She is running for mayor, Janet Jernigan said, because “I feel I bring business experience, a common-sense thinking approach for Needles, and I am committed to work hard for our current businesses and any new development to move Needles forward. I will work to clean up and provide safety for our community so we continue our family environment and all departments in the city.
She will fit in and is qualified to serve as mayor Jernigan said.
“Currently I attend city meetings and have the necessary time to devote to Needles,” she said. She emphasized, “I have been a small business owner for 30 years and active in the community as a volunteer working for the betterment of Needles.” Continue reading →

While it is doubtful that the comprehensive mix of water users who fall under the aegis of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority will meet the goal of reducing water drafting in the region by all entities to 7,650 acre-feet by 2040, projects being undertaken by the joint powers authority will bring the area much closer to the idealized balance of water use envisaged by the state.
In 2015, in the aftermath of a four-year running drought and a determination by the California Department of Water Resources that the Indian Wells Valley is one of the 21 basins throughout the State of California in critical overdraft, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority was formed, pursuant to a joint exercise of powers agreement involving Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County, the City of Ridgecrest and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as general members and the United States Navy and the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management as associate members.
Previously, in 2014, Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, mandating water-saving measures throughout the state and requiring local agencies to draft plans to bring groundwater aquifers into balanced levels of pumping and recharge through the adoption of a groundwater sustainability plan.
Based upon a survey of water usage patterns undertaken by an engineering consultant, Carlsbad-based Stetson Engineers, the authority and the Indian Wells Valley Water District sought to derive a strategy for both reducing water use in the valley and increasing groundwater recharge to reach a balance of both that will end the overdraft.
Any realistic assessment of the existing population, industrial, agricultural and commercial operations in the area and the decreases in the drafting of water from the regional aquifer that could be achieved through efficientization, conservation, increased recycling of water and perhaps the minimization of evaporation demonstrated that it would not be possible to achieve by the target year of 2040, as is mandated by the state, a balance of natural water recharge to the region from rainfall and the amount of water usage, such that the depletion of the aquifer will end.
According to the surveys completed to provide the data needed to formulate the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan, the average natural annual recharge in the basin is 7,650 acre-feet while the annual drafting of groundwater in the region by all entities is three to four times that amount.
Accordingly, staff and the board of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority long ago concluded that the sought-after goal of bringing the region’s water table out of a state of overdraft can only be achieved by the importation of water from outside the valley and injected it deep into the ground to avoid evaporation and replenish water lost from excessive production.
At the September 14 board meeting for the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, the board heard updates on some of its major projects from Stetson Engineers, the authority’s leading consultant on the water-sue balancing effort.
Participants focused on the water importation efforts. This includes plans to construct a pipeline to import water from the California Aqueduct. That water is to then be channeled into settling basins to recharge the aquifer beneath Indian Wells Valley. The water will then be extracted by well owners throughout the region.
In July, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority committed $449,100 toward determining the most efficient and affordable route and realistic approach toward right-of-way acquisition for the pipeline, an assignment being carried out by Provost & Pritchard Consulting Group.
In addition, the authority obtained a $7.6 million grant from the California Department of Water Resources to perform an alignment study for the pipeline.
The collective will also need to build up a financial fund it can use to purchase both water rights and water from the State Water Project.
According to Stetson Engineers principal Jeff Helsley, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority made headway in obtaining the grant because of the state’s priority on curing water overdrafts throughout the state.
In addition to Stetson Engineers, the authority is highly dependent upon the guidance of the Indian Wells Valley Water District. The district and Provost & Pritchard are coordinating to undertake and complete a preliminary environmental information form, an environmental study that is far less exacting than a full-blown environmental impact report, on the pipeline proposal, based on inexact location criteria for the pipeline, by November 30.
Also, according to Helsey, the participants in the Indian Wells Valley Water Authority will need to refine an energetic water recycling program to make strides toward balancing the region’s water use and natural recharge to limit the depletion of the water table.
While traditional recycled water is not potable, Helsley said that the plan is to collect as much recycled water as possible, treat it and then inject it into the aquifer.
–Mark Gutglueck

Commuters and the public at large are being put in danger as a result of the latest trend in vandalism and thievery targeting train signaling systems in the Southland.

Within the last week, at a multitude of stops along the Orange County and Inland Empire-Orange County Line, traffic and signaling equipment for the Metrolink trains – primarily wire and copper-laden electrical connections – has been stolen.

This can result in the crossing gates and signals of the roads where the trains cross to fail or become dysfunctional. That could cause collisions with the trains, which can reach speeds of upwards of 40 miles per hour and as high as 50 miles per hour along the route.

Overall yesterday, precautions taken at spots where the trains intersect major roads along the Metrolink route entailed nearly an accumulated six hour delay. The trains would slow to a near stop or craw, with Metrolink personnel jumping from a lead car to serve as traffic officers at the road crossings, after which the trains would again pick up speed, only to slow at the next crossing.

Not all or even a majority of the electronic boxes near the intersections had been breached, but enough had been so that Metrolink officials out of an abundance of caution initiated the crossing stops or near-stops.

The thefts at what were at least two crossings happened in the early a.m. of September 22 in Orange County along the Metrolink track that ultimately extends into Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.

An emergency crew did repairs to the electrical/electronic signal boxes between the Orange and Santa Ana stations to replace wiring that had been removed.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME
CASE NUMBER CIV SB 2216329
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: NGA CUU NGUYEN filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
NGA CUU NGUYEN to ANNA NGA NGUYEN
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: OCTOBER 3, 2022
Time: 08:30 AM
Department: S-16
The address of the court is
Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino,
247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415,
San Bernardino District-Civil Division
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.
Filed: August 15, 2022
Judge John Pacheco
Eduardo Hernandez, Deputy
Clerk of the Superior Court.
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on September 2, 9, 15 & 23, 2022.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-FBN20220007191
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: SOLUTIONS LABOR RELATIONS CONSULTING, 5489 STAGECOACH DR, FONTANA, CA 92336,
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
Mailing Address: CARLOS ORTIZ, 5489 STAGECOACH DR, FONTANA, CA 92336,
State of Inc./Org./Reg. ,
Inc./Org./Reg. No.
Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, 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 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/CARLOS ORTIZ,
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of SAN BERNARDINO on: 08/03/2022
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 01/01/2010
County Clerk,
NOTICE- This fictitious business 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 name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
09/02/2022, 09/09/2022, 09/16/2022, 09/23/2022

Continue reading →

Based upon the preliminary findings of an internal investigation, Mayor Paul Anthony Courtney has been temporarily barred from having direct access with anyone at City Hall other than City Manager Willie Hopkins.
By a 4-to-0 vote of the city council during a closed session of the city council Monday night, September 12, a decision to end Courtney’s privileges as an elected official at City Hall was made. His office was sealed off and his key and passcode disabled.
No authorized statement regarding that action has been publicly made, although a written statement was, according to an employee within the city manager’s office, under preparation on Tuesday. That statement has yet to be provided to the press or public. The city attorney is to make a public report of the situation at the next meeting of the city council. Continue reading →

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday chose Christopher Wilhite to replace the late Robert Dutton as county assessor for the next three-and-a-half months.
Dutton died July 23, a month and 16 days after he was reelected assessor for the second time without opposition to the position of the county’s highest-situated taxing authority.
Dutton was heavily involved in real estate speculation and development in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily in Rancho Cucamonga where he acceded to the position of chairman of the Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce. In 2000, largely on the strength of his family fortune and the support of the development and business community, he was elected to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council. Two years later, he successfully vied for the California Assembly. After a single term in California’s lower legislative house, in 2004, he ran to replace Jim Brulte, the Republican leader of the California Senate who was being termed out.
Once in place in California’s upper legislative house, Dutton served, essentially, as Brulte’s surrogate, effectively extending the latter’s tenure as a legislator not in name but in effect. Over the next eight years, Dutton followed Brulte’s instructions and in 2010, under an arrangement engineered by Brulte, Dutton assumed the position of Republican Senate Leader, heading that 40-seat legislative body’s 15-member GOP delegation. Continue reading →

The relationship between lame duck San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia and Rod Pacheco, the attorney who defended him so passionately against a bevy of lawsuits and accusations of sexual harassment, abuse of his official authority and political corruption, has apparently gone south.
Pacheco, who a generation ago waged a battle to establish a niche for Hispanic politicians within the Republican Party, is credited by some with having created or at least partially created the atmosphere within which Valdivia was able to establish what just a few years ago appeared to be a promising political presence as arguably one of the more significant Latino officeholders in San Bernardino County.
A San Bernardino native who went onto a successful legal career, initially as a deputy prosecutor in the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, Pacheco in 1996 was elected to the California Assembly. In November 1998 he was chosen by his colleagues as the Republican Assembly leader, marking the first time in the state’s history that a Latino had served in that capacity. He narrowly missed out on becoming assembly speaker as a consequence of the Republicans having lost a net five Assembly seats in that month’s election rather than picking up two seats as had been the GOP’s hope going into that election cycle. In 2002, he was termed out of the Assembly and went back to being a lawyer. In 2006, he was elected Riverside County District Attorney, serving a single term in that role. Continue reading →

His intent in running for a position on the Rancho Cucamonga City Council is to prevent the burgeoning city from losing its quaint character, Erick Jimenez said.
“I moved to the city when I was in elementary school,” Jimenez said. “And even though the orange groves and grapevines have been replaced by tract homes and shopping centers, it still maintains its small-town values. I know that’s true of my community in Alta Loma, where my daughter can still play outside, and neighbors look after each other. That’s why I’m running for city council, so that my daughter can grow up in the same safe and prosperous community I was raised in.”
Jimenez is vying against Floyd Clark, Mary Hannah, Lawrence Henderson, Ashley Stickler and Rose Stephens Olmsted to replace the late Sam Spagnolo as the city’s District 1 councilman and serve out the remainder of his term through 2024. Spagnolo died in May, leaving the council at four-fifths strength.
“I have been active in our community for over a decade now,” Jimenez said, “involved with different civic organization in the city. I understand how local government works and I’m ready to start working for our community on day one. We need to address the specific issues of District 1, such as development and fire protection in our foothills and lack of services in our parks, trails, and facilities.”
Jimenez said, “I’m the only candidate with school age children, and if you are a middle-class family like mine, you know how expensive childcare can be. Childcare can run thousands of dollars a month for families. Currently, the city does not have a single, city-financed daycare center. There is one from the county for lower income families, but nothing for middle-income families. I want to propose we use our parks, city facilities and recreational department to establish a city-run daycare center in every district of the city, for those folks that qualify in the middle-class category of $50,000 to $120,000 in household income per year.” Continue reading →