(December 30)  The county of San Bernardino will pay a Sun Valley-based company a cool $5 million to micrograph and index documents filed with the assessor/recorder/county clerk’s office over the next two years.
In 2010, San Bernardino County in a reorganization transferred the county recorder’s function to the county assessor’s office and the auditor-controller was  made the county treasurer-tax collector.
Since that time, the office of the assessor, recorder and county clerk have been held by a single individual overseeing those departments.
At its last meeting in 2013, the board of supervisors  approved a $5,000,000 contract with PFA, Inc. of Sun Valley to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction services for the assessor-recorder-county clerk- recorder’s division from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016, with two one-year options to extend the term of the contract.
According to San Bernardino County Assessor-Recorder-County  Clerk Dennis Draeger, “The assessor-recorder-county clerk [will] utilize the services of PFA, Inc. to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction work for a three-year term, with two one-year options to extend the term of the contract. This contract is necessary to support assessor-recorder-county clerk’s current and future information management plans and will allow assessor-recorder-county clerk to function in a fiscally-responsible and business-like manner.”
Draeger continued, “This contract includes four distinct types of work, all of which are vital to the daily operation of the recorder division. The first type of work, micrographics, involves converting scanned images to microfilm and vice versa. More than 550,000 documents were recorded by assessor-recorder-county clerk in calendar year 2012, and all of those documents were received in image form or were scanned in-house. Those documents are then converted to microfilm to preserve permanent county records as mandated by state law. The second type of work, film conversion, places digital, microfiche and film images of documents on silver or Diazo film for more durable preservation. The third type of work consists of indexing fields on recorded documents that can then be used to retrieve the document images within the recorder’s system. The fourth type of work, redaction, involves creating a public record version of each official record by redacting the first five digits of each social security number found in an official record, as mandated by Government Code Section 27301. All four types of work will involve current documents; in addition, documents dating back to January 1, 1980, will be redacted as mandated by Government Code Section 27301.”
According to Draeger, PFA has had the county contract for these services since 2006.  He said the county sought bids on the service in April, obtaining bids from seven interested vendors, HOV Services of  Carson; CSI Computing System Innovations of Apopka, Florida; Extract Systems of Madison, Wisconsin; American Cadastre LLC of Herndon, Virginia; Xerox ACS Enterprise Solutions of San Ramon; PFA; and Midwest Micro Imaging of Golden Valley, Minnesota.
“Staff from the  assessor-recorder-county clerk’s office and the purchasing department reviewed all of the proposals and independently evaluated each proposal’s merit based on technical ability, cost and references,” Draeger said. “To determine technical ability, the evaluators took care to note minimum vendor and proposal requirements and rated the vendors on understanding of the assessor-recorder-county clerk’s needs, accurate and complete description of technical processes, ability to handle sensitive data, ability to meet timelines, and experience. The vendors were asked to provide costs per unit of service instead of estimating an overall contract amount. Requesting costs per unit of service is more realistic than requesting an overall contract amount because the work is very technical and involves many components, the amount of work required will fluctuate with the activity of the real estate industry, and the vendor will be completing additional preservation projects of county records. Estimates of an overall contract amount could have resulted in a vendor significantly over- or under-bidding the contract.
Providing costs per unit of service also reduced the likelihood of unanticipated costs developing during the contract.”
According to Draeger, “The evaluation committee recommended PFA for a contract to provide micrographics, film conversion, indexing, and redaction services to the assessor-recorder-county clerk’s office based on the cumulative decision that their technical ability exceeded the ability of the other vendors and their references were superior. PFA was not consistently the lowest or highest bidder when comparing vendors’ costs. However, due to the technical nature of the work involved, accuracy was felt to be more critical than cost. PFA provides an accuracy rate of 99.95% with quality assurance controls at no additional charge. Due to a previous protest regarding redaction services, great effort was taken to assure uniformity and fairness during the evaluation process. Despite staff’s effort, an appeal to the decision to award the contract to PFA was received by the purchasing department. The purchasing agent  communicated with the vendor and addressed the questions put forth in the protest.”

(January 2)  Jon Mikels, one of the founders of the city of Rancho Cucamonga and a member of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors for four terms, died this week after an extended illness. He was 66.
In 1977 Mikels was working for the California Youth Authority when he successfully ran to become a member of the charter Rancho Cucamonga city council at the conclusion of an incorporation drive that melded the communities of Cucamonga, Alta Loma and Etiwanda into a municipality.
After he was on the city council, his political clout redounded to professional advantage when then-Second District County Supervisor Joe Kamansky successfully lobbied the presiding judge of the county to appoint Mikels, who possessed a degree in psychology from Cal State LA, a masters degree in behavioral science from Cal State Dominguez Hills and a masters degree in public administration from USC, court coordinator at the West Valley Courthouse, which was then located at Sixth Street and Mountain Avenue in Ontario. After several of his older council colleagues rotated into the position of Rancho Cucamonga mayor, Mikels was chosen for that honor in 1982. In 1986, he successfully vied against incumbent San Bernardino County Second District Supervisor Cal McElwain.
The then-38-year-old Mikels rapidly moved to become one of the dominant political figures in the region, ascending to chairmanship of the board of supervisors in 1990. While he was yet Rancho Cucamonga mayor, Mikels acceded to a regional political leadership role, that of chairman of Southern California Associated Governments. He was reappointed to the post of chairman after he became county supervisor.
. Mikels held the chairmanship of a second regional planning agency, the South Coast Regional Air Quality Management District Board.
Throughout his quarter of a century as an elected official, Mikels oversaw what was the most dynamic period of growth for both of the entities he headed. Rancho Cucamonga, which consisted of 30,000 residents upon incorporation, saw accelerated growth during Mikels’ tenure on the council, nearly tripling in population by the time he departed to become supervisor. That frenzied pace continued for the duration of the time Mikels represented the Second District – consisting of the western portion of Fontana, Wrightwood, Lytle Creek, the unincorporated frontier between Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, all of Rancho Cucamonga and Upland, San Antonio Heights and Mt. Baldy. San Bernardino County, which had eclipsed the million population mark at about the same time Mikels became supervisor, maintained its explosive pattern of growth while he remained in power at the county seat. His district in the later portion of his tenure included Crestline and Lake Gregory and a portion of the San Bernardino Mountain Community extending nearly to Lake Arrowhead. Today, eleven years after Mikels left office, Rancho Cucamonga boasts nearly 170,000 residents as the third largest city in the county. San Bernardino County’s population today exceeds 2.1 million.
Even with the aggressive land use policies that occurred under his watch, Mikels nevertheless maintained a reputation as a moderate in terms of growth, whose accommodation of development extended only as far as the willingness of project proponents to participate in defraying a major portion of the cost of the infrastructure needed for that development.
Mikels’ educational background in psychology, behavioral science and public administration equipped him when he was a Rancho Cucamonga official with the tools to get along with others, and handle the onslaught of growth that was emanating further inland from Orange and Los Angeles counties, and the accompanying self interest and influence of developers. He sought to temper the growth and maximize concessions from project proponents with design and land use intensity standards that were more exacting than were then current in other communities. He also successfully pushed for historical preservation and tree-saving ordinances. This approach did not endear him to some elements of the building industry, who saw such measures as ones that interfered with their profit margins.
While he evaded scandal, Mikels was subject to controversy.
In 1986, as he was putting on an energetic campaign against McElwain for supervisor, he was deposed as mayor by his city council colleagues who sensed that his political ambition might leave him vulnerable to being influenced by campaign donors. As supervisor, Mikels became estranged with the political leadership in Rancho Cucamonga over development issues involving land in the city’s sphere of influence as well as the divided city council’s decision, in 1989, to fire city manager Lauren Wasserman, who had headed city staff throughout Mikels’ tenure there.
In particular, Mikels was embittered when a prominent developer, Joe DiIorio, who had relocated from Orange County to make heavy investments in and around the area that became Rancho Cucamonga, saw a large scale project by his development company, the Caryn Company, falter in the early 1990s because of difficulty he encountered in dealing with the city of Rancho Cucamonga. DiIorio had named his company after his daughter who was killed in a traffic accident and he had been one of the sponsors of the drive to incorporate Rancho Cucamonga. Early on, while Mikels was still serving as an elected official with the city, DiIorio experienced success with his development projects and was in seeming consonance with the higher design standards Rancho Cucamonga was insisting upon to distinguish itself from its surrounding cities.
A few years after Mikels left the city to become supervisor, however, DiIorio saw his financial empire collapse when he became embroiled in litigation with the city of Rancho Cucamonga over issues related to his entitlement to proceed with his project. This created a technical default in more than $20 million in outstanding loans secured by the property he was developing. One of the loan requirements was that there be no lawsuits encumbering the project. The loans defaulted when the suit was filed. The lawsuit held up the project. As the project stalled. DiIorio, who had been one of Mikels’ major political backers, took his own life.
In the late 1990s, Mikels was seen as a rising star in the Republican Party. But two of his family members – his wife, Marjorie Musser Mikels, and sister-in-law, Ruth Musser-Lopez, began to actively campaign against then-Republican Governor Pete Wilson’s effort to site a nuclear waste repository in Ward Valley at the northeastern end of the county. Though the county, including Jon Mikels, initially endorsed Wilson’s plan, a petition drive against the nuclear dump proceeded. Eventually, Mikels and his colleagues on the board endorsed opposition to the project, ultimately resulting in the project proposal being abandoned. The break with Wilson, then the most powerful Republican in California, curtailed Mikels’ political advancement.
As Second District Supervisor, Mikels opposed having the county’s flood control division undertake at taxpayer expense stormwater diversion infrastructure improvements at the Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads projects, which were developed on what had formerly been regional flood control and water recharge property in northeast Upland. His colleagues on the board of supervisors deferred to Mikels’ judgment with regard to this issue within his district. This led to wrangling with the developers of the property, the Colonies Partners, who bankrolled in large measure the 2002 election effort by then-Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Paul Biane against Mikels. Biane ousted Mikels as supervisor, bringing the curtain down on Mikels’ political career. Simultaneously, the Colonies Partners sued the county over flood control issues at the Colonies developments. That lawsuit was settled in 2006 with a $102 million payout to the Colonies Partners by the county.
Dennis Stout, Rancho Cucamonga’s first directly elected mayor after the city went to direct mayoral elections in 1986 and later a two-term district attorney, was close to Mikels. In the maiden 1977 Rancho Cucamonga municipal election, Stout had been with Mikels one of the 36 candidates for the five-member city council. Stout ran thirteenth in the race, losing out to Mikels, who placed fifth; along with Jim Frost, the city’s first mayor; Phil Schlosser; Mike Palombo; and Charlie West.
“I first got to know Jon through my wife,” Stout said, “before the city incorporated. His wife and mine worked in the department of social services at that time as social workers. That is how I met him.
“I liked Jon,” Stout said. “He and I were friends. He was beneficial to the city. He was bright. You usually do not find people in local politics who are as educated as he was. He had a degree in public administration. During the infancy of Rancho Cucamonga he was innovative, and instigated some of the things that made the city unique. He was instrumental in attracting other people with good ideas. He wasn’t as threatened as some other elected officials by having people on the planning commission who might prove to be future candidates for city council.”
Among those were Stout, whom Mikels first appointed to the Rancho Cucamonga Municipal Advisory Committee and later to the planning commission. It was from the platform of being a planning commission member that Stout successfully ran for mayor in 1986.
It was a feather in Rancho Cucamonga’s hat to have one of its young lion’s accede to the board of supervisors, Stout said.
After Mikels moved on to the county, DiIorio became involved in a protracted dispute with the city over his large planned residential subdivision, which was to be built on land that lay both within the city limits as well as north of the city in the unincorporated county area. DiIorio, a graduate of Harvard Business School, sought to use his status as one of the city’s founders and his connection to Mikels to make headway in his negotiations with the city. When the city and DiIorio did not iron out their differences, Mikels sided with DiIorio.
“After Jon got on the board of supervisors the relationship between the county and the city became somewhat strained over what should be going on in the county area within the city’s sphere of influence,” Stout said. “The differences were over what the density should be there and we weren’t in agreement over some design specifications as well. The city wanted tile roofs and a few other things. There was some tough discussion while I was still mayor and as a city we took the position that we wanted our design and density criteria if that property was going to be brought into the city. We took the position that if they did not build to our design standards and density specifications, they could build but we would not annex the property. It would have to stay in the county. What occurred, in the end, was they built to our design standards but at greater density than we would have allowed. The property was eventually annexed. So there was a compromise.”
Stout said Mikels had strength of character. ‘”He was able to stand up to people who had money, big money” Stout said. “It takes courage for a politician to be able to do that.”
Moreover, Stout said, “There are others who have not given him the credit he was due. The consortium that came about so that the Etiwanda storm drain system near the I-15 Freeway could be built was almost entirely his doing. It involved the cities of Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, and Ontario, along with the county and the federal government which consisted of the Army Corps of Engineers. It was very involved and required intense cooperation and coordination. It took someone with his skill and patience and vision, his political ability and negotiating capability to make that work.”
Stout said Mikels’ talent as a political leader was beneficial at a regional level.
“He also deserves credit for protecting the right-of-way for the 210 Freeway,” Stout said. “Other cities allowed development in the area where the freeway had been planned because they did not think, after years and decades of delay, that it would actually be built. It took foresight and courage to protect that right-of-way.  People do not realize how much more difficult it would have been to build the 210 Freeway if that corridor had not been protected.”
As a relatively young man in office in Rancho Cucamonga, Mikels was looking ahead toward long term goals that will be appreciated by future generations, Stout said. “He was part of the leadership in the city that set aside 100 acres obtained from Lewis Homes for Central Park,” Stout said. “At that time the city had no park land and the breakthrough the city achieved in having set aside 100 acres was a major accomplishment.”
Despite Mikels’ considerable accomplishments, Stout said, he probably did not reach his full potential when his political career was foreclosed in 2002. Mikels never ran for office again.
“My belief is he grew frustrated with politics at the county level,” Stout said. “At that point it had turned into a vicious bloodsport.”
A lifelong smoker, Mikels was felled by lung, prostate and bladder cancer. He is survived by his ex-wife, three daughters and seven grandchildren, his brother, sister and mother..

(December 17)  DELANTO—Adelanto Planning Commission Chairwoman Lori Yuan has been charged with felony vandalism stemming from a June 26 incident on the campus of Desert Trails Elementary School.
Allegedly, Yuan’s action and that of another parent of a child attending the school, Chrissy Guzman, was prompted by their dissent over the successful parent takeover of Desert Trails Elementary  by a group of parents and their out-of-community supporters using California’s controversial “Parent Trigger” Law.
The Parent Empowerment Act, authored by former state senator Gloria Romero and passed by the legislature in 2010, enables a majority of parents at a school at which students score as low-performers on state academic tests to force a district to implement significant reforms, ranging from replacing the principal and up to half the staff to reopening the school as a charter academy. That process is known by the colloquialism “parent trigger.”
At Desert Trails Elementary School, which falls within  the Adelanto Elementary School District, a significant number of the students there had parents whose first language is not English. For the seven years between 2004 and 2011, Desert Trails students had the lowest scores within the district on state standardized academic tests. The school’s students have also collectively scored in the bottom 10 percent of all California elementary schools. In the school’s 2011 graduating sixth grade class 72 percent of students were not proficient with the English language and 70 percent were not proficient in math. Since 2007 Desert Trails has been classified as a failing school.
Pursuant to the Parent Empowerment Act, a parent union was formed by parents at Desert Trails Elementary in 2011, 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.
On January 12, 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 severely underperforming school.
Those petitions, which 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, were sufficient to meet the requirements of the Parent Empowerment Act, parent union members believed. The parent union subsequently modified that agenda to request that the school be converted to a charter academy, offering an intensified curriculum.
A group of parents opposed to the parent takeover of the school formed, including Yuan and Guzman, and went to work obtaining rescissions of many of the signatures on the petitions.
In February 2012, the school district, to whom the parent trigger petitions had been entrusted, announced that it had validated the signatures of only 317 of the 466 signatures on the petitions. The Desert Trails Parent Union, represented by a law firm on retainer with Parent Revolution, Los Angeles-based Kirkland & Ellis, demanded a recount and reconsideration of that invalidation of the petition effort. After the district conducted that recount, the board, on March 28, 2012, voted unanimously to give a final rejection to the reconsideration of the parent trigger petitions, finding they fell 20 signatures short of the 321 signatures needed.
In response, Mark Holscher, an attorney with Kirkland & Ellis, filed on behalf of five of the members of the parents union – Doreen Diaz, Kathy Duncan, Teresa Rogers, Olivia Zamarripa and Bartola Del Villar – 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, as well as asking for the  recognition of  the educational rights of students at Desert Trails.
Judge Steve Malone, to whom the case was assigned, restored 97 of the signatures tossed out by the district, ruling that the district did not have the authority or a basis in law to discount signatures that proponents gathered and the district had abused its discretion in doing so. By his ruling Malone raised the number of qualified signatures to well above 50 percent. He ordered the Adelanto Elementary School District to accept the petition as filed by the parent union within 30 days and seek proposals from charter school operators to take over Desert Trails.
The ruling made the Desert Trails Parent Union the first group to successfully enact California’s 2010 Parent Empowerment Act, although the district did not get the reorganization in place in time to charterize the school in the 2012-13 school year.
Subsequently, LaVerne Preparatory Academy was accepted as the operator of Desert Trails, and  beginning in September has been operating the school.
Less than three months prior to that, according to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, Yuan and Guzman caused in excess of $8,000 worth of damage to a classroom at the school by spraying ketchup and mustard on the carpet and walls of the room. Both Yuan and Guzman had served as parent volunteers at the school while it was still under the control of the Adelanto School District and as such, according to the district attorney’s office, had access to several of the school’s classrooms, including the one that had been vandalized.
Yuan and Guzman were not alone in opposing the parent trigger effort. Many parents of students at Desert Trails Elementary and within the Adelanto School District as well as observers outside the district considered the drama in the Adelanto School District to be an unseemly spectacle, with agitators in the parent trigger movement seeking to exploit large numbers of parents at Desert Trail Elementary School whose own educational shortcomings, including a lack of facility in the English language, contributed to the poor academic performance of their own children.
The district discovered the vandalism on June 26 and contacted the Adelanto Police Department, which is a subdivision of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. An investigation was conducted.
It has not yet been publicly disclosed how sheriff’s department investigators came to the conclusion that Yuan and Guzman were involved or what evidence exists to support that conclusion. It is unknown, as well, whether there were other suspects considered during that investigation.
On December 2, the district attorney’s office preferred electronically filed PC 594(B)(1) charges, felony vandalism entailing damages of more than $400, against both Yuan and Guzman. The complaint seeks restitution equal to the damage done. They are scheduled for arraignment on January 13 in Victorville Superior Court Department 9.
At press time, Yuan, who serves on the planning commission at the pleasure of the Adelanto City Council, had not been removed from her appointed position.

(January 1)  The county of San Bernardino has struck back at the state of California and its Department of Finance over a ruling the latter made which called for the distribution of the $9 million dollar remainder of a county loan to the county’s redevelopment agency to other governmental agencies in 2012.
That move came after the state shuttered redevelopment agencies throughout the state. The county had not gone along with the diversion of all of the county redevelopment agency’s money because $10 million had been loaned to the county redevelopment agency by the county to redress devastation in the Cedar Glen area of the San Bernardino Mountains in the wake of so called Old Fire in 2003, which destroyed 345 homes.
Following the fire and its devastation, the county created a disaster project area and a disaster recovery plan. The county then loaned the county redevelopment agency $10 million from the county’s general fund to pay for infrastructure improvements.
As the county and the redevelopment agency were working toward the implementation of the plan, the state dissolved  redevelopment agencies statewide and the California Department of Finance blocked the actual initiation of the disaster recovery plan.
In accordance with the 2010 legislation that closed down the state’s redevelopment agencies, the California Department of Finance had jurisdiction in determining how money that remained in the pre-existing redevelopment agency accounts was and is to be disbursed. The California Department of Finance made a determination that all the money in the county redevelopment agency’s accounts, including the $9 million remaining from the county loan, would be allocated to local taxing entities.
The terms of the legislation shutting the redevelopment agencies required that any legal challenge to the California Department of Finance’s determination had to be filed in Sacramento Superior Court.  The county indeed challenged the Department of Finance determination with regard to the Cedar Glen loan, filing suit on February 27, 2013. On May 24, 2013, the judge hearing the case, Sacramento County Superior Court Eugene L. Balonon, held a hearing on the matter. On July 24, Balonon entered a judgment upholding the California Department of Finance.
On December 2, 2013 the successor agency to the county redevelopment agency under protest remitted the unspent county loans.
On December 20, 2013, attorneys for San Bernardino County and the successor agency to the county redevelopment agency – County Counsel Jean-Rene Basle, assistant county counsel Michelle Blakemore, and attorneys Amy Hoyt, J. Leah Castella, Susan Bloch and Nicholas Muscolino with the Oakland office of the Burke, Williams and Sorensen law firm – filed an appeal of Balonon’s ruling with the Third District Court of Appeal. Michael Cohen, in his official capacity as director of the State of California Department of Finance, is named as the respondent.
According to the legal brief filed on December 20, “The Department of Finance’s determination that the $9 million county loan must be allocated to local taxing entities is unconstitutional. The Department of Finance’s determination violates Article XIII Section 25.5(a) of the California Constitution because it changes local agencies’ pro rata shares of property tax revenue. The Department of Finance’s determination violates Article XIII Section 24 because it reallocates the county’s general fund money to other local agencies.”
The brief further states, “This case involves the county’s efforts to construct infrastructure that would provide basic services – water, roadways, and fire protection – to the residents of Cedar Glen, a community devastated by a catastrophic wildfire in 2003. The Department of Finance has thwarted those efforts through an arbitrary and capricious determination that a $10 million loan that the county made in 2005 from its general fund to the county redevelopment agency to finance the infrastructure improvements and that remains largely unspent cannot be used for its intended purposes and instead must be distributed to local taxing entities. This determination delivers a one two punch to the county: the county urgently needs the funds to complete the improvements to protect the community from the next wildfire. It will only recover those funds, if at all, over a protracted period. Meanwhile, the Department of Finance has given a windfall to other local taxing entities that have no entitlement to money from the county’s general fund. The loans are enforceable obligations that must be spent in accordance with the loan agreement and repaid to the county. The reallocation is plainly inequitable because it gives the other taxing entities a windfall of county general funds to which they have no claim whatsoever. The loan is needed to undertake the improvements that are required before most property owners can rebuild the homes destroyed in the Old Fire since most roads are now unusable and without a dependable water system owners do not want to take a chance at building  without fire service protection.”
The brief maintains “It is unjust for the Department of Finance and taxing entities to receive the unspent $9 million from the county loan. The county accumulated the vast majority of the $10 million loan from its own property tax revenue and local sales and use taxes  In its zeal to implement the [redevelopment agency] dissolution law, the Department of Finance has gone too far. It has ordered the transfer of county general fund money that the county loaned to the county redevelopment agency years earlier to finance sorely needed fire, water and road improvements for an area devastated by wild fires.”
As of press time, Cohen had not been in his office for two consecutive days and was not available for comment.

(January 2) Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Marc Steinorth has declared himself a candidate in the anticipated contest to succeed Mike Morrell as assemblyman in the  40th District.
Morrell has not departed from the position he first captured in the lower chamber of the state legislature in 2010. The 40th Assembly District stretches in an arc from Rancho Cucamonga on its western end through unincorporated portions of San Bernardino County along the foothills to a portion of the city of San Bernardino, the city of Highland, and into Redlands and Loma Linda.
Morrell has declared his intention to vie to replace State Senator Bill Emmerson in a special election to be held later this year. Emmerson resigned from his post as state senator in the 23rd Senatorial District effective December 1.
Four others are competing with Morrell –  Yucaipa Valley Water District Board Member Lonni Granlund, a Republican; Calimesa Councilman Jeff Hewett, a Libertarian; San Jacinto City Councilwoman Crystal Ruiz, a Republican; and Ameenah Fuller, a Rancho Cucamonga Democrat who unsuccessfully sought election in the 25th State Senate District in 2012.
Given his incumbency in the Assembly and his superior fundraising capability, Morrell is considered the odds-on favorite to prevail in the race in the 23rd, in which 41 percent of the voters are registered as Republicans and 34 percent are affiliated with the Democratic Party.
Steinorth, who was elected to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council 2012, is an active Republican. In the 40th Assembly District, 38.3 percent of the voters are registered Democrats and 36.7 percent are registered with the GOP.
With the slight Democratic registration advantage and Morrell’s narrow 1,018 vote victory over Democrat Russ Warner in November 2012, the 40th  is considered one of the most targeted legislative districts in the state.
Steinorth believes he can energize the 40th District’s voters in the same way he did with voters in Rancho Cucamonga two years ago.
“I bring to the table 20 years of private sector business experience,” said Steinorth, who runs an advertising and marketing firm in Rancho Cucamonga, Atlas Buying Group. “In addition to understanding the daily challenge of running a small business, I also have public sector experience on the city council. I have seen the impact of the state government’s action on the business community. I am equally aware of what many in the private sector and in the general public do not realize, which is the degree to which local governments are challenged by having to deal with mandates by the state, every bit as much as small businesses must deal with mandates by the state. I am convinced that the state government does not have enough private sector business representation. It is easy to say you want to go to Sacramento and create jobs. That is the mantra we have heard for the last four or five years from our politicians. What is different about my candidacy is I have actual experience in helping to create and grow businesses.”
Steinorth said that to be effective as an advocate for the private sector within the context of serving in government, one has to be prepared to tirelessly promote the application of common sense to the regulatory function of government. . Steinorth addressed the impact of state mandates on local government.
“AB 109, the public safety realignment or prison realignment to reduce prison overcrowding was not intended to be a threat to my family’s safety but that is the end result,” Steinorth said. “The state has simply ignored the prison overcrowding problem for more than 20 years.  This most recent emergency is really nothing more than an example of poor planning by our legislative leaders.
“As the state funneled money toward other priorities, our local court system, has received $600 million less in funding,” he continued. “In dealing with that in the only way she can, our county’s presiding judge, Marsha Slough, is reducing services to the point where we no longer have the full service court system we enjoyed. The Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse is now going to be devoted entirely to criminal cases. The Fontana Courthouse will handle civil and traffic cases. Most of the civil cases and some of the criminal cases will be handled out of the San Bernardino Courthouse. This is a tremendous challenge beyond being an inconvenience to our population in this county. You have residents, especially ones in the far reaches of our county, out in the desert communities who will have to travel four hours one way to get to court. A Rancho Cucamonga resident who for one reason or another does not have access to a car and must use public transportation to get to court in San Bernardino will need to spend upwards of two hours travelling one way to court. That is the result of decisions made at the state level where the impact on us is tremendous.”
Steinorth did not shrink from expressing himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.  He said the numbers are against his party statewide, but that the principles and values the GOP embraces are sorely needed in Sacramento. He said he believes many voters are beginning to see that the Democratic supermajority in the state capital is contrary to balanced governance.
“I see the pendulum starting to shift,” he said. “[State Republican Leader] Jim Brulte is leading us. The Republican Party has to pick up two seats to break the two-thirds majority Democratic control in Sacramento. Single party control has not proven to be a healthy process of governing. Divided government, with its checks and balances, was how the system was designed to function. As Republicans we need to hold onto the 40th. I think my candidacy can be the start of a dialogue about all this. We can start the change right here.”
He has a familiarity with the district that extends beyond Rancho Cucamonga, Steinorth said.
“The way the 40th is configured, it contains roughly  three-fourths of Rancho Cucamonga,” he said. “It stretches to cover San Bernardino and Highland Loma Linda and Redlands. When I was a kid, I lived in San Bernardino and went to elementary school there. I attended  St. Thomas Aguinas High School in San Bernardino my freshman year before my family moved to Ramstein AFB in Germany while my father was in the military. When I was attending college at U.C. Riverside, I bought my first house in Highland. One of the first businesses I started was in Highland.”
Steinorth now hopes to take his long developed roots in the community, experience in private business, and service on the city council to Sacramento to represent the people of the Inland Empire in the Assembly.

(January 2) 2013 closed out and 2014 embarked with a spate of murderous mayhem across San Bernardino County. From approximately mid-day on December 30 to just after 1 a.m. January 1, there were at least six homicides, one suicide and one attempted murder in the cities of San Bernardino, Highland, Chino and Fontana. Five of those involved murders by close family members.
At about 8:30 p.m. Monday December 30, Fontana police officers were summoned to a residence in the 7300 block of Palmetto Avenue, where they discovered the bodies of Ramon Miranda, 38, and Silvia Miranda, 34, and their son Ramon Jr., 12, and daughter Rayna, 10.
Investigators had been alerted to the situation by Silvia Miranda’s 16-year-old son, who did not live with his mother and stepfather and half-brother and half-sister. The 16-year-old had discovered the bodies after he came to the house that day after being unable to reach his mother by phone.
Investigators believe that all four died at the hand of Ramon Miranda. A handgun was found at the scene. Silvia Miranda and the two children sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and Ramon Miranda expired from a single gunshot wound to the head, according to Fontana Police.
No motive in the suicide murders has been established.
Around 9 p.m. on December 31, Robert Sanchez and another unidentified man were wounded in a hail of gunfire near the 2800 block of Benson Avenue in Chino, proximate to Chino High School. Officers responding to a call found Sanchez and the other man prone in an alley with multiple gunshot wounds. Both were transported to Chino Valley Medical Center, where Sanchez, 28, was pronounced dead.
The other man remains in critical condition at press time.
The Chino Police Department has released photos of what are described as three suspects. Those photos were taken from a security camera at a nearby business at a time just prior to the shootings. The three men in the photos are described by police as adult Hispanics who were said to have fled  on foot northbound on Benson Avenue.
Detectives  investigating the case appealed to  anyone with information regarding the shootings to  contact the Chino Police Department at 909-628-1234.
At about the same time that Sanchez was gun down, an as-yet unidentified 38-year old man in San Bernardino narrowly escaped with his life when he was confronted by 22-year-old Jose Lopez outside the Stater Bros. grocery store at 977 W. Kendall Ave in North San Bernardino.
According to police, Lopez was driving a red Chevrolet Suburban and fired upon the victim multiple times before driving off. Shortly thereafter, a Cal State San Bernardino police officer spotted the Suburban and pulled Lopez over. A weapon was found in the vehicle. Witnesses subsequently identified him as the shooter. He was arrested and charged with attempted murder and is being held at Central Detention Center in San Bernardino on $1 million bail.
Less than two hours after 2014 had commenced, a 26-year-old woman was found dead with upper body trauma in Highland after police were notified of a disturbance in the area. .
The sheriff’s department was called at 1:54 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 1, and told of an incident in the 7000 block of Elm Avenue. Upon arrival, deputies discovered 26-year-old Tysha Carrell dead from upper-body trauma.
The sheriff’s homicide division is investigating her death.
In San Bernardino, Jordan Sartorio phoned  police Wednesday morning to inform them he had cut his own wrist after killing his wife and daughter.
Sartorio, 42, had gotten into an argument with his ex-wife, Miraflor Sartorio, 51, and then used a knife to stab her multiple times. The commotion roused the one-time couple’s 6-year-old daughter, Jira. Jordan Sartorio then stabbed her to death before seeking to kill himself by slashing his own wrist.
Sartorio was alive when at 5:40 a.m. police arrived at the home located in the 300 block of West 29th Street, and he was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center for medical treatment.

San Bernardino, Calif., December 21, 2013 – On Saturday December 21th, the first bald eagle count of the winter was conducted by local Federal and State biologists and volunteers around several lakes in the southern California.
A grand total of 11 eagles (7 adults and 4 juveniles) were observed at the lake areas during the 1- hour count.  Six eagles (2 adults, 4 juveniles) were observed in the Big Bear/Baldwin Lake area; 2 adult eagles at Lake Arrowhead; 2 adult eagles at Silverwood Lake; and 1 adult eagle at Lake Perris.  Juvenile eagles are distinguished by a brown head and tail; adults are recognized by the famous white head and tail – it takes 4-5 years to acquire full adult coloration.  Juvenile eagles are the same size as the adults.
Approximately 99 observers participated in the 1-hour eagle census (41 at Big Bear area, 6 at Lake Arrowhead, 30 at Silverwood Lake, and 22 at Lake Perris.  The count coordinators from the Forest Service and State Recreation Areas would like to thank those volunteers for their dedication in getting up early and participating in the eagle census.  The success of the eagle counts are entirely dependent on the volunteers!
The remaining bald eagle counts for this winter are scheduled for the following Saturday mornings:  January 11, February 8, and March 8.  No experience is needed.  Signing up ahead of time is unnecessary. Those participating can  just show up at the designated time and location, dressed warmly, with binoculars and a watch.
·       Big Bear Lake area volunteers will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Forest Service’s Big Bear Discovery Center on North Shore Drive for orientation. Contact Drew Farr (dpfarr@fs.fed.us or 909-382-2816) for more information.  Please call 909-382-2832 for cancellation due to winter weather conditions – an outgoing message will be left by 6:30 am on the morning of the count if it has to be cancelled.  Contact the Discovery Center (909-382-2790) for information about Eagle Celebrations.  There will also be a free slideshow about bald eagles at 11:00.
Lake Arrowhead/Lake Gregory volunteers will meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Skyforest Ranger Station for orientation. Contact Drew Farr (dpfarr or 909-382-2816) for more information.  Please call 909-382-2832 for cancellation due to winter weather conditions – an outgoing message will be left by 6:30 am on the morning of the count if it has to be cancelled.
· Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area volunteers should plan to meet at the Visitor Center at 8:00 a.m. for orientation.  Contact Kathy Williams or Mark Wright for more information about volunteering or taking an eagle tour (760-389-2303 between 8:00 and 4:00; or email: khwilliams@parks.ca.gov).
·       Lake Hemet volunteers should plan on meeting at the Lake Hemet Grocery Store at 8:30 a.m. for orientation.  Contact Anne Poopatanapong (apoopatanapong@fs.fed.us or 909-382-2935) for more information.
· Lake Perris State Recreation Area volunteers should plan to meet at the Lake Perris Regional Indian Museum at 8:00 for orientation.  Contact the office for more information at 951-940-5600.
See websites for additional information about the San Bernardino National Forest (http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/) and the California State Recreation Areas (www.parks.ca.gov).

By clicking on the following portal you can access a copy of the December 27 Sentinel

Sentinel 12-27-13

(December 26)  SACRAMENTO—The California Supreme Court on December 23 reestablished the essential elements of the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution, granting the gist of prosecutors’ appeal more than a year and two months after the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside dismissed the most crucial charges lodged against developer Jeff Burum, the central defendant in the case.
In February 2010, a grand jury indicted former county supervisor/county assessor Bill Postmus and one of his political associates, Jim Erwin, who had been the head of the county sheriff’s deputies union before he was appointed by Postmus to serve as assistant assessor. Five others were identified as unnamed co-conspirators in that indictment, which charged Postmus with a host of crimes, including conspiracy, soliciting bribes, accepting bribes, perjury, filing falsified documents and other violations of the public trust. The charges were filed in connection with his November 2006 vote, while he was still chairman of the county board of supervisors, to approve a $102 million legal settlement between the county and the Colonies Partners, which was controlled and managed by Burum and Dan Richards.
Erwin, who had been instrumental in vectoring monetary support from the sheriff’s deputies’ union to Postmus’s supervisorial and assessor campaigns  and was subsequently appointed to one of two assistant assessor positions Postmus established after his election as assessor, was charged with conspiracy, extortion and bribery, perjury, filing falsified public documents and tax evasion. Prosecutors alleged that Erwin, who was working as a consultant for the Colonies Partners in 2006, threatened to disclose damaging information relating to both Postmus and his then-board colleague Paul Biane before Postmus, Biane and a third member of the board, Gary Ovitt, voted to approve the $102 million settlement of the lawsuit the Colonies Partners had brought against the county over flood control issues at the company’s Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial projects in northeast Upland. After the settlement was approved in November 2006, according to prosecutors, Burum rewarded Postmus, Biane, Erwin and Ovitt’s chief of staff, Mark Kirk, with $100,000 each in contributions to political action committees they controlled.
Initially Postmus and Erwin both 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 allegations 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. Cited in those demurrers were the cases of People v. Davis, People vs. Clapp and People vs Wolden, all of which bore upon 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.
In August 2011, Judge Brian McCarville granted several of the defendants’ demurrers in what has become known as the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution, ruling that a defendant such as Burum who was essentially accused of giving bribes cannot also be charged with aiding and abetting the receipt of bribes, and he dismissed all four bribery counts and one of misappropriation of public funds against the Rancho Cucamonga-based developer, leaving only two of the original seven charges against the figure at the center of the case intact. McCarville further dismissed one felony count of misappropriation of public funds for each of the other defendants. The prosecution, consisting of both the California Attorney General’s office and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office, appealed McCarville’s ruling to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside, which in October 2012 upheld McCarville with regard to the four bribery counts against Burum that had been tossed, and also threw out a conflict-of-interest count McCarville had let stand. The appeals court did, however, reinstate the misappropriation of public funds charge against Burum that McCarville had dismissed.
Prosecutors then made a last-minute appeal of the Fourth District’s ruling to the California Supreme Court on December 10, 2012.
The defense teams for Erwin, Biane and Kirk followed in the wake of the legal trail blazed by Burum’s attorney, former U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Larson. It was Larson who had formulated the defense that rested upon the Davis, Clapp and Wolden precedents, which McCarville and later the Forth District Court of Appeal utilized in their respective decisions to eviscerate the prosecution’s case.
In the case of People v. Davis, the court ruled that “the giver and receiver of a bribe are no longer accomplices one to the other.”
The Clapp case, from 1944, pertained to three women accused of involvement in an abortion, which at that time was illegal, and the conviction of the woman on whom the abortion was performed. The court held the woman submitting to an abortion was not punishable as a principal under one section of the penal code because her conduct was prohibited under another section. As such she was deemed not to be an accomplice in the crime of the other parties.
The case of People v. Wolden, which in itself relied upon the precedent of the Clapp Case, related to the case of Russell Wolden, the one-time assessor of San Francisco County who was indicted on 10 counts of accepting bribes and one count of conspiracy to accept bribes. Wolden was convicted on the conspiracy charge and eight counts of accepting bribes. Upon appeal, it was determined that the giver and receiver of a bribe are not guilty of a conspiracy, because the two crimes require different motives or purposes and that the giver of the bribe is not an accomplice in the “separate and distinct crime” of bribe taking.
Moreover, McCarville and the Fourth District Court of Appeal rejected the application of conspiracy statutes to Burum’s action, applying a principle of law that holds that two individuals who are alleged to have engaged in a crime that necessarily involves two parties cannot be charged with conspiracy merely on the basis of that crime having taken place.
Citing Davis, Clapp and Wolden, Stephen Larson, in arguing before California’s highest court, repeated the arguments he had made before the lower courts, stating prosecutors had engaged in “an impermissible charging scheme” that “ignores the legislative history  and judicial interpretations.”
The prosecution, arguing on behalf of both  the state of California and the county of  the San Bernardino, propounded the argument that Burum’s alleged bribery of Postmus, Biane, and Kirk went beyond a simple exchange of money for votes and involved an elaborate set of circumstances involving threats, extortion, and intermediaries acting on Burum’s behalf in addition to the provision of the alleged bribes.
Led by deputy attorney general Melissa Mandel, the prosecution referenced the action of Erwin, who was described in the indictment as Burum’s “agent,” “mule” and “underling,” to propound the theory that his action in having prepared with public relations consultant Patrick O’Reilly, prior to the 2006 election, never-delivered mailers and handbills which dwelled on derogatory information relating to Postmus and Biane, constituted blackmail and extortion that paved the way for the bribes that were delivered to Postmus and Biane after the vote conferring the $102 million settlement on the Colonies Partners. The combination of the bribes, extortion, blackmail and the use of a third party, i.e., Erwin, in this regard, Mandel suggested, constituted a facilitation of the crime that went beyond mere bribery. Burum, she said, utilized his “enormous political power and financial resources to coerce the public officials into accepting his bribes.”
In its review of the matter, the California Supreme Court, composed of Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye,  and justices Joyce Kennard, Marvin Baxter, Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, and Goodwin Liu, Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan,  found other precedent-setting political corruption cases, those of People v. Gonzales and Solis and  Calhoun v. Superior Court, to be more relevant than the Davis, Clapp and Wolden cases to the circumstances involved in the Colonies Lawsuit Settlement Public Corruption Prosecution than was presumed by McCarville and the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
“We conclude that the Court of Appeal erred,” Justice Baxter wrote in an opinion with which all of his colleagues concurred. “Although neither the offer nor payment of a bribe in itself can establish that the offeror aided and abetted the separate crime of receiving the same bribe, the status of being the offeror or payor of a bribe does not disqualify that person, as a matter of law, from complicity in the offense of receiving the bribe.  Whether the offeror is guilty of aiding and abetting the receipt of the bribe depends on whether there is evidence that, in addition to the offer or payment of the bribe, the offeror ‘with (1) knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator; and (2) the intent or purpose of committing, encouraging, or facilitating the commission of the offense, (3) by act or advice aids, promotes, encourages or instigates, the commission of the crime.’   (People v. Gonzales and Solis (2011) 52 Cal.4th 254, 295-296.)  Similarly, being the offeror or payor of a bribe does not disqualify that person, as a matter of law, from culpability for participating in a conspiracy to accept that same bribe.”
The ruling further states, “Because the Court of Appeal sustained the demurrer based on its incorrect understanding of the law, we reverse that part of the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings.”
Deeper within the 21-page opinion, Baxter wrote, “The Court of Appeal held that neither Burum (the offeror of the bribes) nor Erwin (Burum’s agent) could be charged with aiding or abetting the receipt of the bribes.  Its conclusion rested on the theory that the offeror of a bribe cannot ‘as a matter of law’ aid and abet another person in receiving the bribe.  The Court of Appeal was mistaken.  Whether the offeror of a bribe may be charged with aiding and abetting another in the crime of receiving the bribe depends on whether the offeror’s conduct, beyond merely offering or paying a bribe, satisfies the elements of aiding and abetting the receipt of the bribe.”
Baxter shed further light on the court’s reasoning.
“The Court of Appeal’s analysis with respect to the target crimes of bribery in the conspiracy charge was very brief and rested on its erroneous conclusion that defendants, as a matter of law, could not be charged with aiding and abetting the recipients of the bribes.  Thus, in the Court of Appeal’s view, Burum’s demurrer should have been sustained as to the target crimes of bribery in the conspiracy charge ‘because the crimes defendant Burum allegedly conspired to commit are ones the law states he cannot commit.’  Similarly, because Erwin could not be charged with aiding and abetting Biane in receiving or accepting bribes, he could not be charged with conspiring to commit those crimes.  The sole authority cited was Wolden, which declared that the giver and the receiver of a bribe cannot be ‘guilty of conspiracy, because the two crimes require different motives or purposes.’ This part of Wolden, though, suffers from the same infirmity as the argument rejected in the preceding part that the offeror of a bribe can never aid and abet the receipt of a bribe.  Although the giver and receiver of a bribe may have different intents, it is not required, as a matter of law, that they must have different intents. After all, it is well established that an individual may entertain multiple criminal objectives simultaneously.”
Specifically, Baxter wrote, the case of Calhoun v. Superior Court establishes a bribery scheme can entail a conspiracy if it involves enough factors and individuals.
“Indeed, Calhoun v. Superior Court (1955) 46 Cal.2d 18 (Calhoun) sustained a charge of conspiracy in closely analogous circumstances,” the opinion states. “Calhoun, acting on behalf of various wholesale and retail liquor distributors, arranged to use trade association money to donate to the political campaign of a candidate for the Board of Equalization, which issued licenses to sell alcoholic beverages.  Although such contributions appeared to be prohibited by Government Code section 5002.6, Calhoun was alleged instead to have conspired with the candidate and others to solicit and receive political contributions from those who were regulated by the Board of Equalization in violation of Elections Code section 5002.5.  Calhoun, like defendants here, argued that donors and recipients of contributions could not conspire to commit the same substantive offense as a matter of law, relying on the opinion of this court in denying a petition for hearing in People v. Keyes.  Over the objections of a dissenting justice that ‘there can be no conspiracy between the donor and the donee’ and that a conspiracy requires ‘there be a common unlawful motive,’ a majority of this court nonetheless permitted the prosecution to go forward.  We rested our decision on the particular facts of the case—i.e., evidence presented to the grand jury of ‘an elaborate conspiracy to utilize contributions from both retail and wholesale liquor licenses to finance [the candidate]’s political campaigns.’ In light of that evidence, we reasoned that a trier of fact could have concluded that Calhoun had ‘a much more intimate participation in [the official]’s campaign than that of one who acted solely as a donor.’
“Here, as in Calhoun, the indictment alleges that Burum and Erwin participated in a conspiracy that was more elaborate than the mere agreement that a particular bribe be accepted, but involved and depended on the conduct of numerous parties to ensure that at least three supervisors be influenced to approve the $102 million litigation settlement,” Baxter wrote. “The Court of Appeal thus erred in ruling that Burum and Erwin, as a matter of law, could not conspire to commit the target bribery offenses.  We therefore reverse the order sustaining the demurrer as to these target crimes in count 1 and remand to the Court of Appeal to consider, in the first instance, defendants’ remaining grounds for demurrer.”
Thus, it is now not only possible but probable that Burum will be headed to trial on charges of conspiracy, the aiding and abetting of bribery, and misappropriation of funds.The appellate court’s dismissals of aiding and abetting of a conflict of interest against both Burum and Erwin were upheld by the Supreme Court. Likewise, the conspiracy count and the charges of engaging in a conflict of interest and aiding and abetting Biane in his reception of a bribe that had earlier been dismissed against Erwin, who also faces 15 additional charges, were reinstated.
While the prosecution was savoring the reinstatement of the charges, it yet faces the burden of proving the case in a courtroom. It must also return to the Fourth District Court of Appeal to establish that the allegations in the indictment indeed match the presumption that aiding and abetting of the various crimes alleged actually took place.
Though the California Supreme Court rejected the Fourth District’s reasoning that the alleged offerer of a bribe cannot be charged simultaneously with aiding and abetting in the reception of the same bribe categorically as a matter of law, it sent the matter back to the Fourth District to have that panel determine if the circumstances laid out in the indictment indeed indicate that aiding and abetting took place. If such a determination is made, the aiding and abetting charges will stand. If not, they could again be dismissed.
“We express no opinion as to the validity of other defenses asserted by defendants in their demurrers,” the Supreme Court decision states. “We hold only that, at the demurrer stage, the bribery counts and the related portions of the conspiracy count are not barred as a matter of law merely because the indictment alleges that defendant Burum was the offeror of the bribes or that defendant Erwin acted as Burum’s agent.”
With the pre-trial jousting over the legal sufficiency and appropriate form of the charges now closed, Larson said he is anxious to move to trial, where the focus on the facts of the case will redound to his client’s vindication.
“Unfortunately the Supreme Court was legally required to accept the government’s unfounded and fabricated allegations as true, but we look forward to the case being remanded back to the Superior Court where we can finally present the facts and where we will prevail,” Larson said. “Today’s decision marks the beginning of the end for this politically-motivated prosecution.”

(December 24)  The county of San Bernardino has entered into a three-year pilot program with a Northern California-based private company for the operation of the recreation facilities at Lake Gregory Regional Park near Crestline.
For several years the county has been losing money at the park. The deal brokered with California Parks, which will do business in San Bernardino County as Urban Parks Concessionaires, will provide 15 new recreational programs at the park and lay the ground for Urban Parks Concessionaires’ potential long-term or permanent management of the amenity.
According to Keith Lee, the director of the county’s regional parks department, “[T]his 3-year agreement (effective January 1, 2014) with Urban Parks Concessionaires (operator) will provide for outsourcing the daily management and operations of Lake Gregory Regional Park. During this agreement period, the operator will complete a feasibility study to be used as the basis of a business plan for a longer term agreement. The operator will be responsible to staff and operate the park at its expense, and in return will collect and retain all fees and revenues generated by programs/services offered at the park. The operator will also be paid management fees by the department for the first two years, with the department receiving a share of the revenues beginning in the third year.”
Lee told the board of supervisors, “In January 2012, the department released a request  for proposal (RFP) for the maintenance and operations of Lake Gregory Regional Park. A pre-bid conference was conducted and eight responsive parties from the local area and Southern California attended. Only two of those parties submitted proposals for final consideration (Rim of the World Recreation and Park District, and Urban Park Concessionaires). An evaluation committee for proposal review was comprised of staff from San Bernardino County Regional Parks administration, [county] public works department, [county] economic development agency, Los Angeles County Parks, Riverside County Parks, Lake Gregory Improvement Committee, and the Crestline Chamber of Commerce. The committee determined that the Urban Park Concessionaires proposal would best meet the county needs. Urban Parks Concessionaires is a corporate division of The California Parks Company. In business since 1975, the company has been partners with local, state and national agencies, providing service in the hospitality management and in operating a variety of recreation-oriented facilities at 22 locations. The corporate headquarters are in Red Bluff, CA with satellite offices in Pleasanton, Hemet, and in Nevada. Key business services they will be able to provide to Lake Gregory include management of the park, retail (including food and beverage), special event and wedding services, recreation, inspection for invasive species  and fee collection. The county will initially pay Urban Parks Concessionaires a management fee of $300,000 for the first year and $250,000 for the second year of park operation, with the provision that the  county receive revenue in the amount of 10 percent of gross income or $100,000 (whichever is greater) for the third year, and an exclusive option for Urban Parks Concessionaires to enter into a new long-term concession lease prior to December 31, 2016.”
In approving the arrangement, the board of supervisors made a finding that the contract with Urban Park Concessionaires would advance the county’s efforts to “operate in a fiscally-responsible and business-like manner.” Lee said “The recommendation to outsource the park is primarily based on significant actual operating losses experienced over the past fiscal years: a net loss of $798,435 during 2010-11, and a net loss of $632,734 during 2011-12. Executing this park management agreement, will likely result in continued but declining operational losses during the upcoming fiscal years. A net loss of $405,000 is projected for 2014-15, and net loss of $172,000 is projected for 2015-16. A net gain of $36,000 is projected for 2016-17, based on deteminable cost estimates, and revenue growth projections provided by the operator.”