By Mark Gutglueck
(Upland February 28)–The California Attorney General’s Office has opened up an investigation into whether Governor Gavin Newsom made special arrangements to accommodate one of his major campaign donors during negotiations relating to California’s controversial AB 1228 passed in September 2023, which raised the minimum for most fast-food workers to $20.
Prior to that bill being refined into its final form and voted upon by the full Assembly and then the California Senate, an exception was cut out for a limited set of fast food businesses, virtually all of which are ones that are part of a chain owned by billionaire Greg Flynn, who has invested $178,800 in Newsom’s career as a state politician since 2010, including $100,000 that went toward the 2021 effort to fight off Newsom being recalled from office and $64,800 provided to him during his 2022 reelection campaign.
On April 1, AB 1228 will go into effect, raising California’s minimum wage at fast-food operations to $20 an hour from $16. Unaffected by the pay hike will be all 188 Panera Bread locations throughout California, of which Flynn owns 24.
According to those knowledgeable with regard to the issues now being examined by the state attorney general, Flynn and lobbyists working on his behalf succeeded in shaping the form of that law, and were able to do so as a consequence of the intercession of the governor. The governor’s office acknowledges taking part in the negotiations relating to deriving the final language of the bill, but has not responded to requests for comment on suggestions that Newsom did so at the request of Flynn. Continue reading →

Residents in the Indian Cove neighborhood of Twentynine Palms are loading up for a fight in which they intend to test whether their resolve to prevent the encroachment of what they say will prove to be an incompatible use in their midst can overcome the property rights of a Texas-based land company and its ability to coax from the city council a zone transition to create a resort near their homes.
Ofland Hospitality, formerly Yonder Hospitality, is a joint venture between Charles Tate and Noah Ellis focusing on the development of outdoor resorts in areas of the country with picturesque settings. The company’s first resort, Ofland Escalante, originally called Yonder Escalante, opened in April 2021 in southern Utah located in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument near Bryce Canyon National Park. From Ofland’s corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas, Tate and Ellis are now working toward completing another project in the City of Townsend, Tennessee near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The duo have now set their sights on 152 acres they have tied up between Twentynine Palms Highway to the north, Sullivan Road to the south, Shoshone Valley Drive to the east and an extension of Lear Avenue to the west. That property, immediately adjacent to Indian Cove, is slightly more than 6.7 miles from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park, most of which distance can be travelled by a straight shot out Twentynine Palms Highway, also known as Highway 62. Continue reading →

In the wake of the devastation wrought by the oriental fruit fly, city officials this week took the first steps toward a retrenchment of its land use policy in San Timoteo And Live Oak Canyons in what a cross section of the community hopes will not come too late to preserve Redlands’ position as one of the last of three districts within San Bernardino County with a substantial agricultural component.
The game plan for doing that calls for allowing farmers to augment their fruit and vegetable growing operations with what the city is calling “ancillary and supportive activities” in order “to enhance and diversify revenue sources from existing agricultural land uses.”
This week the planning commission reviewed new ordinance language intended to achieve those goals, followed by public input, including that from several of the city’s farmers, before making a recommendation that the city council adopt the ordinance in the near term.
In practical terms, what is to come about is the owners of the city’s groves, vineyards, farms and rancheros will be permitted to engage in commercial activity expanded beyond the limited roadside fruit stands they heretofore were allowed to operate in order to sell their produce, open or reopen as the case may be wineries on their property, conduct tours of their operations to groups so interested and convert a portion of their property to, or otherwise utilize existing, gardens for ceremonial venues such as weddings. Moreover, the city is to adjust its agricultural zoning, which currently disallows the raising of poultry or composting, to permit those activities. Continue reading →

By Greg Marquez
On March 5th, Chino residents will vote on Measure V.   While many of my fellow neighbors are questioning whether they support increasing the sales tax, I am very concerned about how the Measure V money will be spent if it is approved.
The sales tax increase is named “Measure V the Public Safety, Roads and Essential Services Protection Measure.” However, the additional revenue will go into the general fund, with no oversight other than the council and city staff, and with no restrictions that the money will be spent on police, roads, and parks, despite the promotional propaganda. Other than legal and contractual obligations, all general fund expenditures are discretionary, subject to the whims of both present and future councils and staff. The self-proclaimed “fiscally responsible” city council declared a “fiscal emergency,” supposedly due to a $5.7 million shortfall and “projected” deficits over the next five years. In actuality, the declaration of an “emergency” was required by law in order to place this measure on the March ballot, at a cost of ~$400,000, rather than the November general election. The $5.7M shortfall would not exist except for the irresponsible expenditure of ~$6.45 million to purchase the Chino Landmark Theater, Champion offices/old post office, both unusable, and the Monte Vista Park house, now demolished, as well as $1.4 million to change the color of all the street name signs. Continue reading →

19 February 2024
Congressman Pete Aguilar, 33rd District
108 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congressman Aguilar,

We need your help.
For nearly a decade, our organization’s members have worked alongside Inland Empire residents and tens of thousands of other Californians to right a nearly century-long wrong: the annual removal of tens of millions of gallons of the American people’s water from the San Bernardino National Forest for bottling by a series of private water companies, including bottling giants Nestle Waters and, now, its successor BlueTriton Brands.
This water is piped downhill from springs nestled in the San Bernardino mountains at the headwaters of Strawberry Creek and then bottled in plastic and marketed as Arrowhead Brand 100% Mountain Spring Water.
As you may know, Nestle’s controversial removal of this water first burst into public view in the mid-2010s during our state’s profound drought, as federally-managed public lands burned across the west. As Californians were collectively reducing our water use by a dramatic 40%, Nestle kept up its removal of water from these parched public lands, pledging publicly to remove as much as it could despite the fact that its Forest Service permit to do so had been expired for nearly 30 years and serious questions had been raised about whether the company had a valid right to the water. Continue reading →

Ontario officials are slowly coming to terms with the paradox within their now-seven plus years-long reassumption of ownership and management of their eponymous international airport.
Though they now have autonomy over the aerodrome that bears their city’s name, those officials have resigned themselves to not seeing ridership at the airport eclipsing what was its highest level historically achieved while it was under the management of the City of Los Angeles more than a decade-and-a-half ago for what is likely to be another five years.
In short, while the City of Ontario in a real sense took control of its destiny, at least as far as the airport is concerned, with the 2016 retaking of Ontario International, that independence has come at a significantly higher cost than the $270 million the city paid in the reacquision, most particularly in terms of the loss of leverage it once had, albeit indirectly, with commercial airlines.
Today, Ontario Airport’s claim to fame rests on its status as the ninth-largest airport in the county in terms of transporting cargo. That contrasts with its ranking among U.S. airports in terms of the numbers of passengers embarking there, where it stands in 56th place.
In pursuing its renewed and now achieved control of the airport, Ontario city officials pressed the claim that Los Angeles was mismanaging the asset and purposefully doing so to limit the number of airline passengers traveling through Ontario. The said that once the airport was freed from the confining clutches of Los Angeles and again under local ownership, they envisioned passenger traffic climbing exponentially, such that by 2025 – next year – Ontario International would take its rightful place as one of the top twenty air route points of departure/destination in the country and that by 2035 it would fall within the top ten. Such goals, at this point, seem ludicrous, and there is little prospect, short of some unanticipated disaster that would provide for the utter destruction of Los Angeles International Airport, that the first would be achieved within the next generation or that the second will see fruition this century.
In 1967, when Ontario Airport yet had a sand-flea-infested gravel parking lot and fewer than 200,000 passengers passing through its gates annually, the Ontario City Council ratified a joint operating agreement with the City of Los Angeles to permit the larger city to use its stronger negotiating position with the airlines serving Southern California to induce them to utilize the Ontario facility. Using its leverage, Los Angeles persuaded a whole host of airlines to begin flying into and out of Ontario.
By 1969, flights out of Ontario dramatically increased. In short order, Continental Airlines, PSA, United, American Airlines, Hughes Air West, and Delta established routes from Ontario. In the early 1970s, Ontario was in competition with John Wayne Airport in Orange County, which at that time was expanding dramatically. Though a benchmark of 10 million passengers at the airport by 1975 was not achieved, Los Angeles World Airports, the corporate entity running the Los Angeles Municipal Department of Airports, still assiduously promoted Ontario International.
In 1981, a modern, second east-to-west runway was built, necessitating the removal of the old northeast-to-southwest runway.
By the early 1980s Los Angeles had met all the criteria laid out in the 1967 joint powers agreement. The City of Ontario was at that time led by Mayor Robert Ellingwood, who was resistant to the concept of Ontario complying with the terms of the joint powers authority agreement and turning ownership of the airport over to Los Angeles. In 1985, during Ellingwood’s brief absence from the city, four members of the Ontario City Council as it was then composed voted to deed Ontario Airport to the City of Los Angeles for no consideration. That transaction was considered a public benefit transfer. With a few notable exceptions, such as Ellingwood, most Ontario officials at that time believed granting Los Angeles possession of the airport to be beneficial.
Indeed, over the four decades from 1967 until 2007, the relationship between Ontario and Los Angeles vis-à-vis the airport could not have been more positive or cordial.
In the fall of 2007, however, there was a massive financial lull when not just Ontario and Los Angeles but all of Southern California, California and the entire nation was first gripped by what would turn out to be a six-year-running economic downturn and lingering recession. Airlines, in an effort to shield themselves from the continuing economic decline, began cutting back on flights, particularly to locations outside heavy population centers. Beginning in 2008 and until early 2014, passenger traffic at Ontario International declined steadily.
In 2010, Ontario officials, led by Councilman Alan Wapner, initiated a campaign aimed at wresting control and ownership of Ontario International Airport back from Los Angeles. Los Angeles officials, including most prominently Los Angeles World Airports Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey, at first ignored and then began to resist that effort, which grew increasingly strident and uncivil.
Cooler heads, meanwhile, were seeking to restrain Wapner, asserting that he was needlessly antagonizing Los Angeles officials, who in any event did not have the antipathy toward Ontario he was alleging, reminding him that Los Angeles was in a much better position to negotiate with airlines domestically and worldwide than was Ontario. Moreover, it was pointed out, Ontario Mayor Paul Leon and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had grown up in the same neighborhood and were childhood friends. Leon’s connection to Villaraigosa could be used with far greater effect to negotiate an outcome favorable to Ontario, it was suggested, than Wapner’s more antagonistic approach. Wapner, however, was having none of that. With Wapner in the lead, Ontario stepped up its rhetoric, openly charging that Lindsey had evinced hostility toward the City of Ontario and its airport, and was deliberately manipulating the situation to raise costs at Ontario International and thereby minimize both ridership and revenues there as part of a plot to increase revenue and gate numbers at Los Angeles International Airport. Lindsey and her staff denied those accusations, pointing out that the airlines were being pushed by their own economic imperatives.
In 2013, in the waning days of Anthony Villaraigosa’s tenure as Los Angeles mayor, the City of Ontario, through the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, sued Los Angeles in the neutral forum of Riverside Superior Court, charging Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports with willful mismanagement of Ontario Airport, and seeking the return of the aerodrome to the city in which it is located.
Having already raised the campaign of attack against Los Angeles to a fever pitch, Wapner personalized it even further after the lawsuit was underway. The Wapner-directed attacks occurred against a backdrop of jockeying between the two cities over the “value” of the airport, i.e., the amount of money that was to change hands if the airport title were to be handed back to Ontario. Wapner insisted that the airport was a “public benefit asset” and had no “value” as such. He called for Los Angeles to simply deed the airport back at no consideration. Los Angeles, on the other hand, pointed out that over $500 million dollars had been expended on improvements at the facility and that major portions of the funds for those improvements originated from revenue generated at Los Angeles International Airport or at Ontario International Airport while it was in the possession of Los Angeles, as well as from federal grants Los Angeles secured or from bonds issued under the authority of Los Angeles as a public agency and debt serviced by taxpayers in Los Angeles.
Ontario privately tendered a $250 million offer to Los Angeles World Airports for transfer of the airport’s title and operational control. That offer included Ontario assuming $75 million of the outstanding bond debt obligations for past improvements to the airport, $125 million in future passenger facility charges to be realized at the airport and $50 million cash.
Los Angeles officials scoffed at that offer, giving indication they would accept no less than $450 million for the airport and the property on which it sits, which in any case they considered to be a generously charitable counterproposal reflecting a roughly $100 million discount of the cost of the improvements made to the airport during Los Angeles’s 47-year managerial run there.
In August 2015, just as the matter was headed to trial before Riverside Superior Court Judge Gloria Connor Trask, Ontario and Los Angeles forged a tentative settlement, announcing that ownership and management of Ontario International Airport would be returned to the city whose name the aerodrome bears. Mayors Eric Garcetti and Paul Leon disclosed that Ontario was to lay out $150 million for the airport and provide another $60 million to purchase assets technically belonging to Los Angeles World Airports that were in place at Ontario Airport and which were crucial or indispensable to its operations. In addition, Ontario had agreed to assume the debt service on roughly $60 million in bonded indebtedness Los Angeles had taken on over the years to make improvements at the facility.
In December 2015, Los Angeles and Ontario signed an agreement finalizing the transfer as of November 1, 2016, with Ontario paying Los Angeles $60 million out of its various operating funds and another $30 million taken out of its reserves, and committing to make payments of $50 million over five years and $70 million in the final five years of the ten-year ownership transition. In addition, Ontario absorbed $60 million of the airport’s bond debt.
There was considerable self-congratulating among Ontario officials over Ontario’s reclaiming of the airport. Only vaguely acknowledged was that in the previous two years, even as Ontario was badmouthing Los Angeles and suing it, ridership at the airport, which at one point had dwindled to less than 4 million annually, was again beginning to inch up under Los Angeles World Airports’ direction as the economy was making a turnaround.
What Ontario had surrendered in ending its relationship with Los Angeles was the entree the megalopolis, by virtue of its ownership of an airport that serves as one of the major international gateways into the United States from across the Pacific Ocean, enjoys with airlines. With a flick of their wrists, Los Angeles World Airports officials, by threatening to withhold desirable gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport or promising to provide the same, could induce airline executives of both national and international airlines to consider landing at or flying out of Ontario. Ontario officials had no such leverage.
By 2017, the events that had set off the so-called “Great Recession” were ten years in the past and the economy had fully recovered, indeed had come roaring back. Ontario was now fully in control of the airport, through the Ontario International Airport Authority it had created, the board of which Wapner was the president. Accordingly, Ontario Airport should have been at near its 7.2 million ridership level of 2007. Yet, the contretemps that Wapner had created between Ontario and Los Angeles during the last four years of the larger city’s ownership of the airport and its control over those operations and the loss of influence that Ontario had experienced with the airlines made that impossible.
In 2015, while Los Angeles had full control of the airport, it had a total ridership of 4,209,311, that is, a passenger count of those who both flew into and flew out of Ontario Airport. In 2016, the first ten months of which the airport was yet being managed by Los Angeles, the passenger count was 4,251,903. In 2017 it reached 4,552,225; followed by 5,115,894 in 2018 and 5,583,732 in 2019. In 2020, Ontario officials would experience firsthand a ridership slump that occurs as a consequence of factors beyond their immediate control, just as Los Angeles officials had seen in the years following the 2007 economic downturn, when the COVID pandemic cut across most sectors of the U.S., indeed world, economy, including airlines. In 2020, the number of passengers into and out of Ontario dipped to 2,538,482. In the face of that decline, Wapner, who was yet the Ontario International Airport Authority’s board president, was unable to lay responsibility for that at the feet of Los Angeles. In 2021, with the lifting of both national and state restrictions relating to the pandemic, ridership at Ontario International increased to 4,496,592. That was followed by 5,740,593 in 2022 and 6,430,033 in 2023.
Historically at Ontario International Airport, growth in passengers and cargo had grown on a roughly even pace. The economic downturn of 2007 shows that external factors often drove the airport’s performance. In 2007, for example, when the things were moving along well at the airport, 7,207,150 passengers and 532,865 tons of freight moved through it. The following year, with the recession in full gear, the number of passengers dropped to 6,232,975 and freight tonnage to 481,284. The next year, 2009, the trend continued to 4,861,110 passengers and 391,060 tons. When Wapner began assailing Los Angeles city officials and Los Angeles World Airports employees over the drop off in ridership at Ontario International, he made no mention of the same diminution in air shipping that was taking place. At that point, the narrative Ontario officials were propounding was that Los Angeles was responsible for the airport’s poor performance, which matched the city’s overarching political goal of reasserting itself as the airport’s rightful owner.
The post-November 1, 2016 era of Ontario’s ownership and management of Ontario International Airport has corresponded with an expansion of the local, state and national economy, with, of course, the exception of the 18-to20 month paralysis accompanying the COVID shutdowns from early 2020 until mid-2021. In that timeframe, the performance numbers at the airport have shown steady improvement, again reflecting the advancement of the economy.
Of note, however, regarding Ontario International Airport, the growth on the cargo side of its operations has seriously outpaced that on its passenger side. The aerodrome boasts a robust roster of freight carriers, which includes Amazon Prime Air, Federal Express and United Parcel Service. In June 2023, the airport board approved entering into exclusive negotiations with a company identified in October 2023 as DHL for the development of a project dubbed the South Airport Cargo Center. Infrastructure put in place by both Los Angeles and Ontario has given the airport the capacity to increase its cargo volumes.
The airport has In 2016, the year that Ontario took back control of the airport, freight tonnage stood at 567,295, which was up from 509,809 in 2015. The freight handled at the airport jumped to 654,378 tons, 751,529 tons and 781,993, respectively, in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic and the need for consumers and businesses to take advantage of e-commerce sources for household goods, materials and supplies, and Ontario International saw phenomenal growth in its operations, moving toward but not quite eclipsing the million ton threshold, as 924,160 tons of merchandise was transported through the airport that year. With the passage of the critical phase of the pandemic and the advent of vaccines that resulted in the withdrawal of government restrictions, the level of e-commerce declined in 2021, and the tonnage through the airport dropped as well, to a yet impressive 890,383 tons. In 2022, the number again declined, to 853,165 tons. In 2023, Ontario International had returned to its pre-pandemic level of cargo transport, at 752,199.
The comparison between Ontario International’s performance as a venue for cargo carriers as opposed to being a launching and landing site for passenger aircraft is stark. As a cargo airport, Ontario International ranks behind just eight others – Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Memphis International Airport, Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, Los Angelese International Airport, Miami International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Airport International Airport and Indianapolis International Airport.
As a passenger departure spot or destination, however, it stands behind 55 others.
While the reasons Ontario cannot attract passengers in the numbers like more than four dozen other airports across the country are myriad, some of those extend to its management and ownership and the bridges that management and ownership burned in gaining control over the management and title to the airport.
As politics in San Bernardino County goes, Ontario has been relatively stable, with less turnover on its city council over the last three decades in all but three other of the county’s 24 cities. At the time of Ontario’s reassumption of the airport’s ownership in November 2016, four of the five members of the city council now in office were in office then. The other, Ruben Valencia, was elected to the council later that month. Of those four, Councilman Alan Wapner has been in office since 1994, Mayor Paul Leon has been on the council since 1998, Councilman Jim Bowman, who was previously on the council, has been a member of the council continuously since 2006. Councilwoman Debra Dorst-Porada has been on the council since 2008. Thus, Leon, Bowman and Dorst-Porada were participants in and, to one degree or another, supporters of the strategy Wapner applied in stripping the City of Los Angeles of its ownership of Ontario Airport. In proceeding with Wapner’s game plan, the city forewent using an alternative approach, one that would have involved Leon, as Ontario mayor, using his childhood connection with then-Los Angeles Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa to work out some order of an amicable agreement to transfer legal possession of the airport back to the city in which it is located. A decision to make use of Wapners more aggressive – indeed hostile – approach was made, and the opportunity of a Villaraigosa/Leon accommodation being forged, a favorable circumstance that was not likely to along more than once-in-a-lifetime or even once-in-a-century-or-more, was lost. Villaraigosa left office in 2013.
While in 2015, Los Angeles officials consented to graciously divesting their city of the airport in exchange for far less money than they might have otherwise insisted upon, freeing Ontario Airport from the management of Los Angeles World Airports involved depriving the City of Ontario of certain advantages, not the least of which is the favorable relationship Los Angeles World Airports officers have with the airlines.
In 2007, no fewer than 14 airlines flew into and out of Ontario International Airport. With the downturn of the economy, within three years, six of those airlines discontinued flights to Ontario, decisions made because it was no longer economical for them to remain. Another of those airlines went out of business. It was the dwindling of airlines at the airport to seven, which fueled much of Alan Wapner’s anger toward Los Angeles and Los Angeles International Airport and formed part of the basis of his attacks on Los Angeles officials and Los Angles World Airports. At his point, Ontario International Airport has managed to pick up five more airlines, two of which agreed to come back to Ontario while Los Angeles was yet managing the airport. Today, Ontario Airport features 12 airlines, two fewer than it did in 2007.
Meanwhile, at Los Angeles International Airport, with its 79 airlines, officials overseeing that airport – meaning the executives with Los Angeles World Airports – like bureaucrats everywhere, have long memories. The memory of how they were treated by Ontario officials and the accusations made against them, including ones suggesting that they were purposefully mismanaging the Ontario Airport after its operations had been entrusted to them, remains. Accordingly, they have no incentive, indeed are disinclined, to request of any of the airline executives they deal with to consider making use of the runway, concourse and terminal in Ontario, at the airfield 57 miles to east of Los Angeles International Airport.
Few would suggest that the effort to liberate Ontario International Airport from the City of Los Angeles and deliver it back to Ontario, giving that city domain over an important element of its own destiny, was not a worthwhile endeavor, one that will ultimately redound to its benefit as a governmental jurisdiction and that of the current and future residents who live there. Realists recognize for that to have been accomplished, it required someone with the drive and determination that Alan Wapner evinced in that effort. Still, even as people admire him for what he did, virtually everyone who knows anything about what occurred and now its aftermath, have tremendous reservations about how he did it. As he comes up on his 30th year in office, many of his constituents and those he is associated with at Ontario City Hall and Ontario International Airport are awaiting the time when he will no longer be in office as a councilman and as the president of the airport board and his often bellicose approach to governance has departed with him, so Ontario officials can once again approach Los Angeles officials and talk productively about sharing responsibilities and opportunities for providing regional airline travel accommodations to a major portion of Southern California’s population.
-Mark Gutglueck

“Norma Torres Never Forgets Her Commitment To Her District”

Or so her flyer stated.
She bragged about the following:
Inflation Reduction Act Most people don’t realize its primary purpose is to shackle our economy to turn it into a green mismanaged state by throwing out our strong energy sector.
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Democrats boasted it was the largest package in history.  Exactly! That is what Democrats do, they blindly and needlessly spend taxpayers’ money—only to see no return on investment.  Do most 35th District Constituents understand that this program is fundamentally intended to throw money away on so-called hydrogen technology and the hydrogen economy?
In summary, her flyer introduces the centralized planning that Norma and her colleagues are very fond of.
Norma might brag about her so-called accomplishments – but until we see real changes that flow from free market solutions our district will pretty much remain the same – just more expensive to live in.  In 2024, make sure you vote with your brain and not from emotional impetuousness like Norma or Greta Thunberg.
Lory Mason
Ontario

In the wake of the devastation wrought by the oriental fruit fly, city officials this week took the first steps toward a retrenchment of its land use policy in San Timoteo And Live Oak Canyons in what a cross section of the community hopes will not come too late to preserve Redlands’ position as the last city in San Bernardino County with a substantial agricultural component.
The game plan for doing that calls for allowing farmers to augment their fruit and vegetable growing operations with what the city is calling “ancillary and supportive activities” in order “to enhance and diversify revenue sources from existing agricultural land uses.”
This week the planning commission reviewed new ordinance language intended to achieve those goals, followed by public input, including that from several of the city’s farmers, before making a recommendation that the city council adopt the ordinance in the near term.
In practical terms, what is to come about is the owners of the city’s groves, vineyards, farms and rancheros will be permitted to engage in commercial activity expanded beyond the limited roadside fruit stands they heretofore were allowed to operate in order to sell their produce, open or reopen as the case may be wineries on their property, conduct tours of their operations to groups so interested and convert a portion of their property to, or otherwise utilize existing, gardens for ceremonial venues such as weddings. Moreover, the city is to adjust its agricultural zoning, which currently disallows the raising of poultry or composting, to permit those activities.
In the parlance of municipal planners, the farms, to a limited extent intended to complement their primary operations of producing fruit and vegetables are to be allowed to engage in “agritourism.”
According to a staff report that accompanied the agenda item relating to the action that came before the Redlands Planning Commission on Tuesday, “The proposed ordinance includes a definition for ‘agritourism’ as well as a statement of intent. The proposed definition states agritourism “is the act of visiting a working farm/ranch or agricultural operation for the purpose of enjoyment, education, or active involvement in the activities of the farm/ranch or agricultural operation that adds to the economic viability of the agricultural operation. Agritourism activities are secondary and supplemental to the agricultural uses of the land, and do not create conflicts with agricultural activities on said lands and/or adjacent lands.” The purpose is to allow for enhanced economic viability of working farms while maintaining the rural character of agricultural districts for the continued operation and preservation of farming and ranching land uses.
The issue was brought forward by the Two Canyons Farmers Guild, for which Anna Knight is the spokeswoman.
Nakamura Knight explained the challenges faced by farmers, not the least of which is the limited profitability of farming as a profession.
“100 years ago, when groves were big and the model of business basically was to pick your grove or have a packing house pick your grove, pack it and ship it globally, Nakamura Knight said. “Redlands of 100 years ago looks a lot different from Redlands today. Not a single one of these groves can survive with just produce sales. We can’t reap economies of scale. The last remaining packing houses in this area are severely diminished. We know that Redlands Foothill Packing House is going to become a part of Redlands Unified [School District]. Corona College Heights out in Riverside doesn’t even have tangerines or pick tangerines any more, even though we’re in prime citrus season. We’re not going to be able to keep farming and make money if the mode of business is just sell a couple fruits. 80 percent of farmers in San Bernardino county make less than $50,000 a year in sales. That does not include labor, equipment, seed materials, and you all know how high the living costs are in So Cal.”
For many, Nakamura Knight said, the coup de grace has been the oriental fruit fly infestation and the precautions being taken by the California Department of Farming and Agriculture, which is preventing the farming community from harvesting their fruit and requiring that it be trashed at once, with no potential for selling it.
“Since October of last year, Redlands and its farmers have been under the oriental fruit fly quarantine,” Nakamura Knight said. “The quarantine imposed for the oriental fruit fly is the strictest that the California Department of Farming and Agriculture has. It outlaws the sales and transportation of any kind of affected crop off the farm of origin. It’s not just citrus that this affects. It affects 300 different kinds of fruits and vegetables. What that has meant for me is I’ve lost 100 percent of my Mandarin crop, 100 percent of my navels, and that’s true for every farmer in Redlands, Rialto, Moreno Valley Riverside. In this season alone we are going to lose some of the last 350 acres of citrus grove right here in Redlands.”
It is a misconception that commercial growers are being reimbursed by the state for the loss of their crops as consequence of the quarantine.
“No commercial growers are getting even a dollar,” she said.
Continuing, Nakamura Knight said, “It is so important that farmers have a way of diversifying their income. If we are not going to be able to survive just on produce sales alone, we need to be able to do things like farm field trips, or you-picks or have some of our school district partners come onto our farms. If I were to fill a vintage and classic orange field crate with 50 pounds of oranges and sell that to a commercial packing house, you guys as consumers would pay $70. As a farmer, I’d get one dollar. We’ve managed to survive because we’ve been nimble. We sell our fruits and vegetables exclusively to public schools in this area, and those kids have had the opportunity, as part of a pilot program, to come visit our farm and do an experiential farm field trip. This is the value that farms can provide.”
The city’s agricultural ordinance contains a counterproductive ban on composting that greatly complicates farming in Redlands, Nakamura Knight said.
“With regard to non-permitted uses, compost is what a farmer needs to be able to farm organically,” Nakamura Knight said. “It’s something that’s championed by the state and by our county but is illegal in the City of Redlands without a conditional use permit. You might think conditional uses are okay, but as a farmer making less than $50,000 in sales, paying $3,000, $10,000, $20,000 in for every single permitted use is untenable. We can’t do it and can’t afford it.
Nakamura Knight said that what the city’s farmers needed was for the city to expand what they are “permitted to do by right. Things like having chickens are not allowed right now under this [i.e., the current] ordinance. I am an in an A-1 [agriculturally zoned] property and can’t have a single chicken. But someone in residential rural is allowed to, and I’m the farmer. It is so important to me to be able to produce compost in reasonable amounts without coming into the city and asking permission. That’s what I need to do in order to farm and keep my business.”
Nakamura Knight made the point that the city’s restrictions were such that farmers, in order to be able to perform elements of a farming operation that are crucial to its success had to apply for permission from the city through a conditional use process, which in addition to creating delays is costly. She advocated for the city to liberalize its regulations in such a way that those activities now deemed conditional or “non-permitted” be allowable, subject to reasonable regulations.
“All farmers in Redlands are small farmers,” she said. “As a small farmer, this whole non-permitted piece is really essential and useful for us to do the basic actions and activities required with farming.”
Richard Corneille told the commission that over the last four decades in Redlands there has been “a lot of growing of houses and not oranges.” He said there was a need for a “local sustainable food supply.”
Linda Hamilton, the president of the Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action coalition said that it was “obvious to those studying climate change a new localized food system is going to be critical.” She said the “bottom line is we need our local farmers. We need to support them in any way that we can. Help our farmers to be viable in a much more difficult time.”
Bert Block said, “A lot of our farms have disappeared but those that are left are diligently maintained by people who don’t make a lot of money, but it is just their thing to do, to improve or make agriculture a part of our city. I think as a city all of us should get behind these farmers and do as much as we can. I think we owe our farmers a great amount of appreciation for what they do.
Lilyanna Montenegro, a nutritionist from the Yuciapa -Calimesa School District, said, “We have a proud history of supporting our local Redlands farmers,” who, she said, allowed the the school district “to serve our 8,500 students the freshest and most nutritious produce available with every meal. We want to support continuing supporting our local farmers for generations to come and continuing having access to organic produce that our students can consume. It is known that Redlands is the greatest in the history of organic groves. Unfortunately, throughout the years, I see substantially less and would hate to see our farmers lose their farming operations Therefore, it is imperative for our farmers to have the ability to diversify their income and see other avenues such as agritourism like on-farm experiences that will allow them to survive situations such as these current future quarantines to come. We believe our farmers are vital for a magnitude of roles, such as our overall environment, aiding the local food economy, providing local jobs, access to local food and providing a resilient supply chain that, as we’ve seen in the past few years especially, is vital to our daily operation.”
Beth Sanders, who was employed in the banking industry, has simultaneously with her husband maintained a grove on their property, by which she qualifies as a “commercial grower with 750 naval orange trees.” She said the preservation of the area’s agricultural uses is a “quality of life” issue.
She referenced her 14 year old grandson, who, loves the trees to a degree that he will not allow his grandparents to take out some century old trees that are only producing small fruit. She said said, “It is our plan that he will inherit that farm. I hope that he can,” she said, but said that was by no means assured since there are forces at play that threaten the viability of local agriculture remaining in place.,
“There are so many other options for the farmers to do with their land,” Sanders said. “I implore you to realize why we are here: It is the quality of life. We need to preserve it.”
Tony Hicks, who has a 43-acre farm on Live Oak Canyon and leases an additional 37 acres for his operation, provided the commission a tutorial on those economic forces that are militating to drive farmers out of the region.
Hicks, as a member of the Yucaipa Planning Commission, is keenly aware of the land use trends locally. He said that adjacent to his property just over the Yucaipa/Redlands border, a developer is purchasing 300 acres to construct two 1-million square foot warehouse buildings, even though at present, the proponents of the project “have no tenants. The farmers in Redlands and almost all areas, because of the size of the properties and locations of them, have a tremendous amount of pressure from developers who are either speculating, as some of the San Timoteo groves have been sold and are currently held by larger companies that are looking long term, whether it’s ten or twenty years down the road, for potentially having potentially an industrial use for those. San Timoteo Canyon in particular – because of the location and the train tracks – if you are just looking at it purely from a planning standpoint, is a great location for warehousing. Not what I personally want to see happen or would like to see happen. We have groves down there that have been there for many generations of farmers. The current value in this area for industrial property is in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 per square foot. It is just a matter of time if we are not able to shore up the farmers and allow them other uses that the land will be picked up. The pressure will be on to the planning commissions and city councils to develop that land.”
Bob Knight, a fourth generation farmer in Redlands and the former general manger of Redlands Foothill Groves Packing House currently farms in Redlands on a 67-acre citrus grove.
“He said he wanted to make a “note of urgency. We are literally at a turning point. Our past ordinance has been based on the old days when every farmer in Redlands was an orange grower and everybody sold to Sunkist. Now we’re at the point where that model doesn’t work anymore. If you are a commercial grower, the infrastructure that used to help you to sell to Sunkist and into the global network is disappearing before our eyes. Redlands Foothill Groves has closed. There are three more packing houses in Riverside that hollowed out. Most of their business is related to transshipment of food that comes from Central California. The infrastructure from commercial growing relies on so much is on its last legs. We’re in a new era in terms of invasive species. Before, one would come every once in a while. We’d deal with it. Twelve years ago the Asian Citrus psyllid. Then HLP, Huanglongbing [citrus greening disease or yellow dragon disease, a plant malady aused by a vector-transmitted pathogen, the causative agents of which are motile bacteria] came. Now it’s the oriental fruit fly. This is not going to stop. This is going to continue every six years. Now we have globalized agriculture and these pests are spreading everywhere. We are really operating in a new farming world. We used to be able to count on farm income from selling our oranges and now we have these new unpredictable threats to our basic business model. We need flexibility to deal with that.”
Knight said that in Redlands switching to growing avocados is not a viable alternative to growing citrus because “San Timoteo Canyon is the coldest place in Redlands. You cannot grow avocados there.”
In addition to the natural hazards farmers face, Knight said, there are man-made restrictions that are undoing farmers locally.
“The zoning, these land use [designations] are so narrow that they don’t give us any alternative either,” he said. “You farm or you sell out to a developer or to a speculator. So many of these groves that seem so healthy, we call them ghost groves. They aren’t owned by people who can really farm. They are just people biding their time, waiting for you to enable a different zoning.”
Susan Evans said the city should change its regulations on the uses in the city’s agricultural zone to allow children “to see where their food comes from.”
Doug Reynoldson, a business partner with Santee Farms who was also speaking on behalf of Thermal Farms and Ed Haddad, encouraged the city to allow owners of property in the agricultural zone to restore historical properties and convert them to wedding venues and the like. He said with the agricultural district’s “historical places, there’s an opportunity here to create some kind of event center.”
Evan Sanford, representing the Redlands Chamber of Commerce, said “It’s time we protect our past and embrace our future” and “officially establish Redlands as not only a place for agritourism, but to also give our local farmers more opportunities to continue their legacy of growing citrus. Both can be done.”
Josie Perez, the nutrition specialist for Redlands Unified School District nutrition services, referenced “incredible benefits our school nutrition program derives from partnering with local farms. By decreasing the travel time we are bringing in vegetables that are at the peak of freshness, where kids will want to eat, where the fruit is like candy. If we can sell nature’s candy, we can make a difference in providing healthy food to our students We all know school food gets a bad rap all the time. By supporting local farms we are investing in the sustainability of our local environment.”
Zack Kiss of Santee Farms said, “The fruit fly almost put us under. Agritourism will definitely help bring in extra money.
John Beall said that a century ago there was tremendous agritourism in Redlands. “Agritourism built many of” the city’s iconic landmarks, he pointed out, referencing “tourists that came to see the beauty of the East Valley.” He said the city should embark on a new generation of agritourism.
“The fact is this is a model that has been tested, has been true and is associated with the golden years of Redlands’ initial development, a model that has worked with the community well and suits its beauty.”
He called upon the planning commission to consider “what this does for farmers. When someone comes before this commission and they own some ag[ricultural] land and they are arguing with you about their property right to build whatever they like upon it, how much more affirming could that possibly be than to affirm the property rights of a farmer who owns a piece of farm land who simply wishes to do what they are already doing and be able to ensure the same for their family in future generations?” he asked.
Tammy White, a Redlands resident and the director of nutrition services for San Jacinto Unified School District, called upon the city to allow agritourism in the farming district.
She said 2,000 students from San Jacinto Unified School District visited old orange groves in Redlands and that the degree to which many were impressed by “the calmness of the creek” next to the grove was remarkable.
She said just as young students had to be taught about how food is produced, adults have to be offered an opportunity to learn about the presence of the agricultural zone in Redlands. “Educate them,” White said. “We need to market our selves. We need signs. It is time we update our bylaws and policies to support these farmers. I want to ensure my great grandchildren and your grandchildren have the opportunity to enjoy the farms that are around Redlands.”
Phil Courtney in addressing the planning commission and encouraging it to revamp its agricultural ordinance said “Past decisions were made [which were wrongheaded]. Zoning ordinances were changed. Some are very shortsighted. A shortsighted decision is to have taken one of the richest agricultural areas in the world, this valley, and cover it with warehouses and suburban sprawl.”
Theresa Matura, an agriculture educator who has worked, she said, “on different farms all over the country.” She said, “One major trend that I’ve notices is that the farms that have now transitioned into doing more agriculture tourism and education are thriving. They are able to grow their business, support their workers and engage in their community. The farms that aren’t doing that, and this is unfortunate because they work so hard to grow food for their community, but they’re lucky if they break even that year.”
Kaito Knight told the commissioners that “having working farms around the city makes Redlands a unique community to live in.”
Knight decried “tight ag zoning rules” which he said were working against the city. The proposed amendments to our ordinance will give farmers the opportunity to use their farmland to their fullest potential.”
Rosario Cardenas said, “It is rare when you can connect to nature and to your community.” She called upon city officials “to support our farmers during these trying times.”
Andy Hoder said he was in support of preserving the city’s agricultural uses but said he wanted there to be greater definitude with regard to the enlargement of and traffic control at roadside fruit stands, as well as the items to be sold.
Kathleen Beall pointed out that “less than one percent of available” agricultural land is suitable for growing navel oranges. “We have a very special community here in that we can grow something that others cannot.” The city should act to preserve the opportunity for farmers to operate in Redlands and not allow industrial uses to crowd agriculture out. “There can be a warehouse anywhere,” she said.
The entirety of the planning commission appeared to be in agreement that the city should act to prevent the destruction of the agricultural uses and most were in favor of modifying the overregulation that was referenced in some of the farmers’ comments.
Commissioner Conrad Guzkowski indicated he was supportive of such deregulation insofar as agricultural activity goes, but that he wanted to maintain permitting processes with regard to the non-agricultural aspects of the farmers’ operations within the city’s agricultural zone.
Guzkowski said he understood the message that “farming of the past will not work for the next five generations [and] this is where we introduce agritourism.”
Referencing the litany of activities that farmers will be, under the proposed changes to the city’s agricultural ordinance, be able to engage in, Guzkowski said, “We’ve now come to learn that these things fit under the rubric of agritourism. These are extensions beyond what agriculture used to be. Now we’re trying to fit it into a newer contemporary mold and I absolutely applaud the idea of being able to add value to the property so they have a greater prospect for sustainability. But what I’m sensing from all of the presentations that we had, as valuable indeed they were, is that maybe we have three items in a sense before us. The first one that didn’t get a lot of discussion is that there are problems with our agricultural zone that do not respond to what most of the rest of the world thinks of as agriculture. So, let’s have the item before and fix that and deal with the ag zone from an ag point of view.”
Continuing, Guzkowski said, “Then it strikes me there are two levels of agritourism, one of which is the innocuous – innocuous might be the wrong word – the simpler things, the entertainment trains, the educational part of it, the come touch, feel, pick that don’t really involve a whole lot and to me those are the ones that would fall under an administrative [permitting]. If there are some things that are going in, there is some review over which ag land is being taken out for that, what are the hours of operation, how is parking being handled, is fire protection suitable so that catalytic converters aren’t lighting brush. Those are the normal kind of things that staff would be looking at and it’s a simple process.”
Guzkowski said anything more complicated should and would remain subject to more intensive regulation, which entails applications for approval that would need to come before the planning commission or the city council.
“The third one is what I think is covered quite well and that is the conditional uses,” Guzkowski said.
There followed an inquiry with city staff about the ins and outs of the heavier levels of regulation, what they entail and their costs. At issue was whether the planning commission should recommend to the city council that it adjust the agriculture ordinance to allow farmers to engage in a host of activities both agriculturally related and more oriented toward interaction with the public commercially on a host of levels as a matter of right rather than through a process by which they would need to get clearance from the city to do so ahead of time.
One route to municipal permission would be an administrative process, which, the commission was told, would entail a “couple months” wait while neighboring property owners were noticed and the proponent submitted a site plan to be evaluated by city staff, after which an administrative hearing on the application before the city’s development services director would take place, with the director empowered to make a decision as to whether to grant the permit. That process would cost the applicant $1,625.
A second means of obtaining license from the city to proceed would entail what farmers are already faced with, which is obtaining a conditional use permit. That process would take several months, entailing the submission of plans, an evaluation by staff, getting the matter before the planning commission, which would then make a recommendation to the city council, which would ultimately vote up or down to approve the issuance of the conditional use permit. That process would require the applicant to pay fees exceeding $10,000.
Commission Chairwoman Karah Shaw inquired if whether the city were to make the differentations that Guzkowski was suggesting a reduction or waiving of the administrative or conditional use fees could be made. That brought a response that such a decision would rest, most likely, with the city council.
Commissioner Matt Endsley took issue with Guzkowski’s suggestions, stating that the point was that farmers are being priced out of existence by overregulation.
“We don’t want to create any undue burdens on applicants for permitted uses,” Endsley said. “I am comfortable in reading through what would now be permitted uses [under the redrafted ordinance, which contains requirements that a conditional use permit be sought for elaborate changes to the agricultural properties in question] in that they don’t seem to be too cumbersome of a change for existing operations.”
Saying he did not want to create impediments for farm operators, Endsley said the issue could be revisited if any of those operations end up attracting more than the 150 patrons per day set as a threshold in the new ordinance. At that point, Endsley said, “We can look at a conditional use permit.”
Thereafter, the commission voted unanimously to approve the newly drafted ordinance.
Under the new ordinance, permitted, supplemental and ancillary land uses to primarily agricultural uses in the A-1, Agricultural, zone are expanded. So, too, were expanded uses that might conditionally be approved.
The original request by the Two Canyons Farmers Guild included a provision to allow farmworker housing, however, that component was removed from the application that went before the planning commission Tuesday.
New permitted uses to be allowed by-right with no discretionary review required are roadside stands of up to 1,200 square-feet in size, an increase over the current limit of 500 square-feet, along with compost production and processing, not to exceed a total of 900 tons per year for on-site use. This would also include incidental sale of compost for off-site use, not to exceed 25 percent of the total cubic yards produced, and no piling or storage of compost higher than 15 feet above ground level.
Related ancillary activities including agritourism activities that are secondary and supplemental, not to exceed 25 percent of the land area in active agriculture/ranching, to the primary agricultural uses of the land, including preparation of farm-to-table meals for on-site or off-site consumption; retail sale of ancillary farm grown products, prepackaged food items, gardening tools, and other small food- or farm-related sundry items to individual consumers; retail self-pick or you-pick by customers of produce grown on-site, not to exceed 150 persons daily; temporary holiday sales facilities, subject to other applicable provisions of the Redlands Municipal Code; and walking tours, day classes, farm experience excursions, living history farms, processing demonstrations, not to exceed 150 persons daily.
New conditional uses, those allowable subject to discretionary review and a conditional use permit include wedding venues, indoors or outdoors, on non-prime agricultural land; related ancillary activities to agricultural or ranching operations, including agritourism activities, that are secondary and supplemental to the primary agricultural uses of the land, not to exceed 25 percent of the land area in active agriculture/ranching), extending to bed and breakfast, farm-stay, general camping facilities, glamping facilities, or resort hotel, food processing operations, wholesale or retail (including canning, food packaging, with or without ancillary on-site retail food sales); compost production and processing that exceeds a total of 900 tons per year for on-site use, with or without incidental sale of compost for off-site use; educational farm camp, day camp and/or overnight camp; harvest festivals, seasonal or special events, or other periodic assembly uses; retail self-pick or u-pick by customers of produce grown on-site, with more than 150 persons daily; tours, day classes, and farm experience excursions, with more than 150 persons daily; sales of other food or beverage products, with a portion of the ingredients sourced on-site; wineries, including ancillary wine tasting rooms, retail sale of vintner products, which must include some products that are produced on-site, along with hospitality activities limited to the education of growing vineyards or the production of wine, provided that not more than forty percent of the interior floor area is utilized for such activity.
The ordinance contains development standards for agritourism uses. The standards encourage clustering of structures, improvements, and activities so as to minimize the impact on agricultural operations.
On parcels with a minimum of 10 contiguous acres or more in size, all agritourism elements should be clustered and shall consume no more than one gross acre in aggregate per every ten contiguous acres of site area, excluding hayrides or trains with rubberized wheels. Parking is excluded from the acreage calculation.
On parcels less than 10 contiguous acres in size, all agritourism elements should be clustered and shall consume no more than ten percent in aggregate of the gross site acreage, excluding hayrides or trains with rubberized wheels. Parking is excluded from the acreage calculation.
If non-agricultural development is to occur, it shall minimize its impacts on natural areas and on nearby farming and agricultural operations. Natural land forms shall be preserved as much as practicable, and any grading or cut/fill activity shall be minimized for roads, driveways, and site grading.
The development standards also include separation requirements from any surrounding residential or other sensitive uses on abutting properties, design requirements for any agritourism structures, lighting regulations, noise control regulations, Americans With Disabilities Act accessibility requirements, and on-site parking regulations, with a provision that allows waiving the typical requirement for installation of paving.
Sign regulations for agritourism uses allow limited commercial signs for approved nonresidential uses, consistent with the existing sign regulations that apply in the city’s administrative & professional office zoning district, temporary signs or banners (consistent with existing sign regulations for temporary signs), plus one A-frame sign that may be placed adjacent to public right-of-way (subject to standards similar to those provided elsewhere in the city code.