(November 16)   For the victors, there was elation after the November 6 election. For the losers, there was abject disappointment. At the polls throughout San Bernardino County there were a few unexpected twists and some perhaps predictable but still noteworthy developments.
The least expected outcome from November 6 was the fall of the Baca Political Dynasty. Incumbent Congressman Joe Baca, Sr. was sent into retirement by state Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod, who will now represent the voters of California’s newly redrawn 35th Congressional District  in Washington, D.C. Baca’s son, Joe Jr., was likewise turned back in his attempt to return to the state Assembly in his run against Cheryl Brown, the co-publisher of the Black Voice News and a staff member for outgoing Assemblywoman Wilmer “Amina” Carter. Of note, all of those involved in those races, both Bacas, Negrete-McLeod and Brown, are Democrats.
Joe Baca, Sr., a Vietnam Era Army veteran, engaged in epic battles against Jerry Eaves, another Democrat, in races for the Assembly in the 1980s. Baca came up short in each of those engagements but resiliently fought on, finally gaining victory and revenge in 1992 when he defeated Eaves’ protégé, John Longville to go to Sacramento to represent the 62nd Assembly District, newly redrawn after the 1990 Census. In 1998 he stepped up to the California Senate in the 32nd District. In 1999, he was elected to succeed longtime Congressman George Brown following his death in office. At that time, the senior Baca represented California’s 42nd Congressional District. Following redistricting based on the 2000 Census, he successfully ran for reelection as Congressman in California’s 43rd Congressional District.
Baca, Sr. was something of an enigma, a living paradox that seamlessly embodied contradictory elements. In the years he was struggling against Eaves, union backing eluded him, but once in office, he commanded strong union support. He aligned himself with and became a dominant figure within the Hispanic Caucus in Congress but then butted heads with a celebrated Latina lawmaker, Loretta Sanchez, who abruptly resigned from the Latino Caucus because of her differences with Baca.
Joe, Jr,, with the advantage of the name recognition and support provided by his father, successfully ran for the California State Assembly in the 62nd District in 2004. Two years later, he vied for the California Senate in the 32nd District. His opponent in that contest was Negrete-McLeod, who defeated him as she would his father six years later. That same year, Joe, Jr.’s sibling, Jeremy Baca, had sought to succeed him in the 62nd Assembly District, but lost to Carter. In time, Joe, Jr. would land another political gig, as councilman in Rialto.
2012 had held promise for the Baca family. If Joe Sr. and Joe Jr. had won, they would have represented the most powerful familial legislative combination in San Bernardino County, indeed in the state of California.
But McLeod, assisted by $2.7 million provided to her campaign by Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, surged to a come-from-behind victory over Joe, Sr.  Joe, Jr., who had better funding than Brown, was no more successful on November 6 than his father.
On the western side of the county, the long sleeping Latino political giant that has gradually been awakening over the last decade-and-a-half is coming to even fuller consciousness. It was not until 1999 that Ontario elected its first Hispanic councilman, Paul Leon. Leon was  not only the first Hispanic elected, he would be the first one reelected. He then acceded to the mayor’s post in 2006, and in 2010 became the first Latino re-elected mayor.
Pursuant to the polling on November 6, Leon will be joined by a second Latino on the council dais, Paul Vincent Avila. Voters also thought they were electing, or re-electing, a third Hispanic candidate, Debra Dorst-Porada. Four years ago, Dorst-Porada used her full name during her campaign. This year, she shortened her surname to simply Porada. Her yard signs did not even mention her first name. Many have mistakenly assumed that Porada is a Spanish surname, when actually, it is Polish.
While Dorst-Porada was granted another four years on the council, Avila displaced the other incumbent in the race, Sheila Mautz. Mautz went down to defeat despite having the advantage of incumbency and accompanying name recognition, not to mention the largest political war chest of any of the candidates – $80,000. Avila won despite having run virtually no campaign. He spent less than $1,000, ran no ads,  and did not provide a ballot statement.
In addition to Avila, there were three other Hispanic candidates in the race –  Josie Estrada, John Lira and Ruben Valencia. Notably, of the five candidates presumed to be Hispanic, it was the one at the top of the ballot – Avila – and the one at the bottom of the ballot – Porada – who won. Four years ago, when there were likewise two open seats up for election, it was the candidate at the top of the ballot – Mautz – and the candidate at the bottom of the ballot – Dorst-Porada – who prevailed, as well.
In the Ontario-Montclair School District Board race, there was further evidence of Latino political dominance. Sam Crowe, whose presence on the school board has been almost universally recognized as a stabilizing and beneficent factor key to sustaining a district that is under severe challenge because of financial and other factors, failed to achieve reelection. Selected by voters were J. Steve Garcia and Maureen Mendoza. Ironically, Mendoza, who has a Spanish surname, is not a Latina.
In Yucca Valley, the balloting this year proved something of a cliffhanging nail-biter, although it did not turn on personalities. Both of the incumbents in that town of 20,700 up for reelection, George Huntington and Robert Lombardo, faced no opposition. Rather the real horse race involved Measure U, which called for the imposition of a one percent municipal sales tax to provide town officials with funding to pay for a host of improvement projects, foremost of which is a sewer system being mandated on the town by the state of California.
There was something of a spectacle to Yucca Valley’s elected town officials, all of whom are Republicans who normally abide by a strong anti-tax ethos, advocating the passage of a tax measure. Prompting the town to this out-of-character tax gambit is the consideration that the desert town is entirely reliant on septic systems. In 2007, the state agency responsible for protecting water quality, the California Regional  Water Quality Control Board, adopted a resolution identifying the town of Yucca Valley as one of 66 communities throughout the state with groundwater threatened by the continuing overuse of septic systems. As such, the state has imposed septic discharge prohibitions due to be triggered as of May 19, 2016. Under that mandate, phase 1 of a wastewater system must be completed or significantly on its way to completion by that date or the state will initiate enforcement action. The first phase of the project is to cover the downtown area of Yucca Valley, the area most proximate to the heart of the groundwater basin.  Similarly, phase 2 must be completed or nearly completed by May 19, 2019 and phase 3 must be completed by May 19, 2022.
If those systems are not in place by the stipulated dates, further development in Yucca Valley will be prohibited. Moreover, existing property owners will receive cease and desist orders with the potential of daily fines for non-compliance. They will be ordered to discontinue the discharge from their septic systems, seal them off and pump them regularly. If they do not, the fines to be levied against them can reach $5,000 per day.
In the face of those threats, town residents as a whole did not feel compelled to approve Measure U, which went down to defeat, as  3,147 residents of the town, or 47.97 percent voted yes and 3,443, or 52.03 percent voted against the measure.

(November 9)  For the second time in less than four years, San Bernardino County’s incumbent sheriff will make a sudden departure from his post in the midst of his elected term.
Rod Hoops, who was nominated by his predecessor as his successor and then appointed sheriff on the strength of that recommendation when Gary Penrod abruptly resigned as sheriff in January 2009, announced he would abdicate as sheriff on November 7.  He asked that the county board of supervisors select assistant sheriff John McMahon to succeed him.
Hoops said he was induced to leave by the offering of a fellowship with the National Police Foundation in the nation’s capital. His departure came one day after the November election in which one of the candidates for county supervisor, James Ramos, won and another candidate for supervisor he endorsed, sheriff’s captain Rick Roelle, lost.
After his appointment in 2009, Hoops was elected sheriff in the 2010 election in his own right, albeit with the advantage of incumbency. Shortly thereafter the department was hit with a string of scandals that brought the agency and Hoops’ leadership of it into question.
Circulating even during Hoops’ campaign for election were reports that a number of his deputies and higher ranking officers had fraudulently claimed to have completed in-service classes and seminars in conjunction with the state of California’s Police Officers Standards and Training protocols that are required for police officers to maintain their certification and allow them to qualify for higher rates of grade and pay. After months of swirling rumors, in March 2011, seven officers and department employees, including a former assistant sheriff, a captain and two lieutenants, were indicted for having falsely claimed to have completed Police Officers Standards and Training coursework or aiding and abetting others in the falsifications.
The following month, a deputy, Nathan Gastineau, was arrested and charged with having sex with a 16-year-old police explorer scout he was mentoring. And a month later, a second deputy, Anthony Benjamin, was arrested and charged with having sex with another explorer scout he was mentoring.
This year, two other deputies were charged with beating a suspect and then falsifying their identities by identifying themselves to the beaten suspect as two other deputies.
In announcing his retirement, Hoops made no mention of those difficulties, instead insisting “I have witnessed the department grow into one of the finest and most respected law enforcement agencies in the country.”
In his announcement, Hoops said, “I have dedicated the last 34 years of my professional life to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. When I began my career as a 21-year old deputy sheriff in 1978, I had no idea as to what kind of adventure I was in for. I have lived my dream and have made many friends along the way. As your sheriff, I have never allowed myself to become more important than the office into which I was sworn to uphold.”
Hoops spelled out accomplishments he felt he has achieved in the last three-plus years.
“I am very proud of the changes made to the department during my four years as sheriff,” he said. “An emphasis has been placed on a better educated and more diverse workforce. A workforce that will serve our constituents well for many years to come. We are an organization that is made up of exceptionally talented and dedicated individuals that are prepared and ready to lead the department into the future.
“This has not been an easy decision for me, but the time is right for me to begin the next chapter of my life,” Hoops continued. “I have accepted a position as an executive fellow with the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., the country’s oldest non-partisan policing research organization. It is an exciting opportunity that will allow me to remain involved with the law enforcement profession on a national and international level.
“December 2012 will be my last month of service as sheriff-coroner-public administrator of San Bernardino County,” he said. “I am leaving on my own terms, with peace of mind, in good health and with no regrets. My remaining time in office will be dedicated to insuring (sic) a smooth transition for the next sheriff. I look forward to working with our board of supervisors and our CEO to assist with the selection process.”
The abruptness of Hoops’ departure summoned recollections of Penrod’s sudden exodus. Penrod tendered his resignation in January 2009, less than a month after he was called as a witness to testify in the criminal trial of former Orange County sheriff Mike Carona, who had been charged by federal prosecutors with  accepting illegal campaign contributions, as well as bribes, in exchange for public and private favors. Carona would eventually be acquitted of those charges but was convicted of witness tampering. A nexus was drawn between Penrod and Carona because both had utilized Donald Haidl, a major campaign donor to both, to head their respective reserve deputy divisions. Haidl had profited financially from his relationship to  law enforcement agencies in that he owned a vehicle auctioning business that sold cars recovered or confiscated by those agencies.
When Penrod was called as a defense witness in the Carona trial, he testified he was never overly concerned with fund raising but acknowledged that in San Bernardino County those given honorary deputy or reserve deputy sheriff status were oftentimes his campaign contributors. Penrod said he perceived no problems in such arrangements.
Penrod’s testimony on behalf of Carona in which he maintained that providing special deputy status to those willing to bankroll his political campaigns was an acceptable way of running a law enforcement agency antagonized federal prosecutors. It was widely perceived that the U.S. Attorney’s antipathy toward him led to Penrod’s resignation as sheriff the following month.
Despite the consideration that he had acceded to the position of sheriff primarily because of Penrod’s recommendation of him to the board of supervisors, Hoops nine months later took action to curtail the quid pro quo arrangements between campaign donors and the department.
In October 2009, Hoops without fanfare withdrew from circulation the hundreds of honorary sheriff’s badges Penrod issued to his friends, associates and campaign supporters.  Hoops issued a directive to his deputies instructing them that if during routine operations such as incident investigations or traffic stops they encountered anyone brandishing a special deputy or posse badge issued by Penrod, those badges were to be immediately confiscated.
With that directive, Hoops effectively diffused charges by any would-be electoral opponent or the U.S. Attorney’s office that he was condoning Penrod’s practice of conferring special or honorary deputy status on the politically well connected.
Other than the adverse publicity the department had suffered as a consequence of the criminal cases filed against 11 of its employees over the last 20 months, there was no indication that problems similar to the one dogging Penrod was bedeviling Hoops and had prompted his resignation.
Nevertheless, like Penrod before him, Hoops seemed intent on handpicking his replacement with a department loyalist.
McMahon, 48, grew up in the High Desert and graduated from Apple Valley High School in 1982. He began his law enforcement career with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in 1985, working patrol out of the Needles station.
McMahon obtained an associate’s degree in police science from Victor Valley College and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice management from Union University. He eventually returned to his hometown after he attained the rank of captain, serving as the station commander of the sheriff’s operation in Apple Valley from 2003 to 2007. He subsequently was a deputy chief with the department, overseeing desert patrol and the detentions and corrections bureau. He promoted to assistant sheriff two years ago.
With the choice of  McMahon, to oversee the department’s 3,700 personnel and $440 million budget, it appears that undersheriff Robert Fonzi may have been stepped over.
Paul Schrader, who ran against Hoops in 2010 and has announced he will again run for sheriff in 2014, said he hopes Hoops will rethink the wisdom of appointing a replacement from within the department and that the board of supervisors this time will not blindly comply with the departing sheriff’s wishes.
“I hope that he will abandon his request to appoint an incumbent to his office, which has been a very bad past practice,” Schrader said.

(November 9)    In what came across as an aggravated insult, Los Angeles International Airport officials on November 5 signaled further disregard of the diminishing passenger traffic at Ontario Airport, with one major carrier advertising direct flights out of Los Angeles International to the popular winter vacation destination of Aspen in Ontario’s hometown newspaper.
On the same day that American Airlines and American Eagle began running the ad on the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin’s website along with a link that allowed Daily Bulletin readers to click and book reservations, the newspaper ran an article headlined in its on-line version, “Ontario airport passenger traffic to continue downward.”
The article, authored by Daily Bulletin staff writer Liset Marquez, reported that Robert Hazel of Oliver Wyman,  a global management consulting firm, had projected that Ontario International Airport flight schedules through April indicate the airport will have 6 percent fewer seats available and that passenger traffic in all of 2012 is anticipated to decline 5.5 percent from last year.
Passenger traffic at Ontario International Airport has been in severe decline since 2007, when the number of those flying into and out of the airport reached an all-time high of 7.2 million. But with the downscaling of the economy and other factors, passenger traffic has lapsed to 4.6 million per year.
In the meantime, Ontario officials have blamed the entity that runs Ontario Airport, Los Angeles World Airports, for deliberately mismanaging the facility as part of a ploy to increase use at Los Angeles International Airport, which is also run by Los Angeles World Airports. Ontario officials maintain that the decline in passenger traffic at Ontario International has damaged the local economy. They are pushing to have the city of Los Angeles deed Ontario Airport back to the city of Ontario.
In 1967, the city of Ontario entered into a joint powers authority arrangement with the city of Los Angeles to allow the larger city to operate Ontario Airport, which at that time boasted fewer than 200,000 passengers per year. Los Angeles was able to use the leverage it possessed to control gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport to induce airlines to increase the number of flights into and out of Ontario. Simultaneously, Los Angeles and its department of airports, which today functions in conjunction with the Los Angeles World Airports non-profit corporation to operate the four airports Los Angeles owns, embarked on a series of improvements to Ontario International Airport, which to date represent an undertaking costing in excess of $550 million.
In 1985, after Los Angeles had met all of the requirements spelled out in the original 1967 joint powers agreement, the city of Ontario in accordance with that agreement deeded Ontario Airport to the city of Los Angeles for no consideration.
Ontario officials have pushed forward with their contention that the city of Los Angeles is exploiting its ownership of Ontario Airport to the benefit of Los Angeles International Airport, which has undergone extensive renovations and improvements in recent years. Los Angeles’s action, according to Ontario officials, has redounded to the detriment of Ontario International Airport, Ontario and the Inland Empire. Ontario’s leadership has publicly suggested that Los Angeles should simply redeed the airport back to Ontario. That suggestion was accompanied by statements to the effect that the airport, as a public benefit property, has no value as real estate. Privately, however, Ontario officials made a confidential offer to purchase the airport for $50 million and an assumption of $71 million in bond debt related to financing for improvements that had been made to the airport and another $125 million to repay Los Angeles for passenger facilities charges collected at Los Angeles International Airport that were used to make improvements at Ontario Airport.  The existence of that offer became public, however, damaging the credibility of Ontario officials and their earlier insistence that the airport has no value in terms of a sale.
Unfazed by that blow to their prestige, Ontario city officials formed with the county of San Bernardino another joint powers agency, the Ontario International Airport Authority, intended to serve as the entity that will manage the aerodrome once it is wrested away from Los Angeles.
Los Angeles officials, meanwhile, have been offended by Ontario’s aggressive efforts and what Los Angeles World Airport officials maintain are misrepresentations about how the airport is being operated. Los Angeles officials reject Ontario officials’ contentions that factors exclusively under Los Angeles World Airports’ control, including higher per enplaned passenger fees charged by Los Angeles World Airports at Ontario than at other airports, are solely responsible for the passenger reductions in Ontario. They point out that they offered to allow Ontario to undertake the marketing of Ontario International Airport after Ontario officials asserted Los Angeles was neglecting the airport in this regard. Los Angeles maintains that the long-sputtering economy accounts for the diminution of ridership out of and into Ontario. They have expressed doubt that Ontario has the means, skill, expertise or the staffing to actually manage an airport, let alone bring it back to profitability. They maintain the airport will recover when the economy does.
Los Angeles officials have scoffed at Ontario’s $246 million offer for the airport, maintaining publicly that they are not prepared to accept anything less than the $550 million expended to put in improvements at the airport since 1967, although there are contradictory indications Los Angeles will accept $450 million for the airport.
This week the on-line advertisement that ran on the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin’s website was widely seen as Los Angeles thumbing its nose at Ontario officials. Ontario does not offer similar frequent nonstop flights to Colorado at the height of the winter skiing season. The presence of the ad in the Daily Bulletin was particularly galling, since the Daily Bulletin has been highly supportive of Ontario’s efforts to win the airport back, providing plenty of coverage of Ontario officials’ assertions of the mismanagement of Ontario Airport at the hands of what Ontario’s politicians have characterized as greedy, duplicitous and Chauvinistic Los Angeles officials.

(November 9)  James Ramos made history this week, becoming the first Native American in San Bernardino County history to accede to the position of county supervisor. Ramos took a commanding lead early, capturing 58 percent of the absentee ballot votes tallied before balloting from the precincts recorded on election day were received. As the precinct results were counted later in the evening of November 6 and into the morning of November 7, Ramos widened that lead, ending with 59.09 percent of the vote.
Derry, a Republican who defeated Dennis Hansberger, also a Republican, in 2008, succeeded in holding onto the Third District supervisor’s post for only one term. Derry’s victory in 2008 came when Hansberger, who had served five four-year terms as supervisor over a span of 36 years, underestimated Derry, a former Marine who had worked as a representative for former state assemblyman Fred Aguiar before successfully running for a position on the San Bernardino City Council.
The Third District is home to more than  183,000 registered voters who live in Grand Terrace and Loma Linda,  Barstow,  Highland, Redlands, Mentone, Yucaipa, Big  Bear City, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms, Johnson Valley, Lucerne Valley, Landers  and the eastern portion of the city of San Bernardino.
In 2008, Derry was able to fund his supervisorial run with more than $50,000 provided to his campaign war chest by the county’s sheriff’s deputies’ union. Derry’s displacement of Hansberger created a division within the county’s Republican Party and earned the enmity of Hansberger, who was a prominent member of that portion of the Republican political machine based in Redlands. Hansberger, along with other members of the Redlands Republican wing, which includes district attorney Mike Ramos and Congressman Jerry Lewis, broke party ranks to endorse James Ramos, a Democrat.
James Ramos is also the former chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a tribe of 167 members who own the San Manuel Casino near Highland. That casino generates a significant amount of money for the tribe, estimated at $400 million per year. James Ramos and the tribe have used that money to powerful effect, making political contributions and endowing charities to create a political machine of their own, which has now reached fruition with the election of Ramos to Third District county supervisor. The financial advantage enjoyed by James Ramos proved a political juggernaut, as donors who had lined up behind Derry four years ago began to rethink the wisdom of continuing to support him in the face of Ramos’s overwhelming funding advantage. A key defection crippling Derry this year was the decision of the deputies’ union to withdraw its support of him in favor of Ramos. The San Manuel Tribe, while it was chaired by Ramos, had made hefty political donations to the deputies’ union, totaling $300,000 since 2005.
Another problem besetting Derry’s reelection effort was the filing of criminal charges against him last year by the state attorney general’s office relating to what was alleged to be Derry’s attempt to launder a $5,000 donation to his electioneering fund from Highland developer Arnold Stubblefield in 2007. Those charges were based upon information gathered by investigators for the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office and included one felony count of fund laundering, one felony count of perjury and a misdemeanor count of campaign fund misreporting. The two felony counts were dismissed upon Derry’s agreement not to contest the misdemeanor charge. Though Derry would assert that the matter had been overcharged by prosecutors who were linked to district attorney Mike Ramos, a member of the Redlands political machine he had upset with his successful challenge of Hansberger in 2008, he was not able to overcome the negative publicity that attended the matter. James Ramos used Derry’s no contest plea to the campaign fund misreporting misdemeanor in his campaign, characterizing his opponent as a criminal.
While in county office Derry sponsored, supported or had a hand in three ethics reform measures that have been enacted. One of those was a county “Sunshine Ordinance,” which makes meeting records more readily accessible to the public. Another was the establishing of campaign contribution limits for county-level elected officials. The third provided for reductions in lavish benefits afforded to various elected and appointed officials.
The campaign contribution limit measure caps campaign contributions at $3,900 per election cycle effective January 1, 2013. Currently there is no limit. The State Fair Political Practices Commission is designated to investigate and enforce the new rules. The benefit reduction measure affected reductions in various retirement contributions and capped the amount of leave time that may be cashed out by affected employees.
Two days after the election, Derry told the Sentinel he was at peace with the outcome of the race. “That’s life,” he said. “We have elections for reasons. I wish James the best. I hope he does the best for our constituents, since I am one. I ran a campaign without a lot of resources and we tried to be competitive. We did everything we could and the voters made a decision.”
Alluding to the disappearance of many Third District-related documents from the office he came into in December 2008 after the departure of Hansberger, Derry said he was seeking to make a smooth transition between his administration and that of Ramos. “There won’t be file shredder’s running amok on the Fifth Floor [of the county administration building, where the supervisors’ officers are located]. I hope James will bring a lot of the projects we started to fruition.”
Ramos said that his priorities in office will be to “bring jobs to our area and grow economic opportunities, keep schools and neighborhoods safe, protect taxpayers through sound fiscal management, improve education and youth programs, and oppose the illegal fire service tax being imposed by the state in our unincorporated areas.”

(November 9)  The annual celebration of the founding of Etiwanda by the Chaffey Brothers this year will feature a tour of the restored Chaffey-Garcia House and the 1883 Chaffey-Isle House. The historic area also includes the 1902 Etiwanda Church, the Victorian Norton-Fisher home, and the Pacific Electric Etiwanda Railroad Station.
The Chaffey-Garcia House was the only home of George Chaffey, Jr. while he laid out his model colonies of Ontario, Etiwanda and Magnolia (Upland). It was here George erected the first electric light in Southern California in 1882, installed the first concrete irrigation pipe west of the Mississippi, and introduced the first hydroelectric power west of the Rockies. George was then recruited to light the streets of Los Angeles. Later he designed and built the canal that carried water to the Imperial Desert, known today as a result of his efforts as the Imperial Valley.
The Chaffey-Isle House was built for the Chaffey Brother’s mother and sister. It is the only house built by George Chaffey in any of his model colonies.
Enjoy demonstrations of old-time crafts, a blacksmith at work, sale of collectibles, a drawing for an antique quilt, a cake walk, entertainment, delicious snacks and chuck wagon chili. Children’s activities are to include butter churning, candle making, gingerbread cookie decorating, gold panning and more. The celebration will be held Saturday, November 17 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 7150 Etiwanda Avenue, Rancho Cucamonga
Admission is $2. For more information, call (909) 899 8432

(November 9)   By Gail Fry
On October 9, the California State Attorney General’s Office granted Arrowbear Park County Water District’s request to bring a so-called quo warranto action against its former board member, Richard Kuritz.
A quo warranto is defined as a legal proceeding during which an individual’s right to hold an office or governmental privilege is challenged.
Kuritz was elected during the August 25, 2009 election, in  which he received 22 percent of the votes, closely behind Pat Oberlies, who received 23 percent.  With two vacant board positions, Kuritz and Oberlies took their place on the board of Arrowbear Park County Water District (APCWD).
According to Kuritz, while on the board he started questioning some of the actions taken by the water district, such as the drilling of a well on property that didn’t belong to it, the relaying of water pipes at a cost of $230 per linear foot and a legal bill characterized as a personnel matter.
Kuritz told the Sentinel that the Arrowbear Park County Water District ended up having to pay about double for the property on which it had drilled a well, the re-piping cost the district about $100.00 per linear foot over market and the legal bill described as a personnel matter on its agenda in April 2011 was payment for water district legal counsel Joseph Aklufi preparing a complaint to file with the district attorney’s office about Kuritz’s eligibility to hold office based on his domicile.
Kuritz believes his questions led to certain individuals wanting him removed from the board, observing, “They have a little kingdom and they don’t want anyone poking around in it.”
In early 2011, complaints were filed with the district by board members, residents and a nonresident alleging Kuritz did not live in the district, making him ineligible to be on the board.  Kuritz spoke of people peeping into the windows of his home and investigating his former wife.
According to California Election Code Section 349, a person’s residence for voting purposes is his or her  “domicile” and a domicile is “that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning” and “at a given time, a person may have only one domicile.”
However, California elections code section 2031 defines a person’s domicile as the residence, ”Listed as the person’s current residence address on any driver’s license, identification card or vehicle registration issued to that person by, and on file with, the Department of Motor Vehicles.” Kuritz had provided Aklufi with these documents indicating his residence as Arrowbear.
Additionally,  the Arrowbear Park County Water District adopted in January 2012 a policy with regard to its residency requirements for candidates and elected board members allowing it to demand additional information including federal and state income tax returns as well as their driver’s license, car registration and original envelopes and enclosures reflecting mailing address information from credit card statements, bank statements, auto insurance policies, property tax bills, utility services statements, rental agreements and more.
San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Communication Manager Felisa Cardona told the Sentinel, “Some municipalities and districts create their own policies, certainly” and “They have the right to create their own policies.”
According to Kuritz he provided many of the documents requested by Aklufi to prove his domicile but balked when asked for his federal tax return.  Kuritz explained Aklufi had even gone so far as to ask him to sign an authorization so that Aklufi could request a copy from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) directly, and was not satisfied with just a copy of his tax return.  Kuritz questioned Aklufi’s legal authority to demand he sign an authorization form for the IRS.
At its August 13, 2011 meeting, Aklufi presented the documentation provided by Kuritz to prove his domicile was in Arrowbear, including his Southern California Edison bill, water bill, bank account information, application for his post office box, California driver’s license, car registration and registration to vote in San Bernardino County.
Supervisor Neil Derry’s special projects coordinator Joseph Turner attended the meeting informing the board that to remove an elected board member it was his “understanding from county counsel this is a topic that should go to the attorney general’s office.”
Aklufi concluded the documentation provided was insufficient to establish Kuritz’s legal domicile as Arrowbear.  Aklufi informed the board under Government Code section 1770 a vacancy would exist if a board member ceases to have his domicile within the district, finding “Director Richard Kuritz is not a legal resident of the district as required by law.”  At the conclusion of the August 13, 2011 meeting, Kuritz was removed by a board vote.
According to Kuritz on October 24, 2011, he submitted his resignation to APCWD.  On November 3, 2011, APCWD requested leave to sue quo warranto.
On October 9, 2012, the State Attorney General issued its opinion in the matter and granted APCWD’s request to sue in quo warranto.   In its opinion, the State Attorney General concluded, “Whether Richard Kuritz is unlawfully holding the office of director of the Arrowbear Park County Water District because he does not reside in the sistrict presents substantial questions of fact and law warranting judicial resolution.”
Subsequently, the State Attorney General obtained a copy of Kuritz’s October 24, 2011, resignation from the board.  According to APCWD’s general manager David Harich they never received Kurtiz’s resignation letter.
At its October 18 meeting, Arrowbear Park County Water District heard from Aklufi that he was now expecting a letter from the State Attorney General’s Office “advising us that in the AG’s opinion the matter is moot.”
Aklufi informed board members that the State Attorney General’s Office had delayed its opinion because it waited to receive the resignation letter from Kuritz as promised in his December 2, 2011 email.
Aklufi explained after waiting several months, the State Attorney General’s office proceeded with its review and issuing its opinion “authorizing us to proceed with our lawsuit declaring his seat vacant as a matter of law.”
General Manager David Harich read an email from the State Attorney General’s office, “As our opinion makes clear we repeatedly asked Mr. Kuritz before the drafting and issuance of the opinion to provide proof of his resignation from the district board;  he never did so.  You also informed us that neither your office nor the water district ever received a letter of resignation from Mr. Kuritz.”
“So, basically this is saying we have the legal right to go even further right now to make this a more solid case for us?“ vice president Mark Bunyea asked.  Aklufi responded, “No, that letter takes it out of our hands now.”
“She has ruled he has no legal standing to hold a seat on this board,” Wymer remarked.
“[That is] the opinion of the attorney general, but it still was an open question until this resignation letter,” confirmed Aklufi.
General manager David Harich asked, “I have a question, Joe, if you don’t mind. One of the concerns that has come up is that this issue is not an isolated issue  [and] that this has taken place prior [to this] within the district. So the question is, is it your professional opinion that this information we received recently is adequate enough where you would recommend that the district not pursue any further legal action as a point of principal if for no other reason or to clearly define the definition of domicile so we won’t have another potential problem again in the future?”
“You will always have a potential problem,” Aklufi responded. “It’s just how easy will it be resolved? We did adopt a policy, though, didn’t we on domicile of residency of prospective board members, so that was designed to ward off some of that. Now you have your official attorney general opinion which you can put in your file, which provides an awful lot of guidance to prospective candidates.”
Aklufi voiced, “I think people would be mightily impressed, you might not ever see it again if you hand that out with every candidate.”
Director Sheila Wymer added, “We’re not afraid to come after you.”
Kuritz provided the Sentinel with his December 2, 2011 email to Susan Lee of the State Attorney General’s office acknowledging he resigned as a board member of APCWD on October 24, 2011 and confirming that he would mail them a copy.
Kuritz confirmed to the Sentinel that he did in fact mail his resignation letter to APCWC on October 24, 2011 and mailed a copy to the State Attorney General’s office in December of last year.  Kuritz said he did so to save the ratepayers of the Arrowbear Park County Water District money and the state taxpayers money from having the State Attorney General investigate and issue its opinion.
Kuritz explained the purpose of a quo warranto is to determine if he had a right to hold office and he believed if it went forward APCWD “would have to deal with the fact that they illegally threw me off the board.”

(November 9)   SAN BERNARDINO – The county board of supervisors this week significantly reduced restrictions on small scale windmills utilized for the generation of electrical power. In particular, the revision of the county’s development code will allow more wind turbines to be constructed on residential properties in the county’s rural areas.
According to Christine Kelly, the director of the county’s land use services division, the ordinance presented to and approved by the board on November 6 was intended “to revise the regulations for accessory wind energy systems to recognize new technologies and amend the development standards for these systems, which standards currently prohibit the installation of smaller, less impactful systems on residential properties.”
Following the July 1, 2002 implementation of Assembly Bill 1207, which pertained to small wind energy systems, San Bernardino County adopted an ordinance in November 2002, that established procedures and development standards for the installation of such devices within “non-urbanized” settings in its jurisdiction.
According to Kelly “These new regulations proved to be inadequate for the protection of the residents within the county. Primarily, the visual impacts of these wind energy systems and the lack of notice to the surrounding property owners produced considerable reactions from the residents within the various neighborhoods of the county, particularly in the Oak Hills area.
Due to the numerous complaints from local residents, staff reevaluated the 2002 development code procedures to address these issues associated with the permitting process for wind turbines. On December 20, 2005, the board adopted revisions to these regulations in order to provide a uniform and comprehensive set of standards, conditions, and procedures for the placement of these systems in a manner that minimizes visual and safety impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the community.
“Since that time,” Kelly continued, “new technologies have been developed to generate electricity with smaller, less impactful systems that should be recognized by the county in its development standards for these systems. Recently wind energy proponents have been frustrated by development standards that they believed hampered their attempts to employ new wind electrical generation technologies such as roof-mounted systems and small-blade technology. Limitations on the number of turbines permitted and separation requirements made it difficult to design effective new roof or building-mounted systems. In response to public input, including requests from various industry representatives, staff has evaluated the current regulations relative to these systems, along with those from other jurisdictions, and has determined that the county should amend the code to reflect these new technologies and to clarify other provisions of the code.
The code amendment adopted by the board revised the regulations for accessory wind energy systems. Previously, each less-than-20-acre parcel was permitted a maximum of one windmill and larger parcels were permitted to have no more than three windmills. If the units were less than 50 feet in height, a maximum of two turbines per five acres was allowed.
The new rule does away with the limitation by number of units and instead imposes a limit based upon wattage. In this way, the number of units is limited to a maximum of produced wattage of the combined systems of ten kilowatts for residential and fifty kilowatts for non-residential properties. The new rules allow for more than fifty kilowatts to be generated if it can be demonstrated that the total amount of electricity is being used on site.
“The goal was to not necessarily limit the number of units, but to ensure that energy generation remained an accessory use,” Kelly said. “The new county policy will ensure that wind energy systems remain accessory uses by limiting the amount of energy produced to energy that could be used on-site. The maximum power generation was based on typical usage estimated by the American Wind Energy Association.”
The new regulations  address what Kelly referred to as “building-mounted systems.”
The previous rules did not define building-mounted systems but involved so-called “separation requirements,” which prohibited more than one system attached to a structure per parcel.
The new rules require applicants to meet manufacturer’s separation requirements, but allow the possibility of multiple units to be located on one parcel. This new regulation addresses new technologies which involve smaller units but greater numbers of units.  The previous separation requirements required a separation of 240 feet between systems on the same parcel. Under the new rules, both towers and building mounted systems need to be located appropriately to function efficiently. Other regulations with regard to setback requirements from the property line still apply even with the elimination of the standard for separation between units.
With regard to permit requirements, the county’s previous policy called for windmill operators to obtain an accessory wind energy permit for all systems greater than 35 feet in height but contained a permit exemption for units of lesser height. The new policy maintains the exemption from the land use permit requirement if only a single unit of less than 35 feet is proposed for a parcel. Such projects, however, still require a building permit. If multiple units are proposed for a parcel, the exemption from the permit requirement would not apply even if the units are 35 feet or less in height.
The revision allows for the notification of neighbors when multiple units are proposed. The accessory wind energy permit is a discretionary permit that requires noticing to all surrounding property owners within 300 feet from the subject property boundaries. The code establishes the staff review with notice procedures to process such an application. This permit and notice are primarily required to ensure that all units are located on a site with the least impact to neighboring properties. Any decision made on these permits may be appealed only to the planning commission, the decision of which is final. The board of supervisors does not hear appeals on windmill permits.
Retired county planning director James Squires, whose tenure with the county predated Kelly’s hiring and who had dealt with the windmill issue in years past, by special arrangement was brought in to present the proposed code changes to the board.

(November 9)    In San Bernardino County’s municipal elections this week, 29, or 72.5 percent of the mayoral and council incumbents were reelected or unopposed. Eleven incumbents were turned out of office by voters. Nine incumbents chose not to run or had resigned before the election was held.
In Adelanto, incumbent Ed Camargo won and incumbent Trinidad Perez lost to challenger Ronald Beard.
In Apple Valley, former fire chief Art Bishop and fire board member Larry Cusack outpolled seven others to capture two town council seats.
In Barstow, councilwoman Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre was unopposed in her run for mayor after incumbent Joe Gomez chose not to run. Rich Harpole and Carmen Hernandez captured the two contested council positions, in the process turning out incumbent Tim Saenz.
In Big Bear Lake, incumbent mayor Bill Jahn and Bob Jackowski were reelected and elected, respectively, to the city council.
In Chino, mayor Dennis Yates held off challenger Lee McGroarty. Incumbent councilmen Tom Haughey and Glenn Duncan were unopposed.
In Chino Hills, mayor Art Bennett, who was appointed to the council four years ago rather than elected, and Cynthia Moran were victorious in a field of five.
In Colton, incumbent District 3 councilman Vincent Yzaguirre was turned out of office by Frank Navarro. In Colton’s District 5 race, councilwoman Deirdre Bennett was reelected. In District 6 Isaac Suchil regained the council position he lost four years ago to Alex Perez. Perez finished third among three candidates.
In Fontana, incumbent Lydia Salazar Wibert won, but another incumbent, Matthew Slowik was chased from office by Jesus “Jesse” Sandoval.
In Grand Terrace, councilwoman Lee Ann Garcia was displaced after 18 years in office. Reelected was Darcy McNaboe. Two other challengers, Sylvia Robles and Jackie Mitchell were elected.
In Hesperia, where there were eleven candidates in the city council race, Mike Leonard was reelected to a third term. Incumbent Paul Bosacki was ousted by Eric Schmidt.
In Highland, incumbents John Timmer and Penny Lilburn turned back a challenge by Tony Mauricio.
In Montclair, incumbents John Dutrey and Carolyn Raft were reelected.
In Needles, there was no suspense to the polling at all as mayor Ed Paget and councilmen Tony Frazier and Jim Lopez were unopposed.
In Ontario, incumbent Debra Dorst-Porada was reelected but her colleague Sheila Mautz was displaced by Paul Vincent Avila in the nine-candidate race.
In Rancho Cucamonga, Marc Steinorth ousted longtime councilman and one-time mayoral candidate Chuck Buquet. Incumbent councilman Sam Spagnolo retained his position.
In Redlands, where seven candidates competed, mayor Pete Aguilar was reelected and former mayor Pat Gilbreath made a political comeback from her defeat two years ago by being elected to the council position now held by Jerry Bean, who chose not to run.
In Rialto, councilwoman Deborah Robertson defeated councilman Ed Scott in the race to replace outgoing mayor Grace Vargas. Incumbent councilman Ed Palmer retained his seat and newcomer Shawn O’Connell polled his way to the top of five challengers.
In Twentynine Palms, Incumbent John Cole was reelected, while schoolteacher Cora Heiser bested incumbent Joel Klink.
In Upland, incumbent mayor Ray Musser turned back challenges from council members Gino Filippi and Debbie Stone. In the race for a single council seat, Glenn Bozar bested four others.
In Victorville, longtime councilman Mike Rothschild was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection, while mayor Ryan McEachron captured reelection. Jim Cox, who was Victorville city manager for 32 years, was given a berth on the council along with Gloria Garcia.
In Yucaipa, the only two incumbents vying for reelection, Denise Hoyt and Dick Riddell, handily won reelection among a field of six. Also victorious was Bobby Dean Duncan.
In Yucca Valley, incumbents George Huntington and Robert Lombardo were unopposed.

(November 9)   High Desert businessman Robert Lovingood edged Apple Valley town councilman Rick Roelle in the race for First District supervisor.
Roelle, a sheriff’s lieutenant who has served two-and-one-half terms on the Apple Valley council, held a fundraising advantage over Lovingood in that he had the support of the two major public employee unions representing county employees that proved to be the major donors in this year’s First District supervisor race. The San Bernardino Public Employees Association, representing over 12,000 county non-safety division workers, and the Safety Employees Benefit Association, representing sheriff’s officers and district attorney’s office investigators, had lined up behind Roelle and provided him with over $100,000 in contributions.
Lovingood, who lives in Apple Valley and owns ICR Staffing Services in Victorville, loaned his campaign enough of his own money to be able to answer, if not entirely match the advertising blitz put on by his opponent. Despite the funding disadvantage, Lovingood benefitted from sentiment that is turning against public employee unions’ domination of local politics.
Lovingood jumped to a 5.61 percent lead over his rival with the tallying of absentee ballots shortly after the closing of the polls on Tuesday night.
Throughout the evening and into the morning, Roelle was making a show of closing the gap, but fell short when all 357 of the First District’s precincts had reported. The final numbers showed Lovingood with 38,640 votes or 51.22 percent to Roelle’s 36,798 votes or 48.78 percent.

(November 2)  The community of Hinkley is trending toward extinction as a significant number of its residents are electing to pack up and leave in the face of what appears to be an ineradicable hexavalent chromium contamination problem. That exodus is being hastened by the willingness of the entity responsible for the contamination to essentially buy them out as part of a plan to convert the rustic desert hamlet into a ghost town.
Contrary to widespread public assumptions, Pacific Gas & Electric’s payment of $333 million in 1996 as part of what was then the largest settlement in a direct action lawsuit in U.S. history did not redress the underlying problem.
Hinkley, with a population of something over 1,900, is an unincorporated zone in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert just north of State Highway 58, 14 miles northwest of Barstow, 59 miles east of Mojave, and 47 miles north of Victorville.
The town came to international prominence in 2000 with the release of the blockbuster movie Erin Brokovich, in which Pacific Gas and Electric was portrayed as a corporate villain that had recklessly endangered the lives and health of Hinkley’s residents. The movie was a substantially accurate version of what had actually occurred.
The Hinkley chromium 6 contamination came about as a consequence of Pacific Gas and Electric’s operation of a compressor station there beginning in 1952. The compressor station was a facility located on a pipeline that ran between Texas and Canada and delivered in excess of three billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The compressor station in Hinkley was one of eight such stations along the line in California. Natural gas available in the line was used to fuel compressors which repressurized the gas to push it through the pipeline. At Hinkley, the compressed gas was cooled with water circulating through two cooling towers. From 1952 until 1966, hexavalent chromium was added to the cooling water to prevent corrosion to the cooling towers and the water circulation system. Wastewater from the cooling system was disposed of in unlined ponds at the Hinkley site. Beginning in 1964, after the danger of chromium 6 was recognized, the cooling water was treated to remove the chromium before it was disposed in the pools and a non-chromium-based additive was substituted into the cooling system in 1966. Beginning in 1972 the cooling water was pumped into lined evaporation ponds.
These improvements to the system, however, did not undo the ecological havoc that had occurred up until 1972.
In 1988, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees water quality issues in that portion of the desert, issued a cleanup and abatement order to investigate a plume of chromium 6 in the water table.
In 1991, 1997 and 2004, the water board issued permits to treat the contaminated groundwater using land treatment units. In 2006, with the Hinkley groundwater contamination issue fading from public consciousness, the water board gave permits for two subterranean remediation systems to clean up the source and central areas of the plume. In 2008, however, the issue was resurrected as one of regional and local concern when, amidst the water board’s provision of a permit for Pacific Gas & Electric to apply additional cleanup measures, it issued redrafted cleanup and abatement orders. Steadily over the last four years, the condition of the lingering contamination in Hinkley has grown into a larger and larger public issue as evidence of how the underground plume of chromium 6 continues to migrate through the water table into the area from which local wells draw water used for household purposes has emerged.
The best hydrological data now available indicates the plume is about six miles long and two miles wide and gradually expanding.
Pacific Gas and Electric has been mandated and tasked to take a number of steps to ensure that the tainted water does not end up in the drinking glasses, cooking utensils, showers, baths, toilets and garden hoses of Hinkley residents.
Essentially, all or nearly all of those strategies have been deemed ineffective or inadequate to the task of preventing human consumption of the hexavalent chromium, which is a known carcinogen that is harmful in even the most minute of quantities.
Among those strategies was one championed by Pacific Gas & Electric that called for “irrigating crops as an effective means of providing both hydraulic control and treatment of extracted hexavalent chromium tainted water.” That process entailed pumping groundwater through a subsurface drip irrigation system and organic matter in the soil around plant root zones to create conditions, Pacific Gas & Electric claimed, would “chemically reduce the level of chromium 6 in the water. Hexavalent chromium is naturally reduced to insoluble trivalent chromium. Trivalent chromium joins and becomes bound with the trivalent chromium naturally occurring in the subsurface soil.” Using this method, Pacific Gas and Electric maintained in 2009 that “Total hexavalent chromium concentrations in extracted groundwater have decreased from approximately 60 micrograms per liter in 2004 to approximately 20 micrograms per liter today.”
The effectiveness of that approach was questioned by others, including the water board and residents of the area.
Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the earth’s crust and as such naturally occurs in rocks, soil, ground water and plants.
Under current guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifies 100 micrograms per liter as the maximum acceptable total chromium contaminant level acceptable in water to be consumed by humans. The California state standard is half that at 50 micrograms per liter. But that standard applies to the most beneficent form of chromium, and not hexavalent chromium or chromium 6.
Trivalent chromium – chromium 3 – is the dominant form of chromium in nature, and is virtually insoluble in water and  stable and immobile in soil. Hexavalent chromium – chromium six – is not abundant in nature, is soluble in water and is a potential carcinogen if inhaled.
For that reason, Pacific Gas and Electric believes that a strategy of converting the hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium is an acceptable one. Pacific Gas & Electric has never been able to execute upon that theory in actuality, however.
In addition to treating the water within the water table, Pacific Gas & Electric sought ways of keeping the contaminated water from migrating to other areas of the aquifer and tainting the water there. One effort Pacific Gas & Electric made to prevent the spreading of the plume entailed drawing up to 80 gallons of water per minute from supply wells south of the compression station, pumping it north through new underground pipes and injecting the water outside the northwestern plume boundary. This strategy, Pacific Gas and Electric claimed, was intended to “create a hydraulic barrier designed to prevent spreading of the plume.” While partially effective, that measure did not achieve the goal of reducing the chromium 6 in the water supply to an acceptable level.
Pacific Gas & Electric was hamstrung in its undertaking by a multitude of challenges and obstacles that included low background chromium levels in the Hinkley area, a legacy of extensive agricultural use in the area that introduced other contaminants unrelated to chromium 6 into the water table, ongoing active use of the aquifer, potential revisions of the chromium standard and difficulty in accessing all portions of the plume.
Pacific Gas and Electric, in an assertion disputed by many environmentalists and local activists, claims that there are average chromium background levels of 1.2 micrograms per liter in the Hinkley area and maximum chromium background levels of 3.1 microgram per liter in certain areas around Hinkley.
That assertion was attacked by critics as an attempt by Pacific Gas and Electric to lower the degree of clean-up work it should have been required to do.
With the continuing migration of the plume, Pacific Gas & Electric offered to provide every household and business in Hinkley with a filtration/treatment system to capture the chromium before it would be dispensed at the tap. Last year it began supplying all homes and businesses in the area with commercial drinking water.
But with no certain, final and comprehensive cure of the problem in sight, Pacific Gas & Electric at the corporate level began casting about for some way out of the dilemma the operators of that company two generations ago created. A possible solution? Buying the entire town of Hinkley, lock, stock and barrel.
To test that approach, in April, Pacific Gas & Electric sampled the attitude of the 300 Hinkley homeowners most impacted by chromium 6 groundwater contamination. They offered them, essentially, three options. Under option one, the company offered to continue to supply them with bottled water, apparently into perpetuity. Option two consisted of the company replacing in its entirely each home’s water hook-up and piping and plumbing arrangements, and providing each with a state of the art filtration, purification and treatment system. The third option was that Pacific Gas & Electricity would purchase their property at fair market value, providing them with enough money to move elsewhere. The residents were given an October 15 decision deadline.
Remarkably, two-thirds of the homeowners – 200 – accepted Pacific Gas & Electric’s offer to buy out their property. The process is by no means complete, as the properties yet need to be appraised and the full terms of the sales have to be negotiated and determined. Moreover, fully one third of the queried residents have not indicated a willingness to leave. And there were at least 200 other homeowners and another 100 or so property owners who have not been approached by Pacific Gas & Electric about their readiness to sell their land and go. But the startling number of residents who appear prepared to simply sell out and depart town altogether raises questions about the viability of the community as a lasting concern. Once homeowners begin their exodus, property values are likely to plummet and the customer base for most of the local businesses will diminish, leading to their closure. Some remaining property or homeowners may continue to hang on, either because they do not view living in solitude in a negative light or because they believe that Pacific Gas & Electric might be induced to up its offers to achieve complete ownership and autonomy over the area.
At issue are a few public facilities in the area and what their fate would be in the event of the essential shut down of the town. Hinkley Elementary Middle School is maintained and operated by the Barstow Unified School District. In addition to students from Hinkley, the school draws about fifty others from outside town. If the school were to be shuttered, the district would likely ask to be recompensed in some way, perhaps involving Pacific Gas & Electric’s purchase of the school site along with an agreement to partially defray the cost of a replacement school.
Despite the expense, Pacific Gas & Electric appears to be prepared to make a de facto purchase of the town. That purchase would, until the plume migrates to another populated area, stanch the flow of money being spent to redress the local hexavalent chromium contamination problem.