(October 21)  One illustration of the contrast between metropolitan Los Angeles/surrounding Los Angeles County and its little brother to the east, San Bernardino/surrounding San Bernardino County, played out this week at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors meeting when the board took up the issue of food truck regulation.
Food trucks, it seems, are a quintessentially Southern California phenomenon. While lunch trucks have existed for over a half century, the concept was reinvented and enlarged upon in a major way just a decade ago, when the idea of vending cuisine from a truck took hold.
A pioneer in this movement was Roy Choi, who immigrated to America from Korea with his parents at the age of two in 1972. After graduating from California State University at Fullerton with a degree in philosophy and attending Western State University School of Law for a semester, Choi abandoned all that book learning for something immediately practical: the art of food preparation.  He started with watching chef Emeril Lagasse’s television show and then took a culinary class at a local night school. In 1996, Choi transferred to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and then served as an intern chef at Le Bernardin in New York City. A relatively few years later Choi had become the chef de cuisine at the Beverly Hilton. He would later hold similar posts with the Embassy Suites in Lake Tahoe and the Rock Sugar Pan Asian Kitchen in Los Angeles. Growing bored with  four and five star cooking that catered to the upper crust, Choi made a radical transition, preparing his particular brand of food, one that a style fuses Mexican and Korean flavors and dishes, and selling it from a food truck which he typically parked on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. In  2008 he took his show onto the road and began parking the truck outside nightclubs on Sunset Boulevard late at night, selling Mexican tacos stuffed with Korean-style meat. His approach was so successful it spawned literally hundreds and then thousands of imitators. The city and county of Los Angeles rushed to accommodate the new business phenomenon, and by 2010 there were 4,000 licensed catering trucks operating in Los Angeles County, including 200 “specialty” trucks which featured high end  five star cuisine surpassing the typical fare in most restaurants and rivaling that available in the finest restaurants in the city. This created controversy, as the established “brick and mortar” restaurants saw first their profitability and eventually their survival as being threatened.  The restaurant establishment and the politicians who were answerable to them began to pound back and soon a round of efforts to intensify the regulations on food trucks were served up. Many of those, as would be logically anticipated, were aimed at the health related issues pertaining to the trucks, sanitation, refrigeration, etc. In 2012, the Los Angeles City Council upped the effort to bring them to heel by using both land use and traffic considerations as operations restrictions. In one instance, the  trucks, characterized as “over-sized” were restricted  from parking on Wilshire Boulevard near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one of the most popular venues for the trucks, ostensibly as a means of increasing visibility for drivers in the area. The ordinance banned food trucks from parking along Wilshire, between Fairfax and La Brea between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
In Los Angeles, city officials see further restrictions and regulations on food trucks as a blow for the public good.
Some 59.7 miles to the east, in San Bernardino, the flow is away from regulation. A case in point is this week the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors took a second look at the ordinance it passed in 2012 regulating food trucks.
According to Tom Hudson, the director of San Bernardino County’s Land Use Services Department,  “Currently, Chapter 85.19 Food Truck Event Permits allows food trucks to operate only at designated, organized events at pre-approved fixed locations, subject to the operator obtaining an approved Food Truck Event Permits.  The code definition of a food truck event in Chapter 810.01 includes any food truck service, regardless of the number of attendees or location of the event. Currently no provisions exist in the code for small, incidental food truck uses. Employers, contractors and persons hosting private parties with a small number of attendees have expressed a concern that the food truck event permits process is too restrictive and costly. The proposed amendment to the code re-defines the minor food truck event and adds exemptions to the food truck event permits in order to address these concerns.”
Hudson continued, “This amendment to the code proposes to modify the definitions of major and minor food truck events to specify that only food truck events which are open to the public require permits. Private parties and other uses that are not open to the public are excluded from food truck event permitting. In addition, staff is recommending a minimum threshold of 100 attendees to require a permit. Therefore, an amendment is proposed to define the minor food truck event as an event for 100 to 499 persons. The major food truck event is defined as an event for 500 or more
persons. Public events for fewer than 100 persons would be comparable to a private event and, therefore, would not require a permit. This modification of permitting requirements applies only to the food truck event permits issued by the county land use services department. All existing requirements of the San Bernardino County Environmental Health Services Department with respect to inspection and permitting of food trucks relative to public health requirements remain in effect and are not affected by the proposed ordinance.”
The policy change applies to the county’s unincorporated areas. The trucks are subject to any applicable municipal regulations in cities that have put them in place. Many San Bernardino County cities have yet to regulate them.
The board directed staff to go even further in the liberalization of the regulations by looking into the consolidation of the food truck inspection process so that if a truck is given certification by the health departments in either Riverside or Los Angeles counties it will be deemed licensed in San Bernardino County.

San Bernardino County was a participant in Pacific Electric’s Red Car Line, the  privately owned mass transit system in Southern California that emanated from Los Angeles consisting of electrically powered streetcars, light rail that existed between 1901 and 1961. Ultimately, organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, by the 1920s it was the largest electric railway system in the world.
Electric trolleys first traveled in Los Angeles in 1887. In 1901, the Pacific Electric Railroad was by railroad executive Henry Huntington and banker Isaias W. Hellman after they had success developing a trolley system in San Francisco. Together, Huntington and Hellman purchased some existing rail lines in downtown Los Angeles, which they standardizes and organizes into one network called under the Los Angeles Railway.
They tasked engineer Epes Randolph to survey and lay out the company’s first lines which would be to Long Beach. The line to Long Beach opened for business in July 1902.
The enterprise involved not only passenger transportation but carrying of freight as well as supplying electric power to the communities along which the lines extended. Huntington and Hellman and their investors picked up large chunks of real estate along the way. A flling out between Huntington and Hellman occurred as the result of  Huntington’s insistence on reinvesting profits into costly expansion rather than paying any stockholder dividends. Consequently, the Hellman investment group sold their share of the company to E.H. Harriman, essentially trading Harriman’s Wells Fargo Bank to Hellman for his railroad holdings.
As partners Huntington and Harrington cooperated with regard to the Red Car venture but were wary of one another because Harrington did not want the line to interfere with his Southern Pacific line operations. In 1906, Moses Sherman sold his Los Angeles Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Electric picked up lines to Pasadena, San Fernando Valley and West LA.
Huntington sold out all his Pacific Electric stock to Harriman and in 1911 what was called the “Great Merger” took place as the Southern Pacific and Pacific Electric became a single operation, with all electrical operations now under the Pacific Electric name.
Shortly thereafter the Red Car line expanded eastward to Monrovia, Azusa, Pomona, Cucamonga Etiwanda, Fontana, Colton and Redlands, making the Pacific Electric the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in the world, with 2,160 daily trains over 1,000 miles of track.
In the late 1930s that the influential Automobile Club of Southern California engineered an elaborate plan to create an elevated freeway-type “Motorway System,” a key aspect of which was the dismantling of the streetcar lines, replacing them with buses that could run on both local streets and on the new express roads.
When the freeway system was planned in the 1930s the city planners planned to include light rail tracks in the center margin of each freeway but the plan was never implemented.
The Whittier and Fullerton was cut in 1938, Redondo Beach, Newport Beach, Sawtelle via San Vicente, and Riverside in 1940. When the San Bernardino Freeway opened in 1941 but was not yet connected to the Hollywood Freeway, while the “Four Way” overpass was being constructed, westbound car traffic from the SB freeway poured onto downtown streets near the present Union Station. PE’s multiple car trains coming and going from Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and Monrovia/Glendora used those same streets the final few miles to the 6th and Main PE terminal and were totally bogged down within this jammed traffic. Schedules could not be met, plus former patrons were now driving. The San Bernardino line, Pomona branch, Temple City branch via Alhambra’s Main St., San Bernardino’s Mountain View local to 34th St., Santa Monica Blvd. via Beverly Hills, and all remaining Pasadena local service were all cut in 1941.
The last vestige of the Red Car system into San Bernardino County was the  interurban Railroad post office service operated by Pacific Electric on its San Bernardino Line. This was inaugurated comparatively late, on September 2, 1947. It left LA’s Union Station interurban yard on the west side of the terminal turning north onto Alameda Street at 12:45 pm and San Bernardino at 4:40 pm, taking three hours for the trip. It did not operate on Sundays or holidays. This last Rrailroad post office was pulled off May 6, 1950.

(October 23)  Politics in the City of Gracious Living have proven less than gracious in the last fortnight. With eight candidates vying for three positions on the Upland City Council, determination, emotions, and tempers have run high, and the competition between the parties, seven of whom are running spirited campaigns, has been pitched.
As is typical in any electoral season, signs touting the various candidacies are visible all over the 15.6 square mile city of 73,732, having sprouted along the roadway vistas and intersections like toadstools at the base of a tree in a thick-growth forest after a spring rain.
A rash of vandalism to and theft of the signs has taken place over the last few weeks, with that activity intensifying in recent days.
At least three of incumbent councilman Gino Filippi’s signs, which were in prominent spots along Euclid Avenue last week, have gone missing.
Susan Berk, whose campaign has used a mix of four-foot by four-foot signs on heavy wood bases as well as smaller yard signs, was hit with the theft or destruction of ten of its signs around the city early this week.
Bill Schuessler told the Sentinel on Tuesday that nine or ten of his signs were removed, destroyed or taken early this week.
The candidate most heavily hectored by the sign thefts was Rod McAuliffe, who reported on Monday that nearly  50 of his signs had been removed or destroyed.
Reports of the thefts have been made to the police department in at least two of the cases, the Sentinel is informed.
Moreover, a private security camera in a residential neighborhood caught moving images of the removal of one of Schuessler’s signs.
Schuessler said that theft occurred sometime between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. in the morning of October 20. The perpetrator appears to be a young male,   Schuessler said. The video shows him taking the sign and placing it in a vehicle, Schuessler said. The video is clear enough for the make and model of the car to be discerned, Shuessler said.
Shuessler said the video has been provided to a forensic analyst capable of enhancing the images on the video even further.

(October 22)  The county and the sheriff’s department will charge the Victor Valley Union High School District over $130,000 for the services of a single school resource officer to work the Adelanto High School campus for the slightly more than six months of instructional time before the end of the current school year.
According to sheriff’s captain Shannon Dicus. “On September 18, 2014, the Victor Valley Union High
School District Board of Trustees approved the addition of a school resource officer to be assigned at Adelanto High School. School resource officers work closely with school administrators in an effort to create a safer environment for both students and staff. In addition to typical peace officer duties, School resource officers provide mentoring to students and conduct presentations on youth-related issues.”
The services provided by the resource officer will cost the taxpayers in the Victor Valley Union High School $968.94 per day.
The proposed contract provides revenue in the amount of $130,807 to provide a full-time deputy sheriff as a school resource officer for the balance of the school year. The rate charged provides full recovery of both the direct and indirect costs of this contract.
According to Dicus, “Services will be provided by existing staff; however, budget adjustments will be necessary cover anticipated overtime and equipment costs. The sheriff’s department will receive $130,807 for providing a school resource officer for the period of November 3, 2014 through May 29, 2015.  The proposed contract provides for school resource officer services at Adelanto High School for the remainder of the 2014-15 school year. This contract benefits the district by having a dedicated law enforcement presence on campus and the department is benefited by freeing up patrol deputies from having to respond to numerous issues on campus.”
Dicus told the Sentinel the $130,807 cost of providing the deputy’s services to the district reflects the annual $ 224,240.57 annual cost to the department of employing a single deputy.

(October 22)  Details relating to abrupt parting of the ways between the San Bernardino Public Employees Association and its general manager, Bob Blough in the summer of 2013, a development shrouded in some degree of mystery, have emerged with the association’s filing of a lawsuit against Blough on October 17.
According to San Bernardino Public Employees Association President Ron Dunn, during Blough’s tenure as general manager “money” was “unaccounted for and misappropriated by Mr. Blough,” action which Dunn said “cannot go ignored.”
The complaint against Blough, filed on behalf of the San Bernardino Public Employees Association (SBPEA) by attorneys Dennis Hayes and Michelle Hribar of the San Diego-based law firm of  Hayes & Cunningham, states “In 2013 SBPEA hired new auditors Ahern Adcock Devlin LLP. In June 2013, during its audit of SBPEA, Ahern Adcock Devlin discovered that there was a large disparity in the amount of SBPEA’s recorded cash receipts and the amount of deposits made to SBPEA’s bank account at Security Bank of California  The amount of SBPEA’s recorded cash receipts appeared to far exceed the amount of cash deposits that had been made.”
The lawsuit continues, “Ahern Adcock Devlin asked Blough to provide the keys to SBPEA’s safe, where presumably cash making up the difference between SBPEA’s cash receipts and cash deposits would be located. Blough reluctantly provided Ahern Adcock Devlin with the key to SBPEA’s safe. Upon review of the cash in SBPEA’s safe, Ahern Adcock Devlin found only approximately $40,000 in cash, which was far less than the amount of cash received by SBPEA that was not deposited in SBPEA’s bank account. SBPEA immediately placed Blough on administrative leave without pay and shortly thereafter, terminated Bough’s employment. SBPEA also terminated from employment Blough’s assistant, Jeannie Marquez.”
The association undertook a more extensive investigation of the matter after Blough had departed, according to the lawsuit.
“SBPEA then hired Ahern Adcock Devlin to perform an audit of SBPEA’s records for the time period from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2013, in order to assist SBPEA with its investigation of Blough and Marquez,” the lawsuit states. “On October 1, 2014, Devlin provided the final results of its audit to SBPEA.  Ahern Adcock Devlin’s audit revealed that between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2013, a total of $595,444.82 in cash received by SBPEA was missing because it was never deposited into SBPEA’s bank account and was not in SBPEA’s safe. SBPEA is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Blough misappropriated, converted, and embezzled cash in the amount of $595,444.82 from SBPEA.”
In addition, according to the lawsuit, there were other financial irregularities that occurred during Blough’s tenure as general manager.
“Ahern Adcock Devlin’s audit also revealed that during the time frame of July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2013, there were numerous charges on SBPEA’s credit cards, including those held in Blough’s name, which appeared to be personal-in-nature,” the suit states. “The purchases appearing to be personal-in-nature amount to $108,345.14. SBPEA is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that in addition to the $595,444.82 in cash, Blough also misappropriated, converted, and embezzled $109,345.14 of SBPEA’s funds by using SBPEA’s credit cards in order to pay for his own personal expenses.”
According to the suit, there were other questionable credit card expenses by Blough for storage units, tools, paper, grills and other supplies, which had no supporting documentation available.
According to the suit, “Blough intentionally concealed his misappropriation, conversion and embezzlement of funds from SBPEA’s executive committee and members. SBPEA is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that Blough falsified and altered SBPEA’s records in order to conceal his misappropriation, conversion, and embezzlement of funds from the SBPEA executive committee and members.”
Efforts to locate Blough for comment were unsuccessful.
The San Bernardino Public Employees Association represents and handles collective bargaining for over 11,000 employees working for San Bernardino County and 3,000 others working for 16 of the county’s cities – Barstow, Big Bear, Chino, Chino Hills, Colton Fontana, Hesperia, Loma Linda, Montclair, Needles, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto, San Bernardino, and Upland, as well as three cities in east Los Angeles County, Claremont, Pomona and West Covina, and Banning in Riverside County.

(October 21)  The board of supervisors this week approved a no-bid contract with an Illinois-based company for the purchase of a bus for the sheriff’s department to use to transport prisoners, including forays between detention facilities and back and forth from jail to court.
While modern busses used for passenger transport in the United States typically cost from $300,000 to $400,000, the bus San Bernardino County taxpayers are buying for the sheriff’s department will run more than $600,000.
A report dated October 21, 2014 ostensibly from sheriff John McMahon to the board of supervisors that was actually written by sheriff’s captain Shannon Dicus states “The sheriff’s department is requesting a non-competitive procurement with Motor Coach Industries in order to maintain a standardized fleet of jail buses. The department strives to replace inmate security transportation buses when they reach the one million mile mark. The department has worked to standardize its fleet of jail transportation buses and has found that Motor Coach Industries is a reasonably priced bus that meets its specifications required for reliable short and long distance prisoner transportation needs. The last purchase of inmate transportation buses was previously approved by the board of supervisors on November 27, 2012
The advantages of having a standardized fleet from Motor coach Industries include providing the drivers a more predictable operating environment with familiar controls and handling capabilities, which in turn increase safety while the buses are in operation. In addition to the capability of the Motor Coach Industries buses to carry twice as many people compared to other manufacturers, the department also saves time and money on the maintenance as mechanics and motor pool personnel can more predictably assess common maintenance issues without additional training, and take advantage of interchangeable parts and equipment. Motor coach Industries buses are also currently being used by San Diego County, Riverside County, Orange County, Los Angeles County, and the California Department of Corrections.  Security and reliability are the department’s highest priorities for bus design and the Motor Coach Industries bus has been specifically designed according to the department’s requirements and specifications. Motor Coach Industries jail transportation bus design features, maintenance record, reasonable price, and long life have made it a consistent replacement choice. Purchasing concurs with the non-competitive justification as the functionality of the bus provides a predictable operating environment with familiar controls and handling capabilities. The department is continually kept up to date on other manufacturers’ products and will competitively solicit when safety and other specifications can be met.”
Dicus told the Sentinel that the busses contain a number of features that are not available on typical busses. “It has a bathroom, which is necessary for prison runs to the northern part of the state,” Dicus said. “The busses have automatic transmissions, which fits with our effort to standardized them. The floor plan features internal security which allows us to separate high security inmates from other inmates. It has individual areas that can be secured.”
In compliance with the sheriff’s department recommendation, the board of supervisors authorized the county’s purchasing agent to issue a purchase order to Motor Coach Industries for one D4000 inmate security transportation bus in the amount of $603,058.59.

Botta’s pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae), which is also known as the valley pocket gopher is ahighly adaptable small mammal that has found a home, among, other places, in the expanses of San Bernardino County.
Botta’s pocket gopher is a medium-sized gopher, with adults reaching a length of  roughly seven to ten-and-a-half inches, including a two to two-and-a-half inch tail. Males are larger, with a weight of 5.6 to 8.8 ounces, compared with 4.2 to 7.1 ounces in the females. Coloration is highly variable, and has been used to help distinguish some of the many subspecies; it may also change over the course of a year as the animals molt. Both albino and melanistic individuals have also been reported. However, Botta’s gopher generally lacks the black stripe down the middle of the back found in the closely related southern pocket gopher. They have furlined cheek pouches.
In addition to being native to California, these creatures are present in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and southern Colorado and Mexico. Within this geographical area, they inhabit a range of habitats, including woodlands, chaparral, scrubland, and agricultural land, being limited only by rocky terrain, barren deserts, and major rivers. They are found at elevations up to 13,800 feet.
There are roughly 195 subspecies of the Botta’s pocket gopher, and many of these have evolved because of their geographical distribution and the differences in climate and habitat. California boasts 43 subspecies
Botta’s pocket gopher is strictly herbivorous, feeding on a variety of plant matter. Shoots and grasses are particularly important, supplemented by roots, tubers, and bulbs during the winter. An individual will often pull plants into the ground by the roots to consume them in the safety of its burrow, where it spends 90 percent of its life.
Main predators of this species include American badgers, coyotes, long-tailed weasels, and snakes, but other predators include skunks, owls, bobcats, and hawks. This species is considered a pest in urban and agricultural areas due to its burrowing habit and its predilection for alfalfa. Paradoxically, it is also considered beneficial as its burrows are a key source of aeration for soils in the region. Digging by Botta’s pocket gophers is estimated to aerate the soil to a depth of about eight inches and to be responsible for the creation of Mima mounds up to six-and-a-half feet in height. Populations of the species have been estimated to mine as much as 28 tons of soil per hectare per year, much of which is moved below ground, rather than being pushed up into the mounds. On the negative side, the species has been associated with the deaths of aspen in Arizona and creates patches of bare ground that may limit the establishment of new seedlings.
The Botta’s pocket gopher is highly adaptable, burrowing into a very diverse array of soils from loose sands to tightly packed clays, and from arid deserts to high altitude meadows. They are able to tolerate such a wide range of soils in part because they dig primarily with their teeth, which are larger and with a thicker layer of enamel than in claw-digging gophers. In comparison, gophers digging with their claws are generally only able to dig in softer soils, because their claws wear down more quickly than teeth do in harder materials.
Botta’s pocket gophers are active for a total of about nine hours each day, spending most of their time feeding in their burrows, but are not restricted to either daylight or night time. They make little sound, although they do communicate by making clicking noises, soft hisses, and squeaks.
Their burrows include multiple deep chambers for nesting, food storage, and defecation, that are  as much as five feet below ground. A series of tunnels close to the surface are used for feeding on plant roots, and have shorter side tunnels for disposal of excavated soil. On the surface, the burrows are marked by fan-shaped mounds of excavated soil, with the actual entrance usually kept filled in for protection. Population densities of between 10 and 62 per acre have been reported.
Above ground traces of these burrows are sometimes called “gopher eskers.”
Outside of the breeding season, each burrow is inhabited by a single adult, with any young leaving once they are weaned. Male burrows extend over a mean area of 5,100 square feet, and those of females 3,080 square feet. The gophers aggressively defend a larger exclusive area, of up to 8,700 square feet for males and 4,200 square feet for females, around the burrow entrance.
Tunnel systems more than 450 feet in length are not rare. These ramified travelways assist the  occupants in avoiding avoid predators that try to search them out; they are equally important in permitting the gopher to forage over a considerable area without exposure to undue danger. In winter, if snow covers the ground, the gophers often extend their burrows into the snow and can then forage aboveground in safety.
Although pocket gophers are active the year round, they store food to carry them over periods of scarcity, especially periods of drought when food is scarce and burrowing a difficult task. Usually, only one adult animal occupies each burrow system except for a short time in the breeding period. Associated with this solitary habit is a ferocious and seemingly fearless disposition. When two gophers encounter each other, they will fight or meticulously avoid each other. Desire for companionship seems to be completely lacking in their makeup.
In areas with sufficient food, such as agricultural land, breeding can occur year round, with up to four litters being born each year. In the north, and other, less hospitable, environments, breeding occurs only during the spring. The local habitat also affects the age at which females begin breeding, with nearly half doing so in their first year in agricultural land, but none at all in desert scrub.
Gestation lasts eighteen days, and results in the birth of a litter of up to twelve pups, although three or four is more typical. The young are born hairless and blind, and measure about two inches in length. The first, silky coat of fur is replaced by a coarser coat of grey hair as the pups age, before the full adult coat develops.
Botta’s pocket gophers are capable of breeding with southern pocket gophers, and, until the 1980s, were often considered to belong to the same species. However, male hybrids are sterile, and females have greatly reduced fertility and rarely have offspring of their own. Hybridisation with Townsend’s pocket gopher has also been reported, and it too appears not to extend much beyond the first generation.
The specific and common names of this species honor Paul-Émile Botta, a naturalist and archaeologist who collected mammals in California in the 1820s and 1830s.

You can download a PDF of the October 17 edition of the San Bernardino County Sentinel by clicking on the portal below.

Sentinel 10-17-14

(October 16)  Yucca Valley Town Attorney Lona Laymon has made a motion with the Superior Court to quash subpoenas filed by the attorney for a town resident which call for the  depositions of the members of the town council.
A deposition is questioning of witnesses or participants in  legal actions such as a lawsuit or prosecution under oath, i.e., the penalty of perjury.
Fritz Koenig, who owns property on Hoot Owl Trail, has been engaged in a lawsuit against a nearby resident, David Falossi, since January 2009.  Key to the litigation between Koenig and Falossi is a road which traverses Koenig’s property and over which all but one of Koenig’s neighbors transit to reach their residential properties. The road is not subject to an easement, although Koenig lets his neighbors use it as “a neighborly accommodation.”
Falossi is an accomplished artist and sculptor who works in many media, including large heavy objects intended as outdoor venue decorations and art pieces. He works from his home studio.
Koenig has objected to what he characterizes as the industrial nature of Falossi’s fabricating operation that is central to his sculpturing and artwork, which involves welding, stone grinding and glass grinding. Koenig maintains that such activity is incompatible with a rural residential neighborhood and out of compliance with the town’s codes that were in effect since shortly after the town’s incorporation.
Moreover, Koenig has objected to Falossi utilizing the dirt road across his property to bring forklifts and a large truck to transport both the raw material Falossi uses in his fabrication process as well as the finished artwork, which in some cases weighs several thousand pounds, to and from his home studio.
Falossi, who lives at  his home studio with his wife and four children,  has accused Koenig of harassing him and members of his family.
The contretemps between Koenig and Falossi spread from across their adjoining property line into the courts, entailing the granting of restraining orders. The matter spilled over into Yucca Valley Town Hall when Falosi applied for a home occupation permit, which Koenig then opposed.   Koenig brought the matter before the town council when he appealed a planning commission decision in favor of Falossi in which he  sought to have the town enforce elements of the town code pertaining to permissible activities in a residential zone. Koenign maintains the town code has been violated because at least some of the fabricating activity Falossi engages in at his studio is excluded from all residential zones. Koenig’s objection resulted in the town reexamining its land use policy, with the planning commission considering changes to the development code to allow greater latitude with regard to the type and nature of home-based businesses that can locate in the town’s residential zones. This begat some degree of controversy as some residents objected to what they perceived as the potential of commercializing or industrializing their neighborhoods.
Simultaneously, the town council began looking into the circumstance on Hoot Owl Trail, including at one point, driving out the road that led across Koenig’s property to Falossi’s studio, looking at his equipment and vehicles used to transport his supplies and finished artwork and touring the studio itself. Falossi has never permitted Koenig to come into his studio. Nor has the court granted Koenig access to it to fully examine the scope of its operations.  In pursuing the ongoing litigation, Koenig has been seeking to establish that the activity there is of such an intensity and nature that it is in violation of the town code. In discussing their tour of the Falossi property in an open public forum, members of the town council indicated that manufacturing of an industrial nature was occurring there, as when town council member Bob Leone referenced glass grinding taking place on the premises.
Consequently, Koenig has moved to take the depositions of all five council members, hoping to learn from them whether they observed any activity on the property which would buttress his case.
After notice of the depositions was made, however, Lona Laymon, the Yucca Valley Town Attorney, gave indication she was moving to block Koenig and his attorney, John B. Barriage, from moving forward with that questioning under oath.
While the law does provide a governmental board’s members with confidential privilege relating to its decision making and  deliberative processes, that privilege is not absolute and Koenig may have legal grounds for learning from the town council and its individual members what facts or circumstances they encountered in their fact finding process.
Barriage told the Sentinel he does not think Laymon will have adequate grounds to bar him from questioning the council members.
“They are percipient witnesses of conditions on the property,” Barriage said of the council. “I am not going to ask about what was on their minds. I merely what to find out from them what they saw while they were inspecting the studio on the Falossi property. I am not going after their decision making process.”
Laymon filed five separate similarly worded objection’s to Koenig’s deposition requests on behalf of each of the council members.
According to Laymon, “Town and town concilmember object to the subpoena, including all definitions and instructions, to the extent that it seeks the disclosure of information protected from discovery by the attorney-client privilege… the attorney work-product doctrine… the tax filing privilege, the trade secret or proprietary information privilege, the deliberative process privilege, the official information privilege… the trade secret privilege, the town councilmember’s rights of privacy and/or any other applicable privilege or immunity. Town and town councilmember object to the subpoena as unduly burdensome to the extent it seeks to impose on town councilmember the obligation to ascertain facts that are not known to him/her. Town councilmember has little or no personal knowledge of the ongoing personal disputes between Friederich Koenig and his neighbors and/or other matters alleged in the lawsuit(s) underlying the subpoena.  Town council official actions upon the “home occupation permit”as demanded in the subpoena bear no relevance to the above-captioned case(s) and there is no basis to believe that the town councilmember can add any evidence that is relevant and material to the personal disputes between Friederich Koenig and his neighbors.”
It is anticipated that Barriage will oppose Laymon’s motion, which ultimately will be decided upon by Judge David Cohn.

(October 17)  Fourteen months after his curious departure as the general manager of the San Bernardino Public Employees Association, Bob Blough has been accused by the current union leadership of absconding with association funds and making unauthorized expenditures.
In addition to seeking a criminal investigation of Blough from the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, the board of directors for the San Bernardino Public Employees Association voted to file a civil lawsuit against him.
The action by the board comes after the completion of a forensic audit of the union’s financial books that was completed October 6. The results of the audit justify both civil and criminal action, association officials said.
The San Bernardino Public Employees Association represents and handles collective bargaining for over 11,000 employees working for San Bernardino County and 3,000 others working for 16 of the county’s cities – Barstow, Big Bear, Chino, Chino Hills, Colton Fontana, Hesperia, Loma Linda, Montclair, Needles, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto, San Bernardino, and Upland, as well as three cities in east Los Angeles County, Claremont, Pomona and West Covina, and Banning in Riverside County.
“The employment of SBPEA General Manager Bob Blough has come to an end,” a posting on the SBPEA website’s homepage in August 2013 tersely said. There was no explanation offered at that time for his abrupt exodus. He was replaced on what was supposed to be an interim basis by Deidre Rodriguez. More than a year later, Rodriguez remains in that position.
Blough, who replaced the late Chris Prato as the association’s general manager in 2007, appeared dedicated, if somewhat theatrical in his approach. In 2008 Blough wore a chicken suit to a board of supervisors meeting in 2008 to protest the board’s offer of a $100 million increase in increased salaries and benefits to county employees as too meager, or in his words, a  “fowl offer.”
In 2012 he was highly critical of county chief administrative officer Greg Devereaux’s contract proposals that contained retirement and health benefit reductions, after those givebacks had been accepted by some of the other bargaining units in the county that represent public safety employees and management personnel.
In the summer of 2013, the SBPEA found itself under challenge, fending off several efforts to decertify SBPEA as the representative of some employee divisions, including one by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and another by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. FSCME.
“The SBPEA Board of Directors has requested that District Attorney Mike Ramos investigate funds that are missing from the San Bernardino Public Employees Association,” according to SPEA President Ron Dunn. “This request was made after SBPEA completed an internal investigation of association finances. A  key component of that investigation was a special audit. SBPEA tasked an independent auditor with reviewing financial irregularities that had come to light at the end of the tenure of former SBPEA General Manager Bob Blough.”
According to Dunn, “Mr. Blough had been terminated for, among other things, refusing to allow SBPEA’s auditing firm to conduct the annual audit of the Association’s finances.”
That was the first explanation given as to why Blough had left the organization in 2013.
“The special audit ordered by the SBPEA Board of Directors revealed that association money was unaccounted for and that there had been several unauthorized expenditures,” Dunn said. “Upon receiving this special audit, the SBPEA Board of Directors unanimously voted to take the audit to the district attorney. I personally delivered the information to District Attorney Mike Ramos on October 10, 2014 on behalf of SBPEA’s directors and membership. SBPEA has requested that the District Attorney thoroughly investigate this matter and that all criminal acts be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. SBPEA is also bringing a civil action against Mr. Blough to recover the funds.”
The moves by the association against Blough at this late date, coming so long after his removal as general manager, was questioned in some quarters. Immediately after his departure in 2013, there were reports Blough was being investigated by the district attorney’s office for potential financial improprieties. No prosecution ensued, an indication the case against him is less than solid. Moreover, the lawsuit and the report of the request to the district attorney’s office for an investigation comes a month-and-a-half after Paula Ready, who was the president of SBPEA before, during and for one year after his departure, was replaced by Dunn, a sign of a possible power struggle at the association’s leadership level.