(March 17) The chain of events that prevented Democrats from claiming what appears to be their rightful heirship in the 31st Congressional District in 2012 are replaying themselves once more in 2014. The internecine battle for primacy between four Democratic contenders in the district, which stretches from Rancho Cucamonga through a large portion of Fontana, Rialto, Colton, and San Bernardino to Redlands, could once again result in the GOP copping the Congressional seat now held by Republican Gary Miller.
Miller’s 2012 victory in the 31st Congressional District, which had been redrawn after the 2010 Census, was an extraordinary occurrence.
With the Republicans holding a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives and California being an overwhelming Democratic state, the Democrats have a real incentive to paint the 31st Congressional District blue, especially given the registration advantage they have over the Party of Lincoln within it.  Of the district’s registered voters, 127,690 or 41 percent, are affiliated with the Democratic Party.  Registered Republicans in the district number 104,938, or 33.7 percent.
Nevertheless, the Democrats foundered there in 2012, having been undercut by a lack of party cohesion and the advent of open primaries that year.
Four Democrats – Pete Aguilar, Justin Kim, Rita Ramirez-Dean, and Renea Wickman – sought election in the 31st in 2012, as did Miller and another Republican, Bob Dutton. Despite the seven percent Democratic voter registration advantage in the 31st, simple mathematics hurt the Democrats as their vote was divided four ways, while the Republican vote was split two ways. Dutton and Miller proved to be the two top vote-getters and under California’s open primary arrangement, the Democrats who ran third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the June race were shut out and the November general election came down to a race between Republicans Miller and Dutton. Miller prevailed in that race.
Now, two years later, déjà vu has descended on the 31st District. Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar, the top Democratic vote-getter two years ago, attorney and Democratic Party activist Eloise Gomez-Reyes from Colton, former congressman Joe Baca from Rialto and San Bernardino City Unified School District Trustee Danny Tillman have all qualified their candidacies in the race.
In February, Miller announced he would not seek reelection. That brought two Republican hopefuls into the race, Lesli Gooch, a member of Miller’s congressional staff, and Paul Chabot, a self-styled anti-drug crusader who in 2010 ran for the State Assembly but lost to fellow Republican Mike Morrell.
In 2012, 62,667 total votes were cast in the June Primary in the 31st District. Miller claimed 16,708 of those, or 26.66 percent. Dutton snagged 15,557, or 24.82 percent, which edged out Aguilar, who claimed 14,181 votes or 22.63 percent. Justin Kim came in fourth with 8,487 votes or 13.54 percent. Renea Wickman, the third most popular Democrat in the race, placed fifth overall, with  8,487 votes or 13.54 percent.  Rita Ramirez-Dean came in last, but siphoned off  3,546 votes or 5.66 percent.
Thus, 32,265 of the district’s voters, or 51.48 percent, voted for Republicans, and 48. 52 percent voted for Democrats in the primary.
Under normal circumstances, Republicans exhibit greater voter turn-out at the polls than do Democrats. Moreover, this disparity is even more pronounced in primary elections than in general elections. In November 2012, voter turn-out in the 31st Congressional District at the general election was well more than double what it was in the primary, with 161,219 casting votes. And in the voting for president, the district’s voters supported Democrat  Barack Obama with 57.2 percent of the vote to Republican Mitt Romney with 40.6 percent, which probably reflects what the outcome would have been had a Democrat opposed a Republican in the congressional seat voting.
It is possible that Gooch, who has picked up Miller’s endorsement and who has begun to tap into the funding stream Miller used including the National Realtors Association’s political action committee, and Chabot, with his name recognition among a faction of local Republicans, could cut the Democrats off at the pass again in June. In fact, many political observers consider such an outcome likely.
Meanwhile, an earlier effort by the Democratic establishment to break the GOP’s unlikely hold on the 31st District has sputtered.
Even before Miller outpolled Dutton in November 2012, Democratic strategists were conferring about what steps could be taken to ensure that Democratic disarray in 2014 did not perpetuate Miller’s incumbency beyond the current Congress. In short order, a game plan was hatched by which Aguilar was chosen as the logical party standard bearer. By promoting Aguilar early, engaging in brisk fundraising on his behalf and warding off any other Democrats so a concentrated party electoral effort to advance Aguilar could be mounted, high-ranking Democratic  Party officials believed Aguilar could beat Miller in a toe-to-toe slugfest in November.
Relatively early on, well-connected Democratic-functionaries acted to boost Aguilar.  In May 2013, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee selected Aguilar as one of five candidates nationwide to be included in its Jumpstart Program, which is intended to assist early-emerging Democrats seeking to unseat incumbent Republicans deemed to be vulnerable.
Party leaders convinced California’s two senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to endorse Aguilar. Party donors, inside and outside California, were encouraged to provide him with campaign cash, and money started pouring into Aguilar’s political war chest. More attention was drawn to him, ensuring even more contributions, when the Washington-based news organization, Politico, in July named Aguilar one of “50 Politicos to watch in 2013.”
Despite all that, Baca, Gomez-Reyes and Tillman somehow failed to get the message.
Baca,  who had been a member of Congress for more than 13 years when he was ignominiously chased from office by another Democrat in the 2012 election, is less than accommodating at this point of his party’s alliances and priorities. His political demise in 2012 came about as a consequence of his own decision on where he would run, a visceral side-effect of open primaries and his Democratic rival’s readiness to enter into an opportunistic political arrangement with a well-heeled, out-of-state Republican.
Beginning in 1999 when he won a special election to succeed long-time Democratic Congressman George Brown after Brown died in office, Baca represented California in Washington D.C.’s lower house, serving the heavily Democratic-leaning  42nd and 43rd Congressional districts with solid Democratic support. In 2012, he found himself most logically ushered into the newly drawn 31st Congressional District as a result of the reapportionment following the 2010 Census.  Simultaneously, Congressman Gary Miller, whose 42nd district in northeast Orange, southeast Los Angeles and southwest San Bernardino counties had likewise been reapportioned out from underneath him, opted out of running against fellow Republican Ed Royce in the newly-draw 39th District. Instead Miller declared his intention of wrestling Baca for the voters’ nod in the newly drawn 31st District.
Though the 31st was a Democratic-leaning district, Baca, perhaps fearing Miller’s prodigious fundraising ability, decided to run in the neighboring 35th Congressional District, which was even more heavily laden with Democrat voters than the 31st.
Incumbent Members of Congress do not need to live within the geographical boundaries of the district they represent, and merely need to live within the state where the district in which they hold office is located.
Baca appeared to be a shoo-in in the 35th, where no Republican candidate bothered to run. He cruised to a relatively convincing victory in the June 2012 primary, capturing 12,619 votes or 47.17 percent to 9,078 or 33.93 percent that went to then-state senator Gloria Negrete-McCleod, another Democrat, and  5,058 votes or 18.9 percent, that went to Anthony Vieyra, a Green Party Candidate.
The switch to an open primary system  ended sequestered party ballots and effectively brought to a close the tradition of guaranteeing that a Democrat would face a Republican in the November general election. Instead, the open primary led to setting up a November race between the two highest vote-getters in June, regardless of party affiliation. Thus, a confident Baca in November 2012 squared off against Negrete-McLeod. On the strength of his primary showing, his incumbency, his perceived fundraising advantage, his superior name recognition, and his unwillingness to engage in a bare-knuckle political slugfest against a woman who was like him Democrat and Hispanic, Baca waged little more than a minimalist campaign, fully anticipating he would easily pick up at least three percent of the voting trend that had gone to Vieyra in the primary campaign to put him over the top.
In the final weeks before the general election on November 6, however, Negrete-McLeod’s campaign was infused with $3.8 million in donations from a political action committee controlled by Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which paid for a $2.3 million television advertising blitz during the last week of the campaign. Caught flatfooted and unable to respond in kind to both a bevy of negative hit pieces that attacked him on his record and upbeat mailers that lionized Negrete-McLeod for her service in the California legislature, Baca saw the election slip away, with Negrete-McLeod capturing 61,065 votes or 54.35 percent to his 51,281 votes or 45.65 percent.
Baca is now gunning to make a political comeback and he is not inclined to heed the pleas of Democratic Party officials who stood idly by a year-and-a-half ago while his Democratic rival utilized boatloads of Republican money to clobber him.  He is seeking to utilize the name recognition he has cultivated from two decades as a legislator in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento, his indirect and residual political clout, together with an insider’s knowledge of issues and alliances, and sheer force of will to regain a berth in the House of Representatives. He is looking to tap into big money backing from national and even international players, such as ConocoPhillips and TransCanada, whose Keystone XL Pipeline intended to transport oil sands bitumen from Canada and  Bakken synthetic crude oil and light crude oil produced in Montana and North Dakota  to refineries on the Gulf Coast Baca has supported even as environmentalists have opposed that project.
Nor did Democratic honchos make any headway in convincing Gomez Reyes or Tillman to clear out of Aguilar’s way.  Indeed, Gomez-Reyes in particular, has demonstrated the seriousness of her campaign.
According to campaign finance reporting documents filed with the Federal Election Commission,   she has raised $315,520.94. Moreover, she has been gaining momentum and advancing in the early polling that has been conducted, making inroads against both Aguilar and Baca as she has earnestly propounded her message and pursued her maiden campaign after years of building goodwill among Democrats throughout Southern California as a party activist and campaign worker for others.
The money Aguilar, Baca and Gomez-Reyes appear poised to throw into the advertising onslaught in advance of the June primary will very likely ensure that the vote between them will be relatively evenly distributed, with Tillman claiming an inevitable three-to-eight percent of the Democratic vote as well.
Another factor that has increased the likelihood of a similar replay of the 2012 31st District outcome, with the advantage accruing to Gooch and Chabot, is that a third potential Republican candidate, San Bernardino City Councilman John Valdivia, who took out nomination papers, at the last minute decided against running.  Valdivia’s presence on the ballot would have likely divided the Republican vote significantly. His decision elevates the political prospects of Gooch and Chabot considerably.

TWENTYNINE PALMS (March 20)—Twentynine Palms Water District officials are on the verge of resurrecting a tax measure to fund the fire department.
Since 1958, the fire department in 29 Palms has been overseen by the water district. The department has grown to include two fire stations and seven firefighters to cover the 59 square miles within the Twentynine Palms City Limits and the 29 square miles of unincorporated county area that also falls under the water district/fire department’s 88-square mile jurisdiction. The city does not contribute to, participate in or subsidize the fire department’s operational budget.
In 2012, water district voters rejected Measure H, a tax increase proposal, and the water district explored  surrendering authority over the fire department to the county fire department.
That same year, the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission  indicated the water district would need to find augmenting funding for the fire department or relinquish control of it.
The water district and the city of Twentynine Palms worked on a proposal to have the county’s fire division subsume the fire department but that goal was not achieved after county fire chief Mark Hartwig said that in working within the confines of the $1.244 million in available special tax funding for local fire service, he would need to close down one of the fire stations and reduce the department to no more than four firefighters.
So far the water district has maintained control of the fire department but as of last July 1 the district closed out its Lear Avenue Fire Station.  The water district is now leasing the station to Copper Mountain College, which is using the facility to conduct fire science courses.
All of the fire department’s operations are now run out of the Adobe Road Fire Station, known as Station 421, and its paid personnel have been reduced to five. Response times to certain portions of the 88-square mile fire protection jurisdiction have increased.
Twentynine Palms Fire Chief Jim Thompson and Twentynine Palms Water District General Manager Tamara Alaniz have obtained an endorsement from the Twenty Nine Palms Citizen Advisory Committee, chaired by Adam Lunn, to again seek voter approval of an increase to the parcel tax imposed on residents within the water district’s boundaries.
The current parcel tax is $80. Lunn and his cohorts have advised that the district ask their customers to approve a $20.40 per year increase to that assessment on developed property and a $10.20 increase on vacant parcels. The committee has further suggested that the measure authorize the increase for three years and give the district the ability to add a three percent annual inflation adjustment in the years beyond 2018.
Were Twentynine Palms area residents willing to increase their fire tax burden, according to the advisory committee, the Lear Avenue station could be reopened and the fire department reconstituted to its former level, consisting of seven paid personnel and a complement of on-call firefighters.  Local control of the fire department would be guaranteed, according to the panel.
At present, Thompson manages the fire department for the water district, utilizing $1,244,800 in revenue from the special tax to fund operations that cost $1,209,525 annually, while salting away $52,775 in a reserve account.
At one point, county fire chief Hartwig proposed reducing the department to three firefighters and one station and utilizing volunteers/paid call personnel to function within the $1.2 million financial model. Eventually, the water board, under increasing pressure from members of the community, rejected the concept of handing the department off to the county, whose unionized firefighters draw higher pay and benefits than the current department’s members.
The advisory committee has suggested that the community could potentially be convinced to embrace the increased assessments by demonstrating that the reopening of the Lear Avenue facility, known as Station 422, would ensure a needed higher level of service to Twentynine Palms’ Indian Cove and Desert Heights neighborhoods.

(March 18) The disarray in the Adelanto Elementary School District descended to an even greater depth this week with the resignation of Dr. Lily Matos DeBlieux as superintendent.
DeBlieux was brought in to serve as superintendent several months after the departure of former superintendent Darrin Brawley. Brawley’s leaving was precipitated by the district’s failed effort to prevent the “takeover” of Desert Trails Elementary School pursuant to an effort to utilize California’s Parent Empowerment Act to restructure that school.
Though she had gamely sought to run the district and make gradual improvements in the carrying out of its educational mission, DiBlieux was buffeted by a string of controversies that compromised the focus on improving the academic performance of pupils in the district. Most recently, the district hired, following a 4-1 vote of the school board, an administrative secretary at a salary of $87,722, with employer-paid benefits of $18,819.60 and additional health and welfare benefits of $15,864.56 for a total compensation package of $122,406.14. That clerical position is intended as an assistant to the school board.
At the time the hiring was discussed and decided upon in closed session, DeBlieux sought to distance herself from it, telling the public the hiring had been acted upon solely by the board. It was approved by a 4-1 vote, with board member Debra Jones dissenting.
The board sought to shroud the matter in a mantle of secrecy, claiming the hiring was actually the promotion of a district employee who had previously been put on administrative leave. Board members cited the confidentiality that attends personnel issues in refusing to disclose the rationale for the hiring, which triggered a round of public criticism of the district, both for the perceived inflated salary of a clerical worker and the manner in which the hiring had been carried out outside normal channels.
The district is still refusing to identify who the administrative secretary is.
In late 2011, a parent union was formed by parents at Desert Trails Elementary, in large measure at the instigation of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Parent Revolution, which is devoted to challenging the traditional authority of school districts.
In January 2012 the parent union submitted 466 signatures on petitions asking the district to undertake a set of what the parents union maintained would be reforms at the academically challenged school, where students had for years consistently scored near the bottom of state-mandated standardized academic tests.  A group of parents opposed to the parent takeover of the school formed and went to work obtaining rescissions of many of the signatures on the petitions.
Those petitions called upon the district to sack the school’s principal, David Mobley, and surrender to the school’s parents authority in hiring his successor, infuse in the new principal hiring authority for the school’s faculty, reduce class sizes and increase the number of school days and instructional hours, and include more science, history and art in the curriculum.
In February 2012, the school district, to whom the parent trigger petitions had been entrusted, announced that it had validated the signatures of only 301 of the 466 signatures on the petitions and declared that the parent trigger petitions were thus 20 signatures short of the 321 needed. The Desert Trails Parent Union, represented by Mark Holscher, a lawyer with the firm on retainer with Parent Revolution, Los Angeles-based Kirkland & Ellis, filed a petition for a writ of mandate and a complaint in Victorville Superior Court seeking a court order that the district verify the signatures and allow the Parent Trigger process to advance on behalf of five of the members of the parents union – Doreen Diaz, Kathy Duncan, Teresa Rogers, Olivia Zamarripa and Bartola Del Villar. Holscher maintained that the district did not make an impartial tally of the signatures and “engaged in a systematic effort to invalidate the petitions.”
Judge Steve Malone, to whom the case was assigned, restored 97 of the signatures tossed out by the district. Malone ruled the district did not have the authority or a basis in law to discount signatures that proponents gathered and he ordered the Adelanto Elementary School District to accept the petition as filed by the parent union.
The parent union modified its demand to having the school converted to a charter academy, offering an intensified curriculum. Delays prevented the school district from converting Desert Trails Elementary into a charter school at the initiation of the 2012-13 academic year.
The Adelanto Elementary School District thus became the first district in the state in which the “parent trigger” law had been successfully applied.  In the same time frame, the district’s superintendent, Darin Brawley, resigned.
At about the same time as DeBlieux was hired as superintendent in January 2013, the school board voted to accept LaVerne Preparatory Academy as the operator of Desert Trails Elementary School.
Under DeBlieux, who took the helm as superintendent in March 2013, the district achieved having Desert Trails converted to a charter school, although that transition resulted in hard feelings and controversy, as well.
A central component LaVerne Preparatory Academy’s approach consists in engaging parents in their children’s educational process.  That parent involvement had been consistently lacking at the school. Many of the parents and educators opposed to the takeover pointed out that a significant number of the students at Desert Trails Elementary have parents whose first language is not English and nearly all of the instructional materials used by LaVerne Preparatory are in English. Whereas 466 parents at the school signed the petition to move forward with the parent trigger process in late 2011 and January 2012, when the parents union held its election in October 2012 to determine which of the charter schools that had submitted proposals should be chosen to educate their children, only 53 parents participated in that vote.
On June 25, 2013 then-Adelanto Planning Commission Chairwoman Lori Yuan and another parent, Chrissy Guzman, both of whom were involved in the anti-parent trigger effort, were alleged to have done nearly $7,700 worth of damage to a Desert Trails classroom during what was said to have been an “act of protest” against the parent takeover while they were disposing of old art supplies in the PTA meeting room at the school. Both have been charged with felony vandalism and Yuan has been removed from the planning commission.
DeBlieux’s abrupt announcement that she will be leaving as superintendent at the end of the school year in June, appeared to have blindsided the school board, which apparently was not aware that DeBlieux had applied to become the superintendent of the Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix. The Pendergast Governing Board on Monday approved DeBlieux’s hiring under a three-year contractual arrangement effective July 1.

TWENTYNINE PALMS (March 20) — The Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians has scheduled March 31 for the opening of the Tortoise Rock Casino.
Tribe members and a smattering of public dignitaries will attend a private reception that afternoon, to be followed by a 5 p.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony. Afterwards, the gaming will begin at the 30,000-square foot facility’s seven tables and 490 slot machines.
Live musical entertainment has been arranged for the opening night.
The Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians also operates the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella. Tribal Chairman Darrell Mike said the opening, which follows ten months of construction activity on the site at 73829 Base Line Road “is not only a significant milestone for our tribe, but we are also very happy to bring jobs and add excitement to entire High Desert community.”
The casino will employ close to 100 and will feature blackjack and several forms of poker.
The Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians initially proposed developing and operating the casino on tribal land in Twentynine Palms but discarded  those plans after the Department of Defense raised objections to locating the project so close to the Marine Base. In lieu of that, the tribe resolved to relocate the proposed project, redubbed the Nüwü Casino, some 23 miles away, in Joshua  Tree, on a 130-acre parcel on the north side of Twentynine Palms Highway west of White Feather Road and east of downtown Joshua Tree. That site was well outside the tribe’s reservation and what is recognized as the tribe’s ancestral land. To overcome the opposition of many vocal Joshua Tree residents as well as that of then-county supervisor Neil Derry and Joshua Tree municipal advisory council member David Fick, the tribe was forced to jump through a number of hoops, including filing an application with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to place the land in a public trust, transferring the tribe’s right from its tribal property to the Joshua Tree site and making a case that the tribe had ancestral roots in the Joshua Tree area, where it had an historical relationship to the property in question by virtue of aboriginal activity, including hunting, foraging and trading in particular.  That application would have entailed an anthropological study to demonstrate the tribe’s ancestors ranged into Joshua Tree.
Mike and his advisors, including the band’s chief financial officer, Steve Gralla, reassessed the likelihood of prevailing in a bruising battle with project opponents, and elected to resurrect its effort to develop and operate a casino on tribal land in Twentynine Palms.

JOSHUA TREE (March 18) — The sheriff’s department has installed a department veteran who lives in the Morongo Basin as the head of its regional station there.
Dale Mondary, who most recently has been serving as the commander of the sheriff’s department’s court services division, will be installed as the Morongo Basin station commander on April 19.
He is to replace retiring Captain Richard Boswell, who has been the head of the sheriff’s station in that portion of the desert since September 2012.
The Morongo Basin includes the two incorporated cites of Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms, as well as the unincorporated communities of Morongo Valley, Landers, Pioneertown, Joshua Tree, Wonder Valley and the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Training Base.
Mondary has been a resident of Yucca Valley for 21 years, two fewer than the 23 years he has served with the sheriff’s department.
In his capacity as station commander, he will also serve as police chief of Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms, both of which contract with the sheriff’s department for law enforcement service.
He worked previously at the Morongo Station as a deputy, detective, sergeant and lieutenant.  Mondary has a masters degree in criminology and criminal justice from Indiana State University and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

CHINO (March 17)– A year after Paul Segalla’s hiring as fire chief of the Chino Valley Independent Fire District was hailed as a giant step forward for the department and the community, he officially departed from his position, a month-and-a-half after he was placed on administrative leave January 24.
Segalla had continued to draw his annual $188,328 salary during his absence, which came about, board president John DeMonaco said, as the board made an “assessment of the compatibility of his management style with the goals of the district.”
Apparently, the board’s members were unable to collectively resolve the administrative and management differences they had with Segalla. The district said in a press release last week that Segalla, who  had been fire chief with the West Covina Fire Department for five years when he accepted the position in Chino Valley,  is intent on seeking employment elsewhere.
“Chief Segalla has informed the board that he is now desirous of seeking a new position outside of the district,” according to the district press release. “While it has been a pleasure working with him, on behalf of the board of directors we wish Chief Segalla future professional success and thank him for his dedicated service to the district.”
Segalla, who had been provided with a three-year contract upon his hiring, was removed from the district payroll as of March 4, an indication that there were unfavorable issues in the evaluation that the district is willing to cite in justifying the contract termination.
Neither Segalla nor the district, has gone beyond the district’s prepared public statements.
Segalla had been the fire chief with West Covina since 2008, and previously was fire chief in Lockpart Township, Illinois, fire captain with the Berkeley Fire Department, fire lieutenant in Aurora, Illinois and a firefighter and deputy chief with the Downers Grove Fire Department in Illinois.
Interim Fire Chief Tim Shackelford has been leading the department in Segalla’s absence.

The PDF of the March 14 Sentinel can be downloaded by clicking on the following portal:

Sentinel 03-14-14

(March 12) A Superior Court judge has suspended, at least for the time being, the county’s approval of a permit to construct a chain discount store in Joshua Tree.
In January 2013 the county planning commission by a 4-1 vote approved a proposal by Dynamic Development in conjunction with the Goodlettsville, Tennessee–based Dollar General Corp. to establish a Dollar General store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree.
Maintaining that they prided themselves on the rustic character of their town, a number of people in the community including the entire membership of the Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance,  resisted the proposal to build the 9,100-square foot Dollar General. They said the presence of a national corporate retail establishment would compromise the Old West ambience of a desert town that relies on tourism. They appealed the planning commission’s approval to the board of supervisors.
In June 2013, the board of supervisors held a public hearing to consider the appeal that incorporated a video hook-up with the meeting room at the Joshua Tree Community Center, allowing Joshua Tree residents to lodge their protests without having to make the 200-mile round trip to the county seat to be heard.
Gus Romo and Ernie Perea, planners with the county’s department of land use services who previously recommended that the commission approve Dynamic Development’s conditional use permit application, set the groundwork for their boss, Terri Rahhal, the planning director for the county, who was tasked with reiterating the planning division’s earlier analysis and findings and building a case to justify the store at its proposed location.
Romo and Perea maintained the 1.45 acre site is compatible from a land use standpoint with the applicant’s plans. Romo and Perea stated in a jointly authored report and recommendation, “This area of 29 Palms Highway is designated for commercial development and intended to cater to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The project is considered a general retail use permitted within the Joshua Tree Community Plan zoning designation subject to approval of a use permit. Therefore, the proposed development and retail use are considered compatible with the surrounding land uses and general plan land use designations.”
The board of supervisors denied the appeal and approved the project.
Joshua Tree residents and the downtown business alliance filed a lawsuit the following month, asserting the county’s land use services division did not fully examine the negative impacts of the project, including cutting into the profitability of preexisting businesses and upsetting the rural character of the district.
San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez sided with the plaintiff, ruling that the county needs to rescind Dynamic Development, LLC’s permit for the Dollar General retail store while county undertakes the preparation of an environmental impact report which Alvarez directed should specifically analyze the potential economic effects on surrounding businesses.
The county’s mitigated negative declaration of any untoward impacts of the project was insufficient, Alvarez ruled, in part because the analysis of the possible economic effects to existing businesses, which could result in urban decay, had not been done previously.
In reaching his conclusion, Alvarez relied upon a 29-year-old case pertaining to proposed new development in a less-than-highly-urbanized setting, the ski-resort community of Bishop. In that case, the court determined the California Environmental Quality Act called upon the governmental agency overseeing the project to “consider the secondary or indirect environmental consequences of economic and social changes.”
Though Alvarez said the California Environmental Quality Act is “not a fair competition statutory scheme intended to protect against economic competition,” he said the impact on preexisting businesses “must be considered if the loss of businesses affects the physical environment by causing or increasing urban decay.”
David Fick, speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs, told the Sentinel, “The Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance commends Judge Alvarez’ decision that requires the county to do an environmental impact report for the approval/disapproval of the Dollar General project according to California Environmental Quality Act requirements.”
Dynamic Development has given indication it will very likely appeal Alvarez’s ruling to the state appellate court in Riverside. Mark Ostoich, an attorney representing Dynamic Development, said the project met all the criteria of an acceptable property use.
The land uses surrounding the project site consist of single-family residential uses located within commercial zoning to the south across 29 Palms Highway, single-family residential uses within multi-family zoning to the north across Commercial Street, vacant commercial land to the east across Sunburst Avenue, and vacant commercial land to the west across Mountain View Street.
Opponents of the store alleged the project was inconsistent with Joshua Tree’scommunity plan, which encourages small businesses. The lawsuit also raised the issue of the project requiring a traffic study. Alvarez did not find in favor of the plaintiffs on those issues.
Rahhal said that the county was not bound by the Joshua Tree Community Plan and its precepts, and that it could not be cited as the grounds for keeping a business such as Dollar General from locating in Joshua Tree. “The Joshua Tree Community Plan articulates a vision of the community,” Rahhal said. “lt sets their vision. It is not the sole source of regulation for land use, though.”

(March 12) The county board of supervisors this week held a public hearing at which it certified the environmental impact report for the Desert Stateline solar project, adopting a finding of overriding considerations and approving the issuance of two production groundwater well permits to allow the project to proceed.
The federal government has given go-ahead to Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc.’s  2.6 square mile Stateline Solar Project, which is to be located just west of the California/Nevada border near Primm, Nevada in the Ivanpah Valley.
First Solar’s Stateline project will utilize mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on a heating tower to run a steam turbine, thereby yielding roughly 223 megawatts, adequate electricity for 82,800 households.
The project needed go-ahead from the county, as the local land use authority, to proceed.
According to  Tom Hudson, the director of the county’s land use services department, he and his department are relying upon a March 18, 2008 memorandum of understanding between the county and the Bureau of Land Management that he said “established guidelines for an effective, efficient and cooperative process for conducting environmental reviews of proposed projects that are located on public lands managed by the BLM and that may or may not include private land under the jurisdiction of the county.”
Hudson said the federal government had already certified the project as being in compliance with the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and that the county has now looked at the project in terms of regulations and limitations specified under the California Environmental Quality Act, which he said was similar to but in some particulars different from federal regulations and requirements.
“A comprehensive joint draft environmental impact statement and environmental impact report was completed for the project,” Hudson said.
Hudson said the project is deemed to be consistent with the county general plan in that the “county general plan does not impose conditions on public lands, including the project site, so there are no inconsistencies to discuss.” Hudson further maintained that the project is consistent with state goals and objectives. “The project will help California meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard goal, which imposes interim requirements to procure 20% of retail electric power sales from renewable sources today and 25% by 2016. By 2020, utilities must procure 33% of electrical power retail sales from renewables,” Hudson told the board of supervisors.
Additionally, Hudson stated, the project will have a favorable greenhouse gas offsetting factor.
“The energy produced by the project would displace approximately 294,728 Metric tons of carbon dioxide each year that would otherwise be emitted by fossil fuel-fired power plants,” Hudson said.
With regard to visual impacts of the project, Hudson acknowledged that the proposed project is located within an area “characterized by rough, rocky mountains formed by northerly trending fault blocks [and] views from travel routes within the vicinity of the study area tend to encompass broad, sweeping desert expanses bordered by rugged mountain ranges,” which would be disturbed by the project’s introduction of “with industrial character into the foreground and background views from I-15, the Primm Valley Golf Course, the Mojave National Preserve, and the Stateline Wilderness Area.” Given other facilities in the area, including the adjacent Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, Hudson said, “The impact of the proposed facility on the existing visual character of the site and its surrounding landscape would be less than significant.”
Hudson also said that “Construction of the project would have a direct adverse effect on the desert tortoise, resulting in the displacement of approximately 40 adult desert tortoises, and permanently impacting approximately 2,023 acres of desert tortoise habitat. Impacts to desert tortoise individuals and habitat would be reduced through implementation of applicant proposed measures and mitigation measures required for protection of wildlife and other resources.” Those efforts include, Hudson said, reducing potential direct and indirect degradation of desert tortoise habitat, taking efforts to protect the tortoises by relocating them, eliminating noxious weeds in the area that are a hazard to the tortoises, engaging in dust control and taking care with chemical and fuel storage as well as trash disposal.
The project will also have regrettable impacts on the golden eagle, which species has a dozen nesting territories within 10 to 12 miles of the project site. “Seven of the 12 nesting territories were determined to be active during the 2010 golden eagle nest surveys,” Hudson said. “The closest active nest is approximately two miles to the northwest of the project site, near the Umberci Mine. Although no golden eagle nest sites occur within the project study area, the project site is located within foraging distance from the identified nests. Potential impacts to golden eagles would be reduced through mitigation measures required for protection of wild life and other resources. Implementation of the measures would reduce impacts on the golden eagle to less than significant levels.”
Water for the project, Hudson said “would be obtained from two new groundwater production wells; the primary well to be located on the southeastern corner of the facility, and the secondary well located approximately 4,250 feet west of facility. The Applicant has prepared and received approval from the county geologist of a groundwater monitoring and reporting plan, fulfilling the requirements of the San Bernardino County groundwater monitoring program guidelines.”
Hudson prepared a statement of overriding considerations for the project which the board approved. That statement said the project would support the Bureau of Land Management in meeting federal land policy by  serving to “manage public lands for multiple uses that take into account the long-term needs of future generations for renewable and non-renewable resources” and “support the Bureau of Land Management” in achieving “Executive Order 13212 (May 18, 2001) which mandates that agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management,  act expediently and in a manner consistent with applicable laws to increase the production and transmission of energy in a safe and environmentally sound manner [and] Secretarial Order 3285A1 (March 11, 2009 and amended on February 22, 2010) which “establishes the development of renewable energy as a priority of the Department of the Interior.”
The statement of overriding considerations further states that “The project will support investor-owned utilities in meeting the Renewable Portfolio Standard to supply 33% of California’s total electricity through renewable energy generation by 2020 [and] The project will assist the state in reaching the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals in Assembly Bill 32 to 1990 levels by 2020, by generating electricity without the use of fossil fuels or natural gas fired generation.”
The statement of overriding considerations also noted that “The project will establish 300 megawatts of generating capacity for emission-free photovoltaic solar electricity in an area of high solar insolation to maximize the use of available sunlight.”

(March 11) The board of supervisors this week awarded a lucrative county contract for the provision of what is known as conflict representation for indigent defendants in the county’s courts to a firm that was underbid by its competitors on two portions of the contract.
Conflict representation for a defendant without the financial means to hire an attorney to represent him/her comes about when the crime he/she is charged with involves [an]other defendant[s] of likewise modest financial means who is represented by the public defender’s office, which is dedicated to providing a defense to the county’s accused who are without the wherewithal to retain an attorney on their own. In those cases where one or more of the defendants is contending or may contend that he/she is being accused of a crime actually committed by his/her codefendant[s], a separate attorney is needed to prevent one defendant from being exploited by the defense but on by the other defendant.
Whereas previously three separate law firms provided the conflict representation, the county, by its action this week, is allowing a law firm headed by Earl Carter to handle all of the county’s conflict representation.
Through December 31, 2013, four law firms had contracts to serve as conflict attorneys representing defendants in San Bernardino County.  The Law Firm of David Goldstein had a $9.35 million contract to provide conflict attorney representation in the West Valley region of San Bernardino County. The law firm of Carter Spring, Shank & O’Connor,  headed by Earl Carter and Jim Spring, had an $18.75 million contract to represent defendants in the East Valley as well as a $12 million contract to represent defendants in the county’s North Desert Region. Attorney John Burdick had a $1.875 million contract to do conflict representation in the East Desert region.
On September 26, 2013, County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereux approved the solicitation of bids for court-appointed adult indigent defense representation service providers. A proposal evaluation committee consisting of representatives of the county and the Superior Court was formed to review the submitted proposals. When that committee did not arrive on a decision on which firms to extend the conflict representation contracts to by December, the board of supervisors extended the contracts with Carter Spring Shank & O’Connor, the Goldstein Law Firm and attorney John Burdick through March 2014 for $2,450,000, $1,070,000 and $200,000, respectively.
In response to the September 26 bid solicitation, six law firms submitted bid proposals for the work, including Earl Carter’s firm under the name Inland Defenders; Burdick under the name Contract Defenders; Greenline Partners, headed by attorneys Daniel Greenberg and Raj Maline; Robert Ponce; the law firm of Brown, White and Newhouse; and the law firm of  Skipper, Singer & Associates.
The county board of supervisors this week, in the words of County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereux, approved an agreement with Inland Defenders “to provide adult indigent defense services in an amount not to exceed $8,000,000 annually and $20,000,000 total over the 30-month term of April 1, 2014 through September 30, 2016 with two additional one-year options if in the best interest of the county.”
That contract applies to all four of the county’s regions.
Devereux made his recommendation and the board its vote in favor of Inland Defenders despite the consideration that with regard to the contract for representation of the East Valley region, Inland Defenders was substantially underbid by Greenline Partners and with regard to the contract for representation of the North Desert it was underbid by both Greenline Partners and Robert Ponce.
Inland Defenders bid $3,085,680 on the East Valley portion of the project. Greenline bid $2,142,480 on the East Valley portion of the project.
Inland Defenders bid $1,847,880 on the North Desert portion of the contract. Greenline bid $1,347,840 on the North Desert portion of the contract. Ponce bid $1,500,300 on the North Desert portion of the contract.
Devereux’s recommendation was based in large measure by a review done by a team of evaluators consisting of  Superior Court judges Annemarie Pace and John Vander Feer as well as chief assistant county counsel Michelle Blakemore and deputy county counsel Phoebe Chu.
The evaluation committee of Pace, Vander Feer, Blakemore and Chu ranked the competitors using a process by which each firm was eligible to receive up to a maximum of 100 points each measuring the level of service they offered, for a total maximum score of 400 based upon the rankings of all four evaluators.
Inland Defenders scored a rank of 353. Contract Defenders scored 315. Greenline Partners was ranked at 309. The Ponce law firm achieved a 306 ranking. Skipper, Singer and Associates as well as Brown, White & Newhouse scored an identical 240.
In his report to the board of supervisors on the contract agreement this week, Devereux indicated that the bottom-line cost of the service was not a controlling factor in the bid completion. He equivocated somewhat with respect to whether Inland Defenders had qualified as the lowest bidder overall or in relation to portions of the contract.
“Upon receiving the scores, the finance and budget office noted that the cost portion of the
scores were difficult to compare since one proposal was countywide only and the others were countywide and/or for specific regions,” Devereux wrote. “To make an equitable cost score comparison, the finance and budget office ran two scenarios using a formula from the county purchasing department to objectively score the cost portion of each proposal. The first scenario separated each proposal into stand alone regional proposals and scored the cost in each region separately. The second scenario merged the second best scoring proposal in each of the individual regions to form a countywide proposal for comparison to the two countywide proposals. In each scenario, Inland Defenders’ proposal remained the highest scored, both countywide and in the individual regions.”
Participants in the competition as well as others protested that favoritism was shown to Inland Defenders when it was permitted on January 2, 2014 to submit via fax a revised fee schedule, one day before the intent to award was declared. That opportunity to resubmit a key part of its bid was not extended to any of the other competitors.
In his report to the board of supervisors on the contract agreement this week, Devereux gave what appeared to be a justification for allowing Inland Defenders to submit a follow-up bid.  “After confirming Inland Defenders’ proposal as the highest scoring, inclusive of cost, and reviewing the cost proposals from each respondent, the finance and budget office determined that it was in the county’s best interest to negotiate pricing with Inland Defenders as permitted under the request for proposals rather than move forward immediately with a notice of intent to award. Inland Defenders offered a revised cost proposal of $6,724,560, an annual reduction of $437,220.”
Inland Defenders originally offered to handle all four regional contracts annually for $7,161,780. The only other firm that bid on all four regional contracts was Brown, White & Newhouse, which bid  $7,828,020 on the overall contract.
Unaddressed in Devereux’s report are perceptions that were aired during the last two months that Carter and the other attorneys associated with Inland Defenders had bought an advantage in the contract sweepstakes by making hefty campaign contributions to San Bernardino County officials.
Documents on file with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters’ office and the California Secretary of State’s office show that Earl Carter, together with his recently deceased law partner Jim Spring, and his law firm, Carter, Spring, Shank & O’Connor, donated a total of $120,500 to district attorney Mike Ramos from 2004 until 2012. Additionally, together with his law firm and law partners, Carter has made $88,500 in political donations to all five current county supervisors, including $38,000 to Gary Ovitt, $32,050 to Josie Gonzales, $12,750 to Janice Rutherford, and $1,500 each to both Robert Lovingood and James Ramos.
District attorney Ramos, whose deputy prosecutors are the professional and courtroom adversaries of defense attorneys including those employed by Inland Defenders, intensified this controversy when he wrote a letter of recommendation for Inland Defenders that was submitted to the evaluation committee.
Devereux in his report indicated he and county staff were aware of the controversy over the county’s intention to award the contract to Inland Defenders and that they had discounted the protests that controversy had engendered.
“Subsequent to issuing the notice of  intent to award the contract, the purchasing department  received a number of requests for copies of documents from proposers who were not selected,” Devereux wrote. “To accommodate these requests and allow time for the proposers to prepare an appeal if desired, purchasing extended the appeal period. During the extended appeal period, purchasing received two written appeals from Greenline Partners and Robert Ponce. The appeal requests were reviewed by the purchasing agent and denied, resulting in the recommendation to award all four regions to Inland Defenders, the highest scoring proposer.”