Republicans extended their domination of San Bernardino County Government for at least two more years this week when appointed incumbent Dawn Rowe and Congressman Paul Cook won outright their respective races for county supervisors in the Third District and First District.
While in California local elective offices – those at the municipal and county levels as well as those boards overseeing school, water and fire districts – are considered nonpartisan, in San Bernardino County party affiliation is a major factor in all elections. And unlike 54 of California’s 58 counties where the Democratic Party has the upper hand, San Bernardino County is a GOP bastion.
As it now stands, four of the county’s five supervisors are Republicans – Rowe, First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood, Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford and Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman. Only Fifth District Supervisor Josie Gonzales is a Democrat. She is leaving office at the end of the year, as she is termed out, having served four and three-quarters consecutive terms since she was first elected in 2004. In 2006, the passage of Measure P significantly raised the pay and benefits of county supervisors, while imposing on them a three-term limit from that point forward. Gonzales’s first term, which initiated prior to Measure P going into effect, was not counted toward the three-terms she was allotted beginning with her 2008 reelection.
Rutherford was first elected in 2010, reelected in 2014 and in 2018. She is scheduled to remain in office until December 2022, but is not eligible to seek reelection that year. Hagman, who was formerly a member of the Assembly and was termed out of California’s lower legislative house in 2014, successfully ran for supervisor that year and was reelected in 2018. He will be able to seek reelection in 2022. Lovingood was elected supervisor in 2012, his maiden foray into politics. He was reelected in 2016 and could have sought reelection this year, but is choosing to return to the private sector, where he was successful. His decision touched off a round of political musical chairs among several of the county’s established Republican officeholders in the desert region. Cook, who was originally from Connecticut, served 26 years in the U.S. Marines before retiring as a colonel and then entered politics, first on the city council in Yucca Valley. He served six years in the California Assembly before running successfully for Congress in the 8th Congressional District in 2012. With Lovingood’s departure, the 77-year-old former Marine jumped at the chance to leave Congress and the biweekly cross country air travel that entailed, and declared his candidacy to succeed Lovingood. Jay Obernolte, the one-time mayor of Big Bear and a member of the Assembly since 2014 who somewhat disingenuously maintains he is not a career politician, instantaneously moved to declare he would vie for the position in the House of Representatives that Cook was abandoning. When Lovingood did not, as some thought he might, seek to move into Obernolte’s Assembly slot, former Hesperia Mayor Thurston Smith declared his candidacy for that position.
In state and federal races in California, the two top finishers in the primary election automatically qualify for a November run-off even if the first place finisher captures a majority of the votes. At the county and city level in San Bernardino County, however, a candidate can gain election outright by getting a majority of the vote in the primary election. That is what Rowe and Cook did on Tuesday.
Rowe was challenged by four Democrats –  Redlands City Councilman Eddie Tejeda; Kaisar Ahmed, who previously ran for Redlands City Council in 2016 and for Congress in the 31st Congressional District in 2018; Karen Ickes, a human services manager; and Latron Lester, a minister from Barstow. As of press time today, Rowe had captured 39,028 votes or 55.61 percent, giving her the victory. Tejeda had the strongest showing among the also-rans, with 12,822 votes or 18.27 percent. Ahmed came in third with 10,439 voters or 14.87 percent. Ickes claimed 6,731 votes or 9.58 percent. Lester’s 1,172 votes was equal to 1.67 percent.
Cook chalked up an impressive win, pulling in 37,434 votes or 65.52 percent in a field of four that included Victorville Councilwoman Rita Ramirez-Dean, Adelanto City Councilwoman Stevevonna Evans and Marcelino Garza, a special assistant to the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. All of Cook’s opponents, like all of Rowe’s, are Democrats. Ramirez-Dean had the strongest showing, with 12,040 votes or 21.07 percent. Garza corralled 4,594 votes or 8.04 percent. Evans managed to get 3,063 votes or 5.36 percent.
When Cook is sworn into office and takes his place on the board dais in December, he will be reunited with Rowe, this time as an equal. Previously, Rowe worked in Cook’s congressional office as a field representative. Rowe now employs two other former Cook staff members, Dillon Lesovsky and Matt Knox, the former as her policy advisor and the latter as her chief of staff.
–Mark Gutglueck

At last acknowledging what many residents have known for over two months, Upland city officials have conceded without elaboration that the city will not be tapping into any of the State of California’s Proposition 68 largesse to improve Memorial Park.
Rather than simply reduce the scope of the $8.5 million grant that the city had asked for, the California Department of Parks and Recreation shut the City of Gracious Living out of the running from any grant money whatsoever.
City officials were unwilling to respond to requests for comment, a far cry from the verbal abuse the city’s former recreation services manager and other city officials heaped on city residents or members of the press for asking what undergirded the city’s confidence that the state would provide the full $8.5 million grant the city was seeking. Posing such questions, Upland Recreational Services Manager Doug Story insisted, was irresponsible, reckless, unethical and potentially libelous. He said the state would free the full $8.5 million for release to the city by the end of December 2019. Those who suggested otherwise were either lying or being unrealistic, he said.
The city’s application for the Proposition 68 grant was one hatched in desperation last year as part of an effort to head off mounting resident anger over city officials’ acquiescence in San Antonio Hospital’s move to carve away a 12 percent portion of Memorial Park for use as a parking lot. The hospital’s need had grown out of its failure to make adequate planning to accommodate the influx of patients and patient family members that ultimately accompanied the completion of the energetic effort to expand the hospital that began in 2011 and concluded in 2017, involving adding the $160 million four-story Vineyard Tower at 999 San Bernardino Road, increasing the number of beds at the institution from 271 to over 400, upping the number of stations in the hospital’s emergency room from 34 to 52, outfitting 12 more intensive care units, and constructing another $30 million, 60,000-square-foot structure at 1100 San Bernardino Road which included quarters for a satellite City of Hope oncology clinic. Provision for parking was not included in the application/plans approved by the City of Upland for any of these projects as required by law.
On March 26, 2018, with 72 hours notice from city staff, the city and the city council were presented with a proposal that had emanated from Story’s immediate boss, then-Development Services Director Jeff Zwack, along with then-City Attorney Jim Markman, then-City Manager Bill Manis, then-Assistant City Manager Jeannette Vagnozzi, and the city’s management consultant, Marty Thouvennell, the city’s one-time police chief who had served as interim city manager from July 2016 until January 1, 2018. The Zwack/Markman/Manis/Vagnozzi/Thouvennell proposal called for the city selling 4.631 acres of the southwestern portion of Memorial Park, which contains a baseball field that is actively used by the city’s youth sports leagues. The main campus of the hospital immediately adjoins the park, and the hospital wanted to convert the baseball diamond and some of the greenland around it to a parking lot to accommodate the hospital’s burgeoning clientele.
In compliance with the recommendation by Manis, Zwack and Markman, the city council voted 3-to-1 to approve a purchase and sale agreement between the hospital and the city, with San Antonio Hospital committing to paying $906,931.55 per acre, or a total of $4.2 million, to acquire the 4.631 acres. Mayor Debbie Stone and then-council members Gino Filippi and Carol Timm went along with making the sale. Councilwoman Janice Elliott opposed it. Then-Councilman Sid Robinson, who normally voted in lockstep with Stone, Filippi and Timm, was not present at the meeting.
Manis, Vagnozzi, Thouvennell Zwack, Markman and the three prevailing members of the council, sensitive to San Antonio Hospital’s status as the city’s major institution and largest employer, considered accommodating its needs to be paramount.
In approving the sale, the city council also authorized City Attorney James Markman to undertake a so-called validation proceeding intended to foreclose any procedural or future legal challenge to the sale. In its validation action filed with the court, the city invited anyone opposed to the sale to lodge a protest. A challenge to the validation had to be filed within 60 days. Once the court validated the sale, any future lawsuits contesting the sale would be barred. The calculation by those favoring the sale was that no one would go to the expense of hiring an attorney to make an answer to the validation petition.
The validation procedure was directed to the courtroom of Superior Court Judge David Cohn in San Bernardino. To the chagrin of city and hospital officials, Marjorie Mikels, an attorney living in the city, as well as the Inland Oversight Committee represented by Cory Briggs, an attorney based in both Upland and San Diego, filed answers to the validation action. Those responses took issue with the sale on multiple grounds, among which was that the city selling off a slice of the park – in particular the one sold by the council on March 26, 2018, which included the long extant and actively used baseball field – is tantamount to abandoning public property. Such abandonments, under state law, cannot be effectuated without a vote of the citizens residing in the jurisdiction that owns that property.
Faced with not one but two challenges to the sale he had not anticipated, City Attorney Markman sought to convince Judge Cohn that the city council, acting on its own authority, was within its rights to sell off city land. In response to the argument that a municipality’s abandonment of property it owned and was putting to beneficial public use had to be subjected to a vote, Markman asserted that selling the property did not constitute an abandonment.
Ultimately, some 14 months after the sale of the park property was approved by the city council, on May 29, 2019, Judge Cohn, after hearing the responses to the city’s filing, dismissed its petition for validation. Judge Cohn’s ruling cleared the way for anyone with standing – meaning essentially any city resident – to file a lawsuit challenging the sale.
Penultimately, hospital officials have resigned themselves to the necessity of subjecting the sale of the property to a citywide vote. It earlier appeared that balloting would take place in conjunction with the March 2020 California Primary Election. Now, however, it appears that the vote, if it is to take place at all, will not come until the November 2020 General Election.
Before 2018 had fully run, the fallout from the move to sell the city park property was settling hard. In June of that year, Zwack abruptly retired as the city’s development services director. In September, Manis resigned as city manager, effective November 1, 2018. Councilman Sid Robinson, whose status in Upland had largely been based upon his involvement in the city’s youth sports leagues, suddenly found his position as a member of the city council whose voting record was virtually indistinguishable from those of Mayor Stone and council members Filippi and Timm untenable, given Stone’s, Filippi’s and Timm’s support of eradicating one of the city’s baseball diamonds. He announced he would not seek election that November. When that election was held, Filippi and Timm, who had become the object of a large number of voters’ wrath in part due to their March 28 vote to sell off 12 percent of Memorial Park, were voted out of office, while Councilwoman Janice Elliott, who had opposed the parkland sale, emerged victorious in her effort to gain election in the city’s newly created Second District, as the city held its first by-district election.
Both Assistant City Manager Jeannette Vagnozzi and City Attorney Jim Markman, the other architect of the parkland sale, managed to survive the close of 2018. Indeed, at the last meeting in November 2018, just before the lame ducks Filippi, Timm and Robinson departed from their elective posts, with Timm participating by means of recommendation while she was in North Carolina visiting her parents over the Thanksgiving holiday, Vagnozzi was elevated to the position of city manager. Some six months into her tenure as city manager, however, Vagnozzi was forced out by the newly composed city council, a little more than two weeks before Judge Cohn’s ruling dismissing the validation action the city had filed to keep the sale of the park property from being challenged. At that point, Markman found himself under siege. Not only was his legal expertise and judgment subject to question, it was painfully obvious that his militating on behalf of the hospital in its effort to obtain the park property for a parking lot was out of step with a sizable cross section of the most civically-active residents of the city. In October, as the city council was making preparations to terminate him, he resigned as city attorney.
A month before Markman’s forced departure, San Antonio Hospital CEO and President Harris Koenig had been fired by the San Antonio Hospital Board of Directors. Koening had been named the president and CEO of San Antonio Hospital in June 2011 and, using financing that consisted in large measure of $125,000,000 in certificates of participation issued using the City of Upland’s bonding authority, immediately thereafter embarked on the earlier-described six-year-long series of planned expansion stages intended to transform San Antonio into a regional hospital. Among the board’s concerns that had brought about Koenig’s termination was the hospital’s continuing lack of profitability two years after the expansion had been completed in 2017.
Last summer, with the hospital’s parking lot no longer able to accommodate the number of people seeking care who check in to the hospital, either on an in-patient or out-patient basis, to say nothing of those accompanying or visiting the hospital’s patients, the new administration at Upland City Hall, led at that point by Rosemary Hoerning, who had been elevated to acting city manager to replace Vagnozzi, felt put upon to do something to aid the hospital, the city’s leading institution.
Story, had begun with the City of Upland in October 2015 as a development services specialist and was provided with a promotion to the position of Upland’s recreation manager commencing in October 2017. A condition of his promotion to that post by Thouvenell was that Story had to do the bidding of a number of city higher-ups. Thus, Story found himself, as the city’s recreational services manager, obliged to accommodate San Antonio Hospital and engaged in the paradoxical giveaway of a portion of the city’s premier recreational amenity – Memorial Park – and the compromising of the function of the municipal division Story had been promoted to lead. Story gamely sought to carry out the assignment he had been given, boldly seeking to obtain an infusion of state money to offset the reduction in parkland the city was sustaining in its effort to provide the hospital with property for parking and future expansion.
Story applied for the maximum amount of money the city could get under Proposition 68, which was passed by the state’s voters in 2018 and reallocated a portion of California’s $7.545 billion in general obligation bonds for expanding and enhancing parks around the state. In his application, Story put together an energetic park makeover plan to utilize the $8.5 million Upland was requesting under Proposition 68 to refurbish or replace Memorial Park’s playground equipment, add a water feature splash pad, an amphitheater and an artificial turf multi-sports competition field, augment the park with walking and exercise trails, a basketball court and an intensified outdoor nature conservancy with trees and plants hospitable toward bees, hummingbirds and the like. In this way, Story hoped, Upland’s citizenry would look beyond that accompanying the park enhancements would be the reduction of the 38.5 acre park by 4.631 acres.
The game plan was that the city’s park aficionados would be so enthusiastic about the improvements to the park the city would accrue that they would essentially ignore that 12 percent of it was being lopped off to create a parking lot. Some residents and members of the press expressed skepticism about Story’s confident pronouncement that the state would provide the full $8.5 million grant to Upland. When he was questioned and asked specifically how he could guarantee that the park grant money would be forthcoming, Story insisted that Upland had the money sewn up. When it was pointed out that the grant application process was a competitive one, and that the state would have the option of reducing the award in accordance with grant money availability and the strength of other applications, Story said that such a question was beneath the dignity of someone in the position of a municipal official, and he went so far as to suggest that the question itself was tantamount to accusing him of lying, which bordered on slander. Putting such a question into print, Story said, would cross the line into the province of libel, and would therefore be actionable.
Story’s reaction prompted inquiries into the grant application itself to be undertaken with the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Those inquiries prompted the state to take a serious look at the numbers provided by the city in its application. Upon review of the city’s submitted grant application, it was determined that some of the data forwarded to the state by the city as part of the application process had been falsified.
Two criteria are applied by the state in releasing Proposition 68 money. One test pertains to an applicant demonstrating that it has a “deficit” of parkland throughout its jurisdiction such that its park area is less than three acres per 1,000 people in the city overall. A second test relates not to the entire city but to the specific park for which a grant is being sought. That test uses a factor of determination in which the park is considered as providing recreational opportunities for a specific “service area” within the city, county or jurisdictional entity making the application. If those living within that service area can be demonstrated as having an average per-household annual income of less than $51,000, the state considers that park to be eligible for improvements a Proposition 68 grant could provide. An examination of both the grant application and city demographic data showed the city had fudged numbers in an effort to qualify for the grants. The Sentinel is informed that by the end of November, state officials had made a determination that the grant application should be rejected, and informed Story of such. Story checked out of Upland the first week of December, bound for the City of Beaumont, where he was to take on an assignment similar to the one he had in Upland, effective in January.
In the meantime, Upland municipal officials withheld from the public that the state had denied the city the grant. Councilman Bill Velto in December insisted the city was yet waiting for the grant money – all $8.5 million of it – to arrive. On January 2, Councilwoman Janice Elliot said it was yet the city’s official position that the Proposition 68 grant might come through.
Subsequent to the Sentinel’s January 3 publication of an article which relayed a report that the state had uncovered misrepresentations in the city’s grant application and that the application had as a consequence been rejected, Councilman Ricky Felix referred to the Sentinel as a purveyor of “fake news.”
Reached by the Sentinel today for a statement with regard to the state’s rejection of the city’s Proposition 68 grant application, Felix indicated it was a “bad time” for him to discuss the situation. “I’m with my family right now,” he said.
–Mark Gutglueck

In the 17 races to represent San Bernardino County in the state and federal legislature held this week in conjunction with California’s March 3 Presidential Primary Election, 14 incumbents were vying.  All of those incumbents captured sufficient votes to compete in the run-off for their respective positions to be held in November in conjunction with the Presidential General Election. That left three races where all those competing were newcomers.
In the race for United States representative in California’s District 8 where the incumbent Paul Cook has decided to leave Washington, D.C. in favor of serving as a county supervisor, current 33rd District Assemblyman Jay Obernolte, a Republican, captured the top spot with 40,127 or 36.13 percent of the vote. Democrat Christine Bubser captured 30,035 or 27.4 percent for second place. Obernolte and Bubser will vie against each other in the November run-off.
Six others competed in the 8th District, a Republican stronghold. Tim Donnelly, a Republican, captured third with 21.34 percent, followed by Democrat Bob Conaway with 6.41 percent, non-aligned Jeff Esmus with 2.69 percent, Democrat James Ellars with 2.48 percent, Republican Jeremy Staat with 1.54 percent, Republican Jerry Laws with 1.47 percent, and Republican Justin Whitehead with 0.89 percent.
In the race for United States Representative in California’s District 27, which extends beyond San Bernardino County, Judy Chu, the Democratic incumbent, captured 4,585 votes cast within San Bernardino County, or 45.63 percent. Johnny Nalbandian, a Republican garnered 3,401 San Bernardino County votes or 33.84 percent. Beatrice Cardenas, a Republican, claimed 17.02 percent and Christian Daly, who expressed no party preference, polled 3.51 percent.
In the contest for United States representative in California’s District 31, Democratic incumbent Pete Aguilar pulled down 63,678 votes or 61.3 percent to Republican Agnes Gibboney’s 40,185 votes, or 38.68 percent.
In the race to represent voters as the United States representative in California’s District 35, incumbent Democrat Norma Torres captured 42,543 votes in San Bernardino County or 68.3 percent, and Republican Mike Cargile received 19,749 votes or 31.7 percent.
In the California’s Congressional District 39 race, San Bernardino County’s voters favored challenger Young Kim, a Republican, with 6,851 votes, or 51.46 percent over the incumbent, Democrat Gil Cisneros, who received 6,008 or 44.86 percent of the votes cast in San Bernardino County. Non-aligned Steve Cox received 3.98 percent of the vote in San Bernardino County.  In District 39 overall, which straddles Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties, Kim is ahead with 62,018 votes or 50.1 percent to Cisneros’s 55,729 votes or 45 percent, followed by Fox with 4.8 percent.
In State Senate District 21, incumbent Republican Scott Wilk captured 27,231 votes or 57.87 percent in San Bernardino County, more than three-and-a-half times more than the 7,764 votes or 16.5 percent for Democrat Kipp Mueller. Warren Heaton, a Democrat, was third with 11.94 percent, followed by 9.37 percent for Dana Lamon, another Democrat. Steve Hill, a fourth Democrat in the race, polled 4.32 percent.
In State Senate District 23, which covers a portion of both San Bernardino and Riverside counties, five candidates vied to replace Republican Mike Morrell, who is being termed out at the end of the year. Democrat Abigail Medina was the top vote-getter in San Bernardino County with 31,872 or 29.51 percent. Republican Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh captured second with 29,297 or 27.13 percent. Republican Lloyd White managed to bring in 17.74 percent and Democrat Kris Goodfellow had 16.7 percent. A third Republican in the contest, Cristina Puraci, pulled down 8.91 percent. Districtwide, Medina topped Bogh 44,330 or 26.9 percent to 41,418 or 25.1 percent.
In State Senate District 25, where Democrat Anthony Portantino is running unopposed, he gathered 9,211 votes or 97.98 percent in San Bernardino County.
In the State Senate District 29 race, incumbent Republican Ling Ling Chang claimed 7,037 San Bernardino County votes, or 53.31 percent. Democrat Josh Newman received 3,649 or 27.65 percent in San Bernardino County. Joseph Cho, a Democrat, captured 19.04 percent of the San Bernardino County vote. Districtwide, including Orange, Los Angeles and San Berrnardino counties, Chang was ahead of Newman 73,284 votes or 49 percent to 49,288 votes or 32.9 percent.
In the race to succeed Republican Jay Obernolte in Assembly District 33, a mix of four Democrats and three Republicans competed. Republican Thurston Smith came out on top, with 27,724 votes or 38.57 percent. Rick Herrick, also a Republican, garnered 12,571 votes or 17.49 percent for second place, meaning the Democrats are locked out of the race for the Assembly in District 33 in November. Democrat Socorro Cisneros captured 13.51 percent, followed by Blanca Gomez, a Democrat, with 10.17 percent and Anthony Rhoades, another Democrat, with 8.56 percent. Roger La Plante, also a Democrat, polled 6.57 percent. Republican Alex Walton claimed 5.18 percent of the vote.
In Assembly District 36, which covers only a small portion of San Bernardino County, Republican incumbent Tom Lackey comfortably outdistanced the seven others in the race with a whopping 68.68 percent of the vote in San Bernardino County, translating to being chosen on 2,827 ballots. Capturing second in San Bernardino County was Democrat Steve Fox with 499 votes or 12.12 percent. Johnathon Erwin, a Democrat, received 5.9 percent; Lourdes Everett, a Democrat, received 3.33 percent; Michael Rives, a Democrat received 1.48 percent; Democrat Eric Ohlsen received 2.31 percent,  Democrat Diedra Greenaway received 3.38 percent and Democrat Ollie McCaulley garnered 2.79 percent.
In the contest for Assembly District 40, Democratic incumbent James Ramos outdistanced Republican Jennifer Tullius, 42,473 votes or 58.33 percent to 30,346 votes or 41.67 percent.
In the race to represent Assembly District 41, of which less than one third lies in San Bernardino County, incumbent Democrat Chris Holden, with 10,253 votes or 47.82 percent from San Bernardino County voters, lost in San Bernardino County to Republican challenger Robin Hvidston, who claimed 11,189 votes or 52.18 percent of those cast in San Bernardino County. In the district overall, however, Holden was comfortably outdistancing Hvidston 66,973 or 67.1 percent to 32,899 or 32.9 percent.
In State Assembly District 42, where incumbent Chad Mayes, formerly a Republican, is now running as an independent, he is being challenged by a Republican and a Democrat. In San Bernardino County, Mayes, with 8,118 votes or 33.66 percent, was bettered by Republican Andrew Kotyuk, who received 9,833 votes or 40.78 percent. Deniantionette Mazingo, the Democrat in the race, polled 6,164 votes from within San Bernardino County or 25.56 percent. Throughout all of District 42, which crosses into Riverside County, Mayes fared better, capturing 34,217 votes or 35.9 percent for first place to Kotyuk’s 32,282 votes or 35.9 percent. Mazino had 30.3 percent.
In Democratic-friendly Assembly District 47, incumbent Democrat Eloise Gomez Reyes, with 37,528 votes or 70.37 percent, trounced Republican challenger Matthew Gordon, who received 15,804 votes or 29.63 percent.
In Assembly District 52, incumbent Democrat Freddie Rodriguez outpolled Republican Toni Holle on the San Bernardino County side of the district divide, 23,079 votes or 63.73 percent to 13,129 votes or 36.25 percent. Rodriguez fared even better districtwide, with 32,261 votes or 67.5 percent to Holle’s 15,502 or 32.5 percent.
In Assembly District 55, covering San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties, Republican incumbent Phillip Chen, received 7,423 votes or 57.21 percent in San Bernardino County, and Democratic challenger Andrew Rodriguez received 5,551 votes or 42.79 percent. In the entirety of the district, the overall vote went Chen’s way as well, 47,034 or 57.7 percent to Rodriguez’s 34,498 or 42.3 percent.

One of the three incumbents up for election in this year’s Loma Linda City Council race was displaced. Ovidiu Popescu, who was first elected to the council in 2008 and served four years in the capacity of mayor pro tem from 2010 to 2014, placed fifth in a field of five candidates.
Bhavin Jindal will succeed Popescu.
Gaining reelection were Rhodes Rigsby and John Lenart.
Loma Linda is an Adventist community, and historically there has been relative stability in its political leadership. In 2012, 2014 and 2016, the city held no election either because no one challenged the sitting incumbents or because no more candidates filed to run than there were offices up for election.
This year, Jindal and another challenger, Gabriel Uribe, ran. Uribe had run previously, in 2018.
In Tuesday’s polling, Lenart, who was previously on the city’s planning commission and was first elected in 2012, was the top vote-getter with 1,951 votes or 23.21 percent. Rigsby, who has been the mayor appointed by his council colleagues since 2010 and has been on the council since 2006,  received 1,793 votes or 21.33 percent. Jindal polled 1,698 or 20.29 percent. Uribe claimed 1,663 votes for 19.78 percent. Popescu, who was the city’s representative on the San Bernardino International Airport Authority, collected 1,302 votes or 15.49 percent.
-M.G.

A little  after 2 a.m. on the morning of April 15, 1994, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Walter Watterson was patrolling along a section of Highway 62, also known as  Twentynine Palms Highway. About a half-mile east of Canyon Road, he saw an eastbound van driving erratically, its high beams and emergency flashers on.  After effectuating a stop in which the driver, 22-year-old Enrique Muñoz, came to a halt in the middle of Highway 62 west of Rawson Road and then lost consciousness, Watterson strode up to the side of the van and peered inside.
Muñoz was covered in blood, and appeared to have suffered severe trauma to his head, what would later be determined to be a gunshot wound. More shocking still, in the back of the van were the dead bodies of two others, Muñoz’s brother Jesus Muñoz, 17, and Portorio Chavez Cardenas, 24.
After backup and an ambulance arrived at the scene, the still breathing and barely conscious Muñoz brother was transported to Desert Regional Medical Center, where he was treated for what turned out to be multiple gunshot wounds.
Initially, the department allowed the public to believe that Chavez and both Muñoz brothers were dead. In reality, Enrique Muñoz had survived, seemingly miraculously, and an armed guard was stationed in the hallway in front of his hospital room. As Muñoz was making his recovery, detectives were able to coax from him an approximation of what happened. According to Muñoz, he, his brother and Chavez, all of Los Angeles, had been lured to a house in the Coachella Valley by two brothers,  Mario Montes Banuelos and Noe Montes Banuelos. While in Coachella Valley, Muñoz,  Muñoz and Chavez were assaulted and overpowered, forced into the van and driven to Morongo Valley, whereupon they found themselves on a dark and remote dirt road. It was there that the Banuelos brother shot the victims multiple times, Muñoz related.
Muñoz, Muñoz and Chavez were left for dead inside the van. According to Muñoz,  another unidentified individual drove up the dirt road, picked up the Banuelos brothers, and they drove off in that vehicle. Through a Herculean effort, Enrique Muñoz was able to start the van and make his way down the dirt road and onto Highway 62.
Investigators were able to confirm the pertinent elements of what Muñoz had told them. Furthermore, they were able to connect the events of the evening of April 14/morning of April 15, 1994 to circumstances relating to another double slaying in the region that had occurred the previous month. In that case, the bodies of Sergio Robledo Magaña, 19, and Juan Francisco Morquecho, 14, had been found, bullet-ridden, on March 27, 1994 in Thermal, eight days after they had disappeared in the early hours of the morning on March 19, 1994 from the Copacobaña nightclub in Coachella.
Warrants were issued for the arrests of Mario Montes Banuelos and Noe Montes Banuelos in connection with the killings. After several weeks, however, efforts to locate them at any of their known haunts proved unsuccessful, and it was believed they had fled to Mexico. Over the next months and years the case grew inactive.
Twenty-four years passed. In July 2018, with the matter having long lain dormant, investigators learned from the U.S. Marshall’s Service Fugitive Task Force that Noe Montes Banuelos, then 45, had been fatally shot in Sonora, Mexico.
Eighteen months later, at the border crossing in Yuma, Arizona on January 19, 2020, authorities took Mario Montes Banuelos, 49, into custody on a long-extant warrant. When Banuelos waived extradition, San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies went to Yuma to retrieve him to stand trial in the Muñoz and Cardenas murders.
Banuelos was initially booked on murder and attempted murder charges into the  Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. The cold case file on the Muñoz and Cardenas murder case has been handed over to Sheriff’s Detective Art Alvarado. Deputy District Attorney Justin Crocker is prosecuting Banuelos.
Indications are that the district attorney’s office is ready to proceed with the case at the Joshua Tree Courthouse in rapid fashion, with a pretrial hearing set for 8:30 a.m. on April 28, and if no continuances are requested by Banuelos’s attorney, Gary Wenkle Smith, trial commencing on May 4.
Smith told the Sentinel Banuelos “is not” guilty based upon the facts of the case. “I’d rather give you the details when we have three counts of not guilty,” Smith said.
-Mark Gutglueck

The two members of the San Bernardino City Council most closely affiliated with Mayor John Valdivia appear to have won reelection in Tuesday’s polling, one by a very thin margin that could yet be reversed.
Juan Figueroa, the council’s newest member who was elected last May in a special election to fill in the vacancy representing the city’s Third Ward created when Valdivia was elected mayor while serving as Third Ward councilman in 2018, and Bessine Richard, who formed an alliance with Valdivia over the last four years, held off the single challenger each faced in their respective contests that took place on Tuesday.
Figueroa convincingly defeated Luis Ojeda in the Third Ward contest. Figueroa claimed 1,819 votes or 69.08 percent to Ojeda’s 814 votes or 30.92 percent.
Richard’s margin of victory was nowhere near that comfortable. Ward Six’s voters, so far, have retained her in office by seven votes. Richard brought in 1,232 votes or 50.14 percent. Her opponent, Kimberly Calvin, was nipping at her heels with 1,225 votes or 49.86 percent.
Figueroa, who was elected with Valdivia’s assistance last year, and Richard have supported the mayor right down the line in the past. Their support going forward is considered to be even more crucial, as Valdivia finds himself beleaguered with a bevy of accusations that have been lobbed at him by five of his own staff members and one of the city’s commissioners relating to his having created a hostile work environment for them, having engaged in inappropriate behavior including assailing the woman among them with sexually-tinged innuendo, pushing them to engage in activity beyond their job requirements, pressuring them to work on behalf of political candidates he has supported, and seeking to inveigle them in illicit activity he was himself involved in, including receiving money or gifts he had taken from donors, sponsors or other he was not properly reporting, or misusing city assets or funds.
The city, through the law firm that employs the lawyers serving in the capacities of city attorney and deputy city attorney, Best Best & Krieger, is carrying out an investigation into Valdivia’s conduct. Valdivia is likely to need all of the support on the city council he can muster.
Valdivia was a prime mover in both Figueroa’s and Richard’s reelection efforts, helping them to coordinate their campaigns through the political consultant, Chris Jones, who served as Valdivia’s hired campaign manager, and who served in the same capacity for Figueroa and Richard.
On the same day, January 18, 2020, Valdivia made identical $2,000 contributions to both Figueroa’s and Richard’s campaigns. Valdivia provided another $4,241.24 to Figueroa’s campaign in the form of an in-kind contribution. In addition, Valdivia was instrumental in vectoring money from other sources and contributors, many of them those who have previously donated to Valdivia’s electioneering fund.
In the case of Figueroa, this totaled at least $37,250. In the case of Richard, Valdivia was responsible for bringing at least $31,000 into her campaign from other sources.
While Figueroa’s cushion of victory is great enough to eliminate any prospect of the outcome changing, there are yet enough provisional ballots at the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office as well as yet-outstanding, yet-to-be-received or yet-to-be counted mail-in ballots that a reversal of Richard’s lead lies within the realm of possibility.
-Mark Gutglueck

Two of the four races in this year’s San Bernardino City Council Election will not be decided until November. Both of those races involve incumbents.
Jim Mulvihill and Henry Nickel were both originally installed on the city council as a consequence of special elections, the former in 2013 and the latter in 2014. They both then stood for reelection in 2015, prior to the city’s 2016 adoption of a new charter which moved the city’s elections from odd to even numbered years. Nickel won the 2015 election outright. Mulvihill was forced into a runoff held in February 2016, in which he prevailed.
This year, both Nickel and Mulvihill were faced with multiple competing candidates, in Nickel’s case five and in Mulvihill’s case four.
Upon the smoke clearing after Tuesday’s election, Nickel was the top vote-getter in the city’s Ward 5 and Mulvihill had captured second place in Ward 7.
In San Bernardino, a winner is declared when a candidate obtains a majority vote. Thus, a straight head-to-head contest between just two candidates in a primary election virtually guarantees that a winner will emerge in that contest, unless the vote ends in the highly unlikely occurrence of an exact tie. In contests with three or more candidates, the possibility exists that no one candidate will obtain a majority of the votes cast, necessitating a run-off between the two top finishers.
Ward 5 voters on Tuesday cast 1,364 votes for Nickel, meaning he captured 37.36 percent of the vote. Taking second was Ben Reynoso, with 871 votes for 23.86 percent. Mike Avellaneda polled 618 votes or 16.93 percent. Brian Davison banked 585 votes or 16.02 percent. Marlo Brooks registered 108 votes for 2.96 percent. Peter Torres finished with 105 votes for 2.88 percent.
Nickel will face off against Reynoso in November.
In Ward 7, Damon Alexander, with 1,046 votes, bested Mulvihill, who pocketed 924 votes. Alexander, however, failed to reach the needed 50 percent plus one vote threshold to achieve outright victory. His percentage was 32.49 to the 28.7 compiled by Mulvihill. Dave Mlynarski, who ran with Mayor John Valdivia’s endorsement and spent more on his electioneering effort than any of the other Ward 7 candidates, garnered 543 votes or 16.87 percent. Esmeralda Negrete achieved the endorsement of 379 of those in the Seventh Ward, good for 11.77 percent. John Abad claimed 327 votes or 10.16 percent.
Mulvihill, who has refined his campaign approach over four-and-half election cycles, including the 2007 and 2011 races where he lost to incumbent Wendy McCammack, has a core group of supporters who have provided him with the basis of his victories in 2013 and 2016. Alexander, however, is an energetic campaigner, one who is not shy about walking precincts, knocking on doors and introducing himself to his would-be constituents. He and Mulvihill will be focused on finding whatever edge they can to achieve election in the fall.

Gilbert Gonzalez of Wonder Valley and his two sons, Gilbert, Jr. and Joseph, have burnished their freebooting reputation as modern day desperados even further.
Their exploits include a 2015 running gun battle in which both Gilbert Gonzalez Sr. and Gilbert Gonzalez Jr. managed to get shot up, but survived. In 2019, Gilbert Jr., 31, again garnered attention when, pursued by law enforcement officers who suspected him of vehicle theft, he plowed over or took out several gravesites in Joshua Tree Memorial Park, and then led the gendarmes on a high speed pursuit into Twentynine Palms.
This week, on Wednesday, Gilbert Gonzalez Sr., 52,  and Joseph Gonzalez, 29, were arrested after deputies with the Morongo Basin Station came to the Gonzalez residence in the 83400 block of Amboy Road to serve a warrant on Joseph Gonzalez, stemming from an incident involving a felony assault he is alleged to have engaged in on the evening of February 15 in Twentynine Palms.
When the deputies contacted Joseph in the front yard of the home and moved to take him into custody in conjunction with the warrant, he was found to be in the possession of methamphetamine. His arrest was fully effectuated and he was transported to Rancho Cucamonga and booked at the West Valley Detention Center.
During their interaction with Joseph, according to the department, deputies “developed additional information,” which was then utilized to inform a search warrant for his father’s residence. Upon serving the search warrant, according to the department, two ounces of methamphetamine were located inside the home owned by Gilbert Gonzalez, Sr. He was arrested, and like his son, transported to and booked into the West Valley Detention Center. His charging sheet said he was arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance for sales. His bail is $50,000. His son’s bail was set at $100,000.
-Mark Gutglueck

In a move as shocking as it was inexplicable, Chino Hills High softball coach Mike Southworth has been terminated, as the Huskies are proceeding further into an undefeated season, are ranked number 4 in the nation by ExtraInningSoftball.com and Number 8 in the nation by MaxPreps.com, and have what many consider to be the best chance yet to recreate the success Southward had as coach of the Huskies in 2012, when they won the CIF-Southern Section Division 3 title.
Over the course of Southworth’s 11 seasons at Chino Hills High, the Huskies have won six league championships and compiled a 286-84-1 record, a .7729 winning percentage.
Southworth, 70, without explanation, was not present during his team’s Baseline League season-opening game Tuesday at St. Lucy’s High in Glendora, which the Huskies won handily, 21-1. He did not travel yesterday with the team to the Dave Kops Tournament of Champions in Bullhead City, which features numerous top ranked teams, including Chino Hills’ rival and defending champion Norco, currently the number 2 team in the county. It was clear that something was amiss when Southworth was not present as field general to oversee his MaxPreps.com eighth-ranked team as it took on MaxPreps.com seventh-ranked O’Connor High of Phoenix, a contest in which the Huskies eked out a nail-biting 4-3 win, a victory likely to boost them to the number 7 position nationally.
Initially, the report was that Southworth had tendered his resignation. This morning came word that if in fact he submitted a resignation, it was one that was both ceremonial and forced, as the Chino Valley Unified School District announced, tersely, that he had been dismissed.
The Sentinel’s effort to reach Chino Hills Principal Randal Buoncristiani for an explanation and statement by press time was unsuccessful.
-M.G.

Darren Goodman will remain in the capacity of Upland police chief, at least for the time being, the Sentinel has learned.
A report circulating last week was that Goodman, who began as Upland’s police chief in July 2018 following a 27-year career with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department which featured his then-most recent assignment as a captain heading the division of that department serving as the contract police department for the City of Chino Hills, was on the brink of resigning, or had resigned, his position in Upland.
Details were unclear, but reportedly, Goodman, who has a PhD, was concerned that a provision in his contract with Upland would allow a simple majority of the city council to direct the city manager to fire him without cause. Reportedly, Goodman, concerned with the lack of stability and rationality on the council, wanted a language change requiring that his firing only be able to take place if a defined cause was cited. The police department in Riverside, where Goodman resides, was said to have expressed an interest in hiring him into a senior administrative post.
To a Sentinel inquiry, Goodman on Tuesday, March 3 wrote, “I have not resigned from the Upland Police Department.”
-M.G.