Seventy-one percent of San Bernardino County households have access to the internet, according to the county’s chief information officer, Jennifer Hilber.
In her presentation of a proposed resolution in favor of an effort to promote internet access, Hilber told the county board of supervisors this week that “27% of all Californians, 40% of low-income households and 29% of San Bernardino County households are not connected to the Internet with broadband, leaving more than 14 million Californians without high-speed Internet access at home.”
Hilber was making a pitch for the Get Connected! Program, which was originally launched by the California Emerging Technology Fund in June 2009 in Los Angeles as a public awareness program to educate the public about the importance of, and how to obtain, broadband access.
Hilber said the ongoing effort was intended “to close the digital divide,  thereby accelerating economic recovery.” She defined the digital divide as “an inequality concerning the access to information and technology, such as the internet, among groups.”
“In 2011, Get Connected! Inland Empire conducted three regional roundtables that included participation from 44 organizations throughout San Bernardino and Riverside Counties,” Hilber said. “Each roundtable focused on topics such as the digital divide in local communities, accessible technology for people with disabilities and seniors, California’s broadband infrastructure and the potential for health care technology applications to drive economic development, how small businesses can grow when they have access to broadband and the important role digital literacy plays in developing a strong workforce to support economic growth.”
The California Emerging Technology Fund’s mission is to “provide leadership statewide to close the digital divide by accelerating the deployment and adoption of broadband to unserved and underserved communities and populations,” she said. “The program includes participants such as health providers, community based organizations, government agencies, small businesses, libraries and schools. These entities share resources and collaborate to bring new resources to their regions.”

The board of supervisors on January 8 elevated supervisor Janice Rutherford to the position of board chair.
Rutherford, who represents the county’s Second District, replaced Fifth District Supervisor Josie Gonzales as chairwoman. Gonzales served in that capacity for two years, as is customary with board chair appointments. Rutherford’s term in the board’s lead position is set to likewise expire in January 2015.
Rutherford made a comparatively rapid ascension into the chair position. She was first elected to the board in 2010 and was sworn into office in January 2011. In most cases, a supervisor serves longer than two years before being designated chairperson. In the case of Gonzales, for example, she had been on the board for six years before acceding to the position of chairwoman.
“It is a privilege to be selected to serve as chair,” Rutherford said. “The board has made tremendous strides over the past two years to focus on the County Vision and to restore public faith in county government. I pledge to continue those efforts with the help and support of my colleagues on the board of supervisors. I also look forward to reaching out to county employees and listening to their ideas for further progress in the services we provide to residents and taxpayers.”
Rutherford’s reference to the County Vision pertains to a 20-year action plan based upon a survey of county residents.
The board, led by Rutherford, commended Gonzales for her two years of service at the board’s helm. “You have been an outstanding leader and an outstanding mentor,” Rutherford told Gonzales. “It will be impossible to bring the kind of heart and poignancy to the chairmanship that you did.”
The board also appointed supervisor Gary Ovitt, who had served in the capacity of board chairman from 2009 to 2001, to serve as vice chair for the next two years.
“I am honored in the trust my colleagues have placed in me, and I look forward to assisting chair Rutherford and working with my colleagues on the board, our county staff, and the public to achieve our goals and continue to make the county a great place to live, work, and play,” Ovitt said.
The voter-approved San Bernardino County Charter requires the board to elect a chair at its first meeting in January following an election of supervisors. The chair serves as the board’s general executive agent by presiding over meetings of the board, signing contracts approved by the board, working with the county’s chief executive officer to set the board’s agenda, taking action on the board’s behalf when action is necessary prior to a scheduled board meeting, and fulfilling any other duties as assigned by the board.

Fontana’s Anthony S. Morales has advanced to the highest level in Boy Scouting, having achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.
Morales, 17, is a member of Troop 2000 in Fontana.
While a scout must earn a minimum of 21 merit badges to qualify for the Eagle rank, Morales earned an astounding 75 badges. In addition, he completed the required public service project Eagle Scouts must perform. The task he set for himself consisted of 80 hours of improvement work at the elementary school he attended, Resurrection Academy, entailing refurbishing and painting two classrooms, pillars and furniture.
A junior at Summit High School where he is a member of the honor society, Morales, additionally acceded to membership in the Navaho Chapter’s Order of the Arrow. He is a recipient of the Ad Altare Dei Emblem, which is the Catholic Committee on Scouting’s highest recognition. He has taken leadership instruction through the National Youth Leadership Training program.
As a member of Troop 2000, under scoutmaster Eric Herchenroeder, he has served as senior patrol leader, patrol leader, historian, scribe, librarian, and chaplain aide.
As a cub scout six years ago, he earned the highest order at that level of scouting, the Arrow of Light.
His parents are Samuel and Sally Morales.
The Court of Honor where he will receive his medal will be held on Monday, January. 28 at 7 p.m. at Heritage Intermediate School.

The sheriff’s department has extended its arrangement with the U.S. Marine Corps for the provision of law enforcement data system retrieval and breathalyzer availability.
Overall, the federal government will pay the county $14,509 for the use of its facilities and equipment.
Under one contract, the sheriff’s department will receive $4,587 for continuing to provide the U.S. Marine Corps Logistics Base at Barstow with access to the sheriff’s automated systems from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013.
By state mandate, the department oversees the local switching center that allows access by local law enforcement agencies to the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS), a state-wide criminal justice database. In turn, the department contracts with various agencies to spread the cost of the system among the agencies using the system. Contracts with federal agencies are renewed annually to revise the fee schedule to ensure proper cost recovery to the county. The amendment to the contract with the Marine Corps approved by the board of supervisors this week exercises the contract’s one year option and increases the contract amount by $4,587 from $2,910 to $7,497.
Additionally, the board approved the continuation of a previous contract with the U.S. Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms whereby the sheriff’s department will receive $9,922 for providing access to the sheriff’s automated systems and maintaining a breath alcohol analysis instrument from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013.
The sheriff’s department provides maintenance and calibration of breath alcohol analysis instruments to local law enforcement and government agencies. That service includes computer support, data upload/storage, program download, instrument diagnostics and reports provided by the department’s scientific investigations division.
The proposed contract is a renewal for the combined services of sheriff’s automated systems, in the amount of $7,522, and the maintenance of one breath alcohol analysis instrument, in the mount of $2,400.

The county will spend $29,893.44 to pay for the traveling and lodging expenses of its workforce investment board members who will attend various conferences in and outside of California this month and in February and March.
According to Sandy Harmsen, the director of the county’s workforce development department, workforce investment board members Phil Cothran, Joseph Williams and Tony Myrell will attend the California Workforce Association Youth Employment Conference 2013 in Garden Grove from January 14 through January 17, 2013 at an estimated cost of $3,607.14.
Harmsen also said board members Jon Novack, William Sterling, Phil Cothran and Audrey Mathews will attend the California Workforce Association Advocacy Workshop in Sacramento from January 29 through January 31 at an estimated cost of $3,502.48.
Harmsen said that Audrey Mathews will attend the 2013 National Skills Summit in Washington, D.C. from February 10 through February 14, 2013 at an estimated cost of $2,479.82.
And, Harmsen said, board members Will Sterling, Tony Myrell, Logan Olds, Audrey Mathews, Phil Cothran and Mike Gallo will attend the National Association of Workforce Boards Forum 2013 in Washington, D.C. from March 9 through March 14, 2013 at an estimated cost of $20,304.
“The Workforce Investment Board consists of representatives appointed by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors from private and other mandated sectors to oversee the operation of the federal Workforce Investment Act job training programs for eligible residents of San Bernardino County,” Harmsen said. “The Workforce Investment Act focuses on employment and training being administered at the local level where these needs are best understood.”

UPLAND – Police chief Jeff Mendenhall has assumed the temporary position of Upland fire chief following the expiration of interim fire chief Dave Carrier’s contract.
Carrier, who retired as fire chief in Ontario after 36 years with that department in December 2011, had been serving as fire chief in Upland since May 2012. He replaced Mendenhall, who had temporarily moved into the post following the departure of former fire chief Mike Antonucci, who retired in September 2011, but remained in place under contract for six months.
Carrier was brought in with the assumption that he would remain only 10 weeks until the city recruited a new fire chief. In July, however, the city increased his contract for another 960 hours.
At present, the city has reportedly found a fire chief candidate, but has not negotiated final terms on his contract and has been further stymied by the consideration that a proposal to outsource the department is under consideration. In an effort to reduce costs, the city is considering contracting with the city of Ontario, the California Division of Forestry or the county of San Bernardino for fire protection service.
City manager Stephen Dunn is in negotiations with the firefighters’ union over salary and benefit concessions, the outcome of which will have a bearing on whether the city will retain its in-house fire department under its current configuration. For that reason, the city does not want to enter into an employment contract with a new fire chief if there remains the possibility the fire department will be dissolved.

The purchase arrangement for Colorado River Medical Center between the city of Needles and Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. will likely go forward, despite  further delays, including the Bureau of Land Management’s suspension of the transfer of  2.34 acres of the hospital’s grounds to the purchaser, Needles City Manager David Brownlee told the Sentinel this week.
Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. entered into a $2.577 million purchase agreement for the hospital on August 22, 2012 after a previous sale arrangement to non-profit Needles Hospital, Inc. fell through in April.
The city took back ownership of the Colorado River Medical Center in April 2008 after Brentwood, Tennessee-based Lifepoint Hospitals, a for-profit corporation which had obtained the hospital after the dissolution of the public hospital district that previously operated the facility, embarked on an effort to move the institution’s equipment and personnel to Valley View Hospital, another operation it owned in Arizona, roughly 12 miles from Needles.
Because of long-running inadequate billing practices, including failures to invoice Medicare and Medi-Cal as well as insurance companies and patients in a timely fashion, the hospital has lost money, representing a financial liability to the city. The city created the board of trustees to oversee the hospital, and that panel, together with the city council, has come to a consensus that spinning the facility off to an independent operator is the best solution for ensuring that the community has adequate medical care without soaking the taxpayers.
The purchase agreement with Community Healthcare Partners, Inc., which was founded by Bing Lum, called for an escrow closing deadline of January 3. The full application process for the land transfer has not been completed because of complications besetting the property upon which the hospital is located. The city holds title to the land as well as the hospital itself. However, the hospital was built on what had been Bureau of Land Management Property that had been transferred to the city of Needles under a proviso that the Bureau of Land Management retained a reversionary interest in the property allowing it to reclaim the land if the property is not used for what is deemed “a charitable purpose.”
Indications are that the full land transfer to Community Healthcare Partners will not take place for perhaps as long as another 12 to 18 months. A special joint meeting was held on December 20 involving both the hospital board and city council to determine the advisability of having city attorney John Pinkney modify the original purchase agreement to eliminate the January 3 escrow closing requirement. The hospital board at that point did not sign off on making that extension. Pinkney told both the city council and the board that the agreement includes a provision allowing for possible extensions if there were government-related delays, such as waiting for the BLM approval.
To facilitate the process, Pinkney formulated a plan to augment the original agreement with a future amendment while forging a bridge lease, an interim management agreement and an interim sublease. In this way, Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. was to have purchased as of January 3 (i.e., yesterday)  the hospital itself, but not the actual property it occupies, and was to then  serve as the interim management team for the hospital until such time as the full purchase of the land is accomplished.
When the hospital board balked at that arrangement on December 20, the council took no immediate action. The council did, however, schedule a special meeting for December 27, at which the removal of some of the hospital board members was agendized. Ultimately, on December 27, the city council did not make any removals from the board. A motion to move forward with crafting the documents necessary to address disposition of the hospital building without the underlying land died for lack of a second.
Brownlee this week told the Sentinel that as of yesterday, January 3, a twenty day extension of the deadline to close escrow on the hospital was granted. Brownlee said that prior to January 23, it is anticipated that the hospital board will accept Pinkney’s formula as presented last month or a similar one.
“We certainly hope they can pass such a measure,” Brownlee said. “It will most likely take a year to 18 months for the land patent to be transferred to the new owner. I think what will be done is we will classify the arrangement with Community Healthcare Partners as a land lease until the full transfer takes place.”
While serving as the interim manager of the hospital, Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. would not charge the city for its services, but would be eligible to realize revenue from the hospital’s operation just as if it owned it in full.
The Bureau of Land Management is insisting an appraisal of the property be done at its behest but at Community Healthcare Partners, Inc.’s expense.
Lum indicated his company will carry out whatever needs to be done to effectuate the transfer and that Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. will proceed with each of the tenets of the August agreement, adjusting to whatever further requests are made by the Bureau of Land Management or any other parties.
Among some city officials there was concern that further obstructions would dampen Lum’s resolve, leaving the city with the responsibility of continuing to run the hospital. There was some degree of impatience with the hospital board over its unwillingness to act with alacrity as events unfolded.
To some extent, the board members were reacting to the protests of former city councilwoman Rebecca Valentine, the founder and president of Needles Hospital, Incorporated, the non-profit group that in January 2012 had entered into a previous arrangement to purchase the hospital for $3,587,002 but which saw that deal elapse when it was unable to close escrow by a stipulated April 26 deadline.
On December 20, Valentine said she thought it unfair that the board and the city council were contemplating allowing Community Healthcare Partners, Inc.’s escrow deadline to be extended since the board and the council in April had denied her group’s request for a similar extension. She suggested that Needles Hospital Inc. is prepared at this time to swoop in and complete the purchase of the hospital.

In a development rich with irony, the woman who guided a key portion of the city of San Bernardino’s efforts to keep its red ink-hemorrhaging books balanced for the last several years before it abandoned all pretense of fiscal normalcy and declared bankruptcy last summer, has filed a claim against the city.
The now-bankrupt city has denied her claim, which seeks $2 million in damages.
Lori Tillery was San Bernardino’s former finance director for redevelopment. She was terminated on May 18, 2012.
In a claim filed on November 1, Tillery alleged her sacking was the culmination of  a “well orchestrated and unlawful campaign and pattern of practice designed to force her to resign or be demoted.”
Tillery has six months from December 10, the day the city council rejected the claim, to file a lawsuit. She will have to stand in a rather lengthy line to do so. Scores of the city’s vendors and creditors have been stymied in their efforts to collect the money they are owed. Claims for damages and lawsuits are procedurally stayed due to the city’s pending bankruptcy, although would-be litigants can ask the bankruptcy court for leave to sue.
According to Tillery’s attorney, Sanford Kassel, she was a diligent employee who uncovered evidence of financial misfeasance and malfeasance as a consequence of her work. Beginning in July 2008, according to Kassel, she coordinated with and assisted mayor Patrick Morris, city attorney James Penman and the police department in looking into time card falsifications involving multiple employees, misuse of public funds, and the use of underpaid part-time employees to do work full-time without receiving proper pay or benefits over a substantial amount of time.  The information turned up by Tillery, according to Kassel, comprises the gist of an investigation into activity at City Hall that is currently being carried out by the district attorney’s office.
Tillery is a whistleblower who was subjected to unlawful employment practices as a result of her conscientious dedication and she is now being scapegoated for the city’s dire financial circumstance, according to Kassel.
The city has dismissed Tillery’s claim as “entirely invalid” and maintains that Tillery was actively engaged in falsifying data relating to the city’s true financial state in the months and years leading up to its bankruptcy. Officials intimated, without directly stating, that Tillery had knowingly and purposefully deleted financial information from city computers.

Gloria Negrete-McLeod’s lingering animus toward fellow Democrat Norma Torres is a major dynamic shaping the mad scramble to replace the former as state senator in the 32nd District.
Two years remain on the term in the California Legislature’s upper chamber Negrete-McLeod was elected to in 2010. She will not spend that time in Sacramento, but rather in Washington, D.C.
In an extraordinary come-from-behind victory, on November 6, Negrete-McLeod overcame longtime Congressman Joe Baca, another Democrat, in the race for Congress in California’s redrawn 35th Congressional District.
Negrete-McLeod’s vanquishing of Baca was unexpected, given that Baca had been in Congress 13 years, having been elected in a special election to succeed the late Congressman George Brown in the old 42nd District after Brown’s death in office in 1999. Following redistricting based on the 2000 Census, Baca successfully ran for reelection in California’s 43rd Congressional District five times. Last year, he opted to run in the newly configured 35th Congressional District, which was slightly afield from the old 43rd, but his incumbency and perceived fundraising advantage over all other challengers, including Negrete-McLeod, appeared to give him a leg up on the competition. And indeed, in the June open primary polling, Baca bested Negrete-McLeod by what seemed a more-than-comfortable margin, 12,619 votes or 47.7 percent to 9,078 or 33.93 percent. A third candidate in the race, Anthony Vieyra polled 5,058 votes or 18.9 percent. Given that this year California had switched to an open primary, the two top finishing candidates qualified for the general election, despite party affiliation. In this way, the stage was set for a showdown between Baca and Negrete-McLeod, both Democrats, in the November race.
In the final weeks before the general election on November 6, Negrete-McLeod’s campaign was infused with $3.8 million in donations from a political action committee controlled by Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which paid for a $2.3 million television advertising blitz during the last week of the campaign. Baca, who throughout most of the campaign had been complacent, was caught flatfooted and saw the election slip away, with Negrete-McLeod capturing  61,065 votes or 54.35 percent to his 51,281 votes or 45.65 percent.
In the run up to the November election, Torres, a former Pomona mayor and the incumbent 61st District assemblywoman who was vying for reelection in the newly drawn 52nd Assembly District, faced the unenviable dilemma of having to choose to endorse either Baca or Negrete-McLeod. Since the conventional wisdom at that time favored Baca, Torres sided with the incumbent congressman.
Torres was successful in her reelection bid, transitioning from representing the old 61st, which encompasses Pomona, Claremont, La Verne, Ontario, Montclair and parts of Fontana, to the new 52nd Assembly District, which encompasses Chino Valley, Pomona, Montclair and Ontario.  With the vacuum created this week with Negrete-McLeod’s departure to the nation’s capital, Torres is anxious to vault into the state senate to succeed her.
For Torres to achieve that coup, however, she will need to do so not only without Negrete-McLeod’s assistance but in the face of Negrete-McLeod’s active opposition. Within days of her victory over Baca, Negrete-McLeod was militating to ensure that Torres would not succeed her, the Sentinel has learned. She approached Larry Walker, who is currently the county treasurer-tax collector/auditor-controller and formerly Fourth District county supervisor and Chino mayor, to entice him into running. Walker has cottoned to the idea and is assiduously seeking endorsements. A Democrat, Walker is considered a strong candidate in his native Chino, where his father oversaw the school district for nearly a generation. In addition to her endorsement, Negrete-McLeod could endow Walker with the money remaining in her state campaign war chest which cannot be moved into her federal campaign coffers.
Another Democrat whose name was previously bruited about as a possible candidate was Wilmer Amina Carter, the just departed assemblywoman in the 62nd District, who was termed out of office and could not run for reelection last year. She, however, has lost interest in vying for the state senate position. It is said she was put off by the harshness of Negrete-McLeod’s effort against Torres.
Indeed, elements of the local Democratic Party have been trying to attenuate Negrete-McLeod’s bitterness toward Torres, endeavoring to remind the 71-year-old who began her political career as a board member with the Chaffey Community College District that she should be magnanimous in victory rather than vituperative toward a member of her own party. “There are consequences to elections,” Negrete-McLeod responded, saying she is committed to ensuring that Walker replaces her in Sacramento as opposed to Torres.
One other potential candidate to replace Negrete-McLeod, Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, is watching the contretemps in the Democratic Party with growing interest. A Hispanic Republican, Leon sees a positive prospect in a scenario in which he, Walker and Torres vie for the vacancy in the 32nd State Senatorial District.  If no one candidate polls a majority in such a race, a runoff between the two top vote-getters would ensue. A majority of the voters in the 32nd are Hispanic and Leon is looking forward, despite his party affiliation, with going toe-to-toe against Walker in an electoral matchup.

San Bernardino County School Board Member Gil Navarro is citing a similar circumstance in Los Angeles County that was resolved more than seven years ago in propounding his argument that he can remain a member of the school board while simultaneously serving on the board of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District.
Navarro has been on the county school board since 2006, and was convincingly reelected in 2010, when he defeated James Tate, Ron Coats and Corey Jackson, pulling in more than twice as many votes as his nearest competitor, Jackson, and more than all three of the others, combined.
In November, he outdistanced George Aguilar 11,643 votes or 56.21 percent to 9,070 votes or 43.79 percent  in the race for the water district board representing the district’s Division 2.
Navarro’s victory prompted county superintendent of schools Gary Thomas to seek a legal opinion from San Bernardino County’s in-house lawyers, known as county counsel, as to whether holding both positions would represent a conflict. Thomas, who is independently elected to his post and has had a few run-ins with Navarro over the last several years on issues pertaining to education, said he was prompted to obtain the opinion because of concerns expressed by members of the public about possible conflicts that might arise if Navarro is called to vote on specific matters over which both the county division of schools and the water district might have competing interests.
On December 7, head county counsel Jean-Rene Basle authored a letter in which he and his staff summarized what they said were published opinions from the California Attorney General’s Office which they said indicated Navarro’s circumstance entailed a potential conflict of interest.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has overarching authority with regard to water issues in the central portion of the county, dictating policy with regard to water availability and setting wholesale water rates for smaller water retailers and other public water agencies, including those that provide water to several school districts.
Such a circumstance creates a conflict under California law that might preclude Navarro from voting with regard to, on one hand, the water district making water available to school districts or determining the price of that water, or, on the other hand, the county’s schools and school districts purchasing that water. Basle said this would lead to a conflict that Navarro and both the water district and the county superintendent of schools office should avoid. An attorney general’s opinion from 2002 opines, Basle said, that “A significant clash of duties and loyalties may arise in such matters as the water district setting the wholesale water rate that will be passed on to the school district by the retail water agencies involved” and could further occur when the water board votes on “determining the need for restrictions on water usage during times of water shortage.”
Navarro, however, maintains that no such conflict exists at the present time and that he can sidestep any conflicts that do arise by abstaining if and when such conflicts materialize.
He said that Basle and the county’s lawyers were seeking to do Thomas’s political bidding by citing hypothetical examples of a conflict to maneuver him into resigning from the school board.  He has consulted with legal authorities to find case law to establish that he is not hemmed in by circumstance and the government code, and can in fact serve on both boards.
In any case, Navarro said, he cannot be prohibited from serving in both capacities simply upon the strength of Thomas’s objection or Basle’s legal opinion or interpretation. Instead, Navarro said, those wishing to have him removed must utilize a so-called quo warranto proceeding.
A quo warranto action is filed to remove a person from public office. The attorney general reviews quo warranto actions filed by private individuals, determining if they have merit and can proceed. According to the government code, a quo warranto action may be brought against any person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises any public office or franchise.
After the attorney general determines that there are grounds to challenge the individual’s right to hold office, the matter proceeds to trial.
“In order to remove me from public office a private individual must obtain written permission from the State Attorney’s General Office,” Navarro told the Sentinel.
He then referenced the case involving  Blanca Estella Rubio, a board member with the Baldwin Park Unified School District, who in 2004 was challenged by another member of the Baldwin Park Unified School District Board, Anthony J. Bejarano, because he claimed Rubio’s school board position and that of board member or director of the Valley County Water District constituted the holding of “incompatible offices.”
Bejarano related the matter to the California Attorney General, who at that time was Bill Lockyer. The State Attorney General’s Office concluded that Bejarano’s question was a valid one requiring judicial resolution.
In Rubio’s case, she was a water district board member before she was elected to the school board and under the provisions of the case that Bejarano and the school district were allowed to bring to trial by the State Attorney General, Rubio would have been,  if the trial court had held against her,  removed as a water board member and to be allowed to retain the office to which she was most recently elected, that of school board member. The matter went to civil trial and in October 2005, a jury ruled in a 9-3 decision that Rubio could keep her seats on both the school board and the water board.
“After a jury trial, Blanca Rubio was not found to be in conflict and was able to maintain two elected positions,” Navarro said.
He indicated he would not back down on the issue and simply resign from the school board as he is being pressured to do.
On January 8, the school board is set to discuss what action it will take with regard to Navarro, including whether it will proceed to a quo warranto action or not. Such an action, if it results in the State Attorney General’s certification, could entail a cost of over $100,000.
Navarro has indicated he will insist that the district go to that expense if it proceeds against him. Such a court challenge would be a roll of the dice, as was demonstrated with the Rubio case. Navarro insists he has a right to hold both offices, given that the voters approved him for both roles.
Navarro has stood firm – or intransigent, depending on one’s perspective – with regard to previous legal challenges by the county education board. A professional educator and special needs student advocate, he has been advised repeatedly by district lawyers that he should not be working on behalf of students attending county schools. He has defied that counsel.
An outspoken Latino activist who has pushed for the political and professional empowerment of Hispanics, Navarro insists he has encountered opposition because of that activity.
Navarro’s opponents claim his political aims have often led him to promote suspect programs or unqualified individuals and that a significant clash of his duties in his dual elected capacities could result in an adverse effect on the county’s schools or water districts or both.