The 2022 election cycle has seen the further progression of Jeff Burum toward what he sees as his rightful position as the preeminent political patron in San Bernardino County. Easily recognizable were a dozen political campaigns that he had a prominent, indeed what in several was by some measures the most prominent, role in advancing. Of note is that in all but one of those, the measure or candidate he backed won.
Burum and Dan Richards were two of and the most dynamic of the four managing principals in the original 21 investors in the Colonies Partners, which developed 440 acres of what had formerly been water recharge and flood control property owned by the San Antonio Water Company in northeast Upland. In undertaking that project, Burum and Richards boldly asserted themselves and the entity they headed as the most prolific political donors in San Bernardino County in the early 2000s, donating in excess of $1 million to a variety of political candidates and political causes in a four-year time span. Continue reading →

The large-scale revolt of Big Bear Lake’s residents against its political establishment that was anticipated to occur with this week’s election did not materialize, the tallying of the votes cast at the mountain city’s polls has revealed.
Based upon a number of indicators over the last two years, a cultural war in the rustic paradise hidden away in the northeast corner of the San Bernardino Mountains seemed to be playing out, one between those who live in what is the county’s second smallest municipality population-wise and third smallest city geographically and the entrepreneurs who run the community’s booming tourist industry.
A skiing mecca in the winter and early spring, a co-claimant with Lake Arrowhead as the boating capital of San Bernardino County from spring until mid-fall, a major swimming venue in the summer, a place where hiking, camping and fishing are ongoing year round and the spot for upland game bird and California mule deer hunting in season, Big Bear has as many or more outsiders breathing its rarefied,1.277-mile-high oxygen-thin atmosphere on a daily basis than natives who call it home. Continue reading →

The latest effort by the pro-development Redlands City Council to counteract or otherwise neutralize the efforts of a well-organized and energetic group of city residents intent on controlling the intensity of growth in the 36.13-square mile city was untracked with the city’s voters’ rejection on Tuesday of Measure F.
Measure F was originally drafted by former Redlands Mayor Bill Cunningham and his associates as a strict limitation on the height of buildings to be permitted in Redlands.
The initiative was intended to counter the city’s commitment in recent years to the so-called Transit Villages Concept.
The transit villages plan calls for high density residential uses in multi-story structures to be built within walking distance of train stations located near Redlands University, Downtown Redlands and in the New York Avenue, Alabama Street and California Street districts. Those projects involve constructing tenements that will entail as many as 100 units per acre. The transit villages concept taps into a trend in urban planning in recent years which emphasizes the need to facilitate heavier use of public transportation, including commuter rail systems. Thus, city officials indicated they were ready to embrace having clusters of high-rise apartment buildings in what was envisioned as five densely packed neighborhoods throughout the city where previously commercial development or far lower density housing existed. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Voters’ rejection of Measure L, which would have imposed a one cent sales tax override on commercial transactions in Upland, has revived serious discussion of the dissolution of the Upland Police Department in favor of the City of Gracious Living contracting with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department for the provision of law enforcement services.
Measure L would have generated approximately $16 million a year if it would have passed, according to Upland Mayor Bill Velto and Upland City Manager Michael Blay. Had voters approved it, 41.5 percent of the money – $6.64 million – would have been used for public works projects, including fixing streets, alleys and sidewalks, filling potholes in San Bernardino County’s tenth largest of 24 municipalities population-wise and sixth smallest geographically.  Another 37.5 percent, or $6 million, was to be used for public safety, which was to cover hiring more police officers, stricter gang and drug law enforcement, enhanced 9-1-1 response and eradicating or reducing vandalism. The remaining 21 percent was to be used for what were deemed “citywide services,” youth and senior citizen programs, park maintenance and improvements and dealing with the homeless among programs. Continue reading →

Five months after Luis Cetina bested four rival candidates in the preliminary polling to determine who will succeed Janice Rutherford as San Bernardino County’s Second District supervisor, former Fontana City Councilman Jesse Armendarez overcame the 2.5 percent lead of his rival to prevail in the balloting that counted this week.
Cetina, a member of the Cucamonga Valley Water District’s board of directors, had the advantage of Rutherford’s endorsement going into the June 7 Primary, in which he, Armendarez, Dejonae Shaw, Nadia Renner and Eric Coker were competing. In that contest, Cetina captured 16,532 votes for 33.01 percent of the total 50,082 cast, more than 1,400 over Armendarez’s 15,280 or 30.51 percent, Shaw’s showing of 10,616 votes or 21.2 percent, Coker’s 3,440 or 8.05 percent and Renner’s 3,624 votes or 7.24 percent.
Because no single candidate captured a majority of the primary vote, a run-off was held between the two top finishers. Continue reading →

A decade after being toppled from the political pedestal he occupied for a quarter of a century, Joe Baca Sr is back, not too far from where he started more than four decades ago.
On Tuesday, the old lion was elected to the Rialto City Council in a five-person contest, replacing incumbent Karla Perez.
Adversity, perseverance and triumph has been the pattern throughout Baca’s storied political career, one in which he has soared to significant heights and dived to crushing depths.
In 1979, he cut his political teeth when he was elected to the San Bernardino Valley College District Board of Trustees, the first Latino to hold that post.
A Democrat, Baca nonetheless remained boxed in by his quintessential rival, Jerry Eaves, a unionist Democrat. Baca’s political ambition led him to challenge Eaves, who served as a Rialto city councilman from 1977 until 1980, Rialto mayor from 1980 to 1984 and as a member of the California Assembly from the 66th District from 1984 to 1992. Eaves turned back each of Baca’s challenges. In the 1988 Democratic Primary, Eaves captured 15,944 votes or roughly 54.87 percent to Baca’s 13,112 or 45.13 percent. In the 1990 Democratic Primary, Eaves with 13,336 votes or 56.45 percent outdistanced Baca, who polled 10,287 votes or 43.55 percent.
In 1992, Eaves elected to leave the Assembly and make a run, one that was ultimately successful, for Fifth District San Bernardino County supervisor. In doing so, Eaves designated his protégé, then-Rialto Mayor John Longville to succeed him in the Golden State’s lower legislative house. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
In a long-delayed visitation of political retribution, Grand Terrace Mayor Darcy McNaboe was voted out of office on Tuesday.
McNaboe was returned to regular civilian status as a result of what was a relatively narrow loss. In her head-to-head contest against Councilman Bill Hussey, she polled 1,052 or 48.66 percent of the 2,195 votes that had been tallied as of 4 p.m. today, November 11, while Hussey had claimed 1,127 or 51.34 percent.
History will record that McNaboe, who was first elected to the city council in November 2010 to fill a two-year vacancy and then reelected to the council in 2012 before she was elected mayor in 2014 and reelected mayor in 2018, was bounced from office by the voters on November 8, 2022. In actuality, however, the politically fateful day for McNaboe was July 12, 2017, on which she, as the Grand Terrace representative to the San Bernardino Association of Governments, the joint powers authority that serves as San Bernardino County’s transportation agency, voted with the majority of her colleagues on that panel in support of the I-10 Toll Lane Project. Continue reading →

Montclair’s reputation as one of the most politically stable cities in San Bernardino County over the last three decades remained intact with the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
While in the 1980s politics in Montclair had grown somewhat indecorous, with the differences between councilmen George Klotz and Walter Hackett on occasion declining to fisticuffs, and then-Mayor Larry Rhinehart engaging in some questionable interactions with some working girls on Holt Avenue just east of the Montclair City Limits in the midst of the following decade, Rhinehart’s successor, Paul Eaton, established a regime that lasted more than 23 years.
During Eaton’s tenure he was elected mayor and reelected four times. Throughout that time, councilmen Leonard Paulitz and John Dutrey and Councilwomen Elouise “Dolly” Lewman and Carolyn Raft and then Councilman Bill Ruh and Councilwoman Trish Martinez served with Eaton. The only changes during that time came when Lewman did not run in 1998, clearing the way for Ruh to take her place and Paulitz did not run in 2014, at which point Martinez filled that void. Continue reading →

It took a dozen years, but Kelly Chastain, who was ignominiously consigned to political limbo in 2010, has managed at last a political comeback.
Remarkably, Chastain achieved that feat as the seven-member city council on which she served from 1996 to 2010 made a contraction to just five members.
In 1996, Chastain defeated embattled Third District Councilman Abe Beltran in the same election in which Mayor George Fulp was recalled from office after he served just two years.
Chastain immediately formed a firm and fast alliance with District 5 Councilwoman Deirdre Bennett, one which lasted a decade during which time Bennett made the transition to Colton Mayor. That amiable relationship came to an abrupt end in 2006, however, when in that November’s election, Chastain eked out nine-vote victory over Bennett in the mayoral contest, 3,235 votes or 49.93 percent to 3,226 votes or 49.79 percent, wherein the margin of victory was a by-product of the 18 votes that were cast during the contest for write-in candidates. Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
Thurston Smith, whose unlikely rise to the California Assembly in 2020 stunned many political pundits, was solidly drummed out of office this week in his contest against a savvier and more experienced political operator in the form of Tom Lackey.
Smith, an uncomplicated concrete contractor, came into political office in 2006 when he successfully vied for the Hesperia City Council with the support of Bill Postmus, who at that point was San Bernardino County’s First District supervisor and chairman of both the board of supervisors and the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee as well as a successful candidate for county assessor in that year’s election.
Smith served on the Hesperia City Council from 2006 to 2014, including a stint as mayor. He opted not to seek reelection in 2014, but in 2016, he ran for and was elected without opposition to the board of the Mojave Water Agency. Continue reading →