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Sentinel 03-23-18

The county board of supervisors this week on a 3-2 vote turned back an effort by members of the Cucamonga Valley Water District’s governing board to engineer for themselves an election year shift that would have given them two further years in office  they would not need to earn at the polls.
Two years ago, those at the helm of the Cucamonga Valley Water District defied convention by switching the district’s election cycles from even-numbered to odd-numbered years, thereby extending their terms in office by one year. This week, they asked the board of supervisors to allow the district to return to holding its elections to even-numbered years, giving themselves another one year extension in office.
Had the board of supervisors granted the change, it would have been the district’s third such move to shift its elections cycle in 13 years. Such election cycle changes are extremely rare, with the majority of political jurisdictions in San Bernardino County having never changed their electoral patterns.
Historically, the Cucamonga Valley Water District – previously known as the Cucamonga County Water District – held its board elections in odd numbered years. This put the district out of step with the overriding majority, though not all, of the other agencies, districts, governmental authorities and municipalities in San Bernardino County, which hold their elections during even-numbered years, coinciding with either the National Presidential/Congressional/State Legislative or State Gubernatorial/Congressional/State Legislative elections.
In October 2005, however, the Cucamonga Valley Water District Board of Directors passed Resolution No. 2005-10-3, which dispensed with the 2007 election while changing the scheduling of the elections from odd to even years. The resolution entailed extending the terms of office of the incumbent board members by one year. The board members asserted that the change was justified by the money the district would save as well as the increased voter participation that was anticipated by consolidating the district’s election with the other elections, as voter turnout in odd-numbered year elections fell significantly below that of the voter turnout during even year elections when large numbers of local, state and national offices are being contested.
A decade later, at its October 27, 2015 meeting, the Cucamonga Valley Water District Board passed Resolution No. 2015-10-5 to return the district’s elections to odd years beginning in 2017, and, consequentially, skip the election scheduled for November 2016. The stated reasons for the change spelled out in a district staff report were to save money on election expenses and, curiously, increase voter participation. Of note was that the water district’s action to initiate its election cycle change in 2015 came shortly after Senate Bill 415 achieved final passage and was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in September 2015. Senate Bill 415 requires all state, county, municipal, district, and school district elections be held on an established election date and, as of January 1, 2018, put in place a prohibition against a political subdivision holding an election other than on a statewide election date if holding an election on a nonconcurrent date previously resulted in voter turnout for a regularly scheduled election in that political subdivision being at least 25 percent less than the average voter turnout within the political subdivision for the previous four statewide general elections.
In short order, a handful of Rancho Cucamonga residents took note of the change and questioned the move, seeing in it an effort by the water board to boost their own political fortunes by postponing their elections and giving themselves an extra year in office. In defiance, the district board members ignored their constituents’ calls to reconsider their action and went so far as to have the district’s general counsel, Jeff Ferre, double down, insisting to the county board of supervisors that it had no discretion in the matter and was legally bound to simply ratify the district’s request to move to the odd-year elections. The county did so, thereby bypassing the 2016 election. As a consequence, board members James Curatalo and Randall Reed, who had been reelected in 2012 and Luis Cetina, who had been elected for the first time in 2012, did not have to stand for reelection in 2016 and saw their four-year terms increased by one year until 2017, and Oscar Gonzales and Kathleen Tiegs, who had been reelected to their positions in 2014, had their terms extended one year to 2019.
Since that time, Ferre and the district’s board members – Curatalo, Reed, Cetina, Gonzales and Tiegs – have taken stock of Senate Bill 415, and have moved to return the election-year cycle to even-numbered years. The district’s application, as presented by Ferre, was that the change be effectuated as of 2020, such that the 2019 election is bypassed. Under the terms of that proposal, Gonzales and Tiegs were to again see their terms extended one further year, from 2019 to 2020, and Curatalo, Reed and Cetina ware to see their terms extended from 2021 to 2022. Thus, Gonzales’ and Tiegs’ election in 2014, to what were then represented to be four-year terms, were to be turned into six-year terms. And Curatalo’s, Reed’s and Cetina’s elections to what were represented to the voters as four-year terms in 2012 and again in 2017, were to be transformed into five-year terms.
According to Ferre, the board of supervisors should simply sign off on the request, as under law, he claimed, it has no discretion in the matter.
Indeed, the clerk to the board of supervisors, Laura Welch, had scheduled the item to be considered as a part of the consent calendar at the Tuesday March 20 meeting of the board of supervisors. The consent calendar is reserved for noncontroversial issues that are accorded routine passage. But Supervisor Janice Rutherford, in whose Second District the City of Rancho Cucamonga and the Cucamonga Valley Water District lie, pulled the item from the consent calendar so it could be discussed at length and voted upon separately.
Michael Scarpello, San Bernardino County’s registrar of voters and chief election officer, offered an overview of the issue.
“Approval of item 57 would allow the Cucamonga Valley Water District to move its elections from the November elections held in odd years to the November elections held in even years beginning in 2020,” Scarpello said. “Because this is a fairly complex issue, I’d like to walk you through the legal requirements and the history of the district’s movement between election cycles. Special districts such as Cucamonga Valley Water District typically hold their governing board elections in November of odd-numbered years. However, California law authorizes a special district to move its elections to even years. To do so, the board of directors of the district must pass a resolution and then submit the resolution for approval by the county board of supervisors. The law states that the board of supervisors shall approve the resolution unless it finds the ballot system voting equipment or computer capacity is such that additional elections or material cannot be handled.”
Scarpello continued, “Now the history: On October 25, 2005, the board of directors of the Cucamonga Valley Water District adopted such a resolution to move its elections to even years and the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved the resolution. California law also allows a special district to repeal its resolution to move its elections. The process to do that is similar. The district must pass a resolution and then submit the resolution for approval by the board of supervisors. On October 27, 2015, the board of directors of the district adopted such a resolution to repeal its move to the even-year election cycle and this board approved the request on February 9, 2016. At the time there was some concern because the impact analysis, written by my office, predicted that moving the election would cost the district more money. However, the law is unclear on what criteria the board must use in deciding to approve this type of request, and county counsel concluded at the time that financial concerns weren’t adequate to reject the district’s request. The result of the district’s move back to the odd-numbered year election cycle was that the terms of office for three directors whose terms were scheduled to end in 2016 were extended by one year to 2017. In addition, the terms of office for two directors whose terms were scheduled to end in 2018 were also extended by one year to 2019. California Elections Code section 10404(i) recognizes that this term extension will occur.”
Scarpello said, “That kind of sums up the historic moves of the district. Now I’d like to move on to today’s item. On December 20, 2017, the district’s board of directors adopted a third resolution. This resolution requested, for a second time, that the district’s elections move to even numbered years, commencing with the November 2020 Presidential General Election. The district states it is making this request in order to comply with Senate Bill 415, which was enacted by the legislature in 2015 and requires that districts with low voter turnout in odd-year elections present a plan to move their elections to even-year elections no later than November 2022. The district’s request to move the election is being presented to you today for your consideration. The effect of approving this resolution is that three of the directors who appeared on the ballot and were reelected in 2017 and are scheduled to serve a term ending in 2021 will now have their term extended by one year and their term will now end in 2022. Two of the directors who were last elected in 2014 and are currently scheduled to end their terms in 2019 will have their terms extended an additional year and their terms will now end in 2020, the result being that these two directors will end up serving a six year term.”
Scarpello then indicated that it appeared the five members of the Cucamonga Valley Water District board were gaming the system to add years on to their elected terms without having to stand for election, but said the loophole in state election law presented them with the opportunity to do just that.
“After discussing this issue with county counsel, it appears that the board of supervisors must approve this request unless it finds that the ballot style voting equipment or computer capacity is such that additional elections or materials cannot be handled,” Scarpello said. “As part of this process, my office has conducted an impact analysis and determined that we can handle the move. As a result we are recommending that the board approve this resolution.”
At that point, Rutherford sought to focus on the water district’s 2016 move in defiance of Senate Bill 415.
“You mentioned legislation, SB 415, that was passed in 2015,” Rutherford said.
“That’s correct,” said Scarpello.
“So, the district’s request in 2016 to this board at which time county counsel told us we had no discretion at that point, how does the district explain that they made a request that was out of compliance with already passed state law?” Rutherford asked.
“I don’t believe that they have explained that to me,” Scarpello responded.
“We’re dealing with conflicts of both state election law and state water law and there seem to be some inconsistencies between the two,” Rutherford said. “Water law seems to indicate terms shall be four years and the district is relying on that language to say that they cannot shorten a term. The legislation passed allows for terms to be lengthened and yet I think we’ll hear from public comment and certainly some of the correspondence that I and I believe my colleagues have received that there is considerable upset in the community about six year terms made by this many changes in election law. And so, that’s frustrating and I’d like to understand this board’s discretion. It seems to me the fair thing to do is to hold an election this fall,” Rutherford said, when “we’ll be voting on a whole bunch of other things.” She said an election should be held this year “for those seats that would have been extended, so that at least some of the seats don’t receive the kind of extension that is unappealing to voters. You’re telling me this board has no discretion to hold the elections in the fall of this year, or perhaps counsel is telling me that.”
San Bernardino’s top in-house lawyer, County Counsel Michelle Blakemore, then responded, “That is correct, supervisor. The way the election code reads, the board’s authority is extremely limited, and that’s to allow the local agencies to control their own elections. The 2018 election that was already moved to 2019 – that is not what is in front of the board through the adoption of the district’s recent resolution. So we cannot, there is no authority for the board to, shorten that term to 2018.”
“So, the district itself would have had to make that decision, and make a request to this board,” Rutherford said, signaling that she was not prepared to simply accept rubberstamping the district’s request and thereby conferring upon the water district board members the advantage of extending their terms.
Blakemore responded, “It’s a little unclear as to whether they can actually do that. There is… We are aware of one irrigation district in Stanislaus County that recently voluntarily agreed to reduce their term to a three-year term to 2018. There doesn’t seem to be any clear authority for that. I think the problem is the legislature contemplated when districts were allowed to switch the elections, you get the four-year term and then you’d get the additional year. So that was clearly contemplated by the legislature. This is a very unique situation, and I don’t believe we found anything else in the state where this occurred where you had a four plus one and then a plus one because of the change again, so we found the six-year term troubling, but we could find no authority that says the district cannot do that.”
Rutherford than asked for someone from the water district to come forward.
Jeff Ferre, a partner with Best Best & Krieger and the general counsel to the Cucamonga Valley Water District, did so. Rutherford asked him to “speak to the district’s willingness to consider redoing the resolution for something that does not extend the terms if that’s this board’s desire.”
“The issue here is that we cannot have all five directors up for election at the same time,” said Ferre, slightly off topic, seemingly seeking to stand Rutherford off with some fast talk. “So, having an election in 2018 would push them all together for the next time they would be up for election.”
Seeing that Rutherford was not buying into his syllogism, Ferre parried, saying, “This is certainly not our choice to have a six-year term. We’re certainly hearing about it at our level, as well as you’re hearing about it here. I would defer to the fact that we’re trying to comply with SB 415 that calls for by January 1, 2018 to make a plan to change, not that in 2015 you had to do it right away. And that decision had to be based on voter turnout on three previous elections, so as soon as we started that process, we came back to you and that’s why we are here today. The other issue with 2018 is, along with this issue, we’ve just received a letter from a law firm regarding a Voting Rights Act issue and challenging our at-large elections. I believe one of the colleagues of the people who have objected is referenced in that letter, so we’re now dealing with two fronts. For us to go through the Voting Rights Act analysis and decide whether or not to change to by-division and do all of that before the 2018 Election is not feasible.”
Ferre then asserted that the supervisors had no choice but to go along with the water district’s plan to return its election cycle back to even numbered years just two years after it had demanded that the board of supervisors ratify moving the district to odd year elections, thereby politically benefiting the water district’s elected leadership.
“The item before you is simply to approve it, and you can only disapprove it if it won’t fit on the ballot,” Ferre intoned. “That’s good news for you, ’cause it’s really not in your discretion. Then the blowback from that, obviously, has been and will continue to be back at the water district, where we’re now dealing with the second front of the Voting Rights Act issue.”
Ferre appeared to be offending Rutherford with every sentence he uttered.
“I appreciate that perspective,” Rutherford said, somewhat acerbically, and then suggested that Ferre was insulting her intelligence. “It is extremely frustrating that we sit here and have no discretion over an issue that is so clearly contentious in the community. I’m not understanding why all five members would be up in 2018, why you still can’t stagger those terms.”
Ferre again tried to talk Rutherford in circles. “Well, if you had an election in 2018, those folks would be up in 2022, and the way that we’ve changed it now with the election, the three directors that were just elected in 2017 have to have their term extended, so it could not be less than 2021, it would have to be 2022. So, you have both the two directors and the three directors under this plan,” said Ferre, conveniently omitting that there is to be an election in 2020. From Rutherford’s expressions and body language, it was clear Ferre was making no inroads with his brand of logic.
With Ferre on the ropes, Rutherford zeroed in for the knockout. “How did this request come to the board in 2016 without recognition of SB 415 at that time?” she asked. “How could the district have been unaware of the law?”
Paralyzed like a deer in highbeam headlights, the best Ferre could do was prevaricate. “We were unaware… We were, uh, uh… We were aware of it, but…” he said, grasping at trying to recover before spewing out a set of irrelevancies and seeking to shift blame to the county for having gone along with the district’s proposal in 2015 and 2016. “But as I mentioned earlier, 415 went into effect at the end of that year and set a deadline for January 1, 2018 to decide whether or not the voter turnout would call for a need to change to even year elections. And the request to change to odd numbered years was worked in concert with county staff at the time, so it was not just us, it was county staff at the time, also, that came forward and said this is something that was going to be changed. As soon as SB 415 went into effect we did the analysis and that’s why we’re here today.”
Rutherford, recognizing Ferre’s statement as a misrepresentation in that Senate Bill 415 had become law prior to the district making its call in 2015 to switch to odd-year elections, called Ferre a liar, in not so many words. “In fairness,” Rutherford said, “I remember at that time, you and our staff also came forward and said we had no discretion then. So if your argument is today we have no discretion, then we had no discretion then.”
Caught out, Ferre responded, “True.”
Rutherford said, “If this was the district’s decision, then you’ve got to own it fully. You can’t say county staff helped you accomplish that…”
Still attempting to save face, Ferre interrupted Rutherford, “We did,” he claimed. “SB 415 required that we go through the analysis and make that decision on January 1, 2018. We did so. And that’s why we’re here today.”
Rutherford then drove home the point that in 2015 and 2016 there was enough information available so that the water district’s switching of its election cycle to odd-numbered years was either cavalierly made and/or not fully thought through or outright ill-advised and contrary to Senate Bill 415.
Ferre then acknowledged it was poor voter turnout in “three previous elections” to 2017 – meaning historically going back to 2003, 2001 and 1999 – that led to the conclusion that the election cycle had to come back to even years.
Whether through a slick calculation that included a cynical manipulation of the electoral code or through ignorance and incompetence, Rutherford implied, the water district’s leaders were now asking the board of supervisors to give them a benefit they did not deserve and should not be entitled to.
“I’m not suggesting the district or any of the directors had any ill-intent,” Rutherford said in attempting to soften what she was about to say. “I’ve talked with them and I believe they believed they were doing the best thing to boost turnout. Nonetheless, we’re now faced with a situation where they are extending their own terms far beyond what I believe the legislature envisioned and far beyond what is the appetite of the community. So, understanding our lack of discretion and limitations, I’m extremely frustrated with it. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. You don’t get to just extend your term over and over again.”
Mark Gibboney, a resident and ratepayer within the Cucamonga Valley Water District and a prime mover in the group Stop Cucamonga Valley Water District Election Abuse, pointed out that water district officials were backtracking and changing their story. He characterized Ferre’s statements as “so much new hogwash presented to you.” He said that Ferre was “confusing the issue with things that don’t have any effect.”
Gibboney said that the district’s “request to change to even-year elections should be approved, but effective this November, 2018.” He said, “Obviously, to make a change in the election schedule, the four-year terms has to be changed some way. Nowhere in the code does it say terms can’t be shortened.”
Gibboney said the assertion that “the Elections Code recognizes this term extension will occur is a gross misstatement of the Elections Code.” Noting that he and others opposed the shift to odd year elections two years ago only to be bulldozed over by the water district’s board members, Gibboney said action taken now should correct the miscarriage of unfairly extending the water board members’ terms and should not exacerbate the unfairness. That could be done, he said, by simply reassuming even-year elections this year rather than in 2020. “Making it effective this November will mean directors Reed and Curatalo will have three terms lasting a total of 13 years, only one year more than a four-year average instead of the 15-year total or five year average for the way they are asking. Director Cetina would have two terms lasting a total of eight years, exactly what you would expect with four-year terms instead of the five year average for the way they are asking. And directors Gonzales and Tiegs would serve their current term of four years exactly four years, not the six years for the way they are asking to do it. CVWD’s history of changes and extensions should be taken into account to stop these serial extensions. You, the supervisors, can do that. Elections Code Section 10404 says if a board of supervisors approves a resolution, a special district election shall be conducted on the dates specified by the board of supervisors. There’s your authority. You do have discretion. It’s ironic that they’re coming before the board to ask that they have five-year terms, six-year terms, and they’re doing so with a straight face.”
Blakemore told the board of supervisors that “I understand what Mr. Gibboney is saying, but this board does not have discretion.” She said that the only grounds upon which the board of supervisors could withhold endorsing the water district’s request was if doing so would impact the county elections office’s ballot material, election equipment or computer capacity.” Those opposed to granting the water district’s board members the term extensions, she said, could “take it to court. The six year term, if they want to challenge that, we really don’t know where a court would come out on that. The board has no authority to not approve the resolution, given that Mr. Scarpello said there is no effect on the registrar system.”
Supervisor Curt Hagman, while saying he felt that the board of supervisors was essentially bound by the law in having to support changing the district back to an even-year election cycle, suggested that the district’s voters should use their power of recall to remove the board members from office for the way in which they had manipulated the system to provide themselves with extended terms.
Before the vote on the matter was taken, Rutherford said, “I understand what our staff is saying about the lack of discretion, but I think on behalf of the voters of the district I will be opposing the measure today.”
Hagman then moved to ratify changing the Cucamonga Valley Water District’s election cycle back to even numbered years beginning in 2020. When no others seconded the motion, Robert Lovingood, as the board chairman, seconded it. The vote was cast, and the motion failed, with Lovingood and Hagman supporting it and Rutherford and supervisors Josie Gonzales and James Ramos opposed.
After the vote, Mark Gibboney told the Sentinel, “I wish the board of supervisors had approved the resolution to return elections to even years, but with the modification that it would have been effective this November. Short of that, I am pleased that they didn’t approve the resolution, as it was, which would have extended some of the CVWD directors another year for the third time, the others for the second time, and two of the directors would have ended up with six year terms.”
Gibboney said, “I think the attorney for CVWD successfully convinced county counsel that the law doesn’t permit a change to be made by reducing terms, but nowhere does a code say that, and I think her [Blakemore’s] interpretation that Elections Code section 10404(i) “recognizes that this term extension will occur” is a misstatement of what it actually says, which is that “if” the new election is scheduled after present terms expire, the current terms will be extended to the new election schedule. The word “if” actually recognizes that another alternative is possible and that is obviously scheduling the new election before the present terms expire (reducing them), in which case there will be no gap and section 10404(i) simply wouldn’t apply. If the legislature had wanted changes in election schedules to only occur by extending terms, they would have said that.”
Gibboney noted that “County counsel also told the board of supervisors they have no authority to select the date a change in elections becomes effective. Elections Code section 10404(j) says ‘If a board of supervisors approves the resolution pursuant to subdivision (e) (which is what they were considering) the special district election shall be conducted on the date specified by the board of supervisors, ….’ With that statute, I’m perplexed how county counsel could tell them they don’t have the authority to specify the date. I also heard the county registrar of voters, Michael Scarpello, tell the board of supervisors, ‘There’s nothing that says you cannot reduce the terms.’”
Repeated efforts to reach Cucamonga County Water District Board President Jim Curatalo for comment were unsuccessful.

The Cadiz Water Project this week encountered further difficulty, as a potential Los Angeles County recipient of the groundwater the company hopes to draft from the aquifer beneath the Eastern Mojave Desert balked at agreeing to purchase the water at what the purveyor said would be a “negotiated” price.
Though the Cadiz Corporation issued a statement to investors that the decision was “not material” to the project’s viability, David Lamfrom of the National Parks Conservation Association told the Sentinel that the Tuesday vote was “really important” as any and all purchase agreements send a clear signal to the Metropolitan Water District with regard to its decision to accept or reject conveyance of the water in its privately owned canal – the California Aqueduct that passes 44 miles from Cadiz’s proposed well fields.
Cadiz, Inc. maintains it is committed to completing what was originally slated to be a $536.25 million project and says it has customers lined up to purchase all of the water it intends to obtain from a desert aquifer in a remote area of San Bernardino County. Nevertheless, environmental and legal challenges to the program have so far prevented the company from moving ahead with water extraction, and increased project costs and future development commitments have escalated to more than $1 billion, endangering investors’ capital, even as questions are emerging about whether the company will be able to market the water at prices that will justify past, current and future outlays to keep the project viable.
With standing room only, one speaker after another filed to the public speaker’s podium before the board dais in the Upper San Gabriel Valley Water District’s meeting chambers Tuesday night, recommending against the district entering into an agreement with Cadiz, Inc. to purchase water on terms that were not yet fully specified. Several suggested that the expense of water delivery and its treatment would be cost prohibitive. Environmental and political activists, including Peter Muller, the deputy state director from U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office, California State Senate District 16 Candidate Ruth Musser-Lopez, Chris Clark of the National Parks Conservation Association headquarters in Joshua Tree, as well as representatives from the Sierra Club and its ‘Desert Committee,’ the Native Plant Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, the California League of Conservation Voters, the Wilderness Coalition, and the group Indivisible, provided a litany of reasons supporting their contention that the project is not viable. These included assertions of “Cadiz’s conflicting science” with that of the United States Geological Survey, which has expressed concerns over the depletion of the East Mojave aquifer and what project opponents have said are Cadiz Inc.’s “unsupportable projections” of the rate of water recharge into the water table, land subsidence and the destruction of the desert’s ecotone and artesian springs upon which wildlife depend.
Also impacting on the water district’s willingness to embrace Cadiz, Inc. as a water supplier was a statement made on Tuesday night by one of the district’s five board members, Bryan Urias, who said lobbyists “hired by the Cadiz Corporation” attempted to engage in improper “quid pro quo” arrangements that may have run “afoul of the law” to influence his vote. He said that they made a “barrage” of “offers” which included commitments of thousands of dollars in support of his election campaign in return for his agreement to sign the letter as well as promises that whatever he wanted, they would “make it happen.” Simultaneously, Urias said, Cadiz’s consultants made threats to the effect that if he did not support the purchase agreement, the company would run someone against him in the next election, and supply that opponent with thousands of dollars.
Urias characterized the effort by Cadiz as “heavy-handed tactics” which were “not only ineffective to the point of verging on being counter-productive, but to the extent it has appeared to offer me some form of pecuniary gain as a quid pro quo in exchange for my vote, it may be illegal.”
Cadiz, Inc. issued public denials of what Urias said, maintaining it had “conducted a prompt investigation of employees, consultants, electronic and telephone records,” turning up “no evidence of the alleged activity.” Any such overtures to Urias were not authorized by Cadiz, Inc., a spokeswoman said, offering an assurance the company maintains strict compliance “with all legal and ethical standards when we engage public officials.”
Beginning in the late 1980s, what was then known as the Cadiz Land Company, which had been created by Ted Dutton and Keith Brackpool, sunk a single well in the Cadiz Valley in the Eastern Mojave Desert and initiated an organic farming operation there growing tomatoes, peppers, melons, grapes and citrus. Though at no time throughout its existence did the Cadiz farming operation operate at a profit, it was able to make an assertion, based upon the irrigation of the crops at the Cadiz farm, to water rights from the Cadiz/Fenner aquifer.
The Cadiz Land Company in the late 1990s sought to interest the Metropolitan Water District in a proposal to convey up to 1.5 million acre-feet of what was referenced as “surplus” Colorado River water to the Cadiz Valley and “store” that water by pumping it into the water table and then extracting the water and conveying it to Greater Los Angeles during “dry years.” Ultimately, however, the Metropolitan Water District rejected that proposal.
In 2012, the Cadiz Land Company, which had been renamed Cadiz, Inc., provided then-San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt with $48,100 in political donations to finesse him and his board colleagues into allowing the board of directors of the Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County, located 217 miles away from the Cadiz Valley, to carry out the environmental certification and approval of a controversial water extraction project in the East Mojave. Cadiz, Inc. contrived to have the Santa Margarita Water District, which serves the affluent Orange County communities of Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo, Coto de Caza, Las Flores, Ladera Ranch and Talega, oversee the environmental impact report for the project, despite the consideration that the water district was to be the largest consumer of the 75,000 acre feet of water the company was proposing to draft annually from the project’s 34 wells which were to be sunk in the Cadiz and Fenner valleys.
The unorthodox approval process for the plan to draft billions of gallons of water from the  East Mojave Desert’s pristine aquifer for use in Los Angeles and Orange counties, utilizing a governmental entity more than 200 miles removed from the property to be impacted which simultaneously had a financial and operational interest in the project, fueled questions about the integrity and legitimacy of the environmental certification of the project. Ultimately, those questions formed the basis of eleven lawsuits which kept Cadiz, Inc. tied up in court for years. Though the company was able to prevail in most of those suits, which it succeeded in having removed to Orange County Superior Court, appeals on those suits are yet proceeding, even as Cadiz, Inc. is hoping to at last put those challenges behind it and get on with the project. With investors becoming increasingly nervous, the company wants to line up purchasers for the water so it can begin generating revenue to satisfy its stockholders.
The Upper San Gabriel Valley Water District serves Hacienda Heights, La Puente, Bassett, Valinda, West Covina, Covina, the City of Industry, South El Monte, El Monte, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, Azusa, Glendora, Bradbury, Monrovia, Temple City, San Gabriel, Rosemead and South Pasadena. When the district’s board of directors this week took up a proposal to execute a non-binding letter of intent with Cadiz, Inc. laying out a purchase and sale agreement for water to be made available from the East Mojave, Cadiz, Inc. and its president and CEO, Scott Slater, were hoping to be able to use that signed letter as further demonstration to stockholders and prospective investors that the company will be able to perform as projected, selling the water it is angling to withdraw from the desert over the next several decades at a consistent and considerable profit.
During public comments before the board, Ruth Musser-Lopez, who is running for the California senate seat in the district where Cadiz is located, implored the board not to approve the purchase agreement, stating that “Every time a ‘San Gabriel’ water district comes along and votes favorably for the project, there is a sharp upward blip on the Cadiz stock price,” which she said further enabled Cadiz in pursuing what she said is an environmentally damaging theft of water from the East Mojave Desert, which will cripple that area of California economically and developmentally for the next several generations.
Slater, after walking a gauntlet of project opponents, told the water board that the Cadiz project would provide the district with a reliable source of water. He contradicted claims by some of those opposing the district’s adoption of the letter of intent suggesting there is a problem with the quality of the water to be drawn from the Mojave Desert. He said the Metropolitan Water District would not allow the water to be imported through its system if the water had unacceptable amounts of contaminants in it.
Slater was supported by members of the Pipefitters Union, whose members stand to gain employment in assisting with the construction of the conveyance system for the water from the Cadiz Valley to the Metropolitan Water District’s aqueduct.
Peter Muller spoke on behalf of Feinstein, a longtime opponent of the Cadiz Water Project. He said that the project would exploit fragile aquifers which are encircled by the National Trails National Monument. He said the East Mojave was a habitat for several unique species that would be threatened by Cadiz, Inc.’s “unsustainable” water extractions. The water to be withdrawn, Muller said, is ten times the natural water recharge to the region through rainfall. Furthermore, he said, the California Lands Commission owns the land across which the pipeline Cadiz, Inc. wants to build, such that the company does not have the necessary land rights to legally transport the water.
Ilene Anderson, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said scores of scientists attuned to the ecological challenges in the desert had come out against the project put forth by Cadiz, Inc’s corporate predecessor two decades ago. “It was a bad idea years ago and it is still bad,” she said.
Ultimately, the water board rejected signing the letter of intent to purchase, with three voting outright against it and two members abstaining. Dr. Anthony R. Fellow said he would not support the project out of respect for Senator Feinstein’s knowledge of the situation. Voting against the project, Alfonso “Al” Contreras talked about the unknown costs of water conveyance, utilities, detoxification and the need to preserve jobs locally, referring to the California “Water Fix” project which would supply both water and “many jobs,” he said. Urias refused to support it. Board member Charles M. Trevino said the project had been vetted multiple times and he supported the idea of all water source options being on the table, but ultimately he abstained from voting along with the board’s chairman, Ed Chavez, who said he would not vote on it until he physically visited the project site.

One of the bald eagle chicks whose hatchings in Big Bear earlier this year were closely watched and widely celebrated died yesterday. It is believed to have fallen victim to the elements, as an early spring downpour and below freezing temperatures at the 6,800-foot level in the San Bernardino Mountains doomed the creature that was previously anticipated to fledge by April.
A pair of eagles adopted an existing nest in Big Bear last year. The nest was conveniently within scope of a video camera that had been installed by the Friends of Big Bear Valley several years ago. Consequently, when the female laid one egg and then another the first week of January, the pair’s progeny looked to be a quintessential Third Millennium phenomenon, inherently wild animals living in their natural habitat which would by the miracle of technology be subject to close human observation and monitoring.
Indeed, the female who had laid the eggs, given the name Jackie by biologists, was a creature familiar to biologists, ornithologists, bird lovers and U.S. Forest Service naturalists in the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Bernardino National Forest. Jackie had come into the world in 2012, the first bald eagle recorded to be hatched in the San Bernardino Mountains, an event that was much remarked upon at the time.
Because bald eagles will abandon nests if disturbed, the Forest Service moved to close the area around the nest to all public entry through June 22, the duration of the nesting season, giving the eggs as best of a shot of achieving viability as possible.
Despite the lack of immediate human access to the spot, with the video camera in place, locals and others throughout Southern California, the state, nationally and even internationally were able to watch the livestream of the nest. Both the male and female took turns incubating the eggs, though the female did most of the sitting. The bird that left the nest during this period would use the time away from the nest to hunt and would return with food for its mate.
The broadcasted vigil intensified at the end of the first week in February, and on February 10 and February 11, one egg and then the other hatched. The chicks were dubbed “Stormy” and “Baby Big Bear” or “BBB,” for short.
The two chicks appeared to be getting on and along. Winter 2018 had not been a particularly wet season, and temperatures throughout February were comparatively mild. It was not until March that a late winter blew through Southern California, bringing with it rain and, over the last two weeks, the coldest temperatures of the year.
A storm came into Southern California this week. Thursday night, four inches of rain fell on the mountains and thermometers in the Big Bear Area registered into the mid to low-20s, well below freezing.
BBB found this week challenging. Eagles do not feather early and BBB’s lack of down left him exposed to the chill. Jackie sought to protect him and his sibling by hovering over them within the nest, but on Thursday things had hit a critical level.
Both chicks were still alive at 2:30 a.m. this morning, but the temperature in Big Bear was yet plummeting.
At 8:43 a.m. this morning a tweet from the San Bernardino National Forest Administration went out. It stated, “We are sorry to report that one of the eagle chicks has died, possibly due to the storm (4” of rain, below freezing temps).”

Eagle Mother Above Her Dead Eaglet Photo Courtesy of Friends of Big Bear Valley

Despite the disappointment, there was a relative upside.
“The other appears to be doing okay this morning,” the tweet said. “We hope to continue to watch it grow and fledge over the next month.”

A full year after massive earthmoving machinery was transported up Orange Avenue and Holly Circle Drive and ultimately into place near where grading was initiated to accommodate the San Manuel Tribe’s development plan for upwards of 30 hillside mansions on property adjacent to the unincorporated county land at the northeast corner of the City of San Bernardino, problems relating to the impacts on adjoining properties intensified this week.
On most weekday mornings over the last year, vehicles carrying construction workers began to traverse the roads leading toward the construction site at about 6:15 a.m. That circumstance was no different this week, as the construction company employed by the tribe, Sukut, had scheduled progress toward the completion of the project to continue apace. On Tuesday March 20, the use of the road intensified, as equipment needed for the next and even more intensive phase of development began to arrive at the worksite. Tuesday passed without major incident, but just prior to 7 a.m. on Wednesday March 21, difficulty arose, which grew out of a veritable logjam of additional construction equipment on the roadways leading to the construction site.
The Sentinel has learned that at least one of the crew supervisors for the project had not anticipated that equipment and material would come onto the property until early April. Moreover, the roads across which the equipment was to be conveyed appear to have been unequal to the weight of the equipment.
The area is surrounded by steep hillsides, and the existing upscale and often unique residential properties along Holly Circle Drive are vulnerable to landslides or other hazards which have been created, or yet could be triggered by, the compromising of the integrity of the nearby mountains and hillsides as a result of the grading and construction activity. In addition, the grading of the property has exacerbated erosion in the area, such that runoff and flooding has led to the accumulation of silt and debris on the streets and within the storm water channels and culverts designed to prevent flooding of the properties along Holly Circle Drive and upper Orange Avenue.
By 7 a.m. Wednesday morning the vehicle flow through the area in both directions had come to a standstill, as trucks pulling trailers carrying construction equipment as well as mobile construction team structures converged on the area at or near the confluence of Orange Street and Holly Circle Drive. Holly Circle Drive is serpentine in nature, very narrow in certain spots as it winds around the contour of the hills. It has no sidewalks or curbs, with numerous blind curves. It terminates with no outlet. Its pavement is at least five decades old, is degrading and cracking along much of its expanse, and it proved insufficient not only to support the weight of the vehicles traversing it but insufficiently wide to allow the vehicular traffic coming up behind one of the vehicles stuck in the rut it had created as a consequence of its weight to progress upward or allow the traffic above it to come downward.
Two oversized portable construction trailers on flatbeds that could not make it up the road or around the bend were at the epicenter of the clog. The intrepid driver of one vehicle slowly and with great difficulty, apparently in defiance of the construction site supervisor, Russ Nygren, backed down the hill, his line of sight hampered by the massive load he was pulling. The driver was not following Nygren’s instruction to remain in place, causing considerable consternation among those there. Another oversized flatbed drove forward and turned on private property, tearing up the ground and the thinner asphalt on driveways and driveway aprons, creating holes. Essentially, the residents of the area were trapped at that chokepoint, which hemmed in and rendered immovable a parade of oversized vehicles and trucks. Though a number of local residents walk the area regularly, pushing strollers or accompanying children and pets, such activity on Wednesday and Thursday was prohibitively dangerous.
According to Nygren, Sukut’s site supervisor on the project, the trailers had arrived two weeks ahead of schedule. The next phase of development on the project, one even more intense than what has occurred over the last year, is about to commence. Nygren confirmed that many of the vehicles toting trailers loaded with earthmovers and other large scale equipment could not make it up the road. The drivers of the vehicles, employed by the two different companies that are apparently subcontractors to Sukut – Maros and FAT – were not following Nygren’s instructions, which he indicated exacerbated the road clogging situation.
Tribe security officers/police officers employed with the tribe at one point arrived but appeared to be ineffective in defusing the traffic blockage.
Mark Persico, the City of San Bernardino’s community development director, on Thursday told the Sentinel, “The city is very much aware of this. We’re in fairly constant communication with the tribe. The land being developed is on tribal lands, so they follow their own construction requirements. They didn’t get permits for the development itself from the city and were not required to. And they didn’t get hauling permits from us unless they did go across our streets and are impacting them in any significant way. I will have our public works director look into it. At this point, I don’t know if they got a permit. The tribe controls a lot of the land leading to the construction site. It is possible that if they are crossing city streets they will need to have gotten a heavy hauling permit from the city.”
Persico continued, “The other issue we might have is debris in the streets, which is something we will address on an ongoing basis as the project moves along. We have an ongoing dialogue with them, so the public works director is making sure that our streets are maintained. If any debris [from foothill runoff from rains as a consequence of construction activity] ends up in our [drainage] basins, they have to clear it out. That is their responsibility.”
As to wear and tear on the streets from the transit of heavy equipment over them, Persico said, “We do have lots of older streets. That’s the whole reason for getting heavy hauling permits. When they do, we monitor the condition of the streets before and after the movement across them to make sure if a street is damaged it is put back into its previous condition.”
Persico indicated he had not been told as of Thursday morning about the damage that had occurred on Holly Circle Drive the previous day, but said, “I can talk to the public works director and find out if anything happened when they crossed one of our streets. I don’t know right now if they had to get a permit, and if they were supposed to get one and didn’t, we will work with them to get things into order.”
–Mark Gutglueck

Chad Mayes, the minority leader in the California Assembly, is looking to remain in place in the state’s lower legislative house beyond 2018 in the aftermath of what GOP purists consider to have been principle-betraying compromises with the Democrats during last year’s legislative session, as two Republican Party stalwarts have jumped into the primary race against him along with a long shot Democrat.
Mayes served on the Yucca Valley Town Council from 2002–2011, including two terms as mayor and was the chief of staff to Second District San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford before he was elected to the Assembly in the 42nd District in 2014. The son of Roger Mayes, who is the pastor of Grace Community Church and one of the most influential members of the Yucca Valley Community, Chad Mayes established himself as a rock-ribbed conservative in the town of 20.000 before becoming the local representative in the state Assembly representing a wide swath of the desert including Morongo Valley and the expanse beyond that into Riverside County.
The present political reality in the state capital, where the Democrats are in firm control, has required that young Mayes reach continually across the aisle to have any hope of getting prospective legislation he sponsors passed. One such accommodation he made with the Democrats consisted of his decision last year to join a minority of Republicans in support of cap-and-trade legislation, a government regulatory program designed to limit, or cap, the total level of specific chemical by-products resulting from private business activity, primarily industrial and energy production. Many Republicans are opposed to this type of regulation. He also supported an increase to the state’s gasoline tax of roughly 63 cents per gallon, a move considered anathema to many members of the GOP.
Two Republicans, San Jacinto City Council member Andrew Kotyuk and former Palm Springs police chief Gary Jeandron, expressing dismay with Mayes’ playing footsie with the Democrats, declared their separate challenges of Mayes in the June 2018 primary. The cap and trade and gasoline tax votes are perhaps the two major issues animating them.
Simultaneously, a single Democrat, Matthew Campos, a fire commissioner from Morongo Valley, vaulted into the contest for the 42nd Assembly District position. Much to Mayes’ chagrin, Campos loudly trumpeted that he was in concurrence with Mayes with regard to the cap and trade program extension, the last thing Mayes needs to have his Republican constituents hear in the run-up to the June race. With Kotvuk and Jeandron already harping on Mayes’ accommodation of the Democratic agenda in Sacramento, Campos’ statements praising Mayes for his political courage in crossing up his own party carry the prospect of eroding Mayes’ base of support. Mayes yet possesses the advantage of incumbency, the possession of a substantial campaign war chest and the ability to raise even more political funds which can be used for mailers, handbills, doorhangers, newspaper ads, billboard space, and radio and television spots.
-Mark Gutglueck

With councilman Jack Woods and the newest addition to the seven-member Colton City Council making the difference, that panel this week took the first step toward reducing its ranks to five members this week.
The reversal of the 1992 voter-approved expansion of the council from five members to its current seven will yet need to be ratified by the city’s voters in a vote to come this November. Five of the council’s seven members on Tuesday voted to give the city’s 20,180 voters an opportunity to make such a decision, directing staff to prepare a ballot measure to reduce the council from seven to five members.
While the exact form of the ballot measure is not set, it is anticipated that the proposal will call for Colton maintaining its mayor, elected at large by all eligible voters in the 16.04 square mile city, while reducing the number of council wards from six to four.
At present, Colton and neighboring San Bernardino, the county’s largest city population-wise, are the only two of the county’s 24 municipalities with a seven member council. All of the others have five members. Colton, with its 54,800 residents, ranks 14th among the county’s cities in terms of population and 19th in terms of area.
Last year, as this time around, councilman Luis González instigated the discussion of reducing the city council’s ranks. When the concept was explored at the April 4, 2017 council meeting, González was able to garner the support of councilman Frank Navarro and Mayor Richard DeLaRosa. At that time, councilmen David Toro, Jack Woods, Isaac Suchil and then-councilwoman Summer Zamora Jorrin rejected the idea. Since that time, Jorrin resigned from the council and was replaced by Ernest Cisneros. Tuesday night, Suchil and Toro abided by their earlier positions on the issue, Woods appeared to have been persuaded by the reasoning of González and DeLaRosa, who propounded that in addition to cost savings, the reduction would streamline and efficientize the decision-making process.
Suchil and Toro were unwilling to concede that there would be any greater efficiency in eliminating two voting members of the council, and they suggested that rather what would occur is that a degree of representation would actually be lost. Suchil, a sheriff’s department employee whose family is provided with medical coverage under his employment benefits plan, said that the council could give up its members’ health insurance and other perquisites, such as vehicle, cell phone and computer allowances, achieving a $120,000 savings. He also tried to sell his colleagues on holding off on making the change until after 2020, when the U.S. Census will occur, thus saving the city the cost of having to do a population survey to fairly draw the new district boundary lines.
Despite Suchil and Toro’s resistance, however, Woods went to the side of the issue staked out by Navarro, DeLaRosa and González last year. And Cisneros went along with Navarro, DeLaRosa and González as well, making it a 5-to-2 vote to have staff lay out a proposal for a new district map.
As of this week, Colton has 3,446 voters in District 1; 3,364 voter in District 2; 2,999 voters in District 3; 3,167 voters in District 4; 3,923 voters in District 5; and 3,281 voters in District 6.
The city will need to have the proposal and its language as well as a proposed new district map completed for submission to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters no later than August 9 to get it on the November 2018 ballot.

Applications for the 2018-2019 San Bernardino County Civil Grand Jury are now being accepted. Successful applicants will serve as grand jurors for the fiscal year period beginning July 1, 2018 and ending June 30, 2019.
The civil grand jury is authorized by the California Penal Code to investigate all aspects of county governance, including cities and special districts, and also potentially hear information on certain criminal investigations. All communications to the grand jury are confidential and every signed citizen complaint is responded to after being investigated. Service as a grand juror involves an average of three to five full working days per week, which is compensated at $25 per day, plus meals and appropriate mileage. The regular grand jury meeting place is located in the City of San Bernardino.
To be eligible for selection, a person must be at least 18 years of age, a United States citizen, and a resident of California and the County of San Bernardino for at least one year prior to appointment. Other requirements include: sufficient knowledge of the English language, possession of natural faculties, of ordinary intelligence, sound judgment, and good character. By law, elected public officials are not eligible.
An application can be downloaded at www.sbcounty.gov/grandjury. Applications can also be obtained by calling (909) 387-9120 or in-person located at 172 West Third Street, Second Floor, San Bernardino, CA. The application deadline is April 6, 2018.

Native to a wide region of Europe, North Africa and Asia from Britain and the Canary Islands to Japan, goosegrass is now naturalized throughout most of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, some oceanic islands and scattered locations in Africa. Its scientific name is galium aparine, with ‘aparine’ coming from the Greek, meaning to “lay hold of” or “seize.” Galium is the name Dioscorides, a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of De Materia Medica (Ancient Greek for On Medical Material), a five-volume encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, gave to the plant. It is derived from the Greek word for ‘milk’, because the flowers of galium verum were used to curdle milk in cheese making
Goosegrass has many other common names, including cleavers, clivers, “bort”, bedstraw, catchweed, stickyweed, stickybud, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy, sticky willow, stickyjack, and grip grass. It is a herbaceous annual plant of the family Rubiaceae.
Galium aparine prefers moist soils and can exist in areas with poor drainage. It reportedly flourishes in heavy soils with above-average nitrogen and phosphorus content, and prefers soils with a pH value between 5.5 and 8.0. Catchweed is considered a noxious weed in many places. Galium aparine is often found in post-fire plant communities in the United States, likely developing from onsite seed and therefore rendering controlled burns as an ineffective means of removing galium aparine in areas where it is considered a noxious weed.
This plant has creeping straggling stems which branch and grow along the ground and over other plants. They attach themselves with the small hooked hairs which grow out of the stems and leaves. The stems can reach up to three feet or longer, and are angular or square shaped. The leaves are simple, narrowly oblanceolate to linear, and borne in whorls of six to eight.
Cleavers have tiny, star-shaped, white to greenish flowers, which emerge from early spring to summer. The flowers are clustered in groups of two or three, and are borne out of the leaf axils. Bort’s globular fruits are burrs which grow one to three seeds clustered together; they are covered with hooked hairs which cling to animal fur, aiding in seed dispersal.
There is some debates as to whether bedstraw is native to North America. It is considered to be native in most literature. For some people, skin contact with galium aparine causes an unpleasant localized rash known as contact dermatitis.
The chemical constituents of stickyweed include: iridoid glycosides such as asperulosidic acid and 10-deacetylasperulosidic acid, asperuloside, monotropein and aucubin, alkaloids such as caffeine, phenolics such as phenolic acids, anthraquinone derivatives such as the aldehyde nordamnacanthal (1,3-dihydroxy-anthraquinone-2-al), flavonoids and coumarins, organic acids such as citric acid and a red dye.
Stickybud is edible. The leaves and stems of the plant can be cooked as a leaf vegetable if gathered before the fruits appear. However, the numerous small hooks which cover the plant and give it its clinging nature can make it less palatable if eaten raw. Geese thoroughly enjoy eating galium aparine, hence its common name of goosegrass. Robin-run-the-hedge is in the same family as coffee. The fruit of sticky willy has often been dried and roasted, and then used as a coffee substitute which contains less caffeine.
Poultices and washes made from sticky willow were traditionally used to treat a variety of skin ailments, light wounds and burns. As a pulp, stickyjack has been used to relieve poisonous bites and stings. To make a poultice, the entire plant is used, and applied directly to the affected area. Goose grass is also used as a lymphatic system aid, as it assists the lymph nodes in cleaning out toxins. Making a tea with the dried leaves is most common. It can be brewed hot or cold. For a cold infusion, steep in water and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours.
Dioscorides reported that ancient Greek shepherds would use the barbed stems of cleavers to make a “rough sieve,” which could be used to strain milk. Linnaeus later reported the same usage in Sweden, a tradition that is still practiced in modern times.
In Europe, the dried, matted foliage of the plant was once used to stuff mattresses. Several of the bedstraws were used for the purpose that name implies because the clinging hairs cause the branches to stick together, which enables the mattress filling to maintain a uniform thickness. The roots of cleavers can be used to make a permanent red dye.
The plant can be found growing in hedges and waste places, limestone scree and as a garden weed.
The anthraquinone aldehyde nordamnacanthal (1,3-dihydroxy-anthraquinone-2-al) present in galium aparine has an antifeedant activity against Spodoptera litura, the Oriental leafworm moth, a species which is considered an agricultural pest. The Acari Cecidophyes rouhollahi, a plant parasite. can be found on galium aparine.
Primarily from Wikipedia.

The Fire Lookout Host Program, a volunteer activity of the Southern California Mountains Foundation, is now recruiting volunteers to staff fire lookouts for the 2018 fire season. Lookout Volunteers help protect the forest and local mountain communities as well as communities along the forest boundary from the threat of fire. They also act as hosts to members of the public who visit fire watch towers.
New volunteer trainings begin April 9th, 2018. Volunteers must attend four training classes: a two hour orientation class, a three hour natural history class, a seven hour operations class, and an all-day in-tower training that puts you in the fire lookout with an experienced host.
Lookout hosts must be professional, reliable, attentive and most importantly, trustworthy. They are entrusted with a larger than common perspective of the fire environment, how incoming weather impacts it and the safety of personnel in the field. Anyone age 18 or over can become a lookout volunteer.
Dates and additional information are posted on the Southern California Mountains Foundation website; www.mountainsfoundation.org/fire-lookouts or contact the Fire Lookout Host Program Coordinator, Pam Morey, at (909) 225-1025 or e-mail at pmorey@mountainsfoundation.org.