By Mark Gutglueck
(June 12) The California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority has agreed to pay San Bernardino County $14 million to settle a long-disputed insurance claim the county made for partial reimbursement of the $102 million payout it made in 2006 to close out a lawsuit brought by a Rancho Cucamonga-based development company against the county over flood control issues at a large scale residential and commercial project in northeast Upland.
The insurance authority’s willingness to satisfy the claim and the assertions the county made in pursuing it carry with them the potential to complicate the criminal prosecution of one of the principals in the company that received the $102 million payment and three former county officials prosecutors allege were involved in an extortion and bribery scheme related to the payout.
The matter pertains to a development plan by the Colonies Partners, a consortium of 19 developers headed by Dan Richards and Jeff Burum, which purchased 434 acres from the San Antonio Water Company Land Liquidation Trust in 1997 with the intent of developing the property both residentially and commercially. The land, however, was considered flood control property and was hamstrung with flood control easements, two of which were recorded in 1933 and 1934 and another recorded in 1939 after extensive flooding following the major deluges that hit the Southern California region in 1938. The property was shown on land use and zoning maps as dedicated open space and undevelopable. The Colonies Partners paid roughly $17 million for the property, which invited suggestions that the speculation the company was engaged in was fated to failure, especially given the consideration that earlier efforts to develop the property by three reputable entities – the Koll Company, the William F. Lyon Company and Lewis Homes/Lewis Development – had been shelved when the cost of providing adequate flood control and drainage facilities to render it developable in each case was deemed prohibitive.
Intrepidly, however, Burum and Richards proceeded, accompanying their proposal with a political action plan that included making hefty political contributions to Upland’s elected officials while simultaneously agreeing to cover the city’s costs for hiring consulting planners to work toward accommodating the project through the city’s public works, engineering, planning and community development departments, which in the preceding years had been pared back in an effort to reduce municipal costs. This led to a circumstance in which the city allowed the property to be rezoned and made eligible for development, even though key questions as to which entity – the Colonies Partners or the city and its taxpayers – would defray the cost of the considerable infrastructure needed to allow the project to proceed. The issue was complicated by the city’s effort to cure flood control and drainage issues originating at the northwest corner of the city, consisting of the construction of what became known as the 20th Street Storm Drain. The city engaged the services of the county flood control district to assist in the design and construction of that facility, which collected water at the upper northwest quadrant of Upland, conveyed it in a large-diameter pipe that ran along the length of the right-of-way for the 210 Freeway which at that time was under construction, ushering that water toward a flood control channel at the east end of the city of Upland near its border with Rancho Cucamonga.
With the turn of the millennium and the Colonies at San Antonio residential project proceeding, CalTrans purchased some 38 acres of the Colonies Partners’ property as right-of-way for the 210 Freeway, paying the Colonies Partners over $17 million.
The county, upon constructing the 20th Street Storm Drain so that it paralleled the northern edge of the freeway, with CalTrans’ consent, vectored the drain southward under the freeway when it reached the Colonies Partners’ property. The county, relying upon the 1930s easements, then terminated the storm drain at a spot on the Colonies property, which was previously owned by the San Antonio Water Company, where a catch basin had previously stood. The Colonies Partners, maintained that the entitlement to build it had obtained from the city of Upland obviated the land’s status as undevelopable open space dedicated for flood control purposes. The company demanded that the county construct a modern flood control basin to accommodate the water being deposited on its property from the storm drain, intending that the basin should also serve as a flood control facility to serve the Colonies development. The county, again relying on the rights granted to its flood control division, refused. After much back and forth, the Colonies Partners sued the county over the issue. Simultaneously, the Colonies Partners, particularly in the dual personae of Richards and Burum, stepped up their political activity. One phase of that political activity was to boost the fortunes of then-Rancho Cucamonga City Councilman Paul Biane. Biane challenged, and with the assistance of $70,000 in donations from Burum, Richards and the Colonies Partners, defeated incumbent Second District Supervisor Jon Mikels in the 2002 election. The Second District included Upland, and Mikels had been insistent that the developers of the Colonies at San Antonio residential and the accompanying Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivisions, built as they were on undevelopable land, defray their own infrastructure costs. Biane, who was active in real estate business, was more flexible on that issue. In addition, Richards and Burum were highly supportive of Bill Postmus, the young up-and-coming First District supervisor elected to that office in 2000 who by 2004 would accede to the positions of chairman of the board of supervisors and chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Party. Similarly, they supported Gary Ovitt, the supervisor for the county’s Fourth District. In the early to mid- 2000s, after the Colonies Partners’ lawsuit against the county had been filed, an ongoing and running dialog aimed at a negotiated settlement of the lawsuit ensued between, on one side, Richards and Burum, and on the other, Postmus and Biane. This took place against a backdrop of legal developments in the case, which included the first judge hearing the matter, Peter Norell, ruling that the flood control easements were abandoned and the appeals court subsequently overturning Norell’s finding on that score. At one point, Postmus and Biane worked out an agreement with Richards and Burum to pay them $77 million to settle the suit, but public outrage at the concept of the county paying for the infrastructure on a project that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars of profit for its owners nixed that deal.
As settlement discussions foundered, the case moved to a bench trial, during which the judge hearing that case, Christopher Warner, seemingly defied the appellate court that had previously upheld the validity of the county’s flood control easements on the Colonies property when he ruled in the course of the trial that the easements had been extinguished by surcharge. Warner entered a verdict in favor of the Colonies Partners, but had not ruled with regard to the amount of damages. The trial coincided with the 2006 election season, in which Postmus was vying for county assessor and Biane was running for reelection as supervisor unopposed, while campaigning for a countywide initiative he had authored, Measure P, that would substantially increase the salary of members of the board of supervisors, boosting their pay from $99,000 per year to $151,000 per year plus substantial benefits. With hints that the county was purposed to appeal Warner’s final conclusion in the case as well as his ruling that the flood control easements on the Colonies property were no longer in effect, Burum again intensified his political activity, this time departing from his support of Biane and Postmus and hiring public relations consultant Patrick O’Reilly to create mailers that exposed Biane, campaigning on behalf of the supervisors’ pay-boosting Measure P, as teetering on the brink of personal bankruptcy, and Postmus, whose political career was based on his image as a no-nonsense, right-wing conservative and religious Republican, as a drug using homosexual. Though the prosection alleges the mailers were prepared and ready for distribution, Burum held off on disseminating them widely, and at the November 7, 2006 election, Measure P passed and Postmus was elected assessor. Three weeks later, on November 28, 2006, Postmus, Biane and Gary Ovitt voted to confer a $102 million payment on the Colonies Partners to settle the lawsuit. During the first six months of 2007, Burum and Richards provided three separate $100,000 donations to political action committees operated or controlled by Biane and his chief of staff, Matt Brown; Mark Kirk, who was Gary Ovitt’s chief of staff; and Jim Erwin, the former president of the county sheriff’s deputies union who worked as an intermediary to open up communications between the Colonies Partners and members of the board of supervisor, in particular Postmus and Biane, and who was subsequently appointed by Postmus to the position of assistant assessor. Burum and Richards also made two separate $50,000 donations to each of two political action committees operated or controlled by Postmus,
Subsequently, prosecutors working with both the California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office called witnesses before and presented evidence to a grand jury. Subsequently, Postmus and Erwin in February 2010 were charged in a criminal complaint with extortion, bribery, perjury, tax evasion, conflict of interest, fraud and the filing of falsified documents. Both pleaded not guilty to those charges but in March 2011, Postmus entered guilty pleas to fourteen charges against him, turned state’s evidence and served as the star witness before a second grand jury that met in April 2011. In May 2011, a superseding indictment naming Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk was handed down. That indictment alleged, essentially, that Erwin assisted Burum in extorting Biane and Postmus during the 2006 campaign season while the Colonies lawsuit was pending, thus pressuring them into voting to settle the case for the $102 million payout. The indictment further alleged that Burum then acted to bribe Postmus and Biane with the delivery of the $100,000 donations to their political action committees in return for their votes. Also according to the indictment, the $100,000 delivered to Kirk was a bribe paid for his having influenced Ovitt to support the $102 million settlement.
Even before the Colonies Partners’ lawsuit against the county had gone to trial, in July 2004 the county gave one of its liability insurance providers, the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority (CSAC-EIA), notice of the lawsuit and a detailed account of the Colonies Partners’ contention that the company had been damaged by the county’s construction and placement of flood control and drainage appurtenances on and around the Colonies development. The county maintained the memorandum of coverage between the county and CSAC-EIA obliged the authority to cover up to $10 million of the county’s costs arising out of the lawsuit brought by the Colonies Partners. CSAC-EIA, on July 30, 2004, informed the county in writing that it did not believe the memorandum of coverage provided coverage in the matter. The county kept CSAC-EIA apprised of developments in the trial and in May 2007, the county formally asked the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority to reconsider the position it had taken with its July 2004 letter. CSAC-EIA refused to do so at that point, which was in contrast to the position of another of the county’s insurance carriers, Travelers Insurance, which in 2007 provided the county flood control district $9.5 million to satisfy its indemnification responsibility with regard to the Colonies Partners lawsuit settlement.
Another year-and-a-half of correspondence between CSAC-EIA and the county ensued in which the county sought to have its claim for indemnification acknowledged as legitimate. In January 2009, the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority officially rejected the county’s claim. In October 2010, the county, represented by deputy county counsel Mitch Norton and an outside attorney, Costa Mesa-based Todd Theodora and his law firm, filed a lawsuit alleging CSAC-EIA skipped out on its coverage obligation. “The California Association of Counties never adjudicated this claim in good faith because it did not want to have to provide coverage for a loss of this magnitude,” that suit stated.
The matter went before the Orange County Superior Court and ultimately, on November 10, 2014, Orange County Superior Court Judge Franz Miller ruled in favor of the county and against the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority, finding the county damaged the Colonies Partners, and as such the county which was entitled to an arbitration award against CSAC-EIA for the $10 million it was owed as part of the insurance coverage plus legal costs and interest. In a document signed on April 15 and filed on April 16, 2015 the CSAC-EIA agreed to the payment of $14,502,465.43 to the county as a final settlement of the claim.
Also filed with the Orange County Superior Court and signed by Miller on April 23, 2015 was a stipulation to unseal the record relating to the lawsuit between CSAC-EIA and San Bernardino County. This has opened up the full record of what transpired in the case, including court filings to which Norton was a signatory, party or representative of the county.
The assertions made in several of those filings may present a problem to the prosecution team in the criminal case against Burum, Biane, Kirk and Erwin. The full record shows that Norton, who prior to the November 2006 settlement of the case was involved in maintaining the county’s position that the county’s assertion of its rights under the 1933, 1934 and 1939 flood control easements justified the county’s action in vectoring the water from the 20th Street Storm Drain onto the Colonies Partners’ property, reversed course after the November 2006 vote to settle the case, asserting the settlement should be validated when in March 2007, Marjorie Musser Mikels, the wife of Jon Mikels, challenged it. Norton and Theodora and members of Theodora’s law firm repeatedly posited an argument before a panel of arbitrators with the Judicical Arbitration and Mediation Services based in Ontario and the Orange County Superior Court that San Bernardino County had engaged in actions or “offenses or wrongful acts” against the Colonies Partners which resulted in “physical damage” to the Colonies Partners’ property and/or assets, such that the $102 million settlement was a reasonable one given that the value of one of the basins constructed on the Colonies Partners’ property to hold the storm water was $85 million, the Colonies Partners’ had estimated the cost of managing the basin over time at $75 million, the Colonies Partners valued at $43 million the lots the company claimed were devalued due to the cloud on their title which came about because of the county flood control district’s interpretation of its easements, the three-year delay the construction of Phase II of the project cost the Colonies Partners $36 million, and that the Colonies Partners sustained an $11 million loss because of higher infrastructure development costs as a result of the county’s action.
Norton was called by prosecutors before the grand jury that indicted Burum, Biane, Kirk and Erwin. The questions asked of him and the answers given supported the grand jurors’ decision to hand down the indictment. During his appearance before the grand jury, Norton was not asked by prosecutors questions that elicited any of the information contained in the legal papers and court filings he participated in presenting to the aforementioned arbitration panel relating to the county’s claim against the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority, some or even much of which would have been exculpatory with regard to Burum, Biane, Kirk and Erwin, demonstrating there was a legitimate rationale for the $102 million settlement unrelated to extortion or bribery. Motions based upon the omission of such testimony from Norton or the prosecution’s failure to elicit it, if granted by the trial court judge, could vacate the indictment. Even if the indictment is allowed to stand and the case proceeds to trial, Norton could become a very problematic witness for the prosecution, as several of the court filings in the county’s case against the CSAC-EIA commit him to statements indicating the $102 million settlement was a reasonable one.
Repeated efforts by the Sentinel this week to obtain verbal or written comment from Norton regarding the implication of his court filings in the county’s case against the California State Association of Counties Excess Insurance Authority in compromising the prosecution of Burum, Biane, Kirk and Erwin were unsuccessful.

MORONGO VALLEY — (June 11) Donna Muñoz, who was once considered to be a key member of Third District Supervisor James Ramos’s staff, will seek to unseat him in the 2016 election.
Muñoz, a longtime resident of the Morongo Basin who has served in both elected and appointed capacities with several governmental entities there as well as in other parts of the county, is the first challenger to emerge against Ramos, who defeated incumbent Third District supervisor Neil Derry in 2012.
San Bernardino County’s Third District covers a large span of territory, extending all the way from Barstow at the district’s northwest extreme, through the eastern portion of the San Bernardino Mountains, the Morongo Basin and the most populated portion of the district, which involves Highland, Yucaipa, Redlands, Mentone, Loma Linda, Grand Terrace and the eastern portion of the city of San Bernardino.
Muñoz began her participation in governmental affairs nearly three decades ago when she was a field representative for Marsha Turoci, the First District county supervisor from 1988 to 1996, when the Morongo Valley was contained within the First District. She was later a field representative for Third District Supervisor Barbara Cram Riordan, after the Morongo Valley was moved into the Third District as a consequence of redistricting. She worked in the county assessor’s office, rising to the position of assistant assessor under former assessor Don Williamson. She is also a longtime member of the Morongo Unified School District Board of Trustees. After his election to the board in 2012, James Ramos hired Muñoz as a field representative. In February 2014, she resigned from that post when she was hired as the Morongo Valley Community Services District’s general manager.
There appears to be something, or several things, quixotic about Muñoz’s challenge of Ramos. First, she is reluctant to criticize Ramos, refusing to make a case for removing him from office. Rather, she is simply presenting herself as an alternative candidate. Moreover, she has virtually no hope of matching Ramos on the campaign financing side of the equation. In defeating Derry in 2012, Ramos, one of the controlling board members of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, raised and spent over $400,000 to promote himself and his candidacy. The San Manuel tribe owns and operates the San Manuel Casino. One unverified report has it that James Ramos personally realizes income of approximately $18,000 per day from the casino’s operation – providing him with an income of more than $6.5 million per year.
A point of interest and contrast in the Ramos/Muñoz matchup are their conflicting partisan affiliations, and the serpentine bends in Ramos’s political trajectory, which has placed him under the sway of functionaries of the party that rivals his own. Ramos is a Democrat, but he was elected in 2012 with the support of a bevy of Republicans – former supervisor Dennis Hansberger, county district attorney Mike Ramos, county sheriff John McMahon, and supervisor Janice Rutherford – despite Derry’s status as a Republican. In addition to bankrolling his own campaign, James Ramos provided money to a number of Republican candidates for various offices and Republican causes. Even with his switch to becoming a darling of some within the San Bernardino County Republican establishment, Ramos sought to maintain his connection with the Democrats and his longtime Democratic associates, providing money to charities and organizations with Democratic party ties, such as Give Big San Bernardino, which was sponsored by San Bernardino County and for which Chris Carrillo, a Democrat functionary and activist who had served as a community representative for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and later as a field representative for Ramos, was chairman. Give Big San Bernardino raised $548,214 for various charities over a two day period from May 8 to May 9, 2014.
Ramos hired Carrillo and another Democrat, Mike Lipsitz, to serve as his field representatives. But he also hired Muñoz, who is vice chairwoman of the Morongo Valley Republican Women organization. In the most telling instance, Ramos chose Phil Pauli, who had previously worked for Republican Congressman Daryl Issa, as his chief of staff. For many Democrats, this was testament to the degree to which Ramos had fallen under the influence of the shot callers in the local Republican Party.
In time, Carrillo and Lipsitz would leave Ramos’s office. Carrillo did so, at least ostensibly, voluntarily to pursue his legal career. Lipsitz did so involuntarily after an incident involving drugs at the county jail system which embarrassed Ramos.
Just as Ramos has shifted alliances from the Democratic Party to a coterie of Republican affiliates and then on occasion back to the Democrats, Muñoz, who identifies herself as a Republican, has deviated from the straight-and-narrow of Republicanism. She is something of a creature of the government establishment in San Bernardino County, which puts her at odds with one school of Republicans who consider government to be a sycophantic burden upon the productive members of the community who are forced to pay homage to the welfare state and overregulation because of a bloated, inefficient and overweening governmental structure.
Muñoz has sought to maintain a reputation as both an elected and appointed official looking out for residents and citizens. Nevertheless, she has also been identified in both her elected and appointed capacity as someone who supports the institutions of government and those who man those institutions. For example, she was supportive in hiring Dr. Cecelia English, the former director of academics at the Newark School District in Northern California, as interim superintendent at the Morongo Unified School District in the aftermath of Jim Majchrzak’s departure as superintendent. But after negotiations in the spring of 2014 between English and members of the the Morongo Teachers’ Association and the California School Employees Association bogged down over teacher salaries and benefits, and faculty members evinced distrust of English, Munoz found herself as the only member of the board willing to grant English the 5.77 percent raise she had sought for herself in May 2014. A month later, English was forced out as superintendent with Munoz serving as her only defender. Some see no contradiction in Muñoz’s stance, since it was the unionists who took issue with English and unions are considered by many to be Democratic Party-affiliated entities.
Muñoz has spent a good portion of her working life as a government employee. As a result, she is somewhat disinclined to hear the complaints of residents and citizens who maintain that government is falling short or plagued by officials, elected and appointed, who are looking after their own interests rather than those of the taxpayers who employ them. Rather, she evinces a can-do attitude about the efficacy of government.
“The major difference between myself and the current supervisor is I have worked as a field representative for three supervisors,” she said. “When I was a field representative [for Turoci and Riordan] I was given a lot more leeway to solve problems. I rolled up my sleeves and was able to do more. I will never say anything derogatory about James [Ramos]. I had a completely satisfactory personal relationship with him. I think I am more committed to being out in the community. I enjoy that part of being in government and being out in the community. I understand the problems in this area. James relies more on his staff. I think I am more committed to being out in the community.”
Muñoz said she sees “a lot of different issues basinwide. We have ground solar vs. roof top solar. We are unique up here. I have a feel for this area. I was the assistant assessor. We comprise a huge geographical area, with the city [Twentynine Palms] and the town [Yucca Valley] and a whole bunch of smaller areas, Johnson Valley, Landers, Joshua Tree, Morongo Valley. They are all different from each other and from the rest of the distict. I am familiar with all of it, not just the city of Highland or Redlands, but all of the unique little pockets that make up the district. I have been out in each community. Each has different issues. In the outlying areas of the district, community centers take on special meaning and importance. As people get older, they need other people to step in and take action. I have experience running the Morongo Community Services District. When I got here, LAFCO [i.e., the county’s local agency formation commission] was looking at dissolving the district. I was able to get our budget in line and LAFCO just informed us they are willing to accept the way we are going to run the district. They are happy with it. In Joshua Tree, new construction and building has become an issue. The responsibility of a supervisor is to look at the varying issues and problems and find the least controversial way of solving those problems.”
Muñoz said that the supervisors should concern themselves less with the issues in the incorporated municipalities, while confronting issues of all sorts, planning, zoning, service provision, and the like in the unincorporated areas of the district. “The cities have boards and councils of their own to deal with the urban ares of the district,” she said. “The city council in Twentynine Palms and the town council in Yucca Valley can make decisions about how to solve their problems. In a few instances, the county does cross into the business of the various cities. For example, in Twentynine Palms there is a question about whether the city will accept the county fire department. And the county does partner with the cities for animal shelters and policy on things like solar development and some building or development that will impact the city. But the supervisor has more of an impact on the outlying communities, such as in getting money for community centers.”
She continued, “As far as decision making in the small areas like Morongo or other county areas where we have problems with leased land, I believe I can step in and help. I am not saying James is insensitive to our problems. It is just that I have spent the last 30 years of my life in the [Highway 62] community and I know the people who live here.”
She is not a one-trick pony who only knows the low desert and is ignorant of the mountain area, the Inland Valley and Barstow, Muñoz insisted.
“I am comfortable with the whole Third District,” she said. “I have a lot of experience as a field representative under my belt. I was the assistant assessor, which made me very familiar with all of the areas of the district. I was instrumental in bringing rapid transit to the Morongo Basin. I have solved issues with regard to water quality. I worked with the health department and fixed problems the well owners had. I am committed to making government work. The first thing I did after I came in here to be the executive director of the Morongo Community Services District was to take my salary down. I am making $22,000 less than the former general manager. People who meet me see that I have a lot of energy and see I am committed. People have suggested that now may be the time for me to step up into being supervisor. The time does feel right to me.”
Muñoz acknowledged that Ramos holds a tremendous advantage over her monetarily, as an incumbent who can raise money on that basis and deny her the same fundraising capability, as well as because of his own personal wealth and his ability to donate to his own electoneering fund in quantities she could never match.
“I want people to realize this is not about the money,” Muñoz said. “It is about integrity and doing a good job and making a difference. Right now, he may have more knowledge about the entire Third District than I do. But do not forget that as assistant assessor I have experience in every one of the district’s areas. I have worked with senior citizens. I am very familiar with the current issues and with regard to new issues I am very fast on my feet. I would make the county operation in our district user friendly, not just me, but my staff. County supervisors are different from assemblyman and congressman. Being county supervisor is a little more of a hands-on job. Under Don Willamson in the assessor’s office I was a liaison. I went on to become assistant assessor.”
In terms of serving the entirety of the county’s residents beyond her constituents in the Third District, Munoz said, “As a supervisor, your votes shape the county. You have a vote. You are one of five and you need to establish a good rapport with your colleagues. There is never one person who decides everything. But you must trust in your colleagues to know their districts as you know yours. You need a good core of people who can do their homework, know what is best in their own district and come up with solutions. I believe I can get my staff up to speed. If not, you will end up with a dysfunctional board. There are many issues I am sure I am not aware of. But you establish a rapport with the county’s department heads and you use them to get into each county department and get all the sides of the issues and the facts. You work face-to-face with the people who are on top of the issues. Collaboration is very important.”
Munoz attended Pasadena City College. In addition to her work in government she worked for Robinson’s Department Store, moving into a management role, and was a Pacific Telephone service representative and manager. She also ran a Sears corporate offshoot, a Sears Dealership Store, which is an outlet located in a small community. She assisted her daughter in starting a day care business. She has been married to Art Munoz for 36 years. They have five children, 18 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Art is retired from 37 years in the restaurant industry, having served as general manager to Clearman’s North Woods Inn.

The two cities at the extreme southwest corner of San Bernardino County, Chino and Chino Hills, have taken steps to criminalize what those cities’ officials deem to be the profligate use of water by their respective residents, landowners and business owners.
The restrictions recently codified into new ordinances in Chino and Chino Hills come as the result of a state mandate that Chino reduce its water consumption by 24 percent and a similar mandate on Chino Hills that it reduce water consumption by 26 percent.
After three years of drought and a measurement of snowpack that showed the thinnest amount of snowpack in more than 60 years of record-keeping in the Sierra Nevada, on April 1 Governor Jerry Brown mandated that cities throughout the state cut back on potable urban water usage by at least 25 percent. In the months since that time, the California Water Resource Board has formulated what are referred to as urban water supplier conservation tiers, which specify the specific amount of water reduction cities, towns, municipalities, counties and water districts must achieve in their operations this year.
To meet those goals, most governmental jurisdictions have contemplated across-the-board restrictions on their water customers. The primary method of achieving those reductions discussed consisted of water rate increases to discourage the wasteful use of water by households and businesses.
On May 26, the Chino Hills City Council passed an urgency ordinance vesting in the city code enforcement division the authority to ferret out wasteful use of water and cite the offenders, using a series of escalating fines and other means, to discourage the casual overuse of water. Upon the first cited offense, the Chino Hills ordinance calls for a $100 fine, though city officials said they would grant first offenders a grace period to come into compliance actuated by “a written warning.” If the written warning does not induce compliance, the first citation, carrying with it a $100 fine, would be issued. A second offense within 12 months would trigger a $200 fine, according to the ordinance. Third and fourth offenses would entail fines of $500.
Those going beyond a fourth violation of the city’s water restrictions would be subject, according to the ordinance, to prosecution under section 377 of the state water code and under section 1.36.020 of the municipal code. That portion of the code provides the city with the legal authority to jail offenders up to six months. The prosecutorial decision would be at the discretion of the city attorney.
As a final means of physically preventing a homeowner or landowner from using what the city deems an unacceptable amount of water, the city manager, or his designee, can utilize flow restrictors on the service lines of repeat offenders or outright shut off water service to the property in question.
In Chino, the city council on June 2 passed an even more draconian urgency ordinance, one that imposes fines of up to $1,000, while explicitly authorizing jail time as a punishment for water use scofflaws. The jail time reference stands independent from other penalties provided for under section 13.05.120 of the municipal code.
While the specified warnings and punishments the city council in Chino granted to its city manager and city attorney are initially less severe and more gradual than those in Chino Hills, they ratchet up to a harsher level than in the neighboring city. First- and second-time offenders within 12 months will receive written warnings in Chino and a third violation will result in the relatively mild punishment of a $50 fine attached to the offender’s water bill. The fourth and fifth violations, within one year will trigger $100 and $150 fines. Beyond that, the city manager is authorized to employ a flow restrictor. If that does not cure the problem, offenders will be hit with a $1,000 fine. After that, the city will seek to send offenders to jail.
Repeat offenders will be reported to the state, which would have the option of referring those matters to the California Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution, assuming the state has been granted such authorization by the legislature at that point.
In Chino’s case, the ordinance piggybacks off a water conservation element to the city code adopted by the city council in 2009. Residents who allow irrigation water to run into the gutter, driveway, sidewalk or other paved surfaces will have run afoul of Chino’s water conservation ordinance.
In Chino, residents are required to limit their lawn and landscape watering to the hours between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Those caught watering their lawns or landscape after 6 a.m. or before 8 p.m. on any day or at any hour on Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday are subject to warning, citation, fines or jailing.
In addition, residents are prohibited from watering while it is raining or within 48 hours after rainfall occurs.
The city, which has already replaced some of the grass in medians on Central Avenue with artificial turf, is resolving to water the remaining grass or landscaping in its medians citywide with recycled water only. The city is requiring that irrigation at new construction sites be effectuated with drip and microspray systems if drinkable water is used. The city has also dropped its requirement that hotels operating within the city launder the sheets and towels in their occupied rooms on a daily basis.

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Sentinel 06-12-15

(June 11) Though it is now just in the planning phase, an effort to put two new rail lines across the urbanized portion of western San Bernardino County has raised the ire of the downtown business community in Upland as well as some historical preservationists.
Over the last couple of decades, the city of Upland has made repeated efforts to revitalize its historic downtown area lying just east of Euclid Avenue south of Arrow Highway and north of Eighth Street. Previously, before the state of California eliminated all municipal redevelopment agencies throughout the state, Upland utilized its redevelopment agency in the downtown rejuvenation effort, seeking to make improvements and offer incentives and subsidies for businesses willing to operate there if city officials believed those businesses would contribute to an ambience that would attract customers and patrons to the area. City officials are yet casting about for a strategy to boost the fortunes of the district. Among those most passionate about reestablishing downtown Upland as a cultural and commercial center is Upland Councilwoman Carol Timm, who was elected last year after sixteen years as a member of the Upland Planning Commission. Timm is also the head of the Upland Historical Society.
Running north and south right through the heart of downtown Upland is Second Avenue. The railroad line along which the Metrolink system runs is just south of Ninth Street and crosses Second Avenue, proximate to where the Upland Metrolink Station is located. A plan which has been previewed by SANBAG, the acronym for San Bernardino Associated Governments, which serves as San Bernadino County’s transportation agency, calls for construction of two new rail lines alongside the existing line, including one line to accommodate a relatively high-speed train. The consortium of railroad companies involved in the plan intends to use the federally-granted authority railroads possess which gives them precedence over local jurisdictions when transportational conflicts between roads/streets and rail lines arise, to close Second Avenue. That portion of Second Avenue runs through south Upland from the westbound exit off the 10 Freeway near Seventh Street all the way to Foothill Blvd. Second Street is considered to be not only an intrinsic part of downtown but a major means of access to the downtown area. Downtown entrepreneurs and supporters of the downtown revival effort were taken aback at the recent public announcement of the intent to eventually close Second Avenue.
This has presented something of a challenge to Upland Mayor Ray Musser, who is a member of the SANBAG board and who sees the addition of the regional rail lines as representing an advantage to Upland upon their completion. Musser also enjoys something of a political alliance with Timm on council and the closure of Second Avenue could threaten their consonance.
This week, Musser told the Sentinel that the coming of the two new railroad lines and the move to close Second Avenue is “not a rumor. The bottom line is in the next two to three years there will be two new tracks. Once they put the second track in, they will close Second Avenue.”
Musser said that accompanying the construction of the new railroad lines will be the demolition of four aging and dilapidating buildings in the downtown area. He said that demolition and the advent of the new railway lines, which tentatively are set to be augmented by a train platform near or at Euclid Avenue, carries with them the potential of reviving the downtown area in a way that past efforts failed to achieve.
“They will need to close Second Avenue when they have three tracks,” Musser said. “One of the tracks will be for an express train that will travel at a speed of 70 to 80 miles per hour. They also want to start a quiet zone [i.e., no train whistle/horn disturbance area] and they want a stop on Euclid Avenue. They will load from that point In order for them to develop the new system, the Railroad Association for safety wants to close both sides of Second Avenue.”
Musser said he appreciates the misgivings those who have invested in locating downtown have, but said that the new station at Euclid has the potential for creating a synergy throughout the entire district, which includes the Upland Civic Center and downtown. He said he believes this synergy will more than offset any loss to the downtown area that will be brought about by the closure of Second Avenue.
“There has been a lot of reaction from the folks downtown,” Musser said. “People are up in arms over this. They think it will ruin downtown. I disagree.”
Musser said it is possible the new train depot will be located at the location where the old Hoyt Lumber yard stood.

TWENTYNINE PALMS—(June 12) In a move widely perceived as a signal that the operation of the Twentynine Palms Fire Department will be turned over to the San Bernardino County Fire District, the Twentynine Palms Water District Board of Directors this week called for the creation of an ad-hoc committee to consider the fire department’s fate.
Since 1958, the fire department in 29 Palms has been overseen by the water district. The department grew to include two fire stations and seven firefighters to cover the 55 square miles within the Twentynine Palms City Limits and the 33 square miles of unincorporated county area that also falls under the water district/fire department’s 88-square mile jurisdiction. The city does not contribute to, participate in or subsidize the fire department’s operational budget, which is infused entirely by a special tax on landowners within the fire department’s service area.
The department grew to include two fire stations and seven firefighters to cover the fire department’s service area. At present, the fire department functions using $1,244,800 in revenue from the special tax imposed on residents and businesses within the fire department/fire district service area. Current fire chief Jim Thompson has pared operations such that the department is run out of a single fire station, employing only himself and four other paid firefighters, functioning within the parameters of a budget that allows for $1,209,525 in annual expenditures, while salting away $52,775 in a reserve account. The department’s five paid firefighters are augmented by 28 reserve/volunteer firefighters, all of whom have attended a fire academy. Four of those are local volunteers. The others are aspiring firefighters from more distant areas in San Bernardino County, or Los Angeles, Orange or Riverside counties. Each serves a one-day 24 hour shift per week in Twentynine Palms. The 24 who do not reside in or near Twentynine Palms return to their distant abodes upon the conclusion of their shifts.
The city of Twentynine Palms in the past has not been willing to take on operational and financial responsibility for the fire department. An effort to beef up the fire department in a way that was independent of the city was made in 2012, when a ballot initiative, Measure H, was offered to the voters for approval. Measure H would have increased the special tax customers of the Twentynine Palms Water District pay from the current $80 per unit to $120 per unit with an additional $6 per year increase for the next 10 years to provide enhanced fire protection and emergency medical aid to the community. Voters nixed the initiative, with 850 votes of endorsement, or 48.27 percent, and 911 in opposition, or 51.73 percent, during the mail-in balloting concluded on April 17, 2012, in which 1,761 voters, or 32.93 percent of the 5,421 eligible to participate returned ballots.
Shortly thereafter, the community was given a wakeup call by the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees jurisdictional issues throughout the county. In its five-year service review of Twentynine Palms delivered on May 7, 2012, the commission’s staff stated that the demands of operating the fire district have for some time been outrunning the water district’s funding ability. The report, authored by Local Agency Formation Commission executive officer Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, assistant executive officer Samuel Martinez and project manager Michael Tuerpe, said the district suffered from “a significant deficiency in funding” such that “the water district’s fire operations are unsustainable as presently financed.”
Rollings-McDonald told the water district’s board members that the district would have to overcome the financial challenges facing the fire department, or cede control of the department to another entity by July 1, 2013. That deadline passed, however, without any change, as an overture by the county fire department functioning within the available $1.244 million annual funding for the department would have entailed a reduction of the paid firefighting force to three from the current five. The water board has sought to induce, cajole, shame, provoke or otherwise motivate the city of Twentynine Palms to take over directly or share in the operation of the fire department. Only councilwoman Cora Heiser has proven supportive of such a move, as the remainder of the city council has expressed reluctance to assume such a financial liability.
This week, in what was either a last ditch effort to get the city to sign on to sharing responsibility for the fire department with the water district or otherwise bring the county in to run the fire department, the water district board called for the creation of an ad-hoc committee consisting of two water board members and two city council members to study the options remaining for continuing the operation of the fire department.
A clear stumbling block to the city stepping into the situation all along has been the attitude of the string of city managers the city of Twentynine Palms has had over the last half decade. Richard Warne was adamant that the city could not sustain the financial burden of running the fire department. His follow-on, Joe Guzzetta, while open to discussions of having the city bring the fire department in-house, never actuated such a plan. Recently appointed city manager Frank Luckino, constrained to working within a very tight budget, does not have the luxury of expanding the footprint of city government in a way that will demand more tax money. And though the $1.244 million in special tax revenue earmarked for the fire department would be passed along to the city, the pressure on the city to intensify the department’s operations in a way that would overrun that revenue would result in Luckino having to divert money from other municipal programs.
Luckino today told the Sentinel, “From a staff perspective, we are waiting for the ad hoc committee to make its recommendation to find out what the resolution is. We feel at this point the county annexation process is probably the best course for the people of Twentynine Palms in terms of both safety and sustainability. The fire department does a great job but sustainability, given the financial limitations imposed on it, is an issue. The council has not weighed in on this yet. For the city to take on that responsibility it would need to have a revenue source. Otherwise it would jeopardize other services the city must provide. The process we envision is for there to be three or four ad hoc committee meetings. Once, hopefully, the ad hoc committee comes to a consensus, its recommendation will come to the council and there will be a joint meeting of the water district board and the council. As city manager, I would never put the citizens at risk in terms of safety or financially. Ultimately, if the city is to take on the fire department responsibility it must have a revenue source to provide that service.”
Even before the ad-hoc committee had formed, there was talk of tentative preparations to have the fire department’s 88-square mile service area annexed to the county fire district pursuant to a seven or eight month process that would begin in October and allow the county fire department, under the direction of county fire division chief John Chamberlain, to take over the fire protection operations in Twentynine Palms officially as of July 1, 2016.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
This week I’m in danger of becoming a crime reporter, as the subjects of larceny and murder are the most interesting things going on…
Most crime columnists butter their bread by making the cops and prosecutors seem like they are gods of rectitude, efficiency, investigative precision and keeping us civilized sorts safe by ensuring the sociopaths who would prey on us are locked up. I regret to let you know ahead of time, I am going to be an abject failure in living up to that standard, as what I am gazing out upon is ineptitude and slovenliness that has let the guilty go free and landed someone in the docket who, though accused of one of the most heinous crimes to intrude into our collective existence in San Bernardino County in the last several years, may indeed have been falsely implicated…
Let us start with Judith Oakes, whose embezzlement from the children of the Rialto Unified School District and the taxpayers in that blue collar city was prodigious. To recap her sordid story, she was hired by the school district in 1997 as an accountant on the strength of her experience with the former Bank of Redlands, now known as Community Bank. She was married to educator Jack Oakes, and she was entrusted with the position of accounting supervisor in 1999. Perhaps as early as that year but certainly no later than 2001, she began stealing from her employer. And she wasn’t just pilfering a dime here and a quarter there, but in such large quantities that once she began, she simply could not quit because doing so would have been a giveaway that something was amiss. Her job consisted almost entirely of overseeing the district-wide proceeds from the schools’ nutrition programs, as she supervised the crew that had physical custody of the money and was also charged with accounting authority over those funds. Boldly, day after day, year after year for well over a decade, while in the enclosed counting office where the district’s money-counting machines bundled the money into batches of bills to be taken to the bank for deposit, she began pocketing – to use a euphemism – something over $4,000 per week. Not just one week when she and her husband, who went on to become the principal of Ramona-Allesandro Elementary School in the San Bernardino City School District, were behind in the mortgage, but every week, for thirteen or fourteen years, she continued to pocket the money. Pocketing isn’t the right term. Actually, she would slip the packs of money into her brassiere. Once she had begun her larcenous escapades, she was obliged to continue stealing approximately the same amount of money per week – an average of between $4,100 and $4,300 every five school days – so that the pattern of thefts would remain undetected…
She and Jack Oakes lived high on the hog, living almost as grandly and sinfully as do I, eating lobster, or roast pheasant under glass or pate foie regularly, purchasing a grand home and grownup toys of all descriptions, dune-buggies, motorcycles, boats and luxury and sports vehicles. Even after Jack Oakes died of a trauma-induced heart attack following his being severely injured in an off-roading accident in the desert in April 2010, she continued to live the good life, regularly running up $10,000-to-$12,000-a-month charges on her credit card, purchasing expensive clothes, taking trips to exotic destinations while staying at the most expensive hotels, rendezvousing regularly with gentleman companions, including the school district’s former superintendent with whom she was once seen necking…
True, after suspicions were aroused in the late spring of 2013 and investigators took the opportunity to actuate existing and install new cameras in the district money counting room and she was caught, Oakes has had a rough 22-month go of it. She spent time in jail awaiting trial. Forensic accountants pieced together exacting documentation showing she had stolen $1.8 million between 2005 and 2013 and estimated – based on less reliable documentation – that she had stolen another $1.3 million between 1999 and 2005. Faced with this, she was induced to plead guilty and was sentenced in January to five years in jail along with three years of supervised probation. Justice, of sorts, it seemed…
But word comes now that Oakes, 50, has been released from custody. On June 5, she walked out of the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore a free woman, or a relatively free woman, subject only to what are termed “general” probation terms. Bear in mind that in addition to the five-year sentence she received, she was to be subject to supervised probation for three years after her release. What is the reason for her release? She spent slightly more than 20 months in custody awaiting trial as well as serving time after her sentencing. Her jailers are striving to reduce the number of inmates in the state prison system. The Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center is now considered to be part of the state prison system, even though it is run by the county. Ms. Oakes probably would have served out a large part of her sentence there. But now she is free to go back to the upscale home she lived in with her husband, and which was paid for, at least partially, with the ill-gotten proceeds of her life of crime…
I have left a few things out here. Let me try to fill them in. I didn’t mention that she has already made restitution of $339,002.08, composed mostly of the bundles of bills that investigators found lying all around her house, on the floor, beneath a bed, in closets and in drawers. Most of those bundles still had the district’s paper wrapping bands around them. As part of her sentencing, she was ordered to pay $1,845,137.81 in restitution. So far, she has covered $997.98 less than $340,000 of that. Rest assured, my kind and naive readers, that she is not getting off easily. The district attorney’s office would never have let her do that! Under the terms of her sentencing and her probation she has to continue to make restitution – at a rate of $150 per month. So, you see, she will indeed pay her debt to society in full. Her final payment will come, let’s see here, sometime in the summer of the year 2851! Because of the statute of limitations, she was not ordered to make restitution on the $1.3 million she was suspected but not convicted of stealing between the years of 1999 and 2005. If the statute of limitations did not apply, she would remain in arrears on her debt to society until October of 3573. Oh, by the way, those calculations do not include interest…
In the meantime, her probation officer will be checking up on her every two months or so to make sure she opens no checking accounts, has no blank checks whatsoever in her possession and does not fill out or endorse any checks that are not explicitly made payable to her. She is also required, by the terms of her probation, to remain employed. Hey, maybe she can get a job at a bank! We wouldn’t want her experience with numbers and currency to go to waste…
Let us now turn to the matter of Charles Merritt, who is accused by the district attorney’s office of having killed his one-time business partner, Joseph McStay, as well as Mr. McStay’s wife and two young children. Mr. Merritt was arrested with much fanfare in November, some four years and eight months after the McStay family abruptly took leave of their home in northern San Diego County and their family vehicle, an Isuzu Trooper, was found near the Mexican border at San Ysidro in February 2010 and a year after their bodies were found in relatively shallow graves in the desert north of Victorville in November 2013. The district attorney himself, Mike Ramos, declared absolute confidence in the strength of the case against Mr. Merritt at the press conference heralding his arrest and the filing of charges against him. Charles Merritt was slapped with bail higher than the gross domestic product of several of the countries on the globe, ensuring he would remain jailed until his trial and likely beyond that. He initially chose to represent himself, but was soon overwhelmed with over 12,000 pages of evidence the prosecution laid out and he has since consented to be represented by a team of four lawyers. Assumptions of his guilt run across the gamut of our community, with people writing letters to the editors of local newspapers demanding that he receive the death penalty…
Nevertheless, other than making grand pronouncements as to Mr. Merritt’s guilt, the district attorney’s office has made no showing of such and has resisted making any such disclosures, when something along the lines of 18 news organizations filed motions with the court for access to the evidence against Mr. Merritt. In responding to those requests, which were respectfully submitted, the district attorney’s office asserted that it was premature to do so, as the investigation had not yet been wrapped up. That is your first clue, interested readers, that something is not quite right here. How could the district attorney say with such confidence in November that investigators had their man, arrest him and charge him, if the full range of evidence to establish his guilt has not yet been found and is still being sought? And if the perpetrator of this heinous act is in custody and cannot possibly be released because of the astronomically high freedom bond he must post, what danger is there that talking about the facts of the case will allow the jailed murderer to alter or destroy any remaining evidence yet to be obtained by the prosecutor’s office?
Lest I be accused of being some bleeding heart, molly-coddler of criminals, let me say this: I believe this was a horrible crime. The lifeless corpses of the McStay Family scream from the shallow graves in which they were found for justice. Someone, there can be no doubt, brutally and callously murdered them. That person is a sociopath of unfathomable magnitude. Even assuming the murderer had a legitimate beef with Joseph McStay, applying homicide to settle the dispute was unacceptable and there would be and can be no conceivable justification – in this life or the next – for killing the innocent members of his family. Not only is this person a sociopath, but a homicidal psychopath of the lowest order, deserving, if you believe in capital punishment, of the death penalty, and meriting life in prison with no possibility of parole, if you do not believe in the death penalty. But no matter how heinous the act, no matter how outrageous the taking of life, we as a society are not, and never will be, justified in holding an innocent person to account for something he did not do. The question remains: Did Charles Merritt murder the McStays?
I have entertained the concept that Charles Merritt is guilty. I have tried to fit my analysis through the rubric of what is known and what is likely. The problem, of course, is I do not know everything the investigators know and I have not seen many, or even any, really, of the cards the prosecution is preparing to deal. This makes some of what I am about to write speculative. But that is the point, isn’t it? The prosecution owes us more than it has given. So far, it has written a rubber check. It has filled out a promissory note without providing sufficient funds into the checking account to back it…
What is known is that the case against Mr. Merritt is a circumstantial one. In November, Mike Ramos called the circumstantial case a “strong” one. In January, prosecutors acknowledged the case was indeed circumstantial, and that they were waiting for further information or confirmation of evidence they already had to cinch the case. This was a giveaway that the case was not as strong as earlier represented. Let’s size up the case…
Joseph McStay built fountains and water art pieces for landscaping, residential yards and pools. Charles Merritt installed those fountains and water art pieces for the customers who purchased Joseph McStay’s designs. There is some evidence, at least, to suggest that Charles Merritt constructed some of that art work. The customers in some cases dealt directly with Mr. Merritt and he, apparently, received payment from them. He may have been called upon to deliver that payment to Mr. McStay or his account. There was, it appears, some order of a financial dispute between the two men. There has been indication that the financial dispute escalated in the months just prior to the McStay Family’s disappearance. There is documentation available with regard to the McStay account and with regard to Charles Merritt’s account now in the hands of the investigators and prosecutors. There are corresponding transfers in and out of these accounts. Some of those transfers appear to confirm the existence of this financial dispute. Some transfers could just be, however, business as usual. Investigators and the district attorney are playing way closer to the vest evidence they maintain “might” show that Charles Merritt accessed the McStay account and either made withdrawals from it or disbursements from it prior to and after the disappearance of the McStay Family. This suggestion is a murky one, and no details regarding it are publicly available. lnteresting and intriguing, if true, but not necessarily a smoking gun. It might even be exculpatory, since, if Charles Merritt was not involved in the McStays’ disappearance and he routinely accessed Joseph McStay’s account, his doing so a day or two or even a week after the family disappeared would indicate he was functioning on the assumption Joseph McStay was still alive. Surely, if he murdered Mr. McStay [and his family], Merritt would not then have accessed Mr. McStay’s account, as this would lead investigators right to him upon the discovery of Mr. McStay’s death…
Investigators and prosecutors are convinced, we can piece together, that Mr. Merritt used a sledgehammer to bludgeon to death the entire McStay Family at their Fallbrook home. He then, according to this theory, painted the walls in an effort to obliterate any tell-tale blood splatters, splotches or like evidence of the crime. Found in one if the shallow graves north of Victorville was the sledge hammer. It had on it paint. In November, District Attorney Ramos made statements about the sledge hammer, without actually identifying it as a sledge hammer, that in the light of more recent revelations, suggested that he believed the paint on the hammer matched the paint on the walls at the McStay residence. What we now know is that the paint on the hammer does not – repeat not – match the paint at the McStay residence. We know that there is no overt indication at all that the murders occurred at the McStay residence – no hair, no blood, no indications of any type of a struggle. This is, of course, not to say a clever killer could not have removed that evidence. But there is no evidence that the murders occurred there. Rather, there is something to indicate the McStay family may have left the home rather abruptly. Nor has there been released, yet, any sure-fire forensic evidence implicating Mr. Merritt. As far as we know, there is no DNA linking him to the McStay bodies or the McStay home. If there is, I think it safe to assume, it would have been released. So, to recap, it appears that District Attorney Ramos and his crew, in November, pinned their hopes not on solid scientific evidence but circumstantial evidence, which in part consisted of the paint on the hammer. But that part of the circumstantial evidence has evaporated with the showing that the paint on the hammer does not match the paint at the McStay home. So the elliptical suggestion made by the district attorney’s office that Mr. Merritt killed the McStay Family at their Fallbrook home and then cleaned up the murder scene now appears dubious…
There yet appears to be a peg or maybe even two or three pegs where the prosecution can hang its hat in its focus on Mr Merritt…
One is the place where the bodies were found. There is a lot of desert in California. The Anza-Borrego Desert in Eastern San Diego County and Western Imperial County is closer to Fallbrook than the Mojave Desert. For convenience sake, why didn’t the killer bury the family there? How is it that the bodies ended up in the Mojave Desert north of Victorville, which just happens to be in an area very familiar to Mr. Merritt, relatively close to where he grew up and near where he was living at the time of the McStay family’s disappearance? If Mr. Merritt did kill the McStays, depositing them in a remote place with which he was familiar makes perfect sense. After all, he would have known about the desert area surrounding Victorville, the frequency with which off-roaders or others go there and he conceivably would know where in that particular area he might find a good spot to hide the evidence of his foul deed. Since he lived relatively close, he might have been able to stash the bodies at his residence, perhaps in his garage, head out to a spot he selected in the desert, dig the graves without hazard since if he was discovered at that point he would not be in possession of any incriminating evidence (i.e., the bodies) and, after digging the holes, he could return home, retrieve the bodies and drive back out into the desert to quickly inter them and lessen the risk of being caught in the act…
What we have yet to learn is whether the prosecution has any other data by which Mr Merrittt can be placed at the McStay residence around the time of the family’s disappearance, such as cellphone tower pings. Could cell phone tower pings further establish Mr. Merritt as being near the Mexican border during this time frame and perhaps a day or two or three before the McStays’ Isuzu Trooper was found there? And did his cell phone ping off the cell phone tower nearest the burial site north of Victorville in February 2010? We don’t have that information, but it seems to me that if the prosecution did, we would know about it…
None of what I have come up with proves that Charles Merritt is innocent. But I am having serious doubts about his guilt. I spent a large part of my life in Europe. There are places over there where the authorities would pick people up in the dead of night, charge them with crimes and hold court proceedings, if court proceedings were held at all, where there was no public presentation of evidence against the accused and no showing of guilt and no opportunity for the criminally charged to demonstrate innocence. I was led to believe that things are not like that in America, that those given the authority of prosecution have to make a showing, and a timely one, a speedy one, of the guilt of those charged, complete with evidence that will stand the light of day, that will convince a jury of the arrestee’s peers of his guilt. In America we are supposed to so value freedom and justice that we just don’t take a prosecutor’s word that a crime has been committed and that some individual is guilty and will therefore be locked up or executed. A reasonable showing of that alleged guilt must be made. After more than six months, why is the prosecution shying away from meeting that burden in Mr. Merritt’s case?

James Harry Porch was born in Warsaw, Missouri, on May 8, 1880, the son of E.M. and Catherine (Scott) Porch. E.M. Porch was a carpenter who had come to California in 1852, stayed in Sacramento until 1863 and then returned to Missouri where he and his wife raised a family of thirteen children.
Harry Porch quit school at the age of 14 and worked in a printing office until he joined the Second Missouri Volunteer Infantry for Spanish-American War service. His training camp was at Chickamuga Park, Georgia, from whence he was transferred to Lexington, Kentucky and later to Albany, Georgia. He was mustered out of service on March 3, 1899, and returned to Missouri.
Porch went to Colorado and became the night clerk at the Elk Hotel in Colorado Springs. That autumn he bought a wagon and team from which he peddled notions en route back to Missouri. After wintering at home, he went to Elko, Nevada, where he worked on his uncle’s stock ranch for a few months to make enough money to go to California. He arrived at Selma in the summer of 1900, worked for eighteen months in a mercantile store and came to Redlands on Christmas Day, 1901.
Mr. Porch spent the winter as an employee of the Fairbanks Ranch, took a carloading job in Central California at the end of the season and returned to the Mission District where he worked in a store at Colton and Mountain View avenues. He started another season in Central California, but illness sent him home and he took a box-making job with Cal Puffer’s Packing House in Bryn Mawr. After three years he became a foreman for the Bryn Mawr Fruit Growers Association, where he stayed until 1917. Then he bought a San Jacinto stock ranch, which he sold the followoing year and took over the West American Fruit Company, which he operated for three years as a cash-buyer of fruit. After selling that company, he owned and operated his own citrus orchards.
He was secretary to the Mill Creek Water Company, president of the Fallsvale Service Company and a member of the Kiwanis and Elks clubs.
His interest in county affairs was whetted in 1931 when he was on the Grand Jury.
He was elected to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in November 1932, serving from December 5, 1932 to December 7, 1936.
Mr. Porch died on May 1, 1943, at his home in Redlands. He was survived by his wife, the former Henrietta Cole, daughter of Henry H. Cole, whome he married in 1905. three children, Howard Porch, Gladys (Mrs. Paul W. Morse) and J.H. Porch, Jr.; and three grandchildren.

Alyssum desertorum is a species of flowering in the mustard family known by the common name desert madwort. Known also as the lepidium fremontii, Fremont’s peppergrass and desert pepperweed, it features individual yellow-centered yellow to cream tiny flowers, often fading to white which are about 1/4 inch in diameter. They form numerous dense, spherical clusters one inch or more across, on a shrub-like plant which is unremarkable for much of the year when not in bloom but quite distinctive in April, May, June and July. They are prevalent in the Mojave Desert northwards across most of Nevada, up to 6,500 feet in elevation. Alyssum desertorum has spread into many other states, where it is considered an invasive weed. Plants branch profusely, generally staying quite close to the ground but reaching heights of 3 feet in favorable locations.
Alyssum desertorum is native to northern Africa, Eastern Europe, and western Asia. It was brought to North America for medicinal reasons, as the plant was purported to cure hiccups, mental illness, and rabies. Desert alyssum, sometimes also called dwarf alyssum, was first reported in the U.S. in 1941 and Canada in 1955. Together with a closely related species called yellow alyssum, it infests 37 U.S. states and seven Canadian provinces.
A hairy annual herb producing upright stems up to about eight inches tall, the desert alyssum produces small round, notched fruits a few millimeters long. The seeds are winged and have embryonic roots.
Desert alyssum is an annual plant that grows from a seed, then flowers, sets seed, and dies every year. Seeds sometimes germinate in spring, but alyssum often grows as a “winter annual,” with seeds germinating in autumn, plants overwintering as rosettes and resuming growth in spring, then producing seeds before the plants die in summer. Desert alyssum seeds must after-ripen on the soil surface for several weeks before they can germinate. Seed longevity in the soil seed bank is unknown, but most seeds of these weeds germinate every year. Seed pods contain two chambers, each capable of producing two seeds.
They grow from three to 10 inches tall, and each plant is usually multi-stemmed, branching from the base. Leaves (0.25- to 1-inch long) and stems are covered with tiny, flat, star-like shaped hairs that are visible with a magnifying glass. The hairs help the plants retain moisture and give the plants a pale to grayish appearance. The hairs of desert alyssum have eight to 20 rays. The desert alyssum often occupies harsh and rocky sites at lower elevations, sandy flats, hillsides, and among sagebrush.
Desert alyssum has flourished as serious droughts have weakened other plants. Mild winters favor seedling establishment of desert alyssum; and reduced tillage in cropland farming systems have most likely contributed to its establishment in non-desert areas.
Desert alyssum is a shallow-rooted plant that accelerates soil erosion. It extracts surface soil moisture which impedes seedling establishment of other plant species. Outside the desert, desert alyssum is a weak invader that requires sites be disturbed before it can establish, but it can persist and dominate disturbed areas, making it a highly undesreable plant in many places.

By Grace Bernal
It’s getting hot in this neck of the woods and the attire seems to change daily. The fun part is that we have a peek at a new look coming this summer. Its all in the fringe and the fringe skirts are looking phenomenally seductive. Fashion now is pretty much about realism versus the flirtatious. Michael Kors had a head start with his nice leather fringe skirt designs. The evening story also includes fringe shawls and what you can call dangerous fringes that might get tangled on the heels. The fashion is looking modern and very seductive with an edge of strictness to it. All because everyone wants the whole pie seduction and strict work pieces. The truth is we can’t trap fashion this season and that’s final. Have fun fringing around and stay cool.

“I don’t approach fashion. Fashion approaches me!” —Daphne Guinness