Legal action brought by four environmental groups has interrupted plans by the United States Forest Service to do controlled burns in sections of the San Bernardino Mountains rangers consider to be overgrown with vegetation that could serve as the kindling to trigger a catastrophic wildfire.
The use of fire to fight fire has been put on hold by a ruling from a federal district court judge handed down on August 11. The plaintiffs in the case, The Friends of Big Bear Valley, the John Muir Project, Earth Island Institute and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, brought suit to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from proceeding with the North Fuels Project.
According to that suit, the U.S. Forest Service has not exhausted all of its options short of engaging in the clearing of areas in the forest that serve as protective habitat for a number of species. Moreover, the Forest Service’s controlled burn plans are not exactly safe and represent a risk that what is intended as a narrowly focused burn of brush could grow into a major conflagration. Continue reading →

After a Chino police motorcycle officer encountered a Rialto resident recklessly operating a vehicle in the extreme southern end of Chino on Wednesday and was knocked from his bike, the officer’s department colleagues obtained a warrant from a judge to confront the motorist at a residence he had retreated to some 29 miles away from the incident. Upon serving that warrant, the officers gunned the man down when, according to the Chino Police Department, he used a gun in his possession to fire upon them.
“On September 6, 2023, at approximately 9:55 a.m., a Chino police motor officer attempted to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation in the 15800 block of El Prado Road,” according to Chino Police Department Spokeswoman Vivian Castro. “The offender failed to yield, and then deliberately caused a collision with the motor officer. The offender then sped away on El Prado Road. The officer was transported via ambulance to a regional hospital, where he was treated for moderate injuries and then released.”
According to Castro, “Chino detectives followed numerous leads and, with the assistance of the Fontana Police Department, were able to track the suspect to a residence in Rialto. At approximately 5:30 p.m., the Chino Police Department SWAT team served a search warrant. During the service of the search warrant, the suspect attempted to flee the location and was confronted by officers. The suspect shot at officers, and two officers returned fire. The suspect was shot and succumbed to his injuries at the scene. No officers were injured during the confrontation.”
According to information assembled by the Sentinel, the now-deceased man was driving in front of the motorcycle officer, whose effort to effectuate the stop commenced at 9:56 p.m. The motorist stopped abruptly by braking hard, and the motorcycle rear-ended the car.
Though the motorist drove off, the officer’s body camera captured the license plate number of the car, which allowed the department to determine the likely identity of the motorist, tentatively identified as John Angel of Alta Loma. Further investigation involved coordinating with other agencies to trace the vehicle’s progression using license plate readers and coordinating the retrieval of information of geo-positioning data from Angel’s cell phone provider.
Members of the SWAT team, clad in protective gear including bulletproof vests and helmets, entered the a residence in the 3200 block of Amberwood in Rialto, where Angel was surmised to be holed up. When the officers came into the home, Angel fled into the backyard, and had made it to the rear fence. It was then, according to the Chino Police Department, that the man opened fire with a handgun.
Just in advance of the shooting, the Amberwood neighborhood was “locked down” and an effort to evacuate residents from houses proximate to the suspect’s home were made.
A resident of Amberwood, Michael Gonzales, said that “About 20 armed officers with assault rifles in full riot gear” descended upon the home in question around 5:30 p.m.
Another nearby resident, Eric Strausborger, said SWAT team members could be heard ordering the suspect to get down. This was followed, Strausborger said, by at least five audible shots. Members of the household could also be heard telling the officers that they were not who the police were seeking. Residents of the home crawled from the home out the front door after the shooting, according to Strausborger.
Nearby residents said they did not believe Angel was a resident of the home where the shooting took place.

S.M. Hoyt Lumber Company, which was a fixture in western San Bernardino County for 51 years before Rancho Cucamonga incorporated as a city, will go out of business next month.

FBN 20230008268
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
VPOWERFUTURE 9350 THE RESORT PKWY UNIT 7917 RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730: VAHID V MEHR 9350 THE RESORT PKWY UNIT 7917 RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730
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/ VAHID MEHR
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 8/16/2023
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 J7550
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 August 18, 25 and September 1 & 8, 2023.

FBN 20230008136
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
CACHETON TRUCK BODIES & REPAIR/MOBILE SERVICE 8191 CALABASH AVE SP. 14 FONTANA, CA 92335: CACHETON TRUCK BODIES & REPAIR/MOBILE SERVICE 8191 CALABASH AVE SP. 14 FONTANA, CA 92335
The business is conducted by: A CORPORATION registered with the State of California under the number 5854409.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: July 19, 2023.
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/ JOSE RODRIGUEZ, President
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 8/11/2023
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 J7550
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 August 18, 25 and September 1 & 8, 2023.

Continue reading →

Moving on to nearly a month after Leonard Hernandez was overtaken by events and forced out of his position as San Bernardino County chief executive officer, mystery yet attends what shift in interpersonal dynamics and accompanying sequence of events led to the change and the degree to which the county’s political leadership will allow the reform of the leadership echelon that was rebuilt in Hernandez’s image during his tenure to progress.
Hernandez exercised rigid control of the county and the standards it enforced across a multitude of latitudes for the nearly three years he held the position of county chief executive officer, overseeing what many employees are openly acknowledging was a reign of terror in which those who questioned the wisdom, logic, purpose, effectiveness, sustainability or legality of the courses of action he was having them embark upon were ignored, demoted or kept from promotion, fired or forced to resign. Consequently, over the course of the last three years, something on the order of two-thirds to three-quarters of the individuals promoted into and yet inhabiting the county’s assistant executive officer, deputy executive officer, department director and deputy department director positions were Hernandez loyalists. With only a few exceptions, those loyalists at one point or another and in many cases on a repeated basis disciplined or at some level took part in the silencing, suppression and/or termination of those who had dissented from Hernandez’s methodologies. In the predominate number of cases, lower ranking county employees who were skeptical or even inwardly disapproving of the action they were being ordered to take by Hernandez and his adherents did as they were ordered to without any show of objection, generally out of a basic survival precaution, as it generally became recognized that disobeying or even quibbling with instructions originating with Hernandez was considered grounds for termination. Though those orders were in the vast majority of cases carried out, this engendered layers of resentment among staff throughout the county. Continue reading →

Moving on to nearly a month after events overtook Leonard Hernandez and he found himself relieved of his $600,000 per year total compensation position as San Bernardino County chief executive officer, mystery yet attends what shift in interpersonal dynamics and accompanying sequence of events led to the change and the degree to which the county’s political leadership will allow the reform of the leadership echelon that was rebuilt in Hernandez’s image during his tenure to progress.
Hernandez exercised rigid control of the county and the standards it enforced across a multitude of latitudes for the nearly three years he held the position of county chief executive officer, overseeing what many employees are openly acknowledging was a reign of terror in which those who questioned the wisdom, logic, purpose, effectiveness, sustainability or legality of the courses of action he was having them embark upon were ignored, demoted or kept from promotion, fired or forced to resign. Consequently, over the course of the last three years, something on the order of two-thirds to three-quarters of the individuals promoted into and yet inhabiting the county’s assistant executive officer, deputy executive officer, department directors and deputy department directors were Hernandez loyalists. With only a few exceptions, those loyalists at one point or another and in many cases on a repeated basis disciplined or at some level took part in the silencing, suppression and/or termination of those who had dissented from Hernandez’s methodologies. In the predominate number of cases, lower ranking county employees who were skeptical or even inwardly disapproving of the action they were being ordered to take by Hernandez and his adherents did as they were ordered to without any show of objection, generally out of a basic survival precaution, as it generally became recognized that disobeying or even quibbling with instructions originating with Hernandez was considered grounds for termination. Though those orders were in the vast majority of cases carried out, this engendered layers of resentment among staff throughout the county. Continue reading →

Will San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Dawn Rowe, whose district includes the East Mojave Desert, allow a wealthy Orange County community to take the desert region’s water for nothing in return?
That is the resounding question being asked by a growing chorus of her constituents.
Since the late 1980s, what was then known as the Cadiz Land Company, has had designs on securing water rights out in a remote locale in the east Mojave Desert to then sell that water for use elsewhere. After obtaining more than 3,000 acres of land near Cadiz, the company began growing organic vegetables and fruits, including beans, melons and tomatoes on a portion of that land. Throughout its existence, the Cadiz farming operation failed to operate at a profit. But in the meantime, it was able to make an assertion, based upon the irrigation of the crops at the Cadiz farm, to water rights from the Cadiz/Fenner aquifer.
The Cadiz Land Company seemed to hit pay dirt with its plan when in 1997 the Metropolitan Water District bought into the company’s proposal to convey up to 1.5 million acre-feet of what was referenced as “surplus” Colorado River water to Cadiz and “store” that water by pumping it into the water table there. In “dry years” the Cadiz Land Company proposed allowing the Metropolitan Water District to extract water from the aquifer and conduct it through a 35-mile pipeline that was to be constructed between Cadiz and the Metropolitan Water District’s existing Colorado River aqueduct. Continue reading →

In an action intended to have a statewide impact, California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday morning filed suit against the Chino Valley Unified School District to stop enforcement of the policy the school board passed in July mandating parent notification of children attending the district who identify in school as transgender.
Bonta asserted that the need to prevent “mental harm, emotional harm and physical harm” to those students who are products of families who are not accepting of their choice to deviate from their birth or biological gender trumps the right of all parents to be informed of their children’s sexual identity choice. “This policy is destructive,” he said. “It’s discriminatory and it’s downright dangerous. It has no place in California, which is why we have moved in court to strike it down.”
Legal experts who examined the request for an injunction against the policy, however, said the filing was reliant in its central premise on a questionable legal theory that will likely be subjected to polemics for controversion by the district and any other entities with standing who come forward to challenge the suit or uphold Chino Valley Unified’s policy or similar ones that are being enacted by school districts elsewhere. Those attorneys said Bonta’s filing includes further arguments that fall outside the realm of established case law and which, by variant interpretation, lend themselves to support of the argument for parental disclosure. Continue reading →