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Sentinel 01-10-14

(January 8)  Matt Brown, San Bernardino County’s current assistant auditor-controller-treasurer and the one-time chief-of-staff to former county supervisor Paul Biane, is about to emerge front and center  as the lead prosecution witness in the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution, the Sentinel has learned.
Prosecutors are hopeful Brown can serve to propound information they believe is damaging to the defendants, lay out a context of events crucial to the understanding of what occurred and that he can offset the setback they have been dealt by the dissipation and seeming self-destruction of Bill Postmus, who was the star witness before the grand jury that indicted the accused. But Brown presents some major credibility challenges of his own that will need to be overcome if the case is to go the way prosecutors want.
That ongoing criminal case alleges Rancho Cucamonga-based developer Jeff Burum extorted and bribed former county supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane in a scheme to get them to vote to approve the settlement of litigation brought by the Colonies Partners against the county over flood control issues at the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial projects in northeast Upland. Burum was, with Dan Richards, one of the two managing principals of the Colonies Partners. The county conferred upon the Colonies Partners a $102 million payment in November 2006 to end that lawsuit. A February 2010 indictment charged Postmus with receiving a $100,000 bribe, paid in two $50,000 installments in the form of checks to political action committees he controlled. The 2010 indictment also charged former San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies union president Jim Erwin, who worked as a consultant to the Colonies Partners during their efforts to have the lawsuit settled and was later hired by Postmus to serve as assistant assessor, with having participated with Burum in an extortion scheme targeting Postmus and Biane that preceded the November 2006 vote. Identified in that indictment as unnamed and unindicted coconspirators were Burum, Richards, Biane, public relations professional Patrick O’Reilly and Mark Kirk, the chief-of-staff to supervisor Gary Ovitt. Ovitt had joined with Postmus and Biane in voting to approve the $102 million settlement, which was opposed by supervisor Josie Gonzales and then-supervisor Dennis Hansberger.
Both Postmus and Erwin, who were charged  variously with a host of crimes including conspiracy, extortion, soliciting bribes, accepting bribes, perjury, filing falsified documents and other violations of the public trust, pleaded not guilty to those charges. But in March 2011, Postmus pleaded guilty to all fourteen counts contained in the indictment against him along with one other unrelated drug possession count and agreed to turn state’s evidence. He was the star witness before a newly-impaneled grand jury that heard evidence and testimony from a total of 45 witnesses in April 2011. In May 2011, that grand jury handed down a superseding 29-count indictment that collectively charged Erwin, Burum, Biane and Kirk with conspiracy relating to the alleged bribery scheme. Erwin was hammered with multiple counts, including receiving a bribe, acting as Burum’s agent, perjury, filing falsified documents and tax evasion. Biane was charged with soliciting and receiving a bribe in exchange for his vote. Kirk was charged with receiving a bribe in exchange for influencing his boss, Ovitt, to vote to approve the settlement. Burum was not charged with bribery. Rather, prosecutors fashioned charges against him that alleged aiding and abetting Postmus, Biane and Kirk in receiving bribes. The defendants were also charged with conflict-of-interest and misappropriating public funds. No substantive counts of extortion were charged in the superseding indictment and the extortion counts against Erwin in the February 2010 indictment were dispensed with, although extortion implications were wrapped into the broad conspiracy count contained in the May 2011 indictment.
Defense attorneys filed demurrers on behalf of their clients, motions which called into question the legal sufficiency of the charges against the defendants. A central theme in those demurrers was the inability of prosecutors to charge a defendant with conspiracy or aiding and abetting a crime when that individual stands accused of a crime that necessarily involves the involvement of another individual. San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville granted many of those demurrers, severely weakening the case, which involved a rare cooperative prosecution by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office and the California Attorney General’s Office. When prosecutors  appealed McCarville’s ruling to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside, that panel upheld McCarville on most issues of substance. The prosecution then appealed to the California Supreme Court, which essentially overruled the lower courts and reinstated the gist of the case.
The case has been handed back to the Fourth District Court of Appeals, with instructions for any outstanding issues remaining from the demurrer stage to be resolved so the matter can move to trial.
Thus, it now appears likely Burum will be headed to trial on charges of conspiracy, the aiding and abetting of bribery, and misappropriation of funds, Erwin will face charges of conspiracy, aiding and abetting Biane in his reception of a bribe, accepting a bribe, income reporting violations, tax violations and perjury, Biane will need to contest conspiracy and acceptance of a bribe charges and Kirk will be obliged to fend off charges that he received a bribe in the form of a $100,000 donation from Burum to his political action committee in exchange for influencing his boss, Ovitt, to vote to approve the settlement and that he misappropriated $20,000 from that political action committee for his own use.
The prosecution is yet faced with the burden of proving its case to a jury. In that way, relying upon Postmus to reprise his role before the 2011 Grand Jury as the central witness promises to be a risky proposition. In November 2006, just three weeks prior to the Colonies lawsuit settlement vote, Postmus beat incumbent county assessor Don Williamson after utilizing more than $3 million to conduct his countywide campaign for that office.  He resigned as First District supervisor in January 2007 to move into the assessor’s post. Over the next two years, Postmus personally and politically self-destructed as he sank further and ever deeper into the grip of substance abuse, specifically the use of methamphetamine, ecstasy and inhalants. As early as 2006 – in the midst of his campaign for assessor and while he was yet chairman of the board of supervisors –  Postmus had made an unexplained disappearance. That absence was taken  so he could undergo drug rehabilitation treatment, a secret kept under wraps not only by those in his own circle but by then-county administrative officer Mark Uffer and other high ranking county officials. After he became assessor, Postmus, who had no prior real estate appraising experience, was notoriously absent from the assessor’s office. Freed of the discipline of having to make appearances at board of supervisors meetings two or three times a month, Postmus’ drug addiction intensified, despite at least two interventions efforts. In 2008, while Postmus was undergoing treatment, his absence from the assessor’s office became a public issue. A cover story was concocted in which it was acknowledged he was seeking assistance with a substance addiction, but it was falsely claimed he was suffering from a reliance on painkillers brought about by a back injury. In January 2009, after the district attorney’s office began focusing on the potential criminal implication in the partisan application of the authority of the assessor’s office, search warrants were obtained for Postmus’ office and home. When those search warrants were served in January 2009, drugs and drug paraphernalia were discovered at Postmus’ Rancho Cucamonga townhome.  A firestorm of controversy ensued and the following month, Postmus resigned as assessor.
Postmus’ indictment on the bribery charges came a year his resignation from office. Throughout that time, he struggled with his addiction. After his indictment, whatever money he had accumulated during his public career was devoured by living expenses and lawyers fees. At some point in late 2010, even as his attorney, Stephen Levine, maintained the outward fiction of putting on a legal defense in the face of the indictment, Postmus began cooperating with prosecutors.  With the world already closed in upon him and after seeming to have hit rock bottom, a series of events plummeted the man who had once stood at the highest pinnacle of San Bernardino County politics even further downward. During one of Postmus’ appearances in court, officials who suspected he was under the influence of methamphetamine confronted him, subjected him to a drug test and then seized and searched his vehicle, turning up drug residue and paraphernalia, confirming their suspicions. In March 2011, Postmus threw in the towel, pleading to the entirety of the charges pending against him. He then went before the newly impaneled grand jury and provided testimony that was used to support the reindictment of Erwin and the indictments of Biane, Kirk and Burum.
Postmus’ credibility and anticipated role as the lead witness in the prosecution of the four defendants came under question when in October 2011  Postmus voluntarily and with his lawyer’s consent submitted to questioning by FBI Agent Jonathan Zeitlin and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jerry Behnke and Joseph Widman. The exchange with the former supervisor was part of an exploratory move by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to determine if there might be grounds for the filing of federal charges against the defendants in the state Colonies Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution. Postmus made statements that in some measure contradicted earlier statements he had made, including ones before the grand jury. He also acknowledged that he continued to use methamphetamine, including having ingested the drug  a “couple dozen times” in 2011, during the same time he had been before the grand jury.
The attorneys representing Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk made clear that Postmus’ drug use would become a major point of contention with regard to the credibility of his testimony. That point has been rammed home by a consistent stream of internet postings on various media blogs wherein supporters of the defendants and critics of the district attorney’s office and state attorney general’s office have criticized the prosecution for its reliance on Postmus – now a convicted felon and confirmed drug addict – in making its case.
Thus, the prosecution is now in the process of reassessing how it will proceed. Prosecutors believe they can minimize the role Postmus will play in offering prosecution testimony and instead rely on public campaign disclosure documents which reveal Burum’s provision of money to the three others indicted with him, as well as the testimony of two other figures involved in the matter – public relations consultant Patrick O’Reilly and Brown.
Prosecutors intend to call O’Reilly as a witness and elicit from him testimony that in 2006, three months before the election and the settlement which followed 21 days later, he had prepared mailers based upon information that had been provided to him by Burum or  Burum’s hired private investigators. Those mailers revealed that Biane was personally insolvent and teetering at the brink of bankruptcy and that Postmust was a homosexual who was hopelessly in the grip of drug addiction even as he was perched at the pinnacle of county government as the chairman of the board of supervisors and heading the county GOP as the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee.
While that electioneering material was prepared and ready for dissemination, none of it was actually mailed to voters. In this way, prosecutors believe, they can establish for a jury that Burum, with the assistance of Erwin, who they allege acted as a go-between in his role as a consultant to the Colonies Partners, had blackmailed, i.e., extorted, both Postmus and Biane by threatening to publicly reveal information that would have been damaging to them politically.
Key to the bribery element of the case is $400,000 in donations Burum and/or his company, the Colonies Partners, made to political action committees controlled by the other three defendants and Postmus over the seven month period following the settlement.
On March 20, 2007, Burum made out a check for $100,000 to what prosecutors say was the then-nonexistent Committee for Effective Government PAC. Prosecutors say Erwin then created the Committee for Effective Government PAC on March 23, 2007, establishing himself as chairman, Clyde Boyd-vice-chairman, Elizabeth Sanchez-secretary, Betty Presley-treasurer, Gloria Affatati-Boyd-director, and Steven Hauer-director. On March 28, 2007, Erwin deposited the $100,000 check into the Committee for Effective Government PAC’s bank account.
On May 16, 2007, Burum wrote a check for $100,000 from the Colonies Partners to the then-nonexistent Alliance for Ethical Government PAC. On May 25, 2007, Kirk, according to prosecutors, directed his campaign accountant to complete the establishment of the Alliance for Ethical Government PAC. On May 29, 2007, Kirk deposited the $100,000 check into the Alliance for Ethical Government’s bank account.
On June 15, 2007, Burum and the co-managing principal with the Colonies Partners, Dan Richards, signed a check for $100,000 from Colonies Partners to the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC, which prosecutors maintain was secretly controlled by Biane. .
On June 29, 2007, Burum signed a check for $50,000 from the Colonies Partners to the Inland Empire PAC, which publicly listed Dino DeFazio as chairman, Mike Gallagher as vice-chair, Jeff Bentow as community outreach director, and Mike Richman as executive director, but which prosecutors say was secretly controlled by Postmus. On June 29, 2007, Burum signed a check for $50,000 from the Colonies Partners to the Republicans for a Conservative Majority PAC, which listed Mike Richman as the sole member of the board of directors and executive director but which was, prosecutors maintain, secretly controlled by Postmus.
Prosecutors allege the provision of these political donations to the various PACs was an elaborate ruse to launder bribes.
The model upon which the other involved PACs  were designed, prosecutors allege, was the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC, which prosecutors allege was controlled by Biane, but which was actually set up by Brown, his chief-of-staff. Brown founded at least four political action committees used to vector money to various political candidates and campaigns.
The Sentinel has learned that after district attorney’s office had begun looking into the Colonies lawsuit settlement in earnest, in the spring of 2009 district attorney’s investigators Hollis Randles, Schyler Beaty and Robert Schreiber confronted both Kirk and Brown, aggressively questioning them with regard to action they had taken on behalf of Ovitt and Biane, suggesting the PACS they had set up had been used to launder kickbacks.
Kirk initially responded to some of the questions but became increasingly reluctant to continue, and resisted efforts to wring from him statements implicating Ovitt. He insisted that the interrogation be brought to a close and refused to make any further statements outside the presence of an attorney.
When the investigators isolated Brown, they subjected him to accusations that he had acted illegally on Biane’s behalf  as well as in tandem with him in a criminal conspiracy. Panicked, Brown acceded to cooperating with the district attorney’s office.
Of immediate interest to Schreiber, Beatty and Hollis was the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC, which Brown founded in 2006 with Biane’s blessing to assist Biane and other members of Biane’s political circle in distributing money to politicians they supported. Campaign finance records show that the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC became a political force to be reckoned with after the $100,000 check from Colonies Partners was deposited into its account in June 2007. The indictments allege that the series of $100,000 donations to the political action committees founded and controlled by Postmus, Brown, Kirk and Erwin were in fact quid pro quos — bribes — paid in exchange for the approval of the settlement. Prosecutors allege that Biane, through Brown, secretly controlled the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC.
Indeed, political action committees Brown and Biane were involved with raised numerous questions, and not just with district attorney’s office investigators. The Sentinel is informed that a complaint was filed more than two years ago with the state Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) citing a PAC founded by Brown in 2008, the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association, which is separate from the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC alluded to in the indictments. According to well placed sources, both the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association and the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC were under scrutiny in that investigation.
On March 17, 2008, Brown formed the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC and named J.M. Olchawa as the PAC’s treasurer. Both Brown and Olchawa are residents of Grand Terrace. Olchawa endowed the PAC with its first operating capital in the form of a $100 contribution.  Less than a month later, on April 9, 2008, the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC contributed $40,000, which had apparently originated with the $100,000 contribution from the Colonies Partners the previous year, to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC. The following month, on May 29, 2008, one of the political action committees controlled by Postmus, the Inland Empire PAC, infused the San Bernardino County Taxpayers PAC with $3,000 and the month after that, on June 2, 2008, with another $2,000. That $5,000, too, had apparently been originally provided by the Colonies Partners.
Based upon investigators’ exchanges with Brown, prosecutors with both the  California Attorney General’s Office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office had grounds to allege the PAC had been used as a vehicle to launder bribes and kickbacks to Biane.
In the less than two month period between the $40,000 contribution from Brown’s own Young Republicans PAC on April 9, 2008 and Postmus’ Inland Empire PAC’s $2,000 donation on June 2, 2008, the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC received a substantial amount of money in the form of both contributions and loans, all from other political figures. On April 25, 2008, the Committee to Elect Paul Biane gave the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC a $15,000 contribution. On April 29, 2008 the Committee to Elect Dick Larsen provided the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC with a $10,000 loan. Larsen was then the county treasurer. On May 5, 2008 the Committee to Elect Gary C. Ovitt made a $15,000 contribution to Brown’s San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC. That money may have originated with the Colonies Partners before being provided to Kirk’s Alliance For Ethical Government PAC and then being provided to Ovitt. On May 9, 2008, the Josie Gonzales for Supervisor campaign provided a $15,000 contribution to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers PAC. On May 16, 2008, Bill Emmerson for Assembly 2008 made a $5,000 contribution to Brown’s recently formed PAC. The same day, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association PAC provided Brown’s PAC with a $10,000 contribution. On May 23, 2008, the Committee to Elect Gary C. Ovitt provided Brown’s PAC with a $10,000 loan. On May 27, 2008, the Hansberger for Supervisor Committee made a $25,000 contribution to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC. The next day, May 28, the Paul Cook for Assembly 2008 Committee provided Brown’s PAC with a $5,000 loan. The same day, the Committee to Elect Paul Biane made a $10,000 loan to Brown’s PAC. On May 29, Bill Emmerson for Assembly 2008 made a $5,000 contribution to the PAC and on June 2, 2008, the Hansberger for Supervisor Committee made a $15,000 contribution to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC.
The lion’s share of the money Brown’s PAC took in was used to fund Hansberger’s effort to be reelected as county Third District supervisor that year. According to campaign disclosure documents, the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC on May 18 provided the Hansberger for Supervisor Committee with $57,030.70 and on June 30, 2008, more than three weeks after Hansberger had lost the election to Neil Derry on June 3, Brown’s PAC gave the Hansberger for Supervisor Committee $100,920.29.
The Fair Political Practices Commission interested itself in the lack of any subsequent accounting for the $35, 000.00 in loans made to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC by the Larsen, Ovitt, Cook and Biane campaign committees. All references to those loans disappeared from subsequent campaign filing statements made on behalf of the PAC by Olchawa. The loans in question appear to be outstanding. No explicit reference to repayments to any of the lending parties can be found in any of the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC’s financial disclosure statements. While the online filing made by the Committee to Elect Gary Ovitt shows an outstanding loan of $10,000 to the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC as of 12/31/2010, online filings for the other lending parties have never been made available. There is no indication in any available documentation showing any of the loans were repaid.
No FPPC action was ever taken against the San Bernardino County Taxpayers Association PAC or Brown.
Despite the questions relating to the monetary transfers his PACs have been involved in and other outstanding issues, prosecutors are yet convinced that Brown can be effectively used as a witness in the prosecutions of Burum, Biane, Kirk and Erwin.
After Brown was approached by investigators in the Spring of 2009 and he agreed to become an informant for the district attorney’s office, he surreptitiously provided  information and material to prosecutors intended to put his boss – Biane – in prison.  That cooperation with prosecutors included Brown wearing a wire – a hidden audio recording device – while he was at work in Biane’s supervisorial office in an attempt to capture utterances by Biane that would implicate him in bribe taking.
About a year before the superseding indictment was handed down, the district attorney’s office, assisted by the county’s senior administrators, went to extraordinary lengths to protect Brown and separate him from Biane.  With much fanfare, Brown, who at that point in 2010 was still Biane’s chief of staff, filed a claim against the county, alleging Biane was retaliating against him. In the claim, Brown disclosed that he had been cooperating in the district attorney’s office’s investigation of Biane.
Biane, who had been the best man at Brown’s wedding and still considered Brown a trusted and close friend, was completely and utterly taken aback by the claim. He had no inkling, he said, that his chief of staff was working as an informant against him. More to the point, Biane was that year standing for reelection. The publicity about the matter redounded to his political disadvantage and after placing second in the June primary, he ultimately lost to his most successful challenger, Fontana councilwoman Janice Rutherford.
Before the 2010 election, at the apparent direction of county executive officer Greg Devereaux,  county auditor-controller-recorder Larry Walker brought Brown into his office as his second-in-command, making him assistant county auditor-controller, despite his lack of experience or expertise with regard to the duties of the office.
Brown remains as Walker’s top assistant following a reorganization in which Walker handed responsibility for the recorder’s function over to the assessor’s office and took on the added assignment of treasurer and tax collector. Brown retains the status, stature and credibility of being an assistant county department head. From that position he is thus likely to be called as a witness when the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution goes to trial. In such a role, he will be counted upon to blast a hole below Biane’s water line, testifying that at the former supervisor’s direction he had used the San Bernardino County Young Republicans PAC to launder the bribe Biane had received from Burum in exchange for his vote to approve the $102 million lawsuit settlement.
Nevertheless, whatever story Brown is to tell is likely to raise as many questions as it will answer. Prosecutors can be selective in their questions to him, allowing him to put his best foot forward, claiming he was somehow innocently caught up in the corrupt political machinations of his one-time boss and best friend and closest political associate. Defense attorneys, however, will not likely allow it to escape jurors’ attention that had the same standard of conduct that was applied to Kirk been applied to him, he would have been indicted as well. And defense attorneys will probably also ask withering questions about the transferences of money into and out of the other PACs he founded or controlled, making it difficult for him to sell the idea that he had been a naïf manipulated by Biane in his operation of the San Bernardino County Young Republicans.
How well Brown holds up under that cross-examination could impact the outcome of the trial and whether the defendants will be convicted or exonerated.

(January 9)  Gil Navarro has been removed from his position as a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Education based upon San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Sachs’ determination that Navarro’s simultaneous incumbency on the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District Board constituted a conflict of interest.
The dilemma besetting Navarro grew out of his having outdistanced George Aguilar in the November 2012 race for a position on the San Bernardino Municipal Water District representing that entity’s  Division 2, with Navarro capturing  11,643 votes or 56.21 percent to Aguilar’s  9,070 votes or 43.79 percent. At that point, Navarro, who had been a member of the school board since 2006, still had two years remaining on his term as a school board member.
Navarro’s victory prompted county superintendent of schools Gary Thomas to seek a legal opinion from San Bernardino County’s in-house lawyers, known as county counsel, as to whether holding both positions would represent a conflict. Thomas, who is independently elected to his post and has had a few run-ins with Navarro over the last several years on issues pertaining to education, said he was prompted to obtain the opinion because of concerns expressed by members of the public about possible conflicts that might arise if Navarro is called to vote on specific matters over which both the county division of schools and the water district might have competing interests.
On December 7,  2012, head county counsel Jean-Rene Basle authored a letter in which he and his staff summarized published opinions from the California Attorney General’s Office which they said indicated Navarro’s circumstance entailed a potential conflict of interest.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has overarching authority with regard to water issues in the central portion of the county, dictating policy with regard to water availability and setting wholesale water rates for smaller water retailers and other public water agencies, including those that provide water to several school districts.
Such a circumstance creates a conflict under California law that might preclude Navarro from voting with regard to, on one hand, the water district making water available to school districts or determining the price of that water, or, on the other hand, the county’s schools and school districts purchasing that water. Basle said this would lead to a conflict that Navarro and both the water district and the county superintendent of schools office should avoid. An attorney general’s opinion from 2002 opines, Basle said, that “A significant clash of duties and loyalties may arise in such matters as the water district setting the wholesale water rate that will be passed on to the school district by the retail water agencies involved” and could further occur when the water board votes on “determining the need for restrictions on water usage during times of water shortage.”
Navarro, however, maintained that no such conflict existed given that there was no squabbling over water rates and that he could sidestep any conflicts that did arise by abstaining if and when such conflicts materialized. He refused to surrender either position.
The matter was referred to the California Attorney General’s Office, which made a determination that there would be sufficient grounds for the board to undertake a lawsuit to seek Navarro’s removal from the county school board.
An outspoken Latino activist who has pushed for the political and professional empowerment of Hispanics, Navarro insisted he was encountering opposition because of that activity. In his effort to remain on the school board, he cited the legal precedent involved in the case of  Blanca Estella Rubio, a board member with the Baldwin Park Unified School District, who in 2004 was challenged by another member of the Baldwin Park Unified School District Board, Anthony J. Bejarano, because he claimed Rubio’s school board position and that of board member or director of the Valley County Water District, to which Rubio had previously also been elected, constituted the holding of “incompatible offices.”
Bejarano and the school district took Rubio to court and in a civil trial held in October 2005, a jury ruled in a 9-3 decision that Rubio could keep her seats on both the school board and the water board.
Legal  authorities, while conceding there were direct parallels between the Rubio and Navarro cases, claimed there is superseding law which undercuts Navarro’s position. In 2005, the California State Legislature acted to define incompatibility of office as applicable whenever there “is a possibility of a significant clash of duties or loyalties between the offices.”
Sachs, in a finding and accompanying order for Navarro’s removal issued last month, said Navarro is “not entitled to hold or exercise the office of San Bernardino County Board of Education Trustee as it is an incompatible office with his position as a San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District Board Member.”
The Board of Education voted on January 6, to replace Navarro on the board by an appointment process that will entail the acceptance of applications until January 16, interviews of candidates and a selection by the board as early as January 23.

(January 9)  Fourth District County Supervisor Gary Ovitt this week announced he will not seek reelection later this year, capping his political career with ten years in office as supervisor and twelve years in office as city councilman and mayor in Ontario.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Sentinel at the Ovitt Family Library, the municipal library in Ontario named in honor of him, his wife and his father, Ovitt reminisced and sized up his 22 years in public office.
The son of an Ontario policeman, Ovitt was born at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland in 1947, attended Chaffey High School and then graduated from the University of Redlands. His first career employment was with his high school alma mater, where he originally was a physical education teacher and coached football, baseball and cross country. He broadened his teaching arena, eventually becoming a social studies, history, economics and government teacher.
His public office career started when, as a high school employee, he was appointed to the city of Ontario’s parks and recreation commission in 1974. The commission had representatives from both the Chaffey High School District and the Ontario-Montclair School District on it.
In 1992, Ovitt was encouraged to run for city council by Mike Milhiser, who had been the city manager in Montclair and Ontario as well as by Gus Skropos, Ontario’s mayor who had once been one of his students, and Jim Bowman, an Ontario council member with whom Ovitt had gone to high school. In what was his first attempt at elected office, he won.
“It was a relatively easy assignment,” he said. “It required two nights a month for you to do the best you could representing people.” Six years later, he ran for mayor. He won.
Of his time on the council and as mayor, Ovitt said he had been part of a coordinated effort to “build up the city economically. We invested heavily in our industrial area and brought Ontario Mills on board. Through that we were able to get sufficient tax revenue to buy property and put in the infrastructure where the Citizens Business Bank Arena now sits. I wasn’t there when they remodeled this library, but was there during the planning stages. We made the senior citizen center become a reality. We developed the teen center at De Anza Park. The convention center was built during that time. We worked with Los Angeles World Airports to construct two new terminals at Ontario International Airport. We hired Greg Devereaux as city manager, which helped us get a firm financial footing, where we could meet our community development goals. As a result, Ontario today is the largest generator of sales tax revenue among all the cities in the county.”
Ovitt provided a window on the hiring of Devereaux, who at that point in the mid-1990s, was city manager in Fontana where he was successfully working to rejuvenate that city in the aftermath of the closure of Kaiser Steel.
“I was on the council at the time,” Ovitt said. “The mayor [Skropos] was out of town and the mayor pro tem called for a special meeting. At the meeting we looked at the performance of the city attorney, Sam Crowe, and the interim city manager, Michael O’Connor. With the four of us, we accepted Sam Crowe’s resignation and then put Michael O’Connor on administrative leave. We temporarily appointed Otto Kroutil, the community development director, to serve as acting city manager. The mayor was very impressed with Greg Devereaux. He was a good man who had done a good job in Fontana and Gus [Skropos] made the arrangements to hire him.”
Ovitt had been mayor for six years when the recall of California Governor Grey Davis took place and Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to replace him. Then-San Bernardino County Fourth District supervisor Fred Aguiar resigned to take on a position in the Schwarzenegger administration. Aguiar’s wife, Patty, temporarily replaced him on the board, and the following year a special election was held to fill the Fourth District supervisor’s post for the remaining two years of Aguiar’s term. Ovitt ran against a large field of candidates, the most noteworthy of whom were then-Chino mayor Eunice Ulloa and former supervisor, assemblyman and state senator Ruben Ayala’s son, Maurice. Ovitt won that race.
“At that point I had taught for 35 years and I enjoyed what I was doing, but I saw running for supervisor as a new challenge and an opportunity to try my hand at the county level and to interact with other cities and build relationships. It was an opportunity to do things I had not done before,” he said.
County government at that time, he said, was “much different as opposed to city government. I came from a well-run city. When I actually went to the county, it was like the frontier, the wild, wild West. You could do pretty much whatever you wanted to do in your district. You could deal with someone in your district and task staff to remedy the situation along whatever lines or rules needed. Mark Uffer was the county administrative officer at that time. He had become top administrator around the time I got there. Mark was a very capable administrator at the county hospital but when he was hired to oversee all 42 of the county’s departments and 19,000 employees he took on far more responsibility. It was an almost unworkable situation. The board had tremendous power and the chairman of the board was more responsible than the county administrator, more powerful and more in control. Immediately, I realized if it was to work better we were going to need someone like Greg as administrator, someone of his caliber who understood the workings of a municipality and could make it come together with structure and order. I looked around at the board and none of the five of us had the technical ability to do that. Bill Postmus was a politician. Dennis Hansberger had been involved with his family’s business but didn’t have experience running something like the county. Josie Gonzales had run a good family-owned restaurant but didn’t have the necessary experience. Paul Biane’s family had a business and he had experience selling real estate but that was it. I had been a high school teacher.
“We needed a structure where we could bring in a professional, someone who could run an administration for the entire county and its departments and we [the board] could then deal with policy and devote ourselves to issues in our district on a more efficient basis,” Ovitt said.
In his initial years on the board, Ovitt said, he felt board members were out of their depth in dealing with issues placed before them and were without the top tier administrative guidance that could delegate decisions on pressing issues to those with the requisite technical expertise or experience.
“One of the things I was concerned about was our decision-making on how we spent money and our budgeting,” Ovitt said. “Much of it was done by the chairman of the board. As supervisors we had no idea of what equipment we were missing, whether we needed an 800 megahertz capability, what equipment needed to be purchased. Josie and I were elected at the same time. There was a learning curve for both of us. We have changed all of this for the better.”
His greatest contribution to the county, he opined, was to reorganize leadership and management by strengthening the role of the county administrative officer, a position which is now termed the county’s executive officer. It is manned by Devereaux, who was lured away from Ontario in 2010 while Ovitt was chairman of the board.
“It is now a matter of whoever is elected supervisor, that person will have the resource of a strong leader in the form of the CEO, instead of rushing to meet whatever happens to be the trend of the day,” Ovitt said. “The supervisors before were able to spend money on whatever they wanted in their own district but there was no control, their request was not agenized and no vote required. As supervisors we have lost direct access and control of that money, but now there is a much more intelligent and structured control on how our money is spent. Although tasked with setting the budget, we really didn’t play much of a role in shaping the budget. The sheriff had tremendous power. The district attorney had power. Public safety is always important and the public demands we provide safety for them and their communities. Now we budget ahead and do not throw money at a problem when it arises. It is not so much that Mark Uffer failed but that the system of governance wasn’t wired so that we could rely on a professional who knew government structure and how to organize and recognize the difference between policy decisions and operations. The county is now setting goals, so that we know where we are going instead of doing just what the board happens to bring up. We no longer give the sheriff or DA whatever they ask for without question. There is a new organization and Greg has made it so it reflects the way we work, separating the board, as policy makers, from the day-to-day operations. We involved the public in developing a Community Indicators Report to establish a baseline for what we need to improve – health, education, economy. We now have a basis to work from to develop priorities.”
Ovitt said he also believes that the county board and management structure is now “smarter about the way we do our budgeting, putting money away and trying to build reserves. We negotiated with the [labor] associations to pay 7.5 percent of their retirement costs. There is now something built into the budget for the future. Costs will continue to be reduced and we will be able to continue to bring more money into our programs, into building jails and into meeting other important goals.”
The hardest part of the job of being a supervisor/policy maker is having the discipline to say “no,” Ovitt said.
“I think the county is huge and it has tremendous opportunities,” he said. “We can’t fund them all. We have to work with the CEO to develop priorities. We have to work with each other and other governmental entities. We spend our money according to the mutual goals we have. Previously, we were acting and reacting blindly in many respects.”
He said his advice to his successor is to “continue” with the improvements made under his watch on the board.
Ovitt said that he does not think he would have done anything much differently if he had it to do over again. “I don’t see any regrets,” he said. “You take risks and make changes. You do your best. I don’t think I’ve hurt anyone. That is the key to what I did. I obviously had a tough vote with the Colonies [in which he joined with supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane in November 2006 to confer a $102 million settlement of a lawsuit brought against the county by the Colonies Partners]. My vote made sense because I saw real liability on the part of our county.”
Of those he worked with on the board, Ovitt said of Bill Postmus, “He was a strong leader at the beginning but he became absent halfway through his last term.”
Paul Biane, Ovitt said, “expressed his opinions and fought for what he believed in.”
Josie Gonzales, he said, “is the Eveready Battery. She goes to many, many events. She is not afraid to express her opinion. She speaks from her heart.”
Dennis Hansberger, Ovitt said, “was a great mentor. He studied the issues. He was bright and articulate. I think he was old-fashioned but in a good way in that he loved to debate issues. Debate became less of the plan of governance under Bill Postmus. With Bill Postmus, you didn’t debate.”
Neil Derry, Ovitt said, “came in to make a name for himself and be Mr. Clean, if you will, and sometimes it was harmful to other supervisors.”
Janice Rutherford, he said, “is bright, articulate and is a good leader.”
James Ramos “wants to solve everyone’s problems. He has more to learn about the county. He cares.”
Robert Lovingood, Ovitt said, “brings a businessman’s perspective to every issue and is good to work with.”
Brad Mitzelfelt, he said, “overanalyzed and tried to do too much of the work himself.”
Before Ovitt became board chairman and after Postmus had been  chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee, Ovitt became central committee chairman.  He said that he “tried to keep our party activity separate from my being on the board of supervisors,” which he said was counter to Postmus’ approach, which blurred the distinction between the two lines of authority.
Ovitt, like the rest of the board, is subject to recently enacted term limits, but those were not applicable until this term, meaning he could vie for reelection this year and again in 2018, if he chose to. His intent to depart at the end of the current term now has contributed to the perception that he is leaving because another Republican, assemblyman Curt Hagman, has given indication he covets being Fourth District supervisor and was prepared to put Ovitt to a real electoral test.
Ovitt insisted he was not driven to leave office by Hagman’s resolve to vie for Fourth District supervisor or reports that Congressman Gloria Negrete-McLeod was also contemplating leaving the House of Representatives to make a bid for supervisor.
“The truth is my wife and I talked about this and had come to this decision independent of the other issues,” Ovitt told the Sentinel. “I am 66 years old. I always intended this to be my last term. I ran 7 times and I won 7 times. I’ve accomplished things I never would have envisioned I would accomplish. I have been councilman and mayor, supervisor and chairman of the board of supervisors. I was the SCAG [Southern California Association of Governments] president and helped return it to a highly respected planning organization. I don’t see too much more I can accomplish.”
Ovitt acknowledged that he was aware Hagman was looking to challenge him this year.
“He is aggressively looking at being supervisor,” Ovitt said. “He will be termed out of the assembly and has nowhere else to go. If he ran and I ran, I would have run on my record and I believe I would have done well.  The labor unions have not been encouraging me to run.  Congresswoman McLeod is also considering running. She has over $900,000 in her campaign account and she doesn’t like the partisanship in Washington. It would have been an interesting race. My plan had always been to step down after this term. The only reason I was looking at serving another term was the encouragement I was getting from others to run again. My wife and I both looked at it. I go out on my own terms now. I am a man of faith and I prayed about it. This is a good time for me to bow out. I can be just as effective in the other roles I am contemplating,” Ovitt said.
“I am still healthy and I would like to get involved in education again,” he said. “That is what I loved doing and what I am trained for. I am looking at a chance to finish up in the field. When I look at water boards, school boards, city councils, I see people who want to represent their communities but who have not been trained in leadership. I do not see a ‘bench’ of people who know how to run agencies and governments.  I want to get involved in making leadership training opportunities available. This could be done at our colleges or universities or be privately funded. The idea would be to train leaders of the future. Not many young people join service organizations anymore. The young people who do show an interest are not experienced because there isn’t anyone out there developing the skills and providing the experience we need for our future leaders. I am excited about getting involved in that.”
Ovitt said, “For me, I have benefitted greatly from the relationships I have formed and the experiences of serving with so many committed public servants.  I step back knowing that I have done my best.”

(January 8)  CHINO HILLS—The City Council has chosen Konradt Bartlam to succeed Mike Fleager as city manager.
Bartlam, 54, will become the city’s fourth city manager since incorporation.
Fleager, who has been with the city since 2009, in November 2012 had been given a contract extension through May of this year. Abruptly last May, however, Fleager announced he would leave the city last November. He has remained in place while he city was seeking his successor.
Bartlam was chosen after a statewide search and the consideration of 85 candidates.
Bartlam worked as Lodi’s community development director from 1996 until 2005, at which time he departed to work for Lilley Planning Group, a land use consultancy. He was with Lilley for three years before returning as Lodi’s community development director in 2008.
After he completed the supervision of Lodi’s update to its general plan in April 2010, he was promoted to the position of interim city manager. In November 2010, he was made Lodi’s full fledged city manager.
He has 25 years experience in municipal planning. He served as a city planner for the city of Brea from 1989 to 1996; a development services manager and senior planner for the city of Pomona from 1987-89; and an associate planner in the cities of Glendora from 1987-89 and Simi Valley from 1986-87.
In addition to expertise in land use, Bartlam has experience with regard to utility division operations.
Bartlam was making $180,746 per year as Lodi’s city manager. In Chino Hills, he will be provided with a yearly salary of $202,800, accompanied by benefits totaling slightly more than $40,000 annually. Chino Hills has also agreed to pay him a one-time residence relocation stipend of $10,000.

(January 9) The parent company of Barstow Community Hospital has made a major corporate expansion, swallowing in one gulp its major competitor.
North Naples, Florida-based Community Health Systems, which owns Barstow Community Hospital, acquired Health Management Associates Inc., the company announced January 7.
Community Health Systems, which is the largest for-profit hospital system in the United States, is utilizing its own capital as well as borrowed money to take on ownership of Health Management Associates in a $7 billion transaction. The takeover is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
While the purchase strengthens assurances of the continuing provision of health care to the Barstow Community, there are anti-trust implications to the takeover. There have long been concerns about health care costs at Barstow Community Hospital. Community Health System’s elimination of its single largest competitor in one fell swoop does nothing to allay those concerns.
A study conducted by National Nurses United and the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy places Barstow Community Hospital’s markup rate for medical services among more than 4,000 hospitals in the country as being near the highest in both California, fourth, and the entire country, at 39th.
Word of the possible merger leaked out in August. It became a reality this week. There is concern being expressed that the company will now up its rates further to pay for the merger and will simultaneously reduce the acquisition of state-of-the art equipment. That is not too much of an immediate concern in Barstow, given the recent opening of the new replacement hospital.
A coalition of groups representing registered nurses from across the country has begun coordinated protests against the merger but they are not likely to result in any legal or regulatory action that will prevent the merger from proceeding.
More than 97 percent of Health Management Associates shareholders approved the purchase.

(January 9)  TWENTYNINE PALMS — With the removal of the county’s moratorium on commercial solar projects in San Bernardino County, a Chinese company with its American headquarters in Silicon Valley has applied to construct a 1.5 megawatt solar plant just outside the Twentynine Palms city limits.
Clean Focus, based in Beijing and headed by chairman John Chang and president and CEO Stanley Chin, represents the investment firm GSR Ventures, a venture capital fund with substantial operations in China that invests primarily in early stage technology companies.
Clean Focus specializes in financing and leasing solar power installations in the commercial, government, and utility sectors, and works with system integrators to identify economically compelling solar projects and provide financing through power purchase agreements or long-term leases.
John Chang has experience with start-up and multinational companies, including a solar photovoltaic start-up and an energy-management services provider. He co-founded a casino slot-machine manufacturer in Shanghai and worked with Chin on the merger of his company, StarCite, with OnVantage to form what he said is the dominant player in cloud-based meeting-management technology.
Slightly less than a year ago, the city of Twentynine Palms prohibited commercial solar power plants within city limits. The project is to be located on unincorporated county land on a 12-acre portion of a 160-acre site on the southeast corner of Raymond Drive and Mesquite Springs Road, putting it under the jurisdiction of the county’s land use services division.
The land is zoned for rural living, which is deemed suitable for solar project development based on the county’s newly adopted commercial solar development guidelines. Twentynine Palms officials have said they will raise an objection to the project, which is to utilize photovoltaic cells to generate 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
County officials are accepting comments on the proposal until January 14.  No public hearing on the proposal has been set. Citizens can weigh in on the project by emailing them to christopher.conner@lus.sbcounty.gov, faxing them to (909) 387-3223 or mailing them to 385 North Arrowhead Avenue, First Floor, San Bernardino, Calif., 992415-0182.

(January 9)  Rep. Paul Cook (R-Apple Valley) will host a Twitter Town Hall on Wednesday, January 15 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM PST.
Anyone wishing to follow Rep. Cook’s Town Hall can visit his Twitter page, @RepPaulCook , on Wednesday, January 15 between 12:00PM to 1:00PM PST. A Twitter account is not needed to view the Town Hall. Those wishing to ask questions, however, must have a Twitter account and can tweet questions to Rep. Cook using the hashtag #AskCook.
Cook said, “Engaging with constituents across the 8th District remains one of my top priorities. I’m excited to find new ways to connect with the people, families, and communities I’m proud to represent.”
Constituents are encouraged to participate by asking questions on Twitter throughout the course of the week.
A member of the House Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs Committees, Cook served as an infantry officer and retired after 26 years as a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps. During his time in combat, he was awarded the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

By clicking on the following portal, you can download a copy of the January 3 Sentinel.

Sentinel 01-03-14

(Published January 3)  San Bernardino County’s contribution to its employee pension system, which has seen steady and significant increases over the last several years, will escalate to beyond the $200 million mark in 2014-15.
While previous increases in the county’s contribution reflected the growing number of surviving retirees, next year’s increases will include an escalation of the percentage rate now being employed in the contribution formula as a consequence of a new state mandate under the Public Employee Pension Reform Act. That law requires that a governmental entity’s pension contributions be consistent with actuarial projections.
Accordingly, the county board of supervisors authorized increasing, effective June 28, 2014, the county’s contribution rates for its two tiers of employees.
In response to concern that escalating pension costs would threaten the county’s solvency, retirement benefits were reduced for county employees who began participating in the San Bernardino County Employees Retirement System on or after January 1, 2013.
San Bernardino County’s scheduled contribution to the county employee retirement fund in the current fiscal year was $179,068,000. By taking advantage of a provision of state law contained in Government Code Section 31582, which allows the county to advance pay part or all of the county’s estimated annual retirement contribution within 30 days after the commencement of the county’s fiscal year, the county was provided with a discounted simple interest rate of 3.68 percent, translating into a savings of $6,589,943. Thus San Bernardino County actually paid $172,478,057 into the retirement fund for this year.
In the fiscal year commencing on July 1. 2014, the county is due to see its pension liability zoom up by $23.37 million to $202,438,000.
The county’s pension contribution costs have been escalating by an average of $20,107,480 per year over the last two years.
In 2011, the county made a $132,263,097 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2011-12 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,299,603 from the $137,562,700 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund that year. In 2012, the county made a $154,626,037 prepayment to the board of retirement to cover the cost of pensions for retired employees during the 2012-13 fiscal year, reflecting a prepayment discount of $5,907,863 from the $160,533,900 owed by the county as its annual contribution to the retirement fund through June 30, 2013.
Pursuant to the board of supervisors’ action on December 17, the retirement contribution rates for the county’s first tier (i.e., long term) general employees will increase from 18.96% to 20.24% of compensation earnable. The retirement contribution rate for second tier [i.e., hired since December 2012] general employees will escalate from 16.53% to 18.02% of pensionable compensation. The county’s contribution rate for first tier safety employees will increase from 39.99% to 43.15% of compensation earnable. The county contribution rate for second tier safety employees will go from 32.9% to 37.02% of pensionable compensation.  The Superior Court retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will jump from 19.87% to 21.75% of compensation earnable. The Superior Court retirement contribution rate for second tier general members will rise from 17.44% to 19.53% of pensionable compensation. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will increase from 27.69% to 29.91% of compensation earnable. The increase in the retirement contribution rate for non-county/special districts general second tier members will entail a change from 23.83% to 25.44% of pensionable compensation. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for first tier safety employees will shoot from 57.82% to 59.65% of compensation earnable. The non-county/special districts retirement contribution rate for second tier safety members will decrease from 50.87% to 50.73% of pensionable compensation.  The South Coast Air Quality Management District retirement contribution rate for first tier general members will rise from 25.22% to 27.76% of compensation earnable. The South Coast Air Quality Management District retirement contribution rate for second tier general employees will increase from 22.86% to 25.36% of pensionable compensation.
In addition the general member employee survivor benefit contribution rate for employer and employee will go from $1.34 to $1.85 per pay period.
Despite the overall escalation of the cost of pensioning its employees, the county is beginning to see a decrease in the rate of its escalating costs in that the contribution for second tier general members is a reduction of 4.22 percent the county would have paid under the previous rate and 6.13 percent for second tier safety employees compared to what is being paid to their first tier counterparts.