By Mark Gutglueck
A breakdown in the relationship between district attorney Mike Ramos and the woman he elevated to the position of assistant district attorney, Mary Ashley, has sundered their organization’s chain of command, leaving the normally purpose-driven prosecutor’s office in a state of crisis.
Reverberations from the circumstance have spilled over to the Superior Court, as questions have emerged over Ashley’s relationship with a judge who routinely hears cases prosecuted by attorneys she oversees in her capacity as assistant district attorney.
At the basis of the current trauma is Ramos’s penchant for womanizing, including engaging in trysts with office employees, some of whom have attempted and on occasion succeeded in using their relationship with Ramos to promote themselves professionally. The recent cavil between Ramos and Ashley is triply problematic in that it has created an awkward communications gap throughout the organization and a vacuum in leadership at its top, revived resentments among some senior members of the office over Ashley’s promotion and has resulted in reigniting what is now perceived to be an improper relationship between Ashley and a member of the bench.
Elements of the Ramos/Ashley spectacle come across as clichés from soap opera scripts, ones seemingly beneath the dignity of the county prosecutor’s office. Even prior to his election as district attorney in 2002, Ramos’s liaisons with many different women when he was employed as a deputy prosecutor under then-District Attorney Dennis Stout were known to some of his colleagues. After he assumed the post of district attorney, his activity accelerated with his elevation in status and became much more widely known, as his relationships with three of his own deputy prosecutors, two of his office’s evidence technicians and two of his office’s clerks scandalized the office. In May of 2009, the brewing calumny fully manifested when Ramos was publicly linked with a dozen women to whom he was not married.
Ashley’s amorous reputation was by comparison more sedate than was Ramos’s, though it, too, resulted in a minor brouhaha. A prosecutor assigned primarily to prosecuting crimes against children cases out of the Victorville Courthouse in the early 2000s, Ashley was married to San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Alex Martinez, who is now a San Bernardino Superior Court judge. David Mazurek was also a prosecutor with the district attorney’s office. An affair between Ashley and Mazurek ensued. Ultimately, both Mazurek’s and Ashley’s marriages ended in divorce, but not before Mazurek was appointed to the San Bernardino Superior Court by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.
As a consequence, potentially career-complicating difficulty for both developed, as Mazurek heard criminal cases at the Victorville Courthouse, in which the district attorney’s office had a branch office from which Ashley worked as the lead attorney for the Family Violence Unit in Victorville, either directly handling or overseeing the prosecution of crimes against children, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence and elder abuse. Neither ever disclosed to defendants Ashley was prosecuting or their attorneys the relationship she had with the judge, even when their cases were routed into Mazurek’s courtroom. This matter resolved itself, temporarily, when in January 2008 Ashley left Victorville for Joshua Tree, where she became the supervising prosecutor for the district attorney’s office there. But that conflict resumed and intensified thirteen months later, when in February 2009, Mazurek was assigned to the Yucca Valley Courthouse.
Within three months, rumors began to circulate about the relationship between Mazurek and Ashley, with concern growing that it was highly improper for her to be overseeing the entirety of the prosecutor’s office’s function in Yucca Valley while her paramour was hearing the cases she and the deputy district attorneys she supervised were prosecuting. On May 7, 2009, the subject of Mazurek’s bias was openly broached during a court proceeding, prompting him to claim, on the record, “And so the record is clear as far as bias goes, I am new to this courthouse. I am new to this community. I don’t live here. I was previously assigned to the Victorville courthouse. I’ve been here maybe two months, three months. I don’t know any of these people. I don’t know any of the parties. I am not familiar with any of the disputes in this region. I don’t know anybody.”
Conveniently ignored in Mazurek’s statement was that he and Ashley had worked together in the district attorney’s office, that he had been a judge in Victorville when she was prosecuting cases or handling matters there, oftentimes within his courtroom, and the nature of their personal relationship.
The relationship between Mazurek and Ashley proved somewhat nettlesome, ultimately requiring the expurgating intervention of then-assistant presiding judge Michael Welch.
In time, the embers between Mazurek and Ashley cooled, and Mazurek remarried, this time to the woman who had been a court reporter in his courtroom.
In the meantime, Ashley went her way. Among some of her colleagues, particularly woman, Ashley was perceived as a climber who was not above utilizing her sexuality to ingratiate herself with the men in the office or the legal community to advance professionally. It was not surprising then, that in 2011, she had initiated a relationship, described as intensely physical, with Ramos.
The district attorney’s philandering had resulted in a rash of adverse publicity as well as a lawsuit by one of his bedmates, district attorney’s office evidence technician Cheryl Ristow. In fending off that lawsuit, the county in 2009 paid the Santa Monica-based legal firm Curiale Hirschfield Kraemer $140,000 to conduct an investigation into the circumstances pertaining to the Ramos/Ristow relationship and document that disciplinary action meted out to Ristow had not constituted “sexual harassment.” While Curiale Hirschfield Kraemer had been detailed to shore up the contention by Ramos and the county that Ristow’s job performance and failure to adhere to office protocol, rules and regulations justified the investigative and disciplinary action that had been taken against her, investigators for Curiale Hisrschfield Kraemer tracked what one of them termed “credible” indications Ramos had engaged in sexual intercourse with four of his office’s employees. Curiale Hirschfield Kraemer, in its 183-page report on the matter, avoided direct mention of the sexual relationship between the district attorney and Ristow, but a three-judge panel of the State of California’s Fourth Appellate District – consisting of justices Manuel A. Ramirez, Thomas E. Hollenhorst and Douglas P. Miller – was not so squeamish in summing up the action Ramos had engaged in with Ristow. “In September 2003, Ristow and Ramos were at a conference center in the city of Lake Arrowhead. While at the conference center, Ristow and Ramos began a consensual sexual relationship. An incident in Lake Arrowhead involved kissing, fondling, oral copulation, and sexual intercourse. In October 2003, another incident occurred in an office. The October incident involved kissing, fondling, oral copulation, and sexual intercourse. Other consensual sexual acts occurred between Ristow and Ramos in December 2004, in a Mervyn’s parking lot; and February 2005, in a Starbucks parking lot. In October 2005, Ramos, without consent, grabbed and fondled Ristow’s breast, and said, ‘I just want to touch and suck your nipples one last time,” according to an opinion filed on July 31, 2012 in which the appellate court rejected Ristow’s appeal of a trial court’s ruling on her lawsuit against the county, the district attorney’s office and Ramos.
This public exposure entailed for Ramos some degree of public embarrassment but, because he was and remains an independently elected official with a full complement of prosecutorial power and discretion, neither the board of supervisors nor any other authorities had the will to discipline him or remove him from office. Nor was he subjected to discipline by the California Bar. As his relationship with Ashley was intensifying in the late 2011/early 2012 time frame, Ramos nevertheless sought to be somewhat more discrete than he had been in the past. As it turned out however, the affair was exposed when Ashley sent a cellular phone text message to another member of the office, telling her that Ramos was at her residence. Word of Ramos’s liaison with Ashley leaked out from there, spreading to numerous other members of the district attorney’s office, as well as among several judges.
By Summer 2012, office members report, the relationship between Ramos Ashley had progressed to the point that Ramos was cohabiting with Ashley. The following year he filed for divorce from his wife of nearly three decades. Simultaneously, Ramos was seeking to groom Ashley for further advancement, giving her the prestigious assignment of carrying out the office’s evaluations of officer involved shootings.
As the 2014 electoral season approached, however, Ramos was facing reelection and found it expedient to present a somewhat more traditional and socially acceptable picture of his domestic situation. Accordingly, in November 2013, with the June 2014 election less than seven months away, he dismissed the divorce pleading. In June 2014, he was handily reelected. Two months later, In August 2014, the divorce proceedings were renewed.
Two months later, disguising his action as an “office reorganization, Ramos proposed creating a third assistant district attorney’s position in the office. The following month, November 2014, he presented it to the board of supervisors, who ratified it and funded it. In effectuating the reorganization, he promoted Ashley into the newly created assistant district attorney position, bypassing a multitude of other more experienced and respected prosecutors in the office, most notably John Kochis, who was widely viewed by his colleagues to be the most logical candidate for promotion to an open assistant district attorney’s position, based on his 37 years’ experience as a prosecutor, including a decade overseeing the Rancho Cucamonga office. Nearly two dozen prosecutors in the office, all with resumes equal to or surpassing Ashley’s – Michael Abney, Bruce Brown, Rob Brown, Terry Brown, Bob Bulloch, Lewis Cope, Michelle Daly, Gary Fagan, Charles Feibush, Joseph Gaetano, Clark Hansen III, Grover Merritt, Kathy Norman, Maureen O’Connell, Doug Poston, James Secord, Reza Sadeghi, Kevin Smith, Denise Trager-Dvorak, Charles Umeda, Ron Webster, Simon Umschied and Richard Young – were overlooked.
Within the office, resentment at Ramos’s promotional decision roiled below the surface, and the office’s members complained privately, but none would speak publicly about the matter.
Ashley had made her mark prosecuting cases that involved what were basically clearly cut issues of child, spousal and elder abuses in which the plight of the victims naturally resonated with most jurors. Generally, she had not handled more complex cases which dealt with conflicting evidence or ambiguity. Nor was her strong suit in the administrative realm. But as Ramos’s choice as assistant district attorney, she was thrust into a position of authority and gravitas, and was titularly responsible for hashing out procedural, personnel and legal problems an organization such as the district attorney’s office encounters, many of which she was hard-pressed to assimilate and understand, let alone handle. As such problems languished in want of a solution, bitterness over her advancement in the office simmered, enlarging the perception that Ramos has created a standard under which competence, dedication, expertise and merit are secondary criteria to maintaining a personal relationship with him.
Such was the situation during the last months of 2014 and roughly the first six months of 2015. At that point, the close relationship between Ramos and Ashley soured, creating further problems for the department yet, as the line of communication between Ramos and Ashley appeared to be severed.
On September 3, Ramos and Ashley appeared together at a press conference in which the office’s filing of a single felony assault charge against each of three San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies seen on a video taken last April beating, punching and kicking an arrestee as they were taking him into custody was announced. Ramos, as is his custom, had the senior members of his office present at the announcement. In addition to Ashley, assistant district attorneys Mike Fermin and Gary Roth were at the September 3 media event. Despite her having been included in the assembly, the chill between Ramos and Ashley was evident in the body language they displayed in the well-lit forum in front of the members of the press, still camera photographers and videographers. At one point, in crediting her and others with having assisted in making the charging decision, Ramos referred to her simply as “Ashley.”
Whereas late last year and earlier this year some matters which had fallen into Ashley’s bailiwick were addressed by being conveyed to a troubleshooter or on occasion Ramos himself by her or one of her assistants, the frosty separation between Ashley and her boss has now created a situation where the resources in the office that Ramos could once make available to augment her function with a phone call or memo are no longer at her disposal.
One deputy prosecutor said the channels of communication that run through Ashley’s office have become administrative cul-de-sacs, with nothing being resolved. “If you send something over there, it’s a dead end. It’s almost like no one is there,” one said.
Word has reached the Sentinel that Ramos briefly entertained the notion of removing Ashley as assistant district attorney, as this would mollify some members of office who believe the assistant district attorney’s function would be better carried out by someone else. At the same time, however, he is said to be in a state of paralysis because, though he has the authority to remove an at-will employee such as the assistant district attorney, there is a possibility that demoting Ashley or terminating her outright would trigger legal action on her part in which she would claim some level of sexual or gender harassment.
It is unclear to observers outside the office or anyone within the office below the executive level as to whether Ashley will remain as assistant district attorney, and if so, for how long.
Ashley, when asked directly if she would consider, for the good of the office, voluntarily resigning as assistant district attorney and returning to one of her previously held positions as deputy district attorney or supervising deputy district attorney, did not respond.
One consideration is the apparent resumption of the relationship between Ashley and Judge Mazurek. Given her current position as assistant district attorney, the implication of that relationship is yet greater than it was during the previous phases of their relationship when he was on the bench and she was serving in the capacity of deputy district attorney and supervising deputy district attorney. A failure to disclose the existence or nature of such a relationship to defendants being prosecuted by the district attorney’s office who are appearing before Judge Mazurek could prove problematic for both the court and the district attorney’s office if a defendant who is convicted or cornered into a plea arrangement under Mazurek’s watch resolves to contest his or her conviction.
Moreover, a failure by Ashley and Mazurek to forthrightly disclose the circumstance could provide Ramos with the leverage he would need to discipline, demote or even fire Ashley.
The Sentinel has learned that information pertaining to the Ashley/Mazurek relationship has begun to spread around the San Bernardino Justice Center. Last month, in open court, Judge David Cohn heard testimony relating to Ashley’s relationship with Mazurek, denying objections to that testimony from lawyers for both the plaintiff and the defendant in the case, Koenig vs. Falossi, while making from the bench further inquiries as to the nature and implication of the relationship between his fellow judicial officer and the assistant district attorney and allowing the information elicited to be recorded into the record. As details relating to the Mazurek/Ashley relationship play out into an ever wider venue, if the conflict is not in some fashion redressed, the chances of it shedding discredit on the district attorney’s office and the Superior Court intensify.
Ashley declined to say if she believed her relationship with the judge presents a conflict for him or the department, if she believed that defendants being prosecuted by her office who appear before Judge Mazurek should be informed of their relationship or if she was concerned that her relationship with Judge Mazurek might provide Ramos with ostensible grounds to remove her as assistant district attorney.
Efforts by the Sentinel to pose what are essentially the same questions to Mazurek were met with this response from his judicial secretary: “I have spoken with Judge Mazurek and he said he would not feel comfortable discussing that.”
The Sentinel’s inquiries with regard to the situation made to San Bernardino County Superior Court Presiding Judge Marsha Slough were fielded by Debra K. Myers, who doubles as the chief of judicial staff and general counsel to the San Bernardino County Superior Court. Myers said of the reports of the relationship between Mazurek and Ashley “I have not heard that, so I have no independent knowledge of the situation,” adding her comment should not be construed as either a confirmation or a denial that the relationship exists.
Myers said she was constrained from offering any substantive comment on the circumstance.
“Your question calls for me providing a legal opinion, and as a court employee, I am precluded from doing that,” Myers said. Furthermore, she said, “This is a matter not within my expertise. I am not an expert on personnel issues and I am not authorized to speak with regard to judges’ conduct or other personnel matters. I am general counsel to the court. I would suggest you look at the Judicial Canon of Ethics.”
Repeated efforts to engage Ramos and his official spokesman, Christopher Lee, in an exchange with regard to the unfolding controversy relating to Ashley were unsuccessful.

The drought has prompted county officials to contemplate dispensing with an eight year prohibition against residents of the county’s unincorporated areas relying upon the availability of drinking water trucked in by vehicles.
This week, at the prompting of San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman James Ramos, the board directed the county’s chief executive officer, Greg Devereaux, to have his office develop, within 30 days, an estimate of cost and time required to study the use of hauled water as the primary source of water for new individual single family residential construction in county unincorporated areas not served by water purveyors.
According to Ramos, “The county of San Bernardino requires that new construction in the county unincorporated areas be served by an existing public or private water purveyor, if available, or by well water. The use of hauled water as the primary source of potable water has been prohibited since 2007. This prohibition affects a number of properties in outlying desert communities where no water purveyor is available.”
Ramos defined hauled water as “the physical transport of drinking water, by a vehicle having a permanent mounted or detachable water tank, from a water source to a residential or commercial establishment for the purpose of human consumption.”
The water table in many desert areas has dropped to below the depth of many existing wells.

Without Mayor Ray Musser participating, the Upland City council this week signed off on approving a general plan update for the city by a 3-1 margin, overriding the objections of a highly vocal band of residents who decried the redrafted document as one that would compromise the traditional character of the bedroom community of 73,732.
A stark difference of philosophy and orientation divided the update’s advocates and opponents, as was evidenced by the back and forth between members of the public who addressed the council from the public speaker’s podium during the hearing on the matter, which lasted for just less than five hours during the more than six-hour long council meeting, which began at 7 p.m. on Monday night, September 14, and did not conclude until nearly 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 15.
The general plan, which is described as a blueprint for the city’s future growth and development and the maintenance of ongoing zoning restrictions, was last comprehensively updated in Upland in 1992.
Considerable controversy attended the effort toward the general plan update in Upland over the last six months. As drafted by Design Community and Environment, a company since bought out by Placeworks, and RBF Consulting, all of which were paid $1.5 million for their efforts, the update envisions significant upratings in the intensity of land use in some quarters of the city, particularly residential densities in the downtown district which range as high as 55 units to an acre. Moreover, the newly drafted general plan lays out restrictions on design, landscaping and other choices traditionally left up to individual landowners. The update effort began in 2008 and languished for more than six years, during which five sessions or forums to obtain public input on future land use questions were held. But the effort accelerated sharply beginning in March, basically under the direction and guidance of Upland Community Services Director Jeff Zwack.
Scores of residents earlier this year lodged personal protests with the city council and planning commission over the changes envisioned in the city’s approach to development.
The plan is viewed with skepticism by many others who have not made public statements against it, among whom are some of the 562 Upland residents who in a two week period in June affixed their signatures to a letter calling upon the city to rethink the process and not approve the update as drafted.
The update has garnered support from some quarters of the community, particularly developers, builders, real estate investors and realtors, who support it because its allowance of high density development would translate into a higher profit return on residential projects in the city.
The planning commission earlier accepted the update as drafted by city staff in nearly all respects.
Some city residents this summer expressed disappointment and dismay with the council and Mayor Musser in particular because of their perceived blasé attitude toward the intensification of density inherent in the plan. Musser represents Upland as a member of SANBAG – San Bernardino Associated Governments – which doubles as the county’s regional planning and transportation agency, as well as a member of SCAG – Southern California Association of Governments – a regional planning agency. His participation with these large scale planning agencies has exposed him to certain so-called progressive principles of urban planning now in vogue, such as the concept of “Smart Growth,” which provides for consolidating urban resources into smaller areas and increasing density and placing retail, service, entertainment and recreational amenities within walking distance of residential zones, while discouraging the use of automobiles and promoting the heavier use of public transportation.
Musser’s acceptance of the layering of Smart Growth elements into the general plan update has triggered a negative reaction among some Upland residents, who see the update as part of a strategy to move the city away from its traditional status as a bedroom community known as “The City of Gracious Living.” Accordingly, a showdown between those protesting the general plan update and Musser was anticipated at the September 14 meeting. Musser, however, had heart bypass surgery on September 8 and did not participate in the Monday night/Tuesday morning meeting.
One theme enunciated by Zwack was that increases in city population going forward will not be anywhere near as intense as they were in the last two decades, even with the higher residential density allowances in the new plan. Zwack, in a statement later controverted by some residents, said that Upland’s population had increased somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 12,000 in the last twenty years but with only five percent of the city’s land area subject to development at this point, future population growth will not exceed 8,000.
Moreover, Zwack suggested those virulently opposed to the plan were being unduly alarmist over the prospect of the plan inspiring the influx of low income housing. He pointed out that the city is already in compliance with state and federal guidelines in terms of hosting low and very low income residents, such that the city has a surplus of 811 units with regard to such housing. In this way, he indicated, the only realistic prospect of the city accommodating further low income housing is a long-pending proposal to augment the existing Coy Estes Senior Citizen Apartment Complex with 72 units.
Zwack further defended the increase in residential density allowances in the plan by asserting the vast majority of residentially zoned properties will be constrained to densities of no greater than 20 units per acre.
Another figure Zwack cited was the projection that the plan’s implementation would bring about the creation of 11,787 new jobs “based on the uses and zoning proposed.”
During Monday night/Tuesday morning’s public hearing, the majority of those going on record during the public comment session expressed opposition to it, though eight people nevertheless commended the proposed changes on the development blueprint as ones worth putting into place.
Nancy Mannon was critical of the update’s opponents, saying they were making it “sound as if the world as we know it is going to come to a crashing halt.” With regard to the envisioned increase in density, she referenced Los Angeles and Orange counties and the city of San Bernardino where she said developments of densities of 20 units or more per acre were common. “A single family home is not always the best thing,” she said. “Our children and grandchildren will need more places to live.” As people age, she said, many will want to “downsize” in terms of their living arrangements. She said it was “snobbish if we deny these other types of accommodation.” She belittled those who expressed fear that the new general plan will serve as a magnet to those living below the poverty line. “Upland has already provided enough low income housing to meet the government guidelines. There will not be high rise development along Foothill Boulevard. Quality is the keyword in housing. I support the general plan and feel it needs to be passed and implemented.”
Justin Kadzow said that he had only recently been made aware that the general plan was being updated and based upon his limited exposure to its contents, “I’m telling you I disagree with the plan, and if you approve it, I will be the first one in line to help with the recall. High residential low income housing will screw up your schools.” He characterized it as a “lousy plan that was packaged real pretty.”
Alice Palacios, who has lived in Upland since 1996, said she was in favor of the historical preservation element in the new version of the general plan and she commended the planning commission and city council for spending “much time and patience to consider” the redrafted document in all its intricacy. “I support Upland’s new general plan,” she said.
Wendy Gish focused on what she said were allowances for “high density residential” development on Monte Vista Avenue running southward from Foothill Boulevard. She referenced “friends who have planes” flying in and out of nearby Cable Airport, saying she had misgivings about “three story residential projects that developers have already asked for.” Citing “air turbulence” and “what laymen refer to as air pockets,” she said the “east west pattern over the runway puts them in grave danger.” She suggested that Upland permitting three story structures at its border with Claremont might push Claremont toward permitting four story structures.
“I don’t believe Cable Airport should be on the hook for a plan you guys are going to put into place.”
Robin Hvidston suggested in her comments that a portion of the support for the plan had been drummed up by the Service Employees International Union, which she said was in favor of illegal immigration. She showed photos of a past city council meeting which she said documented that SEIU union members who “spoke in favor of the general plan” and its element embracing “low income housing” were doing so as part of an “orchestrated” display in which those participating were monitored by a union official.
Marilyn Mills chided the council for the way in which the hearing had been delayed until late in the evening, saying it was “shameful how you are treating these residents, keeping us here this late.”
Warning that the redraft they were considering “will shape all of Upland for years and you can’t go back once you change this plan,” Mills said, “It is very obvious that this whole thing is a very flawed process. It is about the money. You think this is a win win win.” By buying into the plan redraft, Mills said the city would please developers, city employee union members, mortgage brokers and make Southern California’s regional planning agency, known by its acronym SCAG, “happy, but you left out the residents.” Through the plan change, the city is seeking to streamline the work of developers by waiving requirements that their projects would otherwise have to comply with to gain approval, such as the California Environmental Quality Act, she said. “You are putting the city under a heavy financial burden,” she said, through requirements insinuated into the plan such as forcing businesses to incorporate new green technology into their operations, having less parking for cars available, and requiring more bike storage. This will result in costs, she said, “that will be passed on to the customer and customers are going to leave.” She said the city by adopting elements of the new general plan was seeking to tap into state and federal funding and grants but that taking on those responsibilities would come at a hefty price. “Are you willing to take all the strings attached to that?” she asked.
Heavy overregulation would drive businesses out of the city and displace sales tax revenue producing businesses, thus lowering revenue into the city while creating requirements for “a lot more fire and police services and a lot more pension costs,” she said.
Marilyn Mills’ son, Todd Mills, accused Upland Development Services Director Jeff Zwack of “disrespecting” the city’s residents and telling “outright lies” in promoting the new general plan, which he said represented an “anti-car vision” for the city. Todd Mills took specific issue with the inclusion of a “climate action plan” into the new general plan document that is consistent with a host of restrictions favored by government officials at the federal and state level as well as with regional planning entities such as Southern California Association of Governments, but which are not required by law. Once officially adopted as planning principles, however, those restrictions become binding, Todd Mills asserted. At previous public meetings Zwack had falsely, Mills claimed, stated that the adoption of the climate action plan was mandated by law. Subsequently, however, Todd Mills said, Zwack recanted when he was directly and pointedly questioned about the climate action plan being legally mandated. Todd Mills said that representatives from Placeworks silently condoned Zwack’s misrepresentations by not correcting his statement during those previous public forums.
He said Zwack knew that approving the climate action plan as part of the general plan was optional but misrepresented it as necessary, misleading the council and many residents.
“You can develop a climate action plan,” he said. “You don’t have to. Greenhouse gas reduction is not required by law for cities. Under the California Environmental Quality Act you may choose to eliminate greenhouse gases. By passing this climate action plan, the city will be entangled in a whole bunch of different laws. Right now it is not required. Do not pass the climate action plan.”
He further charged that Zwack had blurred the distinction between two types of air pollution in bamboozling the council and planning commission “You are mixing up particulates with greenhouse gasses,” he said. He charged the plan was driven by “extreme environmentalist ideology… through every element.” He said the council was being stampeded toward accepting the plan by Zwack’s employment of “lies and half-truths the citizens have been subjected to.”
Eric Hansen said that people opposed to the plan were going out of their way to “perceive issues in an attempt to derail the general plan.” He suggested such obstinacy was contrary to the interests of the city as a whole and was dwelling unnecessarily on minutiae that could be addressed later, after the plan is in place. “Approving the plan will allow staff to move ahead with the business of the city,” he said. “The plan can be amended three times a year, allowing for adjustments.”
Characterizing the new general plan as environmental extremism was inappropriate, he said, citing tangible manifestations of physical reality those who have lived in the area for the last four decades could relate to, saying past government-mandated efforts to make environmental improvements had been successful.
“We can debate global warming,” he said. “I can breathe when I go outside and could not do it in the 1970s. I can go to the Ford dealer and buy a 500 horsepower vehicle that gets 20 miles to the gallon. Cars are still the biggest creators of greenhouse gasses, but if we were all still driving around in ’57 Chevys, the chief of police would be picking up dead bodies from collisions and we wouldn’t be able to breathe.”
The delay in approving the new general plan, Hansen told the council, was “keeping you from moving ahead. Let’s get back to business and fix it in flight.”
Dean Mills, Marilyn Mills’ husband, referenced Mayor Ray Musser, who was not present, but who, Mills suggested, had set the tenor for the plan’s approval by stating that he was entrusting to the planning commission the task of evaluating the general plan update and that he believed that “whatever the Southern California Association of Governments wants is good for Upland.”
Dean Mills implied that the planning commission had done an inadequate analysis of the plan update. Moreover, he said that the entire process was being driven by development companies that had an interest, or as he put it, “skin in the game” in maximizing density allowances on future projects. The process was tainted by a conflict of interest, he said, in that the company that in large measure drafted the update – Placeworks – was also employed by those who stood to benefit from the plan update. “This is a good ol’ boys club,” he said. “Randall Lewis [of Lewis Homes/Lewis Group of Companies] and SCAG [Southern California Association of Governments] are also their [Placeworks’] clients. Doesn’t all this just seem pretty cozy? We cannot trust that you are not unduly influenced by these men.”
Dean Mills then pointedly asserted that councilwoman Carol Timm should recuse herself from voting on the general plan update altogether, propounding the theory that there was a conflict between her function as a representative of the residents and citizens of Upland and her involvement in one of the interest groups – historical preservationists – which has a substantial interest in the historical preservation element in the plan. Timm, as the president of the preservationist organization Upland Heritage, had been invited to participate as a stakeholder during the earlier drafting process for the plan, Dean Mills said, and he noted that as a former member of the planning commission she enjoyed further reach in shaping the update. Earlier this year she acknowledged that as a councilwoman she was working closely with Zwack in finalizing the draft that was presented Monday evening/Tuesday morning, Mills said, compromising her objectivity and precluding her from making an impartial analysis of the document.
Dede Ramella said that the council was being “dictatorial” in its insistence on the new terms in the plan update and that city officials were embracing irresponsible growth and development to offset poor management decisions in the past, including hiring too many employees and providing them with salaries and benefits that were too generous. “You’re trying to build your way out of $83 million in pensions,” she said.
Jim Richardson, who resides on 17th Street, eloquently lobbied, at first, for having the council accept the general plan update, saying concern that Upland would be urbanized as a consequence of the update was immaterial, since one definition of an urban environment is a municipality with a population of 50,000. “We passed that long ago,” he said. “We’re already urban.” Moreover, he said, there is a legal imperative to adopting the plan update. “We need to comply with state and federal statutes,” he asserted. “We haven’t been in compliance. We can’t just limp along with a bunch of bandages.” He disputed the contention that the plan was being rushed into approval. And he said many of those in opposition had been “accusatory” and had used “foul language that reflects poorly” on them.
At that point, he said that those organized in opposition had sought to “mislead” other residents into joining their opposition. In attempting to make that illustration, he displayed a flyer prepared by the opposition group using the slogan, “Don’t Urbanize Upland.” He berated the language used in the flyer, seeking to undergird his message. This redounded against him, however, when members of the crowd informed him that the language in the flyer he was so critical of in actuality represented passages taken verbatim from the general plan update document itself. Befuddled at the revelation that he was finding fault with the contents of the plan he had just recommended in glowing terms, Richardson retreated from the podium, muttering something to the effect that he had been mistaken.
Darvel Allred said by his informal polling, based upon what residents participating in the city’s hearings for the plan update had stated on the record and his own interaction with residents, sentiment against the update was running “600 to 6.” Initially, in March and April, when the city first went public with it, Allred said “No one spoke out in favor of it. Everyone said the plan was bad or had bad parts in it.” In the intervening time, Allred said, a smattering of support for the plan has cropped up here and there, but the reality remains that in the Upland community, people “overwhelmingly were against” the plan. He said that the planning commission in recommending its passage was “ignoring the citizens. Why were they not representing the people? I would suggest the process is totally flawed. You are governing against the will of the majority of the people in Upland if you vote to approve this plan.”
Diane Fedele said it was her perception that city staff had proposed the general plan changes and the council was supporting them “to fix all the money problems in the city.” She said she “dislike[d] the various elements” of the plan and that they “would destroy the character of Upland.” She said the principles layered into the plan are ones that come “straight out of Agenda 21,” an internationalist imperative to consolidate residential districts into relatively compact urban areas proximate to commercial, professional, service, social, recreational and entertainment facilities. She said by accepting federal funding to implement elements of the plan, the city will give up its autonomy to the federal and state government.
Linnie Drolet said she felt “a little chastised” by city officials for being critical of the plan. “We’re supposed to go for the plan that all you guys know reeks of being pushed through to let as few people as possible know what was going on so you guys could do what you want to do,” she charged. She said she objected to the terminology being inculcated into the masses by the plan, for example. “Street signs are now ‘way finding,’” she said. “Agenda 21 has been trickling down for thirty years, and now the rubber is hitting the road.”
Alison Cutler said, “We residents do not want our children to buy a home in Upland if they are going to have to go around in a bus or riding a bike. That is impossible to do with a family. Everything in this plan is intended to limit us and control our freedoms. If you vote for this, there will be a recall. No one wants this with the exception of maybe four people. The plan is flawed. It makes us feel as if there is money behind it and that campaign contributions are influencing you.”
Cutler said that by delaying the meeting into late into the evening, the council was “thinning the herd,” i.e., outwaiting members of the public who had come to the meeting but had to leave before weighing in on the issue in order to get home and to bed to get up Tuesday morning to get to work or make sure their children get off to school.
Laurie Wilde said she was “concerned about the impact on water, roads, schools and police.” She said she had supported three of the current council members in their past campaigns for office but that if they voted to support the general plan redraft, she could not “in good conscience” support them again.
Carlos Rodriguez defended the plan from a water use and increased density standpoint, saying it puts into place “the most water efficient [use standards] in the United States.” He said old homes will be retrofitted to the “new housing standards” such that new homes will be 50 percent more efficient indoors and 50 percent more efficient outside with respect to landscaping.”
Richard Lopez said, “The reason I am against this plan like a lot of other residents is I don’t feel we have been informed. I haven’t read the 2,000 pages, but the residents need a voice. I feel sorry for the developers that want to come in here and make money, but there is a lot of skepticism and I just don’t feel comfortable with this plan.”
Virginia Shannon, while acknowledging that many of the people opposed to the plan “have something to say, the way you are putting your message across with so much rancor gets in the way of what you are trying to say.” She said she, too, feels a natural inclination to resist change, but, noting she has been a resident of the Upland community longer than most others, “Most of you wouldn’t have your homes” if she had surrendered to her compulsion to keep Upland exactly the way it was and had actively opposed development years ago.
She further criticized those taking a stand against low income housing, saying that “There needs to be different kinds of homes for different kinds of people. You don’t have to live in all of them.” Using smart phones, which she said she had not mastered or adjusted to, as an example, she said she, too, was challenged by the rapid pace of change afoot in the world but that her personal distastes for change did not obviate its inevitability or desirability to others. She said that she had “some faith in the plan, unlike some people that are very loud. We have gone through this and gone through this and gone through this, and it is time to move on.”
Rod McAuliffe, speaking in support of the plan, said, “When you are playing basketball, there comes a time when you have to stop dribbling. Stop dribbling the ball and shoot.”
He said that Zwack is an honorable man of integrity and that the community could trust in the document he had prepared.
Eric Gavin said, “To grow or not to grow: that is the question. Growth is a good thing. Reckless growth is a bad thing. Let’s grow in an intelligent way.” With regard to the words “smart growth,” Gavin asked, “Why is this term so evil?”
He implied that those opposed to the plan were, in their own right, political extremists in the same way they accused those of being in favor of the plan of being environmental extremists.
“Your opposition is not factual,” Gavin said in directly addressing those who had gone on record as being against the plan update as drafted, characterizing the organization opposing the plan as a “voting block” composed of “Tea Party” activists who are “anti-historical preservation, anti-climate change [theorists] and [engaged in] anti-environmentalism.” He said the opposition to the plan was indulging in “partisan politics. This is not a partisan body,” he said of the city council and then said of those opposed to the plan update, “Their goal is to divide and stop you from passing this plan.”
Councilwoman Carol Timm dismissed suggestions that her objectivity was compromised in any way by a conflict in her loyalties or that she and the other members of the council were embracing the plan out of any sort of venal motives. She flatly rejected charges that she was unduly influenced by political donations from developmental interests who stood to profit from the implementation of the new general plan or that her commitment to and work toward historical preservation in the city in some fashion resulted in a conflict of interest vis-à-vis the plan because elements of the plan promoted historical preservation.
Councilman Gino Filippi utilized his bully pulpit to question Zwack about specific issues raised by the plan update opponents and allow Zwack to sponge the bells of alarm over the plan and its provisions.
Councilwoman Debbie Stone said that passage of the general plan update would “put us in compliance with the law and give us a basis to work from.” She said the concerns about the plan raised by members of the community “had been addressed to my satisfaction. We have to work together to put Upland back together.”
Glen Bozar, who as mayor pro tem was presiding over the meeting in Mayor Ray Musser’s absence, indicated he was “taking a different look at the concerns” raised by many of the city’s residents.
He pointedly questioned Zwack at one point, extracting from him a reluctant acknowledgment that there was no legal mandate that the general plan contain a climate action plan element.
Bozar said he was uneasy about the “unintended consequences” of many aspects of the plan and that he was concerned that by incorporating the climate action plan into the document, the city was taking on responsibilities and liabilities it should not. “Mr. Zwack says it is a tool,” Bozar said. “I am absolutely convinced it is not mandated by law.” This would involve the city in a whole host of regulations and requirements that would have tremendous impact on, and implication for, the city, Bozar said. “When Upland gets involved in this climate action plan, we are going down that path,” he said. “I am convinced it [the climate action plan] should be removed.”
Bozar then explored the extent, or a portion thereof, of the authority granted to the development services director by the general plan. He referenced a provision in the document that gives the development services director authorization to make a determination about or otherwise resolve “ambiguity” with regard to zoning issues, or in the alternative, refer such questions to the planning commission. Instilling in the development services director that authority, Bozar suggested, had the effect of “removing oversight” from the city’s land use procedures.
“I have a real problem with giving one person that much authority,” Bozar said.
In other respects, Bozar said, the new general plan in specifying building, design, architectural and landscaping standards that were formerly considered the province of a landowner’s or homeowner’s discretion was getting “into the legal concept of alienation of property” and “treading” on constitutional and basic rights of the city’s residents and property owners. In making this point, he cited newly drafted “upper story setbacks on single family residences” and “garage design. You can no longer make a three car-wide driveway like I have,” he said. “We are encouraging the orientation on garage doors to be at 90 degrees to the street. We can’t have gated communities anymore. We are actually creating a giant homeowner’s association that has covenants, conditions and restrictions. We are getting into micromanaging regulatory standards. We are evaluating economic conditions. I don’t think that is what we are here for. We are making business go through hoops on regulatory processes. A a cit we should be trying to minimize the burden on businesses in the regulatory process but this does the opposite, in my opinion. We are going to keep on raising development fees. Circulation plans are required. With regard to parking, we are to have shared parking and are to reduce parking demands and to work toward improving bicycle transit mobility. I think we are asking for trouble doing that. There is a healthy cities concept in this plan that sys Upland has an abundance of bad food choices. I don’t think that is where we want to go. Health is between me, my doctor and my health care provider.”
Bozar’s was the lone vote against passing the general plan update. Timm, Stone and Filippi approved it.

Officer Marcus Pesquera, 24, the rookie officer who shot and killed the career criminal who shot and severely wounded his training officer as the two were on patrol in one of San Bernardino’s toughest neighborhoods last summer, this week was honored by California Governor Jerry Brown and California Attorney General Kamala Harris with the California Medal of Valor for his quick and life-saving action.
Brown and Harris presented the Medal of Valor to Pesquera.
Pesquera, who had graduated only seven weeks previously from the San Bernardino County sheriff’s training academy, and Gabriel Garcia, a six-year veteran who was serving as Pesquera’s training officer, were on patrol in the 1900 block of North Garner Avenue on San Bernardino’s Westside at 2 a.m. on August 22, 2014, when they approached a group of six people.
Garcia drew his gun as he approached the suspects and Pesquera followed suit. According to a police report on the incident, 38-year-old Alex Alvarado, who was armed with a Taurus .38 Special 5-shot revolver and a Ratmil AK-47 assault rifle, shot Garcia once in the head. Pesquera dived for cover and came up shooting, mortally wounding Alvarado in the exchange.
Orlando Cruz, then 21, Gonzalo Medina, then 21, and Jonathan Contreras, then 19, were arrested for their involvement in the deadly encounter. All three were charged with attempted murder on a police officer and last month accepted 15-year state prison plea deals.
Garcia, the son of a retired San Bernardino police captain, survived and is undergoing intense physical rehabilitative therapy. He began walking again last February.
According to Governor Brown, “Due to Officer Pesquera’s courage under fire, he quickly ended the suspect’s deadly assault, while simultaneously calling the situation in to the communications center. Officer Pesquera’s heroic actions allowed officers and medical personnel to safely and swiftly reach training officer Garcia and begin life-saving measures. The whole basis of any society is individuals who can act beyond their own particular interest and comfort and needs. Courage is still a fundamental pillar of our society.”
Alan Barcelona, president of the California State Law Enforcement Association and a member of the Medal of Valor Review Board, said, “Officer Pesquera demonstrated an extreme amount of valor and courage. What he experienced August 22, 2014, as a recent academy graduate and new to the job at SBPD, would shake up the most veteran of officers. He was under fire, his training officer was down and he relied on his courage and training to quickly put an end to the suspect’s assault. He is deserving of California’s highest public safety award.”
Recognized along with Pesquera on Monday was Sonora Police Department Officer Ryan D. Webb, who was also in a shootout in 2014.
Harris said Pesquera and Webb “like all men and women who wear the badge, do this work without any expectation of award or reward. They do it because they have taken a solemn duty to protect people they may never meet and people who may never know their names.”

The sheriff’s department has begged off on providing patrol, security and law enforcement services at the county hospital.
Instead, the county will extend its existing contract with the Colton Police Department for that service and will pay the city of Colton $2,703,419 to have the Colton Police Department oversee the safety and enforcement function at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center for the three-year period of October 1, 2015, through September 30, 2018.
The Arrowhead Regional Medical Center is the main campus of the county hospital. In order to maintain security and order and ensure safety, there is a requirement that a law enforcement agency with the power of arrest be available to coordinate with the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center’s security staff and handle any potentially dangerous situations,
According to William L. Gilbert, the director of the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, the agreement with Colton PD will allow for on-site law enforcement services at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC) to enhance security services provided by ARMC security staff. The agreement approved this week provides Arrowhead Regional Medical Center with a variety of law enforcement services specific to the needs of a medical facility. Depending on the security situation, law enforcement’s role will include enforcing public health orders; securing the perimeter of contaminated areas; securing health care facilities; controlling crowds; investigating scenes of suspected biological terrorism; as well as protecting the health and safety of employees, visitors and patients.
Beginning in 2010, the county turned to the Colton Police Department to provide on-site law enforcement services at the county hospital. Because of its location inside the Colton City Limits, the hospital is removed from jurisdictions where the sheriff’s department operates. The closest city using the sheriff’s department is Grand Terrace, but the patrol for that city is run out of the sheriff’s department Central Division at sheriff’s headquarters on Third Street east of Waterman Avenue in San Bernardino. The county could have established a substation on the hospital grounds for the sheriff’s department, but did not.
According to Gilbert, with the extensions from the 2010 contract with Colton PD set to expire late this month, there was an effort to interest the sheriff’s department in reassuming the duties at the hospital. In setting up the parameters by which their agency would agree to provide the service, sheriff’s department officials seemed to purposefully overrespond to the request for proposal, elevating the cost of switching back to the sheriff’s department for law enforcement at the hospital well beyond what Colton would charge for its presence at the facility.
“Based on the identified needs of Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, including the presence of sworn officers with the ability to detain and arrest on property, Colton PD and the county of San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department are the only two law enforcement agencies eligible to provide law enforcement services to ARMC,” Gilbert stated. “Arrowhead Regional Medical Center requested and received proposals only from these two vendors. A meeting was held with the sheriff’s department on July 21, 2015, to discuss and ensure clarity regarding the scope of services requested by ARMC. The proposal provided by the sheriff’s department included an extensive scope of work necessary for the sheriff’s department to support and respond immediately to ARMC, which was beyond the level of service requested by ARMC. Following the meeting with the sheriff’s department, it was determined that ARMC would pursue an agreement with the Colton PD, based on their proposal, scope of work and cost.”
Gilbert said “Colton PD law enforcement services will include four police officers on a rotating schedule for coverage 24 hours per day, seven days per week; a marked Colton PD patrol vehicle with the ARMC logo; and a police sergeant (20 hours per week) to provide supervision and coordination of all law enforcement activity.”

Two staffing changes, one subtle and another not-so-subtle, were made for two of county government’s most powerful men this week.
The county on September 15 promoted a field representative into the position of senior assistant to the chief of staff of the chairman of the board of supervisors. Simultaneously, it hired one of the county’s most aggressive political personages to serve as a key assistant to the county’s Fourth District supervisor.
On Tuesday the board voted to approve a contract with John Futch to provide support services to the Third District supervisor as deputy chief of staff, effective September 14, 2015, for an estimated annual cost of $93,273, which includes a salary of $76,609 and benefits of $16,664. Since March 26, 2013, Futch has served as Third District Supervisor James Ramos’ field representative for the Loma Linda, Mentone, Redlands, Yucaipa, and Grand Terrace communities. Futch holds a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in social science from Cal State University, San Bernardino. He has knowledge of the issues facing the Inland Valley. He has served in different capacities at Cal State University, San Bernardino and for the San Bernardino Community College District. Futch is to go to work as the right hand man of Phil Paule, Ramos’s chief of staff. Paule is described as a right-wing Republican. He was the district director for Congressman Darrell Issa and one of two Republican candidates for the California State Assembly in District 57 in 2012. For that reason, Ramos’s choice of him to head his staff after his 2012 victory over incumbent Third District Supervisor Neil Derry was perceived as a curious one, given Ramos’s Democratic Party affiliation. There was no clear consensus among local political observers as to the significance of Futch’s promotion to facilitate Paule’s management of Ramos’s office.
More surprising was Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman’s selection this week of Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner to serve as his part-time policy adviser during Hagman’s current term in office, running through to 2018.
For that assignment, Wapner will be paid an annual salary of $48,326 and benefits of $1,859.
Wapner’s hiring was presented as a late walk-on item to the board’s agenda this week, as an addition to the consent calendar.
There was considerable speculation as to the compatibility of Hagman and Wapner in the wake of Wapner’s hiring, not because of their differences but rather on account of their similarities. Both are classic alpha males who have functioned in the San Bernardino County political arena for a sustained period of time and are known and even feared in most quarters and disdained and even despised in others for their aggressive domination of the public forums they inhabit. Both are Republicans who have used slightly different formulas to obtain and stay in power. Hagman, a bail bondsman who scratched his way to the top of the Chino Hill political scene by running for city council and acceding to mayor before running successfully for the California Assembly, used his Republican Party affiliation as a stepping stone to office in the GOP leaning expanse in San Bernardino County’s extreme southwest corner and the swath of eastern Orange County and southwest Los Angeles County in which his former 55th Assembly District was located. As his ticket in Sacramento was about to expire last year as a result of term limits, he ousted and then replaced Robert Rego as the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee and from that position of strength utilized the fundraising capability open to him to defeat former Democratic Congresswoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod in the race for supervisor, despite her name recognition, power of incumbency as a congresswoman that offset his as an assemblyman, and the slight voter registration advantage Democrats held over Republicans in the Fourth District.
Wapner, a former police detective with the Ontario Police Department who retired on a service disability, bootstrapped his way into a position on the city council more than two decades ago and has remained in that position for 21 years. From time to time he has been a lightning rod for controversy, and has had a sometimes rocky relationship with his colleagues and other authority figures relating to issues of primacy and policy. An early element of his political success was his support by members of the city’s public safety employee unions. As Ontario has grown less and less Republican in its political orientation, he has relied more on his power of incumbency to raise money, to the point that his political war chest has rendered him virtually impervious to political challenge. This has emboldened him, and his A-personality traits, which have always been apparent, have intensified in recent years. These were never so prominently displayed as in the city of Ontario’s campaign to win back control of Ontario Airport from the city of Los Angeles, which through a joint powers agreement signed in 1967 took management control of the airport to build it from an aerodrome serving fewer than 200,000 passengers per year to one that had 7.2 million pass through its gates in 2007. Ontario deeded the airport to Los Angeles in 1985 and, after ridership at the facility dropped off with the economic downturn that hit in full in 2008, Wapner prompted the Ontario City Council to wage near warfare in getting the airport back through a highly vituperative informational campaign that accused Los Angeles officials of seeking to ruin the Inland Empire’s economy by purposefully mismanaging the airport. That campaign was accompanied by a lawsuit.
With Wapner increasing the tension level with Los Angeles on a regular basis by means of the highly accusatory and insulting statements about the megalopolis he engaged in, a group of political representatives from the Inland Empire including local, state and federal officials, last year opened up a secret back channel of communication with Los Angeles officials, which entirely bypassed Wapner. Endeavoring to prevent Wapner from learning of the existence of the secret dialogue taking place, those participating in it, including Hagman, sought to lower the level of rhetoric and vituperation. On an official track, with Wapner pushing Ontario to pursue his aggressive strategy, Los Angeles dug in its heels, refusing to sell the airport back to Ontario for less than $450 million. By keeping Wapner out of the loop, a backroom deal was eventually worked out by which Los Angeles agreed to let go of the airport to a joint powers agency dominated by Ontario for $150 million in upfront cash, the payment of another $60 million to purchase assets technically belonging to Los Angeles that are in place at Ontario Airport and which are crucial or indispensable to its operations, and Ontario’s assumption of $60 million in bonded indebtedness relating to the financing on past improvements to the airport. In this way, keeping Wapner out of the private negotiations saved the city of Ontario some $180 million.
Hagman acknowledged his and Wapner’s status as alpha males and that their mutual need to dominate the situations in which they involve themselves could be a recipe for a clash. “We’ll play it out and give it a shot and see what happens,” Hagman said. “I have other alpha males and other elected officials on my staff, [West Covina City Councilman]Mike [Spence] and [Chino Hills Councilman] Ed [Graham]. They all present the advantage of knowing the issues in this district and area and what they entail. Alan has more than twenty years experience as an elected official. He knows the challenges facing government and putting policies in place. He is capable of looking at not just the political application but selecting what is the best method for achieving a goal that is good for all of his constituents. If I have a weakness it is in handling the details. I’m a vision guy and I need people who can take a policy and implement it. I have discussed my agenda with Alan and he is on board with it. If on something he has a disagreement for whatever reason and he wants to have a debate on it and as a result we decide to do something a little different or I am convinced to make a change, I’m alright with that. If he tells me the emperor is not wearing clothes, I’ll listen. Sometimes one plus one does equal three.”
Hagman said that in any case, he is not relegating Wapner to a role of dealing with the public, where Wapner’s abrasive manner might represent a liability, but rather in directly advising him. “I hired him to do very in-depth work on policy issues because he is already immersed in issues involving the Fourth District. I am a guy who likes to set goals and have people work toward achieving them. I think there is a real possibility of Alan doing just that. He knows how to deal with bureaucracies and how to get through layers of different agencies and their staff. I think this will be something that will benefit the Fourth District and the entire county.”

As a Republican, I was, predictably, this week tuned in to the Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. I am, of course, bound by the 11th Commandment, which prevents me from speaking ill of another Republican. But I can make a few observations…
Carly Fiorina held her own, comporting herself with dignity and finesse. She stood up to Donald Trump, but did not overdo it. She captured my imagination for a moment or two, which I did not see coming. She was a little stiff in some of her presentation, I thought, as if she had perhaps over-prepared. But I can imagine her living in the White House…
Marco Rubio, despite looking too young to be president, displayed a command of national issues. He hit a note of independent zealotry when he said, and I quote: “I’ve figured out very quickly that the political establishment in Washington, D.C. in both political parties is completely out of touch with the lives of our people.”
Ted Cruz was very measured and very well informed, it seemed to me, in his responses to the questions he was asked. And he maintained dignity and decorum as well, not trashing anyone else…
Donald Trump seemed to be the center of attention of the others, who were dead set on putting him in his place. I must admit, I like some of the things Trump says, but I am not happy with the way he says them. I’m an immigrant. I wonder what he would say about me…
I wish he would get away from criticizing people on the basis of their physical appearance…
Jeb Bush at least tried this time to grapple with Donald Trump, gamely engaging him on a couple of occasions and trying to give the impression he isn’t ready to back down…
Chris Christie took the novel approach of criticizing Donald Trump and Carly Fiorino for fighting over who has the most impressive business career, directing everyone’s attention to “the 55-year-old construction worker out in that audience tonight who doesn’t have a job, who can’t fund his child’s education” who he said “could [sic] care less about your careers.”
John Kasich didn’t say anything that I find particularly memorable as I am writing this…
Rand Paul, the biggest libertarian in the group, said he would not trust Donald Trump with a decision about going to nuclear war, which might resonate with many who see the billionaire as the sort who shoots from the hip and asks questions later. Still, he did nothing to really distinguish himself from the others, except perhaps, when he took a stand against foreign military interventions…
Scott Walker, whose ideas on keeping the size and reach of government in line I like, had a clever line in which he characterized Donald Trump as “an apprentice.”
Ben Carson is my choice to be our next president. He did well, I thought, in not descending into a mudfest. He came across as dignified and presidential…
Mike Huckabee was a lot like Ben, not wanting to get into a knife fight with other Republicans. You have to admire that…

Artifacts examined by archaeologists suggest that the area in and around the city of Rialto was settled prior to 1500. What is believed to have been a small band of Serrano Indians were the first inhabitants of the area near the Cajon Basin River, in an area bounded by Route 66 on the south and Baseline on the north. Artifacts indicate that the Serrano Indians lived in the Rialto area between 1500 and 1800, having broken off from the Serranos that lived in the Mojave Desert and in the Deep Creek area for hundreds of years.
Records indicate that in 1769 the King of Spain awarded portions of this area to selected Spanish Dons who had gained favor within the Court of Cortez. After this date, we know that Spanish Missionaries moved into the area, enslaving the locals and forcing them to the main missions during that era.
No trace is left to help us discern what happened to the small group of Serranos who inhabited the area prior to the arrival of the Spanish, but it is believed that because the tribe was so small that they were either absorbed into the Cahuillas, just before Spanish Mercenaries discovered the valley, or were perhaps killed off by the Mormons after they settled in the San Bernardino area. The tribe numbered around 40 when they were first discovered.
In 1842, the Lugo family was granted Rancho San Bernardino – a holding of 37,700 acres-which encompassed Rialto. In 1851, the Mountain Family purchased part of the Lugo family’s Rancho San Bernardino, and claimed several other portions of the bench to the west, which later became known as Rialto.
This claim was later disallowed in significant part by the United States Government, and was amended in such a way that it permitted the Mountain Family a much smaller portion of the initial purchase.
Rialto stands on a “bench” formed by the debris of glacial actions, storms, and floods pouring from Lytle Creek Canyon. The bench creates the eastern boundary of a plateau enriched with the vegetation typical to any non-irrigated and non-cultivated semi-desert land. The bench is an outline of the Bunker Hill-San Jacinto Fault, which branches from the San Andreas Fault.
Today, the bench goes unnoticed due to paved highways and suburban homes. During Rialto’s settling period around 1850, settlers built their homes below the bench, known as the second bench.
In 1854, many families, looking for more land than was available in Los Angeles, began to move into the area and developed Rialto into a haven for vineyards, citrus groves and ranches. Many of the first residents were Portuguese, who had brought a certain variety of Muscat Grapes from the old country with them and planted the cuttings. As the grape vines flourished, they would take cuttings from the plants and sell them to families in other areas to cultivate.
Citrus farmers took notice of the success of vintners in the area and tried to repeat their success on the inexpensive land in Rialto, and extensive orange groves were planted there. As it turned out, the soil of Rialto wasn’t quite as good for citrus growth as some other surrounding areas, but it fit a farmer’s needs and was in some ways better than other areas. One factor that contributed to the planting of oranges was the easy access to water. Another factor that contributed to the growth of oranges was the frequent winds. During the severe freeze of 1913, the winds kept the trees in Rialto groves from being damaged. Other surrounding areas were not so fortunate.
A group of Kansas Methodists, headed by the Reverend T. C. Miller, arrived in 1887, seeking a new college site. Although the college was never built, it was the Methodists who started the town of Rialto. The name Rialto was chosen for the city as a type of homage to the Rialto Bridge located in Venice, Italy. A similar bridge was built on the now famous Route 66 across the Cajon Wash area. The bridge has long since disappeared and was replaced with a new structure. Nevertheless, the first bridge became Rialto’s city slogan: “The Bridge of Progress.”
In 1887 a railroad connector line was built between San Bernardino and Pasadena by the Santa Fe Railroad. Along the line, townsites were located every 2,600 yards and by the fall of that year over 25 new towns were being built. This same year the Semitropic Land and Water Company was formed to organize the purchase and selling of real estate, water, and water rights and privileges.
In the fall of 1888, the first school in Rialto was built and Brooke School District was formed. From 1889 until 1920, the Brooke School District was in continuous operation. The prominent Rialto Trapp family bought the first school house in 1921, remodeled the building, and members of the family resided in it until it was destroyed by fire. The Rialto School District, today known as the Rialto Unified School District, was formed in 1891. The staff consisted of two teachers and a principal with separate play areas for the boys and girls.
In 1901 a cemetery was established in the city. It is administered by the city treasurer.
The Rialto Chamber of Commerce was established in 1907. The chamber incorporated in the spring of 1911, at which point the city’s population had grown to 1,500 with 40 businesses and a local newspaper. The election results on October 31 of the same year were 135 for the incorporation of the city and 72 against.
Foothill Boulevard was repaired in 1913 and later became U.S. Route 66, a section of the U.S. Highway System. In 1914 Los Angeles’ Pacific Electric Railway completed its San Bernardino Line through the city of Rialto, with a junction at Riverside Avenue for the Riverside Line. Today the tracks above First Street are a part of the Union Pacific and the Pacific Electric depot on Riverside Avenue is a restaurant.
A fire in the 1920s swept through and destroyed many of the buildings in the downtown area.
In his book The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler has some of the action take place in Rialto, though he refers to the town as “Realito.”
Rialto’s population growth had increased to 3,156 by 1950. In 1956 the population soared to 15,359. By 1964 it showed an increase to 23,290 and 33,500 in 1978. Rialto is 4 miles wide and 8.5 miles long. Rialto’s population grew from 80,000 in 1994 to over 91,873 in 2000. Today it is the sixth largest of San Bernardino County’s 24 incorporated cities with a population of 101,910
An adobe building from the early 19th Century which was used for many purposes over the years is the oldest building still standing in Rialto and stands restored in Bud Bender Park.

Four San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies who distinguished themselves through quick-witted and intrepid action more than two years ago were recently awarded the Congressional Badge of Bravery and will be decorated with those awards next week.
Sheriff’s detectives Larry Lopez and Justin Musella along with deputy Daniel Rosa were recognized by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for their efforts while under fire to save their fellow deputies Jeremiah MacKay and Alex Collins during a confrontation with renegade former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner in the San Bernardino Mountains on February 12, 2013. Sheriff’s deputy Arturo Ramirez is being honored for his instantaneous reaction in shepherding five people to safety after they were trapped in a burning apartment in Victorville on June 15, 2013.
Lopez, Musella and Rosa’s heroics came near the climax of Dorner’s ten-day rampage at various locations in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and lastly San Bernardino counties before it came to a close with his suicide by a gunshot within a burning cabin near Big Bear.
Dorner’s murderous spree was triggered by his discipline and firing by the Los Angeles Police Department under conditions he considered unfair and prejudicial.
He sought to exact revenge by killing Monica Quan, the 28-year-old daughter of former LAPD captain Randal Quan, who essentially served as Dorner’s representative during an LAPD board of review which ultimately resulted in Dorner’s firing. Dorner killed Monica Quan and her fiancé, 27-year-old Keith Lawrence, in Lawrence’s Kia Optima outside their condominium in Irvine on February 3, 2013.
On February 7, 2013, two LAPD officers assigned to a protection detail for one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s commanding officers believed to be targeted by Dorner closed in upon Dorner after 1 a.m. as he was driving his dark gray 2005 Nissan Titan pickup truck. Dorner stopped, emerged from the vehicle and fired a rifle at them, grazing the head of one officer.
Eluding the two Los Angeles police officers, Dorner drove to neighboring Riverside, where at around 1:35 a.m., he encountered two Riverside Police Department officers in their patrol unit waiting at a red traffic light. He opened fire on them without warning, wounding one who survived the ordeal and killing the other, officer Michael Crain. Dorner drove directly to San Diego, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to steal a boat. In what might have been a ruse to throw those tracking him off his trail, he told the boat’s captain that he was intent on getting to Mexico.
Later that day, Dorner had driven to Big Bear Lake, where he set out to a remote area by means of a fire road. After his truck became disabled, he set it afire. The truck was found almost immediately by a local resident who came upon it by chance.
Over the next four-and-a-half days, an intensive manhunt in the area around Big Bear ensued. On February 12 Dorner attempted to carjack a vehicle shortly after noon. At that point, officers from numerous agencies responded. Among the first of those to pour into the area were deputies Jeremiah MacKay and Alex Collins. Dorner mortally wounded MacKay and seriously wounded Collins. With Dorner barricaded inside a cabin where he had a vantage over the area where MacKay and Collins lay hovering between life and death, Lopez, Musella and Rosa devised a stratagem by which Musella and Rosa threw smoke canisters into the area between the cabin and where MacKay and Collins were downed. Under the cover of this smokescreen and Musella’s steady stream of gunfire at the cabin, Rosa and Lopez charged forward to lift MacKay and Collins and carry them away, ultimately loading them onto a helicopter which airlifted them to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where detective MacKay was pronounced dead.
Ultimately, Dorner perished in the cabin, apparently at his own hand, after the structure was set afire by pyrotechnic tear gas canisters shot into it.
Four months later, on June 15, 2013, at around 2 a.m., a fire, which was later determined to have been caused by faulty wiring, broke out in an apartment located at 14243 Rodeo Drive in Victorville. A call went out and deputy Arturo Ramirez arrived well ahead of the responding fire company. Residents of the complex told Ramirez that people were trapped inside one of the upstairs units. He leapt up the stairs two at a time and into the smoke-filled apartment, encountering a woman, holding a 5-month-old infant, and an 11-year-old girl who was clutching the hand of a toddler. Ramirez moved them out of the apartment to safety.
Thereupon, he was told another girl was yet inside the apartment. From his vantage point, Ramirez could see a pair of tiny palms pounding on the front window to the apartment, and he again raced inside, where he found seven-year-old Nevaeh Nemes and guided her out of the conflagration.
Firefighters arrived just two minutes later. It took them nearly an hour to fully douse the flames.
“I am extremely proud of detective Larry Lopez, detective Justin Musella, deputy Danny Rosa and deputy Arturo Ramirez,” sheriff John McMahon said. “Each one of them showed extraordinary bravery. It is truly an honor to be a part of their ceremony as they receive the Congressional Badge of Bravery for their selfless acts. These deputies are an example of the honorable men and women we have working for our department.”

SAN BERNARDINO—Larry Hite, 59, of Riverside was sentenced September 11 to state prison for the 1986 murder of Nancy Klinger.
San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Jefferson Powell sentenced Hite to 25 years to life in prison and ordered him to pay $10,000 in restitution to the victim-witness assistance program.
In July 2015, a jury found Hite guilty of killing Klinger. This case was prosecuted by San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Denise Harana-Yoakum, who is assigned to the Cold Case Unit–a collaborative team consisting of two San Bernardino County deputy district attorneys and two San Bernardino County sheriff’s detectives.
“Thanks to the hard work of our cold case unit and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, we were able to solve this case and bring the family some sense of closure after all these years,” district attorney Mike Ramos said. “As for Nancy, the victim in this case, we were able to obtain the only thing we could, justice.”
On August 29, 1986, 28-year-old Nancy Klinger left her three children with a babysitter so she could meet up with Larry Hite, whom she had met while tending bar in Riverside.
According to Harana-Yoakum, Hite had told Klinger that he worked as an undercover investigator for the sheriff’s department.
“He said he was going to bust a black market baby ring and she could assist him by posing as his wife undercover,” Harana-Yoakum said. “He promised her she would get paid for the job. He had also identified himself as an undercover officer to others, even showing a badge.”
Hite was never employed by the sheriff’s department of any law enforcement agency.
That night, after dropping her children off, Klinger never returned.
Her skeletal remains, which were identified through dental records dating back to 1986, were found nearly two years later in a dirt field in a remote area of East Highland.
According to Harana-Yoakum, when investigators recovered the victim’s body in 1988, they were unable to determine a definitive cause of death due to decomposition.
During the initial investigation, detectives focused on Hite as a potential suspect but were unable to link him to Klinger’s death. Hite eventually relocated to Arizona, where he was convicted for assaulting two other women. Following his release from an Arizona prison, Hite relocated to Riverside.
Members of the cold case unit reopened the case in 2009 and began examining the evidence and conducting follow-up interviews with Larry Hite. Eventually, they were able to gain a confession from Hite and link him to the murder of Nancy Klinger.
“For every unsolved murder there is a victim without justice and a killer amongst us,” Harana-Yoakum said. “Today Nancy finally gets her justice and the defendant will no longer walk amongst us.”
Prior to sentencing, Harana-Yoakum read the following victim impact statement on behalf of Nancy’s son, Douglas McGraw, who did not attend the sentencing: “I can’t explain how hard it was for me and my sister to sit through the trial. Being in the same courtroom listening to all the things my mom went through before he murdered her hurts me. During the trial I saw him smile, laugh and joke while I sat quietly there listening about the last moments of my mom’s life and how her blood was on his clothes. He showed no remorse. He isn’t sorry for murdering her.
“It scares me to know that he could go free one day. It would be unimaginable for another family to have to sit in a courtroom and feel the pain we feel,” Harana-Yoakum continued in quoting McGraw. “He belongs behind bars for the rest of his life and maybe the rest of us can sleep at night, knowing he is in a place where he can’t harm any other women and no one else’s life has to be ruined. I pray that you see he has no business on the street and belongs behind bars for the rest of his life and it is clear that he has done evil things too many times. Please, Your Honor, do not let him ruin anyone else’s life. He is a real life monster.”