The state of California and its Department of Corrections have given the county permission to access  Chino Prison’s grounds in order to carry out the remediation of  groundwater contamination originating at Chino Airport.
On October 31, 1990 the California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a clean-up and abatement order to the county of San Bernardino for suspected contamination of groundwater underneath Chino Airport. The groundwater is suspected to have been contaminated due to past usage of solvents, in particular, trichloroethylene and  perchloroethylene on the airport property.
According to James E. Jenkins, the director of the county department of airports, “The county has complied with and continues to comply with this order by conducting activities at the airport to identify all potential sources of contamination; characterize identified source areas; remediate discovered soil; characterize and identify the lateral and vertical extent of ground water contamination; monitor ground water contamination; and mitigate identified ground water contamination at the Chino Airport located at 7000 Merrill Avenue, Chino. The county received an updated clean-up and abatement order from the water board in June 2008. This order required the county to conduct investigation, containment and mitigation of volatile organic compounds in groundwater emanating from the Chino Airport. As part of this work, the county requires access to certain portions of the state’s property.”
This week, upon Jenkins’ recommendation, the county board of supervisors approved the form of a right-of-entry permit agreement between the county and the state of California, acting through its department of general services, for access to real property located at the California Institution for Men in Chino to facilitate the county’s continued compliance with the clean-up and abatement order.
“Execution of this right-of-entry permit agreement will facilitate the county’s continued groundwater characterization and investigation of the extent of the plume at the Chino Airport as referenced in the California Regional Water Quality Control Board Clean-up and Abatement Order Nos. 90-134 and R8-2008-0064,” Jenkins told the board of supervisors. “Test holes will be drilled on property owned by the Department of Corrections at the California Institute for Men in Chino, which is in close proximity to the Chino Airport, and water samples will be extracted for further analysis. The state’s permission to access the property terminates upon the earlier of the county’s completion of its work, termination by the state, or on October 18, 2013. The department of airports and the county’s consultant (TetraTech) are prepared to commence this work and to complete it within this time frame.”
Jenkins continued, “This action is time sensitive in that the agreement requires the Department of County Airports to provide the state with a 7 day written notice prior to entry on the property, with completion of its investigation work prior to October 18, 2013.”
Majestic Realty Company has entered into a 60-year lease for 150 acres of unused state-owned land near the Chino Institution for Men and south of the former Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility and west of Euclid Avenue  on which it will initiate develop of the  property for industrial use on October 21, 2013.
“The [Majestic Realty] construction will begin with substantial excavation s and grading (earthwork),” Jenkins said. “Once the earthwork commences, the county’s access to the site will terminate, precluding any further site investigation. The county must complete this site investigation pursuant to the cleanup and abatement orders issued by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the approved work plan.”

(September 27) UPLAND – Despite the resistance of city councilman Brendan Brandt, Brandt and his council colleagues will soon give consideration to passing a resolution calling upon the U.S. Congress to consider passage of a Constitutional amendment limiting the amount of money corporations can contribute to political campaigns.
A series of factors led to the council’s 4-1 vote this week calling upon the city attorney to draft a resolution to be presented at the next council meeting. There has been growing sentiment at the national, state and local level to limit the influence of money on the political process. That movement resulted in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the California Political Reform Act of 1974, the Federal Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and a campaign finance limitation ordinance passed by the Upland City Council last year that was revamped earlier this year.
A group, Citizens United, which sought to be able to utilize money available to it from a disparate number of sources, including private donors, political action committees and corporations, to produce and broadcast films, including movies and documentaries advocating for and against the election or reelection of certain candidates on a national level, brought suit to establish its right to do so. In that suit, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the United States Supreme Court in 2010 held in a 5-4 vote that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations, associations, or labor unions.
Advocates of campaign contribution limits were undeterred by the sharply divided ruling of the highest court in the land. Further strengthened by a dissenting opinion authored by Justice John Paul Stevens that stated, “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold,” those advocates, including Common Cause, are undertaking an effort to convince Congress to add an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would render moot the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision.
For several months now, activists have been approaching local governmental officials, calling upon them to pass resolutions asking Congress to effectuate enforceable campaign spending limits by instilling into the U.S. Constitution, through the amendment process, the right to impose campaign donation and spending limits.
Undoing the Supreme Court’s equating of being able to make unlimited campaign donations with free speech is of particular relevance in Upland. Previously, the city council had enacted an ordinance applicable to city campaigns that set the maximum contribution candidates were allowed to receive from any individual, organization or entity to $2,000 per two-year election cycle.
In April, the city council revised that campaign contribution limit ordinance downward, reducing the maximum contribution candidates are allowed to receive from any single donor to $1,000 per election.
City officials collectively expressed the view that such limitations were needed to prevent big money and special interests from having undue influence over the political and governmental process. In Upland, the issue of political influence is of special sensitivity because of the city’s recent travail with former mayor John Pomierski, who dominated the city politically for a decade, utilizing hefty campaign contributions to keep himself in office and ward off any political challenges. Simultaneously, Pomierski was soliciting bribes and utilizing his position at City Hall to ensure project and permit approval from the city’s planning and community development divisions, its planning commission and council for his cronies, his political contributors and those paying him graft money. He was indicted by a federal grand jury, was convicted last year and is now serving his sentence in a federal institution.
Two Upland citizens, Mary Lou Williams and Curt Lewis, as well as the Southern California  organizer for Common Cause, John  Smith, came before the city council on Monday, September 23, to ask the council to pass a resolution supporting Congressional action in adopting a Constitutional amendment establishing campaign contribution limits.
Councilman Brendan Brandt, while maintaining he was not opposed to the underlying intent of establishing and maintaining campaign contribution limits, said he did not think it appropriate for the city council to get involved in what is essentially a federal issue. He said he did not want the city to set a precedent of passing resolutions relating to advocacy for or against U.S. Congressional action.
Brandt suggested that a ballot measure by which the city’s voters could make their views on the subject known would be proper, although he noted that the cost of such an electoral undertaking would probably prove prohibitive. He made a motion to have the council officially remain clear of the effort and allow Common Cause or other interested residents undertake to put such a measure on the local ballot if they so wish.
Councilman Glenn Bozar, however, saying he was mindful of the expense putting such a referendum on the ballot would entail, questioned why the city could not simply draft a resolution and have the council, speaking on behalf of the Upland community, pass the resolution and endorse the call for Congressional action on the issue. He offered a superseding motion to that end. Mayor Ray Musser and council members Gino Filippi and Debby Stone supported Bozar’s motion, with Brandt opposed.
Fillipi, who has proven to be the current council’s major recipient of campaign cash based upon donor support to his successful campaign for the council in 2010 and his unsuccessful run for mayor last year, supported Bozar’s motion, even though he had earlier objected to the terms of the campaign finance restrictions imposed by the council.
In their presentation to the council, Williams, Lewis and Smith suggested that the city involve itself in the campaign finance reform movement at the national level because the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision could pave the way for challenges to locally imposed restrictions.

SAN BERNARDINO—The San Bernardino County Planning Commission has denied Sycamore Physicians Partners’ application for a permit to construct a solar energy project in Oak Hills.
Sycamore Physicians Partners’ application had been filed with the county prior to the county’s imposition of a yet-to-expire moratorium on the consideration and approval of solar projects earlier this year.
Sycamore had asked the county land use services division to certify a 2.7-megawatt photovoltaic solar facility on 20 acres in the unincorporated county area south and west of Hesperia in a rural living land use district on the northeast corner of Fuente Avenue and El Centro Road.
County staff, however, acceding to widespread objections by homeowners in rural desert communities throughout the county who maintain that solar fields are a too-intensive use that is incompatible with nearby residential neighborhoods, recommended that Sycamore’s application for the conditional use permit be denied. According to the staff report, the project would have a “significant impact on the environment, specifically with regard to scenic resources.” According to county planning director Terri Rahhal, at a previous public hearing on August 8 there was considerable public opposition to the project and “expressed concerns about land use compatibility, given the location of the project site in an area surrounded by rural residential uses.”
Rahhal said the planning commission made a tentative finding at that time that the proposed project “would not be compatible with the rural character of the Oak Hills community and would therefore not be consistent with the Oak Hills Community Plan.”

The county has extended its lease arrangements with a partnership involving three dairymen on two large properties in the former Chino Agricultural Preserve that will allow the dairy the three run to remain in operation at least until 2015.
In January 1992 the county used money available to it under the auspices of Proposition 70, which provides for the “acquisition, development, rehabilitation, protection, or restoration of park, wildlife, coastal, and natural lands in California including lands supporting unique or endangered plants or animals,” to purchase a 99.14-acre dairy with four single-family residences located at 8919 Merrill Avenue in Chino. The property was leased back to the seller until January 1994. The dairy then remained dormant until April 1995. On March 27, 1995, the county real estate division approved a 56-month lease for 10.9 acres of this 99.14 acre dairy with a termination date of November 30, 1999. The lease was subsequently amended to add 3.02 acres for a total of 13.92 acres.
On November 7, 1995, the board of supervisors approved a five-year lease agreement with a three, five and eight-year option to extend the term with Peter H. Bouma, Dana M. Bouma and Sam De Kruyf, who were doing business as  P&D Dairy (P&D), for the remaining 85.22 acres, including one single-family residence. The lease also contained a provision that allowed P&D to lease the other three single-family residences and the remaining 13.92 acres when the existing leases terminated. The residence at 9029 Merrill Avenue was added to the P&D lease on April 1, 1996 for additional rent of $500 per month and the residence at 9019 Merrill Avenue was added on December 20, 1996 for additional rent of $800 per month. The residence at 15102 Carpenter Avenue in Chino remains under a separate lease between the county and another tenant. On December 1, 1999, the 13.92 acres were added for a total of 99.14 acres and additional rent of $5,445 per month for a total monthly rent of $14,245. In the nearly eighteen years since the lease was originally approved, the board has approved three amendments to extend the term and add one two-year option.
Additionally, in January 1992, the county utilized Proposition 70 funds to purchase a 40.88-acre horse ranch located at 8961 Remington Avenue in Chino. The property was leased back to the seller for approximately three and a half years until June 30, 1995, after which the property remained vacant for several months. On April 22, 1997 the county board of supervisors approved an eight year, six-month lease, for 10.06 acres of the 40.88 acre horse ranch with Bouma,  Bouma and De Kruyf, under the auspices of  P & D Dairy for use as a heifer ranch.
The original term of the lease was from April 22, 1997 through October 31, 2005. In the sixteen years since the lease was originally approved, the board has approved two amendments to add 26.08 acres to the leased premises for a total of 36.14 acres, extend the term, and amend certain provisions of the lease.
On September 2012,  P & D provided the county with notice of its intent to exercise the final two-year options to extend the terms from November 2013 through October 31, 2015 on both the dairy and the heifer farm.
Accordingly,  David H. Slaughter, the director of real estate services for the county, has recommended that the county extend the leases. The board followed Slaughter’s recommendation.
“Because of the continuing depressed market conditions in the local dairy industry, the monthly rent will not be increased.” Slaughter said.
In his summary of the lease terms for the 99.19 acre dairy at 8919 Merrill Avenue, Slaughter said the county will charge P & D  $14,245 per month or $170,940 per year, which he said is “mid-range for comparable dairy land in the Chino area.”
With respect to the 36.14 acres at 8961 Remington Avenue being used as a heifer ranch, the county will charge P & D $4,660 monthly or $55,920 for the duration of the two-year lease extension.
Revenue from the leases will be deposited in the special revenue fund for properties acquired under the provisions of the California Wildlife, Coastal and Parkland Conservation Act of 1988 (Proposition 70).

(September 27) Pomona Councilman Freddie Rodriguez outdistanced Ontario Mayor Paul Leon in Tuesday’s specially-held election to fill the vacancy in the 52nd Assembly District that came about when Norma Torres departed earlier this year to become state senator in the 32nd Senate District.
The 52nd Assembly District straddles Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, covering all of  Pomona, Ontario, Montclair, Chino and part of Fontana. With all precincts in the district reporting as of 11 p.m. on September 24, Rodriguez, a Democrat, topped Leon, who was formerly a Republican but reregistered with no party preference prior to the race. Of the 13,743 votes cast, Rodriquez logged 7,054 supporters to Leon’s 6,689, a relatively close 52 to 48 percent victory.
In the 52nd District, Republicans hold a 47 to 28 percent registration advantage over Republicans. After incumbent 32nd District State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod defeated incumbent Congressman Joe Baca in November, her departure from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. triggered a March vote to replace her in which seven candidates ran and Leon and Torres finished in the top two spots. Torres, a Democrat, handily defeated Leon, at that time a Republican, in the May run-off. Like the 52nd Assembly District, the 32nd Senatorial District is heavily Democratic.
In the election to replace Torres held in July, nine candidates including the newly independent Leon, Republican Dorothy Pineda and seven Democrats, including Rodriguez, vied. Leon finished first, but did not capture the required minimum of fifty percent plus one to win the seat. Rodriquez, boosted by an influx of Democratic party money, finished second. That forced a run-off.
With the district’s Democrats united behind him  on Tuesday, the former ambulance driver eked out a berth at  the state capital.

(September 20) UPLAND—Five months after sustaining a major setback when the county elected not to extend Burrtec’s contract for the continued management of the county landfill system, the waste handling company is aggressively moving to shore up and extend its existing contracts with local municipalities, seeking to commit those cities to long term rates that will ensure the company’s prosperity into the coming decades.
But the evolution of the trash industry and the growing reluctance of cities to make lengthy commitments that lock in high rates unchecked by periodic bidding processes is thwarting the company’s strategy to maintain its vaunted position in San Bernardino County. In existence since 1955, Burrtec’s operation in San Bernardino County has steadily grown, as it has gained a trash hauling monopoly in 16 of the county’s 24 incorporated cities and 35 of its larger unincorporated communities. For the last ten years it has been San Bernardino County’s preeminent trash hauler. Prior to that, in 2001, it made a major leap forward when it successfully obtained the contract to run the county’s landfill system, a $17 million per year job that solidified its position as San Bernardino County’s major refuse handler and put it at or near the forefront of trash haulers in Southern California.
But with the county landfill operation contract set to expire this year, the county initiated a bidding process last year in which each competing company’s management rates were considered as but a single component in the bid package, which included the management companies’ abilities to guarantee usage of the landfills. Thus, Los Angeles County-based Arakelian Enterprises, Inc., which operates its refuse hauling and handling business as Athens Services, was selected over Burrtec.
While Burrtec proposed charging $15.8 million per year to run the county landfills and transfer stations and Arakelian/Athens came in higher, at $16,686,700 per year,  Athens committed to importing 800,000 tons of solid waste per year during the term of the contract, which is projected to bring gross revenue to the county in the amount of approximately $22.3 million per year for the duration of the contract, which runs through June 30, 2023, according to the county’s director of public works, Gerry Newcombe.
Athens is able to live up to that guarantee because it has waste hauling contracts in 33 cities in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside Counties. Burrtec would have brought in 380,000 tons. According to Newcombe, the net annual cost of having Arkelian/Athens run the landfills is thus $362,000 per year while the Burrtec’s would have charged the county  a net $9.5 million.
At this point, Burrtec remains a going concern despite having lost out in the the county landfills management sweepstakes, and retains its trash hauling contracts with the San Bernardino County cities of Adelanto, Apple Valley, Barstow, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Highland, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, San Bernardino, Twentynine Palms, Upland, Victorville, Yucca Valley and Yucaipa and the unincorporated San Bernardino communities of Amboy, Angeles Oaks, Baker, Barton Flats, Bloomington, Cima, Crestline, Daggett, Del Rosa, Devore, Dumont Dunes, East Highlands, El Rancho Verde, Forest Falls, Fort Irwin, Halloran, Helendale, Hinkley, Kelso, Lake Arrowhead, Landers, Lenwood, Lucerne Valley, Ludlow, Mentone, Mountain Pass, Mt. Baldy, Newberry Springs, Nipton, Oak Glen, Running Springs, San Antonio Heights, Silver Lakes and Yermo.
Nevertheless, Burr-  tec’s loss of the county landfill management contract was an object lesson in how competitive and volatile the trash hauling business can be. For that reason, the company is now looking to consolidate what it now possesses, i.e., its franchise contracts. The company’s game plan  is to convince the cities and communities where it has current franchises  to extend those existing contracts for as many years as possible.
A case in point is Burrtec’s effort to convince officials in Upland to extend that city’s  current contract for trash hauling, which is not set to expire for another seven years. Burrtec is seeking to induce Upland to extend its existing contract by eight years more, thus ensuring that it will remain Upland’s trash hauler for at least 15 years, until 2028. Burrtec is offering to add street sweeping to the trash hauling service it is currently providing as part of that exclusive franchise arrangement.
If Burrtec’s proposal advances and is accepted by the city, Upland will presumably be able to save money by eliminating its in-house cost of providing the street sweeping service. Burrtec would enjoy a triple-fold gain. It would extend its contract by eight years. Moreover, it would eliminate the requirement that it engage in a bid process in another six or seven years to extend the contract, thereby avoiding the possibility that it would need to lower its rates to maintain the contract. And its proposal would increase the rate it charges Upland’s customers by 7.2 percent for the remainder of 2013-14; another 2.1 percent in July 2014; 2.1 percent in July 2015; 2.3 percent in July 2016; and 2.4 percent in 2017.
Whether Upland will accede to Burrtec’s overture is an open question.
The company has cultivated goodwill in Upland on a political level, with several of its principals, including company president Cole Burr, having demonstrated themselves as major donors to the campaign committees of city council members over the years, a practice Burrtec has maintained in all of the cities where it has trash hauling contracts as well as with the county board of supervisors, who sign off on the trash hauling franchises in the unincorporated county areas.
Burrtec has an established reputation for conscientious, thorough and reliable service.
Furthermore, a report by Roseville-based R3 Consulting Group, Inc. with regard to the Burrtec contract extension with Upland offers a somewhat cryptic and elliptical endorsement of the concept and could be used by the council to justify a vote to extend the franchise until 2028.
Nevertheless, a close examination of the consultant’s report betrays that R3 was provided with selective and incomplete information relating to the proposal, primarily information laid out by Burrtec. The report does not provide an exacting analysis of the full implication of contractually binding the city to its current trash hauler for the extended period Burrtec’s proposal envisions.
One factor militating against the city’s acceptance of the contract is a growing trend among municipalities to shy away from long term contracts that stipulate rates or pricing levels that cannot be adjusted downward. Another factor is the no-bid implication of the contract extension. Providing Burrtec with the advantage of specifying a fee and rate schedule that is arrived at outside of a public forum not subject to the downward pressure that naturally comes about during a competitive bid process runs contrary to the concept of open and transparent government and is not in keeping with the principal of looking after the financial interests of the city’s residents. In Upland, where its immediate past mayor is now in federal prison for having solicited and received bribes that involved backroom deals and City Hall-orchestrated favors to those who greased the mayor’s palm, granting Burtec a no-bid contract extension could raise a specter city officials would prefer remains dormant.
And significantly, the terms of Burrtec’s present contract, and any extension thereto, may be disadvantageous to the city. Under the contract, city residents pay Burrtec to haul away not only their trash but recyclable discards as well. Burrtec then sells those separated recyclables at a profit, making money at both ends. In recent years, companies have come into existence which will haul away recyclable material for free, or in some cases, pay to do so, turning a profit entirely on the sale of the materials. While the city is committed until 2020 to remain with the arrangement it now has with Burrtec, beginning in 2021 city residents could see a significant decline in their trash rates if the city contracts with a company that is willing to haul recyclables at no charge or provide customers with a rebate. By remaining with Burrtec under the current terms, such a savings by Upland residents would not be realized.

Just short of the opening of trial on a property encroachment case brought against it by Michael and Kim Denton, the city of Chino Hills has settled its dispute with the couple by agreeing to allow them to purchase 1,574 square feet of municipal-owned open space they have been occupying since they purchased their home on Hunter’s Gate Circle 14 years ago.
The Dentons are just one set of  hundreds of homeowners  – the city has quantified the number at 238 – who the city has accused of  building on, or placing improvements in various forms onto, property beyond their respective lot lines, including landscaping, walls, saunas, pools, gazebos and swing sets.
In the case of the Dentons, that matter was forced to a point of crisis when the couple, who purchased their home in 1999 from Gloria Vitagliano, were informed by the city in 2010 that the furthest extension of their backyard was encroaching on city-owned open space and that they had to remove their pool and spa along with a wrought iron fence,  irrigation and palm trees that Vitigliano had installed and planted in 1995.
The Dentons offered the city $10,000 for the property, but the city rejected that offer, instead saying it would provide them with a 15-year easement for the continued use of the property.  The Dentons then retained the firm of Gresham, Savage, Nolan and Tilden and in 2011 sued the city.
The Dentons claim the city allowed the Vitagliano/Denton encroachment, which was conspicuous and open, to stand, and did nothing to interfere with Ms. Vitagliano’s or their occupation of the approximately 1,574 square feet of land for more than 15 years. Nor did the city act in a timely manner to prevent them from removing the wrought-iron fence and replacing it with a glass wall and block fence, the Dentons asserted.
After attempts by the city to have the case dismissed outright, assistant city attorney Elizabeth Calciano made a motion to strike portions of the complaint. On March 11, Superior Court Judge Joseph Brisco ruled the case would go to trial September 30 with all of its causes of action intact. Last month, the Dentons made a motion for summary judgment, but Brisco rejected that, ruling that triable issues of material fact exist with respect to the correct zoning of the property, whether Vitagliano and by extension the Dentons violated local ordinances and zoning laws which resulted in a failure to comply with the covenants, codes and restrictions on the property, whether the Dentons could have obtained  what they sought through a lot line adjustment and whether certain previous statements made by either the city or the Dentons contradict the positions they took in regard to the lawsuit.
While the Dentons’ lawyer, Theodore Stream, maintained his clients had no knowledge of the encroachment, which the city was obliged to redress in a timely manner, the city maintained that a document recorded at the time of the sale to them by Vitigliano contains a disclosure stating there is a “possible discrepancy regarding lot size/fence line.” The city maintained that this demonstrated the Dentons were on notice as to the possible encroachment at the time of the sale.
A settlement reached by the Dentons and the city on September 10 during a mediation conference conducted by retired Judge John W. Kennedy renders the lawsuit moot. According to city attorney Mark Hensley, the city council in closed session that evening moved rapidly to accept the terms of the settlement, which involved the city consenting to a “quitclaim” of the 1,574 square feet of land for the agreed-upon price of $11,000 and the Dentons’ willingness to pay escrow and document fees, together with their own legal costs in pursuing the lawsuit. The Dentons’ title insurance company, First American Title of Orange County, will cover the $11,000 purchase cost, escrow and document fees as well as Gresham, Savage, Nolan and Tilden’s legal fees.   The city was given, under the terms of the settlement, 120 days to process land use entitlements, a lot line adjustment, and environmental documents.
The settlement with the Dentons came less than three weeks before the case was to go to trial and while the city is making a renewed effort to forge a “global” solution to the widespread encroachment issue, having floated the viability of agreeing to sell most of the disputed encroached-upon properties to homeowners citywide. On July 9, the city council discussed just such an approach.
In 2010, the city had undertaken to inform encroaching property owners about the issue. The Dentons were among those so informed and that effort triggered the pending lawsuit.  The city’s approach in resolving the issue at that time was hampered by the suggestion that encroaching property owners would be “fined” as a consequence of their occupation of property to which they did not have title.  A far more comprehensive notification effort was made this summer, with the owners of 238 properties identified as encroaching onto city-owned open space having been given notices to that effect. Those notices, sent from the city’s code enforcement division, went out to the offending property owners on July 31. Those notices informed the residents of the city’s contemplated open space sales program.
A major issue is the price residents would be willing to pay and the amount the city is willing to accept for the property in question.
According to a city staff report, there is interest on the part of some of the encroaching residents to cure the dispute, including making those land purchases. Others told by the city that they have encroached on city property have taken the position that they are not occupying public open space at all. Some of the homeowners receiving notices were unaware of the issue. Others had been previously notified. Still others who had not been previously notified were cognizant that the issue existed but have been noncommittal in their response.
Tentatively, the city has indicated it envisions being paid $6 to $17 per square foot to relinquish title to the encroached upon open space.
In the case of the Dentons, they paid $6.99 per square foot to obtain title to the property, not including escrow and document fees.
Of those the city maintains have encroached, some simply inherited the encroachment from previous owners. In some cases, the encroachments preexisted the city’s incorporation in 1991. In some cases, the owners themselves expanded their property lines or put in landscaping onto property the city claims is public open space.
The city has indicated it does not want to assess blame or fault with regard to the encroachments but wants simply to move ahead with solving the issue by means of a formalized sale of the encroached-upon property in question to those willing to make the purchases.
City council members expressed confidence that the agreement with the Dentons will provide a model for negotiated settlements with most, if not all, of the other 237 homeowners deemed to be occupying city-owned open space. Over the last two-and-a-half years, the city accrued legal bills of $263,000 in response to the Dentons’ suit.
A decade ago, Chino Hills had a surplus open space sales policy, but ended that program in 2005.

(September 20) The city of San Bernardino finds itself at the forefront of a profound financial and public policy issue as a consequence of its filing for bankruptcy. Emerging as a significant question in that matter is whether public pension obligations are to be held as sacrosanct, no matter how generous or reasonable individual pensions are, or whether troubled municipalities can skip out on their commitments to continuously fund the retirement accounts of their current and past employees.
Public employees, their pension fund associations and their advocates maintain that under the law, municipalities and other governmental entities must honor their payment schedules for contributions toward pension funding, no matter the governmental entity’s state of solvency or if it is seeking bankruptcy reorganization.
The relatively few cities that have found themselves in the position of having to declare bankruptcy have shied away from testing whether, in fact, employee pension funds enjoy a specialized status vis-à-vis claiming to be first in the line of creditors to be paid by a governmental entity that is struggling financially. In California, San Bernardino is one of three cities with populations of over 100,000 which have sought bankruptcy protection. The other two, Vallejo and Stockton, have elected to continue to stay current on their pension fund obligations. San Bernardino, however, has taken the position that pension payments should not be  excluded from the list of debts it wants to reduce, and that the California Public Employee Retirement System, known as CalPERS, should accept for the time being a pendency plan that reduces the payments it will receive from the city in the same ratios that the city’s payments to its other creditors, including its bondholders and suppliers of goods and services, are being reduced until such time as the city is able to regain its financial footing.
CalPERS opposed San Bernardino’s bankruptcy petition, asserting that the pension fund system has a special status. This set up a counterpoint with the Stockton bankruptcy case, in which that city’s filing acceding to the proposition that pensions have special legal protections was challenged by bond creditors, who argued that the city’s exclusion of pension debt from its bankruptcy petition was unfair and prejudicial to the city’s other creditors and that the bankruptcy petition should for that reason be denied.
In the Stockton case, the federal bankruptcy judge hearing the matter, Christopher Klein, allowed the bankruptcy to proceed as filed, maintaining for the time being that the city’s payments to the pension fund can continue to be made in full, even as the city’s other creditors are receiving reduced payments or are being stiffed entirely.  In so doing, Klein rejected opposition to the bankruptcy from National Public and Assured Guaranty, bond insurers who had worked with Stockton in the past and are owed a considerable amount of money. Suggesting that National Public and Assured Guaranty could seek to be made whole further down the road, upon Stockton’s exit from bankruptcy, Klein simultaneously granted Stockton’s request to set aside the city’s health benefit debts, as well. And while he ratified  the plan to stay current with CalPERS, Klein indicated that had the city requested the authority to modify its pensions, he would have gone along with the request.
In San Bernardino’s case, it requested the authority to hold CalPERS in abeyance. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge hearing the case, Meredith Jury, rejected CalPERS’ arguments that it merited special protection requiring the city to put its debt to CalPERS ahead of all others. Jury allowed the city to proceed with a pendency plan that significantly reduces its payments to all of its creditors as it seeks to restructure that debt and end its insolvency.
Unexplored at this juncture is whether a permanent drawdown of a portion of financially troubled cities’ payments to the state pension fund can be made subject to negotiations. In both the San Bernardino and Stockton cases, the judges have encouraged mediation aimed at achieving compromises. Of potential discussion in these mediations is correcting downward exorbitant pensions paid to some retired high ranking public employees who used methods of so-called “pension spiking” to enhance their pensions. In recent years, the use of these pension spiking strategies have been outlawed. Nevertheless, the well-compensated retired employees are still receiving the generous retirement payments.
In recent years, there have been several highly publicized cases of pension spiking, including examples of high ranking public employees who, while employed earned salaries in the $200,000 per year range but by adding on vacation pay, leave pay and other forms of compensation on top of their salaries used for their retirement calculations, are now receiving yearly pensions approaching $300,000. Though Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino have yet to request pension modifications, it appears that a judge of a like mind to Jury’s or Klein’s would grant reductions or even eliminations of pension enhancements.
Thus, under the principle of the “balancing of hardships,” a city in a state of financial duress beset upon by a multitude of creditors, all of which could not be fully satisfied by that city’s available financial means, would appear to have grounds to seek to reduce pensions deemed to be excessive.

Former State Senator Bob Dutton immediately moved to declare his intention to run for San Bernardino County assessor when incumbent assessor Dennis Draeger on September 16 announced he will not seek reelection to the post next year.
Simultaneously, Draeger’s second-in-command, assistant assessor Dan Harp, announced that he too would be a candidate in the June 2014 election.
Draeger began with the assessor’s office in 1975, achieving the rank of chief appraiser. In November 1998, he left the assessor’s office to become the assistant tax collector in the treasurer’s office. In November 2008, Draeger returned to the assessor’s office as assistant assessor, succeeding Harlow Cameron upon his retirement. When assessor Bill Postmus resigned amid a scandal in February 2009, Draeger was appointed interim assessor and five months later appointed assessor outright by the board of supervisors in lieu of a recruitment effort. In 2010, Draeger ran for assessor and was retained by the county’s voters. At the age of 64, he said he is now intent upon retiring.

Bob Dutton

Dutton is a former Rancho Cucamonga councilman and state assemblyman as well as state senator. He is the son of wealthy land owner and developer Ted Dutton. He now is the principal in Robert Dutton & Associates, a real estate investment/asset management firm in Rancho Cucamonga.
Dutton referenced his experience in the public and private sector in stating his qualifications for the assessor’s position, noting his grounding in commercial real estate and property asset management.
Harp has been with the assessor’s office since 1980, initially serving as a residential appraiser before moving up to become a principal appraiser and then a chief appraiser. He was promoted to the level of assistant assessor in 2011 by Draeger.
The assessor monitors property values in the county and prepares property assessments upon which annual property tax bills are based.

(September 20) The number of flights out of Ontario International Airport will increase over the next several months, following the addition of flights by AeroMexico and United Airlines.
Both airlines announced the upcoming changes to their flying schedules out of Ontario earlier this month.
Last week, Ontario International and AeroMexico jointly announced AeroMexico will resume daily service from Ontario International to Guadalajara, Mexico beginning October 1.  The change marks the first time since 2006 that daily service is available from Ontario on AeroMexico.  Currently, AeroMexico has flights out of Ontario four days a week, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
On September 13, Ontario International and United announced that United Airlines will add a fifth flight from Ontario to San Francisco beginning December 19, 2013.
United Airlines currently operates four daily flights from Ontario to San Francisco using CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft.  The airline also offers two daily flights to Denver and two daily flights to Houston from Ontario.
The announcement comes as the city of Los Angeles and the corporate entity it uses to manage and operate Los Angeles International Airport, Van Nuys Airport and Ontario International Airport, known as Los Angeles World Airports, has come under increasing fire by the city of Ontario and other local officials over what has been characterized as the deliberate mismanagement of Ontario International Airport to drive down passenger traffic there to benefit Los Angeles International Airport.
In 1967, the city of Ontario entered into a joint powers authority arrangement with the city of Los Angeles to allow Los Angeles to manage Ontario International, where passenger traffic at that time was less than 200,000 per year. Los Angeles, using its control of gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport as leverage, induced commercial airlines to fly more frequently into and out of Ontario and to use Ontario as an alternate landing destination during fog-ins at Los Angeles International Airport in lieu of Santa Barbara Airport.
Under Los Angeles’s management, use of Ontario International Airport vastly increased. Over the four-and-a-half decades Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports had control of Ontario Airport, they made substantial improvements to the facility, including paving its gravel parking lot, lengthening and modernizing its runways and building two modern terminals. In 1985, after all of the terms set down in the joint powers authority operating agreement had been met, Ontario deeded the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration.
In 2007, slightly more than 7.2 million passengers flew into and out of Ontario, a record for the facility. Since that time, however, as improvements at Los Angeles International Airport have been made and Los Angeles World Airports has imposed higher per-enplaned passenger fees on the airlines at Ontario than in Los Angeles, ridership into and out of Ontario has dramatically decreased, falling this year to a projected 4.1 million.
Ontario has for the last three years faulted Los Angeles World Airports for that decline and, after pushing for a different management approach at the airport, has lobbied to have Los Angeles return control of Ontario International Airport to Ontario. Last year, Ontario formed with San Bernardino County the Ontario International Airport Authority, an entity intended to take on management and operational responsibility at the facility upon Los Angeles surrendering and Ontario regaining ownership. Earlier this year, Ontario sued Los Angeles and Los Angeles World Airports in an effort to force Los Angeles to relinquish control of the airport.
Los Angeles World Airports has consistently insisted that the drawdown in passenger traffic at Ontario International Airport is a consequence of the economic slowdown gripping the nation, state and region since 2008, as well as contractions in the airline industry, and has denied Ontario’s charges that the airport is being mismanaged deliberately to decrease passenger traffic there or to benefit Los Angeles International.
Los Angeles World Airport officials hailed the advance announcement of the increases in the AeroMexico and United Airlines flights as an indicator that the decline in passengers at Ontario International is about to be reversed.
“This is great news for travelers who need more options when traveling up north, especially to the Bay Area,” said Jess Romo, Los Angeles World Airport’s designated manager for Ontario International.  “San Francisco is a popular destination for both business and leisure travelers.
“We’re excited about the additional AeroMexico flights,”  Romo continued.  “We anticipate that the additional service to San Francisco and daily service to Guadalajara will be in great demand especially now that the holiday season is approaching.”
Other airlines currently serving Ontario International, located approximately 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, include Alaska, American, Delta, Southwest, and US Airways.
Ontario International is a medium-hub, full-service airport with commercial service to 14 major U.S. cities and through service to many international destinations. The airport provides approximately 60 daily flights offered by 7 carriers.