By Mark Gutglueck
William Richards, whose 1997 conviction in the 1993 death of his wife has grown infamous as a demonstration of the degree to which the law enforcement structure in San Bernardino County will go in stretching facts and utilizing questionable and even manufactured evidence to obtain a conviction, walked out of confinement a free man this week, after San  Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Lisa Rogan officially dismissed murder charges against him.
It took four trials to convict Richards, with the first three ending in mistrials or deadlocks in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. In the fourth trial, the eight-man and four-woman jury again deadlocked. It was only after the judge requested that they deliberate further that on July 8, 1997, Richards was convicted.
From the outgo, Richards’ story has never changed.
He claimed he had returned the evening of August 10, 1993 from his machinist’s job in Corona at about 11:50 p.m. to find the motorhome in which he and his wife lived on the five-acre Summit Valley property they owned dark and empty. The couple was living in the motorhome while efforts to construct a house on the property were ongoing. He went to look for his wife and found her dead in a pool of blood on another part of their property between the motor home and the Santa Fe railroad line.
He claimed he turned his wife’s body over and cradled her before summoning assistance.
Then-deputy district attorney Mike Risley prosecuted Richards each time.
In each of his prosecutions of William Richards, Risley suggested there was strife in the Richards’ 22-year long marriage. He put on an expert witness who testified splatters of Pamela Richards’ blood that were found on William Richards’ shoes and clothes were tell-tale evidence indicating William Richards had wielded the cinder block used to crush his wife’s head.
Risley marshaled further evidence, accumulated by sheriff’s deputies and detectives, showing no car tracks or footprints other than those of Richards, his wife or the detectives and deputies or their vehicles were present on the property.
Risley displayed for jurors a “bite mark” on Pamela Richards’ hand and then followed that up with testimony from a forensic expert who claimed that by his analysis the bite could have only come from two percent of the population, including Richards, who had a certain peculiarity to their teeth.
The coup-de-grace was a tuft of 15 light-blue fibers found in a tear in the victim’s fingernail. According to Risley, the fibers matched those of the shirt Richards was wearing the night of the murder.
But there were some major discrepancies with the case, despite Risley’s ostentatious show of confidence in front of the jury. The first of the four times Richards was to be tried, the judge declared a mistrial before the matter was presented to a jury. In 1994, the first time the case went the distance, a jury deadlocked 6-6. A second full trial netted what has been variously recorded as a 10-2 or 11-1 verdict for conviction. On the last complete go-round, Richards was convicted.
As in the first two complete trials, the third jury to hear the entire case reported that it too was deadlocked after seven full days of deliberation. The jurors, encouraged to return to deliberations, delivered a unanimous guilty verdict on the eighth day.
Richards, who had had been in custody since his arrest shortly after his wife’s death, was remanded to prison upon sentencing and there he remained until he was provisionally released last week.
There has been little about the Richards case that is clearly cut, other than that Pamela Richards was murdered and the entire circumstance lacks clarity. With the prosecution’s introduction of what has since been demonstrated as discredited evidence, the case is now widely recognized as a textbook example of prosecutorial overreach bordering on, or outright crossing the line into, prosecutorial misconduct. Nevertheless, the district attorney’s office on an official level refuses to acknowledge that anything improper occurred and Risley is stoically carrying on, having in one public forum suggested that Richards is on the verge of being prosecuted again.
The Richards case was beset with a myriad of difficulties from the outset, which in and of themselves resulted in the three mistrials. While Richards was serving his 25-years-to-life sentence, further information emerged which cast, according to San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville and subsequently the California Supreme Court, grave doubt upon his guilt, his conviction and the validity of much of the evidence used to obtain that conviction, exacerbated by evidence that indicated the presence of a person or persons unknown at the murder scene.
An obvious complicating factor was that for more than eight hours after Richards discovered his wife dead, investigators with the sheriff’s department failed to secure the scene of the crime, such that Pamela Richards’ body was disturbed by coyotes before a team of detectives accompanied by deputies arrived there the next morning. After their arrival, they left footprints and tire tracks around the scene that made ascertaining whether there was anyone else there around the time that Richards was murdered a virtual impossibility. They then made misrepresentations about that very fact when the matter went to trial.
At the 1997 trial as at the previous ones, Risley built upon the foundation of the strife in the Richards’ marriage. He brought in forensic experts to tell the jury that a “bite mark” on Pamela Richards’ hand could only have come from two percent of the population that included William Richards.
And at that fourth trial, Risley presented to the jurors the coup de grâce, the most crucial piece of evidence needed to convince jurors to convict Richards, a tuft of fibers lodged into one of Pamela Richard’s fingernails.
Risley used the tuft, consisting of 15 light-blue fibers said to match the shirt Richards was wearing that fateful night and found in a crack in Pamela Richards’ fingernail, to place William Richards at the scene.
Upon the reading of the verdict, Richards was whisked away pending sentencing, which was subsequently set as 25 years to life.
Despite the verdict and the sentence, there was a core of individuals who knew Richards and his wife who insisted the verdict had been a terrible miscarriage of justice.
Among those passionately inveighing against the verdict was Pamela Richards’ sister, Kathy Olejnik. Olejnik went to her grave in 2003 swearing her brother-in-law did not murder her sister, leaving behind multiple notarized affidavits asserting her conviction “that William Richards did not kill or murder my sister.”
In 1999, the California Innocence Project was founded at the California Western School of Law in San Diego, and was dedicated to reviewing in depth convictions, in particular those in murder cases, where it appeared there had been a miscarriage of justice. As one of its first projects, it took up Richards’ case in 1999. It would take lawyers and staff members 17 years to unwind what Risley and his support network had done. Risley’s team included sheriff’s deputies, lab technicians, and a set of expert witnesses who made a convincing show at the final trial. Some of those now acknowledge they were mistaken or overly accommodating of Risley, or both.
Five years after he obtained the Richards conviction, Risley acceded to the position of assistant district attorney in San Bernardino County, the second highest ranking official in the office. The Richards conviction was a stellar feather in his cap and he had particular and personal reason to not want it overturned. When the Innocence Project began pressing for a reexamination of the case and asked for forensic tests such as the analysis of DNA present on the murder weapon, the district attorney’s office resisted those requests, asserting such verifications were unnecessary and improper, a curious position to take given the prosecution’s expressed confidence in the accuracy of the jury’s verdict.
Slowly, the Innocence Project, in the continuing face of strident opposition from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, was able to get court authorization to have some forensic tests undertaken, such as the analysis of DNA on the cinderblock used to crush Pamela Richards’ skull. That DNA did not match the victim nor that of her husband. In 2009, the Innocence Project was able to obtain a hearing before San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville to reexamine the evidence used at Richards’ trial and the validity thereof.
Innocence Project lawyers demonstrated that Risley had provided prosecution and defense experts with incomplete information and poor photos of the injuries to Pamela Richards and withheld from them other exculpatory evidence. The more comprehensive evidence demonstrated the “bite mark” was similar to other injuries on Pamela Richards’ body and the shape of the injury matched tools found at the crime scene.
In January 2009 two of the dental forensic experts that had testified for the prosecution during Richards’ 1997 trial were subpoenaed to testify in the hearing before Judge McCarville and acknowledged the testimony they gave at trial was “scientifically inaccurate.” Both testified that Richards could not have made the alleged bite mark on the victim. A third dental expert testified that Richards was not a match and that the mark found on the body might not have been a bite mark. A fourth forensic expert asserted that if the wound on the victim’s hand was a bite mark, it could not have been made by Richards. He also questioned whether the wound was even a bite mark.
Innocence Project attorneys then turned to the fiber evidence Risley had relied upon.
Photos of Pamela’s body taken just after the autopsy clearly show no fibers present in the crack in her fingernail. Days later, when several of her fingers were severed and delivered to criminalist Daniel Gregonis for tests, Gregonis made a video which shows him removing a rather large light-blue fiber from Pamela’s nail. “That fiber evidence was critical to Richards’ conviction and it was not present on Pamela’s fingernail when it was initially examined,” California Innocence Co-founder Jan Stiglitz told McCarville.
After the Innocence Project’s presentation, which included the questioning of witnesses by Stiglitz and lawyers Mario Conte and Alex Simmons,. a request to throw out Richards’ 1997 conviction was made. McCarville on August 10, 2009, sixteen years to the day after the murder of Pamela Richards, found that the new evidence pointed “unerringly to innocence” and he granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the vacation of the conviction and a new trial.
The district attorney’s office, however, appealed McCarville’s decision. The appellate court reversed McCarville, and California Innocence Project appealed the matter to the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court found the case every bit as difficult as had the jurists who previously considered the evidence. Three of the State Supreme Court’s members found the Innocence Project’s arguments compelling and persuasive, determining that Richards’ conviction was based on faulty or erroneous information, testimony, evidence or presentation of that evidence. The other four members of the court, however, signed an opinion that “the petitioner has failed to establish that any of the evidence offered at his 1997 trial was false” and further that “his newly discovered evidence does not ‘point unerringly to innocence or reduced culpability.’” Since the defense did not reach the threshold of proving to a majority of the California Supreme Court that the evidence used to convict Richards was “false,” the court majority reasoned, the new evidence did not reach the point of indicating innocence, and the habeas corpus relief therefore was not be granted.
The Innocence Project went back to the drawing boards, this time taking its battle on behalf of Richards out of the Halls Of Justice and directly to the California Legislature, where its representatives lobbied for the passage of a new California law that would allow expert witnesses to recant their testimony and such a recantation to be deemed indicative of “false evidence.” Such a law was sponsored and signed into law.
The Innocence Project then utilized the new tools at its command to reapply for the vacation of the conviction, based upon having established that the bite mark testimony was false evidence and that the fibers were planted into Pamela Richard’s fingernail during the process of the criminal investigation or otherwise ended up there by some form of gross mishandling of the evidence.
Under the parameters of the new law, the California Supreme Court took up the case again and reversed the conviction in a 7-0 decision handed down on May 26. Richards, who had been removed from the California State Prison in Tehachapi to the West Valley Detention Center, was released from that jail on June 21, walking free for the first time in nearly two decades.
On June 28, Richards was present in Judge Rogan’s courtroom, at which point the murder charges were formally dismissed against him.
Technically, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office had the option, as a consequence of the California Supreme Court’s determination, of refiling murder charges against Richards but was under a 60-day deadline to do so. By use of a procedural protocol to dismiss the case, the district attorney’s office extended the window indefinitely on refiling. That move is widely seen within the legal community as a face-saving venture by the district attorney’s office. Risley, who stepped down as assistant district attorney in 2007 and left the district attorney’s office to practice out of state, is now back as a deputy prosecutor in the office at a reduced level of authority. He told the Victorville Daily Press this week that the dismissal of charges this week was merely a tactical move and that his office is reevaluating the case and will make a determination as to whether to try Richards on a murder charge once more.
Risley declined to speak with the Sentinel about the case, deferring questions to the office’s headquarters. Some of Risley’s colleagues in the office, ones who had formerly been answerable to him as the assistant district attorney and who this week spoke with the Sentinel under the cloak of anonymity, said it is highly unlikely the case against Richards would be refiled, given the flirtation with prosecutorial misconduct the case entailed and the likelihood revisiting the issues surrounding it might draw scrutiny under circumstances which would have no conceivable positive outcome for Risley, the district attorney’s office or their reputations.
Justin Brooks, the director and co-founder of the California Innocence Project, said on Tuesday, “Today a 23 year nightmare ended for Bill Richards. He’s gone through something that no one can imagine: First, having to be the person who discovered his wife brutally murdered and go through all the pain of losing his wife and then go through these horrible trials and ultimately spending 23 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s really unimaginable and we’re grateful today that the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has decided to dismiss this case. He never should have been charged to start with. He shouldn’t have served 23 years in prison and we’re glad this day has finally come.”
A footnote to the Richards case, albeit riveting one, is the still open question of just who Pamela Richard’s actual murderer was. At this point, a leading suspect is a man who made a confession, of sorts, to it: Angel Maturino Reséndiz, who was also known as Rafael Reséndiz-Ramirez, Angel Reyes Reséndiz and Angel Leoncio Reyes Recéndis, as well as the Railway Killer.
In the early stages of his murderous career, Reséndiz, a native of Mexico who continuously made undocumented trips between Mexico, the United States and Canada by riding the rails while using over twenty aliases and at least fifteen social security numbers, was not remarked upon by authorities or identified as the culprit in a surfeit of homicides. It was only in the final two years of his thirteen-year-long murder spree that suspicion coalesced around the entity dubbed the Railway Killer. Even after he was identified by Texas and federal authorities and placed on the FBI’s ten most wanted list in early 1999, his itinerant lifestyle and his use of aliases allowed him to elude capture.
In July 1999, Reséndiz was lured into capture by Texas Rangers and FBI agents who negotiated his surrender through the intercession of his sister.
With a few exceptions, the murders Reséndiz committed fit within the same pattern. The victims lived or were found within a short distance of a railroad line and were killed by being beaten over the head with a rock or heavy object available at the scene. His primary motive appears to have been to steal money he used to purchase alcohol, drugs or gasoline to fuel vehicles he stole. He raped some, but not all of his female victims.
His known victims included:
* Christopher Maier, a 21-year-old University of Kentucky student who was walking along nearby railroad tracks with his girlfriend, Holly K. Dunn, on August 29, 1997 when they were set upon by Reséndiz, who bludgeoned Maier to death and then raped and severely beat Dunn, who survived the attack.
* Leafie Mason, an 81-year-old resident of Hughes Springs, Texas who resided 150 feet from the Kansas City-Southern Line. On October 4, 1998, Reséndiz let himself into her home through a window and used a tire iron to beat Mason to death.
* Dr. Claudia Benton, a 39-year-old pediatric neurologist at the Baylor College of Medicine who on December 17, 1998 was raped, stabbed and bludgeoned in her West University Palace, Texas home, which is proximate to the train tracks. Reséndiz then used Benton’s Jeep Cherokee to drive to San Antonio. Police recovered his fingerprints from the Jeep’s steering column.
* The Reverend Norman Sirnic, 46, and his wife, Karen Sirnic, 47, were bludgeoned to death by a sledgehammer-wielding Reséndiz in the parsonage of the United Church of Christ in Weimer, Texas on May 2, 1999. The parsonage was located near the Weimer railroad tracks. Reséndiz then used the couple’s Mazda to drive to San Antonio, where it was eventually found by authorities, who recovered Reséndiz’s fingerprints in it.
* Noemi Dominguez, a 26-year-old school teacher, bludgeoned inside her Houston, Texas apartment, located within short walking distance of the rail tracks, on June 4, 1999. On June 11, Dominguez’s Honda Civic was discovered by state troopers in a parking lot next to the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
* Josephine Konvicka, a 73-year-old woman living in Fayette County, Texas was killed on the same day that Noemi Dominguez was killed, June 4, 1999. Konvicka’s farmhouse was located near the railroad tracks by Weimar, Texas. Konvicka was killed while she was asleep by means of a blow to the head from a pointed garden tool. Reséndiz’s attempt to steal Konvicka’s car failed, apparently because he was unable to locate the keys.
* George Morber, 80, and Carolyn Frederick, 52, were killed on June 15, 1999 by Reséndiz, who shot Morber in the head with a shotgun and then clubbed Frederick to death. Their home in Gorham, Illinois was located only 300 feet from a railroad line. Reséndiz took Frederick’s pickup truck and was seen driving it in Cairo, Illinois a short time later.
* Jesse Howell, 19, whom Reséndiz bludgeoned to death with an air hose coupling and left beside the railroad tracks in Ocala, Florida on March 23, 1997.
* Wendy Von Huben, Howell’s 16-year-old girlfriend, whom Reséndiz then raped, strangled and suffocated, also on March 23, 1997. Her body was not found until July 2000 when Reséndiz led investigators to a shallow grave in Sumter County, roughly 30 miles away from the spot where Howell had been killed.
* Michael White was found shot to death in July 1991 in the yard of a vacant home in San Antonio, Texas. When San Antonio police interviewed Reséndiz in 2006, he provided investigators with details about the murder.
By the middle of 2002, Reséndiz had recounted to investigators details of about 20 killings since 1986, though the investigations of only 12 of those have been officially closed out with his identification as the perpetrator. According to Texas authorities, Reséndiz provided details about eight murders he had not previously been associated with, including three in Texas and two in California.
Two of the Texas murders remain unverified but a third is considered to be the shooting death of an unidentified woman in Bexar County in 1986.
Reséndiz indicated he had killed two people in Southern California in the early and mid-1990s: a man near San Bernardino and a woman up in the desert.
Detectives with the Colton Police Department believe Reséndiz is the “likely” perpetrator of the 1997 death of a man beaten to death in the Southern Pacific rail yard in Colton, which is the city lying immediately to the west of San Bernardino.
One of Reséndiz’s arrests came on August 19, 1995 by Santa Fe Railroad police in San Bernardino on trespassing and possession of a firearm charges.
The murder Reséndiz claimed to have perpetrated in the California desert matches in all respects the circumstances of Pamela Richards’ murder. The Richards’ Summit Valley property upon which their motorhome was parked was immediately adjacent to the Santa Fe railroad line.
At the time of William Richards’ trials however, Reséndiz was not a consideration to Richards, his attorneys, the prosecutors, or the judge hearing Richards’ case. Jurors never heard a word about the Railway Killer, and were instead faced with Richards’ explanation of arriving home near midnight to find his wife dead, with no plausible explanation as to an alternate suspect or motive on the part of anyone else.
It was William Richards’ particular misfortune that the investigation of his wife’s death would be marred by the sloppy investigative standards of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and that his prosecution would be handled by a politically and professionally ambitious prosecutor who did not scruple at using questionable and perhaps even manufactured evidence to fortify what was a marginal circumstantial case against a defendant without the financial wherewithal to pay for dedicated legal representation over the course of four grueling trials.
For Risley and all others who were involved in consigning William Richards to prison for 23 years, there are the chilling words of Angel Maturino Reséndiz, who was executed by the State of Texas in 2006, to consider. In seemingly deprecating remarks about the fallibility of the legal system, Reséndiz in a letter to Texas State District Judge William Harmon in July 2001 appears to be stoking the fire of doubt, conscience and guilt from the grave.
In that letter, Reséndiz stated to Harmon “So now you . . . will think as you go to sleep, `Have I sentence[d] to death an innocent person for one of Reséndiz Angel Maturino’s killings?’”

The City of Upland is allowing the law firm of Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth to serve in the dual capacities of bond counsel and disclosure counsel with regard to a bond issuing arrangement that will transfer the responsibility for financing infrastructure at the Harvest At Upland project from the developer and current landowners to the future residents of that subdivision.
Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth was the special counsel for the city which recommended the bond  issuance to facilitate the Harvest At Upland project, such that by its own legal advice to the city it is churning for itself further legal fees.
Curiously, the law firm of Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth is not mentioned in any of the public documents considered by the city council before its vote Monday night relating to the issuance of $22 million in bonds that will defray the cost of building infrastructure at the Harvest project, which is being undertaken by the Lewis Operating Company. It was only after the June 27 meeting had concluded and the vote was already taken that it was revealed Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth had a multiple capacity role in the matter. That revelation was not provided until media inquiries were made into whether the law firm would serve in the bond counsel and disclosure counsel roles.
Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth had been retained  by city staff  to serve as special counsel on the matter at the recommendation of Marshall Linn of the firm Urban Futures. Linn is Upland’s financial advisor.
In addition to its role as special counsel on the formation of a community facilities district relating to the Harvest At Upland project, Straddling Yocca Carlson & Roth will serve as well in the capacity of bond counsel, extracting a fee calculated as a percentage of the bond issuance for doing so, and also in the role of disclosure counsel, for which it will also receive a fee calculated as a percentage of the bond.
Since the 1980s, there has been substantial criticism of law firms practicing in the field of municipal and governmental law for so called double-dipping and triple-dipping, which consists of serving as advisory legal counsel to a city or agency, making a recommendation with regard to the issuance of bonds and then reaping a profit by serving in a second or even third capacity as bond counsel and/or disclosre counsel. Bond counsel services entail drawing up the documents relating to the issuance of bonds. Disclosure counsel services pertain to informing those entities which will purchase the bonds or be called upon to debt service them of the risks and financial liabilities that the bonds represent.
There have been conflicting opinions provided by the California Attorney General’s Office over the years relating to the once-common practice of cities employing an attorney or a law firm in the capacity of a given city’s redevelopment agency attorney and allowing that attorney or law firm to also serve in the capacity of bond counsel or disclosure counsel for the issuance of redevelopment bonds. Some of those opinions indicated that such an arrangement, wherein the attorney or law firm stood to cash in as bond or disclosure counsel by providing a recommendation to issue the bonds as redevelopment attorney was an outright conflict, one that violated both criminal and civil law. Other opinions held that while the practice was perhaps unwise and unethical, it was not inherently illegal. The upshot of the bad publicity surrounding the practice that began in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s was that most cities which had tolerated the practice previously moved to a policy of not allowing a single attorney to serve in the dual or triple capacities of redevelopment attorney, bond counsel and disclosure counsel.
In 2011, the California Legislature passed two laws which closed out redevelopment agencies statewide. A partial justification for that legislation was to stem abuses of the redevelopment process, which included such double and triple dipping.
The matter voted upon by the Upland City Council this week involved the creation of a community facilities district to cover just that portion of the city in which the Harvest At Upland project is to be built – south of Foothill Boulevard, east of  Monte Vista Avenue and north of 11th Streets. Harvest At Upland will consist of 318 detached and attached, single-family residential units on 31 acres. While traditionally those undertaking the development of property – the landowners and the project applicant/developer – paid for the infrastructure needed to complete such a project, legislation sponsored by then-state senator Henry J. Mello and then-assemblyman Mike Roos and enacted by the California State Legislature in 1982 created the Community Facilities Act. Better know as a Mello-Roos arrangement, the act allows would-be developers to essentially transfer the cost of constructing infrastructure to support a project ultimately to the buyers of the homes that are created by that development.
In this way, Lewis Operating Company and the eighteen owners of the vacant property to be developed into Harvest At Upland coordinated with city staff, Linn/Urban Futures and Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth to set up the creation of a community facilities district on the property in question. The community facilities district, which exists under the authority of the city, will issue $22 million in bonds, the proceeds from the sale of which will then be used for laying or constructing water pipes, sewers, storm drains, bridges, streets, dry utilities and landscaping on, around or between or as extensions to 11th Street, Dewey Way, Monte Vista Avenue, Foothill Boulevard and the San Antonio Creek Channel.
Instead of Lewis Operating Company or the current landowners absorbing the costs, paying the bondholders will be handled by the eventual purchasers of the homes within the Harvest At Upland subdivision. In addition to their mortgage payments and regular property taxes, the purchasers of the homes will be hit with a Mello-Roos tax, tacked onto their yearly property bill. Those with homes with square footage over 2,050 will pay $4,699 per year; those with homes of between 1,901 and 2,050 square feet will have a Mello-Roos bill of $4,540 per year at tax time; those with a residential property of 1,751 to 1,900 square feet will pay $4,381 per year; those with houses between 1,601 and 1,750 square feet will have their property tax bill increased by $4,222 per year and those with houses of 1,600 square feet or less will be soaked for $4,063 per year.
Those Mello-Roos taxes will stay in place for 40 years, until such time as the bondholders are paid back both their original investment and interest.
In addition to paying for the infrastructure, the bond proceeds will be used to pay for bond-related expenses, including an underwriters’ discount, reserve fund, capitalized interest, financial advisor fees and expenses, bond and disclosure counsel, special tax consultant fees and expenses, dissemination agent fees and all other incidental expenses; as well as administrative fees of the city and the bond trustee or fiscal agent related to the improvement areas of the district and the bonds; and reimbursement of costs related to the formation of the district advanced by the city or any related entity, or any landowner or developer within the district, as well as reimbursement of any costs advanced by the city or any related entity, or any landowner or developer within the district before the houses are built, and for facilities or other purposes or costs of the district.
City officials indicated they did not really know or care to know the intricacies of how the bond financing worked in general or that Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth, upon whom they were relying for guidance with regard to the advisability of issuing the bonds, stood to make more money once the bonds were issued.
“It is a specific bond tax, whatever you want to call it, for this particular project,” said Mayor Ray Musser in describing the extent of his and the city council’s understanding of the district formation and its attendant arrangement. With regard to “very technical questions, specific questions,” Musser said, “We don’t have those answers up here. It’s impossible to do that.”
Bradley Robert Neal, the attorney with Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth who was at the June 27 council meeting, told the Sentinel his firm would serve as both bond counsel and disclosure counsel for the bonds’ issuance. Asked if he saw a conflict in his firm advising the city to issue the bonds and then getting a piece of the action in the form of a percentage of the proceeds to do the technical documentation and disclosure work relating to issuing and selling the bonds, Neal said, “No, I don’t.”
Upland City Attorney Richard Adams said of the triple-dipping on Stradling Yocca Carlson & Roth’s behalf that he perceived “no” conflict. “I am comfortable with it,” he said. “With the size of this issuance, I’m sure they will be very careful.”

SAN BERNARDINO—As of early this week, homicides in San Bernardino are occurring at a pace that would, if they continue, see the city’s annual record number of killings set in 2005 eclipsed by the end of December.
On Saturday, June 25, Calvin Boykins, a 30-year-old San Bernardino resident, was fatally wounded in a hail of gunfire. Boykins’ death was both sad and statistically significant, as well as painfully reminiscent of the pattern of violence besetting the city he lived, and died, in.
At 2:08 a.m. Saturday police were called about shots fired somewhere in the vicinity of the 1200 block of North Berkeley Avenue. Upon arriving, they found Boykins outside an open car suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Firefighter paramedics pronounced him dead on the scene minutes later. Also shot was a Rotweiler, which had made its way to a porch near the scene of Boykins’ death. The dog was taken away for veterinary treatment but later expired.
At press time, police had not yet developed any leads or suspects on Boykins’ murder.
Boykins’ homicide was the 32nd in San Bernardino since January 1. If the 2016 trend of mayhem continues with the same level of intensity and frequency during the final six months of 2016 as in the first six months of the year, 2005 will lose its place in the annals of San Bernardino as the deadliest year on record. That year there were 58 murders in the county seat.
San Bernardino in May was ranked, according to a study commissioned by the law firm Graham Donath as California’s most dangerous city with a population of over 100,000, based on FBI data crime statistics, police presence and social factors including poverty, education and unemployment.

Upland Councilman Glenn Bozar’s two-month long effort to persuade his council colleagues to begin the process of incorporating into the Fiscal 2016-17 budget economies to offset anticipated future underfunded or unfunded pension costs failed this week. Instead, Bozar’s persistent request to have city staff shave enough money out of the planned spending for the upcoming year’s budget to allow the city to fatten its reserves was soundly turned back when the council voted 4-1 to accept city manager Rod Butler’s proposed $46.5 million general fund budget.
Since budget discussions began in earnest in May, Bozar has been pressuring Butler to revisit the budget numbers and impose on city staff further discipline. Bozar originally took issue with that element of the spending plan that called for the city to divert into the city’s general fund some $970,000 in gasoline tax the city normally uses to repair streets along with more than $400,000 from its various utility enterprise accounts that are kept on a ledger outside the general fund. Bozar took issue with the consideration that Butler was calling for Upland’s 2016-17 expenditures to grow by $3.8 million over those in 2015-16 while revenues over the same period were to increase by slightly over $2 million. Bozar wanted Butler to meet a requirement that the city achieve the goal of putting 12.5 percent of its revenues into reserves – in compliance with the city’s so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act – without diverting money from infrastructure improvements and maintenance. Bozar suggested instead that Butler reduce to the extent that was workable the hefty increases Butler had layered into the budget for both the fire department and the police department – 12.5 percent and 11 percent, respectively – as well as administrative services division increases of 14 percent.
Giving Bozar heartburn was that the budget called for a 20.3 percent increase – $1,171,145 – of the city’s contribution into the city’s pension fund; a 20 percent increase – $549,7217 – for so-called fringe benefits; and 5.39 percent – $1,024,553 – for salary increases.
Shortly after Bozar came onto the council more than three years ago he latched onto the looming pension crisis which is confronting cities all across California. Over the last fifteen years, governmental entities have offered public employees increasingly generous retirement packages by agreeing to a pension calculation formula that allows thirty and thirty-five year employees to retire at age 55 and draw a yearly retirement stipend that is equal to sixty to ninety percent of their highest yearly salary with the city. In many of these cases, these annual pensions exceed $100,000. In California retirement systems have been created to cover the ongoing and future costs of these pensions, with both the governmental entities and the government employees contributing to them. The most significant of these is CalPERS, an acronym for the California Public Employees Retirement System, which manages the contributions into that retirement fund made by the various governmental entities and public employees. That money is put into the stock market and other interest bearing or revenue-producing securities. CalPERS is the retirement/pension fund managing system for all state employees as well as most municipal employees throughout the state, including those employed by Upland. All government contributions into CalPERS are set at a certain rate each year based upon that particular governmental entity’s number of current employees and the terms of the pension benefits it offers. To stay fiscally balanced, CalPERS also has an earnings goal for the money it invests – 7.5 percent per year. When its investments do well and meet that goal, the only money contributed by the cities and state and participating agencies is the earlier referenced set amount. But if CalPERS’ investment portfolio does not meet its goals, then those governmental entities are committed to make up the difference. Last year CalPERS’ investment return was only 2.4 percent.
As years pass and more and more public employees retire, and with the average lifespan of Americans ever increasing such that many retirees are on average now living well into their seventies, eighties and beyond, the pension burden is burgeoning to a point that it is straining cities financially.
In Upland, which last year had a $43 million budget, $7.1 million went toward pension costs. This year – 2016-17, that cost is anticipated to increase to $8.3 million. Projections are that the city is already committed into the future to having to pay – for just current and past city employees – over $90 million in future pension costs. That number is ever increasing as more city employees are hired. That commitment is referred to as the city’s pension liability. This pension liability has been a major focus for Bozar, who has asserted that as that liability grows to an ever larger part of the city’s costs, less and less money will be available to the city in the future to pay for municipal services, perhaps to the point that the city will be bankrupted entirely.
Bozar is the chairman of the city’s finance committee. The two other members of that committee – city treasurer Dan Morgan and councilwoman Debbie Stone – supported him in his direction to Butler in May and June to revisit the proposed budget and make cuts where possible. Butler, however, defied in some measure Bozar’s expectations, dragging his feet in instituting the reductions to the rate of growth to certain department operations and expenditures. For example, Bozar wanted Butler to cease the diversion of gasoline tax into the general fund and reserve it all for road and street improvements. Instead, Butler simply reduced the diversion from $970,000 to $600,000 of the revenues from gas tax. Nor did Butler make cuts to the operating budget but sought to utilize creative ways to pull money out of the city’s utility enterprise funds to shore up the general fund. Both Morgan and Bozar expressed consternation at this approach and three times sent Butler back to the drawing board to find expenditures to cut.
This week, Butler came before the full council with what essentially was his original proposed budget intact, calling for $46.5 million in spending in 2016-17. Bozar again sought to have the budget number revisited, calling upon his council colleagues to instruct Butler to find a way to reduce spending so more money can be put into reserves to give the city the opportunity to deal with its burgeoning pension liability from a position of strength. Bozar asserted that the city should initiate an austerity program now, so it can stay ahead of the curve while it is still solvent, rather than putting itself into the position of having to make desperate cuts under the onus of future deficits.
Bozar used a graph giving projections of the city’s expenditures against revenues going forward that showed that the last year the city could count on a surplus was in 2016-17 and even that was not certain because CalPERS has already indicated it will not meet its ongoing earnings goal this year, necessitating an even heftier contribution from the city than the assumption in Butler’s proposed 2016-17 budget. “We’re not being transparent with the public or this council,” Bozar said. “We can’t control costs but we certainly can project. That’s what we did, but we’re not sharing it with public or this council the way this is being presented tonight.”
Bozar said the city’s Fiscal Responsibility Act required that the budget make some allowance for the anticipated increased financial burden the city will have to bear to make up for CalPERS lackluster earnings performance. “You are going off the fiscal cliff according to what is not being disclosed tonight,” Bozar said. “I think we have to identify the problem before we can offer solutions. You have to know what your problem is and how big it is and be transparent about it, then you can come up with recommendations. So, what this is showing me is when the city manager reports things are looking good in his report to the public and us, this belies that fact. We need a plan right away.”
Not exhibiting fiscal discipline at this point, Bozar warned, was tantamount to “just kicking the can down the road. I can’t support this budget as presented. This budget should not move forward until all of this information is presented.”
The balance of the council, however, consisting of Mayor Ray Musser, Stone, Gino Filippi and Carol Timm, opted to approve the budget as Butler had presented it.
Councilwoman Stone said it was time to accept the budget that Butler had presented and that he and staff had already been put through the ordeal of “a brutal four meetings.”
Stone rejected Bozar’s call for making further reductions in the budget to ensure the city can meet its mushrooming pension costs. “I completely disagree with Glenn on this,” she said.
She said staff had gotten into the spirit of austerity by agreeing to consider treasurer Dan Morgan’s suggestion that there be “a freeze on employees for six months.” Saying that “We can beat CalPERS to the bitter end,” she indicated that the city had to simply accept that “there is nothing we can do as a city to change any of that. Sitting here and saying we’re not transparent, I don’t feel that is fair to you guys [i.e., staff] because I know you are doing your due diligence to be up front.”
The taxpayers would simply need to take up the slack of the commitment past city officials had made to provide generous retirement benefits to city employees and live with the situation, Stone indicated. She said Bozar was taking the wrong approach in trying to apply the accounting and accountability standards of the business world to local government. “Glenn, I know what you are talking about in private industry, but I’ve learned since I’ve been on the finance committee that public and private budgets are completely different animals,” Stone said in directly addressing her colleague. “I don’t see why we have to be notified every time Rod wants to do something We hired him as city manager. Let’s let him do his job.”

In the wake of Chino having moved to a ward system for the election of its city council members, Chino Hills is on its way toward liberalizing its previously stringent regulations on campaign signage. Both cities were prompted to action by legal considerations, in Chino’s case a threat of legal action and in the case of Chino Hills in reaction to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Chino Hills City Attorney Mark Hensley has advised the Chino Hills City Council that its current political sign ordinance will no longer pass legal muster in the aftermath of a 2015 Supreme Court ruling. The city’s political sign ordinance requires that candidates obtain an election sign permit, tender a $250 deposit before erecting signs, remove the posted signs within ten days after the election and pay the city a $20 fine for every sign removed by city personnel after that deadline,
Hensley and assistant city attorney Elizabeth Calciano believe there are elements in the case of Reed v. Town of Gilbert, which would obviate Chino Hills’ ability to enforce its political sign ordinance. Somewhat paradoxically, the Reed v. Town of Gilbert case did not pertain to political signs, but rather small temporary signs erected by the Good News Community Church and its pastor, Clyde Reed, to alert the community to its services. The Town of Gilbert, Arizona’s sign code, ironically, imposed stricter limits on the size, location, number, and duration of the church’s signs than it did on political, ideological, and homeowners’ association signs. The church filed suit against the town in 2007, arguing that the code – both as written and as applied to its signs – was an unconstitutional restriction on its First Amendment right to free speech. After the Ninth Circuit Court found in favor of the town and its ability to discriminate against signs based on their content, the matter was appealed up to the Supreme Court, which last year ruled in favor of Reed, finding that a governmental entity cannot impose different restrictions against one type of signs versus other types of signs based upon their content. Thus, Hensley and Calciano reason, the City of Chino Hills cannot impose on political signs restrictions that are different than what apply to any other type of signs. Chino Hills’ political sign ordinance is qualitatively different from its commercial sign ordinance, imposing a set of restrictions on the signs candidates use in running for office that are different from those imposed on commercial signs.
Because of the Reed Vs. Gilbert ruling, Hensley and Calciano revisited the totality of the city’s political sign ordinance, considering other elements of the restrictions Chino Hills’ is imposing. As a consequence, Hensley and Calciano found an issue with the requirement for a $250 deposit accompanying the application for the sign permit. Such a requirement could be construed as “prior restraint” to free speech, which the Supreme Court first found unconstitutional in the cases of Near v. Minnesota and New York Times Co. v. United States.
After Hensley and Calciano recommended the city revise the code to comply with the standard inherent in the Reed Vs. Gilbert and other cases, the Chino Hills planning commission voted unanimously June 21 to recommend the changes to the city council, which will take up the matter on July 12.
In the newly drafted political sign ordinance, the provision for the $250 deposit has been removed, the limit on the signs remaining in place no more than ten days after the election has been increased to 30 days and the $20 fine has been displaced.
The new ordinance will maintain restrictions on the size and placement of signs. In particular, the provision prohibiting the posting of signs on public property and in roadway right-of-way will remain in effect. Those enforcement provisions applicable to other signs are also to be applied to political signs.
In neighboring Chino, the city council last month moved to change its at-large city council elections in which all of the city’s voters were eligible to participate every two years to ones that will involve voters voting once every four years in accordance with which of the four council wards they reside within. Each voter will be able to vote only for candidates from his or her ward running for election to represent his or her district. The mayor will continue to be elected at large, that is, in a contest in which all voters in the city are eligible to participate, in elections held corresponding with the presidential general election. The city moved to make that transition after Kevin Shenkman, using the letterhead of his firm, Shenkman & Hughes, sent a letter in December to the City of Chino, noting the city relies upon an at-large election system for electing candidates to the city council. Shenkman charged that “voting within Chino is racially polarized, resulting in minority vote dilution, and therefore Chino’s at large elections are violative of the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. It is our belief Chino’s at-large system dilutes the ability of minority residents – particularly Latinos (a “protected class”) – to elect candidates of their choice or otherwise influence the outcome of Chino’s council elections.” In the letter, Shenkman threatened to sue Chino “on behalf of residents” if Chino’s at-large council system was not replaced by one based on district representation.

A small town’s fire truck is like fireworks, red-white-and-blue, Star-Spangled-Banner, Old-Glory, 4th-of-July. That big chunk of long red metal, with its hoses and ladders gloriously draped about its sides and its local boy, all grown up, donning his shiny badge and unmistakable fire chief helmet atop the big red fiery engine is the star of the local Independence Day parade as he airs the sirens of strength, virtue and success. Yes, the firetruck—as American as apple pie, truly the symbol of all that is about freedom and independence in the small, iconic, all-American town—the penultimate symbolic statement of the ability to run and control local affairs and local government, to bring about a community’s own destiny against all outside forces, even the rampages of fire, disaster and excessive taxes.
So it had been in Needles, California, at least since post World War II up until the time a few years back that the County of San Bernardino offered the city such a great rate on a contract that combining services seemed like a no-brainer. Sure it took a while to learn where all the fire hydrants were located, and perhaps there was a 20 minute longer response time and a few buildings burned down, but county fire protection services kept the fire from spreading and the insurance rating allowed for reasonable insurance plan prices, at least for those close enough to the station.
Just as everyone was all snugged in and having almost forgotten about the old locally controlled fire department and feeling delighted watching as a new fancy county fire station was being built in town, the County of San Bernardino under the new reign of First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood had another little surprise in store: the county would be doubling the price of the contract, suddenly hiking it from $600,000 to $1.2 million per year with no explanation and no alternative but to either pay up or annex into the taxed service area (“FP-5”) of the County’s Fire Protection District, thus forcing the property owners within the territory of the City of Needles to make up the difference with a new flat tax burden of $148 per parcel. By the time most of the community of the smallest city in the entire County of San Bernardino woke up to smell the coffee and realize that they were losing ownership of their fire truck along with the deal—it was too late to protest. Many of the towns citizens who “go dark” or leave town for the hot summery month of June and July when the notices were sent out to property owners, were not around to protest at the hearing, nor did they mail their protests in on time to meet the three week deadline. Those that did show up were outraged. Moreover, some putting their ear to the ground were shocked to learn what most people don’t know about—the situation of the citizens of Sunset Beach who found out the hard way what Needles is learning now. The Sunset Beach Taxpayers Association was defeated in a lengthy and expensive court battle, when in the association’s court appeal it was determined for certain that a council’s vote to annex its territory to a previously taxed Orange County district is not the same as a legislative vote to directly tax its people, and therefore does not fall under Prop 218, a proposition that prohibits taxation without a vote of the electors where the tax will be in excess of 1 percent of the assessed value of a property.
Undaunted, the Needles Fire Auxiliary, led by three of its citizens – former council members Ruth Musser-Lopez and Ed Mathews, along with Mary Stein – determined to make a two-pronged effort to defeat the exaction of a tax that would go directly to the county trough, leaving its citizens with no control over how it was spent and, moreover, to stop the heist of the fire truck. First they signed a notice of intent prepared by Musser-Lopez, to circulate a voter initiative to prohibit the annexation of the territory within the City of Needles into a fire district, mandating the application for dissolution of any county fire district within its territory and arranging for a local fire department “start-up” tax at no more than 0.15% or $120.00. Musser-Lopez appealed for city taxpayer support, as it would amount to $28 less than the $148 tax the county would impose, would keep the proceeds in local community control and would be limited to two years whereas the county’s annual fire services district tax had no end date. They delivered this Notice to the city clerk last Friday.
On Sunday afternoon in the backroom of the Wagon Wheel, a local eating establishment, they were joined by other locals, former councilman Don McCone along with Nyla Anderson and Paul Pletcher, who pledged to join the auxiliary and circulate the petition to get the initiative on the ballot. The group took a collection to finance a 500-mile round trip, sending Musser-Lopez to the Inland Empire to find an attorney who might represent the auxiliary for the second prong of the plan—obtaining an injunction against the city for having taken action against the Needles City Charter when the city council voted to convey a tax upon its property owners by annexing into the district and that this tax would be in excess of 2% for all property owners whose property is valued at less than $7,400. The Needles City Charter prohibits such taxation without a vote of the electors.
Seeking representation for the Auxiliary, first, Musser-Lopez attempted contact with Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Organization the day after the protest hearing on June 22 in which it was determined by Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, Executive Director of the San Bernardino County Local Area Formation Commission, that there were insufficient protests to take the matter to a vote. There was no response.
Musser-Lopez sought the advice of Upland City Councilman Glenn Bozar, a known foe of increasing local taxes, but the best Bozar could do on short notice was direct her to the Howard Jarvis Association. She then struck out on attempting to elicit the support of several attorneys. Without the guidance of an attorney, Musser-Lopez on her own prepared a verified complaint, in pro per, complete with Exhibits A – H. On Tuesday evening from her location now 250 miles away from Needles, she notified the Needles City Council via a letter emailed to Stein, which Stein printed and delivered to the city attorney at the council meeting that night and read to the public. The notice stated that at 10:00 the next morning (Wednesday) Musser-Lopez, in pro per, would be filing a complaint against the city for breach of contract—violation of the city’s charter concerning tax limitation, and that she would seek an ex parte hearing to obtain a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against the city to suspend the annexation and the transfer of city fire department property, including the city fire truck.
According to Stein, the council, at that point in the meeting, upon hearing the notice, retreated to closed session to determine what action to take on the legal matter. When the council emerged from the closed session, it was announced the city would take action to defend against the lawsuit. Councilman Shawn Gudmundsen, who voted for the tax annexation said “there are some very serious allegations being made here.”
At 10 a.m. Wednesday morning Musser-Lopez checked through security at the court with three copies of her complaint and application for an order to halt both the annexation and the fire truck transfer. Once through the doors, she approached the stairway to the civil action filing room, but before reaching the civil filing windows she was intercepted by Needles City Attorney John Pinkney. “Okay” she said, “what can you tell me to convince me not to file my complaint.” Pinkney referenced the Sunset Beach Taxpayer’s Association vs. Orange County Local Area Formation Commission (OC LAFCO) case. There ensued some palaver between Musser-Lopez and Pinkney with regard to whether
the Sunset Beach case was relevant to the situation in Needles since the Sunset Beach case cited the taxpayer protection of Prop 218 and not the city charter. Without admitting the likelihood that the Sunset Beach decision would also likely apply to the Needles matter, Musser-Lopez let Pinkney know that she had no intention of leaving without filing if she could not get a guarantee that the city could get the fire truck back should the Fire Auxiliary’s voter initiative pass and the city recovers jurisdiction over its fire department by detaching from County Fire, its South Desert Service zone and FP-5. At that point, Pinkney called City Manager Rick Daniels who called both San Bernardino County’s Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) and County Fire District.
At the termination of the discussion on Tuesday, it was agreed that LAFCO would provide the city and Musser-Lopez with an analysis of what it would take to undo the annexation. As far as the fire truck—there will be fireworks come this Fourth of July: to be prepared—a promissory note on County Fire District letterhead listing the Needles Fire Department inventory and a commitment to first right of refusal and purchase back of any property by the Fire Department should it be restored upon the dissolution of the County Fire District’s Needles Service Area—including but not limited to, the fire truck.
By Wednesday an analysis was received from Rollings-McDonald which stated, “…if in the future the city would wish to reestablish its fire department under direction city authority, it could propose the detachment from County Fire, its South Desert Service zone and FP-5. This is a LAFCO action which would require an application, including a plan for service which would include a five-year fiscal feasibility analysis, and the same review process as before. This plan would need to show that the proposed change would be sustainable in order to be supported by the commission.”
There is one big hitch however…one that was not previously disclosed: a future dissolution of the Needles Service Zone and tax would be reliant on a commission’s decision that the county would agree that the loss of income from the Needles parcel tax add on was not detrimental to their operation. One can only assume that the more the county expands, the more they will become reliant on the parcel tax to a point that it will become impossible for them to give it up.
According to Rollings-McDonald, “One additional element that would be required to be considered is whether or not the removal of the City of Needles from the South Desert Service Zone would have a detrimental effect on the continuing viability of that regional service provider. That is not something I could predict at this time.”

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
I went into something of a panic early this week as I pondered exactly what I could find to write about. I concentrated but I just couldn’t come up with any ideas as this gave way to pondering, precisely, what the condition of my gray matter is at this advanced stage of my descent into decrepitude: Something akin to Swiss cheese, I surmise. A depressing thought, that! But I was rescued, you see, by none other than the State of California, which dropped  some subject matter right into my lap…
As I was looking over the agenda for this week’s County Board of Supervisors meeting, it leapt right up into my cortex: The State of California is giving the County of San Bernardino what is approaching an eleven million dollar grant, $10,668,372, to be exact. That is a good thing, some might say: state money tricking down locally. Now what is wrong with that?  Well, here goes: The grant, which is to come from the California Department of Public Health, will go to the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health to fight obesity. To use language put forth by Trudy Raymundo, San Bernardino County Director Department of Public Health, the grant is to be used for “providing comprehensive local nutrition education and obesity programs to assist county residents in establishing healthy eating habits and physically active lifestyles for the prevention of nutrition related chronic diseases (e.g., type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart related problems such as atherosclerosis).”
Ms. Raymundo told the board the money will be spend on “individual and group education, along with multi-level interventions and activities will be conducted. The aim is to engage residents and partners in developing policies, systems, and environmental changes in organizations and communities across the County that support improved nutrition. As required by the state, the  Department of Public Health will use these funds to collaborate and subcontract with other entities within the county to improve nutritional status and prevent obesity among the county’s low income population. This ongoing effort is expected to reach 35,000 individuals annually.” According to Ms. Raymundo,  $10,668,372  is meant to cover programs for three years running, over the period of October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2019, at a rate of  $3,556,124 annually…
In the interest of full disclosure here, I may have some personal issues that inhibit my sensitivity on this obesity issue. I am somewhat underweight. I have been so my entire life. I am described by one of my nearly life long acquaintances as “imperially slim.” (That should not be a surprise; I am after all, the Count!). And I understand that much of this weight issue is a matter, really, of genetics. I do not, for example, look down on those with weight problems. I do not think it is weakness of character that causes one to pack on the pounds. It is, for the most part, I believe a function of the metabolisms we inherited from our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, great great grandparents, all the way back to Adam and Eve or the apes in the trees or wherever it was that our ancestors originated…
My concern here is that this is an unrealistic undertaking and we are putting too much money into it. Isn’t it already recognized that being too fat is unhealthy? Isn’t being thin already something of a social ideal? And what need is there to reinforce that? Some things are self evident. I would think that if you are overweight you already know that. I am constantly reminded, every time I see my reflection in a mirror or glass that I am, ahem, imperially slim. I can’t imagine this self recognition factor would be any different for anyone of a different body mass.
And exactly how is this money to be spent? “The focus” according to Ms. Raymundo, “is to help low-income Californians establish healthy eating habits and
encourage a physically active lifestyle to prevent the onset of nutrition related chronic diseases…”
Are we to hire alimentary police? Will they patrol the restaurants and other dens of public gestation?  I can imagine, “Hey you, yeah you, Fatso, drop that cheeseburger. One more bite, and I’ll shoot…”
Surely, I jest. Still, I hope my point has been made. Is this a wise expenditure of our public money when there are better things to be done?

Daniel David Mikesell was born on March 22, 1910 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, son of Carl C. and Myrtle (Hayes) Mikesell. In 1918 the family moved to Needles, where Dan’s father, an engineer with the Santa Fe Railroad, established their home and where Dan attended grade and high schools, graduating in 1928. He then attended UCLA, where he majored in political science.
Mikesell worked in the lumber and construction field in Redlands in and later in Pomona as a sales manager. During World War II he was employed at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach as a supervisor in the wage administration department and was later in charge of the development department for the B-26 Light Bomber.
In 1945 Mr. Mikesell returned to the construction field, representing a wholesale materials firm. In 1948 he jointed the Celotex Corporation, producers of building and industrial materials, as the technical sales representative in charge of developing new product uses and merchandizing techniques. He was transferred to the Ontario office in 1950. An active and avid sportsman and conservationist, Mikesell became president of the West End Fish and Game Club for two years and was president of the Inland Council Conservation Clubs of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. He helped organize the California Wildlife Federation and was its first vice-president. He also served on the board of directors of the California Game Improvement Association and the Ocean Fish Protective Association. He organized the Junior Sportsman Club in 1952 and was involved in Boy Scout activities. On March 4, 1954, Mr. Mikesell announced his candidacy as Second District Supervisor. He won the election and served from December 6, 1954 to December 3, 1958, at which time he ran against the incumbent Eugene G. Nisbet, for the Republican seat in the State Assembly. Unsuccessful in this attempt, he was elected to the Ontario City Council and served as mayor of Ontario from 1960 to 1962. During this period he helped to organize the Friends of the Ontario Airport, and was the charter vice-president of that organization.
Mr. Mikesell was elected to a second term on the board of supervisors in 1962 and three consecutive terms thereafter. He served as chairman of the board from 1966 to 1968. During his tenure he distinguished himself in numerous capacities at the federal state and county levels. He served as president of the Southern California Association of Governments and as a director of the County Supervisors Association of California. While with the Supervisors Association, he served as the chairman of the public works committee for six years and was a member of the Fish and Game Commission, Finance Committee, Retirement Board, Water Resources Committee, Tax Study Committee, and others. Recognized as an authority in the fields of aviation and transportation, Mikesell was appointed to an unprecedented fourth term as the chairman of the Transportation Steering Committee for the National Association of Counties and earlier chaired that organization’s subcommittee on aviation. He was the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Noise Standards at the State Aeronautics Board and the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Flexible Transportation Systems. He was the chairman of the Advisory Committee on Flexible Transportation Systems for the State Department of Transportation. He was a member of the United States Department of Transportation’s Policy Advisory on a National Transportation Planning Study and was a member of the Federal Aviation Agency’s Airspace Utilization Committee. He was a member of the State Council on Intergovernmental Relations, a director of the California Water Resources Association, and was appointed to the Governor’s Earthquake Advisory Council.
Mikesell was chairman of the Chino Basin Water District Committee, founder and chairman of the I-15 Association, a member of the West Valley Transit Service Authority, organizer of the West Valley Planning Agency (which evolved into what is now San Bernardino Associated Governments – SANBAG, the county’s transportation agency), a member of several committees on aviation and president of the San Bernardino Chapter of the Air Force Association. He was a member of the Death Valley 49ers, a member of E Clampus Vitus, on the board of governors of the National Orange Show, and was the charter president of the Chaffey Booster’s Club and was active in several other organizations. He is a charter member of the Feather River Project Committee which helped to promote the routing of Northern California water to and through San Bernardino County. He was a member of Southern California’s Ten County Plan and he organized the 5-County Plan on the uniform design and construction of public thoroughfares in San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties. This was so successful that the Metropolitan Engineering Board gave that effort credit for having saved about 200-man-years of work and costs. Mikesell was appointed by President Richard Nixon to a National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws.
On September 8, 1976, failing health necessitated Dan Mikesell’s resignation from the board of supervisors after some eighteen years of service. Following his retirement, he served on the County Aviation Commission and the Economic Development Commission. The I-15/I-10 Devore Cutoff Interchange was named the “Daniel D. Mikesell Interchange” in recognition of his 20-plus years of effort to have the interchange constructed as a time-saver for traffic to Las Vegas and the desert areas.
Mr. and Mrs. Mikeell resided in Ontario. Mrs. Mikesell was the former Gabrielle Lucas, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Vincent Lucas of Cucamonga. They were married for over 65 years. Their son, Daniel D. Jr. was the principal county counsel for Los Angeles County. Into the Third Millenium, Dan Mikesell continued to provide consulting services and enjoyed fishing and occasional golf as recreation.
He died on November 13, 2007 at the age 97.

BARSTOW — Racing aficionados are proposing to use a portion of Main Street for drag races in Barstow in November.
Brian Devincenzi is the primary organizer/sponsor of the event. The principal of Route 66 Drag Races, Devincezi has said he envisions an event reminiscent of those that are held at raceways in Las Vegas and Fontana.
The actual distance from start to finish in each race will be 330 feet. Total length needed to accommodate the vehicles, including slowing and braking distance will be 1,200 feet of roadway.
City officials want assurances that proper safety measures including K-rails will be in place for the

REDLANDS—The City of Redlands has approved budget for 2016-17 that anticipates a $64.4 million and $57.8 million in expenditures.
At the close of the 2015-16 fiscal year ending yesterday, June 30, the city had $10.3 million salted away in its reserves. The $6.6 million in excess of expenditures the city believes it will have accumulated over the next 12 months will be used in various ways. Potential economies over that period could boost the city’s unreserved balance to as much as $8.9 million.
The city will operate on a $64.4 million budget in 2016-17. Expenses are estimated at $57.8 million. The city expects a $93,451 surplus and $8.9 million unreserved balance on June 30, 2017.
City Manager Nabar Martinez has recommended some modest capital repairs and replacements such as $300,000 for replacing fire station roofs, $150,000 for sidewalk repair and another $150,000 to purchase two police cruisers.