Ontario-based Rockwell Healthcare LLC has acquired for $30 million three skilled nursing facilities entailing 191 beds in San Bernardino County which were purchased by Laguna Hills-based Summit Healthcare REIT Inc. in 2021 for just over two-thirds of that price.
On July 2, 2021, Summit Healthcare REIT Inc. bought the 59-bed Creekside Post Acute Nursing Home in Yucaipa, the 50-bed University Post Acute Nursing Home in Mentone and the 82-bed Yucaipa Hills Post Acute Nursing Home in Yucaipa for $20,055,000. The purchase took place during the COVID-19 crisis, just as the pandemic was beginning to taper off in the aftermath of widespread vaccinations against the condition.
Immediately upon its acquisition of the three facilities, Summit Healthcare REIT leased them to Rockwell Healthcare, LLC, the operator of the facilities, on a triple net lease basis.
On September 6, 2024, after owning the facilities for three years and two months, Summit Healthcare REIT sold them outright to Rockwell.

Misprision of a felony is the act of deliberately concealing knowledge of a felony from the authorities without having been complicit in the felony itself. It is a criminal offense under United States federal law and in some states. 

September 24, 2024

Yucaipa City Council

Re: Warehouses in Live Oak Canyon

It’s the same old story: out-of-town developers trying to poop in our back yards. In this case the poop is warehouses in Live Oak Canyon.

The results of the Monday night Yucaipa City Council meeting was a step in the right direction thanks to councilmembers: Justin Beaver Chris Venable, and Matt Garner. All three voted to kick the can down the road regarding the approval of the warehouse plan. That’s a first step. However, the council refused to require a 17-year-old and outdated EIR be scrapped in favor of a developing a meaningful report.

The other councilmembers need to go. A recall effort to remove Bobby Duncan and Jon Thorp should move forward. Their comments and their vote to approve warehouses are a clear indication they are in the pocket of the warehouse developers and out of touch with their constituents.

The city council meeting was a clear indication of how the residents of Yucaipa feel about warehouse development. And their neighbors in Live Oak Canyon feel the same way. In what was likely a record turnout for a council meeting with the overflow-room full and standing room only which ran over into the hallway, all but about twenty opposed the warehouses. None of the supporters were local residents. The three warehouse developers, Palmers, Robinsons, and Issa families (corporations) all brought in family members from as far away as Huntington Beach and Florida to support their warehouses. None of them are local residents and they all have nothing but financial interest in their respective developments. Mr. Issa, identified himself to the council when he spoke as living on Live Oak Canyon Road. Fact is, he lives in Miami, Florida. Then there were the union construction workers all posing in their high-visibility vests and insisting that they needed jobs to survive—jobs to build warehouses that would kill residents with the added air pollution from 700+ diesel trucks daily in addition to the hundreds of workers driving in and out. What nonsense! I’ve seen ploys by developers for over forty years to sway the vote at county and city council hearings by staging support. This one was one for the ages. Gotta hand it to you, Pacific Oaks Development, you’re good!

Nearly 200 residents and neighbors made their opposition to warehouses evident. Dozens of them spoke about, air pollution, loss of natural habitat, the end of rural Yucaipa, traffic, visual blight, etc. Nearly a half-dozen local physicians spoke to the health risks of diesel fumes, especially increased cancer rates. Two things were never properly addressed that are critical considerations: runoff and real visibility.

Visibility:

Mayor Beaver and others repeatedly mentioned that the first phase of the warehouses (Palmer Corp.) was appropriately designed to be hidden from view by tucking the massive Amazon-like warehouses into the hills of Live Oak Canyon. What Mayor Beaver and the others fail to understand is that they will not be out of view. Hikers, mountain-bike riders, and equestrians who ride the trails on the plateau atop Live Canyon on Redlands Conservancy lands will see them clearly. And all the wildlife living there will surely see them! Furthermore, the effects of the warehouse with several hundred thousand big rig trucks annually jamming our traffic all over the valley will surely be visible. And speaking of visibility, I chuckled when the city’s PowerPoint report showed us architectural renditions of the proposed warehouses themselves. The city planner commented how good the structures would look with their little barn-shaped roof detail designed to appear rural. Did he really think the people of Yucaipa would buy such nonsense? You really think a little striping detail on the side on a 50-foot-tall warehouse would lead us to believe we were still in the country? Come on! Ask the residents in Cherry Valley if their new warehouse with the wood water-tank and windmill out front makes them feel like they’re still living in the country as they drive past that monstrosity every day. Who said it, “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig!”

Runoff:

Nobody mentioned last night anything about the catastrophic effects of the runoff from the warehouses into the Live Oak Canyon riverbed. For decades, the overbuilding in Yucaipa has steadily increased the storm runoff in the canyon resulting in significant erosion of the canyon walls. The erosion got so bad that years ago Live Oak Canyon road was rerouted away from the river to keep the road from falling into the riverbed. Residents here have for decades been hauling fill-dirt to shore up the banks of the river and secure their homes from toppling 40 feet into the riverbed as well. One housing development in particular here in the canyon relies on a 75-year-old rickety steel, one-lane bridge as their only access to their homes across the riverbed. It’s already a constant struggle to keep the bridge from washing out. Increased flow from square miles of warehouse rooftops and parking lots will surely result in losing that bridge. And because a new bridge would have to be built to modern codes, those residents would never be able to afford another bridge and forever lose access to their homes. Currently, all that land in Live Oak Canyon in its natural state absorbs most of the rainfall. Replace that soil, trees, and shrubs with concrete and you have a formula for disaster.

The council mentioned serval times the need for future town hall meetings to get feedback from their constituents. Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard enough? You received nearly a thousand letters and emails prior to the council meeting opposing warehouses. You heard from your residents and neighbors last night in force voicing their opposition. You heard from a number of local organizations: two Yucaipa citizen groups, the Save Live Oak Canyon group, the Friends of Live Oak Canyon non-profit homeowners organization. the Redlands Conservancy, etc. What more do you need to hear? Are you hard-of-hearing? When I hear the council say they need more feedback, I know it’s a signal that they’re trying again to kick the can further down the road. I know that you are just trying to stretch out the process and wear down your constituents until you can quietly pass the warehouses proposal when they aren’t looking?

By the way, all that talk last night, including a roll-call testimony by each council member, about how they took input from all their stakeholders. You know that’s not true! None of the groups that spoke last night, including the two Live Oak Canyon homeowner groups were ever consulted. If you had, you would have received a copy of the “Bixler report” to document the natural resources of the factual Live Oak Canyon you propose to destroy.

EIR:

Your EIR is outdated and will assuredly be tossed out if litigation becomes necessary on this matter. You should have never approved it last night! Not only is it seriously dated, it’s seriously flawed because it failed to include any site specific (onsite) survey of the biotic resources of Live Oak Canyon. Only one study of the biotic resources of Live Oak Canyon has ever been conducted, Survey of the Biotic Resources of Live Oak Canyon by nationally renowned environmental biologist, Professor David Bixler. (If you had contacted the Friend of Live Oak Canyon, I would have supplied you with a copy.) Bixler’s conclusions included a recommendation that in order to preserve the many rare and endangered species of plants and animals, development be restricted to no more that 1 home per 5 acres. That specific ratio is what Redlands has traditionally adhered to. And that brings up my final point. You must consider Live Oak Canyon in its entirety. Our canyon stretches out for approximately 4 miles. Within that span of road between I-10 and San Timoteo Canyon, lies 5 jurisdictions: 2 counties and 3 cities. To complicate the matter the jurisdictions are not simply contiguous, but checker-boarded. Consequently, whatever you do in the Yucaipa portion of Live Oak Canyon, directly affects our residents in all the other jurisdictions.

To the citizens of Yucaipa, I say we are with you and support your efforts to stop warehouses in Live Oak Canyon. Not just slow them down, stop them! None—zero warehouses in Live Oak Canyon! Whether you can see them or not, they are there and we will all live with the side effects for the rest of our lives. Last night, the city asserted that those red areas on their development map required warehouses. But, the woman who spoke during public comment refuted that. She should know. She was a member of the city’s committee that developed that map. She insisted that those red areas for warehouses were actually intended for light-industry, “like a Costco or Trader Joes.” So, that gives the city council some wiggle-room to re-think those areas entirely.

Several of the city council members took a step in the right direction last night, including Mayor Beaver, by voting down the warehouse proposal and sending it back for reconsideration and redevelopment. Three steps are necessary to move the warehouse proposal forward:

1. For the first time to listen to all your constituents and neighbors here in Live Oak Canyon. We are most affected by your actions.
2. Arrange for a new EIR.
3. Move forward on the recall of Councilmembers Jon Thorp and Bobby Duncan, especially Jon Thorp.

Respectfully,

David Matuszak, president

Friends of Live Oak Canyon

and coordinator,

Friends of Live Oak Canyon Firewise Community

MCB Real Estate has acquired Falcon Ridge Town Center in Fontana for $64.7 million.
The acquisition was made through a joint venture with a fund managed by DRA Advisors, a New York-based registered real estate investment advisor.
The rate on the sale was $259 per square foot.
Site Centers, a real estate investment trust that owns and manages shopping centers, was the seller and retained a 27,000-square-foot property.
Falcon Ridge Town Center is located proximate to the Summit Avenue exit off the 15 Freeway near the 210 Freeway at 15218-15320 Summit Avenue.
The center was built in 2005 and renovated last year. The 273,000-square-foot center was fully leased at the time of the sale. It spans 25.1 acres and is anchored by the regional grocery chain Stater Bros. Markets and a Target Department Store. It features 24-Hour Fitness, 7-Eleven, Affordable Comfort, Bath & Body Works, Benefit Cosmetics BrowBar, Chase Bank, Chili’s Grill & Bar, China One, Citibank, Cozy Fox CVS Drug Store, Del Taco, EC Roofing company, Inc., Falcon Ridge Dry Cleaners, Famous Footwear, Five Below, Gamestop, GNC, Goldstar Pediatrics, H&R block Hoan-Vu, It’s Just Wings, Jack-In-The Box, James Tang Photography, Little Caesars, Mattress Firm, Metro Electrict Gate Repair, Michaels, MoneGram, Nektar Juice Bar, Old Navy, Ono Hawaiian BBQ, Palm Beach Tan, Panera Bread, Party City, Ross Dress For Less, Starbucks, Summa Sushi, Summit Optometric Center, Summit Orthodontics, The UPS Store, Ulta Beauty, Verizon Wireless, Wells Fargo, Western Union, Wonder Nails Yogurtland and 24 recently built Tesla charging stations.
“The area in and around Fontana is rapidly growing with more affluent residents moving in every year, and Falcon Ridge sits right in the middle of that growth,” said P. David Bramble, MCB managing partner, in a prepared statement.

FBN 20240007761
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
5RS BARBER AND SALON 302 N MOUNTAIN AVE UPLAND, CA 91786: RAED ALEID
Business Mailing Address: 302 N MOUNTAIN AVE UPLAND, CA 91786
The business is conducted by: AN INDIVIDUAL.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: August 27, 2024.
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ RAED ALEID, Owner
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 8/27/2024
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy K3379
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on September 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2024.

FBN 20240007939
The following entity is doing business primarily in San Bernardino County as
KHAN PARALEGAL AND NOTARY [and] KHAN WHOLESALE GARMENTS LLC 330 N. D STREET SUITE 544 SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410; KHAN WHOLESALE GARMENTS LLC 225 E 4TH STREET SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
Business Mailing Address: 225 E 4TH STREET SAN BERNARDINO, CA 92410
The business is conducted by: A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY registered with the State of California under the number 202253617535.
The registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed above on: August 1, 2024.
By signing, I declare that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true information which he or she knows to be false is guilty of a crime (B&P Code 179130). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing.
/s/ MOHAMMAD KHAN, CEO
Statement filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on: 8/29/2024
I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office San Bernardino County Clerk By:/Deputy K3379
Notice-This fictitious name statement expires five years from the date it was filed in the office of the county clerk. A new fictitious business name statement must be filed before that time. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14400 et seq., Business and Professions Code).
Published in the San Bernardino County Sentinel on September 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2024.

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As the Big Bear community mulls whether to support a measure to extend the tax funding operations at that region’s hospital another ten years, the district must contend with a lawsuit alleging it has not properly spent nor accounted for the money entrusted to it by voters in a similar measure passed a decade ago.
In 2014, the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District, a jurisdiction in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains which covers the City of Big Bear Lake, the unincorporated county area known as Big Bear City, and the other unincorporated county areas of Fawnskin, Holcomb Valley, Sugarloaf, Erwin Lake, Baldwin Lake, Bluff Lake and Lake Williams, placed a measure on the June 3, 2014 ballot corresponding to that year’s California Primary Election asking voters there to approve renewing an existing $20 per unimproved parcel and $45 per approved annual special tax that was imposed on properties within the district boundaries. Under the terms of the measure, as proposed in the resolution by the Healthcare District Board that asked for it to be placed on the ballot, the proceeds from that special tax were to be committed to “continue maintaining local access to life-saving emergency medical care at Bear Valley Community Hospital, keep hospital medical technology up-to-date, and ensure the hospital has enough qualified doctors and nurses… for 10 years only, with annual independent financial audits, no money for administrators, all funds dedicated to hospital services in Big Bear Valley.”
That initiative was designated as Measure F.
In the election, Measure F passed, with 2,706 or 80.56 percent of the district’s 3,359 voters participating in that election supporting it and 653 or 19.44 percent opposed.
One of the conditions contained within the resolution to place the measure on the ballot was that upon passage of the measure, a sequestered account for holding the funds was to be maintained and that the “Board of Directors of the Healthcare District shall, pursuant to Government Code Section 50075.2, file an annual report as provided therein, accounting for the tax collected and the manner in which it has been spent” and that the “annual report must state (a) the amount of funds collected and expended and (b) the status of any project required or authorized to be funded by the special tax, as identified in the ballot measure.”
In recent years, it was noted by some Big Bear Valley residents that the healthcare district had failed to abide by the requirement that the annual audit be completed, that an audit report be generated and that it be made available for public review.
Efforts by members of the Big Bear Community, utilizing the California Public Records Act, to ascertain through an examination of the hospital’s books and/or the healthcare district’s books the information that should have been provided through the audits and in the audit reports resulted in the district having Brentwood, Tennessee-based QHR Health, LLC dba Ovation Healthcare, a private healthcare management company that has a contractual relationship with Bear Valley Community Healthcare District for the provision of administrative services, intervene to prevent that information from being released.
Rather than comply with the California Public Records Act request, QHR Health had its attorney, Jeff Gibson, respond.
Gibson took the position, first, that the California Public Records Act request, which was made of The Bear Valley Community Healthcare District, a California entity, was transferable to QHR Health, LLC/Ovation Healthcare, in that it provides to the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief operating officer (COO) who oversee operations at Bear Valley Community Hospital. Second, he maintained that QHR Health, LLC/Ovation Healthcare, as a corporation based in Tennessee, is exempt from the California Public Records Act.
In a letter dated August 15, 2024 to Big Bear Valley resident Joseph Kelly, who had filed the public records request, Gibson stated, “Bear Valley [Community Healthcare District] does not have employment contracts with the CEO and COO. Rather, these executives’ services are the subject of private arrangements involving only QHR and the executives, none of whom qualify as a ‘public agency’ under the [California Public Records] Act. Both executives render services to Bear Valley on behalf of QHR by virtue of an administrative services agreement executed between QHR, a private third-party vendor, and Bear Valley. As a result, there is no employment contract of a public agency subject to disclosure. Second, the Act exempts disclosure of records “the disclosure of which is exempted or prohibited pursuant to federal law, including, but not limited to, provisions of the Evidence Code relating to privilege.” Cal. Gov. Code § 6254(k).”
In this way, according to Gibson, “the requested records incorporate proprietary information, as well as protected trade secrets, and are privileged pursuant to California Evidence Code § 1060, which provides that ‘the owner of a trade secret has a privilege to refuse to disclose the secret, and to prevent another from disclosing it, if the allowance of the privilege will not tend to conceal fraud or otherwise work injustice.’ QHR respectfully asserts this privilege herein.”
With the district having failed to live up to the provision of Measure F requiring that an accounting of tax money collected as the result of its passage be completed on an annual basis and be made publicly available and the district engaging in highly questionable legalisms in an effort to prevent the public from learning how the Measure F funds were being applied, Kelly went to court, suing the district in filing a petition for a writ of mandate.
Kelly’s complaint, in which he is represented by San Diego-based attorney Eric Benink, references the Local Agency Special Tax and Bond Accountability Act, passed in the year 2000, which added Government Code Section 50075.3, a requirement that a governmental entity, as in this case the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District, file a report with its governing body at least once a year detailing “the amount of funds collected and expended [and] the status of any project required or authorized to be funded” as the result of the passage of a special tax measure, as in this case Measure F.
“The District has violated these accountability measures,” the complaint states. “It did not create an account into which the special tax proceeds were deposited. It only created such an account sometime after July 31, 2024 and only after plaintiff requested information pertaining to it via a Public Records Act request. Neither the district’s chief fiscal officer nor any other district official ever filed any reports with the board pursuant to Government Code Section 50075.3. The district refuses to issue historical reports to provide a full accounting of the use of the special tax proceeds as required. The ballot measure specified that the funds would only be used for the district’s hospital related expenses, and not for administration.”
The lawsuit continues, “The failure to segregate and account for special tax proceeds undermines the public’s confidence in the district as a steward of public funds. The district is charged with the solemn responsibility of expending special taxes for the specific purposes identified in the ballot measure. Special taxes may not be utilized for general purposes. The public is entitled to know whether the district abided by its statutory duties. Without reports, it is impossible to confirm that the projects/purposes identified in the ballot measure have been exclusively funded as promised to voters and as the law demands.”
Continuing, the lawsuit propounds, “Accordingly, plaintiff requests that the court issue a writ of mandate that commands the district to issue Government Code Section 50075.3 reports for each fiscal year in which it imposed special taxes pursuant to Measure F. Plaintiff further requests, to the extent the district cannot issue such reports or if the reports reflect that special tax proceeds were not properly expended, a declaratory judgment that states that the district has violated the Local Agency Special Tax and Bond Accountability Act.”
Implied by the lawsuit and perhaps to be demonstrated if it goes to trial is what is suspected in several quarters of Big Bear Valley: that Bear Valley Community Healthcare District outright violated the provision of Measure F pertaining to “no money for administrators.”
Indeed, the manner in which Gibson locked onto the issue of the district’s relationship to the chief executive officer and chief financial officer at the hospital when he stated in his August 15 letter, “Bear Valley [Community Healthcare District] does not have employment contracts with the CEO and COO” indicates that the source of their income is a central issue in the matter.
While the lawsuit introduces a degree of complication into the existence of the district, its board and its administration, its timing and particulars may prove particularly nettlesome.
Measure F’s taxing authorization will sunset next year, in consideration of which the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District’s current board – consisting of Steven Baker, Dr. Peter Boss, Ellen Clarke, Jack Briner and Mark Kalliher – voted to place on the November 5, 2024 ballot an initiative asking the district’s voters to extend the special tax another ten years.
It is the hope of the board and many of those who are strong supporters of the hospital and its operations that issues at play in the lawsuit will remain under relative wraps in the quiet and unheralded confines of the Courtroom of Judge Thomas Garza in Department 27 at the San Bernardino Justice Center. A wide airing of the facts alleged so far by Benink on Kelly’s behalf – in particular that the district in its stewardship of the money entrusted to it ten years ago failed to live up to its commitment to abide by the legal requirements that it keep the money in a sequestered account and that it make an accurate and constant accounting of how the money was spent – not to mention what the suit implies – that a portion of the money was not spent on providing medical care as was promised but was instead spent on administrators with stratospheric salaries – could greatly upset and outright disillusion the voters the measure’s supporters are counting upon to reauthorize the tax. Given that Measure U must get two-thirds approval to pass, it is particularly vulnerable to any arguments that might be made against it. Indeed, that those to whom the Measure U tax money is to be entrusted failed to properly account for such funds currently in their care and are yet engaged in an effort to hide the money and obscure how it is being spent could result in the district’s voters failing to pass the initiative.
The Sentinel this week inquired by email with Gibson, seeking from him whether he yet stood by his assertion in his August 15 letter to Kelly that information pertaining to the Bear Valley Community Healthcare District remuneration of the chief executive officer and chief operating officer at Bear Valley Community Hospital is exempt from disclosure under the California Public Records Act because they are contractual employees with QHR Health doing business as Ovation Healthcare rather than ones directly employed by the hospital.
The Sentinel asked Gibson to weigh in on the underlying issue, that pertaining to why the Bear Valley Healthcare District has not been able to live up to the provision of Measure F and the parallel section of the California Government Code, i.e., Section 50075.3, by providing an accounting of the funds generated by the Measure F parcel tax, in particular, how they have been and are being spent on operations at Bear Valley Community Hospital.
The Sentinel asked Gibson if there is a block wall between QHR/Ovation and the Bear Valley Healthcare District which prevents the Bear Valley Healthcare District from having access to the financial ledger at Bear Valley Community Hospital and knowing or discovering how the taxpayer money generated through the Measure F parcel tax is being spent with regard to the remuneration of the hospital’s chief executive officer and its chief operating officer.
The Sentinel asked if QHR/Ovation was preventing the Bear Valley Healthcare District from having access to Bear Valley Community Hospital’s books.
The Sentinel asked Gibson if he could cut through whatever artificial walls there are between the status of the Bear Valley Healthcare District as a public entity under California law and QHR/Ovation’s status as a private sector entity due privacy considerations to make publicly avail detail on how Measure F money is being spent at Bear Valley Community Hospital, including how much is being paid to those employed there – including the chief executive officer and the chief operating officer.
The Sentinel offered Gibson an opportunity to provide information and documentation to answer and controvert the contentions of some in the community that Measure F money has been squandered.
By press time, Gibson had not responded to the Sentinel’s email.
Kelly told the Sentinel that while the healthcare district’s exact financial circumstance remains shrouded, there is evidence to indicate it is running well in the black, and that the augmentation of the special parcel tax that was approved by voters’ passage of Measure F in 2014 and which voters are being asked to perpetuate with Measure U in November is unnecessary.
“The hospital district is saying that they ‘need’ the extra tax money, whereas they don’t actually need this special tax. They are just saying they need it to sell this tax measure. To me, it’s a matter of corruption, utter lack of transparency and dishonestly selling the tax measure by claiming ‘need’ when they have lots of money. This ‘story of need’ belies the fact that the district made a surplus (profit) just this year of over $6 million.”
Kelly said there is an available “district financial report showing a reserve of about $44 Million.”
He said an untold amount of money being brought in by the special parcel tax is being illegally diverted to administrators with QHR Health doing business as Ovation Healthcare.
“We don’t know exactly how much the out-of- state profit making corporation [i.e., QHR/Ovation] is getting, but I estimate over $500,000 per year just for the CEO and CFO salaries,” he said.