More than 16,000 households through San Bernardino County have had electrical power interruptions over the past three days, as extreme winds and fires have wreaked historic levels of havoc in neighboring Los Angeles County and other parts of Southern California.
More than 270,000 Southern California Edison customers in Southern California at some point today experienced power outages and 172,000 or thereabouts were without power as of 3 p.m. today.
The fluid nature of the outages and their wide geographical variance is demonstrated by the consideration that since midnight last night/this morning, 30,000 customers had their electricity service restored.
Southern California Edison was unable to say how many further outages beyond what had already occurred yesterday or Wednesday took place today. Continue reading →

During the course of a 3-hour-and-50-minute meeting on Tuesday, January 7, the Rialto City Council considered and rejected the option of appointing the runner-up in the November 5, 2024 city council election to fill the void created when then-Councilman Joe Baca Sr was elected mayor with two further years remaining on the council term he was elected to in 2022.
The council ultimately chose political neophyte
In November, Ana Gonzalez, who has established herself as an energetic and dynamic community activist, finished third in a seven-person race for two posts. Gonzalez polled 7,209 votes or 17.4 percent, behind incumbent Andy Carrizales and former Councilwoman Karla Perez, who managed to bring in 9,270 or 22.38 percent and 7,900 votes or 19.07 percent. Continue reading →

Crucial fourth and fifth votes to raise Rochelle Clayton’s status from that of acting city manager to that of the city’s fully-authorized top administrator failed to materialize at the specially-called closed session of the San Bernardino City Council on January 8.
Mayor Helen Tran’s tenure as an elected official in the county seat has been marred with a lack of clarity as to staff leadership and her inability to line up full council or consistent majority backing of the three individuals who have served in the acting, interim or actual city manager capacity since she was sworn into office in 2022. In the last two months, she has made an extraordinary effort to convince at least four of the city council’s seven members to support dropping the qualifier “acting” from Clayton’s title. Continue reading →

It appears the prospect of former Fontana Assistant Police Chief Alan Hostetter overcoming entirely his four felony convictions growing out of his action in the nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021 will substantially or even infinitely improve by January 20 with Donald Trump’s inauguration to a second as president. At the very least, the anticipated January 16 resignation of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia which Trump’s pending ascendancy is prompting will enhance the viability that Hostetter’s 11-year and three-month prison sentence will be reduced.
Hostetter, who personally – directly or indirectly – had a hand in putting thousands of actual or alleged lawbreakers in jail or prison cells over the course of his 23-year law enforcement career, is now himself doing time in the Oakdale Federal Correctional Institution in Louisiana.
Hostetter’s declension from a straight-laced upholder of the law who achieved the distinction of serving as a police chief to Federal Inmate #49779-509 is an engaging story.
In 1986, after more than three years in the Army, Hostetter was hired by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. In 1989, he made a lateral transfer to the Fontana Police Department. Continue reading →

In an effort to prevent delays in closure for the Schumacher and Caccavari families, Superior Court Judge Rasheed Alexander has sentenced Arthur Davies to 25-years-to-life following his November conviction for involuntary manslaughter and related assault resulting in the death of a child in the February 2018 death of 17-month old Parker Schumacher.
Judge Alexander’s sentencing telegraphs that he is primed to reject a yet-pending motion by Davies’ attorney, Zulu Ali, that his client be granted a new trial because of juror misconduct.
Any prospect that the 41-year-old Davies will take up residence outside of a penal institution now hinges on efforts Ali or Davies’ appellate attorney can make to convince California Fourth Appellate District in Riverside that the judge who heard pretrial motions before Judge Alexander officiated over the trial wrongfully excluded evidence and testimony Ali believes might have exonerated Davies at trial. In addition, Ali is gravitating toward exploiting another facet of the actual trial he contends put Davies at an unfair disadvantage with the jury. Under this theory, Judge Alexander wrongfully permitted the prosecution to shop around for charges to apply against the defendant. Judge Alexander allowed the prosecution to present a case during Davies second trial that alleged the defendant had willfully but without premeditation murdered the child but then allowed that theory to be withdrawn, and let the allegation of guilt transition into involuntary manslaughter just before the matter went to the jury. Continue reading →

2024 closed out with Dalton Rakestraw of Fontana having put his city on the map with his fifth place finish in the 2024 World Horseshoe Pitching Championships held at the
Toyota Center in Tri-Cities Washington from July 29 to August 4.
Rakestraw had the fifth most impressive sustained performance overall with a percentage of 65.90. He had a single game score of 82.35 percent against Nathan Williams, another competitor from California, the seventh-place finisher.
Throughout the championship round, Rakestraw racked up a record of ten wins and five losses, competing against the cream of the world’s horseshoe pitchers. Continue reading →