(December 7)   The elevation of John McMahon to sheriff is all but inevitable in the wake of Rod Hoops’ resignation midterm, nearly a dozen current and former sheriff’s department, top county and municipal officials have told the Sentinel.
Several of the officers and officials used the term “done deal” in describing McMahon’s appointment. None held out any realistic chance that any of a handful of other potential candidates for the post could be chosen, though a few acknowledged that among those alternatives were individuals with a combination of impressive law enforcement and administrative credentials rivaling or exceeding McMahon’s.
Crucial to the advantage McMahon possesses is his status as a department insider, the favor he has with Hoops and the reservoir of good will McMahon has developed lately with county chief executive  officer Greg Devereaux, along with the history and political power of the sheriff’s department.
Upon becoming sheriff, McMahon will be the de facto descendent of the political dynasty first established by former sheriff Frank Bland in 1954, when Bland defeated the county’s then-incumbent sheriff, Eugene Mueller. Bland remained in office for seven terms, gaining reelection in 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974 and 1978. In 1982, Bland retired, designating Floyd Tidwell as his successor. Tidwell handily won election in 1982 and reelection in 1986. He retired and endorsed his undersheriff, Dick Williams, in 1990. Williams lasted a single term, retiring in 1994.  He endorsed Gary Penrod. Penrod served three terms and was elected to a fourth. Half way through that term, he resigned, naming Hoops as his successor. The board of supervisors ratified  his selection. Hoops ran for election in his own right in 2010, comfortably beating two challengers. On November 7 this year, the day after the general election, Hoops announced he would retire as sheriff, and he called upon the board of supervisors to replace him with McMahon.
While Bland was sheriff, he cultivated a political machine, consisting of donors and supporters, together with a support network of campaign and public relations experts and consultants that dwarfed any competing campaign resources of his potential or actual opponents. In 1982, he handed that machine off to Tidwell and the machine, adaptively transformed to fit each succeeding generational change in political reality, has been passed along to each of Bland’s successive descendants. That machine, presented to McMahon by Hoops, now stands at the ready for use by McMahon, should he be called upon to undertake an electoral effort to become sheriff.
Moreover, McMahon as Hoops’ choice now enjoys the advocacy of Devereaux, the county’s top administrator, upon whom the board of supervisors is highly dependent for direction. The timing of Hoops’ departure in this regard is fortuitous for McMahon. As recently as a year ago there existed a degree of tension between Devereaux and Hoops that observers of both said was palpable. This was at least partially an outgrowth, sources have told the Sentinel, of the manner in which the sheriff’s department handled its internal accounting of officer overtime. From the outset of his tenure with the county, Devereaux has been very sensitive to the need to get a firm fix on costs in all divisions within the county governmental structure, and at least initially he was disconcerted over the way in which the sheriff’s department was crunching numbers and keeping its books. There were other disagreements between Hoops and Devereaux as well with regard to the department’s actual or planned apportioning of its resources. Despite whatever wariness with which Devereaux and Hoops may have regarded one another, a positive relationship between McMahon and Devereaux has nevertheless developed over the last year. Devereaux is pursuing a permanent solution to what is categorized as a “structural deficit” plaguing the county and his formula for eliminating that fiscal challenge is to forge contract agreements with the county’s various employee bargaining groups involving concessions on either salary or benefits into the future that will reduce county outlays. McMahon was designated as the sheriff department administration representative to work with Devereaux on those negotiations and participate in the face-to-face meetings with the representatives of the sheriff’s deputies’ union. In this way, McMahon was crucial to an important part of the success Devereaux has experienced in this undertaking so far. A positive relationship between the two men has developed and Devereaux has told several city council members from cities which contract with the sheriff’s department for law enforcement service that McMahon is the logical choice to succeed Hoops, and that his takeover of the department should prove a seamless transition.
There were indications of what was afoot several months ago. In September 2011, a report surfaced that Hoops had told Devereaux and the board of supervisors he wanted to retire and have McMahon succeed him. He was dissuaded from doing so at that time because of the perception that his leaving would come too soon after his election in 2010. There was no public confirmation of that report, but officials in several sheriff’s department contract cities, including Rancho Cucamonga and Victorville, told the Sentinel they were given to understand that a change in the department’s leadership was under way and that McMahon was being groomed for the top spot.
McMahon’s ascendency to the head of the internal department list of potential replacements for Hoops was a natural one.
Before Penrod left the department, McMahon was already considered a likely candidate to someday succeed Penrod, who like Tidwell and Bland before him was an equestrian enthusiast. Having grown up in Apple Valley, McMahon himself has raised and rode horses throughout his life.
McMahon is younger than the current crop of likely competitors within the department for the sheriff’s position. Undersheriff Robert Fonzi is, or at least was, McMahon’s most serious challenger for the scepter. Fonzi, as the second in command of the department, outranks McMahon. Indeed, several sheriffs served in the position of undersheriff before acceding to the top spot. What is more, Fonzi harbored ambition of becoming sheriff. Though he remains as the undersheriff, he has been on medical leave for some time, during which he underwent a first shoulder surgery and is awaiting, reportedly, a second surgery. His absence from sheriff’s headquarters over the last several months has proven crucial in his having been outmaneuvered by the younger McMahon.
Another of McMahon’s potential internal department rivals is deputy chief Paul Cook, who technically boasts experience and qualifications to match McMahon’s but is not seen as being as hungry, aggressive, or politically connected as McMahon.
Few consider deputy chief Sheree Stewart, the first female captain in the department and the first deputy chief of her gender in the department, a realistic candidate as sheriff. Deputy chief Ron Cochrane is also widely perceived as having the pedigree and gravitas to succeed Hoops. He is known to have ambition, having applied for two municipal department police chief positions which he did not achieve. Cochrane, however, appears to have accepted McMahon’s ascendency as inevitable. He has recently been seen accompanying McMahon to meetings and conferences involving other government officials and it is widely assumed Cochrane will move into the undersheriff’s post some time after McMahon becomes sheriff.
Hoops’ retirement announcement on November 7 together with his recommendation of McMahon generated a backlash in the form of charges that a backroom deal had been worked out between Hoops and the board of supervisors to install McMahon with little or no scrutiny or fanfare. Board chairwoman Josie Gonzales added to that perception when she publicly stated that the board of supervisors wanted to reach a decision on Hoops’ successor rapidly so an appointment could be made that would avoid any gap in the ultimate leadership of the sheriff’s department. In the face of pointed claims that Hoops had “brokered” a deal with the board to rubberstamp his selection of McMahon as sheriff, Gonzales offered assurances that the board had entered into no such sub rosa compact with Hoops and McMahon and that the board would conduct an open, thorough, honest and aboveboard examination of the qualifications of those to be considered as Hoops’ replacement before any decision is made. She indicated that the protocol for making the appointment would be discussed publicly as early as the November 27 board of supervisors meeting. No such discussion took place that date, but at this week’s meeting on December 4, Gonzales again indicated the board would carefully consider the qualifications of all candidates for the post, including those who personally step up or whose names are brought forth. The board then appointed a subcommittee, consisting of Gonzales and supervisor Gary Ovitt, to consider and interview if necessary any candidates for the sheriff’s position that emerge. Gonzales further indicated that the subcommittee will consider input from any other interested parties, in particular the sheriff’s deputies’ union, before the committee makes its recommendation to the full board.
It thus appears that the Gonzales/Ovitt committee will at the very least be obliged to look at the resumés of Fonzi, Cochrane, Cook, and Stewart before giving the nod to McMahon. Additionally, given Gonzales’s assertions that the process will be an open and thorough one, the committee will also need to consider  a handful of other candidates from outside the department, some of whose credentials equal or exceed those of McMahon. Those include:
* Paul Schrader, a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy who ran against Hoops in 2010, finishing second. Schrader has consistently said that he intends to run for sheriff again in 2014. He maintains that as the second choice of the electorate to serve as sheriff in 2010, he deserves strong consideration to succeed Hoops, given Hoops’ decision to resign.
* Frank Scialdone, who was Fontana’s police chief and later a member of the Fontana City Council and ultimately Fontana mayor. He served as the interim police chief of the Rialto Police Department as well as the police chief of Pasadena City College. He is the president and chief executive officer of PMW Associates, which provides management and training services to law enforcement agencies.
* Martin Thouvenell, formerly the city of Upland’s police chief. In addition to heading the police department, Thouvenell was also fire chief on an extended interim basis. He further served as Upland’s interim city manager for more than a year in the 1990s.
* Former Rialto police chief Mark Kling. Kling has a master’s degree in administration of justice, an MBA, and a doctorate in public administration. He also served as Rialto’s city administrator for an extended period.
* Former San Bernardino County Marshal Keith Bushey. After the marshal’s office was merged with the sheriff’s department in 1999, Bushey was brought into the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, where he served in the capacity of deputy chief. Prior to becoming marshal in San Bernardino County, Bushey was a commander in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he had previously held the ranks of patrol officer, sergeant, lieutenant and captain. After leaving the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Bushey was an executive staff liaison with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He has a master’s degree in public service and is presently employed by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Executive Development Association providing  administrative level training to police executives. Bushey is a former Marine Corps colonel.  .
One department and government insider dismissed suggestions that Hoops had brokered a backroom deal with the board of supervisors to elevate McMahon.
Rick Roelle, a sheriff’s lieutenant and Apple Valley councilman who ran for county supervisor in November with Hoops’ endorsement but narrowly lost to Robert Lovingood, said he was unaware of Hoops intention to retire until the official announcement of the sheriff’s departure was made after the election.
“I’ll tell you honestly, I was surprised to hear that,” Roelle said. “If word was going around, it was kept from me. I really don’t believe there was any kind of a deal cut to get John McMahon in there. I was running for supervisor at the time and just about everyone seemed to think I had an even chance of winning, so you would have thought someone would have whispered in my ear, ‘We’re going to need your vote for McMahon to be the next sheriff once you are in there.’ That never occurred. I think I would have been brought in on it if there was going to be some kind of a fix.”
Roelle said that he is not yet convinced at this point that McMahon’s appointment is a fait accompli. “Josie [Gonzales] said they are going to take a look at everybody who applies,” he said. “Whether their decision will be to select John McMahon, I have no idea.”
Thouvenell told the Sentinel he had not contemplated being sheriff but that “I would consider it, depending on the circumstance, but I haven’t really thought about it. I’d have to really think about what I was getting into before I’d put my name out there.”
He said he conceives of the sheriff’s department to be something akin to a very large and geographically dispersed police department with multiple span of control issues. Serving as police chief, he said “was just about 85 percent administrative, probably about the same as being sheriff.”
Thouvenell said it was his impression that Hoops’ successor as sheriff would most likely be chosen from within the department. “The guy that’s in there stays until he is ready to leave and then he steps down and then he selects from within whoever it is that takes his place,” Thouevenell said. “That’s the way they’ve done it as far back as I can remember.”
As to McMahon’s qualifications, Thouvenell said, “I don’t really know him at all but I assume he is capable.”
Indeed, McMahon would not be where he is now if he were not capable. With no glaring skeletons in his closet, he is trusted by most if not all of the department’s rank and file. He is young enough to represent the possibility of change in the future, but enough of a part of the department establishment to not rattle any cages. He is supported by the old guard and seen by those in control of the department as the embodiment of the best foot forward for the organization. Already, Hoops has left the department except for occasional appearances at headquarters, and McMahon is serving as acting sheriff.
Even though Gonzales has stated she is willing to consider other candidates, the other member of the sheriff replacement search committee, Gary Ovitt, is extremely close to Devereaux. Devereaux was city manager in Ontario when Ovitt was mayor there before he was elected supervisor. Ovitt led the effort to lure Devereaux to the county as its top administrator and is entirely dependent upon Devereaux’s guidance. In addition, the board has two new members, Robert Lovingood and James Ramos, who were just elected in November. They are not likely to deviate far from the guidance of the county’s chief executive officer, especially on so monumental of an issue as the replacement of the county sheriff, the person destined to become the most powerful political figure in the county.
No informed entities have said they expect anyone other than John McMahon to be sheriff of San Bernardino County for the next decade.

(December 7)   Even as the city of San Bernardino’s petition for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection is being scrutinized by Federal Bankruptcy Court Judge Meredith Jury and the city of 209,924 has reduced its police department to a 258-member force, the city will continue to pay its remaining police officers wages that are competitive to those being provided to police officers in ten other cities of significant size  cities in California.
San Bernardino is paying its patrol and beat officers up to $85,272 per year, its detectives $97,296, its sergeants $110,280, its lieutenants $132,132, its captains $158,748, the assistant chief $193,152 and its police chief $237,300.
Pursuant to negotiations between city management and police management and police officers bargaining units carried out earlier this year before the municipality’s bankruptcy filing, an agreement was made to utilize an average of the pay provided to police management and officers in  Concord, Oxnard, Fontana, Palmdale, Irvine, Ventura, Lancaster, Santa Clarita, Norwalk and Thousand Oaks.
Beginning police officers start at a pay grade of $5,108 per month, and promote to $5,608 per month, $6,108 per month, $6,607 per month and top out at $7,106 per month. Detectives  start at $6,521 per month, move on to $6,923 per month, then receive $7,320 per month, $7,718 per month and a maximum of $8,108 per month. A sergeant starts at $7,385 per month, then receives $7,836 at the second step, $8,287 at the third step, $8,738 per month at the fourth step and graduates to a maximum of $9,190 per month. Lieutenants are paid a flat $11,011 per month. Captains receive a uniform $13,229 per month. The assistant chief is paid $16,096 per month. The police chief receives $19,775 per month.
The law enforcement trainee salary remains at $4,086 per month ($23.57 per hour), which is 80 percent of a rookie police officer’s salary.
While some critics of the city and its management team maintain the generous salaries paid to city employees including its police officers in large measure account for the city’s dire financial condition, others point out that with the attrition in the police department to 258 officers  and the shortage of personnel to patrol its mean streets, the salaries and benefits being provided to the police department employees are more than justified.

(December 7)   A month after the polls closed on November 6, newly-minted Democrat Steve Fox has secured what not only seemed to be the unlikeliest of victories but the narrowest one for state office this year, with the final tally by California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen giving him a margin of just 145 votes over his opponent, Republican Ron Smith, in the 36th Assembly District.
A portion of the 36th lies within San Bernardino County, the communities of Phelan, Wrightwood and Pinon Hills, specifically.
Fox seemed to be at a decided disadvantage. First, party registration in the 36th slightly favors Republicans. Second, Fox was seen as something of a turncoat, having previously run for the Assembly as a Republican. And in the June primary, Fox, with 14,150 votes or 32.9 percent, had lost to Smith, who drew 15,097 votes, or 35.1 percent. The other candidate in the race, Tom Lackey, also a Republican, had pulled down 13,795 votes or 32 percent.
With the first tally of votes on November 6, Smith led Fox by more than 2,000 votes.
On the basis of the distance between them, Smith was early on deemed the victor. In Sacramento, the Assembly staff assigned an office to Smith. He was further enshrined as a member of the legislature when his photo was posted on the wall of the Capital building leading to the Assembly meeting chambers. Smith named a chief of staff and most of his office workers.
But throughout November as late sent mail and absentee votes came in and provisional ballots were counted, Fox began to close the gap. With the final tally of votes from Los Angeles County this week, Fox eclipsed Smith.
In both San Bernardino and Inyo Counties, Smith trounced Fox. In Kern, Smith gathered 6,691 votes or 59.1 percent to Fox’s 4,631 votes or 40.9 percent.  In San Bernardino County, Smith fared even better, capturing 4,343 votes or 67.5 percent to Fox’s 2,092 votes or 32.5 percent.  But in Los Angeles County, where the lion’s share of the 36th District’s voters reside, Fox outpolled Smith 59,282 votes or 52 percent to 54,826 or 48 percent. According to the Secretary of State, Fox, a lawyer and teacher from the Antelope Valley, outdistanced Smith, a city councilman in Lancaster, 66,005 votes or 50.1 percent to 65,860 or 49.9 percent.

(December 7)   The San Bernardino County Federation of Republican Women will install its officers for the upcoming 2013 term, including the group’s new president, Vera Eyzendooren, on December 13.
The installation will take place at the Redlands Country Club, located at 1749 Garden Street in Redlands, starting at 10 a.m., with former California State Senator Robert Dutton officiating.
The 2011-2012 outgoing officers are president Kathy Faxon, first vice president Carolyn Kelsey, second vice president April Haverty, third vice president Vera Eyzendooren, recording secretary Helen Flint, and treasurer Cheryl L Bluy.
The incoming officers for 2013-2014 are president Vera Eyzendooren, first vice president               Fran Wemerskirchen, second vice president Susie Dryness, third vice president A’lice Smith, recording secretary Barbara Henley, and treasurer Kathy Faxon.
There are seven local clubs that make up the San Bernardino County Republican Women Federated.
The San Bernardino County Federation of Republican Women is affiliated with the National Federation of Republican Women.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest volunteer women’s political organization in the world. The national headquarters is located at Arlington, Virginia. Founded in 1938, the National Federation of Republican Women is a grassroots political organization with thousands of active members in local clubs across the nation and in several U.S. territories, making it one of the largest and most influential women’s political organizations in the country. The organization works to promote the principles, objectives and policies of the Republican Party; elect Republican candidates; inform the public through political education and activity; increase the effectiveness of women in the cause of good government; and foster loyalty to the Republican Party and promote its candidates in all elections, including non-partisan elections.
In working toward these objectives, the National Federation of Republican Women concentrates its efforts in the areas of educating, communicating, recruiting, campaigning, fundraising, training and legislative action.
Once an auxiliary of the Republican National Committee, the National Federation of Republican Women is financially and organizationally independent today.
For a participation fee of $15, members of the general public can attend Thursday’s ceremony, which will include lunch at noon, during which entertainment will be provided by the Redlands High School Choir. Lunch reservations can be had by calling Carolyn Thompson for reservations at 760-245-0075.

(December 7)  BARSTOW—While most municipalities in San Bernardino County and California are struggling with the financial challenges inherent in the salary and benefit costs for their firefighters, the city of Barstow is one of the state’s few cities where until now fire department pay has not been a city treasury-breaking issue. That could change soon, though.
Next month, Barstow will join the ranks of cities paying the going rate, that is, union-scale wages to its firefighting staff, such that the cost of employing a single firefighter full time with overtime, including salary and benefits, will run the city close to $130,000 per year, on average.
Traditionally, the Barstow Fire Protection District was an independent agency dedicated to providing fire protection within its jurisdiction and was unaffiliated with any other agency or governmental entity. As such, the district was a self-sustaining one that had to live within the means available to it. This translated into what were more modest salaries and benefit packages for its employees than were available in larger districts and even small or smaller municipal departments.
In a split vote taken at a special joint meeting in March 2010, Barstow’s city council and the separate fire protection district board voted to merge the district with the city. In this way, the city took on responsibility for the fire district’s entire jurisdiction, which included everything within the Barstow City Limits as well as some areas outside the city. The board for the district, which voted 4-1 in favor of the move with board member Paul Courtney opposed, was somewhat more enthusiastic about the takeover than was the city council, which voted in favor of the merger 3-1, with councilman Tim Saenz abstaining and councilman Tim Silva opposed.
Representations made to justify having the city absorb the department were that the takeover would ensure local control of the department, better service and save money.
It does not appear that this last rationale was fulfilled.
In 2011, the fire district became a part of the city. Fire department employees, who were still paid at the rates they received previously, overnight became municipal employees.
Internally, city staff knew the firefighters were working for compensation that was somewhat less than the standard paid to firefighters elsewhere. When the city undertook a routine study of the city’s classification of its employees and their compensation which showed fire personnel were being paid less than other city employees, the issue became a public one. The firefighters, who had previously been willing to work for the pay provided by the district, were beset with a newfound sense of deprivation upon learning that they were in many cases making less money than their municipal colleagues, including some members of the clerical and maintenance divisions.
According to the classification and compensation study, the results of which were accepted by the city council in October, beginning firefighters received 42 percent less pay than beginning police officers.
According to the report, that discrepancy “occurs through the rank of fire captain, with the majority of Barstow’s employees being compensated at a higher rate than fire captain.”
The Barstow Professional Firefighters Association, the union representing the firefighters, began pressuring city manager Curt Mitchell and members of the council, calling for pay and benefit increases that would put the fire department personnel on a par with those working in other cities and fire districts around the county.
Despite the pronounced intent of the city council in voting for the takeover in 2010 that the move would reduce costs, the council in October agreed to a negotiated settlement that goes into effect on January 1, 2013 that will increase the pay of an entry level firefighter before overtime from $4,000 per month or $48,000 per year to a minimum of $4,500 monthly or $54,000 per year. The contract with the firefighters calls for them to make a nine percent contribution to their retirement fund.  All higher ranking members of the department – firefighter paramedics, field training officers, fire inspectors, battalion chiefs, fire engineers, fire captains, and fire captain specialists – make even more money.
The increase in the fire department employees’ pay will also increase the amount of the pensions they will receive, since public safety retirees are paid a percentage – usually three percent – of their highest yearly salary and add-ons times the number of years they have been employed. In this way, a public safety employee who remains with a city for 33 years will be eligible for a pension of 99 percent of his or her highest salary for the rest of his or her life.
The effort to adjust the firefighters’ level of pay upward occurred during the third year of a four-year-long contraction of the national, state and local economy. The adjustment was also made as other municipal entities which are themselves struggling with dwindling revenue and hefty contractual commitments to their employees are seeking concessions from those employees’ bargaining units on salary levels and benefit packages.
The Barstow City Council had the option of directing Mitchell to leave the existing pay scale for the city’s recently-acquired firefighter force in place and use that scale as a standard with which to ask the city’s other employee bargaining groups to make salary and benefit concessions to bring them in line with the firefighters and thereby reduce that portion of the city’s budget which is devoted to employee payroll and benefits.
In Barstow, as in nearly all other cities in San Bernardino County and the state of California, employee salaries, overtime and benefits represent the major cost to taxpayers in maintaining municipal government.
A number of cities are in an extremely delicate position vis-à-vis employee costs. At the county seat in San Bernardino, for example, city officials have filed for bankruptcy and are on the verge of facing lawsuits over the city’s inability or unwillingness to make further contributions to the city’s employees’ pension fund, the California Public Employees Retirement System. The outcome of that refusal to make those payments is unknown at this time, with the possibility that the bankruptcy court will order San Bernardino to continue to make the payments. It is also possible that the pension fund board will pursue legal action against San Bernardino. It is also possible that the retirement system will cease making pension payments to San Bernardino’s retirees altogether or sharply reduce those pensions.
While San Bernardino city employee union officials have blamed San Bernardino elected officials and city management for the situation that city finds itself in, others fault the city’s employee unions and the employees themselves for their intensive lobbying and political efforts that resulted in the election of city leaders who continually provided city employees with generous salaries and benefits that represented costs far beyond the city’s financial means.

(December 7)   The internecine fight among environmentalists over the approval of the Soda Mountain Solar Project is a showcase of the conflicted existential crisis that has beset the ecological movement over alternative energy projects.
The Soda Mountain project is a proposal by a limited liability company known as Soda Mountain Solar, which is a subdivision of the Bechtel Corporation, to build a 350-megawatt solar power generating field on 4,397 acres of Bureau of Land Management-administered property in the Mojave Desert six miles southwest of Baker.
So far, the proponents have filed a notice of intent to pre-prepare a draft environmental impact statement. Further steps in the approval process will entail the publication of the draft environmental impact statement for the project, making that statement available to the public, gathering public comment on the statement, the publication of a final environmental impact statement, making that statement publicly available, entering a record of decision on the acceptability of the project and then obtaining a right-of-way grant from the federal government for the approved project.
The 350 megawatts of energy to be produced by the project would meet the domestic electrical demands of 170,000 households and not entail the burning of fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the project site is relatively proximate to existing transmission lines bringing electrical power from Hoover Dam to Los Angeles. The addition of the electricity to be produced at Soda Mountain would contribute toward the effort to have California obtain 33 percent of its power from clean sources by 2020. In this way, the project is in keeping with several basic tenets and goals of the environmental/ecology movement.
Paradoxically, some environmentalists are maintaining that solar projects such as the one at Soda Mountain are too damaging to the immediate environs to be allowed to proceed. In the case of Soda Mountain, a collection of environmentalists cite how the project will cover just under seven square miles of densely occupied wildlife habitat involving the desert tortoise, roaming bighorn sheep and most specifically a rare desert fish that is close to extinction.
At the national level, the Obama administration has voiced approval of the concept of accelerated development of alternative energy sources. In the nearly four years that Barack Obama has been in office, however, there has been less progress in that regard than was anticipated. Environmentalists have in many cases objected to solar projects in California’s vast outback. Three of those were the Ivanpah Solar Project near the Nevada border at the northeast end of San Bernardino County, BrightSource Renewables, LLC’s solar project near Kramer Junction and KRoad Power’s Calico Solar project.
In an effort to facilitate alternative energy projects and bypass the knockdown, drag out fights that have in nearly every case delayed and in some cases derailed solar energy proposals, the Obama administration took action in the form of U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s creation of 17 solar energy zones in the Southwest deemed optimum for harnessing the sun’s radiating power. Those zones were selected in some measure because they are believed to be less wildlife intensive than other portions of the American desert.
None of the zones lies within San Bernardino County. Rather, the bureau has designated one 213-square mile solar power development zone in eastern Riverside County along Interstate 10 from Desert Center to Blythe and another slightly smaller area in Imperial County abutting the Mexican border.  Projects developed in those two areas will be favored with fast-tracked project reviews.
The creation of the zones did not preclude, however, project proponents seeking licensing and approval for projects elsewhere in the desert. Moreover, there were, prior to the October announcement of the creation of the solar power development zones, dozens of pending solar energy project applications. In some of those cases, the proponents own outright or have “tied-up” through purchase options the property where the solar projects are to be located. In other cases, such as at Soda Mountain, the proponents are seeking to lease public land from the government as sites.
In the instance of the proposed Soda Mountain Project, Bechtel acquired the rights to a filing for the project originally made in 2007 by New York-based Caithness Corp., which proposed establishing solar fields on both sides of Interstate 15 between Razor and Zzyzx roads. Bechtel is the largest construction and engineering firm in the United States, having been founded more than a century ago by Warren Bechtel and later headed by John McCone, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the 1930s, Bechtel was involved in the construction of the Hoover Dam.
Biologists have concerns over the project’s potential impacts on indigenous flora and fauna at the proposed project site. Large numbers of desert creosote on the property would be displaced, though those plants are not in danger of extinction. Desert tortoises live throughout the Mojave but surveys of the property done in 2009 by wildlife biologists commissioned by Caithness found no tortoises, which are threatened with extinction, on the property.
Bighorn sheep are known to pass over the property frequently. There is no indication, however, that the solar arrays would prove incompatible with them., though they might alter their path of migration.
The most serious known concern about the hazard the project represents to living creatures in the area pertains to the tui chub, a type of minnow, which proliferates in springs and ponds in the area. That portion of the desert is one of the few remaining habitats for the endangered fish. Bechtel/Soda Mountain Solar, LLC intends to draw water from the desert aquifer to periodically  wash the solar panels’ mirrors. Environmentalists have misgivings about a drawdown of the aquifer’s level, which could result in the parching of area’s springs and ponds, resulting in the death of the colonies of tui chub.
At present, environmentalists are linking forces with the National Park Service, which oversees the nearby Mojave National Preserve, and are lobbying the Bureau of Land Management to induce Bechtel/Soda Mountain Solar to consider re-proposing its project for location at one of the designated solar power development zones.

(December 7)   The county of San Bernardino will spend $1.146 million to provide transitional housing for state inmates transferred to the county sheriff’s care who are being released early for good behavior and space constraint considerations.
The released inmates, who were given sentences that are considerably longer than the time they will actually serve, are without means – either financial resources or employment – to house themselves.
According to Audulio Ricketts, the county of San Bernardino’s deputy chief probation officer, “Providing this housing will help these individuals reintegrate into the community with the objective of reducing recidivism.”
In April 2011, Assembly Bill 109, the Public Safety Realignment Act, was signed into law.
AB 109 focused on parolees who have been classified as “low-level” offenders. The bill, among other things, created a provision for the adjudication of parole violations at the local level, rather than returning the offenders to the prison system. Essentially, the realignment displaces responsibility for the supervision of these offenders from the state to the local level. Parolees categorized as low risk offenders are titled “Post Release Community Supervision” or PRCS offenders, after their current offense is determined to be non-serious, non-violent, and non-sex related. Realignment dictates that they be released for supervision to the local county where they were originally sentenced. The legislation also requires that best practices be utilized for treatment and rehabilitation.
According to Ricketts, “The department went through the request for proposal (i.e., bidding) process to solicit proposals from qualified vendors to provide temporary/transitional housing for PRCS offenders. Six vendors submitted proposals. The review process narrowed the field to Time for Change, Family Assistance Program, and Foothill AIDS Project based on their demonstrated ability to provide the best service for the population at the most reasonable cost,” Ricketts said. “These three vendors represent the first group of providers that will deliver this service. The probation department is committed to providing temporary/transitional housing to offenders that demonstrate a need for housing assistance and to find additional vendors which can provide this service. The department is entering into these contracts to provide housing for the PRCS and other mandatory supervision adults. The term of these contracts is for three years, but may be terminated by the county upon thirty day’s written notice.”
Time for Change will be paid $246,000. Family Assistance Program will receive $300,000.  Foothill AIDS Project was given a not to exceed contract of $600,000.

(December 7)   Due to what San Bernardino County Superior Court Presiding Judge Marsha Slough called   “severe ongoing budget reductions,” the courts will reduce the operating hours of the court clerk’s office beginning Monday, February 4, 2013.
At present, the clerk’s office of the Superior Court is open 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except court holidays.
Effective next February 4, the public service hours for the clerk’s office of the Superior Court will be 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except court holidays, and except for the clerk’s office for the Juvenile Dependency Court and Juvenile Delinquency Court in San Bernardino.
Effective Monday, February 4, 2013, the public service hours for the clerk’s office for the Juvenile Dependency Court and Juvenile Delinquency Court in San Bernardino will be 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except court holidays.
Drop boxes are provided to receive documents when the clerk’s offices are closed.
The decision to reduce the hours of operation was made by Slough.
“There are great financial exigencies facing all governmental entities in California and neither the Superior Court of San Bernardino County nor the California judicial system are exempt from having to deal with these extreme financial circumstances,” Slough said. “After careful deliberation, I have concluded that the changes set forth constitute the most reasonable and measured way to begin to meet these financial challenges while minimizing the impact on the citizens of San Bernardino County and on the court’s ability to provide equal access.

(December 7)   The Environmental Protection Agency has reached a settlement with 12 corporate entities  and the Defense Department that will provide $51 million for the remediation of 60 acres in Rialto beset with perchlorate contamination.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it had reached a settlement on the case with Emhart Industries, Inc., Black & Decker Inc, American Promotional Events, Inc., the Ensign-Bickford Company, Raytheon, Whittaker Corporation, Broco, Inc., J. S. Brower & Associates, Inc, Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich, and the Department of Defense on December 5.
In the late 1990s, a plume of contaminants containing perchlorate was found to be migrating through the local water table. Officials began a study into entities known to have been or believed to be engaged in manufacturing activities that resulted in the accumulation and release of the perchlorate. It is believed that the 12 corporate entities or their predecessors had operations that were ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s which involved the use, storage or disposal of perrchlorate and that they engaged in activities or handling procedures that led to the contamination. The county of San Bernardino acquired a waste disposal facility operated by Broco and simply razed the facility, according to lawyers for the West Valley Water District. Perchlorate is a product used in the manufacture of both fireworks and ordnance. In very minute quantities perchlorate can wreak havoc on the thyroid gland.
The area, referred to as the Goodrich Site,  was  designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as one of its Superfund sites, which makes federal funding for the remediation available but also carries with it a requirement that the parties responsible for the contamination assist in the cleanup effort. If any of the parties deemed responsible for the contamination refuse to sponsor or otherwise pay for a share of the remediation, the EPA has the authority under federal law to have any party proven responsible to pay triple the cost of that portion of the cleanup for which they were the contaminating party.
Rialto and Colton and the West Valley Water District, which had previously sued the companies, are parties to the settlement agreement.
Emhart will put up the lion’s share of the first portion of the clean-up cost. The other entities will participate in what is anticipated to be a 30-year long undertaking that will include designing, building and operating groundwater wells, treatment systems and purification  equipment intended to arrest the spread of perchlorate and another substance, trichloroethylene, known as TCE. TCE is a health threatening  industrial cleaning solvent used by area manufacturers.

(November 30)   The city of San Bernardino intends to carry on with normal though reduced services over the next few years while running a $40 million annual deficit, according to a document approved by the city council this week for filing with the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Riverside.
On a 5 to 2 vote, the San Bernardino City Council on November 26 approved a redrafted Chapter 9 Bankruptcy pendency plan intended to maintain the city as a viable entity yet capable of providing a rudimentary level of municipal services. The plan allows the lion’s share of city employees to keep their jobs, while deferring payments to nearly all of the city’s creditors and vendors for some time to come.
The plan’s approval was opposed by councilmen Chas Kelley and John Valdivia.
According to cash projections for fiscal year 2012-13 provided with the plan, the general fund will receive $120,424,000 in revenue while continuing to spend $166,237,000. This means the city will have a base deficiency of $45,812,000. The city will be able to transfer in $4.83 million from reserves and other sources for an actual total operating deficiency  of $40.983 million.
According to the authors of the pendency plan, acting city manager Andrea Travis-Miller, director of finance Jason Simpson, and Michael Busch, the president of the municipal consulting firm Urban Futures, Inc., “The city of San Bernardino has reached a crossroads. Continued financial imbalance between revenues and expenses have now exhausted the city’s general financial reserves and burdened it with obligations it cannot pay, obligations that exceed its current year general fund resources by $45.8 million in fiscal year 2012-2013 and that, unless addressed structurally to be sustainable, will continue to grow in future years. Despite efforts to reduce expenditures and put the city’s financial house in order, the city is insolvent. During the past two years it became clear the city’s financial position was weakening and its employment contracts, post-employment benefits and unfunded liabilities incurred over the last 15 years cannot be supported if the city is to continue delivering services crucial to protecting the health, safety and welfare of the community.”
The city council can “protect the community and make sure that the city emerges from this financial crisis as a viable, sustainable institution,” Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch said “only [through] the difficult process of restructuring its long-term financial obligations and fixed costs.” They then noted, “The city is working with its employee unions and associations, and its creditors, to reach agreements that would restructure the city’s unsustainable financial obligations.”
In the plan, Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch cited the precedence of the city of Vallejo’s 2008 bankruptcy filing in exploring how San Bernardino can overcome requirements contained in the California State Constitution and San Bernardino’s own city charter which prohibit the city from adopting an unbalanced budget. They suggested that by deferring payments within the rubric of the Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, the city could technically comply with the balanced budget requirement.
“Without restructuring its finances or maintaining the protection of Chapter 9, the city could not pay its employees, retirees, bondholders or vendors,” they wrote. “This would result in uncontrolled default and, presumably, a collapse of public services. Bankruptcy protection assures that this will not happen in San Bernardino, though we cannot say how much creditors will, or will not, receive. The term ‘pendency plan’ was developed in the city of Vallejo Chapter 9 case to describe the plan the city would operate under pending the completion of the bankruptcy process.”
San Bernardino may end up extending even further the amount of time it now intends to take to pay off its mounting list of creditors and may even shortchange some of those creditors.
“Amendments to the plan or extension of the plan into future fiscal years could occur,” Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch stated. “Because the Great Recession struck Vallejo after it filed for bankruptcy protection it had to make many changes in its plan to adjust to worsening economic conditions. During the period the city operates under the pendency plan in bankruptcy, the differences between payments required by contracts and the amount actually paid become claims in bankruptcy and are resolved through negotiations and, ultimately, the plan of adjustment submitted to the creditors for approval and to the bankruptcy court for confirmation. In Vallejo, after three years, all classes of creditors voted to accept the plan of adjustment; however, under the Bankruptcy Code, the court can confirm a plan of adjustment even if some classes of creditors disapprove, a process known as ‘cram down.’”
City staff had earlier prepared pre-pendency plans which were submitted to the council on August 29, 2012, September 5, 2012, October 1, 2012 and November 19, 2012. The version submitted on November 26 adjusted those earlier plans somewhat, specifically calling for further reductions in the police force. While the city proposed fiscal year 2012-13’s budget  include 299 sworn officer positions, 18 of those positions were unfilled when staff first began work on the pendency plan and it is anticipated that as of December 1, there will be 31 vacant positions in the department, for a force structure of 268 sworn officers. By January 1, it is anticipated the force will have dwindled, through attrition consisting of retirements or layoffs, to 258 sworn officers, with funding available for only 260 officers, maximum. The city is further awaiting a contract proposal from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, since Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch maintain “there may be significant savings or adjustments in the city’s overall cost to effectively police the city.”
The plan also calls for the city’s police officers to begin paying 50 percent of their retirement fund contribution, which is currently entirely picked up by the city. This will net the city savings of $3.252 million per year. Similarly, the city’s firefighters will be called upon to make a 50 percent contribution to their retirement fund, saving the city $1.894 million. A number of other city employees will be called upon to pick up fifty percent of their pension contributions, saving the city $651,000.  The city also intends to reduce firefighter overtime by 35 percent, saving the city $921,375, by staffing fire trucks throughout the city with three men.
“The pendency plan provides a balanced general fund through cost reductions to labor, benefits, debt and other obligations,” according to Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch. They said the plan would “promote health, safety and welfare, minimize the impact on future services, balance costs and service impacts of reductions, build fiscal sustainability and maintain competitive compensation packages.”
There has been much criticism of what is considered to be the city’s excessively high compensation of city employees in terms of both salaries paid and benefits provided, and suggestions that this in large measure accounts for the city’s current financial circumstance. To that issue, Travis-Miller, Simpson and Busch propounded, “It is essential the city maintain competitive pay and benefit programs to retain and attract qualified, motivated employees. In the past, the city’s pay and benefit packages were among the most generous in its market area, sometimes significantly above the regional market. The city has, through negotiation or through imposition of reductions covered by its fiscal emergency powers, reduced compensation and benefit packages for its employees. These include employee payment of their California Public Employee Retirement System contributions, capping contributions to employee health plans and reducing costs by changing carriers, limiting pay outs, seeking new, lower pension benefit levels for new hires and eliminating retiree health insurance for new hires. The additional, but selective, changes here continue to address situations where compensation is above market and has created excessive liabilities that cannot be paid without unacceptable reductions in service. The primary reductions proposed herein relate to retirement costs and benefit structure.”
In voting against the plan, Valdivia complained that a 260-officer police force was insufficient to meet the city’s needs.
Calling the plan “deeply flawed,” Kelly said the city needed to spur economic development to increase revenue. He said the plan was not balanced in that it made no cuts to administrative services.
In a rare show of solidarity, mayor Patrick Morris and city attorney James Penman, who as longtime political rivals have blamed each other for the city’s deteriorating financial state, urged the council to put disagreements over specific elements in the plan aside and to support the plan in a show of unanimity that would convince the federal bankruptcy magistrate hearing the city’s case, Meredith Jury, to allow the bankruptcy reorganization to proceed.
City officials did not address the possibility or likelihood that some or many of its creditors, contractors or vendors with whom the city has ongoing contracts will cease the delivery of goods or services as a consequence of the payment deferrals.