The Mountain Town Reptile Museum in Oak Tree Village in Oak Glen was completely destroyed by fire on March 14.
A first report came in that the roof was aflame around 11:40 a.m. Cal Fire Riverside, Redlands Fire, San Bernardino Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department responded.
Ken Azzato, a local resident, and a number of individuals with the Lutheran Camp moved quickly, and before the safety agency first responders were on the scene, they entered the structure to haul most of the live exhibits – iguanas, tortoises, exotic birds and the like – out and to safety.
There were widespread social media reports that all of the animals had perished in the fire. By the time the fire agencies were on the scene, the building, which was originally erected in 1962, was engulfed in flames and thick smoke, making it impossible to enter the structure. By that point, the lion’s share of the animals were rescued. Some twenty fell victim to the conflagration.

On April 1, the one percent sales tax approved by voters in Barstow in November will go into effect within the 41.33 square mile city through which some 190,000 travelers headed to Las Vegas pass weekly.
There was opposition to Measure Q, including some reasoning by very articulate and determined critics, among them former Mayor Lawrence Dale and council candidate Bennie Fedrick. Nevertheless, the city’s voters were persuaded in sufficient numbers to pass the sales tax override. Measure Q garnered 2,613 votes or 59.22 percent in favor and 1,799 votes or 40.78 percent in opposition.
City officials denied responsibility for that element of the pro-Measure Q campaign consisting of reports that the city was on the brink of filing for bankruptcy, but they nevertheless stood solidly behind the measure. The city’s 141 employees, the most poorly paid of whom make at least $90,000 annually in salaries and benefits, were a factor in getting the city’s voters, composed of a population that involved no fewer than 70 percent of whom are receiving some form of governmental financial assistance, to get behind augmenting the city’s revenue stream.
When the tax goes into effect, Barstow will lay claim to having, at 8.75-percent, the highest sales tax rate in San Bernardino County.
The supporters of Measure Q were nonchalant about that, insisting that $7 million annual revenue boost will be paid in the largest measure by those non-residents blowing through town, primarily Vegas-bound tourists.
That revenue will flow into the city for the first time in June. The tax is not applicable to groceries, prescription medicine or services. It does apply to all other goods, fuel and prepared food or meals sold at restaurants as well as equipment that is leased.
City officials are salivating at the prospect of divvying up the lucre. The fire department and the police department will complete for some of what is coming in to hire more employees and open more stations, and purchase updated equipment. The city’s public works division anticipates being able to utilize some of the money for roads and sidewalks, and some will likely go to augmentations or repairs to the city’s aquatic center, replacement of park and recreation equipment.
That distribution is to be made in accordance with an “implementation plan,” and though city employees will have the greatest degree of influence on how that budgeting is worked out, the city intends to created a citizens’ oversight committee to monitor how the funds are utilized.
-Mark Gutglueck

In the face of California’s seismic cultural shift that was solidified with the state’s voters passing Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act in 2016, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office is hewing to the traditional ethos that considers the proliferation of cannabis to be anathema to an orderly community.
For roughly a century, California law was in consonance with the federal ban on marijuana, and California residents using the drug, possessing it, growing it, transporting it or selling it ran considerable legal risk. With the Pure Food and Drug Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1906, the easy availability of marijuana ended, and the California legislature’s 1907 passage of the Poison Act made possession of the substance a misdemeanor. The Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act, the final version of which was passed in 1932, made marijuana uniformly illegal throughout the United States. 1970’s Controlled Substances Act and its parallel Comprehensive Drug Abuse Control and Prevention Act of 1970 intensified the classification of marijuana as an illegal substance.
In 1996 the passage of Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act, by California’s voters made the sale of marijuana for medical purposes legal in the state, but the parameters of that law and the superseding authority of federal law, under which marijuana remained a Schedule 1 narcotic considered as dangerous as heroin and cocaine and subject to very stiff federal penalties, did not create an immediate proliferation of marijuana hawkers. Indeed, a provision of Proposition 215 gave local governmental entities the authority to continue to prohibit the commercial sale of the drug within their jurisdictions. For fifteen years after the proposition’s passage, all of San Bernardino County’s 24 cities continued to ban the sale of the substance. Well into the first decade of the Third Millennium, a handful of intrepid entrepreneurs attempted to test the will of the political leadership and the resolve of law enforcement by setting up dispensaries. This brought, for the most part, an immediate response involving in some cases prosecution, in others confiscation of the product and monetary proceeds on hand, the shuttering of the business, and administrative action and fines which rendered such enterprises unprofitable. In a handful of cases where the operators persisted, the measures employed by the government were harsher and draconian, as in the celebrated case of Aaron Sandusky.
Maintaining that the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act gave him an absolute right to traffic in medical marijuana, Sandusky opened up a series of dispensaries in San Bernardino County which obtained the product it sold from a large indoor nursery he also operated in the City of Ontario. His largest and most successful retail shop was G3 Holistics, a dispensary he established in Upland. Repeatedly, Upland officials raided G3 Holistics, carting off whatever stock was on hand and seizing that particular day’s monetary proceeds from sales, issuing a citation and a closure order. Defiantly, Sandusky would reopen G3 Holistics, often the next day, or at most within several days. After repeated rounds of this, Sandusky put his not inconsiderable income from his business to work, sending a lawyer into court on his behalf to oppose the city’s action, succeeding in getting a restraining order enjoining the City of Upland from any further action against him until the legal challenge he brought against the city could be fully adjudicated. He remained open for business, generating sufficient capital by sales to some 17,000 customers to wage a legal battle against the city in which he essentially fought the city to a standstill, during which time he continued to make money hand over fist.
Meanwhile, the City of Upland accrued over $440,000 in legal fees in pursuing the unsuccessful effort to drive him out of the city. Ultimately, federal officials took note, and in June 2012 raided all of Sandusky’s clinics and agricultural facilities, thereafter initiating a prosecution. At trial, Sandusky insisted that California law pursuant to Proposition 215 gave him the right to ply his trade, and he asserted he had relied upon a campaign pledge made by then-President Barack Obama that his administration would not interfere with state medical marijuana laws. The prosecution team, however, countered that Sandusky was an “unrepentant manipulator who used the perceived ambiguity surrounding ‘medical’ marijuana to abuse the state’s system on a massive scale and exploit a business opportunity for himself.” He was convicted and in January 2013 he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
The social, political and legal forces arrayed against the concept and prospect of marijuana availability seemed, with the Sandusky conviction, to have stemmed the rising tide of marijuana liberalism in California. But that reversal came as too little too late, for by that time the tide had grown to Tsunami proportions and the victory over Sandusky, on a practical scale, was barely symbolic and in no way effective. What had initially been fewer than a dozen individuals including Sandusky willing to brave the legitimate marijuana sales frontier – running a medical marijuana dispensary in local venues where municipal ordinances did not allow for them – jumped to a score or more. Shortly thereafter the numbers countywide were pushing a hundred.
Simultaneously, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and in some cases the offices of various city attorneys sought to keep up. By 2012, however, the sheer numbers of those willing to run the marijuana distribution restriction gauntlet had come to overwhelm local civil authorities. In 2012, Needles was the first of the county’s 24 cities to bow to the new social reality, clearing the way for five licensed marijuana dispensaries to operate in what, at 4,900 residents, is the county’s least populous city, lying at the extreme end of San Bernardino County on California’s East Coast, the banks of the Colorado River, and the gateway into the Golden State.
With cannabis use mushrooming, the district attorney’s office de-prioritized simple marijuana possession cases and delayed filing on or ultimately failed altogether to file on criminal cases relating to the operation of medical marijuana clinics, leaving such matters to be handled civilly. In some cases, well-heeled clinic operators put those cities through their paces, a la Sandusky, requiring vast expenditures in terms of public resources, money and effort in shuttering dispensaries. When authorities would achieve victory in shutting one down, two or more would pop up to take its place. In July 2014, San Bernardino City Attorney Gary Saenz, taking stock of the number of pot shops sprouting up in the county’s largest city, offered his view that the cost and difficulty of closing down dispensaries made the city’s ban on the enterprises that had existed since 2010 “futile.” Similar scenarios on a somewhat smaller scale were playing out at other locations in San Bernardino County.
In 2016, Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, which allows the drug to be sold to end users intent on using it for its intoxicative effect, was passed by the state’s voters. The same year, the City of San Bernardino’s voters passed Measure O, mandating that marijuana shops be licensed to operate in the city.
As things now stand, the cities of Adelanto, Hesperia, Colton, Needles, San Bernardino, Rialto, Victorville and Montclair allow or tolerate some level of commercial cannabis activity. In Adelanto, marijuana-related commercial concerns are so numerous, city officials cannot provide an accurate count of them. In San Bernardino, sixteen cannabis-related operations have been given tentative clearance to operate. There are at least five other storefront operations that are not licensed which the city tolerates. After would-be licensees in San Bernardino who were denied permits last month went to court to block the city from proceeding with the full licensing of those cleared to operate dispensaries, nurseries and distributorships, one Superior Court judge, Janet Frangie, granted and then another judge, David Coen, lifted a restraining order against the businesses. Judge Coen has given the city clearance to continue with the licensing process.
Grudgingly, most San Bernardino county cities and towns allow their residents to grow up to six marijuana plants, per state law indoors. In addition, Adelanto, Big Bear, Chino Hills and San Bernardino permit cultivation outdoors under a set of regulations.
Though at least 16 San Bernardino County municipalities have standing bans against all level of commercial cannabis activity including the delivery of the product within their city or town limits, in Chino Hills four companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Chino four companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Ontario five companies deliver marijuana to residents, in Montclair five companies deliver marijuana to residents, in Upland three companies deliver marijuana to residents, in Rancho Cucamonga five companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Fontana ten companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Rialto four companies deliver marijuana to residents, in Colton two companies deliver marijuana to residents, in San Bernardino 12 companies deliver marijuana to residents and the city permits delivery service operations to be based within its city limits; in Highland five companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Redlands seven companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Yucaipa six companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Yucca Valley six companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Barstow five companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Victorville eight companies deliver marijuana to residents; in Apple Valley five companies deliver marijuana to residents; and in Hesperia seven companies deliver marijuana to residents, and the city permits delivery service operations to be based within its city limits.
In Montclair there is one storefront purveyor of marijuana; in the unincorporated district of Bloomington near Fontana and Rialto there are three storefronts trafficking in marijuana; in Rialto there are two storefronts trafficking in marijuana; in San Bernardino at present there are five storefront marijuana sales operations, none of which have licenses but which the city tolerates; the City of Big Bear Lake has one storefront dealing in marijuana; Needles has five licensed storefront sellers of marijuana; Victorville has one storefront at which marijuana can be purchased; and Adelanto, with two official storefronts licensed to sell marijuana and cannabis products, is host to at least 18 other locations where marijuana can be purchased.
Despite all that, four days from now, on Tuesday April 2, 2019, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors is scheduled, upon the recommendation of Sheriff John McMahon, to sign a letter of agreement that is to be sent to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Agency, signalling that the county will take part in the 2019 Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.
In return for signing that letter and related documents, the county will receive $151,000 to offset the sheriff’s department’s costs growing out of its participation in the federal crusade to clamp down on marijuana between October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019.
According to McMahon, the sheriff’s department has been participating in and has received federal money for the Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program since 1999, three years after the Compassionate Use of Marijuana Act was passed.
Without making reference to the sea change in state policy and state law that has taken place since 2016, McMahon in a report attached to the board of supervisors’ agenda for this coming Tuesday stated, “The U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration provides funding for the Domestic Cannabis Eradication Suppression Program each year to defray the county’s costs relating to eradication and suppression of illicit marijuana. This program serves activities involved in the suppression of illicit marijuana, including gathering and reporting intelligence data related to the illicit cultivation, possession and distribution of cannabis; investigation and reporting of instances involving the trafficking of controlled substances; and making arrests and referring cases for prosecution. On February 22, 2019, the department received a letter of agreement from the Drug Enforcement Agency providing notification of available funding in the amount of $151,000 to reimburse expenses related to the department’s participation in the 2019 Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program. The agreement is being submitted for the board’s approval at the first available meeting date after completion of the review process. The proposed agreement would provide funding to be used for overtime, travel, training, aviation fuel, and supplies to support the department’s marijuana suppression program. The Department of Justice requires the county to send the signed letter of agreement to the Drug Enforcement Agency for execution. The letter of agreement is for the period of October 1, 2018 through September 30, 2019. The department can submit claims for reimbursement retroactively to October 1, 2018. However, there have been no expenditures against this program to date.”
Legal issues relating to the sheriff’s department’s involvement in the federal program against the backdrop of rapidly changing state law which has in large measure decriminalized marijuana cultivation, sales, possession and use were reviewed by Deputy County Counsel Richard D. Luczak.
-Mark Gutglueck

It was Barstow vs. Apple Valley both on the diamond at Field 1 at James Woody Park and off on March 23. The players, all of whom were Little Leaguers between the ages of eight and 12, confined their competition to the game of baseball. Those competing outside the foul lines were adults, the parents of the players on the field. Word is the Apple Valley Nine won the baseball game. The Barstow parents prevailed in the fisticuffs division, aided, no doubt, by at least two of the parents who did not scruple about employing baseball bats during their contribution to the melee.
The rowdiness started with a vociferous Barstow parent who was more than once told to restrain himself and sit down. At some point, reportedly in the fifth inning, he was ejected from the premises. He left Field 1 but just as the game was concluding he returned, as it was understood he would be able to pick up his son. But when he made his way toward the bleachers with his wife in tow, he had a baseball bat with him. He exhorted several of the parents of his son’s teammates that they should not docilely accept being disrespected by the Apple Valley community, managing to stir up some level of indignation among the visiting Barstowians. When he confronted the coach of the Apple Valley Little League team, using a tirade of profanity in the process, a fight broke out in which those on the Apple Valley side, despite their larger numbers, got the worst of it because they did not realize until it was too late that the ground rules for the fracas included the use of baseball bats.
The psychology of crowds appears to have been at play, and alcohol use by the parent who was ejected may have been a factor as well. A century ago, Barstow, a major railroad town, ranked as one of San Bernardino County’s five major cities. As late as the 1950s, it was the only incorporated desert city other than Needles, and was then a more substantial place than the communities of Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley and Adelanto. In the years since, Barstow has been eclipsed population-wise by all four of those, which are now municipalities in their own right. Some 70 percent of the Barstow population are recipients of some form of public assistance. In this way, many who live in the city have a built-in inferiority complex and walk about with chips on their shoulders when they must encounter those from outside the immediate Barstow environs. Barstow sports teams have in recent years taken on a reputation for bringing with them fans and supporters who are prone to violence at the drop of a hat.
Apple Valley, with its air of civility and its municipal code that provides that houses be built on lots no smaller than one half acre, may lay claim to being the jewel of the High Desert in terms of livability. Its residents, nevertheless, proved to be no match for the more determined and socially disadvantaged cudgel-wielding visitors from Barstow, who demonstrated they are not going to gladly suffer the indignity of biased umpiring by hometown officials resulting in their progeny being declared out on a late throw to the bag when the runner was clearly safe, no matter how much money the upper crust locals have.
Authorities were summoned, but by the time the sheriff’s department arrived, all but one family from Barstow had departed James Woody Park. That family’s leaving had been delayed because the 17-year-old sister of one of the Barstow Little League team’s players had been injured in the tumult. She accepted treatment by paramedics with the Apple Valley Fire Protection District, but neither she, her brother nor her parents could be persuaded by sheriff’s deputies to finger any of the Barstow residents involved in the brawl. They were allowed to leave and no arrests were made of any of the remaining parents from Apple Valley who were yet on the scene, though some had made statements that could be construed as admissions they were involved in the fight.

BARSTOW —On April 1, the one percent sales tax apprved by voters in Barstow in November will go into effect within the 41.33 square mile city through which some 190,000 trvelers headed to Vegas pass weekly.

There was opposition to Measure Q, including some reasoning by very articulate and determined critics, among them former Mayor Lawrence Dale and council candidate Bennie Fedrick. Nevertheless, the city’s voters were persuaded in sufficent numbers to pass the sales tax override. Measure Q garnered 2,613 votes or 59.22 percent in favor and 1,799 votes or 40.78 percent in oppostion.

City officials denied responsibility for that element of the pro-Measure Q campaign consisting of reports that the city was on the brink of filing for bankruptcy, but they nevertheless stood solidly behind the measure. The city’s 141 employees, the most poorly paid of whom make at least $90,000 annually in salaries and benefits, were a factor in getting the city’s voters, composed of a population that involved no fewer than 70 percent of whom are receiving some form of governmental financial assistance, to get behind augmenting the city’s revenue stream.

When the tax goes into effect, Barstow will lay claim to having, at 8.75-percent, the highest sales tax rate, in San Bernardino County.

The supporters of Measure Q were nonchalant about that, insisting that $7 million annual revenue boost will be paid in the largest measure by those non-residents blowing through town, primarily Vegas-bound tourists.

That revenue will flow into the city for the first time in June. The tax is not applicable to groceries, prescription medicine or services. It does apply to all other goods, fuel and prepared food or meals sold at restaurnats as well as equipment that is leased.

City officials are salivating at the prospect of divying up the lucre. The fire department and the police department will complete for some of what is coming in to hire more employees and open more stations, and purchase updated equipment. The city’s public works division anticpates being able to utilize some of the money for roads and sidewalks, and some will likely go to augmentations or repairs to the caty’s aquatic center, replacement of park and recreation equipment.

That distriibtuion is to be made in accordance with an “implementation plan,” and though city employees will have the greatest degree of influence on how that budgeting is worked out, the city intends to created a citizens’ oversight committee to monitor how the funds are utilized.

Former Third Ward City Councilman John Valdivia’s victory in the November 2018 San Bernardino Mayoral Election necessitated his resignation from his council position when he was sworn in as mayor on December 19. As a consequence, the Third Ward post has been vacant ever since, resulting in the city council being down to six-sevenths strength and the city’s residents, property owners and businesses in the city’s southernmost sector being without a direct representative on the city council.
There were two years remaining on Valdivia’s term as councilman, and city officials have opted to fill the post through a special vote-by-mail election which concludes May 7. Three registered voters in the ward signed on to compete for the council position: Anthony Aguirre, Juan Figueroa and Treasure Ortiz. Ultimately, Aguirre decided against running, but not before the ballots for the election had been printed. Consequently, the names of all three are on the ballots that have been mailed to registered voters.
Figueroa this week told the Sentinel he is seeking a position on the city council because “As a lifelong San Bernardino resident who grew up in the 3rd Ward, I am deeply invested in our city’s future. I want to see San Bernardino become a place of greater opportunity for our families, our youth and our small businesses.”
A member of the city’s Elected Official Compensation Advisory Commission, Figueroa enumerated three major issues facing the city. With regard to public safety he said, “Making our community safer will be my #1 priority on the city council. That means improving police response times, targeting gang crime and cleaning up blighted properties.” He further said, “I will work to create a better quality of life for all residents by reducing homelessness and getting city streets and street lights repaired in a timely manner. In addition, I want to help struggling local families by reducing the costs of housing.” Moreover, he said accountability will be the watchword of his campaign. “I am committed to making city government more accountable and responsive to residents’ concerns,” he said. “We must always put the people first at City Hall.”
Queried about his feeling with regard to the city’s dissolution in 2015 of its then 137-year-old fire department in favor of placing the city into a county fire service assessment zone and having the county fire division assume fire prevention, fire suppression and emergency medical response duties throughout the 62-sqare mile city, Figueroa said, “I am pleased with San Bernardino’s current system of fire protection. As a councilman, I would not support rescinding the city’s agreement with the San Bernardino County Fire District.”
Figueroa signaled his satisfaction with the performance levels of city staff, indicating he would not be willing to restrict current or future salary increases to the city’s workers as a means of controlling the city’s continuing financial challenges, more than six-and-a-half years after the city filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection and less than two years after emerging from that status by means of an exit strategy that included stiffing a significant number of the city’s past vendors and creditors, while committing to maintaining its current and future payments to the California Public Employees Retirement System, which covers the ongoing provision of pensions to the city’s retired employees.
“I would not support a blanket freeze on city employee salaries and benefits,” Figueroa said.
Simultaneously, he said that he hoped the city could hold itself together without imposing additional taxes on the city’s residents.
“In general, I oppose increasing taxes,” he said. “I believe San Bernardino must strengthen our financial and economic foundations by attracting new businesses and helping our existing businesses grow, not by raising taxes on our existing businesses, residents or utility ratepayers.”
He is qualified to serve on the council, Figueroa said, in that “I have been walking neighborhoods throughout the 3rd Ward since early February, and residents are supporting my candidacy because of my long history of involvement as a neighborhood association president; community volunteer; and city commissioner. I am endorsed by community leaders throughout the 3rd Ward.”
He said, “I am running a positive campaign on my own record and have no interest in contrasting my qualifications with those of other candidates.”
Regarding questions about issues that have cropped up with regard to the city’s licensing of cannabis-related businesses, accusations of mishandling and favoritism in the determination of licensure eligibility by city staff and elected officials, as well as questions pertaining to the performance of the city’s management echelon in general, Figueroa said that “because the cannabis question is currently the subject of litigation, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it because of my current position as a city commissioner. I also hold the same position regarding questions about city staff management, staff changes and work ethic, due to my position as a city commissioner.”
-Mark Gutglueck

Black is gloomy, but combined with color it adds joy. It is a great feeling when spring comes in because everything begins looking artful. You get the white shirts and colorful shawls combined with black and it all just comes together.   Southern California is coming to life with the natural blooming colors of nature combined with vibrant outfits. When I set foot on the streets, I’m seeing colorful paintings coming to life. In addition, I see embroidered jackets, yellow dresses,  and scarves taking over spring. It is as if the  variegated manifestations of nature have stirred up our competitive nature and we are in a race with our environment to see who can put on the most sensational display. Things haven’t been this colorful in a long time. We have to enjoy the season because we haven’t seen the color of nature in a while. However, there’s always the color of fashion and for that I thank all the fun fashionistas out there. Enjoy the color!

“Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.” -Marc Jacobs