It does not appear that the board of supervisors will be able to meet the daunting gamut of requirements and deadlines to include the race to replace the late County Assessor Bob Dutton on the November 8 ballot and save the county’s taxpayers the roughly $3 million it will cost to hold a special election to fill that now empty position from January 2023 until January 2027.
Quietly and privately, because no one wants to create a spectacle of bad-mouthing a dead man, county officials lay blame for the situation on Dutton, who died on July 23, after seeking and achieving reelection earlier this year despite knowing late last year that he had terminal prostate cancer. Continue reading →

Some eight months after a considerable contretemps over an ultimately abandoned plan to convert the vast majority of the trees in the historic England Estate orange grove into a residential subdivision, reports have surfaced that the grove is not being irrigated.
Those who have observed the grove in recent weeks say the neglect is threatening the trees’ survival.
Some residents say the current situation raises questions about City Hall’s commitment to the preservation of Redlands’ historic resources, which a considerable number of residents over multiple generations have consistently supported. It has been suggested that the essentially pro-development city council has cast a blind eye toward the destruction of the grove because doing so will serve to remove an element central to the property’s historic significance, which would ultimately result in the property being intensively developed.
City officials maintain that they are not a party to the grove’s neglect or destruction. Continue reading →

The Upland City Council next Monday night, August 8, will approve making a request that the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters place a one-cent sales tax override measure on the November 8 ballot corresponding with the California Gubernatorial General Election.
Evidence has surfaced to indicate that city officials were hoping that the measure might be slipped on the ballot at what turns out to be the last minute, such that no arguments in opposition to the tax and no rebuttal of the argument in favor of it would be included in the voter guide to be provided to the county’s voters in early October. The absolute latest that arguments for or against the measure can be submitted in August 19.
Eagle-eyes in the community, however, detected the effort of city officials to place the measure on the ballot, dooming the hopes of the advocates of the tax that the matter might be decided without any official opposition to the initiative surfacing.
The Sentinel has learned that former Upland Councilman Glenn Bozar and former Upland Treasurer Larry Kinley have come forward to write the opposition argument to the ballot measure and the rebuttal argument to the argument in favor of the ballot measure. Continue reading →

Over the wintry
Forest, winds howl in rage
With no leaves to blow.

– Natsume Soseki

The San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission remains on course to consider the viability of the City of Twentynine Palms subsuming two of that community’s independent agencies, despite the apparent discontinuation of City Hall’s enthusiasm for doing so.
San Bernardino County’s division committed to hashing out jurisdictional disputes and setting both geographical and administrative boundaries will review, in a meeting to be held next month, whether the municipal services in Twentynine Palms which are not currently provided through the city government should continue under the administration of two entities that were in existence prior to the city’s 1987 incorporation.
The city triggered the review, but the city council has now rethought the wisdom of forcing the service realignment. To the chagrin of at least a handful of officials, the county remains intent on following through with the examination. Continue reading →

First autumn morning:
The mirror I stare into
Shows my father’s face.

– Murakami Kijo

These birds must fly as
We are bound to walk the earth
Accepting reality

She’s never lonely
She embraces solitude
Merging in oneness.

Illuminated
Feminine moonbeams ignite
The fire within

Caring For All Things
Her Grandmotherly Wisdom
Loves The World As Self