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Sentinel 05-22-15

SAN BERNARDINO–(May 19) This week, on May 18, the San Bernardino City Council in a 6-1 vote accepted the plan of adjustment set forth by city manager Allen Parker and city attorney Gary Saenz, twelve days before the deadline imposed by Judge Meredith Jury for the city to present its bankruptcy exit plan to her.
San Bernardino filed for Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection in August 2012 after years of dwindling revenues, expenditures drastically exceeding income, and deteriorating financial numbers that  resulted in $80 million in unfunded liabilities and a $49 million annual operating deficit. For nearly three years, Jury, who is overseeing the city’s bankruptcy filing in Riverside Federal Court, has exhibited patience with the city in its efforts to get back on its financial feet while deferring and delaying payments to dozens of its creditors, vendors and service providers.
In their effort to arrive at an operating budget by which city government will live within its means and pay as it goes for the services being provided to city residents, Parker, Saenz, the city’s finance division and outside consultants put forth a plan that will drastically alter the composition of municipal divisions or the manner in which city services are to be provided.
According to a report from Parker and Saenz to the council recommending the adoption of the plan of adjustment, also known as a recovery plan, “The city needs to streamline governance and operations and move into the mainstream of modern organization and service delivery for a city of our size. The city needs to undertake dozens of initiatives designed to reduce expenditures and generate revenues. For example we need to look at contracting solid waste, fire and other services. Other cities have saved money, while still delivering acceptable service levels, by adopting alternative service delivery approaches such as using regionalization and contracting to reduce costs, and the city needs to follow this lead. Unfortunately, even with improved operating results and new revenues the city will not be able to pay all of its obligations. Two large obligations which will be significantly impaired under the recovery plan would be the city’s pension obligation bonds and medical coverage for retirees. In both cases the city’s ability to satisfy these unsecured creditors is severely constrained. As the recovery plan makes clear, our first priority has to be the delivery of adequate municipal services. The pain will be shared among all stakeholders; employees, retirees, citizens (in the form of impaired service levels until the city can regain its footing) and capital market creditors. Only by undertaking the difficult process of refashioning the city into a modern municipal corporation can we be successful in creating a solvent future. The resolution authorizes the implementation of the actions proposed in the recovery plan – and the filing of the plan of adjustment and disclosure statement in compliance with the Bankruptcy Court-mandated filing deadline of May 30.”
The bankruptcy exit plan was approved by the council, with six of its seven members – Rikke Johnson, Virginia Marquez, Henry Nickle, Fred Shorrett, Benito Barrios and Jim Mulvihill – voting to accept it, and councilman John Valdivia dissenting. Under the plan, the city will pay 1 percent of the $50 million owed to pension obligation bondholders, significantly reduce retirees’ healthcare coverage, and undertake to eliminate a number of city staff positions, including, as mentioned in the Parker and Saenz report, firefighters and trash collectors.
Previously, city officials had considered and then balked at elements contained within the plan for recovery. But after nearly three years in the financial limbo of bankruptcy and Judge Jury’s patience drawing toward an end, the council majority accepted the plan of adjustment, even though it is  unpalatable and draconian in much of its aspect.
The council was given encouragement by San Bernardino County Supervisor Josie Gonzales, who embraced the plan, even as several members of the fire department registered objections to it.
Under the plan, a significant number of the city’s creditors will not be made whole for some time to come, if ever. It spells out that investors holding some $50 million in pension obligation bonds will receive an unsecured note and be paid under a reduced schedule predicated upon principal of $500,000. The city will not begin payments on that principal until the sixth year after the plan of adjustment becomes effective.
Nor will payments on bonds issued in 1996 and certificates of participation issued in 1999 be made for five years. Then, based on a newly established  maturity date of 2035, just interest will be paid for years six through ten, with the interest and principal to be repaid thereafter through the term of the lease.
In addition to outsourcing the city’s fire department and refuse handling functions, estimated to provide the city with savings of somewhere between $7 million to $10 million per year, the city will also make deep reductions in many of its operational costs, deferring $200 million in essential capital maintenance and fleet vehicle replacement.
Parker said the city has already been pared of 250 employees and that by its labor reduction strategies, the city will see savings of a total of $357.9 million from the current fiscal year 2014-15 through 2033-34. The plan intimated further drastic manpower reductions ahead, in that reductions effectuated so far entail a savings of $51.7 million. The city still suffers, according to Parker and Saenz, from a structural general fund deficit of $20 million. The plan also contains an already agreed-to reduction in health care for city retirees, who acceded to going into a more modest health plan in exchange for the city leaving relatively untouched the pension benefits those retirees are to receive.
Indeed, only two groups or “classes” of creditors have been left predominantly unscathed, i.e., “unimpaired” in the city’s recovery plan – city pensioners and those entities specified in the California Constitution as being entitled to payment out of the city’s restricted accounts. Saenz said protecting city employees, or at least those who will remain with the city, was another priority in the formulation of the plan. The city has also agreed to backfill by some $14 million the amount of contributions into the California Public Employees Retirement System it skipped out on in 2012-13 and to remain current on future obligations to that fund.
Eight other classes of creditors are identified under the plan and they all will be subjected to reduced, delayed or deferred payments from the city. The plan as accepted by the city council will be subject, however, to these impaired classes lodging objections or statements of protest to it, which must be considered by Jury before she accepts a finalized form of the plan. The city has indicated it will ask Jury to override any of those objections and force acceptance of the plan by all interested parties.

By Mark Gutglueck
(May 20) David Moore, the public issues activist whose brutal treatment at the hands of government officials and the sheriff’s office highlighted the corruption festering within San Bernardino County’s governmental structure and forever earned him a level of respect among his dissident colleagues, has died.
Moore, 60, passed away in Loma Linda after a protracted period of declining health, which worsened after he suffered a debilitating stroke.
Moore, an academic who found employment at various levels within the Adventist communities and institutions of Glendale and Loma Linda, often fixated on arcane areas and issues relating to the public’s access to information and the efforts he perceived government and corporate officials engaged in to limit the distribution of that information. One project he pursued was compending lists of areas throughout the country where the Zip Codes and city references for addresses used by the U.S. Postal Service for mail delivery did not match the actual city in which the address was located.
It was while he was engaged in another similar undertaking that Moore was accorded the harsh treatment for which he would become so well known. In the 1990s, while networking with other San Bernardino County public issue activists and  open critics of county government such as Bob Nelson, Jeff Wright, Shirley Goodwin, Larry Halstead, and Marjorie Mikels, Moore set about obtaining from San Bernardino County a comprehensive list of phone numbers for the employees of all of the county government’s departments and divisions. In that effort, he approached then-San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger’s chief-of-staff, Jim Foster.  While Foster initially made a show of cooperating with Moore’s request, he grew resistant after it became apparent Moore intended to share the phone number roster with the coterie of public activists who Foster believed would use it to obtain information that might dispute higher ranking county officials’ statements or version of events. On July 28, 1999, Moore confronted Foster, insisting that the information which Foster was then asserting to be privileged and confidential be made available to county residents. Foster grew argumentative, cursing at Moore. Moore responded by stating that Foster was a disgrace to the county that employed him, and repeatedly saying that Foster should be fired, at one point using the term “terminated.” Foster, utilizing his position of authority, summoned the sheriff’s department, claiming Moore had threatened him, including making a death threat. When a witness, a county employee, confirmed Moore had spoken openly about having Foster terminated, Moore was arrested on suspicion of threatening a public official.
Things did not go well for Moore, thereafter. During his arrest, sheriff’s deputies, in an effort to garner favor with Foster, beat Moore into submission. After he was jailed, sadistic deputies, having learned of the beating administered to Moore during his arrest, took that as license to abuse him further. In the jail he was slammed to the floor numerous times. Moore’s leg was injured so grievously he would walk with a limp forever thereafter.
Meanwhile, the abuse he had been subjected to was learned of by the outside world. Sheriff’s officials, fearing legal action against the department might be imminent, pressured the district attorney’s office to pursue a case against Moore to “inoculate” the department from a civil suit. This dovetailed with efforts by Foster, again using his status as a high ranking county official, to persuade the district attorney’s office, then led by Dennis Stout, who was at that time intent on maintaining a cordial relationship with the sheriff’s department as well as Hansberger, to file felony charges of threatening a public official against Moore.
Moore would remain in jail for several months, defiantly refusing to plead guilty, subjected to continuing abuse by his jailors. Refusing to waive his right to a speedy trial, Moore was put on trial in October of 1999, with the prosecution gunning to have him convicted of threatening a public official. Despite the use of perjured testimony by Foster and another county employee whose promotional fortunes were overseen by Foster, the prosecution was unable to obtain a conviction on that charge, when the jury voted unanimously to acquit Moore. But the prosecution layered two further charges into the case against Moore, and after returning the first acquittal verdict, the jury went back into  deliberations and found him guilty of two counts of making statements which Foster interpreted as threats. At that point, however, the judge, Michael Dest, apparently convinced Moore represented no threat, spared him any further jail time, crediting him with time served and good behavior.
While San Bernardino County officials had succeeded in “officially” labeling Moore as a criminal, those he associated with, his fellow public issue activists, hailed him as a hero. Among these were Bob Nelson, who had become something of a legend himself for having been jailed repeatedly for exceeding the three minute speaking limit at planning commission, city council and board of supervisors meetings, and Jeff Wright, whose arrest record would eventually surpass that of Nelson for the same activity. Nelson, whose soft-spoken and respectful approach in seeking to reason with the county’s decision makers succeeded only in angering them, would sedately submit to arrest by the sergeant-at-arms. Wright, whose fiery style consisted of challenging and verbally assailing elected leaders for the quality of their decision making and conflicts of interest, openly questioned their honesty and integrity and would hurl even more pointed vitriol at the elected officials as the sheriff’s department deputies would handcuff him and cart him off. Over the period of a decade, he was given progressively harsher sentences for overrunning the three-minute limit when speaking his mind before the board of supervisors or San Bernardino City Council, ultimately landing an 18-month jail sentence, all of which he served.
Despite the efforts by San Bernardino County’s top ranking elected and staff officials to discredit the likes of Moore, Nelson and Wright, the dissidents would find vindication, of sorts, when events overtook those whom they had questioned, challenged or spoken out against. Former supervisor Jerry Eaves, a favorite target of Wright, was indicted on both state and federal political corruption charges and was forced to leave office as a consequence of his eventual conviction. Former county chief administrative officers Harry Mays and James Hlawek were likewise indicted and convicted of taking bribes, as was former county treasurer Tom O’Donnell and county investment officer Sol Levin.  In 2005, six years after his confrontation with Moore in which he had seemingly come out on top, Foster was forced to resign as Hansberger’s chief of staff after it was revealed that he had used his position to get first dibs on and then purchase, utilizing a “straw buyer,” i.e., an undisclosed intermediary, county land that was declared surplus and put up for sale.  And district attorney Dennis Stout, whose office was able to temporarily curry favor with the sheriff’s department by prosecuting Moore and getting an attenuated conviction against him, saw his relationship with the sheriff’s department sour when his prosecutors targeted Eaves, who was closely aligned politically with the sheriff. When Stout’s investigators were stepping up their inquiry into Eaves’ questionable activities trading votes for campaign cash and allegedly accepting kickbacks along the way, sheriff’s department investigators began to surreptitiously record the phone conversations Stout, his assistant district attorney, Dan Lough, and his chief of investigations, Barry Bruins, were having with one of Eaves’ political rivals, Rialto City Councilman Ed Scott. Transcripts of those conversations were then leaked to the media, which resulted in adverse publicity that suggested the district attorney’s office was being used for partisan purposes. This adverse publicity resulted in Stout being defeated for reelection in 2002.
Though he found support from the activist community after his ordeal, Moore never fully recovered from what had occurred. He allowed his driver license to lapse because he feared that driving left him vulnerable to the sheriff’s department during traffic stops. Over the years he became increasingly isolated, moving out of San Bernardino County to live across the county line in Riverside. He would venture out only occasionally, using public transportation or the assistance of a small group of his loyal friends.
Universally, his friends and acquaintances pointed to his poor diet, which he maintained throughout his life, as a major factor in Moore’s physical decline. In the final months of his life, as his health deteriorated rapidly, those friends were vigilant in seeking medical assistance for him, checking him into Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he received several blood transfusions in a futile effort to save him.
A memorial service is being held for him tomorrow, Saturday May 23, 2015 at 7:30 p.m., at the house of worship located at 2625 Avalon Street in Riverside, where several congregations, including that of the local Korean Seventh Day Adventist community, holds its services. Moore’s friend, Ed Bishop, will perform Mansion Over The Hilltop, How Far From Home, Little Brown Church In The Vale and Railway To Heaven in Moore’s memory.

(May 20) A San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge on Tuesday denied a petition by two Upland residents and the California Cannabis Coalition to force the city of Upland to stage a specially-called election this year on an initiative they had qualified for the ballot by collecting the signatures of more than 15 percent of the city’s voters endorsing a vote on allowing three medical marijuana dispensaries to operate in an area within the city limits along the north side of Foothill Boulevard near the city’s border with Claremont.
In October, a group of Upland residents, nominally headed by Nicole DeLaRosa and James Velez, and  sponsored by the California Cannabis Coalition, Craig Beresh and Randy Welty, undertook a petition drive to qualify for the ballot in Upland an initiative aimed at overturning  Upland’s ban on marijuana dispensaries.  Beresh is the California Cannabis Coalition’s president.  Welty, a coalition board member, has an ownership interest in 53 medical marijuana clinics throughout the state and owns Upland’s Tropical Lei nightclub, Upland’s Toybox adult bookstore, other adult bookstores located elsewhere, and at least four other strip clubs.
On January 14, Beresh and Welty on behalf of the California Cannabis Coalition and those involved in the signature-gathering effort came to Upland City Hall and handed over to Upland administrative services director/city clerk Stephanie Mendenahll the initiative petition endorsed with 6,865 signatures later determined to be valid  gathered in Upland. Per state law, an initiative petition that garners the valid signature endorsements of ten percent of the voters within a particular jurisdiction must be put on the ballot at the next regularly scheduled election in that jurisdiction.  An initiative petition that garners the signed endorsement of 15 percent or more of the voters in a particular jurisdiction requires that the initiative be put on a specially-scheduled ballot within that jurisdiction not more than 105 days after the petition is accepted as valid by the board overseeing the governmental entity overseeing that jurisdiction. That  governmental entity must bear the cost of that special election. The 6,865 signatures gathered by the petitioners represented more than 15 percent of the registered voters in Upland. Thus, the Cannabis Coalition, represented by its attorney, Roger Diamond, asserted that the city was obliged to put the initiative before the voters no later than June 23,  the first Tuesday after the elapsing of 105 days from the time the Upland City Council on March 9 officially acknowledged that the 6,865 signatures on the petition were valid.
Three members of the council, however, consisting of mayor Ray Musser, councilman Glenn Bozar and councilwoman Carol Timm, were adamantly opposed to reversing the city’s current ordinance, which bans cannabis clinics from operating anywhere in the city. Taking his cue from that troika’s political sentiment, city attorney Richard Adams researched the issue and brought forth a theory by which he asserted the city could postpone the election until the next regularly scheduled municipal election in November 2016.
The initiative imposes a set of limitations on the dispensaries and a protocol for their application and licensing. Under the terms of the initiative, the number of dispensaries in the city would be limited to three and they would have to be located within the relatively confined area north of Foothill Boulevard, south of Cable Airport, and between Airport Drive to the east and Monte Vista to the west. Each of the applicants for the three dispensaries would have to pay a $75,000 nonrefundable licensing fee intended, the initiative’s sponsors asserted, to cover the city’s costs in carrying out background checks and making other inquiries and efforts to process the applications and patrol the dispensaries once they were up and running.
It was with regard to this last point that Adams said the city had what he termed a “profound” basis for holding off until a regular election to let the city’s voters consider the initiative. Referencing the $75,000 licensing fee, Adams said, “The State Constitution indicates that if the fee exceeds the cost of providing the services, licensing and inspection, it is not a fee. It is a tax.” Further, according to the California Constitution, Adams said, a vote on a tax cannot be held in the venue of a special ballot but must be held during a regularly scheduled election.
The timing of the election was considered significant for two reasons. The first is the cost. The county registrar of voters would charge the city as much as $180,000 to handle the election as a stand-alone event this year. The city would reap considerable savings by putting the election on the 2016 ballot, when the mayor’s post, a single city council position and city treasurer spot are up for reelection. Secondly, advocates of the initiative see a special election as the forum in which sale of medical marijuana within the city limits of Upland is most likely to gain acceptance of the voters participating. Informal surveys of Upland voters show that, on balance, the city’s residents are against the initiative. But special elections normally have poor voter turnout and the initiative’s advocates believe that through the aggressive and energetic use of social media and networking among that portion of the city’s electorate most favorably inclined to the accessibility to medical marijuana and marijuana use in general, they can drive enough voters to the polls to prevail in a special election while a significant portion of the city population opposed to the concept of open access to marijuana fails to participate.
The city council, in a split 3-2 vote, with Musser, Bozar and Timm in ascendency and councilwoman Debbie Stone and councilman Gino Filippi dissenting, on March 9 voted to accept the initiative petition and schedule the vote for November 2016.
The city’s action prompted Diamond, on behalf of the sponsors of the initiative, to file a lawsuit on March 19 accompanied by a peremptory writ in which it was asserted the city had denied “the signers of the initiative…the full benefit of California law, which requires that the initiative be put on the ballot within 88 to 105 days of the certification of the signatures.”
The city did not have the legal option to postpone the election until next year, Diamond said, and Adams had misapplied the section of the California Constitution that prohibits governmental entities from imposing taxes on citizens without the benefit of a vote to an initiative brought forth not by the government but citizens. Moreover, Diamond, insisted, the fee involved in the Upland initiative was not a tax, but a reasonable element of the licensing procedure intended to recoup the city’s costs for accommodating medical marijuana dispensaries within its jurisdiction.
The matter came before Judge David Cohn in San Bernardino on Tuesday, May 19. After Cohn got Adams, assistant city attorney James Touchstone and Diamond to agree to have the matter adjudicated by motion, i.e., on the basis of his ruling rather than through a court trial, Cohn devoted the lion’s share of his questioning to Diamond. He questioned Diamond as to why the Cannabis Coalition was so intent on getting the initiative on a special ballot rather than having it voted upon during next year’s election, suggesting as he did so that it would stand a greater chance of passage during a special election. Diamond did not confirm that there was any political motive to his client’s desire for a special election, stating only that the goal was to make medical marijuana available to patients at the earliest date possible. Cohn then pressed Diamond to deconstruct the city’s primary defense for waiting until next year to hold the election, which consisted of its representation of the fee as a tax. Cohn asked Diamond to identify in a series of the city’s legal submissions evidence to controvert the city’s assertion that the $75,000 fee is a tax. In his responses, Diamond took aim at the city’s claim that the background checks, licensing processing, follow-up inspections and investigations would at most cost $56,540 and that enforcement and prosecutions of violations would run no more than another $10,000. Diamond asserted that the city had “artificially” minimized the cost and that while the exact costs could not be quantified ahead of time, the $75,000 fee was a reasonable one intended to cover the city’s outlays in accommodating the uses envisioned in the initiative. “You cannot come up with an exact mathematical figure when you are talking about a future event,” he said. “They [the city] can set any cost they want.”
Touchstone retorted that the total itemized costs of $66,540 was under the $75,000 specified in the initiative.
Telegraphing that he was inching toward ruling against the Cannabis Coalition, Cohn further pressed Diamond for proof the fee does not rise to the level of a tax. “Saying ‘This is clearly a fee,’ doesn’t make it a fee,” Cohn said.
Ultimately, when Diamond did not offer him an argument to persuade him that it was not a tax, Cohn ruled in favor of the city, denying the motion by DeLaRosa, Velez and the California Cannabis Coalition to place the initiative on a special election ballot. “I wasn’t able to find anything that stated $75,000 was a reasonable cost,” Cohn said. “The city has an affirmative obligation not to place a measure on the ballot it believes is unconstitutional.”
In the immediate aftermath of Cohn’s ruling, Diamond conferred with Beresh, the president of the California Cannabis Coalition who was present for the hearing, about whether his clients wanted to file an appeal. Shortly thereafter, he stated he was leaning toward taking the matter up with the court of appeal in Riverside, while weighing the relative merits of filing a appeal of Cohn’s ruling, which would afford the opportunity for oral arguments but might take months or even more than a year to be heard, or carrying a writ to the appeals court, which would be considered in a more timely manner but which could be dismissed without a hearing and might not entail oral argument.
By Wednesday, May 20, there were reports that the California Cannabis Coalition, with Welty’s financial backing, was preparing to undertake another petition drive. It is anticipated that Diamond will draft the new petition in such a way as to cure the defects in the petition the group circulated last year which allowed the city to delay the vote on the initiative to next year’s general municipal election.
Mayor Ray Musser, who attended the hearing, departed the courthouse without  comment.

(May 21)  The Ontario-Montclair and Chino Valley Unified school districts will each utilize roughly $2.5 million in taxpayer funds to pay for psychiatric services being provided to their respective students for a three-year period running from July 1, 2015 through June 30, 2018.
In the case of the Chino Valley Unified School District, which involves students from kindergarten through 12th grade, the district will pay $2,500,299 to the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health for the provision of school-based mental health services in its jurisdiction.
In the Ontario-Montclair School District, which serves students from kindergarten through the 8th grade, the district will pay $2,448,195 to the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health for the provision of school-based mental health services in its jurisdiction.
Not all of that money will come from those districts’ respective operating budgets, but will be provided in part through available funding from state and federal sources for benefiting students and enhancing the educational and social ambience in the concerned schools.
According to CaSonya Thomas, the director of the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health, “The Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) and Ontario-Montclair School District (OMSD) provide a range of mental health services that are tailored to meet the needs of students who are Medi-Cal beneficiaries, including assessments, crisis interventions, medication support, plan development, and therapy. In addition, services are provided to adolescents who are described as dually diagnosed, which is a designation to describe an individual who has a mental health disorder and a substance use disorder. CVUSD and OMSD provide these school-based mental health services as required under the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment Program, a federally mandated Medicaid option. The intent of the program is to extend Medi-Cal coverage to their students to assist in the identification of each student’s physical/mental needs and to provide appropriate treatment in order to correct and/or improve their physical/mental condition.”
Thomas said “The department of behavioral health anticipates that the school districts will provide services to approximately 5,619 students (1,873 annually) at an estimated cost of $881 per student. The department of behavioral health operates a continuum of care system that consists of county operated and contracted service providers delivering a variety of mental health treatment services within each geographic region of the county. Each provider has a specific responsibility and role within the county’s treatment delivery system. The goal of this delivery system is to support children, youth, and their families in achieving enhanced self-sufficiency through recovery, resiliency, and wellness. As the mental health plan administrator for the county, the department of behavioral health provides authorization and oversight for psychiatric inpatient hospital services and outpatient specialty mental health services in the most cost effective manner possible. In an effort to extend services to additional children and youth, CVUSD and OMSD approached the department of behavioral health in 2010 to request Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment Medi-Cal funding, included in 2011 Realignment funding, to provide mental health services to students enrolled in their respective districts. CVUSD and OMSD pay the local match or agency match of 10%, allowing the school districts to draw down approximately 50% of Medi-Cal Federal Financial Participation and 40% of 2011 Realignment. This practice is allowable under the Code of Federal Regulations.”
The 2011 Realignment refers to the Budget Act of 2011, which includes a major realignment of public safety programs from the state to local governments and redirects California Department of Social Services’ funding to adoption services, foster care, child welfare services, and adult protective services, providing to local governments specified tax revenues to fund this effort.
The contracts with the Chino Valley Unified School District and the Ontario Montclair School District for school-based mental health services, Thomas said, “are possible due to the ability of school districts to contribute the required match for 2011 Realignment funding and their ability to leverage California Department of Education funding to offer school-based mental health services to children with disabilities and to children living in foster families.”
In Ontario, Montclair, Chino and Chino Hills, as well as throughout the county, there is concern about subjecting students to psychiatric care, treatment, monitoring and evaluation, either with or without parental consent, due to the stigma that is attached to mental illness or any indication thereof. Some parents have expressed varying levels of objection to the concept of in-school psychiatric service being foisted on their children, from mild resistance to outrage. One issue raised is that of privacy and the concern that word spreading among the peer group of a student undergoing psychiatric care that he/she is seeing a psychiatrist to deal with mental health issues could result in tremendous harm to the student/patient. Some parents have remarked that they have children in school to be educated and not to be psychoanalyzed.
In an effort to reassure the public on these issues, Teresa Frausto, M.D., the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health’s medical director, told the Sentinel “The San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health aims to ensure all of our clients are given strict confidentiality and receive the highest quality of care.  Children in schools have very diverse needs when it comes to mental health services. Those referred for services are assessed with parental consent and provided services in a confidential manner. The Department of Behavioral Health’s vision aligns with the Countywide Vision of achieving optimum wellness for all county residents.”

TWENTYNINE PALMS — (May 20) The long twilight battle between the city of Twentynine Palms and the state of California over Project Phoenix has concluded in the city’s favor.
Project Phoenix was an undertaking by the Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency aimed at constructing a community center, a 250-seat theater, classrooms, a civic plaza, a park, a paseo, residential units, a wastewater treatment plant, and improvements to the downtown fire station. The project was put in jeopardy in 2011, however, when the legislature passed AB X1 26 and AB X1 27, which shuttered more than 400 municipal and county redevelopment agencies up and down the state. The state sought to reroute redevelopment money to law enforcement and education efforts in that closure.
Twentynine Palms, however, intrepidly pushed ahead with the project, based upon Twentynine Palms City Attorney A. Patrick Muñoz’s assertion that the project had been initiated prior to AB XI 26 and AB XI 27 going into effect. According to Muñoz, the state law ending redevelopment function is trumped by federal securities regulations, meaning the money the Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency bonded for in 2011 must be utilized only for the purpose that bondholders were told the money would be applied toward.
The city then used the locally composed bond oversight board that was formed by the state legislation to recommit the bond money to the Phoenix project. Subsequently, however, the state Department of Finance used its authority to disallow the recommitment. In response the city appealed and when that appeal was turned down, filed legal action in Sacramento Superior Court, the venue where the legislation required any litigation pertaining to cities’ use of redevelopment money had to be filed. The case was heard by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny.
Muñoz asserted in filings with the Sacramento Superior Court that the non-taxable bonds issued in 2011 created specific obligations between the city, as the issuer, and the bond purchasers, and as such are enforceable obligations and any use of the money for a purpose other than what the city had specified in marketing the bonds to the bond buyers would constitute fraud.
The state Department of Finance in December 2013  told Kenny that the Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency, like several others, “rushed to encumber future tax increment revenues” ahead of their legislated demise in December 2011. The department alleged that in March 2011, Twentynine Palms “conceived, authorized, issued and sold” $12 million in tax allocation bonds for the Project Phoenix downtown development and an affordable housing plan without contracts to build or a definite plan for spending the proceeds.”
Ultimately, however, Kenny ruled against the Department of Finance in April 2014 and granted the petition for a writ of mandate on behalf for the city of Twentynine Palms as successor agency, allowing the city to utilize the bond money for the fulfillment of Project Phoenix. In June 2014, the Department of Finance filed an appeal of Kenny’s ruling.
Since that time, the Department of Finance has suffered multiple setbacks with regard to several cities efforts to control the spending of redevelopment agency money appropriated in 2011. On May 14, 2015, the department sent a letter to several cities, Twentynine Palms among them, announcing it was throwing in the towel on opposing the cities’ moves to preserve their last remaining redevelopment agency projects.
At stake in the case involving Twentynine Palms was the more than $10 millionof the $12 million in bond proceeds  for Project Phoenix which has yet to be spent and which the city is now free to apply toward completing the project.
“Consistent with recent appellate decisions, the Department of Finance will no longer seek to reverse lower court rulings upholding ‘reentered’ agreements that oversight boards authorized between Feb. 1, 2012 and June 27, 2012,” the letter, dated May 14 from California Department of Finance Program Budget Manager Justyn Howard , states. “Accordingly, Finance will comply with applicable court orders and has instructed the [California] Attorney General’s Office to cease litigation on this issue.”
Muñoz resisted gloating in his report back to the city council. “The department has decided that it will no longer fight the various cities that were challenging its stance on re-entered agreements,” Muñoz wrote in a memo.

(May 19)  The county’s taxpayers will shell out $210,317,923 prior to August 1 to cover the cost of pensions for retired county employees in the upcoming fiscal year.
This week the board of supervisors authorized auditor-controller/treasurer/tax collector Larry Walker to make an advance payment of the county’s estimated fiscal year 2015-16 annual contribution to the board of retirement within 30 days after the commencement of the county’s fiscal year July 1.
According to Walker, “For fiscal year 2015-16, the total county general fund retirement contribution is estimated to be $218,014,200, discounted by $7,696,277, at a simple interest rate of 3.53%, for a prepayment  amount of $210,317,923.”
Walker said “Government Code 31582, subdivision (b), allows the county to make an advance payment of all or part of the county’s estimated annual retirement contribution, provided that the payment is paid within 30 days after the commencement of the county’s fiscal year. The county has taken advantage of this advance payment alternative in the past, prepaying the general fund contribution to the board of retirement for the entire fiscal year. The prepaid amount is discounted by the board of retirement, resulting in savings for the general fund.
For fiscal year 2015-16, the county has calculated a 3.53% simple interest discount rate, which results in a discount of $7,696,277 to the general fund. The auditor-controller/treasurer/tax collector and the county administrative office analyzed the financial impact of prepaying the retirement contribution, and have determined that the county will benefit from the transaction.”
Walker said, “The estimated retirement contribution of $210,317,923 and the related discount amount of $7,696,277 are estimated and may change. Any benefit or loss realized by the board of retirement as a result of the retirement pre-payment will be incorporated into San Bernardino County’s employer’s contribution rates, thus ultimately accruing to the county.”
The county’s retirement costs have been escalating.  In 2011, the county made a $132,263,097 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2011-12 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,299,603 from the $137,562,700 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund that year. In 2012-13, the county made a $154,626,037 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2012-13 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,907,863 from the $160,533,900 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund through June 30 of 2014. In 2014-15, the county made a $182,185,164 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2014-15, fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $6,922,236 from the $189,107,400 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund this year.
In this way, county taxpayers have seen an average $15,610,965.20 per year increase in the cost of paying for pensions over the last five years.

After flying into an airport, Vladimir Putin made his way up to the customs desk. “Occupation?” the customs officer inquired. “No, just visiting this time,” Vladimir responded. The world we live in today is growing more complicated by the minute. Thinking of Russia, Belarus, Chechnya and the Ukraine keeps me up at night…
A bit of history: In 1991 the  Soviet Union was on the ropes. Mikhail Gorbachev had instituted a host of reforms which the Soviet establishment detested, including decentralizing much of the central government’s power to the republics. At that point, On August 18, a group of hard-line members of the Communist Party staged a  coup d’état attempt. Spontaneously, a group of government workers loyal to Gorbachev and weary of the restrictions of the Russian form of communism hatched a campaign of civil resistance that stymied the plotters. In one of the most dramatic turns of events in the 20th Century,  when the plotters turned to Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin for support while Gorbachev was being held under house arrest in Crimea, Yeltsin  spurned them, instead taking refuge in the Russian White House in Moscow, making a memorable speech from atop the turret of a tank onto which he had climbed in which he defied the Old Guard. Troops rallied by the plotters  surrounded  the White House, but after Yeltsin’s stirring speech in defense of the new age and a mass of popular demonstrations in favor of Gorbachev. they defected. By 21 August most of the coup leaders fled Moscow and Gorbachev was liberated from his captors and returned to Moscow. The return to paralyzing communism was averted…
Vladimir Putin yet harbors visions of reestablishing the Old Soviet Union. Next time, the world may not be as fortunate as it was in 1991…

Samuel Cook Pine, Sr., and Samuel Cook Pine Jr., were significant personages in San Bernardino County history.
Samuel C. Pine, Sr., was the grandson of one of the American combatants in the Battle of Lexington at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. He was born and raised in St. Lawrence County, New York.  He married Jane Morrison, the daughter of John and Ellen Morrison of Buffalo, New York. Samuel, Sr., equipped an ox-team in Illinois in 1850 and started across the Great Plains to Fort Bridger, Wyoming. There he remained for several years, operating a trading post and moved on to Salt Lake City, where he resided for about four years and engaged in stock raising. It was here that he and Jane Morrison were married and where Samuel C. Pine, Jr., was born on December 26, 1856.
In 1858 the Pines left Salt Lake City with a Mormon wagon train bound for San Berrnardino. They first settled in the Yucaipa Valley, where the senior Mr. Pine resumed his work as a stock raiser. He and Frank Talmadge erected and operated the first sawmill in Little Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains, powering it with a waterwheel. Mr. Pine moved to San Bernardino and then to Lyle Creek in 1865. He next moved to Jurupa and in 1867 he purchased a squatter’s claim at Rincon, adjoining the Chino Ranch. He had left the Little Bear Valley sawmill, fearing Indian attacks, since they had made frequent hostile demonstrations against the operation of the mill. At Rincon, Mr. Pine acquired 158 acres of prime farm land, which he improved by planting fruit trees and farming on an extensive scale until his death in 1897.
Samuel C. Pine, Jr., was less than two years old when his parents came from Salt Lake City, by means of an oxen-drawn wagon, to the San Bernardino Valley. As soon as he was old enough, he became involved in assisting in his father’s agricultural operations. He remained closely associated with his father until 1877 when he preempted 130 acres of government land on Pine Avenue and Corona Road south of Chino. He developed and improved upon this property, establishing one of the first artesian wells in that area. He became prosperous as a general farmer and dairyman. He left the ranch for a few years and lived in San Diego County where he served as county road overseer.
Returning to his home ranch in 1902, Samuel Cook Pine, Jr., was elected as Fourth District Supervisor on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. He proved to be an efficient and invaluable member of that body and he was quite active in Republican Party affairs. He was repeatedly reelected and served on the board from January 5, 1903 until January 4, 1915, being succeeded by Ray L. Riley of Colton.
Mr. Pine died at his ranch home in Rincon on March 24, 1919. He had prospered and added substantially to his holdings, depending on his strength and honesty to achieve success for himself and his family. His wife, the former Beatrice Gregory, was born in San Bernardino on October 13, 1859. She was the daughter of John and Mary Ann (Dunkerly) Gregory, who were both natives of England. Samuel and Beatrice Pine raised four children, Rena Belle, Samuel John, Mark and Lorraine Beatrice. The Pine family were members of the Congregational Church.

By Diane Dragotto Williams
There is an animal in the forest who is highly misunderstood and greatly feared, and that is the mountain lion. Being known for its prowess and hunting skills, the cat lives a solitary life and is a trophy game animal in many states.  Yet mystery surrounds the life and nature of this marvelous creature.  Powerful enough to take down its prey in short order, this feline is a formidable predator.  However, in our urban environment, it struggles to stay alive.
The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the puma, mountain lion, panther, or catamount, is a large cat of the family Felidae native to the Americas and the greatest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere.  Mountain lion males can weigh up to 220 lbs and females can weigh up to 140 lbs. Adult cougars stand about 24 to 35 in tall at the shoulders. Adult males are around 8 ft long nose-to-tail and females average 7 ft.  Of this length, about 25 to 37 inches, is the length of the tail. Cougars use their long tails for balance, maneuvering rocky outcroppings and mountains, as well as, warmth for a cold winter’s night in high altitudes.
Tawny in color, and sleek of body, this feline is easily recognized in the wild.  Its powerful forequarters, neck, and jaw serve to grasp and hold large prey. It has five retractable claws on its forepaws four on its hind paws. The larger front feet and claws are designed to clutch prey.  Cougars are well known for their screams but sometimes they hiss, growl, purr, as well as chirp and whistle.
An excellent stalk-and-ambush predator, the cougar pursues a wide variety of prey. It stalks through brush and trees, across ledges, or other covered spots, before delivering a powerful leap onto the back of its prey and a suffocating neck bite. The cougar is capable of breaking the neck of some of its smaller prey with a strong bite and momentum bearing the animal to the ground.  It’s not unusual for a cougar to bury its kill, and return to feed on it over a number of days.  Large prey can last a cougar every one or two weeks. However, during the raising of young, kills every three days are normal.
Female cougars are fiercely protective of their kittens, and have been seen to successfully fight off animals as large as American black bears in their defense. Males are not a part of the process of rearing the young and are chased away soon after courtship. Litters between one and six cubs are denned in caves or rock alcoves. Young lions are expected to be on their own by the second year.
California prey includes deer and bighorn sheep, as well as cattle, horses and sheep. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, but can also live in open areas. The cougar is territorial and survives at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. Life expectancy can range from 8 to 13 years in the wild. However, in areas where large prey like deer and big horn sheep are scarce, many yearlings cannot survive, starving to death. It is not unusual for sanctuaries like Wildhaven Ranch to receive spottings of young lions found in pools in the desert drinking water and hoping to capture prey at the “watering hole”.  We have great compassion for these incredible creatures of the wild. We promote the understanding that these cats are not dangerous to man, unless confronted, or if the human runs or “looks like” prey on the run. Reclusive and avoiding people, fatal attacks on humans are rare, and are a gift of beauty!
Contact Wildhaven Ranch for wildlife tours at (909)337-7389 or visit their website at www.wildhavenranch.org.