those mailers were withheld from distribution and that three weeks after the election Postmus and Biane joined with supervisor Gary Ovitt in approving the $102 million payment to the Colonies Partners. The prosecution alleges that subsequent to the $102 million settlement, payoffs were made to Postmus, Biane and Mark Kirk, the latter being supervisor Gary Ovitt’s chief of staff.  These payoffs were in the form of separate $100,000 payments over the next seven months to political action committees controlled by Postmus, Biane and Kirk. Kirk was paid, prosecutors allege, for influencing his boss, Ovitt, to support the settlement payment. Erwin, who went to work for Postmus as assistant assessor after the latter acceded to the position of assessor in 2007, likewise formed a political action committee that was endowed with a $100,000 contribution from the Colonies Partners.
Postmus had been named in a previous indictment concerning this alleged activity along with Erwin, in February 2010. Though he had initially pleaded not guilty in response to that indictment, in March 2011 he entered a guilty plea to all charges against him. He then served as the star witness when a second grand jury was impaneled in April 2011. That grand jury handed down a superseding indictment in May 2011, which renamed Erwin and added Burum, Biane and Kirk.
Stephen Larson, a former federal judge who is now representing Burum, filed four motions in San Bernardino Superior Court on January 27 which outline in detail his contention that prosecutors manipulated the grand jury process by a selective presentation of evidence and the coaching of Postmus as a witness to obtain the indictments of his client and his three co-defendants.
Characterizing the prosecution as a “targeted, politically-motivated smear campaign” and “an unfettered abuse of prosecutorial power,” Larson called upon the judge hearing the matter, Michael A. Smith, to dismiss the case against all four defendants.
According to Larson, the prosecution engaged in “a plethora of misconduct warranting the dismissal of the indictment.”
In early 2007, Larson said, the county “validated the settlement. Behind the scenes, however, political pressure was mounting to find a scapegoat for the unpopular settlement” Ultimately, Larson said the California Attorney General’s Office, and the district attorney’s office “determined that Jeffrey Burum would be that scapegoat. In their zeal to obtain an indictment of Mr. Burum, the prosecution apparently lost sight of its duty to seek justice and truth, and instead has engaged in a calculated campaign of misconduct, the cumulative effect of which constitutes a violation of the due process rights of Mr. Burmm and his codefendants and warrants dismissal of the indictment.”
The prosecution’s case consisted in large measure, Larson said, of the “manipulation of a known methamphetamine addict – former supervisor Willam Postmus – into concocting evidence to support its theory of the case, then presenting that manufactured evidence to the grand jury without explanation or  qualification. Knowing the effects that years of methamphetamine addiction must have had on Mr. Postmus’s perception and recall, the prosecution’s investigators used inappropriate interview techniques to convince Mr. Postmus to abandon the truth and adopt their theory of the case. In short, the prosecution elicited a methamphetamine-induced story from Mr. Postmus.”
Moreover, according to Larson, prosecutors “manipulated the evidence and misled the grand jury regarding the reasonableness of the settlement” and further “deceived Mr. Burum by telling him that he was not a target of its investigation, causing him to waive his constitutional rights and testify before a 2009 grand jury.”
Larson referenced the early statements of a Postmus political associate and friend, Adam Aleman, who worked for Postmus when he was supervisor and then, at the age of 23 in 2007, was named by Postmus as one of two assistant assessors at a $130,000 annual salary when Postmus became county assessor in January 2007 following the November 2006 election, in which he had defeated incumbent assessor Don Williamson. By late 2007, Aleman, who had no previous experience with regard to appraising or assessing properties, fell under suspicion for engaging in partisan political activity while working out of the assessor’s office, and in 2008 was arrested for misappropriating and misusing government property, destruction of governmental property and perjury.  It was during his interrogation by district attorney’s office investigators that information relating to the alleged extortion and bribery at the heart of the Colonies case was first provided to the prosecution.
Aleman pleaded guilty to charges of destroying public property and perjury. District attorney’s office investigators used statements provided by Aleman to obtain search warrants for several locations to obtain evidence upon which the indictments of Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk were based.
The prosecution, Larson alleged, “recklessly omitted from its search warrants the key fact that its assertions for probable cause were based on the averments of an alleged perjurer” and “withheld material exculpatory evidence regarding the lack of credibility of several key witnesses.”
In this way, Larson maintains, the “defendants have been irreparably prejudiced by numerous ‘foul blows.’”
Larson dwelled at some length on how the prosecution misframed or manufactured evidence to convince the grand jury to hand down the indictment. “The prosecution’s manipulation of its star witness in preparation for the grand jury proceedings constituted grave misconduct,” according to Larson. “The prosecution’s handling of Mr. Postmus violated Mr. Burum’s due process rights. The prosecution misled the grand jury regarding the impact of Mr. Postmus’s extensive methamphetamine use.” Larson maintained that in his interviews with district attorney’s office investigators, Postmus “admitted that the settlement occurred during the height of his drug use. The impact of Mr. Postmus’s drug use on his ability to accurately recall events strikes at the heart of his credibility. The prosecution’s head-in-the-sand approach to Mr. Postmus’s ongoing drug use amounts to a reckless disregard for the truth – the equivalent of suppressing evidence.“
According to Larson, when district attorney’s office investigators began questioning him shortly after he agreed to plead guilty and testify against others in exchange for leniency, Postmus made statements indicating that there had been no provision of bribes by Burum. But as they continued with those interrogations, Larson claimed, investigators planted seeds of information into the drug-addled Postmus that grew into trees of false testimony when he was finally brought before the grand jury.  “This entire process was an exercise in corrupting Mr. Postmus’s memory,” Larson propounded.  Larson cited Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., whom he described as “one of the world’s leading experts in human memory and eyewitness testimony” in explaining his theory of how the district attorney’s office had exploited Postmus to the detriment of the defendants.
“Based on her review of the investigators’ interviews of Mr. Postmus and his grand jury testimony, Professor Loftus concluded that Mr. Postmus’ changing story appears to have resulted from pressure interview tactics,” according to Larson. “When the grand jury convened, Mr. Postmus was primed to testify to the story the prosecution had manufactured.”
Furthermore, according to Larson, the prosecution’s theory that Burum’s provision of donations to the campaign war chests controlled by Postmus, Biane, Erwin and Kirk were tantamount to bribes falters.
“The payment of political action committee contributions after the settlement was approved cannot, as a matter of law, constitute bribery,” Larson stated. “An after the fact payment by itself ( i.e, without prior arrangement) necessarily lacks the requisite intent for the crime of bribery.”
Larson argued as well that the statute of limitations to charge the defendants was exceeded by the time of the 2011 indictment, in that more than three years had elapsed since the last contribution to the political action committees in question and more than four years had transpired since the vote by the board of supervisors to approve the $102 million payment. Thus, Larson asserts, the charges against the defendants are “time-barred.”
According to Larson, there are four bases upon which the court should dismiss the indictment, including  Penal Code Section 995, which states that an indictment should be set aside if a defendant has been indicted without reasonable or probable cause; Penal Code Section 939.71, which allows a grand jury to order evidence or witnesses that could be utilized to exonerate a defendant to be produced for consideration prior to an indictment; the statute of limitations; and prosecutorial misconduct.
Prosecutors have declined to publicly comment on the motions “in order to protect the integrity of the case and each defendant’s right to a fair trial.”
The prosecution has yet to file its response to the motions for dismissal.
In a previous response filed on March 14, 2013 to a motion by Larson to dismiss one of the charges based on statute of limitations considerations, Supervising Deputy California Attorney General Melissa Mandell maintained that the charges filed in 2011 were not time-barred because they had not been discovered until 2008.
“Burum’s statute of limitations claims rely on disputed issues of fact which have not yet been resolved,” Mandel asserted. “The indictment alleges that intermediaries were used to accomplish negotiations at the Doubletree Hotel, and that payment of bribes  was made to PACs [political action committees] controlled by Postmus, Biane, Erwin and Kirk. These facts and the indictment as a whole sufficiently set forth the secrecy and coverups involved in the crimes which prevented law enforcement and taxpayers from learning the facts.”