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Sentinel 07-02-21

By Mark Gutglueck
The political and legal time bomb that has been ticking in Fontana since July 2019 grew closer to exploding this week when California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle turned her full attention to the situation surrounding the abrupt departure of Ken Hunt as Fontana city manager two years ago, and the financial and administrative arrangements that were made to buy his silence with regard to the events that led up to his leavetaking.
The more sophisticated, exacting and intense focus now being applied from entities outside the clubby governmental establishment that pervades San Bernardino County is now threatening to detonate that bomb, revealing layers of corruption in Fontana’s governmental structure implicating Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren.
In the spring of 2019, Hunt had experienced a remarkable 19-and-a-half year run as Fontana’s city manager and was at that time the highest paid city manager in San Bernardino County and among the highest paid city managers in the state. He had nearly two-and-a-half years left on what was then his current five-year contract with Fontana that was paying him $352,136.35 in salary and other pay and $93,516.67 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $445,653.02. For the previous eight years, just as it had been with the administrations of the city’s three previous mayors, Hunt had a very good relationship with the administration of Mayor Warren, who had been a city councilwoman since 2002 and mayor since 2010.
In May 2019, however, Hunt came face-to-face with convincing evidence of something he had over the previous few years suspected but could not prove, which was that Mayor Warren was hip deep in graft, and was taking kickbacks from entities that were doing business with the city.
There ensued what was for Warren and Hunt a very uncomfortable June, during which both sized up the political, legal and situational reality they were confronted with. Warren at that point had a lock on the city council. She counted Councilman John Roberts, Councilman Jesse Armendarez and Councilman Phil Cothran, Jr. as firm and fast allies who would back her down the line on anything, including shedding Hunt as city manager if it came to that. Hunt understood the political situation and the authority Warren wielded in that regard.
Nevertheless, Warren recognized Hunt possessed information that might prove highly problematic for her if he unleashed it. Hunt was in a difficult position. It is never easy for a government employee to work at cross purposes to his political masters. There was no telling how politicians elsewhere, where Hunt might eventually seek employment, would look upon his having betrayed the last mayor he had worked for. Simultaneously, Hunt was acutely conscious that even if he kept what he knew under his hat, there was no guarantee the information would not surface eventually anyway, and that though he was not himself involved in getting paid off, questions would emerge about what he knew and when he knew it. If he was put in the position of insisting he did not know what was going on, he would look incompetent. If he tried to explain that he knew but had allowed himself to be overridden by Warren and her political authority, his reputation would be damaged in a whole other way he would not want to live with.
Warren was not willing to undo what had been done, nor untangle herself from the quid pro quos she had engaged in which had endowed her and her political war chest with a commanding amount of money that virtually ensured her reelection as mayor for as long as she chose to remain politically active. Hunt was no longer willing to go along. The only way out was for Hunt to leave.
What ensued was a deal, one that instantaneously conferred more money on Hunt than he would make if he remained in place even beyond what would have been the full duration of his contract as city manager. An arrangement was made so that Hunt moved off into a comfortable retirement while he remained officially on the city payroll long enough for him to achieve his 30-year milestone as a public employee. In return, Hunt’s lips were sealed.
In July 2019, Hunt and the city announced that Hunt was leaving. Hunt departed Fontana City Hall, never to return. To even casual observers, the development seemed odd and took residents by surprise, as over the previous two years there had seemed to be a mutual lovefest between Hunt and the city council, the members of which went out of their way to justify Hunt’s salary by speaking of what an outstanding job he was doing in running the city and how he was responsible for Fontana’s enviable financial position. Mayor Warren maintained an air of nonchalance when discussing Hunt’s departure, at first hinting without actually saying that it was Hunt’s wish to retire and that the city had merely accommodated him. When she was pressed on the matter and it was pointed out that Hunt’s contract called for him remaining in place until the end of 2021, the mayor adjusted her statement to say that Hunt had resigned. That begat further questions, since Hunt’s voluntary resignation, under the terms of his contract, would have absolved the city of having to provide him the severance specified in his contract. The resignation, Warren insisted, was voluntarily made so Hunt “could retire.”
Warren was unwilling at that point to explain why the city had assented to a severance payout it did not need to make. In 2018, for 12 months of service as city manager, Hunt had made $445,653.02 in total compensation, that is full pay and benefits. In 2019, when Hunt had worked six months and fifteen days as city manager, he was paid $464,584.53 in total compensation, an indication he was receiving a severance despite his voluntary resignation. Peppered with further questions, Warren became testy, insisting that it was a personnel matter and that the questions needed to stop. Shortly thereafter, she conceded that a deal with Hunt had been reached to allow him to leave as city manager in July 2019 but remain on the payroll until January 2020, at which point Hunt would achieve 30 years as a city employee, thereby enhancing his pension. “He’s happy, We’re happy. Everyone’s happy,” Warren said.
As it turned out, however, that wasn’t the half of it.
The city had buried the fact that while Hunt was to remain on the payroll through January 31, 2020, the separation agreement he had finalized with the city on July 12, 2019 also called for him continuing to receive his full salary and health benefits for another year beyond that, until January 31, 2021. That was to be topped with another $312,864.95 in what was described as a “leave settlement.”
The separation agreement is illuminating, betraying that there was some degree of bad blood between Hunt and Warren and perhaps others at Fontana City Hall. In return for staying on the payroll until the end of January 2020 and getting paid for yet another year while he was not working, Hunt acquiesced to a demand that he leave City Hall at once. Also hidden in the agreement was that Hunt was being placed on “administrative leave,” a status inconsistent with him heading into a willful retirement.
The agreement had a clause in it that prohibited Hunt from saying anything at all about or explaining why he was leaving, such that if he were to be asked about the matter, he could answer such an inquiry “only by indicating that the separation was amicable.”
Ultimately, in February 2020, Fontana hired Mark Denny as city manager. Hunt’s situation faded from public focus.
More recently, however, State Controller Betty Yee published payroll data for cities and counties for the year 2020. That data showed that the Fontana city manager was paid $932,623 from January 1 until December 31, 2020.
Fontana’s city manager for 2020, or most of it, was Mark Denny. Denny did not make $932,623. Rather, Denny was paid $210,672.91 for the 11 months he did work in 2020. Before Denny arrived, Mike Milhiser had been serving as Fontana’s city manager. Milhiser was brought in as Hunt’s interim replacement at the end of July 2019, and he remained in place through to the end of January 2020. Milhiser was paid $19,152.08 for his work in January 2020.
Yee highlighted the $932,623 paid to the “Fontana city manager” in 2020. That aroused the interest of California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle, who noted that $932,623 being paid to a city manager was some $380,000 more than was paid to any other city manager in the state. At that point, it was revealed that the city manager in question was not Denny or Milhiser, but rather Hunt. When it was learned that Hunt had left the Fontana payroll at the end of January 2020 and had not actually worked since July 2019, alarms rang.
This prompted Fontana to issue a statement seeking to clarify things. The clarification spelled out that the full $932,623 had not gone to Hunt but rather to Hunt, Denny and Milhiser. Thus, Denny and Milhiser had been paid a combined total of $229,825 in 2020 and Hunt had been paid $702,798, that is $476,771.58 in pay and benefits and and a final $226,026.42 installment of his $312,864.95 leave settlement.
Whether Fontana’s statement will dissuade Howle from tracing everything out remains to be seen.
All told, from the point of his resignation in July 2019 going forward, Hunt was provided with a severance package that totaled $1,127,378.45, despite the consideration that the terms of his contract specified that if he resigned or in some other fashion voluntarily terminated his employment with the city, he was due no severance.
Sources close to Fontana City Hall say that the $702,798 paid to Hunt in 2020 will be very hard to justify if Howle chooses to put the City of Fontana through its paces. In actuality, that payment was hush money to keep Hunt quiet about what he learned over the last three or four years of his tenure as city manager, capped off by the details he learned in the Spring of 2019, the Sentinel was told. That includes money paid to Warren in various forms in exchange for votes she made and votes of others on the council she delivered, it is alleged.
One of those tainted votes pertained to the City of Fontana’s approval of a no-bid multi-million dollar contract with Alliance Building Solutions to equip city facilities with energy conservation systems and products and to install alternative energy supply sources such as solar energy panels on rooftops and carports.
As city manager, Hunt was pushing the city council to seek competitive bids on any energy efficiency projects the city was going to pursue. Warren, however, bypassed the bid process on the Alliance Building Solutions contract. While in most cases governments and public agencies at all levels are required by law to utilize a competitive bid process, that requirement is suspended in certain circumstances such as emergencies or where the urgency for the service or goods is so great that soliciting, receiving and evaluating bids would result in a delay that would harm public safety, health or well being.
One specific exception to the competitive bid requirement for public agencies and governments in California relates to energy efficiency projects. As long as a public agency or government can demonstrate that the work or service to be provided will result in improved energy efficiency or a reduction in fuel or energy use as well as show that some savings in cost will accrue to the entity contracting for the service, it need not conduct a bidding process but can simply award a contract to a provider of that service. While not conducting a competitive bidding process on energy conservation or energy efficiency projects is an option for governments and public agencies, they can, if they so choose, seek competitive bids.
Warren’s efforts in helping Alliance Building Solutions get the no-bid contract in Fontana was one of the patterns in her conduct that brought Hunt to the conclusion that Warren was on the take, an individual knowledgeable about the circumstance told the Sentinel.
More recently, Alliance Building Solutions’ founder and principal, Brad Chapman, has hired former San Bernardino County Supervisor Bill Postmus to serve as his company’s representative. Postmus is now seeking to convince Warren to again use Alliance Building Solutions in improving energy efficiency at other Fontana city facilities, and in so doing not engage in an open bidding process, rather allowing Chapman’s company to obtain the contract for the energy efficiency conversion work without subjecting it to having to compete against any other purveyors of the service. Simultaneously, Postmus’s strategy includes conveying money from Chapman to Warren and other Fontana officials, money which is to be provided to them either as campaign contributions or payments in some other form.
Warren was unwilling to discuss why the severance package was conferred upon Hunt or what her position is on having Alliance Building Solutions involved in any future energy efficiency projects the city is to engage in.

By Richard Hernandez
Even as millions of California residents with full U.S. citizenship are unable to access healthcare, the State of California next spring will extend Medi-Cal health coverage to some 235,000 low-income undocumented immigrants over the age of 50 – offering the most expansive health coverage in the nation to people without legal residency.
Medi-Cal is California’s medical assistance program serving the handicapped, low-income woman, children as well as state residents 65 years of age or older. It is generally not available for able-bodied men under the age of 65.
The State of California already offered Medi-Cal healthcare to immigrant children and young adults under the age of 26. This latest expansion, once it receives final approval, will mean undocumented immigrants other than those between the ages of 26 to 50 will be eligible to receive healthcare, the expense of which is to be defrayed by California’s taxpayers.
On June 25, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom, as part of the state’s $262.6 billion 2021-2022 budget, finalized a pact with leaders of both the California Assembly and State Senate which is to extend Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented immigrants who have eclipsed the age of 50. On Monday, June 28, both houses of California’s legislature approved the budget. The Medi-Cal expansion was included in the health care omnibus bill tacked onto the budget and approved yesterday.
In practical terms, legislative analysts predict the change will provide Medi-Cal health care coverage to an estimated 230,000 to 240,000 low-income undocumented immigrants over the age of 50 at a cost of $1.3 billion. It was not spelled out how legislative staff was able to make an estimate of the number of the undocumented population in California over the age of 50. California law prevents the tabulation of statistics on undocumented aliens, which includes their point of origin, age and gender. Federal immigration authorities are subject to no such restriction, but those statistics are not systematically or methodically compiled in any meaningfully comprehensive way in California because state law does not allow state or local authorities to cooperate with federal immigration officials. Nor is it clear how claimants of the benefits will establish their age to be eligible for the benefits, and what protocol Medi-Cal will use in ascertaining the actual eligibility of those applying under the new regulations.
A move has been afoot at least since 2014 to extend Medi-Cal benefits to illegal aliens, championed by then-Assemblyman Ricardo Lara. Lara’s original proposed legislation failed to gain passage, but in 2016 legislation was passed and signed into law that extended Medi-Cal coverage to children without legal residency status. Last year, on January 1, 2020, based on Senate Bill 104 passed into law in 2019, Medi-Cal was extended to cover low-income illegal aliens aged 19 to 25.
Governor Gavin Newsom has justified the extension of health care to non-citizens as part of a larger effort to integrate the estimated 2.3 million illegal aliens residing in California into society.
The 2.3 million number roughly reflects the estimated 2.5 million U.S.-born Californians who also are not fully integrated into society, whose inability to pay for health care leaves them without doctors, dentists and access to medicine, therapy and treatment. Under both U.S. law and California law, their inability to afford health insurance renders them non-compliant with statutes mandating that they secure, at their own expense and without assistance from the government, medical coverage. Failure to secure medical coverage for oneself or any minor children under one’s care or guardianship, under California law and U.S. law is a crime.
The federal law relating to failure to maintain health insurance falls under the U.S. Tax Code. The federal tax penalty for not being enrolled in health insurance is $695 for adults and $347.50 for children or 2 percent of the individual taxpayer’s or breadwinner’s yearly income, whichever amount is more. Under California state law, the failure to secure minimal coverage entails penalties of $695 for each adult in a household and $347.50 per child or 2.5 percent of the household’s annual income, whichever is the higher amount of the two.
Both federal law and state law have driven hundreds of thousands of Californians underground. In some cases, California residents who are U.S. citizens have gone to extraordinary means to make fraudulent representation of having medical coverage for themselves or their families that they do not possess. This, in most cases, entails the commission of several felonies.
The adjustments to California’s 2021-2022 budget to provide the $1.3 billion in funding that will be applied beginning in May 2022 to provide Medi-Cal overage to illegal aliens over the age of 50 were championed by California Senator Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno.
“Health care is a human right. All Californians should have the right to healthcare, regardless of immigration status,” Arambula, a former emergency room doctor said. “I am proud that in California we are tearing down barriers for our immigrant families, not building them.”
The expansion of Medi-Cal coverage to illegal aliens over the age of 50 comes while Lara is now serving as California’s health insurance commissioner.
An effort was made, in light of the anticipated provision of Medi-Cal to illegal aliens over the age of 50, to see if Lara believes that California residents who are taxpaying American citizens who cannot afford health insurance should still be subject to the $695 per adult or $357.50 per child state penalties. Lara was also asked if he at this point supports making Medi-Cal available to U.S. citizens who are residents of California between the ages of 19 and 25 and the ages of 50 and 64 who cannot afford to purchase medical insurance. Lara was asked if he considered fining or financially penalizing those who cannot afford medical insurance to be a sound social policy. Lara was asked if he in fact was opposed to making Medi-Cal available to U.S. citizens who are residents of California between the ages of 19 and 25 and the ages of 50 and 64 who cannot afford to purchase medical insurance, would he support converting the fines or financial penalties levied upon the households where medical insurance has not been secured into credit toward those households purchasing medical insurance.
Lara did not respond.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is on an irretrievable trajectory to designate Undersheriff Shannon Dicus as the replacement for Sheriff John McMahon, multiple personages within the sheriff’s department and the senior level of the county’s governmental structure have told the Sentinel.
McMahon has served as sheriff since he was appointed to the post in 2012 following his predecessor Rod Hoops’ resignation. He proved victorious at the polls as the unelected incumbent in 2014 against two challengers and was then reelected unchallenged in the 2018 election. He abruptly announced his retirement on June 18, effective July 16.
Political considerations, the culture of the county’s intertwined governmental and law enforcement silos, departmental history and county tradition, compounded by Dicus’s stated determination to seek election in 2022 gives him a leg up on on the three applicants he is competing against. When the current board of supervisors’ interest in maintaining continuity in the department to preserve the status quo and the current dynamic of noninterference between the county’s ruling elite and its law enforcement arm is thrown into the mix, the board’s appointment of anyone other than Dicus to succeed McMahon is inconceivable.
Two of the three others besides Dicus seeking the sheriff’s post are essentially outsiders. One enjoys some political cachet but has now, after having risen to a mid-level management post with the department, fallen into what is predominantly outsider status within the sheriff’s office.
The board of supervisors is scheduled to interview the four candidates on Wednesday, July 7, and it is anticipated that a vote settling the succession question will be taken before that convocation concludes.
The sheriff’s position carries with it the adjunct titles of coroner and public administrator while providing an average yearly salary and other pay of $280,000 and benefits of $248,000 for a total annual compensation of $528,000.Competing with Dicus for the sheriff’s appointment are Phillip Dupper, Clifton Harris and William Loenhorst.
Phill Dupper can arguably make for himself, or others might make for him, a disputed claim to insider or establishment status, as he has acceded to the rank of lieutenant after 25 years with the sheriff’s department. Upon graduating from the academy in 1996, he was assigned to the county jails, thereafter working patrol out of the Fontana Station. He promoted to detective, whereupon he was sent to the Rancho Cucamonga Station, then subsequently worked in the narcotics division. Upon being promoted to sergeant, he returned to the department’s jails, was thereafter assigned to Morongo Valley and was brought back to Rancho Cucamonga. After his promotion to lieutenant, he worked out of the department’s headquarters on Third Street in San Bernardino, overseeing the department’s information technology, central communications and dispatch functions. He has since returned to the department’s corrections division, first at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga and currently at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore.
Dupper is presently Loma Linda mayor, and has served on the Loma Linda City Council for 11 years. Previously, he was a board member and eventual vice president of the Safety Employees Benefit Association, the union representing San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies.
While he has demonstrated a degree of dedication and proficiency as well as the requisite patience and political finesse to advance to lieutenant’s rank, the 47-year old Dupper has not been entirely closed-mouthed with regard to his observations about what he sees as shortcomings in the department’s operations, and he has voiced his belief that the changing social and technological environment in the post modern world has created both subtle and substantial changes in the way a law enforcement agency should and needs to operate. Moreover, his experience as an elected official, particularly in a city where his department provides contract law enforcement service and serves as Loma Linda’s police department, has given him a perspective on the context in which law enforcement function is seen as an element of a community and its government rather than a self-centric function unto itself. The past command echelon that was in place when Dupper was hired which was a generation to a generation-and-a-half older than what he was and the current command echelon, which is a-half generation his senior, have not always been ready to accept his view of things or adapt to his more nuanced perception of the world. Functioning in the mostly black-and-white environment of traditional law enforcement, Dupper has become less of a whistleblower than whippersnapper who has been confined to the bush leagues by his elders, one who is unlikely to make the leap to the department’s command echelon. At this point, he is ten years or so shy of what would be typical retirement age for someone in the department. It was already touch and go as to whether he would have gained promotion to captain. Now, having marked himself as the one member of the department who challenged the collective will and consensus at the most senior levels of the department which hold that Dicus is the logical heir apparent to McMahon, Dupper almost assuredly has consigned himself to a position no higher than lieutenant for the remainder of his career with the department.
In his written application to the board of supervisors seeking consideration of his appointment to replace his current boss on July 15, Dupper referenced “a perceived lack of internal procedural justice by employees within the organization. Quite a few employees believe the department operates like a good ol’ boys club, where personal relationships matter more than qualifications or efficacy. Decisions, promotions and assignments are made based on who employees align themselves with politically or socially. Many employees believe the department to be a place where leadership models do as I say, but not as I do. For those who speak up or become whistleblowers, they are ostracized, and sometimes even punished for doing so. Many employees believe the disciplinary system is disparate, giving favor to people who are ‘connected.’ Many see a lack of diversity within upper ranks. Some employees perceive hypocrisy, nepotism and cronyism as being openly embraced. Some say their commanders model or even brag the best way to stay out of trouble or advance within the organization is to never make a decision or do anything.”
Insisting he loves the department, believes in its mission, is proud of the men and woman who man it and generally respects the department’s management and administration and that he considers both John McMahon and Shannon Dicus to be sincere and well-intentioned, he said there are elements of the way the department operates that are slipshod, and he sees room for improvement.
“Many things in law enforcement continue to happen with a wink, nod and story about how it was done in the old days,” Dupper wrote. “The reality is, in today’s world, we must set a high moral and ethical standard and make it very clear that standard is practiced by all of us together. I would mandate all upper management work either a patrol or jail shift quarterly to ensure they retain an understanding of the job they ask their employees to complete. Many managers have not been inside a patrol car or jail housing unit in years, yet they make critical decisions related to those operations.”
Dupper was particularly critical of a move the department made toward allowing information pertaining to the department’s operations to be eradicated, and the chronicling of the department’s action, in many respects, to be lost forever.
“Two years ago, the sheriff’s department changed its retention policy for records such as email, audio recordings and case files,” Dupper wrote. “All email communication older than two years is now automatically destroyed. I believe this to be inappropriate. Email and/or other government communication should be kept as a record of an agency’s activity and for scrutiny by the public. This helps ensure accountability and transparency. As sheriff, I would reverse certain retention polices to ensure nothing is destroyed except what is mandated by statute or legal requirement.”
Cliff Harris is a San Bernardino native, having graduated from San Bernardino High School before obtaining a degree in business from the University of La Verne. After serving in the U.S. Army, he held various jobs, including management training positions with J.C. Penney and the Ford Motor Company. After a two year stint as a reserve deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s department, Harris was hired as a deputy. He remained with the department until 1991, having achieved the rank of detective. He subsequently hired on with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, remaining in that assignment until he retired in 1999. Harris twice ran for sheriff, in 1994 and again in 2014. Since 2010, he has been the owner of Time Wise Investigations. He has been for twenty years the publisher of the San Bernardino American, an adjudicated newspaper.
Harris, an African-American, was even more direct than Dupper about the cultural disconnect in the department and at its highest levels with respect to a major portion of the community it is called upon to police. Harris cited “accountability, police integrity, equal enforcement of the law, use of force, value of human life, respect for others, civil liabilities paid out in lawsuits and lack of training of deputies, supervisors, managers and executive staff [as] the most pressing issues facing the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.”
Harris wrote, “The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police represents a tipping point in American policing. We must not only come to terms with hard facts but must act on them. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, which was founded in 1853, is one of California’s oldest sheriff’s departments. Throughout its history, the organizational culture has been slow to make substantive change. Accountability in a democratic society means that the police are accountable to the law and the community. Deputies must apply the same standards of justice to every member of the community. Sheriff’s deputies in a democracy must adhere to the limitations that are placed on their discretion and lawfully prescribed use of authority.”
Harris asserted that the department has been too heavy-handed in its use of force, in particular against minorities. “Recent incidents of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s use of force against blacks have led to deaths and serious injury to unarmed citizens,” he wrote. “The anti-black violence and injustice across the country underscore the corrosive effects of systemic racism in our society and the fear and lack of trust that many people feel daily toward law enforcement. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department under my leadership will show all communities that it is committed to serving all members of our community and treating everyone with respect and dignity. Officers who use excessive or unauthorized force will be subject to discipline, including possible criminal prosecution.”
In his written application to the board of supervisors, Loenhorst’s exposition of his philosophy and intended approach were he to be selected to succeed McMahon was far less involved and explicit than those of Dupper and Harris.
As to what he considered to be the most pressing issues facing the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and how he plans on addressing these issues, Loenhorst tersely wrote, “False and incomplete media patterns directly lead to department funding shortages. The plan will include use of force policy training and continuous improvements through approved media promotion channels to proactively demonstrate the quality of existing training and policy.”
Asked what the sheriff’s department could do to improve outreach to and relationships with people who live in communities with high crime rates, Loenhorst wrote, “Train community leaders and organizers in the FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] incident command system. When crime rates approach a defined ‘tipping point,’” he wrote, the sheriff/sheriff’s department should “put into practice incident command system protocols while including trained, authorized community leaders to be part of the ICS [incident command system] organized practice incident command protocols while including trained authorized community leaders to be a part of the ICS system. This allows better use of a proven system while raising community member moral[e].”
Though the law enforcement training and credentials of Dicus, Dupper and Harris are well established, those of Loenhorst are somewhat unclear. His application indicated that he had an advanced active or inactive certificate issued by the Commission on Police Officers Standards and Training, but this reference, in handwriting, was somewhat cryptic, stating “cert on file at VOLF – EMP # C6954.” Nowhere on the application was a definition of what the abbreviation or acronym VOLF stands for.
The Sentinel’s effort to ascertain what law enforcement agencies Loenhorst previously worked for was unsuccessful. William Loenhorst, Sr., who may have been Loenhorst’s father, was a deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. William Loenhorst, Sr. died on July 23, 2009.
Clerk of the Board of Supervisors Lynna Monell posted to her office’s webpage on the county website the applications for the sheriff’s position filled out by Dicus, Dupper, Harris and Loenhorst. Monell blacked out the personal and contact information on those applications. While the Sentinel has contact information for Dicus, Dupper and Harris, it did not have and could not obtain contact information for Loenhorst. The Sentinel, aware that the clerk of the board’s office was not at liberty to provide it with Loenhorst’s contact information, asked that an employee there contact Loenhorst to ask him to contact the Sentinel.
“I don’t think we can be involved in that process,” Donna Young, Monell’s executive secretary said. She routed the Sentinel’s call to Felisa Cardona, the deputy public information officer with the county. Asked if she would contact Loenhorst to see if he was willing to discuss his application for sheriff with the Sentinel, Cardona said, “I don’t think I can do that.”
On July 7, nineteen days after McMahon sprung upon the public his decision to leave office, the board of supervisors is scheduled to convene a meeting at 1 p.m. at which it is to review the board-adopted appointment process for the office of sheriff/coroner/public administrator, and if necessary, approve changes to the process as needed; complete the board-adopted appointment process by disclosure of the names of each board member’s candidates recommended for interview, or in the alternative to complete the process as may be changed; conduct interviews of the candidates and deliberate in open session, at which time the board members are to consider appointing a replacement sheriff.
The announcement of next Wednesday’s meeting and its agenda was made public today. No realistic opportunity for widespread public exchanges with or interviews with Dicus, Dupper, Harris or Loenhorst will transpire before Wednesday’s meeting, as the Fourth of July weekend is intervening, leaving Tuesday as the lone workday before the meeting takes place. The county has not facilitated the provision of phone or email contact information with regard to any of the four candidates to the public. Moreover, Wednesday’s meeting is to take place in the Magda Lawson conference room on the county administration building’s fifth floor, rather than the far larger Robert Covington meeting chamber, where board of supervisors meetings are normally held and which features facilities that allow the public to participate and offer verbal input that is audible throughout the room through a microphone at the public speaker lectern, and which makes those comments audible on the video of the meeting.
While the meeting is to be livestreamed on the county’s website, members of the public will not be permitted to participate verbally in the meeting. Rather, if a member of the public submits a comment in writing to the clerk of the board by email prior to the meeting or by U.S. Post such that it arrives prior to the meeting, that comment will be forwarded to the board members for their private review. Any comments arriving during or after the meeting will not be provided to the board members until after the meeting.
The upshot is that the board of supervisors is being less than fully accommodating of those members of the public who may want to weigh in on the appointment before it is made.
According to virtually everyone within the informational loop in county government, the sheriff’s department or among the knowledgeable observers of the board of supervisors, any public input is and will be irrelevant to the board’s decision, which has already been made in favor of Dicus.
One of those, a now former member of the department who inhabited a position in the department’s command echelon for a decade, said that the meeting called for next Wednesday at which the applicants will be interviewed as well as statements made by members of the board of supervisors conveying that the board was carefully considering multiple individuals to fill the sheriff’s role were all “theater.”
“The dominoes were in place long before the sheriff announced he was retiring,” the nearly 40-year law enforcement professional said. “The next sheriff is going to be Shannon, who is very qualified for the position. He’s a good man, and he’s a good choice. You could see this coming. This is the third consecutive time the elected sheriff resigned right in the middle of his term, and handed the position over to someone who embodies everything about the department that the sheriff stands for. Shannon has been on the second floor [of the sheriff’s department headquarters located at 655 East Third Street in San Bernardino, from which the sheriff, undersheriff, the department’s two assistant sheriffs and four of the department’s seven deputy chiefs operate]. He has been a trusted and productive member of the executive staff for three or four years. I would say he fully emerged in the picture as one of the two or three likely candidates to take over after Assistant Sheriff Dave Williams retired in 2017.”
Dicus, he said, “has been groomed to be sheriff. He was serving in a liaison position with the board of supervisors, which was done so that they would feel comfortable appointing him. I will guarantee you, even though they will never admit it, the board of supervisors was in on the appointment before the sheriff’s resignation was announced.”
It will not be a cakewalk for Dicus once he is in office, the longtime lawman said, as policing is becoming a more and more challenging profession, with changing perceptions of the role of law enforcement and the values that society is straitjacketing the profession into accepting.
“I don’t envy him on the timing,” he said. “Things were changing when I got out of the game, and that was a while ago. Right now, the political climate is not all that great.”
Still, he said, “Shannon is up to it. His whole career has taken him to where he is.”
The degree to which political considerations have horned in on and even taken precedence over the professionalism in the county’s largest law enforcement agency is shown by the sharply different take members of the board of supervisors have on the sheriff applicants’ willingness to run for election and those of a wide cross section of the community activists. Many of those outside of the county’s political elite, per se, are skeptical of the way the sheriff’s department has been headed by members of the Frank Bland political machine for two-thirds of a century. Frank Bland, a one-time railroad company policeman, FBI agent and Needles police chief, in 1954 defeated the one-term incumbent sheriff of that day, Eugene Mueller, who had been the Upland police chief when he was elected in 1950. Bland was reelected in 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974 and 1978, growing stronger and stronger politically every four years, as his no-nonsense philosophy of being tough on criminals drew to him a stridently pro-law enforcement support network, including hundreds of donors to his electioneering fund. That politicking bankroll that Bland and his close associates controlled gave him enough money to buy newspaper and radio advertisements, handbills, mailers and billboards during election season, which allowed him to steamroll over anyone who attempted to challenge him for election. That campaign war chest was large enough that Bland had sufficient money to assist others who had to get the blessing of the voters to remain in office. Bland used that money to keep tough-on-crime judges, whom he considered allies and who had to stand for reelection every six years, in office. And when he spotted a judge he believed was soft on crime or who wanted, in his view, to mollycoddle criminals, Bland would find a hard-charging member of the district attorney’s office to run against him, and backed him with money from his political fund. Neither was Bland shy about supporting other local candidates, in particular members of the board of supervisors who stood ready to provide his department with the taxpayer funding it needed to keep criminals behind bars.
When Bland, at the age of 69, retired in 1982, he endorsed Floyd Tidwell, who won that race. Bland gave Tidwell the keys to his political machine and Tidwell ran successfully for reelection in 1986 and then endorsed his undersheriff, Dick Williams, in 1990, and used the Bland political machine to elect Williams sheriff. Williams retired in 1994, at which point the political machine got behind Gary Penrod, one of Tidwell’s close friends and rodeo team partner. Following his 1994 election, Penrod was reelected without challenge in 1998, 2002 and 2006 without any opposition, so overwhelmingly powerful and intimidating was the sheriff’s electioneering machine. Penrod resigned in 2009, recommending that the board of supervisors appoint Assistant Sheriff Rod Hoops. The board of supervisors complied with Penrod’s wish. Hoops then used the political machine that had originated with Bland and was yet in existence in 2010 to get himself elected that year. In 2012, Hoops elected to retire, recommending that the board of supervisors appoint McMahon, who was then assistant sheriff. The board complied and the Bland machine sustained McMahon in the 2014 race, when he faced two challengers and left him in such a powerful position in 2018 that no one ran against him.
McMahon has not publicly endorsed Dicus, but it is strikingly evident that he stands behind his undersheriff. One of the questions that the members of the board of supervisors insisted upon including in the application to replace McMahon was “Do you plan to run for sheriff in June 2022?”
Loenhorst responded in the negative. “No,” he wrote. “This would be a temporary assignment until a qualified candidate is elected and is available for service in 2022.”
Harris was a bit more equivocal.
“I plan to wait and see what the political landscape looks like in 2022,” Harris said.
So, too, was Dupper noncommittal.
“At this point, I have not fully decided,” Dupper wrote. “I definitely want to be part of improving not only the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, but also law enforcement as a profession. I look forward to participating in this process and seating the best person for the office.”
Dicus made no bones about it. He is looking toward perpetuating the Bland political machine.
“Yes,” wrote Dicus. “I have assembled most of my campaign team, established the domain name, am in the process of developing my website, working on obtaining my Fair Political Practices Commission number, and [will] begin fundraising shortly.”
The members of the board of supervisors, who are all hardcore political animals themselves, are not about to get in the way of someone who has control over the Bland political machine, the most powerful electioneering tool in San Bernardino County.
With the selection of Dicus as sheriff already determined, the only question pertaining to next Wednesday is how indulgent the board will be in allowing Dupper and Harris, both of whom have differing perspectives and priorities with regard to the brand of policing and law enforcement goals and values than those of the current sheriff’s department establishment, range over those topics when they are interviewed and allow them to get on the record and propound concepts and approaches that herald a new age in upholding the law, even in the Wild West of San Bernardino County, where traditions from the 19th Century yet live on in the 21st Century.

 A Navy medical corpsman who was present when Hospitalman 3rd Class Michael Vincent De Leon was killed in a shooting incident on the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base on August 16, 2019 was found guilty on two of the five charges that were lodged against him by the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps.
Mason Williams, 23, charged with reckless endangerment, violation of a lawful general order, dereliction of duty, drunk and disorderly conduct and making a false official statement, came before a special court martial convened at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center on June 14. Col. S.F. Keane served as the judge presiding over Williams’ court martial.
The case that was pursued against Williams was complicated by the manner in which Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents interrogated Williams during their investigation into the shooting death.
In May, a naval judge in a previous hearing held at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County made a preliminary finding in Williams’ favor after his lawyers argued that the investigators did not adequately apprise Hospitalman 3rd Class Williams of his rights before they grilled him, using psychological and physical tactics, including misrepresentations, which his lawyers said ultimately led him into making making false admissions and confessions to acts he had not engaged in.
Judge Keane, consistent with a previous court finding that Williams’ statements were coerced in violation of his Miranda rights and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, did not allow some of the statements Williams made to the investigators to be heard by the jury hearing the case.
The jury came up short of a guilty finding on the reckless endangerment, violation of a lawful general order and making a false official statement charges, but on Thursday, June 17 found Williams guilty of dereliction of duty and disorderly conduct.
Neither the San Bernardino Superior Court nor the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office took up the matter pertaining to the actions of Williams and four other medical corpsmen who were present at a Friday night party at a base housing unit when De Leon was shot in the head as he stood in the residential unit’s living room. Rather, the matter was left to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
Williams and three of the other hospitalmen – Ryan Dini, Sterling Wold and Jesse Humes – have been identified. A fourth medical corpsman has not been publicly named, as the Judge Advocate General’s Corps reportedly is seeking to secure his testimony to aid in the prosecution of Dini, Wold and Humes.
The broadest set of charges brought were those against Williams, of Fort Lee, Virginia.
Dini, 37, of San Diego is charged with dereliction of duty resulting in death, and drunk and disorderly conduct.
Wold, 28, of New Orleans is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.
Humes, 27, of Detroit is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.
Initially, what had occurred that fateful summer evening was represented by the military service as a suicide, but the Naval Criminal Investigative Service ultimately undertook an investigation into the matter as a homicide.
Based on the facts disclosed during Williams’ trial and the charges against the four defendants, there does not appear to have been any homicidal or malicious intent involved in what occurred. Rather, the allegations aired so far indicate a combination of intoxication and foolishness led to the fatal event, followed by an effort on the part of those involved to misrepresent what occurred.
De Leon, 30, was off duty and present with Williams, Dini, Wold, Humes and the unidentified corpsman in the housing unit, where an abundance of liquor was being consumed. At some point, a gun was produced. In the course of what was characterized as “horsing around,” the gun was “dry fired” while pointed at De Leon and perhaps others in the room.
Dry firing is defined as simulating the discharge of a firearm that is not loaded with live ammunition.
Sometime later, the firearm or another one, this time with bullets in it, came out and was aimed and fired at De Leon, who sustained a single shot to the head.
The other corpsmen, all of whom had extensive training in medical response and are referred to as medics, failed, or were unable, to administer lifesaving assistance to De Leon. There followed a several minute delay after the shooting before a 911 call was made. That call came from DeLeon’s cellphone. The caller reported the incident as a “suicide.”
After the shooting, a report on the matter was provided to Major General Roger Turner, then the commander of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms.
De Leon was born in San Antonio, Texas on October 18, 1988, to Sandra Garcia De Leon and Jose De Leon Jr. of Katy, Texas. Michael, with an older brother, Jonathan, spent his early childhood in Harlingen, Texas. In 1997, his family moved to Houston, where De Leon attended and graduated from Bellaire High School in 2006. Upon graduation, he attended Universal Technical Institute in Houston, training to become an auto mechanic.
In 2015, at the age of 26, De Leon enlisted in the United States Navy, doing basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Command in Illinois. He was tracked to become a hospital corpsman and was educated at the training center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas for medical personnel. He was ultimately assigned to the Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms in the occupational therapy unit. He was a member of the 3rd Battalion 11th Marines, First Marine Division.
The jury hearing the case against Williams called for his reduction in rank to E-1, the lowest position in the Navy, that of seaman recruit.
Dini, the highest ranking of the hospitalmen present when the shooting took place and for whom his lawyers had earlier proposed a rejected plea deal, is the next of the defendants set to go to trial, which is scheduled to commence on July 19.
-Mark Gutglueck

A minor furor has broken out in the City of Gracious Living over special viewing accommodations for Upland’s upcoming July 4 fireworks spectacular being given out at taxpayer expense to an unknown number of municipal, political and business insiders who are on good terms with the Upland City Council.
A letter, referenced in its subject line as an “Invitation to City of Upland Firework Spectacular private viewing,” from the city council and signed by Mayor Bill Velto dated June 1, 2021 was sent so a select group of residents, business people and individuals active as political supporters of the current city council.
The letter stated, “The City of Upland is proud to announce the return of our Firework Spectacular! This year’s event theme is “Light up the Night” and will be viewable from many locations within the city. While we cannot have a large-scale viewing event due to potential Covid restrictions, we have arranged a smaller private viewing event. We are excited to invite you and a guest to attend our “Light up the Night” Firework Spectacular private viewing event on Sunday, July 4, 2021 at 7 p.m. This private event will be held outdoors at the city’s public works facility, 1370 N. Benson Ave, Upland, 91786.”
The invitation said there “will be light refreshments… and activities for everyone to enjoy.”
Those invited were asked to RSVP to (909) 931-4281 by June 20.
“Upon your RSVP, you will be provided with details regarding parking,” the letter states, before concluding, “We look forward to seeing you there!”
The 931-4281 number connects with a desk in the city’s recreation department.
There has arisen a brouhaha over the matter on multiple grounds.
Some have objected to the exclusivity of the invitations and the suggestion that the city council is looking to hobnob with a select group on an occasion as iconic as the Fourth of July. The upshot is that if the council is going to engage itself in such a celebration, it should be open to the public.
A second objection is that if the city council is to extend private invitations to its members’ friends and political supporters, it should not be doing so at taxpayer expense but rather on the council members’ own dimes.
Third, there is the suggestion that the council was misusing the city-sponsored fireworks show improperly by exploiting it for political purposes and to ingratiate itself with possible campaign donors.
A fourth objection is that the circumstance is exacerbated by the consideration that the get-together between the council members and their friends and supporters is being hosted on city property.
Fifth, the event involving all five of the council members in the same place and at the same time may be a violation of California’s open meeting law, the Brown Act, which prohibits members of an elected public panel from coming together and discussing anything related to the agency they represent outside of a forum open to the public. The Brown Act also requires that such a panel’s actions and deliberations be open to public scrutiny, and that members of the public must be given an opportunity to comment on any action the panel might take before the action is taken. The Brown Act further requires that such a meeting have an agenda laying out the topics of discussion, and that the agenda be publicly posted 72 hours in advance of the meeting.
The private fireworks viewing event in Upand this coming Sunday summoned comparisons to an exclusive reception that San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia held for his supporters last month after he delivered his state of the city address. The cost of that event, held at a restaurant owned by one of Valdivia’s campaign donors, was defrayed with city funds. While Valdivia maintained that it was intended as a celebration of the city’s progress and bounce back from the bankruptcy San Bernardino declared in 2012 which was meant to be attended by the city’s movers and shakers and community “stakeholders” and those likely to contribute to the city’s continuing economic recover, only those invited were allowed to attend. Valdivia failed to invite six of the city’s seven council members to the reception.
Meanwhile in Upland, City Councilwoman Janice Elliott insisted, “I was not involved with the guest list” for the fireworks viewing event in Upland.
Moreover, Elliott said, she did not believe that city staff was involved in sending the invitations out.
-M.G.

By Mark Gutglueck
Two Joshua Tree landowners, who relatively recently moved to Southern California from Oregon, have been fined $18,000 for the wholesale destruction of 36 of the trees that their new town is named after.
Jeffrey Walter and his wife, Jonetta Nordberg-Walter, are attempting to construct what is described as their dream house on a ten-acre property located right off Prescott Avenue in the town limits of Joshua Tree she inherited from her father. In the course of clearing land to accommodate the home they are building, the couple began uprooting Joshua trees.
In February, they had hired a backhoe operator to clear a swath of the property, activity which included uprooting chaparral and Joshua Trees.
A nearby landowner saw the mayhem.
Joshua trees, known by their scientific name yucca brevifolia, are a protected species in California. Their destruction on both private and public land is prohibited throughout the state.
Their neighbor called the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which dispatched one of its officers to the area.
That was on February 11.
Initially, the Department of Fish and Wildlife agent was thwarted in documenting what was going on because it took him three hours to find the subject property and the Walters had their contractor bury the trees on the property. This made it so that the destruction of the trees was not visually apparent when the agent arrived.
Nevertheless, he persisted in his investigation and continued to reconnoiter the Walter property.
The officer was provided with crucial assistance by the individual who had phoned in the report. The Department of Fish and Wildlife agent was able to get close enough to the Nordberg-Walter property because of the cooperation of the informant.
That individual, the Sentinel is informed, was motivated to make the call and render further assistance because he had previously been prevented from doing extensive construction on his property because doing so would have required taking out Joshua Trees. Permits for doing that are prohibitively expensive, and generally require that the trees not be destroyed but transplanted, which is an arduous and expensive undertaking.
Ultimately, the agent was able to catch the Walters red-handed in the act of destroying Joshua trees. This gave the Department of Fish and Wildlife probable cause to come onto the property and conduct a search. That search entailed bringing in a backhoe and unearthing at a spot where it was believed the Walters had buried several of the tree that had been uprooted. Ultimately, the agent found 36 trees that were destroyed.
Both Jeffrey Walter and Jonetta Nordberg-Walter maintained they were unaware of the California law protecting Joshua Trees. Department of Fish and Wildlife agents were skeptical of that claim, based on the way they had buried the trees that were uprooted almost immediately.
Nevertheless, once the investigation and action of the Department of Fish and Wildlife was under way, the Walters came across as being cooperative, officials said.
The investigative file on the matter, documentation, reports and evidence were turned over to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, which then initiated a prosecution of both Walter and Nordberg-Walter.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office filed 36 misdemeanor charges each against Walter and Nordberg-Walter, one for each tree, an overall total of 72 charges.
The case against the couple was adjudicated in the courtroom of Judge Shannon Faherty at the Joshua Tree Superior Court. Walter was assessed a fine of $9,000 and Nordberg-Walter a like fine of $9,000.
There is some variance in perspective with regard to the matter.
Some believe what Walter and Nordberg-Walter did was inadvertent, and reflected no ill intent or effort to evade the law. They are recent newcomers to California and, in addition, the law relating to the removal of Joshua trees is a new one. The “taking” of a western Joshua tree became a criminal act in September 2020, when the California Fish & Wildlife Commission made the tree a candidate for endangered or threatened species protections. That statute made it illegal to disturb, move, replant, remove or kill western Joshua trees. Such action is designated as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $4,100 fine and six months in jail.
To some, Walter and Nordberg-Walter got off easy. For $18,000 and a minor blemish on their records, they will now be able to proceed with developing their property, which they legally would not have been likely to be able to do. Moreover, what amounts to a $500 fine per tree is less than what would have been a far more extensive cost if they had applied for permits to transplant them and then executed upon actually transplanting them.
Based on fees determined and set by the state, a permit to relocate a Joshua tree 13.123 feet tall or smaller on developed property costs $175. To remove the same size tree from developed land will cost $525. To relocate a Joshua tree taller than 13.123 feet from developed property costs $700. A Joshua tree that is less than 13.123 feet high growing on undeveloped land can be relocated for $625 and removed for $1,050. Those are permit costs. In addition, the cost of actually relocating a Joshua tree in such a way that it will survive can be quite expensive, as much or more than $1,200 for mature trees. Younger and smaller trees are less expensive to transplant.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is on an irretrievable trajectory to designate Undersheriff Shannon Dicus as Sheriff John McMahon’s successor, according personages within the department and involved in the county’s governmental structure.

McMahon, who has been sheriff since he was appointed to that post in 2012 following the resignation of his predecessor Rod Hoops and then ran successfully for election in 2012 as an unelected incumbent against two challengers and was reelected without opposition in 2018, on June 18 abruptly announced his resignation effective July 16.

The intertwined interests of the county’s top governmental and law enforcement silos, the history of the department, tradition, precedent, the current board of supervisors’ interest in maintaining continuity and preserving the status quo and the dynamic of noninterference between the county’s ruling elite and its policing arm, taken together with Dicus’s declaration that he intends to seek election in 2022, as well as what is essentially or predominantly the outsider status of the field of three alternate candidates who like Dicus have applied to replace McMahon, makes an appointment of anyone other than Dicus inconceivable.

The board of supervisors is scheduled to interview the four candidates on Wednesday, July 7, with the possibility that a vote settling the succession question being taken before that convocation concludes.

Competing with Dicus for the appointment to the sheriff’s position, which carries with it the titles of coroner and public administrator while providing on average yearly salary and other pay of $280,000 and benefits of $248,000 for a total annual compensation of $528,000, are Phillip Dupper, Cliff Harris and William Loenhorst.

Dupper can arguably make a disputed claim to insider or establishment status with the department, as he is has acceded to the rank of lieutenant with the department, after 25 years with the department. After graduating from the academy in 1996, he worked in the jails, thereafter working patrol out of the Fontana Station. He promoted to detective, whereupon he was assigned to the Rancho Cucamonga Station, then subsequently working in the narcotics division. Upon being promoted to sergeant, he returned to the departments jails, then was assigned to Morongo Valley and was then brought back to Rancho Cucamonga. After his promotion to lieutenant, he worked out of the department’s headquarters on Third Street in San Bernardino, where he saw the department’ information technology, central communications and dispatch functions. He has since returned to the department’s corrections division, first at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga and currently at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore.

Dupper is currently Loma Linda’s mayor, and has served on the Loma Linda City Council for 11 years. Previously, he was a board member and eventual vice president of the Safety Employees Benefit Association, the union representing San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies.