The environmental hazard and persistent nuisance of the now eight-week-long fire at the 80-acre compost pit at the Synagro facility eight miles from Hinkley and approximately 17 miles from Barstow is the legacy of political payoffs delivered from the waste reclamation company’s corporate predecessor to members of the San Bernardino Board of Supervisors.
Maryland-based Synagro Technologies currently operates a waste processing and sludge-to-agricultural-grade-composting operation at a location in the east Mojave Desert at 14479 Cougar Road in Helendale, which is roughly halfway between Helendale and Hinkley. Continue reading →

As part of a calculated political move aimed at allowing intensified development to take place at the city’s core, the Redlands City Council this week cleared the way for voters to impose substantial restrictions for the next two to three generations on development in that portion of San Timoteo Canyon that falls under the city’s purview.
In coming to the compromise, the pro-development council dispensed with a previous voter initiative it had voted in June to place before the voters in the upcoming municipal election. The council took this action in the face of the intensive support a wide cross section of the city’s residents had evinced for a measure two grassroots groups, Friends of Redlands and Redlanders for Responsible Growth Management, had previously qualified for this November’s election that would have, if passed, prevented the University of Redlands from proceeding with a plan to construct four-story dormitories or residential structures on or near the university campus. Continue reading →

Sheriff’s Captain Lucas Niles will retire on July 28.
The commander of the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s Station since March 2020, he will move into retirement after 20 years with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
For Niles, law enforcement was his second career. He was a military officer previously, having retired from the U.S. Marines.
Niles said working first as a deputy, then achieving the rank of detective by 2009, sergeant in 2013, lieutenant in 2017 and ultimately being promoted to captain in 2020 when he took on the assignment of heading the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s station was a rich experience and an honor. He said his accomplishments as a law enforcement officer were in large measure made possible by the support he and other members of the department had gotten from the community. Continue reading →

The San Bernardino County In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority, known by the acronym IHSS, is recruiting caregivers to provide personal care and domestic services that will allow seniors and disabled adults to remain in their homes.
The types of services authorized through IHSS are housecleaning, meal preparation, laundry, grocery shopping, personal care services, accompaniment to medical appointments, and protective supervision for the mentally impaired.
No experience is necessary and working in this capacity can involve a flexible work schedule. The greatest need for caregivers is in Chino, Yucaipa, and Yucca Valley.
To complete an application, go to www.sbcarejobs.com

With the calendar rapidly advancing toward the November 2020 election, the prospect for a compromise being worked out between city officials and a grassroots group of activists in Big Bear Lake intent on imposing stricter guidelines and regulations on vacation rentals in the mountain city of 5,231 residents is fading with every passing day.
It appears that a denouement to the clash that has been brewing over the years between those with a vested or economic interest in the tourist trade in Big Bear Lake and those who simply reside there will take place on November 8, the date on which the city’s 2,887 voters will have an opportunity to head to the polls or meet the deadline to submit their ballots by mail. Unless those who pushed to place a measure on the ballot that calls for intensifying the regulations and conditions to be imposed on short-term rental units can have a meeting of the minds with the movers and shakers in the local tourist industry, the measure as previously drafted will come before the city’s voters for approval or rejection. Most political prognosticators in a position to have two fingers on the pulse of the mountain community believe that measure will pass. Continue reading →

Notice is hereby given pursuant to Sections 3071 of the Civil Code of the State of California the undersigned will sell the following vehicle(s) at lien sale at said address below on: 07/29/2022 09:00 AM
Year of Car / Make of Car / Vehicle ID No. / License No. (State)
2013 CHRY 2C3CCAAGXDH743194 8RSW984 CA
To be sold by ENRIQUE DURAN RAMIREZ 14881 MERRILL AVE FONTANA CA 92335
Said sale is for the purpose of satisfying lien for together with costs of advertising and expenses of sale.
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel July 22, 2022

Notice is hereby given pursuant to Sections 3071 of the Civil Code of the State of California the undersigned will sell the following vehicle(s) at lien sale at said address below on: 07/29/2022 09:00 AM
Year of Car / Make of Car / Vehicle ID No. / License No. (State)
1985 VOLVO 8412VS1634 9B87076 CA
To be sold by ROBINSON CALF RANCH 8455 SCHAEFER ONTARIO CA 91761
Said sale is for the purpose of satisfying lien for together with costs of advertising and expenses of sale.
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel July 22, 2022 Continue reading →

By Mark Gutglueck
As Fontana is moving to become the sixth San Bernardino County city to legalize the sale of marijuana, concerns have been raised relating to the Postmus Cartel muscling in on the commercial cannabis franchises that are to soon materialize in the county’s second largest municipality.
Multiple anomalies in the processes to license and permit cannabis/marijuana-related commercial operations in the city of 208,393 were given exhibition during the hearing that preceded Tuesday night’s vote to end Fontana’s prohibition on the sale of the drug. At issue in some of those anomalies are known contacts between Bill Postmus and the city’s mayor and one of its council members that took place prior to the July 12 meeting at which the council approved a set of rules relating to such businesses. One of those rules prevents applicants for such business operations from having contact with members of the council.
Moreover, the regulations that pertain to the applicants to be granted the city’s licenses and permits were drafted with exclusions that appear to have been tailored to avoid disqualifying Postmus, a convicted criminal and drug user, whose criminal history and involvement with controlled substances would otherwise have precluded him from being involved in such an operation in Fontana.
Given Postmus’s convictions on multiple political corruption charges including bribery and recent reports that a political money laundering operation he has set up is being used to deliver monetary payments to elected officials throughout San Bernardino County to influence their votes relating to the business ventures of clients for whom Postmus is doing consulting work, suspicions have been raised to the effect that Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren and the ruling council majority she controls, which vehemently opposed marijuana legalization in the city they govern in the past, have been paid by Postmus’s cartel to end their city’s cannabis ban and confer on the marijuana profiteers Postmus represents an airtight monopoly. Continue reading →

Measure K, the initiative passed by two-thirds of the county’s voters in November 2020 calling for a drastic overhaul of county government by reducing the total compensation of county supervisors and limiting them to a single four-year term, must be implemented, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District has tentatively ruled.
It is widely anticipated that at a specially scheduled meeting scheduled for Monday, July 18, the board will call upon the county’s lawyers to appeal the state appellate court’s ruling to the California Supreme Court, a move which is likely to postpone the terms of the reform from being put into place for another 18 months while the state’s highest court first determines whether it will hear the matter and, if so, then makes a material finding with regard to the issues that are under dispute.
Meanwhile, the primary upshot of the ruling, barring an unlikely change of heart on the part of the appellate court, is that the members of the board of supervisors will see their total annual compensation reduced from what at present is approximately $270,000 to $60,000. Continue reading →

Redlands’ position at ground zero in the State of California’s grand cultural and land use war over addressing the state’s homeless crisis is to be on display at the Tuesday, July 19 city council meeting.
Traditionally, local government, meaning cities and counties, have had discretion over land use policy and development standards in their respective communities. But with growing numbers of homeless now living on the streets and alleyways and in tents and lean-tos pitched and erected in the parks, parkways and on the sidewalks of California’s cities, legislators and bureaucrats in Sacramento have undertaken to address the issue.
In response to the housing crisis, the California legislature has empowered the California Department of Housing with the authority to essentially usurp local land use authority and to dictate through a formula called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment how many new residential units each community in the state must build without regard to the preferences or Continue reading →