By Mark Gutglueck
More than seven-and-a-half years after the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against Charles Steven Cox and former Hesperia Mayor Tad Honeycutt in what is alleged to have been the worst criminal exploitation of the charter school system in California ever, the case has yet to go to trial. Cox and Honeycutt stand accused of having diverted public money intended to carry out the educational mission to enrich themselves, and thereby abusing the trust of the parents of students who last decade opted to make use of the innovative charter school approach in educating their children. In large measure the prosecution of Cox and Honeycutt has been delayed because the anticipated cross examining of a key witness in the matter, former San Bernardino County Supervisor/Assessor Bill Postmus, could prove problematic for the district attorney’s office in its prosecution of an even higher profile criminal matter, the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution.
The revelation of political deals, payoffs, graft and corruption that are part and parcel of the California Charter Academy Case involving Cox and Honeycutt, including the degree to which Postmus’ political status at the county level in 2007 insulated him from being charged by prosecutors for his role in compromising the charter school program for profit and benefit, would not only lessen Postmus’ credibility as a witness in the Colonies case, it would raise questions about the degree to which the district attorney’s office has allowed political considerations to influence its prosecutorial function. Defense attorneys handling the Colonies case have already asserted that the prosecution of the defendants in that case is politically motivated.
Meanwhile, the delay in prosecuting Cox and Honeycutt is complicating efforts by charter school reform advocacy groups to have the state legislature enact laws that will prevent the type of abuses that were rampant in the way the now-shuttered California Charter Academy operated and which yet mar other charter school operations.
The California Charter Academy, which was founded in 2000 by Cox, a former insurance executive, in short order grew into the largest charter school operator in California, with multiple campuses located throughout the state.
Cox chartered the first academy under the auspices of the Snowline-Joint Unified School District, which exists in the High Desert communities of Phelan and Pinon Hills. He then utilized the enthusiasm garnered from that formation to get Snowline to charter a second academy. In so doing, Cox made large donations to Bill Postmus, whom he had established as a charter academy board member and who,  in 2000, was running for San Bernardino County First District supervisor. Cox also provided Postmus’ father, who was a member of the Snowline School District Board of Trustees that sponsored the two  California Charter Academy charter schools and is  also named Bill, with a position as a teacher at one of the charter schools, instructing “leadership.” Cox then obtained two more charter sponsorships, one from the Orange School District in Orange County, and one from the Oro Grande School District, located in San Bernardino County’s High Desert.
The California Education Code provides for the formation of charter schools under the aegis of a sponsoring local school district. Charter schools function outside the normal parameters of normal schools and can offer a curriculum and educational smorgasbord unavailable in traditional public schools while meeting the requirements of both special needs students and accelerated scholars.
Simultaneous to his founding of the non-profit California Charter Academy, Cox created Educational Administrative Services Corporation, a for-profit company which was then hired by all four charter schools to manage the day-to-day operations of the charter schools and provide academic supplies such as books, paper, pens, pencils, desks, chairs, projectors, computers, etc. The rates charged by Educational Administrative Services Corporation reflected in the billings were inflated. In some cases, educational materials that were paid for by the charter schools were never delivered.
Cox hired one of Postmus’ political associates, Tad Honeycutt, who later successfully ran for a position on the Hesperia City Council, to work with the California Charter Academy. In turn, Honeycutt created his own set of companies, Maniaque Enterprises and Everything For Schools, which like Educational Administrative Services Corporation delivered educational materials and services to the non-profit charter schools at a profit.
By 2003, teachers at several of the schools were going public with accounts of how students’ educations were being neglected and books and other educational materials were not being provided. In 2004, the superintendent of the California Department of Education, Jack O’Connell, launched an investigative audit into California Charter Academy, alleging financial irregularities. In August 2004, four years after California Charter Academy’s creation, it ceased operations abruptly, throwing teachers out of work and forcing students to hurriedly matriculate back into public schools, which were overburdened by the influx of unexpected numbers of students. The California Charter Academy’s records and books were in utter chaos. Student transcripts requested by the sponsoring districts were found to be incomplete or entirely unavailable. The California Charter Academy’s creditors and landlords in many cases made off with the academy’s assets.
On April 14, 2005, MGT of America, an auditing firm hired by the California Department of Education, and the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Team released their joint financial audit of California Charter Academy, showing $23 million in taxpayer money paid to the private management company Educational Administrative Services Corporation was misappropriated. Among the findings were that Cox had hired several of his family members into what were essentially do-nothing clerical and non-productive administrative positions, that Cox, his family members, other Educational Administrative Services Corporation and Charter Academy employees, and Honeycutt were provided with luxury automobiles, and that among the expenses accumulated by the Charter Academy were accommodations in Las Vegas, at Disneyland and the Disneyland Hotel, studio musical recording equipment, spa visits, fishing trips and jet skis.
The audit alleged multiple conflict-of-interest violations, the improper conversion of private schools to public charter schools, and the falsification of documents and claims to receive public funds
“The magnitude of waste of precious education funds outlined in the audit was appalling,” said O’Connell.
In late July 2007, public officials, including Bill Postmus, who had departed as First District supervisor after being elected county assessor in 2006;  Postmus’ chief of staff and successor as supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt; Tad Honeycutt; Victorville councilwoman and charter school advocate JoAnn Almond and Hesperia School District board member Eric Swanson, who was one of Honeycutt and Postmus’ political associates and whose company had billed Educational Administrative Services Corporation/California Charter Academy for over $450,000 in computer equipment that could not be located, were subpoenaed as witnesses to speak on the matter before a special grand jury convened by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.
On September 4, 2007, Honeycutt and Cox were arrested after being indicted by that special grand jury for their alleged roles in the collapse of the California Charter Academy. Cox and Honeycutt were indicted on a total of 147 counts, including fraud, misappropriation of public funds and grand theft. Cox’s bail was set at $1 million dollars, while Honeycutt’s was logged at $500,000. Both were able to post bail. Law enforcement officials froze their assets, but little of the missing money that officials thought might be recovered was present in their accounts in local banking institutions. It is known that Honeycutt had made multiple trips to Vanuatu, Spain and Argentina in the early and mid-2000s. Some of the taxpayer money provided to the California Charter Academy was used to fund lawsuits brought by Cox and Educational Administrative Services Corporation against public entities. In one case, Cox and EASC filed suit against the California Department of Education, contending the state had illegally withheld funding from the California Charter Academy. Cox and Educational Administrative Services Corporation did not prevail in that suit. Cox brought another unsuccessful lawsuit alleging impropriety and political motivation on the part of public officials whose actions led to the closure of the California Charter Academy.
At the time Cox and Honeycutt were indicted, the expectation of many, including employees at the academy and those associated with Cox, was that Postmus, too, would be indicted. Many said so openly. According to Christopher Casey, who had been hired by Cox to run one of the academy’s vocational schools, it was his understanding that the California Charter Academy had three owners: Cox, Honeycutt and Postmus. Initially, according to Casey, Bill Postmus’ father, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant who taught and ran the academy’s leadership curriculum, was active in setting up the school with Cox, but was eventually aced out of any control of the overall operation.
“Steven Cox started out as if he was interested in improving education,” Casey said. “But he saw those millions of dollars coming in and he changed. There were three owners: Cox, Honeycutt, junior not senior [i.e. Tad Honeycutt], and Postmus, junior not senior. There was later a power struggle between Cox and Postmus, senior. Bill Postmus, junior pulled the political strings. I saw him as dishonest and not interested at all in education but in exploiting the academy for whatever it offered him in the way of status as one of the board of directors’ members or the money that could be taken out of it for political and other purposes.
“Tad talked up the charter school idea to get more students and more schools, telling everyone charter schools were dedicated to better education,” Casey continued. “But when it turned into just a money-making venture, Tad didn’t have the personality or character to handle it and he just went along with everything Cox was doing.”
The California Charter Academy fell crucially short in the provision of key educational materials, Casey said, as Cox, Postmus and Honeycutt plundered it. Instead of being dedicated to education, the schools were used to enrich those running them, Casey said.
“Cox put his family next to the pig trough and fed them as best he could,” Casey said. “People I was forced to hire didn’t have credentials. They were only interested in making money and projecting figures. Cox and Honeycutt and Postmus did some terrible things. They created a mirage so no one could see them. They found a loophole in the state law and got away with a lot of money. A lot of money came in and nothing went into the facilities.”
He directly experienced Postmus’ attempt to use the charter academy to profit his family at the expense of the students, Casey said.
“I was hired as a director of a construction school in San Bernardino,” Casey said. “I was forced to hire Postmus’s brother-in-law. He didn’t even have a two-year associate’s degree. There is a tremendous problem with that. Books were never provided.”
Continuing, Casey said, “With my own money – my credit card – I set up a home builders school in San Bernardino. I had thirty or forty students signed up. We had the class schedule set and I couldn’t get books. I was working with Jim Melton. I asked. We never got one book. I pleaded for the books. I didn’t see any results. I couldn’t get books. They weren’t focused on that. I said to them, ‘These are the texts I need.’ I asked them to provide resources. They never did. They just prolonged it and prolonged it and put it off. I started the school hoping they would be seriously focused on education, but when I found out what they were really doing I lost heart and got out of it.”
It was dishonest and reprehensible, Casey said. “A lot of money went into it,” he said. “They had a tremendous opportunity and instead they just used it to take money out of it. They had some outstanding people who wanted to do the job but their hands were tied.” Part of Cox’s formula, Casey said, was to “get heavy into politics. [Former California Assemblyman]Keith Olberg went to work for the California Charter Academy. Bill Postmus was their major political asset.”
In 2007, Bill Postmus was riding high. In his last two years as First District county supervisor, Postmus had acceded to the board chairman’s position. Almost simultaneously, he had become the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. In 2005, he had consolidated his power, redrafting the central committee’s charter to give its so-called executive committee, which included himself and was composed almost entirely of his closest associates and office employees, virtual dictatorial power. In this way he had control over Republican Party endorsements and the delivery of GOP money to those candidates for political campaigning purposes. In 2006, with two years left on his second term as supervisor, Postmus ran successfully for county assessor against the incumbent, Donald Williamson. He was sworn into that office the first week of January 2007, and Brad Mitzelfelt, who had been Postmus’ chief of staff during the entire time he had been supervisor, was appointed as his handpicked successor to serve out the last two years on his term as supervisor. As assessor, Postmus was San Bernardino County’s foremost taxing authority. At that point he bestrode the political landscape like a Colossus.
In September 2007, when events overtook Cox, one of Postmus’ major political benefactors, and Honeycutt, one of his closest political associates, Postmus was able to steamroll his way over that bump in the road. The district attorney’s office, which had information churned up by California Department of Education investigators as well as investigators from its own staff to indicate Postmus was heavily involved in looting the California Charter Academy, elected not seek an indictment of Postmus, though he was among those called before the grand jury two months before the indictments were handed down.
Less than three years later, however, Postmus’s fortunes had reversed significantly.  In 2008, one of his assistant assessors, Adam Aleman, was arrested and charged with utilizing assessor’s office facilities for partisan political activity and destroying government equipment, namely computers, to prevent investigators from documenting that activity. Postmus then began acting erratically himself, amid recurrent rumors of drug use on his part. This spectacle was exacerbated when Postmus took a long unexplained leave of absence from the assessor’s office that summer, going entirely incommunicado during that period and then refusing to interact with the press or public after he returned in October. In January 2009, his career as an elected official careened into oblivion when investigators looking into the abuse of his office for political purposes serving a search warrant at his Rancho Cucamonga townhome found the drugs methamphetamine and ecstasy  and drug paraphernalia in his possession. The following month he resigned as assessor.
In February 2010, Postmus was himself indicted, along with former sheriff’s deputies union president Jim Erwin, who for a time had served as assistant assessor under Postmus. They were charged with involvement in a conspiracy, extortion and bribery scheme stemming from a November 2006 vote of the board of supervisors to confer upon the Colonies Partners, a Rancho Cucamonga-based development company headed by Dan Richards and Jeff Burum, a $102 million settlement to end a lawsuit the Colonies Partners had brought against the county over flood control issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential subdivision and Colonies Crossroads commercial subdivision in northeast Upland. In that indictment, Richards, Burum, public relations consultant Patrick O’Reilly, San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor Paul Biane and Fourth District Supervisor Gary Ovitt’s chief of staff Mark Kirk were described as unidentified and unindicted coconspirators.
Postmus and Erwin entered not guilty pleas. A year later, however, Postmus was dialoguing with prosecutors and in March 2011, he pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts including conspiracy, bribery, fraud, conflict of interest and perjury. He then appeared as a star witness before a newly impaneled grand jury in April 2011. In May 2011, the charges against Erwin in the February 2010 indictment were vacated and a superseding indictment naming Erwin, Biane, Burum and Kirk was handed down.  All four of those defendants pleaded not guilty and the case against them, which has been characterized by former California Attorney General /current California Govrnor Jerry Brown as one of the most serious examples of public corruption in state history, has yet to go to trial. Postmus’ sentencing has been postponed, pursuant to his participation as a witness in the proceedings against Erwin, Biane, Burum and Kirk.
A series of miscues, procedural and judicial, prevented the case from being fast tracked from the start. Cox and Honeycutt came before Judge Margaret Powers for arraignment. The case was then handed over to Judge Eric Nakata. An effort to recuse Nakata ensued, however, and at the intervention of then-Presiding Judge Larry Allen, the case was transferred back to Powers. Subsequently the case was heard by judges Miriam Morton, John Tomberlin, Jules Fleuret and Arthur Harrison. Eventually the case went to Judge Jon Ferguson in Rancho Cucamonga, before whom the case is now scheduled to go  to trial, if indeed it makes it to trial.
The trial timetable suffered a setback in November 2010, when Cox’s attorney, Earl Wade Shinder, committed suicide. That was more than four years ago, however. Attorney Grover Porter, who has represented Honeycutt for more than seven years, and Geoff Newman, who now represents Cox, are sufficiently up to speed on the case to proceed to court. The case against Cox and Honeycutt is a strong one, with bank records, receipts, hotel and resort registrations, airline ticket records, vehicle registration and multiple witness statements demonstrating that millions of dollars in funding intended for educational purposes was diverted to pay for vacations, vehicles, recording and video equipment, jet skis, lease or pay for real estate acquisitions or cover political campaign expenses.
The prosecutor on the case is Michael Fermin, who was a deputy district attorney when he was assigned to carry it forward in 2007. After the retirements of former assistant district attorneys Dennis Christy and James Hackleman, Fermin was elevated to the position of assistant district attorney overseeing ,as the office’s second-in-command, a major portion of the office’s administrative duties, including the budget and human resources. Today, Fermin has only one remaining prosecutorial assignment: the California Charter Academy Case against Cox and Honeycutt. Indeed, the  the California Charter Academy case, involving allegations of $23 million intended for educational purposes being diverted to unauthorized, improper or illegal use, is one of the most important cases, if not the most important one, in Fermin’s career as a prosecutor.  Despite the potential the case has for boosting him into the legal stratosphere, Fermin continues to drag his feet in moving the case to trial.
Postmus’ role as the primary witness in the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution has created difficulties for Fermin. While Postmus’ vaunted political status in 2007 may have driven the decision to leave him out of that indictment, Fermin is now faced with having a jury being confronted with indications that political considerations rather than a cold hard analysis of guilt or innocence entered into the prosecutor’s office’s decision about who would be charged in the California Charter Academy matter.
There appears to be sufficient evidence and information upon which to have lodged a criminal case against Bill Postmus, who became embroiled in the scandal on several levels.
Cox emerged as one of Postmus’ major early political supporters, having contributed $25,450 to his political war chest, utilizing California Charter Academy money to make those donations.
Postmus was appointed by Cox to serve as a  member of two of the boards of the charter schools functioning under the aegis of the California Charter Academy. Postmus then used his status as a charter school board member as a feature in his resumé when he first ran for supervisor.
Action Postmus took, based upon his actual authority as a board member or carry-over authority as a former board member and close affiliate of Cox, became the focus of the grand jury that was impaneled in 2007 and which indicted Cox and Honeycutt. Irrefutable evidence emerged to show Postmus made efforts to ensure that members of his family as well as his political supporters were rewarded with jobs or contracts at or with the California Charter Academy.
Investigators tracked data to show that Brad Mitzelfelt, who was Postmus’ chief-of-staff while he was supervisor and who succeeded Postmus as supervisor after Postmus became assessor, had knowledge with regard to how and when Postmus pushed to have family members hired, whether they were qualified for the positions they assumed or not, as well as the expenditure of money for purposes other than the charter academy’s educational mission. Mitzelfelt was brought before the grand jury, as was Honeycutt, former Victorville councilwoman Joanne Almond, former California Assemblyman Keith Olberg, Hesperia Unified School District Board Member Eric Swanson and Cox. Evidence was produced to show that Postmus directed Cox or otherwise arranged, both while he was a charter academy board member and afterward, for money to be diverted to Mitzelfelt and Olberg, in the form of questionable or illegal payments. Postmus worked as district director in Assemblyman Keith Olberg’s High Desert office from 1995 until 1999.
In 2002, Postmus was provided with an all-expenses paid trip to Florida by Cox, who used California Charter School funds to pay for the trip, accommodations and spending cash, which totaled more than $17,000. No explanation of what the trip was for was ever provided.
Despite the fact that the California Charter Academy was receiving funding from the state of California, on a few occasions the academy received funds from the county of San Bernardino while Bill Postmus was on the board of supervisors.  In creating the California Charter Academy in 1999, Cox operated four schools under two charters provided by the Snowline School District, one charter provided by the Orange County Unified School District and one charter provided by the Oro Grande School District. Those four schools were spread across 61 campuses, including one as far north as Gridley in Butte County and one as far south as Chula Vista in San Diego County, making it the largest charter school organization in the state.
Bill Postmus’ father, William J. Postmus Sr., received a consulting contract with the Orange County Unified-sponsored charter school during the time that William Postmus Jr. served on that charter’s board.
Bill Postmus Sr. was a member of the Snowline School District’s board of trustees when the school board voted to allow the California Charter Academy to charter two schools through the Snowline School District.  In 2001, Bill Postmus Sr. went to work for Cox as the director of and instructor in the academy’s criminal justice and leadership program. While Bill Postmus Jr. had assiduously abstained from voting as a member of the board of supervisors on matters impacting the California Charter Academy, he broke from that pattern in June of 2004 as the state was withdrawing funding from the California Charter Academy and his father was in danger of being thrown out of work. At that point, Bill Postmus, Jr. voted to have the county forward a $77,000 Workforce Investment Grant to the California Charter Academy in an effort to keep the school where Bill Postmus Sr. was the principal in session.
At present, Cox and Honeycutt’s attorneys, Geoff Newman and Grover Porter, respectively, have a keen understanding of the degree to which Bill Postmus was entangled in the culture of misappropriation at the California Charter Academy. By bringing him in as a witness and through skillful cross examination, they could raise the specter of selective prosecution by illustrating to the jury hearing that case that Bill Postmus was involved in the events in question but avoided prosecution because of political favoritism.
As Postmus is the central witness in the Colonies prosecution and defense attorneys in that matter have repeatedly suggested political bias on the part of the district attorney’s office in that case, any substantiation of politicized decision-making by the district attorney’s office in the California Charter Academy case would have carryover to the Colonies case. It is for that reason Fermin is now reluctant to bring the case against Cox and Honeycutt to trial.
It has been suggested that Fermin in 2007 was in favor of charging Postmus and others implicated in the matter, including Almond, Swanson and Olberg, but was restricted from doing so because Christy and Hackleman deemed it inadvisable to entangle district attorney Mike Ramos in a prosecution of an individual of Postmus’ then-current political stature. Almond, Swanson and Olberg escaped prosecution because Christy and Hackleman believed doing so without prosecuting Postmus would raise questions.
The Sentinel sought clarification from Fermin, lodging those questions in verbal form in a voice mail and in writing by letter. Fermin declined to discuss how forceful he had been in presenting the case for charging Bill Postmus to Christy, Hackleman and Ramos. Nor was he at liberty to provide an encapsulation of his superiors’  rationale for not charging Postmus. Asked if in the light of subsequent events there has been any regret expressed by any of the parties involved in that decision, or any indication that any of those parties now wishes Bill Postmus had been charged, Fermin remained mute.
Fermin did not dispute the assertion that sufficient evidence to charge Postmus existed, at least prior to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
The state of California forced the closure of the California Charter Academy in 2004 after it was learned that Cox and the academy’s several boards had defied state law pertaining to charter schools by operating charter schools at campuses located beyond the jurisdictions of the school districts that had chartered them.
An audit commissioned by California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and carried out by the state’s fiscal crisis management assistance team and the auditing firm MGT of America determined that more than $23 million in funding entrusted by the state to Cox and the other administrators at the California Charter Academy had been used for purposes unrelated to educating students.
Charter schools are independently-run schools sponsored by an accredited school district intended to use innovative teaching strategies not commonly available in a public school setting. Charter schools are supposed to be dedicated to improving pupil learning, with special emphasis on those identified as slow learners. The charter schools are required to meet certain standards in carrying out their mission and are monitored by their own boards as well as the districts that charter them. Charter schools are subsidized by state funding at a rate of roughly $6,000 per pupil per academic year.
The auditors established that several months after Cox founded the California Charter Academy as a non-profit entity dedicated to education, he created the Educational Administrative Services Corporation, a for-profit company to provide administrative services to charter schools. All four California Charter Academy charter schools signed operating agreements engaging Educational Administrative Services Corporation to manage their administrative services. Under the terms of the contracts between Educational Administrative Services Corporation (EASC)  and the California Charter Academy charter schools, Cox served as chief executive officer of all four charter schools and as the CEO of Educational Administrative Services Corporation. These contracts granted Cox the authority to expend California Charter Academy funds and enter into contracts on behalf of the California Charter Academy charter schools.
Cox used this arrangement, employing little fiscal oversight authority by the California Charter Academy’s governing board members, to exploit it for personal profit and that of his associates, including Postmus and Tad Honeycutt, one of Postmus’ closest political associates who achieved political success of his own by getting elected to the Hesperia city council  According to the audit, “Numerous and substantial transfers of funds were made from the California Charter Academy charters to Educational Administrative Services Corporation by Mr. Cox without the approval or knowledge of the California Charter Academy boards.”
Cox also took advantage of that portion of California law which allows two or more government entities to form a joint powers authority. In December 2001 he created a joint powers authority, known as the American Public Agency Authority, appointing himself CEO. He then used it to milk even more money out of California’s taxpayers. The ostensible reason for the American Public Agency Authority was to provide insurance for the charter schools and their employees. Cox not only inflated insurance costs, but transferred $233,000 to the American Public Agency Authority from California Charter Academy charter schools’ accounts without the approval of the charter boards, according to the audit. He entered into a series of questionable contracts that tallied expenditures totaling $435,000. Cox’s failure to pay insurance premiums resulted in the cancellation of the insurance.
Thus, California Charter Academy charter schools paid for insurance they did not receive.
“Mr. Cox’s service as CEO of all four California Charter Academy charter schools and the American Public Agency Authority, while concurrently serving as the CEO of Educational Administrative Services Corporation, created an inherent conflict of interest,” the audit states. “In these multiple positions, he had the opportunity to direct millions of dollars of California Charter Academy funds to benefit himself, his corporation, his family, and his friends and associates. He took advantage of that opportunity.”
The audit further reports that Cox misappropriated $3.5 million transferred from the California Charter Academy accounts to Educational Administrative Services Corporation without approval of the California Charter Academy governing boards. The audit charts how he inappropriately directed more than $920,000 of California Charter Academy funds to one of his subsidiary companies and used $1.2 million of California Charter Academy funds to employ members of his family and grant them generous retroactive pay increases. Cox, the audit report states, charged the California Charter Academy charter schools high administrative service fees, thereby redirecting millions of dollars from the California Charter Academy instructional program to Educational Administrative Services Corporation. This increased the California Charter Academy schools’ administrative costs by charging the California Charter Academy for certain administrative costs that should have been covered under the administrative service fees paid to Educational Administrative Services Corporation.  Cox also used $1.2 million in California Charter Academy funds for questionable contracts and expenditures without competitive bids and without sufficient evidence that the goods and services were actually received, including payments to firms owned by former Educational Administrative Services Corporation employees and California Charter Academy board members.
According to the audit “in the case of Educational Administrative Services Corporation and the California Charter Academy, there was no functional separation between the finances of the publicly funded charter schools and the private corporation. Educational Administrative Services Corporation charged the California Charter Academy high fees for management and other services, then billed a second time for some of the same services.”
The audit shows more than $1.1 million was paid directly to Cox from 1999 through 2003. But his salary was only a fraction of the money Cox took out of the California Charter Academy. He accrued expenses totaling in the millions of dollars and utilized for his own purpose goods and services that were ostensibly purchased for the charter schools.
Cox issued himself and certain California Charter Academy and Educational Administrative Services Employees corporate credit cards that were paid for by California taxpayer funds and funded millions of dollars worth of purchases that had no demonstrable relationship to educational purposes. Cox also used his authority as CEO of both the California Charter Academy and Educational Administrative Services Corporation to authorize the purchase of 15 vehicles that were driven by himself, four of his family members and nine others that were employed by the California Charter Academy or Educational Administrative Services Corporation. The vehicles cost taxpayers at least $260,500. Some of the drivers of those vehicles were also given fuel allowances.
The audit also charted how Cox spread money intended for the education of California Charter Academy students to prominent High Desert politicians, including Bill Postmus, former state assemblyman Keith Olberg, Tad Honeycutt and Victorville councilwoman Joanne Almond. A nominal effort was made to make at least some of these payments appear to be related to the California Charter Academy’s legitimate mission of educating students, but an examination of the uses to which the money was actually put shows that these expenditures were actually illegal “gifts of public funds,” in the words of the audit’s authors.
Cox provided Honeycutt with an annual salary of more than $100,000. Cox also allowed Honeycutt to tap into more than half of a million dollars in California Charter Academy money and use it for non-educational related business ventures such as music production and record selling, motocross equipment supply and land development.
In February 2001 Educational Administrative Services Corporation formed a subsidiary company known as Everything For Schools. Tad Honeycutt managed Everything For Schools while also serving as vice president of corporate development for Educational Administrative Services Corporation. The stated purpose of Everything For Schools was to reduce the costs of the California Charter Academy charter schools by maximizing the buying power of all of the California Charter Academy charter schools’ programs. This was to be accomplished through offering the California Charter Academy charter schools the option of purchasing through a single source, namely Everything For Schools, in order to receive discounts on volume purchases.
While Cox offered assurances that “Everything For Schools is an entirely voluntary option for each California Charter Academy program to use” and that all savings realized from the Everything For Schools stratagem “will be passed along to the sites” and at an April 2001 board meeting for the one of the charter schools sponsored by the Snowline School District, Honeycutt stated that Everything For Schools “would not be making a profit, but we will be trying to cover costs,” Honeycutt in 2005 admitted to the state’s auditors that Everything For Schools added ten to 15 percent to the cost of goods Everything For Schools sold to the California Charter Academy charter schools. The audit team discovered that in fact Everything For Schools significantly inflated the cost of basic English textbooks by 57 percent, math textbooks by 54 percent, algebra textbooks by 47 percent, biology textbooks by 32 percent and the cost of United States history textbooks by 28 percent.
Everything For Schools spent more than $176,000 of its proceeds on other non-school related business enterprises such as Honeycutt’s Xtreme Motor Sports, Honeycutt’s Hautlab Music Group, Honeycutt’s Maniaque Management, a $3,906 loan to Honeycutt and political contributions.
Over one three-month time frame Honeycutt used his American Express corporate card to pay $18,000 for two jet skis, $5,726 in purchases at the Point Loma Sport Fish Sporting Goods Store in San Diego; $3,487 in purchases at the Wheels and Tires Outlet, and made $1,942 in credit card purchases at the Guitar Center.  “These do not appear to be related to educational purposes.” the audit report states
In December 2002 Tad Honeycutt, who was then the vice president of Educational Administrative Services Corporation in charge of corporate development, formed a company known as Maniaque (pronounced maniac) Management Group, Inc. The officers of Maniaque were all key Educational Administrative Services Corporation employees with Tad Honeycutt as CEO and C. Steven Cox as director.  In January 2003, Maniaque assumed control of Everything For Schools and its subsidiaries, which include Hautlab Music Group, Xtreme Motor Sports and Maniaque Marketing.  Cox as CEO of Educational Administrative Services Corporation, signed an agreement with Honeycutt whereby Educational Administrative Services Corporation agreed to pay Maniaque’s rent and monthly facility-related expenses for a period of three years.  In January 2004, Honeycutt registered Maniaque as a Nevada corporation and Cox and Honeycutt agreed to dissolve the California-based Maniaque company, have Educational Administrative Services Corporation pay all of Maniaque’s outstanding debts, and allow Honeycutt to take all the assets and property to the new Maniaque Corporation. At the same time, Cox and Honeycutt signed a consulting contract for Manique to provide services to each of the four California Charter Academy charter schools to provide grant writing services, with each of the four charter schools paying him $1,000 per month. The audit team found no evidence that any grant consulting services were provided by Maniaque to justify those payments.
Educational Administrative Services Corporation also wrote four checks for $6,750 each from the accounts of the California Charter Academy charter schools to Maniaque on June 30, 2004, just days before the California Charter Academy charter schools closed due to financial problems. No justification for those payments was every provided by Honeycutt or Cox.
Educational Administrative Services Corporation also paid $548,997 toward Maniaque Management’s expenses, including $78,539 for rent, $127,433 in American Express charges, $37,280 for cellular phones; $98,602 to subsidize Hautlab Records; $58,551 for work done by a general contractor, $31,786 for furniture and $43,869 for goods and services that were not specified. Approximately $278,000 of California Charter Academy money was advanced to Maniaque to finance “marketing services.”
Much or all of Honeycutt’s corporate development work was counterproductive; the expansion of the California Charter Academy to sites beyond the boundaries of the Snowline, Oro Grande and Orange County Unified school districts directly led to the failure of the entire California Charter Academy enterprise. It was the drive to increase Educational Administrative Service Corporation’s profits that fueled that expansion. The bulk of Honeycutt’s work thus bore no or bad fruit.
Olberg, who was a member of the state assembly representing the High Desert in the late 1990s and later a candidate for California Secretary of State, like Honeycutt was paid handsomely by Cox from money provided to the California Charter Academy by California’s taxpayers.
In January 2001, Olberg was hired and placed on the payroll of one of the Snowline-sponsored charter schools. Employment records indicated he was hired to develop a charter program for gifted students that was to be called the Honors Program. Olberg received an annual salary of $125,000 for those years from January 2001 through February 2004. In August of 2002, Olberg was transferred from one of the Snowline-sponsored charter school’s payroll to the Educational Administrative Services Corporation payroll. Olberg remained on the Educational Administrative Services Corporation payroll until February 29, 2004. During the course of the audit, numerous California Charter Academy board members and staff raised question about whether Olberg actually performed any meaningful work for the California Charter Academy charter schools.
Eric Swanson resigned from one of the charter school boards just the day before his company, Community Information Services Online, received business from the academy without accepting competitive bids, and Victorville City Councilwoman Joanne Almond and her son, Robert Junior, received money from the California Charter Academy, while she was a charter school board member.
A recent report by the Center for Popular Democracy, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Institute and Public Advocates Inc., said state and local educational officials have proven too trusting of the self-accounting done by the state’s charter school operators, who received $3 billion in public funding last year. In nearly all cases, according to the report, charter school operators have paid for and thus have unacceptable control over the audits conducted on the state’s more than 1,000 charter schools.
The report, which referenced $81 million in misused funds at charter schools over the last two decades, concluded that California charter schools need more oversight to avoid fraud and that the state legislature should codify this into law. The actual cost of the abuse of the charter school system exceeds the aforementioned $81 million, because inadequate financial controls allow the perpetuation of fraud and mismanagement to occur without detection or quantification, according to the report.
But the California Charter Schools Association disputed the report, saying that it utilized dated examples of fraud and that there was no proof yet offered up in a court of law or any other forum of abuses of the charter system. While the report stated that “Without reform, California stands to lose millions of dollars as a result of charter school fraud, waste and mismanagement,” the California Charter Schools Association said the motives of those behind the report were questionable and the need for reform legislation nonexistent.

(March 28) With the number of its international passengers on the upswing, Ontario International Airport saw an increase of slightly over one-half percent for overall traffic totals in February.
The increase of 0.55 percent over February of last year 2014 was positive news for the airport, even though domestic travel from the aerodrome dropped off slightly and its numbers were bettered by rival Los Angeles International Airport, where travel was  up 3.87 percent for the same period.
Both Los Angeles International and Ontario Airport are owned and operated by Los Angeles World Airports, the corporate arm of the city of Los Angeles Department of Airports. In 1967, the city of Ontario entered into a joint operating agreement with the city of Los Angeles for management of the airport. In 1985, Ontario deeded Ontario Airport to Los Angeles. Under Los Angeles’ management and ownership, ridership at Ontario Airport steadily increased, from 200,000 passengers passing through its gates in 1967 to 7.2 million passengers in 2007. But ridership at the airport has dipped to around 4 million per year since then, and Ontario, rethinking its arrangement with the larger city, sued to Los Angeles in 2013 in an effort to regain ownership and control of the airport.
Ontario officials say Los Angeles is purposefully mismanaging Ontario Airport to increase ridership at Los Angeles International Airport. Los Angeles officials say that the numbers drop at Ontario Airport coincided with the contracting economy and a shift in the airline industry, which has increased flights into major population centers such as Los Angeles while decreasing the use of outlying regional hub airports such as Ontario.
Ontario International’s domestic traffic for February was down 0.68 percent, with 280,602 domestic passengers, compared with 282,530 for February of 2014.
At the same time, the airport’s international traffic was up 91.47 percent over February 2014.
“We’re pleased to see a slight increase in February although January through March is typically a slow period,” said Jess Romo, the airport manager in Ontario.  “It’s good news since we’re only two months into the year. International traffic was strong in February. This is a good sign.”
Mexico-based Volaris began service to Guadalajara from Ontario International Airport in April of last year. That accounted for the uptick in the international passenger figures registered in February, when there were 7,337 international passengers at Ontario Airport. Twelvemonths previously there had been 3,832 passengers to or from Mexico.  Both Volaris and AeroMexico offer seven nonstop flights a week to Mexico.
And it appears international passenger numbers at Ontario will soon be increasing. Airport officials last week announced AeroMexico will offer four-times-a-week round-trip flights from Ontario to Mexico City beginning Monday, three days from now, i.e., April 6.

(March 30) San Bernardino County will increase the number of its incorporated municipalities to 25 under the latest proposal relating to unifying the communities around Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains.
In response to incorporation sentiment in the mountain region, the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission has commissioned Santa Ana-based Rosenow Spevacek Group Inc. to weigh in on the feasibility of unifying the unincorporated communities of Lake Arrowhead, Crestline, Running Springs, Arrowbear, Green Valley Lake, Skyforest, Rim Forest, Twin Peaks, Blue Jay and Cedar Glen into a single 40-square mile city.
There have been previous efforts to incorporate Lake Arrowhead, which is the most economically vital of the area’s towns. None of those reached fruition.
An impetus driving the current effort is the proliferation of sober-living homes and drug-rehabilitation centers in the communities, resulting in tension within the neighborhoods where those facilities are located. Many area residents have expressed the belief that the board of supervisors, none of whose members live in the San Bernardino Mountains, had any sensitivity to the issue. Moreover, they say, the county’s permitting and regulation of the drug rehab facilities is lax. It is the belief of some that a newly created city would be able to take command of land use policy and zoning to either prohibit or significantly limit such businesses and residential facilities in the area.
Rosenow Spevacek’s focus will not pertain to land use policies, but the nuts-and-bolts practicality of the economic viability of the specified communities coalescing into a single unit, and whether the revenue to be generated tax-wise and assessment-wise from within the proposed boundaries would sustain the cost of providing standard municipal services.
The area in question is on the western side of the San Bernardino Mountains, within the county’s Second Supervisorial District. After the 2010 Census, a portion of what had been the Third Supervisorial District, which previously contained the lion’s share of the San Bernardino Mountains, was moved into the Second District. The San Bernardino Mountains currently boast a single incorporated city, Big Bear, which lies on the eastern side of the mountains in the Third District. Big Bear, with a population of 5,124 is the county’s second smallest city.
If Lake Arrowhead, Crestline, Running Springs, Arrowbear, Green Valley Lake, Skyforest, Rim Forest, Twin Peaks, Blue Jay and Cedar Glen were to be consolidated into a single city, the population in that municipality would total at least 30,327, making it larger than Needles, Big Bear, Grand Terrace, Yucca Valley, Loma Linda, Barstow and Twentynine Palms, such that it would be the seventeenth largest and eighth smallest of what would then be the county’s 25 cities.

(April 2) Redlands High School Wrestling Coach Mario Estrada, who oversaw the Terrier grappling team for four years, has been removed from that position.
At least two parents were critical of his overly aggressive approach, which included free wrestling matchups during practice, in which he himself sometimes participated.
During one of those sessions on February 10, he slammed Ernesto Guzman, a senior on the team who wrestled in the 145 pound class, to the mat. Guzman, it was later learned, sustained a concussion.
A complaint regarding Estrada was made to High Athletic Director Ken Morse on  February 16.  Subsequently, the Redlands Police Department was contacted.
The high school conducted an inquiry into the matter and the police department carried out an investigation.
Members of the team and the assistant coaches were questioned, and on balance they said that Estrada, though spirited and intense in his approach, did not go beyond the pall in what is recognized as a rough contact sport.
The police department concluded that there was no criminal culpability on Estrada’s part.
The high school administration learned that on occasion Estrada had used profanity around his charges and had not been diligent in insisting the wrestlers wear headgear, which was deemed a lapse in safety protocol.
In what assistant principal Chris A. Ruhm said was an appropriate response, Estrada was relieved from his post.
That change was reflected on the high school’s website, on which the roster of athletic coaches shows a blank slot for the school’s wrestling coach.

(March 31) Ontario’s Yangtze Restaurant, a landmark business on Euclid Avenue since 1961, has closed.
It was operated by the Gin family, whose matriarch Edna was still participating in food preparation at the age of 91 on the day of its closing, March 30.. Gin and her husband Ray opened the restaurant on April 22, 1961.
A quintessential Chinese restaurant with excellent pork and shrimp chop suey, it was appreciated by three generations of residents of the Inland Empire. It was located on the ground floor of the three-story Continental Hotel building at 126 N. Euclid Avenue, next to what had been a United Artists theatre in the 1960s.
Though it never lost its popularity with Chinese food aficionados, the restaurant never regained the position it once held as the premier such establishment in the Inland Empire after the Montclair Plaza opened in 1968, drawing away business from downtown Ontario.  Things worsened with the advent of the Ontario Mills, The Shoppes in Chino Hills and Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga.
The closing is the second disappointment for ethnic cuisine lovers in Ontario in two years. Ramon’s Cactus Patch, which was located at 647 West California Street, shuttered in April 2013.
Just as at the Yangtze, in the case of the Cactus Patch, its founder, Ramon Sanchez, who was then 99, was present at the closure.

(March 29) Maestro Jon Robertson will lead the Redlands Symphony in a concert featuring the works of Beethoven and Mozart on Saturday, April 11, in the Memorial Chapel on the campus of the University of Redlands. Noted pianist Roberta Rust will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major as part of the program. The concert begins at 8 p.m., with doors open at 7 p.m. Maestro Robertson will discuss the program in a pre-concert talk that beings at 7:15 p.m. Single tickets for the concert start at $15. The complete program for the concert includes the Coriolan Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488, performed by Rust, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 Eroica in E-flat major, op. 55. “This will be an evening of majestic music from two of the world’s greatest and most popular composers,” said Maestro Robertson. “And I’m especially excited to have Roberta Rust here to perform for our Redlands audience. She is an extremely talented performer who I know will bring her own special interpretation to the piece by Mozart.” Roberta Rust has concertized to critical acclaim around the globe since her debut as soloist with the Houston Symphony at age sixteen and as recitalist at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The New York Times hailed her as “a powerhouse of a pianist – one who combines an almost frightening fervor and intensity with impeccable technique and spartan control.” Her many remarkable recordings feature music of Debussy, Haydn, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, and contemporary American composers. Solo recitals include performances at Sala Cecilia Meireles (Rio de Janeiro), Merkin Concert Hall (NY), Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC), and KNUA Hall (Seoul). Rust has played with the Lark, Ying, and Amernet String Quartets, and her festival appearances include OPUSFEST (Philippines), Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, Festival Miami, Beethoven Festival (Oyster Bay), and La Gesse (France). She has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras including the New Philharmonic, Philippine Philharmonic, Boca Raton Symphonia, the New World Symphony, and orchestras in Latin America. Born in Texas of American Indian ancestry, Rust studied at the Peabody Conservatory, graduated “summa cum laude” from the University of Texas at Austin, and received performer’s certificates in piano and German Lieder from the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. She earned her master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music and her doctorate at the University of Miami. Her teachers included Ivan Davis, Artur Balsam, John Perry, and Phillip Evans, and master class studies were with Gary Graffman, Leon Fleisher, and Carlo Zecchi. She served as Artistic Ambassador for the U.S., was awarded a major NEA grant, and also received recognition and prizes from the OAS, National Society of Arts & Letters, and International Concours de Fortepiano (Paris). In addition, she is a music critic for Clavier Companion Magazine.
The sponsor for the April concert is Majestic Realty. Single tickets for the concert are available at the door and online at www.redlandssymphony.com. Tickets can also be purchased by calling the box office at 909-748-8018.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Normally, I rely upon three methods of stirring up information for this column. I might have my chauffer, Anthony, trot out the Bentley for a sojourn down the mountain so I can burn some shoe leather padding about – at my age I can no longer dash – in the halls of justice or administration or have a face-to-face meeting with a solicitor or official in the know of the various goings-on in this gigantic county. Or I will task my butler, Hudson, to troll the worldwide web for this tidbit or that, so I can then use that as the thread with which I might embroider my narrative. Or I might simply take up my place at my desk and then serve in the capacity of a mad dervish phone jockey and shake something or other loose from whoever it is who will stay on the phone with me long enough to make some headway…
This last weekend, however, I needed to do none of that. Rather, I merely had to wander off the grounds surrounding the chalet and step with my spindly legs the half mile or so to Arrowhead Resort, where the San Bernardino County’s Annual City County Conference was held…
For a time, what I encountered were presentations on mundane topics of no conceivable interest to anyone and I feared my hike had been for naught. I was on the verge of slipping into Bin 189 to order up a Bloody Mary to fortify myself  with the endurance to retrace my steps back to the chalet.  But then I heard something that caused my ears to prick up and provide me with the fodder to fill this column with something lively…
Being openly discussed was the latest connivance the bureaucrats in Sacramento have come up with to fleece the taxpaying residents of the Golden State. I give you, good reader, warning that this is going to outrage you, but please, do not cast away or tear up the Sentinel in disgust, but keep reading, as I am merely the messenger here, attempting to give you the low down on what elements of your own government are plotting and not in any way endorsing this larcenous scheme…
It seems that state officials do not believe the gas tax we Californians are paying is enough. Never mind that we are already hit with the highest such tax in all of the USA’s fifty states. More money is needed to construct roads and highways, build and repair bridges and plug some 3,750,000 potholes. How do they plan to do this? They want to charge you for every mile you drive. The figure I heard quoted was one-and-a-half cents per mile…
None of this is set in stone, of course, but apparently the idea is to try this out as some kind of a “pilot program,” presumably in some isolated area or maybe some backwater county, and see if it works. Once it is demonstrated on a smaller scale, it is to be put into effect statewide, state officials hope, by 2019…
There are two things at play here. The way this is going to be promoted is that this program will generate revenue for our ailing transportation system and will simply be a modest use fee to offset the wear and tear we all are responsible for as a result of our reliance on the internal combustion engine. The second goal behind this, one which will not get much emphasis I am willing to bet, is that it is aimed offsetting the anticipated losses the state will suffer as motor vehicles become more and more fuel efficient, burning less gasoline and diesel fuel, upon which the already excessive taxes are levied. In other words, no good deed goes unpunished. If I sell my Bentley and buy a Tesla, reducing my carbon footprint, the government will still get its pound of flesh…
I think this latest idea coming out of Sacramento is a bad one. I trust most of my readers have been following things over the last few years and are aware that our state capitol is dominated by Democrats. They hold the upper hand in the upper floor of the California Legislature – the State Senate – and in the lower floor of the legislature – the California Assembly. Our governor is also, alas, a Democrat. I am reminded of what General George Patton, truly one of the greatest Americans in history, said. “Politicians are the lowest form of life,” said the general. “And Democrats are the lowest form of politician.” I find it hard to disagree with that sentiment…
The problem these officious bureaucrats are going to have in enforcing this harebrained law is that they are going to have to track our vehicle use. And how are they going to do that? I suppose there will be more than one way. Perhaps each car will be outfitted with a device allowing the Department of Motor Vehicles to monitor each vehicle’s odometer. That would be one way. Or each car will be outfitted with global positioning devices, allowing our citizenry’s whereabouts to be constantly tracked and monitored…
It seems, though, this last option might not prove workable. It seems the U.S. Supreme Court might not allow the DMV to do that. This week, on Monday, the highest court of the land ruled, in the matter of Torrey Dale Grady v. North Carolina that the government’s wholesale use of global positioning devices or other space-age technologies to monitor its citizens, runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
North Carolina officials had subjected Mr. Grady, a twice convicted sex offender, to a protocol in which he had to wear a global positions device at all times to the state could track his constant whereabouts. He challenged that as an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment, but North Carolina’s courts, including that state’s highest court, ruled that the tracker was no search at all and not unreasonable. But the Supreme Court rebuked North Carolina, summarizing that state’s position that “the state’s system of nonconsensual satellite-based monitoring does not entail a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”  According to the U.S. Supreme Court, “That theory is inconsistent with this court’s precedents.” So, let me see if I have this straight…
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, even a convicted criminal cannot be subjected to having to wear or carry a global position signaling beacon or other form of monitoring device, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, without there first being a warrant obtained to indicate there is probable cause for saddling that individual with such a device, i.e., grounds to believe he is about to commit an offense. How then does the state of California intend to affix on each of our cars a global position device or other type of electronic tracking device when there is no reasonable suspicion each and every one of us is engaged in some type of criminal activity that needs to be monitored and no court has issued warrants based on such findings? I would not sell the bureaucrats in Sacramento short, however, and perhaps, by 2019, they will come up with some way to finagle this…

By Mark Gutglueck
Born on January 4, 1860 in Greenville, Texas, Sidney Voris Horton was the son of Peter I. and Mary (Melton) Horton. Peter Horton had a 1,000-acre plantation on which 27 slaves cultivated wheat and corn. In 1868, Mr. Horton sold his ranch in Texas and brought his family and one slave to Redlands. Here he purchased 40 acres at California Street and Colton Avenue, where the Mission School now stands. This property was sold at a handsome profit in 1872, He then acquired acreage near the mouth of the San Timoteo Canyon under a patent signed by President Ulysses Simpson Grant, three years before the Southern Pacific Railroad came through the area.
Sidney was ten years old when he started attending classes in the Little Mission School along with other pioneer children. Six years later he went to work on his father’s new ranch near the former Vache Winery in Bryn Mawr, then “Nahant” and later “Redlands Junction.”
At the age of 18, he joined the Southern Pacific crew at San Gorgonio, now called Beaumont, and worked with the railroad for seven years.
On July 1, 1885, Sidney V. Horton and Beulah E. Hamner of Redlands, the daughter of Samuel N. and Julia Ann (Covington) Hamner, who was born in 1866, were married. Together they went to the new Horton Ranch where, with his father’s help, Sidney planted oranges, peaches and other fruits on part of the 80-acre farm. There the newlyweds built their home.
Sidney and Beulah had seven children: Alice Horton Schufeldt (1889 – 1986),  Mildred Horton Brassington (1891 – 1949),  Sidney Voris Horton (1893 – 1931),  Gladyce Horton Rogers (1895 – 1977),  Eugene Roland Horton (1901 – 1965),  Floyd A Horton (1903 – 1964) and Bertha Horton, whose date of birth and death are unavailable.
Sidney Horton was a successful citrus grower throughout the 1990s and after the turn of the 20th Century. In 1908, he was elected as San Bernardino County’s Fifth District supervisor and served from January 4, 1909, his 49th birthday, until January 8, 1917. He was reelected in 1912 and was chairman of the board from January 4, 1915, his 55th birthday, until he left office.
Sidney Horton’s brother, Benjamin S. Horton, was the manager of the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, residing at Death Valley Junction.
After leaving the board of supervisors, Sidney devoted himself again to be a full time private rancher. In 1925, Sidney Horton, Sr. relocated his center of interest to a smaller ranch higher in the canyon where he planted five acres of citrus, leaving the management of the larger ranch to his son, Hugh.
In 1931, his family suffered a significant loss when his son, Sidney V. Horton, Jr., was killed as the result of the explosion of a gasoline-filled smudge pot used to fight frost in orange groves.
Sidney Horton died at a rest home in Redlands on Christmas Day 1941, 18 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was 81 years old. He was survived by his wife, Beulah, two of his sons, Hugh and Eugene; and four daughters, Mrs. Mildred Brassington of Long Beach, Mrs. Alice Schufeldt, Mrs. Gladyce Rogers and Bertha E. Horton, all of Los Angeles.

Atriplex hymenelytra is an evergreen shrub  that tolerates alkaline soil, salt and sand. The leaves accumulate salts which helps extract water from the soil when other plants cannot Salt is shed by dropping the leaves. It can live in up to 30 parts per billion of Boron in solution, compared to most plants which can tolerate only about 1-5 parts per billion. As with other desert climate members of the Atriplex genus, it uses water conserving C4 photosynthetis, and it removes salts by having bladders in the leaves that keep the salt from the plant cells.
The leaves of the species have a number of characteristics that contribute to its ability to adapt  in a hot, dry environment. Its steeply angled leaves reduce midday solar interception, while conversely allowing relatively high interception when solar angles are low and vapor pressure deficits are at a minimum. The leaves substantially reduce their absorption  of incident radiation during the hot periods of the year by changing their moisture and dissolved salt contents. Because the  light intensity required for saturation of photosynthesis is low at such times is low, the reduced  radiation absorption by the leaves results in a greater water-use efficiency at that time of year.
Atriplex hymenelytra is the most drought tolerant saltbush in North America, tolerating the  hottest and driest sites in Death Valley, which lies just north of San Bernardino County, The plant remains active most of the year, but flowers in the main from January through April.
Desert holly grows in locations such as desert dry wash and creosote bush scrub in the Mojave Desert and can be found at elevations ranging from 250 to 3,900 feet.
Its small reddish fruits give it a passing resemblance to the unrelated European holly. Because of its attractiveness, this shrub’s leaves are often used in decorations for the home.
The silvery color is from salts that collect on surface hairs, although there are other reasons for this coloration. The reflective coloration helps reflect the light and therefore reduce the amount of water lost.]
Plants are male or female in their natural dry, desert habitat, but when artificially transplanted to cooler and wetter climates, male and female flowers may occur on the same plant. Female flowers are green.
The plant is a source of food and shelter for many desert animals. Barn Owls and Northern Harriers use its branches to perch on. Pronghorn, deer, and many desert rodents eat the leaves.
With dry soil, it can survive temperatures as low as ten degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but will die if the ground is wet and freezes.

(March 24) Chino voters last week gave  MBK Homes a special dispensation to construct a 113-unit residential project on 12.75 acres of property zoned as general commercial at the northwest corner of Central Avenue and Francis Avenue.
MBK Homes has covered the $174,000 cost of the special election, which included mail-in ballots as well as ones cast at precinct polling places throughout the 77,983 population city.
Measure V called for amending the land use designation of 12.75 acres of vacant land from general commercial to residential-RD12 zoning.
According to the registrar of voters, with 2,700 or 8.45 percent of the city’s 31,944 voters participating, Measure V passed muster, with  1,538 votes or 57.07 percent in favor and 1,157 votes or 42.93 percent in opposition. Five ballots received showed no preference.
Of 2,700 voters participating, 245 went to the polls on Tuesday March 24, and 2,455 voted by mail.
Measure M, which was put into effect by the Chino City Council in 1988, mandates that a special election must be held whenever non-residential property is rezoned to accommodate its transformation to residential use and thereby increasing Chino’s population density.