The western pine elfin (Callophrys eryphon) is a North American butterfly within the Arthropoda phylum, the Lepidoptera order, the Lycaenidae family, the Theclinae subfamily, the Callophrys genus and the Callophrys eryphon species. It ranges from British Columbia east to Maine and south to southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The wings are generally reddish-brown. The undersides of fore-wings and hindwings have very jagged dark submarginal bands. Males are brown and females are orange-brown, with both having bold patterned hind wings. The top of the wings have dark bars with a lighter chevron shaped margin. The body is three quarters of an inch to one and seven-sixtyfourths of an inch in length and has no tail. The wing span is typically one inch to one-and-three-eighths inches.
These butterflies are found in natural pine woods and evergreen forests in the territory they inhabit. In the northwest United States they are found nesting in lodgepole pines and can be seen perched on shrubs and smaller trees while searching for food. Males perch on shrubs and small trees to look for females. The western pine elfin is seldom seen outside its natural habitat. They feed on flower nectar including wild blueberries, milkweed, and clover. Caterpillars feed on young needles and catkins.
The chrysalids hibernate and adults emerge from the caterpillar hibernation stage and have one flight cycle in early spring from March to June and the female lays eggs on the base of new pine needles.
Caterpillar hosts include the young needles of hard pines including lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), limber pine (P. flexilis), and ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa); possibly black spruce.
Adult food for these butterflies consists primarily of flower nectar.
These insects’ preferred habitat is pine forests.

By clicking on the portal below, you can download a PDF of the May 22 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 05-22-20

By Mark Gutglueck
Ricky Felix’s resignation from the Upland City Council has touched off a round of political intrigue in the City of Gracious Living that is every bit as intense if not more so than is the case during the traditional political season.
Felix’s exit from the city council will not be effective until the end of the month, but already his pending exit has seemingly ended the previous standing and long-assumed continuing alliance between a current councilman and a former one, and has resulted in entities of variable persuasions and orientations, including conflicting ones, lining up to support an individual touted by City Hall’s most outspoken critics as a logical appointment to replace the departing councilman.
The atmosphere in the city has also exposed a simmering tension between two major players in the community, both of which are major developers with legitimate claims to being Upland institutions, ones which have played a role in shaping the political ascendancy of the city’s elected leadership in the past.
When 2018 dawned, Ricky Felix’s political prospects did not appear overwhelmingly bright, although he was not a complete unknown, having sought election to the city council two years previously, when he placed fourth in a field of four. A series of providential events, however, resulted in fortune smiling upon him in the eleventh month of 2018.
The first star in the constellation lined up Felix’s way nearly three years prior to his ascendancy to the council, when the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project in December 2015 sent a letter to Upland city officials alleging that because of what it claimed was Upland’s historical dearth of elected officeholders who were Hispanic compounded by its at-large voting system for electing members of the city council, the city was in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. Rather than contest the allegation, the city consented to converting to a by-district voting system which was to initiate with the 2018 voting cycle.
Gino Filippi, who had first been elected to the city council in 2010, two years later unsuccessfully sought to unseat then-incumbent Mayor Ray Musser, who was also challenged by Councilwoman Debbie Stone in that election. In 2014, Filippi attained reelection to the council and over the next two years formed a solid alliance with Stone, as he gradually transitioned into an element of the Upland political establishment, one which consisted of a ruling coalition that included Stone and Councilwoman Carol Timm, who was elected to the council in 2014. After having misfortune with a succession of city managers, the city in 2016  brought in former Upland Police Chief Martin Thouvenell to serve in that capacity. Thouvenell, who had himself vied unsuccessfully for the city council in the special election in 2011 when Stone was originally elected, was retained to manage the city in an interim capacity in July 2016. As it turned out, Thouvenell remained in that assignment for nearly two-and-a-half years.
Filippi was particularly close to Thouvenell, and his status as a member of the Upland establishment heightened with the 2016 election, in which Stone was elected mayor, defeating dissident Councilman Glenn Bozar in that race. Elected for the first time that year was Janice Elliott, who in a come-from-behind charge that involved late arriving provisional and mail-in ballots, beat out Sid Robinson, another political newcomer.
Upon acceding to the position of mayor, Stone was obliged to resign her council position. To fill that gap, the council appointed Robinson. With Thouvenell dictating the city’s policy, a ruling coalition consisting of Stone, Filippi, Timm and Robinson rubberstamped virtually everything the former police chief brought forth.
Thouvenell’s proposals engendered no small degree of controversy, but with a four-member council majority to back him, any opposition to the direction the city was taking was steamrolled.
On January 1, 2018, Thouvenell departed as acting city manager, replaced in that role by journeyman municipal administrator Bill Manis. Nevertheless, Thouvenell remained very much in control at City Hall, functioning as the city’s so-called management consultant. That year, Thouvenell would hatch two undertakings that heightened the level of controversy in the City of Gracious Living to the point that the political status quo was not only threatened, but ultimately undone.
In a string of efforts that were as ham-fisted as they were politically tone deaf, Thouvenell orchestrated the reduction or shuttering of elements of the city’s parkland with little regard for the reaction this was to provoke from city residents. Specifically, Thouvenell proposed, and then Stone, Filippi and Timm endorsed, selling off 4.631 acres of Memorial Park, including an existing youth league baseball field, to San Antonio Regional Hospital for conversion to a parking lot. Memorial Park was widely considered the city’s premier recreational amenity. Robinson, whose major constituency consisted of the parents of Little League players throughout the city, arranged to be absent from the meeting when the sale was voted upon. The council majority then gave its blessing to another Thouvenell proposal, which called for selling 16-acre Cabrillo Park, located off 11th Street between Mountain and Benson Avenue, to the Lewis Group of Companies so the property could be developed residentially.
San Antonio Hospital and the Lewis Group of Companies, together with the City of Upland itself, the Upland School District and the San Antonio Water Company, are Upland’s leading institutions. San Antonio Hospital, which began its existence in a different location within the city in 1907, has transformed itself from a community hospital to a regional one that features over 400 beds at its current location. The Lewis Group of Companies is the corporate successor to Lewis Homes, which began as a relatively modest home construction business headed by husband and wife Ralph and Goldy Lewis in the 1950s, and which grew into one of the largest residential developers in Southern California by the mid-1970s. The company is currently overseen by the couple’s four sons – Richard,  Randall, Robert and Roger – and is now involved in obtaining construction entitlements for planned communities, housing tracts, apartment complexes and shopping centers in California as well as in Nevada. Its corporate headquarters is in Upland.
The cavalier fashion in which Stone, Filippi, Robinson and Timm had sought to dispense with city parkland to further the agenda of major business institutions in Upland created a firestorm which ultimately resulted in the city forsaking the sale of Cabrillo Park to the Lewis Group of Companies. The controversy over that issue proved so great that Robinson, who had originally been appointed to the council and was due to run for election that year to stay in office, chose not to run. Also on the ballot that year were Filippi, Timm and by her own choice because she had been elected to an at-large four-year term on the council in 2016, Councilwoman Janice Elliot, who sought election to represent the district in which she resided, that being the city’s newly-formed Second District in the city’s northeast quadrant. Elliott, who had opposed the parkland sale, the only member of the council to do so, was elected. Timm was voted out of office.
Filippi, who claimed to be living in the city’s Third District – essentially Upland’s southwest quadrant – found himself facing two challengers, Ricky Felix and Irmalinda Osuna. Having to compete as one of three candidates in the Third District rather than as one of seven or eight or nine or more competing hopefuls for three top spots in an at-large contest was a factor favorable to Felix.
Osuna had the residual benefit of being one of those who had protested effectively against the sale of Cabrillo Park, which is located within the Third District. The impetus behind Felix entering the race was his long-held desire to enter politics, with an eye toward making an eventual run for Congress.
As an incumbent, Filippi had a leg up against both of his opponents, or so it seemed, in terms of his ability to pick up campaign donations. While not setting any records, he nevertheless outperformed both of his opponents in generating the funds he needed to run an effective campaign, accumulating $35,905.74 for that purpose, including a $2,328.88 loan he made to his campaign. Felix collected $7,162 for use toward his electoral cause, which included $2,600 in loans he made to himself. Osuna generated so little money for her campaign that no documents relating to her campaign financing were filed with the Upland City Clerk’s office.
Unbeknownst to Filippi until relatively late in that year’s political season was the degree to which a third party independent expenditure committee known as Business Leaders For Ethical Government would come to play a major role in the 2018 District Three campaign.
Business Leaders For Ethical Government had been formed, in actuality, to support Jason Anderson in what turned out to be his successful bid to unseat incumbent San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos in the June 2018 Primary Election.
Two of the major donors to Business Leaders For Ethical Government were James Previti, the principal in Frontier Homes, and Jeff Burum, who is a principal in a number of development companies, including the Colonies Partners, Diversified Pacific and National CORE.
Both Burum and Previti have development projects in the City of Upland.
Previti had bankrolled Business Leaders For Ethical Government to the tune of $109,000. Burum had put up $20,000 of his own money and $74,500 from Diversified Pacific.
As an independent expenditure committee that in no way coordinated with either the Felix or Osuna campaigns, Business Leaders For Ethical Government put out hit pieces attacking Filippi at a total cost of $10,418.88.
In addition, Business Leaders For Ethical Government expended $1,500 getting Felix onto a slate mailer that recommended voters elect him, and the independent expenditure committee spent another $8,897 promoting Felix to the voters of the Third District.
For Burum, his involvement in the 2018 Upland election marked the first time after an interim of not quite a generation since he had been previously involved in Upland politics. While he had been quite active in San Bernardino County electioneering in the early and middle portion of the first decade of the Third Millennium, he had not been heavily involved in Upland city politics since the 2000 election when John Pomierski had benefited from a wide spectrum of local support, including that from Burum, to become mayor.
What brought him to the fore of Upland politics in 2018, Burum told the Sentinel, was Filippi’s obsequious fealty to Thouvenell and his slavish accommodation of the Lewis Group of Companies. “The last straw for me was when they were going to sell Lewis every bit of Cabrillo Park,” Burum said. “My kids used to play youth league soccer at that park. That deal couldn’t have been more one-sided. There was nothing in it for the residents, and everything for Lewis.”
In years past, Burum said, he had “considered Gino to be a political friend. But he brought Marty Thouvenell back into the city. Yes, Marty Thouvenell knew how to run things. But he was returning the city to a failed model. He got things done behind the council’s back, just like it was during the time Mike Milhiser was here.”
Milhiser was Upland’’s city manager during a portion of Thouvenell’s tenure as police chief.
“You had the same things that were going on 30 years ago, favoring a select few, including Lewis,” Burum said.
He said that under Thouvenell’s leadership and the blind support of the council, legitimate community building tools were misapplied.
“They took the valid concept of opportunity zones, which create incentives for dynamic community improvement, and put them not where they were needed such as downtown, but out on Mountain Avenue, which is already fully developed, as favors to their cronies,” Burum said. “There was nothing for the citizens in that. Gino was supporting Marty’s agenda. He wasn’t paying attention. He was just doing whatever Marty wanted.”
Burum said Thouvenell, whom he likened to “a viper in the hen house,” together with Filippi and the Lewis Group of Companies made up a significant portion of a cabal that was using the authority of the city to manipulate things to their collective advantage, which was simultaneously to the detriment of the city, its residents and its future.
“It’s no secret that I have some major differences with the Lewises,” he said. “Whenever they have a project, it is about what is good for them, and not for the community.”
His political involvement in the 2018 election was not about his support for Felix but rather his opposition to Filippi, Burum said. “I didn’t meet Ricky Felix until after the election,” Burum said. “I knew a little bit about him, but not that much. I supported him, basically, because he was running against Gino.”
In the November 2018 election, Felix managed 1,517 votes or 39.39 percent to Osuna’s 1,354 votes or 35.16 percent. Filippi finished a dismal third in the balloting with 980 votes or 25.45 percent
Felix was sworn in as councilman in December 2018, a little more than a month after he was elected. Because in the November 2018 election Elliott had successfully vied to take up the position of Second District councilwoman, she had to resign the at-large position on the council she had been elected to in 2016. There ensued a selection process in early 2019 to have a city resident complete the two years remaining on the four-year term to which Elliott had been elected in 2016. The council very nearly elevated Glenn Bozar, a fiscal conservative who had been displaced from the council dais in 2016 when he vied for mayor rather than for reelection to the council, and lost to Stone. Ultimately, when Bozar was unable to get a crucial third vote either from Stone or Felix in that selection process, the council settled upon a compromise candidate, Planning Commissioner Bill Velto, who had lost to Bozar during the 2012 election.
Earlier this month, on May 11, at the close of the regularly scheduled city council meeting, Felix announced that he and his family had been “given an opportunity at this time that will take us out of the city. The next city council meeting will be my last city council meeting and May 31st will be the last day I will be a councilmember for the City of Upland.”
His planned departure has set off frenzied speculation as to precisely what the city council will do, including holding an election in the near term to replace him, appointing a replacement to serve out the remainder of Felix’s term until 2022, appointing a replacement to fill the position until an election can be held in November, or leaving the post unfilled until an election is held in November. Even more animated is the conjecture as to who will ultimately fill the spot. A natural assumption, and indeed one that has been widely bruited about the community is that Felix’s exit stage right sets the table for Filippi to make a storied comeback. Conventional wisdom would hold that he would start off with two votes if the council elects to make an appointment. He had a more than four-year running alliance with Mayor Stone when he was last on the council. In 2012, Filippi endorsed Velto in his run for city council and he was instrumental in getting Velto appointed to the planning commission. And Velto had endorsed Filippi in his run for the city council in 2010, in his run for mayor in 2012, in his successful bid for reelection in 2014 and in his unsuccessful bid for reelection in 2018. During the two years Filippi and Elliott served together on the council between December 2016 and December 2018, the two had a rocky relationship, including a May 2017 vote by the city council including Filippi to censure Elliott. It thus would appear that Filippi would need the support of Councilman Rudy Zuniga if he is to regain appointment to the council this year. Still the same, given the widespread community animus toward Filippi, it is by no means certain that he would get as many as two votes.
A factor in this consideration is what might be termed the forced vicissitude in his relationship with Velto. In 2020, Velto finds himself in a position that is tenuous but also ripe with possibilities. Having never been elected, Velto is now faced with the necessity of achieving success at the polls or ending, at least for the time being, his political career. Appointed to the last remaining at-large position on the city council last year, he is, as a current resident of the First District, eligible to run for that position. He thus could run for election to the council in November, which will be the first time a by-district vote to elect a councilmember to represent the First District will be held. To maintain his political viability, then, Velto has three options. He can run for an elected office outside of Upland or he can vie for First District councilman or he can seek the Upland mayoralty in the contest for that position in November.
Velto’s most realistic pathway toward staying in the political game is to run for council, but becoming mayor is not outside of his potential grasp. Mayor Stone could make such a move much easier if she were to choose not to seek reelection, leaving a potential void that Velto could fill. It is not clear, as of press time, what Stone’s intentions are. If she does seek reelection, Velto running against her would very likely end the relatively cordial relationship they have. In the 16 months Velto has been on the council, there has been little if any contention between them, with there being consonance between virtually all of their votes, with only a handful of exceptions.
A wild card, or wild cards, in that scenario is that another candidate, or other candidates, for mayor, including Elliot, might emerge. A consideration in this regard is that Elliott has established herself as the anti-establishmentarian on the council. While wearing that mantle may prove a disadvantage to Elliott in a head-to-head election against a lone representative of the establishment, particularly in relatively affluent and conservative Upland, it could well transition to an advantage if she finds herself in a race against two representatives of the establishment who might then split between themselves the constituency that undivided might be sufficient for one to claim victory. Elliott indeed possesses a following, one that has grown during her more than three years in office as she has repeatedly been cast as the iconoclast on the council, while the council has displeased several contingents, some of them highly vocal, within the community by its votes with regard to both policy and specific projects, proposals and undertakings.
As a consequence of all this, Velto is likely to find it to be politically expedient to turn his back on his longtime associate Filippi.
Indeed, when the Sentinel caught up with him by phone this week, he came across as decidedly uncomfortable when discussing the prospect that Filippi might apply to replace Felix.
Velto downplayed what many people see as indicators that Filippi has already or is to soon throw his hat in the ring. “You’re talking about what is being said on social media, which can be very unreliable, and what is on his Facebook page, which is dated,” Velto said. “What you see on his Facebook page is from years ago. I don’t think that’s his plan at all. I don’t think he knew Ricky was going to leave. I haven’t had contact with him and I haven’t been contacted by people reaching out for him on his behalf. If that’s what he chooses to do, I don’t see a reason for it. Sometimes with these things you get caught up in it and you are going to do it. But for him, right now, I don’t see a reason to do it or any benefit, even reviving his hopes. Sometimes serving on the council or serving the city isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. You want to do what is right but at the same time you don’t want to be a target for a small group of people. I haven’t heard anything from anyone who knows him. No one has reached out on his behalf. I think it is highly unlikely he would run. I am not even sure that he is still living in that location [the Third District]. If he is, I don’t know whether he has the base there he had in the city as a whole. He ended up in third place among three candidates the last time he ran there. I don’t see any benefit for him to come out and go through what he will need to go through to get back in there. But we’ll see.”
Forthrightly, Velto acknowledged he had supported Filippi in the past.
“I supported him, yes, like I supported most of those who served and who encountered the difficulty of the job and were trying to do what was in the best interest of the city.”
Velto acknowledged having provided Filippi with financial support, but said it was a minimal offering. “I think I gave him maybe $99,” Velto said. “I generally supported him. Did I support him in everything that he did? I don’t think so. When he ran for office, ran for mayor, yes, I supported him, absolutely.”
Potentially rendering moot any discussion with regard to Filippi succeeding Felix is the momentum behind Carlos Garcia, a well-spoken resident of the Third District who has involved himself in a number of civic issues since he moved to the City of Gracious Living a few years ago.
Garcia’s viability as Felix’s replacement was boosted substantially when Osuna opted out of seeking the appointment or vying in an election to replace Felix.
“I am not planning to pursue this position,” Osuna told the Sentinel. “Reflecting on all the personal sacrifices of time away from family, degradation of health, financial cost, etc., I decided it was time for me to disengage. That being said, I will continue to support in a very limited capacity other groups and individuals who align with my core values. I extend Mr. Felix and his family best wishes in their relocation to Utah, as it is a beautiful state, and look forward to our city council following a transparent and democratic process to find his replacement.”
Burum said he believes it is in the city’s best interest to make an appointment to fill the vacancy, even if it is only on an interim basis until a replacement election can be held in November. “You have to get three votes to do anything, so I think there will be better governance all the way around with five people,” he said. “It can be a real challenge to get that third vote on some issues if you just have four.”
Thinking out loud, Burum said that perhaps the best way of going about it would be to appoint a “placeholder,” meaning someone who would not run in the replacement election in November, so that no political advantage is bestowed upon one of the candidates by virtue of being an incumbent.
More important, Burum suggested, was that the council avoid appointing Filippi.
“I still have my own personal concern about Gino getting back in there,” he said. “Since he lost, I don’t think he should be appointed. I don’t think he should hold office without a major awakening in his life. I can’t imagine that he has changed sufficiently that we should allow him back on the council.”
As to the prospect of Garcia getting the nod, Burum said, “I supported Ricky Felix because he wasn’t Gino. I have never met Carlos, but if the alternative means Gino getting appointed, then I am supporting Carlos.”
As to the upcoming election in November, in particular the race for mayor, Burum indicated his preference for Velto. Nevertheless, he said, he could live with Stone serving a second term. He acknowledged that Stone had been a crucial vote to hire Thouvenell, but indicated it was his perception that she had been unduly influenced by Filippi in making that decision. “It was Gino who convinced her to do that,” Burum said. “And from there, Marty led her astray. Marty can be very manipulative.”
Unlike some in the community, Burum was not dismissive of Stone’s intellectual capacity or ability to handle the rigors of the office of mayor. “She is a successful businesswoman,” he said, referencing her position with the funeral home she runs.
Burum credited the Stone-led council with making an insightful promotion of Rosemary Hoerning, who had been the city’s public works director, into the position of city manager. “When I saw that on the agenda, I was frankly skeptical,” Burum said. “I was not supportive of that move. I thought it was irresponsible. But what we have seen is Rosemary’s growth in the job, an interesting evolution of a bureaucrat. She is good at determining what needs to be done. Since becoming city manager, she has met her calling. She gets the details. She has blossomed. And she doesn’t have the personality to manipulate people.”
With regard to Stone, Burum said, “She might not be the strongest leader. I don’t want to say who I’ll support, but if Debbie doesn’t run, I will definitely be supporting Bill. Bill Velto has the time and energy. He could be a better mayor because he is always paying attention. If he puts in the time, we will have someone who fully understands the job.”
Despite Elliott’s celebrated differences with Thouvenell, Burum said he did not consider her to be qualified to serve as mayor, and intimated that he thought it would be better for the city if she were not on the city council at all.
“The city can’t afford someone like that,” Burum, referring to Elliott, opined. “The city is facing fiscal challenges. If it follows her lead, it will go bankrupt. She has this myopic view of the world, in my opinion. She is anti-growth. I am not advocating unchecked growth, but the city needs strategic growth. Infill development is a no-brainer. If you allow the neighbors of where growth is coming in to have their way, there won’t be any growth in California ever again. To sustain itself, the city needs people living here and shopping in the city. Whenever there is growth, there are going to be complaints about traffic. Janice Elliott panders to that crowd. She wants to be popular. We need leaders who are able to figure out what the next paradigm shift is going to be. Upland doesn’t have that much land left. We need strategic growth, a plan to maximize development for the betterment of the city. We don’t have the luxury to say no to normal projects.”
Burum said resistance to the Amazon project, intended for 50 acres east of Central Avenue, north of Foothill Boulevard and south of Cable Airport, was pointless and wrongheaded. Prior to the construction of the 210 Freeway, he said, there was far more truck traffic on Foothill Boulevard than is on it now or will be on it in the future. Burum said that instead of resisting the project every inch of the way, those concerned about it “should have done an extreme analysis” that was aimed at improving the terms of the development agreement and upping the amount of money the city is to receive from the $16 million specified in the agreement to a larger sum that “would improve things. City leadership needs to strategically think of everything that goes into development and how it can help them with fiscal obligations. They need to consider what is being built, and work to see that it fits the community. Opposition is meaningless if it does not lead to improvement. Leadership has to be pragmatic. On that project [the Amazon warehouse], it struck me as a relatively noncontroversial matter. You can’t do high density residential there. It is between the airport and commercial frontage on Foothill Boulevard. What else could go there? This no-growth mentality is going to kill our community.”
Velto, who previously told the Sentinel he was not considering a run for mayor, this week told the Sentinel he is now contemplating doing so, but is not committed to that course of action. “I’m not 100 percent into this,” he said. “I don’t know whether the mayor is going to run. I’m considering it. I don’t know if there’s anyone else out there who might run. If there is someone better than me who brings more to the table, then I’m not interested. I find it complimentary when someone suggests I should run, but this isn’t the number one thing on my plate.”

In recent weeks, there has been a fierce debate raging nationwide as to whether the wholesale closures of businesses as a precaution against the coronavirus outbreaks were as effective as represented in some quarters, were necessary or were an overreaction. In the midst of that, Governor Gavin Newsom last week signaled his readiness for the state to step down from its heightened status of COVID-19 alert, and begin the reignition of California’s economy on a measured and gradual basis, using milestones of progress which some considered to be too exacting, such as a requirement that jurisdictions to be opened have no deaths from the coronavirus within the past month. That target was shown to be unrealistic, and that criteria was dropped. However, Newsom thereafter laid out a rather confusing standard for the reopening of a county, saying that testing had to reveal that there were fewer than 25 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past 14 days or less than 8 percent testing positive in the county.
Shortly after the opening of a regular meeting of the board of supervisors this Tuesday, May 19, County Chief Executive Officer Gary McBride said that the county was examining the governor’s latest criteria, but he said it did not appear that the county met the standard that would allow it to “self-certify” and be able to use its authority to go beyond continuing state restrictions on certain types of businesses.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Curt Hagman asked McBride, “Are we going to be one of those counties that self certify?”
McBride responded, “On testing and contract tracing we are still behind on those metrics.”
McBride indicated that the county at present did not have enough employees within the Department of Public Health to meet the testing and tracing requirements the state is insisting on.
Hagman responded, “If we’re not able to self-certify because of the lack of personnel on our side, on the county, then we’re going to have a very angry business and resident community This has to be a top priority.”
County Chief Operating Officer Leonard Hernandez offered an assurance that the county has a team studying the criteria the governor set so the county can meet those standards.
Supervisor Dawn Rowe seemed to suggest the county should have a set of standards for the second stage of openings that was different from that of the state to facilitate a speedier reopening effort.
Hernandez pointed out that “the added components that the county had put in there are not part of that at this time.” Hernandez’s reference was to the state’s standards, which are yet operative in San Bernrdino County.
The county last week had requested the suspension of the state’s requirements that would allow the openings in the county to proceed. That request was in a letter co-signed by the mayors of all of the county’s cities.
Lovingood said the county should quit shilly-shallying around, stop dithering and move full speed ahead with getting the county’s residents back into the game of life, working and reestablishing the economy.
“Over the weekend it was projected from the state we are going to reach a 25 percent unemployment level,” Lovingood said. “The state itself and every company, family, business, city can’t survive that. If we’re at 20 percent plus unemployment, the walking back is untenable. It won’t happen from there.”
Lovingood suggested, despite what McBride had said, that the county was meeting the criteria the governor had put in place to allow reopenings to take place. He suggested the county could fudge its testing numbers, by selectively reporting the ones from venues that meet the state standard to allow a reopening and ignore the others. “If you take hard numbers of tests and report more like what you’ve received from Arrowhead [Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, the main campus of the county hospital] versus what we are receiving [through the County Department of Public Health], we’ve exceeded the numbers and requirements by the state,” he said.
Enough is enough, Lovingood said.
“Our small businesses have sat and waited,” he said. “They’ve waited patiently as long as they can. They cannot suffer this economic suppression any longer.  We’re on that edge. Unless we want to guarantee we’re going to have above 20 percent unemployment, we don’t have two weeks to wait. I’m making a motion that we reopen the county and allow businesses to move move forward with the plans that we have in place for them to be compliant, with masking requirements.”
Supervisor Janice Rutherford, while expressing that she was tempted to act precipitously herself, said that doing so would be counterproductive.
“We all feel the angst about this,” Rutherford said. “We would all like to get open, but we want to do so safely and we want to do it in a way that does not jeopardize the taxpayers by defying the state. There’s just too much at risk. Everything you talked about business and companies are risking right now, that is the same thing the taxpayers stand to risk if we exceed the governor’s grasp. As disappointed as we are about that politically, that’s the reality. There are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.”
Supervisor Rowe seconded Lovingood’s motion. She said, “I do believe we have a balance in life that is out of balance, and that is our financial well being, our mental well being, our emotional well being. The governor’s restrictions only take into consideration our physical well being at this time.”
Rowe said the county should not be afraid to test the envelope. She referenced defiance of state restrictions by Yuba County officials. “They voted to do their own thing and they initially received pushback from the government,” she said, but that show of defiance led Governor Newsom to “create a dialogue  and a path forward for them. So, they were very glad they did that.”
Rowe said she was in favor of the county undertaking the opening on its own authority as long as it did so “thoughtfully.”
Lovingood called for opening restaurants to 35 percent of their occupancy, and he said doing so would be no more unhealthful than the continuing operation of grocery stores, which he called “contaminated,” and where he said customers handle items and return them to the shelves for others to buy and consume.
Be done with the nanny-state, Lovingood said. “We’re adults,” he asserted. “We get to make a decision to or not to. That’s a personal decision. We are at liberty to make our own decision that we move forward.”
Hagman, who was formerly a member of the California Assembly, cautioned his colleagues against acting rashly or in a way that will get the county or local businesses in Dutch with the State of California. He said the county should remain patient.
As board chairman, Hagman endeavored to convince Lovingood and the others that as a governmental entity, the county had to work within the framework and the rule of order, law and authority, as well as reason, even in the event of honest disagreements between different elements and levels of the government.
“What would be the repercussions for our businesses that they lose their liquor license because they open up within our guidelines that we give them cover but now suddenly the state pulls their liquor license because they’re not following state guidelines?” Hagman asked. “We’re all frustrated, but that’s why we’re trying to push politically, policy-wise, staffing-wise, and we have gotten so much change for the week. From last Monday to this Monday, we have gotten tremendous gains on that front, but I’m afraid that our actions may put our business leaders at risk for losing, if we open hair salons, which is supposed to be within the next ten days as well, their state license, and he [Governor Newsom] has pulled state licenses, liquor licenses. I hear that from businesses all the time. They are afraid what the state will do if they don’t act appropriately.”
Hagman said the county could get sued by businesses that opened with county’s blessing and then lost their state licenses. By defying the state, Hagman suggested, the county might also risk monetary subsidies that might come from the state or which might come from the federal government that were passed along through the state.
Rutherford, saying she had an inclination to do what Lovingood was calling for, said it would be better to do an ordered phasing in of the openings.
Supervisor Josie Gonzales hailed as a positive the “exploratory discussion of the action” but said the county was “hindered by authority outside our realm.”
Because the action Lovingood had called for in his motion was not on the agenda, the board delayed voting on it until its next meeting, a specially-called one which occurred yesterday.
Ultimately, the county on Thursday did not use its authority to open businesses yet shuttered under the state’s mandate, but did vote to coordinate with and solicit a letter of support from the Hospital Association of Southern California and to engage with the California Department of Public Health to support its attestation to the state that it should be allowed to proceed with its own readiness and recovery plan.
As of today at 5 p.m., according to the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, the county has sustained since the coronavirus pandemic began 4,146 confirmed cases of the disease, which have resulted in 173 fatalities.
-Mark Gutglueck

William Lyon, the one-time Air Force general who became a residential developer and whose eponymous company left an indelible imprint on the Southern California landscape, has died.
Born March 9, 1923, in Los Angeles, Lyon attended the University of Southern California beginning in 1941. When he joined the U.S. Army Corps as a reservist in 1943, he was already a skilled pilot, having by that time also attended the Dallas Aviation School and Air College.
Lyon continued working as as a civilian flight instructor until June 1944, at which point he was given an appointment as a flight officer. He was assigned to the 6th Ferrying Group and flew aircraft to the Pacific and European theaters. In 1945 he was assigned to the North African Division of the Air Transport Command, returning to the United States in 1946. In 1947 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and participated in various reserve assignments. He was recalled to active duty in 1951 and assigned to Headquarters Air Training Command as a staff pilot. Thereafter, following his transfer to the Military Air Transport Service, he flew air evacuation and ferrying missions. In 1953 he volunteered for a tour of duty in Korea and flew 75 missions in the C-46 and C-47.
From 1954 to 1963, Lyon was assigned to various positions in the reserve and served as a flight commander and operations officer. In 1963 he was named commander of the 929th Tactical Airlift Squadron at March Air Force Base. He later served as the commander of the 943rd Tactical Airlift Group. Lyon was assigned as mobilization assistant to the commander, Sacramento Air Materiel Area at McClellan Air Force Base in June 1970.
He completed Air War College in 1971 and completed the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve senior officers orientation courses in 1972 and 1974.
In February 1972, he became mobilization assistant to the commander, Fifteenth Air Force at March Air Force Base. In March 1974 he was appointed mobilization assistant to the commander in chief, Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where he was involved in the planning of the transfer of designated KC-135 units to the reserves. In April 1975 Lyon was ordered to active duty to serve as chief of Air Force Reserve, Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C. He remained in that assignment until 1978.
Simultaneously with his military career, Lyon was a major fixture in the development industry.
Upon returning to Southern California in 1953 after his active duty assignment in Korea, he was persuaded by his father, Al Lyon, and his brother Leon, to join them in a homebuilding venture in Orange County. Their company, Luxury Homes, was created in 1954.
Luxury Homes proved quite successful. In 1968, Luxury Homes was sold to American Standard, whereupon William Lyon was given a role in that company as vice president for real estate. In 1971, he bought out American Standard’s California-based operation, transitioning it into the William Lyon Co. Based in Newport Beach, the company built homes all over Southern California, including San Bernardino County. With Lewis Homes, William Lyon was a major provider of housing stock in Rancho Cucamonga during that city’s explosive growth in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed the company built over 100,000 single family dwelling units in California, Arizona and Nevada.
Along the way, Lyon made other investments. In 1981, he and George Argyros purchased AirCal for $61.5 million. In 1986, they sold the airline for $225 million.
Active in Republican political circles, the general, as he was called by those who knew him and those who did not, in 1999 co-founded with former Richard Nixon Aide-de-camp Larry Higby, South Coast Plaza developer Henry Segerstrom, Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren and George Argyros the New Majority political action committee.
Lyon, 97, died of what were called natural causes today, May 22 at his luxury home in Coto de Caza.

Fourteen of San Bernardino County’s 24 municipalities do not have their own police department but rather contract with the county sheriff’s department for the provision of law enforcement services. In all but two of those cases, those cities or towns simply maintained the sheriff’s department as their police service provider when they were incorporated as municipal entities, and they have maintained their contractual relationship with the sheriff’ department because the expense of developing and perpetuating an in-house police department would be more expensive than the status quo. In Needles and Adelanto, cities which at one time had their own police departments, a consideration in dissolving their police departments was the financial savings those cities realized by handing off the responsibility for policing to the sheriff’s department.
For these contract cities, there is at least a two-fold derivation in savings, the first being the economy of scale the sheriff’s department is able to secure as a consequence of its size, which involves 3,700 employees, over 2,600 of whom are sworn officers. Beyond the savings, ranging from marginal to more substantial, when it comes to the employment of personnel, the department is outfitted with equipment and facilities, including its scientific investigations division, which relieves contract cities and towns of the substantial expense of having to replicate. Historically, the sheriff’s department has supplied law enforcement services to the county’s contract cities for a price tag that is approximately 85 to 90 percent of the cost of what it would run those cities to field police departments of their own with a comparable number of officers.
Generally, the county’s towns and cities enter into a contract with the sheriff’s department for a fixed number of years at a set rate based upon the number of deputies and other department personnel to be employed in that locale. Upon the expiration of a contract and the inking of a contract to extend the law enforcement service, the county has traditionally increased its contract amounts with those cities and towns it serves at a rate close to a percentage reflected in the consumer price index or the commonly accepted rate of inflation over the intervening years since the contract was last extended. Often, a new contract will call for upping the number of patrol deputies over the number that were employed in that jurisdiction during the just-ending contract period. It is common, as well, for adjustments or amendments to those contracts to be made to the contracts to pay for an increase in the number of deputies assigned to that city or town for the duration of the contract then in place.
Given that there are fourteen separate municipal contracts in San Benradino County – between the county and Chino Hills, Rancho Cucamonga, Adelanto, Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley, Grand Terrace, Highland, Loma Linda, Big Bear, Yucaipa, Yucca Valley, Twentynine Palms and Needles – there is rarely a year when one or more contracts are not on track to expire and be renewed, with negotiations ongoing at the same time between the county and the cities where the current contracts are set to expire the following year.
With the most recent crop of renewals and the negotiations ongoing for renewals in the year or two ahead, the county has proven hard-nosed, insisting on a steep contract increase in the realm of 10 percent to 10.5 percent, a cost escalation needed, the county claims, to cover the soaring price of salaries, pensions and benefits the county has committed to paying deputies, investigators, sergeants, lieutenants and captains over the next several years as a consequence of the employment contracts it had entered into with their labor bargaining units.
All 14 of the county’s municpalities contracting with the sheriff’s department, like the county’s other 12 cities, are experiencing severe income restrictions as a consequence of the drawdown in sales tax and the clearance that homeowners have been granted in postponing the payment of their property tax.  In all of those cities that were not flush with cash reserves when they headed into the coronavirus crisis, this is imposing a hardship.
Grand Terrace Assistant City Manager Cynthia Fortune on May 6 said tht in upcoming 2020-21, “The city is not requesting any service level reductions in public safety. Rather, we are requesting a delay in the increase to the sheriff’s contract.” Fortune said the city hoped to suspend the escalation in the rate the city will pay for the service until next year. “Hopefully [Fiscal Year] 2021-22 will be a much better year that we will be able to settle this issue,” Fortune said.
Also on May 6, Grand Terrace City Manager G. Harold Duffy said, “I did send the sheriff a letter indicating we would like to have some relief for a deferral of this because of COVID-19. He [Sheriff John McMahon] did speak with the City Manager of Rancho Cucamonga [John Gillison]. The city managers were all meeting together in conference calls. We are sharing the same issue. So, the sheriff did commit to presenting this policy issue to the board of supervisors, and they will have to address the issue.”
At its April 14 meeting, the Apple Valley Town Council renewed the town’s contract with the sheriff’s department, what was in actuality the 29th amendment the town has made to a contract with the sheriff’s department first entered into in 1994. That amendment committed the town to a 10.3 percent increase that will see the $14 million the town is paying in the current 2019-20 budget zoom to $15.5 million in 2020-21, which runs from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2021. It was noted that contract increase does not reflect the addition of deputies.
Mayor Scott Nassif questioned the increase in costs for the contract with no change in staffing levels.
Town Manager Doug Robertson said the contract, with what he called its “10 percent” increase, maintained the same level of service as the previous year.   Nassif expressed concern over the large increase which he said equates to almost 50% of the town’s general fund. This presents certain fiscal challenges to the town he said.
In their discussion, the town council members indicated they would have no choice but find the funding necessary to cover the increase, despite the impact on the town’s general fund. On a motion by Nassif, seconded by Council Member Art Bishop, the town council voted to approve the contract amendment for the period of July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021 and authorize the Mayor or his designee to process all documents required for the agreement. The motion carried 5-to-0, with Nassiff, Bishop and council members Larry Cusack, Kari Leon and Curt Emick in unanimous agreement.
-Mark Gutglueck

The western pine elfin (Callophrys eryphon) is a North American butterfly within the Arthropoda phylum, the Lepidoptera order, the Lycaenidae family, the Theclinae subfamily, the Callophrys genus and the Callophrys eryphon species. It ranges from British Columbia east to Maine and south to southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The wings are generally reddish-brown. The undersides of fore-wings and hindwings have very jagged dark submarginal bands. Males are brown and females are orange-brown, with both having bold patterned hind wings. The top of the wings have dark bars with a lighter chevron shaped margin. The body is three quarters of an inch to one and seven-sixtyfourths of an inch in length and has no tail. The wing span is typically one inch to one-and-three-eighths inches.
These butterflies are found in natural pine woods and evergreen forests in the territory they inhabit. In the northwest United States they are found nesting in lodgepole pines and can be seen perched on shrubs and smaller trees while searching for food. Males perch on shrubs and small trees to look for females. The western pine elfin is seldom seen outside its natural habitat. They feed on flower nectar including wild blueberries, milkweed, and clover. Caterpillars feed on young needles and catkins.
The chrysalids hibernate and adults emerge from the caterpillar hibernation stage and have one flight cycle in early spring from March to June and the female lays eggs on the base of new pine needles.
Caterpillar hosts include the young needles of hard pines including lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), limber pine (P. flexilis), and ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa); possibly black spruce.
Adult food for these butterflies consists primarily of flower nectar.
These insects’ preferred habitat is pine forests.