(January 21) The city of Upland has reinitiated communication with the current ownership of Dineen Trucking, apparently over the accumulation of debris at that company’s corporate yard, located north of Foothill Boulevard and south of Cable Airport, a very short distance from where Central Avenue dead ends into Foothill.
The city’s communication presages an effort to again eradicate that pile of debris, which is referred to as “Dineen Mountain” or “the dirt pile” and which is readily visible from Foothill Blvd/Route 66, the major east-west corridor through the City of Gracious Living. But that effort is fraught with hazards to both the city’s taxpayers and its officials, who previously failed in their efforts to shut down the Dineen operation.
Dineen Trucking has been operating in Upland since 1958, specializing in services ancillary to construction businesses. Specifically, Dineen engages in dirt, rock and debris hauling to and from constructions sites, providing top soil and fill dirt when it was needed for landscaping or stabilization or, conversely, hauling away rocks, excess earth and debris from construction sites.
The original owners of Dineen Trucking, Patrick and Jack Dineen, turned his company over to Ken Beck 15 years ago. Beck had access to a crusher with which he would convert some of the materials Dineen Trucking had acquired into aggregate that would be used as base for roads.
There has been discontent with the towering mountain of dirt and rubble at the Dineen Trucking yard for more than a decade. On November 24, 2003, a zoning complaint letter arrived at Upland City Hall, sent by Lee Jackson, a lawyer representing Intravaia Rock and Sand, a company in competition with Dineen Trucking. The letter suggested mounds at the Dineen trucking yard, which contained rubble Dineen Trucking had hauled from an earlier city of Upland project, were out of compliance with zoning changes that had been instituted in 2000.
Despite the hubbub, the zoning changes were not applicable to Dineen Trucking because during the 2000 city council meeting at which the zoning changes were adopted, existing businesses were given on-the-record exemptions from the newly codified standards and were allowed to maintain their operations as legal nonconforming uses. Upland’s senior planner at the time indicated that he was “not aware of one single incidence where the city enforced” against a nonconforming use existing at the time a new zoning ordinance was passed. Such uses, he said, would be “allowed to continue, as long as they continue.” The city’s director of community planning confirmed at that meeting that the city’s policy was to enforce newly drafted and passed zoning ordinances only against new property uses.
Thus, Dineen Trucking’s activity has been, in municipal zoning parlance, “grandfathered in” as a legal, non-conforming use.
Nevertheless, the city made efforts to persuade Dineen Trucking to close out its Upland operation during the first decade of the millennium. Ultimately, these did not play out well for the city. When the city excluded Dineen Trucking from offering bids on a city project, Dineen Trucking owner Ken Beck objected, resulting in a series of confrontations with city officials in both public and private. When the police department arrested Beck in the aftermath of one of those confrontations, he sued and the matter made its way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after the city sought to have the lawsuit brought by Beck dismissed. In a 22-page opinion, the Ninth Circuit rendered findings that suggested the city had indeed overstepped its authority and abused its discretion in dealing with Beck, such that Beck’s case should be permitted to go to trial.
Before the matter went to trial, however, the city of Upland forged a settlement, paying Beck and his attorneys, according to former city attorney Bill Curley, $375,000. In fending off that lawsuit, the city had spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 on its own legal fees, bringing the cost of that single entanglement with Beck and Dineen Trucking to more than two-thirds of a million dollars.
More recently, it has been city councilman Gino Filippi who has been pressing his colleagues and city staff to reinitiate a tougher line with regard to Dineen Trucking’s operation and the dirt pile at its corporate yard. Filippi, however, has been on the city council only since 2010, and was not in office or heavily involved in city affairs during the era in which the city was engaged in its futile and expensive undertaking to close down Dineen Trucking. Nor was city manager Rod Butler nor city attorney Richard Adams involved in past dealings with Dineen Trucking. Given this lack of institutional memory to the Dineen Trucking yard matter, there is concern among some city residents the move now afoot against Dineen Trucking may again entail expense in pursuing a less than thoroughly thought through goal, no matter how desirable closing down the Dineen Trucking operation may be from some perspectives. This is particularly true in the case of Adams, who works for the city through a contract with his law firm, Jones & Mayer, which provides him and the firm a financial incentive to take up such cases as the Dineen Trucking operation abatement, since Adams and Jones & Mayer will be paid for their work at a rate of $250 per hour, regardless of the outcome of the effort.

(January 20) The dispute over the county planning commission’s 2013 4-1 approval of a proposal by Dynamic Development to establish a Dollar General store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree has now moved on to the Fourth Appellate District Court.
The effort by Dynamic Development in conjunction with the Goodlettsville, Tennessee–based Dollar General Corporation has proceeded in stages, which could be likened to rounds, entailing opposition by local residents who consider the Dollar General to be out of character with the rustic community and would prefer to not see it built. In most of rounds, however, Dynamic Development has prevailed. That has not discouraged the opposition, which is now looking to use the proponent’s appeal to the Fourth Appellate District as a forum for challenging even further aspects of the project locals find objectionable.
Dynamic Development prevailed in the first round, convincing Gus Romo and Ernie Perea, planners with the county’s department of land use services, to make a finding that the construction of the store at its proposed location is justified. That finding was passed along to Romo and Perea’s boss, Terri Rahhal, the planning director for the county, and included a recommendation to be passed along to the county planning commission that it approve Dynamic Development’s conditional use permit application.
Dynamic Development won the second round when Rahhal accepted Romo and Perea’s report and reiterated its findings to the planning commission.
In that report, Romo and Perea maintained the 1.45 acre site is compatible from a land use standpoint with the applicant’s plans. In their jointly authored report and recommendation, Romo and Perea stated, “This area of 29 Palms Highway is designated for commercial development and intended to cater to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The project is considered a general retail use permitted within the Joshua Tree Community Plan zoning designation subject to approval of a use permit. Therefore, the proposed development and retail use are considered compatible with the surrounding land uses and general plan land use designations.”
Dynamic Development prevailed in the third round when the planning commission followed Rahhal’s recommendation and approved the project.
Maintaining that they prided themselves on the rustic character of their town, a number of people in the community including the entire membership of the Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance took it upon themselves to extend the matter to a fourth round, appealing the planning commission’s decision to the board of supervisors. The local opponents of the project told the board of supervisors the 9,100-square foot Dollar General, a national corporate retail establishment, would compromise the Old West ambience of a desert town that relies on tourism.
In June 2013, the board of supervisors held a public hearing that incorporated a video hook-up with the meeting room at the Joshua Tree Community Center to consider the appeal, allowing Joshua Tree residents to lodge their protests without having to make the 200-mile round trip to the county seat to be heard. Despite that accommodation, round four went to Dynamic Development, with the board of supervisors denying the appeal and approving the project.
Having been shut out in the first four rounds, the Joshua Tree residents and the downtown business alliance insisted on a fifth round, filing a lawsuit in San Bernardino County Superior Court the following month, asserting the county’s land use services division did not fully examine the negative impacts of the project, including cutting into the profitability of preexisting businesses and upsetting the rural character of the district.
Round five went to the project opponents when San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez in March 2014 sided with the plaintiffs, ruling that the county needed to rescind Dynamic Development, LLC’s permit for the Dollar General retail store while county undertakes the preparation of an environmental impact report which Alvarez directed should specifically analyze the potential economic effects on surrounding businesses.
The county’s mitigated negative declaration of any untoward impacts of the project was insufficient, Alvarez ruled, in part because the analysis of the possible economic effects to existing businesses, which could result in urban decay, had not been done previously.
In reaching his conclusion, Alvarez relied upon a 29-year-old case pertaining to proposed new development in a less-than-highly-urbanized setting, the ski-resort community of Bishop. In that case, the court determined the California Environmental Quality Act called upon the governmental agency overseeing the project to “consider the secondary or indirect environmental consequences of economic and social changes.”
Though Alvarez said the California Environmental Quality Act is “not a fair competition statutory scheme intended to protect against economic competition,” he said the impact on preexisting businesses “must be considered if the loss of businesses affects the physical environment by causing or increasing urban decay.”
The project opponents of the Dollar General had further alleged the project was inconsistent with Joshua Tree’s community plan, which encourages small businesses, and challenged the project approval on the basis of a failure of the county and the proponent to do a traffic study. Alvarez did not find in favor of the plaintiffs on those issues.
Dynamic Development immediately intimated that it intended to extend the contest into a sixth round by appealing Alvarez’s ruling to the state appellate court in Riverside. Mark Ostoich, an attorney representing Dynamic Development, said the project met all the criteria of an acceptable property use.
Before Dynamic Development could initiate round six, the alliance and the town’s residents initiated and won that stage of the competition when they sought and received from Alvarez an order prohibiting the San Bernardino County land use division from permitting Dynamic Development from engaging in any pre-construction or preparatory activity relating to the construction of Joshua Tree Dollar General store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Starburst Drive in Joshua Tree.
In late December 2014, Dynamic Development made good on its earlier indication of a pending appeal, lodging a further legal challenge, effectively initiating round seven.
The appeal of Alvarez’s ruling to the Fourth Appellate District extends to Alvarez’s order that Dynamic Development carry out at its own expense the preparation of a full-blown environmental impact report. This transfers the matter to a three-judge panel in Riverside. The lodging of that appeal opened the door for the project opponents to have the issue with regard to the proposed project’s incompatibility with the Joshua Tree Community Plan as well as the need for a traffic study heard.
The Downtown Business Alliance filed its notice of opposition to the appeal. Ultimately, the courts, at both the Superior Court and appellate levels do not have land use authority. But Opponents are hopeful that the intent of law will be interpreted by the court in a way favorable to them, finding that the construction of large scale business structures, not in kind with the current architectural theme of Joshua Tree’s art district, will have an adverse impact upon the existing economics of the business district and will in effect be an eyesore turning away the current clientele. Opponents hope that the court will require this adverse impact to be mitigated or alleviated and that such mitigation can only mean that the Dollar General must be built in conformance with the scale and character of the existing historic district.

(January 22)  The board of supervisors earlier this month elected to spend $1.5 million to purchase engines and a gear box to return a 43-year-old helicopter in the sheriff’s department’s air fleet to service.
On November 8, 2014, two sheriff’s department aviation division employees were operating the department’s Bell 212 helicopter near the division’s Rialto hangar when one of its engines suffered a catastrophic failure. Pilot Brian Miller was able to land the craft safely, but the engine was a total loss.
The department was faced with the prospect of accepting the loss of the helicopter, repairing it or acquiring one to replace it.
The Bell 212, a 1972 model, was purchased nearly 27 years ago, when its acquisition, at a cost of $872,000 was approved by the board of supervisors on March 14, 1988.
Until the November incident, the civilian twin-engine Bell 212 was one of two “medium duty” helicopters the sheriff’s aviation division operated, the other being a single-engine military surplus UH-1H Super Huey. Together, they were called upon to perform specialized law enforcement assignments, firefighting and search and rescue duties, including high altitude operations at popular outdoor recreation locations such as 11,503 fott high Mt. San Gorgonio peak, 11,209 foot high Jepson Peak and 10,680 foot high Shields peak in the San Bernardino Mountains and 10.068 foot high Mount Baldy Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains located at the border between San Bernardino and Los Angeles County in the Angeles National Forest.
In 2014, the helicopters flew approximately 500 hours for fire and search and rescue missions, which included response to 158 calls to the sheriff for service.
Despite the consideration that the Bell 212 is over 40 years old and the original mechanical components are no longer available, a decision was made to upgrade it with new, more powerful engines, as the estimated cost to purchase a new medium duty helicopter to meet the sheriff’s mission requirements is $10 million to $12 million.
The upgrade/repair of the Bell 212 will require replacement of the gearbox and transmission, as well as reinforcement of the tail boom section and other structural components of the helicopter to withstand the increased torque. While the Bell 212 helicopter is nonoperational, any required fire and/or search and rescue missions must be performed by the remaining UH-1H Super Huey, which has only about 90 flight hours available before its next Federal Aviation Administration inspection. If any deficiencies were to be found during the inspection, the sole remaining “medium duty” helicopter could be grounded for repairs, leaving the county with no hoist/rescue capable aircraft.
A second engine to match the replacement engine for the motor that failed has to be purchased because, according to sheriff’s department captain Shannon Dicus, “In order for the helicopter to operate safely, both engines must be compatible so failure of even a single engine requires replacement of both engines. The requested purchase of two new engines and a gear box from Pratt & Whitney is necessary in order to return this helicopter to service. It is imperative, therefore, that the sheriff return the Bell 212 to service as soon as possible in an effort to balance the workload, ensure the longevity of these aircraft and be responsive to public safety needs.”
The board of supervisors authorized the county’s purchasing agent to issue a purchase order to Pratt & Whitney Services Inc., in the amount of $1,530,958.32 for the purchase of two engines and one gearbox, including a core exchange of two engines and one gearbox from the sheriff’s department Bell 212 helicopter, which included a fleet enhancement agreement with Pratt & Whitney Services Inc.
The sheriff’s department solicited competitive bids for the purchase of the engines and gearbox. Pratt & Whitney had the lowest cost proposal, which included a year-end price discount and core exchange of the existing engines and gearbox. Pratt & Whitney’s discounted price was originally to expire on December 31, 2014, but the company agreed to extend the price until January 6, 2015, on which date the board of supervisors gave approval to the purchase.
Pratt & Whitney’s liability is limited to the cost of the engines and gearbox, which includes damages that may be related to Pratt & Whitney’s omission or negligence. The warranty provisions exclude coverage for Uniform Commercial Code implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for purpose.
The product warranty is for a period of five years or 1,000 flight hours. The warranty can be voided due to factors beyond Pratt & Whitney’s control, including the engine being used in a manner that Pratt & Whitney deems to have compromised the parts life or reliability.
The total cost to repair and upgrade the Bell 212 is estimated at $2.4 million and will, according to Dicus, “extend the life of the helicopter for 10 – 15 years.”
In addition to the Pratt & Whitney purchase, the helicopter will also require a new transmission, the cost of which is estimated at $400,000, and retrofitting and installation services, estimated at $500,000.
The sources of funding for the upgrade include $300,000 from the sheriff’s department budgetary savings, $1.5 million in additional Proposition 172 sales tax revenue as the result of a one-time adjustment from the state of California, with the remainder funded with AB 109 revenues in excess of amounts included in the 2014-15 budget.

(January 20) Two school officials in the Barstow area were arrested this month in separate incidents relating to improper and unlawful sexual relations with minors.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit arrested and booked Kristen Kay Blanton, a secretary at Barstow Christian School, on January 12 for allegedly engaging in sexual acts with a teenage student who attended Barstow Christian.
The sheriff’s department began investigating the matter on January 11, and by the following day had enough information to arrest Blanton, 37, on belief that she had sexual relations with a male student, who is now 14. She has been placed on unpaid leave by Barstow Christian School.
Barstow Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Academy Principal Mark Lesley Hall was arrested by Barstow Police on January 16 on suspicion of engaging in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl identified only as a Barstow Unified School district student.
The police department began looking into an allegation that Hassell was involved with the student on January 13, interviewing the student and gathering further information, which led to the issuance of an arrest warrant on Friday, Janaury 16.
Both Blanton and Hassell were able to immediately post bail. Neither has been charged by the district attorney’s office.

I love my adopted country. Despite the negative attitude of some in the international community with regard to America and all she stands for and the outright jealousy of an equal or greater number of others, I can tell you that the United States of America is, on balance, the object of admiration and envy the world over. In fact, I can make a case that no one can appreciate America more than a non-American, since natural born Americans themselves do not have the perspective of seeing up close or living intimately with the disadvantages that the citizens of many other countries are born into. Without having that comparison as a guidepost, one cannot see the opportunity that befalls every American as a birthright…
Nevertheless, it never ceases to astound me how out of touch some elements of American governance are with the reality over which they have authority. To put it rather bluntly, certain of our rulers in this country are unworthy of the honor that has been bestowed upon them. There are too many examples of this, in my opinion, and I could expend the rest of the too few days left me on this earth holding forth on just the ones I know about. For the sake of brevity, I will dwell on just one case in point, that of the board of trustees for the Rialto Unified School District…
For over a year now, Mohammad Islam, who was formerly that district’s associate superintendent of business services, has been serving in the capacity of acting, or interim, superintendent. He was appointed to that position after former Rialto Unified Superintendent Harold Cebrun was placed on administrative leave as a consequence of the scandal involving Judith Oakes, the district’s accounting official who it has now been confirmed embezzled $1.8 million in proceeds from the district’s school lunch program over the five year period between 2008 and 2013. Oakes is suspected of having embezzled another $1.4 million from the lunch program between 2001 and 2007.
Miss Oakes might still be pilfering money from the district if it had not been for Mr. Islam paying attention to detail and following up on what he observed and reacting appropriately and forthrightly. There is some evidence to suggest that Miss Oakes and Mr. Cebrun, to use the vernacular, “had a thing going,” although Mr. Cebrun has denied that was so…
Whatever the truth about the relationship between Mr. Cebrun and Ms. Oakes, who had been stealing money from the district prior to Mr. Cebrun being hired by Rialto Unified in 2009, she felt comfortable continuing to do so after Mr. Cebrun was in place as the head of the district. During Mr. Cebrun’s tenure as superintendent, the videorecording system that was in place to monitor the counting of money from district enterprises such as the lunch program was inoperable. Whether that was by design or chance is not clear…
Within a year of his hiring as associate superintendent of business services, Mr. Islam took notice of the numbers running through those various accounts. Looking at the numbers of students, the numbers of meals, the cost of preparing those meals, the income and the outgo, Mr. Islam saw that the numbers did not scan, and he sensed that something was not quite right. He acted sensibly and bravely. He did not inform Mr. Cebrun of his suspicions. Rather, he risked his own personal position by arranging to have the video recording system in the money counting room reactivated…
The result of that action is now well known. Moving images of Miss Oakes stuffing money into her bodice were captured on that video recorder. She was arrested and prosecuted and has pleaded guilty to embezzling the earlier reference $1.8 million and has been sentenced to five years in state prison. Last year, after six months on paid leave, Cebrun retired…
The school board this week signaled its intent to bring in a permanent replacement for Mr. Cebrun, voting unanimously to pay the La Quinta-based firm of Leadership Associates $26,500 to carry out a search and recruitment for a new superintendent…
I hope I am not the only observer bothered by the school board’s action. They already have an ideal candidate for superintendent. They need search no further. They can save the district $26,500 by rescinding the contract with Leadership Associates and simply dropping the qualifier “interim” from Mr. Islam’s title…
Need I spell out my rationale? Mr. Islam has already demonstrated his competence. In the relatively short period of time that he was with the district, he recognized a problem that previous superintendents, assistant superintendents, finance managers, accountants and accounting firms had consistently missed for over a decade. He met the problem head on with no shillyshallying. He stuck his own neck out on behalf of the students of the district and their taxpaying parents. What would have happened to Mr. Islam if Mr. Cebrun had learned he had gone behind his back to reinitiate the video recording and was in touch with authorities outside the district? Mr. Islam got to the root of the issue…
I know that some will say that even though Mr. Islam is an astute bean counter and he acted properly in this instance, he is not necessarily qualified to lead the school district for the next decade or more. After all, they will point out, Rialto Unified is an academic institution, or a collection of academic institutions, and its ultimate director should be a serious academic…
My response to that is Mohammad Islam is a serious academic. He studied the situation in the Rialto district more intently than anyone else. He is obviously bright, sensitive, disciplined, well-trained and educated, not to mention resourceful. But more than that, he is committed and brave. He may not have a doctorate in education. But he possesses an intangible quality the previous superintendent, the other assistant superintendents and the entirety of the school board lack: situational awareness, the ability to recognize the challenges the organization faces and the will and courage to take on and defeat those challenges…
Is there anyone who will suggest that Mr. Islam will not reach within himself or move beyond himself to make the Rialto Unified School District live up to its mission of educating the young minds of Rialto and prepare them for dealing with the world? I, for one, am confident Mr. Islam, if he does not possess the expertise to address certain issues facing the district, will reach out to network with those who do possess that expertise. Instead of wasting money trying to find something they already have, the school board’s members should see the opportunity that lies before them, prove themselves worthy of the honor of authority that has been bestowed upon them and promote Mohammad Islam to the position of superintendent, post haste. They have done much worse in the past…

(January 21) Alfred Villalobos, the figure at the center of the California Public Employees Retirement System bribery scandal that ensnared the pension fund’s former chief executive, apparently committed suicide last week.
Villalobos, a Nevada businessman who was set to go to trial next month on charges that he bribed California Public Employees Retirement Fund Chief Executive Officer Fred Buenrostro, is believed to have fatally shot himself in the head January 13 at an indoor shooting range in Reno, according to Reno police.
The scandal which involved Villalobos and Buenorostro first broke in 2009, and has continued to unwind. Buenrostro has admitted receiving over $250,000 in bribes and hush money from Villalobos and is scheduled to be sentenced in May.
Though Buenrostro referred to each other as “friends,” Buenrostro was to be called upon to testify against Villalobos when his matter came to trial, elucidating details of how Villalobos made payments to him while he was brokering investments on behalf of the California Public Employees Retirement System. Those bribes to Buenrostro were intended to gain favor for the clients of Villarobos’ investment firm.
Villalobos had been a board member for the California Public Employees Retirement Board in the early 1990s, which led to his association with Buenrostro. Subsequent to his departure from the retirement system’s board, Villalobos worked Sacramento assiduously as a representative of Apollo Global Management and other hedge funds and private equity firms. In this capacity Villalobos sought investment dollars from the big pension fund. He found both Buenrostro and another board member, Charles Valdes, receptive to his approach In one eight month period, between August 2007 and April 2008, the California Public Employees Retirement System invested approximately $3 billion in several Apollo funds. As a broker on those transactions, Villalobos and his firm ARVCO Capital Research received $14 million in placement fees.
According to assistant U.S. attorney Timothy Lucey, who was prosecuting Villalobos, Villalobos gave Buenrostro more than $250,000 in bribes, including $200,000 in cash delivered in three installments at the Hyatt hotel across the street from the State Capitol in 2007. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Villalobos fed Buenrostro’s gambling addiction, covering an unspecified amount of his losses believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at Lake Tahoe and Reno casinos for nearly a decade. Villalobos paid for Buenrostro’s wedding and treated Buenrostro and Valdes to an all-expenses-paid vacation to Europe and Asia in 2006. Later, according to Lucey, when investigators were zeroing in on Villalobos’ activity, he wrote Buenrostro a $50,000 check in an effort to dissuade him from being candid with those investigators.
Villalobos’s corruption of Buenrostro was of some moment, in that in recent years California has been beset by a public employee pension fund crisis in which taxpayers have been called upon to bail out the California Public Employees Retirement System by making ever larger payments into the system to cover staggeringly high pensions for its members.
California Public Employee Retirement System officials have attempted to downplay the impact of the Buenrostro/Villalobos scandal, maintaining that Buenrostro’s management of the pension fund showed a consistent profit.
The California Public Employee Retirement System commissioned a report by Washington securities lawyer Philip Khinda. Khinda concluded that Villalobos’ bribes had not steered any pension fund dollars to his clients, but noted his work probably interfered with the system’s negotiators’ autonomy and enabled the investment firms to get more favorable rates. This probably cost CalPERS millions of dollars in additional management fees paid to those firms, according to the Khinda report.
Villalobos’ death was not instantly disclosed. In fact, it caught prosecutors completely by surprise. When they appeared in court for a hearing related to a request by the defense to delay Villalobos’ trial, Villalobos’ lawyer, Bruce Funk, told the judge Villalobos had died. Lucey, unprepared for that announcement, according to courtroom observers, “rushed” from the courtroom without any further input.

By Mark Gutglueck and Ruth Musser Lopez
One of the truly towering figures of San Bernardino County history is Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés, a Spanish Franciscan friar who was among a secondary wave of early European explorers of the Southwest.
As a missionary and explorer in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain in the 18th Century, he gave the Colorado River its name. His travels covered a significant portion of North America, including present day Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, and the U.S. states of Arizona and Southern California. His death, along with those of his companion friars, by a group of Native Americans he was seeking to convert, led to his being declared a martyr by the Catholic Church, and he is at present a candidate for sainthood.
Born April 12, 1738, in Morata de Jalón, Aragon, north-central Spain. Garcés entered the Franciscan Order about 1758 and was ordained a priest in 1763 in Spain.
Garcés was dispatched by the Church to New Spain, present day Mexico, where he served at the Franciscan college of Santa Cruz in Querétaro. In an effort to exert greater control of his dominions, the Spanish king in 1768 expelled the Jesuits from their extensive mission system in northwestern New Spain, which included present-day Baja California, northwestern Mexico, and the southwestern United States, replacing them with Franciscans. Garcés, who was among the Franciscan replacements, was assigned to Mission San Xavier del Bac in the Sonoran Desert, near present-day Tucson, Arizona.
The expulsion and departure of the Jesuits by the King of Spain had a dynamic and far-reaching effect on the existing missions and prompted an even more energetic mission outreach effort The missions in the Sonoran Desert in the present-day Mexican state of Sonora and those in the current day U.S. state of Arizona fell at once under the authority of the Franciscans from the college of Santa Cruz in Querétaro. More significantly, the exchange of authority over the Spanish New World mission system resulted in the ascendancy of Father Junipero Serra, who was among the Franciscans from the college of San Fernando in Mexico City assigned to replace the Jesuits in the Baja California missions of the lower Las Californias Province.
Serra’s energetic presence and leadership of the Baja California Franciscans had a dramatic effect in the expansion of Spanish and Catholic influence northward as he took seriously the assignment, given in 1769, to increase Spanish presence in the unsettled upper Las Californias Province, otherwise referred to as Alta California, i.e., present day California. In 1773, control of the Baja California missions was transferred to the Dominican friars, while the creation of new missions was entrusted to the Franciscans. The Viceroy of New Spain and local Franciscans recognized the importance of establishing an overland connection between upper Las Californias and central New Spain – for defense, trade, and travel – through the Sonoran Desert, crossing the lower Colorado River and the Colorado Desert, and through the peninsular ranges to the Alta California missions and presidios (forts) in the new coast region.
Garcés became a key player in this effort, conducting extensive explorations in the Sonoran, Colorado, and Mojave Deserts, the Gila River, and the Colorado River from the Gulf of California and Lower Colorado River Valley to the Grand Canyon.
In 1768, he explored the Gila and Colorado River Valleys, both down the Colorado to the Gulf of California and up it to the Grand Canyon and overland to several Hopi villages.
Garcés provided a wealth of information for later historians, anthropologists and archeologists as he made copious recordings of his encounters with Native American tribes, among them the Quechan, Mojave, Hopi, and Havasupai, in their desert and riparian valley homelands. Throughout this, he remained true to the overarching mission of establishing and maintaining cordial relations for the Spanish Crown.
Many journeys he took were explorations on his own initiative and peril into the vast desert regions.
He accompanied soldier-explorer Juan Bautista de Anza part way in both his large overland expeditions: the 1774 De Anza Expedition – first to reach Alta California’s Pacific coast from the east; and the 1775-76 Anza Colonizing Expedition, which traveled as far north as San Francisco Bay. The route Garcés took from the Colorado River across the Mojave Desert is known to four-wheel-drive adventurers today as the Mojave Road.
The 1774 De Anza Expedition made its way through what is present day San Bernardino County.
Here follows a passage, translated by Brigadier General (USMC Retired) Maurice G. Holmes, from Father Garcés’ diary:
“In continuation of the reports which Lieutenant Colonel Don Juan Bautista de Anza has sent you, it has occurred to me (improving the occasion of sending for wine in order to say Mass) to inform you how I have come down this river passing through the tribes, Cajuenches, Tallicuamais or Quiguimas, and Cucarpa. I came to the ocean where I observed and tasted the water besides noting the flood and ebb of the tides as I told you in my diary.”
The passage continues, “The Indians of the sierra gave me accounts of the priests in both Californias, Upper and Lower. The three nations or groups of people who inhabit this river line down to the sea have received me as I had not expected, showing me all the courtesies they possibly could, although the Cucapa [sic] were at war and very sad on account of their great losses. These had been inflicted upon them by the Yumas, Cajuenches, and Tallicuamais but, thank God, the joy of peace has been attained. This very day, Palma tells me that some Indians will come in here who formerly were enemies.”
“All the four nations aforesaid, and the Pimas and the Cocomaricopas from the Gila River, are awaiting with pleasure and great eagerness the coming of the priests and the Spaniards to their country, as they have told me repeatedly,” The diary passage continues. “Their land is well-suited to the production of every sort of grain. In the greater portion, especially along the Colorado, it is adapted to raising cattle and horses. Although with respect to the location of towns, this Colorado terrain does not offer the greatest advantages due to widespread overflowing of the river, yet, some tablelands adaptable for town locations are not lacking. So it is, that in some areas, plantings will have to be made on the other side of the stream.”
The passage concludes, “I hope that God our Lord may grant me the same felicity among the nations upstream to which, God willing, I intend to start out soon.”
In 1775, Garcés, became the first European to meet the native inhabitants of eastern San Bernardino County, the Mojave Indians.
On his pioneering missionary journey up the Colorado River in 1776 Garcés christened the Mojave (Aha Macav) rancherias and farming community there “Santa Isabel.” More than a century later, in the 1880s railroad officials renamed the area Needles in reference to the sharp prominent peaks to the south.
According to Garces’ diary, farming communities had been established well prior to European contact with the Americas, and this has been verified by other archaelogical evidence, including radio carbon dating of the remains of preserved corn kernels to indicate maize was being cultivated via incipient farming technology in San Bernardino County for over 2,000 years.
Two members of the Mojave tribe accompanied Garcés on his journey to the coast. Garcés’s route took him through lands occupied by the seasonally migratory Chemehuevi. He documented in his diary in considerable detail his encounters with the Chemehuevi, and described the route now known as the Mojave Road.
In 1779 Garcés and Juan Diaz established two mission churches on the lower Colorado River at Yuma Crossing, as part of a new pueblo), in the homeland of the Quechan peoples, known also as the Yuma or Kwítsaín. Garcés endeavored to keep peace between all parties. The formerly peaceful rapport with the Quechan was lost due to Spanish settlers violating the treaty with the native peoples, such as seizing their crops and farmlands.
On July 17, 1781, Diaz and Padre Juan de Barreneche were killed during the first day of hostilities involved in a civil resistance uprising at the Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer, known as the Yuma Uprising and Yuma Revolt. Two days later,on July 19, 1781, Garcés and José Moreno were killed in the latter part of the same uprising.
Garcés’ body was later reinterred at Mission San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama. He and the other friars killed at those missions are considered martyrs by the Catholic Church.

Coyote melon is known by its scientific name Cucurbita palmata and a host of other common names, including the coyote gourd, coyote ear, buffalo gourd, stinking melon, calabazilla, or chilicote. It was first identified by Sereno Watson in 1876. They grow in the Mojave Desert and other areas of the southwest and northwestern Mexico, along the edge of washes and over rocks and shrubs. Thriving during the desert’s summer monsoon season, the plant features a sprawling vine with rough, stiff-haired stems and dark green, light-veined palmate triangular pointed five fingered leaves with grasping tendrils, producing large and stiff orange-yellow trumpet shaped flowers two-and-a-half to three inches wide and then a striped green fruit, roughly three-and-a-half to four inches wide which ages to yellow when ripe.
As appetizing as the coyote melon looks, its flesh is extremely bitter. This pulp, which is the placental attachment for the seeds contains cucurbitacins, which rank as the most bitter substances ever encountered. The seeds, however, are highly nutritious and can be eaten, but only after being thoroughly cleaned of the pulp and roasted. if any pulp clings to the seeds, they will be inedible, even if roasted. The pulp in any form acts as an emetic if swallowed, as the human digestive tract finds it so offensive that it almost convulsively pass the cucurbitacins out, either up or down, absolutely cleansing the digestive tract.
Despite the human aversion for the pulp of this squash, some animals have an affinity for the seeds and will put up with the bitter taste of the pulp to get to them. Coyotes in particular will eat them. Thus the name for these melons.
In prehistory, apparently, the coyote melon had its fans. In The Ghosts of Evolution, Connie Barlow states that Mastodons ate them. Rhinoceroses, which will tolerate very bitter foods, will eat them.
Because the coyote melon hybridizes readily, it presents a threat to other types of edible gourds and squash. As every type of squash depend upon bees which feed upon the nectar of their flowers for the transference of pollen from male to female flowers, the coyote melon pollen sometimes is planted on the female flowers of edible squashes. The offspring of such a match carries a bitter taste.
The coyote melon does well in hot, arid regions with low rainfall, preferring soil that is loose, gravelly and well-drained.

You can download a PDF of the January 16 San Bernardino County Sentinel by clicking on the portal below.

Sentinel 01-16-15

By Mark Gutglueck
(January 13) Investigators with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office prevailed upon several county employees to record their conversations with their colleagues in an effort to gather evidence and political and operational leverage.
The Sentinel has obtained transcripts and documentation showing that three current or former county employees were wearing “wires” during face-to-face encounters with their colleagues while interacting with them in county offices or otherwise recorded phone conversations with their employers, who were elected officials.
There are further indications that other county officials, including the county’s former highest ranking staff member, were engaged in an effort to compile information implicating both elected county officials and other county employees in wrongdoing or criminal activity, apparently at the behest of the district attorney’s office.
Bill Postmus, who was elected First District Supervisor in 2000 and served in that capacity until his resignation in January 2007 to assume the position of county assessor following the November 2006 election, had employed Paula Nowicki as his deputy chief of staff throughout his six year run as supervisor. Paula Nowicki was the wife of Dennis Nowicki, one-time Hesperia mayor and councilman. As a couple, the Nowickis had been instrumental in supporting Postmus when as a 29-year-old he began his meteoric political rise with his defeat of Kathy Davis as supervisor in 2000. When Postmus stepped down as supervisor to become assessor, he was able to persuade the board to appoint his chief of staff, Brad Mitzelfelt, to succeed him as supervisor. Postmus flirted with the idea of having Paula Nowicki accompany him to the assessor’s office to become assistant assessor until Mitzelfelt upon becoming supervisor immediately appointed Paula Nowicki as his chief of staff.
Upon becoming assessor, Postmus hired Wanda Nowicki, Paula and Dennis Nowicki’s daughter-in-law, to serve as his executive secretary. Postmus created a second assistant assessor’s position, and then filled both with two of his political associates, Jim Erwin, a former sheriff’s deputy union president, and Adam Aleman, a then-23-year-old friend he had previously employed as a field representative when he was supervisor.
Neither Postmus, nor Aleman nor Erwin had any experience in assessing property for tax purposes. Rather, Harlow Cameron and Dan Harp, two of the assessor’s offices most experienced employees under former assessor Don Williamson, provided much of the operational guidance during Postmus’s first year in office.
Aleman, in particular, was unqualified for the position he held. Moreover, he occupied himself with a whole host of political activities relating to the promotion of Republican candidates and causes during normal business hours while utilizing the assessor’s office’s facilities and equipment.
On August 8, 2007, the public integrity unit within the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office received a complaint, which according to district attorney’s office investigator Maury Weiss, originally emanated from the board of supervisors but which was routed through county counsel’s office. That complaint alleged Postmus and a consultant to the assessor’s office, Mike Richman, were misusing the county’s email system and were using county facilities to engage in partisan political advocacy. Richman likewise had no experience assessing property but had been given by Postmus a questionable $49,200 contract for less than clearly defined work. Shortly thereafter, Erwin resigned as assistant assessor and he went before the county grand jury, which had begun looking into improper political activity in the assessor’s office. Erwin provided a statement to the effect that he had informed Postmus and Aleman about political activity Richman was engaged in during working hours at the assessor’s office but that Aleman and Postmus “didn’t care” about the reports and took no action, according to an affidavit later written by Weiss. Subsequently, investigators for the district attorney’s office subpoenaed minutes from the assessor’s office’s executive staff meetings. Aleman provided those minutes to investigators. Upon speaking with Nowicki, who had compiled those minutes, investigators learned that Aleman had, according to Wanda Nowicki, “ordered her to alter certain minutes of the assessor’s office executive staff meetings.”
Two slightly different versions of those minutes were eventually located, though the significance of the alterations is not apparent. In an effort to ascertain Aleman’s motive for having Nowicki alter the documents and perhaps implicate himself in some order of criminal wrongdoing, investigators had Wanda Nowicki outfitted with an electronic recording device. The precise nature of what Nowicki was able to capture on those recordings has not been publicly revealed. Nor is it known whether any of the statements Aleman uttered to Nowicki had any prosecutorial value. Aleman was subsequently arrested and charged, ultimately pleading no contest to two felony counts of theft, destruction, alteration, or falsification of a public document, one felony count of presenting a false claim to a public board or officer, and one felony count of vandalism.
In something of an ironic twist, investigators prevailed Aleman to have him engage in conversations with targets of their various investigations, either in person or over the phone, which were surreptitiously recorded. Investigators provided Aleman with a digital voice recording device, which he used to record every conversation he had with Postmus from late November 2008 until April 2010.
Transcripts or portions thereof of some of those recorded conversations have been obtained by the Sentinel.
On January 21, 2009, Aleman had a conversation with John “Dino” DeFazio, one of Postmus’s political associates who was chairman, at least on paper, of the Inland Empire Political Action Committee. Prosecutors would later develop a theory, which was then wrapped into an indictment, that Postmus secretly controlled the Inland Empire Political Action Committee. Prosecutors would subsequently allege that Postmus was using the Inland Empire Political Action Committee to launder bribes and that DeFazio was assisting him. In the January 21, 2009 conversation, Aleman can be heard attempting to inveigle DeFazio into a discussion of Postmus’s drug use.
The district attorney’s office in 2009 attempted to use Aleman as a window into the world of Bill Postmus. The previous year, in August 2008, Postmus had gone missing for nearly two months, leaving the top position in the assessor’s office essentially vacant. This departure came about at first with no explanation. Later, a vague statement relating to his being under medical care was trotted out for public consumption. Rumors manifested at once, at first in the form of suggestions that he was dealing with an addiction problem. A published report, which the Postmus camp refused to comment on or confirm, was that he was undergoing rehab. Postmus returned to his office in October, spurning all efforts to be engaged on why he had taken his extended hiatus. The board of supervisors, which had begun an inquiry into the matter, in November 2008 censured Postmus. Then, at the first board of supervisors meeting in 2009 on January 6, Postmus came before the board of supervisors and acknowledged that he had indeed been in rehab, battling he said, “the scourge of methamphetamine addition,” against which he said he had “successfully struggled.” That very public mea culpa left many people believing Postmus had indeed put that problem behind him. But nine days later, on January 15, 2009, investigators with the district attorney’s office served upon Postmus’s Rancho Cucamonga condominium a search warrant issued as a consequence of the investigation into allegations of malfeasance in the assessor’s office, finding methamphetamine, ecstasy and drug paraphernalia. On February 6, 2009, he resigned as assessor.
In the days and weeks thereafter, Postmus again disappeared and the district attorney’s office investigators turned to Aleman to assist them in keeping tabs on the former assessor. Postmus, who had gone into virtual seclusion, was communicating with only a limited number of his former associates.
In particular, the investigators wanted to know whether Postmus was still using drugs.
The Sentinel has obtained the transcript of a recorded conversation between Aleman and San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office Investigator Hollis “Bud” Randles on February 8, 2010. That transcript reads, in part: “Randles: So you say Bill seems to be lucid or he does not?
Aleman: He seems – seems to be lucid, but he doesn’t seem to be as sharp as he does, he was in the past. So I really can’t say whether he’s on drugs or not. I really, really can’t tell. He does seem a bit more jittery and, uh, paranoid.”
In another transcript of a recorded phone conversation between Aleman and Randles on April 15, 2010, Aleman tells Randles, “Bud, I think he’s been hitting it hard, the drugs, again.”
A few weeks later, the investigators set their sights on two other elected officials – supervisors Paul Biane and Gary Ovitt. Intent on tracking down any evidence to support reports that they too had received bribes, the investigators focused on political action committees with which the two supervisors were associated, through which it was thought Biane and Ovitt might be laundering those bribes. While in the case of Postmus, one of those political action committees had been represented as being under the control of his personal, professional and political associate Dino DeFazio, in the cases of Biane and Ovitt the investigators were intrigued by the action of their respective chiefs of staff, Matt Brown and Mark Kirk. Brown had a demonstrated pattern of creating political action committees for any of a host of political causes, candidates or campaigns he was involved with. One of those in particular, the San Bernardino County Young Republicans, was of special interest to the investigators because money intended for Biane had been deposited into it. Kirk created a PAC of his own, dubbed the Alliance For Ethical Government Political Action Committee. That entity appeared to be a holding entity for funds to be used by Ovitt and Kirk, who had political ambition of his own. Having developed the theory that these political action committees were actually fund laundering vehicles secretly controlled by Biane and Ovitt, the district attorney’s office investigators – Maury Weiss, Hollis Randles and Robert Schreiber – quietly and out of the view of the public approached Brown and Kirk. They used essentially the same tactics on both, telling them solemnly that their fundraising activity on behalf of the politicians who employed them had long been under suspicion and scrutiny and that the district attorney’s office had already accumulated enough evidence to convict them – Brown and Kirk – of conspiracy, aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering. The only hope they had of avoiding being criminally charged, Brown and Kirk were told, was to cooperate with the investigation and assist in putting a case together against their respective bosses – Biane and Ovitt.
Blindsided by this psychological onslaught, Brown and Kirk reacted differently. Sensing he was being bluffed and stampeded, Kirk insisted on being allowed to consult with an attorney before saying anything. Panicked, Brown entered into a dialogue with the investigators, forgoing his opportunity to lawyer up. After being provided assurances that he would be given immunity from prosecution, Brown agreed to wear a recording device and see if he could get Biane to speak freely about certain things and, in so doing, implicate himself.
For almost a year, Brown surreptitiously recorded nearly all of his conversations with Biane as well as others on Biane’s staff. In late 2009, investigators even prevailed upon Brown to take stab at reestablishing contact with Postmus and see if he could, in his dialogues with him draw out any further information about improper political activity in the assessor’s office, money having changed hands, bribes paid or efforts to launder illicit funds through political action committees and what Postmus might know about Biane’s actions in this regard.
In some of the recorded exchanges with Postmus, the degree to which he is besotted with drugs is apparent, his utterances replete with non-sequiturs and strings of essentially nonsensical gibberish in response to Brown’s statements and Brown’s sometimes subtle and at other times not-so-subtle probing.
On November 24, 2009, this exchange between Brown and Postmus is reflected in one of the transcripts:
“Brown: You have this internal conflict on your staff with your two top people. At the same time you are on drugs and not of sound mind.
Postmus: Yes, Yes. Yes. Yes. That was real good, wasn’t it?
Brown: It was a nice, dysfunctional, uh…
Postmus: It sounds like a county operation, doesn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. That was…that was real swift, right? Ugh, yeah, don’t remind me about it.”
In February 2010, Postmus was indicted and charged with soliciting and accepting bribes, conspiracy, conflict of interest, and perjury. Biane was not indicted nor named, nor was Kirk. But they were among five unnamed John Does identified as unidicted co-conspirators in that indictment, whose identities could be pieced together by the events described in the indictment. In April 2010, Biane began to suspect that his chief of staff was cooperating with the district attorney’s office.
There ensued strained relations between the two, and Brown was put on paid leave after he filed a claim in which he alleged he was being harassed. Brown was then transferred to the county treasurer/auditor-controller office under Larry Walker. Walker installed Brown as his second-in-command, i.e. as the assistant auditor-controller.
Brown remains in place as Walker’s chief assistant. Kirk and Biane have since been indicted. Kirk is charged with having accepted bribe money into his political action committee. Biane is charged with having received bribe money placed into the political action committee Brown created. Despite Brown having engaged in activity that is nearly identical to that engaged in by Kirk, Brown has not been indicted or charged with any crime.
Former county chief administrative officer Mark Uffer was the county’s top administrator from 2004 until 2009, and held that position during most of the time frame in which Wanda Nowicki, Adam Aleman and Matt Brown were being tasked by the district attorney’s office to carry out their surreptitious recordings. While no audio recordings by Uffer have surfaced, it is known that Uffer was engaged in another form of electronic surveillance targeting members of the board of supervisors as well as other county employees.
In 2009, then-supervisors Gary Ovitt, Neil Derry and Brad Mitzelfelt voted to terminate Uffer as county administrative officer, the post corresponding with what is today known as the county chief administrative officer. That sacking was opposed by then-supervisor Paul Biane and supervisor Josie Gonzales. Ovitt, Derry and Mitzelfelt cited no official cause in removing Uffer. One major reason for his firing, the Sentinel has learned, was that the supervisors had discovered that Uffer had used his authority as the county government’s top staffer and his command over the county’s information technology division to have all order of emails from, to and between various high ranking county elected officials and employees routed to him. He then reposited those emails into a folder he created, thereby providing himself with what he thought was material that would assure his continued tenure as county administrative officer.
The extent to which Uffer was encouraged by the district attorney’s office to “make book” upon the members of the board of supervisors and other high ranking employees is unclear. What is known is that at least some of the information he accumulated was eventually obtained by the district attorney’s office.
Whether Uffer was acting on his own initiative entirely or with the guidance and blessing of the district attorney’s office, upon learning that he was putting himself into a position to potentially blackmail members of the board of supervisors and other high ranking county officials, Ovitt, Derry and Mitzelfelt became sufficiently uncomfortable with the situation to push them into terminating Uffer.