Her efforts to properly carry out her assignments as San Bernardino City Manager earned her the enmity of the city’s mayor, Andrea Travis Miller claims in a lawsuit she has filed against her former employer.

In that suit, Travis Miller maintains she was retaliated against, subjected to a “hostile” work environment, discriminated against and suffered gender bias. She says that tension between her and Mayor John Valdivia and his staff members was at the root of much of the shabby treatment she endured.

Travis Miller’s suit filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, reiterates many of the issues she previously highlighted in a claim she filed against the city in July in the aftermath of her April 3 suspension and May 29 firing, while fleshing out further detail with regard to how the city and its leaders failed to take any corrective action or discipline those who were responsible for what she experiences.

In the breach-of-contract lawsuit filed Tuesday, Travis-Miller maintains several of the city’s elected officials knowlingly and deliberately violated the city’s  charter, which was revamped in 2016, particularly with regard to provisions that empowered her as city manager vis-à-vis the mayor.

She was the victim, according to Travis Miller and her attorney, Milad Sadr, of  “a concerted effort” orchestrated by Valdivia and his minions following his elevation to the post of mayor after he defeated his predecessor, Carey Davis, in the November 2018 election.

Valdivia evinced a shocking degree of chauvinism, according to the suit, including having “questioned why the city had a female city manager or the wisdom of having women in government” which ultimately had the effect of leaving her isolated from other members of city, excluded from meetings, and shunted aside in such a way that she was “cut off [from] the flow of information or communications intrinsic to her essential job duties.” She was, according to the suit, unjustifiably subjected to “negative performance reviews, reduction in authority, administrative leave and termination.”

The Chino Valley Independent Fire District Board this week voted to consider censuring board member Winn Williams for a third time in less than eight months at its upcoming October 9 meeting.
Personality conflicts have plagued the relationship between Williams, a former fire captain employed by the district, and his fellow board members from very shortly after he assumed office late last year.
Williams previously served a two-year term on the board from 2004 to 2006 and was returned to the board by voters last November. After he retired from the district as a firefighter in 2002 following an extended leave following an injury on the job in 2000, Williams in 2008 initiated an effort, at the age of 59, to be rehired as a firefighter, asserting he had by that point recovered from his injury. When the district declined to rehire him, he engaged in a series of three legal actions to be reinstated as a firefighter, two in state court and one in federal court, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful.
Williams maintains the tense relations between him and other members of the board and the hostility of staff toward him that manifested almost immediately upon his swearing in in December 2018 is unnecessary and unjustified. He says the enmity he is subjected to is an outgrowth of his having unseated in last year’s election longtime board member Ed Gray, with whom he says the other members of the board had a chummy relationship.
The four other members of the board – John DeMonaco, Harvey Luth, Sarah Evinger-Ramos and Mike Kreeger – contend that Williams is obsessed with his own personal issues relating to his inability to rehire with the district, which prevents him from focusing on the district’s current challenges and demands. They say that having to work with a board member who has thrice sued the district puts them in an awkward position. His constant negativism with regard to the department’s personnel, in particular Fire Chief Tim Shackelford, prevents them from having even the semblance of productive discussions with him, they contend.
The declension in the working relationship between Williams and his colleagues and key district staff was so immediate that by February, little more than two months after Williams had assumed office, he was censured by a vote of his colleagues. That censure was based on the contention that Williams was unduly harassing district employees and making use of district assets for his personal use. Williams denied the allegations.
Censures of elected officials are exceedingly rare, and usually are a move of last or near-last resort by members of a governing board against a colleague with whom they do not get along. The February censure of Williams appears to be the most rapid application of the censure process against an elected official in San Bernardino County history.  It carried with it the imposition of what can only be described as extraordinary conditions that place extensive limitations on how and under what circumstances Williams can interact with, monitor and come in contact with district employees. It also restricts Williams’ access to district facilities.
Williams’ contention has been that the restrictions that had been placed upon him interfered, unnecessarily and illegally, with his ability to function as an elected representative of the voters in his capacity as a board member overseeing the district’s operations.
Four months after his initial censure, in June, the board censured Williams a second time, on that occasion for his having disregarded the expectations of his comportment set out in the February censure.
There seemed to be little improvement in the relationship between Williams and the other members of the board thereafter. Indeed, from week-to-week and month-to-month, it seemed, the other four members of the board were in a competition with one another to establish which one of them had the most pointed differences with Williams.
In August, DeMonaco sought a third censure against Williams, based on an incident that occurred after the conclusion of the fire board’s July 10 meeting, which he said consisted of Williams having had physical contact with him on his back and neck as they were engaged in an intense argument. Williams insisted that DeMonaco was mischaracterizing and exaggerating a gesture that was made as he voiced a sincere appeal to see if the contretemps between him and the rest of the board could be resolved. The remainder of the board declined to join with DeMonaco in having Williams reproved publicly and officially a third time, what some interpreted as a signal that a more civil accommodation among all five board members was in the offing.
Little more than a month later, however, Williams’ contempt for Chief Shackleford was again on display with several of his comments from the board dais at the September 11 meeting.
According to Williams, Shackleford has continued to evince a level of “incompetence” which he said “has put this entire community in danger.”
That proved to be too much for DeMonaco, Luth, Evinger-Ramos and Kreeger, who voted 4-to-0, with Williams abstaining, to consider the third censure of Williams at the first board meeting in October. That censure motion was not based upon Williams’ comments aimed at Shackleford but rather his previous criticism of the district’s clerk of the board, Sandra Heney.

In the face of troubling local economic signs, the county board of supervisors this week made a move to boost the paychecks of county workers.
The jury is yet out on whether that move to artificially buoy the local economy will have the desired impact, or whether greater governmental commitments to employee salaries and benefits will deprive county residents of services and assistance they need to negotiate what some prognosticators are saying will prove leaner financial times just ahead.
Alarmingly, San Bernardino County’s unemployment rate, which had dipped to a near historic low of 3.3 percent this spring, in just over four months has zoomed up to 4.2 percent.
Those working, while not exactly in the poorhouse, are doing comparatively worse than virtually all of their counterparts in the country’s top 50 municipal areas. San Bernardino was next to last when it came to weekly wages before taxes and other payroll deductions – $931 weekly. That was a mere $4 above those in dead last at number 50 – the $927 paid to worker in adjoining Riverside County south of San Bernardino County’s boundary. In contrast, over the county’s western border, in Los Angeles County, workers there bring down an average of $1,282 weekly, putting the County of the Angels at number 22 among the Top 50 U.S. municipal areas. Orange County workers are faring even better with average gross wages before taxes and deductions of $1,287 per week, making it Number 20 among the country’s 50 leading municipal areas.
Meanwhile, the county’s residents who rent rather than own the premises in which they live and like the rest of Americans are dealing with a 2.6 percent inflation rate, have seen rental rates increase by 5.1 percent over the last year. A two-room apartment now runs the average renter $1,550 per month.
From the beginning of Spring 2017 to the very end of winter 2018, the combined economy of Riverside and San Bernardino grew, if not phenomenally, then very well, at 4.5 percent, the ninth-best improvement among municipal areas nationally in that timeframe. Nevertheless, between the beginning of Spring 2018 and the end of winter earlier this year, that red hot growth had cooled to a 1.6 percent rate. Though that was better than flatlining or a decrease, there were yet 65 other metropolitan areas throughout the country with economies growing more rapidly.
When it rains, it pours. The first week of September, employees of Haralambos Beverage Company learned that last month the company had informed the state’s Employment Development Department that beginning October 11, it will lay off 53 workers at its Redlands facility, including 36 sales personnel, 15 employed in operations and two managers.
In an effort to make an inroad against the deteriorating financials besetting the county, the county’s governmental structure announced this week that it has come to terms with Teamsters Local 1932, the collective bargaining unit for slightly more than half of the county’s approximately 22,000 employees, to provide those represented employees a 2.5 percent uniform wage increase effective tomorrow, Saturday, September 14, 2019, to be augmented by a matching 2.5 percent raise as of July 18, 2020, a third 2.5 percent accretion on July 31, 2021, followed with a 3 percent across-the-board hike on July 30, 2022.
Where it can, the county will also allow those employees reaching an accumulation of a specified number of hours at a given pay grade or level to move up in remuneration, receiving what is called a “step raise” immediately upon registering the designated number of hours. Those employees in positions for which the qualifications are forbidding, thus making them difficult to fill, will see even more generous increases.
Altogether, the deal with Teamsters Local 1932 is to set taxpayers back some $345.7 million beyond what the current projected personnel costs are to be for the county between now and June 30, 2023.
While it is hoped the extra money in the hands of slightly over half of the county’s workforce, increasing that segment of the county population’s disposable income, will have a “trickle-down” positive effect on the San Bernardino County economy as a whole, the diversion of that money into the pockets of the county’s public employees will in some measure detract from the county’s ability to provide services for its residents, including some of those whose circumstances under the challenges of the current dip and what is projected to be a more massive fiscal contraction beginning in 2020 will be most heavily impacted.

Among the definitions of politics is “the wielding of power.”
In the Yucaipa Calimesa Joint Unified School District, an object lesson in how power is wielded was recently provided when a student representative on the school board was chosen for the 2019-20 academic year.
The choice –  Yucaipa High School senior Atalie Bogh – boasts impressive credentials, including the 4.7 “academic weighted” grade point average she has compiled from the ninth grade though the eleventh grade, standing as an associated student body representative, participation on the cross country and track teams as well as involvement with the school’s Interact Club.
That portfolio appears to be justification enough for her appointment as the student representative on the school board, even in the face of other well-qualified candidates.
Politics is politics, and whatever those other candidates may have had to offer will take a backseat as Atalie Bogh’s selection reflects another dynamic, or set of dynamics, all of which come back to the wielding of power, the power of politics.
Atalie’s mother, Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, is a member of the Yucaipa Calamesa School Board. What’s more, Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh is now running for California State Senate in the 23rd Senate District. What’s even more, Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh is making that run with the endorsement of the incumbent in the 23rd Senate District, Mike Morrell.
Add to that consideration that Atalie’s father, Greg Bogh, is currently a Yucaipa Councilman and former Yucaipa mayor. Her uncle, Russ Bogh, was initially defeated by fellow Republican Jan Leja in his run for the Assembly in the 65th Assembly District in 2000, but thereafter Leja agreed not to take the position she had been elected to in California’s lower legislative house after she pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in that race. Russ Bogh won special election to replace her. In 2002 and 2004 he was reelected to the Assembly in the 65th District, which at that time straddled both San Bernardino County and Riverside County. The 65th District included Yucaipa.
Similarly, the Yucaipa Calimesa School District covers a portion of both San Bernardino County and Riverside County.
Atalie’s selection just happens to boost her mother’s prospects in the upcoming March primary, and will likely not hurt her father’s chances for reelection in another three years. Last year no one surfaced to challenge him in the Yucaipa District 2 race.
Whatever the credentials, qualifications, academic and extracurricular participation of the others competing for or considered as the student representative on the school board, appointing the scion of Yucaipa’s most powerful political family to the largely ceremonial and non-voting student representation position was the safest choice the Yucaipa High School faculty could make in terms of their career longevity and the district’s inner, and the community’s general, politics.

By John Valdivia, San Bernardino Mayor
Think about a situation where you might encounter a law enforcement officer. For most people, the situation they imagine is negative.
In San Bernardino, local police are changing that perception while making our community a safer environment to live and do business. We’ve restructured the force, and these efforts are already paying positive dividends for San Bernardino.
The city has partnered with the San Bernardino Police Officers Association to bring a new playground to Littlefield/Schultis Park, and we are encouraging members of the community to get involved to make this a reality, including taking part in the BBQ fundraiser hosted by the SBPOA coming up September 26 to support the project.
We want people in San Bernardino to have opportunities to interact with law enforcement in positive settings. SBPD pop up tents are appearing regularly at spots throughout San Bernardino, and mounted patrols are distributing resources to our neighbors on horseback.
Community members are invited to attend regular “Coffee with a Cop” meetings to share their concerns or just chat. This summer, San Bernardino officers held a back-to-school block party, invited local religious leaders for a summit with clergy, and held a banquet for future members of the force.
We’re also addressing homelessness and public safety by connecting homeless individuals with resources to help them turn their lives around. San Bernardino is fortunate to have strong partnerships between city leaders, nonprofits, and law enforcement that are making our community safer and creating positive alternatives to crime. Despite budget challenges, no law enforcement officers have been laid off and in fact we are putting more officers on the street.
Finally, we’re using technology including social media and a GoRequest app, which enables people to file a report and track their report to resolution all from their mobile device.
Improved public safety is essential to turning around San Bernardino’s image and attracting visitors, investment, and jobs. A safer community is one where our businesses can flourish and our children can achieve their potential.
We also recognize such a vision is a team effort. We invite you to take part in the progress underway. Next time you see local law enforcement hosting a block party, setting up a pop up tent, or patrolling on horseback, we hope you’ll say hello and thank them for their hard work for our community.
John Valdivia was elected mayor in 2018. He was previously Third Ward Councilman.

Hall’s willowweed, known by its scientific name, epilobium hallianum, is a subspecies of the genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae that is extant in the San Bernardino Mountains. The Onagraceae genus contains some 197 species worldwide.
Most species are known by the common name willowherbs for their willow-like leaves. Those that were once cataloged as boisduvalia are called spike-primroses or boisduvalias. Those epilobium species previously placed in the chamaenerion group and known as fireweeds are now segregated into the genus chamaenerion.
Epilobium hallianum, a dicot, is a perennial herb that is native to California, and is also found outside of California, but is confined to western North America.
The leaves are opposite or rarely whorled, simple and ovate to lanceolate in shape. The flowers are actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) with four petals that may be notched. These are usually smallish and white or bluish-purple. The fruit is a slender cylindrical capsule containing numerous seeds embedded in fine, soft silky fluff which disperses the seeds very effectively in the wind.
Willowweed only rarely exists in conjunction with shade trees, often limiting itself to more recently disturbed patches, yielding to other plants over time. Consequently, though it functions as a pioneer plant, it does not qualify as an invasive weed.
Epilobium species are used as food plants by the caterpillars of certain lepidoptera species, most often including the white-lined sphinx known scientifically as the hyles lineata; the black-banded carpet, known scientifically as the antepirrhoe semiatrata; the yellow-banded day sphinx, known scientifically as the proserpinus flavofasciata; the ornate moth, known scientifically as the utetheisa ornatrix; and Clark’s day sphinx moth, known scientifically as proserpinus clarkiae. It also attracts the grey pug, known scientifically as eupithecia subfuscata; the mouse moth, known scientifically as the amphipyra tragopoginis; the small angle shades, known scientifically as euplexia lucipara; and the elephant hawk-moth, known scientifically as the deilephila elpenor.
The main use of epilobium by humans is as a herbal supplement in the treatment of prostate, bladder, incontinence and hormone disorders. Many of the small willowherb species are nuisance weeds in gardens. Though few are regularly used as ornamental plants, the larger willowherbs may be attractive in ruderal locales.
In the late summer, its flowers yield pollen and copious nectar which give a rich spicy honey. Its young leaves, roots, and shoots are edible, if somewhat bitter, and rich in provitamin A and vitamin C. The plant’s sap can be applied to wounds, as it has anti-inflammatory properties.
From Wikipedia, calflora.org and calscape.org

By clicking on the blue portal below, you can download a PDF of the September 6 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 09-06-19

Bill Postmus, whose meteoric rise to the apex of San Bernardino County power and politics was unrivaled by that of any other individual in county history, only to be exceeded by the methamphetamine-fueled rapidity of his dramatic plunge into ignominy, has been released from prison, after serving less than nine months of the three year sentence handed down to him in November 2018.
On November 15, 2018 Judge Michael A. Smith had sentenced Postmus in accordance with the judicial discretion set forth in a guilty plea Postmus had entered more than seven years previously, in March 2011, to 14 felony counts and a single drug possession misdemeanor. In the finalization of his conviction, Smith had confirmed four of those 14 felony convictions.
Six of those original felony convictions related to Postmus’s action during the fewer than 26 months he served in the capacity of county assessor. The other eight involved criminal activity perpetrated while he was a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, specifically in the final two years when he was on that panel as its chairman.
As assessor, Postmus utilized his virtually unchecked authority to expand the office’s executive echelon, creating a second assistant assessor’s post whereas under his predecessors there had been one assistant assessor’s position. Postmus had by fiat or administrative prerogative also created several other lucrative assignments that did not previously exist in the office. Shortly after his installation as assessor, he filled 13 of the highest ranking positions in the office with his political associates and boyfriends, virtually none of whom knew anything about real estate or assessing the value of property for taxing purposes.
Many of his political appointees engaged in little or no work in return for the sinecures and paychecks they were provided, with some rarely showing up at the county office where they were employed. Most of the others who did report to their workstations carried out activities that had nothing to do with assessing property but rather engaged themselves in partisan political activity, utilizing the county’s facilities, equipment and assets for promoting selected candidates for political office.
The district attorney’s office’s investigation into partisan political activity being carried out from county facilities under Postmus’s stewardship of the assessor’s office led to indictments of and charges filed against several of his staff members. Adam Aleman, a 23-year-old former head waiter whom Postmus had befriended and rewarded with an appointment to the position of assistant assessor, played a major role in the investigation after he was caught in several criminal acts relating to the misuse of government property. Aleman agreed to secretly record his interactions with Postmus and testify against him and others. Aleman’s cooperation with prosecutors matured into charges against Postmus himself and further revelations about Postmus’s engagement in graft during his tenure as a member of the board of supervisors, when Aleman was working for Postmus as a field representative.
That chapter of the scandal occurred while Postmus was not merely the chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors but also while he was the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee.
Postmus’s position at the head of county government in his capacity as chairman of the board of supervisors and his image as a rockribbed pro-law enforcement Christian and family values-oriented conservative Republican put him into a position in which he was vulnerable to blackmail, given his closeted homosexuality and what was at first his casual recreational and then later around-the-clock compulsive use of methamphetamine. A number of entities with business before the county board of supervisors exploited their knowledge of his proclivities to extort him into supporting them or their companies, unions, projects or proposals with his votes as supervisor.
Postmus’s final conviction and sentencing last November had been delayed through the intervening time because an element of the plea bargain he entered into in 2011 called for Postmus cooperating with prosecutors in bringing to justice others who had been caught up in the depredations, violations of public trust and crimes he had acknowledged in his admission of guilt. Principal among those crimes was his admission that he had received a bribe from Rancho Cucamonga-based developer Jeff Burum to vote, in November 2006 in one of his last actions during his six-year stint as a county supervisor, to approve a $102 million payout to Burum’s company, the Colonies Partners, to settle a lawsuit that company had lodged against the county over drainage issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions in northwest Upland.
Postmus’s testimony in April 2011 before a grand jury, a month after he entered his guilty plea, provided much of the basis for that grand jury’s issuance of a 29-count indictment of Burum, former Postmus political associate and sheriff’s deputies union president Jim Erwin, Postmus’s one-time colleague on the board of supervisors, Paul Biane, who had joined with him in the vote to approve the lawsuit settlement with the Colonies Partners, and Mark Kirk, who had been the chief of staff to the other supervisor, Gary Ovitt, who had voted with Biane and Postmus to approve the $102 million settlement. The trial for Burum, Erwin, Biane and Kirk was delayed five-and-a-half years until it began in January 2017, thereafter lasting eight months.
Postmus was a key witness for the prosecution in that trial, testifying over the course of two weeks in May 2017. Under direct examination by Supervising Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope, Postmus testified that Erwin, who was then working as a consultant to Burum and the Colonies Partners, had blackmailed and extorted him into voting in support of the settlement by threatening to expose his homosexuality and drug use, and that over the course of the roughly seven months after the settlement was made, he, Erwin, Biane and Kirk had been rewarded with $100,000 each in the form of donations made to them by Burum through the Colonies Partners to political action committees each of the four had set up for themselves and controlled. However, under cross examination by one of the attorneys representing Burum, Jennifer Keller, Postmus went sideways, indicating that he just might have been led into implicating himself, Burum and the others in the scheme by aggressive investigators with the district attorney’s office who had exploited his vulnerabilities, in particular his drug-addled and highly suggestible state, to plant false ideas in his mind that he had then recounted to them during further interrogations, before the grand jury and under Cope’s direct examination. Ultimately, Burum, Biane and Kirk were acquitted of the charges against them and the jury hearing the case against Erwin deadlocked and was unable to return a unanimous verdict.
Shortly after the conclusion of the 2017 trial, over which Judge Michael A. Smith presided, Postmus himself came before Judge Smith, before whom he had pleaded guilty in 2011, for sentencing. When Smith gave an indication that he was contemplating sentencing Postmus to two years in state prison, Postmus, having anticipated a less stiff sentence, sought to withdraw his pleas pertaining to his involvement in the Colonies lawsuit settlement matter as well as the malfeasance in office he admitted to while serving as county assessor after his election to that post in 2006. In a motion filed on Postmus’ behalf, his attorney, Jeffrey Lawrence, had asked Judge Smith to vacate his client’s guilty pleas and grant him a trial in which a jury would hear the cases against him. After six days of testimony in November 2018 that included Postmus taking the witness stand along with his previous lawyers, Richard Farquhar and Stephen Levine, Judge Smith denied the motion to rescind the plea on November 14, 2018. The following day, November 15, Lawrence presented an oral argument that Postmus’s crimes were de minimis in nature and that he deserved no prison time and either little jail time or immediate probation. Supervising California Deputy Attorney General Melissa Mandel countered that Postmus had conspired with others to defraud the public and divert over $100 million in taxpayer money to his co-conspirators and that he was so steeped in a culture of corruption that he did not recognize he was being bribed when he was rewarded by the recipient of the $102 million with a $100,000 political donation for doing so.
Judge Smith, after making a finding that Postmus had cooperated with prosecutors in anticipation of a lenient sentence by testifying truthfully before the grand jury and under direct examination at trial but had knowingly falsified his testimony upon cross examination while feigning memory loss and had therefore failed to live up to the terms of his plea bargain, sentenced him to three years in state prison. Though the prosecution wanted Postmus incarcerated at once, Smith granted him 15 days to get his affairs in order, requiring that he report to the courthouse at 8:30 on November 30, 2018. Postmus did so, and was whisked away into confinement at that time.
Postmus’s descent to the status of a convicted felon was an epic fall. In 2000 he was elected to the board of supervisors at the age of 29, making him, after Minor Cobb Tuttle in 1862, Norman Taylor in 1855, Robert McCoy in 1861, John C. Turner in 1893 and Gus Skropos in 1985, the sixth youngest county supervisor in San Bernardino County history. Four years later, in 2004, he became the second youngest chairman of the county board of supervisors after John C. Turner in 1895. That year he also became the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, a perch from which he had control over the purse strings of the local GOP’s campaign war chest and held tremendous sway in determining who was elected to an overwhelming number of political offices in the county. In 2006 he expended more than $2 million in what yet remains the most expensive political campaign in county history when he successfully challenged the incumbent county assessor, Don Williamson, thereby acceding to the most powerful taxing position in San Bernardino County.
He had been the single most powerful political entity in San Bernardino County during his heyday, a virtual kingmaker.
Before his sentencing, Postmus and his attorney had held out some hope that he might be allowed to serve his time in county jail. Ultimately, however, because of his three-year sentence, he was consigned into the California state prison system.
By late December, Postmus was housed at North Kern State Prison, a medium-security all-male prison facility located in Delano. At the time Postmus was there, it housed over 5,000 inmates, which is more than 200 percent of its design capacity of 2,447 when it initiated operation in 1993. More than 3,400 of the inmates at North Kern were housed in the reception center, awaiting transfer to another state prison and apart from the close to 1,600 permanent or mainline inmates in a separate part of the prison. Inmates are separated by security and custody levels upon arriving at North Kern. North Kern is considered a reception center for incoming inmates who are not destined to remain there for the entirety of their sentences. Transitory inmates remain there three to four months while their criminal and health records, physiological and psychological makeup and social needs are assessed and they are assigned elsewhere.
By late this spring, efforts on Postmus’s behalf and internal prison system evaluations led to his having been placed on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Alternative Custody Program’s candidacy list.
The nonviolent nature of his crime, his lack of further criminal involvement, his behavior while incarcerated and his psychological evaluation qualified him for serving the remainder of his sentence outside of lockup.
This summer, Postmus was released, conditional upon his wearing an ankle monitor, traveling no further than 50 miles from his registered place of residence, maintaining a curfew, reporting regularly to his parole officer and being subject to random drug screening. The Sentinel has learned he is residing with this sister in Wrightwood.
Postmus is known to be involved in political activity through a Wyoming-based company he founded, Mountain States Consulting Group. His conviction on a governmental conflict of interest charge prohibits him from seeking or holding elected office. He is not, however, barred from engaging in political activity such as fundraising and lobbying.
–Mark Gutglueck