(July 20) APPLE VALLEY—Citing her hiring to a position in the San Diego County Land Use Services Division and her need to relocate, Apple Valley Town Councilwoman Ginger Coleman has resigned from her elected position effective July 26.
Coleman began work in government as a clerk typist for the city of Victorville’s fire department, worked for a dozen years in Victorville before going to work for two years in the planning department with the city of Adelanto, and then obtained a master’s degree in public administration at California State University, Domiguez Hills before going on to become the director of planning at Altech Engineering. In her resignation letter, she wrote  “I have been honored to serve my community. It is with sadness that I announce I will not be running in this election and that I will also be resigning from the town council, effective July 26, 2012. My last council meeting will be July 24th.”
Coleman’s letter continued, “The economy has adversely affected development for many years now, and every indication is that it will continue to do so for several years to come. As a professional land planner with a masters degree in public administration and lifelong Victor Valley resident, this is not a decision I have reached easily; however, while serving the community is a noble cause, ultimately my family must come first. Therefore, I have accepted a position in San Diego County. Neither this position nor the commute allows me time to perform the duties of a council member in a way that would benefit Apple Valley.”
Town officials are now contemplating their options for replacing Coleman, who was first elected to the council in November 2008 and would have needed to stand for reelection this year to remain in office.
The state’s election code provides the town council with the authority to appoint Coleman’s replacement for the remainder of her current term, which will elapse in December. Such an appointment would give the appointee the opportunity to run as an incumbent in the November election, which can be considered an advantage. The council can also keep the position vacant until after the election is held.

(July 20) BARSTOW—Controversial political figure Anthony Riley has been hired as the city of Barstow’s official public spokesman.
The Barstow city council agreed to provide Riley with a $58,200 annual contract to field questions from the press, generate press releases and facilitate the provision of information to inquiring citizens. The contract does not specify the hours he is to work or set a requirement for his being in place at City Hall.
Riley, an Oak Hills resident and member of the Hesperia School Board, was an employee of Passantino Andersen Communications and most recently held the position of spokesman for Brad Mitzelfelt’s just concluded unsuccessful campaign for Congress.
In 2010, Riley was an unsuccessful candidate himself for the Republican nomination in the 59th Assembly District.
Riley will be called upon to help Barstow put its best foot forward, a role that was previously filled by spokesman John Rader. Riley has been at the center or fringe of negative publicity in the past. An associate of former county supervisor/assessor Bill Postmus who joined Postmus on the Republican Central Committee, Riley was alleged to have been a recipient of political patronage at Postmus’ behest when he was hired into a position within the county’s economic development department. Riley departed from that post after Postmus was overtaken by scandal which led to his indictment and conviction on political corruption charges. Anthony came in for a further round of negative press when, after the Adelanto Charter Academy lost its charter in 2011 because of operational and financial irregularities, it was revealed that Riley was paid $6,500 on January 15, 2010, ostensibly to facilitate the charter school’s contact with Ron Griffith, director of preschool services for the county, and to assure that 20 to 30 kindergarten students would be enrolled at the academy. It was widely circulated that Riley had done nothing in exchange for the money.
Simply in taking up the assignment with the city, Riley generated controversy. He resides 41 miles from Barstow, well outside the geographical sphere in a proposed residency requirement for city officials discussed by the city council at its June 18 meeting. There is a requirement that critical city officials live within 15 miles of City Hall.
An effort to reach Riley at Barstow City Hall Wednesday was unsuccessful.
Riley’s contract provides a commitment that he remain in place for one year and the contract can be extended based upon a decision to fund the post in future budgets.

(July 13) SAN BERNARDINO—Joining the ranks of such California municipal fiscal pariahs as Vallejo, Stockton and Mammoth Lakes, San Bernardino this week became the first city in San Bernardino County history to declare its intention to file for bankruptcy protection.
After deliberating in a closed, executive session on Monday July 9 from which the public was excluded, the council met in public on July 10 and voted 4-2 with one abstention to direct city attorney James Penman to make the Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing.
The move to declare bankruptcy was a humiliating step down for San Bernardino, which in addition to being the oldest city in the county and the county seat, is, with a population of 209,924, the county’s largest city as well.
Seeking bankruptcy protection was opposed by two of the council’s members  –  councilmen Chas Kelley and Fred Shorett. Councilman John Valdivia, who was elected in November and seated on the council in March, abstained.
Referring to the vote as the most difficult decision she has been called upon to make as a council member, councilwoman Wendy McCammack said the city has worked itself into a financial position in which it cannot make expenditures on anything other than basic essential services. She was joined by councilwoman Virginia Marquez, Robert Jenkins, and Rikke Van Johnson in endorsing the filing. Penman said he would require several weeks to assemble the necessities required to make the actual filing.
Penman, in a cryptic statement he subsequently declined to clarify, alleged individuals affiliated with the city falsified the city’s financial documents in 13 out of the last 16 years. Those documents were doctored or otherwise altered to indicate the city was functioning in the black when it was actually running deficits, Penman said.
Penman did not specify which city officials had engaged in the fraud.  “I have my thoughts,” he said, “but that remains to be determined.”
He indicated the discrepancies had recently been brought to the attention of his office and that the information had been provided to investigative agencies, which he again did not specify, although from the context of his statement it appeared he was refering to the district attorney’s office and the state attorney general.
The sixteen years in question span the tenures of city managers Charles McNeely, Mark Weinberg, Fred Wilson and Shauna Clark. The lone hint Penman provided was that he was not referring to acting city manager Andrea Travis-Miller nor current finance director Jason Simpson, whom he credited with having found the discrepancies. Penman clashed with McNeely, who served as city manager from 2009 until he resigned earlier this year.
Valdivia, likewise, made an unclear reference to employees who he said had falsified budget figures. In abstaining, Valdivia said he was unwilling to cast a vote on the bankruptcy filing because he was not confident of the financial figures he had been quoted.
“The taxpayers of this city have been duped, hoodwinked and misguided for the past several years,” said Valdivia. .
Though he did not support the bankruptcy filing, Kelley said he wanted an investigative audit performed and for those who had played a role in the city’s economic demise to be held accountable.
The city’s slide toward insolvency has been ongoing for some time.  In 2008-09, the first full fiscal year after the downturn of the economy, the city had registered a $12 million shortfall by the end of the year. By the current fiscal year, 2012-13, city officials say the best figures available to them project that the city will spend a whopping $45 million more than it will bring in.
The governmental fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. Last month, in preparation for a news article concerning the anticipated budgets for all 24 of San Bernardino County’s incorporated cities and towns, the Sentinel   made inquiries  with all 24 city and town managers. San Bernardino alone among those municipalities was unable or unwilling to provide its projected revenues and expenditures for 2012-13. As of Tuesday, city officials said they still did not have a budget that could be publicly released.
The bankruptcy filing will leave the city council and city administration in charge of city operations and give the city, as a corporate entity, twelve to eighteen months to hold its creditors in abeyance while it attempts to straighten out its financial condition.
One undertaking that will likely follow is a major bloodletting, i.e. layoffs of municipal employees. The bankruptcy filing may also provide the city with the authority to abrogate the terms of many existing employee contracts and reopen negotiations with the bargaining units for various city employee groups. The bankruptcy filing will not, however, allow the city to renege on its pension payments to retired employees, a factor cited by Mayor Patrick Morris as a major one in the city’s deteriorating financial condition.
Travis-Miller told the council the city’s major financial burden is its payroll and steepening retirement costs, all of which is exacerbated by simultaneous declines in revenues

(July 13) Chino Hills homeowners will see annual assessments approaching $900 per year to cover the city’s cost of undergrounding the Tehachapi Line, according to one formula calculating the cost of eliminating the presence of  electrical towers through this upscale community in the southwestern corner of San Bernardino County.
In 2009 Southern California Edison obtained from the California Public Utility Commission over Chino Hills city officials’ objections permission to utilize the long-existing 3.8 mile-long power corridor  right-of-way through Chino Hills from Tonner Canyon to the Riverside County limits to erect 198-foot high towers to hold the electrical lines that are to traverse the 44.7-square mile city.
The city of Chino Hills sued Edison in 2010, claiming the company was on the verge of “overburdening” the power line easements, but West Valley Superior Court Judge Keith D. Davis ruled the California Public Utilities Commission has exclusive jurisdiction regarding the route used by Edison. Chino Hills appealed Davis’s ruling to the 4th District Court of Appeal, but on September 12, 2011 the appeals court affirmed Davis’ finding that the California Public Utilities Commission and not the courts has exclusive jurisdiction over property rights issues between the city and Southern California Edison (SCE). That legal effort cost the city more than $2.3 million.
Even as the towers were being erected in Chino Hills last fall, the city made a last ditch appeal to California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey, who visited the city and called for a delay while alternatives to the towers were sought and research on and discussions of alternative routing methods were carried out. Further work on the towers was suspended on November 11.
After months of on-and-off negotiations that have not settled the issue, on July 2 Peevey ordered Southern California Edison and the city of Chino Hills to ready information and prepare testimony by February 28, 2013 pertaining to the options for undergrounding the massive scale transmission lines.
While Peevey stopped short of saying that the towers, 18 of which have been erected within the city including Carbon Canyon, will be dismantled, he did indicate the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) will conduct a forum by which alternatives to the towers will be thoroughly and comprehensively considered in time for Southern California Edison to have the  Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project completed by mid-2015. The language within Peevey’s order indicated undergrounding of the lines was the desired objective and Chino Hills residents and officials were greatly encouraged by the prospect that the towers, which locals consider to be a visual blight that will negatively impact property values in the city, will be removed. They generally looked beyond the implication in Peevey’s order that the city and its residents will need to bear a good portion of the financial burden of undergrounding the electrical circuits.
“Chino Hills should develop prepared testimony responsive to Southern California Edison’s prepared testimony on the three cables per phase and two cables per phase in an undergrounded, single-circuit cross-linked polyethylene conduit in the existing Chino Hills right-of-way,” Peevey wrote in his order. “In particular, Chino Hills should identify and clearly quantify any financial commitment it is prepared to make to minimize the total additional cost of an underground option as compared to the project initially approved.”
Among Chino Hills officials there was reluctance to address that element of Peevey’s order which pertains to the city’s financial participation in defraying the cost of the undergrounding.
Both councilwoman Gwen Norton-Perry and councilman Peter Rogers, citing what they called a conflict of interest that exists because of the proximity of their homes to the power line corridor, when contacted by the Sentinel declined to make any comment or field any questions pertaining to the full implication of Peevey’s order, including whether they believed the city’s residents would be willing to bear a portion of the cost of the undergrounding.
At issue is how much of the cost the city and its residents will be called upon to shoulder and how that cost would be defrayed. One suggestion is that Southern California Edison and the city would split the cost.
According to Edison officials, the cost of digging a six-foot wide, 3.8-mile long trench the entire length of the existing easement through town and burying a double-circuit line will run from $703 million to $1 billion. In this way, the city’s share of the cost, assuming it will be called upon to pick up half the tab, will come to somewhere between roughly $351.5 million and $500 million.
Multiple options exist by which that share of the cost could be defrayed or amortized. One option would be to bypass the city government altogether and have the city’s ratepayers, as Southern California Edison customers, bear the cost through a special surcharge on their electric bills. Another option would be for the city to share in the burden by issuing bonds or taking out loans and using the bond proceeds or the loan to cover its portion. One formula proffered consisted of the city having its business and residential elements splitting the debt service responsibility on the loans or bonds. In this way, the debt service on an issuance of $500 million over 30 years would require total payments of roughly $1 billion, including interest. Assuming the business community would pick up half that amount over the 30-year life of the loan or bonds, Chino Hills’ homeowners would be called upon to pay $500 million to bondholders or the lending institution over the thirty year life of the obligation. With roughly 18,700 households in the city, each household would be responsible for $26,737.96 of that debt. Defrayed over thirty years, each household would be called upon to assume a yearly assessment of $891.26. Such an assessment, if passed by the city council, would be placed on each homeowner’s property tax bill.
When he was asked directly whether he saw the city’s willingness to bear some of the cost of the undergrounding of the line as key to an agreement to eliminate the towers in Chino Hills, Mayor Art Bennett declined to comment.
Nor would Bennett expound on whether the city has contemplated using its reserves or bond financing or loans to pay for its portion of the undergrounding cost. He likewise declined to speak to whether he believed Edison’s $703 million to $1 billion estimate of the undergrounding cost to be realistic or whether he considered it likely that the city’s residents would collectively be willing to share in paying for a portion of the undergrounding. Bennett was unwilling to say whether he believed that Southern California Edison should be totally responsible for the undergrounding cost.
When he was asked if the city would be willing to levy assessments on its residents to ensure the lines are undergrounded if the PUC indicates that some degree of city or city ratepayer participation will be needed to achieve that end, Bennett offered no response.
Councilman Bill Kruger said he was reluctant to make any definitive statements about the matter because “I don’t want to give a quote now that would be inappropriate since what is being looked at is all the different options for undergrounding. The PUC‘s decision is not going to happen for a year and right now there are ideas all over the place.  We can’t make a definitive statement until we know what all of the options are and what So Cal Edison will be presenting.”
Nevertheless, Kruger said, his council colleagues and other city officials recognize that the PUC expects the city to share in the cost of the line undergrounding.
“That is an issue,” Kruger said. “That is part of the big picture. No one knows what the cost will be. I’ve heard everything from nothing up to a super high number. There will be some cost. Some people are not going to be happy with that. But until there is a firm offer [from Edison] it is counterproductive to be talking about what that number should be.”
City manager Mike Fleager also acknowledged the city was  “asked to submit testimony in that area in regard to contribution to defray some of the cost,” adding he was “not surprised” by Peevey including that in the order.  “We have been debating  since before 2009 the cost of any and all added costs Edison would have above its ordinary costs [in erecting the towers],” Fleager said. “There has been discussion and debate about the alternatives. But at this point we will be preparing significant testimony on all of the issues and we will be going through a thoughtful process with regard to submitting all of our comments from the standpoint of undergrounding and financial contributions, and it is premature to be disposed to any option.”
As to what parameters there are for the city’s financial participation in the undergrounding effort, Fleager said he was unaware “of just what alternatives the PUC is looking at. There isn’t any particular formula or percentage that has been dictated to the city.” Thus, he said, it was “premature to predict what would be required by the PUC.”
Councilman Ed Graham, noting that the city spent $2.3 million in legal fees in seeking to countermand the PUC permit for the towers, said he was not convinced the city or its residents should be called upon to pay for any part of the undergrounding
“I think we have done quite a bit already,” he said.
If the PUC dictates that the city must share in the undergrounding cost or otherwise accept the towers as a permanent part of the landscape, Graham said he did not know whether the city’s residents would support the city becoming financially involved.
“I really have no idea,” he said.
Nor was he in a position to say whether the city council would support using the city’s reserves or creating an assessment district to pay for the undergrounding. “We haven’t discussed that,” he said.
Despite the consideration that the city has spent the last three years in an effort opposing the towers, Graham said city officials have not yet initiated any sort of dialog with city residents relating to the concept of taxpayer or ratepayer participation in defraying the cost of burying the cables and that the time to broach that subject with the public has not yet come.
“That’s way down the road,” he said. “It’s way too early for that.”
Asked if he was concerned that by temporizing and not having in place an assessment district or some other means of generating revenue to pay for the undergrounding, the PUC might decide against the undergrounding option and simply allow the towers to remain in place and be powerized, Graham said, “I would hope that wouldn’t be the case. We have to wait to February 28 to see what happens.”

(July 13) The county of San Bernardino and the cities of Hesperia and Victorville, along with the town of Apple Valley will soon be pooling their code enforcement resources, pursuant to an agreement ratified by the county board of supervisors this week.
Code enforcement at the county level for the last several years has fallen under the purview of the county’s land use services department.
Christine Kelly, the director of county land use services, called upon the board of supervisors to “approve a memorandum of understanding among the North Desert Cities of Adelanto, Hesperia and Victorville (North Desert Cities), the town of Apple Valley, and the county of San Bernardino for cooperative code enforcement activities.”
Kelly said she wanted the county “to enter into a non-financial memorandum of understanding to partner with participating North Desert Cities to conduct code enforcement sweeps for the purpose of finding, identifying, and correcting violations. In June 2011, representatives from the North Desert Cities, the town of Apple Valley, and the county met to discuss the feasibility of establishing a system for coordinated, multijurisdictional code enforcement sweeps in the Victor Valley. There was agreement that the jurisdictions have a shared interest in resolving nuisance and blight conditions in their neighborhoods, which often crosses (sic) jurisdictional lines. There was support among the participating jurisdictions for establishment of a ‘mutual aid’ type of agreement in which partner agencies would share resources to support targeted, limited term code enforcement sweeps. The city of Adelanto volunteered to take the lead in developing a draft memorandum of understanding to establish a legal framework for cooperative code enforcement activities and outline the roles and responsibilities of each participating agency.
“While it has taken some time to draft a memorandum of understanding that covers all the legal obstacles, the city of Adelanto has drafted the memorandum of understanding, which has been reviewed by county counsel staff who have advised that the county’s concerns over legal issues have been addressed,” Kelly continued. “Once all jurisdictions have approved the memorandum of understanding, the sweeps will begin to be scheduled and target areas will be confirmed.”
According to Kelly, “Each participating jurisdiction will cover the costs associated with their staff members during the sweeps. If there are any specific forms or tools needed for a particular job, the corresponding jurisdiction will furnish the necessary items.”

The county this week agreed to pay $2.33 million to a company to carry out testing of the perchlorate contaminated soil at the Mid-Valley Landfill in Rialto.
Those tests must be conducted in conjunction with specific directives issued to the county by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control growing out of the county’s actual and potential liability from its actions with regard to the property in the 1990s.
In the late 1990s, a plume of contaminants containing perchlorate was found to be migrating through the local water table
It is believed that five corporate entities – Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich, and Emhart Industries – were engaged in manufacturing activities that resulted in the accumulation and release of the perchlorate.
Water agency officials, state officials and federal officials believe the county of San Bernardino may have engaged in activity that exacerbated the perchlorate problem.
The county runs the Mid-Valley Landfill in north Rialto.
Officials with the Rialto-based West Valley Water District and their lawyers have alleged that San Bernardino County razed and buried a hazardous waste-disposal facility at the site, an act those officials maintain was not only illegal but has worsened the contamination of the groundwater below Rialto.
Broco Inc. maintained the hazardous-waste disposal operation in northern Rialto from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s. The county purchased the property in 1994 and used it in the expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
According to attorney Barry Groveman, who represents the West Valley Water District, it appears the county simply knocked the hazardous waste facility down and spread the debris around before burying it. That action was against the law, Groveman said.
Groveman said the county was in violation of state hazardous waste handling regulations and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Burying hazardous waste and storing it without a permit is illegal.
In the area around the Broco site, Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich and Emhart Industries had operations that were ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Public health officials have identified that area as the origin of the plume of perchlorate.
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 site has been 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 effort. Simultaneously, the EPA will apply the Superfund money toward the remediation. Eventually, if any of the parties deemed responsible for the contamination refuse to sponsor or otherwise pay for a share of the remediation, the EPA will sue and under federal law, any party proven responsible will be required to pay triple the cost of that portion of the clean up for which they were the contaminating party.
Meanwhile, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control in 2002, noting the historic presence of the former Broco facility, informed the county of the need to close it pursuant to regulations. The Department of Toxic Substances Control took the position that the county, as current owner of the property, was responsible for closure. The county has been working with the Department of Toxic Substances Control since that time to prepare the “closure plan” for the former Broco site, and submitted the final document on May 28, 2010. The closure plan identifies an extensive soils investigation that the county will complete.  Phase 1 of the soil sampling effort is to consist of drilling borings, soil and soil pore-gas sample collection, laboratory analyses, evaluation of the analytical data, and preparation of a report that details the methods used and results of the field and laboratory investigation.
The closue referred to pertains just to that portion of the landfill where the Broco facility was located. The landfill will remain in place.
On April 25, 2012, the county put the first phase of the soil sampling effort out to bid and the request for proposals was advertised on the county purchasing division’s web page and electronically sent to twenty-two firms. Four bids were received. Geologic Associates of San Bernardino offered to do the job for $2,383,460. Ninyo & Moore of Rancho Cucamonga made a bid for the job at $2,476,134. Advanced Earth Sciences, Inc. of Irvine bid $3,116,915 on the job.  ATC Associates, Inc. of Monterey Park’s bid came in at $3,924,698.70.
A county bid evaluation committee considered the qualifications of the four firms competing for the assignment and ranked Geo-Logic Associates as the most qualified firm to perform the services as requested in the request for proposals based on the company’s technical approach to the scope of work and experience with projects of similar nature and scope.

(July 13)  TWENTYNINE PALMS—An inquiry into the operations and accounting practices of the Twentynine Palms Public Cemetery District by the district attorney’s public integrity unit and the county grand jury has not turned up any grounds for a criminal prosecution, the Sentinel has learned. Nevertheless, pronounced shortcomings in bookkeeping and recordkeeping, as well as failures to make timely reporting of transactions have been discovered. Documentation of revenues and expenditures as well as governing board actions has also fallen below governmental standards, the investigation determined.
In carrying out a routine five-year review of operations in various governmental entities in and around Twentynine Palms, the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission discovered some accounting irregularities within the Twentynine Palms Public Cemetery District and forwarded that information to the district attorney’s public integrity unit and the grand jury.
On May 7, 2012, Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) executive officer Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, assistant executive officer Samuel Martinez and project manager Michael Tuerpe delivered a report relating to the various agencies serving Twentynine Palms and the surrounding area. In carrying out that portion of the review pertaining to the cemetery district, Rollings-McDonald, Martinez and Tuerpe were unable to find any district records updated since the 2008-09 fiscal year. Their report states that the district did not complete audits in a statutory time frame and prepared its budgets without auditing or verifying the numbers utilized.
According to LAFCO, the most recent budget information provided to state and county controllers had not been adopted by the district board at a noticed public hearing. These shortcomings qualify as “a prime indicator of governance challenges,” according to Rollings-McDonald, Martinez and Tuerpe.
At the district’s June 28 meeting, the cemetery district’s trustees gave indication that they were seeking to extrapolate from existing ledgers and account data available to them the district’s precise fiscal circumstance, including deposits into district accounts and expenditures therefrom. With one vacancy on the board and April Gibson on vacation, a quorum of Betty Laferriere, Sandra Gray and Les Snodgrass sought to make and record better documentation of the district’s current fiscal operations than has been carried out in the past. It was duly noted that a recent account statement from Wells Fargo bank, into which the district’s operating funds are deposited and from which its operational capital is disbursed, was unavailable. The board moved to make a timely retrieval of that information.
May expenditures of $16,582.05 were approved against income of $24,831.39 for the same time period, consisting of sales and other revenues. It was noted that the missing account information may cause a future adjustment of the May expenditure total.
According to documentation available, the endowment care fund, which included the money available in the Wells Fargo account, stands at $351,865.93. The district has also registered a pre-need trust fund total of $217,955.95.
The board examined but ultimately tabled until a later date approval of an operating budget for 2012-13 that had identical $222,948 revenue and expenditure projections.
Trustees indicated that the district is actively seeking to procure an auditor to meet LAFCO’s demand that the district redress its failure to complete previous audits in the yearly statutory time frame. The board directed district secretary Casey Dobler to send out bid solicitation letters to auditing firms.
Dobler’s action in presenting an employee salary schedule to the board in 2009 briefly came under scrutiny. That salary schedule was approved July 1, 2009, giving Dobler, the caretaker and assistant caretaker

An investigator in the district attorney’s office will attend a seminar on the current proliferation of crimes involving companies operating offshore and exploiting international banking arrangements to engage in fraud.
Roger Chien, now a senior investigator with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, has been a member of the International Police Association since 2001. He has served as a board member for the Los Angeles area chapter of the International Police Association and has hosted numerous foreign police visits and visited members in foreign countries.
The International Police Association is the world’s largest organization for police officers with nearly 400,000 members in over 60 countries.
This year, Chien was chosen as a recipient of a $1,500 scholarship from the International Police Association to cover tuition for his attendance at police seminars in Gimborn, Germany from August 27 – 31, 2012.
The county board of supervisors this week approved a request by district attorney Mike Ramos to approve an expenditure of $2,725 to cover Chien’s travel expenses to Germany to attend the seminar.
“Approval of this item would allow district attorney senior investigator Roger Chien to attend various police seminars at the I.P.A. Castle in Gimborn, Germany as one of this year’s scholarship recipients,” Ramos told the board of supervisors. “Senior investigator Chien’s selection for the 2012 Scholarship for the United States is an honor for himself and the county of San Bernardino. The seminar being attended by investigator Chien pertains to economic decline and imperfect multicultural integration. Mr. Chien is currently assigned to the district attorney’s fraud units. The level of activity in these units has increased over the past few years as the economy continues to underachieve. Suspects being investigated are often business people from diverse cultural backgrounds that frequently cite economic necessity or financial decline as reasons for not complying with applicable laws. The seminar in Germany will provide an opportunity for Mr. Chien to congregate with other law enforcement individuals from many cultures to see how other countries are responding. The information and insight obtained will be used to improve fraud investigations in San Bernardino County.”

In an effort to modify the behavior of the county’s juvenile delinquents, probation officials are offering them what they hope will be positive reinforcement.
In continuation of an ongoing program that has been in place for several years, the county board of supervisors this week authorized the county probation department to purchase $105,934.50 worth of prepaid gift cards which are to be doled out to young probationers deemed to be deserving of such rewards for sticking to the straight and narrow path.
According to Michelle Scray, the county’s chief probation officer, the gift cards will be purchased using money available “through state and federal programs/grants that specifically allow for the use of incentives, public donations, and asset seizures. Approval of this action will provide authorization for the probation department to purchase prepaid gift cards from various vendors for use in fiscal year 2012-13. The probation department provides probationers and juveniles with a variety of prepaid cards as incentive and supportive devices. The use of prepaid cards allows the department to reward juveniles for good behavior and to assist probationers in attending mandatory meetings by supplying bus passes. The department also uses the prepaid gift cards to assist juvenile probationers in the Independent Living Program. This program facilitates the development of independent living skills as juveniles transition from being in placement. It is estimated that the department will need to issue $105,934.50 in prepaid gift cards during fiscal year 2012-13 from various vendors.”
The county will spend $425 to purchase for the probation department 85 Del Taco $5 gift cards; $335 to buy 67 McDonald’s $5 gift cards; $585 to buy 117 Bakers $5 gift cards; $275 to buy 55 El Pollo Loco $5 gift cards; $575 to buy 115 Jack in the Box $5 gift cards; $360 to buy 72 In & Out Burger $5 gift cards; $337.50 to buy 15 Mountain Area Transit (Monthly) $22.50 gift cards; $42,232 to buy 10,558 OmniTrans (Daily) $4 gift cards; $2,250 to buy 150 OmniTrans (7 day) $15.00 gift cards; $22,500 to buy 450 OmniTrans (Monthly) $50 gift cards; $13,860 to buy 3,850 Victor Valley Transit (Daily) $3.60 gift cards; $2,500 to buy 50 Victor Valley Transit (Monthly) $50.00 gift cards; $4,500 to buy 300 $15 Arco gas cards; $3,750 to buy 150 $25 Arco gas cards; $200 to buy 20 $10 AMC movie passes; $1,250 to buy 50 Food 4 Less $25 gift cards; $2,500 to buy 25 Stater Bros. $100 gift cards; and $7,500 to buy 300 Walmart $25 gift cards.

BARSTOW—Barstow Police Chief Dianne Burns, the first woman to head a police department in San Bernardino County history, voluntarily retired on June 29, three days before her five-year contract was set to expire.

Dianne Burns

Burns’ trailblazing on behalf of her gender within the ranks of southern California law enforcement featured stints as a patrol officer, homicide detective, sergeant and lieutenant of a gang suppression unit during the 20 years she was with the Los Angeles Police Department. In 2007, she was the choice of then-Barstow city  manager Hector Rodriguez to replace former police chief Lee Gibson. Rodriguez selected Burns within four weeks of Gibson’s May 1, 2007 departure, but it took a majority of the city council another month to achieve a consensus about Burns’ suitability for the position. Her credentials as a gang task force leader on the mean streets of Los Angeles and her possession of a law degree were among the items on her  résumé that led to her being given a contract effective July 2 of that year.
The department was 11 short of its authorized strength of 38 officers when she took command. The department gained five officers over the next 21 months and then went to full staffing in May 2009 when six officers were sworn in.
Before that, however, Burns’ tenure as chief suffered a blow when in November 2007, Rodriguez, her primary supporter at City Hall, departed Barstow.  From the outset there were problems related to at least some of the department’s officers accepting a woman as their commander in the oftentimes machismo-driven atmosphere of a law enforcement agency.
Burns attempted to work through that challenge and instituted several positive changes that were hailed by the community. The first of those was to institute a shooting and tactical training school just outside of Hinkley and mandate that officers take target practice at least once every two months. She then rewrote the department’s policies and procedures manual, which had not been updated since 1983, and she co-authored an internal affairs manual for the department, which until that time was non-existent. She simultaneously sought to improve the interdepartmental relationship with the sheriff’s station in Barstow and encouraged officers in the department to become actively involved in community programs such as Cops for Kids, Neighborhood Watch,  Cook and Serve for the Homeless, and local neighborhood street fairs. She also sought and obtained $100,000 per year in “Cop’s Grant” money to update equipment, buy new computers, and provide officers with protective vests.
Outside the department, Burns’ efforts did not go unnoticed and the 2009-2010 grand jury in its yearly report took the uncommon step of commending her “for the changes, improvements, and upgrades she has made since becoming chief of police.” The grand jury waxed praiseful in the commendation, stating “It is hoped that the citizens of Barstow and the surrounding area appreciate her fine work.”
Though she received external accolades, internally there were problems brewing. Her command of the department was tested by some officers resentful of her leadership, her initial status as an outsider who had vaulted into the top position in the department without working up through the ranks in Barstow, her formalized big city approach and her gender. In response, Burns on occasion lashed out at officers in ways some caricatured as hysterical.
In July 2011, Burns went on vacation and did not return at the end of her hiatus, which was not anticipated to last for more than two weeks. When she did not return, city manager Curt Mitchell placed her on administrative leave. She remained absent from the department for more than six months while Mitchell and the council conducted a review of an unspecified issue relating to her job performance.
On February 24, as Mitchell’s assessment of Burns was drawing to a close, the Barstow Police Officers Association, representing 30 officers, corporals and detectives, and the Barstow Police Management Association, representing six sergeants and lieutenants, provided a vote of “no confidence” in Burns’ ability to continue to lead the department. The groups then sent a letter to Mitchell referencing the votes and excoriating Burns  for “poor performance” and “extreme favoritism,” as well as a “hostile work environment” that the unions said was the product of her oversight of the department.  The letter upbraided Mitchell for “failing to adequately address all concerns” the department’s officers had expressed about Burns. “She has demonstrated a lack of leadership and she has displayed severe instability in her emotions while in an official capacity,” the letter stated.
Despite the insurrection, Mitchell restored Burns to her position on February 27, mindful that her contract was up on July 2 and that she would be due for another review before it would be renewed on July 2, if indeed it was to be renewed.
Mitchell had not yet completed his review nor arrived at a decision about whether he would recommend to the city council that Burns be retained when she tendered her resignation. The prepared statement Burns provided after she filed her resignation did not hint at the difficulties she had experienced with her subordinates during her tenure.
“There is never a good time to leave a job and a police department that you love and enjoy, but there is always a right time,” Burns said. “That time has now come for me professionally and personally to retire and spend time with my husband who retired five years ago.”
Mitchell has designated lieutenant Albert Ramirez to serve as interim chief of police.