For the second time in less than a month, a strong-willed and once-dominant mayor of a San Bernardino County city has been unanimously censured by his city council colleagues.
In this case it was Barstow Mayor Paul Courtney, who was officially rebuked on a 4-to-0 vote of the city council on December 21.
There were parallels to but also differences from the action taken by the San Bernardino City Council on December 1, when that panel voted to censure Mayor John Valdivia. One element of the Barstow council’s expression of disapproval for Courtney related to using his status as the head of the city as well as the use of the city’s name and logo to engage in what has been interpreted as a political mailing camouflaged as an official handbill aimed at promoting the city but which Courtney’s critics maintained was intended to advance himself politically. Courtney was further charged with overstepping his reach as mayor in effectuating official action. Those acts were not too different from the behavior the city council in San Bernardino found so offensive related to Valdivia utilizing city resources to send out mailers inviting what were essentially his political contributors to attend a fundraiser disguised as a post-state of the city speech reception.
The admonishment delivered to Courtney, nonetheless, differed from that leveled at Valdivia, in that the activity Courtney engaged in did not involve, at least directly, the expenditure of public funds, and the objections to the Barstow mayor’s comportment pertain in the main more to the domineering elements of his personality and political ambition than the venal and graft-ridden particulars of Valdivia’s function in office.
Courtney in 2020 experienced a rapid and mostly unanticipated rise to the top of the political hill in Barstow, a desert railroad town that was once key to San Bernardino County’s establishment as not only the nation’s largest county but one of its more dynamic ones in terms of mining, manufacturing, travel and logistics at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century. The ninth of the county’s 24 municipalities to incorporate, Barstow was at one point the county’s fourth largest city in terms of population, but since that time has fallen to become, at 23,857 residents, the 20th largest of the county’s 24 cities and incorporated towns.
Courtney in 2020 challenged and defeated Mayor Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre, a niece of one of Barstow’s most successful entrepreneurs, Ed Hackbarth, the co-founder of the Del Taco fast food chain.
Courtney, as the chief executive officer of PACE Services Corporation which he founded in Barstow in April 1986, had become a pillar of the community by virtue of a multitude of considerations beyond being a Barstow native intimately familiar with the community. Those included his status as the owner/operator of one of the city’s more successful businesses; his participation in the Barstow Chamber of Commerce, including his time as a board member; his previous service, from 2005 until 2010 on the Barstow Fire Protection District Board of Trustees; and, perhaps most significantly, his lineage, as he is the son of William Courtney, a one-time Barstow police officer and former city councilman.
Courtney ran in league with two other newcomers to Barstow municipal politics, Barbara M. Rose, a 13-year member of the Barstow Unified School District Board of Trustees, and Marilyn Dyer-Kruse, an employee of the development company owned by Michael Lewis, Barstow’s elected treasurer since 2012 and one of Courtney’s major political backers. The three campaigned together and became known to many in the city as the “Troika,” appearing on billboards, mailers and fliers they put out in common. An important element of Courtney’s appeal to the city’s voters was to belabor that the city was in what he said was a precarious financial state, while he simultaneously emphasized the need to ensure that funds generated by Measure Q, a one cent-per-dollar sales tax override put on the local ballot for the November 2018 election by the city council and approved by 59 percent of Barstow’s voters, were responsibly utilized. Measure Q was intended to generate roughly $7 million annually in local funding for ensuring the provision of local fire protection and paramedic services; providing police services, including neighborhood police patrols, crime prevention and investigations while squelching gang activity and drug-related crimes; maintaining streets and filling potholes; keeping parks in decent shape; reducing response times to 9-1-1 emergencies; and funding both senior and youth programs.
Courtney, and by extension Rose and Dyer-Kruse, were assisted in their electoral efforts by public statements occasionally made by members of the city’s Measure Q Resident Oversight Committee suggesting that the Hackbarth-McIntyre Administration was not applying the Measure Q money available to the city with alacrity.
Ultimately, Courtney prevailed in the election over Hackbarth-McIntyre, while Dyer-Kruse ousted incumbent Councilwoman Carmen Hernandez in the city’s District Four city council race and Rose prevailed in the District Three contest against her opponent Leonard Williams, ultimately replacing former Councilman Richard Harpole, who had resigned from his then at-large council position to move with his family to Texas in December 2019.
Almost immediately after being installed as members of the city council, the Troika in short order rendered the two existing members of the city council, Tim Silva, who had first been elected to the council in 2006, and James Noble, who had been elected to the city council in 2018, political irrelevancies, at least temporarily. One of the first moves of the newly-composed council was to rescind the 90-day period for the review of the performance of the city manager and city attorney, the two positions at the city hired directly by the council, reducing the review time to 30 days. Then, only 28 days after their triple swearing-in, the Troika, with Silva and Noble dissenting, moved to force City Manager Nikki Salas, a vestige of the Hackbarth-McIntyre era, out of her position.
On January 7, 2021, Salas wrote a memo/letter to Assistant City Manager Cindy Prothro. That letter stated, “With the onset of the new majority city council, the intent to terminate your employment and to eliminate the position of assistant city manager was clearly expressed to me on several occasions by the mayor and mayor pro tem as a necessary step for their new administration to be successful. While I adamantly disagree with their assessment, I feel as though I have no choice but to cancel your contract.”
Salas informed Prothro she was being terminated as of the end of the business day on January 8.
On January 8, Salas was herself placed on administrative leave by a vote of the city council.
Prothro, seeing the writing on the wall, took an “involuntary voluntary” retirement the same day Salas was put on leave rather than be fired.
Eleven days later, during a closed-door meeting, the council voted 3-2, with council Tim Silva and James Noble in opposition, to accept Salas’s official resignation.
It appeared, at least to some, that the Troika was in power to stay, at least until 2024. In arriving at their agreement the previous year to work hard together to change the Barstow political landscape, Courtney and Rose had cut a deal that called for Rose to be installed as mayor pro tem, the de facto vice mayor position. With the support of Dyer-Kruse, that agreement was kept, and the mayor pro tem honor was conferred upon Rose, preparing the way, perhaps, for Rose to one day become the full-fledged mayor herself upon Courtney’s equally potential move to assume higher political office. In the interim, it was expected and anticipated that Rose and Dyer-Kruse were to be loyal members of Courtney’s ruling council coalition, such that he was to be the prime mover at Barstow City Hall, the dominant figure in local government.
To others, however, the political marriage between the mayor and mayor pro tem was one that was doomed from the outset.
Leonard Williams, the chairman of the Resident Oversight Committee for Measure Q, vied against Rose to represent District Three on the council in 2020. As one of Barstow’s residents most closely attuned to local politics, Williams sized the situation up thusly, “Paul Courtney is a strong and outspoken man. Barbara Rose is a strong and outspoken woman. They came together and worked hard to get elected. No one can take that away from them. They are alpha types who want things their way. When they first got into office they were cooperating. But everyone who really knew them gave them about six months before it was going to go bad. As it turned out, they were on the outs with each other in about three months. It started when she began to question some of the things he wanted to do. And then it went from asking questions, to her voting no on some issue. I can’t remember what that issue was, precisely. That was in February, where she showed disagreement with something he was in favor of. It was something minor. It was nothing groundbreaking. At that point, their partnership, political partnership, was over. The differences continued to escalate from there. She started to disagree with just about everything he wanted to do. The split continued to grow and then it got really ugly. She didn’t support him anymore and it came down to him deciding he did not want her as his mayor pro tem. That is when he arranged to make Councilman Noble his mayor pro tem.”
It was during Courtney’s rush to be rid of Rose as mayor pro tem that he made a number of missteps that have redounded to his political detriment, created a circumstance in which his ruling coalition has likely been permanently shattered, brought his comportment and that of three other members of the council into legal question, and set the table for the censure that he was just subjected to.
So intent was Courtney on deposing Rose as vice mayor that he cast caution to the wind and violated a basic protocol in California governance pertaining to the state’s open public meeting law, known as the Ralph M. Brown Act. The Brown Act requires that all governmental business and decision-making be conducted in public and that prior notice of that action must be given to the public at least 72 hours in advance, specifically on the agenda posted prior to those meetings, before a vote on such a matter can take place. The Brown Act allows less than a quorum – a majority – of a decision-making body to discuss such action beforehand, but it outlaws serial discussions involving a body’s members such that discussion of any such issue cannot take place among a majority of an elected board’s members. The Brown Act further enjoins a quorum or a majority of an elected board’s members from coming to a consensus on how they will vote outside the forum of an official meeting.
In his zeal to remove Rose as mayor pro tem and then orchestrate her replacement with Noble, Courtney had private discussions with Noble, Dyer-Kruse and Councilman Tim Silva at several junctures in April. Then, on May 3, despite the consideration that no explicit prior announcement of considering the removal of Rose as mayor pro tem was made in the agenda for that meeting, Courtney ushered the council into a discussion of doing just that when Item 13 on that evening’s agenda came up for discussion. Item 13 referenced leadership reorganization, a vague phrase which did not convey that removing the mayor pro tem was at hand. Remarkably, once the discussion was under way, Courtney suggested that the subject of council leadership be discussed in a private session of the council, though he did not adjourn the meeting into a closed session. He then made a motion to depose Rose as mayor pro tem and replace her with Noble. Upon City Attorney Matthew Summers clarifying, in response to Silva’s question, that the mayor had the authority to nominate the mayor pro tem and the council’s role is to confirm that nomination, Silva made a motion to discuss the matter, and Councilwoman Dyer-Kruse seconded it. Faced with the prospect of being removed as mayor pro tem by her colleagues, Rose resigned from the post. Discussion of the matter ensued, during which Courtney, Silva and Dyer-Kruse acknowledged, inadvertently, that they had violated the Brown Act by having a serial discussion with regard to ending Rose’s run as mayor pro tem and replacing her. The council discussion with regard to Item 13 ended that evening without a vote on the mayor’s motion to replace Rose with Noble.
At its May 17 meeting, the council discussed an item placed on that evening’s agenda, which consisted of staff’s recommendation to appoint Noble mayor pro tem. Upon Silva making a motion to appoint Noble, which Noble then seconded, the council voted 4-to-1, with Rose dissenting, to designated Noble as the mayor pro tem.
From that point on, or perhaps even before that, Rose and Courtney have been at war.
There have been multiple manifestations of those hostilities.
On April 19, Rose’s brother, Frank Maestas, who is estranged from his councilwoman sister, penned a letter in which he alleged that Barbara had engaged in a multiplicity of fraudulent, indeed felonious, acts, including tax violations, by falsely claiming guardianship over their disabled sister and routing two of her sister’s COVID crisis-related stimulus checks to herself. There is evidence to suggest though not precisely prove that Courtney had solicited that letter from Maestas to support his May 3 effort to depose Rose as mayor pro tem. It is acknowledged that the mayor had copies of Maestas’s letter routed to his four council colleagues. While he has maintained that he merely provided copies of Maestas’s letter to the city’s other elected officials so the council would not be blindsided by the charges contained therein, others in the community have stated that Courtney gleefully shared the letter with other high profile and powerful members of the Barstow community, such as Ben Rosenberg, the president of the Barstow Unified School District Board of Trustees, and other movers and shakers in an effort to further damage Rose. Courtney has denied using Rose’s brother’s letter in an attempt to malign her.
Rose, in turn, alleged that Courtney, in league with her council colleagues, violated the Brown Act in the move to remove her as mayor pro tem. A complaint went to the Public Integrity Unit of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office. Deputy District Attorney Phil Stemler carried out an investigation into the matter, summarizing his findings in a May 28 letter to Barstow City Attorney Matthew Summers. According to that letter, the city council ran afoul of the Brown Act by failing to clearly disclose on the agenda for its May 3 meeting that it was to discuss the removal of Rose as mayor pro tem. Furthermore, Stemler asserted that Courtney, Noble, Silva and Dyer-Kruse had violated the Brown Act by the holding of serial discussions relating to the removal of Rose and her replacement with Noble, discussions that were not agendized and which occurred privately and outside of a public forum. Though there was strong indication that a violation of the Brown Act occurred on two accounts, Stemler concluded that no prosecutorial action would take place as long as Summers and the council made good on a commitment Summers had made to hold a training session for the council to ensure they had a better understanding of the Brown Act, what it entails and how to avoid violating it in the future.
During the 2020 campaign, Courtney had made a decided inroad against Hackbarth-McIntyre by implying and outright stating that the city was not making efficient use of the Measure Q money available to it. He had picked up key support from firefighters and police officers during the mayoral race. After Courtney was in office, members of the Resident Oversight Committee for Measure Q, including ones who were Courtney supporters and some who were not, came to understand a significant portion of the Measure Q money was being utilized for public safety purposes as intended. They grew dismayed with Courtney’s unwillingness to acknowledge that reality. Several of his former supporters are disillusioned with Courtney’s seeming inability to transition from the aggressive and divisive mode of campaigning to the more accommodating and welcoming process of governing.
Some of those who had anticipated a cooperative regime at City Hall that was inclusive of a wide variety of ideas grew alarmed at what they considered to be Courtney’s dictatorial attitude.
As the spring gave way to summer, Courtney’s control over the council had begun to seriously lapse. The ruling coalition consisting of himself, Rose and Dyer-Kruse had been forever splintered as a consequence of the contretemps between him and Rose. The early powerplay involving the firing of Salas and the forced resignation of Prothro had poisoned any possible relationship with Silva. Courtney’s remaining hope of rallying enough support to remain in charge in Barstow consisted of replacing Rose on his ruling coalition with Noble, essentially through his having elevated him to mayor pro tem.
If that ploy had any hope of succeeding, it was undercut by Stemler’s Brown Act investigation and its conclusion. Moreover, Courtney would ultimately involve himself in activity that would further estrange him from Noble.
Some of that behavior occurred off the council’s radar, involving backroom arrangements between the mayor and the interim city manager brought in by the city council after Salas’s firing. The motivation for that action, involving the cancellation of city contracts with at least two service providers, is not clear. After Salas was sacked, Courtney and the remainder of the council retained Jim Hart to serve as Barstow’s interim city manager. Hart’s previous career as a municipal official included an extended tenure as the City of Rancho Cucamonga’s administrative services director followed by ten years as the city manager of Twentynine Palms, more than two years as the city manager of Rancho Santa Margarita and ten years as the city manager of Adelanto.
Members of the council, reportedly including Noble, grew concerned at the way in which Courtney as mayor used his position of authority to suborn Hart, a well-traveled municipal executive, to his will.
This week, during a scheduled council hearing to consider the call to censure Courtney, the sponsors of the censure, councilmembers Tim Silva and Barbara Rose, acted as the mayor’s de facto prosecutors.
Using the weight of his influence as mayor, Courtney, without bringing the matter before the council, Silva alleged, induced Hart to cancel a city contract with Main Street Murals Inc., a nonprofit corporation based in Barstow devoted to featuring artistic renditions along historic Route 66, as well as a contract with a lobbying firm that works on behalf of the city in Washington, D.C. Also without consulting with or a vote of the city council, Courtney had Hart allow a contract with the Harvey House, an historic train station in Downtown Barstow, to elapse, Silva maintained.
Implying that Courtney had threatened Hart in forcing the interim city manager to take that action, Silva said Hart “lied” to him about what had occurred, and that he ultimately learned of the cancellations through individuals outside of the city.
Courtney was accused of trying to manufacture an appearance that his administration is successful by generating flyers announcing economic progress for the city. The mayor crossed the line by making it appear that the flyers were an official function of the city, when they were in fact a ploy by Courtney to stir up public support, Silva said.
Silva said that flyers Courtney had distributed throughout the Barstow community utilized the city’s logo and the names of city council members to promote himself by referencing accomplishments allegedly achieved during Courtney’s tenure as mayor, extending to the creation of twenty new businesses in the city.
Furthermore, Silva charged that Courtney had utilized his position as mayor and the access it gave him to the letter from Maestas to use it to inflict personal and political damage on Rose.
Beyond that, Silva said the mayor was threatening city employees to bully them into carrying out his personal political goals that were not approved by the remainder of the council.
Silva said his intent was “to keep the city safe from liability,” which he said Courtney was subjecting the city and its taxpayers to.
Silva summarized Courtney’s transgressions as “abuse of official capacity” and the “gain of personal benefit from the misuse of government property.” The first of these, Silva said, was “the flyer.” The second consisted, Silva said, in the “misuse of official information. That would be the distribution of the Rose Family letter with the intent to cause harm.”
The case against the mayor was airtight, Silva insisted.
“On the first, council, you don’t have to decide he did wrong,” Silva said. “He admitted it. You have to decide if you are going to allow it to continue. On the second, the letter was taken to you and you know in which way in which it was presented to you,” which Silva said demonstrated Courtney’s “intent was to harm Council Member Rose.”
Silva was somewhat secretive in the way he presented the charges against the mayor. Though, presumably, Courtney knows whom he threatened, Silva stopped short of documenting in public who that employee was. It was not clear why Silva did not make this disclosure.
“A Barstow employee was threatened by the mayor of their position if they did not do what he wanted,” Silva said. Silva implied the threatened employee worked in the code enforcement division, although he was not explicit.
“He did make a decision that employee would not do their job,” Silva said. “He did threaten a city employee with firing.”
Summarizing, Silva said, “He did take out the Rose letter. He did give direction to staff. We’re talking harassment. We’ve got city employees in fear of the mayor.”
The city would end up getting sued if it did not rein in the mayor, Silva said, saying the city would experience “major liability” if the council did not address Courtney’s behavior with a censure.
Rose said, “The mayor exploited my family, and he exploited me.”
Rose repeated Silva’s charge that Hart, while serving in the capacity of interim city manager, enabled Courtney.
“I can tell you in multiple conversations I had with Dr. Hart, he lied to support the mayor,” Rose said. “The mayor continues to be defiant.”
Rose said Courtney was involved in “the misuse of tax dollars, the use of power to intimidate our staff. He is hurting our city and continues to put our city at risk.”
Courtney disputed the suggestion that the flyer, which was paid for at his own expense, was intended for self-aggrandizement. Rather, he suggested, he was promoting the city and had shared credit for what had been accomplished with the other members of the city council. “There’s no personal gain in this for me,” he lamented, pointing out that the flyer, which had set him back $657, had been printed and distributed at his own “personal expense,” Courtney said. He was merely working to create, the mayor said, a “better Barstow” and was giving the city “free advertising” he was now being chastised for.
He had learned his lesson, Courtney insisted and vowed, “I will not use the city logo nor the city seal.”
Courtney referenced Stemler’s May 28 letter, which indicated that the district attorney’s office considered the Brown Act violation matter now closed as a consequence of the council having committed to a tutorial about the state’s open public meeting regulations and how to adhere to them. He said that Silva’s and Rose’s effort to subject him to the censure motion was a political ruse to undercut his legitimate mayoral authority.
Courtney said he had removed Rose as mayor pro tem because she was unequal to the task of leading the city in his absence. He suggested that she was overdramatizing the situation in an effort to harm him politically. He removed her as his back-up because of, he said, her “previous actions, words and candor. I cannot continue to sit here with what was going on, and it was going on for months. So, when the decision was made to make sure if in my absence the person that sits on the dais would at least not have a temper tantrum or speak down to the CM [city manager] or staff, I became very uncomfortable. It was not just me [that was] uncomfortable, but the continued remarks from the general public. I warned you. I told you so, but it just continues to go on and on and on and on about Barbara Rose.”
Addressing Rose directly, he said, “I respect the fact that you hold your family high and close. So do I. If I wanted to get into the performance mode like you are well known to do, I can shed a tear, too. But I’m not into performance. I’m into getting things done. For you to sit here and say that the city manager and city attorney had several conversations with me about liability and on and on and on, me doing my job, I’m surprised you would sit here and say that. For you to say that, I’m not really surprised because you’re into theatrics, and you’re pretty good at it. I just roll with the flow when you try to indicate that I’ve cost the city a hundred thousand dollars in legal fees, etcetera, etcetera. I know your chosen profession is HR [human resources], according to you. I’m thankful it’s not accounting or numbers, because we would really be in trouble. Dr. Hart: I do encourage you all to go take a look at how Dr. Hart was treated by Barbara Rose, meeting, after meeting, after meeting, after meeting, after meeting. She can speak about her want for the censure or whatever the case may be. I got that, because she has the ability to present her argument, just like I have the ability to present my argument. I’m not going to laugh at her or snicker at her. I choose not to reduce myself to that level where I got to get into the performance mode. It is like a theater. I don’t come here twice a month for the theater. I come here twice a month to do policy, procedure, etcetera, hopin’ to get the majority to continue to move our city forward. We are moving our city forward despite what you are witnessing up here. Do we apparently have a city staff member or city staff saying whatever? Perhaps we do. I’m not surprised at anything that’s being said.”
Courtney said he is being attacked by the same small crowd of malcontent residents who are demonizing the police chief as corrupt and being involved in a “cover-up.” The police chief’s performance, Courtney said, has been exemplary.
“They question every single item on the agenda,” Courtney said of the naysayers, “but in the end the majority continues to move things forward. The majority has been 3-2, 3-2, 3-2, because that’s how we get things done.”
The majority Courtney alluded to consisted of him, Noble and Dyer-Kruse.
“The majority love the fact that the City of Barstow is moving forward,” he said.
Courtney implied that the minority of Rose and Silva are running behind, and that is why they were pursuing the censure. He accused Rose of racism, saying that she objected to Noble being named mayor pro tem “because he looked like me.” Both Noble and Courtney are African-American. Rose is Hispanic.
When questioned by Silva, Courtney denied intimidating city staff.
Courtney said it was not necessary to spend precious city funds to carry out an independent investigation. “It’s money we don’t have,” he said.
The mayor was unable to convince the council to reconsider its censure action, however, and of significance was that his remaining ally on the council, Dyer-Kruse, abandoned him to support the censure resolution. Dyer-Kruse said before the vote that Courtney’s actions with regard to the flyer and the Brown Act violations were “concerning,” but that the mayor had desisted in that action. This was a seeming indication she did not think the censure was necessary. Ultimately, however, she supported the censure of the mayor.
Silva managed to take it beyond that, getting the city council, including Dyer-Kruse, to follow up with a secondary motion to have an independent investigation into Courtney’s action.
Courtney remained unbowed.
“We can pick and choose a lot of stuff that was done wrong,” he said. “The truth is a lot of stuff was done right and it will continue to be done right. I can challenge any of you who want to beat up on us: ‘There is an election coming up in 2022. Sign up.’”
The mayor said he did not want to and would not run for reelection is 2024, but remained committed to serving out the term he was elected to.
“Life continues,” he said. “If the vote is to censure me, I can live with it. I’m going on.”
Those close to City Hall said that whether Courtney will remain as a political force is riding on the independent investigation, and that if it is shown Courtney threatened city employees as he was accused of by Silva, his authority, already diminished, will elapse entirely.

The City of Rialto and its fire department find themselves the focus of local, state, national and international scorn as further details have emerged about how three Rialto firefighters, two of them paramedics, refused to administer aid to a 56-year-old man who had suffered a heart attack at an acute care facility 2.2 miles from the fire department’s headquarters and main fire station.
Joseph Angulo was pronounced dead less than an hour after the firemen, fearing exposure to the coronavirus if they were to enter the Rialto Post Acute Care Center, waited outside the facility’s entrance in accordance with what they said was department policy.
Only after a Rialto police officer arrived and pushed the wheel-less bed Angulo was in down a hallway and over the threshold of the acute care center’s entrance/exit did the fire department personnel begin their ministrations.
Fire department personnel and the union for the firefighters insist the paramedics conducted themselves properly.
Indications are, however, that the seven to nine minutes during which Angulo was not being properly attended to by the paramedics were critical and contributed to his death.
The department has initiated an internal investigation and audit of what occurred, over three minutes of which was captured on video by the bodyworn camera of Rialto Police Officer Ralph Ballew, who was dispatched to the Rialto Post Acute Care Center, located at 1471 South Riverside Avenue in Rialto at 7:51 p.m. on November 17.
That video footage and the officer’s matter-of-fact report of the incident has proven highly damaging to the reputation of a fire department that has already suffered from negative publicity relating to the union representing its firefighters engaging in surveillance of city council members in an effort to obtain leverage in contract negotiations.
At least two Rialto firefighters have been placed on paid leave while that investigation is ongoing. The Sentinel was told by a department member that both paramedics involved will be fully reinstated once the investigation runs its course, as both of them and another firefighter on the scene during the November 17 incident were adhering to written policy guidelines as well as the instructions of Sean Grayson, who had served as fire chief from 2014 until earlier this year. Grayson has since been replaced by Division Chief Brian Park, whose title has been changed to interim fire chief.
According to the written report Ballew made the night of November 17 incident, he arrived at the entrance to the facility where he encountered the fire department personnel waiting.
“I approached the door and stood by with fire personnel as I was unsure if they had already made contact with the staff of the location and [whether] arrangements for transport were being made. I was informed the facility was becoming problematic as [the] Rialto Fire [Department] was just here for an unrelated patient. After a few moments, an unknown employee of the location yelled out to fire personnel, ‘Please come help, he’s having cardiac arrest.’ Fire personnel responded by insisting the patient had to be brought outside the facility before they could provide any sort of treatment. I was informed due to an unspecified COVID-19 law, fire personnel [were] prohibited from entering the facility and the patient needed to be brought outside.”
According to Ballew’s report, a “frustrated employee yelled out to fire personnel pleading for help as they were provid[ing] CPR and could not move the patient and disrupt the rescue effort. Fire personnel replied ‘you are doing the same thing we would have to do if we went in, so hurry up and bring him out so we can help.’ The fire personnel to my immediate left then subtly stated it was a state law and if it was not appreciated staff could call their congressman.”
At that point, Ballew took it upon himself to go into the facility.
“Unsure of why fire personnel chose not to enter I decided to enter the location myself and determine how to assist staff in getting Angulo to fire personnel,” Ballew’s report continues. “As I walked toward Angulo’s room, I was passed by several distraught hospital employees pleading for help as Angulo was undergoing cardiac arrest. I informed staff fire personnel [were] not entering the location due to a law unfamiliar to me.”
Ballew continued to where Angulo, prone and unresponsive on a bed, was being administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation by one of the acute care center employees.
Ballew pushed the wheel-less bed from where he originally encountered it down the facility’s hallway toward the entrance, where paramedics were yet standing. The paramedics and other firefighters remained impervious to requests from the facility’s employees for assistance until the bed containing Angulo was outside the facility entrance.
“Despite being in their line of sight, fire personnel still insisted on Angulo being brought to them outside before they began life saving efforts and made no effort to assist me in getting Angulo outside,” Ballew’s report states.
Upon Angulo’s bed being pushed outside, there were four Rialto firefighters present. Once Angulo had cleared the exit/entrance, the paramedics, interacting with facility staff to ascertain what resuscitative efforts had already been made, undertook to assist Angulo.
With regard to the restriction preventing fire personnel from entering the acute care facility, Ballew’s report states “I was then told [after] the implementation of said law, Rialto Fire Personnel had not received any direction on how to proceed from their command.”
Angulo was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, the main campus of San Bernardino County’s public hospital system which is 1.75 miles away from the Rialto Post Acute Care Center. At Arrowhead Regional he was pronounced dead at 8:38 p.m.
The Rialto Fire Department is celebrated as being uncommonly advanced in its provision of first response emergency medical care, particularly with regard to the coronary emergencies. The city has gone to considerable effort and expense to allow its department to recruit and train paramedics as part of its firefighting personnel and has outfitted the department with state-of-the-art equipment intended to enhance the survivability of those suffering cardiac arrest if the fire department’s paramedic crew can get to them in a timely manner.
The department’s paramedic units are provided with an automated CPR device known as AutoPulse which offers continuous high-quality and precisely calibrated automated compressions by performing a circumferential squeeze of the thoracic region. Personnel are trained to augment the AutoPulse with apneic oxygenation, which is the practice of applying a nasal cannula providing oxygen at a rate of 15 liters per minute prior to intubation taking place. In addition, the paramedic units are equipped with an impedance threshold device, commercially known as an ResQPOD, positioned inline of the ventilation circuit providing apneic oxygenation. The impedance threshold device lowers intrathoracic pressure during the recoil phase of CPR by selectively restricting unnecessary airflow into the chest. This vacuum increases preload, lowers intracranial pressure, and improves blood flow to the brain and vital organs. In addition, the Rialto Fire Department’s paramedic personnel are provided with cardiac event victim life-sustaining training that is advanced of the medical industry standard, including what is referred to as “heads-up CPR” and defibrillation delaying techniques. Heads-up CPR is used in conjunction with automated CPR and is achieved by elevating the patient’s head and torso to a 30-degree angle, thus reducing venous pressure, allowing an increased blood flow to the heart from the brain. Heads-up CPR decreases intracranial pressure and increases coronary and cerebral perfusion pressures. This allows deoxygenated blood to return to the heart and oxygenated blood to be pumped to the brain. Rialto paramedics are further trained that when encountering cardiac arrest patients with prolonged downtime, ventricular fibrillation or an end tidal carbon dioxide level of less than 20mmHg, that defibrillation should be delayed prior to administering high quality CPR to increase perfusion and correct hypoxia and further resolve acidosis. Through delaying fibrillation until after efficient CPR is accomplished and increasing perfusion and reversing acidosis, the heart becomes more receptive to electrical therapy, increasing the probability for the return of spontaneous circulation and the resumption of a sustained heart rhythm.
Despite the high level of training and availability of advanced equipment that could have potentially kept Angulo alive, the refusal of the two paramedics on scene at the Rialto Post Acute Care Center on November 17 to enter the facility prevented that level of care being applied in a timely manner.
Footage of Ballew’s body-worn camera released by the city shows Ballew approaching the entrance of the Rialto Post Acute Care Center. Already in place are two paramedics, who are standing at either side of the automated side-sliding entrance into the Rialto Post Acute Care Center. At one point, when Ballew turns slightly, a third Rialto firefighter can be seen standing off to Ballew’s side. Ballew then engages in a brief but inaudible conversation with the two paramedics, after which he enters the building.
The video’s field of view, essentially from Ballew’s perspective, shows him progressing down a hallway toward a nursing station and then turning left into an adjoining hallway within the facility. A female employee in nurse’s decorative scrubs can be heard inquiring about the paramedics’ inaction, emphasizing, “It’s cardiac arrest!”
Ballew is heard responding, “They are not going to come in. They’re saying it’s a state law that they can’t come in.” He then makes a right turn into another hallway off of which the room where Angulo is being attended to is located. As Ballew approaches, a nurse can be heard hurriedly apprising him of the situation. “It’s cardiac arrest. We’re doing compression. You cannot move him while we’re doing compressions.”
Shortly thereafter, again from Ballew’s perspective, he can be seen pushing the bed onto which Angulo is sprawled down the hallways, while a nurse, who is kneeling on the bed to Angulo’s side frantically performs CPR on him. Ballew can be heard telling other nursing facility personnel that he can push the wheel-less bed on his own, but that he needs their help guiding it down the facility’s corridor. When the bed containing Angulo reaches the sliding door entrance/exit to the facility, the paramedics can be seen outside the door. Still, they remain on the other side of the door until the bed is pushed entirely outside of the facility.
There is no California law preventing paramedics or firefighters in general from entering acute care facilities, nursing homes or convalescent facilities. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the early and mid-stages of which there was a rash of deaths within nursing homes, there were directives made to public safety and public health personnel relating to precautionary measures to be taken with regard to operating at or near nursing homes and convalescent care facilities.
One of those was an April 2020 memo from the San Bernardino County Fire Chiefs Association stating that fire personnel should minimize the risk of their exposure to the coronavirus, particularly in settings where it was known to be flourishing. According to that memo, personnel should seek to render lifesaving assistance outside the confines of nursing homes and convalescent care facilities, and “all dispatch centers will be requesting the facilities to move patients to the door or outside the location.”
Nevertheless, the instructions in the memo do not expressly forbid all personnel from going into such settings. The memo stated that “if the patient cannot be transferred to [the] exit for or outside prior to arrival, one member of fire/EMS personnel should initially interact with the patient.”
Word of what had occurred at the Rialto Acute Care Facility and Angulo’s death spread quickly.
Articles detailing some of the particulars appeared in the San Bernardino Sun, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Atlanta Black Star, the United Voice and the Daily Mail. In addition, the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles ABC affiliate and Fox News, both locally and nationally, covered the story. Multiple websites, including newskudo.com, YahooNews, planet-today.com, the worldnews.net, whitehousewire.com, newsbreak.com, nigerianlatestnews.com, the palmierireport.com, freedomrockradio.com, parrotnews247.com, patriotnewsusa.com, and newsfeeds.media latched on to the story.
In response, Rialto’s acting fire chief, Brian Park, placed the two paramedics who Ballew encountered at the entrance to the Rialto Post Acute Care Center on paid leave. It is not clear whether the suspension applied to a third firefighter present when Ballew arrived and a fourth firefighter known to have been present when he emerged from the facility on November 17.
Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson publicly stated that an internal investigation being carried out into the matter “will focus on the conduct of the responding fire department personnel and the reasons those personnel did not enter the acute care facility immediately.”
Rialto spokesman Adan Ortega said the investigation will not be conducted in-house and will not whitewash what occurred. The city and its fire department, Ortega said, “hired a third-party law firm to conduct all the interviews because the city wants the chips to fall where they may at the conclusion of this investigation.”
Ortega’s statement went beyond what Robertson was willing to say. The mayor implied the city was interested only in determining why what had occurred happened. Ortega indicated the paramedics involved may either be disciplined or fired outright for not administering aid to Angulo under the circumstances.
That will not happen, department personnel and members of the Rialto Professional Firefighters Local #3688 told the Sentinel.
“They were just doing what they were supposed to do,” one of those firefighters said of the two paramedics. “The memo was in writing. That came from Chief Grayson and it was never rescinded, even now that Brian [Park] is the chief. If something went wrong, that’s on them. They can’t touch us.”

Margaret Hill, whose personality and presence came to embody all of what many considered to be the best features of the public school system in San Bernardino, has died, passing away peacefully it was said on December 19. She was 81.
Hill, the daughter of an African-American sharecropper, was born into a community that had yet to make its exodus from the overhanging social restrictions of the Old South and the remnants of the Post Civil War Confederacy.
As a very young child, she assisted her father as he cultivated crops, pulling weeds. After she began school, she was still involved in helping her father work the earth, waking two hours before classes began each morning, feeding chickens and slopping hogs. At the time of the year when the crops had matured, she participated in harvests. In the summer, she picked cotton under an unforgiving sun.
After school, she did more farm work and then devoted herself to her studies, reading late into the night, on some occasions by candlelight.
She and her parents were determined that she would not live her entire life as a sharecropper. She went on to attend college, at Norfolk State University in Virginia, where she earned a bachelor’s degree.
By becoming the first member of her family to attend college, Hill established herself as a “new black woman” and a member of the first generation of members of her race to fully avail themselves of the benefits of Virginia’s public institutions. She then migrated across the continent to California, where she became an educator.
It was in the teaching profession that Hill made her mark on the world.
In August 1971, she began teaching in the San Bernardino City Unified School District. She taught at Curtis Middle School, Serrano Middle School and San Bernardino High School.
In 1979, she married her husband, Robert.
Dedicated to her profession, she earned a master’s degree in education/administration from California State University, San Bernardino. Subsequently, she was recognized with an honorary doctorate in social justice from the University of Redlands. In 1987, having already moved into a part time faculty position/part time administrative post, she accepted an assignment as the principal of San Andreas High School, an alternative school. She remained in that post until her retirement in 2003.
The watchword in her approach to education was “compassion,” and she advocated working with students even in the face of the disciplinary problems some of them evinced. She said that such behavioral problems were the manifestations of personal and familial struggles that teachers often were insensitive to. While assisting students in resolving the problems of their home lives was not part of the job description for teachers, being open to understanding their adolescent difficulties and working to assist them in resolving such matters could contribute to educational success, she maintained.
She authored two books “From Sharecropping to Non-Stopping: Reflections on Life from a Veteran Educator,” and “It’s All About the Children.” both of which concentrated on her experience in the classroom.
Hill had become very involved in the San Bernardino community from the time she arrived. She held regular and board memberships in the Kiwanis Club of Greater San Bernardino; the Westside Kiwanis Club, of which she was the president; the Inland Center Kiwanis Club; the Highland Family YMCA, of which she was a charter member; the East Valley Corporate YMCA; the San Bernardino Black Culture Foundation; the Community Hospital of San Bernardino, the board for which she served as chairwoman; the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc.; the local Delta Rho Chapter; the Highland Woman’s Club; the Time for Change Foundation; Sheriff Rod Hoop’s Citizen Advisory Council; the Mustard Seed Tutoring Clinic; the Inland Empire Stop the Violence Foundation; the San Bernardino Community Hospital and Community Action Partnership; and the San Bernardino Police Advisory Committee.
She was presented with multiple awards over the years, including the Association of California School Administrators Diversity Medal, the Boys and Girls Club of San Bernardino Community Award, the Eastern Star Community Service Award, and Faith Temple Ministries Educator of the Year Award.
Hill was a founding member of the CREST (Community Reentry Education/Employment Services and Training) Program. She founded on her own the non-profit Maggie’s Kids Foundation.
In 2006 she came out of retirement to return to work at the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools office, serving in the capacity of assistant superintendent of administrative services until her retirement on July 2, 2012.
In 2011 she ran successfully for the board of the San Bernardino City Unified School District. She was later elevated to board president, and was still a board member when she passed away.
The district honored her by naming its boardroom the Dr. Margaret Hill Community Room in 2019.
Hill had sought the position on the board in 2011, even though she had just learned that she had been diagnosed with cancer. She campaigned successfully, despite going through numerous rounds of chemotherapy.
“Dr. Hill was loved for her warm heart and frequently encouraged educators to motivate kids with ‘more hugs than tugs,’” said San Bernardino City Unified School Board President Dr. Scott Wyatt. “We are better because she led with strength, love and compassion for everyone. We will miss her every day.”
“Dr. Hill’s tireless, kind and cheerful presence made her arguably the most admired leader in San Bernardino and among the greats statewide throughout the education community,” said San Bernardino City Unified School District Superintendent Doc Ervin. “She inspired me and I am thankful to have worked with her here.”
-M.G.

The Redlands City Council is poised to replace outgoing Councilman Paul Foster with former Councilman Mick Gallagher.
If, indeed, the council follows through with elevating Gallagher to the council, then Gallagher’s political career will bookend that of the man he is replacing. Foster came onto the Redlands City Council in 2010, just as Gallagher was leaving.
In September, Foster announced he would leave the city council as of the first council meeting in January 2022 and move to Camino Island in Washington State.
Gradually with a greater degree of intensity from the time he was elected to the city council Foster has become a virtual functionary on behalf of the development industry, such that in recent years Redlands has been filled with reports that he is on the take, receiving bribes from developmental interests in exchange for his votes in favor of those interests’ development projects, a large number of which have not been favored by a vocal element of the community. There is a perception, as well, that Foster has served as a “zerk,” that being an instrument that has distributed political grease – money – to his council colleagues originating with those developers to induce them to join with him in approving those developers’ projects. It has widely been suggested that Foster’s departure is a well-timed one, meant to remove him from California entirely to end the scrutiny of his relationships with various developmental interests in Redlands and avoid revelations that will implicate him and other Redlands city officials in graft.
The council has wrestled in the meantime with how it will replace Foster upon his January 3, 2022 departure. In November, the divided council gravitated to having Mayor Paul Barich and Mayor Pro Tem Eddie Tejeda approach the five former council members who live in what is now Redlands’ District 5 to determine if any of them are interested in serving out the remainder of Foster’s term, which is to conclude in December 2022 following an election to determine who will serve as the District 5 council person until December 2026.
The decision on Foster’s replacement carries with it a certain political implication, since the appointment will confer upon the recipient an advantage going into the November 2022 election if that individual chooses to seek election. Statistically, incumbents fare better in elections than challengers.
According to a staff report accompanying Tuesday night’s council meeting, “At the December 7, 2021 city council meeting, Mayor Barich and Mayor Pro Tem Tejeda reported on their Council District 5 outreach efforts to contact former city council members residing in District 5. Based on the information gathered during phone interviews, it was recommended by Mayor Barich and Mayor Pro Tem Tejeda that the city council appoint former Council Member Mick Gallagher to fill the upcoming vacancy in Council District 5. Further, to promote transparency in the appointment process, it was suggested that the council interview the former council member at the next council meeting of December 21, 2021.”
Indeed, Gallagher was on hand for Tuesday night’s meeting, and he responded to questions put to him by the council members.
Councilwoman Jenna Guzman-Lowery, perhaps in reference to the rumors swirling about her and the rest of the council relating to the graftfest and payola ring led by Foster, with a nervous laugh referenced surveys of residents and constituents that detected “the lack of faith in our government. So, I think moments like this offer us an opportunity to really demonstrate that we are listening, and that we would like to include people in that process.”
She inquired of Gallagher what qualities he believed a council member should embody.
“Integrity and being open,” Gallagher said.
Throughout his comments and responses to the council, Gallagher carefully avoided any mention of development in the city.
To Tejeda’s question as to his future political ambition, Gallagher said, “I’m here to serve the City of Redlands. I have no intentions of – and I give you my word that I will not – run for reelection.”
Mayor Paul Barich said, “We need someone who is experienced. This is not on-the-job training.”
Bypassed in the appointment process was Ryan Johnson, who vied against Foster in the 2018 election in the city’s District 5 contest.
There was no suggestion by any member of the council of considering anyone else for the position, although during public comment, Dennis Bell suggested that before the council makes its appointment, it solicit applications for the post “to see what kind of applicant pool the city has. You might be surprised.”
The council did not comply with Bell’s suggestion.
In accordance with what was placed on the agenda for that evening, at the conclusion of the item, staff was given direction to agendize the appointment of Gallagher as Foster’s successor for the January 18, 2022 city council meeting.
-Mark Gutglueck

The Chaffey Joint Union High School District Board Of Trustees has voted to fill out its ranks with the appointment of Donald English as its Area 4 member.
English replaces Dionne N. Berwick, who resigned October 1.
English was sworn in on December 14, after he accepted the appointment. He will remain as the Area 4 representative for the remainder of Berwick’s term, which ends in December 2022. To stay in the post beyond that, he must stand for, and win, reelection in November 2022.
Area 4 consists of Rancho Cucamonga. The Chaffey Joint Union High School District is the second largest high school district in California, covering the entirety of Ontario, Montclair and Rancho Cucamonga, and extends into portions of Fontana, Upland, Chino and Mount Baldy.
Its schools include Alta Loma High School in Alta Loma/Rancho Cucamonga, Chaffey Adult School in Ontario, Chaffey District Online High School run out of Ontario, Chaffey High School in Ontario, Colony High School in Ontario, Community Day School in Ontario, Etiwanda High School in Etiwanda/Rancho Cucamonga, Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga, Montclair High School in Montclair, Ontario High School in Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga High School in Etiwanda/Rancho Cucamonga and Valley View Continuation High School in Ontario.
English, now 53, is director of San Bernardino County Schools’ Children Deserve Success program, as well as the executive director of the San Bernardino County Gangs and Drugs Task Force. He is listed as a teacher on assignment with the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. He has 28 years experience as a professional educator.
He attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a member of the football team.
English earned a master’s degree in educational administration from Cal State San Bernardino and is pursuing a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California, according to the district.
His oldest son is a student at Colony High School.