By Mark Gutglueck
In an historic vote of potentially far-reaching consequence with regard to governance and governmental structure in San Bernardino County generally, voters countywide passed by an overwhelming margin Measure K, which going forward reduces the members of the county board of supervisors to part-time status and reduces their pay and benefits, which is at present approaching $300,000 per year, to roughly one quarter of what they are receiving.
The backdrop to the Measure K reform movement included a circumstance in which county elected officials found themselves mired in demonstrable instances of corruption brought on by their reception of massive campaign donations from individuals and business entities with an interest in county policy and decisions made by the board of supervisors. In this way, the supervisors, beholden to their campaign donors for providing them with the electioneering wherewithal to remain in an office that in most cases provided the individual supervisors with an income that dwarfed anything they could make while employed in the private sector, routinely voted to support the provision of contracts, franchises or project approvals sought by those donors.
In years past the supervisors had either been able to utilize their administrative authority and command over the county’s stable of attorneys to legally challenge such previous reform measures from being placed on the ballot or had had relied upon their donors and supporters to bankroll and carry out campaigns to convince the county’s voters to reject or water down any revision of how the government operates that would impact their authority or remuneration that managed to make it onto the ballot. This time, however, after using the county’s lawyers in 2017 to effectively block an initiative similar to Measure K that its sponsors, the Red Brennan Group, was attempting to put on the 2018 countywide ballot, the board of supervisors used the county’s lawyers, referred to as the office of county counsel, to strew further obstacles in the path of the reform advocates, the most formidable of which was insisting, contrary to state law, that they would need to gather over 70,000 valid signatures of the county’s voters on the petition requesting the measure to be put on the ballot, a daunting task. To the astonishment of the board, the Red Brennan Group did just that, collecting 75,132 signatures which were affixed to copies of the petition and contained on 10,121 pages, which were turned over to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office on March 20, 2020. Upon examination of those documents, San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Bob Page deemed the signatures and the petition they endorsed sufficient to qualify the measure for the ballot.
The language of the Red Brennan Group’s initiative stated: “The total compensation of each member of the board of supervisors shall be five thousand dollars ($5,000.00) per month, which amount shall include the actual cost to the county of all benefits of whatever kind or nature including but not limited to salary, allowances, credit cards, health insurance, life insurance, leave, retirement, memberships, portable communications devices, and vehicle allowances. This compensation shall be in full compensation for all services by the respective member of the board of supervisors.”
Furthermore, the initiative calls for limiting board members from serving more than six years on the board altogether, allowing them one elected term of four years, while permitting them to also serve an additional half term of up to two years if the officeholder is appointed or elected to the unexpired term of another officeholder who left office.
Caught flat-footed, the board of supervisors for two months, throughout April and May, delayed certifying the measure. Its members at first sought to have then-County Chief Executive Officer Gary McBride, then-County Chief Operating Officer Leonard Hernandez and County Counsel Michelle Blakemore and their staffs find some administrative flaw or legal fault in the process that the Red Brennan Group pursued in qualifying the measure for the November election to justify disqualifying the measure from appearing on the ballot. Similarly, county staff sought to summon up sufficient facts to support a determination that the measure might adversely impact the county’s operations or have a fiscal impact on the county which could be used as a pretext to prevent the voters from considering it.
After each of its members resigned themselves to the fact that the county’s administrators and lawyers could not find adequate grounds to keep the measure off the ballot, the board at last took the matter up at its June 9 meeting, reluctantly certifying the measure for inclusion on the November 3 ballot. Simultaneously, however, the board cast about for some further stratagem by which it might prevent the eventuality the Red Brennan Group was seeking – the reduction of the board from its imperial status – from being activated via the voters’ mandate. Harkening back to what had occurred eight years previously, when a similar reform measure had made it onto the ballot, the current board took a leaf out of the previous board’s book, attempting to reapply the means the previous board had used to sidestep that proposed reform.
In 2012, government reform advocate Kiernan “Red” Brennan and Eric Steinmann gathered the signatures of 73,672 county voters to qualify a countywide ballot initiative intended to bring the remuneration of the county government’s ultimate decision-makers into line with the residents they govern and discourage career politicians fixated on money and thereby influenced by political donations from monopolizing the positions on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.
Brennan’s and Steinman’s initiative, designated as Measure R on the November 2012 ballot, called for downscaling the five individual San Bernardino County supervisors’ then-yearly $151,971 salaries and $67,500 in benefits to $50,000 in salary and $10,000 in benefits annually, a drop in total compensation from $219,471 per year to $60,000.
The members of the board of supervisors, alarmed at the prospect that they would be subject to seeing their pay reduced by more than two-thirds but simultaneously recognizing that the public’s appetite for reform was intense, used their authority as government officials to place what they said was a “substitute reform” initiative onto the ballot. That initiative, Measure Q, called for instituting reform by reducing the supervisors’ individual salaries by $5,269 to $146,702 per year, while allowing their annual benefits then valued at $67,500 to remain in place. Because of their status as supervisors, they did not need to gather any signatures to put the Measure Q “reform” initiative reducing their total annual compensation to $214,202 on the ballot.
Adopting the Measure R advocates’ calls for reform, the supervisors and their supporters, as the proponents of Measure Q, did not in any overt fashion campaign against Measure R, but rather expounded in generic terms what they represented as Measure Q’s “sensible” and “moderate” approach for achieving salary reduction for the supervisors.
In the November 2012 election, Measure R passed by a convincing 64.25 percent to 35.75 percent, with 326,939 voters in favor of it and 181,907 opposed. Measure Q passed as well, by a 67.28 percent to 32.72 percent margin, 344,226 votes in support to 157,369 against it. Because Measure Q garnered more votes than Measure R, the former went into effect rather than the latter. Instead of the supervisors seeing their $219,471 per year total compensation packages reduced to $60,000, they were instead cut back to $214,202.
This summer, the board of supervisors, again on the basis of its own authority and without having to obtain signatures of the county’s voters as had been required of the Red Brennan Group, after coming to a determination that the county’s existing charter is antiquated and in need of a redraft, placed a measure aimed at what was called the reform of the county charter on the ballot, doing so at the last possible moment, at the July 14 board meeting, allowing the first board vote to schedule the county residents’ vote for the November election to be confirmed with a requisite second board vote at the July 28 board meeting, just before the county registrar of voters office’s August 7 deadline for the submission of items to be placed onto the ballot. Though there had been scant discussion of charter changes previously and no expression of a public consensus on what elements of the charter should be redressed, the office of county counsel virtually overnight delivered the language for the charter reform initiative for the board to approve on July 14.
Of tremendous importance, the board said, was modernizing the charter to eliminate what is now considered outdated and genderist language, such as the charter’s reference to the board’s designated leader as “chairman” and what “his” duties consist of. Further, since the current charter did not directly address the compensation the supervisors receive, their level of pay was deemed an important issue for the redraft. There was no public discussion of an appropriate remuneration level. Rather, the office of county counsel, working from the premise that the supervisors current salary of $163,000, further/add-on pay of roughly $17,000 and benefits of $77,000 for a total annual compensation of $257,000 is what the supervisors deserve, hit upon setting the supervisors’ salaries at 80 percent of the salary of a Superior Court judge and benefits equal to county department heads. In this way, if the charter reform measure is passed and put into effect, the supervisors would stand to make $260,000 to $290,000 per year in total annual compensation, depending upon the amount of further/add-on pay they are provided with.
The supervisors directed the county registrar of voters to put the charter reform measure on the ballot.
At the time of Red Brennan’s and Eric Steinmann’s initial reform proposal in 2012, there were four members of the board – Fifth District Josie Gonzales, Fourth District Supervisor Gary Ovitt, Third District Supervisor Neil Derry and Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford – who had an immediate, direct and personal interest in preventing the reduction in the supervisors’ pay to $60,000 going into effect. Gonzales was not scheduled to be termed out of office until 2020, Ovitt and Rutherford were not scheduled to be termed out of office until 2022, and Derry was not scheduled to be termed out of office until 2020. The remaining incumbent on the board at that time, Brad Mitzelfelt, was vying for Congress that year and, accordingly, was not seeking reelection in 2012. Rather than acquiesce in the reform package that Brennan and Steinmann were pushing the voters to adopt, Gonzales, Ovitt, Derry and Rutherford instead sought to prevent the adoption of a measure that would reduce their total compensation to between one-third and one-fourth of what they were then receiving.
Brennan died in 2013, a year after his and Steinmann’s measure came up short. Those involved with him in his government reform efforts founded the Red Brennan Group shortly thereafter, dedicating it to reducing the depth, breadth and cost of county government while aiming at improving its efficiency.
For many in the Red Brennan Group, there was lingering resentment over the manner in which the board of supervisors in 2012 had diverted what they considered to be a legitimate reform effort that was aimed at breaking the hold that money has on politics and elected officials. The were stymied in an effort to re-present what was very similar to the 2012 reform initiative to the voters in 2018, but succeeded in getting it on the ballot this year.
Upon Measure K being qualified for being considered by the county’s voters this year, only two current members of the board – Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman, who had succeeded in intimidating Ovitt from seeking reelection in 2014 and had thereby succeeded him that year upon facing weak/ineffective opposition in the election, and Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe, who had been appointed to the board in 2018 and was elected to the board in her own right during this year’s March 3 race – had an immediate, direct and personal interest in preventing the resurrected Red Brennan Group-sponsored reduction in the supervisors’ pay to $60,000 from going into effect. Gonzales is termed out this year. Rutherford is termed out in 2022, and Measure K will not go into effect until the last term she was elected to in 2018 ends. First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood, who succeeded Mitzelfelt in 2012, would have been beyond Measure K’s reach, as he was due for reelection this year, and as such would not have been subject to the conditions of the measure if he had run and was reelected to his final term in office before its conditions went into effect. As it turned out, Lovingood opted not to seek reelection this year.
While all of the current members of the board, especially Gonzales and Rowe, expressed openly their beliefs that Measure K’s reduction in salary and one term restriction on the time a member of the board can serve is contrary to the principles of good governance and the interests of San Bernardino County’s residents, the board beyond offering the voters the alternative “charter reform” Measure J, did not make a well-coordinated and concerted effort to campaign on behalf of Measure J nor against Measure K, and no energetic or effective outside support for Measure J nor against Measure K manifested, in part because the COVID pandemic discouraged heavy public participation in election activity pertaining to measures or initiatives.
Ultimately, the county’s voters on Tuesday sided with the Red Brennan Group and against the board of supervisors’ unbridled power as represented by their total taxpayer-defrayed compensation climbing toward $300,000 per year.
As of this afternoon, with 530,787 votes having been tallied countywide, Measure K was on an easy course to prevailing with 357,126 votes or 67.28 percent in favor and 173,661 votes or 32.72 percent against it.
Meanwhile, Measure J, the ersatz reform measure put on the ballot by the board of supervisors as a ploy to sidetrack the voters and allow the board members to keep their lucrative salaries and benefits was not receiving the same level of support. On election night, in the first count of ballots coming in, with 1,343 of the county’s 2,327 precincts reporting, Measure J was passing with 178,442 votes or 50.4 percent in favor and 175,638 or 49.6 percent against it. At 4 a.m. the morning of November 4, with all 2,327 of the county’s 2,327 precincts reporting, Measure J had slipped behind, with 211,453 votes or 49.89 percent in favor of it and 212,373 or 50.11 percent against it. That afternoon, the votes for and against it were in a dead heat, as 216,914 votes or 49.99 percent were counted in favor of it and 216,976 votes or 50.01 were tallied against it.

Upland city officials, including the city manager, finance manager and members of the city council disenfranchised the city treasurer to prevent him from vectoring public scrutiny of the city’s burgeoning pension crisis, action which included the alteration of public documents and forgery, the San Bernardino County Grand Jury determined in an investigation it conducted.
The grand jury’s conclusion was provided in a report belatedly released on Monday.
When Upland’s city officials prevented Larry Kinley from performing his duties as treasurer, the grand jury concluded, they were in violation of the city’s policies, disregarded or were out of compliance with state law and the California Government Code, and in some instances quite likely crossed the line into outright criminal conduct.
According to the report, “The 2019-2020 San Bernardino County Civil Grand Jury discovered evidence that in 2019 the City of Upland purposely covered up, on no fewer than five treasury reports, a handwritten notation made by the elected city treasurer of $112,039,675.00 regarding the City of Upland’s unfunded pension liabilities. The city’s management personnel then forwarded the treasury report without the handwritten note to the city council as unaltered. The evidence established that, eventually, the cover-up of the unfunded pension liabilities notation was discovered, but that the City of Upland failed to take any disciplinary action. Instead, they decided to permanently remove the elected city treasurer’s signature from the treasury report. The evidence further established that masking of the hand-written notation was then supported by the City of Upland’s motivation to prevent the citizens of Upland from asking questions about the status of the city’s unfunded pension liabilities. The civil grand jury also discovered evidence that when the city treasurer submitted an appointment for [the] deputy treasurer’s position to the City of Upland, city management personnel denied the request without statutory authority. Evidence established that the city council was not made aware of the appointment. California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 41006, states that ‘The city treasurer may appoint deputies.’ Evidence established that the City of Upland City Council determines what compensation is provided for a deputy treasurer. The civil grand jury found evidence that members of the City of Upland Finance Committee were confused about their responsibilities. Evidence established that finance committee members differed as to who did and who did not have voting rights. Evidence also established that finance committee members did not have an accurate assessment of pension costs related to the City of Upland.”
While noting that “The civil grand jury found that most actions mentioned in this report may not violate the law,” the report states, “The San Bernardino County Civil Grand Jury is aware that there potentially may be criminal activity associated with these actions that are not within the jurisdiction of the civil grand jury. The civil grand jury does, however, view these practices as deceptive. These actions also demonstrate a lack of proper government practices and transparency to the citizens of Upland.”
There were indications, according to the grand jury report, “that the elected treasurer of the City of Upland is not being allowed to perform many of his duties by the City of Upland.” Without referring to Kinley by name, the grand jury report said that shortly after being sworn into office, Kinley was informed by the city’s management personnel that one of several responsibilities he had included signing the monthly treasury report as outlined in California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 41004, and that his other duties and authority as treasurer were outlined in California Government Code Sections 41001- 41007.
Under Section 41002 the city treasurer is required to “receive and safely keep all money coming into his hands as treasurer.”
Section 41003 requires that the treasurer must “comply with all laws governing the deposit and securing of public funds and the handling of trust funds in his possession.”
Under California Government Code Section 41004, the treasurer is restricted from paying out a municipality’s money to any entity other than those for warrants “signed by legally designated persons.”
Government Code Section 41005 mandates that “Regularly, at least once each month, the city treasurer shall submit to the city clerk a written report and accounting of all receipts, disbursements and fund balances” and that “He shall file a copy with the legislative body.”
Government Code Section 41006 specifies that a treasurer is to “perform such duties relative to the collection of city taxes and license fees.”
California Government Code Section 41007 states that “The city treasurer may appoint deputies for whose acts he and his bondsmen are responsible” and that “The deputies shall hold office at the pleasure of the city treasurer and receive such compensation as is provided by the legislative body.”
“Evidence revealed that with the exception of signing the monthly treasury report, the city treasurer rarely, if ever, performed these duties,” the report states. “The evidence revealed that the role and scope of the newly elected city treasurer’s duties were significantly reduced from the role played by former city treasurers, and that the treasurer’s activities were limited to oversight of the city’s investments, and reviewing and signing the monthly treasury report. The evidence showed that taking action to limit the city treasurer’s scope of authority from the outset of his tenure was motivated by the city management’s desire to suppress the city treasurer’s pre-election and post-election oral and written communications concerning the city’s unfunded pension liabilities, because it would result in the public asking too many questions of management personnel and elected city officials. The evidence revealed that management personnel were of the opinion that the unfunded pension liabilities were noted in the city’s consolidated annual financial report, and that the calculation of the unfunded pension liabilities did not constitute a real number and therefore, should not be noted on the treasury report, nor anywhere else, because it would result in the public asking too many questions of management employees and management personnel.”
Further, the grand jury report states, “The evidence established that the city treasurer was responsible for reviewing and signing the treasury report. The evidence revealed that the treasury reports were prepared by city employees and forwarded to the city treasurer for review and approval. This is consistent with statutory authority and long-standing practice of management personnel and the city council. Once the city treasurer signed the treasury report, it was forwarded to the city manager’s office and then placed on the city council’s consent agenda. The evidence revealed that the city treasurer sought to inform the citizens of Upland on numerous occasions by making a handwritten notation on the monthly treasury report that the city’s unfunded pension liabilities exceeded $112 million. The evidence established that as far back as January 2019, management personnel began covering up the city treasurer’s handwritten notation on the treasury report concerning the unfunded pension liabilities. The altered treasury reports were then filed with the city clerk on no fewer than five occasions between January 2019 and June 2019, and were included in the council’s monthly consent agenda. The evidence revealed that both versions of the treasury reports were in the city’s files. However, only the copies that covered up the city treasurer’s notation of the unfunded pension liabilities were sent to the city council. The evidence established that making a notation on the treasury report regarding unfunded pension liabilities is within the elected city treasurer’s authority. Additionally, there was near unanimous agreement from witnesses interviewed that the city’s unfunded pension liabilities posed both a serious threat and a financial liability to the citizens of the city. The evidence established that management personnel did not inform either their superiors or city council that a staff member covered up the city treasurer’s handwritten notation concerning the unfunded pension liabilities prior to submission to the city council.”
According to the grand jury, the city council at that point elected to back city staff in it’s action to disenfranchise Kinley.
“The finance committee met in October 2019, and voted that the unfunded pension liabilities should not be included on the treasury report,” according to the grand jury. “The evidence showed that once the city treasurer learned that the handwritten unfunded pension liabilities note on the treasury report was not going to be included on the monthly treasury reports, he refused to sign the treasury report, and has never signed another treasury report. The evidence showed that if the treasurer did not sign the October 2019 Treasury Report without the handwritten note concerning the city’s unfunded pension liabilities, then his signature block would be removed from the treasurer’s report altogether. In place of the city treasurer’s signature, both management personnel and senior management personnel would sign the report, effectively making the treasury report no longer the city treasurer’s report. This is contrary to the city’s statement of investment policy. In November of 2019, members of the management personnel did, in fact, remove the city treasurer’s signature block entirely from the treasury report, and replaced it with their own signatures. The evidence revealed that members of the city’s management personnel unilaterally took this action without informing members of city council of their decision(s) regarding another elected city official. Evidence also determined that city officials mismanaged this matter, in that there were alternate solutions to the problem of noting the city’s unfunded pension liabilities on the treasury report, other than covering up the notation, but they were not pursued. For example, a simple memo attached to the treasury report concerning the city’s unfunded pension liabilities would have sufficed to address the matter. This mismanagement was due in part to confusion among city officials about the responsibilities and duties of an elected city treasurer, and determined actions to prevent the citizens of Upland from seeing the city treasurer’s messaging regarding the unfunded pension liabilities.”
City officials also preempted Kinley in his effort to utilize his authority to augment city staff with a deputy city treasurer to ensure that he would be able to engage in his capacity to exercise oversight of the city’s financial situation.
“Evidence also showed that the city treasurer appointed a deputy city treasurer, in keeping with the city treasurer’s statutory authority,” according to the grand jury. The city treasurer’s appointment was denied by the city’s management personnel. California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 41006 states that ‘The city treasurer may appoint deputies.’ The evidence revealed that management personnel acted unilaterally in denying the appointment. The evidence revealed that elected city council and management personnel did not have a complete understanding and/or were confused about the role and responsibilities of the city treasurer… [and] that not all finance committee members were familiar with the city’s statement of investment policy.”
The city has no formal orientation process in place for newly elected officials at the City of Upland, according to the grand jury, and “As a consequence, the evidence revealed that management personnel took steps to limit the roles and responsibilities of the city treasurer in an effort to suppress his messaging on the city’s unfunded pension liabilities from public inquiry.”
City officials’ suppression of Kinley’s function as city treasurer can not be attributed solely to ignorance, the grand jury said, as a good measure of the violation of policy and the law was done deliberately by the council and senior staff.
“Even before the city treasurer was sworn into office in December 2016, the evidence revealed that management personnel, motivated by a desire to suppress the city treasurer’s messaging concerning the city’s unfunded pension liabilities, limited the input of the city treasurer by dissolving the finance committee,” according to the grand jury. “Officially, the finance committee was dissolved on March 13, 2017 at a city council meeting. The evidence revealed that the dissolution of the finance committee by the city council was based on the recommendation of management personnel. The minutes of this meeting reflected no discussion on this topic from the city council members. Historically, the city treasurer was always an active member of the finance committee, and gave input on a broad range of financial matters as outlined in California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Sections 41001 – 41007, California Government Code Title 5, Division 2 53646, and the city’s statement of investment policy. The evidence revealed that the only committee the city treasurer was a member of was the city’s investment committee. The evidence disclosed that the city treasurer was not invited to other meetings involving discussion of the city’s finances. The evidence further revealed that by taking these actions, the city’s management personnel sought to limit the roles and responsibilities of the city treasurer in an effort to suppress his messaging on the city’s unfunded pension liabilities from public inquiry.”
The city council and senior city staff eventually reestablished the finance committee, but in doing so structured in in such a way that it abridged Kinley’s purview as city treasurer in a way that was out of keeping with state law.
“Ironically, by Resolution 6504 being passed, approved, and adopted by city council on August 12, 2019, the finance committee was reinstated,” according to the grand jury report. “In reinstating the finance committee, the city council gave wide parameters to members of the finance committee by stating that, ‘The committee shall be responsible for reviewing matters pertaining to the finances of the city.’ However, even though the city treasurer was renamed as a member of the finance committee, the language of the resolution specifically limited the duties of the city treasurer to the ‘review of quarterly investment reports’ per Resolution 6504. The finance committee is composed of two city council members appointed by the mayor, the city treasurer, and the finance officer. The evidence revealed that the voting responsibility of the city treasurer as a member of the finance committee ranged from full voting authority, limited voting authority and no voting authority. As a result, the views of the city treasurer are nullified and easily ignored. The evidence supported that minutes of the finance committee meetings are recorded. Evidence also supported that the minutes are not detailed and appear to not change substantially from meeting to meeting. The evidence established that City of Upland elected officials did not understand the calculation nor the financial impact of the pension liabilities facing the city. For example, evidence determined that a finance committee member thought that the City of Upland expends approximately 2 million dollars annually on pension costs. Evidence reveals that the City of Upland’s 2019 projection of pension costs exceeded 11 million dollars in Fiscal Year 2019-20 and is projected to reach 15 million dollars annually in Fiscal Year 2027-28. In the end, evidence supported a strong motive for management personnel and elected officials at the city to take steps to prevent this information being brought forward in the treasury report for public scrutiny.”
According to the grand jury, “The City of Upland considers actions of publicly addressing the unfunded pension liability as inviting negative criticisms and questions from the citizens of Upland, and not being part of the solution. The duties of the elected city treasurer have been reduced or limited to simply overseeing the investment funds, rather than overseeing all funds received and paid out by the city, as specified by California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Sections 41001 – 41005 and the city’s statement of investment policy. The City of Upland does not have a clear understanding of the amount of annual pension cost and seriousness of the unfunded pension liabilities threatening the City of Upland.”
The grand jury recommended that “The Upland City Council investigate and make public, at an open public city council meeting and on the Upland city webpage, how city staff covered up the notation of unfunded pension liability made by the city treasurer on the monthly treasury report [and] make public, at an open public city council meeting and on the Upland city webpage, what disciplinary action was taken addressing the alteration of the treasury report after it was signed by the city treasurer.”
The grand jury further recommended that the “Upland City Council make public, at an open public city council meeting and on the Upland city webpage, the actions taken to assure that this type of incident, the altering of a signed report will not recur” and that “Any changes made to the city treasury report, after the document is signed by the city treasurer and submitted to the city clerk, must be documented in writing with the city treasurer, the city manager, and the mayor, to be implemented immediately.”
The grand jury called upon the city to reinstate the practice of having the city treasurer sign the treasury report, which was formerly known as the treasurer’s report, and provide him with a forum at one city council meeting per month to present the treasury report and the submitted financial status including, but not limited to, those responsibilities as outlined in California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 41004 and California Government Code Title 5, Division 2 53646. The city should also clearly outline the role of the city treasurer and establish a structured orientation process defining his duties, responsibilities, authority, and his expected interactions as a member of the City of Upland’s management team, consistent with what is the specified role of a city treasurer under California regulations relating to the structure of general law cities.
The grand jury said “In the best interests of the citizens of Upland, management personnel, both elected and appointed [should] reinstate all fiduciary duties to the elected city treasurer, as outlined in California Government Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Sections 41001-41005” and “establish guidelines and practices which support the appointment of a deputy city treasurer by the city treasurer, should the city treasurer so desire, for the proper fulfillment of the city treasurer’s financial duties and responsibilities.” In addition, the grand jury directed that the “city establish guidelines/practices and training for management personnel at the City of Upland and elected city council members of the amount of and a full understanding of the unfunded pension liabilities facing the city.”
The City of Upland should also, the grand jury said, “publish a comprehensive quarterly report on the city website that lists current pension costs, plus a ten-year pension cost projection. This report, in addition to the city’s comprehensive annual financial report, should include the most current unfunded pension liability information, including the city’s comprehensive plan addressing the escalation of the unfunded pension liability.”
The grand jury report, which became publicly available on Monday, November 2, one day before the Upland Municipal Election coinciding with the Presidential General Election, came too late to preserve Kinley in his role as city treasurer. This summer, dismayed and discouraged by the degree of disrespect he had been accorded by the city council and city staff, Kinley resigned, effective August 10, 2020.
In the aftermath of his resignation announcement and indication that he would not seek reelection, three candidates to succeed him as treasurer emerged: Stephen Dunn, Upland’s former city manager and one-time finance director; Darwin Cruz, a credit analyst with Poppy Bank who previously worked as a commercial loan processor and loan administrator, and Greg Bradley, who owns an Upland-based specialty vehicle repair and restoration business. Ultimately, Bradley, with 9,683 or 42.31 percent of the 22,886 votes cast in the race, prevailed.
In a prepared statement released on Monday, Upland City Manager Rosemary Hoerning said, “The City of Upland strives for financial transparency and has taken steps in recent years to report and address its unfunded pension liability, which is the actuarially-determined liability associated with future pension costs. In just the last two months, the city council held a public workshop to highlight and review approaches to addressing the unfunded pension liability, and the finance committee hosted a public presentation by the city’s California Public Employee Retirement System actuary. The city also regularly identifies the unfunded pension liability in its award-winning comprehensive annual financial report and makes all required annual unfunded pension liability payments. The city also complied with all of the grand jury’s requests for interviews, information, and documents on the subject, and is pleased to see its cooperation acknowledged in the grand jury’s report. Despite the challenges posed by the unfunded pension liability and the negative economic impacts of the COVID pandemic, the city’s finances look reasonably strong due to the direction of the city council and the proactive, yet conservative steps taken by city management. This includes prudent management of the city’s investments, which are disclosed in a public treasury report on a monthly basis instead of the quarterly basis suggested by state law. As reported to [the] city council on October 26, 2020 with unaudited numbers, the city’s unassigned fund balance in the general fund is 38.7% of the city’s operating budget.”
Any controversy over the unfunded pension liability in Upland and city management’s and the city council’s move to prevent Kinley from subjecting the city to his unduly alarmist warnings about it were an outgrowth of Kinley’s obsessive focus on the city’s pension debt, Hoerning asserted, and it was Kinley who unjustifiably changed the treasurer’s report from its proper format than the other way around, she said. References to the city’s unfunded pension liability had no place in the monthly treasurer’s report, she insisted.
“The former city treasurer unfortunately insisted on altering the treasury report by inserting the amount of the city’s unfunded pension liability, which is irrelevant to the status of the city’s investment portfolio,” Hoerning said, explaining that she had “explained this publicly during the city council’s November 10, 2019 meeting, and even the grand jury’s report acknowledges it is not a best practice.” Neither she nor the rest of senior staff and the city had muzzled Kinley, Hoerning said.
“The city treasurer was informed he could submit a written or oral report on the city’s unfunded pension liability at any scheduled city council meeting, but he refused to ever do so and ultimately resigned before the end of his term,” Hoerning said. “The city will review the grand jury’s particular findings and recommendations in coming days and looks forward to providing a detailed response in due time.”
-Mark Gutglueck

Joe Baca Jr. made a convincing showing in capturing victory in Tuesday’s race for Fifth District San Bernardino County supervisor, turning back an effort by a renegade faction of the Republican Party to leapfrog Fontana City Councilman Jesse Armendarez into the position now held by Josie Gonzales, the sole Democrat on the board of supervisors.
Baca’s victory ensures Democratic representation on the panel overseeing the county for at least the next four years.
Democrats have a registration advantage overall among the 1,107,123 voters throughout the county. The 451,848 registered Democrats or 40.8 percent of the county electorate outnumber the county’s 328,745 registered Republicans, who represent 29.8 percent of the body politic.
The county is divided into five supervisorial districts. In only one of those, the First District, the county’s largest subdivision geographically covering most of the desert area, do Republicans outnumber Democrats, 77,076 or 35.6 percent to 74,930 or 34.6 percent. In all of the other county districts, Democrats outnumber their Republican counterparts. In the Second District, there are 98,064 Democrats, representing 40.5 percent of the district’s electorate, and 75,033 Republicans, accounting for 31 percent of that district’s voters. In the Third District, Democrats narrowly outnumber the Republicans, 84,904 voters or 36.1 percent to 83,032 or 35.3 percent. In the Fourth District, the Democrats have widened their voter registration advantage over the GOP in recent years, such that at this point 94,412 or 43.7 percent of the district’s voters are Democrats and 57,438 or 26.6 are Republicans. In the Fifth District, the registration advantage is even more lopsidedly in favor of the Democrats, as 99,538 or 50.5 percent of the district’s 192,218 total voters are Democrats and 37,166 or 18.8 percent are Republicans. In the Fifth District, those voters with no declared party affiliation, 47,577 or 24.1 percent, outnumber Republicans.
Josie Gonzales, who has been Fifth District supervisor since 2004 and is now completing her fourth term, was barred by the county’s term limit regulation from again seeking the Fifth District supervisorial post. Since 2018, when Third District Supervisor James Ramos was elected to the California Assembly, Gonzales has been the only Democrat on the board. Between 2004 and 2012, when Ramos was first elected, Gonzales was the lone Democrat on the board.
Though municipal and county offices are officially considered to be nonpartisan ones, in San Bernardino County virtually all elections are influenced by party affiliation. Despite their greater voter registration numbers in all but the First Supervisorial District, the Democrats throughout most of San Bernardino County have consistently been outhustled by the Republicans in contests for local and even state political office, leaving San Bernardino County as one of the last bastions of the GOP in California.
Beginning nearly two years ago, there was talk among Republicans that despite the Fifth District’s overwhelming Democratic demographics, once Gonzales, with her incumbency, name recognition and the $684,046.65 in her various political war chests, was out of the way a concerted effort by the Republicans thrown behind a charismatic candidate in the Fifth District could result in the board of supervisors being dominated 5-to-0 by the Republicans. Though no consensus on precisely who that candidate would be had formed among the Republicans and their strategists, one name that surfaced continually was that of Dr. Clifford Young, who stands as one of San Bernardino County’s leading African-American Republicans. Young presented multiple advantages with respect to a Republican making an attempt at capturing the Fifth District supervisorial post. He was the last person and the last Republican to hold the Fifth District position before Gonzales, as he had been selected by the board of supervisors in 2004 to finish out the term of then-Supervisor Jerry Eaves, a Democrat, when Eaves had been forced into resigning after his conviction in a bribery and political corruption scandal. Young has name recognition and is currently an officeholder as a member of the board of directors of the West Valley Water District. The Fifth District, which stretches from the eastern half of Fontana on the west, through Rialto, Bloomington, Colton, El Rancho Verde, Glen Helen, Arrowhead Farms, Muscoy, Little Third and Rosena Ranch and extends to include the western half of San Bernardino, is a heavily blue collar area, with strong Latino and African-American demographics.
Gonzales, who at this point is considering vying for San Bernardino County assessor, resolved some time ago that her legacy would be enhanced by her chief of staff, Dan Flores, succeeding her as Fifth District Supervisor. She supported him. He already held an elected office, as a member of the board of trustees for the Colton Joint Unified School District. Flores was a Democrat, and as a Latino in a district with a substantial Hispanic population, he was deemed a viable candidate to succeed his boss. This was enhanced when an aggressive fundraising effort on his behalf ultimately brought in $312,966.39, including a $15,000 loan to himself, to assist him in that effort.
A major obstacle to Flores’ path to becoming Fifth District supervisor, however, emerged in the person of Joe Baca, Jr. Baca, whose father had been a California Assemblyman from 1992 until 1998, a state senator briefly from 1998 until 1999 and then a congressman from 1999 until 2013, inherited strong familial name recognition and positive name identification. He had capitalized on that when he was a relatively young man, gaining election to the California Assembly in the 62nd Assembly District in 2004, but then saw his political career temporarily stymied two years later when he sought to move up the political evolutionary chain, and ran for the state senate in the 32nd California Senatorial District, losing to Gloria Negrete-McLeod.
Immediately, however, he and his supporters regrouped and he ran for a position on the Rialto City Council in the November 2006 election, and won. He has remained in that position ever since, patiently biding his time, not rushing in the fashion he had after he was elected to the Assembly in 2004. He has thoroughly familiarized himself with the minutiae of city government, and worked well with the Democrats and Republicans on that panel. He has cultivated most or all of his father’s positive political attributes, few or none of the less favorable elements of his father’s aspect, and he has shunned being being divisive and argumentative, seeking to advocate for the positions he has adopted rationally, showing magnanimity when he prevails while accepting being on the losing side of votes without rancor. He has proven responsive to constituents seeking assistance and to those looking for information as well as to members of the press inquiring with regard to developments that have put him in both a positive and negative light. He possesses a calm and deliberative demeanor, among a multitude of other faculties that are desirable in a politician.
On the Republican side of the partisan divide in the Fifth District, a group of energetic activists and political operatives, evincing impatience with the county central committee leadership’s complacency in accepting that the Fifth District was the one Democratic stronghold in the county where it would be ill-advised and futile to commit Republican resources, in a dynamic move last year staged something of a mini-coup, one in which they sought to redirect the party’s collective thinking away from perceiving that Clifford Young would be the logical Republican-backed candidate in this year’s Fifth District supervisors race and instead substituting Fontana City Councilman Jesse Armendarez. Armenderaz presented certain advantages, including the immediate one of being a financially successful real estate professional who was not afraid to invest a generous portion of his personal wealth in his effort to further his political career. This meant that the people coalescing around him would need not spend a lot of time seeking out the capital needed to initiate and carry out a campaign and could, instead, get right to work promoting their candidate. Last fall, this group, largely consisting of a younger set of Republicans but also counting within its ranks Phil Cothran, Sr., a major political donor and the father of Fontana City Councilman Phil Cothran, Jr; Michael Taylor, the former Baldwin Park police chief who is a member of the West Valley Water District Board of Directors; Hesperia Councilwoman and Republican Central Committee Member Rebekah Swanson; and her husband, Hesperia School Board Trustee and Republican Central Committee Member Eric Swanson, moved to advance Armendarez. Working with stealth and then quickly once their plan was advancing, Jeremiah Brosowske, Christopher Dustin, Ross Sevy, Naseem Farooqi, Cameron Wessel and a handful of others convinced the Republican Central Committee to endorse Armendarez protégé Angel Ramirez in his challenge of Greg Young, who is no blood relation to Clifford Young, for Greg Young’s position on the West Valley Water District’s board of directors in the November 2019 election. The move to cut Greg Young off was meant as a show of force and power, as Greg Young had been a diligent and hardworking member of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee for over two decades and had shown himself to be committed to promoting Republican causes and candidates. By demonstrating that they could wrest the party’s endorsement from Greg Young and give it to the 22-year-old unproven Angel Ramirez, the cabal pushing the advance of Armendarez intimidated members of Republican Central Committee. It was lost on very few people that Clifford Young and Greg Young were political allies. The cabal, whose moves were being masterminded by Brosowske, then turned its attention to having the central committee step over Clifford Young. In short order that is what occurred, and in the blink of an eye, the central committee, led by its relatively weak chairwoman, Jan Leja, endorsed Armendarez.
This set the stage for the March 3 primary race in which the Democrats Baca and Flores, the Republican Armendarez and a fourth candidate, Nadia Renner, who claimed no party affiliation, were to vie against one another. By the time of the March election, $336,299.86 had been deposited in Armendarez’s election fund, of which $91,076.83 was a loan to himself. Flores had $312,966.39 in his campaign war chest. Baca had deposited a total of $116,443 in political donations into his campaign fund. Renner had $19,100 to carry out her campaign.
When the March 3 vote in the Fifth District race was tallied, Joe Baca Jr. came out on top with 19,948 of the 49,595 votes cast or 40.22 percent. Armendarez ran second, with 13,330 votes or 26.88 percent. Flores came in a distant and disappointing third, with 8,998 votes or 18.14 percent. Renner recorded 7,319 votes for 14.76 percent.
As the 2020 Presidential General election approached, the sheer enormity of what Armendarez was attempting to do at some point registered with his political team. Shortly after the primary, Flores endorsed Baca. Renner made no endorsement either way. With 40 percent of the electorate in the Fifth District having already shown it was inclined to support Baca, Armendarez found himself in the position of having to pick up something approaching 73 percent of the vote that had gone to Flores and Renner in the primary to be able to win. Ultimately in a desperation move toward the end of the election campaign, the Armendarez camp found itself in the position of having to associate Baca with President Donald Trump to convince Democratic voters in the district not to vote for Baca and instead vote for Armendarez. In doing so, hit pieces were sent out making the rather dubious claim that “Joe Baca, Jr. is Team Trump approved” and that “Joe Baca, Jr. earned the support of the same right-wing special interests that put Trump in the White House.” The mailers were not credited to the Armendarez campaign but originated from an outfit identified as the California Taxpayers Alliance. The hope was that the Democratic voters in the Fifth District would forget that Armendarez was a Republican and somehow be conned or confused into thinking that Baca was a Republican.
Ultimately, the voters of the Fifth District spoke at the ballot box this week. As of today, Friday, November 6, Baca claimed 46,537 of the 79,217 votes cast so far, or 58.75 percent. Armendarez had 32,642 votes or 41.21 percent. There were 38 write in votes for neither candidate.
There are several footnotes to the contest. One is that since January 1, 2020, $507,164.08 was contributed to Armendarez’s supervisorial campaign fund in what was a losing cause. By contrast, since January 1, 2020, Baca raised $353,450. It would appear that having reached for the brass ring, Armendarez might have fallen off the political merry-go-round entirely. Other than his willingness to spend his own money in promoting himself, Armendarez’s base of power had been his position on the Fontana City Council and as a member of Mayor Warren’s political machine. The ruthless manner in which he and his associates cut Clifford Young off at the knees to gain the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee’s endorsement, however, did not please Warren. Warren, who is herself one of the leading African-American Republican politicians in San Bernardino County, was one of Clifford Young’s closest political allies. After Armendarez, working with Brosowske, Farooqi, Phil Cothran, Sr., Taylor, Dustin, Ramirez, Sevy and Wessel, dry-gulched Clifford Young, Warren was shaken. She masked her anger at the way in which Armendarez allowed his ambition override a more rational and respectful approach to promoting GOP candidates, which includes demonstrating commitment and loyalty within a recognized hierarchy. Once the destruction of Clifford Young’s contemplated 2020 candidacy for supervisor was a fait accompli, Warren went along with the inevitable, and even transferred $4,700 earlier this year from her committee, Citizens and Friends of Acquanetta Warren for Mayor 2022, into Armendarez’s political war chest. But with Armendarez’s supervisorial campaign having gone down in flames, she in private this week expressed that she is shedding no tears that Armendarez, who had openly defied her by his destruction of Clifford Young, is no longer a member of her council coalition.
-Mark Gutglueck

As of the latest tally of votes released by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, all three incumbents on the San Bernardino City Council up for election this year will be turned out of office.
In the March 3 Primary Election, Sixth Ward Councilwoman Bessine Richard was narrowly defeated by Kimberly Calvin outright in a two-woman race, with the incumbent polling 1,428 votes or 49.69 percent to the challenger’s 1,446 votes or 50.31 percent. In the Seventh Ward, Councilman Jim Mulvihill captured second place with 1,066 votes or 28.06 percent to challenger Damon Alexander’s 1,236 votes or 32.53 percent. Fifth District Councilman Henry Nickel ran in a strong first place in the March race, capturing 1,802 votes or 35.45 percent. His strongest opponent proved to be Ben Reynoso, with 1,295 votes or 25.48 percent.
Because no candidate in the Fifth or Seventh Ward captured a majority of the vote, per the city charter a run-off was forced between the two top vote-getters.
Going into the November 3 races, Nickel seemed poised for victory, based upon his incumbency, superior name recognition and fundraising advantage. He had been in office since 2013, had been reelected in 2015, and had gained further name recognition by two runs for State office in the last decade, including running for Assembly in the 40th District in 2018. He had collected $57,802.64 in contributions for his reelection campaign since January 1 through October 17, which was added to the $4,536 he had in his electioneering fund when the year began. Conversely, Reynoso’s sole contributions through October 17 totaled $15,116.96.
Mulvihill’s path to reelection appeared to be somewhat more challenging than Nickel’s, as his second place finish 170 votes and 4.47 percent behind Alexander despite his greater name recognition and incumbency appeared to be an indication of some level of either voter discontent with him or strength on Alexander’s part, or both. Mulvihill had funding of $56,945.42 that he collected throughout the year right up until November 3, including $40,000 in loans he made to himself, along with $6,756.21 in his campaign coffers he started with on January 1. Alexander collected $22,320 from January 1 until October 17, including a $1,000 loan he made to himself, added to the $850 he started out with in his campaign war chest at the beginning of the year.
In the course of both the Nickel/Reynoso and Mulvihill/Alexander races, there was a showing of negative campaigning, with attack ads surfacing. Paradoxically, the attack ads had opposite effects in the two races. Mulvihill and Reynoso found themselves the targets of multiple hit pieces, which ostensibly did not originate with the Alexander nor the Nickel campaigns but emanated from what purported to be an independent expenditure committee, Californians For A Better Future, headquartered at 9070 Irvine Center Drive #150 Irvine, CA 92618, run by JenEve Slater. One of the hit pieces targeting Mulvihill was apparently sent out to all high propensity voters in the Seventh Ward, alleging without any substantiation that Mulvihill “violated the law” and engaged in “corrupt behavior,” in that he was “caught illegally lobbying on council votes.” The hit piece further alleged Mulvihill was tied to “pot shop owner Merv Simchowitz,” who, the flier duly noted, made a $3,000 contribution to Mulvihill’s campaign. Another hit piece originating with Californians For A Better Future and Slater was sent exclusively to high propensity Democrats in the Seventh District, charging Mulvihill with “racism” and “corruption,” and in which Mulvihill’s relationship with Simchowitz was again referenced. The mailer further accused Mulvihill of being a “Trump supporter,” based on his use of John Lightburn as his campaign manager. Lightburn, the flier states is an “ultra-conservative Trump supporter.”
Unmentioned in either of the hit pieces targeting Mulvihill was that Alexander, a former special agent with the U.S. Department of Justice, received money from Mark Estermeyer, the owner/operator of AM-PM Mgmt., which does business as Cold Creek Organics, a marijuana cultivator and retailer, and that Alexander is, like President Donald Trump, a Republican, and that he was provided with campaign money by a coterie of Republicans, including ones in the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, and was supported by the San Bernardino County Central Committee, which included an endorsement of Alexander in one of its slate mailers. Nor did the mailer attacking Mulvihill mention that the federal government and its Justice Department, which employed Alexander, considers marijuana and cannabis to be illegal narcotics, despite their having been legalized for medical and recreational use in California. An attorney, Ben Eilenberg, in court papers has alleged that Estermeyer, AM-PM Mgmt. and Cold Creek Organics have provided inducements to city officials that are tantamount to bribes. That was not mentioned in the mailer, either.
Californians For A Better Future and Slater were also responsible for hit pieces assailing Reynoso which began landing in the mailboxes of Fifth Ward voters in the final month of the election season.
According to those mailers, Reynoso was involved in the Black Lives Matter movement and is in favor of defunding the police department. The mailers also raised questions about Reynoso’s true residency, and whether he actually lives in the Fifth District.
While some voters in the Seventh Ward may have perceived the hit pieces targeting Mulvihill to be spurious cheap shots, the mailers appear to have been effective in winging Mulvihill and did no damage, by extension, to Alexander. As of 4 a.m. Wednesday morning November 4, when all 16 of the precincts in the Seventh Ward had reported and been counted along with the mail-in votes that had arrived by that point, Alexander had logged 3,059 votes or 63.54 percent, Mulvihill had received 1,675 votes, or 35.34 percent, with six write-in votes for neither candidate. It does not appear that incoming votes thereafter, consisting primarily of straggling mail-in ballots, will be sufficient to overturn Alexander’s lead.
Unlike the case in the Seventh Ward, however, the attack ads in the Fifth Ward did not appear to have the effect those responsible for them intended, but rather redounded to Nickel’s detriment, having been seen by at least some of the voters as an inappropriate tactic which was less than convincing in terms of discouraging voters from supporting Reynoso. Indeed, to some extent, the invective in the mailers was taken as something that rather than damaging Reynoso, reflected negatively on Nickel.
Moreover, the Nickel campaign did not adequately anticipate the support that Reynoso counted upon and received from students at Cal State San Bernardino who walked precincts for Reynoso, and Reynoso’s own determination in walking precincts himself.
At 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, when the first report of the vote tallying was made by the registrar of voters office, eleven of the Fifth Ward’s twelve precincts had reported and the mail-in votes received up until that time were counted. Nickel was up by a razor thin margin, 2,494 votes or 50.25 percent to Reynoso’s 2,469 votes or 49.75 percent, a difference of 25 votes.
At the next update, which did not take place until 4 a.m. on November 4, all 12 of the precincts had reported and any further mail-in votes were tallied. Since the previous count, Nickel picked up 441 votes, for a total of 2,935. Reynoso had added 547 votes, moving his total at that point to 3,016, ahead of Nickel by 81.
At 4 p.m. on November 4, Reynoso’s vote count had grown to 3,205 or 50.78 percent to Nickel’s 3,103 votes or 49.16 percent, which widened the gap to 102 votes.
On Thursday November 5 at 4 p.m. when the totals were posted reflecting the incoming ballots over the previous 24 hours, Reynoso’s lead was shrinking somewhat. The challenger had 3,511 votes or 50.51 percent to Nickel’s 3,436 votes or 49.43 percent, a difference of 55 votes.
Today, Friday November 6 at 4 p.m., Reynoso’s grip on the lead had tightened, as he is now 86 votes in front of Nickel. Reynoso as of today claimed 3,650 votes or 50.58 percent to Nickel’s 3,564 votes or 49.39 percent.
Nickel on Thursday told the Sentinel that he had nothing to do with the hit pieces sent out by Californians For A Better Future and Slater.
“That was a PAC [political action committee] out of Irvine,” he said. “There are PACs supporting me. That is something I can’t control. It has been a very civil campaign between the two of us, Ben and me. I have not been disrespectful of Ben, nor he of me. I don’t believe in negative campaigning. I’m someone who votes for somebody rather than against someone.”
Nevertheless, Nickel said, the issues raised in the mailers sent out by Californians For A Better Future were valid ones.
“This is a Democratic district, but these are by and large conservative Democrats,” Nickel said. “They are homeowners. They are not progressive Democrats who want to defund the police department. They want more cops on the street rather than less. Many of them were, and I know because I have spoken directly with them, horrified by the mobs that were destroying and looting buildings in this city on May 31 and June 1. So you have a PAC composed of concerned business owners and those who are interested in public safety, and they felt it was appropriate to point out that Ben is a member of Black Lives Matter and is calling for defunding the police, as is their right.”
Asked point blank if the strident attacks on Reynoso by the Californians For A Better Future might have offended certain elements of the Fifth District’s voters, Nickel responded, “Was I hurt by that? Maybe.”
Nickel, a Republican who bore the GOP standard in an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for Assemblyman in the 40th District against James Ramos in 2018, said the Fifth District race did not hinge on local issues germane to the City of San Bernardino or the Fifth Ward. Rather, he said, he and Reynoso were caught in a “war between business candidates and the labor council.”
In essence, Nickel said, in San Bernardino politics, California politics and national politics, a division has formed between the business community and the Republicans on one side and the Democratic Party and the unions on the other. Both have their tactics, Nickel asserted, as each vies for political control. He said the Republicans and the business community play hard and work to win, using ruthless but what are essentially still the same fair, legal and constitutional means. The unions, bolstered by the Democrats, Nickel said, are loading the dice, and cheating to achieve victory.
In this way, he said, the Democratic-backed candidates are being assisted by unionized employees who have taken over the machinery of elections and are stuffing ballot boxes in favor of the Democrats. He said he believes that is how Reynoso, a political neophyte, has taken the lead in the Fifth Ward race.
He said the very fact that Reynoso had been allowed into the race was an indictment of the process. No verification of Reynoso’s eligibility had been carried out when he took out papers to run for the council, Nickel maintained. “There is a huge question as to whether he lives in the Fifth Ward,” Nickel said. “The city charter requires that candidates establish residency 30 days prior to the initiation of their candidacy. There was never any proof submitted that he was a Fifth District resident prior to the race. There is no record of him voting in the Fifth Ward.”
Worse still, Nickel said, is that the county’s election workers are militating in favor of the candidates favored by the union that represents them, the Teamsters. The favoritism being shown to Reynoso by the county’s election workers is a reflection of that, he said.
“The people running our election system are endorsing candidates,” Nickel said. “There is something very wrong with that. There are PACS that supported me. But this is a tale of two PACS. The other PAC, which is supporting my opponent, are those who are carrying out, are running the election itself. You saw that in the first reporting of precincts I was ahead. Then at the next posting report, a bundle of ballots shows up out of nowhere. At the one Fifth Ward precinct where you have the heaviest concentration of Republican voters, they were given felt markers. The ink from the felt markers was bleeding through the ballots. We are concerned those ballots will be thrown out. This is exposing a very broken election system.”
Nickel said, “I anticipate I will be asking for a recount. We are going to want signature verification. We are concerned about whether some of the ballots are valid. We need a voting mechanism we can trust. County employees who are members of the union that endorsed candidates in the race, who have themselves endorsed candidates in the race, including my opponent, are running the election and counting the ballots. That has corrupted the way we do business in electing our government officials, or at least cast a great shadow over our government and future elections.”
Despite the very real prospect that he was to be turned out of office, Nickel said, he was pleased that in this election the city’s voters had come down in favor of Measure S, which is to provide the city, which declared bankruptcy in 2012 and exited that status in 2017 but has seen its reserves depleting alarmingly ever since, with a one percent sales tax enhancement. With 39,810 ballots from San Bernardino voters counted as of today, Measure S was up with 22,659 votes or 56.92 percent in favor of it over 17,151 votes against it or 43.08 percent.
It is anticipated that Measure S will translate to an additional $27 million in revenue to the city each year.
“I am not in favor of adding to the tax burden on our residents unless it is absolutely necessary, but I believe the passage of Measure S might be the most important thing that has occurred in the city while I have been on the council,” Nickel said.
-Mark Gutglueck

The political status quo in Rialto will remain intact, as Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson and Councilmen Andy Carrizales and Rafael Trujillo have all scored convincing reelections in this year’s municipal contest.
Robertson, who served on the council for ten years before achieving election as mayor in 2012, was reelected to the mayor’s post for the second time. This also marks the second time she has bested former City Councilman Ed Palmer, who ran against her unsuccessfully in 2016. This year, Robertson held off Palmer and Lupe Camacho.
Robertson dodged controversy earlier this year when the council tasked the Los Angeles-based law firm of Manatt Phelps & Phillips to look into Robertson having voted to provide a nonprofit corporation headed by her daughter community development block grant funding entrusted by the federal government to the Rialto City Council for distribution over a period of at least seven years. That potential crisis resulted from Robertson intransigently insisting for more than five months that she had engaged in no wrongdoing whatsoever and that she was intent on voting late this spring to endow the Bethune Center-National Council of Negro Women, of which her daughter Milele Robertson has been president since 2016, with more Community Development Block Grant funding. This had taken place after the accounting firm of Teaman, Ramirez and Smith late last year alerted the city that the familial relationship existed between the mayor and the leadership of the Bethune Center. Teaman, Ramirez and Smith subsequently charted over $200,000 that the Bethune Center-National Council of Negro Women had received in Community Development Block Grants distributed by the Rialto City Council since 2012 and at least four years of rent-free quartering that organization, which offers what is described as job training services, was provided in in a city-owned building at 141 S. Riverside Avenue in Rialto. Ultimately, Robertson sidestepped deeper scandal by agreeing, at the last minute, to recuse herself from the vote endowing the National Council of Negro Women/Bethune Center with $40,417 to fund its young adults academic and pre-employment skills program.
Robertson’s mayoral reelection effort was further complicated over bad blood that was generated when her challenger Camacho in August apparently prevailed in obtaining the Democratic endorsement in this year’s mayoral race. Through a twist of parliamentary procedure and a creative use of Roberts Rules of Order and the San Bernardino County Central Committee’s bylaws that endorsement was withheld from Camacho. It was claimed that Camacho failed to qualify for the endorsement because the central committee’s policy is to deny the endorsement to a candidate prevailing on the majority vote for endorsement if that candidate is competing against a Democratic incumbent unless he or she obtains 60 percent or more of the votes cast. It was asserted at the August 27 endorsement meeting that Camacho had received less than 60 percent of the votes cast. Subsequently, however, it was demonstrated that those abstaining or not casting a vote were being counted as no votes, and that when the votes were accurately counted, Camacho had won the endorsement fair and square.
Previously, in 2012, Robertson had gotten the Democratic endorsement in her maiden mayoral race against Councilman Ed Scott, a Republican, and in 2016, she had again garnered the Democratic endorsement when she ran against the Republican Palmer.
It was alleged that Robertson had used improper influence to cheat Camacho out of the Democratic endorsement this year, such that the Democrats made no endorsement in the race at all. The matter was a serious breach of trust, many Democrats maintained, as it went counter to democratic principles. This was of consequence, they said, because Rialto is a majority Democratic city where of its 48,181 voters, 25,434 or 52.8 percent are Democrats, while registered Republicans in Rialto number 7,660 or 15.9 percent.
No harm, no foul, Robertson’s forces say, as Robertson cruised to an easy victory over both Camacho and Palmer.
Though the results are not official, incumbents Carrizales and Trujillo, both of whom were first elected in 2016, appeared to be easily outdistancing their competitors, Stacy Augustine, Andrew George Karol, Theresa “Terrie” Schneider and Michael Taylor.
As of 4 p.m. today, the 22,114 votes tallied by the registrar of voters office show Robertson has 10,894 votes or 49.26 percent to Camacho’s 6,007votes or 27.16 percent and Palmer’s 5,207 votes or 23.55 percent. Trujillo polled 10,360 votes or 30.29 percent and Carrizales had 8,425 votes or 24.63 percent. Augustine captured 14.58 percent of the vote, Taylor 13.59, Schneider 8.9 percent and Karol 7.98 percent.
With Robertson, Carrizales and Trujillo returning to serve for four more years, the only attrition from the council this year as a consequence of the November 3 election will come as a consequence of Councilman Joe Baca, Jr. being obliged to resign so that he can accede to the position of Fifth District county supervisor. On Tuesday, Baca defeated Fontana Councilman Jesse Armendarez in a run-off contest to succeed current Supervisor Josie Gonzales.
-Mark Gutglueck

The balloting which took place at polling places around the county on Tuesday and the by-mail voting that had been ongoing for a month which concluded with it has already or is about to set the tenor of governance at the municipal level throughout the county for the next two to four years. With the exceptions of Loma Linda, which held its city council election in March, Apple Valley, where incumbents Larry Cusack and Art Bishop faced no challengers, and Highland, where no election was held as no one challenged incumbents Jesse Chavez, Penny Lilliburn and Larry McCallon this year, the county’s municipalities selected two, three or, in the case of Needles four, people to sit at the helm of the machinery of government in the capacity of council members or mayor. Their personalities, orientations, attitudes and approaches will have a bearing on how each of those communities is run within the public sector. With only a few possible exceptions, as of this afternoon, November 6, tallying of the ballots received had progressed to a point that the winners are apparent. Some further straggling mail-in votes are expected to arrive within the next week or so, but in most cases the number of those would not be sufficient to alter the outcomes of the races as already determined by the vote counts.
Nevertheless, the results of the races are not yet official; that declaration will come from the registrar of voters office, it is anticipated, at the end or this month or the first week in December.
In Adelanto, ten candidates vied for two positions on the council now held by Councilman Ed Camargo and Councilwoman Joy Jeannette. Carmargo did not seek reelection. Jeannette, who was first elected to the council in a special election to replace former Councilman Jermaine Wright after he was indicted in November 2017 and removed in January 2018, merited remaining on the council, voters decided. She received 1,345 votes or 15.64 percent. Elected to join her was Planning Commissioner Daniel Ramos, by virtue of the 1,779 votes he received. Also-rans included Diana Esmeralda, who received 1,249 votes or 14.52 percent to achieve third place, 96 votes behind Jeannette; Planning Commissioner JayShawn Johnson with 13.84 percent; Tonya Edwards, at 10.7 percent; Tracy Hernandez, the wife of Councilman Gerardo Hernandez, who received 8,53 percent; Jacquelin Diaz, who garnered 4.98 percent; Dominic Cisneros, who polled 4.06 percent; Edward Reyes, who had 2.93 percent; and Roy Isaiah III, endorsed by 3.1 percent of the city’s voters.
In Barstow, Mayor Julie Hackbarth-McIntyre, who was elected to the city council in 2006, reelected in 2010, then elected mayor in 2012 and reelected mayor in 2016, did not fare as well this year. The 1,606 votes or 32.77 percent she received was bested by Paul Anthony Courtney, who brought in 2,112 votes or 43.09 percent. The two others in the race were Nathaniel Pickett, Sr. and Virginia Brown, with 12.75 and 11.26 percent, respectively. A write-in candidate, Kevin Strickland received two votes, equal to 0.04 percent.
In Barstow’s District 3, Barbara Mae Rose, with 768 votes or 36.92 percent, outran Leonard Williams, who received 450 votes or 36.92 percent.
In District 4, incumbent Councilwoman Carmen Hernandez, who received 427 votes or 38.13 percent, outlasted her closest challenger, Marilyn Dyer Kruse, whose 412 votes or 36.79 percent fell a tad short. Martha O’Brien claimed 25 percent of the vote.
In the Barstow city clerk’s race, Andrea Flores beat Yolanda Baca Minor, 2,755 votes or 60.48 percent to 1,798 votes or 39.47 percent.
Michael J. Lewis was unopposed in his run for Barstow treasurer.
In Big Bear, Maureen Auer and Alan Lee faced off against one another in the first election held in the city’s District 1 after its 2018 switch from at-large elections. Lee, with 225 votes or 63.92 percent, bettered Auer’s 127 votes or 26.08 percent.
In District 5, incumbent Councilman Bob Jackowski, who was elected to the council in 2012 and reelected in 2016, was ousted by Bynette Mote after she polled 223 votes or 64.83 percent to his 121 votes or 35.17 percent.
Kenneth Koperski in Colton’s District 3 and Isaac Suchil in District 6 were unopposed. Incumbent Colton District 5 Councilman Jack Woods lost his bid for reelection, capturing 752 votes or 30.78 percent to challenger John Echevarria’s 1,691 votes or 69.22 percent. Colton City Clerk Carolyn Padilla and Treasurer Aurelio De La Torre were unopposed.
In Grand Terrace, incumbents Bill Hussey, with 2,084 votes or 24.7 percent, Jeff Allen with 1,306 votes or 15.48 percent and Sylvia Robles, with 1,859 votes or 22.03 percent were reelected, besting Planning Commissioner Jeffrey McConnell, Ken Stewart and Planning Commissioner Jeremy Briggs, who polled 14.42 percent, 13.54 percent and 9.75 percent, respectively.
In Montclair, the fourth time was a charm for Ben Lopez, as he at last captured a position on the council after finishing as the first runner-up in 2014, 2016 and 2018. He will replace Carolyn Raft, who did not seek reelection, and join Tenice Johnson, who was appointed to the council in 2019. Johnson captured 2,558 votes or 22.21 percent and Lopez polled 2,269 votes or 18.7 percent, followed by 15.92 percent for Oscar Miranda, 14.94 percent for Robert Pipersky, 14.28 percent for Juliet Orozco and 12.91 percent for Michael Tadrous.
Coryssa Martinez, who was appointed last year to temporarily replace her mother, Trish, on the Montclair City Council after her death, was unchallenged in the race to determine who would complete the last two years of her mother’s term.
In Needles, incumbent Mayor Jeff Williams handily defeated challenger Sandra Queen Noble, 955 votes or 77.77 percent to 250 votes or 20.36 percent. In the council race incumbent Tona Belt, with 660 votes or 20.91 percent, Kirsten Merritt with 620 votes or 19.64 percent and Ellen Campbell with 535 votes or 16.95 percent outdid Jamie McCorkle with 14.86 percent, Louise Evans with 14.1 percent and Ruth Musser-Lopez with 13.37 percent.
In Ontario, incumbents Debra Porada and Ruben Valencia, with 22,654 votes or 40.17 percent and 17,795 votes or 31.56 percent, respectively, turned back challengers Celina Lopez and Norberto Corona, who captured 19.83 and 8.39 percent of the vote. Incumbent City Clerk Sheila Mautz handily overcame Richard Galvez, 66.68 percent to 33.28 percent. Incumbent Treasurer James Milhiser with 72.9 percent defeated Michael Fillpot with 27.66 percent.
In Rancho Cucamonga’s District 1, incumbent at-large Councilmember Sam Spagnolo, polling 7,256 votes for 45.74 percent, outdistanced Jon Hamilton and his 5,474 votes or 34.5 percent, as well as Mark Rush, who received 19.68 percent of the vote.
In Rancho Cucamonga’s District 4, incumbent Lynne Kennedy, at 8,806 votes or 61.34 percent, overwhelmed challengers William James Smith, Jr at 2,881 votes or 20.07 percent, and Roger Wong, with 18.52 percent.
In Redlands, incumbent Councilman Eddie Tejeda was unchallenged in District 2. In District 4, Jenna Guzman-Lowery, having pulled down 1,509 votes or 36.09 percent, ran safely ahead of Lane Schneider with 1,120 votes or 26.79 percent, and Planning Commissioner Steven Frasher with 21.74 percent and Ivan Ramirez’s showing of 15.36 percent. City Clerk Jeanne Donaldson, with 74.34 percent of the vote, defeated Roy George, with 25.55 percent. Robert Dawes was unchallenged for treasurer.
In Twentynine Palms District 1, incumbent Steve Bilderain was unchallenged. In District 2, Jim Krushat, whose father was a member of the Twentynine Palms City Council three decades ago, challenged incumbent Joel Klink, but fell short, polling 368 votes or 47.24 percent to Klink’s 410 votes or 52.63 percent.
In Upland, incumbent Mayor Debbie Stone, who received 6,407 votes or 25.86 percent, was defeated by Councilman Bill Velto, who gathered 8,206 votes or 33.12 percent. Also-rans in the race were Lois Sicking Dieter, who captured 6,719 votes or 24.94 percent and former Planning Commissioner Alexander Novikov, who brought in 3,973 votes or 16.04 percent.
In the first-ever race in the city’s District 1, Shannan Maust clobbered David Hazelton, 6,049 votes or 83.86 percent to 1,158 or 16.05 percent.
In the special District 3 race being held this year to fill the vacancy created in May when former Upland Councilman Ricky Felix resigned, Carlos Garcia came out on top in a field of four by polling 1,882 votes or 44.53 percent to the 959 votes or 22.69 percent registered by Tauvaga Hoching, and the 22.69 percent performance by former Councilman Gino Filippi and 15.03 percent of the vote Lamonta Amos captured.
In the race for Upland city treasurer, Greg Bradley, a local entrepreneur, with 9,683 votes or 42.31 percent, outlasted former Upland City Manager and Finance Director Stephen Dunn, who claimed 7,316 votes or 31.97 percent, and Darwin Cruz, a credit analyst with Poppy Bank, who gathered 25.69 percent of the vote.
In Victorville, 21 candidates signed up to run for the three positions on the city council now held by Mayor Gloria Garcia, Councilman James Cox and Councilwoman Blanca Gomez. Cox, the city’s one-time city manager, did not seek reelection. Gomez, who was elected four years ago and garnered a good deal of publicity and controversy over her rocky relationship with her council colleagues, achieved reelection, while Garcia did not. Finishing first among all of the candidates was Elizabeth Becerra with 5,830 votes or 9.44 percent. Gomez came in second, copping 5,790 votes or 9.37 percent. Leslie Irving likewise captured a berth on the council with 4,763 votes or 7.71 percent. The first runner-up proved to be former City Councilman Ryan McEachron, who finished fourth with 4,470 votes or 7.23 percent. He was followed by Kareema Abdul with 6.97 percent; Lizet Angulo, with 6.37 percent; Ashiko Newman with 6.33 percent; Mayor Garcia with 5.89 percent; Kimberly Mesen, with 5.84 percent; Roger LaPlante with 5.18 percent; Lionel Dew with 5.17 percent; Adam Veduzco, Jr. with 4.03 percent; former Councilman Eric Negrete with 3.69 percent; Terrance Stone with 3.59 percent; Mike Stevens with 3.28 percent; Bob Bowen with 2.74 percent; Valentin Godina, with 1.84 percent; Planning Commissioner Paul Marsh, with 1.5 percent; Craig Timchak, with 1.38 percent; Frank Kelly, with 1 percent; Jerry Laws, with 0.83 percent; and Webster Thomas, at 0.61 percent.
In Yucaipa, incumbent City Councilman Bobby Duncan crushed his competition, gathering 1,757 votes or 63.87 percent to outdistance Lee Kaberlein, with 685 votes or 24.9 percent, and Clifford Gericke, who received 11.16 percent of the District 3 vote. In District 4, where incumbent Denise Holt did not seek reelection, Justin Beaver, who captured 2,068 votes or 61.88 percent, is to advance to the council instead of Stacey Chester, who picked up 1,271 votes or 38.03 percent. In District 5, incumbent Councilman Dick Riddell, one of the longest serving elected officials in San Bernardino County, appears to have been displaced by Jon Thorp. Thorp claimed 1,652 votes or 41.07 percent in the four-candidate race, while Riddell as of today’s tallying at the registrar of voters office had 1,575 votes or 39.16 percent. In third was Craig Suveg, with 476 votes or 11.83 percent. Patricia Elbeck had 7.86 percent of the vote.
In the Town of Yucca Valley, Jeff Drozd, who is currently serving as the mayor designated by his council colleagues, faced an unanticipated stiff challenge by David Simmons. Drozd appears to have eked out a victory, having bagged 611 votes or 52.18 percent to Simmons’ 559 votes or 47.74 percent. In the town’s District 4, longtime Councilman Robert Lombardo, who has also served in the past as the designated mayor, likewise was given a run for his money, but was able to prevail. Lombardo notched 506 votes or 36.32 percent to the 427 votes or 30.65 percent of his closest challenger, Jeff Brady. More distant was Travis Puglisi at 281 votes or 20.17 percent, and Myra Kennedy, who took home 12.78 percent of the vote.
-Mark Gutglueck

William J. McVittie, who filled as many roles as would normally fit into two-and-a-half lifetimes while testing the boundaries of both altruism and knavery, proving that both self-service and compassion could overlap, has died.
The son of Irish immigrants, McVittie’s life came across as a story that had been team written by Horatio Alger and Damon Runyon, as he never seemed to abandon his persona as a hustler and half-saint/half-rogue who was obliged over the course of his life to familiarize himself with more than one jail cell but nevertheless made it all the way into a seat in the statehouse before he donned judicial robes. Along the way, he was lionized by some as a noble legal practitioner crusading for his clients and justice, and demonized by others as an accountant who cooked the books for some unsavory business types before he passed the bar and became a slippery and opportunistic lawyer who took advantage of those who had hired him almost as much as he bedeviled those he targeted with his lawsuits and legal filings.
Born on October 15, 1938 in Chicago, McVittie began his studies at the age of 17 at the University of Illinois, Urbana, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in accountancy. In 1959, at the age of 20 he began as a public accountant for Price Waterhouse. In 1960, he went to work for the IRS as a special agent. When Aerojet-General, which had operations in Azusa and Chino Hills at that time, offered him a lucrative assignment as a tax accountant, he came to California.
Uncommonly driven, soon after arriving in the Golden State, McVittie obtained his real estate broker license and began attending law school at USC, graduating in 1964, thereafter moving to Chino. In January 1965, he passed the bar and began work as a lawyer in partnership with John T. Tomlinson Jr. In time, he moved into a partnership with Michael Bidart. In 1971, he became Chino City Attorney, simultaneously serving as the general counsel for the Chino Redevelopment Agency.
In the early 1970s, Larry Walker, who latter became a lawyer himself, then a Chino city councilman, then that city’s mayor, San Bernardino County supervisor and ultimately San Bernardino County’s auditor, controller, tax collector, recorder and treasurer, clerked for McVittie. Later, when McVittie became an Assemblyman, Walker worked for him. Jimmy Gutierrez, who was later Chino’s city attorney, became McVittie’s law partner right out of law school.
McVittie was also the owner of a general contracting firm. Most of his customers found his company’s work to be satisfactory. When some others lodged complaints about the quality of the companies performance, McVittie would flex his status as an attorney, and that warded off any claims or lawsuits.
Similarly, many of his clients found McVittie to be a competent attorney who diligently followed through on whatever he needed to do when going to bat for them. Some, however, found his focus to be lacking. His status in the community and his authority as a lawyer, to say nothing of his contacts in the legal profession, rendered McVittie virtually invulnerable to charges that he had ever engaged in shoddy representation. Whenever a former client suggested he might pursue a malpractice claim against him, McVittie would counter with a threat of legal action against the client.
In 1974, the same year that Jerry Brown succeeded Ronald Reagan as California Governor, McVittie, a Democrat, was elected assemblyman in the 65th Assembly District, and thereafter served three 2-year terms in the lower house of the state legislature. Before the voters consented to send him to Sacramento, however, and during the course of his campaign, McVittie found himself on what at least appeared to be the wrong side of the law, which included him twice being arrested.
The first of these arrests was effectuated on September 26, 1974, when he was jailed and charged with what was tantamount to bribery for having allegedly solicited workers who had been deputized by the county registrar of voters to fill out the county’s voter rolls “to accept an emolument, gratuity or reward,” compounded by his having “aided, abetted or counseled a public employee in the commission of a misdemeanor.” The gist of the purported offense consisted of McVittie having created an account, which he endowed with $500, for the purpose of paying those registering voters a “bonus” of 40 cents for every Democrat they registered in the 65th Assembly District, where he happened to be running as the Democrats’ standard bearer. This “bonus” was intended to supplement the 35 cents provided by the State of California and the 10 cents the County of San Bernardino paid for every voter registered, irrespective of the voter’s party affiliation.
Less than a month later, as the race for 65th Assembly District was approaching the clubhouse turn, McVittie was again picked up on October 18, 1974, for failing to fill out and return a campaign finance disclosure form he was required as a candidate to file under California’s then-recently passed Political Reform Act.
On October 25, 1974, McVittie appeared in Ontario Municipal Court, located on Mountain Avenue just below the 10 Freeway, to answer the charges. When McVittie and the lawyer representing him pointed out that there was a technical flaw in the prosecutor’s pleading relating to the offering of a gratuity or bribe to a public official, the judge hearing the case dismissed the charges without prejudice on that basis, which gave the district attorney’s office the option of refiling the matter. As it turned out, the district attorney’s office did not seek to reinstate the case. With regard to the California Reform Act violation, the district attorney’s office, conscious that scores or even hundreds of office holders, politicians or candidates up and down the state had not complied with that particular reporting requirement primarily because it had just been enacted and the forms for making such a filing were generally not available, made a motion to dismiss the charges and the court granted that request.
Opinions differ as to whether McVittie was guilty of the crimes he was arrested for and initially charged with, and those differences in some measure divide along partisan lines. The San Bernardino County district attorney at that time was Lowell Lathrop, a Republican. Leo T. McCarthy, a Democrat and the Assembly Speaker at that time, just before the election that sent both Jerry Brown and McVittie to Sacramento as the governor and as a legislator, respectively, stated that the charges brought against McVittie constituted an illegitimate and politically motivated prosecutorial objective, which was itself part of a criminal conspiracy involving Lathrop to influence the 65th Assembly District’s voters to vote for McVittie’s Republican opponent.
If indeed that was Lathrop’s intent, the district attorney did not achieve his goal, as McVittie was elected.
Among McVittie’s assignments while in the Assembly were those with the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees. While in the legislature, he enjoyed a close working relationship with Ruben Ayala, a Democrat and the former Chino mayor and former county supervisor who was then the 32nd District California state senator, much of whose district overlapped with McVittie’s.
Throughout all of this time, McVittie remained as a member of the bar and maintained his real estate brokerage license. As a real estate professional, McVittie had a reputation of catering to poor and unsophisticated hopeful homebuyers in the Chino community, many of them Hispanic. McVittie was much sought after in this regard, as he seemed to hold out, and actually for a time would deliver on, making home ownership possible for those who otherwise were unable to achieve that goal. Upon gaining his clients’ trust and getting them to divulge to him all of the particulars with regard to their financial means and history, he would typically present to them a purchase agreement that was calculated to be just within their means, often containing a balloon payment or other conditions the buyers were not equipped to understand but which McVittie recognized would render them unable at some point to service their debt. He would have them sign a first trust deed in the bargain. In virtually every case, a few years would go by, and like clockwork, the buyers would default on their loans. At that point, McVittie would swoop in and take possession of the property and then assign the trust deed to another party, reaping a profit in doing so.
Considered to be a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, by 1979 there was discussion among members of Governor Brown’s senior staff and his appointments secretary about elevating McVittie, who was then chairman of the Assembly’s Criminal Justice Committee, to the bench, that is, appointing him to a judgeship. When word reached San Bernardino County about the prospect of McVittie becoming a judge, there was a stir among lawyers in the county and the legal community in general, including some sitting judges. As rumors intensified that McVittie was to be appointed to a position on the San Bernardino County bench, the San Bernardino Bar Association rated McVittie as not qualified for a judgeship, and in reaction to that, Jerry Brown’s chief of staff, Gray Davis, who later became governor himself, publicly stated on March 4, 1980 that McVittie’s appointment to a judgeship was “not imminent.” Three days later, Governor Brown appointed him as a judge. Governor Brown did not, however appoint McVittie to a newly created position on the San Bernardino Superior Court but to a then-vacant existing position the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Perhaps because of the controversy that was swirling about him, McVittie did not immediately resign from the legislature to don judge’s robes, remaining in the Assembly for more than nine months, right up to the end of that year’s legislative session, while simultaneously earning his master of law degree in dispute resolution from Pepperdine University, before moving to take on the judicial assignment.
Less than two years later, Citrus Municipal Court Judge Eugene Osko, sensing that McVittie might be vulnerable because of the unqualified rating he had received from the San Bernardino County Bar Association, challenged McVittie in the 1982 election. Things did not go well for Osko, however. In making its evaluation of both judges, the Los Angeles County Bar Association rated McVittie “well qualified,” while referring to Osko as “not qualified.” In the election, McVittie trounced Osko 658,948 votes to 338,036, or 66 percent to 34 percent.
McViittie’s courtroom was in the Pomona Courthouse, where his calendar consisted primarily of civil cases, but which included a smattering of criminal cases, as well. In 1985 and 1986, he took on a far heavier load of criminal cases. From 1986 until 1989, he was a judge in the Juvenile Court.
As a judge, McVittie earned relatively high marks from the lawyers who appeared before him, including prosecutors and defense attorneys, plaintiff attorneys and civil defense attorneys, as a very patient jurist.
In 1993 he married Sandra Elliott.
McVittie remained on the bench for two decades. Upon retirement, McVittie let his bar license lapse. Having previously moved to Claremont while he was serving as a judge at Pomona Superior Court, he matriculated at Claremont Graduate University, obtaining a masters degree in politics in 2002. He then engaged in further study at the California Judicial College, National Judicial College, and the University of Kansas Law and Economics Institute before obtaining his Ph.D. in conflict management from Claremont Graduate University in 2005. He established his own private dispute resolution firm. Throughout the ten years after his retirement as a judge, McVittie worked as a “neutral” with Inland Valley Arbitration and Mediation Services, and taught at several local colleges and law schools, including courses in alternative dispute resolution, corporation law and legal accounting. He conducted settlement conference judicial workshops for Los Angeles Superior Court judges.
In 2011, he reactivated his license with the California Bar and joined the Homon & Stone law firm as a mediator.
McVittie died from complications from a fall on September 26 at his home on Appian Way in Indian Wells, 19 days before his 82nd birthday. Mr. McVittie is survived by Sandra Elliott, and two stepsons, Brenton and Ryan Elliott.

Despite some strong and determined competition in two of the three city council races in Hesperia in Tuesday’s election, it appears that the incumbents will remain in office.
There was no contest at all in one of the three competitions, as Brigit Benington, who was appointed last year to replace Jeremiah Brosowske representing the city’s Fourth District after three-fifths of the council bounced Brosowske off that panel while claiming he had not met the residency requirement to hold that office, ran unopposed in the specially-called election to select someone to serve out the final two years of Brosowske’s term. Brosowske had captured the Fourth District post with a narrow victory over Bennington in the November 2018 election, following his own appointment to the council in July 2018 to replace Russ Blewett, who had died in office in May 2018.
In the September 2019 city council vote to relieve Brosowske of his elected position, Mayor Larry Bird, Councilman Cameron Gregg and Councilman Bill Holland had prevailed, with Brosowske and Councilwoman Rebekah Swanson dissenting. This year, both Bird and Swanson, who in 2016 had been elected to the council as at-large candidates, had to stand for election in Hesperia’s newly created District 1 and District 5, respectively, as the city in 2018 made a transition to a by-district voting system.
Brosowske, a political operative who has previously identified strongly with the Republican Party, having served at one point as the executive director of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, was active with a vengeance in this year’s Hesperia campaigns. While he did not have an opportunity to manage a campaign against Bennington because she had no opposition, Brosowske worked like the devil to get Bird out of office, while supporting Swanson in her effort to remain on Hesperia government’s ultimate decision-making panel.
The network Brosowske controlled put together an aggressive campaign on behalf of Bird’s challenger, Mark Dundon. Dundon, a member of the board of the Hesperia Unified School District, has pursued a pro-business and pro-development campaign in which he also decried the treatment that Brosowske had endured at the hands of Bird, Gregg and Holland. While Dundon had received a relatively modest $5,060 in direct contributions into his campaign fund through October 17, Brosowske masterminded an indirect electioneering effort for Dundon in the form of a campaign of attack on Bird emanating from independent expenditure committees and political action committees that are supposed to remain unconnected to the campaigns of the candidates they are assisting. Much, indeed most, of the funding that went to those independent committees assailing Bird came from the development community, with which Brosowske has an easy rapport.
Another factor in the campaign was the City of Hesperia’s placement of Measure N on this week’s election’s ballot. Bird was a major sponsor of Measure N, which amends the Hesperia Municipal Code and the specific plan for the I-215 Freeway corridor to reduce the maximum number of homes that can be built on an acre from eight to three, reduces the number of apartments that can be constructed on a single acre from 25 to to eight, and would require that voter approval be given for an apartment to be built that would reduce the current required square footage for floor space. The development industry has opposed Measure N, and Bird’s sponsorship of it has prompted many of those deep-pocketed developmental interests to put money into the effort to remove him from office and replace him with Dundon; keep Swanson, who opposes Measure N, on the council; and defeat Measure N.
Bird who has collected $45,775.10 into his campaign fund, including $17,080.10 he has loaned or provided to himself, steadily waged a campaign to remain on the council. That investment in himself and his political career, at least so far as today when the latest round of polling numbers was released by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters, appears to have paid off for Bird. As of 4 p.m. today, he had pulled down 2,620, or 50.9 percent of the 5,147 votes so far tallied in the Fifth District election, compared to the 2,524 votes or 49.04 percent captured by Dundon, with three write-in votes having been cast for other candidates. Over the next two to three weeks, further straggling mail-in ballots from voters in the Fifth District are expected to come into the county elections office. The likelihood that Dundon will pick up enough of those to overcome his 96 vote deficit, while possible, is not likely.
Meanwhile, Swanson has been engaged in her campaign in Hesperia’s First District against former Councilman Mike Leonard and former Hesperia Public Safety Commission Chairman Anthony Rhoades. Reportedly, Rhoades, a Brosowske political ally who had been appointed to the Public Safety Commission by Brosowske, was persuaded to enter the race as a ploy to assist Swanson against Leonard. Leonard was a firefighter with the Hesperia Fire Department before he was elected to the city council in 2004 and then served 12 years as councilman before opting out of running once more in 2016. His strongest appeal as a candidate is considered to be his credibility as an advocate with regard to public safety issues. In this way, Brosowske’s calculation seems to be that having Rhoades, himself a strong public safety proponent, in the race would pull more votes from Leonard than from Swanson.
Swanson had received $11,798 into her political war chest from January 1 through October 17 of this year. Leonard has raised no money at all this year, according to his campaign finance disclosure statement filed with the Hesperia city clerk’s office.
If, indeed, it was Brosowske’s intent to run Rhoades in an effort to assist Swanson, that strategy may well have worked. As of 4 p.m. today, Swanson was running in first place, with 1,856 or 43.32 percent of the 4,284 votes counted so far. Leonard boasted the endorsement of 1,719 voters in the First District at this point, or 40.13 percent. Rhoades is running in third, with 705 votes tallied, or 16.46 percent.
-Mark Gutglueck

Passerines

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