With only a handful of exceptions, the incumbents in the political positions to be voted upon in San Bernardino County are seeking reelection.
There were some mild suprises, with at least one officeholder who was not expected to file for reelection doing so and one officeholder failing to qualify her candidacy.
In the 23rd Congressional District, which covers Adelanto, Apple Valley, Barstow, Big Bear Lake, Hesperia, Twentynine Palms, Victorville, Yucca Valley and Yucaipa and parts of Colton, Highland Loma Linda, Redlands and San Bernardino, the Republican incumbent, Jay Obernolte is being challenged by Democrat Derek Marshall.
In the 25th Congressional District, which extends over Banning, Beaumont, Blythe, Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indio, Needles, San Jacinto and part of Hemet, Democrat incumbent Raul Ruiz is facing independent Ryan Dean Burkett, Republicans Miguel Chapa, Cecilia Truman and Ian M. Weeks, as well as Democrat Oscar Ortiz. Continue reading →

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIVSB2327147
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: Samantha Nicole Moore filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
Samantha Nicole Moore to Samantha Nicole Favaloro 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: 01/03/2024
Time: 08:30 AM
Department: S26
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino San Bernardino District-Civil Division 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the SBCS ? Ontario in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 11/08/2023
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G. Ochoa
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel Ontario on 11/24/2023, 12/01/2023, 12/08/2023, 12/15/2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME
CASE NUMBER CIVSB 2327991
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner YING CHIEH KAO filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
YING CHIEH KAO to JACOB KAO
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: 1/08/2024
Time: 08:30 AM
Department: S32
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino San Bernardino District-Civil Division 247 West 3rd Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415-0210
To appear remotely, check in advance of the hearing for information about how to do so on the court’s website. To find your court’s website, go to www.courts.ca.gov/find-my-court.htm
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: November 17, 2023
Aradelsi Rizo, Deputy Clerk of the Court
Gilbert Ochoa, Judge of the Superior Court
YING CHIEH KAO
8741 CELEBRATION ST
CHINO, CA 91708
Telephone No: (650) 333-3622
Jacobkao0508@gmail.com
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on November 24 and December 1, 8 & 15, 2023.

FBN 20230010887
The following entities are doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
CALIFORNIA PLAN OF CHURCH FINANCE [and] CHURCH FIRST FINANCIAL [and] CHURCH FIRST [and] CALIFORNIA BAPTIST FOUNDATION 3210 EAST GUASTI ROAD, SUITE 640 ONTARIO, CA 91761: THE BAPTIST FOUNDATION OF CALIFORNIA 3210 EAST GUASTI ROAD, SUITE 640 ONTARIO, CA 91761
The business is conducted by: A CORPORATION registered with the State of California under the number C0275110.
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/ ERNEST P K ONG, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 10/26/2023
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 J2522
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 itself 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 November 24 & December 1, 8 & 15, 2023.

Continue reading →

San Bernardino Sixth Ward Councilwoman Kimberly Calvin’s advocacy on behalf of her constituents went too far, according to a sanitized executive summary of an investigation ordered by Mayor Helen Tran and five members of the San Bernardino City Council, when she sought from city staff details with regard to the action of former City Manager Robert Field.

It has taken the city council more than a year to catch up with the events that precipitated the exodus of both Field and former Mayor John Valdivia, events in which Calvin had a major hand. Despite a citywide and city council consensus that San Bernardino is better off without either of those two men near the municipal helm, Calvin is now paying the price for serving as one of the sparkplugs in the engine that drove them both out of City Hall. The executive summary of an investigation ordered up by Tran and Calvin’s council colleagues suggests that Calvin’s militation against the now discredited Valdivia both publicly and behind the scenes placed city employees in what they considered to be an uncomfortable position: between two strong-willed warring political factions.

Field tendered his resignation less than a month after the November 2022 municipal election in which Tran was elected to replace Valdivia. Field, who was in place during the final two year and three months of Valdivia’s term as mayor, had grown increasingly at odds with the majority of the city council, which was itself out of step with Valdivia. Tran’s supplanting of Valdivia left Field, whose two-years and three months in the top administrator’s position was marked by his efforts to support elements of the pay-to-play ethos that was the major hallmark of Valdivia’s tenure in office, in an untenable position in the county seat, with virtually no support from the city’s political leadership. He resigned and the city council, including Valdivia, accepted his resignation on December 7, 2022, before Tran was sworn into office.

Multiple factors had undermined Field’s tour as city manager from the outset. One had been the tenuous political circumstance under which he had been hired. At the time of his election as mayor in November 2018 and his installment as mayor the following month, Valdivia was the city’s most dominant political personage, one who controlled four of the six votes on the council. In May of 2019, when his ally, Juan Figueroa, was elected in a special election to replace Valdivia as Third Ward councilman – a position Valdivia had been obliged to resign from to move into the mayor’s post – he controlled five of the council’s seven votes, with only Fourth Ward Councilman Fred Shorett and then-Seventh Ward Councilman Jim Mulvihill consistently opposing him and his policies. But in very short order over the course of the summer and then into the autumn of 2019, First Ward Councilman Ted Sanchez, Second Ward Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra and then-Fifth Ward Councilman Henry Nickel all became estranged from Valdivia, largely as a consequence of his efforts to please his political donors and other entities with business before the city, many of whom, it appeared, were providing Valdivia with money or other accommodations in return from favorable treatment at City Hall. At that point, Valdivia could rely only on the support of Figueroa and then-Sixth Ward Councilman Bessine Richard.

It was in this atmosphere that the city engaged in an effort to find a replacement for retiring City Manager Teri Ledoux in 2020, a protracted process that was resolved when the Valdivia-led recruitment and interview process settled upon Field, the former economic development agency director for Riverside County. In one of his last effective efforts as mayor, Valdivia was able to convince a solid majority of the city council that Field’s understanding of finance and economic revitalization would benefit San Bernardino, which had suffered the ignominy of declaring bankruptcy in 2012, remaining in that state of suspended fiscal animation until 2017 and then suffered through the city’s hemorrhaging of red ink while Ledoux was in the role of city manager, spending some $18.67 million more on city operations than it brought in during the 16 months she was overseeing municipal operations. In September 2020, the council agreed to hire Field.

One of the things that would trip up Field was that he had never before served in the role of a city manager. In his Riverside County assignments, there had always been a higher-ranking staff member – essentially chief executive officers Bill Luna and Jay Orr – who had served as a buffer between him and the elected officials there, the members of the board of supervisors.

What was more, just seven months before Field was hired as city manager in San Bernardino, he had been abruptly fired by Riverside County Chief Executive Officer George Johnson.

It did not help Field that three of the council members who had been in place to vote on his hiring in September 2020 were no longer in office just three months later. Figueroa, Nickel, Richard and Mulvihill all stood for reelection in 2020. In the March primary election, Figueroa alone was victorious. Richard was outright defeated in a head-to-head contest against Kimberly Calvin. Both Nickel, who faced five challengers, and Mulvihill, who was up against four, found themselves in run-offs in the November 2020 election, against Ben Reynoso and Damon Alexander, respectively. Ultimately, Reynoso and Alexander prevailed.

Another crucial factor that came to dog Field was the misimpression that he was given from the outset, as a consequence of Valdivia taking a lead role in the city manager recruitment and applicant winnowing process, that Valdivia was in a more powerful political position than he actually was. In what was an astoundingly politically tone-deaf reading of the actual circumstance for someone occupying a position such as city manager – one which requires insight and sensitivity to political nuance – Field assumed that Valdivia was in control of not only the city council but city staff and the entire city. In actuality, Valdivia’s control of all three entities had been significantly attenuated even prior to Field’s arrival.

Once in place as city manager, Field took command of San Bernardino’s municipal machinery and, in compliance with Valdivia’s requests and direction, attempted, and in some cases succeeded, to facilitate creating money-making opportunities for Valdivia’s associates, affiliates, political backers or patrons. It is unclear whether Field recognized or fully understood the degree to which his action furthered the pay-to-play ethos that had come to embody Valdivia’s administration.

Relatively early on there were manifestations of the clash between the direction Valdivia was seeking to take the city in and the collective and individual vision the rest of the council had for the community. While Valdivia had hoped that with Reynoso’s replacement of Nickel and, in particular, Alexander’s replacement of his implacable foe Mulvihill, he might reform a ruling council coalition and take control of the city’s destiny, it did not play out that way. Reynoso proved to be even more hostile toward Valdivia than Nickel had been during his final two years in office. Though Alexander sought to demonstrate himself to be judiciously committed to evaluating matters that came before the city on an issue-by-issue basis without falling into any predictable alliances with anyone on the council, it became clear that Valdivia could not rely on him for automatic support. Moreover,

Calvin’s presence on the council not only deprived Valdivia of one the two reliable allies he had previously possessed on the council – Richard – she relatively early in the going emerged as the primary opposition to Valdivia, outgunning and even replacing Shorett and Mulvihill in that role.

An early manifestation of this was Calvin’s objection to Valdivia attempting – with Field’s assistance – to commandeer the apportioning process for federal Community Development Block Grant program funds, money entrusted to the city through the Department of Housing and Urban Development for community improvements. Despite the city charter and a policy that banned him from participating in the decision-making relating to how the money was to be spent, Valdivia had preempted the effort by assuming chairmanship of the meeting as part of a ploy to direct at least some of those grants to programs that would employ his political donors or businesses which had hired him, working through his company, Aadvantage Comm LLC, as a consultant. Calvin’s stand against Valdivia included refusing, as a member of the ad hoc committee impaneled to determine how the federal grants were to be spent, to participate in the meeting and loudly decrying the confabulation’s illegality.

Field and city staff had been tasked by the mayor and the city council to set into motion the makeover of the long-shuttered Carousel Mall in downtown San Bernardino. Word surfaced that Valdivia was pushing, from behind the scenes, for the city to entrust the mall redevelopment project to a Chinese-based company, SCG America, which was conveying money to Valdivia. Both Calvin and Reynoso expressed concern that Valdivia was acting improperly in promoting SCG America against other companies that had expressed an interest in the mall property, and that Field was assisting him by granting SCG America an inside track on a proposal to demolish the mall structures in preparation toward the transition of property into a mixed-use retail/residential project. Calvin and Reynoso interpreted that, as did many of the city’s residents, as a clear indication that Valdivia was on the take, that Field knew Valdivia was on the take and that Field was knowingly and directly participating in the quid pro quo arrangements the mayor was involved in. Penultimately, after the city council looked past SCG America and instead entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement with Renaissance Downtowns USA and ICO Real Estate Group – known jointly as the San Bernardino Development Company for renovation project, the city had to back out of that agreement after the California Department of Housing and Community Development lodge a complaint that the city had not made the Carousel Mall property available for bids by entities looking to convert the property to affordable housing.

Beginning in early 2020, Valdivia and the city were hit with a number of lawsuits by current and former employees of the mayor’s office, including Mirna Cisneros, Karen Cervantes, Jackie Aboud, Don Smith and Valdivia’s chief of staff, Matt Brown. In those suits, Cisneros went public with how Valdivia had made sexual advances to her and misused city funds to engage in travel and activity that had no relation to city governance and he was taking money from entities with business before the city; Cervantes related how the mayor had made sexual advances toward her; Aboud likewise said Valdivia had pressured her to accommodate his sexual needs; Smith related how he had been present while Valdivia made a late night rendezvous with a city tow service franchise holder who handed Valdivia an envelope stuffed with cash; and Brown alleged Valdivia attempted to have him make fraudulent unfavorable work reviews of Cisneros, Cervantes, Aboud and Smith to justify their firings and discredit them with regard to the allegations they had made.

Valdivia’s already-moribund political career was dealt a further death blow by efforts Calvin, Reynoso and other community activists engaged in to bring to light a host of illegal activities he had engaged in. Those revelations included an exposure of how Valdivia in June 2021 utilized a host of city facilities and assets to stage what he billed as the “State of the City Address,” a barely disguised effort to promote himself but which in actuality was a fundraising event to fatten his political war chest by creating an invitation list that consisted of his past donors, whom he referred to as San Bernardino’s “movers and shakers,” along with a handful of his political associates, including Figueroa. He excluded the remaining six council members from the guest list.
The council called upon Field and the city’s top administration to look into what had occurred and seek to determine if Valdivia had violated both the law and city policy by utilizing public funds for political purposes.
Ultimately, city staff went through the various expenditures the city made in support of the address, providing that documentation to an attorney, Norma García Guillén. García Guillén thereafter had staff compile further documentation relating to Valdivia’s expenditures of public funds that were used for a hotel stay and meal in San Diego on September 20-22, 2019; a hotel stay in Irvine on September 10-11, 2020; a hotel stay and meal in Irvine on March 8-9, 2021; a hotel stay in Irvine on March 18-19, 2021; meals in Nevada on March 22-23, 2021; a meal in Newport Beach on March 23, 2021; and a meal and hotel stay in Irvine on April 13-14, 2021, all of which García Guillén said had nothing to do with city-related business and provided the basis for censuring Valdivia. García Guillén presented the case for Valdivia’s censure to the city council during a special meeting held on December 1, 2021. In the meantime, Valdivia, who over the first three-and-a-half years that he was mayor collected $854,626.21 into his mayoral electioneering fund, hired former California Assemblyman and Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco as his legal representative in an effort to ward off any criminal charges and blunt any accompanying political attacks and damage he was accumulating along the way. Ultimately, Valdivia would pay Pacheco $487,487.21 for those services, defrayed entirely by his political donors. Despite those expenditures, Pacheco’s response on behalf of Valdivia to García Guillén’s presentation had little impact, as the city council ultimately voted to censure Valdivia at the December 1, 2021 meeting.

That vote of censure, which passed unanimously – including the vote of his erstwhile ally Figueroa – presaged Valdivia’s political demise, which was made official with his third-place finish in the seven-person mayoral contest held in conjunction with the June 2022 California Primary. Valdivia’s campaign treasurer reported that he had expended $649,505.89 overall on his effort to remain in office in the 2022 election. Despite that, and the consideration that he outspent all six of his opponents in the contest, Valdivia finished out of the running, with 2,970 votes or 16.92 percent, behind second-place finisher Jim Penman, who polled 3,510 votes or 20 percent, and the top vote-getter, Helen Tran, with 7,310 votes or 41.65 percent. Tran went on to win the November 2022 run-off.

Effectuating Valdivia’s transition from a phenomenon who in December 2018 bestrode San Bernardino like a political colossus to a washed-up officeholder who in 2022 could not stay in place even by spending well over half of a million dollars and more than twice what was expended by all six of his opponents was a collective effort that involved a groundswell involving scores, indeed hundreds, of San Bernardino residents who had their fill of his exploitation of the governmental process. Nevertheless, two individuals stood out from that crowd. One was Calvin. The other was Treasure Ortiz, who had been one of the original candidates to replace Valdivia as Third Ward councilman in 2019 after he resigned that post to become mayor the previous year and a candidate against Valdivia for mayor in 2022. Ortiz had lost to Figueroa, whom Valdivia had endorsed in 2019 and she placed fourth in the 2022 mayoral race, just behind Valdivia. Both had been relentless in assailing Valdivia, particularly during his final two years in office, Calvin from her perch as an insider on the city council dais and Ortiz as an outsider in her function as a candidate and community activist.

Each of them came under scrutiny as a consequence.

While he yet hand his grip on the mayor’s gavel, Valdivia could be very demanding. Calvin had come to consider virtually every priority that the mayor was pursuing to be illegitimate. Without the explicit endorsement of the council, Calvin believed, Valdivia had no authority to issue orders to city staff. Field carrying out, or attempting to carry out, Valdivia’s agenda, infuriated Calvin. Thus, Field for some time found himself vacillating between Valdivia’s demands and the expectations of the remainder of the council. When Calvin learned that Field was hiding from her and the council action he was taking on behalf of Valdivia, Calvin became angrier still. Indeed, Valdivia emerged as a major unifying factor for the council, as opposing him more than any other single issue put Sanchez, Ibarra, Shorett, Reynoso, Calvin and and Alexander on the same page. Over the last year or so, Field had come to realize that it was virtually impossible to please both camps – one consisting of Valdivia and Figueroa and the other composed of of Sanchez, Ibarra, Shorett, Reynoso, Calvin and Alexander – simultaneously, and he came to understand that having kowtowed to Valdivia for the first year he was city manager had been a major mistake. Field’s life at that point was, in the words of a well-placed source at City Hall, “a literal living hell.” The formula that Field at last had adopted to maintain his sanity was to meet the expectations of Sanchez, Ibarra, Shorett, Reynoso, Calvin and Alexander as best he could and simply live with Valdivia’s contempt.
Despite that, Calvin never got over her discomfiture with Field’s indulgence of Valdivia during the first 15 or 16 months of the time he had been city manager.

A byproduct of Valdivia’s political demise was the end of Field’s career as a city manager. Because of the secrecy – what is referred to as confidentiality – of public personnel matters, it is not known too far beyond the confines of City Hall how many employees Field brought in with him or hired during the time he was in place. Because of that confidentiality, it is not known if any of the personnel that came in with Field or were hired at his instigation left when he did, nor how many. It is not known either if anyone he hired remained in place after his departure or how many.

What is known is that when Calvin had Valdivia in her cross hairs, there was some collateral damage.

Valdivia’s barely-disguised effort to promote himself, the 2021 “State of the City Address,” served as the epiphany that ultimately brought Field to full consciousness of how Valdivia was perceived by a substantial cross section of the community. Until that debacle, Field was working to further Valdivia’s goals, believing he was rightly carrying out what the council majority wanted him to do. Even after it became apparent that Valdivia was persona non grata among his own city council, it took Field several months to adjust. Again, because of the secrecy of government and the confidentiality of discussions that take place in closed “executive” sessions of city councils in California, it is not known how fully on display the hostility between most of the members of the city council and the mayor was and how Field could have gone on as long as he did without coming to the conclusion that Valdivia was a paper political tiger. It is no secret, however, that Calvin had enough of the pay-to-play ethos the city was drenched and was gunning for Valdivia. Anyone who got in the way was blasted.

What is alleged now is that in her single-minded pursuit of blowing Valdivia out of office, Calvin engaged in some of the same things Valdivia was famous for, pursuing action unilaterally using her own authority without the consent of her council colleagues, buttonholing city employees to find out from them what the mayor and city manager were cooking up, and that her demands created a toxic work environment.

In response to the complaint of at least once city employee, the city council arranged to have the city contract with Laguna Niguel-based JL Group, LLC to conduct an administrative investigation to determine whether Calvin engaged in behavior that rose to the level of misconduct and may have violated city rules and/or policies based upon the allegations raised by the claimant.

The city has not released the investigative report. Instead, on December 7, it put out a press release that revealed the existence of the investigation and stated, “On Wednesday, December 6, the San Bernardino City Council voted 5-0 in closed session, with council members Ben Reynoso and Kimberly Calvin absent, to release the executive summary” of the report.

According to the executive summary, “This investigation detailed…factfinders to determine the circumstances surrounding the concerns brought forward by a claimant. Claimant indicated he had been subjected to an unfavorable work atmosphere and, as a result, he began to document incidents that he felt rose to the level of misconduct. Claimant also alleged that Ms. Calvin has contacted him and other city staff directly, and made requests that exceeded the authority of a city councilperson which in essence circumvented the city manager.”
The summary continues, “Ms. Calvin is clearly a highly engaged councilmember and was able to articulate a vision for her ward that she felt would address the needs of her community. While her passion for her electorate is evident, it appeared that her desire to enact positive change would at times create an

atmosphere that was not conducive to an efficient and collaborative workplace and may have violated city rules. On December 15, 2020, Ms. Calvin signed an acknowledgment of mandatory compliance with the city’s harassment policies.”

According to the summary, “The City’s policy on non-discrimination, retaliation, workplace harassment, and sexual harassment outlines the city’s expectations for maintaining a healthy work environment. The facts in this matter demonstrated that Ms. Calvin has repeatedly contacted city staff directly for information and has made requests to provide documents or further research on a specific subject. She has also given city staff direction regarding their specific work assignments

that went beyond a simple request for information. Interpretation of the municipal code provided by a witness is that any requests which require staff to prepare documents or spend time beyond a simple answer to a question are not

appropriate and circumvent the chain of command. Witnesses indicated that several attempts were made to address chain of command issues with the city council.”

According to the summary, “Claimant provided e-mails that verified his allegations that Ms. Calvin contacted staff directly. There were multiple e-mails which Ms. Calvin sent to staff members directly. A witness explained that these emails could cause confusion with staff because they were uncertain about what their response should be and to whom they should be responding. City staff corroborated these assertions and described the anxiety these situations caused at times.”

According to the summary, “The facts in this matter also indicated that many of Ms. Calvin’s interactions with city staff were not on behalf of the city council as a body; rather, she was at times acting unilaterally to make personal requests of her own.”

The summary states, “During the course of this investigation there were several witnesses who reported interactions that they had with Ms. Calvin that also appeared to rise to the level of misconduct.” The summary, however, offers no specific examples of the referenced misconduct.

According to the summary, “There is clearly a very highly charged political atmosphere within the City as a result of Ms. Calvin’s interactions with city staff. Several witnesses expressed that they have experienced negative physical reactions to the stress that they attribute to Ms. Calvin’s behavior. Claimant also alleged that City e-mails may have been improperly forwarded to a local activist, Treasure Ortiz, circumventing the Public Records Act process. While it was clear that another person was in possession of the city e-mails in question, it was not possible to ascertain if they had forwarded this information directly to Ms. Ortiz. The greater weight of credible evidence indicated that they had given this information to other employees who may have subsequently provided it to Ms.Ortiz.”

According to the summary, there were four findings from the investigation.

In the first instance, the summary states investigators sustained the accusation that “City Councilmember Kimberly Calvin created an uncomfortable work environment for claimant that may have violated City of San Bernardino rules.

In the second, the summary states investigators sustained the allegation “City Councilmember Kimberly Calvin created an uncomfortable work environment for additional (other than claimant) City of San Bernardino staff and/or city council colleagues other than [the] claimant” in a way “that may have violated City of San Bernardino rules.”

Thirdly, according to the summary, the investigators were unable to sustain the conclusion that “another person forward[ed] city-generated e-mails to Treasure Ortiz.

Fourth, the investigators, according to the summary, sustained that “City Councilmember Kimberly Calvin violated City of San Bernardino rules regarding her communications and/or direction to city staff?”

In an exchange with the Sentinel early today, Friday, December 8, Calvin said, “My questioning staff was my trying to get answers on what I believe were inappropriate actions of the former City Manager, Rob Field.”

The Sentinel’s inquiries with JL Group personnel, including investigators Mike Hamel, Tom Fischbacher, Jeff Berkenkamp, Patrick O’Dowd, Chad Ellis, Dan Jenks, Bill Whalen and Erik Herzog, attorneys Agnes Szkopek and Michael Peters and attorneys/investigators/principals Jeff Love and Jeff Johnson, as to how Calvin could look into Field’s comportment at City Hall without bypassing him and contacting city employees were unanswered at press time.

In an historic shift, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to confer the county’s ambulance service franchise on a consortium of 15 public fire agencies and departments, ending the 40-year arrangement it had with American Medical Response, a private corporation.
The implication of the change is multi-fold.
While perhaps not a death knell for the for-profit ambulance service providers that once dominated the county, the change likely means the presence of corporate ambulances will diminish. Prior to the 1970s, few fire departments in San Bernardino County hired personnel who were firefighters first and foremost and, in most cases, exclusively. Only rarely were firemen in the Inland Empire at that time certified or licensed as emergency medical technicians or paramedics, though an effort was made to give them basic first medical response skills, such as artificial respiration and resuscitation.
Medical-related transport companies, ones that engaged in both emergency and non-emergency service, worked in tandem with both law enforcement agencies and fire departments in responding to circumstances of grave injury, heart attacks and the like. In the distant past, there was only limited standardization in the ambulance industry. As the 20th Century progressed, so too did the sophistication and equipment aboard ambulances and used by drivers and attendants, whose training and skill levels likewise advanced.
While non-emergency medical transport – consisting generally of driving elderly patents from their residences to doctor’s offices for scheduled examinations or medical treatments – did not require much more than a conscientious driver and a car or van, emergency medical transport – involving a driver/emergency medical technician and an accompanying paramedic using an ambulance outfitted with sophisticated live-saving and life-sustaining equipment – represented a substantial investment and ongoing expense. Only those willing to make such investments and commitments got into the business. Once they did, the competition was cutthroat, as each ambulance operator had to compete against other ambulance operators for business. That competition, in which the first ambulance to arrive on the scene got the job and therefore the ambulance fee, had a salutary effect, ensuring faster response times, which can be crucial in an emergency medical situation.
By the mid-1970s, Terry Russ, Homer Aerts, Steve Dickmeyer and Don Reed had clawed their separate ways to the top of the emergency medical transport heap on the west and central portion of San Bernardino’s Inland Valley after competing against one another for years and choking out others with less staying power. At that point, they smoked a peace pipe and resolved to merge their operations into one, consolidating and streamlining their dispatch service, and better coordinating it with the local fire and police departments. Through efficiencies and the sharing of resources, they were able to overwhelm the other ambulance operators they were in competition with, lower their prices, and induce most of those competitors to either go out of business, merge with them or sell out to their company, which was dubbed Mercy Ambulance. After pooling their money and initiating a program of making substantial political contributions to local politicians at both the city and county level, Russ, Aerts, Dickmeyer and Reed then used this newfound political clout and influence to have both the county board of supervisors and various city councils “regulate” the ambulance industry, which included essentially adopting the vehicle, equipment and employee training standards Mercy had in place as the minimum requisites for an ambulance operation within their jurisdictions. The politicians were able to do so by asserting that this enhanced public safety.
As Mercy solidified and expanded its domination of the local ambulance industry and it grew to become preeminent among the county’s campaign donors, the county and many of its cities moved to create franchises in which a single ambulance company was allowed to operate and from which any other companies were prohibited from operating. Not surprisingly, in San Bernardino County Mercy was granted the lion’s share of these exclusive franchises, not to mention the most lucrative ones.
As Mercy grew, so did the scope of its operations and its power. The company added helicopters to its line of service and extended its reach all over 20,105 square mile San Bernardino County – a land area the size of four New England states.
A new kid on the block who persisted in the ambulance business in San Bernardino County despite the domination of Mercy Ambulance was American Medical Response, a company which came into the region from elsewhere while Mercy was still thriving in the heart of San Bernardino County. At first, American Medical Response limited itself to servicing the wide open expanse of the Mojave Desert, a place Mercy was willing to let the company operate, given that the calls were sporadic, drives were long and the profits marginal. In 1981, American Medical Response, or AMR for short, was given the county franchise pertaining to unincorporated areas of the county, that is, those places other than where there were established cities. The lion’s share of that unincorporated area was the desert, where AMR had by that point set up an overwhelming presence.
As Russ, Aerts, Dickmeyer and Reed aged and grew wealthier, they began, slowly at first, to disengage from and then inevitably pulled out of the stressful emergency response business entirely. A first step in that direction was selling off – at considerable profit – the Mercy Air wing. Thereafter, they sold or let their heirs take on the ground ambulance fiefdom that Mercy represented, and they withdrew into a retirement of luxury and comfort. With each stage of Russ’s, Aerts’, Dickmeyer’s and Reed’s detachment from the ambulance business, American Medical Response moved in to fill the vacuum created by Mercy’s exodus. Simultaneously, AMR took a leaf out of Mercy Ambulance’s playbook, and it too made hefty political contributions.
Over time, ICEMA – the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency – which oversees emergency service provision issues in San Bernardino, Mono and Inyo counties, would confer upon American Medical Response favored status in San Bernardino County that would rival that of Mercy Ambulance a generation before. Because it was ICEMA rather than the board of supervisors that drove the move to grant AMR its position at the top of the ambulance service heap, it at first glance appeared that AMR had achieved that favored status straightforwardly and without the interference of political influence or favoritism. The reality, however, is that ICEMA’s governing board consists of the five members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, each of whom is entrusted with looking after issues pertaining to emergency medical response not just within the expanse of San Bernardino County but in 10,227-square mile Inyo County and 3,132-square mile Mono County. So, by making contributions to the supervisors, AMR, over the years, was able to keep its nest feathered.
That feathering consists of what are referred to as exclusive operating zones. Thus, there are extensive areas in San Bernardino County, Inyo County and Mono County where one ambulance company has not only primacy but a virtual monopoly in that it, and only it, is authorized and licensed to function there under normal circumstances. The ostensible rationale for granting these monopolies is that operating ambulances is an expensive proposition, not to mention one that is crucial to public health and safety. Competition between ambulance companies has the potential, so the reasoning goes, of driving down the prices those companies charge to the point that their operations will not be profitable enough for them to remain in business. Upon these ambulance companies going out of business, the public would be put into a position where there would be insufficient emergency medical transportation service available to ensure public safety. Thus those arrangements – the exclusive operating zones – have been established.
Some have long disputed that the exclusive operating zones are necessary, and they assert they are rather a ploy by which county politicians have further inculcated a pay-to-play ethos into the county’s governmental function. Among those critics of exclusive operating zones are some who maintain the monopolistic system has long endangered public safety. One of those was the county’s firefighters’ union, known as Local 935, which a decade ago suggested the exclusive operating approach has on occasion created critical shortages in the High Desert’s ambulance transport system.
For years, the county’s decision-makers ignored those warnings.
The overall situation with regard to emergency medical care in the field and emergency medical transport, however, has been gradually evolving. Beginning gradually in the 1970s with the more financially enabled jurisdictions in San Bernardino County and in parallel with evolving standards in the firefighting industry generally, fire departments have striven toward training their existing personnel with regard to lifesaving skills and rudimentary medical care, such that over the years fire departments, one by one could become more selective in their hiring practices. In this way, those competing for the limited number of plum firefighting positions had to find a way to distinguish themselves. This commonly involved those aspiring to becoming firemen or firewoman enrolling in a junior college or community college immediately out of high school and obtaining either a two-year fire science degree or two-year degree in the field or nursing or otherwise obtaining licensing as an emergency medical technician or paramedic.
In this way, the near monopoly that the private sector, for-profit ambulance companies had on certified/licensed paramedics in San Bernardino County in the 1980s has come to an end. This has been paralleled by fire departments acquiring as standard equipment field medical service vehicles outfitted with advanced state-of-the-science medical equipment rivaling or indeed surpassing that available to private sector ambulance companies.
A final crucial factor is that at the local level in San Bernardino County prior to the 1990s, mega-donating to politicians had been the exclusive province of the private sector, primarily the development industry and companies such as Mercy and AMR who had a dog in the hunt when it came to governmental contracts or franchises. Beginning first with the Safety Employees Benefit Association under its then-President Chris Smith thirty years ago, governmental employees unions increased their dues to create a pool of money then used either directly by those unions or political action committees they formed to make monetary donations to politicians, primarily incumbent office holders at the county and city levels, to convince them to increase employee wages and benefits. Over the course of three decades, this practice has matured into the various governmental employees’ unions, including the firefighters’ union, applying money to influence policy decisions that might impact how governmental agencies’ money is spent, including whether certain tasks are to be privatized and performed by entities outside government, such as companies under contract or with franchises, or kept in-house.
Whereas in previous years, the AMR contract was merely “rolled over” in what the county referred to as “a grandfathered process,” last year county officials began to look forward toward what action it would take with regard to the expiration or continuation of the contract. On December 20, 2022, the county released a request for proposals – a solicitation of bids – inviting prospective providers to provide ground ambulance service in 11 of the county’s 26 exclusive operating areas.
Responding to the request were AMR and Consolidated Fire Agencies, known by its acronym CONFIRE, a joint powers authority which provides communications, dispatch, computer information systems support, and geographic location information to its nine member agencies – the Apple Valley Fire Protection District, Chino Valley Independent Fire District, the Colton Fire Department, the Loma Linda Fire Department, the Rancho Cucamonga Fire Department, the Redlands Fire Department, the Rialto Fire Department, the San Bernardino County Fire District and the Victorville Fire Department – and four contract agencies – the Big Bear Fire Department, the Montclair Fire Department, the Running Springs Fire District and the San Manuel Fire Department.
AMR featured in its response that it could commit 12,889 weekly unit hours to respond to calls, had 111 ambulances available during peak system demand and stationed throughout the service area backed with 39 additional available ambulances available to meet surges. It emphasized that it was the current provider of the services with vehicle infrastructure in place and 10 managers and 18 field supervisors and a medical director familiar with the comprehensive needs of the service area. The company offered rates of $3,958 for both basic life support and advanced life support, $2,834 to carry out an interfacility transport, and $4,392 for critical care transport.
In its response, CONFIRE said it could devote 10,371 weekly unit hours to respond to calls, had 93 ambulances available at peak demand, with 45 additional ambulances available to meet surges throughout the service area, would subcontract with Priority Ambulance, which also serves Maricopa County in Arizona, that it will establish ambulance staging locations, on-board personnel, and acquire vehicles upon receiving the contract and that it has leadership and management to meet the demands of providing the service, including nine managers and 18 operations supervisors as well as a medical director and that it controls the regional emergency services communication system. Its proposed rates for its advance life support service were $3,547 for non-emergency and interfacility transfer, $4,053 for emergency transport, $2,533 for non-emergency basic life transport and $3,167 for emergency basic life transport and CCT $5,067 for critical care transport.
What the county referred to as an “independent review panel” made up of four evaluators individually scored each proposal on 14 key areas – system requirements, response time standards, clinical performance, deployment plans, vehicles, medical supplies and equipment, personnel, hospital and community requirements, disaster preparedness/response, quality management, electronic patient care reports, centralized emergency medical dispatch center, financial and administrative requirements qualifications, and future system enhancements – for the purpose of making a recommendation to the county for final negotiation of contract terms. The total cumulative scores, against a standard with 1,720 points maximum, favored AMR, which registered 1,519 total points against 1,515 points for CONFIRE. The county emphasized that the score differential was a mere quarter of 1 percent, with one of the evaluators favoring AMR by 35 points, 419 to 384, while the other three evaluators found in favor of CONFIRE by scores of 383 to 373, 363 to 346 and 385 to 381.
Based on the negligible difference between the scores, the county provided AMR and CONFIRE, with notice to enter into contract negotiations with the county and that the final contract approval rested with the board of supervisors.
After those negotiations concluded, the county purchasing division on October 27, 2023, emailed AMR a notice of intent to recommend that it be awarded a contract extension from the time its current contract expires on March 31 from April 1, 2024 through September 30, 2024 to allow CONFIRE to get prepared to take on the contract for an initial term from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2029.
AMR lodged a protest, alleging the county had failed to follow the selection procedures and adhere to requirements specified in the request for proposal, awarding the contract to the entity which had prevailed in the competition and that it had otherwise violated state and/or federal law. The county’s purchasing agent, Ariel Gill, who reviewed and considered the protest and notified AMR of its decision to deny the protest.
Thereafter, a motion by Supervisor Jesse Armendarez seconded by Supervisor Curt Hagman to deny the protest from American Medical Response and schedule a vote to consider awarding the contract to Consolidated Fire Agencies and its private subcontractor Priority Ambulance passed by a unanimous vote of the board of supervisors.
At the December 5 meeting, AMR was represented by a spokesman who neglected to identify himself and Mike Rice, the company’s vice president of operations, who made no comments. The unidentified spokesperson said AMR offered “stability, performance and clinical excellence. AMR is in the best position to take this into the future. We’re fully integrated with the fire departments, public health, behavioral health, the communities we serve.” He said AMR had a “depth of resources, history of performance, experience and expertise, disaster response capability and represented a lower risk of liability to the cities and county than have public agencies providing ambulance service. He said that “AMR meets or exceeds all response [time] standards” and featured as part of its vehicle fleet “all-wheel-drive units in key areas that need that… and a disaster command vehicle.” He said the company had helicopter ambulances and was “financially strong” with an established sustainable model.”
CONFIRE was represented by Rancho Cucamonga City Councilfwoman Lynn Kennedy, the chairwoman of the CONFIRE Board of Directors, Rancho Cucamonga Fire Chief Mike McCliman and CONFIRE Chief Nathan Cook. Lynne Kennedy said what CONFIRE was offering something that “will result in increased resources, decreased response times and a delivery model that includes private/public partnership, a private partnership with Priority Ambulance that has the capacity to serve our county and the public partnership that crosses the continuum of care, making sure that every single resident receives the right care at the right time on time every time without exception. It is going to be transformational in three areas. It is going to improve our service delivery, establish an efficient system and invest both financial and human resources back into the system.”
McCliman said that in refining its proposal, CONFIRE “reached out to our elected officials throughout the county. We reached out to our labor unions. We met with every hospital in the county, whether their CEO, vice presidents, their head of nursing or their emergency room doctors.” McCliman said it entered into a public/private arrangement with Priority Ambulance.
Cook said that AMR, as “the incumbent provider cannot perform due to local control and state statutes,” which he enumerated as “four distinctive issues we feel are plaguing the ambulance system in this county, that being a rising and unsustainable call volume, geographical challenges, the frupid [sic] issues in our local hospitals and a bifurcated system between our public and private emergency medical service providers. CONFIRE has hundreds of resources strategically located throughout the entire county. Once we finally bring all the ambulance resources together on the same platform, we’ll be able to leverage all of our emergency medical services resources collectively through a tiered response model, significantly reducing the redundant and parallel responses. This will allow us to hold back ambulances they are truly needed on. As the operational area coordinator for the county, CONFIRE has never known the total number of private ambulances in our system at any given time. We have always been told that information in proprietary. As you know, as a governmental agency we are mandated to be transparent to the communities we serve and nothing is proprietary, especially the health and wellbeing of the public we serve.”
A major portion of audience in attendance was divided between those supporting CONFIRE and those supporting AMR. During the public input portion of the meeting, either side gravitated to one of the two public speaking podiums in the board chamber, with CONFIRE advocates, mostly firefighters, forming a backdrop at one and those backing AMR, predominantly AMR employees or their family members, at the other. With little or no exception, those backing CONFIRE were public employees or elected officials and those supporting AMR were AMR employees or individuals from the private sector.
Rancho Cucamonga Mayor Lloyd Dennis Michael, who was formerly that city’s fire chief, commended the board of supervisors “as you recognize the status quo of how services are being provided needs to be improved and provided in a manner that is transparent, collaborative, efficient and, just as importantly, accountable to our communities and our public. A public/private partnership with Priority Ambulance, CONFIRE’s approach to provide emergency medical care and services is innovative, economically sustainable and will reinvest, most importantly, back into our communities. It is for these reasons that I strongly urge you to select CONFIRE as our new model for the delivery of emergency medical care emergency transport services.
Others supporting CONFIRE were Loma Linda Mayor Phill Dupper, Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa, Victorville Mayor Debra Jones, San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran, Victorville City Councilwoman Elizabeth Becerra, Chino Valley Professional Firefighters Association President Pete Roebuck, Victorville City Manager Keith Metzler, Ontario Police Chief Mike Lorenz, San Antonio Regional Hospital President and CEO John Chapman, Rancho Cucamonga Assistant City Manager Elisa Cox speaking on behalf of Rancho Cucamonga City Manager John Gillison, Ontario City Manager Scott Ochoa and Fontana City Manager Matt Ballantyne.
There were a few public employees who fell outside the pattern of governmental workers who supported CONFIRE.
Juana Sotelo, a classified worker with the Fontana School District and member of the United Steelworkers Local 1853, which also represents AMR’s drivers and attendants. “It is is irresponsible to use your seat to vote against renewing the contract with AMR, who has been dedicated to our community for years and provided good, family-sustaining jobs in San Bernardino County. If you go through with this change in violation of our own rules and process, it opens us to liability in the future. You are exposing our community to liability with the first accident that occurs.”
Alex Provenshaw was another exception among public employees, a currently employed firefighter who formerly worked for AMR, who supported maintaining the contract with AMR. He said that many of the firefighter/paramedics working for public agencies formerly worked for AMR and recognized that it had a successful formula for serving San Bernardino County.
A third exception to governmental employees who generally supported CONFIRE was Jorge Gomez, who works for the California Correctional Healthcare System. He said that AMR had performed admirably in transporting inmates to hospitals and to other facilities during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and appeared capable of maintaining a continuum of adequate care during mass emergencies.
Kim Corona, an AMR paramedic, told the board that “AMR has been a longstanding provider here for several years and has done an excellent job in creating job security for those of us who are currently employed. Beyond the interest of AMR employees, Corona said, bringing in Priority Ambulance to serve the community represented a risk to the county’s residents. “We live here. Many of us reside within this county and we are constituents.” She referenced Priority Ambulance as an “out of state third party service which does not know this county, does not know these streets and does not know these communities” that provide “nearly 2,000 less man hours.”
Moreover, Corona said, the county was giving CONFIRE a second bite at the apple after it had lost the competition for the contract carried out with the evaluation process.
“My question to you, board members is this: When did it become acceptable to place proposals side by side in the winner’s ring when one was selected over the other?” she asked. “I urge you to make the right decision.”
Five other AMR employees and five others enunciated support of AMR.
Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dawn Rowe sought to offer a procedural justification and lay the grounds for a legal defense of conferring the franchise upon CONFIRE despite AMR’s marginal outperformance of its rival in the proposal evaluation.
“The provision in the request for proposals that gives us the board of supervisors, the most discretion in awarding a contract to either entity is stated under the heading in the request for proposals entitled “the contractor scope of work” is summarized as follows: ‘The county realizes that the criteria, other than price, is important, and will award a contract based on the highest scoring proposal that demonstrates the best value and meets needs of the county,” Rowe said. “The language contain in other provisions of the request for proposal discusses the criteria for awarding the contract, which discusses the criteria for awarding the contract, which cannot be ignored by the board. And we can consider which proposal is the best value that meets the needs of the county. Furthermore, we have 2 county policies that I would point to for to consider county policy 1106 and county policy 1104. And I will summarize 1104 as stating that we have an obligation to perform the best value evaluation in the procurement of goods and services. Access to funding creates value. In accordance with Assembly Bill 1705, the Department of Health Care Services developed the public provider ground emergency medical transportation [program] known as PPG EMT. The intergovernmental transfer program, IGT program, [is intended] to provide increased reimbursements to emergency medical transports provided byeligible non contracted public, general emergency medical transportation providers. Of the two proposers that we heard today, Confire JPA [powers authority] may be eligible for this funding, but only Confire JPA. Based on these things, as well as the fact that three of the Four 4 evaluators ranked Confire, JPA, higher than AMR, I would support awarding the contract to Confire JPA.”
The board voted unanimously to support Supervisor Armendarez’s motion, seconded by Supervisor Curt Hagman to deny AMR’s protest and award the five-year contract to CONFIRE.
“We appreciate the service AMR has provided to county residents for many years,” San Bernardino County Chief Operating Officer, who had, together with interim San Bernardino County Emergency Medical Services Administrator Daniel Muñoz overseen for the board of supervisors the evaluation of the two proposals, said in a press release put out after the meeting. “This was a very difficult decision for the board. We are looking forward to a smooth transition and providing the best level of service to those who rely on us in the community.”
AMR expressed consternation with the supervisors’ action in its own press release, which came out only minutes after the county release.
“AMR submitted a superior proposal that was awarded more points than any other proposal, while providing significantly more system ambulances per day to the residents of San Bernardino [County],” according to the company said in its release.
Mike Rice, AMR’s vice president of operations who had remained silent during the company’s presentation during Tuesday’s meeting while allowing its anonymous spokesman to do all the talking, had lost his timidity.
“Given the circumstances, AMR is left with no choice but to explore all available options, including legal recourse, in response to the board’s actions,” Rice said. “The decision made by the county Board of Supervisors does not align with the best interests of the community and the patients of this community. The proposal selected by the board puts 29 fewer ambulances a day on the road than what AMR proposed. The community and our hard-working employees will be negatively impacted by the decision today.”