Which professional group has greater credibility: engineers or attorneys? The Chino Hills Planning Commission has weighed in on that question, coming down on the side of engineers.
The showcase for the decision was the August 2 planning commission meeting, at which the commission was set to discuss giving approval to Newcastle Partner’s request for a site plan review to facilitate the construction of a light industrial building on a 4.67 acre vacant parcel located at the northeast corner of Fairfield Ranch Road and Red Barn Court south of the yet-to-be-completed Fairfield Ranch Commons project.
An issue to be hashed out was what would be the amount Newcastle would reimburse Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu Temple as a fair share reimbursement for the construction of frontage improvements along Fairfield Ranch Road. Those improvements were made following the 2007 approval of the temple project, based upon the Subdivision Map Act and the conditions of approval, which required that as the first developer of the unimproved land in that area, the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu Temple would have to complete the infrastructure required to make its facility accessible. That infrastructure had to be completed to a level capable of accommodating surrounding properties upon future development, subject to reimbursement once those surrounding properties were themselves improved. Practically, in this case, the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu Temple was required to extend Fairfield Ranch Road from Red Barn Court to Monte Vista Avenue, including the acquisition of the right-of-way necessary to complete the project.
At one point, representatives of Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) Hindu Temple had calculated Newcastle’s share to be $1.2 million. The city attorney’s office, based upon calculation by former city engineer Steve Nix put that reimbursement at $503,345.
City attorney Mark Hensley, however, offered a reimbursement figure even more favorable to Newcastle, pegging the amount at $379,540.
According to Hensley, “the city can only condition the applicant to pay for that portion of Fairfield Ranch Road for which there is a legal nexus between the improvement and the benefit to the Indus property.”
Indus is the landowner of the property upon which Newcastle’s Fairfiled Ranch Commons project is to be constructed.”
BAPS, however, pointed out that in order to facilitate the completion of the frontage road and accompanying property, it had paid well over market value for that land, raising its costs in carrying out the up-front development, and justifying the greater reimbursement from Newcastle.
A staff report accompanying the planning commission item acknowledged that the “$1,025,000, or $17.18 per square foot that BAPS paid for the land in 2007 was above the $9 per square foot market value for industrial land in 2007” but that the most proper way to make the calculation of reimbursement would entail using the fair market price for the land in the cost formula.
After some downward adjustment on its construction and engineering and land acquisition costs, BAPS was yet pushing for a reimbursement of $945,000, asserting that Hensley’s $379,540 figure was both “arbitrary and inaccurate.”
After a previous go-round on the matter at its June 7 meeting, the planning commission opted to accept what appeared to be but which city staff insists was not a compromise number that fell between BAPS’ request and Hensley’s calculation.
The number accepted by the planning commission was $503,345, which was based on the city engineering division’s size up of what was owed to BAPS. According to former city engineer Steve Nix the $503,345 reimbursement can be defended on the basis of a $360,550 construction cost and $142,795 right-of-way acquisition cost.
BAPS incurred costs of $3.3 million for road construction overall and $2,073,892 in acquiring the land, totaling $5.4 million. Until recently there was no indication of any disagreement between Newcastle and BAPS over the reimbursement schedule. Differences became evident, however, at the June 7 planning commission meeting.
Complicating the issue is that Indus Investment Group owns the property Newcastle intends to develop, giving Indus a stake in the successful completion of Newcastle’s development agenda. It was Indus that held out for the higher price on the land acquired by BAPS in 2007 to complete the frontage road. Thus, Indus profited, perhaps by some definitions excessively with the sale of the property used for the frontage road improvements at a price well above market value and now Newcastle-Indus does not want to defray its share of the cost BAPS had to bear in making the improvements that are now benefitting Newcastle. That consideration fueled BAPS’ expectation that its higher land acquisition costs would be factored into its reimbursement.
At the June planning commission council meeting, Newcastle, which represents the landowner Indus, objected to the engineering division’s calculation of $503,345 as too high. BAPS was equally adamant that $503,345 was not enough. The matter was extended to August 2.
On August 2, with commissioner Adam Eliason absent, commissioners Michael Stover, Stephen Romero and Sheran Voigt voted to accept Nix’s figure over that formulated by the city’s lawyers, assistant city attorney Elizabeth Calciano and city attorney Mark Hensley. Planning commission chairman Gary Larson, who suggested that BAPS was due even more than the $503,345 dissented in the vote.
The matter has yet to be fully closed. BAPS has indicated it will appeal the $503,345 reimbursement to the city council as early as next month, disputing assertions by Hensley and city staff that it has not adequately documented its costs on the frontage improvements. Meanwhile, Jackson Smith of Newcastle Partners, while not having filed an appeal on behalf of Newcastle as of this week, has indicated his company disputes the $503,345 figure as too high.

By David Buckley
NEEDLES—Pedestrian arrests of dark skinned citizens became a major national issue this week when on August 10, 2016 the United States Department of Justice made public a report on an ongoing investigation into civil rights violations by the Baltimore City Police Department.
The United States Department of Justice’s investigation gives graphic indication of a pattern or practice of conduct that violates civil rights by police making unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests, using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of searches and arrests of African Americans. Using excessive force and retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression was reported, as was excessive use of force against juveniles and people with mental health disabilities.
The Department of Justice monitored the department’s policing methods for more than a year at the request of the Baltimore Police Department.
The stops, searches and arrests made by the Baltimore City Police Department were said to be concentrated in a small area of Baltimore and targeted dark skinned people who were on foot rather than traveling in vehicles.
Meanwhile, on August 9, 2016, the evening before the news in Baltimore broke on national television newscasts, a report of the same type of systemic behavior by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department was mentioned during public comments at the Needles City Council meeting to address an agenda item that concerned the sheriff’s department’s request for an increase of 7 percent in the local police services contract. The increase was sought to cover salary raises.
After two of the council members, Louise Evans and Shawn Gudmundsen, pushed back on the increase in the contract, Ruth Musser-Lopez, who pulled papers for Needles City Council this week in the midst of circulating four voter initiative petitions she authored, in public comments requested that the council think seriously about the skyrocketing cost of law enforcement services since the sheriff’s department replaced the once-independent Needles Police Department. She also suggested that the council seek an investigation of the reports that she had learned of while seeking signatures in the “village” section of the city’s territory, the area of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe’s reservation administrative headquarters. She told the council it would prove an embarrassment to the city if the reports are true that sheriff’s deputies are targeting Native Americans for arrest as they walk off the reservation to go to the nearby Circle K in a town that currently has no market other than mini-marts and dollar stores along with four medical marijuana retail outlets.
Incidental to this disclosure, the Sentinel has learned, is the travail of a Navajo woman living on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in Needles, Kristen Raquel Arthur. Kristen Arthur, her mother said, had no prior arrests, but while walking from Circle K to her home nearby on the reservation was stopped, falsely accused of burglary by San Bernardino County deputies, arrested and then booked for resisting arrest on May 11, 2016. Though the original charge of having “ransacked a house on K Street” was dropped, Arthur continues to be incarcerated at West Valley Detention Center awaiting psychological evaluation required of her due to the fact that she allegedly bit and scratched one of the arresting officers while resisting arrest.
Kristen Arthur, 24, is the sister of Trevor Arthur, a Navajo “long distance” runner for the Fort Mojave Tribe of Native Americans also known as “Spirit Runners” who on February 24, 2014, was subject of a similar stop and arrest. In Arthur vs. McMahon et. al., it is alleged the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department allegedly stopped Trevor while he was running in his jogging clothes with his headphones in his ears. In effectuating his arrest, the suit states Trevor Arthur was stopped by the arresting officer who used the left side of the squad car bumper, “swiping” into him. Jumping out of the car while Trevor was still confused from the blow, the lawsuit maintains, deputies in concert then tackled him, hit him and put Arthur in a chokehold and legholds with a deputy’s knee pressed against his neck. According to the lawsuit, Arthur “pled with the deputies to free his leg because it was in great pain from the impact. The deputies, however, continued hitting and pressing on plaintiff even though plaintiff obeyed all of their orders. One of the officers told plaintiff, ‘You should have stopped running.’ During the arrest, defendant deputies made racial insults towards Trevor including, ‘Are you one of those stupid degenerate natives? Or are you one of those Mexicans here in the valley?’”
According to the complaint there were people watching and recording the incident, while Trevor cried out, “Help! Somebody Please! The f—ing Nazis are hurting me!” Upon arrival at the station, the complaint states, Trevor was submitted to further racial insults and slammed to the floor and choked while he was in handcuffs outside of Needles Colorado River Station. A deputy McMullen continued to make racial comments and joke about Arthur but because the entire left side of Trevor’s head was still bleeding and his torso ached and throbbed from the injuries, he was released and his mother took him to the hospital for treatment. Deputies in Needles continue to “harass, stare and follow plaintiff when he is on foot running through the streets to the high school football field for his run” according to the complaint.
Similar to the circumstances that led to the United States Department of Justice’s findings with regard to the Baltimore police, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is said to have a code of silence such that deputies ratify the unconstitutional treatment of suspects. The department also fails to adequately supervise and train its police officers with regard to protecting the civil rights of those they arrest.
Coincidentally, in Chemehuevi et. al. v. McMahon, the county sheriff’s department and its deputies have been sued by the tribe for allegedly targeting and stopping vehicles with brown skinned people, Native Americans in and around the Chemehuevi Indian reservation located at Havasu Lake in the community south of Needles.
Kristen’s mother, Delrae Yazzie Arthur, told the Sentinel that Kristen had just given birth to her first child and was suffering post-partum depression. She said Kristen woke her up at 1:45 a.m. and told her that she was going to the Circle K to get a soda. Yazzie reported that Kristen had been breast-feeding her 9-month-old baby girl, her first child, and that the thrust of the blow from the deputy smashed her left breast when she was flung to the ground during the arrest and she now suffers from serious breast pain while incarcerated. Also the baby suffers from deprivation of her mother and is suffering from abandonment issues, Delrae Arthur said.
“There is a witness at the Circle K who can attest that an officer was in the store at the same time as Kristen was there and there was no attempt to question or arrest Kristen then. They claim she was at 1900 Broadway which would put her at the ’66 Bar,’ but a store clerk witness saw her at the Circle K.” Yazzie-Arthur said. Yazzie-Arthur asserts that after Kristen crossed the street from the mini-mart, a female officer, deputy April Jennings, was brutal to her, grabbed onto her long black hair and put her in a choke hold to detain her. “One side of Kristin’s head is thin and bald where Kristin’s hair was pulled” she said. Yazzie-Arthur said Kristen was put in a chokehold and then forced to the ground where the officer kneeled on her neck, pinning her down. “That cut off Kristen’s air supply and Kristen said that is the reason she bit the officer because she was trying to breath. She was tazed twice after the hand cuffs were put on her. She was never read her Miranda rights.”
Yazzie-Arthur continued, “All the officers suffered was a bite mark and a scratch, but Kristen had bruised eyes. She had bruises in two spots on her back where she was tazed. She also showed me bruises on her ribs but that may have been from when she was jumped inside the jail. Kristen did not receive any medical attention for 95 days while she was in detention. She has not received our traditional Navajo medicine; she has not been smudged with either cedar or sage. I am only allowed to see her for 15 minutes at a time and I must drive all the way across the Mojave Desert to see her. When I saw her, the wounds she had were all defense wounds. She didn’t fight them. She is strong and 5’11”— if she wanted to fight she could have. Her face was beat and no booking photos were taken. One of her breasts was smashed. I am unable to minister to her because they will not even tell me where she is at this point and they will not allow me to visit her. I cry for her every day.”
Kristen’s grandmother, Christine Sanders Armstrong, told the Sentinel that the deputy public defender, Eric McBurney, who had been assigned to her granddaughter, embarrassed and humiliated Kristen in front of the district attorney and the entire audience in the courtroom before the judge entered. “The public defender assigned to my granddaughter, mocked her loudly calling her ‘Jaws’ so that everyone in the room could hear him. He said that he was at the court because Kristen had bit a police officer and now he had the job of defending ‘the Shark.’ This is so twisted and wrong. Now they are alleging Kristen is incompetent and will not honor her request for a new public defender,” Armstrong said. As they were speaking with the Sentinel, Yazzie-Arthur and Armstrong reported that “A county sheriff’s patrol car just pulled up outside of our house as we speak and is just sitting there. We feel so oppressed and intimidated.”
Kristen Raquel Arthur is currently said to be in the “ZZZ Ward” of the West Valley detention center. West Valley and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in charge of it are currently the focus of an ongoing investigation by the FBI for civil rights violations arising from the abuse of inmates. There were allegations in the social media of hazing rituals where new deputies were encouraged to taze prisoners’ testicles. More than two years ago, four West Valley detention center employees were “walked off” the property by federal agents.
The sheriff’s department had no comment on the treatment of individuals in the Needles area by department members.
David Buckley reported this story from Needles.

In response to a complaint emanating out of Montclair, Upland Fire Chief Paul Segalla was placed on administrative leave early this week.
Relieving Segalla of command was one of the first executive decisions exercised by Martin Thouvenell, who was brought in to serve in the capacity of interim city manager in Upland in the wake of former city manager Rod Butler’s sacking on July 27.
In January 2014, Upland and Montclair merged their fire department management staffs. That consolidation, intended to minimize costs for both of the adjoining cities on San Bernardino County’s west end, entailed the elimination of the Montclair fire chief’s position, which at that point was unfilled, and the ascendancy of then-Upland fire chief Rick Mayhew into the position of fire chief in both cities. That arrangement was touted as a two-year pilot program to provide both cities with an opportunity to test the feasibility of merging the entirety of their fire department operations, 73,732-population Upland, employs 36 fulltime firefighters staged out of four fire stations and 36,664-poulation Montclair, fields 24 firefighters operating out of two fire stations, Upland is covering 67 percent of the cost of employing the fire chief and the fire marshal, with Montclair picking up 33 percent of those salaries. The merger also entailed both cities splitting the cost of providing battalion commanders sufficient to cover each station in both cities, augmented by a central administrative staff consisting of an executive assistant, a clerk and secretary.
The fire chief remains, technically, an employee of the City of Upland, subject to Upland’s hiring, firing, promotional and disciplinary policy, discretion and authority, meaning the fire chief is directly answerable to the Upland city manager. The Montclair city manager is empowered to provide input with regard to the fire chief’s performance, discipline, wages and benefits but has no direct control over the fire chief.
Mayhew, whose salary had been bumped up when he accepted the assignment of overseeing fire protection operations in Upland’s neighboring city in addition to the one he already had, retired in July 2015, but not before qualifying, by virtue of his increased salary for 15 months, for an enhanced pension.
Segalla, who had been a fire lieutenant in Aurora, Illinois and a firefighter and deputy chief with the Downers Grove Fire Department in Illinois, fire captain with the Berkeley Fire Department and previously was fire chief in Lockpart Township, Illinois before being hired as fire chief with West Covina in 2008, on February 13, 2013 was hired as fire chief with the Chino Valley Fire District, which serves the cities of Chino and Chino Hills. In that capacity he was provided with a three-year contract specifying a $188,328 annual salary. On January 24, 2013, however, Segalla was placed on administrative leave.
According to Chino Valley’s board president at that time, John DeMonaco, the suspension was made because the board was undertaking an “assessment of the compatibility of his management style with the goals of the district.”
Apparently, the board’s members were unable to collectively resolve the administrative and management differences they had with Segalla and on March 4, 2014 Segalla was removed from the district payroll, an indication that there were unfavorable issues in the evaluation that the district was willing to cite in justifying the contract termination.
The district issued a curt press release, which offered little in the way of an explanation as to the reason for his sacking.
“Chief Segalla has informed the board that he is now desirous of seeking a new position outside of the district,” that press release said. “While it has been a pleasure working with him, on behalf of the board of directors we wish Chief Segalla future professional success and thank him for his dedicated service to the district.”
Segalla was able to land on his feet twenty months later when he wangled the chief’s job in Upland in November 2015. An element favorable to his hiring was he was willing to accept an annual salary of $161,196 and benefits of $71,692 for a total compensation package of $232,888, which was roughly $25,000 less than Mayhew was receiving at the time of his retirement.
Indications are that at this point someone in the City of Montclair does not feel Segalla is earning his keep, though taxpayers there are responsible for just one-third of what he is paid.
On Monday, August 8, Segalla was in attendance at the Upland City Council meeting, seated in the front row of the spectators section of the council chambers, which by custom is reserved for high ranking city staff. There was no obvious indication of what the Sentinel learned the following morning, which was that Segalla had been placed on administrative leave the previous day.
No official statement was provided and inquiries were met with a stony response that the matter was a personnel issue about which no information could be provided.
An informed source at City Hall, however, did vouchsafe a statement to the Sentinel that the reason for Segalla being placed on leave originated with “a complaint from Montclair. It came from outside the city. This had nothing to do with Marty [Thouvenell] getting here as the interim city manager. That was just a coincidence. I can say that this is not a matter of the misuse of equipment or personnel or any benefit to Paul personally. It is a matter of what might be seen as good judgment not being used in another city. I shouldn’t say any more than that.”
Contacted by the Sentinel on August 9, Montclair City Manager Ed Starr told the Sentinel he could not make any statement because, “Upland has just opened an internal affairs investigation.”
Asked if Segalla had engaged in any activity or overseen some action in Montclair deemed to be inappropriate, Starr said, “That is for Upland to determine.”
Segalla is not directly answerable to him, Starr said. “He is not a Montclair employee. We pay Upland for his service but his status is that of an Upland employee.”

San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Ted Alejandre has called for a state audit of Oxford Preparatory Academy.
Oxford is a charter school that has been sponsored by the Chino Valley Unified School District since 2010. Oxford was founded by Sue Roche, who as principal at Rhodes Elementary School in the Chino Valley Unified School District in the early 2000s saw the students she supervised achieve the highest scores in the district on state-administered academic tests. She expanded upon her successful formula, and Oxford for five years benefited from her guidance. For four of Oxford’s first five years, students there had the best academic performance of any of their counterparts in San Bernardino County. Indeed, Oxford was so successful that the Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County allowed Oxford to set up a charter school there.
But last year, after being lionized as one of the regional leaders in education, Roche sought to cash in on her success, resigning as the executive director of Oxford Preparatory’s corporate entity and promoting. prior to her leaving, Barbara Black to that position. Roche simultaneously created a
for-profit entity, Edlighten Learning Solutions, in which she is the central figure and prime mover. Then, apparently at Roche’s direction, Black orchestrated having Oxford Charter Academy enter into a contractual arrangement that would have paid Edlighten $1.5 million to, essentially, employ Roche as the school’s contract administrator/executive director.
When Chino Valley Unified’s Superintendent, Wayne Joseph, who had been a key Roche backer instrumental in convincing the district to proceed with the original charter for Oxford in 2010, recognized what Roche had done, he publicly accused her of “arrogance, overreach and greed” by employing “machinations” to cynically manipulate the academy’s reliance on consultants to enrich herself. Joseph then recommended that Chino Valley Unified not renew Oxford’s charter beyond 2015-17. The school board complied with that recommendation.
Oxford appealed that decision to the San Bernardino County School Board, in so doing ending its relationship with EdLighten. But the county board refused to entertain the petition. Oxford is now asking the state school board to sponsor it and keep it running.
On August 5, Alejandre wrote a letter signaling his call for an audit. “The audit is for purposes of investigating allegations of fraud, fiscal mismanagement and conflicts of interest in the governance and operation of Oxford Preparatory Academy-Chino,” the states. Alejandre said misgivings about what has happened with the charter school have been voiced to him by “various sources inside and outside Oxford Preparatory Academy-Chino.” He said it was his intent to conduct the “audit for purposes of resolving allegations of unlawful management and spending of public funds by those operating Oxford Preparatory Academy.”
The audit is to be conducted by the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.

YERMO — Residents in this desert community are cautiously optimistic that its government structure is no longer on the brink of implosion.
Yermo is a town of roughly 1,750 population in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert 13 miles east of Barstow and just south of the Calico Mountains. It has been buffeted by events in recent years, a good deal of which pertained to water, a commodity of particular importance in the desert.
There has been political instability as well, and financial problems have dogged the closest thing to local government in the area, which is known as the Yermo Community Facilities District. For close to a year, the district’s governing board has not been at full strength and in June, it suffered a major shakeup when two of the board’s members were recalled after an extended process. In the week after that recall, the district’s means of paying its bills was extinguished, and the provision of basic services in the community came to a standstill.
Within the last fortnight, however, the community services district’s board has been brought up and reconstituted to full strength, and officials are hoping they have turned a corner on the financial and administrative issues that had thrown the entity into a tailspin.
Last September, proponents of a recall came to a district board meeting and served then-board president Bob Smith and board members Geoff Berner and Sean Cloughen with intent-to-recall notices. Cloughen resigned on the spot, reducing the board’s ranks to four. Smith and Berner toughed it out, or tried to, but the recall proponents gathered sufficient signatures to force the recall question against them onto the primary election ballot on June 7. When the voting was done, Smith and Berner were removed from office and Michael Cint was chosen to replace Smith and Clarissa Loehr were elected by voters to replace Berner.
In addition to being board president, Smith had been the district’s fire chief. With the successful recall of Smith and Berner, David Jensen, who was also the district’s fire commissioner, resigned. Prior to Cint and Loehr being sworn in, the board was reduced to just Gary Yearsley.
In the meantime Smith and Berner, on their own initiative, destroyed the district credit cards that were issued in their names, eliminating the only means the district had at that time of paying the district’s bills. The district languished, and bills went unpaid for over a month. Even after Cint and Loehr took their oaths to assume their positions on the board, the district continued to founder.
After some three weeks of regrouping, the trio of Yearsley, Cint and Loehr began to coordinate and, choosing from among three applicants, appointed Deborah Shields and Summer Crank to fill the two vacant board seats.
As now constituted, the board consists of Cint as board president, Loehr as vice president, Yearsley as fire commissioner, Crank as parks and recreation adviser, and Shields as treasurer.
The board has voted to pay its members a $100 per-meeting stipend and dispensed with the practice of having directors issued credit cards. Instead the district’s bank will issue credit cards to the district manager.
The new general manager is Vickie Paulsen
Problems in Yermo are not just recent developments.
Decades ago, Donald Walker acquired the Yermo Water Company. Walker ran the water company, which had exclusivity in town, for profit, and he did very little in terms of maintenance or upgrades. In the 1990s, Walker relocated to Florida. The neglected pipes and pumping systems were falling into a critical state of disrepair and Walker refused to hire a licensed operator to look after and operate the system.
During the summer of 2006, the primary water tank serving the Yermo community’s water system developed a leak and customers were without water for a week in the community, where temperatures exceeded 100 degrees every day. The California Department of Health and the California Public Utilities Commission initiated action and an order appointing a receiver was issued in May of 2009. After a potential community-based buyer emerged, Walker continued to dither, exacerbated by a refusal to disclose how much he owed in back taxes and fines to the California Department of Health. As a result, the sale fell through. In August 2012 the California Public Utilities Commission filed to take control of the water company. Three months later, the Superior Court entrusted operation of the Yermo Water Company to the Yermo Community Services District and appointed California Public Utilities Commission Attorney John Richardson to act as receiver. The Yermo Community Services District then made $40,000 in emergency renovations to the system to keep it functioning.
The receivership arrangement that took place in November 2012 was contested by Walker’s wife, Charlene, who filed an opposition to the appointment of a receiver, raising a number of claims that were ultimately denied by the Superior Court on March 6, 2013.
In July 2013 Apple Valley Ranchos, acting on behalf of Park Water Company, bid $300,000 on the purchase of the Yermo Water Company. Subsequently, Bob Smith, then the president of the Yermo Community Services District, acquiesced in Richardson’s decision to accept Apple Valley Ranchos’ offer.

The candidate filing deadlines for all three positions up for grabs in this year’s Upland municipal elections have been extended past today’s earlier presumed noon hour to 5 p.m. on Wednesday August 17.
Due to stand for reelection in the City of Gracious Living this year were mayor Ray Musser, councilman Glenn Bozar and treasurer Dan Morgan. Each of those three, however, has opted out of vying to be reelected to his current position.
Musser, who was first elected to the council in 1998 and was reelected as a councilman in 2002, 2006 and 2010, vied unsuccessfully for the mayoralty in 2004 and again in 2008, both times against the incumbent, John Pomierski. In 2011, Musser was selected by his colleagues in a 3-2 vote to succeed Pomierski after the latter’s resignation just prior to his federal indictment on bribery charges. Musser was then elected mayor in 2012, turning back challenges by council members Debbie Stone and Gino Filippi.
Musser, 80, announced his decision not to see reelection at the end of the August 8 council meeting.
“It has been a very high honor to serve as your mayor for the greatest city on planet Earth,” Musser said. “However, I have decided not to seek another term as mayor of Upland and to spend more time with our family. May God bless you and my successor.”
Musser told the Sentinel that his wife and all of his children were heavily lobbying him against running once more. He said he believed he could have successfully run again. Last year he weathered a recall attempt which was leveled at him just three weeks after he underwent heart bypass surgery in early September. He said he feels he has bounced back strongly from both of those challenges and that at this point, he believes he has the energy to stay at the top of the political game. But he senses he is slowing down somewhat, he acknowledged, and he said he was not certain he would have the stamina to complete another four-year term.
He credited his wife, Fern, with having shouldered over the last year the lion’s share of the work at his insurance business, which is headquartered in an office building just across Second Avenue from City Hall.
Because the incumbent in the mayoral race is not running, the filing period was extended five days beyond today’s deadline.
As of this morning, there was one certain and two potential candidates to replace Musser. Debbie Stone, who was elected by the city voters to succeed Musser as councilman in 2011 in a special election after he succeeded Pomierski and who lost to Musser the following year when she challenged him for mayor, took out papers and obtained the requisite signatures of certified registered voters in Upland endorsing her candidacy, so that she is now qualified as an official candidate for mayor. Bozar, who elected to not seek reelection as a councilman, has taken out papers to run for the mayor’s post. So did Hephzibah Dollar. As of 12 noon today, neither Bozar nor Dollar had returned those papers to the city clerk’s office. Another candidate who pulled papers for mayor, Mike Nava, informed the city clerk’s office that because of health considerations he is not going to run. Nava had also pulled papers to run for council. He said he would not seek that office after all, either.
Bozar’s exodus from the council race has left the filing window for that position open until April 17 as well.
Janice Elliott, a retired teacher, and Sid Robinson, currently a member of the planning commission, have pulled and returned papers for the single council seat at stake in the election this year. Those signatures have been verified and both are now qualified as bonafide candidates. Bill Velto, who is also on the planning commission and who has previously run unsuccessfully for council, has pulled papers as has Hephizibah Dollar, who must make a decision as to whether to run for council or mayor, since one individual cannot run for both positions at once. Also pulling papers were incumbent city treasurer Dan Morgan, previous council candidate Rod McAuliffe and Ricardo Felix, a political newcomer in Upland. Velto, Dollar, Morgan, McAuliffe and Felix had not returned those papers at press time.
With Morgan out of the running to be reelected treasurer, the deadline for filing in that contest is likewise pushed over until the upcoming Wednesday. Two city residents, Stephen Dunn and Larry Kinley have pulled papers to run for city treasurer. Dunn is the city’s former finance director and city manager who ran unsuccessfully for city council in 2014. Kinley is a retired banking professional with 30 years experience in investigating and either redressing or terminating problem loans. Dunn and Kinley had not filed the papers they had taken out by noon today.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Here’s a couple of things readers of this column may wish to ponder…
According to the Santa Monica-based public interest group Consumer Watchdog, 26 companies doing business in California and therefore being subject to state regulators donated $9.8 million to Governor Jerry Brown and the California Democratic Party over the last eight years. What’s more, many of those donations were made within days or weeks of those companies being granted favorable rulings by regulatory agencies or obtaining other favors from the state…
Consumer Watchdog is not exactly a right wing mouthpiece. It is based in Santa Monica and is manned by many of the same idealistic hippie-like reformers cut from the same cloth as Jerry Brown’s supporters during his first eight-year tenure as governor a generation ago. That Consumer Watchdog would excoriate our governor with a report issued on Wednesday and titled Brown’s Dirty Hands is very significant…
The 26 companies are a virtual who’s who of California’s utility and energy companies and consortia. Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electiric, San Diego Gas & Electric, Occidental, Chevron, and NRG among them…
The upshot of the report is scathing. Indeed, what it describes might qualify as indictable offenses if there was a truly independent prosecutor engaged on the case…
Consumer Watchdog’s extensive review of campaign records, publicly released emails and other documents filed through the California Public Utilities Commission, court filings and media reports show that Brown intervened or interfered in regulatory decisions on a consistent basis, in nearly every case leading to outcomes favoring companies in the energy industry…
The report lays out how Brown and his operatives utilized the state Democratic Party as “a political slush fund” to receive contributions from energy companies in amounts over and above what he would have been permitted to receive through or into his candidate committee…
Between 2011 and 2014, $4.4 million originating with energy companies was donated to the Democratic Party. In roughly the same time period, according to Consumer Watchdog, the Democratic Party infused Brown’s reelection campaign fund with $4.7 million…
An egregious example of this pay-to-skate formula is that of Southern California Edison, which donated $130,000 to the California Democratic Party on March 26, 2013, the very day that Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey was in the swanky Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, Poland cutting a deal with Edison Executive Vice President Stephen Pickett to have Edison’s ratepayers — not Edison shareholders — cover 70 percent of the $4.7 billion cost to close the San Onofre nuclear plant, which had to be closed prematurely because of Southern California Edison’s grievous errors in operating that plant…
Peavey was the former president of Edison, having served as in that capacity before he was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission originally by Governor Gray Davis. He is married to California State Senator Carol Liu, a Democrat. He is a major mover and shaker in the Democratic Party’s California fundraising machine. He is now under criminal investigation for conspiring to obstruct justice by illegally engaging in and concealing ex-parte communications, while he was chairman of the California Public Utilities Commission, with Edison officials and inappropriately interfering with the San Onofre settlement process.
Three days prior to Southern California Edison’s announced San Onofre closure, the company donated $25,000 to the California Democratic Party, according to Consumer Watchdog. All members of the California Public Utility Commission are appointed by the governor and serve on that august panel at his pleasure…
Also according to Consumer Watchdog, Chevron donated $135,000 to the California Democratic Party the same day lawmakers exempted a common method of well stimulation from fracking regulation legislation…
The report underscores that NRG, a megafirm involved in power plant, had not donated anything to Governor Brown until the company engineered a “sweetheart deal” with the California Public Utilities Commission settling the state’s case over an electricity price manipulation scam NRG was involved in that was first revealed in 2001. The governor’s office was right in the middle of this. That deal allowed the company to skip out on $100 million of its $120 million fine by instead investing $100 million in the effort to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Two months later, NRG made the first in a series of donations to Brown, his causes, and his party that would total $105,000, according to Consumer Watchdog’s Brown’s Dirty Hands report. One of NRG’s electric charging station competitors, Ecotality, filed a lawsuit against the California Public Utilities Commission, stating the deal was an illegal monopoly that had been awarded to an out-of-state company…
The day before the report was released, a federal jury found Pacific Gas & Electric Company, which supplies power to most of central and northern California and is the largest utility company in the state, guilty of violating pipeline safety regulations before a deadly natural gas pipeline explosion in the Bay Area community of San Bruno and then misleading investigators about its efforts to identify high-risk pipelines. It took seven days of deliberations, but a jury at last convicted Pacific Gas & Electric Company on Tuesday of obstruction and five of 11 counts of pipeline safety violations, including failure to act in investigating and getting to the bottom of gas line threats and deliberately not classifying a faulty gas line as a high risk…
The 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion killed eight people, injured dozens of others and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, “PG&E [Pacific Gas & Electric] management chose willfully not to follow certain regulations” which led to the mass fatalities. Though no Pacific Gas & Electric employees were charged and no prison time is riding on this, a judge’s decision on the monetary fine against the utility giant is pending, although it is not expected to exceed $6 million. Investigators determined and testified to the effect that the San Francisco-based utility purposefully lied to federal officials about the standard it was using to identify high-risk pipelines. Pacific Gas & Electric went through the charade of pleading not guilty and sought to argue that the regulations were ambiguous…
A surprising thing happened more than a week ago when the prosecution announced several days into jury deliberations they would not pursue a potential $562 million fine if PG&E was found guilty of any of the pipeline safety counts. The judge agreed to go along with reducing the company’s liability to a maximum $6 million. That development has resulted in suggestions that federal prosecutors have shrunken from holding PG&E accountable…
That is reminiscent of charges already likewise leveled at the California Public Utilities Commission…
San Bruno officials, understandably alarmed about eight of their citizens being killed in the pipeline blast, filed a lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric. Along the way San Bruno officials came across some irregularities with regard to the way the California Public Utilities Commission addressed the issue. They accumulated a cache of internal PG&E emails as well as exchanges with commissioners and commission staff that indicate there was something less than an arm’s length relationship between the commission and PG&E. San Bruno officials are particularly incensed with the action of Mike Florio, appointed to the commission by Governor Brown. They want him to resign from the commission or be prevented from having any say over matters involving PG&E. Some of the documents in San Bruno’s possession show that Governor Brown was clearly aware of Florio’s conflict-fraught involvement. Another, one authored by a senior PG&E executive, shows that Governor Brown was not merely entrusting decisions to the commissioners but had pressured a commissioner to change his vote. Other communications show that Governor Brown is told in advance – well in advance – of actions to be taken by the commission. This raises questions about the independence of the commission and the commissioners, their adherence to the Ralph M. Brown Act, which is California’s open public meeting law, and the integrity of the process in general…
Before I forget, please note that Pacific Gas & Electric is a major – supermajor – Jerry Brown campaign donor.
Governor Brown’s office has steadfastly refused to release his emails, even when they bear directly on issues of public policy such as those involving the California Public Utility Commission. But some of these emails have been obtained indirectly from some of those to whom they have been mailed and communications between others have surfaced, the contents of which raise serious questions about the degree of the governor’s complicity in some shady dealing and his inability or unwillingness to hold commissioners and others who have violated the public trust to account. One example of this is an email Edison International Chairman Ted Craver wrote to his board of directors telling them he had phoned Brown on June 6, 2013, the day before the utility announced it would not seek to restart San Onofre. According to the email, Craver said he reached Brown in Rancho Mirage, where the governor was meeting with President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the midst of that meeting, according to Craver, Governor Brown took his call and was supportive of Edison’s plan to close the plant. During the call, Craver provided Brown with talking points, to the effect that Edison was “taking the high road” and “insuring system reliability for our customers.” The next day Brown put out a news release in which he was quoted as saying, “Since the San Onofre nuclear power plant went offline last year, energy utilities and the state have worked to provide Southern California with reliable electric power year round.”
During the closing arguments of the more than month-long trial of Pacific Gas & Electric, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Schenk said, “The motive was profits over safety.”
PG&E attorney Steven Bauer countered with “Nobody at PG&E is a criminal.” It appears the jury disagreed with that…
But what of the politicians and their hacks, such as Mr. Florio? Are they criminals, too?
What General George Patton once said keeps coming back to me. “Politicians,” the general said, “are the lowest form of human life. Democrats are the lowest form of politician.”

Austin Brown Mulvane was born in Newcomerstown, Ohio, on June 15, 1867. He was the son of David A. and Gertrude (Brown) Mulvane who were also born in Newcomerstown. David A Mulvane was a captain in the Civil War. During the mid 1870s, the family moved to Princeton, Illinois, where they lived for several years and where Austin continued his schooling and briefly attended Washburn College, competing his formal education at the University of Kansas at Lawrence.
A.B. Mulvane married Margaret Bertrand of St. Mary’s, Kansas, in about 1892. To them were born four daughters, Margaret, Mary, Vigiline and Helen, all of whom later graduated from the San Bernardino County Hospital School of Nursing, Mrs. Margaret Mulvane died in 1907 and on October 24, 1924, Mr. Mulvane and Swiss-born Gabrielle Tissot of Chino were married in Santa Barbara. Miss Tissot had served as a nurse in France during World War I and was superintendent of nurses at the San Bernardino County Hospital when they were married.
Following a short period as a “cowpuncher” on the TPK Ranch in Clayton, New Mexico, Mr. Mulvane moved with his young family to California in about 1900. In about 1904 he helped to organize the Consolidated Pacific Cement Plaster Company, owning a valuable gypsum deposit at Amboy, and named his uncle, John R. and father, David A., as officers in his company which manufactured stucco and other gypsum products. A.B. Mulvane maintained his residence in Amboy until he was elected to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors representing the First District, which was geographically larger than the other four districts combined. He took office on January 8, 1917, and was succeeded by C.S. Crain on December 6, 1920. Mr. Mulvane was a pioneer advocate of good roads and is credited with having initiated the first stretch of pavement ever laid on the Mojave Desert. By careful use of the road funds allocated to his district, he was able to lay a light oil macadam pavement over the rugged terrain from Amboy half the distance to Needles. This initial 40-mile paved stretch of the Old National Trails Highway received nationwide attention.
Mr. Mulvane spent the next twenty-odd years as a deputy sheriff, superior court bailiff, and finally as night jailer in San Bernardino, serving on the staff of sheriff Walter A. Shay. After several years of retirement, Mr. Mulvane died at his home on December 22, 1958, at the age of 91, He was survived by his wife, Gabrielle Tissot Mulvane; four daughters, Miss Virgiline Mulvane of the San Bernardino City Schools, Mrs. Helen Mulvane Reno, Miss Mary G. Mulvane of the county hospital nursing staff, and Mrs. Margaret Esrey, School of Nursing at Yreka, California; a sister. Mrs. Gertrude Torrey of Enterprise, Kansas; and four grandchildren. Mr. Mulvane was a life member of the Benevolent Protectors of the Elks # 816 of San Bernardino.

Hulsea vestita is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family known by the common name pumice alpinegold.
It is native to eastern and southern California, where various subspecies grow in separate mountain ranges from the High Sierra to the Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges, and Madrean Sky Islands in the Mojave Desert. One subspecies (Hulsea vestita ssp. inyoensis) also occurs in western Nevada.
There are at least six subspecies, including Hulsea vestita ssp. Callicarpha, Hulsea vestita ssp. Gabrielensis, Hulsea vestita ssp. Parryi, Hulsea vestita ssp. Pygmaea and Hulsea vestita ssp. Vestita.
Hulsea vestita ssp. Gabrielensis is the subspecies found at levels mostly above 3,000 feet in elevation on Mt. San Antonio, also known as Mt. Baldy, in the eastern San Gabriel Mountains.
Hulsea vestita is known by the common names pumice alpinegold and pumice hulsea. It is a perennial herb growing a basal patch of thick leaves and stems up to 40 inches tall, but generally much shorter. The woolly, spoon-shaped leaves are gray-green and may have ruffled edges. The thick flower heads have glandular, hairy green phyllaries. The center of the daisylike head contains many long golden disc florets and a fringe of golden to reddish ray florets up to 0.8 inches long.
Hulsea vestita is a dicot, and can generally be found on the talus of mountain slopes, often in soils of volcanic origin, as well as among sagebrush scrub, and within yellow pine forests, red fir forests, subalpine forests, and alpine fell-fields.
Native to the Western United States and primarily California, it is a rare plant which occurs at elevations between 2,720 feet and 9,367 feet. It is unlikely to survive on less than 6.6 inches of rain per year and will thrive under conditions in which it receives up to 42 inches of precipitation yearly. If during summer months it does not receive rain, it will wither severely. It does best if it can get between
0.40 inch and 2.37 inch rain in the three month span of summer.
It will do well if the coldest average monthly temperature it experiences does not fall below 36.4° Fahrenheit. It is not likely to sustain itself if subjected to a temperature below 14 degrees for any length of time.
In the summer, it does best if the hottest average temperature does not exceed 77.4° F. Prolonged exposure to a temperature in excess of 90 degrees is not good for these plants.
The blooming period for the Hulsea vestita is between May and October.

Last weekend I explored the Reigning Men Fashion Exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which goes by the acronym LACMA, and the examination of its history was quite a treat for the eye. Men have always been ahead of their time when it comes to fashion, and lately they seem to be surpassing women. The fashion sensation has always been going on and today men are tearing down barriers. Oddly as it may seem, men have been doing so since the 17th century. In the beginning they were extravagant by dressing in leggings, wigs, and lace, and today they continue as such by wearing leather, heels, and thongs. All of this really has been taking place in front of us for a very long time. Some men make fashion really exciting and some designers such as Pierre Cardin, and Jean Paul Gaultier have been amazing influences to men, specially the young ones who are becoming more daring. Even women today are wearing men’s clothes because really not much is happening in women’s clothes. Seems like man has escaped the cage and he can’t get back in. Men’s fashion is on, and running ahead of it all. The freedom of expression and clothing is not just about women but men and they always have been daring. Young men are really experimenting with the revolution of fashion, so this week it’s all in the menswear. Hurry if you want to catch the Reigning Men Exhibit as it nearly comes to an end on August 21st. It covers just about every era of fashion in menswear from 1715–2015.

“Style is the perfection of a point of view.” —Richard Eberhart, Poet