The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, in an effort to get ahead of the retail theft curve that accompanies every holiday gift buying season but which has grown particularly acute in recent years, intensified its anti-shoplifting program in Rancho Cucamonga earlier this year.
With its Victoria Gardens shopping venue, Rancho Cucamonga for more than a decade has made a bid to become the epicenter of San Bernardino County commercial activity, facing off against The Shoppes at The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, in an effort to get ahead of the retail theft curve that accompanies every holiday gift buying season but which has grown particularly acute in recent years, intensified its anti-shoplifting program in Rancho Cucamonga earlier this year.
With its Victoria Gardens shopping venue, Rancho Cucamonga for more than a decade has made a bid to become the epicenter of San Bernardino County commercial activity, facing off against The Shoppes at Chino Hills, The Mills in Ontario, the Outlets at Barstow in Lenwood off the 15 Freeway, the Mall of Victor Valley and Montclair Place, the vestige of the once grandly successful Montclair Plaza. As a consequence, the sheriff’s department, which serves as the contract police department with Rancho Cucamonga, chose that city to make its most determined statement yet to those who have signed on to two of the fastest-growing trends in criminal activity throughout the country – swarm thefts and smash and grab robberies.
In a typical swarm theft, a significant number of participants – a dozen or more and, in some, multiple dozens or scores of of thieves – will enter a business and spend several minutes collecting and/or pocketing merchandise and then, upon a prearranged signal, walk out en masse without paying for any of it. By their sheer numbers, they overwhelm the clerks or store personnel and their ability to prevent what is occurring. Continue reading →

Nick DePrisco Jr., the first mayor of Apple Valley whose adherence to the vision of the community as a place with a less-hurried and more rural atmosphere than the citified environment of Queens, New York where he was raised set the tenor for the town he co-founded, has died.
DePrisco, 75, passed away on September 29 in Laguna Woods from the complications of the pancreatic cancer he suffered from.
Born in New York on March 17, 1948, DePrisco was the son of Nicholas DePrisco and Gloria DePrisco. He spent his youth in Queens, attending Smithtown High School on Long Island.
As a young man, he came to California. He attended and graduated from California State University East Bay, also known as Cal State Hayward, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in sociology.
Out of college, DePrisco worked as a teacher for a time. He gravitated toward a career in law, attending Western State College of Law in San Diego and obtaining his juris doctor degree from Thomas Jefferson College of Law in 1977. He worked in private practice for nearly three years and in 1980, San Bernardino County Public Defender Charles Ward hired him as a deputy public defender.
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Prompted by the death of longtime City Clerk Carolina Padilla-Barrera eight months ago, the Colton City Council this week voted to put a measure on the March 2024 ballot to convert Colton’s city clerk position from an elected to an appointed one.
Padilla-Barrera succeeded Helen Ramos, who subsequently became a councilwoman, as city clerk. She was reelected in 2004, but was defeated in 2008 by Eileen Gomez and fell short once more in challenging Gomez in the 2012 election.
In 2014, however, Gomez elected to go to work in Laguna Niguel as city clerk there, when Rod Foster departed as city manager from Colton to take on the job in that Orange County city. Padilla-Barrera, who was then 70, was selected by the city council to replace Gomez. Padilla-Barrera was reelected without opposition in 2016 and again in 2020.
Little fanfare attended her death in March. Deputy City Clerk Stephanie M. Vargas is filling the city clerk’s position at present.
City officials, following a trend among cities to move toward having hired/appointed city clerks in recent years, this week had the council consider transforming the city clerk’s post from one that is elected to one chosen by the city manager and ratified by the city council. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Twentynine Palms officials are wrestling with the dilemma of whether to make good on a previous commitment to locate a wastewater treatment facility in the vicinity of Two Mile Road and Utah Trail, west of Sunmore Estates, while using a $50 million grant from the State of California approved last month to defray a major portion of the project’s cost or whether they should return that money and seek to build the plant at a more remote location.
In determining whether it will be prudent to look the state’s gift horse in the mouth, city officials are examining not only the prospect that the undertaking will have a deleterious impact on the immediate vicinity around where it is to be located but what public expense would be entailed in paying to move it to another spot or, alternately, paying to relocate those whose homes or businesses are to be severely impacted by its presence.
At issue is concern among owners of residences and businesses near the proposed plant that it will expose to the open air raw sewage that will render the area, if not inhabitable entirely, then so unpleasant that residency and commercial operations there will prove unviable. Continue reading →

A San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputy who was celebrated in his hometown of Fontana as an upstanding law enforcement type was arrested on Monday on suspicion of being under the influence of methamphetamine while on duty.
Samuel Espinoza, 35, who has been employed as a deputy with the department for five years, was taken into custody at his work site, the West Valley Detention Center located at 9500 Etiwanda Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga, at 5:28 pm on November 6.
According to a summary of the incident provided by the sheriff’s department, “Samuel Espinoza was …assigned to the transportation division. While on duty, Espinoza’s supervisor recognized him to be under the influence of a narcotic controlled substance. Additionally, Espinoza was found to be in possession of a suspected narcotic controlled substance. Espinoza did not operate department vehicles occupied by inmates during his shift.”
According to the summary, “Though this is an active and ongoing investigation, it does not appear Espinoza furnished narcotics to any inmates or other staff members. Espinoza was subsequently placed under arrest for HS11550 (E) – Possession of a Narcotic Controlled Substance While Armed and PC4573.5 – Bringing Narcotics into a Jail Facility, both felony charges.” Continue reading →