Protests in reaction to the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, ones of varying degrees of intensity and civility, have been carried out over the last week at locations throughout San Bernardino County.
Protests in Rancho Cucamonga were staged at the high-traffic-volume intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Day Creek Boulevard, which event was a carryover of a similar protest on May 29. At the May 29 protest, 13 arrests were made after protesters threw bottles and rocks at sheriff’s department deputies who were dispatched to the scene to keep order. At the May 30 rally, there were some reports of vandalism, but no arrests.
The following day, Sunday, May 31, in Rancho Cucamonga, what started as a verbal confrontation between members of the crowd and an Uber driver devolved into protesters throwing an object at the Uber vehicle, which broke one of the car’s windows. The driver responded by pepper-spraying members of the crowd. A more intensive confrontation was avoided when he made a hurried exit from the intersection, but almost ran down some pedestrians in a crosswalk as he was leaving.
After the driver called the sheriff’s department, which provides law enforcement services to Rancho Cucamonga, deputies with the Sheriff’s Department Mobile Field Force team declared the protest had devolved into an unlawful assembly. That provoked a number of verbal taunts being hurled at the arriving deputies, but no arrests were made.
A crowd of protesters estimated at between 200 and 300 assembled at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Peyton Drive in Chino Hills on Sunday afternoon, May 31. Theirs was a peaceable demonstration which featured banners and signs bearing slogans such as “Stop the Killing” and “No Justice, No Peace,” and “Black Lives Matter.”
Perhaps as many as 500 people participated in a largely peaceful set of gatherings in Redlands that began in the late morning and lasted into the afternoon on Sunday. One contingent marched downtown, where those involved took a symbolic knee at Ed Hales Park. That gesture was repeated outside the Redlands Police Department on Orange and Vine streets. There were some minor incidents of vandalism that were reported.
Around the same time on Sunday, a much more intensive display of anger and resentment toward authorities took place in San Bernardino. By late afternoon, that mass protest had become the most violent and destructive one to occur in the county, going well beyond what had occurred in Fontana last week, on May 28.
Protesters made their first show of overwhelming presence near, around and on the off-ramp from the 215 Freeway at Second Street. Some reached the freeway level, but did not interfere with the 60-mile-per-hour traffic.
The protest then manifested a bit later en masse in the downtown area, near State of California, County of San Bernardino and San Bernardino city buildings, including both courthouses, the county administrative headquarters, the district attorney’s office and City Hall. There was at that point a fair degree of vandalism, including graffiti mark-ups. Windows were broken at the Bank of America at 303 N. D Street, which is proximate to San Bernardino City Hall, and across D Street from the Guatemalan consulate and across Third Street from the Mexican consulate.
As marchers progressed through downtown, they headed, eventually, up D Street where they surrounded the police department. By that point, the department had activated the entirety of its roughly 250 sworn personnel, three-fourths of whom were at that point working overtime. Another 150 peace officers from nearby law enforcement agencies, including those with the California Highway Patrol and the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, were in San Bernardino by 4 p.m. There was a tense stand-off at the police department headquarters at 710 North D Street as a number of officers were stationed inside in the lobby, visible from outside of the building through the glass entranceway into the building at the back of the building’s portico. A command decision was made to not have officers exit the building, out of concern that would provoke a large scale physical confrontation that might lead to violence and perhaps fatalities. As the crowd outside police headquarters grew increasingly agitated, some provocateurs suggested that an effort to break out the building’s glass wall and doors on the ground floor be made so the building could be stormed. A religious group, however, had pushed its way to the front of the crowd within the portico and took up a collective prayer. Subsequently, the crowd left the police department headquarters and made its way eastward, where it congregated in the parking lot of the Waterman Discount Mall. As nightfall approached, looting began there. In time, looting would spread to other areas of the city.
With nightfall, numerous fires were lit. Responding police were pelted with rocks, bottles and other objects. There were reports that gunfire was trained on some officers. No injuries from gunfire were reported, however. Windows were broken out in various commercial and professional buildings on Waterman, Baseline Avenue and Highland Avenue in the city’s most heavily concentrated commercial districts. Some of the looting and vandalism spilled over into neighboring Highland that night.
A sheriff’s department helicopter in the evening circled overhead, informing those on the streets that the protest had been declared an unlawful assembly and those who remained in the area would be subject to arrest.
Police Chief Eric McBride on Wednesday reported to the city council that a total of 32 arrests had been made Sunday evening and Monday morning. “I would have to say about two-thirds of the arrests we made were for people with addresses outside the city,” McBride said.
McBride added that much of the protest appeared to be driven by organizers who were using social media to vector those participating to different points of congregation.
At the Waterman Discount Mall the officers were in the presence of a clearly unruly mob engaging in criminal activity, McBride said. The officers, however, did not wade into the crowd to effectuate arrests. McBride estimated that the officers on the scene there were “outnumbered ten-to-one.”
Many officers, McBride said “sustained bruises” that evening.
The number of officers from outside law enforcement agencies that came into San Bernardino to augment the city’s 250 officers rose from 150 in the late afternoon to nearly to 250 that evening. At one point, McBride said “We had close to 500 officers in the city.”
McBride reported to the city council that “Probably until about two in the morning we were encountering looting throughout the city.”
Two major sporting goods stores and both of the city’s Walmarts were looted. A show of police force at the Inland Center Mall, the Target on Orange Show Drive and businesses on Hospitality Lane deterred looting there.
In Rancho Cucamonga on June 1, a fourth straight day of protests were staged. Late in the day, just prior to sunset, eight cars carrying protesters arrived near the Victorian Gardens Mall. Rancho Cucamonga-based sheriff’s deputies approached them as they were exiting their vehicles. Upon ascertaining that they were out-of-towners who had come to the city to protest, the deputies instructed them to leave. When some of those who had arrived refused to depart, the deputies arrested seven of them on various charges.
In the aftermath of what happened on Sunday night and early Monday morning in San Bernardino, protests in two of the county’s other cities provoked reactionary citizen or resident reaction which carried with it fatal potential.
In Yucaipa, a group of earnest protesters marching on Yuciapa Boulevard on Monday was met by an equally determined group of local counterprotestors. What was described as a gang fight ensued, with one man severely injured in the melee. Far greater mayhem was avoided after the sheriff’s department arrived. An arrest was made. A sheriff’s department investigator clad in civilian clothes who made his way into the crowd and interacted with individuals on both sides of the dispute learned that large numbers of city residents present in the area were armed as a preparation to prevent any looting that might break out. As a consequence, what was calculated to be sufficient numbers of sheriff’s department patrol units were dispatched to the area to head off any further confrontations.
Also on Monday, some 37 miles west of Yucaipa in Upland, demonstrators assembled near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Euclid Avenue. What was estimated to be upwards of 300 demonstrators made their way to the Euclid Avenue median north of Foothill Boulevard near architect August Leimbach’s iconic “Madonna of the Trail” statue that faces southward at the intersection. As the afternoon progressed and commuters coming home from work intensified the traffic moving northward on Euclid Avenue, more and more protesters, in an effort to encourage those passing motorists to acknowledge and take stock of the expression of disapproval of police violence and brutality, began blocking the northbound lanes of Euclid. By this point, residents of homes lining the east side of Euclid, having grown increasingly wary of anticipated damage to their property, assembled themselves in their front yards and summoned others to stand with them to repel the crowd should it prove unruly or intent on vandalizing those private properties. At one point, when the crowd surged eastward, one of those gathered with the residents retrieved a gun from his vehicle and brandished it, momentarily raising its barrel to a point parallel with the ground, while he profanely exhorted the crowd to back off. He was later arrested.
Many jurisdictions in San Bernardino County, as in Southern California generally, sought to impose curfews to prevent large gatherings in the evening hours when it was believed looting was most likely to occur.
Again in Yuciapa on Tuesday, self-designated protectors of the city engaged in mostly verbal confrontations with protesters. Those incidents did not reach the level of violence that had occurred there the previous day.
In Highland on Wednesday, a group of mostly peaceful protesters undertook to demonstrate, holding a benediction officiated over by the Reverend Ben Skaug of the Immanuel Baptist Church when the activists first gathered near Greenspot Road and the 210 Freeway. That demonstration proceeded much more peaceably than what had occurred Sunday evening at the periphery of Highland abutting San Bernardino.
At around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest was staged at Colton’s historic Carnegie Library, which is now used as the Colton Area Museum. In addition to registering their objections to the death of George Floyd and police brutality against African-Americans in general, the protesters also made note that the curators of the museum currently and in the past have refused to display any artifacts or materials relating to African-American personages or historical figures in the museum, and that the museum’s operators have spurned requests to host African-American themed events there, as well.
The Sentinel received a report that during the Colton protest, quick reaction by Colton police officers prevented a demonstrator from falling victim to a machete attack by a counterprotestor.
Earlier that day, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and a cross section of activists, writers, protesters and citizens, naming the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the City of San Bernardino, alleging the curfews in place in those places were an abridgment of Constitutional rights. Simultaneously, the executive director of Inland Congregations United for Change threatened legal action against San Bernardino if it did not dispense with its curfew. The San Bernardino City Council at its meeting Wednesday night moved the effective time of the city’s curfew from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., although the city’s website did not reflect the change, instead continuing to state the curfew was in effect at 6 p.m.
On Thursday, June 4 in Fontana, a somewhat more peaceful demonstration than what had taken place in that city on May 28 was held at Don Day Park. A relatively orderly crowd of 400, some bearing placards, gathered to hear speakers inveigh against what was called systemic racism within police agencies that resulted in the brutalizing of minority citizens by cops.
At roughly the same time, in Redlands, a crowd of protesters, ones hitting on the same themes articulated in Fontana, surrounded the entrance to the Redlands Police Department headquarters.
Today, Friday, June 5, the Sentinel received reports that protests are ongoing at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino, Heritage Intermediate School in Fontana, and in the 16400 block of Bear Valley Road at the Hesperia/Victorville city limits/boundary.

By Carlos Avalos, Randy Scott and Mark Gutglueck
The Fontana police officer arrested earlier this week on a charge that he had raped a 16-year-old girl was not subjected to the strict hiring procedure that involved an exhaustive background check that is a standard personnel policy among most California law enforcement agencies when he was welcomed into the department in April 2018, the Sentinel has learned. Rather, department sources report, Nicholas Stark was able to bypass much of the scrutiny routinely applied to new hires by virtue of his familial connection to the department, specifically based upon his father’s status as a captain with the department at the time he was brought into the department in 2017 as an officer trainee.
Yesterday, June 4, Nicholas Stark was arrested on a charge of rape of a minor by intoxication, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. The alleged victim was a 16-year old girl, and the alleged crime took place in Rancho Cucamonga. Stark was taken into custody and booked into West Valley Detention Center. His bail was set at $250,000.
According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the Fontana Police Department had cooperated with and facilitated its investigation of Stark and the circumstances surrounding the case.
In an article published today, the Fontana Herald-News reported that Fontana Police Chief Billy Green had made particularly scathing remarks about Stark and his character. According to the Herald-News, Green said that neither he nor his department will “attempt to justify or mitigate his predatory deviant behavior.” Green told the Herald-News, the lone adjudicated newspaper based in Fontana, that both the city’s residents and department employees had “righteous concern” over what had occurred. “He has tarnished the badge of the Fontana Police Department and our community deserves answers,” Green was quoted by the Herald-News as having stated.
Green made an effort to distance his department and its reputation from Stark, which included, for Green, atypically harsh characterizations and remarks regarding a police officer and department members. “This is not what the Fontana Police Department is about,” the Herald-News article said Green had insisted in an email. Green also made clear to the Herald-News that the rape for which Stark was arrested “occurred prior to [Stark] becoming a Fontana officer.” Green in the email to the Herald-News said that he understood that what had occurred “rightfully calls into question the character of the entire department,” and that he, the department and its 300 personnel were committed “to do what needs to be done to begin repairing the damage.”
Green simultaneously informed the public through the Herald-News that he was absolutely done with Stark. “Based on California law, I cannot immediately fire Nicholas Stark. He is on paid leave and that is disgusting. However, I will endeavor to terminate him in the most expeditious manner possible,” Green was quoted by the Herald-News as saying.
Nowhere in the Herald-News article was any information relating to the manner by which Stark had managed to land his officer’s assignment with the department.
Stark is the son of Michael Stark, who had risen to the rank of captain with the department. As such, Michael Stark was a senior officer and indeed a mentor to the current generation of command officers at the Fontana Police Department, including Green and the immediate past police chief, Robert Ramsey.
Despite his father’s status as a senior member of the Fontana Police Department, Nicholas Stark’s ambition toward becoming a police officer does not appear to have begun early, as there is no indication he participated in the police explorer program through which teenagers intent on a career in law enforcement often make entrée into the profession. Rather, he did not become an actual police officer until he was 26 years old in 2018, having first been hired as an officer trainee with the department the year before, just prior to his father’s retirement.
At the time of his retirement, Michael Stark was receiving a $171,485.62 yearly salary and was provided with overtime pay and various allowances and add-ons of $44,278.84 per year, together with $113,799.76 in benefits for a total annual compensation of $329,564.22. In retirement, he is now pulling an annual pension of $182,452.68.
Prior to Nicholas Stark signing on with the police department, he had obtained a job with the City of Fontana at the age of 19 in 2011 as a water safety instructor. His total pay and benefits for 2011 was $6,935.97. In 2012 Nicholas Stark had promoted to the position of assistant pool manager and his total pay and benefits for that year nearly doubled, zooming to $13,545.26. In 2013 he held the same job title but his total pay and benefits declined to $10,331.17, with his total pay and benefits similarly dropping in 2014 to $9,441.33, while he remained in the capacity of assistant pool manager. In 2015 he made the jump to pool manager, and his total compensation rose that year to $16,166.91. In 2016, while yet in the capacity of pool manager, his overall compensation reached $30,596.78.
In 2017, after he had graduated from the sheriff’s academy, Nicholas Stark was hired by the Fontana Police Department as an officer trainee, a position for which he received total pay and benefits of $38,313.78. In April 2018 Nicholas Stark was hired as a police officer, and he received in both his officer trainee and police officer capacities total pay and benefits of $72,136.70. In 2019 he kept the officer title and his total pay and benefits were $78,249.70.
The Sentinel since yesterday spoke with multiple sources within the department with regard to Nicholas Stark. One stated, “Nicholas Stark was not vetted, analyzed, and scrutinized how normal applicants trying to become law enforcement officers are.” Other officers related to the Sentinel that they were there during young Stark’s efforts in trying to become a police officer. They said Nicholas Stark was given special consideration because of his father’s status in the department. “Right away, we knew he was not being treated how he should have been because his father was a captain,” one said.
Some of the officers acknowledged that there was a “good ol’ boy” element to the department’s culture. “There is an ideology, political belief, as well as the treatment of people which fits that description,” one of the officers said. That ethos carries over into the hiring process, another officer said.
Nepotism has been an issue within the Fontana Police Department for years. In November 2016 the Sentinel reported that an analysis of those employed with the Fontana Police Department at that time demonstrated “one third of officers were related by marriage, blood or sex.” As reported in 2016, according to sources within the police department itself, an overwhelming number of those working for the department were blood-related in some way or another or were or had been involved in a personal, physical, sexual, domestic or quasi-domestic situation with one another. Lifelong friendships, marriages, intimate relationships, and blood relations have historically been among the ways that people in the Fontana Police Department are closely connected and promoted.
In any police force or business atmosphere relationships are forged and kept, and a few intimate relationships and/or marriages within an organization may be inevitable. People become friends, partners, and engage in relationships and marriage. Relationships are expected to be grown and gained. Such is the nature of human interaction and cooperation. At what point human nature and human tendencies within the context of an organizational structure devolve into nepotism and incestual compromise is open to debate. With the Fontana Police Department, where roughly 100 of that organization’s employees had or have a familial, domestic, intimate or close personal relationship in which their financial interests may have been or were merged, there had been concern expressed that professional and accountability standards had been put at risk.
Despite this information having surfaced in the 2016 Sentinel article [ https://sbcsentinel.com/2016/11/fpd-nepotism-one-third-of-officers-related-by-marriage-blood-or-sex/ ], the following year Nicholas Stark was brought into the department as an officer trainee while his father was at the senior level of the department’s command echelon.
In his email to the Herald-News, Green said, “Despite our best attempts to weed out people that should not be hired, we missed the mark and hired someone we should not have.”
Of note is that the rape now at the center of attention allegedly occurred in Rancho Cucamonga prior to Nicholas Stark’s hiring as a police officer, and reportedly involved plying the victim with alcohol prior to sexual intercourse taking place. What was not clear was whether Stark was employed as pool manager at the time or as an officer trainee, as well as whether the victim was 16 at the time of the rape or is currently 16 years of age. There was speculation that Stark had met the young woman while he was serving in his capacity as pool manager in Fontana at its aquatic center, which draws swimmers from a number of nearby communities, including Rancho Cucamonga.
The Sentinel spoke with individuals who knew Nicholas Stark when he was employed at the aquatic center, including his supervisor when he was hired as a water safety instructor/lifeguard. Stark appeared to be a model employee when he was serving in that capacity in his late teens and early 20s, the Sentinel was told, and there was nothing untoward about his comportment noted. His performance never caused any concern, which was reflected in his promotion to positions of greater responsibility and authority while he was working at the center, his one-time supervisor said. The supervisor said that those who worked with Stark while he was a lifeguard, water safety instructor, assistant pool manager and pool manager were “floored” by the initial report of his arrest. Stark was reportedly on the verge of getting married, the Sentinel was informed.
The Sentinel has learned that the case against Stark evolved out of a social media posting by his alleged victim, who gave indication of having been sexually assaulted, and further posted that the perpetrator was a police officer. An inquiry into the matter, including determining the identity of the victim and then contacting her directly ensued. Once Stark was identified, Green interceded directly with San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon to handle the investigation.
Two officers with the department, noting that the pre-hiring background investigation process entails applicants filling out a detailed questionnaire that is then signed under the penalty of perjury and subject to very close scrutiny including a polygraph exam and battery of questions during an oral interview, augmented by an examination by a clinical psychologist, suggested that the investigation into Stark’s hiring should utilize the same methods and techniques employed on line officers prior to their employment with the department as a means of seeking to determine from the department’s management why Stark was allowed to bypass those rigors during his hiring process.

For a dozen criminals in California who were sentenced to prison and incarcerated at the California Institution For Men in Chino, their punishment has become a death sentence.
As of yesterday, June 4, twelve inmates who were in custody at the state penal facility in Chino when they contracted COVID-19 have died.
Three of California’s prisons are dealing with large-scale outbreaks of the coronavirus. Those include the Institution for Men in Chino, Avenal State Prison in Kings County and Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe. Initially, the Institution for Men had the largest number of cases of infection among all of the state’s prisons, but has since been passed in that dubious regard by Avenal and Chucawalla.
Nevertheless, according to the prison population COVID-19 tracking page on the California Department of Rehabilitation’s website, no other deaths from COVID-19 or its complications besides those at the Chino prison have occurred within California’s prison system.
Last month, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred 691 inmates considered vulnerable to the coronavirus because of their age or medical condition from the San Bernardino County facility to other prisons around the state where until that time there had been no known incidences of the coronavirus.
In more than 20 cases, prisoners from the California Institution for Men who had grown seriously ill with the condition had been transferred to hospitals or medical facilities near the prison, though officials did not disclose the exact locations where this had taken place.
The total number of prisoners at the California Institution for Men who had come down with the coronavirus since the progress of the disease has been charted was not available, although one published report put that number at 672. At present, there are 474 active in-custody inmates there with the condition. According to state prison authorities, 207 inmates at the California Institution for Men are deemed to have recovered from the malady.
At the not-too-distant California Institution for Women-Frontera in Chino, 108 inmates there are currently showing signs of the disease.
Previously, testing of inmates at the California Institution for Men was sporadic because of the shortage of testing supplies. With that shortage addressed, all inmates are now being tested.
-Mark Gutglueck

FBN 20200004315
The following person is doing business as:
SUPERIOR HOME HEALTH CARE SERVICES, INC.   555 N BENSON AVE UPLAND, CA. 91786-5075
SUPERIOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS, INC.    555 N BENSON AVE UPLAND, CA. 91786-5075
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ INNA JOYCE AGUDA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 1/27/2020
SAN V0956 County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22, 5/29 & 6/5, 2020

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004251
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Disinfect CA; Disinfect-CA; SOCAL Disinfection, 8458 Bullhead Ct., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739, Monroe Diversified Companies Inc., 8458 Bullhead Ct., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739
Business is Conducted By: A Corporation
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Lester Monroe
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/5/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: Apr 27, 2020
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/15/20, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20

FBN 20190014933
The following person is doing business as: JS HOBBIES 999 N. WATERMAN AVE, SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410, JAMAL I. THOMAS, 999 N. WATERMAN AVE, SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ JAMAL THOMAS
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 12/27/2019
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 12/02/2004
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 1/24, 1/31, 2/7 & 2/14, 2020. Corrected on 4/3/20, 4/10/20, 4/17/20, 4/24/20, Corrected on 5/15/20, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20

FBN 20200004570
The following person is doing business as: PANTHEON COFFEE ROASTERS
4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763 ARCHER CONSORTIA 4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ PAVAN MAKKER
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 03/01/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/15, 05/22, 05/29 & 06/05, 2020.
FBN 20200004569
The following person is doing business as: AVATAR COFFEE ROASTERS
4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763 ARCHER CONSORTIA 4070 MISSION BOULEVARD MONTCLAIR, CA 91763
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ PAVAN MAKKER
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 03/01/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/15, 05/22, 05/29 & 06/05, 2020.
APN: 0209-242-04-0-000 T.S. No.: 2019-2416 NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE YOU ARE IN DEFAULT UNDER A DEED OF TRUST DATED 2/21/2012. UNLESS YOU TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY, IT MAY BE SOLD AT A PUBLIC SALE. IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF THE PROCEEDING AGAINST YOU, YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER. Will sell at a public auction sale to the highest bidder, payable at the time of sale in lawful money of the united states, by a cashier’s check drawn on a state of national bank, check drawn by a state or federal credit union, or a check drawn by a state or federal savings and loan association, or savings association, or savings bank specified in Section 5102 of the Financial Code and authorized to do business in this state will be held by the duly appointed trustee as shown below, of all right, title, and interest conveyed to and now held by the trustee in the hereinafter described property under and pursuant to a Deed of Trust described below. The sale will be made, but without covenant or warranty, express or implied, regarding title, possession, or encumbrances, to pay the remaining principal sum of the note(s) secured by the Deed of Trust, with interest and late charges thereon, as provided in the note(s), advances, under the terms of the Deed of Trust, interest thereon, fees, charges, and expenses of the Trustee for the total amount (at the time of the initial publication of the Notice of Sale) reasonably estimated to be set forth below. The amount may be greater on the day of sale. Trustor: Kenneth Doelker, a Single Man Duly Appointed Trustee: S.B.S. TRUST DEED NETWORK, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION Deed of Trust recorded 3/30/2012 as Instrument No. 2012-0122229 in book XX, page, XX of Official Records in the office of the Recorder of San Bernardino County, California. Date of Sale:6/15/2020 at 1:00 PM Place of Sale: NEAR THE FRONT STEPS LEADING UP TO THE CITY OF CHINO CIVIC CENTER, 13220 CENTRAL AVENUE, CHINO, CA 91710 Amount of unpaid balance and other reasonable estimated charges: $17,448.24. Property being sold “as is- Where is” Street Address or other common designation of real property:10469 E 8th Street Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 AKA 10469 8th Street Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 A.P.N.:0209-242-04-0-000. Lot 7, in Block 65, ofNorth Cucamonga Tract, in the City of Rancho Cucamonga, County of San Bernardino, State of California, as per Map recorded in Book 4 of Maps, Page 8, in the Office of the County Recorder of said County. THE BENEFICIARY MAY ELECT, IN ITS DISCRETION, TO EXERCISE ITS RIGHTS AND REMEDIES IN ANY MANNER PERMITTED UNDER THE CALIFORNIA COMMERCIAL CODE, OR ANY OTHER APPLICABLE SECTION, AS TO ALL OR SOME OF THE PERSONAL PROPERTY, FIXTURES AND OTHER GENERAL TANGIBLES AND INTANGIBLES MORE PARTICULAR¥ DESCRIBED IN THE DEED OF TRUST, GUARANTEES, UCC’S, SECURITY AGREEMENTS. The undersigned Trustee disclaims any liability for any incorrectness of the street address or other common designation, if any, shown above. If no street address or other common designation is shown, directions to the location of the property may be obtained by sending a written request to the beneficiary within 10 days of the date of first publication of this Notice of Sale. NOTICE TO POTENTIAL BIDDERS: If you are considering bidding on this property lien, you should understand that there are risks involved in bidding at a trustee auction. You will be bidding on a lien, not on the property itself. Placing the highest bid at a trustee auction does not automatically entitle you to free and clear ownership of the property. You should also be aware that the lien being auctioned off may be a junior lien. If you are the highest bidder at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien being auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priority, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county recorder’s office or a title insurance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this information. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same lender may hold more than one mortgage or deed of trust on the property. NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER: The sale date shown on this notice of sale may be postponed one or more times by the mortgagee, beneficiary, trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that information about trustee sale postponements be made available to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale. If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you may call FOR SALES INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL (855)986-9342, or visit this Internet Web site www.superiordefault.com using the file number assigned to this case 2019-2416. Information about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immediately be reflected in the telephone information or on the Internet Web site. The best way to verify postponement information is to attend the scheduled sale. Date: 5/5/20. S.B.S. TRUST DEED NETWORK, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION. 31194 La Baya Drive, Suite 106, Westlake Village, California, 91362 (818)991-4600. By: Colleen Irby, Trustee Sale Officer. WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT A DEBT, AND ANY INFORMATION WE OBTAIN WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. (5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20TS# 2019-2416 SDI-18526)
NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF:
JOHN TUTT BOOKER
NO. PROPS 2000056
To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both of JOHN TUTT BOOKER
A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by CORRINE BOOKER in the Superior Court of California, County of SAN BERNARDINO.
THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that CORRINE BOOKER be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.
THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.
A hearing on the petition will be held in Dept. No. S36P at 8:30 a.m. on June 11, 2020 at Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415, San Bernardino District.
IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.
IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under Section 9052 of the California Probate Code.
Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.
YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.
Attorney for the Petitioner: IAN NOEL, Esquire
LAW OFFICE OF IAN NOEL
9800 S. CIENEGA BLVD., SUITE 200 INGLEWOOD, CA 90301
Telephone No: (310) 410 9720
Email address: legalhood@gmail.com
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22, 5/29 & 6/05, 2020
FBN 20200004249
The following person is doing business as: MARWELL 1094 N. WABASH AVENUE REDLANDS, CA 92374 MARWELL CORPORATION 1094 N. WABASH AVENUE REDLANDS, CA 92374 A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION C3281898
Mailing Address: P.O. BOX 139 MENTONE, CA 92359
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ KATHY POWELL
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/05/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/08/2010
County Clerk, Deputy V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004501
The following person is doing business as: BEYOND BELLA SKIN CARE 10601 CHURCH ST. RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA 91730 GINA L SMITH 542 E BONNIE BRAE CT. ONTARIO, CA 91764
Mailing Address: 542 E BONNIE BRAE CT. ONTARIO, CA 91764-1803
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ GINA SMITH
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/13/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/27/2020
County Clerk, Deputy D5511
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004534
The following person is doing business as: SACRED 485 DIAMOND CT APT D UPLAND, CA 91786 ALEXIS V LOVE 485 DIAMOND CT APT D UPLAND, CA 91786
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ ALEXIS V LOVE
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/14/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004144
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Bishay Group AVPM CA2LP;AVPM CA LP Bishay Group.; Bishay Group; All Valued Pet Meds, AVPM; Advanced Veterinary Pet Med, AVPM, 448 S Arrowhead Avenue, San Bernardino, CA 92408, General Dog & Cat Veterinary Hospital, 456 S. Arrowhead Ave, San Bernardino, CA 92408
Business is Conducted By: A Corporation
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ George Bishay
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 4/29/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004446
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Essential Garbs, 2490 Kendall Drive, 105F, San Bernardino, CA 92407, Stephanie N. Griffin, 2490 Kendall Drive 105F, San Bernardino, CA 92407
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Stephanie Griffin
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/11/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 5/6/20
County Clerk, s/ V0956
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004071
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Chris Armen; Chris Armen Real Estate and Finance, 8439 White Oak Ave Ste 102, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730, Armen C. Bagdasarian, 13126 Baxter Springs Dr, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Armen Bagdasarian
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 4/24/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 3/10/14
County Clerk, s/ A9730
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20
FBN 20200003990
The following person is doing business as: ONTARIO SMOG CHECK 10565 LIMONITE AVENUE SUITE 5 MIRA LOMA, CA 91752 EMISSION WORLD LLC 1310 S RIVERSIDE AVE SUITE 3F-#133 RIALTO, CA 92376
Mailing Address: 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B8 RIALTO CA 92376
CA CORPORATION 2020006510234
This Business is Conducted By: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ BENJAMIN A LIZAMA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200003991
The following person is doing business as: RIALTO SMOG CHECK 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B7 RIALTO CA 92376 EMISSION WORLD LLC 1310 S RIVERSIDE AVE SUITE 3F-#133 RIALTO, CA 92376
Mailing Address: 630 W RIALTO AVE UNIT B8 RIALTO CA 92376
CA CORPORATION 2020006510234
This Business is Conducted By: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ BENJAMIN A LIZAMA
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200003985
The following person is doing business as: THE NORTH SHORE INN 2402 LAKE DRIVE CRESTLINE, CA 92325 SANT&T INVESTMENT INC 129 4TH ST EUREKA, CA 95501
Mailing Address: 19 FALLING LEAF CIR POMONA, CA 91766
CA CORPORATION C4250631
This Business is Conducted By: A CORPORATION
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ SAYED FARID UDDIN
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/20/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/15, 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.
FBN 20200004086
The following person is doing business as: LGI PLUMBING & DRAIN CLEANING 540 N. CENTRAL AVE #5102 UPLAND, CA 91786 FELTON R LEAGONS 540 N. CENTRAL AVE #5102 UPLAND, CA 91786
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ FELTON R LEAGONS
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 04/27/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/22/20, 5/29/20, 6/05/20 & 6/12/20.

FBN 20200004294
The following person is doing business as: STRATTON BAIL BONDS
6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346 MICHAEL GUTIERREZ 6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346 [and] NANCY LOZANO 6844 TIARA AVE HIGHLAND, CA 92346
Mailing Address: 31 W CIVIC CENTER DRIVE SANTA ANA, CA 92701
This Business is Conducted By: A GENERAL PARTNERSHIP
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ MICHAEL GUTIERREZ
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 04/28/2020
County Clerk, Deputy C9754
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 05/29, 06/05, 6/12 & 6/19, 2020.

FBN 20200004319
The following person is doing business as: THE CUT SHOT 9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701 TWILA KNIGHT POULIOT 9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701 [and] MATTHEW R POULIOT    9153 LEMON AVE ALTA LOMA, CA 91701
This Business is Conducted By: A MARRIED COUPLE
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ TWILA KNIGHT POULIOT
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/06/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, Deputy A8608
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/29/20, 6/05/20, 6/12/20 & 6/19/20.
FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME
STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004235
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: New Line Network, 16277 Montgomery Ave, Fontana, CA 92336, Keytonn Alonso, 16277 Montgomery Ave, Fontana, CA 92336
Business is Conducted By: An Individual
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Keytonn Alonso
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 5/1/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ A8608
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 5/29/20, 6/5/20, 6/12/20, 6/19/20
FBN 20200004868
The following person is doing business as: MOSAIC SUITES 948 N. MOUNTAIN AVE. #938 SUITE 129 ONTARIO, CA 01762 JUDITH P. ZAMORA 2302 S. CALDWELL AVE. ONTARIO, CA 91761
Mailing Address: 2302 S. CALDWELL AVE. ONTARIO, CA 91761
This Business is Conducted By: AN INDIVIDUAL Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
S/ MICHAEL GUTIERREZ
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 05/27/2020
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: 05/26/2020
County Clerk, Deputy
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 6/05, 6/12, 6/19 & 6/26, 2020.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE NO-20200004987
The following person(s) is(are) doing business as: Willy’s Speed Shop, 6905 Palm Ave, Highland, CA 92346, Mailing Address: PO BOX 930, Highland. CA 92346, Kenneth M. Brana, Socal Engineering, CA 6909 Center St, Highland, CA 92346
Business is Conducted By: A Limited Liability Company
Signed: BY SIGNING BELOW, I DECLARE THAT ALL INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE AND CORRECT. A registrant who declares as true information, which he or she knows to be false, is guilty of a crime. (B&P Code 17913) I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
s/ Kenneth Brana
This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 6/1/20
I hereby certify that this is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.
Began Transacting Business: N/A
County Clerk, s/ D5511
NOTICE- This fictitious business name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see section 14400 et. Seq. Business & Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on 6/5/20, 6/12/20, 6/19/20, 6/26/20

One can download a PDF of the May 29 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel by clicking on the blue portal below.

Sentinel 05-29-20

By Ruth Cordova and Mark Gutglueck
The precipitate change in alliance on the Victorville City Council that took place in December continues to resonate in the High Desert’s most populous city, as the looming November election moves ever closer. Yet to play out is whether the two once-warring politicians who made an accommodation with each other six months ago will benefit from that shift enough to achieve reelection when they must again be evaluated by the voters in the fall. Whether one or both of them will pay the ultimate political price for having closed a deal with each other after they had been savaging one another for nearly three years won’t be known until the election results are in.
In the meantime, a fair number of those who had formerly grown to become solid Mayor Gloria Garcia supporters primarily because she represented the political bulwark against Councilwoman Blanca Gomez are disillusioned, convinced that Garcia sold her soul and credibility as a public persona in a crass deal to retain her title as mayor.
In 2016 Blanca Gomez burst onto the San Bernardino County and Victorville political stage with a come-from-behind victory over Lionel Dew in the Victorville City Council race. At the time, what seemed the most notable thing about Gomez capturing the third highest number of votes in the ten-person contest in which three positions on the council were up for selection was that both she and Dew had outpolled incumbent councilman Ryan McEachron. Two other incumbents, Garcia and Jim Cox, had captured the top two positions outright.
Not long after Gomez settled into her position on the council, she found herself crosswise of her colleagues. The most obvious distinction between her and Victorville’s other solons was that while they identified themselves as relatively staid supporters of socially and economically conservative policies who concerned themselves with the nuts and bolts of municipal governance, Gomez used her perch on the council as a bully pulpit to espouse her heartfelt beliefs, virtually all of which fell on the left side of the political spectrum, ones that went beyond city issues to matters that were better described as within the purview of state and national politics.
Less than a month after she was sworn in as a Victorville councilwoman, Gomez on December 30, 2016 showed up at Rialto City Hall for a rally put on by Rialto City Councilman Rafael Trujillo in support of Senate Bill 54 and the sanctuary city concept. While in attendance there, Gomez wore a shirt clearly identifying herself as a Victorville official. She enunciated on numerous occasions and in numerous venues her belief that U.S. immigration laws were a racist tool of a racist establishment, that enforcing such laws were racist acts, going so far on one occasion to wear while at Victorville City Hall a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Fuck ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” and on another occasion in the midst of a city council meeting draping herself in what appeared to be a Mexican flag, which she later said was in actuality a symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She brought further attention to herself by her involvement in multiple contretemps in neighboring Hesperia, including what some suggested or insisted was her insensitive effort to video the body of the late Hesperia Mayor Russ Blewett during the viewing at a church prior to his funeral in May 2018 and another incident in August 2018 when she allegedly entered an area off limit to the public at Hesperia City Hall while she was accompanying Hesperia City Council District 2 candidates Gonzalo Gurrola and Robert Lucero while they were filing paperwork relating to their candidacies.
Within the context of the Victorville City Council, Gomez was out of step with all of her colleagues, but most particularly with Eric Negrete, who had been elected to the council two years before her. Negrete stood out from the majority of Latinos in California in general and most particularly among those vying for or holding office in the Golden State in that he was not a Democrat embracing what are commonly described as liberal or progressive ideals. Rather, Negrete identified as a conservative Republican.
Indeed many saw in Negrete the embodiment of the Republican Party’s Great Brown Hope. The Democrats have California locked up, with a Democratic governor, Democratic lieutenant governor, Democratic attorney general, Democratic secretary of state, Democratic insurance commissioner, Democratic controller, and Democratic supermajorities in the State Senate and Assembly. Nevertheless, a reversal of the Democrats’ fortunes could be no further down the road than the emergence of a single charismatic Latino politician affiliated with the GOP, many political strategists believe. Were such a politician to get a berth within California’s statehouse, either as a member of the Assembly or Senate or both, and then move into the Governor’s Mansion at 1526 H Street in Sacramento or into Congress and then the U.S. Senate and go on to make a mark on the national stage as an iconic member of the Party of Lincoln, he or she might trailblaze a path for California’s Latinos by the millions to make their exodus from the Democratic Party and into Republicanism. For some, at least, it was not too far-fetched to think that Negrete might prove to be that politician.
Negrete evinced very limited patience with Gomez’s histrionics. They clashed repeatedly on the council dais and not infrequently off the dais. The council quickly divided into two camps: the Victorville establishment of which Negrete was a member, along with his fellow councilmen Jim Cox and Jim Kennedy and Mayor Gloria Garcia on one side and Gomez on the other. Indeed, some of the glue that held the four-member coalition of the council together had been the unifying principle of maintaining the line against Gomez.
In July 2018, a recall effort against Gomez was initiated.
At its August 21, 2018 meeting, just over 20 months after Gomez had taken office, the council, on an item brought forth by Councilman Kennedy, officially rebuked Gomez for her behavior, a sanction less serious than a censure, but one which registered the council’s displeasure with Gomez nonetheless.
In the run-up to the November 2018 election, in which Kennedy did not seek reelection, Gomez campaigned energetically against Negrete, who was defeated. Replacing Negrete and Kennedy on the council in December 2018 were the two top vote-getters in the election, Debra Jones and Rita Ramirez-Dean.
In December 2018, the deadline for gathering sufficient signatures to force the recall against Gomez elapsed. The recall proponents were so far below gathering the required 9,880 valid signatures of registered voters in the city that they did not bother turning over the signatures that they had gathered to the city clerk. The failure to remove Gomez from office strengthened and emboldened her.
The elevation of Jones and Ramirez-Dean to the city council changed the city’s political complexion somewhat, but did not undo the tension that existed on the council. Jones, a Republican, represented a continuation of the partisan political divide that had grown out of Kennedy’s, Cox’s and Negrete’s GOP affiliation. Ramirez-Dean, however, was a Democrat, a member of the San Bernardino County Democratic Central Committee. To a certain extent, as a result of Ramirez-Dean’s presence on the council, Gomez found herself a bit less isolated at City Hall. Still the same, the poisonous relationship that had developed between Gomez and the mayor, and to a lesser extent Cox, persisted. In certain respects, the animosity between Garcia, whose duties as mayor required that she maintain the order and decorum of the council meetings, and Gomez, deepened. It was rare that a council meeting reached adjournment without there having first been a tart exchange involving the two women. More often, there would be a series of jabs or insults traded between them. Neither did Gomez refrain from occasionally hurling some form of invective at Cox, though he usually restrained himself from responding in kind. When the barbs were too personal, he sometimes returned fire. In relatively short order, Jones too found herself on the outs with Gomez. There were occasional catfights between the two, but those proved sufficiently rare, and most of the sparring between them did not escalate beyond a few sharp pokes back and forth. There was, however, no mistaking that the two had grown to loathe one another.
2019 was drawing toward a close, and with it nearly three years of accumulating bad blood between Gomez and Garcia. Then on December 3, the council meeting at which the council officers for the next year were to be chosen took place. When the meeting began, Gomez and Garcia were as antagonistic against one another as they had ever been. When the meeting ended, a new day had dawned, and the presumed alliance involving Garcia, Cox and Jones was finished, quite possibly forever. In its place was an uneasy and tenuous, yet discernible, political sorority in which Ramirez-Dean, Garcia and Gomez were the prevailing members.
When the Sentinel asked Cox for an explanation of what had occurred, he said, “I don’t know what happened. Gloria and Blanca had a make-up session or something. Suddenly there’s a coalition among the three [Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez] that’s probably due to I don’t know what, but it’s obvious to the people who attend the council meetings.”
With regard to Garcia and Gomez, Cox said, “People are asking, ‘How could they be so critical of one another and now they seem to be together?’”
According to Cox, it was a “custom and tradition” in Victorville that once a member of the council had sufficient experience in office to be able to master parliamentary procedure, he or she would be rotated into the mayor’s position. Generally, he said, a person who had been reelected with the most votes in the immediate aftermath of the election would be selected to serve as mayor for two years running. Another council member, usually the one who had been elected with the most votes two years hence would then become the mayoral replacement.
Cox said there was some slight deviation from that practice, such as when a member of the council had professional commitments that might prevent him or her from participating in the ceremonial duties that fall to the mayor or such as when he was elected to the council for the first time in 2012, after which he was immediately elevated to the mayor’s spot. That exception, he said, was explicable in that he had substantial experience with parliamentary procedure and the ropes of government generally and specifically, having served as Victorville city manager for more than 32 years, including a 30-year stint between 1969 and his first retirement in 1999, and then two further years as city manager from 2009 until 2011.
Garcia represented a rather significant deviation from the city’s mayoral selection pattern, Cox noted.
Elected with Cox in 2012, Garcia was selected to serve as mayor in 2014, as Cox’s two-year tenure as mayor came to an end. In 2016, there was a push to bring Cox back as mayor, but he declined the honor. Consequently, Garcia saw her grip on the mayoral gavel extended.
In 2018, Charlene Robinson replaced Carolee Bates as Victorville City Clerk. That fall was thus Robinson’s first go-round as the city’s chief elections officer. As a result of that November’s election, two newcomers were on the council, Debra Jones and Rita Ramirez-Dean. At that point, Garcia had served four years as mayor, and the expectation was that she would step down from that post to make way for a successor. The logical choice, under the city’s custom, would be that Gomez assume the mayoralty. But the harsh feeling that she had engendered among her colleagues worked against her. The next logical selection would have been Cox, but he was reluctant to take the position. At the December 10, 2018 Council meeting, after Ramirez-Dean and Jones were sworn in and installed as council members, Robinson as city clerk called for nominations for mayor. Nominations were made, one by Ramirez-Dean for Garcia to be reappointed as mayor and then one by Cox to have Jones assume the post, but none were seconded. Instead of redoubling the effort to find a replacement for Garcia as Bates would have done were she still the city’s chief elections officer, City Clerk Robinson at that point permitted Mayor Garcia to resume her position as mayor.
“At this time, the mayor stays,” Robinson said. Immediately thereafter followed the selection of the mayor pro tem, the individual on the council who would be designated to serve as acting mayor in any meetings that Garcia did not attend. In what turned out to be a harbinger of things to come, Mayor Garcia made a motion, seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean, to nominate Ramirez-Dean for the position of mayor pro tempore. At that point, councilmembers Cox and Jones voted no, but Ramirez-Dean prevailed with her own vote and those of Garcia and Gomez in support.
Throughout most of 2019, Gomez and Garcia remained at odds. Indeed, the enmity between the two seemed to intensify, reaching fever pitch on July 16 when in the midst of that evening’s council meeting, Gomez was removed from the proceedings.
As what was Garcia’s fifth consecutive year in the role of mayor progressed, there was discussion about the mayoral succession issue and the city’s protocol and timetable for mayoral selection. A comparison was made to the other municipalities in the High Desert – Hesperia, Apple Valley, Adelanto and Barstow. In both Barstow and Adelanto, the mayor is elected directly by those cities’ residents, with the mayor’s slot being distinguished from each of those cities’ four council members. In Hesperia and Apple Valley, where like Victorville all five of the members of the council are elected by the residents co-equally, the councils observed a policy of selecting from among their members who is to serve as mayor. In an effort toward team building, those councils appoint their mayors on a yearly basis, often but not always having the mayor serve a single year or variously two years. This sharing of the honorary position is intended to bring the members of the council together in an atmosphere of trust and mutual confidence.
On December 3, 2019, with the council scheduled to take up the appointment of the mayor and mayor pro tem for the year going forward from that point, a memo dated December 2, 2019 encapsulated staff’s recommendation for the nomination and appointment process. At least partially to memorialize for Robinson a protocol of persisting with a selection effort even in the face of no quickly-emerging consensus so as to avoid defaulting to a continuation of the existing mayor’s tenure, the memo called for repeating the nomination phase for at least three rounds if a majority vote was not obtained after the first nomination. In the event that a majority vote in favor of one of the council members serving as mayor did not manifest, the memo called for the appointment vote being tabled to a later meeting pursuant to the council voting to do just that.
Upon taking up the issue of making the appointment at the December 3 meeting, Ramirez-Dean nominated Garcia to remain as mayor. That motion died for lack of a second. Cox then nominated Jones to serve as mayor. That, too, failed because it did not get a second. Gomez, somewhat unrealistically since she clearly could not at that point reliably count on the support of Garcia, Cox or Jones, nominated herself. No second followed. Discussion then took place about the proper procedure for proceeding and the distinction between a nomination and an appointment. Ramirez-Dean again nominated Garcia, at which point Garcia seconded the motion. Cox again nominated Jones, which Jones seconded. Gomez then nominated Cox, which Cox seconded. Cox, somewhat redundantly, then nominated himself. No second to that motion followed immediately, but eventually Gomez seconded it. Prior to that second emerging, Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean took issue with the memo, stating that its contents were not consistent with the city’s policy manual and had not been approved by the council. She moved that the appointment process be tabled. Gomez seconded that motion. The council did not suspend, however, further nominations nor actions with regard to an appointment. Gomez nominated herself again, and Cox seconded it. Ramirez-Dean at that point nominated herself and Gomez seconded it.
What was clear from all of the nomination, self-nomination and seconding of the motions that were made was that to some degree or another, all five of the council members coveted the mayor’s gavel.
The council first considered the nomination of Ramirez-Dean, which Ramirez-Dean and Gomez voted in favor of. Garcia and Jones opposed it and Cox did not vote or his vote was not audible. That motion thereby failed, with the city clerk recording that Garcia, Jones and Cox were in opposition. The vote to designate Gomez as mayor ended with Gomez and Cox in favor being outvoted by the remaining three. The vote to appoint Cox was favored by Cox and Gomez, but opposed by Garcia, Jones and Ramirez-Dean. The vote to appoint Jones failed with Jones in favor and Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez in opposition. No vote from Cox was audible. The motion to appoint Garcia failed, with Garcia and Ramirez-Dean in support and Gomez and Jones opposed. Again, Cox’s vote was either not cast or not audible, although the city clerk recorded Cox as having voted against the motion.
After taking a 13-minute recess, the council returned at 9:29 p.m., and Councilwoman Jones made a motion to continue the nomination process to the next meeting. That was seconded by Cox. Gomez made a substitute motion to continue the nomination process that night, which was seconded by Garcia. That substitute motion carried, with Jones and Cox voting no.
Gomez then nominated Garcia to serve as mayor. Ramirez-Dean seconded the motion.
Jones interjected, “I’m going to speak out of order, and I don’t normally do, but this looks like there was some deal cut behind doors when we were on a recess. This meeting isn’t being facilitated very well.”
The motion carried with the ensuing vote, as Gomez, Ramirez-Dean and Garcia supported Garcia’s reappointment as mayor, with Cox and Jones dissenting.
Jones said, “We’re now going to see who is the mayor pro tem as a result of the deal that’s been cut.”
It was moved by Councilwoman Gomez and seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez-Dean to re-appoint Ramirez-Dean as Mayor Pro Tem. City Clerk Robinson called for further nominations. Councilwoman Jones nominated herself. The motion died for lack of a second. City Clerk Robinson called for further nominations. When none came forth, City Clerk Robinson reiterated that the lone motion under consideration was a nomination of Ramirez-Dean. It was moved by Councilmember Gomez and seconded by Councilwoman Ramirez to appoint Mayor Pro Tem Ramirez-Dean as mayor pro tem; the motion carried with Councilmembers Cox and Jones voting no.
“The deal was cut,” Jones said. “The deal was cut!”
Garcia and Ramirez-Dean ignored her. Ramirez-Dean said, “I am so pleased and honored. It has taken a little too much time, but you know what? It is a wonderful position to be in, to be here for you.”
Garcia said, “It is an honor and a privilege to serve my city, and not only just the city, but our people. I had some backing tonight, so thank you very much.”
At the end of the meeting, Jones said, “I’m gravely concerned about what happened here tonight. It was disgraceful. It is an embarrassment to me that a process that should be solemn in electing its officers was treated so flippantly. This does not reflect well on our community. It does not reflect well on our leaders.”
Jones said there had been a “repeated” rumor “by different people that don’t walk in the same circles about backroom deals being cut” and that she had the experience that evening of “then watching it play out.” It was, Jones said “a corrupt practice. We are to elevate the will of the people and public service to our neighbors, not selfish ambition, not vainglory.”
Two weeks later, Gomez at the December 17, 2019 council meeting said, “The decision to have a mayor and mayor pro tem was decided in this council. Our leadership is required and for whatever reason whatever may have thought through the heads of these individuals, there is no backroom deals. There is no corruption. That’s not what happens here. It’s just someone requires justice to be required, and when we see justice in a certain particular perspective, we’re going to be deciding on those certain moral values of what’s good and what’s bad, and what’s accessible and what’s fair in terms of opportunity and what qualifies for equanimity. I congratulate these ladies for having that position and being strong.”
This week, Garcia told the Sentinel that the story of there having been a secret agreement between her and Gomez is being oversold in certain sectors of the community.
“The only thing is I have decided to work with everyone a little more amicably, not just with her but the whole council,” Garcia said. “As far as she is concerned, she had a change of heart, evidently, and has been a little more congenial than previously, not just to me but to the other members of the council.”
Those who accused her, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez of choreographing the mayoral and mayor pro tem votes are plain wrong, Garcia said. “I almost fainted,” she said in describing her surprise, which she said verged on shock, when Gomez eventually got around to supporting keeping her as mayor on December 3. “I almost fell out of my seat. I didn’t think she would even vote for me. I thought she would abstain or recuse herself. When she actually voted for me, I thanked her for it.”
At this point, Garcia was measured in making her assessment of Gomez, and her characterizations of the councilwoman did not indicate an affection or alliance between them.
“I don’t really know how to describe her,” the mayor said. “She has a difficult personality that is very hard to deal with. It was tremendously difficult for me in the first days when she was on the council. When she started running for the Assembly, I am not sure what was going on, but it seemed that all of a sudden she has changed her demeanor so that she is a little more pleasant, which from my perspective as mayor has made it easier to conduct the meetings.”
Gomez in the March 3 Primary election this year vied for the California Assembly in the 33rd District. She finished fourth in a field of seven, and did not qualify for the November runoff.
Those that claim there is a newfound camaraderie between her and Gomez are misperceiving things, Garcia said.
“I would not say I am doing anything much different,” the mayor said, but acknowledged that on Gomez’s end things have changed. “She is not so verbal against me,” Garcia said. “She came in with an attitude and would be inciting all of this, and everyone on the council got caught up in that, so to the public it must have seemed that we had a conflict with her on one side and the rest of us on the other. I was just trying to maintain order.”
Asked if Ramirez-Dean had in some fashion served as an emollient in her relationship with Gomez, Garcia said, “I really couldn’t say. Rita has been with us only a very short time. I don’t know whether they communicate.” The theory that the reduction in tension between her and Gomez could be credited to Ramirez-Dean’s diplomatic ability, Garcia said, breaks down because Ramirez-Dean’s recent health challenges have prevented her from being a consistent presence at city council meetings over the last several months.
Previously, Garcia said, the entire council’s relationship with Gomez had reached rock bottom.
“Over time, the whole council just came to the point where they wouldn’t go out of their way to try to communicate with Blanca,” Garcia said. “She has changed her attitude. It’s wonderful, but I don’t know what caused it. The only thing that has been pointed out to me, or which I can attribute that to, is when she started to run for Assembly she started to change the way she spoke to people and dealt with them. She tried to be a little more professional and congenial. I think she is still planning on continually running for higher office. Someone along the line has told her or let her know that she is not going to get anywhere fighting everyone. I don’t deal with that. I don’t have time. I work outside of the city. I have a business to run, and I’m always busy.”
Those who suggest that she has adopted Gomez’s philosophies or orientation with regard to public issues of that she has jumped on the liberal bandwagon, Garcia said, are so out of sync with reality as to be delusional. “It saddens me if anyone who knows me thinks I am trying to be a part of what Blanca is doing because, truthfully, I don’t want to be a part of what she is doing,” Garcia said. “She is involved with the Mexican something or other and the Latin Coalition and La Raza and CHIRLA [the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles]. I was not brought up that way. I was brought up in Victorville. My family has been here, in Victorville, for 120 years, so if you want someone who knows the city, I’m it. I was born here. My family has now had seven generations here, so I don’t have any time to deal with nonsense and ignorance when it comes to the community that is my home that I care so much about. I have been running a business [Garcia Bookkeeping and Income Tax Service] here for 45 years. I don’t want our community to look bad. I don’t want a city that looks like a ghetto. I have poured my heart out in trying to make Victorville better. When I see people who don’t know or care about this town as deeply as I do or see them using their position as a stepping stone to get ahead, I’m just disappointed. I am totally local. I am not going anywhere. I’m not running for higher office.”
She would not be dealing with Gomez at all if it weren’t for Gomez having won a position on the city council in 2016, Garcia said.
“I didn’t know her,” the mayor said. “I don’t know her. I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know anything about her background. I have no information at all about her. I don’t know where she lives. We tried to find out. To this day it is a mystery. Somebody has that information. At this point I don’t really care. Why should I be concerned?”
Asked point blank if she and Gomez had sidled up to each other out of political considerations because this is an election year and it is now in their mutual interest to get along, Garcia said, “I would certainly dismiss that. There is no alliance. I study the agenda and I vote according to what I feel is best by the community. I am not influenced by anyone. Number one, I don’t talk to anyone on the council, so I don’t know what the others are thinking. There is no alliance between me and anyone. It is true that Jim [Cox] and I connected very well from the beginning. I have known him for a long time, going back to those years when we were both young, and now we’re old, and we’re still here. I have always respected him and given him praise for his experience and the things he did for this city as city manager. He did a wonderful job in government. He has guided me when I needed information or assistance in understanding things. He has always been there for me when I have sought him out. Debra [Jones] I don’t know as well. I know she was disappointed when she didn’t get to be mayor this last time. That is just the way it worked out. Rita has not been around very much lately. She has been ill since January. We all thought she would be back by now. She has been participating by teleconferencing.”
She is neither in cahoots with nor at war with Gomez, Garcia insisted.
“Technically speaking, I don’t have anything against her,” Garcia said. “I don’t have any animosity against her, even though she has tried everything she could to ruin me. If you know me, I am not aggressive or loud. I am not an instigator. I would rather handle things calmly, or just avoid it if it is going to be unpleasant. If something is going that way, I just try to avoid it. People who know my character know there is no alliance between me and Blanca and Rita. Anyone who knows me knows that is not true.”
She and Gomez won’t be campaigning together, she said.
“I’m not going to put my name out there with her,” Garcia said. “I’m on the council with her. That’s it. I’m not going to get involved with her or what she’s involved in. I’m not going to allow anyone to smear me at this point in my life. I’m trying to do the best I can for the people of Victorville. If there is anyone who cares about his city, it’s me. I don’t know what people are saying or speculating. I’m just trying to work with everyone to do the best for the city. That is where I’m at, and I’m not in an alliance with anyone. I don’t know what that woman does and, truthfully, I don’t want to know.”
It is his perception, Cox said, that if there is a ruling coalition on the council at this point, it involves Garcia, Ramirez-Dean and Gomez. “They are in charge now, and you can’t really do anything about it,” he said.
Cox said he believed it would have been best for the city to have lived up to its tradition of changing mayors every two years. He said the first extension of Garcia’s term in 2016 came because neither he nor anyone else wanted to take the responsibility because of the time demands the ceremonial aspect of the post imposed. Now that the council has extended Garcia to what is essentially a six-year term, Cox said he is bound to accept that arrangement.
“My concern is what is best for the community, but we are required to abide by certain ethical rules as elected officials,” he said. “You swear to uphold the Constitution. Under those ethical rules, you are to represent all of the people and adopt the official policy, even if it is contrary to your own wishes or philosophy. You are not supposed to vote in your own best interest. I subscribe to the belief that once the council votes, that is the official position of the city, and I feel compelled, whether I agree or not, to carry out that policy. I don’t think you bring things back over and over again and try to change the rules.”
As far as the epoch shift that occurred on December 3, Cox said, ‘No one knows what happened. It was as if they were enemies one day and friends the next or allies or whatever you want to call it.”
In the final analysis, it is not that important, Cox said.
“I don’t think there is any perceptible difference in the way the city is being run,” he said. “I think to someone sitting in the audience, they see what we are voting on and how we are voting. We are getting things handled. Overall, we are getting things done. There used to be a lot of argument. Blanca said she was rooting out corruption she was able to find, and she would reveal it when she found it. I said, ‘If there is corruption, where is it? If there is, let’s take it to the grand jury.’ She always hinted that there was a problem, but I don’t remember much in the way of facts or proof. I think maybe she decided that since she is running for reelection, and because Gloria is running too, they thought they should put their best foot forward. If they kept at each other’s throats they both realized they might not get reelected, that the public was upset. So, they made amends, which is good because it makes it better for the city.”
Countering Gomez’s detractors are her defenders.
At the August 21, 2018 meeting at which the council voted to rebuke Gomez, Alejandra Diaz said, “Maybe you bother so much with Blanca Gomez because she asks questions that nobody wanted to ask. The questions bother all of you. Why? Because you don’t want to provide us with the truth.”
The persisting perception among at least some Victorville and High Desert residents is that the December 3 vote by Garcia, Gomez and Ramirez-Dean was premeditated and deliberate, as well as staged to appear impromptu. This has led to a public outcry among some High Desert residents charging Garcia, Gomez and Ramirez-Dean with collusion. Some High Desert residents have alleged that Ramirez-Dean does not live in Victorville, and that Garcia and Gomez are ignoring that reality to preserve their recently-forged coalition. Garcia’s rapprochement with Gomez is inexplicable they say, considering that on February 6, 2018 Garcia suggested that Gomez was a “criminal on welfare” and that the mayor on March 22, 2018 stated that she “felt physically threatened” by Gomez. Part of the current arrangement, they claim, consists of Garcia having handed over power to Gomez, whereas previously Gomez had no influence whatsoever at Victorville City Hall. They are advocating that the California Attorney General initiate an investigation.
Ramirez-Dean could not be reached.
Multiple phone, text and email messages to Gomez seeking her direct input garnered no response.
Sue Jones, Victorville’s official spokeswoman, told the Sentinel, “I don’t have anything to say on the matter.”
Sue Jones, who is no blood relation to Councilwoman Jones, said, “There is a lot of history there,” but would not acknowledge that there had been any difficulty in the past relationship between Garcia and Gomez. Sue Jones claimed to have no knowledge of the August 21, 2018 council vote to confirm then-Councilman Kennedy’s motion to rebuke Gomez, nor of the July 16, 2019 council meeting from which Gomez was removed from the proceedings. She said she was not in a position to verify whether those events had actually occurred. “I cannot speak to that,” Sue Jones said. “That would be better addressed from the councilmembers’ perspective. I’ll pass your questions on to them. That’s the best way to go. Mayor Garcia was reappointed and so was Mayor Pro Tem Ramirez. That’s what we have. That’s all I can say.”

Elon Musk has potentially rendered moot the yet unresolved differences between public officials on San Bernardino County’s extreme southeast corner and those virtually everywhere else in the expansive 20,105-square mile jurisdiction with regard to the mode of future transportation access to Ontario International Airport.
Musk, through one of his corporate holdings, the Boring Company, is proposing excavating a 2.8-mile underground tunnel linking Rancho Cucamonga to Ontario International Airport, and then using modified Tesla Model X electric vehicles to convey passengers through the tunnel at speeds reaching more than 100 miles per hour.
Musk, who initially earned his fortune as a cofounder of the on-line money exchange system PayPal, is the founder of the Tesla automobile company and the founder of the private sector space exploration company SpaceX.
Musk’s brainchild would serve as the final span in the transportation system that is intended to link Los Angeles with Ontario Airport. A significant portion of that yet-to-fully-achieved transportation mode – composed of a light rail system known as the Metro Gold Line – already stretches 24 miles eastward across Los Angeles County from Union Station to Azusa. The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority Board in Los Angeles County has already committed to and is undertaking the further extension of that line to Pomona, which is very near Los Angeles County’s eastern terminus. From there, Los Angeles County transportation officials are working with their allies in San Bernardino County to make the continuation of the Gold Line all the way to Ontario Airport a reality, and at some future date extend the light rail line beyond that even further into San Bernardino County to San Bernardino or beyond that to Redlands or Yuciapa.
Over $1 billion has been expended extending the Gold Line, consisting of a light rail train on two separate tracks running generally east west, currently to Azusa. The track will reach Pomona by late 2025. Thereafter, the line was previously slated to be extended another 3.3 miles from Pomona through Claremont to Montclair at that city’s existing Montclair Transit Center. From there, the future intention was to extend it to Ontario Airport. According to the Gold Line Construction Authority, the extension of the line from north Pomona to Claremont will entail a cost of $450 million. Previously, the Gold Line Construction Authority in conjunction with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, when it was previously known as San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG), intended to continue the line from Claremont to Montclair, and then from Montclair to Ontario Airport.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, as its name implies, is San Bernardino County’s regional transportation agency. With a board composed of representatives from all 24 of the county’s cities as well as its five county supervisors, the agency, known by its acronym SBCTA, is charged with managing the expenditure of Measure I money. Measure I was first passed by San Bernardino County’s voters in 1989, providing for a half-cent sales tax override countywide, with the proceeds dedicated to paying for road improvements.
The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority dedicated $39 million in Measure I dollars toward the Gold Line project and did a joint application with the Los Angeles Metro Transit Agency for a State of California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program grant. That application was successful and it brought in $250 million on the Los Angeles County side, which made a significant but not complete inroad on the $850 million funding deficit that jurisdiction had, and provided another $41 million of the then-projected $80 million cost for the San Bernardino County portion of the projected expense on the eastern side of the Los Angeles County/San Bernardino County boundary in terms of getting the line to Montclair.
Subsequently, however, when the project went out to bid, it turned out the cost of building the line from Claremont to Montclair would not contain itself to an earlier $73 million projection or the later $80 million estimate, but had escalated to $96 million.
In reaction to that projected cost overrun, San Bernardino County Transportation Authority Executive Director Ray Wolfe recommended last year that SBCTA “throw in the towel” on completing the Gold Line past the Los Angeles County/San Bernardino County border to reach the airport.
Wolfe noted that a commuter rail system running from Los Angeles County into San Bernardino County – MetroLink – already exists and that there is an existing freight-carrying rail line linking the two counties as well. He proposed that instead of building two new tracks that the county transportation agency simply run a passenger line on the existing freight line track, thereby saving both land acquisition and rail line construction costs. Advocates for the Gold Line, however, point out that the Gold Line runs with significantly greater frequency than does MetroLink, with departures and arrivals every five to seven minutes during peak commuting hours and every 12 to 15 minutes during off-peak hours. Metro Link trains runs at present no more frequently than every 72 minutes and on average no more frequently than an hour-and-a-half. Because of that, ridership on the MetroLink is relatively poor and Gold Line use is approaching capacity on its current schedule. If the goal of transitioning commuters from their automobiles to trains is to be effectuated, these advocates say, the Gold Line needs to be completed. Moreover, the riders’ cost of using the Gold Line is less than half that of using MetroLink, which first established service between Union Station in Los Angeles and the City of San Bernardino in 1992 on a long existing track originally designed for heavy engines pulling freight cars. MetroLink utilizes diesel engines to draw its passenger cars and must share its track with at least four freight trains on a daily basis. The Gold Line would be more environmentally sound, more utilized and economical, its sponsors insist.
In reaction to Wolfe’s call to pull the plug on the Gold Line concept in San Bernardino County, east-west factions formed in the jurisdiction. While officials in Chino Hills, Chino, Montclair and Ontario favor extending to the aerodrome the light rail system that has already been constructed to Azusa and which will reach Pomona in five years, virtually all of the rest of the county, practically meaning the remaining 20 incorporated municipalities, have flinched at expending the money that will be required to complete the Gold Line. Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-41st District) and State Senator Anthony J. Portantino, whose 25th District like Holden’s straddles both Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, are equally dismayed at what they perceive to be wrongheaded intransigence to regional cooperation intended to provide the foundation of what is to become the commuting methodology of the future. They introduced legislation aimed at providing financial mechanisms to complete the project. Holden’s Assembly Bill 2011 would create the West San Bernardino County Rail Construction Authority, an entity to be dedicated to designing and building the six-mile span of track linking Montclair to Ontario Airport. Portantino’s Senate Bill 1390 also calls for creating the Montclair-to-Ontario Airport Gold Line Construction Authority. Portantino’s bill is considered to be a refinement of Holden’s proposed legislation, one which would be more likely to achieve passage in the full legislature.
Without being asked to do so and acting entirely on his own initiative, Elon Musk had the Boring Company on April 29 provide the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency with a proposal to undertake the underground tunnel project, one that would either use, partially use or parallel the existing flood control channelization constructed decades ago by the Army Corps of Engineers, and run from a station near Foothill Boulevard and the Day Creek flood control channel to Terminal 2 at Ontario International Airport.
Musk calculated the project could be completed for $60 million, largely because the purchase and monopolization of above-ground real estate would be bypassed. No construction of a rail system or purchase of trains would be necessary. Off-the-shelf or adapted Tesla Model X vehicles would be used to provide transportation.
A Musk-owned company would run operate the system.
Next Wednesday, June 3, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s board is to be guided by Carrie Schindler, the authority’s director of transit and rail programs, with regard to a consideration of whether the authority should spend $3 million to conduct an “alternatives analysis” to using rail systems to reach Ontario Airport. According to the staff report for the item, building the Gold Line to the airport “is estimated to cost between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in 2020 dollars, requir[ing] a large infusion of revenue that is unknown at this time.” Musk’s proposal, the report said, would cost far less. “The total estimated cost is expected to be substantially lower and in the range of 3-5% of the surface project cost,” the report states.
County transportation officials did not say whether the subsurface transportation option could be utilized to replace the Gold Line from Claremont to the airport or from Claremont to Rancho Cucamonga.
-Mark Gutglueck

In a remarkable coincidence, Newport Beach Councilman Marshall “Duffy” Duffield this week found himself at the center of attention in two San Bernardino County communities.
In one of those cases, Duffield was hailed as a prince among men promoting an innovation seen as a significant solution to the persistent problem of homelessness overwhelming eleven of the county’s 24 incorporated cities and towns and one of its unincorporated communities.
In the other instance, Duffield found himself under attack as someone who had successfully manipulated the already highly compromised approval process for the establishment of cannabis-based enterprises, and was functioning within an atmosphere where the provision of bribes across what is now a second generation of the City of Adelanto’s elected officials has become an open and accepted practice, even if he was not himself directly involved in provable instances of public graft.
The circumstance in which Duffield, a politician from Orange County, is being on one hand lionized and on the other demonized in San Bernardino County made for a bemusing and noteworthy spectacle.
This week’s events put the spotlight on the “Safe Hut,” one of Duffield’s inventions touted as a comparatively inexpensive first step in sheltering homeless individuals during the early “transitional” phase where assessment of each homeless individual eligible for assistance is made and “wrap-around” care can begin prior to those being assisted receiving further help intended to get them off the streets and provide them with an opportunity to be housed permanently.
Duffield is the owner of the Duffy Electric Boat Company, what is billed as the world’s first and leading manufacturer of electric boats. The company grew out of Duffield’s whimsical effort in 1970, according to the company’s literature, to “place the motor from a secondhand golf cart into the hull of a beat-up motorboat,” what became the first primitive prototype for a line of electric-powered watercraft which include the Snug Harbor, the Bay Island, the Sun Cruiser, the Cuddy Cabin and the Back Bay models that Duffield’s company now markets. The company also builds boats to specifications provided by its customers.
Duffy Boats’ first niche was that one established with Disneyland and Disney World, for whom the company supplies the boats used in Disney’s Adventure Parks. The Duffy Electric Boat company also made a significant inroad in the market for providing short touring boats at beach-located hospitality venues world-wide, including those owned and operated by Marriott Hotels. Duffy also provides the boats used by the Nature Conservancy in Naples, Florida and the vessels used by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, known before January 1, 2013 as the Department of Fish and Game Department, for its exploration of sensitive marine life habitats.
Duffield’s operation on a 5-acre facility located at 17260 Muskrat Avenue in Adelanto employs 200 persons during its peak season. While the internal craftsmanship for the boats involves cabinets and tables custom made in the company’s woodshop using solid and saltwater-resistant, marine quality cherrywood, Duffield’s materials for the external covering for the boat involve high quality canvas, and the hulls are composed of fiberglass with foam fill. In working with these later materials, Duffield hit upon the idea of using them for the “Safe Hut” shelters he envisioned could be fabricated by his company during its production off-season. He designed the shelters as fiberglass structures, with foam insulation.
According to Duffield, “The fiberglass material allows the shelters to be cleaned and sanitized in minutes.” With an eye to hygiene, Duffield has partnered with Sanitrax International, which provides restrooms, sinks and showers at shelter sites.
According to Duffield, his shelters exceed building codes, can be secured to a level-adjusted foundation on-site within two hours, and come with beds and solar panels to power LED lights and chargers. The price per shelter, which includes shipping and set-up, is $17,500 for a one-bed, 60-square foot model; and $23,700 for a two-bed 80-square foot model. At present he is working on but has not yet completed specifications for a prototype for a two-bunk bed, 120-square foot, four person model.
The 60-square foot model features a single foldable bed that hinges on one wall. The 80-square foot model features two such beds. While not in use, the beds retract up onto the wall, increasing the available floor space during daylight hours.
According to Duffield, “These prices compare well with proposed purchases of motels or new brick and mortar construction.”
Duffield hauled one of the 60-square foot models from his company’s foundry in Adelanto to San Bernardino on Wednesday so it could be previewed to San Bernardino city and San Bernardino County officials.
Duffield emphasized that the shelters are not intended as permanent housing, but ones that can be used for an extended period of time by an individual or individuals, and then lend themselves to being easily and quickly cleaned and restored to a highly sanitary state.
“They’re pretty indestructable,” he told the Sentinel. “You can sanitize them by pressure washing them inside and out, air drying them, and they are ready for the next inhabitants.”
Though built to uniform specifications, they can be varied in one specific respect, that being the thickness of the inner layer of insulation between the two outer layers of fiberglass in the walls and roof. The more substantial the insulation, the better suited that structure would be for use in either very hot or very cold environments.
The structures come with a single door which can be locked from the inside but which has hinges on the outside so that it can be removed relatively quickly to give emergency responders an opportunity to get inside if that need arises.
Duffield said he believes the Safe Hut will present municipal and governmental entities with two certain advantages in the effort to bring homelessness under control. In the first instance, he said, cities and local governments are restricted under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Boise decision from prohibiting elements of the homeless population from setting up living quarters on sidewalks and other public areas unless that jurisdiction provides alternative shelter. The Safe Hut is such an alternative, he said. Secondly, local jurisdictions face not only the challenges of creating livable sheltering for the homeless but protests from nearby residents or businesses that object to having an influx of the destitute living or subsisting right next to their homes, professional offices or shops. The Safe Huts are not rooted to any specific location, he said, and can be moved to an area far enough removed from other sensitive inhabitants of a particular city or community that is working toward eradicating the problem of people living out in the open on the streets.
Duffield said that ideally a Safe Hut or a cluster of Safe Huts would be located where utilities such as electricity and water are available.
Duffield said his company at the moment has the capacity to churn out two Safe Huts per day.
The State of California, counties and cities are the customers he envisages serving, Duffield said, indicating that he believes it is the counties, with their departments of behavioral health, transitional assistance and human services that will likely prove to be the most prolific purchasers of the Safe Hut.
On Wednesday, San Bernardino City Councilman Jim Mulvihill was among those who was present while Duffield exhibited the 60-square foot model he had hauled to Kendall Plaza on a boat trailer. Duffield was hoping that later that day he would be able to get San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman Curt Hagman and current Fifth District Supervisor Josie Gonzales to look the model over. The Fifth District is where the highest concentration of homeless are concentrated in San Bernardino County.
Duffield said he believes there will be a ready market for the Safe Hut in Los Angeles County where some 60,000 of the State of California’s estimated 160,000 homeless population are subsisting on the streets, beneath street and freeway underpasses, within parks and in homeless encampments.
North of San Bernardino, Duffield, who is something of a Renaissance Man who holds nine patents, on the very same day found himself under fire in Adelanto.
In addition to his boat and Safe Hut manufacturing concern in that 56-square-mile, 34,000 population city, Duffy has branched out into what is promising to be California’s next entrepreneurial gold mine, that being the cultivation of marijuana and the conversion of it into cannabis-based products. Duffield has managed to obtain two permits/licenses from the City of Adelanto for marijuana-based operations.
That, however, has brought a surfeit of suspicion and criticism down upon Duffield, including an incipient challenge that carries with it the potential that he will be forced to resign from his position on the Newport Beach City Council.
That Duffield has gravitated toward exploring profiting through the commercialization of marijuana in Adelanto is not in itself startling. Adelanto has become one of the more aggressive municipalities in California in looking toward rejuvenating its local economy by exploiting the legalization of medical marijuana in California that took place more than two decades ago and the more recent legalization of marijuana in California for recreational purposes. That change of attitude in Adelanto is a relatively recent one, having come about only within the last half dozen years.
Following the 2014 election, in which Mayor Rich Kerr and councilmen John Woodard and Charley Glasper were elected in a clean sweep that saw then-Mayor Kari Thomas and then-councilmen Steve Baisden and Charles Valvo ousted, Kerr and Woodard joined forces with Councilman Jermaine Wright in an initial effort to permit the indoor cultivation of medical marijuana to take place in the city’s industrial zone. Their stated rationale was that the city, which was in extremely poor financial shape, could rejuvenate itself economically by such a move. That represented a deviation from past policy, which matched that of nearly all of the municipalities in San Bernardino County, which was to resist any involvement with the commercial availability of cannabis or cannabis products, even though the use of marijuana for medical purposes had been legal in California in the aftermath of the 1996 passage of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act. While some city employees were philosophically and ideologically opposed to the direction Kerr, Woodard and Wright were purposed to take the city in, some or even most were willing to support their agenda, insofar as they were assured the city was working within the parameters of the law. Over time, however, evidence emerged that Wright, Woodard and Kerr were involved in helping applicants for the cultivation businesses cut corners with regard to the permitting, licensing, inspection, operations and standards for those businesses. It also became evident that at least some of those business proponents were providing inducements to the trio in return for their efforts to prevent city staff from applying straightforward planning, land use and regulatory requirements to those proposals and businesses. In time, Kerr, Woodard and Wright dropped all pretense of being interested only in seeing cultivation enterprises flourish and they pushed ahead with allowing, first, medical marijuana dispensaries to be able set up shop in the city and then, anticipating the passage of 2016’s Proposition 64, allowing the city to position itself at the forefront of selling marijuana for recreational purposes, that is, allowing the drug to be used not for its medical but rather its intoxicative effect.
Thus, some high ranking and mid-level city employees decided to leave or were pushed out from their posts, and they elected to simply move on. These included longtime City Manager Jim Hart, former City Engineer/Public Works Director/interim City Manager Tom Thornton, former City Attorney Todd Litfin, former City Attorney Julia Sylva, former City Attorney Curtis Wright, former City Attorney Ruben Duran, former interim City Manager Brad Letner, and former contract City Engineer Wilson So.
While Kerr, Woodard and Wright were pushing their agenda, some city employees pushed back, refusing to suspend the city’s planning, inspection or enforcement standards when it came to the cannabis-related businesses that Kerr, Woodard and Wright had put such a high priority upon facilitating.
Kerr, Woodard and Wright deemed such resistance to be insubordination, purposed as they were to transform Adelanto into the marijuana capital of California. They had several of those resistant employees suspended, fired, or suspended and then fired. Even after Jermaine Wright was arrested by the FBI in November 2017 for taking a bribe in exchange for agreeing to prevent an applicant for a marijuana distribution business from being closely monitored and regulated by the city’s code enforcement division, Kerr and Woodard did not desist, pressing staff harder and harder to accommodate those seeking licensing by suspending the regulations and oversight the city was supposed to engage in as part of the approval and licensing processes. This entailed further reprisals against city employees when they continued to resist the mayor’s and councilman’s directions.
Ultimately, Kerr and Woodard were voted out of office as the scandal relating to what was perceived to be their graft-ridden relationships with the cannabis industry became too pronounced for the city’s residents to ignore.
More than a year after Kerr and Woodard left office and they and Glasper were replaced by Mayor Gabriel Reyes, Councilwoman Stevevonna Evans and Councilman Gerardo Hernandez, all of whom to a lesser or greater extent represented themselves as reformist candidates in the 2018 election campaign, the City of Adelanto has not abandoned Kerr, Woodard and Wright’s underlying game plan of facilitating the establishment of marijuana-based enterprises.
At the same time, one of the more unfortunate features of the atmosphere that accompanied the Kerr regime’s domination of the city – the specter of marijuana-related entrepreneurs securing licenses to operate in the city through payoffs while those seeking licenses who do not kick back to city officials are unable to get permits to operate – persists. That reputation was burnished by irregularities involving the city’s code enforcement division. Past and current code enforcement officers have related multiple incidents in which they were told to disengage, back down, stand down or hold off on carrying out inspections of certain applicants for cannabis-involved operations. The clear implication was that those businesses slipping out from underneath of the city’s regulation regime were showing and are continuing to show generosity toward the city’s elected leadership.
At the same time, a number of applicants for marijuana-related or cannabis-related business licenses who maintain they have not engaged in generous outpourings of largesse to city leaders complain that they have not been able to get their businesses permitted or licensed. In the midst of this squawking, those who have gotten licenses and permits have fallen under suspicion, with those on the outside looking in using a very broad brush to paint a picture in which everyone with a license to grow, sell, process, package, alter or distribute marijuana in Adelanto is represented as having engaged in questionable if not outright illegal activity. Wherever those making those suggestions of impropriety can, they are lodging complaints with either prosecutorial authorities, law enforcement agencies or regulators.
Duffield has not escaped those efforts, though no tangible evidence to indicate he engaged in anything illegal has emerged. Nevertheless, as an elected official, he is more vulnerable than most others to the crossfire someone involved in the marijuana business in Adelanto is subjected to.
That is because the California Department of Cannabis Control has adopted a set of regulations that outright prohibit an elected official in California from getting involved in the cannabis business or marijuana trade.
Under those regulations, § 5005 bears the subheading “Personnel Prohibited from Holding Licenses.” Thereafter § 5005 states, “(a) A license authorized by the Act and issued by the Bureau may not be held by, or issued to, any person holding office in, or employed by, any agency of the State of California or any of its political subdivisions when the duties of such person have to do with the enforcement of the Act or any other penal provisions of law of this State prohibiting or regulating the sale, use, possession, transportation, distribution, testing, manufacturing, or cultivation of cannabis goods.”
The Sentinel has learned that at least one of the parties in Adelanto who have so far been denied a permit to establish a marijuana-based business has set sights on Duffield, and is seeking to have the California Department of Cannabis Control and the Newport Beach City Attorney bring their authority to bear on Duffield to make a determination that he is improperly in possession of both of the marijuana-based business permits issued to him by the City of Adelanto. It is not entirely clear whether the intention of those notifications of the circumstances is to have the city revoke Duffield’s permits or have the State of California and the City of Newport Beach remove Duffield as a council member.
The Sentinel made repeated phone calls to Newport Beach City Attorney Aaron C. Harp, Newport Beach Assistant City Attorney Yolanda Summerhill and Newport Beach’s three deputy city attorneys, Armeen Komili, Anita Lakhani and Joseph Meeks, in which the specifics of Duffield’s possession of licenses issued by the city of Adelanto along with § 5005 of the California Department of Cannabis Control’s regulations were referenced. Neither Harp, nor Summerhill, nor Komeili, nor Lakhani nor Meeks responded to those inquiries by press time.
On Wednesday, Duffield told the Sentinel, “I’m not growing any marijuana.”
He said that he had obtained the two licenses, which pertain to the distribution of marijuana and are tied to the 17260 Muskrat Avenue property in Adelanto where he has the Duffy Electric Boat Company operation, because he is looking to sell the property.
Duffield explained that he is considering moving his boat manufacturing operation to Utah because the cost of housing in California is so high that many of his employees are unable to purchase homes. He said they will be able to purchase residential properties in Utah. He said that in recent months and years, his sale of boats in California has decreased, and more and more of his oceangoing vessels are being purchased in Florida. His boats are transported from their place of manufacture to the ocean by rail, and he said he will thus save rather than lose money in shipping to Florida from Utah rather than California.
“I have [marijuana-based] business licenses in Adelanto, but I’m not using them,” Duffield said. “I’m looking to maximize the price I can get for the property when I sell it, and that’s why I obtained those permits.”
-Mark Gutglueck