A 50-year-old man is in grave condition after he opted to shoot himself in the head on February 4 as sheriff’s deputies were closing in on him following his killing of his former girlfriend, his wounding of her daughter and a failed carjacking attempt five days later made in an effort to flee the area.

In a move that was both negatively and positively received and perceived, the Yucaipa City in a 3-to-1 vote last week raised the political donation limit its members can receive from any single contributor from the current state generic standard of $5,500 to $10,000.
While some of the city’s residents saw the change as one which will release the county’s 13th most populous city from the grip of prissy anti-development forces that have played a role in the city’s slow maturation for the lion’s share of its 34-year history as a municipality, others expressed dismay that it has advanced what many perceive as the increasing sway of the building industry that will serve to fully manifest the pay-to-play ethos that has transformed more and more of the region’s once agricultural land into increasingly urbanized cities.

San Bernardino County officials and their attorneys are trading notes with their counterparts in Sonoma County in the aftermath of American Medical Response filing a suit in federal court alleging San Bernardino County, its board of supervisors and two of its interrelated or associated joint public safety agencies engaged in a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act when the board in December awarded the franchise for emergency medical response throughout most of the county’s desert region to an amalgam of one of those public safety agencies and an Arizona-based ambulance company.
Colorado-based American Medical Response, known as AMR, operates as an ambulance service provider in 40 states as well as the District of Colombia. Some of its corporate predecessors were providing ambulance service in San Bernardino County in the early 1970s. On January 1, 1981 AMR was given an exclusive operating contract in a wide swathe of the desert by the Inland Counties Emergency Management Agency, which oversees emergency medical response in San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties and licenses emergency medical service providers – including hospitals and ambulance companies – in those regions. AMR maintained that exclusive contract for providing services ambulance service in San Bernardino County’s desert for more than four decades. Though the Inland Counties Emegrgency Management Agency, know by its acronmym ICEMA is a three-county joint powers authority, county oficials in Inyo and Mono counties have empowered the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to act as the ICEMA board.
Whereas in previous years, the AMR contract was merely “rolled over” in what the county referred to as “a grandfathered process,” in late 2022 county officials began to look toward what action it would take with regard to the expiration or continuation of the contract. On December 20, 2022, the county released a request for proposals – a solicitation of bids – inviting prospective providers to provide ground ambulance service in 11 of the county’s 26 exclusive operating areas.
Responding to the request were AMR and Consolidated Fire Agencies, known by its acronym CONFIRE, a joint powers authority which provides communications, dispatch, computer information systems support and geographic location information to its nine member agencies – the Apple Valley Fire Protection District, Chino Valley Independent Fire District, the Colton Fire Department, the Loma Linda Fire Department, the Rancho Cucamonga Fire Department, the Redlands Fire Department, the Rialto Fire Department, the San Bernardino County Fire District and the Victorville Fire Department – and four contract agencies – the Big Bear Fire Department, the Montclair Fire Department, the Running Springs Fire District and the San Manuel Fire Department.
In its response, AMR stated it could commit 12,889 weekly unit hours to respond to calls, had 111 ambulances available during peak system demand and stationed throughout the service area backed with 39 additional available ambulances available to meet surges. It emphasized that it was the current provider of the services with vehicle infrastructure in place and 10 managers and 18 field supervisors and a medical director familiar with the comprehensive needs of the service area. The company offered rates of $3,958 for both basic life support and advanced life support, $2,834 to carry out an interfacility transport, and $4,392 for critical care transport.
In its response, CONFIRE said it would subcontract with Priority Ambulance, which also serves Maricopa County in Arizona and therefore could devote 10,371 weekly unit hours to respond to calls, had 93 ambulances available at peak demand, with 45 additional ambulances available to meet surges throughout the service area, that it will establish ambulance staging locations, put on-board personnel in place and acquire vehicles upon receiving the contract. It offered an assurance that it has leadership and management to meet the demands of providing the service, including nine managers and 18 operations supervisors as well as a medical director and that it controls the regional emergency services communication system. Its proposed rates for its advance life support service were $3,547 for non-emergency and interfacility transfer, $4,053 for emergency transport, $2,533 for non-emergency basic life transport and $3,167 for emergency basic life transport and CCT $5,067 for critical care transport.
What the county referred to as an “independent review panel” made up of four evaluators individually scored each proposal on 14 key areas – system requirements, response time standards, clinical performance, deployment plans, vehicles, medical supplies and equipment, personnel, hospital and community requirements, disaster preparedness/response, quality management, electronic patient care reports, centralized emergency medical dispatch center, financial and administrative requirements qualifications, and future system enhancements – for the purpose of making a recommendation to the county for final negotiation of contract terms. The total cumulative scores, against a standard with 1,720 points maximum, favored AMR, which registered 1,519 total points against 1,515 points for CONFIRE.
Based on what the county characterized as the negligible difference between the scores, it provided AMR and CONFIRE with notice to enter into contract negotiations with the county and that the final contract approval rested with the board of supervisors.
After those negotiations concluded, the county purchasing division on October 27, 2023, emailed AMR a notice of intent to recommend that it be awarded a contract extension from the time its current contract expires on March 31 from April 1, 2024 through September 30, 2024 to allow CONFIRE to get prepared to take on the contract for an initial term from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2029.
AMR lodged a protest, alleging the county had failed to follow the selection procedures, did not adhere to requirements specified in the request for proposal, had awarded the contract to the entity which had lost in the competition and that it had otherwise violated state and/or federal law. The county’s purchasing agent, Ariel Gill, who reviewed and considered the protest and notified AMR of its decision to deny the protest.
At the December 5 board of supervisors meeting, a motion by Supervisor Jesse Armendarez seconded by Supervisor Curt Hagman to deny the protest from American Medical Response and schedule a vote to consider awarding the contract to Consolidated Fire Agencies and its private subcontractor Priority Ambulance passed by a unanimous vote. During the December 5 meeting, AMR was represented by a spokesman who neglected to identify himself and Mike Rice, the company’s vice president of operations, who made no comments. The unidentified spokesperson said AMR offered “stability, performance and clinical excellence. AMR is in the best position to take this into the future. We’re fully integrated with the fire departments, public health, behavioral health, the communities we serve.” He emphasized that AMR had a “depth of resources, history of performance, experience and expertise, disaster response capability and represented a lower risk of liability to the cities and county than have public agencies providing ambulance service. He said that “AMR meets or exceeds all response [time] standards” and featured as part of its vehicle fleet “all-wheel-drive units in key areas that need that… and a disaster command vehicle.” He said the company had helicopter ambulances and was “financially strong” with an established sustainable model.”
CONFIRE was represented by Rancho Cucamonga City Councilwoman Lynn Kennedy, the chairwoman of the CONFIRE Board of Directors, as well as Rancho Cucamonga Fire Chief Mike McCliman and CONFIRE Chief Nathan Cook. Lynne Kennedy said what CONFIRE was offering something that “will result in increased resources, decreased response times and a delivery model that includes private/public partnership, a private partnership with Priority Ambulance that has the capacity to serve our county and the public partnership that crosses the continuum of care, making sure that every single resident receives the right care at the right time on time every time without exception. It is going to be transformational in three areas. It is going to improve our service delivery, establish an efficient system and invest both financial and human resources back into the system.”

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME CASE
NUMBER CIVSB2328935,
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS: Petitioner: Rachel Caryn Espinoza Gonzalez, filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows: Rachel Caryn Espinoza Gonzalez to Rachel Caryn Hidalgo, 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: 02/20/2024, Time: 08:30 AM, Department: S 24The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino District-Civil Division, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415, IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the SBCS ? Ontario in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Dated: 01/08/2024
Judge of the Superior Court: Gilbert G Ochoa
Published in the SBCS Ontario on 01/19/2024, 01/26/2024, 02/02/2024, 02/09/2024

FBN 20240000354
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
FOREVER YOUR MUSE 5179 SAGEBRUSH TERRACE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92407: RUBI DE SANTIAGO
Business Mailing Address: 5179 SAGEBRUSH TERRACE SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92407
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: JANUARY 03, 2024.
By signing, 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 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ RUBI DE SANTIAGO
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 1/12/2024
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy J5842
Notice-This fictitious 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 business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on January 19 & 26 and February 2 & 9, 2024.

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Yucaipa City Clerk Ana Sauseda last year initiated a lawsuit that was intended to prevent at least 194 of the city’s residents from engaging in the public political participation process, Judge Michael Sachs ruled on Wednesday.
Sauseda’s legal challenge came in reaction to an attempt, officially initiated with paperwork filed with her office in May signaling that the residents in question intended to circulate petitions to recall Mayor Justin Beaver and councilmen Bobby Duncan and Matt Garner after they abruptly moved to terminate longtime City Manager Ray Casey and City Attorney David Snow in January 2023.
Largely as a result of Sauseda’s lawsuit, the recall proponents ceased their effort and did not reach the goal of collecting the 1,623 signatures needed to qualify a recall question against Beaver, the 1,478 signatures needed to qualify a recall question against Duncan and the 1,826 signatures needed to qualify  a recall question against Garner, which had to be returned to Sauseda’s office by August 16 to force the holding of a special election in which those questions would appear on the ballot.
Though Sauseda’s suit has now been dismissed, opening the possibility that she and the city will need to reimburse the recall proponents for their legal costs in fighting the suit, the stratagem, which was not devised by Sauseda but rather City Manager Chris Mann and two lawyers for the Los Angeles-based Sutton Law Firm, Bradley W. Hertz and Eli B. Love, succeeded in protecting Beaver, Duncan and Garner from being subjected to a process that potentially would have removed them from office.
The recall proponents have reinitiated a recall effort against Duncan and Garner, amid widespread speculation that Beaver will not seek reelection later this year. Based upon Judge Sach’s ruling relating to the lawsuit Sauseda filed last year, it does not appear that she will again attempt to use her authority as city clerk and the city’s election official, which the recall proponents maintain she abused, to file another lawsuit in an effort to block the now ongoing recall attempt. Continue reading →

The contesting of Measure W stands as what may prove a crucial battle over the cultural retrenchment in California and San Bernardino County as pertains to public service provision and whether it is government or property owners who are to be financially responsible for the delivery of those services.
There was a time when local governments in California and indeed throughout the United States, the various levels of government existed for the implementation of mutually agreed-upon laws, rules and regulations and the provision of in-common beneficial public services, including but not limited to all order of constructing and maintaining infrastructure such as streets, bridges, sidewalks, storm drains, sewers and water purification plants, cemeteries, hospitals, schools and parks and the establishment, outfitting manning and operation of police and fire departments. For generations, government workers were considered and were seen by themselves and the citizenry as public servants, ones who were, to be sure, remunerated for their work, but not overgenerously, and it was generally accepted that employees in the public sector were no more highly valued and in some degree less so than their counterparts in the private sector. The two minor benefits that came with working for the government were that the employment was steady and upon retirement loyalty was rewarded with a modest but still livable pension. Continue reading →

In rapid fashion early this week came revelations about the identities of the victims and the perpetrators of the violent murders of six men in a remote area of the Mojave Desert north of Adelanto, together with indications that sheriff’s investigators have solved the primary mystery surrounding the crime.
For at least several hours after the shootings took place on January 23, sheriff’s department investigators were unable to identify five of the six men who were gunned down by five of their criminal accomplices in the early hours of that evening. For five days thereafter, the department withheld the identities of the victims, as they pursued a multiplicity of leads in determining who the killers were.
The department has now identified Baldemar Mondragon-Albarran, 34, of Adelanto; and two brothers, Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22, and Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25, of Hesperia as three of the victims. The identity of a fourth, a 45-year-old man, has been ascertained, but his name is being withheld pending notification of his next of kin. Two others, whose remains are in the custody of the coroner’s office, have not been identified. Continue reading →