UPLAND–(February 9) While acknowledging that proponents of an initiative to have Upland permit three medical marijuana clinics to operate in a confined area along the north side of Foothill Boulevard on the city’s extreme west end have succeeded in forcing the issue to a vote of city residents, the city council this week voted by a 3-2 margin to delay on scheduling that election to see if a technical detail in the initiative will require that the vote come next year rather than this year. The ordinance calls for permitting three such establishments along Foothill below Cable Airport between Monte Vista Avenue and Airport Drive while requiring each applicant to put up $75,000 to cover the city’s costs in processing the permit.
Initiative advocates include California Cannabis Coalition President Craig Beresh and Tropical Lei strip club owner Randy Welty, who is a board member of the California Cannabis Coalition and full or part owner in at least 52 marijuana clinics throughout the state. Between October and January those working with them collected 6,865 signatures on the initiative petitions, 5,736 of which were deemed by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters to be valid signatures of registered voters in Upland. That number exceeds the 15 percent of registered voters in the city needed to force the city to hold a special election for the initiative, which city clerk Stephanie Mendenhall said would cost the city roughly $180,000.
While two of the council’s members – Debbie Stone and Gino Filippi – have said they think it best to let the issue go to a vote without entailing any further delay or expense beyond the cost of the election for the city, their three council colleagues – Mayor Ray Musser and council members Carol Timm and Glenn Bozar – are philosophically opposed to allowing cannabis collectives to operate in Upland. They were intrigued by a theory put forth by city attorney Richard Adams, which holds that if the $75,000 mandated by the initiative to be collected by the city for the processing of the permits actually exceeds the costs of background checks, inspections and clerical work on the paperwork, then the $75,000 is to be deemed a tax. Following Adams’ logic to its conclusion, an initiative involving a tax must be held during a general election rather than a special election, under the state’s constitution.
The council voted 3-2, with Musser, Timm and Bozar prevailing, to have staff and Adams study the issue and file a report. It is anticipated that if the report finds that the $75,000 is greater than the city’s costs on each permit application, the council will postpone the election until the general municipal election Upland has next scheduled in November 2016.
This could be a setback for the initiative proponents, who are counting on being able to network among cannabis aficionados using social media and word of mouth and other means to drive them to the polls in a special election, where voter turnout is traditionally lighter than in general elections. The initiative’s opponents believe that the majority of Upland residents are opposed to the initiative and the measure will lose if the vote takes place during a normally scheduled election.
Before the council’s vote, Beresh appealed to the council to show compassion for patients who suffer from conditions that marijuana can alleviate, and he said that it is “time to stop wasting the city’s money.”
Beresh’s reference was to over $500,000 in legal bills the city has accrued in court efforts to keep marijuana dispensary owners from defying the city’s ban on such uses. Despite that effort, at least 14 dispensaries are now open within the city.
Beresh’s sentiments were echoed by councilman Filippi, who said the city’s “ban has been a failure.”
Upland resident Warren Bowers, however, said the initiative as drafted would allow the compassion Beresh requested to be exploited.
“Two percent of medical marijuana users are in fact seriously ill,” Bowers said. “The other 98 percent of medical marijuana users are using it to get high. With three dispensaries next to a strip club,” Bowers continued, “you need to know what liability you will have and what it will cost the taxpayers if you approve it.”
Marjorie Mikels, an attorney with an office in downtown Upland, noted that the city has failed to effectively enforce the ban it has.
“What I want to know is where are the police?” she said. “It is illegal for those shops to be operating.”
Councilwoman Timm said she believed medical marijuana had legitimate therapeutic uses, but that it should be dispensed from a licensed pharmacy.
Councilman Bozar called the initiative flawed and poorly written. He said he objected to “the way the ballot measure is being forced on us, to do what the applicant wants.”

TWENTYNINE PALMS — (February 9) Tamara Alaniz has been forced out as general manager of the Twentynine Palms Water District after 23 months in that position.
Alaniz, who resides in Apple Valley and had been serving in the capacity of program manager with the Mojave Water Agency since 2008, was hired as Twentynine Palms Water District general manager in February 2013, assuming that post on March 11, 2013.
There were no overt indications of discord between Alaniz and the board during her tenure. On February 4, however, the board met in closed session, after which it was publicly announced that Alaniz was leaving the district and that operations manager Ray Kolisz would replace her, for the time being.
No details for Alaniz sacking was given, nor was there an open acknowledgement that she had been, in fact, terminated. Rather, an announcement was made to the effect that her leaving was taking place as a consequence of “a “mutual agreement” between the board and Alaniz.
The Twentynine Palms Water District’s span of jurisdiction may at least partially explicate Alaniz’s abrupt departure.
Since 1958, the Twentynine Palms Fire Department has been overseen by the water district. The department grew to include two fire stations and seven firefighters to cover the 55 square miles within the Twentynine Palms City Limits and the 33 square miles of unincorporated county area that also falls under the water district/fire department’s 88-square mile jurisdiction. But the special tax imposed on residents within the boundaries of the Twentynine Palms Water District yields just $1,241,000 in revenue per year and the fire department needs to function entirely within those financial parameters. This has entailed the closure of one of the department’s fire stations and department personnel being cut back to five firefighters overall, consisting of the fire chief, two fire captains and two engineers. They are augmented by a single person clerical staff position that has been vacant through attrition since March 2013 and 28 reserve/volunteer firefighters, all of whom have attended a fire academy. Four of those are local volunteers. The others are aspiring firefighters from more distant areas in San Bernardino County, or Los Angeles, Orange or Riverside counties. Each serves a one-day 24 hour shift per week in Twentynine Palms. The 24 who do not reside in or near Twentynine Palms return to their distant abodes upon the conclusion of their shifts.
The oversight of a fire department is somewhat afield from Alaniz’s area of expertise.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and Master’s degree in public administration with an emphasis on water resource management in 2006. The professional training she received while with the Mojave Water Agency, consisting of her attending the William R. Gianelli California Water Leadership Academy, pertained entirely to water issues. With the Mojave Water Agency, Alaniz had been primarily responsible for public information provision and planning for a comprehensive regional water conservation program.
Alaniz’ departure comes as the board is considering rate increases for district customers.

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
I think I have this straight, but if I don’t, I will publicly apologize to the Attorney General and buy her and her husband and their children a steak dinner at the most expensive restaurant in California…
Yesterday, that is Thursday February 12, California Attorney General Kamala Harris wrote a letter to elected and appointed leaders in all 58 of the state’s counties who have responsibility for child welfare and juvenile justice systems to inform them of the creation of the Bureau of Children’s Justice at the California Department of Justice. In that letter, she stated, “The Bureau’s mission is to protect the rights of children and focus the attention and resources of law enforcement and policymakers on the importance of safeguarding every child so that they can meet their full potential.” So far, so good…
The letter lays out a series of things the bureau will look into and oversee, shepherd and prosecute both criminally and civilly, all pertaining to the welfare of children. Most of them sound like good ideas to me, although I cannot help suspecting that this initiative has something to do with Ms. Harris’s current effort to capture the soon-to-be vacant seat of Senator Barbara Boxer…
As I said, I commend the attorney general and her office for taking this issue, in its general sense, seriously. But buried in the letter is some language that I think, in a specific sense, is not quite appropriate from a governmental official, an elected official in Sacramento and a politician who is, simply, the highest law enforcement authority in the state…
Under that portion of the letter devoted to educational rights, Ms. Harris propounds that children have the right to “attend school and participate in extracurricular, cultural, and personal enrichment activities, consistent with their age and developmental level, with minimal disruptions to school attendance and educational stability;” to “access the same academic resources, services, and enrichment activities as other students;” to “remain enrolled in and attend their school of origin pending resolution of any school placement dispute, and be protected from being penalized for school absences due to placement changes, court appearances, or related court ordered activities.” There was some intimation in news reports following the release of the letter that the attorney general’s office would “crack down” on school districts that have a demonstrated pattern of too stringently enforcing school or school district placement rules…
That is what I find troubling. School district and school attendance boundaries exist for good and practical reasons. There are rules and boundaries in place to ensure that one particular school or school district is not overwhelmed by the number of students it must accommodate and educate. Those rules also ensure that some schools or districts, in which taxpayers have heavily invested, are not underattended, thus leading to the squandering of taxpayer money and public resources…
By threatening to take action against school districts that enforce the regulations and rules of law to maintain boundary and jurisdictional integrity so that all of the students they are legally mandated to serve can achieve a quality education free of classroom overcrowding is, in my view, beneath the standard we in California want to see in the individual we have collectively elected to uphold the law…

By Ruth Musser-Lopez
Prehistoric art in the eastern San Bernardino County region will be the focus of the American Rock Art Research Association’s (ARARA’s) intra-continental convocation to be held on Memorial Day weekend, May 22 – 25, 2015. Field trips bookend the Saturday and Sunday conference filled with colorful Power Point presentations and thoughtful analysis to be shared at the conference center this year held at the Colorado Belle Resort and Casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Friday and Monday’s field trip line ups are similar, so participants may select three alternatives from the list and be guaranteed participation in two of those, one for Friday and one for Monday. See the January 30, 2015 Glimpse of SBC’s Past in that week’s issue of the Sentinel for more information about the purpose of the ARARA conference and go to www.ARARA.org for more information about the conference.
Rock art this year will be visited largely in the region surrounding the section of the Lower Colorado River where the river canyon opens up into what is known as “Mohave Valley,” Arizona and includes the region between Laughlin and the Topock Gorge south of Needles. This region of the Colorado River is a wide river valley that in the prehistoric past was subject to seasonal flooding before the river was dammed and channeled as you will see it today.
Prehistorically, the Mojave Indian tribe occupied this section of the River. “Mojave” is an abbreviation and derivative of the word “Pipa Aha Macav” meaning “People of the River.” You may wonder why Mohave Valley, Arizona is spelled with an “h” and the Mojave Desert is spelled with a “j”. Basically, the spelling has to do with what side of the Colorado River you are on. In Arizona the “h” is used. In California, the “j” is used. This gets a little confusing when it comes to the name to use to identify a tribe that a person is associated with. Generally, if one is speaking about the Pipa Aha Macav who are members of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe based in Needles, California, you spell that affiliation with a “j” even if the person lives on the Arizona side of that portion of the river. In Parker, there are Pipa Aha Macav who are affiliated with and, or members of the “Colorado River Indian Tribes” (CRIT)—most of them live on the Arizona side of the river and they use the “h” spelling in the word Mohave. So, we have “Mojaves” and “Mohaves,” the first who generally live in the Needles area and the second who generally live in the Parker area.
The Mojaves speak, or did speak, a language that is classified as a Yuman dialect of the Hokan linguistic group. Prehistorically, various dialects of Yuman were spoken by a tribes along and surrounding the Lower Colorado River. These included the Havasupai up the river and northeast of the Mojaves in Peach Springs, Arizona; the Hualapais in Kingman Arizona region; the Quechan in the Yuma region and others. The Halchidhoma, a Yuman speaking tribe, once occupied the Lake Havasu region to the south of the Mojave, however reportedly to avoid tension with their neighboring cousins to the north and south on the Colorado River they relocated to the Gila River area. Their departure left open a void in a small segment of the river to which the Chemehuevi or Southern Paiute, a tribe of Numic speakers from a different linguistic family, Uto Azetecan, took possession. The Numic expansion into Havasu Lake and occupation of this small segment of the Lower Colorado River by Numic speakers is believed to have taken place about 500 years ago.
Prehistorically the Mojave claimed the area of the desert between the Mojave River (Barstow/Victorville) and the Colorado River. The cultural artifacts of what is described as a Desert Mojave people have been recorded by archaeologists in the east Mojave Desert in the area around Mitchell Caverns and the Hole-in-the-Wall region. It appears that older rock art was added to, altered, and, or, in some cases, scratched out by others of a different culture using a different style of artistic imagery. In the east Mojave Desert, some of this superimposition may have occurred during the Numic expansion within the last thousand years.
This year members will be able to relish the same artistic imagery enjoyed by thousands of years of ancestral Mojave while taking breaks at water stops at springs in the desert along the Mojave Trail Corridor (MTC) linking their Colorado River villages with their relatives and trading partners on the coast.

HESPERIA—(February 13) The four-year-old son of a Rialto police officer was viciously attacked by the police dog his father had trained and employed as part of that department canine unit.
The attack took place in the backyard of their Hesperia home around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday February 8.
Michael Mastaler, part of whose assignment with the Rialto Police Department, is to handle the police K-9 Jango, routinely brought the dog, a 6-year-old Belgium Malinois, home. This is standard protocol for the department, which endeavors to maintain a strong relationship between police dogs and their handlers.
Officer Mastaler, who had just returned home, went into the backyard and let Jango out of his kennel before going upstairs. His wife was out shopping at the time. While officer Mastaler was in the shower, his son, Hunter, unlatched the sliding glass door at the back of the Mastaler residence and went into the backyard. He would later say that he was looking for his mother.
At that point Jango attacked the boy. Nearby neighbors heard Hunter’s screams and responded at once. The first to arrive was Jeff Houlemard. Houlemard’s entry into the backyard was delayed by the fence around the Mastaler backyard. After he bulled through that obstacle, he descended upon the dog, which had Hunter’s leg near the calf in its mouth. Houlemard kicked the dog, but the dog’s jaws were yet locked on the boy’s leg. He repositioned himself behind the dog and used his hands and arms to pry the dog’s mouth open. At that point another neighbor had arrived who was able to lift the child’s leg out of the dog’s mouth.
It is estimated that the attack was ongoing for two minutes before the child was freed from the dog.
Hunter’s leg at that point was severely lacerated and twisted, with much of the flesh torn.
“The injury caused severe damage to the arteries and veins in his leg,” according to a family friend, Melissa Marsden Turney. “As a result of this terrible accident, Hunter’s leg had to be amputated a few inches below the knee, and he will receive a prosthetic in its place.”
Jango has been put into quarantine at the Rialto Police Department’s dog training center. A determination of his fate will not be made at least until February 19. The Rialto Police Department is carrying out a follow-up investigation of the incident.

Tansy mustard is a circumboreal biennial or annual plant that is initially one half inch to two inches tall, which bolts in the spring and produces non-fragrant yellow flowers at the top of the plant. The plants eventually may grow as high as three feet tall, involving small orange seeds that manifest in long, narrow seed pods.
It branches sparingly and is more or less erect, with round stems covered with short glandular hairs. Young plants consist of a low rosette of basal leaves spanning four inches to eight inches across, from which there develops during the spring a flowering stalk with alternate cauline leaves. They are double or triple pinnately lobed and glabrous or slightly pubescent. The narrow lobes are oblong to oblanceolate, providing the cauline leaves with a fern-like appearance. The lobes become more narrow in the upper cauline leaves. The basal leaves are quite similar to the lower and middle cauline leaves in appearance.
The foliage of the tansy mustard is usually some shade of green. The petioles of the leaves are rather long, although they become progressively shorter as the cauline leaves ascend the stems. The upper stems terminate in racemes of flowers about two to twelve inches in length. The small yellow flowers bloom in whorls at the apex of each raceme, while the slender seedpods, known as siliques, develop below. Each flower spans about 1/8 inch across, consisting of four pale yellow petals, four green sepals, six stamens with yellow anthers, and a pistil with a stout style. The petals are about the same length as the sepals; they are both oblong-lanceolate.
The blooming period for the tansy mustard ccurs from mid- to late spring and lasts about 2 months. There is no noticeable floral scent. Each flower is replaced by a cylindrical silique that is about 1/3 inch long. This silique contains two rows of tiny seeds that are separated by a fine membrane. The spreading pedicels of the siliques (or flowers) are about ½” long when they are fully mature; the siliques angle upward from their pedicels and are more ascending. The tiny seeds are somewhat flattened, oblongoid or ovoid, and some shade orange-brown. These are ligght enough to be disseminated by the wind. The root system consists of a stout taproot. This plant spreads by reseeding itself and often forms loose colonies.
Tansy Mustard is typically found in full sun, mesic to dry conditions, and sterile soil that is sandy or gravelly. It also grows readily in fertile soil in open disturbed areas, in which case the plants will be larger in size.
Tansy Mustard is widely distributed in Along railroad lines, including the ballast, this plant is rather common. It is native to both the Old World and New World and botanists generally hold that the plant may be adventive from Eurasia. Habitats include gravelly prairies, sandstone and limestone glades, rocky bluffs and cliffs, areas along roads and railroads (including the ballast), fields, and sterile waste areas. The plant is most likely to occur in disturbed areas, but is also present in higher quality natural habitats.
The nectar and pollen of the flowers attract Syrphid flies and possibly other insects. The caterpillars of the butterflies Pieris rapae (Cabbage White), Pontia protodice (Checkered White), and Anthocharis midea (Falcate Orangetip) feed on the foliage. With regard to the plant’s relationships to birds and mammalian herbivores, in the drier Western states various species of quail eat the seedpods, while Bighorn Sheep, elk, and mule deer eat the foliage sparingly. The foliage is somewhat toxic to horses and cattle. It can cause blindness, staggering, and paralysis of the tongue if consumed in large quantities over a sufficiently long period of time. Sheep and goats are more immune to the toxic properties of the foliage. Because the tiny seeds become sticky when wet, it is possible that they are transported by the feathers of birds, the fur of animals, and the shoes of humans.
Tansy Mustard is one of the earliest plants to bloom along railroads, although it is usually rather small-sized and inconspicuous. It is somewhat similar in appearance to the adventive Descurainia sophia (Flixweed), differing from that plant by its greener foliage, earlier bloom, and the shape of its siliques, which are broader (about 1.5 millimeter. in diameter) and shorter (about 1/3 inch in length). Flixweed has greyish blue foliage and a tendency to bloom later. Its siliques are narrower (about 1 millimeter in diameter) and longer (about 1” in length). While the seeds of tansy mustard are arranged in two rows in each silique, the seeds of flixweed are arranged in a single row. Tansy mustard and flixweed are annual broadleaves and emerge in the fall. They grow as a rosette with finely lobed compound leaves.

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

Sentinel 02-06-15

(February 5) The more than two-decade-long ban on a swathe of property in Colton along the Santa Ana River has apparently drawn to an end, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on February 2 issued a development permit for the property.
The Colton City Council lost no time in approving the agreement relating to that permit, doing so at its February 3 meeting.
The ground in question was declared off limits for development in 1993 as a consequence of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s determination that dunes along that particular portion of the Santa Ana River served as critical habitat for the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, which had been placed on the endangered species list.
The Santa Ana River has its headwaters at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains above Highland. The river winds through San Bernardino to Colton, down into Riverside County and then on to Orange County with its ultimate terminus in the Pacific Ocean. The nectar-feeding Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, breeds in sandy soil and sand dunes, which once existed in plentiful supply along the Santa Ana River. Most of those dunes, however, have been destroyed by development, leaving a usually dry but sometimes marshy area along the north bank of the river just before it heads into Riverside County as one of the last three sites known to contain sufficient sandy soil for the fly to proliferate.
The city of Colton has long been in a dialogue with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, over steps to be taken to preserve adequate habitat for the fly while allowing development on surrounding property to proceed. There had been numerous proposals of set asides and land swaps intended to leave portions of the river’s banks in a pristine state, but those had never been actuated or, in some other fashion, fell through.
Over the years there have been recriminations from city officials and others toward the federal government over what was characterized as Fish & Wildlife’s obstruction of projects locals deemed of consequence and value to the city’s economy. Some, ignoring the long term consequences of species loss and ecological degradation, charged federal officials with being more sympathetic to the fortunes of an insect than to the economic wellbeing of the city’s residents and its businesses.
The final agreement hammered out between the city and the federal government requires Colton to set aside 50 acres of undisturbed land along the river’s banks as breeding habitat for the endangered fly in exchange for development of 416 acres near the 10 Freeway at Pepper Avenue, near the campus of the county’s Arrowhead Regional Medical Center.
Of that 416 acres, some 250 acres have already been developed but are currently lying fallow. That acreage can be developed again without requiring further studies. Another 80 acres, which is relatively undisturbed and has never been extensively developed over the last century, can also be developed. One six-acre segment of Slover Avenue must be closed and combined with seven acres of the 33-acre Hermosa Gardens Cemetery as part of the 50-acre breeding habitat, according to documentation relating to the city’s acceptance of the deal.
Colton, which has had extensive exchange with landowners in the area over acquiring river bank property, will now move ahead with purchasing an adequate amount of that property to fulfill the terms of the agreement with Fish & Wildlife.

(February 5) Michael S. Lipsitz, Third District County Supervisor James Ramos’s field representative for the Morongo Basin, was arrested Wednesday evening as he attempted to provide drugs to an inmate during a visit at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center.
Lipsitz, 53, of Landers, was employed by Z107.7 radio as a news reporter and was the founding member of the Morongo Basin Democratic Club before he was hired into the field representative position in April 2014. Ramos terminated him from the position in the immediate aftermath of his arrest.
According to the sheriff’s department, “Recently, deputies at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center received information that narcotics were being brought into the facility. Deputies began an investigation and found that Michael Lipsitz was a frequent visitor of Joshua Rhodes and identified Lipsitz as the person responsible for bringing narcotics to inmate Rhodes at the fire camp. On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Michael Lipsitz arrived for a scheduled visit with Rhodes at the fire camp. Within minutes, deputies interrupted the visit as Lipsitz provided the narcotics to Rhodes.”
Lipsitz was arrested and transported to West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where he was booked on suspicion of bringing a controlled substance into a jail facility. The substance involved was not specified.
His bail was set at $25,000. He posted a bail bond and was released from custody on Thursday, February 5, 2015, at 6:05 a.m.
Later that day, Lipsitz, an at-will county employee, received a memo from Ramos informing him he had been fired for cause.
Sheriff John McMahon said, “When I learned of this disappointing news, I contacted Supervisor James Ramos and notified him of the investigation and arrest of one of his employees. Supervisor Ramos was shocked by the news, and assured me he has zero tolerance for any type of criminal behavior. Supervisor Ramos immediately terminated Lipsitz’ employment with the county.”
Lipsitz was highly thought of in the Morongo Basin, receiving high marks for his intimate knowledge of the area and his efforts on behalf of Ramos’s constituents in vectoring the county’s attention to complaints and concerns.
He had been very active in organizational efforts on behalf of the Democratic Party, of which James Ramos is also a member. Lipsitz was described as intense in his political work, pushing the party to ingratiate itself with as wide a cross section of voters as possible, while eschewing action or individuals he saw as divisive or firebrands. Some of his Democratic Party associates found it surprising that he agreed to go to work for Ramos, who had chosen as his chief of staff Phil Paule, a longtime Republican Party functionary who had been an aide to Republican Congressman Darrell Issa.
It is unclear what the basis of Lipsitz’s relationship with Rhodes, 25, is. Rhodes has three drug possession convictions, one for misdemeanor evading police, resisting arrest, and for possessing brass knuckles.

By Mark Gutglueck
Los Angeles World Airports Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey, who over the last three years has been demonized by Ontario city officials for her organization’s stewardship of Ontario International Airport, on Tuesday announced her retirement.
After a 39-year career, 33 working in the aviation industry, Lindsey told her staff “It is time for me to move on to other adventures.”
Prior to tendering her resignation, Lindsey discussed the advisability and timing of her retirement with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners President Sean Burton.
“This is an appropriate time for a transition,” said Lindsey. “The next LAWA executive director will be able to take the Airports Development Program through its next major phase, its next round of projects that will last at least 10 years.”
In publicly announcing her departure, Lindsey said she will stay on into the spring to ensure a smooth transition to new leadership for Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the corporate entity which manages the airports owned by the city of Los Angeles for its Department of Airports.
Lindsey’s departure comes at a critical juncture in the relationship between the city of Los Angeles and the city of Ontario, which have developed major differences over the current and future management and ownership of Ontario International Airport.
LAWA is charged with operating Los Angeles International Airport, Van Nuys Airport, and Ontario International Airport, the later of which has been under the control of Los Angeles for more than 47 years. In 1967, when Ontario Airport yet had a gravel parking lot and fewer than 200,000 passengers passing through its gates annually, the Ontario City Council ratified a joint operating agreement with the city of Los Angeles to permit the larger city to use its stronger negotiating position with the airlines serving Southern California to induce them to utilize the Ontario facility. Using the leverage it possessed by virtue of its control of gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles persuaded a whole host of airlines to begin flying into and out of Ontario, transforming the former backwater air field into a world class aerodrome, eliminating one of its obsolete runways, improving its existing east-west runway and constructing another, and constructing an ultra-modern concourse and two new terminals. After all of the performance criteria in the original joint operating agreement were achieved, in 1985 the city of Ontario deeded the airport to the city of Los Angeles for no consideration. During the more than two-decades after that transition, the airport continued to prosper, with ridership rising to an all-time record 7.2 million in 2007.
That same year, on June 4, 2007, Lindsey, who had decades of experience in airport management and a record of success in renovating and improving international airports, including with Seattle-Tacoma Airport, was appointed LAWA executive director.
Lindsey’s arrival coincided with two sets of events that ultimately fueled the souring of relations between the cities of Los Angeles and Ontario with regard to Ontario International Airport. The first of these was Lindsey’s push to step up the modernization of Los Angeles International Airport, which would ultimately lead, at least in part, to soaring passenger numbers there. The second event was the massive economic downturn that transitioned into a lingering national, statewide and regional recession that perpetuated itself for nearly seven years. Airlines, in an effort to shield themselves from the continuing economic decline, began cutting back on flights, particularly to locations outside heavy population centers. Beginning in 2008 and until mid-2014, passenger traffic at Ontario International declined steadily. This led to a deterioration in the working relationship between Los Angeles and Ontario. In 2010, Ontario officials, led by city councilman Alan Wapner, initiated a campaign aimed at wresting control and ownership of Ontario International Airport back from Los Angeles. Los Angeles officials, including most prominently Lindsey, at first ignored and then began to resist that effort, which grew increasingly strident and uncivil. Ontario officials, with Wapner in the lead, began to openly charge that Lindsey had evinced hostility toward the city of Ontario and its airport, and was deliberately managing Ontario International operations to raise costs and minimize both revenues and ridership there as part of a plot to increase revenue and gate numbers at Los Angeles International Airport. Lindsey and her staff denied those accusations, pointing out that the airlines were being pushed by their own economic imperatives. But in 2013, in the waning days of Anthony Villaraigosa’s tenure as Los Angeles mayor, the city of Ontario, through the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, sued Los Angeles in the neutral forum of Riverside Superior Court, charging Los Angeles and LAWA with willful mismanagement of Ontario Airport and seeking the return of the aerodrome to the city in which it is located.
The city of Los Angeles turned back a major portion of that legal challenge last month when Riverside Superior Court Judge Gloria Connor Trask ruled against Ontario’s claims that the 47-year-old joint operating agreement and the 29-year-old title transfers were illegally ratified and therefore unenforceable and voidable. Along the way, however, Ontario’s lawyers have pushed for the discovery of internal LAWA documents and staff communications, and has trumpeted selected examples culled from these in the press to demonstrate what Ontario officials, again led by Wapner front and center, said was LAWA’s and in particular Lindsey’s pernicious attitude toward Ontario.
The personalization of the attacks have occurred against a backdrop of jockeying between the two cities over the “value” of the airport, i.e., the amount of money that will change hands if the airport title is to be handed back to Ontario. Wapner long insisted that the airport was a “public benefit asset” and had no “value” as such. He called for Los Angeles to simply deed the airport back at no consideration. Los Angeles, on the other hand, has claimed that over $500 million dollars has been expended on improvements at the facility and that major portions of the funds for those improvements originated from revenue generated at Los Angeles International Airport or at Ontario International Airport while it has been in the possession of Los Angeles, as well as from federal grants Los Angeles secured or from bonds issued under the authority of Los Angeles as a public agency.
Ontario privately 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 scoffed at that offer, giving indication they would accept no less than $450 million for the airport and the property on which it sits, which in any case they considered to be a generously charitable counterproposal reflecting a roughly $100 million discount of the cost of the improvements made to the airport during Los Angeles’s 47 year managerial run there.
Ontario has fought back, suggesting both in court documents and in public statements that Los Angeles has cooked the books and grossly overstated – by hundreds of millions of dollars – the actual amount of money Los Angeles has contributed toward improvements at Ontario Airport.
For their part, Los Angeles officials at all levels, from the city council through to the management ranks at LAWA have been offended by the vitriol and tenor of Ontario’s campaign. It is unclear whether Lindsey’s departure came at her own initiative or was imposed upon her by the political leadership on the Los Angeles City Council and the airport board. The timing of her leaving in the wake of the city of Los Angeles’s substantial victory over Ontario in court by virtue of Judge Trask’s recent ruling is widely seen as a gesture of magnanimity by the larger city, and an effort toward reconciliation that calls for a similarly statesmanlike move on Ontario’s part. At this point, it appears the ball is in Ontario’s court, and it is an open question whether Ontario will seek some level of accommodation or maintain or step up its aggressive and bellicose tactics. What has been suggested is that Ontario could reciprocate by removing Wapner, whose inflexibility, aggressive personality and confrontational approach in his engagement with Los Angeles officials has consistently resulted in an elevation of tension and a hardening of positions that have locked the city into a showdown posture of dubious prospect that involves a legal throw of the dice which will entail, if played out to its conclusion, millions of dollars in legal fees whether Ontario ultimately wins or loses.
An incremental move in the direction of accommodation appears to be afoot in that the Ontario International Airport Authority, the entity that was created by the city of Ontario and the county of San Bernardino to assume management control of the airport upon its return to local ownership, has designated recently installed Fourth District County Supervisor Curt Hagman, whose district includes Ontario, as a second negotiator to complement Wapner in dealing with Los Angeles and LAWA officials.
“I hope this impending personnel change clears the way for the cities of Ontario and LA to reach agreement on the transfer of Ontario International Airport to local control on terms that are consistent with all previous transfers of commercial airports between public agencies. We stand ready to work with Mayor Garcetti to determine a fair payment for the transfer of Ontario International Airport that makes LAWA whole with respect to any unreimbursed investments it has made in ONT.”​
Whether or not her departure will encourage Ontario to reevaluate its approach with regard to the airport, Lindsey will remain in place at LAWA for the next two to four months as Mayor Garcetti’s office and airport commissioners coordinate with Spencer Stuart, a leading executive search consulting firm, to identify Lindsey’s successor. After her replacement is brought in, it is anticipated Lindsey will remain with LAWA for a long enough interval to bring the new executive director up to speed.
Sean Burton, the president of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, said of Lindsey, “A good leader brings out the best in a team. Gina Marie has put together a strong and efficient team that is transforming Los Angeles International Airport into an airport the city can be proud of, responsibly managed costs and operations at Ontario International Airport through difficult market changes, and moved Van Nuys, a general aviation airport that had been losing money, into a brighter future. I am proud to have been able to work with her.” In a memo to LAWA staff, Lindsey summarized their achievements. Two of those touched on Ontario Airport directly.
“We’ve gradually reduced Ontario International Airport operating costs to maintain a relatively consistent cost per passenger despite significant passenger reductions,” Lindsey noted in one section of the memo, the context of which implied Ontario International’s expenses and operating costs are exceeding revenues.
Lindsey’s memo also stated, “There’s now an established, systematic process for determining capital investment priorities at each airport.”
Ontario Mayor Paul Leon said that “I wish Ann Marie all the best. I can say that she was dedicated and loyal and did a fine job for the ones who employed her. I hope she finds fulfillment as she moves on to the next season of her life.”