RIVERSIDE—(July 16) The original intention of the arrangement forged between Ontario and Los Angeles for the operation and management of Ontario Airport as expressed in the language of the joint powers agreement the two municipalities entered into 48 years ago provides the basis for not only the continuation of the lawsuit filed by the smaller city two years ago to regain control of the airport but to recover hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in damages, Riverside Superior Court Judge Gloria Connor Trask ruled on July 15.
The once cordial relations between Los Angeles and Ontario have deteriorated in the last seven years over declining passenger traffic at Ontario Airport, resulting in the above-referenced lawsuit being heard in Trask’s courtroom.
In 1967, when Ontario Airport had a flea-infested gravel parking lot and fewer than 200,000 passengers passing through its gates annually, it entered into a joint powers authority pact with Los Angeles to have the megalopolis run the airport and use its control over gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport to induce airlines to fly into and out of Ontario. Indeed, Los Angeles’s management of Ontario Airport, later handed off to its corporate division, Los Angeles World Airports, led to prosperity for what became the Inland Empire’s premier commercial aerodrome.
Los Angeles did away with Ontario airport’s obsolete northeast-to-southwest runway, greatly improved its existing east-west runway by lengthening it into the largest such facility in Southern California, built another east-west runway, paved the parking lot, erected a modern control tower, and constructed a world class concourse and two ultra-modern terminals. In 1985, after all of the criteria in the original joint powers authority agreement were met, the Ontario City Council, with Mayor Robert Ellingwood absent, voted to deed the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration. By 2007 passenger traffic zoomed to 7.2 million.
With the recession that hit the nation, state and region in 2007, however, ridership at Ontario Airport dropped off precipitously and continued to steadily decline for the next six years, reaching a low of 3.9 million in 2013. By 2010, Ontario officials had lost patience with the situation and, led by Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, have conducted a vitriolic campaign charging Los Angeles, which in 2007 initiated a billion dollar modernization program at Los Angeles International Airport, with neglecting Ontario Airport and purposefully mismanaging it as a ploy to increase ridership into Los Angeles International Airport.
One focus of that campaign was to convince Los Angeles to simply deed Ontario Airport back to the city whose name it bears. Los Angeles resisted that and in 2013 Ontario filed suit against Los Angeles, using the high-powered law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton. The suit was filed in Riverside County to prevent one side from effectuating a jurisdictional advantage over the other.
On balance until this week, Trask’s rulings more often than not seemed to go Los Angeles’s way. Ontario cited five tenets in its suit: the entire deal was invalid in that the joint powers agreement was flawed and unenforceable; the transfer of the airport to Los Angeles in 1985 was illegal because it had not entailed a full vote of the city’s electorate; Los Angeles had breached its contract with Ontario contained in the joint powers agreement; L.A. further breached the fiduciary duty it has toward Ontario; and Los Angeles breached the code of good faith and fair dealing by its action.
In February Trask ruled that Ontario’s efforts to have the 1967 joint powers authority agreement invalidated and the 1985 agreement giving Los Angeles the airport declared void had come too late and were barred by the statute of limitations even if the agreement and the transfer were flawed on legal or procedural grounds. In one swoop, two-fifths of the case was thrown out. More recently Trask ruled that Los Angeles would not need to produce a large number of internal documents Ontario had requested which its lawyers said would prove Los Angeles’s mismanagement of Ontario Airport.
On Wednesday, however, Trask made a rare ruling in Ontario’s favor, denying Los Angeles’s motion to bar Ontario from seeking monetary damages and presenting expert testimony on the economic loss to the region when the case goes to trial on August 17.
According to Ontario, Los Angeles’s deliberate mismanagement of Ontario Airport has resulted in the loss of at least $1.6 billion to the local economy and perhaps as much as $4 billion.
Trask ruled that Ontario should at least get the chance to present evidence to that effect.
The $1.6 billion to $4 billion loss Ontario claims relates to lost business, business closures, and failures in the private sector. Moreover, according to the city’s bean counters, the city of Ontario alone has suffered a $69 million loss/reduction in tax revenue because of the contractions at the airport.
Los Angeles maintains the drop in passenger numbers at Ontario was a function of the national, state and local economic downturn that began in 2007 and persisted until 2013 along with reactions by many airlines to the national financial malaise, which included diverting flights away from airports servings smaller population areas like Ontario toward major population centers, such as Los Angeles. Los Angeles says it had no control over those airlines’ decisions.
In its motion, Los Angeles sought to whittle down further the basis upon which Ontario could proceed against it. But Trask referenced verbiage in the 1967 joint-powers agreement, which posits that “the economy of Ontario will benefit from the expansion and development of the Ontario airport” in ruling that Ontario should be allowed to demonstrate, if it can, that Los Angeles engaged in action that prevented the benefit and expansion from occurring.

(July 14)  A recall movement appears to be afoot in Adelanto.
Eight months after the city’s voters voted incumbent councilmen Charles Valvo and Steve Baisden and Mayor Cari Thomas out and councilmen John “Bug” Woodard and Charles Glasper and mayor Rich Kerr in, questions about the newly-composed council’s adherence to various laws relating to how local governmental action is taken have emerged.
The background to the issue is that 31,765-population Adelanto faces deep financial adversity. In 2013 the city council declared that city was in a state of financial emergency and sought to have city residents impose a new tax on themselves to shore City Hall up financially. Voters rejected that proposal, however, and former city manager Jim Hart’s efforts to generate revenue through a host of strategies foundered.
In that context a relatively consistent four-to-one split had formed on the council with Thomas, Baisden, Valvo and councilman Ed Camargo outvoting councilman Jermaine Wright on a number of issues. With the results of the November election and the swearing-in of Woodard, Glasper and Kerr in December, a newly-formed ruling coalition materialized.
In particular, Kerr, a Marine Corps veteran, evinced a degree of impatience with the plodding nature of municipal governance. A major issue for him was the need for the council to work through the city manager in effectuating change, such as winnowing staff. Kerr, perhaps functioning on the basis of what was actually a consensus of the council, or his conception of what that consensus was or simply his own conception of what needed to be done, Kerr began directing staff to take various actions. In some cases, reportedly, he issued directives to Hart. In others, reportedly, he bypassed Hart, speaking with department heads or other staff members.
Under California general law and Adelano’s charter law, the city council is charged with formulating policy and then directing the city manager to use his administrative authority to direct the city’s department heads to institute the policy, change it or amend it, and/or take disciplinary action, promote or demote employees or terminate them. Section 609 of the Adelanto Municipal Charter forbids city council members or the mayor from directing the city manager to appoint or remove employees.
Kerr has since acknowledged that for the first several months of his tenure in office he had a misconception of the authority of the post he had been elected to and the extent and limits of that authority, sometimes blurring the distinction between his role and that of the city manager or even department heads.
By February, there was considerable frustration on the council at the city’s inability to get its arms around the looming financial crisis. With Kerr stepping up his pressure on Hart and staff, Hart abruptly took leave of his post, delivering the city’s state fo the city address on the afternoon of February 25 but not showing up at the city council meeting that evening. Within the next month, the city’s finance director Onyx Jones, likewise departed the city . Over the last two months, a collection of city residents, including ones close to Thomas as well as Carmargo along with both current and former employees began discussions about addressing alleged misconstructions of Kerr’s mayor authority and misapplications of such, as well as the either passive or active support that Wright, Woodard and Glasper had given him. Since that time, the group has armed themselves with a cache of internal city documents, including emails and memos that passed between Kerr and others. On that basis, members of the group allege, they believe a strong case can be made that Kerr routinely overstepped his authority and in fact broke the law. Last week, shortly after city public works director / city engineer Thomas Thornton, who had served as interim director city manager and was promoted to the position of actual city manager on May12, resigned that post to return to the post of city engineer/public works director, the collection of residents signaled they are ready to move forward with a recall effort that will definitely target Kerr and quite likely name Wright and Woodard as well.
Left open in this evolving development is whether the group will seek to have the district attorney’s office get involved in the mater. An important question in this regard is whether the district attorney’s office, which contains a public integrity unit, will consider engaging itself on the subject. Kerr’s actions, while violating perhaps provisions of the civil code and government code, are not violations per se, of the criminal code. Nor does the public integrity unit, while getting involved in matters of governance, such as political corruption and violations of the public trust, focus on issues that fall short of actual criminal activity.
Last week, those involved in the recall effort did seek to demonstrate that the council’s action fell into the criminal realm. On July 8, Adelanto resident Mark Smith summoned a sheriff’s deputy to City Hall in the midst of a council meeting to report “a violation of the city charter,” A San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy indeed responded but did not have the requisite understanding of the law or the city charter to ascertain if a violation had occurred. A report was taken involving allegations that the council was directing the firing of city employees.
Recall group members allege that Kerr, Woodard, Wright and perhaps Glasper had met covertly to discuss official city action outside the forum of agendized council meetings, a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. During the course of those meetings, it is alleged, Kerr, Woodard and Wright formulated a strategy of paring city staff and subsequently directed Thornton to carry out hirings and firings. Evidence that has been marshaled to support this includes emails from Thornton to city attorney Todd Litfin. In those emails, which have now put Thornton, who is returned to the position of public works director, in Dutch with a majority of the city council. In those emails Thornton states that three of the council members appear to have gone “rogue” and are giving him improper orders and intruding “constantly with the day-to-day operations of the city.” Thornton bemoaned the motive and methodology the council majority was using to clean house at City Hall. He said the council probably had “the authority to eliminate positions [but that] it is my opinion based on many actions that have transpired since Dec 2014 that their reasons are personal in nature and not in any way connected with saving money,” Thornton stated.
Thornton expressed concern that directives outside the proper chain of command he had received to fire public works superintendent Nan Moore and senior planning management specialist Mike Borja would lead to a lawsuit against the city.
The Sentinel was unable to ascertain at this time the degree to which Thornton is cooperating with the recall proponents. It is possible his emails were provided to the recall movement by a third party.
The Sentinel has learned that another former employee, Belen Cordero, has said she was forced to resign after refusing to terminate certain of her colleagues. She said she witnessed Thornton being directed to fire some staff.
Unknown at this point is whether a recall effort will succeed. Historically, Adelanto has had more successful recall efforts in its 45 years of existence than any other city in San Bernardino County, experiencing a rash of such in the 1990s and early 2000s. .
What is at issue at this point is whether the recall advocates will be able to convince the requisite number of city residents to support calling for the recall question and then marshal adequate grounds to have a majority of those voting support the recall itself. At question would be with what degree of seriousness those residents view the action by Kerr and perhaps two or three of his council colleagues in seeking to hasten finance reform in the city where encroaching financial problems have pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy. Voters in November supported a wholesale flushing of the elected leadership in favor of a more aggressive approach in reining in spending and Kerr’s action, while technically out of compliance with the city’s charter appears to have been part of an effort to meet the mandate voters had given him.

(July 17) The case of Falossi vs. Koenig went to trial in San Bernardino Superior Court this week. Involving a dispute between two property owners in a residentially zoned neighborhood in Yucca Valley, the case turns on what intensity of use should be tolerated in areas reserved for residential living and whether a residential property owner opposed to his neighbor’s industrial operation can be forced to allow the neighbor to transit vehicles, equipment and materials used in that industrial operation across his land.
Both David Falossi and Fritz Koenig live on Hoot Owl Trail in a rustic area in Yucca Valley, on adjoining parcels. Hoot Owl Trail is a dirt road that winds through the area, which appears to be a typical expanse of desert throughout the Mojave, featuring chaparral, creosote, mesquite and scrub brush and yucca, juniper, and Joshua trees, as well as cacti. Besides the one large home complex on Falossi’s property and a home and separate cabin on Koenig’s parcels, there are four other residential properties along Hoot Owl Trail, all of which are two-and-a-half acres or more. Ingress and egress over Hoot Owl Trail is in dispute where it passes over Koenig’s property, although Koenig lets his neighbors use it as “a neighborly accommodation.”
David Falossi is an accomplished artist and sculptor who works in many media, including stone, metal and other large heavy objects intended as outdoor venue decorations and art pieces. He works from his home studio located on Hoot Owl Trail. Falossi initiated legal action against Koenig in June 2005, seeking a civil restraining order, but withdrew it within a week. In January 2009, Falossi filed another lawsuit against Koenig, asserting that Koenig had harassed him, his wife and his seven children. The outcome of that suit included an order from Judge J. David Mazurek enjoining Koenig from blocking Falossi from coming across Koenig’s property. In January 2013, Falossi again filed suit, this time against Koenig and another Hoot Owl Trail resident, Nora Fraser, further seeking to obtain the permanent right to transit over the portions of Hoot Owl Trail which stretch across Koenig’s and Fraser’s properties. In particular, Falossi wants to prevent both Koenig and Fraser from keeping his forklift or loaded or unloaded ten-ton transport truck from traversing their land.
Upon investigation, Koenig responded, filing his own lawsuit against Falossi for unlawful business practices, maintaining in his suit that Falossi was operating his home-based studio without a home occupation permit for the previous three-and-one-half years and at other times since 1989.
Koenig has taken issue with what he characterizes as the industrial nature of Falossi’s fabricating operation that is central to his sculpturing and artwork, which involves welding, stone grinding and glass grinding. Koenig maintains that such activity is incompatible with a rural residential neighborhood and out of compliance with the town’s codes that were in effect since shortly after the town’s incorporation. Moreover, Koenig has objected to Falossi utilizing the dirt road across his property to drive forklifts and a large truck to transport both the raw material Falossi uses in his fabrication process as well as the finished artwork, which in some cases weighs in excess of ten thousand pounds, to and from his home studio.
The contretemps between Falossi and Koenig has emanated beyond Hoot Owl Trail into other neighborhoods in Yucca Valley, and the eventual outcome of the trial carries with it the possibility of impacting the tenor and quality of life in not just one but all of Yucca Valley’s residential districts.
Falossi is well connected politically in Yucca Valley, having been recognized by the town for the quality and nature of his work. He also has warm relations with one former Yucca Valley mayor/former state assemblyman, Congressman Paul Cook; another former Yucca Valley mayor, Assemblyman Chad Mayes; as well as recently departed planning commission chairman Tim Humpreville.
Last year, the planning commission and town council moved to liberalize the town’s land use policy, with the planning commission making a recommendation that the city council alter its development code to allow greater latitude with regard to the type and nature of home-based businesses that can locate in the town’s residential zones. That change transformed Falossi’s operation from one that was previously out of compliance with the town code to one that was deemed by the town permissible under the new standards, at least by some interpretations. Indeed, at that time, the town was accused of having “tweaked” its code specifically to permit Falossi’s operation. During the public hearing process prior to those changes being adopted, some residents objected that permitting such uses in residential zones had the potential of destroying the tranquility of their neighborhoods.
Falossi’s case against Koenig and Koenig’s case against Falossi is being heard by Judge David Cohn. Cohn is conducting both cases as a bench trial in which no jury has been impaneled. Instead of a jury, it is Cohn who will render the verdict in the matter.
After opening statements, it was the legal team for Falossi which first began to put on its case. The progress of the case has been somewhat disjointed, as Cohn has summoned all three parties and their attorneys into his chambers for exchanges that are not open to the public.
One of the first witnesses called was Marissa Corson, Falossi’s eldest daughter who works in the real estate industry in Palm Springs. She testified that she had called Koenig’s real estate agent about another property Koenig had purchased in a Palm Springs neighborhood which is proximate to a residential property occupied by an artist who works, like Falossi, in creating large objects of art and has placed industrial sculptures in his backyard. The intended upshot of her testimony, while not entirely clear, seemed to suggest that Koenig was either a) inconsistent in that he had not objected to living near an industrial sculptor in Palms Springs but had done so in Yucca Valley, or b) is at some level enamored of, perhaps even obsessed with, industrial sculpturing operations.
The major portion of the case being put on by Falossi’s team this week consisted of Falossi’s testimony on the witness stand, as his attorney, Michael Kruppe elicited from him a description of how he uses Hoot Owl Trail and that he had never been restricted from using it prior to the difficulty he has experienced with Koenig.
Falossi further testified that trash trucks transit the road regularly and that he had also seen hay trucks, dump trucks and delivery trucks on Hoot Owl Trail. In this way, Kruppe appeared to be reiterating the theme of inconsistency in Koenig’s toleration of onerous activities near or on his property, setting up an argument that he was selectively objecting to Falossi’s presence and activities out of personal animus rather than over any inherent nuisance or threat to health, safety or tranquility inherent in Falossi’s activities. Koenig, however, objected to the question and answers on relevancy grounds, essentially establishing that refuse trucks, vehicles and equipment used to maintain the road or properties, and trucks used to deliver household items such as furniture or appliances and hay for animals boarded on equestrian residential properties support activities in keeping with the residential nature of the property and did not support industrial operations. Cohn sustained his objections.
Falossi’s legal team filed a motion seeking sanctions against Koenig for his having provided the Yucca Valley Town Council with discovery materials from the case. Falossi’s attorneys assert Koenig’s action was in defiance of a protective order issued by Cohn last year preventing the discovery materials from being disseminated or disclosed. The language of the protective order, a copy of which was obtained by the Sentinel, spells out an exception, specifically “This protective order shall not apply to material reasonably necessary for presentation to any federal, state, or local governmental or regulatory agencies.” The Falossi legal team’s motion, which appears to have matured into a motion for contempt of court, charges Koenig with “misuse of the discovery process,” implying that the provision of the discovery material to the town council did not qualify as “reasonable.”
The larger strategic purpose for the motion was not immediately apparent, although it asks for the court to “require plaintiff [Koenig] to withdraw his submission of the deposition transcripts to the town. Time is of the essence.” Previously in the motion, its wording referenced the “town council.” Nevertheless, the concern expressed in the motion pertains to the town “counsel,” a homonym council, a different word with a different meaning altogether, which actually refers to the town’s municipal attorney.
It is not established at this point why Falossi and his legal team would not want the Yucca Valley Town Council or the town attorney to review the discovery materials in the Koenig vs. Falossi case. What is known is that two weeks ago the Yucca Valley Town Council voted to repeal a section of the town code relating to residence-based business operations. In doing so it categorically exempted home-based art studios from the having to obtain a permit, sparing such operations from being subject to a host of conditions imposed on other businesses based in residential zones. At that meeting, the town council gave what is called “first reading” to the ordinance incorporating the change. For those changes to go into effect, the council must give the ordinance a “second reading,” i.e., vote once more to approve the ordinance.
Contained in the motion for a contempt citation was a call for Koenig to “withdraw” the discovery materials he had presented to the town. The Falossi legal team’s sense of urgency in seeking the contempt citation/sanctions against Koenig, containing as it does the demand for the withdrawal of these documents, might thus be explicated as an effort to keep any information contained in the discovery materials away from the town council out of the perception that it might dissuade the town council from confirming passage of the ordinance exempting home-based art studios from regulations normally applied to home-based businesses operations in Yucca Valley. Moreover, there may be some information in the discovery material that might have some legal implication recognizable to the town’s municipal attorney that would convince her to advise the council to rescind the ordinance. Cohn set a hearing on the contempt/sanction motion for July 23.
It is anticipated that Falossi’s attorneys will call Koenig to the witness stand as early as next week, at which time they will test his contention that Falossi has operated, and continues to operate, an illegal industrial use that is incompatible with the surrounding environs, and further test Koenig’s implied right to refuse to allow his property to be used as a conveyance for the equipment and materials used in such operations.
Ultimately, Judge Cohn’s final ruling in the case will have a potential bearing on the character and nature of all of Yucca Valley’s residential neighborhoods. If he vindicates David Falossi, Yucca Valley may become a Mecca for industrialists and artisans who will be free to establish home-based workshops and foundries. If, rather, he rules in favor of Koenig, he will arm those intent on applying urban zoning standards which are devoted to keeping residential and industrial functions separated a definitive legal basis to apply such standards in the desert town and rescind the liberalized standards relating to home based businesses the town council put into place over the last 12 months.

ADELANTO—Mistreatment and inadequate care of foreign-born prisoners housed at the privately-run prison in Adelanto under a contract with the federal government has drawn the attention of 29 members of Congress.
Based on these alleged shortcomings at the Adelanto Detention Center, the lawmakers have requested that the expansion of the facility be curtailed.
On Tuesday, Congress members Judy Chu, Karen Bass, Cedric Richmond, Marc Vessey, Michelle Grisham, Janice Hahn, Juan Vargas, Pete Aguilar, Raul Grijalva, Grace Napolitano, Mark Takano, Theodore Deutch, Jim McDermott, Adam Smith, Barbara Lee, Ruben Hinojosa, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Tony Cardenas, Norma Torres, James McGovern, Adam Schiff, Luis Gutierrez, John Conyers, Zoe Lofgren, Michael Honda, and Linda Sanchez sent a letter to Sarah Saldana, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Department of Homeland Security Inspector General John Roth.
The letter stated, “We are deeply concerned about the treatment of immigration detainees at the Adelanto Detention Center operated by CEO Group in Adelanto California In particular, we are concerned by reports indicating that CEO Group, Inc. is failing to provide adequate medical treatment to detainees in their custody at ADC.”
The letter called upon the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate an investigation.
The letter cited several cases, including that of Raul Ernesto Morales-Ramos, who was detained for five years at the Adelanto facility and died after GEO failed to diagnose and treat his intestinal cancer; Geraldo Correlas, a
partially paralyzed nineteen-year-old detained at the Adelanto Detention Center who developed a urinary tract infection after GEO failed to sanitize catheters and instructed Correlas to recycle the ones he had already used; the denial of treatment to a detainee with Hepatitis C because his length of stay was uncertain; the denial of medically necessary headgear for a detainee with sever epilepsy who was prone to violent seizures; the denial of treatment to a detainee with a serious hip infection because it was too expensive; the failure to perform diagnostic tests on a detainee suffering from extreme headaches, dizziness and loss of vision; the denial of meal accommodations and sufficient pain medication for a detainee suffering from severe sickle-cell anemia; the denial of surgery to correct mobility issues with a stroke victim’s arm; and the denial of back surgery for a detainee with a slipped disc because his injury occurred in prison and his stay at Adelanto was going to be brief.
CEO Group operates the facility on a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Office, currently housing roughly 1,300 inmates there. Immigration and Cuctoms Enforcement officials intend to expand the capacity by another 640 beds, some 259 of those to be located in a cell block for women. At present, no women are housed there.
Because of “medical negligence” at the facility, the Congress members said they wanted to have those expansion plans halted. The letter also called for the agency to dispense with the ongoing transfer of gay and female transgender and bisexual detainees into the center.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials want the expansion at the Adelanto facility to take place because it will increase the agency’s capacity to house female immigrant detainees in Southern California, where there are fewer than 110 total beds for women available and currently under 30 that are unfilled.
GEO Group did not comment on the letter. A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said its prisoners are treated humanely and provided with adequate medical care.

At the All Star Game in Cincinnati this week, Pete Rose walked out onto the field. That is something he has not done for 26 years. As I probably do not need to tell you, Pete, who in 1985 set what is still the record for most hits by a player in a career, just four years later was banned from Baseball and the Hall of Fame, supposedly for life, for having bet on baseball games, including games in which the teams he played on or managed were involved. In his defense, he maintains he never bet against himself or his team. I believe that, but I also understand why Baseball could not tolerate what he did…
He is 74 now, a spring chicken compared to me, but an ancient relic of diamond glory gone by…
There is an outcry to let him come back to the game he loved and played so well. Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti persuaded him to take the ban, which has lasted through the tenures of commissioners Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and now Rob Manfred. He is scheduled to have a hearing in August in New York, with two attorneys, Ray Genco and Mark Rosenbaum. presenting his case to Rob Manfred for letting him into the Hall of Fame…
When I was a young man, I demanded justice. Now I am an old man and I ask myself, do I want justice or do I want mercy? I know I have done some things I am not proud of. Do I deserve justice? Or do I deserve mercy?
Pete Rose, in his words, “screwed up.” He has had a 26-year-long dose of justice. Is it time for mercy?

By clicking on the portal below, you can download a PDF of the July 17 edition of the SBC Sentinel.

Sentinel 07-17-15

By Mark Gutglueck
On December 18, 1917, the U.S. Senate proposed the Eighteenth Amendment, which was intended to ban the sale and availability of alcoholic beverages. Prior to that, in a few places in San Bernardino County, alcohol was already outlawed. One of those was the town of Victor, later known as Victorville. On November 18, 1918, prior to ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, the U.S. Congress passed the temporary Wartime Prohibition Act, which banned the sale of alcoholic beverages having an alcohol content of greater than 2.75%. Curiously, this act had been intended to save grain for the war effort but it was actually passed after the armistice ending World War I, then known as The Great War, on November 11, 1918. The Wartime Prohibition Act took effect June on 30, 1919, with July 1, 1919, becoming known as the “Thirsty-First” day.
On January 15, 1919, the 18th Amendment was approved a 36th state, ratifying it as a part of the Constitution. By the terms of the amendment, the country went dry one year later, on January 17, 1920.
On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, the popular name for the National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. The act established the legal definition of intoxicating liquors as well as penalties for producing them. Although the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, the federal government lacked resources to enforce it. Soon bootlegging was rampant and speakeasy clubs, where liquor was illicitly available, proliferated.
While Prohibition was successful in reducing the amount of liquor consumed, it stimulated underground, organized and widespread criminal activity. While San Bernardino County hosted far less of the violent gangland crime than did places such as Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New Jersey and New York that came about as a result of Prohibition, there was bootlegging activity in many local areas.
A far less than comprehensive narrative of incidents involving bootlegging and illegal possession of alcohol in San Bernardino County at various times during Prohibition follow.
On January 18, 1922 Tom Garcia and Gave Angelo were arrested by Officer J. D. Morgan at Eighth and J Street in Colton after they were each found to have a small quantity of liquor in their packets. They were brought before Judge F. H. Owen on January 19 and released upon paying a fine of $25 each.
The first part of September 1922 proved to be a particularly active time for alcohol scofflaws in San Bernardino County.
On September 7, 1922, Ray Florano of East Highlands was arrested on a charge of transporting liquor within the city limits of Redlands. Florano was driving a car in which J. Gaza of Colton and Francisco Lopez were passengers. The car was stopped on Colton Avenue by Redlands police officer J.F. Casteel for exceeding the speed limit. A search of the vehicle found a gallon jug half full of wine. Gaza had $421.85 in his pockets. Florano claimed he did not know the wine was in the car.
On September 8, 1922, Antonio Delgado, who was a contractor working for S. Sevretti supervising a team of men picking grapes in Sevretti’s Ontario vineyard, was arrested for selling liquor and the tent where he was living at Fourth Street and Baker raided after it was learned that he was selling liquor in large quantities to local men. The raid consisted of Ontario Chief of Police F.O. Hardy and officers A.L. Crosslin, Fred Price and M. Rushen driving to the location and Rushen, who was not wearing his uniform, going to the tent at after 9 p.m., waking Delgado and asking him for a gallon of wine. After Rushen paid $3.50 for it, the others moved in and arrested Delgado. They confiscated ten gallons of wine found inside the tent. Subsequently Delgado appeared before Judge George R. Crane of Upland and Delgado was place in jail in lieu of $1,000 bail.
On September 9, 1922 deputy sheriff Jack Brown went to the home of Julius Santeena on Waterman Avenue near San Bernardino to serve a warrant for petty larceny. When Brown banged at Santeena’s door, Santeena answered and Brown asked if he was Santeena. Santeena said that he was not. When Brown asked who he was, Santeena is said to have responded “What in the hell is that to you?” and slammed the door. Brown forced his way into the residence. Therein he found that Santeena, a rancher, had ten gallons of wine in large jugs, which he was transferring into quart bottles. Santeena was arrested and charged with violating Ordinance 194.
On September 9, 1922, it was reported that a few nights before ”Happy Tom” Lanoff, an ex-jockey, and the then-owner of Happy Tom’s Mountain Inn in Big Bear Lake was arrested and charged with bootlegging. On the evening in question, which was probably September 6 or 7, an unidentified young man had gone into Happy Tom’s and talked Lanoff into providing him with a pint of moonshine. He provided Lanoff a bill of undisclosed denomination for it. It just so happened that Big Bear Constable “Hank” Crain walked in upon the scene just as the transaction was going down. Crain confiscated the pint and the money and placed Lanoff under arrest. It is not clear whether the arrest was the product of a sting operation. There is no indication that the young man was arrested.
On November 14, 1923, a jury hung 8 to 4 in favor of conviction in the trial of A.J. Russell, a pipefitter at the cement plant in Oro Grande on a charge of bootlegging. Russell had been collared by E.S. Ward, an “operative” of then-district attorney George H. Johnson. Ward and his attractive wife were the principal witnesses for the prosecution, testifying they had purchased a pint of whiskey from Russell in a Victorville restaurant. Russell testified he had “never sold a drop of liquor in my life.” In light of the jury’s inability to reach a verdict, Russell was discharged.
On the morning of January 24, 1927, Alexandro Echito and Louis Luc of Chino were arrested by Marshal F.S. Monte Wells, Constable W.J. Tebo and deputies J.B. Martinez and E.R. Frady on charges of possessing liquor. Echito, a resident of Fourth Street in Chino, was somehow prevailed upon to allow the raiding officers to search his house and store, where no contraband was found. Upon looking into his barn, however, the officers of the law the officers found a cache of liquor, described as 325 gallons of sour wine. When the officers went to Luc’s premises, they found a concealed room, hidden under an old dry goods box. The room was fitted up like a saloon and the raiding party found 150 gallons of wine concealed there. The same day, Echito, who had previously been arrested for illegal possession of liquor a few months prior to that and fined $450, appeared before Judge Durrell. Durrell gave Echito, a local landowner, choice of paying a $500 fine or leaving Chino entirely. It is not clear what penalty Echito chose.
On May 15, 1931, 25-year-old bantamweight boxer Checkie Herman, whose actual name was Ezekiel Hernandez, pleaded not guilty to possessing and selling intoxicating liquor. That was the sixth time the San Bernardino prize-fighter had been jailed on liquor law complaints during a period of a little more than a year. Judge G.W. Holbrook scheduled a May 25 trial on the charge and jailed him in lieu of $500 bail.
On June 4, 1932, San Bernardino county sheriff’s deputies, led by I. Caster raided the Bloomington dairy of Jacob W. Allen located at the corner of Slover Avenue and Alder Street, alleging they found 450 gallons of wine. At that time, Allen was serving as a juror in a civil case known as the Charleville Trial, involving a million dollar claim, 13 defendants mostly from Los Angeles, and 15 attorneys. Allen entered a denial of the charges at his arraignment before Justice of the Peace L.T. Gibbons on June 6 and was allowed to remain on the jury in the Charleville case.
In March 1933, Congress passed the Cullen-Harrison Act, which was the first step toward the deconstruction of Prohibition, legalizing beer containing 3.2% alcohol by weight or 4% by volume and wines of similarly low alcohol content, rather than the 0.5% limit defined by the Volstead Act, which had been enacted to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment. On March 15, 1933, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors passed an emergency ordinance, allowing for the licensing of establishments to sell beer, requiring that they post a bond with the county supervisors of $100 or surety satisfactory to the supervisors.
The $100 bond was required as a guarantee that the beer dealer would not violate the ordinance by selling any liquor having more than 2.2 percent alcohol by weight or more than 4 percent by volume. At that point, chief deputy district attorney James L. King called for the licensure to be limited to “bona fide restaurants, public eating places, clubs, boarding houses or hotels where beverages may be sold to bona fide guests and patrons only, to be consumed only with meals furnished in good faith at regular public tables, or at eating counters at which guests or patrons are seated, or in guests’ rooms at hotels or clubs.” A special proviso was made for drive-in places where beer was permitted to be served with meals consumed in automobiles or elsewhere on the premises of the beer seller. In May 1933, the board of supervisors was inundated with the applications from more than 300 people seeking permission to sell beer.

Roundleaf oxytheca is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family also known by the common name roundleaf puncturebract and the scientific name Oxytheca perfoliata. It is native to the southwestern United States, where it is a common plant of the deserts and some woodland and valley areas. It is a common plant in the Mojave Desert, with extensions along the Lahontan Trough into northwestern Nevada (to Humboldt and Washoe counties), and along the desert edge of California’s Transverse Ranges and the more arid portions of the San Joaquin Valley. It also occurs in the Sonoran Desert south to Imperial County.
It flowers from April to August and proliferates in rocky flats, washes, and slopes mainly in saltbush communities at elevations from roughly 1,900 feet to 6,000 feet inelevation in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.
The Oxytheca perfoliata is an annual herb producing a leafless stem up to slightly more than five inches in maximum height in the spring; during the winter the plant is a small rosette of oblong or spoon-shaped leaves a few centimeters wide. The plant is red-veined green, or often brown to maroon or magenta in color. The inflorescence atop the stem is punctuated by nodes at which the bracts are fused to form a cup or band up to about an inch entimeters wide. At the end of each branching of the stem is a similar cup of bracts partially fused around a cluster of flowers. The bracts are tipped in spinelike awns. The flowers are white to yellow-green and hairy in texture.
The stems are glandular distally and the leaf blades are spatulate to oblong or oblanceolate, with margins that are ciliate or otherwise gla-brous. Inflorescences open to densely branched bracts at first node,with triangular to lanceolate, 2-10 × 0.5-4(-8) mm, with awn 0.5-1 mm, sparsely glandular, bracts at remaining nodes 3, forming an orbiculate to somewhat triangular perfoliate disk mostly 1-2.5 cm across, glabrous or glandular, with awn one to three millimeter terminal bracts. The peduncles are erect, stout, at proximal nodes, though they are sometimes absent. Involucres are two to five millimeters, glabrous or sparsely glandular abaxially, sporting four teeth and awns are reddish, measuring two to three millimeters. Theplants sprout five to ten perianth white or yellowish green to pink, flowers. The tepals are monomorphic, lanceolate to ovate. The filaments mesure one to 1.5 millimeters that papillate basally. The anthers are pink to red and oval. The achenes are dark brown to maroon.
Oxytheca perfoliata is a food plant for the desert metalmark butterfly (Apodemia mormo deserti).

By Grace Bernal
Things are looking casual in the fashion scene. The dress shirt is refreshing, comfortable and perfect for any occasion like the office, a festivity, and plain old fun. It’s really a very traditional look full of of simplicity, function, and comfort. The shirt dress dates back to the sleeping shirt of the early centuries and the comfort and clean lines are uplifting today. You can belt them, loosen them, or tie them up. You can also get creative with sandals, heels, boots, and open toe booties. Just can’t go wrong with this simple piece during the hot season. The shirt dress will definitely help you stay cool. The dress shirt really expresses liberation in the 21st century. Take care and keep it simple cool this week in San Bernardino County.
Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past.
-Lana Del Rey