(May 7)  The city of Twentynine Palms’ intrepid foray to the forefront of California cities challenging the redevelopment agency-shuttering legislation passed by the state of California in 2011 has paid off, with a court ruling last month that overturned the California Department of Finance’s denial of the city’s claim that it could use $11,575,000 in redevelopment bond proceeds for an urban renewal project downtown.
Twentynine Palms, a city of  the 25,048 in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert Outback, in 2011 through its redevelopment agency gave final go-ahead to Project Phoenix, which is to include a community center, a 250-seat theater, classrooms, a civic plaza, a park, a paseo, residential units, a wastewater treatment plant, and improvements to the downtown fire station.
That action came just three months before the legislature passed AB X1 26 and AB X1 27, which shuttered more than 400 municipal and county redevelopment agencies up and down the state.
Despite warnings from the state that the city needed to dispense with its redevelopment efforts, the city nevertheless proceeded with the Project Phoenix initiative.
Twentynine Palms officials maintained that AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 are trumped by federal securities regulations, meaning the money the Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency bonded for in 2011 must be utilized only for the purpose that bondholders were told the money would be applied toward.
Twentynine Palms City Attorney A. Patrick Muñoz, of the law firm Rutan & Tucker, asserted in filings with the Sacramento Superior Court that the non-taxable bonds issued in 2011 created specific obligations between the city, as the issuer, and the bond purchasers, and as such are enforceable obligations. If the city allows the state  to use the money for a purpose other than what the city had specified in marketing the bonds to the bond buyers, that would constitute fraud, according to Munoz.
The city filed its paperwork in Sacramento Superior Court because AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 contained language requiring any legal challenges to the law take place there.
The city in 2012  followed Muñoz’s recommendation to have  the city’s successor agency lay claim to the redevelopment money and declare its intent to proceed with Project Phoenix.  AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 provided for the creation of locally based oversight boards to see to the discharging of remaining redevelopment money.  In  May 2012, Muñoz drafted a contract between the successor agency and the city by which the  successor agency is to  turn over the bond spending authority to the city with a directive that it go toward Project Phoenix. On a 4-1 vote on May 22, 2012,  the city council voted unanimously to transfer  the seven-member oversight board’s duties and obligations to administer the bond proceeds to “the city in its capacity as a municipal corporation.”
AB X1 26 and AB X1 27  passed in July of 2011 but were challenged by a confederation of cities.  Since the city of Twentynine Palms Redevelopment Agency originally issued the bonds on April 19, 2011, the use of the bond funds was put in abeyance as the city sought relief from the courts. The challenge to AB X1 26 and AB X1 27 was turned down by the California Supreme Court in January  2012 and the dissolution of redevelopment agencies statewide ensued on February 1, 2012.  The use of those bonds was prohibited by the California Department of Finance following the dissolution.
The city of Twentynine Palms, however, persisted in its separate challenge with regard to the Phoenix funds, however.  The key issue in the case was the question of whether an agreement between the city and the successor agency known as the bond proceeds agreement is valid in light of the laws which dissolved redevelopment agencies. The California Department of Finance asserted the agreement was not valid and as a result the city could not spend the bond proceeds on Project Phoenix. The department further asserted that the city acted in bad faith and hence the bond proceeds agreement should be invalidated.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny disagreed, and instead held that the city acted appropriately, in good faith, and in compliance with the laws that existed at the time the bond proceeds agreement was adopted.
Kenny’s ruling states: “The court concludes that the bond proceeds agreement is a valid and enforceable agreement that constitutes an “enforceable obligation” within the meaning of the redevelopment dissolution laws. DOF’s determination to the contrary is not supported by the facts or the law and cannot be upheld.”
As a result, Kenny  ruled in favor of the city and its successor agency, summarizing its ruling as follows:
“For the reasons stated above, the court finds in favor of petitioners [The city and its successor agency] and grants their request for declaratory, injunctive and writ of mandate relief to invalidate DOF’s (Department of Finance’s) determinations regarding the bond proceeds agreement and the bond proceeds. The court finds that the bond proceeds agreement is an “enforceable obligation” within the meaning of the redevelopment dissolution laws, and that nothing in the redevelopment laws precludes petitioners from using the bond proceeds for Project Phoenix and related public improvements as provided in the bond proceeds agreement.”
Kenny continued, “A writ of mandate shall therefore issue directing DOF to vacate its determinations regarding the bond proceeds agreement and the successor agency’s transfer of bond proceeds to the city, along with an injunction directing DOF not to enforce those determinations, and a judgment declaring that the bond proceeds agreement is a valid and enforceable contract and an enforceable obligation under the redevelopment dissolution laws, and that the transfer of the bond proceeds from the successor agency to the city for the purposes of implementing the Bond Proceeds Agreement was a legally valid act that does not violate the redevelopment dissolution laws.”

(May 8)  SAN BERNARDINO—As was widely anticipated, the San Bernardino citizens municipal charter review committee this week recommended that in November a ballot initiative be placed before city voters calling for dispensing with the city’s charter Section 186.
Section 186 effectively locks in salaries for the city’s public safety employees that are at par with or greater than those salaries received by their counterparts in ten similarly sized California cites.
San Bernardino is a charter city as opposed to a general law city. Its charter and amendments thereto, per state law, are approved by the city’s voters. Provisions put into the charter by means of a citywide vote over a decade ago require that the city’s public safety employees – firefighters and police officers – be paid on a scale equal to the average pay of police officers and firefighters in ten similarly-sized California cities.
San Bernardino has been beset with financial difficulties that culminated in the city’s filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2012. Former mayor Patrick Morris has maintained that a major factor in the city’s fiscal deterioration is excessive salaries and benefits provided to city employees and retirees. Carey Davis, an accountant by profession and a political ally to Morris, succeeded Morris in March after defeating Wendy McCammack, a former councilwoman who had long championed generous pay increases for municipal safety employees.
As one of his first acts in office, Davis called for the creation of a municipal commission to consider charter changes, suggesting that the requirement that police and fire officers be provided with raises based on salaries given to their counterparts in cities free of the financial challenges San Bernardino faces should be done away with. That move failed when it was pointed out that a municipal commission cannot be formed without prior voter approval. The proposal was adjusted to allow the creation of a citizens committee to review the city charter.
In the current fiscal year, police department and fire department operations represent 68 percent of the spending out of the city’s general fund. Salaries make up the lion’s share of those departments’ operating budgets.
Over the last several years, San Bernardino has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn that has gripped the nation, state and region. Despite the city’s 2012 filing for bankruptcy protection, it has continued to give firefighters and police officers raises in keeping with the provisions of Section 186 of the city charter. Yearly, city officials and police and fire union heads start with a list of California cities with populations between 150,000 and 250,000. In turns, each removes a city from that list until ten remain. Salaries are then computated upon the average pay to that particular group – firefighters or fire department management or policeman or police management – in the remaining ten cities.
During Morris’s rein as mayor, a schism had developed on the council over the continuation of what some characterized as too generous salaries and benefits to city public safety employees. Morris and several of his allies pushed for concessions from the police and fire unions on salaries and benefits. One Morris ally in particular, former 3rd Ward councilman Tobin Brinker, was outspoken about the need to reduce city payroll costs and he championed a city employee pension reduction measure that earned him the enmity of both the police and fire union.  He was targeted by those unions in the 2011 election and was defeated by John Valdivia, who upon election joined with the council coalition then led by councilwoman McCammack, which sought to sustain police and fire department pay at the established levels.
With the city’s bankruptcy filing, there was outrage in some quarters of the city over the continuation in the escalation of public safety employee pay. Morris became an outspoken advocate of pay and pension reform and supported Davis against McCammack in last year’s mayoral race, which resulted in a runoff between the two in which Davis prevailed earlier this year.
On March 17, the city council passed a resolution that was opposed by Valdivia which called for the creation of the citizens charter review committee. The resolution delineated that each of the council’s seven members would choose one registered voter from their respective wards to serve on the committee and that Davis would get two appointments to the panel, including one culled from the city’s business community.
Ward 1 Councilwoman Virginia Marquez selected Casey Daily for the committee; Ward 2 Councilman Benito Barrios  chose Dennis Baxter; Ward 3 Councilman John Valdivia appointed Gary Walbourne;  Ward 4 Councilman Fred Shorett selected Hillel Cohn; Ward 5 Councilman Henry Nickel chose Michael Craft; Ward 6 Councilman Rikke Van Johnson brought in Hardy Brown; and Ward 7 Councilman James Mulvill tapped Philip Savage.  Davis selected Thomas Pierce and Dan Carlone.
This week, the panel voted 7-2, with Walbourne and Craft dissenting, to make a non-binding recommendation to the city council that it use its authority to place a measure on the November ballot asking voters to repeal Section 186 and instead adjust salaries through the collective bargaining process.
Committee member Hardy Brown importuned his committee colleagues to do something about the public safety salary problem which he said has grown “to eat up 68 percent to 72 percent of the budget. This has reduced our ability to fairly allocate resources to other services that we expect our city government to provide. It has forced us to cut down on other employee services and compensation. It has not made us safer nor improved [staff] morale.”
Walbourne, who indicated he found persuasive police union president Steve Turner’s warning that police officers would leave for better paying opportunities elsewhere if Section 186 were rescinded, wanted the committee to delay its consideration of any recommendations, but was outvoted by his colleagues, who were racing to meet a county registrar of voters deadline for the city’s request that the measure be placed on the November ballot.

(May 7)  Bob Conaway said he is running for Congress because “They need someone with my background more than ever. I have handled mediations and have done a lot of crisis management. I can talk to people and with people who are conservative and find common ground. There is too much posturing and too many lemmings in both parties. As an attorney I have been professionally engaged and I have done pro bono [i.e., charity] work in mediation. I can resolve things other people can’t.”
A Democrat, Conaway eschewed a liberal label but acknowledges he is a progressive on social issues. He embraces fiscal conservatism, but rejects what he characterized as the reflexive need of the GOP toward insulating “biases built in for economic self interest. I know I can bring to the table common sense and still have people on the conservative side feel comfortable with me talking to them. I give them respect. There is far too much sniping going on.”
Conaway said, “Water planning is a major issue facing the district. For so long, water planning has been less than intellectually honest. We are now dealing with a real head butt in terms of water management.”
Conaway continued, “We are an underemployed area. We have to have the necessary infrastructure so that we can grow and produce jobs. We have to identify what our infrastructure resources are, what our needs are and build it accordingly to support the economy. There is a lot we can build on. We already have warehousing capacity built. We can put in rail spur lines. We could use the macro- and microwarehouses and turn those into a strategy for all of Southern California. One of the things is to get funds so we are able to operate Southern California Logistics Airport, the old George Air Force Base full time, with full time air traffic controllers in the towers, security for the facility, a full time customs desk so we can move cargo in or out of there. There is not a commitment to that. Congress could bust through those restrictions. Los Angeles has a virtual monopoly, with their foot on our throat. We need to get federal resources. It is strategically critical to get the resources for both military and cargo flights. Cook has not been on that because Jim Brulte is his patron. Brulte is owned by the Los Angeles Airport Authority. They are one of his biggest clients. They have exerted control over Ontario. If I am wrong, then Paul Cook should get off his ass and get the resources to get the air cargo necessities at Southern California Logistics Airport, the towers and security measures and everything else we must have to streamline the function and management out there so we can get our reasonably fair share of the cargo activity. This can be done through federal assistance. The federal government targets things that will grow because the government wants an enhanced revenue stream and that is something that is doable in a two year term.”
Taxes need not be increased, Conaway said, but those who are dodging taxes need to be brought to heel.
“We need a more stable fiscal system,” Conaway said. “We have to examine revenue leakage.  There are people generating revenue who are not paying their fair share of taxes. These are not a lot of people percentage-wise, but this represents a whole lot of money on a statewide basis. You can look at the state controller’s report and the Board of Equalization’s report. The federal government has to be able to enforce tax laws beyond the state of California. The solutions are straightforward. An enforcement arm that is not political is what is needed. We need to have the resources in place, investigative teams and prosecution teams looking at revenue leakage and those who are not paying taxes.”
The district needs to maximize the performance of its existing assets, Conaway said.
“As far as improving the operation at old George Air Force Base goes, we could very fast build up our revenue through grants and bridge loans, with the incentive being that when the airport starts making money, those loans will be paid off,” he said. “We could bring in full time air traffic controllers to the towers, customs officers, and security. Once you do that you will have revenue generated. There is warehousing in place already and the warehousing fees could generate an economic stream. For every dollar in grants or loans, seven to eight dollars are returned, based upon studies that have been done. We have to have a harbor, which means the ability to bring in cargo and move it out, 24/7. That is how you accomplish it.”
Conaway said he represents the superior choice for 8th District Congressman “because I can  build a consensus and find the grounds for consensus. I don’t just follow. Ultimately it is the private sector that government must work with to accomplish the objective of economic growth. We do not have much in discretionary income so we have to increase the tax base, meaning we have to increase the number of generators and not increase taxes on those already paying them.
“I have put together packages for clients that brought development possibilities together. There are people out there with successful businesses because of the operational, or developmental or partnership or cooperative packages I negotiated for them, often with the government involved.”
The 8th Congressional District leans Republican. Conaway and another Democrat, Odessia Lee, and a Republican, Paul Hanosh, are challenging the incumbent, Congressman Paul Cook.
“Cook is basically a lemming,” Conaway said. “He follows whatever clip they tell him to.”
Conaway said that Lee “seems like a nice enough person, but I have heard nothing from her I consider insightful or really relevant to the issues in the 8th District. All I know about the other guy is he has apparently mortgaged his house to put his candidate’s statement on the ballot. If you want a lemming, vote for Cook. If you want people with no experience, vote for one of the other two. If you want someone who can listen to both sides and negotiate and come to a consensus, then I am your candidate. If you want posturing, you can vote for someone else. Where government will end up is with a large number of people with different backgrounds and different goals and priorities who want to talk the same language. Some of the better negotiators are no longer there, such as [former Congressman] George Brown and [former Congressman] Jerry Lewis. These were people who had the ability to get people to talk and keep the dialogue going. Where are we going to go? We have more and more voters who are no longer Democrats or Republicans and they are registered as declined to state. We are getting forty or fifty percent so disenfranchised from either party and they don’t bother to vote. What you have left is posturing. Posturing by threatening to take away Social Security in not going to do it. We have to find a way to grow the economy not on increased tax rates but on creating more taxable profits and income. People need a politician capable of doing all that. I am that person.”
A graduate of Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, Conaway served in the Marines and graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in speech communications and business. He got his juris doctors degree from Western University School of Law and has been a practicing lawyer since 1985, practicing in the areas of administrative law, criminal defense, civil rights litigation, and employment litigation. He was formerly a commercial union insurance litigation manager.
Married he has three children and three grandchildren.

(May 6)  The board of supervisors this week transferred further spending authority with regard to the county’s  $95.6 million upgrading of its public safety radio system from information services director Jennifer Hilber to county chief executive officer Greg Devereaux.
Last December 17, the board approved contract amendments with Motorola Solutions, Inc. (formerly Motorola, Inc.) and Aviat U.S., Inc. in an amount not to exceed $77,864,106 for equipment and $17,780,680 for implementation for a total of $95,644,786 to upgrade the County’s Public Safety Radio System to the digital Project 25 standard and to extend the agreement from the current term of January 27, 2009 through January 26, 2016, to the new term of January 27, 2009 to December 31, 2020.
At that time, the board designated authority to Hilber, as the chief information officer, to approve and sign change orders to the Motorola/Aviat U.S., Inc. agreements as they pertain to minor changes of the scope of work and timing of the project as needed, subject to review and approval by County Counsel.
This week, at Hilber’s recommendation, the board  designated chief county executive officer Greg Devereaux as the authorized representative to approve and sign change orders as they pertain to the reallocation of project funding, subject to review by county counsel.
The total contract amount remains unchanged.
Hilber did not explain why she wanted the authority transferred to Devereaux other than to state that it will “ensure project efficiency” and “will streamline the complex radio upgrade project, which is expected to undergo various changes to the scope of work throughout the contract term, including the reallocation of project funding, and timing of the project. Such designation of authority will avoid delays to critical project timelines and ensure funds are reallocated efficiently and timely to maintain the project’s budget.”

(May 6)  Six lawsuits that challenged the Cadiz Water Project were dismissed in a single order by Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler on May 1.
Los Angeles-based Cadiz, Inc. is undertaking what is officially known as the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, a plan to siphon billions of gallons of water from the East Mojave Desert for use elsewhere.  Since the 1980s, Cadiz, Inc. has operated a 500-acre organic grape, citrus, melon and pepper farm in the Cadiz Valley, thereby obtaining water pumping rights. In 2012 Cadiz, Inc. arranged to have the Santa Margarita Water District, to which it is contracted to deliver a portion of the water to be extracted from the desert, assume lead agency status for the project’s approval.
The project itself and the means by which it was approved generated nine separate lawsuits. Two of those were earlier dismissed. One lodged in federal court was withdrawn. Until May 1, six others – brought by Delaware Tetra Technologies, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Parks Conservation Association,  the San Gorgonio Sierra Club, San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society and an Orange County water customers coalition, Citizens and Ratepayers Opposing Water Nonsense, remained active.
San Bernardino County contemplated, but in March 2012 ultimately elected against, challenging Orange County-based Santa Margarita’s assumption of lead agency status on the project. Instead on May 1, 2012 the county entered into a memorandum of understanding with that district and Cadiz, Inc. and its corporate entities, including the Fenner Valley Mutual Water Company, allowing Santa Margarita to oversee the environmental impact report for the project and conduct the public hearings related to project approval.
On July 31, 2012, the Santa Margarita Water District Board of Directors approved the Cadiz Water Project and certified the environmental impact report for the Cadiz Water project.
On October 1, 2012, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors gave approval to a groundwater monitoring plan to facilitate completion of the project.
Cadiz intends to export the lion’s share of the water to Orange and Los Angeles counties but is also looking to sell water to other entities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
In several of the lawsuits, the adequacy of the environmental certification of the project was under attack, based upon assertions that the report’s description of the project was incomplete and misleading and that it did not offer a meaningful size-up of the effect upon the water supply, air quality, and biological resources.  San Bernardino County’s abdication of its land use and environmental oversight authority is also a recurrent issue in the lawsuits, with the claim that the  Santa Margarita Water District in Rancho Santa Margarita located over 200 miles from the project, was not the proper lead agency for the project.
Andler consolidated the cases and heard them together. In her ruling, indicated that having the Santa Margarita Water District serve as the lead agency was disconcerting, but not enough in and of itself to decertify the project approval. She dismissed the suits in one fell swoop.
“Cadiz is grateful for the thorough and deliberate review by the trial court and the Court’s validation of the environmental review conducted for the Water Project,” said Cadiz CEO Scott Slater.
Project opponents said they are contemplating appealing Andler’s ruling.

By Ruth Musser-Lopez
May 9, 2014.  Its been said that those who write history, make history.  With the 2014 political season, we can definitely see how history can be reinvented with twists and spins of all sorts.  Its now 4 weeks until the primary on June 3, and there are certainly those well rooted politicians who would like to obfuscate and forget.  That is where news reporters, historians and archaeologists/anthropologists can really play an important role.  What isn’t in the written record can often be found in material evidence…just ask any forensic anthropologist.
For example, the “Age of Corruption” in San Bernardino County is going down on the historic record but the forensics associated with the current investigation have more to do with digging into the dirt contained in computer files than the dirt of traditional archaeological trenches.  The recent spate of public corruption cases are nothing new to San Bernardino County. And more are on the way, it seems, as evidenced by the information  pouring in on the recent criminal defense conflict panel  contract deal making case.
Here is a very cursory and brief glimpse of some of the corruptions of the past in San Bernardino County..
In the 1920s, C. S. Crane, the First District Supervisor of San Bernardino County arranged to have the district gerrymandered in such a way so that its boundary dropped down into the northern part of the city of San Bernardino, making it convenient for Crane to live in the county seat and not have to stay out in the desert where most of his constituents resided.   That’s a pretty mild case of corruption by today’s standards…but things get worse after the World War II.
In 1946, in the race for District Attorney, the incumbent, Jerome Kavenaugh, arranged to have his opponent in the race, Ward Evans, indicted on grand theft charges less than a month before the election. Wounded by the adverse publicity, Evans, who previously appeared to be surging past the incumbent, lost  the election that June 4, garnering 17,366 votes to Kavanaugh’s  20,786. Shortly after the election, the Evans case went to trial, with Evans representing himself. After hearing the facts of the case, the jury took less than 10 minutes to acquit Evans on the first ballot.
In 1958 before the Victorville Chamber of Commerce then-district attorney Lowell Lathrop lamented that law enforcement officers could no longer pistol whip suspects in order to beat a confession out of them.
During the months leading up to the election in 1966, it came to the attention of the public that Frank Bland, then county sheriff, was pilfering money out of the fund kept for vice narcotics operations. He was reelected anyway.
In the early 1970s, Robert Covington, who was then the county’s chief administrative officer, bootlegged a subdivision in the middle of a dry lake in Apple Valley, doing so under his mother’s name.
Thankfully corrupt politicians are not the only ones who make history and for a diverse many, the study of events that took place in San Bernardino County prehistorically is far more interesting and illuminating.   For example the “Peopling of the Americas” — how North and South America became populated by humans in the first place, is currently an intriguing and hugely controversial matter going beyond our local human drama.
There are many professional archaeologists both in academia and in commercial consulting who are paid to study the subject and edify us as to how and when humans first arrived in the western hemisphere—and I have learned of one who even argues that humans originated in the Americas and then migrated to the old world!
Last week I had the privilege of attending the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), this year held in Austin, Texas, with an ever-growing number of participants, more than 4,000  this time representing countries far and wide, including contingents from China and Siberia.   As usual, the subject of the peopling of the Americas was the hot topic with numerous sessions devoted to “Paleo-Indians” (“paleo being a derivative word meaning “prehistoric,” “fossil” or “old”).
Typically several sessions are devoted entirely to the peopling of the Americas. One group of academics, which is perhaps the largest, are known as “Clovis First” advocates.   The resistors hold that hard evidence shows that the earliest and opportune time “Paleo” humans could have arrived in the Americas is during a single wave of migration over the Beringia Land Bridge in the Bering Straight from Siberia to Alaska.  This would have been during a period of lowered sea levels with the land bridge still exposed as the ice age neared its end but when glaciers were retreating, opening an ice-free inland corridor where big game could be tracked.  They say that prior to that time, extensive glaciers closed off the interior corridor and after that time, the sea levels rose covering the bridge.  Travel to the warmer south and the peopling of the Americas happened around 12,000 years ago, they contend.
The Paleo-Indian arrival, these archaeologists argue, is represented by a certain distinct type of tool technology that was short-lived in the “New World.”  The technology involves the inclusion of a flute or channel groove about a third of the way up from the base on both sides of the projectile.  Bifacial fluting permitted the point to be attached to long shafts or darts intended for spearing large game.  The length of the flute seemed to evolve but  then extinguished altogether along with the mammoth during the post glacial times of the Holocene, after nine or ten thousand years ago.
Variations on the Clovis First idea now abound with new discoveries especially in the west where evidence of the existence of other humans with a different tool technology referred to as “Western Stem Points” lived about the same time in North America as Clovis and perhaps earlier.  Dr. Dennis L Jenkins of the University of Oregon is credited with the research at Oregon’s Paisley Cave; he uncovered the tool assemblage  in roughly 13,000+ year old deposits. The assemblage does not include Clovis.   The findings at Paisley Cave suggest that Clovis was not first and since Clovis is also not found in Asia, it must have been invented in America after humans using a different technology were already here.
The Pre-Clovis camp contends that there were numerous waves of migration to the Americas and point to the diversity of languages in the Americas and also ancient skeletal remains, which may include traits not typically associated with modern Native Americans, such as the Kennewick man dating to about 9,500 years ago.  Those who contend a pre Clovis arrival date prior to 13,000 years ago, point to evidence of brief global warming episodes prior to the terminal Pleistocene which may have also provided opportunities for entering America from Asia. One archaeologist last week reminded us that Clovis points had been found in the Rocky Mountain range and that humans have always been able to adapt to extremely cold conditions, hinting that we could have entered into the Americas at any point in time since there has always been another land bridge, howbeit in icy conditions, between Asia and the Americas if you simply trace the Rocky Mountain range north across high elevations and over the polar cap.
Some archaeologists considered the whole issue settled years ago when a panel of experts judged that the Monte Verde site in southern Chile was pre-Clovis over 13,000 years old, so the migration must have began well before that time.
Meanwhile, 40 miles northwest of our SAA meeting location in Austin  is a site called Buttermilk Creek where stone tools such as projectile points, blades, choppers and other tools made from local chert, dating from 13,200 to 15,500 years ago were embedded in thick clay sediments immediately beneath Clovis material.  During the meeting, some people visited the site. “This is the oldest credible archaeological site in North America,” Michael R. Waters, leader of the discovery team, said at a news teleconference as reported by John Noble Wilford (New York Times 3/24/11).
Dr. Waters, analyzed the pottery of San Bernardino County but is currently Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University.  He and his colleagues concluded in the journal article that their research over the last six years “confirms the emerging view that people occupied the Americas before Clovis…”
Increasingly, the numbers are falling in the Clovis First contingent as evidence is brought forward at SAA meetings with regard to human occupation sites well over 13,000 years old. Some archaeologists (to whom I have spoken with between SAA’s multitude of sessions held simultaneous over the 4-day meeting period) are holding out before they weigh in on the Pre-Clovis debate.  Since the Buttermilk Creek artifacts were dated through stratigraphy and a method called “luminescence” of inorganic materials,  archaeologists are waiting for corroboration with radiocarbon dates (from organic deposits) yet to actually be published from the Meadowcroft Rockshelter site excavated by Dr. James M. Adovasio.
The Meadowcroft Rockshelter is important.   The 2011 New York Times report also stated that Adovasio, a professor at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., said some of the Buttermilk Creek material resembled tools at his Meadowcroft Rockshelter site and other “Pre-Clovis” sites at Cactus Hill, Virgina, and Miles Point, Maryland to name a few.
Getting to the bottom of the Pre-Clovis debate is often discouraging.  Here is an example of what we sometimes have learned to anticipate at the meetings:  Dr. James Chatters reports that the radiocarbon dating of a submerged prehistoric human skeleton found commingled with gomphothere (elephant like) remains in a cave off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula was impossible to obtain a radiocarbon date from due to the loss of bone proteins in warm water.   An innovative dating approach used by researchers showed that the human cranium was not as old as the gomphothere… “however I am not authorized to release the date of the human remains yet” said Chatters.  Apparently we must wait for the publication to come out.
If there is truly breaking news, you might hear it first on Twitter by the New York Times science writers, reports on the nightly news, or daily internet media like Yahoo.com.   National Geographic, History Channel, and various featured programs on the Public Broadcasting Stations may take a little longer.  Wikipedia, Ask.com, About.com and many other websites, including professional websites like “J-Store” and “Highbeam”   requiring passwords are also used to disseminate information.  Many researchers upload their papers at Academia.edu, Linkedin, and Editage.com. Nationwide professional journals such as SAA’s “American Antiquity” often take longer to report as there is a backlog of articles waiting to be published. However, year after year, archaeologists report unusual to routine new findings gathering in various places around the world and publishing their abstracts in meeting programs.
Most of our local county archaeological news becomes part of the historic record in forums not too far from home and journals published on the west coast.  The San Bernardino County Museum is an excellent place to start learning about our county’s history and prehistory.  I personally try to attend a variety of professional meetings each year, including the SAA (SAA.org), the Pecos Conference (southwest archaeology—see SWANET.org), the Great Basin Anthropological Association Conference (see GBAC.whsites.net), the American Rock Art Research Association conference (ARARA.org), the Nevada Archaeological Association conference (NVarch.org) and, of course, the annual meeting of the Society for California Archaeology (SCA).  The SCA (see SCAhome.org) is second in size only to the SAA and is well attended by West Coast archaeological professionals.  The SCA now publishes “California Archaeology—The SCA Journal.”  Other journals publishing information on San Bernardino County archaeology include (but are not limited to) the Pacific Coast Archaeological Association Quarterly, the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, and the Nevada Archaeologist.
More and more we hear experts asserting that entry to the Americas could have been via numerous avenues at different times or waves.  A 2008 study on the genetics of modern Native American populations suggests that the 86 samples taken are descendants of a single migration that spread out along a coastal route prior to the Clovis era (Fagundes NJ, Kanitz R, Eckert R, et al. (March 2008)).   My favorite debate to watch is over the “North Atlantic Ice-Edge Corridor Hypothesis” which was revived by Dennis Stafford of the Smithsonian Institute and colleague Bruce Bradley, University of Exeter (2002) in the 1990s.  They argue that Clovis people inherited their technology from the Solutrean people who lived in southern Europe 21,000–15,000 years ago.
When I went to college at the University of California in the 1970s I was told never to let the word “Solutrean” slip off my lips.  My mouth is shut but my mind is open.  I am actively watching for publications of dates and findings from the archaeological projects off of our Harvard/Ivy League northeast coastline. The theory was long scoffed at but now years after they first made the case, Stafford and Bradley have published a book “Across Atlantic Ice” and their argument is compelling.
“At the core of Stanford’s case are stone tools recovered from five mid-Atlantic sites. Two sites lie on Chesapeake Bay islands, suggesting that the Solutreans settled Delmarva early on. Smithsonian research associate Darrin Lowery found blades, anvils and other tools found stuck in soil at least 20,000 years old” reported Brian Vastag in the Washington Post (2012).
I also like the DNA research being conducted by Dr. John Johnson and his students at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Their research is often reported at the SCA.
Using recent DNA evidence detected in islands along the Pacific coast, it has been suggested by some researchers that a coastal migration using floating devices is not only a possibility but a likelihood—in other words, humans were not limited by foot travel over land bridges but could have followed the coast line via buoyed transport at a very early point in time.
The location of the annual meeting of the Society for California Archaeology is alternately held in northern, southern and central California.  In March of this year it was held in Visalia, next year on March 15th, 2015 it will be held in Redding and the following year, March 13, 2016 it will be held in San Bernardino County at the Doubletree by Hilton Ontario Airport.
Typically, there are a couple of regional sessions that San Bernardino County fits into—mountains, Colorado River, deserts.  As the debate regarding the earliest people of the Americas continues to heat up along with our globe, our own San Bernardino County early man site “Calico” gets increasingly more attention—and gets hotter by every minute approaching summer.  This year at the SAA meeting, Dr. Waters referred to Calico among a list of other “pre-Clovis” sites where the evidence has been less than convincing but should be looked at more seriously using new  research technology since other sites in both North and South America have yielded sufficiently strong evidence to support a pre-Clovis peopling of America.  A year from now, the SAA will be held in San Francisco and it is anticipated that the SCA members will be there to present their theories and findings on the peopling of America via coastal migration southward along the Pacific into Central and South America.  I anticipate that we will also hear evidence that the migration slipped up into the Gulf of California, up the Colorado River and inland through what is now called San Bernardino County well over 13,000 years ago—stay tuned.
Syndicated 2014, Ruth Musser-Lopez—Small quotes citing author, the Sentinel and publication date are permissible under copyright law.  Please respect the rights of those with photo credits and quoted herein by referencing source.  Permission to reprint this article may be obtained by contacting Ruth at the Archaeological Heritage Association (AHA) 760/885-9374 or via email at Ruth@RiverAHA.org.

(May 7)  A longtime Democratic Party activist who has supported others in their political aspirations but had never run for office herself, Eloise Gomez Reyes said she believes she is now qualified and prepared to seek office herself. She is currently one of seven candidates seeking to succeed Congressman Gary Miller in the 31st Congressional District following Miller’s retirement announcement in February.
“I think, to put it in fewest words possible, working families need a real voice in Washington and that is something I can provide,” Gomez Reyes said.
Of the challenges facing the 31st District, Gomez Reyes said, “Number one has to be jobs and the economy. We need to bring jobs back to America and that includes ending tax breaks to corporations that send jobs overseas.”
In addition to discouraging the outsourcing of job opportunities, Gomez Reyes said efforts have to be undertaken to train the current and emerging local work force so potential employees are matched with the skills needed by employers.
“Local economist John Husing talks about logistics and health care,” she said. “If those are the jobs of the future, we have to train our students to go into those areas. We need to train our children for those jobs in the 21st Century. We need to accept that not every student wants to go to college. That is something we encourage all students to do but some do not want to go to college and some need vocational training. That should be provided to them.
“We also have to ensure that small businesses succeed,” she continued. We have to figure out a way to promote small business growth, especially in the neighborhoods that have suffered the most. We have to help them manage their start up costs, perhaps by deferring payroll taxes during their first year of operation.”
She continued, “We need to  invest in infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the Inland Empire a D plus on our physical infrastructure. We need to figure out what we should do with our bridges and roads.”
Workers need to be economically empowered, Gomez Reyes said. “The other thing is we should raise the minimum wage,” she said. “There is no reason why we can’t go to $10.10 an hour.  We should make sure there is equal pay for equal work. It doesn’t just affect woman or individual workers. it effects families. When we talk about raising the minimum wage, we are talking about the future. Wages up the social security investment. Women, we know, on average get less in social security than men do. We need family leave and paid medical leave. We need to make that available to them.  Another area is green jobs. We have to provide incentives for companies doing research and development in renewable energy. We have to get our veterans back to work. I will make sure that I never vote on anything that reduces social security to our seniors.  In fact, I believe we need to figure out some way to expand it.”
Gomez Reyes took up the issue of veterans’ benefits.
“We make promises to our veterans,” she said. “I am passionate about that. I am tired of how we make our veterans wait. I take this issue very personally. I had a brother-in-law who served in Viet Nam. He was exposed to Agent Orange. When his health started to deteriorate he applied for help and the health benefits that were due him. He died before he received a single benefit. Then after he was dead, his widow had to start the process all over again and reapply. She is now finally getting those benefits, but we can’t make our veterans wait. When we asked them to serve, they did not tell us to wait.”
Gomez Reyes further stated that it is hard to draw a distinction between local and national issues in the 31st District since so many national issues impact the local area.
“An issue very important to our district is comprehensive immigration reform,” she said. “We need a true path to citizenship. We can’t continue inhumane deportations separating families. I have been volunteering legal aid for 25 years. I have seen landlord tenant issues where tenants cannot afford an attorney. I have seen single woman who cannot afford an attorney to get the right child support. These issues are so local. We need to get our children through our educational system.  These are national issues but they are also issues of this district.”
She expanded upon how San Bernardino County and the 31st District are a microcosm of the country as a whole.
“When I talk to my future colleagues, as when I have gone to Washington D.C. to talk about my race, there is not anyone who did not express concern with regard to the economy and job creation in their districts. Those are also on the top for them.”
A broiling national issue that has piqued her interest, she said, is governmental surveillance of its citizens.
“I am concerned about the NSA [National Security Agency] and other issues having to do with our privacy, especially now that the NSA has access to people’s records, which are being held and reviewed. That is a concern of many I have talked to.  Immigration and education are local issues but also national issues.
“With regard to immigration, we do have to find a true path to earned citizenship,” she reiterated. “We need to secure our borders from terrorists, felons and gang members. When we know someone’s criminal record already, we need to move forward and make sure they go back to their country. There is a Senate bill that was passed. I think that is a great beginning. We need to look at how we proceed with deportations. We have students here who have been here their whole lives who are being separated from their families. That is something I am concerned about and which we need to be concerned about.”
The federal government should play a role in raising scholastic standards and ensuring education is universally available, she said.
“We need to look at the quality of education and equity in education,” she said. “We want all of our students to have opportunity. I was provided with opportunity. I want students to get education of the quality that was available to me. I believe we need  pre-kindergarten programs. That is something that is of benefit to them later on. By third grade, we want them reading and writing. Studies show those are important periods. We should do whatever needs to be done to make sure they are getting that. We should also make sure that we over intensive education programs in science, engineering and made. We need to be able to provide technical schools and vocational training. We should have short term adult education in place. We should have short term education and training for available jobs. These are paths to upward mobility. Without this, people are stuck and won’t be able to enter the middle class. We need to change the terms of student loans. We strap our students with huge loans. They leave college with a degree and huge debt. After graduating they should be free to get a job and start a family without being strapped with these huge loan debts where the federal government is making billions of dollars on the  interest.”
In the field of candidates in the 31st with Gomez Reyes is former Congressman Joe Baca, Danny Tillman, Lesli Gooch, Paul Chabot, Ryan Downing, and Pete Aguilar. Gomez Reyes said she is the best choice for the post because, “I am not a career politician. I am going to Washington to do a job, not to get a job or keep a job. I have served this community for over thirty years because I love this community. I want it to prosper like it once did. I believe I can lead it back. When I was 12 years old, I went to work, picking onions. That is how we bought our school clothes. That is something I am proud of. I was the first Latina to open a law office in the Inland Empire. I never shied away from hard work, not as an onion picker or as an attorney. I am not going to shy away from the hard work required in Congress.”
Gomez Reyes graduated from Colton High School, where she was ASB president. She attended San Bernardino Valley College and received an AA degree in liberal arts there before matriculating at USC, where she obtained a BA in public administration. She obtained her juris doctor degree from Loyola Law School and has been practicing law for 30 years in the areas of worker’s compensation and personal injury.
She is married with one child.

(May 6)  John Coffey is again seeking election to California’s lower legislative house representing the 33rd Assembly District because, he said, “this area has been without legitimate representation since 2010.”
Coffey, a Democrat, lost in his previous bids for the assembly against Republican Tim Donnelly. Voter registration in the district solidly favors the GOP. Two-termer Donnelly, who would have been eligible to run once more for the Assembly under California’s term limit law, opted to instead run for governor this year, resulting in eight Republicans and Coffey seeking to replace him.
Coffey asserted his belief that the Republican domination of the district has done it no good, given the supermajority the Democrats currently have in the legislature and the near supermajority they have had over the last several years.
“What has happened to the area, which is essentially mountains and desert, is inexcusable,” Coffey said. “Without legitimate representation it has lost a lot of funding, lost out on infrastructure, lost every court in the High Desert and Mountains. It has been poorly treated. The odds are never in our favor.”
Coffey said he is an established Democrat activist who could go to Sacramento and immediately translate his status as a party insider into respect for the district.
“I have been representing, on my own time, environmental activist groups for the last 12 years including Helphinkley.org and the Defenders of Wildlife and I have attended hundreds of evidentiary meetings with Pacific Gas & Electric and Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, as well as Bureau of Land Management applications on renewable energy projects,” he said. “I have attended  school board meeting all over the desert when there are issues that affected classified employees or special needs students.”
Coffey intoned, “I have been active in Democratic politics in the desert and before that in San Diego and I was the endorsed  Democratic candidate in the 33rd in 2012 and received that endorsement at large for 2014. I’m a known associate of [current Democratic Congressional Candidate]  Bob Conaway and we have worked together on many projects and issues.”
Asked to size up the challenges facing the 33rd District, Coffey said, “There’s a housing crisis. There’s a lot of underwater mortgages. There are many foreclosures and many vacant properties which are deteriorating rapidly. Employment is rapidly disappearing. The military employers are cutting back. There’s a hunger problem here in the desert  There’s a majority of students on reduced or free lunch, and that is a primary indicator of food insecurity in the home.  We have no reliable public transportation within Barstow or intercity transportation between Needles, Barstow and the Victorville area. The closure of the courthouses, specifically in Needles, Big Bear and Barstow and the substantial closure of Victorville  has disenfranchised every resident of the 33rd Assembly District and denied us equal access to justice and the equal protection of the law.  The state Supreme Court has stated this is a constitutional crisis and I concur. Someone has to be in Sacramento with a seat at the Assembly committee table and the Democratic caucuses to make this right. Gun wielding conservatives will not help. However I am a gun owner and I believe in the right to bear arms and an open system for concealed carry permits. I support Mr. Donnelly’s bill to that extent.”
Coffey continued, “Health care is another crisis area in the High Desert. The Barstow area has limited primary care and no tertiary care specialist treatment available.  When you put the transportation deficit together with only minimal primary care available in Barstow and other rural communities, the result is disability and early death for many and the early death of senior citizens. This must be resolved.”
Coffey said he will not restrict his efforts to improve the situation in the 33rd District to legislative ones, but will embark upon litigation as an elected representative of his constituents to obtain what is due them.
“I am no stranger to the courthouse,” he said. “If necessary, I can bring a class action federal lawsuit to restore equal access  to justice for residents of the 33rd District and I will be the lead plaintiff. If we are to preserve rural areas as a place to live, there must be adequate public transportation.  Private transportation for senior citizens is an illusion, because many senior citizens are one doctor visit away from losing their license. There must be a transportation network at least in part sponsored by the medical providers to make sure the seniors and disabled can get to the tertiary care they need to stay in their homes. The same dynamics apply to an alarming number of disabled children in the 33rd District, who have even fewer options for their treatment.”
If elected, Coffey said he will “make sure that school districts stay on top of the entitlement of free and reduced lunches and I will expedite  food stamp applications for households with minor children.”
Coffey said he more than any of the other candidates in the race are committed to maintaining the districts ecological integrity.
“As far as environmental issues go, as Mark Twain said, ‘Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.’ No area signifies that more than the High Desert. The largest toxic water plume in the country was in Hinkley. After 28 years of do-nothing hearings, it is time for the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to declare Hinkley a Superfund site.  Barstow must also begin to deal with its perchlorate issues more effectively with the state’s help  to avoid another water shutdown. In  Cadiz the aquifer should only be used as an asset to protect and support environmentally sensible development and endangered species habitat conservation.”
He continued, “The Bureau of Land Management is in the middle of a land grab for private developers in the Silurian Valley. They must cease. The Silurian Valley is a national park quality park wilderness area  that bridges the transition from Death Valley to the Mojave preserve. It is irreplaceable and the home of six endangered species.”
Coffey offered his theory that “The chief driver of poverty is the lack of available affordable housing. Not only are younger adults living with mom and dad again, that group in turn has been forced to move in with the grandparents.  I don’t know where those people can go for the next step. Cities need to reinvent themselves with their homes for their residents or become irrelevant. If there is no one living there, there is no incentive for private industry to provide goods and service to that area. Strong neighborhoods build strong communities. If the HUD Section 8 housing assistance program was funded in accordance with demonstrated need we would not be having this housing crisis.”
Coffey decried the “absence of younger people in activist groups. Activism is the province of mostly people my age or close to it. The groups must reach out to the next generation to involve them and make sure they are welcome, make sure their views and lifestyles are appreciated and valued.  I understand why young people run the other way, when they have been watching my generation swimming upstream the last 25 years. But we can turn this around if we can just focus on how to fix the problems, the problems are solvable and we need to convince the power brokers in Sacramento that their time is running out to fix them in a reasonable way.”
Coffey said he was distinguished from the other candidates in that “I am a person of mature years, a lifelong activist with a law degree and a willingness to use it where appropriate. I am 68 years old. This is not about me. It is about our kids and our grandkids.  If we aren’t going to leave them an economy and environment that is functional and sustaining, then we have failed.”
At graduate of St. Justin High School in San Diego, he attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and later  graduated from St. Martins College in Lacey Washington with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and clinical social work. He obtained his juris doctor degree from Western State University School of Law San Diego, but is not currently practicing law. “I am still an honest man,” he said.
He served in the U.S. Army for eight years, having achieved the rank of staff sergeant upon his discharge.
He has worked as a car salesman, a psychiatric social work supervisor, a claims representative for the Social Service Administration, a paralegal, a civil and criminal investigator and is  currently a bilingual special needs student teacher.
He has three children and four grandchildren.

(May 8)  A significant portion of the $31.7 million worth of construction work that was to be completed on the Ranchero Road/I-15 Interchange went up in flames on May 5, when a worker using a blowtorch to cut steel reinforcing bars accidentally ignited the wooden bracing for the structure.
Efforts to douse the flames failed as in high winds fanned and spread the fire.
According to Eric Sherwin, a public information officer with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, his agency received multiple reports of the fire at the interchange construction site near the confluence of the freeway and Ranchero Road south of Highway 395 at about 1:30p.m.
“Callers stated that flames were visible on the underside of the bridge in the center divider area,” according to Sherwin. “First arriving units discovered a well-established fire that carried across the entire bridge project which spans the interstate. They also noted debris falling onto the freeway and immediately requested a full closure of the north and southbound lanes for commuter safety.
“Suppression efforts were hampered at many points during the extended attack,” Sherwin continued. “Falling debris and ongoing collapses prevented crews from fighting the fire from beneath the structure, Once personnel pulled back out of the collapse zone, constant winds of 25 mph with 35 mph gusts kept hose streams from penetrating deep into the bridge and to the seat of the fire. These same winds contributed to the quick spread as flames were pushed through the construction area much like a wildland environment. Being on the interstate, access to fire hydrants was reduced. Therefore, a number of water tenders were brought to scene to support the large volume of water being utilized to combat the blaze.”
As efforts to bring the flames under control on the afternoon of May 5 continued, eleven engines, one truck company, one patrol, six water tenders, and one hand crew totaling over 60 personnel were assigned to the incident along with multiple chief officers.
By 10 p.m. on May 5, the fire appeared to have been suppressed but some time later reignited and burned again until after 6 a.m. on May 6, at which time firefighters managed to douse it.
During the fire and in its aftermath, Interstate 15 was closed in both directions. Because of the debris covering the freeway and the efforts needed to clear it, the freeway remained closed for well over 24 hours. Both lanes were reopened at 11:45 p.m. on May 6.
According to Tim Watkins of SANBAG, San Bernardino County’s transportation agency, as of Thursday, May 8, there were neither precise nor approximate estimates of the monetary loss the fire caused. SANBAG is the lead agency on the project.
Watkins told the Sentinel on May 6 that the fire occurred after the concrete columns had been put in place but about a week before the concrete was to be poured to form the overpass superstructure.
The fire sparked when workers were using blowtorches to cut off excess steel bars where metal box cages are tied together, he said, further characterizing that action as “a normal practice in bridge construction work.”  He said that extensive inspection of the columns will need to be done to determine whether the columns can remain in place or will need to be torn down and replaced. The bridge’s false work, that is the wooden framing that held the ironwork in place prior to the pouring of the concrete, was completely destroyed in the fire as was the ironwork. Some other elements of the construction that had been completed escaped relatively unscathed, Watkins said.
“The ramps and the area leading to the abutment and the drainage system were all unaffecdted by the fire, so it was not a total loss of the construction effort,” Watkins said. “All of the false work, the timber plywood forms and the rebar steel that was in place and the steel beams were destroyed. All of the surface work will have to be redone. We have to assess whether the fire had any effect on the columns themselves, from either the heat or the falling structure. An engineering team will go in and make that assessment.”
A published report on May 8 held that the monetary damage had been tentatively pegged at “between $5 million and $6 million.” The same day, Watkins indicated that those figures had not been issued from SANBAG. “There is no way to speculate on that without the engineering assessment being done,” he said. “Yesterday [May 7] there was digging work performed on the roadway and they took steel from the columns to submit it to an analysis. The results of that will help calculate how extensive the damage was.”
Watkins said, “The loss to be determined will be based on the total impact of the fire and only partially on how much has been spent to date, since some of the completed work is salvageable. We will eventually know, going backwards from what had been completed and will need to be redone, what our losses are. I cannot tell you at this time what the cost of the recovery effort will be to get back to the stage of construction we were on Monday morning.”
Watkins said the scheduled completion of the project will now be delayed for an indeterminate time, dependent upon the engineering assessment of how much of the still standing structure will need to be torn down and rebuilt as well as the availability and delivery of materials.

By clicking on the portal below, you can access a PDF of the May 2 San Bernardino County Sentinel.

Sentinel 05-02-14