(March 17) The California Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday, March 17 voted to make a tentative commitment to a $142,349,314 one percent interest loan to the Hi-Desert Water District to help in the financing of the construction of a sewer system in Yucca Valley.
That loan will likely stave off drastic action by the state that would impose severe sanctions on the town and its residents, and which would have potentially rendered Yucca Valley a ghost town by 2022.
The community of Yucca Valley is under a mandate by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board to complete, or have made substantial progress toward completion of, the first phase of the town’s sewer system in less than 14 months.
In 2007, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state agency responsible for protecting water quality, adopted a resolution identifying the town of Yucca Valley as one of 66 communities throughout the state with groundwater threatened by the continuing overuse of septic systems. Lacking the financial wherewithal to undertake the construction of a sewer system, local officials resisted taking immediate action. Nor did the city have the will to impose any kind of building or development moratorium that would stabilize the problem. Town and water district officials delayed the imposition of state mandates by forging a memorandum of agreement with the Regional Water Quality Control Board to allow interim permits for new septic systems while planning for a wastewater system proceeded.
By 2010, Yucca Valley’s population had zoomed to 20,700, an increase of 3,835 or 22.7 percent over the 16,865 town residents counted in the 2000 Census, and the following year the town was firmly informed it had only five years to take a definitive step toward water quality compliance.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board at that point imposed three progressive phases of septic discharge prohibitions on Yucca Valley. Under the state mandate, phase 1 of a waste water system must be completed or significantly on its way to completion by May 19, 2016 or enforcement action will be initiated. The first phase of the project is to cover the downtown area of Yucca Valley, the area most proximate to the heart of the groundwater basin. Similarly, phase 2 must be completed or nearly completed by May 19, 2019 and phase 3 must be completed by May 19, 2022. The last two phases lie further out where future concentrated development is most likely to occur.
The imposition of that deadline four years ago was intended as a wake-up call to local officials to undertake an effort to avert the growing water quality crisis. But little progress toward the goal of planning and funding the system has been made and there has been absolutely no physical progress with regard to establishing it.
In 2012, the Yucca Valley Town Council tested the community’s willingness to pay for or otherwise finance the construction of rhe system, sponsoring Measure U, a once cent sales tax initiative, the lion’s share of the proceeds from which town officials said would be devoted toward building the sewer system. The measure failed.
Cost projections have been made, with one covering the price for a contractor building the system and another sizing up the cost of having water district staff carry out the project. It will cost, according to this documentation, between $133,248,401 and $140,651,089 for the design and construction work to be performed by Atkins North America and somewhere between $111,539,901 and $117,736,562 for the district to construct the project using Atkins North America’s proposed design. The system would consist of a water treatment plant and a collection system entailing over 400,000 linear feet of pipe.
Within the last fortnight, a wastewater treatment assessment schedule has been drawn up, showing variable contributions from different landowners depending on the value of each parcel. A single-family household in the first phase of the sewer system will have to pay roughly $18,283 in assessments over 30 years.
The Hi-Desert Water District Board of Directors last month awarded a $2.8 million contract to Riverside-based Carollo Engineers to manage the construction of Yucca Valley’s wastewater collection system and treatment facility over the next three-and-a-half years. Carollo was chosen to serve as the project manager because it has been involved in planning for the wastewater project for years, having represented the Hi-Desert Water District with companies considered as potential contractors or sub-contractors on the project.
Yucca Valley is deemed by the state to be an economically disadvantaged community based on its household median income of $41,804, which is about 68 percent of the state average. On that basis, the state water board’s financial staff recommended that the low-interest loan be made to the water district, which is serving as the lead agency on the project.
Under the agreement drawn up, the Hi-Desert Water District will repay the state about $5.5 million each year with fees paid by property owners. The water board and the water district gambled by entering into the tentative arrangement for the loan, in that Yucca Valley’s property owners have yet to agree to the formation of an assessment district. The water district is now preparing to send ballots relating to the assessment district to property owners. Each ballot is provide a description of the proposed maximum assessment for each property. Single-family homes in phase one will pay an estimated $100 per month, consisting of a $62 to $64 assessment and a $36 per month wastewater treatment fee. Homes in phases two and three will pay only the assessment charge, but will need to start paying the sewer treatment fee once they are connected to the system.
The commercial property assessment will start at the level charged to residential properties but could increase from that if they are heavy water users.
Yucca Valley is a town dominated by Republicans, with 4,084 or 41 percent of its 9,951 registered voters registered with the GOP as opposed to 2,609 or 26.2 percent registered as Democrats. Few of the town’s residents are affluent. A solid majority are philosophically opposed to the application of government mandates and the use of government taxing authority. The town’s political leadership has reflected this attitude, and for years decried the order to construct a sewage treatment system as an inappropriate intrusion by Sacramento into local affairs. Little in the way of progress toward creating a funding mechanism for defraying the cost of the project had been made until now and no physical progress has been made.
With the May 2016 deadline approaching, however, political philosophy is giving way to situational reality.
If the sewer system is not in place in the designated zones by the stipulated dates, Yucca Valley property owners will receive cease and desist orders with the potential of daily fines for non-compliance. They will be ordered to discontinue the discharge from their septic systems entirely. If they do not, they would be subject to fines levied against them that in less than two months time would exceed the value of most homes in Yucca Valley. Moreover, the restrictions on their use would render them inhabitable.
The state of California has utilized draconian measures in the past against other communities that failed to come into compliance, such as in Los Osos, which was under a similar order from the California Water Resources Board and failed to heed it. The entire community of Los Osos became subject to an enforcement action, which was done in a lottery fashion, in which random property owners were selected to receive cease and desist orders with the potential of daily fines for non-compliance. They were ordered to discontinue the discharge from their septic systems, seal them off and pump them at regular intervals. If they did not, they were subjected to fines of up to $5,000 per day.
Water district and town officials, while acknowledging the $18,283 assessments will be a burden on many of the town’s residents which may even result in some of those property owners losing their homes in an eventual tax lien sale, they say the low-interest loan being offered by the State Water Resources Control Board is the community’s best and perhaps only option in dealing with the water quality and state enforcement crisis it faces.
If the town’s voters do not approve the assessment district, the state will withdraw the loan.
A key factor in whether the assessment district will gain approval is the willingness of Roger Mayes, a current Hi-Desert Water District board member and past board president, to actively campaign for the district’s acceptance. An ardent Republican and a longtime advocate of limited government who has been less than fully supportive of undertaking the project in the past, Mayes is also the pastor at Grace Community Church, where he has a Svengali-like hold over the church’s members. If he chooses to use his pulpit to advocate on behalf of the assessment district, Mayes can literally deliver hundreds of votes in support of it.

(March 19) Bowing at last to political, legal and environmental reality, the city of Upland this week dismissed the criminal case it had lodged last year against Fernand Bogman, the city resident who was being prosecuted for his refusal to water his lawn during the ongoing California drought.
As California was entering the third year of an historic drought, Bogman in 2013 installed a drip irrigation system to water the plants and shrubs in his front yard located in the 1000 block of 14th Street and ceased watering his grass. His intention, he said, was to replace the water-intensive lawn with drought tolerant plants. He said he believed it was “immoral to pour buckets and buckets of water on grass and landscaping while the entire state is in the middle of a drought.”
He was contacted by a city code enforcement officer, who informed him that it was a violation of the city’s code for him to neglect his lawn. Bogman made inquiries at City Hall to ascertain what types of drought tolerant landscaping would be permissible under the city code as a replacement for his grass. According to Bogman, however, city officials were unable to give him a clear answer to his questions, and they blurred the distinction between drought tolerant plants and California native plants, many of which are themselves water intensive. Unable to obtain reliable clearance from the city for landscaping his yard with plants that would reduce his water usage, Bogman did not proceed with replanting, concerned that if he invested in cultivating plants eventually deemed unacceptable to the city, he would be put to the trouble and expense of having to tear them out and replant again.
The city cited Bogman under its civil code enforcement authority. In his dialogue with city officials, Bogman said, they showed no sensitivity toward the rationale for his action, but insisted that he come into compliance with the code by maintaining his lawn. The city adjudicated the civil citation against him in its own favor. Bogman remained defiant. The city then went to the extraordinary level of escalating the civil case against Bogman into a criminal one.
At that point Bogman went public. He attended city council meetings where he addressed the city council, informing them of the action city staff had taken against him. He articulated his rationale, citing the four-year running drought. He referenced California Governor Jerry Brown’s action in response to the water shortage, which entailed calling upon all individuals and communities statewide to conserve water and his own adherence to that mandate, including allowing the lawn at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento to turn brown. Bogman pointed out that Upland’s policy clashed with those of other municipalities in San Bernardino County and elsewhere, which had ordinances against using too much water on lawns and landscaping. And he gathered photographs of city property, including portions of the landscaped areas around the Upland Civic Center, where the city itself had neglected its own grass and landscaping, allowing it to die. When the city continued to force the issue criminally, media outlets picked up on the story, including newspapers, radio stations and television stations. In the coverage that ensued, which featured an open running debate of sorts with the city and its prosecutor, Dan Peelman, on one side and Bogman on the other, Bogman appeared to give as good as he got.
Bogman at that point was represented by the San Bernardino County Pubic Defender’s Office. On November 24, Bogman showed up for a hearing at which Peelman failed to make an appearance. Judge Jon Ferguson, who was clearly becoming impatient with the case having been pushed into the criminal realm, very nearly dismissed it outright, but postponed making such a ruling until the next week, when Peelman did show. The case was extended to January 12.
Meanwhile Bogman reseeded his lawn and with the winter rains, the lawn rejuvenated. Furthermore, local attorney Michael Vollandt of the Upland-based Law Office of Marc E. Grossman substituted in as Bogman’s attorney. In January, Peelman, perhaps believing that Bogman was not truly prepared to go to the expense and trouble of taking the matter to trial, offered Bogman a plea deal, which Vollandt rejected out of hand. Ferguson then set a trial date of January 27 which was later extended to March 30. Further signaling his impatience, Ferguson instructed the parties to come to some kind of settlement. Over the next two months, despite having been presented with evidence that Bogman’s lawn was again intact and thriving, Peelman was unwilling to dismiss the case outright and allow Bogman’s challenge of the city’s policy to be in any way vindicated.
This week, however, just as Governor Jerry Brown and the state legislature were introducing a $1 billion drought relief package, Peelman on behalf of the city of Upland threw in the towel against Bogman, saying the case against him was being dismissed “in the interest of justice.”
At the same time, the city sought to put the best face possible on the debacle, releasing a press release that stated, “For the past 18 months, neighbors of Mr. Bogman have been complaining that Mr. Bogman let his lawn die and that the lack of landscaping was negatively affecting neighborhood property values. The city subsequently requested that Mr. Bogman comply with city laws that require landscaping to be maintained, dead landscaping be removed, and that dirt areas not exceed a maximum of 25% of lawns and parkways. City staff met with Mr. Bogman and provided various landscape and hardscape options for his front yard that was mostly dirt, but these suggestions were not initially followed. Recently however, staff observed that Mr. Bogman chose to re-seed his front lawn and add mulch and rock to the parkway, all in compliance with the city’s municipal code. Mr. Peelman informed the court that he made the motion to dismiss “in the interest of justice.”
Grossman said the city’s press release was self serving and inaccurate. He pointed out that the city staff and Peelman knew in January that Bogman’s lawn was reseeded and growing but had gambled on proceeding with case out of the mistaken belief that Bogman would capitulate and accept a guilty plea prior to trial commencing.
In actuality, Grossman said, Bogman and Vollandt were anxious for the matter to go to trial because they believed it would give them a forum to demonstrate the shortsightedness of the city’s policies and the wrongheadedness of its draconian enforcement and prosecutorial action.
“The city has denied Mr. Bogman his day in court,” Grossman said. “This case would have set a clear precedent and would prevent the city from bullying other citizens into compliance with its dubious codes.”
Vollandt said Bogman was “a staunch supporter of the governor’s fight against the drought. He complied with the state’s mandates on water conservation, only to be rebuffed by the city of Upland’s water guzzling administration instructing their prosecutor to file the criminal charges against him.”
Grossman said that despite the city’s attempt at face saving and warding off negative publicity, he and members of his firm would continue to be on the lookout for instances of the city abusing its authority and would again rally to the defense of any resident they learn is falling victim to the city’s overreaching.

The cities of Ontario and Los Angeles are on track to go to trial in the lawsuit the San Bernardino County city has brought against the megalopolis in the attempt to win back ownership and control of Ontario International Airport.
In 1967, when 200,000 passengers were moving through Ontario Airport’s gates, the city of Ontario entered into a joint powers agreement with Los Angeles to have LA use its division of airports to manage and run the airport. Los Angeles was able to use its leverage with many airlines based on its control of gate positions and other perks at Los Angeles International Airport to induce airlines to fly into and out of Ontario Airport.
Under Los Angeles’s guidance, Ontario airport prospered and ridership there increased dramatically. Los Angles saw to it that Ontario Airport’s gravel parking lot was paved and its runway was extended to become the longest commercial runway in Southern California. In 1985, after performance criteria laid out in the original joint powers agreement were met, the Ontario City Council, with then-mayor Robert Ellingwood absent, voted to deed the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration. Ontario Airport continued to grow in the years thereafter, as Los Angeles and the corporate entity it had created to run its airport division, Los Angeles World Airport, upgraded, improved, modernized and expanded the airport, including the addition of two state-of-the-art, world-class terminals and a concourse in the late 1990s. Ontario Airport had become a primary asset to the city of Ontario, though Ontario technically did not own it, and in 2007, ridership reached an all-time high of 7.2 million passengers.
But with the economic downturn that settled over the nation, state and region that year, passenger traffic at Ontario Airport dropped off precipitously the next year and continued to decline as the recession lingered. By 2010, Ontario officials were pressuring Los Angeles officials to do something about the declining numbers at Ontario Airport. Simultaneously, Los Angeles World Airport officials were pushing ahead with a modernization and upgrading undertaking at Los Angeles International Airport initiated in 2006. As the number of passengers at Ontario Airport dwindled and some airlines discontinued flying into and out of Ontario while ridership increased at Los Angeles International Airport, Ontario officials began to suggest that Ontario Airport was being neglected. Soon Ontario officials were charging Los Angeles with purposefully mismanaging Ontario Airport as part of a strategy to benefit Los Angeles International Airport. Ontario then initiated a public relations campaign aimed at pressuring Los Angeles to return the airport to Ontario. The terms and stridency of this campaign escalated, poisoning relations between the two cities and their officials. As the 2013 Los Angeles municipal election approached, Ontario officials sought to make alliances with both of the candidates who qualified for the May 2013 run-off for mayor, Wendy Gruel and Eric Garcetti. Ontario officials expressed hope that they would be able to make headway in dealing with Garcetti, who proved the eventual victor. Nevertheless, in June 2013, just prior to Garcetti being sworn in as mayor, Ontario sued Los Angeles, using the high powered and well connected Washington-D.C.-based law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton, which also has an office in Los Angeles, to represent it.
Ontario aggressively pursued the lawsuit, and Ontario councilman Alan Wapner, in particular, was highly visible and vocal in asserting Ontario’s position outside the context of the court and Sheppard Mullin Richter and Hampton’s court filings.
Ontario had five prongs in its suit. The first prong was that the entire deal between Ontario and Los Angeles was invalid in that the Joint Powers Agreement was flawed and unenforceable. The second prong was that the transfer of the airport to Los Angeles in 1985 was illegal in that it had taken place as a consequence of a simple vote of the city council and should have entailed a full vote of the city’s electorate. The third prong was that Los Angeles had breached its contract with Ontario i.e., the terms of the joint powers agreement. The fourth prong was breach of the fiduciary duty Los Angeles has toward Ontario as a consequence of the joint powers agreement. And the fifth prong is breach of good faith and fair dealing on the city of Los Angeles’s part.
The case was filed in Riverside Superior Court to avoid any conflicts that might occur because of bias toward one party or another in San Bernardino or Los Angeles counties. Judge Gloria Connor Trask is hearing the case in Riverside.
With regard to the first two prongs, Trask in January tentatively ruled and then in February confirmed that Ontario’s efforts to have the 1967 joint powers authority agreement invalidated and 1985 agreement giving Los Angeles the airport declared void had come too late and were barred by the statute of limitations even if the agreement and the transfer were flawed on legal or procedural grounds.
Thus, three-fifths of Ontario’s lawsuit has already been wiped out. The remaining issues to be litigated after Judge Trask’s recent ruling pertain to breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and breach of good faith and fair dealing.
Ontario’s road to victory has grown even more tortuous. Earlier, in December, Ontario had scored what appeared to be a crucial tactical advantage when Trask ruled that Los Angeles had to provide to Ontario over 2,000 internal Los Angeles city and Los Angeles World Airport documents sought by Ontario in its suit as part of the discovery process. Those included memos, emails, letters, communications and other materials relating to Los Angeles World Airport’s managerial and administrative actions regarding Ontario Airport. It is the theory of the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton legal team representing Ontario composed of attorneys Andre Cronthall, Scott Sveslosky and Catherine La Tempa that among those documents is a smoking gun or several smoking guns showing that Los Angeles World Airport officials were indeed slighting Ontario Airport and doing so purposefully because they were trying to drive passengers away from Ontario to Los Angeles.
The attorneys for Los Angeles, however, did not fully comply with Trask’s order, claiming that 399 of the documents fall under attorney-client privilege, They appealed the ruling to the Fourth State Court of Appeals. Joshua Stambaugh, an attorney representing Los Angeles asserted in January that many of the documents sought were communications from individuals who are not named in the suit and are not likely to be added as defendants to the suit. The self-evaluation and personnel files of a person who is not a defendant in the case are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the state Constitution’s right to privacy, Stambaugh said. Moreover, Stambaugh maintained that Los Angeles, in evaluating the sought-after documents, had learned that the 399 documents in question contain attorney-client information that is not discoverable.
Last week the appeals court ruled that Trask should reconsider her decision. The appeals court did not direct Trask to prohibit Ontario from seeing any or all of the 399 documents in dispute, but suggested that a more rigorous evaluation with regard to them needs to be made.
Ontario yet maintains that it has a right to examine the documents. Typically, in such disputes, an ostensibly uninterested legal expert, either another judge or an attorney with no connection to the case, will be appointed as a special master. That special master would then evaluate each of the documents to ascertain if they are privileged or if they are eligible for discovery.
At this point, there is not enough information available for outsiders to know whether Ontario’s case would rise or fall on the strength of the documents in dispute. This week, Cronthall told the Sentinel that he believes there is adequate information available for his client, Ontario, to prevail in the matter if it goes to trial as anticipated on August 17.
“All three causes of action arise from the same set of facts,” Cronthall said. “They all hinge on the joint powers agreement (“JPA”) entered into between Ontario and Los Angeles in 1967. The JPA created LA’s contractual obligation to use its best efforts to develop air service at Ontario International Airport. LA breached that obligation by, among other things, failing to use its best efforts to grow air service at Ontario Airport. Instead LA reduced the marketing budget for Ontario Airport, caused staffing levels and resulting labor costs to remain unreasonably high, collected an administrative fee that was unreasonably high, reduced to part time status the manager and assistant manager of the airport, and allowed the overall cost per enplaned passenger to increase and then remain too high.”
Cronthall said, “The breach of the implied good faith and fair dealing is based on LA’s above breaches plus LA’s failure to permit Ontario to receive the benefits that should have been derived from the agreement. LA failed not only to meaningfully market and advertise Ontario Airport, it took no significant steps to reverse Ontario International Airport’s downturn from 7.2 million enplaned passengers in 2007 to less than 4 million through 2013. Also, for example, chief operating officer Steve Martin acknowledged that LA’s air service development was either nonexistent or dead in the water, but Los Angeles World Airports decided to ‘leave the ineptitude as is.’”
Cronthall said,”LA’s failure to use best efforts and its other breaches also amount to a breach of fiduciary duty. By entering together into the JPA, LA and Ontario essentially formed a partnership or joint venture, triggering fiduciary obligations. Its failure to use best efforts and other breaches constituted a breach of fiduciary duty as well.”
Moreover, Ontario intends to revive the first two prongs of the lawsuit, Cronthall said. .
“Ontario also intends to appeal Judge Trask’s ruling granting LA summary adjudication as to Ontario’s causes of action for rescission and reformation,” he told the Sentinel.
Los Angeles World Airports officials have consistently refused to discuss the lawsuit outside of making references to court filings. In defending their operation and management of Ontario Airport and in addressing the six year-long downturn in ridership there, they have said the lingering recession had a devastating impact on aviation enterprises in general, that outlying hub airports geographically removed from major population centers such as Ontario were particularly hard hit and that the decisions by some airlines to reduce or eliminate flights to such outlying hubs in response to the contracting air travel market were ones made internally and independently over which Los Angeles World Airport has no control.

RIVERSIDE–(March 18) U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury, the federal judge hearing San Bernardino’s bankruptcy case who in September ruled the city could abrogate its contract with firefighters, this week extended that ruling to include the city’s police officers.
San Bernardino’s bankruptcy filing in 2012, following years of touch-and-go problems with its finances, set off a series of hard fought battles with its employee unions and the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS).
While stiffing a number of its creditors, vendors and service providers, San Bernardino is struggling to put its financial house in order and recover from years of deficit spending so it can exit bankruptcy and bring its future expenditures in alliance with its future revenues.
San Bernardino’s situation is exacerbated by provisions in its municipal charter that put in place a system which essentially guarantees the city’s safety employees – fireman and police officers – will be paid at a level equal to the average paid to safety employees in comparatively sized cities in California. City officials have claimed that this requirement had contributed to the erosion of the city’s finances and they asked Jury for permission to suspend the terms of the city’s contracts with the police and fire unions so the city can get back on its feet financially.
When the city ceased making scheduled payments to CalPERS, lawyers for that entity made arguments that CalPERS had a special status that moved it to the front of the line of the city’s creditors. The court did not confirm that assertion, and a compromise was reached between CalPERS and the city over the continuation of payments to CalPERS subsequent to the some $14 million in missed payments during 2012 and 2013. Union attorneys and representatives of the firefighters and police officers sought to impress upon Jury that the city’s safety officers had special status as well, per the city charter. But Jury has consistently ruled that the city should be granted wide leeway in dealing with the financial burdens it faces so it can exit bankruptcy as soon and as expeditiously as possible.
Jury has not dictated to the city what it should do, but merely ruled on what it can do, while encouraging it to devise a pendency plan that will allow it to return to some semblance of financial order. She said the city could, if it chose, insist upon both firefighters and police officers picking up a greater percentage of their respective pension costs than was the case previously. Jury’s ruling on March 17 provoked San Bernardino Police Officers Association attorney Ron Oliner to brand this type of sacrifice on the part of the police officers as “cost-sharing,” which he said was out of compliance with state law. He intimated an appeal on behalf of the union.
Though there is no assurance the city will actually utilize the freedom to the welsh on the police contract Jury has granted it, the city did last October impose a redrafted contract on the firefighters in accordance with Jury’s September ruling. The firefighters union is legally contesting that move.
City officials expressed frustration at the police union’s reluctance to get on board with the austerity plan the city has devised, which calls for sacrifices from all of the city’s employees. The city had sought to mediate a resolution to the dispute with the police union and last summer achieved what was referred to as a tentative agreement, but subsequent disagreements untracked that accommodation. In making its argument to Jury, the city told her that five of San Bernardino’s seven unions have accepted “modifications” to their contracts, including increasing employee contributions to their pension plans.
The city claims it is “burdened” by the contract it has with the police union and that continuing to pay the police officers in keeping with that contract will result in the city having “to run a deficit in its general fund.”
The city charter disallows the city reducing police or firefighter pay and a city-sponsored initiative to change that portion of the charter failed in November. Nevertheless, bankruptcy court is a federal institution and legal experts maintain federal law trumps state law.
The police union is contemplating testing whether that principle will hold true.

(March 17) The more than 800 county employees defined as working within the professional unit have voted to decertify the San Bernardino Public Employees Association (SBPEA) as their labor representative in favor of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The California State Mediator’s Office, to which counting of the ballots had been entrusted, announced the results. In the final tally SEIU affiliation was favored by 441 of those who participated in the vote, while staying with SBPEA was supported by 137. Thirteen casted votes for no representation. More than 200 of those eligible to vote did not participate.
For three quarters of a century, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association had remained in a relatively secure position as the representative of the lion’s share of county workers, but beginning four years ago internal and external events and pressure have threatened to shatter the association.
But last year a contingent of SBPEA members dissatisfied with the association’s leadership urged their fellow union members to reject the contract San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux was proposing, while seeking a special election to decertify the San Bernardino Public Employees Association as the county general line employees’ representative. They instead sought to install Service Employees International Union Local 721 as their bargaining unit. Their effort did not succeed at that time, and SBPEA’s leadership retaliated against the dissidents by expelling those members advocating the change and obtaining a restraining order against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in June 2014, effectively ending SEIU’s ability to lobby SBPEA members.
On February 11, the SBPEA board informed the association’s membership an affiliation with the Teamsters was under consideration, asserting such an affiliation with the Teamsters would increase SBPEA’s leverage at the bargaining table. There is a contingent within the association adamantly opposed to affiliating with the Teamsters. Some dissatisfaction with the current SBPEA board exists and the move to associate with the Teamsters would virtually lock in the current set of union bosses, some members believe. But by affiliating with the Teamsters, some SBPEA loyalists believe, further erosion of their membership by SEIU can be prevented.

(March 17) Noting that Ontario officials had been aware of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project and its local impacts since 2007 but waited nearly seven years to file a petition to have the project’s power lines buried, administrative law judge Jean Vieth denied the city of Ontario’s request that Southern California Edison’s erection of 197-foot high power towers at the extreme south end of the city be halted.
Essentially, Ontario is seeking to replicate the rather improbable success the city of Chino Hills had in persuading the California Public Utilities Commission to force Southern California Edison to underground the 500 kilovolt electrical lines that are part of its Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project traversing that city. Last fall, Ontario officials filed with the commission a petition and an amended petition to modify the massive utility corridor through the portion of the city annexed from the former Chino Agricultural Preserve, where the city intends to complete the so-called New Colony retail and residential subdivisions. The New Colony project will entail the addition of roughly 12,000 residents once it is completed.
The 173-mile Tehachapi line is intended to connect what is planned as the world’s largest windfarm, consisting of hundreds of electricity-producing windmills in Kern County, with the Los Angeles metropolitan basin.
The Public Utilities Commission in 2009 over the city of Chino Hills’ protest granted Southern California Edison clearance to erect high-tension power transmission towers through the 44.7-square mile city at the extreme southwest corner of San Bernardino County along a long-existing power corridor easement owned by the utility.
In 2011, after Southern California Edison (SCE) had already expended millions of dollars in erecting 18 of the 197-foot high transmission towers within the Chino Hills city limits, the California Public Utilities Commission issued an order to SCE to halt work on the project while the commission’s staff looked into the possibility of bringing the towers down and instead having Edison bury the transmission lines beneath the power corridor running through Chino Hills.
In July 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 3-2 in favor of requiring Southern California Edison to underground high-voltage power lines for the 3.5 miles of the five miles they run through Chino Hills.
Well over a year after commissioners Michael Peevey, Mark Ferron and Catherine Sandoval effectively undid a four-year standing vote of the Public Utilities Commission that gave Edison go-ahead to string 500 kilovolt cables from the towers running through the heart of upscale Chino Hills, Ontario on October 31, 2014 filed a petition for modification of the Tehachapi line design in its jurisdiction with the public utility commission.
But in prelude to the California Public Utilities Commission initiating hearings as early as April 9 on Ontario’s request, Vieth, who routinely considers matters brought before the utilities commission prior to that panel making its decisions, on March 6 refused to accede to Ontario’s request that Southern California Edison be enjoined from proceeding with the project as previously approved.
Vieth dismissed outright Ontario’s contention that it had not been adequately informed of the towers’ potential impact on the city. Beginning in 2007 and running through 2013, Vieth said, the city of Ontario had communicated in writing with the California Public Utilities Commission five times, and never raised objections to the towers or requested that the line be undergrounded. Those letters were signed by individuals with both administrative and land use authority and responsibility, Vieth pointed out, in four of the cases the city manager and in the fifth case the city’s planning director.
Moreover, Ontario neglected entirely to indicate how many miles of the line it wanted to see vaulted below ground.
According to Joshua Nelson and John Brown of the law firm Best Best & Krieger, who represent the city of Ontario, “The actual impacts of the line are greater than anticipated [and] the impacts to the city of Ontario are the same or worse than those in Chino Hills,” such that “fundamental fairness and equal protection requires treating the city of Ontario and Chino Hills the same.”
Southern California Edison, through its attorneys, Beth Gaylor, Angela Whatley and Laura Zagar of the San Diego-based law firm of Perkin Coie, responded, saying Ontario’s delay in making its protest to the above-ground design of the utility corridor through its territory, seven years after Edison previewed the design and more than five years after the public utilities commission held hearings on the proposal, is requesting too much too late.
“In July 2009, the commission held ten days of evidentiary hearings with over 25 witnesses, which involved numerous parties, extensive witness testimony, hundreds of pages of briefing, and oral argument,” Gaylor, Whatley and Zagar wrote in their December 5, 2014 response. “Ontario did not participate in these proceedings. Ontario’s petition for modification is procedurally defective and attempts to relitigate issues already decided by the commission. There are no new facts or evidence warranting the extraordinary relief Ontario requests.”
Furthermore, according to Gaylor, Whatley and Zagar, the commission’s rule pertaining to protests of commission decisions and rehearings “requires a petitioner to file a petition for modification within one year of the effective date of the decision it seeks to modify. Ontario does not provide a compelling reason for its failure to participate in the commission’s initial review of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project or the commission’s reevaluation of Chino Hill’s petition for undergrounding. A party that has not engaged in the proceedings should not be able to derail this crucial project at such a late stage in development.”
According to Nelson and Brown, however, “the city of Ontario’s delay was justified as the facts supporting its petition for modification were unknown. The actual effects of the line were not known until they [i.e., the towers] began to be constructed. Construction began within the city of Ontario after April this year [i.e., 2014]. Once these facts were known, the city promptly filed its undergrounding petition. Moreover, the city was not aware that similar communities would be treated differently until [the commission’s July 2013 decision] provided an undergrounding exemption for Chino Hills.” Nelson and Brown assert that “while the city of Ontario did not participate in [the 2009 decision to approve the Tehachapi line] as a formal party, it submitted numerous California Environmental Quality Act comment letters throughout the process. The adverse impacts of this line, which only became clear after its partial construction, occur within the city of Ontario. In addition, the city previously limited its participation in this proceeding for economic reasons.”
Nelson and Brown continued, “Chino Hills spent $1.8 million during the initial proceeding with another $2 million on the petition. While the city of Ontario appreciates that jurisdiction’s decision to participate fully in the proceeding and the result it obtained, $3.8 million is a significant sum of money that the city of Ontario simply could not spend at that time. However, now that the true impacts of the lines are apparent and an effort to ensure equal treatment for its residents, the city will spend the public resources necessary to achieve a similar result. Undergrounding [the transmission line] through Chino Hills without undergrounding portions through the city of Ontario is fundamentally unfair and raises concerns that similarly situated communities have been treated fundamentally differently by the commission. There is simply no reasonable rationale basis for requiring Southern California Edison’s ratepayers (i.e., the community at large) to share the cost of undergrounding through the city of Chino Hills while requiring the city of Ontario’s residents to solely bear the impacts of the aboveground portions of [the transition line].”
According to Nelson and Brown, the positive outcome Chino Hills obtained in its petition to the California Public Utilities Commission must be replicated in Ontario.
The towers are located south of Archibald Ranch and continue toward Chino Avenue, then head east before going into the Mira Loma Electrical Station. Archibald Ranch lies within an area east of Archibald Avenue and south of Riverside Drive. The power lines lie at the southernmost boundary of Archibald Ranch. There are 36 homes lying along the pathway of the power lines.
In her finding, Vieth asserted that a public utility commission order to underground the lines would significantly delay the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, meaning the timetable for its completion would be set back by as much as five years. Vieth said redoing the already approved plans would entail tearing down, reconstructing or redesigning roughly ten miles of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project line.

(March 18) The cost of the Glen Helen Parkway Overpass project at the Union Pacific/Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad lines near Devore has increased by $1,050,000. Simultaneously, the accounting on the contributions toward the project’s completion now reflects an increase of $3.05 million to $22,785,000.
The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors this week amended the original $19,735,000 undertaking to include the recent receipt of $2,320,000 in funding from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Union Pacific, an increase in the county’s contribution of $202,940 and an increased contribution of $527,060 in funding from the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority.
Simultaneously, the cost jumped, according to Gerry Newcombe, the county’s director of public works and transportation, because of additional railroad flagging services, estimated to be $391,000; additional right-of-way funding needed for ongoing eligible property acquisition expenses that occurred beyond the termination of the right-of-way funding agreement previously obtained for the project and other related costs, estimated to be $409,000; and the discovery during construction of an unknown underground storage structure that contained unknown hazardous material(s), estimated to be $250,000 for the initial response for remediation. Newcombe said the hazardous materials handling costs may yet increase. “Further investigation is underway to determine the full extent of soil contamination and appropriate remediation, and the costs for this continued work are still being determined,” he said.
The additional railroad funding contributions of $320,000 and project costs of $1,050,000 will result in an overall cost increase of $730,000, of which $202,940 is the county’s share and $527,060 is the transportation authority’s share.
All told, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe/ Union Pacific will put up $2,320,000 toward the completion of the project, the county will cover $5,689,270 of the cost and the transportation authority will cover $14.775,730 of the price tag.

(March 20) The sponsors of the initiative to allow three marijuana dispensaries to operate in Upland filed a lawsuit against the city on Thursday and followed that lawsuit up with a motion today, Friday March 20, in which they are seeking to have that initiative put on the ballot for a special election in June.
Those sponsors gathered the signatures of more than 15 percent of the city’s registered voters on the petitions that were certified by the county register of voters. But the city, following city attorney Richard Adams’ advice, seized on language in the initiative calling for levying a $75,000 fee on each dispensary operator, and said that the California Constitution requires that all new taxes be approved by voters at a general election. Calling the $75,000 fee a tax, the city council voted 3-2 to hold off on the initiative election until November 2016, the next general municipal election in Upland.
But Santa Monica-based attorney Roger Diamond, who represents the initiative proponents, said “The city misapplied Article 13c2 of the California Constitution, which applies only to initiatives self initiated by a government entity and not the initiative process endorsed by voters.”
Diamond filed a lawsuit in San Bernardino Superior Court, which has been routed to Department S-36 which he said calls for “the signers of the initiative to receive the full benefit of California law, which requires that the initiative be put on the ballot within 88 to 105 days of the certification of the signatures.”
The city did not have the legal option to postpone the election until next year, Diamond said, and he had followed the March 19 filing for a peremptory writ with a motion today calling upon the judge to order the city to conduct the election within the time specified by law.
Diamond said he had encountered some difficulty in that there are full calendars in each of the court divisions in San Bernardino, such that the matter has not been scheduled for an expeditious hearing yet. Ideally, Diamond said, the matter should be heard by April 21, so special election arrangements can be carried out by the registrar of voters in a timely manner. He said that despite the crowded court calendars, he believes the matter will be scheduled for a hearing in time, since by California law matters pertaining to election code issues are to be given scheduling preference.

(March 18) San Bernardino County has instituted a new policy with regard to the formation of special government services districts.
Based on a recommendation of the county’s chief executive officer, Greg Devereaux, and the county’s division of special districts, Jeff Rigney, the board of supervisors this week mandated that a financial analysis of the impact the creation of a new special district will have before such an entity is created.
According to Devereaux and Rigney’s report to the board, “Residents or other authorized individuals within the unincorporated area of San Bernardino County can form what is generically referred to as ‘special districts’ to provide new municipal type services or augment current services. These services include but are not limited to roads, parks, water, sewer, fire, streetlighting, refuse, etc.
The Board of Supervisors has the authority to approve the formation of the special district which once formed is financed through the levy of a fee, assessment or special tax on the properties benefiting from the new or enhanced service. Approval of the fee, assessment, or special tax is subject to approval by a vote of either registered voters or property owners within the proposed district.”
Devereaux and Rigney went on to note that “During a public hearing on September 23, 2014, the board of supervisors gave direction to staff to develop a policy that would ensure full consideration of the impact on property owners when forming special districts, as it is the property owners who are ultimately responsible for the payment of services. The recommended policy will achieve this outcome by providing that, prior to recommending the formation of a special district, an analysis and evaluation of all available formation and financing strategies be completed.”

(March 18) Los Angeles Police Department Captain Brian P. Johnson has been selected as Upland’s next police chief. He will begin on April 20, replacing interim police chief Ken Bonson, who has acted in that capacity since the December 30 retirement of former police chief Jeff Mendenhall.
Johnson was chosen after a recruitment effort overseen by city manager Rod Butler.
Johnson’s current assignment is overseeing LAPD’s Pacific Area and the 300 sworn and professional civilian personnel who work there.
Johnson, whose father was a Los Angles police officer, was born and raised in Los Angeles. He was hired by LAPD on March 27, 1989. As a police officer, he worked a variety of assignments and divisions, which included: Foothill, Central, Newton and Rampart.
His experience includes patrol, vice, specialized detectives, special problems unit and field training officer. In 1996, he was promoted to sergeant. His supervisory assignments included
Southeast Division, Southwest Division, the employee opportunity and development division and chief of staff to the police chief.
In 2000, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to the Southwest Area as a watch commander and administrative lieutenant. In 2001, he was assigned to the department’s internal affairs group where he covered both the South and Valley sections. He also worked as an adjutant for both the chief of operations and office of human resources. In addition, he worked as a training division officer. His last assignment prior to being promoted to captain was the bomb detection canine section of the emergency services division.
As a captain, he served for 13 months as the commanding officer in the Pacific Patrol Division from October 2011 to November 2012. He was then detailed to be the commanding officer in the South Traffic Division from November 2012 until September 2013. He then returned to the Pacific Area in September 2013 as the commanding officer.
Johnson received a Master’s Degree in behavioral science from California State University Dominguez Hills. He is a graduate of the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute, West Point Leadership Program and the FBI National Academy.
He was one of two finalists for the chief’s position, having outdistanced a captain employed by the San Bernardino Police Department. Bonson applied for the post but was eliminated in the first round.
Johnson is the first police chief hired from outside the department since Eugene Mueller was persuaded to leave the Pasadena Police Department to become Upland police chief in 1941.
He will begin with an annual salary of $160,474, which is substantially below the $223,000 Upland was paying Mendenhall. He will receive the same benefits as other executive level managers with the city, worth roughly $45,000 annually.