Upland city officials, for the most part, have headed for the tall grass when approached about indications that for some 18 months they deliberately neglected to undertake repairs of the most seriously deteriorating span of Foothill Boulevard running from Euclid Avenue to the city and county limits at its west end as a ploy to convince the city’s residents to support an increase in sales tax to be paid by shoppers within the 15.66-square mile city.
According to City Hall sources in a position to know, the strategy was thought up by Mayor Bill Velto. Nevertheless, according to City Councilman Rudy Zuniga, the plan to convince the city’s voters that they should get behind the tax increase, which will generate for the city, it is estimated, somewhere in the neighborhood of $21 million, did not originate with Velto.
Whether the concept of engaging in the benign neglect of West Foothill Boulevard was a product of Velto’s mentation or that of someone else, he and what was at first three members of the council and ultimately all four council members have come to believe that the greater good of the community is being served by allowing what is the city’s most heavily traveled thoroughfare to fall further and further into disrepair. Continue reading →

After the removal of the last underpinning of what was previously a layer of interwoven federal, state and local legal and social regulations preventing the upending of homeless encampments, the City of San Bernardino is set to force hundreds of able-bodied dispossessed from its municipal parks.
For decades, the county seat for multiple reasons has been a magnet for the homeless population, including those local citizens who through financial adversity lost their homes or the means to rent one, as well as those leaving, in particular Los Angeles/Los Angeles County and moved eastward, and many who have come to California from other states.
The warm or at least warmer weather in the fall, winter and spring in Inland California makes for less onerous nights for those without the advantage of a roof over their heads. Moreover, when the homeless population in California began to surge in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some San Bernardino County and San Bernardino city officials overreacted, utilizing draconian means that went beyond being harsh to outright cruel, inhumane and criminal to dissuade those who were unhoused from coming to the area or to persuade those who were already here to leave, as well as to prevent local do-gooders from assisting them. This provoked a backlash against such efforts, including some intervention by activist lawyers who went to bat for the homeless in a courtroom setting, forcing a recognition of how local authorities had crossed the line and sparking some court rulings that tied the hands of both the police and code enforcement divisions to prevent them from, publicly and openly at least, intimidating the homeless, roughing them up, kicking them, punching them, striking them with objects, seizing their bedding, tents, clothing, and other personal effects and throwing them into the trash, siccing police dogs on the homeless, arresting and jailing them on trumped-up charges, dousing them with insecticide, lighting them on fire and offering them cyanide-laced food to kill them. The San Bernardino Police Department, in particular, got itself and some of its officers into trouble when those officers assaulted, beat into submission, arrested and seized the cell phones of citizens who sought to video the police as they physically abused the homeless.
Simultaneously over the years, at the national and state level laws were passed that were both aimed at giving the homeless a minimal layer of protection and at providing authorities, both local and state, with the ability to drive the homeless off the streets or out of a given community entirely. The homeless-friendly laws remained in place while challenges to the laws barring homelessness or the homeless were in many cases challenged and overturned.
One of the more basic provisions in the law of the land with regard to homelessness had for decades been embodied in the 1962 case of Robinson v. California. Another legal milestone with regard to the homeless came into place more recently, with the 2018 case Martin v. Boise. In Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits criminalization of a status, as opposed to criminalizing criminal acts, in striking down a California law that criminalized being addicted to narcotics. By extension, this applied to being homeless, such that it made applying traditional vagrancy laws difficult, problematic or even impossible. In this way, from that point on, at least until very recently, an individual could not be prosecuted for being homeless. In Martin v. Boise, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that city officials in Boise, Idaho, could not enforce an anti-camping ordinance whenever its homeless population exceeds the number of available beds in its homeless shelters. Since the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to this case in 2019, it became binding precedent within the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit includes the nine western states and all of the Pacific Islands.
Both Robinson v. California and Martin v. Boise had the practical effect of preventing government in general and local governments in particular from declaring open warfare on the homeless.
In San Bernardino County, government officials appeared to be divided on the issue of homelessness. Some were compassionate toward those who had fallen into such a state, and were against, generally, utilizing the power of the law to prohibit them from inhabiting public space. Other officials believed that such compassion was misplaced, and that the proliferation of those unable to fend for themselves by maintaining a domicile was a substantial factor in the deterioration in the quality of life of those who were not homeless, i.e., those citizens residing in homes in neighborhoods contained in the cities and unincorporated communities throughout San Bernardino County. They pushed for and sometimes achieved laws, ordinances and policies which they insisted did not fly in the face of the Martin v Boise or the Robinson v. California standards. In this way, cities and the county passed, or emphasized the enforcement of existing loitering ordinances, which were distinct from vagrancy laws. Another approach, one that was used by the City of San Bernardino, at least for a time, was to arrest those who remained in the city’s parks after sunset – generally meaning 8 p.m. in the summer and 5 p.m. in the winter and times in between in the spring and fall – and to transport them to the sheriff’s department jail in Rancho Cucamonga, known as the West Valley Detention Center, to be booked. In some cases, sheriff’s personnel might book the arrestees, but would immediately release them. Others brought in, particularly ones with no substantial previous criminal records, would be released without being booked. Generally, the only ones that would be incarcerated would be those who had outstanding warrants. Those arrested and transported to the West Valley Detention Center, booked or not, would then face the challenge of walking the 20 miles back to San Bernardino. By the time they would return, many would discover that their possessions – their tents and sleeping bags, camping stoves, clothes and whatnot, were gone, having been thrown out by the police or visitors to the park, appropriated by some other homeless individuals or removed by a person or persons or an entity unknown. After being subjected to this ordeal three or four or five times, many opted not to return to San Bernardino.
As was the case with the elected leadership in other cities, San Bernardino’s mayors and city council members over a long span of time were torn over whether the city should accept money available from the State of California for the support of various homeless assistance programs. There was a degree of debate and difference between the elected officials and the city’s residents with regard to accepting the funds. Some felt the city should accept whatever funding was available. Others were skeptical, believing that unless the programs for the homeless being undertaken proceeded all the way to creating housing that was sustainable and would reduce significantly or eliminate the homeless population, the city should not involve itself in such half, quarter, eighth or sixteenth measures. Others said many homeless were in that state by choice and did not want to be housed. Others argued that providing shelters for the drug addicted or alcoholics only enabled them in pursuing their proclivities. Others still asserted that successful homeless assistance programs would have a “magnet effect,” and would attract ever more homeless to the city.
San Bernardino more than two decades ago, when the problem was far less acute, had dubiously distinguished itself as the haven for more homeless than any other city in the county, and by a substantial margin. Traditionally the city with the next most dispossessed having taken up presence there was Victorville. Beginning in 2007, the City of Ontario began to bear the homeless onus as well, when about 20 ragtag squatters who occupied open property just west of Ontario Airport without authorization created what soon was attracting more and more people, many of whom were in vehicles and would pitch tents immediately adjacent to their cars. In this way, over the course of more than five years, the shantytown there, which was quasi-sanctioned by city officials, grew to a population of roughly 400, putting Ontario on a trajectory to surpass Victorville and eventually San Bernardino as a homeless host. City officials there, however, made a concerted effort beginning in 2012 to move those who did not have vehicles into shelters around the city and began enforcement with regard to the vehicles, many of which were not licensed. By February 2013, the Ontario’s Hooverville was essentially defunct, with only five hardcore residents remaining.
In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, San Bernardino County, through its Department of Behavioral Health and working in conjunction with the San Bernardino County Homeless Partnership in collaboration with the Office of Homeless Services and in consultation with the Institute for Urban Initiatives, conducts the so-called point-in-time-count of what the Department of Behavioral Health calls San Bernardino County’s subpopulation, meaning those who are unhoused. The count is carried out during a single 24-hour period in either January or February. Consistently over the years without a single exception, San Bernardino is the jurisdiction with the most people who have no place to go.
According to the point-in-time counts, in 2015, San Bernardino had 767 homeless; in 2016, 564; in 2017, 491; in 2018 646; in 2019, 890 homeless; and in 2020, 1,056. In 2021, because of the COVID pandemic, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, San Bernardino County, The San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, the San Bernardino County Homeless Partnership, the Office of Homeless Services and Institute for Urban Initiatives forewent making a survey. In 2022 1,350 homeless were counted in San Bernardino; in 2023 the county seat held 1,502 destitute; and in 2014, there were 1,417 total homeless in the city.
Over the years, though a fair number of the homeless in San Bernardino had set up paupers’ quarters on the streets, in alleyways, in the Santa Ana or Lytle Creek riverbeds or around them, under railroad trestles or freeway overpasses, or hidden in chaparral or landscaping along the freeways, the lion’s share of those without a normative place to live had gravitated to the city’s parks.
In particular, 44-acre Seccombe Lake Park, just east of downtown, was attracting many people, with hundreds sleeping there every night. Beginning more than four years ago, city officials began with an effort to enforce the night curfew and slowly, those living there left. Thereafter, to effectuate a homeless lock-out at Seccombe Lake Park, the city committed to developing a portion of the park’s acreage into an affordable housing project.
But that did not erase the city’s homeless dilemma, as most of those who left Seccombe Lake Park migrated elsewhere in the city, primarily 64-acre Perris Hill Park, which was already popular with about one-tenth of the city’s homeless people, and 14-acre Meadowbrook Park.
Perris Hill Park is considered one of the city’s quintessential parks, with some of the city’s most treasured amenities, including the Roosevelt Bowl and Fiscalini Field,
City officials sought to apply creative ways of getting the homeless to leave its municipal parks, with varying degrees of success. In February 2023, the city council declared homelessness a local emergency, using that declaration as a dictum calling for relocating the homeless off of public property.
In January of this year, Federal Judge Terry Hatter Jr. issued a preliminary injunction preventing the City of San Bernardino from removing unhoused people living in its parks and on the city’s sidewalks and public area. Judge Hatter’s ruling was made in reaction to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the social action group SoCal Trash Army and three individuals – Lenka John, James Tyson and Noel Harner – who were down and out and living in Meadowbrook Park. In May 2023, the city closed down Meadowbrook Park, which is adjacent to the 11-Story courthouse, The San Bernardino Justice Center, in downtown San Bernardino. The shuttering of Meadowbrook Park was done, the city claimed, for maintenance in May 2023. City officials told those living in the park that they would offer them some alternative but never did.
In the suit, John, James Tyson and Noel Harner alleged the city violated their constitutional rights and destroyed or jettisoned their personal property, including medicine, vital documents medical equipment and tents. Harner, who is confined to a wheelchair, maintained in the suit that he was given a one-week voucher to stay at a motel upon being kicked out of Perris Hill Park, but was given no assistance in transiting to the motel or conveying his belongings there.
In his ruling, Judge Hatter made a finding that the city discarded and/or destroyed the displaced homeless residents’ belongings, did not accommodate their needs and “likely” engaged in a violation of their constitutional rights as well as those under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Hatter barred the city from removing or displacing unhoused residents and their belongings pending further judicial review of the matter. He said the court would consider vacating the order if the city can formulate a binding policy by which it replaces homeless encampments with housing options for those to be displaced.
This summer, however, there was a sea change with regard to how local agencies, municipalities, cities, towns and counties can deal with the homeless. On June 28, 2024, The U.S. Supreme Court entered a ruling in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which pretty much erased the protections under the law that the homeless enjoyed which stemmed from both the Martin v Boise or the Robinson v. California.
In 2013, the Grants Pass City Council, with its president openly stating the city wanted to “make it uncomfortable enough for [homeless individuals] in our city so they will want to move on down the road,” began enacting a series of anti-camping, anti-sleeping, and parking exclusion ordinances, which were augmented with civil fines ranging from $295 to $537.60 if unpaid, along with imposing criminal penalties of trespassing on repeat violators who continued to reside on public land. The Oregon Law Center filed suit against Grants Pass on behalf of homeless individuals Gloria Johnson, John Logan and Debra Blake in the U.S. District Court in Oregon, challenging the ordinances. The district court and The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, relying on Martin v. Boise, rejected the city government’s assertion it its defense of its ordinances preventing the city from enforcing its anti-camping ordinance against homeless people. The U.S. Supreme Court took up a review of the Ninth Circuit ruling, finding, ultimately, the punishments of fines, temporary bans from entering public property, and one-month jail sentences were neither cruel nor unusual; that the Grants Pass’s anti-camping ordinances were neutrally applied against both the homeless and those who are not homeless; that it was not established that the homeless had no place other than parks or parking lots in which to sleep; that local and state officials and courts are free to determine whether the homeless by violating anti-camping were conscious of their guilt by violating anti-camping ordinances and that remedies to the homeless issue throughout the United States are too complex to be addressed by unelected members of the federal judiciary. The upshot was that the Court held that local government ordinances with civil and criminal penalties for camping on public land do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment of homeless people and local governments can ban the homeless from public areas.
When it rains, it pours.
In the same timeframe, Governor Gavin Newsom, during whose tenure as governor the state, between 2019 and 2021 spent $9.6 billion trying to alleviate homelessness and from 2020 onward spent another $3.7 billion on Project Homekey, a plan to fund local governments in their efforts to combat homelessness, grew acutely frustrated and impatient with the lack of progress in solving the homelessness crisis. He was going to cut off any further state homeless program funding to cities which had not shut down encampments and moved those in them to indoor shelters.
Within a fortnight, San Bernardino city officials who for years had been themselves frustrated in being unable to clear the homeless out of both high-profile and low-profile public places, felt as if the constraints, or most of them, had been removed.
To be sure, there were a few minor obstacles in the way – such as Judge Hatter’s ruling and the need to provide those who will be force out of the parks with housing shelter options.
On August 2, after extensive discussion between the city and the American Civil Liberties Union, a joint stipulation to dismiss the case brought by SoCal Trash Army, John, Tyson and Harner was filed and on September 25 Judge Hatter granted that motion for dismissal.
On Wednesday, October 2, at a press conference held at the San Bernardino City Hall on Wednesday, before a large gathering of media, local officials, and community members, San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran, flanked by members of the city council said, “The lifting of the injunction gives us options for addressing unhoused individuals and their property compassionately as we clean up our parks.”
Tran said the restoration of the parks as places of recreation qualified as “the number one concern we hear from our residents.”
City officials distributed copies of an updated policy for conducting encampment cleanups during the press conference.
“We have been able to codify and clarify many of our encampment cleanup policies to protect our homeless, their belongings, as well as city staff and contractors,” said San Bernardino Acting City Manager Rochelle Clayton.
Among the updates to the encampment cleanup policy are the city’s designation of a disabilities coordinator to oversee requests by disabled individuals for reasonable accommodations before and during an encampment cleanup; the city’s pledge to train all employees and contractors participating in a cleanup in the city’s policy and procedures; the city’s development of a brochure to inform and educate homeless individuals about the city encampment cleanup policy.”
“The lifting of the injunction gives us the opportunity to clean up our parks,” said Councilman Fred Shorett. “But we have to do that with compassion and with thought about where these people will go.”
Yesterday, October 3, San Bernardino Spokesman Jeff Kraus informed the Sentinel by email that “The city expects to resume encampment cleanups in the coming weeks. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter lifted an injunction prohibiting the city from conducting homeless encampment cleanups. This follows an agreement reached between the two parties that updated city policies on how cleanups are conducted.”
According to Kraus after Judge Hatter’s January injunction prohibiting the City of San Bernardino from conducting encampment cleanups, “…the number of tents at city parks has grown significantly, with very few homeless individuals willing to accept alternative housing solutions. As a result, usage of the parks by residents has declined and conditions at many parks has deteriorated. The city anticipates that encampment cleanups at its parks will resume in the coming weeks, starting with the posting of advance notices at locations where cleanups are planned to take place.”
According to Kraus, “The City of San Bernardino has committed nearly $60 million in local, state, federal, and grant funding to address homelessness, including the construction of two full service, comprehensive homeless housing facilities, the creation of a homeless outreach team, and funds for hotel vouchers to be issued to augment local shelters while the new facilities are being built.”
The funding for the vouchers the city is providing to interested homeless individuals originated with $1 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act grants.
Included in the city’s homeless services panoply is a 140-bed interim housing facility the city is building at 1354 G Street in partnership with the nonprofits Lutheran Social Services of Southern California and Dignity Moves. That project has been under way for several months and is to be finished by December. und on a Construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
In September, the city sought bids for the construction of a new homeless navigation center at a former school site at 796 Sixth Street. That facility will conceivably come online in another 12 to 13 months.
The city is coordinating with local shelters to provide additional bed space for the homeless.
Under the stipulation filed on August 2 and accepted by Judge Hatter on September 25, the city cannot evict a handicapped or crippled individual from the city’s parks without making arrangements for that individual to transported to and housed in a shelter or housing.
“This is not something that will be completed in a day, in a week, or even a month,” Tran said. “But together with our county and community partners, we are committed to providing a pathway to services, opportunity, and housing.”

Thirteen months after he was acquitted of first-degree murder in the 2018 killing of his one-time girlfriend’s son, Arthur Thomas Davies next week will again stand trial on the second-degree murder and assault charges which the same jury was unable to reach a verdict on.
Davies, who has been in continuous custody since the February 2018 death of 17-month-old Parker Lee Schumacher, was acquitted in September 2023 of first-degree murder charges after a trial in which Deputy District Attorney Charles Tsuei consistently and repeatedly asserted Davies had deliberately killed the child.
The jury split on the alternate charges that were at play in the trial presided over by Judge Christopher Pallone, those being a 10-to-2 finding in favor of second-degree murder and an identical 10-to-2 vote determination of a fatal assault on a juvenile.
Judge Pallone declared the now-concluded proceedings to have been a mistrial and set a retrial for last October. That schedule was not met, but Davies, his defense attorney, Zulu Ali, and the prosecutor Tsuei, who remains as the prosecutor on the case will try the facts before a jury, beginning with the selection of that jury to begin on October 7.
Young Schumacher died in February 2018 after being severely injured inside a trailer in Yucca Valley, where he was living with his mother, Karissa Caccavari, and Davies.
In Tsuei’s narrative, Davies cruelly and deliberately slammed the back of the child’s head against a hard surface, most likely the top of a counter. The prosecutor presented testimony and contestable evidence to suggest that Davies resented the child because his presence, first in the home where Caccavari previously lived with Parker’s father, Eric Schumacher, and then later in a trailer in Yucca Valley, interfered and interrupted his relationship with Caccavari .
Davies met Caccavari in December 2017. After Caccavari and her child relocated from Joshua Tree to a trailer in Yucca Valley in January 2018, Davies moved in with them. Text messages presented during the course of the 2023 trial demonstrated that Davies was disapproving of Parker’s behavior and his mother’s indulgence of the child, who was not yet a year-and-a-half old. Disagreements between Davies and Caccavari, essentially over the child, including Davies’ contention that Parker was “manipulating” his mother, led to Caccavari and Davies parting as a couple, with Davies moving out of the trailer.
Davies, however, was involved in a single vehicle mishap on the evening/early morning of February 7/February 8, 2018. Instead of Davies moving back to his parents’ house as he had been purposed to do, he resumed residing in the trailer, as Caccavari, seemingly concerned about Davies after the accident, fatefully consented to him returning.
While Caccavari was not at the trailer on February 10 and Davies was there alone with the child, Parker suffered severe head trauma. Davies contacted Caccavari to inform her of the child’s injury and after Caccavari returned, the child was taken by ambulance to the Hi-Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree and then flown to Loma Linda University Medical Center. There, physicians determined that the child had multiple injuries, including compound fractures to the back of his skull, extensive bleeding in the brain, swelling on one side of the brain and hemorrhaging in both eyes.
The child, who was having difficulty breathing, was placed on a ventilator. He died on February 11, 2018.
The medical professionals at Loma Linda contacted authorities, believing that the child’s injuries were not from a simple fall.
An autopsy determined that Parker had a previous fracture to his skull. It is surmised that this occurred on January 21, when the child fell off a couch and was observed vomiting. Caccavari took him to the Hi-Desert Medical Center after that incident but medical staff there did not do a head or brain scan at that time because it was determined the child had the flu, which was treated.
There was conflicting expert testimony about the extent and nature of the child’s injuries at trial. The plausibility/implausibility of that testimony appears to have created a circumstance which resulted in lingering doubt that resulted in an acquittal on the first-degree murder charge and made it impossible for the jury to reach a consensus on the remaining charges.
Tsuei in making his case relied heavily upon the testimony of Dr. Melissa Egge, a forensic pediatrician. Egge contradicted and sought to dismiss the accuracy of Davies’ account that Schumacher was injured when he launched himself from Davies’ arms while the adult was holding him, hitting his head on the trailer’s linoleum floor.
Defense attorney Zulu Ali ridiculed Egge’s contention that a baby or toddler could fall from the height of a two-story window on its head and not be injured as Parker was injured.
Ali seriously wounded Egge’s credibility as well by attempting to lead the jury to the conclusion that she had committed perjury when she claimed to have done extensive examination of child injuries relating to a child falling out of an adult’s grasp.
For his part, Tsuei sought to impeach Ali’s expert witness, Dr. Marvin Petruszka. The prosecutor first implied and then outright stated that Petruszka’s testimony was purchased for the price of $7,500. Petruszka was incompetent, Tsuei said, being unable to distinguish between the front and back of the child’s skull in photos and x-ray depictions of the injuries. Petruszka’s intellectually dishonesty was established by his unwillingness to entertain the most logical scientific conclusions about what had caused Schumacher’s death, according to Tsuei.
Ali argued that there was no testimony or evidence to indicate Davies was abusive and that, indeed, the opposite was the case, in that Davies, who was 34 at the time of Schumacher’s death, had been involved with a woman with children from a previous relationship and that Davies had not been abusive toward those children.
Ali successfully convinced all members of the jury that Davies had not premeditated the killing of young Schumacher. He also convinced two of the members of the jury that Davies had neither willfully nor negligently injured Parker.
Tsuei at one point engaged in a round of hyperbole he might have later regretted when he told the jury that Ali was arguing that Parker Schumacher had killed himself. Ali pointedly contested that when Judge Pallone acceded to a request by the still-deliberating jury to allow the prosecutor and defense attorney to restate and embellish on their closing arguments.
Davies, who has been in custody for more than seven-and-a-half years, remains incarcerated.
Tsuei, who has continuously committed to the scenario of deliberate murder of the child by Davies, is now seeking second-degree murder and assault of a minor convictions against the defendant, maintaining, essentially, that there was no premeditation on Davies’ part but that he killed Parker in a momentary fit of anger, resentment and desperation.
In pretrial motions heard by Judge Pallone on September 25, Ali and Tsuei haggled over what evidence should be deemed admissible in the new trial.
Ali, it appeared, was purposed, until he encountered stiff opposition from Tsuei which was more or less accepted as valid by Judge Pallone, to argue that there was a “third-party culpability” issue in the case and that he wanted evidence to that effect to be considered by the jury. Extrapolating upon Zulu’s statements, the defense attorney’s theory of third-party culpability comes down to an acto of negigence on Caccavari’s part relating to young Schumacher’s January 21, 2017 fall from the couch.
Judge Pallone did not seem convinced that the fall from the couch was in any way relevant to the child’s death. It is Zulu’s contention that the injury Parker suffered from that fall represented a preexisting condition that may have been a contributory fact in the child’s death. Zulu further believes that if he is allowed to question Caccavari about the fall from the couch, he may be able to impeach her credibility and thus undercut the that portion of the prosecution’s case that will rely on her testimony.
It has not been determined affirmatively whether Judge Pallone will permit the issue of preexisting conditions to be litigated at trial.

During internal discussions, two investigators with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department have said they are at the end of the envelope in stretching logic and interpretation to clear a fellow law enforcement officer of an inappropriate use of what may turn out to have been deadly force with regard to a Fontana man who was first shot and then beaten into unconsciousness while his arrest was being effectuated on September 24.
It is not the shooting of Jesus Adrian Garcia, which occurred around 2:30 in the afternoon, that is giving the investigators pause, the Sentinel has been told.
Rather, it will be virtually impossible to catalog the beating that Garcia was administered after he was shot, on the ground and no longer in possession of the weapon he had previously wielded as anything less than an assault under the color of authority, one of the investigators conveyed to a department colleague.
If the autopsy performed on Garcia offers a conclusion that the blows Garcia sustained to his head were the cause of, or a contributory factor in, his death, there is a potential the officer will be charged manslaughter, aggravated manslaughter or second-degree murder.
The Fontana Police Department officer who assaulted Garcia after he was shot was not the officer who shot him. Continue reading →

Charles Duggan Jr., whose four-and-three-quarters-year tenure as Redlands city manager involved him almost immediately getting off on the wrong foot with one of the most active grass roots civic engagement groups in San Bernardino County when he first began working in Redlands but whose temperament simultaneously has allowed him to cater on a weekly, monthly and year-long basis to the city’s elected leadership, was granted an increase in job security Tuesday.
Duggan, formerly the city manager of Auburn, Alabama and at that time the administrative services division manager and treasurer for the Marin Municipal Water District in Northern California was hired as Redlands city manager on a vote of the city council on November 5, 2019. His start date with the city was on January 13, 2020.
Duggan’s arrival in Redlands corresponded with the final stages of the political career of Paul Foster, such that an understanding of what Duggan represents to the community cannot be fully comprehended without a knowledge of how Foster initially guided him.
Redlands was one of San Bernardino County’s original four cities and came into existence as a population center in the decades prior to the Turn of the Twentieth Century. It was the most upscale of the county’s original cities, where the wealthy business owners in San Bernardino purchased homes, many akin to mansions in the late 1880s, 1890s and early 1900s. Located within one of Southern California’s most fecund agricultural districts, the city had a secondary reputation as a resort town where the well-to-do of the Atlantic Seaboard, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland and other Eastern cities would winter. As Redlands matured along with the rest of Southern California in the mid- and latter-20th Century, the citrus groves and its accompanying packing industry that had been part of the ambiance and cachet of Redlands gave way to more and more intensive residential development. Yet, because of the sensitivity and sensibility, as well as the wealth, of the scions of the landed gentry in Redlands and succeeding generations of residents who were living in an atmosphere that was less citified than other parts of rapidly urbanizing Southern California, a good number of Redlands residents coalesced around the concept of preserving the atmosphere they had become accustomed to. This manifested in what was variously referred to as a slow-growth or controlled-growth or no-growth movement. Over time, elements of that approach were codified into the city policies and ordinances, including the voters’ passage of controlled-growth or slow-growth Proposition R in 1978, Measure N in 1987 and Measure U in 1997. Measure R put a limit on the annual growth rate, followed by further refinements and restrictions put in place under the auspices of Measures N and U, such that no more than 400 residential dwelling units can be approved or constructed within the city annually, and the city council is not empowered to suspend, waive or rescind those provisions.
Foster was a member, at one time in good standing, of the low-growth/controlled growth advocacy, and in that guise made his rise both socially and politically in Redlands, first as a member of the planning commission, where he put his low-growth sentiment on display, and finally onto the city council. As a member of the council, which in Redlands chooses to elevate one of its members to the mayoralty rather than having direct mayoral elections by the citizenry, Foster was appointed mayor for an extended period of time.
As was probably inevitable, Foster, like several others elected to the city council, found himself up against colleagues on that panel who had been elected with the heavy backing of the development industry. Over time, Foster was himself heavily lobbied by developers and their representatives and he soon was himself accepting donations in substantial amounts from developers, his rationale being that he would not be able to maintain himself in office if he did not. Thereafter, Foster made an almost 180-degree transition, from a low-growth/slow growth/controlled growth advocate to one who now saw the necessity of progress, and someone who had come to believe that Redlands had to seize the day and go along with those who were willing to make an investment in its future. By the mid-2010s, Foster was Redlands’ staunchest pro-growth advocate.
Accompanying this transition, Foster had embraced a popular trend in urban development, one that called for increasingly dense residential development at the core of a metropolis, standing within the shadow of railroad and bus stations, such that residents of the future would have little or no need for their personal vehicles and could use public transit to commute to their workplaces, ones that were to remain, primarily, west of Redlands in downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles, greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles County or Western San Bernardino County or Riverside County and Orange County.
This trend called for high-rise apartment buildings. Residential structures over two stories were, however, anathema to those intent on preserving the vestiges of Redlands grand past, and they protested vehemently at the direction Foster was seeking to take the city in, using Proposition R, Measure N and Measure U as a shield against the urban intensification that Foster was advocating.
In 2019, just as the managerial tenure of Redlands City Manager Nabar Martinez, who had done much to facilitate the pro-growth approach Foster and his council colleagues had pursued, was imploding, Foster and the remainder of the pro-growth forces in Redlands hit upon the concept of placing before Redlands’ voters a new measure, one aimed at undoing the strictures of Proposition R, Measure N and Measure U to allow the city council to accommodate the development industry.
It was as this Measure, designated by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office as Measure G in the March 2020 Primary Election, that Duggan was brought into Redlands as the city manager to replace Martinez.
As Duggan had been chosen and hired by the city council, he felt it was incumbent upon himself to embrace what the city council was proposing – in this case Measure G – even though he had no previous experience in Redlands or any knowledge of the history or the varying perspectives and values at play. As it would turn out, at the March 3, 2020 election, Measure G was soundly defeated at the polls and by mail-in ballots, 24,407 votes or 64.88 percent in opposition to support of 7,798 or 35.12 percent of the total 22,205 votes cast.
From the outset, it was obvious to the controlled-growth faction in Redlands that Duggan was not on their side of the cultural divide in the city, and that when it came down to issues relating to development and Redlands’ urban transition on which the city council and a sizable contingent of the public at large were divided, Duggan could be counted upon to side with the city council.
In late 2021, after the FBI had been poking around in Redlands and some of its agents had come to interest themselves in information suggesting one of the reasons Foster had made his switch from a dyed-in-the-wool slow growth/controlled-growth advocate to the major voice for aggressive development in Redlands was because he had been provided with something in the way of monetary inducements from members of the construction industry, he tendered his resignation as a member of the council and moved to Washington State.
Foster had been a mentor, at least on land use issues, to two of the council members who had hired Duggan – Eddie Tejeda and Denise Davis. Both Davis and Tejeda, as the rest of the city council, have made a commitment to the Transit Villages concept ushered in during the Martinez Administration and advanced under Duggan’s management. That plan calls for five such transit villages around Redlands – in the vicinity of the entrance to Redlands University, in Downtown Redlands, in the New York Street district and in the area around the Alabama Street and California Street rail stations. In the transit villages, developers would be permitted to construct tenements or cortiços, that is concentrated, high density housing in apartment buildings of four, five, six or seven stories, with roughly 80 to 120 units per acre.
The advantage of such an approach from an urban planning standpoint was that the inhabitants would have the advantage or at least opportunity of utilizing the rail system, which already connects with much of Southern California and will reach even more locations in the future, to commute. For many elements of the building industry, the city’s encouragement of this approach was potentially very lucrative, as by building upward would intensify density and maximize the number of dwelling units on the land to be developed, increasing profits.
Simultaneously, this approach mortified that portion of the community committed to controlled and slower growth, preservation of the city’s historic properties and avoiding the intense urbanization that was occurring elsewhere in Southern California and San Bernardino County. Within that subset of the Redlands population were those who were absolutely and totally against that intensification of land use, no matter where it were to occur and even if it were limited to the five circumscribed districts. Others, while willing, perhaps, to allow the density the plan called for to be concentrated in select and tightly defined and confined spaces, were nonetheless skeptical and concerned that allowing any or all five of the transit villages to become established would allow the camel to get its nose under the tent, such that the city would pursue the construction of high-rise projects elsewhere, leading, eventually, to intrusion of higher and higher density development into the city’s existing residential neighborhoods and the displacement of single family homes by apartments, condominiums, duplexes and triplexes.
The tension between the purveyors of high-density growth and the controlled-growth advocates yet exists and still has not been resolved.
The confrontations Duggan has had with the controlled-growth/slow-growth crowd has armed him with information that has given him insight with regard to whether or not elements of the development community have succeeded in compromising the current members of the city council, which includes both Tejeda and Davis, as well as the council’s currently longest serving member, Paul Barich, and Jenna Guzman-Lowery and Mario Saucedo. Those residents, by their own interaction with advocates of transit-oriented development – which translates into urban districts with integrated high-density residential, commercial and recreational spaces within walking distance of public transit hubs – have learned that standards considered crucial to the success of that approach have been developed. As such, they recognize that a two-stage litmus test exists to determine whether an official who is embracing the transit oriented development approach, as is embodied in the transit villages concept in Redlands, is sincerely seeking to advance the community in keeping with the this current urban planning trend or whether the official is simply shilling for a developer who is using the trend to exploit the situation in order to maximize profit by constructing the highest density project that can be gotten away with. Thus, the first phase of the litmus test consists of whether the politician is in favor of high-rise development. Simply being in favor of building edifices of four, five, six, seven or more stories above ground is not an indicator, in and of itself, that a given politician is accepting bribes from a developer proposing such a project. Such a stance does, however, set up the second phase of the litmus test, which extends to whether the politician is simultaneously intent on requiring the builder of the high-rise project to construct in parallel conjunction underground parking facilities of no fewer than three levels and extending to a possible depth of four or five or six levels to accommodate the vehicles of those residents to occupy the high-rises. Given the standards of the trending urban planning concept of high-rise construction in conjunction with transit-oriented development, if a politician, elected official or planning official favors high-rise development but is opposed to deep underground parking structures, the logical derivation is he or she is on the take, and what is being taken are bribes – gratuities, kickbacks, graft – from the developers proposing the high rises.
Saucedo, who was previously a member of the Redlands Planning Commission, Guzman-Lowery, Davis, Tejeda and Barich have all supported the Transit Villages concept and have both signaled support for the construction of high-rise structures in Redlands and actively supported them with votes. At the same time, Barich, Tejeda, Davis, Guzman-Lowery and Saucedo have been curiously and rigorously silent with regard to whether they are in favor of holding the developers of the high-rises to a standard which would require that they augment their projects with three- four-, five-, six- or even seven-level underground parking facilities. Indeed, Saucedo, Guzman-Lowery, Davis, Tejeda and Barich have not only been silent on the matter, they have gone out of their way to avoid having to deal with the subject matter altogether. In presenting to the council the proposals for high-rise projects that have so far been approved, city staff did not include in those plans a requirement that the developer include underground parking facilities. Not one member of the council sought to explore the issue of underground parking when those projects were discussed, deliberated upon and approved.
Duggan, advantaged by his discussions with the no-growth/low-growth/slow-growth/controlled growth citizen group advocates and his knowledge regarding urban development standards as well as his access to the city council, knows, or has a very good idea with regard to, how Barich, Tejeda, Davis, Guzman-Lowery and Saucedo feel with regard to the requirement that developers of high-rise buildings in Redlands accompany any such projects with multiple-story underground parking. This has given him a glimpse on a window that few others have, that being whether his five political masters are being bought off by the construction industry. That knowledge, it is widely suspected in multiple quarters in Redlands, had a lot to do with the council having voted unanimously to extend Duggan’s contract to serve as city manager and give him a raise.
Steve Rogers, who is among the most involved of a cadre of extraordinarily engaged residents examining civic affairs in Redlands, told the Sentinel he was against the city council providing Duggan with the contract extension and a pay raise at this point. He felt so strongly about the matter that he addressed the city council before it took that action on Tuesday night.
“I’m against him getting a raise because his current contract isn’t up until 2026,” said in his remarks to the Sentinel. “The city council initiated its discussion on this way more than a year before that contract is set to expire.
When a discussion about Duggan was scheduled for a closed session of the city council several weeks ago, Rogers inferred that the city council was loading up to extend his contract. Rogers said he confronted the city council at that time. He said, “I asked, ‘Why is this on here? This is not the time, when we have not seen how he has fully performed on his ongoing contract, that this should come up for renewal.’”
Rogers said that perhaps his sharpest pang of dissatisfaction with Duggan is that he is “unresponsive” to the issues that he and others have brought up during open discussions of specific projects and items related to both general and specific policy. At the very least, Rogers said, what he wants out of Duggan is for him to make sure the city council is informed about views of residents or facts that might conflict with the information or recommendations provided to the city council by staff with regard to items that come before the city council for discussion and a vote.
Rogers further noted that the council took up the discussion of granting Duggan a contract extension and a raise at the height of the current election season.
“I don’t think giving the city manager a raise should take place until after the election,” Rogers said. “I get the impression that Mr. Duggan is using the election, while the outcome is uncertain and there is a possibility that the incumbents won’t return to the dais in December, as a way to leverage a raise.”
Rogers said that Duggan freely and frequently engages the city in inappropriate arrangements and that he did not need to go any further than the agenda for the Tuesday evening council meeting at which Duggan’s contract extension and raise were being discussed to find another item that served as an example of such an arrangement. In this regard, Rogers referenced the Venue at Orange Apartments to be built at the southwest corner of Orange Avenue and Alabama Street. The action taken involves the city providing the applicant on the project, the Miller Architectural Corporation, with a $1.5 million forgivable loan and a density bonus because the project is to include 50 affordable housing units as part of the project.
“I understand that affordable housing is the watchword by which all local governments live nowadays, but the real elephant in the room is that Gary Miller is the architect on this project,” Rogers said. “The city hired Gary Miller to serve as the architect to do the new City Hall in the City Bank building.”
Rogers remark relates to the city’s purchase of the six-story City Bank building, which is now undergoing renovations and tenant improvements to allow the city to clear out of its current City Hall quarters at 35 Cajon Street and move the city’s officer to the six-story structure at 300 State Street.
“Gary Miller is doing the improvements and seismic modifications for the new City Hall, the whole nine yards,” Rogers continued. “That job was awarded on a no bid basis. There are too many anomalies or irregularities or improprieties or I don’t know what you want to call it. Standard contract language says that in all of these major projects there should be no conflicts of interest involving the developer. In my opinion, having an architect who is working on a city project like the City Hall makeover who is getting a $1.5 million forgivable loan with a term of 55 years on another project in the city amounts to a conflict of interest.”
Rogers said, “That is an example of the type of improprieties that Charles Duggan is right in the middle of, and the city council does not seem to be in the least bothered by it. The very night he is involving the city council and the city in a conflict of interest, the city council is giving him a raise.”
Rogers has been critical of Duggan for utilizing questionable property valuations with regard to projects as well as in both land acquisitions and land sales.
Rogers, a licensed civil engineer, has had numerous go-rounds with the city on engineering issues and has been critical of the city for employing, on certain projects, engineers who are not registered or certified by the State of California.
On at least a handful of specific items, Rogers has quibbled with the city over technical engineering issues and decisions by those unregistered engineers.
When Rogers made his feelings about Duggan known at Tuesday night’s council meeting, Councilman Barich remarked that Rogers has nothing positive to say about the city, and that as such, Rogers should pull up stakes and move to Yucaipa. Barich’s outburst prompted Assistant City Attorney Albert Maldonado to preempt any further remarks from Barich. Maldonado told the councilman that it was not advisable for him to get into a back-and-forth with Rogers over his expression of his opinion.
Mayor Tejeda, who said he and Barich had negotiated with Duggan on the contract update, offered the justification for the action by saying, “A few months ago the city manager requested that the city council consider revising his contract and also consider bringing his salary into within the median of what other city managers earn in other communities.”
In 2020, Duggan was paid a salary of $249,216.01, another $5,500 in perks and pay add-ons, and benefits of $54,343.55 for a total annual compensation of $309,059.56.
In 2021, Duggan received $269,984 in salary, $6,000 in other perquisites and pay add-ons, $44,229.90 in benefits and a $21,301 annual contribution toward the pension he is to receive in retirement, for $341,514.96 in total compensation.
In October 2022, more than two years after Duggan had begun as city manager, the city council extended his contract, which was set to expire in January 2023, another three years to January 2026. That contract extension contained a controversial provision, what was termed an “incentive bonus.” The language in the contract stated, “Annually, beginning in August 2023, employee may be eligible for a lump-sum incentive bonus, at the sole discretion of the city council, for performance substantially above expectations. The city council will establish criteria as the basis for any bonus that may be awarded and such criteria will be delivered in writing to employee before December 31 of each year.”
That incentive bonus without specified criteria attached to it was questioned by many residents, most notably those who had previously been critical of action the city council had taken and which Duggan had facilitated.
In 2022, Duggan took home a $267,884.51 salary, another $12,131.92 in perks and pay add-ons, and was provided with $108,518.82 in full benefits for a total annual compensation of $388,535.25.
In 2023, Duggan’s salary was increased to $288,292, his perks fell to $6,650 and his full benefits reached $112,283.78, for a total annual compensation of $407,225.78.
According to Maldonado, “The employment contract will be extended to January 31, 2028. Effective January 15, 2025, the annual base salary shall increase to $315,000. Effective following the first payroll period following July 1, 2025, the city manager will receive a 2 percent increase to his salary over the prior year. All other terms as set forth in the current contract remain unchanged.”
We appreciate your leadership and look forward to keeping you as long as we can,” Daivs said.
“I hope you retire here,” said Barich, “but many, many years from now, of course.”
“You have listened to a lot of the suggestions that council members have asked of you, and even of the public,” said Mayor Tejeda. “Sometimes, perhaps it doesn’t come off that way, but in the end, behind the scenes, I appreciate that you do listen to the public, members of the public who are making critical analysis of how we do our work here, how you do your work, and you do make those changes. I appreciate that.”
The vote to extend Duggan’s contract and provide him with a raise was unanimous.
–Mark Gutglueck