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Sentinel 10-09-15

San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux has secured a four-year labor agreement with the union representing the county’s firefighters.
In a report to the county board of supervisors from Devereaux and county fire chief Mark Hartwig dated October 6, it is stated that “Representatives of county fire, under direction of the board of directors, met and conferred with representatives of the San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters, IAFF, Local 935, AFL-CIO, CLC in an attempt to reach a successor labor agreement covering wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment for employees in the firefighters unit. The proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) includes the following:
• Restructure the salary schedule for all classifications in this unit effective October 17,
2015;
• Establish a $200 monthly paramedic stipend effective October 17, 2015;
• Provide a two percent across-the-board wage increase effective October 15, 2016, a two percent  across-the-board wage increase effective October 14, 2017, and a two percent  across-the-board wage increase effective October 13, 2018; and
• Establish a $50 monthly company officer certification differential effective October 14, 2017, and increase the differential to $100 per month effective October 13, 2018.”
According to Deveraux and Hartwig, “The union notified the county that the firefighters unit ratified the proposed memorandum of understanding. Therefore, the proposed memorandum of understanding will, if approved, constitute a successor labor agreement between county fire and the union covering wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment through October 11, 2019.”
According to Devereaux “The total increased ongoing costs for this agreement are estimated to be $1.7 million in 2015-16 (partial year funding) of which $718,402 is estimated discretionary general funding (net county cost), $3.4 million in 2016-17 of which $910,228 is estimated discretionary general funding (net county cost), $4.9 million in 2017-18 of which $1.1 million is estimated discretionary general funding (net county cost), and $6.4 million in 2018-19 of which $979,421 is discretionary general funding (net county cost). The total cost for the four year period of this agreement is estimated at $16.5 million. Estimates of the use of discretionary general funding (net county cost) are based on the fire protection district’s cash flows and revenue projections through 2018-19.”
San Bernardino County currently employs 385 firefighters. Through the San Berrnardino County Local Formation Commission, applications are being processed to have the county fire division take over operation of the San Bernardino municipal fire department and the fire department in Twentynine Palms, which is currently operated by the water district there. Upon those takeovers, the firefighters with those agencies will become county employees and members of San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters, IAFF, Local 935, AFL-CIO, CLC . At present the city of San Bernardino employs 38 firefighters, who receive pay and benefits superior to those provided to county firefighters. There are five firefighters with the Twentynine Palms Fire Department. They are compensated at a scale below that provided to county firefighters.

Anthony “Butch” Araiza worked for the West Valley Water District for 52 years, the last thirty as its general manager, until he retired in June.
This November, three of the positions on the West Valley Water District’s board are up for election. Two of the incumbents on the board, Rafael Trujillo, who was recently appointed to his position, and Alan Dyer, are vying to remain in place. Another incumbent, Betty Gosney, is not.
Araiza has joined with Don Olinger, Greg Young, Michael Taylor and Manny Gonzalez in seeking a berth on the board.
Given Araiza’s past visibility and name recognition among the water district’s voters, his command of the issues facing the district and his knowledge of where some past political skeletons are buried, he appears to have a leg up on capturing one of the three seats at stake in November. In an effort to blunt that perceived advantage, an effort was launched this week to brand Araiza’s current political ambition as criminal.
In particular, it has been insinuated, Araiza seeking a position on the board of the water district so soon after he left its employ may be a violation of Government Code Section 87046.3.
In a memorandum to the district’s board of directors dated October 8 from Araiza’s successor as general manager, Thomas J. Crowley, and the district’s legal counsel, Gerald W. Eagans, the subject is broached by calling for the board to take a vote on whether to “Refer to the attorney general and appoint special counsel to pursue the matter of whether the ex-general manager of the district is in compliance with the local one-year ban of separation of Government Code Section 87406.3.”
The memo goes on to note “This item has been added to the agenda at the request of a board member.”
Furthermore, the memo states that “Anthony Araiza retired as the general manager of the district effective June 10, 2015. As the ex-general manager of the district, Mr. Araiza is subject to certain restrictions on his political activities after leaving the district’s employment. One such restriction is Government Code Section 87406.3 which prohibits Mr. Araiza for a one year period after his retirement from being paid to communicate with the district in an attempt to influence certain actions or proceedings.”
An attachment to the memo was the Fair Political Practices Commission’s summary of the restrictions placed upon former public officials with regard to lobbying or communicating with the agency that they recently led or were employed by. “In the event the board determines to further investigate whether Mr. Araiza is violating the post-employment restrictions, this matter will be referred to the attorney general and special counsel to pursue the matter.”
Nowhere in the Fair Political Practices tractate, however, does it deal directly with the circumstance pertaining to Araiza, that is, a retired employee seeking election to a board position.
According to the FPPC, “The local one-year ban prohibits specified officials, for one year after leaving local government office or employment, from representing any other person, for compensation, by appearing before or communicating with their former agency in an attempt to influence the agency’s decisions in an administrative or legislative action, whether quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial, or any action involving a permit, license, contract, or transaction involving the sale or purchase of property or goods.”
The closest the FPPC summary comes to indicating that Araiza or someone in a similar circumstance might be precluded from serving as an elected official with an agency he or she was employed by within one year of leaving the employment of that agency is this passage:
“The one-year ban applies to appearances and communications made within 12 months of permanently leaving local office or employment. An appearance or communication includes all of the following:
• Conversing by telephone or in person.
• Corresponding with in writing or by electronic communication.
• Attending a meeting.
• Delivering or sending any communication.”
By the most far-reaching interpretation of that language, it would thus seem Araiza would not be allowed to serve on the board until sometime after June 11, 2016, since he would presumably be communicating with the others on the board as a consequence of serving on the board himself. Yet, a more narrow interpretation would hold that the ban would not apply to him since in his capacity as a board member he would not be, in the language of Government Code Section 87406.3 itself, seeking to “act as agent or attorney for, or otherwise represent, for compensation, any other person.”
By this interpretation, Government Code Section 87406.3 merely prohibits a former official from being paid to lobby his former agency and does not restrict him or her from seeking election to its governing board or serving on that governing board if elected to it.
There are examples within San Bernardino County of former government employees retiring and then being elected, or seeking to be elected, to positions leading the entity they formerly worked for. Rancho Cucamonga Mayor Dennis Michael was Rancho Cucamonga’s fire chief prior to his successful run for city council. He was subsequently elected mayor. Stephen Dunn, who retired as Upland city manager in June 2014, ran unsuccessfully for the Upland City Council in the November 2014 election. No efforts on the basis of Government Code Section 87406.3 to prevent either Michael or Dunn from running were made and no effort to prevent Michael from serving as a city council member citing Government Code Section 87406.3 was employed after he assumed office.
West Valley Water District currently provides drinking water to customers in portions of Rialto, Colton, Fontana, Bloomington, and portions of the unincorporated area of San Bernardino County, and a portion of the city of Jurupa Valley in Riverside County.
Since 2003, the entirety of the current as well as past boards were highly supportive of Araiza as he led a legal and administrative battle against Fontana Water, which is owned by El Monte-based San Gabriel Valley Water Company, for its practice of pumping far more water out of the Rialto Colton Basin than was allotted to it in a 1961 water adjudication by which several of the region’s water companies and agencies are mandated to share local water resources.

Araiza did not allow himself to be pulled into the fray brought on by the suggestions that in his effort to transition from being an employee of the district to being one of its political leaders he had run afoul of the law. Fond of recollecting that “I started out digging ditches and mowing lawns,” Araiza said “I am running because I’ve cared about this district for over five decades and I want to see it thrive. I want to make sure that the district continues to provide a high quality of service and a secure water supply.”

Thursday night, the West Valley Water District, in a split 3-2 vote, called for the California Attorney General and/or special counsel to look into whether Government Code Section 87406.3 indeed applies to Araiza. What has been suggested is that though Araiza is not being directly paid to represent anyone or any company before the board, among the donors to his board campaign fund are entities that have had dealings with the district, rendering his political efforts out of compliance with Government Code Section 87406.3.

Despite its $146 million price tag, including $29 million in construction cost overruns, the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto sustained an undetermined degree of damage, likely in the neighborhood of $300,000, when a rare summer rainstorm caused flooding in the facility’s kitchen and laundry areas because of a faulty roof.
The defects in the roof persisted despite representations made by the county last year that the project had reached completion and was ready for occupancy in February 2014.
The High Desert experienced severe rain and thunder-storms on July 18, 2015, which continued for a 24-hour period. The rain and thunder-storms resulted in major flooding and other storm-related problems throughout the region. “Upon conclusion of the storm event, an inspection of the construction-related areas [at the detention center] indicated a significant amount of water damage had occurred in the kitchen and laundry facilities,” Carl R. Alban, the director of the county’s architectural and engineering division told the board of supervisors this week. “This damage was a direct result of the drainage of water from the new roofing to the existing deteriorated roofing that was under construction.”
Alban’s disclosure that the roof was yet being worked on, some 16 months after the county had declared to the state that it was completed and ready for occupancy further throws into question the problematic history of the project, which was steeped in scandal from the outset and plagued by mismanagement in its execution.
The county bought what had previously been known as Maranatha Prison, a 706-inmate capacity privately owned and run facility located on 9438 Commerce Way in Adelanto, from the Moreland Family Trust in April 2005. Shortly thereafter it was learned that former California Assemblyman Brett Granlund, who was serving as a lobbyist for the county, represented the Moreland Family Trust on the deal. After obtaining it, the county resolved to add 1,392 new beds to render it into the second largest capacity detention facility run by the county, behind the 3,347-bed West Valley Detention Facility in Rancho Cucamonga.

In March 2008 the board of supervisors approved the submittal of a proposal to the State Correction Standards Authority requesting available funding of up to $100,000,000 to cover 75 percent of the cost to make the expansion and undertake renovations to make it code compliant. Two months later the county was conditionally awarded the requested $100 million for the expansion, having achieved first ranking on the list of public entities to be conditionally awarded funds available under a state detention facility financing law, AB900. A string attached to the granting of the funding, that the facility be operational by February 1, 2014, would result in a rush to complete its various stages after the board of supervisors, in July 2010, gave conceptual approval to the project and assumed various obligations relating to it.
The county held a bidding competition that fall and in December 2010 awarded a $90,951,937 contract to Bellevue-Washington-based Lydig Construction as the low bidder, after making a finding that the bids received from S.J. Amorosa Construction Co., Inc. of Costa Mesa, California and Flintco of Folsom, California were non-responsive.
Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, Incorporated was originally given a $4,466,000 contract to provide architectural service on the project.
Jacobs Engineering, formerly known as Carter & Burgess, was given a contract to serve as engineers on the undertaking.
The overall project cost at that time was put at $120,419,790, which included a ten percent contingency.
The construction bill on the project was originally slated at $90,951,937, but after a total of 29 change orders and contract amendments, the construction price alone zoomed to $120,419,790, just shy of $30 million more than it was originally projected to cost. Moreover, the total price tag on the project, including engineering, architectural, licensing and inspection costs, reached $145,451,910, which was $25.45 million more than the $120 million projected to be the project’s overall price, including the contingency.
The county exacerbated the circumstance, pressing for Lydig to complete the expansion by January 31, 2014, as it faced losing $100 million in state funding. This impatience on the county’s part led to Alban and other county officials prompting the board of supervisors to approve a series of hodge-podge, stopgap and improvisational change orders and up the payments to Lydig. A contingent of prisoners were present in the facility in February 2014 and photo opportunities were provided to the press to show off the county’s most recently “finished” capital improvement, even as construction crews were engaged on other portions of the complex. Indeed, in March 2014, billing on the 27th cost overrun on the project was received and ratified by the board of supervisors.
Only after the project was “done,” did county officials acknowledge problems with undertaking, when the board of supervisors on April 22, 2014 authorized legal action against Jacobs Engineering as well as and Hellmuth, Obata, & Kassabum, retaining the law firm of Allen Matkins Leck Gamble to represent it with an initial $250,000 retainer. In December 2014, it added another $200,000 to Allen Matkins Leck Gamble’s retainer. The actual filing of a suit was held in abeyance while Allen Matkins Leck Gamble and county representatives sought to negotiate with the two firms a settlement short of litigation that would be acceptable to the board of supervisors. After burning through $182,000 of that retainer, Allen Matkins Leck Gamble was making what was deemed insufficient progress toward having Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum and Jacobs acknowledge any responsibility for the overruns. In May 2015, the county sued the architecture firm and the engineering firm.
The unexpected rain this summer and the damage it did to the detention center sheds further discredit on the county department of architecture and engineering. In his report to the board of supervisors this week, Alban stated that the project was not yet completed in July of this year, sixteen months after representations were made that the project was finished and after the county’s and state’s taxpayers had spent $25.45 million in excess of the $90,951,937 initially allotted to finish the project.
Work on the facility’s Unit 1 had been completed prior to the rainstorm, Alban indicated. But other work was ongoing when the downpour ensued, he said.
In a report to the board of supervisors dated August 11, Alban stated, “In March 2015, at the High Desert Detention Center, work began on the replacement swamp coolers and roofing in existing Housing Unit 1 and the administration building. The work in Housing Unit 1 has been completed, and approximately half of the work has been completed in the administration building. The roof work over the kitchen and laundry areas was in progress and temporary roofing was in place adjacent to the new roofing,” Alban said, when the rain came, resulting in what he characterized as “a significant amount of water damage… in the kitchen and laundry facilities. This damage was a direct result of the drainage of water from the new roofing to the existing deteriorated roofing that was under construction.” In conjunction with the county’s risk management division, Alban said, American Technologies, Inc. was brought in to perform “emergency remediation work on July 23rd. It is the intent of A&E [architecture & engineering] to solicit a proposal from American Technologies, Inc for the repair of the damage thus returning the facility to its pre-damage condition.”
On August 11, Alban told the board of supervisors that some “repairs have been completed and the facility is back in operation,” though he said “plywood barriers have been installed to enable the kitchen and laundry to resume limited operations and to provide a moderate level of security. These barriers are temporary in nature and are not suited for long term exposure to the elevated moisture of the kitchen environment.” At Alban’s recommendation, the board authorized purchase orders, in a total amount not to exceed $300,000, for the emergency repairs.
This week, Alban told the board of supervisors, “Working with the county department of risk management, American Technologies, Inc. began the emergency remediation work on July 23rd. Following completion of the remediation work, American Technologies, Inc. began the repair-related construction the week of August 17. The repairs have been completed and the facility is back in full operation.
Alban said whatever amount of the $300,000 emergency authorization that has been paid to American Technologies, Inc. “will come from the 2015-16 Minor Capital Improvement Program budget, with potential reimbursement from the county’s insurance carriers.”
Alban accordingly recommended that the board of supervisors “terminate the finding originally made by the board that the rain damage created an emergency.” The board complied

.

The county this week extended by five years and seventeen days the time a meat packing plant will be permitted to maintain its ongoing operations on county owned property in the former Chino Agricultural Preserve.
On October 6, the board of supervisors approved an amendment to its lease agreement with American Beef Packers, Inc. to extend the term from October 15, 2015 to October 31, 2020 for 34.77 acres of county-owned dairy land and improvements in Ontario for total revenue in the amount of $314,947.
According to Terry W. Thompson, the director of the San Bernardino County Real Estate Services Department, “On May 18, 1993, utilizing funds made available to the county under the provisions of Proposition 70, the county purchased a 34.77 acre dairy, which included a 3,050 square foot single family residence and a 3,275 square foot single family residence, located on Schaefer Avenue in Ontario. The dairy has been leased continually to two tenants, including American Beef Packers, since 1993, with the exception of a two-year period from December 2008 to October 2010, during which time, the dairy remained vacant and unleased.”
The county paid $2.2 million for the property, located at 7777 Schaefer Avenue, the Sentinel has learned. The county made the purchase under the auspices of California Proposition 70, or the Wildlife, Coastal, and Park Land Conservation Act of 1988, which was approved by voters on June 7, 1988 and authorized a $776 million general obligation bond to provide funds for the “acquisition, development, rehabilitation, protection, or restoration of park, wildlife, coastal, and natural lands in California including lands supporting unique or endangered plants or animals.”
According to Thompson, “On November 16, 2010, the board of supervisors approved a three-year lease, with one two-year option to extend the term with American Beef Packers for the 34.77 acre dairy, including the two residences, for use in producing beef cattle. Loss of dairy equipment, due to vandalism and theft during the period of the vacancy, precluded the use of the property as a dairy. The original term of the lease was from October 15, 2010 to October 14, 2013. In the five years since the lease was originally approved, the board has approved one amendment which extended the term from October 15, 2013 to October 14, 2015.”
Over the last two years, American Beef Packers was leasing the property at the bargain basement price of $51,000 per year, i.e., $102,000 from October 2013 until this month.
American Beef Packers signaled to the county’s real estate services department it wanted to renew the lease and remain on the property.
According to Thompson, “The real estate services department conducted a market survey of comparable leased dairy property in San Bernardino County and determined that the rent should be increased to more accurately reflect current market conditions. This new lease agreement provides for the continued use by American Beef Packers of 34.77 acres of county-owned dairy land, which includes two residences at 7777 and 7849 Schaefer Avenue in Ontario, from October 15, 2015 to October 31, 2020 [and] provides for an increase in the monthly rent, and excludes the use of the dairy barn and associated milking equipment. All other terms and conditions of the lease remain the same.”
In this way, the monthly rent will jump from the current $4,250 to $5,201.58 per month.
Under the lease, maintenance on the property is to be provided by the tenant except for the residential septic system, roof, heating and air conditioning system, and all major subsurface infrastructure systems including water wells, well casing, septic systems and utility piping located on the dairy, unless the cause of such failure is due to negligence of the tenant.

Major environmental and financial liability brought on through cavalier action by officials in the county’s public works division in the 1990s continues to haunt San Bernardino County, despite the expenditure of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds in an effort to redress the situation.
This week, the board of supervisors appropriated another half million dollars for engineering and contamination monitoring services at the former location of a hazardous waste disposal facility within the footprint of the Mid-Valley Landfill in Rialto. That expenditure follows $2.43 million already paid to the engineering firm, Geo-Logic Associates, doing that monitoring and at least $6.325 million paid to two law firms the county has retained to represent it with regard to legal claims made against it by local water agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.
At the root of the matter is perchlorate contamination in north Rialto that has seeped into the region’s water table and is continuing to spread.
In north Rialto, Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich and Emhart Industries had operations that were ongoing in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. All of those operations utilized perchlorate in their manufacturing processes. Near those operations Broco Inc. maintained a hazardous-waste disposal operation which was active from the mid-1960s until the late 1980s.
The county purchased the Broco property in 1994 and used it in the expansion of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill.
In the late 1990s, a plume of contaminants containing perchlorate was found to be migrating through the local water table. Perchlorate is a product used in the manufacture of both fireworks and ordnance. In very minute quantities perchlorate can wreak havoc on the thyroid gland.
It has been established that the five aforementioned corporate entities – Pyro Spectaculars, Ken Thompson Inc., Chung Ming Wong, BF Goodrich, and Emhart Industries – were responsible for the accumulation and release of the perchlorate.
Water agency officials, state officials and federal officials also believe the county of San Bernardino engaged in activity that exacerbated the perchlorate problem.
Officials with the Rialto-based West Valley Water District and their lawyers have alleged that San Bernardino County razed and buried structures at the Broco facility to make way for the landfill expansion, action those officials maintain was not only illegal but worsened the contamination of the groundwater below Rialto.
According to attorney Barry Groveman, who represents the West Valley Water District, it appears the county simply knocked the hazardous waste facility down and spread the debris around before burying it. That action was against the law, Groveman said.
Groveman said the county was in violation of state hazardous waste handling regulations and the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Burying hazardous waste and storing it without a permit is illegal.
The Environmental Protection Agency has designated the north Rialto area as one of its Superfund sites, which makes federal funding for remediation available but also carries with it a requirement that the parties responsible for the contamination assist in the effort. Simultaneously, the EPA will apply the Superfund money toward the remediation. Eventually, if any of the parties deemed responsible for the contamination refuse to sponsor or otherwise pay for a share of the remediation, the EPA will sue and under federal law, any party proven responsible will be required to pay triple the cost of that portion of the clean up for which it was the contaminating party.
The ability to impose triple damages serves as an incentive for the responsible entities to undertake the clean-up on their own or participate in funding an EPA-sponsored remediation.
In 2004, Rialto filed an action in the U.S. District Court, known as City of
Rialto v. United States Department of Defense et al. relating to the perchlorate contamination, alleging defense contractors were in part responsible for the situation. In early 2005, Colton filed a similar action in U.S. District Court, known as City of Colton v. American Promotional Events, Inc. West, et al. Rialto and Colton brought their respective actions against a number of defendants, including the county and Emhart, seeking response costs and injunctive relief to, among other things, ensure that perchlorate and TCE in the Basin would be cleaned up.
In June 2010, the District Court consolidated the United States action with actions which had been refiled by Rialto and Colton. Rialto dropped the portion its lawsuit against BF Goodrich after the company agreed to undertake a remediation effort. BF Goodrich did pay a total of $4 million – $1 million each to the cities of Fontana, Rialto and Colton as well as to the West Valley Water District. That money was used to treat specific wells that were producing perchlorate-laden water but did not redress the underlying problems in the aquifer. An EPA-designed program of remediation, consisting of contaminated water being pumped out of the ground to then be treated and distributed to water districts, is underway. It will likely take two decades or more for the perchlorate levels to be reduced to acceptable limits.
In May 2009, then-county counsel Ruth Stringer convinced the county board of supervisors to retain the law firm of Gallagher & Gallagher at an original cost of $710,000. The legal services Gallagher & Gallagher was to provide pertained to allegations against the county relating to perchlorate contamination in connection with particular matters that fall outside of the defense work covered by the county’s insurance. Gallagher & Gallagher currently represents the county in connection with the federal and state court litigation and federal and state agencies’ investigations of the perchlorate groundwater contamination in the Rialto-Colton Basin. Records show that so far the county has paid Gallagher & Gallagher a total of $2,325,000 and that another law firm, Price Postel & Parma has been paid $4 million by the county for its work with regard to perchlorate contamination litigation.
Last month, the county entered into a four-party implementation agreement with Emhart Industries, Inc.; the city of Rialto and the Rialto Utility Authority, collectively; and the city of Colton.
That agreement calls for the construction of a combined water capture and treatment system to be operated by the city of Rialto and its utility authority that will reduce the perchlorate in the water table to the state standard of 0.004 mg per liter or less. The system is to consist of two groundwater extraction wells; a combined treatment plant; conveyance piping connecting the extraction wells to the combined treatment plant; distribution piping and any necessary valves connecting the combined treatment plant to Rialto’s municipal water supply system;  distribution piping and infrastructure necessary for the delivery of water to Colton’s municipal water supply system as well as, if needed and reasonably necessary, distribution piping and infrastructure necessary for the delivery of water to a water purveyor other than Colton, which would most likely be the West Valley Water District; up to seven monitoring wells; and at least two and perhaps more piezometers required by the California State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water for the extraction well and the city of Rialto water well closest to the contamination site.
The county has already paid the environmental engineering consulting firm Geo-Logic Associates $2,430,892 for assistance with regard to perchlorate contamination in northern Rialto.
This week the county, at the recommendation of county Counsel Jean-Rene Basle approved a $500,000 extension of the contract with Geo-Logic Associates.
“Geo-Logic Associates provides important and necessary consulting services including required groundwater monitoring and reporting related to perchlorate and volatile organic compounds impacts to groundwater in the vicinity of the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill, and provides review and oversight of the perchlorate and volatile organic compounds groundwater treatment system at city of Rialto Well No. 3,” Basle said. “These services assist the county in maintaining compliance with legal requirements, including the state of California Regional Water Quality Control Board Cleanup and Abatement Order R8-2004-0072, which requires investigation into the extent of perchlorate and volatile organic compound impacts and the cleanup and abatement of the effects of the discharge of perchlorate and volatile organic compounds from or near the Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill. Geo-Logic Associates has provided highly critical and successful specialized consultant litigation and technical support services to county counsel and outside counsel related to hydrogeologic analyses and identification of the contamination and treatment issues in the Rialto-Colton Basin.”

Outsiders are so impressed with the computerized workload management system devised by programmers on the staff of San Bernardino County’s information technology department for use in the coroner’s office that the first of what may soon be several California counties has agreed to pay a licensing fee to the county to utilize the system.
According to Jennifer Hilber, San Benardino County’s chief information officer who oversees the county information services department, “The information services department has developed a coroner case management system, a successful software application for managing case information related to investigation of deaths, which includes a variety of critical data on the decedent and next of kin, forensic and medical information, and cause of death. This application also generates multiple reports and allows clerical staff to view and input data, depending on the user access granted by administrators.”
Hilber said, “The Marin County Sheriff-Coroner has requested, through the county’s sheriff/coroner/public administrator, to purchase a license to use the coroner case management system. The Marin County sheriff-coroner has the legal authority to execute an agreement with San Bernardino County. As a result of this agreement, the Marin County sheriff-coroner will receive a perpetual license for the coroner case management system and will be charged based on the board-approved fee for the time spent to implement the application. Application maintenance and support services and enhancements to the application may be requested at a later date and will be charged at the board-approved programmer hourly labor rate in place at the time work is performed.”
Accordingly, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved a revenue agreement with the Marin County sheriff-coroner in an amount not to exceed $13,000, for the county of San Bernardino to grant a nonexclusive, irrevocable and perpetual license and implementation of the county-owned and created software application. San Bernardino County’s programmers are to be paid at an hourly rate of $107.75 while working on readying the system for use by Marin County.
The licensing arrangement on the program was reviewed and approved by deputy county counsel Phebe Chu.

In advance of what is anticipated to be the wettest fall and winter in the last decade, the county this week recommitted to its agreement to fund two-thirds of the cost of the United States Geological Survey’s operation of surface water gauging stations at key points along three crucial waterways in the county.
Acting as the governing body of the San Bernardino County Flood Control District, the board approved a joint funding agreement with the United States Geological Survey related to the operation and maintenance of three surface water gauging stations located at Caruthers Creek near Ivanpah, the West Fork Mojave River near Hesperia and Santa Ana River in San Bernardino from November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2016.
According to Gerry Newcombe, who serves as the director of the county flood control district, “Based on the agreement, the district will continue to partially fund the operation and maintenance of three surface water gauging stations from November 1, 2015 to October 31, 2016 located at:(1) Caruthers Creek near Ivanpah; (2) West Fork Mojave River near Hesperia; and (3) Santa Ana River in San Bernardino. The data gathered by the stream flow gauging stations is beneficial to both the district and the USGS in developing hydrology models. These models enable engineers to plan and design flood control facilities that better protect existing and new development. This data is also used during emergency storm operations for evaluating the threat of flooding.
After four years of an unrelenting drought in California, weather prognosticators are predicting an El Niño weather system will soak much of Southern California with torrents of rain by the end of the year.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Up here in Lake Arrowhead, at 5,174 feet above sea level, the air is a little more rarified than it is down in 1,242-foot altitude Upland. As a matter of fact, up here we refer to places like Upland as the lowlands…
Despite the thin air in these parts, I don’t feel particularly dizzy or lightheaded. I wonder, though, about what the problem down there in the lowlands, er I mean Upland, is exactly. Have they developed some sort of condition from breathing all that thick air? For whatever reason, some of those lowlanders, er I mean Uplanders, are acting awfully dizzy or lightheaded…
I refer in this instance to the incipient recall effort against that city’s mayor, Ray Musser. In reading the newspaper accounts about this latest political undertaking in The City of Gracious Living, I found myself taking off my monocle and cleaning it with a tissue to see if I was perhaps misreading what was on the page before me. I reread the words, then squinted and reread them again. I read them right the first time. At that point I was left scratching my head…
Let me see if I have this right: Ray Musser is about 14 months away from the time he is to retire from the city council, at this point in the capacity of mayor, after having first been elected to the city council in 1998. At the first city council meeting in December 2016, which will be held on December 12 or thereabouts, he will call the meeting to order, lead the pledge of allegiance and then as his last official act swear in his successor, whoever that is to be, and then hand his gavel over to him or her. But a group of people in town, who it goes without saying don’t have too terribly high of an opinion of Ray Musser, are not content to wait until December 12, 2016 to be rid of him and they are going to some level of effort – at yet we do not know exactly how much or whether it will be sufficient – to end his tenure as an elected official…
Without getting into Mr. Musser’s merits as a human being in general, a public official in greater particular and mayor of his lowland city in precise exactitude at this point, let us right now examine the logic of pursuing a recall at this time and under the current circumstance…
Under California law governing the recall of local officials, recall proponents in cities with populations greater than 50,000 and less than 100,000, must gather the signatures of 15 percent of that city’s registered voters to force a recall question onto a ballot and they must gather those signatures within 120 days of the time they qualify for the right to circulate the petition. The signed petitions are then turned over to the city clerk who has two weeks or so to coordinate with the county registrar of voters and count the signatures, examine the petitions and the signatures to ascertain that the signatures are indeed of registered voters, determine whether the signatures can be reasonably ascribed to each of the registered voters purported as having affixed his or her signature to the petition and examine whether, in signing the petition, each registered voter used the same form of his or her name as was used in signing his or her voter registration affidavit. At that point, assuming the registrar of voters determines the 15 percent threshold has been achieved, the city clerk takes the petition for recall to the city council at its next scheduled meeting to either validate that the vote will take place or delay the matter by another 30 days by carrying out a “random sampling” of the signatures to determine that they are in order. If in the random sampling it turns out that a sufficient percentage of the signatures fall into question to suggest that enough valid signatures might not exist on the petition to force the recall, then another delay can be brought about in which all of the signatures are examined with exacting scrutiny. Assuming the petitions move beyond that point and the city council certifies the recall request and orders the recall, the recall election must then be held “not less than 88 nor more than 125 days after the issuance of the order.” That is the technical aspect of this as I can best explain it…
Now let’s do some math. Assuming the recall proponents have now, as of this date, October 9, 2015, qualified to circulate the petition, they will have 120 days hence, i.e., they will have until February 6, 2016 to circulate the petition for signatures and turn it over to the city clerk. At that point, the city clerk will have until February 20, or thereabouts to confer with the registrar of voters and make a preliminary determination as to whether there are enough signatures to proceed further. It would seem then that the item might be scheduled to come before the city council at its February 22 meeting. But February 20, 2016 is a Saturday, and Upland City Hall is open only Monday through Thursday. Moreover, agenda items have to be posted 72 hours in advance. So, under this scenario, given that February 29 falls on a Monday and the city council meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month, the city council would not receive the item until its March 15, 2016 meeting. If at that point the council votes to do a random sampling of the signatures, it could delay by as many as 30 days further processing of the recall request. The first Upland City Council meeting after April 14 is to be held April 25. Assuming the council found at that point that enough of the city’s voters had properly endorsed the recall petition, it would then issue its order for the recall election, which would have to take place, again according to California law, “within 88 days and 125 days of the order.” Thus, the election, under this scenario, could not take place any earlier than July 21…
But wait. According to California law, “A recall may not be commenced against an officer if… the term of office ends within six months or less.” The November 2016 election is less than four months from July 21…
I realize there are alternate scenarios here. One is that the recall proponents will be whirling dervishes of signature gathering efficiency and they will have enough signatures by the end of the month we are in – October 2015 – to get the show on the road and the recall election might be scheduled as early as March. Another weakness in my scenario is that the interpretation of the word “commenced” above might pertain to the effort itself, rather than the election. Nevertheless, my point stands, I think. There are questions as to whether the recall proponents, who don’t appear to have thought this through, will be able to gather the requisite number of signatures in the time allotted. Perhaps they can. But if they do, the smart money would bet it will take them something close to the 120 days permitted to them to do just that. Assuming they qualify the recall vote for the ballot and it is held as early as June, or let us say as early as late May, and assuming further still the voters choose to remove Ray Musser from office when that vote is held, if indeed it is held, what will have been gained? Ray Musser will leave office five or six or at most seven months before he would have otherwise. Is that what these people are working so hard to achieve?
There are other considerations. Try this one on: What if this recall effort fails? What if it fails abjectly? What will that do to Ray Musser? He recently had heart bypass surgery and my sources tell me he was preparing to call an end to his political career and not run in 2016. But there is a saying that goes: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I don’t know if I believe that, exactly, but I can’t speak for Ray Musser. Maybe he does believe that. Maybe, after he bounces back from his cardiac condition and he stands down those who would have laid his political head on a platter, he will feel his oats and run again. Will this recall fail and embolden him to heights that his enemies will rue? If history is any guide, if he runs again he just might win…
Here are two other considerations: The so-called basis for the recall and the tactics employed by the recall proponents in seeking to convince their fellow voters to support them. In their recall process paperwork, the recall’s proponents list one of the grounds for seeking Ray Musser’s removal from office is that he was a “beneficiary of Mayor Pomierski’s political machine.” John Pomierski, of course, was the now discredited former mayor of the lowland city who in 2011 was indicted, then convicted and subsequently housed in a federal prison…
What the recall proponents are more than suggesting, indeed stating, is that Ray Musser was in with John Pomierski. That is an out and out prevarication. John Pomierski ruled Upland with an iron fist from the time he came into office in 2000 until he was forced to resign ten years-and-not-quite-four-months later. The record clearly shows that John Pomierski had one political opponent and one political opponent only: Ray Musser. Ray Musser opposed John Pomierski for reelection in 2004. He almost beat the entrenched incumbent that time, but fell short. John Pomierski and his henchmen and political allies on the council – Brendan Brandt, Tom Thomas and Ken Willis – retaliated by stripping Ray Musser of his internal city committee assignments and his outside agency membership appointments. Even as questions were emerging about the way John Pomierski was doing business and using his authority at City Hall to shake down people with permit applications and projects under city review, he continued to draw support from the likes of the district attorney, the sheriff and other local city officials. Ray Musser alone stood up against John Pomierski and he did not benefit from it but suffered as a consequence, even as Brendan Brandt, Tom Thomas and Ken Willis cowered in the wings and spinelessly and slavishly licked John Pomierski’s boots and then headed for the tall grass when his political machine imploded under the weight of an FBI investigation that was impervious to influences of local governmental graft and corruption…
The question now is: When the recall proponents say that Ray Musser was a “beneficiary of Mayor Pomierski’s political machine,” do they really believe that? Or do they know it isn’t true, but are using that as a propaganda tool to achieve their political end? Which is worse: That they are ill-informed, ignorant or just mistaken? Or that they are deliberately lying? I would say the latter is worse, but even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and conclude that they just don’t know that they are talking about, doesn’t that alone go a long way toward discrediting this whole recall effort?

The county is going to pay more than $665,028 per year for the next 33 months to have an outfit known as Volunteers of America, Southwest provide what CaSonya Thomas, the director of the county’s department of behavioral health, referred to as “sobering center services.”
According to Thomas, “Sobering center services are diversion services offered to inebriated adults in lieu of being incarcerated. Sobering centers are designed to provide short term stay services in a clean, safe environment to allow the effects of chemical intoxicants to subside and allow the adult time to regain minimal levels of functionality. In addition, adults staying at the center will have the opportunity to receive a screening and referral to other substance use disorder services to meet their individual needs.”
Thomas said “The county department of behavioral health is responsible for providing mental health and/or substance use disorder services to county residents who are experiencing major mental illness and/or substance use disorders. Sobering center services is a new county department of behavioral health alcohol and drug services voluntary countywide program providing an alternative to the more expensive cost of incarceration, as well as providing information and/or referrals to recovery treatment programs. It is anticipated that Volunteers of America will provide sobering center services to approximately 4,332 adults annually at an estimated cost of $148 per adult.”
Thomas said, “Volunteers of America, Southwest will provide sobering center services countywide. Initially, there will be one location, in the West Valley/Central Valley region, with the specific site to be determined mutually between Volunteers of America and the department of behavioral health upon approval of the contract. Volunteers of America will aggressively search for a site in the West Valley/Central Valley region where sobering center services will be provided. Remodel or modification to the site will be a priority with an anticipated operation date of no later than January 2016. The Volunteers of America sobering center will operate 24/7 to provide a short term stay, on average six to eight hours, for adults referred and received from law enforcement officers. Once the individual reaches a sober state, a screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) will be administered by agency staff. SBIRT is a comprehensive health promotion approach for the delivery of early intervention and treatment services to people with, or at risk of developing, substance use disorders. The adult will then be provided information about substance use disorders and offered the opportunity to enter into recovery treatment programs or other appropriate services within the county based on their individual needs.”
The total contracted amount of $1,828,849 includes $1,768,829 intended for services and $60,000 for start-up costs. The program is funded through driving under the influence fines and 2011 Realignment funding. Bidding on the project was initiated in September 2014, when proposals were solicited. Six agencies attended the mandatory qualifications conference on September 30, 2014. Two applications were received in response to the request, one from Anka Behavioral Health, Inc. of Concord and Clearwater Residential Care for the Elderly, Inc. of San Bernardino.
During the evaluation process, the evaluation committee, comprised of individuals from the county of San Bernardino Behavioral Health Commission, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, San Diego County Behavioral Health Services and behavioral health staff found that the applications from Anka Behavioral Health, Inc. and Clearwater Residential Care for the Elderly, Inc. did not meet the qualifications of the request for qualifications to adequately provide sobering center services in that the facilities were converted residences located in residential neighborhoods on busy thoroughfares and safety requirements outlined in the request were not sufficiently addressed. As a result, the department of behavioral health terminated the request for qualification on December 8, 2014 and began exploring other options. Because Volunteers of America had a facility in San Diego County, department of behavioral health staff members toured tthat Volunteers of America sober center on more than one occasion.
According to Thomas, “Department of behavioral health staff was able to ascertain that the San Diego model operated by Volunteers of America will meet all of the county’s needs to successfully offer these critical services. After termination of the request for qualifications, the department of behavioral health engaged in discussions with Volunteers of America to determine the feasibility of Volunteers of America providing these services in San Bernardino County. Volunteers of America has extensive knowledge of the target population, the facility needs and requirements, safety requirements and the staffing required to provide these services successfully. The county purchasing department concurs with non-competitive justification of specialized services. The recommended non-competitive contract with Volunteers of America to provide sobering center services includes the option of two one-year extensions, contingent upon funding and contractor performance. The implementation plan will be expedited upon approval of the contract. The department of behavioral health will monitor contractor performance on a regular basis to ensure performance and compliance standards are met.”