The Yucaipa City Council’s August 25 vote to approve the long-gestating update of the city Freeway Corridor Specific Plan and a parallel proposal to construct two large warehouses within that designated area has triggered an effort by residents of the local area to seek a referendum rescinding that action.
The previously applicable development standards and blueprint for land use and its intensity in the 1,242 acres along the freeway and surrounding areas in Yucaipa was adopted in November 2008 as the Freeway Corridor Specific Plan. The planning document allowed for the construction of up to 2,447 residential units on 424.7 acres and up to 4,585,779 square feet of nonresidential uses on 242.7 acres within the 1,242-acre area.
In recent years, a handful of projects that were proposed and approved, taken together with development proposals on within the 1,241-acre expanse prompted calls for the specific plan’s adjustment. Almost one year ago, the Palmer, Robinson, and Issa families sought permission to construct warehouses along Live Oak Canyon.
Then-Mayor Justin Beaver, Councilman Chris Venable and then-Councilman Matt Garner balked at the proposal, while then-Councilman Bobby Duncan and then-Councilman Jon Thorp were willing to let the projects proceed. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Political corruption figure Bill Postmus has reemerged as a participant in San Bernardino County government’s land use and decision-making processes that bear upon the provision of taxpayer subsidizations to investors and sponsors of development proposals at various locations throughout the county.
The lack of transparency of the competitive process for the assistance programs, the nature of Postmus’s criminal convictions which included bribery, the business model of Postmus’s current operation, Postmus previous success in obtaining questionable favorable decisions for himself and his clients and the casual manner in which the county’s highest-ranking administrative and political figures have welcomed him into the application process involving decisions upon which millions of dollars are riding has created concern about the integrity of those public officials.
In the mid-1990s, Postmus, having grown up in the Victor Valley and graduated from Redlands University with a business degree, surveyed the social landscape of the High Desert, concluding that the region’s predominant political conservatism presented him with a magnificent career opportunity. Reinventing himself as an earnest advocate for Christian family values and a rock-ribbed Republican, he went to work for then-Assemblywoman Kathleen Honeycutt, and together with Keith Olberg, his Redlands University acquaintance Brad Mitzelfelt and Honeycutt’s son, Tad, founded the High Desert Young Republicans. After Olberg acceded to a position in the Assembly, the Young Republicans’ focus next turned to preparing Postmus for political office. After he achieved an appointment to the Victorville Planning Commission and wangled being selected as that panel’s chairman, he vied successfully in 2000 for First District County supervisor. As the fifth youngest supervisor in county history, Postmus intensified his activism on the part of the Republican Party, ensuring again and again that those political donors who showed generosity toward him and his fellow Republican officeholders. In 2004, he had consolidated his political hold by being selected as the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, the third-youngest in county history, while simultaneously being made chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. That year he was handily reelected to the board of supervisors. Continue reading →

By Carlos Avalos
A comprehensive complaint filed with the San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller-Tax Collector, Ensen Mason, has revealed what appears to be a systematic pattern of educational fraud, constitutional violations, and civil rights abuses spanning multiple school districts under County Superintendent Ted Alejandre’s oversight. The allegations, if substantiated, represent one of the most serious cases of educational funding manipulation in recent California history.
The complaint centers on alleged Constitutional violations of Article IX, Section 5 of the California Constitution, which guarantees free public education. The districts in question, Etiwanda, Alta Loma, and Upland, are accused of operating what amounts to a “pay-to-play” public education system that directly contravenes this fundamental constitutional principle.
These practices also raise serious Federal Constitutional Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection issues, as the alleged fee structure creates a two-tiered system where access to educational opportunities depends on a family’s ability to pay. This practice is fundamentally at odds with the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The Etiwanda School District’s CLOUDS Preschool Program serves as the primary example of these alleged violations. According to the complaint, the Illegal Fee Structure in the program charges families a $75 non-refundable registration fee and $360 monthly tuition. There are also double-dipping concerns. While collecting these fees, the district simultaneously uses taxpayer-funded staff, facilities, and administration. The complaint states students are reportedly excluded until payments are current, violating free education guarantees. Continue reading →

It is anticipated that California Water Resources Board officials and lawyers with that agency will have fully examined documentation, water use records and historical litigation rulings contesting the propriety of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians ongoing diversion of water in the Bunker Hill Water Basin by September 12.
Based upon preliminary analyses conducted by a network of environmentalists and consumer advocates in the East San Bernardino Valley, arrangements by which the San Manuel Tribe has been utilizing water historically available from land in the foothills above Highland and San Bernardino did not include provisions for the quantity of water being taken to be quantified. That ran afoul of stipulations made in the settlement of lawsuits relating to water rights in the Bunker Hill Basin litigated more than nine decades ago and sustained in subsequent legal actions involving the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, extending to one legal action more than five decades ago that was settled in 1969. Those legal actions were resolved with or sustained restrictions on the use of that water which limit or prohibit its diversion during years of overdraft, that is, when more water is being taken out of the water table than is being replenished by rainfall.
In the early 1930s, the Del Rosa Mutual Water Company, which was a provider of water in and around San Bernardino, was represented by attorney Ralph Swing, in a major water rights lawsuit brought against D.J. Carpenter, Isabel Turner, George Mason, J.B. Jeffers, L.R. McKesson, the National Thrift Corporation of America, the National Thrift Corporation, California Consolidated Water Company and California Consumers Company, the Arrowhead Springs Company and Arrowhead Springs Corporation that was settled by a stipulation of those rights on October 19, 1931. Continue reading →

By Richard Hernandez
Federal officials acknowledge there has been a lull in anti-illegal immigration law enforcement in most of Southern California since U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s July 12 ruling which prevented federal immigration officials from conducting “roving patrols” aimed at finding and detaining those who fit what the Donald Trump Administration maintains is a logically-derived and therefore constitutional profile of individuals likely to be in the country illegally. Nevertheless, federal officials say their effort to ascertain the citizenship status and deport those who do not have current visas or permission to be in the country will in a very short time resume with even more intensity than before.
After hearing the July 10 testimony of Sean Skedzielewski, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice, who offered a defense of the aggressive immigration enforcement activities the federal government had initiated in early June and explaining what grounds the government was using to determine whom agents stopped and what constituted reasonable suspicion about those who had been arrested, Judge Frimpong said there was a “mountain of evidence,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s actions violated the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. According to Judge Frimpong, using race, ethnicity, language, accent, physical whereabouts or employment as a basis for immigration enforcement runs afoul of the 4th Amendment and its prohibition barring unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. She said the available evidence indicated the federal government was engaged in racial profiling in that they were using race, the work people were engaged in, their location, and their language to form “reasonable suspicion,” to detain those arrested on charges of being in the country illegally.
That “reasonable suspicion” was unreasonably derived, the judge said.
Judge Frimpong ordered the Trump administration to halt indiscriminate immigration stops and arrests in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. She further issued an order that such detaining cease forthwith and issued a secondary order that those in custody at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s downtown B-18 detention facility be given 24-hour access to lawyers and a phone line unmonitored and untapped by the government. Continue reading →

After a delay of more than a week, Jake and Rebecca Haro were arraigned in Riverside Superior Court on September 4 on one charge each in the murder of their son and filing a false police report.
The arraignment took place 21 days after Rebecca, bearing a blackened right eye, reported that she had been knocked unconscious in the parking lot of the Yucaipa Big 5 sporting goods store while she was changing the diaper of her 7-month-old son, Emmanuel, as he lay on the backseat of the family car, whereupon she came to and discovered that he was gone. That report had triggered a frenzied search for the child and his alleged abductor, one that ranged through contiguous Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Kern counties. Within 48 hours, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detectives delving into the matter found inconsistencies in the story Rebecca and her husband told and retold them, and their focus shifted. The investigation of the Haros intensified when it was learned that Jake had been arrested in 2018 along with his then wife, Vanessa Avina, when it was learned that their then-six week old daughter, Carolina Rose, had recently suffered a broken rib and had five other partially healed broken ribs, a healing skull fracture, bleeding of the brain, a neck injury and a healing broken leg bone. The case against both Avina and Jake dragged on for five years, during which time their marriage ended in divorce and the child, who was left severely disabled for life as a result of her injuries, was adopted by Avina’s sister. In 2023, Haro and Avina were convicted of willful abuse of a child, with Jake Haro having been given a four-year sentence that was suspended in lieu of probation. At the time of Emmanuel’s disappearance, Jake was facing the potential of having that probation revoked after he had been caught in possession of a firearm.
The missing child/kidnap investigation, which was yet being conducted by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, shifted to one in which the premise was that the parents were involved in the disappearance of their son. Continue reading →

NOTICE TO CITY OF YUCAIPA CITIZENS
REGARDING ORDINANCE NO. 460
On Monday, August 25, 2025, the City Council of the City of Yucaipa did consider and adopt ORDINANCE NO. 460, relating to the City’s Municipal Code.
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YUCAIPA, CALIFORNIA, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YUCAIPA, CALIFORNIA, REPEALING AND REPLACING ORDINANCE NO. 394 TO THE YUCAIPA MUNICIPAL CODE RELATED TO TEMPORARY SPECIAL EVENTS
AYES: COUNCILMEMBER: Thorp, Venable, Beaver, Miller and Woolsey
NOES: COUNCILMEMBER: None
ABSTAIN: COUNCILMEMBER: None
ABSENT: COUNCILMEMBER: None
You may wish to examine the full text of this Ordinance, which is on file in the City Clerk’s Office.
/s/ Ana V. Sauseda, MMC
City Clerk
City of Yucaipa
Published September 5, 2025 in the San Bernardino County Sentinel

NOTICE TO CITY OF YUCAIPA CITIZENS
REGARDING ORDINANCE NO. 460
On Monday, August 25, 2025, the City Council of the City of Yucaipa did consider and adopt ORDINANCE NO. 460, relating to the City’s Municipal Code.
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YUCAIPA, CALIFORNIA, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YUCAIPA, CALIFORNIA, REPEALING AND REPLACING ORDINANCE NO. 394 TO THE YUCAIPA MUNICIPAL CODE RELATED TO TEMPORARY SPECIAL EVENTS
AYES: COUNCILMEMBER: Thorp, Venable, Beaver, Miller and Woolsey
NOES: COUNCILMEMBER: None
ABSTAIN: COUNCILMEMBER: None
ABSENT: COUNCILMEMBER: None
You may wish to examine the full text of this Ordinance, which is on file in the City Clerk’s Office.
/s/ Ana V. Sauseda, MMC
City Clerk
City of Yucaipa
Published September 5, 2025 in the San Bernardino County Sentinel

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIV SB 2522959
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: ANDREA-DANIELA BECKY ROSALES filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: ANDREA-DANIELA BECKY ROSALES to ANDREADANNIELLA REBEKAH ALEJO
THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: 09/25/2025, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S 30
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino District-Civil Division, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 08/14/2025
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Maria Rubio, Deputy Clerk of the Court
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on August 15, 22 & 29 and September 5, 2025.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIVSB2510807,
TO  ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner Maxwell Michael Kovacevich, filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Maxwell Michael Kovacevich to Maxwell Javier Caron
THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: 09/18/2025, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S17
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino District-Civil Division, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415, IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the SBCS Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 08/07/2025
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Published in the SBCS Rancho Cucamonga on 08/15/2025, 08/22/2025, 08/29/2025, 09/05/2025

Continue reading →

By Carlos Avalos
A detailed whistleblower complaint filed with the San Bernardino County Auditor, Ensen Mason, alleges a pattern of contract violations, preferential treatment, and potential misuse of public funds within the Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS), raising serious questions about transparency and accountability in the agency’s operations. The complaint, submitted by advocate Antoinette Jensen, who previously worked in the educational profession within San Bernardino County, centers on consulting contracts with Sherman Garnett, a Upland Unified School Board Trustee who also operates a private educational consulting business. The allegations include repeated violations of procurement policies, “after-the-fact” approvals that violated accounting procedures, and the use of public resources to market a private business.
The complaint asks the county auditor asked to investigate these after-the-fact approvals, policy violations, and potential misuse of public funds
The complaint comes against the backdrop of a recent California Attorney General investigation that found Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools in violation of the Brown Act. Last year, Attorney General Rob Bonta concluded that the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools (SANDABS), controlled by County Superintendent Ted Alejandre, was illegally operating without public transparency requirements. Alejandre and his office had withheld information relating to the actions and expenditures of the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools Executive Committee, which met in secret and without the posting/provision of an agenda relating to its meetings at which votes and decisions on the expenditure of money entrusted to the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools for educational programs were made.
“We conclude that the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools Executive Committee is the ‘multimember body that governs’ San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools within the meaning of Government Code section 54952, subdivision (c)(1)(A), and is therefore a ‘legislative body’ within the meaning of that section and subject to the Brown Act’s open-meeting requirements,” the California Attorney General’s office determined. This previous finding, according to the whistleblower, illustrates “the consolidated power and control of the County Superintendent” and establishes a pattern of transparency failures that extends to current contracting practices.
In the complaint, there are allegations of unusual contracting agreements. Central to the current allegations are contracts between the Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools and Sherman Garnett for educational seminars on student records and discipline. The arrangements, spanning from 2021 to 2024, contained several unusual provisions that distinguish them from standard consulting agreements. The issue of marketing for private gain is also alleged in the complaint. Unlike typical consulting contracts that involve flat fees, Garnett’s agreements with the Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools specified payment on a per-attendee basis. More controversially, the contracts explicitly required the Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools to handle all marketing and “recruitment” using public funds and taxpayer-paid employee time to increase attendance at Garnett’s private seminars. “Using public funds (and taxpayer-paid employee’s time) to market and recruit attendance for a private business constitutes a clear misuse of public funds,” the complaint states, noting that Garnett uses flat-fee arrangements with school districts outside San Bernardino County.
The contracts also included an unusual revenue-splitting component. In 2021, while Garnett received $75 per attendee, $50 per attendee was directed to the Children Deserve Success division of SBCSS, led by Don English, who serves as Board President of the Chaffey Joint Union High School District. Purchase orders explicitly stated that English’s division would receive these funds for facilitating and marketing the events, creating what the whistleblower describes as a system where “public funds were diverted from individual school districts to a division of SBCSS – without transparency of this fact to the attendees, or to the public.” The complaint documents multiple instances where SBCSS contracting policies were allegedly violated, specifically Policy 3312, which requires approvals to be obtained before services are rendered.
In 2022, Garnett provided two seminars in September without any contract in place, despite email references to a contract number (22/23-0739). Instead of executing a proper contract, the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools officials apparently split the services into two purchase orders of $7,885 and $5,415 to stay under the $10,000 threshold requiring formal contracts. “The total for those two seminars in September equated to $13,300,” the complaint notes. “These seminars were so close in proximity, that it appears that Sherman Garnett and Don English were well aware that Sherman Garnett’s total compensation would be over the $10,000 requirement for a contract to be executed, but they decided to skirt the typical protocol.”
Chief Business Officer Richard De Nava, who also serves as campaign treasurer for Superintendent Alejandre, repeatedly approved retroactive authorizations that he acknowledged violated accounting procedures. In October 2022, Don English specifically requested “after the fact” approvals for the September seminars. De Nava approved both requests on October 26, 2022, for requisitions 3806 and 3406, despite acknowledging this violated their own accounting procedures. The approval documents show English promising that “to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” proper agreements and requisitions would be required in the future. However, the same pattern repeated in April 2023.
On April 20, 2023, a requisition was submitted for a Garnett seminar scheduled for April 24, 2023 – just four days later. However, the requisition already showed 41 registered attendees, indicating the seminar had been planned, marketed, and scheduled well in advance. The purchase order wasn’t created and approved until April 26, 2023 – two days after the seminar had already taken place, and the same day Garnett submitted his invoice.
Escalating fees, costs, and the financial details reveal dramatically increasing costs and what the whistleblower characterizes as excessive consulting fees, as seen below.

2021
Antendee Charge $125
Garnett’s Share $75
English Share $50

2022
Antendee Charge $185
Garnett’s Share $95
English Share $90

2023-2024

Antendee Charge $225
Garnett’s Share $95
English Share $130

Hourly rate analysis based on seminar flyers shows that Garnett spoke only for two and a half hours at each event, noon to two thirty pm. His effective hourly rate reached extraordinary levels. On September 13, 2022, he earned $7,885 for two and a half hours, which equals $3,154 per hour. On September 29, 2022, he earned $5,415 for two and a half hours, which equals $2,166 per hour. On April 24, 2023, he earned $3,895 for two and a half hours, which equals $1,558 per hour. “This is an exceedingly high rate for consultants and is inflated due to the per-attendee fee arrangement,” the complaint states.
Revenue Impact Summary

9/13/2022
Attendees 83
Total Charged $15,355
Garnett’s Cut $7,885
English’s Cut $7,470

9/29/2022
Attendees 57
Total Charged $10,545
Garnett’s Cut $5,415
English’s Cut $5,130

4/24/2023
Attendees 41
Total Charged $9,226
Garnett’s Cut $3,8955
English’s Cut $5,330

TOTALS

Attendees 181
Total Charged $35,126
Garnett’s Cut $17,195
English’s Cut $17,930

The complaint raised pointed questions about the Office of the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools and their oversight, pertaining to why government employees have engaged in marketing for Garnett’s private business and whether that arrangement was used for other consultants? The complaint delved into why the contracts were not included in the County Board of Education agendas to provide for public transparency, how money directed to the San Bernardino County Superintended of Schools Office’s Children Deserve Success division was accounted for and spent, what consequences ensue from the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office failing to follow its own policies and wheter the County Superintendent of Schools has the the authority to create and revise policies without public input? There were also vetting concerns expressed in the complaint. The whistleblower also questioned the vetting process for vendors, noting that Garnett “does not appear to have a business license, or a Fictitious Business Name (FBN) registered with the county.”
The complaint alleged the issues raised represented more than isolated incidents, describing them as “a pattern and practice at the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Office that creates an environment which drastically increased the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse.”
In her complaint, Jensen wrote to Mason, “Public trust has been breached due to the contracting policies made unilaterally without public input, the potential conflicts of interest, the repeated violations of the approval process [and] public monies going to market a private business for personal gain.”
The complaint requested a formal investigation into whether wrongdoing has occurred, citing concerns about policies created unilaterally without public input, potential conflicts of interest, repeated violations of approval processes, public money used to market private businesses, and senior staff knowingly violating stated policies.
As of the original complaint, SBCSS has not responded to requests for comment on the specific allegations contained in the complaint. County Auditor Ensen Mason’s office will now review the complaint and supporting documentation to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted. The extensive documentation provided includes contracts, purchase orders, approval forms, and marketing materials spanning multiple years. The case highlights ongoing tensions over transparency and accountability in public education administration in San Bernardino County, particularly regarding the use of taxpayer funds and adherence to procurement policies designed to prevent favoritism and ensure fair competition. It further raises questions about the incestuous relationships between elected public eduation officials, their business interests and the public education institutions those elected officials oversee or network with as a consequence of their authority regarding educational programs. For parents, taxpayers, and education stakeholders in San Bernardino County, the outcome of this complaint could have significant implications for how the county’s school office conducts business and maintains public trust.