In a relatively rare progression of events, more than three months after the San Bernardino County Planning Commission recommended that the board of supervisors allow the development of a truck terminal in Bloomington to proceed, the county land use services department is recirculating the environmental certification document for the project.
On July 22, over substantial community opposition, the San Bernardino County Planning Commission voted 3-to-1 with one abstention to enter a finding that proponents of the project, developers David Wiener and Scott Beard, should be given a conditional use permit and zone change altering the existing general commercial zoning to service commercial land use so the project could proceed to completion.
The facility was initially described by county and San Bernardino County Senior Planner Anthony DeLuca, who is serving as the lead staff assignee on the project, as a “truck terminal.” The county is now referring to the facility as a trailer storage yard.
The project, located on a 9-acre parcel at 10746 Cedar Cedar Avenue in Bloomington, upon completion would provide storage for trailers during delivery off-seasons and/or between deliveries, and would run seven days a week and 24 hours a day, with an average of more than 700 truck trips into or out of the terminal daily. The facility is to include 275 parking spaces in total, 260 spaces of which will be 12 feet by 55 feet. The proposed project includes a 2,400 square-foot building for office use and storage, an approximate 250 square-foot guard shack, and a 4,800 square-foot maintenance shop with four repair bays.
At the planning commission meeting on July 22, 14 Bloomington residents spoke before the commission in opposition to the project. Prior to the meeting, the county’s land use services department had received 126 letters of concern or opposition to allowing the truck terminal to be located on the property previously intended for commercial rather than logistics/industrial/service/repair use. Nevertheless, the planning commission entered a 3-to-1 decision to endorse the project, with commissioners Jonathan Weldy, Michael Stoffel and Tom Haughey prevailing, Commissioner Kareem Gongora dissenting and Commissioner Raymond Allard recusing himself. Allard said he was not voting because he had previously done engineering work for both Wiener and Beard.
There were hints but no explicit acknowledgment that the project is to be the eventual headquarters/regional office/operating yard for a trucking company.
Bloomington is a 6.01-square mile unincorporated community with 25,482 residents, bounded by Rialto on its east and northeast sides, Fontana on its west and northwest sides and the Riverside County line on its south side. Traditionally, Bloomington has been an agricultural community which has over the last 60 years transitioned into a heavily used transportation corridor because of four major east west arterials that traverse it – Valley Blvd, Slover Avenue, Jurupa Avenue and Santa Ana Avenue, all of which lead to or toward Ontario International Airport – as well as the I-10 Freeway and the Santa Fe/Burlington Northern/Union Pacific rail line. The community is saturated with over one hundred illegal truck-related operations. Simultaneously, the county has been permitting trucking-related operations and warehouses to be built within the community, while Fontana and Rialto have given approval to trucking related concerns and warehouses at the periphery of Bloomington.
Thus, a significant segment of Bloomington residents find themselves in a struggle against local government and elements within the community itself pushing toward reinventing the unincorporated town into a transit center.
The county is using a mitigated negative declaration to provide the project with its environmental certification, rather than a more comprehensive environmental impact report.
A full scale environmental impact report is the most intensive form of environmental certification, involving a study of the project site, the project proposal, the potential and actual impacts the project will have on the site and surrounding area in terms of all conceivable issues, including land use, water use, air quality, potential contamination, noise, traffic, biological and cultural resources, as well as health impacts on individuals living or working in proximity to the project. An environmental impact report specifies in detail what measures can, will and must be carried out to offset those impacts.
A mitigated negative declaration is a far less exacting size-up of the impacts of a project than an environmental impact report, involving the panel entrusted with a community’s ultimate land use authority, in this case the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, considering an initial study of the project completed by county staff and thereafter issuing a declaration that all adverse environmental impacts from the project will be mitigated, or offset, by the conditions of approval of the project imposed upon the developer.
There was some discussion of local residents banding together to challenge the project approval, hinging on the county having failed to carry out a more exacting form of environmental certification.
The county’s discontinuation of the use of the term “truck terminal” in reference to the project in the immediate aftermath of the planning commission’s vote in July, seen as an effort to minimize the intensity of the planned operation, appeared to be an indication that the project would be given approval in short order, and would come before the board of supervisors in August or certainly no later than September. September passed, as did October, and the project was not presented to the board of supervisors for its approval.
Word has now reached the Sentinel that the environmental certification documentation, yet using the nomenclature of a mitigated negative declaration, is being recirculated around the Bloomington community. A recirculated notice of availability and notice of intent to adopt an initial study/mitigated negative declaration states that the documentation consisting of an initial study, a health risk assessment, a biological assessment, a cultural report, a noise study, and a traffic study can be examined and are subject to a comment period lasting from November 1, 2021 until November 30, 2021 at 4:30 PM. The notice instructs those wishing to weigh in on the matter to “submit comments to anthony.deluca@lus.sbcounty.gov or to Anthony DeLuca, Senior Planner County of San Bernardino Land Use Services Department, Planning Division 385 N. Arrowhead Ave 1st Floor San Bernardino, CA 92415.” Those documents are available online at http://cms.sbcounty.gov/lus/Planning/Environmental/Valley.aspx
The Sentinel made inquiries with the county as to the reason why the documentation relating to an initial study and mitigated negative declaration, which had already been circulated prior to the planning commission meeting in July, was being recirculated. The Sentinel further inquired if what was circulated previously differed from what is being circulated now and, if it is different, whether the changes were made at the direction of the planning commission. The Sentinel asked if the changes in fact were not made at the direction of the planning commission, who had dictated the changes.
Neither DeLuca nor David Wert, the county’s main spokesman, had responded to those questions by press time.
Neither did DeLuca nor Wert clarify why the public response to the previously circulated documentation would not provide adequate citizen input along with the planning commission recommendation for the board of supervisors to make its decision on whether the truck terminal project should be permitted to proceed.
The Sentinel was not able to determine whether a change was or changes were made to the original proposal to render the project more acceptable to the board of supervisors, and if so, what was altered to make it more acceptable.
–Mark Gutglueck

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has filed five misdemeanor charges against Victorville Councilwoman Blanca Gomez based on two events earlier this year, one at Victorville City Hall that occurred on July 20, as well as at a restaurant near the Walmart Supercenter on June 2.
Gomez, 45, has been charged with one misdemeanor count of PC148(a)1, resisting, obstructing or delaying of a peace officer and one misdemeanor count of PC242 – battery, both stemming from an incident on the premises of the Panera Bread bakery-café at 11838 Amargosa Road in Victorville on June 2, 2021. She is additionally charged with two misdemeanor counts of PC148(a)1 – resisting, obstructing or delaying of a peace officer and one count of PC403 – disturbance of a public meeting, relating to her action on July 20.

Blanca Gomez

Additionally, Robert Rodriguez, one of Gomez’s associates, was charged with six misdemeanors alleged to have occurred in connection with the June 2 and July 20 events involving Gomez, as well as one at another Victorville City Council meeting on July 6.
The district attorney’s office maintains that on June 2 Rodriguez violated PC148(a)1 – misdemeanor resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer and one count of PC602(m) – trespassing. On July 6, Rodriguez is alleged to have run afoul of PC403 – misdemeanor disturbance of a public meeting.
On July 20, according to prosecutors, Rodriguez engaged in a single misdemeanor act in contravention of PC148(a)1 by resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer as well as another misdemeanor, that of violating PC403 – disturbance of a public meeting.
While Gomez and Rodriguez were arrested at the time of the July 20 incident by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies, they have not been rearrested but have been informed of their arraignments scheduled for January 4, 2022 by letters sent to them via the U.S. Post Office.
Since her election to the Victorville City Council in 2016, Gomez has clashed with her fellow and sister officeholders over her advocacy of immigrant rights and social issues that are beyond the scope of her role as a municipal official, as well as her sometimes imperfect understanding of protocol. Her antagonistic and contentious style often involves provocative acts, as when she draped herself in a Mexican flag during council meeting, and this has further alienated her from her elected colleagues.
Oftentimes, her and her supporters’ use of video-recording devices, which is an essentially legal activity, has exacerbated things.
The June 2 incident was precipitated, apparently, when Rodriguez was asked by an employee to step out of the Panera Bread café because he was vaping, and things grew confrontational, resulting in sheriff’s deputies being summoned, whereupon a dispute over Gomez’s efforts to use her cell phone to video what was occurring erupted.
A ruckus occurred during the July 6 meeting when city officials became warily regardful of Rodriguez and he reacted vocally and loudly.
The July 20 contretemps grew out of Victorville Mayor Debra Jones objecting to Rodriguez, who was wearing a hat and what appeared to be a ski mask while sitting near Jones’ husband in the gallery within the council chamber, using a device to video the meeting. The circumstance was complicated by the consideration that Jones’ husband was also, apparently, recording the meeting, which was remarked upon by City Attorney Andre de Bortnowski. Gomez was also using a camera to video-record. Mayor Jones vectored sheriff’s deputies to Rodriguez, after which a confrontation between deputies and Rodriguez ensued, with Gomez making note that Mr. Jones was not being dealt with by deputies in the way in which Rodriguez was, and that she had herself video-recorded that discrepancy. When she left her place at the council dais to move into the gallery, an altercation with deputies took place, and both she and Rodriguez were arrested.
-Mark Gutglueck

San Bernardino residents or anyone interested in participating in the redrawing of the boundaries for San Bernardino’s seven council wards in the aftermath of the population changes that have come about in the last decade as ascertained by the 2020 U.S. Census may want to attend the redistricting meeting to be held Saturday, November 6, beginning at 10 a.m. at the Lutheran Church of Our Savior, 5050 N. Sierra Way in San Bernardino.

The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has filed five misdemeanor charges against Victorville Councilwoman Blanca Gomez based on two events earlier this year, one at Victorville City Hall that occurred on July 20, as well as at a restaurant near the Walmart Supercenter on June 2.

Blanca Gomez

Gomez, 45, has been charged with one misdemeanor count of PC148(a)1, resisting, obstructing or delaying of a peace officer and one misdemeanor count of PC242 – battery, both stemming from an incident on the premises of Panera Bread bakery-café at 11838 Amargosa Road in Victorville on June 2, 2021. She is additionally charged with two misdemeanor counts of PC148(a)1 – resisting, obstructing or delaying of peace officer and one count of PC403 – disturbance of a public meeting, relating to her action on July 20.
Additionally, Robert Rodriguez, one of Gomez’s associates, was charged with six misdemeanor alleged to have occurred in connection with the June 2 and July 20 events involving Gomes, as well as one at another Victorville City Council meeting on July 6.
The district attorney’s office maintains that on June 2 Rodriguez violated PC148(a)1 – misdemeanor resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer and one count of PC602(m) – trespassing. On July 6, Rodriguez is alleged to have run afoul of PC403 – misdemeanor disturbance of a public meeting.
On July 20, according to prosecutors, Rodriguez engaged in a single misdemeanor act in contravention of PC148(a)1 by resisting, obstructing or delaying a peace officer as well as another misdemeanor, that of violating PC403 – disturbance of a public meeting.
While Gomez and Rodriguez were arrested at the time of the incidents by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies, they have not been rearrested by informed of their arraignments scheduled for January 4, 2022 by letters sent to them via the U.S. Post.
The Sentinel is in the process of obtaining a statement from Gomez’s legal representatives, La Jolla-based attorneys Marc Applbaum and Bryan Gonzales.

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Sentinel 10-29-21