After an interminable delay, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has initiated outfitting its deputies with body cameras.
The move comes a full decade after two San Bernardino County law enforcement agencies – the Rialto Police Department and the Chino Police Department – made body cameras standard gear for their police officers. The San Bernardino and Fontana departments purchased and deployed them for their officers in 2016. In the years since, a number of other police departments in San Bernardino County as well as throughout Southern California have acquired the devices and put them into routine use. At present, every other sheriff’s department in Southern California is utilizing the cameras, which in addition to being capable of video recording can also pick up sound out to a distance of 33 to 40 feet.
The cameras, worn on the uniforms, belts or eyeglasses of the officers, are distinct from vehicle cameras, which have been in vogue with many police departments for some two decades. The sheriff’s department operates a number of helicopters, most of which have been able to capture video footage for more than three decades. Continue reading →

(September 19) The California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) approved a cease & desist order forcing BlueTriton, the bottler of Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water, to stop the removal of tens of millions of gallons of water annually from a San Bernardino National Forest spring complex that gave the Arrowhead brand its name.
Under the order adopted Tuesday, BlueTriton is required to allow the bulk of the water it currently removes to bypass its collection facilities – a series of tunnels, boreholes and a pipeline that occupy public lands – by November 1, 2023.
Water originating in the San Bernardino Mountains and using the Arrowhead brand in one form or another had been marketed at least since 1909. Questions have long existed, however, as to whether the water rights originally claimed, attributed or granted to Arrowhead Puritas, the corporate predecessor to Arrowhead Spring Water, pertain to the current source of the water drawn at the 5,200-foot elevation level from Strawberry Creek in what is known as Strawberry Canyon rather than water drawn farther down the mountain at around the 2,000-foot above sea level. Continue reading →

In a deviation of direction that was entirely unanticipated, the central player in the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority is withholding its support of the not-fully-gestated plan to redress the overdraft in the West Mojave’s aquifer through the importation of water from Northern California.
Indian Wells Valley lies at the extreme northwestern end of the Mojave Desert and the confluence of the northwestern corner of San Bernardino County, the eastern end of Kern County and the southwestern extension of Inyo County.
In 2014, then-California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, mandating water-saving measures throughout the state and requiring local agencies to draft plans to bring groundwater aquifers into balanced levels of pumping and recharge through the adoption of a groundwater sustainability plan.
In 2015, in the aftermath of a four-year running drought, a determination by the California Department of Water Resources that Indian Wells Valley overlies one of the 21 water basins throughout the State of California in critical overdraft and the pending implementation of the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority was formed, pursuant to a joint exercise of powers agreement involving Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County, the City of Ridgecrest and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as general members and the United States Navy and the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management as associate members. Continue reading →

Preparatory toward next month’s court hearing at which Judge Michael Sachs is to make a decision about the continuation or dismissal of the lawsuit Yucaipa City Clerk Ana Sauseda brought which, in essence, prevented 194 Yucaipa residents from pursuing an effort to recall three of their councilmen, Sauseda offered a free-ranging defense of her action.
Two months prior to her hiring as city clerk by City Manager Chris Mann in March, events played out in the city of 55,495 that have triggered the most contentious chapter in Yucaipa’s 34-year history.
On January 9, the newly-formed city council coalition of Mayor Justin Beaver, who had first been elected to the council in 2022, Councilman Bobby Duncan, a councilmember since 2012, and Councilman Matt Garner, who had been elected in November 2022 and was sworn in the month before, pressured then-City Manager Ray Casey to tender his resignation in lieu of being ignominiously fired and outright terminated City Attorney David Snow, an attorney with the law firm of Richards, Watson & Gershon.
Yucaipa’s citizenry had been given only the shortest of warnings about what was to take place, with the agenda for the January 9 meeting having been posted 72 hours in advance referencing an item relating to the performance evaluations of both Casey and Snow. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the city’s residents was caught unprepared by the fast-moving developments that manifested with, most notably, Casey’s departure.
Not even three months previously, on October 24, 2022, the Yucaipa City Council as it was then composed had extended Casey’s contract as city manager at least until June 30, 2024, conferring upon him a 3 percent salary increase that would jump his annual salary to $299,420, such that he would be making, when his benefits and perquisites were consider, $422,901.50 in total annual compensation, putting him among the 25 highest-paid city managers among California’s 482 municipalities.
The Princeton-educated Casey had begun with the city in 2003 as the city engineer/director of public works and was elevated to the position of city manager in 2008. During that time, he had become something of an institution in Yucaipa, which qualifies as San Bernardino County’s fifteenth largest or tenth smallest of 24 municipalities in terms of population and, at 28.27-square miles, the sixteenth largest or ninth smallest of the county’s 24 cities and incorporated towns landwise, making it either the fourteenth most dense or the tenth least dense of the county’s municipalities. Continue reading →

The Chino Valley School Board, or primarily four of its members, are under siege from above and below.
At issue is the policy the board passed in July calling on the district’s faculty to notify the parents of a child if he or she reidentifies his or her gender, which is defined if their child changes pronouns, names or seeks to use a gender-based changing room, locker room or restrooms different than their assigned gender at birth.
Some students, the parents of some students, many teachers and the teachers’ bargaining unit, the Chino Teachers Association, protested the change. On July 20, when the board’s four Republican members – Board President Sonja Shaw and trustees James Na, Andrew Cruz and Jon Monroe – voted to begin implementation of the policy, they heard first from California Superintendent of Public Schools Tony Thurmond, who had sojourned from Sacramento that day to be on hand at the Don Lugo High School Auditorium where the board met to accommodate the over-capacity crowd. Thurmond, a Democrat, inveighed against the guideline, stating that “nearly half of students who identify as being LBGTQ+ are considering suicide.” He said the policy would put transgender students who have parents unwilling to accept their gender identification at risk.
That day, just prior to the meeting, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, another Democrat, dashed off a letter to the school board in which he offered his opinion that the notification policy might intrude on students’ privacy rights and otherwise interfere with educational access. Students individually have the right and discretion to determine under what circumstances and when they should make disclosure of their gender identity and to whom, Bonta insisted. He vowed that his office would act to see that right is upheld. Continue reading →

With one of its members abstaining, the four-fifths strength Big Bear Community Services District Board of Directors on Monday September 18 voted 2-to-1 to appoint Mike Eagleson to fill its ranks.
Eagleson was among five residents of Big Bear City who applied to replace former director John Green, who died July 25.
In addition to Eagleson, JoKay Rowe, Belinda-Joanna Masse Rainwater, Madison Jackson and Brian Erickson had sought elevation to the board.
Instead of holding an election, the board, then consisting of John Russo, Bob Rowe, Larry Walsh and Al Ziegler, on August 7 determined it would, with the guidance of Big Bear Community Services District General Manager Glenn Jacklin, replace Green by appointment.
Because JoKay Rowe is Bob Rowe’s wife, Bob Rowe recused himself from participating in the decision.
The 38.45-square mile Big Bear community is home to 17,784 residents. There is some confusion, however about jurisdiction issues in Big Bear, as it consists of two entities, the City of Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City. Despite its name, Big Bear City is not a municipality but rather an unincorporated county area and a designated census place. Big Bear Lake is an incorporated municipality. Despite its status as an actual city, Big Bear Lake is smaller than Big Bear City both in terms of land area and population. The former is 6.42 square miles and has 5,046 inhabitants. The latter is an expansive 32.03 square miles with 12,738 residents. While both qualify as rustic mountain districts, the more compact Big Bear Lake is slightly more urbanized and densely populated. Continue reading →