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.

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.