VICTORVILLE— (March 11) The Excelsior Charter School Board and its interim top administrator have declined to clarify what form of a severance package was conferred upon former superintendent Bill Flynn and former assistant superintendent of student services Minda Stackelhouse when they made their departure from Excelsior last month.
The board was equally vague about what prompted it to put Flynn and Stackelhouse on administrative leave in early February, although unofficial statements emanating from faculty members indicated Stackelhouse had been overbearing and unduly insulting in dealing with employees and Flynn had indulged her in her management style. In the immediate aftermath of the board’s action, Flynn and Stackelhouse retained the services of attorney Diana Carloni-Nourse, who protested the administrative leave as a violation of Flynn’s $165,000 per year contract running through December 31, 2018 and Stackelhouse’s $127,727 per year contract running through June 30, 2017. At a February 10 board meeting Carloni Nourse indicated the pair would seek reinstatement or whatever was due them under the terms of their contracts.
On February 19, Flynn and Stackelhouse resigned, but no indication was given as to whether they were to be paid the money due them under their contracts, whether the contracts had been bought out at a percentage of their full worth or whether they were paid only through February 19.
Excelsior Charter Schools is a public entity, chartered under the authority of the Victor Valley Union High School District, serving students in grades seven to twelve. It consists of five schools, two in Victorville and one each in Phelan and Barstow as well as in Norco in Riverside County.
Excelsior Acting Superintendent Peter Wright did not return any of four phone calls, including one left with his secretary in which the Sentinel’s inquiry into the terms under which Flynn and Stackelhouse departed was explicitly stated. Neither did Victor Valley Union High School District Superintendent Ron Williams respond to questions about what monitoring the High School District is doing of money spent by the charter school organization it is sponsoring.

(March 12) The San Bernardino Public Employees Association began sending out mail ballots to its members on Thursday to ascertain if a majority of them are in favor of affiliating with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The push to form an alliance with the Teamsters is led primarily by the association’s board, which has drafted a 9-page affiliation agreement. The board and association president Deidre Rodriguez have been reeling and trying to regroup ever since a secession effort last spring by dissident association members. The dissidents expressed dissatisfaction with the San Bernardino Public Employees Association’s efforts in representing them in contract talks with the county. Beginning in 2011, county chief executive officer Greg Devereaux began seeking across-the-board contract concessions from all of the county’s employee bargaining units to offset skyrocketing governmental operating costs and end what he termed an “institutional structural deficit” plaguing the county. Several of the county employee unions came to some form of terms or compromise with Devereaux, though not all were ready to accept the economies he proposed. Devereaux scored a major coup when he convinced the county firefighters’ union to pick up the percentage of employee contributions the county had been paying into the workers’ retirement accounts and accept reduced annual promotional increases. In September 2012 the Safety Employees Benefit Association, a separate union representing the county’s sheriff’s deputies, made contract concessions. In April 2013, Devereuax imposed contract concessions on deputy prosecutors and public defenders, who have their own union as well.
In July 2013, San Bernardino Public Employee Association (SBPEA) General Manager Bob Blough was abruptly terminated and rumors began to circulate to the effect that he was under investigation by the district attorney’s office.
In May 2014, two classes of county workers, nursing division supervisors and managers, accepted the county’s terms. The same month, SBPEA rejected the latest contract offered to the various classifications of county workers by the county. Of the 5,524 county employees who voted on the proposal, known as a tentative agreement, 3,523 voted no. The other 2,001 members of the San Bernardino Public Employees Association who are employed by the county who participated in the vote cast ballots of acceptance. Some 7,000 county employees represented by the union did not participate in the vote.
Last year the contingent of SBPEA members dissatisfied with the association’s leadership urged their fellow union members to reject the contract 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, 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.
The association’s internal financial picture is somewhat shaky, and the current board and president now say that some $700,000 that went missing or is unaccounted for was embezzled by former general manager Blough, whom the association is now suing. Blough has denied the association’s allegations in a response filed with the court.
What is unclear at this point is whether the affiliation with the Teamsters would result in an increase in union dues. As it currently stands, SBPEA is entitled to dues equal to no more than 1.3 percent of a member’s salary. Language in the affiliation agreement is ambiguous and contradictory on whether that dues figure would remain at 1.3 percent, which is suggested in one section of the document, or would increase to 2.3 percent, as is required of all Teamster’s members according to the Teamster charter, and which is suggested in another passage in the proposed affiliation agreement.
The San Bernardino Public Employees Association, which came into existence in 1938 as the representative of San Bernardino County and San Bernardino City employees, today handles collective bargaining for over 11,000 employees working for San Bernardino County and 3,000 others working for 16 of the county’s cities – Barstow, Big Bear, Chino, Chino Hills, Colton, Fontana, Hesperia, Loma Linda, Montclair, Needles, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto, San Bernardino, and Upland, as well as three cities in east Los Angeles County, Claremont, Pomona and West Covina, and Banning in Riverside County.
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. Despite the injunction the association obtained against SEIU and SEIU agitators last year, a vote of SBPEA’s professional unit vote was forced last month, in which those members were polled on whether they wanted to keep SBPEA as their representative or bring in SEIU. The results of that vote are not publicly known at this time and a count by the State Mediation and Conciliation Service is to begin on March 16.
The association’s leadership has expressed confidence a majority of the membership will reject SEIU, but have indicated SBPEA becoming an independent local of the Teamsters is desirable. “Local politicians have targeted our wages, benefits and pensions. We need to fight back to save our way of life,” SBPEA posted on its website last month. “If we do not evolve and progress, we may lose it all. Affiliation will give us the support and the backing of an organization that has 1.4 million union members nationally and 140,000 locally.”

NEEDLES—(March 9) The Needles City Council has extended until August 31 Community Healthcare Partners, Inc.’s deadline for closing the final element of the sale of Colorado River Medical Center.
The city took on ownership of the Colorado River Medical Center in April 2008 after Brentwood, Tennessee-based Lifepoint Hospitals, a for-profit corporation, embarked on an effort to move the institution’s equipment and personnel to another hospital it owned in Arizona, roughly 12 miles from Needles.
Because of long-running inadequate billing practices, including failures to invoice Medicare and Medi-Cal as well as insurance companies and patients in a timely fashion, the hospital under the city’s guidance had lost money. To redress the financial liability to the city, the city council created a board of trustees to oversee the hospital, and that panel, together with the city council, came to a consensus that spinning the facility off to an independent operator was the best solution for ensuring that the community has adequate medical care without soaking the taxpayers.
In June 2010, Needles voters passed Measure Q, which called for keeping the hospital open and absolving the city of the financial burden of subsidizing the facility by having a non-profit entity selected to run the hospital.
In 2011, a nonprofit group, Needles Hospital, Inc., led by former Needles councilwoman Rebecca Valentine formed. Needles Hospital, Inc. offered to purchase the Colorado River Medical Center and the 5.71 acres it sits upon for $3,587,002. For that amount, Needles Hospital Inc. was to take possession of most assets and liabilities of the hospital, including accounts receivable, operating inventory in place, outstanding bills and unemployment obligations. Unassumed debts were to be deducted from the purchase price, but the city was to keep any cash in the hospital’s coffers at the time of sale.
Needles Hospital, Inc. lost its opportunity after it failed to meet an April 26, 2012 deadline to prove it had the funding to make the purchase. AM Pharmacy, headed by Bing Lum, had put together a competing proposal to purchase the hospital and run it as a for-profit entity. The city council turned down that proposal in January 2012 in favor of Needles Hospital, Inc.’s offer. After the Needles Hospital, Inc. bid fell through, however, the city council agreed to accept a revamped $2.577 million purchase proposal by Lum which entailed AM Pharmacy creating a non-profit wing, National Healthcare Partners, Incorporated, to run the hospital.
Under that agreement, Community Healthcare Partners, Incorporated was to pay $2.2 million at a so-called first closing to cover the value of the hospital itself and $377,000 at a second closing to cover the cost of a portion of the real property.
The initial $2.2 million payment was made in June 2012 and there was progress toward making the second payment to the city, which owns the totality of the property the hospital is situated on. Nevertheless, the Bureau of Land Management held reversionary rights to a portion of the hospital grounds, including that portion upon which the emergency room is located. This created the need for the two-step closing process, as it was anticipated there would be a slight delay in the clearance for the total sale being completed.
The two-part closing was undertaken because the city was running up considerable expense as a consequence of its ownership and continuing management responsibility at the medical center and there was a priority on stanching the hemorrhaging of red ink as soon as was practical.
Currently, the hospital is under a lease while Community Healthcare Partners. Inc. addresses some outstanding items that are required by the Bureau of Land Management for the purchase.
According to city attorney John Pinkney, the original agreement between the city and Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. was to be fully closed by February 28, 2015. If the second closing couldn’t be completed by February 28, 2015, a long term lease of 28 years with Community Health Care Partner, Inc. at a rate of $1 rent per year was to be effectuated.
At the city council’s February 24 meeting, an extension of that deadline until August 31 was agreed to.
Bing Lum, the first principal of Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. and the executive vice-president of the Colorado River Medical Center, said Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. has proven a good steward of the hospital and that the company had fulfilled all of the elements of the arrangement to take over the hospital. He said Community Health Care Partners will be better able to guarantee that it can meet the long term needs of the community once it is in full possession of the medical center.
The local office of the Bureau of Land Management has accepted an appraisal of the property and is amenable to National Healthcare Partners, Incorporated’s purchase. The local office’s recommendation has been passed along to the state Bureau of Land Management office, which must confirm the local recommendation before forwarding its recommendation to the national office, which must ultimately okay the sale. Already more than 22 months have passed as the local office has carried out its due diligence with regard to the matter. It was originally anticipated that the Bureau of Land Management would grant its approval of the pro forma for National Healthcare Partners’ takeover of the hospital by March 26, 2013 and in no case later than June 30, 2013. Because of the delay and the approaching deadline, city council agreed to an amendment of the sales agreement with National Healthcare Partners.

(March 9) The county of Riverside will provide animal shelter service for the city of Fontana pursuant to a February 24 decision of the Fontana City Council.
The Fontana City Council elected to contract with Riverside County for the service after the county of Riverside tendered a $679,932 annual bid, which was nearly $70,000 lower than the city of San Bernardino’s $747,947 overture.
The city of Fontana’s most recent agreement for animal sheltering services with the city of San Bernardino expired on June 30, 2014, and the city was operating under a month-to-month agreement for animal sheltering services. The city of San Bernardino increased costs for its services by an additional fifteen percent as of July 1, 2014. As a result, staff sought out sheltering services bids from the city of Rancho Cucamonga, the county of Riverside, and the city of San Bernardino. The city of Rancho Cucamonga was not able to offer services due to the limited size of its facility and number of animals the city of Fontana shelters on average. The city of San Bernardino provided a bid of $747,947 annually for sheltering services only.
On February 24, the city council voted 5-0 to discontinue using the city of San Bernardino for animal services, and enter into a contract with the county of Riverside, allowing Fontana to save nearly $70,000 annually. Mandatory microchipping of all dogs and cats was a component of the new contract. As part of the new agreement for animal shelter services with the county of Riverside, Fontana is paying the county of Riverside a service fee of $49,393 monthly for animal sheltering services. In addition, the city is paying a monthly shelter operational and maintenance fee of $4,485 and an additional $2,783 a month for the deployment of the mobile clinic. The total amount of the contract through June 30, 2018 is $2,266,422. The cost for all services will be billed monthly throughout the term of the agreement.
Beginning on Monday, March 9, the Fontana Police Department’s animal services division began using the Western Riverside County/City Animal Shelter as the drop off location for lost and found pets.
Animals are no longer being transported to San Bernardino. The shelter is located at 6851 Van Buren Boulevard (south of Limonite Avenue) in Jurupa Valley. The phone number is (951) 358-7387 and the website is www.rcdas.org. Shelter hours are Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Sundays and holidays.
As part of its services, Riverside will provide 12 deployments of its mobile clinic, comprised of six spay and neuter clinics and six shot clinics for pets.

(March 12) Bill Dineen, who made his mark in the Inland Empire first as a banker and later as a commercial real estate broker, died peacefully at age 83 on February 25, 2015.
Born on May 15, 1931 in Torrington, Wyoming, Bill was raised on a farm in Scottsbluff, Nebraska with seven brothers and sisters. He graduated from Scottsbluff High School, and joined the Air Force in 1951, and was stationed in Alaska. He would later characterize his service in the Alaskan Territory as “the time of my life.”
Successful in the banking industry for several years, he worked at the First national Bank in Fontana and at Southwest Bank in Carlsbad. Subsequently he became a commercial real estate broker, a profession he flourished in for 30 years. He was also active in local politics.
His brothers Jack and Patrick were the progenitors of Dineen Trucking.
Dineen’s favorite rejoinder to things good and bad was “This is life… Life!”
He is missed by many friends and associates.
He is remembered by his sons; Mark (Roxanne) of Westville, Indiana: Greg of Wrightwood, Calif.: Jon (Mary) of Alta Loma, Calif; Bill Jr. of Oceanside, Calif; Jim (Jodi) of Spokane, Wash.; Tom of Oceanside, CA.; along with 15 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren.
He is also remembered by sisters Maryanne Gable; Margaret (Roy) Phieffer; brother Patrick Dineen; sister-in-laws Virginia Dineen and Audrey Dineen; and brother-in-law Chuck Caringella.
Services will be held March 20, 2015, 10:45 am at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside. Reception to follow at Jon and Mary Dineen’s home in Alta Loma. Friends and family are welcome to attend.
In lieu of flowers the family is asking that donations be made to Wounded Warriors or the Alzheimer’s Association.

(March 11) Soils Testing Southern California Edison was doing on Monday March 8 resulted in the perforation of a 16” water main in Chino Hills.
Edison had originally gained permission to put electrical lines for the Southern California Edison Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, which is to bring electricity generated at a wind farm in Kern County to the Los Angeles Basin, on 197-foot high towers. But in 2013, the California Energy Commission reversed itself, calling upon Edison to put the lines underground through Chino Hills and de-erect 18 of the towers the company had already put up.
The waterline, which runs in a north-south alignment at a depth of 8 feet and crosses the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project right of way, was damaged during geotechnical boring. The water supply to some residences and Boys Republic was completely cut off and water pressure to some nearby homes was reduced. By 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, however, water service to the area was restored.
The city of Chino Hills utilized public works crews to pump the water from a pit near the line break close to Cork Street.

VICTORVILLE—(March 10) Mark Lesley Hassel, the former Barstow Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Academy principal who was arrested on January 16 and accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, has been charged with eight felony criminal charges.
Hassell came before Judge Raymond Haight for his arraignment on March 9 and pleaded not guilty to four counts of oral copulation with a minor, two charges of sodomy with a minor and two statutory rape charges. He is represented by attorney Jeffrey S. Bullard. He is being prosecuted by deputy district attorney Kathleen DiDonato.
Haight ordered Hassel to return to court on April 6 for a disposition hearing and to have no contact with the alleged victim, a student within the Barstow Unified School District, and no contact with any girl under the age of 18, except for his own children.

UPLAND—(March 13) Upland finance manager Christa Buhagiar has ended her tumultuous 22-month long tenure with the City of Gracious Living. Never truly comfortable in the position from the outset, her time with the city was rocky in no small measure because two of those serving over her had more financial management experience than she did. Over the last several months, her lack of imaginative approach to her assignment began to tell and when the opportunity for her to move on in the form of a job offer from the city of West Covina came her way, she submitted her resignation to city manager Rod Butler.
Buhagiar was hired as finance manager in June 2013 to relieve some of the burden on then-city manager Stephen Dunn. Dunn had been the city’s finance director since 2001 and remained in that post when he had been elevated to city manager in 2011. Dunn was struggling with dwindling revenues and a city staff that had excessive redundancy and was top heavy management-wise. Overly generous salaries that had been doled out to city employees under the regime of former Upland Mayor John Pomierski, who had been indicted on political corruption charges just after he resigned from office in 2011, had left the city in a tenuous position financially, and it was faced with overwhelming pension obligations in the future. It was widely believed that Pomierski had purchased the silence of many city employees about his depredations by providing them with fat salaries, generous benefits and cushy pensions. Two years before Buhagiar arrived, Dunn had taken a meat cleaver to city staff, laying off or firing 27 employees, including five department managers.
Dunn was encountering resistance from staff over his further intended economies, and his City Hall reform effort bogged down as this resistance manifested during the second half of his first year as city manager. In 2012, however, Dunn’s effort at reform was boosted with the election of Glenn Bozar to the city council. Bozar was employed as a manager with Tyco Electronics, where he oversaw a lean and efficient $16 billion private industry operation. As a council member, Bozar was intent on applying principles of management developed in the private sector to municipal operations, which coincided, in at least some of the particulars, with Dunn’s effort to make city operations more efficient through the winnowing of non-productive staff.
The intent with Buhagiar’s hiring was that she would understand the Dunn agenda and provide finance department reports and data to back up further layoffs at City Hall. It did not appear, however, that she understood what her intended role was, and as she assumed the position, became much too close to her fellow municipal employees. She was thus unable or unwilling to give Dunn and the city council the informational basis upon which to proceed with wholesale firings and layoffs.
It was painfully obvious to observers that both Dunn and Bozar had a greater command of the principles of financial management and a much more in-depth grasp of reorganizational strategy than did Buhagiar. As a member of the city council and its finance committee, Bozar continuously asked her to produce data she chronically did not have at her fingertips. Bozar continued to dwell on the need for the city to cure its looming pension crisis. On several occasions at public meetings when he did so, Buhagiar’s distaste for that assignment was visible through her body language, facial expressions and the rolling of her eyes.
Dunn’s inability to execute on his city reform package resulted in the fraying of his relationship with the council, including Bozar, and last year he was let go. There followed a wave of city officials taking their exodus, including city attorney Kimberly Hall Barlow, police chief Jeff Mendenhall, and assistant public works director Acquanetta Warren. Stephanie Mendenhall, the former police chief’s wife who is the city’s administrative services director, city clerk and director of human services, is set to retire in July.
While Buhagiar’s presence on city staff was tolerated by the balance of the council, she never embraced Bozar’s agenda for pension and payroll reform, leaving perpetually unresolved the resulting dissonance between a key finance committee member and the city staff person most closely involved with municipal finances. Ironically, Bozar alone supported Buhagiar when she sought in December to win support for a $1 million citywide finance reporting system, which the remainder of the council rejected.
A telling fact is Buhagiar’s relationship to Hall Barlow. Hall Barlow left the city under a cloud when she defied the city council’s instructions on the tenor of a letter to be written to the Colonies Partners land consortium over the lack of progress with regard to the development of former city property encumbered by a revisionary clause that was entrusted to the Colonies Partners to improve. Hall Barlow is the city attorney in West Covina, where Buhagiar has landed. This last consideration is widely perceived, both by members of the council and the public, as an indication that Buhagiar’s first loyalty was not to the City of Gracious Living. There were no statements of regret at the announcement of her leaving.
The Sentinel’s effort to reach Buhagiar was unsuccessful. Her last day with Upland will be on March 26 and she is to begin with West Covina on April 13.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
Here are a few things I have picked up pertaining to some goings-on from around the largest county in the United States…
One close to home is that Lake Arrowhead Village was on the brink of being sold at a trustee sale that was scheduled for March 6. That was staved off, apparently, when the consortium that owns and operates the village, Roseville-based Pacific Capital Investments, managed to secure a new loan on the property. The loan was for enough, reportedly, to carry out some capital improvement projects which will, supposedly, transform it into a truly-world class resort, generating the income needed to keep this newest set of wolves that will be baying at the door in about 18 months from seizing the property. We shall see…
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Thorp did yeoman’s work in helping to reunite Art Traendley, who had served aboard the USS Wexford County LST-1168 during the Vietnam War, with one of his shipmates, Don Kowalski. Traendley, who lives in New Jersey, was trying to see how many of his roughly 150 fellow sailors on the Wexford County he could find for an upcoming 50-year reunion. His only lead was that Kowalski might be living in Yucaipa. He sent a letter to the sheriff’s department, which serves as the police department in Yucaipa and inquired to see if he could be put in contact with Kowalski. Thorp somehow ended up with the letter and cut through the red tape that disallows the sheriff’s office to get involved in personal information requests. The deputy took it upon himself to get in touch with Kowalski, who owns the Yucaipa Lawn Mower Shop, and let him know Traendley was seeking him out. He passed along Traendley’s contact number and the shipmates of a half century ago have been reunited…
The McDonald’s Operators’ Association of Southern California, you know, the collective of McDonald’s restaurant franchise owners, has stepped up and provided $1 million to enlarge the Loma Linda Ronald McDonald House. The Ronald McDonald House for almost 20 years now has been a great place where families whose seriously ill children are being treated at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital can spend the night so they can be together during such unspeakably difficult times. The expansion will more than double the number of rooms available to families from 21 to 54; increase the size of the kitchen and dining areas; and expand the common areas, such as the playroom and business office. The house is conveniently located near the children’s hospital. It serves more than 1,000 families each year. This is a wonderful thing and really shows the world the good side of San Bernardino County, the community of Loma Linda and McDonald’s. Now, if McDonald’s could just figure out what they did to change their Quarter Pounders several years ago and change it back. Maybe it’s just me, but they just don’t taste as good as they used to…
All the way up here in my mountain redoubt word has reached me that things this week took a turn toward the uncivil in the City of Gracious Living. The Upland City Council on Monday had to choose whether to put an initiative relating to making medical marijuana available for sale there on the ballot this year or next. The initiative’s proponents want it voted on this year. The city attorney had given the council the option of doing it this year or next. Before the decision was even made, one of the proponents, I am told, chose to insult the council by inviting its members to have sexual relations with themselves or something similar. Another initiative proponent threatened to recall the council members from office. It’s been several decades, at least, since I read Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People. Despite the elapsing of that much time and the senility that is, alas, creeping over me, I can still say with absolute confidence that insulting people who have the power of decision over you or an issue dear to your heart was not a tactic that Mr. Carnegie recommended. I am still trying to figure out exactly what the pair that came before the council on Monday night had hoped to accomplish. I don’t think it worked, since the city council in the end decided to hold off on the election until next year. My governess taught me when I was a child that I should not make decisions or blurt things out when I am angry. Overall, I think that was a pretty sound lesson. Those involved in public affairs in Upland should heed it…

ADELANTO— (March 10) Clean Focus, Inc.’s 3.75 megawatt Adelanto solar plant began operations last week.
Located at 9001 Cassia Road, the facility was given its note of occupancy on March 3. The plant, which was built by Sol Construction, of Riverside according to a design developed by the engineering firm MPE Consulting, covers 20 acres.
Clean Focus CEO Stanley Chin asserted that the plant will offset carbon dioxide 4,934 tons annually.
Chin and Clean Focus were the object of derision by the project’s detractors who said that assertions that the project would create hundreds of jobs was belied by the consideration that the facility employs a total of one-and-one half employees.
Chin downplayed the criticisms, saying that the property upon which the solar facility is located would have otherwise lain “underutilized.”
The construction of the facility, which was financed by Seminole Financial Services, entailed scores of workers, whose temporary employment on the project ended when the ground-mounted system was interconnected in late January.
Under the California Renewable Energy Small Tariff Program, the solar plant markets electricity to Southern California Edison.