This one just in: The Sentinel has learned that First District Supervisor Paul Cook, who this year turned 82, is purposed to resign from the board of supervisors to make way for former Assemblyman and Hesperia Mayor Thurston “Smitty” Smith to succeed him.
Considerable preparation, including backroom maneuvering on the fifth and fourth floors of the county administrative building in San Bernardino and among the members of the committees and subcommittees of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee to make this transition take place.
Cook, who was formerly the mayor of Yucca Valley, a California Assemblyman and member of Congress for almost eight years, left the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 to run for First District San Bernardino County Supervisor. He did so, despite the far greater prestige of being a member of the federal legislative branch and that he was not, in actuality a resident of San Bernardino County’s First District. Given his name recognition, the advantage of his sizable campaign war chest, his support network and his standing among the Republican Party, which dominates politics across the majority of San Bernardino County, Cook cruised to an easy victory in 2020, capturing the supervisor’s seat with 64.66 percent of the vote in the March primary voting, obviating the need for him to run in the November general election. In 2024, he was handily reelected, despite occasionally being dogged by controversy pertaining to his actual place of residence being outside the First District, he handily won reelection during the primary voting when he polled 63.86 percent, again avoiding a November run-off.
Smith’s succession to supervisor is being orchestrated by a cabal of powerful and well-placed members of the local Republican Party, extending foremost to Phil Cothran Sr. the chairman of the Republican Central Committee since 2021. Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor Jesse Armendarez, Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe have bought into the plan, which calls for Cook stepping down later this year, whereupon the board will choose to make an interim appointment that is to last until December 2026 after that year’s general election in November. The November ballot is to feature a special election to fill the First District position for what will then be the remaining two years on the term that Cook was elected to last year, from December November 2026 to December 2028. The only current supervisor who has not agreed to Smith’s appointment to the board upon Cook’s departure is Supervisor Joe Baca Jr, the only Democrat on the board of supervisors.
It is the calculation of those working toward Cook’s “graceful” withdrawal and Smith’s elevation to take his place that the effort will confer upon Smith an insurmountable advantage as an incumbent in the 2026 specially-schedued and 2028 and perhaps the 2032 First District supervisors races.
In 50 regular elections for supervisor in San Bernardino County over the last 40 years, five challengers succeeded in ousting their incumbent opponents – Jon Mikels replacing Cal McElwain in the Second District in 1986; Paul Biane beating Mikels in 2002; Neil Derry defeating Dennis Hansberger in 2008; Janice Rutherford supplanting Biane in 2010; and James Ramos dislodging Derry in 2012. In all other cases where the incumbents sought reelection, they prevailed.
Smith, a concrete pump operator by trade, was elected to the Hesperia City Council in 2006. He was appointed to serve two terms as mayor by his council colleagues before leaving the council in 2014.
In 2016, he successfully ran for a position on the board of directors for the Mojave Water Agency.
In 2019, then-First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood began a chain reaction when that August he indicated he would not seek reelection to a third term, whereupon Cook announced he was opting against seeking reelection to Congress and would move back down the political evolutionary chain and run to fill Lovingood’s spot. In turn, Jay Obernolte, who was then representing the 33rd District Assembly covering a swath of the San Bernardino Mountains and San Bernardino County’s desert in California’s lower legislative house, declared his candidacy to succeed Cook as the Congressman in California’s 8th Congressional District. Thereupon, Smith jumped into the 2020 33rd Assembly District race. That year, California was holding a nonpartisan blanket primary, and Smith finished first among a field of Republicans and Democrats, with Big Bear Mayor Rick Herrick, like Smith a Republican, finishing second. Smith then outdistanced Herrick, capturing 54.85 percent of the vote in doing so.
As a consequence of California’s political redistricting that took place in 2022 based upon the 2020 Census, Smith, who now resides in Apple Valley, was moved into the 34th Assembly District. This fated him to a contest against Tom Lackey, another Republican, Tom Lackey from Palmdale. The redistricted 34th District was populated by far more of Lackey’s constituents than Smith’s. Smith was defeated in his effort to remain in the Assembly.
Smith is an elected member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, one of seven members representing the First District. He is also the First District Chairman on the central committee’s executive committee.
Previously, Smith had suggested that he would seek election in the 34th District in 2026, when Lackey will not be eligible to run for the state legislature again because of term limits.
It appears, however, that he has been persuaded to forego returning to Sacramento based upon what is being offered to him in San Bernardino. For monetary considerations alone, it makes more sense for Smith to lay claim to the county supervisor’s position than seek to return to the state legislature. Assembly members receive $132,700 in annual salary and are eligible to receive between $48,000 and $57,000 in benefits. Thus, Smith might be able to count on as much as $189,700 in total annual compensation if he were to capture the 34th Assembly District seat. As county supervisor, he would receive $194,806.47 $37,133.02 in perquisites and pay add-ons, and $63,200.50 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $295,139.99.
As a member of the Assembly, Smith, given that he would be one of 80 members of the Assembly and 120 members of the combined California Legislature together with his disaffinity for the legislative and parliamentary processes at the statehouse, would prove at best a medium-size fish in a large sea. As the First District supervisor, Smith would oversee a jurisdiction of 10,063 square miles, a tad over half – roughly 50.05 percent – of the county’s 20,105 square mile land mass, more real estate than is contained within six individual U.S. states – Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware or Rhode Island. is would be one of five votes on the board of supervisors, representing one-third of a voting majority on that panel. For Smith, however, public policy and decision-making is of less value than the prestige of the post and the power/ability it would lend him in assisting his supporters and those with the means of installing him in the office. Beyond citation of right-on-the-political spectrum slogans celebrating his constitutional conservatism and standing as a small business owner who has assumed political office to fight wasteful government spending, Smith in office has proven a tabula rasa who has carried the water of the politically activated business interests who have bankrolled his campaigns. As an assemblyman, he did not author the legislation he sponsored but rather brought forth bills that had been written for him, the most celebrated of which was Assembly Bill 1725, which he and his supporters said was intended to combat illegal marijuana cultivating operations that were proliferating throughout the rural High Desert communities. AB 1725 altered Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act to increase penalties from a misdemeanor to a felony for illegal marijuana growers possessing six or more live cannabis plants.
The move to replace Cook comes as concern over his age and the more frequent manifestation of what some delicately refer to as his “verbal eccentricities” in recent years.
A not very well-kept secret known by dozens or scores of county insiders is that Cook is not an actual resident of the First District. In 2011, a large portion of the First District, including Barstow, Twentynine Palms and Yucca Valley was moved into the county’s Third District. Cook, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marines who was last stationed at the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base, had purchased what is considered to be one of the nicest homes in the Town of Yucca Valley. Very shortly after his retirement from the military, he initiated his political career when he ran for the Yucca Valley Town Council. One of his political proteges was Dawn Rowe, the widow of a Marine Corps captain who was stationed at the Twentynine Palms base who was killed while on duty in Iraq in 2004. When Cook was Yucca Valley mayor, he encouraged Dawn Rowe to run for the Yucca Valley Town Council, which she did, successfully, launching her political career. Later, when Cook was in Congress, Rowe went to work for him as a member of his legislative staff. She resigned from her federal job in December 2018 to accept an appointment as Third District supervisor, replacing James Ramos, who vacated the supervisorial post after he was elected to the California Assembly in November 2018.
In 2019, the 76-year-old Cook, worn out by the demands of representing California’s 8th Congressional District and the 24-to-28 cross continent flights he was making on a yearly basis, chose to leave the House of Representatives the following year based upon the opportunity he saw to move into a county supervisorial role. Rowe, however, occupied the Third District post at that time and was intent on running for a full term in 2020. It was Lovingood’s decision to exit as First District supervisor that cemented Cook’s decision. One of Cook’s congressional staffers was Tim Itnyre, the son of Bob Itnyre, with whom Cook had served in the Marines. Cook promoted Tim Itnyre to the position of his congressional chief of staff during the last several months of his time in the House of Representatives. Tim Itnyre agreed to allow Cook to “officially” become a roommate at his home in Apple Valley, which lies within San Bernardino County’s First District, so that he could claim residence there and run for First District supervisor.
Upon Cook being elected supervisor, he appointed Tim Itnyre as his chief of staff.
Dakota Higgins is Cook’s assistant chief of staff. Higgins is a member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, representing Republicans living in the county’s First Supervisorial District on that panel. Higgins has been installed by Cothran as the financial chairman on the central committees executive committee. Like Cook, Higgins does not live in the First District.
Part of the resignation deal closed with Cook to set Smith up for an easy election as an incumbent was that upon advancing into the supervisor’s post, he will retain Itnyre and Higgins in their chief of staff and assistant chief of staff positions. There are numerous other buy-ins and conditions to Cook’s resignation and Smith’s assumption of his post, many of which revolve around Smith’s acceptance of a litany of items on Rowe’s, Hagman’s and Armendarez’s wish lists.
One party to the arrangement is District Attorney Jason Anderson, who like most of San Bernardino County’s officeholders, is a Republican. Anderson previously committed the district attorney’s office, the purse strings for which are controlled by the board of supervisors, to not pursue criminal charges against Cook or Higgins over their misrepresentation of their residency in their candidacy filings for supervisor or the county Republican Central Committee as long as Cook remains in office. Sources tell the Sentinel that while Anderson has put nothing in writing and made no “agreement per se,” an “understanding” exists that he will not file charges against Cook or Higgins on the residency issue after Cook leaves office.
The statute of limitations on such crimes is three years.
