Click here:   Sentinel 03-20-20    to download a PDF of the March 20 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel

By Mark Gutglueck
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority has adopted a groundwater sustainability plan, which has now been submitted to the State of California. The limitations on water usage in the Indian Wells Valley region, which includes the extreme northwestern portion of San Bernardino County, are intended to ensure that water users in Indian Wells Valley, in compliance with a state-imposed mandate, reduce water usage to a sustainable level by the year 2040.
In addition to water usage restrictions that are to begin most likely this year and intensify yearly over the next two decades or until the goal of balancing the valley’s water inflow and  outflow is achieved, the plan calls for the imposition of a new set of fees to augment the current pumping fee assessed on the valley’s well owners to pay for the continuing administration of the groundwater authority.
In 2014, California state officials, in the face of a four-year running drought, undertook efforts to head off the absolute depletion of the state’s regional water sources. In September 2014, then-California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local agencies to draft plans to bring groundwater aquifers into balanced levels of pumping and recharge. That was followed in 2015 by Brown mandating water-saving measures throughout the state.
In response, pursuant to a joint exercise of powers agreement, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority was formed with Kern County, San Bernardino County, Inyo County, the City of Ridgecrest and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as general members and the United States Navy and the United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management as associate members, with each general member having one voting seat on the authority board and the federal associate members participating in all board discussions, but not having a vote.
The joint powers authority took as its mandate counteracting the overdraft of the aquifer underlying Indian Wells Valley.
The authority retained an engineering consultant, Carlsbad-based Stetson Engineers, through which the authority and the Indian Wells Valley Water District undertook a survey of water usage patterns and sought to derive a strategy for both reducing water use in the valley and increasing groundwater recharge to reach a balance of both that will end the overdraft. Several different plans, or models, were contemplated. Basically, the concept was to decrease the drafting of water from the regional aquifer through conservation, increased recycling of water and perhaps the minimization of evaporation, augmented by the importation of water from outside the valley to achieve, no later than 2040, a balance of water coming in with the amount of water usage, such that the aquifer is no longer in a state of overdraft.
Stetson Engineers was designated the water resources manager for Indian Wells Valley.
The board for The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority consists of Chairman Mick Gleason, the Kern County supervisor whose district includes Indian Wells Valley; Ridgecrest Councilman Scott Hayman; Indian Wells Water District Director Ron Kicinski; Inyo County County Counsel John Vallejo; and San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Bob Page. In January the board passed the proposed groundwater sustainability plan and voted to submit it to the state.
Once the plan has been fully vetted and accepted by California water officials, consisting of the California Department of Water Resources, pending any adjustments, the provisions of the plan will govern water usage in the valley over the next four decades.
A new fee structure is to be finalized on May 21 and put in place on June 22 as an element of the plan will replace the current monthly pump fee based on the volume of water used that was being assessed on major pumpers. That revenue stream will cover the costs associated with the administrative activity of the groundwater authority, as well as the initial stages of the groundwater sustainability plan’s mitigation efforts. Excess use fees, referred to as augmentation fees, will be applied to those well owners who pump above their allowances as well as on farmers who go beyond their respective share of the water supply set aside for agricultural usage. Money brought in this way will be used to purchase imported water and pay for the infrastructure needed to bring in the imported water.
There is a possibility that the water users could prevent the water use reduction regime from being imposed on the well owners were they to collectively come to the conclusion that its terms are onerous or unfair, as the imposition of the fees will be subject to a Proposition 218 protest process. In this way, after those to be subject to the fees are informed that the one-month protest process is to begin, they will have a 30 or 31 day period to register a personal letter of protest. Each such letter sent in will be registered as a vote against the application of the fees. Each well owner who does not lodge such a protest will be deemed a vote in favor of the fee schedule. Under normal circumstances in California, the Proposition 218 process virtually never results in preventing a taxing or assessment arrangement from being approved. However, in the case of Indian Wells Valley, in which there are a limited number of well owners involved among whom all have a similar interest in protecting for themselves the availability of affordable water and among whom an ease of communication and coordination exists, there is a real potential that a set of regulations that entail too great of an expense will not pass muster with those impacted by the groundwater management plan.
Stetson is now completing the verification of groundwater production for pumpers using more than two-acre feet of water yearly. Those wells utilizing less than two acre-feet annually are defined as de minimis users and are not subject to the plan’s regimen.
The groundwater authority has already compiled a significant amount of data and further surveys are now being finalized to provide as full of a profile on the active well owners as possible to set the baselines for assessments and usage patterns in the future.
Pumping verifications were to have been finalized on March 1. A document to memorialize those usage patterns is to be presented to all well owners/pumpers by April 15. Any dispute of that pumping record or pattern is due back from the well owners on April 30, three weeks after which the board is to make an adoption of the range of numbers in the finalized plan. Pumping fees and water use limitations will begin in earnest shortly thereafter.
The authority has passed an ordinance requiring that the wells of all non-de minimis pumpers be outfitted with meters as of March 19.
The plan is not without controversy. For some of those subjected to the water use restriction regime, there has been some grumbling that the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, which encompasses two ranges and totals over 1,100,000 acres or 1,719 square miles, as a federal installation is exempt from the groundwater sustainability plan and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Neither is the Bureau of Land Management subject to the restrictions.
Commander Peter Benson, with the Department of the Navy representing the China Lake Naval Weapons Stations, and Thomas Bickaukas, with the Bureau of Land Management, are non-voting members of the groundwater authority board.
The groundwater sustainability plan’s target is to manage the annual draft of water from the valley at 12,000 acre-feet per year once the plan is in effect, with water imported from the State Water Project or the Metropolitan Water District augmenting the valley’s water users’ needs beyond the 7,650 acre-feet of average annual natural recharge.
According to Don Zdeba, the general manager with the Indian Wells Valley Water District who is also the acting general manager of the Indian Wells Groundwater Authority, “7,650 acre-feet is the annual recharge into the valley. To meet the needs of the community, we are looking at 12,000 acre-feet augmentations to the water supply.”
Asked if he is confident that there will be adequate water from the state water project to meet the community’s needs over the coming decades, Zdeba said, “That is hard to answer. It depends on what is going on with the state in terms of drought conditions.”
As it stands, Zdeba said, the existing water importation infrastructure that does exist – the California Aqueduct and the Metropolitan Water District’s aqueduct conveying water from the Owens Valley in Inyo County to the Los Angeles Basin – would need to be tapped into, and from those spots a pipeline would need to be constructed to the valley. That would be expensive, he said, and beyond the means of the inhabitants of the valley.
“Our community isn’t large enough to pay for that,” Zdeba said. “The funding would have to come from the state or federal government or possibly the Navy.” Most forms of funding, including bonds wouldn’t work, he said. “We’re not able to pay for something like that with just 30,000 people. We would need grants or [no interest] loans.”
Assuming a pipeline either from the California Aqueduct or from the Los Angeles Aqueduct can be constructed, water injected into the basin could ensure that the regional aquifer is not depleted, Zdeba said. “There is the State Water Project,” he said. “The other source to sustain the groundwater supply could be achieved through an exchange with the Department of Water and Power Aqueduct that runs through Indian Wells Valley if we can work out a trade/purchase of water into the state water project,” he said. “Certainly there would be hurdles to overcome even if that is doable. There are political barriers,” he said, alluding to the historical enmity between Los Angeles, stretching back all the way to the first decade of the 20th Century when former Los Angeles Mayor Fred Eaton and William Mulholland, the head of the Los Angeles Water Department which would subsequently become the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, swindled the farmers in the Owens Valley of their water rights, while for some five generations water has continued to be diverted from Owens Lake and its aquifer to the greater Los Angeles area. The representative of Inyo County on the Indian Wells Groundwater Authority Board, John Vallejo, may not be willing to enter into a deal that would involve making any order of concession to Los Angeles with regard to water originating from the Owens Lake aquifer.
Zdeba said that assuming Inyo County gets on board with such a trade, after the California Department of Water Resources signed off on it, “We could move forward with some sort of arrangement.”
Though elements of the plan are scheduled to go into effect later this year, Zdeba said, “It might take the DWR [Department of Water and Power] up to two years to give it final approval, depending on several considerations.”
Those living and functioning in the valley will “still be pumping more water than we have natural recharge,” Zdeba said. Human use of water in the valley “is slowly depleting the aquifer,” Zdeba said, but added “The overall amounts of decline are nowhere near what you see in the Central Valley.” He said the water in the basin “continues to decline near a foot a year in some places. At other levels it is closer to a half of a foot per year. In some places the levels are not dropping. The basin is very deep. It is not like we are running out of water next year, but obviously if you are in a decline, that is something that needs to be remediated. The state gives you 20 years to get to a sustained level, and you are expected to make progress toward a sustainable level annually.”
Zdeba said the action the authority is taking is reasonable and measured, in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
“The legislation is not intended to have a severe economic impact on communities,” he said.
Zdeba said the exemption of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center from the restrictions is defensible in terms of the larger societal and environmental forces at play. “The China Lake Naval Base is a critical installation,” he said. “It is expansive. They have to be able to not only recruit quality technical people but retain them. You will not keep them if you don’t have green spaces and community pools. They have to offer some nice things, a hospital and schools, if they want to keep talented people at the base.”
The Navy has striven to not be profligate in its water usage, Zdeba said.
“The China Lake Naval Base is using roughly 1,600 acre-feet of water annually,” he said. “They have come down quite a bit the last few years. They have removed some turf. They have made extensive water system improvements throughout the entire base. But they have an expansive operation. They used to use up to 2,500 acre-feet.”
Water is an important element of the region’s economy, Zdeba said. “Water is needed for other operations such as the Searles Valley Minerals Plant.”
Zdeba said engineers and competent hydrological experts have ascertained that historically, on average, there is a natural inflow of 7,650 acre-feet of water into the valley. “That is the number agreed upon by the groundwater authority’s technical advisory committee,” he said.
He said the objective of the state legislation, the governor’s order and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is “to avoid undesirable results. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act defines six undesirable results: chronic lowering of groundwater levels, reduction of groundwater storage, seawater intrusion, land subsidence, water quality degradation, and depletions of interconnected surface water.”
Zdeba said there have been “recent averages” of total outflows from the valley of 32,640 acre-feet, including 4,850 acre-feet in evaporation, 27,740 acre-feet in groundwater extractions, and 50 acre-feet in interbasin subsurface flow. This leaves, he said, an average annual overdraft of 24,990 acre-feet from the valley.
Zdeba said the movement toward a balancing of inflow and outflow “will have to occur over time. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act allows 20 years to reach sustainability. There will very likely be incremental reductions as the plan is implemented. I cannot provide specific years at this time.” That balancing, Zdeba said, will entail, in part, progressive restrictions on the pumpers. “The Groundwater Sustainability Plan adopted by the authority board includes initial reductions (rampdown) as the result of the so called ‘transient pool’ that is being established for local agriculture,” Zdeba said. “The pool consists of 51,000 acre-feet of water to be allocated from groundwater in storage.  Anyone allocated water from the pool can decide how they will use it, when they use it within the timeframe allowed, or if they wish to trade/sell their allocation. Once that water is gone, that’s it. Due to the current imbalance, the authority wants to protect the amount of groundwater in storage, but is willing to allow that amount to be pumped.”
In essence, Zdeba said, starting with the 27,740 acre-feet in extractions annually ongoing on average over the last several years, “the target is to limit pumping to 12,000 acre-feet per year. Obviously this will require supplemental water supplies.”
Zdeba said that an adjustment toward the desired balancing will entail importation of water. “That is one of the possible solutions,” he said.
Zdeba said “About 5,000 acre-feet, the difference between the annual recharge and the 12,000 acre-feet target” is roughly how much importation of water per year in acre-feet the plan envisions. He said it is unknown at this point whether there will be a progressive increase in the importation of water year by year. He said that the means of importing water should be “fully implemented by 2035.”
The importation of water is entirely dependent upon the addition of the infrastructure to convey it either from the California Aqueduct or the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Zdeba said.
If water to be imported is not available, Zdeba said, there will be further rampdowns.
Through water recycling efforts, Zdeba estimated, “approximately 2,000 acre-feet” could be provided toward the balancing of water use in the valley.
Zdeba indicated that at present, no real effort at exploring the limitation of evaporation from the aquifer is being made.
If 2040 rolls around and the goal of water use balance throughout the valley is not achieved, “state intervention” will be the consequence. Zdeba said.

An ever-widening circle of Upland residents is pushing Upland officials to suspend the city council’s scheduled April 1 consideration of Bridge Development Partners’ proposal to construct a 201,096-square foot distribution center for on-line retail giant Amazon on property north of Foothill Boulevard and south of Cable Airport until circumstances will permit a public hearing process that will accommodate all elements of the community seeking to weigh in on the controversial project. Those residents want the decision on the matter held in abeyance because they believe the exclusion of the public from the council chamber where the meeting will be held will not allow adequate consideration of the community’s perspective with regard to the project. The city’s plan to allow the public to remotely attend the meeting by means of video and phone hook-ups will not allow the traditional give-and-take that occurs in a conventional public meeting setting, abridging the citizenry’s right to be heard and depriving the council of the perspective of those they are supposed to be representing, those residents say.
The effort to dissuade city officials from rushing toward a decision on the development proposal comes as a consequence of Upland residents’ concern that city officials will utilize the ongoing restrictions pertaining to limiting the spread of the coronavirus to foreclose public input with regard to the project. That concern has intensified, spilling beyond Upland’s city limits as the physical impact of the project is now recognized as having a regional dimension, extending into the neighborhoods and the streets of neighboring Claremont and Montclair.
After the city council’s show of reluctance last week to postpone the public hearing despite state and federal mandates restricting large public gatherings, a subset of the community calling itself the Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens retained legal counsel as a show of resolve to prevent what some in that group characterized as the “fast tracking” of the distribution complex project, which Amazon corporate officials have reportedly requested in order to get enough of the project completed to allow operations from the facility to take place in time for the Christmas 2020 buying season.
The coalition’s employment of the law firm of Palmieri, Hennessey & Leifer represents a tangible escalation in the resistance to the project, and a sign that the city’s anticipated approval of the project will encounter a legal challenge that holds the prospect of preventing Amazon from meeting the 2020 operational goal. Though the project has been on the drawing board for at least two years, with confidential discussions relating to it going on between Bridge’s representatives and city officials in early 2018, the project was originally previewed to the public in June 2019 as a three-building 977,000-total square foot warehouse complex with 150 truck bays/loading docks to accommodate what was estimated to be no fewer than 263 truck trips in and out of the complex on a daily basis.
When the scope of the planned undertaking generated considerable controversy, Bridge significantly revamped it, in October indicating that it would entail a single building with 276,250 square feet under roof. Alarm among a cross section of the city’s residents persisted, however, as Bridge indicated that the project, which under the city’s guidelines for a 276,250 square-foot project would be required to have 350 parking spaces, was instead going to include 1,486 parking spaces for delivery vans and cars, which did not include the space earmarked for semi-trucks.
On December 16, 2019, when the site plan for the project was posted on the city’s website, it was shown as entailing a single building of 201,096-square feet, a further reduction. Nevertheless, the method the city allowed Bridge to use to gain environmental certification of the project – a far less extensive and therefore less expensive mitigated negative declaration (MND) process rather than a full-blown environmental impact report (EIR) – raised hackles in the community, and the cacophony of protest has not in any fashion subsided.
More than two dozen of the city’s residents have delineated multiple elements of the documentation cited by Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc., the entity used by Bridge to formulate the mitigated negative declaration, which they maintain to be incomplete, inadequate or inaccurate, rendering the environmental certification for the project less than comprehensive and in some respects misleading.
This was exacerbated by a voting faux pas that occurred over the course of two weeks last month. On February 12, with one of its members, Alexander Novikov, absent, the Upland Planning Commission recorded a 3-to-2 vote denying site plan approval for the project, with members Robin Aspinall and Carolyn Anderson in favor of the project proceeding and members Gary Schwary, Linden Brouse and Yvette Walker opposed.
On February 26, without prior adequate public notice of the scope of the action that was to take place, the planning commission revisited the project. Analysts have since concluded the failure to make clear that the vote was to extend to the already concluded issue of the site plan’s rejection violated the spirit and letter of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open public meeting law.  At that point, with all six rather than just five members present, the entire commission, on a 4-to-2 vote, made a recommendation to the city council that the site plan be approved. This occurred with Novikov joining Walker to reject the site plan while Schwary and Brouse abruptly reversed themselves, voting to give the site plan go-ahead without explaining their rationale for doing so or giving the public an opportunity to comment or provide input. Brouse’s tenure on the city council is set to conclude later this month.
Residents opposed to the project have voiced their perception that city staff has recommended that the city council approve the project in an expedited manner to meet Amazon’s desire to begin operations at the facility at the earliest possible date. Those residents say that City Manager Rosemary Hoerning, Development Services Director Robert Dahlquest and Mike Poland, Upland’s contract planning manager, have been influenced by Bridge’s offer to provide the city with $16 million in so-called deal sweeteners in exchange for the project’s approval. They maintain that the $16 million inducement has blinded the city’s administrators into ignoring the more than $50 million in long term costs the project will entail as a consequence of damage to the city’s roadways and other infrastructure, exacerbated by the onerous impacts the project will have on the quality of life of the city’s residents, including traffic snarl-ups, increased noise and air pollution and resultant deleterious health effects from the exhaust of the vehicles operating out of the facility over the 50-year lease life of the project.
Project opponents believe there is a prospect that the city council, stampeded by city staff’s advocacy of the project, will be able to utilize the state and federal mandates to limit public gatherings to hold a public hearing for the project at which they will be able to minimize public input, and simply rubberstamp the project application, giving it binding approval.
In an effort to foreclose that possibility, the Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens retained Palmieri, Hennessey & Leifer to persuade the city council against doing just that.
In a letter dated March 20 addressed to City Clerk Keri Johnson and, in his capacity as the city’s for-hire development consultant, Michael Poland, attorney Patrick Hennesey established his firm is representing the coalition with regard to its efforts to fully weigh in on the project prior to the city council’s deliberations over its approval.
“As you know,” wrote Hennessey, “each of the coalition’s members strenuously objects to the city’s proposed adoption of the mitigated negative declaration, and each member desires to be physically present to address the council regarding those objections at the public hearing. In light of the large number of objections by the community against this project, the coalition requests that the city continue the April 1, 2020 special meeting for no less than thirty days because no personal appearances will be permitted in light of the governor’s recent declaration of a state of emergency in response to the Coronavirus.”
Hennessey’s letter concluded, “Most importantly, there is no urgent necessity warranting that the city move forward with this objectionable project during the state of emergency.”
In the introduction to his letter, Hennessey wrote that “The coalition respectfully requests that this letter be included as part of the formal record” relating to the Amazon project. Coalition members told the Sentinel this was meant to convey to city officials that they intend to legally contest the project approval if it is given.
-Mark Gutglueck

With San Bernardino’s mayoral crisis nearing the end of its second month, the city council on Wednesday voted to attenuate Mayor John Valdivia’s power and his direct authority over all but a single member of the mayoral staff that had swelled to six positions and an intern with the consent of the same city council last year.
It was allegations of his mistreatment of a majority of his staff members that precipitated the contretemps now enveloping Valdivia, and Wednesday night’s action should effectively distance the mayor from all but one of those four employees who were still employed after the resignation of two of his assistants and the firing of another in January.
For at least two of the council members, the action did not go far enough, as they unequivocally wanted to fully strip the mayor of all staff answerable directly to him. Nevertheless, it is clear that Valdivia’s mostly successful year-long effort to enhance his power and extend his political and administerial reach has come to an end.
In November 2018, Valdivia captured the mayoralty by defeating incumbent Carey Davis. His victory had come two years after the city’s residents had voted to dispense with the 1905 Charter under which the city had functioned for 111 years. The 1905 Charter had infused in the mayor both political and administrative power by making him/her the presiding officer of the city council and giving the mayor and city manager co-responsiblity for the hiring of city staff. While the mayor did not have a vote as a member of the city council, the position was infused with veto power over any 4-to-3 or 3-to-2 votes of the city council, which in practical terms gave the mayor two votes on any matters passed by a bare majority of the council. He also was empowered to break a tie vote by the council. Taken with his/her ability as the council’s presiding officer to control the ebb and flow of the debate among the council, the mayor under the 1905 Charter was the preeminent political/administerial/managerial entity in the city. The 2016 Charter Redraft retained for the mayor his/her position as the presiding officer of the city council as well veto power, but did away with the administrative/managerial authority to initiate or approve the city’s hirings and firings. Thus, the 2016 charter strengthened the city manager’s administerial authority while weakening that of the mayor.
Traditionally, the mayor had been permitted to have within his or her office a chief of staff, an individual selected by the mayor, subject to the approval of the city council. In keeping with this tradition, Valdivia upon acceding to the mayor’s post, was permitted to hire a chief of staff, one answerable directly to him.
The 2016 Charter reforms had been widely touted as a move toward the more widely accepted and adapted city council/city manager form of government and away from the governmental approach that was long out of vogue, one which infused overriding authority in a single personage, that being a semi-autocratic mayor. The model of government embodied in San Bernardino’s 1905 Charter, which ran counter to the modern concept of a city council making decisions to set policy and then delegating to a city manager to implement that policy, was criticized as embodying a governing model whereby too many people were in charge such that, practically speaking, no one was in charge.
While most of San Bernardino’s elected leadership, including Davis despite the consideration that it was to lessen his own power, were in favor of the changes to governance embodied in the 2016 Charter change, Valdivia, who at that time was the city council representative for the city’s Third Ward, was opposed to the charter makeover, perhaps because his future ambition included becoming mayor himself.
Two political newcomers who ran for city council in 2018 during Valdivia’s mayoral campaign were Ted Sanchez in San Bernardino’s First Ward and Sandra Ibarra in the city’s Second Ward. All three – Valdivia, Sanchez and Ibarra – faced multiple competitors in the June 2018 primary, and each qualified for the November 2018 runoff as one the two top vote-getters in the primary. As all three headed toward the November 2018 election, Valdivia astutely backed both Sanchez and Ibarra, likewise garnering their support. Upon all three emerging victorious in their respective races, Valdivia found himself in the catbird seat, able to rely on their support while having already established a political alliance with incumbent Sixth Ward Councilwoman Bessine Richard and a strong working relationship with Councilman Henry Nickel. Valdivia was at considerable odds with the council’s two other incumbents – Seventh Ward Councilman Jim Mulvihill and Fourth Ward Councilman Fred Shorett, who in 2018 had to stand for reelection himself and had barely eked out a victory in November after facing two challengers in June. After taking up the mayor’s gavel in December 2018, with the support of Richard, Nickel, Sanchez and Ibarra, Valdivia seized control of the city. His first priority was to undo, in as many ways as he could, the limitations imposed on the mayor by the 2016 Charter reforms and reassert himself as an autocratic mayor.
With the assistance of his handpicked chief of staff, Bill Essayli, Valdivia went about doing just that. This required a two-pronged approach, which included boosting his diminished administrative and managerial reach as mayor and simultaneously paring back the authority of the city manager. He accomplished the latter by convincing the two newcomers – Sanchez and Ibarra – that the city manager who had been hired in 2017 during the Davis administration – Andrea Travis-Miller – was overextending her authority as city manager, infringing upon the province of the city council from which she was withholding information and that she was precluding the council from exercising its authority in its role as the body of the city’s elected decision-makers and policy setters. On the day that the new city council was sworn in on December 19, 2018, Ibarra moved, and a majority of her council colleagues sans Shorett and Mulivhill supported, initiating a revue of Travis-Miller’s performance as city manager. At virtually every one of its meetings thereafter over the next three months, the council during its executive sessions conducted outside the scrutiny of the public carried out a review of Travis-Miller’s performance. This had the effect of chastening Travis-Miller, as the threat of her termination based upon a 4-to-2 vote of Valdivia’s council allies ever loomed over her head like the sword of Damocles, hanging by a gossamer thread. Indeed, two of the votes to axe her were seemingly in place, those of Sanchez and Ibarra. Nickel and Richard were more cautious, not quite willing to cashier the city manager in the immediate aftermath of the election, a move that might very well be perceived at all levels as one that was hasty and politically driven. On April 3, however, Richard at last swung behind Sanchez and Ibarra, agreeing to take a first step in the direction Valdivia was advocating by placing Travis-Miller on paid administrative leave, a move that suggested she might be brought back if she in some fashion came to accept that Valdivia was the preeminent personage at City Hall calling the shots and that her role was to carry out his marching orders. The vote to suspend her, however, was not a majority one, but rather a 3-to-3 tie, with Sanchez, Richard and Ibarra on one side and Shorett, Mulvihill and Nickel on the other. Valdvia used his authority to cast a vote in the event of a tie, breaking the 3-to-3 deadlock, and voting to suspend Travis-Miller.
Over the same period, Valdivia and Essayli had been mounting proposals to beef up the mayoral staff, jumping it from the traditional strength of a single chief of staff accompanied by a secretary who served in the role of the clerical aid to the entire city council to one that would embody nine people. Those proposals initially, encountered some resistance, as the council, highly sensitive to the consideration that the city had filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in 2012 and had not been able to emerge from that status until June of 2017, did not want to be seen as profligately indulging the mayor in beefing up his staff with employees receiving substantial salaries and benefits, entailing new and greater costs than it was already sustaining, and requiring outlays of money the city simply did not have. Valdivia and Essayl labored, however, to beguile the council, recognizing that they too could use assistance in their efforts to represent and respond to their constituents, thus including in the proposal that the mayor and council both see the creation of a support unit, one that would number 14 individuals – eight devoted to the mayor and five devoted to the council, with a mayoral/council secretary that would look after all of their clerical needs. While the council never bought into the 14 member staff proposal, over time Valdivia essentially prevailed on getting most of what he wanted, which included a mayoral staff of seven, including a full-time chief of staff, a full-time assistant to the mayor, a full-time executive assistant to the mayor, a full-time customer service representative assigned into the mayor’s office, a full-time mayoral legislative field representative, a part-time mayoral field representative and a part-time paid mayoral office intern, along with the mayor’s share of the secretary assigned to the mayor and city council.
In May 2019, the election to fill the Third Ward council position vacated when Valdivia had to resign that post to move into the mayor’s slot was held. In that contest, Juan Figueroa, the candidate Valdivia had endorsed and supported by making transference of funds from his own political war chest to Figueroa’s and for whom he had interceded on behalf of with his own political bakers to deliver to him further monetary assistance, emerged victorious. At that point, Valdivia reigned supreme, with the backing of Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa, Nickel and Richard. He orchestrated the firing of Travis-Miller, hiring in her place Travis-Miller’s assistant city manager, Teri LeDoux, who at the age of 61 was nearing the end of her municipal career. By elevating LeDoux from her $184,000 per-year assistant city manager’s post to that of city manager making an annual salary of $259,674 subject to a 3.5 percent raise in August 2019, Valdivia further guaranteed that by the time of her anticipated retirement in January 2021 LeDoux would zoom up from the annual $122,472 per year pension she would have received based upon her 25 years employment with the cities of San Bernardino, Huntington Beach and La Verne to an annual pension of $181,642.50 by managing to stay in position as San Bernardino city manager at least until June of this year. In this way, Valdivia purchased LeDoux’s loyalty, and her complicity in virtually anything he hoped to carry out as mayor.
Even as Valdivia was, in ways that were largely unrecognized to his constituents, militating to extend his political and administrative reach, he was, also unbeknownst to the public, engaging in a series of depredations, ones that were in some cases reflective merely of relatively mild personality flaws, others that betrayed deeper character failures and still more which crossed the line into full-blown violations of the public trust and breaches of the government code and criminal statutes.
On January 6, Valdivia fired Jackie Aboud, who since April 2019 had been serving as his field representative. On January 29, Mirna Cisneros, who was a senior customer service representative assigned to Valdivia’s mayoral office since early 2019, and Karen Cervantes, an assistant to the mayor, resigned. Word came that Cisneros and Cervantes were represented by attorney Tristan Pelayes, and thereafter, on on February 13, Cisneros and Cervantes filed claims against Valdivia and the city. Those claims alleged they were both subjected to Valdivia’s sexual harassment and advances, and endured a hostile work environment along with a string of humiliations after rejecting those advances. Cisneros further maintained that in his interactions with her, Valdivia either let slip or openly acknowledged that he was misusing public funds for personal use, taking governmental reimbursements for travel and accommodations that were unrelated to his duties as an elected official, and the mayor was, in the most benign reading of the circumstances, failing to report as he was required as a public official gifts provided to him by donors, or in a more serious interpretation of what was occurring, receiving bribes. Cisneros said Valdivia pressured her to work, while she was on the clock in her capacity as a city employee, on the reelection efforts on the electoral campaigns for his council allies Richard and Figueroa in the election concluded earlier this month.
It was subsequently revealed that Pelayes is also representing Matt Brown, who succeeded Essayli in the role of Valdivia’s chief of staff in August; Aboud; Don Smith, who was hired as a part-time mayoral field representative last year after he worked on Valdivia’s 2018 campaign; and Alissa Payne, whom Valdivia had nominated for and successfully saw appointed to the city’s Arts and Historical Preservation Commission and the San Bernardino Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission last year.
According to Payne, Valdivia engaged in unwanted sexually-tinged overtures with her, including inappropriate physical contact. “He went as far as offering to provide me an apartment, would tell me how to vote and what to say or do at the commission meetings, asked me to meet him alone in the evening after hours, and promised – guaranteed – me a seat on the city dais as the Second Ward council member,” Payne said. She recounted that Valdivia “invited me to attend a dinner event as his personal guest where he was persistently trying to get me intoxicated, which I declined. The mayor was preying on me.”
According to Aboud, there is evidence to suggest that Valdivia was engaged in overt political patronage and using the power of his office to steer favorable treatment to those who had supported him in his successful run for mayor, and that he was similarly using that authority to punish those who did not support him. She said that Valdivia told her “that my job was not to serve the community but to serve him and meet his personal needs.” Aboud said, “The mayor doesn’t care about the community, only certain areas that supported him during his election. I was ordered to not help, support, or partner with parts of the community that didn’t support him in the election, like the Fourth and Seventh Ward.”
Smith echoed Aboud, saying that while he was working in the capacity of Valdivia’s field representative, the mayor sent him messages ordering him to not assist a resident that didn’t support him in the election. In addition, Smith said, Valdivia bullied him by threatening to fire him if he did not carry out the assignments Valdivia ordered him to undertake, which included chauffeuring Valdivia about town while the mayor was having sex in the backseat with a female companion. According to Smith, he was present in October or November 2018 for a 1 a.m. rendezvous Valdivia had with Danny Alcarez, the owner of Danny’s 24 Hour Towing, Inc., when Alcarez provided Valdivia with “a thick white envelope that appeared to contain a large amount of money,” which Smith said he believed was a kickback provided to Valdivia for his support of city tow franchises being awarded to several of the cities towing operations.
Brown has retained Pelayes to head off retaliation he believes he is likely to experience from a vituperative Valdivia in the aftermath of his having relayed to the city manager’s office and the city’s personnel department what he had been told by Cisneros, Cervantes and Aboud about Valdivia’s comportment toward them. Upon learning of Brown’s action, Valdivia interpreted that as an act of disloyalty on his chief of staff’s part.
Since June, Valdivia has seen his support on the city council steadily erode, as first Ibarra, then Nickel and finally Sanchez have defected from his camp.
This week, the city council took up an item at Wednesday night’s council meeting that had originated as a request by Sanchez to consider options associated with the staffing in the mayor’s office.
According to a report from LeDoux accompanying that agenda item, “Article V, Section 502 of the city charter assigns responsibility to the city manager for the administration of each city department excluding the office of the city council, mayor, city attorney and city clerk. This section of the charter further states that with the consent of the council, the city manager may serve as the executive of one or more of such offices. On May 1, 2019, the city council adopted Ordinance No. MC-1516 amending Chapter 2.02 of the city’s municipal code related to the duties of the city manager, removing responsibility for providing staff support to the mayor and city council. The staffing levels allocated to support both the office of the mayor and the city council are established in the city’s annual operating budget approved by the city council.”
LeDoux’s report continued, “On March 4, 2020, the city council directed staff to provide an update regarding the current status of staff assigned to the office of the mayor and options available for council consideration. Following the receipt of complaints from two employees in the mayor’s office alleging various forms of harassment occurring at City Hall and offsite, the city manager took steps to conduct a thorough investigation and ensure compliance with the city’s policies and state and federal laws. These steps were undertaken with guidance from an outside law firm with significant experience in labor and employment law. On February 5, 2020, the support staff assigned to the office of the mayor was temporarily relocated to the office of the city manager while the investigation is conducted. At this time all communications from the mayor to staff are being communicated through the city manager with staff assignments delegated as needed to meet the operational needs of the mayor’s office using existing personnel. This temporary relocation of personnel has been made to limit the potential for additional allegations and to protect the integrity of the investigation. All staff in the office of the mayor continue to serve within the scope of their assigned job classifications. The adopted Fiscal Year 2019/20 operating budget for the mayor’s office includes four full-time support positions in addition to funding for part-time personnel. Of the four budgeted full-time positions there are currently two vacant positions. All open positions are being held vacant until the city’s investigation is completed.”
Valdivia, sensing that the council was on the verge of radically reducing his power and reach at City Hall, maneuvered as best he could to move the focus away from dwelling on his behavior.
“These are very shaky waters for council to be opining publicly,” he said.
While Deputy City Attorney Sonia Carvalho cautioned the city council not to “personalize” the positions being discussed, meaning, apparently, mentioning by name the holders of the positions or dwelling on their various claims or complaints against Valdivia and the city, she did not advocate against the discussion proceeding.
Sanchez made a motion to create a budget amendment moving all of the positions currently assigned to the mayor’s office with the exclusion of the assistant to the mayor to the city manager’s office. Sanchez said the mayor should be permitted to keep one staff member to allow the “mayor to fulfill his duties.” That motion was seconded by Figueroa.
Without any discussion intervening, Councilman Fred Shorett made a substitute motion which was seconded by Councilman Henry Nickel. Under Robert’s Rules of Order, a substitute motion that is seconded must be considered prior to an original motion.
“I think right now we’re all concerned about staff and for the time being we’ve kind of dealt with that issue,” Shorett said. “Some are vacant. Some are leaving. Some are staying. We’ve made changes to ordinances in the past and the charter’s pretty clear. My motion would be we direct staff return the first meeting in April to reintroduce an ordinance to establish the council consent that the city manager serve as executive to the offices of the city council and mayor in accordance with Charter Section 502, and I further motion that in preparation for the budget hearings coming up for budget year 2020 and 2021, we direct staff that we propose a reduction in staffing in the mayor’s office to a single position with the title nature and scope of that position … determined collaboratively by the mayor and city manager, and should be informed by the limited duties of the mayor pursuant to Charter Section 303.”
In discussing Shorett’s substitute motion, Sanchez objected that an ordinance discussing the city manager’s powers was beyond the scope of what the council had asked for on March 4 and what was advertised in the agenda.
Carvalho, however, indicated that the information and description contained in the agenda was sufficient for the council to direct staff to undertake the action Shorett’s motion called for at the next meeting
Ibarra began to express the concern that with the claims pending, any action taken which might impact the existence of the positions the claimants held might be deemed hostile action that would create liability for the city if those claims mature into lawsuits, which could allege wrongful or vindictive termination. Carvalho, however, abridged any discussion along those lines, suggesting such references were “personalizing” the deliberation.
When the vote on Shorett’s motion was taken, it was supported by Shorett, Nickel and Mulvihill, thus failing with the prevailing opposition by Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Richard.
When the council considered Sanchez’s proposal, the vote went 4-to-3 in favor, with Sanchez, Figueroa, Nickel and Richard prevailing and Ibarra, Shorett and Mulvihill dissenting. Valdivia did not exercise his veto, as some believed he would.
-Mark Gutglueck

Magic Hands Massage could not lay claim to being Hesperia’s swankiest brothel. It had none of the cachet of several other establishments in the City of Progress, such as the two-story six-bedroom house in what has to qualify as one of the city’s most upscale neighborhoods, where faux but convincing Renoirs and Manets grace the walls and a pianist plays Gershwin classics on a grand piano in the plush and tastefully decorated downstairs living room. Nor was it as nice as another set-up in that section of town where some of the equestrian estates and residential agricultural properties that once proliferated in the 73-square-mile city yet remain. And it was not as quaint as the newer home out near the mesa toward Oak Hills that looks for all the world like a simple home in Arizona, right down to the Navajo-themed artwork and decorations.
Nevertheless Magic Hands Massage, operating out of a storefront in Suite I at 12053 Mariposa Road, proximate to the 15 Freeway and Bear Valley Road, was the city’s highest profile, most easily accessible, least complicated and reasonably priced house of ill repute, where one could pull off the freeway for a $40 quickie, get himself taken care of and be back on the way home, less tense and better able to handle the traffic, all inside a half hour.
As it turns out, that high profile and accessibility, together with its ownership’s unwillingness to play by the rules and niceties of civic obeisance, have now put it out of business.
In a staff report authored by Assistant City Manager Mike Blay and Administrative Analyst Tina Bulgarelli and routed to Hesperia’s mayor and city council by City Manager Nils Bentsen, it is related that “On January 14, 2020, code enforcement visited Magic Hands Massage at 12053 Mariposa Rd. Unit I. An inspection was conducted and during that inspection several violations were noted. Firstly, the employee was wearing a miniskirt that showed her buttocks. When asked if the business was open for massage, the employee responded yes. Second, upon interviewing the employee, it was discovered that there was no CAMTC [California Massage Therapy Council] certified massage technician working. CAMTC, or the CA Massage Therapy Council, is a state agency that mandates that all massage businesses have a working CAMTC-certified massage technician or therapist in order to be open. The municipal code also requires this. A citation was issued to the business for this violation.”
According to Blay and Bulgarelli, “A second inspection was done on January 17, 2020. [The] code enforcement [officer] inspected the business and witnessed an adult female wearing lingerie. She was witnessed putting a short robe on and running out the back exit of the business into the alleyway. Code enforcement was able to document this with photographic evidence. A male customer was seen in the business and went and ran to a backroom. None of the employees or the customer would come out of the rooms or speak to code enforcement. A citation was issued for this violation and code enforcement turned the case information over to [the] development services [department] to review for revocation. A third inspection was done on January 27, 2020. Code enforcement inspected the business and the employees were wearing short skirts and dresses and put coats on when the officer entered the business. One of the massage employees had a California Massage Therapy Council license, but had no business license. The officer stated to them that they could not be open without both a valid business license and a California Massage Therapy Council certification even if the business owner possessed a business license. A female business owner came to the business and spoke to the officer. She repeatedly asked the officer if he would like to go for lunch or a coffee and called him ‘honey.’ The officer denied her repeatedly and continued to ask for the required documents. She did not produce a business license or a California Massage Therapy Council license for the officer. A citation was issued for these violations.”
According to the report, the development services department, which is responsible for the issuance and regulation of business licenses, upon review of the evidence elected to revoke Magic Hands Massage’s business license.
According to the report, Magic Hands Massage was in violation of Hesperia Municipal Code Section 5.20.070(N), which requires a massage facility to have a California Massage Therapy Council-licensed massage therapist working during all hours it is open. Hesperia Municipal Code Section 5.20.040(7) authorizes a license revocation if a California Massage Therapy Council-certified massage therapist working in the city has a license that has been suspended or revoked within the previous five years.
Blay and Bulgarelli stated that “the department is electing to revoke per Hesperia Municipal Code Section 5.04.140(A)(5) to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.”
Magic Hands Massage’s owner, Keith Roberts, appealed the revocation. The appeal came before the city council Tuesday night, March 17.
In analyzing Roberts’ appeal, Blay and Bulgarelli in their report noted that Roberts “was not present at his business during the inspections. He stated in his appeal letter that ‘no massages were being given at the time of inspection.’ Staff believes that to be true in a fashion. Based on the wardrobe of the employees, lingerie, buttocks showing, short robes, and the fact that the male customer ran from code enforcement, staff suspects that Magic Hands Massage is likely a house of prostitution and the employees were likely providing sexual acts.”
According to Blay and Bulgarelli, “The massage community is rife with these types of situations. One of the main goals of the California Massage Therapy Council is to regulate the industry to attempt to reduce this type of activity. The City of Hesperia Municipal Code follows state law and requires that the business owner have a business license, must employ a California Massage Therapy Council massage therapist, and that person must be working all hours they are open. In fact they may not be open if that person is not present and working. The massage therapist, if not an employee of the establishment, is also required to have a business license for any facilities that [he or she] works for, in addition to their California Massage Therapy Council license.”
Tuesday night, the city council heard from Senior Code Enforcement Officer Ernesto Montes, who carried out the January inspections and issued the citations.
Montes related to the council that “On January 14 the sign was open. The door was open. I made contact with the female.” Montes said that he had checked to see whether the massage therapist had a “contact license, which is a state requirement, and for a city business license. When [she was] asked about the license, that could not be provided.”
Communication with the woman working as a “massage therapist” was difficult, Montes said, because she “spoke a different language, and with my limited ability and a translator on my phone, we tried, you know, to get that resolved. But our code says a licensed massage therapist must be present at any time or at all times when that business is open. And there was no licensed massage therapist at the time of that inspection. When we went back the second time on January 17, there was actually two females in there. One of the first questions I asked was ‘Are you open for massage?’ The sign [says] open, the door’s open, and she actually responded ‘Yes, forty dollars for a half hour.’ I said, ‘Okay. Can you please provide me with these licenses, the CAMTC [California Massage Therapy Council] license through the state and the license though the city? At this point, neither one could actually provide those licenses, and at this point they actually ran out of the building. So, I went around the building to see what had happened, and when I came back, when I ran around the building, they actually ran back in, and when I came to the front, I was like, ‘Hello. Hello. Code enforcement.’ You know: ‘Can anybody help me?’ Nobody would ever come back out. But I did notice when I came back around, they had shut the open sign off, but the door was still open. So, I left, and issued the citation.”
Mayor Larry Bird attempted to clarify that Roberts had 72 hours between January 14 and January 17 to respond to the initial citation and “make things correct.”
“I posted citations on the door,” Montes said. “On the 14th, the female that was there actually called her boss on some type of Skype app, and I can see her. We’re having a conversation, and she said, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes,’ and I waited 20, and she never showed up. She was supposed to clarify these items with me, and she never did on the 14th. She never showed up, and I just posted the citation,” Montes said.
That woman was not whom he dealt with on the 17th, Montes said.
When he could not get anyone to come out after the two people he encountered on the 17th ran around the building and then went back inside, Montes said, he posted another citation on the door.
Montes said he returned ten days later.
“On the 27th [of January] it was the same thing,” Montes said. “I walk in and asked them, ‘Hey, are you guys open for business?’ ‘Yes, I am, forty dollars for a half hour.’ ‘Great. Where’s your licenses?’ The one female that I was talking to was the same female I had talked to on the inspection before.”
On the 27th, Montes indicated, he had contact with Magic Hands Massage’s madam.
“This time, the owner did show up about 20 minutes later,” Montes said. “I explained everything to her, that she needed to get the licenses, bring down the girls, you know, whoever was working for her, and she received a third citation because they couldn’t provide me any documentation on the third inspection, that none of the girls had CAMTC certification on hand or business licenses.”
Mayor Bird asked, “What is the expected response after the first second or third citation?”
“Usually they come in the next day because they cannot be open for business without these certifications,” Montes said. “Here’s three inspections where they were open for business. The signs were open. The doors were open, and I was talking to somebody inside.”
“But no one tried to clear that up between the 14th and the 17th or between the 17th and 27th?” Bird asked.
“Not that I’m aware,” said Montes. “It wasn’t until a day or two after the 27th that somebody finally came into the city building to obtain a business license.”
Bulgarelli said a photo was taken on January 27 of the California Massage Therapy Council-issued license for one of the massage therapists working at Magic Hands Massage she did not reference by name. She said that on March 3 she accessed the California Massage Therapy Council website and sought to verify that license. She said she had a “print screen photo from my computer on March 3 from the CAMTC website showing that person’s registration number clearly stating it is suspended.” As of that evening, Bulgarelli said, “It is still suspended.”
Montes said the girls working at Magic Hands Massage are not employees and “not on the payroll. The owner said they are all individuals.” That they are independent contractors, Montes said, triggers the city’s requirement that they each have her own business license.
Bird verified from Bulgarelli that the “revocation related specifically to them not having the licenses they were supposed to have.”
Because of state and federal orders relating to restrictions on public gatherings because of the coronavirus, the public was essentially excluded from the meeting chamber during the hearing, though the council and city staff members were present.
Sam Tyre, an attorney representing Roberts, was permitted to come into the building to address the council. The microphone to the podium had been cut off prior to Tyre starting his remarks, so the first part of what he said was not audible on the video of the meeting. When the microphone was engaged, Tyre could be heard speaking with regard to the January 14, 2020 inspection.
“There’s allegations there was a massage going on at that point by an unlicensed therapist,” Tyre said. “That’s completely not true.” Tyre said the city had received a packet of documentation relating to the massage parlor and the citations. On page 160 of that packet, Tyre told the council, it was stated that “There were no massages by anybody unlicensed.” With regard to the charge that there was no licensed person on the premises on January 14, the lawyer said “That person was on break. I’m happy to submit an affidavit from that person. That person was not on scene. On the January 17 date, there was a validly licensed massage therapy council person on the premises. The representation I just heard was that as of today the license is no good. There’s no representation that on the date of January 17, 2020 that the license was not good. So the question for the council is: ‘Based on somebody being on a lunch break on one date, is it fair at your discretion to permanently revoke a business license?’ My stance is it is not. It’s not enough.”
He said the city council’s authority with regard to whether to allow Magic Hands Massage to remain in business is “completely discretionary, and it’s too harsh of a penalty for not having somebody there when there’s no massage issue whatsoever by unlicensed techs.”
In discussing the matter, Councilman Bill Holland said, “Without opening Pandora’s box, there was other oddities. You mentioned the person running from the building. [That’s] not usually the case when you make contact with a business, somewhat of a furtive action, you’d agree?”
“Yes,” Montes responded.
Holland asked if there were “other oddities I don’t think necessarily we need to go into that also heightened your suspicions that things weren’t as they should be?”
“Correct,” Montes said.
Holland asked whether the management at Magic Hands had since January demonstrated that “everyone had the correct accreditations?”
“No,” Montes replied.
Bulgarelli clarified Montes’ answer by saying, “Since that time, one person has come in and did have a CAMTC license, and applied for and received a business license for that location.”
Holland asked how many known massage therapists were operating out of the location. He was told it was at least “five different people.”
Councilman Cameron Gregg said, “It sounds to me like the business owner in this case did not do due diligence, in fact, of finding out if the people that were potentially subcontractors underneath that business were actually licensed or certified through the city. We have ordinances in place for these reasons.”
Mayor Bird said, “They should be aware of those when they open a business.”
Bulgarelli indicated that other than having to secure business licenses for each of the massage therapists working as independent contractors, Magic Hands Massage and those working there under the guise of being therapists could have bypassed any further city regulations and scrutiny by ensuring that those serving in the role of therapists had state licenses. She said obtaining a license from the California Massage Therapy Council “affords quite a bit of benefits to massage technicians. If you have your CAMTC license you don’t have to go through the extensive background check with cities. You don’t have to fill out any additional applications and you don’t have to provide your ID. You don’t have to go through any of the rigorous screening that we used to go through with all of the massage technicians in this city. The CAMTC umbrella takes care of all those things. If you show the city an unexpired, non-suspended CAMTC license, we give you a business license.”
In response, Tyre said, “The business license has always been valid. At the beginning, they [the individuals working there as ‘massage therapists’] were non-compliant. Over time they became more compliant. The bottom line is the business is compliant now and your decision, according to the code, is completely discretionary, so I think revocation is too stiff of a request in this particular instance.”
Holland said that if Magic Hands Massage and its independent contractors had straightforwardly responded to the citations posted on January 14 and January 17, the revocation of the business license would likely not have occurred. He said the city had taken the action it did because Magic Hands Massage and those working out of it were “still operating outside the bounds of the law and the municipal code.”
Holland said it was businesses such as Magic Hands Massage that had inspired Hesperia’s late mayor, Russ Blewett, to propose a “problematic business ordinance” that has yet to be formulated or adopted by the city.
Holland made a motion that the revocation was in order based on the evidence presented. That motion was seconded by Councilwoman Brigit Bennington, and passed 5-to-0.
An effort by the Sentinel to obtain a further statement from Tyre yesterday and this morning was unsuccessful.
–Mark Gutglueck

In consultation with the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, school districts, school boards and school district superintendents countywide, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Ted Alejandre has directed that San Bernardino County public schools remain closed at least through May 1 because of the ongoing coronavirus health threat.
It was not clear whether Alejandre’s action will result in the scratching of either the second semester of the 2019-20 school year or perhaps the entirety of the 2019-20 school year in all school districts, such that none of the county’s high schools will have a traditional graduating class of 2020, rather requiring that those scheduled to leave high school this year return for academic instruction in August to obtain their diplomas either in December 2020 on May/June 2021 as members of the Class of 2021. There was no one in Alejandre’s office prepared to speak to that issue at press time today.
Alejandre made the announcement of the shuttering through May Day yesterday, Thursday March 19.
“Because of the increasing spread of the novel coronavirus in our region and across the state, we are taking a proactive and aggressive approach to maintain the health, safety and well-being of our schools and communities,” Alejandre said. “These are very difficult circumstances for our education leaders, since developments with this virus are happening so quickly. I fully support our district superintendents’ collective decision to do what is best for our students, employees and families across our county.”
Last week, beginning on March 11 and over the course of the next two days, most districts in the county moved to temporarily close at least until March 31 and in some cases until April 7 all of their schools as a preventative measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. “Since the closures, confirmed cases of COVID-19 in San Bernardino County continue to rise,” Alejandre’s office noted.
On March 17, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors issued a countywide order intended to slow the spread of the virus by canceling gatherings of people through April 6. Combined with guidance from the state and county departments of public health calling for “social distancing” of individuals to more than 6 feet to prevent the passage of COVID-19 among people, county school district superintendents determined that an extension for closing schools through May 1 would help to deter the spread of the virus.
“The Department of Public Health appreciates the opportunity to collaborate with the county superintendent of schools and district superintendents countywide to address the impact of COVID-19 on our public schools. I support their collective decision to extend public school closures in San Bernardino County,” said Dr. Erin Gustafson, acting health officer for San Bernardino County.
“These are extraordinary circumstances concerning public health that many of us have never experienced,” Alejandre said. “These proactive steps will help students, staff and our families in the region understand that public education is committed to seeing that our communities stay healthy and safe through these challenging times.”
The closest Alejandre came to addressing whether all of the more than 400,000 students in the county will need to redo the 2019-2020 academic year or the second semester of the academic year came with this portion of the statement, “It’s very important that we continue to provide educational opportunities and equitable access for all of the 406,000 students who attend public schools in our county. We recognize the impact of COVID-19 on our schools and communities is changing daily, and these decisions are subject to change given guidance from state and county officials. We will continue our efforts to work with our districts, as well as our educational community leaders and public health officials, to see us through this public health crisis.”
While many San Bernardino County students in what was previously anticipated to be the graduating class of 2020 have applied for and in some cases have been accepted at colleges throughout the country, and in certain cases, oversees, virtually all of those students were accepted on the assumption that they would possess high school diplomas upon the initiation of their college studies. It is unclear what the policies of those various universities and colleges are in allowing students to matriculate if they do not possess a valid high school diploma.
The county’s school districts could by simple fiat waive the requirement that their students complete the academic assignments needed to finish the school year, which would solve the problem for members of the Class of 2020. Thereafter, however, students from subsequent classes throughout San Bernardino County would bear the stigma of hailing from districts where the schools have a reputation for neglecting two-ninths of their student bodies’ educational needs, rendering them at a disadvantage when competing with students from elsewhere for admission to college.
-Mark Gutglueck

Fully a generation after traditional VHF and UHF broadcast television became a vestige of American life, a sizable cross section of the city at San Bernardino County’s extreme east end remains committed to receiving its daily culture, entertainment and news through the ether.
The Needles Community Television Club, along with similar entities in southeast Nevada and northeast Arizona, have perpetuated right up to the present their members’ abilities to receive at exceedingly low cost over the air television programming that runs cable subscribers approaching $1,000 per year.
In February, those club members collectively agreed that the tri-state collective will maintain the translator system located in the Black Mountains near Oatman in Arizona for at least another year.
Moreover, it was disclosed at the annual confab held this year on February 17 at the Elks Club in Needles that the system has switched over to a digitized system via ultra high frequency (UHF), which includes the Phoenix NBC affiliate channel in high definition. The system now features 37 channels available by means of a UHF antenna. High definition broadcasts are viewable only by means of a high definition reception television outfitted with a digital tuner, though the signal can be viewed in standard resolution by a television using a digital tuner. Virtually all new television models utilize digital reception. Older television sets must be augmented with a converter box to change the digital signal to analog. Such converter boxes are no longer being manufactured, but can be found for around $50 to $100.
Somewhat ironically, traditional broadcast television remains a staple in one of the county’s most remote areas because initially television broadcasts did not reach there. The U.S. Federal  Communications Commission designated a portion of the VHF (very high frequency) band for television in 1941 on channels one through six. During World War II, channel one was removed and used only for war purposes.  In 1945, channels seven through thirteen were added. Subsequently, a portion of the UHF bandwidth was allotted to television stations to meet  the demand for additional over-the-air television channels in urban areas.  In 1983, UHF channels 70–83 were taken away from TV broadcast services. As cable and satellite television service saturated most of the country, the use of the portions of the VHF and UHF spectrums reserved for television broadcasting throughout the United States ended and those bandwidths became available for relicensing or sale after a transition period, which ended June 12, 2009 in the United States.
More than a half century prior to that, however, the Needles Community Television Club was founded in 1958, serving the communities of Needles, Mohave Valley, and Topock-Golden Shores. Because surrounding mountains blocked VHF and UHF line-of-sight signals, Needles and the Mohave Valley across the river in Arizona were unable to tune in television stations. Local officials on both sides of the Arizona/California border enlisted technicians from Kingman, Arizona to conduct tests from around the region to set up “translators,” i.e., signal repeaters that allowed locals armed with a UHF antenna to get television broadcasts on their TV sets.
After experimentation, trial and error led technicians to determine that the ideal spot for the translator was atop the Black Mountains near Oatman, Arizona. The club in partnership with Mohave County operated ten channels that are received over the air by means of a simple antenna. The number of available channels has more than tripled.
Even with the advent of cable television and satellite TV service, the club and its service persisted because of the expense of such in-home services and the consideration that cable service is not available in many outlying areas. In another irony, broadcast television provides Needles residents with programming that can be one hour, or in some cases two hours, ahead of the television fare in the rest of Southern California.
The television club membership fee has not changed for 62 years, with $10 dues going to maintain the translator facility, which must be replaced every six to eight years at an approximate cost of $20,000. Those interested in maintaining their membership in what is the oldest continuously operated TV club in the country for 2020, or those outside the club wishing to enlist as a member, can do so by forwarding by U.S. Post a $10 membership donation prior to April 30 to the club’s treasurer, Bruce Pocock, 214 Fairway Dr., Needles, CA 92363; or in care of Eileen Hartwick, NAPA/Big O, 949 W. Broadway, Needles, CA 92363. Checks should be made out to The Needles TV Club.
Club brochures are available at Big O Tires/NAPA Auto Parts in Needles.

In reaction to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s mandate that social gatherings of any size be dispensed with in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, several governmental entities in San Bernardino County undertook the paradoxical assignment of holding public meetings from which the general public was excluded. Somewhat predictably, confusion tending toward but not quite reaching chaos ensued, creating an atmosphere and circumstance in which the flow of facts, data and input normally used to inform deliberative processes was compromised, rendering doubt about the integrity of the outcomes.
In Hesperia, where city council meetings are normally held on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, and San Bernardino, where the city council convenes on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, the ability of public agencies to meet the governor’s order and yet maintain the principle of allowing the citizenry to petition its government and participate in its democratic process were given early tests. The challenge was particularly pronounced in both of those cities, given the brief span between the time the order was given and the events at which the substance of the order had to be implemented.
The Sentinel was on hand to monitor the outcome at each.
On Tuesday night, virtually all members of the public were excluded from the Hesperia City Council meeting, including the press. The only exceptions consisted of city officials allowing an individual member of the public who had a direct interest in a specific item being discussed to come into the meeting chamber under escort long enough to provide input. Thereafter, the individual had to leave. No one came forth to address the council with regard to the 11 items on the consent calendar.
Curiously, members of the public were permitted into City Hall during the course of the meeting, but were restricted to the lobby, where they were able to watch the council action on a video monitor that also provided an audio of the proceedings. Hesperia Mayor Larry Bird and City Clerk Melinda Sayre gave contradictory statements about how the public would be able to remotely participate in the meeting. Bird stated that written comments could be submitted, which he implied would be read within the council chamber by a staff member out loud prior to the council taking any action with regard to the relevant issue. Sayre implied that a microphone hook-up in the lobby would allow members of the public to be heard by the council through that device. There was such confusion, however, that no input from the public was provided by that means. There was an indication given that a member of the public who had been present when the meeting initiated wanted to be heard on an item, but a staff member outside the chamber was unable to locate the individual when the item was considered, and the council took action without hearing from him or her.
On one item, a lawyer representing a business owner appealing his business license revocation was permitted entrance into the chamber to speak to the council. Because the microphone at the speaker’s podium inside the chamber was not at first turned on, the initial portion of his comments were not audible outside the council chamber. That glitch prevented the public from knowing his identity or the substance of roughly half of what he said.
There were further shortcomings in the way the meeting broadcast was handled. Unmicrophoned comments by staff were not audible outside the chamber. The video camera work was rigidly limited to two perspectives, one trained on the five members of the council and another on the station where two staff members were seated. It was therefore difficult or impossible for the public to know or understand which members of staff were participating in the discussion at several junctures during the meeting or discern their comments and input.
Moreover, the manner in which those members of the public who were present were herded into a single spot in the lobby had the precise opposite effect of the intent of the governor’s order, which was to prevent crowds from congregating in close physical proximity to one another.
Some city staff were present in the meeting chamber, while others remotely viewed the proceedings from their offices on their computer monitors. Of those, if the proceedings required their participation, they left their offices to come into the chamber for the duration of the time their input was required.
In San Bernardino the following evening, some, but not all of the shortcomings in Hesperia were replicated, while other problems that were not apparent in Hesperia further marred the process.
It appeared that prior to the meeting, preparations to allow the public into the meeting chamber had been made, with seats in the Bing Wong Auditorium at the Norman F. Feldheym Library where the city council meets having been demarked for occupancy in a way that would have maintained considerable space between those in the gallery. When the meeting commenced, however, the public was not permitted into the chamber. After initially denying a representative of the Sentinel entrance to the auditorium, a guard posted at the entrance was prevailed upon by a city staff member to allow the reporter inside.
Members of the public were allowed into the chamber to go to the public speaker’s podium to address the council during the initial part of the meeting. Each was escorted in and then out after the conclusion of his or her statement. The San Bernardino City Council numbers seven ward representatives and the mayor. Normally, all eight are seated at the dais. On Wednesday night, however, just four of the council members – Ted Sanchez, Juan Figueroa, Henry Nickel and Jim Mulvihill – were present in the in the auditorium in their normal positions. Mayor John Valdvia participated via video and audio hook-up from a desk that appeared to be in his mayoral office elsewhere in the city’s quarters. Councilwoman Sandra Ibarra appeared to be in an office setting as well, though it was not clear if she was in a municipal building or at her place of work. Council members Bessine Richard and Fred Shorett took part using a video and audio feed from their respective residences. Also participating remotely was Deputy City Attorney Sonia Carvalho. City Manager Teri Ledoux was present within the council chamber. Sanchez, Figueroa, Nickel and Mulvihill, as well as LeDoux and City Clerk Genoveva Rocha were obliged to wear headsets so they could hear the other officials who were not present in the auditorium. Some of the city staff members present had laptops which allowed them to hear and perhaps see in real time the three council members and mayor not present in the chamber. There was, however, no feed of the conversation and discussion between the council members to a speaker or amplifier in the council chamber, leaving those without a city-issued laptop or headphones unable to hear all sides of those exchanges.
The Sentinel reporter, who had with him a laptop, while in the council chamber logged on to the city’s website, where he found the live videocast of the meeting. There was, however, a roughly 30-second delay in the broadcast, such that monitoring the exchanges between the council members present in the chamber and those located elsewhere proved exceedingly challenging. There were also multiple technical glitches, as feedback from the headsets worn by some of the participants as well as the occasional multiplicity of open microphones at one time when one of the council members or present staff members failed to deaden his or her device upon the completion of his or her remarks sometimes obscured the substance of what was being said. When some items were voted upon, the outcome was less than clear, as the votes cast by some of the council members could not be heard. Such confusion persists up to press time today, when it appeared that City Clerk Rocha had misrecorded one of Councilman Nickel’s “no” votes as a “yes” vote, which was remarked upon by council members Shorett and Ibarra at the time. It does not appear that Rocha was able to resolve the discrepancy, as she had not responded by press time to an email sent yesterday inquiring as to whether she was able to determine whether she had recorded Nickel’s vote accurately.
The general confusion as to the proceedings rendered problematic the public’s ability to react to the council exchanges, and before the meeting was half over, the substantial crowd that showed up for the meeting had in its entirety left the library lobby just outside the auditorium. Prior to that, as was the case in Hesperia, those members of the public in attendance in San Bernardino were confined to the lobby, where a single small screen television displayed the proceedings inside the chamber and the feeds from the various other participants’ offices and homes. This put those members of the public there into a relatively small, enclosed space in which they were breathing all over one another, a situation absolutely contrary to the direction and intention of the governor’s directive.
Based upon the manner in which the cities of Hesperia and San Bernardino interpreted and applied Governor Newsom’s directive, it does not appear that the competing concepts of open public discourse and the exclusion of the general public from traditional public meeting venues for safety and public health considerations while public business is being transacted can be reconciled.
Certainly, governmental action and precautions to protect the public health are appropriate, and during times of extraordinary threat to public safety, the need for governmental action continues, necessitating that governmental deliberative and legislative bodies continue to function. Nevertheless, allowing that deliberative and legislative authority to proceed on matters beyond routine and emergency operational decisions that extend to impacts on the community extending well beyond any reasonably foreseeable crisis or emergency mode runs the risk of depriving citizens of the exercision of their rights under the U.S. and California Constitutions.
Moreover, time will tell whether the citizenry will tolerate and let stand without legal challenge any action the government takes during such a time of crisis that preempts them from engaging in a meaningful way with those decision-makers in their deliberations and decision-rendering on such issues of abiding public interest.
-Mark Gutglueck

By Paul Van Tubergen
It all seemed to happen too fast for some of us to take it in. The American public is genuinely concerned about things that are affecting them, but are less taken up with what is happening to people in countries far away.
Our nation wasn’t all that healthy before the coronavirus began to worry many. America considers itself to be the most prosperous modern nation in the world. In this way, America in this age is compared to the Roman Empire in its age in terms of power and domination of the other nations on our planet. But today, Americans seem to be caught in the grip of fear, with many feeling helpless because some invisible villain lurks in the air that at any time could throw anyone and everyone into a rattle of seizures and death.
I have no doubt a certain disease process is at work in America and various other places throughout the world. We all tend to fear any mass disease onset that could kill us.
Louis Pasteur brought to light that living things so small that you need a microscope to see them are all around us. Bacteria, aka, germs, were thus recognized, and various strains, types and subtypes have been identified. There are also fungi. Some bacteria and fungi are extremely harmful and dangerous. Others are beneficial and have long been instrumental in food production or processing, enriching our sensation of taste, as with the brewing of beer and wine, making bread and yogurt. With the help of Jamie Lee Curtis, a large segment of the population now knows that some bacteria is good and can play a positive role in human health and nutrition. There is good and bad bacteria. There is good and bad fungi. Fungi play a role in the formation of antibiotics, which have saved millions upon millions of lives.
There is a simple way of looking at these things and a more subtle, sophisticated approach. These things can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Bacteria can lead to disease and so can viruses. But viruses are very different from bacteria. For a start, viruses are smaller than bacteria, at least two-and-a-half times smaller and in some cases 50 times smaller. Whereas bacteria can be seen under a primitive microscope, to accurately examine a virus usually requires a much more powerful electron microscope. Even within the scientific community there is a lack of agreement and certainty about what viruses are. In this debate, some reputable scientists consider viruses to be the smallest and simplest life form. Other equally reputable scientists theorize that viruses are not metabolic substances at all but are rather infectious agents that do not live in the common sense but which exist within the living cells of an organism and replicate in that environment. Thus, they need and exist upon living things, but are not living themselves.
If you ever saw the 1971 movie The Andromeda Strain, you might recall the depiction of a huge screen in the disease center. In that fictitious drama, the alleged virus was supposedly a local phenomenon confined in a small town which had killed virtually all of its inhabitants – the lone exceptions being the town drunk, a hopelessly besotted alcoholic, and a perpetually crying baby. Those two, alone among many, many others, did not fall prey to the virus. Only they were spared. That nail-biter movie ends on a good note, because the airborne virus dissipated. There were of course some non-sequiturs in the plot, and if we were really up against a virus that plunged to the earth from way beyond, the intense heat of outer space would have very likely rendered that virus non-lethal, that is, of course, if a virus is, in fact, a living thing.
If you look at a map of the outbreak of the coronavirus worldwide, you should be able to note certain things. Right off the bat, you see it seems to be proliferating in the more temperate climates. You see some other things, as well. It is for that reason that I am having trouble accepting that the scourge of death we are seeing is entirely caused by the virus. I believe there are other factors. I believe one of those other factors, perhaps the controlling factor, is metal poisoning.
Look at the history of serious flu-like outbreaks.
In 1918 and 1919, the Great War, what we now call World War I, had just concluded. With that came the Spanish Flu, which killed millions, worldwide. In Europe, after the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the former combatants set about dealing with the remnants of war, which meant bombs and bullets. Bullets are made of lead. Lead was being reclaimed, melted, smelted and reprocessed. Millions in the general population of Europe were coming into close contact with lead, and breathing lead fumes. Lead severely impacts the immune system. You thus had a population within which whole pools of people had severely compromised immune systems. That population incubated the Spanish Flu – which ultimately in many cases manifested in the secondary condition of pneumonia – and it spread across the globe. The world population at that time stood at 1.5 billion people give or take. An estimated two percent of those – 30 million people – perished in the Spanish Flu crisis. Following World War II, the world was again dealing with all the lead that had been slung and flung around. More immune systems were compromised and diseases like polio and amiotrophic lateral sclerosis increased.
For as long as I can remember, China has been a literal fountain of flu. In 1968 it was the Hong Kong Flu. In 1997, it was the avian flu. There have been others, but I’ve lost track.
China is a place brimming with pollution. For decades, perhaps even centuries, the Chinese have been giving their children toys to play with that have alarming levels of lead in them. They produce consumer products – window blinds, and eating trays, and cooking utensils and drinking cups and apparel – that contain unbelievable amounts of lead. They market domestically and worldwide food such as fish caught in Chinese territorial waters that register lead content that is off the charts.
Look at the map. Where has the coronavirus taken root? Where have the largest number of known human deaths involving the coronavirus taken place? In China, in Italy and in Iran. What do we know about Italy? It was the center of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire ruled the world, or what was then the known world. Then the empire fell. Why? One theory is that because the Romans utilized eating and drinking vessels composed of lead. Northern Italy stands at the foot of Southern Alps, which are rich in dolomite and limestone. Accompanying dolomite are heavy levels of lead. The water supply in Northern Italy is lead-rich. Historically and geographically, Italy is plagued with lead.
I am challenged when it comes to Iran. Question: Does lead proliferate in Iran?
The reality is this: You have more flu coming out of China than you can shake a stick at.
People in northern Italy are dropping like flies from the coronavirus.
The problem isn’t overseas alone. There are pockets within our own country where there are persistent problems with contamination and pollution, elements of our population who suffer from lead poisoning and exposure to other immune system-destroying substances.
I’m not a government bureaucrat and I’m not a doctor. With that caveat, here’s the two things I think the government regulators and the epidemiologists should do, forthwith.
1) End the importation of all food from China. I don’t care how good it might taste or how hungry people are.
2) Those people running the laboratories should get an investigation under way to determine if the high rates of disease and the high rates of death we are seeing throughout the world are not a sole product of this virus going around but rather numerous agents working in combination with one another causing this disease to reach critical levels in its victims.
You, my readers, have this option: You can, in any way that is open to you, call upon the competent medical and scientific professionals to look at the non-viral factors in the alarming spike in deaths besetting us.