Ontario’s homeless encampment, which began as a group of about 20 ragtag squatters who occupied open property just west of Ontario Airport without authorization in 2007 and then grew to become a shantytown of roughly 400 that was quasi-sanctioned by city officials, is now defunct.
When two of the Sentinel’s writers drove through the area near State Street west of Grove Avenue on January 13, the area was empty.
“I do not get updates on it every day like I was before,” Ontario Mayor Paul Leon told the Sentinel. “I know there were fewer than 15 people there a while ago. We have been ramping it down for years. We now have a very sophisticated homeless support program that has replaced it.”
The encampment spontaneously emerged in 2007, as growing numbers of people were displaced by the stagnating economy and many found themselves living on the streets after a round of foreclosures. The homeless began congregating in the area and a tent city formed that Ontario officials at first resisted but in time reluctantly grew to accept. City officials began providing water hookups, sanitation facilities and other basic services to those living there. That official acceptance generated publicity, which in turn resulted in larger numbers of homeless flocking there.
In 2008, the city drew the line, disallowing outsiders living in mobile homes from occupying the area and then instituting a policy of having those accepted there show proof that they had lived or otherwise originated in Ontario to receive the limited services the city was providing.
Since that time, the city, as Leon said, has been seeking to substitute in other services to discourage the homeless from taking up residence in the area.
The city now offers short-term rental or rental arrears assistance for up to two months, utility payment for up to two months, the provision of security deposits for would-be renters along with utility deposits to city residents who have been evicted and who are under the 2010 state annual income limits, which range from $26,000 for a household of two to $42,900 for a household of eight.
A partially city sponsored program, Mercy House, is the city’s first line of offense in the war on homelessness. Mercy House is located at the corner of Bon View and Holt.
Leon said he has faith Mercy House is making inroads on the problem.
“I believe we have a very good program with Mercy House,” Leon said. “Someone on the street can walk in there and they will put him up in a motel or hotel and get him entered into a program that would turn him back into a productive member of the community. I checked it out myself. Just to see what they would do, I took someone in there myself. I tried to make it so the people with Mercy House had no idea who I was. I wore a hat that I pulled down as low as I could. I wore sunglasses and had on just a T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. I took this guy in there and said to them, ‘This is somebody who needs your help.’ I can tell you they did a good job. They got him off the street.”
The Mercy House phone number is (909) 988-4562.
Ontario’s secondary  lines of offense against homelessness include the House of Ruth, which provides services for battered women and their children, reachable at (909) 988-5559; the Foothill Family Shelter, at (909) 920-5568; the SOVA Food Bank, at (909) 391-4882; the 211-United Way, which can be reached by dialing 211 for assistance; the county of San Bernardino Department of Veteran Services, at (909) 465-5241; and the Kids Come First Clinic, which provides free/low cost medical care for children 0-18 years, at (909) 673-9125.

Just shy of a year after the Mountain Top Café near the confluence of state highways 2 and 138  was forced to shut down for nine months because of a fire, its significance as a celebrated establishment near the gateway between San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County was marked with a ribbon cutting by the Phelan Chamber of Commerce on January 4.
Fire department logs show that a distress call from the restaurant went out at 5:15 p.m. on January 13, 2012 and that firefighters were en route to the scene at 5:16:39 p.m. Four engines, two from Wrightwood and two from Phelan, including a water tender and units that were diverted from a vehicle fire at Sheep Creek Road and Highway 138, responded to what was described as an electrical fire in the roof. The fire was confined to the dining area due to an aggressive interior attack by firefighters and the blaze was put down by 5:28 p.m. The Gas Company was on scene at 6:06 p.m.
Damage was extensive enough to keep the café shuttered until October, when it reopened.
The Mountain Top Café was constructed in 1940 by John Lovett, who also built the Mountain Top Service Station in 1937.

VICTORVILLE—Over the objections of a handful of teachers, the Victor Valley Union High School District Board of Trustees approved three percent cuts in the contracts for classified and management employees.
Those reductions are being made as administrators are working to stave off a state takeover of the cash-strapped district.
The four percent downscaling of the district’s certificated personnel, i.e., teachers, was greater than the three percent paring done to management and groundskeepers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, librarians and instructional assistants, prompting protest from some of the teachers.
Superintendent Elvin Momon called the reductions “painful” but necessary.
“I ask each of you to stand with me, the administration and our board of education to problemsolve, collaborate and fight with every ounce of energy and integrity the challenge of state takeover,” Momon pleaded in a letter to district employees last week.
In addition to the 4 percent salary cut teachers are sustaining, they are also having a 30 percent reduction in sick days and a 40 percent reduction in bereavement time off being imposed on them. The district has also upped the teachers’ contribution toward their medical visit and prescription coverage.
Teachers bemoaned that they, more than the district’s other employees, are bearing the onus of the district’s pay and benefit reductions.
The board voted 4-1, with Timothy Hauk dissenting, to implement the contract changes, which will last, at least until June 30, 2015.
The cuts will apply only to those district employees who are still working for the district after the end of the current school year. Just before Christmas, the school board voted to hand out preliminary layoff notices to 80 district employees, including 37 teachers and eight counselors as well as 35 non-instructional workers including information technology specialists, clerical staff and custodians. The non-instructional staff will be let go as of April 26. The remainder of the layoffs will come in June.
Finances in the district have deteriorated to the point that if the district has not put together a game plan for reducing its deficit spending by February 15, the process of turning the district over to a state receivership will be initiated. District officials said a state takeover would likely result in a curriculum devoted solely to core educational courses with the elimination of most or all electives. Included in the layoff notices were two for teachers in the district’s popular cadet program.

NEEDLES — While teachers and other district employees in the Victor Valley Union High School District were preparing to lose their jobs or accept substantial pay and benefit cuts so that district can avoid a takeover by the state, 175 miles across the desert teachers in the smaller Needles Unified School District are about to receive five percent across-the-board pay raises approved by the school board on December 19.
The revenue for the pay hikes will come from money coming to the district by way of Proposition 30, which was approved by voters statewide in November.
While many parents in the district and others expressed concern that the district should use the entirety of the Proposition 30 windfall for education improvements such as class size reductions, reading programs, library enlargement, increasing electives at the high school, buying books for the middle and elementary school libraries, increasing Regional Occupational Program classes at the high school, and rehiring previously laid off teacher aides at the elementary level, district superintendent Mike Davitt said the district could legally utilize the money for upping teacher salaries despite the way in which Proposition 30’s promoters had emphasized in ads that went to voters that the proposition was intended to shore up educational resources that had been cut back because of the statewide budget crunch.
Davitt said teachers deserved the raises the district is now able to give them, since they have stuck by the district over the last four years when raises could not be afforded.
Nearly half of the Proposition 30 money, which is to come from temporary tax increases, will be utilized for yet-to-be-determined school improvement programs.

On Saturday January 19, Diesel Injection Service will commemorate its relocation to Colton within the San Bernardino Valley Enterprise Zone with a grand opening celebration from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Colton Mayor Sarah Zamora, Councilmember Isaac Suchil, the Colton Chamber of Commerce and company officials are scheduled to christen the new facility, located at 1690 Ashley Way in Colton with a ribbon cutting. K-Frog 95.1 FM will host a live remote broadcast as the official emcee of the celebration, which will include music, food, raffle prizes and exhibit booths for the local community to come out and enjoy. Many local residents are expected to attend.
Established in San Bernardino in 1951, Diesel Injection Service is a Southern California leader in commercial and non-commercial diesel fuel injection pumps, injectors and other performance products. To accommodate recent growth, the company expanded into the new 22,000-square-foot facility off the I-215 late last year.
In addition to freeway visibility and proximity to clientele, Diesel Injection Service selected the site to remain in the enterprise zone. The company currently employs 17 service, sales and administrative workers and will pursue the enterprise zone program as a tool to hire more employees as growth permits.
The new facility features a 5,500 square-foot showroom, a 3,300 square-foot injection pump and injector department and a 6,700 square-foot fleet service department. As an authorized Bosch drive-in diagnostics and repair service center, Diesel Injection Service also offers fleet services.
The San Bernardino Valley Enterprise Zone is one of 40 existing enterprise zones established by the California Department of Housing and Community Development to encourage investment, growth, development and job creation in economically distressed areas of the state. The enterprise zone program grants employers tax credits and incentives for pro-growth business investments that improve economic activity within designated zone areas.
The San Bernardino Valley Enterprise Zone is located in Southern California and includes the city of Colton, city of San Bernardino and unincorporated portions of San Bernardino County.  In addition to the tax incentive it offers, the San Bernardino Valley Enterprise Zone also features a highly developed network of road, rail and air transportation infrastructure, a skilled and educated workforce, affordable commercial and residential real estate, and many other pro-business programs that make the area a highly competitive location for business. Those wanting more information about the San Bernardino Valley Enterprise Zone can find it at www.SBVEZ.com.

Bloomington residents who receive sewer service from the city of Rialto will no longer pay three times the standard rate, beginning the first billing cycle of 2013.
During a Dec. 11, 2012 public hearing, the Rialto City Council approved recommendations from the Rialto Utilities Commission which included reducing the 300 percent extra-territorial sewer fee to 130 percent of the standard rate.
In the months leading to the decision, San Bernardino County conferred with the city of Rialto to resolve the issue that affects over 100 Bloomington residences.
“I want to thank the city of Rialto for its leadership and cooperation with the county of San Bernardino in considering a fair approach to managing sewer rates for unincorporated residents,” wrote 5th District Supervisor Josie Gonzales in a letter to Bloomington residents.
Eric Scott, member of Bloomington’s Municipal Advisory Committee, is one resident who will see an average sewer bill savings of $55.18 per month in 2013.
“[Bloomington residents] I’ve spoken with are quite relieved. The original proposed rate increase was substantial, and would have severely impacted Bloomington families. This demonstrates the importance of clear and consistent communication between Bloomington and her neighbors, including Rialto,” said Scott.
Following the council’s decision, Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson said, “The city council recognized this was an important issue for residents in the Bloomington area who had previously paid three times the standard sewer rates for their service.”
Recommendations were also approved to apply all previous “standby” charges paid by property owners located within the city of Rialto as a credit to currently owed sewer connection fees.

ADELANTO–The Adelanto Elementary School District’s board voted unanimously January 8 to approve converting severely underperforming Desert Trails Elementary School into a charter academy, more than 20 months after a group of parents at the school launched a school takeover bid using California’s new and controversial parent trigger law.
The school board’s acceptance of LaVerne Preparatory Academy as the operator of Desert Trails beginning next September prepares the way for the first ever full employment of the Parent Empowerment Act, authored by former state senator Gloria Romero and passed by the legislature in 2010. The Parent Empowerment Act  enables a majority of parents at a school at which students score  as low-performers on state academic tests to force a district to implement significant reforms, ranging from replacing the principal and up to half the staff to reopening the school as a charter academy. That process is known by the colloquialism “parent trigger.”
The school board’s endorsement of the takeover plan is a reversal of the initial resistance the district administration and school board made to the parent trigger effort.
Pursuant to the Parent Empowerment Act, a parent union was formed by parents at Desert Trails Elementary in 2011, in large measure at the instigation of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Parent Revolution, which is devoted to challenging the traditional authority of school districts.
On January 12, 2012 the parent union submitted 466 signatures on petitions asking the district to undertake a set of what the parents union maintained would  be reforms at the academically challenged  school.
Those petitions, which called upon the district to sack the school’s principal, David Mobley, and surrender to the school’s parents authority in hiring his successor, infuse in the new principal hiring authority for the school’s faculty, reduce class sizes and increase the number of school days and instructional hours, and include more science, history and art in the curriculum, were sufficient to meet the requirements of the Parent Empowerment Act, parent union members believed. The parent union subsequently modified that agenda to request that the school be converted to a charter academy, offering an intensified curriculum.
A group of parents opposed to the parent takeover of the school formed and went to work obtaining rescissions of many of the signatures on the petitions.
In February 2012, the school district, to whom the parent trigger petitions had been entrusted, announced that it had validated the signatures of only 301 of the 466 signatures on the petitions and declared that the parent trigger petitions were thus 20 signatures short of the 321 needed. The Desert Trails Parent Union, represented by Mark Holscher, a lawyer with the firm on retainer with Parent Revolution, Los Angeles-based Kirkland & Ellis, on April 5, 2012 on behalf of five of the members of the parents union – Doreen Diaz, Kathy Duncan, Teresa Rogers, Olivia Zamarripa and Bartola Del Villar – filed a petition for a writ of mandate and a complaint in Victorville Superior Court seeking a court order that the district verify the signatures and allow the Parent Trigger process to advance.
Holscher maintained that the district did not make an impartial tally of the signatures and “engaged in a systematic effort to invalidate the petitions.”
Judge Steve Malone, to whom the case was assigned, restored 97 of the signatures tossed out by the district. Malone ruled last summer that the district did not have the authority or a basis in law to discount signatures that proponents gathered and the district had abused its discretion in doing so. “Once the petition was submitted, the district and the trustees lacked authority to reject 97 signatures from the petition based on subsequent extrinsic evidence of rescission,” Malone ruled.  “The district and trustees have a mandatory legislative duty to include those signatures.”
By his ruling Malone raised the number of qualified signatures to well above 50 percent. He ordered the Adelanto Elementary School District to accept the petition as filed by the parent union within 30 days and seek proposals from charter school operators to take over Desert Trails.
Even so, the district balked at the parent union’s proposed direction, and delays prevented the school district from converting Desert Trails Elementary into a charter school at the initiation of the 2012-13 academic year in September. In the same time frame, the district’s superintendent, Darin Brawley, resigned. The leaders of the parent union considered several charter school proposals and in October gravitated toward and then chose LaVerne Preparatory Academy, which is operated by Debra Tarver in Hesperia.
LaVerne Preparatory Academy scored among the highest ranking schools in San Bernardino County on Academic Performance tests administered to the state’s schools and school districts, registering 911 out of 1,000 on what is known as the Academic Performance Index. In San Bernardino County, the average index is 767. Desert Trails this fall scored 699 on that index.
By its 4-0 vote, the school board agreed to have the district relinquish control of the campus to LaVerne Preparatory for a three-year period after the current school year ends in June. Tarver and her faculty will move into the Desert Trails this summer.
At the school board meeting on Tuesday, most of the parents in attendance were in a triumphant, almost giddy mood as a result of the board’s action.
For the last seven years, Desert Trails students have had the lowest scores within the district on state standardized academic tests. The school’s students have also collectively scored in the bottom 10 percent of all California elementary schools. In the school’s 2011 graduating sixth grade class 72 percent of students were not proficient with the English language and 70 percent were not proficient in math. Two-thirds of last year’s crop of graduating sixth-graders were unable to read or do math at grade level. Since 2007 Desert Trails has been classified as a failing school. Parents and school board members expressed hope that Tarver and LaVerne Preparatory would be able to apply their formula to bring the school’s students up to par with the norm.
Yet there is remaining skepticism that the parent trigger process in general and in particular the way it is being applied in Adelanto will have the salutary effect that is hoped for. Indeed, there have already been indications that Tarver will experience a severe challenge in uprating academic performance at Desert Trails.
A central component of Tarver’s approach is engaging parents in their children’s educational process.  Whether Tarver can achieve that component at Desert Trails is under question. Whereas 466 parents at the school signed the petition to move forward with the parent trigger process in late 2011 and January 2012, when the parents union held its election in October 2012 to determine which of the charter schools that had submitted proposals should be chosen to educate their children, only 53 parents participated in that vote. Moreover, a significant number of the students at Desert Trails Elementary have parents whose first language is not English and nearly all of the instructional materials used by Tarver and LaVerne Preparatory are in English.
Board president Christine Turner said that nonetheless she is “hopeful” LaVerne Preparatory will be able to turn the situation at Desert Trails around.

The city of Grand Terrace is seeking a refund of $123,026.46 in property tax administration fees from the county of San Bernardino.
Grand Terrace City Attorney  Richard Adams on December 13, 2012 filed a claim with the clerk of the county board of supervisors for a refund of tax payments dated December 7. In that filing, Adams indicated the money sought did not pertain to any specific parcel.
On January 8, the board of supervisors referred the claim to the office of county counsel for investigation and a follow-up report.
Grand Terrace City Manager Betsy Adams told the Sentinel the claim was “based upon a recent court decision, Alhambra vs. the county of Los Angeles, which has to do with property tax. Based upon that court decision, the city has filed a claim for property tax funds that we feel the county has withheld that are now due to Grand Terrace.”
At issue in the claim are the changing methods by which the state previously shifted tax revenue from counties and cities to fund education and bond repayments and subsequently rerouted money to those cities and counties from other sources. Several counties, including San Bernardino, charge cities for assessing, collecting and distributing property tax revenue. In creating an education revenue augmentation fund in the early 1990s, the state mandated that tax revenues going into that fund not be assessed an administration fee. The fund shifted part of the property tax revenue counties collected and deposited it into the fund to ensure a guaranteed minimum funding contribution  for schools.
When the state implemented two more budget-shifting and backfilling measures, it reduced  revenue going to the fund, and counties started levying the administration fee on that part of the money again. Most county’s recalculated costs to their cities using the same administrative cost formula and cities which saw contribution  increase in property tax revenue saw their costs increase.
Several cities, including Alhambra, contested that move. An earlier decision in Los Angeles Superior Court favored the county in that litigation, but two subsequent rulings, one at the appellate level and a final one by the California Supreme Court in November, favored the city.
It is upon the basis of that outcome that cash-strapped Grand Terrace has filed a claim with the county for the return of the money.

Two taxpayer organizations will be allowed to pursue their lawsuit to recover the $102 million paid to the Colonies Partners by the county of San Bernardino in 2006 to end litigation brought over flood control issues at the Colonies project in Upland, Superior Court Judge David Cohn ruled last month.
The Inland Oversight Committee and Citizens for Responsible and Equitable Environmental Development, represented by attorneys Cory Briggs and John McClendon, filed suit against the Colonies Partners in San Bernardino County Superior Court in February 2012, seeking the return of the money.
That lawsuit alleges that former board of supervisors chairman Bill Postmus’s March 2011 guilty plea to receiving bribes from Colonies Partner principal Jeff Burum in exchange for his endorsement of the settlement established that Postmus had violated California Government Code Section 1090, the state’s conflict-of-interest statute. The lawsuit propounds that the violation of Section 1090 negates the applicability and validity of the settlement vote, requiring that the settlement money be refunded.
In 2002, the Colonies Partners, headed by co-managing principals Dan Richards and Jeff Burum, brought a lawsuit against the county and its flood control division over drainage issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in northeast Upland. The county was managing the construction of a city of Upland project to construct what was known as the 20th Street storm drain, which conveyed storm waters originating in the northwestern portion of Upland to a water basin located on the Colonies Partners’ property.
On November 26, 2006, three weeks after Bill Postmus had been elected county assessor and Paul Biane had cruised to reelection to the board of supervisors unopposed, a 3-2 vote of the board of supervisors conferred the $102 million settlement on the Colonies Partners, bringing that litigation to an end. Postmus, in one of his final acts as a supervisor before he left that position to become assessor joined with Biane and supervisor Gary Ovitt in approving the settlement that was opposed by supervisor Josie Gonzales and then-supervisor Dennis Hansberger.
In February 2010, Postmus and Jim Erwin, a former sheriff’s deputy union president who had served as a consultant to the Colonies Partners before Postmus hired him as assistant assessor, were indicted by a grand jury and charged with extortion and bribery related to the settlement vote. In that indictment, Biane, Burum, and Richards were identified as unnamed and unindicted coconspirators in the bribery and extortion scheme, along with Patrick O’Reilly, who had worked as a public relations consultant for the Colonies Partners, and Mark Kirk, who at that time was Ovitt’s chief of staff.
Both Postmus and Erwin pleaded not guilty to those charges but in March 2011, Postmus entered guilty pleas to 13 felony counts contained in the indictment, including conspiracy, soliciting and receiving a bribe, conflict of interest, fraud and perjury. He then served as the star witness before another grand jury, which in May 2011 issued a superseding indictment that named Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk as participants in an extortion and bribery scheme in which Burum and Erwin were alleged to have first threatened to send out but ultimately withheld mailers and electioneering material during the 2006 election season intended to expose Postmus as a drug-addicted homosexual and Biane as insolvent and then, after the November 26, 2006 vote, rewarded Postmus, Biane and Kirk with $100,000 each in the form of donations to political action committees they directly or indirectly controlled. It was alleged that Kirk had used his influence with Ovitt to sway his vote in favor of the settlement.
In the lawsuit itself and papers filed in conjunction with it, Briggs and McClendon assert that the vote in favor of the settlement was influenced by the provision of bribes to Postmus, Biane, Ovitt and Kirk. Central to the lawsuit is citation of Postmus’s guilty plea, which establishes, according to Briggs and McClendon, a violation of Government Code Section 1090.
One of the provisions of Government Code Section 1090 is that any contract or approval entered into by a governmental entity is rendered null and void if one of those voting on it has a financial interest in the outcome of the vote. Any violation of Section 1090 is a strict liability crime, meaning that intent or foreknowledge of any or all of the parties engaged in the crime does not have be established. In this way, according to Briggs and McClendon, the settlement is no longer operative and the money must be disgorged. This argument represents the heart of the case.
As the defendant and real party in interest, the Colonies Partners in March 2012 filed a demurrer, objecting to and challenging the legal sufficiency of the lawsuit and its causes of action as well as the standing of the parties bringing the action, simultaneously seeking sanctions against the Inland Oversight Committee, Citizens for Responsible and Equitable Environmental Development, Briggs and McClendon for having filed a frivolous lawsuit. That demurrer resulted in Briggs and McClendon amending the suit and the court determining that the plaintiffs have standing and grounds to proceed.
The county filed a demurrer of its own, arguing that the taxpayers associations could not directly bring a suit to recover taxpayer money against a third party, as the Colonies Partners is in this case.
On December 13, Cohn denied the Colonies Partners’ petition to have the lawsuit dismissed and on the same day, Cohn overruled the county’s demurrer.
According to court documents filed by Briggs on November 30, the county lawyers have sent mixed signals with regard to the taxpayer action. On one hand, according to Briggs, the two county attorneys assigned to the case, Mitch Norton and Kevin Dorst, initially appeared to be willing to accommodate and cooperate with the taxpayer groups’ lawsuit, but wanted Briggs and McClendon to delay the prosecution of the suit while the county sought to recover a portion of the settlement cost from the county’s insurance company as well as while it pursued an indemnity/contribution lawsuit from three other governmental entities the county considers to have liability in the matter – the California Department of Transportation; the county’s transportation agency, known as SANBAG; and the city of Upland. Briggs said that in March Dorst requested that Briggs and McClendon “stay,” i.e., delay the suit while the efforts to recover a portion of the $102 million from Caltrans, SANBAG, the city of Upland and the county’s insurance company is ongoing.
“When I asked Mr. Dorst how a stay would help the county, he told me that the county did not want this court to reach the merits of the Section 1090 claim because it feared that a finding that the $102 million settlement agreement was tainted by the bribe accepted by former supervisor Bill Postmus would make it impossible for the county to prevail on its insurance claim and its indemnity/contribution lawsuit,” Briggs stated in a declaration to the court.
Briggs and McClendon stated that the county had a “non-discretionary duty” to ensure that Section 1090 is adhered to. “When it comes down to it, defendants are essentially arguing that, even in the face of substantial evidence that unlawful bribes have been given to county officials, defendants should be given the discretion to turn a blind eye to any such illegalities so long as it makes financial sense to them.  It is an absolute abuse of discretion for defendants to have a ‘guilty’ plea from a member of their governing board admitting to violating Section 1090 in making the $102 million settlement agreement but then refuse to invalidate the agreement.”
Briggs and McClendon openly state in filings with the court that Ovitt, who has not been charged by the district attorney’s office and the state attorney general’s office with any crime, like Postmus and Biane participated in the bribery scheme related to the Colonies lawsuit settlement. Because of that involvement, Briggs and McClendon maintain, Ovitt, who remains on the board of supervisors, is actively resisting pursuing a strategy of triggering the Section 1090 provision to vacate the settlement and is strongarming the county’s lawyers to resist and oppose the taxpayer lawsuit.
County officials at this point, Briggs and McLendon assert in court papers “have no intention of ever going after the Colonies because one of the persons who also took a bribe – supervisor Gary Ovitt – is still on the board of supervisors and does not want to risk exposing himself to civil discovery concerning his role in the $102 million settlement. Unfortunately, supervisor Ovitt is using his influence to make sure that defendants pursue everyone except Colonies.”
Briggs told the Sentinel that there is clear indication that Ovitt “is into this whole thing up to his eyeballs.”
According to lawyers for the Colonies Partners, former federal judge Stephen Larson and Scott Sommer, the entire civil lawsuit Inland Oversight Committee, Citizens for Responsible and Equitable Environmental Development, Briggs and McClendon are pursuing is without merit, as is the criminal case the district attorney’s office and the state attorney general is pursuing against Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk. The Colonies defense team has asserted repeatedly that the criminal case against the Colonies Partners is a fictitious and politically motivated abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
Larson said Cohn had erred in his rulings on the demurrers and motion to strike.
“Colonies Partners agrees with counsel for the county of San Bernardino that the lawsuit brought by Cory Briggs and his so-called taxpayer organization is both improper and inappropriate as a matter of law.   We believe that Judge Cohn’s decision to allow the case to proceed is mistaken, and we will appeal that ruling to the Court of Appeal,” Larson said.

Chief deputy county recorder De Ana Thompson is leaving her position with the county as of today, nearly four years after several of her underlings made a very public display of objection to what was characterized as her overbearing and intimidating management style.
In April 2009, six employees within the auditor-controller-recorder’s office, as it was then composed, signed a letter to the board of supervisors alleging Thompson was responsible for the proliferation of a stressful work environment.  Four of those employees had taken stress leave and two others had transferred out of the office. Several members of the department suggested that Thompson, who had initially met auditor-controller-recorder Larry Walker  at a Little League game before he persuaded her to leave her job as a sales clerk at a department store to become his personal assistant, had exploited her friendship with their boss to rapidly advance to the management position she held in the office. She had continued to rely upon that personal relationship to keep her position in the face of a rising tide of rebellion among the employees she oversaw, they said.
Among those feeling the sting of Thompson’s lash, were John Pinckney, Wendy Everett, Dennis Tormey and Sean Crees, all of whom filed workers’ compensation claims against the county. Several other employees bemoaned a “dog eat dog” atmosphere in the recorder’s office.
Walker and his then-senior assistant, Betsy Starbuck, however, defended Thompson as “technically proficient” with regard to the digitalized function of the recorder’s office and capable of inducing the division’s employees to meet the production goals Walker and Starbuck had set.
Discontent with Thompson as their supervisor persisted among some of the recorder’s office employees, but in 2010, a reconsolidation of responsibilities in several county offices occurred, when the auditor controller took on the function of the treasurer’s and tax collector’s offices, and the recorder’s function was  transferred to the assessor’s office. In January 2011, Walker sidestepped any further suggestion that he was protecting Thompson when the recorder’s office came under the authority of assessor Dennis Draeger.
The new line of command, however, did not alleviate the hard feelings several of the division’s current and former employees had toward Thompson.  Four workers’ compensation lawsuits were filed against the county that cited a stressful  work environment Thompson had created which  made the continued employment of those that filed them untenable. Two of the cases were settled with the county for a dollar amount short of trial.
A third involved court hearings between December 2011 and October 2012, with the plaintiff, John Pinckney, prevailing in that action, based on a judge’s finding that he had suffered a stress-related industrial injury that stemmed from supervision that was “inadequate and inappropriate.”
A fourth case is yet pending. A county source has told the Sentinel Thompson was pressured into resigning as a consequence of the outcome of Pinckney’s case and the cost the county sustained.  All four who filed claims remain employed by the county in departments outside the recorder’s office.
There was no hint of anything being amiss in the announcement of Thompson’s exodus that went out to her colleagues in the assessor’s office. In a January 3 email to those workers, assistant assessor-recorder Dan Harp wrote, “De Ana has informed me that she will be retiring from the assessor-recorder-county clerk’s office next week. Her last day with the department will be 1-11-2013 and her official retirement date is 1-12-2013.  De Ana has many years of dedicated service to the county of San Bernardino and the recorder’s office and has gathered many accolades on a local, state, and national level.  Her involvement with the various recorder and county clerk organizations has earned her a very high degree of professional respect amongst her peers in the recording and county clerk business.  Many of you have worked with De Ana for years and some of you have worked with her for a lesser time, but all of us who have known and worked with De Ana wish her the best.”