EL MIRAGE—(March 10) A 1.16 megawatt expandable solar project being built by the Phelan Pinon Hills Community Service District will save the district $13.9 million in electricity costs over the next 30 years, district officials say.
The facility is being constructed on the former Meadowbrook Dairy in the 17900 block of Sheep Creek Road in El Mirage. Upon its June completion, the plant will supply 40 percent of the electricity used by the district. The lion’s share of the district’s power use is to run pumps for wells and booster stations that provide and deliver water to 6,800 homes.
SunPower Corporation is building the facility.
In fiscal year 2013-14 ending last June 30, the district laid out $821,431 in payments to Southern California Edison. That expense represented 17 percent of the community service district’s water operations budget, according to the district.
The $13.9 million in savings over the expected life of the solar plant will more than offset the $4.7 million the plant will cost to complete and the loan financing needed to undertake it. The district received major subsidizations on the project, using Southern California Edison’s local-government Renewable Energy Self-Generation Bill Credit Transfer program.

By Mark Gutglueck
Though it today is but a shadow of itself in its heyday, the Cucamonga Wine Region was once the most prolific wine producing area in the United States. It garnered for the Inland Empire a reputation that for many decades defined this portion of Southern California, with its Mediterranean climate, as a West Coast/California paradise.
In 1838, the first vineyard was planted in the Cucamonga Valley, which would later become known to vintners and others alike as the Cucamonga-Guasti Wine District. Tiburcio Tapia, an adventurer, soldier, privateer, smuggler and politician, planted the first large vineyard in present day Rancho Cucamonga, one year before he was granted 13,000 acres of land around the area called Cucamonga by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado on March 3, 1839. Using indigenous labor, Tapia planted rows of grapes and built a successful winery, which lay east of his adobe home on Red Hill. A portion of the winery, later known as the Thomas Brothers Winery – “California’s Oldest” yet stands at the northeast corner of Carnelian Avenue and Foothill Boulevard.
With its cool foothill terraces, natural springs, its warm sandy floor and perfect drainage, the Cucamonga Valley had the ideal growing conditions for grapes of all types, from Old World varieties of Mediterranean, French and German grapes to those that fared well on the East Coast of the United States.
1859 would prove a fateful and auspicious year for winemaking in the Cucamonga Valley.
In 1859, John Rains started planting the second large vineyard in the area, eventually establishing 125,000 vines.
The Sainsevain brothers – Pierre and Jean Louis, arrived less than a decade later and they established a formidable vineyard in eastern Etiwanda, near the present day border between Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.
Jean Louis became winery superintendent at the winery built by Tapia. Pierre, arranging for the importation of grape cuttings from France, planted a number of new varieties in the area. In 1869 the San Francisco Times rhapsodized, “A very superior article of wine grown in San Bernardino County is now on the market and is attracting considerable attention … from consumers of the juices of the grape.” In singing the merits of the Sansevain wines, the San Francisco Times said, “It is known as Cocomun- go, or California Madeira wine, and is pronounced by competent judges to be as fine an article as manufactured in the world.”
In the area around Etiwanda, table grape growers flourished, including George F. Johnston, who was instrumental in establishing the commercial viability of the Thompson Seedless grape developed by his partner, William Thompson.
The magnificent scenery of the Cucamonga Valley played a role in its evolution into a wine kingdom. The views the valley offered were said to be majestically reminiscent of Italy’s Piedmont region. Word of mouth and word of letter spread back to the Old Country and in no time men and women left Italy behind, emigrating to towns with names like Cucamonga, Etiwanda, Fontana, Grapeland, Mira Loma, Wineville, and another, later named after one such early immigrant, the village of Guasti.
The second reason for the significance of 1859 was that year Secondo Guasti was born. Guasti was to become the most prolific vintner in the region. In 1883 he founded the Italian Vineyard Company, transforming it into a formidable wine enterprise that was still growing when it was curtailed by the Volstead Act, which initiated Prohibition in 1919.
Guasti later said that when he first beheld the desertlike sands at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains/Angeles National Forest being overwashed by the torrent of spring time water coming out of the mountains, “Surely, I thought, this is heaven’s doorstep.” He knew there would be enough moisture to sustain the vines and he went no further than the crest of the Cucamonga Valley.
In 1917, Guasti was advertising the Italian Vineyard Company’s vineyards on 5,000 acres as the largest single vineyard in the world.
In 1882, the Hofer Family established the Cucamonga Pioneer Vineyard Winery, east of what is now Haven Avenue. The Hofer Family, in addition to cultivating their own vineyards, established an association of 11 other growers whose vineyards eventually grew to encompass 4,000 acres.
In the early 1900s, the U.S. Government and the state of California, perceiving the value of the tremendous asset that had already been established in the Cucamonga Valley, offered incentives in the form of grants, loans and tax breaks to European Vintners willing to relocate to California and establish wineries.
Philo Biane established the Vaché/Biane family operation in Cucamonga, including the Brookside Winery. The Gallo Brothers established a winery in the Cucamonga Valley as well.
By 1916, there were more than 20,000 acres of vineyards in the Cucamonga Valley, well beyond those in Sonoma and Napa counties.
The Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 forbade the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” It remained legal, however, to make 200 gallons of wine in each home.
Red grapes, including Zinfandel and Grenache fared well in the soil and climate of the Cucamonga Valley. When prohibition became the law of the land and large quantities of wine grapes were transported by train to the Midwest and East Coast for use by home winemakers, the Zinfandels, with their thick skin and high sugar content became much in demand.
When prohibition ended in 1933, Vintners in the Cucamonga Valley immediately parlayed the area’s reputation for high quality Zinfandel grapes into a marketable product, and the wine label, “Pride of Cucamonga” was born. It fared well in the eastern markets such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and Atlantic City.
That was perhaps the only positive impact of Prohibition on the Cucamonga Valley Wine Industry. On balance, the 14-year experiment of Prohibition had a devastating impact on what had here-to-for grown into a world class agricultural setting. Those vintners that had survived (Guasti died in 1927), gamely carried on, working to re-establish what had been taken away. The Accomazzo, Aggazzotti, Campanella, Cherpin, DiCarlo, Ellena, Filippi, Galleano, Guidera, Liabeuf, Masi, Opici and Romolo families, some of whom had been in operation prior to and even during Prohibition, redoubled their efforts beginning in 1933/34.
In 1939, six years after Prohibition had ended, the Cucamonga-Guasti area boasted 41 thriving and bonded wineries and 13 brandy distilleries. The region had a storage and fermentation capacity of more than 13 million gallons of wine.
Six years later, wine production in the valley had grown, with 55 wineries operating and approximately 35,000 acres of vineyards being farmed. The Belletrutti, Bruno, Carrari, Cherbak, DeAmbrogio, DeBerard, DeVito, Ellena, Johnston, Lopez, Mandala, Merrille, Modica, Sanchez and Vernola families were active in the winemaking business.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, much of the emphasis in California wines was on massive production of sweeter fortified port-style and hearty red wines sold in gallon jugs. The Cucamonga Valley participated in this trend. In 1968, the Cucamonga Valley accounted for 98 percent of the 9.5 million gallons of wine produced in the Southern California. At that point the Cucamonga Valley was riding the crest of the domestic sparkling wine production boom.
But with the 1970s, two trends were ushered in that resulted in the decline of the Cucamonga Wine Region. American wine consumers’ tastes matured, resulting in sweet wines falling out of favor. Northern California wines, particularly those bottled in Sonoma and Napa enjoyed a renaissance. This eroded the Cucamonga Wine District’s hold on the market. Pressure on vineyard owners to plant varieties more in demand hit just as ever-increasing land values resulted in pressure on the vintners to sell their property at great profit. Many did, and many more of those that held out capitulated later as land values rose to astronomical levels. The once-storied Cucamonga Valley has lost most of its once vast vineyard acreage to development and the urban expansion. Today, only four of the area’s traditional wine-growing families, Biane, Filippi, Galleano and Hofer remain in the winemaking business.

(March 12) The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has filed charges against attorney Stephen Siringoringo and two of his associates in connection with what has been described as a “major loan modification fraud scheme.” He has been arrested and is being held in lieu of bail of more than $17 million.
The complaint alleges 23 felony counts of grand theft of personal property and taking upfront fees for loan modifications in addition to 24 counts of money laundering.
The activity by Siringoringo, Joshua Cobb and Alfred Clausen, according to the district attorney’s office, “resulted in the loss of over 44 million dollars by unsuspecting victims.
On March 5, investigators from the real estate fraud prosecution unit of the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office arrested Stephen Lyster Siringoringo, 34, of Westminster, and 32-year-old Joshua Michael Cobb.
Both suspects allegedly took large sums of money from victims who were seeking loan modifications. A third suspect, Alfred Orn Clausen, 41, of Rancho Cucamonga, is still at large and is suspected of leaving the country.
According to district attorney office investigators, the vehicle for the criminal activity was the Siringoringo Law Firm, which had engaged in energetic advertisement on local radio and television. The law firm advertised extensively in Spanish language media.
Siringoringo, a 1999 Fontana High School graduate, seemingly made good by becoming an attorney specializing in modification services for clients facing foreclosures during the height of the home mortgage meltdown five years ago. But despite representing that he was a top flight attorney, Siringoringo rarely, if ever, delivered.
He and his firm took money up front from clients, maintaining action could not be taken if there were no funds to work with. The firm typically asked for $3,995 to initiate work and would bill clients $135 each month thereafter. When employees were pressed by clients about what action had been taken, they would be met with claims that the process required time to mature. Delays of eight, ten, 12, 14 and 16 months before informing clients that their loan modifications had been denied were common. Subsequently, clients were told that another method for obtaining a modification was in the works. Few, if any, of the sought modifications were ever achieved.
Victims were promised that their loan modifications would be handled by a licensed attorney. Instead, they were handed off to a non-attorney representatives. Many of the victims never met or spoke with Siringoringo.
In December 2013, the California Bar Association found Siringoringo culpable of collecting advanced fees for loan modification work in 20 client matters and recommended an 18-month suspension. In partial mitigation Siringoringo agreed to provide refunds ranging from $1,500 to $5,970 to 14 former clients named in the stipulation. On October 15, 2014 Siringoringo and the State Bar agreed to a stipulation which ratcheted that December 2013 discipline up to the level of disbarment.
Losing his license to practice law mollified some, though not all of the hundreds of former clients who claim Siringoringo took advantage of them, took their money, allowed their homes to be taken from them and then provided them with no accounting or records to assist them in the aftermath.
According to the State Bar, Siringoringo visited upon his clients significant harm by failing to provide promised services to them and aided in the unauthorized practice of law by others when he allowed non-attorney employees to meet with clients, set fees and perform legal services without supervision.
The State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel indicated it has received 796 additional complaints regarding alleged misconduct by Siringoringo. Those clients may be eligible for reimbursement by the State Bar’s Client Security Fund.
In San Bernardino County, Siringoringo and Cobb are scheduled for a pre-preliminary conference March 13, 2015. Deputy district attorney Vance Welch is prosecuting the case.
If convicted as charged, the defendants face in excess of thirty years in state prison.
Bail is currently set at $17,837,000 each for Siringoringo and Cobb.

By John Miller, U.S. Forest Service
Volunteers are needed to help count bald eagles for the annual winter bald eagle counts in and near the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains on Saturday March 14th.
Concurrent Bald Eagle counts are held at Big Bear Lake, Lake Arrowhead, Lake Silverwood, Lake Perris, and Lake Hemet. Volunteers are stationed at vantage points around the lakes, where they watch for bald eagles during a 1-hour period on the count mornings. Volunteers record their observations on maps and data sheets. This is a wonderful opportunity to catch a glimpse of our breath-taking national symbol. Brief orientations are conducted prior to the count so volunteers know where to go and what to do. Eagle counts at some of the sites have been conducted regularly since 1978.
On the February 14th count, over 275 people scanned for soaring or perched bald eagles and 17 bald eagles were observed.
Signing up ahead of time is unnecessary – just show up at the designated time and location, dress warmly, bring binoculars and a watch (or device with a clock).
•Big Bear Lake area volunteers will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Forest Service’s Big Bear Discovery Center on North Shore Drive for orientation. Contact Rari Marks (rariemarks@fs.fed.us or 909-382-2600 x4022) for more information. Please call 909-382-2832 for cancellation due to winter weather conditions – an outgoing message will be left by 6:30 am on the morning of the count if it has to be cancelled. Contact the Discovery Center (909-382-2790) for information about Eagle Celebrations. There will also be a free slideshow about bald eagles at 11:00 after the counts.
•Lake Arrowhead/Lake Gregory volunteers will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Skyforest Ranger Station for orientation. Contact Rari Marks (rariemarks@fs.fed.us or 909-382-2600 x4022) for more information. Please call 909-382-2832 for cancellation due to winter weather conditions – an outgoing message will be left by 6:30 am on the morning of the count if it has to be cancelled.
•Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area volunteers should plan to meet at the Visitor Center at 8:00 a.m. for orientation. Contact Kathy Williams or Mark Wright for more information about volunteering or taking an eagle tour (760-389-2303 between 8:00 and 4:00; or email: khwilliams@parks.ca.gov).
•Lake Hemet volunteers should plan on meeting at the Lake Hemet Grocery Store at 8:30 a.m. for orientation. Contact Heidi Hoggan (hhoggan@fs.fed.us or 909-382-2945) for more information.
•Lake Perris State Recreation Area volunteers should plan to meet at the Lake Perris Regional Indian Museum at 8:00 for orientation. Contact the office for information at 951-940-5600.
The mission of the Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The best time of year to see bald eagles in Southern California is during winter months when there is an influx of eagles. Migrating eagles typically begin arriving in the area in late November and leave in late March or early April.
Bald eagles are usually found close to water because their diet is primarily made up of fish and ducks. As winter approaches in those northern regions, lakes freeze over and waterfowl fly south. For bald eagles, that means that the food they eat has become scarce. Therefore, they head south looking for areas with abundant food supplies and end up wintering in sunny southern California.
During the winter, Southern California bald eagles are typically found at many of the lakes, including Big Bear Lake, Baldwin Lake, Silverwood Lake, Lake Arrowhead, Green Valley Lake, Grass Valley Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains and Prado Dam, Lake Perris, Lake Hemet, Lake Skinner, Diamond Valley Lake, Lake Matthews, and the Salton Sea to the south.
Through radio-tracking bald eagles, biologists learned that some of the same individual eagles return to the San Bernardino Mountains year after year. It has also been determined that there is a lot of movement of eagles between the different mountain lakes and that the lakes do not have distinctive separate populations—the eagles regularly move between the mountain lakes.
Radio-tracking and/or banding also revealed that the eagles that winter in the San Bernardino Mountains migrate to Southern California from Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Canada. Breeding populations of bald eagles in Southern California were wiped out by the late 1950s. Until reintroduction efforts began in the 1980s on Catalina Island, the southern-most nest site known in California was in Lake County. Since 2003, several pairs of bald eagles have decided that our Southern California neighborhoods were too nice to leave – they built nests and have successfully raised families. Nesting bald eagles are now found at Lake Hemet, Lake Skinner, Lake Matthews, and Big Bear Lake. As the populations continue to grow, more bald eagles are in our future.
In 2012, the first successful bald eagle nesting ever recorded in the San Bernardino Mountains happened in Big Bear Lake. To protect that nest site and help ensure a successful nesting attempt this year, the Forest Service has closed the area to all public entry. This includes Gray’s Peak Trail and Grout Bay Day Use area as well as the undeveloped forest area around the nest tree. The closure will remain in effect until the chicks leave the nest or the nest fails.
Because of the population rebound, bald eagles are no longer in jeopardy of going extinct. While bald eagles are no longer protected under federal Endangered Species Act, they still have full protection under the Bald Eagle Protection Act and under the State of California’s Endangered Species Act. These laws make it illegal to harm or harass bald eagles. It is also illegal to possess bald eagle parts, even a feather.
Remember that human presence may distract or disturb the eagles – so, try to limit your movements and do not make loud noises when they are nearby. If possible, remain in your car while looking at eagles – the car acts as a blind. Stay a respectful distance of at least 200-300’ away from perched bald eagles. Do not get closer than ¼ mile away nesting bald eagles – trying to get a closer look may result in eagles becoming agitated and knocking eggs or chicks out of the nest. It is illegal to harm or harass bald eagles. Please do your part to help protect our national bird!

By Grace Bernal

There many things to consider as the weather changes and we start seeing the colors of spring. But this week I’m giving it to the hope and the beginning of the young people. They know how to form together and they are clever and creative with art. Their trends are looking creatively unique. As always a joy to watch young people be off the wall and full of ideas. This new generation is full of fresh air and they want nothing to do with branding. It’s all about the fresh air of spring and it all happens with them. The audience is young and they don’t want to be forced into fashion from within the box. They’re all about thinking for themselves and express it by wearing lacey sneakers, custom made boots, and surprisingly made in America. All the prepackaged fashion doesn’t make it with these kids because they enjoy making their own pieces. Some the hairpieces are also very creative and its fantastic to see the ladies get creative with their top. With that said, get out of the box and let your fountain of creativity come together. You can really create contrast art with your outfits. Enjoy the week believing that the hope that people are thinking very much outside of the box in the fashion and art world is going strong.

“Fashion is not necessarily about labels. It’s not about brands. It’s about something else that comes from within you.”
~Ralph Lauren

By clicking on the portal below, you can download a PDF of the March 6 San Bernardino County Sentinel

Sentinel 03-06-15

By Mark Gutglueck
(March 3) The Argus coal burning electrical plant in Trona has ceased operating and is being decommissioned.
Currently owned by the ACE Cogeneration Company, which is owned by a partnership composed of ArcLight Capital Partners, DCO Energy, and Northern Star Generation, the Trona plant was the last coal burning electrical plant in California.
Known as the Argus Cogeneration Expansion (ACE) it is a coal-fired circulating fluidized bed power plant located on the northwest side of Searles Lake in Trona at the extreme northwest corner of San Bernardino County.
Originally the project was permitted and constructed by the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation, which filed for permission to build the plant with the California Energy Commission on January 29, 1986, seeking a special dispensation to utilize circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion in the design. Coal fired circulating fluidized bed systems had not been commercially demonstrated in California at that time, and Public Resources Code section 25540.6(a)(5) was used to allow ACE to be exempt from a demand conformance finding so that the CFB technology, air pollution reduction techniques, alternate solid fuels, and their operational and economic performance characteristics could be ascertained. Proving out of the design, it was thought, might accelerate the deployment in California of large coal facilities that could meet California’s stringent air emission standards. The cogeneration plant was intended and eventually did produce steam for use by the Kerr McGee Chemical Corporation’s Argus chemical production plant near Trona. The plant also generated 96 megawatts of electricity for sale to Southern California Edison.
The project was permitted by the California Energy Commission (CEC) on January 8, 1988 and began commercial operation in January 1991. Over the years the plant was owned and operated by Kerr McGee, Searles Valley Minerals, Constellation Energy, Nirma – an Indian multinational chemicals and minerals corporation, and most recently ARCLight Capital, DCO and Northern Star.
ACE Cogeneration Company’s existing Power Purchase Agreement with SCE will expire in November 2015.Under California’s greenhouse gas emissions requirements, the project will no longer be economically viable using coal as a fuel once the power purchase agreement expires.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the SCE service territory, ACE Cogeneration Company signed an agreement with SCE to terminate operation of the ACE project in December 2014. The plant ceased operations as of October 2, 2014 and has been placed in an outage condition.
The ACE Cogeneration Company has formulated a decommissioning plan that was submitted to the California Energy Commission. On November 24, 2014, ACE Cogeneration Company reached an agreement to transfer the ground lease for the ACE site and sell some of the equipment and sructures, as well as the property occupied by the ash landfill, to Sabco Inc., a California corporation.
In compliance with the decommissioning plan, the power plant and other facilities will be demolished and removed and the license terminated.
While ACE Cogeneration Company intends to sell the landfill site, lease, and related facilities, ACE Cogeneration Company will continue to hold the CEC license and be responsible for
compliance with the CEC’s conditions of certification until decommissioning is completed and ACE Cogeneration Company surrenders the license to the California Energy Commission. ACE Cogeneration Company will be responsible for implementing the decommissioning plan and complying with any conditions required by the California Energy Commission until the decommissioning is completed and the license is surrendered.
Based on the intended future use of the site, Sabco, Inc. will obtain any required land use and environmental permits from the appropriate local or state agencies.
In a typical year, the plant had 987,241 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 110 of sulfur dioxide emissions.

(March 2) With the outcome of Ontario’s lawsuit brought against the city of Los Angeles for the return of ownership and control Ontario International Airport yet in doubt, two members of the assembly representing those warring parties have cosponsored legislation aimed at giving Ontario the financial means to purchase the aerodrome back.
In 1967, when the airport had fewer than 200,000 passengers pass through its gates, Los Angeles and Ontario entered into a joint powers agreement that gave Los Angeles managerial and administrative control of the airport. Los Angeles used its leverage with the airlines relating to gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport to induce more and more airlines to fly into and out of Ontario. As ridership steadily increased, Los Angeles through its Department of Airports and later the corporate entity it formed to run them, Los Angeles World Airports, made major improvements to the airport in Ontario, paving its parking lot, lengthening and improving its existing east west runway and constructing another, such that Ontario Airport became the home to the longest commercial runway in Southern California. In 1985, after all of the performance goals specified in the joint operating agreement were achieved, the Ontario City council in a 4-0 vote with then-mayor Robert Ellingwood absent, voted to deed the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration. Further improvements were made to the airport thereafter, including the construction of two modern terminals and a concourse in 1998. The airport continued to grow and in 2007, 7.2 million passengers passed though its gates.
Following the economic downturn that gripped the nation, state and region economy late that year, however, ridership at the airport began a six-year decline, slumping steadily to 4.03 million in the year ending in July 2014. In June 2013, Ontario initiated a lawsuit against Los Angeles, alleging it has purposefully mismanaged Ontario Airport to increase passenger traffic into Los Angeles International Airport. In the suit, Ontario is seeking to take back ownership and control of the airport.
Ontario officials, led by councilman Alan Wapner, have aggressively asserted that Los Angeles has given Ontario Airport short shrift, maliciously intending to damage the local economy. They have publicly insisted that as a public benefit asset, the airport has no value as real estate in the common sense, and that Los Angeles should simply deed the airport back at no consideration. Privately, however, the city of Ontario tendered a $250 million offer to Los Angeles World Airports for transfer of the airport’s title and operational control. That offer included Ontario assuming $75 million of the outstanding bond debt obligations for past improvements to the airport, $125 million in future passenger facility charges to be realized at the airport and $50 million cash.
Los Angeles maintains that more than $550 million in improvements have been made at the facility since 1967. At one point Los Angeles city officials indicated they would take $450 million for the airport.
In its lawsuit, Ontario sought to bull its way past the 1985 deed transfer and the terms of the 1967 joint powers agreement, maintaining, through its law firm, Washington, D.C.-based Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, that the terms of those commitments are not binding. Riverside Superior Court Judge Gloria Connor Trask, however, last week confirmed two tentative rulings issued in January that the 1967 joint-powers agreement is enforceable and that Ontario’s opportunity to rescind the transfer of the airport once existed but elapsed in 1989 because of the statute of limitations.
Ontario has three other claims remaining intact in its suit pertaining to the contention that Los Angeles breached the terms contained in the joint powers agreement, but the smaller city’s prospects of forcing Los Angeles to forsake ownership of the airport without compensation appears dim, at best.
Last week, just as the ink on Judge Trask’s confirmation of her January was drying, assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez, D-Chino, and assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, submitted legislation, since identified as Assembly Bill 1455 that will authorize Ontario to issue bonds to finance the airport’s purchase.
The effort by Rodriguez and Gomez with their legislation submitted February 27, follows by ten days a bill introduced by Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, Assembly Bill 360, that imposes on Los Angeles a mandate that it transfer ownership of the airport to Ontario.
Pundits have not given Melendez’s bill high marks and it has little prospect of passing.

SAN BERNARDINO—(March 4) San Bernardino County’s transportation agency this week approved the environmental impact report for the Redlands Passenger Rail Project, clearing the way for the final design and construction of the undertaking, which is estimated to cost about $242 million.
“After years of studying alternatives to reduce San Bernardino County travel congestion, we have approval to move forward on a passenger rail solution that will connect residents and businesses with systems across the state,” said SANBAG Board President L. Dennis Michael.
SANBAG, an acronym for San Bernardino Associated Governments, is the county’s transportation agency, the 29-member board for which is composed by a representative from each of the county’s 24 municipalities and all five members of the county board of supervisors.
SANBAG explicitly referenced the specific concept of a rail connection between the cities of San Bernardino and Redlands with a 2004 ballot measure to extend the existing half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements in San Bernardino County. Projected population growth and increased congestion, along with physical barriers like the Santa Ana River and Interstate 10 led SANBAG to look at alternative cost-effective travel options for communities along the Redlands Corridor. The Redlands Passenger Rail Study became a key selling point in the appeal to voters for continued support of Measure I, the half-cent sales tax measure to support transportation projects countywide first passed in 1989.
The environmental impact report accepted at the SANBAG meeting on Wednesday, March 4 outlined SANBAG’s detailed process of reviewing and eliminating alternatives based on environmental and social impacts. SANBAG studied significant potential effects like land use and planning, air emissions, noise levels, visual aesthetics, floodplains, and hydrology. Other transit alternatives, like light rail and bus rapid transit, were removed from consideration due to additional property acquisition requirements and longer travel times.
SANBAG came up with what was designated as a locally preferred alternative, which runs along the existing railroad right-of-way from E Street in San Bernardino east to the City of Redlands, roughly a nine-mile extension of passenger rail service ending at the University of Redlands. Other features of the environmental impact report include passenger rail service of up to 25 average daily trips, connecting to other regional transit modes with access to Los Angeles, employment and shopping centers throughout the Inland Empire, and destinations in the San Bernardino Mountains and high desert; majority use of existing right-of-way already acquired by SANBAG; new track and replacement/retrofit of existing bridges; passenger boarding at four new stations, with station stops at five locations; the use of existing train layover and maintenance facilities; safety improvements at 22 at-grade crossings, including quiet zones determined by memorandums of understanding with the cities of Redlands and San Bernardino on February 4, 2015; and five public at-grade crossings closures for added safety.
Funding for the project will include local, state and federal contributions.
Three of the four stations would be constructed in Redlands — where the line crosses New York Street, downtown and at the University of Redlands. The fourth station will be at either Waterman Avenue or Tippecanoe Avenue in San Bernardino.
SANBAG is estimating that between 720 and 820 daily riders will use the Redlands route in 2018 and between 1,120 and 1,340 daily riders in 2038.
In the early portion of the 20th Century, The Pacific Electric Railway had established the Red Car system, a network of rail lines which included a line that ran all the way from Los Angeles through San Bernardino to Redlands. That system reached its zenith in the 1920s when it was the largest electric railway system in the world. It declined with the rise of the automobile era and met its demise as the Southern California freeway system was established.
A revival of the rail link between Redlands and San Bernardino was considered and given at least nominal promotion at the time of the campaign on behalf of Measure I – the half-cent sales tax proposal for county transportation improvements – in 1989
SANBAG in 1992 used Measure I funds to purchase the historic Redlands Loop from the Santa Fe Railway.
The Redlands Rail Project will utilize a portion of the Redlands Loop alignment. With county voters supporting the extension of Measure I in 2004, a commitment to actuating the earlier promise of a new San Bernardino to Redlands rail system was made, growing out of the overwhelming support of voters in the city of Redlands – more than 79 percent – for the tax extension.
In September 2010, ESRI, Redland’s most successful corporation, hosted a meeting to promote the San Bernardino to Redlands rail concept. The concept picked up steam as SANBAG held public meetings to discuss the concept in 2010 and 2011. A draft environmental impact report was drawn up in 2012. After his election as San Bernardino County Third District supervisor in November 2012, James Ramos formed the Rail to Redlands Working Group, seeking wider input from the community.
Despite enthusiasm for the project in many quarters, there has been opposition. The Redlands Tea Party Patriots and the more recently formed Inland Empire Transit Alliance in Redlands group have questioned whether the benefits of the line will justify the expense and if the benefits will outweigh the impacts such as noise, interference with vehicular circulation and congestion in Redlands historic downtown.
Regional critics say it would have been better and more logical for SANBAG to have invested the money it is now putting into the San Bernardino to Redlands line on the extension of the Gold Line from Los Angeles County eastward into San Bernardino County, getting that portion of a comprehensive rail network completed before investing in and completing the more eastward portion of the line, which ultimately would tie into the Gold Line to make it a truly regional system.
The San Bernardino to Redlands line will allow travelers to catch a bus from the Waterman or Tippecanoe station to achieve the San Bernardino terminus of the MetroRail System, which runs to Los Angeles.

TWENTYNINE PALMS—(March 2) Frank Luckino, the well-traveled public official whose professional ambition three times induced him to leave high level positions with public entities along the Route 62 Corridor, is returning to take up the top staff position with a fourth. Last month the Twentynine Palms City Council unanimously voted to hire him to replace acting city manager Larry Bowden, effective March 23.
Some saw the hiring as a perfect marriage between a public administrator on the rise with a reputation for leaving his employers in the lurch to move on to other positions in the public sector and a city that has burned through four city managers in the past four years and eight in the past eleven years.
Luckino earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from West Liberty State College in West Virginia in 1992. He worked as a controller for several companies, including PACE Entertainment, Planet Hollywood International, and Gordon Biersch Restaurant Group. He also handled portfolio investment activity as an associate with Resource Connection.
His first significant venture into the public sector came a dozen years ago when he was hired as the director of fiscal services at Copper Mountain College in 2003. He bought a home in Yucca Valley and, with his wife Shannon, opened a mortgage loan office, Mojave Mortgage Group. He joined the Rotary Club and in 2004, he was elected to his first term on the Yucca Valley Town Council.
His experience on the politically powerful but only tokenly-remunerated town council exposed him to a multiplicity of governmental administrative issues. Newly alive to the possibilities of a career in public administration, he used the accruing leverage he had obtained to vault into a position as finance officer with the Hi-Desert Water District. In 2011, when he was offered a promotion to the position of assistant general manager/chief financial officer paying $139,000 in annual salary plus benefits, he resigned from the town council. At that point, he had enrolled at
Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was pursuing a Master’s Degree in public administration.
In May 2013, Luckino learned that the position of finance director with the city of Blythe, which paid between $94,000 and $117,000 per year, was open. He was further informed that the city manager’s position in the same Riverside County city on the banks of the Colorado River was also likely to open up later that year and that the finance director would stand a decent chance of assuming the city manager post. Luckino took the pay cut, resigning from the Hi-Desert Water District.
Luckino’s departure from the water district came as that entity was struggling with the financial challenges of having Yucca Valley comply with a state mandate to convert from its traditional septic systems to a sewer system in several phases over the next decade. Town voters in 2012 had voted down a sales tax measure put forth by town officials which those officials said would be primarily devoted to funding the sewer program.
Though his abandonment of Yucca Valley left the town in a bad way, his gamble in departing for Blyth paid off for him personally. By October 2013, he had his Master’s Degree in public administration and the Blythe City Council, torn over elevating him or city clerk Mallory Sutterfield to the position of interim city manager, in a closely split 3-2 vote chose Luckino.
He was subsequently made full-fledged city manager and Sutterfield was made assistant city manager. With his scheduled arrival in Twentynine Palms later this month, Luckino will shortly be making, on his own initiative, an abrupt departure from Blythe, the fourth such exodus in his public career.
He is moving into a position in Twentynine Palms where most of those holding it have limited longevity.
In May 2011, Richard Warne assumed the city manager’s post. One month shy of his two-year anniversary with the city, Warne was terminated without cause and given one year’s worth of pay to depart. The city brought in Joe. Guzzetta, the former director of the Joshua Basin Water District, to replace Warne. Guzzetta lasted only about half as long as Warne, until May 13, 2014. He too was given one year’s worth of pay as a severance. The city’s finance director, Ron Peck filled in for Guzzetta. On June 19, 2014, Andrew Takata, who was up to that point working as the interim city manager in Calexico, was hired to serve as Twentynine Palms City Manager. In November 2014, Takata abruptly resigned as city manager to become the chief of staff for San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford. He was replaced by former Twentynine Palms High School Basketball Coach Larry Bowden, who was serving as the city’s recreation director.
Luckino will replace Bowden.