By Mark Gutglueck
After a substantial buildup, the Colton City Council this week took no action with regard to the city’s ongoing 30-year commitment to CR&R and whether to transform the company’s three decade hold on the city into a four decade one. The non-action gives CR&R another shot at trying to convince the council to simply roll the trash hauling franchise CR&R and its two corporate predecessor’s have had since 1996 over for a third time, meaning the exclusive franchise will be extended to 2036, a duration of four decades without any opportunity for a competitor to offer Colton’s residents or businesses enhanced service, lower rates or both.
CR&R and its two corporate predecessors, Taormina and Republic, have held the city’s exclusive trash hauling franchise since 1996, when the city council as it was then composed phased out the city’s sanitation division and privatized entirely refuse handling in the largely blue collar city.
Controversy attended the privatization transition and the means by which it was implemented, including a graft-tainted selection process for the service provider that ultimately settled upon Taormina, which in large measure prompted the recall of the city’s mayor at that time and resulted in an FBI investigation into under-the-table payments to city officials that ultimately sent three other council members and the succeeding mayor to prison.
A formal city investigative effort, jointly requested by then-Colton Police Chief and then-Colton City Attorney Julie Biggs and guided by the prosecutor who manned the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office’s white collar and political corruption unit, Mark McDonald, documented that after a relatively straightforward competition between multiple applicants for the franchise adjudicated by the city’s trash industry evaluating consultant, the R.W. Beck Company, Fontana-base Burrtec had prevailed. Rather than awarding the franchise to Burrtec as R.W. Beck had recommended, however, the trash hauling franchise had been steered to Taormina in exchange for inducements “tantamount to bribes,” according to McDonald. Contained in McDonald’s report was a statement by Taormina’s chairman of the board, Dave Ault that his company did not intend to fulfill the performance criteria it had committed to under its service contract with the city, spelling out that the company had engaged in gamesmanship to “get to the table” so it could outmaneuver the other companies competing for the franchise.
In the face of all of those revelations and Taormina/Republic’s failure to live up to the service levels it had promised, there was serious contemplation at City Hall with regard to rescinding the approval of the contract with Taormina.
The city did not do so, however. Rather, in a move to deflect the growing perception that the city had entered into a pact with a corporation with “mob ties,” brothers William and Vincent Taormina, the sons of Taormina founder Cosmo Taormina, agreed to a buyout of their company in which they received 6.5 million shares of Republic Industry stock then valued at $250 million and were each given a seat as corporate officers on Republic’s four-member executive board, from which perch they continued to oversee waste handling operations in the western United States. What had been Taormina’s operation – providing trash and recycling service to the cities of Anaheim, Brea, Colton, Garden Grove, Placentia, Villa Park and Yorba Linda coordinated from the company’s Anaheim separation facility where the refuse was run through human monitored machinery vectoring garbage, recyclable materials, and greenwaste into separate streams before being sent along to landfills, recyclers or composting operations, continued as before, including continuing to use David Ault, who had been the Chairman of Taormina Industries and Thomas Vogt, who was Taormina’s president and CEO in their managerial and administrative capacities, but under a different corporate name.
In 2005, at which point the mayor and five of the six members of the council who had been in office when the original Taormina contract had been approved and the follow-on mayor and three council members, including two who had voted to approve the Taormina contract, had gone to prison over issues unearthed by the FBI after it initiated an investigation of the city as a consequence of the findings in McDonald’s report, the city council as it was then composed was faced with a decision of whether to extend Republic’s franchise or carry out an open public bid process, referred to in government parlance as a request for proposals from competitors. With most of the members of the council at that point unfamiliar with the particulars of the shuttering of the city’s sanitation division, the original bidding process that had been tainted by graft or the conclusions of McDonald’s report, members of the council who were being courted by Republic’s representatives and provided with generous campaign donations by the company and its employees, elected to forego a competitive bid process and merely roll the franchise contract over for another ten years.
In 2014, during the run-up to that year’s election, then-acting City Manager Amer Jakher prevailed upon the city council to accept a $40,000 endowment from Republic which committed the city to negotiations with the company before it could undertake discussions with rival trash hauling companies. City management and the city council entered into those discussions despite indications that Republic was at that point looking to sell its rights to the Colton trash hauling franchise to another entity. Curiously, Colton officials pressed forward with those negotiations and neither sought from Republic a clause in the contract that would obviate the franchise arrangement if the franchise were to be sold nor sought to layer into the terms of the contract extension transfer fee from Republic if the franchise were to be sold. Just as curiously, the city in those negotiations refused to use as a bargaining chip the consideration that if the city did not extend Republic’s franchise the company would have nothing to sell to any potential purchaser. Ultimately, in July 2015, eight months after the 2014 election, the sharply split city council in a 4-to-3 vote elected not to engage in a public bidding process and extended Republic’s franchise from 2016 until 2026. One of the rationalizations given for staying with Republic was that it was a known entity to the city and the city was a known entity to the company, such that by simply extending the contract the city would avoid for any residential, commercial or industrial customers any disruptions or diminutions in service that might result if the franchise were to be handed over to a company unfamiliar with the community.
In a very compressed time after the new franchise contract went into effect, Republic finalized its agreement with CR&R, which purchased Republic’s trash hauling operations in Colton and Loma Linda, such that CR&R by March 2017 had fully taken over refuse handling in Colton.
In short order, a wide cross section of Colton residents noted what they believed to be a diminution in the quality of their trash service. Residents, commercial business and industrial operations in the city were making repeated note and complaints to both CR&R and the city about inadequate service, including skipping pick-up of trash on normally-scheduled days, weekly disposal of bins and dumpsters running to two weeks, mischanneling both recyclable material and greenwaste into garbage trucks, failure to maintain the cleanliness of receptacles and dumpsters, including twice-yearly steam cleaning. More recently, with the advent of the state’s Senate Bill 1383, which mandates organic/food waste recycling, customers would complain of pickup delays that resulted in rotting, bacteria-laden and maggot-infested dreck and detritus accumulating in their recycling bins and the health hazard that represented. Further complaints mounted that the city’s businesses, both merchants and industrial operations, were being gouged on the rates they are paying. Substantial numbers of residents and businesses, who had previously been blissfully unaware or apathetic about the city’s trash franchise and its terms became conscious of the circumstance that had led to the city allowing the franchise contract to be perpetuated for three decades without a competitive bid process, leading many to believe it was incumbent on the council to cure the matter by putting the matter out to bid through what in governmental parlance is known as a request for proposals, also known as an RFP.
With 2026 approaching, among many residents there is concern that just as it had in 2015 when it bypassed the opportunity to carry out a bid process in in a very competitive market, the city council is on track to repeat that mistake.
In an effort to induce the council to allow it to retain the contract without any competition from other waste haulers, CR&R has been offering some one-time bonuses to the city and its customers designed to have the council simply roll the contract over.
One of those consisted of an offer to waive for one year in 2024, the annual rate increase for trash service tied to the consumer price index. After CR&R’s corporate representatives approached city officials about the franchise extension, they postponed the addition of this year’s 8.69 percent increase that was to take place as of July 1. Colton residents since July have continued to pay $32.44 per months for their trash service, as CR&R has for those four months foregone the $2.82 per month the company is entitled to tack onto those bills to bring them to $35.26 per month. They continued to hold off on that increase as the discussions about the franchise rollover have proceeded.
For those familiar with the situation, the city appears misfocused on the unilateral offerings from CR&R, when the opportunity presented to the city consists of the city’s ability, should it elect to do so, of playing two other entities off against one another in a way that would represent substantial savings to the city’s residents and businesses while enhancing not only service but the amount of money to be realized by the city in franchise fees.
Despite the setback that Burrtec had sustained when the franchise contract it had seemingly won fair-and-square in 1996 was corruptly diverted to Taormina, over time Burrtec had built itself into San Bernardino County’s refuse handling powerhouse. At present, it has grown to the point where it hauls more trash and recyclables by the ton than all other trash companies in San Bernardino County combined. Burrtec at present has plum franchises in the six largest of San Bernardino County’s 24 cities – San Bernardino, Fontana, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Victorville and Rialto. The company also has franchises in ten of the county’s other municipalities – Apple Valley, Twentynine Palms, Yucca Valley, Yucaipa, Adelanto, Upland, Grand Terrace, Redlands, Montclair and Barstow. Additionally, it is the franchised garbage handler in the unincorporated San Bernardino County communities of Amboy, Angeles Oaks, Yermo, Victorville, Valley of Enchantment, Twin Peaks, Arrowbear, Baker, Barton Flats, Bloomington, Blue Jay, Skyforest, Silver Lakes, Cedar Glen, Cedarpines Park, Cima, Crestline, Daggett, Del Rosa, Devore, Dumont Dunes, El Rancho Verde, Forest Falls, Fort Irwin, San Antonio Heights, Running Springs, Nipton, Oak Glen, Newberry Springs, Mount Baldy, Mountain Pass, Halloran, Helendale, Hinkley, Kelso, Lake Arrowhead, Lenwood, Landers, Lucerne Valley, Ludlow and Mentone. In 2001, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved an eleven-year contract with Burrtec for it to manage the county’s landfills. Prior to the June 30, 2012 expiration of that contract, the board of supervisors extended it for one year to allow a bidding process for a ten-year contract for the landfill management assignment to take place. Burrtec applied to be considered for that contract as did Waste Management, Inc. and Athens Services, also known as Arakelian Enterprises, Inc. Based upon the evaluation of the three proposals by the county public works division and the recommendation of then-Public Works Director Gerry Newcome, the county board of supervisors in April 2013 voted to enter into a contract with Athens Services running from July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2023, at an initial base annual cost of $16,686,700 to be adjusted pursuant to the contract for additional services. In February 2020, the board of supervisors voted to extend the landfill management contract with Athens until 2031.
The inroad that Athens, which has a substantial presence in Los Angeles County, made into San Bernardino County in 2013 registered as a threat to the primacy that Burrtec has in San Bernardino County. Since that time, Athens has endeavored to make further advances into San Bernardino County. Other than the 2020 extension of its landfill management assignment, however, it has been thwarted in that effort. Ideally, Athens would like to build upon the basis of running the county’s five landfills, nine transfer stations and a single composting facility within the county’s confines. So far, it has been unable to obtain a trash hauling franchise contract with any of San Bernardino County’s municipalities, although that has not been for lack of trying. Athens was in the thick of the competitive public bidding process for the Chino Hills franchise in late 2021 and early 2022 and the competition to obtain the trash franchise for the City of San Bernardino when the county seat dissolved its sanitation department in 2015. In the case of Chino Hills, Republic, which at that time held the Chino Hills franchise, lost it as the result of a highly competitive effort by six other companies to take it away. Athens Services, Waste Management, Burrtec, Valley Vista Services, Ware Disposal, and a joint venture involving Urbaser and American Reclamation made service and rate proposals, which were analyzed by the city’s trash hauling advising consultant, HF&H. In the initial round of competition, Urbaser/American Reclamation proved to be the low bidder in terms of costs, i.e., rates to residential and business customers, as it promised to deliver comprehensive trash service to the city’s customer base for $8.075 million annually, followed by Ware at $10.084 million and Valley Vista, which bid at $10.257 million.
HF&H, in looking at promised service levels, existing resources of the varying companies and their sustainability, made the determination that Urbaser/American Reclamation, Valley Vista and Ware simply were not big enough to belly up to the bar. The consideration that Urbaser/American Reclamation, Valley Vista and Ware were going to charge less than the other four companies indicated, HF&H somewhat paradoxically concluded, that they were not as suited and less qualified for the franchise. HF&H and Chino Hills city staff, focusing on the consideration that the Chino Hills franchise would represent a far larger percentage of Urbaser/American’s, Valley Vista’s and Ware’s revenue in Southern California than it would for Waste Management, Athens, Republic and Burrtec, implied that the Urbaser/American Reclamation, Valley Vista and Ware bids were unrealistic ones in that if any challenges to one of those companies or the waste handling industry in general occurred during the life of the franchise, the city might be left in the lurch with uncollected trash piling up and overflowing garbage in bins, dumpsters, garages, driveways, backyards, out onto streets and alleyways, upon which rats would forage while bubonic plague-infested fleas would be feasting upon the rats.
Consequently, Urbaser/American, Valley Vista and Ware were out and Waste Management, which had bid the annual job at $10.582 million in total cost to the city’s residential and business customers; Athens, which offered to maintain the city’s sanitation for $11.242 million per year; Republic, which offered to continue as it was already doing for $12.885 million the first 12 months of the upcoming contract period; and Burrtec, which was the high bidder at $13.483 million, were granted entrée into the second round of competition.
This was because, HF&H said, Waste Management, Athens, Republic and Burrtec had proven track records in the Southern California Market.
In the second round, Athens Services said it was prepared to offer the city’s residents and businesses trash hauling services in the first year for a total rate revenue of $10,508,000. Waste Management projected a total rate revenue higher than what it had previously at $10,676,000. Burrtec’s bid came in at $12,452,000.
In some cases, timing can mean everything. At that point, disaster struck for Republic. Its workforce was threatening to strike, creating a possibility that domestic and commercial trash bins in Chino Hills would not be picked up for a week or two. Republic’s sanitation workers had its corporate officers over a trash barrel. The company had no choice but to increase its drivers’ salaries. In the end, Republic Services’ bid came in at $12,725,000.
In parsing out what the total rate revenue offers meant, it was shown that Athens Services was proposing to collect each household’s trash for $25.80 per month, the lowest per-customer cost. Waste Management came in at $26.25. Republic Services, which was at that time charging Chino Hills residents $25.02 per month for the service being provided, proposed increasing the monthly rate to $26.45. Burrtec’s proposed monthly charge to residents was nearly off the chart, at $31.44 per month, though its commercial rates were lower.
As had already been demonstrated and would again be illustrated, customer cost was not the only consideration in conferring the franchise on one of the competitors. There were tangibles and intangibles in the calculation. Republic was in place in Chino Hills and had been functioning adequately for years. Transitioning to another hauler, no matter which one, would involve some bumps and hiccups here and there. Despite the 65 cents domestic household rate difference between Republic and low bidder Athens, the city council might have been able to countenance keeping Republic in place. But one of the intangibles was the fear factor that had been created with Republic’s drivers threatening to go out on strike.
Noteworthy is that the franchise in the end did not go to the lowest of the remaining bidders, Athens. Like Republic, Athens, too, was felled by one of the intangibles in the calculation. Controversy had been created when the three lowest bids, the ones from Urbaser/American, Valley Vista and Ware had been bypassed in the first round. Thereafter, in January, Athens had emerged as the low bidder among the remaining competitors, the ones which had not been eliminated because their rates were too low. After having discarded the lowest bid and low rates as the primary distinguishing characteristic in the competition, the council was on the brink of now using the lowest bid as the deciding criterion. But as it turned out, that lowest bidder among the four original highest bidders was the company that employed one the four deciding council members’ colleague, Brian Johsz. Councilman Johsz was employed by Athens as its director of government affairs. Consequently, he had recused himself from the discussion with regard to the trash franchise and any vote upon it. Still, the largest looming intangible was that a member of the council was about to see the fortunes of his employer boosted by the city’s rebidding of one of its major franchises. A decision was made at that point to bypass Athens as the low bidder, just as Urbaser/American, Valley Vista and Ware had been bypassed previously, if for nothing other than the sake of appearances.
By a vote of 3-to-1, with Councilman Peter Rogers dissenting, Waste Management, which held the franchise for trash pick-up in neighboring Chino, was given the franchise.
In 2015, San Bernardino, the county’s oldest city and one in the middle of bankruptcy, swallowed its municipal pride and gave up on being a full service city, resolving to and then stripping itself of both its fire department and its sanitation department. The latter move mirrored what Colton had done 20 years previously. Three main competitors emerged in the effort to capture the city’s trash franchise: Waste Management, Burrtec and Athens. Relatively early in the going, Waste Management came to recognized that Burrtec, which two years previously had lost out to Athens in its bid to retain the county landfill managing contract, was in a grudge match against its rival, and was not set to go to tremendous lengths to obtain the trash hauling franchise in the City of San Bernardino, which is the county’s most populous city and at 62.45 square miles, the fourth largest city land-wise in the county. Athens, which is pining to obtain trash hauling contracts in San Bernardino County to match its landfill managing contract and fulfill its corporate goal of further expansion in Southern California, was equally determined to obtain the contract. Accordingly, Waste Management realized that whosoever managed to underbid the competition in such a fiercely fought contest for contract, would need to function on a painfully thin profit margin. It dropped out of the bidding war, leaving the filed to Burrtec and Athens. That competition came down to the wire, with Burrtec ultimately prevailing.
The upshot, to those paying attention, is that Athens is intent on capturing, if at all possible, a trash hauling franchise in San Bernardino County if and when one comes available. Burrtec, which is top dog in San Bernardino County when it comes to the trash industry, but which is still smarting from Athens undercutting it by taking away the county landfill management assignment, is bound and determined to prevent Athens from gaining any further toehold within the county by which it might further eroded Burrtec’s [primacy.] Any San Bernardino County city which can harness the opportunity that presents could use it to lower – and lower substantially – the amount of money its residents and businesses are paying for trash service and wring from the eventual franchise holder an agreement to enhance the level of service it provides and return to the city itself, in terms of a franchise and operational permitting and licensing fees, an infusion of cash.
Industry executives the Sentinel has conferred with say that based on the size of Colton – 16.06 square miles – along with its population of 54,911, location and the concentration of both industry and commercial businesses within its confines, measured against the terms of its current trash franchise, the city, its residents and business owners stand to see a combined annual savings on rates/annual infusion of fees to City Hall of $2 million at the low end to $3 million at the top end in 2023 dollars, equal to anywhere from $20 million to $30 million over the life of the franchise from 2026 until 2036 by putting the contract out to bid.
The City of Colton in 2014 and 2015, led by then-mayors Sarah Zamora and Richard DeLaRosa, failed to seize that advantage. Colton’s current mayor, Frank Navarro, is seeking to seize that opportunity as 2026 approaches, at which point the current franchise with CR&R will expire. As of the 2022 election, the Colton City Council dropped from the six council members elected by district and one mayor elected at large previously to four council members, each representing a district that is roughly one-third larger than the previous districts, and a mayor elected at large. In the council’s current configuration, Navarro has the solid support of a single council member, that of Luis González, in his resolve to go out for a bid on the 2026-to-2023 trash franchise. The remaining members of the council – David Toro, Kelly Chastain and John Echevarria – appear purposed to simply roll the franchise agreement over as was done in 2005 and 2015.
The council majority this week stopped short of doing that at a specially-held council workshop to go over the city’s options with regard to the trash franchise. Though Echevarria at one point seemed, if not outright disposed then grudgingly accommodating of seeking a request for proposals on the upcoming ten-year term of the trash franchise contract, the council nevertheless put itself on track to engage in further discussions with CR&R and move toward perpetuating that company’s continuing status as the trash franchise holder.
During the city council’s discussion with regard to how the city trash hauling franchise contract should be handled, Mayor Frank Navarro refrained from advocating his position on the issue. Rather, he allowed his council colleagues to express their views and sound out their ideas.
Chastain and Toro came across as those most adamantly in favor of keeping CR&R in place.
She said she wanted the council to make a decision that night, which hinted toward her belief that a council majority would likely decide in favor of keeping CR&R as the city’s refuse handler.
She noted that in 2020, CR&R had appeared amenable to providing the city with a host fee for the presence of the company’s sorting facility within Colton’s city limits. The city had not closed that deal and Chastain estimated that putting the host fee in place then would have brought in “over $800,000 in the intervening years. She said the city should sign on the dotted line with CR&R now to get that money rolling in.
Chastain, who was on the city council at the time McDonald generated his report about Taormina’s bribing of city officials, indicated she did not want to consider that history in considering whether to perpetuate the hold Taormina’s corporate successor still has on the city.
With regard to the McDonald Report or accounts relating to it, Chastain said, “I know that there’s been things out there. I didn’t even want to read them because they bring up the past. The past is the past.”
She advocated that the city council give go-ahead to the contract extension to put CR&R in a position to expand its Colton operation.
“Giving them the contract continuation would help them get loans I take that into consideration.”
Chastain said continuity was important.
“There’s consistency,” she said in promoting giving the company the contract extension so that there will be a 40-year continuum of the Taormina/Republic/CR&R service relationship with the city. “If we go out to bid all the time… you sometimes can end up with, every five years, if we’re going to five-year contract, have a new facility. I think there can be things with consistency. So, I’m looking at how are they performing now, what can we do better and if they can, do we continue on. I think a lot can be said that there’s consistency. I would prefer to move forward.”
Councilman Luis González offered a countervailing perspective.
“The more information the better,” González said. “We need to take a really broad look and make sure we are making the best decision possible in order to protect ourselves. We need to look for the best deal. We can do better. It’s hard to choose better without something to compare it to.
“My position on the matter of trash service remains the same,” González went on. “Going out to a bid in my opinion is the best business decision. This is an important business decision. It is a major business decision. We need to shop for the best deal. The contract is worth multi-millions of dollars. That should raise a flag immediately. This decision involves a multi-year commitment. Last time we went to ten [years]. That was a rough ride. This decision affects every resident, every business and every industry in this city. We need to really vet it out and there’s only one way I know to vet it out and that is to have a comparative analysis of that. The only way to do that is to go out for bid.”
González continued. “There’s a lot of items that can be negotiated,” he said. “We can’t just rubberstamp them. We have to take a look at them. Many of these items don’t exist if we don’t go out for a bid. I’d like to highlight the word negotiate. I think that’s the key. Because if we have only one proposal, there’s nothing to negotiate. There’s nothing to compare because we don’t know if it’s the best deal or not. You have nothing to compare it to.”
González said there were a number of elements to the franchise agreement that needed to be considered, and the city should not merely reinstitute what already exists without an evaluation of their value. Among those issues, González said, were the length of the contract, the franchise fee, a host fee, street sweeping service, tree trimming service, pot hole repairs, tire collection service, bulk item pickup, electronic waste pickup, utilizing the franchise holder to clean the entrances to the city, conducting customer satisfaction surveys, hazardous waste service, having the city’s trash company participate in additional community clean up days, how to improve service to the company’s business accounts and industrial accounts, mitigation fees for damage the company’s operations and equipment might do to city infrastructure, single person and senior household rates, paper shredding service, Christmas tree disposal, financial compensation the city should be provided for handling the trash company’s billing, the charging of a fee to those companies seeking to compete for the trash franchise, having the winner in any franchise bid competition pay for the consultant hired by the city to carry out the analysis of those bids, determining what the city’s policy should be if the trash company fails to pick up binds or leaves trash on the ground and looking at what services the other trash haulers in the region provide their customers.
González responded to those on the council and in the community who suggested the city maintain the franchise contract with CR&R because of the relationship that has developed between the city and the company.
“Good relations could be built with other companies,” González said. “Any other company would want to build a good relationship with our city,” and that would extend to making donations to community organizations and charities, he said. He said some people were crediting CR&R with good will toward the community for merely complying with state regulations, which he said all companies in the trash hauling business have to do.
González noted the discussion with regard to the franchise was taking place three years before the franchise contract is to expire and that the discussion was taking place, essentially, at CR&R’s behest.
“I have no problem talking about the service,” González said. At the same time that CR&R is looking after itself, the city, too, should prioritize what is in its and its residents’ and businesses’ best interest. “They are a business and trying to make a business decision for themselves by jumping on this early,” González observed. “We are a business too and we need to do a business decision for ourselves. We need to do the same thing and that’s to make the best decision for our residents and our businesses. I support going out to bid so that we can negotiate competitively, so we can compare the best deal. Without it, how do we know we have the best deal? We don’t. So, I’m in favor of going out to bid.”
Toro, while acknowledging that the issues with regard to service levels to be provided by the city’s franchised trash hauler brought up by González were valid, nevertheless pushed toward having CR&R being the provider of those services, and he expressed an aversion to having the city engaging in a competitive bid process.
“When I made the motion to have this workshop, it wasn’t to discuss going out to an RFP,” Toro said. “It was, because staff doesn’t want to negotiate this, for this council to sit back and say, ‘This is what we want to tell CR&R is what we want’ and for them to come back to us and say, ‘Yes we can.’ or ‘No, we can’t.’ At that point, then we can decide which way we want to go.”
Toro provided a selective comparison of rates charged by CR&R in Colton and rates charged by other haulers in other cities. The rate he quoted appeared to be related to domestic or residential customers rather than commercial and/or industrial ones.
He said that customers in Barstow, Adelanto, Victorville, Chino Hills, San Bernardino and Grand Terrace have lower rates than those in Colton, but that in Highland, Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario, Chino and Redlands, customers, or at least residential customers, are currently paying higher trash rates than in Colton.
Toro said he had considered the service and rates offered by CR&R, Burrtec, Republic, Valley Vista, Athens and Waste Management in comparison with those offered by CR&R. He suggested, without saying so definitively, that CR&R was holding its own.
While sidestepping the consideration that Taormina/Republic/CR&R have already secured a 30-year franchise without again undertaking a competitive bidding process and that if the CR&R franchise contract is rolled over, Colton will go at least 40 years without competitively bidding the contract, Toro dismissed suggestions that the 10-year duration of the contract extension now being discussed is too long. He referenced multiple franchise contract durations locally that equal or exceed the ten-year period, including San Bernardino with 10 years, Bloomington with a 15-year franchise, Highland with a 20-year plus arrangment; Fullerton with 18 years and Cypress with a 10-year contract.
In expressing his rationale against putting the contract out to bid, he raised the specter of Burrtec, which already has an overwhelming number of trash hauling franchises among county cities, prevailing in the competition.
“For our surrounding cities, Burrtec has all the cities except Colton and Loma Linda,” Toro said. “In a sense, my opinion is Burrtec has a monopoly on this area. If they get Colton and maybe Loma Linda, they own this. And what happens when a company has a monopoly? They can do whatever they want.”
Toro explicated what is for him a pointedly idiosyncratic objection to the practice of carrying out open public competitive bidding.
“I personally do not have confidence in the RFP process,” Toro said. “Why? Because I’ve been through an RFP process in my personal life and what happened.”
He explained further.
“I don’t know who said it – These guys [CR&R] are the home town people,” Toro said. “They know the city. They know what they’re getting into. Shouldn’t they be the lowest bidder? Well, the business that I was in, there were four or five bidders. We were the in-house vendor and we came in third place. I don’t know how that happened. Obviously, somebody underbid it, and, come long story short, it was underbidded, underbid by $6 million. That first year – and I was fortunately to get absorbed into this company that won the contract because they needed that experience – what happened? What I was doing, the workload became four or five times more. I had to take less pay. Within a year, it was scare tactics. ‘All hands on deck! We’re going to lose the contract.’ Why? Because they couldn’t meet the expectations of what was happening. So, they had to basically burn the bridges at both ends, trying to make things work. Seven years later, now that the contract is ready for renewal, they’re finally at the place they should have been seven years ago. But within that seven years, so many people lost their jobs, customer services really tanked during the first two or three years. That’s my expectations of what’s going to happen if we go out to RFP. That’s my personal opinion on RFPs.”
Councilman Echevarria decried that Mayor Navarro had constrained the format of the meeting to prevent CR&R from making a comprehensive presentation of its proposal for being permitted to retain the contract to provide Colton with sanitation service.
“We wanted some information,” Echevarria said. “Instead we got a staff report. Penultimately, Echevarria signaled his willingness to put off the decision relating to the trash hauling franchise until much further down the road, closer to the time the franchise is nearing its expiration. He endorsed an option put onto the agenda by city staff to table the matter until later.
Mayor Navarro made clear that the motion to accept the staff’s option was that the “council provide staff with no direction, allow the current contract to continue until subsequent action or direction until the contract’s expiration on June 30, 2026.” At that point, City Manager Bill Smith made clear that the option Echevarria was promoting with his motion meant that the city would not entertain any of CR&R’s options at this point, while allowing the current the contract to continue.
“When we get close to the expiration of the contract, obviously, we would initiate an RFP process,” Smith said. With that made clear, Navarro seconded Echevarria’s motion.
In a brief discussion that ensued, Chastain emphasized her preference to vote on extending CR&R’s franchise contract that night.
Toro then broke in to offer a substitute motion, which under Robert’s Rules of Order takes precedence over a previously offered motion.
“I would like to see what CR&R out of all those things we asked for can deliver on,” Toro said.
Toro then enunciated that his motion was to have CR&R “take all our information and come back at a date to be determined to [let the city council] know what they can do and can’t do. If at that point they can’t give us an offer we can’t confuse, then we continue with option 2 [i.e., Echevarria’s proposed endorsement of staff’s option to eventually take the matter out to bid].”
Toro’s motion passed by a margin of 3-to-2, with Toro, Chastain and Echevarria prevailing and Navarro and González dissenting.

More than two years after events overtook Upland’s premier high-end auto dealership, engulfing it in scandal and forcing its closure, the primary owner of the company and the company’s former business manager have been criminally charged.
On Wednesday, November 1, the California Attorney General’s Office filed 37 felony counts of grand theft and one count of elder theft and 13 charges of tax fraud against Clayton Thom, the former co-owner of now defunct CNC Motors. Valarie Tanaka, the Business manager and head accountant at CNC, was charged as a co-defendant to Thom in all 13 of the tax fraud charges.
In 2018, CNC, which had been founded in 2006 by Craig Thom and his sons Fraser Thom and ClayThom and had functioned out of three other locations, including one in Upland, located into an impressive automobile sales facility and showroom known as CNC Motors at 1018 East 20th Street, located just north of the 210 Freeway near the Campus Avenue exit in Upland. The dealership and its showroom were constructed under the aegises of CDJT Development, CNC Motors Real Estate LLC, and CRAIG THOM PROPERTIES, LLC, a California Domestic Limited-Liability Company created by Clay Thom in September 2016, four years after the death of Craig Thom. The undertaking, which entailed a 27,500-square-foot showroom, and 12,000-square-foot auto service and detailing facility, was built at a reported cost of  $11.5 million, which included land acquisition, grading, engineering and architectural preparation, construction and the cost of installing a storm drain and sewer lines in compliance with city specifications and requirements.
vehicles, including late model Maseratis, Ferraris, Jaguars, Porsches, Lotuses, Aston Martins, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, McLarens, Mercedes Benzes, less expensive mid-range vehicles as well as restored vintage 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s cars. Contained under the same roof as CNC were Lotus of Upland LLC, an auto dealer; Spyker of Upland LLC, another auto dealer; GFY Auto Inc, another dealer; Fast Fix & Detail, an auto services provider; and LIG Financial Services, a lender.
The dealership/showroom at 1018 East 20th Street played a key roll in allowing Thom to perpetrate what the California Attorney General’s Office now maintains was little more than a pyramid scheme. Thom utilized the showroom filled with well upwards of $30 million worth of impressive vehicles to get car owners to entrust him with their vehicles, many of which were exotic ones valued at over $100,000, so that he could sell them on consignment. Making confident representations that he could sell the vehicles in relatively short and obtain for the seller a price generally considered to be above the listed value of the cars, providing both himself and the seller a tidy profit, Thom in virtually every case induced car owner into voluntarily turning the vehicle over to CNC by personally driving the vehicle into the CNC showroom and handing over the keys to Thom or one of CNC’s employees. This was a strategy to turn any dispute over CNC’s possession of a vehicle it did not have title to and any subsequent disposition of the car into a civil rather than a criminal matter.
In most cases, Thom would then sell the vehicles, obtaining payment either in cash from the buyer or payment in full from the buyer’s lender. Thom invariably permitted the purchaser to take immediate possession of the vehicle upon the cash sale or the signing of documents, offering assurance that the title documentation to the car would be soon forthcoming.
When the seller would seek payment, Thom used a variety of assertions to defer passing the money received in the sale through to the title owner, including that payment was to be made later that day, the next day, or within a few days. Upon coming to the dealership, either by invitation or unexpectedly, the seller would be told that the dealership did not at that juncture have sufficient funds in its accounts to make payment or that the company controller who had possession of the company’s checkbook was not there. On occasion, Thom would arrange for a check to be cut to the car seller, but payment on the check would be canceled or it was returned for insufficient funds.
In some cases, Thom sold the cars directly to a buyer. In other cases, he unloaded the cars to a dealership. In virtually every case, Thom made those sales without himself being in possession, even as an intermediary, of the title, such that the purchaser never actually received title.
Multiple sellers reported to the Sentinel and other sources that they were not notified of the sales until they made an inquiry. In this way, the seller was not asked to hand off title nor provided with the opportunity to sign a release of liability. On at least three occasions known to the Sentinel, an owner, having logically but erroneously assumed on the basis of a misrepresentation by Thom or another CNC salesperson the individual or entity in possession of the car had secured insurance for it, canceled his insurance coverage for the vehicle.
There was further indication that Thom on some occasions took cars on consignment and then provided those cars to individuals or dealerships to whom he had previously owed money. CNC reportedly was in arrears to Lotus well over $2.5 million by Spring 2021, and as a result, those who had purchased brand new Lotus Evoara GTs from the dealership had not been given title to the cars and were unable to register them.
There were multiple narratives from Thom’s victims that he had, as a middleman, perfected the means of taking the money involved in the transactions he was involved in for himself and leaving ownership up in the air between the sellers and buyers, most often with the seller still in possession of the title and the buyer in possession of the car.
An element of Thom’s formula was keeping the seller in the dark as to who the purchaser was.
A significant number of the sellers financed the purchase of the vehicles in question and therefore found themselves owing money on the cars. Thus, the sellers were in a large number of cases counting on the sale of the vehicles to pay off the debt relating to the original purchase of the vehicles. By getting involved with Thom and CNC, the would-be sellers were in the position in which they were yet paying the liens on cars they didn’t have. In such cases, the original owner had title to the vehicle and legal liability for it. The individual in possession of the car did not have title, which rendered problematic the securing of registration and insurance for the vehicle in question. So, in addition to the owner yet making payments on a car he no longer possessed, he found himself in the position of having to pay for insurance on the vehicle as well.
In one case, the owner of a car was stiffed by Thom after he dropped the car off with CNC as part of a consignment arrangement. The car then was transferred to a dealership to which Thom reportedly owed money as part of a trade to pay down on that debt. The owner of the car, unable to induce Thom to make good on the money owed from the consignment sale, without Thom’s cooperation, initiated a search for his car. He succeeded in locating the vehicle in the showroom of another dealer. After first feigning interest in purchasing the vehicle, the owner was able to obtain particulars with regard to what had occurred, at which time he produced his title to the car and informed the dealership that the car was his. The dealership’s owner, recognizing that the dealership could not claim legal ownership of the car, while acknowledging that the owner indeed appeared to have the right to take possession of the car, prevailed upon the owner to permit the dealership to make contact with Thom to get things squared up before that occurred. After several days, nothing was resolved and Thom was not forthcoming with any money. At that point, the owner returned to the dealership with his title document and members of the police department in the city where the dealership was located, and was able to recover his car.
Outcomes for most of those who were seeking have Thom and CNC Motors sell their vehicles were generally not as satisfactory.
One factor is that the Upland Police Department has been reluctant to get involved in the matters involving CNC. On a basic level, since Thom did not have possession of the cars themselves and the original owners in their narratives generally acknowledged having voluntarily turned the vehicles over to CNC, investigators could readily conclude the matter fell within the rubric of civil law rather than criminal law, in that while what CNC and Thom had engaged in conversion and a civil theft, their collective actions did not rise to the level of a criminal act. Further, to the extent that criminal fraud could be conceivably have been alleged against CNC or Thom, the Upland Police were discouraged from pursuing the matter as a criminal case, given that CNC represented one of the City of Gracious Living’s more prestigious business operations. Consequently, when those who had lost a vehicle or money to Thom’s tactics approached the Upland Police Department, its officers routinely referred them to the California Department of Motor Vehicles and its criminal/civil investigative arm.
One of the earliest efforts to hold Thom and CNC accountable through a civil action was that by The Alegra Collection, LLC, a car dealership in Tampa , Florida that purchased 2017 Mercedes G550 for $225,000 in December 2020 from CNC Motors. Alegra sued CNC, Thom and Joseph Firmapaz a CNC sales representative in United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa, alleging that while CNC delivered the vehicle, it withheld the title. Ultimately, CNC, Thom and Firapaz were able to get the suit dismissed by going to an effort to pay the owner of the vehicle, obtain the title and provide it to Alegra.
This illustrated how Thom was able to remain a step ahead of the law and authorities in that he would ultimately perform and come through for those customers or victims if, but only if, they showed the willingness to pursue action of some sort against Thom and CNC. Those who took such meaningful action, which required finding Thom to serve him, would eventually be paid. Those who did not take any action or effective action would not be paid. The ratio of those paid to those who were not was less than one to ten. This qualified what Thom was engaged in, authorities say, as a pyramid scheme.
Thom until 2021 lived in a 5,100-square foot mansion on a 0.38-acre lot at at 2588 West Euclid Crest in San Antonio Heights, the unincorporated county area north of Upland. That home, valued in 2021 at $1.4 when it sold in 2021 had been paid for by funds from the Thom Family Trust. Clayton Thom and his wife, Amy, cleared out of that residence as more and more of the victims of the fraudulent CNC car consignments had become aware of where the couple was living and began sharing that information with other victims.
Thom and his family sought to prevent those who had dealings with CNC and the public at large from learning where they were living in the aftermath of their departure from San Antonio Heights.
At this point, the long arm of the law has caught up with Thom.
According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Senior Assistant Attorney General James Root, Supervising Deputy Attorney General Patricia Fusco and deputy attorney generals Michael Hasychak, Vikram Mandla and Marisa Landin allege 51 separate sometimes related and sometimes unrelated criminal acts against Thom and Tanaka, 44 of which are counts lodged solely against Thom and 7 of which are lodged against both Thom and Tanaka.
According to the criminal filing, Thom stole, or in the language of the filing, “fraudulently appropriated,” vehicles from sellers and stole, or in the language of the filing “did knowingly and designedly, by a false representation and pretense by fraud” from buyers of some of those cars. Not all of the cars stolen were fraudulently sold, though some were. In those cases where an alleged car theft occurred and an alleged fraudulent sale occurred, two counts are listed. Where only an alleged car theft occurred, as single count is listed. According to the filing, in one of the cases, a 2003 was stolen from a senior citizen sometime between June 2018 and December 2019 and was sold for $150,000. With regard to that matter, four counts were filed, one pertaining to the grand theft of the vehicle, another pertaining to the grand theft of the $150,000 and a third charge of grand theft from an elder and another pertaining to the grand theft of $250,000. Apparently, the vehicle was sold $100,000 more than it was valued at.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2020 Mercedes G63 stolen on November 26, 2019, which was fraudulently sold for $251,593.85.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2020 Chevrolet Corvette stolen in November 2020 and fraudulently sold for $47,986.16.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 1953 Jaguar X K 120 between September 2018 and March 2020 and fraudulently sold for $100,000.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2020 Mercedes G63 stolen on June 1, 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $183,341.59.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2005 Thunderbird stolen between January and February 2021, which was fraudulently sold for $22,000.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2017 Nissan GTR solen between October 2020 and December 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $123,909.26.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2017 Nissan GTR solen between October 2020 and December 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $109,084.09.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle stolen between July 2020 and October 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $40,000.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2017 Chevy Corvette stolen between February 2020 and July 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $66,217,60.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2018. Dodge Challenger Demon stolen between September 2020 and December 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $139,230.13.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 1999 Porsche 911 stolen between August 2020 and December 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $31,767.13.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 1981 Chevrolet Corvette stolen between September 2020 and February 2021, which was fraudulently sold for $20,378.
Two counts of grand theft were filed with regard to a 2000 Ferrari 360 stolen between October 2020 and December 2020, which was fraudulently sold for $73,869.08.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2001 Hummer stolen between December 2020 and April 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2009 Audi R8 stolen between August 2020 and November 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2007 Ferrari stolen between July 2020 and October 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2014 Mercedes Benz SLS stolen between February 2021 to March 2021.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2009 Maserati Quarttroporte stolen between July and October 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 1975 Lincoln Mar IV stolen between October 2020 and November 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2017 Tesla stolen in August 2020.
A single count of grand theft was filed with regard to a 2016 McClaren 675 GT Spider stolen between December 2020 and April 2021.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $434,381 in income collected by CNC Motors during the third quarter of 2018 in a filing dated October 18, 2018.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $434,381 in income collected by CNC Motors during the third quarter of 2018 in a filing dated October 18, 2018.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $593,128 in income collected by CNC Motors during the fourth quarter of 2018 in a filing dated January 31, 2019.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $452,982 in income collected by CNC Motors during the first quarter of 2019 in a filing dated April 30, 2019.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $442,840 in income collected by CNC Motors during the second quarter of 2019 in a filing dated July 31, 2019.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $588,489 in income collected by CNC Motors during the third quarter of 2019 in a filing dated October 18, 2018.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $695,887 in income collected by CNC Motors during the fourth quarter of 2019 in a filing dated January 31, 2020.
Both Thom and Tanaka were charged with failing to report $42,000 in income collected by CNC Motors during the first and second quarters of 2020 in filing dated May 20, 2020 and December 31, 2020.
Thom is also charged separately with failing to file tax returns for January through March 2021, filing false sales tax returns in quarters 1, 3 and 4 in 2019, filing a false sales tax return in quarter 1 of 2020, filing a false sales tax return in quarter 2 and 3 of 2020, failure to file a sales tax return in quarter 4 of 2020 and failure to file a sales tax return in quarter 1 of 2021.
Thom was taken into custody on Monday, October 30 at 4:40 p.m. by investigators with the California Attorney General’s Office at a residence in the 2100 block of Laurel Avenue in Upland. He remains jailed, held in lieu of $8.7 million bail.
Tanaka was arrested as well, but she has been released on her own recognizance.

Counter-reaction to resistance has shown itself to be contagious in the Chino Valley in the last fortnight, with two commissioners in the area’s two cities each being forced off the citizen participation panels they had been appointed to.
The most recent to descend from his municipality’s dais is Greg Marquez, whose exit from the Chino Community Services, Parks and Recreation Commission on November 2 followed by little more than a week Bob Goodwin’s booting from the Chino Hills Planning Commission.
Marquez’s hold on the vaunted position he has held has been eroding for some time, whereas Goodwin’s fall from grace was more sudden and accelerated.
Marquez was appointed to the Chino Community Services Commission in 2019. During his first three years in that capacity, he garnered something of a reputation for speaking his mind and offering a perspective that was appreciated by some and less popular with others. Marquez’s term had ended on June 30, 2022 a replacement for him had not been appointed, and his time on the commission had been temporarily extended.
One of the ways in which Marquez had garnered attention during his time on the commission was to suggest that with so many residents in 96,276-population Chino interested in civic participation, the city might want to take a look at limiting the number of terms an appointee to the city’s commissions could serve and perhaps consider term limits for the mayor and members of the city council, as well. While some found merit in the idea, others, particularly some members of city commissions who had been around for a while, took a different view.
Marquez declared his intention of running for the city council in the November 2022 election. In July, when he filed candidacy papers with the city clerk to vie in Chino’s District 2 race, one of Marquez’s Community Services Commission colleagues, Brenda Strong, questioned whether Marquez’s position on the commission conferred upon him an advantage in running for office in the city. Thereupon, a subcommittee of the commission, which included Linda Takeuchi, Neal Jerry, and Strong, was tasked with considering if allowing Marquez to maintain his status as a commissioner compromised either the integrity of the commission or the electoral process in Chino. Ultimately, the trio felt it would be best for Marquez’s post to be declared vacant and the city to seek applicants to replace him. Marquez remained in place on the panel past the June 30, 2022 expiration of his term, but Mayor Eunice Ulloa had not appointed a replacement, and Takeuchi, Jerry and Strong acquiesced in allowing him to remain on the commission until his replacement was found.
The incumbent in the District 2 council post was Walt Pocock, who had been appointed by the city council in May 2021 to complete the term to which Councilman Mark Hargrove was elected in 2018 following Hargrove’s death. To remain on the council, Pocock needed to vie for election in November 2022. He opted out of running however, and Marquez, consequently, found himself vying against Sylvia Orozco and Curtis Burton for the District 2 berth.
As the election season was getting into full gear, Chino residents interested in replacing Marquez on the Community Services Commission were invited to fill out applications by August 19. The commission, which consists of Takeuchi, Jerry, Strong, Marquez, Robert Martinez, Jamie Harwood and Julissa Montenegro-Olivas, were called upon on September 26 to consider the applicants, which included Michelle Ballantyne, Charleen King, Richard Montijo, Jamie Aviles, Armida Garcia, Cecil Howell, David Matza, Stepheno Padilla, and Marquez, who reapplied.
With Takeuchi absent and Marquez not participating in the discussion, the commission considered a recommendation by a selection committee, consisting of Martinez, Harwood and Montenegro-Olivas, that Marquez be reappointed. On September 26, the commission voted 4-to-1, with Jerry, Martinez, Harwood and Montenegro-Olivas prevailing and Strong opposed to make a non-binding recommendation that Marquez be kept in place.
The council confirmed his reappointment, and Marquez thus headed into the November 2022 election as a member of the commission, even with Strong indicating her concern that Marquez was exploiting his position on the commission to boost his council electoral chances.
In the November 8 election, Burton captured the District 2 post with 2,955 of the 6,079 total votes cast, or 48.61 percent, to Orozco’s 1,632 votes or 26.85 percent and Marquez’s third-place showing, with 1,492 votes or 24.54 percent.
Marquez remained animated about the city’s appointment and reappointment process for commissions and committees.
In 1990, when the methodology for appointing the commission members was settled upon, the members of the city council were elected at large as was the mayor. At present, the mayor is still elected at large, but the four council members now represent a single district and are themselves residents of one district. Each district comprises one fourth of the city.
The way the appointments to the seven-member Public Services Commission are currently made involves six being designated by the mayor and the seventh being selected by the members of the commission, with confirmation by the city council.
In May, Marquez said the selection process should be changed so that each council member makes a selection of someone from his or her district, with the mayor getting two appointments of residents living anywhere in the city.
In August, Marquez publicly restated his conviction that the city’s commissioners should not be indulged in monoplization of the limited number of positions in which residents can engage in the advisory and decision-making processes relating to civic issues for a decade or more, on that occasion making pointed reference to “ridiculously long terms.” He called for insuing the positions with new blood, new people and “new ideas.”
In the two months since then, west across the city limits in Chino Hills, Bob Goodwin, who is revered as a demigod by legions of residents of that city because of the yeoman’s work he did in convincing the California Public Utilities Commission to force the de-erection of 18 197-foot high high tension electrical towers in Chino Hills, was ignominiously bounced from the planning commission in that city.
Goodwin, with his grassroots effort involving a group he had formed called “Hope for the Hill” took on Southern California Edison, which in 2009 had obtained clearance in a 3-to-2 vote of the California Public Utilities Commission to place the above-ground electrical line within its 150-foot wide right-of-way running the entire 5.8 miles across Chino Hills from Tonner Canyon to the Riverside County line. There were long odds against the effort. Electrical lines run through communities throughout the state and no such previous effort to underground them had ever succeeded. When the City of Chino Hills sought to challenge the placement of the towers, West Valley Superior Court Judge Keith D. Davis ruled the California Public Utilities Commission had exclusive jurisdiction regarding the route used by Edison. Davis’s ruling was upheld when Chino Hills appealed it to the 4th District Court of Appeal.
By 2011, Edison was pressing ahead with the project and had erected 18 of the towers in the city when Goodwin and his cohorts pressed a last-ditch appeal to the California Public Utilities Commission, let at that point by its chairman, Michael Peevey, who prior to his time on the PUC was a senior executive and eventual president of Edison International and Southern California Edison Company.
A temporary halt to the towers’ construction was granted in November 2011 while a potential undergrounding alternative was explored. Meanwhile, after extensive exchanges of information and hearings, the California Public Utilities Commission’s board of directors in July 2013, voted 3-2, with Peevey and commissioners Mark Ferron and Catherine Sandoval prevailing, to reverse its 2009 decision and directed Southern California Edison to underground all of the towers in Chino Hills.
Shortly thereafter, Goodwin was appointed to the Chino Hills Public Works Commission, an honorific that had been extended twice thereafter.
In July, the Chino Hills City Council – consisting of Ray Marquez, Cynthia Moran, Art Bennett, Brian Johsz and Peter Rogers – considered and approved a $55,000 proposal to have the company Architectural Design & Signs create a so-called mayors’ wall that would display framed photographs and remembrances of the city’s mayors going back to its 1991 founding. The council considered the idea to be a routine one, such that it was not scheduled to be voted upon as a separate item but was placed on the city council’s consent calendar, which is reserved for what are deemed noncontroversial issues. Ray Marquez, who is no blood relation to Greg Marquez, objected to the concept and had it pulled from the consent calendar so he could cast a vote against. The creation of the wall was thus approved on a 4-to-1 vots.
Goodwin was critical of the idea and the outlay of money for what he deemed to be a show of egotism by the city’s politicians, what he characterized as gratuitous self-aggrandizement. Over the last several months, other voices around the community were heard echoing Goodwin’s opposition. On October 10, with the mayor’s wall not having yet been completed, the city council revisited the issue, with the project no longer being presented as the “mayors’ wall” but rather as a “History and Leadership Display.” During the public comment portion of the meeting, Goodwin spoke in opposition to the project, as did another resident, Greg Fresonke. Another resident, Jim Gallagher, suggested that the wall in the City Hall lobby where the project is to be completed be dedicated to all members of the city council rather than just the mayor.
The item was again pulled from the consent calendar for discussion. Both Bennett and Moran decried the lack of civility of those criticizing the project. Some sensitivity on the part of the council was expressed with regard to the cost of the project, and the matter was tabled, i.e., put on hold, pending efforts to find some alternate form of funding to pay for it other than through the city’s budget.
Two weeks later, at the city’s October 24 meeting, an item appeard on the agenda entitled “Consideration and possible action to remove Bob Goodwin from position a public works commissioner.”
At that meeting, the council voted 4-to-1, with Ray Marquez dissenting, to remove Goodwin.
It was against that backdrop, with a clear display that the wages of dissent in the Chino Valley is ostracism from the establishment, in an atmosphere in which Greg Marquez found himself being pressured to remove himself from the Community Services Commission. Chino city officials saw how how their counterparts in Chino Hills were able to insist that those allowed into the City Hall tent are required to be team players who are deferential to those in leadership roles. A point made by members of the Chino Hills City Council was that it was poor form for Goodwin, a city insider, to have publicly belittled Chino Hills’ city fathers. If he could not keep his thoughts and criticisms to himself, they suggested, he should have quietly buttonholed the members of the council to convey his feelings rather than washing such linen in public, they said.
Greg Marquez, whose accomplishments on behalf of Chino do not rise to the level of what Goodwin did for Chino Hills a decade ago, had let his ego run away with him, some Chino officials aver. He was being pressured to get off the panel he was privileged to be appointed to. If he did not accede to that pressure, he would very like have been removed. Next week, the city council is slated to consider eliminating the Community Services Commission’s at-large seat, supplanting it with another position on the panel to be appointed by the mayor.
Marquez got the message.
He penned a resignation letter, submitted to the city yesterday, in which he stated,
“I hereby resign immediately from the Community Services, Parks & Recreation Commission. It is obvious that the commission no longer recognizes its purpose to involve the public in the delivery of community services. I am determined I can be a better advocate for the residents of this city as a private citizen.”

Moving on to a year after Upland voters rejected Measure L, which would have imposed a half-cent sales tax increase on non-food and non-pharmaceutical transactions in the 15.6-square mile city, City Hall appears to have bypassed the dire financial consequences city officials warned would occur when they were promoting the tax.
Citing the pending complete discontinuation of special federal and state funding provided to cities as special augmentations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the anticipated deficit that would result in, Mayor Bill Velto and councilmen Rudy Zuniga and Carlos Garcia, Councilwoman Shannan Maust and then-Councilwoman Janice Elliott used their authority to place an initiative, subsequently designated Measure L by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office, on the November 8, 2022 ballot.
Upland Treasurer Greg Bradley, Upland Parks Committee Member Sarah Lee, Upland resident James Thomas, retired Upland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Loren Sanchez and retired Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Susan Higgins Coniglio, standing in for Mayor Velto and the city council, in the summer of 2022 stated “Without the local funding Measure L will provide, Upland will be forced to cut vital public safety services. Today, Upland cannot afford to maintain basic local services like local street, alley, or pothole repair, clean up piles of trash and litter that people dump along streets and sidewalks, maintain our parks, or address homelessness.
Unless we keep our taxpayer dollars local, Upland will have no choice but to further cut vital street, storm drain, waterway, and sidewalk repairs, costing we taxpayers millions as repairs cost more in the future.
local business leader Jason Gaudy, Bradley, Lee, Thomas and both attorney Jason Gaudy and retired Upland Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Loren Sanchez, again speaking for Velto, Zuniga, Garcia, Maust and Elliott, told Upland residents, “Upland services have been slashed to the bone and cannot be cut further without impacting the services you expect and deserve. Without Measure L, we won’t be able to keep the number of police officers patrolling our neighborhoods.
Your Yes on L vote is the only thing that will allow current sidewalk repair programs to continue.
Unless we act, Upland will have to cut police officers on top of 14 unfilled police positions, making our neighborhoods less safe. Without Measure L, our streets, sidewalks, trees, parks, and storm drains will worsen, affecting your cars and all our wallets as we must pay more to repair in the future. Measure L will allow us to address the basic quality of life services we all need.”
Eleven months after Measure L was defeated, with 10,222, or 44.6 percent of the 22,919 Upland residents participating voting in favor of it and 12,697 or 55.4 percent voting against it, Upland officials maintain there has been no diminution in the quality of life in the City of Gracious Living.
A circular inserted by the city in the most recent utility billing sent to Upland residents states, “The City of Upland has passed a balanced budget for the 2023/2024 fiscal year – the first time in four years that the budget was balanced without using one-time funding. Despite rising costs, the city tkes pride in the fact that our departments are performing outstanding work with the resources they have. We will continue to seek additional revenue sources to improve the quality of life in Upland. Faster 9-1-1 police response times, getting potholes fixed quicker, citywide street improvements, and sidewalk repairs remain top priorities we are working to address in the future.”
The circular continues, “The good news is that Upland’s fiscal condition remains stable and there are signs of improvement. The city council’s thoughtful and measured response to our fiscal situation has kept Upland on a sustainable financial path while the city continues to provide core services. Looking forward to the next five years, we must focus on safeguarding our operating reserves and make strategic financial decision to ensure that we have a resilient city over the long-term. With this year’s budget, the general fund will cover all the recent staffing additions to our police department made initially two years ago with one-time funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The city council prioritized identifying long-term funding for these new police position so they wouldn’t go away when the one-time funding ended.”
An assertion made in promoting Measure L last year was that Upland is underpayng its city employees, most notably its police officers, and that with other cities in the region offering their employees higher salaries and more generous benefits, Upland was in danger of losing its best employees, including its police officers, to other jurisdictions.
According to the circular, the city employee pay issue has been addressed.
“Another accomplishment was the recent completion of new memorandums of understanding with the city’s four bargaining groups,” the circular states. “The city council supported efforts to retain our valuable employees and implemented a classification and compensation study that brings Upland employees to the median salary of our comparable agencies,” which the circular clarified consisted of “12 local cities of a similar size.” According to the circular, “Negotiations with the city’s four bargaining groups yielded long-term agreements that give the city the labor security essential for efficient operations over the long-term.”
Furthermore, according to the circular, “[N]otable capital improvement projects are scheduled for completion this fiscal year, including the Arrow Highway rehabilitation project, which is bringing new pavement from North Benson to North San Antonio avenues at a cost of over $11 million and the multi-year construction of Reservoir 15 at over $17 million, an infrastructure investment which will provide clean water storage for many years to come.”

An incident in which a local high school basketball coach was sucker punched by a former Cal State San Bernardino hoop standout-turned-referee during a hoops game last month is garnering unwanted national attention.
On Saturday October 28, the Oak Hills High School basketball team was competing against Arlington High’s five in a fall season game at Santiago High School in Corona.
According to witnesses and video footage of the game obtained by the Sentinel, Oak Hills High School head coach Rob Alexander took exception, it appeared, to at least two calls that Brandon Knapper made during the game’s second half. He yelled a verbal protest about at least one of those calls during the course of play prior to the incident, according to witnesses.
The video seen by the Sentinel, shot from an elevated vantage point behind the Oak Hills bench, was silent and the verbal altercation between Alexander and Knapper was therefore not audible.
The video depicts the ongoing game, as a player is seen going down beneath the basket at the closest goal to the camera and the ball bounces out of bounds beyond the goal. As another referee closer to that action retrieves the ball, Knapper can be seen walking along the sideline of the court near the Oak Bench. He approaches Alexander in a casual manner, and Alexander, standing just out of bounds near the bench, refocuses his attention from the action on the court to Knapper, who has come to stand directly in front of him. Knapper begins to engage verbally, it appears in a nonthreatening manner, with Alexander, who remains in an unguarded stance, with his hands on his hips, beginning, it seems, to be put his hands in his pockets. At that point, Knapper, who looks to be holding the whistle attached around his neck with his left hand, quickly and violently sucker punches Alexander with a straight across right. Alexander collapses at once, folding toward the ground slightly to his right, into a semi-sitting position on the bench, whereupon Knapper follows his first blow with at least two more downward punches and attempts at a third and a fourth, as what appears to be another Oak Hills coach who was seated on the bench attempts to press Knapper away from Alexander. Oak Hills players on the sideline begin to react and then swarm toward and over the two men, with one of the Oak Hills players punching Knapper in the head as Knapper is still seeking to unload punches on Alexander.
Thereafter, the players on the court as well as players from the opposing team across the court come toward the Oak Hills bench in what appears to be a frenzied melee.
Law enforcement was called and the game was discontinued.
Alexander was taken to a hospital, where he told officers he wanted to press charges against Knapper.
Knapper voluntarily surrendered at the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department jail Sunday, and was charged with battery causing serious bodily injury and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, both felonies.
His bail was set at $25,000. He was released Wednesday. He had a court appearance this morning, but the Sentinel was not in attendance and was unable to obtain any information by press time.
Knapper was once a promising Division I college basketball player, but he has been unable so far to make the transition to the NBA.
He graduated from South Charleston High School in 2016. During the 2015-16 season at South Charleston High, playing for coach Vic Herbert, he averaged 28.5 points, 6.0 assists and 5.4 steals per game as a senior.
Rather than going directly to college, Knapper re-enrolled at the High School level, attending Hargrave Military Academy to sharpen his scholastic skills to be able to go to college and play basketball there. At Hargrave in 2016-17, he played for coach A.W. Hamilton.
In 2017-18, at West Virginia University, he redshirted as a freshman due to a knee injury.
Thus, he was considered a redshirt freshman in 2018-19, again at West Virginia University, playing in 32 games starting in four and averaging 5.0 points per contest while averaging 13.8 minutes per game.
In his redshirt sophomore year at West Virginia University in 2019-20, he played in 27 games and was named to the Academic All-Big 12 Men’s Basketball Second Team, while averaging 2.6 points per game. He scored five points against Kansas State and five points against Texas Christian University, 10 points and four rebounds in the win over No. 22 Texas Tech, eight points with two steals and a block in the win at Oklahoma State and five points in the win over No. 2 Ohio State.
In 2020-21 Knapper transferred to East Kentucky University, where he appeared in only four games but was impressive in those appearances, averaging 18.3 points, 3 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting 38 percent from the floor and 31 percent on three-pointers.
He left college for a year and reportedly worked as a coach at Santiago High School in Corona. In 2022-23, as a redshirt senior, Knapper played guard at Cal State San Bernardino, where he was a member of the Division 2 California Collegiate Athletic Association All-West Regional team, named the California Collegiate Athletic Association player of the week for November 14 through 20, the 2023 All-West Regional Most Outstanding Player and was a member of the 2022 Hoops in Hawaii Thanksgiving Classic All-Tournament Team. He reached 1,000 career points on January 1 against Cal Poly Pomona. He was named to the All-California Collegiate Athletic Association first team and was the 2022-23 Cal State University San Bernardino men’s student-athlete of the year.
The Hesperia Unified School District in a prepared statement characterized Knapper’s assault on Alexander as “senseless and shameful. The district is thankful for the swift and decisive action taken by the event promoters and local law enforcement. We are also happy to report that Coach Alexander is in good spirits and looking forward to returning to coaching and teaching as soon as possible.”