At several locations in the San Bernardino Mountains this week there were mud flows that inundated the road and adjacent areas, in some cases creating flows that nearly buried several vehicles.
Indeed, public safety officials and residents as late as today are on the lookout for cars that may be covered by mud in their entirety, perhaps trapping motorists inside their cars and putting their lives in danger.
In particular, along Highway 330, where large swathes of land were denuded of trees, chaparral, bushes and the natural groundcover as a consequence of the Line Fire, which began as the result of arson on September 5 and was still smoldering as late as October 9, there were mudflows as high as four-and-a-half feet and perhaps higher. Photos have been posted to the internet depicting several cars that were either on Highway 330 or its shoulder enveloped in mud reaching nearly to the level of the front hood atop those cars’ engine compartment. One photo showed mud well above the level of what looked to be a small sports car’s hood to a point on the cars’ side windows and front windshield six or seven inches from the roof. Continue reading →

Milton Grimes, who is among a bevy of lawyers who successfully pushed no fewer than 17 of San Bernardino County’s 24 municipalities into adopting by-district city/town council elections between 2014 and 2024 by either veiled or more direct accusations of racial bias in the way those jurisdiction’s choose their elected leadership, was sentenced on Tuesday to 18 months in federal prison for evading the payment of more than $7.2 million in federal and state taxes over a period of more than two decades.
Grimes was sentenced by United States District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., who also ordered him to pay $7,236,556 in restitution, both to the Internal Revenue Service and to the California Franchise Tax Board.
In October 2024, Grimes pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion relating to his 2014 taxes and admitted that he failed to pay $1,690,922 to the IRS.
“Despite being a respected attorney, Mr. Grimes also made the deliberate decision to cheat on his taxes for decades, evading the payment of millions of dollars in tax that all citizens are required to pay,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally. “Tax fraud has a corrosive effect on society’s foundations, and we thank our partners at the Internal Revenue Service for their diligence in bringing this defendant to justice.”
“As a successful attorney and owner of a law practice, Mr. Grimes was well aware of his income tax obligations, which he repeatedly chose to evade,” said Los Angeles Internal Revenue Service Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher. “Despite multiple attempts by the IRS to help him settle his tax obligations, Mr. Grimes continued to obfuscate his income. Unfortunately for him, IRS criminal investigation special agents are the best financial investigators in the world, and now he will feel the repercussions of his actions.” Continue reading →

Ontario International Airport’s official spokesperson took issue with a portion of the narrative in the Sentinel’s January 31 article that bore the headline “Ontario International Airport Ridership Back To Where It Was Eighteen Years Ago.”
That article reported on how, essentially, in 2024 Ontario International Airport achieved the significant milestone of surpassing 7 million passengers, the highest number since the City of Ontario regained ownership from Los Angeles in 2015. The 7,084,864 passengers who passed through the airport’s gates from January 1, 2024 until December 31, 2024 was slightly over 98.3 percent of the 7,207,150 passenger total the airport experienced in 2007. That figure, just shy of the 2007 ridership level at the airport which was the highest in the aerodrome’s history, represented a notable comeback for the airport. During the economic downturn known as the “Great Recession,” which began in 2007 and lingered for six years, ridership at Ontario International Airport dropped off significantly, as it did at virtually every other airport in the country. Passenger traffic into and out of Ontario declined to 6,232,975 in 2008, then dropped to 4,861,110 in 2009 and fell to 4,812,578 in 2010. Those numbers worsened to 4,540,694 in 2011, continued to decline to 4,296,459 in 2012 and hit rock bottom at 3,971,136 in 2013.
By 2010, Ontario officials, spearheaded by Councilman Alan Wapner, seized upon the downturn in usage at Ontario International Airport to openly allege that the City of Los Angeles, which since 1967 pursuant to a joint powers authority agreement with Ontario had been managing and operating the airport and which in 1985 had assumed ownership of it as a public benefit asset, was deliberately mismanaging the airport. In 2011, Wapner and the other officials instituted a formal effort to reclaim control of the airport from Los Angeles. That effort matured into a lawsuit filed in 2013 in which the law firm of Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, sued Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports on Ontario’s behalf, claiming neglect and negligence, breach of contract and misfeasance in the operation and management of Ontario International Airport. In 2015, that lawsuit was settled, with Los Angeles agreeing to surrender ownership of the facility to Ontario as of November 1, 2016. In return, Ontario agreed to remunerate Los Angeles $60 million out of its various operating funds and another $30 million taken out of its reserves, make payments of $50 million over five years and $70 million in the final five years of the ten-year ownership transition and further absorbed $60 million of the airport’s bond debt to recompense purchasers of municipal bonds issued by Los Angeles, the proceeds of which had been used to make improvements at the airport. Continue reading →

Travis Pennington, who bore the brunt of local outrage last year when the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation transferred a reported 39 prisoners from California’s Death Row at San Quentin Prison to the California Institution for Men at Chino, has departed as warden for a higher responsibility position with the state penal system.
He is being replaced by Eric Mejia, who has now assumed the title of acting warden in Chino.
Pennington is a fast-rising star in the world of corrections. In October 2021, he was a senior ranking – captain – prison guard. The following month, he was promoted to chief deputy warden. Two years later, in November 2023, while he remained in the rank of chief deputy warden, he was made the acting warden at the California Institution for Men. That turned into an eventful 14-month assignment.
Governor Gavin Newsom, who shortly after taking office enunciated his opposition to the death penalty and in 2020 initiated a pilot program to move a portion of the state’s condemned inmates – 104 of them – out of their traditional holding place at San Quentin Prison, decommissioned the death chamber their entirely in late 2023 and early 2024. In March 2024, he began one of his legacy programs, which called for dispatching the remaining 189 inmates at San Quentin who were sentenced to death and 20 from the women’s facility in Chowchilla to other prisons. In formulating that plan, Newsom seized upon Proposition 66, what had been proposed by its sponsors as a more hardnosed reform of the penal system as applied to capital punishment in the Golden State. Proposition 66 called for speeding the process of capital trials and executions, limiting the challenges to death sentences and eliminating objections and obstructions to the death penalty by those claiming it was a cruel and unusual punishment by prescribing a choice of four barbiturates for lethal injection: amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental. Proposition 66 also allowed those sentenced to death to work, with 70 percent of their pay to go toward restitution to their victims, insofar as they were housed in an institution which offered work programs and provided a level of security to prevent them from harming other inmates or escaping. The proposition authorized the state to house death row inmates in any prison, rather than the one death row prison for men and one death row prison for women. Continue reading →

There is concern that the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office may have engaged in inadequate follow-up after the Redlands Police Department’s Community Engagement Team collared two women believed to be key members of a regional retail theft ring.
On January 30, officers with the Redlands Police Department blanketed the Mountain Grove and Citrus Plaza shopping centers in a coordinated effort that also involved store employees, store security/loss prevention officers and retail theft investigators.
With both uniformed public law enforcement and undercover private personnel monitoring the malls in a casual manner, they were able to nab 11 individuals and recover of $7,600 in stolen merchandise in and around several stores, including Target, Kay Jewelers, Burlington, Lane Bryant, Sephora, Ross, Designer Shoe Warehouse, Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret, TJ Maxx, Famous Footwear, Ulta, World Market, Banana Republic, Kohls, Gap, and BevMo.
Among those 11 were two in particular, whose reputation for thievery proceeded them. One of these was Maria Isabel Torres, 28 of Los Angeles, who was recognized from photos taken of her during the commission of similar acts of larceny throughout Southern California in retail establishments in San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside County as well as her believed affiliation with others whose thefts range from simple shoplifting such as the type she engages in to more aggressive acts, some of which involve violence and aggressive destruction as both a means of effectuating the theft and as a diversion. Torres, who had earlier that day been identified as having looted a Nordstrom Rack in Riverside in broad daylight and thereafter swiftly making a getaway, was recognized by members of the retail theft prevention team virtually as soon as she came into the Ross store in the Mountain Grove center. The theft-prevention team had been alerted by a Nordstroms loss prevention agent with an accurate description of how Torres was dressed. That information was followed up with a security camera photo of Torres at the Riverside location. Upon surveilling Torres for more than ten minutes, satisfying themselves as to her identity and observing her in action and that she was about to dash off, members of the community engagement team moved quickly to take her into custody. Arrested with her was Maria Isabel Hernandez, 53 and also of Los Angeles, who acted as a lookout while Torres filled a suitcase with merchandise shed did not pay for and then left the store. The pair communicated via Bluetooth, while Hernandez observed her partners from various angles and distances as much as 75 feet away. Hernandez did not detect any of the community engagement team in the area. Continue reading →

NOTICE OF PUBLIC LIEN SALE
Notice is hereby given that personal property in the following units will be sold at public auction pursuant to Sections 21701-21716 of the California Self-Service Storage Facility Act. A public lien sale will be conducted by www.storagetreasures.com on the 25th day of February 2025, at or after 9:00 am. The property is stored by All American Storage Ontario located at 505 S. Mountain Avenue, Ontario, CA 91762.
Purchases must be made in CASH ONLY.
Items are sold AS IS WHERE IS and must be removed at the time of sale. All American Storage Ontario reserves the right to refuse any bid or cancel auction. The items to be sold are generally described as follows: miscellaneous personal and household goods stored by the following persons:
Unit Name
D148 Jesus Yepez
D025 Daniel Fricke
E040 Victor Acevedo Dominguez
B029 Chelsey Wiedenbeck
Dated: 2/5/2025
Signed: Garrett Gossett
storagetreasures.com
Sales subject to prior cancellation in the event of settlement between Owner and obligated party.
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on February 7 and 14, 2025.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME
CIV SB 2500116
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS:
Petitioner MICHAEL ANTHONY WARD filed with this court for a decree changing names as follows:
MICHAEL ANTHONY WARD to MICHAEL ANTHONY CHAVEZ
THE COURT ORDERS that all persons interested in this matter appear before this court at the hearing indicated below to show cause, if any, why the petition for change of name should not be granted. Any person objecting to the name changes described above must file a written objection that includes the reasons for the objection at least two court days before the matter is scheduled to be heard and must appear at the hearing to show cause why the petition should not be granted. If no written objection is timely filed, the court may grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: FEBRUARY 26, 2025
Time: 8:30 a.m.
Department: S22
The address of the court is Superior Court of California, County of San Bernardino, 247 West Third Street, San Bernardino, CA 92415
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this order be published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel in San Bernardino County California, once a week for four successive weeks prior to the date set for hearing of the petition.
Gilbert G. Ochoa
Judge of the Superior Court.
Filed: January 15, 2025 by Abrianna Rodriquez, Deputy Court Clerk
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on January 24 & 31 and February 7 & 14, 2025.

Continue reading →

The Replenish Big Bear water reclamation project which appeared to be on the ropes if not down for the count entirely since August recaptured its potential viability pursuant to a key reversal by Kendi Segovia at the January 22 Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency Board of Directors meeting.
The community of Big Bear Valley, including the City of Big Bear Lake, the even larger unincorporated county area of Big Bear City, the local tourist industry, locally-based commercial enterprises and the lake itself face serious existential challenges from drought conditions and intensifying demands for water as a consequence of development and population growth.
The Replenish Big Bear program is an innovative proposal to utilize what is essentially a bundle of advanced technologies to process the communities wastewater to recover a large enough volume of purified water to offset the loss of water from the lake from diminished natural rain recharge, evaporation and use. While that approach has the enthusiastic support of a fair number of the community’s members, some but not all of its elected officials and what appears to be the overriding majority of the area’s water infrastructure and sewage/sanitation district professionals, there is yet reluctance to go along with and resistance to the proposal, based upon the project’s cost and skepticism over whether what is, in the final analysis, an unproven technique to reclaim sewage that might end up failing spectacularly and leave the lake and its environs in a putrefied state that would destroy Big Bear’s image and reputation and from which it and the local community might never recover. Continue reading →