The darkness drops again; but now I know

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

Slouches toward Bethleham to be born?

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME
CASE NUMBER CIVSB 2329923
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner KASSIDY NICOLE WILLIAMS filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
KASSIDY NICOLE WILLIAMS to KASSIDY NICOLE BROWN-WILLIAMS
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: 2/1/2024
Time: 08:30 AM
Department: S23
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: December 21, 2023
Sylvia Guajardo, Deputy Clerk of the Court
Gilbert Ochoa, Judge of the Superior Court
ALICIA BROWN, on behalf of her minor child
12505 MELODY DRIVE
RANCHO Cucamonga, CA 91739
Telephone No: (909) 646-0309
alicianicole309@gmail.com
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on December 22 & 29, 2023 and January 5 & 12, 2024.

FBN 20230012304 ABANDONMENT OF A FICTICIOUS BUSINES NAME
The following person was doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as: GAMESTOP 4994 3935 GRAND AVENUE, SUITE C1 CHINO, CA 91710: GAMESTOP, INC 625 WESTPORT PARKWAY GRAPEVINE, TX 76051
Mailing Address: 625 WESTPORT PARKWAY GRAPEVINE, TX 76051
The business was conducted by: A CORPORATION registered with the STATE OF MINNESOTA under the number 1969245.
The date of the current filing for this business was 11/16/2020. The original file number was FBN20200010532.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: AUGUST 7, 2003
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/ MARK ROBINSON, Secretary
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: DECEMBER 14, 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 J3256
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 December 22 & 29, 2023 and January 5 & 12, 2024.

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By Mark Gutglueck
The early political jockeying in this year’s race for San Bernardino County Third District supervisor centers around the county department and the degree to which the voters who will ultimately decide the contest can be convinced that fire service is a crucial issue to them and that the firefighters employed by the county should be entrusted to have the last word on the matter.
Dawn Rowe has been Third District supervisor since she was appointed in December 2018 to replace James Ramos in that post after Ramos was elected to the California Assembly the previous month.
Ramos, a Democrat, had asked his board colleagues to elevate his assistant chief of staff, Chris Carrillo to supervisor to replace him during the last two years of his yet outstanding term as supervisor. Only one of Ramos’s four colleagues on the board of supervisors at that time was a Democrat. Because Carrillo was a Democrat as well, the board opted to appoint another Republican – Rowe – as his replacement.
San Bernardino County from the mid-1960s until the present has been under the political control of the GOP. For more four decades that was because Republicans simply outnumbered Democrats within the confines of the 20,105 square mile county jurisdiction. In 2009, the number of Democrats eclipsed the number Republicans throughout the county. Nevertheless, that did not end the Republican vice-grip on the levers of governmental power in San Bernardino County, as the county Republican Central Committee was far better coordinated, financed, committed, experienced and sophisticated in its approach to electioneering that was its Democrat counterpart. Additionally, already holding the upper hand in terms of controlling the county and having a Republican majority on 17 of the county’s 24 city and town councils, those Republican politicians were able to dole out patronage in the form of contracts, franchises and project approvals to entities – corporations, companies and individuals – who were either Republicans or sympathetic to Republicans and Republican causes and bar the door to entities who were aligned with the Democrats. As a consequence, Republican donors in San Bernardino County were better situated to be generous than were Democrat donors. Since money is, as one Democrat office holder from California’s not-to-distant past, Jess Unruh, put it, money is the mother’s milk of politics. The Reupblicans have used the wellspring of money they possess to underwrite their political campaigns, using the money to do polling to test voter sentiment, and find out where the Republicans are weak or strong and where the Democrats are weak or strong and what approaches to the issues the voters are likely respond negatively or positively to. They further use that money to purchase television and radio spots, billboard space, newspaper ads, to design, print and mail or distribute flyers, mailers and other written materials, as well as to purchase and make available to their candidates and their supporters yard and window signs. The Republicans have further demonstrated themselves to be ahead of the game in terms of not just recognizing which voters are more likely to show up to vote – those known as high-propensity voters – but designing approaches to persuade high propensity Republicans and unaligned voters to vote for Republicans while confusing Democrat voters as to who is the Republican and who is the Democrat, thereby making it possible for Republicans to capture a portion of the Democrats’ votes.
After Rowe’s appointment to the board, many anticipated, and Carrillo confirmed, that he would oppose her in the 2020 election cycle.
With Democrat support began coalescing around Carrillo in preparation for 2020, Rowe, who had been employed within Republican Congressman Paul Cook’s office as one of his field representatives at the time she was appointed to the board, resigned from Cook’s office upon becoming supervisor. She also hired three of her colleagues within Cook’s office as members of her own staff. Those were Matt Knox, upon whom she conferred the position of chief of staff, Dillon Lesovsky, who she hired as her policy advisor and Claire Cozad, whom Rowe employed as a field representative.
In addition to their role as governmental employees within Cook’s office, Knox and Lesovsky had played a crucial role in Cook’s election efforts as well as those of other Republican candidates. Indeed, Knox and Lesovsky had established themselves as ruthless political operatives, what many referred to as “dirty tricksters.” The most infamous example of their work was the below-the-belt electioneering effort on behalf of Cook against their fellow Republican Tim Donnelly when Donnelly had used California’s open primary system to qualify his candidacy in the 8th Congressional District to run against Cook in 2018. The campaign against Donnelly, following a blueprint designed by Knox and Lesovsky, was an extremely negative one which culminated in a series of accusations against Donnelly. The campaign against Donnelly, which ultimately proved successful with Cook’s reelection, alleged everything from breaking the law to defrauding the elderly to abandoning his family. It was encapsulated in a website created by Knox and Lesovsky, dubbed “Dirty Donnelly.”
With Knox and Lesovsky having obtained sinecures in Rowe’s office from which they would be able to orchestrate electioneering efforts on behalf of any number of candidates in the then-upcoming 2020 campaign season, the manner in which Cook had disposed of the Republican Donnelly in 2018 harbinged what Rowe was contemplating against the Democrat Carrillo.
Carrillo, an attorney with the law firm of Gresham Savage Nolan & Tilden, moonlighted as an assistant to his mother, who also an attorney. When she grew ill in 2019, which would culminate in her death in 2020, Carrillo became distracted with things other than politics. In July 2019, having lost his stomach for the rough-and-tumble of having to put up with the sort of things that Knox and Lesovsky were going to be throwing at him, he declared he was dropping out of the race and would not be a candidate for supervisor in 2020.
There had been plenty of suggestions that plenty of financial support was going to come Carrillo’s way in his run for supervisor. For one thing, he had the backing of Ramos, who is independently wealthy as a member of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which runs the fabulously successfully Yaamava’ Resort & Casino in Highland. It was anticipated that in addition to the money that Ramos would provide him, he would be able to count on dozens or even scores of other San Manuel Tribe members poneying up as much a the maximum $4,100 that individuals are permitted to donate to county political candidates.
Carrillo’s exit from the race left Rowe in the catbird seat. No one other than Casrrillo had any prospect of raising enough money to engage in a contest against her. As it turned out, four challengers emerged to run against Rowe – Kaiser Ahmed, Latron Lester, Karen Ickes and Eddie Tejeda – none of whom were able to raise sufficient capital to conduct a penetrating campaign. With her own electioneering funding and the support of the Republican Party, Rowe won the election handily with 54.96 percent of the vote to 45.05 percent for the other four candidates, with Tejeda, a member of the Redlands City Council being the top vote-getter among them with 18.5 percent. Because she had captured a majority of the votes in the March 2020 primary, she did not have to compete in a run-off in November 2020.
Having now been in office for five years, to remain as supervisor past next December, she must run this year, which she is doing.
Having skipped out on being a candidate four years ago, Carrillo is back with a vengeance.
He is coming right at Rowe and he has piked up crucial support along the way while cutting Rowe off from the same.
One of the crucial elements of Republican success in San Bernardino County over the last two to three decades is that when it comes to public employee unions – which are normally supportive of Democrats – Republican officeholders in San Bernardino County have dispensed with the principle of supporting small government, conceding to the unions on both pay and benefit demands.
As an attorney, in 2016 Carrillo represented former San Bernardino County Deputy Fire Chief George Corley in an action against the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District in which it was alleged Corley was terminated because of age discrimination. After trial, the jury rendered a verdict in which it found that Corley’s age was a substantial motivating reason for the district’s termination of his employment and awarded damages for lost earnings. When the county appealed the case, Carrillo continued to represent Corley before the state appellate court, prevailing when that panel returned a published decision upholding the trial court in Corley v. San Bernardino County Fire Protection. Corley was a member of the San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters, International Association of Firefighters Local 395, which represents over 600 firemen and firewomen with San Bernardino County, Big Bear City, Big Bear Lake, Colton, Loma Linda, and Montclair fire departments. As a consequence, Carrillo is on excellent terms with International Association of Firefighters 395, which along with virtually every one of the county’s firefighters has endorsed Carrillo in the 2024 election against Rowe.
As chance would have it, the county’s four-decade-long ambulance service franchise contract with American Medical Response came up for re-examination last year, prior to which the county in December 2022 put out 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/Department 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. An analysis of the competing proposals by an “independent review panel” declared that the competition between AMR and CONFIRE had ended in a dead heat, with AMR scoring, against a standard with 1,720 points maximum, 1,519 total points against 1,515 points for CONFIRE, a difference of less than .0027 percent. Thus, the board of supervisors felt itself at liberty to award the contract to either of the competitors. Based on a multitude of factors, including the consideration that the county could obtain federal and state funding to augment a publicly-run ambulance service as well as the consideration that International Association of Firefighters Local 395 was in favor of CONFIRE getting the franchise, the board of supervisors ultimately decided on giving CONFIRE the franchise. Prior to doing so, it was Rowe, who is now serving as the chairwoman of the board, who laid out the rationale for going with CONFIRE rather than AMR, given that the federal and state funding would become available as a consequence. The motion for doing so was approved unanimously.
In this way, Rowe came across as trying to placate the county’s firefighters and their union, a ploy by which she might have been trying to persuade them from campaigning too heavily in favor of her opponent.
There was a trade-off in her doing that, however. Historically, there are, essentially, three major groups who get heavily involved in donating to political campaigns in San Bernardino County. One of those is public employee unions. Another is the development community, consisting primarily of the building industry and landowners or reals estate interests. The third are companies which sell or provide goods or services to the county’s governmental entities. All three have a heavy finanical stke in influencing the decision of governmental leaders. In going along with giving the ambulance franchise to CONFIRE, Rowe may have held out an olive branch to the International Association of Firefighters Local 395. Still, the decision was one that was unfavorable to AMR, a private company with interests before the county which has made it into one of the most generous of political donors to members of the board of supervisors since the 1980s.
At this point, for Rowe how much money from AMR, its corporate officers and its employees she is missing out on may be an irrelevancy, as she has accumulated and is continuing to accumulate sufficient money to run her campaign for the March primary election and, if it proves necessary, the November election.
As of June 30, 2023, she had $291,678.16 in her electioneering fund. Since that time, she has collected another $66,000 in contributions, such that she at present has over $350,000 to utilize in this election cycle, with more money pouring in virtually every day.
As significant as the amount of money is where much of it is coming from.
Some $9,800 of it came from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which is an indication that Ramos and his tribe could be amenable to Rowe remaining in office. It is worth noting that those donations were made in January 2023, before Carrillo had given a full indication that he was committed to running. There is enough wealth within the tribe as an entity and among its members for it to pivot and get behind the Carrillo candidacy and effectively promote it. Whether it will do so, however, remains to be seen, as a perception may be growing that Rowe’s continuation in office is inevitable.
Equally if not more notable is the attitude of the county’s public unions. While the firefighters’ union has come down decisively on Carrillo’s side as has the Redlands Firefighters Association, other public employee unions have not.
Recently, on December 21, the Service Employees International Union provided Rowe with $5,500, the current limit that a member of the board of supervisors or candidate for the board can receive from a single donor. On November 21, the San Bernardino County Public Attorneys Association, which reprsents the county’s deputy district attorney, its deputy public defenders and the lawyers who work in the county child support division, donated $5,251 to Rowe.
A union that represents workers in the public sector, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 477, appears to be playing both sides of the street, having provided both Carrillo and Rowe with the maximum of $5,500.
Money is flowing in to Carrillo, but not in the quantity that Rowe is getting. Since Carrillo was not an officially declared candidate before June 30, 2023, he did not file a report of the contributions he had received up until that point, as did Rowe with her disclosure of the $291,678.16 that was in her coffers at that time.
Incumbency is generally considered an advantage, which would give Rowe a seeming edge going into the contest. There are other important factors to be considered. At present, registration in the Third District favors Republicans and therefore Rowe. Of the 241,252 registered voters in the Third District, 88,543 or 36.7 percent are affiliated with the Republican Party and 81,785 or 33.9 percent identify as Democrats. Still, a significant contingent, 47,370 or 19.6 percent have no party affiliation, while 9.8 percent are registered with the Peace & Freedom, Libertarian, Green and American Independent or more obscure parties. Party affiliation is nevertheless an important element in San Bernardino politics and with Republican turnout generally exceeding that of the Democrats in San Bernardino County, it would appear that Rowe has a leg up over Carrillo in that regard. The numerical difference between Republicans and Democrats in the Third District is not overwhelming, however, and is far exceeded by the number of unaligned voters together with the non-mainstream party members. In addition, Rowe’s affiliation with Knox and Lesovsky is still remembered by some, most particularly those Republicans who supported Donnelly, which may redound to Rowe’s detriment.

A crucial factor is that in the March primary, two others, Graham M. Smith and Robert W. Block are competing alongside Rowe and Carrillo. In the 2020 race, Rowe’s four opponents managed to poll an average of 11.2625 percent of the vote. Assuming Smith and Block can do as well as that and that Carrillo will be able to poll 30 percent or more in March, the circumstance would seem to portend a November run-off between Carrillo and Rowe. Carrillo, who has some degree of name recognition based upon his longtime incumbency as a member of the East Valley Water District Governing Board, is likely to have enough funding to be able to campaign sufficiently to appeal to all of the Democrats in the Third District who will turn out to vote. If he succeeds in getting simply one fourth of the remaining non-Democrat votes, that would position him for a head-to-head battle against Rowe in November, at which point the Democrats, intent on breaking the Republican stranglehold on public offices in the county, might vector some real support Carrillo’s way. For that reason, Rowe, who enjoys the advantage of having more than $350,000 at present to campaign with, might seek to replicate what she achieved in the March 2020 Primary, and hut Carrillo out of the equation by gaining more 50 percent of the vote two months from now by a heavy electioneering blitz between now and then.

By Mark Gutglueck
It is with no little degree of personal sadness that I am now tasked with reporting to the Sentinel’s readership that boxer Tony Valenti, who was based in Southern California for two years and fought 15 of his 34 professional fights here, has died.
For even those in my generation, Tony was a relatively obscure athlete and part of Americana. His heyday was confined to the 1960s. Those who followed the sweet science closely in those days most likely knew of him. The rest of us who were only fair-weather boxing fans who focused on the big names in the heavyweight division for the most part did not take special notice of him. He was a middleweight. Indeed, he was a pretty good one, gauging by his record. He was twice the USA Middleweight New England title holder.

I met Tony when my brother and sister-in-law welcomed him into their home during the 2015 Christmas Holiday. I spent hours in conversation with him on the night before Christmas and then much of Christmas morning talking with him. Our conversation would have continued, but I spent virtually all of Christmas afternoon 2015 in an airplane with three of my friends flying low over a huge selected swathe of the Eastern Mojave Desert, making pass after pass, trying to see if we could spot the Lost Dutch Oven Mine. That will have to be a story I relate more fully some other time.
Tony was born on April 13, 1940.
His debut as a professional fighter came on October 3, 1961, against John Kilmer in New Bedford. He won on a knockout in the third round.
After that first bout, Valenti moved to California, settling in Alhambra, where to hold body and soul together, he opened a pizzeria, dividing his time between baking Italian pies and training.
He won his first fifteen pro fights. His sixteenth fight was against Teddy Shores at the Moulin Rouge in Hollywood. They fought to a draw.
In his next fight, against Willie Turner, he registered a technical knockout.
Against the advice of some, who said he should have gotten a bit more seasoning before moving up to the next level, Valenti pushed himself to reach the ranks of the top tier fighters in his class. In his eighteenth fight, on September 12, 1963, he took on one of the three or four top contending middleweights in the world, the brutishly powerful Argentine, Juan Carlos Rivero, at the Olympic Auditorium. Tony suffered his first defeat at the fists of Rivero, a technical knockout that came 52 seconds into the fourth round. In the first three rounds, Rivero was relentless in throwing body shots, flurries of as many as six at a time. Less than a minute into the next round, Rivero, following another multitude of body shots, landed a left hook to Tony’s chin, leaving the American out but yet on his feet, prompting referee Tommy Hart to stop the fight.
At the end of 1963, Valenti returned to Massachusetts, fighting out of Boston. He won his next seven fights, including a technical knockout of Jimmy Beecham, the one-time USA Middleweight Pennsylvania title holder, at the Arena in Boston on October 5, 1964.
In his 26th fight, on December 14, 1964, Valenti lost for the second time as a professional, a split decision at the Boston Garden to Isaac Logart, the former Cuban middleweight champion.
Tony’s seven years as a professional boxer had the quality of two bifurcations. In one of those divides, he did the fighting at the beginning of his career out of Southern California and the fighting toward the end of his career out of Massachusetts. There was also a hiatus in the middle of his career that went into effect after his ninth fight after he was based on the East Coast. He abruptly stopped fighting after his victory over Clyde Taylor, a technical knockout, at the Boston Garden on March 27, 1965. He was idle the rest of that year, all of 1966 and nearly three-quarters of 1967.
On September 29, 1967, Tony returned to the ring after a 30-month layoff, in this case at Shea Stadium in a four-round exhibition bout, going up against the Argentine fighter, Juan “Butcher Boy” Botta. He floored Botta in the second round for a mandatory eight count and won a unanimous decision.
His career was remarkable from at least one standpoint, that being that it reached its zenith very near the end. When he resumed fighting in 1967, he seemed more determined than he had been previously to achieve a title shot. During his final year in the ring, he fought for the USA Middleweight New England title four times, winning it twice.
His first title fight occurred on December 11, 1967, an eight-round affair against Willie Munoz at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He lost on points.
Seven months later, on July 11, 1968, after Munoz had vacated the title, Valenti met Bob Whitehead at the Exposition Building in Portland, Maine to slug it out for the New England title. In a pitched, hard-fought 10-round contest, the fight appeared even or that Whitehead was slightly ahead on points until Valenti knocked him down in the 10th round, and Tony prevailed in a split decision to capture the crown.
Two months later, on September 11, 1968, at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas, he got into the ring for ten rounds against challenger Ferd Hernandez, the former co-holder of the World Boxing Association Middleweight title, with the USA Middleweight New England title on the line.
For Hernandez, this would be his last professional fight, the cap to a career in which he had fought four world champions, those being Luis Manuel Rodriguez, Sugar Ray Robinson, Nino Benvenuti and Denny Moyer, going the distance with all and winning a split decision against Robinson. Hernandez won the fight and the New England crown in a unanimous decision.
The championship was vacated with Hernandez’s retirement. On Halloween night 1968, in a 12-round bout against Jimmy Ramos at the Roseland Ballroom in Taunton, Massachusetts, Valenti successfully fought to regain the title, doing so in a split decision.
Just fifteen days later, after Valenti had flown to Los Angeles, he fought Rocky Hernandez at the Olympic Auditorium. The winner was to get a match-up with the leading middleweight contender, Andy Heilman, which had the potential for setting up a world middleweight title fight. Valenti lost in a technical knockout one minute and 52 seconds into the fourth round when referee Lary Rozadilla stopped the bout after Tony was knocked down for the fourth time. At that point, Valenti called it a career.
In 34 fights, he won 28 lost 5 and had one draw. At 5 foot 8 inches tall, the lowest weight recorded at a weigh in for him was 151 pounds prior to his bout against Tiger Williams at the Las Vegas Convention Center on December 8, 1962. His heaviest showing was for the fight he had against Sonny Moore at Sargeant Field in New Bedford, Massachusetts on July 14, 1964, when he weighed in at 164 pounds.
He was 28 years old when he hung up his gloves. There is something to be said for that, and I am about to say it.
Those I come into contact with have seen my cauliflower ears and know that I spent some time in the ring myself. I was never at Tony’s level. I shudder at imagining what someone like Ferd Hernandez or Juan Rivero or Tony would have done to me if I had squared off against one of them at their peak or even their nadir. Still, as an athletic challenge, boxing can be addictive. It’s no fun, really, getting punched in the nose, but there is something enlivening about slipping punches, making your opponent miss, and not getting punched in the nose. The idea is to hit and not get hit, or get hit as little as possible. Still, it is a young man’s game. Inevitably, if you stay in the sport, you are going to get hit and, occasionally at least, hit hard. Every time you get hit, you lose a little. At first it is imperceptible, but over time, it is cumulative. There is a degree of ego involved. Even at my advanced age, I still imagine – imagine – that I can slip punches. I even fantasize that I might be right. I am not the smartest guy out here, but I’m still sharp enough to recognize that I do not want to get into the ring and find out that I can’t do what I imagine I can still do.
When I met Tony at my brother’s house, he was 75 years old. I would estimate that he was right at, or maybe even a little bit below, his fighting weight. He was trim. He moved with grace. He was more than a decade-and-a-half older than I was, and I was still running between five and six miles a day at that point five or six days a week, but I wouldn’t have wanted to mix it up with him. He was in better shape than most guys half his age. This was because he had discipline, an inner discipline that you can’t help but admire. As a professional, he had gone 166 three-minute rounds in the ring against opponents of lesser and greater skill and ability trying to knock his block off. He put in several thousand rounds in the gym training. He had risked, to be sure, his physical wellbeing every time he got into the ring. Still, he had the ability, the reflexes, to slip the punches headed his way, to dodge the damage others were intent on doing to him. He had given way better than he got. He remained intact. And when the time came that he was going to no longer profit by being a pugilist, he made a clean break of it and walked away. I did not come into his sphere until 47 years after he retired from boxing. Still, when I met him, he was a magnificent physical specimen and he had preserved the advantage that God had given him for more than seven decades.
He was no punch drunk palooka. He had his wits about him. I spent several hours Christmas Eve 2015 and as many hours again Christmas morning discussing with him life in America, as it was in that time before Donald Trump had come to be the dominant political force that defines everything around him. He knew the East Coast. He knew the West Coast. He appreciated the contrast of the Midwest with both. As a boxer, he had traveled to different venues to take on his opponents. He was opinionated but not intolerant of other ideas. He was nuanced in his observations. He did not condemn the Democrats for their ruination of the country nor demonize the Republicans for their approach. Neither did he see one side as offering a solution that was exclusively better than the nostrums of the other. He was articulate. He was neither profane nor vulgar. He had a generosity of soul and respect for others.
He had been beaten up by circumstance in a way that none of the 31 opponents in his 34 bouts had ever managed to inflict on him. In 2003, his wife of nearly 40 years, Helen, died. He survived her by two decades but was in a real sense cut off from the life he had known and lost.
I learned about Tony’s passing from my sister-in-law yesterday.
In the scheme of things, Tony and I didn’t really have a lot of interaction. It is hard for me to convey the degree of respect I had for him. I will try to express it in two ways.
First, as a journalist, I virtually never write in the first person. You can go back and examine nearly a half century of my newspaper articles and they are exclusively, as best as I can recall, written, to the limitation of my ability to do so, as third-person objective narratives. As you can see, gentle reader, I have dispensed with that and am writing this tribute to Tony as a first-person narrative.
Secondly, I can tell you that over the last few years, perhaps because all of those blows he had taken had begun to catch up with him or maybe simply through the ravages of age, Tony was beset with a slowly advancing dementia. That development provoked a spat among his six daughters – Audrey, Camille, Carol, Lisa, Rhonda and Tobey – as to which of them would get to care for him. I am told they eventually resolved that by agreeing to a schedule to rotate him among them.
How many of us will have our children competing to look after us when we no longer can?

While no one is panicking, precisely, just yet, public school teachers in San Bernardino County and elsewhere throughout out California becoming increasingly nervous with regard to their pension system.
The California State Teachers’ Retirement System is faced with the prospect of dwindling flow of money into its coffers, one which, if left unaddressed, would escalate from what is now politely referred to as an unfunded liability of hundreds of billions of dollars to the full-blown collapse of the entire operation.
On January 11, the investment committee of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System Board is set to consider whether it should borrow more than $30 billion to help it maintain enough liquidity to make its pension payments to already retired teachers throughout the state and continue maintaining its current investment portfolio, which will hopefully generate returns to keep the system intact.
If the committee elects to make the change, staff will be authorized and empowered to borrow as much as 10 percent of the system’s current $318 billion portfolio. The proposal calls for “leverage” to be used “on a temporary basis to fulfill cash flow needs in circumstances when it is disadvantageous to sell assets,” according to a document generated by the California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s investment advisor, the Meketa Investment Group.
Within the documentation to be considered by the board on January 11, leverage in this context is defined as “an investment strategy where money or capital is borrowed to increase the potential return of an investment or portfolio.” The document said, “Proposed policy would set a limit on the total fund net leverage at 10%.”
In essence, according to the system’s advisors, gargantuan investment funds can take advantage of their size through movement and placement of the capital they control into varying funds, which prop up the value, and therefore the profitability of those funds, providing returns on the investments. If the investing entity withdraws a significant amount of its investment at a given time, the value of the investment per share is very likely – almost inevitably – going to take a hit, causing the value of the shares to drop, and therefore the investor’s investment pool to shrink and returns on investments to diminish.
In the case of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, known by its acronym CALSTRS, retirees are constantly drawing upon the money in the system, diminishing the amount available for investment purposes. According to the parameters that have been set up, as long as the investment pool continues to generate returns of 7 percent on average annually, the system is able to maintain itself, i.e., provide pension payments to retirees and keep its investments in place to continue to generate returns. If, however, earnings fall below the 7 percent threshold, the system is put into the position of having to liquidate or sell off some of its investments to use that capital to make the pension payouts. With less capital invested, returns diminish overall despite the rate of return. Such a sell-off of investments could further trigger a diminution in the value of the remaining investments within the larger investment market, causing the return to diminish to below 7 percent. Such a downward spiral, if sustained or exacerbated over an extended period, could lead to the collapse of the entire system.
Over the previous five years, from 2017 to 2022, the pension fund sustained an annualized average return exceeding the functional threshold, that is, of 7.2 percent. In Fiscal Year 2022-2023, CALSTRS managed a 6.3 percent net return on its investments. Hence, the investment committee has taken up consideration of the strategy to be contemplated on January 11. The calculation in that strategy is that if there are no wild deviations in the stock market and real estate markets, given the advantage that CALSTRS has in terms of its overwhelming volume of capital to invest, the intelligence, skill and insight of its investment advising team and the relatively even and rising trend in the value of those markets over the past several years, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the second largest pension system in the country, will not only see a return of 7 percent on its investments but an additional percentage return sufficient to allow it to make up for the cost of the interest it must pay in borrowing the money to invest.
The danger, of course, is that because of a downward fluctuation in either the stock market or the real estate market or both, earnings might fall to below 7 percent.
CALSTRS staff, after consulting with Carlsbad-based Meketa, downplayed that risk in a memo to the board generated for the January 11 meeting.
In September, the board was briefed by staff and Meketa as to the strategy.
“As discussed previously, the small increase in risk is a result of the increased active risk of the fund as the allocation deviates from targets,” according to a staff memo. “In staff’s judgment, the proposed ranges strike an appropriate balance between the risk associated with wider ranges and the benefit of greater staff flexibility. And the changes pose low risk to the funding plan, as shown by the minimal affect expected on key funding plan metrics.”
The more money for investment available, the more likely those guiding the investment strategy will have to make an immediate or quick purchase of a promising stock or property that comes onto the market, according to those in charge of the investments.
Meketa has privately assured the California State Teachers’ Retirement System staff that increasing the fund’s leverage will entail minimal risk. CALSTRS, which already leverages roughly 4 percent of its portfolio, has profited by doing so. What is being contemplated is merely a change in scale. Nor will the retirement fund become reliant on the money to be borrowed but simply have it available as an “intermittent tool” to adjust cash flow and make investments of opportunity when they materialize to enhance the investment portfolio, according to Meketa.

By Richard Hernandez
In a move widely heralded by Democrats, humanitarians and advocates for immigrants and equally widely decried by Republicans, conservatives and advocates for indigenous American homeless and veterans, the State of California on Monday expanded health insurance to about 700,000 illegal aliens between the ages 26 and 49.
“California is more than just a state of dreamers, we’re a state of doers,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. Thanks to the legislature’s strong partnership in 2023, the state is leading by example to create opportunity, and advance and protect the rights of all Californians. In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status.”
Newsom said those who participate in the program will be “able to get the care they need when they need it” and that the expansion of those that are covered to include all migrants living illegally in the Golden State proves his administration’s commitment toward “we’re making sure families and communities across California are healthier and stronger.”
The program makes California the first state in the nation to offer health insurance to all immigrants regardless of whether they are documented or not.
While California for decades in practice provided all pregnant women with medical assistance at virtually no charge, in 2014 officially made such care legally available.
Prior to 2016, undocumented immigrants were not qualified to receive comprehensive state-sponsored or taxpayer-defrayed health insurance beyond what was provided in hospital emergency rooms, which by law could not turn away the grievously injured.
Beginning in 2014, there was an effort in the California legislature to extend Medi-Cal benefits to illegal aliens, promoted by then-Assemblyman Ricardo Lara. Lara’s initial bill failed to gain passage, but in 2016 legislation was passed and signed into law by then-Governor Jerry Brown that extended Medi-Cal coverage to children without legal residency status. In 2019, Senate Bill 104, by which full-scope Medi-Cal access was extended to cover low-income illegal aliens aged 19 to 25, passed into law and was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, going into effect on January 1, 2020.
U.S. citizens residing in California meeting low-income criteria become eligible for Medi-Cal upon eclipsing their 65th birthday. Legislation introduced by California Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno) in 2020 placed $1.3 billion into California’s 2021-2022 budget to provide Medi-Cal overage to illegal aliens over the age of 50. Thus, illegal aliens become eligible for California’s health care benefit at an age 15 years below that of U.S. citizens.
Governor Newsom signed the 2022-23 $307.9 billion operating budget on June 30, 2022, calling the expansion “a transformative step towards strengthening the healthcare system for all Californians.” That generosity made available coverage for an additional 764,000 illegal and unregistered immigrants in California willing to come forward and claim it, costing California and by extension U.S. taxpayers roughly $2.7 billion per year.
The 2022-23 California budget signed by Newsom did not extend to all of the calculated 764,000 impoverished and undocumented aliens living in California at once, as many were unidentified and unaware of the benefits that could be claimed or unwilling to do so out of concern that they could thereby be brought to the attention of federal immigration officials, leaving them vulnerable to deportation. Nevertheless, the budget appropriation at that time stood as a commitment to make all low-income non-citizens living here eligible for the state’s Medicaid program by 2024.
That objective as of Monday has now been achieved, with California having become the first state to guarantee free health care for all low-income immigrants living in the country illegally.
Democrats and other aligned with Newsom see the transformation in a very positive light.
State Senator Durazo last May spoke of making healthcare to all impoverished immigrants in California as an “historic investment” and a basic “human right.”
Durazo said the $2.6 billion cost of the program was one the state’s residents can easily bear.
California’s Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, who was appointed to that position by Newsom, said the giveaway of free medical treatment to people originating from outside the country who are here illegally and cannot pay for it is a monumental achievement. “No other state in the country has done more in the space of health care access and affordability than the state of California,” he said. “I am proud of this administration’s work to pioneer a comprehensive health care system that will become a national model for expanding access, reducing costs, improving services, and closing equity gaps.”
Others are less sanguine.
The California Senate Republican Caucus criticized Newsom’s placement of $2.7 billion to provided medical services to illegal aliens into California’s $307.9 billion 2022-23 operating budget.
“Medi-Cal is already strained by serving 14.6 million Californians – more than a third of the state’s population. Adding 764,000 more individuals to the system will certainly exacerbate current provider access problems,” the caucus stated in May 2022.
Fiscal conservatives say it is the governor’s and the Democrat-dominated state legislature’s profligate spending on programs such as the giveaways of free medical care to illegal aliens that had directly led to the $97.5 billion budget surplus California had in 2022 having transmogrified into what is now a $54 billion deficit.
A report by the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office says the state’s budget deficit has magnified exponentially in just six months, from $14.3 billion in June to $54 billion at present.
Newsom’s office acknowledges the deficit, but insists it is a product of “severe revenue decline.” If the state is missing its revenue projects, Newsom’s critics say, he should trim excessive spending accordingly. They say providing perquisites to non-citizens, particularly ones that have a $2.6 billion price tag, are the logical place to start.
It is pointed out that an estimated 2,087,000 to 2,165,000 of California’s U.S.-born white male residents with full U.S. citizenship do not have the financial means to pay for healthcare and are therefore without doctors, dentists and access to medicine, therapy and treatment, and are therefore subject to $800 per adult or $400 per child state penalties imposed on them for not having insurance.
According to Newsom’s office, white men between the ages of 18 and 65 are among the most privileged members of society and therefore are not eligible for social welfare in the way that protected minorities such as Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans are. White men who are both American citizens and residents of California who did not secure health insurance as is required by statute and are being rightfully penalized for their failure to secure health insurance in a timely manner brought that punishment upon themselves by their deliberate decisions to disobey the law and not purchase health coverage, according to the governor’s office. The health coverage mandate had been well-publicized, according to the governor’s office.
Rapper 50 Cent took issue with California for its expenditure of taxpayer money to fund a $2.6 billion healthcare program for illegal aliens.
In an Instagram Post that was headed by a photo of Newsom with a caption stating, “California Becomes First US State to Offer Health Insurance to All Illegal Migrants,” 50 Cent, the professional name of Curtis James Jackson III, stated, “I don’t understand this. This it going to cost 2.6 billion dollars for taxpayers. They don’t even give veterans health insurance. [MSNBC anchor Ari Melber] call my phone now, help me understand this shit. What the fuck?”
According to a reliable internet source providing health insurance information, roughly half of the undocumented immigrant population in the United States has no health insurance. In comparison, 8 percent of U.S.-born citizens are uninsured or underinsured with regard to health coverage.

Seven of eight Enamorados, who have been charged by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office with physically assaulting members of the public as a consequence of their self-styled crusades for justice on behalf of immigrants and street vendors remain in custody as their preliminary hearing continues at the Victorville Courthouse.
According to the prosecution, Edin Enamorado, 36; Wendy Luján, 40; David Chávez, 27; Fernando López, 44; Vanessa Carrasco, 40; Gullit Eder “ Jaguar” Acevedo, 30; Stephanie Amésquita, 33; and Edwin Peña, 26, were involved in either or both of two incidents, one at the El Super market in Pomona on September 3 and another in the commercial section along Palmdale Road in Victorville on September 24, in which their activism turned violent.
It is the deeply held belief of Edin Enamorado and his eponymous group of followers that America, i.e., North America, was and therefore still is the land of the indigenous people of the Americas and that European colonizers usurped the land and resources that rightly belong to those indigenous tribes. Since the rich white descendants of those Europeans continue to engage in the domination of Latinos or La Raza through their capitalistic system and hoard the wealth and goods they are accumulating by continuing to exploit those who are less fortunate and not well-fixed financially, according to Enamorado, he and those with whom he networks and is in league are morally justified in taking back what was taken from them and protecting, by whatever means necessary, the Latino and immigrant population that is being assailed formally or informally, officially or unofficially by agents of the white-controlled government such as the police or municipal code enforcement officers or white bigoted bullies who insult, assault or interfere in any way with street vendors or sidewalk vendors.
A preliminary hearing that was originally scheduled to take place before Judge Faherty on December 28 instead took place in Judge Melissa Rodriguez’s courtroom. Present were Deputy District Attorney Jason Wilkinson and defense attorney Nicolas Rosenberg Confidential documents were filed with the court consisting of a letter from an individual described as one of the Enamorados’ victims, identified as John Doe 3, believed to have been involved in the Victorville incident on September 24, and one from Pomona Vice Mayor Victor Preciado in support of bail for the defendants and/or release on their own recognizance and one from the National Lawyers Guild in support of the granting of bail or recognizance release.
Judge Rodriguez considered the defense motion for bail and/or recognizance release. Arguments were presented by Wilkinson as well as by Rosenberg and the other defense counsel. Judge Rodriguez made a finding citing “clear and convincing” evidence that no condition or combination of conditions could be attached to the release of Enamorado, Chávez, López, Carrasco, Amésquita and Peña that would reasonably assure the protection of the public or safety of the victims and the victims’ families and that there are no less restrictive means to protect the public and the victims and their families other than incarceration. She granted bail for Acevedo, who subsequently posted bond and was released.
Much of the preliminary hearing proceedings so far dealt with the September 3 Pomona incidents. In the first of those, a victim who worked as a security guard, identified by the prosecution as John Doe 1, was chased by several Enamorados into El Super market after he had a verbal altercation with a street vendor. Inside El Super, according to the prosecution witnesses, he was subjected to verbal harassment by Edin Enamorado, knocked to the ground and then pepper-sprayed. In the second Pomona incident, another victim, identified in court as John Doe 2, was assaulted, according to the prosecution, after several of the Enamorados went to the Pomona Police headquarters to protest the arrest of Luján as a consequence of the first incident. Luján is variously described as Edin Enamorado’s girlfriend, fiancé or wife.
Testifying before Judge Zahara Arredondo on January 3 and 4 were Pomona Police officer Juan Ruiz and Edgar Rodriguez and Pomona Police Detective Travis Johnson.
Under questioning by Wilkinson, the witnesses indicated the assaults had taken place. Cross examination by Rosenberg was aimed toward establishing that the investigators had not fleshed out the claims of the victims with any further documentation and had not investigated the matter beyond taking the statements of the victims.
There was further testimony pertaining to the Victorville incident on September 24 by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies Mark Valencia and Jonathan Ortega San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Detective Alejandro Duran and prosecution witness Blake Foyle, under both the direct examination of Deputy District John Richardson and the cross examination by defense counsel.
Representing Edin Enamorado is attorney Nicolas Rosenberg. Representing Lujan was Christian Contreras. Arsany Said represented Edwin Rene Pena. Defense Counsel Dan Eugene Chambers represented Gullit “Jaguar” Acevedo. Damon Alimouri represents Carrasco.
The Victorville incident involved a woman and man who were the driver and passenger, respectively, in a Hyundai that was at a car wash near the intersection of McArt Road and Palmdale Road during a protest the Enamorados were participating in that targeted the sheriff’s department over a deputy’s mistreatment of a student at a high school football game in Victorville on September 22. After the Hyundai was hemmed in and unable to exit the car wash parking lot onto Palmdale Road because of a continuous parade of protesters on the sidewalk and the street gutter in front of the car, the woman began sounding her horn. When the man emerged from the vehicle, he was assailed by several of the Enamorados, who accused him of hitting one of the women protesters with the car door. They knocked him to the ground several times and pepper sprayed him.
Rosenberg attempted with his questioning to demonstrate that the deputies had less than an exact fix on which of the defendants were involved in the assault and pepper spraying of the Hyundai passenger.
An issue that surrounds the prosecution of the case is that of venue. While the San Bernardino County Superior Court is the proper forum for the filing of charges pertaining to the September 24 Victorville incident, Pomona falls within Los Angeles County. Though Rosenberg has not lodged any official protest or motion with regard to the venue issue, a statement he made outside the court indicates he will take up that matter up either with the trial court or the appellate court.