The Department of the Navy has approved the expansion of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center into Johnson Valley and Wonder Valley.
As delineated in the Marine Corps’ record of decision, the expansion footprint will extend the existing Combat Center 146,667 acres to the west and 21,304 acres to the south, entailing the acquisition of 167,971 acres of civilian- and government-owned property, much of which was considered by off-road enthusiasts to be prime dune-buggy and dirt bike terrain.
For its operational purposes, the Marine Corps had preferred a somewhat larger 201,657 acre expansion option that would have extended the combat center 180,353 acres to the west and 21,304 acres to the south. By declining this option, 42,803 acres in the Johnson Valley off highway vehicle area remain available to the public year round.
According to the Department of the Navy, of the 146,667 acres to be occupied by the expansion, 4,912 acres will be converted to what is referred to as a “shared use area” used by the military only two months out of the year and available for public recreation the ten remaining months. This will boost the shared use area of the entire combat center to a total of 43,049 acres.
The six expansion alternatives featured varying and conflicting environmental and operational advantages. The Marine Corps deemed the chosen option, referred to as Alternative 6, to be optimal when considering operational factors and environmental impacts combined.
The next stage of the process will entail Congress considering the application in the fiscal year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act. Upon approval by Congress, the Navy will be consigned to acquire the property, much of which is federal property to be vacated by the Bureau of Land Management. The Navy and Marines will also need to coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration to establish military exclusivity in the airspace over the property in question.
Further information about the expansion can be gleaned at the following webpages:  www.29palms.marines.mil/staff/G4InstallationsandLogistics/LandAcquisition.aspx and http://www.29palms.marines.mil/Portals/56/Docs/G4/LAS/V8%20ROD%20FAQs%20Final%20130213.pdf.

Activists in Chino Hills opposed to the operation of Chinese maternity hotels there have expressed doubt that a court-ordered settlement with regard to one of the birthing centers obtained by the city short of a trial earlier this month will effectively close down the facility.
Hai Yong Wu and Yi Wang had been operating an illegal birthing hotel out of what was originally a seven-bedroom home located at 5250 Woodglen Drive in Chino Hills throughout much of 2012. After it became known that Wu and Wang were housing pregnant women from China in the final stages of their pregnancy at the home in the upscale neighborhood so that their children could be credited with U.S. Citizenship, a wave of protest brought scrutiny and confirmation the house was being advertised as “Los Angeles Hermas Hotel,” touted as pre-birth and post-birth resting quarters for Chinese women.
The city of Chino sent code enforcement personnel to the premises, who found that the home, originally built in 1974 with seven bedrooms and six bathrooms, had been altered to feature 17 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms, many of which were not built to code. The inspectors documented no fewer than 18 code violations and then used citations generated on the basis of those to force operations there to cease, at least temporarily.
It was subsequently revealed that at least two other similar establishments had set up operation in Chino Hills. Those two were also temporarily forced to cease operations.
As part of a follow-up effort to prevent the Woodglen Drive home from reopening as a maternity hotel, the city had city attorney Mark Hensley seek an injunction barring Wu and Wang from operating the facility. A pre-injunction hearing was scheduled for February 19. Before that hearing took place however, Hensley succeeded in obtaining a stipulated agreement whereby nine of the building code violations were acknowledged and a correction plan was put into place. Under the terms of that agreement, which was confirmed as a court-ordered settlement issued by West Valley Superior Court Judge Keith Davis on February 11, Wang was dismissed as a party and Wu is required to remedy sewer line discharge violations, cover exposed electrical wires on the premises, outfit the single entrance bedrooms with emergency exits, provide ventilation, correct illegal construction of add-on rooms in the house, install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and alarms, and ensure clearance of flammable materials.
Hensley also reported the stipulated agreement contained a provision that the property cannot be used for commercial purposes, effectively shuttering the house as a birthing facility.
The city hailed the judgment as a victory in the battle to rid the city of maternity hotels.
Several Chino Hills residents, including members of the Not In Chino Hills organization that hastily formed late last year to oppose the maternity hospitals, expressed skepticism at the city’s confident pronouncement.
The Not In Chino Hills website states “[The] city of Chino Hills enter[ed] into an agreement with Mr. Wu, but there are no restrictions. Mr Wu can keep his 17 rooms and 17 bathrooms! [The] city filed a ex parte motion [and] vacated the February 19th hearing to enter [into] this agreement. Because Mr. Wu’s 17 rooms are within the building code, as long as they meet the sewage capacity, he does not need to put the house back to its original form – 7 bedrooms and 6 baths.”
Several Chino Hills residents have said they are concerned Wu will get around the ban on birthing activity by bringing the home up to code and operating as a subsidized or charity guest or vacation home.

Six months after a firestorm of protest induced the Upland City Council to shelve a proposal to amend the city code to give the city manager and the city’s development services director the authority to impose on residents and businesses administrative fines of up to $31,000 per month, Mayor Ray Musser has revived the effort to pass the controversial ordinance.
A crucial issue in the failure of the ordinance to achieve passage last summer was the widespread perception that community development director Jeff Zwack had made misrepresentations about the ordinance’s intent. During his presentation of the ordinance on July 30, Zwack publicly stated the ordinance was not intended as a revenue generating ploy. That evening, the four members of the council present voted unanimously to give the ordinance what is called a first reading, i.e. tentative approval. A second reading of the ordinance was scheduled for two weeks later to give the law final ratification.
The ordinance itself and its language were not made available to the public prior to nor during the July 30 meeting. Only after direct appeals by the public and the press did City Hall relent and release the text of the ordinance six days before the council was scheduled to approve it on August 13.
The ordinance as drafted substantially intensifies City Hall’s bureaucratic power and increases the amounts of the fines that can be levied. Moreover, the ordinance also sets up a policy similar to that utilized in other municipalities that empowers the city to not only issue citations but adjudicate them and set the penalty, precluding, at least in the first three phases of the administrative process, the individual who is cited from having the matter heard and the fine set by an independent arbiter, such as the municipal or superior court. Only upon being adjudged guilty and assessed with the fine, can a resident or business entity that is cited appeal the matter to an actual court, and then only upon posting the amount of the fine as a bond.
The ordinance was drafted by interim city attorney Jimmy Gutierrez and development services director Jeff Zwack. Zwack said the ordinance was based upon similar administrative citation provisions contained in nearby cities’ municipal codes.
On August 13, the council chambers were filled with residents and local business owners who came to weigh in against the ordinance. Also present were Musser and city manager Steve Dunn, both of whom were not present at the July 30 meeting. Several residents and business owners questioned Zwack’s veracity, openly suggesting that the ordinance was intended to generate revenue for the cash-strapped municipality. Zwack and the council also found themselves under attack for withholding the text of the ordinance from the public. Pointedly, no members of the council were willing to stand behind Zwack’s statement that the ordinance, which authorized fines of between $250 per day and $1,000 per day entirely at Zwack’s discretion, was not intended to generate revenue.  At that point, Dunn was wrestling with a $2 million annual budget deficit. The council did not give the ordinance second reading, instead calling for the item to be reconsidered at a later date.
In January, at Musser’s urging, the city council advisory committee took up consideration of the administrative citation ordinance. According to that committee’s chairman, Tom Mitchell, Musser requested that the committee consider the matter and return with a recommendation that the ordinance be approved so that the council can deflect any criticism leveled at the ordinance by the public.
Zwack remains the leading advocate for infusing in city staff the enhanced citation and fining authority. He said that the “intent is to streamline the process and facilitate a resolution and accomplish in 60 days what in our current process could take six months.”
The ordinance establishes fines of between $250 and $1,000, depending on the nature of the citation. Zwack asserted that the city’s current code enforcement process “is not efficient. Our intent is to incentivize compliance with the threat of fines. The ordinance gives us the ability to use a higher fine to get compliance. That is a decision of departmental policy made by the city manager and development services director [i.e., Zwack].”
Zwack was dismissive of the objections raised by those residents and business representatives to the abridgment of what those critics characterized as the due process rights of those cited. Under the terms of the ordinance, a notification of a code violation is to be provided to the allegedly offending resident, property owner or business operator, who will be given a specified period of time to bring the property or business into compliance. If the property is brought into compliance to the satisfaction of the development services director, no fine will be assessed. If compliance is not achieved by the specified date, a second notification is then issued, at which point fines, to be set by the development services director, are to be assessed. Those cited will not be afforded the opportunity to dispute the citation, which is to be issued, processed, determined as applicable and adjudicated upon the “administrative authority” conferred upon the development services director by the ordinance.
Those objecting to the proposed ordinance have said that this is tantamount to the city’s code enforcement division serving as the arresting officer, prosecutor, jury and judge, all without providing the accused with a trial.
Zwack denied the ordinance would grant the city license to conduct a “kangaroo court.” He said the city simply could not afford to observe the legal niceties afforded citizens under the U.S. and California constitutions, asserting taking residents to court “wastes a lot of staff time. No fine is attached until after the second letter [notifying the alleged offender of the ongoing violation]. This doesn’t make us judge and jury,” Zwack said. “We do not presently have adequate tools. If we issue a citation and there is no response after a second citation we have go to the city prosecutor and go into state or county court. That is a 60-day delay just to start the process and it can take up to a year or more before there is any action taken. A hearing can take up to half a day and that becomes very expensive. The administrative citations will save time and general fund money.”
Zwack said that a panel to hear such cases would be appointed by the city manager and him. He said the panel would likely consist of “community residents knowledgeable in building codes and other relevant issues. The outcome is appealable to a county judge.”
Residents and business owners objecting to the proposed ordinance seized upon Zwack’s acknowledgment that “We have a 95 percent compliance rate with our code enforcement citations. What this is aimed at is the five percent who do not comply.” They said the city’s assumption of draconian measures applicable against all of the city’s residents was far too heavy handed.
Jason Frater, a city resident, said he was “offended” by the city’s effort “to criminalize every aspect of our behavior. This country is built on individual freedom, not on mandates.”
Zwack said he had the backing of Dunn, the city manager, in seeking to provide his office with the enhanced code enforcement authority. Though he continued to assert the intent of the ordinance was not to raise revenue, Zwack said the municipal code change, if made, would save the city money by its streamlining of the process and the ability to unilaterally impose the fines.
Dunn previously told the Sentinel, “The thing driving this was the expense of pursuing some code enforcement cases. [The] ordinance creates a mechanism to ensure less costly compliance. Could it be abused? Without a doubt, it could. It isn’t our intent to go after small cases with this. We consider it as something that would be useful against people who give us the finger.  If we had this ordinance before, we would not have needed to go to court and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. We could have done it administratively. But it can be abused. It needs checks and balances put in there. Right now, it lacks checks and balances.”
Despite Dunn’s statement, the resurrected ordinance now under consideration is not substantially different from the version he said “lacks checks and balances.”
Zwack insisted the ordinance as drafted is based on similar processes used in other cities. That the ordinance’s provisions are being applied elsewhere, however, does not alleviate potential costly legal issues, such as those pertaining to selective prosecution or constitutional rights violations. Zwack has not addressed recent court rulings that have held that municipalities’ use of administrative hearing officers employed by those cities creates a conflict in which the fundamental fairness of the hearing process is compromised and the right to due process and other constitutional protections are violated. In one such case out of Hesperia, that city’s administrative imposition of a total of $129,000 in fines against Esther Duran and  her daughter, Janet, for maintaining three too many animals on their agricultural/residential zoned property  was reversed by U.S. District Court Judge John E. McDermott last year. McDermott ruled that the city’s action against the Durans in seizing their animals and imposing the punitive fines was improper, that their animals would have to be returned to them, and the fines, which were recorded against their property as tax liens would have to be expunged. The city, to avoid an even costlier judgment, paid the Durans $200,000 plus attorney fees. The Durans were represented by Upland-based attorney Louis Fazzi.
A calculation many cities make in using the administrative citation process against their citizens is that most do not have the financial wherewithal to fight City Hall. On those occasions where those citizens do have the means or in such cases where a lawyer like Fazzi is willing to represent them pro bono, the outcome can prove quite costly for those cities.
Upland resident and landowner Bill Huff questioned whether the city was being pennywise and pound foolish in seeking to institute the ordinance. “This could lead to lawsuits,” he said.
Ruth Lopez, a one-time city resident who has since moved to Needles where she was on the city council there, returns to Upland on a weekly basis to assist with the caretaking of a family member who yet resides in the City of Gracious Living. In August, she told the council that if the city went forward with administrative citations, “Eventually you will run into someone who will challenge you or who has a lawyer working for him or her pro bono and you will be dragged into federal court. You will lose and it will be expensive.”
Another facet of the ordinance its opponents cite is what they say is the potentially counterproductive recording of the fines assessed as part of the administrative process as liens against the property. The use of this strategy, some have said, will lead to a circumstance where the original owner who is cited may simply walk away from a problem property, which will then remain as a problem property because those who might otherwise choose to pick it up as a consequence of the foreclosure process might not do so because of the expense of satisfying the liens, which could total in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.   “With fines of $1,000 a day and $31,000 a month, that money is going to mount pretty rapidly,” Huff said. “After the property owner walks away, no one is going to want to buy that property, pay to bring it up to code and then pay $50,000 or $100,000 or maybe more in liens against the property. The city is shooting itself in the foot on this one.”
At this point, it is unclear whether the administrative citation ordinance has the requisite support to pass.
Musser had hoped it would garner unanimous support on the city council advisory commission, thus blunting any resistance to the ordinance and giving the city council political cover to approve it. But unanimous support is not in the cards and it might not even get a majority recommendation from the advisory  panel. While the committee chairman, Mitchell, who was appointed by Musser, is favorably inclined toward the ordinance and another member, Anthony Ghosn, appears to be entertaining the notion of supporting it, one of the committee members, Mark Creighton, has indicated he is dead set against it, characterizing it as  an overreaching abuse of municipal authority. Another committee member, Hal Tanner, said he would not support it unless it was altered to provide those cited with the opportunity to contest the accusations against them.
Musser appears to be its strongest backer. Based upon previous statements, councilman Brendan Brandt would appear to be a second vote in the ordinance’s favor. On July 30, both Gino Filippi and Debbie Stone joined with Brandt and then-councilman Ken Willis in approving it on first reading. At that time, however, the text of the ordinance had been withheld from the public and there was no indication of the groundswell of public sentiment against it. Since July 30, no member of the public has come forth to express support for the proposed change in Upland’s municipal code to allow the director of development services absolute autonomy in imposing fines of up to $1,000 per day on Upland residents. Indeed, there has been a growing tide of opposition to the measure. Willis is no longer on the council, having been supplanted by Glenn Bozar, a self-styled political watchdog and taxpayer advocate who for years prior to his election had inveighed against City Hall’s proclivity for tapping the city’s residents for ever more money. Assuming Musser can count upon Brandt’s support, he will yet need Stone, Filippi or Bozar to join him in imposing on all of the city’s residents a code enforcement regime that could prove decidedly unpopular.
Musser this week told the Sentinel that he indeed supports empowering the city’s development services director and the code enforcement division with administrative citation authority, though not in the precise form provided for in the ordinance as drafted by Zwack and Gutierrez last summer.
“I have not had a chance to read up on what he [Zwack] is proposing now or seen really whether staff has made changes to the ordinance we considered last year,” Musser said. “I am in favor of good code enforcement, but it has to be in a manner that is, how should I say, user friendly. I don’t think we should start off with fines that are a thousand dollars a day. I think the fines should be more graduated than that and it should take longer to get to that amount. I think we should start with continual reminders and smaller fines and penalties, which we can increase until they are compliant,” he said.

Within a fortnight, two of San Bernardino County’s fire departments hired new fire chiefs earlier this month.
In Upland, Rick Mayhew was handed the reins to that city’s fire department on February 3.
Mayhew, a 31-year firefighting veteran, had been a division chief in upscale San Marino prior to his hiring. He was previously a battalion chief for the South Pasadena Fire Department.
Upland had been looking to bring Mayhew in as chief for more than two months, but delayed doing so as city manager Stephen Dunn studied the feasibility of outsourcing the department, potentially to the city of Ontario or the county of San Bernardino, or merging with the city of Montclair for the provision of fire protection.
Dunn, who has been charged with reducing the city’s operational costs, rejected those options after the city’s firefighters’ union agreed to a contract concession that transferred the cost of covering the firefighters’ pension contributions from the city to the firefighters themselves.
The savings from that contract change will allow Upland to keep its firefighting force in house. For more than 18 months, the fire chief’s slot had gone unfilled, and the department was overseen by individuals, including the police chief, serving in the capacity of interim fire chief.
The Chino Valley Fire District, which serves the cities of Chino and Chino Hills, on February 13 hired Paul Segalla to serve as its new  chief.
Segalla had been the fire chief with West Covina since 2008, and previously was fire chief in Lockpart Township, Illinois, fire captain with the Berkeley Fire Department, fire lieutenant in Aurora, Illinois and a firefighter and deputy chief with the Downers Grove Fire Department in Illinois.
In Upland, Mayhew will be paid a base salary and add-ons of $170,698 with benefits of $71,692 for a total annual compensation of $242,390.
In Chino Valley, Segalla will be paid an annual salary of $188,326. The district did not release information with regard to his benefit package.

Debra Hernandez said she believes she is prepared to assume a position on the Chino Hills City Council based upon her past community participation, most conspicuously as a member of the city’s public works commission. Her commission work, she emphasized, is just one expression of her passion for the city.
“I have been very involved consistently over a number of years now in different aspects of the city,” she said. “I think that shows a dedication and commitment to the city. We have a wonderful slate of candidates, but I don’t know that all of them have been as involved as I have. I feel that by my commitment and the service, I have earned [the privilege of advancing to the city council]. I can point to any number of organizations I have been actively involved in. The reason I am running is I want to give back to the city.  I believe I can make a difference and have a positive impact.”
Hernandez said her early and consistent efforts to prevent Southern California Edison from erecting 197-foot high electrical cable-bearing towers across the Chino Hills landscape was an illustration of her dedication to the city.  Those towers were approved by the California Public Utilities Commission in 2009 as part of the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project, which is to  consist of what is planned as being the world’s largest wind energy farm in Kern County and the means of transporting the electricity generated there to the Los Angeles Basin. “I co-founded C.A.R.E., which has now transitioned into Hope For The Hills, which is carrying on that fight,” she said. “I think the Tehachapi project is the largest and most damaging challenge facing us. Very few people were thinking of it in those terms in 2007. Most people at that time could not envision the impact it was going to have. But those of us involved in C.A.R.E. did see that eventual impact. I believe the folks of Chino Hills want that type of leadership, someone with that vision, to lead our city forward.”
Hernandez exhibited an open perspective on city government’s capacity to both benefit and harm its citizens. On one hand, she pointed out, she had participated in the process of government as a member of a key municipal panel.
“I have been very involved in a lot of community aspects, including as a member of the public works commission,” she said. “I was appointed by [councilman] Bill Kruger.”
It is Kruger, who resigned in September for personal reasons that have not been made clear,  whom Hernandez and the three others in the race – Ray Marquez, Jesse Singh and Rossana Mitchell – are vying to replace.
“It is critical that our quality of life be maintained and that we have a city government open to the needs and wishes of its residents,” Hernandez said. “I believe I have demonstrated that through my commitment and energy on the public works commission.”
Conversely, Hernandez said, the city of Chino Hills has not always lived up to the ideal of serving its residents and has in some instances abused its authority in dealing with certain individuals, she said. If elected to the city council, she promised to be a bulwark against municipal government bullying its constituents.
“I think we also have a challenge with how we are addressing issues that create a conflict between city government and residents,” she said. “I am concerned that we have ended up in litigation with three different families and sent two residents to jail. I believe we need to find a way of resolving these issues without becoming litigious with folks who live in our city.”
Hernandez’ reference in one instance was to Charles and Lisa Price, the proprietors of the no-kill animal shelter Priceless Pets, against whom the city attorney’s office filed misdemeanor charges relating to the couple keeping 27 dogs on their 13-acre dog rescue operation at 2810 English Road in contravention of an ordinance prohibiting more than nine animals from being hosted on a property, no matter its size.
Hernandez pointed out that the city had selectively prosecuted the Prices, who were convicted and fined $269.20 each, while other property owners with animals exceeding the city’s limit have not been cited and have gone unprosecuted.
“The city took a long time to look at the equestrian overly [i.e., that area of Chino Hills where more intensive agricultural uses are to be tolerated],” she said. “Why did we pinpoint one family with dogs, one family with an inappropriate number of animals when there are dozens or maybe even hundreds of others?”
Another of her references was to the circumstance involving the Moe family, against whose property on the east side of Peyton Drive south of Eucalyptus Avenue, the city has waged an on-again, off-again eminent domain condemnation effort to seize their property as right-of-way for the Peyton Drive expansion.
Hernandez noted that the Moes and the city appeared to have come to a settlement only to have “the city hand them documents that they had not agreed to.”
Hernandez’s third reference was to a lawsuit filed against the city of Chino Hills by Michael and Kimberly Denton, residents of a home on Hunters Gate Circle purchased from Gloria Vitagliano in 1999, who were cited by the city’s code enforcement division because the furthest extension of their backyard including a pool and spa was encroaching on city-owned open space.  The city, which was apparently unaware of the encroachment, allowed the intrusion to stand for more than a decade before seeking to have the Denton’s remove their pool and spa.
“Why did we go after a homeowner that encroached on property set on land for public views 12 years after it was built?” Hernandez asked. “Why this one? There are others.  Is it we can’t work out a solution or that we won’t work out a solution?”
Hernandez said the city in many such cases overreaches itself. “I am not pleased with how we react sometimes,” she said. “It seems we have dug in our heels many times when we should not have. We should not go after residents when we have other options. Our city is our residents. We have to honor them.”
She can be distinguished from the other candidates in the same way she can be distinguished from politicians in general, Hernandez said. She said she would not use yard signs in her “grassroots” campaign because she considers them to be “visual blight.” And she said she “certainly believes in term limits. You won’t see Debra Hernandez serving five or six terms. I think eight years on the council is sufficient. There are lots of other avenues to contribute to the city. I believe we need to keep the council fresh, with new and innovative ideas. I could probably live with someone serving 12 years, but I think three terms should be the maximum. That sets me apart from the others. We need to have term limits as part of the city charter. I don’t think you are going to hear any of the other candidates say that.”
Hernandez is employed as the facilities manager at Toyota Motors in Torrance.
“I think Chino Hills is the neatest place on earth,” she said. “I make a 100-mile round trip every day because I want to live here.”
Hernandez graduated from Monrovia High School and attended Pasadena City College, where she studied business law and economics. She has lived in Chino Hills since 1995. She is married with one daughter.

The California Supreme Court will consider arguments by prosecutors that bribery and other political corruption charges pertaining to the 2006 Colonies lawsuit settlement that were thrown out by the trial court judge in 2011 and the California Fourth District Court of Appeal last year should be reinstated.
It was announced on February 13 that the state’s highest court will take up the matter, at least temporarily resuscitating the prosecution against Rancho Cucamonga-based developer Jeff Burum and three former political figures. The case against Burum and former county supervisor Paul Biane, former sheriff’s union boss Jim Erwin and former Fourth Supervisorial District chief of staff Mark Kirk was in large part gutted by previous court rulings. The California Supreme Court will now determine whether several of the charges that are central to that case in fact should be aired before a jury.
The Colonies Settlement Political Corruption case grew out of the November 26, 2006 3-2 vote of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors as it was then composed to approve a $102 million settlement of the civil action brought against the county and its flood control division by the Colonies Partners over drainage issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in northeast Upland.
Both the California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office allege that earlier in 2006 Jeff Burum, who was with Dan Richards one of the two managing principals of the Colonies Partners, conspired with former sheriff’s deputies’ union president Jim Erwin to blackmail two of the then-members of the board of supervisors, Bill Postmus and Paul Biane, by threatening to send to voters but ultimately withholding mailers revealing the former’s homosexuality and drug use and the latter’s insolvency. After the November 2006 vote in which Postmus and Biane joined with their board colleague Gary Ovitt to approve the settlement, prosecutors maintain Burum during the first six months of 2007 delivered four separate $100,000 bribes to Postmus, Biane, Erwin and Ovitt’s chief-of-staff, Mark Kirk, in the form of political donations to political action committees the four had founded or controlled.
Postmus and Erwin were indicted on bribery and extortion counts in February 2010. After Postmus in March 2011 entered guilty pleas on 14 of the felony counts against him, he appeared as the star witness before a newly impaneled grand jury that heard a total of 45 witnesses in April 2011. The following month that grand jury handed down a superseding 29-count indictment naming Burum, Erwin, Biane and Kirk, who were charged variously with conspiracy to commit a crime, bribery, conflict of interest, tax fraud, tax evasion, perjury, forgery, and aiding and abetting.
In August 2011, after demurrers were filed on behalf of Burum, Erwin, Kirk and Biane by their lawyers, Judge Brian McCarville granted some but not all of those defense requests to throw out charges based on their insufficiency or lack of clarity, dismissing five of the counts lodged against Burum, two of the counts Biane faced, two of the counts Erwin was charged with and one count pending against Kirk.
The prosecution then appealed McCarville’s ruling to the appellate court to have the charges reinstated. Defense attorneys asked the appellate court to sustain more of the demurrers than McCarville actually did.
After nearly a year of consideration, the 4th District Court of Appeal in a 41-page decision written by Justice Art W. McKinster and joined by associate justices Betty Ann Richli and Douglas P. Miller, on October 31, 2012 upheld McCarville’s dismissal of part of a conspiracy charge plus four other counts against Burum, and tossed out a conflict of interest charge against Burum, and restored some elements of one conspiracy charge along with an aiding and abetting charge against Burum. The appellate panel  dismissed three charges against Erwin that included engaging in a conflict of interest and that he aided and abetted Biane in his reception of a bribe. The court restored one charge against Erwin, that of misappropriating public funds. The judges denied Kirk’s request to throw out two charges pertaining to conspiring with Burum and misappropriation of public funds and restored a charge that he had improperly lobbied his boss, Ovitt.
Prosecutors asked the Supreme Court to reexamine the Fourth District Court of Appeals’ October 31 ruling. Of central concern to prosecutors is reestablishing the viability of the bribery charges against Burum, considered the linchpin to the entire case.
Two weeks ago, prosecutors were heartened when a San Diego Superior Court judge in his ruling with regard to a civil case that pertains to the Colonies settlement, made a finding that the county had no grounds to proceed with its efforts to recover a portion or all of the $102 million from the city of Upland, the California Department of Transportation or San Bernardino County’s own transportation agency, all of which had some impact on the flood control arrangements for the Colonies project, because Postmus had entered a guilty plea to charges that he had a conflict of interest in the matter and had taken a bribe to ratify that settlement.
For the duration of the case to date, the only arguments and issues being entertained by the trial and appellate courts have pertained to legal issues, with the prosecution and defense attorneys briefing the judges as to the applicability, inapplicability, sufficiency or insufficiency of the charges, with the courts assuming without question the accuracy of the factual allegations contained in the indictment. The factual issues have yet to be considered and the Supreme Court’s review will likewise not take up whether the facts as alleged by the prosecution are accurate but will extend only to whether the criminal charges lodged against the defendants are applicable if the factual basis for the case laid out by the prosecution is assumed to be true.
In this way, the true heart of the defense of the case pertaining to the factual issues has not been previewed in court. It has been hinted at, however, in information that has emanated from various sources, specifically with regard to the credibility of Postmus, who has been twice arrested for drug possession and has acknowledged a long-running drug addiction while simultaneously making conflicting statements to the FBI about whether he considered or understood the $100,000 in donations Burum made to his political action committees to be a bribe. The defense is also fortified with evidence to show that statements made under oath to the grand jury which implicated Burum in an effort to unduly pressure members of the board of supervisors were factually inaccurate. Among those was at least one representation by supervisor Josie Gonzales, who opposed the settlement in 2006. The defense will not have the opportunity to dispute the factual basis for the case until the case goes before a jury for trial.
Since the prosecution instituted the petition for review, it will have 30 days from the time of the Supreme Court’s order to provide its brief on why it believes the charges that have been dismissed should be reinstated. The defense will then have 30 days from the time of the prosecution’s brief to provide its responding brief. The Supreme Court then has the option of accepting further written responses and requesting oral arguments or making its decision on the basis of the written submissions. It is anticipated a decision on the Colonies matter will not be made for another six months.
“We are disappointed by the further delays occasioned by the Supreme Court’s review of the Court of Appeal’s decision,” Burum’s attorney, Stephen Larson, told the Sentinel. “However, we respect the judicial process and look forward to the opportunity to fully vindicate Mr. Burum before the trial court. I cannot comment on the issues before the Supreme Court while they are being considered.”

Michael Hildebrand said he is vying for the open spot on the Yucca Valley Town Council in part because of an offhanded remark his wife made to him.
“She said I could lie on the couch and complain about what is going on or I could run,” he said. “So, I’m running.”
As a licensed contractor with extensive experience in converting septic systems to sewer systems, Hildebrand said he has the technical knowledge to guide the city with regard to one of the primary challenges it is now faced with. The State of California has mandated that Yucca Valley end its reliance on septic systems and install the first of several stages of a sewer system by 2016. Property owners and residents will be subject to fines if they do not meet that deadline and the town will be enjoined from permitting any further development in the community.
“I have a general contractor’s license, a C42 sanitation license, a C36 plumbing license, a C8 concrete license and a C16 fire protection license. I carry more licenses than most contractors. I just finished a sewer project in Cathedral City. Over the last twenty years I have made sewer conversions in Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta and Rancho Mirage. I know exactly how these things are done and what is required. We were at a candidate forum and a question was asked and it was clear the other candidates did not have a clue about this subject. I have an extensive background in this area. If you want to ask questions about buying insurance, you could ask one of the other candidates, but that is not what the issue is here. I am not sure why the other candidates are even running.”
Hildebrand demonstrated his understanding of the issue and its complexity by explaining that there will be significant economies of scale achieved by undertaking the entire project collectively, including constructing the sewer treatment facility and its collections system and pipes on public lands and beneath the public roads as well as connecting the trunk lines to the homes on each parcel. Nevertheless, he said, that will require that prevailing wage – in the neighborhood of $60 per hour – be paid to those constructing the trunk lines. If private contractors are hired by those property owners outside the rubric of a public agency undertaking, he said, workers could be paid a much lower non-union scale rate – around $20 per hours.
“To build this system we need to get money in place to help people do this,” he said. “We need to create a deferred payment program that will utilize taxes or assessment over a long term that go on the residents’ properties. If the average person has to come up with five or ten grand, they will not be able to afford that and many will just walk away from their house. That is not what we need. We need a program that will help the individual person who at present cannot afford this. The majority of our residents are going to need that help.”
The other major challenge facing Yucca Valley, Hildebrand said, “is our budget. Our numbers are off. I don’t feel giving the town manager a raise and a three-year contract was the right thing to do. Redevelopment money is what the city has lived on for all these years. There is no more redevelopment money. The city council has to be more frugal with our money, like you and me with the way the economy has gone. Today you have to think about how you are going to spend your money, whereas before you might not have.”
Hildebrand said, “I know there has to be more tax money raised, but I don’t think we need more tax money as much as we need more taxpayers. One issue facing the city is we had land for a new park donated. Now we are looking at how to develop that park and maintain that park. I think we should probably farm out the maintenance so it can be done more cost effectively instead of doing it in-house.”
The formula for curing Yucca Valley’s ills, Hildebrand said, is “growth,” explaining, “We need to make this a friendly town where developers are willing to develop. We have made it hard on builders here. I happen to be a developer. There are towns I will not go to because of the harassment or over-requirements. Somebody has to give. We are not going to get restaurants to come here. The best we can get are just the big chains because those are the only ones that can afford to meet the town’s requirements. Everyone says they are for the small business person but no one is trying to help the small businesses in this town. Small businesses are what Yucca Valley is made of and they are what will make the city thrive. The chamber of commerce tells everyone how many hits they have on their website. No one really cares about how many people are viewing their website. What we need is more guidance on having people buying locally. We need to stick together as a town rather than create more problems for people, which is pretty much what the town government does.”
Hildebrand said the town “needs to make more programs available for seniors and our youth.”
He deserves the consideration of voters, Hildebrand said, because “Most people who know me know you are not going to persuade me to do something that isn’t right. I’ve always thought of others before I think of myself. In government, they only think of themselves. For every action there is a reaction. Government should be for the people and not for the gain of the politicians. If I am elected, I promise I will take time out to help people with whatever their concerns are.”
Hildebrand is a member of the Yucca Valley Planning Commission. He has lived in Yucca Valley since 1999. He graduated from Sierra High School in San Diego. His post high school education consisted of attendance at a trade school. He is married with three children.

(February 22) Ray Marquez maintains his depth and breadth of experience in government in and outside of Chino Hills has prepared him to serve on the Chino Hills City Council.
Marquez is vying against three others to be selected by city voters in a special mail-in ballot election March 5 as the replacement for Willburn “Bill” Kruger, who resigned from the city council last September.
“Experience counts,” Marquez said, pointing out that his community involvement began with his participation in Chino Hills Little League in the 1980s, where he went from being a team manager to board member for five years, three as president. In the early 1990s, he was involved in the Chino Hills incorporation effort and in the council campaigns of of Gary Larson and Mike Whitman.
Marquez was appointed to the city’s first planning commission and served on it for one term and was subsequently appointed to the city’s park and recreation commission, where he served three terms. He is currently on the Chino Valley Independent Fire District’s board of directors. He is a San Bernardino County airport commissioner  and he also serves on the advisory council for the Frontera Women’s Prison. He is on the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council and is a member of two state legislative committees, the California Special District Legislative Committee and the California Special District Finance Committee. A retired firefighter who worked for 28 years with the Santa Fe Springs Fire Department, Marquez insists that he “can bring that experience to bear on issues that the city faces.”
“When I first got involved in the community, the issue was sports field availability,” he said. “We had people outside Chino Hills shipping their kids in to use our fields. I worked on the problem with the school district and the Little League regional office and we worked out the field allocation issues with the creation of a youth sports council. We came together to assure everyone had adequate access and it worked out quite well. I had to reach out politically to do that. I have been involved politically here in Chino Hills one way or the other ever since. I have accomplished a few things. I was elected to the fire board in 2006 and have served on it since 2007. At present our reserves are at $21 million and we provide better service in Chino Valley than in just about every other fire district in this region. We opened a station while other departments were closing stations. Close to 80 percent of our equipment is new.”
Marquez says he alone among the other candidates is hyperconscious of the issue of community facilities district funding. Community facilities districts are entities created when cities or counties allow a developer to create a residential subdivision, without providing upfront the funding necessary for that development’s infrastructure, instead using a state law passed in the 1980s to issue Mello-Roos bonds, which are then debt serviced for up to thirty years by the homeowners that purchase property within that subdivision. Those assessments are fees those homeowners must pay on top of their mortgage payments. In Chino Hills, many of the Mello-Roos districts that were created nearly three decades ago under the aegis of the county are about to expire. When they do, they will take with them some of the funding the city of Chino Hills utilizes to cover a portion of its payroll. “We have ten of them,” Marquez said of the community facilities districts. “They entail an overhead fee. I don’t want the city to get caught flatfooted when that [the bond payment arrangement] ends.” Marquez did not offer a specific indication of what he intended to do with regard to the community facilities districts, leaving open the possibility of extending the assessments, finding some other funding mechanism to keep the city employees with the city, or laying off those employees whose positions are currently funded by the assessments.
Marquez said the city has several pressing issues demanding the attention of decision makers.
“I am concerned about open space in our community,” Marquez said. “Open space is vital to me.”
“The power lines are a big issue,” he said. “Edison has said it has set aside $32 million to get ready for undergrounding but now we have learned the lines won’t be undergrounded in Oak Tree downs. I don’t like that. Once they start undergrounding, it should not be that much more money to do the same thing for the last mile-and-a-half. I am concerned about health issues. I am concerned about property values. I have been involved with Hope For The Hills on this. There has been a partnership between the city and the community but there hasn’t been good communication. It has gotten better. It is amazing what you can do when you work together.”
Marquez, who now works as a real estate broker, said, “Another big issue is the equestrian overlay.”
The city is in the process of considering a change to its municipal code, which was put in place upon the city’s 1991 incorporation, essentially adapting San Bernardino County’s rules, which prohibit keeping more than nine large animals on any parcel, regardless of its size. The Chino Hills General Plan makes specific mention of protecting the historic horse farms as they are along the English Road recreational corridor. City officials have also given horse farm owners assurances the area’s rural character will be preserved and small or medium sized horse farms will not be zoned out of business and out of town, but many of the farms, some of which have as many as 90 horses, are out of compliance with the municipal code and its zoning. Other cities in Southern California have used these technical restriction to force equestrian farms to close.
The equestrian overlay zone the city is seeking to establish would include the English Road area, Bayberry Drive, Coal Canyon and anywhere where lots are consistently bigger than a half-acre.
“There are a lot of non-conforming ranches,” Marquez said. “There are a lot of businesses that do not have the ability to pull a permit. It is too costly if you do not have business that is compatible with the property zoning.”
“This is a good family community,” Marquez said. “I want to keep it that way. I am a moderate Republican and I don’t want to raise taxes.”
Insisting he was the superior candidate, Marquez was both deprecatory and complimentary toward his opponents.
“Jesse [Singh] just registered and voted in November,” Marquez said. “He is a great kid and I think he has a future, but I don’t think he has the experience. Rossana Mitchell was on the city council for eight months ten years ago, but I have not seen her in the community since. Debbie [Hernandez] is a good person and she would be a good council member, but her experience has been limited to being a commissioner. I feel I have more experience, more involvement more relationships. I have the endorsements of Senator Bob Huff. I have the endorsement of Assemblyman Curt Hagman. I have the endorsements of the entire Chino Hills City Council and the endorsement of the entire Chino City Council with the exception of Eunice [Ulloa]. I certainly believe my four opponents are serious and they are being active and they are doing more than just bitching and complaining. I commend them.”

Among the growing number of entities itching to sue the city of San Bernardino are the San Bernardino Police Officers Association and the San Bernardino Professional Firefighters Association. Both, however, have been stymied in their litigious designs.
All existing lawsuits against the municipality were put on hold as a result of its August 1 filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Federal Court in Riverside. As a further result, the filing of any other suits against the city have been stayed. Several of the city’s contractors, creditors, vendors, associated governmental adjuncts or employee representatives have considered asking or have already asked the U.S. Magistrate hearing the bankruptcy, Meredith Jury, to lift that stay so legal action against the city can proceed.
On March 12, the unions representing the city’s police officers and its firefighters gave indication they will seek leave to sue San Bernardino.
At issue is the police union’s contention that the union’s imposition of across-the-board city employee contracts last month violated California’s labor laws.
On January 28, a divided San Bernardino City Council declared negotiations with most of the city’s various bargaining units to be at an impasse and then voted to impose redrafted contracts on all city employees with the temporary exemption of police management.
Several of the city’s unions protested against the move, saying they were still in the process of making offers and counter-offers. City attorney Jim Penman said the city was on sound legal and procedural footing in unilaterally enforcing the salary and benefit cuts.
The city maintains that once all eight bargaining units are included in the contract adjustment regime, the city will realize savings of almost $26 million  annually from those employee pay and benefit reductions.
The city is wrestling with an “institutionalized” budget deficit which in 2012-13 is equal to $46 million less in income than expenditures. The $26 million in city staff-related reductions were part of a pendency plan submitted to Jury in November.
Police and fire union members, calling the terms in the new contracts “unbearable” and “draconian,” have declared their intention to seek an injunction blocking the salary and benefits cuts from going into effect.
In seeking Jury’s permission to pierce the veil of bankruptcy protection, the two unions will join the San Bernardino Public Employees Association, which represents many of the city’s line employees, and the California Public Employee Retirement System, which assert the city is abusing the federal bankruptcy process by seeking to defer payments to entities, such as themselves, that have under state law a priority claim on money available in the city’s general fund and other coffers.
While those owed money by the city are making those assertions, Paul Glassman, the city’s bankruptcy attorney, and James Penman, San Bernardino’s city attorney, have asserted that the deferrals in payments and concessions on the employee contracts are necessary components of the city’s pendency plan, without which the city cannot find its way out of its financial crisis.
In addition to the savings to be achieved by the employee benefit and payroll reductions, the city is asking for Jury to ratify deferring close to $35 million in debt over the course of 2012-13, with a similar suspension of its payments to creditors and vendors over the next couple of years, until such time as the city’s income again meets its expenditures and solvency is achieved.
Glassman said the pendency plan, in all of its intricacy “shows the city and city council’s resolve to do what is necessary in the Chapter 9 case.”
Jury scheduled a hearing to further discuss elements of the pendency plan for March 5 and a hearing the following day on a current motion by the San Bernardino Public Employees Association to lift the stay.

Following an extended round of negotiations between the city of Upland’s seven employee bargaining units and city manager Stephen Dunn, all 277 of the city’s full-time employees have agreed to pick up the full nine percent employee match of their pension system contributions.
Over the last two decades, the city had agreed to make for its employees a major portion of the contributions normally made by those employees to capitalize their retirement fund. Under the terms of the employees’ retirement system, each year nine percent of each employee’s salary was paid into the city pension pool. But in the case of the city’s non-safety employees, they were only paying 5.2 percent and the city was supplying the other 3.8 percent. Firefighters were laying out 5.8 percent and the city was picking up 3.2 percent. In the case of policemen, the city’s taxpayers were augmenting their pay with the full nine percent contribution.
Dunn succeeded in getting all employees to agree to make their own pension contributions as of July 1. He calculated that change will result in the city saving $2.3 million throughout fiscal year 2013-14 and 2014-15. The fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
The move will go a considerable way toward redressing the city’s current trend in unbalanced budgets, in which spending outruns revenue by nearly $2 million per year.
The employer contributions in the form of the pension fund payments were locked into place after having been negotiated by former Upland City Manager Robb Quincey. Quincey negotiated for himself a contract that gave him the same raises as those received by the city’s police officers. He worked out a deal that gave the police union’s members a 3.5 percent raise in 2011 and another 3.5 percent boost in 2012. The police were the only employees to be provided raises since 2010.
Quincey was suspended from his position in January 2011, a little more than a month before the indictment of former Upland Mayor John Pomierski on bribery charges. Quincey was fired in May 2011 and in July 2012 lost a wrongful termination case he brought against the city. In October 2012, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed felony public office corruption charges against Quincey, including unlawful misappropriation of public money, gaining personal benefit from an official contract, and giving false testimony under oath. The charges against him are still pending.