All good Catholics know that in a typical year there are as many as 58 holy days of obligation – each weekly Sunday and the feast days of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on January 1, the Ascension of the Lord, falling on May 29; the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, falling on August 15; All Saints, falling on November 1; the Immaculate Conception, falling on December 8; and Christmas, December 25.
As a general rule, Catholics are commanded by their faith to attend Mass – the Catholic church service – every Sunday and on the feast days, unless the feast day falls on a Saturday or Monday, meaning at least 54 days out of the year. Unless a Catholic is prevented by sufficient reasons such as illness or caring for infants, the elderly or the infirm, missing Mass deliberately on a Holy Day of Obligation is considered a mortal sin, one so serious that unless the sacrament of penance and reconciliation intervenes before a Catholic’s death, he or she is bound to life forever in Hell in the afterlife, according to Catholic theology.
In a significant and controversial move, Bishop Alberto Rojas, who oversees the Diocese of San Bernardino, has suspended, for those Catholic parishioners within the jurisdiction he oversees, Canon 1247, pertaining to the requirement that Mass be attended on holy days of obligation due to ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Rojas’s concern is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have taken stock of the fact that many undocumented immigrants are Catholic and that they can conduct raids at churches and in their parking lots on Sundays, rounding up dozens or scores of those in the country illegally.
The Donald Trump Administration is currently carrying out Operation Alta California, which has the goal of arresting up to 2.2 million illegal aliens currently in California and deport them. An estimated 62 percent of those being targeted for removal from California are Mexican citizens. Continue reading →

By Phill Courtney
Although for many years the motto of the U.S. Marines was their continuing quest to find “a few good men” (which now, of course, has been expanded to include “a few good women”), one of those “good men” has struggled for many years to define for himself just what it means to have been one of those “few good men.”
This, after he’d already killed a number of “bad men,” before walking away from a life as one of our nation’s frontline killers. This is the journey of that “one good man”—Mark Lewis, former U.S. Marine.
Born in 1960 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of a General Motors supervisor in Detroit, and a mother who’d taken a passionate interest in civil rights issues at a turbulent time in the 1960s when the rights of minorities were beginning to boil over on the front burners of U.S. domestic policy, it wasn’t too long before Lewis’s parents decided to heed the call westward and headed to California.
It was 1963, and they’d found three acres in Yucaipa, where Lewis attended elementary and secondary schools before deciding to “one up” his father, who’d served in World War II, and a cousin who was, by then, already a Green Beret, by joining the Marines at age 19 in 1979.
Although he’d sported that era’s long-haired look for many years, he says he immediately got a taste of what he was in for when he was quickly shorn of his swirling strands by a Marine barber who’d announced with what seemed to be a satisfied growl: “There. Your golden locks are gone, bitch.” Continue reading →

Following an external investigation completed by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s
Department, Matthew Solano, a Chino police officer who until recently was working as a resource officer in the Chino Valley Unified School District this week was taken into police custody following allegations of inappropriate conduct involving two students enrolled at Magnolia Junior High School.
Solano has been removed from his duties as a Chino Valley Unified School District school resource officer and placed on paid administrative leave. That action came following the district’s immediate report to the Chino Police Department that it had received statements of misconduct with a student.
According to the police department, to ensure a thorough and impartial investigation, the department’s leadership contacted the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to request that it conduct an external investigation of the allegations.
During the analysis of the case, deputies identified a second juvenile victim. Following the completion of the investigation last week, the Sentinel has learned, the case was forwarded to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office for review where Solano was charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child and child annoyance. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Next Tuesday, July 15, the Ontario City Council is scheduled to consider and vote on a $28,306,155 change order to the $24.9 million construction contract the city has already entered into with Newport Beach-based McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. for the Vineyard Parking Structure.
The proposed change order increases the total contract amount to $53.3 million – representing a 213% increase over the original contract.
According to the city, in December 2025, city officials solicited pre-qualification proposals from six companies for the design and construction of the parking structure, which is part of the city’s sports complex, referred to by the city as the Ontario Sports Empire, which is to entail multiple sports fields, including soccer, softball and baseball fields and minor league baseball stadium. Those six companies deemed qualified to perform the work based on previous experience and believed to be potentially interested in taking on the job were McCarthy as well as Bomel Construction, Clark Pacific, Hensel Phelps, Largo Concrete, Inc. and Swinerton Builders.
Four of those solicited responded with proposals to design and construct the structure. A selection team of city staff and Transtech, Inc., the Construction Management Company for the Vineyard Parking Structure Project, reviewed and scored the four submittals.
According to the city, “McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. was scored the highest based on their blend of exterior appeal, favorable project timeline, project cost, and favorable reference checks.”
The original contract amount was for $24.9 million.
The staff report for next Tuesday’s council meeting states, “As design efforts continued for the Ontario Sports Empire, it was determined that additional parking will be needed in the design of the Vineyard Parking Structure to facilitate the high demand of visitors and high volume of vehicles. The three-story parking structure will be redesigned to a six level parking structure. This new design will include 1300 parking spots, four elevators, three observation decks, three stairwells with glass, urban modified façade, and a jumbotron attachment to the structure.”
Former Ontario City Auditor Brad Neumann this week told the Sentinel that the change order and its scope raises “significant concerns. Under California law, substantial alterations to an existing contract’s scope – referred to legally as ‘cardinal changes’ – require rebidding to prevent bypassing competitive bidding processes,” Neumann said. “Given that the additional scope substantially exceeds reasonable thresholds for a change order, approval without rebidding risks violating these laws and rendering parts of this contract void under California Public Contract Code §5110.”
According to the city, “While the financial impact of the action proposed in this item is significant in light of the significant design changes, the solicitation process conducted was sufficiently robust that a further solicitation process would produce no advantage to the public, and on the contrary would cause costly, disruptive delays that would be contrary to the public interest. Had the solicitation process incorporated the now contemplated design, the results of the solicitation process would have been the same.”
Neumann said the city should hold off on the approval of the change order and make a formal determination of whether the significant scope increase constitutes a cardinal change, requiring public rebidding, and if so, cancel or rebid the expanded scope to fully comply with state competitive bidding laws.

The City of Adelanto is reportedly on the brink of selling Mavericks Stadium, which is to include the 3,800-seat stadium itself and the surrounding land.
There is no confirmed specific information as to who the buyer is or what is to be paid for the entire 16.2 acres of ground located just off Highway 395 at Stadium Way.
One report held that the city is to receive $3.2 million in the deal.
Whether the city in making the deal is, as some suggest. cutting an albatross from around its neck by ridding itself of a white elephant or, as others believe, surrendering a facility city officials could yet, despite past missteps, transform into a vibrant economic engine is a matter of perspective.
There is no doubt, on one hand, that the stadium, built in 1991 to house the Mavericks Class A minor league California League baseball team when it made its move from Riverside, offered the city both cultural and social enrichment, which extended to, in addition to fare for minor league baseball fans, a forum for various events, including concerts, festivals, and trade shows. Undeniably, however, there were those within the Adelanto’s governmental structure and its business community who exploited the facility for their own benefit and financial gain, to the detriment of the city and its taxpayers. A case can be made that had the city officials who were not involved in bending the stadium to their own personal interest been just a tad more diligent in preventing those who were using it for their selfish purposes, it might have been and could still be a feather in Adelanto’s cap.
When the stadium was opened in 1991 for the Single-A Mavericks, the team’s ownership, Mains Street California made a sincere and earnest effort to promote the baseball operation, which served as a farm club for, over the years variously, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers. In the team’s inaugural season in Adelanto after moving from Riverside and changing its name from the Red Wave to the Mavericks, with Bruce Bochy as coach, it rang up a 73–63 record and first place in the California League. For more than 20 years, the Mavericks were the primary, indeed the only, professional sports team in the High Desert and a popular draw and defining element of the community.
By 2013, there was discontent on both sides of the equation, that is, with the team’s ownership, which was finding fault with the city in its role as the team’s host, and with the city, several officials of which felt the team was not generating sufficient revenue or sparking enough economic activity.
City officials complained that the Mavericks had for years failed to provide an accurate accounting of revenues owed to the city which the city claimed were generated from facility parking lots and the facility conference room. The baseball operation was supposed to be a self-sufficient enterprise, but, the city claimed, the financial burden of sustaining the minor league club fell on Adelanto’s taxpayers. The City of Adelanto maintained it was footing the bill for water, gas and electricity used at the stadium and for landscaping and maintenance of the field and its surroundings.
In 2015, Stater Bros. which was paying the city a fee for the facility to carry the name of Stater Bros. Stadium, offered the city $1.6 million in cash to purchase the stadium outright. The city council, still believing the stadium could be key to the financial rejuvenation of Adelanto, spurned the offer.
In January 2016, the Adelanto City Council voided the team’s lease at the stadium, which was then referred to as Heritage Field at Stater Bros. Stadium. The Mavericks gamely played through the 2016 season, while negotiations continued between the team’s ownership and the city with regard to a mutually acceptable arrangement by which the Mavericks would remain in place at Heritage Field. On August 22, 2016, the California League announced the Mavericks would not return for the 2017 season and would cease operations as a team in the league, in Adelanto or elsewhere.
In 2017, the High Desert Yardbirds replaced the Mavericks as the home team at Stater Bros. Stadium. The High Desert Fury soccer team also played there. Meanwhile, Main Street USA was suing the City of Adelanto, seeking $10.8 million. In March 2019, the City of Adelanto arrived at a settlement, agreeing to pay Main Street USA $3.8 million, including an immediate $1.5 million disbursement from the city’s general fund followed by 24 monthly installments of $95,800.
For over a decade, a combination of the city’s elected and top administrative officials involved themselves and the city in some extremely questionable arrangements involving Mavericks Stadium. The stadium hosted a number of ventures, some of which generated a marginal amount of money for the city and others which cost the city money and some that provided certain business entities with a base to operate from in way that had the appearance of being a gift of public funds or, more accurately, a gift of public assets loaned at no cost, to businesses or individuals, most of whom had ties with the city’s elected officials or were those politicians’ primary political supporters.
On January 14, 2017, the Adelanto Grand Prix was staged at and around Stater Bros. Stadium in Adelanto. The promotional event involved a number of local entrepreneurs and had as four of its sponsors Malcolm Smith Racing, American Motorcycle Association, Grand Prix Series and So. Cal. M.C. Many local personages and officials took part in the festivities, including Kerr. That afternoon, then-Adelanto Mayor Rich Kerr, who was reportedly intoxicated, was riding his own dirt bike outside Stater Bros. Stadium and was being trailed by his children and grandchildren within the Grand Prix area when his front wheel hit a soft spot in the dirt and he was thrown from the cycle. He broke his left collarbone, cracked several ribs and suffered a partially collapsed lung. Kerr was laid up for several days thereafter, but was able to go to City Hall and function out of his office there within ten days of the mishap.
In the 2015-2017/2018 timeframe, Kerr, in conjunction with then-councilmen John Woodard and Jermaine Wright, were in a headlong effort to convert Adelanto to a marijuana/cannabis product-based economy, predicated on a plan to take advantage of the full decriminalization of marijuana to get in on the ground floor of the cultivation, processing, refinement, packaging, storage, delivery and sale of the formerly contraband substance to, in Kerr’s words, convert Adelanto into “the marijuana capital of California.”
In actuality, what Wright, Woodard and Kerr were doing was using their collective authority over the city’s land use, zoning, legislative and regulatory functions to obtain money from entities looking to establish marijuana-related or cannabis-related businesses in the city. This included Woodard, a real estate agent, deriving broker fees from those purchasing land which he and his council colleagues subsequently rezoned for use relating to marijuana cultivation and/or marijuana/cannabis product activity or sales. Wright and Kerr exchanged their votes in favor of granting permits or licenses to business entities involved in the marijuana/cannabis-product industry for out-and-out bribes, activity for which both politicians were ultimately criminally charged by federal by prosecutors and sent to prison.
On January 14, 2019, the last day before the two-year statute of limitations following Kerr’s motorcycle accident at the 2017 Adelanto Grand Prix elapsed, Kerr, represented by Philip E. Rios and Keith A. Adesko of the Professional Lawyers Group, sued the Adelanto Grand Prix organizers with regard to the injuries he had sustained on January 14, 2017.
A member of the Professional Lawyers Group was Attorney David Serrano.
In September of 2016, David Serrano and his wife, Julia Orama-Serrano, initiated and in October 2016 completed the purchase of the Jet Room at 17499 Adelanto Road, what in years past had been a bar that catered to airmen from George Air force Base. While initially the Serranos represented that their intent was to convert the former Jet Room into a law office, the hidden plan was to convert the 2.23 acre lot and the existing structure at 17499 Adelanto Road, the northeast corner of Adelanto Road and Joshua Avenue, into a marijuana dispensary. That plan was revealed on February 16, 2017, when David Serrano submitted $1,000 in fees to the City of Adelanto in conjunction with a “comprehensive plan” for the Jet Room premises to be converted into a marijuana dispensary
The FBI, having been tipped off by former Adelanto city managers Jim Hart, Gabriel Elliott and Cindy Herrera about what Kerr, Wright and Woodard were up to, obtained warrants to monitor their bank activity. According to FBI Agent Kevin Boles in 2017 and 2018, $35,000 in payments were made to Kerr by the Law Offices of David Serrano and the Professional Lawyers Group, San Bernardino, which were referenced as advancements on the settlement of Kerr’s lawsuit against the city over the dirt bike mishap at State Bros. Stadium in January 2017, despite that lawsuit having not yet been filed. Kerr believed that his authority as mayor, taken together with the backing votes of Wright and Woodard, and the city’s ownership of the stadium, would allow him to ensure that the lawsuit he was going to file would be settled in his favor.
As the series of those who served in the capacity of city manager or were brought in to replace the managers who left during first three years of the single term Kerr was Adelanto Mayor came to realize what was taking place in the city, they resisted both subtly and more directly what Kerr, Wright and Woodard were doing, leading to their ousters or resignations. A key promotion under the Kerr Administration had been Jessie Flores, whom Kerr had initially brought into the city as Adelanto’s contract economic development director Ultimately, after the other city managers had departed, unwilling to go along in the direction Kerr, Wright and Woodard had mapped out for the city, Kerr in August 2018, promoted Flores to city manager.
In one of the first contracts inked by Jessie Flores after he had been installed in the post of city manager, the city agreed to pay Aaron Korn and Darrell Courtney $20,000 per month for two years to manage Adelanto Stadium.
For years, the city was concerned over the money it was losing at the facility, and it had been seeking a buyer.
After the Mavericks were evicted, the city had an arrangement with the San Bernardino County Fair, which goes by the corporate name of the 28th District Agricultural Association, to mind the grounds. The 28th District Agricultural Association had brought in Korn, who once had run for city council in Victorville, to serve as the stadium manager. When the city ended its arrangement with the fair, Korn was kept on as an independent contractor to continue what he had been doing, at a rate of $5,000 per month.
That $5,000 covered the salary of both Korn and Courtney, and was to remain in place for six months. Not quite six months later, Flores altered the deal, quadrupling the amount Korn and Courtney were to receive.
They committed to work with booking agents and promoters to bring entertainers to the stadium for events that would draw customers to the city’s businesses, and simultaneously generate rental revenue for the city from the acts using the stadium as a performing venue.
The ability of the stadium to meet the goals the city had in mind was uneven. Some months the city made a little money. Other times, the money brought in was less than was being paid to Korn and Courtney.
With the onset of the Coronavirus crisis and the mandates against public gatherings and the stay at home orders emanating from Governor Gavin Newsom and local authorities, the stadium stood empty and remained so for the next three years.
At that point, Kerr, Wright and Woodard were long gone. Wright was arrested by the FBI in November 2017 and removed as councilman in 2018. In 2022, Wright was convicted of bribery and given a five-year federal prison sentence. In November 2018 Kerr and Woodard were voted out of office. In 2023, Kerr, who had been indicted on seven counts of wire fraud involving deprivation of honest services and two counts of bribery, pleaded guilty to one count of honest services wire fraud and accepting $57,000 in bribes. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Adelanto officials have consistently been unable to convert the potentially lucrative asset of the stadium into a net money-make rather than a blackhole that sucks more and more money into it. As such, it has made known for some time that the stadium is on the auction block. Simultaneously, it has informed any and all parties that are interested that the city will be accommodatingly flexible with regard to zoning and rezoning of the property.
For sale is the stadium, a 185-cacity event center, a parking lot with a capacity for more than 800 vehicles and a total of 16.2 acres.
Last year, the city intensified its effort to divest itself of the property, putting out an invitation for bids on September 12 and requiring submissions come in by a deadline of November 20. That invitation stated, “The City’s goal is to complete a sale of the Event Center to a qualified and experienced entity with a proven track record of successfully owning and operating comparable facilities that are similar in size/scale. The City also seeks a partner who is committed to giving back to the local Adelanto community, and demonstrates innovative ideas for developing the Event Center as an important regional amenity to the entire High Desert region.
The invitation resulted in what city officials say were “several” qualified bids in which the prospective buyers’ financial bona fides checked and the city functioned with the consultation of commercial real estate brokers.
While a sale is imminent, escrow has yet to close, and city officials say they are not able to disclose the buyer yet.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIV SB 2516586
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: MICHELLE AMOR TAN filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: MICHELLE AMOR TAN to MICHELLE AMOR TAN SULIT
[and]
ELIJA TAN-SULIT to ELIJAH TAN SULIT
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: 07/30/2025, Time: 09:00 AM, Department: S 36
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: 06/18/2025
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Gilberto Villegas, Deputy Clerk of the Court
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on June 20 & 27 and July 4 & 11, 2025.

FBN 20250003796
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
SKYFOREST TECH SERVICES 523 SUNDERLAND CT LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA 92352: JESSE R DACRI
Business Mailing Address: P O BOX 3277 LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA 92352
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: N/A
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ JESSE R DACRI
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 4/21/2025
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J9965
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of it-self authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on May 23 & 30 and June 6 & 13, 2025. Corrected on June 29 & 27 and July 4 & 11, 2025.

Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
William Richards, who after four trials in 1997 was wrongfully convicted of his wife’s 1993 murder and spent 23 years in prison, this week prevailed in a federal civil rights action against San Bernardino County and was awarded $25.4 million in total damages for what he endured.
The Richards case has grown infamous as a demonstration of the degree to which the law enforcement structure in San Bernardino County will go in stretching facts and utilizing questionable and even manufactured evidence to obtain a conviction.
It took the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and prosecutor Michael Risley four tries to convict Richards, changing the approach and some of the facts alleged each time, with the first three go-rounds ending in mistrials or deadlocks in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. In the fourth trial, the eight-man and four-woman jury again deadlocked. It was only after the judge requested that they deliberate further that on July 8, 1997, Richards was convicted.
From the outgo, Richards’ story has never changed.
He claimed he had returned the evening of August 10, 1993 from his machinist’s job in Corona at about 11:50 p.m. to find the motorhome in which he and his wife lived on the five-acre Summit Valley property they owned dark and empty. The couple was living in the motorhome while efforts to construct a house on the property were ongoing. He went to look for his wife and found her dead in a pool of blood on another part of their property between the motor home and the Santa Fe railroad line.
He claimed he turned his wife’s body over and cradled her before summoning assistance.
Then-Deputy District Attorney Mike Risley prosecuted Richards each time.
In all of his prosecutions of William Richards, Risley suggested there was strife in the Richards’ 22-year long marriage, an allegation it is now acknowledged was made up out of whole cloth and which was never backed up with any evidence of substance. Risley put on an expert witness who testified splatters of Pamela Richards’ blood that were found on William Richards’ shoes and clothes were tell-tale evidence indicating William Richards had wielded the cinder block used to crush his wife’s head. Continue reading →

The Redlands City Council in a split 3-to-2 vote on June 24 conferred $1.2 million on a former evidence technician in the police department who had engaged in a sexual relationship with the department’s former deputy chief of police in what is alleged by some and denied by others to have been an effort to advance to a position as a sworn peace office. That action, and the further revelations about the sexual entanglements between members of the department’s male commanders and some of its lower-ranking female officers or support personnel has provoked characterizations of the department as a 21st Century Peyton Place.
A solid cross section of Redlands residents and taxpayers have noted that this was not the first, second or even third lawsuit settlement touching on issues relating to the command echelon’s sexual manhandling of women working for the department and that at least two further such lawsuits are now pending. Meanwhile, the primary perpetrator of the sexual harassment at the center of those claims continues to draw his $178,959.50 per year pension after he exited from the department some two years ago when knowledge about and attention to what he was engaged in made its way outside the confines of the department.
This lack of accountability has sparked calls for reform, amid accusations that Redlands police officers are cynically manipulating the public trust that has been place in them. Three of the department’s former chief, who once commanded the esteem and respect of other law enforcement professionals statewide and nationally, have seen their reputations sustain substantial damage as a consequence of the public airing of the secrets that were suppressed while they headed the department.
After a short stint as an identification technician trainee in 2015, Julie Alvarado-Salcido late that year was hired into the $37,335-salary position of community service officer with the Redlands Police Department, which provided her with 4,870 in perks, $6,459 in benefits and some minimal overtime pay, for $48,760 in total annual compensation.
According to Alvarado-Salcido’s lawsuit, filed on her behalf by attorneys Critel Cabrera and Griselda Rodriguez, two weeks after she began as a trainee, Alvarado-Salcido began what has been termed a “quid pro quo” sexual relationship with Reiss, at that time a lieutenant, in which there was an expectation that she would advance with the department. Early in their acquaintance, according to the lawsuit, she acceded to his request that they go together to the bar at the Doubletree Hotel in San Bernardino. After a few rounds of drinks, she went with him out into the parking lot where she performed fellatio on him in the backseat of his car.
Her accommodation of Reiss had the desired result, and by January 2016, Alvarado-Salcido landed the community service officer position.
The lawsuit provides a further description of an encounter between Reiss and Alvarado Salcido, again in Reiss’s car when she orally copulated him as they were driving to a specials weapons and tactics training exercise in Menifee. Continue reading →